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Yuki bursts into the hospital room holding two plastic bags and a cardboard drink holder.
“Skirt steak for Aoi,” she says, “An assortment of chips for Maki, one large caffè mocha for Noritoshi, and a bottle of the cheapest bourbon I could find for our good doctor.”
“Nothing for yourself?” Todo asks.
Yuki shakes her head and smiles conspiratorially.
“Got a date later. We’re going to dinner.”
“Then you’ve got time to hold down the fort until you leave. Watch them for me, will you? I too have a hot date,” says Shoko as she takes off her lab coat and dons a tan trench coat.
“Wait—“ Yuki says, but it’s too late. Shoko is already out the door. Yuki sighs in disappointment. “I didn’t even get to ask what her type was!”
“I believe it’s older, brown-eyed, and dark-haired with a bow in her hair and a scar on her face,” Maki says with a smirk.
Todo gasps. “I have the perfect person for her! Our teacher at Kyoto High, Utahime Iori!”
Noritoshi represses a facepalm. “Todo, Shoko and Utahime-sensei have been dating for over six years.”
~
The three in the hospital are all assigned to rehabilitation for their various injuries.
One day after rehab, Todo decides to make a protein shake (for muscle building!) and offers some to his fellow sorcerers.
Noritoshi accepts a glass, mainly because the shake was made using chocolate protein powder and he loves chocolate almost as much as he does caffeine.
Maki takes one look at the glass in Todo’s outstretched hand and turns green. She’s warmed up to him in the past weeks and actually looks apologetic when she refuses the drink.
“Sorry—it’s just that I really hate protein powder. Like, I throw up if that shit goes in my mouth.”
Now, Noritoshi is not one to pry, but he’s actually interested in why Maki hates protein powder so he asks why.
“When I was a first year, Gojo-sensei had the idea that if I did as much as I could to become stronger and faster and better, I would be able to prove myself to the Zenin clan. He then put me on a meal plan that involved protein bars, shakes, and dry scoops daily. Shakes during all of my meals. Bars for snacks. Dry scoops before training. Gojo meant well, but by the end of the month I felt like my body would implode if I had one more grain of protein powder.”
Todo quickly takes the glass away from Maki and takes the protein powder tub on his table and hides it beneath his bed.
Maki watches him and laughs.
“It’s fine, Todo. It’s not like I’ll combust if I see it.”
“Just in case,” Todo replies, “I swallowed too many raw eggs once and was on the toilet for the next two hours.”
Todo has his own interesting way of communicating and caring for others, and in circumstances such as this, Noritoshi can’t help but feel a rush of affection for him.
Sometimes, it’s not even funny how much Noritoshi likes Todo Aoi.
~
“What is that ?”
Yuki laughs cantankerously as Todo snatches the locket from her outstretched hand and hides it behind his back.
“Nothing,” Todo says a little too quickly. Noritoshi raises an eyebrow in suspicion.
“Uh huh,” Noritoshi replies, unconvinced. He internally cringes. If only your grammar teacher could hear you now. She’d be ecstatic to see how much your vocabulary has developed, Noritoshi scolds himself.
“Really! It’s nothing!” Todo defends.
“Then show it to me,” Noritoshi counters.
“Because–um… because!” Todo looks at Yuki with betrayal written all over his face. “ Yuki, why’d you do that?” he whispers.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you in a while, Slugger! I found this by your unconscious body at Shibuya and it was wide open! I’ve missed a lot, haven’t I?” Yuki wiggles her eyebrows and grins like a Chesire cat.
“ Slugger ?” Maki asks from her bed.
“Sure thing. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories about when Aoi was a little boy and was already beefing with high schoolers–”
“Oh yeah!” Todo practically shouts. “There was this one time when–”
“Admirable attempt to change the subject,” Noritoshi says, effectively cutting Todo off. “Yuki, be a dear and retrieve the necklace for me, please.”
