bewitched me
maki x reader rewrite
1- every rose has its thorn
masterlist
page from aiken's journal: monday eat my ass. ok after a month and a half of working on this first chapter I'm finally done I'm so excited. of course this came at the cost of skipping very many assignments. also this was proofread by my friend.
content warnings: not a lot; maybe some cursing, some paranormal activity, some haunting the narrative, a few mentions of headstones.
JAPAN, 2040
Bad things happen to good people. Usually. That was the way the world worked. It had always been that way since the dawn of time.
Either they died or they experienced a hell on earth so abhorrent that death seemed like the light at the end of their dreadful tunnels.
Whether they fought for the good life they deserved or they submitted because they thought their purity did not make them worthy of grace was up to their own discretion, but the mirror was always waiting for them whenever they wished to face the truth and see in the background the ugly world behind them that they swore was good.
If a firefighter saved a girl from a burning house, they would then die later from the thing they worked to save people from.
If a military medic saved a soldier from gangrene by amputating their limb, they’d die from a quick yet painful death they could’ve prevented.
Spite worked in many ways and against many people. It was a phenomena to few that it usually worked against people who seeked out the bright side of things.
Sometimes, those good people’s ghosts wandered the land they tried to save and watched from the sidelines their consequences for having once dared to have a bigger heart than their corrupt counterparts. They watched with tired eyes and emptied chests heavy with their fragile plane of existence the aftermath of the world that marched on without them.
In the wake of their sorrows and grief and regrets, it turned into matter. That matter snowballed until it manifested physically.
It was ugly; unsightly; hideous. It attacked and harmed and destroyed and killed. It caused chaos, seen and unseen, everywhere. It riddled the world and infested the soil with its own evil. It was haunted, it twisted reality and made it into something infinitely darker.
They were curses. They formed from the negative thoughts and feelings from humans and terrorized other people in light of those feelings.
Nobody knew exactly how long they’d been around—thousands of years, at the very least— just that many have originated in Japan, mainly from things like war and chaos.
Though, with every dark tunnel, there was always a light at the end. That light was the people who’d been sent to stop those curses for an unprecedented number of years. Extraordinary people gifted with other-worldly powers and talents strong enough to defeat the curses.
Of course, not all of them succeeded in their fights against curses. Some were lucky—born with exceptional techniques among those inferior— some were not so lucky. Some had to make do with what they were given, though they were never completely useless. Some of them died in a fight for humanity, others died from more mysterious and ominous causes.
Those people—Jujustu Sorcerers—were not the only ones who fought against curses.
Witches were more common than those Sorcerers for a time. Simply because witchcraft was easier to grasp, and nobody had to be born with it to learn it; some people were born with not a single trace of magic or cursed energy in their blood, and yet trained to become marvelous witches.
As time passed, the number of male witches dwindled, until it became a rare recessive gene in males; in correlation, lady witches were more common. And when women were strong, they were shut down. They were captured for their “evils” and rendered no better than curses, and they were tortured, stripped of their freedom, their rights, burned, hung, beaten, drowned, and had a thousand other discriminations against them.
Yet, they prevailed.
Their numbers were even smaller in present-day Japan than they were thousands of years ago. They prevailed, and they lived amongst regular people and other Jujutsu Sorcerers in something less chaotic that wore a mask of peace.
That didn’t change the fact that witches were still remembered as nothing more than a stain.
_________________________
DECEMBER 16TH, 2040, 11:37 PM. JAPAN.
The air is stiff and cold, as usual. It weighs heavily with something dead and unspoken. Something so deeply ingrained with regret that it drags like a ball on a chain, though not so heavy that it impairs anyone in the room from noticing it dragging through the walls like nails on a chalkboard.
The silence is more than deafening. Beyond that, actually. Maki’s ears ring like a cracked church bell at noon. The silence did nothing to alleviate the tension—the ball dragging from a chain that she can’t be bothered to address.
Her husband addresses it for her, but in a way she doesn’t like.
“Those new higher ups are pieces of work,” Yuta sighs as he plops down on the cream-colored couch in the middle of the living room. Across from where he sits, some yards away, the kitchen island stands independently and sandwiches Maki between that and the opened fridge. She’s digging through it for leftover yakitori and onigiri from the previous night that Yuta had made.
“You should’ve taken the spot they offered you if you didn’t want blockheads like them ordering you around,” she calls out and stands up straight with a rice ball in her hand. The ceiling light from the kitchen fan being turned on casts a glint against the silver ring that sits oddly on her left ring finger.
“I know,” Yuta sighs gently. “But that means I’d just be sitting in an old room day in and day out. There’s other things I’d rather be doing for a career.” He runs an exhausted hand through his hair. He waits for a few moments, thinking Maki has some other witty remark already pre-made for him. He speaks again when she proves him wrong. “Being this exasperated with them takes me back to when Gojo complained about them.”
Maki hums while she chews on her rice. Her voice voluntarily fails her, but in her mind, she’s telling him that Gojo’s exasperation was so vicarious that it even branched out to Yuta as his successor and impaired his conversational skills.
She never says it even after she finishes her rice ball and plucks out estranged grains between her teeth with her tongue.
She walks over in a flash to the couch in the middle of the room and sits on the cushion across from Yuta. She curls her legs and leans against the arm and rests her head on her palm, but she doesn’t look at him. Despite having proved her “undying love and devotion” to him several years ago during their wedding, she makes a barely perceptible effort to minimize how many times a day her eyes fix onto him.
The TV in front of them shows the news for the evening—nothing new, except for another missing persons report from all the way out in Sendai Miyagi. Upon that, Yuta momentarily glances at Maki carefully with a cautious look in his eyes before he goes back to staring at the screen.
“Another disappearance,” Yuta clicks his tongue. “It’s only a matter of time before the higher ups assign a mission for someone to investigate the city.”
