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iii.
"Nanamin?"
Nanami lets out a noncommittal hum as he reads over the lines in his newspaper without really catching any of the finer details. He, Itadori, and Gojo have stumbled upon a collection of minutes wherein the hustle and bustle of jujutsu sorcery has given way to a rare peace, a quiet where they are safe from the dangers of hunting curses. Gojo basks in the silence, his head leaned back against the sofa cushions. Itadori thinks about something, bent over with his elbows on his knees and his chin propped up on clasped hands.
"Have you ever had a lover?"
At that final word, Nanami's hands tighten imperceptibly on the edges of the newspaper and Gojo leans forward. The quiet is shoved aside in favor for a tension that seems to grow and decay exponentially without any warning. Itadori picks up on it, but his expression remains blissfully unaware of the landmines he is centimeters away from stepping on.
Gojo has the grace to play it off. "Now, now, Yuuji-kun, we don't talk about that kind of stuff here in school. You might go and make your poor old teacher jealous of Nanamin!"
Itadori zeroes in. "Does that mean he has had someone?"
It's a little more urgent, now. "Yuuji-kun. Let's not push it."
Nanami sighs and puts his newspaper on the sofa. It curls at the edges, and Itadori backs away, caught off guard by the potent cursed energy beginning to rise off Nanami's arms, ebbing and flowing. "No, it's quite alright. If you're so curious, Itadori-kun, it would do you a favor to sate that curiosity."
Itadori pressed his lips into a thin white line. However brilliant of a sorcerer he is becoming, Nanami wishes he would work on hiding his emotions. Right now, although he's trying his best, Itadori is only separated from an inquisitive puppy by evolutionary means. It almost makes Nanami want to back off before he can open up the can of worms he has tried so desperately to keep shut with a lock and key, but now he's caught Gojo's attention as well, and it would be difficult to go back on his word.
"I never found out what happened to them, either," Gojo says. "I hope you don't mind if I listen as well, because I'm definitely not leaving!"
Nanami is as unperturbed as ever, although it's a struggle to rein in his emotions on the inside. "I had no hopes of you leaving in the first place."
i.
"Kento...doesn't the rain feel nice?"
He doesn't answer. It's a struggle to focus on your face, instead of the blood beginning to seep through the bandages he'd hurriedly wrapped around the deep wound in your torso. It was a futile attempt from the start, Nanami had enough basic knowledge of first aid and the human body to understand that much at least, but you had insisted and he'd be hard-pressed to ignore any request of yours, even now.
Your hand reaches up. He catches it and winds his fingers between yours.
"Jeez, I'm on the brink of death and I still don't get more than a smile a day from you?"
He continues to stare into your eyes. How can you be so nonchalant? How can you joke around like some cruel fate, a horrible destiny preordained because of the life the two of you decided to lead, was not inches away from ripping your hand away from his and carting you off into a space in time where he would not be able to follow so long as his pride and instincts had something to say about it?
You laugh a little. Blood collects in dots on your lips, only to be washed away by the steady drizzle coming from dark gray clouds. Nanami puts his free hand on your face, caressing it and pressing his fingers against your cheek. You sigh and lean into it, your eyes fluttering shut.
"Don't close your eyes yet," Nanami says, before he can think to stop himself. How selfish of him, to deprive you of rest for a few minutes longer because of something wholly human that has captured his heart.
"But the rain's starting to hurt." You roll your head to look up at the sky regardless, your eyes glazed as they struggle to remain open. "Isn't it funny? We willingly let ourselves get roped into this world, knowing that something would end up happening, and yet we were surprised when this day came. Why do you think that is?"
Nanami struggles to answer that question, too. "Because we're idiots?"
You hum. "Well, that was a given from the start. But I think...I think..." You struggle to breathe, struggle to talk, and it's all Nanami can to do prevent himself from capturing your hand in a vice grip, as if holding you tighter will stop the life bleeding out from your veins. "I think a part of us was always optimistic. That something we did would leave a mark on the world to prove that we once lived. And maybe that mark is the people we saved, the students we end up inspiring."
"Maybe for you," Nanami mutters. "I was never that selfless."
You look at him again. "Stupidity and altruism go hand-in-hand, don't they?"
