Archive of Our Own

first. early life, childhood. 

Yuji gains awareness when he is five. Holding tightly to a sippy cup and running away from the neighborhood's crowd. It's a small cup, filled to the brim with juice and strawberry bits blended in. 

Their home is a second level condo facility - it is large and Yuji loves it like he loves most things. 

[with a sense of abandon far too large for his body; something that could be twisted and contrary. In adulthood intention is dangerous. Something to be feared because adults have the motive, have the twisted sense of love and possession. That those two things are more alike than separate, a bruising hold on what they have, and the knowledge so intimate of what they don’t. It is terrifying because it is common, it is common because it is powerful. 

Adults have gone hungry because they are unable to snap the spine or stalk of their meal - adults are faced with shades of life so similar to the phases of the moon, with possessions being given with intention of getting back. In adulthood there is trade, commitment, and work. Adults are the grown flowers of children. They have either closed in on themselves, hiding the last bit of light they’ve received in a bust attempt to conserve, or, they are the willing body, opening themselves up to a world of pain, of sunburn, animals biting their petals -  the option to stay bloomed.

Children are unaware of this facet of life, they are in constant photosynthesis, a love that is drawn through abandonment and trust - Yuji is the same, in this world, he will bloom until he is unable to do so.]

But, apartments. There are other people here too, a couple kids his age, some with watches and toys, bouncy balls that light up when slung at a cement wall. Smartphones with pokemon capturing devices. It's nice, filled to the brim with a lavish sense of safety that Yuji will later understand he’s taken for granted. 

But at this moment - running. 

His feet are hitting the packed down dirt and milled over grass, breath moving in quick little huffs - his body teeters a bit, small and still unraveling from where he, the universe, and everyone else has tied him in. He’s learning the step sequence to life with a wild abandon - movement and limbs that are weighted a pat pat pat. jackrabbit filled with motion - running without looking. when he falls it hurts, there is more to him now that awareness has crawled in. 

The tectonic growth plates have finished their movements for this year. If he wants to be simple on his grandeur - the stumbling, it could also be the fact that he’s five. 

He lives with his grandfather and grandmother - his actual parents, the people who were with him for his very first birthday, are somewhere in the world. an unidentified place that Yuji will unknowingly seek for the next ten years of his life. His grandfather has mentioned them with silent intent, not meant to be heard but listened to anyway. 

Adults do that a lot, stand outside of doorways and overhangs - potlucks with their neighbors, the middle of dodging hands, and incoming “tag, you're it!” accidentally overhearing “his mother was a bitch.” Yuji is young enough to misunderstand just about everything, but he’s aware enough to understand that those words are harsh. painfull, protective. 

He dodges the hand and continues to run. 

The year's summer comes along with its ghost teeth, sharp white things grazing at Yuji's collar, leaving ink blots behind. They're stress signs or sunburns according to his grandfather, a wave of a newspaper, a hand filled with a cup of coffee - but they are there. Yuji notices them while getting out of their family bath. Tiny little fingerprints line his forearm, baby sized bruises that don't make any sense because he isn't in any position to be grabbed. 

They’re from something that he won’t really become cognizant of for a long, long time. ten years is a thousand realizations stacked on top of each other. a thousand days of humid heat, a million different mornings where he believes that his heart will freeze from the cold. seasons will pass and Yuji will stare at the marks on his arm, candlelit, and press his thumbs in. recognizing the pain from somewhere underneath the world itself. 

A bruise is a trauma. one to be inflicted with the sharp edge of a table, a hand moving too fast or a car crash that kills. 

they’re a great equalizer in pain, a question to prod the damage. 

they say, “ he hit you?” and when you nod, they ask - as if this will correct the sin against your body, “did it bruise?”

Yuji's bruises are thumb sized marks. The outside shaded the same color at the deeper bits of the ocean - hidden depth. something like a pen being stamped onto a paper edge, thick ink, blotting. They trail the long way up his arms, spattering bits that Yuji traces with his eyes, following a criss cross line, a map full of scars and odd freckles from the sun - his arms are normal, only bruised. the family bathroom the place of inspection - he treats them with a prod, a poke. a tongue stuck out of mouth, concentration in his brow, squinted eyes as he leans closer and closer to the mirror. It is as if the reflection is a portal into the undug corpse of a truth not yet recognized, if the mirror says yes - it is true. In all mediums, it is a footmark in the sand, it is a trail of something that has no right to be there. 

It is a trauma . 

a hurt that has broken the flow of blood and skin, it is also something that Yuji, at five years old, will completely forget about. 

His grandfather notices one day.

It is a passing thing that Yuji, himself, is too young to realize holds any real value other than a tv channel switching and footsteps passing behind his back with the same heavy footed thump he’s heard for the last five years. 

Yuji, young and unknowing, is absorbed into the work of block and building, of creation and the ability to destroy - it is a set of options with interlocking pieces - dalmatian colors from a handy down store. It is Yuji's favorite for the sole reason that once it all comes together, it is in the shape of a small dog with big eyes and a lapped tongue. he has built this over thirty times, each time the last brow, eye, mouth clicks into place it releases the same joy it has every other time. a hand grabs his forearm and Yuji looks up for a moment before looking back down, quickly. The face that rests upon his grandfathers is one of knowing, pain. like a car crash that you have watched from behind your own windshield, it is one that goes along with words like “i knew she was going to get hurt at some point, i knew it and still-“  it is the dreaded recognition of a tragedy left bereft. 

Yuji thinks it is odd, but it drifts to the back of his mind. The memory trapped underneath preschool and uniforms, growing and words that sit on his tongue. 

Growing up Yuji had what was closer to less than more. He knew in the same way that some kids had two parents, a large house, and the gentle whir of an air conditioner - that he was not alike. 

“There will always be an ace in the stack Yuji, just make sure you're not the jest.” His grandmother had said, handing over a bowl of soup, a packet of crackers, before retreating to the kitchen to make something for herself. He had underdeveloped views of the world. at an age so young that most things remained concept. Five is little. Five is not old enough to realize that the sun is held up by force and not angels. 

Yuji internalizes three things at this age. 

One.

Kindness will never win someone over. “ There is no way to love someone into staying .” a teacher had said, reading an american classic, shakespeare. Romeo loved Juliet, but he also loved tragedy. 

Juliet died in vain, feeble attempt to attach someone else's soul to your own when they, themselves, did not want to. 

“a bond, a bond darling has to go both ways.”  Yuji's teacher had sang, a string held between her fingers. thrumming something angelic and soft, fluttering birds wing. a broken bone, the universe and it’s string. a spine of a flower, the thing we call a stem. “ with too much tension, it’ll snap.” 

Later that week he overhears someone an aisle over in the drug store in his hometown, tip-toeing his way to the edge of a counter, around a corner - in his hands are three mars bars and a coca-cola for his grandfather. an older woman, a neighbor. wrapped around her wrist a bag, filled with apples and chocolates. She says, “ Poor boy, it must be hard to have parents who’ve run off, I assume that he’ll learn about what they were like when he’s older.” The apples in her basket are rotten with poison, purple blue swirls around them and Yuji feels, he feels -

He runs outside the store. towards his home, and silently, so silently, has the incredibly early realization that people outside of his life will always have an opinion about him. 

It's his first panic attack, it happens a mile and a half from his complex's door. 

Two. 

His second realization happens in the empty space in a courthouse. Toys laid out for children, large boxes with the lingering smell of clorox cleaner - nobody has washed them in ages but the blocks have nice edges, rounded from years of play. Yuji builds a castle in the middle of the rug. 

A woman comes out of the main door, holding a styrofoam cup - there's steam billowing from the top, Yuji worries that it's burning her palms. 

