Chapter Text
To everyone, Gojou Satoru is the epitome of strength, the representation of power. It’s not even an argument; it’s a statement of the truth, and it’ll always remain that way. There’s something about his presence that demands attention, and you hate how you always find him instantly whenever you’re looking for him. He’s loud, even when he doesn’t talk, deafening even. With his lazy smirk and bright-eyed gaze, it’s easy to fall for his personality because without a doubt, he radiates confidence like you breathe air.
Given both your occupations, it’s not like you signed yourself up to fall for him. Certainly, Gojou’s attractive by all standards, but you’re not the type to immediately fall for attractive people as pretty as they may be. He’s the unconventional kind of pretty. There’s a little more to him than that; perhaps it’s the crazed aspect of his personality that pops out passionately in the midst of moments; or perhaps it’s the way he handles things without much thought but with unshakeable confidence.
Despite it all, you know it’s an almost unspoken taboo to love someone because in the end, you’ll just end up hurting each other — or let something worse happen. You’ve heard of outrageously abnormal cursed spirits forming from broken hearts. It’s so effortless for cursed spirits to come from simple, uncomplicated emotions; people often underestimate the power of simple emotions because they bring forth such incomparable strength for what they’re worth. Love’s the worst malady and most wonderful miracle to happen, so people have to treat it carefully. Affections aren’t something jujutsu sorcerers handle very well in this domain, not when you have the shared burden of the world resting on your shoulders.
So when he leaves for a mission to exorcise another cursed spirit, you curse yourself for worrying over him. Everyone knows that he’s the greatest; no one else is comparable to him, so it’s laughable that you would worry about him. He’s the most powerful, needing no concern over his well-being and state. He sends you a wink and a casual wave of his hand when you tell him to take care.
“Don’t worry your pretty head off about me, I’ll be fine,” Gojou tells you while he wraps his blindfold around his eyes with practiced motions and nimble fingers.
“Is it not okay to worry about you?” you suggest lightly, a lopsided smile forming upon your lips as you throw him a narrow-eyed look. “At the very least, don’t get hurt.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” he chimes, saluting you. “Enjoy your break, okay? You worked hard, so give yourself a breather.”
You slap away his salute, your laughs in tandem with his. “I don’t want to see a single scratch on you.”
“I make no promises,” is all he says before he pats you on the head, a small gesture of reassurance.
Fine, your ass, you grumble to yourself later that afternoon. He always says it like there’s no big deal, and in a way, you shouldn’t worry about him. After all, he has the kind of power that you’ll only find once every millennium, making history with his name as a jujutsu sorcerer. All the same, your thoughts keep fluttering to him, your friend who’s far too confident in himself. For all these years you’ve known him, he has never changed his mindset toward cursed spirits, never holding fear toward them because he knows he’ll be able to conquer anything in his way.
The Okinawan teal of the ocean is a blessing to your eyes, reflecting the sky perfectly in its blue wonder. With the vibrancy of the blinding white sands, you’re grateful that your day off involves such lovely sights. While you know that it’s just a day, breaks are a rarity when it comes to your occupation as a jujutsu sorcerer, so you’ll take what you can. The tang of the saltiness from the sea is potent, tasting nothing like the city’s fogged-up air as it cleans your lungs. It’s a reward for what you do, a quiet day without needing to exorcise cursed spirits or stain your hands with blood.
You’re lucky enough not to have anyone around this area of the beach, leaving you two to your own devices.
Shouko gives you a look as you drag your bare feet through the sandy banks of the beach, running through the thick slopes of sand. You hold your sandals in one hand, just to avoid having sand slip into your shoes and make a mess in the beach house. Nanami’s going to give you hell if any loose sand slips into the cracks of the floorboards, so you’d rather avoid the headache of long-winded lectures and whatnot. Her long hair flutters from the sea breeze with her silky, long skirt, hazel strands glittering from the sunlight as she follows you.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?”
