Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Another cursed spirit screeches as it distends and warps into a whorl of color before boom! It bursts into loose trickles of glittery, uncanny green cursed energy that splatters over the two of them.

Gego clicks his tongue and tut-tuts as he brushes the gaudy residue off his jacket and turns toward Gogo, his eyes still on the incoming mass of spirits.

“There’s a lot of curses up ahead, Saburo!! They’re higher in number than the manager told us AND a few of them seem to be higher grades. Do you…think we should call in backup?”

Gogo grins, pompous and bright-eyed and smirking as he swaggers over, meeting Gego’s eyes.

“Aww shucks, it’ll be fine! After all…”

“Option two, obviously,” Megumi murmurs from where he’s standing behind the couch, leaning over Itadori’s shoulder.

Itadori fusses a bit, finger hovering over the screen before eventually pressing down on the third option.

“Itadori," he groans, "I thought you agreed not to choose options just because there’s a cat emote."

“But why?” Itadori puffs out. “They’re so cute—and the lines are so sweet! And it isn’t like there’ll be any major sort of blowback for a fun little line like that, right? It’s only a minor fight, and Gogo-san said it was fine already. How bad can it get?”

“But it’s conceited. Remember what happened last time? You tried one of those more arrogant statements and the other students really started to get pissed off and—”

The two of them stare at the screen, blanketed in a stagnating silence despite the peppy, slightly gritty tune blaring out of the console, and gawp at the sparkling roses blossoming around the text boxes in searing pink and the dancing hearts traveling in a loop around the frame with the titular catchphrase “Jujutsu Sorcery Go Go Gogo!!!” stamped on their bodies. Gogo and Gego stand frozen behind the semi-opaque, glittering info card with Gogo leaning forward, a hand obnoxiously and visibly clasped over his chin while hearts multiply and float out from his eyes.

“Oh…oh god. I think that was too sweet of a line.”

“No shit, Itadori.”

“It’s like, you know—like, I didn’t even know Gego-san was a romance option like the thought had never even occurred to me?” Itadori splutters. “I mean like—like just think about it: he’s literally your main helper like Gego is always the guy giving the tutorials and stuff…it’s like having a crush on the narrator. On the tutorial character. I mean like, holy crap, that doesn’t happen often, right? It almost feels meta but that isn’t what meta is, isn’t it?”

Both of them are sitting on the floor now, backs against the front of the couch. Itadori’s scrolling in an almost panicked, fervent manner on his phone, looking at posts about the game.

“Why would Gojo-san do something like that,” Itadori hisses, still rapidly scrolling away at his phone. “He honestly always seemed like the kind of guy who’d never get into a relationship…Man, I really didn’t think this was a romance game too. Not that I'm complaining! I'm just really, like, really bad at romance games.”

The game console is laying off at the side, still radiating roses unfurling in a badly repeating loop. Megumi can’t help but glance over at the annoying mess of it all every thirty seconds, but Itadori actually likes the soundtrack, so he makes no moves to turn the console off.

Jujutsu Sorcery Go Go Gogo!!! is currently ruling over the top charts as the best single-player role-playing action-adventure (and apparently now otome) visual novel game to have been released in the Japanese gaming industry’s recent history.

Regarding the game mechanics, the player takes the role of student sorcerer Gogo Saburo and works to become the “strongest sorcerer ever and beat those prissy elders,” or so the packaging had read.

This guy Gogo Saburo is also based on Megumi’s adoptive father Gojo Satoru, who created the game and characters and plots and relationships—literally every element. If there’s anything he didn’t do, it was actually creating the graphics engine and the code and doing all of the marketing. Megumi would have been impressed if it wasn’t for the fact that this is Gojo.

The game is mostly limited to slice-of-life student interactions, along with turn-based combat and case investigations, and also, apparently, the chance for Gogo to pursue the love of his life and for them together to become the strongest couple in jujutsu history. Lovely. Who publicizes a literal self-insert piece of media? Gojo, apparently. He's always been so thick-skinned.

Itadori had been hyped up for the game in the many months of advertising preceding its release, especially as the game was developed and created by Gojo and his company. It’s always fun to know someone famous, even if no one really knows the guy behind the name.

Gojo is a terribly rich, terribly bored, and sometimes sad, sad man with too much time and too many insane thoughts, in Megumi’s mind. In the years since Megumi stopped living with Gojo, it seemed as if he decided to create a monstrosity of a game starring his teenage self.

He had never favored modesty after all.

Gojo doesn’t talk much about his past, but he’s said enough for Megumi to recognize details of it here and there in the game, and that the game is an impressive, though absurd, warping of Gojo’s real teenage years. Magic aside.

Itadori’s the only one playing the game; Megumi is simply there to watch his progress and give the occasional helpful comment. His focus tends to lie more on the best builds for fights and figuring out the more complex puzzles. The bucolic friendships and character development, he leaves for Itadori’s full enjoyment.

He still keeps up with the plot and characters just enough so that he can fully listen to Itadori’s rants about something or the other in the game, but it’s not like he enjoys it.

He has little interest in seeing a false reality Gojo created or enlightening himself as to what purpose Gojo would have done so.

Itadori is fully absorbed by it in his own right without the added stress of having Gojo for a dad.

“It’s just so moving,” Itadori had blubbered once, clutching at his console. “Look at how much the first-year gang has grown! They’re so precious to me.”

But more and more, and especially now, it seems like Megumi has less say in knowing more about a fictionalized version of Gojo.

“Look at this Reddit post,” Itadori says, thrusting his phone out in front of Megumi, “it seems like there’s a lot of talk about the Gego-san route already. Other routes too.”

Megumi squints at the multi-paragraphed post.

“I still can’t believe he hasn’t been sued by anyone yet. God knows he’s annoying enough for anyone here to have considered the thought. This has got to count as defamation."

He squints harder. “Isn’t that my dad there? And that’s literally Nanami-san.”

Itadori twists his hand back to where his phone faces his face, surprise flitting across his face in his wide eyes and flared nostrils. “Dude…I think that is—I didn’t know Gojo-san thought about Toji-san enough to consider putting him in here. Same for Nanamin.”

Megumi cringes. “Yeah, I’m not looking at more about that. Father dearest has a lot to answer next time he’s back, I guess. Toji, I mean.”

He gestures for the phone again.

“Well, it’s no surprise really that there’d be romance routes, when I think about it more. There are already the friendship ones and romance is something Gojo would find funny enough to put into Jujutsu Sorcery. Just for shits and giggles. And Gogo’s always spewing that strongest sorcerer crap, no wonder he’d make doe eyes at literally the only other special-grade sorcerer his age in a hundred-mile radius.”

“I guess so, yeah. It’s cute though! I used to play a bunch of otome games you know, they’re really cute. I was never too good at them though. Kept getting bad endings and choosing the wrong answers and lowering my standing. Still can’t imagine Gojo-san getting some but it’s pretty fun for just Gogo-san.”

Still, it’s strange: many of the other characters—including pretty much all of the characters with routes he’s seeing right now—appear to be based on people either Gojo has mentioned or Megumi has met himself.

This Gego though, Megumi has heard about anyone who could have resembled him. Not even a picture with a guy with remotely similar features has ever graced the Gojo household as far as he can remember.

It’s strange to think about, how he’s never existed for Megumi before but here in this game he’s constantly at Gojo’s side in the epic trio of Gego, Gogo, and Shogo and more than that, he appears to be even closer to Gogo than Shogo. And Megumi’s only ever known Shoko.

Itadori nods knowingly. Megumi knows what’s coming up next; given the right moment and right motivation, Itadori acts like he has a destined task set before him that he’s honor-bound to accomplish.

“Well then, as new discoverers of the beautiful budding relationship between Gogo and Gego-san, we have to get through the new route and ensure their happy forever after together!”

He pumps his chest for good measure, beaming up at Megumi with a grin of half-giddy excitement and half-fondness, something Megumi can feel is for him only in the crepuscular curves of Itadori’s eyes.

Looking at Itadori like this makes him hyperaware of how even if in facing this sort of expression on Itadori’s face he doesn’t react physically at all, Megumi feels it all so viscerally, how he sees Itadori’s smile and feels a forever uncomfortably new trust in Itadori and Itadori smiles at him in that particular way because of the trust he has that Megumi will be with him, wherever whenever however.

It’s a self-perpetuating positive feedback loop they have, but Megumi keeps perpetuating it and will keep on doing so, as long as Itadori smiles at him in this way. He’ll always play along with these harebrained, comedic schemes of Itadori’s. And he knows the same goes for Itadori’s part of the matter: he’ll always keep making Megumi a part of these silly little adventures.

“Alright, Itadori,” Megumi finally huffs out. It’s not like he was ever going to say anything otherwise. “I’ll be here to help you get through it.”

Itadori hums contentedly. His smile eases off into a gentler thing of long-held confidence in Megumi’s companionship and he reaches off to grab the silent console and repowers it to the familiar tune of distastefully shrill music.

r/JujutsuSorceryGGG
by gogosabssimp ⋅ 5 months ago

All of Gogo Saburo’s special routes and how to get them, standard and secret

The game has only been out for a couple of weeks but a lot of people who’ve finished the game already; for those who have finished and indeed many who are still playing, it becomes apparent soon enough that JSGGG offers a romance aspect and limited friend routes. Unlocking and successfully completing these rounds can add special techniques and give new boosts

We have here a rudimentary exploration of all of Gogo’s possible routes, including the more elusive ones for players to pursue as they wish for certain characters or simply to play each route in future replays. An article from TrueAchievements here details the specific mechanics of each route along with trouble spots.

Regular routes - all possible romances/friendships

Izumi Shogo: By far the most standard option, Shogo is Gojo’s first peer introduced in the game. Her friendship progression will proceed relatively slowly, but after reaching Friendship Lvl. 10, romance options will open up and the route progresses much more smoothly and more quickly. She and Gogo have a very chill relationship and generally get along just the same when dating as they did as friends. Dating Shogo has the benefit of being able to have a healing bonus of 30% more than what your current build stands at along with an instantaneous 15% of all your team member’s max HP being restored after battles. We recommend choosing to tag along with her midnight escapade to the convenience store for cigarettes and alcohol in latter half of Year 1.

Iino Uchihime: Interactions with Uchihime are sparse but she makes a much more vivacious partner for Gogo and an overall funner route than Shogo’s. It’s definitely a harder route for her as she genuinely finds Gogo infuriating and wants as little to do with him as possible, players will have to work for her. The first meeting is decisive: ensure you go for the less argumentative option (“You’re pretty strong yourself, Uchihime.”) to make Gojo appear more favorably for Uchihime’s initial impression. Keep using the same sorts of options, but not all the time as what really characterizes their dynamic work is their constant quarreling. Finishing her route will unlock a new technique “Wowsome Warble Wubble Bubble” in which her singing voice will create shockwaves of cursed energy that form bubbles around enemies, trapping them for a full turn.

Hidden routes - romance/friendship/special

Amori Rikuto: A cute but extremely obscure route (special friendship). Rikuto serves as a character for a single mission: the Hot Gas Ball Container Mission. Making friends with Rikuto expands the mission into a full arc where Gogo and Gego will investigate the Hot Gas network and its hidden connections to the school as well as early access information on the jujutsu higher-ups that serve as the game’s primary antagonists much later. Discovering such information unlocks hidden sublpots wherein Gogo can investigate with Gego and gain a more comprehensive look at the in-game society's dynamics if players are more fond of politics/lore. In gameplay, she’ll unlock a pre-battle technique to track residuals (this technique is only available otherwise for specific quests). Constant banter and reassurance against her having to merge with Tengen will help players unlock her route; the latter is more important as otherwise Rikuto will take offense and stick closer to Kuroki or Gego.

Gego Sugoiru: This route is the most extensive with many alternative endings. The endings will affect the game’s outcome so we recommend to not pursue his route in your initial play if you want to see the canonical ending first. There are only two scenarios where you can unlock his route: 1) when you finish the “Oh No! Run Spirits Run!” mission in Ginza and 2) before heading off to the Hot Gas Ball Container Mission. Gogo and Gego’s relationship hinges on their genuine camaraderie and belief that they form an ultimate “strongest” duo together so pick dialogue options accordingly. Finishing the route unlocks the extremely powerful technique “Maximum: Uber Upstanding Uzumaki” which does require an extremely difficult build and maxed-out stats to be effectively used, but if done right this can potentially be the strongest technique in the game so far.

