Chapter Text
despite him being quiet most of the time, save for his occasional quips of rice ball ingredients as his valuable contribution to general conversations, inumaki toge knew he could express himself infinitely better through art.
sometimes, it was a doodle on the back of his notebook while in class. it was of you and your fellow classmates, maki, and panda. he drew a chibi version of you, a grin plastered on your face, maki holding a glowing cursed weapon with an angry expression, panda and his makeshift blue boxing gloves, and himself, sitting on the ground, his collar unfastened, revealing his snake and fangs marks.
camaraderie.
other times, it was a painting of the beach that he had on a small canvas in his room. it was of your group of friends with itadori, fushiguro, and kugisaki. far from the seashore were your discarded shoes and backpacks. the beach waves had been touching your cold feet, and the seven of you had warm, pleasant expressions on your face, as you stood fully clothed in the setting sun.
friendship.
for the trip, toge had procured a couple of vintage items from a store in tokyo: a disposable film camera and an old video camera. photos of the sea, the autumn leaves, and the browning grass that all of you passed through on the way to the beach were strung upon a single thread that hung on the inside of his closet. other photos were in a single, plain frame, toge making a collage out of tokyo's vast cityscape, tower lights, sidewalks, crossings, and a train station entrance. all of these, he spent with his friends. most of his treasured moments, greeting him daily.
fond memories.
he'd never tell you, but he had that one study of you on his sketchbook; a vision of your eyes and how they looked when you were happy about something. just your eyes. he had to hide slightly from behind panda's expansive physique as he tried to memorize the color of your irises and the little flecks of light that had bounced because of the sunset.
he had no other words.
you were ever so curious about him. you asked him a lot of questions, about himself, his family, and why rice ball ingredients? it was odd, at first. toge knew that everyone somehow found it difficult to speak to him - he wasn't sure if they were scared of his technique, or perhaps it was simply because it was quite peculiar, how he expressed himself. maybe they weren't sure how to make of the string of ingredients that came out of his mouth.
toge appreciated your company that wasn't always out to chastise him unlike your other two peers, who often poked fun at him, and each other, and everyone, really. he reveled in the peace you brought him, although, he noted that you also had your playful moments. he wished that he could communicate with you through more comprehensible words. he owed you that much for your genuine concern for him, never failing to ask if he was alright, even if he remained reserved. granted, he used his phone to answer your questions, but most of the time, he was perfectly comfortable listening to you and looking at how your hair was brushed back by the wind as you spoke.
it was, after all, a vision of his to document beautiful things.
more often than not, you were joined by both maki and panda, but at times like the present, sitting on the grass of the school grounds after a sparring session, toge felt that your other two classmates faded into the background when you began to pay attention to him as if he was the only one who was worthy of it.
"hello, toge? earth to toge?" you smiled, amused, waving your hand in front of his face.
like most things, he couldn't bring himself telling you what went through his mind when you were together, and when you were not together, when he was alone with his paintbrushes and watercolors.
yes? he tried to say, but, as always, "salmon?" came out.
"you're staring into space," you let him know, and he averted his eyes, his cheeks beginning to color under the high collar that he donned. "or was it at me?"
he swallowed. no, he wasn't. he was thinking about the two colors that would make the perfect shade of your hair on a canvas. that's not staring. "bonito flakes," he denied, and was, again, grateful for the accessory covering most of his face - a physical reminder of his abilities that he needed to be careful in using, and a perfect piece of clothing to hide his flustered state that you so thoroughly enjoyed, to his dismay.
toge felt that you can be unknowingly cruel sometimes. sometimes. you grinned, "let's start with you asking me about my day," you offered to his further embarrassment, the tips of his ears now glowing pink. he wondered if his collar could go further than above his eyes. "well?"
he obliged, pulling his phone out and typing. how's your day?
you laughed as he humored you; a beautiful, melodious sound to his ears, throwing your head back in one carefree motion, and to toge, it sounded like butterflies exploding in his veins. maki and panda looked over in your direction, momentarily distracted by the cheerful sound.
"don't bully him too much," panda called from a few meters away, before maki flew in the air to launch an attack that he narrowly avoided.
toge huffed, returning his phone to rest beside his water bottle. you were not a bully, and he was not being bullied. "bonito flakes!" he called back to your friends, defending you (and himself) as best as he could, and he heard you chuckle beside him. rising and placing your curled fists in front of your face, you were ready to begin sparring again.
