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Yuuta’s morning was supposed to be fairly relaxed.
He was sent out on a mission the previous morning, expecting to eliminate a second grade curse and be home for dinner. Upon arrival, Yuuta discovered not only a second grade curse, but also a first grade. He managed them without much issue, just missed dinner. By around 8 hours.
False call-ins had become more and more common, which proved to be a real issue. More and more sorcerers were getting surprised by unexpectedly strong opponents, almost killed or knocked out of condition to fight. Backup was required on every third mission, but could only be given once in a while.
Injury rates were concerningly high, especially considering the small amount of sorcerers capable of using reverse cursed technique.
After getting back in the middle of the night and enjoying a very short and unpleasant sleep, Yuuta was woken by Panda telling him to get ready immediately; they were being sent in as backup to a mission. False call-in.
“So, who are we backing up?” Yuuta asks, finally getting a moment to talk with his classmate now that they were in the car and on their way to the scene. Panda sighs as he settles down from sprinting to the car.
“Inumaki and Maki, they only left an hour ago. Must be pretty bad if they’re calling for backup this quickly,” he explains, looking out of the window. Yuuta doesn’t reply, immediately caught up in worrying for his friends.
Maki and Toge were incredibly capable, on their own and together. Calling for backup wasn’t like them, especially after such a short time. And considering Yuuta and Panda were sent to help, they’re likely fighting a special grade right about now.
Closing his eyes, Yuuta attempts to stay calm for the rest of the ride there. No point in stressing until he gets there.
As soon as the car stops, Yuuta and Panda rush out and into the curtain.
The battlefield stretched out before them is brutal. The building they expected to see is nothing but rubble and dust, limiting their vision of what is even happening. The sounds of an ongoing battle are what guide them in the end, arriving at a clearing between all the rubble.
Maki is stood in the middle of it, blood dripping down her temple, looking around the sky frantically.
“Thank god you’re here,” she yells, breath heaving, yet not taking her eyes off the air above.
“Where’s the curse?” Panda asks, running to join Maki in the clearing. In response, she just shakes her head.
“I don’t know. He’s quick, probably special grade, and can turn invisible. We’re useless without Inumaki.”
A cold shiver runs down Yuuta’s back.
“Where is he?”
Maki chances a quick glance in Yuuta’s direction, then points to a spot in the rubble behind her.
“He needs healing. Be quick,” is all she says, and then Yuuta is running to where she pointed.
He climbs onto the rubble, looking around in search of his best friend, probably almost dying somewhere in a pile of rocks. When he spots him, he freezes for a brief second.
Toge does not look good.
He’s draped over a large piece of rubble, head tilted back and blood running down his throat. His skin is paler than usual, his eyes closed, his breath shallow.
Yuuta is kneeling next to him before he’s even aware he’s moved.
“Toge?” Yuuta asks, hands shaking as he carefully lifts his head from the concrete. Toge’s eyes open, slowly, taking a moment to register Yuuta.
“Yuu..ta..” he chokes out, blood dripping from his lips as he says it. Yuuta wants to cry at the sight.
“Don’t speak. I’m going to heal you, okay?” Yuuta says, resting his hands on Toge’s throat and activating his reverse cursed technique. Toge’s eyes close, a sigh of relief escaping him. They don’t move for a while, Yuuta focusing on Toge’s throat and Toge just enjoying the soothing feeling of being healed.
They’re interrupted by Maki.
“Yuuta, how long is that going to take?!” she yells from across the battlefield, and when he looks over, there are splatters of blood flying through the air. Maki and Panda are doing their best to hold off the curse, but without being able to track him at all, they’re losing.
“I’m doing everything I can!” Yuuta yells back, looking back to Toge, weak in his arms, blood everywhere.
“Figure something out!” comes Maki’s voice again, followed by a pained yell.
“And hurry up! We need you both!”
Yuuta scans Toge’s face, eyes trailing down his throat, following the blood spill all the way to the collar of his shirt.
“Toge?”
He opens his eyes, blinking up at Yuuta weakly.
