Work Text:
1.million, crank that bitch
Satoru returns from his first trip into Tokyo proper dazzled and dazed, ears ringing for days afterward with the echoes of crowds, seas of people whose tides roll across the crosswalks, a roiling, sweaty, visceral mass, person and person and person. He’d never seen so many people before, packed neatly into steel tubes, steel cubes, waiting in line, waiting for coffee, walking from here to there, driving from there to here, worker ants. Starry eyed, sitting pretty under pristine striped umbrella on the sidewalk, sugar had burst into life and danced on Satoru’s tongue, sharp and saccharine and so unlike the subtle brown sugar-honey-soy sauce-cinnamon taste of the wagashi and youkan he typically ate at home. Sweet-bright strawberry, the thick of velvet custard pastry cream swimming in vanilla fragrance and molasses smoke, and the crispy, dissolving flake of every laminated layer, crackling to buttery dust in his mouth, sliding against his teeth and parting at the push of tongue.
There was pleasure to be had just in the eating, and he couldn’t help closing his eyes and humming for the enjoyment of it, resonating against the vibration of voices behind him, everyone talking, talking, teeth gnashing, lips flapping, fork like a dowsing rod, and he had never eaten anything like that, the dark bitter grit of coffee washed away by soft, submissive sweetness and it appeals to him, the contrast of the plunge and the yield, a surge of energy bursting into fireflowers behind his eyelids, the sheer sensation that rubs against the tenderness of mouth and gums, new textures, new flavors and the taste too of new patterns that rise into the air, delicate shrouds of feeling that peel away from shoulders and condense into dappled, multicolored flares, twisting and writhing, bulging and contorting, and if he’d wanted he could have read the stories of a hundred people at once, traced the contours of their souls and felt the weight of their constantly morphing emotions.
He’d spent the afternoon there, overwhelmed and distracted, not just by the unending surges of people but by the crystalline formation of curses, clustering in alleyways, abandoned buildings, specific streets and the floors of office buildings. Midmorning had been spent clearing a massive nest of curses from an abandoned mall destined for demolition; with a high-end development on the way, municipal government had finally called the assignment in. How many people had died before then, he’d wondered, but he’d supposed that it didn’t really matter, the dead were gone and the living were still here, and this was all a test anyway, to see how well he could control his fledgling powers, to confirm Six Eyes and Limitless were truly viable. Even without having mastered the signature applications of his technique, the mall had easily been cleared within several minutes, but noting the sheer number of curses he had seen growing at all stages, nascent, developing, and full-fledged, he’d wonder how long the peace would last. The swell of fear and apprehension, acrid charcoal, tar, and off-gassing plastics so thick in the nose it slathered onto the tongue, bubbling up, toxic byproducts of a cancerous burn pit, coalescing into a hovering ball of contaminant, absorbing the small artifacts of energy that each person’s soul shed, for the soul defined the self and made it material, owned the process of self-creation, and therefore, had the power to make real, substantiate, and solidify. How ironic, that people truly made their fears, that tangible or not, the act of believing, giving voice, identifying and naming, made something true. For people like them the taint remains inside, contained and circulating instead of expelled, a slow poisoning. They make real on the interior, domain, instead of the exterior, the world, public life, and it distorts them, despairs them, and that's how Satoru knows that there is no good life possible for any of their ilk, there will be no betterment until they can expel what hurts them, and they can't. There is only the power of curse, and the different ways it destroys them. That’s what it is to existing in a world of dissatisfaction and suffering.
One million little layers, he’d thought, munching through his own million-sheet pastry, scattering crumbs everywhere, almost fourteen times that amount in Tokyo alone. How many curses would that be? Could there be as many as people, a one-to-one balance of the world? He’d snickered to himself darkly, savored that rare sweetness again, one-of-a-kind, so fresh, so new, surrounded by all the vibrancy and anxiety of living, the plunge and the yield. He’d been lied to, a lie again. The situation was clear: expect to save no one, heroic sacrifices would make not even a dent and the goals were in the long term, for curses could come back again and again, as long as human fear sustained them. Strange, that curses would be like spirits, like gods. Fear could be a religion too. Despite that, he could tolerate it all, just natural entropy at work, the habitual shift from chaos to order and back – he didn’t know how to hate curses, villainize them. Wouldn't it be hypocritical, to hate something so intrinsic to being human, to being governed and influenced by feeling, the cocktails of brain chemicals that no one could truly control? Curses simply existed, like humans did, because humans did. After all, sicknesses were natural too.
