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It’d been awhile since Toji disgorged Worm from his stomach. The last time had been to raise a sword against his own clan, one hand brandishing its deadly blade as his heart raced, not in bloodthirsty rage or thrill, but in fear. Toji’s other arm had been splayed wide, shielding the woman from attack—the woman.
Mika, Toji had called her, and love, sweetheart, and baby, crooned softly as they slow-danced in the kitchen. She’d giggled or smiled or blushed depending on the name, so Worm had known they meant different things. But in Toji’s heart, he’d thought of her simply as the sun.
That light was dead now. A black hole sat where she’d once lived in Toji’s heart, corroding him from the inside out. His ribs enclosed a rotted cavern of grief. That had been Worm’s home for the past months within Toji, feeling the anxiety, the guilt, the anguish lining his intestines.
Now, as Worm emerged from Toji’s stomach, he already knew there was no fight. The battle was long lost, and Toji was the wasteland that remained, slumped on an uncomfortable bench at the train station. Flowers sat next to Toji, looking equally wilted, and there were bags near the exhausted splay of his legs.
A framed portrait of Mika rested in the crook of one arm and Megumi lay in the other. Toji clutched them both like life-lines, staring down at Worm with a haunted expression. “Take the rest of this shit,” he croaked, voice hoarse. Worm slowly crawled to the flowers and swallowed them, then tumbled from the bench to the ground to eat the bags, all packages from the funeral home.
The train pulled into the station. Worm inched his way up Toji’s leg and clung as Toji dragged himself to stand. But then Toji stopped, took a shuddering breath, and collapsed back onto the bench. “Next one,” he murmured woodenly, almost to himself, a hollow promise. “I’ll get the next one.”
Worm crept further up and around Toji’s torso. He stared from his vantage down at the sleeping Megumi. Someone at the funeral home had re-swaddled him—during which Toji had felt horrible, guilty helplessness—so only Megumi’s head was visible, chubby cheeks and a tuft of hair. Megumi didn’t know she was gone, Worm realized, looking at him. He cried a lot but not the way Toji did.
Worm could feel that familiar thick block in Toji’s chest now. He wrapped himself tighter around Toji and held on.
Toji was on the sofa, staring upwards blankly, and Worm was on the floor, gazing at dust bunnies and stray socks. Even though he only received vague imprints of emotion and intent from Toji, the grief still felt leaden—dead weight.
Ever since they’d first been bound, Worm had witnessed many times how old resentment and regret sometimes overtook Toji. Mika used to know, somehow, exactly how to reform the steel of Toji’s will from that jagged, rusted scrap. She’d lay atop him, soothing the heaviness with a whisper, “I have you. It’s alright,” and eventually Toji would breathe out, a deep exhale, and wrap his arms around her.
Now, the space above Toji was empty and bleak, all the way up to the water damage on the ceiling. Worm ached in his own way, not knowing how to help. Toji had been hunched over paperwork, pen gripped tightly, when tears swelled and spilled onto the ink. Worm had felt each one like a blot himself. Toji had mechanically scraped himself from the floor and onto the sofa and then just…shut down, unable to do anything but remember how it used to be.
Someone knocked on the door: tap tap tap in quick succession. Worm wondered for only a second whether Toji would rouse himself enough to open it before keys sounded from the other side—oh, that man, then. Shiu let himself in a moment later, quiet and unobtrusive as he toed his fancy shoes off and entered the room. Toji didn’t bother greeting him, didn’t even move, and a few seconds passed. Shiu looked at Toji, and Toji looked at the ceiling, and neither of them spoke.
Then, finally, with a sigh, Shiu approached, the stink of cigarettes following him. “You want a beer?” he asked, perhaps thinking that at least would draw an exasperated response. But Toji barely even sighed. After a moment Shiu frowned, “Nothin’?”
He went and grabbed himself a bottle, then sat heavily by Toji’s legs, slumping back. Shiu was halfway through when Toji finally spoke, sounding so tired and lost. “What the fuck do I do?”
Silence was the only answer for long enough that Worm wondered what was wrong with Shiu. But then came a slow, measured response, “It’s hard,” Shiu said. He took a sip. “You’ll wish she was here. I don’t think it’s gonna get easier for a long time, Toji. But you’re a tough man to kill, and this won’t be the thing.”
Toji didn’t reply. Shiu’s words stuck like acid rather than balm. Worm could feel dread sinking its cold daggers in: no, Toji wouldn’t die, because he was already dead—because today, he’d woken up alone, and yesterday, he’d habitually picked up her favorite snacks at the store before having to return them to the shelves, and tomorrow, he’d eat at a table where her spot was empty, and would be. What life was left? Everything that’d once made Toji a home for Worm was now barren.
Megumi started crying in the next room over. Toji didn’t move, but Worm felt his heart wrench, aching beneath corrosive tar to reach for his child. Worm crawled toward Megumi, every part of him echoing that tangle of guilt and yearning and care.
Shiu beat him to it, stepping over Worm in his nice, sleek socks. He reemerged from the other room holding Megumi gently, then went to the kitchen to warm formula up, and did everything Worm couldn’t physically—that Toji couldn’t, sinking in guilt, shame—until the cries quieted.
