TO LOVE A MONSTER ❪ jujutsu kaisen ❫

xiv: the marionette doll and her cut strings.

TOKYO JUJUTSU HIGH, NOVEMBER 2016.

She wakes up in snatches, blinking up at the ceiling. She's covered in bandages, a loose jacket she recognizes as Yuuta's placed over her shoulders, and she takes comfort in its familiar presence before the door slams open to reveal a group of people. She flinches violently at the sight of her friends- no. No, they're simply her classmates. She doesn't have the right to call them her friends anymore, doesn't even have the right to hold onto Yuuta's jacket like she does now.

"Mustard leaf?" Inumaki questions worriedly and Kaori swallows, looking further away from them. Maki and Panda are silent, simply sitting down across from her. Kaori sneaks a peek and can see the tightness in Maki's figure, the way she glares at Kaori and feels her heart sink.

"Oh good, you're awake," Gojo enters the room, smiling but Kaori slides her eyes past him to look at Principal Yaga.

"Have the Higher Ups sent you?" it's the first time she's used her voice and she nearly recoils at how her soft voice has been reduced to a raspy whisper. Her throat twinges with the phantom pain of screaming and her lips feel chapped and dry as she inhales and exhales slowly. Her eyes sting with the pain of crying, an unfamiliar motion because she has never really been a crier. She feels ashamed of the way she reacted, cheeks burning at the reminder of her wails ❪ like the howls of a wounded, desperate dog left behind by its master ❫ and she grounds herself by focusing on the antiseptic smell that surrounds her. A hand steadies her, and she looks at Shoko Ieiri, the woman's painted lips pulled into a small smile as she soothes Kaori. Kaori merely looks back at Yaga, steeling herself for the look in his eyes.

"The Higher Ups have their own issues to sort out," Gojo interrupts. "Like the continuation of Yuuta's execution, that was supposed to be off," his eyes are lit with anger, rightfully so. Who dares go against the Strongest, especially when he's made his stance firm on this particular situation?

"You're not Fujiwara's daughter, are you?" Yaga sounds almost resigned, and Kaori huffs out a dry laugh, shaking her head.

"No, I'm not. My name is Kaori, no surname. I'm an orphan that Fujiwara-sama-" she nearly stumbles over the name, realizing that she doesn't have to add the honorary prefix ever again without fearing the repercussions ❪ the pursed lips, raised eyebrows and thin smile if she ever called him 'Fujiwara-san' because he was vainer than he had the right to be ❫. Fujiwara Tooru is dead, but his lingering ghost haunts the room and forces her to continue on. "Adopted ten years ago,"

"He's been training you as an assassin the entire time?" in Gojo's eyes, Kaori finds another kind of anger as well, one mixed with concern that seems to be reserved for her. She doesn't understand why he's concerned about her when it could have been Yuuta's blood that painted her hands. Does she have the right to concern? Does she even have the right to counsel? She looks down at the ground, studying the pattern of smooth white stone as she answers.

"Yes. It was me, and my little brother Haku. We were both in the orphanage together, the only ones never suited for adoption since we could see Curses,"

"You said Haku was your friend, and that he was dead," Maki's voice is sharp, heavy with betrayal and rage.

"I didn't lie about that. He was my friend but he used to call me 'onee-san' because I took care of him and since we grew up in the orphanage together. And he did die. He died because I couldn't save him," the admission is bitterly lodged in her throat. Was Haku's death because of her slowness? Or was it because they were both seven and eight respectively, not suited for being out in the vicinity of the Curses like Fujiwara threw them into nearly everyday.

"You never tried to run away?" Kaori laughs again, this time louder and more sardonic.

"Does Fujiwara-sama look like the type of person to let someone he took under his wing to run away? I tried, after Haku's death," she admits. "There was a maid named Natsumi who took care of me ever since I came into the household. When he caught me, he used his Technique to kill her, and he said he'd kill everyone he'd come across if I tried to do it again," she can hear Inumaki suck in a deep breath and knows now how awful it must sound. It was awful, the squishing of Natsumi's blood under her shoes and the blank look in the maid's eyes as her body slumped over against the floor. Kaori simply never registered it because she owed Fujiwara her life. She had only stared at Natsumi's corpse and felt horror in her at it being a result of her selfish desire to get away, had gotten rid of all of the stubbornness in her and become pliable after losing the last person who ever cared for her. She had not cried then, just brushing it aside as a punishment fitting for someone as low as her and never understood that it was an inhumane way to punish a child, to punish anybody.