No Sleep
Yuta's used to seeing curses.
He would kind of have to be, after sharing his life with one until only recently. But when Rika died he started seeing the others, too - spectres, monsters, things that would rightfully terrify any regular and well-adjusted 11 year old. He might've thought he was going insane the way no one but him could see them, if not for the one curse following at his shoulder who's power and whims had true, real life consequences. And none were ever so frightening to him as that constant presence, the one monster he was intimately familiar with.
Yuta's used to the darkness, the pain and the despair that came from being attached to a special grade curse for five years, so naturally he thought nothing could terrify him anymore.
And that assumption held up until about 4 a.m. this morning.
Yuta wakes with a start, instinctively darting up as visions blur with the dark shapes of his bed covers in front of him and the ghostly forms of moonlight patterns thrown over the far wall. The shadows shift and move as if something is there, and he fumbles with the lamp on his bedside table and flicks it on, half expecting to see Rika there, knowing deep down she won't be.
He lets out several ragged, shaky breaths at the sight of his empty room lit by the small glow from the lamp, heart still pounding like he's run ten times around the training yard with Asuka. There are goosebumps on his arms; he realises he's shaking. An intense fear runs through his veins to the beat of his fast pulse, even as the exact details of the dream escape him - a feeling startling in its potency, primal and drawn out from deep within.
It's easy enough to remember what the nightmare was based on, though. He'd been called out on an emergency mission last night; grade one curse inhabiting a disused hospital. The sorcerers had been alerted to it too late, though, to save the ten-odd victims they found there.
The memory of the scene springs to mind against the backdrop of the shadows cast over his silent dorm room, and Yuta squeezes his eyes shut.
Yuta would say ten victims; that's really more of a guess. The bodies were mutilated past the point of being able to tell. In his mind's eyes he sees limbs torn apart, twisted in unnatural ways, flesh burnt and ripped from the bone, eyeless sockets on what remained of faces. Yuta's breaths quicken, he tries to focus only on the feeling of the sheets balled up in his hands, his eyes start swimming anyway.
Yuta's seen death before. He's seen gore, and bloodshed, and wounds that no human could possibly survive - he's been the cause of it, both willingly and not. Yuta lived with Rika so long, somewhere down the line he became numb to the bloody path the curse would cut wherever she - he - went; but last night, for whatever reason, looking at those bodies it suddenly became clear to him just how narrow the line he walks between the worlds of the living and the dead is.
The curse yesterday was probably the strongest he's fought to date; and still he had no trouble with it whatsoever. As for him, Gojo thinks it's likely he'll be able to regain special grade status soon. The past few months, as he's been learning how to use what's his - what always was his - he's been testing the limits of his cursed energy, each curse he's been tasked to exorcise more powerful than the last. And no matter how far he stretches, he's not yet reached the bottom.
It's different, knowing that darkness is his own; knowing that power is his own; knowing that it's him, not Rika, who has the potential to level buildings and kill without breaking a sweat.
He never would've imagined a time would come that he'd miss the watchful presence of Rika at his shoulder, and the cloying, suffocating atmosphere that perpetually followed him. But this darkness feels sharper, visceral, more immediate than it ever did with the buffer of Rika to keep him from looking too closely inward and seeing what has always been there.
Sometimes Yuta wonders just what, exactly, is it that sets him and the curses he's sent endlessly to exorcise apart.
Tonight's nightmare was worse than he's had in a while. Perhaps it's simply that he's not yet fully desensitised to the gruesome reality of what it means to be a jujutsu sorcerer; but at any rate he's shaken. It's not even that he's upset about the victims, not really. He can't turn back time, can't bring back the dead; logically he knows there's nothing he could've done for those people even if he wanted to. He feels cold for that, and it makes him hate himself even more.
(The thought is still there, at the back of his mind, one that he's trying desperately not to think: that one false step and it could be any of his friends he's next looking at torn to bloody shreds; again.
If it's to avoid that, he doesn't care how far deep into the dark he has to sink.)
Yuta's heart is still pounding as he sits there in the quiet, and he tries to suppress the tears welling up in his eyes before they tip over the edge. He shifts to sit over the side of his bed and wraps his arms around himself (an action which reminds him of Rika, the memory somehow comforting; and briefly it crosses his mind that he is completely, inescapably messed up). And then Yuta can't stop the tears from falling, his heart a black pit of fear and familiar self-loathing - first swift, brisk as they brush past his eyelashes and drop onto his knees; then ugly, painful shakes he can't control racking his whole body as he sobs in a way he hasn't done for some time.
