Chapter Text
This is a twisted story.
“Maki-san, you locked the door on me. How am I supposed to get inside? You know who it is, right? It’s me, Yuta!”
“Who?”
“I’ve only been gone a few months, there’s no way you forgot. You got the texts I sent you, right? I know the reason you didn’t respond was because you were thinking hard about the answer.”
Warning. Warning. Warning. Her room was under siege by a stalker. He’d been pounding on the door for minutes. Why hadn’t he thought to try her cell phone?
Alert! Alert! Her cell phone started to ring. “My Cutie Honey” was calling her. Which meant Yuta took her phone at one point changed his name in her contact list. She hit the end call button, then checked her messages.
She only had two non-work related numbers on her phone, “Mai” and “My Cutie Honey.” Her last exchange with Mai read:
Mai: hyd?
Maki: fine.
“My Cutie Honey” messaged her countless times while overseas. Maki read every single message, but when it came time to reply she never wrote back. She just didn’t understand Yuta.
Why her?
“Shoko said you kicked her out of her room before she could apply the anti-bacterial ointment to your burns. There’s no need to get embarrassed! I like scars on a woman! Not that I’m thinking about other women!”
Caution. Caution. When Maki caught sight of herself in the mirror, she’d just wanted to be left alone. She wasn’t bothered by scars because she thought they were “ugly.”
People say scars are proof you survived. That’s a pretty lie.
Scars are just scars.
Scars were just scars.
Injuries. Burns. Lacerations.
Damage.
Everyone could see her defeat now, it was written all over her body. Poor, pitiable Maki. Don’t grow up to be like her. People say scars are proof you’ve survived, but what doesn’t kill you just wears you down slowly.
“If you’re embarrassed about me seeing you with your shirt off, then I’ll take my shirt off too so we can be even!”
PoIlice, police. I’m calling the police. Maki opened the door a crack. “Did Shoko ask you to bring my leash because I’ve been a bad girl at the vet?”
Opening the door was a mistake. He had soft, smooth hair, and dark eyes peeping out from behind long bangs. Girlishly long eyelashes and a pointed chin. He smiled at her for reasons she did not understand.
“Don’t be silly, if anything Maki-san is the one holding my leash.”
That’s right, that’s Yuta.
Maki realized he came back to her from overseas having grown about the same height as her.
A subtle shiver ran up her spine, and she couldn’t give voice to the feeling, but Yuta acquired a connotation of something vague that felt like it should be called “masculine”.
Mayday. Mayday. Her danger senses were on full alert.
Maki was a lot of things to a lot of different people. To Nobara, a respected senpai. To Gojo, a student with potential. To the Zen’in, someone despicable. There’s only one person who knows the truth.
She was just a brat.
Maki didn’t want to admit she needed help, so she threw Shoko out. That was all. If she didn’t rub it in her wounds her burns might get infected. Pride wasn’t worth dying over.
“Fine, just don’t be weird."
02
Maki stripped off her shirt and crossed her arms in front of her chest, showing Yuta her back.
The scars and wounds that patterned her body were new. Violence left its markon her, in hard, jagged fissures across her body. She resembled a chrysalis cracking apart, so the woman who she truly was could emerge.
Maki cleared her throat. Yuta had indulged in his fascination with her scars for too long.
Was he being weird?
No, admiring Maki just meant he had good taste.
He dipped his fingers in ointment, and started rubbing circles in a scar underneath her shoulder blade. “If it hurts, let me know.”
“...I’ll slug you one if it hurts, how about that?”
Fingertips brushed against her callused, hardened skin.
He thought of butterflies. In order to remake itself, a butterfly destroys their own body first. Within the chrysallis, the larva melts. While it suffers pain in the short term, it will eventually grow wings.
However, he wondered, do the wings already exist in the hairless caterpillar?
His fingers traced the hills and valleys of her exquisitely carved back muscles. Beneath those fingers, he wondered if Maki hid tiny wings beneath her skin.
Yuta’s dragged his hands down her back, to where her hips dipped, and then crossed both arms in front of her waist, embracing her from behind. She didn’t throw him off, but she didn’t acknowledge him either.
Maki wanted to grow wings, and Yuta wanted her. They both couldn’t have what they wanted.
Unlike him, she was talented, sincere, and soft-hearted…
She’s dazzling.
He didn’t want to stop at admiring her, he wanted to defile her. He wanted to put his hands on her. For Yuta who’d experienced nothing but miserable isolation, to his embittered, apathetic self Maki was especially dazzling.
Every since meeting her, he knew it was impossible to return to his previous being. Maki made him afraid of being alone, again.
He cocooned himself around her, wanting to trap her there, wet, sticky, and with him. One year between them and nothing about their relationship changed, and he didn’t want it to change.
“You’re heavy,” Maki complained.
“If it hurts, the feel free to slug me.”
“Asshole.”
If such a thing as the red string of fate existed, he’d tie it around both of their necks. Love’s strangulation made him unable to breathe without her. Love is a twisted curse. It’s not just love that’s twisted, it’s the world. The second they stepped out of the room they’d be expected to fight and die for someone else, and they’d never get to grow up and let love mature. It’s not just the world that’s twisted, it’s the people too. In this room neither of them could speak their true feelings.
Yuta thought it was pleasant. More, more, let it be more twisted, in public and private, in day and night, reality and fantasy, let his and Maki’s existences intermingle never to be separated again.
