"Did I go intentionally to destroy me?"
I Want to Be Well
Sufjan Stevens
It all seemed rather dumb now.
Childish dreams of never again being what I am, they were forgotten and left to fade into the Earth like every other species before me. When sensei found me in the woods I was alive, soaked in blood and broken from my fingers to my ribs. It was the first time I had ever seen the man so serious without even a single joke or photo taken of my misfortune.
Instead, he'd squatted down beside me and I'd awaken nearly immediately at the familiar energy pulsing next to me in that near scorching, chaotic yet smooth way of his. It was probably the first time that his energy had comforted me. He'd taken to poke around at my injuries and didn't even pretend to look away from my broken hand to ask if I could heal myself.
"We both know that's not how my technique works." I had tried to be the dry sarcasm I desperately wanted back but instead they came out in a wheeze and sensei clicked his tongue in warning. His own classmate was on her own league far above my own.
"Well, just looks like more training for you."
"Yay." I clenched out as he grabbed me as carefully as he could and put me on his back with my chin on his shoulder. Broken hand, shattered wrist, bruises painting everywhere... "Where's... Megumi..." and the others, please tell me the others even if I don't look like I care about them, oh god please don't tell me it's just me— I couldn't survive—
"He's alright, currently at the hospital with Nobara while I come and save your butt."
"And... and...?" Tell me the others please. I couldn't even bring myself to ask because I already knew the answer in the way sensei kept his distance yet hugged my legs tighter to his body. He didn't even allow that small bit of teasing that he so usually tortured me with to remind me that I could never beat him, be him, or even near him. I felt small. "Sensei..."
"Itadori's dead."
I knew Megumi would find a sick relief in the sentence. Was it even a sentence? Two words, a contraction was one so you could make it three, but does it even matter? It meant that Itadori had been strong enough in the end to take control of his own body and meet his end on his own terms. I should feel grateful, relieved, satisfied. As a sorcerer, it should be a relief because his death was good and useful.
But all I had left of him was the blood that I was drenched with and it wasn't enough to dry the tears that welled up in my eyes and released themselves on sensei's shoulder. He said nothing as he teleported us to the hospital and neither of us broke the solemn silence while I was carefully, like I was precious porcelain, laid onto a bed to wait for the Ieiri Shoko herself. Was I really that bad to need such immediate transport? Sensei poked my hand and my lips gasped, but I felt numb.
Even that visit wasn't much as she and Gojo-sensei spoke in circles to each other as if I weren't there while she guided her reversal technique through my body and healed the brokenness of it all. It dawned on me that Yuji's body must babe near by. But when they were gone and I watched my hand move silently in front of me I couldn't help but wonder how I could fix the brokenness inside that threatened to overtake everything I was in a sick twisted fight because what was my point to fight—
The doors slid open.
"Megumi? Kugisaki?" I sat up to look at the other two classmates in relief as they stepped through the doors without much on revealing on their faces - their young, healed, yet tired faces. Not free from bandages, Nobara sat at the bedside while Megumi leaned against the wall with a sigh. "What are you two doing here?"
"Checking up on you, you idiot." Nobara snapped out with a whack to my head.
"Ouch! I was doing fine until now..." I grumbled with a rub to the back of my head. "What is with people wanting to hit me?! You're supposed to hit on me!"
"Not our fault you're an idiot." Megumi spoke up with what I could only interpret as the barest hint of a smirk. He would deny it and anyone would look past it, but I knew that inflection from anywhere.
"An idiot who survived against the king of curses." I tried to correct haughtily but even I knew that statement wasn't entirely true. I was mercifully granted life by a being superior to my own, reminded me how insignificant I was to the miserable world I lived in.
"You almost died—" Megumi countered, taking a step forward in the hospital room and my heart monitor beeped as my heart began racing.
"We all almost died!" I nearly shouted back, eyes blazing at the reminder of my near premature death all to try and save the teen he knew for a couple weeks. My death, mine! I should be dead!
"You should have run away!" And I laughed, even if it was dry and fake, I laughed in his face at the mere idea that I wouldn't try to run away to save the only life I'd ever have.
