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The world is quiet.
The last thing Maki remembers is flames licking her skin and smoke filling her lungs, shouts and crashes, her glasses ripped from her face but none of the horrors disappearing from view.
The world is quiet now, and ordinary people can only see curses when they’ve reached the end of the line, which means this world must be whatever comes after. Floating endlessly, Maki can scarcely even locate her limbs. The world is dark, but not unbearably so.
The silence rings in Maki’s ears as they search for something—anything—to grasp onto. Anything that might suggest she isn’t alone, anything that might suggest this place is not entirely empty. The taste of smoke lingers in her throat and her skin stings where the fire made contact, but Maki cannot locate anything outside of her own body.
If this is the afterlife, it’s lonelier than she’d expected.
She tries to open her mouth, to call out, but her throat closes in on itself and all that comes out is a strangled cough. The sound echoes in her ears, her mind replaying and distorting it in lieu of anything new to take in, until—
“Maki?”
(It sounds like Mai.)
Yes? Maki tries to respond. Yes, I’m here. Where are you?
She hopes Mai isn’t here with her, hopes Mai is still safe at school, hopes she holds onto the friends she has found and never glances backwards at the Zen’in Clan. She hopes Mai learns to stand up for herself and tell them no. She hopes Mai figures out how to be happy on her own, since Maki is out of time to fix everything for her.
Out of time…
There was so much more Maki wanted to do. There were so many things she never got to say. If only—
“Idiot.” (Grumbled under her breath, just like when they were kids.) “Why’d you have to go and…”
The thread slips from Maki’s grasp, and the voice fades out. Mai’s name bubbles up in her throat, sits heavy on her tongue, but her lips will not part and she doesn’t know if it would do any good anyways. Is this all the afterlife is? Lying in the dark, hearing the whispers of those you loved?
Will Maki spend eternity with only her sister’s voice to keep her company?
“You were always so stubborn.”
It’s hardly audible, but Maki reaches out towards it. Keep talking. Let me follow you home.
When they were kids, Maki would take Mai’s hand and lead her past the cursed spirits she could not see, hailed as brave when really, she was just stupid. Mai would close her eyes and follow Maki blindly, setting her life in Maki’s hands.
Now, Maki needs that favor returned.
Keep talking. Give me your hand.
“She’ll be fine,” Mai’s voice spits out, louder now. Maki places her hand in Mai’s. “You’d love it if she died, but she won’t. Don’t be stupid.”
She follows Mai’s voice, out of the void and into a world far louder and far brighter than where she’d been stuck.
Light seeps into her vision and she splutters. The coughing racks her body and everything hurts. There are voices, but none of the words stick. There is a hand on her arm, and Mai is looking down over her.
Maki blinks, hard, but her vision still won’t focus. She can make out Mai’s mouth moving, but the only noise now is the rush of blood in her ears.
Save yourself, Maki tries to tell her.
And then the darkness pulls her back under.
— —
“Those on their deathbed often have one final burst of energy before they die,” Naoya says smugly. “She’ll be gone before dinner.”
Mai does not take her eyes from Maki’s face. That comment doesn’t deserve even a look over her shoulder. She exchanges the cloth lying over Maki’s forehead and begins rinsing out the old one.
“Bitch,” Naoya sneers.
Mai knows better than to bother with a response.
— —
Maki is not dead before dinner.
Mai sits with her through mealtime and sunset until she drifts to sleep seated on the floor with her back against the wall, still wearing her tattered school uniform.
— —
The world is quiet.
This world is the real one, though it’s just as dark as the void Maki had presumed was death. Her vision is still swimming and swirling and just opening her eyes proves to take more energy than she has to spare. She can make out the walls of her childhood bedroom, though they sway as if caught up in a windstorm. She sees Mai’s outline, slumped against the wall, her head lolled to one side. She hears footsteps, the creak of a door, and then a buzzing white noise presses in on her, overtaking all other sound.
She stares at Mai’s lifeless form until she can make out her sister’s breath, her shoulders rising and falling with each inhale and exhale.
