Work Text:
i am relieved that the turbulence wasn’t forecasted
i couldn’t have changed anyways
last words of a shooting star - mitski
I. Haibara Yu
Suguru only sees the second years off because no one else does.
Satoru is gone on his own mission, not due to return until tonight. Shoko is still asleep and was insistent she not be woken up. So Suguru carries Haibara’s bag, and the two of them meet Nanami at the car that will take them to the train station from which they’ll depart for their mission.
“Thanks for carrying my stuff,” Haibara says, his eyes bright as always. “I was hoping I’d get to say goodbye to you this morning since I didn’t see you after Tsukumo-san showed up yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Suguru responds. “No problem.” His voice sounds far away.
He didn’t come to see Haibara and Nanami off only because no one else would; he came because he hasn’t felt much like a person lately - more like a cloud of fog, a moment away from dissipating - and he’s hoping interacting with people he cares about will save him.
(Hoping it isn’t too late.)
He’ll be okay once he can manage a full night of sleep.
Until then, he’ll carry Haibara’s bag and listen to Haibara excitedly ramble about the place where the mission is. He’s always optimistic, always looking on the bright side of things. It’s a trait Suguru had assumed he would find annoying, but for some reason, he doesn’t really.
Maybe it’s because he knows Haibara looks up to him, and he’d hate to crush the kid’s dreams.
Nanami is, of course, already in the car when Suguru and Haibara arrive.
“Well,” Haibara says. He’s twisting his fingers together, giving away the fact that he’s more anxious than he’s letting on. “I guess this is it.” He lets out a nervous laugh.
Suguru puts on his best reassuring smile and passes Haibara’s bag over to him. “You’re going to be fine. You and Nanami are both powerful sorcerers.”
Haibara beams. “Thank you, Geto-senpai!” And then he’s lunging forward and wrapping his arms around Suguru’s torso. “I’ll pick out the best souvenir for you,” he promises.
Suguru pats his back, though he doesn’t exactly reciprocate the hug. “I expect nothing less.”
Haibara pulls away and turns to the car before opening the door and climbing in. As soon as the door is shut, he’s rolling the window down. “Bye!” He waves.
“I’ll see you two when you get back,” Suguru tells the second years. Haibara grins while Nanami ignores him.
As the car pulls away, Haibara switches to looking at Suguru through the back windshield, still grinning and waving. He turns and pokes Nanami’s shoulder until Nanami slaps his hand away. Though Nanami does, also, turn and wave to Suguru.
Suguru waves back, watching the kids through the window until the car turns the corner.
The next time Suguru sees Haibara, it’s only his mutilated corpse.
II. Nanami Kento
Suguru finds him in the kitchen at four in the morning.
He’s staring into a mug, the right side of his face still bandaged, though the bandages look like they should have been changed hours ago. If Suguru thought Shoko were awake, he’d call her. But she’s almost guaranteed to be asleep at this time, so he won’t bother.
“How are you holding up?” Suguru asks, though it’s senseless and empty. He doesn’t need to ask - Nanami’s sitting in the kitchen alone hours before he usually wakes up.
(Has he even slept?)
Nanami shrugs. He makes a series of soft noises in the back of his throat, then shivers and winces. Suguru does not know how to help.
“It isn’t your fault,” he says because he can’t think of anything else to say. He glances in Nanami’s mug as he walks past. It’s still full, though if he had to guess, whatever’s inside hasn’t been hot for a while.
He takes the mug and dumps it out in the sink. He replaces it with a glass of water, then starts looking through the cupboards for anything he knows Nanami likes to eat.
“Do you want me to make you breakfast?”
“No,” Nanami responds, his voice hoarse.
Suguru turns to look at him. The glass of water has remained untouched.
Nanami has never been a particularly happy person. His face is always pulled down into a glare and he doesn’t smile all that often. But this morning, his expression is hollower than usual.
He looks exactly how Suguru feels.
(Hopeless.)
Suguru doesn’t even feel like he can try to force Nanami to eat. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning himself. He can’t blame Nanami, and he can’t help Nanami.
He’s the St—
He’s one of the strongest - second only to Satoru - but he can’t do anything of use.