He's hunched over completely, hair brushing against his bare knees by the time the storm clouds have emptied. Frustrated, Yuta brushes the tears away with the back of a hand and stands, crossing the dimly lit room and opening the door into the dorm corridor. He moves not entirely sure what it is he's doing, or where he's going, but all he knows for sure is he needs to get out of there.
His head's cleared a little by the time his feet have brought him to the common room. Yuta walks through to the small kitchen area, not bothering with the lights. He grabs a glass and fills it with water from the tap, leaves it on the counter as he instead leans forward with his hands against the cool wood surface. It's cold - only just turned March, and winter seems determined to hang on for as long as possible this year - and Yuta regrets not throwing anything on over his thin t-shirt and pyjama shorts. There's a clock ticking on the wall behind him; he doesn't even know what time it is. Nearly morning, he hopes. The nights never get any shorter.
As he's standing there, the light in the kitchen flicks on. The sounds of footsteps reach him from the doorway; abruptly stop.
"Oh," Yuta hears, soft exclamation of surprise in Asuka's voice.
His head whirls around at the sound, wincing a little at the brightness. Asuka's there, standing in the doorway of the common room. A few agonising, silent seconds pass, their eyes locked together, and then she walks purposefully towards him in the kitchen.
"Asuka," Yuta stammers, because he feels like he has to say something. "What are you doing here?"
Asuka's eyes flick over the counter behind him, and she lifts the water bottle she's carrying as she crosses to the sink. "Same as you, I'd guess."
When she turns the tap off, quiet fills the room. Asuka's hair falls loose around her shoulders; she wears slippers, button up pyjamas, and a fluffy red dressing gown that seems to Yuta awfully out of place on her. She has her clips on, and frowns underneath them as if daring him to comment on it.
Asuka looks a little taken aback, and it's only then Yuta remembers he's been crying. When he blinks his eyes still feel puffy and wet with the remainder of the tears, and he sharply looks away from her.
Yuta wonders then how he must look to Asuka - pathetic, his mind supplies. So pathetic.
He can feel her eyes on him and he wants to leave, to go hide back in his room and contend with the nightmares and shadows instead of her, wants the whole damn ground to swallow him up, but he's rooted firmly to the spot. He's almost grateful when Asuka speaks again and breaks the silence.
"Hey, Idiot," she begins, and knocks him for six just by that, because her voice is softer than he thinks he's ever heard from her before. "You look awful, more than usual"
Yuta glances back at her, and can't speak when he sees the obvious concern in Asuka's tired eyes. "Um, I…" he stutters, voice dangerously close to breaking, stinging eyes worryingly close to welling up again.
He can't possibly cry in front of Asuka, he thinks, shame immediately burning into his chest at the mere thought. He's not sure why his mind repels the idea so much - Their relationship is complicated, but she has shown him and everyone, that she is not just talk, she is like a beacon of light and determination when things get complicated, perhaps in response to battling her own demons, deep down she is a better person than she lets on, so if anyone were to offer him support, it would be her... But she's also Asuka; and he doesn't know why there's a distinction in that, but there is. Asuka's the strongest person he knows. She's the one he least wants to see him crying over a stupid dream.
Asuka doesn't say anything for a long moment, and then she moves away from the sink. Yuta thinks she's going back to her room, and in his mind there's a sigh of relief - but in his heart there's a drop in something like disappointment.
She only walks over to the small table and chairs set out between the kitchen and the TV area though, pulls out one of the chairs and sits down as she takes a swig of water.
When they're in training, they can get so in sync that they move around each other without need for words. Asuka'll notice when Yuta starts flagging, and decide they're finished for the day; Yuta will run ahead to the vending machines and buy her favourite sports drink for her without needing to ask.
It feels like that now. Asuka's not forcing him to talk, or even asking, but the simple movement from her is a silent invitation. In the lull of the early morning it feels even more private than it already is, a secret shared between only the two of them. Yuta crosses to the table and takes the chair opposite her.
"What's wrong?" Asuka asks when he's sat down, still with that quiet, soft tone of voice that is altogether too strange, too different coming from Asuka, but cuts straight to Yuta's heart in a way he's not sure he should ever admit.
Yuta shrugs, doesn't meet her eyes as he replies, "it was, uh, just a nightmare. It's nothing, really…"
"Your mission last night," Asuka says, more abruptly. "Was it bad?"
Yuta shrugs again. He's not really sure he can say that, when he returned with hardly a scratch to show a fight even took place. "Sorta."
Asuka nods, leans forward to rest her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. Yuta has to fight the urge to lean away. Her eyes on him feel too sharp, her full attention overwhelming, like with a mere look she could cut into him and tear out all the parts he doesn't want her to see.
