𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗮 | 𝗷𝘂𝗷𝘂𝘁𝘀𝘂 𝗸𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗻

𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀

"...was that a joke?" You wave between him and Shoko. "Is this supposed to be a prank, or...?" Neither of them picks up where you've trailed off.

"Is this one of your friends?" He squints at Shoko. "No, a patient. Did I guess right?"

You pinch yourself. (You pinch yourself again, then a third time.) (You pinch yourself until you can feel the bruise beginning to form under your worried skin.) This was what Shoko had warned you about. That's why she's doing anything except make eye contact. Go on, you want to say, answer the question, but you don't.

"And you want a favor from yours truly," he continues, wagging a finger in your direction, "because she's told you all about how amazingly cool I am, which I am." He furrows his brow. "I just can't think of what I could do for you."

You should be compassionate, you remind yourself. If you were an all-powerful jujutsu sorcerer being approached by some no-jujutsu nobody, you'd be suspicious too. (The bitter taste coating your mouth trickles down into the pit of your stomach, where it festers and burns. How could he look at you like that—like you were nothing—after he'd chased you down and trapped you into his life?)

"We should be honest," Shoko starts, then stops.

"Ohhh-kay," he draws out. "About what?"

"About your curse." To his credit, he plays dumb like he was born for the role. (He even cocks his head to the side, with a confused tilt that's so perfectly angled it has to be practiced.) (You're being cruel now.) "And all of the conditions surrounding it. We've discussed how it functioned as a parasite, leeching off of your strength and energy to grow itself. But unlike most parasites, you didn't grow sickly or weak. Actually, those were the last symptoms we noticed."

"Isn't this kind of thing usually private, Doc?" He jerks his head in your direction; the burning in your stomach diffuses down into your gut.

"The first, and most important symptom we noticed, was you," she says, with the cold precision of a surgeon cutting you from your victim.

"Are you punishing me?"

"This isn't your fault," she says. (Her unflinching tone makes that anything but comforting.) "Most parasites are just that—they exist to help themselves at the expense of their host, slowly killing them until they have nothing left to offer—but they are not invincible. You can either take an anti-parasitic, or wait for nature to kill them before they kill you. In this case though, the parasite became a part of you. An essential part of you. Had they died, they would have taken you with them."

(You pinch yourself again.)

"And that's the parasite."

"It's not that simple."

"You explained it crystal clear Doc."

"A human being is not a parasite by nature. The curse had to create this parasitic relationship, and it had to keep you close enough to its vessel of choice to funnel your energy into."