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Yuji was in his twenties when he came to an understanding.
Habituation was a funny thing. What often seemed like a commendable quality in an adult actually proved sad in retrospect. Because habituation meant losing the child whom’s love and awe for the world came as easy as breathing.
Fireworks, the sea… there were many things he found became less and less special through time and the list kept growing as he aged. He wondered whether this indifference in life is what initially determined how long the human life span should be. Do people die in more or less a century because that is how long it takes for their love to fizzle out?
“Heard that?”
Yuji turned to face the TV screen at the front of the cafe.
“Looks like we’re going to have an early winter this year”
Snow… unlike fireworks or the sea, snow still had a special feeling.
He wondered how long it would take before this feeling fizzled out as well.
-O-
They say legends outlive the person but Yuji was sure he will outlive his. All his weeks started the exact same: he woke up, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and headed down for groceries.
What was so special about a person who ate, worked, and slept just like everyone else? He doesn’t understand.
“You are him, aren't you?”
Yuji turned his head to find a woman bouncing on the heels of her feet. She was petite and small—smaller than him by a head at least. He had to tilt his head down to look at her properly. He snapped his head up, stricken by the thought.
“Do I know you?” He rasped, forcing out words from an unused voice box. He tried clearing his throat but it didn’t do much to counter the weeks of silence that he’d gone past.
The woman fell back at his lackluster response. There were days, though rare they had become with age, when devotion turned someone to stalking, and stalking paved the way for a sense of closeness. Devotion was dangerous. It took many forms and was difficult to grasp its shape. It was easier to handle when the center of its attention wasn’t focused on him but instead was the medium from which people could find a semblance of peace. He’d crossed paths with many whose devotion towards their families led them to wandering aimlessly in search of a cure.
Recognition of any sort, he discovered in his early adulthood, was a double edged sword. Especially when it was your face that a reincarnated curse from hundreds of years ago broadcasted to the world in his killing spree. It wasn’t him who had killed so many in Shibuya. It wasn’t him—though knowledge of that never did anything to lift the curse from him. Regardless of that fact… regardless of being unworthy, Yuji still accepted to unburden the grieving souls who sought him out if that's what it took for them to finally live freely.
Yuji looked at the young woman who wasn’t so close anymore that he had to lean down. Though her initial enthusiasm had softened its potency was very much alive through the glimmer in her eyes. Short blonde hair, big brown eyes—his brain took a second to skim through a directory. Nothing rang a bell, but then again his mind rarely told him anything useful anymore.
The woman shifted in place and he saw it then. Fastened to the neck of her black blazer was a shimmering piece of metal. He narrowed his eyes at the emblem etched on the gold piece, his eyes flicked up at the youthful rush of blood painting her cheeks, and that was enough to come to the decision to save them both from a script he knew by heart.
“Wait! Please wait!” The woman reached out, but Yuji ignored her for the path he had been disrupted from. He readjusted his grip on his groceries before quickening his pace.
This was… what, the fourth, no, fifth this year? Yuji went through a couple every year, some lasting more, some lasting less, but all losing interest the moment monotony settled in. No matter how many reports they've sent repeating the same, they still kept sending them—assistant managers who were tasked to monitor his physical and mental health. He was old enough to know that no matter how much these organizations claimed to be different, they still operated under the same set of rules. At least now they couldn’t outright execute him. Though, he was sure that was due to other influences.
Yuji continued climbing up. The chilly breeze of autumn bit at his cheeks and rustled the tree branches above. Winter was on the horizon.
A leaf swayed in his direction and he softened its descent by letting it rest on his palm. It wasn’t long before he heard the familiar tune of pen on paper. This noise, he expected. For them, every action was a reason and the reason was given form by people who barely knew him but scrutinized him like they did. The manner of his walk, the sway of his arms… Does he strut? Does he stomp? Does he keep to the path or does he stray to the grass? Blood follows a pattern, they said, even though they blatantly turned a blind eye to the other half who have, on record, sacrificed themselves for the sake of their future.
He knew their fear; the wound was crawling with it in Tokyo.
