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It is when the dust settles that Gojo Satoru learns of all that’s happened when he’d been sealed.
He can feel the trembling in the pit of his gut, the quivering in his lungs as the edges of his mask start to slip and crack. Emotionally, he feels wrecked. Mentally, he’s slipping and the jarring dissonance between reality and the nightmare that’s his time in the Prison Realm is suffocating him, drawing him under.
It’s too much.
He’s known for his self-control, for the iron discipline he conducts himself with, but now, he’s fumbling, scrabbling for the slightest shred of restraint that can keep him in check.
The urge to lash out, whether with his fists or his cursed energy is near-overwhelming.
But he can’t lose it.
Everyone is watching him.
Including her.
And he doesn’t want any of them, least of all her—especially her—to see him fall apart. To see him as that rabid beast they should have put down twenty-eight years ago.
What he does want, however, is a pair of sunglasses or a blindfold because the sensitivity of his eyes is giving him a killer migraine.
But again, how long has it been since he’s seen actual sunlight?
Time passes differently in the Prison Realm compared to the real world. What is nineteen days here is in fact an eternity in that hellish place where the hands of the clock have stopped permanently.
At that reminder, it makes his skin prickle, makes his fingers itch to tear and rip into something and he wants to run. To go somewhere where he can hide and lick his wounds in peace for being so fucking stupid to get himself trapped by that pretender wearing Geto’s face.
Especially when he learned of the deaths of his friends and peers.
Deaths he could have prevented had he been around.
Deaths he could have prevented had he forced his mind to rule over his heart. Because he’d known right from the start and from the bottom of his fucking soul it wasn’t Geto standing in front of him. Had known it’d probably been an attempt to trap him. But it’d been so long since he’d heard his best friend’s voice that it’d sent him hurtling back in time when things were easy and simple.
Back when it was Suguru and Satoru against the world.
And just with that one misstep of disbelief and nostalgia, everyone else had paid for it in blood and tears. They are, after all, the universal currency of misery and grief.
His stomach lurches as shame coils low in his belly while remorse is a living entity in his heart.
Yeah, running off to a remote island where the only company has is his brooding self sounds really good now.
But he doesn’t.
The curtains are still up and Gojo Satoru has his role to play.
“I see,” he says flippantly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his pants and shrugging with his usual air of indifference and slight mockery. “Then aren’t you glad I’m back to save the day? Sheesh, can you imagine what else could have happened if you guys didn't free me on time?”
Shoko snorts before she puffs on a cigarette.
His words might have broken the tension permeating the air and might have caused some to lower their guard, but even then, he is all too aware of the eyes on him, tracking his every movement, studying him, scrutinising every inch of his face for signs of instability.
Satoru gets it. He doesn’t blame them for the suspicion and doubt. The last thing the world needs is another unhinged sorcerer on the loose, especially one of his calibre. But it hurts like the dull edge of a blade scraping against his heart.
Hasn’t he proved himself by now? By sacrificing everything—friends, family, his life in all but name, isn’t it proof he’s giving everything for this damned world?
If it still isn’t enough, what else is there?
His eyes? The divine Six Eyes that only appear in his bloodline every few centuries? The eyes that failed him for the second time in his life?
If it would grant him peace, sure. He wouldn’t mind ripping them out from his eye sockets and presenting the bloody mess on his knees to the higher-ups so he can still have pieces of himself intact.
Power. Invincibility. Strength.
Strip all of that away and who is he?
If he is given the chance, he would give them all up to be a simple man. An ordinary man.
Looking back, his teenage self wouldn’t agree. The insufferable cocky brat he’d been wouldn’t understand. But as someone reaching thirty in a little more than a year, who is older and hopefully wiser, Gojo Satoru doesn’t know how much longer he can pretend.
He doesn’t know if he can find himself every time he looks in the mirror.
He’s tired. So very tired.
But no matter how he wishes for the world to leave him be, he is duty-bound.
