Archive of Our Own

In the midst of sundered December debris is where Toge finds him.

The density of the air around him coils and unfolds with an erratic, irregular pulse. Falters, then stutters back into motion. Breath held for too long. The heaviness of it all causes the falling snowflakes in his vicinity to almost stagnate in the air.

He sits there like a solar flare trapped in a human body.

His long legs dangle over the edge of the walls that used to protect their school until they didn’t. Despite the turmoil around, beneath, within, he remains motionless. Unaware of the cold around him.

“Toge.“

Yuuta acknowledges his arrival without turning around, even when Toge’s approaching footsteps are as habitually quiet as his presence always is.

Moving closer to him is always a little bit like overshooting the threshold of static friction. A hand drawing through strands of oppositely charged material. Tiny lightning strikes over skin.

Toge stops where Yuuta’s microcosmos swallows him whole, one hand pressed up against the remains of cold stone.

„I was just about to head back inside,” Yuuta says eventually. He sounds defensive, almost as if he can hear the apprehension resonating in Toge’s silence.

„Okaka,“ Toge shrugs. Liar.

When he carefully starts clambering up the mauled piece of once-wall, smaller pieces of stone break away and tumble to the snow-covered ground with soft thuds. Yuuta says nothing, even when Toge unceremoniously plops down next to him, inserting himself into a space he is a foreign body in. 

No matter how much closer Toge seems to inch towards him, it’s like Yuuta is going to slip away into the winter air at any given moment. And there would be nothing left of him. 

„I just wanted to take one last look,“ he mutters. At what, he doesn’t say.

Toge finds himself shuddering, despite the lack of cold in Yuuta’s presence. Gently, he lets his knee rest against Yuuta's thigh. It is a cautious contact, carrying a comfort he has no other way of expressing. Yuuta remains motionless. It’s almost like the gesture doesn't reach him at all.

After a few moments of nothing, a soft hum traverses the air between them and Yuuta, for the first time, looks up and meets Toge’s attentive eyes.

Toge has never seen a smile less convincing in his entire life.

„My execution sentence hasn’t been lifted.” 

Only Okkotsu Yuuta would manage to make those words sound like an apology. 

“They say there is no evidence of me being in control of my cursed energy, even if Rika is gone.” His chapped lips tremble for only the ghost of a second before he makes them stop.

“They say I could always curse someone else.“ 

Toge presses against the other’s leg a little harder, not letting the seething frustration settle in his stomach. Yuuta sniffles against the air. It’s backwards. Everything is backwards, always, when it comes to those cowards hiding behind their screen doors.

“It’s them who aren’t in control and they hate that.” His hands draw angry shapes between them but Yuuta’s eyes follow effortlessly anyway. He wears that silent, infallible focus that sometimes forces goosebumps across Toge’s skin when it lingers for too long. But when Toge lowers his hands again, Yuuta’s shoulders remain hunched. Unconvinced.

Toge refuses to let it go. Rephrases. 

“Them threatening you means you are doing something right.”

A perilous kind of adoration flickers through Yuuta’s eyes then and the smile clambering on his lips is messy and wavers around its edges. “That’s funny,” he mumbles “...Gojo-sensei said the same thing.” 

Converse-clad heels kick against the broken wall once, twice. Another set of loose pebbles tumble to the ground, thud thud.

A fragmental wisp of Yuuta’s energy nudges at Toge, like a hand brushing against his side or a furtive glance expected to go unnoticed.

“The two of you are so similar sometimes, did you know that?” 

Toge immediately regrets meeting Yuuta’s eyes because Yuuta looks at Toge like the ocean looks up at the moon. Like an indefinable force pulls him in and forces him away all at once. 

“Nothing ever scares you.” Thud, thud, thud. “It’s kind of terrifying.”

Toge gives a disgruntled huff. Just from the top of his head he can think of innumerable ways he will always fall embarrassingly short of coming even remotely close to resembling their prodigious force of nature of a teacher – fear being amongst the very first few of them. But the irritation flaring between his furrowed brows seems to spark amusement in Yuuta nonetheless, almost as if he had been expecting it to appear there. A small chuckle leaves dry lips. It turns all the dismantling words on Toge’s fingertips into frustrated silence instead. 

“I thought it would feel different. Releasing her.” Yuuta surprises Toge with the calmness of his voice. “I thought it would be…” Pale hands curl into wet stone. Crunch crunch goes snow and bone. “I thought it would feel right.”

This time, Toge’s hands move with hesitancy. “You are allowed to miss her, Yuuta.” 

And just for a fraction of a second something crumbles and Yuuta’s eyes gloss over as he swallows around a pained noise that his body refuses to liberate. There is a bone-deep, agonised jolt wailing through the endless current of his cursed energy. Toge isn’t sure whether it wants to lash out at him or curl into itself in defeat – because Yuuta yanks it away from Toge like a door slamming shut before it has a chance to do either.

