Hello, Lovelies!
I hope you're all doing well! It's my birthday today, so I felt like uploading a chapter early! Please do enjoy!
Being in my shoes is like trying to fit your head on your body. It's suffocation. It's searching for air at the bottom of the sea. It's dying a million times. It's agony in the form of life.
I'm tired.
I don't want to be broken anymore.
I don't want to feel like this anymore.
I want to be okay.
I wake up feeling heavy.
I broke down in my brother's arms yesterday and told him about the cycle that keeps me trapped in my room and on my bed. Yet there's still so much left to unpack. Like those two heads that rolled on the ground that day. Like that yukata made of fire. Like this insatiable fear I have of myself.
Maki visits me again, and I find myself…enjoying her company. Keep climbing, she had told me during her last visit. Was this climbing? Was finally eating something that first step? Was getting out of bed another?
"You're out of bed," she notes in amusement as she walks in with a tray of food. Katsudon, strawberries, and a glass of water.
I'm sitting at the foot of my bed once more. My back presses against the cool glass of the sliding door behind me. I find myself saying to her, "Thank you," because I feel like I owe it.
She sets the tray down in front of me on the floor and gives me a half-smile. "Should I be worried about you improving so much?" she asks.
I angle my head curiously. "Isn't that a good thing?" I inquire.
"Oh, so you're dense," she muses, nudging the tray of food closer to me. "Makes sense. You've been in that estate your whole life."
I blink. Dense? I'm…dense? Why? I just asked a question…
"Oh. Was that humor?" I ask with no amount of emotion in my voice.
She sighs. "Yeah. It was. Don't worry about it. You don't have to get it," she replies, then gestures to the food. "Eat up."
Silence greets her.
She raises a brow. "I thought Toge got you to eat," she says.
I look up at her. Toge? Inumaki. I suddenly feel the ghost of his pinky wrapped around mine, his skin cool to the touch.
Maki settles onto the ground on the other side of the tray. "Well, if you're not gonna eat, at least drink some water." She waves a hand towards the glass, which I inspect.
I've heard those words before. Or rather, I've seen them conveyed. Why am I thinking about him so much? He's a boy. He's-
That's stereotypical, I think to myself.
I silently berate myself for thinking such things of a person I don't even know that well and pick up the glass of water. Maki watches me drink from it with keen eyes. I don't know what's so interesting about a person drinking water, but okay. Once I swallow down the water, I lower it in my hands and ask her, "Maki-san, what was it like in you clan?"
She blinks, caught off guard by the question. "Uh…" She looks away, lips pursed as she gathers her words. "It was hell. That's all I can think of to describe it as. I didn't get beaten up or anything, but I would've preferred that to being humiliated and stripped of my dignity, I think."
She looks down at the wooden floor. "I hated it. I hated every second I spent there. I didn't want to live the rest of my life cowering from entitled idiots and keeping my mouth shut just to survive. I had a fire, and they were trying to put it out."
I know all too well about entitled people. Something like rage courses through me at the thought of Maki also knowing.
She stays silent for a moment before continuing. "I told the clan leader that I would come back someday – to take over the clan as a powerful jujutsu sorcerer. He laughed, and then I left."
I watch her every reaction. "You sound like you're laughing with him," I state after a while.
She stiffens and snaps her eyes to mine. "Hah? I said-"
"People say many things that they don't believe," I interrupt, taking another sip of water. "'I love you.' 'This is the last time.' 'I promise.'" I feel my eyes glimmer as I look down. "Not everybody means it, and that alone becomes their downfall." I look back up at her. "So why don't you mean it?"
Maki blinks a few times, then scowls. "Since when did you become the consoler?" she mutters. A sigh escapes from her lips as she rests her cheek in her hand. "It's not that I don't mean it," she says quietly. "I just don't know if I can."
"Why not?" I ask her. "You're already in a jujutsu school. You just have to get good, now." I'm surprised that I'm talking so much.
"It's not that easy," she tells me, shooting a scolding look in my direction.
She takes off her circular, black-framed glasses and hands them to me. I gently hold them in the palms of my hands, inspecting the lenses that seemed to radiate cursed energy. "I can't see curses without those," she says, looking dejected. "I don't have cursed energy like the others. Like you. I have to use cursed weapons."
"Maybe that's a good thing," I murmur, not looking away from the glasses in my hands.
Being in my shoes is like trying to fit your head on your body. It's suffocation. It's searching for air-
"What do you mean?" she huffs on a laugh, taking her glasses from me, though she doesn't put them back on immediately. Her stunning, olive-green eyes bear into my sky-blue pair. "How else would I become a good jujutsu sorcerer?"
"I don't think you could be great with what you have alone," I retort. I pinch my chin with my forefinger and thumb, looking at the floor in thought. "There was this composer who was deaf, yet his work still became famous."
"This isn't the music industry!"
She sighs again. "You have a point, though. If I'm gonna become good, I need to stop wallowing in self-pity first." She pushes to her feet, and I almost frown at the thought of her absence. I was…getting used to her presence. "Thanks," she tells me with a small smile.
I give a nod in reply, and she puts her glasses back on. "Satoru is busy training Toge somewhere else right now, but Panda and I will be at the track. Wanna join?"
