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“Can we at least crack open a window or something?” Maki says flatly, body angled as far towards the side of the car as it can get.
“Don’t be cruel, Maki, it’s too cold out. We don’t wanna do that to Yuuta.” Gojo answers, not taking his eyes off the road.
“I want it cracked because of Yuuta,” She grumbles, frowning at the dead trees littering the cliffside, covering the mountain in a wild tangle of bare branches.
Yuuta himself sinks deeper into the cold leather of the passenger seat, glassy eyed and frowning, too doped up on cold medicine to do anything other than feel the sting of her disdain. Definitely too out of it to defend himself. It’s not like she isn’t right.
“Now, now.” Gojo tuts, shifting so that he can see her annoyed reflection in the rearview mirror, “If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at those old fucks up top for demanding that our entire class be present at this annual review.” He says the last few words in a mock pretentious voice. “Don’t take it out on Yuuta for his bad timing.”
“Speaking of,” He turns to where Yuuta is half buried in his uniform, just peeking out from behind his collar. His nose has been running, still is running, won’t stop running. There’s marginal safety in keeping his face only half revealed. “How you doin’, champ?”
“I’m alright,” Yuuta rasps. He sniffles, cringing from how horrifically ill it sounds.
“Yikes!” Gojo remarks jovially. “Keep hanging in there,”
“Are they even gonna let Yuuta in?” Panda asks, resting one of his large arms on the headrest behind Yuuta. He can vaguely feel fur bristling against his neck. “Looking like that?”
“Shake,”
“They shouldn’t.”
“Guys, I’m still here.” Yuuta mumbles, letting his forehead loll against the window, the dreary scenery superimposed across his pale skin as Gojo continues to drive them up the mountain and towards the formal hall of the Jujustu Society. The glass feels cool on his skin. He leans into it.
“Yeah.” Gojo shrugs, “Yuuta could have just severed a limb and they’d still expect him. A cold would never cut it. It’s one of their bullshit rules.”
Panda starts chatting Gojo up about some other bullshit rules, joined every once in a while by Maki and Inumaki. Yuuta closes his eyes, half paying attention. He doesn’t really know what they’re talking about.
They’ve lived different lives than him, suffocated by the knowledge of curses and the practice of exorcism since they could walk, bound by its intricate traditions. It doesn’t matter that he ranks highly among the sorcerers, this world is still new to him. He could stand to listen, but he doesn’t have the energy to untangle so many conversational threads.
He searches for sleep with his lips gently parted, thoughts scattered until a gentle buzz in his sinuses gives him something to focus on. Blinking hazily, he scrunches his nose to the side.
He looks up, catches sunlight filtering through the gray clouds. It sends him over the edge. Hastily, he grabs for his collar, crunching forward with a loud sneeze.
Abruptly, the chatter in the car starts to lag, becoming less animated than it had been a second ago. Already self conscious, Yuuta pushes his face deeper into the fabric of his uniform, hoping to drown out some of the volume when he sneezes again. It doesn’t work, not really. His voice still carries, the desperate whine of his irritation filling the silence.
“Woah,” Gojo says. Then, in a gentle, neutral tone that Yuuta has only rarely observed, “There’s some napkins in the glove compartment.”
With a sigh, Yuuta nods and leans forward to undo the latch.
“Sorry,” He says with a fistful of napkins held to his face.
There’s a tug at the back of his seat, a paw appearing on his shoulder, slotted through the arm rest. Miserable, he leans against it.
“What was I saying?” The low vibrato of Panda’s voice reverberates against Yuuta’s cheek. Even though he’s closer, he seems quieter. “Oh, yeah. Remember the look on that guy’s face when you announced I was getting enrolled.”
“It’s too bad he didn’t die on the spot.” Maki says, and Gojo laughs, also soft, his hand hiding a smile.
“Can’t wait to see him today.”
Yuuta starts to cough, brief and itchy. The weight on the back of his seat shifts again, and more of Panda appears, enough for Yuuta to curl an arm around. He hopes he’s not wrong in assuming that he’s meant to. He buries his face in the fur and closes his eyes. It’s not quite warm, not quite cool, but oh so comforting.
“Thanks,” He says.
“Mhm,” Says Panda, but Yuuta can’t tell if it’s for him or someone else. It doesn’t matter too much, because he falls asleep soon after, snoring gently into a Panda’s coarse fur.
-
“Yuuta,” Gojo’s voice invades Yuuta’s dreamless sleep.
He rouses unhappily, finding Gojo’s icy blue eyes peering at him from behind tinted lenses. “Come on. Time to go.”
Yuuta scrapes a groan out from somewhere, bringing up a hand to swipe at the moisture that’s escaped onto his upper lip. The world feels blurry around him.
