A lot changed for the twins at school.
They were still popular. Still loud when they wanted to be. Still the kind of students teachers side-eyed on principle because trouble had a way of finding them even when they were technically behaving.
When they finally returned after months of recovery and rehab, it was Mitsu who surprised everyone.
The twins stopped just outside the school gates, shoulder to shoulder, while students poured past them in noisy waves. Some were laughing. Some were yelling across the courtyard. Someone’s bag knocked into someone else’s hip and earned a dramatic curse before the bell had even rung.
Yuna had both their bags slung over his shoulders because Mitsu still couldn’t put too much pressure on hers. She stood beside him with her chin lifted, dressed like she belonged there, like nothing had happened, like walking back into school was just another thing she had decided to do.
Then their friends spotted them.
There was a shout. A surprised squeal. Someone waved both arms in the air before the whole group started rushing towards them with excited whoops and cheers.
And Mitsu took one small step back.
Yuna felt it immediately.
The sharp spike of panic wasn’t his, but it hit him so cleanly through their twin bond that, for half a second, he almost couldn’t tell the difference. His hand found hers without thinking, fingers locking tight as he stepped just slightly in front of her.
“It’s just our friends,” he said softly.
Her breath, which had stuttered in her throat for one awful moment, slowly evened out again. She looked almost annoyed with herself, like the hesitation had betrayed her more than anything else could have.
Because Mitsu had never been the one who hesitated.
She had always jumped first and questioned later. She had been the storm before the warning. The grin before the bad idea. The girl who ran headfirst into life because she trusted herself to land on her feet.
Now she paused before she jumped.
Now she assessed before she acted.
Yuna squeezed her hand once more, and when their friends reached them, Mitsu managed a grin bright enough that most people wouldn’t notice the cracks underneath it.
And as the first bell rang over the courtyard, he knew fitting back into school life was going to be harder than everyone expected.
Yuna had done well through rehab.
The doctors said it. The nurses said it. His father said it in that careful voice that was equal parts proud and watchful, like he was ready to catch Yuna if the words made him fall apart. Mitsu said it too, though hers usually came with an insult attached because affection without violence made her itchy.
He had got most of the mobility back in his arm. He could open and close his fingers again. He could hold a pencil, though his handwriting turned shaky when he was tired. He could dress himself if the buttons weren't too small. He could carry light things, stretch, bend, rotate his wrist, and even do some basic cheer conditioning without the healers looking like they wanted to sedate him for his own safety.
But his left arm was still weaker.
The problem was that it was his dominant hand.
None of those words changed the way his fingers trembled when he pushed too hard, or the way pain sparked along the scarred path from wrist to elbow when he was upset, or the way his grip sometimes failed so suddenly that whatever he was holding slipped from his hand before he could stop it.
So eventually, he made his way back to the place he used to claim was his favourite place on school grounds.
Yuna stopped outside the doors.
For a few seconds, he only stood there, one hand resting lightly on the handle, ears angled toward the sounds beyond. Sneakers squeaked against polished floorboards. Someone clapped out a rhythm. A voice called counts over the muffled beat of music. The cheer squad was running drills.
That was what made the anxiety twist so sharply beneath his ribs.
He remembered the last time he had been here like it belonged to a different boy. That Yuna had walked in without thinking, bag slung over one shoulder, smile already in place, ready to complain about warm-ups while secretly loving every second of them. That Yuna could tumble until his lungs burned, catch lifts, throw himself into choreography, laugh when someone missed a count and made the whole line collapse into chaos.
That Yuna had not had to think about whether his hand would obey him.
The scar beneath his sleeve gave one dull throb, as if reminding him it was still there.
He ignored it and pushed the door open.
The sound hit him first. Music, laughter, sneakers, voices. Bright and layered and alive. The air smelled faintly of floor polish, sweat, and the sugary body spray someone on the squad always used too much of. For half a second, Yuna felt so homesick for the exact room he was standing in that it nearly took his knees out.
Before he could brace himself, the cheerleaders were rushing over in a bright, noisy wave. Not too close, they had always been good at respecting boundaries. Everyone knew enough not to crush him. But they surrounded him with voices and smiles and hands hovering, any many hugs.
Yuna laughed before he meant to.
A smile came to his face despite everything that had happened, because deep down he was happy to see them. More than happy. He had missed them in a way he had not known how to name while he was stuck in hospital and then at home, watching the world keep moving without him. They had sent him an obnoxiously large bouquet of flowers for his room in the hospital, but it wasn't the same as having them all there with him.
The squad had always made him feel like part of a little kingdom. Loud, dramatic, ridiculous, sweaty, competitive, full of in-jokes and grudges over formations and arguments about music cuts. A small family of its own.
“Please tell me we didn’t lose championships while I was out,” Yuna said, because his voice needed somewhere safe to land.
One of the bigger male cheerleaders snorted and jostled him gently with his shoulder. “Pfft, bro, as if. Just because we didn’t have your lazy arse doesn’t mean we lost.”
“Lazy?” Yuna gasped theatrically, his good hand flying to his chest. “How dare you, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah, hospital princess.”
The squad laughed, and for a minute, it was almost easy.
Then Yuna noticed Tsubaki.
She was standing near the back of the group, half-hidden behind two of the girls from the stunt line, her black-to-blue gradient hair tied up neatly and her practice skirt perfectly arranged. She looked pretty, as always. Soft and bright and sweet in that effortless way that had once made Yuna’s stomach flutter. Her big eyes were on him, but only briefly. The moment their gazes met, hers slipped away.
She did not rush forward.
She did not squeal his name.
She did not hug him like she usually did, throwing her arms around his neck without thinking and smelling like peach gloss and warm skin.
In fact, she barely looked at him at all.
It was so unlike her that for one awful second Yuna wondered if he had done something wrong. Then he hated himself for the thought.
He had been stabbed through the arm. He had spent months in and out of hospital. He had sent messages. He had waited. He had told himself she was busy, then scared, then awkward, then maybe waiting until he was ready.
He had made excuses for her because making excuses hurt less than the obvious truth.
But standing there, surrounded by the people who had missed him openly, Yuna saw the shape of it properly for the first time.
Tsubaki was not happy to see him.
The realisation landed quietly. Not like a slap. More like stepping onto ice and hearing the first crack beneath the surface.
He did not address it then.
Not in front of everyone. Not with the squad smiling and asking him questions and teasing him like they were trying to stitch him back into their world with noise alone.
“Show me the winning routine,” he said, forcing brightness into his voice. “I need to see if you embarrassed my legacy.”
That worked. Everyone groaned and cheered and dragged themselves back into formation. Yuna moved to the side of the gym and sat on the bench, his injured arm resting carefully against his lap, his smile fixed in place as the music started again.
Of course they were good.
There were timing issues he would have complained about if he had been in a better mood, and one lift that wobbled just enough to make his fingers twitch with the urge to correct it, but they were good. Better than he had expected, if he was being honest. They had kept going without him.
He was so sad he could barely breathe.
When the routine ended, he clapped and whistled like he was fine. He told them it was decent, which made everyone boo because they knew decent from Yuna meant excellent. He let them fuss for a few more minutes, promised he would visit again soon, then made a show of not wanting to interrupt practice.
Tsubaki did not come over.
Yuna left the gym with his smile still on.
It fell the moment the doors shut behind him.
When school finished, he waited at the gates.
He knew exactly when cheer practice ended. He knew which exit Tsubaki used when her father picked her up. He knew the rhythm of her day because there had been a time when knowing those things had felt intimate and sweet, like proof that she belonged somewhere in the pattern of his life.
Now, it just made him feel pathetic.