His leg remains cold and rigid against Toge’s knee.

“...am I?”

***

The dark uniform jacket newly adorning Yuuta’s constantly tense shoulders is the most absurd and pathetic attempt at ass covering that Toge has seen the higher-ups resort to in all the years he has spent under their conduct.

No one of importance, the dark fabric is supposed to say. Just another recruit under their control. To be shaped and moulded to their will. 

As if it’s not already strikingly obvious that they’re terrified of him.

As if anyone in their right mind could look at Yuuta and believe that he is anything like their other tin soldiers.

As if the force accompanying his every step doesn’t still command every single room he enters.

But Yuuta.

Yuuta wears it like a lifeline.

Sometimes, Toge catches him running his finger over the golden buttons holding it to his chest. His fingertips follow the little swirl of the school’s emblem endlessly, eyes glassy and turned at something so, so far away.

Words, playing at the back of his mind. Tightening the knots and tangles that hold him upright and tied to a shape that no longer fits. A cage that is already bursting at the seams.

Do not disturb the surface

Do not disturb the surface

Do not disturb the surface

***

Somehow Maki sneaks them mulled wine from a street food stall and the sweet and sugary taste on Toge’s tongue is almost as agreeable as the slight burn of heat and alcohol down his throat.

They’re huddled around one of the wooden tables installed around the small park in the middle of the bustling metropolis. The Christmas lights are still lighting up the area in colour, bleaching the night sky into a kinder shade of black.

It’s the last few hours of the year. None of them really care much about celebrating the overturn into the new year, but they have all but jumped at the opportunity to get away from their school even just for an evening. While the school grounds are almost done with repairs and have reverted back to their old appearance entirely, some shadows linger inside their home that can’t be as easily disposed of. They can feel it in the freshly bricked exterior walls. In the sawdust-covered corners of empty corridors.

In the absence of their teacher’s bubbly demeanour.

“It’s snowing again,” Panda says and it makes them look up into the sky. Maki growls. “Well it better not later,” she huffs, threatening the falling snowflake with a scowl. They’re here for the fireworks at midnight.

It’s nice, Toge thinks. He has never spent New Years Eve with friends before.

Then, Maki shudders, but it’s not from the cold. “Ugh,” she groans. Looks down again. “You too, Okkotsu, stop it, already.”

Yuuta, who hasn’t said anything since he’s accepted his drink with the distant smile he always wears now looks over at her as if he’s only just now remembered where he is. “Sorry,” he says automatically. Toge is pretty sure he has no idea what he’s apologising for.

Because although he tries to pull at it, his cursed energy keeps on rippling around their table in nervous little jolts just as before, brushing around and against them, curling over them like turnover tides. His uneasiness to be in such a large crowd is covering them like a heavy blanket.

It’s especially bad because it’s Maki who is pointing it out.

She rolls her eyes. Her voice becomes a little softer though, a sign that she’s feeling bad for her outburst. “At least you’re keeping the cold away. I don't know how it works, but you’re like a special grade heater or something.”

Even Toge is smiling underneath his thick scarf. 

“Fourth grade.” 

The space between and around them halts in one single heartbeat. Three tight breaths are held in three tight chests.

“I’m... I'm a fourth grade now,” Yuuta repeats, a stubbornness clinging to his tone that none of them have heard before. 

Slowly, Maki leans back in her chair.

Toge has watched her getting more and more frustrated with Yuuta over this past week in the few hours they’ve had to themselves.

Yuuta has barely even managed to embed a cursed tool with his energy. Things that were easy for him with Rika are now seemingly impossible again.

“I don’t care what those old geezers think you are.” Her voice is always the most dangerous when calm. Her eyes travel up and down Yuuta’s crouched pose. “None of us do.” 

Panda tries to intervene. “Maki.” His tone is soft. “It’s been one week.” Yuuta’s eyes flicker over to him with an expression that is growing increasingly vacant. He’s not missing how Panda is not objecting to Maki's claim. 

It’s not malice when Maki scoffs. 

“I don’t care. It doesn’t fucking matter what they decide to label you.” Her voice is sharp like a blade pointed at Yuuta’s neck.

“But you are worse now than you ever were with her and you know it.”

On cue, the paper cup of mulled wine in Maki’s hand splits in half and curls into itself violently like plastic held over a raging fire. Mulled wine runs hot over her fingers and mixes with the thin trickle of blood running from the cut in her palm. 

Immediately, Yuuta is on his feet, pupils blown wide. A few people in the crowd give surprised shrieks when they think there is a sudden gust of air blowing through the park, rattling at the colourful Christmas lights, breaking a few bulbs. 

Angrily, Maki throws the destroyed paper cup on their table. The leftover liquid slowly trickles over the marred, weather-worn wood. She looks up at Yuuta with an expectant gaze that burns hot. Hoping for a fight, an outlet. Resistance, finally.