Nagano Kenko: This route is a special one that must start with the intention of romance to be able to proceed into the special friendship route (notably, there is no way to sustain the romance route; it will naturally progress if maintained well). Nagano is generally a recluse who does not get much interaction with Gogo as he works the usual missions assigned to first years and prefers to train with Heibaba alone. To unlock his route, the player will have to actively use after-hours to talk to Nagano instead of using that time for domains and material collection. Offering thoughtful advice on training and more mature dialogue will catalyze his route being unlocked (rather than poking fun at him as is more true to Gogo’s character). His route won’t unlock any special benefits for his playable character but the completion will give an equipment item: “Terrifically Trendy Tight Tie.”

Fushibushi Tojinininin (Toji): Toji is an exclusive character featuring as an assassin that can only be met through the expanded Hot Gas Ball arc. Interestingly, he will become neither a love interest nor a special friend but instead a special enemy. The route is ruthlessly short-lived but defeating him in battle will provide a high number of Limitless Points and unlock otherwise unobtainable techniques. Finishing his route will provide the usual benefits of finishing a story mission final battle and also the choice of cursed weapon “Packed Jacked Playful Cloud” or “Inverted Reverted Spear of Heaven.” (The former is recommended for building Gego’s ultimate technique).

FAQ

What about Gogo’s other classmates and peers? - Game creator Gege Akutami has said in response that certain characters simply will not be given routes for reasons he will not disclose. Ever. These involve Heibaba, Igugi, Mua Mua, and Sukuno Yami.

Didn’t Gege talk about possible enemies Kenken Juju and Shukujaja Ryodododu before? Where are they? - Kenken and Shukujaja were officially shelved before the game was released. You can find an NPC version of Kenken in a fortune-telling stall in Shibuya. Shukujaja was actually remade into a cat; you can do a side mission with Gego and Shogo where you will find a very fat pinkish-red cat in Sendai and will have to find the grandma who owns him (she’ll tell you then his name is Shukujaja).

Isn’t there a route for Naoya? And isn’t he a real, legit breathing person on this earth? - Zenin Naoya has an extremely special route in the game, even more so than Toji. Though, like Toji, he is classified as a special enemy, his route is not single-handedly explored in a battle. His route is integrated into the overarching storyline with the higher-ups and he is defeated directly preceding the final plotline. His depiction is also very controversial as there is an existing person also named Zenin Naoya, who not only looks exactly like the game character but has similar attributes and societal similarities. Gege Akutami has actually made a public statement on this though an English version of his statement has not been publicized as of now. This post by u/geguwu summarizes what he said and expands upon the context.

“Fushiguro! They’re so stupid it makes me want to tear out my hair,” Itadori groans, waving his console wildly in the air as Megumi creeps up behind him where the other is sitting on the couch.

“You really can’t expect much from a character like Gogo,” Megumi replies nonchalantly. Per Friday afternoon tradition, once their classes ended, he and Itadori always meet up at the Todai-guchi exit and take the Keio Inokashira Line to Megumi’s house where Itadori usually stays until dinner at least, if not for the night.

When they started university, it didn’t take long for them to find a new routine. Itadori drops by the Fushiguro household on Mondays and Wednesdays after his afternoon classes, he spends the night on a Friday night at least once a month though often more, and Megumi visits the apartment where Itadori and Nanami live together Saturdays. Some parts are manufactured but others like Itadori’s sleepovers are natural with unspoken agreement but still regular recurrence.

It’s always comforting on lazy afternoons like this, with little to no classwork to worry about and having Itadori in close quarters in such consistency and to watch him tap away at his consoles, slouching comfortably with his dogs, and then finally retiring in Megumi’s room at night to chatter about the latest development in the game. It’s one of the only things that’s stayed the same from his high school years, and it’s partially why Megumi’s only getting his own private rental next year.

“Just look—” Itadori scrambles to fish out his phone, the console now tucked into his backpack.

“Just look at these conversations,” he garbles as he hurriedly swipes from picture to picture, “Okay like sure, Gogo-san’s a bit crass and bullheaded when it comes to social interactions but Gego-san’s really smart! Like, I know the actual Gojo-san wouldn’t be too good with flirting, probably at least—I don't think he's the sort of guy to flirt at all—but Gego’s better than that, he’s not like Gojo. You can’t tell me that Gego-san wouldn’t recognize it when someone flirts with him, right Fushiguro?”

Megumi stands patiently, watching until Itadori finally lands on the picture he’s been wanting to show him. “Here look, there’s just no way I had to go through all this.”

Shining brightly from the phone is not an image but a video. It’s wobbly, and the audio has the veneered din special to audio that’s directly blaring out of a device being rerecorded. But the scene in the video is still plainly discernible nevertheless.

“Sugoiru!” Gogo cheers, eagerly dispatching with a spirit’s head and skipping over the splattered remains on the cobbled road. “That’s thirteen of them for me. I win! Now you have to grant a wish of mine, unconditionally.” He has his shoulders tightly pursed together and lifted up to push against his cheeks and his hands are clasped together as he shifts from side to side. It’s all very obnoxious.

Gego smiles placidly as he disembarks from his Rainbow Dragon. “I don’t recall agreeing to a competition this time. But I’m at thirteen too, you know. Good work today, Saburo.”

He eyes Gogo somewhat warily before reaching out and demolishing a curse behind Gogo, Rainbow Dragon rushing out and back to Gego in just a split second.

“And that makes fourteen, actually,” he declares, smirking at Gogo. “Guess I’d win your little contest then, Saburo.”

Almost immediately, heart bubbles start popping up on the screen, and blush hatchings materialize on Gogo’s face, accompanied by the identifying pink tints themselves.

Oh god, Megumi despairs, Oh no, not this shit again.

After reaching Year 2 of the game, approximately three months of in-game time after Itadori had unlocked Gego’s wooing route, a new feature had been unlocked that showcased Gogo’s thoughts.

But they don’t function as mere thoughts: the player could choose a thought like they would a dialogue option and help tease out deeper lines of thinking or even expose buried thoughts.

In most cases, this just meant an easier understanding of investigation materials and puzzle mechanics, but of course, there were the extra bonuses of being able to fully understand the extent to which Gogo could be infatuated with the love interest of your choice.

Concerning Gego though, this meant an ugly combination of pathetic pining along with enough thirst to make the most dedicated thirst trapper sneeze thrice and cross a blessing before renouncing their ways. It makes Megumi mortified to have been raised by Gojo.

Megumi cringes harder, pausing the video. “Please tell me you didn’t pick the first one.”

Itadori wheezes in mock hurt. “Of course not! Fushiguro, no no no. I put a lot of thought into this.”

He raises a contemplative finger to his forehead. “I thought it out carefully and decided it wouldn’t help Gogo to make him daydream over Gego-san’s…umm, physique. Helping him realize he’s actually in love and not just harboring a simple crush I mean. Option three had to be the choice. However questionable it sounds.”

...There’s a whole host of issues with the third one too but sure.

“But hey,” Megumi pauses, “you know, option two is reasonable, actually.”

Itadori pouts. “Well—I thought it’d be like—you know! He’d just start thinking about how great it is that he has a friend like Gego-san that cares about him so much. You know how he gets. He wouldn’t really do anything much more than just think about his emotions. Gogo-san thinks a lot of things. Hasn’t been helping though.”

Megumi stares. “You…it’s not like Gogo’s had much success the way things have been going so far. At least giving him more chances to think lets him put some more brainwork into this all. He’s clearly been flirting incessantly for what eight scenarios now? It’s really bad flirting too, it’s like he’s taking them from a book of pickup lines. No wonder Gego hasn’t been receptive. Gogo’s just an idiot.”

“I trust Gogo-san’s wisdom!” Itadori insists. “He’s been able to get to the bottom of all these cool, really big-brained cases before and he can’t figure out that he’s in love with Gego-san and not just crushing on him?”

Itadori sighs. “It’s just that…I’m really hoping I can get through this route as nicely as possible for the two of them.”

Megumi studies him, matching his silence. There’s something far greater than the simple realization Itadori had just voiced, something etched in his tone, his posture, the way his hands are working themselves together. Not that he ever veered toward romantic misunderstandings, but Itadori has always had romanticist tendencies in how he sees the world.

He sees a couple in the street and coos at them with the belief that they’ll always be together. He sees a family eating out together and watches them as if they’ve always been the most perfect, loving group for the entirety of their lives. He listens to sad songs and always hopes that the affected person will get a happy ending behind the scenes. He reaches the end of ambiguous stories and assumes that in the end, even if many years pass, the protagonist will find happiness. He makes no misunderstandings; he’s simply wistful.

It’s not a major reversal of Meugmi’s own thinking, but his own is certainly on the farther end of the spectrum.

Megumi wouldn’t call himself a pessimist, but it’s not as if he tries to see the good in things either. It’s simply that the bad is more apparent; if he sees a guy cheating on a test he won’t seize upon the worst of the sight and draw it out and manipulate it until it seems like a fact that the guy has always been a cheater and will cheat at everything. He only acknowledges what he sees, and lets things stay as they are if they have no power to affect him or others, though he did tend to beat up those cheaters in his youth just because they had cheated the one time. But he’s not here to serve any sort of self-guided justice.

But even as ambivalent as he is, Itadori’s dreamer tendencies draw him in. They’re such a major shift from his own thinking that he is always simultaneously alarmed and curious by the sensation of them, the sheer possibility of what it’s like to live in Itadori’s world. He thinks, at times, Itadori’s rose-tinted lenses are silly and irrational and all too hopeful in a way that only makes Itadori feel all the worse when his fantasies are crushed.

But in any other case, these attitudes work for Itadori and they’re what make him the person who lights up the room and the person who earns smiles from everyone he passes and they’re what make him grin with happiness even on his own laying on a warm patch of grass in the park, waiting for Megumi to arrive, just because it’s a warm patch of grass and the sun is out.

So of course, Itadori will always follow the tune of that third option filled with potential while Megumi will go for the more secure second option. And of course, it’s also simply that Itadori will always make decisions in consideration of the characters like they’re real people just as dear to his heart and as deserving of his thought and attention as any one of his real friends.

“Okay then. Let me see what happened with the dialogue you chose.”

So they continue the video, and Megumi watches as the third thought option depresses down under Itadori’s finger and the screen lights up in bright yellow screen tones.

I’ll find a way to ask Sugoiru to take me to the patisserie later :(c, Gogo thinks, But I guess now this is Sugoiru’s request.

“Neh neh, Sugoiru, since you won this time, you get the request!” Gogo cheers.

Gego turns towards him from where he’s jotting down post-mission notes. “A request? Hmm.”

He poses a finger against his chin in mock deliberation. “If you’ll accommodate anything I ask, then come with me to the new patisserie in Roppongi. From that one really famous patissier whose chocolate you like. They have Japanese-French fusion pastries and pastries. I hear their matcha-azuki eclairs are good, though I think you’d like the cakes more.

“And I’ll pay for what we get there as long as you handle transportation and sneaking around Yahaha-sensei.”

The second option blinks down.

Oh my god…Is Sugoiru asking me out? Is this going to be a date? Does he mean now?? I’m not dressed for an outing—Sugoiru isn’t either but he’s still hot…Oh my god…he’s always really, really hot…My heart is going all doki doki…(о/////о " ) *thoomp thump*

Megumi can’t take it. He’s usually not suspect to massive discomfort but the second-hand embarrassment is so terrible that he feels his face burning and he has to raise a sleeve to smother it. It’s extremely mortifying to think that the guy who raised him did all this.

“I did all my own character lines myself!” Gojo had said proudly. “Including all of the thought options and even written notes—like post-its and all that—around the game. I mean everything everything. You really should play the game, Megumi-chan. Might help you learn more about your dear old man here.”

At the very least, Gogo hasn’t reached the point of calling Sugoiru “sexy” or some other embarrassing bullcrap. All that probably requires Gogo to be more aware of his feelings than he currently is. He could never look at Gojo in the eyes again if that happened.

