Chapter Text
The ambient beep of an ECG punctuated the passage of time like a medical metronome assuring anyone present that time was still passing as it normally should, contrary to the lived experience of any and all in attendance who could testify that time spent within a hospital felt stilted, gelatinous, thick and heavy. Soon their relative peace and quiet would be disturbed when the nurses made their rounds for feeding time. Depending on who was on shift they would sometimes leave Megumi with the bag, after coming for so long he was well versed in how to change a feeding peg line.
He breathed in deeply as his fingertips pressed harshly on the paper, exhaling through his nose as he scored the fold with the back of a fingernail. How many times had he done this dance? attending Tsumiki’s hospital bed just to fade into the background like the furniture, performing his stupid rituals and pretending like it was going to help. What was one more time, run through the charade once more, who knows, maybe it will work this time. The wastepaper basket in the corner of the room begged to differ, overflowing with paper cranes.
Orizuru. One of the first things Gojo had taught them as a new guardian. Eager to please and even more thrilled to receive praise, Tsumiki had taken to origami like a duck to water, she had been - was like that, every piece of knowledge he had to offer her she had soaked up like a sponge, just happy to have a parental figure to take care of them for once. While he wasn’t much of a parent figure, not really, Gojo did at least make it his business to know their business, which worked much better for Tsumiki who would happily make idle chat about girls at school and who had a crush on who. For all his responsibilities Gojo never made it seem like what they talked about was beneath him, which could be considered an expert parenting technique but was actually just his love of middle level school gossip.
Growing up in a traditional clan he had told them was claustrophobic and boring, citing the time he met his best friend and began real jujutsu training as what was actually interesting, but that didn’t stop him from using the “boring” stuff to fill their time together. From the moment they had all met Gojo had been clear that it was always his intention to train Megumi to be a sorcerer even before he had inherited his technique, which as Gojo put it - “made things interesting” as a previous six eyes user and ten shadows user had killed each other, so while Megumi was made to do numerous dumb exercises in the name of sorcery, Tsumiki got to learn the more normal side of things that Gojo’s clan life had taught him.
She had taken to everything so naturally, how to properly conduct a tea ceremony, how to tie an obi, origami from basic to somewhat advanced, and lessons in violin. She made a far better student than Megumi ever did, while they both excelled in academia she was far nicer to their teacher (Gojo). Occasionally she would insist that Megumi join them for their lessons which resulted in a passing knowledge of tea ceremony etiquette and a fair competence at violin. The origami however, that had remained Tsumiki’s pastime.
Another deep inhale, another fold.
The worn and frayed paper, bleached by the sun and nearly coming apart at the edges from unfolding and refolding, Tsumiki’s last crane sat by the dried flowers next to her bed. When this started it hadn’t looked quite so shabby, but with each serial unravelling of sequential folds and reassembly in order for Megumi to understand the process, its simple beauty was stripped away to reveal something far less polished and appealing underneath. Gojo had offered to teach him but was rapidly shot down with a piercing glare. The teaching would defeat the purpose, it was supposed to be something he could accomplish himself, something to offer his sister when she woke, proof that she meant more to him than she could know.
Traditional symbols of longevity and good fortune she had said. The longer she stayed here, sickness eating away at her, emaciated form melting into the bedsheets, the more they seemed out of place and in bad taste. The irony wasn’t lost on him leaving a bitter taste in his mouth and a heavy pit in his gut. What had started as a coping mechanism out of grief has cemented itself into his regime as yet another method of self flagellation.
So here he was, forever imposing stricter and stricter standards of the cut throat world he lives in, and locking away parts of himself with each sequential fold. The legend of Senbaruzu needs 1000 cranes to allow the creator to make one wish of the gods, traditionally a healing one. It was a fruitless exercise, one indulged in by hopeful fools and lost teenagers who missed their sisters. Gods be damned, the only thing to left to hope for now was some kind of breakthrough in finding what had cursed her in the first place.
With each fold he repeats his wishes like a mantra, for Tsumiki to wake, for her to be healed, his only sister returned to him.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Score downwards with the hard edge of a fingernail.
“It’s quiet. Without you that is.”
His voice was raspy after going unused for so long lost in thought.
“Gojo said he will be by soon, he’s away right now.”
In through the nose.
“He said I’m getting stronger, which is to be expected I suppose, in a class of one.”
Out through the mouth.
“He’s sending me to Sendai, so I won’t be by in a while.”
Megumi placed the finished crane next to the original, leaving before grief caught his coat tails.