She hands the cup down, whispers ‘here ya go, kiddo.’ and maybe she says something like ‘be careful, it's hot.’ before walking back to the spinny chair attached to a front desk. Yuji hadn't really noticed, purely focused on the half open door she had come from - the shadow of his grandparents lining the hardwood floor. There are some pens in a wide rimmed cup, a twisted yellow design that looks too clean for a place like this - the pens have small lettering on them “the placement of lost children,” in golden swirly font. Yuji places the cup down, and returns to his building. 

He, in this small courthouse is mildly aware of what it all means - mildly aware of the lack of parents, he is young, but he understands that somehow - there was nobody to bring for ‘bring your parents to work day!’ and with that, Yuji had known. 

These are not things Yuji can fix. He can't hand them off to the other children in his kindergarten. They have matching uniforms, their hair is cut short like his, - a small bow around their necks, bunny eared laces. 

But they are not alike. 

The receptionist is humming, a cartoon theme - american. Yuji has never understood the obsession with another's life. 

Until he does. 

Yuji finds, six years old, that It is so much easier to love someone else's life.

so much easier to walk up to a woman he’s never met, and ask her, “do you like working here?”  a soft slur partnered to the three missing front teeth . watch her eyes light up, nobody has ever asked her this before - for a moment, Yuji is more than a kid in a courthouse. He is interested, he is kind, and someone wants to speak to him. 

Yuji is not the star in this story, he is maybe the moon. He is never the sun. He will gain light, attraction, everything. From those around him. reflect on it - he will become something loveable through what he can do, and he will be safe because of it. 

Yuji leans forward on the desk, chin resting on the ledge. He listens to the women chatter about her job, her life, her likes and dislikes, sips his hot chocolate. His grandparents have been forgotten about, the room over is nothing more than a space. mind occupied by someone else, not him, not Yuji and his life, not Yuji and his puzzle piece family that has never had the opportunity to fit together.

Yuji, for the first time in a while, allows himself to melt. 

Three. 

It is a friday afternoon, and Yuji has nowhere to go. 

Not in the literal, maybe the metaphorical. Japan is safe, safe enough to allow six year olds to leave an elementary school alone. Yuji’s backpack is heavy and comforting, a weight that both grounds him and reminds him of where he has been and where he should be going. 

[There are moments in which this is lost to him - where Yuji feels his body drifting away. He is afraid that he is in a dream, a well crafted virtual reality. The sky is turning a purplish blue, the bruises on his arm ache - he sees a shadow that looks like a woman with his own eyes stitched to her sockets. 

Yuji shakes his head,]

There is a sidewalk, and that is good enough. He sits, places his backpack on the ground next to him, waits. The house will be empty for four more hours, grandfather picking up an extra shift at a job that Yuji has never seen.  His grandmother will be shopping. She does this on fridays. Chats at the store like it is a place to do so. Yuji used to go with her until he realized it is very boring to walk isles and not be able to buy anything, to hold something in his arms like it is his until they cross the threshold and he has to let go.  

These are things Yuji has cataloged unkowling, stored in the recess of his brain, packed away in tight boxes. He has labeled everything in his life, let nothing escape - he has learned the stairway method - to create a room with all your most precious memories, a firefly landing on his finger, his grandfather laughing while making soup - a dozen good moments slipped in. He has learned how to protect himself just enough to not be hurt. It's a safe area they say, and they are not wrong. 

There is a mewling from across the street, and Yuji in his haste to cross, to chase the noise because it sounds hurt, forgets his backpack - promises to return again once he learns the sound. 

Until he is able to fix it. 

It's a kitten, small, surrounded by cardboard walls. 

Yuji forgoes the knowledge packed into his brain about diseases, a teacher talking about safety and the dangers of small lost animals. He picks it up. Swaddled in the warmth of a cotton jumper, one made by the school - one that he will inevitably need to wash because the kitten is muddy brown, and when he pushes the fur back it seems as if it was once snow white. 

“you're so tiny,” he whispers into a back alley. The kitten wiggles like many small things do and Yuji is struck with the feeling of kinship. Which is silly, because kittens are not humans, and humans are not kittens. 

But neither of them have anywhere to go, 

Yuji ends up running across the street, two heartbeats. Picking up his backpack, left alone. Japan is safe , they say. They are right. 

Nobody has touched his bag. 

He walks home, does not jostle the animal in his arms, careful of the big steps and the landlord that yells tadaima. There is a 'no pet’ policy, but the policy is the government, and the government is in the class for ten year olds. Not six year olds so it is no problem of his, the puring in his arms only cements that fact. Yuji lays the kitten in his bed, runs a bath for himself, finds a small bowl used for brownies and cookies. Rinses it, runs warm water in the kitchen sink. Fills both his, and the kitten's bath. 

Washing away dirt is a bit like painting over walls in reverse. Yuji has experienced that - has run paint over the walls of his bedroom. Moved from place to place. It's too expensive, they say. And they are not wrong. 

He has been welcomed home by a thousand landlords, he has taken a million trains,

washed away so, so much dirt.

The kitten does not scream, but it meows in the way a displeased baby would - it is not in pain, Yuji knows, but he feels bad anyway. 

They sit on his bed after their baths, Yuji whispers a few names. 

He cannot decide until he can. 

Angel, angel of god. Little rugrat, silly kitten with ivory fur. 

There is knowledge of being loved, and there is knowledge of taking care. Yuji is six, six and a half. And he has decided that he will save many dirty things, give them baths and protect them in each house he lives in. each home, it will be repainted, reborn. And this is only the beginning of his life, Yuji knows. 

He places the kitten on his chest, two heartbeats.

He breathes, 

and for the first time in a little while, it does not hurt to exhale.

==

Yuji is learning that the sun, too close, does burn. all the glory so beautiful and bright will never actually drop onto him. He is also learning that the world is not always good to those who deserve it. But he, if he runs, might be able to save it. 

He is unable to wash away all the dirt, and the landlord will wonder why there are scratches on the wall. 

These are the sacrifices we have to make, handing over the keys. 

Packing the box, 

Yuji breathes out. 

==

Time gains a little, calendars are crossed with exs and dates scribbled into the boxes are ruled out with a red pen. Summer goes by, and Yuji finds that he is seven and a half.

He’s late. Or he’s going to be. An open window lets in a breeze, Yuji nearly trips. Early spring is a soft breath against a temple, the first exhale of a butterfly wing, the lost cocoon dropped after winter - Yuji is late for practice. “ Soccer was a sport becoming for a child,” his grandfather had said, implied, waving around a flyer named “youth soccer team! Tryouts today!”  The bitter edge of his words rounded out with a grin. 

Yuji rounds the corner, a half step into the kitchen and then a movement that is more like bodily flinging himself towards the door than a step. Movement is something gargled with salt water and spat out. Yuji stumbles for the second time and drops his bag before crouching down to examine the floor for a shoe. Two shoes - if he’s lucky. 

There is one, and then there are two. 

It is a push pull movement, thumb pressed into the mouth of his sole until his foot slips in. a shuffle against old wood to pull the knee pads from his duffle bag. He’s done this backwards, he’s done it all wrong. The shoes are last, the knee pads are third. He forgoes the order, gurgles the saltwater. And strechest the fabric over his sneakers.

The door swings open and Yuji is out. Steps and steps all the way down. Two flights of stairs, a forgotten goodbye. Once realized, he books it back upstairs, yells one out - and then he is moving again. 

The ball is a remembered motion of his body. They say doves know which way is home when they are born, a carrier pigeon and its natural north. It is the same as moss growing to the east and the way a compass, magnetized and firm in your palm, will always guide you home. The dove will fly its way through storms and winters dander - a rebirth and a flow. To Yuji, this movement is something that just happens. A natural strength. 

He scores eighteen goals within the two hour period, he makes the team. 