He’s so sexy for researching new bakery locations even though he doesn’t like sweets. Chuu~

Megumi curses inwardly. His life is a terrible amalgamation of unfortunate coincidences.

“See?” Itadori groans, “Gojo-san literally has no reason to be writing these sorts of things. They’re embarrassing!”

“In spite of me,” Megumi mutters.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.”

Megumi peeks over his sleeve, continuing to watch Gogo’s messy scrawl of thoughts.

NOOO. It can’t be a date. It simply can’t be!!!!!! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Sugoiru’s just being nice the way he always is…he must have seen the patisserie ads in my room sometime or the name on my phone or something. If he wanted an actual date he would have said something like—like the museum! THE MUSEUM SURELY—

The video ends there. They both stare at the play button in solemn silence, mulling over what the hell just happened.

“I think,” Itadori says seriously, “that maybe Gogo-san does know he’s in love. It’s that Gogo-san just doesn’t see that Gego-san’s really in love with him too.”

Megumi’s breathing hitches. Before he can reply, he hears the familiar sound of a car being locked.

“Dad’s home,” Megumi remarks, and the weight of the air vanishes into nothing as he pulls away from where he had sat so long next to Itadori, moving to stand where he can see the front door.

As if on cue, the front door slams open and shut to the familiar tone of the Fushiguro patriarch coming home after a long day of bodyguarding and whatever other clandestine activities he gets up to.

Toji passes through the living room en route to the kitchen, grunting a greeting at the two of them as he does so.

“Yuuji-kun still at that stupid game?”

“Hi, Toji-san!” Itadori chirps cheerily. “Almost halfway through the game, I wouldn’t call it stupid though, that’s just mean. They’re just kinda misguided at times.”

Toij pops back out, a cup of milk in hand, squinting at Itadori, who has switched back to his console, as he ambles his way over.

“Characters are just one thing. That game’s just stupid in itself. I’ve seen the fucking sparkles and the roses like…fucking parading around going tap-dancing on that screen. It’s stupid.”

Itadori really can’t argue with that. Not that he would though: he’s much too nice of a person to even consider ever talking back to anyone, even Toji.

It’s not like Megumi can’t argue with the facts either, but nothing’s stopping him from doing so anyways. “The fighting mechanics are more intricate than you’d think.”

Toji grunts again, watching as Itadori transitions from fight to dialogue. “The fucking clown again.”

His father is often in the habit of calling the fictionalized Gojo “the clown.” It’s a habit perhaps born from seeing Gogo’s eyes, which are so comically gigantic they each take up a quarter of his face, sparkling with a loop of a galaxy’s motions and eyelashes so tall they conflict with his fringe. And on top of all that, there’s blue eyeshadow and eyeliner so thick he actually does give off the image of a clown.

But now, thinking of that Reddit post and those characters spelling out “Fushibushi Tojinininin,” the insidious thought plagues his mind of the other clown Toji tends to yap about.

Toji is a bad conversationalist at best. He only ever talks about himself and when the conversation isn’t about him, he’ll always find a way to make it pertain to him through money or his work. Megumi’s an exception to facing this as an interlocutor just by virtue of refusing to talk about money or work. But when Toji does talk about his work, he often tells stories and he’s especially fond of talking about “the clown,” an enigmatic, stupid little caricature of a figure always serving as the bane of his work life.

Toji and Gojo had never seemed that close, only connected by the fact that Gojo had been Megumi’s caretaker up until Toji reappeared when he was fifteen, but if the game has any credence to be lent to it, they share a deeper history than either of them had ever hinted at.

It has the potential to disturb him, how father figures as blasé and uncaring and apathetic as Toji is and the other, playful and thoughtless, have actually been actively hiding a past that Megumi is undoubtedly a part of. How creepy of them.

But right now, he has the chance to confront Toji. That doesn't sound particularly thrilling, but as one must.

“You always call Gogo the clown. By any chance, is this the same clown? You know the one.”

Toji stares. “I dunno nothing about these juju characters,” he says slowly, “But that toothpaste-haired stringy flat-assed asshole with those stupid glasses and stupider eyes? He’s the clown alright.”

“But is he the same clown?”

Toji remains quiet, then turns around and walks to his bedroom.

Itadori and Megumi sit in a vaguely uneasy silence. Itadori silently switches off the console, the trigger-happy soundtrack cutting off abruptly.

Toji soon reenters the room, a single photo in hand.

The photo displays a small huddle of businessmen crowded around a champagne table, with a white-haired man as its main subject. Gripped tightly in both his hands raised is a piece of paper adorned with a doodle of a spiky-haired little guy with outrageously ginormous twinkling eyes. Toji stands off to the side, just a smudge of black on the far left.

“Oh my god, it’s Gojo-san and Gogo-san and Toji-san!” Itadori shrieks. He pokes at the photo furiously.

Toji grunts.

“So then what? Do you and Gojo-san actually have a history I don’t know about? Did you help him with making the game?” Megumi asks, tone still calm as he shushes Itadori with a pat on the shoulder.

Toji gives a single grunt again.

Grunting is the single worst habit Toji has, in Megumi’s mind. It takes a lot to get him worked up but it’s as if hearing Toji grunt even once sets off an alarm in Megumi’s mind to feel massively vexed.

“Dad, please stop with the damn grunting. You sound like a gym freak trying to show off in the middle of his workout by being as loud as he can. And it does nothing to provide any actual answers short of mere affirmation.”

Toji sneers. “You gotta appreciate your old man more; I work my ass off day and night to bring bread and butter to this table and all I get is blowback to the muscles that do the job. And sure, that’s the guy. That Gojo motherfucker you lived with.”

"Because you were too busy to take care of me and Tsumiki. He was our dad, you know."

The thing is, Toji doesn’t have any particular animosity toward Gojo, but he doesn’t particularly favor discussing the man either.

When Megumi was three, Toji had to undertake a mission that prevented him from properly taking care of Megumi himself and Tsumiki. Who else but Godfather Gojo to step in and take responsibility? And so the title of godfather shifted to father in real with Toji relinquishing his parental rights and demoting himself to legal guardian status. He’s grown up as a rare adoptee who still had a living parent he was on good (read middlingly decent) terms with and ended up living with again.

Megumi doesn’t hold it against his father at all, but the time and distance do mean that he and his father never grew close in the way most fathers and sons would.

Toji would sporadically visit Gojo’s house, maybe twice this month and then only once this year, and then not at all the next year. But he’d always show up one day or another and eventually the time came when Megumi opened the door to see him and just knew that this was it. This was Toji here to stay for good.

Megumi made the choice to move in with him.

Whether it was the right choice for him, Toji, or Gojo is still something yet to be determined, but he’s gotten to know his father somewhat better at least and he’s comfortable in the long silences in the house and Toji’s half-assed meals and greasy takeout and leftovers from impressively catered events he works at. But Gojo was the father he grew up with.

And besides, at the least even here, Itadori always visits.

“You don’t work nights anymore though, Toji-san,” Itadori says placatingly, “And your muscles are great!”

“I’m sure my dad appreciates your concern, Itadori, however unneeded. But we’re still fucking deflecting.”

“Don’t fucking swear, Megumi,” Toji booms. “But fine, your double-daddy and that tramp of a clown are one and the same. Happy? I don’t know about all this weird ‘Gogogo Sabuto’ shit. I’m just saying, if I had any role on that crack game-making team, ain’t no way I’d have allowed those moony little eyes.”

Megumi’s not particularly happy but he does have an answer now.

“So, would you care to explain,” Megumi asks slowly, “what kind of history do the two of you share? Neither of you had ever told me how the two of you got to know each other, how it is that you would have reached out to someone like Gojo-san to take care of me and Tsumiki.”

Toji stares at him and the weight of his gaze is something serious and so loaded it almost physically bears down on Megumi’s shoulders. It’s not often that Toji looks so stern and grim so Megumi grants him this silence, grants him the moment and the ability to decide to tell the story.

Toji sighs a sigh burdened with old history and long-suffered tribulations but ultimately a histrionic one. “Where to start? It’s a long story. Dear me, what a task to tell it.”

“I’d love to hear it all! You’re so good at telling stories, Toji-san,” Itadori says brightly. He’s never listened to a single one of Toji’s stories.

“Well,” Toji says slowly, “gotta live to impress.”

Megumi has to give his dad some credit. For a full two minutes, he’s been slouching against the couch, muttering under his breath, seemingly weaving together a tale of epic proportions in the depths of his brain. Itadori has been eagerly watching the entire time, the console now dimmed to glossy black.

“Okay,” Toji finally claps his hands. “Family hired me. Had to protect Blueberry Eyes from behind his back. Kid got in trouble with some cult and his boyfriend. Helped them weasel out. Lots of big bucks. Clown weaseled his way into my life. Contract ended. Left the family. Kid was still fucking around, but he had more big bucks, so when I got a major job, he seemed like the best guy for my own kiddos. Kid decided to create a game, I guess. Yuuji-kun’s game there. Then he did create it."

He goes silent, ruminating over his words. Itadori and Megumi share a moment of mutual, absurd eye contact.

“Story over,” Toji booms suddenly, clapping his hands together again. “How’d I do, scale of one to ten.”

Itadori cheers and claps for him. “Ten out of ten!”

“Flat zero,” Megumi sneers. “Why’d they hire you? A cult? A boyfriend? Was that Gego? Why’d he just apply for legal guardianship upon just knowing I literally existed?”

“I mean like, wouldn’t the cult be the Hot Gas Ball Religious Group? And the boyfriend—oh my god—yeah, it has to be Gego-san!”

“Pinky’s right, your bestie’s smarter than he looks, son,” Toji says. “I dunno about any Hot Ball groupie though. Back in my day, there was only the Star Religious. Though now that you remind me, yeah—the guy the clown was dating someone, but his name was Geto, Geto Suguru. He had these really fucking weird bangs and thought himself all high and mighty and justice this and not fair that but sometimes, but he could fight pretty well. What a lame priss.”

“Star Religious? That isn’t a cult though. Wasn’t it notorious for human trafficking before it disbanded?”

“Disbanded?” Toji shakes a finger at Megumi in a condescending little motion. “Nuh uh uh. Don’t y’all know ‘bout Star Religious? The world’s really getting run-down if our youth don’t know shit about what happened just a decade back at the very schools you kids are attending.

“I’ll let you fellas in on a little secret, top-secret even, boys. Megumi-chan, your daddy here has been hired for the past few years to hunt out them scumbags part of the group.”

“Hired? By whom, Toji-san?”

Toji sighs deeply. “None other than that clown,” he says, tongue clicking around the sharp feel of the “ow” sound.

“I knew Gojo-san had some more discreet ongoings, but the Star Plasma Group?” Megumi asks. “As bad as they are, their influence has diminished enough to where it doesn’t seem worth it to keep working on eradicating them. Much less for someone like Gojo-san to spend that much time and effort on.”

“See now, remember Toji’s Storytime Funtime just now? Gojo, being the loon he was, had more than just a little run-in with those Star Religious folks. He and his little boyfriend tried to save one of them trafficking victims, a young student girl—actually, yeah, it was mainly a trafficking group but some branches were just genuinely cultish and they thought this girlie in particular was the reincarnation of some deity or the other. Buddha Siddhartha probably or some other fancy top dog.

“Well anyways, Gojo and that Geto ended up having a very bad time of it all. The Gojo family hired me soon enough so I got on the case and arrived just when the duo were going absolutely batshit. Or more like Geto only. Gojo couldn’t fight for shit, being the sheltered priss he was. Had to save their asses.”

“So then you all escaped and saved the girl.”

“No!” Toji finger-guns at Itadori. “Huge catastrophe, things went really wrong for the poor girlie and the tweedledee and tweedledum had to deal with a massive shitshow before I arrived. Girlie died. Dramatic tensions and lots of arguing when I arrived. Geto-boy looked like he was right thinking of strangling me myself when I showed up. One of the more exciting sights of this old man’s lifetime.”

Itadori stares at Toji in abject horror and greater concern. “So Gojo-san reworked his trauma…into a sob story…serving as the plot of a video game.”

Toji scoffs. “That’s really something the clown cooked up in his crazy brain and never told anyone else, definitely not me, of course. Go ask the clown himself.”