“I estimate a week, tops,” Maki remarks as her thumb rubs her temple and her fingernails scratch her scalp.
There’s something Yuta wants to ask her, she knows it. She also knows what he wants to ask. There’s a lump in his throat that keeps him from opening his mouth where the words tie a knot around his tongue. He shifts awkwardly in his spot as he crosses his arms and leans back against the cushion. Maki sighs sharply.
“Out with it,” she demands. “I know you’re curious.”
“You’ve always been good at reading my mind,” Yuta nervously chuckles as he squares his shoulders as if he’s preparing himself for an earful.
“It’s certainly a useful trait of mine,” Maki murmurs, impatient.
Yuta swallows and uncrosses his arms, leaving him defenseless. “Do you think it’s about…” he trails off as if Maki’s hypothetical ‘mind reading’ skills are of utmost potency. She turns to him with a lifted eyebrow and a sharp glare in her eyes.
“Do you think it’s about her?”
Maki stays silent. Now that implication isn’t anything above her hypothetical sixth sense. Anyone from their inner circle would’ve known who Yuta is referring to, and if they had any bone in their body to underestimate Maki’s patience, they would’ve scolded him for bringing up such a sensitive topic. But, nonetheless, Maki understands he’s only curious, and she also understands that she’s been putting off discussing her for over twenty years. She’ll have to face it at some point.
“Maybe,” Maki answers dryly and with a shrug of her shoulders. “I have no doubt that her death would’ve accumulated a few cursed spirits in the area.”
Yuta clicks his tongue again in acknowledgment. A shiver runs down his spine at the thought of potentially reliving seeing what happened that night. His throat runs dry, and he swallows in an attempt to wet his mouth.
“If that’s the case,” he starts. “It’s a wonder how those higher ups haven’t dispatched a sorcerer to investigate it yet.”
“You said they’re new, right?” Maki inquires, to which Yuta nods slowly. “They might still be working things out. They probably haven’t gotten to files related to Sendai Miyagi yet.”
“She wasn’t from Miyagi, though,” Yuta frowns slightly, and looks to the wooden floor deep in thought. “I can’t remember what she said—“
“Shimane. Out in the country,” Maki corrects just as Yuta opens his mouth again to suggest that “she” was from the city. “Witches don’t typically live in overpopulated areas.”
Yuta blinks and he looks at her. His lips press together; he barely remembers where his other old classmates are from (though he feels bad about it) and needs a reminder from time to time, but Maki can easily remember where “she” was from and can even tell others in case they forget. Does she even remember where he’s from? Does she even know?
“That’s right,” Yuta nods briefly and forces a small smile on his face. “I bet they’re going in alphabetical order, so I’m sure they have a long while before they get to her, assuming they already passed Sendai Miyagi.”
Maki nods with him in agreement, though she knows that those lousy excuses of higher ups are only stalling. That file Yuta’s talking about under the Sendai Miyagi category holds some pretty horrific information—dark, morbid, tragic, even. She’s sure such a file wouldn’t be such a low priority, especially when it’s potentially related to those disappearances in the north.
She doesn’t say anything when a figure appears in the empty space between her and Yuta.
The figure looks like a student from Jujutsu High— same concept of a uniform. Dark blue and white and black color palette; black boots and black stockings and a dark blue skirt that sits over her knees, though the texture seems flowy and isn’t a hindrance when in a fight, the usual white undershirt button up all the way until the last button and a black corset over the figure’s stomach with the strings tied into an impossibly tight knot that looks like it could only be undone with a hex, a dark blue hood that is currently pulled off with a matching colored cape that stops at her waist.
Yuta doesn’t see her; he isn’t the one she’s haunting.
“One would think you two would’ve divorced by now,” she speaks, lowly, as if not wanting to risk her voice being heard through her fragile plane of existence. Yuta can’t hear it; he can’t hear anything she says, Maki concluded that on their wedding night when the figure gave a speech to the guests that nobody was paying attention to. “You don’t seem happy.”
Maki still doesn’t say anything. She can’t, because while Yuta might not be able to hear or even be aware of the figure’s impaired existence, he’s still aware of hers, and her speaking to the figure means talking to herself. She doesn’t feel like explaining to him that she’s been talking to a ghost for the last sixteen years. She stays still, pretending she’s as blissfully unaware as Yuta is and mentally promising she’d find some sort of way to abolish this ghost from her periphery in the near future.
“Oh, come on,” the figure shifts and faces Maki, her arm resting against the top of the couch and her legs curling on the cushion. “You can’t ignore me forever.”
Maki clenches her jaw and stares ahead. Now it looks like she’s straining something, like she’s trying to keep herself together with hopes and dreams and a shred of self control. She wonders if Yuta can see the indent in the couch the figure is making.
“Fine, I see how it is,” the figure grunts and faces forward, then looks at Yuta. “He certainly hasn’t changed a bit—“ a pause. “A few gray hairs here and there… nothing a little dye can’t fix,” she finishes, lower this time, with her eyes hooding and looking him up and down. She isn’t sure how much she can keep that up.
Maki looks at her, and if Yuta were to look back at her he would clearly see that she’s looking past him and towards somewhere he can’t follow. The figure clicks her tongue before she goes back to looking to her left.
“You really know how to pick ‘em,” says the ghost. She shuffles around a bit and reverts back to her position from a few seconds ago with her feet tucked under her thighs and leaning against the cushion of the couch.
Maki lifts a daring eyebrow, and the look in her eyes shifts. She has to bite down on her tongue to keep from saying something out loud. She has no idea how Yuta hasn’t yet clocked that she’s looking in his direction with an interested glimmer to her irises that reflect the glow of the TV. The ghost laughs as she senses Maki’s reluctance to speak.
“Cat finally got your tongue?” The ghost asks smugly, and it annoys Maki to think that she’s being taunted by a ghost right now. Despite the teasing that she can hardly stand, which is currently working her nerves, she looks away and stares at the TV again.
