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15
“Who do you think will die first, hm?”
They’ve known each other for roughly a week — not counting the opening orientation — and despite being on his throat most of the time, Gojo Satoru was proving to be a parasite that he couldn’t shake off. Not that Suguru was complaining, but his expectation of company didn’t exactly entail such morbid conversations by the seven day mark.
“My money’s on Sho-chan.” Satoru nodded gravely, kicking his feet up his desk. He sucked on his lollipop once before taking it out for dramatic effect, sighing. “I’ve never seen her without a cigarette in her mouth.”
He shouldn’t really be one to talk, since his own sugar addiction was going to get him killed someday. It had been true, though. The other girl in their class that Satoru called Sho-chan, was always burning up through a batch of cigarettes every time they happened to have classes together, their room filled with the aroma of her. Suguru would be lying if he didn’t enjoy it even just a little, but Satoru would whine and kick open a window, allowing the wind in.
“It’s not nice to pick on a stranger, Satoru.” He said, raising an eyebrow.
“Hey, I’m not knocking it! And she’s barely a stranger.” Satoru defended. “She can use Reverse Cursed Technique, anyway. On herself, and others. A damn prodigy, that one is. We can’t even use it on ourselves!”
Yaga-sensei had explained all their Cursed Techniques at length during the orientation. Although he had not yet unlocked his full potential, Gojo Satoru had Six Eyes and Gojo family’s reverted Limitless Cursed Technique. Geto Suguru had his own Cursed Spirit Manipulation, allowing him to absorb curses and their abilities. Sho-chan — the only name Suguru remembers — was apparently a master at Reverse Cursed Technique, the only one in the world who could output it to somebody else, making her invaluable.
If anything happens, go to her. She’ll fix you.
Luckily for Suguru, that day hasn’t come yet. Both he and Satoru had been dispatched on two missions in the span of the first week, being two of the only three Special Grade Sorcerers in the jujutsu world, yet they hadn’t gotten the slightest scratch on them. He’ll be honest, he had been a little disappointed at not being able to get an excuse to be able to talk to her.
“I’m just worried about her.” For once, Satoru sounded serious. He leaned back and shrugged. “Just wanted us to be one big family, you know? Found family and all that. We’re all each other has, after all.”
Suguru rolled his eyes. “Not all of us are without parents, Satoru.”
Laughing, his friend straightened up. “You know what I mean, Sugu. You don’t have any friends and I’ve been stuck in my clan’s estate for as long as I can remember. The two of us need somebody normal.”
The sentence almost made Suguru burst out laughing. “And you think Sho-chan’s normal?” They don’t really know her at all, but her attitude so far had been standoffish and indifferent. She was certainly not whatever Satoru was thinking she was.
“Not exactly.” Satoru replied. “But her parents aren’t from sorcery. Then again, neither are you, but she grew up fine. Didn’t have weird eyes that gave her a sixth sense or the ability to swallow curses, you know. She grew up normal.”
Suguru furrowed his eyebrows. “Is this some sort of coping mechanism?” He wouldn’t be surprised if it was, maybe some sort of neglect Satoru was dealing with at home that he was desperate enough to find familial connections in his new classmates. Suguru would never admit that there was a traitorous part in his heart that felt the same way.
“Idiot.” Satoru rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying. I’m worried about her, is all. Think she’ll die first.”
Again with the death talk . “Then why don’t you go talk to her? You’ve known—”
“I would rather die.” He interrupted with a blank tone, looking straight ahead.
“You’re such a child—“ Suguru muttered under his breath. Truthfully, what could be so scary about a Reverse Cursed Technique user? The ability was in fixing injuries, stitching back together what had been torn apart. It wasn’t by any means aggressive, so it’s not like Sho-chan could jump him for showing concern for her well-being. “What’s so scary about her? She’s literally a head shorter than you, Satoru.”
“Oh come on, Suguru.” Satoru whined, pouting in his direction. “I’m not going to go tell her I’m worried about her. I’ve got more dignity than that, thank you very much.”
Suguru couldn’t even try to piece together what logic Satoru used with that one, because what the hell did dignity even have to do with making sure their classmate didn’t die of a nicotine addiction and eventual lung cancer? He’d remembered clearly that Yaga-sensei said Reverse Cursed Technqiue didn’t work that simply for mundane, earthly things, requiring a more precise and detailed knowledge of the human anatomy and actual medicine.