In this way Satoru found something grotesquely beautiful and charming about the hue of fear and dread, the shimmering rainbow of terror and all the emotions that could come after it, what it said about what people stood for. Nonpowered humans were so weak and small but they lived so large, and there was something admirable, if pathetic, in that. Sitting under the shade of that striped umbrella, Satoru had felt, suddenly, uncomfortably, singular, alone, isolated, watching everyone walk by, oblivious to their colors. He was the only one who could see, the only one who would know, who felt the currents of something like probability, like possibility and timestream, and that set him apart, drew him away from those who could live in the moment, without care, without worry. Not one of them. A million layers of flaking, eroding versions of him, chipped away and collapsed together to create the Satoru of this universe, the flavors of the world sinking in, softening the disparate edges of his composite being so that he converges, at least on the outside, at least at his seams. Day-old bargain grab bag Satoru, like old bread on the bakery shelf, at least six of him for six realms, for total, mutual destruction with the flick of his fingers, cycling Six Eyes, the same pair for all time, popped into sockets like glasses, training the lens of destiny upon him – Satoru of the Limitless Six Eyes, one must see to believe, one must see to understand everything that flows together. Perhaps once, with the Star Plasma Vessel, or with Ten Shadows, they were all parts of the same being, an overseer of the universe, an eldritch being that could contain anything, see anything, manipulate anything, open and create anything. Now they are all apart, divided and separated, now he is diminished, higher than humans and more powerful than anything, overseer of this corner of the world, zookeeper, and he is alone, when he was not meant to be.
One million layers for the multitude of Satorus that sink under his skin, he stacks them up in the kitchen back at the estate trying to feel that sensation again, carefully folding the butter into the flour, sheet by sheet, hands going pink in the cold so he knows he’s human too, but the staff keep away and cringe from him, and his tutors and minders are stern, reverent, and cold, talking about what befits his station, the sacrifices made for him to get here, one-man clan because the others sacrificed themselves to create him, a glorious future they wrote for themselves in blood, and so he is sacred, they say, holy, overseer, demi-god, but Satoru is a thinking, conscious being, a boy, and he thinks that being divine is more confusing than anyone ever said it would be and no one will help him, talk to him so he can figure it out. Fold and fold and fold, space and materiality and time fold in on themselves like pastry dough, fluff up in the bake, butter evaporating, leaving spaces for them to dwell undisturbed, fragile but decadent, delicate and indulgent, a brief moment, a glimpse. On the stove, break down the yolk until it lets coagulation in, temper, temper, the taste of ginger milk because that’s the first thing he saw on the kitchen shelves. And he is a perfect being, so he gets the mille feuille right on the first try, a pristine stack of neat pastry, cream, and strawberry, and he eats just one piece at first, but when he comes by in the next days, nobody touches it, and he stays up to midnight eating the entire cake by himself, out in a garden pavilion by himself, watching the moon, and no one comes to find him, no one comes to scold him, so he doesn’t stop, and with no people around him there are no colors, no northern lights, nothing but the moon, reflecting, pale and indifferent. In the garden the mirage shatters; he is just a boy, alone, with no one beside him, he is a pristine estate with empty, aging halls, abandoned.
2, type: cool heads.
“Mille crepe cake,” Tsumiki says bashfully, when Satoru asks her what she wants for her birthday. Admittedly, he hasn’t spent all that much time with her since Megumi’s been his real focus, but the stubborn kid’s made it clear that he won’t do anything without her in the picture, without her consideration, her signoff, how annoying. He didn’t think he’d have to deal with a manager. Lucky for him, Tsumiki’s a simple one. Observant, but in a way different from Megumi, more benefit of the doubt, less suspicion. It surprises him that her mother left her behind like this, when everything seems to indicate that she was well loved, if a little neglected, or perhaps he’s not giving her enough credit, her positivity her own effective resilience strategy, her own shield and way of not giving up. Two siblings, two households, alike in dignity, or something. He would’ve never guessed, but when he thinks about things that way, it’s no wonder that she and Megumi get along so well – they mirror each other in odd ways, through crooked lenses.