(What if all that’s at the end of that road is a mountain of our fellow sorcerers’ corpses?)
He sighs. “Try to at least drink some water. How long has it been since your bandages have been changed?”
“Don’t remember.” It comes out as a whisper.
“Drink,” Suguru orders. “I’ll be back with new bandages.”
When he returns, first-aid kit in hand, he can see that Nanami has at least taken a few sips of the water, which might be as good as they get this morning. Suguru sits next to him and replaces the old bandages with new ones.
They don’t talk. Suguru touches him lightly, allows him to pull away to tic and ignores the mumbled “Sorry”s that follow.
“Have you slept?” Suguru asks once he’s done.
Nanami shrugs.
“You should try to rest.” It tastes hypocritical, but—
Whatever. It doesn’t matter anymore.
Nanami mumbles something. It might be a tic. He stares at the glass of water.
Suguru wants to destroy everything that led to Haibara’s death. This is not a world teenagers should have to live in. This is not a world they should be forced to sacrifice themselves for. This is not what he signed up for when he agreed to come to Jujutsu Tech and train to be a sorcerer.
This is unacceptable.
“Yeah,” Nanami whispers. “Thanks.” Slowly, he stands to his feet. His hands are trembling.
He shoves them into his pockets.
“It’s going to be okay,” Suguru tells Nanami as the younger boy walks out of the kitchen. It’s apathetic and tasteless. It’s a joke that isn’t funny because it hits a little too close to home.
“Sure,” Nanami says.
Suguru does not see Nanami again.
III. Yaga Masamichi
“Kidnappings and abnormal deaths?” Suguru asks, scanning the mission file. He’s been up since four, but he should know better than to hope for a day off. He might not be the strongest anymore, but that doesn’t lessen the workload.
And with Haibara gone, and Yaga too kind to give Nanami another mission the day after his death—
“It shouldn’t be difficult,” Yaga tells him. “A standard mission. Grade one, I suspect, but grade two is also possible. Nothing you won’t be able to handle.”
Suguru hums. He closes the file and sets it down on the table. “When do I leave?”
“This evening. We won’t have any drivers available until then.”
This evening. Perfect. That means Suguru can blow off anything else and take a two-hour-long shower or something. See if that fixes the numbing void eating at his mind. See if that makes him feel like a person again.
Maybe he’ll go bother Shoko or something.
Anything to stave off the achy loneliness, the vile thoughts, the—
“Are you alright?” Yaga questions.
“Yeah.”
Yaga raises an eyebrow.
Suguru waves aside his concern. “I’m the— I’m a special grade. I’ll be fine.” He picks the file back up and turns to leave. “See you this evening?”
“Ah. I’m afraid not. I have a meeting with the higher ups.”
“Oh.” Suguru frowns.
He looks back.
“See you when I get back, then.”
Yaga nods. “Good luck, Suguru.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
The next time Suguru sees Yaga is nine years later, as Suguru declares war.
IV. Ieiri Shoko
He finds Shoko on the roof, a cigarette between her fingers, smoke escaping her lips. She smiles at him, but it’s tired and worn. It’s a smile plagued by constant death. It’s the smile of someone smiling through muscle memory instead of actually meaning it.
Suguru returns the smile with one of his own.
“I’m leaving again this evening,” he tells her.
“Have fun,” she deadpans. She doesn’t tack on her usual If you die, I’ll kill you. Haibara’s death is still a little too fresh on their minds to tempt fate, he supposes. She holds the cigarette out, and Suguru takes it.
He takes a slow drag, watches the smoke pour out into the air in front of him, and passes the cigarette back to Shoko.
“Make sure Nanami is changing his bandages,” he tells Shoko. “His wound is going to get infected.”
Shoko hums. “He wouldn’t let me heal it properly.”
“He wouldn’t?”
She shakes her head.
(If being a jujutsu sorcerer is like running a marathon…)
“I don’t think he’s been eating either.”
(...the finish line is nothing but a pile of corpses. Either you live with the guilt and the grief, or you join the pile.)
“Neither have you,” Shoko points out.
Suguru doesn’t respond. He can’t argue; he knows it’s pointless. He can’t lie to Shoko, and he doesn’t have the energy to try anyway.
