Archive of Our Own

7 Years Old

“Shoko! No running!”

Shoko doesn’t listen. But that’s nothing new, that girl only listens when she wants to, or when the word “present” is involved, and if she does get to hear that word then there is nothing in this world that can get her to listen to anything else.

So there she is, socks skimming over polished floors, taking down the steps two at a time, dark hair messy around her face and too-large pajamas flaring as she makes her way down, grinning so wide her eyes crinkle.

“G’morning!” She’s a little thing, but wild and unrestrained. “Where's my present!?”

Her mother laughs, waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, hands on her hips. “This is the first time you ever wake up this early, sweetheart, Dad’s still in bed.”

“But I want my present now!”

“Shoko, what did I say about patience?”

Shoko sighs. Something curious about her is that even when she isn’t moving, when she’s standing perfectly still with her hands behind her back, trying to look innocent, there is still so much energy about her. Her daughter buzzes, always.

“That is a virtue,” Shoko says, flashing another grin. One of her bottom teeth fell recently, she’d been inconsolable for a day. “But! But! It’s my birthday and that is also a virtue so I don’t have to be patient, right? Right?”

Her mother laughs again, ruffling her hair before trying to untangle it back into place. “Can’t argue with that logic. Happy birthday, sweetie. Come, I’ll show you your cake for tonight and then we’ll wake up Dad mhm? How does that sound?”

She lights up even more, if that’s possible, before rushing into the kitchen, whooping under her breath.

9 Years Old

Her father falls down the stairs that year, and it changes everything.

But not in the way you think.

“Dad!” Shoko rushes down the way she’s done for years now, but this time the excitement of the new day isn’t bubbling inside of her, but rather worry makes her hands shake and her heart quicken because she’s never seen her father so still before, and she’s never heard the thump of a body hitting the floor.

She’s fallen herself sometimes. Scraped her knees, banged her elbows against playgrounds, even lost another tooth last year by running head-first into a glass door. But she always gets up. She cries sometimes too, that’s true, but don’t tell that to anyone.

Her father doesn’t get up nor cry.

Shoko is by his side in a blink. He’s curled up on his side, the arm underneath him all—wrong. Shoko is too young yet to know much about angles and body parts but she can tell this is wrong. Arms don’t bend like that, or at least hers doesn’t, and she knows her father’s doesn’t either because she’s never seen it do that before and he’s so quiet and he’s so—

She doesn’t know what she’s doing, until she’s doing it.

One of her hands closes around her father’s shoulder and she’s not strong enough to roll him to his back so she just holds onto him, for a second, and there is something—there is a whisper asking her to remain very still. Shoko is not good at remaining still, but she does it this time.

Something shines between her fingers, like she’s holding onto light instead of just her father’s burly shoulder. It’s brief, and she gasps, feels a tingle from her belly to her fingers like someone’s tickling her. Next thing she knows her father is blinking awake, groaning a bit, sitting up.

“Dad?”

“Shoko—” He rubs at his shoulder, then at his head, and Shoko’s eyes widen when his hand comes out red and wet. “Aw. Shh, it’s alright, dumpling, don’t cry, it’s nothing. See? Dad is fine, I'm alright.”

“But—”

“Shh.” He uses his clean hand to brush hair out of Shoko’s forehead. “C’mon, let’s go find your mom, I’m sure she’s still working on your cake for today.”

It surprises him that not even the mention of cake gets the apprehension out of her face.

“Shoko,” he says gently. “I’m fine. This is why you have to be careful when coming down the stairs, okay? I’m okay now, but it’s not always like this. You understand?”

“Yeah—”

“So let’s go, dumpling, don’t you want to see your present for today?”

It’s not those words that make her smile again, though her father surely thinks so, but rather that he gets to his feet easily, without wobbling, and though there is still red on his hand he doesn’t seem that concerned about it, and his arm is good and normal and bends the way arms are supposed to bend.

Shoko sits on the kitchen table as he goes to the bathroom, and when he comes back there’s no red on the side of his head or on his hands anymore.

Shoko isn’t sure how she knows, but she knows it’s all because of her.

11 Years Old

Shoko doesn’t run down the stairs anymore, hasn’t for two years, but there are still things she likes doing. Waking up early is one of them, although there is something that is different.

Her mother is not in the kitchen baking her a cake anymore, but Shoko doesn’t really blame her. When your husband leaves you and you have to work twice as hard as you used to, getting up early on your only day off is complicated.

It’s alright, really.

So Shoko bakes her own cake, following a recipe she finds on her mom's phone and careful not to spill anything, not wanting her mom to get too mad at her impulsive decision and, more importantly, not wanting her mom to have to clean anything.

Her father calls, and Shoko picks up as she closes the oven because all she has to do is wait and she doesn’t want to sit in silence, may as well talk to someone. 

“It's Shoko.”

“Oh, you have your mom's phone today? Happy birthday, dumpling.”

“Hi Dad,” she says, leaning against the counter, keeping her voice low. “Thanks.”

“I’m not surprised you’re up this early,” he says. “Your mom baking you a cake?”

Bitterness bleeds into her voice. “I’m baking it myself. She’s too tired because she worked all night.”

Silence in the line, just a slight buzz of static.

“I see,” he eventually says. 

“Gotta go, oven’s timer is going off.”

“Wait— Do you want to do something this weekend? I have a present for you. How about you pick a restaurant and—”

“With your new wife?”

Again, silence. It’s really detrimental, since it makes it obvious her timer is not really going off, but Shoko doesn’t care.

A sigh. “What ever happened to that little girl who always got so excited when presents were brought up?”

“I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“You’ll always be my little girl, Shoko. You—”

“Dad.” Her voice grows even lower. “Mom’s sick.”

Another sigh. “I know, dumpling, I know.”

“Is that why you left?”

More silence on the line.

12 Years Old

Ever since three years ago she unknowingly stitched her father’s skull back together, Shoko’s been trying to do stuff like that again.

It started with herself, as not too long after that day she stubbed her toe with the corner of the TV stand. Nothing happened, and she carried that little hurt for a few minutes and then it was gone but she knew it was because it simply ran its course, not because she made it disappear.

Months later, she got the flu. No matter how much she tried to do something about it she spent days shivering in bed sneezing and coughing and overall feeling miserable.

Then, she fell on PE and got a nasty burning cut on her knee. Sitting at the infirmary waiting for the school nurse, Shoko tried to help herself again, and looking at the blood and her bruised skin she felt something, a whisper, and she fell very still. 

Wincing, she let her fingers trail over the broken skin, her knee jerking with the intrusion, her touch burning inside herself and then light around her fingers. 

Light. 

She'd been too young and panicked last time to notice, but right then she noticed. Blue light, almost like fire. 

Her body tingled from within, and when her own skin knitted together it felt cool, quiet, pleasant. 

Then the door burst open and she snatched her hand back. The process didn’t finish and the wound remained, but it looked much better than two seconds ago.

“Mmm.” The nurse looked at it curiously. “It’s not that bad, I’m surprised Izumi-sensei let you skip the rest of class. He can be such a meanie, right? Hold still, dear, I’ll get that cleaned up.”

Then Shoko tried again and again and again and again. With herself, mostly, with animals she saw hurt on the side of the road or even the spiders her mom squashed with a newspaper. She learned that a lot of things she could help, and a lot of other things she could not, but no matter how hard she thought about it she couldn’t figure out what made those instances different.

Her mom spent a lot of time in the hospital, and Shoko could never help her.

“You’re sure you don’t want to spend the day with your dad, sweetheart?”