Pushing his glasses down a little, he peers at her intently, and she’s never had any problems meeting his eyes even though she’s got no trace of cursed power at all, no smoke drifting from her form, perfectly at ease, if a little sheepish, and her own irises are brown, on the lighter side, completely average, completely normal, but somehow she’s all the more impressive for it. Holding her own against Megumi and Gojou, holding fast despite the changing tides and everything she can’t see and therefore can’t understand, and maybe that’s the rule, like in the television shows Satoru only got to watch for a little bit as a child, glimpsed through the windows of electronics stores, animation brightly colored, quickly moving, every frame drawn by hand and blood, sweat, and tears, everything wham, bam, and whoosh, and he’d ached, for just a moment, that the world could be like that, feel like that, more easily digested and understood, held away from oneself, because mired in it, Satoru had to stand firm, tall, and certain, couldn’t admit to not knowing, couldn’t admit to not being enough, he had to speak it, I’m the Strongest, speak it into existence, and that’s the rule, three-man-band, always one spot of red in the middle, the lone flower, and Shouko would totally hit him if he ever said that to her, but she’s chain-smoking her way to early death, she saw Suguru’s defection long before he did, won’t call him a fool, just looks at him quietly with black-rimmed eyes, and she’s cheating her way through medical school but she knows better than anyone what rot looks like, what disease feels like, what it looks and feels like to fall apart or repair, cell by cell.
A million little layers, thin and soft, not anything like the pastry that Satoru made as a child, but something softer, friendlier, everything careful and precise and constructed bit by bit, and Tsumiki is in the kitchen with him, her pouring the crepe batter into the largest skillet they have, stood on her stool because she’s just a couple centimeters short now of being able to reach the upper cabinets herself but like this, she and Satoru are on even level, and Satoru swirls the pan around to get every centimeter of space he can. She’s laughing and saying they made too much, they’ll either have the tallest cake in the world, or maybe they can have two cakes, maybe even three, and he’s laughing too because he likes the idea of making the cake as tall as they can. Two, together, efficient, crepe and cream, crepe and cream, and they make a game out of spreading the whipped cream as evenly as they can, coffee flavor because that’s Tsumiki’s favorite actually, Megumi learned to drink his instant coffee because he was trying to get himself to like it and it worked, and her smile is so smug when she says this, proud, glowing with the knowledge of her brother’s affection, how much he adores her.
They decide not to ruin the cake with a candle so Satoru buys sparklers instead, so they can set them off on the balcony outside, and Megumi finally comes back from Shouko’s apartment, wrapped present in hand, to find everything in organized chaos, and his eyes are wide when Tsumiki launches herself at him for a hug, excited and full of glee, but Satoru can see the way he pulls her close while his gaze lingers on discarded mixing bowls, pans, and utensils, the cake on the table, and he meets Satoru’s stare with the slight upward slant of his mouth, soft and amused, and it feels like a victory.
Between the three of them, they can’t finish the cake on their own, but it just means there’s leftovers for next time. Each bite melts in his mouth, in a different way from the cake he’d made, dissolving, fragrant and soft, made to come apart in a slide of milk-and-coffee flavor, light and barely there. Millions of layers, and under his tongue there’s less a breaking, less a crisp snap and crumb, and more a giving, kind and welcoming.
“Come for breakfast tomorrow, Satoru-san,” Tsumiki says, and Megumi doesn’t even bother to bluster, it’s her birthday week after all. “Help us finish the rest.”
3, of February
The year Suguru defected, Satoru had put together a hotpot for his birthday. The higher-ups had kept him busy, and it would be nice to give their get together a bit more sparkle, he’d thought, especially for a birthday and Satoru, well, he was certainly glad that Suguru was still alive, still around, with everyone dropping like flies around them these days, but that was why they were the strongest. Suguru wouldn’t fall, or so he’d thought at the time. He’d tried to drop by when he could, always brought at least a souvenir from his many trips, and they were starting to send him overseas, testing him first with flights to Taiwan, to Vietnam and Russia and China, but they were starting to throw him even further afield, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, the Pacific Islands. Traveling so much had a weird effect on him, he’d noticed, it made it easy to lose time, fall into the endless slide of days, as if he were just living one continual set of hours, sleep just the quick blink of eyes closed, eyes open, but Six Eyes was always active.
The sunglasses didn’t always cut it anymore, his eyesight just kept on getting sharper in all the most difficult ways, and the world was coming into focus, his first death the opening of the floodgates. He thought he’d understood before, but the more he saw the machinations, the outsourcing to other nations, the duels and bindings and contracts set not in battle but in the Diet, in teahouses, in the private dining rooms of upscale restaurants, and in imposing corporate meeting rooms, the more he realized the corruption ran far deeper than just the jujutsu higher-ups who barely lifted a finger themselves, who left the death and warmongering and bloodshed to their youngers and lessers. And how would the jujutsu world grow without young blood, Satoru had wondered with clenched fists and grinding teeth, back in the morgue again, looking at all the labeled cabinets full of bodies, and if he hadn’t known any better he would have thought, perhaps, this was just a storehouse full of documents, each autopsy a case study in negligence, in neglect.
