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There is a bottomless pit inside of Geto. He cannot put a name to it, but the pit carves him up from the inside out. He consumes, and consumes, and consumes, but the pit never closes. The chasm widens—and he is swallowed by the pit.
This pit is called grief, and its hunger can never be staved.
/
Geto swallowed his first cursed spirit when he was seven. Though swallowed perhaps isn’t the right word. Swallowed bears the connotation that whatever was ingested was done so willingly. Geto was not hungry. Nor did he particularly want to eat a cursed spirit. But his jaw was forced open, split apart by his mother’s fingers as his father looked him in the eyes and smiled as he said, “Eat this.”
Swallowing was painful.
The orb of negativity—of a human being’s most foul desires and emotions—trickled down his throat. It burned. Acidic to the tongue. Disgusting and heavy in his stomach. He vomited immediately afterwards.
But consumption was not where it ended.
There is an intimate act in consuming something, Geto learned that day. What you ate became a part of you. Nourished you. What is consumed is no longer a separate entity from the consumer. A whole is made, one that is incapable of separation or distinction. Therefore, after he swallowed his first curse—he could summon and manipulate it with ease. Because that is the natural process of consuming.
You are what you eat.
/
He meets Gojo when he’s 15 and thinks he’s an asshole but God, if he wasn’t the most fascinating human being Geto has ever known. So full of himself. A star plucked from the heavens and created into human flesh and bones. Geto is not religious. Nor does he believe in any higher power. But Gojo was something that made Geto nearly believe deities could exist.
“But you’d make a horrible god,” Geto leaned his head back against the brick wall, blood trickling down the side of his face. His stomach became heavier after consuming another curse. He breathes heavily through his nose to fight back the burning turbulence in his stomach as the curse becomes one with him.
Geto looks at him, just as bloody but no doubt in better shape then Geto, like he’s crazy. “The fuck are you talking about, man?”
“You lack dignity. But you’re vain enough. So that might work,” Geto concludes, chuckling. He feels lightheaded. Perhaps it’s the lack of blood. Or the way Gojo goes on a rant that he’s not vain, but incredibly self confident because have you seen his looks? Have you seen his strength? He’s impossible to destroy — he’s incapable of being touched. But as they talk and pass the time, the ache in Geto’s stomach from swallowing the curse abates. His tongue no longer feels like decay and rot and hatred.
“I wouldn’t even want to be a god anyways,” Gojo huffs. He kicks Geto in the shin for good measures. “What’s so good about that? How righteous. How boring.”
Indeed. Geto closed his eyes as they waited for Shoko to come heal them. What’s so good about godhood? Gojo brought up a good point. Godhood brought with it an inherent separation between mankind and god. If Geto were to be separated from Gojo—he thinks he’d go mad. Or at the very least, life would not be the same. And curses would go back to tasting like putrid rot. He’d rather this, the laughter and the jokes that made swallowing a bit easier. A bit lighter. Not so much of a burden.
They talked about everything and nothing and laughed about things that probably wouldn’t have been funny several hours ago. But that was how their friendship formed. Two boys—one who could swallow curses and one who could rival the heavens since birth.
Geto realizes that when he’s near Gojo, the after effects of consuming cursed spirits were not so bad.
/
Geto has consumed hundreds of cursed spirits thus far.
The act of consumption is second nature to him now.
He seals the cursed spirit into a ball. The ball is lightweight. No more than a pound. Sometimes the colors are different: a milky white, a never-ending black, an eerie purple. The color does not dictate the taste. All cursed spirits taste the same—horrible, god-awful, retch-inducing. Geto taught himself years ago how to curtail the primal urge to vomit after eating a cursed spirit. Now, it goes down smoothly. His esophagus adjusts to the size. His mouth salivates just enough to lubricate the orb on its descent.