After that there is an imposed structure. He rolls over the movements and practices, works his way throughout the day and ends it covered in a feeling similar to spinned candy. Muscles exhausted and left in a pleasant buzz, he has more energy though. He is tittering. Bouncing from foot to foot, splaying across couches in a desperate attempt to stave off the feeling of a whole day's worth of energy in his pocket. blessed with resented movement. Yuji isn’t fully thoughtful in this process; it is something he hasn’t examined in any large way, a thought placed in his mind without prodigy, it just is, it just has been.  

In this development Yuji learns teamwork, he learns connection and joy in a way that is felt rather than enforced. After parties and pizza, the world outside of his apartment complex is overflowing with flowers, pollen. He sneezes and he enjoys the feeling. 

He makes friends with scuffed up shins, he eats and eats. He learns mario kart is better with people around you, and a well aimed punch by a boy you thought was your friend hurts the heart more than it does the body. 

Yuji, gracelessly falls apart in every single way there can be - humanity is a terrible thing to an eight year old. His cleats are lost and then found. A pocket fair is an ice cream cone stuck upside down in the pit of a trash can - all of these things happen. All of these things catch him by the throat and pull. It is transportation, it is regression. 

[Humanity is the messy entrail of a bloody corpse. Peach pit was chewed and then thrown into the forest. During this time, Yuji learns something like decomposition. 

He will later understand this phenomenon as burnout.  

The body ache that has only ever been physical strains and drifts like a bad driver on the interstate. His mental status begins to change lanes without care or worry - hoping those around them will adjust accordingly so they don't crash. It is far too much trust to be placed in the hands of others. The body, the rotting corpse will slowly melt against the freeway - 

Burnout is a physical manifestation of suddenly putting on too much. 

In the grand scheme of flowers and gardening, Yuji is never the one holding the shears.] 

The main thing Yuji understands, learns, absorbs through this process is the way a bruise feels on the leg rather than the arm, there is a kick to a shin, a goalie too aggressive - a ball with dirt stuck to it launched like a god would with a medirite from the sky. In essence, Yuji gets hurt. multiple times over. He becomes familiar with an ice machine, a gauze, and a pat on the back. The phantom marks, never to be understood, will eventually become something like birthmarks, and something I've had since I was a kid. Yuji will begin to explain himself before he knows what he is explaining. It is a carry over of a promise kept - a lineage that was destroyed before Yuji had the pleasure of understanding it. 

He is thirteen when it becomes too much, he is thirteen when his grandfather has to bury his grandmother. 

It is too much, and Yuji feels too little.

[He felt nearly nothing when his grandfather walked over to the body, his grandmother's body, a body that housed life and beauty. knowledge. So, so much of it. overflowing with creativity, sun lanterns stacked in the corner of his room, thousands of paper cranes, little hopscotch pattern drawn outside - she was a cracked spine of a glowstick from halloween. 

And she is dead. Yuji's grandfather takes water on his pointer finger and runs the last droplets across the pout of her lips.

She is sent to a place where they dress the body up. Remove the look of death and decay from her features, she is beautiful before and after. Yuji watches with eyes unseeing. There is color, her kimoni is white and plush, sash crossed left over right, none of it makes it past his cornears. He is stuck behind a sheet of plexi, unable to escape from - he is standing there, he isn’t trying to get out. In all ways it is perfect. A perfect ceremony, a wonderful funeral. She’s buried in a large field, the small name plate covered with white sheet -  time melts like honeydew melon under the ice cream scoop. 

Perfect rounds of life are taken from Yuji's brain and placed into a jar. 

He loses time, he is confused when he walks away from the vigil. He is horrified when he finds himself in front of a singular gravestone the next month. The name idatori, a pool so small that it is only one. Yuji is afraid for a moment, in the moonlight and the swatting of bugs - his arm throbs as if there is a hand gripping it. 

For the second time in his life, he fears looking in the mirror - because when he was five, he swore he could see someone looking back.] 

It is a learned behavior that combats this feeling. Something blooms as his grandmother dies, it takes root in the softer part of his sternum. Empty space between his ribs and chest. It is something like an optimist, it is something like generality or a candle and it’s glow. When the spark of his grandmother's body faded - Yuji found himself lighting his own on fire. 

It is a soccer practice, and then it is a team. It is an uncovered hobby turned into killing time. It is first false laughter - an attempt at anything that makes him feel alive and touchable. A desperate free fall to latch onto life. Is this what a baby feels like when they are born, that the world is far too large and there is far too little to hold onto? 

These months are meddled together - any rush he had felt from the past year swallows him whole and buries him under. His grandfather is no better, where he was once snarked laughter he is simmering anger. 

The slow shift of a stalk turning away. 

Yuji feels himself wilting. 

It takes a year and half for them to rebuild. For the microscopic cracks of a person who has fallen through their lives, torn out the pisces they hold most dear, and then fallen away, to heal. It is a bandaged palm and a bloody nose - Yuji cuts himself on accident with a steak knife and simply stares at the bood. It is red, swirling, it is dripping onto the table. And Yuji, alone, cries for the first time since she died. 

[Sometimes bodies hold onto things too tightly. Blood is a plasma, a receive and give, all the humans in the world can save each other if we give enough blood. We match our types and we laugh over the idea. “If you ever get in trouble, call me.” We are compatible. We are compatible in a way that could save us both. And isn't that a funny thought? 

An exhale is meant for both the body and the mind, a chest that rises with the thought, hitting the surface of our brains and slowly falling back down. They say balloons are only lost when held too tightly, it is not mindlessness that makes us lose, it is the fear of letting go.

The plasma is the first true red Yuji has seen this year. It is a reminder of his humanity, and it is a reminder that he is still alive. Breathing, he has so much life packed into his body. 

It takes thick gauze, a wash under warm soapy water.

it’ll heal.]

The next year is a exhale. Joy becomes more palpable. Yuji learns the betweens and the yes’s he should hold onto and the no’s he should let go. 

The bruises come back, when they had left he isn't sure. They, the bruisers, the hands always holding on, might have figured to leave him alone during the grief.  The grip on his arms stayed though, becoming a constant pressure around him, the shrouding at a mall, the protection a mother would show before her child. Yuji grows used to these things within the day they start - only able to trace them back to a funeral and then it shifts into the old film you see in dated television. He isn't aware in any manner of these things - but he is aware of the mirrors he avoids. There are so many reflections behind him, a woman with black hair - it is the hand in a dark room, your own hand. You know it's there because it is yours, it is attached. It has to be there. But the woman is an illusion of that, a figure with lips left in a half smile, eyes crinkled with joy - a bob cut. She’s beautiful, she is haunting. 

Yuji looks away. 

When he is thirteen turning fourteen, the words shift a little. not in a big way, but in a small one, a shade has changed, the edison light bulb we’ve all grown used to has been replaced with a fluorescent one, it is an echo, noticed, but easily forgotten. The smile on his face is genuine, he knows because the doctor he visits yearly says so. She's a pretty lady with brown hair, slicked back into a bun with a pen behind her ear - she’s been his practitioner for his entire life. He sees no flaws. she says “you look happier Yuji, has anything happened.” and for a moment it is very clearly a “yes.” but to what, he isn’t sure. 

[the yes could be the hollowed out basket of apples his neighbors bring whenever they go picking in the fall. it could be the grades he receives, small smiley faces doodled in the corners. it could be the faces of his teammates, the roughhousing of teenage boys who don’t know anything other than “ good, this feels good.” and with that, they say “ more, give me more.” 

a yes is a thousand little equations - it is a million germs being inhaled by those around you. a general thurm in life. 

Yuji has unkowling shared a total of twelve half-bought pies. The clothes he collects from the secondhand store have been touched, washed, and left by someone else. life is found out to be hiding beneath the sheet, pretending to be a ghost. 

On the anniversary of his grandmother's death he places the sun lanterns in the corner of his room, they’re illuminated by the late day. He heals with time, and with that the reflection bathes him in honey glow.]