Perhaps they were isolating him on purpose, perhaps they wanted him and Suguru to fail the mission, because delivering the corpse of a young girl didn’t seem to be such a big deal after all, the world continued turning, Tengen continued to run the barriers and the daily reconfiguration of the school, and it had seemed that no one had really been affected but Satoru and Suguru, no one else seemed to care, except Yaga, who watched over it all as usual, lending his silent support, a sentinel. And perhaps, they were also keeping him and Suguru apart because it was odd, how in the past few weeks, months, years, they hadn’t been paired on any more missions, despite not having graduated yet, despite having frequently gone on missions together before that, because they liked to keep the year’s cohort together if they could and even if he and Suguru were strong individually, together, they were even stronger. Was this a punishment, Satoru had wondered, was this supposed to be some sort of unspoken rebuke, that somehow, Satoru and Suguru together, this specific coupling, had caused the mission to fail? Had they caught wind, somehow, of their intention to let Amanai live, to let her stay free and unfettered and purely herself, to escape, the way he and Suguru couldn’t any longer?
And maybe it was all just an excuse to get him alone, lonely and manipulable, bereft of all other influences and better consciences, to strip him of any allies, to make him desperate and angry enough to act without thinking, and they were all so foolish to think that Suguru was the norm and not the exception, that Satoru was not also accustomed to keeping his own counsel, that Satoru had forgotten the taste of million layer cake crumbling to ash and dust in his mouth. The story behind Six Eyes is a story of compassion, of seeds given by the merciful boddhisattvas, the multitude of them that exists across space and time, past and present, eyes plucked from their own many sockets, one thousand to match the one thousand hands that deliver unceasing compassion, but that’s lip service because the key takeaway is surveillance and the legitimacy of witness. Six Eyes is always watching. Six Eyes is always judging. Six Eyes is always thinking. The whole point is that Six Eyes can be controlled but it’s a loan; there are conditions, and Satoru never stopped because he couldn’t, wore his black lenses so no one could see the shadows below his eyes, talked fast and moved faster so people thought he was eccentric, wrapped more and more armor around himself so he wouldn’t keep looking over his shoulder, the more the higher-ups called on him, the further away from familiar, safer territory he went, and maybe it was working after all, he’d thought, sitting in the cooling bathwater of a hotel room in Malaysia, maybe it was wearing on him, to work so many assignments alone, to have no one watching his back, no one to fall on, no one to trust. The Gojou nipped and bit at his heels, wanted more from him every day, because there was no one else, because they’d made it that way, made him that way, and he’d wondered if they thought the sacrifice was worth it, how stupid it seemed to him in hindsight, to forfeit the entire clan just for the right combination of power and glory, and so Satoru threw his power around because what was the point in having it if not that, what else could be more poetic punishment, than to wield that power in ways that people didn’t always like?
He’d tried not to think about it too hard while slicing up the meat himself, his every feeling meant to go in each stroke of the knife and he didn’t want to poison the stock. Red and ripe, streaked with fat, flowering, every layer shaved so thin to almost be translucent and the strike of the knife against the cutting board sounded so loud, him by himself in the kitchen in Shouko’s place, neutral territory, because she was out running errands and buying the alcohol because she couldn’t stand to be with him that long, despite their long acquaintance, despite being friends. She was someone who liked to keep to herself and he knew that but somehow, on a day like this, on Suguru’s birthday, getting together after three or four month’s sparse texts and phone calls, it still stung, and he left Infinity off while cutting onions he didn’t even need, let a tear or two or fifteen or thirty roll hot off his cheeks; it’s the onions, the onions. For the gyudon he added into the menu, to top off the rice, spare nothing for Suguru’s birthday, right, and the little chicken meatballs Suguru liked that when made right, gushed with hidden flavor, green onion and five spice, tender and bouncy, and he hadn’t planned on making them but he was nothing if not adaptable, and they’d ended up with a table overflowing with food, and Shouko had said, “Wow, there’s no way we’re gonna finish this,” and Suguru, looking awful, skin pale and sallow, eyes red rimmed like he’d been crying for ages and never stopped, hair falling untamed and greasy over his shoulders, longer now than it had been, not at all put together, not at all groomed and fastidious the way he always liked, but he would never say anything when Satoru asked him how he was, would snap at him if he kept pushing, so Satoru tried to be obnoxious enough for both of them, loud enough and cheerful enough for both of them, and Suguru still smiled even if small and ailing, wan and half-hearted, he still smiled.
