Work Text:
Oh shit. Fushiguro is dead.
That's the first thought that flashes through Yuuji's mind when he finally drives his fist through the curse's skull and watches it dissapate into a sticky purple goo (ruining his uniform, yet again). Ignoring the triumphant shout from Kugisaki, he rushes to where Fushiguro lies, motionless, against the partially caved in wall of the hospital. His hands flutter frantically across Fushiguro's form, searching for any obvious and/or currently bleeding wounds that might be the reason he hasn't gotten up since he was flung into the wall a few minutes ago. The curse had suddenly grown to three times its size, and Yuuji could only watch helplessly as it snatched a retreating Fushiguro right out of Nue's claws and threw him to the side.
Finding no exterior wounds, he leans closer, pressing his ear against Fushiguro's suspiciously still chest. Yep, just as he suspected: no heartbeat to be found.
Shit.
Eyes wide, he starts to panic. No way Fushiguro is actually dead, right?
"Kugisaki! Get the hell over here!" He yells, digging his fingers into Fushiguro's wrist, then his neck when he feels no pulse. He barely notices as Kugisaki casually sidles up next to him, tossing her hammer in the air and catching it again with a grin.
"That was insane! Gojo-Sensei is gonna be so pissed he missed it. Did you see how I..." She trails off as she takes in the situation at hand, eyes darting between Yuuji's shellshocked expression and their limp classmate strewn across the floor. "Oh, shit."
"Yeah, oh shit! Can you call Gojo-Sensei? Or actually, Ieiri-San?"
Ignoring him, Kugisaki kneels on Fushiguro's other side. "He doesn't have a pulse?" She questions, suddenly sounding deadly serious. "Okay, we need to do CPR. Gojo-Sensei should be here soon to pick us up and he can teleport us to the school, but we can't just leave Fushiguro like this."
Yuuji's jaw drops. "Wha—CPR!? I don't know CPR!"
Glaring, Kugisaki starts to gently shift Fushiguro so there's space around him, positioning them all so Yuuji is kneeling beside his head and Kugisaki is beside his chest. "You are so useless! Jeez, just do the rescue breaths! I'll do compressions."
Rescue breaths? Yuuji thinks dumbly. Like from Jurassic Park? He tries to think back to the scene from the movie, and vaguely recalls one character pinching the other's nose and then blowing air into their mouth to help them start breathing again.
Mouth to mouth. Him, breathing into Fushiguro's mouth. Yuuji's mouth, where his lips are, pressed against Fushiguro's mouth, where his lips are.
He looks at Fushiguro's slack face, jaw hanging slightly open and eyes shut peacefully, as if he were sleeping. His gaze moves across Fushiguro's features; his messy bangs hiding the cut on his forehead, his eyelashes coated with dust (did he always have such long eyelashes?), his potentially broken nose...
His lips, bitten red and raw (easily explained, since Yuuji happened to notice that Fushiguro bites his lips a lot when he's concentrating on summoning his shikigami), covered in a thin sheen of drying spit.
Kugisaki wants Yuuji to...give him rescue breaths? Like, right now? Would that be like kissing?
Yuuji hasn't kissed anyone before.
Oblivious to Yuuji's internal turmoil, Kugisaki readies herself on slightly spread knees, leaning over Fushiguro and lining the palm of her hand up with his sternum, her other hand folding over the top of the first. "Okay, I'll do thirty compressions, then you give two breaths. Okay? Make sure you pinch his nose, and we have to watch to make sure his chest rises or there could be something blocking his airway."
Still processing, Yuuji just nods. Kugisaki seems satisfied as her small frame hovers over Fushiguro's and she starts pressing violently and rhythmically down on his chest, singing some western song under her breath that Yuuji can't make out. He doesn't really think it's the time for singing, but who's he to question her process? He's just glad she knows what the hell to do in this situation.
Snapping back to the moment, he realizes he has like thirty seconds before he needs to do his part.
Before he needs to...give mouth to mouth. To Fushiguro. Fushiguro, with his stupidly red lips (why are they so glossy?) and his gorgeous eyes that Yuuji already misses dearly.
This wouldn't count as a kiss, right? He doesn't want his first kiss to be with an unconcious Fushiguro. Unconcious being the key word.
Because, in the small amount of time while Kugisaki repeatedly presses her entire bodyweight into Fushiguro's chest, it occurs to him that he doesn't think he's all that opposed to his first kiss being Fushiguro, of all people.
Honestly, maybe it would be good if his first kiss was his best friend. Fushiguro probably wouldn't make fun of him for it. No, he'd say something like "Why are you so worried about it? It's just a kiss" and then he'd put his delicate, strong hand on Yuuji's jaw and pull him in and—
Okay, he's getting distracted. Kugisaki is looking at him pointedly, as if to signal that it's almost his turn. Annoyingly, his palms start sweating, feeling clammy as they go to position themselves on Fushiguro's face, one under his chin to tilt his head back and the other pinching his nose (yep, 100% broken).
Has Fushiguro had his first kiss yet? Surely not. Who would he have kissed? He never mentioned anyone to Yuuji. Sure, they've only known each other a few months, but Yuuji likes to think they've bonded quite a lot. Dying in front of someone and then coming back to life tends to bring people together. Maybe. Well, that's what Gojo told him, anyway.
Kugisaki is counting down her final compressions, five, four, three...
Sucking in a breath, Yuuji leans over Fushiguro. His body casts a shadow across the other boy's face, which is ironic, in some way or another.
Then, with an exhausted sigh, Kugisaki leans back and gestures for him to act.
He nearly freezes entirely, lips an inch away from Fushiguro's, before his panic about Fushiguro literally being dead reignites and he's messily smashing his mouth down.
