Work Text:
Three gray walls.
A computer notification.
Meeting in 15 minutes .
A heavy exhale.
Consider how to greet the shareholder. A handshake, a bow — not too low. Maintain eye contact.
Boss leans in to converse. He's too close, he's touching, he's talking about something… something that really doesn't need to be said at work.
Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out.
Block it all out.
A heavy exhale.
Review notes. Attend meeting.
Ah shit.
Bills are due today. That's okay. There's enough money in the bank account to pay it off because he works a job that pays tenfold. No need to ever worry about money. No need to worry about. Anything. No need…
He stares at the digits in his account balance and attempts to give them meaning. Maybe if he looks long enough, the pixels will come together to form something. Like an optical illusion he just hasn't figured out yet.
He pays his bills, shuts off his computer. There is no illusion, so don't think too deeply about this. About any of this.
Go to the meeting, arrive early. Handshake, bow, smile — just enough. Make small talk. How was your day? Tea? Watch out for the flu this season.
Clock out.
Pick up pieces of himself.
Leave.
Don't think too deeply about any of this.
Nanami arrives home later than anticipated. He places his keys atop marble counters and mindlessly drifts toward his refrigerator to pull out something he can heat up and call dinner.
To the tune of microwave white noise, Nanami pours himself a glass of wine even though his hand first went for the whisky bottle.
It’s only a Wednesday. He saves the whiskey for Friday, and sets his dinner and drink down on his cherry wood table for two.
Nanami’s apartment is perfect, pristine — clinically so. Solid wood furniture, neutral color scheme, smooth leather chairs, bare walls.
His bookshelves are the exception — because stories always seem to collect dust — as is the gaping hole in his dwelling from when he crash-landed his ship into this corner of Tokyo.
He could make up an excuse, blame it on turbulent waters or the lack of light. It wouldn’t be the first time he has lied to himself, convincing himself he’s not that good of a sailor or that his ship just wasn’t built for this kind of journey. But he couldn’t lie to anyone who mattered.
He never told him where he landed.
Silver utensils clatter onto a ceramic plate, and the echo is far too loud for this apartment.
He is a sailor whose ship helm carved pathways on ocean waves, leaving behind trails of seafoam, but the ocean is never a sailor’s destination. It is their in-between — a bridge between their past and future.
He’s not a stranger to new shores. This time, he landed amidst Tokyo corporate buildings donning a suit that didn’t fit him quite right in the shoulders and a tie that he never learned how to tie on his own. The first time, his helm took him to the perimeters of jujutsu high where he was pulled to shore by the flame of a lighthouse a hundred feet above the seaside.
He landed where he intended to, but got distracted by the flame, crashed his ship, and, well… he forgot about his ship and the ocean altogether. Because he was greeted by white hair, gaudy glasses, lanky legs, and laughter that struck the sea chills out of him. Nanami approached the stranger, pieces at a time — his legs unfamiliar with how solid the ground felt beneath his feet.
And even when his sea legs got the best of him, someone more faithful than gravity was always there to catch him.
His ship rested on the shores of jujutsu high for three years. Now, it rests on his bookshelf encased in a glass bottle — an artifact never to be touched again.
His sorcerer years became stories, and, well, stories always seem to collect dust.
The city lights shimmer against his wine glass and pierce through the liquid half-full.
He finishes the rest of his drink in one go.
Don't think too deeply about this either.
Three gray walls.
A computer notification. And another.
A heavy exhale.
His boss — his fucking boss — is walking over again. Does the guy ever have tasks to do?
The question is rhetorical. Nanami adjusts his headphones to signal to whoever might be looking (whoever being none other than his boss) that he was occupied and could not afford (literally) to interact.
He feels an arm on his shoulder, and the overbearing smell of cheap cologne permeates his cubicle.
Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out. Block it out.
Block it all out.
A heavy exhale.
He thinks about his lunch break instead. The bakery near his apartment had his favorite sandwich in stock today. He picked one up.
The cashier seemed tired. She always works the early morning shifts.
The sandwich most definitely got crushed in his briefcase.
Working in a bakery sounds nice.
His boss’s cologne makes his head hurt.
He’s not sure what “nice” means.
Too bad he wouldn’t be able to make a living.
Another computer notification.
Don’t think.
Nanami spends his Sundays with could be’s. He could be fighting curses, could be wiping blood off his blade. He could be eating pancakes had he gotten up earlier, could be waiting for someone else to make them had he-
Instead, he sips his green tea, makes his way through a piece of toast and a book until he altogether forgets about the toast and the tea goes cold.
But he keeps the book, lets himself get lulled into a place where he can’t perceive the could be’s.
It’s about a woman who lives in the present but has experienced the future. The book asks the question, “if you saw the future and could change the course of events, would you?”
The woman sees her daughter die. She sees her husband leave.
She does not change her future.
Sorcerers exist in the past, in recollecting could be’s, and they exist in the future, in things that will be. They will be assigned a new mission soon, they will have to negotiate with higher-ups. Well, not Nanami. Because Nanami is no longer a sorcerer. He is a corporate office worker. He is ordinary. He will not be doing sorcerer-related things, but someone will be.
A breeze slips through the window. Nanami tugs at the sleeve of his jacket and slips his hands into the pockets to pull out memories to hold in his palms. He flips through them one at a time like stories in a book.
There’s dust.
These are old memories. Ones that should've faded away with everything else from his past.
But this one is so clear.
How many times must he have painted in the details with a single haired brush to get every second just right?
Gojo's cow-lick from wearing his headband so often, the way the chilies on the stovetop singed their noses, two jackets on the coat rack.
Watery eyes.
Then tears.
It was their first goodbye. Their last hello.
It hurt. Chilis. Kitchen smoke. Farewell. Misty blue.
Everything stung — his eyes, his throat, his chest. His tolerance for pain wasn’t as high as he thought it was.
His departure from the jujutsu world had to be clean, precise. Nanami drew, not a line, but a dot — a point of no return. A line could be crossed, but a point could be crumpled into nothingness and forgotten in a jacket pocket.
But even the smallest black hole weighs more than a galaxy.
This memory is so clear that Nanami felt the ghost of burning in his lungs.
He can’t seem to cram his past into something that can be forgotten. He can’t seem to let it go.
(Maybe he doesn’t want to.)
Because letting go is an art, practiced and honed to perfection. Exit a room as though you were never there, not leaving even the ghost of your memories behind. Choose your erasure and scrub thoroughly.
This was how Nanami left, pieces at a time.
A quarter-empty suitcase. A different haircut. Vacate the bathroom of things that used to come in pairs — toothbrush, towel, cup. Slip on comfortable walking shoes. Maybe put on an extra jacket. Unanchor the ship, don’t look back. The weather forecast said there was a 60% chance of snow.
Paint the world white — a blank canvas, an empty book, an unwritten story.
But Nanami was not an artist.
He was a hollow space left behind in the shape of a jacket that was not his, half of an armchair set that he could not carry down apartment stairs, his favorite pen lost under the office desk.
Sorcerers live in the past because their futures are pre-determined — a gruesome death, routine funeral services, a mysterious notice of passing sent to whatever family one had left. Death, just constant death.
Nanami saw his future and chose to change it.
Because the present becomes the past in half a breath. It was easier to exist in stories tucked safely away in jacket pockets, glass bottles, and bookshelves than in the now.
He chose his future.
Three gray walls. Solid wood furniture. Whiskey on Fridays.
He chooses to leave his present in the past.
Misty blue. Lighthouse. Gravity.
This was how Nanami left pieces, at a time.
Seafoam. Missing jacket. Goodbye.