==

Her name is Misato, she’s a blocker, pulls an amazing offense. She’s kicked three people in the pelvis during games, cleats making a hard clack against the jockstrap most of the boys wear. whether it’s on purpose or not Yuji doesn't really know, nor does he care. but he knows she’s terrifying, not because of her power, no. just her presence is terrifying. She walks with purpose, chin tilted up. directly. towards. him. 

“would you wanna come over later?” she asks, her eyes are soft but her posture is straight. It's a matrix that Yuji isn’t sure he can understand with so little knowledge of her. 

“I have - yeah. I have a double practice though, it's at like six? maybe - i’ll have to check my calendar.” he says, they’re in the gym room, an area for the teens to stretch out their spines and crack the feeling of failure from their bones - the day is winding down with its regular goodbye, a cicada chirps, the day is a butterflies yawn. 

“ok yeah - we could play ball for a bit, maybe. um,” she stalls, her hair is the color of a fresh cut salmon. glowing a soft orange. the window behind her is doing wonderful things, “there's like, two ish hours - that we would have? At my house. My parents will be back at 10 - so, yanno, if you want.” She says, her uniform is dark blue - mirroring his own. 

“I'm, yeah,” Yuji places his duffle bag down, shaking off the feeling of intimidation - twisting it into something like sincerity, looks over his shoulder, he grins. “yeah, I'd like that.”

she smiles, it’s soft and nothing like the look she has when playing soccer. it’s less manic, more practiced. 

Yuji smiles back. 

==

“do you ever - I mean,” an exhale, she breathes out smoke, it billows. “do you think that we’re all the same, like, underneath?” 

[The image of a skinned human corpse jumps to the forefront of his brain. It is the ungloved version, a body with no protection. It’s not a scary thought, blood, body, biology - it’s never bothered Yuji in a meaningful way. Everybody has a body, and in that body's a heart - and that is the part he cares about. 

Thump thump thump. A unifying baseline, if there was one noise in the world. If there was one tempo he could memorize, it would be the heart.

His body is a reminder of his own humanity, to bleed is to be a part of the world's plasma. To have plasma is the option to give, in this Yuji finds comfort. ] 

“yeah  - or, no. I think we’re like, wait. Isn't this a history question - the one- “ 

“the French guy?” she asks, tossing her head back to let out another stream of smoke. 

“yeah, him.'' Yuji confirms leaning forward from his seat. they’re in her room, it’s an imagined version of a pinterest board contemporary style, wooden blinds that crackle when you open them. Her walls are covered in an array of posters, a skateboard lies in the corner, it’s edges beaten and used. “it’s, it's -  the age of enlightenment. I think? anyway - what I'm trying to say is that, if we all had the same base then - I guess wouldn't we all be like, good?” 

“good? no way, I think it's probably bad.” she laughs, it’s a teetering noise, like bells and candles being blown out. quick, huffing. rolling on her side at some point, hair splayed in all directions like a blown dandelion. 

“so babies are bad?” he asks, a frown playing on his face. 

“yeah - I mean, they’re like leeches. always asking for food or making messes. Yoki’s mom just had another kid -'' from the floor she is reminiscent of a book splayed open. 

“another?!” 

“I know.” she says, voice drawn upon - “imagine having that many kids running around, i mean - god.” 

The soccer team is built of out multiple students, some Yuji has known since he started, snot nosed and so, so young - when his spiking energy hadn’t quite evened out into a thrum, instead it was a constant ring. a telephone that never stops calling. Yuji understands why his grandfather pushed him into the sport. Some of the other teammates have drifted in slowly, moving or changing schools - their team is a collection of people from different places - Yuji has the underlying desire to know them all.

Yoki is the newest addition, a wonderful blocker with strong legs, good thighs and an eye for the ball. He makes nearly 86% of the shots he takes - Yuji is impressed. He also has four siblings, Yuji is less impressed by that. 

“Anyway,” she says, aware that Yuji has been lost in thought - they bounce off of each other like this, him with no attention span, her wanting attention. “ever since the kid was born he always smells like baby powder and, dunno, it's like applesauce or something?” 

The point of this is lost in translation, jokes are tossed, they dissolve into the meaningless chatter of two lives intertwined. Yuji watches the sun set from her bedroom window, planning its speedy return. 

[if ripped to the bones, Yuji would say; when you take away the trauma, am I only a blank doll? 

There is a familiar thought, far, deep down. That all of this, all of him, is actually unspecial. Something of a collection that thrust upon anyone else, would be the exact same.

It runs threadbare through the rest of his thoughts -  If asked to describe the best moment of his life he could say; the feeling of a goal, where his body is more of a reflection, shards of glass, concrete baseline with eyes peering in - the entirety of self being wiped away with an old washcloth. 

Or, he could say - on a spring morning, his grandfather and grandmother are downstairs. they are separate from him, he is at peace. There is no music, it is just the sound of the world. He has woken up and doesn’t feel greasy or weighted. For the small eon that passes by, he is outside his head but it is pleasant rather than disorienting.

On any other day this would be random, a blip in the world's personal cosmos. But this morning, there is something of value. 

These memories are stitched into his side with the grace of a grade A surgeon. Experiences that line his bedroom walls, old wallpaper, a body that is worn and broken. 

tragedy is born from one's own searching psyche. 

In this Yuji is the post self - the removed child from a womb too early. staring at the sky and wondering if this is artificial lighting, or if the ozone is just a reflection of everything below -  

Underneath his skin there is a bone ache for something warmer, something kinder. Yuji has inadvertently been gleaning each field in hope of finding the original glass that tore his foot up.] 

“I think it’s good.” he says, the clock hands holding onto the twelve and ten. 

It's time to go home. 

Misato is hanging out her bedroom window like a lunatic. must have sprinted back after they had said their goodbyes at the door. she waves quickly, a sputtering move like one of a bird's injured wing, frantic, desperate. she’s grinning, less soft, less battle. more here. it’s nice seeing someone outside of practice, it’s nice to be seen. 

Misato is good. He's decided. in this moonlight front lawn, he knows that humans are good. not because of the way the grass is green even though it hasn’t rained - but mostly because her house is a decrepit looking thing. The family room is one of disarray, chip bags left out, there’s a trash can overflowing. her parents aren’t home. 

She lives alone, mostly.

they crawl in with bones in their mouths, eyes raking over and securing their next meal. Yuji has seen the way she will flinch at a yell, covering it up with her posture and grin. it is a learned behavior she has invested herself in, she is a terrible analogy for the useless argument of nature and nurture. She has never once asked about the bruises on his arms, she has seen, Yuji knows. But never asks. her eyes catch on them sometimes, stuck like a fly to a honey pot - it is an obsession in a second. And then it's gone, she’s grinning again, and she is back. 

she is good because she is Misato, she is terrible because she is good. 

In this world, dogs will bite their own tails. the flowers will bloom, and Yuji will stay hopeful in the delicate ambition of humanity. 

its laser focused pursuit to become better. 

[Yuji dyes his own hair a month later, the dark brown erased with bleach and left a fried shell of its once silky life. it’s fluffed, the bare bones of its existence. 

Misato is behind him, her hair is now a lilac purple, faded at the edges, turning a soft grey like the end of a sunrise. a day earlier he had taken one look at her after practice and said something like, “i miss the color.” and she had said, “then wear it yourself” with a huff, a grin, and a beckoning hand. 

The next day they were sitting in her corner of a family bathroom. The salmon roe dye is painted slowly, Misato makes chatter behind. the noise of her own hobbies, her fixation this month being a new record. It's an album with heavy bass, long vocals and the main recognizable sound being the strum of an electric guitar. 