But Yuuta buckles, immediately.

“I’ll go.”

His face is eerily quiet even though his energy surges around him like a wildfire. There is a tug in the air, a sudden vacuum as Yuuta pulls away from them. The part of him that wants to stay holding on to them greedily, refusing to let go. 

He hesitates, only for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

Then he shoots off straight towards the subway station.

The higher-ups are idiots, Toge thinks.

Yuuta doesn’t need a white, salient jacket to stick out like a sore thumb.

As he walks, nose buried in his scarf, the crowd parts around him like oil from water.

Toge puts his own cup on the table. There is a superficial tear in its form as well, not enough to break it but enough to make it stand a little wobbly on the cold table.

“Don’t follow him.” 

Intercepting his intent the moment it enters his mind, Maki immediately hones in on him with eyes set ablaze. “There is nothing we can do for him.” Toge looks down at the last sip of mulled wine in his paper cup and stubbornly sloshes it around until it almost spills over the chewed-on rim. Maki slams a palm on the table as she leans forward, fingers spread out over the sticky surface, uncaring. “Toge.” Her voice settles like thunder against mountainside, harsh and unwavering. “ You of all people know this.”

Toge knows.

Toge has only ever lived in a world in which healing meant days uncounted spent in solitude, confined to the desolation of dark, barricaded rooms and cold metal biting into his face. Healing has always been an agonising flame burning distantly on the horizon – and him staggering towards it until it was the only thing he knew to push him ahead.

Healing never once in his life meant a hand reaching out to him.

He became Toge because he was alone. He became Toge, not because he wanted, but because he needed to. He became Toge because they told him he couldn’t and with every single ounce of his being he vowed that he would prove them wrong.

Maki is right. Toge gets up from the bench anyway.

Because the world does not need another Toge.

What the world needs is a Yuuta.

***

The doors of the subway car are just about to slide close when Toge forces himself through the remaining gap with a huff. They give an angry beep that earns him a couple of raised eyebrows from the few commuters but when the train sets into motion immediately after, he soon is forgotten. 

Yuuta has wedged himself tightly into the other end of the train car, hands buried deep within his pockets. There isn’t a soul in his vicinity. 

The older boy is already looking at him, mouth opened in silent protest. But his dismay isn't as convincing when the dark force surrounding him immediately starts reaching for Toge eagerly, already shooing him back into its embrace. Toge's own cursed energy, or maybe even just his familiar presence, seems to be distraction enough for it to lose interest in terrorising the rest of the train’s occupants. 

A collective sigh hums throughout the car and tense shoulders relax without knowing why.

Slowly, Toge lets Yuuta’s cursed energy pull him in. He doesn’t mind its eager and yet nervous flinches anymore. He sidles up against the wall next to the boy, shoulders cautiously touching.

He feels the window glass vibrate behind him and knows for a fact that it is not caused by the movement of the train. 

Kinetic energy does not feel so afraid.

Yuuta shakes his head once. His left foot taps an irregular rhythm over the train’s constant one. Then he turns his head to the side and looks over at Toge.

“You guys have been looking forward to tonight. You should have stayed with them.”

“Mentaiko.” A shrug of shoulders. But I want to be here more.

Clearly Yuuta wants to fight him on this, make him turn back around. But when some of the handrail loops above them bounce angrily in the air from seemingly no physical cause whatsoever, he immediately presses his lips together and turns away, breathing in deeply. 

“Fine,” Yuuta mumbles, teeth gnashing tightly.

They spend the rest of the train ride in silence.

When they get off at their the subway station, Yuuta falls into a half-step behind Toge. He suggests waiting for one of the buses, but Toge prefers the walk up the remote mountain to their school. Yuuta looks relieved, and so that’s what they do.

They walk for a full hour. 

Up the steep, slippery streets away from Tokyo’s suburbs, snow crunching underneath their shoes. 

Silence stretches between them the entire time and if Toge were more patient, he would endure. But Toge is done waiting.

When the newly-revived exterior walls of their school grounds finally start appearing in the distance, he lets his steps slow down.

There are loose threads sticking out of Yuuta everywhere .

And so Toge begins to pull.

“You used my technique. On the night of the attack.“

The other boy inhales sharply. Immediately, the jolt in his cursed energy feels uncharacteristically agitated. 

„Gojo-sensei told you?“ The flare of indignation burns hot in Yuuta’s voice. „But I… I wanted to tell you myself.” They have now both stopped walking. Yuuta opens his mouth again, but suddenly he pauses, body completely still..“… wait.”

Puzzlement bleeds into his heated stare. “He told you this. When?" 

Toge responds with careful hands. "On the night of the attack. After the two of you came back from talking to the higher-ups.”

