Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Satoru meets him by accident. As in a failed attempt at teleporting, falls right into a fucking koi pond accident. 

It is, admittedly, not one of his best moments. 

It’s during the brief time frame between Satoru contemplating what went wrong and why did it have to be a koi pond, that he realizes one, he’s not alone and two, this is someone’s koi pond. He’s in the middle of nowhere because last time he tried to practice the short-range teleport Satoru fell into a tree and destroyed one of his nicer shirts—nicer because absolutely none of his clothing is ugly—at which point he decided practicing in the middle of nowhere is acceptable so long as he doesn’t have to throw out yet another outfit because of unforeseen circumstances. Satoru has now learned that his precaution is bullshit and he will take his chance teleporting into some poor saps' window.

In fact, he could be considered a teenage delinquent now. First achievement? Breaking and entering. All because of practice gone wrong. His father would have a heart attack if charges are filed.

Which. Actually—now that he thinks about it would not be terrible.

Still floating in the pond and sure to be dripping wet when he leaves it, Satoru sits up, uncaring of the way he’s probably put several fish into shock. 

“Please go ahead and press charges,” Satoru says with enough glee to make him sound crazy. “Pile on as many as you can think of, actually! I’ll make bail no matter what — this face is too pretty to keep behind bars.”

“Charges?” 

And that’s. That doesn’t sound like the uppity, ready to kill him pond owner Satoru was expecting. Too childish and high to be from an adult. 

“Are you okay?”

Is he okay? Besides being dripping wet and his glasses, who knows where Satoru is scratch free. Covered in pond muck and stray leaves because handling infinity and teleportation at the same time is still out of his control—not for long though—and there’s hair stuck to his face slimy from rooted up mud and natural fish sliminess but all in all Satoru is fine. Though, sitting waist deep in a pond and staring up at the sky. 

“You’ll get cold,” when small hands come into view to reach for him but find themselves stopped before they can touch him, Satoru turns toward them. 

He realizes very quickly why the voice doesn’t fit his expectations. It is a little boy. Cheeks ruddy from the frigid wind that blows over their skin and tucked into a simple black kimono as he bends down near the pond's edge, hands outstretched as if he can pull the entirety of Satoru’s weight. As if Satoru needs help.

Which is laughable. 

Him? Needing help? What apocalypse has descended upon the world this time, he wonders. He’s not even in a deep part of the pond. If he stood up, it would only reach the halfway point to his knee, he’s pretty sure. 

Satoru snorts. “I’d rather you call the cops—“ Finds himself being cut off from a sneeze so sudden it hurts.

The kid lights up like it’s Christmas and he’s just received the thing he’s been wishing forever for. It’s a rather disturbing delight to experience from someone sneezing.

Children are fucking weird; Satoru was never that weird.

“See! I told you,” he says as he motions for Satoru to rise out of the pond. There are two thick, black bracelets on his wrist. “You have to get inside before you catch a cold.”

Satoru stares at him blankly. Is this kid an idiot? Has no one taught him the stranger danger rule? 

(Which is rich coming from him because Satoru had bitten and clawed his way free from any idiot that tried to kidnap him when he was younger. At least when he got bored with them. 

And if it wasn’t idiots trying to ransom his father for money—as if he’d fork out anything, pride and all—then it was the nannies hired to look after him saying he was the worst child they had ever looked after because of his inability to listen to them; as if Satoru would listen to whatever random adult that showed up on their doorstep trying to order him around. ) 

Cheeks puffing out in what might be frustration but is equally possible to be some kind of stroke—Satoru doesn’t understand kids alright, this could be anything—he dips his feet into the water, socks and all to reach for Satoru’s sleeve to tug him out. Puzzled, Satoru goes with him, laughing when the kid falls onto his back at the sudden lack of dead weight. 

He gets back up remarkably fast though, a bright smile on his face as he tugs Satoru to the steps.

“You don’t know who I am. I could be here to hurt you for all you know,” says Satoru, a thin sliver of interest prickling through him. “I don’t think anyone could stop me, either.”

(Because Satoru is a prodigy. An exception among exceptions — if he sets his mind to something, he will do it. Nothing has managed to get in his way yet.) 

“I’m Yuuji,” says the little boy like a fool. (Confirms that he has little common sense if he has any at all.) “And when you tell me your name, you won’t be a stranger!”

“And if I don’t?” 

“Then I’ll still help you because you’re cold and in our pond.” Then seriously, as if he doesn’t realize his words are the equivalent of a stab to the gut, Yuuji adds, “And if you’re hungry enough to be stealing fish from a pond, I want to make sure you’re okay. We have extra!” 

Disgruntled, Satoru stares at the back of the boy’s head in disbelief. Does he look like he can’t afford food? 

“I’m not hungry,” he denies, spite turning up to eleven. “I doubt you’d have something worth eating, anyway.”

At some point during his one-sided squabbling with a child, Satoru has found himself brought inside, doors being slid shut behind him. Begrudgingly, he admits to himself that it is toasty inside. So warm that even in his sopping wet clothes, the heat permeates through the soaked fabric to warm him ever so slightly. It is clearly a child’s room. Brightly colored with toys strewn across the floor, paper and crayons untidy on a desk against a wall and Satoru finds himself thinking once more that this kid is probably going to end up on the news one night someday. 

Probably soon, honestly. 

“Mister!” Satoru peers down at the insistent tugging at his sleeve. Yuuji has grabbed a spare set of clothing from somewhere and even folded the boy can barely see over it. “Take your shoes and socks off? Uraume-san gets mad when things are dirty,” and maybe it’s the absurdity of everything that has Satoru listening. With an approving nod, Yuuji deposits them in a basket by the door before tugging Satoru out of the room and down the hall. “You can change here.” 

