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Maki doesn’t know if she’s a good person; she doesn’t care. She isn’t one of those delusional types who sit around obsessing over her past actions. Wasting time is a sin far greater than being a little bit short with someone. She has no illusions about being a good person; she doesn’t care. Most people who consider themselves to be ‘good’ often are the most rotten of humanity, ravenous wolves looking to hide behind charity. True goodness is rare, as most come out astoundingly short– the average person has a terrible temper. Is prone to gossip. Quick to anger. Maki is not a ‘good’ person, but she does not think herself to take more from the earth than it gives to her, and this lot in life hasn’t given her a whole lot.
Born without any good luck. To the wrong family, with the wrong sort of ability– a restriction instead of a blessing. Dead weight. How could she be a good person when she’d sprung from the loins of a wicked man? Harboured in the womb of a mother who could not know the fate that would await her daughters. When Maki was young, she had thought her mother to be a fool– but now she knew better. What choice did her mother have? Forced into the company of wolves, expected to shuffle forward, one foot in front of the other, without placing a single toe out of line. If only her mother could have lived– Mai too. The three of them could let the sun shine down on their shoulders. Maybe Maki could have, for once in her life, basked in her mother’s warmth– and she and Mai could have lived the rest of their lives hand in hand as sisters, true sisters. Instead, all that remained in her sister's place was a cold blade.
There was no saving them. This was a naive ideal, she knows it now. There was never a future where she could have continued on, with Mai and her other at her side. It never ended well for twins, and she couldn’t delude or deceive herself into thinking any differently. Though stamping out her childish hopes was near impossible, a small ember still remained– still rebelling against her. She hated idealism. She was a committed student of pragmatism– a disciple. This was to protect herself. She couldn’t think about all of the worlds and possibilities– she simply didn’t have time.
While everyone tries to remember and move on. Maki trains.
Day and night. Moving her body without ceasing. It feels good to accomplish such sublime mastery of oneself. The way her muscles stretch as she swings her sword overhead. That pleasing sound when the metal edge of her blade connects with the straw dummy. These inanimate objects are no match for her; what she needs is a real and powerful opponent. Someone able to withstand whatever punches she can throw at them.
In contrast to her, Yuuta is a good person.
Yuuta is perhaps the kind of person that everyone deep down, no matter how rotten and cynical, wishes that they could be. Imperfect, of course, but a true pilgrim in this world. Someone who seeks to understand others— someone who hopes to see the best when they can. She doesn’t know of anyone who harbours actual hate for Yuuta. Even his opponents regard him with a strange reverence– a curiosity. Yuuta is the kind of person who would give his shirt off his back to someone, even if it meant he would freeze. Who took no delight in hurting others– and was compassionate enough to spare some understanding for those who wronged him. He could act out of anger, but he was always thoughtful, reflective. Always trying to advance his ideals. Always hoping that a better, kinder world was possible.
They all did terrible things, but Yuuta’s monstrous acts were to protect others. Maki’s– occurred without an ideological framework. This was what was bearing so strongly down on her consciousness. What concerned and occupied her. What made her feel distant from him and the rest of her peers was the massacre.
She had started off with such lofty goals. Become the head of the Zenin clan. Change the horrible, misogynistic and abusive system she had struggled underneath. Slowly, those goals had fallen away– she had become more and more desperate as the situation became dire. And her ideals had changed– there was no legitimate path to becoming head of the Zenin clan. Each path became smaller and smaller, and eventually there were no other paths– but the path of violence, retribution. Years of abuse, pain and anger, culminating in one supreme act of violence. An eruption.
When she had swung that blade, she hadn’t done it with any noble goals in mind. She had swung it because her heart had been ripped out the moment she watched her sister take her last breath. She hadn’t swung that blade, thinking that no other Zenin girl would ever have to undergo what Mai did. She had swung it because Mai deserved vengeance– because great and terrible things had been done to both of them, and she had held back her anger for too long. It was divine violence– a single moment of anger, which sparked into a wildfire, destroying everything in its path.
She didn’t regret it– but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She thought she could steel herself over. Every single one of those men deserved to be run through with her katana. Still, one couldn’t involve oneself with so much death and not think about it. She didn’t mourn them. Fat chance of that ever happening. She mourned Mai. She thought about Mai. She wondered if there was a way that she could have saved Mai, not within the system. The system was inherently broken, built against them from the start.
This was what distressed her so much. This idea that it was an inevitability. Was her noble framework, of becoming head of the clan, simply a device she employed– a delusion intended to obfuscate the truth? She had always thought herself to be direct. Economical with the fantasies she drew up in her head. Would Yuuta have made the same choice? Or Yuji– would Gojo? Since she had her awakening and stepped into such immense power, she had thought about her propensity for violence. If she could massacre an entire clan, what else could she do?
