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When she wakes, the first thing she notices is the strange man hovering beside her.
“Utahime,” the man says, each syllable punctuated by an obnoxious trill, “you’re finally up! I was worried about you for half a second, you know, since you’re so weak. It looks like the curses really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
She blinks, eyes adjusting to the light. She’s lying in what looks like an infirmary, white and clinical, and she doesn’t remember how she got here. There’s no obvious sign of injury on her body and when she sits up, she doesn't feel any ache or pain at all.
Utahime—the man had called her—that must be her name. She tests it on her tongue, rolling the syllables in a soft murmur, and there’s a sense of familiarity to it.
There’s nothing familiar about the man, though. He hands her a cup of water and she accepts gratefully. She studies him discreetly over the rim, eyes tracing over his shock of white hair, the peculiar blindfold covering his eyes, his sharp jawline, and the cut of his dark jacket. If they’d met before and it certainly seems that way, seeing as he knows her name and he’s here beside her, then surely, he was someone impossible to forget.
She doesn’t remember him. Or anyone else, for that matter. The ghosts of the past linger like shadows at the back of her mind.
The man peers at her, or at least he seems to, since she can’t see his eyes. “What’s up with you? Did you hit your head or something?”
“Who are you?” she asks, at last.
"Who else but the great Gojo Satoru? The Strongest Sorcerer! The world’s best teacher!” The man chortles and eyes her cup expectantly, two fingers up in the air. He pauses when she stares at him blankly. “Wait, you really don't know?"
She shakes her head. She searches her memory for the name Gojo. Nothing registers, although there is a spark of something in her mind.
The man—Gojo—frowns, lips pushed into a childish pout. He scans her from head to toe and Utahime freezes when he leans in close. They are mere centimetres apart, close enough to feel the tickle of his breath against her cheek, and it's far too close for a stranger she’s only just met.
A long uncomfortable moment passes before Gojo leans back; examination complete. His frown transforms into a wide smile and he looks exceedingly pleased.
“Well, let me reintroduce myself.” Utahime jolts when Gojo reaches out, fingers threading through hers. He pulls down his blindfold with the other hand to reveal a pair of impossibly blue eyes. “I’m the most important person you’ve ever met. I’m the love of your life, your one and only. I’m your husband, Utahime.”
Utahime looks down at where their hands are joined, his large hand covering hers, and then into his eyes, bright, earnest and dazzling. Her head spins and this time, she recognises the twinge of something for what it is: the onset of a migraine.
Her name is Utahime. She is thirty-two years old, a teacher and a Jujutsu Sorcerer. And she’s married to Gojo Satoru.
Utahime remembers none of it.
Her mind thunders as Gojo talks and talks, unable to process it all. He explained that she’d been assigned on a mission to exorcise curses (“a bunch of small fry”) in a remote forest. There was a mishap and after he’d found her, confused and bleeding, Gojo had brought her here, to Shoko. Shoko had healed her injuries and then Utahime proceeded to sleep for the next eighteen hours ("just like a baby, minus the screaming and crying, not to mention the pooping"). And now, apart from what appears to be a random bout of amnesia, an unfortunate side-effect of her curse encounter, she was good to go.
“What happened to the curses?” Utahime asks. Gojo responds with a snap of his fingers, his face dark.
She doesn’t get to ask what that means because the door slides open and a woman enters the room. Gojo releases Utahime’s hand in a flash, an action that does not go unnoticed by their visitor, judging by the way she quirks a curious eyebrow at him.
Utahime flushes, ears growing red. There is no reasonable explanation why, since she's a married woman with her husband, not a pair of teenagers caught making out behind the school gym.
To her relief, the woman doesn't make any further comment and starts checking Utahime’s temperature and pulse rate. Ieiri Shoko's hands are cold to touch and she has a blunt bedside manner that could be easily mistaken for indifference. Utahime takes an immediate liking to her.
“You’re looking a lot better, senpai.”
“Thank you for your care.” Utahime bows her head. She glances at Gojo, who skulks quietly in a corner. “My husband appreciates it too.”
“Your what?” Shoko says, sharply.
“My husband.”
Shoko gapes at her for a moment, before she turns slowly to Gojo and gives him a pointed look, jerking her chin towards the door. “Gojo? Let’s talk outside.”
Gojo raises his hands in apparent defence, and he and Shoko leave the room. Utahime cannot make out their hushed conference from behind the door—a jumble of fierce whispering and occasionally a burst of laughter from Gojo. Warmth blooms in Utahime’s chest at the sound, and she wonders what it’d feel like when she and her husband laugh together, genuinely.
“Is everything alright?” Utahime asks when they return, Shoko sour-faced and Gojo radiant.
“Gojo told me what happened,” Shoko grimaces. “It sounds like you have selective retrograde amnesia. Your memory loss should only be temporary, lasting maybe a week or two. You’re otherwise in perfect health.”
“In the meantime, I’ll take good care of you,” Gojo says, hands clasped together in delight. Shoko shoots dagger eyes at him. "In sickness and in health, just like I promised you, my darling wife."
Utahime looks between Gojo and Shoko. “I'll remember everything soon, won’t I?”
Shoko sighs and slips off her gloves. "Don't worry, senpai. Gojo always manages to bring out the best and worst in you. A few days with him, and I’m sure your memory will be back in no time."
They go back home, or what Gojo says is home. It’s an apartment in downtown Tokyo, and it’s sparse and minimalistic. The walls are white and the blinds are grey. Other than the TV and sofa in the living room, and the view of the sprawling city, there’s not much else to look at.
“We live here?” asks Utahime, fingers tracing the marble kitchen benchtop.
Gojo shrugs. “Sometimes. I have several properties.”
“It doesn’t look very homely.” The fridge is empty when she looks inside.
“No problem!” Gojo whips out his credit card and waves it in her face. “Let’s go furniture shopping! Your beloved husband, Gojo Satoru, will buy you a welcome home gift.”
He ushers her into the main bedroom, which looks just as functional as the rest of the apartment. The bed is large enough to sleep four people side-by-side with extra room to spare and the sheets are soft to touch. The room itself is undecorated, just a reading lamp beside the bed and Utahime spies some framed photos on a far shelf, hidden behind several tomes on the rise and fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
“I’ll sleep in the spare room,” Gojo says. Utahime doesn’t object.
He leaves her to unpack, having brought a suitcase of her clothes from somewhere—presumably one of their other homes. He had mentioned something about spending most of the year in Kyoto. Utahime pushes aside Gojo’s clothes, identical sets and sets of his dark uniform, and makes space for her own.
They end up going shopping. Gojo buys her a new phone, her old one lost during her disastrous mission. He punches in his number under the name ‘Husband Dearest’, followed by a sparkling heart, and reluctantly adds Shoko’s contact details at her request. Utahime catches sight of his phone wallpaper, a candid sleeping photo of her in the infirmary, her mouth hanging open, and she can’t imagine anything less attractive.