He can't answer. It's rare when you catch him off guard in conversations like this, one-in-a-hundred occasions that he can't find words that should be on the tip of his tongue. And he curses himself for that, knowing that with every second he goes without saying anything, he's going another second without being able to express everything that he wants to. That even though he is not good with Those kinds of words, he would risk everything he is if it meant that you would not be laying here right now. That he, going against everything in his moral code, would become the villain in another's story if it meant that you could continue looking at him the way you always did--the way you are right now.
Much like always, you are not bothered by his silence. Instead, another small smile quirks the corners of your lips up. "Is there anything going for me, if I wanted to bet that Satoru were to show up right now and save us?"
No. There is not anything. Gojo is off on another mission, and a car would only prolong the inevitable. It is stupid and callous and miserly, but Nanami feels something coming to a rise in his gut at the thought of Gojo, shifting the blame from Nanami (a perfectly capable jujutsu sorcerer who should have been able to protect the only person he loves in this godforsaken world) to Gojo (another perfectly capable jujutsu sorcerer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.)
And this Something that boils in his gut, the idea that he would curse Gojo when he has not done anything inherently wrong, is enough for Nanami's stoic exterior to break.
It's easy enough to confuse the first few tears with the rain, but the back of his throat burns uncomfortably and his sunglasses start to fog up. He takes them off, setting them down on the ground next to him, and your eyes focus on him with such intensity it feels like you are undressing him and forcing him to bear himself to you in a way that he'd never done with anyone before. You have been his first in so many different ways, so it's only fitting that you will be his first (and last) with this as well.
"Please don't cry," you whisper. "I've been having a hard enough time holding it together as it is."
He shakes his head slowly. "Why?" he asks instead. "Why do you have to continue being such a positive influence on my life? Why could you not curse me, berate me for not being strong enough when you needed me most? Why do you still continue to believe in me when today, I have done everything to betray that trust?"
It's a struggle at this point in time, but you manage to move your other hand over to sandwich his between both of yours. Already, the comforting warmth of your hands is beginning to fade. How long before everything else begins to as well? How long before he is only left with the memory of you against him, of your laughter painting his darkness with stokes of yellow? "Hey, hey...you've done nothing to betray me."
"If I was faster, or stronger..."
"Then you would've only prolonged the inevitable," you say. "I think it's quite fitting that my last sight will be you. We've weathered everything together."
"And I wouldn't want to weather this with anyone else but you," he replies. "You can't leave."
You huff out a laugh. "H-Have you always been this unreasonable?"
Ashy. Gray. Words he would never use to describe you are suddenly taking over every other adjective that springs to mind at the sound of your name dancing across his lips.
"Kento, you have to promise me something. Otherwise I might end up haunting this place forever."
Will he ever be able to forgive himself for this? For letting you in so deeply when he knew all along that this would happen?
"Kento, p-please."
He lets himself squeeze your hand. "What is it?"
You roll over onto your side, a harsh and high-pitched gasp escaping your lips. He presses his free hand against your shoulder, trying to get you to return to your back, but you refuse to let him. You stare him directly in the eyes, and memories wash over him like ocean waves, the future an intangible pinprick of light on the distant horizon. It is freeing and damning and hopelessly everything all at once, and the emotions rising in his gut only fester and boil over as he realizes that, yes, someday he will truly have to come to terms with what could never be.
And you recognize it as well, tears finally falling one after the other, tracing tracks across your skin that are easily wiped away by the rain. Perhaps it's poetic, in some way, knowing that once this is all said and done, the rain will wash away any trace of you having been here. When the destroyed building is returned to its original state or completely bulldozed over, no one will ever be any the wiser, and maybe that's the scariest part of it all, knowing that the rest of the world will never know the angel that was ripped away from its sphere of influence far too soon.
"Promise me that you will keep our future alive," you say, voice wavering and strength fading. "That you won't let the flames flicker out before it's their time to go. Promise me that you will do everything in your power to live on."
It's impossible. To have those words leave your lips, to have you so confident that he will be able to promise this and follow through. When he knows that, beyond his stoicism and his apathy, to no one else's awareness but yours and his, you are the sun to his moon, the rock that anchored him to shore.
You take in a deep breath. It shudders at the very end. "Kento."
He stares. And stares. And stares.
Why, like always, is he unable to move when it counts the most? Is he truly nothing but a coward?
"You have to say it o-out loud."
Can he? Should he?
It only takes a moment's deliberation.
"I promise."
Because when it comes to you, he truly would do anything.