The beer sat half-finished on the ground by the sofa, where Worm was. Toji still didn’t move.
Their money lasted until the end of summer. It’d been a difficult one in comparison to years past, even besides not having Mika anymore. The air conditioner had stopped working, and the refrigerator had made an awful groaning noise for weeks until Toji accidentally bent a pipe out of shape when trying to fix it and broke the whole thing. They were living out of a mini-fridge now.
No matter how fragile Toji felt sometimes, it was Megumi who was the most delicate. Toji never forgot it. He forwent food sometimes for baby formula, and he cooled Megumi’s cheeks with wet cloths. His hand was always at Megumi’s back, since Megumi was old enough now to sit up with help, and each night, Toji glanced at the catalogs of cribs and strollers, the items circled by Mika, that still sat on his bedside table, before falling asleep with a hand reaching to the empty space beside him.
But they managed, limping along slowly, unsteadily. Megumi’s gaze grew more focused, if still wholly curious and innocent, and each day brought something new. Worm felt it the first time Megumi looked directly at him. His wide eyes tracked Worm’s slow crawl across the floor, the first curse he’d ever seen. Toji noticed, too, and he fell quiet, gazing at Megumi solemnly.
After a long moment, he asked, voice low, “You can see this, can’t you?”
Megumi didn’t look away from Worm. His expression was morphing between curious and flustered, moments away from overwhelmed entirely, and that was answer enough. Toji pulled him onto his lap, Megumi’s tiny body disappearing into the grasp of Toji’s hands. They were so different, Worm thought, not for the first time. Megumi was so small, so smooth and whole, and Toji was roughed and worn and fractured, even on the inside.
A calloused thumb gently brushed over Megumi’s round cheek. “Smart boy,” murmured Toji. Worm could feel him inside, his heart aching, and aching, and aching.
Megumi was a quiet child. It made it easy for Toji to bring him along when he began flirting his way into the beds of women then sheepishly asking them to stay for a few days, a week. The women cooed sympathetically over Megumi’s innocent stares every time. Worm’s responsibility these days was to carry their belongings: important documents, baby food containers, toys, the clothes they’d need come winter, coins for the laundromat. They stayed in run-down motels and capsule rooms sometimes, Toji fitting his wide frame uncomfortably on the single bed. He took contracts, usually small jobs he could fit into an afternoon with Megumi in a baby carrier against his chest, but after a meal or stay at a nicer restaurant or hotel, they were usually back in the same position.
Toji wasn’t happy. He smiled at the women and the doormen and the cashiers who discounted his items when they saw Megumi, but Worm could feel the distress clinging like mold. It wasn’t sustainable, but every time Toji did one thing to fill a gap, to sew a ripped seam together, it simply revealed another. He couldn’t pull himself out, couldn’t bring himself to ask for help, not from that damned family, no, never.
“We’ll get by,” Toji muttered to himself, thought it, chanted it. Survival—that had been Toji’s main version of existence his entire life, from back in the Zen’in compound, the things he had nightmares about, to now as he cradled Megumi, wondering if he should get a salaryman job, if he even could without a degree, and stewing in some combination of determination and despair.
Babies were interesting. They ate, cried, pooped, babbled, stared, giggled, sucked on their hands, and crawled after Worm and pulled his tail. Most of all, they grew. Megumi started toddling around dressed in Toji’s shirts soon after his first birthday, an affair for which Toji brought home a single cupcake and candle. “Papa,” came next, with a whole slew of small words then curious questions with the same tenacity and wobbliness as Megumi’s steps.
Staying with women stopped being an easy solution. One of them, with a friendly, sympathetic smile, told Toji, “He needs a mother,” and in that moment, Worm hated her—how could she—
But Toji smiled and laughed it off, pushing that remorse down, and flirted, “Why, are you offering?”
The woman tittered and shooed Toji away, and it wasn’t until they left the apartment building entirely that Toji exhaled, a heaving, shaky sigh. Megumi was sleeping, head resting on Toji’s shoulder, sucking his thumb. Toji pulled it gently from his mouth. From his other shoulder, Worm looked on.
Over the next few months, the woman’s words were on Toji’s mind constantly. At night, after tucking Megumi into bed, sitting on the ground and watching his soft snuffles, Toji would sometimes muse, “A mother, huh?” Worm could do a lot—make sure Toji always had diapers or wipes or snacks on hand—but neither of them could be her. Mika’s absence felt just as tangible as she would have been herself if she’d still been alive.
It was a few months after, in the grocery store, as Toji surreptitiously gave Worm a Kamen Rider toothbrush and paste to store, that a woman giggled behind them. Toji spun, stuffing the items back onto the shelf, already with a casual smile in place. Megumi looked, too; he’d been staring at her from over Toji’s shoulder, wide-eyed and cute, drawing her laugh in the first place.
“What a sweet boy,” the woman cooed. She was totally unaware of Worm wrapped around Toji’s torso—a normal human, then. “Are you babysitting for the day? Helping your wife out? That’s nice.” She laughed again, a gentle thing that sounded nice to Worm; even Toji lacked his usual sourness at reminders of Mika.
