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[If the end of the world was near]
Toji Fushiguro (then Zenin) was well aware of the blood on his hands.
It ran down his arms, a deep red stream running endlessly from seemingly nowhere. It pooled in his dry, clenched palms and seeped between his hesitant fingers. It settled in the crevices of his fingerprints, making his identity known to all.
A killer. A destroyer. A thing so steeped in rage and violence.
He was untouchable, though not literally. Someone could, in theory, hold his hand, they could smile and say sweet things to him, but they’d get nothing in return. He had to protect himself somehow, and he had to protect other people. He knew what it felt like to be the victim of someone else’s hurt, and so he didn’t want to be the cause of someone else’s. He was dangerous, volatile.
But Emi Fushiguro didn’t seem to get the message, or maybe she just chose to ignore it.
Toji wished their first encounter had been more romantic, or at least had been something worth committing to memory, but the truth was their first meeting was nothing short of ordinary. As ordinary as Toji’s life could be anyway.
He had just gotten back from ‘work’ and wanted to do nothing more than eat some hot food and go to bed, but only when he opened his fridge and saw nothing more than out-of-date milk and a mouldy orange did he remember that he, in fact, had no food left in his fridge. He then went through the kitchen cupboards, looking for something vaguely edible, but alas, he found nothing (which wasn’t a surprise. Toji was the kind of person who’d buy cooking ingredients with the intention of cooking, never actually get around to cooking, and when he finally found it within himself to cook, the ingredients were all out of date and he had to throw everything away).
Ordering take-out wasn’t an option. Right now his bank account was all but dry and he only had a couple of one-thousand yen notes in his wallet. He had to be careful with his money, so he sucked it up, put his shoes back on and headed down to the convenience store.
The convenience store was open all hours of the day and night, and for that Toji was thankful. The cashiers had come to expect late night visits from him, probably assuming he worked some kind of night shift and was picking things up on his way home. Which, in a way he did.
He opened the door to the convenience store and gave the cashier, a little old lady called Chie, a small nod before making a beeline for the instant ramen that, at this point, he was sure Chie stocked just for him, because no one else seemed to want it.
Something about that rang familiar with Toji.
He had been stood by the instant ramen shelves for a while, (debating whether to buy the chicken flavoured pot or the spicy chicken flavoured pot) when he heard the bell above the store door ring and someone walk in. It was unusual for someone else to visit the convenience store at the same time as him, but he didn’t pay it much mind. He went back to his ramen-browsing almost as soon as he had noticed the quiet ding.
He was interrupted once again a couple of minutes later by a quiet voice saying to him, ‘can you move please?’.
At first Toji thought he had heard something, but then he looked to his right and a woman stood next to him, with bloodshot eyes and a tired look on her face. Her hair was black and cut to the nape of her neck in a haphazard, impulsive sort of way, and right now it was jutting out messily in all directions. She had definitely just gotten out of bed because she was also wearing a pair of grey stained pyjamas with an oversized black hoodie thrown over the top and a pair of dirtied slippers on her feet. She may have also been wearing a pair of brightly coloured dinosaur socks, but he couldn’t quite tell.
“Can you move. Please?” She repeated. The tone in her voice had changed, (Toji had learnt growing up that tone of voice was important. It could indicate whether someone was about to hit you or not.) but Toji couldn’t tell whether she was about to yell at him or was about to cry.
“Yeah.” He replied. “Sorry.”
He shuffled a couple of steps to the left. The woman moved forward and began browsing the instant ramen as well. Every now and again he’d noticed that she was watching him, and when he looked at her too she’d look away, with a light dashing of pink on her cheeks.
It made him smile, because while he was used to getting stared at, something about this woman, here and now, felt different. He couldn’t explain it.
“What brings you here at two am?” She eventually asked him, picking up a pot of pork-flavoured ramen.
“Night shift.” He said, the lie he always told (for some reason it hurt to tell). “You?”
She smiled painfully. “Bad breakup. I was hungry, couldn’t be bothered to cook.”
“Ouch. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s fine. The guy was a douchebag anyway, I can’t believe I stuck around that long.” Then, she panicked. “Sorry! I’m over-sharing, you didn’t need to know that.”
“It’s fine.” Toji replied, finally settling on the spicy-chicken. “I don’t really get to talk to people. It’s nice.”
“Because of your night shifts?”
“Yeah.” He lied. They were only a couple of minutes into their conversation and Toji had already lied twice. “That, and being estranged from my family.” The corners of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Guess we’ve both overshared, huh?”
She smiled, and they both started heading towards the cash register together. It was a pure coincidence, but Toji didn’t mind. And the woman didn’t seem to either. Chie was giving him a scheming grin.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” She began. “What’s your name?”
“Toji Zenin. I know we’ve just met but please call me Toji, I don’t really like my surname.”
“The estranged family thing?”
He frowned. “Yeah. And what about you? What’s your name?”
“Emi Fushiguro. I suppose to make it fair Toji, you should call me Emi. I don’t mind.”
Toji put his ramen down on the counter and got one of his one-thousand yen notes out of his back pocket. He handed it to Chie, who was still grinning at him in a way only old ladies could.
“I hope you get over your breakup soon, Emi.” Toji said, pocketing the change. “Don’t waste your time on douchebags.”
Emi nodded, looking him dead in the eye as he went to leave the store. “I won’t.” She said. “See you around, Toji.”
See you around?
[Where would you choose to be?]
Toji had seen Emi around. Many times after their late night/early morning encounter at the convenience store.
He hadn’t realised that she had always been in his periphery. She lived in his apartment building; they always saw each other in the lobby and whenever she saw him she always gave him a kind, soft smile that he made an effort to commit to memory, because no one had ever smiled at him like that, or even looked at him like that. With kindness. With love.
They saw each other in the street sometimes, when Toji had ‘days off’. She always made an effort to talk to him, to remind him that he wasn’t the closed off, cold, untouchable monster he always pretended to be. Though she did this unknowingly; it was like in Emi’s presence he felt safe, protected, maybe even loved.
Toji Zenin can’t be loved.
He had been out walking one day (in his down time, there was nothing more for him to do. He’d just walk around town with no goal in mind, no destination, just to waste time.), and was just about to head back to his apartment when he next ran into Emi.
Toji spotted her first. She was sat in an armchair in the lobby of their shared apartment building with a despondent look on her face; her choppy hair was slightly longer than it had been the first time they met, though she seemed reluctant to let it grow any longer than her shoulders.
He was going to just walk straight past, not acknowledge her in the slightest (because truth be told, Toji Zenin didn’t really know how to start a conversation), but then she spotted him and her face lit up like a Christmas tree. No one had ever looked at Toji like that before, with want. She jumped up from her seat and ran over to him.
“Toji!” She exclaimed. “I’m so glad I caught you!”
“You are?”
“Yes! I’ve been waiting for you for ages!”
Have I missed something?, he thought.
“You see,” she scratched her head awkwardly, “I locked myself out of my apartment and the landlord won’t get here until tonight, so I was wondering if you’d let me crash in your apartment for a bit?”
He was about to roll his eyes, but then she looked at him all wide-eyed, with her long eyelashes and big green eyes and Toji just couldn’t refuse. And when she paired that with a “pretty please?”, there was no way in hell he could say no.
“Fine.” He said, gesturing for her to follow him to the elevator. “Come on then.”
She smiled again, brighter than he sun, and his chest felt tight. He felt like he was a having a heart attack; only, he knew he wasn’t. He knew full well what the feeling in his chest was.