If this does count as a kiss, it's nothing like the movies.
Nothing lights on fire within him, there are no butterflies, his foot doesn't pop up behind him. Perhaps the sheer panic is suppressing all those things, he isn't sure, but it's not much of a kiss either way.
Fushiguro's lips aren't yet stiff, blood still colors them, but they aren't, like, kissing him back or anything.
No, this definitely isn't a kiss. If it was, Fushiguro would be awake (alive), and he would be cradling Yuuji's jaw or touching his hair or something. And Kugisaki would not be here, not for their first kiss.
Fuck, he thinks he wants to kiss Fushiguro. Like, for real.
He finishes pushing two breaths into Fushiguro's mouth and jolts back, blinking rapidly. Kugisaki immediately starts compressions again, but she shoots him an encouraging smile (weird, for her). "His chest rose, good job! Now, we just repeat that until Gojo gets here."
Right. Repeat it. Yuuji can do that.
Yuuji's about to go in for his third round of breaths when Gojo finally shows up, much to the students' relief. Seeming no where near concerned enough considering Fushiguro is literally dead, Gojo grabs the trio and instantly teleports them back to Jujutsu High, right into Ieiri's morgue/infirmary (really, quite a morbid location when Yuuji thinks about it).
After informing her of the situation, he and Kugisaki watch as a (only slightly) startled Ieiri immediately begins to work on Fushiguro, ushering them all out the door with a tired scolding, explaining that she needs room to work.
The three of them sit in the hall, Yuuji and Kugisaki criss cross on the floor leaning against each other's backs, and Gojo on a bench that seems to serve little purpose considering the small population on campus. He really seems quite chill about Fushiguro being dead. He's whistling, for Tengen's sake.
Hours or maybe minutes pass as Yuuji internally crumbles over the entire situation. Was it his fault? Could he have exorcised the curse before it got to Fushiguro? Was that a kiss? Was he punching hard enough? Could they have worked better as a team? Seriously, did that count as a kiss? Was the curse mis-graded? If it counts, what does that mean? Would Fushiguro even want to kiss him for real? What if Fushiguro's never kissed anyone before either? What if Fushiguro's actually dead, and Yuuji's rescue breaths are the only kiss he'll ever get?
Before he can devolve any further into a puddle of anxiety, the door to the infirmary creaks open. Both him and Kugisaki jump to their feet, while Gojo just chuckles. Sighing, Ieiri gestures for them to enter.
"He's fine," she starts as they rush past her. "He'll need some rest but you guys actually did a pretty good job with the CPR. His heart definitely stopped at some point, but it was started again by the time you got here. Impressive work."
Yuuji ignores her as he sprints to the gurney holding Fushiguro's noticeably less still body.
"Fushiguro! Are you okay?" He blurts out, only just stopping short of climbing into bed beside the other boy so he could hear his heart beating and lungs expanding himself.
Wincing, Fushiguro nods. "I'm fine, now. Ieiri-San told me you brought me back to life. Thanks for that."
"I was there too, actually I did most of the work..." Kugisaki grumbles, but neither of them acknowledge her for the moment. Instead, they just stare at each other.
Wow, it's crazy how much he missed Fushiguro's eyes over the past however many minutes since the fight ended.
Finally, Fushiguro breaks eye contact to look at Kugisaki, who's got a death grip on one of his hands. "Yes, thank you for not letting me die, Kugisaki."
Scoffing, she releases Fushiguro's hand and turns away. "Whatever, it was nothing. It would be nice if you could stop almost dying all the time, though."
"I'll try," Fushiguro snidely calls out as she saunters back into the hallway, please by the sufficient evidence of Fushiguro no longer being dead. As she goes, Fushiguro turns back to Yuuji, smiling softly. "Seriously, thank you."
Yuuji can feel his face heat at the sincerity in the words, and once he notices it, it only burns more. "Uh, yeah. I mean, no problem. It would be inconvenient—not inconvenient, that sounds cold. I just, uh. It would be bad. If you died. That would be bad. Very much not cool, actually."
Chuckling (barely, since Kugisaki probably broke some ribs), Fushiguro tilts his head. He tugs Yuuji closer by his elbow. "Very much not cool, huh?"
"Right," Yuuji gulps. "Not cool at all."
Again, he pulls Yuuji even closer, until Yuuji's practically leaning his entire torso over the bed. "You know what's really not cool?"
"What?"
Wow, their faces are really close together all of the sudden. When did that happen? There's barely an inch of space, just like before the rescue breaths.
"I wasn't even awake for our first kiss," Fushiguro drawls, gaze shifting between Yuuji's eyes and his lips. "You stole it."
Dumbfounded, Yuuji can only gape. "You—I—What?"
Fushiguro doesn't answer. At least, not verbally. He just closes the meager gap between them, and then they're kissing.
This is most definitely a kiss. For sure. Holy shit, is it a kiss.
It's nothing more than the pressing of lips against each other, extremely chaste, all things considered, but it's leagues better than the rescue breaths.
For one thing, Fushiguro is awake (and alive). For another, he's not only kissing Yuuji back, he was the one to initiate.
Yuuji only realized he wanted to kiss Fushiguro maybe an hour ago, but he's already 100% sure he wants to do it again. He feels it all, the fire lighting, the butterflies swirling, the foot popping.
They stay like that, softly moving their lips in tandem, for a few more seconds before Fushiguro pulls back (because no way in hell was Yuuji going to stop on his own).
"There, much better," Fushiguro whispers, eyes still shut.
Yuuji can't help the giant smile that grows on his face. "Much better."