Sick Of You
by Lapiz Sagana
Utahime missed her alarm the following morning. When she opened her eyes, sunlight was already streaming through her blinds, and the digital clock on her bedside table told her it was half past seven. Through slightly blurred vision, she noticed streaks of brown on her pillow, as well as bright red dots trailing back to her. She lifted her fingers to her nose and felt crusts of dried blood on her upper lip that spread to her cheeks. Her fingers were smeared with fresh blood too, and she could only groan at the thought of having to do her laundry again this week.
Utahime reached for the pain meds on her bedside table and swallowed two pills. Her muscles ached so much that she had to wait for the meds to kick in before she could even drag herself out of bed and get ready for work.
By the time she dressed into her miko and slipped on her boots, it was already nine o'clock. That nobody was messaging her due to her tardiness made her wonder whether she filed for sick leave yesterday evening and just forgot, or if the doctor intervened and recommended a day off for her.
Regardless, she was ready for work, and after popping two more pills into her mouth, she opened her front door.
Outside, with her hand poised to knock, stood Shoko. She had her hair up in a messy ponytail and was wearing the sleeveless blouse they had bought together the last time they went shopping together. To see her out of her white coat these days was so rare, even to Utahime.
The two women stared at each other until Shoko offered Utahime her handkerchief. "Utahime-senpai, your nose is bleeding."
Utahime grabbed the handkerchief and held it against her nose. Looking down, she startled at the sight of blood on her boots and on her white kosode.
"Where are you even going in that state?" Shoko squeezed past Utahime to enter her apartment with some grocery bags. "Don't tell me you work even on weekends."
Utahime scrambled to take out her phone and check the date. It was the fourteenth. A Saturday. Gingerly, she kicked off her boots and followed Shoko into her kitchen.
"I got poisoned by a curse yesterday and I've been so out of it since."
Shoko nodded her sympathy as she removed two bowls of take-out ramen from a plastic bag. "Gojo showed me your text message while we were having dinner. I thought I'd give the school a call to check if you're okay, and they told me what happened. Really, senpai, you should have stayed in the infirmary."
Utahime waddled to the dining room to sit. "It's not that serious."
"I'm a doctor and it looks serious to me." She transferred the ramen to two porcelain bowls and placed them on the table. "Just because it won't kill you doesn't mean you can take it lightly."
"It wasn't this bad yesterday." Utahime took the ice pack Shoko passed to her. "Besides, why was Gojo showing you my text?"
Shoko chuckled. She found two bottles of beer inside Utahime's refrigerator and took her seat around the dining table. "He wanted a second opinion."
"On?"
"Whether you were mad at him or not."
"Don't I always make it clear that I'm mad at him?"
"Gojo's a manchild. He doesn't quite get it. For him, you're having as much fun being teased as he does teasing you."
"It must be the drawback of being such a powerful sorcerer. He didn't develop the skills to pick up social cues."
"Clearly."
Utahime dropped the ice pack on the table and started eating. "Where's that idiot anyway?"
"Abroad visiting Okkotsu. You know how he is with his students."
"Oh. So that's why he's not pestering me today."
"It sounded like a serious mission," Shoko said.
"Serious on our caliber or his?"
"His."
"Ah."
They ate their ramen and drank their beer in silence. The two of them used to have so much more energy than this. Nowadays, whenever the two of them met up, they'd have long bursts of conversation followed by prolonged silences, as though to acknowledge the need for rest after such a difficult work week. Sometimes, Utahime looked at her students and wondered whether she really had been that young and naïve once.
"Utahime-senpai." Shoko reached for her hand across the table. "Ah. It's that kind of poison."
"You can tell?"
"I've been practicing, and I'm familiar with your cursed energy, so it's easy to differentiate the one the poison is emanating."
"Is it almost out of my system?"
Shoko put on a thoughtful face. "It's weakening, but it's taking a toll on your body. Why don't you take a nap while I sort things out here?"
"Huh?" Utahime perked up on her chair. She kept her apartment in pristine condition. "What's to straighten up?"
Shoko laughed nervously. Utahime glanced around her apartment with slightly blurred vision, but it still registered. She wasn't sure if it had happened last night or during this morning's rush, but things had been knocked over, and streaks of dried blood were on the floor, couch, and kitchen counter.
Utahime groaned and placed the ice pack back on her forehead. "I didn't even notice."
"C'mon, senpai. Rest in your room and I'll take care of it."
She felt like crying, but somehow she managed to swallow her sobs. The poison was making her vulnerable, and she hated having to cry in front of anyone. "Shoko, thanks for not turning out like Gojo."
Utahime went in and out of sleep for the next two hours. She lay sprawled on her couch with her left arm over her eyes to block the light seeping through the blinds. At some point, Shoko had opened the window in her kitchen and lit a cigarette. She wanted to ask what made Shoko start smoking again, but her head was heavy, and soon she was drifting back to sleep.
It would be around noon when she opened her eyes again with a bit of clarity. Shoko was by the front door with her phone pinned between her ear and shoulder while receiving a bag of take—out from the delivery man.
"It would have been a lot more severe on another curse user, but she's a lot stronger than you think," Shoko said and smiled her thanks to the delivery man. "No, no. Currently, it's mild. Oh? Ha ha. Yes, I remember the address. Let them know we're coming and that I'll be collecting samples."
Utahime sat up on the couch. She rubbed at the underside of her nose and felt crusts of dried blood fall off. "Work?"
