Work Text:
Jujutsu exists to protect non-jujutsu users.
Suguru lets out a chuckle. Screw Jujutsu, screw the Star Religious Group, screw every single non-sorcerers. They’re all nothing but a bunch of weak and hideous people. Suguru is ashamed of himself for once believing that there is good in humanity, that the stronger one should protect the weak, that these same people who applauded the death of a young girl are worth fighting for.
Monkeys.
Suguru tilts his head back, letting the cool breeze of air with a taste of the ocean whips over his skin. With his eyes closed, Suguru allows himself to absorb everything he feels. The sound of waves crashing against the shore, the smell of saltwater pricking his nose, the hard rock he’s sitting on, the warmth from the golden sun waiting to set, anything. Suguru wants to feel anything other than curses, just for today.
But the taste of freedom doesn’t last long when he hears footsteps coming from behind. Still, the corner of his lips turns slightly upward because he doesn’t need to look over to know whose footsteps it belongs to. He can hear the usual confident yet careless steps of the person. When Suguru opens his eyes, there he is, the owner of those arrogant footsteps standing above him. His friend, Satoru, still clad in Jujutsu High’s uniform with his signature round sunglasses.
“Whatcha doin’?” Satoru asks. Suguru goes back to his original position, straightening his head to look at the sun just right above the horizon. “Waiting for the sunset,” He replies as Satoru finds himself a seat beside him.
“What are you doing here?” Suguru looks over to his left and throws the question back to his friend. Satoru’s eyes are fixed to the sunshine filled sky, “Waiting for the sunset with you,”
Suguru chuckles upon hearing the answer. He turns his gaze back to the open sea in front of them, arms hugging his knees.
“You’re difficult to meet these days, something’s up?” Satoru asks. Again, he’s not looking away from the view in front of him.
Suguru lets out a small sigh, inaudible due to the loud gush of wind brushing past the two young boys. “Nothing, just a handful of cursed spirits. How’s Nanami?” Suguru replies nonchalantly as he tries to alter the subject of their conversation.
“Recovering, but not good. He shuts himself from everyone else,”
“Right, it must be hard for him,”
Haibara was a junior Suguru adored. He was cheerful, enthusiastic, and very positive. Too good to be a sacrificial lamb for people who can’t even see curses. His death was what made Suguru certain that being a jujutsu sorcerer is like running a marathon where the end of the road is just a mountain made of his fellow sorcerer's corpses.
Suguru remembers the talk he had with Nanami the day Haibara died. “Why not just let Gojo-san take care of everything by himself from now on?” Nanami, clearly devastated, had asked.
It should be okay, we’re the strongest.
Satoru had said before and Suguru had believed so, for a while. But looking at it again, Suguru knows it was never the two of them from the beginning. It’s like Satoru’s life had been paved even before he was born. Satoru was born to do great things, to be Great himself. So it’s not a surprise that Satoru becomes the strongest alone.
Suguru lays his head on his arms and stares at his friend, a piece of memory shows up like a movie in his head.
Suguru, do you.. want to kill them all? Right now, I probably wouldn’t even feel anything.
Suguru snickers as he recalled what Satoru had said a year ago, carrying a lifeless body of young Riko in his arms.
“What?” Satoru turns his head at him. “No big deal, I just remembered something funny,”
If Suguru had not yet made up his mind, he would have asked Satoru to come with him, to erase all non-jujutsu users and become the strongest sorcerers to ever exist. But Suguru knows it is never a part of Satoru’s nature to kill innocent people, though he was the one who said being righteous is not his cup of tea.
Suguru is confronted with the fact that they have goals now, a different one. And in order to achieve that goal, Suguru has to let some things go, including Satoru Gojo.
“Look,” Satoru calls. Suguru glances to where Satoru pointed at. No matter how many times Suguru had witnessed this magnificent view of the sun disappearing from the horizon, it always manages to leave him breathless. The clear blue sky has now dissolved into beautiful shades of warm orange and yellow. Golden stripes forming a path on the water surface from where the sun kissed the sea.
Suguru turns his head again to where his friend was seated, golden light illuminating his features. Three years worth of memories are playing in his head like a fast-forwarded movie roll. There are words Suguru wished he had told Satoru before and some of them he wished he hadn’t. But right now, before the sun is fully set and the darkness takes over, Suguru has one last thing to say.
“Satoru,” He calls.
Satoru hums in reply. “The sunset.. is beautiful, isn’t it?” Suguru says as he keeps his gaze on the drowning sun. Suguru feels something creeping up in his heart, hurting his chest, but he chooses to ignore it. He has to, for his goal.
Satoru clicks his tongue and shrugs, “All sunsets look the same to me,” Suguru scoffs upon hearing the expected answer.
The two boys stay until the sun is no longer in sight before parting their ways, clueless to what the future holds at the end of their paths.