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“Hey,” loudly whispered a senior student of Jujutsu tech, short hair. “Have you heard of Gojo Satoru?”
“Huh? The second year? Good-looking, special grade, and rich?” Giggled her friend, long hair.
The student rolled her eyes as she elbows her friend, who continues to bask in her own little humor. “Why’d you have to say it like that? But yeah, that guy.”
“What about him?”
“I heard someone from the fourth years are going to confess to him, but isn’t he like, off limits?”
At that, the other girl tilts her head in confusion. “Off limits? What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Short hair asks, a bit surprised at the other’s question. “I heard, like, he’s not looking for a lover because he’s still mourning for his first love.”
“What?” The other third-year student says with a gasp. “Someone rejected the Gojo Satoru?”
At that, the third-year shook her head while looking at her with an admonishing gaze. “No, dummy, his first love died in a freak accident during a mission.”
“Oh,” mumbled long hair with a frown. “I didn’t know that, what happened?”
“I don’t know the exact details, but I just heard that Gojo’s first love died and he was there to witness it.” A shocked gasp could be heard between them. “Said that there’s no body to take back too.”
“That’s horrible… I can’t imagine how much that would break someone.” Says long hair as she places her hand over her heart, where it is thumping in sorrow at the news.
“It all happened just last year, while they were freshmen… An unfortunate end for young love, you know?” Short hair says with a sorrowful look on her face. “Gojo’s first love was his childhood sweetheart too, I heard.”
“Oh man, someone you knew from when you were young, dying right in front of you… I would understand if he’s still mourning at this point.” Says long hair, nodding slowly.
Short hair frowns. “Yeah, but isn’t it a waste?” She asks as she places her hand on her lips, trying to control her voice to become lower. “It’s a shame to lose love like that, I know, but honestly, he shouldn’t take so long to get over it, his first love wouldn’t want him to stay in a rut forever.”
Long hair quirks a brow, looking at her friend with an incredulous look on her face. “How could you say that? The guy clearly found the one, you know?”
Short hair shrugs nonchalantly, when suddenly something was thrown right over her head! She flinched when coldness seeps over her uniform and stickiness clinging to her skin. The third-year lets out a cry of annoyance as she looks up at the perpetrator, and pales in grave realization who is in front of her.
There, in front of her, is Gojo Satoru with a tight-lipped smile and his hand outstretched with a, now, empty cup of juice. “Oops,” began the second-year with malice before he drops the cup to the floor, his palms open in the air as if he was caught red-handed. “My hand slipped, sorry senpai.” Satoru says, deeming it enough for an apology as he walks away without a second glance at his victim.
“What an ass!” Short hair cries as she takes out her handkerchief to dry her hair.
“Sorry about him,” came in a different voice which made the two seniors look up in surprise, seeing Geto Suguru with Ieiri Shoko, an innocent smile on the male while his friend only held a smoke between her lips. “Maybe you shouldn’t gossip about someone’s personal life out in the open, yeah?”
The two third-years pales before they just scurried off, figurative tails tucked between their legs in shame.
Suguru watched them run away before he jogs after Shoko, who’s already after Satoru’s hunched form.
“Satoru.”
Said student raises his head from its position pillowed by his own arms, directing his gaze to Suguru who’s looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Yaga-sensei said we should give back the extra desk and chair to the staff so they can reuse it for a different batch.” Suguru says, his eyes drifting to the wooden desk and chair that Satoru is currently occupying.
They both know whose extra desk and chair Yaga-sensei was referring to. The desk was kept around during their first year out of respect with a vase filled with flowers in memory of him, but now that it’s a new school year, it’s to be expected that it would be returned to the school.
Satoru remained silent as he let himself sit upright, his fingertips caressing the little indents Yuuji made on the wooden desk, the nervous habit he had whenever he was struggling to answer a question Yaga-sensei threw at him, or the little doodle he made of Satoru, but quickly drew his other friends as well to not draw suspicion to himself with a permanent marker.
These little memories, small and endearing, yet painful to look at all the same.
At his silence, Suguru’s thin lips turned to a frown, his dark eyes looking at the four desks that occupies their classroom. Each used whenever class is in session, but the most that looked normal, more used by a high schooler, was Yuuji’s. Even for Suguru, he knows he doesn’t want to let go of what little they have of Itadori Yuuji, a friend, a lover, and a savior.
