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On his first day at Jujutsu Tech, Nanami spent the last minutes of his break staring intently at the idiot kicking the vending machine.
“Gah!! No way, that was the last of my change...!!”
But, because it wasn’t the machine he usually bought from, Nanami didn’t care enough to help someone that clearly brought it upon himself. He didn’t make an effort to hide his presence either, moving to enter the code of the last chocolate cornet. Although the pair of eyes on him were unusually heavy, watchful, Nanami did his very best to disregard him. He’d go away.
Except, his own bread got stuck between the glass, and immediately after, the guy was laughing.
“Ahhh, what’s up with the machines today? Are they cursed? I guess more accurately it’d be us, but you get what I mean,” He went on, the question was so blatantly dumb from one sorcerer to another, it gave Nanami a glimpse of what he supposed his sense of humor was. As with most people, it elicited a sigh out of him.
When Nanami turned to finally face him, the subtle glare he wore faltered; a single glance at the boy’s face, his eyes, was enough for Nanami to decide, yes, this guy is weirder than the rest.
Half-excuse to leave, half-solution, Nanami proposed, “I’ll go call a teacher—” but the shattering of glass rendered him unable to finish the sentence. There were hints of a technique in the air, gone as fast as it was activated, like a protective flash— or a protective glove, one slipped in at the right moment.
Faintly, a man in shades yelling ‘Gojo Satoru!!’ through his teeth could be heard, the steps storming in unavoidable now. Nanami felt his appetite die down.
“Here,” Nanami noticed the packaging of the bread was bloodless as it was placed on his hand.
Days after, through word of mouth and, to a lesser extent, eavesdropping, Nanami came to find out two things.
One: the Gojo clan was more than well off, including monetarily. Made one wonder what pocket change meant to him, and what it took to run out of it.
Two: when Gojo Satoru was born, the balance of the world was altered.
The breeze near the coast was as chilly as he expected, and despite his uniform’s efforts to turn the sunset’s light into warmth, Nanami still hid his mouth under his collar. He felt the lighthouse’s strangeness. It had stood centuries before, and it would continue to, centuries after, only now unused for its true purpose.
“Missions don’t always get to have views so pretty,” Geto pointed out, but didn’t stop to admire anything. Not the building, not the cliff. The curtain was conjured in a matter of seconds, blurring the lines between nighttime. He walked some steps ahead after finishing it, the unusual flickering of the lighthouse’s lantern casting a shadow that seemed too wide for his body. “Much less ones special grades get sent to.”
Nanami came to realize Geto Suguru, of all his upperclassmen, talked the right amount, and rarely without enough substance. He made good use of silence, and had only ever found Nanami’s habit of listing worst case scenarios amusing enough to wave off, smiling. He had both feet pressed firmly against earth, a good head between his shoulders.
And yet, Nanami thought the pleasant lilt of his voice could be anything, from contempt to ease. The waves crashing under them distracted him from choosing which case it was.
Geto stopped in the middle of the concrete steps leading to the entrance, “Where do you sense cursed energy the most?” because, at the end of the day, he was the special grade appointed to train him. Nanami kept walking until reaching the narrow door, but only remained touching the handle, thinking. Feeling.
“Farther up,” he replied, looking over his shoulder, and Geto’s approval came in the form of a simple nod. Entering, Nanami was only briefly distracted by the unattended museum made of the lowest floor before he extended an arm, “Stop.”
Geto didn’t remain surprised for long, immediately inspecting the room to sense another presence. Whoever was there took a sharp breath. Nanami followed the sound until he reached a wooden crate, and Geto noticed he never once reached for his weapon’s bag. Before he could tell him to stand back, Nanami spoke.
“You can come out. We won’t hurt you.”
It became clear, by the lilt of his voice, he was speaking to a child.
“Geto-san,” Nanami began, and with immediate understanding, Geto shook his head.
“Stay with her, prioritize her safety. I’ll take care of things upstairs.”
Protecting what was vulnerable, life itself, remained at the forefront. Nanami didn’t realize it then, as he ushered the lost girl to accompany him outside and calm her nerves with the ocean waves, but he was led to believe he stood in the ground Geto did.
Nanami called their driver, even if it meant finishing the exorcism before the little girl arrived at the nearest police station and going back to the dorms on their own. Following the path towards the sidewalk, he felt her tugging at his sleeve.
“I didn’t mean to be there for so long, I only— the door shut by itself,” she struggled to explain herself, not knowing he understood everything, as thick tears pooled and fell.
He stopped moving, briefly, to face her. Wiping the tears, he said, wholly honest, “I believe you, so don’t cry.”
Headlights upon them, Nanami nodded to the chauffeur parking in front of them, then opened the back door for her. “The police should help you get back home. Please don’t wander off without supervision again, it was pure luck we happened to be around.” He instructed, and she finally let go. Her small hands fisted at the bottom of her shirt, briefly indecisive of something he couldn’t understand. Inside the car, her nose touched the back window as she waved, mouthing the words he acknowledged as his reason for putting up with this in the first place.
Nanami was left with that gradually minimized image, left with the disturbed wind after the car drove off. He didn’t relish in the faint sense of accomplishment, automatically stepping back and running off towards the lighthouse again. It was dark, and had it not been for the density of his energy, he would’ve confused the black mass that was Geto seen from behind with the curtain.
So it was done.
Nanami didn’t stand with him near the edge of the cliff. His lips pursed in hesitation. “Sorry, I left everything to you.” Geto, without having to turn around, sensed Nanami dipped his head in a small bow while saying that.
“Nanami,” A particularly loud wave crashed under them. “My way of doing things is different. I figured you would understand.” He glanced back, then, to see if Nanami followed along. He didn’t. It made him smile. “Your priorities and mine align. You see, exorcising the cursed spirit is only half the job to me. Protecting the weak, non-users, is just as important, if not more— ah, what I’m trying to say is, you took charge as I would have done, and I commend you for that.”