Sometimes he eats and feels nothing at all. Sometimes he eats and he feels the rage of the spirit settling into his stomach. He squeezes his eyes shut as horrors flash behind them. Unspeakable. Unforgettable. He doesn’t sleep some nights after consuming those kinds of spirits. The types of spirits where their flavors sit with him for longer than minutes or seconds. Longer than hours, more so days. Weeks. When he wakes up and the world around him that used to look—not rosy, never that—bearable suddenly became a world he could not stomach looking at.
He’d swallow some curses that made him think how lovely it would be to die afterwards. How meaningless life was. How even breathing was laborious and difficult and a curse.
He’d swallow spirits that made him sob uncontrollably. So hard his chest felt like it was minutes from collapsing. Sobbed so hard his throat became raw, his eyes were red and puffy, and he desperately needed water. Or a drink, if he could steal one from Yaga’s supply.
Spirit energy, he realized rather quickly, was not tasteless.
Nor did it come without its effects.
Sometimes he wondered how many cursed spirits it would take for him to eat before he went mad. If he would turn into something less than human, more than curse. A grotesque abomination of all the things he ate, and then used as a weapon, to exorcize the curses that plagued this land. To save the humans. To make sure another tomorrow came. He wondered if after eating and eating and eating so much negativity—would he become the very thing he exorcized?
“My head hurts,” he just swallowed a curse spirit and thankfully, the taste was tame. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to kill. He didn’t look at the world and think a new order was necessary. He thought of Gojo and Shoko. Laying in his bed, skin covered in sweat, another curse successfully consumed.
He thought of Shoko’s smoke trails and her depraved sense of humor. He thought about the bags under her eyes and her chipped black nails.
He thought about Gojo and his laugh. He thought about Gojo and his crooked, bastard smile.
He presses his palms to his eyes and waits until his stomach settles. The cursed spirit fades into his body. Where it goes,he’s not sure. His soul? His intestines? He sure as hell doesn’t shit them out, that’s for sure.
Swallowing becomes a routine. Swallowing becomes part of Geto.
He wonders how his parents are doing, randomly. He wonders if they ever forced a cursed spirit down their throats just to know the taste. Or if knowing Geto could hold the manifestations of humanity’s ugliness in the pit of his stomach was enough of a taste for them.
He tries to sleep, fails, and calls Gojo instead.
Gojo comes immediately with snacks and horrible movies. They sit on the couch, knees touching, shoulders brushing. They touch like this often. Geto closes his eyes as the movie plays and Gojo rambles on about how the movie playing is stupid but in a brilliant way, and that Geto needs to pay attention because on their next mission Gojo will only be communicating with him via references from this film. Geto half listens, half pays attention to the rumbling in his stomach, and half focuses on Gojo’s proximity.
Sleep comes shortly after.
He doesn’t see any of the movie, and Gojo still uses references on their next mission to coordinate positions that go over Geto’s head. But his mouth doesn’t taste like death and ruin. His stomach is at ease. Using his powers comes easily. And Gojo is beside him. So it all works out.
/
Gojo and Geto—the strongest duo to ever be.
That’s what they call themselves at first. Until word spreads about the duo’s track record of eliminating curses with ease. Even the higher grades crumble to the might of Gojo and Geto. Together, it’s easy to find strength. Geto never has to worry that Gojo doesn’t have his back. In the same vein, Geto always fights to make sure Gojo’s annoying ass is in school the next day. They make an irritating duo, and they know that.
“Let’s go to the arcade after school, Suguru.” Gojo never sits in a chair properly. He’s either leaning back on its two legs, sitting in it cross legged, stretching his legs out farther than the width of his desk. Any manner to sit in that showed how little respect he gave for posterity. Today he’s sitting in his chair backwards, arms resting on top of the chair’s seat.
Geto is normal. And knows how to respect authority (to an extent), so he’s sitting in his chair properly. “Are you asking me out on a date, Satoru?” He jokes, but the taste is weird. Nervousness is on his tongue, a little sour. He almost wants to take it back. He ignores the sidelong glance he’s getting from Shoko who is far too intuitive for his own good.
