Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Not many students were up at this time. Toge knew why. It was fucking late, and it wasn’t the weekend. Sure, breaks happened any time and so did missions, as well as certain impromptu lessons, but there was normally some semblance of normalcy and a sense of this is when we do things every week.

A schedule that might be loose, sure, but it was reliable enough.

Toge’s schedule consisted of eating lemons with sugar at night, almost any time he used Cursed Speech during training or had a mission—because missions were a guarantee he’d speak and get fucked up on it.

If he had unripe lemons, he’d eat those instead, but he let his original batch get ripe so now he was forced to eat the yellow ones. They were never acidic enough. They never got rid of the cursed taste, the tang of doom and death and bile and shit and whatever else. Dehydrated piss? Like, fuck, he got it already—his cursed technique tasted awful even though most people would say it made his voice sound nice.

You’d be great in a choir, they might say.

I'd probably kill someone by accident if I were in a choir, Toge would reply, because it was true and very possible. But he couldn’t reply.

So he always just shrugged or nodded. Polite.

So he ate lemons. So he didn’t speak freely. So his schedule consisted of late nights even if he still slept once it hit midnight or six, who knew, not him—he was inconsistent, but the lemon and sugar thing was a pattern he didn’t trip over. Panda caught him once and peeled the lemons with him that one time. Hilarious to see the guy munch on a green one, a dare, and then gag after chewing.

But the student now in the kitchen was not Panda on one of his rare sleepless adventures.

It was Yuuta Okkotsu, the new one, and the one Toge didn’t want to cause any trouble for right now—friendly or not. He was too new and too skittish. Toge clocked him as anxious, so it’d be rude to start pranking him so early. It’d give the wrong message. Doing so was at the very bottom of the list of things Toge did not want to do. It would also be a little rude to stare too long, or fantasize, or think about him in ways that weren’t friendly or concerned or admiring—well, he was admiring Yuuta, yes, but not in the friendly go-getter manner. He was admiring Yuuta in the way that everyone else called lustful as fuck, but Toge wasn’t interested in sex, so it wasn’t lust to him, he was just thinking about what it’d be like to be more than friends. If possible. If Yuuta wanted, because it was a two-party two-lane street, not a one-sided thing. So. Do that as you will, because he was curbing as much as he could, but it really wasn’t his fault this time.

Yuuta looked good and he was good. Acted like it, at least. Who knew if that was a feign? Toge might not care, even if it was. Crazy. Yuuta was kind, even though he was a tumbling and stuttering mess; which was fine, honestly, people were people and Toge couldn’t care less. It was kind of cute, sad in a way, because Yuuta wasn’t with a speech impediment, he was genuinely scared shitless of messing things up. That was why it was sad. Toge wondered when that fear would fade into the background. Once it did, maybe then it’d be safe to start pranking.

“Ah,” Yuuta looked at him with a perplexed face, shuddering with something like embarrassment. Awkward. Nearly stilted, like he couldn’t think of anything else to say. Maybe he didn’t want to.

Toge wanted to say plenty of things. Embarrassing or awkward or not.

(He couldn’t speak like they could, though.)

It was a never ending cycle. Being caught in one place or another, being seen, being watched as he nodded or did whatever he was doing. It was a cycle of limited communication. His classmates were kind, and they didn’t question his speech mannerisms—outside of the first time he ever spoke with them. The first days, the first meetings. But those were all different. Yuuta was a bit of a curve ball. Not a bad one, just simply the kind that Toge failed to recognize on the first try.

“Konbu,” He offered, shrugging. It was that or silence. It was that or a blank stare, crafted to make someone else keep talking—carry a conversation all on their own.

If he could speak, he would.

If he could.

If the world slowed down. If people were immune, if only for a second, then he could talk freely and smile. He could ignore the stress of living as someone in his clan, nearly exiled—terms and conditions do apply—and maybe life wouldn’t feel so poor, dreary and washed out. Maybe.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Yuuta smothered his face with his left hand, his embarrassment bleeding into his voice. Speaking, twisting, sounding apologetic. “I didn’t—I didn’t even know you were up, and, uhm, doing—anything. Sorry, Inumaki, I’ll go, sorry.”

“Okaka,” The word came out fast, thundered through and against the roof of his mouth. Toge blinked, then swallowed again after a moment. “Takana.”

“I don’t know what that means yet,” Yuuta admitted, and it seemed to burst out of him. He looked pained.

Toge felt winded, all of a sudden, like such honesty wasn’t a common concept here. He talked in onigiri ingredients, for fuck’s sake. He knew not everyone understood. He knew. Back at the clan manor, it was the same deal in a different color, maybe different size. Here, at Jujutsu Tech, things were less awful and more natural. Panda had picked up on Toge’s meanings rather quickly—probably the quickest out of everyone.

Yuuta was still new. There was a lot to learn, at least in application. Certain things were known because of context—but maybe being in the kitchen so late at night, cutting lemons and peeling the skin back with a delicate hand wasn’t one of those things. The bowl of sugar was out, too, which might be odd. He wasn’t making lemonade. He had Tabasco in the fridge, somewhere, but he wasn’t looking for something inedible. He just wanted to get the curse-taste out of his mouth.

Yuuta, though, wouldn’t know this.

Toge offered another shrug, his miff not present to cover his face. Maybe that was part of the reason Yuuta seemed so awkward.