He leaned against the wall near the gate, phone in his good hand, pretending to scroll. Students moved around him in waves, loud and careless, their uniforms messy by the end of the day, their conversations spilling into the cold afternoon air.
Yuna tried not to think about the way people glanced at him.
Some stared at his arm. Some looked away too quickly. Some whispered. He kept his face neutral, ears relaxed, shoulders easy. He had practised that too. Looking unbothered was just another kind of choreography.
Then Tsubaki stepped through the gates.
Yuna pushed off the wall.
It flashed behind her eyes before she could cover it, quick and ugly and painfully real. Then her smile came, bright and sweet and automatic.
Except now that Yuna had seen what came before it, the smile looked different.
It was not innocent. Not exactly. Not the sunshine thing he had thought it was when they first started dating, when she laughed too easily and leaned into him like the world was soft around the edges. It was a curtain being pulled shut. A costume slipping into place.
His name sounded strange in her mouth.
Yuna looked at her properly.
For the first time, he wondered how much of Tsubaki he had ever actually known. How much of the sweetness was real, and how much was just what she wore because people liked her better that way. The pretty, ditzy, cheerful girl who never made anything complicated. The girl who smiled through discomfort because discomfort was easier to ignore than confront.
The girl who had let him wait.
“You never called,” Yuna said.
He watched her face sink, watched disappointment move through her features before she hid that too. Not disappointment in herself, he realised. Disappointment that she had not avoided this conversation.
Because Tsubaki was always the happy, cheerful one.
And this was not a happy, cheerful topic.
“You didn’t visit,” Yuna continued. The bitterness crept in despite his best efforts, sour and sharp beneath the words. “I was in the hospital for eight months, Tsubaki. You didn’t even return my messages.”
She shifted her bag higher on her shoulder. “Look, I’m sorry.”
Her tone turned slightly exasperated, like he was being difficult by making her say it. “My papa said you got hurt because you got involved in dangerous stuff. And that your family is involved with criminals. So he said I can’t talk to you anymore.”
For a moment, Yuna could only stare at her.
The words did not make sense.
Not because he had not understood them, but because they sounded so absurd coming from her mouth. Dangerous stuff. Criminals. Like his sister bleeding out in front of him was gossip. Like his family was some dirty rumour her father had picked up and polished into fact. Like Yuna had missed months of his life because he had been careless rather than because he had tried to protect Nadia.
Tsubaki’s eyes darted away.
“My papa just thinks it’s better if I stay away.”
“Your papa,” Yuna repeated.
She did not answer quickly enough.
The crack in the ice widened.
Yuna took one small step closer. Not threatening. He would never threaten her. But enough that she had to look at him, enough that the conversation could not stay airy and vague and easy.
“Tsubaki, I was hurt protecting my sister.”
She flinched at the edge in his voice.
Yuna hated that too. He hated that she looked scared of him now, even though all he had done was ask her to tell the truth.
“I have to go,” she said, taking a step back. “I’m not supposed to talk to you anymore.”
“You can’t honestly believe that—”
“Tsubaki, get in the car.”
The voice came from behind them, deep and clipped and final.
Yuna noticed that as sharply as everything else.
Her father stood near a sleek black car pulled up by the curb, one hand resting on the open door. He was tall, broad-shouldered, perfectly dressed, with sharp grey eyes that swept over Yuna like he was something dirty stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
Tsubaki adjusted the strap of her bag.
“Coming, Papa,” she said quietly.
She would not meet Yuna’s eyes now.
“Stop bothering my daughter.”
The words cut through the air like a blade.
Tsubaki’s father took a step closer, his gaze narrowing as it landed on Yuna’s bandaged forearm beneath the sleeve, then on the careful way he held it against his body. There was no concern there. No sympathy. Only judgement.
“You have already brought enough trouble to her life,” the man said. “Stay away from her.”
He knew it was ridiculous. This man was not an assassin. He was not holding a knife. There was no blood on the pavement, no shadow beast snarling between them, no Mitsu unconscious on marble. He was only a father in an expensive coat looking down at him with cold contempt.
But Yuna’s breath caught anyway.
For one awful second, his body forgot where it was.
His arm pulsed with sudden pain. His fingers trembled. The world seemed too bright, too loud, too sharp at the edges. He was back in the hospital, being told what he could not do. Back on the floor, trying to make his hand move. Back under the weight of adult voices deciding what had happened to him and what he deserved because of it.
He had been protecting his sister.
Surely everyone knew that.
But Tsubaki stood beside her father and said nothing. That hurt more than anything he had said.
“Come on, loser,” Nadia’s voice called. “Time to go home.”
The sound of her was almost a balm.
Nadia strode toward them like she owned the pavement, the school, the sky above it, and every person foolish enough to stand in her brother’s way. Her heels clicked against the ground with crisp, deliberate certainty. Seafoam hair fell in a sleek wave over one shoulder, emerald eyes bright beneath perfectly shaped brows. She smiled at Yuna first, sweet and warm in a way that made his throat ache.
Then she looked at Tsubaki’s father.
Yuna had seen that expression before.
Not often. Mostly on their father. It was the kind of look that did not need volume because it was born from power. A look that said you are beneath me and know your place all at once. Not rage. Not even disgust, exactly. Something colder. More final.
Tsubaki’s father changed under it.
It was not dramatic. He did not cower or gasp or stumble back. But his shoulders tightened. His chin lowered a fraction. The pride in him seemed to curl inward, recognising something older and sharper than itself.
Nadia did not raise her voice.
He turned without another word and walked back to the car as if in a trance. Tsubaki followed quickly.
For a moment, Yuna stood there and watched her go.
He thought maybe she would turn back.
Something in Yuna broke very quietly.
He followed Nadia to her car without speaking.
Mitsu was already in the back, one leg tucked up on the seat, her expression sharpening the moment she saw his face. She had known something was wrong before he even opened the door. Of course she had. She could feel it between them.
Yuna climbed in beside her and immediately pulled out his phone.
He did not look at either of his sisters.
His ear flicked once, sharp enough to cut her off.
Nadia slid into the driver’s seat and looked at him through the rear-view mirror. She did not ask what happened. That was kind of her. Or maybe she already knew enough.
Yuna stared at his screen without seeing it, fingers automatically flying over the keyboard as he sent messages.
“Hey,” he said, voice too casual. “Can you drop me off at the boba store? I want bubble tea.”
Then Nadia said, “Sure. Whatever you need.”
Yuna kept his eyes on his phone the entire time.
His thumb moved over the screen, opening and closing apps without purpose. He did not text Tsubaki. He did not delete her messages. He did not block her. He just stared at the little glowing world in his hand and tried not to think about the way her smile had looked when he finally saw the panic beneath it.
Tsubaki was not cruel, he told himself.
That almost made it worse.
Cruel would have been cleaner. Cruel would have given him somewhere to put the hurt. But Tsubaki was not cruel. She was passive. She was sheltered. She was obedient. She was a girl who liked happy things and easy things and had decided, or allowed someone else to decide, that Yuna was no longer either.
Maybe she had never loved him the way he loved people.
Maybe to her, romance had been another pleasant thing. Like cute hair clips and after-practice smoothies and laughing at nothing because everyone expected her to.
Maybe he had mistaken softness for depth.
He closed his hand into a loose fist until the tremor passed.
When they reached the boba store, Auren was already there.
He stood outside their usual place with his white hair messy from the wind, violet eyes bright, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands. The moment he saw the car, he perked up like he had been plugged into a wall.
Yuna got out before anyone could say anything.
“Text me if you need us,” Nadia said.
Yuna nodded without looking back.