For a second, Yuuta looks like he’s about to take a hasty step towards him but then he recoils as if his skin burns from the thought alone. "So you… so you knew this whole time?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “And you still came looking for me out there in the cold?!" 

Toge gives an impatient wave of his hand to shrug it off, but Yuuta doesn’t let him continue just yet. “You knew, and not even once did it occur to you to bring up the fact that I just… snatched your family’s inherited technique as if I had any right to?” His arms flail in the air, anger and frustration wavering around him in waves, unsettling the powdery snow on the ground around them.

But Toge doesn’t falter. He has long since stopped thinking of his technique as a curse or a gift. It’s a part of him now, like how he writes with his right hand or the small birthmark on his left knee that's always been there. He neither reveres nor despises his ability.

The thought of being protective over something that he has never asked for has never even crossed his mind.

“You should be mad.” Yuuta still clenches his fists tightly at his side. “It would be well within your rights. You should be furious, Toge.” 

It saved you, Toge thinks. I don’t care about anything else.

Yuuta sighs, but his eyes never leave Toge’s face. „At least tell me I didn‘t cause any problems for you.“

He buries the heel of his converse into the freshly fallen snow, face retaining that crestfallen expression. „Are they… angry? Your family, I mean.“ 

Toge rolls his eyes. “When are they ever not.”

Yuuta gives a frustrated noise and his shoulders sag into a hapless curve. „I‘m… I‘m sorry“ He whispers it so quietly, it‘s almost stolen away by the freezing winter air. “I really am.”

Toge isn't. He starts walking again.

When he passes the other, there is a startled, choked gasp and from the corner of his eyes Toge catches Yuuta’s hand fly forward as if to grab a hold of him and keep him from moving away. There is a panicked spark in the dark eyes for just a second longer, then his hand goes limp and falls to his side once more. He thinks he is being denied, thinks that Toge refuses to forgive him and what’s worst of all, he thinks he deserves his scorn.

And so Toge pulls once more.

“Show me,” he signs as he reaches the school’s entrance gate, looking back at Yuuta with unwavering sincerity. 

He has suddenly realised a very simple truth.

The higher-ups want evidence. Toge can give them evidence.

“I want to see you use it.”

Yuuta’s jaw is clenched tightly as they slip and slide down the snow-clad incline to their usual training field, but there is no hesitation in his footsteps, following Toge’s lead unquestioningly. There is no doubt in Toge’s mind that right now Yuuta would follow him through the deepest pits of hell without hesitation.

Guilt is a vicious incentive, always, but it’s the only one Toge has at his disposal right now.

“Is this really a good idea?” Yuuta tries once, but there’s already a withering tinge to his expression.  “I… I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

Toge does not bother with an answer.

Instead he begins marking a wide circle into the fresh snow with the tip of his shoe. Yuuta watches him walking around him in silence, resigning himself to his fate.

„Okay,“ he says in a strained voice when Toge positions himself in front of the other again, only a few steps away. “Give me a second.”

Dark eyes flutter shut. With slow, carefully heightened amplitudes, the constant ebb and flow of Yuuta’s cursed energy begins to crawl around them in larger, frantic waves.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Toge realises that he was foolishly expecting an absence . But if anything, the omission of form, the white noise instead of its previous, Rika-shaped howl, makes the darkness writhe with a density that is even heavier. 

It has none of that bone-chilling, overwhelming intent to hurt like back when Yuuta stepped into their classroom all these months ago. Rika had been a cruel, intangible creation. Fearsome and indomitable. But she had been contained. She had a shape. A purpose. 

Now, Yuuta’s energy is tethered only by his fear of losing control. Whatever bits and pieces manage to slip past his panicked hold are pulled right back like a crazed animal tied to a post in an empty field.

Yuuta thinks Rika was a muzzle. 

Toge thinks she was a leash.

Fortunately, Toge knows a thing or two about both.

He slowly raises his hand towards his scarf and uncovers his mouth. Instantly, like rain drops rippling on a still lake surface, Yuuta’s cursed energy around them starts moving over towards him with curiosity. Like magnetism.

Yuuta redirects its interest instantly. “Okay… here goes nothing,” he whispers, hand outstretched in front of him.

An exact copy of Toge’s megaphone materialises in his hand.

In a very strong contrast to its keeper, Yuuta’s energy hums in excitement, brimming over with electrifying intensity.

His voice carries through the device in a distorted, oversaturated version of itself that sounds nothing like the sheepish boy Toge knows.

„Could you—“

„Drop.“ 

Toge’s command sears through Yuuta’s clumsy and weak-willed attempt like a diamond-edged blade cutting through steel. It has Yuuta stop in his tracks and overpowers his half-spoken command so ruthlessly, he actually faceplants into the snow with a muffled “Oof!”.