Her voice is flat, laced with dry amusement while she watches you spin around, anchoring one leg as you become a human compass, etching crooked, almost circles into the sand. Your hands are clasped behind your back while you aimlessly turn yourself around and around . Slowly, the world brightens into a blur with no clarity as you gradually lose your sense of place.
At this point, you’re not afraid of falling down, an abnormality. You’ve always known fear because it’s a prevalent feeling in your career. It’s human to feel that way, an ingrained weakness that leaves you vulnerable in front of cursed spirits. Today’s one of those rare exceptions where you can let go of that fear for other luxuries like happiness. As you succumb to the feeling of freedom, the only color you can anchor onto is blue. A deep cerulean floods the sky, miraculously clear without a speckle of cotton gray clouds dotting your sight.
“I’m not,” you emphasize. “Don’t think so lowly of me, I know he’ll be fine.”
“Yes, yes, lie to me all you want,” she mocks, making you kick sand at her. Fine bits of dust dissipates into the air with the breeze sweeping across the rest of the seashore. Shouko blinks, unaffected by your reaction, avoiding the attack without much difficulty. “You’ve fallen for the worst person out of all of them.”
“Not necessarily the worst —” you cut yourself off, thinking a little more.
He probably is the worst person to fall for — despite being “perfect” in every other way. The thing about perfect people is that they’re undeniably flawed in every other way.
She merely laughs at your contemplative expression.
“You should think twice,” Shouko ribs gently, but she’s being well-meaning about it, despite her harsh words. It’s part of her personality to be practical, making sure to get through the situation with the least number of obstacles and destruction. “It’s Gojou we’re talking about, and I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
There’s the unspoken statement hanging in the air: in the end, most relationships go bad in this field. The chances of Gojou actually reciprocating your feelings — Gojou of all people — is slim. It’s not something that you really want to consider, but as you mull over it more, you understand where she’s coming from. He acts based on his own desires without a thought, forgetting everyone around him. If anything, you would be a casualty left in his midst.
Gojou Satoru is the kind of person that you would give everything for, but he would never give back if it isn’t in his interests.
“You make him sound like a piece of shit,” you say with a wrinkle of your nose, avoiding her statement.
“He is,” she simply says, her dark eyes twinkling with mirth. “He doesn’t deserve you.”
The rest of the afternoon passes by languidly, the sunlight brightening with every second. Waves crash into your feet, dissipating into sprinkles of seafoam as you trudge through the white sands, lifting up your feet. With the deepness of the sea shimmering before your eyes, it’s easy to take your mind off of things and indulge in other pleasures. Every step leaves your feet caked in wet sand, and it strangely feels comfortable with the heat of the sun beating against your skin. The contrast between the water and sand brings a content smile to your lips.
While you walk along the seaside, you catch up with Shouko who’s busy studying in medical school (“I’d like to call it smart learning,” she says off-handedly when you reproach her for cheating) . She has found different potential for her cursed energy, something out of the battlefield. “Doctor Shouko” rolls off your lips in an unfamiliar way because you would have never imagined your former classmate and friend to go along this career path as a jujutsu sorcerer. Even if you’re both colleagues, you have your separate lives, it’s still disarming to realize that you’re not in high school anymore, that you don’t know about each other as well as you used to do.
It’s a bittersweet feeling of alienation that makes you swallow deeply, causing Shouko to ask you if there’s something wrong. The trepidation toward growing up and losing all of this youth is a realization that you never wanted to face in the first place. For the most part, being a jujutsu sorcerer is understanding that you’ll have to let go of everything you treasure for the sake of humanity, and yet, a selfish part of you — despite supposedly being an adult — doesn’t want to let go of the past you cherish and the current present you know for the future.
With sunny days, there are also rainy days to compliment them. You’re not sure when clouds start peppering the sky in their woolen glory, darkening as evening rolls by. Thunder resonates through the beach, lashing out like an invisible whip that makes you jolt at the sound. The instant that raindrops stain the sands with their darkness, you know that your time on the beach with Shouko is up.