Mitsu watched him from the car window, her face too knowing.
Auren’s grin widened as Yuna approached, but his head tilted a little, eyes narrowing with the kind of attention Yuna both loved and hated.
Auren’s grin widened in response, almost aggressively cheerful, like he had taken one look at Yuna and decided brightness was the safest weapon.
“You pick one for me,” Yuna said, sliding past him into the shop.
Auren froze. His eyes lit up.
Yuna moved to their usual booth and sat down. “Don’t make it weird.”
“It's already the holiest of days.” Auren clapped his hands once, delighted. “Okay. Wait. Right. Here. I have the perfect combo for you to try.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“That also sounds like a threat.”
Auren pointed at him. “Trust the process.”
Yuna gave him a tired look.
Auren beamed and hurried to the counter.
Yuna leaned back in the booth and let the noise of the shop wash over him. The hiss of machines. The soft pop of lids being sealed. The chatter of students at the tables near the window. The sweet smell of syrup and tea and fried snacks from the place next door. It was familiar enough to hurt.
This was where he and Auren came after bad days.
Their usual booth had a small scratch on the table from when Auren had tried to carve a tiny wolf with a plastic knife and failed so badly it looked like a potato with ears. Yuna had laughed until he cried that day. Auren had insisted it was abstract.
Yuna looked down at his left hand.
It had started to tremble.
Not badly. Not enough that anyone across the room would notice. But enough that he noticed. Enough that pain pulsed through the scar beneath his sleeve, a slow throb that matched the beat of his heart.
He tucked the hand closer to himself.
He had wanted bubble tea. He was getting bubble tea. Auren was here. Tsubaki was gone. That was fine. Everything was fine.
Auren returned with a drink that was a shade of pastel blue no natural substance had any right to be. Hidden in its depths were floating spots of coloured jelly and little star-shaped pieces that made Yuna narrow his eyes in immediate suspicion.
Auren set it down with the seriousness of a five-year-old trying to convince a parent they had absolutely not broken anything.
“Here,” he said. “I promise you’ll like this one.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
“Because you lack imagination.”
Yuna reached for the drink.
Auren had already stabbed the straw through the top, because he knew better than to make Yuna do it one-handed in public.
His fingers closed around the cup. For one second, he had it. Then pain shot up his forearm. Sharp. Sudden. White-hot. His hand spasmed.
Yuna sucked in a breath as his fingers clenched hard around the plastic cup.
Both of them watched as pastel blue tea surged up through the straw hole and spilled over the rim, running cold across Yuna’s fingers, down his sleeve, and onto the table. Jelly pieces slid out with it, bright and ridiculous, scattering across the wood like little pieces of candy-coloured evidence.
A drop of blue tea slid off the edge of the table and landed on Yuna’s shoe.
There was tea on the table, tea on his sleeve, tea between his fingers, sticky and cold and humiliating.
Auren could buy another one. Yuna could wash his sleeve. The table could be wiped. No one had died. No one had left. No one had looked at him like he was a criminal. No one had stood beside their father and chosen silence.
A sob escaped him anyway, small at first, broken and startled, then another. Yuna’s face crumpled, and he lowered his head, shoulders shaking as the tears spilled over before he could stop them.
“Oh bro, no,” Auren said immediately.
He grabbed napkins from the dispenser, too many at once, and started throwing them onto the spill with frantic efficiency. “Bro, it’s okay. It’s fine. It won’t stain your shirt this time. I swear, it’s not like the grape slushie incident. This is way less cursed.”
Another sob came out instead.
Auren’s voice softened, though his hands kept moving, cleaning the table, mopping tea away from Yuna’s sleeve, rescuing the remaining jelly pieces like they were casualties of war.
“I’ll get you another one,” he said. “It’s okay, bro. I’ll get you another one. Same one if you want, or a less suspicious one. Or a normal one. Or we can ban blue drinks forever. I support your healing journey.”
He only nodded again, one hand pressed over his mouth as he cried into his palm.
Auren looked at him then.
And if he understood that Yuna was not crying because of the tea, he did not say so. He did not ask what happened. He didn't need to.
He only slid into the booth beside him instead of across from him, like a shield against the world, close enough that their shoulders touched. Then he kept blotting gently at Yuna’s sleeve with one hand while the other nudged a pile of clean napkins toward him.
“I saw this dance trend earlier,” Auren said, voice casual as he continued a conversation they weren't having yet. “It is truly terrible. Like, spiritually bad. So obviously we need to learn it.”
Yuna sniffed hard, trying to breathe through the tears.
Auren continued, voice light but steady. “There’s this one move where people do a little spin and then point at the camera like they just discovered taxes. I think I could make it iconic.”
Yuna let out a wet, unwilling sound that might have been half a laugh.
Auren brightened but did not look directly at him, as if giving him the kindness of not being watched too closely.
“Exactly,” he said. “You see the vision.”
Yuna wiped clumsily at his face.
Auren leaned across the table and gathered the ruined cup, the napkins, and the escaped jelly into a sad little pile. “I’ll get you another drink. No blue. Blue has betrayed us.”
Auren stood, then hesitated.
For a moment he bent down and pressed their foreheads together, his touch warm and grounding.
“I got you, bro,” he said.
Then he bounced back toward the counter like he had not just said the only thing Yuna needed to hear.
Yuna sat in their booth with his damp sleeve and aching hand, tears still slipping silently down his cheeks, and watched Auren argue with the cashier about which drink was least emotionally damaging.
But Auren was there, making a fool of himself on purpose, talking loudly about cursed beverages and dance trends and the moral failings of raisins in drinks.
And when Auren came back with a new bubble tea and a straw already stabbed through the top, he took it carefully with both hands. Auren did not comment on that either.
He only smiled and said, “This one is safe. I interrogated it.”
Yuna’s mouth trembled. Then, somehow, he smiled back.
Mitsu had watched her brother quietly fall apart over Tsubaki.
Quietly, because Yuna did most things quietly when they mattered.
He could be dramatic about clothes, snacks, choreography, Auren breathing too loudly, and whether hospital jelly counted as a crime against dessert. But the real things? The ugly things? The ones that got under his skin and stayed there? Those he folded up small and tucked somewhere behind his ribs until his body betrayed him.
Mitsu had known the breakup was coming long before Yuna did.
She had known it when Tsubaki did not visit him in hospital. She had known it when Yuna kept checking his phone after surgery, still pale and half-drugged, pretending he was not waiting for a message that never came. She had known it when he started making excuses for her with that stupid soft look on his face, like if he could understand her absence then maybe it would hurt less.
It had made Mitsu want to bite someone.
Possibly Tsubaki’s father too.
Yuna had tried to pretend he was fine after it happened, which was almost more insulting than if he had sobbed openly. He came back from the boba shop with damp sleeves, swollen eyes, and Auren walking beside him with the fake-bright energy of someone who had been doing emotional triage with sugar and bad jokes. Yuna had gone straight to his room, curled up in bed, and said very calmly that he did not want to talk about it.
So Mitsu did not make him.
She only crawled into bed beside him later, shoved his legs with her foot until he made room, and stayed there while he cried into his pillow like he thought she could not hear.
She hated Tsubaki for that.
Hated her more than she probably deserved, maybe, but Mitsu did not care. The girl had played with Yuna’s heart like it was something cute and decorative, something to enjoy while it was easy and abandon the moment it became complicated. She had smiled at him and kissed him and made him feel chosen, then vanished when he needed her most.
Mitsu would never forgive her for that.
But her own relationship was not exactly stable either.
That was the part that pissed her off.