What if she lost herself again, to anger? There was so much wrong in the world. So much that upset her. Was that her purpose? To sweep in and deliver the hand of justice, to let the world's hurt and pain bubble up inside of her– to defend the weak, the poor, the infirm? To sidestep rules, to operate outside of the system. If all it took for the world to change was for her to get angry, then perhaps it would be best for everyone stuck to this pitiful rock for her to wake up furious every day.
But it wasn’t her job to fix the world. To take on the world's problems. To become the world's wife, so to speak. Or it’s agony aunt. She was just here to swing her sword, to curse and to defend those who mattered to her. She wasn’t a hero; she wasn’t a politician. She was just Maki.
The wives all hated her. Of course they did. It’s hard for her to believe, but these women actually loved their husbands. No matter how terrible they were, they placed their husbands' needs first. Willingly handed their sons over to be trained by their fathers, subjected to physical abuse. They were hit on the back of their legs with wooden swords whenever they made a mistake. Teaching their daughters to always serve men first. To walk three steps behind. Teaching them that dreams were for men to enjoy, and that reality was for women to manage, anticipate and plan around. They were so used to that world, living in anticipation, under the thumb of a man, that they didn’t know what to do with their newfound freedom. Most of the wives hadn’t received a formal education, being educated by the clan. Rarely leaving the family compound. Most of them had been betrothed to their husbands since childhood– something that Maki thought was disgustingly archaic. They’d never held jobs– barely had any control of their cursed energy or techniques. They would struggle with this new life that Maki had given them. Unable to make choices. They hated her; it was obvious. Maki didn’t care– she’d only spared them because of her mother. Because if she were a young child, and someone had wiped out the clan, she’d hope that her mother would have been spared– early enough, that there could have been a different outcome.
Sometimes, she fantasises about that. She’d heard whispers when she was a young child; now she could understand them in full. Toji Zenin, who also had a restriction. What would her life have been like if he’d wiped out the clan? Just on a whim. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so merciful and would have killed the women and children, too. But if he hadn’t– what would it have been like?
Their mother, her and Mai. Having to figure it all out together. Her mother probably wouldn’t have been the best mother, considering it all, but would she have tried? Risen to the challenge when she realised that she was solely responsible for two young daughters? Maybe that was the only future in which Mai lived. The one where she and Mai could have been real sisters, arguing about stupid things like wearing each other's clothes, instead of clan politics. Maki would have liked that world. In that world, maybe she could have been softer, kinder. Less rough in speech. Maybe Maki would think that she was a good person.
Why torture herself with such thoughts?
She had been pushing herself to her absolute limit. Training. Barely eating. She was training tonight, taking a break. Sipping from her water bottle. She was still getting used to her burns– but she’d grown accustomed to her short hair. What was most strange was not having to wear her glasses. It wasn’t like she hid behind them in past, but they had been a fixture. Everything had changed. She ran her hand through her hair– she was unsure of whether or not she should grow it out again, and she had no one to ask, mainly because she was terrified that shortening her accentuated her relation to Megumi too much. They kept being mistaken for each other, around campus, from the back, which was strange, because her waist was way smaller than Megumi’s– and her arms were bigger. He’d never really been into hand-to-hand combat, so his arms were a little bit on the thin side in comparison to hers. Plus, she didn’t look like she’d been electrocuted. There was much to consider– and she was getting slightly frustrated by it.
She turns, eyeing up her katana. Another thirty minutes should do. Then she can throw herself under her covers and toss and turn for another few hours.
The gate to the training ground opens. She turns her head.
It’s Yuuta.
Her heart pounds. He makes her heart do all sorts of weird things. Maybe it’s his immense, cursed energy, which still sometimes scares the shit out of her. Recently, whenever he’s around, she’s been set on edge.
She’d asked Shoko about it. Actually took time out of her day to go to the infirmary. She’d phrased it clumsily– she had wanted to ask whether being around curses could affect cardiovascular health, but instead she’d looked Shoko dead in the eye and asked Why does my heart feel all funny when Yuuta’s in the room? Nobara had been in the infirmary at the time, getting headache medication, and her eyes had tripled in size when she’d heard that. Shoko and Nobara had exchanged a knowing glance, with Nobara’s lips twisting into a shit eating grin before she sped out, likely to gossip with the other first years. Shoko had come up with some blase explanation.
So she’d been avoiding him, just a little bit. Not enough to really be noticeable, as she still spoke when they were in group settings– but she had dodged him a few times. For my heart health was her official excuse. Of course, she didn’t say that to him. What would he think?