Gojo pulls her into a swanky home living store in Ginza, pointing out a sleek cedar coffee table. Utahime takes one look at the price tag and tries to bolt from the store. But Gojo catches her and insists (“what kind of miserly husband do you think I am?”), so she settles for a couple of pale blue throw cushions—the colour reminiscent of his eyes—and a small peace lily plant to placate him, and Gojo happily pays with his card.
Utahime picks up some fish balls and tofu at a supermarket on the way back and Gojo touches all the shelves and products like a hyperactive child. Much to her disgruntlement, Gojo fills the other half of the shopping basket with chocolate bars (“it’s the limited-edition cherry blossom mochi flavour, Utahime!”). She rolls her eyes and bites back her retort—he’s old enough to manage his own health and money, she supposes, even if he ends up paying for it a thousandfold in dentist visits.
Once they arrive home, Gojo busies himself with chopping spring onion and preparing for dinner, the picture of a dutiful husband, while Utahime re-pots the peace lily and sets it down on the kitchen table.
The oden bubbles, warm and inviting, and when Utahime takes her first sip of the soy dashi broth, it tastes like a long-forgotten memory. Gojo lounges across from her in a large black sweater, wide at the neck. She watches him under lowered lashes, following the cords of his neck down to the curve of his collarbones, and he catches her looking. He smiles indulgently, expression soft as he says, “I’ve had dreams like this before.”
Utahime looks away quickly, cheeks warm. She tells herself it’s because of the oden and only because of the oden.
Later that night, Utahime lies in that massive bed, alone but not uncomfortable, and tries—but fails—to remember her past life with Gojo Satoru.
Gojo likes to tell stories. Or, as others may call it, tall tales. Fibs and lies.
In the first story Gojo tells, Utahime had dropped to her knees and begged and begged him to marry her, because she was about to be deported from the country, and Gojo had acquiesced ("since I’m such a kind person”). Utahime doesn’t believe it for a minute. It sounds like the plot of a ridiculous rom-com movie and when she points this out, Gojo just laughs, an obnoxious cackle, and says, “So it is.”
Gojo is positively gleeful when he tells her the second story. Their marriage was arranged when he was born; a union between the powerful Gojo clan and the lesser Iori clan, a family of shrine keepers and Shinto traditionalists. Her grandfather (“a decrepit old guy with too many piercings and an overgrown beard”) had staunchly opposed the match, but he died from a heart attack (“unsurprising, really, seeing as he could barely walk”). This story seems slightly more believable than the first, ruined only when Gojo mentions that they’d immediately started work on continuing the family line and had thirteen children between them.
In the third tale of their star-crossed romance, Utahime met Gojo for the first time at the Jujutsu High. She had fallen head over heels in love with him (“who could blame you given I am irresistible and unbelievably attractive, after all”) and he was her favourite kouhai. She had spent the better half of ten years pining after him pitifully, scared that he was too good for her, until tragedy struck and she’d confessed her never-ending love for him whilst on the brink of death. But all was well, because Shoko had patched her up, and they got married the very next day and lived happily ever after.
By this stage, Utahime had concluded no one in their right mind would willingly get married to Gojo Satoru. Which concerned her, since surely the logical next question was whether she was out of her mind?
“Of course,” Gojo chuckles. “Your mind was scrambled after your latest mission.”
“Very funny.” Utahime glares at him and he beams back at her. “Can you be serious for once and give me the truth?”
Gojo taps her affectionately on the nose. “I can’t tell you. You’ll have to remember it by yourself.”
For a man that’s just lost his wife—mentally, that is—Gojo doesn’t seem all too concerned. Instead, he seems to relish in it.
“It’s fine that you don’t remember,” he reassures her. “Think of it as a blank slate. It’ll be fun to fall in love again, from the beginning. Maybe we’ll revisit the honeymoon period, fucking all day and night.” Gojo sniggers like a teenage boy, and Utahime’s migraine is fully fledged now.
If anything, it seems as if the honeymoon phase is well and truly behind them and they're stuck firmly in the bickering married couple stage.
Utahime is folding laundry one afternoon when Gojo comes barrelling out of nowhere, covered in blood. She dodges right in time, but the pile of clothes is not so lucky.
“Whoops,” Gojo says, hurriedly picking up the fallen shirts and tossing them onto the sofa, before he flops dramatically onto the floor.
She rushes over to him.
Gojo whimpers, taking a great shuddering breath, and his face contorts with pain. His legs lie askew at an awkward angle, just like a cartoonish crime scene chalk outline. Clothes stained red, he reeks of something acrid and metallic.
“Ow, it hurts,” he gasps and his entire body shakes. “Utahime, I think…I think I-I’m dying.”
He rolls to the side, lifting his blindfold briefly to squint at her before he squeezes his eyes shut again.
Utahime stands over him, arms crossed, and waits until he finishes playing dead.
“So cold-hearted, Utahime,” he whines, once he realises that she's not falling for his dismal acting. “You’re supposed to cry and console me. Tell me I’m too young and beautiful to die. And say that I can’t die here, not before we get to live out our hopes and dreams together.”
“Get up,” is all Utahime says, nudging him with her foot.
Gojo rights himself and leans against the sofa. “What gave me away?”
“This is just red paint,”—she gestures at his jacket—“and you had time to take off your shoes before dying,”—a jab at his sock-clad feet—“not to mention, your complete lack of dignity in general.”
“So cruel.” Gojo dabs a fake tear from his cheek. “All I wanted was for my wife to show me some care and affection. A kiss from my one true love would’ve healed me on my deathbed.”
Her left eye twitches in irritation.
“Anyway,” Gojo says, shrugging off his filthy jacket, “I took some time off work. So let’s go on a date, Utahime.”
“A date?” Utahime frowns.
Well, it was not like she had much else to do. Ever since she had left Shoko’s clinic, she had spent her days going for walks, buying groceries, and waiting for Gojo to come home. It’d made her feel like a housewife—not that there’s anything wrong with being a housewife—but Gojo had said she was a teacher and a Jujutsu Sorcerer, so presumably she had students to teach and curses to exorcise.
When she’d complained about this to Gojo, his face fell briefly before he had a lightbulb moment and disappeared into nothingness. He returned ten minutes later with a bundle of paperwork in his arms (“this snooze fest was your favourite”) and dumped it on the kitchen table, almost knocking over their brand-new peace lily. They were student assignments on agriculture and cursed technique theory—something to tide her over until she’d fully recovered.
Her hand grazed over the unfamiliar names—Nishimiya, Kamo, Toudou—and nothing sprung to mind. Nishimiya wrote with a purple pen, sometimes with a sparkle of glitter, while Kamo’s handwriting was clean and precise. The third student, Toudou, submitted pages and pages of detailed and frankly impressive analysis on terrace farming, with the name ‘Takada-chan’, framed by hearts, scribbled into the margins. Utahime tried to imagine what her students would look like—Nishimiya was cute and girly, Kamo poised and proper, and Toudou was perhaps a skinny, studious teenager suffering from the delusion of first love.
There is only so much paperwork that one could do, so she agrees to a date with Gojo.