Everyone else is already clustered at a lamp near the entrance while he takes his first steps out of the car, their breaths puffing out underneath the curled roof of a grand temple that looms several stories high, preserved for centuries by the Jujutsu Society.
He can’t remember the last time he stepped foot on ground so sacred. The air around them holds the faint charge of a protective barrier drawn from cursed energy, a disturbance in the atmosphere that ripples out for miles. It would steal his breath even if he wasn’t so out of it.
He glances out at the expanse of empty forest, shrouded in the shadows of the setting sun, at the ornate statues lining the courtyard, moss speckled with age. Something wicked emanates from the stone pedestals, wafting maroon into the space that surrounds them.
This place gives him the creeps. He can feel it in the hairs at the base of his neck.
He frowns at his shoes and shivers, trying to figure out how to balance his breathing so that his nose won’t start dripping.
“He’s alive!” Gojo calls to the rest of the group, walking briskly ahead of Yuuta, who takes longer to catch up. Once he arrives, Gojo sets them forward on the long, lantern lit path that leads to the temple doors.
“Hey.” Maki lingers behind, rounding out the group’s end with Yuuta, “Don’t expect them to be kind to you.”
“Huh?” Yuuta says. There are several layers to what she just said, Yuuta’s sure. On a better day, he’d already be putting it together. These conversations don’t make him feel as lost as they once used to, just as the edge to Maki’s words no longer feel as intimidating. “What do you mean?”
“Your execution.” She doesn’t look at him as she speaks. “It never happened. They hate it when they’re wrong. But they hate it even more when Gojo is right.”
Yuuta looks ahead to where Gojo is leading them forward.
“They’re really at odds, aren’t they?”
“Mhm. They have a long history. He’s the strongest sorcerer there is so they can’t do a thing, but I think that if things were different they would’ve had him killed by now.”
Yuuta blanches at the idea. Corruption, he’s learned, is blood deep within the old clans. He’s not sure where he fits in. There are so many things he doesn’t know.
“Hey,”
“Mm?”
“I’m not trying to scare you. This meeting should be harmless. We don’t even talk.”
“We don’t?” Maki shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
“Nope. They just talk about us to Gojo. It’s a total waste of-“
Before she can finish, Yuuta twists away from her, bending at the waist with his hands steepled over his mouth to sneeze. The crows in the courtyard flee into the deepening gray sky, upset by the sound.
Maki’s eyes widen for a second, the only indication that she’s been surprised.
“S-sorry,” Yuuta sputters, and then he dissolves into a coughing fit. It’s so forceful that he has to stop walking, fighting against his spasming lungs. He flinches at the realization that all this has left his nose running, quickly mobilizing his sleeves, cheeks red from more than just the cold.
“Ugh, don’t do that.” Maki scowls. She fishes in her pockets and pulls out an open packet of travel tissues.
“Ah,” Yuuta blinks up at her as she holds it out to him. Tentatively, he pulls out the top one.
“Just take the whole thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Maki shrugs, already looking away again.
“I’m sure you’ll need them again. Besides, I don’t want to touch anything you’ve touched.”
“Thanks, Maki.” Yuuta says, tearing at the thin plastic once it’s in his hands so that the tissues are easier to pull out. He turns to cough into his shoulder. “That’s kind of you.”
At that her gaze flits up, her frown deepening. “Clean yourself up. And don’t ever say anything like that about me again.”
She walks ahead of him then, rejoining the others in the glow of the lanterns. Panda leans over to say something to her, and she punches his arm. Yuuta pauses to blow his nose before catching up with the rest of the group.
-
The entrance hall is dimly lit, hardwood floors adorned with large potted plants and aged artwork, illustrations layered in calligraphy. The atmosphere of the group has shifted, all the cheer gone, replaced with a silence Yuuta doesn’t fully understand the cause of. The overhead lights are hurting his eyes, and the quick change in temperature is something he feels in his ears. Everything sounds softer, like it’s being blocked out by a layer of cloth. Something that’s not quite nausea coats all of his movements and he can’t stop himself from sniffling every few seconds. He doesn’t feel well at all.
Gojo leads them down a maze of corridors before stopping at an open door. There’s a pit in the middle of the room, lined by mahogany colored sofas, where three old men sit waiting.
“You’re late. Satoru.”
“You guys miss me?” Gojo says, taking a seat directly across from them. The rest of the class files in behind him, flanked in groups of two. Maki sits with Panda, so Yuuta settles next to Inumaki, suddenly feeling nervous.
Just behind the old men is a shrine where several sticks of incense burn in wooden holders, the strong scent of sandalwood and amber wafting out of their ember lit tips.
“These are your students?” One of the men says. There are age spots dotting his sagging skin, wispy layers of white hair revealing his scalp.