Emi followed him to the elevator and she watched Toji as he pressed the button to the seventh floor.
“The seventh floor huh?” She mumbled to herself. “I live on the eighth.”
“Really?” He said, with a certain degree of surprise. “How come we haven’t run into each other before?”
Emi shrugged, as the elevator continued to ascend. “Dunno, I’ve definitely seen you around though. You’re a hard guy to miss.”
Toji looked away. He didn’t want to have to admit that he was blushing.
“I never had the courage to talk to you before. You always looked so... big and scary.” She laughed. “Now I know you’re just a big softie.”
She elbowed him in the side jovially and Toji felt his heart explode.
Toji didn’t know what to say in reply, and so he was thankful when the elevator doors opened. They stepped out together, Emi slightly behind him, and they headed towards Toji’s apartment.
It was the last door at the end of the hall. Toji couldn’t actually remember the number, he just knew his apartment was on the seventh floor and was at the right end of the corridor, next to the fire escape. He took his keys out of his back pocket and stepped inside, making sure to hold the door open for Emi.
She smiled in thanks (god, she smiled a lot) and followed him in.
The apartment was decorated sparsely. It had few things in it that made it feel like home, or a home. Everything in it now was there when he moved in heaven knows how long ago, he only brought the cutlery, crockery and himself.
He could tell she was judging the sparsity of the place and so he decided to interject before she turned and ran (just like everyone else did).
“I was going to make some dinner,” he said, heading over to the fridge. “do you...” (the weight of what he was asking her hit him as the words left his mouth) “do you want to stay and eat with me?”
“Is it not instant ramen tonight?” Emi replied, taking in the space.
Toji smiled. He felt he could smile around her. “No, it’s cold soba. Nothing complicated.”
“It’s okay.” She took a quiet seat at the table. “I would’ve been happy with instant ramen. I’m the one intruding on your space.”
“You’re not intruding.” He replied quietly, though evidently, not quiet enough, because out of the corner of his eye he saw Emi shift in her seat. “I like you. Your company, I mean. It’s nice.”
“You don’t get to talk to a lot of people.” Emi said. “You said so in the convenience store, because of your night shifts and the... family thing.”
Toji nodded. “Yeah. The family thing.”
Emi didn’t pry further, which he appreciated. He didn’t want to talk about it any more.
“I like you too, by the way. And your company.”
Toji paused for a second, he could feel Emi’s eyes on his back. “Thanks.”
She grinned. “No problem Toji.”
Ten quiet minutes later, Toji set down a bowl of cold soba in front of Emi and set one down for himself opposite. She nodded in thanks and waited for Toji to sit down before beginning to eat.
“Thanks for this Toji, seriously.” Emi said, after taking her first mouthful. “You didn’t have to do this, you didn’t have to cook for me. So seriously, thank you.”
Toji felt his cheeks warm. He looked down at his bowl of soba. “I said that I liked you didn’t I? I don’t mind. I... I enjoy spending time with you. I hope we can do this more often.” He gestured to their bowls.
A wide smile crept across Emi’s face and all of a sudden Toji felt like he had said too much.
“I hope we can do this more often too.” She said. “In fact, you should let me return the favour.”
“Return the favour?”
“Yeah! Come to my place for dinner sometime. I’ll cook for you, I swear I can, and we can have a nice meal together, so I can say thanks for all of this.” She too gestured to their bowls of soba.
“It isn’t much, I don’t need to repaid.”
“You might not need to be repaid Toji, but I want to repay you. You’ve shown me kindness, let me show you some back.”
He thought for a moment, refusing to look Emi in the eye. No one had ever invited him to dinner before, no one had ever told him he was kind, no one had ever cared enough to give back to him what he gave. He didn’t want to cry in front of her over something so simple, but he felt like he was going to.
“Sure.” He said quietly, nearly mumbling. “I’ll check my schedule.”
“Great!” She exclaimed. “It’s a date!”
Toji choked on his soba.
[If there was five more minutes of air]
She eventually returned the favour, on a nondescript Thursday evening. And then he returned another one, on another nondescript Thursday evening. In fact, they returned the favour over and over and over again until it felt wrong to eat dinner alone.
They didn’t eat together every night of the week, sometimes they wouldn’t each other for weeks at a time, and sometimes they didn’t cook. Sometimes they’d just sit on Toji’s couch together, eating pots of instant ramen (bought from the same convenience store in which they met) whilst binge-watching some shitty TV show. Sometimes they didn’t eat, sometimes they just sat and talked. Sometimes, they didn’t talk.
Emi had become his safe space; she was where he felt at ease, at home. She represented the love he’d never felt, the smiles he’d never had, the compliments he’d never heard. The security he’d never felt.
The next time he saw Emi, it was a Tuesday.
They had planned to eat together that evening at Toji’s place and he was going through his cupboards methodically, making sure he had all the appropriate ingredients, when, at midday, he heard a knock at the door. On the other side stood Emi.
“Hi.” She said.
“Hi.” Toji replied. “You’re early.”
“I am, aren't I?” She rolled awkwardly on the balls of her feet. “Do you mind?”
“No! I just... you said you had shit you needed to do before you came over. I was expecting you at six.”
“Yeah, I did, but I’ve done it now. I was...” She looked to the floor, intertwining her fingers, before looking back up. “I was wondering if you wanted to go on a walk. Together. Through the park or something. I was wondering if you wanted to hang out?”
“You want to go for a walk?”
Emi nodded.
“In February? It’s freezing outside.”
“I know, but I thought it would be nice to... you know... do something nice together. Something nice other than eating of course, not that I don’t like I eating with you! I just thought it would be fun to do something different.” She looked to the floor again, and for a minute Toji thought something was wrong. “It’s fine if you don’t want to! I get it! It’s cool.”
Toji rolled his eyes with feigned reluctance, before looking back at the cooking ingredients he had set out on the kitchen counter and then back to Emi, all wrapped up nice and warm in her big coat and woolly hat. She had a knitted scarf on too, probably made by Chie (he had one that looked exactly the same, only longer). She was wearing fingerless gloves and had a lightly packed backpack on her back, clearly hoping that Toji would say yes.
And how could Toji say no?
“Let me grab my coat.” He said, slightly closing the door so he could grab it from it’s hook on the back of the door.
“Great!” She smiled. “I was thinking the nearby park, the one with the pond?”
Toji pulled his arms through the coat sleeves. “The one with the pond? It’ll be frozen over.”
“I know!” She insisted. “It’s just a pretty place to walk, it’ll be nice.”
He nodded in agreement. He already knew it was a nice place to walk, he’d go on walks there by himself sometimes when he needed to clear his head and get away from it all without doing anything drastic like skipping town. It was peaceful, calming, in direct contrast with the rest of Toji’s life.
Apart from Emi of course. She was his only constant, his only lifeline to the shore when he went too far out. She was lighthouse that reminded him where home was.
Toji put his coat on and zipped it up tight before stepping out of the apartment and closing the door behind him. He then locked the door (which these days had a keychain on it) and followed Emi to the elevator.
“So,” Toji began, as the elevator descended. “you wanted to go on a walk?”
Emi nodded, enthusiastically yet nervously.
“Why? I don’t mind, I was just wondering.”
She looked up at him with an unreadable expression on her face. “Do you not know what day it is?”
“No?”
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” She shook her head, albeit with a smile on her face. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Toji frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see.”