Megumi continues to stare at the photo, at Gojo’s wide-brimmed smile and the drawing he’s so tightly clutching. “The next time I planned to meet up with Gojo-san was the second, March next month.”

Toji grunts and leaves the living room, quickly coming back with a business card in tow. “Ain’t no way y’all will want to wait that long. Go to the game company headquarters or whatever and tell their receptionist that Toji sent you.”

“Megumi-chan! It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other,” coos Gojo Satoru, apparent CEO of the multi-billion conglomerate Akutami Gaming Industries. They’re actually at the GOJO Industries, Inc headquarters in the very beating heart of Tokyo’s commercial system.

“Two whole months! Makes me cry to think of my little Megumi out there, all independent as a little university student. Takes me back to the days of my youth. And look at how much you’ve grown! I dare say your spikes are spikier than ever. I can’t believe Nobara-kun has been letting you run around without a fresh haircut. But aww, look at that same old grumpy face.”

It’s a lot, Megumi thinks, to hear this shit coming from a guy with hair forming a whacky halo around him and who’s smiling a beatifically idiotic smile, eyes spread in wide welcome in the middle of his executive office.

“Gojo-san, hi!”

“And Yuuji-kun too!” Gojo laughs and hugs Itadori tightly. “Been a while since I’ve seen you.”

Megumi’s actually not used to being in Gojo’s office; he’s only been in here a few times and those were for the initial pandemonium of switching parents and the paperwork involved.

But this is where he met Gojo for the first time, first got to know him, and where his life irrevocably changed.

Office Gojo is an interesting person to observe, the way he stands tall with lackadaisical intent, his head bowed down slightly as if simultaneously deigning to make eye contact with all those below his tyrannical height and also simply as a habit, an authentic predilection to bend down in accommodation to everyone else being shorter than him and allowing him to lend a better ear and better eyes.

It’s not just his bearing; he appears as the most perfectly impeccable gentleman of standing but minute details cast him out of balance: the slight crookedness to the knot of his tie, his hair being in disarray just past the mark for being classified as artfully messy, the largely restrained tic of exasperation edging his pearly white smile.

It’s mildly unsettling, for Megumi to see a person so separate from the guy who would sit by him at the kitchen table in an oversized cashmere Tsumiki knitted him, making unhelpful suggestions for Megumi’s homework, even though Megumi had never needed the help and Gojo had never done these sorts of problems when he was Megumi’s age and to see how same tic had plagued him in those idyllic days had then served as one of fond playfulness.

This is the guy who put the rice cooker under a wooden cupboard and sent multitudes of panicked voicemails before ultimately deciding to pull Megumi and Tsumiki out of school for the day “for an emergency” after seeing the blackened blotches on the underside of the cupboard and concluding that the construction must have been inferior and that says bad, bad things about the insulation and wiring and foundation and they have to move as quickly as they can.

This man here is the public figure of Gojo Satoru, ever-incognito and known only as the man who succeeded the notorious aristocratic Gojo family and their long-standing industries that have such dominance over the Japanese economy. This is not the Gojo Megumi knows but rather a different beast entirely.

“So,” Megumi starts awkwardly, “You’re the creator of Jujutsu Sorcery.”

“Bingo, Megumi-chan!” Gojo hurrahs. “Finally time to have a big discussion about it, eh? Aren’t you so so proud of what your father made? Going to interview me for your school’s newspaper? Remember to call me Gege-sama.”

He ambles over to his desk with an unnatural grace in his really quite lanky limbs, settling comfortably into a monstrous contraption of ergonomic leather swivel executive chair built specifically to increase productivity tremendously. It has specialized massaging and heating features—Megumi would know as he’s seen this very chair in the ads screened in the waiting room they had just been in.

Gojo’s at ease enough, exploiting the synchro-tilt mechanism to slouch far enough to create a 150-degree angle, feet propped up on his cocobolo. But it’s an ease accommodated to the press of slivers of mesh and metal against knobby bone.

He used to look more at home atop the creaking, rusted chair in the kitchen.

Itadori himself seems to sense how unsuitable the chair is for Gojo, evidenced by his shared raised eyebrow and quick motions to leave the plush armchair he had been nestled on in favor of leaning against a bookshelf.

“I don’t got time to chitchat with some boring little rich second generation,” Toji thunders, “Either we stay here for fuck knows how long and leave with nothing and the clown gets an ego boost or we drill him right here, right now.”

“Drill me?” Gojo asks innocently, head cocked to the side and hands crisscrossed against his suit lapels, “Aww, so this wasn’t a long-awaited reunion between godson and dearly beloved godfather? No interview?”

“Gojo-san—” Megumi starts. He’s always addressed him with the honorific for as long as he can remember, even if he doesn’t actually hold any true respect for Gojo. It was never quite part of their dynamic for Megumi to address Gojo as his father. It’s simply a dignifying habit he’s kept over the years just as Gojo calls him Megumi-chan even though he’s never actually thought Megumi was particularly cute or particularly endearing.

“If we could talk about the history behind the game, that would be appreciated.”

“Such a mature way of talking, Megumi-chan! They grow up too fast.” Gojo wipes away a mock tear.

A blink of a second later, his feet firm on the ground his countenance firm and unyielding his eyes alert, Gojo has suddenly reworked his entire being from where he sits.

“So, let’s talk.”

It’s the first glimpse Megumi has seen of the Gojo he grew up with. Past the facade of someone drowning in luxurious power, he still acts like a freshly authenticated adult who didn’t cope well with harsh realities.

Or perhaps he’s always been like this, with something not actually paradoxical but true to his core, simply enigmatic, with all awkward tendencies and improvised veneers born from a past Megumi has never been privy to.

But he wants to be privy to it. It’s almost a need at this point, the nagging broiling curiosity making his fingers itch and an amorphous ball of anticipation lock in his throat with the same flavor as salty tears that accompany the lump of muscle tension that comes from crying.

He needs to know. He needs to know if this has anything to do with the nights when Gojo shushed him and Tsumiki off to sleep at Shoko’s without so much as an hour’s notice or the mornings when Gojo would remain locked in his bedroom and Tsumiki would be the one preparing breakfast and triple-checking their backpacks.

But as much as he wants to know, he’s intimidated, though not afraid, to know the why’s and give tangible sight and sound to what has brought him here today. He’s comfortable as he is now, with the dynamics and relationships he’s been sustaining, and anything other than that—that things could change just as irrevocably as they did when he was six and listening to Gojo tell him that his dad was a bit of a creep that all his relatives could go burn and hell and now he’s gonna go home with the coolest guy alive—could upset the contentedness he has now.

“Gojo-san, so we were really hoping you could talk about your experiences with the Star Religious Group—if that’s okay? And about Gego—well, Geto-san too.”

This appears to be the precise subject to further destabilize Gojo toward his true self if the fresh apprehension clouding his features is anything to take seriously.

“We don’t mean to sound invasive,” Megumi sighed, “but Itadori has been playing your game and got introduced to the romance route with…Geto-san. He’s been seeing a lot about your relationship and we’re all kind of confused as to why you’d depict it the way you did when you apparently broke things off pretty badly.”

Gojo sits, mouth pressed into a thin, hard line, clasped hands and eyelashes shielding a piercing gaze.

“Suguru…tch, that guy keeps coming back to haunt me. Never say an ex will leave your life forever. We ended things badly, sure. But no hard feelings persisted and everything’s been fully wrapped up. Done and dusted. Ancient history left to rust.”

“Well, clearly it’s still on your mind at least, if you made a video game with the most detailed romance option literally being between your fictional projection and your ex,” Megumi says with all the enthusiasm of someone who simply knows they state pure, unadulterated facts.

“Face it, clown,” Toji rumbles in support, “You aren’t over your ex at all. I still catch your ass making fucking goo-goo eyes when you’re sitting all sorry and pitiful in that KFC at two in the morning. You never even get any fucking grub. Ruining a good chicken place just because you had your shitty breakup there. I have to pay the cashier boy extra because he knows I’m associated with you. Please.

“You’re gonna have to deal with us fixing you back up with lover boy, courtesy of Yuuji-boy here.”

“Ok, fine, fine! I concede,” Gojo says amicably, arms raised in concession, “I’ll cooperate with your attempts at getting me and Suguru back together, however futile! Ask and I will answer. Interrogation start!”

An hour later finds them well-adjusted to their new relocation to the office’s lounge space. But not much other than that.

Itadori and Toji had taken to the role of interrogators with comedic enthusiasm, both sitting opposite Gojo with a notepad and pen accompanying Itadori’s hand and a coffee cup by Toji’s for him to brandish threateningly as the situation calls for. Megumi sits separately perched on top of an armchair, laptop tucked firmly in his hands to record their “findings.”

As it stands, Gojo has given them no new information, completely useless information. He speaks with impassioned tones elevating and hushing his pitch and grandiloquent gestures recreating his accounts but typed out plain and simple, they’re only retellings of everything just by playing the game. Where Toji is very good at making conversation somehow in someway pertain to himself, Gojo is very, very good at steering conversations away from his person if that is what he wants.

To top it all, Gojo can reroute his fellow conversationalists to great effect.

“Nanamin actually helped you vandalize the administration office?” Itadori gasps, notepad clutched to his chest.

“It’s the full truth!” Gojo grins. “Nanamin might tell you that I dragged him into it but aiya no, he was just as complicit in the crime.”

Megumi already knew the questioning was doomed from the start though when he saw the infuriatingly penetrative light in Gojo’s eyes when he had mockingly raised his hands in the hair and ducked his head down in false concession. He never intended to make this a fair investigation; this is no back-and-forth for him, only a fleeting discussion occupying his Wednesday afternoon.

It’s long due for Megumi to interrupt. “The stories are nice and all, but this is as far from learning more about you and Geto-san as we can get.”

Gojo’s hands paused, alert gaze swiveling toward Megumi. “Well, if you insist, Megumi, we—”

“No way you didn’t coerce the banana man into doing that,” Toji bellows, setting the conversation back on the path of derailment. Fuck him really.

“Kid was always kinda aloof and grumpy and always spoke shit about your old man Gakugaranji but he was too much of a douchebag to follow along with your stupid little graffiti escapades.”

Gojo’s smile wavers for just a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for Megumi to monopolize.

“Did something bad happen back then? Perhaps related to the Star Religious Group?”

Gojo sits stoically, a multitude of indiscernible thoughts shouting across his face one after another.

Finally, he sighs. “I did promise to tell the truth, yeah? Well, Nanami used to have a close friend Haibara Yuu, and well—hmm. Haibara was at one of the protests at the time that de-escalated into violence. A blank was fired at him but in close enough vicinity that he received severe brain damage and fell into a coma. Nanamin was more prone to emotion back then, teenagers you know. It upset him a lot. Of course it would have.”

The mood instantly changes. Itadori looks stricken. Even Toji looks shocked, and Megumi knows he’s killed at least one person on the job. The atmosphere has changed so suddenly and with such magnitude it’s as if there’s was a tension set so viscous that Megumi thinks he could raise his hands for a mere second and bring it back down with fingers entangled in harsh fibers of unease and taut friction.

“If…if it’s okay to ask, Gojo-san, just what exactly happened?” Itadori asks.

“And not to put on a lot of pressure,” Megumi interrupts, “but Gojo-san, I’m going to ask if you can be honest with us this time. Not completely honest, but at least to a degree. The same for vulnerability.”

Gojo turns his head toward the window, features hidden. He nods, and then starts reciting with practiced listlessness anyways. Well, Megumi tried.

“There was a student strike against the administration—higher-ups we liked to call them, as you’d know from the game. Particularly because of revealed involvement with the Star Religious Group. It was huge when it happened. Alumni came in support, the protests were on the news, students were landing interviews on major news channels and being featured in national newspapers.

“I was part of the effort too, of course, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anything linking me to the events then unless you talked to a select few. Courtesy of my family and influences.

“Haibara, he was really active about it all, very passionate. Took to the demonstrations with a lot of heart and determination. One of the protests went wrong and the higher-ups sent out their paramilitary troops; wrong place wrong time. Nanami was right next to him.”

He pauses for a moment to catch his breath.