(He disliked his seals, too.)

To see them freely was a rarity he did not care for. Avoiding mirrors was a ritualistic process for him.

“I’m sorry, Inumaki. I swear—uhm, I just, sorry,” Yuuta continued on, rather oblivious to what was moving through Toge’s head.

That was fine. No one here was a mind reader or an empath. Least of all Toge, or Yuuta, who was an emotionally stunted newly enrolled high schooler. Yuuta had revealed pieces of his life since being here, and unsurprisingly, having a powerful and dangerous curse of your childhood best friend haunt you for your tender years wasn’t any way to have strong or stable relationships. Toge was unsurprised. He was saddened by it in the way he was saddened by any curse that lugged around someone’s life—he didn’t know how to help, but he felt bad anyway. Yuuta was no exception to this saddened rule. He was, however, an exception to the offer to curse your curse out of existence rule because Rika was his childhood best friend and would-have-been fiancée. So. Toge wouldn’t offer to curse the curse, not even if it was the wisest thing ever in the books.

(It wasn’t. Toge knew grief and he knew loss. His clan taught him enough of that, so he understood.)

Toge shook his head easily, waving his free hand before keeping his gaze on the lemon he was effectively slicing down the center, “Tsuna tsuna.”

“I don’t know that either,” He mumbled.

That’s okay, Toge mused in the depths of his mind. At least you’re trying to understand. It was more than he could ask for, sometimes. Yuuta was genuine and sincere, embarrassed in his inability at this coded language he had only just been introduced to. He stared at the lemon he was cutting.

He swallowed, and the spit clicked in his throat uncomfortably, too thick. He smiled, eyes crinkling as he looked away from the yellow slices to stare at Yuuta—discomfort written on the other student’s face, but not in a way Toge was willing to indulge.

Yuuta’s eyes flicked down, at his mouth, then back up to the rest of his face. He looked like the boys back in Inumaki’s clan, when Toge raised his head in challenge, curled together, pressed thin—petals to pages, the threat of bloodied lips, not kissed ones. The threat of poison and venom; the threat of bloodshed by fang, not love. But Yuuta’s face was not shy as much as it was lost, twisted in two. Like he wanted to look—who didn’t—but did not want his gaze to linger. Like he wanted but wouldn’t steel himself into something less hovery.

(Toge didn’t know a lot of people who would do that, waver when looking at the seals, waver for other reasons not related to gear or discomfort.)

“Tsuna tsuna,” He repeated, and the look on Yuuta’s face contorted into something redder, more relieved than anything else. It was better than the boy’s anxiety, that deep feeling of failure because speaking in rice ball ingredients wasn’t something he had been taught, let alone explained—later, after Toge ate the lemons and had his acidic flavors knocked back with spoonfuls of sugar, he could write the translations down.

A part of him didn’t want to. A part of him would rather wait and see if Yuuta can figure it out. A part of him wanted to be unseen, just a little longer—because the minuscule words he spoke could never mean the things he wanted them to. Mysteries were a better genre, not honesty, not the easygoing flow of having all the answers in your hands.

But that was impersonal, and perhaps cruel in Yuuta’s case.

He was new here. He had only tried to fit in so far, make it work even though he looked as sleep-deprived and off-kilter as every new student that came here before him. It wasn’t his fault for his lack of knowledge.

“Is it really okay?” Yuuta mumbled, but he awkwardly slid towards a seat at the counter—fingers dancing over the wood. “I don’t want to bother you.”

It was a silly notion.

They were sorcerers. Life didn’t end. It kept moving. Nothing and everything changed and there was nothing to do about it but keep up—stay alive, stay here, stay functionable. Toge couldn’t recall the last time he thought anyone at the school was bothering him. He bothered people, sure, because the water bucket tricks and the temporary hair dye pranks were part of his means of communication. He bothered people and laugh. Maki had been a victim to purple hair dye three times now, as was Panda. Panda, however, hadn’t retaliated. Maki certainly had.

Yuuta was new. He had been cursed most his developing years. Who knew if he had maintained any kind of friendship with anyone since he originally began harboring Rika. It painted a lonely and rather miserable picture, in Toge’s book.

He had no means to remedy it, not like time could, but he didn’t mind company.

Toge bobbed his head, wishing he could say a hundred other things. You don’t bother me. You’re fine. You’re okay. You’re great company. I don’t mind. You can stay. He couldn’t.

He again settled for an inadequate, “Tsuna tsuna.”

“Okay,” Yuuta hedged, again, like he was expecting Toge to throw the lemon or the knife or perhaps both. That would suck. Toge would never. But, who was he to say no one hadn’t done it before? So Toge didn’t think too hard about it, he just went back to the lemon, acidic and sweet in its own way. The sugar would help. He could offer it to Yuuta, but again, who knew if his language of rice and ingredients would be enough for the student. It was fine. He could text on his phone, write it in the notes app.

Yuuta took a seat, awkward. He looked tired as much as he did lost. Insomnia got to all of them eventually, even if it was only for one night.

Toge wasn’t without his sleepless excursions either—his just came in the form of clan letters and angrily texts and someone’s number going under the blocked contact list after they talked too much about the wrong things. Toge’s sleepless nights came with fire and venom and the brand of a lifetime, something he could only dream of scraping iff to turn into a maze of winding patterns. But a cursed seal stayed forever, under and over a scar; and innate part of you. Sometimes he dreamt about splitting his tongue. That’d disturb the seal. That might do something. Or, you know, it might not. But, by that point, he probably wouldn’t care. Snake tongues were fire anyways, cool enough to keep Toge’s attention. It’d be a running oun with his older sisters if they were still alive, he imagined.

