You're exhausted by the time you return to school. This time, Mr. Ijichi drives you back, a fact which you're infinitely grateful for. You don't think you would have survived a second round of Gojo's driving.
A headache lances at your temples, so you down a bottle of painkillers and go about the usual motions of getting ready for sleep; changing into the softest nightgown you own, and beginning the complicated process of hooking yourself back up to the machines by your bed. Gojo hasn't yet returned from the hospital with Maki and Yuta, and your phone hasn't so much as buzzed once with a message from him. You open up a book and try to read, but worry frays the edges of your heart and makes it impossible to concentrate.
You've all but given up on reading after you've read and reread the same page about ten times, when a timid knock sounds at your door. Curious, you wonder who it is, knowing that Gojo barges in without ever knocking.
"Come in!"
You watch with wide eyes as Yuta shuffles into your room, hovering uncertainly by your bedside. His shoulders are hunched, his posture tense. You wish he'd relax a little bit. Up close, you can see how thin he is – gaunt, really, with little shadows pooling under his cheekbones – and how tired he looks. There are dark half-moons under his eyes, and his lids are pearly with sleeplessness. He toys with a golden ring on his finger, his eyes darting to meet yours and then darting away again.
"Hi," You say uncertainly. Your eyes are drawn to the ring – you can't quite recall if it had been on his finger earlier during the day. Surely you would have noticed? You press a sharp pain from your stomach with a palm. "Is – Is something wrong?"
"Um. Hi. No, everyone's fine. Zenin's fine, too."
It's precisely the news you've been waiting for. The tense set to your shoulders relaxes. Your soul smiles. "That's good."
The two of you lapse into a stiff silence. Your face burns hot from something other than pain – embarrassment. Only your family has ever been in this room. Your room is situated in the infirmary, and although it's been decorated to suit your tastes – courtesy of a trip to Ikea with Gojo and Megumi – there's no denying that it's essentially a sickroom. Especially with the beeping machines taking pride of place and a pharmacy's worth of pill bottles decorating your nightstand. Yuta takes in everything from floor to ceiling, almost as if he's leaving little fingerprints everywhere.
You gesture vaguely around the room, at the tubes poking out through your skin. "You can ask. I don't mind."
Yuta is quiet for a long moment. "Are – Are you sick?"
"I guess so." You shrug. "It's called a Heavenly Restriction. In exchange for my Cursed Technique and a very large amount of Cursed Energy, I got this crappy body."
The irony of the situation is not lost on you. It seems like a comedy of errors, how you're able to restore others to full, pulsating vitality, but are unable to do the same for your own body.
You search Yuta's face; he looks upset, sympathetic. Knowing that it's on your behalf, you feel a lump forming in your throat. "It's not that bad. You get used to the pain, and besides – there's someone else who has it worse than I do. There's a student in Kyoto who can't even go out into the sunlight. I'm just lucky I can move around at all."
He stares at you. "Then why did you –"
"Become a Shaman?" Your lips twist up ruefully. "I was an abandoned child, you know."
Your parents had been ashamed of you. Ashamed that you had been born with such a frail body. Ashamed that you hadn't inherited your clan's Cursed Techniques like your other cousins. It was easier for them to hand you over to the school for a week, a month, a season, now years. Easier for them to wash their hands off you, uncaring if you lived or died.
"Gojo-Sensei took me in." You nod at the far wall of your room, covered with polaroids and wreathed in a string of fairy lights. Different poses, different outfits. You as a chubby-cheeked toddler, a wide-eyed child, and then a long-limbed teenager. Gojo is present in all of them, clowning for the camera and throwing up peace signs. Megumi appears in a few pictures, roped into posing by Gojo, his visage long-suffering at having to put up with Gojo's shenanigans. "Both me and Megumi. I guess he raised us both."
Yuta stares at you, silently willing you to continue. His brow is furrowed.
"It was an obligation at first. I didn't want to let him down. I didn't want him to leave me like my parents did." You say, your throat tight. "But then I got older. And I realised that I didn't want to die without having helped anyone. I want to be remembered by the people I help. That would – That would make it a little bit better."
"How – How do you keep doing it?" He asks, looking at you with dark, haunted eyes. "Keep going, when everything is so horrible?"
Horrible. You've never thought of your life that way. Pain has a way of breaking time down. You think about the next minute, the next hour. There isn't enough space in your mind to put all those pieces together, to find words to summarize the whole of it. But the "keep going" part, you know the words for.
"You find reasons to go on." You say, eventually, aching. "It doesn't have to be a good one, or a noble one. It just has to be a reason."
You know yours: There's a hunger inside you, gnawing in the space between your ribs, even after everything else inside you has given up. The hunger is always present, stronger than pain, stronger than horror. It's not hope; it does not soar on fleeting wings; it slithers, claws, and drags, and it grabs you in its hands and refuses to let you go.
And when you finally put a name to the feeling, you find that it is something very simple: the desire to live.
"Aren't you scared?" He asks quietly.
"Are you?" You ask just quietly.
A breath, a tremulous exhale. A fluttering of his eyelashes. "Yes."
With difficulty, you grope about for his hand. Startled, Yuta lets you. For a moment, you find yourself staring at your hand in his; yours pale and cold and intertwined with clear tubes, while his are warm and tanned and roughened by the beginnings of calluses.
"It's okay. Don't be scared." Your touch is soft, curious, as you soothe him and try to banish his fears, his insecurities. "I promise I'll keep you safe!"
The smile that blooms on his face is enough to send your toes curling into your blankets.