Toji didn’t like the ominous tone in her voice. It made him uncomfortable, suspicious. He knew Emi had no malicious intent, there wasn’t a malicious bone in her whole damn body, but nevertheless, he was on edge the rest of the elevator ride.
By the time they stepped into the street it was snowing. It was only light, and there was only a thin layer of it on the ground, but it still managed to settle Toji’s nerves somewhat. It looked ethereal, magical.
Our world doesn’t deserve this, he thought. It’s too good, too pure.
I don’t deserve this.
I don’t deserve her.
He’d never been allowed to play in the snow as a child, his father always told him ‘look but don’t touch’. One time, he managed to sneak outside and he could still remember (god who knows how many years later) how soft it felt against his hands, how cold it felt against the soles of his feet. He could also remember the beating he received from his father once he had been found outside.
Toji didn’t dare do it again.
The streets were full of people, couples to be specific, strolling through the streets hand in hand. Toji could tell Emi wanted to take his hand but was too nervous to. Every now and again she’d look at him, her cheeks tinged pink, with more affection in her eyes than he was comfortable with. Her hand would move towards his, but before he could reciprocate she would stuff her hand into her coat pocket and pretend it never happened.
They reached the park not long after they left the apartment building, and Toji’s nerved calmed when he noticed it was nearly empty. He had never felt particularly comfortable in crowds, his parents had instilled him the idea that it was better to be neither seen nor heard, and it was an idea he was yet to grow out of.
The park’s park was laced with tall, arching trees, still bare of leaves. There were a few ponds which weren’t frozen over (despite the weather) and a few benches dotted along the path. Toji knew further into the park there a simple fountain and a small children’s playground. In the summer it would be green, busy and full of life, both plant and human.
The park felt like a safe space for Toji. It was quiet, serene, beautiful.
Emi was similar, though she wasn’t quiet. But then again, Toji wouldn’t want her to be. He liked - no, loved - Emi just as she was, and good Lord he hoped Emi loved him as he was. Too many people loved him in parts and sections and portions that he didn’t know what it felt like to be loved as a whole. A whole, valuable, lovable human being.
They walked for a while, until Emi decided to pause underneath a blossomless cherry blossom tree. She looked around, seemingly scanning the area for other people, before nodding and saying to herself, “This’ll do”.
She looked up a Toji with a nervous expression on her face. “You’re just going to have to imagine there are cherry blossoms.” She pointed to the tree.
“I don’t mind.” Toji replied. “I think it looks fine without them.”
Emi smiled. “Of course you do.”
She removed her backpack from her back and placed in on the ground before opening it and reaching in. Toji watched with intrigue as she rooted around and muttered things to herself before pulling out a red rectangular box a couple of minutes later. He also noted a deeper red ribbon on the top left corner.
“These…” She said with hesitation, holding the box with both hands. “I made them. For you.” She held them out to him.
Toji looked at the box in fascination, but when he noticed Emi’s expression beginning to waver he took it from her hands, not wanting to upset her.
“Chocolates?” He questioned. “Thank you.”
Emi shook her head and sighed as she watched the look on Toji’s face with frustration. “You still haven’t connected the dots have you?”
His brows furrowed. “Dots?”
“Fucking hell Toji.” She muttered under her breath. “It’s Valentine’s Day you moron! I made those for you for Valentine’s Day!”
“Oh.” He replied. “Oh.”
“Yeah ‘oh’!” Emi smiled, beginning to laugh. “You didn’t see all the decorations? The Valentine’s Day sales? The rom-com reruns on TV?”
He paused. “I’ve…I’ve never celebrated Valentine’s Day.”
This time it was Emi’s turn to say ‘oh’. “The estranged family thing?”
“Yeah.” Toji nodded. “The estranged family thing.”
Emi stepped towards Toji and wrapped her arms tightly around him. For a minute, he just stood there, arms by his side, unknowing of how to respond. No one really hugged Toji, it just wasn’t the done thing. As a child, he was too unloved to be hugged, and as an adult he was too scary. Too big and too cold.
Emi hugged him like her life depended on it, like he’d disappear if she ever let go. It was warm, just like she was, and eventually he fell into it. He soften and wrapped his arms around her, chocolate box still in hand, and stood there with her for what felt like forever.
“For a second there I thought you weren’t going to hug me back.” She laughed, her head still resting on Toji’s chest, her ear right up against his beating heart. “I thought I was going to have to teach you how to hug.”
“I figured it out eventually.” He replied. “Took me a minute though.”
She laughed again, before slowly pulling herself away. She turned her head, looking to the empty cherry blossom tree and the frozen-over pond before turning back to Toji with a determined look in her eyes.
“I like you Toji.” She began. “I like you a lot. There are probably a million-and-one better ways I could say that” she laughed. “but it’s probably the easiest way to say it. I. Like. You, Toji.”
“I like you to.” Toji replied, without hesitation. “I like you too, I’ve just…never known how to say it.” He smiled a rare smile. “I’m glad you said it first.”
Emi smiled, letting out a sigh of relief. “I was scared you’d brush me off. I thought you’d say you didn’t like me back.”
“I do like you back.”
She nodded, before continuing a couple of moments later. “Would you…would you like to go on a date sometime? I haven’t really thought of when or when, but I was wondering if you’d like to, like, go out to eat or something? I know you don’t really like fancy things, but maybe it’ll be nice to have to cook for a change.”
Toji thought about it for a minute, before nodding (he then wondered why he even thought about it. He didn’t need too).
“Yeah.” He said. “That sounds nice.”
[Would you panic and hide?]
They did go on a date.
A couple of weeks after their walk in the park, they ended up going out to this small, family-owned restaurant tucked away from prying eyes. They both preferred it to a big, fancy place; it felt more intimate, more personal and more them.
They ended up going on many dates over the course of the next few years. Of course they kept eating together in their apartments (this eventually developed into cooking together, which was more of a disaster than Toji had expected, but he didn’t mind), but every now again they’d go out to eat. Usually once a month, sometimes more if something special was happening, like a birthday or something of the like.
They ended up having their first kiss outside of that same family-owned restaurant sometime in August. It was cold outside, but not too cold; Emi was wearing a wool coat and he remembered her tasting like green tea.
She had made the move first, as she always ended up doing during their relationship. She was looking at him, and her was looking at her, and before Toji really knew it her lips were on his. He didn’t mind of course, he had wanted to kiss her for a while but had never found the confidence within him to do so. He was glad Emi had more confidence than he did; if she had relied on him to make the first move, he doubted their relationship would’ve happened at all.
After that, whenever Toji went to the convenience store down his street, Chie would always watch him with that all-knowing look in her eye that only old women possessed. It was like she knew all of his secrets, and was torturing him with them through deep and taunting stares.
Sometimes she’d ask him about Emi, how she was, how they were, and Toji would find himself lost for words. They were a ‘they’ now, weren’t they? They were a collective, a pair, a couple. It was Toji and Emi now, not just Toji and not just Emi. They came together, a 2 for 1 if you will.
Toji didn’t know how he felt about that. Of course he liked it; he liked having someone by his side, someone to fight his corner, but a relationship required balance. It required honesty and truthfulness and trust, and Toji had never put his trust in someone else before, he had never been able to and he wasn’t sure how to do it.
But he loved Emi. He loved Emi and was determined to figure out how.
Outside of work, outside of Toji’s ‘night shifts’, they spent a lot of time together. More than they did before, and in doing that they learnt more about each other. For example, Toji learnt that Emi had a younger sister called Kiyoko and an older brother called Seiji, she was from Okayama and moved to Tokyo for work (she doesn’t get to see her family very often because of this). She also moved into their apartment building around three years prior to when they met, which (coincidentally) was when Toji moved in as well.
