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“Kin-chan, do you know where my shot is?” Kirara asks, wiping her face with the towel. Having just woken up, neither she nor Hakari have had the opportunity to get dressed. The sight of herself – the smattering of dusk on her jaw, her usual softened lines awry – a painfully familiar feeling roots within her chest. She averts her gaze from the mirror and fixes it on her boyfriend; at the sight of the package in his hand, she smiles toothily and asks, “Hand it over?”
“Hm,” Hakari looks uncharacteristically shy. Kirara narrows her eyes at him. His fingers grip the plastic tighter, and it crinkles and folds under his touch, not unlike herself. His voice low, he murmurs:
“Can I give you your injection today?”
Kirara freezes, her mouth agape. She stares at her partner, whose usually cocky and laidback stance is falling apart, crumbling under the heft of their love. Hakari’s eyebrow piercing glints a gentle gold under the fettering sunlight. His lip is curled into a defiant line, which borders more on a pout, and he holds her gaze despite the pink that’s starting to stain his cheeks. Kirara swallows, feels the awkward bob of her throat, and then grins, “What brought this on, Kin-chan?”
Hakari takes a step forward, then another, then he’s interlacing his fingers with Kirara’s. He presses a kiss to the top of her head and replies, “Nothing.”
The honest, truthful answer would be, everything. From the blood-stained affair that is the Culling Games, to the sweetgum-haired teenager that he just about stopped himself (technically, Kirara had stopped him) from annihilating, and all the way to them pilfering Kirara’s estrogen and syringes from a hospital pharmacy using jujutsu, because the hospital was overrun with the chaos of random civilians becoming collateral casualties – everything, every single thing, had brought ‘this’ on. Every so often, Hakari wonders if his luck will run out, if he’ll lose the gamble that he took when he defected along with Kirara, when he decided to build a life with her, away from the horrors of Jujutsu Tech. He knows he doesn’t show his love for her the way she does, with her doe eyes wide with adoration, doll-like and cotton-light, but he loves her. Sometimes, he thinks one of them will be the next to die.
Looping her arms around his shoulders, Kirara looks up at him and says, “You’re a lying liar, Kin-chan.”
Hakari places a hand on the dip of her waist, trails it backwards, and then down. He grabs the flesh of her thighs, which makes her giggle, and then he responds, “I just wanted to learn. In case something happened.”
Sometimes, when Kirara finishes her make-up and particularly likes it, or gets a new piercing, or buys something cute to wear, she makes Hakari feel eerily similar to how he does in his domain, hitting the jackpot – invincible. She has something burning in the dark of her eyes, has a smile that makes him feel a little hot under his coat. Hakari didn’t really get it when Kirara first told him, back in Jujutsu Tech, but when he saw her, saw the fever building up in her, he began to understand. It’s the same reason why he even started the fight club: she helped him realise just how much he truly loves seeing people get all fired up, loves the energy that pulsates with every beat of their hearts, loves the burn of passion and intrigue. It feels like jackpot: unstoppable, invincible, unkillable.
“And what could possibly happen to me when I have my Kin-chan?” Kirara laughs, tracing a slim finger from the divot between Hakari’s collarbones, up his strong neck, past his pulsing arteries. Her painted nail taps at the plush of his lower lip, chapped and still stuck in that look of care so uncertain and clumsy, it’s endearing.
Hakari doesn’t want to say it. He can bet on himself, and he can bet on her, but he doesn’t want to – not right now. Not after he almost died to Hajime during their fight, and not in the apocalyptic world that they live in. We could die. He doesn’t say it.
“So,” Hakari instead parries, “Can I give you the shot?”
“Since you’re being so cute about it.” Kirara untangles herself, then grabs his free hand, tugging him towards the bed. She sits on the edge of it, pats the space beside her, but Hakari kneels down in front of her, instead. “What are you doing?”
“You give yourself your injection in your thigh, right?” Hakari replies, palms resting on Kirara’s kneecaps. Their world falls quiet, and Hakari gently pushes Kirara’s shorts further up, exposing her soft thighs. Gnawing at her lip, fingers clutching the sheets, Kirara looks down at her boyfriend as he brings his lips to the inside of her knee and kisses the skin there. It’s dreadfully intimate.
“I love when you get like this,” Kirara chuckles, breaths colliding. “All fired up. For me.”
Hakari grunts in acknowledgement as he opens the packet. The syringe and vial fall into his lap, as well as the little pack of sterile wipes. His hands feel a bit too big for the sachet, but he tears it open despite it all. He looks at Kirara for confirmation, and Kirara taps the corded part of her thigh –“There. Usually.”
“Sweet,” Hakari mumbles, wiping a small part of skin down. Then he opens the syringe, places his thumb on the piston, pierces the rubber of the vial; a far-from-perfect symphony of dexterity, he turns it upside-down and lets the liquid collect in the tube. Then he turns to Kirara’s leg, places the point of the needle to the flesh, and oh-so gently, presses down.
The muscle gives, the tension beneath the tip slackening, the rest of the syringe is an easy glide. Kirara’s fists are tight around the sheets, and her eyes are squeezed shut. Hakari can’t help but whisper, “I’ve got you.”
She cracks her eyes open, blinking back the tears that welled up – not because her injection was particularly painful, but because this is the jackpot, this is all she has ever wanted, and here it is. The world as she knows it could end tomorrow. Havoc and death roam the streets outside the four walls that they are in, and the world could end tomorrow.
The city outside crumbles, but as Hakari gets up from his kneeling position with a wince, Kirara doesn’t feel so hopeless about it, not anymore.
Saccharine and pure; Kirara stands up on her tiptoes and gives Hakari a kiss.
“Thank you, Kin-chan.”
In this chrysalis of comfort, nothing bad can touch them. They’re just two 19-year-olds who love each other, and that’s all they have to be here: not sorcerers, not martyrs, but simply Kirara and Hakari.
Mortality is such an unstoppable, indomitable force. But here, right now, is something immovable.
“It’s nothing, doll.”