"And I did!" I yelled out, no longer finding this a funny pissing match between siblings but now an act of anger from an enemy. No, a loved one, because a stranger wouldn't be this betrayed and angry. My fingers fist the thin hospital cover on top of me. "I did all that I could, okay?! I protected Itadori's heart with everything I could and it-it still wasn't enough apparently!"
Fuck, I hated crying. I hated crying by myself, I hated crying in front of people, I hated caving into my weakness! I was morbidly grateful that my mascara had already washed down my face as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and glared over at the dark haired teen with all the emotion I could muster considering it hadn't even been 24 hours.
"...could you really have saved him?" Megumi slumped forward and I turned my gaze quietly down to my hands to see the dark red blood slowly appearing over the freshly healed skin while growing cold hands reached out for me, hands I could grab, hands that were once so small, hands that I could never reach— "...Soru?"
"I don't... I don't know." I admitted and there was hands pulling me down, begging me, taunting me.
"What do you mean save him?" Kugisaki finally broke into the conversation, much to our relief, and I cupped my hands to hold the heart again in my lap while I looked to the other girl of our class. The hands grabbed my body, holding me down and away from the only ones I wanted to grab before me, so grey, so still.
"My technique... I can restore things around me. Not just buildings and nature but... people too. Back to how they were." I explained with a sniff to keep the disgusting snot inside with the rest of my ugly tears. My understanding of anatomy wasn't bad. The right and left atriums were fine, it would have been easy enough to connect the aorta and pulmonary veins, right? The superior vena cava pumped in blood, so that would have been first like the tulips. It's basically like growing a garden, right? "If I could have just shoved the thing back in his chest, I-I could have—"
"Passed out from exhaustion and died from it too." Sensei's sudden arrival with his chirped voice wasn't unwelcome as he made himself known in the confined space. I hadn't noticed him slide open the door and judging by the small jump of the either two, neither did they. "It was a feat you never could have accomplished because you can't restore yourself without becoming a Jun slushy in the head!" We cringed.
The blood in my hands dripped onto my lap and the heart I once held mocked me with the hands as our sensei walked to the other side of the bed across from Kugisaki. He leaned over with that dumb smile on his face that once again reminded me that he knew everything and I knew nothing, how he was everything and I was nothing. He was also ridiculing me, throwing my inabilities into my face without any other reason other than to scar deep.
"You're weak, Hafu-Chan." He reminded me with a sympathetic pat on my head that reminded so much of the claws that had dragged me through the forest. I couldn't even muster the ability smack his hand out of my hair.
"Sensei!" Nobara spoke up on my behalf sounding aghast and offended for me. "You can't just say that!"
"Oh? You thought I meant just Hafu-Chan?" His head tilted to the other two as he stood to full height and regard the two teens with wide arms and a grin. "You're all weak!" Megumi and Nobara both took in a gasp of air at opposite ends of the reaction spectrum. Kugisaki took the insult violently with a strain of her eyebrow and a flinch while Fushiguro turned away with a scowl.
"But, that's okay." Gojo-sensei continued, with a grin decaying into just a smile and hands in his pockets as he examined our depressed, defiled, degraded attitudes. It was a rare moment of honesty to tell us it was okay to not be. "That's why you're still in school. You guys are only first years after all, so..."
My eyes were still on the heart, on the blood that haunted me, the hands that still held me. From the crimson that had dripped from his hand onto my shoulder reminding me I could have, should have healed to the ashes of a heart that seeped onto my chest to mock me of my insufficient strength to fight for even myself. If I had just restored his hand, we wouldn't have needed Sukuna, right? If I had only been stronger and braver, we all could have made it out of there alive!
It all was just a reminder of how much of a failure I was; weak, unattainable and worthless—!
There was a hand over my eyes that pushed me to leaning backwards onto the think pillows of the hospital and I frowned at the sudden darkness. I wanted to argue, to fight, to prove that I was strong, but when my head reached the usually uncomfortable feathers, a darkness started to wash over me from the eyes down to my toes like a comfortable chill that slowly shut down my brain and there was something long, silky, familiar in my hand replacing the heart. The hands evaporate holding me evaporated at the pressure on my face.
