Work Text:
Gojo tapped the chalkboard at the front of the room. His first year class watched reluctantly.
“There are three categories of curses—culture, myth, and emotion. Mythological curses are the classics. Your oni, kappa, gashadokuro. That kinda thing.” Gojo stepped to the side. He gestured at the giant, frown face emoji he’d drawn under ‘emotion’. “Emotion curses make sense, too. They’re tied to specific people or places. They get stronger when they’re common feelings, or cast on the wrong spot. Like Rika!”
The way Gojo said the name through a smile didn’t stop Yuuta from dropping his pen.
“I—“ Yuuta gulped. “…I’m sorry?”
“You’re always sorry!”
“Oh. Sorry—“
Gojo ignored that. He put his hand back on the board, to a drawing of more emoji—a pair of headphones, a movie ticket, and a book. “That leaves culture curses! The fun kind!”
Maki crossed her legs under her desk. She eyed Gojo with rightful suspicion. “A fun curse?”
“Exactly!” Gojo snapped his fingers over his head. He beamed, proud as could be.
“I wasn’t agreeing with you!”
Gojo ignored that, too.
“Pop culture curses are shared delusions, like myths, but they’re new. They spawn faster, and can be less predictable. Sometimes, what started off as an emotion-based curse gets seen by a window, and the report catches on with people, so similar curses keep popping up. That’s what happened with Sadako and Ringu. Other times, a ghost story gets so popular, it comes true on its own. Have you heard of Spooky Spaghettis? It’s like that.”
Yuuta looked forward. His brow creased, confused. “Don’t you mean creepypasta?”
“You think pasta’s creepy?” Gojo leaned towards Yuuta. He raised his hands and wiggled his fingers in his face. “Oooh, carbs, out to getcha?”
“You started it,” Maki added.
Panda rose up in his seat. “Carbs can’t get me. I don’t eat.”
Gojo nodded. “Like, Slenderman. So many kids know Slenderman. You exorcise one, he shows up again pretty quick! He’ll follow Slenderman rules, since that’s what kids think he should do, it becomes what he is. Young sorcerers like you matter most for those cases. If an old sorcerer starts sneezing, he’d know it’s a keukegen, but if he starts hacking up roses, he wouldn’t know poo!”
Panda sat up. “…Poo?”
Gojo raised his hands higher. “I’m not supposed to say ‘shit’ in class! So, ‘poo’!”
“Which you said, trying not to say it?” Panda blinked at his own question. He stared across the room, understanding. “You’re not good at this, are you?”
Gojo flopped against the chalkboard. “Everyone’s got a flaw, right?”
Toge nodded. “Salmon.”
Maki leaned against her hand. “You? Yes. Several.”
However distracted Yuuta’s classmates were with the teacher, Yuuta couldn’t help but wonder about the rest of what he said.
“Petals? Like, from a flower?” Yuuta repeated, thinking. “…Why?”
Gojo sprang towards Yuuta’s desk, and the chance to change the subject. “It’s called hanahaki!”
“…Ha-Ha Hockey?” Panda echoed.
Gojo shook his head. “Not Ha-Ha! Hana, like the flower! It’s love sickness, by the internet!”
Whatever Gojo meant, Yuuta could tell he wouldn’t guess. Gojo babbled along.
“When someone’s love is unrequited, their negative emotions towards themselves can combine with all their yearning gunk and make a curse inside the subject. It usually happens to non-sorcerers, but since the cursed energy doesn’t leave the body to cause the illness, sorcerers can catch it, too. A cursed plant feeds off the emotions, usually around the chest. When it gets big enough, it’ll suffocate ya and, bam, barfing daffodils!”
Panda raised his hand–or, rather, paw. “Can someone cough bamboo?”
“Probably! It’d suck, though!”
Yuuta lowered his head, wilting like a flower himself. “...How would you treat something like that? A curse disease,” he asked, barely loud enough to hear. Gojo heard, anyway.
“Personally? I don’t! That’s a problem for Ieiri! They’re way too annoying. Curse germs are like a thousand mini-exorcisms, mostly!” Whatever enthusiasm there was in Gojo’s answer, he gave it time to fade. His hand tucked under his chin, tapping curiously. “Hanahaki’s unique, though. It bonds to the user’s cursed energy directly, so it’s immune to RCT. You catch that one, you’re a goner unless you squish the love bug directly.”
Yuuta shifted in his sea. He paled with concern. “How would you—” He stuttered, correcting himself. “I mean, someone. How would someone do that?”
“They confess. If their love loves ‘em back, the plants die. There’s no power source to draw from.”
“And, if the other person doesn’t love them…?”
Gojo spoke before he finished. “They’d get sucked in their own cursed energy, become the curse, and die! No worries!”
Maki’s glasses tipped down. “Why would that not worry him?”
