three.
how lemon skinned of you.

▬▬

The izayaki is on the actual shitty part of the city. Worn down houses and angry people make the best company, and that's what you're here for.

Also the liquor is illegal moonshine. It's strong enough to make you giggly. Which is.. cute. You love humans! Truly! The way they poison themselves for the high! You want that too, your sister kissing your forehead and then nothing－would that not be sweet? You wonder a tad too deeply.

There is nothing ever, and then everything at all, a god made man sits by the remains of a healing wound.   

"Yorumiya! You sly dog!" Gojō grins from his spot at the barstool. Ieiri is sitting next to him, lit cigarettes in one hand and a shot of whiskey in the other. "Trying to kill off the competition, aye?"

"No, that'd be too obvious－" you roll your eyes. "－Kiomi-chan."

"Yoruya-tan." The bartender greets. "What's for today? Nē?"

"The house special!" You slip into one of your real grins, the ones that make the light buzz louder. "And one for Ieiri-san and Gojō-san, too."

"First timers." They whisper.

"I think." You shrug.

"Nē~ you're planning something, Yoruya- sensei."

"You're a sensei?" Kiomi hisses. "What the fuck, the hell drugs did you sell to afford university－fuckin'ell." They grumble, prepping the drinks. Kiomi sets them down on the table and sighs. "Three house specials."

You're looking up! Things are looking up!

You drink your moonshine and it goes down roughly, burns and aches horribly. Gojō starts trying to hack up a lung and Ieiri makes a surprised hum before downing the rest. You respect that. You do keep grinning, edging on something downright divine, something to insight insanity if given enough time.

"Gojō-san, would you ever think about destroying the system?" You whisper. Your brain is molding around the edges fuzzy logic encapsulated your throat. How pitiful of you! "It'd be kind of funny, right?" You say, "Destroying the thing that gave you power, nē－what was that one legend?"

"The two brothers, right?" Ieiri murmurs into her drink. "Destroy everything, right?"

"I think so." You say in turn.

The izayaki is loud and boisterous! You hum to the backdrop, whisper a thought, a prayer, how fun. Open your eyes to the moonlight and sip on the moonshine, it could slit this throat if you wanted it to; peel you papers like an orange or perhaps  a lemon, leave your insides outsides and  tenderize your flesh to something holy! You could swallow the sky! Liquor falls in love with your blood and their offspring is your melted brain, wax candles dripping red ink from your mouth, you're truly sick in the head! 

You're seperate but the same! An ancient temple of salt and stars; sand between your teeth like an ocean－bleeding gold and purple divinity. Crippled lungs sun-stained by your own poison. You made your bed from the corpse you'll never have.

Immortality is boring; you've heard what that kind of forever can do to someone.

Plasma like silver infinite dripping from the bottom of a sudden chasm, something unholy spilling cyanide into the earth, this is a massacre of humanity, and you are well prepared to sit back and watch it burn. You're made of that stuff. Black tongue curved over the break in a glass of moonshine.

You are god!

How tragic to be so much more! The world in your hands, dissolved on its own (cracked your skull on the pavement to come back, you are worse than something dead merely twice over), the beach in your fingernails. Cosmos in your eyes. Salt water bleeds blue and you keep breaking popsicle structures until they fix themselves.

You are a bottom feeder where your soul was made, here you are more, how dreadful! The change makes you giddy!

Sour apples between your teeth, apricot seeds and the tail end of autumn, this world has so much to offer! How cruel! You are timeless but the hourglass with crack and your lungs will spill out, gorgeous!

"I wonder what he was thinking," you whisper, more to yourself than anyone else. "destroy everything, how cruel."

Ieiri shrugs in response, mutters out her own, "I think it's only fair."

"Why?" You ask in response. "Is it not cruel to kill even those who haven't wronged you? Isn't that cruelty at its basis?"

"They were shown only cruelty so they reciprocated only cruelty." She says, you smile, then.

How fascinating!

