The Seven Wonders Of Inumaki Toge

No. 7 "Stop"

Rumor has it that Inumaki Toge lives in his own world. A world different from the one everyone else lives in. Rumor has it that he can see spirits, cursed ones, and that he has the ability to fight him.
But... rumor also has it that Inumaki Toge is absolutely crazy.

~~~~~

Emptiness.

They had Toge take pills, now all he felt was emptiness. The emptiness of not having control over his own thoughts. The emptiness of sometimes not even having any thoughts at all. The emptiness of his hospital room, the one where no one other than his mom ever visisted him.

He felt empty.

He felt empty as he sat across the desk, facing Ieiri.

She's waiting for an answer to the question that's been hanging between them for hours. She picks it back up every single day, asking Toge to talk about himself. About what happened to him.

Even if he wanted to tell her, he can't; he's got cursed speech, if that's really true. He's starting to doubt it though. He doesn't know why, it's just that after taking these pills Ieiri handed him, Toge has been feeling like his thoughts are off somehow. Even though this is how he lived for so long; he is a Jujutsu sorserer. He fights cursed spirits. Right?

"Please, Inumaki." Ieiri's calm voice pulls him out of his wirlwind of thoughts.

He looks up. He's not sure what to tell her when she asks it again.

"Can you try explaining to me how you are feeling right now?" she asks him.

But he cannot answer the questions she begs him to answer to.

But how could it be that he couldn't answer her because of his cursed speech? Why doesn't it make sense at all, while previously it did? His powers, his life, didn't make any sense so suddenly.

He just wants to go home, that's all. He just wants his life to go back to normal as soon as possible.

"Inumaki, I really need you to speak," she begs him once again.

He looks away. His eyes telling her he can't; she should just give up on him, let him go.

"I know—" She gives him a pitying glance, as if he just told her that he just wants to be left alone; he didn't, she can just tell, or so it seems. "—I know you want to go home. But I can't let you go until you tell me what's going on with you. After that, I'll let you go; it's up to you whether you decide to listen to me or not."

Toge hates sentences like this. He hates Ieiri for putting them like the blame is on himself; he didn't put himself in this psych ward, though. He didn't even have a proper choice on the matter. So why is he to blame? Why is it his life being turned upside down all because his mom has decided it should?

It's unfair.

"Bonito flakes," he tells her, shaking his head at the offer of letting him go home once he speaks; the offer, firstly, doesn't make sense, since she'll want to diagnose him like all the psychologists have been wanting to do all this time. And he doesn't want the offer; he just wants to go home. Now.

"Bonito flakes, huh?" Ieiri says, almost as if she understands what it means. "You use that often; could you explain to me what it means?" She doesn't understand, though.

He shakes his head once more.

"Alright," Ieiri mutters. It's followed by her hand swiftly writing something down onto the paper.

Toge watches her as she takes a stack of cards out of her desk. She goes through them, sorting out a certain amount of cards; about five of them. Then she spreads them out on the table's surface.