But somehow, Satoru had fumbled with dessert. He’d said, “Getting the chocolate to come out just right was difficult you know!! In that shape, too!” but Suguru had only stared, eyes wide and dull, stricken, at the ball of melting, spherical chocolate shell pooling on his plate, the core of dense, fudgey, Kahlua-infused cake dark and wet, cherry-stained insides leaking out when split. Shaking hand rose to a pale, chapped-lip mouth, and veins stood out stark from dry, papery skin, bruise-colored and mesmerizing, shell making way for the visible, crackling, faultlines beneath, like the spiderweb lattice of a marbled tea egg, signs of marinade seeping in, soaking, sodden, saturated.
Something ugly in Satoru had reared its head, watching Suguru, resenting the way he couldn’t understand that expression, resenting that sometimes it felt like he didn’t know Suguru anymore, but still knew enough to know that Suguru was lying to him, not telling him anything, wanting to make this a good day but being unable to because there were no good days to spare, not anymore, not with the two of them apart. Suguru didn’t want to be strong anymore, he didn’t want to be them, together, anymore. Satoru didn’t understand what Suguru was trying to say with his silence, his polite distance and souvenirs, except that. Was it that righteous Suguru thought Satoru didn’t have enough teeth anymore if he didn’t strut upright and flash his feathers at the right angle? If he wasn’t by Suguru’s side, badmouthing the higher-ups right next to him? Didn’t Amanai teach you right , the vicious part of Satoru wants to sneer, We were children and we failed. Time to get off the stage and learn it correctly. And the quieter part of him, Are you blaming me? Even softer, I do, too . It was my fault .
He’d looked at the way Suguru’s hand wrapped around the bottom half of his mouth, muffling, muzzling, studied its distant familiarity for some seconds before he’d remembered – the peculiar way Suguru ate the curses condensed and wound up by his technique, dense, whorling planets of pitch black pinched between delicate, spidering fingers, pushing past tense lips and grimacing mouth, then the clamp of a palm, as if holding back the reaction of his body, the taste of a rag soaked in vomit, coming back up the other way like a palate tester of the worst kind. He’d understood then, what the dessert he’d worked so hard on reminded Suguru of. All the same, frustration and melancholy had swirled together in his abdomen, bubbling and souring, acid and hot air eating at the solid bones of his hips, his ribs, licking at the soft of organs and searing him hollow, cursed energy sparking alight. Suguru always tried to put on airs, tried to compensate for things that didn’t even need to be excused or justified, felt some sort of guilty for being himself, as if he was what he ate, as if humans and curses weren’t already trapped in one endless cycle, and the eating in and of itself was crude and embarrassing, primitive and feral somehow.
But Satoru had never seen it that way. Suguru was a triumph, a rarity, an accomplished jujutsushi who understood every aspect, every nook and cranny of his technique. There was an unhidden violence in the process, yes, the act of consuming: Suguru piercing the consciousness of the curse with his own, bleeding the power out to be greedily absorbed into his own energy reserves, prying away the weak, fading tendrils of autonomy that tried to cling to control and weaving them into a rope to hang them with, sentencing from a single judge, jury, and executioner, all one and the same, a tether, a leash, invisible and lashed around their core, the incomplete remnant of a soul, inhuman, superhuman, but either way, something other than human, something that had no right to decide for itself, when it didn’t already know how putrid, how vile it really was. Suguru’s technique was at its core, near effortless soul manipulation crossed with summoning theory, the memory of form, shape, and substance that remained even after desolation, like nostalgia, like dreams. But Suguru was a master projector, and hated people more than he ever disdained or pitied curses, and that included himself. His own capacity for brutality, for incivility, for destruction, the thrill of his own power, scared him, tempted him, so he made pointless rules, little guidelines that made him feel safely confined, and all the loftier for it, the illusion of principle, an easy set of criteria for how to appear human.
Satoru hated that kind of pointless righteousness; there was no need for Suguru to pretend to be something he already was. With all the semantics stripped away, Suguru was a decent human, with a vested interest in the moral good, and that was really all he needed. He just needed his head on straight, needed to be less self-obsessed, needed to understand that the violence and satisfaction didn’t make him evil or corrupted or anything close to losing himself, if only he thought a little more. He’d kept Satoru in line for so long, what could be better evidence? And yet, he wouldn’t believe. He wouldn’t listen, not to Satoru or Shouko, not to Yaga. Suguru only listened to the things he wanted to hear and dismissed everything else. He kept returning, mouse in an experiment, shocking itself over and over, to the same thoughts, the same ideas, even though he could have said something to Satoru, said something to Shouko, and they could have worked together. Amanai was one thing, but she didn’t have to be the rest of their lives. They could make sure she didn’t happen again. They were young, still. They could change things, still. Why wouldn’t Suguru try, anymore?