Dinner and a movie—simple stuff, really. What could possibly go wrong?
"I don't have anything suitable," Utahime says as she rifles through her space in the wardrobe.
"A problem that can be solved with money is not a problem." Gojo tosses his credit card at her and teleports them back to Ginza. He makes her try on eleven different outfits—shimmying from a golden silk slip to a puffy blue gown complete with frills to a pink monstrosity—all while enthusiastically snapping photos of her in each one. By the end, she feels more like a doll than his wife, and Gojo, exceedingly pleased by it all, buys every single outfit.
He immediately insists that she wear the golden slip for their date and arranges for express dry cleaning.
The dress clings to her body, exposing every dip and curve. Utahime tugs at the slit on the side, stretching up mid-thigh, and tries in vain to adjust the plunging neckline, which shows far too much of her breasts for comfort. Nothing about this dress screams comfort, seeing as the back is completely bare and it hangs from her shoulders by a tiny thread of fabric.
Gojo gawks when he sees her, stars in his eyes. His mouth opens and closes like a gobsmacked goldfish. Stunning him into complete silence is a rare accomplishment, and Utahime counts it as a win.
He’s wearing a cream turtleneck and tailored black suit jacket, having switched out his blindfold for a pair of sunglasses ("all the better to see you with, of course"), even though their date is at night. He looks sharp, and if Utahime is honest with herself, devastatingly handsome.
"Your outfit is missing something," he says, after he recovers his voice.
Utahime raises an eyebrow at him. “Yes, like a whole metre of fabric.”
Gojo pulls a scrap of white ribbon from his pocket and holds it out to her. When she doesn't take it, he waves her over. Every muscle in her tenses as he stands behind her. Heat radiates from his body onto her bare back, his breath ghosting the top of her head. He gathers the top part of her hair, tentatively and gently, and when his fingernails scrape against her scalp, Utahime suppresses a pleasant shiver. His fingers comb through her long strands, pulling it together tightly, before he wraps it with the ribbon and ties it into a neat bow.
"Is it done?" she asks, breath catching in her throat.
Gojo hums approvingly. He steps back to admire his handwork and Utahime immediately mourns the loss of his touch, his warmth, his presence behind her.
When she slides one arm into a wrap coat, Gojo tries to stop her, disappointment on his face. “Utahime, don’t hide from me.”
“Are you crazy? It’s freezing outside.” She gives him a pointed look. “Why am I going out almost naked when you’re covered from head to toe?”
“If you wanted to stay warm and naked indoors, you could’ve just told me,” Gojo says, with a waggle of his eyebrows. “We can order takeaway, curl up in bed and do some other fun activities.”
“Alright, you pervert, let’s go.” Utahime pushes him out the front door.
They materialise in an alleyway, a few metres from the front of a nondescript restaurant. The staff recognise Gojo on sight, bowing deeply, and usher them down a minimalistic ochre hallway into a private dining room. The dining table is set with handmade earthen pottery and an elegant ikebana display sits near the window, overlooking a manicured Japanese garden. It would be a refined backdrop for a business lunch or omiai, but in Utahime’s opinion, far too formal for a first date.
Staff bustle in and out of the room with plate after plate of tantalisingly small portions of food: creamy sea urchin; textured scallop dumplings; slivers of fatty otoro tuna that dissolves in the mouth; and ozaki beef bursting with flavour.
While Utahime concedes that the food is incredibly delicious, the atmosphere of the restaurant is overly attentive and downright suffocating. She sits stiff and upright, while Gojo lounges across several zaisu chairs, lacking any social decorum. Schmaltzy classical music plays in the background as Utahime eats, trying to hold up the neckline of her dress.
“Keep staring and I’ll gouge your eyes out.”
Gojo smirks at her. “Nothing I haven't seen before."
He doesn't stop ogling, though.
“Nobara told me the way to a woman’s heart is to buy her food and clothes,” Gojo says, nine courses later. He prods at his third helping of dessert, a persimmon-apple blancmange, and pops it into his mouth.
“Not every woman is the same,” she mutters and Gojo ignores her.
“I found the perfect post-dinner movie for you! It’s a special showing, but you’ll love it,” he pauses dramatically, “since it’s about respecting your elders.”
To Utahime’s dismay, it turns out to be a children’s movie. She eyes the movie poster—complete with a boy, dog and skeleton prancing on a vivid orange bridge—with scepticism. Just how old does Gojo think she is—five? Tired parents filter into the theatre with noisy children in tow, desperate for two hours of rest, and Utahime is conscious that she’s extremely overdressed for the occasion. Or maybe underdressed, given how everyone else is wearing thick woollen jumpers and fleece jackets.
She needn’t have worried about the children, because Gojo is the most annoying child of all. Clearly, no one had ever taught Gojo any cinema etiquette. He talks incessantly during the movie and whispers nonsense into her ear. His phone rings loudly on three occasions, despite the threatening reminder from a cheery mascot at the start of the movie, and Utahime glimpses the name ‘Ijichi’ flash up on his phone before Gojo hastily declines the call. The other cinemagoers glare in their direction and Utahime sinks lower and lower in her seat as the movie progresses, not wanting to be associated with him.
"Hehehe, what a way to die." Gojo chuckles, as the villain hurtles through the air, slamming into a belltower and is promptly crushed by a giant bell.
"Will you shut up?" she hisses. "I like you more when you're quiet."
This has the opposite effect, since all it does is make Gojo laugh even louder, drawing more stink eyes. "You used to say that as well."
Most of the adult audience, including Utahime, and some kids are bawling by the end of the movie. Tears roll freely down her cheeks as the boy strums his guitar and breaks into a hesitant and heartfelt song, reuniting his family. Utahime cries, not just for the characters, but also the friends and family lost in her memory.
There's a tap on her hand and she turns to find Gojo’s phone thrust in front of her face.
“Pft, Utahime, are you crying?” Click. “It must be because I'm such a great husband.” Snap. “You must be moved to tears by this amazing date.” Then. “Did you remember me?”
To make matters worse, his flash is on, so the entire theatre lights up with every photo he takes.
“Leave me alone.” She glares at him with puffy red eyes, and wipes her face with the sleeve of her coat.
Utahime shivers as they leave the cinema, icy wind biting at her bare décolletage and exposed legs, and Gojo, for once, has the good manners to shrug off his suit jacket and drape it over her shoulders, before teleporting them home.
Gojo kicks off his shoes and bounces into the living room. "Did you have fun?"
"I can't believe I married a sociopath," Utahime says under her breath.
Said sociopath must have sensitive hearing, because he calls back in a sing-song voice, "I love you too, Utahime!"
Utahime walks off and shuts the door behind her. The silence of her room has never been so peaceful.
"Should we be up here?" Utahime shouts, wind roaring in her ears, as Gojo hops over a railing and past a restricted access sign.
Gojo waves dismissively. "Don't worry. I come here all the time."
"To do what, exactly?" Utahime huffs and follows Gojo over the railing. “You can get a similar view from our apartment.”