“I need to heal you faster. I’m going to try something, okay?” Yuuta says, biting his lip in regret of his idea. Toge nods; he always trusts Yuuta without second thought.
As Yuuta leans down towards his face, Toge seems to get the idea. He leans his head back a bit, lips parting in preparation for Yuuta’s plan. For a second, Yuuta thinks he sees a small smile forming on Toge’s lips.
The first taste that meets him is harsh iron. Despite the wounds, Toge’s lips are warm and welcoming as they meet Yuuta’s. The feeling is so much like coming home that Yuuta almost forgets to activate his technique.
Toge’s hands come up to wrap themselves around Yuuta’s wrists; his whole body is so inviting Yuuta feels he has to reconsider their entire relationship.
The sounds of the ongoing battle behind them disappear as Toge sighs quietly into Yuuta’s mouth, lips parting further, inviting.
Yuuta’s tongue is buzzing with cursed energy as he lets it travel further towards Toge’s throat. His tongue meets him there, sliding along his, though not disturbing its healing quest.
The taste of his blood is ever-present, the feeling of it warm under his hands, spreading on Toge’s neck beneath the slight pressure of Yuuta’s hands.
Toge keeps sighing softly and making little pleased noises; it drives Yuuta slightly insane, but he blames it on the soothing healing, not the fact that he has his tongue down Toge’s throat.
They eventually part for air.
“How do you feel? Healed yet?” Yuuta asks, breathless as he watches his best friend; he looks nothing short of beautiful despite the circumstances, eyes looking up at him half-lidded, lips parted and smeared with blood Yuuta can still taste on his own tongue.
Toge answers with a shake of his head. Yuuta begins to look worried, but Toge raises his hand, showing his thumb and forefinger almost touching, then gives Yuuta a shy smile.
Instead of questioning his honesty, Yuuta gives a short laugh and dives back down to meet Toge in a kiss.
This time it’s Yuuta who sighs into their kiss, relaxing into Toge despite being the one with an actively working technique. He can feel Toge smile before parting his lips, inviting Yuuta back in by pushing against his lips with his tongue insistently. He doesn’t have to think twice to bend to his will, slipping his tongue back into the blood-tinted mouth beneath him.
The buzz of his reverse cursed technique is still present in his hands and mouth, but it’s almost completely overshadowed by what Toge is making him feel. Yuuta feels warm and welcome, shaky and yearning to have more of Toge.
Another one of Maki’s screams echoes over the battlefield and the two part.
“Good?” Yuuta asks, out of breath and just a bit like he just stuck his head through the clouds.
Toge nods at him, smiling like nothing is wrong, and the two head over to help their friends.
The second that “Show yourself!” rings out across the space, Maki and Panda sag in relief.
After that, the fight is over somewhat quickly. Toge makes sure the curse stays visible, Maki, for the most part, slows him down and eventually, Yuuta manages to deal the final blow to the snake-like creature.
The four head back to the car exhausted, sun already setting when they get back to Jujutsu High.
The only real surprise reveals itself when they get back to the dorms and see the three first-years busy in the kitchen. Fushiguro tells them all to go take showers and then come down for dinner.
Maki looks close to actually thanking him, which would be new, and Panda crushes him in a hug. Inumaki just smiles, Yuuta thanks him quickly, and they head up to shower.
-----
They don’t talk about it. Not before dinner, not after, not the next morning.
But they keep looking at each other. So much, in fact, that Maki eventually confronts Yuuta after training.
“What’s up with you two, anyway?” she asks, taking another sip of her water bottle.
Yuuta, whose eyes were trained on Toge sparring with Panda until a moment ago, barely registers her question.
“What do you mean?” he asks, despite knowing exactly what she means.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Maki says, look unimpressed.
“You show up to heal him, shove your tongue down his throat in the middle of the battlefield, (don’t think I didn’t notice that!), and now you just keep staring at each other like creeps instead of just making out again. What’s up with that?”
Innocently, she takes another sip of her water.
Yuuta stares at her, jaw practically on the floor.