For all his talk about betting on who would die first, he doubted Satoru actually wanted anybody here on the autopsy table of their school’s hospital wing.
“It’s literally just checking in with her.” Suguru reasoned. “Yaga-sensei thinks she’s going to spiral by the end of the semester. I, for one, value my life enough to make sure that the only one who could potentially bring me back from the dead doesn’t die from a nicotine addiction.”
It wasn’t an entire lie. Maybe another part of him just wanted to figure out their weird classmate more. She never talked a lot, especially to them. It was mostly saved for times when Yaga-sensei was suspecting his students weren’t bonding, and for the past week, that had happened twice already. Sho-chan reluctantly agreed to pretend to be in an animated conversation with both him and Satoru until Yaga-sensei had walked out the room, satisfied that his students were making an effort to connect with each other. Then, she went back to her cigarette without another word, lightly chewing on the end inside her mouth.
Sho-chan was kind of interesting, if he was being honest.
Found family, we’re all each other has … Suguru may have grown up with a family but they didn’t understand what he was. They had simply let him be, content on pretending like his abilities were normal and that every other child could see the curses plaguing the streets, or have the ability to absorb and manipulate them. It was a good try, but it only made him feel more alienated with the knowledge that he wasn’t normal and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and pretending like he was wasn’t going to be any help. Only now that he was in an environment with people like him had he started feeling like he actually belonged.
“Fuck that, I’m not checking in on her,” Satoru stuck a blue tongue out at him, stained by his lollipop. “Her dying would make me win, actually.”
“Not your damn bet again.” Suguru muttered under his breath.
“What? Yaga-sensei didn’t order me to do it.”
“Like you follow orders.”
Satoru smiled wickedly. “Eh, let her smoke her lungs out.”
“You’re such a mean girl, Satoru.”
“Only for you, Geto-sama.”
Suguru rolled his eyes, easing himself up his desk. “Well, somebody’s gotta keep this class alive.” He said to no one in particular.
“She’s probably in one of the empty classrooms a couple doors down. Your welcome.” Satoru’s smile was almost as sweet as his tooth, his sentence offering no help whatsoever. “Ah, what would you do without me, Sugu?”
He allowed himself one last snappy remark as he grinned and made his exit. “Have a second of peace, probably.”
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Satoru did nothing but raise an eyebrow when, the next time he saw him, he was fiddling with a lighter. When he asked, albeit teasingly, the only response he got was a flustered “It’s not mine.”
He pretended not to notice the words Geto Suguru written on the sides in neat handwriting.
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19
The girls had asked him where he was headed. They were so small, so terrified at any living thing that wasn’t him. It almost made him want to stay, but his heart had already been set in this final selfish act. He fiddled with the lighter on his pocket one last time, a habit he didn’t have the heart or conviction to stop, before he stepped out of their apartment.
It had been months since he saw them last. He may now be standing on the opposite side of the battlefield, but he didn’t hate them. If anything, it was more of a disappointment in his gut, knowing they’ll never understand why he did what he did.
Satoru may have complained about protecting the weak, but it had been all he was doing. Jujutsu sorcery, at its core, was a profession for the strong to protect those that were not. Suguru knew that, and he lived by it for years of his life before coming to the realisation that it was pointless trying to protect those monkeys when they — he — had always been above them.
“If it isn’t the fugitive himself.”
Shoko. Shoko, he didn’t know. She had always been different. She hadn’t had the stakes or the emotional investment into protection. Most of the time, she had been stuck in the hospital wing or the morgue, with only Satoru and Suguru himself popping in to drag her along their adventures. Neutral was the term that she had once used to describe her position, but he knew that even though she’d never been that connected to the ideologies of a common jujutsu sorcerer, she was far too attached to them than she’d admit.
“By any chance … Were those charges false?”
He told her no, but she already knew that.
He had noticed her stares, her lingering touch at his shoulder when she would say goodbye, as if he would break under her touch if she let go a second too early. She had dropped into his room to feed him his favourite after Satoru noticed he was losing weight, and she had attempted to joke around to bring a smile to his gaunt face.
Even though Shoko never explicitly acknowledged that he had been losing himself before he defected, she had known it. Suguru honestly didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one, but it was a fact nonetheless.