They talk about politics, philosophy, she says. “no. humans are stupid, Yuji - have you seen what we’re doing to the earth, i mean, c’mon.” and Yuji will turn his head, before she guides it back, and say, “i think we’re doing our best? like, we wouldn’t have clean water without boiling the coal?” 

she huffs, and they begin again.] 

==

Second. After the Shibyua incident, the middle part of a soft slice of bread. 

==

Yuji wakes and then he falls asleep. It is similar to train tracks and runways, the passing of a small universe within three seconds. Yuji imagines these moments as movies or snapshots, fields with sheep and soft grazing animals, he files them away for another time when his life is less blood covered and more euphoric. He can get there. He can do it. 

They say, ‘surrender yourself to the higher power.’ and Yuji has already hung his neck low with abandon. It is the second day of his resurrection, the second day where his lungs have turned black from mold and asphyxiation. 

This is the rot,

And this is where Yuji he exists. 

close.

Megumi says words like ‘save me.’ and for a moment the hold of Sukuna drops, Yuji is diabetic and his blood sugar has fallen - he’s died so many times but this is the closest he’s felt to losing. 

For the next few days Yuji finds himself dissolving more and more, the fight slowly dwindles. He tells them, “I am so exhausted, and I haven't even done anything?” He also wants to tell them, ‘I've wanted to die many times, but so has everyone else - and I am selfish with my wants, there can be none who are exactly alike.” And this will be why he struggles. 

There is a fly that has been making itself known in his room for the better half of a week, announcing its presence with a slow, debilitating, buzz. He hates it, he thinks. Is it enough of a proclamation? Is hate enough to fuel the action. Or will Yuji watch with disinterested eyes, allowing it to mess about in the room that is not yet his, but a housing - a rental, his body lives here, he is stationed. This is his battle ground - this is his grave. Is it laziness? Yuji asks, Is this what they call complacency? 

Passion. They say. As if he knows, as if that is simply a constant. 

The want of a nail, or maybe the echo of a life that he has yet to live. He has been working on this for some time now, wrapped it up with a silk bandana and stuck it in the corner of his mind to germinate. This thought process , this thing. 

At best, it's grown. At worst, it's overtaken. 

[Yujis mind is often swept into what he is housing - of the absolute sin of existence he’s taken on. A million deaths will be attached to his cells. Children hold 50% of each parent's DNA. Yuji is the unwilling participant in this - his blood is mixed like oil and water. 

The cruel voice of sukuna whenever he sees something sharp, cut, bleed . or sweet, take, use. - every action is accompanied with a haunted voice of a curse unkilled. 

Yuji does his best, he really, really does.]

In biology there is something like identification, and then there is the categorization. And lastly, we have to ask ourselves, what is the use? Bleach if used correctly will whiten and purify the things it touches, stripping the color and depth out of anything it is allowed to lie with. It is a perfect destruction. No dirt or mess left in its wake, just white. 

But what if this is not that. what if Yuji never unravels this yarn - this curse so embedded - when he snaps, loses control, when he is 100% instead of 50%. the process left unfinished, the ache on his side. what if Yuji is never bleached, what if instead he is a blank experiment. acid that melts the good away and leaves nothing but destruction in its wake. 

He’s identified death, seen it with his eyes, a gurgling beast with black beads stuck in it’s sockets. Kin like mildew rot. It is the worst thing he’s ever had to look at, he knows it by heart. - it lies in the middle of his dreams, waiting with claws and drooping faces. It is not a product of itself, it is wounded and molded, someone that has been infested with mites and ugly green goop - someone could be him. 

[Dates. No, not dates. A fig. A fig tree. There is something sharp inside of the fruit, something buzzing and alive, moving, ready to kill. ‘ This is their cycle’ , they say. And they've said it so many times, about the earth. About people and their will. They've said it so, so many times. 

When you bite into the fruit, and you feel the sting. What do they say, what do they say.]

The creature is a terrible amagilation of all Yuji’s worst fears.

When he looks at it with a magnifying glass, like a child under the heat of summer, examining the ants. He might see something called rot. An unexamined thought process, slipping by for the better part of his life. “he just processes things differently.” his grandfather says, wringing his hands and tugging at his collar. Yuji doesn't think it's odd, he’s running around in the doctor's office, smiling big and bright. He's already found a way to entertain himself in this small space. A entrapment, a cage. 

When has he become an animal? 

Yuji knows language is part of the greater issue - we talk about finishing things like we would a cake. That each process or lesson we go through is something to be completed, packed away, and ingested at a later date. We talk about futures and graduations, about next steps and four year plans. Yuji is wide eyed, seven and a half - he has phenomena and he can't stop moving. 

Movement. He is a jackrabbit and terrified of how big the world is.

Yuji is six and running from something he doesn't quite understand - the mirror, the bruises, a whole life alone - because he will be alone at some point, he knew it young, he knew it because it is how this will end. He is turning eighteen and he doesn't understand a thing about the way the world functions. He is seventeen and he’s killed something.

This is the forward step, the shaking, delibatantings step into a role he didn't know he was accepting. 

This is the gentle understanding. This is his psychic rearing its little head, slick seaweed skin. Marimo. A ball full of thoughts, wound around each other. ideas that Yuji is unsure of which are his, and which are just - 

he breathes out. 

==

It's a makeshift bedroom. a soft place to lie down. Yuji sits, waiting. He goes back to the wall, legs curled up and in a criss cross on the spring filled mattress. 

There are two small windows, little ones with splintered edges. cobweb cracks that move up up up. 

outside a tree flows with the wind. inside Yuji can’t even feel a draft. 

“you’re getting in your head again.” Megumi says, the door is open, left agar, a false fluorescent lighting follows his movement, falling to the floor. He walks in and sits on the corner of the bed. 

“I'm not.'' Yuji defends, ready for this. He's so ready for Megumi to turn around and finally blame. He's so, so prepared. has gone through each and every movement in his head, they’ll say “ you’re more trouble than your worth.” and Yuji will only be able to nod his head once, already in motion before the sentence has finished; he has already agreed a thousand time before. 

“- yes, yes you are. it’s alright though - don’t worry about it.” Megumi says, defying expectations. 

it’s a small bed, Megumi has pulled his legs up and leaned back. 

Yuji rolls on his back, away from the wall and onto the checkered duvet. From this angle Megumi resembles the demon dogs he commands, long eyelashes and thick, fluffy hair. If Yuji squints he can make out the bruising around his jaw - even in these lowlights it’s visible. 

he’s done that, inadvertently, accidentally. 

ruined. 

“I think - I think I have to. it sort of, it hurts not to think about.” it’s a true statement, one he’s practiced in the cracked screen of his cell phone. 

“more than it does to think about?'' Megumi falls back, rolls onto his right shoulder to stare. blue eyes, the color of an ink blot - the inside of a butterfly’s wing is the part you should pay attention to. it says in the language of color, stay away from me, i’m poisonous .

in Megumi eyes it says, come closer, let me drown you. 

“yes.” Yuji slurs, the words are heavy. there’s a fountain of emotion underneath, he’s not ready for it to come out. 

“no.” The water touches his face. Yuji understands what they mean when they say a current in the sea is the most dangerous joy. 

“yes - because it's me. this time. it’s me,” he breathes these words as if they are the truth - Yuji has had the color drained from him. He's avoiding all the mirrors, he can’t, he can’t feel. “I did it - I got knocked out l, and then got dragged under and -“ bodies, thousands of bloody bodies, cut into a million pieces. “Have I told you how it feels? Have I said that it feels like drowning? -“ 

Megumi's face from up close goes slack, he’s holding his breath. lost already. Yuji is drowning him. he’s ruining this too - 

“I've never even, I don't know how to swim. it’s just, when i'm gone it’s like I never existed -“ he has to explain, if he doesn’t it will only ever be his fault - nobody will understand because his body isn’t his anymore. Yuji can’t describe it, but it’s his fault. If he could play open the inside of his brain - they would understand, they would hate him too. “I get pushed underneath this, this thing.“

This is his weakness.

