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“look at me.“
his voice is gentle, patient with the distress that paints your features. blood runs over your skin like sweat, leaving a gruesome sheen as you grasp unsteadily for him. gojou gives you his hands without a second thought. the sight of you so frightened leaves him breathless.
“look at me. please.” he repeats, urging you on as your lip quivers. your entire body shakes as you say,
“i can’t.”
your sudden sob startles him, hands gripping yours tightly. his brow contorts. he means to ask you to elaborate, but the moment you raise your head, any question he might have had dies in his throat. for the first time, gojou satoru is left completely speechless.
dark blood pools unforgivingly into bright irises, physical evidence of your bad run-in with the special grade curse he’d just dealt with on your behalf. but as he stares at the way the red covers the expanse of your eyes, he feels hopeless. something in him breaks as your fingers tighten around his.
you cry softly as your nails leave angry half moons in his skin. he doesn’t mind the pain.
“…i can’t see you.“
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almost a year after the battle that had cost you your sight, your eyes had settled into a cooler gray tone, the vessel that had originally bursted settling low — useless for all but a story.
you tell your tale as one of advice, a lesson to someone who could perhaps benefit from your mistakes. a preliminary caution to anyone that might ask why you wear two eye patches. but gojou doesn’t miss the way your shoulders square, nor the way you take a few seconds too long to catch your breath every time you inevitably have to share.
as someone who had stayed close to you during your recovery, gojou believed he could tell it just as well on his own by now. though the story still never ceased to make him sick; to bring up the image of your shaking form and blood-soaked face; to remind him of how it felt to lose someone, a feeling he’d tried so hard to forget. but there were things neither of you could truly push away, impacting your lives in ways that were simply unavoidable: not only as a human, but also as a jujutsu sorcerer. while still handy with your usual methods of choice, there was an undeniable disadvantage you had when faced with the threat of a curse.
instead of throwing yourself into the fray as you once had preferred, you were now forced to succumb to a disability that impacted the very thing that grounded your soul.
but it’s with gojou’s guidance that you’re still able to hold a weapon at all.
it’s his voice that finds you when you begin to panic, to let the frustration of blindness get to you.
“you fight with that thing on willingly when I don’t have a choice?”
“that’s not fair, ____. you know the blindfold is just a cosmetic choice, don’t you?“
you can hear the way his lips purse in the playful tone of his voice. his footsteps pad lightly on top of the dirt of the training ground as he takes a step back, giving you a chance to loosen the grip on the weapon in your hand.
you resist a groan. of course you know it isn’t, but you choose not to say anything.
“I’m waiting for the day someone comes and knocks you off your pedestal, satoru. unless you enjoy the feeling of fighting blind?”
he hums. “thrilling, isn’t it?“
you let out a laugh of disbelief. “masochist.”
it’s his rough fingers that intertwine with yours that keep you grounded in the moments you feel like letting everything go.
too many nights do you find yourself sitting awake in a cold sweat, the residual shapes and colours from your dream fading as a vast nothingness takes its place. frustration is heartbreakingly fresh as you silently beg for another moment of clarity, only to receive no response. a sob bubbles up in your chest, against the familiar force that reaches desperately to push it down. but there are many things you can not have. tears fill your discoloured eyes as the world begins to crumble around you, only to pause strikingly moments later as a limp hand catches yours.
gojou doesn’t say anything, but you know he’s awoken and looking at you.
carefully, you let your opposite hand find his shoulder as you twist to lay into him. he takes you without qualms, holding you close with one hand on your back while the other doesn’t leave yours. after a few minutes of quiet cries, a finger trails up and down your back in a soothing nature.
“nightmare?” he asks.
you shake your head, letting out a strained breath.
“..I dreamt that I could see again.“
gojou is silent at this. his hand squeezes yours tightly.
“I don’t—“ you cut yourself off, pursing your lips as to fend off another onslaught of tears. “I-I keep forgetting what your eyes look like—”
a sob tears from your throat as you curl around him. in that moment, gojou is almost glad that you can’t see the forlorn expression he wears.
but above all, it’s his unwavering support and will to stay by your side. had he not been there in that moment, there’s a part of you that doubts you would have found the will to make it out at all.
“i think i want to wear a blindfold.” you speak quickly, as if embarrassed, but the words pique your boyfriend’s interest immediately. gojou covers his cerulean eyes for his own reasons, but the idea of extending his odd custom to you is exciting. hearing him sit up straighter next to you, you shift away, face heating just imagining his expression. it’s exactly as you think — the grin stretching his lips is so wide that he’s disappointed you can’t see it.
“ah,” gojou hums, the child-like laugh that escapes him as he rises extremely infectious. gojou carefully lends you his hand. the simultaneous absence and ever-flowing presence of infinity from beneath them mind numbing.
“you’re a good student, you know;” he gushes as he normally does, but the small hint of sweetness that lines his voice is a quirk reserved for only you. “to follow in your teacher’s footsteps.“
“think what you want, but do you know how hard it is to put on two eyepatches while blind?”
you say this, but can’t resist a laugh as he pulls you forward into him. gojou lands a chaste kiss on your forehead as he sets a comfortable pace you rely on him to keep. you trust him more than anyone to do so, just as you always have.
“well then,” he lets go of your hand when you reach your destination, recognisable as his office by the warm smell of wood and spring breeze through a cracked window. “allow me to be the one to make it easier.“
gojou takes your wrist and puts what you assume is a blindfold in your hand. you poke around at it clumsily for a moment, trying to find the opening in the pool of fabric. when you can’t, he doesn’t become impatient. instead, he teases you and takes your hand in his, guiding you to the right places. from there, you’re able to discard the eyepatches you wear, baring your eyes to the daylight. your innate senses don’t seem to pick up the way gojou stares at you, gaze swimming between glancing from your smile to your eyes. he’s prideful in the notion you’re able to smile in such a way again.
as you slip the fabric over your eyes, it bunches around your ears and fits awkwardly at the neck. but your smile is dazzling nonetheless, as if you couldn’t be happier.
“this will help, I think.” you say, still busy adjusting the fabric as you think aloud. “with my sight completely restricted like this, my other senses should be able to grow even stronger.”
perhaps you’d never noticed, but goujou is already well aware of the way you’d adapted in the recent months. whether in the way you immediately resort to touch to identify things, or how you’re able to hear virtually anything — it sets a small buzz of hope aflame in his chest to witness such changes.
“stronger senses, huh?” gojou’s tone is suggestive as he pulls you in by your waist, head tilting down into yours. “does that mean what I think it does?“
when you laugh and string your arms around his shoulders, he smiles along.
“pervert.”
anyone only listening to the conversation might assume you’re losing patience with the man in front of you, but the grin on your face is unmistakable. what your eyes can longer show seeps through in the gentle way you pull him down for a hug, and is returned in the arms that hold you as if you are the only good thing in the world.