Even when the door is closed behind him, Satoru can hear the kid run off. Looking down at the bundle of clothes now in his own arms, he takes a minute to get his bearings. He’s basically been insulted and may or may not have cemented himself as a hobo in a child’s mind, all because of a teleportation attempt gone wrong. In addition, he has no clue where he is. Not one. 

He does know one thing though—this entire place is saturated with cursed energy. 

Can feel it prickling over his skin as he dries off and changes. It’s saturated in the walls and in the flooring beneath his feet, a constant awareness that Satoru is in a place that is most certainly not going to be friendly. And beyond this room, when Satoru focuses, he can feel the presence of curses all throughout the halls and in different rooms—as if they’re milling about doing tasks instead of harassing anything and everything from instinct and hunger. Are moving about the house among civilians and there are no screams of terror or things being eaten piece by bloody piece. 

(In the midst of his thinking, he can feel the back of his neck prickle. It is the feeling he gets, without fail, when he is being watched.) 

Shikigami is his first thought. 

It is the only thought he manages to give any depth before his attention shifts to the padding feet in the hall—the weird boy—and the odd earnestness in his voice. “Mister! Your clothes are being washed!” 

“Are they?” Satoru finds himself asking as he opens the door. Peers down at the child as if he’ll be able to crack open his skull and see what makes him tick. “And what does a toddler know about laundry?” he drawls leaning against the doorframe. 

Yuuji rears back as if offended. “I’m not a toddler. I’m five!” 

An eyebrow raises. Satoru wishes he had his glasses so he could look down on the little cretin. When he was five, his days were filled with homework and books as thick as his head—laundry, meals, cleaning all of that was done for him. He’d stopped wearing the traditional kimono after his father had tried to lecture him on appearances and only after that had he considered taking up mundane tasks to spite him; though after a while it wasn’t as fun and Satoru contented himself with mooching off others again. 

“I do lots of chores!” Yuuji continues, as if that will somehow make Satoru any less incredulous of this entire situation. When the kid starts walking gesticulating to various different things—the flooring, a vase filled with flowers Satoru is very aware is under some kind of illusion, shelves—he’s helped take care of under the guise of chores Satoru against all odds, trails after him. 

He tells himself it's because there’s nothing else to do. 

Yuuji takes a deep breath when they stop in front of another set of doors, as if he’s psyching himself up. Slides the door open and then gestures at a low set table with the self-confidence and pride only a five-year-old with no self-preservation instincts can manage. 

“I can cook!” Yuuji announces proudly. It is, admittedly, a simple thing of rice porridge—and Satoru can’t actually argue about his ability to cook or not because it isn’t exactly an impossibility for a child to make it. And he isn’t sure how long it’s been soaking either. “I know how to make fried rice too!” 

“You’re a very weird child,” Satoru tells him when Yuuji plops down across the table from him. He catches a matching set of those thick, black bracelets around his ankles. “Why does a toddler know how to cook? Where are your parents?” 

He’s also surprised that no one has come to kick him out. The hair on the back of his neck is still raised and he can hear movement all around them, but aside from Yuuji, he’s seen no one else. Either this kid’s guardian really does not care about him—wouldn’t be surprising. This has clan kid written all over it and Satoru has enough experience as a fellow clan brat to know the bare minimum is put into you—or Satoru is hallucinating everything from a concussion that knocked him out and he didn’t realize.

Anything is possible at this point. But. There is food in front of him. And Satoru is hungry after practicing all day. That and it’s not like he can’t just dip after he eats and if they are interrupted, Satoru is pretty resourceful. He’ll handle whatever happens. 

And he’s only staying because of the food. Not because he’s just the tiniest, itty-bittiest kind of curious about this weird kid. Very few things catch Satoru’s attention and some weird kid he met after (possibly) falling into a pond (or hallucinated up from a concussion?) is absolutely not one of them.

“I like doing chores,” Yuuji tells him sincerely. Yeah, the kid is insane. What kid likes chores? Satoru side-eyes him as he eats his porridge. “My brothers are busy all day. And there’s no one to play with so,” Yuuji shrugs, as if that actually answered anything. 

Children, fantastic conversationalists. 

“Uh-huh,” Satoru says. “So you resorted to chores.” The disbelief is palpable. 

Chores instead of running amok in the halls? Fishing the koi out of the koi pond? Being a general menace? What is wrong with this kid?

If Satoru somehow has a more ‘normal’ childhood than some child he met out of nowhere, well. There’s something wrong with that—it’s a challenge at that point. Satoru refuses to be second in anything, including weird fucking childhoods. 

And no, he does not at all care that he’s setting up a one-sided competition between himself and a five-year-old. 

“Yeah!” he chirps. Is it wrong to shake a child? Will that lead to shaken baby syndrome? Satoru keeps his hands as far away from the boy as possible in case the urge to shake the weirdness out of him grows too strong. “Only a few, though. Last time I tried to get the mail, a weird lady grabbed me and we went on an adventure!” 

Satoru has a distinct desire to rest his head on the table. Or to hit it hard enough, he passes out. 

“An adventure,” says Satoru, slowly trying to wrap his head around the words. He squints at Yuuji stressing, “an adventure?”

Who was looking after this kid? And why did Satoru care? Well, actually no, he cares because this sounds like a fucking disaster worth paying for. Anything that brings some amount of amusement to his life is worth witnessing and this—this is the most amusement he’s had in a while. 

Yuuji’s head bobbles as he grins, a boyish excitement in his eyes. He opens his mouth as if ready to recount his ‘adventure’, only to still grin falling into a nervous line. Tall enough to see over the table, Satoru can see his fingers wringing together. 

“Mister,” and even though it’s just one word, the nervousness is so thick it could fill a well. “You gotta leave. Uraume-san is back.” 

Satoru props his chin onto his hand, his grin almost playful. “Oh? Do I?” The chill that reaches them is unnatural. The wind that follows, frigid and stinging, seeping through his clothes as if he’s been out in the cold for hours. 