Shoko scoffs. “Why would I?”

“Isn’t this a little—” She coughs, then gestures with her chin to the hospital room. “Boring?”

She can tell her mom wants to use another word but settles on the most innocuous one possible. Lately Shoko has been becoming acquainted with the phrase “sugar-coating” and she dislikes it a lot, thinks it’s more bitter and sour than sweet.

“It’s not,” Shoko says, kicking her legs back and forth on her chair. “I like the hospital, it’s quiet and you’re here, but Dad’s house is awful because all those kids are there and—”

“Shoko,” her mother says. “They’re your siblings.”

“They’ll never be my family, because they’re not your family.”

“Sweetheart, that’s not how that works.”

“I don’t care. I wanna be here.”

Her mother sighs. She’s so pale, her cheeks so sunken, it looks like even sighing takes a lot of effort from her. “Okay. Did you get your present from home like I asked you to?”

“Yeah! And I didn’t even look, I promise!” 

Apparently she’d gotten the present weeks in advance, but this impromptu visit to the hospital meant she had to leave it behind. She asked Shoko to rummage in her closet for it, and Shoko dug through her mom’s shoes to find a gift bag with her name on it.

The urge to peek into it had been so strong, but Shoko is getting better at patience. It is a virtue after all.

“Open it, then.”

The paper crinkles and rips under her eager fingers

“A phone!?” Shoko gasps, pulling out the box, the grin on her face so big it hurts. 

“Happy birthday, Shoko.”

When Shoko reaches for her mother’s hand she squeezes tightly, tighter than ever, and tries to look within herself, tries to find that thing that whispers on the back of her mind whenever someone’s hurt but she can’t hear anything, and there’s no tingling sensation, there’s no light. 

There’s nothing Shoko can do.

13 Years Old

“Do you remember me, little girl?”

Shoko frowns, looking up at the man waiting for her outside her mom’s hospital room. 

She does remember him, she saw him only two days ago.

On her way from school she walked past him hunched over in an alleyway, and the sight of red made her stop in her tracks. Blood pooled around him, his hands pressing against a large gash in his stomach, crimson running between his fingers like a sputtering hose.

Again, Shoko didn’t know what she was doing until she was doing it.

A tingle, and that light. She pressed her hand against that man’s shoulder and he’d been too out-of-sorts to even notice her, pale and sweaty and shaking. That time Shoko felt something different, jagged lines she tried so desperately to snap into place and she did, she managed.

But it’d been all wrong. Edges too jagged, the connections too loose.

But it worked.

The man blinked, looking down at himself and when she stepped away she still saw so much blood, so much of it, but his skin was unbroken and peppered by a massive scar all crooked and fresh, an angry red. It looked like it hurt.

And she knew she put that there.

And she ran away because he was still too delirious to notice her.

Or so she thought.

Now he stands in front of her, wearing dark clothes, black shoes and a purplish blue jacket and pants, his buttons shimmering with the strangest of swirling patterns.

“I don’t know who you are, old man,” Shoko says, though he really cannot be that old. Perhaps around her father’s age.

“You saved my life,” he says. “Do you have any idea—I mean, do you know how you did that?”

Shoko doesn’t know what to say. For a long time now she’s been secretly wishing someone would ask her that, talk about this thing she can do that she knows no one else can, perhaps tell her how to use it better, how to actually help her mother but—but—

But this person scares her.

“I just want to see my mom,” she says quietly. “I don’t know who you are.”

He does a double take on her, then sighs, rubbing his forehead. “How old are you?”

Today, she’s thirteen. 

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“I see.” He gives himself a shake, nods. “Sorry for bothering you, but—thank you for saving me.”

And he walks away, as simple as that, and Shoko convinces herself she will never see him again.

She’s right, in a way, she never sees him again, but not in the way you think.

14 Years Old

No one in Tokyo Jujutsu High knows it's her birthday. 

Shoko sits on the roof of the school with a beer she stole from Masamichi's office, legs crossed, letting the breeze tousle her hair and grimacing at the bitter, frothy taste in her mouth. 

She should cut her hair. 

She should not have stolen this beer, but there are no cakes for her nor candles nor presents, and even the thought of baking something for herself makes her want to throw up.

It's amazing how things can change in a year. 

Her mother died in spring, and before her body was even cold someone visited Shoko in the hospital. A man dressed in dark, purplish blue clothes, but not the man she saved that day in the alleyway. 

This one was taller, broader, his hair buzzed short, his goatee neatly trimmed. “I'm sorry for your loss,” he had said tentatively. “I’m Masamichi Yaga, it’s nice to meet you, I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” The skin under her cheeks was tender and rubbed raw, she flinched when she cleaned off more of her tears.

“Can I sit?”

“No.”

He sat anyways. “Do you remember the man you helped a few months ago? You saved his life.”

Shoko was silent, but of course she remembered. 

“We’ve been keeping an eye on you ever since.”

“Who is we?”

He tapped one of the buttons in his uniform, swirling spirals dark and shining under the hospital lights. “I’m from an organization called Jujutsu High. Tell me, Shoko, have you ever seen things that you shouldn’t?”

More silence. 

“What about this, then? Can you see this?”

He opened his palm in front of him and she almost said that yes, she could definitely see his hand, but then something flared to life in between his fingers. Pure fire, the color of the sky in a clear day, blazing and growing until it touched the ceiling but then—

Then it disappeared, as quickly as it had appeared.

Shoko gasped.

“Ah,” he said. “So you can see that, good. You’re definitely a sorcerer.”

“A what?”

“Do you have any family left?”

Her father. Her father and his wife and his sons. Her father and his family. Her father who never visited the hospital, who called occasionally and asked her to come around but who never asked about her mother, not once. 

“No,” said Shoko. 

“Then I would like to offer you something.”

 And now she's here. 

Alone. 

Shoko’s not stupid. She knows her answer had been relieving to Masamichi, she knows getting to snatch her out of the real world was what he wanted all along, she’s special, valuable, something no one fails to remind her every so often. She also knows that maybe he called her father and told him she was dead, just to ensure no one asked too many questions. 

Perhaps even deep down he’d been glad Shoko’s mother died in the first place, he did say they’d been keeping an eye on her, who knows what would’ve happened if her mother didn’t die so soon after she first encountered that dying sorcerer.

At first it made Shoko so angry, but after months here she’s seen things that plague her thoughts more than her silly conspiracies.

Even that one man she saved first, he died the next month. He went into a mission, got mauled by “cursed spirits” (the monsters she can supposedly see but hasn't seen yet, she's not allowed to leave the premises you see) and he died and Shoko's efforts that day amounted to nothing. 

Masamichi told her, and she didn't know how to feel back then. Still doesn't know how to feel now, just like she still doesn’t know how to feel her mother is dead.

She’s sad, but she doesn’t cry anymore.

Her mother died and she was never able to help her, just like she was never really able to help the man in the alleyway.

She wonders if she'll ever be able to help anyone at all. 

Shoko sighs, takes a deep breath and downs the rest of her drink and she wants to spit it out but she doesn't, she lets it burn its way down her throat. 

She could get rid of the burn, maybe. Reverse cursed technique, they call it. 

She doesn't. 

“Happy birthday to me.”

She throws the can as far as possible and hears it clank against the trees at the back of the school, then she gets up. 

And goes to cut her hair. 

15 Years Old

She will join classes in April, and they will teach her how to be a sorcerer. 