“That’s not- I mean, yeah okay, that is what happened, but I was just healing him! And we’re not staring at each other, we’re just best friends! Who look at each other. Sometimes,” Yuuta defends himself, and it honestly doesn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.
“You realize how that sounds, right?” Maki asks, barely containing her laugh. Yuuta sighs, burying his face in his hands.
“I know, okay? And I do.. like him, I guess. A little more than normal,” he admits, slightly mortified. He hears Maki sit down next to him on the steps.
“You know you can just talk to him, right?” she asks, suddenly serious. Yuuta raises his head to look at her.
“What if it’s just me, though? What if I ruin our friendship?” he asks, even though it sounds like an excuse to himself, too. Maki sighs.
“You know that’s not true. Even if he didn’t like you back, which you know is not true, come on, he would never let that ruin your friendship,” she says, encouraging him in her own way.
Yuuta sighs again, looking back towards Toge, who has actually paused in his training to watch them talk. When Yuuta meets his eyes again, he waves. Yuuta waves back, smiling, before Toge goes back to sparring.
“See?” Maki continues, “He didn’t let your battlefield make-out session change anything either, you’re good.”
“Maki!”
Maki does laugh at him then, before getting up and offering him a hand.
“Come on, let’s train a bit more. Get your head clear. Then, later, you can go get your man.”
-----
‘Later’, by Maki’s definition, was supposed to be that evening.
‘Later’, by Yuuta’s definition, comes a week later, against his will, after a lot of staring and just about zero relevant communication.
Toge was out alone on a short mission while the other three second-years were having dinner.
“So, Yuuta,” Panda starts, and Yuuta is already dreading his next words.
“How are things with your boyfriend?”
Yuuta just knows that innocent smile comes from dark depths of a dark, evil soul.
“I’m not dating Inumaki,” he says eventually, after glaring down Maki, who could barely contain her laugh over her bowl of ramen.
“Okay,” says Panda, still smiling.
“Why not, though?”
“You guys need to be stopped, actually,” Yuuta says, very focused on his bowl.
“We just want what’s best for you,” Maki says, kicking him under the table.
“And what’s best for Inumaki,” Panda adds. Yuuta raises his eyebrows sceptically.
“And maybe,” Panda continues reluctantly, “we want you two to stop staring hopelessly and just get your shit together.”
Yuuta sighs, but doesn’t stop his laugh from escaping.
“I’ll talk to him soon, I promise, I just.. don’t have the courage yet.”
And then Maki says something. Something that keeps Yuuta wide awake, sitting on his bed well into the night, waiting for Toge’s return.
“You know with the lives we live as sorcerers, we don’t have the luxury of waiting, right?”
It’s half past midnight when someone knocks on Yuuta’s door. When he turns to see who it is, Maki sticks her head through the door.
“Hey,” Yuuta greets her, slightly wary at the mischievous glint in her eye.
“I have a patient for you.”
And then her head disappears, the door swinging open to reveal Toge in all his exhausted, post-mission glory.
“Toge!” Yuuta exclaims, sitting up as his best friend slowly walks over to his bed. The door closes without another word from Maki.
“Yuuta,” Toge says, voice quiet and raw. He collapses into Yuutas bed, draping himself over Yuuta in a semblance of a hug.
Yuuta smiles down at him, arms wrapping around his waist.
“Welcome back.”
They stay like that for a moment, until Toge starts coughing. Yuuta’s expression immediately turns worried.
“Hey, sit up,” he says, and Toge does.
“Did you not see Shoko?”
Toge shakes his head and points at Yuuta.
“Oh,” is all he says then, remembering how Maki referred to him as ‘patient’. Now, it dawns on him just what Maki was up to. He ignores the blush spreading on his cheeks.
“Okay, sit up more, let me heal you,” Yuuta instructs, smiling softly as Toge’s expression immediately shifts into something more comfortable.
He places his hands on Toge’s neck, the placement now familiar, and activates his technique. Toge sighs as soon as the healing starts working, but keeps looking at Yuuta expectantly.
Yuuta is biting his lip, nervous about what he’s about to offer.