“Inumaki,” Yuuta mumbled with hesitant confusion, and he squinted at the lemon slices, “Why are you, uhm, up?”

Toge huffed, and cut the next slice. He thought about looking up, but decided it might only make Yuuta feel worse. So would silence, though, it seemed, so he hummed.

Yuuta flushed red, and Toge could see it out of the corner of his eye. All that cursed energy; a power house, and one with a special grade curse attached to it. And yet, he was a nervous kid. A nervous school boy. Flustered, embarrassed, ashamed—hopefully not the last, because it took a while for people to ask the right questions when Toge could only reply accurately in his version of yes’s or no’s.

“Sorry,” Yuuta apologized hastily. Silence turned over and showed its belly. He crumbled forwards at the counter, buried his face in his hands. Through skin, he mumbled, “I’m really bad at this. Sorry, Inumaki.”

“Takana,” He replied easily.

Maybe if he said it enough in the place where no worries or it’s okay would be, then Yuuta would clock it as such and understand what it meant, or at least, an abridged version of what it meant. There wasn’t much room for interpretation besides whether it meant no worries or it’s okay, and takana simply replaced those phrases, so—really, it should be easy enough.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Yuuta offered up, lamely, and he looked miffed about it. Toge didn’t blame him. Sleep could suck. Yuuta was probably filled with nails and nightmares. “Not that I can normally, but it was just—really pointless.”

Toge hummed. He peeled away the skin from the slice, tore at it. The peel got stuck under his thumb. He stared for a moment, then dug it out, then peeled the rest of the yellow rind away.

He looked up, offered a wry smile, “Shake, shake.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Yuuta mumbled again, looking like a wet puppy as he stared through gaps in his hands. He looked genuinely sad again.

Toge smiled, tried to let it show that he didn’t mind. He could carry a conversation if he tried, blow through the motions of a language he understood perfectly. He had made it with his sisters, after all, and even though all of them didn’t and couldn’t use it, they would understand it if they did. Anyone could, because it was short and simple and to the point. Little time to get lost in translation.

The lemon was done. He turned his gaze to the sugar. It was easy enough from here, shove the lemon slice in the sugar, let it briefly gather it around on the wetness of flesh, then pick it back up and eat. Or chew and then spit out, if he didn’t feel like eating something at all.

Sometimes he just wanted a taste. Bad habit, not a routine, but it happened. He was working on not letting it happen again.

(It most certainly would. Maki would just have to yell at him again for having a bad diet.)

“Are you, uhm,” Yuuta started, but paused trailing off and then around like he was running a block and struggling to recall how to breathe. Maybe, maybe not—he blinked, dragged his hands away and folded them like he was being polite, non-intrusive. His mumbling sounded really awake and still, “Are you making dried candies? Lemon candy?”

All the sugar gave that impression, probably, but the lack of a turned on oven and a proper tray dissuaded such an idea.

Good one, though.

Toge took the peeled slices and dropped them into the sugar one by one. He dropped the first, it rolled. He smeared the sugar, buried it, then pried it out. Covered. Perfect. He didn’t mind—maybe Gojou-Sensei was being kind that one time when he gave Toge those dumb citrus flavored hard candies. They weren’t that good, but it was a nice gesture.

He picked up the first victim of his routine and popped it into his mouth.

“Oh,” Yuuta said, sounding surprised. “Uhm.”

Toge looked at Yuuta, pushed the slice to one side of his mouth so it could burn there for a minute.

Sour—not sour enough for him but it was all he had tonight—so he considered it a half-win. He huffed a laugh, the vibrations straining against the mental confines of Cursed Speech. No cursing here, please, I only wish to laugh. But no laughter was permitted, so Toge settled for the huff of air and the eye-roll.

Yuuta must have taken this for concealed offense.

(It was not.)

“No, oh, I’m sorry—I just, I didn’t expect that,” His newest classmate stammered, awkward, sounding pained. He waved both his hands, picking them off the table just as flounderingly as he had put them down. “Really, really—sorry, Inumaki, it’s not like—I’m not—whatever works for you! Sorry!”

Yuuta Okkotsu; floundering.

Toge felt bad for leaning him on heard—the worst form of not replying, the real world’s form of being left on read—but he wanted his tastes to drown and he was selfish for this brief moment, as he often was.

Toge bit down on the lemon, pushed it to his tongue. The acidic taste burned, then was swept away with the sugar. He let some of it trickle down his throat, bobbing down the river of an easy path. It scraped, as most food did, and he swallowed it down. The lemon was chewed, and he nodded along, placed the next slice in the bowl—wash away, wash away, wash away, wash away. The awful taste of what he considered a damned burned lightened, if only by a little. What a fucking relief. He swallowed the pieces of lemon, the zappy sugar and the sour crispness.

“Mentaiko,” He said, once it was down. “Takana.”

They burn, he would say if he could speak. I always taste them. This is me fixing my problem. It’s silly, isn’t it? He tipped his head, gestured to his throat and then his face—the seals.

Yuuta followed the gesture, lost again, mouthing the words mantakio and takana like they made sense to him.