Satoru may not have asked to be granted his clan’s legacy, but at the end of the day, it is his. Duty, his mother had said solemnly when he was a child, is something that cannot be shirked for it will follow him for the rest of his days.
And what a very bleak future that will make.
He scans the crowd, his heart constricting when he notes the faces he’s greeted with. Faces that are marred by both physical scars. Faces that are haunted by ghosts that no one else can see. Faces that are missing.
Vehemently, he squashes the sudden surge of grief down to the recesses of his mind where he keeps the bad and the ugly.
Down down down.
“Well, I suppose if that’s all,” Satoru starts, making a show of stretching his stiff joints and strained muscles. “I’m out of here. I got a date with a bubble bath.”
He makes to leave but from his peripheral, he spots Utahime squeezing through the crowd towards him.
Panic grips him and he commands his feet to move—to fucking go—but they don’t. They remain glued to the ground and he’s too little too late when she approaches him.
“Gojo,” Utahime says.
It’s just a word. His name.
To him, it’s everything.
“Uta-chan,” he says in return and knowing that he shouldn’t but for all his training, he’s never possessed self-control when it comes to her, Satoru looks at her.
Her hair is a little unkempt, dirt streaks along her face and her miko outfit is stained with the remnants of battle and probably wrinkled beyond repair. But her eyes are bright and her lips are set into a pursed but stubborn line. To him, she’s never looked more beautiful.
The urge to take her face into his hands, to hold her against him, to have her tangling her fingers in his hair, overwhelm him with a kind of longing and desperation that isn’t meant for someone like him.
Maybe in another world, it would be Satoru and Utahime.
But in this one, it’s Gojo and Iori.
Carefully, he shifts his shuttered gaze to the space between her brows because he can’t look her in the eye. It’s too much when he remembers every dream he had of her. Of them. Of the life they could have had.
It’s too raw. Too painful.
Never mind they always ended viciously, but those short moments have always been blissful reprieves, a small slice of heaven that distracted him from his bitter reality in the hell that is the Prison Realm.
It’s even worse now because having her here before him is a reminder they are just friends. Nothing more and nothing less.
“Here,” she says, pushing something black into his hand. “I figured you’ll need it.”
It’s a blindfold. Well, not the one he usually uses, but it’s enough.
“Aa.”
He puts it on. And even through the black fabric, he is aware of how she watches him with genuine concern and not as though he’s a ticking time bomb like the others have been regarding him.
Utahime cocks her head. “It’s silly of me to ask, but… are you okay?”
“Of course,” he declares jovially. “Never been better. You of all people should know that. I’m the strongest!”
The dry, unimpressed look she gives him makes his gut clench.
“Yes, I know, but I’m asking because—”
“Yeah yeah,” he waves her off because he is Gojo Satoru and he has no room for softer emotions like tenderness or sympathy.
“Gojo,” Utahime glares, crossing her arms. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he says in a tone devoid of warmth.
She flinches.
And because Gojo Satoru is also an asshole, he leaves right after.
He spends the next few days in his apartment staring at the ceilings. When the sun sets, he makes sure to switch on the lights because that way, he won’t have to see the shadows in his apartment move from the corners of his eyes.
As though it’s those damned skeletons he’d been surrounded by in the Prison Realm.
The first night back, he’d flinched at what he thought was a skeletal hand reaching for him from the darkness of his bedroom.
He’d near annihilated the entire housing block by activating his curse technique and only common sense and awareness had stopped him from throwing Hollow Purple at his curtains swaying from the wind.
Maybe, the higher-ups and everyone else had been right in watching him with distrust and ill-disguised paranoia.
Satoru tends to spend his nights on the balcony where he is greeted with the openness of the skies and the stars.
Never mind what his neighbours or those living in the opposite blocks thought of him sitting there, back against the wall and legs sprawled out over the tiles. It is like clockwork. Once the sun sets, he is there till it rises.
It may be cold and uncomfortable there, but he would trade such comforts for the knowledge that he is free from the confines of walls—be it concrete or the ominous black of a living barrier.