“Sukuna.” Megumi says, “you can name him.” an exhale, he’s breathing. How is he still breathing? 

“no - no because it’s me .” Yuji is desperate. He's trying to make Megumi understand - he doesn’t get it, he doesn’t. 

“it’s not.” Megumi whispers, hands reaching out. 

“it is. it has to be because - because,” Yuji nearly sobs. 

“If Nobara had told you she was assaulted, would you blame her?” the hands have found their way to Yuji’s face, cradling. soft palms. there’s scar tissue mixed into the middle - Megumi has scars. small ones, big ones, littered over his body in matching amounts like Yuji has bruises. if they’re both the same amount of hurt in different ways, does it make them even? 

“what?” he asks, mind catching up. 

“if I told you I had gotten hit on, touched, beaten up - would it be my fault. would the violation of my body be because I had invited it, is my existence a temptation enough for someone else to defile it?” Megumi asks, pulling Yuji's head closer. a hand on the back of his neck thumb rubbing circles at the base of his skull. 

the soft brown baby hairs get pushed against their natural growth, it tickles. 

“no. no - what are you? - “ Yuji asks, words becoming muffled against the palm of Megumi's hand. 

“Yuji - it’s, it’s not your fault.” into the world there is a certain amount of truth. there is deception, and there is the terrifying deep of a sea undiscovered. Yuji is thrown into it daily, a backfloat against a tsunami. 

“you haven’t done anything wrong - we aren’t clean, blood is part of us. it’s going to be for the next thousand eons but - what happens will happen. you're not to blame.” Megumi says. it is true for as long as they are in this bed, as long as Yuji is kept here he will believe it. 

they stay like that for a while. shifting, the continents have moved over their lifetime - millions of little earthquakes that shatter the spine of the world. Yuji is readjusting. Megumi is holding it together. Yuji ends up staring into a chest, Megumi's chin on top of his hair. In the dark, he feels safe. 

[Yuji hasn’t really internalized these ideas yet. the water is still drowning him, bear claws of doubt will sneak up behind him and latch on with the grip of a lost child.

He still believes he is the sinner. In the modern day fairy tale of creation, Yuji is the apple - a temptation, a tease into what real life is like. if he is the begotten fruit then what else is there. 

but, there is also a verse in the book known as savior, sacrifice. a sheep led to its own death - an ultimate loss. Yuji grew up a loose Buddhist, his grandmother's lips wet, a sash left to right. none of these analogies work in his mind. He is the twisted idea of a thousand different lifetime, a million different tragedies. ]

“you’ll need to cut this soon.” the words are spoken into the fluff of his hair, against the top of his skull. 

“hm.” Yuji hums a little, the suffocation has lifted, he’s just a boy in a bed, “not into the hobo look?” 

“no, more into the himbo look.” it’s delivered so, so dryly. 

Yuji snorts. 

“do you uh - wanna cut it for me?” he hasn’t actually had a haircut since coming here - life wound up like a yoyo before being thrown into the world of curses, disembodiment, and subtle trauma. “you’re good with your hands and all that, - “ he gestures a little vaguely, like Megumi is the one who’s created the room. If he were honest though - it would make sense. megumi the creator - megumi who makes things come to life out of the shadows. 

“sure.”

prince of it all, sweet, sweetdark.

==

Yuji learns that there is a very funny thing about knowing someone so well. it is that ‘ i have already turned you inside out. and I've already found what is good .’ People outside say, “ you have so much to prove.” and maybe he does. 

Megumi has told him time and time again that he’s already fallen in love with the way. he loves himself. that there is no larger treasure. but they ask, “ you sound lost. Are you lost?” And it’s a lie to say no. 

It is a lie to say I wouldn't kiss your face. 

and it is a lie to say that he isn’t afraid. 

Yuji tells him, when he is sitting in the wake of a body he had once loved. That he is unsure of what to do with all this time. and that the world is sometimes threatening, - Yuji is terrified of this failure. This giant, magnificent band that has been slid onto his plate like a cousin at thanksgiving, they don't like peas - yuji doesn't like them either. Onto the next plate they go. The idea of death and life is something he can hold in his palm. it’s palpable - touchable, able to be shattered. 

Megumi says, sweetly, that the world is only as big as his eyes can scan. That everything around you is only holdable because you have hands. 

[Megumi’s hands are soft, thin fingers and strong wrists - a technique that uses the most maneuverable part of the body.]

that no matter the sky's color, no matter the tone of voice someone says, get better, in that he is still the watcher, and that it is his world to live in. Megumi is the lucky one with his notion of good and bad, he is the person in all of this that Yuji will unknowingly adore for the next five years -  Megumi says, gently, “You have a right to be here.” It is painful to hear at first, a fresh cut with the skin torn off. 

A lie. It has to be, a lie, so simple. Nothing true - but it is Megumi, his morals don't align with the idea. 

It is not true. It is painful because for Yuji to continue, he has to believe a lover can lie. 

==

“I don't think I can cut your hair like this.” 

“I don't want to move.”

Yuji is plastered to the soft cotton of Megumi's sleep shirt. the thrum of a body behind his back, if he focuses, he can hear the thump thump thump of a heartbeat. He doesn't want to move. He's not going to. 

they’re in the bathroom of a safe house, the safe house. the one holding everyone and everything that’s been torn apart in the past two weeks. it’s a funeral home, they haven’t even had a burial. 

Yuji plans on staying in this spot for as long as he’s able. 

Megumi rumbles a “hmm,” a non answer, the vibration making its way through his chest and into Yuji's back. 

He's worked it so his legs can fully extend, maneuvered their bodies into a sitting position. Yuji's head falls into the crook of a collarbone, legs encased. safe. He's safe. 

“i can’t pull you out of your head -“ Megumi whispers, he speaks softer when it’s just them. The general tone, stiff, has loosened over the past month. a vocal shift from friendship to i've seen you die twice, and with that i’m afraid of losing you again . 

so, - soft. 

“I know.” Yuji cuts in. leaning more, he pulls at a free arm, Megumi’s. tucking it across his chest, a crisscross of ribony boyish limbs. Yuji wants to feel, he wants to remember his own body, his own nerves he’s forgotten in this short time - he’s forgotten horribly of what it is like to be held. 

“You didn’t let me finish; I can't pull you out of your head without you letting me in,'' Megumi says. He places the scissors down, the original point of this endeavor, to the left of their legs, and pulls them back a little more. upright and supported against bullet proof walls. 

Yuji whispers these words, not because he’s afraid, but because sometimes lies are better said in silence. “what if I don't want you in?” 

Megumi, chosen. holding, protective - “then i’ll wait until you’re ready.” there’s a lift to his voice. like. Like the battle has been won and they aren’t in the middle of an all out dystopia - as if their fabric threads aren't pulling to their limit, stretching, snapping - but it works, because Yuji relaxes, if only for a moment, he relaxes into a hold, a support, a tentative, gentle, adoration. 

[if he were to deconstruct this - Yuji might say he’s safe because Megumi is a solace. the one person who’s seen the torn up inside of his body and said “heal.” 

Megumi has seen the extent of this, watched Yuji's eyes roll back in his skull. how his limbs go limp and weighted for a moment before he’s replaced - that in those neonatal moments, when the resonance of Sukuna is turning into a full fledged thrum. 

He's seen Yuji torn apart, pieced back together.  

in all the mediums, Megumi knows . 

it’s intimate - it’s terrifying, Yuji is afraid. but he also knows they’re matched - if measured Yuji would be three and a half inches shorter. Pure strength, Yuji would win. but in ability, body, the way a hand can move and create demons, millions of rabbits - thousands of protections. sinking into the ground like quicksand and careful steps. Megumi is the only one other than Gojo that could fight him, and win.

to sleep next to someone who could grip you by the throat and choke is not usually comforting, but here, it is the biggest blanket.]