Annoyingly sweet, sometimes. The kind of sweet that made Mitsu suspicious at first because no one with that much muscle and that much pretty-boy confidence had any business also being thoughtful. But he was. He visited her in hospital. He stayed late, sitting on the edge of the chair with his purple hair falling into his eyes as they watched videos of the most recent tournament she had missed. He replayed the best saves when she demanded it. He paused whenever she started ranting about technique. He brought whatever snacks she asked for without question, even when she texted him at ridiculous hours with requests like sour gummies, cheese crisps, and the specific fizzy drink from the vending machine on the third floor because the one on the second floor tasted “emotionally flat.”
He made her laugh when she was stuck in bed. He held her good hand when her shoulder spasmed. He told her she was terrifying even in a hospital gown, which had been the correct answer.
For a while, Mitsu thought they were fine.
Then she went back to school.
Then she tried to go back to the things she loved.
Her team almost smothered her in what could only be described as a dig pile of affection. The second she stepped into the gym, there was a scream, then another, and then half the team were on her, not quite tackling because they had enough survival instinct not to crush the girl with the healing shoulder, but close enough that she ended up in the centre of a noisy, teary, laughing swarm.
“You look so cool with the brace!”
“Shut up, she does not want to hear that.”
“I do want to hear that,” Mitsu said immediately, grinning despite herself. “Continue.”
Someone hugged her too tightly. Pain sparked through her shoulder.
“Oh my god, did I hurt you?”
“I will kill all of you,” Mitsu snapped, ears flattening in her navy dreadlocks. “Back off before I make this a crime scene.”
But it still made her feel good.
That was the stupid part. She complained about it, rolled her eyes, acted like their worry was suffocating, but she loved them for it. Loved that they still pulled her back into the noise. Loved that they still called her Captain. Loved that their first instinct was to swarm her like nothing had changed, even if everything had.
They dragged her onto the court almost immediately to “test her ability,” which was their way of saying they wanted to know exactly how much she sucked now with a bung shoulder.
Mitsu adored them for that too.
Pity would have made her mean.
Competition made her breathe.
She could not do much. Not really. Her movement was slower, her reactions delayed by the careful way she had to protect her shoulder. She could pass, but badly compared to before. She could move for a receive, but not dive properly. She could feel the missing strength like a hole in her body, like part of her had been scooped out and everyone expected her not to notice.
The first few drills were fine. Embarrassing, but fine. Her teammates teased her when she missed something easy, and she snarled back that she was still recovering and therefore legally allowed to be mid. Someone called her “rehab queen,” and she threatened to throw a knee pad at their head.
Then one stretch caught wrong.
It was not even dramatic. She reached a little too far, shoulder rotating past the safe point, and pain lit through her so sharply she grunted and curled in on herself before she could stop it.
Mitsu pressed her good hand hard against her brace, breathing through her teeth as the pain radiated out from the old wound in hot, ugly waves.
She hated how scared they sounded.
“I’m fine,” she snapped automatically.
“You are not fine,” one of them said.
Then her shoulder pulsed again, and she tasted bile.
That was worse than the pain.
Her team agreed too quickly. Apologised too much. Helped her sit down. Brought her water. Stayed cheerful in that strained way people did when they wanted to pretend they had not seen something frightening.
Mitsu smiled through it until her face hurt.
But when she got home, she went to her room, shut the door, and screamed into a pillow until her throat burned.
She waited until she could manage a bit more push through her shoulder before she went back to the dojo. She told herself she was being responsible. She waited through the first stage of recovery, then the next. She listened to the healers. Mostly. She did her exercises, iced when told, rested when she absolutely had to.
Then finally, finally, she walked back into the dojo.
And it was not the same as she remembered.
The mats smelled the same. The air held that familiar mix of sweat, focus, and old wood. The same students were there, bowing in, stretching, laughing under their breath when the instructor’s back was turned. Everything looked the way it should.
But everyone treated her differently.
They were happy to see her, sure. They cheered. They crowded her. They asked how she was. But once sparring started, the energy changed.
They were cautious around her.
When she grabbed for a grip, her partner let her find it too easily. When she shifted her weight, they adjusted before she forced them. When she tried to drive through a movement, they gave way like they were afraid she might break if they resisted properly.
It made her skin prickle.
“Stop doing that,” she snapped at the third partner.
The boy blinked. “Doing what?”
“Don’t lie to my face when I’m already annoyed.”
His ears twitched. “I’m not lying.”
It was like they were already aware she was injured and had decided the match before it began. Like she was something to be managed. Something to be protected. Something to be handled carefully and praised for showing up.
The word settled beneath her skin like a parasite.
Mitsu had never been the weak one.
She had been reckless, sure. Loud. Competitive. Overconfident on occasion, though she would deny that under oath. But weak? No. Her body had always been the thing she trusted. When everything else got complicated, she could move. She could jump, twist, strike, grapple, throw herself across a court or a mat and know that her body would answer.
Now her shoulder trembled under pressure.
Now her grip failed at the worst moments.
Now she had to think before moving, and thinking was the first step toward losing.
It happened during a grapple she should have been able to break.
Her partner caught her in a hold that was not even that tight. Not by old standards. Before the injury, Mitsu would have shifted her hips, found the angle, used shoulder and elbow and core together to slip free and reverse it with a grin sharp enough to draw blood.
This time, her shoulder locked.
Her hand would not find strength.
The pressure built too fast.
For the first time in her life, Mitsu tapped out because she had to.
Not strategically. Not because it was practice and resetting was sensible.
Because her body gave her no other choice.
Her partner released immediately and backed off like he had burned her.
Everyone pretended not to look.
Then she hated herself for hating them.
After practice, she changed quickly, shoved her brace into her bag harder than necessary, and ignored the way her fingers shook when she tried to zip it shut.
She complained about it to Koma later because if she did not, she thought she might chew through the table.
They were at the boba place, tucked into a booth near the back. Koma sat across from her with one arm stretched along the seat, purple hair loose around his face, silver star clips glinting under the warm lights. He was listening, or at least he looked like he was listening, ears angled toward her as she scowled down into her drink and stabbed the straw through the ice with unnecessary violence.
“It was humiliating,” Mitsu said.
Koma’s mouth twitched faintly. “You tapping out one time is not humiliating.”
“It is when I shouldn’t have had to.”
“I know I’m recovering,” she snapped. “I was there when they stitched me back together.”
His expression softened, which somehow annoyed her more.
She looked away, glaring at the floating pearls in her drink. “They’re all treating me like I’m made of glass. No one will actually spar with me properly. They keep doing that stupid thing where they say they’re not going easy, but they are. I can feel it.”
Koma was quiet for a moment.
Mitsu kept going, because silence felt like agreement and agreement felt like pity.
“And then my shoulder did that locking thing again, which is so bloody annoying, because it’s not even consistent. Some days it’s fine. Some days it just decides we are no longer participating in society. And my grip is still trash. Absolute trash. I tried to get out of a hold that I could’ve broken in my sleep before, and I couldn’t. I had to tap.”
The word still tasted foul.
She stabbed her straw again.
“It’s bullshit,” she muttered.
She knew that tone. Nothing good ever came after well in that tone.
Koma rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe it’s time to think about stepping back a little?”
Mitsu choked on her drink.
Not a delicate choke either. A full, offended splutter that made two girls at the next table glance over.
Koma’s ears twitched. “I’m just saying.”
“That’s a terrible start.”
“You got pretty badly injured,” he said, choosing his words carefully in a way that made her want to throw a tapioca pearl at his face. “Maybe you just need some extra time to let your shoulder recover before throwing yourself back into everything.”
“You want me to quit the club.”