Across from him, Yuuji shivers. “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” which makes Satoru’s grin fall. Not I don’t want to get in trouble but I don’t want you and isn’t that a particular thing to say in this moment when Satoru is the stranger in this house—the one that should get in trouble, in the grand scheme of things? “I just wanted to help a little.”

And it is that—that makes Satoru allow himself to be led back through the halls and out to that same koi pond from before and then even further to a hedge that curves along the back of the house. It is tall, taller than even him and even now Satoru doesn’t know where exactly he is. How he found himself here. 

(He is terribly curious now, though, which is worse than before.) 

There is a hole in the wall just beyond the hedge. Small. Child sized. Satoru would have to crouch.

“I sneak out this way to play sometimes,” Yuuji tells him in a whisper as if he is sharing a secret with a friend instead of a stranger that he just met. “You have to hurry though—Uraume-san doesn’t like uninvited guests.” 

Uninvited guests, he says as if he doesn’t realize that those are a bad thing; that an invitation is a standard courtesy and a requirement in most cases.

“Ah,” Satoru says. Yuuji must take it as some reply that it very clearly isn’t because he waves goodbye, enthusiastic and exaggerated. “Thank you.” It feels hollow as he says it, so Satoru doesn’t know why he says it at all.

And when Satoru finds himself in woods, he’s unfamiliar with and has no better plan but to try practicing again, he thinks of his own home—dull and empty and boring as anything with its expectations—color him surprised when the teleportation works and he finds himself somewhere familiar; not home itself, no, but at least somewhere recognizable now. 

(It’s only later when he’s made the trek home and starts asking his old man questions he never has before—if he knows of any clan with bands as a symbol or anything similar—that he realizes he left his clothes.) 

He learns black bands—or, well, tattoos really—are a symbol of the Ryoumen family. 

The Ryoumen family, it turns out, is small but ancient. As in, matches his own family tit for tat on the older bastard's scale and increasingly strict way of running. Supposedly anyway. 

Damn. 

Satoru leans onto the books he’s been reading from blowing his hair out of his face. “Weird kid,” he murmurs. “Bought time I got my stuff back, though.” 

(He’s only thinking of finding the house again because he wants his clothes back—nothing else.)

Figuring out where a weird mansion house is in the middle of nowhere is a more difficult task than most people give it credit. Of course, Satoru isn't like most people, as such, with his great memory and absolutely baffling luck skill at finding anything he sets his mind to, he finds the hedge—it is unfortunately night time by the time he finds the house.

(Seriously, who builds their home in the middle of fucking nowhere? Does this family not partake in clan meetings? (If so, Satoru would really like to be included) How do they get their groceries?  

Not once in his life has Satoru been what people would refer to as being the ‘sane man’ of a group, and if all that is being baffled and confused, then he doesn’t want to be it. He doesn’t deal with problems—he is the problem, thank you very much.) 

For a moment Satoru just stares up at the greenery, full moon the only source of light available to him. Through the leaves and stems, he can see the soft, hazy glow of lantern lights that surround the pond and what he assumes to be a larger garden—he hadn’t paid as much attention to his surroundings as he should have. There’s enough light to avoid the pond and head straight for the kid’s room, which—god that sounds creepy. 

Since when did he turn into a creep? 

Ah well, he’s already here and there’s no way that Satoru is going to make a second trip. Best to get this over and done with. 

It’s a surprise—again—when there’s no reaction to his presence as Satoru makes his way to the other side of the hedge. There’s an unnatural chill now. It has snowed enough for it to have piled up on the edges of the garden and blanketed almost the entirety of the grass but the chill that runs through him feels similar to a cold blade through the chest rather than a heavy swath of snow falling onto his clothes and seeping through his skin. The prickling at the back of his neck has returned, too. 

It’s an odd thing to be watched, he muses as he steps up onto the engawa, but have nothing happens to you no matter how close you get. It’s as he thinks this that Satoru comes to a realization, fingers a hair's breadth away from sliding the door open. 

Should he tap at the door? The lights in Yuuji’s room are off so it wouldn’t be wrong to assume he’s asleep (and Satoru can hear deep, even breaths from where he’s sitting) and there’s a very large chance that regardless of if he sneaks in or wakes the boy up that this could go incredibly wrong. The more he thinks about this whole thing, the more of a creep he feels like, and that is—not the image he wants. 

Gojo Satoru is not a creep. He’s a lot of things—like good looking and smart and is incredibly capable of giving most people a stress-induced hernia within five minutes of meeting him (and he’s very proud of this!) but if there is one thing he is not: it’s a creep that breaks into kids’ rooms. Morally standing, Satoru supposes that he’s not exactly a role model either, or at least not a conventional one, but there is a line and yeah he’s okay with jail to a degree but for like. Manslaughter. Or stealing. Maybe even a bit of insubordination. But even he has a standard. Theoretically.

“If this backfires, am I okay with using a child as collateral?” he muses to himself already knowing that the answer is: possibly. Collateral is something he looks at as a case-by-case basis. 

With a shrug, Satoru taps lightly at the door. “Yuuji,” yeah this is definitely creepy no matter what he tells himself. Well! He’ll never see the kid again! “Yuu-ji, wake up.” 

He’s not sure how long he taps for—only that his fingers have started to turn the slightest shade of blue—when he finally hears shifting from beyond the door. God, the kid sleeps like the dead. If Satoru were some kind of axe murderer, Yuuji would be Dead with a capital D. 

With either sense (which Satoru is not entirely convinced of) or so sleep confused, he forgets about the lights (far more likely) he hears Yuuji stumble from his bed and clumsily tug at the door to slide it open. For a moment, Satoru is overcome with an emotion he doesn’t feel very often. Unease. Has felt it even less when concerning other people. 

There is something so very disquieting about a child so obviously unaware of the potential situations they’re putting themself in—that there is not a second thought put into if this, of letting Satoru into his room, is something that will get him hurt. Now, Satoru knows kids are gullible. This just seems excessive. Curious all the same, though. 