Lacking an umbrella, the two of you are forced to weather the storm, although you have no problem with the light splatter of rain. Okinawa’s summer rain is gentle and comforting, enveloping you with the shallow heat that swallows you whole. You slip your sandals on reluctantly, patting off the excess bits of sand. Every step shakes off your memories at the beach. You leave a trail of sand while you head back to the beach house, the roadside littered with the stark contrast of sand.
Her dark eyes bore into you when you turn in the direction of the bus stop shelter without even saying anything to her. She reads you like the back of her hand, and you know it has come as no surprise to hear that you’d go to these lengths for him.
“You really shouldn’t wait for him,” she intones. “He’s going to be late. And what about dinner?”
“I can always get instant ramen from the convenience store across the road,” you sing, flashing her your leather wallet with a carefree grin.
Shouko mumbles something under her breath about how you should watch your health — says the doctor-in-training who’s half-assing medical school of all people. Being in your early twenties, you could honestly care less about your health. There are only so many times you can enjoy yourself, given the fact that your life is short. You spend all your time saving the rest of the world from being encroached by cursed spirits, so the least you can do for yourself is to indulge yourself.
The convenience store is notably empty — save for you and the cashier. His head rests uncomfortably on his shoulder with his mouth parted mid-snore. There aren’t any security cameras around, highlighting just the security of this small town; they all trust each other all too much, so they chose to lack security. Between the city and the seaside, the contrast is wide, a surprise that you embrace with open arms.
Your hands sit in your hoodie as you travel the aisles in search of your favorite brand of instant ramen. Vivid, shiny packaging gleams before you in their commercial quality, trying to entice you with eye-catching phrases and words. For a moment, while you go through the convenience store with your sandals making a squelching noise, you can almost imagine this being normal. You haven’t been able to eat dinner on time for a long time. It’s not that late — nearing seven o’clock, and if it weren’t for the storm, you guess that you would have watched the sunset with Shouko.
A pair of calloused hands come over your eyes, the cracks in between fingers letting light flicker through.
“Guess who?” a familiar voice lilts, his frame hugging yours, and you don’t need any further words to figure out who it is.
“You came back early,” you note, a grin pulling your mouth into two separate ends. “How was it?”
“Easy,” he drawls, still not lifting his hands away, “you know, did my usual thing. A couple of whams here and there, and I was finished.”
“Finished them off in the usual Gojou Satoru spirit, I see,” you say dryly, feeling him return your grin.
“And not a single scratch?”
His slight hesitation is loud enough of an answer. “I told you I’d make no promises.”
“Just for your information, you’re a complete bastard with no self-awareness,” you say without missing a beat, turning around to face him to release the hold he has on you, “but I figured that would happen. Hurry up, choose your ramen, and we’ll get going.”
There’s a gash on his head that has mostly stopped bleeding, probably because he put pressure on it with a cloth or something before arriving here. For the most part, the gash doesn’t look too deep, and it’d be easy to wave off if anyone else looked at it. You despise the fact that you’re fretting over him like this.
“I’ll have Demae Iccho. The tonkotsu series looks especially appetizing to eat,” he muses, quirking an eyebrow at you, and you can imagine his eyes smiling behind his blindfold. He grabs the ramen brand off the shelf with ease, plucking your ramen package out of your hands. “All your hair’s going to turn gray before you even hit thirty if you keep worrying over me like this, you know?”
“I have good genes,” you retort, letting him pay for it. The cashier’s still in a mindless trance, not even noticing how bizarre your interactions are. The two of you aren’t even dressed like the locals here, decked out in a conservative matte black that contrasts the tropical colors around here. Your conversations aren’t the typical kind that you hear whenever someone gets off work. “If I do get gray hair, I’m suing you.”
“I’ll just use the higher-ups’ money to cover me,” he laughs. “Drain them of their resources since they’re so useless.”
