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What is love, if not a bundle of memories wrapped up in colors that refuse to fade? Some may call it the unsung song, a melody to the wanting, words gone by or never spoken.
In Shoko’s eyes, love is, and always will be, a tragedy.
Her fourteen-year-old hand makes a slow but neat line on the pig’s heart. The instructor, with eyes colder than the morgue room she is forced to visit once a week, forbids her to hum and it makes the silence depressingly oppressive, the scalpel in her clammy grasp sharper.
Time passes slowly as the old blood pools, stagnant on the dissection plate.
Shoko zones out as her teacher corrects her errors, high-pitched voice no different from the drone of mosquitos. Her attention is half kept on the lumpy meat, wondering if her heart is the same color as the pig’s, or if it is bleached white and bland, just the way they like it.
“Make sure you study how to make butterfly stitches more,” her instructor says as she shoos her out.
Shoko yawns once sunlight brushes past her cheeks and she breathes in camilla instead of rust. Her instructor’s reminder of practicing is already fading from her mind as she ponders the age-old question of which ice cream shop she should stop by on the way home.
-
Gojo and Geto, two boys who are as unique--if not more so--than her. They are not the be-all end-all of her affections, but it’s as close as anyone ever got to that. Her anxiety shakes like a rattlesnake when she realizes how much of a vested interest she has in their wellbeing.
There are no words for the love in her lungs. She replaced it with smoke and ashes to fight away the nuclear scent of death that clings to her. But in their group of three, death clings equally to all of them, and it feels like enlightenment when she realizes she will not have to carry the burden alone.
She can afford to love them a bit. That is what she tells herself.
Then she meets Utahime, straight-forward in a way she is not, honest in a way that is enthralling, and she finds her eyes trailing the bright red ribbon during the Goodwill Event.
The thing is, she doesn't really know how it started. There were greetings and smiles, but when did the smile become beautiful in her mind?
Was it during the karaoke party where she learned Utahime can sing soprano and knows the lyrics of her favorite song by heart?
Or maybe it was when they met by chance during the last days when the students were out shopping, and decided to stick together to find a vintage store for CDs. Was it then?
It was so easy to fall in love, to be lulled by small concessions and linked elbows when running through the crowd. It's the flush of Utahime's cheeks at her praises and the face of joy she makes when taking the first sip of Shoko's bubble tea. It's the subtle yet not very, "You look cute today, Shoko," that is so freely given. It's a lot of things, and Shoko is never one to keep count of small advances into her bubble after knowing Gojo and Geto for so long.
When Utahime asks her out on a date, she agrees. And when Utahime asks if Shoko wants to go on a second date, it's the easiest decision Shoko's ever made. Whatever worries she has flies away when she sees Utahime's lips curve up, the ease of her shoulders, as they both let out a breath they didn't know they were holding.
Utahime is unfettered in her words as she swears at the boys when they tease her afterward. She yells at them with the same amount of passion behind her sweet confessions. Shoko tries teasing Utahime too, rounding the playful edge of her words with the boys’ cackling in the background. It drives Utahime crazy, but for Shoko she laughs it off.
“You really need to stop learning from those bad influences,” Utahime says as she squeezes her arm tightly. Shoko leans against Utahime and pats her hand in reassurance. “I’m not going to lower myself to their level just yet,” she replies with a fond smile.
Shoko does not believe in soulmates, because emotions are a series of chemical reactions and the real effort in relationships are human-made and not preordained. Her convictions are staunch and rooted in science, but she wonders if there is also the science behind the infamous “rose-tinted lens” because how else can she explain the way food tastes better around Utahime and how comfortable they settle together like they’ve known each other for years instead of months.
Maybe we will know each other for years , a small voice says. Quietly, she hopes, and to her amazement, it works.
It’s within Utahime’s voice that murmurs in her ear, between their clasped hands and shared drinks--that love festers and grows, disproportional to the amount of time they spent together.
Before, she used to think love is a four-lettered word used to encompass things that are illogical. The image of the modern heart is not the heart in human bodies, but an ideology of “two halves of a whole”; abstract pink or totally red, unlike the ugly glob of meaty flesh that is covered in veins and fat. It’s almost funny how people equate hearts to loveliness, when they look anything but.
It changes when she gets a teddy bear with hearts on its paw pads and "ILY" embroidered onto the front from one very red Utahime. Suddenly, the modern rendition of a heart isn’t so bad after all.
Love is such an unreasonable thing, and it makes a coffee stain on her manilla-colored heart.
You don’t know what you love until you lose it.
Shoko will respectfully disagree with that, because she knows exactly what she loves, and still nearly loses it.
It begins with Utahime, bloody and unconscious, the source of the blood dripping on the floor as Naoya swings her carelessly over his shoulder and drops her into the infirmary operation table.
He cracks a smile at Shoko as he passes her on his way out.
