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“This isn’t up for debate,” the shadowed man says, framed in darkness by his all black ensemble. Toge desperately searches his eyes for any sign of humor or respite but, of course, anything that would be useful to him is wrapped beneath a cruelly thick layer of fabric. “You’re no longer useful here.”
No.
He can’t say it- he can’t say anything. Cotton fills his mouth, dry and abrasive. He grips the handles of the chair and wills himself to speak up- to tell his mentor that he’s wrong, but the words won’t come. He scans the room desperately, looking for one of his friends to back him up, but all Toge sees are walls closing in around him.
“We’ve already packed up your things,” the tall man in front of him says, using the full length of his body to curl over the desk threateningly. “It’s time you left Jujutsu Tech. For good.”
Suddenly, Toge finds his feet glued to the floor. He can’t move a muscle, his body somehow replaced with something heavier than steel. When he finally manages to open his mouth, he can’t even find the scream to fill it. It doesn’t stop him from trying, though. He tries over and over and over till there’s no air left in the room.
And then he wakes up, coughing like he’s just gone toe-to-toe with a sentient special grade.
His body reacts like it’s been struck by lightning, a jolt charging through the lengths of his extremities and sending him flying upward. He tries to balance himself once he's upright, but in his half-lucid state he has tried to lean all his weight on an arm that isn’t there anymore. There’s a moment of blind panic- the all-consuming terror of free fall- as Toge's momentum carries him swiftly toward the floor. It's only at the very last possible second that a steady arm wraps around him and yanks him back up- Yuuta, from the dead of sleep, springing into action. He manages to stop Toge from toppling off the bed, but the save does nothing to stop his hacking, the fire roaring in his lungs and throat. Toge is sure that Yuuta must be able to feel every muscle of his chest convulsing beneath his palm as he fights to get a breath.
“Toge?” he whispers, frantic. Toge can do nothing but cough in response. “Toge, what can I- can I get something for you?”
Toge nods, not even able to manage an affirmative through the fit. He just couldn’t stop, not even for long enough to figure out the source of the wheezing. He barely even feels Yuuta lift him off the bed and place him on the ground- he’s too busy doubling over so he can cough again.
Yuuta dashes into the bathroom and comes back with a mad grab of syrups and cough drops in his hands, offering them to Toge with the widest of eyes. Toge takes a familiar spray bottle, but fumbles to get it working as his body thrashes. Yuuta has to hold both of his shoulders upright and steady for him to get a good spritz. He practically chokes on the liquid, but soon its familiar sting starts to settle in- a sting that at this point he knows as well as his own heartbeat. The relief is palpable but, unfortunately, only partial. He can still feel himself shaking in Yuuta’s arms.
“Just breathe, okay?” Yuuta says, careful to keep his voice as calm as possible. “Breathe.”
“Shake,” Toge relents, gasping for a breath. He can’t get the air in fast enough, his whole body rocking as he tries. Yuuta unwraps a cough drop and puts it in his hand, which he takes eagerly, mouth longing for the swallow of menthol burn. Gently, Yuuta reaches up and wipes something from Toge’s chin- blood, he realizes dimly. The copper taste is so familiar in Toge’s mouth that he hadn’t even noticed it.
“Are you okay?” Yuuta asks after a beat, clearly concerned. His body has relaxed, but only slightly. There had been a surge in his cursed energy when Toge had first woken him up, but it was slowly settling down. “What happened?”
Toge tries to wave him off, hoping to shake his head and dismiss the whole thing. He actually thinks he's about to get away with it, too, when suddenly he feels a tear streaming down his cheek. It was probably just out of surprise or from the effort of coughing, but Yuuta’s face twists into a worried frown nonetheless. Toge opens his mouth to explain, then closes it again in defeat. Another tear falls. This time, they both know why
“Hey, hey, hey- earmuffs,” Yuuta says, gently cupping his ears. “Earmuffs.”
That was their safe word, of sorts. An indicator that Yuuta would focus his cursed energy over his ears so none of Toge’s could get in. It meant Toge could say anything he wanted- could tell Yuuta to go jump off the roof with no consequence. There’s no one else he trusted to do this. Yuuta was the only one who had the focus and the cursed energy output to pull it off. Plus, if for any reason the words were to double back on Toge, nothing he would ever say to Yuuta could turn back on him badly. When you only have a limited number of words with your lover, you learn not to waste them.
“I… it...” Toge always stumbles over his words, frustrating himself endlessly. Even when he had words he couldn’t use them. “Just- just a nightmare,” he manages, shaking his head. Yuuta inches forward, closing the gap between them.
“You can tell me,” he says softly, blue eyes shining in the shadows.
“Gojo-sensei,” Toge starts, shuddering to even think of finishing the sentence. Another wayward tear runs down his face. “Expelled me from Jujutsu Tech. But it was- it was-”
“Just a dream,” Yuuta assures. “You know that, right?”
Does he? Right now, Toge isn’t sure. He keeps his face perfectly still, but the wet tears collect and land on his cheeks regardless. Even if it wasn’t real, it felt real, and the idea of never coming back to school, of leaving his friends… it was too much for Toge to handle, even in concept. Yuuta must sense that, because he reaches out his hands to Toge. “C'mere.”