They’ve been teaching her other stuff for now, how to use her reverse cursed technique, except this time she doesn’t practice on herself or on helpless animals but rather on real people. Real people shoved in front of her, broken and bleeding and dying, and she’s the only one that can put them back together.

She does, sometimes, but sometimes she can’t and they die.

They just die.

Perhaps it would be easier if after their deaths someone came to Shoko crying and upset, accusing her of failing, accusing her of basically murdering them. But no one ever does that. All they do is sigh, draw a blanket over the body, and thank her for her efforts.

For her efforts.

Shoko ends up with blood in her hands from touching the dying sorcerers, and they thank her for her efforts.

She asked Masamichi why, why didn’t they blame her, why didn’t they demand more from her, or everything from her.

“It’s not your fault, kid,” he had said. “Some things just have to run their course and no one can stop them, not even you. You're doing so much for us already, don't beat yourself up over this.”

But how couldn’t she? How couldn’t she? How couldn’t she?

Perhaps he saw the defiance in her eyes, that unwillingness to do as he said. “I pray that in time you’ll stop blaming yourself, Shoko, because otherwise your life is going to be a hell of a lot harder.”

Masamichi locks his office tighter now, even though Shoko knows he took all of the alcohol away.

Today Shoko goes to the roof again, alone again, with nothing to drink or eat. She sits there like she sat there last year, her new routine not consisting of waking up early and running down the stairs to a familiar kitchen but rather just of sitting there, alone in the cold. 

Alone in the cold. 

16 Years Old 

Someone kicks down Shoko's door first thing in the morning. 

“Shoko! Shoko! Wake up, it's your birthday!” 

Shoko groans, burying herself deeper into her blankets and shoving her head under her pillow. She hates that silly high-pitched voice so much, and hates how it cracks every two syllables. Stupid boys going through puberty. 

“C'mon! Wake up, happy birthday!” 

Her bed shifts and she actually jumps a little as Satoru throws himself next to her. 

“Dude,” Shoko snaps, pushing herself up to her elbows and smacking him with her pillow. “The hell is wrong with you? It's—” She turns to her nightstand, “—seven in the goddamn morning? I'm going to kill you.” And she hits him again, and again. She actually knocks his glasses off his face. 

Satoru sputters. “Wait! Wait! Stop hitting me!” His voice cracks again, he's so fucking lame. 

“Get out of my room you weirdo. What if I slept naked, huh? What then?” 

“W-what!?” Satoru throws himself out the bed, red from the base of his neck to the tip of his ears. “Stop playing! Gee! I just wanted to do something nice for you!” 

“Waking me up isn't something nice.”

“Put the pillow down! Cake! I have cake!” 

Shoko puts her pillow down, frowning at him. “You baked it?” 

“Uh, well, I tried—stop, don't hit me again! I said I tried, but not that it worked. Suguru and I realized it was hopeless yesterday, so we went to buy one. It's from a nice fancy bakery! I know you're gonna like it—” 

Shoko's frown deepens. Is seven in the goddamn morning really the time to be eating a birthday cake? 

She scoffs, tosses the pillow behind her and gets to her feet. “Where's Suguru, then?” 

“Oh he didn't want to wake you—” 

Shoko kicks him in the shin on the way out. 

17 Years Old

It's really amazing how things can change in a year. 

“A-okay! Now we sing!” 

Shoko sighs. “We don't have to sing.”

“Hush, it's your birthday of course we have to sing!” 

“Satoru,” it's Suguru who speaks now. “Perhaps listen to the birthday girl?” 

Satoru sulks, of course he does, slumping down on his chair and crossing his arms. 

The three of them share a table in Jujutsu High's kitchen, the cake Shoko helped them bake leaning precariously to one side. What can she say, her assistants are a little bit—

“I don't get why you don't want us to sing you happy birthday, it makes no sense that we did this whole thing—” 

“Why can't you just listen to what she wants?” Suguru counters. “She said she doesn't want it.”

Her assistants are cranky. Have been cranky ever since August, ever since returning from that one mission they don't talk about. 

Shoko doesn't know the details, all she knows is she found Satoru's blood on the school's entrance and she found Suguru's body with cuts crisscrossing his chest on the tombs of Tengen's barrier. 

She helped him, then, put him back together through a haze, through the panic in her throat and the tears in her eyes and her trembling hands. There was so much blood.

There was blood from someone else, too, but Shoko hadn't been given much information, and Suguru woke up in a frenzy asking about Satoru and Riko and Satoru and Riko and—

“She didn't say she didn't want to, just that we didn't have to.”

“Just stop pushing this.”

“You stop—” 

Shoko digs her fingers in the cake, and flicks frosting towards the both of them. 

 “Hey!” Satoru whines, taking his dirty sunglasses off. “Why'd you do that for!?” 

Suguru uses a napkin to clean pink frosting out of his silly bang. “That was—” 

Shoko flicks them again, grabbing a bigger handful of the cake this time. 

“Hey, drop it, I worked hard on that!” Satoru leans forward, trying to get a hold of Shoko's hands. 

“No you didn't,” says Suguru. “Me and Shoko did all the work.”

Satoru looks at Shoko, and she looks at him. They both nod.

Suguru goes pale. “Hey, wait—”

He is interrupted by Shoko’s hand, filled with so much cake it slips through her fingers, smashing directly on his cheek. He screams, actually falls off his chair like a loser, muttering something about his hair and Shoko is laughing, she’s laughing so much her stomach hurts, laughs even harder when Satoru grabs his own handful and shoves it in her face.

It ends up in her mouth, sweet and gritty and too mushy to be very edible. They fucked up the recipe at some point she’s sure, but she doesn’t care. It gets in her eyelashes and she coughs and leans back, still laughing. 

Then Suguru is on his feet, and he grabs the plate with the pitiful remnants of their dessert, and turns it upside down right on top of Satoru’s head. 

“You fucker!” Satoru shrieks as cake drips down his forehead, his cheeks, gets into the collar of his shirt, pure strawberry pink streaking his hair and skin and Shoko knows it’s going to be a bitch to clean up.

There are tears in her eyes, but her hands are covered in sticky frosting and her face is covered in it, too, she can’t really hope to wipe them away so she lets them stream down.

More tears than she expected.

Suguru clears his throat. “Are you okay?”

Shoko takes a deep breath, slumping back in her chair with a grin she can’t seem to knock off her face. She licks her lips. “This is gross. We should’ve bought something like last year.”

“Satoru wanted to bake.”

“I know, but we don’t have to do everything he says. He’s a total brat.”

“Hey now!” Satoru says. “I’m sitting right here and I got the worst of the attack! Can’t we be even?”

“Besides, Shoko, if you didn’t want to eat the cake you could’ve just said so instead of starting this whole thing.”

“Guess so.” Shoko hums, thinks this is the most normal the three of them have been in months, the most normal they’ve been since August. 

This is the first time in months she gets to hear them laugh. Hell, perhaps the first time in months she gets to laugh like this.

Shoko clears her throat, then goes to the kitchen sink to at least wash her hands. “You’ll clean that up for me, right?”

“But you started it!”

“Satoru,” Suguru warns.

“You can at least help—”

“It’s my birthday,” Shoko says simply. “I get to do what I want and I want to go take a shower now, and you have to do what I say and I say you clean this up. See how it all works?”

Besides, she thinks. It would be good if you talked to each other.

They don’t really talk, haven’t since August. Things are always so tense between them and they end up in arguments neither of them remember enough to tell her afterwards. They’re always coming to her to sulk, it gets annoying, but she never complains.