This is a twisted story.
A story of twisted love.
03
Due to a change of plans, Mai went to the Zen’in with Megumi which left Maki alone with Yuta.
The trip to Hakari’s fighting club took longer than Yuta anticipated, and every extra second Maki simmered with impatience. “Have you thought about what we’re going to say, yet? If he says no, the two of us can take him.”
They discussed the next step at the entry way to the parking garage. Yuta scratched an itch at the back of his neck, “Have you ever thought about asking nicely, before you throw a punch?”
Maki looked at him with the disgust usually reserved for roadkill. “Never. Not even once.”
A lone guard stood at the entryway. He read a thin paperback book. What was the title? Fight Club? Yuta noticed he held it upside down as he read it. Maybe, he was one of those dim-witted thugs.
Whoever he was, he certainly dressed like a guy who’d offer to take his shirt off to show you the tattoos on his back. He wore a custom-tailored white suit jacket and pants which accentuated his sharp angles. Underneath, a sleek leapord print vest, and an orange tie tied tight around the popped collar of a black dress-up shirt.
Maki walked right up to him, “We need money, so let us join the fights.”
The guard lowered his book, and reached into his pocket with his other hand. He pulled out his wallet, “I can give you all the money I have on me, if you don’t have a place to stay there’s a homeless shelter nearby…”
A two-bit thug with a heart of gold!
“The first rule of fight club is… well, you’ve seen the movie.”
“I haven’t.”
“Really? It’s a thoughtful take on the destructive force of toxic masculinity and male entitlement… wait, I mean you’re not supposed to know about the club. Who told!?”
“I didn’t get his name before I killed him. It was about a month ago. Remember that scumbag who was full of it?”
Maki was just talking tough, something she was good at, and Yuta was terrible at. “You mean, Kondo?” Maybe it was the height, or the way he dressed, but Yuta expected him to have one of those silent, carved-out-of-stone faces. That stone cracked, and his eyes watered. Maybe Kondo wasn’t the nicest guy, but his wife was finally going to let him see his son for the first time in years.”
Yuta watched a fully grown made blow his nose on the sleeve of his one hundred thousand yen suit.
“Stop, stop! We’re just kidding! Honda’s fine!” Yuta pushed past Maki, “Hakari was our precious senpai in high school. We promised we’d keep touch after he graduated. Could you take us to see him?”
Maki liked to communicate in grunts and threats, but Yuta thought he’d gotten good at reading her. At the moment her eyes said, “That’s never going to work you idiot!”
“Why didn’t you say so? The boss’ll be so happy to see his friends again.” This guy was overwhelmingly, alarmingly, sincere. Yuta felt like he just conned a primary schooler out of their allowance money. “Oh, but you can’t go dressed like that.”
The boss and boss lady are on a date and the place is real fancy, he explained.
He took them to the boss’s living quarters, where expensive clothing hung off of two long racks. Yuta panicked at the thought of changing right in front of Maki, but when he glanced at her she was already unbuttoning her shirt.
It’s not like he’s seen Maki’s body enough times to get used to it, but it really did hit him like a punch to the jaw. The cracks in her form gave her body the appearance of one of those greek statues with missing limbs, perfect in its imperfection. She wore the wear and tear of everything she endured well.
Yuta saw the way her back muscles worked, her skin barely keeping her inside as she pulled the shirt off and over her head.
He watched her select a suit and tie off the rack, and it sparked an idea in his mind. He selected something different, and the two of them checked themselves in a full length mirror after they finished dressing.
Maki wore a form fitting blakc suit jacket, high wasted black slacks, black leather gloves, and loafers. She tilted her head, considering, and then unbuttoned her jacket, loosened her tie, and rolled her sleeves up to her elbow.
To match her, Yuta dressed himself in a white short-sleeved dress, with a black long-sleeved undershirt, black stockings, black heels, and a black belt hanging loose around his waist.
He dreamed of wearing white on his wedding day, just like this!
When Yuta spent too much time fixing his hair in the mirror, Maki dragged him away. After, they rode to Hakari’s destination in the back seat of an expensive looking foreign vehicle.
When they arrived, Yakuza-guy opened the door for them. Maki stepped out first. When Yuta followed her, he stumbled on his heels and fell back towards the curb. Maki caught him, wrapped an arm around his back and held him there.
Maki lingered, her green eyes vacant as her gaze lingered on him, “...Yuta.”
“Hm? Yeah? Yes?”
Maki dropped him right there on the sidewalk. It wasn’t a long fall, but Yuta felt guilty for getting the dress dirty.
The door swung open, as Yuta descended the stairs his feet were enveloped in a white cloud of cigarette smoke. He could faintly hear jazz music coming from the bar. The inside was as cramped as a shoe box and quiet. A counter, barstools, and various brands of bottled liquor lined the wall.
Every piece that contributed to the bar’s ambiance was quiet and intimate. It was a space created for spending time alone with someone in secret. A love rendezvous for two people sitting at the bar, a dark-skinned man with pink hair and threaded eyebrows, and a girl with pink highlights and lip piercings sitting at his side.
“Yo, Shigema.”
Hakari waved at their drive. Shigema threw Hakari a brown paper bag. What kind of contraband was it? Drugs? A gun? Hakari pulled a Mcdonalds hamburger out of the bag.
“Kin-chan, why did you blow all your money renting this bar out for date night, if we’re going to eat Mcondalds.”