Toji found it difficult to open to Emi, but she was patient. She didn’t force him to say anything, she didn’t resent him for not talking openly with her; in fact, she told him to ‘take your time. You’ll tell me when you’re ready to.’; and she was right. He eventually worked up the courage to tell her about his family, about the abuse he suffered and how they used to berate him for not being good enough (he didn’t tell her about curses and cursed energy. That was a whole other can of worms he wasn’t ready to open yet).
Emi would sit and listen to him talk, and even hold him when talking was too much. Sometimes they didn’t need to talk, sometimes all they needed was each other. She was there for him in a way no one had ever been before, and her loved her for it. Her loved her so fucking much, there weren’t enough words in the world to describe his love for her.
Which is why Toji decided he’d be the one to propose.
Emi had been the one to initiate everything in their relationship thus far: she had initiated their first conversation (even if it was only to ask him to move), she had begun their tradition of eating together by locking herself out of her apartment (it wasn’t on purpose but it had started something), she had initiated their relationship by giving him chocolates (they were good. He ate them all that night and then regretted it immediately.) and she had initiated their first kiss. Now, he wanted to do something for her.
He didn’t have the money for a fancy ring, he didn’t have the family to follow proper tradition and he didn’t know how he’d ever pay for a wedding, but Emi wasn’t a woman who much cared for that sort of thing. She just needed him, god knows why; Toji wasn’t really in the business of being needed.
Buying the ring itself wasn’t much hassle. Emi didn’t like gaudy jewelry and so he bought a simple silver band with a small gemstone encrusted in the top. He kept it in a black velvet box and it sat in his back pocket for months, as he worked up the courage to actually propose.
Toji kept thinking about what would happen if she said no. It would almost certainly be too awkward to hang out, they’d probably break up, Toji would lose the only person he’d ever loved and he’d probably have to move out of his apartment because seeing her every day would hurt too much.
Stop it, Toji told himself. If he always lived in fear of the worst-case scenario then he’d never do anything. He just had to rip off the band-aid and live with the consequences, but he didn’t really know how to do that. All Toji had known prior to now was running.
He didn’t want to run anymore.
He was fucking sick of running. He was fucking sick of having nothing (no one) to go home to. He wanted to come home to Emi, he wanted Emi to come home to him. He wanted to be happy, and Emi made him so.
The day he finally decided to propose, they were sitting in the same park they’d walked through on Valentine’s Day, eating a picnic they had put together. It was late spring, so the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, the pond water was rippling and there were children running around in the playpark (their parents were running after them, making sure they didn’t hurt themselves. It made Toji smile).
They were sat on a red and white checkered blanket near the base of a cherry blossom tree. Toji had protested somewhat to sitting beneath the tree because he thought the blossoms would fall in the food, but Emi had decided there was no better place. And, as she had said, ‘It’s roasting hot Toji, you’ll get sunburn’.
They had been sat there for a while, slowing eating away at the food they had made (they had both contributed to the picnic, making a couple of dishes each before putting them in a little bag and heading down to the park) and making small talk when Emi put her head on his shoulder and sighed contently.
“Have you ever thought about having kids Toji?”
Toji choked on his food. “What?”
She looked up at him with her deep, ocean-blue eyes. “Have you ever thought about having kids? Your own family.”
He had thought about it, admittedly. Emi had made him think about it, when he’d first thought about proposing. Would he want kids? Would he want a family? Would he want to be a father?
Truth be told, he did. He wanted to have the family that he never had, he wanted to be the father he never had, but he was scared. Children were soft, and delicate, Toji was neither. Children were reliant upon their parents for everything, and before Emi came along, he barely knew how to look after himself, let along anyone else.
But now that Emi was here, maybe it would be better. He wouldn’t be alone, and every parent says they had to figure it all out as they went. Maybe…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if Emi was with him.
“Hey.” She said quietly, placing her hand on his forearm. “Hey Toji, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked you that, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” Toji replied, bringing her hand to mouth and giving it a soft kiss. “I was just thinking about it.”
She toed the line. “And? I don’t want to push you to answer or anything! It’s just, seeing all these kids running around…it just got me thinking.”
“Same.” He smiled, before continuing. “I do want a family, but I’m scared. Scared of what kind of parent I’d be.”
“Is this because of your family, isn’t it?” She asked, quietly. “You don’t want to be like them.”
Toji didn’t say anything, but that was all the confirmation she needed. Emi reached out slowly, asking for permission, before wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tight.
“You won’t be like them – you’re not like them. You’re loving, you’re kind, you’re warm. You might look all big and tough on the outside, but on the inside you’re soft, you’re emotional and gentle, and that’s okay. You’re not like your family Toji Fushiguro, you’re not, no matter how much you think you are.”
Wait–
“Fushiguro?”
“Yeah,” She reached into her back pocket. “if you want to be.”
Toji burst out into laughter, shocking the birds from the trees and stunning Emi into silence.
“What’s so funny?” She asked, smiling, with a hint of nervousness behind her eyes.
Toji continued to giggle as he pulled the black velvet box out of his back pocket and placed it on the picnic blanket, right next to the black velvet box that Emi had put down.
“I guess we were on the same page, huh?” He said, grinning. He didn’t feel so nervous anymore because clearly, they had been thinking the same thing.
Emi looked between Toji and the two boxes on the blanket and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing. She put her hand to her chest and threw her head back in amusement, unable to stop herself. A couple of minutes later, she stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“I was so worried about what you were going to say.” She smiled. “I thought you’d say no.”
“Why would I say no?”
She shrugged. “I thought that maybe you’d think marriage would be too much of a commitment. I thought maybe I’d end up scaring you off.”
“I thought that too.” Toji admitted. “I used to think marriage wasn’t for me, I didn’t think anyone could love me in that way. I didn’t think anyone would want to marry me.” He looked to the sky. There were tears in his eyes. “And then I met you, and my whole perspective changed. I thought maybe she loves me, maybe she would want to marry me. Maybe, I won’t have to spend forever alone.”
Emi’s smile was warm and loving as she handed over her box to him. She placed it in the palm of his rough hand and placed her own hand over the top, encasing it.
“Well,” she began. “if your answer is ‘yes’, then you won’t be.”
Toji picked up his box with his free hand and did the same. He placed it in Emi’s soft hand and placed his over the top.
“Likewise.” He said.
She nodded. He nodded too.
Emi removed her hand from Toji’s and carefully opened the box to reveal a simple silver band with a deep blue Tanzanite stone (his birthstone) encrusted in the top. He held out his right hand and allowed Emi to slide the ring onto his ring finger. It was the most intimate they’d ever been.
Toji removed his hand from Emi’s and carefully opened his box to reveal a similar looking ring (clearly they had similar tastes). The ring was also simple and silver, thinner than Toji’s, with an Opal (her birthstone) encrusted in the centre. She then held out her left hand and allowed for Toji to slide the ring onto her hand. She held her hand to the sky and admired it.
“It’s beautiful.” She said, breathlessly. “I love it.”
Toji blushed. “It didn’t cost much, but I thought it was perfect for you.”
Emi turned her head and looked at him with an alarming amount of affection in her eyes. From her expression alone, Toji knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
“It is perfect. Thank you.”
[Or run for your life?]
Toji and Emi’s wedding was a simple affair.