Only then does she allow herself to slip back under.
— —
Maki flits between worlds, sinking in and out of consciousness. It could last years, or it could last only a few seconds; it’s hard to tell.
But no matter where Maki finds herself, Mai is beside her.
(This is how she knows none of it is real.)
— —
Mai holds one cup of tea in her hands, watching the steam from the second cup roll up into the air and dissipate. Maki lies lifeless and scarred and her tea will go cold before she wakes, but Mai requested two cups all the same. As if it will ease her loneliness. As if it will bring Maki back to her.
The door slides open, and Mai raises her cup to her lips, burning her tongue so she doesn’t have to speak. She’s run out of excuses for why she’s here, and there’s only so many times she can say, “I’m worried for my sister,” before someone bites back with, “We know you don’t care this much.”
“Mai,” her mother’s voice says softly.
Mai does not lift her gaze.
“This can’t be comfortable for you.”
Mai does not respond. She’s been seated on the floor so long she can’t feel the ache it’s causing; everything is numb.
Her mother sighs, as if she had expected this silent treatment. Mai isn’t sure how that’s possible—Mai herself hadn’t known she would ignore her mother until her mother was speaking and she realized she had no interest in offering a response. Why should she care for her mother any more than she cares for the rest of her family when her mother is no more trustworthy than they are?
“Mai,” her mother repeats, voice closer and more insistent this time.
Mai, never quite as good at disobeying as Maki, concedes and looks up.
Her mother holds folded fabric in her arms, white and purple, clothing Mai wore before she left for school. She hands it down, and Mai silently accepts it, digging her fingers into the soft cloth, It smells freshly washed, and there is—
There is too much fabric to clothe only one person.
Mai’s mother looks away, her gaze falling on the window with curtains pulled tightly shut. “She’s always been strong,” she comments. “She will be okay.”
(She does not say Maki’s name.)
Mai watches her mother watch the window as if she can see through it, as if the answers lie just beyond the curtain. She tricks herself into believing she can hear Maki’s breaths, sets the clothing on the floor next to her, and continues sipping her tea.
The world has changed, but this tension between Mai, Maki, and their mother is eternal.
“You don’t have to stay with her.”
“I do,” Mai’s voice is soft, but firm. “You know I do.”
No response comes, which Mai understands to be a concession. Her mother will not openly admit the danger Maki would be in if she were left alone, but she will not lie to Mai either. She always walks the line like this, loving only when it can be hidden, allowing their other family members to have their way, never able to change despite her unhappiness with the life she lives. Mai hates it.
She hates that she is exactly the same.
(But she is taking this stand, now, staying with Maki. She will not let her sister die.)
“Don’t stay here forever,” Mai’s mother instructs. For once, Mai cannot decipher the meaning hidden beneath her mother’s words, though she knows there must be something beneath the surface. There always is.
“I’ll do whatever I have to.”
(Mai is sure her own meaning is clear: I will no longer lay down and let our family walk over me. I have grown. I am stronger than when I was last here.)
Their mother’s gaze drops to Maki’s body, then sweeps back over to Mai. “Take care of yourself.”
The words settle heavy on Mai’s shoulders. Take care of yourself. Because no one else will, because I cannot, because Maki may not be able to anymore.
But this is what no one has ever understood: Mai and Maki are a singular entity. In order to take care of herself, Mai must also care for Maki, and vice versa. Maki spent years looking out for Mai, standing between her and their family, taking the punches and facing the punishments. The least Mai can do is repay the favor now, assuring Maki has even a chance at survival.
To take care of Maki is for Mai to take care of herself. This is what it means to be a twin.
“Thank you for the clothes,” Mai says simply. The farewell goes unspoken, but her mother hears it; she nods, once, then slips out of the room, silent as a ghost.
Mai raises her cup to her lips, staring at the folded clothing on the floor. Purple and white and a strip of blue sticking out from the bottom. Blue was always Maki’s color.