“We’ll clean up,” Suguru says, already moving to search for rags. “Happy birthday, Shoko.”

“Thanks.” She cleans her face as much as possible before making her exit, quickly maneuvering away from Satoru who is trying to give her a hug and get her dirty again.

And on her way to her dorm, her phone pings.

- Hey Shoko, happy birthday!! :D

Shoko smiles.

- Thank you!

How silly, Utahime is really the only one that can get Shoko to use exclamation marks. Something about her nice enthusiasm is just contagious.

- Did anything fun today?

On a whim, Shoko returns to the kitchen and snaps a quick picture of Satoru and Suguru scrubbing the floor, still covered in cake from the roots of their hair to their hands. They’re still bickering, of course they are.

- They ruined your cake noooo

- Those idiots

If Utahime could only see Shoko now, barely clean, pink frosting still matting her fringe to her forehead.

- I will make them regret it >:#

- What does that emoji even mean

- It means I’m angry at them!!

- It’s alright, they’re idiots but the cake thing was my fault

- Oh

- Well I’m sure you had your reasons <3

Shoko snorts.

- Thanks for the birthday wishes

- Anytime ;)

- We should do something next year!

Shoko doesn’t really know where she’ll be next year, she tries not to think about it too much. Third year in Jujutsu High sounded so simple back then, so easy to reach but now—

- Or not if you don’t want to!

- I didn’t mean to push or anything

- I know we don’t really know each other that well

That’s true. They met only last year during the Goodwill Event, exchanged numbers because Shoko has everyone’s numbers and everyone has to have her number.

Just in case, you see, you never know when you’re going to be in a pinch and you never know if Shoko will be available to get you out of said pinch. Utahime had smiled at her and apologized, and she was the first person to ever do that.

They didn’t see each other for a long time. Utahime graduated, they never really spoke—until August, though that was brief. Eventually Utahime heard about Satoru and Suguru’s mission, but she called Shoko to ask if she was alright, and she was the first person to ever do that, too.

They talked for hours, about nothing in particular, then hung up when it got too late and didn’t talk again until today—

Shoko doesn’t even remember telling her her birthday.

- I’d like that

18 Years Old

Suguru is gone.

Shoko goes to the rooftop alone, cigarette dangling from her lips, a beer can in her hand and her dead phone in her pocket. Utahime called and Shoko didn’t pick up, texted her a simple “I’ll spend the day alone, sorry” then watched her screen go black.

She sighs, breathing out smoke into the night. She still has his lighter. Suguru’s lighter. He lit her cigarette in September and then she called Satoru and Satoru let him go, and Shoko still has his lighter. 

It’s so cold tonight, up here, all alone. Nicotine is so bitter on her tongue, the beer even worse. She’s gotten used to the taste of both through the years, has gotten used to many things. Loneliness, and not being able to help when things matter.

Hadn’t saved her own mother, hadn’t saved her friend.

For someone so valuable, someone so important to jujutsu society, she surely doesn’t do a lot of saving. Sure, a lot of sorcerers get to walk out of her infirmary, but she doesn’t know any of them.

The ones that don’t get to walk out, and the ones that don’t even get to walk in, like Yu Haibara, are always the ones that matter to her.

November is not the coldest month of the year, and yet Shoko is shivering.

She gulps all of her beer, then tosses the can as far as she possibly can, hears it clank against the trees at the back of the school. 

“Happy birthday to me.”

She tosses her cigarette butt into the night as well, half-hoping the dying embers would start a fire and swallow this place whole.

20 Years Old

It's a miracle Satoru gets her out of her shitty apartment, but he can be so insistent, and so annoying, and he warned Shoko that if she didn't get out he would bother all her roommates and set fire to their kitchen and she believed him, so here she is now in one of the most expensive restaurants in Tokyo. 

“If you tell the waitress is my birthday,” she says, “I'm going to murder you in your sleep, and I'm going to cut you open afterwards and claim you died of natural causes.”

“Harsh!” Satoru rubs at his chest as if he somehow could already feel her scalpel. “Why do you hate it so much when people sing happy birthday to you?” 

“It’s just embarrassing.”

“C'mon, it's the sort of embarrassment we all have to deal with, right? The necessary embarrassment to life.”

“You're not making sense.”

He bumps his foot against hers. “You're not making sense. Stop being so gloomy all the time.”

“I'm not—” She sighs. “Yeah, maybe I'm gloomy. Whatever. You'd be gloomy too if you were in medical school.”

Satoru seems genuinely surprised by this, but then again he seems genuinely surprised by most things. “I know what you need!” 

“A cigarette?” she grumbles.

“No! You need to hang out with someone who isn’t gloomy at all.”

“And that’s you?”

“Pfft, no! I mean, sure we can hang out when I’m in town but—”

“But you’re barely in town,” Shoko says, reaching for her drink. “I get it. It’s not like I have a lot of time myself and—”

“I meant Utahime, by the way!”

Shoko chokes on the cold beer, and her reflexes are quick, a simple touch of reverse cursed energy on her throat to stop herself from falling into a coughing fit. That’s the last thing she wants with Satoru right in front of her.

“Why her?” she asks as casually as possible, putting down her glass.

“You’re good friends aren’t you?”

“We talk.” 

She could offer more, but the truth is there is nothing else to offer. Their schedules rarely match between Shoko's studies and hers and Utahime’s sorcerer lives; there's not a lot of time left for them to meet up, not to mention the distance.

Still, they keep trying. Utahime called today, even, and Shoko had enough time to pick up and hear her say “happy birthday.” Unfortunately, she didn't have enough time to hear much else.

“She’s kinda worried about you,” Satoru says softly. “Even called me to see if you were alright.”

“She called you?”

“Yeah, why is that surprising?”

“Utahime hates your guts.”

“What?” He frowns. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Satoru.”

“She doesn’t! We’re good friends, we joke around all the time.”

Oh God. “You really believe that, huh?”

“Just give her a call, stop ignoring her.”

“I’m not ignoring her,” Shoko says. 

“But you don’t like it when she worries about you, I can see it in your face.”

Shoko grimaces. “It’s just—she’s too nice.”

“She’s too—” Satoru’s frown deepens. “Nice? You’re ignoring her because she’s nice?”

“Again, not ignoring her.”

“Remind me how friendships work,” he says. “Because I could’ve sworn someone nice is exactly what you look for in a friend.”

“It’s uh, complicated.”

“Complicated?” Satoru ducks his chin, and his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose and now she’s looking at his eyes directly. “Why?”

“She’s just—” Utahime’s downright perfect, but Shoko can’t really say that without getting teased to death. “Can we just stop talking about her?”

“Nope. I’m calling her.”

“Satoru!” She reaches across the table, perhaps to knock the phone out of his hands, perhaps to strangle him, she’s going to make the decision once she’s close enough. She ends up knocking over plates and his glass of water but can’t even touch him because he jumps out of his chair in time.

“Hello, Utahime! Yep, yep, I’m with her! Here you go!”

A decision is made at once. Shoko will not strangle him now, but she is definitely going to strangle him later.

“Shoko?”

Shoko is so glad Utahime can’t see her because not only she spilled water and soy sauce in her pants but she also knows she looks like a mess in a multitude of other ways.

“Hi,” Shoko says. “Sorry about that, Satoru is a pest but what else is new?” 

“Harsh!” 

Shoko ignores him. “I'm surprised you even picked up.”

“Only because I knew he was with you.”

Shoko knows that, medically, there is no such thing as a heart 'skipping a beat', so she really has no way of explaining what happens in her chest when she hears those words. 

