head above water

[gimu]

WHO: Choso & YOU
WHAT: CATCH-ALL log for the next indeterminate while!
WHERE: Main Base; Neo-Tokyo & Surrounding Areas; 12am shower thoughts psyche plane
WHEN: Time is irrelevant & shall be labelled as needed
WARNINGS: Jujutsu Kaisen spoilers up to AT LEAST current canon (just in case). Further warnings will be labelled in relevant threads as needed

Comments

[gimu]

[ it’s fine, it’s fine, he’s staying here, they were both here. execution could not be carried out where the law was dead and obsolete. here, yuji is no criminal. here, sukuna could not twist yuji’s fate.

defeated, choso collapses back onto his side, bones settling into his sprawl with arms tucked in close to his torso, hair come free from one pigtail to spill messily over what passed for sheets in the medbay. his mark oozes slow, ichorous, at odds with how freely the tears drip from sticky lashes to soak the bedspread. ]

Forgive me, Yuji.

[eyescar]

[ Yuji keeps reaching, reaching and holding and bringing his brother close, feeling a little - a lot - awkward about it but also not wanting to let him go. This is his own fault for bringing up the stupid execution anyway, and with the higher ups gone and Sukuna elsewhere, can he really still be killed?

Does any of that stuff matter now, considering?

Leaning in, he touches his forehead to Choso's, closing his eyes. ]

You don't need to be forgiven. I know that... Brothers are really important to you.

[gimu]

[ this close, he can pick out each individual lash, see where the blood has dried and caked in to the fissures around yuji’s eyes. this close, choso can see the tracks left behind from yuji’s tears. this, too, is an agony: these tears were shed because of him, in some way. ]

They are everything.

[ rasped, shameful. shameful how choso can only reach in turn, pitiful creature, curling into yuji’s warmth.

this close, it almost feels like it did that first day when all three of them were together, new, alive.

here, all eight two of them where still together, battered, worn, alive. ]

You are everything. Do not be so eager to die so soon.

[eyescar]

[ Yuji leans in, closing his eyes, lets himself bask in this. Allows himself to feel as if he is special, for once, and not... Some creature that needs to be put down. That needs to be killed. A monster made flesh, carrying a demon inside o fit. ]

Brother...

[ He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve this kindness, this tenderness, when he had killed so many, hurt so many, when it was at his hands that their brothers had died.

There's no way he deserves Choso's devotion.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he grips Choso a little harder, unconscious of his strength, grip tight, unfleeting, as if afraid to lose him. ]

I'm not eager, I'm just... Ready.

[gimu]

Here… with you…

[ barely a month in each other’s company and yuji’s ready for death, is this what anyone should want for their precious family?

of everyone, who is choso to judge?

he holds onto yuji in turn, hands curling around his little brother’s sides as the boy crushes the rest of the audacity out of choso’s body with his perfect hug.

perhaps it’s choso accepting this simple fact of life: yuji loves, yuji bleeds, and yuji will die when it comes time. perhaps it is the exhaustion of the day caught up all at once. perhaps it is simply that yuji squeezed the remaining daylights out of him. regardless the reason, choso is Out, clutching white-knuckled even in oblivion to what he can of his beloved and doomed little brother. ]

1/2

[picky]

[ Marcille catches those little words before they're out of earshot. She is good. And it's said so plainly, like it wouldn't matter if she heard it because Choso believes it to be true. But he doesn't really know her that well, does he?

Her eyes sting as her feet pull to a stop. She presses her lips together in a crooked line, chin rumpling, and manages not to cry as her nails bite into her palms.

Then she breaks into a run down the halls, hair whipping behind her. ]

2/2

[picky]

I'm here!

[ Marcille rushes back into the kitchen, her bag considerably lumpy as it bounces against her side. Despite her breathlessness, she seems cheerful. No sign of any of that sadness here. ]

Thanks for waiting. Let's go! ...By the way, these are normal cats, right? Not metal ones?

[gimu]

[ while reason suggests that there's probably LILITH-provided things in marcille's bag, one cannot help but wonder about what elf mysteries lie within... perhaps more soap.

... but her question is a good one, and has choso turning to blink at yuji expectantly. they were real... right? ]

Metal cats in the bath...

[picky]

[ INTERRUPTS ]

The cats go in the bath?!

[gimu]

Do they!?

[picky]

Isn't that what you said?!

[ yuji help them ]

[eyescar]

Ah... Guys, they're real cats?

[ Good lord... ]

And, um, they're outside the onsen, not in it?

[gimu]

[ much of choso's tension promptly drains right out. good, they were real. good, there would not be cat fur to compete against for water space, but also, do cats not just look Weird when wet? that feels like a breach of privacy or something.

sorry for looking at you at your scrunkliest, buttons-san. ]

That settles that. Thank you Yuji.

[picky]

Thank goodness.

[ Relieved sigh... ]

Although metal cats in bathtubs wouldn't be the first strange thing I've found out about this place.

[gimu]

What was the strangest?

[picky]

It's hard to pick just one. For one thing, there are metal hummingbirds flying all over this place. I see them carrying things sometimes! Someone could get hurt!

[eyescar]

Oh, you mean like Wasabi?

[ Yuji pouts, just a little bit. ]

He doesn't drop things, but he pecks me a lot...

[gimu]

Their carrying weight is considerable for something so tiny.

[ a pause, like he’s trying to hold out back but can’t quite help it]

Does Wasabi need… fixing?

[picky]

When you say "fixing"... What exactly do you mean?

[eyescar]

Brother... It's okay...

[ Pats Choso's arm gently... Please don't kill his drone... ]

1/2

[gimu]

What do you think I mean?

[gimu]

[ yuji’s pat is like a strange diffuser, a chemical dampening of Whatever That Was oozing up there.

choso sighs, a little dolefully. ]

Yes, yes.

[picky]

[



she's not answering that ]

L-Let's get going, huh?

[ TURNING AND WALKING! even if she doesn't know where she's going once they reach the exit! ]

Maybe you can take the bird to someone who can f-... Um, repair it for you? "Wasabi," right?

[eyescar]

It's just me he doesn't like, so it's not that big a deal. He still carries things for me, he just... Pecks me at the same time.

[ Let's go! Yuji is taking charge on this expedition, let's go see some cats! ]

[gimu]

I don’t want to break Wasabi. Just take a look.

[ with his blood ]