You can still feel her watching you. Rika, her eyes desolate and empty. Probably contemplating killing you now that Yuta is fully occupied with fighting Getou. The thought should terrify you, but instead, you feel nothing. You suppose that there's nothing left of you to take now.
You finally manage to say words aloud. "What do you want from me?"
Rika looks at you, and for the first time, you think you catch a glimpse of the child she used to be, the girl Yuta once loved. And you think that maybe the two of you aren't so different after all. The two of you are joined, connected by your love for the same boy. A pang of something rushes through you then – what is it? Pity? Sympathy? Understanding?
Rika is long gone by the time you open your mouth to tell her this, dissolved into a million tiny flecks of light.
You open your eyes many, many years later. Someone is snoring like the dead, and it's almost enough to drown out the steady rhythm of beeping filling the room. You manage to turn your head just a little and discover that the source of the noise is Panda, sprawled out on your bedroom floor like a massive, furry rug. Inumaki and Maki are both cuddled up next to him, dressed in worn and comfortable sweats. Their faces are both smooth and young, though rather bruised. You can hear Maki muttering as she shifts in her sleep, and a small river of drool trickles from the corner of her mouth. And the relief you feel upon seeing them is so great that tears spring to your eyes. They're still alive. Just like you are right now. Your own body is still as broken as ever, but you're all still alive.
Just as always, there are wires jabbing into your forearm. A monitor steadily relays the rate of your pulse. Calm, methodical. Your head is full of drought, and you don't bother trying to sit up.
Yuta isn't looking at you. His bleary eyes are fixed upon the swathe of fairy lights upon your wall, at the pictures of you, Gojo, Megumi and Tsumiki, your happiness frozen in time. His eyes are hollow and grey; his skin is pale. You don't know how much time you've spent in this bed, but you doubt that he's slept for any of it.
"Yuta?" You whisper. The first word you've spoken in a thousand years.
"[ NAME ]?" His eyes swell with tears. "You're awake!"
Yuta stares at you, your mangled body small and pathetic under a mound of bandages, and looks like he's going to fall apart. Tears are brimming in his eyes, and you wait for them to escape, but they don't. He stubbornly holds them in place. And Yuta doesn't cry once. Not when he recalls the blood staining your body, and coating the ground in a burgundy poison. Not when he recalls his battle with Getou. Not when he tells you that he's distantly related to Gojo. But his voice breaks and refuses to put itself back together when he tells you that Rika's gone. Really gone this time.
You won't deny that your relationship with Rika had been strained. Hostile even. But Yuta had loved her, perhaps even more than life itself. And, well. You can understand love. You can understand grief. You're intimately familiar with both. You slept for days after Tsumiki was cursed. Weeks. Until Gojo couldn't take it anymore. Get up, he said. Tsumiki wouldn't want to see you like this.
Which is why you shift, and open the sheets for Yuta in a clear invitation. Because you do understand. And no one, you think, should be left to drown in the depths of sorrow alone. "C'mere."
And just like that, Yuta slips into bed with you. You can hear the springs of your mattress creaking under his weight. And you can feel the coolness of his skin and the softness of his shirt as he settles beside you. In the fading moonlight, his eyes are ringed with red, and you can feel him shaking. You try to picture his fragile, thin body fighting Getou and find that you can't. You can't picture him getting very far. You can only picture him getting injured, or killed.
For a long moment, neither of you speak. Yuta is still wrapped up in memories and grief and love, and you are lost in your helplessness. Nothing you can say will bring Rika back. Nothing you can say will take away his pain. Nothing you say will change what has already happened. Silence is easiest for you both.
You think he says Rika's name. It is a choked, frightened sound.
Yuta buries his face in your shoulder and loses himself in tears.
You're struck by the familiarity of it all. After Tsumiki was cursed, and after you and Gojo both failed to revive her, many of Megumi's nights resembled this. Dry, heaving sobs you could hear through the thin walls of your bedroom. So, you allow Yuta to find sanctuary in your bed, and you let him cling to your body as the worst of it comes up.
His screams are muffled by your shirt. Terrible sounds. You can feel them vibrating deep in your bones. This goes on for what feels like hours, and then his breathing becomes ragged but even, his grip on your shirt eases with each passing minute, and you know that Yuta's finally asleep.
You inch closer to him, resting your head on his shoulder. You lie like that for a while, listening to his breaths, each one a faint reminder of the heat of his pain, the deep darkness of his grief.
And he's gone, slipped away from you like a flower closing in the night, but you say the words anyway. Because you need to hear them, in the face of your own helplessness. "I'll get strong," You say, a near mirror of what Gojo had told you when you were younger. "I'll become strong, and I won't get left behind. Next time, I'll definitely protect you."
So that you won't ever cry again.