Yuji thinned out his lips, displeased by the board’s administrative work but without a clear solution in sight. So long as he remained as he was… so long as the sheer possibility was alive, Yuji had to keep up with this farce. He wasn’t so self absorbed as to risk another disaster like 2018.
“I’ve told you guys’ boss that I don't need a babysitter for a walk”
He was old enough to be her father for God's sake.
“Board. No one stands at the top”
Yuji stopped on his tracks, feeling the weight of a body colliding with him at his action’s abruptness. He twisted his body around and hung his head low before his mind could acknowledge the difference in height. He studied brown, but the resulting knowledge was blushing red.
“You believe that” He declared after a while, taken aback by her lack of awareness. Hadn’t that guy made it clear enough whose place he had filled?
Yuji returned to his path confused by the unwavering resolve in her voice.
“Careful with your step,” he warned too, although far too late, judging by the loud crash that sounded not too far behind. Many had fallen victim to that particular slope in the past.
But it was beyond that sketchy part that his home sat. The historic estate’s gate came into view fifteen feet tall. It was a fortress of privacy constructed of wood and stone.
Yuji made his way to the gate. A veil the color of the sky came into view—undecipherable if someone didn’t know where to look. He crossed the barrier and felt its welcoming hum greeting him in return. There was a cry behind him, petulant, childish, but no attempts to force their way in were made. Yuji was sure the assistant manager had been briefed extensively about the nature of her job, which included information regarding his residence's unique composition.
He was walking further into the property when there was cause to slow down. Yuji was no stranger to it, he had heard it many times before and bore witness to the reason in person. No matter his familiarity with it, it still stirred something from within him. He heard, in a tone so deep in awe, and wonder, and everything that naturally came with his legend, as the manager uttered the name of one of the greatest sorcerers of their times.
“Gojo Satoru”
The legend that did outlive its person.
Yuji continued walking, but he did so with a frown on his face.
-O-
“You haven’t been sighted in… three weeks, at least”
The man uttered last as he reviewed the lengthy notes scribbled in… horrible penmanship from what he could gather. Okkotsu Yuta flipped the notepad closed with a troubled expression on his face. They were in the washitsu, Okkotsu was wearing a navy blue kimono, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and hair held up with a bandana.
He must be between meetings, Yuji observed leaning against a cabinet with a tray of dried plums beside him.
“What is that about, Itadori-kun?” The man’s lips shifted into his characteristic nervous smile, forcing a lighthearted mood for what must have been a strenuous past few weeks for him. So far, he had demonstrated to be far more responsible than his predecessor had ever been.
“I’ve finished all my work”
“You have” The man nodded absentmindedly, placing the notes on the closest unoccupied surface, which took him longer than anyone would considering every surface was presently occupied with empty cups of instant ramen and drinks far too sugary to be good for anyone's health.
“I can do whatever I please with my own time”
“You can.” Okkotsu picked a plastic bag from a pile of bags in a corner and started filling it with trash. “See, Itadori…” and that was his cue to prepare for the incoming lecture. “Every Monday around 8 AM you walk down the hill for groceries and supplies. You stock up on ramen, you stock up on carbonated drinks—7 and 12—and engage in some form of exercise every day. Running, seven days a week, cursed tool training on weekends, and… martial arts every other day. You follow more or less this same routine every week. But these past few weeks, you have done… exactly none. You see where the issue lies?” The dark-haired man finished from where he bent down to pick up more cups. The man might have retained many of his antics from adolescence, but that tone he wielded, that he had sharpened with age. You couldn't lead a clan such as the Gojo if you didn’t know where to point the blade.
“Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better if you lived with us instead,” he sighed, defeatedly, feigning ignorance at the glare Yuji sent his way. Like it wasn't enough that his private life was practically a serial novel for a bunch of people he'd only met once or twice. Now he was insinuating for him to be directly under his supervision. Were his inhibitions finally falling apart from age?
Okkotsu Yuta…
Not many people realized, not even Zenin Maki, that the man hadn't emerged quite the same since switching back to his body after the battle of Shinjuku. Techniques that tricked death such as that curse user's left gashes on the soul. Enough time has passed for the lesion to heal, but in that time something else had also managed to encroach.