“Suguru, he was very affected by what happened to Haibara. We all were, but Suguru had been so passionate about the protests, so adamant in his ethics and that they’d prevail. Haibara being reduced to a vegetative state like that—that shook him to his core, made him feel that everything was pointless.”

Gojo's grimace is still something Megumi can catch notice of from where his head hangs down low, fingers tapping on his knee as his tongue clicks against the back of his teeth. Unpleasant agony haunts his figure. It’s disconcerting for Megumi, for Itadori, for Toji—all of them—to simply exist in the same space as Gojo right now, much less listen to clearly private and painful reminiscings. This is the guy who raised him, after all.

But watching the off-tune beat of Gojo’s fingers, he feels that this is the first time in a long time Gojo has spoken with such raw, deep honesty about his past. The first time ever, even. Or the first time to anyone with sentiment wracking his records.

Itadori’s face especially radiates horror and empathy. Megumi would suppose as much.

“But Haibara-san’s okay now, right? Nanami-san talks about him sometimes…but he’s never mentioned any of this.”

“Yeah, he’s fine alright. Comas are usually just a few weeks long but Haibara was in a vegetative state. Took a few years but he woke up then and went through rehab and physical therapy—he pretty much restored all of his damaged brain functions miraculously enough—and finished up his degree. He’s abroad now, working in impoverished and undeveloped areas of Asia to educate young children and prevent trafficking, as is oft to happen in those places.

They sit there, silent for a moment.

“But you know,” Gojo starts, and then suddenly halts, mouth clamping tight. And there’s the honesty, there’s the vulnerability. It’s Gojo’s most self-driven, conscious effort so far in the conversation to voice something new. He struggles against the words as if part of him seeks for them to remain unvoiced for the rest of time but seems as if Gojo too desires to have his past aired out, and maybe truly laid to rest after so many years.

“You know, no one really noticed how bad it was then. Hindsight and all changed things now. It felt like everything was at least some modicum of okayness in the air after things had quieted down from the administration’s side of things. Most of us thought it’d be okay. But then Suguru exploded. Lashed out viciously at everyone, and then left.

“Riko-chan’s death, Haibara’s being shot, that the higher-ups' promises of change and negotiations were probably just falsehoods those all piled up to a point that Suguru couldn’t handle anymore. People like that rat bastard Naoya made it so that things wouldn’t change, just that they seemed like they would. So he just vanished. Never contacted any of us again, never appeared in the public eye again.”

Gojo leans back, puffs of breath lifting up fluffy bangs.

He suddenly rockets forward, his dilapidated figure surging back into confidence and his smile back in place. “But! Gotta let bygones be bygones, it’s been many years since then.”

None of them are fooled by the show of composure. Especially with the minute traces of a tear still present on Gojo’s face, likely hurriedly wiped away when he had “pulled himself together.”

Toji stares at him flatly. “Stop fucking pretending for once, fuckface.”

Gojo blinks at him dully.

“It’s just, it’s just that!” Gojo suddenly wails, “SUGURU WAS EVERYTHING TO ME, WE WERE EVERYTHING TOGETHER! We were so strong together, utterly unstoppable. The ultimate power couple.”

The sudden rise in volume and extreme bathos—say little of the almost exaggeratedly theatric undertone to Gojo’s wailing—causes Itadori to yelp and jump back, lurching his chair dangerously back to where Megumi has to lean forward and gently push it back to its usual position.

Toji gawps, flabbergasted.

It’s a disturbing break switch back to Gojo Satoru, the silly little rich manchild from Gojo Satoru, the man of hidden intents and calculations. Though this version of Gojo doesn’t seem to entirely conform to the manchild form either.

“But noooooo. Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru were never meant to last.”

He sniffles. “I thought of the game on a whim of sorts, if you must know. More of a ‘Hey! This could have been us but you had to end things off’ kind of thing but it’s as stupid as it sounds.

“Only really realized how stupid a bit too late though. A bit too much of clinging to the past. By that time I was too committed to the project and decided what the hell, why not continue.”

He’s faking. There’s definite truth to a lot of what Gojo’s been saying, but it’s dramatized, it’s full of histrionics; it’s made into a comedy to cover up the tragedy.

“How did Geto-san feel it? About seeing your guys’ relationship so popularized in the game?” Itadori asks.

Gojo scoffs. “Suguru? What did he feel? Don’t be mistaken, the guy knows nothing. Remember how he vanished from the public? Well, he literally cut off all ties between him and the city and the rest of society. Moved out to the countryside. Or maybe he does visit sometimes, I wouldn’t know. He probably doesn’t even have social media, much less check the latest popular game, Gojo-branded or not. I don't talk to him anymore.”

“Gojo-san,” Itadori says, concerned. “We’re all really sorry about everything that’s happened—”

A lazy wave of the hand. “No need for sorries anymore. As I’ve said, it’s all in the past.”

Oh god, Megumi’s pissed off now.

“You heard what my dad said," Megumi grinds out. "You’re clearly not over this? The way you talk, I don’t think you’ll ever get over what happened.”

As he speaks, Megumi gets up and moves to instead perch himself behind Itadori’s chair from where he can make eye contact with Gojo at a higher vantage point. It’s another habit he’s garnered from years of arguing with Gojo from when he grew tall enough to counteract Gojo’s tendencies of looming his six feet plus length of a lanky frame over Megumi’s stature.

Megumi turns down his head for just a second to make eye contact with Itadori, whose own head is perched back to allow his gaze to rest upon Megumi’s visage.

Itadori grins softly and gives a slight nod of encouragement.

“It’s okay for you to not have moved on, Gojo-san. We’re all family here in some way or another and in some way, we’re the best people to help you move on now. So, to continue what Itadori was getting at, let us help you. Let us find out what happened to Geto-san, and help you find some closure.”

Gojo sits silent, his figure turned again towards the window in heavy contemplation. He’s not fully facing the window this time, however. They can catch a glimpse of his side profile from where they sit; his eyes are blank but the edge of his mouth is curved up in the slightest of gentle smiles.

The silence stretches as the longest absence of sound yet, hypersensitive and fraught with ringing in the ears.

“Alright,” Gojo says, finally. “I’ll leave you three to try fixing things up, but I have a few conditions.”

He leans forward, a single finger raised in count. “One: I’ll only tolerate one attempt. For me, for Suguru, for everyone, we’ve all made our efforts—however unsuccessful my own were—to leave this all behind and if things go sour again no one wants to go through that again.”

A peace sign. “Two: If Suguru says no from the start, let it be.”

Symmetrical. “Three and last—and this is for Megumi’s ears only: Don’t let this hang over you if things don’t work out. I know you Megumi-chan, a little benefit of having raised you. This isn’t your burden to carry despite what you may have seen over the years and how these things might have affected you. Don’t be an adult for once, yeah? It’s okay if your efforts come to naught. We’ll still be just fine. I’ll be just fine, and you will too.”

Megumi’s shoulders relax at the statement. It’s awkwardly worded in parts and indirect in others, but it takes hold of all of the thoughts that had been encumbering him from the moment he walked in here and dispersed them out into the wide expanse of the office.

“All in agreeance?”

Megumi and Itadori make eye contact again; they both understand.

“We’re in, Gojo-san.”

r/JujutsuSorceryGGG
by geguwu ⋅ 2 months ago

The Truth Behind Gege Akutami’s Beef with Zenin Naoya

Since recent discoveries of the alternate routes, it’s also been uncovered that by special interactions you can meet characters entirely separate from the main storyline. One of them being Naoya, who is actually well-known in Japan as the heir to the Zenin clan, an offshoot of the Japanese Imperial Family. Not much is actually known about who he really is or what he does though. But now!! people do because of JSGGG lmao

In-game Naoya is a true horror. Gege commented on him in a recent press release: “He [Zenin Naoya] is meant to be seen as unlikeable to and through…we packed him with everything from vanity and condescension to misogyny and conservatism. Our creative team had a lot of fun with this! This all derives, of course, from the actual Zenin Naoya who we all at Akutami Gaming Industries see as a corrupt figure in Japanese society. We know that there are ongoing discussions of libel (defamation) regarding Zenin-san, but it is our belief our depictions are accurate, even if they may damage Zenin-san’s reputation. Naturally, this means we did not attempt to exaggerate his personality as it is rendered to mimic the actual Zenin Naoya; we hope that players will recognize the realism of his character.”

Gege’s extreme passive-aggressiveness aside, Naoya has had a few bad brushes in public interactions and media appearances.

Not many will recall but his image was distinctly endangered during the scandals at the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) in 2006 where his self-operated branch of the Zenin family industries was rumored to have been complicit in the offenses and even acted as an accomplice to the primary offenders. The investigations sparked then into the Zenin clan affairs were ongoing up until the attack at UTokyo. Naoya was charged shortly after for conspiracy to murder and as an accomplice in arson so game regardless, his public image has definitely been destroyed. I personally don’t think that the Zenin family has any chance of defending Naoya, especially with the current controversies they’re facing.

Currently, it seems as if UTokyo undergraduate Zenin Maki will be taking charge of the family, their company, and their assets after the family affairs will settle down as the only remaining family member without ties to the illicit ongoings behind the scenes, other than her younger twin Mai.

It’s been a month since they visited the Akutami Gaming Industries headquarters.

Megumi hasn’t visited Gojo since then, not even for the dinner they had scheduled for the second of the month. None of them have save Gojo’s brief and unsolicited appearance at one of Itadori’s track meets where he promptly handed him a business card and a promise to meet again before running off laughing to where his valet stands.

The card: Ieri Shoko’s details. Izumi Shogo’s real-life counterpart; the one and only true friend of Gojo’s Megumi has ever seen over the years. Megumi already has her contact information, of course, but this seems to be Gojo’s way of cluing them into how to reach Geto.

They’ve been communicating with her in an odd mashup of Megumi directly talking with her and relayed messages from Tsumiki.

Tsumiki was present at that first meeting with Gojo and had lived in their little household for three years, up until her mother got remarried and asked for Tsumiki to become a part of her life again. Megumi hadn’t liked the thought of Tsumiki forgiving her absentee mother so easily, but Tsumiki had always been merciful enough to always consider second chances, and so a second chance she granted to her mother.

And so she had moved to Kyoto, leaving behind Megumi to start third-grade alone and Gojo to get his shit together on those darker days. Since Tsumiki would no longer be there to pick up the decaying lines of his parenting.

“I’m really sorry, Megumi,” Tsumiki murmured into the phone, “Okaasan has really changed herself. I wouldn’t go with her if I didn’t see it within her. You’ll be fine with Gojo-san, and Toji-san coming to visit. I do feel bad about it though, you know I do. I’ll visit, things will be okay, Megumi. I’m sorry. You know I am”

And he does know, Megumi does. It was just then that they had just started to feel tendrils of normalcy in their lives after years of disruption and unpredictability with Toji and then the adjustment period to living under the care of someone just as inexperienced, and foolhardy as Toji had been, but all the worse for the age difference. Just twenty years old, back then.

The very age that he would have been when everything in Gojo’s own life went to pieces, as Megumi now knows.

And now Tsumiki, upon learning of the whole affair, had insisted on doing her part from where she is in Kyoto, six hours away.

It’s been slow; Shoko is quite busy with her work. But she’s sent word that she’s arranged for Geto to come to the city next month.

In the interim, the wait is being met with schoolwork and of course, JJSGGG.

Itadori hadn’t been playing the game for a while. He’s been quieter lately, tenser and more subdued with the newfound knowledge from that Friday in the office. But Megumi knows him well enough to know it’s a temporal quietness and one that Itadori will get over in his own way without needing any help. So he’s left him alone to think and cogitate.

Though if anything, Megumi stepped back from Itadori’s situation as much as he had because of Kugisaki’s presence.

The three of them met when they both came to tryouts for the high school’s jujutsu team: Itadori in curiosity for the martial art, Megumi at Maki’s insistence, and Kugisaki in prideful confidence that she could whoop ass and assert her status as a strong jujutsu fighter.

Unfortunately, Kugisaki was cast against Itadori who—already being freakishly strong—could keep up with her attacks with great speed and the horrible ability to make casual chit-chat.

Kugisaki was outraged by him. That didn't stop them from instantly becoming friends and by default, Megumi became her friend as well.