"Worry another day, my precious students." His voice was far away and almost kind. No, it was kind. I had heard true evil and... and the ribbon in my hand was nothing like the ashes. "Sensei will take care of today."
Gardening wasn't the same anymore. It felt tainted even though the tulips had started to sprout from the dirt in various heights. For the first time in my life it was a chore to pick out the weeds with my bare hands, water them daily, even the simple act of walking past the spot of land made me feel uncomfortable.
So, I walked away from them and walked over to a patch of land that had obviously been taken over by the nature around it in a beautifully chaotic woven landscape. Kudzu was over taking the land and if it wasn't cut back, it would soon creep into the school.
I sat down this time, crossing my legs and examined the vines. It would take weeks to uproot all of the kudzu and vines that suffocated the other flora and even fauna inside. It grew sporadically and fiercely with deep roots and even stronger branches. There was a statue of some random bald man in there hidden behind trees, wrapped in the vines that reminded me of—
"What the hell are you doing sitting in the middle of the sidewalk?" My thoughts were interrupted and there she was, standing there glasses and all with an impatient hand on her hip and staff in her hand - Maki. She smirked when I looked at her. "I thought you didn't like getting your outfits dirty, Soru."
I didn't own black and even if I did wearing it felt wrong. Even if we had skipped to first names, I didn't really know his other than those times when he helped me in the gardens or when he talked about the Occult club he had joined at his old school. Or the time when we had both snuck into the kitchen to sneak a midnight snack and sat next to each other while he told me about the time he had illegally downloaded Jennifer Lawrence movies to watch when he was alone. Or that moment we had shared at the koi pond where he told me about his grandfather and his death, his promise for the world.
I could count our one-on-one interactions on my hands, just like I could count the amount of steps in Kugisaki's skin care routine or personal items in Megumi's room, the number of students at this school.
No, I didn't know him at all.
Which is why I stuck to my normalcy. Pink means calm, pink is gentle, pink is sweet. Soothing, soft and it hugs me when I wear it. The skort I wore and the white shirt with matching pink track jacket unzipped. Pink shoes that didn't have ash in their laces or socks stained with blood.
"You lucky bitch, I've always wanted to go see the deer!" I whined out and her smirk turned into a victorious grin as she held a hand out. I wiped the phantom red off my hand and curled my hand around hers, letting her pull my body with an almost natural ease. "Did you see any cute boys?!" I so desperately needed to get out of here and go on a date soon, I was rotting and the selection here were slim pickings with a slow ticking life timer.
"A mission isn't for boy hunting, idiot." Maki shoved me back without any malice and I couldn't help the small prickle that creeped over me at the reminder, but my second year still smiled at me like nothing was wrong with me, as if I was still her clueless little gremlin in training. "Please don't tell me you went on a date during your mission..."
"I had to practically keep the boys away from me, but of course I stayed true to the mission." I scoffed with a flick of my pleated braid over my shoulder and the birds around us chirped in an almost mocking laughter. I know better than to try and trick my senpai, but it wasn't something I wanted circling around. Maki raised a suspicious eyebrow at me, "that's not what Gojo has been saying."
My arms dropped with my facial expression as gloom over took me. Of course he's been telling people, of course he's humiliating me, because why— Maki showed me her phone screen and I immediately let out a screech as I tried to grab the device from her. "Delete that!" I demanded as she jumped away, a dramatic yards away, and I pointed at her.
"There's also one of you in a boba shop." Maki replied dryly, swiping the screen with her thumb and showed it to me from her obnoxious distance. But even I could recognize the tiny image for what it was. I fell, defeated, to my hands and knees, and cursed our sensei's name to hell and beyond.
It was the image of me and Tamaki walking down the path beside the stream where I had left. The golden hue hadn't quite landed on up and we still carried our empty cups - my taro tea and his mango - while we kept an eye out for a trash receptacle, but it was very clearly the moments before I had to erase me from his mind. I weakly held out a hand to Maki for mercy.
"Please tell me he didn't send—"
"Oh he did."