Yuji was able to see it, the way Okkotsu’s soul pulsated out of its usual rhythm, slowly morphing into a mimic of another, and trying to coax him into opening up to him by this artificial fabrication of acquaintanceship.
It disgusted him. It irked him to no avail, words not enough to express his revulsion because that familiarity was stolen.
His soul had healed all wrong.
“Huh, what do you think? Don’t you want to live closer to everyone? I’m sure we can find a better place for you to live. The west wing is up for grabs if you're interested. I’m sure I can convince the rest of the clan someh—”
“Stop that,” Yuji interrupted mid-rambling, speaking to the soul with fragments of another still trying to fit its shape into something of his liking. His eyes hurt. It was always so hard to see Okkotsu when what lay beyond demanded so much of his attention.
Still… it wasn't like the man was any better either.
The will listed the property as Itadori Yuji’s, read out loud in the privacy of a room "I, Gojo Satoru…” but was announced to Jujutsu society as “I, Okkotsu Yuta…”.
Whether it was the expression of the soul, Okkotsu Yuta, a combination of the both, or whatever other fraction, the thing was they were both adult men and Okkotsu had enough experience already to know better than to let himself be swayed by a curse whispering into his ear.
“Maybe not,” Okkotsu said after so long that Yuji had already forgotten what they were talking about. The man's attention had moved to the surface he was wiping with a rag. “This house may be old but it does offer you certain protections against other… complications”
Harassment was one and the main issue. Who would have known that not only so many curse users, but cursed spirits as well would flock towards him like a beacon of light. The true human; even if the battle was over, their philosophy persisted and latched onto beings looking for a reason. The reason? The reason, they found in what Yuji represented. He looked back at history and wondered why his situation wasn't different. Why was it only him who attracted this unwanted attention?
His eyes trailed back to Okkotsu, who had moved on to checking the talismans strategically placed around the room.
Friends and family, that's how far the list of invitees was extended to. Okkotsu Yuta was a distant relative, but his blood converged into the same root as with the creator of the barrier.
Yuji reached for a prune. Unpitted. He slipped it into his mouth and let it rest against his tongue.
Okkotsu continued with his mental list of chores. One such being, checking inside cabinets to ensure there was actual food and not some illicit substance Yuji had suddenly acquired a taste for—if he did, it wouldn’t have mattered anyways. Everything Okkotsu did he did with the care and obsessiveness of a parent of a problem child. Yuji had stopped fighting with him long ago about these things and Okkotsu had stopped looking at him when he completed them. The man could argue against it as much as he liked, but Yuji knew the shape of pity, and it looked exactly how he looked at him.
After lining up the last bags of trash near the room's entrance, the man finally turned to face him. His dark eyes played between the tray of prunes sitting on the cabinet next to him and him. Yuji lifted an inquiring eyebrow at the reluctance present in the action.
“What is it?”
“Ahemm, how are your cravings?”
Yuji rolled the dried plum inside his mouth, feeling the rubber-like texture one last time before swallowing. An old call was appeased with the offering.
“Manageble”
“Mm” The older man nodded before reaching inside the sleeve of his kimono for a small paper bag. Slowly, he slid the bag to the center of a cleared table.
Yuji looked away. Okkotsu skipped past the lack of acknowledgement of his gift and focused instead on the topic of their previous conversation and the reason why he had personally come to visit him before the accorded date.
“The new have replaced the old. You and I did once and can now attest to that with this generation, Itadori-kun. These kids, they only have stories… and a recording of what happens when power goes unchecked”
“They’re scared,” Yuji pointed out, perhaps too harshly.
“Yes, they don't know you, and before you say anything, I'm not asking you to fraternize with them. I know how you feel about that. But have you stopped to think that maybe that is for the best? How many times was an unfortunate event the result of someone we thought we knew? They're not asking you to live like a robot. Just don't disappear”
Yuji picked another prune from his tray before slowly rotating the fruit on his fingers. “How’s Maki… your family?”