==

Third, the crust. the death of what was a collection of good things. or, a million interactions I never showed you. 

==

Misato - parents, the scary thing we describe with grit teeth; family. 

Yuji sits on a windowsill, legs hanging out, swinging back and forth. Half of his body is inside the room, the rest is exposed to the outside air. 

“Do you think they love you?” he asks, prodding at a bruise on his upper left forearm - this one has rounded out, more like a palm than a finger. 

“Probably”

Misato is laid against the floor, arms splayed and legs propped against the wall, every once in a while she’ll arch her back and walk her feet, tip-toeing up the wall before sliding them back down with a soft thump. 

“- even though?” turning a little so it's only one leg in and one leg out. A straddle of sorts. His imagined horse is a dark midnight black - eyes like those in the movies, shiny with little stars etchasketed like stitching in a blanket from a vintage shop

“yeah - I mean. Yes.“ she says, letting her legs swing to the side, a bit like a windshield wiper before falling completely, she looks like a rumpled tissue in this lighting, washed out, tired. 

“I don't think love is like a televised version - I think love can be less, or more. um, I dunno my mom used to make me soup and bring me flowers when I was little - they weren’t always so, “

“Horrible?” 

Yuji slips out of the window. Crawling his way towards her. All the lights out, it's still midday, the sun makes waving motions through the window - the tree outside her room makes a fluttering noise against the wind. Yuji likes springtime - likes it when he’s with someone else. 

“yeah. but - I mean it’s not, I don't think they don’t love me. “ she says, a small crease between her brows, “I think it’s more that they, uh. I think they found something that makes them feel better than loving me felt? And that’s not - it’s not a sin. they buy food, pay bills - it’s not that they don’t provide. but - “

“they’re doing the bare minimum.” he says, ready to speak truth and wisdom, but it mostly just feels hollow. A proclamation meant for kids with parents who secretly love them underneath - traumatized parents, parents who deserve second chances and nice homes when they are older ‘they are suffering on the inside’ they say, but so is Misato, so is everyone else. 

[it's a funny thing, parents. Yuji is stuck in the middle. A thought of what he is and isn't, the name idatori, kanji translation to ‘fleeceflower.’ a plant with heart shaped leaves, it can grow with much or little water - an adaptable thing. Yuji worries sometimes that his parents took one look at their name and thought. ‘If we leave, he’ll still grow.’ the plant can bloom with burning sun, or in the soft answer of shade. 

Yuji, by nature, is adaptable - 

He wishes he didn't need to be.] 

“What about you, where are your mommy issues?” Mistao asks, it's not really a question - a proclamation, something to be screamed into the world with no expectation of response. They're close enough to do so, they're close enough to guess even when there is no answer. 

Yuji, trusting - “don’t have any -“

“no mom?” she asks, head turning against the grain of the floor. She’ll get a sore neck like that. 

“nope.” he lays against the carpet, head next to hers but body parallel. There are little dots of grey in bits surrounding her cornea - floating amebo in a messy pond. 

“oh, well. I'm sorry.” 

“don’t be.” he pauses, adjusting his tone to something more suited for this conversation, softer -  “not like, - not in a passive aggressive way. I'm not smart enough for that. “ he laughs the words, “more like, I never met my parents? they had me and then left when i was a baby - there’s not really even any photos in the house they just -“ 

[The words; left, abandoned, ruined pop into his head before slipping out. 

A women at the grocery store had his eyes and he thought about saying hello - 

Yuji has been searching his last name in every social network for the past two years. he’s strictly trying to find any resemblance in him and the stories his grandfather will resiliently tell - 

There is so little trace of his parents, it hurts more than he wants it too. ] 

“You could be adopted?” she says, voice tilting at the end, there's a half smile on her lips. To be adopted is the better option, they both know it - to be wanted is the best option, to be had is a different thing entirely. 

“I doubt it.” he laughs, “I look too much like my grandmother - “ he shares his grandfather's stubbornness, the truth in a belief- a dying relished breath spent announcing an idea that to them is nothing but ironed out truth. A smile slightly crooked like his grandmothers, her front teeth an overbite she never got rid off  - they’re echoes of each other in a million different ways - they say nature and nurture are the biggest factors in our personalities, Yuji somehow disagrees. 

Stubborn. 

“But yeah, um. I never really, I dunno I never had a body to mourn? There was no - it was just.” he gestures vaguely to the ceiling above, a poster with a rock band on it, a golden crane hanging by a thread. 

“It was just a thing that happened, so why mourn it?” he finishes. 

“hm. I am sorry though, really.” 

Misato is a million things, a million experiences - Yuji feels graced to understand one of them. To be a partner in this weird thing they call family. “I'm sorry too.” 

==

Grandparents, bitteredges, burnt cookies. 

“cookies aren’t supposed to be black.” Yuji says from the doorway, eyes big and imploring. 

“If you don’t like them, how about you try making them?” 

“I'm not complaining, just suggesting.” his quips, hopscotching his way towards the oven. On the burner sits three pans of charred cookies - varying in color and crispness. burnt, definitely burnt. 

“oh, then wise cookie master. what should we do?” his grandfather asks, staring at the burnt ambulation with something similar to distaste - he's staring at them like they've personally offended him. They probably have. 

“throw them away.” Yuji says, picking one up to knock it against the counter. It's hard. Makes a soft thunk noise each time he hits it. They're thin, probably aerodynamic. Yuji considers taking a couple and throwing them out his balcony like a frisbee to see if they fly. 

“it took an hour and a half i’m not just throwing them away - “ grumbled, already turning away to stomp around. His grandfather does this thing where he rumbles underneath his breath, paces in a circle in the living room before flopping down on the couch. huffing , and then getting up to fix, ruin, or change the thing that is causing his frustration. 

“they’re literal saw dust gramps, I don't know what we could do with them.” yuji adds, already eyeing the overfilled trash can from the earlier week. 

“Give them to the neighbors.” it's more of a statement than a question, he’s already found his solution. 

“the ones on the left?” Yuji asks, confirming. 

“yeah. They ran over my daffodils.'' He walks over to the stove, pulling a spatula from the kitchen caddy they’ve stuck in the corner for easy access. ”I just planted those, they hadn’t even taken root! I'd understand if they were brats your age but no - they’re in their twenties - they should be over this!” he spins around, the spatula in hand, pointed. “Have you ever run over flowers?” 

Yuji quickly goes through the three options; lying, running away, and being honest. 

He chooses one. 

“No.” 

It's sometimes a wonderful thing to have a grandfather so knowledgeable, to have someone who knows you inside and out because all your worst traits are just their own flipped on their side. where Yuji is sunflower yellow, a bright morning face - his grandfather is the soft purple of a wisteria in bloom. In the long way around, he knows  - not because of the face, but because of the way his hand scrunches three times, a nervous habit they share.

a spatula is flung at Yuji’s head, he ducks. 

practiced motion. 

An exhale, Yuji mentaly prepares. “brat.” his grandfather says, slowly. 

“gramps,” Yuji dodges a cookie. it makes a thick sound against the opposing wall. “I really didn’t mean to, I was like, dunno running!” 

“You should be running - before I hit you with this! How do you have zero respect for the work of gardeners? Do you know how long it takes for this shit to grow” he waves a hand, the spatual makes a ‘whuba whuba whuba’ noise from the movement, plastic pieces slapping the air, “ - the ground? Months, Yuji, months! All for dumb, stupid, idiot boys to run them over!”

“Language.” a blessing, god created one woman by special order and it is his grandmother. 