“Give them my desk and chair.”
Suguru raises his brows slowly, looking at Satoru with a look of surprise, but then it morphs to understanding.
Satoru, as silent as he was when it comes to the topic of Yuuji, still cherishes every single thing that belonged to his late boyfriend.
After Yaga-sensei had silently took back the flower vase, Satoru had often occupied Yuuji’s desk, never really using it for schoolwork, but to just memorize the personality Yuuji left on the surface. Eventually, he refused to return to his own desk, which is now gathering dust beside Suguru’s desk.
“Sure,” was all Suguru says as he moves to take Satoru’s relatively empty desk, then lifts it effortlessly to bring to the staff room. The chair can wait.
And Satoru is grateful because he wasn’t told to move to help Suguru, out of respect, out of pity, he doesn’t know, nor doesn’t seem to care as he lets his forehead rest on Yuuji’s desk. His thumb caressed the small indent on the side, an x where both he and Yuuji made as a way to piss off Yaga-sensei when they were given detention for pranking an upperclassman.
True to the gossipy third-years’ words, a fourth-year student had called for Satoru and confessed her undying feelings for him. It was heartfelt, something out of a shoujo manga even. But Satoru couldn’t hear her truly, as he was remembering today’s date.
He had turned her down, not too gentle, yet not too harsh either. Just right for her to bow in respect but also run away with tears in her eyes. If Yuuji was here, he would have hit him and told him to be gentle with girls.
But he was not here.
“What are you two hiding for?” Asked Satoru as he directs his annoyed gaze at the corner of the building.
There, Suguru and Shoko walked out of their hiding spot, a sheepish smile on Suguru’s lips while Shoko only took out a smoke from her pocket.
“Nothing, thought you’d bully the poor senpai, so we’re here for damage control.” Says Suguru.
“I’m not here for that.” Shoko interjects while lighting her cigarette.
“… I’m here for damage control.” Suguru corrects himself, now a thin smile on his lips as he side-eyes Shoko’s nonchalant expression.
Satoru rolls his eyes, turning his back to them as he began walking, fast and intending to disappear from their sight when he realized that they’re still, in fact, tailing him. After a good few minutes of them just silently following him, Satoru stopped in his tracks to look at his classmates with an annoyed look on his face. “What are you still following me for?”
“You think we don’t know where you’re going?” Shoko asks, her lips keeping the smoke still despite her talking. “We know what day it is, Satoru, let us see him too.”
Suguru was usually one to diffuse the situation, to stop Satoru’s hotheaded disposition from exploding, but for once, he wanted to side against him. “Yeah, Satoru, you’re not his only classmate.”
Perhaps Satoru took it to heart, as his tense frown turned to a scowl, close to snapping up and maybe biting at anyone who got close, like the feral beast he is.
Suguru tries again. “We want to pay our respects, maybe we weren’t there when he was killed, but we were there when he was first buried.”
Right, Satoru remembered. Even if they believed that there was no body to bring back for cremation and burial, they had resorted to stuffing what Yuuji had left, or what Satoru allowed to be buried, which was his old notebooks filled with copied notes of lessons.
On the day Yuuji’s urn was buried, there were only a handful of people present, but it was a testament of how much Yuuji’s presence touched their lives, of his selflessness, his bouncy bubbly nature, and his willingness to learn about everything around him. No one shed a tear on that day, maybe because they have let out their sorrows the day that Satoru announced his death, or maybe they just didn’t out of respect for Satoru, who didn’t cry when he, himself, laid down the urn beside Itadori Wasuke’s.
Satoru lets his eyes wander before his friends, the remaining people who put up with him now that Yuuji is gone. He wanted to turn them away, because he was selfish like that, but then again…
“Fine,” says Satoru with a sigh before he points at Suguru with his brows furrowed. “But you don’t get to come!”
“Huh?” Suguru says, but he has a smile on his face as he knows what Satoru is on about. “Come on, I’m not going to ask him on a date, that would just leave a bad taste on my mouth.”
“You both are disgusting, just get a move on.” Shoko tells them with a sour tone on her voice as she began moving, letting the two wrestle it out before they followed her once they had gotten a few kicks in.