It was held nearly a year after they got engaged, in a small shrine near Okayama (at the request of Emi’s family, who all lived in the nearby area. Toji didn’t mind.). There weren’t many people in attendance, just Toji himself, Emi, her parents and siblings and a couple of other relatives and friends. No one from Toji’s side came, because he didn’t bother to tell them. It’s not like they would’ve come had he told them.
Maybe they would have, just to ruin the day.
Emi’s family was nice. Her mother, Ai Fushiguro, took to him very quickly; she began treating him like her own almost immediately despite having not met him prior to their wedding day. Her father, Hiroshi, seemed more hesitant. He was polite sure, courteous and calm, but Toji could tell Hiroshi was watching him like a hawk, ready to pounce on him the moment he fucked up. He warmed up to him eventually, but it took a couple of months and Emi constantly insisting that he was good guy. Her siblings were similar, hesitant at first but they warmed up to him eventually.
At Ai’s behest, they took wedding photos. She said she wanted to put them up in her house, and she wanted Toji and Emi to put some up in their new apartment too, as a reminder of their family, since they were so far away.
Toji had teared up when she said that, ‘a reminder of their family’. He’d never had that before, a family who cared if he missed them. He’d never had a family who cared (well, his family did care. They just cared about the wrong things, like whether he had cursed energy or not).
The wedding photos ended being the first things they put up in their new apartment; one of the whole family by the front door and one of the two of them in the main room. Sometimes, whenever Toji arrived back at the apartment, he’d catch a glance of the photograph hanging by the door and remember that he wasn’t alone anymore. Emi was there, and he was there, and it felt like a home, with all of its clutter, furniture and things. Toji had never had so many things before, so many useless trinkets and bits. Toji theorised that the clutter made the apartment feel like a home.
They had moved a decent distance away from their old building, but every now and again they’d make the effort to hop on the train and head on over to the convenience store in which they met, just to keep Chie up-to-date, because otherwise she’d figure out where they live and hound them for information.
She insisted that she saw their future together the moment Emi walked into the convenience store. ‘I just knew it. I knew it from the moment I saw you stood together by the instant noodles’, she said.
Toji shook his head in reply, but his face was bright with a smile (he had smiled so much in the past six months it was almost unbelievable).
They very quickly fell into a disgustingly domestic routine that past-Toji would scoff at. Emi worked day shifts during the week, and so Toji would cook meals and look after the house, unless he was ‘working night shifts’ (Emi still hadn’t asked him about what he actually did during his night shifts, and at this point, he hoped she never asked). They always had dinner together no matter what, on the weekends they would go on walks together or watch TV if the weather was bad, and if they needed to go they would go grocery shopping together. They functioned as a unit; they were two halves of the same whole that couldn’t exist without the other.
“Hey, Toji.” Emi said one night, her voice laced with sleep with her head resting on Toji’s chest. They were laying in bed together, moonlight sneaking through the curtains.
“Yeah?” He hummed, half-asleep himself.
“Do you remember what you said about having kids, the day we got engaged?”
Toji thought for a moment, and then nodded. “That I wanted kids? Yeah, I remember.”
“You said you were scared. Are you still scared?” Her voice was quiet, tired (because they were both about to fall asleep) but thoughtful.
“I think I’ll always be scared, scared of getting it wrong or not being a good dad, but I won’t be doing it alone will I? You’ll be there, we’ll be figuring it out together.”
“Yeah,” She smiled. “we will.”
Toji raised an eyebrow at her. “Will we?”
“Yeah,” She repeated, looking up at him. “we will.”
Toji didn’t know what to say at first. He didn’t know if he’d interpreted Emi’s words correctly or not, but the way she was looking at him (with wide eyes and a happy expression) told him he was right. Is she…?
“Are you pregnant?” He asked hesitantly, the words barely coming out of his mouth.
Emi’s soft smile turned into a wide, cheek-to-cheek grin and she nodded enthusiastically, as if all of her dreams had just come true. “I wanted to wait until I knew for sure, I didn’t want to give you any false hope.”
“When did you know for sure?”
“A couple of days ago, I didn’t know how to tell you. I knew you’d be happy about it, but I still worried. I didn’t know if you were just saying you wanted kids for my sake.”
“Well,” Toji smiled widely and kissed her on the forehead. “I am happy, very happy.”
“I’m glad.” She mumbled, snuggling closer to Toji and closing her eyes. She was about to fall sleep. “Now I just need to tell my family.”
[Or stand here and spend it with me?]
Megumi Fushiguro was born on the 22nd of December 2003, at 11:53pm in a nondescript hospital in Tokyo, a day before his due date (which turned out to be befitting of Megumi’s personality: always early, never late).
Megumi was delicate little thing when he first arrived, tiny and soft compared to Toji’s large, rough hands. When Toji picked him up for the first time, he was scared he’d break him. Emi assured him that he wouldn’t.
Emi had been at home with her sister Kiyoko when she went into labour, and Toji had been a few hours away ‘working’ when Kiyoko had called him to let him know. Toji dropped everything, much to the disdain of his client (when Toji explained to him that his wife was in labour, he told him to ‘fuckin’ go, don’t miss the birth of your fuckin’ kid.’), and raced to the hospital, where he managed to catch Megumi’s birth.
Initially, the name Megumi was a joke. In terms of being a boy’s name anyway. Emi had suggested it if the baby were a girl (they wanted the gender to be surprise. It didn’t much matter to either of them), but they struggled to come up with a boy’s name they both liked. Toji one day suggested, ‘why don’t we just call the baby Megumi, no matter the gender? It’s a nice name’. He had said it in jest, but Emi had taken him seriously and latched onto the name Megumi regardless of the baby’s gender. Toji, after a while, grew attached to the name as well.
Megumi, before he was even born, was a blessing in Toji’s life. His own little piece of heaven. And now, looking down at Megumi, with his little midnight black tuft of hair and his big innocent eyes, Toji’s thoughts were reinforced.
The birth had been relatively easy, as far as births go, which again set a precedent for Megumi as a whole. As a baby, Megumi was easy. He’d heard stories from Emi’s family about the sleepless nights, the diapers, the crying, the relentless stress of raising something so dependent; but Toji found it easy. Or rather, Megumi made it so. He slept through the night, and sure he cried, but not often. Not incessantly, and changing his diapers wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t much of a ‘wriggler’, as Ai put it, whenever she saw him (which alas, wasn’t often. A downside of living across the country, Toji supposed).
On the rare occasion Megumi did wake up in the night, Toji and Emi took turns to placating him. One night Emi would take care of him, whether that involved changing his diaper or feeding him, and then Toji would. They functioned as a partnership, they made sure of it. Two halves of a whole. Or maybe now, two thirds of a whole (Megumi being the final third).
Whenever Toji held Megumi, he felt an overwhelming desire to protect him. Whether that be from the Zenin clan, from curses or nasty kids in the playground, Toji wanted to protect him from everything that would hurt him.
This was a new kind of love that Toji had never felt before. Sure, he loved Emi and wanted to protect her too, but that was romantic love. Emi, in theory, could protect herself if need be, but Megumi was helpless. Megumi needed Toji to protect him and Toji was happy to oblige. Toji would lay down his life for Megumi, no questions asked.
Most babies start walking around a year old, but Megumi started walking at nine months, if you could call ‘haphazardly stumbling around’ walking.
Megumi did most things early. He said his first word (‘Dada’, much to Toji’s joy) at six months, and so when he walked at nine, he wasn’t too surprised. Emi had had their camcorder (she bought it so that they could watch all their memories back when they were ‘old and grey’) poised and ready for months. ‘He’ll walk soon Toji, I just know it!’.