Maki wants to ask if the ghost is behind those disappearances up in Miyagi, if she’s been stirring up all sorts of drama and spawning curses with the negative memories Yuta associated with that spot in the city. She hates to think about it, but she finds it ironic that some of the current heaviest masses of disappearances might be because of a witch, fitting perfectly into the narrative that others have been making about witches for thousands of years. Or even worse, create a new kind of narrative about witches: that their spirits haunt and terrorize the city which they died in as revenge on the mortal realm, and paint them into vindictive monsters.
Now that’s a little out of hand, Maki.
Maki takes a breath, quiet, as to not disturb the apparent catatonic state that Yuta is currently in on the off chance that he hears it.
The ghost dissipates into thin air, and Maki feels a weight over her shoulders (that she hadn’t perceived earlier) lift up suddenly, and her whole body feels a few pounds lighter. The air doesn’t feel as hefty as well. Maki bites on the inside of her cheek and thinks that the reason for such tension in the air so thick she could’ve cut it with a plastic knife being the ghost that makes a job out of taunting and bothering her is something so creepily in character for her spirit that it makes Maki feel a little dumb for having almost forgotten that feeling she used to get when she entered a room.
Hell, the evidence of a noticeable weight lifting in the air shows that she still gets that feeling.
Something nags at her to disappear into their massive backyard just so she can finally talk to her own personal ghost.
She isn’t sure why the ghost bothers her. It’s not necessarily haunting her— she’s never scared of it and it never does any harm— but it lingers and it likes to get on her nerves. Usually it’s when other people are around; Maki thinks the ghost does that on purpose so it can drive her up a wall and she can’t do anything about it. But sometimes, when there’s no one else around, the ghost comes out and it’s different. It’s not as pestiferous as it would be on any normal occasion. Maki noticed a while back that it seemed to just… watch her. It never creeped her out; there was such a time when the spirit was actually a human, and its human form used to watch her observationally in peaceful silence, like she was trying to study her. Maki didn’t mind. Now whenever she’s being studied, she just feels melancholic.
The noise of the TV goes in one ear and out the other until Yuta’s cellphone rings. Both their heads turn to the right towards the nightstand that was next to the right arm of the couch where Yuta’s phone vibrates and rings on the surface. Yuta reaches over for his phone while simultaneously grabbing the remote and turning the TV volume down.
He looks at the caller ID: it’s one of those new higher ups he mentioned earlier.
“It’s Sukeyori,” he says to Maki. She assumes this Sukeyori is one of the higher ups. “I need to take this.”
“You know I can’t stop you,” Maki answers. She doesn’t watch Yuta as he gets up, she just stares at the wall and waits until she’s sure he isn’t able to hear her if she speaks. Maki gets comfortable on the couch, finally, and she leans back into the corner between the cushion and the arm and she slouches because she’s got nowhere else to be.
She half expects the ghost to come back now that she’s alone in the room. The window of time being slid open just a bit would be the ideal time for the ghost to appear and watch her again like it’s the first time.
She’s a little disappointed when Yuta comes back a few moments later and the ghost is a no-show. Maki has an idea of what the conversation between Yuta and Sukeyori was about when he walks back in with a look on his face that tells her he didn’t hear anything good.
“I think you manifested it,” Yuta begins as he sets his phone on the surface of the nightstand closest to him. “That call was about the disappearances out in Sendai Miyagi.”
“Are they formulating a mission for it?”
“They already asked me to take care of it.”
“Yuta,” Maki starts, and she doesn’t have any pre-orchestrated plan on what to say next. She sits for a moment and chews on her bottom lip like she’s sixteen years old again and, on the off chance, was nervous about something.
“Yeah?” Yuta tucks his hair behind his ear. “What is it?”
Maki thinks for a moment. She knows she shouldn’t be rash and sentimental—the safest option would be just to let Yuta handle it since he has the highest survival rate out of anyone else available. But something in the back of her mind, like a voice that very much isn’t her own, nags at her and makes her think that those disappearances are related to the ghost. And if her theory is true, she’s willing to go as far as saying she wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if she didn’t take over the assignment on her own.
“This sounds like a gamble,” she mutters under her breath and thinks about how impulsive she’s being and how it’s so not like her. She tells him her thoughts and asks him to ask the higher ups if they’ll let her do the assignment instead. He doesn’t take it too lightly.
“You’re right, it does sound like a gamble,” Yuta remarks as he brings a hand up to scratch his jawline. “I’m confident you can do it either way, but what if, by some chance, it isn’t her?”
Maki doesn’t say anything. She looks back at the TV and knows that she’s asking for too much. She can’t bring herself to care that much so she doubles down.
“There was nothing interesting about Sendai Miyagi before what happened,” she states matter of factly, because it’s true. Aside from what she’s referring to, there’s virtually nothing else in the Sendai Miyagi category. “What else do you think it could be?”
Yuta opens his mouth to say something, but he knows Maki is right. He also knows it’s dangerous and that there still is a chance that it might be something completely different, however small it may be. He assumes it’s coming from sentimental value and that’s why she’s being stubborn about this. He figures he can’t argue, so he just sighs in acceptance and he nods.
“I’ll call Sukeyori in the morning,” Yuta says quietly as he picks up his phone and pockets it. “I’m heading to bed. You coming?”
“Not yet,” Maki answers plainly. “Can’t sleep.”
Yuta nods understandingly before he shuffles off and starts for the hallway. He stops just before he disappears down the corner and turns to look at Maki.
“Goodnight,” he calls out softly and with a smile. Maki feels it on the back of her head and it makes her scalp crawl. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she answers, almost too quickly to be considered natural. One of her friends would refer to it as the speed of a Google search with the way she knows what to respond with before Yuta’s even done saying it.