“ Wait– ”
“Sorry, hun,” Yuki apologizes and reaches behind Todo to grab the locket from his hand. “But not really.” She winks and Todo groans with the misery of a dying horse.
“Yukiiiiii…” Todo complains, but it’s too late. Yuki tosses the necklace to Noritoshi, who snatches it out of the air and pries it open.
Noritoshi’s eyes snap wide open upon viewing the locket’s contents.
“ Wow…this is …” Momentarily speechless, Noritoshi can only stare in surprise.
“--evidence of Aoi’s bisexual awakening? It appears so!” If Yuki laughs any harder, Noritoshi is sure that tears will start coming out of her eyes.
“No!” Todo protests. “That’s not what that means!”
“It sounds like you’d better start doing some explaining,” Maki suggests in a dry tone.
“Okay, well–” Todo starts “--okay–”
Noritoshi snaps out of his reverie and says, “I don’t think we’re all that shocked about the Takada-chan photo; I mean, we’ve all seen the shrine of her that you and Mai set up in the corner of the common room.”
Todo nods in agreement with all of Noritoshi’s statements. “All true facts. I actually think you all are making a bigger deal out of this than you need to–”
“--but I think we’re a little confused about the picture of Itadori Yuuji on the other side of the locket,” Noritoshi explains.
A single drop of sweat runs down Todo’s forehead.
“Hey, if you think we’re going to judge you or anything, you’re really stupid,” Maki says. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I will judge you if it turns out Itadori is your taste in men.”
“Is he your type?” Noritoshi asks, hoping he doesn’t feel knifed in the gut if Todo answers “yes.”
“Of course not!” Todo exclaims. “Itadori is my best friend and brother-from-another-mother! It would be absolutely absurd if I liked him in a romantic way,” he says definitively.
Noritoshi hopes his sigh of relief isn’t noticed by the others.
“If that’s the case, why are you so nervous right now?” Maki asks.
Todo frowns. “Because I knew the conversation would turn into this!”
“Specify what ‘this’ is for those that might or might not be confused right now,” Noritoshi says, using his fingers to mimic air quotes. “Not that I’m saying I’m confused,” he lies.
“‘This’ is a feelings conversation,” Todo says with a pout. “I don’t necessarily enjoy being interrogated about my love life.”
“So you acknowledge you have a love life?” Yuki asks. “Who is it? You’d better not say it’s that idol. She doesn’t count. Is it a girl? A guy?”
“No– well, hang on. It’s kind of…not really? A girl? But I don’t have a love life–”
“So you do or you don’t like men?” Yuki raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Because you started to say it’s not a girl, but it’s not a guy either because of your sad love life? Aoi, my adopted child, be clear and precise because I think Noritoshi is going to throw up from the vertigo of trying to keep up with this conversation.”
Noritoshi, who is currently overthinking all of Todo’s previous statements for reasons he’d rather not disclose, shakes his head.
“I don’t feel like throwing up,” he says to no one in particular. He looks down and realizes he’s been picking at the corner of Takada’s photo and that the paper has begun to detach and curl up.
Out of curiosity, Noritoshi carefully peels back the idol’s photo, which reveals another photo beneath it.
Huh?
“Hey, Todo,” Noritoshi says. Todo and Yuki stop bickering and Todo turns to Noritoshi.
“Yeah?” he asks. Does he sound…nervous?
Noritoshi bites the bullet and asks, point-blank, “Why is there a picture of me in your locket?”
Yuki’s jaw drops open and she looks at Noritoshi and then back at Todo. When she sees his beet-red ears, Yuki bursts out into laughter so hard she has to hold her stomach.
“ Oh shit ,” she says through tears, “ I think I pissed myself .” Still cackling, Yuki excuses herself from the room; Noritoshi can still hear her laughter from outside.
Maki snorts in amusement from across the room and mutters to herself, “ I fucking knew it .”
Yuki enters the room and appears more composed. She sits back down and takes a deep breath.
“So you do like dudes!” she exclaims.
“Well, I thought I didn’t,” Todo defends, “but then I met Noritoshi.”