Gojo blinks several times and because Geto has become a master at reading Gojo so well, he knows the question legitimately took him off guard. Fuck. He opens his mouth to change the subject but then Gojo’s in his space. Big blue eyes bright and wide. As if he’s ripping Geto apart until he is nothing but his smallest parts. Gojo is so close, Geto thinks he can swallow him.
He’s always wondered how Gojo would taste.
He knows he’d be sweeter than the bitter, rancid curses he swallows all the time.
He fantasizes about Gojo’s taste. Wonders if it would be sweet and sticky, or sour and tart. If Gojo’s taste would be one he’d go back to have more of, because he couldn’t get enough of it. He swallows, and asks, “Why are you so close?”
“Can you even afford to date me?” Gojo whispers back, eyes unblinking.
Shoko whistles low, “Wow…not a single tactful bone resides in your little string bean body, huh?”
“Shut up!”
“She’s right,” Geto takes the reprieve greedily, resting his chin in the palm of his hands, smiling loosely. “Calling me poor makes me think I’d be better off taking my services elsewhere.” He turns to Shoko who’s biting down onto an unlit cigarette. “Shoko? You busy?”
Shoko taps her chin in thought, “Hmmm…”
“Hey,” Gojo’s close again, gripping Geto’s shoulders. Fingers digging in deep as he barks out, “You asked me first! We’re going on a date. To the arcade! And maybe dinner! I’ll even pay this time and you can pay me back on a second date.”
“Men are so easy,” Shoko sighs and Geto shoots a look at Gojo, willing the heat in his face to simmer down. Gojo’s looking at him with so much raw interest. His eyes are seeing all of him, everything, all at once, and to some that sort of intensity is terrifying. But to Geto, it’s the greatest feeling knowing all of Gojo is looking at him.
He licks his lips, feeling a hunger in his stomach.
Maybe he’ll get to taste him tonight.
Just once, just a bit.
/
Riko’s dead and he hasn’t talked to Gojo in months.
Death is commonplace in their world. Killing was a part of their profession. But swallowing death is hard. Making sense of it is awful. Working with it aches something horrible inside Geto.
It’s an inevitable wear and tear.
The hot water from his shower pelts his skin, leaving it scorched and raw but he doesn’t move. His head is bowed deep and his fingers splay out across the tiles of his shower. He hasn’t slept in days since the star vessel incident.
Defeat tastes wrong—defeat like this tastes wrong.
There’s a hollowness in him. Something carved itself out of Geto that day Riko was killed, and he’s not sure what it is. But the same thing that carved him out and made him empty has wormed its way into Gojo.
He closes his eyes, the shower continues, and he sees Gojo’s face staring at him in such an unrecognizable way. As if it was Gojo but at the same time, someone else inhabiting his best friend's skin. Who asked him, boldly, if they should kill all the humans.
At the time, Geto’s answer was immediate. There would be no purpose to their deaths, they didn’t kill without a purpose.
But now—the shower continues. His fingers press harder against the tile. His stomach curls and he thinks about the seven curses he ingested earlier today on a mission. A mission he had taken upon himself because Gojo was too strong for a partner now. Too strong for Geto—so they’ve been separated for a while. And the hollowness hadn’t left, so he figured he’d fill his stomach with something; anything to feel an emotion that wasn’t regret or humiliation or confusion.
Cursed spirits came with many loud flavors that could drown out the noise. So he ate. He ate and consumed the rage, and the anger, and the resentment. And after he consumed, flashes of the incident crossed his mind, and he finally felt something in the hollowness whenever those humans—those wretched creatures; the vile beings that created the very things Geto was forced to consume since he was seven—clapping came to mind.
He raises his head, eyes soulless, the bags underneath them setting into his skin, and thinks (not for the first time, but this is the first time he’s allowed the thought to take root into his head and sprout weeds), that perhaps the very beings responsible for creating the curses he’s been forced to stomach, to save their wretched and miserable and ungrateful lives should simply: disappear.