"While I'd love to debate you on this," You twist your mouth into something real, not that facsimile of human you have yet to break through on, you have attained the power you were born to, and it rests on the space where your teeth sit, sharp, "I have to go home and take a shower."

"Nē, is Yoruya-chan making excuses now?" 

"No, we can literally talk about this tomorrow, it's just one fifty in the morning and people will be trying to commit murder without the committing, tomorrow."

"How hopeful, to think you'll survive the night, Yoruya-cha~n."

"Well, of course." You tilt your head, spread your mortality into a fine silk, a film over the eyes, "What is a monster to a god, in the end?"

He laughs, loud and hysterical, "You think a prayer'll save you? My, you're so interesting."

He tilts his glasses down, to stare you directly in the eye and you don't even blink, just grinning wider. "I truly love you humans. Really, with all my soul." You say, voice edging on that thing you keep tucked tight, toying with the dark in your hands, "So arrogant."

You are an impossibility, commonplace, the way gravity hold these people so they don't collapse in on themselves; maybe if it did they'd be more like you, star-burned and burning, sun ache of forever making their mouths itch. What is to be human if not to live without an eternity? Their idealism is something that stays golden forever but —

You killed yourself and you are god, only to come back anew, twice dead, thrice damned, once blessed. You are the sun, the entire galaxy and more—the fracture of a black hole, a pull so strong you end up destroying the light around you. How pitiful of you! To feel sorry about a mess you wanted to make; how human! You really are just another person now, divinity huddles against your pupils, murky. Your morality is slippery because it's just mimicry of the people you admire and—

(Your sister kissed your forehead and you became a supernova! Brighter, so bright and then you were nothing at all, a touch of something acid spilling into your apricot mortality, something to shift with the seasons, you are made for the night, warm summer and brutal winter you don't ache because that would be pointless you are—)

You tend to love the things that remind you of the good parts of godhood.

The moon is high and bright above you, and you blink.

And another star explodes, pink, purple, blue, green, stardust. 

"Goodbye, yeah, see you tomorrow," you turn to Kiomi and switch your mouth to fit her tongue; "Bye bye, Kiomi, see you."

Wherever you leave, space dust is the only remains, it smells like jet fuel and nitrogen. 

_

(There is a shift in the air, you can smell it. There is a separation here:

There is everyone else, and then there is something wrong. 

Wouldn't everything be better if  everyone else died, if it was just us?

Evil boy, what a shame, the world collapse. You are golden! Spit fire from under hallowed bones and cripple the earth you stand on with a flick of your holy wrist. Cry eternity into this ground and bless us, o' holy one. Be forever and the beginning of nothing, the stars under the pressure of something too grand and so—

You are born of a wish for nothing at all.) 

_

The day swallows the night like it always does; you follow the motions at a sickening pace. You follow this sickening routine — teeth golden in your mouth. Okay, though, you follow the motions; sleep-lacked and designer eyebags stapled under your skin like that one anime character you remember seeing, vaguely, floating around. You don't pay much attention to common trends but it was everywhere, for a second. 

You watched the world in war between each other, you wanted to laugh, you always do. But you think you might have gotten a little too fond of the idiosyncrasies of this world. It's a pretty little thing that worms into your brain.

How fun!

You giggle a little at the train, rushing in, a murder vehicle. It's kind of funny. A little. Which is why you laugh, a little. It doesn't turn downright hysterical because you don't want it to.

Time wastes on.

"Hello," you say. "Ieiri-san."

She groans. "Shut up." She's wearing a cap and a lab coat; the lights are all turned off. People get hangovers, you remember. "How the hell are you even functional? That shit sniper-shot me－even Satoru's down."

"Even Gojō-san?" You hum. Then lie, "I drank a liter of water when I got home. And took four advils."

"You're a doctor," she whispers. "that's not recommended, fuck up your liver."

"Nē－what do I care? Didn't Gojō-san say that I shouldn't count on tomorrow?"

She looks you up and down, "Yeah, I guess."