The tea is getting colder and the last rays of daylight leaking beneath the curtain have begun to dim. Maki’s cup remains untouched, and Mai does not look at her body. Once upon a time, it would have been akin to facing her own unconscious form. But now—
Mai sighs, dropping her head.
“Wake up,” she whispers, her voice a knife through the thick silence. “Maki, please.” Her throat aches with unshed tears, unsaid words, and unkept promises. “I don’t want to be alone.”
She won’t be alone, not really—she has friends now, and she doesn’t have to stay with her family. But without Maki, loneliness will run bone deep.
Without Maki, Mai cannot be complete.
(Between the two of them, Maki has always been the one who is able to stand on her own.)
— —
Don’t let go.
I won’t.
Promise?
The words cling to the back of Maki’s throat, coated in blood, I promise. Smoke sits heavy on Maki’s tongue; she knows, those words do not taste all that different from I love you. And yet—
Maki could not keep her promise. She had to leave in order to live, but now life sits in the palm of her hand like a butterfly with a broken wing, and it turns out, it never mattered. Either way, she would have found herself here.
Promise me that you won’t leave me behind.
Maki inhales sharply, and it burns.
Promise me—
“I promise,” Maki whispers, voice muffled by the roar of fire still echoing through her ears, “I promise, I promise, I promise, I…”
She squeezes her eyes shut, and they sting, still too dry to form tears.
“I promise, Mai. I promise.”
A hand finds its way into Maki’s, one Maki knows as well as her own because it used to be identical to hers. But Maki’s hands are now calloused and rough while Mai’s have stayed soft. Her fingernails are longer, but only slightly, and smoother. She used to paint them at night, after the sun went down, and stay up late waiting for them to dry so she didn’t get nail polish on her blankets or pillow. Maki never understood, but she stayed up with her anyways.
They would watch the stars twinkling through their bedroom window, cracked to air out the pungent scent of Mai’s nail polish. Maki would make up constellations and Mai would listen, hanging onto every word.
In some other world, maybe the two of them are still sitting next to the window in their bedroom, staring up at a cloudless night sky.
I promise, Maki tries to say, but it comes out as a cough, one after another, shaking her body and making it impossible to breathe. She wheezes, trying to force any air into her lungs that she can, but it’s Halloween night all over again and all she can taste is smoke and all she can feel is fire and all she knows is—
She can’t leave Mai behind.
Her eyes shoot open, and she finds herself sitting on a futon in her childhood bedroom, face-to-face with the only person she has ever lived for.
“Maki,” Mai breathes out.
It’s dark, and Maki’s eyes still aren’t working as well as they should, but Maki would know Mai without a single one of her senses left. She knows Mai has one hand entwined with hers and one on her shoulder. She knows Mai’s eyebrows are furrowed in concern, just like every time Maki got hurt when they were kids.
Another coughing fit overtakes Maki’s body and she falls forward into Mai’s arms. She hacks and splutters, trying to purge the smoke still sitting heavy in her chest. She coughs until her throat is raw, until tears have formed in her eyes, until her body gives out.
She feels herself go limp, and Mai holds her.
“Stay with me,” she pleads, and Maki tries to answer—tries to say she wants nothing more than to tell Mai everything she’s learned about real constellations and point out each one that appears in the autumn sky—but her voice won’t work and whatever keeps dragging her back into unconsciousness is too heavy to resist.
She won’t leave for long, though. She’ll be back. Mai won’t have to wait much longer.
I promise.
— —
Maki wrenches her eyelids open, pulling herself from the inky black abyss of unconsciousness, and everything is quiet. Mai is slumped against the wall and soft light pours in through the window, though Maki cannot tell if it’s sunrise or sunset.
She coughs, once. Her throat stings. Everything else is numb.
Mai lifts her head. “Maki?”
“Mai,” Maki responds. Her voice is hoarse, but it works. She clears her throat, ignoring the way it burns, and pushes herself up into a sitting position. Mai scrambles over to her and Maki notices, belatedly, that Mai is wearing the wrong clothes.
She’s wearing blue. That was always supposed to be Maki’s color.
