Chapter Text
Tokyo in November is freezing, cold enough that the smell of rotting bodies doesn’t hang heavier than the smog once did. Yuuji staggers along, pain and grief and Choso stubbornly sticking to his side.
“You should rest,” the curse insists, eyes filled with concern that Yuuji didn’t know curses could feel. They’re so bright and alive in his pallid face that it’s disconcerting.
“We have to keep moving. There’s more people that need our help.” Yuuji insists he's known Choso for long enough to see him bristle with disapproval. They walk for a few more moments in silence. He just knows his companion is trying to figure out how to reason with him. But that’s distant, that’s far away. All he can smell is smoke and burning hair and barbeque. He can taste it, it’s only because he’s got nothing left in his stomach that he doesn’t throw up. It’s in his hair, in his clothes. He’s fucking desperate to find a change but it feels traitorous to take off his uniform.
It’s not like you deserve to wear it anymore, monster. The accusation makes him flinch but Gojo gave him that uniform. He was unwilling to part with it. It’s all he has left of his teacher.
Megumi is out here somewhere in this hellscape. Alone. Unaware that Kugisaki is dead. That Gojo-Sensei is sealed. That Nanami is-gone. That Maki-san died burning. Tears start to burn Yuuji’s eyes. The realization is just as fresh as the horror he’d felt when she’d been hit. He’ll never forget being able to see through Nobara’s head.
That he should live when he was never planning to, but that Nobara isn’t going to get to find Saori and have tea and pastries or draft him into going on shopping sprees anymore feels deeply wrong. Gojo won’t watch movies with him after tough missions and blatantly spoil the endings. Nanami will never lean forward in that way he does when he wants Yuuji to know he’s listening really listening. Maki-san will never kick his ass in training or grudgingly beat him into shape with an almost imperceptible smile gracing her lips. Their ghosts dog his every step.
I was the one who was supposed to die. He thinks, and the tears start to come again. He can barely see well enough to pick his way through the rubble with how they blur his vision. There’s something screaming at the injustice of it all inside him, the heartless unfairness of how he’ll never laugh at Nobara’s fury at rain ruining her meticulously applied makeup and hair. It’s unthinkable that in a few months, Nobara won’t force him to redye her hair and he won’t pretend to be reluctant to help her.
The tears drip down his cheeks, leaving streaks on his ash and blood and concrete dusted face. Choso’s hand rests on his shoulder, cold as a corpse’s but it’s as gentle as Yuuji’s come to know his brother to be.
“You won’t be able to help them if you collapse from exhaustion.” Choso finally says, as if he can read his mind. Yuuji stops, staring up into the gray sky. He lets Choso drag him to the shuttered door of a cafe. He feels like a puppet, distanced from his body, looking at it from another perspective. His brother, who frets too much, finds a jug of purified water sitting in the dead fridge and pours him a glass. He sits beside him and peers worriedly at him until Yuuji relents and starts meekly sipping at it.
All he can think of is that it smells like bad tuna in here and that the owner is probably dead like half of Tokyo. He wonders if they hadn’t come in to work that day or obeyed the government announcement and went home to be with their family. He hopes they had someone to go back to. He hopes they didn’t die alone. The lights flicker on. He blinks blearily in the harsh glare. It’s so much brighter than he’s used to. Choso’s face looks even paler in this lighting,
“Does this place have an emergency generator?” Choso asks, it’s a form of energy he became familiar with since Shibuya. Yuuji doesn’t answer, just stares at the nearly full cup of water. He doesn’t have the energy to speak. It feels like it takes conscious effort to breathe. He shakes his head in response.
The light flickers again before leaving them in familiar darkness again. Yuuji buries his head in his arms, his head is aching again and he has to be careful to keep pressure off his hands. Distantly, he notices that the smell of bad tuna is gone.
The air pressure changes, building in his ears like he’s riding the train in the mountains and he automatically yawns. Choso absent mindedly pats Yuuji’s head as he walks by him to get more water from the jug. He opens the fridge, yellow light spilling onto his filthy boots and before him are four tuna onigiri where before there was rotting mush. He squints in confusion, reaching out for the jug of water and realizes with wonder that it’s cold and fully filled.
Behind Choso, a pair of crystalline blue eyes glow in the darkness. Choso feels them burning into him and whips around, hurling piercing blood in their direction. The hit doesn’t land, the head presumably attached to the other curse tilts as it considers him. Yuuji’s head jerks up and Choso’s focus slips for one critical second as he turns towards his brother, unseen lips curve in a smile and an explosion of purple slams into the curse’s torso.