“She is a terrible shield,” he says, before he closes the door behind him. Shoko resists spinning on her heels to what she knows would be an empty hallway. It will be an endeavor with uncertain results. She grits her teeth and turns back to the battle she can fight, grabbing IVs and tools as she starts examining Utahime’s injuries.
She has a girlfriend to heal before she stabs a bitch.
-
At her last lesson before officially enrolling into Tokyo Jujutsu High, it is with a new instructor, a wizened old man with a back so hunched it looks like he should be the one operated on instead of the heart (again) in front of her. It must be his curse technique that maintains it in stasis, because it throbs under her scalpel as she makes an incision.
The warmth is distracting and she holds back a frown, undeterred. The sooner she gets it over with, the sooner she can leave.
“Girl, did you know this was a human heart?” he asks when she finishes.
Shoko shakes her head as she wipes her equipment diligently. There is an inquisitive look in his eyes, but he says nothing, so the silent remains.
She walks out not entirely sure why he even makes that distinction; pig heart or human heart, they are all the same on the dissection plate.
-
She thinks of that heart now, as she pumps curse energy through Utahime desperately trying to keep her faint heartbeat steady.
A single organ has never before felt so precious yet fragile under her hands.
How can they ever be the same?
It is a testament to her skill how her hand remains still for however long it took to finish the operation. The bright lights of the operation room leave them in a limbo where time is null, signified only by the sweat running down her brows as she pushes the cells to regenerate beyond their capabilities. The plastic gloves are not enough to separate the feeling of wetness as the distance between hand and flesh closes with every gush of energy drained. But her hands remain steady.
There is a sound of the monitor to her right. Clack of metal tools hitting the tray as they change in her hands with each beat of the battle. The faint buzz of curse energy fades as it trickles gingerly into the wound.
-
The layers of gauze wrapped around Utahime looks silly and cartoonish--if Gojo is here he would've called her a mummy. But under those layers hide how Shoko rationalized and divided up her energy, that there was no other option other than to rely on traditional techniques. Some minor broken bones are not as important as major arteries, and Shoko cannot optimize her curse energy the way Gojo can, nor does she have the vast reserves that Geto holds.
Utahime might lie pale and quiet on the bed, looking like she was in a casting call for a horror movie, but she is alive.
However...
Most of the damage has been solved except for the scar that runs a jagged path across Utahime’s face. Her cheeks that Shoko once intimately knew, now starkly different.
I cannot heal this.
It is not ugly, nothing about Utahime will ever be ugly--but she sees the raised edges and knows that as soon as her waning flow of curse energy stops completely, she will be leaving behind an irreversible scar.
Frustration feels like a fiery arrow embedded deeply in her heart.
It’s an irrational sort of contempt that throbs behind her throat, her eyes. Stifles her senses and makes her a helpless observer of her own limits.
There was nothing more I could have done.
Something in her burns red hot, in a way nothing has ever burned before.
Is this my limit?
Geto melds out from the shadows behind Shoko and joins her in their favorite smoking spot. It’s got a good view of the sky and an unbeatable sense of privacy. Not many people are willing to break the locks in the north corner of their school where it’s rumored to be haunted by ghosts. Funny, considering their line of work involves curses, which is as supernatural as it gets.
"Worried?" Geto sticks out his cigarette, and she lights it up with the tail end of hers.
"I'm more concerned about how smoking will affect your technique," she replies half-heartedly.
He leans back against the railing as he exhales, releasing ringlets of smoke to dissipate into the wind. “It doesn’t,” he reassures her.
He pretends to cough and laughs when she makes a face.
They spend a few minutes basking in silence, enjoying the breeze until Geto's expression shifts into something more serious: “How did the operation on Utahime go?”
“Fine,” she murmurs, but festerings of the burn rear up inside her at the reminder. “Did you hear about what happened?”
“I had one of my curses listening in when Naoya made his report. He pushed her to save himself, right?”
She presses her cigarette butt into the ashtray just a bit too hard to pass as a slip of hand.
“The higher-ups probably still won't do anything but Gojo and I will teach him a good lesson later,” he promises her with a vicious glint in his eyes.
Ah, a lie.
Gojo hasn't been back for three days, and won't be back for another week. By the time he is back, the bastard will be long gone, back to Kyoto where he will be safe and protected. Did Geto genuinely forget or is he trying to make her feel better?
Killing brain cells over worrying about Gojo and Geto feels bad, but it’s better than thinking about Utahime. Shoko waves off his concerns with a shrug, not willing to touch on dreams of Utahime's form overlaid by Haibara's--an image that makes her breath leave her lungs like an exodus of frightened birds. She grips the trailing spiral of her thoughts and redirects it with a sharp tug.
"Don't bother when you look like you're one step away from fainting. When's the last time you ate?"
“Earlier today,” Geto replies breezily, not meeting her eyes.