Toji had been cooking dinner in the kitchen, as he always (always) did on Tuesdays, when he heard Emi squeal from another room. He ran to her, thinking something bad had happened, but when he arrived h saw her sitting on the floor, holding their chunky camcorder, recording Megumi as he stumbled across the living room.
“He’s walking Toji.” Emi said, her smile wide. It was the same smile she wore on their wedding day, and on their first date. “Look! I got it on video!”
Toji smiled. The same smile he wore on their wedding day, and on their first date. He could tell she was zooming in on his face.
“He’s such a good baby Toji.” She gushed. “We were blessed, weren’t we?”
“Yeah,” Toji replied, as he wanted Megumi. He had never felt so soft in his life; there were no walls around him. No barriers. “We were.”
She continued to zoom in on his face.
“Emi stop filming me.” He said.
She giggled.
“Emi, stop!”
She didn’t stop. Toji went back to the kitchen and continued to cook, shaking his head lovingly.
If his life was always this, domestic bliss, gushing over babies making odd gurgling noises and loving family dinners, then he would’ve been satisfied. Looking back, he would’ve given up the world for this, just a piece of this. To sit at a dinner table with Emi and Megumi once again, with a homecooked meal in front of them and conversations about office drama and the weather; Toji would’ve sold his soul for it.
It’s funny to think about, to want to have a conversation about the weather, but Toji wanted it. He wanted it so bad. He wanted the mundane and ordinary, he wanted the boring and uneventful. He wanted the serene and peaceful.
Teenage Toji would laugh at him if he heard this. ‘When did you get so soft?’, he’d say. ‘When did you start falling asleep at ten pm? When did you start napping on the couch? When did you start cooking? When did you decide to start dedicating your life to other people?’.
‘When I met Emi.’, he’d reply, if he could talk to his past self. ‘When I met Emi and had Megumi. When I met Chie in the convenience store, when I met Emi’s family and they welcomed me no questions asked.’.
Emi taught him what love was, and Megumi reinforced those lessons. He learnt how to hope, how to dream, how to cherish and how to soften.
But of course, in turn he learnt how to lose. He learnt what it felt like to have all that was sacred to him stolen by a thief in the night (or rather, a curse in the night). He learnt that, in truth, nothing was ever sacred. Nothing was ever safe from harm, no matter how much he tried to protect it. No matter how much he tried to protect Emi or Megumi, he could never keep them safe.
Never.
[If we had five more minutes]
Toji should’ve known something bad would happen the moment he looked at his family and thought ‘I am happy’, because Toji Fushiguro isn’t allowed to have nice things.
He had Emi, he had Megumi. He didn’t need anything more and he didn’t think he could survive with anything less. They were the pillars keeping him together, the mortar between the bricks; without one of them, the whole house would come crashing down.
And it did.
Everything had been damn near perfect the day Emi died. Toji, whilst he didn’t have a new job just yet, had a job interview scheduled for the next day and it looked promising (he had finally decided to leave the Jujutsu world, and by extension his hatred and grudges, behind). Emi had just gotten a promotion and they had begun to talk about moving, maybe into a house and maybe closer to Emi’s parents in Okayama. They had also toyed with the idea of having another kid, though they were yet to discuss it seriously.
Toji was sat at home with Megumi on his lap, reading through the list of mock questions Emi had given him in preparation for his job interview when the telephone rang. He calmly set Megumi down and walked over to the landline before answering.
“Is this Mr. Toji Fushiguro?” The voice at the other end of the line asked.
Toji frowned. He didn’t recognise the voice; it sounded overly soft, and pitying. “Yes. Who is this?”
“I’m Doctor Watanabe at Tokyo Takanawa Hospital. I need to speak to you regarding your wife Emi Fushiguro.”
A bad feeling settled into Toji’s bones. “Okay.”
“Are you sitting down?”
He moved to the couch. Megumi seemed to pick up on the bad feeling in the room and he waddled over to his father and latched onto his shin. “I am now, what happened?”
(Something clearly had.)
Doctor Watanabe sighed. “Your wife collapsed on her way home from work today. She is currently with us in hospital but…I’m afraid it’s not looking good.”
He swallowed the saliva that had collected in his mouth. “What…what happened? Do you know why she collapsed? What can you do?”
“I assure you Mr. Fushiguro, we are doing all we can to help your wife, but why she collapsed is unclear. We are working to figure out why so we can best help her, but I recommend coming down to the hospital just in case, so you can be with her.”
Toji’s ears began to ring, he felt sweat begin to trickle down his back and he felt his feet and fingers go numb. He nearly dropped the telephone. All of a sudden, his mouth felt both wet and dry at the same time. There were tears collecting in the corners of his eyes.
He didn’t want to lose her. He couldn’t.
He looked down to Megumi, who was looking back at him with his wide, innocent green eyes, with Emi’s green eyes. Megumi knew something was wrong, he had this quizzical look on his face that Toji didn’t know two-year-olds could make. Had the situation been different, Toji would’ve whipped out the camcorder, filmed him, and laughed.
“…Mr. Fushiguro?”
Toji blinked to life. “Sorry, what?”
“It’s okay,” Doctor Watanabe said, in a softer tone than before. “This is difficult to process, I understand. I was asking if we should be expecting you?”
“Yes.” Toji jumped to his feet. “God yes, I’ll be there soon.”
He slammed the telephone back into the receiver, shoved his feet into his shoes and grabbed Megumi, who squealed in excitement, having been swung around so intensely. Toji grabbed his keys and ran out of the apartment (his and Emi’s apartment), catching a glimpse of their wedding photograph as he went (next to it now hung a family photograph, of himself, Emi and Megumi).
Toji first left Megumi under the care of their next-door neighbour, Kurusu-san. He didn’t say anything when he dumped Megumi into his arms and ran down the corridor towards the stairs (there was no time to wait for the elevator). Soon, he was out the front door of their apartment building and hailing a taxi to take him to the hospital.
The taxi ride was torture. It was a near ten-minute journey to the hospital from the apartment, and in Tokyo rush-hour it was longer. All Toji do was sit and stare and think, no matter how much he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to think, but he couldn’t stop. Emi is hospital, Emi is dying, Emi is dying because of me-
He didn’t know that yet, he tried to convince himself. The doctor may have said it doesn’t look good, but that wasn’t a certain ‘she will die’, and there was no way to be sure she was dying because of him.
But, if his gut feeling was correct, she was.
God I should’ve said something. I should’ve told her, I should’ve been honest with her from the start. I should’ve, I should’ve, I should’ve-
“Sir? We’ve arrived.” The taxi driver said, nervously (or impatiently) tapping his thumbs on the steering wheel. Toji inferred that he had been trying to get his attention for a while.
Toji threw money at the taxi driver, definitely overpaying him, before leaping out of the car and running into the hospital, not caring if he bumped into people. He ran up to the front desk and demanded to see Emi, the receptionist told him to calm down, Toji said there was no time to calm down and eventually the woman relented and told him where to find her.
The pitying look on the receptionist’s face wasn’t missed.
When he arrived at Emi’s room on the hospital’s second floor, Doctor Watanabe was stood outside, distinguished by his white coat and name badge. He was clearly waiting for Toji and made no effort to smile. He knew a fragile smile wouldn’t things, nor would sugar-coating the details.
“Doctor, how is she?” Toji asked, breathlessly.