In short, here on his balcony, he breathes easier knowing that there isn’t anything stopping him from leaping over the railings—that he has an escape route. He can’t be trapped again. Can’t be held against his will.
When the sun begins its usual ascension into the skies, Satoru stumbles to his feet, ignoring the creaks and pops of his joints and limbs from being in a stationary position for hours and heads to the kitchen for what he calls breakfast, which is basically anything he can find in his cupboards. It doesn't matter. Everything tastes like ash in his mouth anyway.
He’s not one to cook and ever since Megumi left for the dormitories in Jujutsu High, he’s stopped storing any perishables in his apartment. A part of him refuses to think of Tsumiki or lets his gaze wander to the cartoon ceramic mugs the Fushiguro kids have chosen from Disneyland when they were younger.
Not for the first time, his eyes linger on the dishrack where his plates are lined neatly to face the left while the handles of the mugs are angled to the side. Satoru doesn’t bother with things like that. It only gives credit to his theory someone has been messing about in his home when he was… away.
It’s been nineteen days since he’s been back and his house isn’t the messy state it’s been. It’s clean, free from dust and the dirty clothes he’s pretty sure he’d left strewn around before that dreaded day in October have been washed and folded neatly in his closet.
He doubts Shoko would bother cleaning up after him. His friend is sloppier than he is.
Satoru gets his answer when the doorbell rings.
Swinging open the door, his breath hitches when he’s met with Utahime scowling impatiently at him. Instead of her miko outfit (though her white ribbon is still in her hair), she’s dressed in a white jumper and a black ankle-length skirt. Right, how has he forgotten? It’s November.
“You took long,” she sniffs, shifting her hold on the carton of groceries in her hands.
He doesn’t respond.
Satoru doesn’t know what to say. For the first time in his life, nothing comes to mind.
“Well?” she demands. “Aren’t you letting me in? It’s cold.”
The abrasive, bossy tone she uses shakes him out of his stupor and he stiffens. He isn’t entirely in the mood to deal with her today. Not for quite some time, in fact. Or at least, not until he forgets those dreams where they are together and nothing is wrong in the world. His mood plummets and really, he needs her to leave. Now.
And because there is no one else around, he lets his mask fall. Satoru frowns. “What are you doing here?”
Utahime arches a brow haughtily and barges past him before striding in the direction that leads to the kitchen.
What the fuck.
Head heavy, he slams the door shut and enters the kitchen, only to falter at the sight of her pulling things out of the box in her hands. Utahime is diligent as she restocks his shelves and refrigerator with food. He spies fruits and vegetables, dairy products and dry goods. He even catches sight of some frozen convenience foods that is more for his sake because he admits there are times he is lazy to bother with the tedious process of cooking from scratch.
Iron floods his mouth and Satoru realises he’s bitten his lower lip raw.
“Really,” Utahime starts as she squints at the ceiling lamp. “Why do you even have the lights on when the sun’s out? It’s such a waste.”
Something acrid fills his stomach. “Fuck’s sake, Iori. Quit nosing about and fucking go—”
“Shut up and eat this,” Utahime interrupts as she tosses him a lollipop and another withering scowl over her shoulder.
Satoru should have some cutting comeback at the ready about her treating him like a wayward child but the emotionally-distant part of him aches at this display of care.
He shuts up and sucks on the sweet. Silently, he watches as she also pulls out storage containers of what he believes are homecooked food. Numb to the bone, he stares as she flits about his kitchen with familiarity, opening cabinets where crockery is kept and drawers where cutlery is stored.
It isn’t long before the food is ready from the microwave and they are laid out on the dining table. From what he can see, there is fluffy white rice, grilled fish, fried chicken, small servings of pickled vegetables, rolled eggs and helpings of freshly-cut fruit.
After muttering his thanks, they begin to eat and Utahime is at his side, talking about the latest updates in her favourite baseball club before switching to her complaints about politics and the new bills the government is implementing and other mundane topics.
