Carry Me Home - valleykey - 呪術廻戦 (2024)

Chapter 1: you take me through the looking glass

Chapter Text

Suguru is already regretting this.

“Hey, hey, are you evenlistening?”

“Yes,” he answers, voice scratchy, words dripping heavy with exhaustion. Every bit of him is leaden and aching. Afternoon sunlight beats down too-warm on his black uniform, and the messy mane of his loose hair traps heat around his neck. “The stairs, right?”

Satoru pouts. “That isnotall I said!”

There’s a headache pulsing behind Suguru’s eyes and through his temple. He shouldn’t be here, really, at the bottom of Jujutsu Tech’s ridiculously long staircase up the mountainside. He should be in his room, sleeping off his fatigue, but Satoru…

“Let’s just get it over with,” Suguru sighs.

Satoru draws up and straightens, offended. “Be more enthusiastic! Teleportation is super cool! And this is gonna be the first time I ever do it with another person! You’re gonna be the first person!”

Satoru has repeated thisseveraltimes already. Along with a bunch of jargon that Suguru hasn’t understood at all, because Satoru is a genius in this, so scarily intelligent that he could beat every leading professional in math and physics, for all that it’s often overshadowed by his atrocious manners and stupidity withpeople.

“Enthusiastic noises,” Suguru deadpans.

“You suck.”

“Just do it, dumbass.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Satoru whines, “I’m going on another mission tomorrow, y’know! And I haven’t seen you in like, aweek.”

Yeah, that’s the only reason Suguru allowed himself to be dragged here in the first place. He crashed on his bed at nine in the morning, freshly back from a mission, and Satoru barged in at noon with a loudSuguru!In the past—(beforethe Star Plasma Vessel mission, when Suguru still knew himself)—Suguru would have groaned at Satoru to shut up and pulled him down onto the mattress. He would have wrapped his arms around him, and nestled his sleep fogged head into Satoru’s hair, and they would have stayed there for an hour, maybe two.

Today, he reached out, stopped halfway in fear of meeting Satoru’s limitless, and slipped out of bed instead.

It’s all the fault of thosef*ckingmonkeys—

“It’s been four days.”

“Same difference!”

“Satoru if you don’t hurry up I’m actually gonna leave.”

Satoru lifts his opaque sunglasses for the sole purpose of directing Suguru a very slow, pointed eyeroll. “You’re so lame,” he says, then sticks his hand out impatiently. Suguru stares. Satoru wiggles his fingers. “C’mon.”

“...What?”

“Take my hand, idiot.”

“Oh,” Suguru says, and right, that makes sense. Of course Satoru has to be touching him. But when he reaches out, it’s still sort of—startling when their hands press together, palms meeting, fingers intertwining. Satoru’s skin is cold; somehow he forgot this. They don’t touch often, anymore. “Okay.”

“We’re gonna warp to the top of that whole ass staircase,” Satoru promises, “and you’re gonna besoimpressed.”

“Mhmm,” he says, “sure.”

Satoru’s grip tightens, just a little, and curse energy curls over Suguru’s arm, raising goosebumps in its wake. Satoru’s energy is always cold and sharp, tasting like iced cucumber water when Suguru breathes in. A hint of mint. Something else, too: strawberry-sweet and rotten. All curse energy is a little rotten.

Somethingtugsand—

The world blinks: too much, and then nothing at all. Suguru almost stumbles, but there’s nothing to stand on. The universe becomes a void and his only anchor is Satoru. Nails dig into Suguru’s skin, hard and not letting go, drawing pinpricks of pain, and—

slowly, then all at once, the world slots back into place.

Suguru falls back into his skin, curling his toes in his shoes. Breeze brushes against the strands of his hair, at the hems of his crumpled uniform. His head spins with vertigo, and he blinks the lingering spots of inky darkness from his vision, and squints.

What the hell.

They’re in the exact same place as before. At the bottom of that stupid f*cking staircase, stone steps and orange torii gates extending far into the mountains ahead of them. Satoru…

failed?

A bubble of what might be relief releases in Suguru’s chest, and the sigh he breathes out is a gentle, quiet thing. His hand slips from Satoru’s and returns to his side, sticking casually in his pocket.

I haven’t seen you fail a technique so lamely in a year, he turns around to say, joke shaping light and amused and teasing in his mouth,I didn’t know you still could.

The words die on his tongue.

Satoru is standing there, almost limp on his feet. His glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose and in their wake, his eyes are wide and unfocused. Glassy? The whole expression is just—notthere.

A sharp line of raw fear runs from Suguru’s throat down to his abdomen, cold and helpless.

(The feeling is not entirely unknown. It’s the same feeling he got when Riko’s skull splattered the ground, the same as when he found Satoru’s blood pooled on the stone, the same as when he realized, for the firstrealtime, that this cycle of grief will neverend.)

“Satoru?”

Satoru’s head jerks, pupils focusing on Suguru. His mouth falls open a little, then carves into a wide grin. His eyes glint before he shoves his glasses back into place and says: “Holysh*t.”

“...Satoru?”

“Holy sh*t,” Satoru repeats, twisting towards the staircase like he’s never seen it before. “Dude.”

“I—” Suguru steps back, uncertain and lost, “what?”

“There’s this theory in quantum mechanics,” says Satoru, excitedly, “you know, the one about split timelines? MWI sh*t? Everett? I thought it was time dilation for a second—in which case, wow, yeah I would’veactuallyf*cked up—but that’s definitely not what just happened. I think—I can’t tell if it’s a split or if it’s been here all along though? Like, Isawit, but—”

“Satoru,” Suguru interrupts, “what thef*ckare you talking about.”

“Oh,” Satoru says, “right. You didn’t see.”

So this isthatkind of thing.

“Obviously.”

“Okay well basically,” Satoru stops, rolls his shoulder blades. “Here wait, let’s talk on the way.”

The waywhere, Suguru is going to ask, but Satoru is already running up the steps two at a time.Seriously?Suguru bites a complaint back and follows, every bit of him protesting the rapid movement. All he wants to do it lay himself over the steps and stare at the clear blue sky through the torii gates.

The whole way up, Satoru is a rush of words and bubbling excitement. College-level concepts are thrown around like candy, mixed with principals that Sugurushouldknow—wouldknow, if he went to a normal high school—but doesn’t. Jujutsu Tech is a school that only really prepares its students for one thing: shamanism. The world of curses.

(It’s all so rotten, he has realized. So insidious. You can’t leave hell if you have no other options for employment. You have to stay, have to clean up the messes of nonshamans until you die like all your companions.)

(Butdoyou have to stay? Tsukumo Yuki—)

Satoru skids to a stop when they reach the top, still grinning, not even out of breath. Suguru pulls to a stop beside him, sweat sticking fabric to his arms. He tucks stray hair behind his ears and wishes he had mustered the effort to put it into a bun earlier.

“Look,” Satoru says, “there!”

Suguru follows the line of his point to a bench some distance away where there are two people—shamans—chatting. A boy with soft pink hair and a girl with short orange hair. They’re wearing the college’s uniform. Student uniform. Suguru has never seen them in his whole life.

What the f*ck.

“Hey!” Satoru waves, loud and obnoxious. “You guys!”

The pair of students startle, turning around and staring with open shock. Confusion. They look a little like Suguru feels.

“What the f*ck,” says the girl, then turns to the boy. “That’s totally Gojō, right?”

“Uhhh,” says the boy. “I think so. He looks like him? Kind of?”

Satoru makes a low, offended noise. “Excuse you, I’m unmistakable!”

“Oh my God,” says the girl, “definitely him.” She whips out a shiny black device from the fold of her belt. “I’m calling Sensei. No way are we paid enough to deal with whatever this is.”

“We’re paid?” Asks the boy, blinking.

“Oh myGod,” the girls repeats, tapping at the screen of her device. It lets out a familiar sort of ringing. Oh. That’s aphone?“Can that bastardpick up?”

The boy laughs awkwardly, and glances at Satoru, then at Suguru, then back to Satoru. Coughs. Suguru’s head spins.

“Sooo,” Satoru drawls, “what’s today’s date?”

“What’s today’s date?” The girl repeats in a high-pitch, mocking tone, giving them a sour eye. The phone stops ringing without picking up and she makes a low noise of frustration that promises murder.

Suguru sympathizes.

“September first,” the boy offers, helpfully.

Satoru rocks on the balls of his feet. “No I mean the year! What year is it?”

“Um,” says the boy, “twenty eighteen.”

A rush of molten static pops in Suguru’s skull. On habit, he raises a hand to his ear and toys with the lobe, rolling his piercing around between his fingertips. Breathe in, and out. Keep calm. Smile.

“Could you repeat that?”

The boy shifts on his feet. “The year is two thousand and eighteen? Common Era?”

Slowly, smile still plastic on his face, Suguru faces Satoru. This f*cking dumbass. “Satoru,” he says, dangerous edge to his voice, “what did youdo?”

Satoru makes some bastardization of a sound, half between a laugh and a cough. “...Whoops?”

Calm. Calm. Satoru was talking about—physics. Space. Time. Teleportation definitely involves space manipulation. And space is linked to time, somehow.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“It was an accident!”

“I,” Suguru grits, pinching two fingers together, “amthisclose to mass murder.” He’s joking. Probably.

“It was totally out of my control!” Satoru protests, “I told you! Quantum fluctuation! I literallycouldn’thave known! Promise!”

“You—” Suguru breathes out, air shuddering in his lungs. He squeezes his eyes shut, drops his hand from his ear, and presses a thumb against the skin of his forehead. Twists. Satoru said quantum fluctuation is random, right? “Can we get back?”

Satoru nods eagerly. Oh thank god. “It’s—still there. Like a rip sort of? I mean, only I can really see it—and even then it’s kinda hard to find, but—”

“Isn’t thisinteresting,” says a voice, just a couple steps away, tinged with something odd and hard to place. Satoru stops abruptly, and Suguru whips around.

Satoruis his first thought. He’s wearing a sleek purple-black uniform with a wide collar. A pitch black blindfold cuts across his eyes, dividing his head cleanly between skin and bone-white hair. Satoru, undoubtedly, because Suguru would know his voice anywhere, would know the icy-cucumber rotten-strawberries of his curse energy anywhere, but this isn’t—

this isn’tSuguru’sSatoru.

There’s a tension in the stiff set of his shoulders, the tight edge of his drawl, the flat slant of his mouth. There’s caution in the way his fingers curl by his thigh, middle finger crossing over his index, then uncrossing.

“Icalled you,” the girl rages, “why didn’t you pick up!?”

“Anyone mind explaining whatexactlyis happening here?” the not-stranger continues, ignoring the girl, one hand pulling the blindfold down from his eyes to the base of his neck. “I’m afraid I’m notquitecaught to speed.”

If there was any doubt that this was Satoru before, it’s gone with the blue glimmer of his eyes.

Which are fixed on Suguru. The prickle of their scrutiny runs down the skin of his face, his throat, down his shoulder and along the length of his right arm. He swallows, and the eyes languidly shift to Satoru, and then to the girl and boy, and then—

back to Suguru.

“If you don’t already know, then that rules out any same timeline theory!” Satoru—Suguru’sSatoru—happily announces, “ohhI guess that only really leaves parallel dimensions or split timeline? Pretty sure it’s split timeline. Like, I think it just broke.”

“Really,” future-Satoru says, tone falling just flat of lax amusem*nt. His gaze shifts to the students.

The boy says: “Sorry we don’t know—um. They just appeared! From the stairs.”

“Did they.”

There’s a terrible feeling building in Suguru’s chest. It coils tightly, digging roots into his lungs and worming coldly up his throat. It’s been building ever since Satoru dragged him out of bed to show him anothercool technique. They’re in the future, and it’s all too much, and his throat hurts and he wants to sleep and future-Satoru won’t stoplookingat him.

The pink haired boy nods. “Sensei, they—”

“Sensei?” The terrible feelings in Suguru’s chest abruptly push aside in favor of bursting incredulity. “Seriously?Who allowedyouto be ateacher?”

Satoru straightens up in shock, mouth falling open. “For real? You’re ateacher!?”

Satoru-from-the-future makes a low, offended noise. “I'm not justateacher, I’m thebestteacher.”

“No way,” says the girl, immediately, “you suck. Worst ever.”

Satoru is sill openly gaping. “I hate babysitting though!”

“Oh my god,” Suguru mutters, despairingly. “I feel so sorry for future-you’s students.”

Or, actually, maybe not. Maybe if Satoru—if he was a teacher… maybe there wouldn’t be studentsdyingall the time. But that’s unfair, too, because Satoru is the strongest but he isn’t omnipotent and Nanami waswrongwhen he asked if they could just leave everything to Satoru. He doesn’t deserve that burden. That burden shouldn’t exist in the first place.

This time, Satoru makes that same offended noise. “I hate babysitting but I’d be great at it!”

Suguru can’t share that burden equally, not anymore, but maybe—maybe he cantake it away entirely—

“No you wouldn’t.”

That gets a noise of offense from themboth.

“I’d be better than Shōko!”

A laugh catches behind his teeth, and he swallows it. Instead, he leans back on his feet and conjures the most smug expression he can. “The fact that you’re usingShōkoas a comparison speaks for itself.”

Satoru’s mouth opens, then snaps shut. His brows furrow just a little and his lips purse and it’s obvious that he’s realized there’s no winning that one. Even so: “If you’re gonna make fun of future me then make fun of that lame blindfold!”

Future-Satoru—who Suguru is going to dubGojō—draws back and slips the blindfold up from his neck to his eyes. “Ithink it lookscool,” he sniffs.

“What! No way,” Satoru says. “It’slameeee. Lame lame lame! Suguru, never allow me to wear anything that lame.”

“I think it’s cool too,” the pink haired boy offers.

“You thinkeverythingSensei-related is cool,” the girl mutters, darkly. “For who-knows what reason.”

“Sensei is cool in general!”

Gojō smiles widely in delight and skips over to the pink haired boy. “See! This is why Yūji is my favorite student! You should be more like him, Nobara!”

“f*ck off and don’t call me by my first name.”

“Oh, that reminds me!” Gojō continues, blithe. “We haven’t done introductions! This,” he points to the boy, “is Itadori Yūji and she,” now the girl, “is Kugisaki Nobara! And they—”

“I’m Gojō Satoru,” Satoru grins, and tacks on: “obviously.”

“Getō Suguru,” Suguru offers, in turn, smiling small and thin, letting it crinkle his eyes. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and we sincerely apologize for the awkward circ*mstances.”

Next to him, Satoru gags. “I’mnot sorry—neither is he, by the way, he’s just pretending to care.”

“And,” Suguru adds, glaring at Satoru, “we’llhopefullycease troubling you soon.”

“No way,” Satoru says, “nuh-uh. We arenotleaving so soon.” He nudges Suguru’s shoe and, quieter: “I can’t replicate this kinda thing. It was totally one-off. When we leave, that’s it.”

“I don’t care,” Suguru hisses, angling his head towards him, “I want to—” go home, sleep, not have to deal with this sh*t. Gojō is looking at him again. “We shouldn’tbehere, Satoru.”

“This is a split timeline,” Satoru clicks tongue, “it’s what would’ve beenourfuture. We can… What if Shōko dies or something? Y’know, another death like Haibara’s. We could prevent it.”

Suguru physically recoils.

Acid jumps to the back of his tongue. Satoru was never even close with Haibara. They only talked in passing. ButSuguruwas close with him, and Satoru knows that. f*ck. He’s so callous.

But he’s also right; Suguru is being too emotional. It’s making him irrational.

“Asshole,” Suguru mutters without heat, “fine. Fine. We’ll stay.”

-

Afternoon stretches into evening. Gojō and the other two depart. Suguru and Satoru wander around, careful to stay out of view. They don’t talk, not really. Sometimes, Satoru points to a spot on the floor and goeshey look! That scratch is new!And Suguru squints and sees nothing. The effect of Suguru’s last throat lozenge runs out, and when he checks his pocket, he finds nothing; his tin is empty and he forgot to grab another one back in his room. Satoru isn’t carrying any either. He used to.

They visit the vending machines. Satoru gets three boxes of pocky and two candy bars that are gone within half an hour; Suguru gets peach flavored water that barely soothes the unbearable itch of his throat.

Itadori finds them there, saying that there’s dinner ready in an awkward but perfectly friendly way. He’s earnest—a bit like Haibara—like Haibarawas.

Suguru slides from the bench to his feet. “How’d you know we were here?”

“Sensei told me!”

Of course Gojō has been keeping an eye on them this whole time. Of course.

“Alright,” he says, “lead the way.”

On the way back inside, the sun crests the horizon, sky blotting fleshy pink. His and Satoru’s shadows extend, black silhouettes cutting stark across gold-washed stone, and Suguru watches all the places they almost overlap, but don’t.

Itadori leads them to one of the college’s less visited, more hidden kitchens. Half of the small room is taken by the kitchen, and the other half by a wide kotatsu. Its wooden surface is set with bowls and utensils and loaded with food, and Itadori is excitedly greets Gojō, who’s halfway under the kotatsu, head and shoulders peaking out.

Suguru stares for a moment. “It’s barely even autumn.”

“That’s whatIsaid,” Kugisaki complains. She’s in the process of untying a pink denim apron. “It totally ruins the summer mood!”

Gojō retires entirely beneath the kotatsu. “It’s cold this deep in the school’s underground.” His voice is muffled through the blanket.

“He’s right,” Satoru says, then pauses, brows furrowing. “Or is it ‘I’mright’? Whatever.” he walks over to the kotatsu, lifting up a corner of the blanket. “Scooch.”

There’s a small ruffling, and then Satoru also disappears entirely beneath the table.

Suguru lifts a thumb to his forehead and twists. Then sighs, drops his hand, walks over, and peaks the blanket up. A wave of heat flushes his hands. The heater is on. He resolutely ignores Satoru and Gojō when he reaches in, finds the controller, and switches it off. Satoru makes a noise of protest.

“Unlike you two,” Suguru blandly says, “the rest of us can get burned. Now get out, aren’t we supposed to be having dinner?”

He drops the blanket before either have a chance to respond. They slip out. Kugisaki and Itadori sit down. Satoru settles beside Suguru. Gojō sits across the table from them both. On the surface…

It’s a lot of food. A large pot of udon that takes center-stage, four trays of sushi, and a pot of tea. Kugisaki serves them all with enthusiasm. Her pride over the meal is obvious.

It is good, or at least, it looks good. In his bowl, the broth is thick amber, noodles firm and creamy white. Scallions and shiitake dot the oil-splattered surface, lazily bumping against three thick slices of golden-brown tofu. On his plate, the sushi...

“Ehhh?” Satoru says beside him, peering at his serving of sushi like a puzzle. “There’s no fish!”

“Obviously,” says Kugisaki, “I made dinner.”

Satoru peers at her with that same curious, dissecting gaze. Suguru suppresses the urge to saybe polite, Satoru. “You don’t eat meat?”

“Oh,” Kugisaki blinks, “right, I forgot you two didn’t know. I don’t eat meat or—anything else from animals.”

Suguru anticipates Satoru’s reaction a split second before it happens, and cringes the moment he opens his mouth and exclaimsthat’s so weird!Suguru thinks of shoving him, but doesn't. Instead, he picks at the pickled ginger in the corner of his plate, absently listening to Kugisaki and Satoru’s loud conversation. Satoru asks why; Kugisaki says moral reasons; Satoru asks how the broth was made; Kugisaki says something about mushrooms and ginger and garlic...

Itisweird, he thinks, no matter how rude Satoru was to state it. His technique has always ran on a food chain; a dominance hierarchy. Eat or be eaten, kill or be killed; the strong survive and the weak don’t.

Suguru could once say with complete certainty that one should deny this hierarchy. That the strong should protect the weak, that there’s a preciousness to things that can’t defend themselves. But perhaps there has always been an inherent ugliness to weakness. Absently, Suguru lifts a hand to his ear and thumbs the piercing. Lately—

just let them die already.

It’s natural, isn’t it? So isn’t this disgusting? This rotten cycle of exorcising curses caused by monkeys too weak to do it themselves, so ignorant that they don’t evenknow—

“What about Suguru? His technique is curse manipulation so he like, eats curses—” a hand lands briefly on Suguru’s shoulder. He jerks around. Satoru isn’t even looking at him, though, he’s still focused on Kugisaki. Something sour grows in the back of Suguru’s tongue. That’s not Satoru’s business totell. “Is that uhh—vegan?”

Kugisaki blinks at the question, then turns around to give Gojō a look likewhy does past you ask such stupid questions. Before looking back at Satoru and Suguru. “I mean… Curses are fundamentally malevolent so it’s self defense, which falls under ‘as far as possible and practicable’. So, I guess?”

The topic drops just as quickly as it came. Suguru continues picking at his pickled ginger, voices buzzing static in his ears. Yesterday night he ate a semi special grade, and the memory of it clings to his tongue and his teeth. The food stays virtually untouched.

“Hey,” Satoru says, picking a noodle from his bowl. “You gonna eat any of that?”

Suguru finishes a long sip of tea. It slips down his throat easily, warm and soothing, leaving hints of cherry blossoms on the roof of his mouth. Lately, he’s been in the habit of drinking liquid until he can’t anymore, letting the fullness of his stomach trick his body into thinking it no longer needs to be fed.

“I ate this morning,” he lies.

Satoru frowns, and then, because apparently he’s not dropping this: “Curses aren’t breakfast.”

A headache throbs at Suguru’s temple. “No one actually eats breakfast anyway.”

“Hah!” Satoru draws up on himself smugly. “You admitted it!”

“So?”

“So,” Satoru says, drawing out the word and pushing Suguru’s bowl closer to him, “eat.”

The broth inside sloshes, a small droplet hitting Suguru’s knuckle. The noodles shift. His stomach churns. Under the blanket, his legs are too hot. Hair tickles his neck. “Not hungry.”

“Too bad!”

Across the table, Itadori has stopped talking and Gojō is watching them through his stupid blindfolded eyes.

“f*ck off.”

Satoru waves chopsticks in his face. “Nuh-uh.”

“I said no.”

“I’ll forcefeed you,” Satoru threatens, picking up a piece of sushi. It’s not serious, of course it’s not serious, probably, but—

“I—” Suguru twists a thumb on his forehead, focusing on the burn of pain. Breathes in, and out. Closes his eyes, opens them. And in a snap of borderline-unreasonable irritation: “Fine. Fine!”

He grabs the chopsticks right out of Satoru’s hands and stabs them into the noodles almost violently, lifting the whole bowl right to his face and drinking. He shovels the tofu and shiitake along, barely chewing before forcing it down. The food tries to choke in his throat, but f*ck that, because this has nothing on swallowing a curse. (The texture of a rough rag and the approximate size of a tennis ball.) He downs the whole bowl in forty seconds flat, slamming it down and wiping a line of broth from his jaw.

Satoru gags. “Did you evenchew?Atall?”

The table is silent. “Does it matter?”

“Yes?”

Suguru doesn’t respond, instead reaching for the sushi. Satoru pulls the tray away. Suguru fixes him with a particularly venomous glare. He pushes it back. This time, Suguru eats at a normal pace. Itadori is looking at him with some mix of awe and dumbfoundment, and Kugisaki with something like offense, though, and embarrassment begins to burn on the skin of Suguru’s neck. Hot and sticky.

He has—he’ssupposedto have more self control than that. Though that careful control has been fraying. In general.

The silence can’t last forever, though. Gojō breaks it and Itadori ends up talking about his studies. Which are… surprisingly basic, actually. Suspiciously so. Shamans born from nonshamans rarely reach their teenage years, so much so that Suguru has never met another. More common are windows. So it’s very unlikely, but even so—

“Itadori,” he says, slowly, “Were you born to a nonshaman family?”

Itadori laughs, almost nervously. “You could say that, yeah.”

Something blooms lightly in Suguru’s chest. Someone who understands? “I don’t have a problem with that,” he says, quickly, because the Jujutsu world is full of irrational prejudice, and some people don’t understand that blood doesn’t matter, only the individual themself.

“Yeah,” Satoru nods, “Suguru was born in a nonshaman family, too!”

“Ah-ah,” Gojō says, “not quite the same. You see...” and he reaches out a hand to pat Itadori’s hair when the other looks at him, a little wide-eyed, “…Yūji isn’t a shaman born to a nonshaman family, he’s more akin to a death painting than anything else.”

Oh. That light feeling in his chest falters.

“What?” Satoru pushes his glasses up his forehead, co*cking his head at Itadori curiously. His face shifts into recognition. “Oh!You’re—”

“A vessel,” Gojō provides, odd note to his voice, almost anticipatory, “he was a relatively normal nonshaman up until a few months ago.”

The bloom in Suguru’s chest completely shrivels up and dies.

His hands go stiff. People don’t just—stopbeing nonshamans. You are either born with the ability to exorcise curses, or you are born leaking cursed energy all over the place, creating them. You are either born in the world of curses, or you are ignorant of it. For so long as Suguru can remember, it has always been:me and them, and then, when he entered the college:us and them. There is no crossing the chasm between these two positions. Suguru’s stomach churns.

“Really,” he hears himself say, feels his face shape into a smile, words dripping like wet concrete from his lips and tasting like tar, “did you.”

“Yeah. It’s all sort of weird,” says Itadori, “but I’ve been learning!”

Right. Before, he was in complete ignorance because he was(?)—was(!)amonkey. An oily feeling slips between Suguru’s lungs, around his ribs and up his spine. He wants the get up and walk out and vomit and never be in the same room as Itadori again. Which doesn’t even makesensebecause Itadori isn’t dripping curse energy, not anymore, and this—

This revulsion isn’t justified. Heknows.

Suguru feels disgusting.

Tsukumo herself said that in a hypothetical world where nonshaman populations are continuously thinned, a sort of evolution could be triggered. Most would die, but some monkeys could surpass their unfortunate birth and become shamans; shed their weakness, their disgusting ignorance—

“I see,” Suguru says, perhaps a beat late, tone silvery. “It must have been a shock.”

Itadori makes a so-so motion. “It never sunk in, and by the time I realized it was supposed to ‘sink in’ it was just life? If that makes sense?”

Not really.

Satoru, for god knows what reason, laughs. “That’s hilarious!”

“It’d be funnier if people stop trying to kill him over it,” Nobara mutters into her sushi.

“Sometimes people see me more as a curse than anything else,” Itadori hastily explains. “There have been couple assassination attempts.”

Heat makes things melt and mix, and the line betweencurseandnonshamanhas been blurring with the summer sun. This season has been particularly bad, curses blooming around every corner. Weeds are supposed to be pulled up by the root. Is there really so much of a difference between the root of the problem and the flower of it? They comprise one bleeding, shaman-killing whole.

But Itadori has split from the weed, and apparently onlynowdoes Jujutsu society condemn him. Isn’t that just ironic?

“Unsurprising,” Suguru says, voice still coming through a veil, raising a warm cup to his lips, “how did you become a vessel in the first place? And of what?”

“Sukuna,” Itadori answers,way too f*cking casually, and Suguru almost chokes around his sip of tea, “By eating his finger.”

“You—” Suguru stops, stares.Sukuna. King of Curses Sukuna. Ryōmen Sukuna. There is only one Sukuna he could be referring to. But what Suguru really catches on is— “By eating his finger?”

Itadori grimaces. “Yeah.”

Cursed object. Cursed energy. Part of a curse. For most people, even for someone like Satoru, it would be a deadly poison. For normal people, it’s only at densities like that in which cursed energy becomes something with a taste. For Suguru—he’s tasted it enough, so many times, that his taste buds have grown a sensitivity, a knack for picking it out.

“And you could taste it?”

And you took it in? It became part of you? That negative energy, that essence of a curse? Did you feel it? Like bathing yourself in sewage? Like drinking vomit? Did it grate on the way down, harsh and rough?

“It was pretty gross,” says Itadori, as if he hasn’t just cracked Suguru’s world, just a little.

Suguru’s expression melts into something more natural, smile dropping a bit, eyes losing their exaggerated crinkle. “They always are.”

Itadori blinks, then realization dawns his face. “Oh! Sensei—or, um, younger-Sensei said you eat curses, right?”

“Mhmm,” hair slips past his ear, tickling along his neck, “I taste curse energy often enough that I can pick it out in normal sittings, too. I can differentiate signatures by taste.”

“I can’t do either of those!” Itadori’s eyes glitter. “You’re like a curse energy connoisseur!”

Suguru can’t help but laugh, smile flashing teeth and eyes briefly crinkling at the edges. “Sure.”

“I didn’t know that!” Satoru pouts. “No fair! What’s mine like?”

“More pleasant than most,” Suguru vaguely answers, and thinks:but only because it’s you. The taste of Satoru’s cursed energy has become a familiar, comforting thing. It’s milder, relatively, tempered with apathy. After the star plasma mission, its cold, minty edge was stronger than it is now. Now, it’s mostly the freeze-damaged cucumber (isolation? Loneliness?) that take forefront, undertoned with rotten-strawberry anger.

“I wonder ifI’llbe able to taste curse energy when I eat more of Sukuna’s fingers,” Itadori muses.

Kugisaki wrinkles her nose. “Sounds gross. You don’t need to get weirder.”

That descends into bickering which Suguru stays out of. He finishes his sushi instead, rolling individual grains of rice on his tongue before popping the whole sushi slices in his mouth, mechanically crushing, and swallowing. It’s a better alternative than talking, and he already started eating, so. Suguru soaks in the too-hot warmth from under the kotatsu, shoulders relaxing, almost-forgotten exhaustion rolling down his spine. The conversation turns towards Gojō’s students, and—

Gojō claps his hands. “Speaking of students with unusual circ*mstances! I actually have aproperlynonshaman student.”

Suguru’s chopsticks break with a muffled snap, digging splinters into his palm.

“Seriously?” Satoru leans forward. “How?”

“A Zen’in reject,” Gojō answers, smile carved on his face, “she can’t use her minuscule cursed energy, but she’sverytalented with cursed tools.”

Breath catches in Suguru’s lungs, and he forces down something ugly. A nonshaman? Really? At thecollege?As astudent?It sounds like a bad joke. He drops his broken chopsticks and draws a thumb to his forehead, closing his eyes.

(It’s wrong to burden others; if your existence is a burden, do you have the right to exist?)

All their voices blur into one single line of noise buzzing through Suguru’s skull. Kugisaki gushing, Itadori’s hesitant voice, Satoru’s interested one, Gojō’s odd-tinted one. It feels like a bad joke, but it’s not. There’s really a monkey at the college as a student. But if she’s a student…

It doesn’t even make sense. Does she exorcise curses? It would bepossible, using cursed tools. He grits his teeth and shifts his hand to his ear, digging nails sharply into his lobe. Nonshaman. Not monkey. Come on, Suguru. His stomach churns, and he drops his hand from his ear to his lap. Toes curling.

Whether she exorcises curses or not, she still causes them. But does that mean she’s dealing with her own messes? (It’d still be easier if she, and all her kind, justdied—

stop.)

Acid climbs the back of his throat. The ache between his temples intensifies. If—

There’s a sudden wetness on his ear, accompanied by a sharp pain. Suguru yelps, jerking around, head knocking against something hard—

Satoru pulls back, expression perfectly innocent. His glasses are knocked out of place.

“Satoru.”

“...Yes?”

“Satoru,” Suguru repeats, numbly, “Satoru you justbit my ear.”

“You weren’t responding!”

Suguru resists the urge to reach up and touch the bitemark burning hotly on the shell of his ear. He doesn’t even look at the other people in the room, fixed solely on Satoru, who’s closer than he was before, the space between them only spanning the length of a finger.

“So you bit my ear.”

“Yes!”

Okay. If that’s how Satoru wants to play it then—

Suguru snaps his hand out, and Satoru barely has time for his eyes to widen before Suguru grabshisear, yanks him close, and blows right into it. Satorusqueaks, a high pitched noise that catches on a laugh when he slaps Suguru’s hand away. The ear is left reddened.

“Not fair!”

“Not fair yourface,” Suguru responds, like they’re first years again. Belatedly, he realizes:ah, I touched him.

He doesn’t have time to linger on the thought before Satoru is pressing over, hand pushing against Suguru’s face and grabbing for his ear. Suguru doesn’t let him. He grabs Satoru’s arm and tugs him forward, letting the other teen spill into his lap and trapping his arms between Suguru’s, both wrists held together in front. He leans forward, mouth beside Satoru’s red ear, and murmurs:

“You know better than to go hand-to-hand with me, dumbass.”

“f*ck off,” Satoru tells him, but he’s leaning into Suguru’s chest. For real. No infinity. Suguru can’t even—can’t even remember the last time they’ve been so close.

He opens his mouth to respond with something—a tease, maybe, or a joke, but—

“Are you two dating?”

Both Suguru and Satoru stiffen.

Kugisaki leans across the table, eyes glinting and curious, hint of a smile on her lips. Itadori matches her. Gojō’s lips are pressed into a thin, white line.

Suguru breathes out. “No, we—”

“Why?” Under the table’s edge, hidden from everyone but his and Suguru’s view, Satoru’s fingers flex. Suguru resists the urge to fiddle with his piercing, and instead steels himself, slipping into routine; draws back, straightening himself and fixing Satoru’s glasses back into place. “Would you have a problem with it?” Satoru’s smile is too-sharp, showing teeth; challenging. “’Cause if you would, then yeah, we’re definitely dating.”

Kugisaki blinks at them, then blurts: “I have a girlfriend.”

Suguru lets out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding. Kugisaki reddens. Satoru’s mean smile becomes a grin. Itadori laughs a little. Gojō snickers.

“To answer your question,” Suguru says, “no, we aren’t. We’ve been mistaken as a couple plenty of times before, but we’re best friends.”

Suguru doesn’t keep track of the conversation after that, and it drifts in another direction. Instead, he savors the feeling of Satoru so close, and nudges him away. He twists his head around, beginnings of a scowl on his face. Suguru pushes him again, gently.

“C’mon,” he says, “back to your own space, big baby.”

Satoru sticks out his tongue and presses harder into Suguru’s form. “You’re so mean.”

He makes a low noise that’s more air than laughter. “Sure.”

“Seriously! Cold and mean.”

This is—right, Suguru realizes. This is the longest that they’ve been together in perhaps two months. Three? They’re never sent on missions together, and their offtime doesn’t always line up, and even when it does, sometimes Suguru just spends it crashing, so—

“...Okay,” he says, quietly, shifting to accommodate Satoru better.

“Hmph.” Satoru’s form sinks into his. “Good.”

Exhaustion pulls Suguru’s eyes shut and he leans his head into the crook of Satoru’s neck, the other teen’s hair brushing against the skin of his face, tickling at the edge of his eye. Satoru’s pulse beats, warm and hummingbird-light against Suguru’s ear where it’s pressed against Satoru’s skin.

“I missed you,” Satoru mutters, quiet and floaty like the edges of a dream, and for a moment, that’s what Suguru thinks itis.

Suguru tries to pry his heavy lids apart, but doesn’t quite succeed. Tiredness is hitting him all at once. Instead, he presses further into Satoru’s neck, opens his mouth, and musters the energy to mumble: “I missed you too.”

They don’t say anything after that. Suguru falls asleep to a litany of blurred voices and the lingering taste of cherry blossom tea.

Chapter 2: monsters inside my head

Chapter Text

Suguru wakes up in agony.

For a moment, he thinks it was all a dream: he is still in the college, still in his own time, and his technique is rebelling against him. But the nausea that his technique brings is an entirely psychological one, and this unbearable, blotting pain from his stomach is very very real. It takes him a moment to find his limbs and crack his eyes open. He's in the room that they ate dinner in. There's a pillow tucked under his head and his lower half is spread under the kotatsu.

He turns his head.

Satoru is curled up next to him, glasses off and eyelids gently shut. His knees are drawn halfway to his chest, hands curling in on themselves, body slumped over itself in the way it lies on its side. Fondness runs warmly down Suguru's arm and into his fingertips, and almost without meaning to, he reaches out.

It doesn't touch.

The disorientation of the situation—of the fact that he'strying to touch Satoruandnot being let through, hits him harder than it has in a while, and he snaps back his hand, digging nails into it. This is exactly what he was afraid of earlier. Suguru's stomach lurches, and he sits up, swallowing a groan. He has to—

He slips out of the kotatsu in an awkward movement and rises to his feet unsteadily. This is deep in the college's winding complex of doors and halls and adjacent buildings, but Suguru has lived here for three years. While the labelhomeno longer quite sticks—too worn by bitterness andlook at what you're doing to us—he still knows this place well enough to easily find the nearest bathroom.

It's a small, clean thing, with a sparkling white sink and too-bright florescent lighting and a toilet that Suguru just barely manages to flip the lid on before keeling over and expelling a ridiculous amount of barely-digested food.f*ck. It catches on his loose hair, and when his shaking fingers try to tuck it out of the way, he heaves again.

By the third time, though, most of the content is gone, and while there's stillmore, it's small enough that he swallows it on reflex whenever it comes up. Awful. It was a bad idea to down more than a full bowl of food after not having really eaten in long. All because—

"f*cking monkeys," he hears himself mutter, voice low and wrecked. He spits a mouthful of vomit into the toilet, dry heaves, flushes, half-collapses to the tile floor, and slumps against the wall.Monkeysechoes loops in his skull, and the sound of it grates. Time hazes while he's like that, licking acid off his teeth, wallowing in his aches, and feeling disgusting, just disgusting.

Eventually, the door creeks open.

Suguru goes stiff. Then, when the other comes into proper view, relaxes, but not completely.

Florescent light washes Gojō in a thin sheen of silver. There's a thick black hairtie around his wrist and a clear glass jar held in his hand, fingertips pressing white against the rim. He sets the jar down on the sink with a clack, water inside prisming light.

"Yo," he says lightly, and Suguru realizes with a start that this is the first time Gojō has actuallytalkedto him directly.

Suguru opens his mouth to speak—tell him to leave, or maybe to stay—but snaps it shut the moment acid jumps to his tongue. He pulls to his feet and heaves another mouthful out, suppressing the reflex to swallow that taste.

Nothing gets in his hair this time. Something—Gojō's hand takes his hair with startling gentleness, lifting it out of his face and to the backside of his neck. He heaves, once, twice. Glances at the mirror. Gojō's hand holds his hair in a makeshift ponytail.

Suguru presses his eyes shut for a moment, two, and says: "Sorry."

His hoarse voice is harsh against the late night quiet.

Gojō's hand drops from his hair. "'S fine. Water?"

Suguru heaves again, eyes opening and lemon tears dripping from his lashes. The burning in his stomach is finally abating. One, two, pull back up.