"So," you drum your index fingers against the table, she hisses at you. "right, yeah, uh hold on."

You meander through the medical cabinet and you do, in fact, find some pain relief, aspirin bottles and the stronger stuff, but she needs to stay awake; you put a little extra something  behind it. Push the product to the limit.

You get her a cup of water too, just in case. 

She makes a grateful sound and chucks it down. Then, she blinks, "What the fuck is in this?"

"It's aspirin, with a touch of reverse cursed energy."

"What?"

"Hmm, you know how you can imbue weapons with cursed energy?" You ask, she nods, "I basically amplified the aspirin."

"Ahh," She slams one fist on her open palm, "like a corpse."

"Like a corpse." You nod. 

"Anyway, don't give that to Satoru and also—" she says, holding her breath for a second. "—thanks."

"No problem." You grin. "I'm a doctor, right?"

You're more, more, more, but this is enough, you never needed forever, only the time between, the sand in someone's hand, not the hand itself; you wanted to be the night, brilliant and fleeting, not the sky in full bloom, golden red and purple-pink, sunsets and chlorophyll and everything made real. You wanted to be Autumn. That would be enough, and enough would be good but, but, but, you are not made for luxuries such as those. 

That's why you're here, you suppose, so you could pretend. 

It's enough.

Maybe, you're human, that should be good, you're good people. You are, you'll delude yourself into mortality, carve your skin so the rot can fester, like any normal person ought to. 

You take a breath. You let your star-burnt would settle into sand and nothing and anything at all. You open your eyes and smile something eldritch, as young men should smile. 

This is a start. This is something. This is your forever, and all you need is to live it. This is okay. This is enough and— this is enough. 

"I guess." She says.

"Gaaa— you're really saying I'm not a doctor, Ieiri-san?" You put your hand over your heart, beating, beating, beating, wonderful and alive under these hands you carved yourself, "How could you?"

"Nē— you'll live Yorumiya-san."

"I don't know, Ieiri-san, I might just die. Then what?" You say, as pitiful as you can.

"It won't make you special," she raises an eyebrow, "just another casualty. A shame about being the only other with a reverse curse technique willing to be a doctor for these asshole shaman, but—what happens happens."

"C'est la vie." You reply. As is life. 

"You multilingual brat." She hisses. "How many languages do you even know?"

"All of them." You grin. "Also I'm older than you—"

"By four months, I saw your record, I'm your senpai."

"Of course, Ieiri-senpai."

"Nē— don't call me that." She says, dumbfounded, "I graduated ages ago."

You laugh! Time twists around you, "Of course Ieiri-san."

"Keep it that way." She gets up and grabs your sleeve to drag you to the viewing room. "Yoruya-san."

"Kē, that's so disrespectful, Ieiri-san, I'm your equal! I working in the actual medical field, without the reverse curse technique to save me." You bemoan. "How dreadful."

"You're dreadful." She says. "We're here."

"So we are!" You say, delighted. "What are these exchanges like? Nē?"

"Right, newbie's." She murmurs, there's nobody in the room except Utahime and . "Utahime, can you explain to Yoruya-chan here what the exchange means?"

"Oh, yeah, I never really got itno it, right—ah!" She waves her hands. 

"Basically the your school and our school fight." Gojō says, plopping into existence out of nowhere, his smile is a little too bright for the fact you know he's nursing a killer hangover. "My students will win, though."

"You don't even teach them anything," Ieiri says. "you just laugh when they fail and take them on missions to save them when they fuck up. Or I have to deal with it."

You laugh. Long and hard, "The kids here have no self-preservation, I swear that they're all going to collapse on the field, but they won't go down without a fight."

"I beg to differ!" Gojō says, snakily. "I—"

"So beg." You cut in. 

"What?" He says, blankly.

"Did I stutter?" You ask, genuinely. "Hey, Utahime, did I stutter?"

"Nope." She says.

"Is he," you whisper the next part, "special?"