Satoru is aware that she’s careful enough to skip sensitive subjects such as his sealing and everything that’s happened after the incident in Shibuya. Or anything pertaining to Jujutsu society.
He isn’t really paying attention but he suspects they both know this. Utahime’s chattering is just a way to distract him, to fill up the silence. But Satoru doesn’t mind. It’s a small comfort to not hear the voices in his head or the ringing in his ears from the utter quiet in his apartment.
However, when she picks up a piece of the rolled egg and places it on his serving plate, his chest squeezes painfully.
It’s achingly familiar.
A callback to the domesticity he’s experienced in his dreams. The dreams which he’s pretty sure kept him sane in that place he calls purgatory. The memory of it has his chest heaving. His palms become slick with sweat and his chopsticks clatter noisily on his plate.
“Shut up,” he forces out sharply, steepling his fingers together before pressing them to his face.
Instead of huffing and getting offended, Utahime stops and looks at him patiently. There isn’t any trace of ire or irritation in her features. Nor are there signs of pity.
He is grateful for that.
Satoru has never said it aloud, but he has always appreciated how she’s never handled him with kid gloves, treating him with her usual brand of prickly courtesy. If there’s anyone he can confide in, who won’t judge him, who won’t take advantage of his vulnerability and weaknesses, it would be her.
So he starts.
“I dreamt of you,” he confesses in a voice lower than a whisper.
Utahime stares. She frowns, eyeing him. “Nothing depraved, I hope. Or I’m leaving with all the food I’ve brought.”
For the first time since he’s been unsealed, laughter bubbles in his throat and Satoru doesn’t know it has morphed into sobs until the tears, hot and wet, roll down his cheeks in rivulets.
Everything bears down on him with the weight of a thousand kilograms. He’s lightheaded and gasping, his heart drumming erratically away within his chest and the food on his plate becomes increasingly distorted. He can’t seem to focus on anything—not on his breathing, not on his thoughts and with rising panic, he thinks the shadows on his left are moving, reaching out to grab him with their skeletal hands. He wants to scramble away, to go before they drag him back into that hellscape where he’d rather die than live another second with that cloying, ominous atmosphere. But first, he has to breathe, but Satoru thinks his lungs must be malfunctioning or they have to be filled with water because he can’t and—
The scent of gardenias fills his senses and it’s the warm weight of her against his chest and her arms around him that gradually brings clarity back. Like a ship tossed about in the seas due to a raging storm, Utahime is his anchor holding him down.
Gradually, he calms and grows aware of her voice murmuring words of affirmation and comfort into his ear. Her touch is light but firm as she rubs soothing circles on his back and for someone who is as touch-starved as he is, Satoru leans closer, burying his face into the crook of her neck.
Human touch.
How long has it been since he’s permitted someone to get this close to him?
How long has it been since he’s indulged in such a weakness?
But like a siren’s call, Satoru is unable to refuse anything that Utahime freely gives.
Just this once, he tells himself with a kind of pathetic desperation, he’ll allow this moment of intimacy.
Despite his weeping, a distant part of him belatedly recognises he must have let Infinity down the moment Utahime had shown up on his doorstep.
(He doesn’t let himself wonder about the implications of such an action; he’s afraid of what he’ll find.)
“It’s all right,” she continues softly, oblivious to the direction of his thoughts. “You’re free. You’re not sealed anymore. We got you out. You’re fine. Everything will be okay.”
To others, the words may be paltry, said with the sole intention to placate and distract. But to him, they are exactly what he needs to hear.
And of course, he… believes her.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Mountains are as unmovable as the seas are vast. Gojo Satoru puts his faith in her.
“It’s only fine if you are here,” he murmurs hoarsely into her neck.
Utahime stills.
A beat later, she relaxes and her hold on him tightens, fingers carding through his hair with a gentleness that is both foreign and familiar, but nonetheless, soothing. “Okay,” she agrees. “I promise.”