It wasn’t flattery. It wasn’t bragging.
When Geto spoke, it came from someplace true and inhuman at its core.
“...I see,” Nanami said, clutching the strap of his bag. For a moment, he felt compelled to thank him. “If that’s the case, I guess we do align.”
“You are the only sorcerer in your family. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
When he met Yaga, he was well on his way to become principal. If nothing else, the dolls proved to be ideal with carrying out the entry interrogation. An anthropomorphic one-eyed frog trembled in his palm, perhaps in anticipation. Lizzie, he called her.
“Then, you understand your scouting was more of a coincidence than anything.” To Nanami, that sounded almost like comparing him to ink staining a pool of his family’s blood. “Wrong place, right time. The sorcerer who brought you to our attention saw potential in that.” Yaga continued with the protocol, “Why are you here?”
“Because I think... I’ll be more helpful in this place than anywhere else.” Nanami’s choice of words made Lizzie blink rapidly. He felt uneasy, but not enough to falter. “I could find a purpose here… something like that.”
“Or you can die trying.” What Yaga had was a wonderful way of speaking. He seemed to know how to measure out frankness and not the slightest bit of tact. “Do you realize how shaky your resolve sounds?”
Nanami Kento had always felt like he lived on a balancing act. Young as he was, he understood there were things only he was privy to, most of which were not limited to—or related at all—to curses; he understood people.
“I do.” Nanami replied.
He understood the human quality of being mundane, of feeling more aligned to the normal side of his identity, his family, than whatever mistake made him possess an innate technique.
“I don’t... know how to explain it. But, it’s because of sorcery I’ve received an entirely different kind of gratitude— most of the time, people don’t know what even went on. They mean it. I have the means to help, and… I’d hate to regret not doing something about it.”
Yaga let his doll weaken. It was hard to tell when an answer pleased him or otherwise. “I’m obligated to disclose that dedicating your life to sorcery means walking on death’s territory at all times. I also have to tell you,” he set Lizzie on top of a bigger doll, “The calling of a jujutsu sorcerer breeds an entirely different sense of accomplishment. The gratitude, expressed or not, is indescribable.”
He inspected Nanami with a glance one more time, then huffed. The motivation was there, certainly, and it was only a matter of time he proved how crazy he could be. Unlike Nanami, Yaga saw the reason, despite being passed as uncertainty: he had power, an innate technique no less, and knew where to use it.
“...Haibara!” As if on cue, a cursed doll opened the door behind them, showing a boy, who had been clearly eavesdropping, stumbling to the ground.
“Yes, Yaga-sensei!!” The boy, Haibara, shouted, scrambling to hold Lizzie and prevent her from landing any punches on him.
“Show him to his room. Go over the same rules and warnings you were given in your introduction.”
“Leave it to me!” With an excitement Nanami was sure he had never felt himself, Haibara turned to him, quickly bowed, and held the widest smile he ever saw on someone. “Haibara Yu, pleased to make your acquaintance! Please follow me.”
Strolling the campus, Nanami felt considerably smaller than he had felt anywhere else. It was only natural, seeing most of the buildings were unoccupied. People lounging around was a rarity, and the shortage either spoke of the uniqueness that was being a sorcerer, or of an awful mortality rate. Haibara waved him off when he tried asking him about it, and pushed him into his new dorm, suspiciously close to his among the collection of vacant rooms.
That day, despite being sufficiently gifted, Nanami Kento made the mistake of believing he was anywhere fit being the modern sorcerer the school expected of him.
Sorcerers help normal people, not themselves, and especially not any other sorcerers.
Nanami had figured the religious infrastructure served its purpose as a coverup, but the actual functional shrines had taken him back a bit. Three stood out prominently, dedicated to the founders of the most powerful sorcery clans. To him, they remained vastly unknown, and he had made sure to keep it as such; listening to stories of disowned, ungifted children would only fill him with dread.
However, the entrance was beckoning. He stood outside what he figured was the Zen’in clan’s, but only remained still.
“Can’t believe there’s still someone willing to go inside that crappy shrine.”
He had only ever met a single person crude enough to make those remarks outside such an important place. Nanami glared at him, finding he was closer than he expected. “I have no intention to.”
“Good. I’d save up my five yen and skip any of these.”
“...Even the Gojo clan’s?”
“Especially the Gojo clan’s,” Nanami was unsure if what he heard was disdain exactly, and felt it necessary not to pry. Gojo noticed as much, and stood strangely proud. “Thoughtful senior that I am, take that as the best advice I could give you. That, and don’t go buying the curry bread at the vending machines. Which, by the way, got me cleaning duty after breaking.”
“You deserved that,” Nanami clarified without missing a beat, earning a huh?! , and hid his hands in his pockets. He started to walk away from the shrine, mumbling, “it’s been a hassle waiting for it to be replaced.”
“You make it sound like you can’t go outside this place to get actual good food,” Gojo followed, sounding almost offended, but mostly annoyed. “Sure, it’s a long way back into the city, but I’d take that over sitting in class starving.”
“...Gojo-san, wasting money on ‘good food’ and transport is not a liberty most can take.”
“Sure, sure, but I can.” When Gojo smiled, naturally cocky, his teeth bared. Nanami frowned. “I’m feeling really senior-like today. Let’s skip class and go for lunch in the city.” Senior-like and let’s skip class didn’t exactly go well in the same sentence.
Nanami gave him a measured glance. Something told him he would leave with or without him, and in truth, he wasn’t above having cravings.
“...Let’s hurry, then.”
He agreed, keeping to himself he actually had no classes for the rest of the day.
It was easy to tell when Haibara Yu approached a room; he was almost always followed by energized greetings floating through the hallway. Sprawled on his seat, legs up the desk, Gojo barely peeked over the screen of his blocky Game Boy when he heard that sunny, Ah, Gojo-senpai!
“What’s up?” He asked, not really minding Haibara’s presence.