A non-sorcerer had gotten so close to killing the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in the world. Monkeys had locked up and hurt his girls because they were afraid of what they couldn’t control. Of what surpassed them. Hundreds of jujutsu sorcerers were falling dead, over a purpose that wouldn’t even get acknowledged, much less recognised. Ungrateful monkeys … who ostracised them despite everything they’ve done.
Riko had been killed by one. She, out of all, should have been able to live the life she chose for herself.
Suguru couldn’t understand why Satoru didn’t get that. He wondered if Shoko did.
“You won’t try to kill me?”
What could have been a laugh escaped Shoko. She looked different now, as Suguru finally let himself see her for the first time since he approached. Her hair was longer, and the bags under her eyes were clear proof that she had been overworking herself. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected that he would hear she was starting to do field work. A traitorous part of him that he did not know how to turn off had sent a warning up his spine, worried for her safety. She had never trained for the field, after all.
Jujutsu High was under the impression that Suguru would kill anybody in his path — an impression that he could admit was warranted after the discovery of his parents’ bodies — and they had let Ieiri Shoko, their most invaluable healer and one of his best friends, to walk around freely.
Suguru would never harm her, but they didn’t know that. By the way Shoko had unknowingly shuffled closer to him, she did.
“I wouldn’t be able to…”
Oh, but she could. How terrifyingly simple were the ways that she could. She could kill him, and he would let her. He had always believed that murder went hand-in-hand with meaning, and if she and Satoru were to drive a knife to his heart, there wouldn’t be anything meaningful than that.
Still, he had his girls now. They were his family, his responsibility. His past may always be a moment of weakness, but Suguru knew what he wanted to do, and he had found his purpose. It would have been easier if he hated those in Jujutsu High, but he didn’t. They simply did not understand how painfully empty their lives were, but they were not to blame for that. Enlightenment always came with a price, and it was a price not everyone will be willing to pay. Suguru had to make his peace with that.
But perhaps, Shoko could be convinced.
“… not the way Satoru could.”
Satoru had been his first friend. It was fair that Shoko would look at their bond and recognise that she can’t quite understand nor compare to it, but Suguru never played favourites. A part of his traitorous heart seemed to strain as he asked himself if he had ever made Shoko feel she was lesser to him, but he was quick to silence it, not willing to open that can of worms just yet.
“You’re not going to call him?”
Maybe he was testing his luck. Maybe he wanted to see Satoru again. Or maybe he just knew they wouldn’t be able to kill him anyway. Powerful as Satoru was, even he wouldn’t be able to. His wish from the very first week they met — found family, we’re all each has, and all that — had become so painfully true. They had shared three years of their youth, and even though Suguru had enough strength to pull away, he couldn’t say the same about them.
Meaningful as it was, Gojo Satoru and Ieiri Shoko couldn’t kill him now. The wound was still too fresh. His betrayal probably still stung on the back of their throats like iron. Shoko probably still can’t get the images of his parents’ corpses on her autopsy table. Satoru probably still can’t stop thinking about where it all went wrong. Both of them were probably still thinking they could start again, somehow.
They were mourning him, Suguru knew that. Grief can make people do a lot of things; things they’d never usually do.
The Ieiri Shoko Suguru first met would have been on her phone the minute she saw him, criminal outlaw and all that, in the streets. She would have stood unflinching as jujutsu sorcerers surrounded him and went for the kill, probably even smiled as they dropped his body on her table, whistling as she cut into his corpse.
He tried to imagine it, her ruthless smile at his dead body. Maybe ten years down the line, if they ever manage to defeat him, she’ll be able to do that without the ghost of their past hanging on her shoulders — or her heart. She’ll probably accept the cash that Satoru would begrudgingly hand her over his corpse with a laugh, winning a decade old bet at last.
“Not yet.” Shoko blew a cloud of smoke in his direction, a habit she developed from when he first started offering to light her cigarette. At the action, Suguru’s hand went to his pocket, fiddling with the lighter as he inhaled, puffing the smoke back out just like he used to, although he did still cough and wheeze as he did so. He never did quite get used to the feeling.
Because of that, Satoru had once joked that they would die together and the bet would end in a deadlock.
She laughed, patting him on the back. “God, I miss you so much, Su.” Shoko let herself say, and Suguru knew to treasure that rare honesty and lock it away in his brain for whenever he would someday need it.
She misses him. Suguru tried to pretend that didn’t warm something hidden in his traitorous heart, but to no avail.