"Of course I am!" He shouts, "I'm the strong—hey!"

You, Utahime, and Ieiri laugh at his despair.

"I'm being bullied!" He bemoans. "Yaga, they're bullying me!"

"You're on time." Yaga says, walking  through the door with your boss. "Congratulations, Satoru."

You laugh louder. "Congratulations, Gojō-san, you really put the special in special-grade."

"Quiet." Comes in keigō. It's sharp and loud, cutting through the walls. Your boss waddles in, cane in hand, your smile becomes something more underwater, a twinkle, you blink. (One day there won't be enough stars). "Yorumiya, Ieiri, keep yourself to the side in case someone is out of order."

You nod, sharp, and walk toward the door, to the infirmary again; you are always— forever, nothing at all. You bore your soul too loose, an accident, you remedy it by hollowing your ribcage, sea salt runs on the cracks between your knuckles.

You take a clementine from the little basket of complimentary fruit that are more a decoration than anything, you peal the sides. You hum, some offshore tune your sister carved into your supernova remains as you became again, sun slipped into your eyes, into your soul. You are nothing if not the weakest elephant among the strongest ants. A hierarchy made of bones long buried and skeletons put in closets long rotten. 

You and Ieiri make it to a side room, you break  the clementine in half and offer it. 

"No thanks." She says. 

You pop a piece in your mouth and chew. It's sweet, it's the most fruitful, performing as best it can in the hand of something better. You throw the soft rind away and ignore the peel left under your fingernails.

This is what it means to be a person. 

You wish you could have always had it.

_

As it happens, things  go sour. You end up patching up one of the second year boys arms, because he decided to fuck shit up. You hum as he whines at you disinfect his bicep and put the anti-inflammatory cream around and on the wounds before bandaging it. You don't really see why they need to be healed so quick, you had to remake yourself when you messed up, they should too, it'd be a learning experience. 

Or maybe they're too invulnerable to know these things.

(What should happen.. if you stopped being so benevolent? We're they this suicidal before you came in? How pitiful, how tragic.)

"Do better." You say, "If this happened on the real field you'd die."

He puts his head down in shame, good, "Yes, Yorumiya-sensei."

"Hmm, good." You pull out a lollipop. "Get your sugar high and get out of here. Practice your card tricks, your terrible company."

When he leaves, Ieiri claps. Slow and mocking. 

"How thoughtful. You even remembered his favorite flavor."

You hum, grin splitting your face. "What kind of doctor would I be if I didn't?"

"A normal one, I don't do that."

"A little birdie told me you also drink on the clock." You hum. She glares at you, something irking on her face, so you add on, "And still preform well, how impressive."

She calms down a bit.

"Fuck off, you're not all straight and narrow either." She rolls her eyes. "I don't know how the fuck you hold your liquor that well, but you out drank me."

"I'm just better." You wink. "We didn't have the cheap shit where I'm from."

(You got drunk on the moons' shine! Sipping on the remains of dead stars, liquid divinity slipping into the ichor of your veins; the sky melting your brain into pure black, ink stained glass as a cup to drink human prayer.)

"You're from the countryside, right?"

"Yeah."

"Farming or village?"

"Farming." You hum. "Big family, so many kids I could never count them all."

"You're.. the youngest?"

"Third to youngest." You say. "Almost fourth, but last sister died of hay fever."

She died of half-hearted prayer and a bloodless altar, the birth of a new god is nothing special, something made of human wonder, but you are more than she will ever have been, this is how your hierarchy works, the ones born first are the strongest, always. 

How tragic to never have any strength at all!

You shed your divinity like snakeskin, though, and now you are nothing but alive!

"Sorry." She says.

"You didn't kill her," you say. "why apologize?"

"I feel bad."

"That's silly." You say. "She barely had the opportunity to be alive, don't mourn something that never lived. Don't waste your life on those no longer living, the memory of the dead are there to strengthen, if you get dragged down, what use are you alive?"

"I guess."