She’s been mad at him. Just a little bit. She was mad that he pulled that stupid stunt with Gojo’s body. It was reckless– he wasn’t allowed to do reckless things, that was her job. When she’d realised that he was in Gojo’s body, she’d nearly ground her teeth down into stumps. She’d chewed him out for that. He’d apologised and told her that he wouldn’t do something like that again. She wasn’t used to his new look– stalking around with those overexaggerated stitches across his head like Frankenstein's monster– caught her off guard every time.
She’d also been selfishly thinking about the time he’d spent overseas. Training with that Kenyan sorcerer– what was his name? Miguel. They kept in contact when Yuuta was away. Usually texting. On occasion, a voice call. They had video called once, and it had been bizarre– only because Yuuta had answered the phone, while he was in the middle of tucking into a bowl of stew– it’s called Ugali, you have to try it! He said, while spooning some stew into his fingers on top of a little ball of white starch. Is it normal to eat it with your hands? Maki said, wondering if there was a specialised utensil to use that Yuuta hadn’t been able to grasp. It turned out that he was eating the Ugali, as it was supposed to be eaten. He had picked up a few quirks– learned a little bit of Swahili. She didn’t know very much about Kenya, and she had felt embarrassed by her own lack of knowledge. The next day, she’d picked up a travel guide after her part-time shift at the ramen joint. It wasn’t a history book, or particularly detailed, but it made her feel like she understood what Yuuta’s day-to-day life was like a little bit more.
She didn’t want him to go back. Not really. It was nice having him here, even if he made her chest feel all weird. She couldn’t think of a reason why he would stay. Miguel was a good teacher, especially considering how quickly Yuuta had progressed. It would be selfish to ask him to stay, so instead of asking him to stay for her, she phrases the question as she usually does– brutishly, possessing no tact.
“So,” Maki says. “Are you going to fuck back off to Africa?”
“Huh?” Yuuta blinks. Looking slightly confused. This annoys her because she’s asked him a perfectly legitimate question, which is based on a real possibility.
She repeats herself. Slowly.
“Are you fucking off again?”
“No?” Yuuta says. He pauses, smiling gently. “Why would I? My place is here,”
“Good,” Maki says.
Her heart is doing acrobatic tricks. So he’s staying. He isn’t going anywhere. This pleases her for some reason– but it doesn’t explain his presence on the training ground.
“Well, if you’ve not come to say goodbye, why are you here?”
Yuuta shifts from foot to foot.
“Are you mad at me?” He asks.
“For what?” Maki says. “If you’re talking about wearing our sensei’s body like a mobile suit– I got over that weeks ago–”
“Have I done something else?”
“No,” Maki says, feeling confused. “You’re fine,”
“Well, you aren’t really talking to me; you keep running off when we cross paths,” Yuuta says. “And you’ve been training a lot–is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Maki says, gritting her teeth. “I’m fine,”
She’s not fine. Yuuta knows this. He doesn’t look like he believes her. He looks like he wants to understand what ails her. He squares his jaw, closing the space in between them slightly, so he stands about a meter in front of her.
“You can tell me, you know,” Yuuta says. “Whatever it is, the past few weeks have been heavy.”
She nods. A complete overhaul of the sorcery world. Gojo dying. The Zenin clan– wiped out. Non-sorcerers learning about the existence of their whole world. It was a strange, almost feverish time. Nothing seemed stable or fixed in stone. The balance of power had shifted completely, and there was an uneasy feeling in the air, like something could kick off at any time.
“It’s fine,” Maki mutters. “It’s nothing worth worrying about– or talking about,”
“I’ve got time,” Yuuta says, so polite and insistent. It makes Maki’s cheeks burn.
This boy, who always has time for her. Who listens to her and takes her seriously? Her heart does somersaults, and her stomach feels light. It has to be Rika. Rika is trying to kill her. Rika is manipulating the air around her chest and causing it to constrict. She feels so dizzy, so out of sorts, while Yuuta stands there calmly. Looking at her, as if there was nothing that she could say that would make him hate her.
So she tests it.
“I killed my entire family,” She says.
“I know,”
“And you don’t find that off-putting,”
“No,” Yuuta says.
“Why not?”
“Because if I were you, I don’t know what I would have done,” Yuuta says.
“You wouldn’t have made the same choice,” Maki says, shaking her head. “You’re too good,”
“You’re not evil, Maki,”
“I didn’t say that,” Maki says, fixing her hand on her hip. “But I’m certainly not a good person, not that it matters. I’m not a philosopher. I don’t really think about ethics.”