The commute to Sendai was relatively quiet, with Shoko often using either Suguru or Satoru’s shoulder to rest on when she grew sleepy, while Suguru was looking at his phone, rereading some texts from an assistant director who had forwarded his mission in advance so that he could get on with it tomorrow.
Satoru, however, had his head straight and eyes hidden behind his round shades, his eyes never leaving the familiar sights of the buildings of Sendai, one he had memorized after a year of being unable to look at his other shoulder, where Yuuji always liked to situate himself at as he talked his ear off about a movie he recently watched.
Satoru would have smiled at the memory because he would spoil an important plot point to him, who would whine at his disrespect. However, he didn’t, because there is someone in front of him, and he’s not sure if they can handle seeing a Japanese high schooler just smile at them out of the blue.
“I love you.”
The ghost of Yuuji would always whisper in his head, but Satoru continues to ignore him, because he had sworn to himself that he won’t cry anymore, not over Yuuji’s last words to him, who he knows is alive in his basement. He is alive, he just has to wait for him.
Once they arrived in the cemetery, the trio had paid their respect to the Itadori family grave, before Shoko kneels down in front of it to let her hand pat away any stray leaves or dust that the tombstone may have accumulated. “Hey Yuuji.” Greets the girl while the two boys lingered behind her.
“We’ve been alright, it’s kind of boring without you.” Shoko spoke, not really letting her tears leave her eyes as she takes her hand back. “And it’s hard to keep Satoru in check, I really don’t know how you do it.”
“Tch,” Satoru would click his tongue in annoyance, before a branch fell over his head, making him flinch and hold his head at the sudden attack!
“Whoa,” says Suguru as he had moved away a bit from Satoru when the offending branch fell between them. “They don’t maintain their trees here, do they?”
Satoru wants to answer that it’s probably Itadori Wasuke’s doing, but he’s not keen on confirming the old man’s lingering existence, because if he did, he might have to grovel in front of his spirit for failing him. Groveling before his urn was enough, thank you very much.
After Shoko finished her conversation with Yuuji’s grave, it was Suguru’s turn. He felt like Satoru was glaring at his back, but he ignored it as he only talked with Yuuji like normal, telling him of his time doing his own missions, of Yaga-sensei’s health too, because he figured Yuuji would worry about their teacher.
Eventually, they had left when the sun had begun to set. Satoru didn’t say anything to the grave, and the two didn’t press on the matter further, figuring that Satoru’s still mourning in his own way for his lost love.
Satoru should feel ashamed, even a little, for keeping Yuuji’s apparent survival a secret to his friends. But he had made a promise to never reveal such a thing to anyone, lest the information leaks and Satoru won’t be able to keep his body to let it do its thing, to let Yuuji revive without outside disturbance.
So, when they were near Jujutsu tech, Satoru bids good night to his friends and departed to his own home without much of a second glance.
When Satoru enters his home, it was quiet, as eerily as it has always been. Even if it was relatively clean, he still thinks it’s too desolate, too ghostly. Partly because it was his fault for not really using much of what his home had to offer, only ever going to the bathroom, kitchen, and then the basement.
Even his own room, one he had used a lot when Yuuji would sleepover before, had grown in disuse as Satoru would instead sleep in the basement with Yuuji’s unresponsive body; not on the bed, no, only ever sleeping on the dingy couch with a thinly blanket strewn over his body that never quite reached his feet.
Speaking of Yuuji, his body made his way towards the basement, opening the door then making his way downstairs, his hand pressed on the talisman-covered walls as his only guide before he let the darkness disappear in a flick of a switch, letting light pour in the room, illuminating Yuuji’s still body which was tucked under a thick blanket.
“Yuuji,” began Satoru as he made his way to the bed that was at the corner of the room, letting his knees give out so he could be closer to him. “I’m home.” He tells him, even with no response.
Satoru’s hand made itself home in Yuuji’s hair, which was clean as he had washed it for him before he went out for school. “I hope you weren’t too lonely.” He says, his voice growing quiet as he presses his forehead on Yuuji’s forearm, not really feeling any heat from his skin. It should concern Satoru, but the pulse of cursed energy from within him tells Satoru that Yuuji is still there, just waiting to recuperate from whatever damages he sustained from a year ago.