They’re standing at the top of the Skytree—no, not the enclosed observation deck, but on the very top of the antenna tower, some six hundred metres above the city of Tokyo. The capital stretches out in every direction beneath them, partially hidden beneath a sea of clouds, and she can make out the snow-capped peak of Mt Fuji in the distance.
“It’s not the same,” Gojo whines. “Where else can I feel the wind in my hair and look super cool at the same time?”
She resists the urge to ask him if he’d tried any alternatives less likely to result in instant death, such as renting a wind machine or even the humble home hair dryer.
“Besides, Yuuji suggested we should do something fun and romantic,” Gojo gestures to a picnic basket, red picnic blanket flapping around beneath it, “so I asked him to help me set something up.”
Utahime looks at him in horror. “How did he get up here? Don’t tell me you risked the life of your student to set up this stupid date?”
“He climbed, probably. It’s all part of his physical training regime,” Gojo says nonchalantly. “Don’t worry so much, Utahime, or else you’ll get wrinkles! I better get you some anti-ageing cream.”
“We could’ve just done this at a park and saved Yuuji the trouble.”
“Ah, but that’d be too easy." His eyes sweep over her. “It’s no fun when things are easy.”
Gojo plops down onto the blanket, patting the space next to him until she reluctantly takes a seat. He rummages through the picnic basket and tosses her an egg sandwich.
“Don’t throw it at me,” Utahime grouses. “What if I dropped it and it flew off the tower? An object falling from this height might kill someone.”
“See, what did I say about overthinking? How could something so squishy kill someone, anyway?” Gojo pokes at his own sandwich.
Utahime bites into her sandwich and finds that it is indeed squishy. It is also delicious, soft and creamy, and she silently thanks Yuuji for his efforts. Maybe this was not such a bad idea, after all. Good food, stunning scenery, and best of all, she can barely hear Gojo over the strong and chilly breeze.
All was well until Gojo jumps up and pulls her to her feet. “Wanna see something cool?”
Before she can say no, he slides his arms under her legs and shoulders, and leaps off the tower.
Utahime falls.
And falls.
Or not.
What actually happens is Utahime squeezes her eyes shut, mouth open in a silent scream, and braces for a fall that never comes.
Gojo snickers, because obviously he finds this hilarious.
Utahime opens her eyes and immediately wishes she hadn’t, since she feels like she’s going to be sick. Maybe it was the egg sandwich but more likely, it’s the vertigo, since they’re suspended in thin air, with nothing except a dizzying drop to the concrete jungle beneath them. Her legs were already slightly shaky on the tower and now they feel like absolute jelly. Utahime forces herself to look away, anywhere but down, which unfortunately means she has nowhere else to look except at Gojo.
Gojo is radiant, white hair whipping around his face. The corners of his mouth stretch into the widest grin she’s ever seen. And when Utahime hooks her arms around his neck—an extra safety anchor in case he tries to drop her, something she wouldn’t put past him—Gojo goes pink and perks up like he’s walking on cloud nine. Which he is, literally.
"Isn’t this romantic? This is where we had our first kiss," Gojo crows, puckering his lips.
There was no way the purported kiss was anything but a coincidental meeting of lips. Maybe when he tried to catch her puke with his own mouth, because the churning feeling in her stomach was definitely not from butterflies.
“Have you lost your mind?” she snaps. “Put me down straight away!”
“If you insist.”
His arms start moving underneath her, loosening their hold.
Utahime clings to him in a clammy death grip. “Not like that, you idiot!”
“Then stop squirming, Utahime.” His voice, right by her ear, is low and amused.
She stops moving and instead focuses all her energy into glaring at him.
“Completely insufferable. Not only can you teleport, but you can fly as well,” she mutters, once she is certain that he would not let go of her.
“I'm the Strongest, so is there anything I can't do? Don't be jealous, just because you’re weak." He quickly adds, in what seems like an afterthought, “Weak for me, I mean.”
It definitely doesn’t help his case.
They float like that for a while. Utahime shuts her eyes, headache building, as Gojo ponders life’s big questions out loud, like what his assistant Ijichi had for lunch.
“I’m happy you’re here with me,” Gojo whispers, after he’d finished spouting his latest drivel. “When it’s just the two of us, doesn’t it seem like the world and its earthly problems just fade away?”
“Maybe for you,” Utahime says. She jerks her head at their neglected picnic basket. “But I prefer life down there—it's at least grounded in some sort of reality.”
Gojo must’ve misheard her, because he nods obligingly and they fall, for real this time.
They plummet to the ground, wind howling around them. The concrete rushes up to meet them and Utahime screams until her throat is raw while Gojo simply laughs with manic glee. Utahime, jaw slack and shaking, imagines her body splattering as it hits the pavement, painting it red. Limbs flying, then broken and contorted. Squishy like an egg sandwich.
He slows their descent as they near the ground, spinning and slowly spiraling around skyscrapers in some semblance of control until they land on a balcony. Utahime looks past the gray blinds and catches sight of a familiar peace lily inside the apartment, and realises Gojo has dropped them home.
Utahime can’t feel her legs when he lets go of her. She collapses into a heap with a painful thump, but that feeling is nothing compared to the sheer relief of having something solid underneath her feet again.
Gojo has the gall to ask her, “Did you have fun?”
"I’m going to kill you,” Utahime seethes.
He cackles. “You can try.”
Utahime surveys the row of little bottles lined up neatly on the bathroom vanity with narrowed eyes. Cleansers, toners, beauty oils, dropper bottles of serums and ampoules—it looked like Gojo had raided the entire range of a cosmetics store, although she’s not sure she appreciates the implicit message behind it.
That said, it’s here now so she may as well use it, because if there is one thing Utahime is certain about, it’s that Gojo has never had a day of bad skin in his entire life.
Clipping back her bangs, she washes her face and picks out a bottle of aloe toner. The product label claims it’s ‘calming’ and ‘soothing’ in dark green letters. She pours some into her hand and takes a sniff, and it smells nice enough. Maybe this is what she needed after all—some time for self-care after all the recent stress.
It is clearly wishful thinking as less than two minutes later, the source of her stress appears by the door, dashing any hope of peace and quiet.
“Aren’t I such a wonderful and caring husband?”
Utahime doesn’t respond. Instead, she makes a mental reminder to lock and barricade the door next time, but knowing Gojo, he'd find any excuse to worm his way in. He’d break down the door, exclaiming “I’m here to rescue you”, under the guise of conducting a welfare check for seniors, as if she was prone to slipping on wet tiles and falling into a terrible concussion.
Gojo slides beside her, bouncing with excitement. “Come on, Utahime, don’t be too shy to praise me.”
She scowls at his reflection—unblemished and impossibly perfect—and continues patting toner onto her face, taking extra care to massage the area around her temples. She gently presses the liquid onto her forehead, under her eyes, around the curve of her cheeks, until her fingers find the marred skin stretching across the bridge of her nose to her right cheek. She pauses, fingertips brushing against the rough surface.
“How did I get this scar?”