Trust is a funny thing.

(And the interest curls up sweet and small in his belly, a small seed that has found purchase and Satoru has always been terribly indulgent to his own whims.) 

“Mister?” Yuuji mumbles, sleep-puffy and rubbing at one of his eyes. Satoru thinks two things at once: this kid’s guardian has done a phenomenally horrific job of teaching safety lessons and that word makes him sound… hmm suspect. 

“Satoru,” he corrects. Leans forward ever so slightly just to see if the boy will step back. He doesn’t. 

He isn’t sure if that’s a good or bad thing beyond the already established abysmal self-preservation. 

“Pretty,” Yuuji says and Satoru. Pauses. Doesn’t continue with what he wants to say. 

Tilts his head as Yuuji blinks at him, sleepy and half-awake, leaning against the door but gaze fixed on Satoru’s face even with droopy eyes. Ah, he still hasn’t replaced his glasses. 

“Hmm? What is?” Satoru is already aware that it’s probably his eyes. Enough people have looked at them as if they wanted to pluck them from their eye sockets as if they were gems, shiny and pristine and something to covet. 

Fitting, considering the rarity of them; the threat it helps him be. People liked to collect dangerous things, didn't they?

“You look like the moon,” Yuuji says, with childish wonder. “And the stars, like a little universe.” 

And Satoru, magnanimously, does not correct him on how there is actually so much more to a universe such as all of space, and all the matter and energy that space holds. How it includes time in its hold—people and moons, planets and perhaps a sun or two. So much more than a singular star and moon. 

“First time someone has called me a universe,” or the moon, or a star. How peculiar. As he thought before, Yuuji is a very odd child. Satoru hums, putting the answer into a corner as he gets back to what he came here for in the first place. “Yuuji, do you still have my clothes? That one’s you washed.” 

It’s still weird that a toddler knows how to wash clothes. Satoru doesn’t care that it’s probably with a machine.

(And now back sitting in front of an open door, Satoru isn’t sure he’d manage to find his things without help—as much as he hates to admit it—or without making some kind of noise. The halls are crawling with curses. Some of them hulking, their steps distant yet still sending vibrations through the flooring. Others are smaller, sentries maybe, and Satoru would rather not deal with them if he didn’t have to. 

A waste of energy for one. 

Still, a curious thing is that they roam about the rest of the household but seem to avoid this section entirely. As far as Satoru understands, Yuuji has minimal cursed energy—a sitting duck of a meal if they ever got too hungry. No threat at all.) 

When Yuuji hums to himself head bobbing, he takes it as a confirmation. Expects the boy to run off and get them—that would be the sensible thing after all, not allowing a stranger even further into his home. But, Yuuji isn’t the sensible type as far as he’s demonstrated.

So Satoru isn’t sure why he expected anything else as Yuuji tries to reach for his hand, only to be met by infinity keeping him away.

“Sat’ru-san?” And he sounds genuinely confused. Then in that same quiet voice from before—when he revealed he snuck past the hedge to play—Yuuji says, “I’m scared of the dark. Go with me?” 

And Satoru wants to laugh. This—this is how you end up dead. 

Or worse. 

“Scared of the dark?” he asks, marveled at the admittedly common fear, only because he’s scared of the dark but not walking through the halls of his home with someone he barely knows. Humors him because he’s. Curious. (taken root and rooting deep.) “Won’t you get in trouble if we’re caught?” 

“We won’t get caught!” Even in his half-awake state, it comes out with only the unwavering confidence a child can muster. 

Satoru finds his lips twitching up. “Really? Not even a chance of it?”

“I’m quiet.”

“As a mouse?” 

“Quieter!” 

Satoru taps a finger against his chin in mock thought. “My, that is quite quiet.” Snorts when Yuuji’s nose scrunches words not finding purchase in a brain still swaddled with sleep. Rising from his sitting position, he holds out his hand, letting infinity fall. “Come on, then before we get caught.” There’s something rather entertaining about roaming about uninvited. 

It’s only when Yuuji lets out a small hiss after grabbing his hand that Satoru remembers that he’s been out in the cold freezing. 

“Ah, I guess I can’t go with you if a little cold is too much for you. Best to hurry along before the shadows come out.” 

Even in the dark, Satoru can see Yuuji’s bite at his lip. Nerves or something else he isn’t sure yet. When he runs off to his closet and comes back with a scarf, all Satoru can do is blink owly at it. 

Yuuji, unperturbed by the setback—and being stared at like he’s some kind of amalgamation—starts to carefully wrap it around both their hands. “There,” he sounds proud, as if he’s thought of something ingenious with his scarf idea. Satoru is more baffled by the heat radiating off of his far smaller hand from where his fingers are wrapped around Satoru’s own. As if he’s absorbed so much sunlight he’s flowing with it; a condensed star in a human body. “That way you won’t be cold and – and you can come with me.” it comes out in a whoosh of words. 

And well. Satoru can’t argue against that.

He slips his shoes off and sets them just outside of the doors before he pads after Yuuji, his hand held tight—as if Yuuji is scared he will disappear into thin air—by one so much smaller than his own. Their steps are light on the floor and Yuuji seems to know the entire layout by heart with how quickly he leads him through the house with only the light of the moon to guide them. It’s impossible to not notice the way all the curses in the house give whatever area Yuuji is in a wide breadth. 

(As if he is something to avoid. A lamb with teeth; a wolf bathed in lambskin.

It’s a funny thing. 

If anything, Satoru considers him a lamb that will not bite. Surrounded by wolves that are not hungry enough. What does that make Satoru? Who was born so hungry he is afraid of nothing?) 

The prickling at the back of his neck only ceases when Yuuji tugs him into a small side room that even Satoru would have overlooked. 