“You won’t even take a bite?” Satoru had asked softly, dangerously, the air in the room seeming to ripple between them, from heat, from rage, from bitterness, and from the look on Suguru’s face then, the wet wild animal glimmer sheening the whites of his eyes, the curling sneer, bloodied from cracking skin, the mocking lift of chin and the prop of an elbow on the table, all bravado, all posturing while his hands, for just a few seconds, shivered, Satoru should have known they would part ways, in the end.
“I don’t eat when I’m already full,” Suguru had said, all silk, and he’d sounded as he ever did, the type who always knew what to do and say, charming girls with lies on the street.
“Don’t lie,” Satoru had shot back, before Shouko had sighed and stabbed her own fork into the cake center on Suguru’s plate, devouring the entire thing in one, chipmunk-cheeked bite, her eyebrows beginning to raise.
“You should’ve told me the cake was this boozy,” she’d said with a pleased hum, “Then I would have eaten all the servings and you’d both have nothing to fight about.”
Years later he sits in a basement with a young, freshly persecuted pupil, and watches chicken meatballs bob up to the surface of a hotpot again, rolling merrily in boiling broth.
“They’re so easy to make, even Fushiguro can do it,” Yuuji says with a hint of fond exasperation in his voice, unaware that Satoru is intimately familiar with the limits of Megumi’s culinary abilities. The last thing Megumi ever cooked that he’d eaten was a storebought prepared packet of yakisoba, a leftover of Tsumiki’s. It had been very bad, possibly made that way on purpose, for Megumi had muscled through his entire massive bowl of disgusting, horrid yakisoba with a stoic face on, chewing mechanically. Parts of the noodles had been burnt, others overly squishy, and somehow, despite the sauce packets that should have been included, the flavor was entirely off, oddly peppery and sharp. A day or three afterward, Satoru had taught him a simple snap pea stir fry, trying to get back to basics.
“You’re teaching him to cook? You’re such a good friend,” Satoru simpers, and he thinks it was a good idea to put Yuuji and Megumi next to each other, good for Megumi to have other company. In the past, he’d taught Megumi to refrigerate his onions before chopping them; he wonders if Megumi remembers, remembers him each time he puts knife to layer and layer and layer, membranes cut open, sliced down, unfolded and dissembled. He wonders if Yuuji’s chicken meatball recipe is similar to his. He wonders if Megumi cries, when he cuts onions, and hopes that if he hasn’t yet, he won’t.
4teenth
Satoru’s bad with fried chicken so by now, it’s expected that he’ll drop by on Megumi’s birthday, and not on Christmas. It’s another reminder that he’s not family, and that’s fine, because family is Fushiguro, is Megumi and Tsumiki, Tsugumi Unit, named after the fat-bellied birds Tsumiki loved because she thought their dappled feathers and reddish underwings were charming, and she felt cheerful every time she saw them, chirping inquisitively in the park, calling out to each other, perching on the backs of benches.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to fly,” she’d sighed, “To migrate every year. Like having a vacation home! I wish I could travel. Maybe later.” And she’d said things like that often, later, later, like she was waiting for the sun to rise on her life, turn everything sweet and golden, a moment to take a breath and be free, but even with Satoru’s money she never took a step, never asked about plane tickets or celebratory trips, and maybe it was because of Megumi, who didn’t really dream, who didn’t really escape, lived in his skin and the world that was his shell, curled into the pale curve of the fragile edge and closed his eyes. Megumi didn’t run. Megumi endured. And maybe she was waiting for him to get up and hatch, walk out, so she could finally walk away too, relieved, or maybe she had her own reasons, had her own story playing out against the backs of her eyelids where Megumi and Satoru could never see, a narrative to keep her company, tell her who she would become, who she would be, like the jujutsu world told Megumi, like Satoru told them both. Odd, to want a glimpse of fate, but perhaps their constant presence made her feel unmoored, side figure in her own life, losing ground as Megumi drifted further away, already planning his grave, while she looked at the years unspooling ahead of her and could barely imagine their image.