Noritoshi’s face feels like it’s been stuck in a furnace.
Yuki looks at Noritoshi to gauge his response. “Wait, you didn’t know, Noritoshi?”
Noritoshi shakes his head.
“Oh my god.” Yuki sounds disappointed. “Aoi, is this why you said your love life is nonexistent? Because you haven’t asked him out yet?”
“I was waiting for the right time!” Todo says, turning frantically to Noritoshi. “I swear! And it’s totally fine if you don’t feel the same – I just kind of figured you wouldn’t want me to do it while you were high on hospital drugs since that’d kind of be like taking advantage of you and that’s a shit thing to do!”
Noritoshi can’t resist laughing. “Oh, Todo,” he says through chuckles, “you’re my type, you know that?”
“Really?” Todo asks in disbelief.
“Quite,” Noritoshi responds. “Do you, maybe, want to get bagels with me after we get discharged?”
Yuki shares a look with Maki that says “boys are so fucking stupid, aren’t they?”
“Leave it to anyone but my son to make the first move,” Yuki complains.
~
Todo makes his way down the corridor leading back to the hospital room from the locker room. His hair hangs loosely by his shoulders, the water dripping from the tips a clear indication of the shower he just took.
Todo hears hurried footsteps and turns the corner that leads him to the final stretch of the hallway before the hospital room.
Wham!
Noritoshi, who happened to be turning the same corner at that exact moment, stumbles, and several bags fall out of his hospital-issued bathrobe.
“ Shit! ” Todo grabs Noritoshi’s arm to stable the shorter boy.
“Ah, apologies, Todo,” Noritoshi says hurriedly. He pulls his arm from Todo’s grip and quickly bends down to collect the packets that had fallen on the floor.
The bags appear to be clear with dark liquid sloshing around inside. Judging from the white plastic labels on the sides and the viscosity of the liquid, Todo assumes the bags must hold blood.
“Hey, you’re not a vampire, are you?” Todo asks Noritoshi, who stuffs the last of the blood bags into his robe and gives Todo an incredulous look.
“I don’t believe so?”
“Why the blood, then?”
Noritoshi’s face grows panicked and he turns around, ready to bolt away.
“It’s not blood,” he says a bit too quickly.
“Sure it isn’t. What’s it for?”
“Nothing. Bye.” Noritoshi speed-walks away from Todo and disappears past a corner. Todo faintly hears the opening of the locker room door and turns around to follow Noritoshi.
With his ear pressed against the locker room door, Todo hears the sound of a shower running and heavy breathing. On his first instinct, Todo wants to keep the door closed and leave, since it’s probable that Noritoshi is… taking care of personal matters.
However, after a moment’s consideration, Todo rules that possibility out. Why would Noritoshi need six bags of blood for that?
A brief image of Noritoshi using Crimson Binding flashes through Todo’s mind.
I mean, it’s always the quiet ones that are freaky , his brain reasons.
Nope. No thanks . Todo doesn’t want to even consider that right now.
Todo ultimately decides to enter the locker room under the thought that Noritoshi has enough common sense to save his activities to somewhere with a door that locks, simply because Noritoshi probably has enough self-preservation to lock himself in a closet to take care of his male issues.
Like a thief in the night, Todo slowly pushes the door open and closes it with a quiet click! Light on his toes like he’s walking on glass, Todo uses one of the mirrors in the locker room to look for Noritoshi.
He can’t help but feel like a major creep, sneaking around like this, but Todo is already halfway through his locker room infiltration and thinks it’s a little too late to back out. It really isn’t, but Todo is far too invested in the situation now to stop.
There . Noritoshi is standing next to the line of sinks by the showers and is facing in Todo’s direction.
Noritoshi’s eyes are screwed shut in concentration and he draws in a deep breath as he raises his hands and moves them in fluid movements. Todo steps closer and notices the bloody puddle on the tiled floor. Little globs of blood rise and flow with Noritoshi’s movements, but a majority of the puddle remains on the floor.