They probably didn’t.

Give the guy a trophy for trying. He needed that encouragement.

Toge had no seals on his throat, none he could offer—maybe if he was dissected by Ieiri-Sensei, split down the middle, they could see his skin and how the seals trailed down on the inside like a jellyfish’s legs; tendrils, tendriling. The way they fell, wrapped around him. He was a noose to his own clan, a seal on the dangers that came with a snake’s tongue, eyes, and fangs. It was his burden and his power and he hated it at times, disgusted by its limitations, frustrated with isolation; but no success came from hating yourself, it came from hating everything else—including parts of yourself, but in entirety? You’d destruct. Toge couldn’t destruct so soon after running for the hills with his final slip of you’re fucking exiled, Toge. So here he was.

“Your seals,” Yuuta nodded along, looking just as lost as before. “Uhm. Whatever works. I don’t—understand, but, it’s okay.”

Toge tapped his cheeks, ruefully, and shrugged. “Shake.”

He took his next lemon slice. Yuuta covered up what might’ve been a grimace, but then he settled into his seat in full, just awkwardly sitting there. Maybe he didn’t like being alone. Toge wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. Loneliness killed people, and you know, it wasn’t like Toge minded sharing the kitchen space. Yuuta seemed like the least likely candidate to cause him any issues.

“Does it taste,” Yuuta started to say, like he was second-guessing not only himself but then what meager words he was offering up. He swallowed, frowned, “—bad?”

Toge hummed. The lemon and sugar didn’t taste bad. Maybe to someone else, they couldn’t appreciate the creative mark of Toge’s conquest. Maybe. But to him? The only thing that tasted bad was blood or cursed energy or caviar. Everything else was mostly okay.

He shook his head, then pointed to his seals again. He hated them. He ignored them.

“The seals,” Yuuta mumbled again. He stared at the pattern; outlining circle of purple, inward dot of one on each cheek. Purple. His eyes darted to Toge’s mouth, then away.

His face was still a little red. He still looked sad and embarrassed about their little language barrier. That was fine. Be embarrassed, that’s okay. It took a minute. Several months, actually, and Yuuta had only been here a few weeks. He’d have to keep trying. If you didn’t, were you actually a sorcerer? That was their life; trying and succeeding, because to not succeed was to die.

Right now, they were as clear of a message he could use; because cursed energy was powerful and it was awful. It was rough, sharp, jagged. It haunted you and everyone else. It was messy. If you weren’t a sorcerer, it leaked everywhere and made curses. If you were a sorcerer, you hopefully didn’t make curses—not unless you cursed something.

Cough: Yuuta Okkotsu. Not his fault, but he fit the picture.

Cough: Toge Inumaki. Definitely his fault, so he fit the picture, too.

Toge didn’t mind, and he didn’t want to bother Yuuta with words he wouldn’t have definitions for. He could sign, but it was unlikely that Yuuta knew sign language either—it wasn’t like Toge used it freely, either, too many times spent having someone stare at him with a blank face.

“Takana,” So he gestured again, smiled easily like having nothing over his face was second-nature. “Mentaiko.”

(It wasn’t.)

Purple on purple. Staples of the Inumaki existence, things that were obvious and unavoidable. I wonder what he’ll do to the family versus the harsher whisper of he’s going to kill us. The repetition. The dive, the slide of the deep end as you came out wet and red from your mom’s womb; sparks of energy from your cries, colors over your cheeks and on the center of your tongue. It burned. It always burned. It tasted awful and no tea from the gardens help and no hot meal soothed it, powered over it—neither did snow or ice or sugary treats from outside the clan’s walls. His sisters taught him that, muted and muffled with their veils, their sharp purple eyes. Violet. The dead doves on his side of porch, the feathers that his brother brought him with a grim face. Will you curse it? Toge smiling, weak to his family’s demands, even if he was branded a snake amongst the hens; speaking, Okay. He was a staple figure. Might as well be a statue. His sisters never adored him, just tolerated and laughed. That was fine. Thinking about it made him ache, but it was fine.

“Oh,” And something seemed to settle onto Yuuta’s face. Realization, the confused and hesitant kind, even when it came to him in under a few seconds—thinking then maintaining. “Your seals, oh. They cause problems? Like, taste?”

Toge stared at him, then gave a nod. He’d laugh if he could, if the noise wouldn’t allow his poisoned sounds to escape, but laughter wasn’t a safe-word. It would curse the air, make flies die, make the static turn too sharp. Yuuta was strong. He could deflect it if he tried. Would he try was the better question. Maybe he’d know how, would instinctively block it. Maybe he wouldn’t—he was new, he was unsuspecting, he wasn’t trained for it. Maybe.

He laughed anyway, a rare occurrence, and it scraped out of his throat and spilled like water over the floor. Cascading. His seals pulsed. The world fell away, and he narrowed in on smothering that spark of poison.

Yuuta barely looked startled. But, by some miracle, he barely even flinched when the noise escaped. His face contorted, flushing redder—city boys proved anything possible, Toge imagined amusedly—and his eyes darted to Toge’s mouth again like he was some blistering and blustering school kid straight out of a church choir.

Maybe, at heart, he was.

Toge wouldn’t judge. It be amusing, almost heartfelt.