With gritted teeth Toge notes that there isn’t even the intention of resistance. Despite their staggering difference in cursed energy output, not a single part of Yuuta is trying to resist Toge’s command. It subdues him so thoroughly, Toge can’t even feel the hint of a recoil in his throat.

The older boy sputters into wet cold snow and then scrabbles back to his knees. As he does, he chuckles, cursed energy surrounding him in an almost playful jitter. 

But it’s not fooling Toge.

It’s playful because it knows it is not in danger.

It’s playful because it knows Toge could not be a threat if he tried.

There‘s snow in Yuuta’s dark hair. A wired, dazed edge in his eyes. For a moment he stares up at him, awestruck. Toge gives him a moment to process this new experience. 

It is evident that the idea of resisting Toge’s cursed words hasn’t even crossed his mind. His hesitant grin is a little wobbly and Toge’s stomach crawls at the open admiration on the other’s face. “Toge you are… that was,” he swallows thickly “... amazing!“

„Takana“ Toge says, perfectly neutral. Again.

The slightly crazed smile on Yuuta’s lips freezes and dies away in two short breaths. 

And still, Yuuta doesn’t complain or refuse. He nods softly, in quiet understanding, submission  He scrambles back to his feet. 

Again, he holds the cursed tool to his lips.

Again, his weak-willed command is split in half by Toge before he even finishes.

„Halt.“

Toge has exorcised fourth grade curses that put up more of a fight.

But this time when his command grabs a hold of Yuuta and makes him stop dead in his tracks, the dark tendrils around them are watching . Their screeching chaos suddenly quiets down to a low murmur, mumbling, waiting. Every sense of lucidity, every drop of conscience trained on the invading force that is Toge. 

Toge should be the one in control.

He isn’t.

As Yuuta recovers from the command, his concentration breaks and the megaphone in his hands shatters into a million pieces.

For a long moment, he looks at his empty hand with an unfocused expression. He balls it to a tight fist experimentally and then unclenches it again. As the last pieces of cursed materia disintegrate away, Yuuta’s form slacks a little and he looks at their footprints in the snow, their makeshift ring disrupted. 

He thinks they’re done.

“Thank you, Toge,” he says after a while, taking a step towards his friend. Careful, almost shy smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I’m glad you’re not… mad at me?” He searches for Toge’s eyes, cautious and hesitant. Hopeful. “That’s what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?”

Toge wishes there was another way, but there isn’t. Leans forward, bends low onto his knees. Pulls all of his weight, mind and heart to the centre of his being. “Yuuta,” is all the warning the other boy receives. Then Toge exhales. 

“Fight me.”

Somewhere in the distance, Toge hears windows shatter.

In an instant, Toge knows that this is the most lethal curse that has ever left his tongue.

And Yuuta tries to fight it, Toge can feel the other’s immediate confusion and betrayal in the backlash recoiling back at him, but the cursed words have already sunk their sharp fangs deep into Yuuta’s exposed core. The command has severed all remaining ties holding him back.

The ground underneath them shakes. The line between human and curse converges and overlaps into something otherworldly, inhuman. No longer is it the bloodthirsty intent to tear apart when Yuuta had Rika acting as his valve. There is only void now. Endless and incomprehensible. Space, multiplying exponentially.

You’d better be watching, higher-ups, Toge thinks.

And then his body is slammed into cold, dead ground.

Yuuta’s pupils have dilated to a point they have covered all the gentle blue of his irises. What remains is wrath and grief that lays bare like an uncovered nerve, raw and frazzled. The hard edge to his face is new, but it is no surprise to Toge. 

He has always known it was there.

Toge crashes onto his side and grimaces when he feels ribs crack. He manages to shelter his skull with his arms and keep it from impacting with the frozen ground – a luxury he pays the price for dearly when Yuuta’s fist slams down right into the centre of his chest and Toge can’t bring his arms back down in time to shield himself against it.

The tether of hesitance that usually throttles Yuuta’s every decision is broken and Yuuta moves with relentlessness. Is forced to.

Pain sears through his entire body and Toge suppresses the darkness already fogging up the edges of his vision from taking a direct hit of a special grade’s curse-embedded fist. 

Combat sense kicks in like second nature. He might not be able to fight on Yuuta’s level, but he can be a pain in his ass for long enough. 

Despite what his actions may suggest, Toge has other plans than becoming a special grade’s chew toy. 

When the large fist swings down towards him for a second time, Toge kicks himself off the ground before it can make contact, racing away as fast as he can. He skitters to a halt a few metres to the side, already panting from the sheer pressure Yuuta’s force alone exerts on his body.

Using cursed speech against Yuuta is completely out of the question, now that Yuuta’s energy is surrounding him like a fortress. Trying to curse Yuuta like this would not just combust his throat. 

Toge is fairly certain he would be dead before his body hit the ground.