“Atmosphere, babe!” Yuta knew Hakari did everything with a larger than life swagger, “And the last time I tried to take you to Mcondalds, you started a fist fight with me in the parking lot.”
“I finished that fight.” She threw a fake punch, bopping his cheek.
Shigema jumped the bar, and started pulling alcohol off the shelves. “I’ve been practicing my bartending. When one of you looks sad I’m going to say want a light, then offer you a cigarette and an empathic nod of my head.”
He slid a drink to Hakari from across the bar. Yuta wondered why he hadn’t noticed them so far, but then he saw Hakari’s eyes on Kirara like she was the first star he saw in the night sky.
Maybe, she was the one for him.
The one girl that Hakari dated for more than a month.
Maki rolled her eyes, “I can’t believe these guys were ever our senpai.”
“Hakari, Lio and Kirara remind me of the cursed classroom.”
“Hm?”
“Gojo-sensei told me about it. Him, his best friend Geto, and Shoko were so talented they were called the generation of blessings. Their three upperclassmen all deserted the school, so a rumor spread that they belonged to a cursed classroom.”
“You’re not eating your Mcdonalds babe, is there something wrong?” Hakari followed Kirara’s eyes and finally noticed them. He cocked his head to the side. “Oh, apparently this is a double date.”
If Maki was hiding secret feelings for Yuta, this would be the time she viciously denied that it wasn’t a date while blushing, but she just met Hakari’s eyes with her cool seafoam gaze. “Yo, shitty-senpai. We need to talk.”
Hakari waved her off, “Mommy and Daddy are busy making love.”
“We wanted to talk to you about a fight.”
Hakari’s eyes immediately lit up like those pachinko machines when they hit the jackpot, “You looking to join my fight club?”
“Take part in your fake-as-shit pro-wrestling league? No thanks.”
“Pro-wrestling isn’t fake! Shigema nearly dropped the glass he was polishing,“The matches here aren’t fake either. It’s just sometimes Hakari asks me to let my opponent win, because they’re having a bad day.”
“The fight I’m talking about is the culling games that opened up in Tokyo,” Maki explained the rest.
He looked genuinely upset at hearing Gojo’s sealing, but then he attempted a poker face.“Neither of you have anything I want. I needed a strong piece on the board, but I found it.”
“Are you talking about me? It’s me, right?” Shigema said. “Hakari’s my agent, he gave me a great rate. He only takes seventy-five percent of what I earn and I get to keep the rest.”
“Besides, I don’t like the look of you right now, Maki, the sparks gone out of your eyes.” Maki recently survived being burnt alive, what was left of her was smouldering.
“Kin-chan, don’t bully her.”
“Since when do you ask other people for help, Maki?” Hakari said, with the all-knowing grin of someone who held all the cards in his hands, “Maki never bends or breaks. The Maki I knew would have threatened to break my legs and drag me into the culling game.”
“Oh get over yourself. We don’t need you that badly.”
“Sounds to me like you do. After all, the great Maki stepped down from her high horse to look me in the eye to ask me for a favor.”
“Alright, fine. Yuta, let’s break his legs.”
Before anything could start, Hakari held up a hand commanding the action to pause. “Not a great idea, you’re outnumbered three to two. You obviously didn’t come here dressed for a fight either.”
“Hey!” Kirara noticed what Yuta was wearing, “That’s my dress!”
“Oh, sorry.” Yuta was distracted thinking, how he’d much rather be going on a double date than a fight.
“No worries, it looks good on you!”
“If you want a fight, I’ve got an idea.” Hakari began talking faster than anyone could keep up with, and Kirara watched mesmerized by the hyperactive pink man, “We’re having a tournament for the next three days. Find two more friends and I’ll rewrite the tournament bracket, four of your guys versus four of mine.”
“Why would we do that? We’re about to go risk our lives in a few days anyway, we don’t need to risk getting injured beforehand.”
“What’s with those burns? It looks like you kissed the fire and you didn’t like its taste,” Kirara kept harping on Maki’s injuries.
“Oh, suddenly, you’re a poet?”
“Since when have you been afraid of a fight?” That made Maki freeze. Hakari was right about one thing, despite the scars that now ravaged her body, Yuta found Maki to be oddly cold. “You’ve never been afraid to die… no wait, it ain’t dying… it’s something else and you don’t know what it is - and that’s scary too. How about you come fight in my tournament and find out?”
For a moment, she almost looked tempted. Then she shook her head. “This is a stupid waste of time.”
“So is life, and then you die.”
“You’re really running a fighting club to make money you’re going to waste on a pachinko machine while the world is about to end around us, and you’re gonna lecture me?”
“Y’know Maki. You’ve been just as burned by the upper higher-ups as me, but you still follow their rules. Why is that?” He snapped his fingers to order Shigema to pour him a drink, and then slid it to Maki from across the counter.
Maki stared at the glass. “I can’t, I’m underage.”
“Don’t you know that part of growing up is drinking while still underaged, getting into fights you can’t win, and sneaking out to go somewhere you’re not supposed to go?”
Maki picked up the glass and tried it, only to immediately gag at the strong taste and spit it right in Yuta’s face.
“Maybe if you’d broken the rules a little earlier you wouldn’t be so wet behind the ears.” Hakari said as he observed her, before kicking out a barstool in their direction. “Come sit down, we’ll iron out the details of the tournament. You come too, Yuta. We’ll make it a double date.”