“It’s my hiding place,” Yuuji tells him barely a whisper. Smile bright and open the small journey, bringing him to wakefulness. Satoru wonders, briefly, if it is possible for a person to have swallowed sunlight and lived. But then—if Satoru, who is an impossibility, is real, then why not that? “I’ve never been found here!” 

It is the pride of a child—naïve and easily pleased with the simplest of things—and Satoru finds himself asking, “do you play often?” but he can’t quite remember any time that he played such a thing. His fun was more on the side of sneaking out of the house to places he shouldn’t have gone or convincing his caretaker of the week to do something for him. Bullying adults was usually his go to, actually. 

(So many expectations and wants and desires. That is inappropriate or it must be this way. Appearances that must always be upheld regardless of if they actually benefited Satoru or not—as if he is meant to be a pretty, polite doll that they can puppeteer this way and that with no interest in his own thoughts and opinions. A stagnant status quo. 

How irritating to covet things like domains, and techniques and knowledge like a dragon hoards gold with no intent to make substantial use of it outside of maintaining power. 

But ah, that same power is just part of the reason why he’s a begrudgingly tolerated existence among so many elders and clan heads.) 

“Only sometimes.” He shuffles about in the room, grabbing Satoru’s folded clothes from a corner. Huh, would you look at that? They’re actually still in pretty good condition. “There’s been no one to play with lately.” 

Not once did Satoru think he’d ever have a conversation about what a toddler does day to day. Yet, here he is. Small fingers curl around his own once more as Yuuji exits first and—Satoru is still pretty sure this kid is going to meet some kind of terrible end; this just has the setup of some b-rated horror film written all over it. Satoru would know after all, he’s watched enough of them to recognize so many tropes in real life he’s made it a pastime. 

Still. There’s nothing else to do and the walk back to Yuuji’s room is rather long with the pauses they have as servants (human servants. The curses are still avoiding the boy like a plague, which is ironic considering some curses are plagues) mill about, most likely preparing for the coming morning or finishing tasks they might have put up. 

“No siblings?” it’s prodding and Satoru knows it, but even with the limited interaction with the kid he knows Yuuji will give. A terrible trait for a potential sorcerer. That world is all about taking; after all, you never know when you’ll be put down like some rabid dog. 

The prickling is back. 

Grows heavy and oppressive the closer they get to Yuuji’s room. An annoyance. There has been no action taken against him—that is invitation enough to do as he pleases. Ask as he pleases. 

“No…” it mumbled out. A different kind of quiet as Yuuji slides the door to his room open. There is…disappointment? At the loss of heat around his till chilled fingers. Very different from the exuberance he’s grown accustomed to. Satoru isn’t sure how he feels about being able to describe himself as ‘accustomed’ to another person. “They’re just busy.” 

Quiet. 

“It’s lonely.” 

As Satoru mentioned to no one but himself, it is phrases like this that end with someone dead. Or worse. 

Yuuji’s guardian really should put more effort into teaching him things that are actually useful—if Satoru were a worse person, who knows what could have happened? 

Satoru hums, fingers curling into the fabric of the clothes passed to him. “You should cause a mess,” he advises sitting down by his shoes to put them on. He can hear Yuuji shuffling back into his blankets. “Trouble always gets you attention. Try that if your usual,” he waves a hand. “Whatever isn’t working.” 

For a time, the room is quiet and Satoru thinks the brat has fallen asleep even as Satoru went out of his way to give him some actual advice. He huffs. Last time he tries to help a kid. 

It’s when his fingers are hooking into the groove of the door to slide it close that he hears it, sleep-slurred and soft, “I think you’re like the moon an’ stars because you change,” and Satoru only laughs at the absurdity of the explanation when he’s sure he’s far enough away that his cackling won’t wake anyone up.

Satoru doesn’t have many friends. 

Geto Suguru is an exception. 

Jujutsu Tech is, in reality, a place Satoru doesn’t want to be. He already forgoes staying in the dormitories content to stretch the bit of freedom he has by bouncing between ‘home’, an apartment, and Suguru’s floor when he’s around after class and missions. Everything is rather mundane when he thinks about it—the missions, classes, their routine. 

“Don’t you ever want to do something else?” Satoru says stretched out like a starfish on Suguru’s bed—Shoko, his only other friend, absent for once—head slanted on the pillow to look out at the sky and the great big blazing ball of heat that’s going to blow them all up long after he’s dead. 

Suguru, who knows him best, and has an uncanny ability to figure out whatever it is his brain is fixating on for a time, sighs and looks up from his book. The cover doesn’t look very interesting. A philosophy book he’s pretty sure—ethics has never been something Satoru gave much thought. It’s difficult for him. 

“Something has caught your interest, I assume.” It isn’t a question, but as he mentioned, Suguru is always capable of telling when he’s about to do something. How had he put it? Unwise and unadvisable. Satoru's grin spreads lazily across his lips, teeth bright. Suguru pinches at the bridge of his nose as if he’s willing away a headache. “Nothing illegal this time, I hope?”

Satoru laughs. Last time he wanted to do something else, he’d convinced Shoko and Suguru to steal scrolls from the warehouse. They had to clean the school from top to bottom. Twice.

“Su-gu-ru you know me so well!” He coos. Can pinpoint the exact moment his friend’s will to live leaves his body. It’s a rather impressive feat if he says so himself.

“If I ever stop being a sorcerer to instead pursue law, please let it be known it’s because of you.”

Satoru laughs, turning onto his side to peer at his friend. His grin is the kind of arogant nonchalance that makes Suguru want to throw something at him. “Not even going to ask what it is?”

Suguru turns a page of his book. He hasn’t read anything. Satoru knows this because his finger is acting as a bookmark. 

“I don’t want to be an accomplice.”

“Come on, you know you wanna know~”

“On a scale of one to ten, how illegal?”

“I knew you could never resist me.” Satoru says smugly, an image of the cat that got both the canary and the cream.

“No, I just want to know how much bail money Shoko and I will have to scrounge up.”