Toge crawls into Yuuta’s lap and Yuuta pulls him in tightly with warm, lanky arms. Burying his face in Yuuta’s t-shirt, Toge reaches up and tugs at Yuuta’s ear, letting him know it’s safe to relax his cursed energy. Toge still isn’t sure how he feels, but he does know for sure that he’s done speaking for the night. Yuuta respects this, somehow managing to give him as much space as he needs while still holding him fiercely tight. How could someone be so strong and so gentle at the same time? Toge had fallen in love with a walking contradiction.
“He would never do that. You know that, right?” Yuuta says, tilting Toge’s chin up till their eyes meet. He hooks his hands behind Toge’s cheeks and frames them with his fingers, drawing their faces close together. “I’d kick his ass if he ever tried anything like that.”
Foolishly, he means it, which earns him a small peck on the lips. While their faces are still pressed together, Yuuta runs two of his fingers through a lock of Toge’s hair and whispers softly. “I mean, he’d probably use hollow purple to yeet me out of existence, but still. I’d do it.”
Toge can’t help but laugh. It’s coarse, half-stuck in his scratched-up throat, but it’s a laugh nonetheless. Yuuta grins back at him, pleased with himself and relieved to no end. Finally parting, Toge looks guiltily back at the bed. He hates that he’s woken Yuuta up like this, especially when he always has such trouble settling down to go to sleep in the first place.
“Don’t worry about it,” Yuuta says, keenly able to read Toge's mind after months dating. “It’s practically morning anyway. We should just stay up.”
“Takana,” Toge protests. Of course Yuuta would say that- sleep was a greater enemy to that boy than any curse had ever been.
“I know, I know, but hear me out,” Yuuta levels. “Don’t think of it as not sleeping, okay? Think of it as… nightmare-proofing the rest of our day, hm? It’ll be fun.”
Nightmare-proofing. Leave it to Yuuta to think of something so ridiculous and endearing. Toge is powerless to deny him, and the wicked smile that cracks across Yuuta’s face is beyond worth the price of a couple hours lost sleep. Honestly, Toge wasn’t even sure he wanted to go back to sleep after that. Maybe that’s what Yuuta had been anticipating when he’d proposed this.
Whatever the reasoning, Yuuta springs into action. He is undeniably a creature of the night, completely in his element as he flips the blinds open and glides through the shadows and beams of moonlight that dance around the room.
Toge barely even has to move a muscle- Yuuta is far too eager to create the perfect set-up. Barely able to process what’s happening, Toge simply raises his arms over his head as Yuuta pulls one of his own sweatshirts onto him snugly. It’s huge on Toge, obviously, but swimming in it is nearly as comfortable as being pulled into Yuuta’s arms. Carefully, Yuuta rolls up the left sleeve, just the way he knows Toge likes it now.
As his boyfriend disappears out of the room with a promise to return soon, Toge pulls the collar to his nose and takes a deep inhale. It smells like him- like amber and musk and grass-stains from sparring practice with Maki, the softest remnant of his sweat clinging stubbornly through the detergent. If Toge could bottle this smell, it would be dangerous. It would cover every inch of fabric he owned, would inhabit every particle of air he breathed in. He’d empty his bank account gladly to keep a constant supply of it. Of course, he wouldn’t have to- not while he had the real thing so close by.
Yuuta comes back with steaming cups of tea in both hands and a fuzzy blanket from the common room thrown over his shoulder. He leaves the tea on the windowsill and wraps the blanket as tightly around them as he possibly can. He does it with such care and precision that Toge briefly imagines them as the fillings of an onigiri getting tucked away, ready to be cutely placed inside the bento box of someone you loved very much.
“Are you warm enough?” he asks, as if there’s any possible answer but yes after having layers piled on top of him, plus the bed sheets beneath him. Toge tilts his head wryly, and Yuuta laughs, a glint forming in his eyes as he understands Toge’s meaning. “Okay, okay. If it gets too cold, just let me know, ‘kay?”
He reaches forward and jostles the creaky window open, letting the cool night air in. The piping hot teas get wispy, steam floating in the air towards their faces.
The freezing air is the balm Toge’s throat never knew it needed. He drinks it in hungrily, filling his lungs to the brim and breathing out without even the faintest of hitches. Yuuta seems to be breathing a little easier now as well, making a big show of fogging his breath against the cold. He looks so happy, so alive- giddy to have reclaimed their time from the grips of sleep. Maybe Toge should stay up with him more often.
“It’s so beautiful here,” he tells Toge, marveling. He’s not wrong; the campus at Jujutsu Tech was a sprawling expanse of traditional architecture and wide open fields, broken up by tucked away pathways that they could spend hours mapping and never quite understand. It was practically another universe, one that simultaneously belonged to only them and to no one at all. And at night, with only the barest promise of horizon peaking up to cast a glow on it, it has transformed into something mystical and breathtakingly new to Toge all over again.
“Shake,” he confirms, really meaning it. Yuuta smiles.
“Isn’t it funny?” he asks. “How quickly this place started to feel like home?”
Toge nods. He’s never felt safer or more accepted any where else, and he knows that must be true of Yuuta as well- a couple of outcasts that found a place to belong.
“You’re a big part of that,” Yuuta whispers. “It feels like home… because of you.”
There’s a million things Toge could say to that, a million things he wants to say, but there's only one he's willing to risk it for. So he reaches up to cup his fingers around Yuuta's right ear- their secret code.
"Earmuffs," Yuuta affirms, a smirk on his face as his cursed energy begins to surge.
And within a second, Toge can tell Yuuta exactly how much he loves him.