“So this is a date?”
“Yuta, were you even listening?” Maki snapped at him.
04
This is a twisted story.
She placed the piercing needle on the inside of his lips, pinched his lips between her thumb and forefinger, then pushed through the first layer of muscle. Then slipped the silver ring onto the end of her needle and threaded it through the hole.
Choso licked the inside of his lips, tasting metal. She removed her fingers from the inside of his mouth and brought them to the corner of her own lips as she watched him. He sat on a bathroom counter, while she leaned over him.
Choso turned to see himself in the mirror. Four silver rings in each ear, one on his lip, nine piercings for nine brothers. He asked Mimiko for help with his piercings.
They met when they were both under Kenjaku’s thumb, traveling to a small village together in search of the body of Noranso. They were barely more than acquaintances and yet…
Looking at her, he thought: How stupid. Her following me around like that makes me feel embarrassed at best. It makes me sick.
For Choso there were only two types of people: his family, and strangers. Strangers would always find some way to reject Choso in his brothers. The fear he felt was like a hole in his stomach, leaking acid to his internal organs, but he had to let go of insignificant personal feelings.
When they walked all the way here from Tokyo, Choso noticed the countryside was oblivious to the curses unleashed in Tokyo. Just like always, everyone walked in whatever direction they pleased. They all had somewhere to go, somewhere to meet, and a home to return to.
That was the world that humans lived in.
That was the world that Choso wanted to live in with his brothers. That was the world that his brothers were supposed to belong to, where they’d each walk the streets however they pleased.
Choso wondered where they were now. Were the kids somewhere peaceful? Or had they become curses to wander the world of the living?
Just like Yuji… and him.
Choso touched one of his piercings.
He felt the strong urge to create holes in his body, which is why he got those piercings.
“--”
For some reason, he took a moment to glance at Mimiko’s face, a sensitive girl who always followed around in her sister’s shadow - that was Mimiko.
He shook his head. The only people who were obligated to care about him were his brothers by blood. They were what tied him to the world. His brothers were a part of his body, like a limb, or an organ, so when they died it was like they had been ripped from him. He was missing something vital now. He was mortally wounded, but still, he refused to let the wound heal.
He would keep bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. He’d suffer the pain of losing them forever.
They trekked all the way to Sendai and ended up in the residence of Wasuke Itadori. Yuji lived in this small flat with his grandfather for most of his life. In the corner of the room, a small shrine was set up with a portrait of Wasuke at a younger age.
He looked like Yuji, with a more severe expression. Next to him, Mimiko lit the incense sticks. Then she showed him how to clap his hands together.
“I don’t get this.” Choso started to applaud. “Why do this?”
“...talking to dead people.”
“You can hear dead people’s voices?”
She nodded, “...all the time.”
Choso wondered if he was a failure of a curse if he found a human this unnerving.
“...wasuke-san thank you for raising yu-”
“Louder.”
“WASUKE-SAN THANK YOU FOR RAISING YUJI! I’LL MAKE SURE HE GROWS INTO A RESPECTABLE ADULT!”
“...college fund.”
“You’re right, I need money to be able to send him to college. Where do people get money?”
“...get a job.”
The noise Choso was making attracted Yuji, the third member of their group.
When Mimiko and Nanako arrived to Tengen’s gathering, they brought with them a change of plans. Yuta, Maki, plus the three of them left to recruit Hakari. Before they joined the others, Choso asked Yuji to bring him here to pursue a lead on Kenjaku.
Which is how all three of them ended up rifling through his grandfather’s personal belongings.
.Mimiko raised two small photographs in her hand. Choso recognized them, they were blurry photos taken from a distance, probably with Nanako’s cell phone of both Eso and Kechizu. They were probably taken during the time period aloof Noritoshi’s allies lived in Dagan’s domain together.
He tore them from her hand. “Don’t pretend to care about my brothers.”
Choso felt so soft. There was no need to shatter Mimiko like that, but he couldn’t be soft. “You have your family so stay away from mine.”
Choso laid each of the printed photographs in front of the portrait of Wasuke. It was then Yuji looked up from the box of his grandfather’s belongings. “You’re not supposed to touch someone else’s family shrine.”
Choso pointed to himself. “He’s my grandfather too.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Grandfather, please help me. He’s a little bit tough to handle now that he’s in his rebellious phase.”
Yuji snatched up the photographs of Eso and Kechizu. He tore them in half, letting them fall. “Don’t pretend to be my friend or family. I don’t want to play house with a curse.”
Yuji’s eyes shone with the intensity of a wolf who’d spotted something limping and injured. He may be a boy, but like a wolf, he snarled, scratched, and snapped his teeth, and he was hungrier than any wild beat. He devoured curse after curse mindlessly for the past few days.
As much as he desperately wanted to believe his brother had some small affection for him, part of him knew the only reason Choso had been spared so far was that he wasn’t a threat.
“Fushiguro needs us. He’s the one who saved me, so I gotta save him back.” Yuji overturned the box, spilling its contents on the floor.
All of that was true, Choso hadn’t been the one to save Yuji.
He’d done nothing to protect Yuji. So he had to accept everything Yuji said.
Truthfully, Choso was still a wimp. He hadn't completely thrown away his “self” from back before his brothers died. The boy who believed just being a kind older brother was enough. That was why hearing Yuji’s words still brought him pain.