“Shake,” Toge offered, nodding again, and he returned his attention to the lemons. The lemon peels, scraps of creation, waited for his devastation. He scraped them up and made a move for the garbage, tossing them in easily.

The gentleness of the kitchen was nice. It was often quiet, only busy when someone actually decided to try their hand at independent living with all the ingredients that sat readily in the fridge until used. They didn’t get a lot of fresh stuff—not because they all had shit diets—but because they didn’t cook it fast enough. Maki was against food waste if it could be avoided. Toge didn’t blame her, so he managed the shopping lists and got reservable food more often. When he cooked, he did what he wanted when he wanted. Cravings and routines.

“Sorry you—ah, you have to deal with that, Inumaki,” Yuuta got out, and he sounded like a stretched rag; wet, wrung out, soon to dry if he was laid right. He was staring at the lemon slices and sugar, now. “I didn’t know.”

Toge just shrugged.

He drowned himself in cough syrup, prolonged his usefulness. He ate lemons and sugar to soothe the taste, combat the urge to claw at himself and down whatever awful chemicals were under the sink down his throat. It’d be useless of him if he killed himself. So he didn’t.

He didn’t wreck his throat any more than his Cursed Speech did. He didn’t damage it. Not his mouth, his esophagus. Back when he first came to the school, red around the eyes and exhausted from rolling curse after curse out of his mouth, he vomited too often. He never kept anything down. He burned. He hacked. He was sick all the time, by like, everyone’s standards. He was better now. He didn’t taste bile all the time. He felt better. It wasn’t so bad, he guessed, because at least here he wasn’t encouraged to be quiet. Gojou-Sensei told him to talk freely if he wanted, because—and quote—your voice isn’t gonna hurt me, Toge, it’ll roll right off me like everything else—and then he had winked, because he made a pun as he always did. Toge had been unimpressed, but the efforts were kind.

It was why his room was at the very end of the hall. If you ever want to talk to yourself. The offer was kind. It was also unneeded. Maybe,Toge might say, but he didn’t want to speak at all—not to the walls or the ceiling. He’d rather speak to people his age, if they would ever be so powerful as to ignore the throes of a cursed fever that was his voice. Maybe one day he’d talk to Gojou-Sensei freely, but today wasn’t that day. Okaka. He didn’t mind.

He could figure it out, even through frustration and acidic tang.

Yuuta was fiddling with his sleeves. Toge could see the motion out of his corner of his eyes. When he looked up, he didn’t bother being subtle—he just stared, watched the way Yuuta got lost in whatever pattern was existing in his head, watched him tug at the edge of the fabric like it could cover his whole hand. It couldn’t, it wasn’t large enough nor stretchy enough. The school-mandated sweaters were rarely stretchy enough for that.

“Tsuna?” He asked, despite knowing full well Yuuta had no clue what the fuck it meant.

That was fine. It was almost a secret Toge would’ve been willing to keep forever, just between him and his sisters—but they were dead and he was here so it was his to share.

Yuuta blinked, snapped back like a rubber band. His knuckles were slightly red. Not from bruises, or abrasions. They looked irritated, like they were scrubbed too hard, Toge’s gaze lingered. He knew the feeling, would not ask about it—Yuuta’s issues belonged to him, only he could offer them. Toge would not pry with teeth nor his hands, not his tongue; it would sever a connection too soon.

“What?” He asked, floundering again. Maybe that was his fashion; floundering.

(Floundering in Yuuta fashion. A trademark. Copyrighted. Toge would even help deliver the papers to the official office, if that’d change anything.)

He blinked, owlish. What else? Where else? Yuuta, I’m looking at you. The sleeve, the anxiety, the reddened knuckles, the nausea and exhaustion written on his face. All those things, too, though he had no adequate words for them. He should use his phone. He really should. Gestured to the fiddling with his free hand—the other already holding his next slice.

His voice was easy, “Tsuna?”

“I’m fine,” Yuuta guessed the question. It wasn’t exactly the wrong question, a bad interpretation. Good guess. He looked away from Toge’s bamboozling concoction of pure lemon and cane sugar. “Just thinking.”

He couldn’t ask what Yuuta was thinking about.

His tone said something else—lost, so lost, maybe the sad kind again. Was it insomnia or nightmares? Was it restlessness or bad habits?

Toge could guess. He would probably be wrong in where he threw his assumption, but if he really wanted to theorize, he could. He didn’t, though. He chewed the last bit of his slice, tasted it, felt it burn. He didn’t have any rawness to his lips this week—thank fuck, really—so it didn’t burn painfully. He swallowed. He moved onto the slice in his hand, dipping it into the sugar one last time to ensure there would be some kind of tasteful contrast. Acidic sugar. Sweetener. Acidic. Sour. Not bitter or hot, just something to fight the war of cursed energy in his mouth.

He hummed considerately, as much of a hum as he could. It trembled in his mouth like something without auto tune, a terrible sounding song.

Yuuta took a moment to say anything. “I, uhm, didn’t realize it tasted bad.”

“Shake,” Toge nodded his head, understandingly. Why would anyone know what something cursed—energy or object or other—tasted like?

That was fair.

To not know was fair. To not understand was fair. Few did, few ever would. What kind of sorcerer knew how cursed items tasted? What technique did you have that needed a bit of zang? Christ. Get help. Toge would if he could—he couldn’t, as he knew, because being exiled came with terms and conditions—so the lemons and sugar and sour acid was what he had. Time to self-medicate: would it fucking work this time around?