“Are you alright? I know you’re busy but you sounded kinda weird earlier, I wasn’t sure if I should reach out—” 

“Everything's fine,” Shoko says. “You worry too much about me.”

A soft chuckle on the other side of the line. “Someone has to.”

Satoru’s eyebrows shoot up. “Ohhh, you’re blushing? What’d she say?”

Shoko bats his hand away from her face, grateful that at least he’s keeping his voice down for once. “That’s kind of you.”

“Is it? I’d say it’s just the bare minimum. We’re friends after all, right?”

“Right—” Shoko gulps. “I—”

“Wait, Shoko,” Satoru hisses. “Are you, like, in love with her?”

“What was that?”

Shoko slams the back of Satoru’s head, and he splutters as his face ends up directly in his bowl of miso soup, splashing broth and noodles all over the table.

“Oh, nothing,” Shoko says offhandedly, still holding him down. If he drowns in the soup then good riddance. “Just the wind.”

“Mmmphp!”

“I think someone’s coming to kick us out of the restaurant.”

“What?”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait—Shoko.”

Something about Utahime’s voice gives her pause, her thumb hovering over the ‘end call’ button. She puts the phone back against her ear. “Yeah?”

“Really call me,” says Utahime. “Don’t just say that. I want to hear from you.”

Why? Shoko wants to ask, but doesn’t have the time. They really are about to get kicked out so she has to settle for simply saying: “Yeah, okay. I will. I promise.”

21 Years Old

Shoko is not in love with Utahime. She’s really not. 

They’ve talked more in this past year than they ever have, have seen each other more than usual as well and not only because of work, not only because Utahime sometimes ends up in Shoko’s infirmary but because sometimes she’s done with her mission and she’s not hurt and she spends a lot of time insisting Shoko could use a break, so the two of them go have lunch together, or dinner, or something equally—friendly.

They’re friends. Good friends.

- I’m just saying

- Spending your birthday with her and ONLY WITH HER is kinda

- Gay

- Shut up

- I spent my birthday with u last year

- We’re gay shoko

- But not like that

- Just tell her you like her

And then Satoru sends a bunch of kissing and heart emojis and Shoko wishes he were in front of her only so she could strangle him.

- Anyways still kinda shitty you didn’t invite me 

- Unless it’s a date

- Then it’s okay 

- Go get it girl

She leaves him on read.

When he keeps texting, whining about being left on read, she blocks his number. 

It’s going to be alright, they’ve done this before and Shoko always unblocks him by the end of the day, it’s routine at this point.

“Oh, you did the dishes? I told you not to.”

Shoko turns from where she’s leaning against Utahime’s kitchen counter, can’t help the smile that breaks across her face. “It’s the least I could do, you cooked for me after all.”

“Well it is your birthday.” Utahime raises one eyebrow, as if daring Shoko to continue this conversation. “I got you a present, though it’s not much.”

“Oh?” Shoko chuckles. “Dinner and a present, you spoil me.”

“Something else, too,” Utahime says but before Shoko can medically identify whatever the hell her heart is doing Utahime is already taking a cake out of the fridge. 

Shoko takes a deep breath. “Cheesecake?”

“Yeah. It’s not too sweet, so I figured you would like it?”

Shoko can’t even remember telling her she doesn’t like sweet things anymore. “Never had it before.”

“You’ll like it,” Utahime says, that tilt to her voice when she’s amused. “I got some candles too, wait a second.”

“You know we don’t have to sing, right?”

“What? Of course we do.”

“We really don’t.”

“But—”

“Really.” Shoko laughs a little, hopes her flushing cheeks aren’t too noticeable. “It’s so embarrassing.”

Utahime narrows her eyes, the cake now discarded on the counter  and Shoko thinks she’s not going to get away with this, Utahime never lets her get away with anything, and she’s so—

Then Utahime hugs her.

Shoko should feel a bit more ashamed to admit she freezes, but she totally freezes. Utahime’s arms wrap around her shoulders and her flowery perfume overflows her and her long hair tickles her cheek.

“When someone shows they care about you,” Utahime says softly, “you shouldn’t be embarrassed.”

“This uh—this feels awfully embarrassing now.”

“Does it really?” Utahime asks.

Shoko sighs, and Utahime isn’t letting her go so she may as well hug her back.

“No,” Shoko says, resting her chin on Utahime's shoulder, feeling the ridges of her muscles, her vertebrae. Shoko can name all of it, but there is no name for the way her own body reacts to Utahime’s warmth, her softness. “No, it’s not embarrassing at all.”

23 Years Old

Maybe Shoko is a little in love with Utahime.

The realization happens quite suddenly, so fast and dizzying it makes her wonder just for how long this feeling has been inside of her, unnamed and untouched.

The realization happens also quite simply, as Shoko stumbles half-drunk into her apartment after spending thirty minutes sitting in the parking lot with a bottle in her hand, but no one has to know that.

Another lonely birthday. Satoru is out of the city, he texted earlier and called on her way to class, managed to send someone to deliver flowers to her during her lunch break. He’s sweet, really. She got texts from everyone else, her classmates old and current, and Masamichi who has remembered her birthday since she stole his beer at fourteen. 

There were other messages. Sorcerers who had passed through her infirmary table at one point or another—the ones who are still alive, anyways. Shoko appreciates them, at least one good thing comes out of everyone being able to reach her so easily. 

And yet, no one to spend the day with, no one to spend the night with, either. Not really because of a lack of options but rather she’s just tired. This should be her last year in medical school, she’s already done faking all the credentials she needs to fake before taking the national exam, and then she’s back at being a full-time doctor slash mortician at Jujutsu High and she really just wants to be alone for a change.

Or so she thinks.

Immediately after opening her door, Shoko notices someone is in her living room. On her couch, to be precise, the television on and playing old baseball games.

Utahime. Asleep.

Utahime asleep on her couch, in her apartment. Utahime came all the way from Kyoto, let herself in with her spare key, waited for her on her birthday and fell asleep.

Shoko stands frozen in her own entryway for way too long. Science be damned, her heart swells at least ten sizes, then breaks. Shatters, more like it.

And this is how she realizes.

Her throat suddenly dry, Shoko silently pads her way inside and leaves her wine bottle in the kitchen before going over to the couch.

Utahime doesn’t stir, curled up with her head in one of Shoko’s cushions, her hair slightly messy and her lips parted and she drools and Shoko is so irremediably in love.

Other than it being a whirlwind revelation, Shoko realizes she’s never really been in love before. She has dated, cared about other women, but never—

Utahime’s eyelids flutter, and Shoko realizes that it’s just never been like this before.

There’s a throw blanket on the other side of the couch that Shoko draws up to Utahime’s shoulders, her own eyelids fluttering because she truly is exhausted, and perhaps this knowledge should be revitalizing but it’s late and she’s been on her feet all day and the wine has made her head feel so heavy.

Shoko sighs, searching for the remote and turning off the TV, then she spins to make her way to her own bedroom—

“Oi, ‘was watchin’ that—”

Shoko freezes, the remote slipping from her fingers. It lands on the carpet with a dull thud, and in the dark living room Utahime is sitting up, rubbing her eyes and yawning. That’s all Shoko can see, the silhouette of her.

She sees Utahime in dark hues, midnight blue and moonlight silver, so dim yet so present, present not only in front of her but also in this new space inside Shoko’s heart. Or maybe it’s not new. Yeah, she thinks it’s not new, just undiscovered until now.

“Shoko?”