"...Sure." He twists and tries to pick the jar up. It slips in his trembling, sweat slicked fingers. Gojō catches it and presses it more stably into his palm. "f*ck," Suguru mutters, "sorry."

Gojō leans back on his heels. The large bathroom and too-bright lights make him look oddly out of place: simultaneously too stark and too watercolor. "'Guess I should've stopped you from eating that much earlier, huh?"

"No." The jar feels cold and slippery in his hands. He imagines, for a moment, dropping it and watching the clear glass shatter into jagged pieces on the floor. "I would've hated it if there was an even larger scene made, anyway."

"Oh," Gojō says. "Yeah, 'guess that makes sense."

It's—odd, to see this version of Satoru. He's odd. Hard to read, though not impossible. The blindfold is part of it, but the larger part is just... he's so—

Gojō tilts his head. "'Something wrong?"

"What?"

"You're staring."

"Ah." Suguru tugs his gaze away. Looks at the mirror instead. "Nothing. You're just—you're different from what I'm used to, that's all."

"I know, I'm so much cooler now!" Gojō grins, and it's not genuine. Ah, there's the obnoxiously timed bad attempt at humor. "I have the 'dark and mysterious cool sensei' vibe." He sighs airily. "The magic of growing up."

"...Right," Suguru says, after a moment.

An awkward beat.

Gojō shifts on his feet, leaning somewhat against the wall. "So," he says, "When's the last time you properly digested food?"

"I—" Suguru searches his memories. Peaches from a grocery store on his last mission. Soba. That was... "Forty—fifty something hours ago?"

"sh*t," Gojō says. In the mirror, Suguru sees his fingers twitch.

"It's fine," Suguru says, finally bringing the jar to his lips. The cold rush of water soothes his throat and washes out the acid taste of vomit, or at least, the worst of it. He sighs, quiet and with relief. "It's not usually like this. Extenuating circ*mstances."

Gojō shifts on his heels. His fingers are twisting into each other. Middle over index. Back. Pinky with thumb. Back. Thumb over middle. Back. The hand shoves into Gojō's pocket. "Shōko's still awake," he eventually says.

Suguru squints. "What time is it?"

That gets a vague handwave. "Four in the morning. Or so."

Suguru snorts. "Shōko hasn't fixed her sleep schedule, huh."

"I think she gave up a few years ago."

"Oh," Suguru downs the rest of the water. Clumsily pushes the jar back into place. He feels raw, laid open and exposed. Satoru always makes him feel a little like that, but in this case, it's because no one—he's not supposed to show this. It's such a break in face. What does he even say? "Sucks."

"Mm."

"She'll be okay with us coming at this hour?"

"It's you," Gojō says, like an explanation. Suguru raises a brow. Gojō's shoulders slump, just a little, movement so small that Suguru almost doesn't notice. "She will be."

"Okay," he says, reaching up to fiddle with his piercing and grimacing when his fingers brush a sticky section of hair.

Gojō is silent for a moment, then: "I can wash that out."

"It's fine," Suguru says on reflex.

"You hate your hair out of order."

"Well—" he starts, then stops. There's a determined set to Gojō's jaw. A familiar one. Suguru exhales and weakly asks: "in thesink?"

"Yep," Gojō says, popping the 'p.'

One beat, two. This deep in the school's underground, and at this hour, it's very silent. Suguru listens to the steady in-out of Gojō's breath, and exhales.

"Fine."

Gojō gives half a grin. Suguru turns away, runs the water till it's lukewarm, and places his head halfway under the stream The angle is awkward, but the water is warm against his scalp. Gojō's hands are careful (cautious?) where they wash out his hair. Tangles coming apart.

The minutes stretch. A finger brushes Suguru's cheek. He doesn't feel it. Nothing actually touches. Gojō's infinity is on, thin and almost imperceptible, but present. The thornbed of Suguru's chest coils tightly.

The water shuts off. Suguru straightens, and Gojō silently slips the black hairtie from his wrist down his fingers and around Suguru's hair, setting it in place as a low ponytail. His hands linger just a moment before drawing back. Gojō's mouth is set in a line, blindfolded eyes turned towards Suguru, and his skin pricks with scrutiny. The faucet drips loudly. One, two, three.

"Thanks," Suguru finally says, words awkward on his tongue.

He half expects Gojō to grin, wide and exaggerated:yes, praise me more! I'm the best, aren't I?But he only shrugs, head turning towards the door, shoes squeaking against the tiles. "Don't worry about it."

Pause.

Gojō waits by the door, co*cks his head. "You coming?"

"Yeah," Suguru breathes, rolling his shoulders, absently brushing at the new ponytail. "Coming."

Their walk to the morgue is quiet. One staircase, another. Gojō pushes open a door to the grounds. Suguru follows him, a step behind. Moonlight bathes the whole courtyard in silver and reflects pale on Suguru's hands. Gojō's hard-bottom shoes are soundless where they don't-touch the stone. They walk through the halls like a pair of ghosts, and Suguru feels lost, just lost.

When Gojō pushes open the morgue's door, Shōko is smoking a cigarette over stacks of paperwork. She looks—different, Suguru thinks. Her hair is long, and she no longer wears uniform. When she turns around to face them, the bags under her eyes look like bruises. Her cigarette drops. She catches it halfway.

"Seriously?" Her voice is flat. Surprise, but no confusion; she must've been told of Suguru and Satoru's arrival. Her eyes linger on Suguru before flicking to Gojō. "It's four thirty in the morning."

"And you're still awake," Gojō answers in turn, face split with a smile.

"Go away."

"Aw c'mon," Gojō's voice tints with a mockery of pleading; he knows Shōko will agree. "You won't spare time for an old friend?"

Shōko pinches her brows, drops her cigarette on the morgue floor, and crushes it. No ashtray? Suguru scans the whole desk but—no ashtray. Shōko always has an ashtray. "What do you need?"

"You'resupposed to be the doctor," says Gojō, then: "He just threw up and hasn't eaten in a while."

Shōko sighs deeply. "You two are so bothersome." Small pause. "You especially, Getō."

They end up going to another kitchen. Shōko and Gojō fall into easy step with each other. Their banter is sparse but natural. There's no room for a third person; there's noexpectationof a third person. Suguru watches them make miso broth, quiet, and feels out of orbit.

Over this past year, all three of them have fallen out of orbit, an intangible, starless void spreading between them. The distance stretches, and stretches, and Suguru has grown used to the ache of it, but not like this. That void is supposed to be mutual, equal. But Gojō and this Shōko know each other with a silent understanding, a time-worn familiarity, and she still calls Suguru asGetō. There's something missing here;he'smissing something here.

The clank of kitchenware. Shōko comes over, carrying a large bowl in hand and placing it with a dull thud on the kitchen table.

"Here."

No utensils are provided. The broth is a mild brown color. Little flakes of things that Suguru can't quite identify float around on the surface.

"...Thanks," he says, drawing the bowl close to him. It's warm under his fingertips, almost burning, but not quite. Like heated stones in the dentist office.

"Whatever," Shōko sighs. Dim stovelight illuminates her edges, hitting warmly on the dark, rust-brown pools of her eyes. Tonight, she looks undead, like something risen half-rotting from the earth. Across the room, Gojō hovers by the fridge, shaded in whites and silvers. He is something of the sky, of fog and mist and lazily storming clouds. What, Suguru wonders absently, would that make him?

Suguru averts his eyes and looks back to the bowl. It has no strong scent. He lifts it to his lips, and tilts his head back.Warm. Mild. It tastes like the waning days of spring. Miso. A hint of lemon. There's nothing he has to chew or shove down his throat, it all slips down easily.

"It's good," he says.

Gojō leans against the counter. "There's more in the pot."

"Alright."

"It's light food," Shōko says, "so eating it all shouldn't cause any problems, but stop if you feel sick."

"I know."

Shōko's fingers tap on the table's edge. "Just making sure."

Suguru doesn't know how to respond, so he takes another long sip, letting himself melt into the warmth of it pooling comfortably in his stomach. He's feeling calmer now, he supposes. Or maybe just detached. The bathroom floor feels like something of a fever dream. Everything feels a little like a fever dream.

"You should take a lozenge when you're done," Shōko tells him.

The tin in his pocket is empty. "I'm out."

"Oh," she says, then rubs tiredly on her eyes, "f*ck. I don't wanna go on a supply run at this hour at night."

A supply run?

"There aren't any in the infirmary?" Suguru asks, almost without meaning to.

Shōko isn't looking at him. "There aren't."

Unease curls in Suguru's stomach, and cursed energy coils in spiraling loops between his ribs. There's always lozenges in the infirmary. They've been an ever-present addition ever since Suguru made it known that he needed them.

"Oh," he finally says. Almost asks why, but doesn't.Do you really want to know?the spirals in his chest tease.

"I can make the trip," Gojō offers. "Because I'm very helpful and nice and considerate."

Shōko perks. "I actually have a list of things I need," she says, lifting her weight from the table's edge and gesturing Gojō to the kitchen's. "Follow me for a sec." Then, to Suguru: "I'll be back in a minute."

Like he can't be left alone.

He waves her off. She and Gojō disappear around the corner. He drinks more broth, but its warmth fails to fully wash out the coiling unease. Around him, silence is a thick, droning thing, broken only by a soft murmur of voices from around the corner. Suguru has always had exceptionally good hearing; did they forget that?

Shōko's voice lists drug store items. Gojō complains about small handwriting. There's a silent lull, and Suguru thinks for a moment that they have moved further away, but then—

"Did you find out what date they're from?" Shōko's voice asks, so quiet that Suguru almost can't piece the sounds together.

"September first," Gojō answers.

Pause. "Isn't that right before...?"

"Yeah."

"...Damn."

Beforewhat?Suguru wants to ask, but he's not supposed to be hearing this in the first place. Silence stretches. The dredges of broth in Suguru's bowl are going lukewarm. And, finally:

"f*ck." Gojō's voice is achingly quiet. "I just forgot he was so young."

Something ice-cold runs down Suguru's spine. The broth feels tasteless on his tongue. He speaks like...

"I know."

"I have students older than him."

"I know."

Like Suguru is dead. Like Suguru died. Slowly, things slot into place, silently clicking. The realization is cold. Maybe some part of him already knew. The infirmary no longer carries lozenges and the students didn't recognize him and Gojō keeps watching him.

Okay, thinks Suguru,so I would have died soon.

How? Suicide? No. A curse? Possible.

And that...

It's not that it doesn't bother him, not that it isn't terrible, not that he wants it to happen, but the realization of it feels familiar when it sinks in his stomach. Some part of him already knew that curses would kill him from the moment he entered the college. Jujutsu exists to protect the weak: Jujutsu shamans exist to protect nonshamans: shamans exist as shields for nonshamans: shamans will die as shields for nonshamans. Suguru is a shaman. It's a logical deduction.

(This logical progression is followed by: nonshamans exist to make shamans die.)

Even if it wasn't a curse directly—if it was a simple collapse from exhaustion, the root cause is the same.

Monkeys.

Suguru closes his eyes, and leans back in the hardwood chair.Nonshamans, he reminds that ugly part of him that insists on seeping oil through his thoughts and tar to his tongue. Nonshamans, nonshamans, nonshamans. The panic-lined acidic hatred that assaulted him on the bathroom floor has been washed away by miso. The spiraling exhaustion and confusion andthis is too muchthat possessed him during dinner has slid away.

In its place, there's a numb sort of relaxation.

Shōko walks back into the kitchen. Suguru hears her footsteps, and slips open his eyes.

She looks at his empty bowl. "Want seconds?"

"Sure," he says, slipping his eyes back closed. "Though I can't promise I'll finish it."

"That's fine."

It's not clarity that he's feeling right now, it's nothingcloseto clarity, but it is enough so that the subject of nonshamans doesn't immediately overwhelm him with a boiling mess of vitriolic disgust. These are the quieter moments, the ones where his head is not a war between two choirs trying to sing over one another. The ones where his skull is not echoing a litany off*cking monkeysjust die alreadyyou remember them cheeringthey're killing usignorantweakandshut upignorance is not a sinthey're innocentwhy are you like thisyou're disgustingSHUT UP. Cultists cheering in his ears. Head split between revulsion, and revulsion of that revulsion.

Shōko sets the newly filled bowl on the table in front of him. "Thinking about something?"

He looks at her through thin slits. "Mhmm."

"Ooo," her smile is small and almost sardonic, like she knows something he doesn't, "dangerous."

"You really think so?"

She shrugs noncommittally. Suguru takes the bowl, warm, and lets more broth slide down his throat. It goes down so much easier than curses.

They're still alive when I eat them, Suguru thinks of saying,I think that they dwell in my head, sometimes. That they gnaw at the lining of my stomach. That they slip between my ribs and eat my heart whole. I think, sometimes, that I am not the one doing the consuming.

But then again, maybe not. Perhaps it's all him, these ugly feelings. He wishes achingly that he could be clean like Tsukumo, that when he said:we should just kill all nonshamans, it had been a purely rational preposition, born only of analytical deduction. (That's the easiest way to do it, Tsukumo said, and then:But unfortunately, I'm not that crazy.Do you hate nonshamans, Getō?)

I don't know.

The fact remains that they are ignorant, and they are weak, and they are the root of the weed. This loop of protecting them has grown colorless in its futility. Like a corpse with all the blood drained out. Like Haibara's body.

He places down the bowl. It's almost empty. "I'm done for now."

"Okay," Shōko says, "'night."

He pauses by the door, and hesitates.

"Goodnight."

Chapter 3: I’ll keep smiling through

Chapter Text

When he wakes up, there are supplies on the coffee table beside him. A newly bought hairbrush. Hair ties. A tin of throat lozenges. A still-packaged toothbrush. His eyelids feel heavy, and his head thick, but his body is more energized than it has felt in a long time. There's also a full set of clothes, smelling faintly of chemicals, price tags still attached. Right...

Suguru's rumpled school uniform sticks uncomfortably to his skin with grime and sweat. He wrinkles his nose. Shower it is. And hygiene.

The water is scalding. He scrubs his skin red. He's not actually sure what he'll do today, he realizes, stepping out onto the cold stone-slab floor and drying down. There are no missions, no schoolwork, no curses. He slips into a loose white t-shirt and black bontan pants. The material is durable but not stiff. Good range of movement.

He'll have breakfast first, he decides, blow-drying his hair, combing it, and tying it up neatly at the back of his skull. Finally,finally, he looks himself again. Collected, composed. Hisfaceis back.

It's odd, this sudden influx of unexpected free time. He feels untethered, a little off-balance, and the realizations of yesterday still sit heavy in the pit of his stomach, but it's not entirely bad. After bringing his uniform to the wash, Suguru heads toward the kitchen.

When he arrives, though, a student is already there. She's piling ingredients onto a shiny clean counter, by the blender. Bright light from the kitchen's large windows coats everything thinly in morning-white.

Oh, he realizes, belatedly, he went to the common dorm kitchen out of habit. He would leave, but—

She's already turned around to look at him. A look of recognition tinged with something like alarm, and then her whole expression shutters down into something hard and sharp that Suguru can't read.

A beat.

"You're Getō Suguru," she says. Beneath her rectangular glasses, her gaze flicks halfway across the kitchen, where a red-handled spear rests against the wall.

He eyes her warily. "How'd you know?"

She snorts. "Gojō isn't keeping it a secret from his students," she says, "He told us that you two arrived yesterday, and to 'be nice'."Nice, is spit from her mouth like a mockery, like an ironic joke he's missing the context of.

Suguru hums. Then, with a light, idle tone that he does not feel: "And you are?"

She holds him with that hard, unreadable look for a couple of uncomfortable seconds, before clicking her tongue against her teeth and saying: "Maki."

He raises a brow. "No last name?"

"Just Maki."

It's impolite to press, heknows, but her face is still that hard mask, and he can't help but— "Disowned?"

Maki's face tightens, lips thinning, brows pulling. Her jaw sets. Aha. A reaction. He files it away. "None of your business."

"Sorry," he apologizes, not entirely without sincerity. It's not good to press other people's obvious sore spots, he just—he's tired of being on uneven grounds, of thatI know something you don'tlilt that's becoming too-common in this jaunt to the could-have-been future. "I overstepped."

Maki just clicks her tongue and turns around, going back to her... smoothie making. Suguru lingers at the door for a moment longer before making his way to one of the high chairs at the kitchen's bar and settling himself down. It feels...awkward to use the kitchen, right now. He should've just gone to the vending machines.

He nibbles on an apple from the fruit bowl and watches Maki dump frozen berries into the blender. The grating sound of blades against frozen fruit makes ears ache. It's better than the thick, stretching silence that blankets the room otherwise, though. Maki seems content with this heavy awkwardness. She doesn't even look at him, determinedly focused on her smoothie making.

It's almost dismissive.

In absence of anything else to do, he studies her; the slant of her eyes, the deep black of her hair that tints green in the morning light that sprawls lazily in through glass windows, the hard set of her jaw, the way every of her movements is imbued with an almost stiff sort of purposefulness. It reminds him of something, of Kyoto goodwill exchange events and stuffy meetings brimming with clan politics, Satoru sayinggod they're the worst you have no idea, and—

The vague familiarity clicks. A Zen'in. A Zen'in that won't call herself a Zen'in.

Suguru glances at the cursed weapon leaning against the wall. Last night, Gojō had said—

"You're the Zen'in reject," he realizes out loud, "the nonshaman."

His words burn between them, leaving smoldering coals that smoke the air and make everything just a bit harder to breathe. It's stifling, the weight of them. Sothisis the monkeystudent. The one that might be able to pay her due of living. She turns half around, meeting his eyes evenly over the kitchen bartop.

"Yeah," the nonshaman says, lips curling in an almost-sneer, "'you got a problem with that?"

The root of the weed. Suguru can't see it, because the concentration is too small and he doesn't have six eyes, but she's dribbling cursed energy from her skin, leaving it in inky, putrid trails all over the place. If he concentrates, he can pick its taste out from the air, sharp and pepperish and so faint it could be imagination.

f*ck, it's disgusting.

The college—it's supposed to be a place forshamans. Before highschool, life was a shuttering film, an endless parade of repetitive scenes that quickly wore out their message: they do not understand you, they will never understand you, they can never understand you.What are you looking at?There's nothing there.Confused classmates.Are you sure you don't want another medication?His mother. Then,finally,the college: a place for him, for his kind, a place that'ssupposedto be for his kind.

And now—

"No," he lies, trading faces: eyes thinning, brows raising just a little, smile stretching over his face. An attempt at reassurance, or maybe just habitual courtesy. "Of course not."

Maki scoffs. "You don't need to hide it. Don't be concerned about myfeelings," there's a sarcastic lilt to her tone, a sharp edged anger. Spite. No hurt, though, nothing like hurt.

Now, why would she assume that? Suguru isn't bad at lying. They can't have interacted enough for her to truly know, so—a habitual assumption? Something she has encountered so often that she reads it naturally? Probably.

"I'm sorry that's your assumption," muster empathy. She grew up in the Zen'in clan, borderline-infamous for how they treat their nonshamans. Empathize, empathize, empathize. Empathize! "I didn't intend to come off insincerely."

Another scoff.

She returns her attention to the smoothie. That thick, awkward silence seeps back in. The blender switches on. It's a light pink color, now. The nonshaman swipes her finger over the blender's rim and licks a bit off her finger. Grimaces. Reaches for the blueberries, and dumps the rest of the bag in. And Maki may be content with this itching atmosphere, but Suguru—

"What are you doing?"

The nonshaman doesn't even look at him. "Making a smoothie for my girlfriend." Tone clearly dismissive.

He ignores it. "Having difficulty with the flavor?"

This time, she glances at him, eyes narrow. A moment of deliberation, and, "She likes things sweet."

"Add syrup," he says easily, reclining a little in his barseat and abandoning his almost-finished apple on the counter top. "Maple, maybe."

Her lips pull downward. "Why do you care?"

"I like to be helpful."

"Sure."

He sighs. Lets his face drop, just a little. "Add it or don't, I don't care. It'll fix the sweetness issue."

Maki clicks her tongue, heads for the fridge, and pulls out maple syrup. She adds it into the smoothie wordlessly. Switches the blender on. It rumbles the air. Switches it off. Opens the lid, swipes a taste from the rim, and—

"It's sweet," she says, sounding almost surprised.

"I always make them sweet because Satoru prefers them like that," Suguru says, pauses, half-grimaces. A fading memory of sickeningly-sweet smoothie flickers over his tongue. "Though, sometimes he adds more sugar anyway."

Her expression flicks briefly with something he can't quite place. "Hmm."

There's silence. He begins picking at a carton of strawberries. Glances at the clock. Late morning. Absentmindedly thumbs his earlobe. Is going to do something—put on a kettle for miso broth, maybe, but—

"Suguru!"

Satoru crashes into the room in a rush of motion, all messy hair and soundless footsteps. He stumbles when he pulls to an abrupt stop in front of Suguru, almost crashing into the counter, before pressing himself half onto Suguru's barstool, elbow digging into Suguru's stomach. Suguru wheezes a laugh, wrapping his arm around Satoru's far side to stabilize their precarious position.

"You left without sayinganything!Not even a note! I woke up alone, you jerk!"

"Sorry sorry," Suguru coaxes, indulgent. "You found me easily, though, didn't you?"

Satoru huffs. "Jerk."

Suguru rolls Satoru an apple. "Breakfast?"

Satoru perks at that, but entirely ignores the apple, just how Suguru expected him to. Instead, he leans halfway over the counter, gaze honing in on the pink smoothie. At this angle, Suguru can see the way his eyes flick to Maki. "Hey hey, gimme?" Grabby hands. Voice hopeful and pleading.

"No," Maki says.

Satoru draws back, mouth falling open, looks like he's going to protest, but—

"No, Satoru," Suguru says, lightly flicking the side of Satoru's temple. Exasperation colors his tone. "She's making it for her girlfriend, and besides, I can't let you ruin another innocent drink in good conscience."

"I do notruinthem! It's called improvement!"

Suguru grimaces. "Adding so much sweetener that it becomes sugary goop is not improvement. I don't know how you stand it."

"I don't wanna hear that fromyou!" Satoru pulls away, face twisting with offense. "You and Shōko drinkblack coffee." He spits the word like an insult, like something he doesn't want to let linger on his tongue.

"I don't drink coffee for pleasure," Suguru blandly tells him, "and Shōko doesn't even like it black, she only does that to spite you."

"You're bothhorrible."

"I know, I know." Suguru pats him sympathetically. From the corner of his eye, he can see Maki watching them. Can see the slight frown that tugs at her face before she turns around to dig through the cabinets.

"No, you—"

Satoru stops abruptly, jaw slamming shut with a low clink of teeth. Without any movement at all, in the way that can only signal the activation of limitless, Satoru's warmth and weight disappears from his side. Instantly alarmed, Suguru twists to look at Satoru more fully, but Satoru's whole focus has honed in on the entrance way. Suguru follows the gaze, and—

Feels his own heart stutter in his chest.

Tōji is in the doorway.

Boiling hot bubbles of molten hatred rise in Suguru's throat from the cold fear pooling in his chest, his stomach. Red. Riko's brain splattered against the stone. A shark smile. Swampy-black eyes.

Except, except Tōji isdead. Satoru brought him to the corpse, and even though half that bastard's body was obliterated, Suguru cut the neck with the claw of a curse, just to besure. He's dead, undoubtedly dead. And besides, the person in the doorway, now that Suguru is looking closer—

The curve of his jaw, the shape of his eyes, the bridge of his nose, the dark abyss of his irises—those are the same. But his face is younger, smoother, flatter. Where Tōji wore his hair in a messy mop over his skull, this one's hair has more shape to it. And perhaps most of all, Tōji would never,neverwear that expression. Under Suguru and Satoru's combined, undivided attention, this Tōji-lookalike appears unsure, uncertain, cautious and apprehensive.

"Who," Suguru manages, words feeling ripped from his throat, low and edged, "are you."

The boy takes a half step back.

Ah, right. What face is Suguru wearing right now? It's not the right one. He has to—but when he tries to trade faces for something friendly and approachable, it won't shape right. He can form the lips, but his eyes won't crinkle. It all feels too numb, too stiff. He gives up on smiling, and settles for flat blankness.

"I think," Satoru says, realization in his tone, eyes still glued to the boy, "that's Megumi."

The boy startles. Suguru takes a moment to place the name, to remember slippery bathroom tiles and Satoru's soft hair under his hands. Lavender shampoo. Uniforms discarded on the floor. Fingertips brushing the silvery spot of too-smooth scar tissue by Satoru's hairline.I finally found that kid Tōji told me about. /Oh.What are you gonna do?/I don't know, pause, and:his name's Megumi.

"Tōji's kid," Suguru says.

"Yeah." Satoru's warmth, the weight of his body, returns to Suguru's side. Suguru breathes in sharply.Put it back on,he almost says,remember what happened last time?But Satoru hasn't shed limitless, he's just let Suguru through.

Slowly, Suguru closes his eyes and flattens his expression. Breathes in, and out. Calm. Opens his eyes, and slips on a friendly face. Now, he notices Itadori just a half step behind Tōji's son, and behind that, Gojō coming up. Thin lipped.

"Apologies for our rudeness." Cursed energy is still coiling in his muscles, knit tight and ready to release. Suguru only just barely manages to withhold his lip from curling. "You look like someone we knew."

Gojō leans against the door frame and chirps: "No worries!" Itadori yelps—Sensei, when did you get here!?"I'm sure there's no hard feelings! And wow, oh man, it's such a shame that this kitchen seemsoccupied. Luckily, Jujutsu Tech has plenty of other kitchens! So how about we just..." Pointedly, he pushes the boys out. Especially Tōji's son. Mostly Tōji's son.

Suguru almost grimaces. For all his genius, apparently Gojō still hasn't learnedsubtly. He never needed it.

Satoru is having none of it. They've barely gone two steps before he vanishes from Suguru's side, and reappears in the hallway with a rippling snap of rotten-strawberry cursed energy, blocking their exit.

"Hey kid!" Satoru's expression is more teeth than smile when rocks on the balls of his feet, completely ignoring Gojō and Itadori in favor of Tōji's son. "What's your last name?"

"Don't call me a kid," Tōji's son replies, snappish, "I'm only two years younger thanyou."

"Yeah whatever," Satoru sighs, waving his hand dismissively. "Just answer the question."

Pause. Suguru slips from his seat, glances at Maki, who's turning around to silently watch, and returns his attention to the doorway. He makes his way over quickly, hovering a couple steps away.

"...Fushiguro," Tōji's son finally answers.

Not Zen'in.

"Huh," Satoru says, after a beat, straightening. His face scrunches a little. "I guess I did do something about your piece of sh*t dad's last words, then."

Gojō winces so slightly that Suguru almost doesn't notice. Upon closer examination, his fingers are beginning to thread, flicking through half formed structures.

Fushiguro is very, very still, and when he speaks, there's an edge of something close-to but not-quite disbelief in his voice. Unease curls in Suguru's gut. "Last words?"

"Yeah," says Satoru, "y'know, what he said before dying."

Gojō's hands stop fiddling and shove into his pockets. Fushiguro doesn't respond immediately. From here, Suguru can't see his expression. That cold fear and molten hatred that pooled and bubbled in his chest earlier has slid away, leaving behind something hollow and disoriented. Silence stretches, and stretches, and,

"My dad's dead?" Fushiguro asks.

Oh.

Satoru abruptly stops rocking on his feet. "What?"

"What do you meanwhat?" There's a line of indignation to Tōji's son's voice now.

Oh.

"Holy sh*t," says Satoru, mouth falling open a little. He twists his attention to Gojō, who's now standing still, lips pressed tight. Satoru's expression is purely just—taken aback, incredulous, maybe. Suguru is feeling the same way. "You never told him?"

"To be fair," says Gojō, "Itriedto, when we first met, but he cut me off saying he didn't care about that bastard at all, and didn't wanna know."

That doesnotjustify letting the boy go untilnowwithout even knowing his father is dead, but Gojō seems to know that. The beginnings of a headache bloom between Suguru's temples. Slowly, he raises a thumb to his forehead and digs a nail in. What a mess.

"Even though—"

"I told him to ask me if he ever wanted to know."

"Oh," says Satoru, "yeah, okay, but—"

"What," Fushiguro cuts, voice icy, "are you guys talking about?"

Not just a mess—a train wreck. Suguru is watching it crash in slow motion.

"Right," says Satoru, "Jeez this is awkward." But he's already regaining balance, straightening, smiling wide, unbothered;decidingto be unbothered. There's a certain flippancy to his posture, now. Uh-oh. Satoru is callous on the best of days,sh*t—"Well basically: I killed your dad!"

The train crashes.

"What thef*ck," says Fushiguro.

Gojō winces. Itadori makes a strangled noise of surprise, looking immensely awkward.

"Yep!" Satoru confirms, popping the 'p' and returning to rocking on his feet. "'Totally deserved it, by the way. Seriously! That guy was so annoying! You know he almost killed me? And then—"

Suguru pinches shut his eyes, tuning Satoru's voice out. This f*cking dumbass. He opens his eyes and drops his hand from his forehead, squares his shoulders, and pushes his way through the doorway, squeezing between Itadori and Fushiguro until he's face to face with Satoru.

"Satoru," he says. "Shutup."

Satoru shuts up. For about two seconds.

"What? Why would I—"

"Bepolite," Suguru says, nudging against Satoru's side and elbowing his ribs. "That's—Satoru, you're being sorude."

"Oh no," he says, shifting his head in that way Suguru knows indicates an eyeroll. "I'm beingrude."

Suguru resists the urge to dig a thumb into his forehead, and instead breathes in deeply, and breathes out in a sigh. He can't be angry at Satoru, especially not for this—both his parents were quietly killed before Satoru even hit a year old. For fear that they would monopolize him, for fear of their possibility to influence him.

So, more gently now: "For most people, their parents are a sensitive subject," he explains, "the death of one,especiallyif they were killed, can cause deep upset."

"Oh," says Satoru, considering. Then: "What about you?"

Suguru frowns. "What about me what?"

"Would you be upset?" Satoru tilts his head, fixing attention solely on Suguru with an offhand sort of curiosity. "If your parents were killed, I mean."

And Suguru—

Suguru doesn't know how to answer that.

Of course, he wants to say, but the words stick to his tongue. It's not that he won't lie, but he doesn'tknowif it's a lie. His parents are nonshamans, are weak and ignorant, never understood him,couldn'tunderstand him, because he is a shaman and they are not. But they love him, he thinks, they love him. They still send him cards every month even though he hasn't visited them inmorethan ayear.

Of course, he wants to say, but the words taste chalky and bitter where they sit uncomfortably on the back of his tongue, like a pill. Like a litany of medications and therapy rooms, because his parents love him, so of course they would pay the too-large bill in order to help their only child from the delusions that plague him. They were kind, and they were kind to him, but they weren't kindforhim.

(They never had the capability to be.

In the end, they are nonshamans, and—)

"Stop changing the subject, Satoru," Suguru says, perhaps a couple beats late, tone feeling odd. "Apologize to Fushiguro for the callousness."

Satoru actually straightens in indignation. "What, no way!"

Honestly, normally he wouldn't really bother. Satoru causes train wrecks often, and they can be fun to watch;arefun to watch, usually, but he just hasn't—isn't in the mood, right now. It's all too much. "Please just be considerate of the people around you."

"You're so mean! It's not like I knew that was inconsiderate!" Suguru's head throbs dully at the noise. Satoru jerks him close and pouts, facing them both outward towards the others. "Don't be fooled by Suguru's sugar words and pretty face! He's actually really mean!"

Suguru sighs, deeply. "That's rich, coming from you."

Satoru co*cks his head forehead knocking against Suguru's, weight leaning all over his side. "Hm?"

He contemplates shoving Satoru off. Doesn't. "You're like, the definition of an asshole with a pretty face."

Satoru draws back, as if shocked. God, what a drama queen. "IfI'mthe asshole with a pretty face, then what areyou?"

"Someone with bad taste," Suguru says, dry.

Out of habit, Suguru glances to sideways, to the others. Fushiguro stopped paying attention to Satoru a minute ago and is hissing lowly to Gojō. Gojō is responding, but probably has his eyes on everyone in the room. Itadori hovers awkwardly on the side, attention split between Fushiguro and them. Maki...

This is, apparently, the last straw for Maki. Her expression to pinches, she grabs two large jars of smoothie, and walks right up to the doorway. "I'm leaving," she announces, "do whatever you want with the rest of the smoothie. Nobara doesn't need to see this circus." And then she pushes right past them all, and strides away down the hallway.

There's a breath of quiet.

"Huh," Itadori says, laughing a little. "I guess it kind ofisa scene."

"Because ofGojō," Fushiguro grumbles.

Itadori shifts on his feet. "I guess he must have a habit of not saying important things...? Like how I didn't know about the grade system till we went on that mission with the special grade! Or the summer goodwill exchange!"

Suguru barely to the last of Itadori's words. He's hung up onmission with the special grade. "You didn't know about thegrade system?" Suguru's tone is a little too sharp, and, "Specialgrade? You're a first year."

"Yeah," says Itadori, "I mean—Sensei didn't know. It was an assassination attempt. The others almost died, too—but it's fine!"

Of f*cking course it was an assassination attempt. Of course the other students almost died, too. Of course the higher ups are still throwing shaman bodies around like playthings. Eleven years hasn't changed that, apparently.

"Okay," he says, "but—the grade system? Seriously? You didn't knowthat?Gojō didn't tell you?"

Itadori shrugs.

Last night, at dinner, Suguru had initially thought Itadori was a shaman from a nonshaman family. He thought someone wouldunderstandthat utter isolation, those helpless feelings. That hope shriveled up, but Itadori—he was still thrust into the world of shamanism all at once, suddenly. At least Suguru had grown up with curses when he was found by the world of shamans, but Itadori knewnothing. It's not the same, but it is...

"Wow," Suguru says, still taken aback, "next you'll tell me that he didn't tell you about Sukuna."

Itadori blinks at him. "What about Sukuna?"

"You know," Suguru makes a vague gesture. "His history, origin, effects on the jujutsu world. So on."

"Oh," says Itadori, then frowns. "I don't know any of that."

What, he thinks, and then grimaces. Something burning and venomous tickles his teeth. Not eventhat?"What about textbooks?" Another shrug. "Seriously?" And now he really does level Gojō with an accusing glare.

Gojō raises his hands in a mock attempt at easing the tension. The cursed energy that's begun coiling up in Suguru's fingertips doesn't dissipate. "Ihavebeen teaching him important things! Just, you know,otherimportant things!"

A mean noise escapes unwillingly from the back of Suguru's throat. It's not exasperation, is toouglyfor exasperation, but it's not quite anger, either. "You just forgot it wasn't common knowledge, right?" His own rotten cursed energy sours on his tongue. He doesn't wait for a response before continuing: "I forget sometimes, how ignorant you can be of those that didn't grow up in a clan like you—it's not your fault. It's just upbringing."

There's an inexplicably horrible feeling building in his chest. Derision? No, not with him; never with him. Maybe it's just—all of it, the nonshaman girl, then Tōji's son, and now someone similar tohim, left to stumble in the dark.

"Hey—" starts Gojō, but,

"Okay!" Itadori interrupts, taking a step forward, almost wedging between Gojō and Suguru. He reaches out and clasps Suguru's hand into his own. "How about you show me?"

Suguru almost takes a step back. "I—what?"

"Show me the things you think I should know!" Itadori replies, earnestly. "There's a library around here somewhere, right?"

"Yeah there's a library," Suguru answers, and Itadori grins at him. "But—"

Itadori is already tugging him down the hallway. "We're going to the library!" He calls to the others. "See you!"

"What!?" Fushiguro sputters, genuine alarm in his tone. "Wait!"

Satoru, on the other hand, just frowns, brows creasing when he looks at Suguru getting half pulled away. They both know that Suguru could easily slip out of Itadori's hold if he wanted. So Satoru doesn't chase, and Suguru... he waves haphazardly in goodbye.

It's somewhat of a relief to leave.

Chapter 4: I'm a visionary (a real dreamer)

Chapter Text

The library is located deep within Jujutsu Tech's winding labyrinth of interconnected corridors that twist and run into each other underground. It's designed specifically to disorient. Inevitably, Itadori gets completely lost in the scramble. Suguru slows them down and directs them in therightway.

"By the way," starts Suguru, when they're just outside the library, his hand resting on the door, "why were you in such a rush to leave?" Granted, it wasn't exactly pleasant in the kitchen, with Fushiguro and both Gojō's combined drama, but—

"You wanted to leave, right?" Itadori grins at him, smile like sunflowers.

Suguru sort of, stares, for a moment. Thinks of denying. Doesn't. "How'd you know?"

"I dunno you just—seemed like it?" Itadori looks away for a moment, almost shy. No—not shy. Self conscious? Not that, either. Slightly embarrassed at the lack of better explanation, probably.

"I see," Suguru says, letting a small sigh out between his teeth. "You're good with people." Not good with people in the way that Suguru is: with carefully calculated series' of actions based around observation and analysis, trading faces depending on what's needed in the circ*mstance. No, Itadori is the natural kind.

"Ah, I guess?" Itadori laughs a little.

Suguru smiles in turn, finally pushing open the library door. "It's a compliment, don't worry."

"Thanks!"

They step into the library together: Suguru holds the door, Itadori pauses a half moment before stepping past, and Suguru slips in after him. Behind them, the heavy wood closes with a dull, echoing slam. The library is just as it was when Suguru initially saw it in first year, and, he imagines, just as it was centuries ago. Cold shivers down Suguru's skin. He breathes in, and out. Dry. Old-paper.

"...Wow," says Itadori, and his voice is not harsh against the library's not-silence. It's quiet, but not silent; never silent. There's a low hum of curse energy, constantly maintaining this library, keeping it clean and dry and free from imperfection. "I've...never been here."

Suguru hums. "First years aren't usually allowed here without escort. The college is one of the pillars of Jujutsu in Japan, and by extension, the world. You're looking at the globe's largest shaman library."

Itadori peers into the lantern-lit darkness. Stone-carved shelves twisting and turning, further than Suguru can see. The library is a maze in itself, incomprehensible to anyone that doesn't know the organization of it. "Are there, cursed books in here? Like the kind in movies?"

Suguru snorts. "Yeah, but they're kept under heavy bindings and in the restricted sections."

"Woah..."

"Just stick by me," he says, rolling his shoulders and starting towards the unrestricted section on high profile curses. His steps are brisk against the library's hard stone floor. "Be careful: penalties for stepping into restricted sections can range from simply setting off alarms, to physical injury."

"That's very reassuring," Itadori says with a bit of playful cheek, but his footsteps are steady when he follows Suguru, curiously glancing around.