“Yeah, shouldn’t you remember them?” Gojo answers, and then he proceeds to name them. When he says Yuuta’s name, one of the men makes eye contact with him, and he can’t stop himself from looking away. He longs to glance at his classmates, to deduce the proper etiquette from their actions, but he doesn’t want to make the wrong move. He wonders if his power will ever start to bleed into his confidence, if he’ll ever grow out of being so timid.
The old men start to talk about something he thinks he should be following. He can sense that there’s tension, that Gojo is playing games that the elders hate. It’s too difficult for him to keep up with. He can’t seem to focus on anything other than his body’s protests of discomfort. The room isn’t particularly cold, but the urge to shiver nags at his nerves. Sitting upright makes him feel dizzy.
So he zones out, glassy eyed gaze fixed on the decorative pillows just across from him. How mundane, he thinks, of their simple patterned designs. He wishes he could lean on Inumaki’s shoulder.
As the conversation goes on, the smoke that fills the room starts to settle in the back of Yuuta’s sinuses. It’s nothing more than a teasing flicker at first, something he can chase away with the right combination of pressure, but the need grows in tandem with the smell. The prickle of the smoke, the sharpness of the sandalwood, all settling around him in a torturous miasma.
He starts to breathe through his mouth, wondering how impolite it would be to pull Maki’s tissues from his pocket, just to have ready. He risks a sniffle, a controlled inhale that announces itself with the loose sound of shifting congestion. Hearing it makes him feel frozen, like he’s done something so improper. He exhales through his mouth, nose twitching, while the sensation crawls forward with a vengeance.
He blinks a few times, shoving his tongue against the roof of his mouth, teetering on a precipice while Gojo says something that looks like it’s pissing the men in front of him off. He shouldn’t…but his breathing, however controlled, only seems to get more perilous. If he’s not going to sneeze, he’s going to start coughing, and he doesn’t want that either. It’s like he can’t win.
Eyes prickling, he ends up sneezing horribly loud, enough so that Yuuta can make out the stutter it causes in the conversation.
Blushing, he allows himself to reach for the tissues Maki gave him earlier, still only feeling brave enough to dab at the wetness that lingers at the corners of his nose. He wishes he could hold them there for the rest of this meeting, that he could hide behind them until it’s time to leave.
He flinches when pressure appears at his back, only relaxing when he realizes that it Inumaki trying to comfort him. Before he can feel truly secure, one of the old men catches his eye. Suddenly, Yuuta is aware of his heartbeat.
But more than that, he’s aware of the deep buzz that’s still clawing at his sinuses, scratching at the base of his throat. He can’t help it. Desperately clutching at the tissues in his hands, he buries himself in them, acting on the impulse to duck behind Inumaki as he starts coughing, their shoulders brushing together as he convulses. The sensation prickles, unsoothed in his throat, making his eyes water as he continues to cough. He can feel Inumaki’s weight shifting into him, further shielding him from view.
“Gojo,” One of the men says. “Control your student.”
Yuuta wishes he had anything to say, but his eyes are streaming and the scent of the incense is already threatening to overcome him again.
“I told you ahead of time that he wasn’t well. This is what you asked for.” Gojo’s tone is flippant.
“And what does it say about the quality of your mentorship, that you’d ever let one of your students become like this? Pathetic. You make a mockery of our practice.”
Yuuta tries to correct himself for the elders, straightening back out to show them that no, you’re wrong, see? The last thing he wants is for his presence to reflect poorly on Gojo, or any of his classmates. The grim faces of the elders start to shimmer, and then Yuuta finds himself ducking behind Inumaki again, unable to stop himself flinching with another vicious sneeze.
The gentle pressure of Inumaki’s hands is back, the only thing tethering him to the moment. Somewhere to the side, Gojo sighs.
“Yuuta,” He says, and from his vantage point behind Inumaki, Yuuta can make out Gojo leaning back to see him. “Let’s step outside for a second.”
He nods, first making sure that his face is properly cleaned up and then rising dizzily to his feet. The patterned rug he’s standing on is spinning.
“I’m sorry,” He says to the elders, bowing as deeply as he can before his head starts to pound. The shame hits him on his way up, prickling at his eyes, cavernous in his chest.
He follows Gojo out of the room and into the hall, where the air feels less oppressive but the smell of the incense still lingers on his clothes.
Just as Gojo shuts the door, he finds himself dissolving again. He uses one hand to brace himself against the wall, pitching forward to cough harshly into the other, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth while he sniffles back congestion. It feels ridiculous that he’s still this affected, edged on by the smoke, needled with the sensitivity of his cold.
Away from the pressure of the elders, what remains of Yuuta’s fragile control wavers. Head tilted down, his shoulders start to tremble. He can’t seem to stop himself, even though all his thoughts claw for composure. It makes it that much harder to look Gojo in the eye.
