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“Why did they choose the smallest closet on campus to do this in?” Kugisaki’s words escaped her in an irritated hiss that Fushiguro felt against his chest. Even with his back pressed into the far wall, there was barely any room for Kugisaki in the tiny closet with him and she was one of the smallest possible options for a partner. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck in here with Panda or Todo.
Fushiguro shrugged a bit, feeling aware of the few extra kilograms of muscle he'd gained from training with Maki as his shoulders brushed the sides of the narrow room. “Just pretend we’re on the subway during rush hour.”
This whole ordeal started when Inumaki uncovered an old journal from a Heian era sorcerer on one of his missions. Delicately preserved, it documented some of the training exercises a young sorcerer went through and once word of it spread around campus, Fushiguro was more curious than he wanted to admit about how sorcerers from the golden age of Jujutsu got so strong.
But this? This was unexpected.
The journal detailed a game the young sorcerer played with their friends. Two people would cloister themselves away in a private room and swear a binding vow to each other to not remember anything that happened in that room. It helped the young sorcerers get used to playing with binding vows - a marked change from the modern curriculum which enforced the idea of never making binding vows without extreme caution. The exercise also required quite a bit of trust in the other person, so Fushiguro was a little relieved he ended up with Kugisaki rather than a renowned prankster like Inumaki or Panda. Maki wouldn’t have been a terrible option either, but Fushiguro was concerned that binding vows wouldn’t have an effect on her at all. It was something he would need to test later.
He’d felt apprehensive as he made the vow to Kugisaki, as if these words alone were some illicit secret that tingled on his tongue. And the strange sensation of the vow settling on them both made Kugisaki shiver hard enough that Fushiguro felt it too. He’d never made a binding vow with another person before. Maybe that was why he was still so weak compared to Sukuna or the sorcerers of the past.
But now that the vow was spoken, neither had any real idea what to do from here, aside from complaining about the cramped space.
“Honestly, if I had to list one negative thing about moving to Tokyo, the crowded subways would be it.” Kugisaki sighed. “The countryside is a whole lot of garbage, but at least there’s enough space that nobody will ever get within arms reach of you.”
His hands in his pockets and his eyes focused on the darkened ceiling above them, Fushiguro was still thinking about the binding vow they’d sworn, trying to stave off the doubt and the fear by grounding himself in Kugisaki’s voice. He needed her to keep talking. “Why’d you leave the countryside anyways?”
He could hear Kugisaki grinding her teeth as she thought something over. She was trying to decide if she wanted to lie to him or not, or at least that’s what it seemed like to Fushiguro. But he considered himself fairly good at reading people, and especially at reading Kugisaki.
They were in such a strange space right now, as if stuck halfway between reality and a dream. Would they really not remember anything that happened here when they emerged? Could binding vows really be used like that? If so, then perhaps the lies they both put on like armor every morning might not be needed in this space. He could feel her weighing the decision even if he couldn’t see her face.
“It’s not that deep,” She began. A lie or the truth? Fushiguro couldn’t quite tell. “But living in a small town has a way of making your whole world seem small too. Just couldn’t take it.”
She didn't want to keep talking about it, Fushiguro could tell. Maybe the subject bored her, or maybe there were more layers to it she needed to untie first.
When she spoke again, she'd made the deliberate decision to change the subject. "Anyways, it's my turn to ask a question now."
"Oh, is that what we're doing?"
Kugisaki didn't acknowledge his question as she asked her own. "You're not really the type to play party games. So why'd you agree to do this?"
Fushiguro mulled over the question carefully. He wanted to get stronger. That was the short answer and it wasn't something he was ashamed to admit. Owning up to your weaknesses was a necessary first step to fixing them. But it wasn't the whole answer. It didn't convey the desperate need, the drive, the disgust in himself, that was pushing him to play with binding vows the way a delinquent plays with lighters.
How could he express that to another person? Even telling someone like Kugisaki, who might feel the same way, still felt raw and vulnerable, as if baring his full feelings would strip him naked.
But they were playing a game of Heian era seven minutes in heaven. So maybe he could loosen up just a little bit. It’s not like either of them would remember either way.
"Do you ever think it's weird that in every Olympic sport, the modern era is the most competitive it's ever been? New track and field records are set all the time. Better training methods and a larger worldwide population have pushed humanity to new heights." He was being overly roundabout in his answer, and he knew Kugisaki would object to that.
