A/N: Yay for my first update of 2023!

This chapter contains implied spoilers for chapter 79 of the manga.

TW for implied passive suicidal ideation

"You were all over the place today," Maki says as she helps Junpei off of the grass. "And your footwork was a mess. We'll start there tomorrow."

He gives her a grim thumbs up and turns to walk over to where his bag sits by the fence, wiping sweat and rain off of his face. It had been drizzling for most of their practice time, leaving the grass slippery. Which is why his footwork was so bad, but when Maki's remained flawless, he didn't really have much room to talk. He bends to pick up his water bottle and his phone, chugging a few mouthfuls while he checks his notifications.

Missed call

He freezes, his heart pounding in his chest.

He drops his bottle onto the grass and starts heading back towards campus.

As soon as he's made it to his room, he sits down heavily on the bed, phone in both hands. He stares at the screen, at the notification from 26 minutes ago. It might not even be him. It might be a spam call. It's probably a spam call.

He taps on the notification and raises his phone to his ear as it starts to ring. His breaths have gone shallow, and his palms haven't stopped sweating. The call is halfway through the second ring when there's a click and a muffled, "Hello?"

It's him.

Junpei clenches his fist tightly in his lap to stop his fingers from trembling. "Hello, this is Yoshino Junpei."

"So did you change your mind, then? All the secretary said is that you wanted to talk to me."

Junpei tilts his head back to look at the ceiling, fighting to keep his breaths steady. "I have some questions."

"So do I. What are the monsters I keep seeing?"

"They're called curses. Manifestations of negative energy and emotion."

"Why can't anyone else see them?"

"Because you have to have reached a minimum threshold of cursed energy in order to see them."

"What the fuck is cursed energy?"

Junpei huffs impatiently. "It's the glowy stuff you've been seeing."

"Okay, but what is it?"

"Just—it's like magic, kind of. It also comes from negative emotions."

"So I have it, then?"

"Yes."

"Then why did I just barely start seeing this shit?"

"That's what I want to know, too," Junpei replies. "How long have you been seeing curses?"

"For a couple of weeks."

"Did anything weird happen to you that might have triggered it?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you're the expert here. How should I know what counts as weird to you people?"

Junpei's jaw clenches. "Okay, fine. What was the first curse you saw?"

"I was in the bathroom and I saw a little one sitting in the urinal."

"...Are you serious?"

"Yeah. It had huge eyes and little tiny wings."

"Gross."

"Hey, you asked."

"Well, that wasn't helpful."

"Like I said, I don't know what counts as weird to you people."

Junpei sighs, dropping his forehead into his hand. Why did I think this was going to be helpful?

"There was this one guy, though. Who was pretty creepy looking."

Junpei stiffens. "What did he look like?"

"He had like…stitches on his face. And his skin was grey, like a dead body or something. He kind of appeared out of nowhere, like I was walking down the hallway and felt something bump into me, and then all of a sudden he was standing there. He had a creepy fucking smile. Then he turned around and left."

Nausea pricking at the pit of his stomach, Junpei asks quietly, "Did he say anything?"

"Nope. Just looked at me."

Junpei lets his phone fall from his ear, his other hand clutching the blanket tightly and his breaths harsh in his throat.

"Yoshino? Yoshino, are you still there?" Shikichi's voice sounds tinny and far away. "What happened, did he mark me for death or something?" His tone is light, but his words sink like a stone into the pit of Junpei's stomach.

That might not be far off.

"Who was he?"

Junpei returns the phone to his ear, his fingers trembling. "His name is Mahito. If you ever see him again…don't go near him."

"Okay? What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's dangerous. And he's a curse, not a human. So just…stay away from him." Junpei hangs up, afraid his trembling breaths are going to give him away.

"Fuck," he whispers.

His phone starts buzzing next to him, and a glance tells him that it's Shikichi calling back. He silences the call, and then to stem the panic rising in his throat, blocks his number for good measure.

Fuck.

Junpei pulls Yuuji aside after dinner, giving the other students a half-formed excuse as he tugs Yuuji over to the hilltop bench they'd met Gojo at in the middle of the night all those weeks ago. "I heard back from Shikichi," he says quietly, his gaze fixed out over the mountain valley.

He sees Yuuji's eyes widen in his peripheral vision. "What did he say?"

Junpei swallows thickly. "I think—he saw Mahito."

"What? When?"