“Are you busy?” Haibara asked, apologetically eyeing the handheld console, as if the reason for being here became a possible nuisance. “I wanted to ask you if you could help me train for a bit. I’ve noticed my reflexes could use some work, and I’ve seen the way you fight up close, it’s amazing!”
Usually, praise did close to nothing for Gojo. Haibara, like many others, admired his prowess; it’s the intention behind them that encouraged him to make an exception. But only for this time, Gojo told himself, swinging his legs to the floor and pocketing the console. “I guess I can squeeze some training before dinner,” he said, nonchalantly, glancing out the window. It wasn’t long before the sun would set.
“Thank you so much! I would have asked Nanami, but he’s calling his family right now.”
Haibara didn’t talk as much as he seemed to; he didn’t say anything else about Nanami. Gojo only hummed, and saw Haibara take his stance once they reached the courtyard. Gojo became familiar with the way Haibara exhaled before concentrating, the predictable mistakes he made of always swinging with his right arm, and the sheepish smile after saying he wouldn’t do it again.
“It’s almost like you announce yourself,” Gojo pressed his hand flat atop Haibara’s head, squeezing it in reprimand. “With that sigh you take every time, I mean.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told, but I really don’t notice myself doing it!” something between a whine and a laugh came out of him. For once, Gojo felt like he was not the one taking things lightly.
“You gotta fix it if you don’t wanna get killed in the time it takes you to concentrate. And stop swinging with just your right side. It leaves your left unprotected.” Letting go of his head and turning around, Gojo bid his offhanded farewell with a two-finger wave, and left Haibara with what he would later come to realize was a condemnation.
Anything and everything could echo farther than it should in such a vastly empty building.
“It’s such a pain looking out for the weak.”
The voice reached Nanami so perfectly, he felt eerily targeted. It was enough to stop him in his tracks, only realizing he did so when the contents of the supply box he was meant to deliver stopped making noise. He turned, almost hesitant, to see what classroom he stood outside of: the only room occupied by second years. Nanami had kept his reservations about that small class, despite the admiration Haibara clearly held for the prodigies it housed— though, he gave almost the same amount of esteem to any senior of his. Nanami had gripes with that attitude, as well; he knew Haibara’s judgement was shaky at times, and didn’t have the heart to tell him.
Nanami recognized Geto’s voice, strained in a way he had never heard before. He could tell things were escalating, and... discerned the sound of the door quietly clicking open after that. Turning around, he saw Shoko, and admired her determination to distance herself from any trouble that didn’t directly involve her.
“Ah, Nanami,” she greeted quietly, “You seem upset.”
That surprised him. He fixed his expression to something more mellow. “I was just passing by.”
“That so,” Shoko hummed, not quite buying it, and she looked about to say something else, until a set of footsteps began approaching. Hurry became evident in her expression, and she began walking after seeing an excuse in him, “Let me accompany you to deliver that... like, right now?”
Something told him she’d join anyways, so he readjusted the weight, and walked behind her to cover her silhouette from being recognized.
Nanami felt as though the walls had ears, but so did the oaks littered around the school’s layout. Regardless, he’d rather have the trees hear him call his mother from time to time, checking up on her health, asking if his deposit had reached her. The school-provided allowance was not enough for two people, but it helped. He gave her most of it, anyway.
Those days, however, the school seemed quieter. Or maybe Okinawa had been too noisy. Either way, the aftermath left everyone tense. Dreading. Dreading what? He couldn’t tell.
He finished the call with the usual string of reminders ( take your medicine, please rest, I’ll visit soon ), and hung up once she agreed: take care, I miss you, she said as always. He pressed the top corner of his phone on his forehead, sighed, and carried on. Carried himself to his dorm, until he spotted the mane of white hair he had come to know well at a bench.
Strangely, he felt compelled to avoid it. He would have, were it not directly in front of where he needed to enter.
“The neck scar has faded almost completely.” Shoko’s voice was unmistakable. “Suguru-san has been healing nicely, too.”
“He’s also not eating.” Gojo sounded weary, Nanami noticed, but characteristically bratty all the same.
“He won’t talk to me about it— oh, hello, Nanami,” Shoko waved him over, though noticed how Nanami limited himself to simply pausing to walk.
“Enjoyed the trip?” Gojo’s question came as a surprise. He couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
“...I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I had about the mission the entire two days, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“You’ve always been a bit of a downer, so that’s not surprising,” Shoko teased, her ghosting smile reaching her eyes.
Later that night, with the dormitory cold and quiet, Nanami kept going over her words. He had always been quick to find the downside of things, and take precautions accordingly. Many things worried him, as of late. Shaky resolves. Sickness. Geto. Loneliness. Death. Death from sickness. His mother.
He wanted to be optimistic about it. He couldn’t.
“Gojo-senpai tips the scale to our favor,” Haibara stated, placing a hand on the training dummy to prevent it from wobbling. Nanami remained laying atop the courtyard’s steps, a book placed on his face to block the sunlight.
“...just as easily as he can switch sides. His own side.” Said Nanami quietly, a little muffled and, ultimately, unmoved.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Haibara countered, as if used to pessimism. Nanami’s pessimism. “What I think,” he moved, breathed out slowly, then struck the dummy again, left arm first. It went unseen, the way Haibara’s round eyes squinted a bit while lost in thought, lost in the movements. “...is that Gojo-senpai is all bark.”
Nanami raised his book to peek at him.
“He doesn’t get assigned the kinds of missions we do. He may be the strongest, but that’s his life he puts on the line, and goes all out to keep it. Heh, guess he’s all bite too when it comes down to it. It’s really inspiring.”
“There’s no life on the line when you’re the strongest.”
“But didn’t you hear?” Haibara, quite unusually, spoke without looking over at Nanami. “Gojo-senpai nearly died on the latest mission.”
Protecting those vulnerable was a desire of Nanami, well-kept in the way of unwavering discipline. It was also the same idea he had heard Gojo openly scoff against, roll his eyes at. It had carved a pit of worry— no, fear, into the back of Nanami’s head, and tainted what little he knew about Gojo back then. Still, he could admit not everything lined up with the off-handed complaints. Gojo said one thing, and risked another in perfect contradiction.