She sends him a skeptical look. "Is this what you do to get stronger? Starving yourself?"
"Maybe I'm on my way to finding Nirvana."
"What a shame," she says with a sarcastic smile, "you'd have more luck shaving your head and eating vegetarian for the rest of your life."
Geto grins. "Gojo would be heartbroken to see me bald."
They both know they are dancing in circles, but it's a comfortable dance and a lovely circle. She drops her elbows against the rusted railings. Stops chasing him for answers he will not give.
So instead, they spend the next half hour debating if eating curses counts as vegetarian.
As time trickles down to when their usual duties call, the conversation lulls and in silence they rapturously watch the smoke disappear into the hazy sky--if only their worries can be carried away so easily too.
Life did not make it easy for Shoko, sending Naoya back onto her path immediately the following day.
They both stop and stare at each other unflinchingly in the hallway, and it is Naoya who speaks first.
“Heard you managed to save Utahime, hm? Seems like you’re not worthless after all Shoko-chan, though you’d do better if you smile more,” he says with a mocking trill that breaks into the relative calmness of her hard-earned peaceful morning.
When she doesn’t respond right away, he smirks, “Pity you wasted your time healing her.”
She narrows her eyes dangerously. “I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t so weak.”
He frowns but quickly changes his expression into a sneer.
"She is useless," he says, and the unnerving thing is he believes it. He did not need to smile to convey how happy he was that Utahime was the one on her table and not him. His eyes are mirthful and he speaks as if she deserves it--like it was some sort of twisted fate that led to Utahime being fatally injured and not through his actions.
The calculating look in his eyes removes any possibility of his innocence.
Shoko falters, blind-sided by the ruthless desire to have this conversation end with him howling in pain. How easy would it be for the scalpel in her pocket to slip out and pierce his jugular? He is fast, but also unprepared and off guard. Especially in front of Shoko, renounced to be a non-combatant healer and a female. She calculates her chances and wonders.
Then Geto sneaks up behind her, impeccable timing as ever with a nosy radar for impending violence.
"Shoko, Utahime woke up."
She hesitates. His hand gently tugs her back, barely a negligible force on her shoulders.
Had she been walking forward?
"You should go see her first," he says.
His hand is warm and reassuring, but his appearance is not. He looks tired, out of the regular school uniform and in the sweats and t-shirt he took a liking to.
With his hair down, he looks as messy as she feels on the inside.
Nonetheless, she trusts him to settle the debt for her. She puts a hand on his, squeezing it in thanks, before wordlessly turning on her heels towards Utahime's room.
Shoko comes in and her unease drenches the room like leftover syrup coating jars. Utahime smiles weakly at her as she approaches, shifting slightly so her good side faces her. Shoko grits her teeth as she pulls out the bedside chair to sit.
“You don’t have to hide it from me," she says, frustration edging into her voice.
Her hands pieced together broken bones and finesse strings of muscle into working condition, but there is so little time to be fine-tuning healing. Lives are made delicate, but the saving is always late, always done with a measure of desperation and non-uniformity.
Utahime is just another cog in the machine. Scratched, but not broken. The result should be considered lucky.
Why does this feel like the opposite of luck then?
“I’m sorry,” Shoko whispers, hand gripping at the bedsheets fruitlessly, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Utahime sighs, "You saved me."
She reaches out, but Shoko flinches back, resulting in Utahime’s hand falling short of her shoulder. They are both mute in the silence that follows. She hears Utahime sigh again.
She takes hold of the edge of Shoko’s sleeve this time, insistently tugging for her to come closer.
“Focus on me,” Utahime murmurs, pushing aside Shoko’s hesitation as she drags her into a hug, ignoring Shoko's startled, "Don't rip your stitches!"
It’s a spur of the moment decision driven by her last memories before fainting: there was nothing but a chilling panic at being shoved from behind, and instead of being angry, all she felt was regret that she never got to say goodbye. They were both so close to losing this chance forever.
She reigns back the fear in her mind as wisps of Shoko's hair brush against her cheek. Closing her eyes, she whispers, "Thank you for healing me."
-
Enveloped in the warm embrace, Shoko gingerly hugs Utahime back, breathing in the scent of hospital anesthesia and marigold. The tension flows out of her in increments and something beats hard against her ribcage--it might be her heart.
Love always ends in a tragedy, but that still doesn't prevent her from trying.
-
"Can you stay for a bit longer?" Utahime asks shyly. Shoko buries her head into Utahime's neck and mumbles something incomprehensible in response.
Utahime grins as she wraps her in a one-armed hug.
"You can always kick Naoya’s ass later.”
"Geto promised he would do it for me," Shoko mutters, lulled by Utahime's soothing hands as they traced patterns on her back. Utahime is so warm to hug now that she is out of the steel anchored operating tables, and she lets sleep take her in peace, knowing Utahime will be there when she wakes up.