"Okkotsu… you have a hard time sleeping, don't you?" Asuka asks after a moment.
Yuta smiles wryly; tilts his head in admission. He thinks that much is obvious to anyone with eyes. "Always have done," he admits. "Or, I guess… since Rika, I have. I had so many nightmares about her, at some point it became easier to just… not sleep."
And that's not even acknowledging the fact that getting any sleep with a special grade curse hanging around is easier said than done in the first place. Yuta finds it's surprisingly easy to open up to Asuka about it, though.
He always feels at ease with Asuka, and now he's got over the initial shock of seeing her, now is no different. In the moment, Yuta can't help but feel that even if he was able to show her the extent of the darkness within him, that she'd still sit there and look at him the same as she always does. Asuka's straightforward like that. To him, always second guessing and over thinking and messing things up in his mind, he can't help but admire that.
"What about now?" Asuka asks after a moment, serious and contemplative. "Now Rika's gone."
"Yeah," Yuta laughs weakly, looking down at the table as he speaks. He wishes he knew the answer for that himself. Even now, sleep offers nothing but a regurgitation of all the dark and awful things both inside him and out, somehow even more terrifying than in the waking world. "I think it's… the cursed energy. I have a hard time tuning it out."
Yuta looks up to meet Asuka's eyes. "I guess I envy you on that front," he says, only half serious, with an attempt at a laugh.
Asuka looks a little shocked, and Yuta realises how stupid that comment was a split second after he's said it.
"Sorry," he stammers, "I didn't mean…"
"Whatever," Asuka says dismissively. "I know what you meant."
There's a slight frown over Asuka's features as she looks away. "Why'd you ask?" Yuta says, slightly hesitant, trying to change the topic.
Asuka glances back to meet his eyes. "Hm? Oh… no real reason. Just curious."
She stands from her chair then, frowning again as she grabs her water bottle. "You should try to go back to sleep. I won't cut you any breaks if you're late for training in the morning." Her words are blunt, but not serious, without real threat or heat to them, making it seem like they're trying to hide something.
"Yeah," Yuta replies, smiling despite himself. "I'll be there, don't worry."
Asuka walks towards the door, but when she's halfway there she stops, turns back. There's a strange look on her face as she looks at him - Yuta thinks he might call it uncertainty.
"Hey, Idiot," she begins suddenly, "If you ever need someone to talk to, you can come to me. Whenever. I know you're not really supposed to be in the girls' dorm after hours, but you know I don't give a shit about all that."
Asuka glances away, continuing before Yuta has the chance to properly process what she's saying. "I know what it's like".
She shrugs and turns, continuing to the door.
"Asuka," Yuta eventually stammers, panicking, still not knowing what to say, but feeling desperately that he needs Asuka to know just how much her words mean to him. "Um, thanks. Really."
Asuka stops in the doorway and turns back to look at him. There's a smile on her face - small, tired, but with a rare warmth that grips Yuta's throat so tight he can't breathe. "I don't think I did anything, but sure. Night, Okkotsu."
"Night," he says, smiling back. With a nod, Asuka turns, the last strands of her red fiery hair before she walked through the door, and leaves the room. Yuta sits back down at the table, suddenly alone in the quiet.
He's almost certain he won't be able to get back to sleep even if he tried, but after a moment he trudges back to his room nonetheless. He leaves the lamp on and crawls back into bed anyway as he's hit with a fresh wave of exhaustion.
The shadows at the back of his mind are still there as always, but in the soft early morning, just this once, they aren't about to drag him under. And as he lies there in the silence, he finds his chest feels so much lighter than it did before.
Asuka wakes in the night from movement next to her.
Light sleeper that she is, she would usually pay no mind and just turn over and go back to sleep, but another shift in the mattress gives her pause; somehow, even through the dark and the dreamy haze of semi-consciousness, she can tell Yuta isn't next to her.
She looks to where he'd usually be, and her eyes focus on the dark and definitely Yuta-less space next to her. Glancing up they absentmindedly track over the alarm clock on Yuta's bedside table that reads 4:23 in harsh red letters, and finally fix on the dark silhouetted form sat over the edge of the bed.
Yuta has his back turned to her, illuminated only by the strip of moonlight that sneaks its way into the room through the crack in the curtains always left slightly open. Asuka can't see the expression on his face, but she can hear the harsh, shaking breaths that come from him, stifled like he's trying and failing not to wake her.
"Yuta," Asuka mumbles out of instinct, voice low from sleep, and shifts her weight onto an elbow to sit up.