Nanami wondered if Gojo had meant it back then.
He feared what could happen if he had.
After losing count of assasination attempts since birth, Gojo supposed he could find amusement in being the apex of sorcery. Or, rather, deluded himself to, and never allowed for more than a few moments of introspection. Everyone had heard of him, so he became, consciously and not, unknowable in the only way that mattered. Made it hard to look at the place where Gojo Satoru stopped and his power began; it was as if there had never been a division at all.
The detachment of Gojo Satoru and the world could be seen in the smallest ways.
Nanami started noticing the falling cherry blossom petals avoiding Gojo in ways it shouldn’t be possible to. Instead, they got caught in Nanami’s hair, and Gojo’s snicker could be heard as he tried to pick them out. Gojo realized, as he came over to help him, that the wind might have been blowing a bit too hard; Nanami was staring at his forehead. The fresh scar there. So he moved, back against the wind, and continued plucking out petals from his head.
“...Gojo-san, you seem different.”
Gojo remained unfazed, “Stronger, you mean,” he imposed on Nanami with a grin. It felt disingenuous. “Hehe! Glad you noticed, actually. I’ve devised—”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” Nanami had already noticed something strange and chemical was happening to the bearer of six eyes. That part was easy. Looking deep into the thoughts of Gojo Satoru, the person, was the challenging part. “If anything, you seem less in control.”
“That’s… woah. Nanami, your judgement’s worse than I thought.” He laughed dryly, as Nanami expected, and waved a hand, as Nanami expected. “See? Always looking at the downside of things. Almost like you think of me as weak.”
“I think of you as human. Is that the same thing to you?” Though there was no bite to his question, much less his voice, Gojo felt put in the spot all the same. His chin tilted, as if seizing the image of Nanami. The puzzle of what Nanami stood for clicked into place, then.
“I thought you hated questions open for interpretation?”
“It’s not.” Nanami paused. “...Ideally.”
Gojo’s tongue clicked, feeling as if he was being scolded. “If it helps you sleep at night, I don’t think they are the same thing. But you can take it to the higher ups, I’m sure they’d love to debate you.”
“I got the answer I wanted. No need.” Except Nanami didn’t sound relieved like Gojo predicted him to. He didn’t sound like anything special at all. Rather, sounded as if Gojo was, at his core, nothing special. Which was wrong, and dangerous, and baffling. He felt the need to prove as much. However, Nanami didn’t seem disturbed. “...It’s good you’re alive, Gojo-san.”
He seemed grateful.
Gojo didn’t respond—couldn’t come up with anything to respond—and let the cherry blossom petals breach his space to sit atop him, too.
The most August had to offer were unexpected, humid downpours, and the dull reminder cursed energy was never-ending. Sitting near the window felt meaningless; all that existed beyond was more school, and even father, masses of trees. Haibara pinched a capsule machine reward between two fingers and leaned his cheek on his palm, smiling. A gift from Gojo-senpai, he said, but judging by the jarring plasticky colors, Nanami figured Gojo used him to dispose of it.
“Do you think you can hold onto it for me?” he asked sheepishly, putting it back on the capsule and offering it. “I’m afraid I’ll lose it, and I considered giving it to my little siblings when I visit home.” Ah, right, Nanami thought, the older brother of two. Nanami supposed an only child like him would never understand those thoughtful details.
“...Sure,” He agreed, but not without sighing, and pocketed the ugly little prize.
“Haibara, Nanami,” Their homeroom teacher said as soon as she walked in unannounced, the former perking up instantly and the latter only blinking. “Look lively, I’m here to give you two this week’s mission summary: exorcise a second-grade spirit, the local faith.”
As the energy left his fingers in a devastating single blow, Gojo felt his terrible premonition come true.
He felt it in the sizzling air, in the shreds of a uniform that reeked faintly with cursed energy, the blood of those before him drying around his soles. The wind began licking it all clean, as if nothing had ever been there. As if the boy it all once belonged to had never been here. Would never be, not again.
“Satoru.” Yaga had said, curtly, in a voice that registered as solemn. “There’s been a major setback. We’re sending you over to finish a mission assigned to our second years.” Last minute missions didn’t faze him, but they were usually grave in reasoning.
Sure enough, he came back to Geto bumping shoulders with him, distraught, only pointing over his shoulder where Shoko stood. Despite seeing him, she didn’t wave.
Haibara, she mouthed, and something felt nauseating about the sugar in his system.
Gojo couldn’t have possibly known Nanami expressed a desire to leave everything to him from now on. But he could tell. And, in a way, he was glad he hadn’t heard it himself; the friction between the rational side of Nanami, the side that saw Gojo as human, came at odds with the one grief-struck, cornered, tired of the effort.
What was gratitude worth, anyway?
Gojo knew about duty before he even learned to spell his name. He didn’t expect a thank you, and rarely asked for favors that mattered. His hand was divine and his word was final. How should he feel, then, when the force that killed his people, his friends, was the same force his power was measured against? Without curses, there couldn’t be a strongest sorcerer. Without strength, there was only flesh.
But the flesh was weak. He had seen it in Haibara, the gash that ran across his body’s left side, up to his jaw. Ironically, it made him feel powerless. Habits die hard, and they make you die even worse.
Gojo started to think grief and frustration were intimately related.
Geto leaving was the confirmation he needed.
Nanami feared something sinister would happen to his body.
He saw the world carry on without stopping. Not because it didn’t care, but because it didn’t know. And it would never know. Nanami had agreed to that end of the deal. But when he found himself in his classroom, the sole second year in that sole group, it didn’t make sense.
What was gratitude worth?
Was it worth the deaths? Certainly not. The sense of purpose? Hardly; he had never felt so lost.