“Treason,” you cluck your tongue appraisingly, laughing right along with him. “I’ll sue you lots.”
“Make sure to treat me to kikufuku afterward, okay?” Gojou nudges you.
Despite everything, Gojou Satoru has made it clear that he wants to change the world, change the way jujutsu functions on this land. It’s no easy feat, even if he’s brushing his efforts off as just the right thing to do. He’s planning to go back to your alma mater to teach (“Isn’t that brainwashing?” Shouko asked him, making him shrug lazily).
From the moment you’ve met him, he has never quite been the teaching type and absolutely sucked at teaching you calculus, resorting to making you memorize everything instead of helping you study properly (it’s why you resent calculus so much). As much as you’re concerned about his teaching methods, he’ll reach for beyond that infinity. That’s the thing about him; Gojou never looks back when he does something.
“I’m back —” he begins his holler, chest puffed out when you enter the beach house, cupping his mouth with his hands until the house blows apart.
“Ieiri’s sleeping,” you huff, cocking your head upwards where the dark-haired beauty is peacefully slumbering upstairs. “She’ll be so pissed if you wake her up.”
“Not when I should be treated properly?” he prods playfully, the grocery bags wrinkling against his clothes as he reaches for the light switching, flicking it on. “How dreadful.”
“To quote her, she said, ‘He’s a pain in the ass, but if he’s dying or something, wake me up.’ Besides, I know that I can do it perfectly fine.”
Knowing him, he’s probably weighing the consequences of waking her up versus his satisfaction, that bastard.
He regards you with that signature lazy smirk of his, tipping his chin down. You can already imagine his opal eyes glinting with mischief behind his blindfold. You remember the way he tipped his glasses down the bridge of his nose when you were younger in school, but there’s none of that anymore, all left to your imagination. Shouko’s concern still rings clearly in your head as you take him in because you really should suppress these feelings before they inflate into something intolerable.
With his fingers casually tousling up his snowy white hair, Gojou looks the part of a man in his early twenties, his leather jacket hanging off his frame in all parts perfect. He has most definitely blossomed from the high school student you knew from years ago, changed by experience and maturity.
“I thought you mentioned earlier today that you would miss me,” he hums indulgently with a laugh, slipping onto the couch. He throws the grocery bags to the side, the instant ramen inside shaking in protest. “Did that change within the last thirty minutes of seeing me?”
“You said that you would be fine,” you emphasize, getting out the first-aid kit. You know the fact that you’ve avoided his question hasn’t escaped his notice, but he doesn’t comment on it. “That’s something to worry about.”
“It’s just a scratch,” Gojou mumbles.
“Sure,” you drag out the word with a long, airy drawl, making him glare at you. “You’re going to cry if you get a scar on yourself. You’re a baby, let’s face the truth.”
“Will not,” he argues petulantly, sinking into the sofa with his arms crossed, “and I’m not a baby.”
(He knows as well as you do that he’s a heathen for beauty products, taking great care of his skin like a typical primadonna.)
By all means, you’re no expert on cleaning out things, but after so many times of carelessness between everyone, you’ve taught yourself first aid from hours of pouring over YouTube videos and listening to webinars. It’s not like you could afford the time and dedication to go to an actual course to get certified, so you forced yourself to do it over small increments of time between your missions. Essentially, you’re a backup version of Shouko, a very uneducated version if you may.
He takes off his blindfold, setting to the side to reveal his eyes. They’re the brightest thing in this vicinity, blinding in comparison to the kitchen lights, almost engulfing you with their depth and everything within. There’s a bit of domesticity to this whole moment, something that you’re unused to. Normally, Gojou would be running his mouth off like the motherfucker he is, but he’s watching you with this doe-eyed look that makes you more conscious of yourself and your actions.
“Close your eyes,” you order him as you apply the wet cloth to his forehead.
“Feel bothered by me?” he jokes, not listening to you as usual.
You should have known better than to believe that he would follow your instructions so easily. His head lies in your lap, locks of silvery-white hair splayed against your thighs.