Two years ago, he would have bit back with something. But then again, two years ago, he wouldn’t have been skipping meals. Two years ago, he wasn’t living with the weight of existence on his shoulders, dragging him down, the impossibility of a future looming over his head like a storm cloud.
Now, he just takes it. He lets Shoko’s words hit him and bounce off, not even flinching.
“You gonna see Satoru before you go?”
“Depends when he gets back.”
“Are you two…okay?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?” Suguru says, because he doesn’t want to deal with the truth. He doesn’t want to deal with the uncertainty and the growing realization that there is no happiness they will be able to reach. They cannot be truly happy in this world.
If they get another life, Suguru hopes Satoru will find him there.
But a sorcerer’s life is not built for happiness. Not with the way things are set up now. Not when sorcerers will have to keep dying, resources stretched thin, to save people who don’t care - people who are the ones causing the problems in the first place.
“He misses you,” Shoko tells him.
“Tell him to stop accepting so many missions, then.”
“You aren’t any better.” Shoko puts her cigarette out. She drops it, then crushes it underfoot. “Don’t let the distance between you get too wide, okay? I’m not picking sides.”
“Whatever.”
Shoko flicks him, and then turns to leave. Suguru watches her go. She does not look back.
The next time Suguru sees Shoko, he finds her in Shinjuku, and she sides with Satoru.
V. Gojo Satoru
“Suguru! Suguru!”
Suguru turns to see Satoru running towards him. He doesn’t slow down, instead crashing right into Suguru and enveloping him in a hug that Suguru is hesitant to reciprocate.
“I can’t believe you were going to leave without saying goodbye to me!”
“I didn’t realize you were back,” Suguru lies. Lies like he wasn’t hoping to leave a few minutes early just so he could avoid Satoru, just so he could ignore Shoko’s advice.
“I only got back, like, a half hour ago.” Satoru releases him from the hug. His smile drops once he really looks at Suguru. Suguru can see it in his eyes. He goes from enthralled by the idea of Suguru - the Suguru that used to exist - to disappointed by the reality of the person Suguru has become. “Hey,” he says quietly, “are you sure you’re up for this mission? They could probably find someone else to take it for you.”
Suguru grits his teeth. “Trying to take my mission for yourself?”
He goes for a teasing tone. It falls flat.
Satoru sighs. He runs a hand through his hair. He takes his glasses off and hooks them on his shirt. “Suguru…”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me; I don’t need it.”
Satoru doesn’t look like he believes him. Suguru can’t blame him; the lie gets harder to spit out every day. He doesn’t know what his tipping point will be, or what will come in the fallout, but he has a strange feeling he’s going to find out sooner rather than later.
“Just…let me know if you need help, okay? Not that I don’t think you can do this on your own! But, if you— if you want someone else there with you. Just for the company. Call me. Okay?”
“Sure.” Suguru will not call Satoru. He doesn’t need Satoru’s help, and he certainly doesn’t need Satoru’s moral support. He doesn’t need to fall back into the baseless belief that they could be happy.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Satoru relaxes. “Goodbye kiss?”
Suguru smiles, and he thinks this one might be real. He leans in and presses his lips against Satoru’s, letting them linger a moment longer than he generally would.
The kiss breaks slowly, and Suguru rests his forehead against Satoru’s.
Happiness, he thinks, would feel something like this. But it wouldn’t have the everlasting darkness hanging over it. It wouldn’t have the finish line creeping closer with every passing day.
“Not that you need it,” Satoru says, “but good luck. Bring me back a souvenir if you have time. Something sweet.”
“Of course,” Suguru promises. This is one he actually intends to keep. He pulls back and takes one final look at Satoru - bright eyes and wild hair, dopey smile and pink cheeks. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
“See you soon.”
Satoru pulls him in for one last kiss - the kind you see in movies before one of the characters has to fly away to a new life for a while, and Suguru savors every moment of it.
There are no more words exchanged between the kiss and Suguru climbing into the car. Satoru waves, and Suguru smiles before settling in his seat, staring at the road ahead.
The next time Suguru sees Satoru, he places his life in Satoru’s hands and turns his back.