“It’s cursed—the energy, the things,” Yuuta mumbled, wringing his hands together again. He said things like he didn’t want to offend Toge by saying seals. “So that—it obviously makes sense, right, but—I just never guessed. I didn’t… know.”

It felt kind.

It felt warm, awkward in that childish way of being unable to read minds. The guesswork filled all empty spaces.

Toge promptly ignored the part of his brain that wondered about touching, holding, coming in contact. He ignored it because he was nothing but good at it. He’d ignored himself most his life, seals excluded. He could ignore the part of him that wanted human connection, too.

(Easier said than done. Easier thought than said.)

“Shake,” Toge answered indulgently, because Yuuta seemed to be struggling here, and Toge was nothing but kind.

He was nothing but what he was, which was supposedly kind, supposedly fast, supposedly sympathetic, supposedly real, supposedly himself, and supposedly sharp-tongued. Supposedly, of course, because Toge had never bothered being set in his ideals unless they were part of his habits—routines or otherwise. Exorcizing curses came easily because the Inumaki Clan had been raised on creating them. That awful taste? The feeling? That was something all children with Cursed Speech dealt with until they either died or left the clan with their tails tucked and eyes bruised black and blue.

He wanted to say things. If he could speak, he would say so much. He would probably never stop talking. He would be worse than Gojou-Sensei during one of the man’s many playful toned lectures. Maki would probably need to smother him with a pillow or something else, like throwing Panda at him and calling it a day. If he could talk without threatening the safety and care of others, their lives and health,he would become a king. The literal King of Yapperville, if he ever could. He couldn’t. He had to talk in an ingredient list of rice balls and all their fillings. He had to make due. He had to make it work. Toge was an innovative child and an innovative sorcerer. He could figure it out—survive social isolation. Speech. To each their own, or whatever else was out there. Something wise.

He had nothing set aside to fill that gap, so tonight, it was up to Yuuta to fill the silence.

The guy looked like he was going to explode from embarrassment. He looked like he was going to cry or implode or fall over or sink into the floor, a puddle, a bunch of human mush.

“Tsuna tsuna,” Toge offered into the silence, because Yuuta seemed to be better at talking after being given a verbal reply. The nods and hums helped, but not enough to make the new student reply. Anxiety did that to you. Toge didn’t mind.Good luck, He thought, and tasted the sourness of the slice resting against his left cheek. Pocket mouth, a squirrel. The sugar was a nice contrast. It was a good habit, the one he had.

Living your important developing years in self-imposed silence, and isolation, must have done a number on him. A curse attached to him. No contact, no comfort. No friendships and no strong relationships to rely on.

Yuuta had been alone because of a sad thing, an accident—who knew why.

A childhood friend who died, now glued to his bony and knobby spine. Toge could guess why. He already knew to an extent—habits died hard, ones like his? He knew them well. He saw it in others. Cursed Speech could lock and ground you to the world, make you stay. It was just energy. It was just how the world worked—you had power, you didn’t want someone to leave, you cursed them to stay. Sorry, error! They were already dead. So you curse their soul, their will, whatever remained of them. They stay. They’re a curse. You cursed them. Those were the mechanics, the steps, the end credits that rolled. Toge knew them very well.

(Every Inumaki member did. They had to. It was a burden to bear, like their seals, like their cursed technique.)

“I guess I still have a lot to learn,” He murmured, and his face was still that red hue of shame. Yuuta had expanded, laid out. His head was on his arms, resting, and his eyes were half-lidded. He looked like a wet puppy trying to air-day himself after a rainstorm. “Nowhere near ready to be a sorcerer.”

Mud in the house tracked in.

Toge was relatively certain he would never get the idea out of his head now that it was there. Yuuta was lost. He didn’t know where to go. Toge used to be like that, too.

“Okaka,” Toge denied, because they were sorcerers already. He raised his brows, spoke around the sourness in his mouth, “Mentaiko.”

They simply were students before they were licensed. They had to learn. Not to mention the fact that Yuuta hadn’t been born into this world, he woke up in it. He was dragged aside after a freak accident when Rika killed his dickish classmates. Lockers. Into, stuffed. Then he was dragged to what would have been his execution. Then Gojou-Sensei intervened, because he had a knack for fucking with the hire-ups and taking in new students—or just soaring kids from doom—because of course he did. So here Yuuta Okkotsu was. Toge was glad for the change of pace, for this.

“I really don’t know what that means, Inumaki,” Yuuta informed him again, ruefully. He looked at the fabric of his sleeves, buried his head there. “I just—I swear I’ll learn. I’m sorry.”

His eyes looked so tired, so lost. Clouded over like the haze of life was just another memory to pass by—scamper, scrape. Maybe for Yuuta it was. But he sounded regretful, sad. Kicked puppy. The analogy was still applicable.

“Takana,” He said, easily, and it slid off his tongue like most rice ball ingredients did. The lemon soaked into his tongue. He nodded along, heard his heart thunder a hello. “Takana, mentaiko.”

Names were too personal.

If he said it, he wouldn’t want to stop saying it. He wouldn’t risk it—not for a new student. He’d rather not risk something like that ever again.