"It's a serious matter of safety, preservation of important records, and trust between the college and everywhere that has generously entrusted their documents for safekeeping here." He sharply turns a corner. "Satoru messed with the Zen'in clan's restricted section, and it caused such a sh*tshow that a week-long national shaman meeting was called among the higher ups and Satoru got banned from the library for half a year." It was hilarious.

"Oh..."

Suguru stops in front of an aisle of shelves, traces the spines with his eyes, and finally finds what he's looking for. He twists to look at Itadori, and—ah. "Is something wrong?" The boy is frowning.

"No," Itadori says, "just—Sensei isn't that bad, you know? Ihavebeen learning a lot of things. Mostly combat. I'm still alive, and if Sensei wasn't there..."

"You're trying to defend him," Suguru says, "you're saying that learning about the curse you act the vessel of isn't strictly necessary information—at least when measured against everything else you have to deal with."

"I—yeah," says Itadori, wincing, "I guess."

Suguru pauses for a moment.

"You're right," he finally admits, "I hadn't properly considered that, although it's still ridiculous that he didn't immediately tell you about the grade system and at least pick out some books on basic shaman knowledge. I'm not, I'm not trying to say he isn't looking out for you." It's—strange, is all, to think of Satoru in a nurturing role, to think of him doingwellin that sort of role. "Don't worry, I'm not offended."

"Ah, okay! I just wanted to mention it!" Itadori smiles, eyes returning to the shelves.

Suguru traces a ledge with his fingertips, before settling on the spine of a hardcover book and pulling it out. "This is a compilation of all known historical records of Ryōmen Sukuna, translated into modern Japanese." He offers the book, and picks out another. "And this one is a more general book on him. It should be a good start, at least."

Itadori takes the books tentatively. "Thanks!"

"No problem."

Itadori makes some remark about the amount of reading. Suguru hums, only half listening. His eyes have drifted to the section right over. Lanterns line the aisles, little glass structures, barely larger than Suguru's fist, each one containing a carefully caged and eerily glowing onibi. Their blue light dances shadows over the stone, over the angular spines of books. Suguru aimlessly trances the shapes with his fingertips, skimming titles, before his fingers finally settle and smoothly slide an old book into his palm.

A history of JapaneseShaman and Nonshaman relationsby Kamo Yutaka.

Suguru thumbs the old, weathered pages.

"What's that?"

He almost startles at the sound of Itadori's voice.

"A book I read a couple months ago," Suguru answers, "it's about the history between shamans and nonshamans."

"Cool!" And Suguru almost laughs at that, short and mean. Itadori wouldn't say that if he hadanyidea about that history. "Why's it in this aisle?"

"Bleed-over from a neighboring section," Suguru answers, gesturing around the corner, "it's likely been placed this close to the Sukuna subsection because of how this book touches on the subject of Sukuna."

Itadori's brows furrow. "Why?"

Suguru leans against a stone pillar. Its hard ridges dig into his back. "You've heard of the Golden age of Jujutsu, right?"

"Yeah," Itadori nods, "kinda. It was during the Heian Era, right?"

"Mhmm." Suguru slowly flips through the book's introductory phase, past chapter one... "It wasn't a golden age simply because there were a lot of geniuses—although there were—it was because there were simply more shamans ingeneral."

Itadori nods. "Why?"

"Don't get me wrong," Suguru says, "shamans haveneverbeen large in number. We've always been a small minority, but there were substantially more of us back then. It can be said that Sukuna himself ended the Golden Age of Jujutsu. He set off the decline."

Itadori's hand travels to the slit marks beneath his eyes, and retreat just as quickly. "Did he really killthatmany...?"

"He did," Suguru says, "he killedmanyshamans himself, but that's not what caused the drastic population decline. Sukuna ended the Golden Age because of theculturalshift that resulted from his carnage."

Suguru feels—simmering. His cursed energy is beginning to churn, hum, buzz and coil. The library's coldness curls around his skin, raising goosebumps. He grinds his teeth.

Itadori squints, nonunderstanding. "A...cultural shift?"

"Among nonshamans," Suguru explains, and his fingers press white against the pages of his book. "Sukuna was a shaman before he was a curse, and to them, that meant 'shamans become entities like Sukuna.'"Theignorance—"So they targeted shamans. There has always been an unbridgeable rift between shamans and nonshamans, but this... At first, it was a disorganized movement, a general hatred and fear in the populace of nonshamans, but then the Emperor ordered purges of shamans."

Itadori stills, straightening. "But... aren't shamans... how would they even—?"

"You're completely right." It's ugly, this feeling bubbling to the surface. It's grotesque in a way Suguruknowshe shouldn't show, but his heart is beating against his ribs and his blood has gone molten, and he can't help the sneer that twists on his face. "In normal circ*mstances, a nonshaman trying to kill a shaman would be laughable. It would be soeasyto kill the nonshaman. And the nonshamans of that era knew that, so take a guess, Itadori, what did they do?"

Itadori takes a small step back. Suguru relaxes his face into something more placid. Eventually, Itadori says: "...Poison?"

"Good guess! There was that, too." And he really just can't help the odd tone that enters his voice, the dangerous edge. "Did you know shamans aren't actually so rare as you'd believe? The mutation that gives a human access to their curse energy isn't terribly uncommon. The reason there are so few of us... it's ourmortality rate. Shamans have an extremely high mortality rate in general, but it peaks between ages three to seven, and fourteen to eighteen." Three through seven because curses become aggressive when observed and children that young still haven't learned not to look and don't have the power to defend themselves. Fourteen through eighteen, because this is when shamans generally begin fighting curses, and they are still inexperienced. "In other words: we are vulnerable as children. So, what did the nonshamans of that era do?"

The realization dawn on Itadori's face. It's a horrible look, the way his eyes widen and his skin pales and his lips twist. "They..."

"Rounded them up and butchered them," Suguru provides, and perhaps it could be a kindness, to say it himself instead of prying the words from Itadori's mouth, but there's nothing kind in the way Suguru spits them. "Targeted teenage shamans while they were exhausted from curse-hunting, killed toddlers in the cradle." Ignorance isn't a sin, but the result of it is, so really. Same difference.

Itadori looks queasy. "Does that kind of thing still...?"

Suguru swallows a mean laugh. "That dramatically? No. The sentiment remains in rural areas, though. Details are lost to time, but shaman children are still killed because of superstition."

No matter how hard Suguru looks, he can't find good in nonshamans. They're terrible now, just as they were a millennium ago, just as they are when he presses the disgusting manifestation of their rot between his teeth. Bathing his soul in the worst of humanity. How is the shaman worldstilldefending them? It's a world of lies, of gold-leaf platitudes about duty andprotect the weakand under all that shine, it's allrotten. And Suguru is living this lie, is walking this Penrose triangle of shaman bodies as if there's anymeaningin that—

"Oh," Itadori says, and looks like he is going to say more, but can't find the words.

"It's not as if it was entirely foolish of them—it's true: only shamans are capable of becoming the sort of curse that Sukuna did. Perhaps, were it true that the creation of curses like Sukuna isinevitableif you allow a shaman to develop into their potential, there would have been justification for the slaughter," he hears himself, say, and it's mean, this tone. His curse energy is becoming a hungry, alive thing, writhing and gnawing. "Their fallacy lay in assuming inevitability. Sukuna was a special case, a sorcerer of almost unparalleled power and malice. His becoming a curse was a deliberate, and preventable thing. And it's ironic, isn't it?" He should stop speaking, he really should, but— "That they would slaughter on the assumption that shamans create curses, whenthey—"

Abruptly, the book that he's been clenching hard between his fingers is tugged away. Suguru startles, jerking around, and—

"Fascinating conversation," Gojō says blithely, holding the book between his fingers and closing it with a sharpsnap. He tilts his head at the two of them. The dark makes him look sharp, dangerous, blue light deepening the shadows of his thin smile. "Yūji, what were you two talking about, again?"

Suguru's whole chest feels cold with horror.

Itadori is visibly relieved at Gojō's arrival. "Um—Getō was just telling me about some Jujutsu history! That's all! He picked out some books on Sukuna, too!"

Gojō hums, snatching the books right out of Itadori's arms, scanning the covers and skimming the contents, and handing them back. "Great! Sounds fun!" Gojō peers at the book he took from Suguru. "Shaman nonshaman history, huh? That stuff can get nasty on both sides. The Zen'in clan, and to a lesser degree, the Kamo, are infamous for considering nonshamans as nonpeople."

And he says it like heknows.

Satoru—Gojō—neither of them are supposed to know the disgusting (justified) thoughts that swirl in Suguru's head. He hates lying, hates living a lie, hates it all so much, wants to be honest with Satoru more than anything, but—

"He's right." Suguru finally puts a face back on, calm and mature. Carefully, he steadies the flow of his cursed energy, wrangling it into something smooth and placid. "It hasn't been entirely pretty on the shaman side either. I'm sure there's a number of books on it. You can find them, if you want."

Gojō hums and tucks Suguru's book into his pocket. "That's a little heavy, though.You, Yūji, just focus on reading those books on Sukuna, hmm?"

Itadori nods, then grimaces. "I will, Sensei."

"Great!" Gojō claps his hands with false cheer and none-too-subtly starts herding Itadori towards the exit. Suguru stares, for a moment, and decides not to follow. It only takes a couple minutes for Gojō to come back, alone.

Suguru eyes him.

This version of Satoru—in this timeline, Suguru died a decade ago, right? It doesn't make sense for Gojō toknow. Suguru isn't planning to tell Satoru anytime soon. It doesn't makesense.

Finally, Suguru drawls: "Is there something you wanna say to me?"

Gojō's hands are shoved in is pockets, and he takes a couple moments before responding: "Nope." and he pops the 'p'.

"Wonderful," Suguru says, flatly. "Why are you still here?"

"This library is big, you know! What if you got lost? I'm a very responsible adult, I can't let children get lost in libraries! Think of it! Poor little Suguru, dying of starvation in a library, cold and alone! How terrible!"

Suguru resists the urge to sigh and press a nail to his forehead.

"If you don't want to tell me, then just say it, asshole."

"Hmm? Tell you? Tell you what?"

In response, Suguru gives his best smile—mostly to press a point, because he knows Gojō sees right through it—and says: "Pretending to be stupid isn't a substitute for subtlety." He sighs, and walks right past Gojō. "I'm leaving. See you."

-

He finds Satoru near the vending machines. He's across the courtyard, on a bench, and Suguru lets his gaze linger for a moment before tugging his head back to the machines and punching in numbers. A smoothie (for himself) and two packs of anpan (for Satoru). When he jogs over, though, Satoru doesn't even look at him.

It's another hot September day, sun too-warm on the back of Suguru's neck, but the mountain breeze is chilly. Satoru is splayed laxly over the bench, shoulders slumped, legs spread wide, head angled at the sky. Light glints sharply off the edge of his glasses.

"Hey."

No response.

Suguru frowns, slipping easily onto the bench beside him. Above, the sky is shaded blue-raspberry, and the sun is a white blotch. Cloudless. It's too bright, burns his eyes, and Suguru averts his gaze back to Satoru after barely a few moments.

"Satoru."

This time, Satoru abruptly jerks his body straight, and looks at Suguru, glasses falling out of place. He's not smiling. Unease brews in Suguru's stomach. "Ughhh," Satoru groans, body slumping just so quickly as it had straightened, "you'rebeing weird, too!"

Suguru raises his brows. "f*ck are you talking about."

"Everything's weird! This sucks! This is the worst ever!"

Oh. "Yeah," Suguru agrees, because this would-have-been (could-still-be?) future has been putting him on edge, too. Ah, but—"Wait, what do you meanI'mbeing weird too?"

"Because youare!" Satoru's voice is whiny, complaining. "You've been doing the stupid fake smile but, like, not in theI'm messing with youway, just in theI'm upsetway, and your curse energy keeps going all eye-searing, and you're not even playing along with me! Ugh."

"...Oh," says Suguru, and he's not sure why it takes him aback; he can read Satoru, why should it surprise him that Satoru can read him? "Sorry."

Satoru scowls. "Shut up."

"You shut up."

"This sucks."

"You already said that."

A beat.

"It's just weird, you know?" Satoru's voice is quiet, and now he's sort of...curling into himself. He places a shoe on the bench and brings a knee to his chest, resting his chin on it and crossing his arms. "I'm here, and you're not."

Suguru's chest clenches. He thinks of Shōko, of Gojō,I just forgot he was so young—and of course it would come up eventually, but...

I think I'm dead in this timeline, Suguru wants to say, but can't quite force the words off his tongue,I think I am going to die soon.

"Maybe I went to Kyoto," is Suguru's weak attempt at consolation. It's easier, to divert like this.

Satoru's face scrunches. "Gross."

Suguru shrugs. "Life happens."

The other's fingers twitch. "You're such a sh*t liar."

"No," I just don't want to lie to you, I am so tired of lying to you, "I'm a great liar."

That gets a huff. "Then why can I tell that every word out of your mouth right now isbullsh*t?"

Suguru shrugs. "Maybe I'm just not trying, hm?"

"So you admit it!"

"Well," says Suguru, "technically I didn't even say any concrete statements."

Satoru grumbles something unintelligible, and doesn't respond beyond that. The sun shines too-bright against the sky, and too-warm on Suguru's skin. He unscrews the lid to his smoothie, and passes the anpan. Satoru takes them, shredding almost angrily through the plastic packaging, and biting into the bun. A speck of the sweet red bean filling smudges by his lips. They don't talk.

Quietly, Suguru wonders if Satoru knows what Suguru does. This quiet, unspoken truth of Suguru's fate. Even quieter, Suguru wonders if he would be gone, anyway, even if he weren't dead. Wonders if Satoru suspectsthat, too. He shouldn't, but Gojō spoke like heknew, and...

"Hey look," says Satoru, suddenly.

Suguru snaps from his reverie. Halfway across the courtyard, Gojō and Shōko are emerging from one of the buildings, talking to each other. Beside him, Satoru doesn't hesitate to hop off the bench and stride towards the two adults. There's determination in his steps. Uh-oh.

"Satoru wait," Suguru says, leaving his smoothie behind and stepping some steps to catch up. His words go unheeded.

"Yo!" Satoru pulls to a stop in front of the pair, rocking on the balls of his feet. Suguru settles beside him, smoothing his face and suppressing a frown.

"Yo," Shōko lazily greets, tucking a clipboard under her arm and passing a pen to Gojō. "What do the timetravel idiots want with me?"

"Not much!" Satoru grins, and it's the kind that means trouble. "Just a question!"

Shōko hums. "Oh?"

Suguru absently fiddles with his earlobe and stands by Satoru's side. Studies Shōko, who looks tired, but no different from normal, and Gojō, who has one hand shoved in his pocket and the other spinning the pen Shōko handed him.

"Yep!" Satoru stops rocking, and leans onto Suguru's side. "Sooooo,basically, when does Suguru die?"

The pen spinning around Gojō's finger's abruptly snaps to a stop. Shōko doesn't even look phased. Suguru feels rooted in place.

"What gave you that idea?" Her tone is bland.

"Comeon," Satoru makes an exaggerated movement of exasperation, and this close, Suguru can see the way his eyes roll. His weight presses heavy on Suguru's side, and he adjusts his stance so that they don't both tumble. "We're not stupid, you know!"

Shōko raises her brows. "What if he's just in Kyoto?"

"It's September," Satoru says, tone entirely impatient, "which means the Goodwill Exchange was only a few months ago, and I can see residuals from itallover the place. If he taught in Kyoto he would've still come by then, but there's not even atraceofhisresidualsanywhere!And if he was overseas or something you would've just said that instead of suggesting Kyoto. And no one has mentioned him. And Yaga isstillavoiding us. So he's dead."

Never mind, Satorudoesn'tknow. He treats this conversation like there were only ever two options: Suguru is with Satoru (a shaman, fighting curses, on his side), or Suguru is dead. He doesn't for a second consider the possibility of Suguru being not-here because of cutting ties with the shaman-sacrificing college. And Suguruisdead, of course, because what else couldI forgot he was so youngmean, but—

"Hm." Shōko tilts her head at Gojō. "I'm not doing this."

Gojō makes a face at her. "You're gonna abandon me? Cruel!"

Shōko shrugs. "It's your mess anyway."

"What?" Gojō's face grows genuinely sour. "Nowthat's—"

"C'mon!" Satoru's voice is a whine. "Answer the question already! When does Suguru die?"

There's a small pause. Suguru shifts weight between his feet, and gold mountain air brushes his forehead, and Gojō's face goes flat. Unease curls in Suguru's gut. Satoru doesn't move, staring hard at the pair of adults, almost like a glare. Suguru wants badly to break this silence, to drop the subject, but...

It's morbid curiosity, maybe.

Finally, Gojō sighs. "It was just before Christmas. Last year."

What.

Last year?

A lie, he wants to think, but nothing in Gojō's posture or tone is lying. His fingers aren't even twitching, although they're white around the barrel of his pen. Shōko isn't giving a disapproving look, either. Her face is perfectly bland. It's not a lie.

What do you mean LAST YEAR, Suguru wants to ask, but Satoru is already—

"How?"

Gojō hums. "Why do you wanna know?"

Suguru feels his eyes narrow, at that. Lips pressing thin. There shouldn't be any reason to withhold that information. Not unless—

"To prevent it," Satoru says, with one of the mostduh, are you stupid?tones Suguru has ever heard him wear. Satoru slips his weight off Suguru, standing straight and rocking on his feet again. "Obviously. If it's a curse then I'll exorcise it, 'n if it's a human then I'll kill 'em."

The pen between Gojō's fingers snaps in a splatter of plastic and ink. Gojō doesn't even look at it, just lets the mangled item drop to the ground. They click when they hit the tile-stones.

That sort of reaction—

Suguru feels sick.

"Don't be so casual about that sort of thing," he mutters, and watches the way Shōko is staring at a random wall. Like she doesn't want to look at them; like they're painful to see. His throat feels tight. "I don't want you killing people for me."

Satoru frowns, expression pulling. "Yeah whatever," he grumbles, and then, looking back at Gojō. "You still haven't answered the question."

And Suguru—

If future-him died only last year...

He thinks of Gojō constantly watching him. Interrupting him in the library with the counter side. The monkey—nonshaman—Maki's mix of caution and aggression in the kitchen.You got a problem with that?Shōko is still staring at the far wall. Just a few minutes ago, she called the issue of Suguru's deathGojō's mess. And sometimes, lately, Suguru has felt unrecognizable, but he tries to know himself, he does. And he knows this current version of himself well enough to know—

"It's fine," Suguru hears himself say through the chatter of curses in his blood, and then, louder, "It's fine, whatever. We'll find out eventually. Let's just—" he tugs Satoru's sleeve, and starts pulling him away.

"What? No." Satoru breaks Suguru's grip, but Suguru doesn't even turn around. He continues on his fast walkaway—he doesn't know where he's going. He just wants to benot here. "Wait!"

Suguru just shakes his head and waves, gesturing Satoru to follow him. Behind him, there's a growled noise of frustration, and Satoru saysthis isn't over!But his footsteps hurry after Suguru's all the same.

He breathes out a sigh that he didn't even know he was holding.

He only stops walking—jogging, actually. When did that happen?—when they're halfway across the entire college.

"What thef*ck," says Satoru. In canopy's shifting shade, he looks looks fairy-like, flickering like a mirage. Like something Suguru could lose.

"I—" what does he even say? How can he explain this? "Sorry."

"What?"

Suguru shrugs.

Satoru groans and leans against the tree's trunk, sinking down against the roots. After a moment of debate, Suguru follows. Hard roots and soft grass press against his legs. Satoru's fingers play with the grass. "What isupwith you?"

"I just—" Suguru fiddles with his earlobe, rolling the piercing between his fingers. "I didn't want to know how it happened." It's not untruth, but the words feel gross when they slide from his tongue, anyway. A lie by omission is still a lie.

I was—am afraid of knowing how I happened. I think I already know,maybe. I know you don't even suspect it, though; it's inconceivable to you, isn't it?

"...Okay," Satoru responds, after a moment. "That makes sense, I guess. It'd be sorta creepy to hear about my own death. But—"

"Wewillfind out," Suguru assures, "just give me a moment, 'kay? Promise."

"...Promise?"

"Promise."

"Okay," Satoru concedes, again. "Fine. But only for a little bit."

It's horrible how easily he trusts him. Suguru leans his head against the tree trunk and watches Satoru from the corner of his eye, and with an aching chest, wishes it were a trust that couldn't be broken.

-

Sunset bathes Jujutsu Tech in amber, rosy pink blushing against orange-washed stones, shrines and statues casting long inky shadows over courtyards. Suguru sees it all as he climbs the college's tallest building, pulling himself onto the roof with a heave. And from up here—

he can see an odd figure across the slope of color-reflecting tiles. A small form sitting atop the very peak, on the end of a ride. He squints, thinking for a moment that it's a newly installed shibi, or an oddly placed shisa, but then the figuremoves. He almost laughs at himself; this hell-school balks at the very notion of any change at all, of course the higher-ups wouldn't suddenly decide on new aesthetic additions.

But that still leaves the question of what itis.

Suguru rises to his feet, carefully picking his way across the cracked-tile slope. The figure—

Ah.

Suguru finally reaches the ridge. It's thick and sturdy, and provides just enough of a level surface for Itadori to sit. The boy's knees are drawn to his chest, back against the onigawara, head dipped, and he still hasn't noticed Suguru. One of the books from earlier is laying pages-open on the surface beside him,

A moment of deliberation, and, "Hey."

Itadori startles, almost losing balance and slipping to the side. Suguru is quick to steady him, leaning down and putting a hand against his shoulder.

"G-Getō!? What are you doing here!?"

"I climbed up for a moment alone," Suguru easily answers, "but that doesn't matter. Are you alright..?"

Itadori glances away and visibly shivers, drawing further into himself. "...Fine," he mutters.

It would perhaps be most polite to drop it. This high in the mountains, and with the sun sinking as a molten ball of gold across the horizon, it's cold. Chilly wind tugs at Suguru's hair and threads through the fabric of his clothes. He could simply offer to get Itadori a sweater, and they could both pretend Itadori's curling posture is because of the temperature. But for all Suguru pretends to really care, courtesy is only a tool, a convenient method of navigating interactions with least difficulty.

It's fine, he figures, to press. He has good intentions, after all. Heisconcerned.

"It's alright," Suguru assures, "you can talk if you'd like. I won't tell."

Itadori's eyes flick away again, and he looks like he's going to say something, but a mouth manifests on the back of his hand, and—

Itadori flinches so violently that Suguru thinks he's going to fall. The very next moment, he slams his hand against the roof hard enough to crack a trio of tiles.

"That was—!" Itadori shoves his hand into the pocket of his uniform. Suguru catches sight of some blood. "Sorry, he hasn't...done that in a bit."

"...Ryōmen Sukuna?" Suguru cautiously sits down on the ridge, legs hanging down over the tiled slope. "Is he bothering you?"

"I can control him," Itadori says, but his lip is trembling, "he won't take over, or anything."

"I'm not doubting that," Suguru says, tone gentle as he can make it. "I asked if he was bothering you."

Itadori shifts restlessly. "It's not..."

Conversations like these can be thought of as a give and take, sometimes. Weakness for weakness, vulnerability for vulnerability, truth for truth. Itadori is the one person in the whole world that has also taken a curseinsideof himself, felt the worst of humanity slip down his tongue. Suguru presses his shoe into the hard tiles, and makes a decision.

"Do you remember how Satoru described my technique?"

Itadori peeks at him, some confusion on his face. "Yeah."

Breathe in, and out. The air tastes of dry leaves and frost and lingering summer. Mountains. "The curses I take in bother me sometimes," Suguru admits. "I've never taken in anything close to the King of Curses, of course, but while my curses are stripped of will, they aren't fully rid of consciousness." Or, perhaps it's more accurate to say that they become quasi-autonomous, warped reflections of Suguru's own will. The mangled patchwork of their collective selves dwell in his technique's stomach, his cursed energy, somewhere not quite physical, but not distant enough nonetheless. "It's not always easy."

"...Really?"

"Mhmm."

Itadori shudders, biting his lip. Then, small, "I guess—he isn't really liking me reading about him."

"He talks to you?"

"Sometimes." Itadori winces, bringing a hand to his head and grimacing. "Sorry he's just—being particularly awful right now, you know?"

"Don't apologize," Suguru says, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Do you want to talk about it?" Itadori shrugs, but doesn't speak, so— "Is he telling you to hurt yourself? Or others?"

"It's not—" Itadori makes a vague motion, drawing one knee closer to his chest, but letting the other dangle freely down the roof's slope. "It's not that. He's—" a bite of the lip, "he's going on about the execution. This time. Did you know his original death was a botched execution? The one when he was human, I mean, where he turned himself into a curse."

"Yeah," Suguru says, pausing for a moment to place the first bit of Itadori's words. The execution—ah. Right. Itadori's execution. "Are you worried about your execution also being botched? And the both of you turning into something worse?"

"I don't know," Itadori says, and he's not meeting Suguru's eyes. There's shame in his face. He's biting his lip again. "Maybe."

Oh.

"You're afraid of the execution happening at all," Suguru realizes, and then, quickly: "Sorry, that was rude."

"No it's—it's okay!" Itadori shifts a little, briefly meeting Suguru's eyes before his gaze flicks around again, then finally settles on the hard clay tiles beneath them. "It's a little scary, I guess. But I've known it's gonna happen for months. It's for the best, right? And I mean, Sensei is gonna be there, he's gonna do it, so... that's nice."

Do it? Do it. Ah. The execution.

There's a beat of silence. Somewhere in the mountainous expanse around them, a pair of birds exchange loud calls that echo distantly. The horizon bleeds gold and orange and crimson, reflecting its colors onto the shiny roof tiles. Shaded in the sunset, Itadori looks like a burning thing.

"Ah!" Itadori lets his other leg drop, rubbing the back of his head self consciously. His smile is bashful. "Sorry, that's a weird thing to say, huh?"

That there's comfort in the knowledge that Gojō will carry out his execution. That Gojō will be the one to do it. That he will bethere. That it'll be him.

"No," Suguru says, thinking of Shōko sayingyour mess, and his throat feels tight, "I know what you mean." Understand it, even.

There's comfort in it, huh?

Itadori's hand drops. He looks hopeful. "Really?"

If Suguru did something terrible, he would bare his neck for Satoru, he thinks. There wouldn't be any question about it. And Shōko saidyour messand Gojō spoke like heknowsand maybe Satoru doesn't suspect anything, but—

"Really," Suguru confirms, and Itadori sighs, relaxing somewhat. Suguru digs his fingers into the cold material beneath them, so hard that it hurts, and feels numbness begin to set into the skin. Satoru, Satoru, Satoru. He feels raw. "Itadori," he suddenly says, "you're speaking about your execution like it's inevitable."

Itadori's expression furrows with confusion. "...Well, yeah?"

The air feels thin and sharp in Suguru's lungs. "You know it doesn't have to happen, right?"

Now, Itadori just looks uncertain. Lost. Like no one has said this to him—and that's probably right. No one has told him this, and it's almost laughable, because to Suguru it's soobvious. "What?"

"It's Satoru," Suguru says, "you said Satoru is going to be the one who executes you, right? Realistically, no one else really could."

"...Yeah." Itadori bites his lip again. Looks like he wants to curl back into himself. Suguru doesn't give him the opportunity.

"You really think thatSatoruwould do that? Execute you even if you didn't want it?" And he can't quite keep the bitterly bubbling amusem*nt from his tone.Really, it's all so—"That he would drag you down to a ritual chamber regardless of your feelings and be done with it? That he'd splatter your blood on the stone? That he'd put duty over you? That—" and—oh, Itadori's lip is trembling again, and he looks like he's going to cry, and abruptly, Suguru realizes that he's being mean. Getting carried away, again. "He wouldn't."

Itadori jerks his head to look away, eyes glassy with unshed tears. "How do you know?"

It really is just f*cking—f*cking—laughable. Not the nice kind of laughter.

Of course, not everyone knows what Suguru knows. He thinks of Tōji's son, and thinks of Riko, too. Itadori wasn't there when Satoru saidIf the star plasma vessel refuses the merger...then we call it off!Wasn't there when Satoru declared he'd fight Master Tengen himself, that he'd compromise the security of the whole country, just to save one girl from the fate that'd been determined since her very birth.

"You didn't know the consequences when you swallowed it. It's not your fault that you care about others. Satoru doesn't kill innocents for things outside their control," Suguru says, and the words taste oddly bitter on his tongue. "He's just that kind of person."

He's the kind of person thathatespinning any sort of role on people that haven't chosen to take it on themselves.

Since the very start, that has been the deciding wedge between their moralities. Near the beginning of first year, it caused them tohateeach other; Suguru saying it was morally obligatory for a shaman to exorcise, regardless of their personal feelings or wants, and Satoru despising that notion with obnoxious disregard of the larger picture. And even now, this fundamental difference remains between them. It's this very divide that assures Suguru that Satoru willneveragree with these grotesquely burgeoning thoughts on nonshamans. The only difference...

"Oh," Itadori says, quietly.

Before, Suguru's morality was something he was completely certain in, something he wasproudof, and now his own mind feels like a foreign, terrible thing. Now he's certain of nothing at all.

"It'll be up to you," he says. "Whether you want to be executed or not."

"Oh," Itadori says, again, and shivers. Dusky purples and blues are beginning to set into the sky. Shadows yawn in the spaces between each tile of the roof. "...That's a lot of responsibility."

A beat.

"Well," Suguru says, gaze slipping from the sunset to the campus far below, "it's your life."

"Right," Itadori says, and then, quieter, "right."

A stretch of silence. Slight wind. The far-off rustling of leaves. The call of distant birds. Suguru's pulse in his ears, breaths awkward against the quiet. The ruffling of Itadori's clothing.

And then, "What do you think?"

Suguru tilts his head at the other, bangs brushing his nose at the angle. "About what?"

"If you were me..." a bite of the lip, "or if you were my executioner; if you had to choose whether I lived or died. Would you...?"

Would you sentence me to death?

Oh.

And Suguru doesn'tknow.

It's true, that executing Itadori is the safer option, that it gets rid of that large, yawning possibility for harm. And itisa large possibility, and it is alotof possible harm, but it's not inevitable.No,of course not.Suguru's stomach churns. Before becoming a vessel, Itadori was a nonshaman, was another part of those ungrateful masses polluting the world with curses. Is there a point, Suguru wonders, when the enormous possibility of harm from hosting the King of Curses outweighs the relatively small, but far more inevitable, harm from leaking cursed energy?

"I..." and there's something disgusting about sayingno, because if Itadori didn't host Sukuna, it could—not would, not yet, maybe(hopefully?) not ever—beyes, "I'm not the best person to ask," he finally answers.

"...Okay," Itadori says, after a moment.

"Sorry," Suguru offers.

"It's alright." Itadori's exhale is loud against the quiet. Both his legs dangle over the ridge, down the tiled slope, and he leans back on the palms of his hands. Another breath, and he smiles, bright like sunflowers and tiger lilies. The strangest thing is that it seemsgenuine. "It's getting late, huh? We should probably head back down."

Suguru jerks his gaze away. It's hard to breathe through the tightness of his throat. Through this bitter feeling of helplessness. "Yeah," he agrees, "we probably should."

They stay there a while, until the sky speckles with stars and the moon hangs brightly. When they finally descend, Itadori returning to the dorms and Suguru making his way towards one of the college's many empty bedrooms with Satoru, that bitter taste still lingers on his tongue.

Chapter 5: I think I didn't havethe strength to find another way

Chapter Text

Morning brings with it a crisp coldness that bites Suguru's skin and doesn't soothe his tired nerves. It's barely daybreak, and the college is still thick with valley fog. It's not quite so dense as it will be later in the year, but the rooftops are obscured in dusty white hues and Suguru can barely see six steps ahead of him. As a first year, this haze of grays and whites that sometimes encases Jujutsu Tech was surreal, novel. Now, it's just irritating.

He gets a smoothie from the vending machines. It settles coldly in his stomach, and unease clicks down his spine. Satoru, Gojō, this future. His dead counterpart. He wants to be calm about it, but every bit of him feels on-edge. He's pacing the outdoor walkways aimlessly, turns a corner, and—

It's plain instinct to sharply kick the figure that would've crashed right into him. Even more so when that individual has black hair and knife-edge eyes, and—

Suguru snaps himself back. sh*t.

"Sorry," he immediately apologizes, before Tōji's son has even swung back onto his feet. Suguru reaches out a hand. "I should have better control over my reflexes."

Tōji's son—Fushiguro, right—eyes his hand, but doesn't take it. He stands to his feet, stance blatantly cautious, face guarded.

A beat. Suguru withdraws his hand to his side. Two.

"It's fine," Tōji's son Fushiguro says. "It happens."

Suguru rolls his shoulders. Checks over his face again. It doesn't feel like he's let it slip. Hopefully. "I really am sorry about that. I'm not usually this easily startled."

Fushiguro's lips press thin. His weight shifts subtly between his feet. He's so easy to read.

"Just..." Fushiguro clicks his tongue and looks away. "Leave me out of the sh*t you and Sensei have with my old man."

Suguru feels his face go stiff. He grits his teeth. He'strying.

"Of course," he says, relaxing his shoulders and leaning back on his heels. Fushiguro eyes him for a moment before waving and moving past. After a couple seconds, Suguru continues on his way, now with a destination in mind.

The training grounds.

There are several of them, but Suguru is going to his favorite one. It's sized moderately, not small, but not made for training large-scale techniques in. It lays on the college's edge, up a small stone staircase and through a patch of forest. The trees open up to a packed-earth clearing.

Suguru centers himself and begins a simple stretching routine. His muscles burn pleasantly. He steadies his breathing, his pulse, but his mind won't comply. Fluidly, he slips from stretching to several kata routines. It's notfastenough, not powerful enough. If Tōji were here—

Suguru grits his teeth.

Mist trails his every movement, curling around his ankles and chasing his fingers in dancing wisps. Suguru's blood feels molten, skin bitingly hot against the cold air. His every movement is fluid, art all on its own, painting with momentum and the slope of gravity. It would be enjoyable, maybe, but Suguru has been dancing like this with Tōji's memory for almost a year, and hestillcan't take the lead.

His heart pulses in his neck, against his ribs. Riko's blood on the stones. The scar in Satoru's hairline. That sharkish grin. Had Suguru been the one to kill Tōji, he would have had him eaten alive. Sharp teeth would've shredded that man's skin, and he would've been consumed in the stomach of Suguru's curses.Thump, thump, thump. If, if, if—

"...etō—!"

Suguru pivots on the balls of his feet, momentum carrying his leg towards the sound's source. Although it's lifting, the fog still makes everything a little hazy, but there's pink hair and wide eyes and—

Suguru jerks himself to a halt, the sudden stop almost pulling him off balance. Carefully, he lowers his leg.

That makes twice, today. At least this time it didn't actually hit.

"...Getō?"

"Sorry, reflex." He presses his shoe into the ground. "Do you need me for something?"

Itadori's ears are faintly pink. "I actually got here a couple minutes ago...I figured I should stop just staring like a weirdo. You looked really cool, though!"

Suguru hums. Raises a brow. "You come here often?"

"Well—I was actually looking for Maki. She's usually here in the mornings."

Another hum. "You could look in the indoor training rooms?"

Itadori's shoulders slump. "Already did."

A beat. The fog has thinned, morning sun burning it away revealing faintly pink hued skies above. Suguru shifts his weight. "I could help you with what you need," he offers, "if it's something I can help with."

"It's okay!" Itadori raises his hands. "You don't have to—"

"So itissomething I can help with?"

Itadori pauses. "It's just combat pointers. Sensei says I'm a natural—and itdoescome easily—but I've never had formal training..."

"I can definitely help there." Suguru smiles reassuringly. Beckons Itadori forward. "I've helped underclassman with their martial arts before, too. Don't worry about it."

"...Okay!" The other finally accepts, smiling. "I'll be in your care, then!"

Suguru nods. "First," he says, "spar with me for a moment."

"Alright!" Itadori stances himself, then visibly hesitates. "But what if—"

"Don't hold back," Suguru cuts. "You'll barely be able to touch me, even without holding back."

That makes Itadori draw back, brows furrowing and lips pouting. His stance is good, relatively. "You're like Sensei after all!"

Suguru raises his brows. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! You haven't even seen me fight before!" There's no offense in his tone, though.

"I don't need to." The face Suguru puts on is deliberately mocking, a hint of a smirk; confidence. The performance should motivate Itadori well enough. "I'm just that good. Come at me."

So Itadori does. It catches Suguru off guard, how good the first-year actuallyis. He's fast, and he knows how to pack power in his movements. There's an effortlessness in his utilization of momentum and steadiness of stance—almost the sort that professionals have. But not quite. He makes it work in the haphazard way of a genius given the wrong tools.

"You use to right side of your body too much," Suguru tells Itadori while he struggles to grapple out of Suguru's hold. "It makes you predictable, and if you rely too much on one side, it'll be devastating if that side is injured in the middle of a fight."

And,

"Don't step before you kick," he says, catching Itadori's shoe with one hand and throwing him off-balance. "That small delay will become muscle memory, and it'll be hell to shed the habit."

And,

"Your form is too inconsistent. Learn how to hold yourself and drill it in instead of going by pure instinct. The only reason you haven't broken a wrist mid-fight is because of cursed energy reinforcement."

And,

"Man!" Itadori stays on the ground, balefully looking at the sky. All lingering color from dawn has faded. "How do you know all this anyway!?"

"My technique almost by nature has required me to hone my martial arts ability," Suguru answers, gently nudging Itadori's stomach with his shoe. "Especially at the beginning, when I didn't have any strong curses, I've needed personally to fight opponents at close range."

Itadori makes ahnnnoise, eyes flicking to meet Suguru's. The first year sits up, leaning on his palms. "Doyouhave any weaknesses?"

I freeze up if I get too emotional, Suguru immediately thinks.It's momentary, but there. And if I can't process the issue quickly, then my offense becomes impulsive and borderline reckless.And of course, he's thinking of Tōji.

A beat.

"Of course I do," Suguru says. "I still have a way to go."

Itadori looks up at the sky, seems to chew that for a moment, then—his face dawns with casual curiosity. He looks back at Suguru. "What about Sensei?"

Suguru pauses, breathes in, and out.

"Yeah," Suguru finally says, "Satoru also has weaknesses."

Itadori blinks at him. "Like what?" And it's not even sarcastic or bitter, it's an earnestly genuine question.

