Maki being Yuta's biggest source for his fighting skill. Every time he fights and protects someone, has to bring a blade against someone's skin, draws blood for the sake of love and peace, knowing that Maki taught him how is so intimate. She's lovingly guiding his gentle hands to hurt someone. To protect someone. Do you think he ever feels the ghost of her fingertips against his hands when he strikes his katana down. Do you think he ever feels her breath on his neck, muttering in his ear to correct his stance, pushing his hip this way and his shoulder that way.
Maki notices Yuta's hand twitching long before he even actually reaches into his pocket. Watches how he, while focused on watering his cute little house plant that Itadori got him, sticks his hand into his pocket and pats around, absentmindedly frowning.
"Did you lose your phone again?" She asks. It's to tease. He always loses it, finding it in the oddest places. Like that time that he left it in Rika. She still bullies him for it.
"Huh?" He's snapped from his plant, turning to Maki, face curious. "No?" He says, pulling his watering can back, looking at the leaves and soil, making sure they aren't overwatered. "Why do you ask? Did you find it somewhere?" He turns around, placing the can on the shelf with all his other plant-care items.
Maki eyes his phone on the end table, forgotten the moment he remembered to water his plants. She snatches it, tucking it between herself and the sofa.
"No." She smiles, just to herself, watching Yuta fumble with trimmers as he snips off a couple of off-color leaves.
"What was it, then?" His voice is gentle, of course it is. Stupid Yuta and his stupid wind-chime voice.
"You were smacking your leg." She says, taking a sip of soda. "Thought you were using your phone to check the time." Yuta snips another leaf and puts all of his things away, going to the opposite end of the couch from her, digging into the drawer.
"Oh, no, I was looking for... something else." He trails off, shifting aside old notes and pens, and pushing aside all of Inumaki's little pins that he decided fit wonderfully as junk in Yuta's house. Yuta's face brightens as he grabs something, taking it out and shoving it into his pocket.
"Something else?" She questions. Now she needs to know. It's very unlike Yuta to hold things from her.
His face shifts, just a touch nervous. She can't help but be endeared by it. Ten years after defeating the King of Curses, and he still looks like a guilty dog when she notices him doing something bad.
"Uh." He stammers, eyes darting anywhere but her. She must look terrifying, cozy in a blanket on his sofa. A real terror. "Yeah." He swallows. "Be right back."
He moves to quickly reach the kitchen, trying to his long legs to get out of her sight before she says something.
"Yuta." She says calmly. She shoots up when he continues to move, grabbing his shoulder, eyeing his pocket. Her faster reflexes are more than enough to catch her the idiot before he can escape her. "What do you have, Okkotsu." It's not a question. She relishes in the way he shivers.
His back to her, his head drops. She idly wonders if he's going to try using cursed energy to escape.
He swallows. He's scared. Good. A healthy fear of her is good.
"Don't be upset." He starts, and Maki is ready to either strangle him or call Ieiri and force him into resting again. Last time she caught him being weird, he had some curse-side-effects that RCT couldn't help and was just walking around with messed up vision and hearing for three days.
"That's the fastest way to worry me, Yuta. Just spit it out." She says sharply. Yuta turns, and she can already see the shake in his knees as he readies to bow in apology.
Wordlessly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes in his right hand. The cigarettes are some fancy, high-quality blend that she vaguely remembers Gojo telling Yuta to never even think of smoking. The lighter is beautiful, she'll admit; golden with the sun and moon in the middle, a dove and a crow circling it. Hand-carved, if she had to guess, old and clearly well-loved.
"Yuta..." she starts, scrunching her face up.
"I don't do it often!" He defends immediately, hands shooting up. "I just— sometimes it's nice, y'know?" He offers, giving a shaky smile. "it's like having a glass of sake every now and then. He gains confidence. If this was a few years ago, he would've been on his knees, shaking while she scolded him.
He's still shaking. Maki loves it.
"Cigarettes are horrible, still." She makes a face, watching it crumble his bravery. "And they smell bad. How long have you been smoking these?"
"A couple years now?" He says, moving his hands down to stuff them back into his pocket. Maki quickly snags his wrist, yanking the pack and the lighter from him. He frowns. "Being clan-head is a lot. And being a special grade is also a lot." He taps the side of his head, bringing Maki's attention to the blooming gray hairs. he's not even 30 yet.
"You couldn't get into knitting or something?" She sighs. Somehow, it seems to cut Yuta down more than yelling. "Maybe taking care of a really needy fish."
Yuta pouts, fully pouts, and somehow it makes scolding harder.
"It's a rare treat..." he offers, hoping it'll save him.
It does, impossibly, make Maki relent.
"Fine." She says, plucking a cigarette from the pack and walking to the window. She turns to Yuta, watching his face become curious. Careful to not set his pretty white curtains on fire, she lights the tip and inhales, letting the smoke fill her chest.
It's hot, the smoking filling her lungs. It almost brings her to October 31st, that horrible day, but she grounds herself by watching the blush that shoots across Yuta's face. She clicks the lighter off, setting it down.