Yuta disappears down the hall and it isn’t until Maki hears the click of a door shutting that she relaxes again. She finds herself hoping for the ghost to come back so she could quietly whisper to it all the while she can’t fall asleep, just like she used to when she was younger and when the ghost was still a human.
She leans back and she thinks and the ghost still does not come.
It disappoints her, yet again.
_________________________
Maki finds herself coming to consciousness with her head leveled on a couch pillow. She doesn’t remember putting it down before she dozed off at one point or another, she figures Yuta must’ve done it when he woke up a bit before her. An unusual event, since Maki is typically up at the crack of dawn.
She looks out the small window with the white curtains pulled open slightly and concludes that it’s past dawn. The smell of eggs on a skillet floats through the air, as well as a few different spices that Maki can’t differentiate from one another.
She sits up, green hair still a miss from her night of sleep. Her hand wipes away the crust from her eyes and she blinks away the sensitivity from the glow of the kitchen ceiling light behind her. She gets up from her spot, her blanket, which she didn’t process was even there, pooling around her ankles until she steps out of it and walks over to the kitchen. Yuta stands at the oven with a white tee shirt and short shorts with cats all over them as the design, a sight which humors Maki for a moment. She sees him trying to multitask by working the skillet and also talking on the phone, presumably with Sukeyori again because he’s talking about “Sendai Miyagi” this and “Maki” that.
Maki gazes out the window that looks out to their backyard which is covered in snow. The small pond out in the corner closer to the acacia colored fence is frozen and Maki could probably stand on it without a single crack in the ice. She glances back at Yuta when he makes another mention of her name, and she steps towards the fridge and opens it in search of the carton of orange juice sitting in the back.
“Yeah, yeah I can pass it to her,” Yuta answers and he turns to Maki, who’s grabbing a cup from the cabinet and pouring the orange juice into it.
“Sukeyori wants to speak to you,” Yuta says once she’s done closing the carton and puts it back in some other random spot in the fridge different from its original location in the back. Maki closes the fridge and takes Yuta’s phone after he hands it to her and puts it to her ear.
“Morning, Sukeyori.”
“I assume you’re Zenin?”
Maki lightly bites her tongue at the mention of her last name. “I am.”
“Okkotsu tells me you’ve expressed interest in the mission I’ve assigned him.”
Maki lifts an eyebrow as she glances at her husband, who’s sporting his natural guilty look on his face while he works the skillet. “Yuta told me he was only asked. He didn’t say anything was official.”
There’s a grunt on the other end of the line. “I’ve already assigned it to him specifically. Why do you want to take over this mission? Okkotsu himself won’t answer, so I figured you will.”
Maki spares another glance at Yuta, this time a little less nice, and adjusts his phone against her cheek. “You guys are still going through locational files, right?” She asks, and she hears a hum of approval for an answer. “I’m assuming you’ve reached Sendai Miyagi since you’re assigning a mission to Yuta covering the area?”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m saying that I don’t think Yuta is fit for the mission.”
There’s a profound silence for the next few moments that tick by, save for the popping of grease on Yuta’s pan. On the tv in their living room, the time reads 9:17 AM. The clock’s second hand at the top of their wall in the dining room ticks all the way up to the thirty second mark. Maki stands and thinks about how bold and presumptuous she’s sounding right now, but even though she’s being arrogant, it’s the truth.
“And you think you are?” Sukeyori asks with a condescending tone. Maki’s long since grown used to it, though it still works her nerves to a near blinding degree.
“I do,” she answers confidently. She can already hear the degrading laugh that Sukeyori won’t let out over the phone. She clenches her free hand into a fist and thinks to herself that she didn’t make such backbreaking efforts to step on the patriarchal Jujutsu society just to get internally laughed at by a younger man who only just entered the higher order.
“If you think you can handle it,” Sukeyori’s voice is smug and Maki wants to reach through the phone and sock the smirk she knows is there right off his face. “Then I’ll dispatch you. You leave at noon.”
Sukeyori hangs up and Maki passes the phone back to Yuta. She sighs as she turns back to her cup of orange juice.
“What did he say?” Yuta asks as he looks at his screen that says ‘call ended.’
“I’m leaving at twelve,” she speaks into the cup before she takes a long sip. A drop of juice rolls down to her chin before she sets her cup back down on the surface of the counter and wipes it off with her finger.
“So soon?” Yuta asks as he sets his phone down on the other side of the stove. He frowns softly. “I was supposed to leave at eight this evening.”
“I think it’s because I sounded so eager,” Maki answers as she taps her finger against the counter. “And you were right. Those higher ups really are a pain in the ass.”
Yuta chuckles as he flips the eggs cooking on the skillet and folds it into an omelette, smushing it with the spatula. “I’ll leave this to you, then,” he offers as he lifts the pan up and moves it over the plate next to the stove with a fork and bacon strips that he made before Maki woke up. The spatula slides the omelette onto the empty space left on the plate. “I originally made it for myself, but you’re leaving in a few hours, so I figured you need it more than me.”
“You don’t have to, Yuta,” Maki starts, but Yuta’s already picking up the plate and taking it to the dining room and setting it at the table.
“It’s fine, Maki. I’ll just make something else for myself,” Yuta flashes Maki a smile, and he thinks it sends butterflies batting their wings around her ribcage. She ignores it and walks to the table anyway because she doesn’t want to waste the omelette Yuta gave her, and because it actually looks pretty appetizing.
She thanks him before she sits at the chair Yuta pulled out for her. The omelette in front of her stares and makes eye contact. She thinks it looks like it’s judging her for something can’t name before she looks up from the plate and she sees the ghost again. She’s sitting in the chair across from Maki, and she’s got her elbow on the table and her cheek in her palm. Her other arm rests on the table and her fingers tap the white cloth that veils the wooden surface. Maki glances at the clock on the wall again— 9:24. She looks at her dish again.
