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Shoko still held his lighter in her hand as she put out the cigarette beneath her foot. She turned it in her hand and lit another. She should probably give up smoking. He had left shortly after she had called Satoru. They probably met by now. She was still leaning against the railing of the staircases leading to the subway. She leaned her head back as she puffed out rings of smoke. He had always been a little better at it than she was. A sigh escaped her at the thought. He really had to go and make things complicated. Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
Satoru: 7-11 Shinjuku?
She typed a quick reply and put it back to head down the stairs toward the subway.
Satoru was standing outside. In his hands he held two slushies. Wordlessly, he handed her the purple one.
“Did you talk to him?” She took an obnoxiously loud sip on purpose.
“Yeah.” He took an equally loud sip in response. She didn’t miss the way he avoided her eyes.
“Didn’t go well, huh?”
He didn’t say anything in reply. She knew the answer anyway. They drank in silence. Once they were finished she offered him a cigarette. He declined with a shake of his head.
“He wants to kill all non-sorcerers.” His gaze was still fixed on something in front of him.
“He told you that too, hm?”
Finally, he looked at her. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
She sighed. He had always cared too much for his own good. Not that she could blame him. She knew how important Suguru had been to him. “I guess, but I can’t really blame him. I don’t think killing them all is the solution to his problem or even possible to achieve but I don’t think that matters to him right now.”
“We should have noticed something was off. He’s
been different lately.”
She smiled a little. “Even if we could have, it’s no use beating yourself up over it now. What’s done is done and he’s made his choices. That’s not your responsibility.”
He seemed to ponder that. She took another drag of her cigarette and puffed the smoke right in his face. He looked at her.
“You know, I hate it when you’re right.”
She grinned at him. “You should have gotten used to it by now.”
“I’m entering med school next year.” She crossed her legs and rested them on the chair next to her. They were sitting in their empty class room. The sun was still at its peak. It was the first time in a while Satoru wasn’t out for some mission. As the only two third-years left, Shoko ended up alone more often than not. She knew how valuable her cursed technique was and how essential she was to her fellow sorcerers because of it. So she stayed behind and waited for them to run back to her for help. Satoru looked over at her from the desk next to her where he had been pointlessly scrolling through his phone.
“Do your parents still think you’re getting your doctors right now?”
“Obviously. I’m not subjecting myself to do that for fun.”
When she had first developed her cursed technique her parents, both non-sorcerers, didn’t really understand what was happening. They were ridiculously religious and started believing she had been granted a gift from the gods. They called her a healer and boasted to all their friends. Soon there were people coming to her almost every day asking her to heal them.
The last time she did, a man had come to her with his leg ripped open so the bones were visible beneath his flesh. She didn’t flinch at the injury, had become numb to seeing blood, flesh and bones. To her dismay his bone had also taken damage. Using reverse cursed technique on disfigured bones was infinitely more complicated than simple muscle tissue and skin. And for an elementary school child without any sort of training it was close to impossible to do. She had closed the wound and he had stood up only to shout in pain. He had leaned on the fence to their garden then, with his eyes shout closed. She had simply watched him.
“Oh, you little demon child! Didn’t you say you could heal?”
“I can.” She had replied quietly, her voice stoic. The man had groaned again. She had heard her parents come out from where they had watched them through the kitchen window. They had always thought she didn’t notice.
“Hello, good sir. What is going on here?” Her mother had smiled her warmest, most welcoming smile, the one she always put on when someone in need of healing came along.
“Your child is no healer! She’s a demon, deceiving us regular folk! You better keep her far away from us all! Lest she brings misfortune to us all!”
The man had continued shouting profanities at her. He had only left once her father threatened to call the police. Afterwards they hadn’t spoken of the incident any further.
They had endured a week of hateful glares and words from their friends and neighbors. Shoko was twelve when they moved to a suburb of Tokyo. When she had been scooped up by a jujutsu sorcerer and learned what the healing she had left behind in her childhood actually were, she told her parents what they wanted to hear.
“I’m going to enter a special program to get my doctor in medicine. I know I can’t heal people but I still want to help them. I’ll move to Tokyo next month.”
They had smiled and let her go.
“But you should be in your third year of med school now, right?” Satoru had went back to scrolling.
“That leaves me three years to get my doctor’s.” Minus the year she was going to spend in college.
He scoffed. “That’s impossible.”
“Oh you’ll see. I’m smarter than I look.” She grinned at him.
“Yeah, when it comes to cheating!”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking about staying here. As a teacher.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You? As a teacher? I’ll be praying for those kids then.”
“Hey! Don’t forget I’m already raising two children and it’s going great!”
“Oh yeah? Want me to ask them about that?”
He only mumbled some insult in response. She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling.
“I think Yaga would like to have you here as a teacher.”
He didn’t reply.
Shoko stood on her balcony, lighter in hand, no cigarette in sight. She turned it on and off repeatedly, the clicking sound calming her nerves in some small way. Quitting had always sounded so simple. She put the lighter in her pocket and went back inside. Just as she sat down to continue studying for her finals, the doorbell rang. Only very few people knew her address and so she opened the door to Satoru. He held a coffee in each hand. A second glance revealed Megumi and Tsumiki behind him.
“Hey there. What brings you here?” She scanned across them with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
“We were in the area so we thought why not say hi to the best aunt!” Satoru tried his best to charm her with a big smile. The children’s backpacks and the time exposed his lie. She didn’t call him out on it. Instead she turned back around to head to the living room. They followed behind her.
“If you want anything you know where everything is.” She told Megumi and Tsumiki. “But I assume you’ll have some homework to do, so feel free to use my desk.” They nodded and went off towards her bedroom.
Satoru sat down at her dining table, one round table with four chairs surrounding it. Wordlessly she got an orange from the kitchen and sat down next to him. He slid one coffee over to her as he started drinking his. She peeled the orange and handed him a piece. He set down his coffee and took it. They both had their fair share of slices. Satoru got up to throw their coffee cups in the trash as Shoko took the plate back to the kitchen. The last remaining slice stayed untouched. The three of them had always shared.
“How are they?” Shoko sat back down and Satoru did the same.
“Megumi keeps getting in trouble for fighting but at least he always wins.”
He grinned. Shoko scoffed.
“How is med school? Getting better at cheating?”
“I have actually, thanks for asking.”
The washing machine started beeping from the bathroom.
“Why are you here?” Shoko observed her nails and bit down on her thumbnail. Serious conversations were easier without eye contact, they both agreed on that much.
“Do I need a reason to visit?”
Satoru laughed but it was shallow. Shoko said nothing.
He looked down on the table, tracing the marks left on it with his finger. The apartment was dead silent. “Do you think about him sometimes?”
Shoko clutched the lighter in her pocket. “Of course.”
Behind them in the kitchen Megumi took the last orange slice off the plate.