“Not quit. That’s not what I said.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“No, it isn’t.” He sighed, the sound small but edged with frustration. “I’m saying maybe jujitsu is too much right now. Maybe volleyball too, honestly. You need more time.”
Her ears flattened into her dreadlocks.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you know it and you’re ignoring it.”
The words struck too close.
Mitsu’s hand tightened around her drink.
Koma noticed and leaned forward slightly. “Mitsu, I’m not trying to upset you.”
“I’m trying to look out for you.”
“No.” Her voice went sharp. “You’re trying to tell me what I can and can’t do.”
His brows drew together. “That is not what this is.”
“It is exactly what this is.”
“You nearly passed out after practice last week.”
“You had to sit down for forty minutes.”
“You called your shoulder a traitorous little bitch and then cried in the changing room.”
Koma seemed to realise too late that he had stepped onto the wrong ground.
Her eyes narrowed. “Who told you that?”
The hesitation was enough.
Mitsu’s laugh came out cold. “Wow. So now my team is reporting back to you?”
“They can be worried to my face.”
“They have been. You bite their heads off every time.”
“Because they treat me like I’m fragile!”
The table went quiet around them.
A few people glanced over.
Her chest was tight, heat crawling up her neck, anger and embarrassment tangling so badly she could barely tell which one she was feeling more. The worst part was that Koma’s face was flushed too now, his patience fraying.
Angry was better than pity.
“No one asked for your fucking opinion,” she snapped, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she shoved her drink away hard enough that the liquid sloshed against the lid.
“Don’t get shitty at me,” he snapped back. “I’m the one trying to look out for you while you act like pain is something you can win against if you glare hard enough.”
Mitsu stood so quickly the table rattled.
Her shoulder protested at once, but she refused to react. Her tail lashed behind her, ears flat, good hand already grabbing for her bag.
“No,” she said. “You’re trying to control me.”
Koma stared at her in disbelief. “The fuck?”
“You’re sitting there telling me to step back from everything that matters to me because what? It makes you uncomfortable to watch me struggle?”
“Neither is you deciding I’m too broken to try.”
The little crack of hurt.
For half a second, guilt stabbed through her.
“No.” Her voice wobbled, and she hated that so much she made it sharper. “I know what everyone sees. I’m not stupid. I know I’m slower. I know I’m weaker. I know my shoulder is messed up. I know my hand doesn’t grip right. I know.”
“But I don’t need you sitting there like some wise, reasonable boyfriend telling me to quit before I embarrass myself. I can be embarrassed all on my own, thanks.”
“I am not telling you to quit.”
“You’re telling me to stop.”
“I’m telling you to heal!”
“You’re hurting yourself!”
“At least I’m doing something!”
The words tore out louder than she meant them to.
Mitsu stood there breathing hard, good hand clenched around the strap of her bag, shoulder screaming beneath her jacket. She could feel people looking now. Koma. The other customers. The cashier pretending not to watch. None of it mattered.
At least I’m doing something.
That was the truth of it, ugly and exposed.
Because stopping felt like dying in slow motion.
Sitting still meant she had to feel everything. The fear. The weakness. The memory of tapping out. The way her body had changed without asking her permission. The possibility that no matter how hard she fought, she might never get back everything she had lost.
Koma stood too, slower than her.
“Mitsu,” he said, voice lower now. “Sit back down. We’re having a conversation.”
He threw his arms out. “I’m not ordering you around. I’m asking you to stop storming off every time I say something you don’t want to hear.”
“I don’t have to stay here and listen to you talk down to me.”
“I am not talking down to you.”
“No, you’re supporting the version of me that sits nicely and waits until everyone says it’s okay to be myself again.” Her throat burned. She tightened her grip on her bag until her knuckles ached. “If you can’t support me wanting to do shit I enjoy, then what’s the point?”
There was something in his eyes then. Anger, yes. Hurt too. But underneath that, something scared.
Mitsu did not stay long enough to name it.
She turned on her heel and walked out.
The arguments with Koma became more frequent after that.
Not explosive every time. Not always public. Sometimes they were quiet, which was worse. Sometimes they happened over messages, short sharp replies stacking up between them until Mitsu threw her phone facedown and refused to look at it for an hour. Sometimes they happened in person, with Koma trying very hard to be calm and reasonable, which only made Mitsu want to scream louder.
He thought he was helping.
Koma was sweet. He still brought her snacks. He still walked her home when she let him. He still looked at her like he cared, and Mitsu hated that it was not enough. Because every time she talked about training, or volleyball, or jujitsu, or how much she wanted to get back to where she had been, his expression changed.
A flicker of worry. A tightening of his mouth. A pause before he answered.
“You’re doing too much,” he would say. Or, “Maybe give it another week.”
Or, worst of all, “You don’t have to prove anything.”
He did not understand that she did.
Maybe not to him. Maybe not to the team. Maybe not to the doctors or her parents or anyone else.
She had everything to prove.
Because every day she found some new part of her body that did not work the way it used to. Her shoulder still locked when she moved wrong. Her grip still failed when she was tired. Her reflexes were there, but the follow-through betrayed her. She could see what she wanted to do. She could feel the shape of it in her head, perfect and clean and sharp.
Then her body would answer late.
Mitsu called it humiliating.
The worst evening came after volleyball practice, when she stayed behind longer than she should have.
Everyone else had already drifted toward the changing rooms or gone home, their laughter echoing faintly down the corridor. The gymnasium lights were still on overhead, bleaching the polished floor pale gold. The net stood stretched across the court, quiet and accusing.
Mitsu stood on the attack line with a ball tucked under her good arm and sweat cooling unpleasantly at the back of her neck.
It had been a simple spike.
Not even one of the harder approaches. Not some show-off cross-court kill she would have attempted just to make everyone swear at her. A basic approach, basic timing, basic jump. The kind of spike she had done hundreds of times before breakfast, half-asleep, sore, distracted, bored.
This time, she had mistimed the swing.
The ball clipped wrong off her palm and slapped weakly into the net.
Everyone had been nice about it.
Her captaincy had survived the injury. Her team still listened to her. They still called her boss and captain and menace. They still trusted her...
But Mitsu could feel the question under their kindness.
She was starting to wonder the same thing.
She tossed the ball up once, caught it, then hissed as pain tugged through her shoulder.
The gym door creaked open.
Mitsu did not turn around. “If you’re here to tell me practice ended twenty minutes ago, I will commit a felony.”
A familiar laugh answered her.
“Damn. I came all the way here and you’re already threatening crime? At least buy me dinner first.”
Mitsu glanced over her shoulder.
Rika leaned against the open door with one hip cocked, blue eyes bright with their usual trouble. Her dark hair was pulled into a high ponytail, practice jersey hanging loose off one shoulder, kneepads still on like she had either forgotten to take them off or decided they were part of the look. Knowing Rika, it was probably both.
Mitsu snorted and looked back at the court. “You? Dinner? I thought you only flirted when you wanted someone to miss a receive.”
“Wrong.” Rika pushed off the doorway and sauntered in. “I flirt when I want someone to miss a receive, when I’m bored, and when my captain is brooding alone in a gym like the main character of a tragic sports anime.”
“Mitsu, babe, you’re standing under one dramatic overhead light staring at a volleyball like it owes you child support.”
Rika pointed at her immediately. “Aha! Smile detected. I win.”
“And yet you haven’t told me to leave. Suspicious.”
“Take your time. I look amazing from most angles.”
Mitsu rolled her eyes, but some of the tightness in her body loosened despite herself.