“You don’t usually give this much attention to me, that’s why,” you say honestly without mincing your words. “It’s disarming.”
“I should if you keep looking so flustered like that,” Gojou remarks nonchalantly, letting one eye fall shut. It looks like a wink, but it’s suspended in time and motion, making everything pause around you. “It’s a good look on you.”
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck — you hate the way your face warms up from his comment. In all things considered, he most likely doesn’t even know how it affects you, twisting your heart until every vein and artery falls with blood gushing out like a river of fallen love.
“It won’t be a good look on me when I punch your face in the process,” you threaten lightly. “I’m sure Shouko won’t stop me from doing it if she knows that it’s because of you and your obnoxiousness.”
“How you wound me,” he laments, but he complies out of fear because he knows that you’ll make good on your word if he’s not careful. He tilts his head up
Pressing the wipe against his forehead after removing the slightly bloodied cloth, a whispery hiss slips from his lips with every dab, pulling his grin into a grimace. He doesn’t like pain, the way it eats into him meaninglessly and feeds off his senses. Rarely does Gojou happen upon the sensation of pain, and today is one of his unluckier days. You mumble some senseless things to keep him occupied, rattling off random animal facts on the top of your head just to keep his mind off things. It’s not that big of a wound, but it’s enough of an irritation to keep his attention on it.
“Do you know that female koala bears have two vaginas?” you spout out, letting the fact fly out into the open with no care.
He nearly chokes on his breath, his lips parted in shock as he processes your words. “Excuse me?”
It’s during these rare moments where you revel that you can take Gojou off guard like this and throw him off his game. Of course, you know that he’s used to being in control and having all the strings to pull, but this just makes him a little less of a superman in your eyes as you water him down to simply a human. A giggle pours out of your mouth with your shoulders shaking slightly, despite the fact that you’re supposed to be busy cleaning his wound.
With the conversation taking your mind off of painfully existential things, it’s easy for you to distract yourself from all of this. Your mouth doesn’t feel tired when it runs itself off with Gojou by your side. His smiles and laughter are what captivate you in their entirety, making you cling to every single one of these memories. Strangely enough, your heart seems to float within the confines of your chest, almost breaking all these restraints constructed by this cage of bones.
You don’t know what compels you to speak in the midst of this conversation of nonsense, but it’s your mouth that goes before your mind.
“I think I —” you start, the words falling out clumsily as your thoughts start to roll in.
Shit, you shouldn’t.
(You want to dip your head close to his lips and let yourself pour your everything to him instead of keeping it all in. You want him to feel what you feel because your heart’s so heavy, being eaten up by all this internalization. Most of all, you want to rip it all out because it’s clawing into you, slowly drilling into your mind that everything might go to shit if you do this.)
“You think you —?” he repeats, his gossamer-eyed gaze on you, practically daring you to speak your mind. It’s like he can read your thoughts in this very instant, unraveling your innermost desires. “Something on your mind?”
Could you do it? you mull over it. Could you ruin all of this just for your feelings?
And you realize that as much as you would give your heart to him, there’s so much more than just you and him.
“Nothing,” you brush it away with a flicker of a smile, “I was just thinking.”
You look like an angel when you’re sleeping, ethereal and untouchable. Your face glows underneath the moonlight, shimmering with dreams and good sleep while you rest. If Satoru were to touch you, he supposes that you would ripple like a mirage, vibrantly in his imagination.
It’s a rare sight that not everyone gets to see because sleepers are at their most vulnerable state in front of you, making them susceptible to harm. When you sleep, it’s one of the rare times that he gets to help you as you’ve helped him. It’s not like Satoru hasn’t noticed the fact that you take care of him, unlike everyone else because he’s certainly not that much of an idiot, despite the rumors, but it’s also hard not to notice. You do things above and beyond, doing things for him that no one else ever cares to do.