A year ago, Suguru would've easily been able to say sensory overload and general exhaustion, but neither of those apply now that Satoru has learned reverse cursed technique. Hypothetically, you couldtryto stimulate him at a faster rate than his technique could keep up with, but that's impossible in any sort of realistically applicable sense. No, now...

"His weakness is other people," Suguru hears himself say. "In a fight, they'll automatically drag him down, no matter if they're fighting alongside him, or bystanders. Or hostages. A careful planner could take advantage of this."

"...Huh," Itadori looks back at the sky, and Suguru watches the way his chest stops rising so drastically. Hears the quiet sigh, sees the slight downturn of his lips. Feels a prickle of concern.

"Something wrong?"

"No!" Itadori rubs the back of his neck self consciously. "No, it's just," his hand drops, "Sensei feels so out of reach, I guess. Y'know he thinks we—me and other students, too—can reach his level? It's just..."

Something thick presses against the walls of Suguru's throat, gross and spherical, like a curse. "Don't put yourself down too much," he decides on saying, and he's not sure if he means it asyou'll never reach his level; no one can, so don't be hard on yourself about itor as,keep trying, it's a hard journey, but I'm sure you can.

"You're right," Itadori says, laughing a little. He smiles, bright and genuine. "I shouldn't."

That's enough of a break, Suguru decides.

"C'mon," he says, stretching out a hand, "back to it."

So they do. Itadori goes back into fruitlessly attempting to knock Suguru off his feet, and Suguru guides him through, catching his ankle, giving a pointer, throwing him halfway across the training ground—

A whistle interrupts his attention.

Suguru snaps around. On the edge of the training ground, just above the stone stairs, is the nonshaman student. Her weight is leaned against a tree trunk, one hand against her jaw, the other holding her elbow. There's a grin splitting her face, sharp and determined and challenging. The hand drops from her jaw and ghosts along the covered spear across her back.

"Maki!" Itadori is already bounding across the clearing, wide smile.

"Yo," the nonshaman answers, lifting from the tree and stepping fully into the sunlight. It makes the dark edges of her hair look almost green. Her eyes flick from Itadori to Suguru, and back. "You know," she says to Itadori, "Fushiguro was looking for you earlier. He's by the dorms, I think. You should probably go."

"Megumi's looking for me?" Itadori's expression pulls. He looks at Suguru worriedly, and almost looks puppyish. "Sorry, I—"

"Don't worry about it," Suguru answers, leaning back on his heels, giving a smile and a lazy wave. "It was fun. Try not to forget what I pointed out. See you around."

"See you too!" Itadori waves to them both and disappears down the stairs in an echo of loud footsteps.

Suguru almost for-real smiles, but doesn't. Instead, he adjusts his posture to face Maki, stance deliberately casual, and tilts his head, slipping on a pleasantly curious face. "So," he drawls, "I heard you frequent this training ground?"

She shrugs. "It's my favorite."

"What a coincidence," he says, words slipping thick and slow from his tongue. That knife's-edge sensation from only a couple hours earlier is back, less uneasy, but just as buzzing and full of unreleased energy, "It's mine, too."

"'Guess we'll just have to share."

Suguru tracks the flexing of her fingers. "'Guess so."

"Y'know, you're pretty good," the nonshaman says, slinging the spear down from her back and abandoning it on the clearing's edge with a dull thump, "but I'm better."

And that,thatis definitely a challenge. Direct and blatant. It's a mocking, too.

His lip almost curls. This nonshaman really thinks she can challenge him, huh. "Oh? You're sure about that?"

"Why don't we find out?"

He eyes her. The nonshaman's stance isn't blatantly for battle, but like his, it can very easily slip into one. She's more outwardly aggressive than him—it shows in the tension of her muscles, the hard set of her jaw when she stares him down, the way her shoe leaves a rough indent in the hard earth when her posture shifts minutely.

"If that's how you want it..." he lets the words drag, lets his smile turn almost-mocking as he shifts his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet, "then why not? I'll indulge."

This is all the agreement she needs to launch forward, fist first, kick coming from the side—

Suguru dances left, strands of loose hair whipping against his temple. She's not quite so fast as Itadori, but she has more technique. She's far more finely honed. It's not hard though, not yet—

Her fingers graze his wrist, and it almost throws him. Her knee is coming as a follow up, and Suguru pivots away from that easily, but hand is already there waiting, and she manages to grab him for real this time. Revulsion surges in the pit of his stomach, heavy and loathsome. As a nonshaman, she's constantly leaking cursed energy, which is now dribbling onto hisskin, and—he wretches his hand away, retreating one step, two, three.

"What's wrong?" Her expression is taunting. "You're just running away!"

She isn't evenwrong.

Something sour coats his tongue. He's being entirely avoidant, not evendefensive, justavoidant. He doesn't want to touch her, and it's holding him back, and seriously, what the f*ck? He won't eventoucha nonshaman? How f*cking stupid.

"'Just giving you time to warm up!"

Abruptly, he twists his momentum, slamming an almost uneven amount of weight into his left leg and letting it carry him into a subtler series of movements, aimed more to unbalance than harm. She takes it easily, her real problem lies in the way she attempts for moves that she simply doesn't have the power to carry out.

Suguru catches her fist, the power of it rattling his bones, and advancing the grip to her shoulder, lifting, and—

The nonshaman hits the ground none-too-gently. Her real problem...

"You're too used to fighting with a weapon."

She snarls, swinging back to her feet. "I don't need you to tell me that!"

He smiles, thin and entirely fake. "No need to get to worked up over it. I haven't had an actually decent sparring partner in a while; I don't have any high expectations for you."

The nonshaman's jaw visibly clenches, and her glare is molten. When she comes back at him, though, her form has adjusted. There's a harsh anger to the linear swing of her fist, but it's more calculated, now.

"The strongest sorcerer isn't good enough for you?"

Suguru snorts, then almost winces when her kick catches the bone of his hip in a way that will definitely bruise purple. "Nah. Everything else aside, Satoru's sh*t at hand-to-hand."

"Poor you," she responds, sarcastic.

Her movements are quick but not impulsive. Suguru has to steal his breaths, and she's viciously satisfied when she notices. Apparently, she's the kind of fighter who only becomes sharper with emotion. And she has a lot of emotion—unusually so. It's not normal, he thinks, she shouldn't be so riled up just from a couple taunts.

"You don't use Zen'in techniques much." Not that she doesn't use them atall—she does, and is smart for it, because it's not a bad style, but her form is a patchwork of styles. It's a cheap jab at her status as a family reject.

"Not my fault that style isn't good enough to use more," she scoffs, redirecting the weight of his left hand and attempting for a moment to grapple with the right before giving up and jabbing an elbow to his rib cage.

"So you use mixed martial arts, hmm?"

"So do you."

He retreats one step, two, nape warm and palms tingling. It's true, Suguru is a completely mixed martial artist, but he hasn't displayed that yet, not really. Sowhy...

"Refusing to mix styles based on old notions of stylistic pride is for people that want to die in real combat," he replies.

By now, the fog has cleared, its small remnants curling around the nonshaman's shoes. Bright sunlight catches on her pulled-back hair when she uses the distance to build momentum in a series of circular movements.

It's—not bad. It's not bad.

The nonshaman isn't that bad.

His chest knots, teeth grinding down. It just doesn't feelright. He catches her wrist, attempting another takedown by shoulder, but this time she gives up on fighting the move and takes the fall with a roll, using the new position to make a go for his ankles.

"Say..." He jerks out of the way. "What grade are you?"

She bares her teeth, surging up towards his jaw. "First."

Oh, seriously? A nonshaman? Afirst grade?

"For real?"

"What," she sneers, "hard to believe?"

Yes, actually. Or maybe not. She's actually keeping up with him. It's not logical, Suguru recognizes, this acidic rejection at the notion. But for so long as he remembers, there has been shamans, and nonshamans, line of strength and knowledge cleanly dividing them. Butshe...

"It's impressive," is what he says, not untruthful, but still curdling like poison on his tongue, "congratulations."

"I don't need your approval."

Itreallyisn't normal, this level of aggression. This feels—personal? It feels personal.

"Of course not," he placates, smiling. The fabric of his clothing feels rough on his skin, and one of his socks is beginning to bunch uncomfortably in his shoe. "Who were you taught by?"

That's clearly not the best inquiry, though, because she curls her lips and attempts a particularly nasty twist on his arm. "Until I came to Jujutsu Tech? Entirely self taught!"

Suguru is a little preoccupied with avoiding the sudden dig for his side, but he manages an: "Oh?"

"You think anyone wanted to teach themonkey?"

Suguru looses footing abruptly, stumbling a step, two, before regaining balance. It's such a cold shock to hear that term in reference to nonshamans outside textbooks and his own mind, and to hear her spit the word with so muchhatred. It's like how he thinks it, except she doesn't hate her kind, she hates people that call her kind that.

f*ck.

And she saysuntil I came to Jujutsu Tech, but he's sure she meansuntil Gojō became my teacher, and of f*cking course Satoru—Gojō—whateverwould accept a student like her wholeheartedly. He'd be delighted at the break of tradition, curious to see how far she could go. Because that's the kind of person he is.

Sweat slicks Suguru's palms and he feels oddly unsteady in his footing, but that doesn't hold him back from managing to trap the nonshaman in another throwdown. The difference this time, though, is that Suguru doesn't leave it at there. He follows the throw with a heeled kick, sending her slamming against the ground a few steps away with a strangled choke.

The sound, along with the sickening sensation of something in her chestcrackingunder his heel—it douses the burning, acid thing that possessed his limbs and head. Something freezing pools in his stomach and twists tightly through his chest. He forgot himself. Spars are supposed to becontrolled. Something like that—

It's not something he should break out against someone like her, someone he's supposed to be protecting as a shaman; it's not something he should do to any sparring partner atall.

"f*ck," he hears himself say, rushing over with gnawing concern, "I'm so sorry." He's already extending a hand. "Are you al—"

Her grip on his wrist is iron and bruisingly tight when she pulls herself up and slams him down in her place. His back hits the groundhard, air knocking from his lungs, and under her grip, something in his wrist audibly fractures.

She drops his wrist, sneer on her face. "Getting concerned about your opponent in a fight?"

Suguru narrows his eyes at her, purses his lips. Slowly, he raises to his feet. His wrist throbs, skin hot, fingers tingling. That hand is out. "Are we fighting?"

Makidoesn't answer, shoes digging deep into the hard earth. Her chest must be hurting like hell, but she holds herself straight and ready.

He matches. "You know," he says, slow, when it becomes apparent that she won't continue, "being a shaman, as a job, as the one that carries out exorcisms... It's not exactly anidealline of work. First grade, you said? You didn't have to choose this."

Because Makiisa nonshaman,doeshave freedom from the iron chains of duty. And it just... It's not jealousy that's thickly slicking the back of his throat, but it is... curiosity, he supposes. The burning, itching, bubbling kind.Why would you choose this, why would you choose this, why would you choose this.

"Spite," Maki answers, short and blunt and it doesn't make any f*cking sense. It sets him off balance, but she doesn't care; she's already surging forward.

Suguru clicks his tongue, struggling to defend against her blows with only one hand. "Spite?" Something likethat?It tastes sour on his tongue. "That's a weak reason."

"Not everyone needs delusions of righteousness!"

She aims specifically for his newly harder to defend side, and he has to jump back. That odd feeling is back, the pointed aggression towardshim. Spite, she said. It reminds him, vaguely, of Tōji. Spite towards the Zen'in clan, spite to this society of shamans, spite... and there's spite in her face when she looks athim.

Abruptly, it occurs to him, that if his counterpart died last year, then Maki would've been a first year. They could've met.

Nausea briefly touches his throat.

"Delusions of righteousness," he manages to repeat, finally finding a better rhythm in his footwork. It doesn't quite fill the void of his left hand being out of commission, but it compensates. "I think you're the crazy one if you're doing this sh*t for something petty asspite."

"So? Crazy is needed as an exorcist. Besides," Maki's shoe slams into the ground, leaving a deep mark when she pivots, "my girlfriend doesn't have some grand reason either! Neither of us could care less how many people we save on this sh*tty job! It'd be exhausting if we did!"

And Suguru—isn't sure what to say to that.

A year ago, maybe he would've said something abouttaking it more seriouslyandpeople are dying, but he can't, not now, and especially not toher. Who might've met his counterpart, who might've f*cking—what—he doesn't even want to think about it. He lets their talking drop off, and tries to concentrate entirely on their spar. He can't quite do it.

Maki and Kugisaki—no grand reason, huh? They're not eating the gold-leaf platitudes that the shaman world spins.It'd be exhausting if we did!

He grits his teeth. What, so he's just been a fool since the very start? No. He could never live like that, without purpose or meaning. Suguru knows himself well enough to understand that. Exhausting? Who cares.

Maki sends him off balance, and he cuts the train of thought. He truly—

The placement of steps, timing of blocks, the hum and rhythm of blood and bone, blocking and attacking. For a moment, there's no space for anything else. A hot feeling builds under his skin, coursing and molten, but not unpleasant. Not angry, or even irritated, really. No it's—

A feeling he hasn't felt during combat in a while, actually. It takes him a moment to place.

Excitement. It's exhilarating! She's keeping up with him! He doesn't need to worry, though, because this isn't life or death!

She's—

"You're strong," he recognizes, realization cold and warm all at once, but notwrong, and it takes him a moment to realize that the feeling on his face is a ghosting smile.

Maki's expression morphs—surprise, bemusem*nt, and then, vicious satisfaction. "I know."

Suguru huffs a breath. "Hey," he says, briefly catching her leg and pulling her close, off balance, "have you ever had a schoolmate die?"

Her brows draw for a moment, eyes squinting, before regaining her balance and making a go for his knees. "A schoolmate? No."

Wow.

Probably Gojō's influence. Can't let his students die, huh?

"Or just—a shaman you knew, in general," he says, meeting her attempt to destabilizehimby pressing into it and grappling with her. He's careful to keep his voice steady. "In my first year, half the third years died, and the only second year got maimed so bad they dropped out. My kōhai died earlier this year. Additionally, before entering the college, I worked with a few senior shamans, of those, two died last year. Death is the norm in the shaman world."

"You think I don't know that?" Maki hooks her leg with his and presses, digs her elbow into his stomach, and they both tumble to the ground. His skull knocks against hers in the fall, and when they part on the ground, dirt in both their hair. She scowls at him, hand hovering over her ribs.

He scowls back. This close, he realizes that he wasn't wrong yesterday morning in the kitchen—Maki's cursed energy really does taste hot and pepperish. Gross. "Have you or have you not?"

"ObviouslyI've had shamans I've knowndie."

"Took you long enough to answer." In an impulsive move of excessive pettiness, Suguru reaches out and undoes Maki's ponytail.

"Ohf*ck you," she snaps, inelegantly shoving him away and pulling up to her feet. "Do you have apoint?"

He also stands back to his feet, and his wrist throbs, white-hot and swelling. When he glances at it, the skin is blossoming an ugly purple.

"Mypoint," he replies, lightly dancing out of the way from Maki when she attempts to grab back her hair from where he's slid it onto his wrist, "is that none of this ispetty, the shaman world isn't something you can just..." He can't quite find the words, and frustration gnaws at his tongue, at his chest, pulses hot through his veins, and he just wants to f*cking— "You can't just act like none of itmatters!People aredying!This world hates shamans!"

Maki's expression contorts, and the look she gives him is positively scathing. "Big words fromyou."

Suguru is going to respond with—something, but she hits him with a too-quick series of movement before he can. Right hand, left foot, knee, elbow, palm, palm, right step—the moment of delay lets the words chew in his mouth, and he bites them back. Because, right, the Zen'in clanisinfamous for their mistreatment of nonshamans, and perhaps saying something like that toMakiwasn't the most tactful, but—

It's just—

he doesn'tknow.

Left leg, right step, fist, kick, left side, ribs, stomach—

A wave of nausea churns in his stomach, and he falters. She doesn't slow in the slightest. Her hand grabs his arm, grip advancing to the shoulder, and he can't quite twist out. The angle is too sharp, and his ankle won't make the turn. A sharp pain flares in the muscle, and for the second time today, his back hits the ground.

For a moment, Suguru just lays there, looking at the blue sky, the too-bright sun, small wisps of cloud. The fabric of his clothing feels sticky, and morning chill still clings to the air, but hit blood is still running too hot for it to matter. He closes his eyes and waits patiently for his heartbeat to slow, but it won't quite calm.

Something nudges his stomach.

Lazily, his eyes open a crack. Maki blocks the sky. One brow is raised, and her hair is spilling over her shoulders. "'You getting up?"

Inexplicably, he feels like laughing. Would it be strange if he told her that she's the best partner he's had in—what—a year? Much better than dancing with Tōji's memory, at least. Even if, in some ways, but not the ones that really matter, she reminds Suguru of him. It would definitely be strange to say so, though.

"Nah," he says. His ankle throbs. He tries to curl the hand that's wrist is fractured, and the fingers feel numb. It's not the worst kind of pain, he thinks. "Twisted my ankle."

Maki clicks her tongue, and looks almost disappointed. "I'll get someone, I guess." And she turns around, leaving Suguru's field of sight, footsteps sharp and brisk, and Suguru just—

"Wait."

The footsteps pause. Suguru turns his head and watches her turn around, looking at him expectantly. "What?"

He clears his throat, almost dismisses it and tells her to go on, but doesn't. Because, because he thinks he already knows, but he has to besure. He has to be sure. "You met my older counterpart, right? The one that died last year."

Maki's weight shifts between her feet, and her jaw sets. "And? What about it?"

"What was—" he stops, swallows again, mouth feeling dry, and for a half moment, Suguru regrets bringing it up at all. But he already knows the answer, doesn't he? He just has to be sure. He has to. "What was he like?"

That gets a scoff. "Total piece of sh*t," Maki answers, no hesitation. "Human garbage."

Breath catches in Suguru's throat, tight and choking, and he has to close his eyes and breathe it out in a slow, even sigh. He already knew, he alreadyknew. She just—she puts it so bluntly.

"...I see," he murmurs, noncommittal. And, mostly out of some morbid curiosity, "...And I?"

Maki takes longer on this one, one beat, two, and he cracks his eyes back open. Watches her study him, the small way her brows furrow, before she clicks her tongue again.

"Less of one," she decides, and Suguru laughs for real this time, small and more air than sound.

"Flattering."

"I wasn't trying to be."

A beat, two. She doesn't move, and neither does he. Finally, his heartbeat has calmed, if only a little. There's wind in the leaves. Everything smells like turned earth and mountain forests. The rise and fall of his chest feels awkward in the way he feels it so fully. His wrist pulses achingly. Nonshamans, nonshamans, nonshamans...

Do you hate nonshamans, Getō?No, because how could he hate someone for how they were born, yes, because they're weak and ignorant and there's a yawning split that can't be bridged, no, because...

Maki isn't weak, though, and maybe she's not ignorant, either. And maybe she's a bridge, too. And maybe Suguru hates that, or maybe he doesn't, or maybe he just wants to.

"Hey," he says, eyes wandering to her face, "do you hate shamans?"

It would make sense if she did, he thinks. He's read enough on the Zen'in clan to know she has all the reason to. Even if he hadn't, he's good at reading people, and she's far from subtle.

"Of course not, are you f*cking stupid?"

Lazily, his gaze returns to the blue expanse above. "It would be fine if you did," he says, testing how the words feel on his tongue, and they don't feel right, necessarily, but they don't feel wrong, either. "It's fine to hate that which hates you, I think."

"Did I say I don't?" Irritation lines her voice.

"You do?"

"I'm not some sort ofsaint."

"Ah." It takes him a moment to place it, but—right, he's thinking of people as groups, again. Thinking of them as monotonous blobs. "I guess."

"Any other stupid questions, or can I go now?"

"...Nah. No more questions." Suguru pulls himself into a sitting position and uses his good hand to gingerly help lift himself onto his feet. The sharp pain from his sprained ankle makes him wince. Maki eyes him dubiously. "It's fine," he says, making a vague motion with his bad hand, and wincing again. "Shōko hates having to go to patients instead of the other way around, anyway."

"...Right," Maki says. "I'm not carrying you there."

"That's fine." Not like walking halfway across campus on a sprained ankle is the most painful thing he's done.

"Don't blame me if you collapse halfway there." Maki's voice is hard, but she waits by the stone stairs for him. Stays patiently when he gingerly picks his way across the grounds, awkward and unstable like a newborn fawn. When he finally catches up, she reaches out, and before he's even realized what she's doing, she slips her hand into his hair, and steals his hair tie.

God, the sheerpettiness.

For a moment, he just stares. Heat curls around his neck where his hair has spilled down in a loose mess. "Really?"

"What?" She twists the tie around her fingers, smirk on her lips. "Problem?"

A beat.

"No," he says, pushing hair out of his face, and laughs. He can't help it, really.

Chapter 6: like real people do / you’re so good and I’m nothing like you

Chapter Text

When he and Maki find Shōko, she’s leaned back in an old office chair, eyes closed, looking tired, just tired. Suguru hesitates at the entrance, weight leaning against the doorframe, wrist throbbing hotly against the cold air. She looks sotired. Maki, however, doesn’t harbor the same concerns.

“Oi,” she says,stopping just a couple steps from Shōko’s desk, “some of my ribs are fractured.”

Shōko sighs, cracking open her lids. Her gaze lazily surveys Maki—the hand that’s hovering over her chest, the loose mess of her hair—before settling on Suguru. Immediately, Shōko straightens with a jolt, almost jerking with the force of it. Her eyes flick between him and Maki. She’s never been the most expressive person, but Suguru can easily read alarm in the lines of her shoulders, and his chest sinks with the cold dread of it. What did his counterpartdo?

“...Fractured ribs?”

“Yeah and they’re painful as f*ck so can you,” Maki makes a vague motion, “y’know.”

“Yeah,” Shōko says,rubbing eyes and haphazardly gesturing Maki over. “Sure, just—come over here. Why’s Getō here?”

“Fractured wrist,” he offers, “maybe broken. And a sprained ankle.”

A half best.

“Youwalkedhere on a sprained ankle?” Shōko presses her fingers into Maki’s neck. The effect is almost immediate—Maki’s whole form relaxes, hand dropping from her chest, posture becoming more natural.

Suguru shrugs, lifting himself from the doorframe and half-limping across the room. “So?”

Shōko groans, withdrawing her hands and waving Maki to the side. Suguru takes her place. “What do you meanso?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Suguru says, eyeing the way Shōko’s hands abruptly hesitate over his skin, “I didn’t feel like—”

Shōko’sskin finally presses against his own, and her touch is as it always is: cold and smooth and careful, if not gentle. Reverse cursed technique multiplies for positive energy, and Shōko controls it flawlessly. It’s warm and soft when it flows through him, familiar and reassuring as hojicha on a cold wet day and his mother’s fingers through his hair, and Suguru presses into the touch before he’s realized it. The pain in his ankle fades entirely, and the throbbing ache of his wrist leaves with one final pulse, warmth lingering in the flesh.

The touchdrops. “How’d all,” she makes a vague motion to them both, “that happen, anyway?”

“Just a friendly spar,” Suguru says, hand reaching up to fiddle with his piercing, and only catching himself halfway through the movement. He shoved the hand back to his side. He didn’t lie, exactly. Probably.

“A...friendly spar,” she says, flatly. Her gaze turns to Maki. Ouch.

Maki shrugs. “We sparred.”

Shōko’s browsrise. “Friendlysparred?”

Maki makes a face, but shrugs. Shōko’s eyes flick to Suguru. Helpfully, he matches the shrug. This is, apparently, enough for her to groan and give up. “Fine, fine. Whatever. Get out of here.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ve got better things to do anyway!” Maki waves laxly and leaves just like that.

Suguru hesitates a moment, two, and stays.

“What?”

“Ah,” he shifts weight onto his newly healed ankle. Runs his tongue along his teeth, hard enough to hurt. The infirmary is always cold, although not so much as the morgue, and it raises goosebumps on his skin. “I have a request?”

She sighs, deep and exhausted, and guilt pricks uncomfortably at Suguru’s fingertips. Or maybe that’s just the tingling return of proper blood flow. “What?”

“I passed by my room—my old room, earlier,” he says, and it feels too loud against the quiet, “it was locked. And so is the filing room. So.”

“You want me to get the key,” she says.

“Yeah.”

A beat.

“Okay,” she says, and her tone is still sotired. Shōko rises from her chair like a ghost, pale and skeletal. Suguru’s own eye bags have noticeably faded even after only these couple days in the future, without missions or work at all, but hers seem like a permanent, innate thing. They’re not, he knows; she barely had them in first year, and they grew in tandem with her smoking issue towards the start of third. “Let’s go.”

“That easy?” Suguru hurries a couple steps to follow her brisk pace.

She snorts. “You’re only asking because it’s the easiest way. If I declined, you’d just find a way to bypass security on thefiling room, right?”

“Probably,” he admits.

“So I’m saving us all some trouble. Yaga’dget a migraine if he had to repair a newly-installed security system on top of everything else.”

“On second thought,” Suguru mutters without really meaning to, “maybe Ishouldjust break in.”

There’s an irregular gap in her footsteps—almost a falter, but not quite. When Suguru refocuses his attention on her, she’s still walking brisky. Their steps echo coldly in the deep underground halls.

Finally: “’Got something against him?”

“If you’re trying to be casual, you’re doing a terrible job.”

“And you’re avoiding,” she responds without missing a beat, and when he doesn’t reply, she lets out a breath that could be a sigh. Then, quiet andunder-the-breath in a way that means he probably isn’t supposed to hear: “Why do I even bother...”

Guilt.

“It’s not like he’s even come to see us—or at least, me,” Suguru mutters, shoving a hand in his pocket and tucking hair out of his face. He locks his jaw and glares at a wall, and his cursed energy roils with his mood. He feels it, coiling and snappish, hard to control. “Eleven years apparently hasn’t changed that all he ever does islook away.”

“I mean,” Shōko says, then stops. Doesn’t continue. Of course.

They stop outside an old metal door. There’s a card-slot. That’s new, and also the only reason Suguru didn’t pick the lock yesterday.

“Who convinced the higher ups to update the security on this thing anyway?”

“Satoru.” There’s a faint click, and the door unlocks. She slips the card back into her pocket, and presses her hands against the metal. Steps in without looking to make sure Suguru follows. He does.

Dust is the first thing that hits him.The whole room is dim and gloomy. It’s one of Jujutsu Tech’s older rooms, lit with caged onibi. Their blue glow produces an eerie effect against the rows of gray metal filing cabinets. It’s a small, cramped room that borders on being claustrophobic. In it, all the college’s records are stored. The room is sorted every decade, irrelevant documents discarded, and important ones—student files, graduation records, special incident reports—are stored away into the archives, kept indefinitely.

Also in this room is kept keys to every dorm room.

Shōko is already opening the key drawer. “You sure you want it?”

He raises a brow. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

Something gleams brass between her fingers. She still hasn’t closed the cabinet. “There’s not much to see.”

He sticks out his hand, and tries to ignore the coldness that bites his fingertips. It’shisroom. There’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing he should bedreading. “I’ll make that judgment myself.”

Silently, she drops the cold brass key into his open palm, and the rough metal clunk of the drawer sliding back into place echoes in his ears even as the filing room’s door closes behind them.

-

Despite now possessing the key, Suguru doesn’t go immediately to his dorm room. It weighs heavy in his pocket, burning through the fabric of his pants, but before making use of it, he eats lunch with Satoru. Laughs at Satoru’s recounting of a recent mission. Wanders around. Takes a shower.

It’s late afternoon by the time he finds himself walking up down thehallways, traveling a familiar route to the building’s far corner. To his room. He stands there for a moment, staring at the plain unmarked door and dull brass knob. Presses his jaw tight, and slips the key into the lock. Pulls open the door.

Inside...it looks just like it always does. Just like the room Suguru left behind.

Nothing is cleared. The bed has the same blankets, the same books are on his shelf, no new souvenirs decorate the dresser.

Surprise fails torise in Suguru’s mind. On his first night here, Shōko said he and Satoru were from shortly before—something. Shortly before. Something. Not death, because his counterpart died last year, and after death, student’s rooms are always cleared. But Suguru’s isn’t. This—this looks like the room of someone that was expected to come back. Someone that was hoped to come back.

Suguru steps past the threshold with heavy feet. Dust tickles his nose, thick and itching. The air is stale. The door clicks softly shut behind him. It’s dim in here, lit only bylight filtering through the large bedside window. Outside, the blue sky from earlier has clouded over, and everything is dusted a little gray as consequence.

He breathes in a shaky breath. Walks to his desk. Opens the drawers. Everything is there, but not in order. Like someone dig through it and put it back together wrong. The bookshelves are the same.Who rummaged around here? What were they looking for? He thumbs the spine of a book—the one he’s reading right now, actually. Takes it off the shelf. Flips the old pages. Stops at the bookmark. It’s only thirty pages further than he last left it.

Soon.

Bile edges the back of his throat. He puts the book back. Everything is too old, too stuffy, too dusty. He crosses the room to the window. It takes some effort to wretch the old thing up, and he almost stumbles at the sudden give, but it shoves up with a nasty grating sound. Before-rain scent wafts in, sweet and fresh. He breathes in, and out. Flops on the bed, stifles a cough at the dust that springs up, and closes his eyes.

Soon, soon, soon.

Now, what could he havepossiblydone for his room to be left abandoned like this, but him to only die last year?

Hah.

Suguru stares into the darkness of his eyelids, and tries fruitlessly not to listen to the chattering hum of his own cursed energy. Of all the curses within it. All the warped, grotesque reflections of his will. Maki—

There’s a sudden slam. A familiar noise. Suguru groans and cracks open his eyes.

“Itoldyou to stop slamming my door open.”

“Yeah whatever,” Satoru says,pausing in the door frame and lifting his opaque glasses for a moment. His eyes flick around. His lips press thin. The glasses drop back. His fingers twitch, flexing and unflexing. Suguru’s chest clenches tightly, and for a moment, all he wants to do is hold Satoru’s hands between his and tell him not to worry, but he doesn’t. A beat, two, and Satoru sighs, loud and obnoxious. “Older-me lied about you dying last year, huh?”

“No,” Suguru says, “he wasn’t lying.”

Satoru’s face scrunches. “This is literally like, your current room.”

“Yeah,” Suguru shifts to the side of the bed, making room, “but if I died way back then—or like, soon, you know, my room would just be cleared like dead student dorms always are.”

Satoru closes the door behind himself, haphazardly flings off his shoes, and flops onto the bed next to Suguru. The mattress bounces. “I dunno,” Satoru says, head half buried into a pillow. He shifts, turning to face Suguru. “Maybe I just never allowed it to be cleared.”

“Maybe.”

“Ughhhhhhh.”

Suguru snickers. Satoru makes a face. “I still don’t think older-you was lying, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Suguru says, “You’re a sh*t liar. I’d be able to tell.”

“Excuseyou,” Satoru says, face scrunching again.

“Your posture always straightens out,” Suguru says, “and youalwayssmile, or if not, your face goes stiff. And your fingers twitch.”

A beat, two.

“Oh,” Satoru says, “really?”

“You have a lot of tells,” Suguru says. “You’re aware of the hand one, though, or at least future-you is. He shoves his hands in his pockets to avoid showing it once he notices he’s doing it, but he hasn’t been able to stop the habit.” Pause. Suguru’s gaze wanders the dimly lit room. “But when he told usmy counterpart died last year…” fingers pressed white around the pen, lips pressed thin, “he wasn’t lying. Just upset.”

“Seriously?” Satoru’s voice is a mutter. Then, “Man, this sucks.”

“What, you’d rather my counterpartdiddie in high school?”

“What?” Satoru scowls at him, lifting up from the mattress, just a little. “Are you stupid? Of course not.”

Suguru pauses. “That was a bad joke,” he admits, “sorry. What sucks?”

“Everything! All this stupid sh*t! That you’re dead at all!”Satoru drops fully back down to the mattress, pale cheek pressing into the black blankets, knees drawing up and bumping with Suguru’s.

“Oh.” Suguru’s lips quirk. “You said that before, too.”

“It’strue.”

Breeze wafts in from the open window, fresh and sweet like summer leaves and autumn soil. Satoru looks softer, in this cloudy lighting. It sands his sharp edges and dusts his colors into something more pastel. The black of his uniform shades gray, and the snowy white of his hair becomes less stark. Even the worried line of his frown looks soft like this. His lips are dried-rose pink.

And Suguru wants simultaneously to hold him close and push him away.Because, because—

Maki met his counterpart, and she hated him. Because Suguru knows how close he was, is, to the edge. Because this room is untouched, because this is the room of someone that was expected to come back. That washopedto come back. Because Gojō is still upset over Suguru’s counterpart. Because Suguru told Itadori that Satoru’s weakness is other people, but Suguru doesn’t want to be Satoru’s weakness.

Suguru doesn’t want to be Satoru’s weakness. He doesn’t want, he doesn’t want, he,

“I want to be alone,” Suguru mutters, quiet, words feeling too large for his mouth. “Go away.”

“What?”

“I want you to go away,” Suguru says, not looking at Satoru’s face and settling on the window, instead. Outside, the sky is gray and stormy. It’s sprinkling. Small, soundless drops of water slick Suguru’s windowsill.

A beat, two. Suguru listens to his heartbeat, and Satoru’s breaths, and the rustle of leaves through the open window.

“Too bad,” Satoru finally says, and Suguru hearsthe shift of fabric against fabric when Satoru presses himself harder into Suguru’s bed. “I’m not leaving.”

It feels like first year again, almost. Suguru picked this room because it was on the opposite side of the dorm from Satoru’s in order to minimize contact with him. This backfired, later, when Satoru would press himself into Suguru’s bed and refuse to leave becausemy room is so far away, you’re not gonna make me walk all the way there, are you? You jerk!Although, by that time, Suguru no longer minded. They would fall asleep atop Suguru’s blankets, listening to the creak of the walls and rain against the roof. It would remind Suguru of his first home, the house of his childhood. Mostly, that was a comfort.

“Satoru,” Suguru says, and the tightness of his throat is painful, “go away.”

He just needs—needs time to think. Alone. There’s a picture in the back of his mind, a half complete puzzle. And despite himself, even though he doesn’t want to, Suguru keeps adding to it. So it’s too painful, being with Satoru right now, like this.

But Satoru—“No.”

Frustration blooms behind Suguru’s teeth. “Go away!”

“No!”

It feels childish, itischildish, but they’re allowed to be childish sometimes, right? Shouldn’t they be?

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Ohf*ck you,” Suguru snaps, drawing his knee up and shoving it into the tender area below Satoru’s ribs. The other boy yelps, falling off the side of the bed. There’s a loud thump, and—

“Ow!sh*t, what the f*ck, Suguru!?”

“I—” his frustration hasn’t dissipated, and he wants to tell Satoru to get out, again, because boundaries are important and Suguru said he wants to bealoneeven if that’s only half the story, but there’s a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, splintered shock and hints of fear. Like breaking a cup as a child. And when he moves across the bed and looks over the edge, looks at Satoru on the floor, hand clutched against his stomach, what ends up coming out is— “Why didn’t you turn on your infinity?”

Satorusquints at him. “I don’t f*cking know,” he says, “You’re...you.”

God f*cking dammit. Sugurudoesn’t wantto be Satoru’s weakness.

The frustration doesn’t leave, but the prickling irritation, theanger—that drains. Its absence leaves Suguru hollowed. His chest is so tight. “Sorry,” he mutters, stretching out a hand, “are you okay?”

“Still hurts,” Satoru grasps Suguru’s hand, “but whatever. It’s fine.”

Suguru pulls him up, cold skin against cold skin, and Satoru settles back into place. He doesn’t let go of Suguru’s hand.Their pulses beat against one another. Stormy light splays lazily over the floor, the walls, edges all hazy. Satoru’s glasses gleam dully.

“Hey,” Suguru says, voice sounding too small against the rustling of leaves and hollowness of the room, “can you take off your glasses?”

“Huh? Sure.” Satoru uses his free hand to shove off his glasses, haphazardly discarding them on the bedside table. His eyelids are closed, but they blink once, twice, and then his eyes are properly open.

Just like the first time he saw them, Suguru feels punched in the gut. It’s unfair to describe Satoru’s eyes as sky blue; it makes them too flat. More accurate would beall of the ocean, all at once, or:a blue galaxy. His eyes are multilayered, made of reflections and refractions, fragmented shades of blue. Honed. Intense. Unlike every other part of him, his eyes are not softened in the cloudy lighting, they remain severe as ever, bright and sharp as the edge of shattered glass.

These are the eyes that mark Satoru a human weapon.

“Yes yes,” Satoru says, eyes rolling, “pretty, I know. I’m so pretty, I know.”

Towards the start of first year, after a particularly nasty fight, Suguru had finally snapped and dropped all tact. Had callously told Satoru that his position as a human weapon—groomed for it the moment he opened his damn eyes—was ablessing. Suguru said Satoru should be happy about it, that he had the ability to save so many people. Even though Satoru never had a choice, still doesn’t have a choice.

“...Suguru?”

And eleven years in the future, Satoru is stillhere, still at this f*cking hell-school, still running the marathon of shamanism, still acting his part as the human weapon he was made into. Because it’s Gojō Satoru’s job to be Atlas, to hold up the sky, but Satoru isn’t a god and the sky isn’t a holdable thing.

“Hey? Hello? Suguru?”

The rain slicking Suguru’s windowsill begins to spill over. It’s no longer just a sprinkle. Above them, the rooftap-tap-tapswith droplets. The sky isn’t a holdable thing, it’s liquid, it’s storms and rain. Satoru can shield himself with his infinity, can try to extend his umbrella to others and delay the inevitable, but Suguru can’t. Suguru is drowning. He wants the storm toend, he wants to end the storm. He—

“Suguru I’m gonnabite you.”

Suguru scowls. “If you bite me I’lllick you.”

Satoru grins victoriously, all smug and arrogant and happy. Like he should be. “Yeah right. No you won’t.”

“Oh yeah?” Suguru raises a brow. “f*cking watch me.” And he pulls on their intertwined hands, jerking Satoru closer. AsifSuguru wouldn’t. He darts forward and licks Satoru, right across the face. Satoru makes a pathetic high pitched noise in the back of his throat. Hah. “Not so confident now, huh?”

Satoru’s cursed energy lingers on his tongue, all iced-cucumber isolation and rotten-strawberry anger. Satoru.

“I—” Satoru’s head stuffs into the pillow. His free hand frantically wipes at his cheek. “That’s so gross! You’re gross! Hey, no—stoplaughing!”