Geto’s betrayal felt more personal than he expected. It felt like he himself was living it. Like his body could follow behind, because they were close to being one and the same at their core, weren’t they?
They weren’t. But Nanami, clouded with grief, thought so. Feared so. He feared himself. What more losses could do to him.
“See, I’m surprised this came as a surprise to everyone else.”
Shoko said so one time, twisting a straw between her teeth as if it were a cigarette, and passing Nanami a carton of flavored milk. Her treat. He took it as he listened, his head still not rising completely from staring at his knees. “Suguru’s countdown started way before Haibara died, it’s amazing he didn’t leave sooner.”
At that, Nanami only felt worse. “...didn’t you try to stop him?”
“Of course not. What kind of friend would I be, asking him to stay when I don’t have the answers to his questions? Don’t misunderstand, though. I still think he’s an idiot with enough conviction to last him a lifetime. If he wants to take on the world by himself, let him. I’d love to be the one in charge once his body was brought back.” Nanami couldn’t see any traces of hostility leaving her morbid way of putting things. What he saw instead were her hands reaching for the straw to grip it, as if to stop that faint shaking from overtaking her. He lowered his head again.
Healer or not, she wasn’t beyond pain.
“It’s strange.” She continued. “I don’t feel betrayed at all. If he asked to have a smoke with me, I’d accept, as if he wasn’t an enemy of the world. Does that make me a little rotten, too?”
“You’re asking the wrong person.” Nanami felt the need to lower his already soft voice. After some time, he said, “I don’t blame him either.”
Shoko’s impassive eyes nearly widened. They curled into crescents, and then she chuckled weakly. “I’m sorry you have such shitty seniors.”
He was quiet again, taking his time to finish his drink despite not having any appetite. “You’re going out of your way to not smoke around me,” Nanami pointed out. “Don’t feel the need to hold back for my sake.”
“You think so highly of me,” she said, despite knowing there was truth to his observation. “I’m just trying to quit for good. I’ll be starting medical school in no time, you know.”
Nanami started to fear that, by now, time had stopped moving only for him.
That maybe he had mistaken sorcery for a lifestyle, and not your usual job; squeezing his carton gently, it dawned on him that was the case. The only thing certain within this space was inevitability. He wondered if it was too late to rethink his choices now, to choose between his job as a sorcerer, and a possible job outside of it. If he lived in the normal side of this world again, his mother would appreciate seeing him more often, and that gratitude of hers could suffice, instead of looking for it elsewhere.
“Will you come back to work here?” He only realized he spoke after he finished asking.
Her reply was a little delayed. “Naturally.” He felt nothing but doubt at her answer. “It’s not as if the higher ups would let me go that easily, anyway. That aside, I realized this place marked me long ago. For better or worse. Mostly worse. It’s holding me back, but even if I left, it’d feel as though I’ve left something unfinished.” Shoko took the straw out of her mouth. “Sorry, one moment I talk about wanting to leave, and the other I bring up I’m staying. Doesn’t make sense.”
Nanami shook his head, “I relate to the feeling more than I can explain.”
She stood from her seat next to him. “I can’t leave just yet. Nor would I be allowed to, realistically, but you could, Nanami. Eventually. I’m not saying you should. You’re valuable, and what do you know, I’m actually fond of you,” when he turned to glance back at her, he was half-startled by her faint smile. He feared mistaking it for sadness. “But the way you are now reminds me of… well, there was nothing I could have done for him,” Alone, or with Gojo, she briefly thought. “So, I wanted to give you some advice while I still could.”
There was nothing he could have said to that. Not eloquently, at least, so he said nothing. She had read him better than he wanted her to, but perhaps he needed to hear it. To hear that he, his life, hadn’t reached the point of no return yet.
Returning would come later, when the time was right.
After weeks of dazing through life, the next time Nanami saw Gojo, his image was upside down.
Laying on the steps leading to the courtyard as he did long ago, he felt someone’s presence take the space next to him, and as Nanami removed the book hiding his eyebags from his face, he saw him, hair catching the light and eyes obstructed. He had his hand in his pocket, and only faced straight ahead.
“Slacking off?” Gojo asked simply, and the teasing air to it was more comforting than Nanami expected.
“There’s not much training I can do as a single-man group.”
“Well, you may not look like it, but you have the strength of a single-man army. What the hell do they feed you, and why doesn’t it show?”
“Vending machine curry bread,” Nanami replied flatly, earning the huff he expected from Gojo, and started to sit back up. His body felt stiff, heavy. “What are you doing here?” Nanami predicted some kind of defensive, off-handed, ‘just checking up on my junior’ answer. It never came.
“Something’s been bugging me.” Gojo said instead, unexpectedly pointed. The pitch in his voice lowered, nearly unrecognizable. Pensive. “Neither you or Haibara made it a habit to use eyewear. Is that right?”
Nanami’s lips twitched. “We— no, we didn’t.” He knew the purpose of doing so, the advantage of that concealment. He also knew, vaguely, that Gojo’s reason for his own shades was far removed from it. Inevitably, his mind began to branch off, as Gojo knew it would.
Gojo rolled his tongue along his cheeks in a useless attempt to untense his jaw. He didn’t seem upset, but something was strained about him. Nanami felt a weight pushing down on his chest; he had begun to string everything together. “...Look. I’m not saying this could’ve saved your life, or his. But you did almost die back there. This could help you from now on, maybe.”
The hand he obscured before pulled out to reveal green tinted glasses. Nanami could tell he was starting to retreat back into himself, to close up again. Haibara had stood much too far for Nanami to possibly reach in time, so why did he feel so useless, still?
Someday, Nanami thought, he would come to terms with the fact he could never not blame himself for Haibara’s death. That the terrible burning in his chest would cool enough to be only a constant simmer, but never completely be put out. He should have figured Gojo felt similarly over Haibara and, even more so, over Geto.
Nanami took the glasses. It felt like an admission of defeat.
“Ahh, what a damn mess,” Gojo yawned, and let his body lay down, arms behind his head.