"Salmon."
The voices that appeared behind were arrows through my back and sent me falling forward on the ground, paralyzed and dead from the humiliation of my life being put on blast by my immature teacher. I ignored the voice in my head telling me to look at Megumi's face on my Home Screen and stared openly as if I was a corpse. Maybe death was a better option.
"Idiot." Maki chuckled as she flipped my body with her foot so that I could stare up at the three second years looking down on me with knowing, laughing faces. Panda to my left, her to my right, and Toge upside down at my head with that stupid, collar covering his mouth that I knew was grinning at my sufferings.
"...he was cute." I tried to explain but all of three of them tilted their head simultaneously and I groaned. They had no right to make me feel this way where I wanted to hide my face forever. "Okay, he said I was cute!"
"So was this the first one or the fifth guy you had to fight to keep off of you?" Panda asked lightly. He wasn't even a person, how dare he insult me!
"I hate you all!" I said as I pushed myself up from the ground and resisted the urge to go change clothes. Gardening clothes were made to dirty, but my normal clothes? They deserved better than this even if it was only a track suit. It was mine after all. "Benito flakes," Toge shook his head and I narrowed my eyes at the audacity to deny my hate. "Well, what are you three up to? Besides harassing first years." It was a grumble, and shamefully petty, but I couldn't care.
A sadistic darkness appeared over Maki's face, a smirk that promised nothing good as she caught me over the shoulders in an unnaturally iron-like grip. It was as if she read my mind and held me tight to her side like an older sister, but only I could feel the trap that she had caught me in. Never get in close contact with Maki, that was rule number one, and yet here I was like an idiot.
"Well, since all the sensei's are busy we've decided to help you first years train." Panda explained from my left while the group led me away from the Kudzu and past the growing tulip path to where I knew we'd end - the dreaded track. My face blanched, flattened, as I recalled an old memory of kickball on the field and a chill ran up my spine.
"I think I'm sick." I tried to laugh nervously, attempting to even get an inch from my senpai as a sudden draft of autumn air washed over us like a cold mist of rain.
"Shut up, Soru. You're ass with your combat skills and even worse with your strategy." Maki's words hit harder than they should have and my head dipped to stare at the stone path way below my feet. She wasn't wrong, my technique was rare, but didn't really mean much in a fight if my opponent was closer and I really didn't care enough to train by myself like Megumi or Maki. "It's kind of sad really."
"But training sucks." I grumbled out with a kick of a rock and tried to remember the date with Tamaki. Now that walk was something I wouldn't my going on again. "I'd rather go on a date."
"You can date when you're older." Was her terrible response that shouldn't been as terrifying as it was. Maki wasn't trying be real or serious or even the tiniest mean about it, she was about as serious as an aunt was to their niece, but the words wrapped around my mind, clawed at it and sat in it, nestled right next to the memory of him smiling down at me in reassurance, begging me to run run run with his heart in my hands as he died— Right into those grabbing grips that wanted me to stay so they could rip me apart and—
"Right." I swallowed the memories, the rage, the fear, the anger. I smiled through them all, lifted my gaze to the training field before me, and shoved the cotton that built up in my throat down down down so that I could stop the urge to shout obscenities to the world that Yuuji fucking Itadori never go to do that when he was older. "I can't wait to be older so that I can date cute guys!" I paused, because why wait for me to be older— "or, or I can date more mature guys!"
"That's not what I meant!"
The three let out a scandalous gasp and froze in their steps, but I continued my walk forward without the three behind me. It wasn't a terrible idea and wisdom was a good trait right?
"If they're older that means they can drive and have more money to buy me things." I nodded my head and ignored the phantom hands behind me getting closer and closer to turn around and smile prettily over at my senpai. "You're right Maki! Older is better."
"How did you get that out of what I said?!"
"Somehow I'm even more worried."
"Benito flakes?!"
"Hey, don't just say that and walk away!"
Hm, not a bad idea.