Suguru holds back another snicker. His lips tremble with the effort. “I’m not laughing,” he says, and manages to hold out maybe two more seconds before a wheezing noise escapes his mouth and he chokes on a laugh. And then another, and another, until his face starts hurting becauseseriously.

“Stop! Suguru!” He doesn’t stop laughing. Satoru's whole face twists with something that’s not quite embarrassment, but is— “fine! Fine! You wanna be like that, huh? You think you’reso-ofunny! Well—” and now it’s Satoru pulling him close, and it’s Satoru’s mouth against Suguru’s skin, and because Satoru is never one to be outdone, he leaves wet trails of saliva on both of Suguru’s cheeks, and his forehead, and his jaw, and hiseyelids, and—

Suguru pushes Satoru away. “What are you adog?” But he can’t quite manage to sound irritated, with the way his voice is all breathy and laughter still shakes his shoulders.

“You started it!”

There’s a pink dusting on Satoru’s pale skin, a soft dried-rose color, matching the shade of his lips, and Suguru’s heart feels so full. They’ve spent countless night together on this very bed, talking, playing games, doing homework, andmemories spill out on the blanket between them. This intimacy is warm and familiar and easy to slip into, even after all these months spent mostly apart. Suguru’s chest is knotted and his throat is tight, but not necessarily in the bad way, and he’s so, so happy.

Ah, he thinks,I love you; I am in love with you.

I love you I love you I love you I love you

It’s notfair, he thinks, happiness cracking in two. None of this is fair, none of this has ever been fair. He thinks, briefly, of Fushiguro. Thinks of Itadori. Thinks of Maki. Thinks ofRiko.

I love you I love you I love you I love you

“I think,” Suguru says, voice thick, “that you’re kinder than you get credit for.”

It’s just who you are.

“What?” Satoru’s expression furrows with confusion, puzzlement. And yes, it’s a completely abrupt topic of conversation, but Suguru hates that tone of genuine bemusem*nt. “Suguru? What—”

“You’re kinder than you think you are, too,” he tells him, and clutches Satoru’s hand like a lifeline. His eyes prick. “You’re so kind, Satoru.”

You’re just that type of person.

Satoru justiskind. Whereas Suguru makes a conscious effort to be good, to beright, to becorrect, and sometimes that overlaps with kindness, Satoru is just kind. He doesn’t spend sleepless nights agonizing overthe right thing to do, andthe correct moral framework, and all that manner of ethical things. He just… he’s kind. Does that make himgood?Maybe. Does it make himright?No. But the fact remains that he’skind, that he’s just that type of person.

I love you I love you I love you I love you

It’s not fair, Suguru thinks, again, looking at this old, dusty room. It’s not fair. They’re not fair. This world isn’t fair.

Satoru still hasn’t responded. His eyes are flicking around uncertainly, and his fingers are twitching around Suguru’s knuckles.

That’s okay. Suguru can do all the talking.

“Honestly,” he says, “I’m glad you’re the one who’s still alive.”

Satoru jerks like he’s been shocked, eyes honing in on Suguru’s face, grip tightening almost painfully. “Don’tsaythat.”

“But it’s true,”Suguru says, even though really, probably, he should stop talking. “If only one of us could live, it should always be you.” If only one person in the whole world could live, it should always be you, too. If one of us has to die, it should always be me. If one of us has to dirty their hands for the sake of the other, it should always be me, too. And if one of us has to kill—“You know?”

“No,” Satoru says, and the force of it is startling. “No, no I don’t f*cking—what are youon?Neither of us has to—we canbothlive.”

A beat, two.

“...Maybe,” Suguru says, murmurs, really. It’d be nice. “Maybe.”

“Notmaybe.”

Sugurustays silent. His eyes wander the abandoned room. (Someone hoped he’d come back.) Rainwater is steadily dribbling from the windowsill to the floor. Satoru’s grip tightens painfully, and their knees knock together, and when Suguru’s gaze returns to Satoru’s face, he’s glaring at him. All angry and determined with his bright, human-weapon eyes.

Suguru could just agree, save them both the trouble, but he really, really doesn’t want to lie to Satoru. Not ever, but especially not now. Suguru is still uncertain, still doesn’t know what’s right. He doesn’t have to share the fate of his counterpart.

Maybe is better thanno, Suguru wants to tell him, but doesn’t. Instead, he presses the tip of his forehead into Satoru’s, closes his eyes, and sighs.

“I’m tired,” hesays.

A beat.

“...Fine,” Satoru spits, and it’s not agreement, merely acknowledgment that Suguru won’t continue this conversation. Suguru tries not to pay it mind.

He wants, desperately, achingly, to slot their bodies together. To press himself into the ridges of Satoru’s form, and stay there until he can’t tell where he ends and Satoru begins. Wants to feel Satoru’s warmth against every one of his edges, wants their pulses to beatin tandem and their breaths to match. Wants to love him freely, wants, wants, wants,

I love you I love you I love you

Suguru’s heart aches.

(It’s not fair; it never has been.)

Chapter 7: you could make me pay in pain but you could never make me stay

Chapter Text

Awareness comes back in pieces. First is touch: tingling in his fingers and warmth under his palms, an ache in his neck and faint tickling on his jaw. Second is sound: rustling leaves and steady breaths. The smell of old fabric and a rotten-strawberry iced-cucumber taste. He cracks his eyes open, blinks once, twice, and realizes the warmth under his palms is Satoru. His hair is tickling Suguru’s jaw. Ah…

His mind fits everything together sluggishly, thoughts all syrup-slow and pleasant for it. Suguru blinks again.They must have fallen asleep. Inky darkness blankets the room. Nocturnal light spills in through the open window, all celestial and night-thin. It clings to the edges of Satoru’s form like the heavens themselves can’t help but worship this boy, the early-autumn-moon laying him in her silver silks and the stars kissing his hair, his long lashes.

Breath catches in Suguru’s lungs,and he averts his eyes. Looks back. Averts his eyes. Clenches his jaw.

It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not—

He should go.

Quietly, movementsunobtrusive as he can manage, as to avoid jostling Satoru awake, Suguru untangles himself and climbs off the bed. He slips on his shoes and tentatively opens the door, fearful of a creak. It doesn’t creak, though, and Satoru doesn't stir, and Suguru is hit suddenly with the recollection of the morning after they arrived here. Satoru pressing himself into Suguru’s side, voice loud,I woke up alone, you jerk!

Pause.Hesitation.

Suguru closes the door behind him, gentle.

The wood is cold and hard against his back when he leans onto it. Breathes in, and out. Pushes himself off.Exits the dorms, stepping out into the cold night air. It’s no longer raining, but everything is wet, grounds drenched in the thick scent of mountain petrichor. Had it not just stormed, he would climb onto the rooftops and stay there a while, but the tiles are cold and slippery and his throat is uncomfortably dry anyways, so Suguru makes his way to the closest kitchen.

Except, when he steps in, it’s already occupied.

“Ah,” he says, hovering at the doorway, “sorry forinterrupting.”

Maki glances at him, face setting into a bland frown, elbow on the counter, legs crossed on the barchair. Low light reflects over her glasses.Kugisaki, though, she hones in on him with something almost hawk-like.

“Hey,” she says, “you.”

Suguru shifts weight between his feet. Resists the urge to fiddle with his earlobe. Raises a brow. “Yeah?”

“Taste test!” Kugisaki points sharply at a bowl on the counter, filled with cubed jelly slathered in cream. “Maki says it’s good, but I need another opinion.”

Suguru blinks. He just wanted water. But—

He tilts his head at Maki. She shrugs. Okay, then.

“Sure,”he agrees, abandoning the doorway and getting a cup of water before settling at the counter, one chair away from Maki. The cup clinks when he puts it down. Nobara pushes a small plate towards him. The cubed coffee-jelly looks almost amber in the kitchen’s warm light. He hesitates, almost frowns. Doesn’t Kugisaki not eat…? “What’s it made from?”

“Agar-agar powder instead of gelatin and coconut base for the cream.” Kugisaki’s voice is impatient and her shoe taps rapidly against the kitchen floor.

“Interesting.” Suguru picks up a cube between his fingers, looks for a moment, and slips it past his lips. Coffee. Thick cream—he can taste the coconut—but not too thick. Smooth texture. Sweet, but not to sweet. It’s… “It’s good.”

Kugisaki hums and squints at the large bowl containing the rest of the coffee jelly. “Really? I thought I put too little coffee...”

“No,” he says, “I think the balance is fine.Where’d you learn to cook?”

Kugisaki shrugs, motions vaguely with her hand. “Self taught. My grandma’s old and it’s not like I could ever go out to eat after elementary anyway. At least, not in the countryside.”

Thecoffee-aftertaste is bitter on Suguru’s teeth. “Rural areas can be tight knit,” he says, instead of bringing up rural discrimination against shamans. He glances at Maki from the corner of his eye. Her expression is bland and she’s leisurely eating at her own small plate of coffee jelly. She seems content to stay out of it. “Was it hard to leave everything behind?”

“Nah,” Kugisaki says, “no way. Staying in that f*cking village in the middle of no where, not doing anything—I mean. It’s not like I have grand ambitions or anything, but there? Ugh. It didn’t feel right! I couldn’t be who I wanted to be! Staying there—”

“Death of the soul,” Suguru mutters, pauses, realizes he’s spoken, and morphs his face into something sheepish and apologetic. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, whatever,” Kugisaki says, seeming almost taken aback. “I guess—yeah. Something like that.”

A beat, two. Suguru eats another cube.Doesn’t chew it fully before swallowing. Suguru left his own hometown because he was tired of pretending to be something he wasn’t and there was no purpose in staying, no meaning in stagnation. Now, he’s stagnating again, pretendingagain, in this endless pattern ofexorcise-ingest. The lack of purpose in it all clings to his skin, to his plastic face.

Inability to be who you want to be is a death of the soul, huh.

Suguru wants—Suguru wants to be a good person. Wants to be correct and moral in a way that crosses into fixation. It’s a burning need, this hunger for meaning, this searching for purpose. And thiscollege with its gold-leaf platitudes, this infinite motion machine that runs on shaman blood, this f*cking place that bends itself to the whims of a cursed world, this place awful system that Suguru iscomplacentin,perpetuating—

“What about the college?” His nails click against he glass of his cup. “Would you leave if you wanted?”

“I mean,” says Kugisaki, “I’m happy here, but yeah, if I wasn’t then I would.”

Suguru resists the urge to fiddle with his piercing. Thinks of Satoru, still asleep in the dorm room. “And leave everyone behind?”

Kugisaki glances at Maki, but still says, “Yep.”

Maki hums, but doesn't appear offended. Suguru watches her. His skin itches, pricks. The air in his lungs feels stuffy.

Breathe in, and out. The air smells faintly of coconut and sugar and stormy weather. He shifts himself to face Maki. “What about you?”

She squints at him, frowning. “What does it matter?”

He smiles, thin and entirely fake, but not noticeably so. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

Maki clicks her tongue, halfway scowls. Her right index finger digs into the back of her left hand, and Suguru tracks the movement. Her shoulders go lax. “It’s not like I haven’t left people behind before,” she says, after a moment.

“So, yes? You would leave if you hated it here?Fundamentally?”

Her eyes narrow,and for a couple moments, she just stares at him. He meets the glare evenly. Finally, a scoff, and: “I’d hate myself if I didn’t.”

“I see.” Suguru thinks, again, of Satoru.Not fairechoes in the back of his head, and he can’t stop thinking ofSatoru. He grits his teeth, and downs the rest of his water. Slips from the barchair. His cursed energy feels raw in his veins. “I should get going.”

The goodbyes are short—practically nonexistant. Kugisaki waves him off and Maki seems intent on pretending he didn’t come at all. Hewalks the college’s hallways and thinks of Satoru in his dorm room, and Satoru waking up alone tomorrow morning.

It’s just—

Maybe it’s selfish, this desire toleave, but he can’t help it. Everything about this place embodies a cycle he hates and every thief-light footstep makes him feel alien and it’s just too much. His childhood was a world of lies and now this is a world of lies, too. This place istoo much. Suguru’s face settles uncomfortably on his skin and he just wants todrop it, but can’t, because he’shere, and—

maybe it’s selfish, but hehasto leave, if only for a little while.

-

Moonlight coats the stairs in silver, and Suguru hesitates at the top. Around him, night drenches the mountains in writhing shadows filled with unknowns. He has walked these steps hundreds of times, but right now, their familiar path stretches like a foreign thing, daunting where it recedes out of vision.

He can imagine, vividly, a version of himself that walks down these steps one final time, and never returns.

But Suguru is going to return, hewill, by noon tomorrow at latest. He will.

Breathe in, and out.It’s fine. Just a quick break. His shoe hits the first step, and—

“’Going somewhere?”

Gojō’s voice cuts thecold air like a knife. Despite the playful lilt to his words, Suguru flinches badly, jerking around, heart jumping to his throat, loudly slamming against the cage of his ribs. Cold shock churns into cold dread, and when Suguru tries to figure out which face to wear, he can’t find the right one. All that comes up is images of his abandoned room and Shōko calling his counterpart’s deathGojō’s messand—

“What,” he says, realizing he’s gone too long without responding, “are you gonna stop me?”

It’s the wrong thing to say, he knows. Too confrontational, too challenging, toodistrustful, but he just wants toleaveand now hecan’tand the tired frustration of it is eating at his tact.

Gojō co*cks his head. He shapes starklyagainst the dark, all hard, bright edges. Starlight kisses his hair and the early-autumn moon lays him in silver. An otherworldly thing, he looks, a creature of sharped steel and sorrow. His hands are in his pockets.

“You tell me,” Gojō says, and Suguru is impressed by how nonchalant and flippantly curious he manages to shape his tone,but—“do I have a reason to?”

But Gojō’s hands are still in his pockets and Suguru canfeelthe intense scrutiny of those Six-Eyes. It pricks his skin, all thorny and pressing. And Suguru thinks of the library, of Maki who met his counterpart, of…

Suguru raises a brow, and relaxes his posture. Steps off the staircase and leans back on his heels. Cold air bites at his ears, and hesuppresses a shiver. For a moment, the words stick in his throat,do you really wanna do this?but hehasto. A small smile tugs at his face, and it would be teasing, but there’s no joy in it. It’s a mocking smile, he thinks.

“Do you trust me to answer that truthfully?”A beat, two. Aha. “’Something wrong?”

“No,” Gojō says, “’course not.”

“Okay,” Suguru says, and doesn’t entirely mean for hardness to slip into his voice but itdoes, “then answer the question.”

Gojō shifts ever-so-slightly. The movement is hard to make out from six steps away in the dead of night, but it shows in the reflection of light against the fabric of his uniform. Gojō’s lips press. No answer.

f*ck.

Cursed energy coils tightly in Suguru’s stomach, around his shoulders, in his fingertips. Hyperawarness centers on every bit of himself,the pulse of blood in his ears, the rattling beat of his heart against his ribs, the hard press of flat stone through his shoes. Cold breeze brushes the back of his neck. His breathing is forcibly even.

“Okay,” he hears himself say,and forces himself to watch Gojō’s face instead of looking away. This is such a bad idea but he’s sotiredof not being told anything and he’s tired of pretending he can’t put it together himself. “So...” he could still take it back—“...who did I kill?”

The first of two truths that Suguru does not technically know: his counterpart made his decision, and it set him against the college; he took the murder route.

Gojō tilts his head. A hand lifts from his pocket and scratches his hair for effect. “I’m not sure I know what you mean?”

“Never mind,” Suguru says, smiling, tone mocking. If he’s going for it, might as well commit, right? He can’t let Gojō avoid this one. His skin feels too tight. “Don’t answer that. I didn’t kill someone, did I? I knowwhatI killed.”

The visible hand twitches, fingers flinching. Gojō’s posture straightens,stiffens. It’s confirmation enough. Hah.

“You’re soeasy,” Suguru laughs. It’s mean, it’ssomean to say things like that, things that Suguru doesn't evenagreewith, just to provoke Gojō’s reaction, but it got what he was looking for. “So, how many was it?”

A beat.

Gojō’s shoulders forcibly relax. His hand shoves back into his pocket. “What gave it away?”

“I know myself,” Suguru says. “Besides, you guys are so f*cking obvious.Subtlety isn’t a good look on you, and I’m half convinced Shōko isn’t even trying. I mean, just look at my room!Seriously.” Pause. Suguru’s smile drops. It’s a relief, honestly. He swallows, shifts on his feet, and—“Now are you gonnaanswer the question?”

“...A hundred and twelve,” Gojō finally answers after an apparent moment of deliberation, not smiling, and the number sends Suguru reeling. Then: “Initially.”

Something thick chokes in Suguru’s lungs, mountain petrichor all of a sudden too rich.A hundred and twelve. More than a hundred and twelve. He knew it would have to be a decent amount, because if it were only a couple, he’d be able to get away with it because of his special grade status and importance to the shaman world. But—

A hundred and twelve people.

That’s a lot of people, he thinks, that’s a lot of people.

He swallows. Nausea tugs at his stomach. “And non initially?”

The wet, puddly stones reflect thenight sky above, and Suguru tries to focus on attempting to pick stars out of the reflections instead of on Gojō’s face. It’s shame, this feeling building in his stomach, he realizes. It’s guilt for something he hasn’t even done, butwouldhave.

“’You really wanna know?”

No.

“Do you wanna tell me?”

“Not really,” Gojō freely admits. “You’re not the one who did it, not yet, maybe not ever, so it’s not your burden.”

“Bold assumption,” is what Suguru says, halfway-glaring, because apparently he just has to make this hard. “I broke Maki’s ribs this morning, you know.”

“Oh I know,” Gojō says, tone light, and for some absurd reason, a smile tilts on his lips. Agenuineone. “But you just called her ‘Maki’, you know?Heonly ever called her monkey-girl.”

Suguru winces,and he’s sure it shows, because he’s barely wearing a face right now and Gojō’s smile gains teeth.

“Don’t be so happy about it,” Suguru mutters, looking to the side and back. And then, because Gojōknows, and Suguru can behonest(!), “I’m still—it’s not like me knowing her personallymeansanything. It’s immoral and irrational to let personal connections get in the way of one’s morality.”

Gojō’s smile flattens. “Honestly,” he hums, “it’s sort of an interesting ethical question whether to killyouand I mean this version of you. The one I’m talking to right now. Obviously it’s a hypothetical question, ‘cause mini-me wouldn’t let that happen n’ I don’t want to anyway, but it’s an interesting hypothetical.”

Suguru pauses. Swallows, shifts weight between his feet. The cursed energy under his skin feels like a swarm of buzzing locusts. “...A thought experiment in preemptive defense?”

Gojō lifts a hand from his pocket and snaps his fingers. Grins. “Precisely! First year Suguru would disagree that it’s acceptable to kill someone like you inpreemptive defense, I think, probably. But you? No idea! Hah.” And then, when Suguru doesn’t respond, “My Suguru when batsh*t insane and killed countless innocent people on the premise that nonshamans inevitably kill shamans, you know? So tell me—” and Gojō pauses for breath, here, shoulders lax and head co*cked, “is it inevitable thatyoukill?”

There’s now one truth that Suguru does not technically know, a truth that he has avoided directly thinking, one that he’s left unspoken, as if that would make it any less true: Gojō killed his counterpart.

He thinks of speaking it, of letting something sharp and poisonous bite from his tongue. Maybewhat, asking so you know whether to kill me, too? One of us dead by your hand isn’t enough?But he’s not truly angry over it, he isn’t angry over it at all. Can’t be. And he can be dishonest, can be cruel, but that’s too much even for him. The comment slips soundlessly down to his lungs.

Instead, mockingly: “What? You don’t know?”

“Now now,” Gojō tuts, “no need for that tone.”

Suguru scoffs, looks away briefly. The fabric of his clothing feels too rough, too tight, too harsh against his skin.Acid hits the back of his throat. This whole trip to the would-have-been future, Suguru has been lying to Satoru, has been harboring his own suspicions and not letting Satoru in on them. He’s so afraid to see the other look at him with disgust, of shedding his faces and letting Satoru peer into the festering rot beneath, and of Satoru being repulsed by it. Because Satoru—

“Of course you don’t know. I guess I should expect it. Youcan’tknow.”

“Oh?” Suguru imagines Gojō raising a brow under his blindfold.

How to even explain it?

Gojō Satoru is so unconsciouslykind. He’s just that type of person. And he watches the world go by from the sky, from the clouds, from the position of a God. The storm does not touch him. From the moment he opened his eyes, he’s been groomed as a human weapon, and he still carries out the role for ungrateful masses and ungrateful elders. He granted Fushiguro Tōji a quick death and took in his son. Gojō, Satoru, theyboth—

“You don’t know hatred,” Suguru spits, tight feeling coiling in his gut, his fingertips, “if you don’t know hate then you can’t know me.”

A half beat, and—

“You don’t know hatred,really?” Gojō’s voice is unimpressed. “You’re such a f*cking drama queen, you sound like some half rate supervillain from a cheap theater play.”

That tight feeling snaps.Allof it snaps. The stupid f*cking build of everything. The way nothing important haschangedatallbut Suguru’s counterpart is still gone. Suguru’s stupid abandoned dorm room, uncleared like someone was hoping his counterpart to come back, Satoru’s stupid human-weapon eyes glaring at him to say they both can live, Gojō stillhereat this stupid hell-school, Gojōstandinghere,talkingto him, like that’s gonna make anything better—

“You want me to play a supervillain?” Suguru’s voice is loud against the night, harsh and biting. He closes the distance between them easily, stopping barely half a step away, something ugly contorting on his face. “Fine! Let’s do some monologuing psycho-analysis!”

“Ah,” Gojō says, stepping back, “Y’know, actually—”

“Don’t know don’t care,” Suguru snaps. There’s static in his ears, and his blood feels molten. “I think you’re really f*cking tired of this, too. You’re not a god and you know that, even if this world wants,needsyou to be. So here you are, eleven years later still trying to hold up the liquid sky, but it’s not enough, and it’ll never be enough, because you’re not a god. You’re raising up strong and reasonable people to try and share that burden, to stand with you at the peak of this world so you don’t have to bear it all alone—and that’s great, you know? I’m happy for you. I’m truly, truly happy that you have people that will stand by your side. You deserve that and so so so much more. But it’ll never be enough, you know? No amount of men can hold up the sky; the sky needs to stop falling in the first place.”

Gojō’s lips have pressed into a flat, thin line. “Actually the plan is to cultivate the next generation so that systemic change is possible.”

Suguru rolls his eyes. His blood feels too hot, pulse too fast, too loud. He’s working himself up, he knows.

“It’s beeneleven years,” he spits, “andnothinghas changed. And you know, lets give you some benefit of the doubt. Let’s say changedoeshappen—then what? It’ll be temporary! It’ll only lastmaybea lifetime! This cycle has existed for millennia, you’re not gonna change it like that! It’s pointless! There’s no purpose in futility! And you’re not stupid, you must know this too, at least a little. I wouldn’t be able to stand it, I could never stay here so long like that, or in general—my soul would die.”

“Then why not justleave,” Gojō says, tone short, snappish. “You could—” a vague motion, “I don’t f*cking know, retire and run a flower shop or something.Whatever. Nanami went and became a salaryman for a while.”

God.

“Why don’t you just retire and run a flower shop,” Suguru mocks, voice pitched high and thick with sarcasm. He sneers. “I don’t f*cking know, whydon’tI just turn a blind eye to all this suffering just likealmost every other f*cking person that has capability to do anything about it?Whydon’tI just turn my back and f*ck off to the nonshaman world where I can—what—overdose on antipsychotics again? Sounds like agreatplan, thanks for your insight!”

Gojō winces. Good.

“That’s not the only option,” Gojō says, and there’s a tone of sympathy in his voice that Suguru can’tstand. He feels barren, exposed. Like he’s lay himself down and dissected himself for the viewing, and hehasn’t, but it’s still too much. It’s too raw. “You could—”

“This isn’t about me,” Suguru interrupts, “this is about the world, and it’s aboutyou.” It’s about the way this corpse-strewn shaman world hasn’tchanged. It would be okay, Suguru thinks, or at least it would be better, if only the shamans that believed these gold-leaf platitudes fought, but instead these lies are legislated in shaman code. It killssincerepeople, too. Suguru grits his teeth. “It’s about yourstupidplan and hownothing is going to actually changeand—”

“Soyourplan is better?” Gojō finally snaps, voice so full of raw frustration and hurt andbetrayalthat Suguru feels off kilter under the force of it. “What was it again? Oh, right, silly me! How could I forget your amazing, genius, trulybrilliant, with no glaring problems atallplan of mass murdering millions of people for thehorriblecrime ofdaringto be born?”

Suguru flinches back like he’s been struck.

That’s not, he thinks, but can’t complete the sentence, because it was and it is. The raw emotion of Satoru’s tone runs loops in Suguru’s head, andf*ck, f*ck.

Suguru knows himself; maybe he and Maki are similar in the way that they will both leave people behind for the sake of comfort with themselves, although she has no grand ideal, and Suguru wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t hold his grand beliefs so close that they become his blood. Perhaps he’s selfish in this, in that he will hurt even the dearest to him so long as he can be right with himself, with his morals.

Stupidly, he wants to cry. Something hot and stinging pricks his eyes and it’s so hard to speak around the awful lump in his throat.

It’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair

Suguru hates this.

“Can I just,” he finally manages,staring hard at the wet ground, and he can’t hide the tremble from his voice, “can you just—are you going to let me leave or not?”

A beat.

“sh*t,” Gojō says,edge of disbelief, and Suguru looks back. “Are you about tocry?”

“I amnot,” Suguru says, but his voice cracks on the last word and with it a hot rush of shame floods his skin and it’s all justawful. Everything is too loud, the curses in his cursed energy are tooloud, and Gojō’s silence is tooloud, and— “Shutup.”

A sigh. “...Are you sure you wanna leave right now?” And something in Gojō’s tone, in the slope of his shoulders and set of his hands in his pockets, is inexplicably awkward.

“Yes,” Suguru says, grateful for the change in subject. “It’s not—it’s not for long. Just for a bit. I need to clear my head.”

Gojō’s lips purse. “I can’t let you leaveunmonitored.”

“What, afraid I’llkillsomeone?”

“Yes, actually.”

An awkward beat. Suguru’s stomach churns sickeningly. He imagines having to walk down these steps and wander Tokyo with anescortbecause apparently he’svolatileand can’t be trusted just to go on awalk, and the nausea intensifies. His sight blurs, a mess of darks and moonlit puddles whose silvery sheen smears his vision in a disorganized mess.

“If someone needs toaccompanyme like I’m some sort ofrabid animalthen I’d rather just stay.”

“I said you’ll need monitoring, not necessarily a supervisor,” Gojō says, then lets out a somewhat frazzled sigh. “Hold out your arm.”

Suguru watches him for a moment, two, before outstretching his arm wordlessly. Gojō’s fingers are icy when they push up his sleeve and wrap firmly around his exposed forearm. His other hand lifts from his pocket, and between his middle and index finger, there’s a thin slip of paper. Suguru can taste the cursed energy.

“What does it do?”

“It’s a location tracker,”Gojō says, “it’ll react strongly and alert me if you release too much cursed energy. And if it’s removed or destroyed.”

“I can kill people without using cursed energy.”

“I know,” Gojō replies plainly. “But your cursed energy goes crazy when you’re riled up. It’s something you never fixed, even into adulthood. And,” small pause, “you right now, you wouldn’t kill someone without being riled up, I think.”

You right now, as inthis version of you. Because Suguru’s counterpart would, apparently.

“...Fine,” Suguru says, “just hurry up.”

Gojō presses thecursed object to his arm, wrapping it smoothly around his skin, just above the wrist. A hot flare of not-quite pain embeds itself into the area when the slip activates, connecting with Suguru’s cursed energy. He doesn’t wince. Gojō’s hands drops from his arm, and Suguru shoves down his sleeve. It just barely conceals the paper.

Suguru wants to rip the thing off already.

“Can I gonow?”

“Yeah,” Gojō says, something tired in his tone, “you can.”

Suguru huffs a breath and turns back to the staircase. He doesn’t look back when he finally begins the descent, but it doesn’t matter; he can see clearly in his mind Gojōatop the staircase, hands in his pockets and lips unsmiling. He can see, too, Satoru in the dorm room, fast asleep and curled up alone. Suguru’s step doesn't pause in its rushing pace, but it does falter.

It’s not long before he’s running down the steps, skipping half of them, lungs burning with a familiar breathlessness. The curses whisper to him the whole way down, garbled nonsense through the static radio of his cursed technique,and when he finally reaches the bottom, like always, he pauses at the last torii gate.

The first time he made the climb up these stairs, he had pausedat the gate, had wondered if he would be recognized as more curse than human and trip the alarms.You are what you eat. Three years later, and the same irrational anxiety still plagues him, uneasily slipping down his spine and pooling in his stomach, making his toes tingle when he crosses the threshold of the torii gate; next time he crosses this line, will it reject him?

Chapter 8: city pop / the shadow of myself

Chapter Text

Tokyo doesn’t sleep, and Suguru stays up with it.

There has to be a meaning, he thinks again and again. Therehasto be meaning in what his counterpart has done. There has to be purpose in the raw hurt of Gojō’s upset and death of so many.

Night stretches longs, dark sky tilting on its axis, stars traveling through their fixed patterns in the sky, moon bright. It clears his head, somewhat, watching the time tick mindlessly by and aimlessly wandering Tokyo like a ghost. It’s a relief, to be away from the college, like cold water after a long summer day. The frustrations and anxieties don’t leave, but they become more orderly, less panic inducing.

It’s enough; it has to be.

Midnight finds Suguru in Harajuku, buying crepes from a small, near-empty shop outside Takesh*ta Street. He isn’t hungry, much less for sugar, but it’s a shop that Satoru mentioned newly opening a couple weeks back. He’d wanted to go together, but they had no time. Maybe, when he returns to Jujutsu Tech in the morning, he can tell Satoru he went without him, and the crepes were good. Satoru would gasp, outraged and dramatic, say:you went without me!? No fair! C’mon c’mon you have to go again right now but this time with me!

So here he is, getting serves a crepe by a nonshaman worker that looks dead on their feet. The paper crinkles under Suguru’s fingers, and he pays in change, opens his mouth to saythank you—

“Who are you!?”

The voice breaks across the shop’s late-night quiet, loud and feminine and completely out of place. Suguru startles, whipping around to see the commotion’s source. Only to find—

the source is glaring right athim, eyes fixed with an angry intensity. She’s a girl, a teenager maybe a couple years younger than him, with white hair tied in a bun on the back of her head. Half a step behind her, another girl—this one with short black hair—stares at him with wide eyes.

Suguru shifts uncomfortably. “...Excuse me?”

“Who. Are. You.” The words pry from White-Hair’s mouth in a tight, almost dangerous tone.

Black-Hair glances around uneasily, eyes flicking between the few staring customers and Suguru himself. She shrivels somewhat, pressing closer to White-Hair.

Suguru shifts both crepes to one hand. The concealed curse-imbued paper around his wrist itches. He smiles, thin. “Who wants to know?”

“You’re not a curse because all thesemonkeyscan see you,” White-Hair hisses, and Suguru just barely manages not to flinch, “but you’re not—you can’t be—stop impersonating Master Getō! What’s even the point!? That’s not even what he looks—looked like!”

Master Getō.

Oh.

They… these girls—

“You knew my counterpart,” he says, shifting his expression into something softer and more understanding. Unease pools in his stomach, pricking up his spine. He gives the worker at the desk and apologetic expression, and swiftly makes his way across the shop to the girls. Black-Hair shrinks, but White-Hair steps forward, harsh glare on her face. “Let’s take this outside,” Suguru says, already heading past them and gesturing them to follow.

White-Hair scowls at him. “What do you mean yourcounterpart?”

“Outside,” he says, pressing his hand against the glass door and exiting the shop, glancing over his shoulder. It takes maybe half a moment for White-Hair to give, rushing after him and catching the door just before it would’ve closed. Black-Hair follows.

“Wait, you bastard!”

“Sorry,” he apologizes, easily, slowing in his step. Even in this late-night hour, Harajuku is busy, bustling. Cotton candy and caramel sweetness bloats the air. “It would have been awkward to talk in there.”

“I don’t care what those monkeys think!” White-Hair’s steps are angry.Monkeys. The word is so unpleasant on his ears. “Answer the question! Why are you impersonating Master Getō!?”

How to answer that.

“...I’m not,” he decides on saying, and before she can protest, “I’m not the Getō you know, but I am an authentic version of him.” How to explain…

“...An authentic version?” Black-Hair’s voice is quieter, softer. “What do you mean? Why are you here?”

“I’m not herefora reason,” Suguru answers, “there was trouble with a cursed technique and it just happened. It involved space-time manipulation. I belong to another timeline—” White-Hair opens her mouth to interrupt, but Black-Hair steps on her shoe, “—in simplest terms, I’m an alternate version of your Getō, from a decade ago.”

“That sounds like bullsh*t,” says White-Hair, eyes narrowing. But her left hand is fiddling anxiously with the hem of her shirt. “How would that even happen?”

“He said it was a technique...” Black-Hair quietly says.

White-Hair’s steps falter, and her attention momentarily shifts to the other. There’s disbelief on her face. “Oh come on, Mimiko! You can’t seriously believe this!”

“...I mean,” says the girl—Mimiko— “thereareweird techniques. And...” one of her hands lifts and digs nails into the side of her neck. “Itfeelslikehim, doesn’t it? Not at all like…”

That makes White-Hair pause, eyes flicking back to Suguru. Her expression falters. She steps closer to Mimiko, movement some mix of protective and reassurance-seeking. “Itdoesfeel like him...”

Suguru holds a small sigh of relief behind his teeth. “I know it’s hard to believe, and I’m sorry for the shock. It must be hard to see me.”

“No,” says White-Hair, “no it’s—” she pauses, swallows. Her eyes briefly wander the crowds and bright pop-colors surrounding Takesh*ta Street before snapping back to him. “Let’s say you actually are a version of Master Getō, what kind of cursed technique is that powerful anyway!?”

Suguru hums, thoughts drifting to Satoru. Suguru should...honestly he should start heading back to the college in a few hours, if he wants to be there at sunrise, but these girls... Theyknewhim.Master Getō, they say; they were on his counterpart’s side. Nothing about the shaman worldseemsto have changed, but Suguru’s perspective has been limited. If his counterpartdidchange things up, then they would know, right?

Theyknewhim.

Satoru is going to be so pissed when he wakes up to find Sugurunot even oncampus, but… Therehasto be meaning, and Suguru has to know it in its entirety. “It was Satoru’s—Gojō’s fault,” Suguru answers, “his cursed technique got us caught in something.”

White-Hair scowls. “Gojō Satoru?”

Mimiko looks at him, eyes shyly skirting the edges of his face. “Master Getō’s—your former best friend?”

Former. Right. Of course.

Of course they’d no longer be friends if Suguru went and became a curse user, but hearing it actuallyspoken—it pinches his chest. The crepe feels heavy in his hand. The paper wrapped just above his wrist burns on his skin.

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little thicker than he means it. “Him.”

“Oh,” says Mimiko.

He looks to the side. “What were your names, again? I didn’t catch them.”

“That’s ‘cause we didn’t tell you,” White-Hair says, and stares at him a moment before huffing. “I’m Nanako and she’s Mimiko! We’re twins and I’m older.”

“Byseven minutes,” Mimiko says, face pinching with familiar annoyance, and she’s less reserved when talking to her sister.

“Sevenimportantminutes.”

“Nanako thinks her being older makes it so she’s the protector,” Mimiko tells him, “but you—Master Getō said we should both protect each other equally, however we can.”

“Well,” says Suguru, and it’s odd, the way she looks at him—they way they both do, honestly—all full of familiarity and reverence, “it’s important, to protect those close to you regardless of age.”

“See,” Mimiko tells Nanako, “even younger Master Getō agrees.”

Master Getō. That, again.

Suguru swallows, shifting weight between his feet. Heat pricks on the back of his neck, and he tries to ignore the sensation of it. “By the way,” he says, “you don’t have to call me Master Getō, please. Just Getō is fine.”

“Master Getō didn’t like it at first either,” Nanako says, frown briefly tugging at her lips. The sun makes her gradient. “I guess it’s fine to call you just Getō. You’re not—” she pauses, and such rawgrieftakes her expression that Suguru feels crushed under the weight of it. “You’re not quite him, after all.”

Mimiko nods quietly. Her lower lip trembles.

The thick, cotton-candy air outside Takesh*ta street clots in Suguru’s lungs, curdles on his tongue. Rancid oil. Cursed energy is less thick here than in other parts of Tokyo, but it still hovers, inescapable.

“I’m not,” he says, and almost wants to apologize for it.

“Right,” Mimiko mutters, “right.”

A beat, two. Tokyo bustles around them, loud and irritating. Someone jostles Suguru on their way. He grimaces and brushes the area with his free hand, even though that won’t do anything to help the small bit of cursed energy they left behind on his shoulder.

“Here,” he says, “why don’t we leave this area? There must be more pleasant areas to talk.”

“Please,” says Nanako.

“Master Getō hated Harajuku too,” Mimiko adds, picking up step down the street. “Too many monkeys.”

Monkeys. It sounds so natural and innocuous from her tongue, spoken in her soft manner. Like you’d saythe sky is blueorthis grass is soft. It rings in his head again, bouncing against the walls of his skull and settling unspoken on his own tongue.

They cross out of the area, turning a corner, leaving the cotton-candy sweet and caramel-thick air behind them.

“That word,” Suguru manages to say, perhaps a few beats too late, “can you...not use it?”

Mimiko pauses. Nanako glances at Mimiko. Both their expressions become confused.

“What word?”

“’Monkey’,” he says, and the shape of it feels gross in his mouth. Like a curse. Too big, pressing against his teeth in all the wrong ways. “It’s not—”moral to say, speaking that word in that way,it’s so gross,“—polite. Nonshamans is the more correct term.”

Nanako’s expression shifts into something completely incredulous, disbelieving, almostaffronted. Mimiko, though—she frowns only briefly before a low noise of realization comes from her throat. “You’re—” she glances at her sister, “Nanako he’s—he didn’t know us, so that’s before…”

“Oh,” Nanako says, pauses, clicks her tongue. “Right.”

Suguru frowns. “Before what?”

“Before you massacred all those mon—” Nanako stops, expression souring oddly, something like annoyance, something like grief, “nonshamans.”

“Master Getō told us that before that he was unsure about the truth,” Mimiko adds.