Shoko smiled at the sight of her awake. "Oh good. I was just speaking to a friend who has a house here with a medicinal garden. I've been there before, and I think it'll do you a lot of good."
Shoko and Utahime stood in front of a traditional Japanese house on the outskirts of Kyoto. Judging from the wooden fence, the property was quite large and jaded, but had undergone a bit of renovation and modernization some time ago.
The pillars of the gate looked brand new, but the upper and lower lintels appeared less sturdy, like they had simply been stained the same color, but the age still showed through.
She had also spotted several CCTV cameras along the fence, and the gate had a touch-screen call box in the corner.
"Isn't your family's property quite similar?" Shoko asked as she tapped in the passcode.
"Mine's traditional, but not humungous."
The gate parted. Utahime scowled at it, as nothing about the gate had betrayed this automatic feature. She also didn't miss the paper seals lined behind the gate and along the inside of the tall wooden fence. Curse-limiting seals, some of which were brand new slapped on layers of old ones.
Utahime flexed her fingers and knew at once that her capacity to summon her cursed energy had been reduced by at least sixty percent.
"Relax." Shoko took Utahime's travel bag from her. "The seals are just a precaution. You'll see them all over the place. Why don't you enjoy the view instead?"
The view from where they stood was indeed breathtaking. Minus the other seals painted on some large stones in the garden, the scenery looked like it had been pulled out of a dream. Utahime thought this was what paradise must look like, and she had a pretty clear picture of paradise in her mind due to the many times she lay bleeding on the ground during a mission. For a second, she wondered if the poison had actually killed her, and if this was the afterlife.
The three-story house cast a long shadow over them, and from where they stood, the rest of the house looked like tentacles spreading left and right. Utahime couldn't begin to imagine the floor plan of this house and what lay beyond the vast expanse of land surrounding it. The fragrant smell of freshly cut grass intermixed with citrus and another chemical odor she couldn't identify gave her a hint, though.
"Who exactly owns this property?" Utahime asked.
The door to the house opened, and an elderly woman in a blue kimono hurried past the gravel pathway. She glanced at her wristwatch and gasped.
"It's that time already! Welcome, welcome!" She hurried over to the two women and bowed. "You must excuse the state of the property right now. We weren't expecting guests so soon after renovations were done. It's still a bit dusty, but the house itself and the gardens are quite fine."
Shoko waved off her worries with a laugh. "It's fine, Yoshino. Is it just you and a couple of servants?"
"Yes, Ms. Ieiri. The master hasn't visited in a month. We were so glad when he said you would be spending the weekend here with a friend."
Shoko stepped aside and gestured to Utahime. "This is Utahime Iori. She's a semi-grade one sorcerer and instructor for Jujutsu High here in Kyoto. As your master might have relayed to you already, we plan on using your medicinal garden to speed up her recovery. She was poisoned during a recent mission."
Utahime bowed. "I'm sorry to intrude like this, and thank you for receiving me."
Yoshino led them to the east wing of the house that overlooked an extensive garden and a massive pond. They settled into two separate rooms, where they changed into the yukata laid out for them, and drank tea facing the water.
Utahime had felt so drowsy since coming to the property that everything passed by in a blur, and she had only a vague memory of how she came about holding a cup of tea on her lap, or when she started walking in the garden with Shoko.
Any conversation they may have had went over her head. She only remembered asking again who owned the house, and why Shoko seemed so familiar with the people here. In her usual Shoko fashion, she simply laughed and said something about the master of the house being a dear friend of hers who also happened to be a massive jerk.
"Too bad," Utahime muttered. "It would be nice to come home to a place like this after a long day of work."
She didn't even have the energy to eat dinner. Once they were back to her room, she collapsed on her futon and drifted into a light sleep. Every now and then, she'd feel Shoko probing her, probably applying some crushed herbs on her skin that she had harvested earlier, and then reinforcing their absorption into her bloodstream using her cursed technique.
Utahime felt like she was floating in some wonderful dream world until, all of a sudden, her mind just became razor sharp. She opened her eyes, reached for her phone, and checked her notifications. It didn't occur to her why she did that until she saw the time.
Nine-thirty.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Gojo.
U still alive?
Utahime replied with an angry emoji.
Ha. Cute.
Wasn't trying to be cute
You're not cute. The emoji is.
Utahime typed a series of insults then deleted them at once.
Okay.
She had just closed her eyes when her phone vibrated again, and there it was on the phone screen, Gojo calling. She answered after a few beats.
"What do you want, Gojo?"
"How are you feeling?"
The softness in his voice was enough to wake her up completely. She was used to his high-pitched teasing and his sing-song voice. Not this.
"Pretty much recovered, thanks."
A pause on his part, and then a sigh. "If I don't tease, will you tell me the truth?"
Utahime rolled on her back and scowled at the ceiling. "I'm not used to you being serious. Did some curse user humble you over there?"
She heard rustling on the other side, and the sound of a faucet being turned, but he did not respond.
Utahime scanned the room for signs of Shoko. She might still be outside, drinking while studying some plants under the microscope.
"Alright, fine. I feel like crap. It's like every part of me is bruised and I feel useless. When I'm better, I'm going back there to make sure none of those pesky curses are left. It drives me mad that I got hit by some stupid poison. Happy now?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
The call ended, and Utahime found herself staring at her phone screen for a long time, wondering what that was all about.