“I miss you too, Sho-chan.” A little honesty never hurt anyone, but the candidness did make him fiddle with the lighter more aggressively, fingers brushing across the sides. Shoko looked at him in surprise, brown eyes wide at the admission. This was the last time he’ll ever talk to her anyway, so he allowed himself freedom to say what she did not want to hear. “If I ask you to join me, you’ll say no.”
“Yeah.” She answered immediately, but the smile on her face made her look like she hated that fact as much as he did. “You have no idea how much I wish I could tell you you’re an idiot that’s not making any sense,”
Suguru let himself smile at the little victory. It was probably the only one she’ll ever allow him now. “I’ve decided how to live my life—”
“Now all you have to do is your best?” Shoko finished for him, and she inhaled in another breath with a smirk.
“Yes, actually.” Suguru replied, letting himself laugh. “Don’t worry though, I won’t go dying on you.”
“Ugh, you’re making yourself lose that bet? You’re making me lose that bet?” She muttered loudly to herself, blowing playfully at his face. “Don’t you dare make me lose, Su.”
Suguru knew what she did not say, and he saw it in her soft gaze. “No promises, Sho-chan.”
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By the time Suguru had gotten back, it was already a little late. The sun had just started setting, but he figured his girls were probably now asleep. Their little bodies had been in so much pain and anxiety for so long that they seemed to fall dead asleep at the randomest hours. He had done his best to time their sleeping habits so that they wouldn't miss a meal, but more than once, he’d had to spoon feed half-asleep twins in his arms.
“Papa?” Two sets of arms threw themselves around his legs, and he bent down to pick them up. Nanako had always been the more clingy of the two, and she buried herself into his neck the minute he had settled them into his arms. “Where’ve you been, Papa?”
“Just visiting a friend.” Suguru said with a smile, kissing their foreheads in greeting.
Mimiko took a whiff of his clothes and scrunched up her nose, turning away. “Y’smell like smoke, Papa.” She squirmed in his arms, and pointed at his pocket, where the lighter that never his and he never used always sat. “You don’t even smoke!”
Suguru laughed. “My friend likes to. Maybe you’ll meet her someday.” In a kinder world, Shoko would have gone home with him today and met them. She would have liked the twins’ spite and bluntness. Satoru would have followed her and they would have still been a family, with two more to spare.
“Is she pretty?” Nanako asked eagerly. Maybe it had been influenced by her cursed technique, but she had always been drawn to more beautiful, photogenic things.
Shoko was pretty. Her sleepy eyes added an allure of mystery that would be enough to intrigue anybody. She had always looked a little standoffish, but that was precisely what made her interesting. Still, there was one person — a stupid, white-haired fool, to be specific — that would roll around his imaginary grave at the words Suguru said next, which was precisely why he said it. “The prettiest.”
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His remaining hand immediately went to his pocket, the stretch making it difficult since he had always kept the lighter on his right. Now though, Suguru had only his left arm to live with, and he furrowed his eyebrows against the strain.
The lighter was still there.
He didn’t know why checking had been his first thought as he stumbled by a corner, defeated by the curse of pure love. He was bleeding, and when the adrenaline would eventually fade off, Suguru knew that he would feel the bruises and cuts Okkotsu Yuta had somehow managed to land on him.
Maybe next time, he thought to himself. He pushed himself off the wall and came face to face with no other than Gojo Satoru, his blindfold off for once. Next time… Suguru thought, knowing there wouldn’t be any as their eyes met. He let himself slide to the floor, smiling weakly.
“You’re late again, Satoru.”
“Yuta did a number on you, didn’t he?”
“That kid’s got potential. Second only to you, maybe.”
“You are, Suguru.” Satoru said, almost pained. He sounded so much like a child, fighting a losing battle. It was jarring to hear: the strongest, the only honoured one, so hurt by this simple thing. “We’re… We’re the strongest.”
He wished he could believe that the way Satoru did. Still, the power difference between them was staggering and ever so clear. If he had been as strong as Satoru, he would have been able to accomplish his goals with ease. He could have gotten the non-sorcerers to their knees without a single effort, and yet here he was, weakened and defeated. By pure love, of all things.
“My family?”
They both saw the hurt in Satoru’s face that he tried so hard to hide. “Safe. Your girls … they’ll be okay.”