After a good few minutes into Satoru’s quiet ministration of holding Yuuji’s body close to him, he had pulled away with a weary smile on his lips. “I’ll just eat some dinner, then I’ll tell you all about today, yeah?” He says, letting his thumb swipe at Yuuji’s lips, not really finding any moisture there, only doing so because he missed feeling it against his own. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I eat noodles right now, I just don’t feel like cooking a feast.”
With that, he peels himself away from Yuuji, leaving the light on as he made his way to do his thing, to take a bath, get a change of clothes, then to cook his instant noodles.
He didn’t add anything fancy to it, like Yuuji would have in attempt to add a variety of vegetables to their bodies, but Satoru hadn’t restocked the fridge in a while, only ever buying water and the never-ending sweets he would snack on when he’s lacking in brain power.
In the memory of Yuuji, Satoru had let himself be distracted as he waits for the noodles to soften in the boiling water. He could remember the little touches they shared back in elementary, when Satoru doesn’t know what to do with his growing feelings for Yuuji, as it had equated to bullying him relentlessly for his attention. Yuuji had grown accustomed to it, but had retaliated by fighting him often. Then, he remembered their first kiss, and the next one, and then the subsequent ones they shared behind the building of their middle school. Satoru can never forget how perfectly Yuuji melted against him, of how his face, despite the darkness of their surroundings and his own shades, burned bright red that Satoru can’t look away from him, even if they had been discovered by a security guard for skipping class.
Satoru remembers in their first year of high school when they first shared a mission together and had saved a family from the curse that haunted their home. Yuuji said something to him in that day after they had successfully completed it…
… What was it?
It was then that Satoru’s face contorts into dread, of fear as he couldn’t remember Yuuji’s words, something probably endearing, about family, about saving people, fuck, what was it?!
Satoru doesn’t even realize he was hyperventilating just as the pot was boiling at the pressure buildup.
“Yuuji,” he says under his breath as he hurriedly turns off the stove, uncaring if he had burned his hand in the process, letting his feet carry him through his house to get to the basement, with him missing a few steps of the stairs that he had landed on the cold floor on his shoulder!
Satoru groans in frustration, of his clumsiness as he only made his way to Yuuji, dragging his tired body to pull himself up to sit on his knees beside the bed. Shakily, he lets his hand hover over Yuuji’s nose. There, he felt air leaving his nostrils in a weak fashion, slow, yet it was real.
Yuuji is alive.
At that, Satoru’s tense shoulders sag, his body slumping over the mattress as he began to release the tears that he didn’t realize he was holding back.
He had said to himself that he won’t cry anymore, but how could he when in this very same day, he had failed to protect Yuuji? The very same day in the year where he held his bloodied body close to him as he wails for the gods to give Yuuji back to him.
Satoru heaves out a cough before he looks up at Yuuji, half expecting him to be looking at him in concern as he had always done.
But he doesn’t.
Satoru lets out a weak laugh, no real humor as he had taken his hand back from Yuuji’s nose to let it rest on his hair, his other hand holding Yuuji’s cold one tightly.
“Yuuji, do you remember the time you had dragged me to dance because you once saw a movie where the main characters danced in a ballroom?” Satoru asks his eyes slowly closing as he let the memory of his childhood drag him away from reality, of how he looked at a young Yuuji exasperatedly in the backyard of the Itadori residence during a night where the moon was their only witness. “You said they looked elegant and cool, so you wanted to try it, but you always tripped us over or step on my foot.” He laughs, with his voice hoarse as he raises Yuuji’s hand to press a kiss on his wrist, where splotches of black had formed to encircle it, probably the doing of the excess cursed energy.
Satoru smiles against Yuuji’s skin, the memory was a fun one, filled with laughter and innocence. Young, naïve, and just two childhood sweethearts having fun. “I could never hate you for it, but I think you know that, because you never let me go even if I told you off.” He tells him, his eyes finally opening to look at Yuuji’s unresponsive form, still deeply asleep.
He lets the hand on the pink hair lower to Yuuji’s cheek, stroking his cheek before he moved closer to press a kiss on his lips, no moisture, no warmth, but he had felt the gentle graze of Yuuji’s breathing on his own lips.
“Just like you didn’t let me go, I won’t let you go either, not now, not ever.” Satoru mumbles, letting his forehead press against Yuuji’s cheek. “I’ll wait for the day that we get to dance again. Under the moonlight.”