Now that they’re in university, Megumi is vice-captain to Maki while Kugisaki leads her self-created baritsu division in an attempt to integrate the physical weapons she so dearly loves to wield.

Itadori remains dedicated to track and field, but that doesn’t stop him from participating in jujutsu training and hanging out in the dojo during the jujutsu team’s time slot. He’s always been the one who goes out of his way to make time for each and every one of his friends.

And if there’s anything Kugisaki enjoys besides clothes, good food, and fighting, it’s video games (albeit they’re usually fighting ones). So it was always obvious that Kugisaki would be the one to drag Itadori out of his slump after having spent the past few months as his designated gaming partner.

“Okay, so let me get this straight: you finally decided to talk to Gojo-sensei about how he made himself the protagonist of his game and he’s actually been exploiting the epic romance of him and his ex for millions in profit, and he’s still pining after his ex?”

“Sounds about right. Though it’s a bit mean to call it exploitation, I think Gojo-san’s only pining, he’s rich enough to not care about how much he’s making now.”

Kugisaki grinds her teeth from where she sits, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose tight.

They’re all huddled up in the corner of the dojo. It’s 5 PM on a Thursday after school and there’s the familiar scent of the citrusy cleaner used by the janitors and the taekwondo team is clearing out for the weightlifting team’s session. Kugisaki has her usual bestickered water bottle and training bag and Itadori has his sneakers in a mesh bag and Megumi is simply there. Everything’s typical of the afternoons they always spent together in this specific corner of the dojo where the floor is most warm in the glow of the afternoon rays.

“You know,” Kugisaki sighs, “it’s kind of weird to hear about Gojo-sensei being in such a mess like this. I mean like, he was the guy who taught me hand-to-hand combat in the first place, before Maki-senpai.

“It’s just—I dunno, doesn’t it feel like of weird to see him so…devastated like this?”

Devastated is an interesting way to put it, Megumi thinks. It implies that he’s been completely and utterly destroyed by something, ruined by it, ransacked, and left to crumble away in his bereavement. And if there’s anything that Geto Suguru seems to be to Gojo Satoru, it’s a slipshod mix of both hurt and happiness.

Or it’s the devastation of grief for someone still living, how Gojo used to linger in grocery shop aisles and fumble ramen packets and fresh fruits, overturning them again and again in his hands with a distant look in his eyes going beyond the marked-down prices signs and the freezers and the quivering and flickering lights to something Megumi and Tsumiki could never see for themselves. Not when they were just tall enough to grip the handle of the cart and push it alongside Gojo and by the time they were old enough to go grocery shopping on their own, those times were mostly forgotten.

So well, yes: devastated is a good way to put it but it’s hard to give voice to how so. “This is just Gojo-san’s way of thinking, probably, Kugisaki. I don’t think he ever expected to meet Geto-san again and he’s not the sort of person to try to get over grief just by being sad. You know how silly that game is.”

“Oh my god, oh my god. You’re right.” Kugisaki groans, head in hands. “You’re so fucking right. What a massive emotionally inept idiot.”

“But Gojo-san—”

“Don’t think you can defend him by saying he’s just grieving again,” Kugisaki booms, hand thrust out accusingly. Her hand is clenched so tightly around her grip strengthener that Megumi can see the veins bulging out in sharp relief.

“Think of him more objectively. Right now he’s not your godfather, he’s not my former teacher, and he’s not the guy who gives you candy and cool little sports tips. “Right now, he’s a filthy rich man in the single most powerful position I can think of besides Prime Minister and he’s still hung up over an ex from his college days.

“I literally don’t care if he thought the guy was the love of his life—or maybe he actually was, who knows—but he’s letting the past destroy him. He’s kind of a mean guy and definitely an asshole, but he doesn’t deserve to get dragged by some ex.”

Itadori stares at her. “You’re actually pretty insightful about all this, Kugisaki.”

Kugisaki scoffs and looks off to the side. “Wouldn’t anyone say the same thing?”

Itadori is right though. Kugisaki’s personality is a lot like Itadori's in some ways and like Gojo’s in others: she’s obnoxious and pridefully confident, her manners can be abrasive and when people call her headstrong they practically spit the word out, she’s energetic and fun-loving and very adamant in her opinions to the point where she’s sneered at. Facetious was what Megumi thought she was at first, before everything.

She’s the kind of person who at one moment could say something mature, and then the next will be off squealing and whining about having missed a sale. That’s just Kugisaki.

But both Megumi and Itadori, on their own and as a group, have borne witness to Kugisaki’s other side. Those times when Itadori would sit so miserably and look so small all curled up on the bench in the hospital waiting room and Kugisaki would be kneeling by the bench, dress wrinkling around and under her knees but she’d be clasping Itadori’s hand in her own so gently and lightly it was as if she was just as vulnerable at the moment as Itadori was.

And then she’d murmur soft words Megumi had never been—and never will be—privy to before leaving the hallway and turning the corner to where Megumi himself stood, and she would hug him in a deep, full hug even if the lines of their friendship had never—and never would—include the same easy intimacy she and Itadori shared. But Megumi would always wrap his arms around her in turn and blink back tears from the overwhelming feeling of comfort.

Kugisaki turns back to them. “And that’s my biggest concern about all this, anyways. I’m concerned about you guys.”

Another thing: Kugisaki has always reserved her care and love for those most precious to her. Between Gojo and them, it’d always be them.

“Concerned about us?” Itadori asks, alarmed.

“Yes, Itadori. None other than you two. I know you two can figure this out on your own pretty much, and Gojo-san isn’t really insisting on all this, but isn’t it a lot for you guys to be doing this? Gojo-san is your dad, after all, Megumi.”

“Kugisaki, I think that everything will be just fine,” Megumi says.

“You say that, but I know the way you think, Fushiguro. You think that as long as you give your ‘best effort’ and give it a go, even if it all goes to shambles it’s fine as long as you’re the one in shambles and not the other person. You’ve have to—”

“Kugisaki,” Megumi breaks in, “again, I appreciate everything you’re saying. But—”

“But nothing. Fushiguro, you’ve got to listen to this, just this one bit, okay? You’ve got to be selfish. Don’t allow other people’s trials to become your own. If you’re going to help out Gojo-sensei with this, help him because you want to see your dad happy and not because you want to help the Fushiguro from five years ago.”

Megumi breathes in and exhales. He wants to say more, but he owes it to her to listen to her.

And maybe she’s right. As much as Megumi doesn’t want to admit it.

“Thank you, Kugisaki,” he says. He can feel a smile rising, unbidden but fully in reciprocation to the forceful protectiveness she’s shown.

“I’ll keep that all in mind—me and Itadori both.”

Itadori sits, silent in contemplation.

“What are your thoughts on what will happen going forward, Kugisaki? Don’t pull back punches,” He says suddenly and seriously.

Kugisaki stares at him. “Honestly? Just a month’s worth of notice, they’ll meet, and they’re expected to pour out their hearts to each and reconcile and reach their happily ever after? If life was that great then they’d never have ended up like this in the first place.”

“...You’re right,” Itadori says and the hard reluctance of the admission is so stressed and edged with frustration that both Megumi and Kugisaki pause even the slightest of their natural fidgeting.

Itadori scratches at the base of his undercut in that nervous habit he’s prone to when thinking about something agitating.

“Gojo-san—I really respect him a lot but like, his and Geto-san’s relationship feels kind of really horrifying, you know? What happened to them sounds really, really tragic, and I really want to see the two of them happily back together as Gojo-san has always wanted, but there’s an awful potential of them not reconciling and just making each other live the rest of their lives in misery.

“Or at least Gojo-san. I don’t know anything about Geto-san but if Gojo-san loved him that much before, I’d think he deserves to live in peace.”

It isn’t within him to repair those two’s relationship. With Kugisaki’s advice, he can acknowledge that much at least. And certainly not when it’s such a volatile matter, not when such high risks stand of a grand fallout, and then where does that leave him? Gojo and Geto would be a mess in their own right, but Megumi would have to forever separate himself from the issue knowing he violated both of their dignities and rights to self-resolution.

He doesn’t think he can ever sit through a dinner with Gojo again and make casual conversation about what’s happened over the past few weeks: how the school has been what are the latest gripes Gojo’s faced from his counsel who did Itadori just face up against in his most recent competition and—

It’s all going to be reduced to inane droning with the feeling that Megumi’s failed in helping Gojo relive a life where his loneliness is only cured in the presence of his two children who can only meet with him every other month and a doctor who can only spare a night once a blue moon now that she’s dean of the hospital.

Because as much as he sees the truth ringing in Kugisaki’s words, as much as he wants to take them within his heart and have them influence his every action and keep him and Itadori safe from hurt, he simply can’t leave Gojo to pretend as if this is just a simple problem that won’t have life-changing effects on him.

“But,” Itadori continues, “I don’t think I can just leave Gojo-san to mourn his teenage love alone, or Geto-san to isolate himself in the countryside.”

Megumi whips his head towards Itadori.

“I’ve—we’ve—been roped into this, like it or not—we’ve all been—and now it’s our responsibility to see some closure for everyone. We’re the only people who can make anything really happen so I’m going to do what I can do to help both of them realize some proper closure.
At least I won’t have any regrets when all’s said and done. Right, Fushiguro?”

Megumi blinks hard at Itadori from where he’s sitting, his eyes no longer meeting his knees but instead tilted up to meet Megumi’s. He lowers his head in turn to match Itadori’s gaze and his small, calm smile.

The thought strikes him in a hurried, fleeting way that Itadori has said this all as if in response to his own line of thinking as if saying he can hear Megumi’s struggle and sees how hard it is and acknowledges it and is saying that it’s okay, it’s fine for them to put enough of themselves into this past the point of being shielded. That it’s fine for them to get hurt and leave this grieving in their own right because Gojo and the rest might grieve all the less for it, and in the end, wouldn’t that make them all suffer less in the long run?

It’s an odd mixture of selfishness and commitment. And it’s enough for Megumi.

And it’s enough for Itadori too. He can see it in this moment of eye contact, how it all brings him back to that one moment in Gojo’s office where it was just him and Itadori exchanging gazes from up above to down below and knowing their thoughts were perfectly and exquisitely aligned in that moment of full, reciprocal understanding and silently communicated replies.

Megumi puffs out an amused breath, and this time, he’s the one to give a proud, soft smile and nod of encouragement to Itadori.

“Itadori’s right. We won’t be there to walk them step-by-step toward reconciliation. But we’re not there to just do step one and just relinquish matters to play out on their own.”

“So then what?”

“We’ll simply do our parts as they are. Keep them from acting too stupidly, I guess you could say. Neither I nor Itadori can do anything that leads to this outcome or the other and say it was simply resulting from our actions, you get what I mean? So for me at least, I’ll find solace enough by helping Gojo by how my conscience dictates my decisions, just as Itadori will act by his values to have no regrets.”

Kugisaki stares at the two of them, solemn and grave. “So then what, the two of you will simply follow your hearts?”

“Sure, you could call it that. Would you rather our brains?”

She purses her lips.

“Don’t hurt yourselves in the process, you hear? I’ll keep repeating it as long as I have to."

Megumi watches as she sighs and shrugs, eyes closed. “That’s all I have left to say on the matter.”

Hot Gas Ball Mission: Gogo Saburo vs. Fushibushi Tojinininin Full Fight (+Gego Sugoiru) - Narrative Script
Posted 3 months ago #JSGGG #GegeAkutami

“Come on! Rikuto-chan!” Gogo waves a beckoning hand at the young girl.

“We’re almost at the safe house,” Gego supplements, “You and Kuroki can lie low there for a while until it’s completely risk-free for you to be in the outside world.”

The torii gates are gleaming bright, the maple trees are in their fullest majesty with the same vibrantly red hues as the gates themselves.

Suddenly an abnormally buff, hulking figure of a man comes bursting out onto the cobbled road. “NOW WAIT JUST ONE MOMENT, TIS I! TOJININININ, HERE TO STOP YOU SAD EXCUSES OF JUJUTSU SOLDIERS!”