That was always the problem with Rika. She was annoying in a way that worked. She never approached Mitsu like she was breakable, never lowered her voice into that careful hospital tone everyone had started using after the fight. She teased her exactly the same as before. Shamelessly, recklessly, like Mitsu was still someone worth provoking.
Mitsu liked that more than she wanted to admit.
Rika wandered closer, eyes flicking to the ball tucked under Mitsu’s arm, then to the net. “So. Are we beefing with the ball, the net, or gravity?”
“Not when pretty girls look like they’re about to fight sports equipment.”
Mitsu gave her a look. “That line works on people?”
“Not yet, but I’m brave.”
For a while, Mitsu said nothing. She stared at the net, jaw tight, feeling the old frustration build under her ribs. Usually she would swallow it down until it turned sharp enough to throw at someone. Koma, lately. Sometimes Yuna, if he was unlucky enough to exist in the wrong direction. Mostly herself.
But Rika did not look worried. She did not look like she was waiting to tell Mitsu to stop. She just waited, spinning a loose strand of hair around her finger like she had all evening. That made it easier, somehow.
“I’m bad at serving now,” Mitsu said at last. Flat. Ugly. Too honest.
Rika tilted her head. “You’re not bad.”
Mitsu’s eyes flashed. “Don’t.”
“Don’t do that,” Mitsu snapped. “Don’t give me the nice answer. I know what it looks like. My shoulder catches halfway through the motion. My hand doesn’t hit clean. Half the time I overcompensate and send it too far left, and the other half I hit it like a toddler with a balloon.”
“I swear to god, if you laugh—”
“I’m not laughing at you.”
“You look like you’re about to.”
“I’m laughing at toddler with a balloon. That was kind of iconic.”
Mitsu glared at her for another second, then looked down at the ball.
Her voice dropped. “I can’t get the power right anymore.”
Not the serve. Not really. Mitsu could survive a bad serve. She could survive embarrassment. She had built half her personality on turning embarrassment into something loud enough that no one else could use it against her.
Power had always been there when she reached for it. In her legs. Her shoulders. Her hands. Her grip. Her ability to drive through a movement and trust that her body would carry it to the end.
Now, sometimes the power vanished.
Sometimes she reached for it and found pain instead.
Rika watched her for a long moment, then she straightened and tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. “Get the ball.”
Mitsu blinked. “I’m holding the ball.”
“Then get emotionally attached to it and take it to the baseline.”
Rika made a face. “Okay, that sounded better in my head. Whatever. Baseline. Go.”
Mitsu snorted despite herself. “Absolutely not.”
Mitsu’s ears flattened. “Do you have a death wish?”
“Constantly. It’s part of my charm.” Rika pointed at the baseline. “Serve, boss.”
There was mischief in her expression, yes. There always was. But beneath it, Mitsu caught something else. Something sharp and focused. Her vice-captain’s eyes had narrowed slightly, gaze flicking from Mitsu’s stance to her shoulder, her grip, the way she held the ball too close to her ribs to protect the injured side.
Mitsu’s irritation faltered.
Rika was not doing this to tease her. Or at least, not only to tease her. She was watching like she watched rival teams during warm-ups, breaking down mechanics, looking for weaknesses, angles, habits. She was asking Mitsu to serve because she wanted to see the problem properly.
So Mitsu went to the baseline.
“This is stupid,” she muttered.
“Most of my best ideas are.”
Mitsu rolled her eyes and set her feet.
The first serve was awful.
Halfway through the motion, her shoulder failed.
Not completely. Not enough to drop her. But enough. The movement stuttered at the wrong point, pain flaring hot beneath the scar tissue. Mitsu flinched despite herself. Her palm clipped the ball awkwardly, sending it skidding low across the floor instead of over the net.
It bounced twice, rolled pathetically under the tape, and came to a stop near Rika’s shoe.
“There,” she said harshly. “Happy?”
Rika picked up the ball and tossed it back over the net.
Mitsu caught it by reflex.
Then stared at her. “Did you not see that?”
Mitsu’s grip tightened. “Rika—”
The protest died in her throat.
Because there it was again.
Rika was not smirking now. Not really. Her attention had gone precise, every part of her fixed on the puzzle in front of her. She had seen something. Mitsu could tell.
So Mitsu swallowed her embarrassment and served again.
Different this time. The ball went higher, at least, but veered wildly right and smacked into the wall with a hollow thud.
“My toss is traumatised.”
“Your toss is too far forward because you’re trying to shorten the swing.”
Rika tossed the ball back. “Again. Keep it closer. Don’t chase it with your shoulder.”
Mitsu caught the ball slowly.
Annoyingly, that made sense.
Rika nodded like that was useful. “Better.”
“Wow. Put that on a motivational poster.”
“I would, but your face would ruin the layout.”
Mitsu barked a laugh. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
Rika’s grin turned immediate and smug. “Say that again.”
“I heard it. It’s in my heart now.”
“Your heart is full of rubbish.”
The next ten were ugly in different ways. One hit the net. One flew too high. One did technically make it over but drifted so gently that Rika called it “a formal invitation” and nearly got a ball thrown at her head. Every time, Rika adjusted something.
“Don’t twist through the pain. You’re flinching before contact.”
“Stop trying to bully the ball. It’s already scared.”
“That one had a vendetta.”
“That one looked like it gave up halfway.”
Mitsu complained the entire time.
Sweat dampened her hairline. Her shoulder ached, but not with the sharp warning pain from before. This ache was different. Work, not damage. Effort, not punishment. She could feel the adjustment slowly settling into her muscles, unfamiliar but possible.
She tossed the ball lower.
Her palm met the ball cleanly with a crisp, satisfying smack.
The serve cleared the net.
Not barely. Not accidentally.
It floated over with a wicked little drop at the end, landing just inside the back line before skidding away.
For a second, Mitsu only stared.
Rika turned and watched the ball roll across the floor.
Then she looked back over her shoulder, grin wide and bright.
It burst out of her before she could stop it, loud and breathless and almost disbelieving. She pressed her good hand to her mouth, then dropped it again because she did not want to hide the smile.
The ache in her shoulder was still there. Her hand still felt stiff. Her body was still different, still healing, still not the easy, reliable weapon it had once been.
But for the first time in weeks, different did not feel like failure.
Mitsu laughed again, and this time it almost sounded like herself.
Mitsu’s grin sharpened. “Obviously.”
They kept going until the gym lights flickered once in warning.
By then, Mitsu’s serves were not perfect, but they were real. She had a new motion, not as powerful, but sharper than she expected. Sneakier. The kind of serve that looked easy until it dropped exactly where the other team did not want it.
Mitsu took that as a compliment of the highest order.
When they finally stopped, Mitsu bent to pick up the ball and realised she was tired in a way that did not make her hate herself. Her shoulder ached, but she had not pushed it past the line. She had trained. Actually trained. Not performed recovery exercises. Not been handled carefully. Trained.
She looked at Rika across the court.
It came out quieter than she intended.
Rika blinked, then smiled in that lazy, infuriating way of hers. “No problem, boss.”
Mitsu rolled her eyes, but her face warmed.
After that, the secret meetups became a thing.
Not planned, exactly. At least, not at first. Rika would “happen” to stay late after practice. Mitsu would “happen” to linger by the equipment room. One of them would find a ball, or a court, or an excuse, and suddenly they would be running drills long after everyone else had left.
Then controlled receives.
Then footwork that worked around Mitsu’s shoulder instead of against it.
Rika never let her get away with being sloppy. She also never treated her like she was broken. She watched, adjusted, teased, flirted, and made Mitsu do things again until they worked.
And slowly, Mitsu started looking forward to those evenings more than she wanted to admit.