“Itadori—”
“The war is over. The work, while much left to do, is no longer as demanding, and every day after it, you get to return to your loving spouse and son. Me? You’re one year my senior and I look your child’s age. What I’m saying is… you have family, senpai. You have something outside all of this. All that remains of mine is this,” Yuji lifted an arm. From his palm hovered an orb of condensed blood.
“This house—the one you’re always trying to make me move out of—I feel at peace here. It may look like I’m distancing myself from everything, but that’s not true. This house…” The orb of blood burst, drops of blood trickled down Yuji’s forearm. “It gets me”
When the man spoke again, his voice wavered. Yuji knew that the waver wasn’t Okkotsu Yuta, but the part that came back with him from occupying a different body, a part that never faded away and grew as an extension of him instead.
“What will you do when his cursed energy dissipates and the world you know falls apart?”
Yuji looked out at the garden: a light mist covered the landscape and some branches shivered under a breeze. “Why talk about things that haven't happened yet?” and continued before he could start lecturing him again. “Kidding. If that happens then I'll move out. It's as simple as that. Maybe I'll go back to gramps’ old place, haven't been to Sendai in a while, or maybe I'll travel the world. Although, I don't know how that will work with our current arrangement. I'm guessing I'll have to take an assistant manager with me, but I don't know how they will react to that proposition,” he ended by pointing to his finger and shaking his head.
The man didn't look happy with his response, but rarely anything did. The muscles on his face were taut. He nodded, awkwardly—forcefully at first before settling into something more normal. He had a wife, he had a son, and these bursts of protectiveness and heightened care were seasonal at most, harder to fend when winter was closest.
“I’ll tell the board you’re alive, that you’re not planning a takeover”
Yuji scoffed. Okkotsu was the board; the board an excuse to barrel into his life with as little upturned eyebrows as possible.
“I’ll visit when I can”
“You don’t have to”
The man looked shocked at his bluntness. “Why are you like this? You weren’t like this!”
I don’t want to see you, Yuji thought, but that wasn't Okkotsu’s fault, not the version of him that he had fought alongside in Shinjuku at least.
He shrugged. “You invited yourself in”
It was his soul he couldn’t stand; it was an eyesore that kept trying to remember its shape right.
-O-
“Ah! You're finally out!” The manager yelled from a rolled down window from the car she had parked near the gate of the estate.
Yuji strolled out with a loose shirt and baggy gray sweatpants. He saw, with mild curiosity, as the metal vehicle shook from the commotion happening inside as he walked past.
“Ah—dammit, where is… Here! Wait for me, Itadori-shan!” The woman hopped out of the car with a small notepad wedged between her pants and belt, and a toothbrush sticking out of her foaming mouth.
Yuji’s track downhill went mostly undisturbed. The assistant manager tried engaging in small talk with him at first, but when she realized that she was getting nowhere, she began to fill the silence by talking out loud to herself.
“He greeted me, y’know, Itadori-san, sir? I want to say I maintained my composure but I would be lying and I can’t” She tapped the notepad attached to her hip a few times before continuing. “Anyways, I did much better when he was on his way out”
Yuji increased his pace. The assistant manager attributed it to the steepness of the slope and sprinted to catch up to him. “He also told me something interesting, sir.” He could feel her eyes drilling a hole in the side of his head.
“He said: ‘I trust you will keep him safe’” Her voice lowered and face contorted into a serious expression in an attempt to capture the same look the man had given her. Her eyes roamed freely across the bare skin of his arms. “Are you in any immediate danger… sir?”
Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head. Despite his skin crawling from it, he looked down and glared. This startled the manager and she retreated back. He received an apologetic, ‘Just making sure,’ from her before she resumed with her talks of adoration of the head of the Gojo clan.
“That was my first time seeing Okkotsu Yuta. Properly, at least. I work mainly with second grade sorcerers, so I’ve only ever seen him in passing, and he’s always surrounded by other people. His wife—Zenin Maki—they are together a lot when they don’t have business of their own to attend to. I find her admirable. I heard clans like theirs only married for power and not for love. In a world like ours, where our friends and comrades die left and right, for them to stand by each other for so long… Their story is an inspiration and it motivates me to become stronger so I too can protect those I hold dear to me!”
