Chapter Text
It was an unusually warm June night in Nairobi when Yuta, unable to fall asleep, slipped on his ring.
“Rika, come here.”
He was in his bed in the room next to Miguel’s in their tiny apartment. A bachelor and a teenage boy. The apartment wasn’t filthy, but it wasn’t clean either. Their washing lady was in Mombasa for a wedding. Miguel was out, too, at a cousin’s birthday party. Yuta had been invited, but he had politely declined. He needed time alone tonight.
The boy lay in his bed with the sound of cars rolling past and the footsteps of pedestrians on the sidewalk. It was the dry season. No pitter patter of rain outside. The tight space still smelled of Royco spice from dinner.
The clock ticked past 11pm. That would be 5am in Tokyo.
Gazing at the ceiling, Yuta wondered what his classmates at Jujutsu High were doing. They were definitely in bed right now, just like he was. His heart ached to be away.
Then it came to him. That feeling when one was alone at night. Suddenly. It left Yuta restless and longing for something without a name. Touch, maybe. It was the shape of a woman wrapped around him. It was the shape of a man wrapped around him. Perhaps it was more. Or different? A desire without edges to define it.
His hands were sweaty. His armpits were dripping under the covers. Gross. Yuta kicked the blanket off his body and rolled onto his back. He lay in his favorite pair of Gundam underwear atop the thin mattress of his bed with his legs and his arms spread out. A lukewarm breeze from the open window made the thin hairs on his skin prickle up.
That was when, with an unconscious movement of his fingers and hands, he slipped on the silver ring of his childhood curse and said, “Rika-chan, come here.”
Five minutes.
Why not?
The tiny space exploded with cursed energy and a high-pitched shriek as his technique drew out the full manifestation of Rika. An ivory monster too large for his room. Her form looped and wound in tight circles under the ceiling.
“Yuta!” she exclaimed. “I’m here!”
Her giant skull jerked this way and that, searching for the enemy. To rip apart. To crush. But the room was still. Seeing nothing, Rika floated to the bed and hovered over her summoner.
“Are you hurt, Yuuuta?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head, “but thanks for asking.”
Perplexed, Rika opened her chest to reveal an arsenal of cursed tools. They clinked dangerously above him.
“Do you need one of these?”
Yuta shook his head with a half-grin and reached up with one arm. He placed his outstretched hand gently on her skeletal cheek.
It was perhaps then that the Queen of Curses noticed that her beloved was lying on the bed under her—naked except for a pair of faded robot briefs. His skinny body was open to her. Unprotected, unguarded. Completely squishy. Rika’s form vibrated.
“Why did you call me?” she squeaked, closing her chest.
“Just to see you.”
“YES, YES, YES!”
Yuta laughed at her vigorous nodding.
“I was lonely,” he admitted.
The cursed spirit contemplated his words for several long moments. Thoughts, more complex than usual, raced visibly across the dome of her hellish skull.
“Yuta, is this a date?”
The boy paused. He almost laughed.
“Uh…no. I think people go places on dates.”
“Oh Yuta! Take me to a restaurant where they require reservations. Kiss me in the moonlight. Then we can go back to my place. Okay?”
He chuckled. He didn’t know there were still so many words left in her. The little girl was gone, but somehow, Rika was still here.
I only call you when I need to fight, Yuta thought with melancholy. I only call you when I need to harm others. You’re not a shikigami… or a tool… It’s unfair, I think…
Slowly, he rolled to his side and scooted his body closer to the wall. The monster watched in rapt attention. The young sorcerer lifted his hand with hesitation. Then he patted the empty space on the mattress.
“You can lie here.”
Rika gasped.
A dream come true.
Quivering, the massive head drifted down next to Yuta’s. Razor white teeth rested alongside the length of his torso. Only a sliver of Rika’s skull could fit on the mattress. Her body floated off the bed.
“Yuta…”
The boy moved the pillow so that he was only using half of it. With both arms wide, he embraced the eyeless arch of Rika’s forehead and pulled the cool surface against his chest. He pulled her into himself.
“We can share the pillow?” came the small, whimpering question.
Yuta nodded slightly, pressing his warm cheek against Rika’s.
In return, she brought the slender black coils of her lower body onto the bed. Draping over his hip. Curling around his thighs. Resting lightly next to his gangly feet. Yuta felt the slip of her body between his knees, the sudden weight of her bulk pressing his side deeper into the mattress. He had never really noticed the texture of her skin before.
This feels fine. He thought. This feels nice.
They lay together silently on the bed for who knows how many seconds. Or minutes. Yuta’s eyes closed. His breathing became deep and long.
I guess hugging feels nice.
Suddenly, the boy tensed.
When was the last time someone hugged me?
A phantom pressure wrapped around his torso. It was so familiar… wait—Inumaki had hugged him tightly when his flight departed from Tokyo. It had knocked the breath out of him. The memories swarmed up from the depths of his mind. His classmate’s embrace was the first real hug since his childhood. He had not wanted it to end. Panda had bear-hugged him, too. (Pandas counted, right?) After that, Maki had placed a gentle hand on the side of his head—time froze—until she swept his feet off the ground with a steely leg and shouted: “Idiot! That’s what you get for letting your guard down!”
As the last one to send him off, Gojo had swung a noodly arm around his shoulders, laughing. Always laughing, like life was a joke. How did someone so strong manage to turn their limbs into spaghetti?
Yuta felt a needling twinge in his heart.
He wanted to cry.
Wait, he was crying. A little.
A tear raced over the bridge of his nose and down his cheek. Another followed.
“Yuta…” came a wobbling, hissing whisper.
Gulping for breath, the boy cried into the ridged dome of Rika’s head: “I miss everyone. I miss them.”
Immediately after uttering the words, he thought, oh no, she’s going to be jealous.
But Rika did not react. Only after a long moment of stillness did she wrap a great, gnarled hand around his trembling body. Tenderly, as though he were porcelain.
“I’m here, Yuta.”
All at once, he felt a swift, unbearable swell in his chest. Rika’s wide fingers cradled his torso. He could feel her fingertips curling gently against his stomach and against his ribcage. Firm, but barely making a dent in his flesh. There was a wonderful twist in the pit of his gut.
“Rika, I love you.”
Five minutes.
He felt the technique release.
“Wait—”
The hard surface of her skull vanished between his arms. The black, snaking body unraveled from around him and slipped through his legs.
“YUTAAAA!” Rika cried as she de-manifested. The little bedroom vibrated in the aftershocks of her screams. Long, monstrous fingers shot out of the roiling black mist of cursed energy and grasped upwards at the air. A last gasp of life.
For a moment, Yuta’s face was twisted in surprise. Then he snorted.
Stop being so dramatic, he thought. You don't have to disappear, silly. And you can come right back.
But Rika didn’t. Perhaps she was off sulking. Or flying around in giddy circles in a little girl’s cursed bedroom.
With care, he pulled the ring off his finger and replaced it on its chain.
A guilty grin lingered on his lips.
It was a very bad idea to do what he just did: use his ultimate cursed technique on a whim. Especially in a crowded city and at the place where he lived and slept. He might as well have erected a giant billboard on the top of their apartment building that said “Special Grade Curse User HERE” with a glowing arrow pointing to his bedroom. Oh well.
The time with Rika—it had done something. He didn’t know what.
His heart still ached, but there was relief now.