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“Aaack,” Yuta yelps as he hits the ground head first, propelled by the force of Maki’s padded sparring rod. His chin bounces back up with the countering stability, almost to his chest as his spine strikes next, then the base of his skull hits the mat again. He’s pretty sure his brain does the same back and forth a couple more times within its cerebral fluid. Inertia’s a funny thing, isn’t it?
“Get up,” Maki commands, muffled by the rushing and ringing in his ears that’s yet to settle. Yuta blinks slowly and swallows. “I said get up, Okkotsu.”
“Sorry,” He rasps wetly.
“Curses won’t wait for you.” The end of Maki’s weapon thrusts into his abdomen, forcing a rush of air out of his lungs. Yuta’s eyes shoot wide open. “The longer you stay down, the harder it will be to get back up.”
“Ma… ki…” He chokes out.
“Your enemies won’t go easy on you,” She barks. “Get yourself together. You’re seconds away from death.”
“I-” He can’t breathe. He paws helplessly at the metal stick, trembling too much to even grasp it.
“That’s enough, Maki,” Panda chides. “You won. There’s no need to taunt him.”
“Salmon.”
Maki scoffs, but frees him. Yuta gasps loudly. He clutches his chest.
“Pathetic,” She rolls her eyes as she steps back to her starting mark, resetting her stance for round two. “And they call you a special grade.”
“Sorry,” Yuta whispers as Toge bends down to offer him a hand.
“Bonito flakes,” Toge shakes his head kindly as he pulls Yuta upright with one strong arm. “Mustard leaf?”
“I’m okay,” Yuta murmurs. The friction blemishes swirl with seasick vertigo as Yuta stares down at them, jaw overly lax as saliva floods in underneath his tongue. He fights to keep his mouth shut as his skull pounds with the might of a bullet train.
“Stand up. Let’s go again,” Maki demands flatly. “You shouldn’t let yourself develop a bad habit. You have to correct it before it sets.”
“Um…” Yuta gulps.
“She’s right,” Gojo shouts from the bleachers. “You’re already too comfortable with that sloppy cursed energy flow.”
“O-...okay…” Yuta mumbles wetly. He rolls forward onto his knees, almost hitting Inumaki with the motion since his depth perception seems to be a little screwed right now. Toge’s palm hovers over his shoulder blade, but Yuta stumbles awkwardly to his feet before he can offer any more help.
“Bathroom-” He forces himself to say as he trips off the mat, only narrowly avoiding a fall. “I’ll… be right back…”
“Mustard leaf?” Toge asks again as Yuta staggers past him, shakily approaching the stairs as fast as he can. Although he can’t really judge his own speed right now.
Yuta just nods weakly, too dazed to make eye contact.
He drags himself up the steps by the railing with an arm wrapped around his waist in a hunched posture. He accidentally takes two at a time periodically. Likewise, he misses his footfalls more than once. He fully slips once. He catches himself, but the side of his wrist is bound to have a bruise.
Yuta can feel Gojo’s eyes on his back even though they’re obscured by the bandages. His gaze is sharp enough to burn through them and his attire. He almost expects to have blisters later.
Each cobblestone seems to drop out from beneath him as he totters to the next one with heaving breaths. His hands approach the paving with each movement as the blurry foliage in his periphery tips dangerously.
The relief is sweet when his fingers land around a handle. The rest of his body slams into the door a moment later, discordantly pushing it open.
Yuta isn’t sure if he successfully closes it behind him. He only makes it a few more feet before he collapses to his knees in front of a bench in the hall outside one of the classrooms. More bruises, surely.
Yuta hauls himself onto the settee and sits down heavily. He leans forward until his nose almost touches his patellas. He plants his elbows on his thighs and supports his torso with his forearms, chin on his knuckles. His head can’t keep itself up.
Embarrassment and nausea are competing twinges in his gut. He isn’t sure if his cheeks are red from the residuals of Maki’s judgment or the hot sweatiness breaking out all over him as wooziness intensifies.
Yuta clamps the side of his thumb over his lips, disturbing pooling perspiration on his philtrum. He swallows repeatedly, trying and failing to choke down bitter spit that just keeps coming like an inevitable augury.
“What’s up with you?” A mellifluous voice asks. Yuta can’t look up at its origin.
“You’re really pale.” The wooden seat creaks quietly as Kirara sits down next to him. She places her hand on Yuta’s back. “And sweaty.”
Yuta scrunches up his face, pleading for cool darkness behind his eyelids, but it seems to have been replaced by a whirling lack of awareness of where his body is in space. He forcibly suppresses the urge to gag, fighting the persuasive clenching of his esophageal muscles.
“Um…” He makes himself speak.
“I… needed a break…” His words come out muddled. “I’ll… go back…”
“Slow down. I can feel you getting yourself all worked up,” Kirara giggles. “You guys were training, right? Did you get hurt or…?”
The corners of his eyes prickle with intolerable sharpness. Pressure in his sinuses intensifies alongside the aching lump in his throat.
“What’s wrong with him?” Someone gruffer asks, further than Kirara but close enough to be just as humiliating. He’d really rather not crumble in front of his seniors.
But you can’t always get what you want.
Yuta sniffles with a pitiful whine. Warm tears bubble over and leave streaks down his cheeks until they meet his hand. Half run down the outside of his knuckles, while the rest end up dribbling into his mouth alongside sweat and snot.