“...I see,” Suguru says. His eyes wander the road as they resume walking, leaving the heart of Harajuku. The girls—they seem like the chatty type to him, or, at least, Nanako does. But neither of them speak while they walk down the sidewalk, past bright storefronts and disgusting crowds. They keepglancingat him, expressions all strange, and it grates on his nerves. Flowering dogwoods dot this street, leaves reflecting bright streetlight. It’s not the right season, not really, but the evening’s sudden downpour must have provoked them into bloom. Suguru rips his eyes away, looking at the girls squarely, face shaping into something lightly curious. “Is something wrong? You keep staring at me.”

“No it’s—” Mimiko looks immediately embarrassed, jerking her gaze away and looking hard at a white bloom that’s been crushed into the concrete. “You’re just so young, is all. It’s...”

“Really f*cking weird?” Nanako offers.

“Nanako don’t be sorude,” Mimiko hisses, but glances at him and bashfully nods. “It’s just—you’re like Master Getō but, not. That’s all.”

Ah.

Their stares prickle on his skin, sticky and uncomfortable, like a thin film of plastic wrap. And it’s—similar, if not quite the same, to the feeling of Gojō’s eyes on him on the first day here. Similar to Maki’s glare the first time they met, too. The outline of his counterpart casts over him like a shadow, like a curse. But where it had brought caution and anger before, it now brings an unfair amount of—idolization? Adoration?

Who were you?

“Master Getō didn’t like sweets,” Nanako says, looking almost accusingly at the crepe in Suguru’s hand.

“I don’t either,” Suguru admits, after a moment. Laughs a little. “You two can have it, if you want.”

“Oh,” says Mimiko. “Is it okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay,” says Mimiko, and she smiles but her shoulders hunch, and when she looks back at the crushed sidewalk flowers, her lower lip trembles. One of her hands rubs at her eye, and self consciousness takes her face. “Sorry it’s just—Master Getō got us crepes just before…”

Suguru swallows. It’s a cold night, and chill runs down from his shoulders to his fingertips. The cursed object around his wrist itches.

“Why don’t you tell me about him?”

Mimiko visibly brightens, and Suguru knows the answer before it’s spoken.

They wander Tokyo aimlessly, roads leading into roads, an unending urban labyrinth. Mimiko and Nanako share the crepe. The rain somewhat washed out the typical scent of vomit that clings to the streets left behind by miserable salarymen after late izakaya nights, but it did nothing for the vague smell of industrial grease and chocking omnipresence of yakitori smoke and exhaust fumes. Nor did it have any effect on the stifling taste of cursed energyeverywhere, putrid and pungent.

It’s the abundance of cursed energy that always made both him and Satoru generally dislike spending excess time in deep urban areas. Curses crawl the edges of Suguru’s vision, peering out from gaps in still-green ginkgo leaves, wrapping around the shoulders of pedestrians that pass Suguru on the street, lazily sprawling themselves over the tops of restaurant entrances.

The whole night, Suguru has disobeyed his deeply ingrained habits, and hasn’t exorcise a single one.

The girls chatter on about his counterpart. Suguru listens.

Being away from the college is a relief, but Tokyo is another sort of intensity. Night shades Tokyo in warm contrasts, makes its popping colors glow bright and neon against the dark. It’s fine, it is, it’sfine, but Suguru’s tongue tastes like despair and he’s surrounded on all sides by—by—

He really, really doesn’t want to think the word ‘monkeys’.

“Your Getō seemed very sure of his plan,” Suguru says.

“Of course he was,” says Nanako.

Gojō’s voice echoes in his head.Your amazing, genius, truly brilliant, with no glaring problems at all plan of mass murdering millions of people for the horrible crime of daring to be born?The sarcastic dips of his tone. Suguru watches a curse flit into an alley. Everything tastes foul on his tongue.

(But therehasbe meaning.)

“In the process of...” hesitation, “culling, would there not be a massive amount of curses created from the terror? If the goal is to rid Japan of curses, isn’t that counterproductive?”

Nanako looks at him for a moment, and then laughs. “We asked the same thing!”

“Master Getō said it was a good question,” Mimiko dutifully adds, “he said that the amount of cures created in the process is actually a good thing, because it’d snowball and they’d speed everything up. So at the end there’d just be straggling nonshamans to pick off and a whole bunch of curses to clean up, but that’s all.”

That makes sense.

Itdoes, it makes sense. Attempting to kill all nonshamans personally would be ridiculous; even just in Japan, there are too many. Harnessing the system of curse creation is almost the only feasible way itcouldbe done. It makessense. But at the same time it’s just so—

grotesque.

Curses don’t kill kindly, can’t be merciful. What Mimiko describes, what hiscounterpartdescribed, was a bloodbath of untold proportions, of immeasurable horrors.

Breathe in, and out. The chemical burn of second hand smoke tickles his throat. “I see.”

The girls laugh and continue their chattering. Suguru listens. And it’s just so—

jarring. It’s jarring.

They describe his counterpart like a deity, a regal entity with long hair and long robes and a Buddha-smile. A gentle figure, with large hands and warm arms. He smelled like incense, apparently, like jasmine and sandalwood and a hint of blood. (But don’t worry, Mimiko never minded!) They do not call him a fanatic, but Suguru reads it anyway in the casually derogatory way these girls treat nonshamans, in the flippancy that Nanako mentions how many fabrics got discarded because they were were drenched in blood beyond repair. They don’t call him a fanatic, but Mimiko fondly describes thefamily, how easily his counterpartrecruitedpeople, and Suguru hears it anyway.

But these girls—they describe him like he hung the stars just for them, like he breathed the moon into the sky and bloomed life into being. They describe him like daylight, like the coming of spring, like the sun itself. There’s love in their voices, their actions, written plainly on their faces.

Devotion, almost.

So of course, it comes up—

“How did you two meet him, anyway?”

The sisters pause at that, step faltering, glancing at each other, then at him. Nanako’s shoulders square and Mimiko draws somewhat into himself, and Suguru worries, then, that he has crossed a line, but—

“He rescued us,” says Nanako. “We came from the countryside, you know? We would have died—or been killed, whatever—in that f*cking cage if he didn’t come.”

Cage.

“…He freed us and massacred the whole village,” Mimiko says, quietly. “He said we didn’t owe him anything.”

Massacred the whole village.

Ah.

A hundred and twelve people sounds like it could be a whole village. That must’ve—must’ve been when he decided.

Breath catches horribly in Suguru’s throat, and he can see it soclearly. Graphic images from books on shaman-nonshaman rural relations overlay with the sisters. Two badly mistreated girls in a cage in some stupid f*cking village. His nerves already frayed from having to deal with nonshaman ignorance and being so far in the middle of nowhere. That version of him, something giving, snapping, breaking under pressure. A rubber band pulled too taut. The bloody splatter of it. The thin smile of his counterpart when he decided his true feelings, decided:I hate monkeys.

He can see it so clearly, because that is him.

Absently, Suguru raises a thumb to his forehead, and digs a nail into the skin.

“The village,” he hears himself say, words morbid on his tongue, “is it still there?”

“I don’t know,” Nanako says, sounding uncertain. “I guess? Probably.”

“Can we go there?” The moment those words leave his mouth, he regrets them. Nanako and Mimiko both freeze, and he stops walking with them. The sky is blacks and grays, light pollution against sparse cloud cover, but the air doesn’t feel like storm. Around them, Tokyo glows. A curse rustles leaves in a nearby ginkgo, its colors splotched a warning red. Suguru finally wrestles his tongue into working. “Sorry, that was an incredibly inconsiderate request. Please don’t feel pressured at all. Just—”

“No,” Nanako interrupts, raising her chin. “No, it’s okay. Mimiko…?”

“It’s okay,” Mimiko answers, feet drawing together and shoulders straightening. She nods, and, more clearly: “It’s fine. We’ll bring you, if you wanna go.”

Guilt eats at the lining of his stomach, thick and nauseating. “You don’t have to.”

“We know,” says Mimiko. “You’d never make us.”

“But—”

“We’re fine with it,” Nanako insists, “We’ll bring you.”

Suguru hesitates a moment, two, three, before conceding: “Okay.”

(It’s not quite clear now, but therehasto be meaning.)

-

The train smells faintly of soy sauce and is dotted by curses. One of which has lazily followed them since they left Tokyo and is perched on the train seat near Mimiko’s shoulder. Attracted to cursed energy, maybe. There’s another curse crawling all over the floor, not strong, but large. Its long, centipede-like body stretches the train’s central aisle. For now, it’s dormant, but Nanako keeps nudging it with the tip of her shoe and then snickering when it writhes in response.

It’s grating Suguru’s nerves.

Outside, the world passes them by in a haze of inky black. Dark forests and moonlit rice fields. This is their second train transfer already, and it should be the last. It’s a small, relatively empty train. By far, the most lively people are the sisters.

The long curse hisses, curls, its many legs making an abrasive scuttling sound on the floor. Suguru twitches. Nanako nudges the thing again. It makes a clicking noise.

That’senough.

Suguru stretches his hand out, impulsivelytuggingon the edge of his ability. The curse instantly melts into weightless liquid, drawing towards his hand and reforming into a perfect sphere. His stomach sinks.

As always, the texture makes him want to grimace. He can feel the curse moving just below the surface of its artificial encasing, writhing like a living thing. Holding these is like cradling a barely contained ball of insects, and swallowing it is worse.

Disgusting.

Even its color is a horrible thing, this shifting void of darkness held in his palm.

Suguru’s gaze wanders to the other inhabitants of the train. There’s a sleeping old woman and a middle aged man reading a book. Some others. Nonshamans. Suguru is hyperaware of the curse in his hand. His cursed energy is flaring up in anticipation to welcome another curse into it. Nonshamans. Curses. Nonshamans. God, they don’t even know.Ignorant—disgusting—weak—

Ah.

Maki isn’t weak or ignorant of the shaman world, though. And she’s a nonshaman.

His eyes come back to the sphere in his palm. This disgusting thing. Abruptly, he becomes aware of the sisters watching him.

“Hey,” he says, holding up the sphere, shifting it, balancing it atop his index finger. Strands of loose hair tickle his neck. The train is cold and quiet. He looks at the sisters. Smiles. “’You think this is what the human soul looks like?”

Not Satoru’s soul, he thinks. But maybe his own.

His index finger tilts. The sphere falls back into the center of his palm. He doesn’t look at the sisters.

“’Dunno,” Nanako’s voice says. “Maybe m—nonshaman souls do.”

Suguru hums noncommittally and brings the curse to his lips, slips it past his teeth. Vomit on his tongue. It presses against the walls of his mouth all wrong. He tilts his head back. When it finally presses down into his throat, there’s a familiar half moment where it feels like he’ll choke, but the feeling passes once the curse passes the halfway mark and begins to deform. This is the worst moment, where he canfeelit coming apart, like a nest of crawling co*ckroaches made of sludge, a half physical sensation that becomes more psychological when the negative energy finishes melding into his own.

He just barely manages to hold back a full body cringe. Taking curses is like that: uniquely and distinctly disgusting. Like swallowing a thick glob of phlegm.

Ugh.

(Not Satoru’s soul, but maybe his own.)

“Do you want water?” Mimiko offers a sealed bottle to him.

He eyes it a moment, two, before letting his shoulders slump and taking the bottle. “Thanks.”

“No problem!”

The cool water soothes his throat, washes out the taste, if only a little. “Was I that obvious?”

“No,” she says, “but Master Getō always drank something after taking in curses.”

“Ah.”

He looks outside again, at the landscape blurring out behind them. Looks at the starry night sky. Looks, too, at the curse still eerily watching them from its perch beside Mimiko’s shoulder, feathers ruffling; irritating. Suguru would exorcise it, but he’s lost all will to do so, after downing the centipede-curse. And all the passengers that are nonethewiser.Parasites, he thinks suddenly, and it throws him off. But isn’t that what a parasite is? Something that drains its host of life, sustaining itself off the power of those stronger and more versatile than them? But—Maki, he reminds himself, does not fit that description. Nothing makes sense. Nothing ever makes sense.

What would his counterpart do if he were here? Long hair and long robes, large hands and warm arms. Incense and Buddha smiles. A hint of blood.

“Hey,” he says without really meaning to, but both the sisters look at him with full attention, so he continues, “do you really believe all—all of what my counterpart believed?”

“Yeah I guess,” says Nanako. Mimiko nods.

“Oh.”

“I mean,” says Nanako, after a moment, her brows furrowing just a bit, “why wouldn’t we?”

There are way too many ways to answer that. Gojō’s words ring in his skull, again. Suguru doesn’t want to answer, not really, so he shrugs.

“Nothing,” he says, forehead pressing against the cold metal of a grab-bar. A moment, and, “I just think—you should make sure to think for yourselves, too. That’s all.”

Neither of the sisters offer much in the way of response. They don’t refute his words, but they don’t affirm them, either, and the implications are left to grow stale in the air. Under the press of his forehead, the metal grows warm. Suguru watches night pass through glass windows, and, blanketed by uneasy quiet, falls into an uneasy drowse.

(Therehasto be meaning.)

-

After the last train, they still have to hike almost forty minutes. Their journey is with exhausted feet. The curse that has been hopping trains with them since Tokyo follows here, too, flitting between branches on their trek up an old dirt road through the mountains, feathers catching dim starlight. When they finally arrive, the night has stretched long, moon well into its descent.

It’s a small village nestled into a small valley, surrounded on all sides by thickly forested mountains. Every plot of what used to be farming land is overrun with weeds. The houses are crumbling in a horrible state of disrepair. The place is utterly silent bar rustling leaves and the occasional scamper of a woodland animal.

It’s a ghost town.

There are no bloodstains—it’s been eleven years, of course there aren’t—and there are no whole bodies, but something snaps under Suguru’s shoe. He glances down, and under quiet moonlight, identifies what he’s just stepped on as the bones of a forearm. Stripped bare of flesh and left to the elements.

That’s not the only bone he finds, just the first. They’re easier to spot when he’s looking for them—little gleams of white reflecting the night’s silvery light. Three hands on the doorstep of a tea-house. Half a rib cage by the center road. A femur half engulfed in weeds. Miscellaneous toe and finger bones strewn all over like spilled marbles.

A hipbone, small enough to have once been that of a young child.

(There has to be meaning there has to be meaning there has to be meaning—!)

Suguru breathes in, and out. Clean mountain air. Rotting wood. There’s a slight wind, and it slips cold through the drafty fabric of Suguru’s shirt.

“...They didn’t clean this place up very thoroughly,” Suguru says.

“No one really cared enough to,” says Nanako, kicking the hipbone into a bush with unsmiling indifference, and Suguru wants to scream. “It’s not like most of the people here had relatives that really cared about recovering a full body, and it was written off on public records as a natural disaster. The Jujutsu authorities did bare minimum with collecting and cremating bodies.”

“Oh. I see.”

They leave the main road in favor of a smaller side path to the village’s outskirts. It leads them to a small, traditional house. It’s elevated slightly from the ground, and the front steps creak when Suguru steps onto them. The front door has to be wretched open. They all walk through the genkan without removing their shoes.

The house’s interior is a typical layout of sliding doors and tatami mats. Mildew and dust cling to the air. He wants to cough, but doesn’t.

And finally—

It’s a small room, tucked in a corner to the house. Moonlight spills in through the windowed wall, silvery panels dimly illuminating the tatami mat floor. Casting light, too, on the room’s sole occupant: a large hard-wood cage. It has a small door that’s left hanging open, and by the foot of it there lies a smashed metal lock.

Oh god.

“This is it?”

Neither of the sisters respond vocally, but Mimiko nods her head. There never needed to be an answer at all.

Meaning meaning meaning meaning—

This is what his counterpart saved them from. Suguru feels frozen in place, stomach rebelling against him. The sisters would have died here. They would have died in that cage as mere children if not for his counterpart, he’s sure of it. He should feel happy that Getō saved them from this, and heisglad, but he thinks of the overgrown farms and crumbling houses and thecrunchof a bone under his shoe, and the child-small hip, and instead he just feels—

sick.

That feathery curse flits in through a broken window. It perches on the bars of the cage. He stares at it. It stares back. It really is docile, for a curse. It’s still a curse, though, a gross manifestation of nonshaman rot.

Ah…

But anger won’t muster, either. Nor will hatred. What did he even come to this village for?Validation?Of what? That nonshamans deserve what his counterpart has done to them? Or out of a morbid desire to observe the atrocity that fell his counterpart from a shaman to a curse-user? To confirm that his counterpartdoesdeserve the hatred that Maki holds of him? Why did Suguru even—

Someone gaps quietly. The tatami mats scruff. The door slides closed with a small clunk. Warm lantern light shades over the room from somewhere behind him. Suguru notices it all tangentially. His heartbeat pulses rhythmically from his neck to his fingertips. There’s blood roaring in his ears, and curses in his blood.

“What areyoudoing here!?” Nanako’s voice is—

afraid.

Suguru snaps back into the present. Lantern light? The door? There’snot supposed to be anyone else here—

“When I noticed you two had left Tokyo, I wondered,” answers a mild voice, a familiar voice, “why you two were traveling here, of all places. Although I wouldn’t have imagined...” the feathery, bird-like curse lifts itself from the cage and flutters across the room, out of Suguru’s vision. “...that it would be because you girls found something sointeresting.”

Suguru turns around and watches the curse land on an outreached hand. It stretches itself, climbing up the sleeve of a long robe and curling around the shoulders of the newcomer.

Suguru lifts his gaze further, and meets his own smiling face.

Chapter 9: I meet a man of many faces / liar.

Chapter Text

What the f*ck.

“I thought you were dead,” Suguru says without thinking. All of his thoughts for syrup slow, struggling to make sense of the person in the doorway.

His own face—and thatishis face,undoubtedlyhis face—smiles at him, an amused quirk of the lips. One of the other’s hands reaches up and strokes the curse’s feathery form. It leans into the touch almost affectionately. “Am I? You say that as though I shouldn’t be walking here, but isn’t that far more the case foryou?Honestly,” not-Suguru tilts his head at the sisters, “justwhattrouble did you get yourselves into?”

“It was—” Mimiko starts, stops. The expression on her face is a terrible thing, all full of fear and panic with a tone of hatred. Her shoulders are trembling. Nanako is trembling, too, but it’s her hands. Her fists are balled tightly at her side, clenched and angry.

Not-Suguru’s expression doesn’t falter in the slightest. “Oh,” he says, tone all gentle and coaxing, “don’t be so worried. Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” says Nanako.

“I suppose you still don’t,” Not-Suguru sighs, airy, “how unfortunate. Mimiko, finish what you were saying?”

And it’s all just—it’s all sowrong.

Suguru is never affectionate with his curses; will never be affectionate with them, either. Won’t treat them like pets in the way Not-Suguru does his. And the sisters—they treat this individual like… they don’t treat him with any of the love,reverence, that they speak of Suguru’s counterpart with. There’s something here that Suguru’s missing. It’s—

“We just….met him in Tokyo,” Mimiko mutters, looking to the side. “We didn’tdoanything.”

Not-Suguru hums, returning his gaze to Suguru, contemplative.Wrong wrong wrong, it’s all wrong. Unease washes over Suguru’s whole body, a horrible, dreadful feeling. And Suguru—

“Whoareyou?”

Not-Suguru raises a brow.

Suguru straightens, resisting the urge to reach a hand up and fiddle with his earlobe. “You’re not me. I’m sure you’re not—I wouldn’t—you’re not.” Even though thatisSuguru’s body. Itis. It’s Suguru’s eyes, face, piercings, and it matches the description of his counterpart—long hair, black robes, scent of jasmine and sandalwood. Blood. “Why do you have my body?”

The only difference is a line of stitches across Not-Suguru’s face, starkly dividing the forehead in two.

“Oh?” Not-Suguru’s lips tilt into a small, cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “You could tell?”

Oh god.

“Why do you have my body?” Suguru feels like a broken record. The dread intensifies, surges, feels like a bottomless ocean sloshing around under his skin. That’s hiscorpse, walking around, talking. Beingused. “Why is there even—there shouldn’t evenbea body. Why is there a body?”

Shaman corpses are supposed to bedestroyedcompletely, reduced to ash and dust. It’s toodangerousotherwise.

The thief’s eyes glint. They don’t answer him, instead opting to look at the sisters. “Nanako, Mimiko. Why don’t you head outside?”

“What?” Nanako’s eyes flick to Suguru. Her expression steels. “No.”

“That wasn’t a request.”

“But—”

“It’s fine,” Suguru interrupts, heart rattling horribly against the cage of his ribs. The possibility of the sisters being hurt because of him— “You should go. Both of you.”

“But—”

“Please.”

The sisters looks at each other, then at him. Then at the thief. Back to him. He nods. Mimiko breathes in once, twice, deep and steady, before taking Nanako’s hand, sliding the door, and tugging them both out the slim opening. Nanako glances back once before disappearing around the corner.

Now it’s just Suguru and—the thief. And the stupid feathery curse that the thing in Suguru’s body hasn’t dismissed.

“You haven’t answered my question,” says Suguru.

“Why I’m using your body? Isn’t it obvious?” With a small flick of Not-Getō’s fingers, the curse around their shoulders dissipates. It’s not gone, Suguru knows; it’s just been released back into Not-Getō’s cursed energy, shelved for later use.

“My technique?”

“Mm.” Not-Getō’s wraps a hand around the door, and slides it fully open, barely glancing at Suguru before gesturing him to follow. He hesitates a moment, two, before complying. It’s not a long walk. Not-Getō’s opens another door and steps onto an engawa. They smoothly place their lantern on the edge, sitting down beside it. When they look over at Suguru, it’s with a friendly, inviting face. “Sit with me.”

Suguru hesitates at the doorway.

The engawa overlooks a small Japanese garden. Or—what used to be one. It must have been beautiful, once. Still is beautiful, in a haunting sort of way. There is no rhyme to the mess of pebbles, and the brush is overgrown, evergreen shrubs and splotches of pink wildflower, but the outline remains. There’s a small pond not far away, only a few steps and down a small slope.

Suguru’s gaze wanders back to Not-Getō, still sitting patiently.

Okay, alright.

Suguru walks over, and sits beside Not-Getō. A few centimeters are left between them.

“I still don’t understand—” he swallows, words feeling thick in his mouth, “why there was a body at all.”

They chuckle, light and barely there. Which is not an answer. “And I still haven’t received an answer on whyyou’re here.”

“Cursed technique bullsh*t.” Suguru presses his fingers hard into the engawa’s wooden surface. His legs dangle over the edge, toes close to the ground but not quite touching, and the lack of connection makes him feel untethered. “It doesn’t matter.”

The thief hums again.

And Sugurustill—

Whywasn’t his body destroyed? It doesn’t makesense. And something still feels wrong—well,everythingfeels wrong,iswrong, but—ugh! Not-Getō ’s self satisfied, proud little smile. They didn’t directly answer the question on why they have his body, either.Whywouldn’t his body be destroyed? He thinks, briefly, of Gojō telling him and Satoru of his counterpart’s death. Thinks of telling Satoru that Gojō wasn’t lying, justupset, and pauses on the memory.

Gojō still cared for Suguru’s counterpart, despite everything; Gojō stillcaresfor Suguru’s counterpart.

Cold night air hitches in Suguru’s throat.

“The reason my body wasn’t destroyed—” oh god oh god hedoesn’t wantto know, but he has to, hehasto, this is about Satoru, hehas to—“Was it because Satoru didn’t allow it to be?”

The thief pauses a moment, at tilts their head at him. Laughs, brief and light and entirelywrong, because Suguru doesn’t laugh like that.

“Maybe,” they says, eyes glittering in the lantern light.

That f*cking dumbass. Suguru wants to hit something, or maybe just cry.

Gojō’s weakness is other people, he told Itadori. Oh god.

“The reason you took my body,” he says, “you—it wasn’t just my cursed technique.”

The cat-that-ate-the-canary smile comes back. It’s confirmation enough.

I don’t want to be Satoru’s weakness, Suguru thinks, horror in his throat, thick and choking,I don’t want to be Satoru’s weakness, I don’t want to be Satoru’s weakness, I don’t want to be Satoru’s weakness.

But heis.

“You’re going to hurt Satoru,” he says, “you’re going to usemeto—”

One of Not-Getō’s fingers twitch. Suguru pauses.

Possibilities knock around his skull, throbbing at his temple. A drawback of the technique, maybe? Just typical nerve damage related to the host being acorpse?But Not-Getō hasn’t had any trouble controlling the body and their technique must aid in making sure the host-body doesn’t decompose. A tell, maybe? But there’s no reason for that. It’s probably the first one, honestly, but—

there’s another possibility. A wonderful, unlikely possibility. There are, of course, very practical reason why shaman corpses are drained of cursed energy and cremated, but there are also long-standing traditional ones. It’s a long held theory—belief, in certain parts—that cursed energy can bind souls to bodies. And maybe Suguru is desperate, maybe he’s just gasping at straws, hoping desperately for his corpse to still behis, for there to be some way tofix this, but—

“Seriously,” Suguru says, “you’re gonna allow yourself to hurt Satoru like this, even in death? Not that your death didn’t hurt him, by the way. It did. But likethis?”

Another twitch. Suguru eats up the reaction like a man starving.

“That’s not going to work,” Not-Getō says, laughter in their voice, horrible and condescending. They look at Suguru like he is some poor, pitiable thing. And they delight in it. What a horrible personality. “He’s not going to hear you.”

“So he’s there,” says Suguru.

Not-Getō’s expression remains perfectly mild. “Not in any way that matters.”

“You’re underestimating our love for Satoru,” Suguru says, and forces his voice to remain steady. “Being used as a tool to hurt him? Becoming his Achilles heel? We’d come back from death to stop that.”

“Gods you’re pathetic,” they say, and smile. “It won’twork. You think he hasn’t wanted to surface this whole time? He has, you know. He’s tried. But he can’t and he won’t and he’ll watch when Six-Eyes is sealed, and he won’t be able to doanything.”

Sealed.

Suguru runs through a list of cursed objects in his head. Sealed. Sealed. Things that could seal Gojō. There aren’t many of those, but they exist.sh*t.

“You’re gonna let yourself be used like that?” Suguru spits. “Really? You’re gonnawatch Satoru get sealedbecause ofyou?”

The whole hand twitches, this time.

This time, the thiefnotices.

“...Ah.”

“That must be really embarrassing for you,” Suguru mocks, “after going on about how he can’t even hear me, and all.”

The thief hums, raising their right hand. They look at it for a moment. Tilt their head contemplatively. “Ah… I suppose I should be careful about that. My deepest apologies,” they say, looking right at Suguru, voice entirely mild, “but it seems I have to cut this conversation short. It was entertaining while it lasted. Now...”

And Suguru canfeelit, the build of cursed energy in their hand.

Oh.

And Suguru realizes two things things in that moment: hecannotafford to let the thief kill him covertly, and he has a method to ensure that they don’t.

Suguru rips up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing the cursed object wrapped in a bracelet around the skin just above his wrist. Orange lantern light flickers over the starkly inked paper. His skin itches.

“A tracker,” Suguru explains, before the thief can say anything at all, “the moment I release substantial cursed energy, or remove it, it’ll alert Satoru. He’ll be here in minutes.” And, to press the point, he digs a nail under the paper’s edge.

The thief has gone absolutely, deathly still. Their cursed energy returns to a smooth flow.

“...That’s quite the hidden ace,” they say, after a moment. Their eyes narrow, lips pressing into a flat line. “Why haven’t you used it?”

“You’ll kill me the moment I rip it off or activate it, right?” In another circ*mstance, it may hurt his pride to admit, but this entity—they’re possessinghisbody. Suguru’s technique has a steep power curve, and his older counterpartmusthave progressed to a much further point. Not to mention whatever skills Not-Getō themself has. And besides—

maybe it’s selfish, but Suguru wants—he wants to speak with his counterpart. Alone. Before the sh*tstorm that’ll inevitably stir up if Gojō finds his counterpart in any state of not-dead.

(There has to be meaning.)

“Definitely,” Not-Getō confirms.

“So there’s your answer.” Suguru idly digs the nail further under the paper. Lets his gaze wander. The pond’s inky black water reflects silver in the moonlight, surface dotted with white lotus flowers. Shadows flicker against their petals in the lantern light.

“Are you trying to negotiate something?”

“Not really,” Suguru says, forcing a smile that he doesn’t feel. “Here’s how it’s gonna work: I’ll try to get my counterpart towake the f*ck up alreadyandyou’lltry to kill me without letting me activate the object. Fair?”

“Better than it could’ve been,” is what they say, voice pleasant, and there’s half a beat of stillness before—

Their hand yanks his away from the paper. Suguru tries, for a moment, to pry himself from their freezing grip, but it holds iron-strong and almost bone crushing. Instead, he closes the distanced between them, tangles his free hand in their robes, andpulls. They both go crashing over the engawa’s edge, hitting uncomfortably onto the pebbles below.

Suguru hears Not-Getō click their tongue once, beforefinallymanaging to break their grip on his arm.

The whole situation puts them both in an awkward conflict. For Not-Getō, the paper activating upon removal is the easiest part to deal with. More troublesome is its ability to activate by cursed energy. They need to be able to kill him fast and sudden in a way that doesn’t allow him to even fully realize that death is inevitable—lest he decide to release enough cursed energy to trigger the object. Alternatively, they could attempt tosealhis cursed energy and physically restrain him, which—

Is probably what they’ll try for, Suguru thinks, attempting to catch Not-Getō’s hand but failing to maintain hold. He grimaces. They don’t even need to do athoroughsealing job, just one that seals his left arm.

And Suguru—

Suguru needs to provoke his counterpart intotaking back his body already!

“Both Shōko and Satoru are still upset over you dying,” he tells the body, “but especially Satoru, I think. You really hurt him, although I’m sure you know that. Satoru’s hurt because of you and if you continue like this, he’ll be hurt even more! Come on already!”

Another faint twitch of the hand. Suguru can feel it against his skin.

“It won’twork,” says Not-Getō.

Suguru grits his teeth because they’reright—this isn’t enough. He needs to well and truly rile up his counterpart. Snap him into it. How to do that?

It’s—

Not-Getō traps his wrists together with one hand. Rotten cursed energy rolls through the old garden. Black and red particles bleed into the air, insectine curses crawling out of the thief’s stolen technique. They’re bright, almost blindingly so. Vermilion-red coats their whole bodies, billowing into the air from their wide, moth-like wings. Spore-like powder.Moth dust. Tiny, luminescent scales.

They itch in Suguru’s throat, burn in his lungs, but most importantly—

The flow of his cursed energy is becoming sluggish. Suguru doesn’t have much time left.

What would provoke his counterpart—himselfthe most? Truthfully, Suguru already knows, doesn’t he? Right. Of course.

“You died meaninglessly,” he spits at his counterpart’s body, and the words burn acidic in his throat, on his tongue. They’reawful. “Youlivedmeaninglessly.”

From the corner of his eye, he can see the pond. And dusting the pond's surface—scales. They glow bright red and luminescent on the inky black water. Aha! Suguru breaks the thief’s hold on his wrists and wraps himself around them, entangling their limbs and sending them both rolling messily down the sloped ground. Ithurts, hard pebbles digging into his jaw, his elbows, bruising the skin, but—

“I visited the college, you know?Nothinghad changed! Eleven years and nothing has changed even though apparently you tried! But it didn’t f*cking do anything! Nothing was achieved! You killed so many people, and for what!? Where’s the meaning in that!? I keep thinking there has to be meaning in it, because therehasto be—but I can’t f*cking find it! And now it’s gonna end with you beingused to hurt Satoru—”

The whole body freezes and jerks away from Suguru. Not-Getō snarls.

Suguru is beginning to feel physically heavy. His cursed energy is soheavyfeeling. Moth dust burns in his lungs. He can’t stay in this air anymore.

“If there’s meaning in it all,” Suguru manages, securing a grip around the body and rolling them both off the bank, “then come out andexplain!”

They break the water’s surface. Cold engulfs Suguru’s whole being, right down to his bones. The pond is deeper than it looked, and Suguru can’t identify the bottom, only a deep blackness extending far down, void-like. Light from the red-dusted surface pierces the depths, lantern-bright, ruby, bent with underwater refraction. Swaying lotus stems connect the luminescent surface with the dark below.

Not-Getō is below him, struggling to flip their positions in the water, while Suguru struggles to keep them both down, hand around their neck, torso, knees knocking. Their face is contorted with a murderous expression.

Come on come on come on,Suguru thinks, but can’t say.Come on!

And—

The struggling grip around Suguru abruptly slackens. Falls away.

His counterpart’s body ceases its efforts. The face smooths over, loses all of its previous expression, brows going lax, snarl slipping from the lips. Suguru’s hold slips away in turn. Eyes meet Suguru’s, brass-gold and unreadable.

For a moment, they stay like that.

Red light dances on the edges of his counterpart’s inky hair as if filtered through a stained glass window. It slips into the folds of his heavy black robes. Everywhere it touches shades deep and blood-like. Like this, rubied light embellishing his edges, he appears almost otherworldly, a thing of dark serenity.

For a moment, Suguru thinks they will stay like that forever, encased in this amber surrealism. His lungs burn. The surface grows further away. Lotus stems sway around them. Suguru opens his mouth—

Silvery bubbles catch red-light, rising like glass baubles in the water. He chokes.

His counterpartmoves. A firm hand closes around Suguru’s collar, and they surge upward through icy water. Suguru breaks the surface with a gasp. His counterpart heaves them onto the bank. Suguru shivers. Everything is still sobrightwith the insectine curses and red moth scales blanketing the ground, dusting over the water’s surface, coating every lotus flower.

Suguru looks at his counterpart. Getō.

The other tucks wet hair out of his face. They’re both soaked. The vermilion curses disappear back into his counterpart’s technique. Their scales remain. Getō meets his stare evenly, gold eyes bearing down into Suguru’s own.

The fabric of Suguru’s clothing sticks uncomfortably to his skin in that too-tight, wet way. He opens his mouth to say—something, but can’t quite find the words. Sour acidity from the last things he said lingers on his tongue, his teeth. He closes his mouth.

A beat.

“So,” he counterpart finally drawls, raising a brow, “while I was conscious for...most of that, I’m not sure I quite caught exactlywhatyou are.”

“Getō Suguru,” Suguru says, words impulsive and clumsy. He winces. “Third year. I’m from September first 2007. It’s currently September of 2018.”

“Right,” Getō says, voice dubious. “And how, exactly, did that happen?”

“It’s—” honestly, Suguru doesn’t fully understandhimself. Satoru is the one who really understands what happened. How to explain? “The timeline got split, I think? Somehow. It’s Satoru bullsh*t. My Satoru—not—not yours.”

“...Typical,” Getō sighs. His eyes close, expression briefly pulling in a way Suguru can’t read. His eyes open. He rises to his feet, pulling his sopping wet robes back into place and looking around. Above, the sky shows hints of lightening. “Where are we, and why?”

Getō’s tone neither expects or allows noncompliance. It’s the sort of voice that’s used to being obeyed, Suguru thinks.

“The village that you massacred,” Suguru answers, regardless of the odd way his stomach twists, “Mimiko and Nanako brought me here. I wanted to see.”

A small frown tugs at the corner of Getō’s lips. “The girls are here?”

“Somewhere on the other side of the house, I think. The thief dismissed them ten-something minutes ago.”

The frown disappears quick as it came. “I see.” Another sigh. Getō regards Suguru like he’s some small, interesting thing. “This place isn’t worth visiting in the first place.”

Suguru rises to his feet. “It’s—it’s where you made your decision, though, isn’t it?”

“A decision that was long-coming,” Getō dismisses. “Anyone with sense would draw it. There’s nothing worthwhile in keeping monkeys around. The monkeys that lived here in particular… completely disgusting existences. I should have killed them slower.”

There’s a difference, Suguru knows, between carrying out an action because itneeds to be done, and enjoying the process.

His stomach churns. His mouth tastes disgusting.

“There were children here,” is what he says. Thinks of the small hipbone.

Getō pauses where he’s stepped onto the engawa. Suguru is still on the pebbles. His counterpart raises a brow, and his eyes glint condescendingly. “Monkey children.”

Monkey monkey monkey. It bounces around his skull the same way that Gojō’s raw upset did.Monkey monkey monkey. The curses in his technique chatter the word around, chew it dead, and the sound is grating.

“So?”

There has to be meaning, there has to be meaning.

“So?That makes all the difference.” Suguru maintains silence. Getō sighs, and it sounds almost disappointed. His hand stretches out and pats Suguru’s wet hair in a way that might be comforting from someone else, in a different circ*mstance. “September first, huh? You poor thing. You’re still all torn up, hm?”

Suguru brushes the hand off and steps onto the engawa himself. The cloying sympathy of Getō’s voice itches on his skin.

“How could I not be?”

“Don’t worry,” his counterpart assures, “you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“...Right,” Suguru says. Breathes in, and out. “Right.”

His counterpart smiles at him, eyes crinkling, and unease washes over Suguru. Getō slides open a door to the house. His footsteps are steady when they travel down the halls. Calm. And that calmness persists when he opens the front door to find Mimiko and Nanako moodily sitting on the ground. Neither of them turn around at the noise.

“Girls.”

“Don’t call us that,” Nanako snaps. Still doesn’t turn around. Mimiko just hunches.

A soft sigh. “Nanako,” Getō tries again, voice so gentle, coaxing, “Mimiko. Please look at me.”

“What?” Nanako finally turns around, upper body bending, face twisted into a scowl. Mimiko follows her lead. Their gazes flick between Suguru and his counterpart. “What do you want?”

Small pause. Getō leaves the doorframe and settles himself onto the steps, putting him and the sisters on a more even level. “What did I tell you to do in the case that I died?”

Nanako’s face furrows. Mimiko’s expression freezes. Suguru hovers awkwardly in the doorway, shifting weight between his feet.

Nanako speaks first. There’s a thread of what might be anger in her voice. “What?”

“It’s alright,” Getō says, “you don’t have to answer. How about this one: do you think that I’m happy that you’ve put yourselves in a dangerous position in your pursuit to recover my body from its desecration?”

Nanako jerks back.

It’s Mimiko that breaks the silence. “...Master Getō?” And there’s a terrible sort of hope in her voice, the fragile, breakable kind. The raw, plain, honest kind.

“I’m here,” Getō assures.

Nanako shoots a look at Suguru. Suguru nods.

Nanako’s attention returns solely to Getō. “But how?”

“Cursed energy can bind souls,” Getō answers. “My soul was never released. My counterpart helped me back into control.”

“You’re really here?” Mimiko sounds like she’s going to cry.

“I’m really here,” Getō assures, again, all soft and steady. It’s the kind of voice that wants to be trusted, Suguru thinks. “I’m here. I’m here.”