The fog that mysteriously appeared suddenly clears out to reveal the new assailant in full detail. He’s everything Gogo is not: he’s swole and brawny and absolutely shredded whereas Gogo is a mere stick of a person, mesomorphic at best. He’s got long, flowing, absolutely gorgeous locks of straight, pure black hair that creates a severe dichotomy with Gogo’s cotton candy blue tinted puffs of spikes. His clothes are suspiciously well-fitted to his physique and even avant-garde in how they gleam and move like silk despite obviously being of a coarser material, his pants are of gorgeous velvet; Gogo’s wide jacket seems cheap in comparison, his slim pants look like yoga leggings.

Perhaps this is the real protagonist????

Gogo scoffs. “Now now big man, how dare you charge in here and pretend that you can defeat me and Gego?? We’re the strongest!”

Gego’s eyes flare wide open. “Saburo, wait, this guy might be stronger than anyone we’ve faced before—”

“THE SUN SETS BEFORE OUR VERY EYES…” Tojinininin points up dramatically at the sky. “It is time! for your lives to end. I, Tojinininin, shall help you transcend humanity and leave this earth.”

Tch, how can a guy like this ever dream of being competition to me! Gogo Saburo!!

“Get behind me! Rikuto-chan!” Gogo shouts, throwing out an arm majestically.

“This…this blackguard! of a person is merely here to scare you. Yes, SCARE you. Do not show fear in the face of such scumbaggery. Your knights in shining armor: Sir Gogo and Sir Gego are here to save the day!”

“Wa ha ha ha ha ha,” Toji sniggers. “You think you can BEST me? You little worm? I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY. BWA HA HA. BWA HA—”

Gego claps his hands together and a curse pops out, opening its mouth wide enough for a human person to fit in. “Get in! Rikuto-chan, you’ll be safe in there during the fight.”

Rikuto wishes them luck and clambers in, disappearing as the curse itself dissappears, Gego continuing to clap his hands together.

“Alright then, Saburo. Seems like you’ve made up your mind. Let’s finish this guy off before lunchtime.”

“NOOOOOO,” Tojinininin roars, falling hard onto a single knee. “H-How? H-How?!?!?! How could insolent little rats of human beings like you…beat me! I, Tojinininin! Am I not the epitome of biological perfection? AM I NOT A GOD INCARNATE?”

Gego swaggers over and casually picks up one of the fallen weapons, holding a single staff section and wildly waving the other two about. He sniggers. “Nah, you’re just some dude.”

Tojinininin howls again, banging his head and fist against the ground hard enough to crack it. “NOOOO THIS SIMPLY CANNOT BE. TOJININININ REFUSES TO ACCEPT IT. I—”

“Can it man,” Gogo tut-tuts, “You’ve jujutsu’d your last kaisen.”

He points a finger and with a smack of his lips, goes “Pi-chuu!!~” and a zap of cursed energy zooms towards Tojinininin, effectively ending his life and his monologuing.

Gojo kicks away Tojinininin’s spear. “Looks like a weak weapon, better trash it.”

He sighs contentedly. “Well! All in a day’s work. Where’s Rikuto-chan?”

Gego starts clapping his hands again and in a matter of seconds, Rikuto is standing on solid ground once more.

“Eh?? Wow, you guys beat him that quickly? I’m kinda impressed…”

She gasps. “Oh no! Gego-san! You’re injured.”

Gego winces. “It’s fine. All that wanker did was stomp on my head a couple of times and smashed his weapon against my head and slashed my chest a bit. Nothing too special.”

“Dude…do you have a concussion?” Gogo stares.

“What hurts more is that Rainbow Dragon is gone! Ohhhh she was so precious to me, we had a lot of good missions together. What a long run the two of us shared.”

Gego pouts. Tears are glistening in his beautiful violet eyes.

HOW DARE THAT PIECE OF CHICKENS***T MAKE MY PRECIOUS SUGOIRU THIS SAD??!?! (╬ʘ益ʘ╬) He’d pay so dearly if he wasn’t…uh…dead already.

Gogo kicks the body for good measure. “Aiyo…no curse will ever, ever replace Rainbow-chan, Sugoiru. She’ll live on in all of our hearts.”

But I still need to cheer up Sugoiru somehow! How can I make him feel better…

Yes, a date! I can ask him out on a date. Shogo-kun said that Sugoiru definitely finds my huge wobbly eyes and cringefail loser boy personality attractive. I stand a chance!!!! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

“Sugoiru,” Gogo says in a trembling, hoarse voice. His lips feel chapped and dry from apprehension. “Do you…guh…uh…hhhh…want to go on a date?” Well, he’s said it now at least.

Rikuto gapes at him.

Gego stares, wide-eyed.

Oh no. Holy crap. F*** f*** f*** f***. F*** everything. Holy s*** that was a big big big mistake. Sugu definitely thinks I’m a loser for real. Oh my god, how can I fix this??

Gogo gives off a high-pitched, nervous laugh. “I MEAN! I mean like—I know we’re all covered in blood at stuff and uh, the mood’s bad but we can all have a fun little outing to make us all feel better! We can even send Rainbow-chan off! She wouldn’t want us to mourn her so sadly, wouldn’t she??”

The other two are silent for a long while.

“You’re right, Saburo,” Gego says awkwardly, slowly. “Let’s go have a nice friendly totally-not-a-date outing, all of us together.”

Gogo nervously chortles again and skips off, arm-in-arm with Sugoiru, Rikuto trailing behind as she sighs in exasperation.

“Those two really will never be able to get together on their own…”

“So y'all have made up your minds to get even deeper in all this shit.”

“Yes sir,” Itadori says promptly, a bit uptight and a bit uncomfortable.

“At ease, Yuuji-boy, no need for politeness here.”

Toji stares at the two of them squished together on the dilapidated loveseat from where sits slouched on the couch, arm slung over the back. Tofu pads across the carpet and leaps up to snuggle next to Toji with a boof. Kombu remains by the two of them, where his thumping tail continues to whack Itadori’s feet.

“You boys do realize,” Toji drawls, “that getting mixed up in any affair with that clown won’t be sunshine and giggles. It’s not like pitching advice to Daddy Gojo about his shitty coworkers like when you were little, Megumi-chan.”

“We’re aware.”

Toji exhales heavily, head bent back forward towards the ceiling to where Megumi can only see as high as the tip of his nose.

“Don’t look so constipated, Megumi. You’re overthinking things”

He merely continues to watch Toji. Kombu’s tail starts hitting his feet.

“Alrighty then boys. Look, if you’re really set on getting into this, I’ll be there to help you guys. Limited one-time opportunity to have Toji the Magnificent at beck and call. Don’t waste it.”

Megumi and Itadori turn to face each other, meeting each other’s gazes for a few long moments before they give mutual nods of confirmation.

“Thank you, Toji-san! I’ll talk with Nanamin first. I know that he and Gojo went to school together and with everything Gojo-san has said, maybe there were more than just classes…but I haven’t talked to him about it yet. I will now though.”

“Attaboy, Yuuji-kun.” Toji swings himself up from the couch, patting himself down. Tofu whines and readjusts to the shifted weight of the couch.

“Megumi, see Yuuji out and get back in quick. Got some things to tell you one-on-one alone.”

“So, dearest son. You seem to have things on your mind. Well, talk to Papa.”

“Cut the crap out,” Megumi says unamusedly, “We’ve never had any heart-to-hearts and we aren’t going to start today. It’s not like—” he stops, suddenly, his words seizing in his throat.

Megumi’s relationship with Toji has never been one particularly full of loving sentiments, not to say that they were estranged, though. More as if it was something simply existing, set in stone, and never strenuous. Most definitely due to the years of distance and Megumi being the age he was when he moved back in with Toji.

In Toji’s care, he’s always been left to be independent, just as Toji in his own independence can do his business without the burden of children. There’s never been the need for a cultivated trust between them, just an unspoken promise to let by and let do, to allow confidence that the other is doing fine. They’re both the adults in this relationship.

But still, Megumi still feels a clawing urge for some indication of trust at least, trust that everything for the two of them will turn out just fine even with his knowledge of what happened those years ago and the awful culmination arising now.

Gojo’s recent emphasis that Megumi didn’t need to be the adult here, it weighs on him.

To help out with Gojo’s problems with Geto, doesn’t he have to be the adult in the situation? He still knows nothing about Gojo and Geto’s tumultuous relationship. And it’s not like he and Itadori are anywhere close to that unabashedly silly and yet beatific love Megumi sees in the game alone.

But he senses the complexity of it, the fragility and deeply wrought trauma and breakability that requires a fine touch from years of experience and cultivated thought. He’s spent years with Gojo, he knows him now. He has the keen eye and perceptiveness needed to handle this but also the maturity—and that all sums up to being the adult here, Megumi fears.

“But nothing, kid. I’ll repeat: you’re overthinking it.”

Megumi looks up, startled. “It’s just that—”

He pauses again. He really can’t give voice to the thoughts plaguing him at hand, not right now. Not to Toji.

Other matters are weighing heavily on his heart though.

“It’s that, you know, sometimes I look at Itadori and feel unsettled about all this.

“Like me and him, recently…things have felt strange. Things have been strange, you know they have. I’m not sure what will happen.”

In typical Toji behavior, his face doesn’t relax into soft pity and compassion for Megumi’s feelings. He replies with the same old apathy that characterizes his speech when he isn’t being flippant or vain.

“I’ll keep fucking repeating it, Megumi: Stop overthinking shit. You’ve never been a whiny coward about your feelings and relationships and whatnot. You aren’t becoming one now. You’re a Fushiguro after all.”

He points a decisive finger. “And you and Yuuji-boy will come out of this just fine. Y’all did fine back then and it’ll be fine now. Stop worrying. The two of you have enough trust in each other that even an idiot like me can see it.

“You and your little boyfriend will be okay.”

“Not my boyfriend,” Megumi mutters, almost as a reflex.

“Sure kid, but you know, y’all are close enough at this point to basically qualify as dating. It’s 2019, Megumi, gayness is the hot new thing among you youngsters.”

“That’s literally not how it works. The spectrum of different sexualities and genders has always existed across all time and is only being recognized now because of—”

“Boy, go dig through the hamper hard enough and you might find that bag of fucks I lost earlier. Just shut up, Megumi. We’re only talking about Yuuji now, no need to involve the entire fucking universe. Anyone with half a brain can see the way you two look at each other. You’ve always got that goofy little smile that would make a stranger think you weren’t a grumpy little introvert.”

“But we really aren’t like that.”

“Yeah you fucking aren’t is what I’m saying. But you should be. You haven’t had too many friends over the years, Megumi-chan, but Daddy here can just tell that Yuuji-kun is special to you. Don’t keep holding back, let yourself love him.”

It’s a surprisingly emotional request—or perhaps a demand—from Toji. It’s never been within him to get this involved with Megumi’s relationships. Not even the ones that more considerably concern him, like Megumi’s with Gojo. But perhaps that just means it speaks to the magnitude of it all.

“Try and deny your feelings all you want, Megumi. But I’m warning you, the more you do the closer you’re gonna just end up becoming the kind of friend to Yuuji-kun who just meets up with him every few months for a meal and a half-assed chit-chat over your salad bowl. Or maybe you’ll end up like clown one and clown two. And that’s what started this whole shebang, wasn’t it?

Tofu huffs, almost as if in agreement. He’s had these dogs since a month after Gojo took him in, back when Gojo figured out that Megumi still wasn’t comfortable in their new household but maybe a dog or two could help him feel more at home with the way he always stopped to pet all of the neighboring dogs and cats and even rabbits and help frogs back to ponds and yell at strangers stomping at spiders.

“But nah, you’re smarter than that, Megumi.”

Toji digs into a pocket and throws Megumi his car keys.

“Think about it. Go follow Yuuji. He should still be talking with that emo-haired punk by the time you arrive.”

Kombu has stopped her rhythmic thump against the ground. Tofu is staring at Megumi with soulful, wistful eyes as if Megumi holds all the secrets to the universe within his own eyes. She cocks her head at him the same way she always does at Itadori when he has to leave for the day and has to extricate himself from her curled-up mass.

Her fur’s almost exactly the same pure white as Gojo’s hair.

He pets his dogs, and he leaves.

And so Megumi drives over to the Nanami-Itadori household.

Most times, it’s Itadori coming over to the Fushiguro household, but Megumi’s had his fair share of evenings and overnight stays at Itadori’s place as well.