Gojo stiffens, all his cheer falling away. He watches quietly as she traces the edges of her scar, before he eventually says, "Does it matter? You're bound to get scars as a Jujutsu Sorcerer. It’s basically part of the job description.”
"Of course, it matters!" Utahime snaps. “My scars, my memories, my experiences—that’s what makes me who I am!”
She regrets the outburst immediately.
She doesn’t want it to be written off as a hysteric episode, however the events of the last fortnight had left her reeling, feeling unmoored and lost at sea, with Gojo as her only lifeline. Even then, what little safety Gojo offered was not enough, since he too was a distant and towering sea stack, surrounded by his own ocean of problems. But for all his flaws, Gojo had been (mostly) kind to her; he’d been patient with her, which was perhaps the bare minimum of a loving husband, and Utahime had been grateful that he had put no pressure on her to recover.
“Give me some more time,” Gojo says softly.
“I know. I just...” Utahime sighs, exhaustion settling over her. “It’s just been difficult, not just for me, but I’m sure for you as well.”
There is a flicker of something—was it sadness?—in his eyes. It disappears as quickly as it appeared.
“I don’t like feeling like an invalid.” Weak. Useless.
Utahime is not sure what she was expecting, because Gojo opens his arms and says, “It’s okay, Utahime. You can cry on my shoulder if you want.”
“I’m not crying!” she says, automatically.
"See, you haven’t forgotten everything.” Gojo grins from ear to ear, and Utahime has no idea what he means.
"No need to feel insecure, Utahime. Scars are super sexy,” Gojo continues and points to her face. “This one gets me all hot and bothered.”
Utahime flushes in embarrassment, especially when he winks and adds, “Wanna see my scars as well?”
Gojo makes a show of popping open the first button of his shirt, followed slowly by the second and third, revealing the outline of his pectoral muscles—firm, defined and without a scar in sight. Utahime stares at the enticing sliver of skin for a fraction too long before she realises she’s fallen into his trap—Gojo’s excuse for a silly striptease. She throws a towel at him and shoves him out of the bathroom, Gojo laughing the entire time.
Utahime smooths the white fabric of her baseball jersey and swivels in front of the mirror. Earlier in the afternoon, Gojo had appeared out of nowhere with two jerseys in hand (“I got us couple outfits!”) and insisted she get changed immediately. The jersey, emblazoned with the name ‘Lions’ on the front, hangs comfortably loose around her, and she’d paired it with shorts and black stockings.
When she emerges from her room, Gojo is leaning against the kitchen benchtop in a matching white jersey, typing rapidly on his phone. He looks up and his eyes go straight to her legs, gaze lingering for seconds too long, before they wander slowly back up to her face.
“Ready to go?”
“As long as this is what I think it is, and not another poorly thought out grand gesture of romance,” Utahime replies.
Gojo tsks. “Such little faith in me, Utahime. I promise you’ll love this one.”
He holds out his arm, and she grabs it. One minute they're in Tokyo and a dizzying, gut-wrenching lurch later, they land in front of a sleek metal dome. Utahime’s heart is going to burst with excitement, as curses and memory loss aside, there is no way she’d mistake the UFO-like outline of one of her favourite places in the world.
“Whoops,” Gojo says. “My teleportation is a bit off today. We’re supposed to be in front of the Saitama Railway Museum. Hold on—”
“Oi, Gojo, you can’t be serious—” She spins around and the protest dies in her mouth as Gojo beams at her, two baseball tickets flapping in his hand.
“You really wanted to die, huh? Anyone who comes between me and my favourite sport is going to meet an unhappy end.” Utahime grumbles as she accepts a ticket from him.
Gojo looks ridiculously happy. “I know.”
The crowd in front of the stadium swells as fans pour out from the train station and they’re jostled forward. Utahime bounces off of Gojo’s Infinity, shoulders and bodies knocking against her, separated by a stream of people. She spots Gojo in the distance—his towering silhouette unmissable over the sea of heads—and calls out to him.
When she makes it back to him, Utahime reaches for Gojo’s hand and doesn’t let go.
Their fingers are still knitted together when they make it past the security checkpoint and into the stadium. Letting go is the last thought in her mind as she catches sight of the diamond and sweeping green field shining under the tessellated dome. Utahime gasps and pulls Gojo over to the nearest vantage point.
“Gojo, look!” She points into the distance, at a lion mascot, a tall, energetic figure with a mane of white hair—not unlike someone she knows—hyping up the crowd. Utahime waves back furiously at the mascot with her free hand.
They make their way to their seats, right behind the third base, and Gojo only untangles their hands when he goes to get some snacks. By then Utahime is too mesmerised by the raw energy of the baseball concourse to notice. Drums whip the crowd into a frenzy, a wave of blue and white flags rippling across the stadium. Chants build to a frantic crescendo as the pitcher readies at the mound and the crowd roars when he winds up for the first pitch. Utahime screams with them, voice lost in the noise, when the batter lands a solid hit and sprints to first base, the ball hurtling towards the outer edge of the field.
Gojo returns with his arms filled with plastic noisemakers, beef skewers, and a cup of draft beer for her.
“What do you think this one is going to be?” Utahime asks as the pitcher stands on the mound and rubs his nose. “Fastball? Curveball? Or maybe a changeup, since he’s thrown two fastballs in a row now.”
Gojo chews on his skewer. “I don’t know. I’m not here for the baseball, anyway.”
“How can you say that?” Utahime swats him with the noisemaker and it skims the edge of his Infinity with a thwack. “You're missing out on one of life's greatest joys. Unbelievable.”
This rings true throughout the match, as aside from the occasional obnoxious shout of “Out” and “Strike”, Gojo seems more interested in snapping candid photos of her yelling and cheering than actually watching the game.
“Delete it!” she says when she catches him, shoving his phone away from her face.
He pouts at her. “Why? You look so cute.”
“Stop being a nuisance and just watch.” She points out a pinch-hitter strolling to the home plate. “Since you have your phone out already, maybe take a video of him. We can analyse his form later.”
Gojo snorts but indulges her.
"I want to take you somewhere else before we go home," Gojo says after the game finishes, a blowout victory to the Saitama Lions. Utahime, still buzzing from the game, simply nods and lets him whisk her away.
Somewhere turns out to be a karaoke joint. They settle into a private room and Gojo orders some fried chicken, more beer for Utahime and a melon soda for himself. There’s a casual intimacy to this that Utahime enjoys, like best friends having a fun night out, especially compared to the stuffy kaiseki dinner they had on their first date.
Gojo fiddles with the song system and Utahime stops him, brows knitted together. “I can’t remember any music.”
“That’s why karaoke is perfect for my amnesiac wife,” Gojo says, “since the lyrics come up on the screen.”
She doesn’t recognise the first song he picks, nor the second or the third. But his voice is too distracting for her to care and Utahime learns that the universe is profoundly unfair. Not only did the heavens bless Gojo with immeasurable power and insanely good looks, they also gifted him with a decent singing voice. His voice is rich and melodious, effortlessly crafting imagery of love and loss, and she finds herself lost in its gentle caress.
