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The halls shake with energy, windows and doors rattling on their hinges. Maki sprints down the hall, fearing the worst. It’s only been six weeks since the Shibuya incident, surely the school is not under attack so soon. The cursed energy grows stronger with each step she takes, reaching a peak at the boys’ dormitory.
Coming to a stop in front of Toge’s door, Maki feels energy pouring out from the room, rattling the door on its hinges. She grabs the handle and turns it but to no avail; the door is locked. With a swift kick, the door splinters, revealing not a curse but Yuuta and Toge shouting at each other.
“You just keep acting like everything’s fine! It’s not fine!”
“Okaka! Tsuna tsuna,” Toge snaps back, his hand wildly pointing back and forth between himself and Yuuta.
Stepping into the room, Maki feels suffocated by the tension, tendrils of cursed energy from the boys wrapping around her legs. “What is going on with you two??”
Yuuta turns to look at Maki, only just now noticing her entrance. Meanwhile, Toge’s icy gaze never leaves Yuuta’s face.
Toge has been in a funk since Shibuya but this is something completely different. Maki has never seen him so furious before. It sends a shiver down her spine.
“Toge is refusing to let me help him and whenever I try to talk to him about it, he shuts me down!”
With a pout and a huff, Toge waves off Yuuta’s concern, as if he thinks it’s better that Yuuta doesn’t know what’s bothering him.
Yuuta slaps his forehead with an exasperated sigh. “See, how am I supposed to help if I don’t even understand what the problem is??”
Before Maki has a chance to formulate a thought, a cold laugh tumbles out of Toge. The sound alone is jarring to her ears. It contains no real warmth of laughter, merely mimicking the mirthful noises that usually bound from his smiling lips. It is a chilling sound echoing from the empty cavity in his chest, coating the room in an icy sheen. Maki feels an unnerving shiver rush down her spine.
“Sujiko? Ikura, Yuuta.”
Toge turns his body away from the two, facing the window. Maki and Yuuta share a concerned glance before she speaks up.
“Toge, what’s the matter?”
Whipping around to face them again, Toge’s face is a mixture of incredulous shock and pain. The empty sleeve where his arm should be whips around and hits his stomach, adding insult to injury. Maki can see his eyes narrow in frustration, seemingly annoyed with Yuuta’s questioning. He points to his missing arm before gesturing to the scars that cover nearly every inch of Maki’s skin. She feels herself grow slightly self conscious at the mention of her scarring. It feels tight, foreign on her body, worse now that it’s being brought to attention.
Toge rolls his eyes and gestures towards Yuuta, standing there with his tired eyes and unmarred skin. It doesn’t take a scientist to read through the hurt in his actions. Yuuta is fine and they are not. They were in Shibuya and Yuuta was not. The realization is a sucker punch to the gut. Maki's eyes widen in shock, her jaw clenching tight as Yuuta’s breath audibly hitches. His eyes gloss over with unshed tears as he chokes out, “Toge… that’s not–”
Yuuta barely gets the words out before Toge rushes forward and pushes Yuuta’s shoulder. “Okaka!”
Yuuta stumbles back a step before stomping his foot forward, his finger jabbing into his own chest as he shouts back. “Don't you think that if I had any idea how Shibuya would have played out, that I would not have gotten myself here by any means necessary?”
Toge scoffs at him and rolls his eyes, ignoring his desperate pleas.
“I didn’t get a choice.”
Yuuta’s voice is low and steady, dripping with anguish. Maki’s gut churns with each cry.
“Miguel said Gojo had it under control.”
The volume steadily rises with every word he speaks.
“Gojo had a plan! ”
Toge was being unfair. They all knew Yuuta had no control in how the situation would play out. In a feeble attempt to sign with one hand, Toge shot back. “His plan failed , we needed you. I needed you!”
“You told me you would be okay!”
“I lied! I lied so you wouldn’t worry about me but I was scared– I was scared and alone !”
“How do you think I felt? Across the ocean from you guys with no way to help!”
Maki’s usual level-headed demeanor is long gone, lost in the wreckage of their exchanged blows. Her heart rattles beneath her ribs as she struggles to keep up with their shouting. She had no idea this kind of anger was festering inside Toge, vines and thorns taking up space in his heart.
Turning to Toge, she watches his eyebrows furrow in frustration, his face contorting in anger before bellowing out, “YO U PROMISED T O B E THE RE! YO U S A ID ALWAYS!”
Toge’s eyes fill with tears, his voice cracking at the end. The walls shake with the force of his words, cursed energy oozing out of every syllable. Toge hacks up blood onto his shirt while his hand reaches up to cradle his throat, now raw and mangled.
Yuuta is pushed back by the force of the words directed at him. Even Toge himself braces against the rippling current of his own voice. Maki can feel the waves of it rushing around her, sending shivers up and down her spine. Widening his stance, Yuuta refuses to back down. “Toge, you know I love you and I will alwa–”
“Fun ny ho w eve ry pe rs on yo u lov e g e ts hurt. Jus t loo k at p oor Rika,” The final nail in the coffin. The cursed energy in his voice is less than before but the sting in his words cuts deep, rivaling that of a thousand slashes.