“That’s quite an intrepid decision to make, you know,” the ghost says, and it’s not even half as condescending as Maki expected it to be. It sounds genuine, for the first time in forever. “Those schlepps for higher ups already asked four other people to take the case and they refused. Yuta was a last resort.”
Maki glances back up at the ghost and her eyebrow furrows and her first instinct is to ask how she knows that, but she keeps it to herself. If four other people had already declined the mission, then it’s either not worth taking in the sense that the pay’s too low, or not worth taking in the sense that it’s too high of a safety hazard for any sensible First Grade sorcerer to take. Maki thinks she must either look dumb or courageous or both.
Maki looks around the room for anything she can write on, and she finds nothing. She sighs before she gets up from the table and marches down the hall and to her shared bedroom with her husband. Yuta doesn’t question it when he spots Maki coming back into the dining room with a sheet of paper from one of her journals and a pen.
She scribbles on the paper: ‘Are you responsible for the disappearances in Sendai?’
The ghost looks at the sheet as she slides it over to the other side of the table. Maki cranes her neck to check the kitchen and see if Yuta’s still in there cooking something for himself. She faces forward when she hears the ghost talk again.
“Why would I tell you that?” She frowns and pushes the paper back towards Maki before she crosses her arms.
Maki grumbles quietly before she writes again: ‘Because I asked nicely. And it’s beneficial to me’
The ghost stares at the paper before she laughs at the words in front of her. Maki figures she should’ve known the genuine tone from the ghosts wouldn’t have lasted long anyways. She rolls her eyes and snatches the paper back and crumples it up into a ball and clicks her pen. She takes the fork and stabs it into her omelette, rough and scraping the edges against the porcelain of the plate.
“I think you’re being a little dramatic,” the ghost says and uncrosses her arms, leaning back in her chair. The front two legs lift from the ground and Maki thinks it looks like the chair is moving on its own to the naked eye. “I won’t tell you, but I’ll help you out with this.”
Maki narrows her eyes and gives the ghost a look as if to ask why.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not about to spoon feed you information you’re getting paid to find out on your own.”
Maki thinks the ghost has a good point, although she has an annoying way of getting it across. She chews on her chunk of omelette before she swallows, she thinks to herself that Yuta knows how to cook up a good omelette before she stabs out another chunk.
_________________________
Once Maki’s done eating the breakfast Yuta gave to her, she leaves to disappear into the bedroom for a good twenty minutes. It doesn’t take long for her to come back out with a bag packed ahead of time. She sets it on the couch in the living room and goes off to do other things for the next few hours: taking care of financial things—taking money out of her account to pay for hospitality expenses while she’s away since those privileges are gone once students graduate from Jujutsu Technical College; she visits her storage unit on campus and takes out a few things she needs (a few extra kunai knives, though she’s confident her Soul Split Katana will suffice plentifully, but one can never be too careful) and a few of the new students there say hi to her when they spot her. Her last stop isn’t a necessity, but she makes it into a ritual anyway to stop by the cemetery every once in a while to visit a few graves of people she lost. She visits her sister’s grave and leaves a prayer and a light, familial kiss to her headstone. She visits Gojo’s grave (whose headstone finally got put in the cemetery two years after his death) and simply pays her respects in silence. Her final visit is at a certain grave she isn’t quite sure if she should even say anything at all to.
She chooses to speak anyway, because it’s the right thing to do and she might look weird for just standing at some headstone and then leaving after fifteen seconds.
“I know your spirit doesn’t actually rest here,” Maki starts, crouching down to touch the base of the stone with her hand. Her finger traces ephemerally along the sharp edge and wipes off a bit of dust and snow that’d built up over time. “But this is where your body resides. So think of this as me shining my lighthouse every now and then to call you back.”
Maki thinks it’s stupid to hold out hope that the ghost she’s talking about will eventually go back to her casket. That ghost probably hasn’t seen the inside of it since the day she was buried with how long she likes to stick around and annoy Maki. There’s something in the air that surrounds the headstone that tells the visitor that the spirit of the person buried beneath it isn’t done with the human realm yet.
Her eyes run over the markings in the stone. She reads the ghost’s name to herself and the epitaph underneath it: “To live in the hearts of those we love is to never die”. A simple epitaph that was probably chosen by someone else. Maki knows the ghost never would’ve accepted such a vacuous choice of words for her headstone. Maki doesn’t even think it makes sense in light of her own personal experience with the spirit—she still hangs around and yet Yuta was the one she loved. But Maki also doesn’t know if Yuta sees the ghost as well, just on another plane of existence.
By the time she goes back home, it’s already pushing 11, and Yuta’s sitting on the couch and lounging around with Maki’s bag next to him. While Maki was at the school, she got a call from Sukeyori and he told her she had to be at the train station close to 11:30, so she’s coming back to grab her bag from its place on the couch and to tell Yuta she’s about to head out.
“I told you, I’ll be fine,” Maki reaches her hand up to pat Yuta’s back in an attempt to relent his grip around her. His arms tighten their circle of attachment around her waist for a moment, then he finally lets go and steps back from her.
“I know, I know,” Yuta scratches the back of his head with his fingers awkwardly. “I just can’t help but worry. It’s in my blood.”
“Right,” Maki adjusts her bag strap over her shoulder and looks at him as she steps back towards the door. “Well, I’m off,” she says like she’s announcing it to the whole house and possibly to the ghost which may or may not be eavesdropping. “I’ll be done in a week. I’ll probably be back the day after, so the twenty-fifth. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone, yeah?”
Chuckling, Yuta follows Maki out the door and stands on their doormat with his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants that he changed into while Maki was out. “Goodbye, Maki,” he says once she turns to face him. He takes his hands out and gets ahold of her hands and he brings them up to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “Be careful, will you? I love you.”