Sure enough, he felt her dig a finger into his chest aggressively. "Don't answer my question with another question."
He ignored her complaint and continued. "But for Jujutsu, it's the opposite. Aside from Gojo, we just keep falling further and further behind the Heian era."
"Ah." The sound Kugisaki made was one of understanding, and the finger she'd been poking him with softened just a touch.
"I guess I'm just curious." Not just curious. Fushiguro wondered if Kugisaki could see that within him too. “Why were they so much better back then?”
“Maybe it’s because they did crazy stuff like this.” Kugisaki’s voice trailed off.
So she knew just how risky this was as well. There was a certain thrill to it, Fushiguro had to admit. Binding vows were dangerous - that had been pounded into his head from a young age. Kugisaki likely would have grown up receiving the same warnings. Yet here they were, locked in a closet and ignoring the risks.
If binding vows can be used to make you forget things, can they be used for other subconscious processes? If he really forgot everything in this room, the possibilities were endless. He could think of at least a dozen different ways he would want to upgrade himself, patching up the holes in his subconscious until he could be certain nothing would ever slip through again. But brainstorming new ideas now was pointless, right? He would only forget them.
Again the strangeness of this situation washed over him, lost in the liminal space of a memory he would soon forget, and he rushed to ask Kugisaki another question, craving distraction. "Have you ever made a binding vow before? With yourself or others?"
Kugisaki paused just a fraction of a moment before answering. "I made one with myself once."
"What was it?"
When her answer took longer to begin than he expected, Fushiguro looked down. But he could only see the top of her head as she stared through him, her eyes fixed a thousand meters beyond the confines of this closet. When she finally spoke, it was with the tenderness of raw skin exposed beneath a scab. "I've never told anyone about this." She swallowed.
"You don't have to tell me." If it was too much, he wouldn't push her.
"You won't remember it anyways." She shook her head as she said it, hair brushing against Fushiguro's shirt. She was resolved to confess now. "It was when I killed a man. You wouldn't think I'm a monster for that, would you?"
"Depends on if he needed killing, I guess." The honesty of her confession felt like some tangible thing between them, rising, lifting him up until he felt unburdened by the weight of pretending to be a good person around her.
"He needed killing. Small town justice only exists where you can make it yourself." Kugisaki stood relaxed against him now, close enough to be hugging. But her thoughts were far away as she said, "I used a damp tissue to clean his blood out from under her fingernails. A different tissue than the one I used to dry her tears."
Fushiguro wordlessly took a hand out of his pocket and put it around her shoulders.
"It wasn't enough though. Blood isn't very valuable for my cursed technique and there was so little of it. So I…" her voice was steady but she still stopped as if to collect herself. "I made myself sick. I vowed I wouldn't use cursed energy for a month as long as I could just use enough of it right then. And so to hide that from my grandmother, I pretended to have the worst flu of my life, except at some point I actually caught the flu for real."
Swallowing back something dry in her throat, Kugisaki accepted his arms around her as she relaxed into him. With her head resting against his chest, they were far closer than any two people in a crowded subway car.
"Maybe catching the flu was just karma, not part of the binding vow." Kugisaki shrugged, only sounding tired. "But I don't regret it."
"You don't have to regret it." If it meant one less bad person in the world, he couldn't fault her.
"Yeah, I guess not." She looked up at him now, her eyes clear but with less of the hardness she often carried in them. "What about you? Have you ever made a binding vow before this?"
Fushiguro shook his head. "Never. Even just explaining my technique is a pain." It took too long and often people figured it out from reputation alone.
"If you could make one now, what would it be?"
It was an odd question that forced Fushiguro to examine his own deepest desires from an angle he hadn't been expecting. "That depends on what binding vows can do."
If they truly can force someone to forget, can they also allow someone to remember? Did they work on non-sorcerers? This training exercise, as strange and intimate as it was, might give him exactly the information he needed to make a real plan. To take his first steps towards making his own real justice for Tsumiki as well.
It seemed his expression was easier to read than he intended, or maybe the close days he'd spent with Kugisaki these last few months had given her an ability to see through his poker face, because she said, "You've got something in mind."
Fushiguro met her eyes with some apprehension. The thought of telling her about his sister felt like unwrapping a tender injury, as if he were about to show Kugisaki his true self, in all his pathetic weakness. What would she think if she knew he hadn't been able to protect his sister? That he didn't have even the beginning of an idea of how to wake her up?