Utahime blames the alcohol in her system when Gojo offers her the microphone and she grabs it. She has a natural affinity to music though—perhaps she always had—and after he helps her through the initial verses, the rest just flows naturally. Their voices join harmoniously, blending together during a slow refrain and then soaring through the chorus, and Utahime feels a different buzz, not the beer, but something else, pumping through her veins. It is the thrum of her cursed energy, awakened after a long winter. Utahime sings and sings until her voice is hoarse, and Gojo doesn’t tear his eyes away from her the entire time.
“Wait a moment,” he says and leaves the room. Utahime groans when he returns with a borrowed guitar in hand. Gojo erratically shaking a tambourine during her performances had been bad enough already.
The alcohol is definitely to blame when Utahime’s eyes mist at the first strum of the guitar. Gojo sings, his voice low and gentle, the song from their first date movie—the one that had left her blinded with tears.
“...Each time you hear a sad guitar
Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be
Until you're in my arms again
Remember me.”
His eyes meet hers across the dimly lit room, a glitter of blue not unlike the disco lights dancing around the ceiling, and Utahime’s heart clenches.
When the song ends, Gojo smiles, a little sadly, and Utahime forces herself to look away.
Later, mind foggy, Utahime watches the neon lights speed past them on the ride home. Luckily, Gojo had opted for the taxi because she was definitely in no state to teleport, not without throwing up all over him.
Gojo asks, “Did you have fun?”
"I did," Utahime admits, without hesitation.
"Megumi refused to help me so I came up with this all by myself." Gojo’s lips curve into a lopsided smile. “I combined all of your old man hobbies into one date. Baseball, drinking, karaoke. Maybe we can go fishing and rock collecting next time.”
He’s lucky her arms feel like lead or otherwise she would’ve tried to punch him for that jibe. Instead, Utahime mumbles incoherently, and curls up against his side, resting her head against his shoulder. Gojo leans forward and silently observes her, his gaze intent. He zeroes in on her lips and Utahime’s eyes flicker shut, waiting for a soft press of his lips that never comes.
"It's strange," Gojo says, after a while. "It's strange because this day hasn’t ended yet, but I miss it already."
On the sixteenth day after her incident, Utahime stirs in the middle of the night and grimaces as she’s momentarily blinded by the harsh glow of the TV. She lifts her cheek from the pale blue cushion, now decorated with a spot of drool, and finds Gojo sprawled on the sofa next to her, voraciously devouring a box of kikufuku mochi.
“Gojo,” she mumbles, blinking groggily. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
"You were sleeping peacefully.”
She checks her phone and it’s four in the morning. Utahime groans, grinding the heel of her palms against her eyes. “And why aren’t you asleep?”
“Thought I’d keep you company,” he says, mouth filled with cream and sticky rice.
Utahime makes a face. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s disgusting.”
Now that she thinks about it, Gojo always retires late to bed and is up again before her. She can sometimes hear him pottering around the kitchen, ready to greet her (which in typical Gojo fashion is much too loudly) with a plate of furikake eggs and miso soup. The lack of sleep doesn’t seem to slow him down during the day, his tired eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses or a blindfold, although that doesn’t stop Utahime from feeling slightly guilty.
"Come on, let's go to bed."
He yelps in protest as she pulls the box out of his hand and herds him into the bedroom. She puts the mochi away, clicks off the TV and returns to find him standing at the end of the bed, expression unreadable in the darkness.
“This is not how I imagined us falling into bed together.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don't care. Just sleep.”
Utahime lies down and closes her eyes. She waits and waits, until finally, she feels the weight of him settle beside her. He stays on the far edge of the stupidly large bed, the outline of his back tense and rigid.
Inching to the side until she’s close enough to touch him, Utahime curls her arm around his waist and pulls him closer—or at least she tries to. What happens instead is that her hands grasp at nothingness; nothing but the infinite space in between them.
“Gojo,” she sighs.
“Sorry. Force of habit,” Gojo says, and deactivates his technique with a flick of his fingers.
He rolls over until they’re face-to-face. Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness now and she can make out the details of his face. She sees the way a strand of hair, darker at the roots, falls across his forehead and into his eyes. She sees the ridge of his nose, the pink curl of his lips, the shadows of his cheekbones. She sees his tired eyes, mesmerising and crystalline blue, framed by long, delicate lashes. She sees him and he is breathtakingly beautiful.
Utahime can question how she came to love this man, but she cannot deny that there is a part of her that is inextricably drawn to him.
She holds him properly this time, an arm draped around him, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck. He stiffens, but to her relief, he doesn’t pull away. Then, tentatively, his arms fold around her, finding the curve of her back and locks her in place.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, breathing in the scent of him. "I'm sorry, I don't remember."
He’s quiet. She’s not sure if he’d heard her, until moments later, he says, voice rough, “I'm sorry too."
Utahime falls asleep, in the circle of his arms, their hearts beating in unison. She wakes to an empty bed, with nothing but his residual warmth in the sheets, and Utahime shakes away the strange hollowness in her chest.
Utahime starts to worry since it’s been over two weeks, and she still doesn’t recall anything.
Gojo is no help, because he talks her ear off about anything and everything, except about the most important thing: the two of them.
Utahime wonders how she can spend so much time with a person, yet know next to nothing about them. Everything about Gojo is a hyperbole. The Strongest Sorcerer, the world's greatest teacher, the best at everything. She cares little about the myth of Gojo, now worn and tedious, but her mind overflows with so many unanswered questions about Satoru, the man.
So, she corners him one evening, when he’s retrieving a change of clothes from their room.
“I’m tired of waiting,” Utahime says, stepping closer.
Gojo stills and shoots her a quizzical look.
A step forward.
“Waiting to remember.”
Another step.
“Waiting for you to tell me.”
He doesn’t move. In fact, Utahime is not sure that he’s even breathing.
She’s almost pressed against his chest when she says, “Waiting for you to do something.”
He lowers his face slightly until it's precariously close to hers. Their lips hover but don’t touch, and she can feel the ghost of his breath as he murmurs, almost reverently.
“Utahime...”
“You're not helping, so I have to take matters into my own hands.”
She reaches out, breaching the invisible barrier, and closes the distance between them.
Gojo shuts his eyes and shudders at the first brush of her lips over his. It starts off soft, the lightest of touches that leaves a warm and pleasant tingle, and then Utahime presses forward, firm and insistent. Gojo opens his mouth to her, and she kisses and kisses him. Carefully, as if he is afraid of hurting her, his hands cup her cheeks, thumb tracing the edge of her jaw, before his fingers slide into her hair, deepening their kiss. Their bodies fit against each other, close but also not close enough either.
They break apart and she stares at him. Gojo is breathing heavily, his cheeks tinted pink, eyes wide and unfocused. He looks slightly dazed and too perfect to be real.
“Gojo,” she says. “Bed.”
He falls down obediently with a light push and Utahime crawls over him. She kisses him again, this time against his jaw, his neck, as her fingers fumble against the buttons of his shirt.