Maki hums in response to the gesture of Yuta’s goodbye. He’s always been dramatic like this whenever the two of them have to part for a mission. It’s sweet, it makes her feel loved and appreciated. She’s still anxious to step off their porch already and make her way to the train station.
Maki turns away and starts for the gate of their complex, the snow crunching beneath the weight of her boots pressing down. The air around her is crisp and it makes the apples of her cheeks feel tender and her knuckles frigid. She walks her way down the small mountain—it’s not a far walk, it’s only twenty minutes before she reaches the window car that’s waiting for her at the foot.
The window drives her to the station, where she’s let out and given instructions to wait until noon. A part of her is confused because the window doesn’t say anything else before he drives off, as well as the fact she doesn’t have a train ticket so she can’t just waltz into a bullet train. Sukeyori didn’t mention anything about a ticket, so she assumes she’s supposed to get one for herself.
She’s about to get up to approach the ticket stand when a voice calls out her name.
“You’re Zenin, right?” The voice is masculine and familiar. Maki turns around to face whoever is standing behind her.
The man is younger, probably in his late twenties; he’s standing in traditional robes that Maki was used to seeing when she still lived at the Zenin Estate, with his feet slipped into sandals and the rings around his fingers glint in the ceiling lights of the station; Maki isn’t a huge fan of the hue of gold his eyes stare at her with and how they’re full of cockiness; she thinks his hair compliments them, nonetheless, with maroon curls around the top of his head and a singular streak of white (she assumes it’s a genetic thing) which sticks out where his bangs part; and she thinks facial hair doesn’t suit him after getting a look at the small, light red mustache sitting beneath his nose. She glances at the small pentagram sigil tattooed on the back of his left hand and the ear piercings in his lobes before she makes eye contact with him again.
He looks like a hippie.
“I am,” Maki answers and steps toward him. “And you may be?”
“The voice over the phone this morning,” the man answers, just as smugly as Maki heard earlier, and she internally cringes at the sound. “Sukeyori Katsura. I looked through your file earlier and thought I’d personally escort you to Sendai Miyagi.”
Maki lifts a daring eyebrow. “What’s with the luxury?”
“I like to think of you and your old classmates as veterans,” Sukeyori lazily shrugs his shoulders. “You guys fought Ryomen Sukuna and lived to tell the tale. It’s not every day you get to meet such an honorable legend like that.”
Maki stares and thinks for a moment. The silence grows to an awkward degree as people brush past them to get to their trains.
After a moment, she breathes. “It’s certainly a miracle to be alive after that,” Maki starts, and then her voice transcends into a heavier tone. “It was grueling all the same. Many people lost their lives that day. I don’t appreciate being honored in the face of their sacrifices.”
Sukeyori clicks his tongue. “Nevertheless, your strength is something to be admired. I deem it unfit to send such a skilled sorcerer on a mission only for her to be forced into proximity with such…” he looks at the non-sorcerers around the two of them, and he curls his lip in aversion for only a second before he turns back to Maki. “Lower level life forms.”
Maki feels her own sense of repugnance upon hearing Sukeyori talk down on regular people like they’re vermin. She wonders if he knows she lacks cursed energy, and she debates bringing it up before Sukeyori starts again.
“Enough chitchat,” he waves his hand dismissively as if shooing the previous topic away. He leads Maki away from the ticket stand and towards the exit of the station after she grabs her bag. “You’ve a mission to get to, and I’ve a city to escort you to.”
“Are you driving?”
Sukeyori snickers like he’s holding in a laugh after hearing the funniest joke he’s ever heard in his life. “Me drive? Of course not,” he laughs heartily, and it almost seems fake. He steps out of the station with Maki and takes her down the sidewalk until they reach a giant black SUV that no average-pay earning sorcerer could afford.
Sukeyori opens the backseat door for Maki like he’s trying to convince her he’s courteous. She steps in and slinks her bag from her shoulders and onto the floorboard next to her feet. Her katana leans against the edge of the car seat next to her. The door opens on the other side and Sukeyori climbs in and he snaps his fingers in the direction of the driver’s seat. An apparition materializes into the form of a mannequin in place of where a typical window driver would be. Sukeyori hands the keys to the mannequin and the car starts a moment later, pulling into the road as soon as it’s empty and driving away from the station.
“Witchcraft,” Sukeyori crosses his legs and relaxes in his seat. “In my opinion, it’s easier to grasp than Jujutsu.”
“Are witches becoming more popular?” Maki asks after turning to look at him.
“Somewhat,” Sukeyori answers with a shrug, then he glances at Maki curiously. “You know one?”
Maki sits in silence for a moment, her bottom teeth chewing on her bottom lip while she thinks on how to answer it. She goes with a safe option. “I used to.”
“I see,” Sukeyori nods and clicks his tongue. He looks to his left and glances out the window and he speaks again. “I’m the only one in my whole family, aside from my grandmother. The rest of them are plain Jujutsu sorcerers. I think it’s rather boring.”
Maki nods like she cares and she pulls her phone from her pocket out of boredom. She lets Sukeyori talk because it became apparent to Maki that he likes the sound of his own voice and he doesn’t really care if she’s not paying attention. She much prefers the quiet with the occasional dumb small talk and the never ending conversation that comes a few minutes after in which both parties are paying attention. But she thinks whatever unexciting thing Sukeyori has to say is only worth her peripheral attention.
The drive from Tokyo is long and winding and boring. Maki notes at one point that the car has yet to stop for gas; she wonders if the continuously full tank is witchcraft as well. The sky is dark by the time they reach Sendai Miyagi city limits. The streets are near empty, save for a few stragglers that Maki assumes are college kids or a freshly graduated class and other irresponsible parasites who like to roam the streets for less ethical reasons other than getting their spirits high. There’s fewer cars and people along the sidewalks the closer they get to where Maki needs to be; she thinks it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.