Suffering must have been programmed into the human half of his DNA. Being human was struggling, hesitating, and suffering. That was why he could not afford to be human.
A curse.
He had to be a curse.
He already killed indiscriminately in Shibuya, just like a curse would. If that wasn’t enough to overcome his weakness, then he would just have to kill again soon.
He decided to start by killing his own heart. Once his heart was gone, and he’d drained himself of all the blood in his veins, he’d lose the last thing that made him human and he could put his empty self to his best use.
He could never be human, but he could curse Yuji’s enemies.
Choso knew if he said anything more it would needlessly agitate Yuji, so he helped sort through the rest of the photographs in silence. He saw a small picture of a fat-cheeked young Yuji dressed up for Halloween in a tiger Kigurumi, and when Yuji wasn’t looking slipped it into his pocket. He did the same for the next picture of a small Yuji he found, and again until half the album was missing.
Yuji found a birth certificate at the bottom of the box. “The names on this birth certificate are Kaori and Jin Itadori.”
Mimiko fished out a photo of a man who looked like Yuji but with softer features and glasses, holding a baby in his arms. Choso would need to steal it from her later to add to his collection.
“Who’s that ugly baby?” Yuji said, snatching it from her. “Gramps told me that my father left right after I was born.”
Choso shuffled through some old newspaper clippings stuffed in the box before he found one with a name he recognized. “This is an obituary for June 20th, 1992 for a woman named Kaori Itadori.”
“That date can’t be right. I was born March 20th, 1992 and Kaori’s name is on my birth certificate.” Now that he had found a thread, he pulled on it and began to search more seriously through the pile, until he stumbled on a handwritten letter.
“Dear father, I’m terrified of the child Kaori gave birth to. I feel like some disaster is going to happen to our family soon. Still, I’m sure that child will survive. He’ll be the only one. Why was that child even born? Is he really even ours…? No, I know. I’m sorry. Whenever I hold Yuji in my arms I don’t know who this child is or who he belongs to. It feels like I’m holding a stone rather than an infant. Sometimes I feel tempted to drop him.”
Yuji finished reading and then moved on to the next letter.
“Dear father, Kaori told me today she had a child from a previous marriage who would be moving in with us. I asked her how she could have possibly not told me she had a child with another man before we got married, but she said she was forbidden from seeing the child and it made her too sad to think about. I love Kaori too much to stay mad at her, even when I know she’s lying to me. I wish I could love Yuji in the same way, because he’s supposed to be the product of mine and Kaori’s love for each other.”
Next letter.
“Dear father, the child moved in with us. I’m scared. I’m scared. This child frightens me more than Yuji. No matter how hard I try I can’t see him as a child. His being a gifted and intelligent young man should make me proud, but it doesn’t. It’s wrong. He doesn’t make sacrifices. All he does is try to help out around the house, he does chores around the neighborhood, and he’s everyone’s darling. At first, I thought he had too much kindness, that he was defective. But he’s not even that. He doesn’t see the rest of us as human, I’m sure of that. He finds us cute and he’s taking care of us like we were dogs or kittens. He's fooling us all into thinking he's kind when he really pities us. I can't believe either he or Yuji are really children. I’d have easier accepting it if you told me there were still fairies and we’d been settled with a pair of changelings.”
Next letter.
“Dear Father, today I snuck into Yuji’s room in the middle of the night. A small living creature was asleep in its crib. Like a laboratory animal in its cage. Taking care not to prick my finger, I lifted an ice pick from my pocket. I closed my right hand around the handle, and gently drew back the baby’s blanket with my left. This exposed Yuji’s neck and upper chest, whiter and softer even than the bread that Kaori makes me. The tip of the ice pick was quivering slightly. Gripping the ice pick tightly to minimize the trembling, I placed the point of it next to the baby’s cheek. The baby’s lips moved almost imperceptibly. Those lips were so small they didn’t even look like lips. More like larvae, or chrysalis that might unfold into an insect with beautiful wings. Father, I’m thinking of stabbing my own baby. I know how this must sound, but living with Kaori’s child from a previous marriage, and my son has convinced me. Yuji is no child of ours. He’s nobody. Nothing. Just a phenomenon that slipped in from some other world. We just got it into our hands that he was our son and named him. There was never a child called Yuji, just a flat expanse with some unintelligible scribbles on it… isn’t that right?”’
Yuji finally reached the last letter. “Father, I’ve decided to murder my two children. If they leave corpses behind, then I’ll know they were human and I was wrong. If I’m right then they’ll disappear, and I’ll have freed me and Kaori from this curse.”
Choso’s hands went to Yuji’s shoulders and tried to hold him steady. “Brother, listen. Your father and my mother were manipulated by the same man. He raped your father and gave birth to you only to use you-”
“Shut up!”
Yuji pushed Choso away. His hands went to cover his face like he was hiding from some shame and disturbed eyes peered out from the spaces between his fingers. He got to his feet and backed away like Choso was a monster he was trapped in the same room with, and in his panic, he backed into the shelf where his grandfather’s shrine was set up.
His father’s framed portrait fell, the glass shattering when it hit the ground.
“I’m normal… I was born to a mother and a father.”
His grandfather’s face which was so much like Yuji’s had a crack running through the center.
“We’re going to figure out the truth-”
“I don’t care! My only job is to help Fushiguro unseal Gojo, and then I can die a normal death! I don’t care what happens after that!”
Yuji stormed out of the room.