Toge could ignore the ache that lived in his chest. Panda and Maki knew enough of his language, and his body language, to fill the gaps of conversation. To talk. So did Gojou-Sensei and Ieiri-Sensei, and even Gojou’s ward. Fushiguro knew enough to understand. He was quiet, though, didn’t talk—maybe not from anxiety, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t like Toge and him exchanged many words. An occasional mentaiko paired with a sure from his end. It worked. Therefore, the lack of communication with Yuuta wasn’t permanent. It would last a while, yes, but once Yuuta warmed up and the look on his face became a background expression, it’d be easier. Phones existed. So did chalkboards and notepads and smiles. He could do without the rice all language if he had to, even if it was a delicate part of his existence.

“Okay,” Yuuta breathed out, and then he went quiet like he could fade away. That would be one hell of a technique; fading into the background so simply, melting down, butter in a pan.

It would rival Gojou-Sensei’s teleportation.

Toge didn’t want to see that, though, he would rather see whatever originality Yuuta could conjure. With all that cursed energy—both his and Rika’s—he could do a lot. He could probably apply himself in ways that others at the school, present and past and future couldn’t or would never be able to.

Sometimes he dreamed of never speaking again. Sometimes he wished it was reality. Would it work? If he looked himself in the mirror and whispered the words don’t speak to himself, would it work? Would it lock him down? Would it cancel out like PEMDAS because Cursed Speech was violently protective and destructive of its host, of the owner of its larynx? Would it work? Would it do what he was wondering, or would it be another dead-end whisper because god forbid Toge get what he wanted by speaking?

(Ignore, ignore. A useless thought. He knew the answer. His sisters had already tried. Look what happened to them. He knew.)

“Shake,” He answered, and glanced at the oven to see the dim green outline of the time. He chewed the slice, finished the rest of it. The tang was no better than the sharpness that came with Cursed Speech.

11:48 at night.

Fuck me, Toge thought blankly, and to think I have a stupid ass mission tomorrow. What the hell. He looked away, back to the sugar and the last two slices he had carved. He should have cut more, made them smaller. He didn’t. His own mistake.

“Sorry for interrupting your—night,” Yuuta said weakly, in that hushed and awkward tone, and Toge dragged his gaze back to meet Yuuta’s.

He apologized a lot.

Still a sad and miserable existence, though he was bottled up as neatly as one could be. Sitting at the counter, watching his stranger of a classmate eat lemon slices and sugar like it was some kind of delicacy. It was for Toge, yeah, but not for many others. Probably not for Yuuta, if he ever tried. He could try. Toge paused, thought it over—there were slices left. He could offer one. Who knew if Yuuta would want it, but he could.

It shuddered in his mind, sharp and gaudy, and Toge hated how he was indifferent to someone’s sorrows in the way that he was. It came out like this: such nonsense. Gojou-Sensei should have warned Toge that Yuuta had an unofficial diagnosis called depression and self-hatred, because that was what he was seeing here—depression and self-hatred and a lot of social anxiety; something called the diabolical new sorcerer cave-in that could only be undone by kindness and a codependent relationship.

Did Toge have it in him to play that role?

Yeah, sure, it wasn’t like he was playing it for anyone else. All those years being his sisters’ live-in therapist must’ve prepared him for this.It most certainly did not, but at least they’d find his situation humorous. They’d probably even like Yuuta.

(Too late now, just do the job.)

He raised his brows and slowly shook his head, denying it, “Okaka.”

Yuuta just looked at him, and his face was red at the edges like his knuckles, like his eyes. He didn’t reply.

Toge kept his face as unbiased as he could. It’s okay to cry. It’s better to cry. Toge didn’t say it. He couldn’t say it. He kept his expression open, looked back down at the slices. No, offering it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t make sense. They didn’t know each other well enough. It wouldn’t be a good enough olive branch. He plucked a slice and shoved it to his mouth—politeness and gentleness forgotten, the peeling of skin, of worry and analysis. His brain buzzed and he made bad assumptions, created routines in the dark to follow because it was that or craziness, being insane, being untethered.

He took the last slice, moving to the garbage can. His throat still tasted bad. The feeling of pins and needles lingered. The taste of citrus and acid and sugar drowned out most, but not all, of the taste that came with being an Inumaki with seals.

He threw away the last slice.

If Maki saw, she’d talk his ear off about food waste, and he’d ask her on his phone if she wanted that last slice—if anyone wanted it—and it’d be begrudgingly silent, because Toge’s routines were his own, and Maki may not like food waste but the lemon would have gone overripe, anyway. She would understand.

He went back to the cutting board, took the knife and discarded the bowl of sugar. There wasn’t a lot left, anyway, so he would just put a lid on it and use it tomorrow in whatever awful fruit drink he managed to make. He put the knife in the sink, then grabbed the cutting board and dragged it over to the other side of the metal bowl that went so far down. He made sure the drain wasn’t plugged, then snatched up the soap and the dumb sponge he used to clean the board with.

Yuuta watched, transfixed, but still silent.

Conversations never moved the way they should when Toge was involved. He didn’t speak the way they should. Yuuta was too quiet, too anxious. He would just have to learn.

It was easy. It was a ritual. Back home, he used to do the same. Mended all his wounds and cut lips with lemons and berries and sharp-tasting herbs and long hours spent in the kitchen, scrubbing the dishes and wooden blocks dry. His sisters never helped. His mother never mentioned it. Toge did it all, quiet, observant, sickened. He’d get sick by eating too many mandarins. His family wouldn’t help. He would vomit, ruin the wooden bowl he ate from. He’d scrub it clean the same night, fever and all, Cursed Speech thrumming like the echo of his eldest sister’s harp.