Then after turning to another page he hasn’t read, Suguru adds, “And just a reminder we are paid a meager salary that brings us little joy. Do you truly want to experience a Shoko who’s gone cold turkey?”

That is—it certainly is a threat. 

Satoru weighs his options. Shoko would probably murder him, but she’d bring him back just as quick too. For all her apathy, once you work your way into the cancer cavity, that is her heart she doesn’t let you go easily. Though, her smoking is hypocritical when he thinks of the way she disapproves of his sweet tooth, so that takes points away from her. 

Languid as anything, Satoru props his head onto his hand. “What if I said I was going to borrow a kid?” 

There is a pregnant silence. Suguru turns to look at him stiff and with an expression he’s come to learn is judgment. “Kidnapping.” Suguru corrects, tone brokering no argument. “You mean kidnapping.” 

“Borrow. I’m going to bring them back.” 

Suguru, slow as if he’s speaking to a child, says, “If you don’t have permission from a guardian, that is still kidnapping.”

“That’s only if I get caught, right?” 

Suguru’s head leans back against the bed and says nothing, staring straight up at the ceiling. Satoru waves a hand in front of him. Still nothing. Huh, he’s done the impossible—he broke Suguru. What a feat! That’s been on his bingo card since they met. Wow, two achievements in a row today. 

(His mind is made up now too! This little bit of amusement is just what he needed to cement his eventual actions—he needs a bit of chaos in his life again, that’s all.

He’s a little curious if the kid heard any of his advice, too.) 

Satoru spots the kid on one of his outings for snacks missions. It’s so abrupt that for a moment it gives him pause, a bag of sweets held loose in his fingers and head tilted in curiosity at the way Yuuji seems to brighten up at the sight of him. 

It feels a bit like having the sun shine down on you personally, flames flickering and seeping into his skin to warm him through to the core. Satoru isn’t sure what he thinks about that. 

It’s a shame that he didn’t get to go through with the plan he’s been musing about in his own head. It would have been tons of fun. 

(There’s very little doubt in his mind that Yuuji would have said no to exploring a place beyond his home, considering each time Satoru has seen him he’s been alone and ultimately left to his own devices. And Satoru is both bored and interested enough to go out of his way to cause problems for a family he doesn’t know all that much about just because he can. If they didn’t want some stranger to interact with the kid, then they really should have looked after him better—or at the very least made sure the stranger danger rule stuck. They didn’t, though. Which means Satoru has free rein to make his own fun while he’s still interested. 

It’s just a temporary indulgence. Something to keep him occupied until something new and fascinating catches his attention; he’s not doing anything particularly harmful if he brings the kid back without a hair on his head missing. Besides, it might even make them more careful! 

He’s being as helpful as ever, demonstrating the family’s failings in the care of a ward or an heir, or whatever it is that Yuuji is meant to be—Satoru is being kind to them. Better that he reveal the flaws of their system over someone that might actually mean the kid harm.) 

The exuberant “Satoru-san!” is expected to a degree and so is the way that Yuuji bounds up to him—such an unsafe thing to do. Too trusting. (Maybe he is a tad cruel with the way he thinks of what easily given trust like that can do to a child)—for once not dressed in a kimono but more modern clothing that sits messily on his frame. Too big shirt tied with a hair tie to try and make it look decent. A belt looped too many times through the loops of his shorts to make them secure. It’s as if whoever dressed him had only hand-me-downs to do so with. 

Frankly, they would have been better off with a kimono and a child-leash.

The colors of the ensemble—black, and white, and gray. Dull, dull, dull—strengthen that thought when another voice cuts through the crowd, quiet and worried, “Yuuji, you can’t run off like that!” 

Yuuji is already at his side rocking on his heels as he looks up at Satoru and his purchases asking about them as if there is nothing dangerous about running away from his caretaker (and no Satoru doesn’t care how hypocritical that statement makes him) to instead ask about the sweets a teenager you’ve met twice has purchased. 

Satoru ends up giving him mochi anyway because one, he is ever so generous, two it’s one he’s half-eaten so he isn’t giving a new one away for free and third, food is a very good way to distract him into taking a breath. 

“Caused trouble?” Satoru muses, lip twitching up. 

Yuuji flushes, taking a pause from his snack. “Only a little…”

Well, that confirms that he was listening when Satoru spoke. He pats his head on a whim. “Good boy. Told you it would work.” 

Something in his chest does a curious flop when he’s beamed up at. 

Heartburn, maybe?

By the time Yuuji is digging into the treat with gusto, Satoru gets a decent look at the poor sap that hasn’t learned the wonders of a leash. The man is tall with dark spiky hair, one side tied up in a bun, the other side down—explains where the t-shirt tie came from—a thick black line cutting across the bridge of his nose. The side of hair that’s still tied is littered with hair clips—fruits, mainly. Oranges are a majority. They’re nearly the same height. 

“Yuuji come here.” It’s still quiet, but it’s taken on a stern edge. Satoru smiles, waving his fingers and the man stares back, a tick to his jaw that makes him look scarier than he probably is, gaze wary as he settles Yuuji against his side. Maybe there is someone decent at recognizing a potential threat? Good for the household! 

Not that it will do much. 

“You know better than to run off.” 

No, Satoru is pretty sure that the kid absolutely does not know better. He’d probably run into traffic blindly if he saw something interesting or familiar. That's how little faith he has in Yuuji, ‘knowing better’. 

Though with a possible overprotective guard dog and things to do, Satoru brings a finger to his lips as the older man fusses over Yuuji, wandering off to talk to strangers in a motion for Yuuji to keep quiet about him before he strolls off. There’s a time and place to pick minor fights with a potential sorcerer, and it’s not when he has incredibly delicate and tasty snacks just waiting for him to enjoy them at his leisure. 

Work smarter, not harder, after all. 