Fushiguro thought the worst case scenario might be that Kugisaki would pity him. Well meaning concern had a way of rattling him and he hated asking for help from others because of it, feeling like he had to swallow his pride like acid every time he did. He didn’t know what she would do if he told her everything but the risks of a bad reaction would normally make him keep his mouth shut. Words were just words, but once said they could never be taken back, so Fushiguro preferred not to speak of his deepest insecurities casually. But there was a strange glimmer of hope as well in the form of their binding vow - in here he could spill his soul and she wouldn't remember it as soon as they walked out of the room.
So he began with, "I have a sister." The words felt dry and heavy as he spoke them. "She's not a sorcerer and I tried to keep her safe from the world of curses we live in. But I couldn't."
Kugisaki looked up at him, curious rather than pitying.
"Someone or something put a powerful curse on her to make her fall asleep, and I don't even know why." Fushiguro sighed, suddenly feeling both lighter and heavier at the same time. "I don't know if it was a random attack or someone targeted her because of me."
“Do you have any enemies who might be trying to hurt you through her?” Kugisaki asked. “Any curse users you have old beef with?”
Fushiguro shook his head. “Not that I know of.” While Fushiguro had a long career as a sorcerer, he could still count the number of times he'd been sent to hunt a curse user on just one hand. And he'd been lucky that all those missions went well, with the curse user cleanly captured. No, luck might not be the right word for it. It only worked out well because Gojo always made sure of it, and he kept Fushiguro's hands clean too. "Even Gojo can't figure out how to wake her up."
Kugisaki hummed as she considered Fushiguro's words. "You're planning on making a binding vow that would hurt yourself to save her, aren't you?" It seemed she really could see through him.
"I'm planning on doing whatever I have to."
Admitting the truth in this place didn't scare him anymore. Maybe it was the binding vow or maybe it was just her. Either way, a quiet intimacy settled between them in the one place on Earth where they didn't have to lie.
He liked being honest with her. He enjoyed it more than he wanted to admit.
Kugisaki sighed and adjusted herself in the cozy space, getting comfortable. "Sorcerers get hurt for others all the time, so I'm not going to beg you not to or anything. We've both gotten injured on the job so it would be hypocritical for me to whine about it now. But if it comes down to a choice between hurting yourself and asking for help, I hope you won't be afraid to ask me."
"I'm not making any promises." He wasn't opposed to the idea of asking for her help and that was a strange feeling to consider, unique almost exclusively to her. Maybe it was the knowledge that, like him, she wasn't a good person either - just a person trying their best and willing to get their hands dirty to do it. "Not when I won't remember in just a few-"
Maki's fist banged on the door, startling both of them with a jump. "Time's up."
They'd set a timer outside as a safety measure. But the minutes flew by faster than both expected and so Maki caught them off guard. Now their experiment was coming to an end.
"You ready?" He asked.
Ready to see if this binding vow worked? Ready to forget this quiet bond, this shared experience, these dark confessions, and the newfound comfort they found from each other's truth?
Turning around, Kugisaki put her hand on the door handle. Maybe if he didn't know her so well, he would have missed her slight hesitation. "Ready as I'll ever be."
----
The light of the common room was brighter than Fushiguro expected. His eyes must have adjusted to the darkness of the closet, he realized. Kugisaki was blinking her way to the same conclusion too, just a few paces ahead of him.
He felt both warm and cold, as if he'd suddenly ripped layers upon layers of thick blankets off himself on a chilly winter's night. Did Kugisaki feel the same way? He felt more aware of her than he did before going in, as if some new file in his mind had been created for her at some point during this strange ordeal.
He was almost too busy watching her to notice Panda approaching until he felt a large paw on his shoulder. Irritated, he looked up to the face of his largest upperclassmen.
"Well?" Panda asked. When Fushiguro didn't answer, he clarified his question. "Did you make out?"
He hadn't, right? He'd never had any desire to do that with Kugisaki before this experiment, and it was likely that she didn't either. He couldn't imagine that changing in only a handful of minutes. Yet somehow, in some strange way he couldn't untangle, he found himself unable to completely rule out the possibility of it.
"I have no idea." It was the truth.
Now when had he gotten in the habit of telling that?