Yuuta kneels on one knee, fist still embedded in the ground. The crater originating from where Toge’s head had been seconds ago sizzles and crackles as the arid winter earth cracks open in wide fissures.

It is no surprise to Toge that Yuuta has immediately defaulted to hand-to-hand combat instead of actually using the vastness of power he has at his expense. He does not have his sword, and Yuuta’s direct grasp of his own cursed energy has always been weak due to Rika constantly forcing his hand. And now that she’s gone he is left with this huge mass of crackling energy he has never actually learnt to control. 

Toge’s command can’t change that. While Yuuta is forced to fight him with every fibre of his being, Toge’s command can not fill in the gaps of physical training or combat sense that Yuuta still lacks.

It is the only reason why Toge is not dead.

And so Toge does the one thing that’s even more stupid than commanding a special grade sorcerer to fight him at full capacity.

He runs.

And the curse that binds Yuuta to react takes the bait.

The air smells of electric burn and sulphur as Yuuta chases him through the field like lightning bolts across a night sky. It is a temporary reprieve that Toge is still much lighter and quicker on his feet than Yuuta is capable of processing – He can’t hit Toge if Toge doesn’t stick around to get hit.

Another sidestep sends the larger body slithering over frozen grass as Toge spins himself around with a kick to Yuuta’s side, throwing himself against his own momentum to get away from Yuuta’s crackling fist as far as he can.

Blunt nails scratch over the back of Toge’s calf and as he recoils away he hears his pant leg give way.

Yuuta, completely losing his balance as fabric and skin tears, crashes to the ground.

Gasping for air, Toge comes to a standstill on the other side of the field, never letting Yuuta’s form out of his sight. The cold air sears through his lungs in painful bouts.

And then Yuuta lets out a feral growl as Toge’s command remote controls him to gather the tired tangle of limbs underneath him and forces him back onto his feet again, knuckles scrubbing raw over frozen earth.

Small tendrils of steam rise from the overheating surface of his skin. Sweat drips from his temples and neck. He watches Toge with the eyes of a demon, a predator. 

And Toge freezes where he stands.

Snake eyes adorn either side of his mouth.

Black ink hooked into his skin like venom, spanning across his entire jaw. In horror, Toge watches as they syphon Yuuta’s endless aura, concentrating his entire might down into one single, razor-sharp focal point – the vocal cords in his throat.

The wolf is done chasing the rabbit through the forest.

He is eerily silent as he pounces.

Scrambling into a panicked breath, Toge’s survival instincts kick into action before the rest of his body even has a chance to realise the danger he is in. He yanks all of his remaining cursed energy up towards his ears and cranium with the single, frantic intention of protection.

Of course the first time he has to protect himself against cursed speech will also be the last.

Yuuta’s form moves so quickly he almost shifts out of focus. Toge lunges at his approaching shadow, refusing to go down without a fight. He doesn’t even see his own fist missing its target. A painful jolt goes through his spine when Yuuta breaks his movement way too easily, grabbing his wrist in an iron grip.

Bone shifts and then snaps in half with a nauseating sound. 

Before the pain even registers in his body, Toge hears his own breath bleed from him in a low howl. His right hand loses all mobility, hanging from his wrist at an odd angle.

Toge grimaces. Distraction successful. 

He draws in a wheezing breath, having redirected some of his cursed energy back to his tongue under the guise of his lukewarm attack. He prepares to launch one last, hopeless attack.

Like lightning, Yuuta’s hand folds over his mouth and forces his jaw shut. Immediately, he breaks Toge’s balance and throws him over his shoulder in one single swipe. That’s one of Maki’s moves, Toge thinks bitterly as he goes down. Immediately, Yuuta’s elbow presses down with perfect precision into his broken ribcage, pinning him to the ground. His other hand has never even left Toge’s mouth.

Toge’s vision blurs and the last thing he sees are the cursed speech sigils on Yuuta’s jaw starting to glow faintly. So that’s what Toge’s marks look like to his enemies moments before they die.

It’s fine, he thinks as he closes his eyes. They will serve him better than me.

What he doesn’t expect is Yuuta’s voice to sound so desperate.

“Stop!” A raspy wail covered in blood. And then, softer: “... please!”

There is a tear in the raging storm around them. Searing hot breath stutters against Toge’s face. And then the tight pressures on his sternum and mouth turns into two arms fastening around him like a protective layer, pulling his upper body towards another chest, sheltering him against raging cursed energy.

Fragmented emotions suddenly burst and hook into Toge. Panic and rage charge through him as if they were his own. Toge’s weak barrier shatters from the mere brush with Yuuta’s wavering emotions alone. 

But Yuuta’s cursed words skim over Toge and do not touch him.

They are not meant for him.

Okkotsu Yuuta might just be the first cursed speech user in history to curse his own cursed energy into obedience.

Heat bursts out of Yuuta with the surge of a dying star. The dark force surrounding him succumbs to his own command and falls into itself.