Choso knew his mother cursed that he was ever born, but he was at peace with it because that was his father’s crime, not his. He’d never truly hated himself until this point. Until he saw the utter loathing Yuji had for him.
This was why he needed to destroy whatever humanity was left within himself. Choso looked at his own human hands, if only he had a more monstrous appearance like Eso and Kechizu. If only he were something twisted and misshapen like Mahito.
Still, his heart hurt a little bit watching Yuji run away from him.
When he tried to go after him, he felt a small tug on his sleeve. He looked back and saw Mimiko clinging to him. “Umm, he, uhhh… h-he…”Mimiko, that stuttering, shy girl, tried to pronounce her words, “H-he doesn’t like you.”
“Of course, he doesn’t. No one would be happy to find out their big brother was a murderer.”
“I… l-like you.”
“No you don’t.” There was no need to hurt her like that. Tearing her apart verbally brought him no pleasure, only shame. “Why… you’re not my family or my friend, so why bother following me around?”
On top of that, he decided to needlessly interrogate her.
“You look lonely.”
A girl who could never meet his eyes, and always hid herself in away in someone else’s shadow, read him as clear as day. He had no feelings toward people who weren’t his family, but suddenly he wanted to tell her off. “You don’t know what loneliness is. You think loneliness is just not having a family or anyone to talk to.”
He elbowed her hard to force her to let go of his sleeve not caring if she got hurt. If he left a bruise that was even better, then maybe she’d learn how a curse dirties everything it touches.
“True loneliness is a star at the edge of the universe, surrounded by space and nothingness. Unable to be seen by someone or be approached by another. The silence would simply continue for eons. Could you even imagine it? No one could… except for Yuji. The only one who can understand that star is another twin star.”
At that moment, Choso gently smiled and closed his eyes. He wasn’t speaking like some curse. His voice was filled only with sadness, grief, and a faint, naive dream - all appropriate for a young man his age. “Sooner or later Yuji’s going to realize, that the only one who can save him from his loneliness is me, someone just as lonely. Then we’ll go on a journey together as brothers.”
Mimiko tilted her head back slightly and fixed Choso with a piercing gaze. “And his friends?”
Choso’s smile disappeared. A few slow moments passed as a different kind of smirk twisted his lips like a black flower blooming - a most unpleasant smile.
“Well, he doesn’t need his old friends anymore, does he? Not when he has his brother.”
Choso sought in his brother, the kind of close family kinship that he was lacking. That grew over time to eclipse the standard bounds of familial love into a twisted one-sided mockery of love.
That was why Yuji’s intention to die for his friend Megumi and seal away Sukuna brought no pity from Choso, but jealousy. Rather than returning the love Choso showed to him, Yuji gave his love away to his friends and sorcerers instead who only used him.
He was just too young to understand. That was why he needed his brother. Choso would save him from his friends and Jujutsu High, and when they were far away from the people who were polluting Yuji’s mind, he was sure Yuji would understand.
They were tied together with a string dripping red with blood. Blood was the one thing you could never escape from, there was no changing the parents and siblings you were born to. No matter how twisted ties of blood became, they never broke.
This is a twisted story. A twisted love story.
05
Maki turned the key in the door of the hotel room Hakari gave them to stay for the night.
Needless to say, she was not prepared for what waited for her on the other side of the door.
There was a large heart-shaped waterbed in the center of the room with a red fuzzy comforter covered in so many pillows that there was no place to lie down. On the wall next to them someone had spray painted a giant peace sign, The rest of the wall was covered in various platinum records and posters for the band ABBA and the Captain and Tennille.
Oh, and there was a disco ball.
A couple of hundred candles lit up the room. That was a fire hazard waiting to happen. She spotted a jacuzzi in the corner of the room, (again, heart-shaped). On the door that led to the bathroom, hung an oversized pink fuzzy bathrobe with the words “DISCO QUEEN” printed on the back
Yuta flipped the light switch, and the disco ball started to spin, and so did the bed.
A love hotel.
Hakari bought them a room at a love hotel.
Entering the tournament was worth it if she could beat Hakari to death with her bare hands. While Maki was overcome with shock, Yuta shyly glanced around the room and then back to her.
“Maki-san, it’s my first time so please be gentle…”
“Don’t be weird!”
Weird…
Yuta was really weird.
Maki had been ignoring him for the better part of a year because she never knew what to say in his presence. She hated the confusion and insecurity that he provoked, so she pushed him away.
And yet… he…
All he seemed to want was to be by her side. He never asked for anything more than that. They were two teenagers standing in a love hotel alone far away from any adult supervision, and yet he didn’t even try to touch her.
She’d kissed him once.
It was no lover’s kiss, full of fire and passion. It was the kind of kiss two high schoolers unsure of themselves might share. A desperate, clumsy attempt to connect.
His eyes were wide open when she pulled away. She’d never seen him so frightened.
If he became too pushy, she planned on cutting him off the same way she did to Mai (her heart), but even though he looked like he couldn’t live without her… he never dared to cross the line between them.
Yuta and Maki made eye contact for the first time since they’d walked into this gaudy room. She reached for him, and her fingers brushed away his hair so she could have a clearer view of his eyes.
“Maki-san…”
He looked like he only had eyes for her, and yet no one was reflected there.
It was so weird.
“Hmm? Yeah? Yes?”