The cigarette doesn't taste horrible. Some light, floral taste mixed into the expensive Tabaco. She'll taste it for the rest of the night, she's sure of it. It reminds her of the overly-expensive wine Nobara bought for her 24th birthday.
Yuta is nearly on top of her in a blink, staring at the cigarette on her lips.
"You just said they were bad and smelled bad." He frowns, watching her take another hit. He reaches for the lighter, but she grabs it before he does, sticking it into the pocket of her pajama pants. His frown deepens. "Maki—"
"I had to know what made you do it." She taps the filter against her tongue. Truthfully, the taste isn't bad. "Must be good for you to do it, knowing I have a sensitive nose. Trying to make me vomit each time I visit your apartment, Okkotsu?" She teases, smiling around the cigarette.
"You didn't even know I was doing it until now!" He protests. "I always make sure to do it away from you, or wait a few days before letting you in."
Maki raises an eyebrow, watching him squirm. He shifts, finally lowering his head. "I'll stop, if you really want me to." He says quietly.
"Hm." She takes another hit before pulling it from her mouth, holding it between her middle and index finger. She blows the smoke in his face before taking advantage of his momentary shock to stick the filter-end to his lips. He wraps them around the paper, damp from her tongue. He blushes harder, quickly pinching it between his fingers the same as she did.
"Last one," she warns, watching him take a drag. "Last one, and I'm throwing away the box." His face tenses, and she adds: "You can keep the lighter, though. It looks really good." He relaxes.
He takes it from his mouth, blow smoke down between them. "I'm sorry." He pauses, like he's thinking of what to say, but Maki cuts him off.
"You better be. If I catch you smoking after this, I'm never kissing you again." His eyes widen, and all at once, he's shoots up, crushing the cigarette in his hand. Rika's arm forms, just enough to quickly grab the bin and catch the embers before he sets the floor on fire.
"That's— that, that se— that's a bit much, Maki." He stammers. Maki smiles up at him (up, how stupid is that, up, stupid growth spurt), grabbing the front of his shirt.
"Is it?" She pulls him down to her level, just barely not brushing her lips against his.
His hands bunch up in the fabric of her shirt, hands on her shoulders.
"I'd give up anything else." He leans in, waiting for her.
yuta and maki being constricted into being "second only to satoru gojo" and "a fighter equal to toji zenin has been realized" applies really to 17 year old and 16 year old selves, im sure that in later life they've surpassed both their cousins and have successfully gotten out of that box.
okkotsu yuuta wanting to be relied on and throughout the series, he's become a pillar for being relied on by his friends then his teachers then both his upperclassmen and underclassmen then the world of jujutsu as he stands as the gojo clan head and even in death, he's still being relied on as his ring was used to achieve harmony in modulo.
i really love how yuuta okkotsu, a character who is gentle and incredibly expressive when it comes to love--he's almost with good and pure intentions, is that his love is incredibly perverse and unethical and twisted--he loves so much that it's a curse and yuuta is never the type to willingly indulge in violence as happily as other characters but the only way he can truly, truly express his love for other is through horrifying and violent means; cursing rika, killing suguru to avenge his friends, wanting to kill kenjaku so that satoru doesn't have to go through killing his best friend's body again, and using satoru's body because he wants to be the monster with satoru.
i think being angry at yuuta for using satoru's body really boils down to the fact that people think that yuuta explicitly wanted to use his body, it's not something that disgusts yuuta when it does, and the jokes about yuuta feeling himself being satoru or the jokes in general of maki having to be in a relationship with yuuta who is in satoru's body just makes it worse, completely disregarding the fact that yuuta was mourning him, that he had that rare outburst of being the monster himself because no one wanted to step up which would result to everyone losing and dying, because all everyone cared about was as long as satoru was around, he could clean up all their messes, and you know, satoru isn't just yuuta's teacher, he was the one who gave him a chance out of the lonely childhood he suffered and the curse he bore, as well as the fact that they are cousins, wherein yuuta's family may have abandoned him--satoru stepped up, so yuuta wanted to do the same even by unethical means, giving yuuta heat for using satoru's body but never with sukuna with megumi nor kenjaku with toying with women's body to make vessels and etc. is so stupid actually
if you think about it though, so many characters are basically variants of yuta, it's so funny and telling how he really was the blueprint. his character may have been developed and finished after jjk 0 but it's obvious that gege wanted to take bits of yuta's character and put them into other characters and explore them or define them in ways he couldn't with him.
saw an okkoita post and there was this one comment about how there was no yuta slander and all i could think about was that yuta haters are all for the powerscaling with him and yuji that shipping the two of them together is repulsive or unheard of, also okkoita is ball and yuta haters don't know ball.
maybe it's just me but i really find ytmk fics where it's just yuta who's down bad for maki errr kind of boring, like, okay, he's more expressive but it just kinda proves how people think yutamaki is one-sided, they don't write nor portray her as just as down bad for yuta if ykwim, also they make her out to be so cold-hearted like just because she's blunt and a little crass doesn't mean she's rude, rude, and downright insulting.
