Work Text:
Satoru Gojo is untouchable. It’s simple mathematics: everyone else is a curve reaching and reaching and reaching forever, and Satoru Gojo is the asymptote.
—
Gojo is dreaming, and he is seventeen years old, and there is a hole in his head.
Is this how it went? He pulls the blade out, slick and familiar, wraps his hand around the grip where it’s still warm. Parts of him are dying. Parts of him are knitting back together. Someone is standing over him, grinning.
Or: someone is slumped against a wall, half their torso hollowed out, grinning. Gojo’s face is wet.
The ocean he thinks , and he’s standing in the ocean. Okinawa , and it’s Okinawa, sun warm on his neck, voices echoing behind him. Something crashes into his back and he staggers forward and his knees buckle down into the shallows and he laughs and laughs and laughs and Riko leans forward over his shoulder, hair wet, giggling.
“You’re heavy” he says, even though she’s light, she’s so light, she was so light in his arms after…
Or: someone is slumped dead over his shoulder, and Gojo is warm and wet and sticky with other people’s blood, and everyone, everyone, everyone is laughing.
A hand wraps around his elbow. “Should I?” says Gojo.
“Do it,” says Suguru, which isn’t right.
“That’s not right,” says Gojo. “Not yet. You haven’t yet.”
Suguru smiles. His eyes are so gentle. His hair is getting long.
Or: someone is slumped back in a chair, youthful and dull-eyed and tied up in paper charms. Gojo has a body in his arms.
“For now,” he says, “be a kid. Enjoy your youth.”
Or : Someone is slumped against a wall with their torso carved open and all the blood everywhere is still warm and Yuuji Itadori is looking up at him.
And Toji Fushigurou is looking up at him.
And Riko Amanai is looking up at him.
And Suguru Getou is looking up at him.
And Satoru Gojo is backed against a wall and reaching forward and reaching forward and reaching forward. His hand slows by meters, by centimeters, by millimeters.
Something looks at him through Suguru Getou’s eyes. Something smiles at him with Suguru Getou’s mouth. A hand touches his hand, and it’s warm, and it pulls him forward to touch the clean, dark stitches in Suguru Getou’s head.
“Do it,” says Suguru, which isn’t right. “Open.”
And Satoru Gojo —who is invulnerable, untouchable, imprisoned alone in the dark— wakes.