There was no wind that could blow his bangs into his eyes. The world had no hurry, no qualms, and certainly no tears to offer. The day was so beautiful, it broke Nanami’s heart. And now, Haibara and Geto weren’t here to see it.
“...I've been thinking." Nanami mustered the words while pulling his knees close to his chest.
“Hm?”
"I always thought I found myself most in Geto-san." Gojo thought Nanami's way of addressing him still, after everything that happened, was telling. "In... our ideals. He was the first person to reassure me that protecting innocents was just as important as the exorcism. I suppose I held onto that."
Gojo's expression remained unchanged. His eyes were lost. Opaque, looking nowhere. "But he didn't call them innocents, did he?"
Nanami was quiet for a moment. "...No."
"The weak. Non-users." He quoted, because he had heard it—said it—countless times, too. Then, he shrugged. Whatever. It’s not like he had been the one preaching righteousness, anyway. "Word choice matters, Nanami."
“I guess,” was all he could reply with, pressing his mouth to the top of his knees.
Beside him, Gojo blinked impassively. Reflected on something. “You won’t end up like him, if that’s what you’re really trying to ask.” There was no response, only a glance. “Suguru was good at that. Speaking. But there was always something off about the way he went about things. His wording for one.” He licked his lips and smiled dryly, shaking his head. “To be fair, I don’t think I stand on the same ground as non-sorcerers either, and it’s still a pain looking out for those weaker than me, but I never claimed otherwise. You, though... You’re not like us. You don’t come from our kinds of clans. No one is expendable to you. Not even other sorcerers.”
“If I left,” Nanami had to force himself to not look over his shoulder. “Would you consider me expendable?”
“I’d consider you lucky.” Sincerity was a haunting thing when it came to Gojo. And he didn’t sound somber at all. Still, the topic seemed to estrange him. Leaving. Nanami knew someone of his caliber couldn’t afford that. It pained him, somehow. “I think you deserve a good, long life. That’s why I have to stay behind, even if it sucks around here.”
“I don’t think I’m following,” Nanami intervened, finally looking to his side. “What does you staying here have to do with me?”
“I guess I can spell it out for you,” Gojo joked, and were he someone else, it would’ve been cruel. “There are things only I can do for those caught in the whims of the jujutsu world. For those exactly like you, who have ideals and decent morals. But I need time, and to think how I’ll play my cards.”
Nanami gave him a measured look, then looked away after several beats.
“...I have faith you can achieve as much.”
To most, Gojo had been a reservoir of faith and fear. Still, when Nanami said it, Gojo felt like he had helped him lay to rest, even for a little moment, something heavy. Something scalding. Maybe it was the gratitude that had led Nanami here, Gojo thought. If that was the case, he could see why Nanami chased it this far. He felt that accomplishment flutter and swell uselessly in his chest.
“Oi, oi, oi, can you repeat that? I don’t think I heard you correctly,” Gojo fumbled for his phone, pretending to try and record. “Alright! Nanami, take two, okay? And action!”
“Go back to class,” he grumbled, lowering his phone with his palm.
“What? No way! Shoko dipped, and I’m not about to sit and be lectured. Besides, don’t you wanna have me as a classmate?”
Nanami stared at him longer than Gojo expected. He looked like he was actually thinking about it.
“I have to thank you, Gojo-san, for making me realize being the only person in my group is not so bad after all.” Nanami tried to hide a bit of a smile while Gojo gasped, remembering again how it felt to be in proximity of lightheartedness.
Left behind by different people under different circumstances, they ended up at each other’s periphery.
In the aftermath of Gojo and Shoko’s graduation, Nanami found himself being dragged towards Gojo’s room by none other than the owner himself. When he entered by way of being pushed from behind, Shoko was already waiting for them. She raised three bottles; two were beer, the remaining was something fizzy and sweet Nanami had never seen before. He didn’t have to guess who it was for, but still, he gave Gojo an inquisitive look.
“What? I don’t drink.” He said, passing Nanami the freshly opened beer without permission, and keeping his own bottle.
“He has no tolerance,” Shoko added before quickly sipping on her drink.
“And you have no taste.”
“Shoko-senpai, what’s all this about?” Nanami finally spoke, not paying attention to Gojo shaking him by the shoulder, complaining he never addressed him so formally. Not even Geto, really.
Sitting down on the bed, she simply raised her bottle and said, “We’re celebrating.”
Gojo followed. “Ending the day only having that stupid, awkward ceremony left a bad taste in my mouth. So, we decided to wash it down with these. You wouldn’t be so heartless as to turn us down, right?”
Distantly, Nanami wondered how panicked Haibara would be if he were in his place. After realizing the thought wouldn’t leave him all evening now that he conjured it, he gripped his bottle tighter and sipped the bitter, crisp beer by way of answering Gojo's question. An acquired taste, certainly. At that, both Shoko and Gojo smiled, and they crawled into bed, patting for him to join. The room wasn’t as messy as Nanami would have thought it would be, but Gojo wasn’t known for hanging in one place for too long, anyway.
For the most part, Nanami concentrated on deciding if this was really a celebration, or if they simply wanted to fill in a blank space with white noise. Gojo was nothing if not great at doing exactly that. Between pulling every made-up drinking game under his sleeve and inevitably dealing with Shoko and Nanami teaming up to ridicule him, something laid restless under the surface. They felt it, too. Even more so when Gojo excused himself to grab a midnight snack from the nearby vending machine.
After a few moments of winding down from the nonsense chatting, Shoko broke the comfortable silence. “You don’t seem too sad at the idea of us going away, Nanami.”
“That’s because you’re not. Not entirely. I’ll see you both around once in a while.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“Things haven’t been the same in a while.”
The smile she gave filled Nanami with the same faint sense of melancholy she must have felt.
Shoko began to stand, slowly, and set her bottle on the room’s desk. “Something tells me this is just the beginning, too.” Nanami could tell she was holding something back, and he didn’t think he felt ready to ask about it. Shoko stole a lollipop from a drawer, saying, “It’s about time I sneak back, hope you don’t mind.” She moved towards the door and glanced over her shoulder.