Toge’s curse fizzles away and leaves Yuuta’s body.

Just from being right at the epicentre of the implosion, Toge’s vision fades to white and then black. His body goes limp.

And before his eyes roll into the back of his head and the world tilts on its head –

His mouth curls into a proud smile.

When he manages to haul his bleary mind out of the ooze of blissful darkness, Toge is still lying on the snowy field. It can’t have been more than a few seconds that his consciousness has wandered away from him.

His entire body is buzzing. And underneath, a voice. Pushing, pulling, far beyond horror. 

“No… nonono… Toge be okay please please please.” 

The arms wrapped around his body are tight with the same rough desperation that’s clinging to the sound of his name.

The moment he gives a sign of life, Yuuta reels back to look at him. The snake eyes have vanished from his face, leaving the tell-tale dried-out rivers of blood on his chin in their wake. His eyes are back to their gentle blue, but they are wide and terrified and roam Toge’s face in a hysteric pattern. On cue, Toge starts to wheeze and cough around the tightness stuck in his chest. Fingers pressing into his shoulders spasm and shake.

„Breathe, okay?” The terrified whispers reach his ringing ears and even if they don’t carry any cursed energy any longer, Yuuta’s words are filled to the brim with necessity, a desperate prayer uttered in a storm. “Please Toge, you have to breathe.”

Like a dam suddenly bursting, Toge draws a breath that shudders through his body. A cough, another one. His body’s muscle memory sets back in and takes over. Relief rushes over Yuuta’s face.

“That’s– that’s it. Stay with me, okay?” The words flying past his lips sound like he barely registers them leaving his mouth. He sounds hollow, spun around a tight coil, concentration hairline-thin.

And then Toge discovers the reason for the pins and needles buzzing in the extremities of his body.

Reversed cursed energy is pulsing through him like electric current on a circuit board. It is flooding his entire nervous system, effectively short circuiting it. He is enclosed in Yuuta’s energy so entirely that his body has started to go numb.

But Yuuta has already healed all the broken bones and bruises and filled him to the brim with all the reversed cursed energy his body is capable of holding. The energy flows through him so freely because there is no longer anything left to heal.

“Yuuta.” His voice is coal grating over stone, but it’s firm. It’s steady . He carefully grabs Yuuta's hand and gently moves it until a calloused pointer finger presses against the inside of Toge’s wrist. A strong heartbeat is pulsing right there beneath the surface. 

I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.

Yuuta goes completely still. Face muscles twitching and clenching painfully when he realises that Toge looks up at him with blood dripping from his chin, holes in his uniform and fingers chafed raw from the frozen earth. But he is fine.

He is fine.

The noise that leaves his mouth is like something inside of him is yanked off its hinges. His fingers press into Toge’s pulse as if he’s scared to lose it again.

“Why” he manages to choke out. “I… I don’t understand.”

And Toge pulls at the last remaining thread.

“Evidence,“ his fingers whisper shakily into the small space between them. “You are in control.” He smiles “The only thing you’re cursing is apparently yourself.”

A flicker around them. Curls of disbelief and helplessness, hesitantly wrapping around something warmer. Holding onto him. Hopeful.

“You.” 

Yuuta’s breath comes ragged and forced, words dragging and hands now clawing into Toge’s uniform jacket. “You risked your life just to prove a point?! ” 

Hot tears spill against Toge’s jaw when Yuuta gives an exasperated, pained sob and his overexerted, tired body keels over.

“God, Toge.” Yuuta all but wails. “I could have killed you, I-I almost did ! I–”

“Yuuta.”

It’s quite pathetic, the way Toge’s cursed energy immediately sizzles out again like a burnt-out match dipped into water. 

He carefully tugs at both of Yuuta’s hands. They let go of Toge reluctantly, but when Toge slowly lifts them towards his own face, Yuuta inhales sharply. The digits start to shake with something akin to dread. Then Toge presses rough and broken finger pads over his own, permanent cursed marks. 

The rugged surface of the dark seals feels odd now, when there’s no cursed energy left to flow through them. They feel like nothing.

It’s just skin.

He lets go of Yuuta who’s hands stay in place, gaze glassy and tears still rolling over his cheeks. He waits patiently, until dark oceans settle and their surface clears ever so slightly. 

“If I can choose my curses...then so can you.”

For the first time in a week, the nervous buzz of Yuuta’s energy slowly evens out and settles itself into a hesitant silence.

Toge can feel snowflakes falling onto his face again.

And finally, the last tangle in Yuuta’s soul comes undone. He crumbles into Toge’s embrace like a dying storm, scattered and delicate. His tears burn hot trails down both their uniforms. Toge holds him through it all.

There is no sound as his body contorts in silent mourning. Pain. Healing.

Toge swears he hears the soft laughter of a girl’s soul, somewhere in the sudden calmness of Yuuta’s energy surrounding them. 