Sukeyori drops her off a few blocks from where she feels a massive pressure in the air. By now, there’s no one around except for Maki herself once the car turns around and speeds away like both Sukeyori and the mannequin are in a hurry.
“Jeez,” she mumbles and squints her eyes. There’s virtually no lighting around the street, save for one semi-working streetlight that has an erratic flicker and is looming over the street like it was nearly upended from the sidewalk. The rest of the streetlights are either straight up broken or tipped over and laying on their sides.
Maki thinks to herself that the scenery can definitely be worse. Some of the buildings look a little old but it’s most likely because only a few people ever really dare to wander off to this area with a weapon on them, but at least it’s not disease-ridden and it’s not a closed off part of the city. Not yet, anyways, but she figures it might just be only a matter of time before some dumb teenager comes out on a ¥1,520 dare and scrapes their knee on a rusted nail or trips and pricks their hand on a rogue needle from the greenery sticking out from the sidewalk and contracts tetanus and claims it’s actually some new extraterrestrial pathogen that everyone needs to be hysterically cautious of.
The December air feels heavier than it normally does. Typical for a potentially cursed environment. The atmosphere also feels particularly humid, like it’d just rained prior to Maki’s arrival. Her footsteps are damp with the moisture in the ground, and she wonders if it’s always like this or if Mother Nature decided to make the environment into a gloomy greenhouse for curses just for the occasion.
The further she wanders, the more potent the smell of mud and death and something sinister becomes in her nose. She’s long since passed the flickering streetlight and Maki thinks that for a moment her old glasses would come in handy because she literally can’t see anything and she’s just going off of the rest of her senses.
Maki feels around for her pocket and eventually pulls out her phone and turns on her flashlight and starts moving again. She frowns when she still can’t see anything around her.
“Hey,” she whispers, even though she knows there’s not a single soul around except her. “I know you’re here. I need you to do something for me.”
The ghost appears behind her. Maki can feel her presence even though she can’t physically feel her—and that’s not an occurrence between them that only happens because one of them is a ghost.
The flashlight shines in the ghost’s face. “You called?”
“I did,” Maki gruffly answers, then she nudges her head and gestures to the scenery. “Can you light this place up?”
“Nope,” the ghost pops the ‘p’. “I have no effect whatsoever on the human realm.”
“That’s bullshit,” Maki’s frown deepens. “You’re the one who’s been causing all sorts of trouble in this city and now they want me to take care of your mess.”
“But you did it without a second thought,” the ghost shrugs and gives Maki a knowing look. “Don’t tell me about your troubles like you didn’t choose this.”
Maki bites down roughly on her tongue until she can taste a drop of iron on her tastebuds, and she sucks the small wound and ignores the slight sting that continues after.
“Are we still talking about your bullshit lie?” Maki lifts an eyebrow and stares coldly at the ghost.
“Maybe,” she then smiles. A moment later, she loosens up and her smile dips a notch until her face is something that looks genuine and something Maki actually recognizes.
“I can’t bring light, that’s the truth,” the ghost glances around the area, and a sad, familiar glint takes over her eyes. Maki feels a familiar, fuzzy warmth in her chest like a cotton ball at the sight. “But I can improve your vision for a short period.”
“That works for me,” Maki glances at her phone’s flashlight and mutters something about how ineffective it is, then spares another glimpse at the ghost that moves in front of her and catches the downtrodden face, but doesn’t say anything. “Do your thing.”
The ghost furrows an eyebrow and narrows her eyes. “Do my thing?” She repeats incredulously and with attitude. “This isn’t one of those things that I can simply perform an incantation and it falls into your lap. I need resources, Maki.”
“What, like herbs? Chicken feet?”
“Herbs, among other things, yes,” the ghost sighs and rubs her eyebrow with her middle finger in exasperation. “And I need an eyelash.”
Maki blinks once, twice, then her face twists into a confused frown. “From me?”
“No, from Yuta all the way back in Tokyo. Yes, you, Maki!”
“Alright, alright,” Maki huffs in annoyance and fixes her stance. “What kind of herbs do you need?”
“Nothing you can get from the store,” the ghost walks ahead of Maki and crouches down at the greenery sticking out here and there. “It’s gotta come straight from the soil. You gotta look for them yourself.”
“Me?” Maki scoffs. “This is a we thing, like everything else has been.”
“How is this a team effort?”
“You know what herbs you need. You know where to find these herbs. Then you can have me fetch them, but I’m not doing it entirely on my own.”
The ghost sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes, then she stands up straight and walks back towards Maki. “I need mugwort, for starters, because that’s probably the easiest to find,” she starts. “It’s for stuff like psychic prowess. And althea root. Now that’s not gonna be so easy.”
“Well, that’s great,” Maki flashes the ghost a sarcastic smile before she lets out a sharp sigh. “Would it be easier to just wait until morning?”
“If you don’t feel like trudging out into the forest at this daunting hour, then yes.”
Maki sighs again, this time out of exasperation. She feels that this place quickly drains her energy despite only having been here for twenty minutes or so. Her flashlight is useless, she can’t gain any enhanced eyesight on an easy bargain, and her ghost friend is only semi-cooperative. The mission barely just started and Maki’s already having a hard time. She wonders if Yuta would have a better time on this mission than she currently is.
She thanks her lucky stars she brought money with her for hospitality reasons. She doesn’t want to have to spend her first night out in the area until the sun comes up when who knows what is waiting for her to take the wrong step and take the chance to lunge at her.
The ghost looks around the area— empty terrain that looks like something that was once an unconventional graveyard underneath a highway bridge. Several yards away, next to one of the pillars supporting the highway bridge, is a small stone dug into the ground with moss and dirt and other grimy things covering it here and there. Engraved in it, like the words were carved with a knife done by amateur handiwork, is the phrase “beloved witch” on the face of the stone. Next to it is a perpetually dead flower that not even the wind has blown away since it was first placed there.