And just like that, a silent sob racks Mimiko’s body. Nanako’s shoulders tremble. Wordlessly, Getō opens his arms and lets the sisters climb into his lap and bury their heads into the already-wet fabric of his robes. They’re both quiet criers, all choked and muffled noises. And Getō holds them the whole way through, fingers carding through their hair, voice murmuring things that Suguru can’t hear, but know are unquestionably tender.

Suguru feels like an intruder.

An expression flicks over Getō’s face—a tight flattening of the mouth, a furrow in the brows; something like worry. It’s gone before Suguru can properly identify it, and that same pricklingwrongnessof earlier tingles down his spine.

Eventually, Mimiko pulls away, eyes red, and says: “Sorry I’m just—I’m glad you’re back.”

Small pause. Getō’s expression dips, but doesn’t falter. One of his hands tucks a strand of hair out of her face. “Mimiko,” he says, soft and understanding, sympathetic, almost tentative, “I’m not back.”

Mimiko falters. Nanako pulls away, too. “What?”

“I’m not back,” Getō repeats evenly, calmly. “The thief’s technique revolved around possession of corpses. It doesn’t give life to the body, it only maintains the body in a usable condition. Mimiko, Nanako, I am still a corpse, and as the one in control of this body, now… I don’t have access to that technique.”

“No,” Nanako says, voice dipped in horror. Then, louder. “No…! We finally… we finally have you back!”

“Nanako,” Getō takes her hand in his, palms pressed together, fingers knitting, and lifts it up between their chests, “is my skin warm?”

“But—”

“Is my skin warm?”

“...No, but—”

“I’m telling you this now so that you don’t get your hopes up,” Getō cuts, firm but not unkind. “I will die again. This is unchangeable. This time, though, you’ll be able to mourn properly. I promise you that.”

“But you can’t,” Nanako says, voice breaking down the middle. “We’ll find a way! We’ll do it!”

“No,” Getō’s voice is still that calm firmness, “I refuse to let you exhaust yourselves for the sake of a walking corpse. That isn’t what I want. That isn’t what I would ever want.”

The sisters begin to protest. Getō hushes them. The entire time, his words haven’t faltered even once. He’s a perfect picture of serenity. But the flash of worry earlier… Suguru feels off kilter. Entirely out of place. That odd feeling is persisting. Plastic wrap on his skin, a suffocating film. Itching. Familiar. Like calm before the storm, but there is no storm. Like—

“That’sit!” He realizes, and he’s always been good at picking out performative emotion—at seeing reflections of his own tendencies—but Getō falsifies itsowell. “You’re wearing a face!” And it takes him a moment to realize he’s said it aloud.

His counterpart’s hands pause. Getō twists his head, eyes setting on Suguru. Something darkens. “Girls,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ll talk about this more later. Will you two wait here while my counterpart and I take a moment alone?”

“I—okay,” Nanako says, voice uncharacteristically small. “Sure.”

“Sure,” Mimiko echoes.

Getō’s eyes soften. Dawn is beginning to haze gold on the distant horizon, and morning’s thin air makes light lay lemony and brass-like on Getō’s features. He bends down and presses a kiss above Mimiko’s left brow, and then Nanako’s. It’s the same motion Suguru’s mother always used to give him before school. Getō murmurs something low and assuring that Suguru doesn’t hear, turns around, and passes back through the doorway, gesturing Suguru to follow.

He does.

Just as before, Getō’s steps are perfectly even, perfectly calm.

When they finally stop, they’re back in the Japanese garden, on the engawa. The lantern is still sitting there glowing a warm red-orange. The sky has shifted into a dim azure, night-darkness yet to seep away. Getō isn’t smiling.

“Please don’t make impulsive comments like that,” says his counterpart. “The girls need confidence right now.”

Suguru resists the urge to fiddle with his lobe. The judgment pricks on his skin. “Sorry. I understand that, of course. I was just—caught off guard, I guess. Your face got better. I almost didn’t realize it was there.”

It’s still in place, Suguru knows. Opaque and carefully constructed. Had Suguru been anyone else, he likely wouldn’t have realized it’s there at all. But Suguru knows himself.

There’s no way that his counterpart is so calm as he has portrayed himself since the very moment he took back control of his body. It’s simply impossible. Whatever heis—andthat, Suguru can’t tell—he’s not this entirely tranquil entity that presents itself only a step away.

Getō hums noncommittally. His expression doesn’t change. “Just don’t do it again.”

“Okay,” says Suguru. Glances out at the old garden. Tracks the ugly lines of his and Not-Getō's struggle, where the pebbles have been displaced from their previously level—if not ordered—configuration. Looks back at his counterpart. “...So,” he says, after a moment, words thick on his tongue, “what. You’re gonna kill yourself, this time?”

Getō leans against one of the engawa’s supporting beams.“Nah. Satoru’ll do itagain.”

Again.

Ah. That’s confirmation.

It’s such a horrible sentence.And it’s spoken soeasily, soinnocuously, like something insignificant.The sun will rise, the tide will fall, and Gojō will kill Getō.

“’You want him to?”

“You already know the answer to that,” Getō says, his brass-gold eyes languidly tracing where morning sunlight is spilling over the small pond. There’s a relaxed slope in his shoulders. “We’ll always want him to be there.”

“There’s a difference betweenbeing thereanddoing it,”Suguru says, but Getō doesn’t answer. So his counterpart has alreadydecided, huh?Fine. “That’s gonna hurt him, you know.”

“That’s fine,” answers Getō, serene littleBuddha-smile on his lips that doesn’t reach his half-lidded eyes. And it’s justawful. “I’m used to hurting him.”

An appropriate response would be—anger, maybe. Or understanding. But all Suguru can really feel is—is this coldhorror. It slips down his spine, his throat, pools in his stomach and constricts around his lungs. Numbs his fingertips. This awful feeling.

Hurting Satoru.

That’s a terrible thing to be used to, he thinks, and imagines, vividly, a version of himself that hurts Satoru so consistently that he’s becomeused to it. Imagines being that person. Is that person. Thinks—

“You’re used to it,” he says, “but you’re not numb to it.”

Like swallowing a curse—a sensation that he isused toexperiencing, but that’spungency never dulls.

A beat.

“Does it matter?”

“Shouldn’t it?”

“You’re the one that raised issue.”

“It’s just—” Suguru swallows, throat too-tight.Headache.“I don’t know. It’s—isn’t it horrible? This, all of it.”

“I made my decision,”Getō says, hard edge slipping into his voice, even as his face remains perfectly peaceful. “I never have and never will regret it.”

Suguru thinks of the small hipbone laying discarded in the grass and dirt. Thinks of Maki. Thinks of the cage, and Riko, and the cultists chattering, cheering, babbling voices. The sounds of their ignorance garbling in Suguru’s skull.

“Your decision to kill—” and he can’t saymonkeys, but can’t quite saynonshamans, either. “You know.”

“Monkeys,” Getō fills out anyway,and Suguru hates how natural it sounds on his tongue.Something must show in Suguru’s face, because his counterpart sighs, sound like winter wind. “Tell me, when’s the last time you ate a curse?”

“...A few hours ago,” Suguru admits, and he can still taste it on his teeth.

“I know you’re very confused right now,”Getō says, all cloyingly,condescendinglysympathetic in the way Suguruhatesso, so very much. “But you know it in your heart, don’t you? You know it in the way curses become insectine in your esophagus, sludge around your soul. It’s a darkness only monkeys are capable of creating.”

Getō talks like a propaganda piece, talks in that second-natured, emotionally manipulative way that Suguru doesn’t remember learning, but has always found himself skilled in. And suddenly, Suguru wonders who his counterpart is even—eventalkingto.

And still, Suguru—

“Iknowthat,” Suguru mutters. “Iknowthat. But you can’t just—it doesn’t—”Maki. The hipbone. One hundred twelve, initially. A cumulative tipping point of curses in Japan. A gold-leaf ideal built on bodies and bodies and bodies. Atrocities piled up like collectible cards.I should have killed them slower. Where is the meaning? Where is the meaning? “It doesn’t feel right.”

But therehas to be meaning—

“It will eventually,”Getō tells him, and Suguru thinks:

will it?And then:do I want it to?

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I am,” Getō sighs, and he is still wearing a face, and Suguru still can’t see beneath the opaque surface of his skin. But he wants to, hewantsto.

Suguru has always been talented atgettinginformation from people.A smile, kind words, offered understanding, a little charm, and just like that, he’s holding someone’s heart in his hand. But he’s good at provokinginformation,too,at finding those little cracks andmercilesslyprying them open.At boilinganothertill it all bubbles over. And Suguru knows no one so well as he does himself.

“It’ll feel right to live meaninglessly?”

Pause. Getō’s eyes narrow. Aha. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”

Liar. “You know exactly what I’m implying.”

“Perhaps,”Getō gives, and his lips are thinner now, “but do you yourself even agree with it?”

Suguru looks away. He doesn’tknow. That’s the wholeproblem. He looks back to his counterpart’s expectant gaze. The raised brow. The performative amusem*nt.

Is there meaning? Is there meaning? Is there meaning?

Of course I do, Suguru desperately wishes he could answer, just so desperately as he wishes he could admit:notat all. Instead, Suguru lets his lips thin, and,

doesn’t answer.

“You’re soundecided,” Getō sighs, and that’s disgust in his voice. “God, I forgot how pathetic I was back then.”Small pause, and,nicernow: “It’s not a hard decision to make. Now… if you have nothing left to say, I’ll be leaving.”

Just like that, Getō himself off the wooden beam and heads towards the still-open sliding door.

Satoru tried to explain, once, the horrible slowness of the world as he perceives it. The stretching length of every moment,snail-pace,syrup through an hourglass as his brain runs through calculations,observations,idle wonders,all within one smallmoment. Suguru never quite understood, but he understandsbetter, now, in this chasmingspanbetweenGetō’s first step and his wooden sandal touching the doorway.

Lemony morning sun laying thin on the engawa’s edge.Each soft footstep.This stretching thread of tension. His counterpart’s quiet shadow.Theicyline of realization—

It’s not a hard decision to make.

There has to be meaning. Where is the meaning? Is there meaning? There—

On the rooftop with Itadori, Suguru had told him, in response to the question ofwould you sentence me to die, thatI’m not the best person to ask. Because he wasn’t, becausedoes the possibility for catastrophic harm from just one individual outweigh the inevitability of harm from that same individual? Because it would be unfair of Suguru to have saidnowhen, had Itadori remained a nonshaman, it could’ve so easily beenyes. In the library he had told Itadori that the nonshamans of the Heian Period’s mistake lay in the assumption of inevitability that shamans would create curses upon death. Inevitability.

Curses cause harm; curses are only terrible because they cause harm.

But, he thinks with sudden clarity, causation of harm is inevitable by mere fact ofliving. For anyone. For everyone.

—there isn’t meaning.

“You’re right,”he hears himself say, “it’s not a hard decision.”

Getō stills. Doesn’t turn around.

“It’s not a hard decision,” Suguru repeats, “the only reason we ever though it was is because we’re so, so f*cking—” disgusting.

Slowly, Getō turns around.His sandal clacks quietly against the engawa’s hard wood.“You...”

“Let’s say killing all nonshaman was the only way to rid of curses—which it isn’t, as mentioned by Tsukumo, it’s just the easiest—but let’s grant it as a given.”Suguru digs his nails hard into his palms. Focuses on the sharp sting. “Killing the whole of nonshamans is still a series of individual murders, and must be judged as such. Youhaveto justify the individual case of each person involved.”

Getō’s expression pinches. “I—”

“You,” Suguru cuts, the monotone of his voice dipping,“address this by assigning nonshamans traits like ‘weak’ or ‘ignorant’ or even more abstract concepts like ‘disgusting’. By assigning these, you justify each murder as ‘deserved’, and you do this because the other potential method literally makes nof*ckingsense.”

God, the silence is too f*cking loud.Cold numbness seeps into every part of him.

“When justifying suffering youhaveto applythat justificationconsistently. If you justify somethingbysensory pleasure, you have to applythatjustification across every relevant scenario. If you justifyby culture, then you have to accept that justification for every relevant scenario, too. And so on. If this exercise leads to a ridiculous conclusion, you need to reevaluate. It’s basic moral reasoning. We learned this in middle school.”

It’s tooloud!The monotone of his voice is so—so—

“The alternative to justifying each murder by assigning negative traits to the individual is justifying it by the harm they personally create, but that’d be nonsensical, you know? The typical amount of cursed energy emitted by a single nonshaman,relative to how much it takes to form a curse,isminuscule.It’ssosmall.Everyhuman causes some suffering just by existing, so that justification would sayeveryoneshould be killed.You’re elevating ‘harm caused by curses’ as something inherently more awful than any other category of harm without reason. Completelyarbitrary.It’s just—” and his voice breakswith something like despair,“—there’s nomeaning!”

A beat, two, three.

A drop of blood hits the engawa. Suguru’s fingertips are wet. He wants to uncurls his fists. Can’t.

“Are youdone?” Getō’s tone is strained, and Suguru notes with some satisfaction, that his fists are clenched, too.

“It might be a sloppy analysis,” Suguru says, voice returning to its terrible flatness.This empty, numb, disbelieving sensation—“more stream of consciousness than anything, really, but it’s not untrue.”

An almost-sneer contorts Getō’s expression. “I notice you didn’t actuallycontestthe assignment of negative traits.”

“It’s obviously illogical,”Suguru says, “besides ‘weakness’ and ‘ignorance’ beingdubioustraits to justifymurderin the first place, our assignment of those traits—it’s all based on anecdotal experiences.What you’ve done…”

(It was an anecdotal experience that broke Suguru from this pattern of thought, too. Maki. Maki not being weak, Maki not being ignorant, Maki being a bridge. God, howpathetic.)

“There’s purpose,”Getō says.

There’s purpose. There’s purpose in those atrocities. There’s purpose in the murders that Getō has indulged. In whatever altercation lead Maki to hating him. In the actions that caused Gojō so much hurt.Purpose.

I hate you, Suguru thinks, abruptly, the realization coming all at once, and his disbelieving numbness cracks with it. Anger surges up, boils in his stomach, under his skin, courses molten through his veins. Shame. Hot and breath-shuddering.I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

“Purpose without meaning is just as pointless as meaning without purpose!”

Getō’s brows pull.“Meaning—”

“You know,”Suguru interrupts,spiteful edge to his voice,“between the two of us, Satoru is the logical one.”His heart rattling against the walls of his chest, knocking on the ribs, beating up to his throat— “We decide ourselves blindly in the heat of emotion and then retroactively justify our conclusion.”

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you

“Youknow,”Getō says, and there’s that dangerous edge of his voice, “it sounds like you’re just projecting, hm? Was coming to this future and seeing how much my actionshurtSatoru simplytoo much?‘Sounds like you’re just afraid oflossand basing your conclusion around that feeling.”

And ithurts, because Suguru doesn’t even—isn’t completely sure that Getō iswhollywrong. Even so—

“No,” he says, “I’m definitely talking about you massacring this village.”

“Oh really? That’s funny, considering how much you were prattlingon and onabout howterriblyI’ve hurt Satoru. It’s almost like you just want to continue soaking in thatlove that youknowwouldn’t ever come so easily if you made the same decision I did.”Getō’s face cracks, and it’sugly, that festering underneath. “God you’re soneedy, what, did your monkey parents not love you enough as a child?”

Monkey parents.

Static pops in Suguru’s ears. Knowing the way his counterpart treats nonshamans—

You f*cking didn’t, he thinks, because hewouldn’t, would he? Would he? Suguru knows himself. He does, or at least, he tries to. And he imagines, then, a version of himself that snapped here, at this very house, killed a hundred twelve people. Became a curse user. Decided his ideology. And what better way to solidify his resolve than to—

Hedid.

“No,” Suguru says, instead of asking some stupid f*cking question that he already knows the answer to, “they loved us plenty.We’rethe ones that didn’t—don’t love them enough.” Suguru can hardly breathe. The entire world has compressed to this morning-lit engawa, the small steps between him and his counterpart, the horrible, burning, destructive feelings surging through every part of him. “Honestly,” he spits, “it sounds like you’rejealous!”

Getō’s face drops completely, and the overwhelming force of his cursed energy permeating the air is choking. It’ssuffocating, this rotten, putrid taste. Like anger and regret and grief, and Suguru hates, hates,hates.

“There’snothingI’d jealous over.”

“Hah!” Suguru feels halfway hysterical.Dizzy with the spin of shame.“You f*cking liar!”

And here’s the thing—there is Satoru, is love and people and family, and there is moral correctness. To Suguru, morality will always take president, feelingrightwith himself willalwaysbe more important. It’swrong, after all, to prioritize personal relationships over moral action.So—so if Suguru made a decision that hetrulybelieved in, andabandoning Satoru was a cost, then that’d be fine, itwould. Suguru would feel sorrow, maybe, longing, perhaps. But not—

Not something so potent and strong and acidic asjealousyfor a version of himself that chose differently.

“You f*ckingliar,” he repeats.Sneers.It’s not about Satoru, not really.“You spent a decade trying to convince yourself you hate nonshamans, huh? Because otherwise it’d beunbearable.”

“No,”his counterpart says, and wow, what a strong argument.

This boiling, bubbling, molten, heart-stuttering sensation—“You’re livinganother f*cking lie!You—you—” and he can’t even find the words to express this sheer horror, hatred, frustration, but he doesn’t have to.

Getō’s fingers are icy cold around Suguru’s neck, nails digging sharply into the delicate skin. Suguru wants to laugh, but only manages to choke some strangled, mocking sound.

Suguru’s bubbling vitriol boils over, seeps from his skin, melds and mixes with Getō’s own cursed energy. The combined taste of their hatred is almost too much.

“I left everything behind for an ideology that Irationallybelieve,”his counterpart hisses, like a f*cking liar. “I—”

Suguru kicks them both off balance, and they’re both sent tumbling over the engawa’s edge. For the second time in the last couple hours, Suguru hits the hard pebbled ground. His fingers out fingers stretch out, locking around his counterpart’s neck. Clawing.

“Of course,” Suguru chokes,“you left because we’re a selfish thing that can’t stand feeling morally wrong. ButIhad time and consideration thatyoudidn’t.”It’s not about proving he’s right anymore, not really. None of this has real purpose. Either of them could kill the other right now, in this position, hands around the other’s neck. But this is—it’s abouthurting. “Some part of you feltguiltyafter massacring this village, didn’t it? Ha—”

“Shutup,” his counterpart hisses.

“You felt youhadto continue,”Suguru spits,jaw clenched hard, eyes pricking hot, brimming with so much undilutedhatred,“because if you didn’t, all those people you killed—it would all have beenwrongto do. So you lied!”

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you

Worlds of lies. The countryside. Lying about the nature of his very being, pretending to be normal. The college. Pretending there was any f*cking purpose in futility. And this—this.

His counterpart made himself a frog, built his own boiling pot from bodies and filled the basin with nonshaman blood, centimeter by centimeter, corpse by corpse, resolution by resolution. He fueled the fire with his own soul, burning it off piece by piece until all that remained was—was—was thismeaningless shell of lies.

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you

“Shut up,” his counterpart is saying, and Suguru can’t hear clearly over the maddening scream of curses in his ears and his own voice repeatingliarand all manner of vitriolic things that he doesn’t pause toponderbut knows will hurt.

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you

There’s a difference between knowing hecouldhave done something, and knowing hewouldhave done something. There’s a difference, too, between knowing he would have done something, and seeing the outcome first-hand. Of seeing the meaninglessness of it all, the stupid f*cking bones, Gojō’s hurt,his own walking corpse—

I hate you so much, he thinks, shame and hate and disgust andvitriol more than he can stand. And who is he even talking to?

Their combined cursed energy in the air is thick and vile enough to choke on. Hard pebbles dig into his side. Their nails draw blood. Cursed energy on his tongue. The skin above Suguru’s wrist itches—

Something ripples through the air, and they both freeze at the taste. Iced cucumber and rotten strawberry. A hand grip locks around Suguru’s collar, and all at once, he and Getō arewretchedapart.

“One night,” Gojō says, voiceutterlyflat in a way Suguru’s never heard, “I took my eyes off you forone night.”

Chapter 10: if I could begin to do something that does right by you

Chapter Text

sh*t, Suguru thinks, coldness dousing his whole being. Molten heat still crawls on his skin and his heart won't stop beatingbut his stomach drops with ice.

Across from him, Getō's expression shutters, going utterly blank. His lips smooth out and his brows lose their furrow—his face slots back into place. And it hurts, aches, that Getō won't show himself sincerely even for Gojō Satoru. It hurts so much, even as Suguru feels his own expression meld itself to the unreadable shape of a hastily plastered face.

Just—

"So," Gojō drawls, voice all lax and even despite the telling twitch of his fingers against Suguru's nape, "'either of you gonna explain what the hell is happening here?"

Getō's brass-gold eyes slide to Gojō. One of his hands lifts to touch against Gojō's hand around the collar of his robes. "Satoru, let go."

A beat.

Silently, Gojō releases his grip on both of them. Suguru falls in a heap on the ground; Getō rises smoothly to his feet. His gaze fixes on Suguru, halfway to a glare. An unspoken question.

Suguru breathes in, and out.

"Sorry," Suguru says, giving Getō an apologetic look and pulling himself into standing, too. He hikes up the sleeve of his shirt and thumbs the cursed object still wrapped around the skin. Wrinkles his expression with performative dissatisfaction. Slides a nail under the paper's edge, and rips it off. "'Totally forgot about this thing."

"...Whatever," Getō sighs, brushing dirt from his robes and fixing back his hair.

"Hey," Gojō says, petulant note in his voice, "stop ignoring me! I asked a question, y'know!"

"Nothing's happening here," Suguru answers, at the same time that Getō says: "None of your business."

A half beat.

Getō glares at Suguru, and Suguru glares right back.

"...Right," Gojō says, all doubtful and sarcastic. He shoves his hands in his pockets. Pale morning light casts him sharp. His sleek black uniform makes him out of place against the old Japanese garden. "I'm sure."

"...It doesn't matter," Getō says, expression tightening ever-so-slightly. There's a small ripple of cursed energy, and Getō reaches into the void of his technique, into the mouth of a curse. Pulls out something harsh and white. Throws it on the ground between them. "There are more important things to focus on right now."

It's a bright cube, hard edges digging past the pebbles and into the dirt when it rolls once, twice, before settling on a side on the ground. Familiar. Suguru has seen it drawn in an old textbook.

Prison Realm, Suguru recognizes, after a moment, and clearly so does Gojō because his whole posture stiffens, shoulders straightening.

"sh*t," Gojō mutters.

"The thing that desecrated my corpse was planning to seal you with that," Getō says, voice almost-but-not-quite flat. There's a thread of anger. Disdain. "Destroy my body properly this time."

"Yeah," says Gojō, tone odd. A wince. "I—yeah. Sorry. I should have dealt with your body properly in the first place, huh? sh*t. Those stitches—are you—"

"I'm fine," Getō cuts. "It's fine. It wasn't fine, but it is now. I'll elaborate later. We should go."

"Right," Gojō says, then, "right. Right, we should." An audible breath. "So, uh," he stretches out his hands, offering one to each of them, "hold my hands?"

"We're not leaving this moment," Getō scoffs. "I have to tell the girls, dumbass. They'll panic if I just disappear."

"Oh," says Gojō, retracting his hands and looking inexplicably awkward. "Right, your girls."

"Mimiko and Nanako."

"I know."

Getō hums, already on his way back towards the engawa and through the open door back into the house. Suguru glances at Gojō. The man is staring, still in the same place that he was before. Stuck there, maybe. Suguru looks away, feeling invasive. Follows Getō. After a moment, Gojō follows, too.

When they reach the front door, Getō pauses. Reaches a hand up to his neck, traces the marks left by Suguru's fingernails. Little incisions into pale pink, bloodless flesh that would be hard to notice without deliberately searching for them.

The moment passes. Getō slides open the front door. Mimiko and Nanako are right where they left them.

"Mimiko, Nanako," Getō says, and they whip around.

"Master Get—" Mimiko's eyes land on Suguru and Gojō hovering just a step behind in the doorway, and her voice falters, "—ō? Why's—why's he here?" and she sounds so lost.

Getō's eyes flick to Gojō. His lips press, briefly, but his expression morphs into reassurance. "Don't worry about it."

This time, it's Nanako. She glares at Gojō. "But he—!"

"Shh," Getō bends down, pulling them both into his arms. "You trust me, don't you? Don't worry about it. I trust him. I'm gonna go to Jujutsu Tech, alright?" At that, there's the beginnings of another protest, but—"You two can catch up by train. I'll be there when you come, promise."

A beat.

"...Promise?"

"Of course," Getō says.

"Okay," says Nanako, pulling back. She gives Gojō a practically smoldering look, distrustful. "But what about him? He has to promise to."

And it hurts, too, that the sisters are so distrustful of Gojō. Satoru.

"Sure," says Gojō, and the flippancy of his voice only makes Nanako's expression scowl. An awkward beat. "I mean, yes. Definitely. Suguru'll be there and alive when you get to the college. That's fine. Of course. I'll—" he clears his throat. It sounds rough. It's odd, seeing Gojō so clearly off kilter. "I'll make sure of it."

"Okay," Nanako says, clearly unhappy, "but only because Master Getō trusts you."

So things wrap up. Once again, Getō presses a kiss to each of the sisters' foreheads, and Suguru feels out of place, intruding. His anger, all those exhausting emotions—they're not gone. Just suppressed. Shocked into momentary silence.

The sky is hazed flesh-pink and pale yellow when they finally leave. Gojō hoists Suguru onto his back and takes Getō's hand in his, fingers entangling. Gojō's breath hitches, so quiet Suguru barely hears, and something clenches in his chest. Cursed energy gathers in the air, and the world blinks, pulls, pops.

Ugh.

One location switches to the next, sensation all wretching and disorienting. Suguru's head is dizzy with vertigo. Bright white florescent lighting splotches clarity back to his vision, and just like that, they're in the college infirmary.

Suguru presses into the warmth of Gojō's shoulder, against his neck. Watches, almost morbidly, the way Gojō and Getō's hands linger a moment before breaking apart. That hesitant, unspoken desire. And all at once, he wants to cry.

He doesn't, though. There's a loud clatter, a clipboard against hard tiles, and he snaps his attention away.

Shōko is staring, perfectly still where she's standing by her desk. Suguru can't read the expression on her face.

"Ah," says Getō, eyes flicking to the wall, then back to Shōko. "Sorry for the trouble."

"Seriously," she mutters, and grimaces. "You're so troublesome."

"Hey," Getō says, but there's no heat in his tone, "it wasn't even my fault this time."

Shōko just sighs. The stillness leaves her frame, and she picks her clipboard off the tiled floor. Shoves it onto the desk without even looking. "How'd that even happen? I didn't think I'd see you alive again."

"I mean," Getō says, ghost of a smile pulling his lips, "you're not wrong."

"Let me guess: one of your creepily devoted followers animated your corpse?"

"Mm," he hums noncommittally, settling onto the edge of a plain white infirmary bed, "not quite."

"No?"

"Nah." Getō raises hand raises to his temple and digs around for a moment before pulling abruptly away from his skull. There's something between his tightly pressed fingers, long and thin and silver in the florescent lighting. "On the subject, though," and just like that, he lifts the whole lid of his skull. "I need to you take this out, soon. It's not mine."

The brain nestled on his head is a flush color, rose pink and pulsating oddly. Writhing, almost. A toothed mouth is set within its gnarled flesh. Suguru grimaces.

Getō waits a moment before fitting the lid of his skull back on and resewing the stitches.

Quietly, Suguru slips from Gojō's back and settles on the opposite end of the bed from his counterpart. Misses the sturdy warmth. Eyes things on the bedside table. There's a bottle of sleeping pills. Suguru fiddles with it absently.

"Okay," Shōko eventually says, and her voice is thick. "Okay. Yeah. Sure. When?"

"Not for a few more days at least," Getō answers. "I need to sort out some things before dying again."

Suguru's fingers and cold and numb. The sensation of digging nails into unbleeding flesh lingers in the skin. He tilts the plastic bottle. It rattles with that distinct sounds of pills. He grimaces. The noise grates on his frayed nerves. It's a sound that, even after this long, he despises.

He turns the bottle. Up, down. Up, down. Listens to their conversation through a veil. Up, down. Up, down. Watches his counterpart. Thinks of ten different antiphsychotic prescriptions. Up, down. Up—

"Will you stop it already," his counterpart finally snaps, voice all thin and sharp.

Suguru pauses his hands. Tilts his head. Smiles an entirely fake smile. Thinks of the lingering touch of Getō's hand in Gojō's. Thinks of the reason it had to guiltily pull away. Vitriolic irritation prickles on his skin, under his veins, itches like insects.

"I wasn't doing anything though?" Suguru plasters on confusion. "Shouldn't you have learned not to react to nothing?"

It's a deliberate provocation. A prod at therapy rooms and doctor offices and stark pills under florescent bathroom lights. There's no real meaning in this aimless dig to get under his counterpart's skin, but apparently Suguru is bad at doing things with meaning. So. Well.

"Wow," says Getō, "that's real mature."

"Ah," Suguru feigns surprise, "Sorry, sorry. I didn't realize you were still sensitive to that. Honestly, I thought you'd have grown out of it."

Getō's face darkens, ever-so-slight. His mouth opens to reply, but—

"Hey," Shōko says, slowly, eyes languidly studying them both, and her scrutiny pricks uncomfortably on Suguru's skin. She's always had a gaze like that; dissecting. "Those marks around your neck. Where're they from?"

Ah. The skin is probably starting to bruise purple, now. Suguru's gaze flicks between her and Getō. Neither he nor his counterpart answer. The air wafts with antiseptic scent and lavender essential oils. Suguru can taste it.

"...Seriously?" Shōko sounds so exasperated. Or maybe just tired. "Getō, you're strangling teens now? I mean, I guess it's expected, after last Christmas, but."

"In fairness," Getō says, after a moment, "he started it."

"Did not," Suguru denies, mostly from principal. If you think about it hard enough, Getō did start it. A decade ago. When he massacred a village and then decided to stick with the decision and make a mess of everything.

(Which—well. Maybe Suguru did start it, after all.)

(I hate you, he thinks, quiet and under his tongue.)

Gojō has been leaning quietly against Shōko's desk. Watching, like always.

"Oh, really." Getō raises a brow, tilts his head at Shōko. "He acted like someone with a death wish, honestly."

"Big words," Suguru snaps, and it's impulsive, words feeling sticky on his tongue, like something that shouldn't be spoken, but he's already started, so—"from someone who harbored a fantasy of Satoru killing you for—what, a decade?"

Getō's expression freezes on his face. His whole body stills, Suguru notes with a terrible sort of satisfaction. From the corner of his eye, he can see Shōko fumble with her pen. He doesn't look at Gojō; he doesn't want to look at Gojō.

A beat, and—

"We are not doing this here," Getō tells him, all hard and icy.

A bitter taste curdles on the back of Suguru's tongue. "Bet it was nice," he says, "bet he was kind about it. He's still a total utilitarian about justice and retribution, right? God, that's disgusting."

"Hey," Gojō starts, and Suguru doesn't f*cking care.

"You have no damn sense of proportional punishment," he snaps, twisting his head towards him and looking away just as fast. "If I had killed my counterpart I would've skinned him alive and it still wouldn't have been enough to pay for even a f*cking fraction of—"

"Shut up," Getō bites. "We're not doing this here."

"What, being honest?" He rolls his eyes. "Oh no, 'guess I forgot for a moment there that you'd literally rather die than quit lying for like, two damn seconds!"

Something complicated flicks over Getō's expression. "You're such a brat."

"Takes a two faced manipulative habitually lying bitch to know one!" All false-cheer, thinly veiled vitriol.

Half a moment. Suguru resolutely does not look away from Getō's face.

"That," Getō says, "is not what I said."

"It wasn't?" Do not look at Gojō and Shōko do not look at them do not look at them—! He tilts his head. Pulls his ear. Makes an apologetic expression. "'So sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of your massive superiority complex."

Getō's eye twitches. "That literally doesn't even make sense."

Well, yeah. It doesn't, but it feels good—or maybe f*cking terrible—to say. So whatever, right?

Suguru swallows. Breathes in, and out. Tears his eyes from Getō and looks over at Gojō for realthis time. He's in the same position as before, against the desk. Lips set thin. His hands are white around the metal edge. It's crushed under his fingers. Oh. When did that happen?

God, Suguru really hopes Gojō's not upset. He's definitely upset.

"It's not your fault if you don't understand us," Suguru tells him, because Gojō has to understand this, he has to. "It's not like you can read minds. I lied to you last night, y'know? Or at least, I was dishonest. The whole 'you can't understand me because you don't know hatred' or whatever. You were right to call me a drama queen. It's not that at all. If you don't know something about us it's because we don't tell you sh*t. Cause—"

"Stop," Getō interrupts, and his voice is tight, and Suguru scoffs.

"Point proven!" Suguru presses his fingers against the now-warm plastic of the pill bottle he still hasn't dropped, and shifts his gaze from Gojō to his counterpart. Steadies himself. "He deserves honesty, you know. He does, no matter how much we don't wanna give it to him."

His counterpart's face falters, and he's probably the only one who recognizes it. Getō looks away.

It's good enough.

"The only one we hate lying to more than you is ourself," Suguru tells Gojō, and tracks the small twitches of his fingers on the desk's broken edge. "So instead of, y'know, talking to you and feeling that inevitable need to be dishonest, we just avoid talking to you altogether. Honestly—" and he pauses, there, looks away, "I shouldn't even be the one telling you this. It should be my counterpart, but, well. Sorry. He'll say what he needs to, eventually, maybe."

And you're not the person I should be telling this to, either, Suguru thinks, but doesn't say. I should be telling my own Satoru.

Getō's face has slipped into something that's not quite a scowl. He's unsmiling, eyes fixed somewhere that's not Gojō, jaw resting against his palm. He doesn't respond.

"...Okay," says Gojō, after a long moment. "Right."

"Right."

A few awkward beats. Getō's hand presses hard against the mattress. Suguru's eyes wander the room's edges. Exhaustion tugs at his limbs. The last time he slept was yesterday evening, and that was only a short, couple-hour nap. It's been a long night. Shōko looks like she badly needs a cigarette.

"Y'know, I'm grateful and all that you and your counterpart don't get along," Shōko says, after the silence really becomes stifling. "But honestly, this is really f*cking awkward."

"Of course we don't get along," Suguru says, scowls. Looks pointedly at his counterpart. "His idea on what I should do in the future somehow manage to be even worse than his—" and he points to Gojō, "suggestion."

Getō opts to ignore almost the entirely of Suguru's words, and instead quirks a brow in interest. "He had a suggestion?"

"Yeah," Suguru says, "he was all like maybe you should go start a flower shop. It was ridiculous."

The corners of Getō's lips raise, just a little. His gaze strays to Gojō. "A flower shop, really?"

Gojō huffs. "It wasn't that bad a suggestion."

"Yes it was," they say at the same time, and then snap over to stare at each other. It's—it's annoying (nerve wracking) to be reminded how similar they are. That they are the same person.

"Ugh," Suguru makes a face. "You know what, I'm ignoring you."

"Fine by me," Getō says, "I'm ignoring you too."

Their lack of interaction lasts maybe three seconds before Getō reaches out his leg and steps on Suguru's shoe. Suguru stares for a moment, scooches over, and grinds the heel of his shoe on Getō's socked foot. Getō responds in kind. Back and forth. Stepping on each other's feet. This lasts maybe eight seconds before Shōko groans.

"Are you two children."

"He started it," Suguru tells her.

"Oh my God," she mutters pinching the bridge of her nose. "I need a light."

Suguru huffs. Resists the urge to fiddle with his earlobe. Lets his eyes once again wander the infirmary. It's chilly in here, but Suguru feels more numb than cold. He feels—tired. He feels tired. Idly, he wonders what time it is, if Satoru's awake, and how long it'll be till he find Suguru here. Pauses on the thought.

sh*t. He doesn't—doesn't want to see Satoru right now. Doesn't want to deal with it all. In fact, he realizes, he doesn't want to deal with any of anything right now.

He wonders how long it'd take him to fall asleep, and almost grimaces.

"I'm going to sleep," he announces, moving almost violently to the opposite side of the bed from Getō. Grabs the bottle of sleeping pills. Pours—well, honestly, a probably-dangerous amount into the palm of his hand. Whatever. He downs them all dry without even counting. "Night."

"It's early morning," Getō says, because of f*cking course he does.

"I am ignoring you." Pointedly, Suguru lays on his side, far away from his counterpart as he can manage. Closes his eyes. Breathes in, and out. Antiseptic. Lavender.

He falls asleep easily enough.

-

Awareness comes back heavy and aching. His head feels of cotton, and for a moment he thinks he's being weighed down by something, but the smooth infirmary blankets are under his skin, not over, and that heavy feeling is his own limbs. It's an unnatural sort of aching, one pressed upon him by more than simple sleep.

A memory rises. Pills. Sleeping pills. How many?

Ah. Must have overdosed after all, huh? Could have been dangerous were it not for his cursed energy burning it out. What even...

The blurred fuzziness of his ears breaks. A voice comes through. Two. It's too loud. Suguru holds back a groan and presses his lids tighter.

"...a few days, huh?" Satoru. Not Satoru? Too mature. Gojō?

"It'll be cruel to us both if I stay for long." Quiet, measured. Himself. His counterpart.

Small pause, and, "You're asking me to kill you again."

Oh. That's what this is about. Suguru wants to—to not be here. Is too heavy for anything beyond the barest twitches of movement.

"Technically," says his counterpart, "it mostly wouldn't be you this time."

The mattress dips. Suguru feels it just so much as he hears it. "You're asking me to watch you be dissected alive. Slowly taken apart. Alive."

"I'm not alive."

Pause. "Still-conscious, then." Tone flat.

A noncommittal hum. "You don't want to?"

"Are you stupid?"

"You don't have to be there if you don't want to," says Getō, tone unreadable. Considering, maybe. "You don't have to be the one to properly exorcise my cursed energy afterwards, either. Someone else can do it."

"...That's not a real choice," Gojō says, "you're forcing my hand, again."

"As if you wouldn't have done it anyway?"

"I would have, but... I still wanted to choose when and where and how, y'know?"

"How selfish."

"I know."

A beat.

"The first time," Getō says, and there's an almost hesitant pause, "I didn't think—well. In the first place, it's not like I planned to die on the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, but I guess—" and this is the first time Suguru has heard his counterpart so unsure with his words, "I didn't think you'd really—care. That much. About doing it."

"...Suguru."

"...Yeah?"

"You're so stupid."