It took around ten minutes, but then he was done.

The routine was supposed to be over. The sink was no longer running, and both the knife and cutting board were back to their original forms—juiceless and without sugar or lemon remains. The board was drying in the sink, tilted. The knife was in the drying rack, safely tucked aside where the blade wouldn’t get anyone.

Toge came back and found a matching lid to click onto the glass bowl he had been using for the sugar. He clicked it on, quiet, and it snapped into position. He left it where it was on the counter.

One look at Yuuta told Toge what he needed.

He glanced up, another useless onigiri word on his tongue, and saw that Yuuta’s eyes were closed.

He wished he could speak. He wished he could say you shouldn’t sleep out here, not like that, it’s bad for your neck or say your eyelashes are so long or say how tired are you, to fall asleep to me cleaning up my mess? He wished he could speak without consequence. Toge could not. He blinked, watched the way Yuuta’s hair fell into his face when he sleepily shifted, head smushing further into his arms. He paused. Waking him up would be better in the long run, wouldn’t it? Maybe.

“Shake,” He mumbled, and it was a habit.

The word vibrated in the air. He smiled, loftily. His lemons were long gone, his stomach a queasy nightmare. He didn’t want to vomit, but if the nausea stayed, he would have to.

It happened to all of them eventually.

Yuuta didn’t stir. His hair was a mess. He was paler than he would be, a small body that was unhealthy. Did he eat enough? He clearly didn’t sleep enough, so that question was answered—though it was good he was sleeping now, however fruitless it might be once he stirred. Insomnia and anxiety were cruel bitches. They were heavy-handed, sharp, an exhausting pair. Add that onto depression. Add that onto self-hate. Toge wondered what Gojou-Sensei was thinking, letting Yuuta roam freely. Did he not know? Well, Gojou-Sensei may be playful, but he understood enough to clock people as liabilities to themselves. Surely, if Yuuta was one of them, Gojou-Sensei would have it covered. Or a plan, if so, to cover it. Toge wouldn’t pry. He could just ask. Show up, raise a brow, ask takana with a gesture to Yuuta’s shitty health and overall conditions. Gojou-Sensei might laugh, he might raise a brow back, or he might give a real answer. You never knew. Toge didn’t.

He looked at Yuuta.

Long sleeves, soft, hopefully. It was the school mandated sweater that every student was given, whether or not they had their own wardrobe. Messy hair. Dark under circles, lost eyes; swollen red at the corners, now shut. Purpled colorations. Red knuckles, not quite raw, but irritated. Down the throat—throw up, throw up, throw up.

Toge understood. Yuuta was pale, sickly in that manner. Warm and awkward and embarrassed and lost. He must feel alone. Welcome to the club, welcome to the school—all sorcerers felt that way, so at least people understood each other, and that familiar ache. They could help each other. Yuuta could feel alone without feeling entirely isolated, couldn’t he? It was a possibility. Toge used to feel that way, all the time, every day, but it had lessened over the months at Jujutsu Tech. He could show that part of life to Yuuta if he tried.

A few more moments passed. Toge looked at the clock again, blanched at the time.

12:02. Midnight.

It was the new day. He had a mission in roughly seven hours. He should go back to his room, curl up and let his incense sticks burn out into smoke. Or a candle. He should go to bed wearing his uniform, make it easier on himself.

Instead, he walked to the other side of the counter.

The kitchen lights were gentle, a warm lapping of goldish white. Yellow. He pulled out the other chair, next to where Yuuta was currently sitting—sleeping, supposedly. He sat down. Toge didn’t stay in the kitchen for long when he cut lemons. He just did the task, cut them, dipped them in sugar, ate or sucked them dry until his throat seized, until he spasmed, until the nausea came from the sourness and not the taste of death in his throat.

But, tonight, he was going to fuck up his routine and fuck up his mission. He would get his expensive cough syrup and his most caffeinated drink and call it good—would just sleep once the mission was done. He read the debrief already. It wasn’t too bad. It was a Grade-Two curse, it should be fine. No hard feelings.

So, instead, he sat at the counter and folded his arms.

He rested his head, laid it down. He pressed his cheek against the skin of his forearms, fortunately unscarred despite the years he spent scratching them raw back when he was a kid.

His head laid down, facing Yuuta’s. He angled himself center, but he was looking at his newest peer. He could feel the steady cursed energy that Yuuta had, that came from Rika, too, even though she wasn’t out. She was here in spirit, obviously, threaded into Yuuta’s very presence. He stared at his classmate’s face, the roughened edges of an insomniac’s expression. Nice side profile, even when most of it was obscured by the sweater sleeves and messy hair. Smooth skin, and maybe it would be warm toned if he took care of himself better. Toge could offer him some face masks later down the line.

Toge tasted citrus and sugar; the natural remedy he had been using for his Cursed Speech since he was old enough to keep his mouth shut without any issues.

(Read: age seven.)

He tasted a hint of doom, the radiation that soaked into his skin and lived comfortably, near perfectly, within his larynx. His energy was there, concentrated like a bomb. Perhaps one day he would blow up.

But Toge was here, in the kitchen, watching Yuuta Okkotsu sleep.