Keep climbing.
Two heads.
Take care of your brother.
I shake my head.
"Alright," she relents, walking over to the door. "Come out, if you change your mind."
Someone put a calendar up on the wall next to my nightstand after last night. I guess it was Satoru. He'd marked off the dates, all the way up to now, which is September 23.
I really have been drowning for two weeks. It honestly felt like a day.
If there's one thing that I'm grateful for, it's that Jujutsu High is secluded and located far away from civilization. It's peaceful, almost. Calm. More than that, I can see the stars in the sky here. There are not many, but they're beautiful, nonetheless.
Wind swirls up the dead leaves scattered on the ground outside, ruffling the bare branches of trees. The moon overhead is full, filling the earth with its gentle light and even seeping into my room.
My room. This is my room, now. I feel the thought settle in me like a seed being planted with hopes to sprout.
My side is pressed against the glass, my knees curled and leaning against it as well. My long, matted hair feels like a heavy chain that's keeping me rooted in this spot. Maybe I'll sleep here tonight…
There are a few knocks at the door. They're gentle and light. I turn my head towards it by a mere inch, my lips parting.
Just…knock next time.
I have the sudden urge to…smile.
I stifle it. "Come in," I say quietly.
His hair is like a beacon in the dark room. He's like a mini version of Satoru. The thought has my lips twitching.
He waves at me with one hand, the other carrying a mug of something. Tea, perhaps. He points to a spot next to me, and I nod.
He walks over to that spot, and when the moonlight hits him, I feel the air in my lungs completely dissipate.
His gosh dang eyes.
They're sparkling.
He sits in front of me, the sliding doors acting as an invisible barrier between us. He's giving me space. Lots of it. I couldn't thank him enough.
Inumaki sets down the mug on the floor, nudging it towards me. I peer inside to find milk inside it, radiating warmth. I look at him in a silent question.
He scratches the back of his head, looking unsure how to convey his answer. Then he pulls out his phone and types something. He slides the phone over to me, and I pick it up to read the words. For your nightmares.
"How did…how did you know?" I ask tentatively. He looks pointedly towards the wooden door, and I soon understand what the action says. Maki. She must've heard me screaming from her room and told him. Did she tell Satoru, too? I don't want him worrying more than he already is.
Take care of your brother.
I'm trying, Mama. I'm trying.
And that's something I haven't done in years.
I look at the floor and slowly slide his phone back. When he takes it, I rest against the glass once more and stare out the window.
Maybe it's because he's quiet. Maybe it's because he's been…kind. In any case, something compels me to talk.
"There are these…hands on me that I can't get rid of," I say quietly, not tearing my eyes away from the glass. "I feel them. Especially when I sleep."
He angles his head, a sign that he's listening. I don't know why it breaks my heart. Or…what's left of it.
That last thought has me continuing. "I don't…want to live, because I feel like I shouldn't. People are in danger, simply because I exist." I put my palm out towards the wall, my nightstand is set against, and a grade four curse emerges out of it, making Inumaki go alert almost instantly, his hand going to the zipper of his mouth covering. I don't look away from the glass. "They're scared of me. And…so am I." I close my hand into a fist, and the curse melts into nothing.
Inumaki stares at where the curse had been, putting the pieces together. I explain anyway. "I conjure curses. That's…my cursed technique. It would've been fine, if it was hereditary. If…someone's had it before."
I look down at my hand.
You killed them.
Let go.
Where's big brother, now?
"But I was a glitch," I say weakly. "An error in their perfect system. I was dangerous." I swallow. "My parents died defending me, even though I cursed them. It was an accident, but by jujutsu law, they still had to die." A sensitive pause. "I killed them."
The next one.
Take care of your brother.
I don't realize he'd been typing in his phone during the silence that followed my rant until he slides it across the floor to me. I glance at him skeptically before picking it up and reading his response.
People fear what they don't know and can't understand. It doesn't mean that what they don't know is bad. It just means that they can't understand it.
You are not bad, Gojo-san. They cannot decide that for you.
You are allowed to live as who you are. I think that is the cause your parents died for.
I'm crying.
Tears drip onto the screen of his phone, and I close my eyes, attempting to hold the rest in.
You are allowed to live.
"Why are you helping me?" I ask, my voice breaking. Why are you being kind?
He watches me for a moment. Then he pushes to his feet and closes the distance between us. I tense up, and he slowly crouches in front of me.
He holds out his pinky.
A sob blubbers out of me, because I know what it means. I know what the sincerity in his eyes means. I don't need typed out words to understand.
Friends.
An offer, and a question.
I look into his eyes one more time, finding nothing but kindness and patience sparkling in them. I reach out with my own hand and wrap my pinky around his.
You are allowed to live.
Keep climbing.
You made it to the end! Congratulations!
Just curious: Do you put milk in your tea, or honey? Or are you a person that likes to drink it straight? Do you like it hot, or cold?
Me, personally, I like a good mug of hot tea with milk. I especially like the lemon and ginger kind for when I'm sick. It really helps! Oh! And a good mug of tea before bed to help me sleep, or for while I'm reading a book!
I guess tea can be enjoyed on many different occasions!
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