Shoko can only see her in curves and shadows, the swell of her cheekbones, the arch of her shoulder and oh her shirt's strap is sliding off a little too much and—

“Oh God,” Utahime mutters, clearly still trying to wake herself up fully. “What time is it? Hey, are you—?”

Shoko is swaying, barely awake herself, and all it takes is Utahime’s brief touch on her hand for Shoko to finally, blessedly, topple down onto the couch. 

She throws her head back with a sigh, closing her eyes against her will. She wants to keep them open because Utahime is next to her, very close and warm in the darkness and Shoko is so cold.

“Long day?” Utahime asks softly.

“You can say that.”

“And you were drinking.”

Shoko grimaces. “At least I wasn’t smoking?”

“Because you probably ran out of cigarettes at some point.”

Well, bingo.

“Shoko,” Utahime says carefully. They’re very close to each other, sitting with their legs touching, Shoko is still not sure she can open her eyes, but she doesn’t try. “Are you alright? Answer me honestly.”

“Honestly?” Shoko sighs. “I’m tired.”

Shoko is getting better at not letting responsibility drag her down, at not blaming herself for every single person she can’t save. It used to be hard, it’s getting easier, but then there are days like these ones where the knowledge of having to return to Jujutsu High hurts her, and the thought of all the people who are dying because she can’t help them—

There are days when it’s not so easy.

“Okay,” Utahime says. “Go have a shower, then, I’ll make you dinner.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

“So?”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“And I don’t really care. I know you, I know you haven’t eaten all day.” A pause, a warm hand in Shoko’s arm, so gently curving in the crook of her elbow. “Consider it part of my birthday present.”

“Ah.” Shoko laughs, it comes out mostly as a breath. “You didn’t have to come all the way here.”

“I wanted to.”

Shoko opens her eyes this time, sees that Utahime is facing her directly, one hand still in her arm, and they’re so close, and it’s so dark that perhaps, just perhaps, Shoko could lean in, and she could kiss her, and Utahime wouldn’t even notice.

“Let me do this for you,” Utahime insists. 

If Shoko says yes, then Utahime is going to spend the night. It wouldn’t be the first time it happens, Utahime crashes on her couch whenever she has a mission in Tokyo, so much so that the blanket hunched up between them smells of lilacs even though Shoko always gives her a proper one, and a proper pillow. It really is common, but it will be the first time now that Shoko knows.

If Shoko says no—then Utahime is simply not going to hear it.

Great.

It’s often like this with her, Shoko doesn’t really have much of a choice for the small things. It’s comforting, really. 

“Utahime.”

It’s quiet in Shoko’s apartment, all appliances off, doors shut tightly enough they can’t even hear the cars speeding down the highway outside. It’s quiet, and it’s dark, and Utahime is so beautiful and she’s here, with Shoko, and the quietness and darkness of the world makes everything dim but not her, never her. 

“Yes?”

Shoko reaches for the hand on her elbow, lets her thumb map the bumps of Utahime’s knuckles, the grooves on the back of her hand, and she forgets the names of everything she touches. Utahime is warm, there’s nothing clinical about her, she’s so painfully humane.

If this is love, how at ease she feels in the darkness, in the quiet, then Shoko thinks she can get used to the feeling and memorize it, and that will be something she never forgets.

“Thank you.”

Utahime blinks. “What? You don’t have to thank me.”

“I want to.”

She wants to do more, say more, but she’s not sure she can, not right now. She feels strangely vulnerable, exposed even though she knows Utahime can’t see her very well in the dark. She’s tired, she wants to sleep and Utahime is the only place she wants to go rest in.

“You’re about to fall asleep like that,” Utahime says with a smile. She doesn’t move her hand away, uses her free one to tuck a strand of Shoko’s hair behind her ear. “Seriously go shower, I’ll make you something warm. I’ll even tuck you in, if you want,” she adds, voice dripping with mirth like honey.

Shoko chuckles. “I don’t think we have to go that far, but okay.” 

24 Years Old

“I’m sorry you have to come here today of all days.”

“Don’t be,” says Shoko. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like half of my face got eaten,” Utahime says with a rueful smile. “Overall not so bad. How do I look?” 

“Like yourself.” Shoko takes her chair next to the infirmary bed, leaving a mirror face-down in Utahime's lap. “Can you now honestly answer how you're feeling?” 

“Well.” Utahime shifts, she doesn't try to reach for the mirror, and she doesn't smile anymore. “My face is the least of my concerns, really, I feel better than I did yesterday, but I'm not sure that amounts to much. Before you ask me to rate my pain again, I'd give it a six.”

Still so high, Shoko thinks. 

“Hey,” says Utahime, because of course she can read her mind. “Feeling better than yesterday, remember that.”

The scar on Utahime's face is still a raised patch of angry red, but that's not the worrying part of her injuries, but rather the large gash on the side of her torso, the jagged mark of teeth covered by bandages and her blankets but Shoko can still see it, can still feel it under her fingers as she frantically tried to apply reverse cursed energy to it. 

Two days ago she snatched Utahime back from the grasp of an early death, and that desperation has not left her yet, it clings to her the way the scent of blood and bleach follows her wherever she goes.

In the past years, Shoko has gotten pretty good at compartmentalizing, putting aside any feeling that may surge when she’s in the thick of trying to help someone, focus simply on the task at hand. 

Two days ago, that failed her. 

Sometimes she catches herself still panicking, desperate and in a hurry, buzzing with an energy that should be gone by now, before remembering that Utahime is alive, though the healing process is slow-going due to the cursed spirit that attacked her being poisonous.

“I really am sorry,” Utahime says. “Some birthday you—” 

“Stop,” Shoko says, and, not really on a whim but rather on a very careful and calculated movement, reaches for Utahime's hand. “You getting better is the most important thing to me, alright? It's just a day, and I'll have more birthdays, but you—I need you to recover.” 

It really is a need, as basic as breathing, at least to Shoko it is.

“I will.” Utahime is smiling again, squeezing Shoko's hand, not reaching for the mirror. 

Shoko doesn’t want to push her with this, and her heart aches at the sight. Nowadays she’s very familiar with her own technique, knows very well what she can and cannot do, who she can and cannot save—though she always tries, even if she knows it’s fruitless—and she also knows very well what processes will and will not leave scars. Most of them do.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” 

Shoko clears her throat. “Like what?” 

“You saved my life, there’s no need to look so guilty.”

Guilt, too, is something Shoko left behind many years ago—mostly. Perhaps in the future time and experience will rid guilt from her forever, but that day is not today.

“You almost died.”

“But I didn’t.”

Shoko rubs her forehead, takes a deep breath. “Do you know I’ve been in love with you for the past year?”

For the first time in a long, long time, Shoko seems to have taken her completely by surprise. 

“Exactly a year,” Shoko continues. “Isn’t that funny? Well, maybe more, but I realized exactly a year ago because you were waiting for me that night, and I remember being so tired but somehow seeing you felt like finally getting to rest a little. And ever since, everytime I see you, it’s like you soothe something in me that I never knew needed soothing.”

There is silence, and Utahime’s eyes are unnaturally wide. 

Mmm. Shoko almost wants to take it all back, not because she doesn’t mean it, but because she realizes this is the first time she ever—confesses. The thought makes her feel oddly young and, well, one would argue barely-twenty-four is still young, but Shoko hasn’t felt like this in a long time.

Surprisingly, the only thing Utahime says is: “I think I’m delirious again.”