“It’s just me ’n’ my kid.” Toji shifted, bouncing Megumi a little.
“Ah,” her eyes widened, “I’m sorry. It’s the same for my daughter and me, too.” She turned slightly and nudged a child out into the open. “Tsumiki, say hi.”
“Hi,” said the girl with a shy, clumsy bow.
Worm could feel the gears in Toji’s mind turning already. He was like this often when meeting new women, calculating how much time they were worth, if his freeloading would be welcome, whether or not they’d accept his kid. This woman was a mother already. She seemed tired, with bags under her eyes and hair frizzy. Her smile was pretty but stressed. And the way she looked at Toji when she realized he was single—
“I’m Toji,” he introduced himself, smiling at this woman and her daughter, “and this is Megumi.”
Megumi got older, but now he had someone to grow with. Tsumiki was kind, other than when she stepped on Worm. She seemed to take her “duty” as an older sister very seriously, prodding Megumi into saying thank you or taking a bath or not running when he shouldn’t. That was something Megumi could do now, his little legs picking up the pace and sometimes tumbling him over himself.
Toji was—happy, or happier. His wife was good-natured and gently stern, but mostly with the children, so they didn’t fight, even if they weren’t close. Worm didn’t mind her, especially when he felt Toji’s sense of relief every time he introduced himself as Fushiguro instead of Zen’in, as well as his pride watching Megumi charge around their house—a home, again.
It dimmed somewhat, that old concern rearing, when Megumi pointed out dogs and curses alike, not understanding the difference, both sights casual to his eyes. But even then, Toji found it in himself to tease, “Oi, that one definitely looked more like a little piggy. Just like…someone I know,” then tickle Megumi until he was shrieking.
These days, Worm often curled around Toji’s arm because his usual spot was taken by Megumi, who sat on Toji’s shoulders with his tiny chubby legs dangling down, kicking idly. Once, bracing Megumi there, Toji took off, running down the street, not as fast as he could but still quick. The wind blustered past them; Megumi’s scream was nearly lost in it as he giggled and goaded, “Faster, faster! Tou-san!” And the air in Toji’s lungs, after so long, felt light.
He’d chuckled, too, something bright breaking from him like it’d been fossilized over, an old relic of happiness suddenly resurrected. He laughed and laughed until the petrified layers had fallen from him, until only the ruins were left, and then his laughter stumbled into something sad and grieving, and Toji brought Megumi from his shoulders and just looked at him, his baby, and tucked him close. “Megumi,” he murmured.
On the way home, Megumi noticed a small alleyway curse, and Worm felt Toji's aching uncertainty. There was so much Toji had buried over time, a deep well of a family better forgotten. But each time Megumi displayed signs of sorcery, his heart dropped like a stone into that pit, stirring up dark clouds of unease.
That night, by the lamplight in the kids’ room, as Tsumiki brushed her teeth, Toji sat down on Megumi’s bed next to him. Carefully, he enfolded Megumi’s tiny, tiny hands in his, looking clumsy trying to arrange the fingers as he wanted. Worm had seen this before, at the Zen’in household: children coached from times they couldn’t remember to stitch their hands into forms that might take life. The Zen’in taught all. For the children, it was a game; to the clan and its elders, watching with keen, antsy eyes, it was augury.
Toji was anxious now, too, but it felt sickly, not excited in the least, the same worry that’d poisoned him when Mika had been sick. Perhaps he could see, though differently from Worm, how after a moment the shadows wavered—breathed. But Toji was instead watching Megumi, who gazed at the silhouette of the dog in wonder; there was the slightest ripple of cursed energy. That was all Toji needed, in the end, to know.
A month later was their meeting with Naobito. Toji was horribly aware that it wasn’t possible for Megumi to stay forever in a human household. He would need a teacher, a place to harbor the way his shadows moved in the bright sun of noon, the way it stung sometimes when Megumi touched Worm, his fingers sparking with instinctive cursed energy. Toji had kept his child alive these years, but he wanted Megumi to live, and he didn’t know anyone else who might help.
But Worm didn’t know how he couldn’t see that he was giving Megumi that. How could that household ever be considered safe? How could Toji, who had fought his way from their clutches, give them his most precious treasure? Yet Worm understood him, too, for all Toji had in him was a sad, sad love. What cruel fortune this was, a blighted blessing.
Years ago, when Toji had found Worm by chasing rumors of a rare storage curse and tracking him, it hadn’t been chance or coincidence, no, because forces such as fate could not touch Toji. But was it revenge for that now, that those sickly fingers oozed their poisonous destinies over the ones Toji loved most? Fate was a wrathful curse, the oldest of Toji’s spurned mistresses, who’d seen him ill-treated and his lover bled dry of life and now would see his son drained of his, too.
Why so slow? They were going to miss the train. But Toji was barely dragging his feet, each centimeter wrung painfully from him. The crowd moved past them. Something dead clung to his heavy legs, a ghost in his shadow—a curse. Toji took a breath, then a step, then another. He went so terribly slowly.
But he went, and the train doors closed behind them.