"Kugisaki!" I shouted as I shot into her room, a feeling of euphoria and elation filling my body to the point where I felt like I was floating. Perfect idea, perfect idea, the best - because it was from me! Her door slammed open more violently than I had originally wanted it too, but this was more important than a wall I could easily fix. Her room was neat, but not overly so like Megumi's, but in a normal way like a slightly unmade bed or her shoes weren't completely straight next to each other or like how her hangers weren't evenly spaced out. It was... it felt homely in clean way.
"Why the hell are you making so much noise?!" Was the beautiful response I got as Kugisaki slammed a fist down on the top of my head from behind me, my own body dropping to the floor in a dramatic show of pain that now birthed its way into my skull. My knees dug into the wood below.
"How'd you get behind me?!" I cried out incredulously, turning to look at the annoyed teenage girl standing over me while rubbing my head for relief. Her eye twitched and she didn't respond, only continued to look at me hard with a towel wrapped around her hair— "Ohhhhh." My lips rounded in understanding as I finally noticed the purple robe and towel over her arm, shower caddy in her other hand, and flip flops on her feet.
"Why'd you come in like that?" Kugisaki finally had mercy as she walked around me and set her caddy down on the dresser before her bed. I took that as permission to be in her space and invaded it immediately, taking ownership of her chair with my butt, and pretended not to judge her make up choices. That was not a good palette, KVD? Really?
"Shopping." She paused, I paused, we both paused. Her hand on a hanger in her closet, mine folded over one another on my knee. Slowly, as if she were speaking to a small, wounded animal she turned to me with narrowed, accusing eyes like that of a predator about to pounce on their prey. I took the look in stride, holding myself straighter and lifted my chin up in superiority. "You. Me. Shopping."
"Shopping." She repeated, stated, did not question or throw angrily. Her hand was still on her hanger and I flickered my gaze to see what she had picked. A white tank top. The one she wore under her uniform, in fact, all of the clothes hanging up were uniform items. My eyes widened and horror filled my gaze, and the moment was broken as I raced over to her wardrobe.
Immediately I was rummaging through the clothes with hands on each article, frantically skating them across the bar with growing revulsion and concern. "This... this is all you have?!" I blurted out and opened a drawer, ignoring the attempt to slap my hands and the offended hey as the only other drawer was filled with underwear. "No, no, no." I muttered out and swirled around to face the now offended and angered Kugisaki Nobara with clear pity on my face. "This... this won't work."
"It was either my skin care or clothes!" She defended, but her words meant as little as her current clothing selection was vast. That's right, she came in her uniform didn't she? So, she literally... a new awe for her filled me as I realized the sacrifice she made. We had to fix that, she couldn't go shopping in the uniform! My hand was on her wrist in a moment, dragging her beside me with little regard to her complaints. "What are you doing?!"
"You and I are going to have a fashion show in my room with my wardrobe where you're the model and I am the fashion show attendee." I declared seriously, more serious than I had ever been as we stepped out into the hallway and took the few steps it took to reach my room across from hers.
Kugisaki's breath hitched at the words and for a moment I felt like I had actually offended the confident, strong girl that I looked up to, so I stopped right inside my room to check on her with my own eyes.
But she wasn't crying, she was staring and I was watching her curiously. She looked down at where we were held together and then to my room and then to me and then—
She smiled, no grinned, and I was matching it full force.
"Fashion show," She repeated with a nod and a twinkle in her as she eased her facial expression into a smirk. "Then shopping?"
"Oh, definitely shopping." I scoffed as we entered my room and walked to my wardrobe after eyeing her through narrowed eyes. "Skirt?" I confirmed and she nearly cried in relief when I pulled out a below knee length, light blue fabric skirt.
And that was the story of how Kugisaki and I became best friends.
...And how we got lost in Shibuya.
A/N: thank you for reading!
They are going to be besties and you can't tell me otherwise that these two wouldn't go shopping, having movie nights, and paint each others nails while gossiping about wether or not their sensei's have a wife/husband/partner at home. They'd drive Megumi crazy and I'm loving it.
we'll get more action next chapter and I'm going to do a chapter of two to build the relationship and story of my OC and those around them.
RedVBlue1sLife: thank you for the comment! It was really nice to get a "woah" ahahaha. I hope you enjoy!