“It’s clearly bothering you.”
Maki pauses.
“It’s stupid,” Maki says, breathing quietly. Slowly, like a jungle cat.
“I don’t think it is.”
“It isn’t worth thinking about, because I don’t regret it, and I would do it over and over again. I keep thinking about it– but it’s true. There isn’t anything that I would do differently. So it isn’t worth boring anyone with my stupid melodrama,”
“It’s a heavy burden,” Yuuta says.
“They’re awful people,” Maki says. “They all deserved it. I don’t feel guilty– and it’s hard to explain, but…”
She looks away.
“Years ago, I decided that I wanted to become the head of the Zenin clan. To prove everyone wrong. To show them that their definition of strength was wrong. I wanted to beat them at their own game. To show them that even with all of their stupid rules, I could still come out on top–”
Yuuta nods.
“But I don’t know if I ever really cared about those rules. Or their systems. I don’t know if my goal was ever something noble or admirable. Not that it matters. I just think I was angry. Angry that I was powerless. Angry that I was treated as less than dirt. That I couldn’t have a normal relationship with Mai– that’s something that I regret,”
Her voice breaks.
“I wish that Mai and I…” She falters. “I wish that I could have protected her more–”
Naoya’s face flashes through her mind. His foul words and the terrible implication which had come with them. She wishes that Mai could have told her. Told anyone. She wonders what it was like for Mai– being truly lonely. Scared. Having something taken from her by force.
“There isn’t a single innocent Zenin, so my reasons shouldn’t matter,” Maki says. “I did my part, I spared the women and children– they all hate me. That’s another thing I don’t understand. How they could all sell out their children, for their husbands' sake. They all stayed—”
She steps back, feeling defeated.
“And I know that it’s hard. They were all abused and treated terribly. I’ve read the statistics. I know that abuse changes you, makes you see things less clearly– but hell. Don’t I get to be angry? I was a victim too. I had a mother who never spent a single moment fighting for me until the very last moment– and by that point it was too late, I’d already promised Mai–”
Yuuta looks at her. Maki’s lip trembles. She won’t cry. She can’t cry.
“I know that the outcome is the same,” Maki continues quietly. “That no one will ever have to suffer again– but….my priorities changed. I was pushed into a tough situation, and I acted on my anger–”
She feels truly deflated. Exhausted. Vulnerable to offloading so much.
“I did it out of hatred,” Maki says. “Not that it matters. They’re dead anyway, their wives can hate me all they want– it isn’t like they know any better,”
“I don’t agree,” Yuuta says.
“I’m not asking you to agree,” Maki says.
“You did it out of love,” Yuuta says. “For Mai. For your mother. For yourself. You loved Mai so much that you couldn’t stand the thought of what happened to Mai going unpunished.”
“I’m not a hero,” Maki says. “I don’t need you to turn me into a hero to make me feel better. I know what I am. I’m a person. I’m angry. I’m vengeful. I’m not perfect– I’m not a good person like you–”
“I’m just as flawed as anyone else,” Yuuta says.
He steps forward. Closing the distance between the two of them. He does something that surprises her– he pulls her in for a hug.
Maki’s brain. Short circuits. Complete meltdown. Everything inside of her fundamentally breaks. He’s so warm. Has he always been this warm? Is it normal for a human being to be so warm? More importantly, was Rika going to kill her? Exactly how dangerous was this liaison– not that it was a liaison. It was just a normal hug between friends.
He smelled good, really good– and she’d always thought he was pretty scrawny, but she could feel a little bit of muscle on his arms, through the fabric of his uniform shirt. What cologne does he wear? Her heart was shaking so much that she was scared that she was going to go into cardiac arrest. Where did she put her hands? She was acting like she’d never been hugged before. Depressingly, she hadn’t been hugged nearly as much as most normal people– she could thank her abusive family for that. This is awkward, she thinks. Before finally raising her hands and encircling them around his back.
No, she thinks, this is nice.
Being heard by someone. Having someone who listened to her, without any judgment– and it didn’t help that Yuuta had— well…. He wasn’t really the scrawny boy she’d met in her first year. There was some meat on his bones. His voice had gotten a little deeper– just a little. He still had those crazy eyebags– but he’d beefed up a bit. What the fuck had that Miguel guy been feeding him– and where could Maki get it? That Ugali stuff must be good for bulking. Focus Maki, she thinks. Unable to shake her jock tendencies. She’s hugging a guy, and all she can think about is bulking. What’s next? Is she going to strike up a conversation about whether Kenyan food is good for hitting your protein goals? She needed to get a hold of herself.
