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The first time it happens he is six years old.
Nanami catches a glimpse of hunched backs turned against him, distant voices murmuring something along the lines of don’t let him see and he’s still too young. He feels someone clamp a hand on his shoulder and looks up to find his grandfather peering down at him with an easy smile.
“Back from school?” he asks. Nanami solemnly nods.
He turns his attention back to the front gate of his grandfather’s three-tiered minka; taking in the rigid posture of both his parents as they huddle over something on the pavement by their driveway. They arrived just half an hour before carpool dropped him off, his parents having called earlier in the day of their plans for a family dinner after school in his grandfather’s house by Tsukiji.
The sky is cloudy with the tell-tale signs of a storm coming, the morning news advised earlier that morning. He remembers the umbrella his mother packed into his book bag, his father’s reminder to come straight home after his last class.
The moment the sliding doors from the van closed, Nanami went straight for the back entrance where he expected to find Yuki-chan, the family’s shared six-month old shiba inu he grew quite fond of. He was disappointed to find the sesame-colored ball of fur nowhere to be seen.
In between his searching, he heard the roar of an engine stagger to a stop and peeked around the windows to find his parents’ car parked abruptly outside the gate, instead of their usual parking spot inside the garage. He temporarily shelves the quest on hand to welcome them home, but stopped short at their odd behaviour.
The six year old moves to call out for them, ask why they’re still outside, and: shouldn’t they be coming in now?
But the hand on his shoulder is holding him firmly in place, pinning him down with more force he didn’t know the man was capable of. His eyes move up to his grandfather, imploring. “What are okasan and otosan doing? And where is Yuki-chan?”
The old man peered down at him from the rim of his brown glasses but didn't look directly at him, instead at a spot above his shoulder where his hair was dangerously close to reaching. Nanami files a mental note to tell his mother to cut it shorter next time.
His grandfather is still looking at him, with an expression he couldn’t place. “Do you know what happens after death, Nanami-kun?”
Briefly taken back by the abruptness of the question, he is visibly stunned. He opens his mouth to conjure half a coherent response, because you should always answer to your elders, but ends up failing to get any words out. He knew people died. It was the natural order of things, his parents always reminded him. Sometimes there were those who went on to live full, amazing lives and pass quietly. But then there were also those who weren’t afforded such luxury.
Nanami decides to go for the safe answer.
He blinks, voice small and unsure. “Heaven?”
At this, his grandfather chuckles. The hand on his shoulder makes its way to his hair, feeling its fingers lightly ruffle and pat before it is guiding his entire body into the vicinity of their living room.
Once they are inside the safe haven of their four-walled rooms with the embers from the fireplace enveloping them in warmth, his childlike curiosity quickly latches on to another interest and the events before quiet down like the pitter patter their feet make on the tatami.
Nanami is thirteen when it happens next.
A particular intersection between Minato-ku and Chiyoda was especially bustling with activity during spring, when the petals from the cherry blossom trees surrounding the sidewalks filter through the city and paint the entire area in a whimsical glow. This festive season meant more tourists, activities, accidents.
Nanami felt, more than heard, the crack of the girl’s skull before the splattering of blood reached cement.
The growing teenager isn't normally so slow on the uptake and general processing of things; but this was something no book in school prepared him for. He is frozen in between the sea of people screaming and scattering, just as the blood from her lifeless body seeps into the veins of the fallen leaves and varnishes the lovely pink into livid red. The arms on her side are limp, auburn hair sprawled over a roughed silver road like a muse waiting to be painted.
The reports that night spoke of a speeding drunk driver and a foreign exchange student in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But Nanami knew better, seen better.
The moment he turned the corner between the narrow alley leading to the busy market, he caught whiff of a sinister energy looming around the area just as palpable as the sakura trees threatening to spill its leaves with every gust of wind.
He was older now, with more than enough bearings on his cursed energy.
He knew evil manifested in many different ways, more often than not during gatherings of heavily congested energies coming together as one for a momentous occasion. He also knew evil takes from good, and that it saw an innocent sixteen-year old shopping for souvenirs for her parents and decided it wouldn’t do to have such thoughtfulness existing.
Two years later, Nanami officially enrolls in Jujutsu Tech Highschool.
It happens more than once after that, but this time he wasn’t alone.
Haibara Yu was a bubbling ball of sunshine that came in the form of a 170cm man who had an infectious smile and always a kind word for everyone, and Nanami was endeared.
It was hard not to; not when they were the only two people in the entire first year class and the second years made it their personal mission to drive the only juniors into early retirement. It was also hard when Nanami would wake up in the middle of the night, haunted by lingering dreams of people he couldn’t save and curses that would exploit this to their advantage, until he hears the other boy from the other room knock on his door and he is reminded he still has so many realities to live for than nightmares.
They didn’t fit each other like a glove, but they weren’t exactly warring opposites.
They were simply themselves; and that was more than what anyone in their field of work had the privilege of being. More than half a dozen students didn’t survive their first term, so by the stroke of luck (and not at all the Gojo-Getou tandem of training with them during extra hours), they live past halfway through their first year.
Nanami wasn’t as chirpy and Haibara wasn’t as realistic, but they got along well enough to always shove each other out of death’s door by holding it open long enough for the other to get out.
Which is exactly what Haibara did.
When Getou doesn’t even make the courtesy call to Shoko to properly examine his body, Nanami knew it then.