Nanami only shook his head. “Goodnight. And… congratulations.”
Her smile changed. “Thanks for humoring us, Nanami. Satoru has nice ideas from time to time, huh?”
Soon enough, she was gone. Nanami would’ve wanted to be left alone with her words for longer, but the door was opened not long after. Munching on some custard bread and throwing Nanami a package for himself, Gojo’s sole reaction to her absence was a blink and frown. Buzzkill, he thought, and looked at Nanami.
“Should I leave?” Nanami, to Gojo’s surprise, beat him to speaking.
“Eh? Turning in early when I just went through such a life-changing event, Nanami?” Gojo threw himself on the bed next to him. Nanami only sighed.
“You’ll remain here, planning who knows what. Shoko will get her degree and come back. Not much is going to change, will it?” He asked, peeling his package open and taking a bite. Dry.
“Sure it will. You might not be here to see it.” Gojo replied coolly, shrugging as if trying to seem unbothered. Nanami was surprised to find how tense he seemed in that attempt. Maybe he should have been flattered, in a way. Being taken into account like that, by him . “If you leave and change your number, my six eyes will be able to tell.”
Nanami huffed an almost inaudible chuckle, tentatively laying down next to Gojo and staring at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t be so high up in the jujutsu hierarchy if your eyes could do something as useless as that.”
“They’re not too useful out of it, so you might be overestimating them here.” After balling his empty package, he threw it towards the bin, completely missing the shot. “Believe it or not, they get strained after a while. That’s what the shades are for. If you tried looking through them, it’d just be pitch black.”
“Hm. And you go through life wearing them all the time.” Nanami mused, feeling mundane in comparison.
“Force of habit,” Was all Gojo said. Regardless, he decided to pluck his shades off his face and set them away. He turned to his side, staring at Nanami, even if he wasn’t staring back. “What’s there to really look at, anyway? Trees and more trees ‘round here. Tokyo lights. Really, I think I’m better off with them. It’s easier to binge movies—”
“...The beach.”
Gojo barely even acknowledged he was interrupted; he felt as though the mere act revealed something about Nanami. Gojo talked. A lot. And Nanami listened. Against his will, at times, but he listened. The small act of bringing the beach up sparked curiosity on Gojo. His expectant silence asked him to continue. Nanami remained staring upwards.
“I think that’s something worth seeing, is all.”
Gojo propped himself with one elbow. “You like swimming? We could go.”
“Not particularly. I just like the sound. It’s a good background noise for other things.”
“Right ,” Gojo chuckled, not quite relating, but finding it so befitting for Nanami, he couldn’t help but smile. “Now that I think about it, I can see you quitting everything and just becoming a fisherman.”
“I like eating seafood more than I like catching it,” Nanami retorted lightheartedly. Every time he did that, Gojo felt oddly successful.
It was stupid. It felt nice. It was much too short lived.
Nanami sat back up, crumpling the bread’s plastic in his hand. “I should… get going. Sorry to leave you in such an important, life-changing event. Not that it already ended.” Gojo laughed again, unable to stop him this time.
“Nanami,” He spoke only when he reached the door. “Let’s go to the beach sometime.”
With the way the months seemed to pass, Nanami had started to feel he might as well have lived a lifetime here already. His fourth and last year was relatively uneventful. The groups formed after him provided only enough noise to make the place seem inhabited, but things were missing. Shoko, for one, though she predicted to get her degree sooner than expected (he decided to skip asking the logistics behind it), and Gojo resembled a spark of electricity bolting around, as hard to catch as always. Even his underclassman Ijichi spent too much time cooped up, tasked with investigating obscure details for missions.
After every class, every task, every exorcism, there was no doubt in his mind that he would leave.
He would get a part time job, perhaps consider a real academic environment, and, above all, take care of his mother. And maybe Nanami would feel fulfilled that way, even if the life purpose he once thought he had ended up buried. It was either that, or his friends, or himself.
Fearing lighthouses had always seemed strange to Nanami.
Regardless of how he felt, he couldn’t deny there was something eerie about its flickering light, the same lighthouse he had come to before with Geto, and now, Gojo. He couldn’t be sure Gojo knew this was the exact lighthouse, but he wasn’t about to be the one to tell him. Instead, while finishing the curtain, he opted for saying:
“...I don’t understand why they asked you to tag along. It’s hardly a second grade spirit.”
“Oh, they didn’t. I snuck here.” He spoke through munching on some bright colored candy, walking a few steps ahead. Nanami sighed. Ah, of course. “Do you mind if I get this over with? I only came here to take a breather. Seriously, it’s like you’re a favorite back at the school, getting these kinds of missions.”
Not at all, Nanami thought, but he had always loved the sea. “...Knock yourself out, then. The more you hurry, the faster I can undo the curtain to watch. We’re expected to be back in two hours, and the way back already takes up one.”
Gojo’s eyes lit up behind his shades. “Stay here and count the seconds in your head.” Nanami watched him saunter off inside the lighthouse.
He counted his steps instead, and sat down near the cliff’s edge, only darkness ahead of him, though still able to hear the sea. Behind him, he could sense an output of energy that made the perimeter tremble. Even the sea quieted once Gojo slammed the door open, not a scratch in sight, no adrenaline rushing. Child’s play through and through. His long legs carried him towards Nanami, who had started to undo the curtain as soon as he heard him nearing. Next to Nanami, Gojo stayed standing and watched the obscurity drip down into nothingness.
With the sun hidden behind idle gray clouds, the coast seemed restless, despite no cursed spirit being there anymore.
“It’s gone now, but just watch.” Gojo said, hands in his pockets. “As long as there’s people who fear it, we’ll be right back in a couple weeks.”
Nanami made a faint sound of agreement. “I wonder how many more visits until the time I leave comes.”
