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Rain was hitting against the window. Gojo Satoru was lying in bed listening to the rhythmic sound of the raindrops against the glass sounding like a heartbeat, wondering himself how he ended up in this state after almost two years of maintaining himself together without falling into pieces.
It had been a simple, unimportant, thing that broke the fortress he kept around the rawest and overwhelming feelings that could send everything to tumble him down.
It had been the most ordinary, common, and innocent thing.
It had been a cup.
A white cup with little black cats.
Suguru's cup.
Gojo had come back from an extreme and unnecessary long meeting with the higher-ups to discuss, once again, about Itadori Yuuji and the threat to society his mere existence presented. After spending almost three and a half hours listening to a couple of old men talking about the life of a fifteen-year-old like he was worth nothing, and containing himself the urge to finish all that bags of bones and sociopaths right there, he was absolutely exhausted.
It was late at night when he arrived at the school. He entered the building, and he could hear the voices of his students and the sound of clatter from the kitchen. When he entered, he found Nobara and Megumi doing the dishes while Maki was picking up the table.
"I hope my dear students had saved me a plate of whatever they ate!" said Gojo as a way of greetings
"We ate pizza, again," said Maki in a tired tone
"It's in the fridge, we had to take it off of Toge's hands, it's not much but it's something," said Megumi without turning back
"At this hours, I'll accept whatever eatable thing that I'd found," said Gojo turning to the refrigerator, he opened it, grabbed the last two slices of pizza, and when he turned to go sit at the table, he froze.
Right there, on the kitchen counter, as it used to be, as it had some right to be seen again, to be under the light and not in the back of the dark forgotten counter that Shoko had put it. There it was. The cup.
He knew that Shoko did her best to hide it away. He knew that, because he asked her to, just because he couldn't get rid of it, he couldn't get rid of anything of him. He had tried, but in the end, he couldn't and finally quitted the idea, lending to Shoko the arduous work of getting rid of all trace of Suguru's.
But, he could still see it.
That was the thing. He could see everything.
He didn't even listen to what Megumi and Nobara were talking about, or was it Nobara and Maki?
He didn't know because he couldn't listen, he could only hear the white noise in his mind that sounded like the echo of Suguru's last words played over and over again.
And
He could see it, that blue, strong, and at the same time, peaceful cursed energy.
He could scent it too, cold and soft, like cigarette smoke on a winter night.
He could feel it, wicked, invasive, and calm.
Like Suguru himself.
He could see every last trail of Suguru's cursed energy in all the things that were his and all the places he was with him. That's why he asked Shoko to get rid of everything that was Suguru's, everything except two things. That cup, and the other thing he always keeps close.
Memories were brought back to him. Seeing Suguru use it during breakfast or even during dinner, drinking everything in that cup, like it was the only thing he could, or wanted, to use. Or the day he gifted that cup to him as a birthday present, the second year they spent together. He also remembered the day he bought it, he had seen it and for some reason, he thought about Suguru, he...
"Sensei" it was Yuuji. At what moment he appeared in the kitchen? Gojo didn't know. He didn't know how much time has passed either, he felt it like an eternity, but everyone was acting normal, no one had noted Gojo's spacing out, except for Yuuji that his face indicated he was waiting for a response. "Will you?"
"Will I what?" asked Gojo in the most normal way he could
"Do you want to watch a movie with us?" said Yuuji in a light and excited tone, that way he always talked about everything "today's movie night, and I can't promise that it will be a good one because it was Nobara's time to choose-"
"What did you say?!" Nobara said turning from the sink with her wet rolled sleeves and her hands still full of foam "are you saying that I have no taste?!"
"NO! that's not what I was trying to say," said Yuuji with an intent to calm Nobara's rising anger "It's just that..." Gojo stopped listening.
His eyes remained on the cup.
In the end, he didn't even know how, but Gojo ended up accepting Yuuji's invitation. They were in the living room, except for Panda and Toge that refuse to watch the movie when they heard Yuuji say that it was a musical. So it was just Yuuji, Megumi, Maki, and Nobara, who was suspiciously close to Maki, sitting on the couch, and Gojo, who decided to sit on the floor with his legs extended in front of him and a bag of candy, that he had no intention to share, between his legs.
The movie was indeed a musical about a can can dancer and a poor writer, the songs they sang were contemporary, and Gojo knew the majority of them. As the movie progressed, the colors stopped being so bright and the songs became heartbreaking and melancholic and the story went from being funny, to being tragic. By the time that the protagonist was holding his beloved, dead in his arms sobbing uncontrollably, Gojo wasn't seeing the characters anymore, he was seeing a memory.
A memory of him holding his body.
Gojo couldn't stand it anymore and he suddenly stood up, mumbled an apology, and ran out of the room as fast as he could. He heard Nobara scream something like "It's almost finished" but he couldn't bear it anymore, if he tried, he would break before his students.
Breathing had become difficult and the weight of the pain he so diligently hide it was threatening with crushing him down.
Finally, Gojo arrived at his room as he could, closed the door, and slumped against it, and he let himself slide to the floor.
He took off his blindfold with one hand and clutched his heart with the other as if he could prevent it to fall apart all over again. As if he could maintain it together and whole, but empty things were destined to crumble.
Gojo braced his knees and prepared himself for the tears, but none came.
Lighting struck and rain started to fall, and with it brought the memories of another night with a similar rain. Memories of the first night he spend with Suguru in his room, of how they memorized each other's bodies with their lips, how the noise of thunder covered their soft moans, Suguru’s shy smile, and soft blush, and for the first time Gojo’s shaking hands.
Gojo thought of how he will never see Suguru again, he will never touch him, kiss him or just live with the knowledge that Suguru was alive, away, but alive.
Now he only had memories left of his Suguru, that was all he got, and those memories were stained with blood and misery.
Lighting struck again and rain started to pour harder and with it, Gojo broke.
The tears he wasn’t able to let out in the last two years, started falling from his eyes. The sobs he so hard maintained to coming out started to choke him and finally he let them out. He let it all out.
The sobs shook his body with violence and the tears blurred his sight, even with his six eyes, the world looked shapeless and meaningless.
He took his blindfold, made with Suguru's uniform, to his chest and bend over it with his head almost touching the floor, and he cried.
He cried for every smile Suguru had given him, for every time their eyes met, for every touch, every kiss, and for every fight they had.
He cried for the friend he lost, and the lover he killed.
And above all, Gojo cried for every day in the future that he would have to live without him.
Sometime in the night, Gojo had moved to the bed where now he lied over the sheets, still with his clothes on and clutching his blindfold in one hand, watching the rain fall, only now was just a light drizzle. He felt drained and empty, his head hurt and his body felt stiff and heavy.
Gojo started to hear the muffled voices of his students through the hallway and wished to stay in bed all day, all week if it was possible, he wanted to avoid reality as long as he could, but he knew that wouldn't give him the revenge he so desperately wanted against those who broke his friend.
Gojo get up from the bed, with a huge amount of effort, walked to the bathroom, and washed away the trail of tears on his face. His eyes looked horribly red and puffy and, not for the first time, Gojo was glad for his blindfold.
He arranged himself as much as he could in the mirror and, before heading out of his room, he looked at the calendar beside his door. It marked another day, October 31 of 2018, another day in which he had to live without his one and only.
That day, more than any other day, Gojo Satoru walked out of his room wishing to see Suguru just one more time.