The same feeling he’d always known since Yuki-chan miraculously found her “dog parents and stayed with them” like his grandfather told him that dinner. Or even when the news reporter chalked off the bloody encounter in Minato-ku as a “freak accident”. That death, no matter where it came from or how it happened, was going to be something he had to learn to deal with if he ever had a chance of living.
After Nanami graduates, he doesn’t come back for ten years.
When he meets Yuji, he thinks of two things: the ruffling of leaves in fall and when rain meets pavement in winter.
If he closed his eyes and listened for it, sometimes he heard him in the unguarded way Yuji spoke of everything; the way he always put his friends and everyone else above him, the naked compassion he regarded the world, that even with the most vilest of curses this kid was hell-bent on finding redemption for.
He was more glad than annoyed Gojo knew exactly what he was doing when he assigned this particular student to shadow him for an indefinite period. Even after all those years, he still knew which buttons to push to force him out of bed after he passed.
From the six of them that comprised the entire Jujutsu Tech Class of 2006, there were barely half of them now.
A lot can happen in a decade, and for a while he was vehemently sure nothing in the world could have ever driven him back to the clutches of this life that viewed the death of a sixteen year old as a necessary sacrifice in pursuit of a greater good. The society that wore the deaths of children like a badge of honour was so far removed from the realities of his own soul-crushing corporate life; the only consolation he finds is the unrivalled comfort of knowing he would never have to force someone in a body bag again.
Only somewhere along the road, between finding himself outside of seeing curses and grieving over people who have long passed, he stumbles upon a truth planted by his grandfather all those years ago that he only understood now: if it’s all the same, choose the side that’s good.
The side that allows a certain grace period for children to learn under the mentorship of people who have gone before them and fought crueller beasts than the boogeymen under beds they were taught to be scared of. To take these children on and not shove them into the pack of wolves like they were, but to see that in every beast there is a misunderstood beauty and they need only the right kind of hesitance to not put a knife to their bodies right away.
Because maybe Nanami needed this; to live for something far greater than himself and realign his view of death with something other than an unchanging certainty. With this kid who is barely a boy but is going to die one day if he didn’t do anything about it now, that can drive him towards ending each day slightly hopeful for the next.
That Nanami, himself, could have a full life.
The moment he sees Mahito, he knows it's over.
Moments before he descends the stairway of the underground subway station bereft with cursed spirits, he already felt his sinister energy penetrating the tunnel walls and sucking the life out of everyone within a five-mile radius. It was only through sheer force of will and years of developing a resistance to certain brands of evil that Nanami was certain he at least had to give this a fighting chance.
If nothing, he would at least buy everyone some time.
He wants to channel everything he has ever known about the art of his craft and fights hard to recall every single thing Gojo has taught him about being on the offensive when it came to special grade curses; only he is so tired.
He is exhausted of trying to come to terms with the truth that nothing has changed in over a decade and he was growing desensitized to the sight of body bags by the day, despite having one in particular haunt him for the better part of ten years. He is inexcusably, utterly, devoid of any fighting spirit. It was the kind of tired that teetered between the spaces of his bone marrow, soaking up all the good stuff until there only exists bad thoughts about a bad world and Nanami just wants everything to stop.
“I didn’t know you were here,” Mahito says, chiding.
For that brief of a second it took his mouth to form the words, Nanami sees glimpses of a future unfold before his very eyes.
He saw himself relaxing on the sandy beaches of Southeast Asia nose-deep in a predictable thriller book, the warmth from the sun seeping deep into his bones until they meet marrow and his spirit is rejuvenated. After, he takes a scenic stroll along the shoreline basking in the view until he comes across the humble island cottage he calls home. It was nothing fancy, more straw than it was solid, but had a working shower and a priceless view – and that was all he needed. He sets up a fire and grills the eeled fish he caught earlier in the morning, ending the night by gazing at the stars and feeling like he could very well have died then and there and he would still have no regrets.
Only this is not Malaysia.
There is no warmth in this cold tunnel and early retirement was for those who could afford to live life outside fear.
Mahito takes one step towards him, and his fingers move to wave his katana one more time, just this one last blow and he could book that flight and be one his way and—
Only that’s not Mahito either.
The person standing in front of him was someone whose light once wound him past the point of redemption, when it was ripped off before he could learn to channel its radiance, the same bubbling ball of energy he thought he would never see again. But something felt off, Haibara wasn’t smiling like he expected him to.
Instead he is pointing somewhere between there and the ten years that have gone and everything they could have had in between. Nanami knew then what he meant.
I see.
He turns to look back at this ghost of a lifetime friend and wants to reach between the gaps of the living and the dead, and maybe find a place they can both just be again; as they were all those years ago.
The fingers gripping his katana relax, his face softens just as his mind gives in to the hand he’d been dealt. This was the point of no return now, and he finds himself oddly comforted at the idea of finally being free from pain.
No, Haibara. I can’t do that to him. I’ll just end up cursing him.
The gravity of his situation is starting to kick in at the same time his natural impulse to fight seeps into his will, so he is quick in delivering his final words before he can do anything remotely flight.
He turns to the direction of another light, one that reminded him of autumn leaves and snowy rain; only seeing him, for the first and last time, in full bloom.
You’ve got it from here.
What he doesn’t say to Yuji then is: I’m sorry you have to have it from here, but I am confident if anyone is going to make something out of nothing it is you. I’m sorry I can’t be with you every step of the way now, but know I’m always at the finish line waiting.
He hopes he was able to convey the full extent of his thoughts, because suddenly he is struck by a blinding light of white – Haibara? Is that you? –
until
finally,
bliss.