“Uh oh.” Kirara’s speech hits his eardrum like a mallet even though it's quiet. The iron band around Yuta’s temples tightens agonizingly.
“Stop that,” Hakari upbraids.
Kirara shushes him. She squeezes Yuta’s bicep. “Give him a second. I don’t think Yuta-chan is feeling very well.”
“I-” Yuta tries to say something, but he’s interrupted by a retch that he can barely stifle behind his palm.
“Oh shit,” Hakari curses. His sneakers squeak against the floor as he leaps back.
“Okay, get up,” Kirara instructs as she stands.
Yuta convulses with a sob. Saliva drips through the gaps between his fingers onto the floor in pathetic meres.
“Come on,” Kirara forces Yuta’s freer arm away from his waist and hooks it over her shoulders, pulling him to his feet.
He rises like he’s on a hill of a high speed coaster, slow until dizziness is suddenly blasting at full strength. All he can feel is the vertiginous sensation of G-forces as Kirara hales him in who knows what direction. He doesn’t do much to support his own weight or move his feet in any coordinated manner. The only vaguely helpful thing he can do is compel himself to swallow the bile that rises in the back of his throat each time his cranium throbs.
“You take him.” Kirara stops suddenly. Her words are dampened by the sound of Yuta’s heartbeat in his ears.
“Huh? Why do I have to?” Hakari asks, offended.
“I don’t go in there anymore,” Kirara nods to the men’s room sign. Yuta blinks blearily at it.
“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Hakari says uncomfortably.
“Kin-chan, just keep an eye on him while I get Gojo,” Kirara instructs sweetly as strong hands take hold of Yuta by the underarms.
“This isn’t really my thing, but okay,” Hakari acquiesces, dragging Yuta into the bathroom.
He deposits him in a stall more gently than one would expect from looking at him, or actually meeting him…
Yuta curls around the toilet shakily. He spits a few times, trying to clear his watering mouth, but it doesn’t do much. It’s easier to just hang his jaw moderately open and let sticky strings of saliva drain into the water below as he breathes heavily.
“Come on. Puke already,” Hakari claps him hard on the back a couple times. “Don’t be a coward. Get it over with.”
Yuta’s brain seems to rattle in his skull again with Hakari’s thuggishness. He groans quietly. “My… head…”
“Huh?” Hakari uses one finger to lift Yuta’s forehead from the toilet seat like he’s trying to get a better look at him. He squints. “You’re crying over a headache?”
Yuta’s breath hitches with the change in position. The whitest white fluorescent lights in here aren’t doing him any favors either. He gulps stomach acid back down for the umpteenth time.
“Oh,” Hakari muses. “I see.”
“Hm…?” Yuta’s cheek falls back to the porcelain as Hakari relinquishes his touch.
“You’ve got a bruise under those bangs. You took a blow to the noggin, didn’t you?” He knocks on Yuta’s temple like it’s a door.
That’s finally too much for him to fight down and he gags violently. Acrid gastric contents come up in a large, splashing wave, heavily diluted by the water that tasted so much better going down when he was having fun jogging with his friends before sparring practice. He regrets staying so hydrated now that it’s lukewarm, bitter, and coming out his nose.
“Yuck,” Hakari comments.
“Sorry…” Yuta mewls, tears mixing with the mess below, then the mess from above as he retches again, spewing a small stream of more concentrated murkiness. He coughs, trying to clear the straggler grains of rice from last night’s dinner that now cling to the back of his tongue.
“Don’t be,” A familiar voice appears as the abrasive hand on Yuta’s back is replaced with a more gentle one.
“It’s usually common practice to speak up if you feel this bad, Okkotsu,” Gojo reproves softly. “Not a great look for me if you keel over in my care, you know.”
“I’m sorry-” Yuta wails, but he’s cut off by a wracking heave that brings up a piteous mouthful of bile so sour his eyes could roll back into his head.
“Nah, I shouldn’t have let you play chicken,” Gojo rubs circles over Yuta’s spine slowly. “You don’t think I can tell when you’re looking pretty sapped?”
“He said he hit his head,” Hakari chimes in, now far away enough to be a bit muzzled by tinnitus.
“I saw,” Gojo nods, tearing off a square of toilet paper. He wipes Yuta’s lips and chin for him. “Maki should be proud of herself.”
“Aw, poor Yu-tan,” Kirara sighs. “Definitely a concussion, right?”
“I’d guess so,” Gojo uses his thumbs to pry Yuta’s eyelids open by the brows. “Wow, kid, really rocking the puppy dog look with those giganto pupils.”
“Hurts…” Yuta whines.
“I bet.”
His back is cold for a moment as Gojo reaches into his pocket for something. A moment later a soft black fabric is wrapped around his temples, just above his ears with a knot over his occipital region. The darkness is calming, and disorienting, but at least his vision’s getting a break. Yuta exhales slowly.
“You earned yourself a free vacation to my good old pal Shoko’s office. All expenses are paid, including transportation,” Gojo says at a whisper volume, yet somehow with his usual playfulness. He scoops Yuta up bridal style, supporting the underside of his knees and his torso.
Yuta can’t do much but drop his forehead on Gojo’s collar bone and try to keep his breathing steady suppressing sniffles and hiccups as nausea ebbs and flows. At least he doesn’t have to hold himself up.