Noritoshi opens his eyes after a minute and upon seeing the stagnant blood, curses and throws his hands down in frustration. He paces a few steps back-and-forth and then attempts to use Blood Manipulation again.
Noritoshi fails again. He curses louder and rubs his hands on his temples.
He tries again. Another fail. Noritoshi grips the edges of a sink and shouts, “ Son of a– ”
He stops and takes a deep breath. It’s extremely rare for someone to see Noritoshi lose his cool and even stranger to hear him resort to profanity.
Noritoshi looks extremely pissed the next time he attempts his cursed technique. Todo senses the waves of cursed energy emitting from him and notes the unusually bitter tone of the coffee bean scent of Noritoshi’s cursed energy.
This time, when Noritoshi raises his hands, not even a single drop of blood lifts off the ground. Noritoshi is shaking from effort and a bead of sweat trickles down his temple as his gaze remains laser-focused on the blood.
Nothing.
“ Fuck! ” Noritoshi screams, startling Todo from his hiding spot. Todo stumbles onto the floor and Noritoshi’s eyes snap to Todo.
Noritoshi looks deranged, his crazed look complete with his messy short hair sticking up in countless different directions and streaks of blood stretching across the right side of his face. His eyes are bloodshot and his skin appears void of color, making Noritoshi resemble a freshly-dead corpse.
At that moment, all Todo can think about is how much Noritoshi looks like a vampire from the American movie Twilight .
“ Oh –” Noritoshi says before clutching his heart and the bloody streaks on his face fade. In the few seconds it takes Todo to get back to his feet, the color starts to rush back into Noritoshi’s features.
“Noritoshi, are you a–”
“--I’m fine,” Noritoshi bristles. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”
Todo raises his eyebrows. “You don’t look fine. And to be honest, it’s not like you were trying very hard to keep me away.”
“I thought your genius IQ would’ve told you to stay away,” Noritoshi says with a frown. He turns his back to Todo and starts grabbing paper towels to soak up his blood on the floor.
“ I thought that Shoko told you to not use Blood Manipulation until you’re fully healed,” Todo replies.
“I’m fine .”
Todo almost scoffs in disbelief. “You call this ‘fine’?”
“Yes.” Noritoshi throws a thick wad of soiled paper towels into the trash.
“Is screaming explicatives and trying to tear all of the hair out of your head your definition of ‘ fine ’, Noritoshi?”
“ Yes. Can you leave? I’m busy.”
Todo kneels down and stills Noritoshi’s hands from ragefully scrubbing at the floor with towels.
“I remember a boy who used to cover his ears is horror when someone used the word ‘idiot’.”
Noritoshi looks up, annoyed.
“Things change. People change. Without change, there is no progress.”
“Is this about your family? Or is--”
“ I can’t use my goddamn technique! ”
“No, you can use it,” says Todo, “just not as powerfully as before.”
Noritoshi glares at Todo.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Noritoshi rolls his eyes.
“Listen, Noritoshi,” Todo states, “There’s a big difference between not being able to use it right and not being able to use it at all .” Todo waves his left arm at Noritoshi for added emphasis.
“My technique is finished. Gone . You could say it has ‘Boogie-Woogie’d’ away, but to be honest, my lack of cursed technique is a bit of a sore topic right now.”
Noritoshi winces and Todo suddenly feels a pang of guilt in his stomach. He hadn’t meant to make this whole situation about himself.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Todo goes to release Noritoshi’s hands, but Noritoshi grabs his hand right before they lose contact.
“Listen,” Noritoshi says after a beat, “I’m sorry. I hadn’t considered your feelings in regards to your technique.” Noritoshi’s usually expressionless face is genuinely regretful and downfallen. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.
Todo shakes his head. “My issue is completely my own fault and I must live with it. I just can’t bear the thought of you giving up when you’re only just starting again,” he admits.