He hopes one day Yuuta will hear it once more as well.

It takes a long time until Yuuta’s tears finally cease. And even when they do, they remain sat in each other’s hold for a long while after.

Eventually, Yuuta sniffles. “You know...” His voice is muffled, face still pressed into Toge’s collarbone, refusing to leave the other’s safe embrace. 

Only when Toge softly stops carving his fingers through the dark strands at the back of his neck to show that he is waiting for him to continue, does Yuuta finally move.

He lifts his head. “It’s just that… absolutely nothing anyone has said to me since Rika has left has made any sort of sense” Slowly, his gaze comes to rest on Toge’s seals. “Except for… this.” His hand waves at the field, sundered and in turmoil. Then at the space between them.

“...Except for you.”

He fully removes himself from Toge's hold, unwillingness cemented into every centimetre he slowly pulls away from him.

“I know that you hate it.”

A careful and almost shy brush of his pointer finger against Toge’s cheek. Toge blinks in confusion.

“You hate that I can copy your technique.” He smiles, sadly. “You’re scared that it will hurt me.” 

His voice is still fragile and soft, but the words come with the force of an unexpected gust of wind that sometimes comes blowing through your house, whirling up all the dust and slamming doors and window shutters. He draws in a long breath that fills his chest.

“So… I was going to swear to you that I would never use it again.”

Immediate waves of panic and nausea burst in Toge’s chest and he can hear himself gasp before he really can stop himself, his emotions out in the open like they seldom are.

Burning hot dread crawls inside of him at the sheer thought of Yuuta refusing to use an ability that could just make the difference between him staying alive or losing his life. Because of him. Because of Toge .

His eyebrows knit into a frustrated frown, the necessity to make the other understand how unbelievably stupid he is being overruling his ability to state it outright.

But Yuuta smiles as if he always knew this was going to be his reaction. He lifts his hands in a reassuring gesture.

“I’ve changed my mind though.” Carefully, his smile widens. “You changed my mind.”

Toge doesn’t dare to breathe. The flat of his palm instinctively pushes against Yuuta’s chest, impatiently encouraging him to continue his explanation. The gesture makes Yuuta chuckle, but he continues gently: “You… tried to make me leave. Before.” The memory triggers a painful frown on his face. “You tried to make me run away so I’d be safe.” The boy shakes his head as if he can make the images flitter away. And then he smiles again, weightier than before.

“It’s all you’ve ever done, ever since we met. Even just now, you didn’t even hesitate to sacrifice yourself just so I would stop being a coward.”

Toge opens his mouth to protest, but Yuuta grabs his elbow with emphasis, so intent on laying his thoughts bare. „Your technique will always be yours and yours alone. This I swear.” The words are said with so much quiet reverence, Toge snaps his mouth shut. “But if there is any way I can make it give back what it took from you… then that‘s what I would like to do.”

“I want to use it in the same way you do, Toge. To protect.“ A shy smile “... you, ideally. And anyone who is important to you.”

If it's from empathy, Yuuta’s unwavering sincerity or his own rushing heart, Toge isn’t sure. But he accepts the tears stinging in his eyes when he slowly nods his head, wondering if he’ll ever find a way to voice the gratitude he feels in that moment right then.

Yuuta’s breath hitches inside of him, gets stuck and untangles again and when it finally leaves him in a huff, it does so with a smile. 

“Okay” he whispers back, as if it’s a promise made to stay in the dark of the night, covered in December’s snow, a secret to be kept only between the two of them. He holds out his hand.

“Will you teach me?”

Toge smiles. Grabs the outstretched hand tightly with both of his own.

Anything I know.

A binding vow. Toge yields to it without wasting a breath, without a single moment of hesitation.

To sustain and nurture each other, always. To protect.

After all, that’s what thorns do.

They both jolt when in the distance there is a sudden high-pitched howl followed by a burst of light and colour in the sky. And another one. For a moment they stare at it with realisation, as the world around them suddenly embraces them once again.

So it must be midnight, then.

“Oh,” Yuuta offers, dazed. His gaze watches another set of fireworks explode, then he turns back towards Toge, who is already looking at him. Knowing silence stretches.

“You know,” Yuuta says eventually “...I probably shouldn’t say this but I’m really glad you decided to stick with me tonight.”

Toge tucks himself into Yuuta’s side for just a moment. Then he leans back. “Happy New Year, Yuuta,” he signs solemnly. Yuuta watches more lights and colours dance across Toge’s smiling face. He nods, a smile slowly spreading over his face as well.

“Yeah,” he hums with the careful glee of a heart that is relearning hope. “I think… maybe it might be.”

His eyes wander back into the night sky.

Something melts on the surface of his cheeks and Toge isn’t sure if it's tears or snow.

“I think… I should call my family.”