He thinks back to Maki’s words before they entered. A warning, a promise.
Don’t expect them to be kind to you.
And yet, the old man’s voice rings clear in his head, stings like the aftershocks of a slap to the face.
The back of Gojo’s hand settles against his cheek, then on his forehead, so blissfully cool and dry and gentle. The floor tiles start to blur.
“Hey, Yuuta. Some fever you got,” Gojo says, and his voice is so kind. “You must be feeling pretty bad. Dizzy?”
Yuuta closes his eyes and nods.
Gojo’s tone is such a relief that it’s painful. It makes something in him well up.
“I’m sorry,” Yuuta says, shaking his head. His breath is hot and his voice is brittle. “I didn’t mean to-“ He covers his mouth so that Gojo won’t see that his lower lip is starting to tremble.
“Hey. I don’t want to hear it.”
Unable to find it in himself to do much else, Yuuta swipes at his eyes and nods. They refill immediately, heavy with emotions he can’t place. Hot tears slip down his fever bright cheeks and he sniffles, sad and wet. He doesn’t mean to cry like this. He’s not sure why he is.
In front of him, Gojo starts to unbutton his uniform, revealing a light blue dress shirt underneath. He drapes it securely over Yuuta’s shoulders, only letting go when Yuuta grabs tightly at the edges to hold them together. It’s warm and heavy. Yuuta imagines that it smells like detergent and curses.
“Come on,” He says, and when Yuuta furrows his brow in confusion, he gestures for them to move down the hall. “I’m not gonna make you go back in there. Bunch of old dicks. I’ll cover for you.”
“Alright.” He says softly, fighting to swallow the hitches that keep building in his throat as he trails sluggishly behind Gojo. His head is still tilted down, stray tears rolling off the flushed tip of his nose, which is running thick and uncontrollably down his upper lip. He clutches at Gojo’s coat and shivers, gets its inner lining slick when he turns his face into it.
Gojo leads him to another sitting room, dark and with a solitary couch in the middle. It takes Yuuta a second to realize what he’s doing there.
“You just rest here and we’ll come get you when everything’s over, yeah?”
“Okay.” Yuuta says, gingerly lowering himself down. He’s nauseous again, his head throbbing from tearing up.
“Oh, and Yuuta?”
“Yeah?”
“Good job in there.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if we get lucky, maybe one of them will catch what you have and die. Okay! See ya later!”
“Oh…” Yuuta says, but Gojo has already closed the door, letting the last sliver of light go dark. He doesn’t think he wants that to happen, does he? Regardless, his head is pounding. The world is pulsing, too hot and too much around him. He grabs for a cushion to rest his head on, and pulls Gojo’s coat over his face, curling in so that it rests over him like a blanket.
Feverish and miserable, sleep comes for him immediately.
-
“Hey,”
Even though Yuuta can hear someone’s voice, even and a little pissed off, just like Maki’s, he burrows his face deeper into the cushion it’s fallen into.
“Yuuuuuuta,” Another voice drawls, “Wakey wakey. Time to go.”
“What a mess.”
“Okaka,”
They’re all too loud. It’s hurting his head. He whimpers, hoping it will get the voices to understand that he needs them to shut up.
A hand settles on his shoulder, gently trying to rouse him. When he cracks an eye, can see Inumaki’s long eyelashes framing the violet of his irises which have been muted by the shadows.
Yuuta tries to mumble his name. It comes out sounding like soft nonsense.
“Konbu,” He murmurs, gliding his hand until it rests against the clammy skin of Yuuta’s cheek. He glances up, “Takana, sujiko.”
“Ridiculous,” grumbles Maki.
“I got it, I got it.”
Suddenly, two strong arms are encircling his frame, shifting him from the precious position of comfort he’d made for himself. Yuuta thinks he can hear himself groaning, but what feels better is just to turn his head into the nearest soft thing. Someone maneuvers his arms so that they’re looped around someone’s - Panda’s? - thick, plush neck.
He hardly remembers being carried to the car, and he definitely misses the fervent glances Maki and Inumaki throw his way each time he moves.
Somehow, he ends up in the backseat, pressed between Panda and Inumaki. When he cracks his eyes open again, he sees Inumaki peering at him. The weight beside him shifts, giving him the space to lean in, and he doesn’t know how to read it.
“Tsuna Tsuna,” He hears, and he takes it as an invitation to let his head loll heavy into the space underneath Inumaki’s chin, blindly soothed by the warmth Panda’s body lacks. Inumaki- he’s sure it’s Inumaki, right? - rests their head on top of his, and the pressure feels like enough permission to float off again, so he does to the soft rumble of the engine as Gojo pulls out of the driveway.
He won’t remember the hushed voices, or the quiet laughter that peppers the ride back or any of the ways the world continues on around him, safe for now and just out of reach.