“Show me your scars.” She mouths against his pulse point. “I want to see them.”
I want to see you, she thinks but doesn't say.
He groans when her hands pull aside his shirt, gliding over the hard panes of his chest and abdomen. His skin is pale and smooth like marble, completely unmarred. When her fingers skim the waistband of his pants, drawing small circles against his skin, he hisses and shoves her hand away.
"I ca—we shouldn't," he says, rolling away and out of the bed. Then, "Not unless you remember."
He shuts the door behind him with a click. Utahime lies alone, disappointment roiling in her stomach, and stares up at the blank ceiling. In the ensuing quiet, there's nothing but the sound of the ticking clock, the rapid thump of her own heartbeat, and the start of the shower spray in the adjacent bathroom.
They don't kiss or sleep in the same bed again after that.
It's on the nineteenth day after her mishap, twenty-two hours since the first and last time they had kissed, and while watching the third innings of a televised baseball match, when Utahime can’t stand the suffocating atmosphere anymore and blurts out, "We're not actually married, are we?"
His silence is telling.
"No," Gojo says, eventually. He doesn’t look her in the eyes. "No, we're not."
Utahime takes a big gulp of her beer and leans back into the sofa. She’d had an inkling from the start; the first seed of doubt sowed in that infirmary room by Gojo’s nonchalance and Shoko’s disbelief. From there, the suspicion had only blossomed, one disastrous date after another, until it was cemented by the lack of intimacy, both physical and emotional, between her and her supposed husband.
"What are we, actually?"
He shrugs. "Colleagues. Accomplices. Maybe even friends, on a good day."
When she says nothing, he asks softly, “Are you mad? I don’t mind if you hate me.”
"I’m not mad, actually," Utahime says. Her fingers trace the rim of her beer can. "More than anything, I just don't understand. Why did you say we were married?"
Gojo's face slackens, and she watches his Adam's apple bob as he swallows.
“I wanted you. I wanted this,” Gojo waves around the room, at the stack of unfinished paperwork; leftover food cooling on the kitchen bench; drinks and snacks spread across the coffee table in front of them; and to the much-needed splash of colour in an otherwise stark room. His shoulders slump. "Even if it was just for a short while, I wanted to see how it would feel, to be loved and cherished by someone, until death do us part."
Utahime frowns. "There's no meaning in that if it's not real."
"I know. It was never going to, for someone like me," he says, head bowed. It's the most resigned she'd ever seen him. "I can leave."
She doesn't stop him. And so, he does.
It rains for days after Gojo leaves.
Utahime doesn't know where he goes or if he’ll be back. She busies herself with the remaining pile of paperwork and does some light cleaning, wiping down the leaves of the peace lily and dusting the books on Gojo’s shelf. There she finds the framed photos, turned to the back. She only features in the background of one of them, in pigtails and a red sundress, lying next to Shoko on a beach chair. A younger Gojo and a dark-haired boy fill the rest of the photos with grins and peace signs.
When the rain clears briefly for a spot of sunshine, she heads out for a walk. The apartment is awfully large for a single person and the silence hangs like an oppressive cloud over her head. Utahime would never admit to missing Gojo's annoying laugh, but even that is preferable to being alone with her thoughts.
According to Shoko, Gojo is on an overseas mission—to either Nigeria or Nicaragua, she's not sure exactly where—and he won’t be back for a while. Utahime explains what happened with Gojo to Shoko, and she just sighs and says "I told him it was a shit idea. But he never listens."
Later that night, Shoko shows up at the door with a weary smile, a six-pack of beer in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other. "Men are trash, huh?"
“Thanks for coming,” Utahime says and helps her carry the alcohol. “And for bringing the booze.”
Shoko whistles as she walks into the apartment. She pauses in front of the balcony, taking in the view of the bright city lights below them. “Gojo, that bastard never invited me here. Didn't even know he had this place, since he was always sleeping at the school.”
“I don’t blame him,” Utahime says, thinking about the quiet apartment.
Shoko pours them each a glass of whisky and falls back onto the sofa. Their glasses clink together in a toast and Utahime takes a sip, the liquid burning as it slides down her throat.
“To be honest, it surprised me he even made a move, even if it was doomed to fail.” Shoko says as she switches on the TV. She flicks through the channels until she settles on a late-night drama. “I thought the only thing he could be wedded to was his work.”
“Same as you, then,” Utahime teases lightly. Shoko’s eye bags have gotten noticeably darker since Utahime had last seen her.
Shoko scowls. “My workload would’ve been less if Gojo hadn’t run off in the last two weeks, pretending to be your doting husband.”
“Pfft, doting." Utahime laughs and tells Shoko about their failed dates. "It’s almost funny, in hindsight. He had no idea what he was doing and it drove me absolutely insane. Half the time, I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss or kill him.”
“It would’ve been a public service if you did both.” Shoko drains her glass of whisky and pours another.
“At first, I thought he didn’t want to push me, and now I know that he was just holding back the entire time.” Utahime gets up and retrieves the photos from the bookshelf. “These were hidden in his room.”
Shoko takes the photographs and stares at each one for a long moment with a wistful expression. She traces the outline of their faces, their bright smiles, her fingers lingering on the dark-haired boy.
“Looking back, didn’t we have fun? Before the world went to shit.” Shoko pulls a pack of cigarettes from her jacket and steps out onto the balcony.
Utahime follows and waits by the glass door, nose wrinkling when the smell wafts inside. She’d picked up a photo where Shoko had left it on the table and inspects Gojo’s face. His smile was different back then, no less self-assured than his older self, but softer and more genuine. Gojo of the past smiled because he was truly happy, whereas Gojo of the present hides his loneliness behind a smile and laughs louder so no one can tell.
“It makes me wonder where we would be if Jujutsu Sorcerers were allowed to take a pause and process it all. Maybe therapy would’ve fixed some of our problems.” Shoko says with a huff of cynical laughter.
Shoko takes a long drag from her cigarette and blows out a plume of smoke. “At least the privilege of getting older is that all the shit that happened in the past are just memories now. Or better yet, simply forgotten.” She glances at Utahime.
“I don’t want to forget,” Utahime says. “I owe it to myself to remember. So please, would you tell me? About myself...and about him?”
Shoko stubs out her cigarette. “Where should I start?”
She starts from the beginning, with two young boys too strong for their own good and thus, burdened to carry the weight of the world. The two unraveled, setting off on diverging paths, only interlocking again at the tragic end. Shoko and Utahime talk long into the night, until the first rays of sunlight peek over the horizon and signal a new dawn.
There's an extra pair of shoes behind the door when Utahime gets back to the apartment and she finds their owner in the bedroom, stuffing clothes into a travel bag.
"You're back early,” Gojo says. It's a statement, not a question nor a greeting. He shuffles on the spot, shoulders hunched, and he's wearing a blindfold today. But Utahime has gotten better at reading him now, blindfold or not, gotten better at noticing his quirks and tells over their two weeks of cohabitation. She knows he says more with his body language than any of the shit that comes out of his mouth.