“Well.” Shoko presses the back of her hand against Utahime’s forehead, feels something tingle in her chest when Utahime leans forward as if trying to capture as much contact as possible. “You don’t have a fever anymore, so I want to say you're not. But if you want to reject me you can just do it like a normal person.”

“Why would I reject you?”

“Yeah, honestly, why would you?”

Shoko lets her fingers trail off the unhurt side of Utahime's face, the slope of her cheekbone and the edge of her jaw, and Utahime lets her, stays as still as if Shoko were still conducting an examination. 

“It took you a whole year to come up with that?”

Shoko chuckles. “It was a nice speech, wasn’t it?”

“Still—a whole year?”

“Gimme a break,” says Shoko. “Words aren’t my thing, you know that.”

Utahime smiles. “I didn’t really need that whole speech, simply asking me on a date would have sufficed and I would’ve waited less.”

“Mmm.” Shoko leans back in her chair, and sees Utahime's eyes follow the path of her hand, something like disappointment in her face. “My mother always used to say patience is a virtue.”

“I don’t think I consider myself a virtuous woman.”

“Me neither.” Shoko pauses, chews on the inside of her cheek. “Is your head really feeling alright?”

“Uhm, yes?” 

“You're not dizzy?” 

Utahime shakes her head. 

“Okay. Good. But you may be in a second.”

“What are you—?” 

 Shoko leans out of her chair and her hand returns to Utahime’s chin, and then she kisses her.

It’s very unprofessional for a medical space, but she doesn’t really care.

26 Years Old

Shoko hasn’t smoked a cigarette since.

Well, not since. It’d taken Utahime a couple months to get her to quit, but she managed, of course she managed, as if Shoko could ever do anything but whatever her girlfriend wanted. 

Her girlfriend. 

Ha. 

Satoru has been insufferable about it for the past two years, and Shoko may be the only person in the world that's glad her best friend and her girlfriend don't get along because she would hate to be in a room with the two of them.

Well, Utahime doesn't get along with Satoru. Satoru thinks Utahime is just funny. 

“For your sake,” Utahime says as they get out of the taxi, “I will tolerate him tonight.”

“Uta.” Shoko finds her hand, the lights of the restaurant highlighting her in bright gold. “I was joking. Satoru isn't here, we're having dinner just the two of us.”

The relief that washes over her features is frankly hilarious. 

“Oh my God, thank you. I love you.”

There is a pause between them, a beat. A car rushes past and the wind tousles Utahime's bangs out of her face. 

Shoko laughs. “I love you too.”

28 Years Old 

“Shoko-san, you're leaving?” 

Shoko arches an eyebrow, and checks her wristwatch. She's already late to pick Utahime from the train station, but she can't exactly ignore the sight of Maki nursing an arm that is so clearly broken. 

“Not anymore,” Shoko says, points to the chair next to her desk, and follows Maki back into the infirmary. “What happened?” 

The question is as routine as it is unnecessary. The answers are always the same. 

“I may have overdone it today sparring with Panda.”

“Mhm.”

“He accidentally threw me against a tree.”

“I see.”

“There, uh, there may be an uprooted tree in the courtyard right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Maybe I threw it back at him. And uh, maybe Principal Yaga is going to have to fix up Panda a little bit.”

Shoko stops with one hand on Maki's shoulder and the other on her wrist, trying to assess the damage. “Really? The whole tree?” 

Her eyes shine with pride. “Yeah.”

Shoko taps her on the side of the head, and Maki squirms. “Don't do that again, those sorts of things won't help you in the field. How are you going to keep fighting curses with a broken arm?” 

“I bet I could manage,” Maki mumbles. “And besides, if I break my arm fighting a curse it's going to be because it's necessary. I'm not stupid.”

“Right.” Reverse cursed energy tingles in Shoko's hands, and she weaves it into the arm she's holding until she can feel the satisfying snap of the bone back into its proper place. “How does that feel?”

Maki gives her arm an experimental bend, turns her elbow this way and that, then tries to throw a punch because of course she does. “Thanks, Shoko-san. Sorry I bothered you when you’re on the way to a date.”

“And how would you know where I’m going?”

“I guessed.” She shrugs, then nods to the bouquet adorning Shoko’s desk.

“Oh, Satoru sent me that, not Utahime.”

“Satoru?” The gears turning in Maki’s head are almost visible. “And Utahime-sensei? Weird combo but I won’t judge.”

“That’s not—” Shoko laughs, much to Maki’s continuous puzzlement. “Goodness, no. Satoru sends me flowers every year because he’s a cheesy friend. Utahime is my girlfriend.”

Well, girlfriend feels small, nowadays.

“Oh. Hah. I knew it. Toge owes me money now.”

“You had a bet?” 

“Of course. We bet on everything. Me and Toge have money on Hakari and Kirara getting together before the end of the year, Panda thinks it's not going to happen. Yuta stays out of it, though, for now, but I'm sure he'll join soon enough.”

For a second Shoko simply stares at her as she rambles on about her friends, and she's not sure why she feels a bit choked up. 

Nostalgic. 

“Shoko-san?” 

Shoko clears her throat. “Panda is about to lose money.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyways, I'll get out of your hair for now, thanks for helping me and—wait, why did Satoru send you flowers?” 

“It's my birthday.”

Maki's eyes widen behind her glasses. “Huh—Happy birthday, Shoko-san. Do you like weapons?”

This girl. 

“Knives,” Shoko says. “Daggers. Switchblades. They’re cool.”

“Okay.” Maki nods seriously. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Shoko’s phone rings in her pocket, grounding her back to the real world and vanishing the past. “Shit,” she says, to Maki’s amusement. She always gets that grin when an adult swears around her—though Shoko is the only adult around her that ever swears. Oh well. “Take care, Maki.”

“Have fun!”

29 Years Old

Shoko’s hands tremble when she lights up the cigarette, the lighter heavy in her grasp, warm because she’s been using it over and over and over the whole night. 

It’s not Suguru’s lighter, she kept it in one of her drawers like one would keep a memento from a dead friend, but tossed it out shortly after the most horrible Christmas Eve of her life. 

Somehow it feels like it’s right back in her hand, and he’s right back there in front of her in a random smoking area in Shinjuku, and Shoko is so young, she feels so young, but she feels old, too, ancient, decaying, she feels like the corpses she has to cut open, so exposed and vulnerable, so devoid of everything, so empty—

Her hands tremble too much, she can’t get the lighter to work, it clicks uselessly in her fingers until it slips, clanks against the roof of the school, and disappears down into the forest below.

Shoko curses under her breath, her cigarette still not lit and her hands don’t stop shaking and she knows it’s not the cold. 

It’s just a day, she tells herself. Who cares. There are more pressing things in the world.

So why does it hurt?

She spits the unlit cigarette into the night and sneaks back inside the school, welcoming the warmth but only momentarily, her skin warms but nothing inside of her does, she is still cold in a way that can’t really be put into words, medical or otherwise.

What a mess.

What a mess.

She needs a drink, there’s no way she’s going to fall back asleep without at least something to calm her nerves, if such a thing is even possible. Not nerves, the word nerves is so inconsequential. Shoko has an ache, and she needs to soothe it somehow, and this is the easiest way.

So she pours herself some whiskey, wishes it was beer but needs it to be strong, and she drinks it all in one gulp. She’s more than used to the burn now. 

She should be used to losing people, too, and she thought she was but this—

Nanami, dead. Masamichi, dead. Suguru, dead. Satoru, gone.