Like a wave crashing on a particularly prominent rock, Gojo felt something wash over him. He felt as though he had to sit as well, but chose to stand even taller. It was true that he himself had encouraged Nanami to rethink his place here— but he still felt the weight of it. As though Gojo couldn’t keep a single thing close to him without subjecting it to the bounties atop his head.
A good, long life. He wanted Nanami to see that through, to promise that to him. Gojo couldn’t bring himself to ask Nanami to do so.
“How sad, you’re leaving the nest! They grow up so fast...”
“More like I’m going back to it.” Nanami shook his head, and Gojo expected he would look more upset. Instead, he seemed calm.
Nanami’s homecoming veiled his sense of defeat; he had overestimated himself.
For a while, it was just their silence and the waves. Gojo threw rocks as far as he could from the cliff, none making a noteworthy sound when they landed near the shore. He felt unimpressive. He felt a strange dread, and at the same time, a strange calm. Finally, he felt as though he could take off his shades, and he adjusted at the day’s brightness slowly.
It was so vast, the sea.
He imagined it blue, overbearing, and holding so many things inside, but too hard to look in. Gojo thought maybe it was on purpose, or for the best.
“I made up my mind.” Nanami said, and Gojo hoped he would leave it at that. For a while, he did, and it made Gojo understand why the sound of the waves was his favorite background sound. “I’m giving you this. ” He removed his hand from his pocket, and held it up towards Gojo.
Gojo nearly lost his balance when he saw the capsule machine reward. He recognized those awful colors. And then, he really had to sit down on the dirt.
“Oi, oi, did you hit your head on the way here? Why are you giving me this?” He breathed out.
Nanami stared off again. “I was only holding onto it for him. And it once belonged to you.”
So he took it, because Gojo understood the principle of letting go best. He had to, before, and he was doing it again now. This time, under different circumstances; there were no stakes, no execution orders, no threat to come because of it. Gojo knew, in the current state of the jujutsu world, Nanami Kento couldn’t be the detached sorcerer they had asked him to be. And he didn’t want him to die because of it, either.
Like with Haibara, Gojo had a premonition.
Nanami’s place within sorcery wouldn’t end here; rather, he doubted Nanami’s commitment to have it end here. Gojo’s body couldn’t contain that truth, couldn’t strike a balance between accepting or loathing that temporality.
Tired of thinking, tired overall, he laid his head on Nanami’s shoulder, and neither of them flinched at the contact. As touchy as he could usually be, it felt different. Heavier.
Gojo did the same on the train back, but the one who dozed off happened to be Nanami. His breathing was so quiet, Gojo constantly focused on the rise and fall of his chest to make sure he was alright.
With his powers, Gojo had the means to shorten the trip by milliseconds. And yet, the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Maybe Nanami’s simpler way of navigating life had rubbed off on him, or maybe he wanted an excuse to listen to his breathing so closely while he still could.
“Gojo-san, can I ask you a favor?”
Laying on the grass under a tree’s shade, Gojo cracked only one eye open. Nanami had come back sooner than expected from the school’s office. “Maybe. What is it?”
The diploma in Nanami’s hand was a formality. Most sorcerers had no need for it, given they remained and worked within the scene. Despite being aware of the religious guise the school put on, Nanami wondered how the school had found its way to make it legally valid. In any case, he had bigger things to worry about.
“My mother is… adamant about having a picture of me on my graduation day.”
Gojo’s lips parted as though he was about to say something, and soon after, he laughed. “Well, you asked for no ceremony, what now?”
“A picture of me holding up this is enough.” Nanami sighed, fishing out his blocky cell phone from his pocket. Gojo immediately jumped on his feet to snatch it, snapping a few test pictures of his shoes, forehead, and nostrils before focusing on a less than pleased Nanami again.
“Aaaalright , everyone get in line! You, the blonde with the dead eyes, don’t think I don’t see you glaring,” And he peeked from the small screen to stick his tongue out at Nanami, “stop slouching and show me your best smile! One, two, three!”
Nanami heard too many clicks for a single pose, and at the seventh, he went in to try and grab his phone back. Gojo clicked his tongue, and held it over his head.
“Session’s not done yet, Nanami Kento-kun,” He flipped the phone and threw a hand over Nanami’s shoulder, making him bump into his body awkwardly while trying not to crumple the diploma. “I think your mom would appreciate knowing you had some friends back in here, right?”
The worst part was, Gojo was right.
Fixing his posture and his place around Gojo’s long arm, Nanami murmured, “...Just one.”
“Yeah, yeah, smile for me, ‘kay?”
This time, there was no flurry of pictures. A single snap, and Gojo immediately busied himself reviewing it. The ugly little chuckles he let out the entire time died down slowly when he viewed the image. Nanami’s close-eyed smile was something he had never seen before, and doubted he would provoke it anytime soon again.
It seemed peaceful.
The day Nanami was set to leave, Shoko couldn’t make it. She made Gojo promise he would pat Nanami on the back for her, which he did, and to not be a prideful prick about it, which he kind of was. Well, he tried to be. Seeming unaffected was convincing for anyone except Nanami’s keen eye. And it was much easier to look into him that day, given he had set his shades in his nose bridge lower than usual.
Outside the gates, a taxi would take Nanami all the way into town again.
“Seems your hunch about him wasn’t right, Satoru,” Yaga said next to him, retrieving the puppets that had helped with Nanami’s scarce luggage.
Despite the circumstances proving him wrong, Gojo knew time would tell so he wouldn’t have to. The mere shrug he gave in response seemed to say, let’s hope so.
Gojo waved, and Nanami waved back. In a matter of seconds, the car left, and Gojo would only imagine how busier their lives would get, as Nanami tried to build himself back up, while he himself tried to tear a world down.
His cell phone buzzed. When he unlocked it, Gojo couldn’t help but sigh a laugh, scratching his head. Well, what do you know, he thought, staring at the image he had taken with Nanami a few days ago, a message written under it: Take care, Satoru.