"There wasn’t much to buy at the supermarket and it started to rain." Utahime glances at the uniforms he'd packed. "Are you off on another mission soon?"
"In a few days.”
They linger awkwardly, until Gojo zips up his travel bag and says, "I guess I better get going."
He almost makes it to the door when Utahime calls out to him. "I’m making nikujaga tonight.”
Gojo pauses, his hand on the doorknob, and looks back at her. There's an unasked question etched in the tilt of his head.
"Do you want to stay for dinner? If you have time, that is." When he doesn't respond, she adds, "It’s a lot to eat for one person."
“Okay.” He sets down his bag by the door.
Gojo puts on a frilly blue apron, one she’d bought at the hundred-yen store, while she pulls out the pots and ingredients. He helps peel and slice the potatoes and carrots, lips set in a firm line. It’s unnerving to see him without his trademark grin. They work quietly, standing side-by-side, and every so often her elbow grazes against the edge of his Infinity.
She drops noodles into boiling water and starts chopping the onions. Tears prickle in her eyes, and even then, there’s not a peep from Gojo.
“You can talk, you know?” Utahime says, going to wash her hands and wipe her eyes. “Strong and silent was never your style.”
Gojo fiddles with the string of his apron. “Just strong, then? I thought you liked me better when I’m quiet.”
“Yes, well, I know I said that,” Utahime flushes, “but it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like you.”
“And what feels like me?” Gojo prods. The tightness in his expression is replaced by something else now, not unlike a glimmer of hope. “Don’t tell me it’s husband material.”
Utahime snorts. “Definitely not. You’re the worst husband I’ve ever had.”
“I’m the only husband you’ve ever had.”
Gojo breaks into a grin and Utahime can’t hide her smile anymore, warmth and relief flooding through her. It’s something she didn’t even know she’d missed—his empty boasting and ridiculous jokes—but there is a comfortable familiarity about it all, like getting home after a long trip and eating a home cooked meal.
“Honestly, that’s not something to be proud of.” She gives the nikujaga a final stir and waves the wooden spatula at him disapprovingly.
"Did you remember everything?” Gojo asks, hesitation in his voice.
Utahime lets the pot simmer on low heat and turns to him. "If you're asking if I remember Gojo Satoru, the Strongest Sorcerer, or Gojo Satoru, the world's best teacher, then no, I don't."
"But I remember the Gojo Satoru who lives on a diet of cake, candy and all things sweet. I remember Gojo Satoru, a twenty-nine-year-old man so clueless at relationships he resorts to asking his teenage students for dating advice. And I remember Gojo Satoru, the impossible idiot, who was always getting on my nerves."
Gojo drops his Infinity and lets her pull him into a hug, her ear pressed against his chest. If she listens carefully, maybe she can hear the hammering of his scarred heart, every knock a painful reminder that he is still here while others—the ones he couldn’t save, or rather, did not want to be saved—are not.
"There's still a gap in my memories, the missing piece that makes me the person I am. And I suspect it's the same for you as well, for different reasons.”
His arms tighten around her and Utahime says, “Two broken parts don't necessarily fit together to make a whole, but I'm willing to give you a second chance. Not as your pretend wife, but as your friend."
Gojo is with her, on the thirty-third day since her failed mission, when she remembers.
She remembers sticky summers by the beach, shrieking as Gojo splashes her. Shoko lounges on a pink floatie while Geto, smirk on his face, grabs Gojo into a headlock and shoves him underwater.
She remembers the crisp autumn air in Kyoto, colourful foliage falling around them as she makes her way back to school with her students. Toudou blasts Takada-chan's latest hit song on his phone and Kamo sneers, pretending not to listen.
She remembers the carnage in winter, collecting bodies in the freshly fallen snow. Gojo with white bandages wrapped around his eyes, uncharacteristically quiet.
She remembers the dark forest, gnarled branches twisting in every direction, enclosing her like a tomb. Blood—both her own and others—coats her from head to toe. Utahime scrambles back, tripping over the ripped sleeves of her kosode, as the curses surround her, jeering. They know she’s on her last legs now. She knows it herself, a clouded heaviness settling over her mind and body.
Ah. Utahime thinks, cheek pressed to the ground. This is a sad place to die alone.
A hazy image of her students, robbed of their springtime of youth, appears in her mind. Shoko, scalpel in hand, inspecting her dead body on the mortuary table. And then, Gojo, a cheerful smile on his face as—
Utahime feels it before she sees it or hears it. The overwhelming but familiar throttle of Gojo’s cursed energy. It cloaks her, suffocates her, and she has the presence of mind to roll for cover before the purple whip of Gojo’s technique blasts through the forest. The ground shakes beneath her and Utahime curls into a ball, hands covering her ears and eyes, until it settles again. Tentatively, she peers between her fingers, and she can see the spring sky, bright and blue.
“Utahime!” Gojo’s voice comes roaring out of the din. “I came to save you!”
“I’m not—” Utahime starts to say, out of reflex, but it comes out as a hoarse croak. Her voice is spent. But despite the throbbing in her head, despite every fibre of her body screaming with pain, Utahime is at peace now, knowing Gojo is here.
Dirt flies into her face as Gojo lands with a soft thud beside her. He crouches down, reaching out to wipe the matted hair from her face. “Wow, you look pretty banged up. Aren’t you lucky that your knight in shining armour has arrived, just in the nick of time?”
“G-Gojo.”
“If this was a movie, I suppose this is the point where I would cry and confess my undying love for you.”
“Gojo,” Utahime rasps, this time more urgently.
“It’d come after years of stolen glances and pining.” His hand cradles her cheek, thumb ghosting absent-mindedly over her scar. “After ten years of not saying anything, because I’m stupid. Because I don’t want to burden you, to put a target on your back. Because I’m scared of hurting you.”
Utahime winces as he gathers her up into his arms. Her vision swims and Gojo, blurry and unfocused, comes into view above her. She can make out a small smile on his face, but it’s not the cheerful one in her imagination. Gojo smiles, and it’s tight and pained.
“But Utahime, this is not a movie. This is reality,” Gojo says, his voice getting fainter. Utahime grasps feebly at his jacket, urging him to move—to leave this place. "It seems like a cowardly thing to say, especially as the Strongest Sorcerer, but the truth is I'm scared of being hurt again. There’s no way I’m ready for love when I’m not prepared for a few more scars along the way.”
She feels his cursed energy gather around them; the whirling, lurching sensation before he teleports.
Gojo takes a deep breath, strangely strained for someone who hasn’t broken sweat. “So, don't forget, Utahime—this is not a confession. This is reality, where the weak die and the strong survive, so I better take you to Shoko now.”
Space closes in around them as he brings his palms together. Utahime’s eyes roll back, mind blank, and she succumbs to the darkness.
When her eyes flutter open, she is no longer in the dark forest but safe at home, body painless and memory intact, with Gojo. He gives her an odd look, catching the tears in her eyes, and asks her why she's crying.
"Because of you," she retorts, but there's no bite in her voice. "You're an idiot."