The fear in your expression doesn't quite fall away, but it soothes. Your breathing grows shallow and you look up to the sky. "Can y-you do me one last...favor?"
His silence answers you.
"Hold me? Please? I don't want to be alone."
He still remains silent, but he pulls you up into his lap. It's hard to maneuver, given the slickness of your clothing from the rain, but he manages to position your upper body to where he is able to drape his arms over your shoulders and clasp his hands on top of your chest. You move your hands, slow and steady, to rest on top of his, and the familiarity of the movement makes something hard but warm all the same settle in his stomach, splashing into the boiling waters. He cannot tell if it quells the ache or makes the fire burn brighter, but he has no time to deliberate as you stare up at the sky.
"Do you think we deserve to go to heaven?"
His tongue unglues itself from the top of his mouth.
"You do."
Peace falls across your expression, and a low, breathy chuckle passes through your lips.
"I'll see you."
Your eyes close.
He didn't even get the chance to say those three words. Caught up in his head like he always is. Too deep into his own mind to understand the frailty and delicacy of a human life.
He follows your empty stare up to the sky. In a cruel, twisted turn of fate, the clouds begin to lighten up, and the rain relents.
Shit, he muses. All sorcerers are shit.
The sky, unsurprisingly, does not answer back.
iv.
It takes only seconds to go over all those memories in his head. However, he keeps the majority of them to himself. They are precious, priceless treasures, one after the other a mountain of gold that he has carefully arranged. He cannot bring himself to speak of them aloud and taint the sound of your name, although he knows that it is customary to speak of the bereaved in high regard.
So, instead, he satisfies their curiosity by speaking of you. How much you inspired him. How you have left bits and pieces of yourself everywhere, through the way you have influenced not only Nanami, but people like Gojo and Ieiri. The reason you had become a sorcerer, which comes to mind so easily that even he's surprised.
Gojo sniffs a little. "How beautiful. Yuuji-kun, did you know that they're the only person that's ever gotten Nanamin to take off his sunglasses for more than a few hours at a time?"
Itadori's eyebrows fly toward his hairline. "Wow. Impressive."
Nanami sighs. "I do not understand your fascination with my sunglasses when you continue to wear that blindfold." He folds his newspaper neatly and leaves it on the coffee table in such a manner that it looks like it had always been there. "Regardless, I believe Ijichi-san said there was a mission that required my assistance. If you'll excuse me."
In a flash, Gojo is by Nanami's side. "That's no fun! C'mon, don't you have any other stories to tell?"
His hand lights on Nanami's shoulder. The latter turns, and stops.
Gojo has lifted up his blindfold to zero in on Nanami with one of those unsettling crystal eyes. It forces Nanami to recognize that there is another person who is able to see through every crack in his walls in the way that you had been able to. And this person seems to understand every unpleasant emotion settling in Nanami's stomach.
It's almost as if Gojo is telling him that it's okay. To feel the way he does, not only about your death, but about Gojo.
And it's a breath of fresh air that takes a little weight off his shoulders. Nanami gives Gojo a slight nod, Gojo grins, and the two of them go on their separate ways.
Not quite closure, but it makes the memory of your smile sit easier in his head.
ii.
Despite everything calling him away, he finds himself walking up the steps to the jujutsu high school, forcing himself to move one foot after the other. Yes, he was the one who had called Gojo, because of a memory that urged him to pick the lesser of two evils and regain his place in the part of the world where he truly could make a difference, but he had forgotten how grating it was to even hear Gojo Satoru's name. Because that Something in his gut had never faded with time, only simmered and settled, and he cannot work past the sickness he feels when he remembers that he once felt so lost, he almost cursed someone because of his own ineptitude.
He still feels that loss, that wavering between the beaten path and the untraveled one. It hangs over his shoulder in the form of memories and old gifts and unspoken words, a shroud that he can never seem to shake off no matter how often he tries to convince himself that he is not the weak person he once was. Which was never a product of your love, he has come to realize, but rather his past self's inability to accept the give-and-take, the ebb-and-flow, an inherent yin and yang of loving and being loved.
Maybe he would have never been able to save you. But he at least would have been able to move past his cowardice and speak.
He mounts those last few steps, and stops.
"Promise me that you will keep our future alive."
You'd asked him that. How could he have forgotten?
Despite himself, he smiles, just a little. Just small enough to where he can wipe it away and deny it if any of the students ask.
Overhead, the sun shines more gently.