Yuji stopped, his mouth went dry. He glanced at the house sitting atop the hill framed in goldens and reds. The last time he had been out it had still been draped in greens. He debated turning back and returning within the bounds of the cerulean cursed energy, but he thought better of it. It was past time he showed his face if he wanted Okkotsu to stay out of his business and he had already reached the bottom of the hill.
“Itadori-san, sir?”
Yuji returned to the path.
“Dial down the fan talk”
Embarrassment was fast and growing, but other than that the assistant manager looked ecstatic to have finally gotten a response from him.
“You got it!”
There was a small rural town at the foot of the hill. At some point in the past, it had been able to place food on the table by working and maintaining the lands of the Gojo clan in the area. That was back when the estate brimmed with travelling clan members and wasn’t reduced to Gojo Satoru’s ‘Keep. Out!’ house. Since then the land has moved on from its tenant farming origins and developed into a proper town with schools and small shops, nothing overly fancy, but enough to make the town feel lived in.
Yuji stepped into the streets and headed in the direction of the convenience store he got all of his groceries from.
Ding ding-
The door rang as soon as he entered, the soft rumble of a football game playing in the background immediately filling his senses. Yuji greeted the old man facing the TV with a hand before heading to the non-perishables. He reached for the instant ramen and stacked the cups on his arms. The assistant manager trailed behind him, tally marking everything he picked on her trusty notepad. Every item he grabbed was instantly critiqued with an ‘Mmm’. Yuji ignored her for the most part, but it was when he was reaching for a twelve pack of carbonated drinks that the ‘Mmms’ turned into a sigh, and he had had enough with the unsolicited commentary.
“What is it?!” He snapped.
“You should really start eating healthier food”
There was a cough at the front of the store.
“I don’t need to eat healthier,” he stressed clearly, enough to remind the assistant manager in case she had forgotten that his body no longer performed the same bodily functions it once did.
“Right,” she replied back tensely, head dipped low.
Yuji picked up the box of sodas and walked right up to the counter ready to end the trip. He dumped all of his stuff on the cluttered surface and pulled out his wallet.
“Will that be all?” The old man gruffed, subtly glancing between him and the manager.
“Yes,” he said pointedly and lifted an eyebrow in warning, but the old man wasn’t easily deterred.
“And who might this neatly dressed woman be? A girlfriend at last? I must say I didn't think a brat like you had it in him”
“She’s a colleague”
“His supervisor! I was assigned to watch over him for the end of the year!”
“Colleague, supervisor, friend… Why are today's youth so scared to call it for what it is?” The man waved a hand dismissively at them. Yuji slammed the cash on the counter.
“She is a colleague!”
The assistant manager beside him tried to deescalate the situation. “It's really not like that, sir! I'm just keeping an eye out for Itadori-san”
“Itadori-san…?”
“Just Itadori”
“Ah! Yes! Just Itadori," the woman corrected nervously.
“Right,” the older man said unsure, sliding the money towards him. Yuji walked out of the store with the items in hand.
“Colleagues, he says. You two have a nice rest of your day!”
“Thank you! You as well!” The door swung shut.
Yuji shook his head incredulously, making his way back to the road.
The walk back to the estate was quieter. The sky had turned cloudy and the light breeze that had accompanied them on their way down had started picking up halfway up.
“No no no no!” the assistant manager complained when the first drops of rain finally started falling down. She rushed past him in a flurry of movements, her blazer pulled over her head to deter the inevitable as much as possible.
Yuji continued walking at a leisurely step. By the time he reached the top, the light drizzle had fully turned into rain. A flash of thunder lit the sky. He paused near the assistant manager's car and peeked inside the rolled down window. The woman was fanning her notepad dry.
“It’s Itadori!” he called out, voice getting lost in the rainstorm and water trickling down the sides of his face.
“Whaat?!”
“I said to call me Itadori!!!” He yelled louder. “No one calls me Itadori-san. It’s awkward!!!” He said before running and slipping past the open gates without waiting to hear her objection. The barrier descended upon him like a weighted blanket.