There’s an air of profound glumness that surrounds the stone. The air is also eerie and strange, and all things taboo. It’s filled by something dark and perilous, like it’s waiting like a snake in the bushes. It makes the ghost sad, almost like a weeping lady, until her thoughts dissipate like smoke being waved away when Maki turns on her heel and starts for the opposite direction.
“Are you going to find hospitality?” The ghost asks once she catches up to Maki, walking beside her with her hands behind her back. Maki doesn’t spare her even a side glance.
“I am,” she answers coldly, like she’s remembered something bitter on her tongue. “There can’t be a hotel very far from here.”
“Sukeyori didn’t appoint one to you?” The ghost inquires, lifting a confused eyebrow. “That’s strange, normally we’ve already been given assigned places to stay during long-term missions.”
“That expires when you graduate from the technical college,” Maki murmurs morosely, knowing she’s only explaining it because the ghost’s past human body never even finished high school. “We’re adults now. It’s not the same as it was when we were kids. We have responsibilities now.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence between Maki and the ghost. For a minute, they both look like ghosts wandering around through the city, lost with nothing but each other to guide them.
But uncomfortable was always their thing. Awkward silences, strange gestures like beating the other in a spar or waiting for water to heat up in a kettle and standing next to each other while trying not to disturb the slight tip in the balance between them, Maki pretending not to notice the way ‘she’ used to only ever leave a tiny flower on the small plates next to her cup of tea and never leave any flowers for any of ‘her’ other friends, ‘her’ confiding in Maki about ‘her’ troubles and never anyone else and Maki letting ‘her’ tell her because it was the only way for her to actually see ‘her’.
A frivolous thought is one that brings Maki back to reality. She thinks about what kind of tea she wants in the morning when she wakes up (if she gets any sleep, that is), and wonders if the ghost would annoy her about it if she got it from some chic coffee and tea shop that all the trendy people on the internet love to go to just to get matcha (which Maki will certainly not be getting) and take pictures with them without ever actually finishing the cup. She wonders if the ghost would yap in her ear about how because it “comes from an urban business in the middle of the city”so it “doesn’t taste good and natural” all because the ghost herself used to prefer her tea bags from out in the country where all the witches she knew ground the tea leaves themselves.
It’s a dumb thing to think about. Maki knows she shouldn’t give a shit what the ghost thinks about the kind of tea she drinks or where she gets it from. She dwells on it anyway, because she knows very well that tea was (and still is) an important thing to the ghost, and what’s important to her is important to Maki all the same. If she can hold onto it and use it as a tool to feel any portion of an inch closer to the relief of having her old life back like that of stepping inside an air conditioned room after a hot day, it is imperative.
The hotel she finds (after an hour-long walk, of which she spent a small chunk of it sightseeing and holding her phone to her ear while she talked to the ghost to not make it seem like she isn’t schizophrenic) isn’t bad. It’s not crazy expensive despite being a whole block down from the literal heart of the city where everyone flocks to to see the boring Christmas lights with the warm, rich-people-white hue hanging around the trees and tied around the streetlight poles and the occasional few orb decorations that hang from the tree branches (as if the city doesn’t already have enough lighting). The walls of the hotel are a lazy cream color with a dark brown lining the interior where the walls meet the floor and the ceiling. There’s a young girl sitting behind the front desk and looks much too tired for her ripe age of what Maki assumes is either twenty or twenty one.
Maki checks in. Despite the convenience it would provide for the ghost if she ordered a double, she asks for a single, and the time lapse between her getting the keycard and her flopping onto the bed is a blur.
The ghost complains in the corner of the room. “And where am I to lay?” She eyes the bed of which Maki is resting flat on her back with her arms spread out. “Do you expect me to sit in this corner and wallow?”
“I expect you to leave me alone,” Maki answers gruffly, and turns her head to the corner of the room. “I’ve had enough of you for one night.”
“You cease to convince me,” the ghost fires back like it’s a joke she’s been holding in for a while, and she chuckles at the sound of it. “Much less yourself.”
“I think your empathic abilities are getting rusty. Maybe it’s from your time in the afterlife?”
The ghost laughs again and Maki looks away from her mockery. “You’re funny, Maki.”
“Thank you, but I’m not trying to be.”
“And your poker face has weakened as well,” the ghost ignores her and continues with a coy smile, then she leans against the cream painted wall on her right shoulder. “So I guess the standards are lowered for the both of us, making it easier for me to read you regardless.”
Maki frowns– it looks more like a grimace. “Isn’t this, like, an invasion of privacy?”
“In theory, yes,” the ghost starts with the inflection of a student feebly answering a question in class. “But you don’t fool me, Maki, I know you like having my spirit around.”
Maki feels a bittersweet thorn poke out in the tissue of her heart. She chews her lip because she can’t reach in her chest and pluck the thorn out to be rid of her sentiment and her fingers impatiently tap the firm comforter beneath her. Pricking her thumb on an actual rose thorn feels better than this, because she can retaliate, and act like the crumpled petals fix the drop of blood it cost her, but she’s yet to find a real rose.
She ignores the thorn that starts as one and will eventually become a vineyard in her chest come dawn. Soldiering through the sting is what she’s always done–except now she pretends she can use it to grow a defense against it when she knows that one thorn is her weakness.
“You keep telling yourself that,” Maki murmurs as she gets up and takes her bag from the edge of the bed. She starts for the bathroom. “I’m sure your ghost buddies in the afterlife will hype you up with that delusion.”
She leaves the ghost alone, and they don’t say another word to each other the whole night. The stars are left long and restless, but they wish nonetheless and leave the knight and her ghost to their devices.
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note: first chapter woohoo ! reminder that anyone coming to push their yutamaki agenda onto me will get blocked cuz i don’t have time for y’alls bs 🫶