Suguru smiled, and for the first time, it felt real. “My girls…”
“Any last words?” Satoru said. If it had been any other situation, Suguru would be planning his escape, knowing Satoru did not have the conviction to kill him yet. Despite the trust he displayed in sending his students here for him to spare them, he knew that this time, Satoru was not bluffing. “I’ll relay the message to your daughters.”
Any last words… It seemed surreal that that was true. He had never envisioned an outcome where his girls would lose him, but maybe they were better off. Maybe even Satoru would take them in, reform them to the jujutsu sorcerer Suguru once was. Maybe they would be blessed enough to stay ignorant to the enlightenment that led him down this path.
He didn’t know what he could say that would make the news of his death any less painful. He had done his best. He had been their father the best way he could have. It had been the best nine years of his life, watching over them.
In a kinder world, he would have liked just being their father.
But here, now, he will choose to not burden them with the curse of his last words. The last thing he had said to them was a fond “I love you” before sending them off to Shinjuku, watching them smile and wave from the bird. He had waved and smiled back at them, sending a stronger curse along to protect them amongst the chaos.
He wouldn’t taint their last memory of him with death.
Satoru took his silence as an answer, always knowing him far too well than he would have liked. He moved forward and leaned down, meeting his eyes. The Six Eyes always had the ability to make you feel like they were looking through you, and Suguru didn’t think he’d ever be as uncomfortable as he was now.
“For Sho-chan?”
Sho-chan, Suguru laughed at the thought. He hasn’t heard from her since the last time they spoke, but her lighter was always in his right pocket no matter what. Call it sentiment, Suguru had never given it much of a thought. Her lighter hadn’t been used that much too, especially since she was the only one who ever did use it.
She’d stopped smoking though, that Geto knew. He had kept tabs on them here and there when he was feeling particularly nostalgic, but this fact he had obtained through experience.
Her twenty-third birthday had been spent on a rooftop of an udon spot in the quiet streets of midnight Tokyo, Satoru teleporting them there without any preamble. Shoko hadn’t said anything to disagree when they got there, and they spent a couple minutes arguing about the logistics of Reverse Cursed Technique and that bet the three of them had going on in high school. He hadn’t meant to catch them like that at all, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up when he saw them across the street in the motel he had rented for a little vacation his daughters insisted he take (he had always been a little more gloomy on Satoru and Shoko’s birthdays, and his girls had been intelligent enough to notice). Their conversation had been carried to him by the wind, and they hadn’t seem him cough and wheeze through his first and last cigarette with them, the only time he’d ever used her lighter for his own.
Sometimes, when he couldn’t stop himself, he’d wonder if she ever relapsed. Had she ever reached for another lighter and lit one up again, feeling as nostalgic for their high school days as he did at times? Had she ever had to call Satoru to stop herself from doing so? Had he always answered?
Suguru never regretted what he chose. He knew it was the only way he was ever going to live his life, but if there was one thing he would ever regret, it was them.
His daughters were always so curious about the aunt and uncle they never met. Suguru didn’t know why he told them stories, but as time grew on, they’d gotten just as attached as he was.
Aunt Shoko with the cool healing powers. Uncle Satoru who was the strongest. Aunt Shoko and her nicotine addiction she needed to put an end to. Uncle Satoru and the numbing sweets in his pocket that you could always find. Aunt Shoko that loved to tease Papa about their bet. Uncle Satoru and his pout upon being excluded even though he really wasn’t. Indifferent Aunt Shoko who would have loved them even if she never really knew how to show it. Uncle Satoru who would have spoiled them rotten and carried them around even as they grew too old for it.
They would have loved them.
Suguru never let himself dwell on those thoughts before, but he was on death’s door, and it was nothing if not a little encouraging to start opening the can of worms he never would have.
“You owe her.” Suguru finally said with a laugh.
He thought about reaching into his pocket and giving the lighter to Satoru for safekeeping, but he knew where his dead body would be carried to. He could only hope she’ll find it herself.
Maybe she’ll smoke one last time. He’ll never know.
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Suguru felt himself wake up in a blank room. For a moment, he had went blind, but he blinked against the brightness to see one of the old abandoned classrooms in Jujutsu High.
He was alone, and everything was too bright to be real. His body was light, his heart unburdened. Something in him was being pulled away, and he knew he did not belong in this peace.
When he felt the familiar sting of smoke blown on his face, he let himself smile before he was pulled under.