“You want me to hurry this up?”
Toge immediately breaks out into a smile and nods. Yuuta doesn’t stop his laugh as he nods back in confirmation.
For a moment, he just watches Toge; the glow of his soft skin in the moonlight, the emotion in his eyes, always speaking volumes, the blush high on his cheeks, the way his lips stretch in a smile, the small split in his lip, one droplet of blood escaping.
He leans in, Toge meeting him halfway, eager; and the first taste that greets him is harsh iron.
Yuuta licks across Toge’s bottom lip, passing over the bleeding split. Toge gasps, lips parting, and Yuuta doesn’t hesitate. He slips his tongue into Toge’s mouth, buzzing with cursed energy, chasing the taste of iron. Toge’s hands find a place on his shoulders as he pulls himself into the other’s lap.
Yuuta lets his thumbs move across the skin of his neck, cursed energy and a slight pressure that makes Toge moan quietly.
Smiling into the kiss, Yuuta strengthens his energy output. Toge melts into him, thighs pliant where they encase Yuuta’s.
When they part for air, Toge drops his forehead against Yuuta’s.
He just watches him, energy still flowing through his hands.
“How do you feel?” he asks, because despite how amazing this is, he does want to make sure Toge’s throat heals properly.
Toge opens his eyes reluctantly, nodding. Yuuta takes his hands off Toge’s throat, letting them drop to his sides instead.
They sit in silence for a moment, content just watching each other.
“Yuuta,” Toge says. He really doesn’t need to say any more than that; his eyes speak volumes, scanning Yuuta’s face, yearning, desperate, loving.
Yuuta kisses him. No cursed energy, no harsh iron, just warm lips against Toge’s. His sigh isn’t relief like before, like losing pain; it’s relief like coming home, like losing all his worries to the movement of their lips.
Finally, Yuuta can move his hands, can touch Toge everywhere like he’s wanted every time. Toge pushes his hands into Yuuta’s hair, tugging slightly; Yuuta’s head leans back as a response and Toge towers over him, still firmly seated in his lap, and Yuuta loves every second of it. Loves every second he gets to spend with Toge.
One hand goes back to his neck anyway, exploring just what that pressure does to Toge, while the other one resumes its place on Toge’s waist, just slipped under his shirt.
As Yuuta’s thumb presses back into his throat, Toge tilts his head back with a gasp. Yuuta drops his lips to the other side of Toge’s throat, kissing and sucking and biting his way down below his collarbones. Toge tugs at his hair again, surprising a moan out of Yuuta; with a smile, Toge leans down to kiss him again, taking control and pushing his tongue into Yuuta’s mouth, this time.
Yuuta can’t help smiling, hand trailing further up Toge’s side until he can physically feel Toge shiver.
When Toge pulls away to place his own hickey on Yuuta’s throat, Yuuta uses the moment to speak.
“Aren’t you tired, Toge? You just came from a mission,” he asks. Toge just whines into his throat, which sends a considerable jolt through Yuuta.
“I know,” he continues, “but we really should rest a bit. Tomorrow’s Saturday and we both have the day off. We can spend the whole day here, if you like.”
At this offer, Toge looks up at Yuuta, who is smiling at him softly.
Before he can open his mouth to speak, Yuuta goes on.
“Yes, I’m sure. No, we don’t have to do anything else. Except eat, maybe.”
Toge closes his mouth again, questions answered. He looks at Yuuta in a way that makes him genuinely lose his breath. Like he read his mind, like he hung the stars, like he loves him.
Toge grabs Yuuta’s face with both his hands. Their eyes never lose contact.
“Yuuta,” Toge says. Yuuta wants to cry, a bit. He just smiles.
“I love you, too,” he responds. Toge looks like he might explode.
He tackles Yuuta in a hug, pressing kisses all over his face while Yuuta laughs.
Once they settle down, Yuuta pulls his blankets over them. Toge turns around, pressing his back into Yuuta, who wraps his arms around him like it’s natural.
With a final kiss to Toge’s neck, they close their eyes.
“Goodnight, love.”