“grandma! Thank you for saving me. blessed one, i’m going to just -“  yuji slips behind his grandmother's back, hand fisted in her shirt, preparing to make a mad dash for the now open door -  “ok! I'll be going now! love you bye!” 

the door is six feet away - the spatual hits him on the third step. 

==

Completion, femininity, a walk in the park. 

“how did you uh - how’d you figure it out. for yourself, I mean.” they're talking about boys and girls, about crushes and the bloom of feelings that happen in the later summer they share.  

“It was, um, a slow realization. but - I don't know, not really.'' Misato starts, her hair now a deep green, her roots are a forestry sort, the rest a fading midoriya. The ends always fade quicker, Yuji wonders if it's because of the soap running down her back, getting stuck in the length, or if the sun sees the color and decides to strip it away.  

“For like most of my life I guess I just assumed I'd be with a guy, yanno? like, all of these milestones are based around men and like, they’re a part of the development?- 

and, I guess. in a roundabout way i sort of realized that i wasn’t - i don't crave it.” she says, they're walking the town's park - a large outdoorsy place that screams small rural area. A child runs back and forth in front of them, yuji counts the steps before it stumbles. “Like, when I saw a man, or a wedding - for a woman and a boy” she clarifies, “and it was - they looked happy and then I thought of how I feel with men and it was never any of those things?”

She describes these things easily, in moments like these Yuji is subtly amazed with her. They started out so bumpy. She was intimidating, but then she was soft, and then she was just Misato - good, good Misato. 

If asked to turn the question around, Yuji wouldn't be able to answer - he's never thought much of attraction and its place in the world - he likes the idea of dates and intimacy, skipping to the part where it's just understanding rather than fumbled motion.

“I could imagine myself with a man, easily. it’s the narrative i’ve been fed since i was a kid i mean - feminist litiature is still working on these concepts, maybe it’s just me - but, it feels like i am only a women if i am accompanied by a man.” she says, they walk past a tree - a bush. 

A flower and its face turning to the sky, following. 

“they feed us all this, all this bullshit about like - the complexity of womanhood, it’s like a season. I'm the side character in the life of a man.” she huffs, its frustration giving way to anger - a pot that's been boiling for so long will either dry up or spillover. Misato spills,   “There's a book in the corner store about “Women Don’t Owe You Pretty.” and it feels good to hold in my hands but - when I look inside it’s just -” she shakes her head, a quick dismissive motion. “it speaks about beauty for yourself. the idea that I must be beautiful no matter what. but - it’s so, yuji, it’s so frustrating to even have to acknowledge beauty as a concept worth pursuing! i’m going to be categorized for my whole life and they - “

Yuji ‘hmms’ an encouragement, he loves her passion. He loves hearing her speak. 

A breath, “They say it’s empowerment. but it’s not like, it’s empowerment for a company . and the industry says “this is true beauty” when they advertise anti aging cream which - no issue with wearing makeup but the commercialization of “beauty” and the idea that makeup is what, like - that my value is an imposed thing - without it I'm.” the words; worthless, wasted, a child without parents is no good - a child without happiness is a wasted endeavor -  “I can't just - they won’t let us exist alone.” she says, lip bitten. 

She sighs, “I'm a half coin, completed by “love” or whatever that is.” 

They round the corner, a bend in the trail. Yuji maps out the way they’ve come in his head, a route they've been on so many times he has the steps memorized. They've come here in the dark - they've come here in the early morning. Watching bunnies hop from place to place, small thumps a warning, ‘danger, there's danger here.’ they say to the other bunnies - 

It's sweet. It's caring. 

“But, in essence, I realized that if men are not the cure - then I have no reason to make myself love them.” she shrugs, as if she hasn't just described something so bruising. 

==

Death, voids, kirby. 

“She reminds me of one of my old friends.'' Yuji says, he fears his voice will break if he says anything more, the weight of a dead body is somehow heavier when said aloud, even though the thought itself makes him buckle. 

A poor imitation of true pain.

[If he could describe it - he would say; my mouth feels like it's been torn open, trailing all the way down my chest. It ends at my thighs, my knees. I ache so deeply I think I'm on fire from the inside - and this is only sometimes. In other variants, it’s a phantom ache or a trauma so real.

He looks at the soccer uniform in his packed bag and mixes the images of salmon red and jinsang blonde. 

Two people merge and separate. Yuji feels lost.

He misses his home deeply, he misses his life before blood was tasted and bitter - before he turned into something destructive rather than creative.]

“hm, nobara?” Megumi asks, the tilt of a head. The wind is bad today, it whips around them like a beckoning call, it says ‘ why are you here, what have you done to deserve to be here?’

“yeah - they were both, I dunno. rounded.” he huffs, the words feel true - if only for the fact that it is Megumi and no one else. 

“norbara? rounded?” Megumi laughs, it's a soft thing - there's a very small, miniscule amount of humor behind it - 

“yeah - like, built up I guess.” he twists the next sentence in his head, wondering if it's alright to say it aloud,  “good people from, I dunno weird circumstances.” 

bad. He means bad. 

“What was the girl's name?” 

“Mistato.” Her name carries memories of ponds, of summer catching and releasing butterflies - the smell of bleach and a house too old to be lived in. two kids with the same twisted spine - two kids who despite it, managed to live past fifteen. “She was a middle blocker in my youth soccer team - had a mean kick. she’s the one who dyed my hair the first time.”

“So you're saying you weren’t born with pink hair?” Megumi asks, a joke - a sweet, sweet. 

[The sun is setting against the gravestone- it's empty underneath. Just a rock and a couple other rocks. There's millions of those around here, flowers popping up with the genuine intention of growth among a bunch of dead things. Yuji thinks Misato would have liked it, she probably still would - she moved away not long after he went to high school, left towards a city, a place, a life - he should call her, she’d probably laugh at him now. Norbara might have liked them too, her name has roses in it. flowers, a grave with no body - Yuji places dandelions next to the rock to spite her a little. 

He still hasn't seen the body, the option being to view or not - he chooses not . It is painful to see, it's something he isn't sure if he’s ready to confirm. 

They could be lying, he hopes they are.]

“y’know I don’t think you’ll actually die.'' Megumi says beside him. He's a quiet presence, something muted and soft - a radio in a car with the windows down, Megumi is the wind brushing his hair back. 

A hand touches his, Yuji, for a moment, worries if his hands are sweaty - concerned. It's silly because they've bled all over each other a million different times. Yuji thinks if he were less cursed he would have died from the mixing of their blood - pathogens, something biological, a disease of the body. They're probably just compatible, he thinks they are. 

Megumi continues, hand tightening around Yuji’s own, as if he’ll blow away in all this wind, “Like, they’ll try. I'm sure but - I don’t think they’ll succeed in any real manner. Everyone is too attached at this point - you're like a kirby or something.”

“kirby?” Yuji turns away from the grave, a false grave, a hopeful memorial. 

“consuming.”   Megumi finishes. 

==

Yuji will silently wonder when the hurt stops feeling like sand between his fingertips, when it crystallizes into something solid and tangible. when he can finally point towards it and say ‘look, look at what’s bruised me - look at it and please, please.’ 

understand. 

They have a long way to go, a group of people with no bindings - a thousand different wavelengths and backgrounds. there is a fragile world held in the glassy pearl, Yuji thinks it’s a terrible continuum. 

he’s done this before, he’s mourned. 

a sun lantern swings from a grave nearby - a gift left by a child, yellow with purple accents. Hope is not something to be seen, it isn’t made by shadows or prophecy - it is the single most unexplained, unplanned, unfounded thing in the timeline of this universe. 

but in the threads of the world Yuji can feel it, a delicate thing, so, so small. 

pulling each string, wind it around his pinky finger - tie a knot. a hand gripping his shoulder, a million little joys, a million unfounded yes’s - 

Yuji tightens his grip and pulls .