“That feels nice!!” he yelled with a smile, gazing up at the cerulean blue undertone of the barrier. He got under the cover of a thatched roof just when the cardboard package of his drinks melted apart. The cans of soda rolled down the stone path and out into the open field.
“Ah, great”
Inside, he changed out of his soaking clothes and sat across the opened shoji doors with a towel around his neck. The sky had turned a murky gray, dark and blotchy like bruises, while gold and fiery red leaves fluttered restlessly as rain thundered down. His attention shifted to the washitsu. The room was also dark with only the glow from the exterior lighting the interior. His eyes moved to the cabinets. There were talismans planted there, in the fusuma, and in other rooms he hardly went into. The estate was massive, like most of the things that occupied it. Yuji had grown taller, but he was nowhere near the height of its intended owner. He closed his eyes, drawing his legs closer to his chest as he listened to the hum of cursed energy traveling across the walls and floor to wrap around him gently.
It was drizzling shortly after Yuji had left the café. He had parted ways with Fushiguro and Kugisaki who were going back to the school.
“You know we're expecting rain, right?” Kugisaki had said from the car of an assistant manager who happened to be nearby.
“You’re going to the train station, right? I can take you there. It’s no problem at all, Itadori-kun”
“It’s in the opposite direction, and weren’t you originally heading to a mission? I'm taking the bus there. It should be alright” Yuji said, pointing to the bus stop a street ahead.
“Suit yourself, idiot,” Kugisaki said, swatting the air impatiently before rolling up her window and yelling something at Fushiguro.
The sky was clouded with grays and darks. For a day that was expected to rain, there were a lot of people out on the street. Everyone who had brought an umbrella had already pulled them out and those who didn't were heading towards cover. It was a light rain, Yuji wasn’t worried.
He stopped before a traffic light when he saw someone.
On the street across, a man in black loomed over a crossing sea of umbrellas.
Yuji raised his hand instinctively, but the look on the man’s face made him pause halfway; the muscles on his face were slack, bare from his typical scowl or playful scheming expression, he wasn’t wearing his blindfold but his dark-blue tinted glasses instead. He looked far away.
‘Scary,’ Yuji thought, watching as the man crossed the street disinterestedly. His teacher could be scary when he was apathetic to everything around him. Yuji lowered his hand without thinking.
There was a flash of cerulean blue.
Yuji thrust his hand up again, startled, but it was far too stiff to wave off as natural.
The light turned green.
“Ijichi-san wasn't available to drive you?” he asked, walking beside his teacher after learning they were heading in the same direction.
“Where I'm going Ijichi isn't allowed,” the man said, sporting a small smile and looking more like himself. After he’d sighted him, he had waved him over, and asked him what that reaction had been all about. Yuji, infamous for not being a good liar, was forced to tell him the embarrassing truth, to which the man laughed at and replied ‘I'll be more careful next time’. But he still didn’t share the reason behind that expression.
“You didn't bring an umbrella?” The teacher said next, eyes lingering on the surface of Yuji’s hoodie.
Thud thud thud—the rate of droplets descending the sky increased.
Yuji looked up, “You didn't eith—” he started, but noticed how drastically drier the man was compared to him. In fact, he was not wet at all. He looked even higher and narrowed his eyes at the water hovering above his head before sliding right off without ever reaching him.
“Cool!”
“Right?!”
“I wish mine would do something like that. Ooh! If not blocking, then manipulating?! Like water bending in…”
Yuji stopped; the rain had stopped. But it didn’t because now rain was heavily pouring down and even people with umbrellas were starting to scatter into buildings.
“You've still got plenty of time. I'm sure when your cursed technique is revealed it'll be nothing short of outstanding”
Yuji looked up, there was an arm hanging above his head; raindrops slid right off Infinity. He shivered, a primal instinct to run rising at the surface. The intensity of the cursed energy pouring out of his teacher was overwhelming. His gaze found him, his blue eyes were posed on the people running to shelter. He was too relaxed and composed for someone who was actively bending the rules of the world.
“Amazing,” he couldn't help but whisper in awe.