Yuta picked up her cell phone and pointed the camera at the two of them. “We should take a picture of the two of us and set it as the background. Then if any guys ask you for your phone number, you can show it to them.”
“Weirdo.”
Maki never expected to make friends in high school. Having one friend to stand by her side, was enough for her, and yet, at the same time when she was around him she could feel something spreading like black smoke deep within her.
Yuta was playing with the phone settings trying to pick out a filter when it rang. The moment he answered the screen turned bright white and began to crack.
The phone exploded, and standing there was a man in a loose light tan robe, and a purple-gi vest, with a girl holding a rag doll in her arms, and Itadori Yuji’s dumb face.
Mimiko explained it beforehand, her sister’s curse technique could send them from one place to another by taking pictures of them and sending them to a different cell phone, but it was a one-way trip.
Which was how they’d managed to double back to Toichi prefecture this fast.
“Is that a water bed?” Yuji started jumping on the heart-shaped bed.
The rest sat down. Maki refused to go anywhere near that bed, so a bean bag chair was fine. Yuta caught them all up to Hakari’s ridiculous terms for cooperating with them.
“He said if we participate in the tournament as soon as it’s over then he’ll come to the culling games no matter what. It’s a simple eight-person single-elimination bracket fought over three days. If we win we owe him nothing, if we lose he helps us on his terms.”
The fights were usually hand-to-hand combat because if they used cursed technique no one in the audience would be able to see.
“However, I let it slip about Nanako’s cursed photography.” Both of the sisters had revealed to them the details of their cursed techniques, Nanako’s spirit photography captured both spirits and technique live on film, “He wants to film the tournament that’s his price.”
Usually, the fights were just hand-to-hand combat with sorcerers using cursed energy to reinforce their bodies, allowing them to put on more of a show than normal matches. After all, if they used the cursed technique no one in the audience would be able to see.
Shibuya already revealed the existence of cursed spirits to the general public. After they resolved the current Crisis, Jujutsu High and the government would likely renegotiate the terms of their cooperation.
“Just tell me who you want me to fight,” Was Yuji’s only response.
“Make love not war…” Mimiko said.
“If you’re going to insist on coming along the least you could do is be useful.” Maki technically ran into Mimiko two times in the past, once with Yuta a year ago, once with Mai and Nobara in a small village. She didn’t like Mimiko either time, and she wasn’t fond of her now, either.
“...Ungrateful.”
“Hm?”
“Your sister went searching for you in Shibuya. When she found you, you were surrounded by curses. It’s only because Mimiko and Nanako appeared that you both lived. It’s why they were with us when we met with Yuki,” Choso explained.
Just hearing that answer, Maki felt the black smoke spread in her chest.
Before they could get much further in the discussion, they heard a knock at the door. The same man from earlier appeared, now wearing a red headband to match his ridiculous red spiky hair.
What was his name again?
Flamesilocks?
“The boss sent me up with champagne… whoa is that a water bed? Can I jump on it?”
Without waiting to hear the answer, he ran towards it, only to bump into Mimiko. They both took notice of each other, stopped, and stared. Mimiko hugged her doll tighter. Her mouth opened and she closed it, pulling it into a tight-lipped frown. She looked at him with an indecipherable expression. Her breath caught, she hiccuped and water started to pour from both eyes. Mimiko touched her face, surprised by the wet dampness, and unaware of why she was crying.
She pushed past Shigema, ran to the bathroom, and slammed the door.
“Umm… she’s shy,” Choso tried to explain. After that awkward pause in the conversation, Choso said, “I’ll participate in the tournament too but I’m only doing it for Yuji not the rest of you.”
“You can do whatever you want,” Yuji spat while sneering.
Yuji was a lot like Yuta, and Mai had never seen Yuta dislike anyone. Which was why his behavior towards Choso puzzled him.
“That’s a rude thing to say. Why’d you say that?” Red hair interrupted. Before Yuji could respond, he grabbed Yuji and threw him on the floor. He held Yuji’s arm, while he locked his legs around his body. Maki recognized the Armbar From Mount, a Judo Pin. “I’m going to hold you like this until you apologize.”
Yuji, second strongest after Maki, flailed helplessly in Shigema’s hold. “Ah, jeez! Sorry, sorry!”
Shigema et go and then jumped to his feet offering Yuji a hand up. “I get it. You’re an only child, you’ve never had a big brother to teach you how to behave. When one of my younger siblings snapped at me, it was usually because they were upset but lacked the words to tell me what was wrong.”
Sincere and straightforward, trying his best to be helpful. Maki couldn’t help but compare him to someone else. Jeez, why was she thinking so much of Yuta, lately?
“So, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not really an answer, try again.”
“Nothing you can help with.”
“Do you realize how selfish you’re being? You have friends around you who want to help you, but you’re ignoring them. Do you know what it’s like? You’d hate watching your friend suffer and being powerless to help them right, so why are you putting your friends through that?”
While it seemed like he was being chewed out, Yuji didn’t try to defend himself or yell back.
Unlike when speaking with Choso, he seemed to listen.
Maki felt a tap on her shoulder. Oh, it was just Yuta. “Hey, uh… do you want to go somewhere together? Alone?”
“And do what?”
“You know…” Yuta’s voice was layered with implication, “Training.”
Maki hadn’t sparred with him since he left for his overseas trip. A year ago they fought almost every single day, and it always ended up with him on the floor.