“ It was so painful the first time ,” Noritoshi says in a morose tone. “The clan leaders pushed so hard and I don’t know if I can ever build up to where I was before; I mean, I look at you sometimes and wonder how you don’t resent Yuki for giving you that scar from her training.”
He makes a good point. After the training incident, Todo had packed a suitcase and snuck out of Yuki’s apartment with the intention of never coming back. After the second night away from home, Todo realized that the aching feeling in his chest was the result of him missing Yuki terribly. Yuki had found him the next morning and drove him back to their apartment on her motorcycle; Todo will never forget the quiet sigh of relief that she let out when she found him sleeping on a bench.
“She was the closest thing I had to a mother,” Todo tells Noritoshi. “She made mistakes but I think she did care for me in some strange way. Yuki is part of the reason I am who I am today, and for the most part, I’m happy with who I turned out to be.”
“The scar I got is pretty badass, too,” Todo adds with a wink.
Noritoshi’s frown fades into a small smile and Todo no longer feels the heavy weight of guilt resting in his stomach.
“I love my mother a lot, too,” says Noritoshi. Todo laughs and they resume cleaning up the rest of the blood.
“We should probably get back and replace those blood bags you stole before Shoko realizes they’re missing,” Todo advises.
“You’re right–”
The locker room door is thrown open with a bang! and a furious Shoko bursts in.
“ Noritoshi Kamo, you’d better run and hide if I find out you’re using Blood Manipulation in here! ” she calls out.
Todo grabs Noritoshi and drags them into a bathroom stall. He closes the door with a quiet click! and Noritoshi stands on top of the toilet seat so only Todo’s feet can be seen from outside. They wait with bated breath as Shoko makes her way through the locker room. Todo shifts so his body conceals Noritoshi behind him.
Shoko sees Todo’s feet and walks over to their stall. She knocks on the stall door and calls out, “Todo? You in there?”
“Yup!” Todo responds. Damn. He sounds too peppy to sound like himself.
“Whatcha doing in there?” she sounds suspicious.
“Um…” Todo quickly looks at Noritoshi behind him and the other boy mouths “pooping” back at him. “Pooping!”
“You sound awfully excited about that,” Shoko says.
“Well, you know…”
The stall door is suddenly wrenched open and Shoko tosses the broken door handle aside. The door hangs limply from one hinge, the bottom two hinges ripped off.
“Anyone else in here, Aoi?” she looks around with narrowed eyes.
“What the fu– I mean, I said I was pooping!” Todo covers the front of his pants as if he was caught with his fly down. Todo, of course, still has his pants on.
“With pants on? I don’t think so. Also, the food I gave you this morning shouldn’t have worked itself through your digestive track yet; your shit’s not due for another two hours.”
Right . Shoko is a doctor, a damn good one at that.
“I just– tried to poop? But then I realized it wasn’t going to come out so I pulled them back up,” Todo attempts to reason. He feels Noritoshi shaking from laughter behind him and resists the urge to shove Noritoshi off the toilet for laughing at his predicament.
“Is that so?”
“Absolutely,” Todo says with a grave voice. Shoko nods and backs out of the stall; Todo lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding in relief.
“Say, Todo, I didn’t realize you were hurt,” Shoko suddenly says. “Are you bleeding somewhere?”
Huh? “Huh?”
Shoko grins and her eyes gleam like the cat that got the cream. “You’ve got some blood on your hand.”
“Oh, that’s just from–”
“Save it,” she tells Todo. “Noritoshi, make sure to remind me to put iron supplement pills into your food. I don’t need you fainting from anemia the next time you pull a stunt like this.”
Noritoshi peeks out from behind Todo and Shoko raises an eyebrow at him. Noritoshi sighs in defeat.
“Yes, ma’am.”
~
[deleted scene from “it’s okay to get hurt, i’ll run to you (so i’ll run to you); takes place around the end of the story]
“Wow, these bitches gay,” Shoko wants to say. She doesn’t out of respect for Iori, since these are her students, and Iori is hot.
“Wow, I’m gay,” Shoko thinks.