"A couple of weeks ago. And I think—" Junpei breaks off and blows out a small, shaky breath. "I think Mahito gave him cursed energy."

"What? That's…a thing?"

Junpei shrugs, gaze dropping to the flagstones at his feet. "It's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. He couldn't see curses, then he bumped into Mahito, and then he could."

"...Wow. That's…wild."

"I just can't figure out why Mahito would do that. Why would he care about some random guy? Why would he care about me, for that matter? Is he just messing around?"

Yuuji frowns. "I don't know."

"Then why him? Why me?" Junpei can feel a lump forming in his throat. "Why—" His voice breaks, and he shakes his head. "It just doesn't make any fucking sense, and I'm sick of it. He fucked with my life, he fucked with Shikichi's, and I want to know why."

Yuuji laces their fingers together and squeezes.

Junpei blows out a breath and looks up at the sky, where the first stars of the night are glimmering. "Probably won't ever find out, though. Even when those curses do whatever they've got in the works, Nanami's not going to let us anywhere near them."

"I mean, Gojo's our actual teacher, and you said he seemed like he wanted us to fight, so maybe you'll still get a chance."

"Maybe."

Yuuji's eyes linger on Junpei's face for a long moment before he tugs at their joined hands. "Come on, let's go inside."

Junpei nods and turns to follow Yuuji back around the side of the building. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he reaches for it on instinct—fuck is it Shikichi—but when he pulls it out, the text is from a number he doesn't recognize.

If you want a chance to kill Mahito, come to this location tomorrow morning at eleven.

A moment later, a pinned location comes through. Junpei taps on it to see a seemingly random spot next to a tiny lake labelled Arafune to the northwest.

"Shit."

Yuuji looks back at him. "Hm?"

Junpei turns his phone to face Yuuji, and Yuuji lets go of his hand to accept it, brow furrowing as his eyes skim the screen. Then his brows pop up. "Oh."

"Yeah."

"Any idea who it's from?"

"Nope."

Yuuji gives Junpei back his phone and laces their fingers together again before continuing on their way to the dorms. "Let's ask around. See if anyone else knows who it is."

Junpei follows, phone clutched tightly in his hand and his heart hammering in his throat.

The common room is quiet, even though all of the students are there except for Inumaki. Panda's stretched out on the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes, while Kugisaki's perched on the arm of Maki's armchair and Fushiguro is reading a book at the table.

"Hey, everyone," Yuuji says casually as they cross the threshold. "Does anyone know who this phone number belongs to?" He glances over at Junpei, and Junpei reads the number off of his phone.

Panda's head pops up off of the couch, and he grabs his phone from off of his stomach. Maki, with a sidelong look at Junpei, pulls out her phone as well. After a moment of scrolling, Panda says, "Read it off one more time?" Junpei does, and Panda nods to himself. "That's Mechamaru's number."

"The hell does he want with you?" Kugisaki asks.

Yuuji glances over at Junpei, but Junpei's already shaking his head. "Nothing," he replies, grabbing Yuuji's arm and tugging him back out into the hallway. Yuuji follows him quietly back to Junpei's room, where he shuts the door behind them. Junpei lets go of Yuuji to collapse into his chair, rubbing his face with both hands.

"Okay. So. Mechamaru, who I've never spoken to before, wants me to go to a lake in the middle of nowhere supposedly to kill Mahito."

"So you never gave him your number or anything? At the Goodwill Event?" Yuuji asks, taking a seat across from him on the bed.

"Of course not. Not even anyone at our school had my number then."

Yuuji nods thoughtfully. "So he somehow knows your number. And he somehow knows enough about you to know that you want to kill Mahito."

"Which, it's not like I keep that a secret or anything, but I have no idea who he would have found that out from."

"Yeah, it doesn't seem like anyone here really knows him that well." Yuuji's brow furrows thoughtfully.

Junpei pulls up the text again. If you want a chance to kill Mahito, come to this location tomorrow morning at eleven. He taps on the pinned location again and pulls up directions to get there. He makes a face. "God, it's going to take almost six hours to get there from here."

Yuuji looks sharply over at Junpei. "Hold on, are you sure this is a good idea?"

Junpei sets his phone on the desk next to him and leans back in his chair, arms folded. "No, but this is probably my only chance."

"Okay but how do we know Mechamaru is telling the truth?"