“Why should it? Dead people don’t worry! They’re gone!” Gojo bent into his laugh. He waved the tension off. “Curse diseases are super rare. You’d have to meet someone infected, first. Besides, don’t fall in love, and you’re fine!”
Yuuta sank into his seat. “...Okay.”
The rest of the class looked at Yuuta. Panda’s sympathy and Maki’s skepticism were both so clear, it let Toge watch without anyone noticing at all. He watched, and kept watching, until he couldn’t help but have an idea.
It was his favorite kind of idea.
“That’s terrible,” Maki said over his shoulder. “You’re awful, you know.”
“Salmon.”
“You don’t have to go that far.”
Toge tipped his watering can, lightly sprinkling the hydrangea bush. The vivid swirls of pink-purple petals turned damp with the drop. He waited for the heaviest petals to fall, then stuffed them in his cheeks.
Maki turned. She tapped her foot. “Fine. It’s your bad plan. I’m getting lunch.” She took two steps, just far enough that her tracks could taunt him by adding, “You’ll miss the rice balls.”
Toge nodded along. A single petal snuck between his lips. He sucked it back in.
There weren’t many days left before Yuuta was set to leave for Africa. Even though Yuuta wasn’t gone, there was already a sense of distance between them. As if Yuuta somehow managed to leave well before he’d physically gone. Toge could only think of one solution: prank Yuuta, and force that negativity right out. If Yuuta got startled, he could forget to be upset about anything else.
It took longer than Toge expected for Yuuta to leave class, well after everyone else. He hunched in on himself, looking queasy and unsteady—in other words, like himself.
Toge emptied the watering can. He shifted the can into one hand, and raised his other in a wave. He kept waving, stretching higher, until Yuuta saw.
“Inumaki?” Yuuta spoke his name like a question. A fraction of life seemed to spark back in his eye, his posture relaxing as he walked over to join him. “How are the flowers? The petunias look happy today.”
Toge started to talk. He felt the petals stick to his throat. Where he meant to say a word, he barely managed not to spit.
Yuuta leaned closer. “…Inumaki?”
Toge pounded his chest. It didn’t help. The flowers still felt stuck.
Toge opened his mouth. He tried to speak. He only made it halfway through Yuuta’s name before the sound broke apart.
“Yuu—“
The already wilted petals spilled out of Toge’s mouth. The mushed up mound dropped into the garden in a single, sizable plop. Toge held onto his knees. He crouched over himself, still straining. Tears welled in Toge’s eyes. He dabbed his sleeve through the gloss. If he hadn’t used too many flowers, he wouldn’t have been so convincing.
Yuuta looked down, then up. A new pale cast through him. He swallowed through the queasiness. “…Inumaki? What’s wrong? You—“
“Yuu—ta,” Toge rasped, drawing out the name on purpose. Less intentionally, a lone petal stuck in his throat. He coughed again, harder, hacking away until the flower dislodged.
The stray petal stuck to Toge’s chin. He wiped it away, first on his hands, then his pants. At the end, he looked up, expecting Yuuta to scramble—that he’d be just unsure enough of what to do that it could be funny.
Whatever Yuuta was thinking, it wasn’t funny.
Yuuta’s face kept falling. A clear panic set in his sinking eyes. “Inumaki. You can’t confess. You… oh, God.”
It might have been funny, if Yuuta didn’t look five seconds from melting straight into the soil.
Toge wiped his hand on his pants one more time. He grabbed Yuuta by his shoulders. “Tuna tuna.”
The call for Yuuta’s attention didn’t draw his focus. However steadily Toge held onto Yuuta, Yuuta didn’t look back.
“We’ll figure it out,” Yuuta spoke towards his feet. “You’ll be okay. I’ll help…”
It would have sounded more convincing if Yuuta looked him in the eye.
Toge tried to shake him harder. He felt his throat crack, the kind of rasp he’d normally have after using his cursed technique fighting forward. He swallowed past it.
“Tuna.”
However well Toge stressed the word, Yuuta worried too much to hear.
“…It’s not Maki, is it? You’re both great, but I don’t think she’s like that…”
What ‘that’ was supposed to mean, in this case, Toge didn’t have time to ask. It took too much focus to shake his classmate.
“Yuuta. Tuna.”
Toge raised a hand off Yuuta’s shoulders. He snapped his fingers in front of Yuuta’s face. Yuuta still didn’t look.
“Or… Panda?” Yuuta muttered, his words wandering. “You’re with him all the time…”
“Yuuta.”
Yuuta swayed to the side.
“Or, Kirara-senpai? That’s… maybe not great? Hakari-senpai wouldn’t like that…”
“Yuuta.” Toge stressed the name. He spoke so harshly, his throat broke with a cough–not with a flower, or a prank, just the regular, raw soreness of using it too much.
Toge pointed across the garden, directly towards Yuuta. What he meant to say, then, was for Yuuta to calm down.