"let's go again?" your eyes were filled with mirth and excitement. toge couldn't help but return your contagious smile from under his collar, taking you up to the challenge.
he charged towards you, lithe as a feline, quick as a fox, and your eyes widened as he tackled you into the grass, your bodies rolling once as toge pinned you down in a swift motion. he heard you gasp, the air knocked out of you from the impact, and a worried look flashed across his face. and then, he relaxed, as you managed to let out an airy laugh as you tried to wriggle out of his grasp. his hands held your wrists above your head, firm, while he knelt on the grass, his lower body hovering right above your stomach, definitely not touching yours. he decided that that was not a viable option if he wanted to keep his head in the game.
you stopped moving, looking up at him with a sheepish smile. your hair was spread out on the grass, an explosion of curves and random lines on the green. he realized that he was staring at your face again, and your form, inspiration slowly building in his mind.
you pulled him back to the present. "as you can see, my day is great so far, toge. thank you."
he had to release you at that, getting up on his feet in a hurry while you laughed.
after training, he had already decided the two colors that adorned the shades of your hair. it was also followed by the moment that you had taken an interest in his drawing in class, your eyes sliding from your notes to his desk beside you. "toge," you murmured, but toge was sure that everyone in class heard you given your sheer number of classmates present. thankfully, maki and panda didn't even bat an eye. granted, no one had supersonic hearing, but somehow, he felt that gojo satoru did, who was incidentally writing and prattling about more advanced cursed techniques on the old chalkboard in front. toge's deep purple eyes slid to your teacher's back before meeting your own. he tilted his head, curious, before he noticed that you were looking at his simple outline of you on the grass this morning. "i didn't know that you were good at drawing."
he was tempted to cover the rough sketch of the shape of your face and hair, which was thankfully not yet finished with any other details, or he would not have anything more to hide from you. toge resisted to. he really did. he risked a glance at your face and didn't sense any recognition from you that it was you he was drawing; the scene from this morning after you trained, how happy you looked as you laid on the grass despite losing to him.
he sighed in relief at your unawareness. "bonito flakes," he answered. no, he was not that good. you seemed to think otherwise.
"i mean it. show me the others?" you prodded, before returning to your attention to your own notes just as gojo faced front.
he didn't know how to say no to you.
"what do you think of me having a tattoo?" you asked him one night after dinner when you caught up with him on the way back to his dorm room. you never hesitated to talk to him at the most random moments of a plethora of things, and while toge was surprised at your sudden appearances, you and the warmth of your words weren't unwelcome.
you were wearing your hair low in two messy buns, and toge was momentarily distracted by how the strands of your hair were curled together in a soft ball, and how there were tendrils left at the sides of your face, mentally making a study of it.
he then remembered the task at hand. what kind? he typed on his phone, showing you. unlike most people, he appreciated all forms of art. it was fairly uncommon, and even looked down upon, in japan to have tattoos, but toge was different. his snake and fangs mark was permanently etched on his face and tongue; people stared, and it was another reason for his usual attire to cover half of his face. his imagination flew away then, of how your skin would look with simple lines and intricate details, nothing too heavy, and your hair in your haphazard and yet organized hairstyle.
in truth, he thought you'd look beautiful no matter how you looked or what you had on your skin. he also wasn't surprised by your choice to express yourself in another way. "i don't know. something that you drew, maybe? i'll hide it, of course," you told him simply.
that slightly shocked him, and his eyes widened at you. before he could answer, you already bounced on your feet, clapping your hands together in front of you excitedly. "we can do a test run!" you said happily, your smile lighting up the dim hallway. "would you be fine with that, toge?"
was he ever not? "salmon." yes, of course. the thought of him touching your skin up close was enough to make his cheeks heat up. he was thankful for his zipped-up collar once more. he sincerely hoped that you would choose an appropriate body part to have a temporary tattoo in.
"awesome! you're so sweet, toge," you said casually, yet it was enough for his heart to thump in his chest wildly. how was that sweet? he just practically agreed to get a black pen and draw on your skin. you're the sweet one for trusting him with it. and then, "we can do something like, draw me like one of your french girls, kind of thing?"
oh, god. maybe not sweet. spicy. he felt like he was being burned alive. "bonito flakes!" he stammered, covering his face in his hands. no, no, no. his mind will not go there --
at his reaction, your laughter, again, tinkled through the empty corridor.