“Extinction,” he mutters under the spray of the heat. He says the word and it tastes delicious. It burns away the acrid stench of curse spirits he ate earlier. A delicious meal, the word makes him salivate.
He turns off the water and feels refreshed for the first time in ages.
/
He craves Gojo’s touch something awful, but Gojo is gone.
Gone, but not really. He’s watching Gojo show them a new technique. A way to control infinity that can selectively pick what can touch him and what can’t. Geto is always amazed by Gojo’s ability to evolve and surpass human (and superhuman) possibilities. But now he’s not seeing this transformation beside him, as he usually would. He’s standing in front of Gojo and Gojo is showing him something that Geto had no idea Gojo was even working on perfecting. There’s a horrible taste in his mouth. Something more drying and hard to swallow than a cursed spirit. He’s not sure what that taste is, how to name it, but it feels like the first time he ever broke a bone. Splintering and painful, sharp and radiating.
The hollowness splinters, and for the first time he feels utterly disconnected from Gojo.
He hates it.
It’s an awful taste.
“Damn, Satoru,” and even saying his name tastes weird now. Geto makes sure his face doesn’t look weird as he says Gojo’s name. He smiles, easygoing, as if nothing’s wrong. As if he’s not being eaten apart from the inside out by this curse festering inside of him. “What can’t you do?”
Gojo snorts, pushing up his glasses. “Yet to be determined. I’m sure a day will never come where we’ll have to find that out, though.”
Geto almost wants to say, I miss you, but that tastes awful too. So he jokes back instead. Hoping their old routine would make the bad taste in his mouth go away.
It doesn’t.
/
When the hollowness becomes too much, Geto leaves.
/
Gojo can’t kill him, and he’s not sure how to take that.
They’re standing across one another again, not beside, and that tastes awful. But Geto is determined to continue on this path now that he knows his purpose. To eradicate all the non-shamans. Because is that not how all problems must be solved? By finding the issue poisoning the root and removing it from the base entirely?
Gojo says he’s insane, and Geto would have agreed if this wasn’t the most clear he’s felt in months since Riko died.
Perhaps, if they had talked sooner, if Geto had come to Gojo about his concerns. About how lost and empty he felt after failing. About how the world was becoming as bleak and gray and miserable as the curses he consumed saw the world to be. Maybe if they had spoken—but how could they? Gojo was the strongest now, and Geto was defeating the hollowness and doing his job and taking out curses and taking in curses. He was strong too, not the strongest, but strong in his own right. How could he bog down Gojo with his problems? With his issues? No. Gojo was too strong. He doesn’t need that burden.
So of course Geto carried that weight by himself.
But maybe if they had spoken—
He sees Gojo raise his hand to deliver the final blow, but it never comes.
That tastes off—but not in a bad way. It’s almost like sweet relief
Geto curls his lips around the taste, swallows it, takes in Gojo’s face one last time because he knows the next time they see each other again, someone’s death will follow suit.
He leaves, and a crater is left between them.
/
Geto slides the cursed spirit into his mouth and savors the taste. He leans his head back and sighs, and feels pure bliss radiate throughout his body. The monkeys bow before him, they call him divine, they praise him for alleviating their pains.
So sweet, their misplaced praises. So sweet, their delusions.
Geto smiles at the masses, and he stretches out his hand. He hears cries, he hears cheers, he hears worship. What a wonderful, wretched taste.
“Yes, I have come to save,” Geto lies so easily. But perhaps, it’s not a lie. Isn’t death the greatest salvation humans can ever know? Surely death was better than their simple lives. They’d know the truth, hand delivered by their savior themselves. “No worries, follow me, and eternal peace is forever yours.”
They say Thank you Lord Geto and he holds back the urge to barf.
Just a few more months he’ll have to stomach their disgusting worship. A few more months until his plan is in motion and then complete.
How delicious that day will be, he thinks, the endless night parade of a thousand demons. He can’t wait to know its taste.