Most jujutsu sorcerers live off low sleep, making do with caffeine and other dietary things that health guidelines are against. He’s glad that this break has given you time to do normal human things. When they’re saving the world, they don’t think much about themselves — it’s an unfortunate thing that he has succumbed to. Noticing that the blanket’s starting to roll off your frame, he lifts it up, shifting it upwards so it covers more of your body. You murmur a few incomprehensible thoughts under your breath as you roll onto your side. Satoru can’t help but smile. Cute.
“So you’re here,” Shouko says archly, her slippers padding against the wooden floorboards. She holds a bottle of beer in her hand. Ah, night demons, he knows without needing to ask what she’s thinking of. People who work in these parts also don’t get sleep because they’re afraid of seeing things that they don’t want to see. “I was wondering why you weren’t sleeping.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he tells her with a shrug, “so I thought I might come to check up on them.”
They stay in silence for a few seconds, the whole scenario growing more unnerving as he tries to read his former classmate. Over the years, she has become somber, her eyebags being telling of the fact that she’s just tired of everything around her.
“You shouldn’t lead them on,” Shouko initiates the conversation, the all-too-dreaded topic that he knows that she’ll be lecturing him on. He’s thankful that it’s not Nanami because it would mean getting stepped on without even knowing. (Nanami has a way of hitting where it hurts, and he’s honestly not that much of a masochist to let himself endure that as much as he appreciates the man for his willingness and drive to make things right.) “You’re even more of a coward than I thought if you’re holding all your feelings in like this.”
“Who made you a love doctor?” he asks, letting snark and disdain flood his voice. He makes sure to keep his voice low just for the sake of your sleep. “I can manage my own relationships just fine. You sure you aren’t doing this because of the higher-ups?”
“You know that I’m not that type of person to do that,” she says with a sigh that sounds more defeated than anything. “I’m tired of seeing people lose themselves to their own desires when it doesn’t benefit them in any way. That’s precisely why cursed spirits happen.”
“That would never happen,” he denies as he follows her train of thought, narrowing his eyes. “They would never turn into a cursed spirit.”
“You’re going to hurt them,” she warns once more, her voice weaker and softer. “Do you even love them?”
Her appraisal of him makes him narrow his eyes. Assumptions, like she knows him that well.
He avoids the question. “I’ve thought about them.”
That’s the truth that he can give her before he starts lying to her and himself. Of course, Satoru has thought long and hard about all of this, about all that could have happened between the two of you. He imagines days with you where he can laugh freely without thinking about the next cursed spirit that he needs to exorcise. He desires that freedom where he doesn’t need to worry about the world crumbling to pieces at the expense of your love. Loving you would mean sacrificing a part of him to you. Satoru hates the thought of what if that part of him wasn’t enough for you because he knows that he can’t give you his all, he really can’t.
(In all honesty, he’s so scared of giving you his all because he has never done that for anyone, not on this land, world, or time. And he will never, he vows because it would open up a new path to hurt.)
“But —?” she prompts knowingly.
She knows as well as he does as to why he avoided answering the question.
“You know, I hate it when you use ‘but’ like that,” he groans, cursing her. “It’s not worth all the trouble that it’s going to give us in the long run. Probably make our lives a living hell if we’re not careful enough.”
“So you are still sensible, that’s good to know,” Shouko says, her voice edging on condescension while being the voice of reason.
“Fuck you,” he says without any heat, more tired than anything.
She laughs. “Many have tried, you wouldn’t be the first to say that.”
As the conversation slowly dies, the silence of night hangs in the air, reminding them of their places. Soon, day will come to bury night well into the ground with a new era to relieve the world of all the curses lingering before them, and he knows that more blood will stain their hands. For now, Satoru wants to inhale all of this before it all dies away into the back of his mind as nothingness.
He doesn’t know that you’re awake, your eyes half-lidded and ready to fall back asleep.
And yet, you’ve heard everything, and you’ve never known what it’s like to hurt so badly without being hurt until now.