Yuta's head swings around at her voice. Wet tears glisten silver on his face in the moonlight. Asukas's heart skips a beat at the sight, drowsiness immediately displaced by worry.
"Yuta," she repeats as she sits up. "What's wrong?"
"M'sorry, Asuka," Yuta breathes in reply, his voice hardly recognisable the way it shakes and falters. "Go back to sleep, please."
Asuka ignores him; immediately shuffles closer. "Don't be an idiot," she says, perhaps too harshly, as her arms envelop him in a tight embrace.
Yuta doesn't fight her, and in fact it's as if a dam has been broken; his head falls forward into the crook of her neck, intense shakes gripping his body now that he's not fighting them. Hunched over Yuta looks out of place, something lost, all the confidence he's grown over the years disappeared in the dark of the night.
"What's wrong?" Asuka asks again, running her hands over his hair.
"Nothing, sorry," Yuta whispers to keep his voice from breaking, but without the strength or desire to push Asuka away. Then: "Just a bad dream."
Asuka nods; doesn't say anything. She shifts back with Yuta in her arms, pull-guiding him to lie back down next to her. Yuta keeps his head firmly lowered, refusing to look her in the eye, but the way he leans into her arms feels pleading.
Asuka holds him in the way he's done for her countless times, molds it off of Yuta's actions that she might know how to help him now - always patient, caring, with an endless love.
She wonders if Yuta can feel the affection which burns for him in her chest, so harsh and strong it's almost painful in it's worry. She wonders, too, if this is what Yuta felt all those times she's woken from nightmares, mute and drowning in memories. A fresh wave of guilt washes over her at the thought; she tries to push it away.
Asuka can feel it with her sharpened senses, more now than she ever did when they were at Jujutsu High - cursed energy is a constant, a current drumming under Yuta's skin, the darkness an inexorable tide lapping at the shores of his awareness. Yuta and his cursed energy are so tightly intertwined they're practically one and the same.
She wishes there was more she could do to help him - to understand, even, but the gap between them in that sense is as wide as always, wide as it could ever be. There are few things Asuka can do, countless she can't, and to know what Yuta feels in these moments when he wakes tortured by his own strength is one of the latter.
But what she does know is what it's like to fight the pain, to try desperately not to fall to the darkness that would seem in the silence of the early morning to stretch out forever; what she can do is hold Yuta like this, remind him that he's not alone; just as he once held out his hand and reminded her that there are things worthy of love yet.
"Calm Down Idiot, you're alright," Asuka mutters against the top of his head, pressing her nose into soft black hair, wishing she knew the right words for these moments, knowing she never will. "You're okay. Promise."
Eventually Yuta quietens; his head shifts against the base of her throat. Asuka draws circles over his shoulders with her fingers, smoothes down the ridges in his sleep-mussed hair, drinking in the feeling of his trembling form as if it might be gone in a moment.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Asuka asks eventually.
Yuta shakes his head, a tiny motion that she feels against her rather than sees. Then, after a moment, in a small, watery voice: "Just stay. Please."
Something washes over Asuka then, an intense wave of emotion as she pulls Yuta closer still, feeling his hair on her chin and the contours of his back and shoulder blades under her hands through the soft fabric of his t-shirt. It feels then that she has some great privilege, a dizzying responsibility, holding all of him in her hands as the shakes racking his body gradually recede along with the tears.
Yuta trusts her, still, without second thought or doubt in his mind; loves her in that pure and all-consuming way that could easily be his downfall if she wanted it to.
She doesn't deserve it. But she swears to herself, now and always, she won't let him down.
"Of course," Asuka mutters, voice harsh with emotion. "Of course."
Yuta relaxes against her, and there's something burning in her chest, clawing against the cage of her ribs to get out. Her heart's held down, almost painful as she tunnels on the feeling of Yuta's body against hers and the rhythm of his breathing as it gradually calms.
She thinks Yuta might've fallen asleep, but after a moment his small voice picks up, laced with exhaustion and ease, "I love you, Asuka."
Her heart relaxes in the echo, and the soft silence that follows.
Eventually Yuta's breathing becomes gentler and more rhythmic, tension easing from his body as he falls back into sleep in the security of Asuka's arms. Asuka stays awake for a long while after, as if watching over him sleeping she could act as protector of Yuta's dreams, to chase out and rid him of the darkness that plagues him, that she could use her only strengths in the service, for once, of something good and loving.
Of course such notions are impossible, but she's still holding Yuta as she drifts off herself into a light sleep, prepared to stay like that for as long as he needs; forever, if he would have her.