Yuuta looked down at Toge’s hand, then, himself.
“...Me?” Yuuta’s hand pressed over his chest. His stare lingered. His touch did the same. “...I didn’t think…” Yuuta’s touch paused. His words did the same. “...That’s it, right? I didn’t think.”
Yuuta looked at Toge with a clarity he’d never faced. He held on, as if any second Yuuta’s hands weren’t around Toge’s, they’d both slip away. It was a look Toge wouldn’t forget. It wasn’t funny.
It wasn’t funny at all.
“It’s okay, Inumaki. I promise, it’s okay,” Yuuta said, far too fast to be convincing. He held onto Toge, until Toge tilted into Yuuta’s shoulder, and Toge could hear his own heartbeat in his ear.
Yuuta held on all the tighter, until they could have suffocated in the embrace.
Toge tried to pull away, to lean up and explain something. He could only manage “tuna—“ before Yuuta spoke, instead.
“I love you,” Yuuta said, so rushed, it almost sounded like he meant it.
There was no way Yuuta should mean that. He was confessing under duress. If Yuuta thought a lie could save his life, then, surely, he was the kind of guy to tell it.
Toge tried to turn, to look at Yuuta. He couldn’t shift enough to spot a lie. The most he could do was rasp “bonito flakes,” with enough disbelief to hope Yuuta would listen.
“Yes.”
Toge shook his head more. “Tuna, tuna,” he called, hoping in that desperation that Yuuta would bother to see.
He felt a nod he couldn’t spot.
“I am looking.”
The words made Toge freeze.
Yuuta’s hand met Toge’s shoulder, pressing Toge’s own reach down. He looked at him with a sympathy Toge never expected, and earned even less.
“You’ll be fine, Inumaki. I mean it,” Yuuta said, the words nearly slurring in his rush to get them out. “If that’s it. If it’s me. Then… I wasn’t going to bother you, when I’m leaving, but… But, it’s you for me, too.”
If the speed wasn’t confusing, his words were.
Toge shook free from the shock just enough to call his name. “Yuuta…” It didn’t help.
Toge’s throat scratched. He didn’t care. All the throat medicine in the world wasn’t needed—not if this was real.
Toge met Yuuta’s eyes, to watch him until they weren’t sinking. He drew close, then closer, until he couldn’t deny the truth of it. However stupid Toge had been to make a joke of it, there was no laughing at this, now.
Toge pressed against his sneakers. He raised up, leaning in, ready to take his first kiss. At the second before, just when he would have stolen his breath, his own lips parted to whisper.
“Yuuta…”
Toge was so entranced, he didn’t look for anyone else. He certainly didn’t see Maki and Panda, lunch in hand, walking back to class.
Maki put down her half-eaten bean bun. Her glasses slipped down her nose, tilting skeptically at Yuuta and Toge. “You done with that stupid prank, yet? I told you, it’s a bad idea.”
Toge’s eyes narrowed. He hissed “fish flakes.”
Yuuta squinted, confused. “...Prank?”
Toge turned back. “Yuuta—”
“You mean—?”
The quick wave of confusion piqued to panic. His cheeks flushed, his face turning pink as Yuuta seemed to realize what prank there would have been to play.
Toge didn’t try to speak. He just kissed Yuuta. He let his lips form an answer, until there was no space to misunderstand. Toge kissed him, and kept kissing him, until there was no air left that he could’ve spoken with even if he could use words.
When there was no air left inside himself, Toge pulled away. He felt Yuuta shake to steal a breath, barely wheezing out. “Oh. Oh, I understand—”
Toge didn’t let Yuuta finish before he kissed him again.
“Ugh! Hurry up!” Maki shouted behind them. “The rice balls will get cold.”
Yuuta leaned to the side, peeking out of the kiss just enough to ask. “Aren’t they usually cold?”
“Whatever. They’ll get hot, then.”
“I don’t think they care if things get hot,” Panda added. “They’re getting hot, already.”
Maki smacked Panda’s arm. Panda’s black eyes widened. “What was that?”
“Me, hitting you! Dirty old bear!”
Panda’s eyes stayed wide. “I’m not a bear. I’m Panda.”
“Pandas are bears!”
“Not me. I’m Panda.”
With the rest of his class close enough to see them, Yuuta’s skin started to pale all over again. He retracted from the kiss, stuttering. “I—“
Before Yuuta could say more, Toge took his hand. “Salmon.”
“Yes?” Yuuta repeated, confused. Toge nodded. Yuuta looked closer, still. “Yes to what?”
Toge’s smile crept further, his curse marks distorting into dimples. At the end of the smile, he used a word he never had.
“Shrimp tempura.”
“What’s that mean?” Yuuta asked gently. Toge nodded.
“Shrimp.”
Like everything else Toge said, Yuuta would figure it out.