His hair was soft against her cheek. She shut her eyes. Praying that no one would stumble in and catch them like this. Her heart was now doing an enthusiastic tap dancing routine. She thought back to that look Shoko and Nobara had exchanged– why had Shoko looked to Nobara? Nobara wasn’t a medical professional! But come to think about it, Nobara did watch a lot of those soppy Korean romantic dramas, in the common room– Look, Maki, do you see how attentive Sung Woo is being– Nobara would say, gauging her reaction. How he listens to her without judgment. Was Nobara running a psy op? From the girls' common room.
Maki wasn’t really a romantic. She’d always thought that Yuuta was one. He had this tendency to say the kind of things that you could only say if you’d read hundreds of pages of medieval poetry– or read a lot of sloppy romance novels. Never intentional, but always something that made her cheeks flush.
Was this romantic? Or was this just two friends comforting each other? She didn’t know. Her lips felt all weird– extra sensitive.
She was a pragmatist.
It was either that she had something terribly wrong with her, medically speaking. Or that she didn’t just want to be friends with Yuuta Okkotsu.
Isn’t he holding me for way too long? She thinks. Was there a standardised, government-approved amount of time that one was allowed to hug a friend of the opposite sex? That would make things easy. To be able to have an objective criterion to point to– actually, Yuuta, we aren’t friends– if you see here, we’ve been hugging for at least two minutes, and according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, that means that we’re something more than friends.
“Maki,” Yuuta says. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah,” She says quickly. Not wanting him to let go.
“Okay,” He says.
“Okay,” She repeats.
He rubs her back. She knows that he’s smiling, even though she can’t see him.
“I can’t believe you were worried that I was going to go back to Kenya,”
“Who said that I was worried?” Maki snaps.
“You sounded concerned–”
“You keep on getting yourself into trouble,” Maki says. “You need someone to keep an eye on you.”
Just say that you want him to stay. Maki thinks. It isn’t going to kill you.
“Plus…” She says. “It was weird being here without you.”
That was true. They’re slowly swaying now. From side to side. If someone comes in now, Maki will kill them with her bare hands herself. This moment is so nice that she can’t stand the thought of it being interrupted by Itadori, or Nobara or Fushiguro– Shoko even, not that Shoko would have any reason to visit the training ground. But there are other nefarious actors who do– Todo, for example– who had once offhandedly mentioned that he knew exactly what Yuuta’s type was. It would be absolutely mortifying for any of the aforementioned people to stomp through that door.
“Maki–”
“What are–” She interrupts. “Sorry– you go first,”
Yuuta nods.
He’s quiet for a few moments.
“I’m glad that you aren’t mad at me anymore,” He says. “I don’t like it when you’re upset with me–”
He pulls back slightly, looking at her. She looks at his dark eye bags. His long lashes. All men seemed to have unusually long eyelashes.
“I don’t like it when you’re mad at me at all,” He continues. “I also don’t like it when I make you worry about me. Or when you’re upset. Or when I’m away from you for too long–”
“Oh,” Maki says, her heart feeling strangely still for once.
“I thought about you every day in Kenya. About your goals, what I could do to help you reach them, and about your smile. How I’d do anything to see it. Training with Miguel was hard, gruelling– but I knew that if you were there, you would have pushed through, so I did–”
Yuuta raises his hand, placing it on her cheek. Her eyes widen.
“You’re special to me, Maki,” He says. “So when you don’t talk to me, or you start acting strange– I notice.”
His hand feels hot against her cheek. She melts against his touch.
“Yuuta..” She begins, she wants to ask for something, but she’s not sure what.
She’s known a lot of terrible men throughout the course of her life. Men who lie, who hurt. Men who were quick to tell her how worthless they thought she was. No one had seen any value in her. For so long, she had to prove herself– but not to Yuuta. He had seen her as something precious from the very moment that he’d met her.
How could he say those things so casually? Holding her cheek in his hand, like he was holding the whole world.
She closed her eyes, everything from their first meeting, arced towards one decisive moment. If only she could find the right words.
“Kiss me, you idiot,”
And of course she couldn’t– they may not have been the perfect words, but they were hers. Authentic– and rough. She wasn’t a poet, she wasn’t a sorcerer– she wasn’t a sister or a daughter– not anymore. She was Maki, who stood alone, who reached forward and grasped the things she wanted.
And she felt complete, as his lips grazed against hers. Warmth. Promise. There was still hurt deep inside of her; a kiss was not sufficient to wash it away. The scars which covered her skin, a network of violence like the innards of a computer, sequential yet organic. Warmth, spreading throughout her body, cheek pressed into the hands of a boy, who had noticed her, before anyone else had.