Shoko’s fingers tremble again, so much so that liquid spills over her glass and over the counter, and she puts the bottle down and drags her hands across her face, sticky whiskey on her skin, her eyes burning. 

Gone. Gone. Gone. Satoru is gone. Satoru is gone, perhaps forever, perhaps she will never see him again. She never even got to say goodbye, can’t even remember the last thing they said to each other. Even their last text messages were so innocuous, so stupidly normal—

- Megumi and Maki are going to kill me if I make Halloween costumes mandatory for class again

- BUT everyone else wants to dress up

- Any ideas?

- Megumi will do anything Yuji and Nobara ask him to

- Maki is a different story

- Have Toge make it a competition to see who has the best costume

- Ur so smart

They never even got to do that.

Satoru is gone, and his students are in the worst shape possible, just kids but they are already fraying at the seams, no doubt feeling as miserable as Shoko is feeling right then.

Most of them are in their own rooms, and most of them are unrecognizable. At least they’re all alive, or so Shoko thinks, still no word on Yuji, and Megumi disappeared after him, and Panda is locked up—

Shoko closes her eyes, presses her hands harder against them. Megumi, Toge, Maki, Nobara. She treated their injuries, dragged them back to life, but there were so many that day that she couldn’t, she just couldn’t—

Her phone rings in her pocket.

The sound is so startling she jumps, cutting through the otherwise silent kitchen. Shoko’s stomach churns as if she already had multiple bottles to herself, and momentarily she considers simply not picking up but no—if Utahime is calling her, it’s because she knows Shoko is awake.

So she gulps, doesn’t dare take another sip of whiskey, and accepts the call.

Then all words escape her, and she doesn’t even know how to say hello.

“Shoko?”

“I’m—I'm here.”

“Are you alright?”

No, no she’s really not, but Utahime doesn’t even need her to say that.

“Sorry, that was a stupid question. I had a feeling you’d be up. Talk to me, and put the drink down.”

God, Shoko loves her, she really does. She lets out a laugh, a scratchy thing that barely leaves her lips. 

“It's down,” she says into the phone. 

“Whiskey?” 

“Yeah.”

Utahime clicks her tongue. “You know I hate that.”

“Only because you get drunk by the smell.”

“Are you moving?” 

“Going back to my room,” Shoko says, tired of haunting the halls of the school. She misses her own apartment, her bedroom, but she needs to be accessible right now, for the kids. That's the part that doesn't bother her. “I wish you were here.”

The silence stretches a second longer than usual. “I know.”

And it stretches because they don't usually say things like that. The way they make the distance work is by not saying things like that. It's easier to plan, to look ahead instead of dwelling in the things they can't have, but tonight Shoko is tired, she is the most tired she's ever been, and she misses the woman she loves, and she misses a whole lot of other people, and she wishes she could be anywhere but this borrowed dorm. 

Not her old high school dorm, she wouldn't be able to bear it. 

“I wish I was there, too.”

But of course they can't be, not really. Not with Utahime being the only one left who gives a shit about the Kyoto students, and not with Shoko being the only one capable of keeping the Tokyo students alive. 

What a mess. 

Although they're not talking, Shoko puts the phone on speaker as she changes into fresh clothes, enjoying the bit of static she can hear in the other line, the very slight sound of Utahime's breathing, enjoying the knowledge that she’s there, that they are sharing the same space even if they’re apart, that they are breathing in sync even miles away.

Then she hears her yawn. 

“Sorry,” Utahime says, her muffled voice the only sound in Shoko's tiny room. “I'm still here.”

“Go to sleep, Uta.” Shoko sits at the edge of her bed before retrieving her phone and getting inside the covers.

“Not until you do.”

Shoko clicks her tongue, but doesn’t argue. She doesn’t have to ask to know Utahime is probably in a similar position buried under her own blankets, phone resting below her pillow. Shoko can almost see her lidded eyes, lids fluttering as she struggles to stay awake just a little bit longer.

And Shoko’s heart doesn’t feel that heavy with guilt anymore, doesn’t feel so burdened with longing for a time that has passed and will never come back. For some reason explained only in the way she loves this woman, Shoko lets herself believe it’s going to be alright.

“Oh,” Utahime whispers into the phone. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

It’s only barely her birthday, just a few hours into the day, and it's not particularly happy either, but Shoko smiles anyways, and then she yawns and doesn’t bother to hide it. “Thanks. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

30 Years Old

Shoko wakes like most mornings, with soft lips brushing the side of her neck and a quiet “Hi you” murmured against her skin.

It truly doesn't get old. 

“Hi,” she whispers back, rolling onto her back to see Utahime propped up on an elbow, dark hair tousled and illuminated in beams of sunlight, the skin of her cheek slightly indented from the way she slept on her pillow.

“Happy birthday.”

Like most mornings, Shoko is in the kitchen first despite getting out of bed after Utahime. It makes her laugh a little, as she brews coffee for the both of them, the thought that it's been a while since she woke up so early on her birthday. 

She stopped being a morning person a long time ago, but Utahime is always up with the sun and the first thing she does is shower, and Shoko likes to have coffee and breakfast ready for her, so there she is. 

On a whim, despite having work very soon, Shoko decides to bake herself a cake. 

“Oh you messed that up.” Utahime wrinkles her nose, staring at the abomination drowned in pink frosting, leaning precariously to one side. 

Shoko laughs. “I didn't.”

Like always, there is something Shoko is not saying, and something Utahime can tell anyways. 

“Well,” says Utahime. “I'm not eating that, and much less for breakfast.”

“Don't worry.” Shoko is still smiling. “It's not for either of us.”

“Woah, Shoko? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be—?”

“I have cake.”

Satoru looks down just to confirm she indeed has a cake, and it takes a second before recognition flares in his eyes and he barks out a laugh. “Just don’t smash it against my face this time.”

“I thought about it,” Shoko says. “But we’re grownups now, aren’t we? There’s no need for that.”

“Guess not.” He’s still smiling when he lets her in, and because Satoru is Satoru he still sticks a finger in the cake and drags a line of frosting across her nose. She lets him. “Payback!”

Shoko is not surprised to see there’s a bouquet with her name waiting in his living room.

“Y’know, Utahime, I’m beginning to think you don’t really like me.”

Utahime gives him a flat look, a remarkable show of restraint for her, which must be because Shoko is standing next to her.

“She threw a party when you got locked in that box,” Shoko says.

“And I was distraught when they got you out.”

Satoru hums, tapping his chin. “I can never tell when you’re joking.”

“Oh yes, I know that.”

“So it makes me think you’re always joking.”

“I’m never joking, Gojo. I don’t joke.”

“Eh, no wonder you get along with Shoko, then. You’re just a humorless couple.”

Utahime’s brows pull down. “Please, you wish you had what we have. Loser.”

“Did you just call me a loser?”

“Sure did.”

“Are you twelve?”

“Oh, you would know about acting childish.”

“Well, you’re an old hag so—”

Shoko laughs. 

Around them, others are laughing as well. The students gathered on couches in one of the school’s entertainment rooms, talking over chips and drinks, all present because apparently Maki insisted and Shoko doesn’t like parties but she couldn’t find it in her heart to say no to them, not after everything that happened.

Besides, Maki got her this time a butterfly knife, Shoko really couldn’t say no.

“Anyways, it’s getting a little late,” Utahime says. “Should we cut the cake?”

The proper cake, she means, not the mess Shoko brought to Satoru’s house and left there.

“Sure,” Shoko says, her hand finding Utahime’s, their fingers linking like they have done countless times in the past years. She smiles. “Would you sing for me?”