“Oh~?” The man turned to him again with a prideful jut of his chest. The cursed energy descending upon him did so with much slower waves as opposed to moments ago when it was oscillating at a nauseating rate. Yuji relaxed his muscles. This felt much kinder in comparison.
“Thanks, sensei! That's much better!”
“Hu hu, of course! Anything for a precious student!”
A bus rushed past them, the silence nonlasting.
“Run sensei!!!! That’s our bus!!!” Yuji yelled, exiting the bubble of cursed energy to run after the vehicle. Rain scurried down his face, hair sticking to the sides of his face.
“Someone stop them!!!” He yelled again when passengers began boarding the public bus and before he realized a hand closed around his midriff. His feet lifted off the ground. Yuji dangled from his teacher’s arm, facing the ground.
“Ahhhhhh!!” he screamed when the man sprinted full throttle. His hood went flying to the front of his face. Yuji pawed at it, and when the world came into view again, the rules had already bent again.
“Sensei! You're getting wet!!”
“Yuji-kun looked like he was having so much fun!!! I wanted to join in too!!!”
The two ran under the rain.
“Thank you for waiting,” the older man said after he had lowered him to the ground, far too composed for what his appearance revealed. The bus conductor nodded stiffly. Sensei and him were drenched head to toe.
“Get in, Yuji. We have to find seats,” he said, excitedly, lifting his glasses up so they would stop his hair from getting in the way. He flashed a grin to some whispering young ladies, who immediately looked away at the attention, and found seats all the way back.
“So where are you headed, sensei?”
“Home!” he said, shimmying out of his jacket before tugging at his hoodie. Yuji moved to the edge of the seat to give the man space to pull out the piece of clothing for him.
“Woah! So you do have a house?” his voice muffled against the fabric slipping past his head.
“Where do you think I am when I'm not at school?” The teacher asked, hanging both their clothing items on the empty seats in front of them.
Yuji shrugged. “Missions… or the street”
“Just what do you think of me, Yuji-kun?”
“Well… I just thought you lived off the school. You already have a room there. Obviously, I know you have money, but something about you and a house…” Yuji closed his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows deep in thought. “Hmm… It's just something about those two together that doesn't sound right? Do you sleep in it?”
“Of course I sleep in it! Why else would someone have a house if they weren't going to use it?”
“Because they can? Afford a house, I mean. Fushiguro says people who have money buy them for the sake of it, that or investing. He says whichever one it is, they barely live in it either way. Gramps’ house had a lot of issues, minimal, but persistent… and really annoying at times. We could have moved out, but it was all gramps’... He grew up in it, my dad too. There's marks on the wood from when he was a child. I never met him, but I often imagined how he'd caused them. Our house wasn't big, nor was it new, but those marks told a story about the lives who breezed past it. It was only my gramps and me; it was all we had” Yuji confessed, looking out at the rainy streets of Tokyo.
“I'll take you to see it one day, my house"
Yuji jerked his head back. “Ah, I wasn't trying to—”
“I'll take you, Yuji. It's a really big house, extremely old too—belonged to the clan. It's mine now. I took it. It's in the middle of the mountains, trees, a river, atop this hill, which is really annoying to drive or walk up to—that's why I took it. Unreachable means less paperwork. I'm in the process of renovating it. I admit I was going to have someone take charge of the interior design, but maybe you could give me some ideas? Teach me how to make it a proper home?”
He let the warm feeling he felt at those words wrap around his heart. Of course he had never been asked something like that. That sort of thing was probably best fitted for someone like Kugisaki.
It felt nice to be considered, he found, for a job like that, even if it wasn’t the most polished of his skills.
“Pinky swear?” Yuji moved before he could think about it, then retreated slightly after the fact. “Maybe that's too lame?”
A longer finger curled around his before he could change his mind. It tightened around his own once, firmly.
“Pinky swear”
It was a rainy day when Yuji was heading home to an empty house in Sendai.
Thunder cracked outside. The house rattled underneath his feet, humming the melancholic tone of an old song. Yuji cradled his knees closer and buried his face in them.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
He cried, unaware of scorched talismans giving way to small low grade curses that looked suspiciously like plum stones.