They snuck away together and went to the back alley behind the love hotel. They only had the cursed tools they had brought with them, but Maki trusted Yuta enough to know he would not cut her too deeply.
Maki faced him, leveling her sword at him.
It burns.
It was so hot, and her throat was dried up, she’d swallowed too much smoke and now her insides were blackened.
She truly thought she’d died at Shibuya. When she was brought back to consciousness by Shoko, she seemed somewhat removed, but Maki hadn’t forgotten that hatred from her previous lifetime.
She hadn’t forgiven anyone who’d looked down on her, or embarrassed her in the past - not a single one of them.
It burns.
That was how she had felt, at least, but now facing Yuta Maki doubted herself. All she’d wanted to do was break the Zen’in, but now Naohito lay dead, and Maki’s goal died with him.
I’m all burnt up.
Maki was fighting so hard to live before this, but how quickly she died made that fight seem worthless. She almost became a corpse, without earning the praise or respect of any of the Zen’in.
No, a corpse, that might be what I am right now.
It’s like I don’t actually feel like I’m living.
Though she had no personal stake in the culling games, and doubt floated in her mind about Hakari’s shady intentions, Maki didn’t care. If things kept up like this, she’d just end up being used as a tool until they were done with her, but all she felt at that was resignation.
Maki wasn’t a burn victim, she was just ash. A strong enough wind would scatter her. She’d sunk down into negativity her previous self could never have conceived of…
When Yuta looked at her, did he really see the same girl from a year ago?
Maki and Yuta rushed at each other, swords glancing off each other. They circled and the next time their blades crossed, they locked together in a stalemate. Yuta changed his footing and managed to swing hard enough to throw Maki off making her lose balance and fall a few steps back.
Yuta stabbed forward, and she swung up to knock his blade away. Maki followed by slicing down at his feet, forcing him to jump. While still airborne, he pierced straight through her opening, the edge of his blade tearing through her cheek.
The pain sharpened her senses, she grabbed his sword with her bare hand holding it there. She slammed the butt of her sword into his blade, knocking it down. Yuta responded by bringing his foot around in a spinning kick that slammed into her shoulder, forcing her down to the ground.
Maki rolled, and when she tried to get to her feet Yuta’s sword chased after her. He smashed his sword down on her, no longer wielding a blade, just a blunt instrument of violence. When she dodged, he reversed his grip and swung backward.
She just barely jumped away, and Yuta chased her. She frantically drove his blade away, while backpedaling. She jumped, bounced off the wall, and landed on a dumpster. The moment she landed Yuta sliced down, his sword cutting straight through metal.
He was using Rika’s cursed energy in addition to his sword.
So much for holding back.
The violence in Yuta’s actions did not disturb her That was how Yuta had always been. His emotions were what created Rika, after all, a violent, overprotective love destructive to everything and everyone around him.
Love could feel like violence inside of you, tearing you into pieces. That form of love was more understandable to Maki than something sweet and tender. She’d never been loved, but she’d been on the receiving end of violence plenty of times.
Maki jumped into the air and brought the full momentum of her swing down on Yuta. He caught her sword with his own, and then force her back. She landed on her feet and rushed him again, and they exchanged a few blows with neither of them gaining an edge until Yuta got sloppy and she cut his shoulder open.
Blood gushed from the wound, a few stray drops hitting her face.
Maki smiled.
She pressed her advantage, he blocked a few swings and then jumped in the air, his foot slamming into her face. Maki endured the kick, and her hand tightened around her sword as she swung in a wide arc at his head. He ducked underneath her blow, and stepped into the opening she left him. He smashed his elbow against her face, knocking her off her feet.
While Maki lie on her back, Yuta climbed on top of her. His sword hand twitched like he was desperately holding himself back from using it on her.
This was the rule they followed with all of their sparring matches, the first one to pin the other to the ground loses. Which meant this was the first time Maki had lost to Yuta.
“Get off.”
She kicked him off, and Yuta only smiled at her.
Even when he won, he had nothing but respect for her.
Yuta turned his back on her.
Her eyes remained fixed on him because he was the source of it all. The black smoke spreading within, it was all the things she pretended not to see, all the feelings she’d swallowed so far.
All, because of him.
First, Maki had been a dog forced to swallow her anger as her owners beat her over and over again. Then she’d become a stray dog, fending for herself. No matter how she changed, she was an unwanted mutt: cowering with her tail tucked between her legs, unable to see the light.
Meanwhile, Yuta was a phoenix reborn into someone stronger. Maki tasted flames, but she wasn’t reborn, she’d just gotten weaker. All this body of hers seemed to be good for was enduring abuse.
She was sure Yuta believed that she had good reasons for wanting to be strong, to protect her sister, or to help her friends, but she wasn’t like him. Some people were rotten from birth. Maki thought of herself in exactly this way - someone poisonous and vile from the start.
Because, at that instant, she came to a crystal-clear realization.
Yuta Okkotsu.
Her classmate. Always cheerful sometimes sad.
The boy who’d said he liked her.
She’d rather he’d died an unsightly death by Rika’s hands, leaving an unseen and forgotten corpse behind. She’d rather have never met him, then she'd never have to feel this way.
Maki picked up her fallen sword and while Yuta still had his back turned to her and couldn’t defend himself, swung it to slice his back open.
Or, she would have.
A man caught her sword bare-handed, stepping between the two of them in the alleyway.
“That…” Red-hair started to say, his eyes looking down on her, “Wasn’t very nice!”