Satoru had come by for the first day of another year at school, another tradition, and he’d laughed and taken pictures of Tsumiki in her dashing high school uniform, the high school Megumi would never go to, a middling, decent place that could let Tsumiki go for college prep if she wanted, or prepare her for a vocational track, well considered and temperate, classic Tsumiki. Before leaving that day, she’d turned back to look at him and Megumi in the front door, Megumi leaning against the jamb, surly and disgruntled in early morning, but still there nonetheless, in wrinkled blazer and crumpled tie, and Satoru waving, sunglasses perched on his head for once, dressed down in black bomber and white tee, and her face had crumpled a little before she’d gathered herself and smiled, running off to go meet her friend on the way to school. Such a strange expression on her face, he’d thought, oddly stricken with flattened mouth, beseeching brows, and despairing eyes, and he’d wondered what about that day made her look like that.
“If you want to explore the world, you should go for it. Megumi will be fine if you leave for a little bit,” Saroru had told her once while they waited for Megumi to come in from his fights, travel magazine spread open on the table between them, bright, colorful photos spilling out from the glossy pages and pouring right into Tsumiki’s ready made wistfulness, first aid kit at her elbow and at the ready on the counter even if Satoru thought they probably wouldn’t need it. And if Tsumiki left for a little, perhaps Megumi would fight less too. Less people, less things to fight against. If Satoru left too, maybe Megumi wouldn’t fight at all.
“No he won’t,” she’d said, certain, a little cold, a little sharp, and looked at him with a cut of the eyes that was so like her brother’s, bearing the same disdain and private judgment. They really weren’t so different, Megumi and Tsumiki. For all her kindness, Tsumiki had the same bone-deep stubbornness, and opinions strong enough to match, even though Megumi always viewed her through rose-tinted glasses, something Satoru found hilariously cute, for all of Megumi’s moody teenage bluster. What a cliche. And maybe the answer was simpler than all the other things he’d speculated and wondered – perhaps she was lonely, perhaps she wanted to leave, perhaps she wanted to feel powerful and needed, perhaps she felt all those things at once and didn’t know what to do with it all and what it really meant.
But Satoru probably underestimated her, probably undersold her, because she was right, Megumi isn’t fine without her, Megumi is enduring, yes, in his way, which really means he’s spooling apart at the same time he spins together away, self-destruction and reconstruction in the same contradictory breath, effortlessly, quietly tempestuous the way that Megumi usually is. And Satoru was right too, because Megumi fights less and less, but only because he’s too busy fighting himself while sitting at Tsumiki’s bedside, too preoccupied with his own thoughts and attempts at seeking solutions in the Jujutsu Tech library to bother with other kids his own age, too busy taking starter missions under Satoru’s supervision and beating curses to pulp, watching his shikigami tear them apart with feral satisfaction. It lasts until a roving group of delinquents tries to go after him, thinking he’s lost strength, only to wind Megumi into a rage that lands several people in urgent care. With plenty of witnesses to attest that they attacked Megumi first, Megumi gets away with it for once, at least until mandatory weekend training rolls around and Satoru thrashes him like usual, and that’s karma, Satoru supposes, that’s visiting upon others what is visited upon you, and maybe that’s why Megumi fights the delinquent, maybe it’s because of Satoru, but anyway, it’s not like Satoru will stop .
“Do you feel stronger, after putting those punks in the hospital?” he asks genuinely, leaning over Megumi’s bruised and bloodied body, lying prone beneath him on the tatami floor. He offers a hand up and Megumi stabs him with his glare; if only his physical attacks were so effective. Even so, Megumi latches on, grip steady and sure.
“No,” he says, scowling and curt, almost callous. “They aren’t the ones that matter.”
Megumi seems a bit aimless without Tsumiki, without her to push against and make up with, and they were only two people so half the apartment’s occupants are gone. It seems so empty whenever Satoru goes there, and when Megumi opens the front door for Satoru on his own birthday,the apartment seems off-kilter the same way it has ever since Tsumiki fell unconscious, little signs of imitation everywhere, Megumi’s attempt at imitating her personal touch, even when he’s too different to fit in her footsteps, even though it doesn’t suit who he is without her. He’s buried in one of the fluffy, oversized sweatshirts that Tsumiki brought back from her thrift hauls, a token of her affection, a fragment of her thoughts, a proof of her consideration, but it’s also been over six months and it’s Megumi, so he looks well rested, if pale, looks like he did before third-year middle school, before having the foundation of his current life ripped up and apart, having everything he took for granted ripped up and waved in his face as a warning.
Satoru wonders if that, too, will be him, in over six months, ripped apart and rebuilt to a semblance of normal, but then again, Suguru will not be falling into a coma, Suguru will be dying at his hands, will be blown apart, in all likelihood, by Purple. There will be nothing left, not even blood mist, no need for a coffin or a crematory, no need to hold additional space in the world aside from the memory that a precious person had once stood there, that Shouko and Satoru had once had a valued, trusted teammate, a best friend. Their consensus and agreement would anchor that reality, the sequence of events that says, yes, Suguru was his name, was our friend, was here.