Plus, this was enough to show him that clearly Yuuji hasn’t mentioned him to anyone and well. Why should that change now? 

Satoru is on his way home—no missions for the weekend because even sorcerer society decided they deserve some kind of break—when he decides to take a detour. There’s not much waiting for him at home besides his father’s griping and some new attempt to pawn him off onto some girl that he won’t be interested in under the pretense of making sure he has a spouse to continue on the family line or something like that. And his apartment is well. A place of rest, but it isn’t quite a home in the same way the place he grew up isn’t necessarily a home. Merely places to return to at the end of the day. 

What better place to pass some time than the place he still hasn’t been chased out of? 

Except this time when Satoru pushes through the hedge that’s become familiar, he stumbles on a body. Or someone’s limb.

The point is, it's something from an actual body. Satoru peers down at it still halfway through the greenery, and then looks out into the garden.

(At this point in his life, Satoru is no stranger to dead bodies. There is a reason collateral damage is almost always included in mission briefings before someone is sent out to. It’s because at least that way whoever is sent knows to expect dead bodies on the way—or the far more likely, that jujutsu society as a whole expects there to be casualties in their line of work. 

It is an undeniable fact of their work that people will die. How they die is a toss up. 

That doesn’t mean Satoru likes it. But does find himself breathing a little easier when he confirms that it is far too big of a limb to be Yuuji’s—which is a funny thing. The boy lives surrounded by curses. There shouldn’t be a reason he’d be surprised if it were.) 

Satoru blinks owly, stifles the reflexive hah? that wants to come out of his mouth. It’s a close thing. Shifts just to the side of the arm (leg? Torso? Anatomy always was his worst subject) to get a better look. No, his sight is immaculate as ever and he’s lucid as ever. 

For a moment the only thought that goes through his head is wow strong genes as he observes both Yuuji and what is essentially a carbon copy of him except taller, with what Satoru can only think is facial tattoos and an almost bored disregard for the bodies littering their garden. His haori is extended out by hand but from the angle Satoru’s looking from he has a full view of the decapitated head by his feet. 

On his other side—incapable of seeing any of the carnage, Satoru realizes belatedly—is Yuuji, face tucked into the man’s side. He looks tiny. A small clot of white against a bright backdrop of black and red. 

When the man’s gaze lifts to the hedge, Satoru thinks he’s been spotted. In the end he tsks, mumbling something about it being such a mess, before he starts herding Yuuji away. 

“You would think they would have learned by now,” the man drawls, condescension heavy in his tone. Despite having a child attached to his side and blood dyeing the back of his kimono an even darker shade of black, he looks almost serene, unbothered by the disturbance. “And what have I told you about fear?” 

The last bit is directed at Yuuji, who is now blocked from his view. (That curiosity that took root has grown, and grown, and grown.) 

Whatever Yuuji says is too quiet for him to catch. 

“A useless thing to feel” It sounds like a correction. An admonishment. “It has no place here.” 

When they’re gone and the garden is empty, Satoru laughs, a quiet private thing that bubbles out of him before he can stop it. Laughs as he considers the detour over and done with after paying witness to an aftermath of—something. 

“Well, at least you’ve proven to be worth the interest,” he muses to himself as he slips out of his hiding spot and readies for the trip back to his apartment. It’s closer. 

He can’t name the feeling in his chest. Only knows that his heart rushes fast to the point of it almost being painful because. Because Satoru has been so bored. That accident of a meeting has led to a fun little discovery, and he’s always liked to tempt fate and its toleration of him. 

“You seem more pleased than usual,” Suguru comments when Satoru makes time to visit him that Sunday. It’s the first thing he says when Satoru waltzes in and takes his customary spot on the bed. “Did something good happen?”

“Did you evade arrest?” And that’s Shoko from where she’s curled up in a bean-bag chair with some large, dusty medical text in her lap. Satoru eyes it with thinly veiled disgust. He has horrible memories of a study group with her for anatomy—medical nerds are an entirely different breed of human. And that’s coming from him. 

With a look of faux-betrayal, he turns to Suguru with as much disbelief he can muster. Which is a lot; he was voted Most Dramatic Asshole (Thespian) three times in a row by not only his fellow students (including their sister school) but also the entire faculty as well. Satoru is very proud of this—he earned that award through sweat, blood—not his—, and tears (also not his.) 

“I told you that it would be me and Shoko scrounging up bail money.” Suguru says flippant as anything. “You’re the rich boy out of the three of us. Do you know how much debt Shoko would be in if she became a normal doctor?” 

“Is this like the banana question again?” Satoru mutters. It had been a less than stellar moment for him when they asked him how much he thought a banana could cost and he couldn’t answer it. He’d been put through hell after that. 

“We’ve already experienced your cognitive dissonance once,” says Shoko without any care for his ego. “Once you’ve experienced it once you’ve experienced it all.” 

He throws a pillow and misses earning a childishly petty stuck out tongue. That reminds him!

Satoru shifts on the bed to give Shoko his full attention. “I didn’t have to evade arrest because I didn’t borrow—”

"Kidnap,” Suguru cuts in sharply.

“— borrow ” he asserts. Shoko is looking at him like she’s torn between listening fully and thus cementing her place as potential accomplice or leaning so far back in her beanbag chair that it will swallow her whole. Satoru doesn’t give her the chance to choose the latter. “I didn’t borrow anyone’s child, so all I have right now is a potential charge for breaking and entering, but I don’t think that will go through. Besides! I thought of something better!” 

“Why,” Suguru questions. He sounds pained. “Why do you think whatever you say next is going to be better?” 

“It’s been a development of events! I’m just going to visit him to stir up a little fun. You act like I’m doing something morally reprehensible.” 

Even Shoko looks at him over the edge of her book. She shares a look with Suguru—squinted eyes and expressive facial expressions. All the while they go back and forth speaking nonverbally, Satoru hums to himself, utterly content with the chaos he’s caused. 