He asked if she was overdoing it. She said he sounded like a nurse with a superiority complex. He said he was worried. She said she was tired of everyone being worried. He said worry came with caring. She said caring should not feel like a leash.
Then she would go to the gym and Rika would toss her a ball without asking if she was sure.
It was not that Rika did not care.
Mitsu could tell she did.
Rika cared enough to watch the exact angle of Mitsu’s shoulder. Cared enough to call breaks before the pain got dangerous. Cared enough to toss her a water bottle and say, “Drink, idiot,” instead of asking if she needed help. Cared enough to push her in ways that made Mitsu feel seen rather than handled.
Koma looked at her and saw what she might lose.
Rika looked at her and saw what she could adapt.
One evening, after a serve landed so perfectly on the far corner that Mitsu whooped and Rika actually clapped, Mitsu found herself grinning too hard.
“That was hot,” Rika said.
Mitsu snorted. “The serve or me?”
Rika pretended to think about it, tapping one finger against her chin. “The serve was a solid eight. You’re, like, an eleven, but don’t get cocky.”
Mitsu laughed. “You are so full of it.”
“Full of good taste, yeah.”
“You flirt like you learned from bad comments on thirst traps.”
“And yet you’re still standing here.”
“Barely. The second-hand embarrassment is taking me out.”
Rika leaned her forearms on the net, chin tipping up with a grin. “Admit it. You’d miss me if I stopped.”
Mitsu stopped closer than she needed to.
The gym was quiet around them, empty except for the hum of lights and the faint echo of their breathing. Rika’s face was flushed from practice, loose strands of hair sticking to her cheek, eyes bright and daring.
Mitsu should have stepped back.
A boyfriend who loved her. A boyfriend who was sweet. A boyfriend she was fighting with almost every second day because every conversation between them seemed to scrape against the rawest parts of her.
“What?” she asked, voice softer now.
Mitsu looked at her and realised, with a sudden hot rush of clarity, that she wanted to kiss her.
Not because Rika was convenient.
Not because she was angry at Koma.
Because Rika was interesting. Sharp. Infuriating. Unafraid of her. Because when Mitsu failed, Rika did not wrap her in caution. She handed her the ball and showed her where to place her feet.
“This is probably a bad idea,” she said.
Rika’s smile faded slightly. Not gone. Just careful. “Probably.”
“You’re not supposed to agree.”
It was quick at first. More impulse than technique. Mitsu leaned over the net and caught Rika’s mouth with hers, one hand gripping the tape for balance, the volleyball trapped awkwardly beneath her arm. Rika went still for half a second.
Warm. Confident. Smiling into it like she had been waiting to see if Mitsu would be reckless enough to cross the line first.
Mitsu pulled back just enough to breathe.
Rika’s eyes were wide now, though her grin was already returning. “Well.”
Mitsu swallowed, suddenly aware of the net between them, the empty gym, her own racing pulse.
Rika’s voice dropped into something teasing and soft. “Okay. That was definitely more like a twelve.”
Mitsu laughed, breathless and disbelieving. The sound shook through her like relief. For the first time in a long while, she did not feel weak.
And that, more than anything, was dangerous.
From there on, the twins changed.
Not all at once. Not in a way anyone could point to on a single day and say, there, that was when it happened. But slowly, inevitably, in little ways that became impossible to ignore.
They changed emotionally first.
Raki watched, with open annoyance, as Yuna grew taller and taller, his once-lanky frame stretching until he shot past most of his classmates, then past most of the adults in the palace, and eventually close enough to rival Katsuka’s height that Kai made the mistake of laughing about it during one family dinner.
Raki had not found it funny.
He found it even less funny when Mitsu started growing too, all long limbs, sharp smiles, and restless energy, stopping just shy of his own height like the universe had decided to spare him one final insult.
“You are both doing this on purpose,” Raki accused one morning when Yuna leaned over him to reach a shelf he could have teleported to out of spite.
Yuna only smiled lazily. “Skill issue.”
Mitsu choked on her drink.
Raki looked deeply betrayed by fatherhood.
As their injuries healed, the twins began to put back on the muscle they had lost during their long hospital stay. It came slowly at first. Careful strength training, supervised sessions, stretches that still made them scowl, exercises that looked too small to matter until they realised, weeks later, that their bodies were answering a little faster than before.
Yuna’s shoulders broadened. Mitsu’s legs grew stronger again. They were not as they had been, not exactly, but neither of them were fragile.
Yuna became broodier at school after Tsubaki.
Not cruel. Not openly bitter. He was too polished for that, too much his father’s son in the way he learned to make distance look elegant. He still smiled. Still answered when spoken to. Still laughed when Auren was obnoxious enough to drag one out of him. But the softness he had once offered so easily became harder to find.
Some had once thought of Yuna as sweet. Pretty, talented, a little dramatic, but ultimately gentle in that dreamy way that made him seem safe to crush on. After the injury, after Tsubaki, after he came back quieter and taller and sharper around the eyes, they looked at him differently.
And Yuna noticed that too.
He handed his cheer jersey back in with nothing more than a smile and a wave to the team. There were hugs. There were protests. There were jokes about him betraying the squad and leaving them to perish without his superior taste. He played along, because he did love them, in his way.
The gym had once been one of his favourite places. It had been music and movement and noise, somewhere he could be pretty and strong and dramatic all at once. But after the injury, the joy had changed shape. He could still move. He could still dance. He could still perform if he wanted to.
But he was always aware of his arm.
The weakness lingered even after most of the mobility returned. His left hand did not grip like it used to. His strength did not come as easily. Pain could still flare through his forearm if he pushed too hard or got too stressed. And every time his sleeve rode up and he caught sight of the long scar carved down his skin, he cringed.
Hated the shape of it. Hated the colour. Hated the way people’s eyes flicked toward it, then away. Hated that it made him remember marble floors and blood and the sickening moment his hand stopped feeling like his.
So one day, he went to Marina.
“Can I get a tattoo?” he asked.
Marina looked up from her vanity, one brow arching.
Yuna stood in her doorway with his injured arm tucked behind his back like she did not already know exactly what he was asking.
“A tattoo,” she repeated.
“You're still in school.”
“You're also still my baby.”
“I'm tragically aware of that too.”
Marina leaned back in her chair and looked at him for a long moment. Her emerald eyes softened before her mouth did. She did not ask him why. That was why Yuna had gone to her first. Sometimes creating art out of something ugly was all that mattered.
“All right,” she said. “But if you put something hideous on your skin, I will get your father to burn if off and heal over it.”
“Do not make me regret being an understanding mother.”
He nearly cried then, but he managed to turn it into a grin.
Of course, once she agreed, he spent hours designing and planning. Because if there was going to be something permanent on his skin, it had to mean something. More than that, it had to be beautiful. He refused to let the scar be the only story his arm told.
He chose a traditional design from Krau.
A fox ran down the length of the scar, long-bodied and elegant, its tail curling through the worst of the damaged skin as if it had always belonged there. Behind it bloomed an intricate pattern of iris flowers and stars, half-hidden behind drifting clouds. The sky was soft and stormy, caught between night and dawn. In the stars on one side, he had the constellation of Mitsuki worked into the pattern. On the other, Yunaria.
Two names. Two legacies. Two reminders that he had survived because he had never been alone.
When it was finished, Yuna stared at his arm for a long time.
Quietly. Embarrassingly. Right there in the tattoo room while the artist pretended to be deeply invested in inspecting the wallpaper so he could have the dignity of not being watched too closely.
After that, he stopped pulling his sleeve down as often.
Not completely. Some days were still bad. Some days he still looked at his arm and felt the old horror crawl up his throat. But other days, when people looked, he did not flinch.