Doctor Watanabe looked at his clipboard and sighed. “We are still struggling to figure what happened. We have by no means given up Mr. Fushiguro, we are still running tests, but it isn’t looking good. I’m glad you got here when you did.” He placed his hand on Toji’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort him. “Just to warn you, she has been in and out of consciousness and may not be able to communicate coherently. You may see her.”
Toji swallowed, his mouth feeling uncomfortably dry again. He nodded before heading into Emi’s room, and the moment he did he began to choke.
He felt the cursed energy in the air the moment he walked in. It was suffocating, it made the air heavy and thick and near impossible to breathe in. It formed a dense air around Emi, who was laying perfectly still in the hospital bed, as if trying to swallow her. The cursed energy, wherever it was coming from, was trying to take Emi from him.
Emi was attacked by a curse.
That’s why the doctors couldn’t discern what was wrong.
Because they couldn’t see it.
Toji walked lethargically over to the bed, pulled up a chair and sat down next to Emi. He took her hand and ran his thumb over their wedding ring, which sat clean and intact on her finger. Her fingers flexed slightly before wrapping weakly around his.
“Toji…” She smiled weakly, turning her head slightly to look at him. “My love.”
Toji teared up. “Hi. How are you feeling?” He asked.
“Tired, like I haven’t slept in an age.” She laughed. Her laugh turned into a spluttering cough and Toji rushed to get her a cup of water. He held it to her lips and helped her to drink. She hummed to indicate she’d had enough (she was too weak to raise her arms).
“What happened Emi?” (He knew almost perfectly well what’d happened.)
“Don’t know.” She slurred her words. “I was…I was walking home, I’d just bought some Hanami Dango because of the cherry blossoms,” she smiled. “It’s spring and the cherry blossoms are blooming… I remember eating some with you once. I thought you’d like some.” She gasped weakly. “Toji love, I dropped the Dango. When I collapsed, I must’ve dropped them.”
Toji smiled and clasped her hand harder before shaking his head. “Never mind the Dango Emi, we can eat some together, with Megumi, another time, okay? Another time.”
“Megumi, baby Megumi.” She tried to grip Toji’s hand as hard as she could, but it was weak. “Where is he? Where’s Megumi?”
“Megumi’s with Kurusu-san, our neighbour. You know Kurusu-san.”
She nodded. “I’m glad he’s not here, I don’t want him to be upset. I want him to remember me happy.”
“Remember you happy?” Toji frowned. “Emi, what do you mean?”
“Remember,” she swallowed. “When we visited my parents in Okayama last Christmas and it started snowing?”
“Megumi had never seen snow before, you helped him build his first snowman.” Toji smiled at the thought, and then remembered where he was. What was happening, what Emi was implying.
“I want him to remember me like that.” Emi said, her words slurring more and more, until it became nearly impossible to discern what he was saying. “Happy. Then…we were happy.”
“We’re happy now Emi.” He insisted. “We’re happy.”
“Yeah,” She shuffled in her bed, her grip growing weaker. “We are.”
Emi flatlined not long after that.
The doctors did what they could but they couldn’t bring her back. They tried CPR, they tried a defibrillator, multiple times, but it didn’t work. Toji knew it wouldn’t the moment her heart stopped, because after all, you can’t save someone from what you can’t see.
Ultimately, Emi was killed by a curse, but the doctors said a heart attack, because to the average person that was more believable (and they didn’t know about curses). By extension that meant Toji killed her, didn’t it? Because he hadn’t told her about them, about curses and the Jujutsu world. He hadn’t left the Jujutsu world when he had the chance, and Emi had paid the price.
S Emi’s family arrived the next day (the hospital staff had informed Emi’s family of what had happened, since Toji was in no place to do it himself). Kurusu-san had gracefully said he’d keep an eye on Megumi for a while longer if Toji needed him to, which Toji appreciated. He needed time to comprehend what had happened before he broke the news to Megumi.
(God, he had to break the news to Megumi, didn’t he?)
They sat in silence for a long time, only exchanging lingering hugs and cups of tea, because words of condolence didn’t seem to be very comforting. They had all clearly been crying, their eyes were red and their cheeks were blotchy, but Toji found himself unable to shed a single tear.
He felt numb. There was no overwhelming sadness, there was no great outpour of anguish or emotion because Toji felt void of it. He just stared into the distance with a thousand-yard-stare, wondering why he expected anything else.
Of course the greatest love of his life would die like this: too soon and at the hands of the very thing he had been trying to run from. The world was punishing him for ever thinking he could be happy.
Why not me?, he asked himself. Why Emi? Why not me?
Why, why, why, why, why, why-
So many whys.
Emi’s funeral had taken place in the week following her death. He only truly realised she was dead when he saw her urn, made of brass and decorated with a cherry blossom pattern. Before then, it somehow still felt unreal; he still thought she’d walk through the front door at six pm, asking him what was for dinner.
But in seeing her urn, he realised she never would. And it broke him.
Ai kept Toji alive in the weeks following Emi’s death. She ensured he got out of bed, she cooked for him, she watched Megumi when his green eyes got to be too much. She was also the only one to see him cry.
He had been sat in bed, working up the courage to get up and face the day, when he rolled over and realised Emi wasn’t there, which was when he noticed the framed photograph on what used to be Emi’s bedside table. It was a photograph of them both from the time they had visited the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Mount Fuji could been seen behind them. Emi had said she wanted to climb it one day, when they more free time.
They never got around to it.
Toji cried silently until Ai came in to rouse him from his sleep. She rushed over to him and forcefully rested his head on her shoulder. He cried into her shoulder until her shirt was sodden, and after he had stopped she didn’t let go of him. She rocked him back and forth as if he were a baby, soothing him back to a coherent state of calm.
Megumi came to investigate what was wrong a few minutes later, which resulted in Toji staying in bed longer than Ai wanted him to (Megumi jumped onto his bed and snuggled up next to him, and Toji hadn’t wanted to let go). Eventually they both fell asleep again; Ai left them to it until midday, after which she insisted they get up for lunch.
After a while, Ai returned to Okayama. She left her landline number with him, as well as Kiyoko’s and Seiji’s, telling him that ‘you’re still family Toji, no matter what happens. If you need us, ever, please call. We’ll always be there for you.’
There were so many times in which he thought about calling Ai, or Kiyoko, or Seiji, when everything felt like it was becoming too much. He wondered whether Ai would be able to take care of Megumi in her old age, if Kiyoko or Seiji would be able to watch him if need be, but he always shook the idea from his mind. He had caused enough trouble for them, he had practically killed Emi, he didn’t need to go about causing them more trouble by dumping Megumi on them. He caused so much fucking trouble for everyone.
So one day, he stopped answering their calls and left the apartment with Megumi without so much as a word.
They’re not going to miss you, he told himself. You killed their daughter, their sister, they want you gone. So just go. They don’t want you bothering them, you who killed their daughter.
He kept telling himself that, even as his phone rang and buzzed incessantly in his back pocket. Repeated messages of ‘Toji?? Where are you???’ and ‘Are you okay? We haven’t heard from you in a while.’ littered his inbox, but he ignored them.
He ignored them all.
[Would I, could I]
Toji’s life had become a blur of nameless faces and meaningless encounters by the time he died.
He couldn’t even remember the name of his second wife. He thought of her more as an extension of her daughter Tsumiki then as her own person; there was nothing particularly remarkable about her, unlike Emi, who was remarkable in every possible way; she didn’t have an outstanding personality, not like Emi did, nor did she really push against him in the way Emi did.
