Chapter Text
Nothing is comparable to grief. Unadulterated, unfiltered, pure grief, experienced in solitary, invisible to the external gaze. Nanami was lucky — and unlucky — enough to see right through Gojo, cutting straight to his core. Whether that was because Gojo let him see or because he was simply unable to hide from Nanami was always unclear.
Nanami may not have seen it happen, but he had certainly heard all about it. Some things he heard straight from Gojo’s lips, and other bits he had happened to pick up at strange intervals, when he least expected it. When a stranger pulled out a pack of cigarettes, when they went on a road trip together and sped past the ocean. Gojo usually didn’t have to utter a word; his knuckles whitened from the clenching of his fists, and his jaw and shoulders appeared tenser than before. Nanami picked up on it almost too easily. He had no issue with consoling Gojo early in the morning, at five or six, after a sleepless night, when he passed his dormitory’s door and heard obnoxious sniffling. Misery was an ugly animal, and Nanami had become too familiar to allow others to grapple with it in silence.
He was sure Gojo worried for him, too, though it was less obvious. He had never asked a single question about Haibara, perhaps not wanting to pry too far, or not finding the strength to. There was a third possibility — that he had never thought to ask — but Nanami refused to consider that. He was glad he hadn’t, because at the end of his second year and Gojo’s third, Gojo finally posed a question, just not one that Nanami was prepared to answer.
They were outside and the air was cool. The sun was rising, though it looked more like it was setting, and birds were chirping without a worry when the inquiry came. “What was Haibara to you?” Pink petals fell in front of them, behind them, between them as they sat in the damp grass. It separated them and shoved them together.
Nanami’s heart fell into his stomach and remained there, laden with distress. The consideration alone that this conversation might deliver him peace was nauseating. Whether he could get over Haibara or not wasn’t the question; it was whether he was ready to. He could choose to open himself to Gojo in his fatigued haze, not having slept the night prior. Gojo hadn’t either; they’d been together for almost twenty-four hours, talking about anything and everything, but never their loved ones. Absolutely not their loved ones.
Should Nanami retreat? Or was it too late for that already? His heart was mangling itself.
“How honest do you want me to be?” he replied, monotone. It wasn’t by choice, but rather because he could hardly muster the strength to get the words out. He gripped the grass with shaky fingers, threatening to pull a few blades loose.
“Very.”
That settled it. Nanami swallowed, mustered the courage to brush his bangs out of his face, and met Gojo’s eyes. They were uncovered, no longer behind his tinted glasses, and they were wide. A stunning, vulnerable, pale blue. He inhaled, and felt himself welling up before he could help it.
“My first love.”
No, no, Gojo. Don’t look at me like that.
An unfamiliar expression overtook Gojo’s face, and despite it only lasting for a second, the effect it had on Nanami was profound. His features twisted in pain, in sympathy. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Gojo’s eyes were wet, filled with tears. His response was prompt, yet careful. “He was mine, too. Suguru, I mean.”
And suddenly, every noise which surrounded them entered the foreground. It was the opposite of what each boy had been told about moments like these; wasn’t everything supposed to fade into the background? The birdsong and wind which pleasantly swayed them in the previous few moments became overwhelming, overbearing. Nanami’s eyebrows knit together. How could he respond? How could he say anything consoling, anything of worth, in the face of Gojo’s sorrow? In the face of his own?
First loves were unparalleled, unmatched, all-encompassing. Outside of pure emotion, dedication nearing the grounds of divine worship, there was nothing. It was an attachment which could never be broken, a bond more powerful than humans should be capable of creating. And yet, it existed. And it always seemed to end in anguish.
Two birds flew above the two and continued to chirp.
“Oh,” was all Nanami could manage. “I’m sorry.” It was almost pathetic, his inability to respond, though he presumed it made sense. It was all he had ever said to himself. He supposed Gojo could only manage the same as he solemnly observed the ground. No judgement would be passed. Was it wrong to think of this as a moment of intimacy? To want to reach out, grab Gojo’s hand, and console him? Nanami concluded that it was, it would be wholly inappropriate, and so he refrained.
Gojo wanted so badly to echo Nanami, to apologize as well, though the two men had reached the same conclusion: expressing their regret would accomplish nothing. And so he remained silent.
He remained silent the first night Nanami had cried to him instead, a year later, just before his graduation. He remained silent when Nanami informed him that he would be leaving the jujutsu world in favor of becoming a salaryman. He refused to touch his phone when Nanami called him after he moved away, not wanting the reminder of his high school days, not wanting the reminder that, in the grand scheme of the universe, his relationship meant almost nothing. It was only his reaction to it which carried weight. He longed, just once, to be on equal ground with someone, and the only time he felt that was when he grieved alongside Nanami. But it was too much to bear.
Besides, there was one critical difference in their dejection. Gojo was mourning the living, and Nanami, the dead.
It was only after some years had passed, and neither of them contacted one another, that Gojo decided to answer. It had been a year or two since Nanami’s last attempt, but Gojo hardly thought twice about answering; seeing Nanami’s name on his phone exhilarated him, especially since he had concluded that Nanami likely deleted his contact a while back.
When Gojo picked up, he hadn’t even greeted Nanami before he began to speak. “You think I could sneak back into Jujutsu Tech?” His voice was as gravelly as ever, and his words tired.
“You mean, I could sneak you back into Jujutsu Tech?” Gojo teased. He could hear Nanami playfully scoff on the other end of the line and, as much as Gojo wishes it wouldn’t, his body reacts before his mind. His heart flutters. His jaw softens and his lips curve into a smirk. Even if only for a moment, it feels like the barrier that had always existed between them had been broken, like somehow this time would be different.
Whether it would be or wouldn’t be, neither of them knew. All they had were their suspicions.