"What," and his tone has switched, now, edged with something not-quite mocking, but isn't exactly teasing, either, "are you sorry about killing me the first time?"

"Are you expecting an apology?"

"Nah," Getō says, "'course not."

The sound of fabric against fabric. The mattress shifts again.

"Good," Gojō says, after a moment, "'cause I'm not sorry. Just so you know."

"I know."

"But it still hurt, y'know?" And Gojō's voice has a whine, all childish with offense. "And now you want me to do it again! You're such a jerk!"

"It has to be done," Getō says, "we both know that. I already explained the condition of my body, and the brain in my skull... that individual has too much knowledge to destroy the organ and be done with it." Small sigh. "Besides, I want to die with you two."

"Ugh," says Gojō, "this is gonna be hard on Shōko, too."

"...I know."

A couple beats. The longest stretch of silence yet. Suguru feels vaguely sick.

"Hey," Gojō says, "what mini-you said earlier, about your fantasy..."

Another long silence. The air conditioning is whirring. Suguru thought it was his own head's fuzzy static.

"...It wasn't untrue," Getō finally answers. Oh, being honest, huh?

A beat, and Gojō groans, a long, drawn out, dramatic sound. The mattress shifts again. "This sucks so much."

"Mm. But you'll do it."

"Yeah," Gojō agrees, tone all odd and distant and sad, "of course I will. I'd do it even if you didn't ask, y'know? Cause I can't stand the idea of anyone else doing it. But you're still an ass for asking."

"You're the one who's always saying it's fine—good, even—to be selfish," Getō reminds.

"You're such an asshole," Gojō repeats.

It's something morbid, Suguru thinks, that is making him listen to this instead of letting their voices sink beneath the fuzzy haze of cotton in his skull. That's making him focus on them instead of the lavender or antiseptic or uncomfortably tight clothing on his skin. It's an active effort to keep himself conscious, now. God, it's so nauseating.

"Y'know," Gojō says after a while. "It's been hell watching them interact for the last few days."

"'Them'?"

"The cute, mini versions of ourselves."

"Oh," then, "hah."

"Yeah."

"Mm."

"...'You think it would've changed anything if we—if I said anything, back then?"

"Nah," Getō answers without much delay, then, "I think it would've made it worse, actually. Would've hurt both of us more. I would've made the same decisions; I care about my ideals more than I do you. More than I do anything."

Dishonest, Suguru thinks, bleary. Not a lie, exactly, but dishonest. Satoru is part of their ideals. Satoru's well-being—a world that deserves him, a world that doesn't demand he be a god—is part of their ideal. No matter which one.

Because Getō Suguru—

Gojō laughs, short and sharp and ear-grating. A headache throbs through Suguru's skull. "For the guy who complained so much about my callousness, you can be pretty f*cking brutal with your words, huh?"

"Mm, maybe."

A huff. "Jerk."

Getō doesn't respond. Suguru listens, but Gojō doesn't continue, either. Heavy limbs drag Suguru back to uneasy unconscious.

(—because Getō Suguru loves Gojō Satoru; will always love Gojō Satoru.)

Chapter 11: sincerity

Chapter Text

When he regains consciousness properly, the infirmary is empty, and Suguru is alone. There's still a hint of sluggishness to his limbs, but the problem has been mostly dealt with by his cursed energy. He deals with his hygiene. Takes a shower. Changes clothes. Wonders where Satoru is, and what he's doing. Wonders if Satoru's avoiding him.

He finds Yaga in the kitchen, back slumped, hands around a plain white mug. Coffee, Suguru knows, from its smell permeating thick through the air.

They stare, for a moment. He's grown his hair out, a little. Wears shades now, too. Suguru doesn't need to see Yaga's eyes to observe how obviously uncomfortable his presence makes the other, though. And Suguru just doesn't—

doesn't wanna deal with this sh*t.

"I'll...use another kitchen," Suguru says, after moment, voice awkwardly loud. He turns heel, wet hair cold against his skin, and—

"Wait!"

Suguru pauses, twists half around. Raises a brow. "What?"

"I think—" Yaga visibly collects himself, fingers going white around his coffee mug, "I think we should talk."

Suguru turns all the way around. Attempts a smile, but can't quite muster it, even a mocking one. Whatever. He doesn't need a smile right now, anyway.

"Oh, so you're done avoiding me?"

Yaga grimaces. "Sorry."

That takes him aback. The Yaga he knows is more—prideful? Maybe. "Really?"

"Yeah."

Suguru doesn't really know what to say, so instead he scoffs. Makes his way to the counter without directly looking at the other. Pours himself a cup of coffee. Hesitates a moment, thinks of Satoru, and takes an orange, too. "So, what. 'Got something to say to me?"

"...Probably not anything Gojō and Shōko haven't already told you," Yaga finally admits.

Suguru digs a nail into the peel of his orange. Its oil burns ever-so-slight under his nails. "I think you're overestimating our ability to handle things ourselves. You did that back then, too."

Another grimace. Yaga always frowns when he's bothered, lips setting deep and thin on his face, brows furrowing. It's not quite a scowl, though—closer to a 'perplexed' expression than anything. Apparently, that hasn't changed.

"I'm sorry about that, too," Yaga eventually says.

An awkward beat. Suguru sips from his coffee to avoid speaking, and burns his tongue.

"Look," he says, bitterness coating his whole mouth, "there's clearly something you wanna ask me. If you're not gonna say it then I'm just gonna leave."

"You're speaking like you're angry."

"You wanna know if I'm angry at you?" And then, when Yaga doesn't verbally reply, Suguru presses his fingers into the hot surface of his mug. Licks the burnt tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I think you're a spineless coward," Suguru answers, and anger sparks, just a little, all gross and worn. "I hate you sometimes, I think, but—not completely. Not really. I can't ever hate any of you from the college."

"Ah."

There's a pool of resentment in Suguru's stomach, thereis, but he's just so—tired. It feels far away. Exhausted The spark of anger burns out just so quick as it came.

"You should talk to my counterpart, not me."

"Yeah," Yaga agrees, after a moment. He sounds almost so tired as Suguru feels. "I probably should."

They don't talk after that. Suguru downs his bitter coffee, eats his orange, and leaves first.

-

It's odd, that's all. It's odd. Everything is empty and hollow and Suguru wanders the quiet campus without direction. Lost. And it shouldn't feel unfamiliar, this untethered sensation, but itdoes. Because maybe he's been lost for a year but there was always a distant goal in the horizon, a crossroads. A signpost, if only he'd take its directions. To keep with his ideals, to take this set of new ones. To continue exorcising and ingesting, or to turn against nonshamans.

But—but now it's just—

And Satorustillhasn't searched him out.

So the sun stretches in the sky, and Suguru heads back to the infirmary. Down long, cold corridors lit too dim. The door is cracked open. Bright florescent light spills out through the gap, white on the gray stone, and Suguru pauses abruptly. Through the doorway, on one of those neat white beds, is Getō, and in his arms...

Ah.

Mimiko and Nanako are pressed into him. Muffled sobs. Soothing words.I love you, I love you, I love you. Other soft things that Suguru opts not to decipher. He averts his eyes, swallows around the odd lump in his throat, and turns around.

It's not something for him to intrude on.

(He should talk to his parents when he gets back, maybe.)

-

Behind the college, there's a cemetery. It's tucked into a small, empty wildflower meadow across a creek, and it doesn't look like a cemetery at all. At least, not at first.

The moment Suguru passes the stream and steps his bare foot onto its far side, the world folds in on itself. In front of him stretches an expanse of tiled paths and stone monuments, clean-cut rectangles etched with names. It's late afternoon and toasted sunlight encases every polished stone in amber hues that reflect the very nature of this place.

It's old sealwork, Suguru knows. This curtain is from the Golden Age of Jujutsu. The effect is akin to capturing an incomplete domain in the physical world. Nothing like the modern understanding of curtain capabilities. Shamans have been attempting to dissect the exact mechanisms of this ever-expanding cemetery for centuries.

Suguru walks twenty minutes, footsteps slow as he traverses the winding landscape, before finally reaching the monument that holds Haibara's name etched into its side. There are flowers at his, wilted and faded but present nonetheless. Unlike almost ever other grave here.

Suguru sits. The stone beneath him is lukewarm, and there's no breeze, but Suguru draws a knee to his chest and rests his jaw on it.

HAIBARAis written plainly across the front in large characters. Some clans—mostly only the important or large ones—have their own cemeteries, but the Haibara clan has always been small and, in the scheme of things, unimportant. New, too. Their family grave sits here, only three generations of names inscribed in its surface. Haibara is still the newest addition.

HaibaraYū.灰原雄.

An entire person flattened into two names. Into thin lines in gray stone. As if that could ever encapsulate his existence.

Suguru's eyes wander the pristine, flowerless monuments around him. The rows and rows and rows of them, embedded into the landscape, far as he can see. There are so many names, so many faceless ghosts, and Suguru feels nothing beyond a vague acknowledgment that someone with that name once existed; someday, this is how Haibara will be remembered.

It's late afternoon and everything is pleasantly lukewarm. There's no reason for Suguru to feel so—socold.

Everything is too-quiet and too-still. No birds, no bugs. Empty.Lonely. Satorustillhasn't searched him out.

Suguru breathes out, and lets a small curse slip out of his ability and dance in the air around his fingers for a moment. Nudge against his cheek. The creature's body is long and scaled, resembling a koi fish. A small ache pangs through Suguru's chest, and suddenly, he misses the rainbow dragon.

Haibara Yū. This f*cking cemetery of flattened shaman names. Yesterday, Suguru had a direction he could point to and sayif I do this, I can stopthisfrom happening again. Now—

Another curse slips out, larger this time. And another. Then another. Another. More.

Their cocooning bodies are all cold. Satoru still hasn't come.

God.

Suguru just wants to shut away from the whole world. Wants to fall into a void and never come up. Wishes, idly, that his counterpart hadn't pulled him out from the pond last night. That he had drowned there, because at least then he wouldn't behere. In this—this—

A curse shifts against his hair. In his lungs, the air feels so thick and putrid with cursed energy that he could choke on it, but he doesn't. Outside this mass of curses, he's sure the shadows are elongating, sun moving across the sky. He can't see it. Everything is blocked out.

He stays like that a while, right up until something disturbs the edge of his curses.

"Getō," the voice is muffled through his walls, but recognizable. Quietly, he opens a path, curses pushes aside to make way for her. He doesn't look, but hears her footsteps against he stone nonetheless. "What are you doing here?"

Instead of answering: "How'd you know I was here?"

"Your counterpart thought you might be," Shōko answers.

"He did?" Suguru finally looks at her. Luminescent curses cast her in silvers and blues. Tired exhaustion plagues her shoulders. Getō definitely knew that if Suguru was here, he wouldn't wanna be disturbed. "What an ass."

"Mm," Shōko says. Doesn't sit down beside him, but bends over, just a little. "'Wanna come out of this mess?"

No.

"No," Suguru answers, curses brushing his skin. "'Got a problem with that?"

"Nah," Shōko says. "It's fine."

Small pause. His skin pricks. A beetle-like curse crawls along his fingers, body glowing dimly. "You think I'm being childish."

A noncommittal hum. "Maybe in some ways."

He sours, curses shifting around them. Clicking and clacking, agitated with his mood. "Go away."

"It's okay if you're being childish," Shōko says, tone all dull and unreadable. Not negative. Not positive, either. Flat and factual, the same way she reads out autopsy reports. "You're a child."

A beat. Suguru looks away. He doesn't feel like one.

"...Go away," he says again.

"Yeah yeah," Shōko says, and he hears her steps leaving. "Ah, Satoru'll probably come soon, by the way. If you're waiting on him."

Suguru's chest tangles anxiously, and he doesn't answer, even as her steps fade completely.

-

He comes not much later, all loud and crude, shamelessly forcing his own way through Suguru's writhing dome of curses, rather than waiting for a path to open.

"Oh woah," he's saying as the opening closes behind him, filled with new curse bodies, and something in Suguru releases with relief at the sound of his voice, "this is so weird! It's so dark! Kinda cool actually. f*cking bitch on the eyes though, like, in terms of cursed energy—ugh. Ah! Don't get rid of them though, I mean, if you don't want to. That's fine. It's like one of those caves, y'know the ones? Like with the glow-worms n' stuff. Kinda like Loy Krathong. Or like, rivers at the end of Obon? But this is blue-colors and I dunno if you're mourning or just freaking out. Hey, we're even in a cemetery! I missed Tōrō Nagashi this year. Do you think—"

"You're babbling," Suguru says.

Satoru makes an offended noise and sits on the hard ground beside Suguru, legs crossed, leaning back on his palms. Their knees bump. "Wha'cha are you doing here anyway?"

Suguru shrugs. Satoru is silver and blue and soft under the dim light of luminescent curses. There's starlight in his hair. Suguru catches a glance of his eyes over those opaque glasses. "This is the first time I've been to Haibara's family grave since before he died."

"It's the first time I've been at all."

"Ah." A beat of silence. Suguru's throat, chest, cursed energy, feels tight. Sick with anticipation. Dread. "Hey Satoru, were you avoiding me today?"

"I guess," Satoru answers, "I mean, not exactly. I was just—hm, figuring some things out?"

"It's fine," says Suguru, even though it doesn't feel fine, it doesn't feel fine at all, "So I guess—" he looks away, looking to the writhing dome of curses that curtain them from the rest of the world. No light slips through. "I guess you know what happened, huh? With me in this timeline."

Satoru clears his throat. "Yeah. Figured it out."

Suguru tries to smile. Fails. When will the shoe drop? "'Took you long enough. I basically had it all figured out by noon yesterday, y'know?"

"'Wouldn't have taken me so long if you told me what you thought," Satoru grumbles, "jerk."

And Suguru—what does he evendo?Suguru doesn't know how to fix this. He draws the knee back from his chest and matches Satoru's cross legged position. Breathes in, and out. "Asshole."

"Bitch," Satoru responds, easily.

Suguru almost smiles, this time. "Obnoxious playboy."

"Manipulative control freak."

Ouch. Suguru resists the urge to reach a hand up and fiddle with one of his piercings. "Oblivious."

Satoru's shoulders straighten. "Liar."

"God complex." Even though Suguru is a liar and Satoru justisthe strongest. No complex.

Satoru sticks his tongue out. "Savior complex!"

"Not a savior complex if you literally have a moral obligation to do it," Suguru says, and his voice has less heat than he wants it to. It just sounds sotired. So openly exhausted. Because he really does have an obligation, huh? No escaping it.

"Not a god complex if you're a god."

"But you're not." And Satoru knows that, too. He doesn't have a god complex, not really. He might have—does have—one about being forced into the role, though. And Suguru no longer has a plan for how to help that.

Satoru takes off his glasses. They clack quietly against the stone. His eyes are so, so blue. All of the ocean all at once. The sharp edge of shattered glass. Bright, human-weapon eyes. "God-like, then."

"No," Suguru says, thinks of Satoru sleeping in his bed, Satoru laughing, Satoru getting upset over stupid video games, Satoru human, Satoru Satoru Satoru, "not that, either."

(I love you I love you I love you I love you)

Satoru makes a face. "Then who is?"

"Hmmm," Suguru tilts his head, mock contemplation, maybe. "Shōko?"

"Whaatt?" Satoru's face scrunches. "How comeshegets the god-like label!"

"For putting up with our sh*t all the time," Suguru answers.

Satoru opens his mouth to reply—and snaps it shut. His brows furrow cutely, and there's a half beat before he laughs, loud and honest and it soothes something in Suguru's soul. His heart. It must, because after a moment, he's laughing too, eyes crinkling up.

It's Satoru that recovers breath first, and he flops down on his back, laying sprawled on the stone. Blue-silver light shines on his hair, his lashes, his uniform. Like this, they could be pressed between between the night and the stars. And he's still smiling when he says: "You know, I've always had homicidal thoughts."

Suguru stills. Presses a palm against he ground. Runs his tongue along his teeth, hard enough to hurt. "You do?"

"Mhmm," Satoru's bright eyes wander the dark mass of curses before settling on Suguru, and their intensity almost burns. Satoru's still smiling. "Like 'killing Sensei would get me out of detention' or 'damn it'd be so easy to squash Shōko like a bug right now' or 'man I should just kill all the elders'. I told my mental health councilor—which I was required to have by Jujutsu law since Six Eyes plus Limitless blah blah—about them when I was like, ten and he got so scared. And then I thought 'I could just kill him', too, cause he was being loud and annoying, and Icould, but I didn't."

Suguru stares. His throat feels tight. Putrid cursed energy rolls over his tongue. His chest clenches uncomfortably. Irrationally, he wants to hold Satoru's hand. Irrationally, too, he's afraid that Satoru wouldn't let him. "...Yeah?"

Small pause, and, "Yeah! After the Star Plasma mission was the worst, though. In the cultist building, holding Riko's body. I really would have killed them all, you know?"

"'Cause you hated them?"

"Nah," Satoru says, "I didn't like,wantto kill them, exactly. I didn't hate them. I wasn't even angry. It was more like, I just wanted all the noise gone. It was too loud. I wouldn't have felt anything at all if I did—like killing a bug without reason! Crushing one justbecause. You know you shouldn't, but you don't actually feel anything when you do. But you stopped me. But—" Satoru pauses, takes a breath. "But if it were you in my place holding Riko's body and I was in the doorway and you were telling me 'Satoru, I want to kill them', I don't think I'd know how to stop you. Even though you stopped me. That's not fair, right? It doesn't feel fair."

Suguru doesn't know what to say, doesn't really want to say anything, so he doesn't. Because Satoru—Satoru is being sohonestwith him and he doesn't deserve it at all. He can't match that.

A frown tugs at Satoru's face. "You were the first person to ever make me pause and think, 'could I'? You were annoying but you werestrong, the only one who'd ever rivaled me before, and I don't think I could have killed you easily, in first year. And honestly, I don't think I could now, either. For different reasons, though. I guess. You know?"

Satoru's honesty hangs in the air between them, and Suguru chokes on it. It was always something he—admired, maybe, about Satoru. His honesty. His bright, blaring, unapologetic nature. There's a sincerity to his existence. And Suguru...

I love you I love you I love you I love you

Satoru deserves Suguru to be honest, right? Remember? Satoru deserves Suguru's honesty. And maybe—maybe Suguru wants to be sincere. At least a little.

But it's so scary, it's so, so scary. Because what if Suguru takes off his face, peels back his skin, and Satoru recoils at the festering rot underneath? It's so, so grotesque. But—but.

"I don't think mine are like that," Suguru says, words bitter and raw on his tongue, "I haven't—they haven't always been there, and they're not so flippant. I really want—wanted to kill them. Sometimes it's a passing desire but it'salwaysa real want. Sometimes I thought it'd swallow me whole. I guess it would've, eventually, given," he makes a vague motion in the air. "You know."

"Oh," says Satoru, then: "thanks for telling me."

There's still so much I haven't told you, Suguru thinks, and feels disgusting. Then:there's still so much I think I want to tell you.

The best years of Suguru's life was first and second year at Jujutsu Tech. These were also the most honest years of his life—the ones where he wasn't pretending not to see monsters in the dark, and wasn't pretending to believe in some stupid ideal, and wasn't trying to conceal his growing hatred of nonshamans.

But now Satoru knows, and Satoru's still here, right? With Suguru. And Suguru's still with Satoru. And there's so much Satoru knows but it's still not everything and it's still not enough and it's still not what Suguru is feeling right now.

I want to be sincere for you, Suguru thinks, looking at Satoru's bright eyes and starlight hair and sprawled body,I want to be sincere with you.

I want to be sincere.

"I don't know what to do," Suguru confesses, voice quiet, and wants to cry. He reaches a hand up to his ear and fiddles with his piercing. "I mean—"

and he lets all the curses dissipate, pulls them back into his technique all at once. The world brightens. Around them, the shaman cemetery stretches and stretches and stretches, washed rosy-pink with sunset.

Satoru blinks once. Sits back up. "Do about what?"

"This," Suguru says, gesturing to the millennium-old shaman graveyard around them, "everything. I had a plan before, you know? Or at least the idea of one. But it was irrational and immoral and now I'm right back where I started, except worse. I just—just..."

"Oh," Satoru says, human-weapon eyes glittering, "well—maybe—what if all the nonshamans became like Maki? Like, all got those glasses things so the shaman world won't have to be so short on people to complete exorcisms all the time?"

"The higher ups wouldn't ever allow that."

"So we'll change the whole Jujutsu world, who cares?"

"Even if we did, cursed objects aren't able to be manufactured reliably. It'd be expensive and costly."

"But it wouldn't cost millions of lives," says Satoru.

A beat. Suguru's chest clenches.

"Yeah, it wouldn't," how to explain, how toexplain, "but—it's still not—Satoru I'm notwrong. I'm not. That feels like—it's another bandaid solution. Curses—they need to be gone completely, I think. My counterpart's actions had purpose but not meaning, and my previous self's actions," he's speaking too fast—"when I believed this cycle of exorcising was optimum—those actions had meaning but no purpose. And I think I need both, therehasto be purpose just like therehasto be meaning but I can't f*ckingfindthem together and—"

"Calm down," says Satoru, and his palm is cold but it feels burning against Suguru's shoulder.

Something racks his frame, not a sob, but a shudder, maybe. It's awful. Haibara's name stares at him like an accusation. Hotness pricks at his eyes and there's a lump in his throat.

"I don't want to be a bad person," he confesses, pathetic and small. That's the heart of it, right?I don't want to be a bad person.

And Satoru—

"You're not," he says with absurd confidence, as if Suguru hadn't come within a hairbreadth of mass murder, as if his counterpart weren't killed by Satoru's counterpart because of his atrocities, as if—"you won't be."

I love you I love you I love you I love you

"You can't justsaythat," Suguru says, voice cracking embarrassingly down the middle.

"Yeah?" A note of challenge. "I'll say it again: you're a good person and you'll continue to be. You won't be a bad person." Then: "We're together. We'll figure it out, okay? We're together."

I love you I love you I love you I love you

"Okay," Suguru says around that awful lump in his throat, "okay. We will." Smiles in a way that hurts his face. "We're together."

Satoru makes this light, pleased noise. His hand reaches from Suguru's shoulder to his jaw to his cheeks to his eyes. Belatedly, he realizes that he's crying. Satoru's finger glistens with his tears. And Suguru wants, achingly, to slot their bodies together, to link their legs and intertwine their hands and press his lips against Satoru's and breathe his air until they're two halves of a whole and their hearts beat in tandem.

I love you.

"Since we're being honest," Suguru says, voice all thick and terrible, "can I tell you something?"

"Sure," Satoru answers easily, fingers still brushing Suguru's skin, body close, and Suguru feels hyper aware of every point of contact. "Anything."

I—

"I love you," Suguru says, sounds rattling up his chest, choking in his throat, falling thick from his tongue. "Satoru I love you."

Satoru blinks. "I love you too?" Tone a little bemused. Like an idiot. Dumbass. Suguru wants to rip his hair out.

"No," Suguru says. "No, I mean—" I would burn this world for you. My soul would know you blind. I want to be with you when I die; I want to be with you while I live. Loving you is part of the meaning of my existence. I love you so much I could die. I love you so much I feel like I'm dying. And even still, it's worth it, because—"I love you like a blessing."

Satoru's brows furrow. "Ummm?"

"Oh my god," Suguru mutters, and this is so f*cking awful because it's not even rejection, it's just Satorunot getting it, "you're so stupid."

"Hey!" Satoru's face contorts with offense, and maybe it's Suguru's fault after all; this isn't the first time he's saidI love you, but it's the first time he's meant it like this. "Sugur—"

Suguru presses a finger to Satoru's lips. Breathes in, and out. Air warm in his lungs. Moves his hand, brushing across Satoru's cheek, ears, hair, and presses ever-so-light against the back of his head.

Suguru leans up, and presses his lips against Satoru's. They're soft, and when Suguru pulls away—quick and hesitant—a light, breathy noise slips out of them.

"Like that," Suguru says, heart in his throat, Satoru's cursed energy lingering on his lips alongside the sweet taste of strawberry lipbalm, "I love you like that too."

"Oh," says Satoru. His ears are red, and Suguru wants to kiss him again, but doesn't. "I—oh."

Suguru is going to die. "Please say something more than that."

"Right," Satoru says, "I—" a low noise of frustration, and suddenly Satoru is so close, too close, not close enough, just close enough. And his lips are against Suguru's. And his strawberry lipbalm is so sweet. "I love you like that too," Satoru says into the corner of Suguru's lips, and Suguru is going to cry again. "I love you too."

Suguru makes some low, undignified sound, and presses all of himself into Satoru. Finds his hands and entangles them, locks their legs, slips his head into the crook of Satoru's neck; slots their bodies together.

All around them, the whole cemetery is dusted rose-quartz in the sunset. Pink like valentine hearts. Like the blush of Satoru's skin.

"Hey," he says, after a moment or minute, "you said you missed Tōrō Nagashi this year, right?"

"Yeah," says Satoru.

Suguru pulls back, and he's not sure the expression on his face, but he doesn't really care, either. "I missed Tōrō Nagashi this year too." He clutches Satoru's hand tightly. "Next August," he says, voice too breathy and raw, "next August—let's go together. Let's takeallof Obon off together. We can wear pretty yukata and eat too much shaved ice and take stupid pictures and dance together on the second day and kiss under the fireworks."

"...You'll be okay with taking three days off in the middle of busy season?" And Satoru sounds sohopeful.

"I think—I think I'm going to see if I can contact Tsukumo Yuki and work with her, instead of...going back to full time exorcising," Suguru says, "but I can pitch in during busy season. We can both take extra missions beforehand."

"Okay," Satoru says, and smiles like the winter sun, "let's do it."

"And—" Suguru's breath catches in his throat, and he holds Satoru's hand so tight it must hurt. All around him, the cemetery watches. "We'll make Haibara a lantern and set it down the river. And—and Amanai and Kuroi, too."

"Okay," Satoru agrees, just like that. He doesn't ask:isn't that a bit late?Because they both know that Suguru hasn't been mourning well. Maybe Satoru hasn't, either.

"We'll mourn all year," Suguru says, "and we'll do it properly, and when Tōrō Nagashi comes around we'll behappyand it'll be remembrance but it won't be grief. It'll be—" and he can't quite find the words.

"Recovery," Satoru fills in, stupid smile, "it'll be recovery."

It's the festival of recovery, after all.

"Yeah," Suguru agrees, fitting his head back into Satoru's shoulder, "it'll be recovery."

-

He didn't expect to see Getō in the library, but there he is. He's lounging in a plush chair, book between his fingers, expression—bored, maybe. The blackness of his robes makes him meld into the library's darkness, and Suguru can't quite tell where he ends and his shadows begins. Light from the onibi lanterns cast Getō in eerie blues, glints on his gold eyes.

Suguru feels oddly stuck in his place, book growing heavy in his hand.

A beat. He sucks in a breath, air tasting like old paper, thinks of Gojō, and decides to ignore his counterpart. Turns heel—

"You're still upset, hm."

Pauses. Twists back around, not bothering to smile. "At you?"

"Sure," Getō hums, snapping his book closed and tucking it away into the fabric of his clothing.

"I heard you talking to your Satoru yesterday morning," Suguru says, "in the infirmary."

"Ah."

"No excuses?"

"I don't need any," Getō hums, resting a palm against the side of his face, long sleeves falling away from his pale, bloodless skin. "I stand by everything I said."

Cold, dry air slips through Suguru's clothing. Brushes down his cheek, neck, fingertips. "You made it sound like you hardly care for him at all."

A small pause. "So that's it." Getō's lips quirk from their lax downturn. "You really hate seeing Satoru and I like we are."

"You already know I hate seeing you two like that," Suguru mutters, and it'd be okay, if Getō actually had a goodreasonfor ruining it all, but he didn't, "youhatebeinglike that." He looks away, looks back. Frowns. "It's not that I can'tfaceit."

A hum. Getō doesn't respond immediately. His eyes are thin and studying, and his scrutiny pricks on Suguru's skin. The moment drags. And, finally: "Do you think the statements 'I would burn Satoru for the world' and 'I'd burn the world for Satoru' are contradictory?"

Suguru huffs. Brings a hand up to his ear and fiddles with the piercing. "Aren't they?"

"No," says Getō, "it depends entirely on what you mean by 'the world'. 'I would burn this world for Satoru'; 'I would burn Satoru for my ideal world'—thesearen't contradictory."

And they're not.

Suguru looks away. Feels sick. Swallows around an odd lump in his throat and breathes through the awful tangle in his chest. Looks back. There's no judgment in Getō's expression, not unless Suguru projects it there. Because Getō is him and he is Getō and of course they both stand by each statement. The difference is that for Suguru, these are new concerns, and for Getō—he's long since made peace with this, Suguru realizes. If only this.

"I know," Suguru says, "Iknowthat. I know we can't say all the things he deserves to hear: you are the sun of my orbit, you are my greatest meaning, I will never leave you, et cetera, et cetera. But that doesn't mean he's nothing, and it doesn't mean that we shouldn't be honest. I was sincere with my Satoru, yesterday. We can give him our honesty."

A long pause. Around them, the library is completely quiet. Total stillness.

A sigh.

"I know," Getō acquiesces, and he looks tired, "I'll talk to my Satoru."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

Okay, Suguru thinks, alright.

A beat, two. His skin is prickling, and it's too cold, and the air is too thick, and his chest is too tight. He's not saying anything, and Getō is raising a brow at him.

"I'm not gonna stay stagnant," Suguru blurts, and wants to look away, but doesn't. He chews the words in his mouth. "Just so you know. I'm not okay with this cursed world and I won't let it keep going on like this. I won't."

"Good," Getō says, after a moment, eyes slipping shut. "I wouldn't forgive you if you did."

"I don't care about your approval," Suguru not-quite-lies, because hedoesn't, but he does care for his own.

Getō just hums, eyes cracking open just a sliver. Doesn't speak. And Suguru has nothing left to say.

Suguru hates Getō for what he is and what he represents; Getō hates Suguru for what he represents. It's not quite acceptance of one another, of what could have been, but it's close enough.

-

There are a lot of things that need to be sorted out. Mimiko and Nanako are still classified as curse users, but Gojō has brought up a case to conditionally revoke that status against the higher ups. Shōko and Getō are helping with the details of that, apparently. The sisters will never enroll in Jujutsu Tech, but they'll have an easier support system and place within the shaman world if they're no longer criminals.

Satoru and Suguru, meanwhile, work with assistant managers and Yaga to collect and compile files of every major incident within the last decade. Curse misclassifications, shaman deaths, badly assigned missions, curse manifestation locations, so on, so on. They condense what they can into simple lists that can be brought back to their own timeline, and stay long into the night memorizing what they can't.

It's nearing two in the morning when Satoru slaps a stack of three thick folders onto Suguru's temporary desk and announces: "Suguru! I got you a present!"

Suguru eyes the folders doubtfully. They're completely unlabeled, and almost bursting. Satoru is wearing a wide, proud grin.

"...What are they?"

"A compilation of all Special Grade Shaman Tsukumo Yuki's research in the last decade!" Satoru is practically vibrating with excitement, rocking on the balls of his feet like an overgrown puppy. His glasses are halfway down the bridge of his nose and his eyes shine bright and wide. It's so endearing that for a moment all Suguru can think isI want to kiss you—

then Satoru's words hit.

Breath catches in Suguru's throat and before he knows it, he's standing up all abrupt and sudden chair clattering behind him. "On—on curses and nonshamans?"

"Yeah! It was hell to get my hand on, you know! Like seriously! Hell! The higher-ups really have something against her work. But I did it just for you! I'm expecting a thank you!"

He knows, because he's already been trying to track it down with no luck. And Satoru—

Suguru's whole chest feels bursting with affection. It's too much to put into words, so he doesn't. Instead, Suguru leans across the desk, and presses his lips into Satoru's grinning ones, and laughs into the kiss.

-

"Do you drink nanten tea?"

Itadori blinks at him, confused. There's a can of peach soda in his hand from the nearby vending machine. "No?"

"You should try it," Suguru says, "There should be a large stock of it in storage somewhere around the college. If not, you can ask Shōko to order it. There's a specific blend—lotus petal, nanten, and cherry blossom. It can help wash out the taste of cursed energy."

"Oh," Itadori says, and smiles like sunflowers, "I'll make sure to check it out! Thank you, Getō!"

-

He finds Maki in a training ground, eyes closed, laying on her back in the short-cut grass. Cold breeze brushes Suguru's hair, but the sun is so pleasantly warm. Dappled light falls through a nearby canopy and lines of warmth and shadow shift on the back of Suguru's neck when he stands over her.

"Hey."

Maki opens her eyes, looking bored. "What?"

"I want to thank you," he says.

He expression pinches, half confusion, half distaste. Her spear is laying within arm reach, but she doesn't reach for it. "For what?"

Suguru shrugs, shifting weight between his bare feet. Beneath him, the grass is warm. "It's nothing you did intentionally, but it felt wrong to say nothing."

"...Uhhuh," Maki says. Rubs at her eyes, displacing her glasses. Suguru stares at the object maybe a beat too long before looking away. Letting his gaze wander the sky, the mountains, the distant entrance to campus. Not far off is the heart of Tokyo. A place where curses fester like mold beneath an old carpet.

Nonshamans, shamans, curses—

"I think," and it feels thick on his tongue, "I think this world hates everyone."

"...Right."

"Sorry, I'm being a little miscellaneous, huh?"

"It's fine," Maki says, after a moment, "I'll just kick you if you're too annoying."

"Mhmm." A smile crinkles at his eyes. "You know," he leans back on his palms, "There was another Zen'in a bit like you, years ago. I doubt you've heard of him. They don't like talking about him."

"Okay," Maki says, when he doesn't continue, "so?"

"You just—remind me of him," Suguru says, "a little. In some ways." But not the ones that matter.

"Oh yeah?" There's some interest in her face, now, and she tilts her head to see him better. Strands of hair shift across her skin, looking almost green in the sunlight. Like this, her brown eyes look almost brass-gold. A little like his. Her lips curl, somewhat challenging. "How do I compare?"

"Weaker," Suguru answers, "but also—" and the ghost of a laugh catches at the back of his throat, "less of a piece of sh*t."

"Weaker?" Is what Maki focuses on.

"Mm," Suguru says, "he could totally wipe the floor with me."

A small pause. Dissatisfaction flicks across Maki's face. Her hand reaches out and grasps her spear. "Let's go again."

The challenge clear. It's friendlier than last time, he thinks.

"Sure," he accepts, and stretches out a hand.

Maki stares for a moment, and takes it. There's real strength behind her pull when she uses him to hoist herself up. Her grip is sturdy, firm muscle under tough, calloused skin. It's the hand of a fighter, and not too dissimilar from his own.

-

He sees them from a distance, bodies pressed together in the canopy, half concealed by leaves and flowering vines. Getō's long robes dangle from the branches and sunlight dapples over Gojō's hair, catches brightly on Getō's piercings. Gojō's head is tucked in the crook of Getō's neck, grip around his back, and Getō's hands are softly carding through Gojō's hair. Light breeze shifts their framing.

Even from this distance, it's an unmistakable intimacy. Plain and honest. Sincere.

Suguru tears his eyes away, chest achingly tight, and turns around to take a different path. A budding red spider lily tickles his ankle.

-

It's a clear day, and bright autumn sunlight bathes everything when Satoru and Suguru finally stand in place atop the staircase to go back to their own timeline. With one arm, Suguru cradles large boxes filled with paper documenting everything they couldn't remember, and with the other, he holds Satoru's hand. The sweet taste of matcha cookies lingers on his teeth—Kugisaki insisted on making them her test subjects for another cooking project before they finally take their leave.

The ensemble's here, or at least—some of it. Getō didn't come. Mimiko and Nanako stopped by earlier. Gojō is rocking on his feet, hands in his pockets. Shōko looks tremendously bored. There's a cigarette between her fingers. Yaga has a complicated expression that Suguru opts not to read.

Itadori looks a bit like a kicked puppy. "It was really nice meeting you, Getō! And mini-Sensei!"

Suguru smiles. "It was nice spending time with you, too."

Maki is picking at her nails. "Aren't you two leaving? It's been five minutes already."

Satoru sticks out his tongue petulantly. "Yeah yeah! We know! Jeez, you're so cold! Aren't you and Suguru friends or something?"

"No," Maki answers, instantly. Suguru shrugs and ignores her sour look.

"One last thing," he says, briefly squeezing Satoru's hand. He straightens his shoulders, calms his voice, and smiles. Because this is important. "Keep your Satoru company, alright? He gets lonely easily, even if he won't admit it."

Satoru makes an indignant noise. Gojō's posture stiffens, straightens, then goes lax. A pout forms on his face. "Donot."

Suguru ignores him.

Itadori grins. "Don't worry, we will!"

Maki huffs. "We'd do it anyway, you don't have to tell us."

"Thank you," Suguru says, "just—thanks." He twists his head to look at Satoru, and even now, breath catches in his throat. It's still so surreal that Satoru ishis, now. "Satoru, we can go now."

Satoru huffs, but his grip on Suguru's hand tightens, and Suguru can feel the cursed energy gather. The way it wraps around him like a blanket. "Bye, losers!"

Someone starts to say something, but it gets lost in the warping void between one dimension and the next. The world tilts on its axis, blinks from sensation, and comes back all at once, dizzying. Suguru stumbles a step, head spinning with vertigo, and Satoru's hand steadies him.

Breathe in, and out. The taste of early autumn. Fresh air. Clear skies. Different people.

Shōko stares at them, cigarette dropping, eyes wide. This Shōko has short hair and wears student uniform. This Shōko istheirShōko.

"Hey," Suguru offers, gently dropping the boxes of papers down to the ground.

She looks so done. "The whole shaman world has been looking for you two."

"Hah!" Satoru laughs, "that's hilarious! Dude, you won't f*cking believe where me and myboyfriend—I'm talking about Suguru, by the way, because he's my boyfriend—have been!"

Shōko's expression changes fromdonetodead, and Suguru snickers.

"Uhhuh."

"Don't worry," Suguru says, "we'll explain properly in a bit. It's good to be back."

And it really is, he thinks. It really is. The future stretches out before him, bright and warm and full with possibility. Soon, he and Satoru will explain their trip to that would-have-been future, settle back in, will laugh and mourn and figure out how to fix this world. Next August, they will talk each other by the hand and spend all three days of Obon festivities together, wearing pretty yukata and eating too-sweet vendor food and kissing under fireworks. They'll set three lanterns down the river, and they'll be happy.

That's the future, though.

For now, Suguru clutches Satoru's hand tight, and takes his first step home.