It wouldn’t have surprised anyone that their relationship didn’t last long. Had anyone (including Toji) set foot in the new Fushiguro household, they would’ve immediately felt the tension, like the entire house was made of eggshells. No one spoke to each other, they didn’t eat dinner together and they didn’t spend time together.
Well, Toji and Tsumiki’s mother didn’t. Megumi and Tsumiki seemed to get on just fine, which only reminded Toji of what could’ve been, had Emi not died.
When they weren’t giving each other the silent treatment, they were yelling. Yelling about everything and nothing at the same time; about their relationship, about Toji’s job and his unwillingness to stay home, his reluctance to sleep in her bed. They yelled and screamed near incessantly, only stopping when Megumi and Tsumiki came home from school (the kids weren’t stupid, they knew their parents had been arguing, the heaving chests and red faces gave it away).
‘You know, I don’t think you’re over your first wife!’ [REDACTED] once yelled at him.
‘Maybe I’m not!’ He yelled back, just to spite her.
‘Then why did you marry me Toji? Why am I wasting my time here when you clearly don’t love me!’
‘I don’t fucking know! I don’t know why I’m trying either!’
‘You’re not fucking trying! If you were trying, you’d actually make it home in time for dinner!’
‘I am fucking trying! I’m trying for Megumi, who fucking deserves a mother who loves him!’
‘Megumi deserves a father who isn’t such a fucking deadbeat!’
Toji stared at her in shock, she stared at him in regret. His eyes stung with tears and hers widened the moment those words left her mouth. They stood in horrified silence for what felt like hours.
‘Toji I’m sorry-’
‘You think I’m a deadbeat?’
‘No!’
‘Then why did you say it?’
[REDACTED] shrugged. ‘I don’t know! I said it in the heat of the moment, I was angry! I shouldn’t have said it, I’m sorry.’
‘Married couples shouldn’t say the things we say to each other.’ He replied.
‘No,’ she sighed. ‘They shouldn’t.’
She left the house that night, saying she just wanted to ‘clear her head’, and never came back. Part of Toji wanted to retort and call her a deadbeat back, but he realised, in that moment, that they never should’ve been together in the first place. He would’ve never called Emi a deadbeat, he never would’ve screamed and shouted at her. He never would’ve said any of things he said to [REDACTED] to Emi.
Them not being together was probably for the best.
(He did try to call the police and report her missing, but the police said she was an adult woman, who was free to up and leave whenever, and if ever, she wanted to. He never heard from [REDACTED] again.)
Toji’s life had a habit of spiraling out of control, and once again, after the disappearance of Tsumiki’s mother, did it spiral. He went back to freeloading off of random women (and sometimes men), he left Megumi under the care of Tsumiki most nights, which he knew wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what else to do.
He could’ve called Ai, or Kiyoko, or Seiji, who still called him every now and again. He could’ve asked them for help with the kids, they would’ve been able to give Megumi and Tsumiki a stable home (like they deserved), but the Zenin clan instilled a lesson in Toji that stuck to him like tar on lungs: never ask for help. Help makes you weak.
The Zenin clan.
The Zenin clan.
No matter what he did, the Zenin clan haunted him like a malevolent spirit. When they found out about Megumi, and when they found out about his ‘skills’, they wouldn’t leave them alone. They said they could look after Megumi better than he could, which was true. They wouldn’t abuse him like they abused Toji, because Megumi was what they wanted.
But a part of Toji couldn’t do it. A sizeable part.
The Zenin clan were the people he didn’t want to be like. They were the people he refused to become, and he was horrified by the possibility that Megumi could become like them: steadfast in their ways, ignorant and pathetic. Megumi wouldn’t be like them, he wouldn’t.
Toji knew his days were numbered when he heard the words ‘Star Plasma Vessel’ and the name ‘Riko Amanai’. Precisely, he knew his days were numbered when he found out those words were associated with Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru was seventeen years old and was already known to be the strongest Jujutsu sorcerer in the world, possibly ever. Attached as his hip was Geto Suguru, who was incredibly powerful in his own right. Together, they were a force of nature, a force of nature Toji knew he would struggle to control.
He supposed that that was where the assassination of Riko Amanai would come in. Wear them down, crush them emotionally so that it was possible to bear them physically. Toji understood the practicality of it all, but he felt a physical pain in his chest when he opened his folder and saw she was only fourteen.
Such is life, he reminded himself. Such is life.
No one afforded me any mercy.
During his last night at home, Toji sat in the dark with a glass of whiskey and a framed photograph of Emi and wondered what his life had become. What he had done wrong to end up here.
Megumi woke up that night, at three am from a nightmare. Toji brought him into the kitchen, sat him on his knee and comforted him, rocking him back and forth until his whimpers silenced. Eventually, he caught sight of the photograph.
“You remember who that is, don’t you?” Toji asked quietly, careful not to wake Tsumiki up, who was sleeping just upstairs.
Megumi grumbled in confirmation. “It’s mummy.”
“You’re right, it is mummy.” He lightly squeezed Megumi. “Don’t forget her okay? She’s your mummy and she loves you very much.”
“Then why didn’t she come back?”
“Sometimes people go places they can’t come back from, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Your mummy loves you so much Megumi, but she can’t come back.” Toji’s voice wavered. “She can’t come back.”
Megumi looked up at him, with the wide green eyes that so resembled Emi’s. “Will you always come back?”
No, he thought. I won’t.
“Yeah, I will.” Toji said.
His life was made up of damaged and broken promises and this was just another one. One of many promises Toji made that he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep. He thought, maybe it would’ve been better if he had told Megumi the truth, that he wouldn’t be coming back. He wondered what Megumi would’ve done had he told him the truth; would he have screamed? Cried? Fought and fought until Toji decided to stay?
Probably not. Toji wasn’t much more than a faceless body in his life these days; something that offered warmth, but not often. Something that was there, but not all of the time. He doubted Megumi would remember him for long.
(He just wanted Megumi to remember Emi.
Emi.
Emi.
Emi.
Emi Fushiguro, the love of Toji’s life, the other half of his soul, his heart, his partner in crime.)
Toji left before the kids woke up the next morning. He didn’t want to face them any more than he had to.
For a second, after stabbing Gojo Satoru in the throat and killing Riko Amanai, Toji thought he would go home. He thought that he would see Megumi and Tsumiki again; he thought that maybe, maybe, he would have the chance to rectify his mistakes.
But evidently, given that he was bleeding out on the floor, he was wrong.
Gojo hadn’t died, he should’ve known that. It had been too easy, too quick. Too simple. A single stab wound doesn’t kill a person like Gojo Satoru, even if it to the throat, even if it were through the heart.
Gojo attacked him before he could fight back, and it was all over too soon.
(Maybe not soon enough.)
Gojo asked him for his last words, and the first thing he thought of was Emi; of their first encounter, of their first date and of their wedding. He thought of Megumi’s firsts and the things they managed to catch on video. He thought of their family dinners and their walks through the park. He thought of her death at the hands of curses, and then he thought, ‘Finally, Emi.’.
Then he thought of Megumi.
He told Gojo he was going to sell Megumi to the Zenin clan, even though he had put that idea to bed months ago. He saw the look of horror in Gojo’s eyes, he saw the resolve in his mind form. He knew Gojo was going to hunt for Megumi now, to prevent such a thing from happening.
Toji fell to the floor face first, not quite at peace
but close enough.
[make you happy?]
~fin~