“Are you—?” Mai stops abruptly. She starts to reach out towards Maki, then draws her hand back.
“I’m okay.” Maki doesn’t know it’s true until she says it, but she’s… She’s okay. She’s alive, somehow, despite everything, and Mai is with her. Nothing else matters.
Mai breathes out a sigh of relief that turns into a breathy, nearly hysteric, laugh. And then, she lunges forward and pulls Maki into a hug.
“Don’t scare me like that,” she whispers, holding onto Maki tighter than she has since they were children and Maki led her past cursed spirits.
Maki is slow to reciprocate, still trying to get her limbs to do what she asks of them. She can’t wrap her arms around Mai as firmly as she’d like to, can’t fuse their separate bodies back into one, permanently entwined so they never again have to let go of the other.
Instead, she cradles Mai gently, noting how their bodies fit together like they are broken halves of a porcelain dish, lined up to match perfectly, though a crack will always be visible between them.
“I’m here,” Maki says, for her own sake just as much as Mai’s. She did not fall into the empty loneliness of death; she took Mai’s hand and climbed back into the life she nearly left behind.
Maki doesn’t know how long it is before the hug breaks, but she knows it speaks more than any words could. It says, Despite everything, I still love you, and I don’t want to lose you.
Maki has never told Mai she loves her, and Mai has never said those words to Maki. It isn’t customary, in the Zen’in Clan, to love. Anything that does seep through the cracks of the stone walls built high around each blackened heart is not verbalized; it is shown in other ways. It’s shown in guiding your sister past her fears, in swapping clothing colors, in a warm cup of tea or made up constellations.
It’s shown in a long overdue hug, in Mai burying her head in Maki’s shoulder and letting herself cry.
When Mai finally extracts herself from Maki, splitting them back into two separate people, she wipes her eyes and Maki looks away.
“I was worried you wouldn’t make it,” Mai admits, her voice small and broken.
Maki’s lip quirk upward, a bittersweet smile crossing her face as she looks at the floor. “You don’t need to worry about me, I’m…” her face drops into a frown and she lifts her gaze to meet her sister’s. “How long was I out?”
(How long has it been since Shibuya? How is everyone else faring? Who did Maki already say her last goodbye to without knowing she would never see them again?)
Mai shrugs. “A couple days?”
Maki blinks, her mind slowly kicking into gear. “A couple…” her eyebrows knit together. The one consistency, the entire time she was in and out of consciousness, was that she could feel Mai’s presence. “How long…” she swallows thickly, unsure she wants to confront the answer. “How long were you here with me?”
Mai presses her lips together. She looks away. “How long do you think?”
(And really, Maki didn’t need to ask. Of course she knows Mai has not once left her side, and of course Mai will not admit her love aloud.)
This truth settles in Maki’s chest, thicker than the smoke, warmer than the flames. It clogs her throat and it aches when she asks, “Why?”
“I was afraid of what they might do to you,” Mai says simply. As if it’s in her nature to protect Maki, as if she’s never shied away from a fight, as if defying their family has always come as easy as breathing. “If you were alone, they would have killed you and blamed it on your injuries. I couldn’t let that happen.”
Maki does not cry often, but she can’t stop tears from spilling over as she leans forward, bringing Mai into another hug.
“Mai—” she starts, but the rest of her sentence gets caught in her throat, transforming into a choked sob
“Hey, it’s alright,” Mai assures her. “I know.”
Her fingers dance through what’s left of Maki’s hair, and now it is Maki’s turn to cry into Mai’s shoulder. Her tears are silent, slipping down her cheeks and soaking the fabric of her old clothing draped over Mai’s body. She cries until her eyes are as dry as they were when she was set alight in Shibuya, but still, she cannot bring herself to let go of Mai.
She knows, soon, she will have to face what is left of the world. She will have to return to Jujutsu High and regroup with her friends. She will have to help fix the damage left in the wake of Shibuya.
But right now, for one final moment, the world is quiet.
For one final moment, Maki and Mai are whole again.