Because now they were looking for the right reason.
Because he wanted them to look.
Mitsu was similar, though not the same.
The moment she saw Yuna bent over tattoo sketches at the table, she slid into the chair opposite him and said, “Do mine next.”
Yuna did not even look up. “Ask Mum.”
“I will. But you’re designing it.”
They spent hours discussing what she wanted. Mitsu knew immediately that she did not want to hide the scar. That was where she and Yuna differed. Yuna wanted people to see something beautiful instead of the wound. Mitsu wanted the wound made impossible to ignore. She wanted the scar framed, claimed, challenged.
So Yuna designed it for her.
A plum blossom branch ran along the length of the scar on her shoulder, delicate and defiant, blooming around the damaged skin rather than covering it. Two foxes played in the branches, one leaping, one turning back with its mouth open in laughter. Behind them stretched a night sky over snowy mountains, a piece of Krau etched into her skin like a dare.
When it was finished, Mitsu loved it immediately.
She stood in front of the mirror for almost twenty minutes, turning this way and that, eyes bright, grin slowly spreading across her face.
“It looks sick,” she said.
“It looks beautiful,” Yuna corrected from where he sat nearby, exhausted but pleased.
Mitsu reached out and ruffled his hair with her good hand.
The tattoos made them more confident, or maybe they gave that confidence somewhere to live.
They became armour, in a way. Not against pain. Not against memory. Nothing could do that completely. But against the helplessness of it. Against the sense that their bodies had been changed by someone else’s violence and left for them to endure.
Now, at least, they had chosen something too.
And with that came interest.
Yuna learned quickly that distance could be attractive.
The less he reached for people, the more they reached for him. The more he held himself apart, the more girls wanted to be the exception. He became colder with most people, slower to trust, less likely to offer his heart just because someone smiled sweetly at him.
Flirting did not require vulnerability. It was performance, timing, confidence, a game of looks and words and knowing when to lean in. Yuna became very, very good at it. He flirted back aggressively when girls showed interest, all lazy smiles, lowered lashes, and compliments sharp enough to make them blush. He let himself enjoy being wanted.
For a while, that was enough.
He dated girls who liked the idea of him. Pretty girls. Clever girls. Girls who wanted to fix him, challenge him, show him off, soften him, win him. He let them try. Sometimes he even liked them for a little while.
Or worse, he felt them starting to expect something real from him.
Not cruelly, he told himself. Never cruelly. He did not make promises he could not keep. He did not say love when he meant fun. But hearts broke anyway, because people heard what they wanted when a beautiful boy smiled like he had chosen them.
Mitsu was almost the same.
After Koma found out about Rika, the breakup was spectacular enough that people talked about it for weeks. Koma was hurt. Mitsu was angry. Rika pretended not to care and cared far too much. Yuna, who had become very good at reading disasters before they unfolded, simply bought bubble tea and waited for the explosion to pass.
Mitsu did not become cautious after that.
If anything, she became worse.
She had what Marina called a wandering eye and what Raki called “a future headache.” Mitsu said she just liked pretty things. Sometimes those pretty things were boys with sharp smiles and expensive shoes. Sometimes they were girls with quick hands and quicker mouths. Sometimes they were someone in between who looked at her like a challenge.
Gender never mattered much to Mitsu.
She had inherited that from her grandfather, or so Marina said with too much amusement and Raki said with a pained expression. Mitsu went toward whoever caught her eye, bright and hungry and relentless. She liked confidence. She liked pretty faces. She liked people who did not bore her.
The problem was that very few people held her attention for long.
She would flirt, chase, kiss, laugh, stay out too late, come home with swollen lips and a grin that made Raki pinch the bridge of his nose. Then, sooner or later, she would drift. Not always because she meant to hurt anyone. Sometimes because she did not know how to stay once the thrill faded and things began asking more of her.
Rika lasted longer than most.
But even that became complicated in the way teenage things often did, too sharp and too soft in all the wrong places.
By the final year of school, the twins had left behind a string of broken hearts and a reputation no one would forget.
They were beautiful, difficult, talented, terrifying, and impossible to keep.
Yuna became the boy people whispered about after he passed, all tall frame, dark skin, ice-blue eyes behind glasses, and a tattooed forearm that appeared whenever he rolled his sleeve up.
Mitsu became the girl everyone watched on the court, fierce and fast again in a way no one had expected, her shoulder tattoo flashing whenever her jersey shifted.
They were not the same as before.
But they were alive, and eventually that became more important than being unchanged.
When graduation finally came, they looked like perfect little angels.
Yuna was dressed immaculately, uniform tailored to flatter the height he had finally grown into, dreadlocks tied back neatly, glasses spotless, not a single thread out of place. Mitsu was just as polished, makeup flawless, constellation beads glinting in her navy dreadlocks, posture straight despite the faint ache that still lived in her shoulder on cold days.
So they had to look perfect.
Their father stood beside Marina with his arms crossed and his expression severe enough to frighten younger students out of walking too close. But his eyes softened every time the camera turned away. Yuna saw it. Mitsu did too.
The kind of proud that made him pretend to scowl because anything else might crack him open in public.
Nadia fussed with Yuna’s collar even though it was already perfect. Nori tried to act unimpressed and failed. Brooklyn and Alana clung to Mitsu’s side and demanded photos with her tattoo visible because they thought it made her look like a warrior princess.
Mitsu, naturally, posed like one.
Yuna rolled his eyes and then did the same.
They looked happy in the photos.
But not because they were sad to leave.
When the ceremony ended, when the last photographs were taken, when the final speeches blurred into memory and the students began drifting toward parties, dinners, and tearful goodbyes, the twins found themselves standing at the school gates one last time.
The gates that had once felt enormous.
The gates they had walked through as children, then teenagers, then injured and recovering.
For a moment, people expected sentiment.
Everyone thought he would look back. He was the soft one, after all. The one who kept things. The one who embroidered memories into fabric and saved pretty wrappers from good days and cried at old songs when he thought no one was looking.
But Yuna did not look back. Neither did Mitsu.
They walked through the gates and kept going. That part of their lives was done. They left it behind without ceremony.
Northbridge Commonwealth University waited for them.
Not in Krau. That mattered most.
Not under the constant shadow of the palace. Not dictated by their father’s title or watched by people who knew their family before they knew them. Not a place where every mistake would reach Raki by dinner, polished into gossip before the twins could even decide whether they regretted it.
Northbridge was far enough away to feel like freedom.
Close enough to come home if they needed to.
Yuna got in first, though Mitsu threatened to deny it under oath because his acceptance letter arrived three hours before hers. Mitsu got in too, of course. There had never been any real doubt. Not from anyone else, anyway.
The day they packed, their rooms looked like battlefields.
Yuna organised everything into labelled boxes and then reorganised them twice because Auren kept “helping” by throwing in snacks, hoodies, and one ceramic cow he insisted was essential dorm protection. Mitsu shoved half her wardrobe into bags, declared it good enough, then stole three of Yuna’s storage containers because his were “cuter and less cursed.”
Raki pretended not to hover.
Marina openly hovered and cried whenever anyone looked away.
When it was finally time to leave, the twins stood at the front of the palace with their bags packed, their tattoos visible, their futures waiting.
They were not healed perfectly.
Yuna still flexed his left hand when he was nervous, testing strength that would never feel quite the same. Mitsu still rolled her shoulder before stepping into new rooms, chasing stiffness from old damage. They still had bad days. They still had scars. They still carried the ghosts of what had happened to them in ways other people could not always see.
Not to become who they used to be.
To become whoever came next.