“Satoru,” Suguru starts. Pauses. Looks as resigned as a man that knows he’s dying soon. Must have lost whatever nonverbal battle he and Shoko were having. His hands have come to drag down his face. “Why are you visiting a child unsupervised? What does that sound like to you— think.”

Satoru looks at him blankly. They think he hasn’t put any thought into this? “Because I’m curious.” He says honestly. Simply. “And because I can.” 

There is the distinct sound of Shoko’s book hitting the floor (or maybe the wall?) and Satoru checks out of the corner of his eye. She’s leaned back into the beanbag, embracing its incomprehensibly slow way of death by suffocation. “I never should have started paying attention.”

Satoru laughs, loud with unbridled glee. “It’ll be fine, It’ll be fine~” 

The garden is pristine when Satoru comes around next. Not a sign of the aftermath of violence he’d witnessed last time. 

The grass is green and free of any red flecks. The flowers have bloomed since the last time Satoru took notice of them, wide and colorful and clearly well cared for. Daffodils and winter peonies. Pretty yet hardy plants. 

For a moment from where he is just beyond the hole in the wall, Satoru wonders if they’re grown with blood meals. Dismisses the thought a moment later because well. It doesn’t really concern him, does it? Regardless of how brutal isn’t self-defense just that? 

(It’s not as if Satoru can judge, after all.) 

Snow is blanketing the ground now like a thick duvet. His shoes make imprints as he makes his way out of the hedge and rises to his full height. Looking around, he finds Yuuji at the farthest end of the garden bundled up with that scarf he used to wrap around their hands in the dark. Mitten on his hands as he tries and fails to roll large balls of snow. 

He looks unruffled. He must not have seen anything. 

“Making a snowman, Yuuji-kun?” he calls, waving his hand lazily when Yuuji whirls around in surprise, brightening up like a puppy metaphorical tail wagging as he realizes who it is. Satoru’s grin is just as languid as his wave. “Want some help?” 

Yuuji’s face flushes with heat that isn’t from the cold. “You won’t tell anyone?” 

“Oh? Tell anyone what?” Satoru asks, and he can hear the amusement in his own voice. Can feel his lips twitch up into something—else. Lighter. “Are you doing something you’re not supposed to?” 

Yuuji fidgets, sneaking glances to the door that leads to his room and Satoru rocks on his heels, patient. His words are followed by puffs of air when he finally answers. “‘M supposed to be doing homework…” 

Well, that confirms that the kid is homeschooled. What with the way Satoru has come on all different days and times and found him here, in this garden, nearly every time. He’s not sure why he thought there’d be a chance of anything different in the first place. 

He strolls closer, bending down to roll the snow. For a moment, Yuuji just blinks at him until Satoru brings a finger to his lips. “Our little secret then—I won’t say anything. But we need to be quick if you don’t want to get caught.” 

Though, if the boy is left to his own means as often as Satoru thinks he is, there is no real reason to rush. In addition, what harm could there be in encouraging just the slightest bit of—admittedly weak—rebellion? It is just a snowman after all and it’ll be finished in time for Yuuji to scurry back inside to his room to finish whatever task he has.  

It is with that mindset that Satoru sends Yuuji to collect twigs and rocks, and even some of the already fallen flowers when he protests snapping any free from their stems highlighting that a Hanami would be upset if he did. It is an oddly soothing activity. Rolling the snow. Packing it tight and then smoothing it out so it’s perfectly circular. 

It’s as Satoru is having to heft the kid up so that Yuuji can place the stones in a crooked smile and eyes before wrapping his own scarf around its non-existent neck that Yuuji asks, “Can we be friends, Satoru-san?” It is quiet. Words as a representative of a heart on his sleeve. 

It gives him pause as he sets the boy back on his feet. Despite having two friends of his own, the idea or requirements of what makes two people ‘friends’ has never been something he really gave thought to. 

Friendship is an alien concept to him, he thinks. In theory, he understands it, practices it, and has interacted with others to a degree that it would be considered something like it. But at the same time, Satoru has an intrinsic problem of seeing himself as ‘other’. 

He hums, drawing out the sound as Yuuji looks up at him with big eyes and an earnest expression on his face. Feels something in his gut that has reached deep and entwined itself with him flourish at the questions. A bit cruel, perhaps, or something nicer, like the flowers given nutrients. He isn’t sure. 

(It’s not a thing. Satoru doesn’t have a thing, no matter what the little voice in the back of his head says. This is just temporary until something more interesting comes along. It’s not even something very important. But—Satoru can make an exception. 

Just this once.) 

“Sure, why not, I’ll be your friend” he says. It comes out gentler than he intends it to be. “Have you ever had any before?” 

And Yuuji tucks his chin into his chest, fingers wringing together. “No… I don’t think so. My books talk about them.” he mumbles, as if embarrassed by the admission.

“No?” Satoru asks, and there’s a unique blend of curiosity and keenness to it. An innate cruelty to it at the thought of being intrinsically important to someone. There’s something gentle too, though he can’t quite name what it is. Nothing ‘normal’ about this whole situation, but well. Satoru’s pretty sure neither of them are normal. “That’s okay. I’ll be your first then.” 

The relief that alights on Yuuji’s face is palpable. 

He can hear Shoko and Suguru’s disapproving voices in the back of his head. 

“Can – can we make another one?” Yuuji asks, and it is a tentative thing. Almost shy as he looks up at Satoru eagerly. “Just one more?” 

And what kind of first friend would he be if he didn’t indulge the first request—a simple one at that. Building snowmen. Ha! At least while Satoru’s around, he can introduce Yuuji to more exciting things. It seems so dull around here. He’d be doing the boy a favor. 

“Just one more,” he says. Yuuji’s hand is just as warm as last time when he reaches for Satoru’s, even through the mittens. “You ever make snow angels? Or a snow fort?” 

Well, at least there’s something to do when boredom hits again.