Junpei raises his eyebrows. "What, you think he's trying to set a trap for me? I don't think I matter enough for anyone to go that far to get me back, Mahito least of all."

"We still don't know what Mahito wanted with you in the first place," Yuuji replies. "Maybe he does need you back."

Junpei huffs out a laugh. "He tried to kill me, Yuuji. That doesn't exactly scream 'useful for future plans.'"

"He could have been banking on me bringing you back."

"I doubt that."

"You don't know for sure, though."

"Showing up tomorrow might be the only chance I get to find out."

"Yeah, or it could get you killed."

The raw edge to Yuuji's voice hits Junpei like a slap to the face, and his throat tightens around a sudden, blistering terror. He stares back at Yuuji in choked silence, wide, green eyes to shadowed, angry brown.

Yuuji drops his gaze to look down at his hands, clenched tightly between his knees. "Never mind, it's not like you're going to listen to me anyway," he mutters. "We had this exact conversation before you got untransmogrified, and you still went through with it."

Hot anger flashes through Junpei. "And look where that got me! I'm way stronger now than I was when Mahito was teaching me!"

"You're still not strong enough!" Yuuji shouts, banging his fists onto his knees. He looks back up at Junpei, a desperate edge to his gaze. "Even Nanami couldn't actually hurt Mahito because he couldn't get to his soul, so unless you figure out how to do that, you can't beat him!"

Junpei's chest heaves with half-formed breaths rasping over the lump in his throat. His vision blurs, and he looks away as his chin starts to wobble. "Leave me alone." His voice wavers and breaks, and his cheeks heat with shame.

Yuuji sits stiffly for a moment, gaze still fixed on Junpei's face. Then he says, "Fine," in a short, clipped tone that's still swollen with tears. He stands and goes to the door, slamming it shut behind him.

Junpei's grip tightens on the edge of his desk, the urge to throw it to the ground pulsing through him as he blinks rapidly to clear his vision. He forces himself to let go after a moment and slams his fist down on its surface instead. There's a clatter behind him, and he turns to see the framed photo of his mom lying face-down on the desk. He reaches over, fingers trembling, and rights it. His mom's face blurs as tears fill his eyes again.

You're still not strong enough.

The words scrape at his insides, leaving a raw, gaping hole behind.

You're still not strong enough.

A sob seizes his chest, and he curls into himself, hiding his face in the crook of his elbow.

You're still not strong enough.

He wakes up the next morning at 5:30, eyeballs aching from too many hours spent staring at the ceiling. He gets ready in numb silence, cold fingers trembling faintly as he does up the buttons on his uniform and straps his swords onto his waist. On his way to the door, he pauses at his desk to brush his fingertips over his mom's face.

Goodbye, Mom.

Or maybe, see you soon.

He swallows thickly and turns away from her smiling face, boots scuffing the floor as he walks the rest of the way to the door. He grips the handle tightly, takes a shaky breath, and pulls it open. He steps out into the hallway and turns to see Yuuji sitting against the wall, knees hugged to his chest and looking up at him.

Yuuji gets to his feet, and Junpei watches him, a pit in his stomach. His uniform is rumpled, and even in the dark hallway, Junpei can see the shadows under his eyes. They stare at each other in silence for a long moment, Junpei's hand unconsciously drifting closer to the hilt of the sword on his hip.

"I'm coming with you," Yuuji says softly, his voice hoarse.

Junpei's eyes widen fractionally, shock running through him like an electrical current. His hand pauses, hovering a few centimeters away from his sword. Yuuji's eyes flick back and forth between his own, their warm brown black in the darkness. Junpei drops his gaze and nods, a tiny motion, his hand dropping back to his side.

Yuuji turns to let him past, and as Junpei walks down the hall, he falls into step next to him. Silence hangs between them like a stiff garment they've both long outgrown, but the balance it upholds is too fragile for Junpei to risk breaking it. They walk all the way to the bus stop like that, take their seats on the bench by the side of the road like that, wait in the grey morning like that.

And then, as the sound of the bus trundling up the hill reaches their ears, Junpei reaches over and takes Yuuji's hand in his own, his grip tentative. There's a split second of nothing, of Yuuji's hand sitting limply in his grasp, and then Yuuji squeezes his hand tightly.

A/N: I got COVID this week, which gave me more writing time than normal. I'm a little bitter tbh, I managed to avoid getting it for almost three years.