Hotpot again, like a test, like a trial, but Megumi is a growing boy and eats quickly and with relish, likes the heavy sauces and swipes up large helpings of them with thin slices of broth-soaked meat, doesn’t shy away from going back for seconds and thirds. They are silent as they eat, not from growing tension but from enjoyment, determinedly not discussing curses or training, the unspoken challenge and rule for the night. Megumi’s fourteenth is a milestone, Megumi’s fourteenth is a clean slate, Megumi’s fourteenth is coming of age for his shortened lifespan, last gasp before he consigns himself to indentured servitude. The eye of the storm, the pause before sudden crescendo, a held breath, and Tsumiki is alive but ghostly, haunting the corners of the apartment with her lack, the loss of a third to complete the triad, breaking the rules, no more three man band and maybe that’s why everything goes to shit, three to make the structure solid, to brace the frame, keep everything nice and strong. And Megumi and Shouko, Satoru too, they have not fallen yet, they have not yielded to grief or given up the fight.
Satoru serves the cake, ginger flavored this time, and neatly, methodically, Megumi eats every last crumb.
5-jou
Megumi is never surprised when he finds Satoru waiting for him in his room, because even though it’s the dorms, in a way, things aren’t so different from the apartment. It’s strange at first as official teacher and student because that, too, is no different, and they are always circling this space between them, not family, not friend, and there is warm food on the table, there is understanding of the violence in the eating, but brutality has whispered straight to Megumi’s bones, brought him into the world with grace despite that, and nourishing, nurturing, requires breaking, like training a muscle, like learning from mistakes, like becoming stronger through adversity, but it’s true too that needless suffering becomes pointless, and learning a person is like that, sifting through a million data points, questions, factoids, observations, and piecing them together to become something whole, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes perfectly aligned. And Satoru is ready with silkie chicken soup, something full of nutrients and good for people who repeatedly get their asses kicked, and end up having their pictures taken, but this time Megumi did well, Satoru thinks, Megumi had a plant grown in his stomach, bore through the treatment and the roots attempting to tangle into his cursed energy, and Shouko had said that Megumi had very fine energy pathways ingrained in him, running all over like a river delta, flushing full at his command, that had made it more difficult for the seedling to dig any further. But of all things, water; Satoru would never associate Megumi with water, wood perhaps, or even fire, and so: chicken soup, the tang of herbs, and Megumi accepts the offering, the making from Satoru’s hands, his cheeks are pink from steam and Satoru eats with him, they find savagery together, talking strategy, talking gossip, sliding from one to the other easily, hands wrapped around their bowls, warming, and looking at each other across the table they do not smile, but Megumi tells him Hanami’s weak points, and Satoru says, What you want me to get back at him for you, and Megumi snorts and raises his eyebrows, If you want the excuse you can do what you want, and that’s when Satoru cracks, throws his head back and laughs, says, I knew you can count on you, and that’s when Megumi chuckles too, a low thing full of color, that rumbles and flows to each corner of the room.
&6E
When Satoru lounges back in Prison Realm, puts his faith in the newer generation, he remembers the dish that Megumi brought to him after he came back from Yasohachi Bridge and gave him an earful about manipulating assignments. With a sigh, he’d slid a plastic takeout container over.
“You feel like this to me,” he’d said, and it was strange, dark and almost jammy, the deep funk of years-old soy sauce and some other sauce entwined, mixed with fatty meat to create a thick, glossy sauce that tenderized the jelly of tendon, soaked into the fibers of the meat, made something that melted in the mouth like a sweet, made the tongue drool and drip with the want of more, and he’d looked up at Megumi with hungering teeth, and Megumi had looked back down at him as he’d swallowed, unconsciously, Megumi's eyes dark and amused, as he pressed a pristine, fluffy tissue-wrapped white bun in his hand.
“Eat it with that,” he’d said.
“What’s this, Megumi?” Satoru had said, and his light tone had wavered despite his intentions, “You were thinking about me?”
Megumi had paused in the doorway and said, “Even you’re worth thinking about, every once in a while, Gojou,” and the barest curve to his mouth was sweet, touched faintly by the rays of nostalgic bittersweetness, of simpler, or maybe more ignorant days. “You should eat that while it’s still hot.”
And in Prison Realm, sinking quietly in the dark, Satoru chuckles quietly to himself again. “Think about me, Megumi,” he sings to himself, “I’ll be thinking about you.”