“TOGE,” Maki shouts from where she is frozen on the spot. Her jaw hangs open, stomach churning with bile. It feels like the room is spinning around her, the mental whiplash sending her spiraling.
Yuuta’s face crumples. He looks absolutely dejected as his lip quivers. Maki watches his nails bite into the skin of his palms and wishes for nothing more than to reach out and take his hands in hers, to share the hurt and ease the burdens Yuuta carries. Tears spring to his eyes, freely flowing down his cheeks. Yuuta makes no attempts to stop them. She swears she can hear the sound of his heart fracturing. His eyes flit across the floor, refusing to meet anyone’s stare.
The three sit in stunned silence for a minute before Yuuta musters up the energy to respond. Forcing the shock off his face, his lips tug into a smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s tired, defeated, hurt beyond comprehension. It’s as if Yuuta boarded up the walls of his heart right before her very eyes.
Choosing his next words carefully, Yuuta walks on eggshells to avoid another landmine. “I wish for a lot of things, Toge. You cannot begin to fathom how badly I wish I could turn back time and fight by your side. I can’t take back the damage, but I wish I could. You don’t know how many sleepless nights I’ve had over this. I would change it all if I could.”
Yuuta clutches his chest, heartache and anguish hanging from every word that leaves his lips. Sparing Toge a glance, he locks eyes with him. Violet eyes pierce right through him, like a wounded animal ready to attack. “Most of all, more than anything else, I wish you didn’t hate me.”
Toge’s lip curls into a snarl. His pain has turned into a palpable anger. Maki feels smothered by it. Vines with thorns leave his lips, shredding anyone who tries to come close. The three of them were already broken beyond repair; why was Toge lashing out and distancing himself?
Maki’s boots feel full of cement, her throat stuffed with cotton. She is completely rooted on the spot, unable to process what’s happening. She too burns with an inconsolable rage, embers where her heart used to be, but none of that anger is directed towards Yuuta. How could it?
The room falls silent, save for Yuuta’s pathetic sniffling and Maki’s pulse ringing in her ears. Toge turns away from the two, refusing to say anything further.
“O-okay then…” Yuuta’s voice waivers, barely coming out above a whisper.
With his head hung low, he turns to leave Toge’s room. He places a hand on Maki’s shoulder as he passes her, “maybe we should go…”
Snapping out of her stupor, she turns to Yuuta. “NO! You guys are not leaving this room until this whole mess is sorted.”
Yuuta musters up a pained smile, tears still streaking his cheeks. His eyes carry the weight of exhaustion. Shining blue gaze now dull, tired of fighting. Removing his hand from Maki’s shoulder, he continues to the exit.
Freeing her feet from their mental confines, Maki whips around and grabs Yuuta’s arm. She cries out in panic, an emotion she has kept a tight lid on her whole life. It doesn’t matter, not now, not when what’s left of her family is slipping through her fingers. “Please don’t! I can’t lose you guys too!”
Placing his hand overtop of hers, Yuuta gently removes her grip. Keeping his voice as level as he can, Yuuta chokes out, “I think it is too late for that. I’m sorry Maki– for everything.”
Yuuta is out the door before she can grab him again.
Storming over to Toge, she grabs him by the shoulders, whipping him around and shaking him. “WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM? How could you say those things to him?”
Toge looks up at her with angry tears in his eyes, blood trailing down his chin. “Takana.”
“You are unbelievable. We are supposed to be there for each other! What else do we have left??”
“Yuuta, okaka tsuna mayo!”
“You can blame him for your injury all you want, but we are all hurting right now! If you don’t stop this, you are going to lose him for good!”
Toge holds firm, standing his ground. Breaking their staredown, she steps back with a scoff.
Maki hesitates, feeling herself being pulled in two opposite directions. The strings of her heart stretch and stretch with little regard for the recoil when they eventually snap.
Unable to choose between the two, her feet make the decision for her. She turns on her heel and races towards Yuuta.
Yuuta, whose heart crumbled to pieces before her eyes. His golden soul left in the room with Toge, shattered in fragments.
Toge, who expelled all the fire from his heart, weaponized towards friends, leaving him cold— numb to the pain. Frozen off from the world, from the remainder of his found family.
Isolated, Toge stands across an impossibly wide canyon, shrinking in on himself. Maki aches , hurts down to her bones with the need to leap across the canyon and take him into her arms.
Instead she continues to run towards Yuuta. She needs his help to reach Toge. The only prayer they have of saving him from himself is if they work together.
Maki’s calves burn with each step, eyes stinging with tears she didn’t even know she had. A lone thought echoes through her mind, a turbulent storm drowning out the pain in her body and the claws of anxiety that scratch from beneath her ribs— fix this, fix them . It’s all she can do. It’s what she must do.