Work Text:
Maki breathed out, head tilting back to look at the unfinished ceiling of the basement. The hard wood of the stool was putting her ass to sleep, but it was better than being coddled in plush blankets like some storybook child any longer.
“At least I won’t be fawned over anymore. The Zenin name scared off a lot, but not non-sorcerers. Not hard to deal with by any means, but it’s annoying as hell.”
She brought her head back down to glance at Yuta and immediately felt unmoored. That factory-setting happiness he seemed to come with was sobering into something serious – not cold – just that odd (for him) focused calm he usually got in battle. The one she still couldn’t quite reconcile occupying the same vessel as the guy she went to classes with.
He unconsciously leaned a few centimeters closer to her, his breathing slow, measured.
“Maki, what are you talking about?”
She bruised her own pride and looked away from him, feeling his eyes follow hers in that dogged way of his. No way, you jackass. don’t start!
“You know what. Drop it.”
“No.”
She looked back to glare at him with her one uncovered eye.
“I wasn’t trying to talk about it. I don’t need your pity or your sympathy. It’s an objective fact.”
“I can understand looking in the mirror and seeing the pain you endured, and it might not be most people’s first choice of a change in features – but it honestly suits you.”
“I’m not some vain child in need of complements.” Her cheeks reddened traitorously anyway. “I’m a sorcerer. Getting fucked up is part of the gig.”
“Sure, but -” Now it was his turn to look away, and Maki thought she caught a bit of color rising up from beneath his uniform collar.
“But what?”
His next words took a moment to leave him, and he didn’t look back at her, voice hardly above a whisper.
“I – Have you really looked? You – I mean you look really good. Really –” He swallowed audibly and finally looked back at her, eyes something entirely different from anything she’d seen on him. “You’re so gorgeous, sometimes I feel like if I look at you too long I’ll die.”
“From what? Me hitting you over the head for being weird?” Good. Deflect. He’ll stop if you… Who was she kidding? Yuta Okkotsu? The dog with a bone, second only to herself? Idiot.
“From the effort it takes to hold back how much I want you.” His head tilted just slightly. “Of course, it’s not just looks, I’ve told you how much I admire and cherish you.” He was hardly even blinking now, and Maki felt like she was breathing in ash all over again. “I’m not the best at being normal – even by our standards, it’s a monumental effort to not let all of my heart show.” His eyes flick off her face, finally, and trace the violent swirls of scars down her arm, his hand twitching minutely at his side. “After I got confirmation that you were going to be alright, my brain went back to wondering. For days now I haven’t been able to exorcise the thought of your skin. I’ve thought about my tongue against your body before, my fingertips. I wonder how you’d feel there, how different the sensation is for you, how much or little pressure I –”
She stood abruptly, the stool she’d been sitting on scraping roughly against the cement floor and wobbling dangerously, the feet hitting clack thwa-clack ca-clack in speedy round motions.
“So what; now I’m some little fuck-fodder science experiment?”
He didn’t dignify her deflecting anger with even a twitch of movement, a flare of cursed energy, nor a shift in his expression – still just that bewildered, wanting, confessional look.
“You’re Maki.”
Tears welled in her eyes, soaking into her cotton bandage and making the skin under her eyes burn at the salt.
“The worst part is I can tell when you’re lying, and you never are.”
“Not about anything important.”
She smiled in her crooked way, and saw something in his chest untether, relax. As if that was what finally convinced him she was really fine. As if the skin of her face didn’t fold and crease and stretch weirdly now.
“My self-loathing pity party is important, huh?”
“You are.”
Insufferable.
“I hate you. Horny loser.”
“Did you really think I’d care about that?” then, “Maki, my last girlfriend was a special grade curse.”
A puff of air escaped her nose, amusement pulling at the self-protective little war she’d been waging on his honesty.
“Not sure if that’s supposed to make me feel better or worse.”
He looked genuinely confused at that statement, and it ripped a bright, wet laugh out of her. “’You really think I’m that hot, then do something about it.”
To his credit, he didn’t hesitate.
He was against her in two short steps, one arm around her waist, the other cupping the less-burnt side of her face, his lips against hers.
His mouth tasted like some red Hi-chew-like thing, and she had to try very hard not to laugh into his mouth; because of course Yuta Okkotsu had spent time in the middle of a war enjoying a small saccharine moment for himself. And fuck, his is lips were soft. She could feel hers scrape against his, dry and cracked – not that he seemed to care. He deepened the kiss for a brief moment before pulling away, and Maki had to admit she was disappointed it was over so soon. God damn it. Why’d he have to like me too.
She fisted her hand in his shirt, going to pull him forward again, but he closed his hand around her wrist.
“Do you actually want this, or are you running from everything?”
She assumed he meant the pain, which was dumb of him; that’s the only thing she never seemed willing to run from. “I want you, but – only if you actually want me. Us. I – I want you, Maki.”
“Then kiss me again.”
“But-“
She pulled him in, pressed her lips to his again, fisting her other hand in the back of his hair and enjoying the feel of him against her. Once Maki felt satisfied that she’d made her point, she pulled away slightly.
“Count on one hand the number of times I’ve lied to you, Yuta.”
His eyes flicked between hers once, as if the bandage wasn’t there, and then he sagged with relief, pressing his forehead to her shoulder.
“Thank goodness.”
“Idiot.”
He turned his head slightly to smile up at her, all teeth and closed eyes, and she felt like her head was going to explode from the heat that barreled up into it. “Kiss me again.”
He smiled softly.
“Before you change your mind?”
“I’m not changing my mind.”
He carded his fingers up into her newly-shortened hair and straightened himself in one fluid motion, pressing a kiss to her jaw, her cheek, before she lost her patience and turned her head enough to capture his mouth. “Just shut up and kiss me for a while.”
He smiled against her mouth, before taking her bottom lip between his own and sucking, brushing the healing split with the tip of his tongue.
Maki lost her composure.
She pulled his hair hard enough to make him gasp against her, and used the opening to finally get a proper taste of him, her tongue sliding against his candy-coated one. He moaned openly into her mouth, and her fist retightened around his strands.
Ten minutes.
Ten minutes of actually getting what she goddamn wanted for once, before Tsukumo came down the stairs, startling them apart with her words, seemingly self-satisfied, leaning against the wall like some smug, perverted researcher.
“So that’s the type of woman you like! I see you, Okkotsu.” She nodded approvingly, and Maki felt like she wanted to die of embarrassment. Yuta, despite the flush in his cheeks, and the rare, irritated pinch of his brows, settled right back into business at the sight of the sporadically air-headed sorcerer.
“You have a plan sorted for the rest then?”
“Yup. Got the last details in place. You can go kill Itadori now.”
He nodded silently, turned back to press a kiss to Maki’s cheek, said “Try to rest some more while I’m gone please.”, and left.
Be safe, dumbass.
She could feel Tsukumo staring at her, giving off a palpable want for ‘girl talk’ or whatever constituted something similar in that woman’s incomprehensible brain. Maki walked over to the couch instead of acknowledging it, and turned on the TV as an excuse to let this subject pass by smoothly. She didn’t want to talk about the plans yet. Didn’t want to talk to this woman about Yuta. She just wanted to sit with the feeling of something not hurting for five minutes. An hour, even, if she let herself be greedy.