In Itadori’s last year of middle school, his grandfather passed away. Megumi has never been privy to the details, but still even now he can see traces of how hard it was for Itadori when they visit the grave and how when they sit by the gravestone Itadori can spend hours staring at the kanji reading “Itadori Wasuke,” worrying his hands in a pattern particular to these moments. Sometimes in those in-between moments after class, after practice, after a meal shared, Itadori worries his hands in that same way and Megumi knows he’s thinking of his grandfather.

When Itadori had been left to figure out how to live life without the only remaining family member he had had, Nanami had been there. Nanami was, and still is, a teacher of home economics in the high school division of the campus. From what he’s learned from both Itadori and Nanami, Itadori would occasionally sneak into Nanami’s classroom—his being the nearest home economics room—to microwave his food during break, and it finally so coincided that there was a day when Nanami didn’t go to the teacher’s lounge and Itadori tried to sneak in.

And that was how their first meeting happened: a late August afternoon, Megumi and Nanami sitting alone in the front discussing the economics worksheet over a still-warm cup of coffee as Itadori rushed into the room—all burbly and excited, his fluffy parka puffing out around him and smacking the doorway.

Itadori gifted him a black version of the same parka for a birthday once; Megumi hardly ever wears it but sometimes in the dead of night he takes it out and just holds it, just breathes into it, and it feels like he’s there again, seeing Itadori for the first time.

So that’s how they met, and from then on they’ve only grown closer. It’s what Megumi always thinks about in late August, with the air abnormally thick with comforting warmth instead of the old, thin melancholy striating air leaving behind summer ghosts.

Before, August had always been the month when Tsumiki had returned to Kyoto and Toji would start back upon his third quarter job. Now it’s Itadori’s month.

As Megumi turns the knob and enters the house—announcing his entrance as he puts his sneakers by Itadori’s in favor of the black and white dog slippers bought by Nanami as a Christmas gift—he feels that same placid August warmth all the more.

In the kitchen, Itadori smiles in greeting from where he leans against the countertop, Nanami nods from where he’s julienning some carrots. They’re both wearing matching Doraemon aprons.

Despite Toji’s comments on Nanami’s (now archaic) hairstyle, he hasn’t actually met the man in years. Some thirteen years ago, probably, as Megumi can infer from Gojo’s narrative. He doesn’t resemble a teen in the slightest, not even a man just barely into his thirties with his immaculately gelled hair and old-school glasses and the way he’s still dressed in business wear even in the comfort of his own home.

“Pardon the intrusion on such short notice, my dad only just told me to come here.”

“No biggie, Fushiguro,” Itadori grins. “You’re here for dinner often enough and we always have leftovers. Isn’t that right, Nanamin?”

Nanami nods his affirmation. “Yuuji is right. Fushiguro-kun, you know there’s never any issue with your being here, notice or no notice, as long as someone is home.”

Megumi murmurs his appreciation and sets forth to set the table, as he always does when he comes and shares a meal here.

Everything here is set in a comfortable, unvarying routine for Megumi, from padding across the genkan in his dog-themed slippers to giving his apologies to laying out table mats and smoothing out napkins.

Megumi’s a bit of a stickler for routine, but despite everything, he doesn’t need it. Sure, he loves it, he appreciates it, when he has a taste of it he grabs hold of it and keeps it close to him, but he’s been through enough ups and downs that whether things keep deviating or remain stable is not an issue for him.

Here, it’s more for Itadori’s sake than for his hat he does everything he does when he visits. That Itadori relaxes into the mundane repetitiveness with a lukewarm energy he can’t exhibit in his usual upbeat, go-getter attitude, that his grin is less one of friendly cheer but just a unadulteratedly content smile is what is making Megumi shoo Itadori away from the cutlery drawer. As he always does.

And sure enough, Itadori’s easy grin relaxes into an easier, small smile as he hums.

Though the atmosphere is comfortable and Itadori had smiled in greeting when he entered, Megumi had caught a glimpse of tightness around Itadori’s eyes and a downwards curve of the mouth characterizing his side profile.

The talk didn’t reveal some nice truths, so it seems.

“Yuuji and I were just discussing the both of you being involved with Gojo-san and Geto-san,” Nanami starts.

He gestures for the two of them to sit as he sets down a large dish of aglio e olio. “But now’s not the time to talk about such matters, for now, let’s just eat.”

Dinner typically goes like this: the usual greetings and small talk then dinner where Itadori recounts his day and Megumi supplements his narrative or simply adds in his own separate parts before Nanami talks a bit about work.

Today there’s none of that, an atypical break from the routine that’s been building up all evening.

But the silence they sit in—if just a bit tense—is still comfortable. Itadori remains largely silent but Nanami still talks about how the girl at the bakery gave him a free sample yet again and how his boss again fussed over his patterned necktie. The food is as good as ever; everything feels nice and warm at this moment.

Soon enough, they all finish up and Itadori stands to collect dishes. Nanami turns to Megumi. “Fushiguro-kun, I’d like to talk to you alone before you leave.”

“I can go pick up some groceries for next week,” Itadori pipes in.

“Thank you, Yuuji,” Nanami says, “Please be back home before ten.”

Itadori leaves soon, leaving Megumi to re-sit at the table while Nanami pours the two of them cups of tea.

“Let’s talk about the conundrum you and Yuuji have found yourselves in. I suspect that was your real reason for coming here after all.”

Nanami sits down, mug held tight in his hands so close to his face that his glasses fog up.

This is another bit of the routine of the Nanami-Itadori household, especially after his and Itadori’s second year in high school.

Back then, Nanami used to make the occasional trip to the University of Tokyo where he was routinely invited to give lectures on the culinary arts or help facilitate live cooking sessions. Itadori always loves to tell everyone how his dad is famous for his teaching and his cooking.

But during that penultimate year of their secondary schooling, Nanami had gone to the mid-year symposium on undergraduate research and happened to be within the radius of an arson attack. Third-degree burns all along the left side of his body, second-degree burns across his left arm, and varying second to third-degree burns on marring his face.

Maki had been injured too, and Mai and Inumaki and Todo and Noritoshi and so, so many others.

But Nanami had been the most severely injured.

Megumi can still all too vividly recall the dread clawing its way into his spine when Itadori called him at the seventh minute of the class transition period and how his voice had poured out from the speaker, tinny and filtered but still just as full of fear and the barely suppressed sounds of crying. He still remembers how he instantly ran across the hallways against the crowds to where he knew Itadori would be by his civics classroom and how he had grasped Itadori’s feverishly warm, calloused hand tight in his own and how they had run out to the streets just desperate to get to the hospital Nanami had been transferred.

He still has nightmares, sometimes, of seeing Nanami’s medical chart and the pictures and reading descriptions of the glass embedded in his burns and uncharred skin and how on the worst of those nights, he’ll look over and see bloody, mangled glasses with viscous threads of an eye still clinging to the wiring and glassy, translucent aqueous humor mixing with blood.

It was hard for Itadori then, harder perhaps than when his grandfather died in Megumi’s eyes though he hadn’t been there for those debilitating years. Itadori had felt so useless, so helpless back then and would moan at 4 AM about how unfair it all was, and then wipe his tears on hoodies he only wore because the rest of his clothes had been left to collect dust for weeks, and then prepare to visit Nanami with a fresh bouquet of flowers and a smile on his face before going to school.

Megumi felt just as useless and helpless, seeing Itadori like that. Up until a late night no different from the others, in the hospital room with a plastic cup of hot tea in Itadori’s hands and the lights thrumming above Megumi. There was nothing special about the moment, but somehow just in studying the curve of Itadori’s fingers around the cup and the cup’s curve to Itadori’s fingers, he felt less of a pulsing awareness and more of a thunderous epiphany that he couldn’t do this any longer, that he couldn’t continue to watch Itadori wallow and waste away in his pain and that he had to do more to comfort him. Physically, emotionally, mentally.

And so he did, and they got closer then. Megumi would come see Itadori in the evening and stay so long that night shifted to morning and Toji would joke that it was as if he had already moved out. Megumi never put a name to that time, but it was as if he and Itadori had gone past all the rush of confessions and inexperienced dates and launched into the comfort of simply being together. The kind of comfort where they could spend hours sitting, without talking and enjoying each other’s presence and see each other the next day excited to spend another long afternoon together.

Even in the time after—when Nanami was out of the hospital and the harsh lines of his skin grafts were no longer discernible and his daily check-ups became weekly became biweekly became hebdomadal became monthly became now yearly—he and Itadori are still together just as often, spend just as many hours at home together at the park in the campus green on random hills as they did under the blue-tinted lights of the hospital.

But neither of them confronted the growing thing between them, however much either of them would have wanted it and now they’re here and he and Itadori act like best friends—and they are, they’ll always have something really, truly good in between them regardless of what might happen.

And still, sometimes Megumi looks into Itadori’s eyes and he sees the trust and confidence in his eyes and he feels the want to have explored that something, that could-be might-be back then. He’s never been too good at nomenclature but in moments he wishes he was just so that he could grab hold of this nebulous, tenuous thing and deem it love. But he didn’t, they didn’t.

But he’s fine with this. It’s fine like this, being friends. Best friends. He has Itadori’s trust and his confidence and gets to see his smiles and crinkled eyes and hear his laughs and it’s enough for him even if it isn’t everything it could be.

“So, Fushiguro-kun, Toji-san sent you here. Well, it was bound to happen someday, sooner or later.”

“What would have happened, exactly?”

“That you’d learn about Gojo-san’s past. It was an inevitable thing, you being Gojo-san’s son in some form of the term if not legally or officially. I’d like to think that if this didn’t happen, someone would have told you someday, perhaps that someone would have been me.”

Nanami huffs amusedly. “But of course, Gojo-san and Toji-san can be left to settle things in their own rights.”

The humorous bend to his smile fades away, a deeper contemplation and pensive remembrance creasing his features. Megumi stares at where his eyes lay hidden behind opaque-turned glass.

“It is not my place to speak of what happened so I will not burden you with the details now—that I will leave up to Gojo-san and Toji-san themselves.

“Nonetheless, you deserve the appropriate knowledge of what happened back then. At the very least, if Toji-san felt that it would be best for me to tell of what happened then I’ll take up the burden of responsibility. I’ll strictly limit myself to the events of what happened, the rest is up to those concerned directly.

“So, Megumi-kun, where shall we start?”

Megumi hesitates, he has to. This entire time, he’s been wary of whatever awful truth must exist that would have caused people as in love as Gojo and Geto were to split so horribly, that gave such stony deliberation to the Itadori he saw upon turning into the kitchen.

“From the very beginning please, from when Gojo and Geto first met.”

Nanami launches into a long, sprawling narrative crisscrossing the four years of Gojo’s university life. It’s patchy at best and definitively inaccurate in parts—with how it’s a coagulation of Nanami’s then perceptions and thoughts of hindsight now and aren’t there always misperceptions—but it’s detailed, it’s empathetic, and it’s better than the impersonal account Gojo had presented back then in his office.

So Megumi listens, and he asks, and he remembers.

Even before Nanami had so much as applied to the university, Gojo Satoru was known as the eternally envied child prodigy whose gifts and talents only grew as he progressed from one school level to the other. He never became a burnt-out gifted child; he was blessed. The guy who was homeschooled but still listed in the area’s top private boarding school and always ranked first in the national exam. The man whose looks—finally revealed after nineteen years of public absence—were so close to being abnormally ethereal but remained in the realm of devastatingly handsome.

Entering the University of Tokyo as that kind of guy meant his reputation was pre-cemented amongst the rest of the business majors as the top contender and the best connection they could ever get in a lifetime.

There was no question to it: he’d be the school’s darling prince for as long as he was there.

But then there was Geto, a nobody from a rural province looked upon as a bumpkin or a hick when he first set foot onto the grounds of Todai. A nobody turned somebody when he broke new grounds in his political science and public administration classes with sharp, well-honed wit and even better-researched arguments, and unflinching resolve in the face of respected teachers and prominent to-be leaders. Where Gojo was known for what he inherited, Geto became known for what was innate to him.

And then he became the first person to show open, active disagreement with Gojo.

So when Gojo and Geto met for the first time in their shared Ethics 2 class in the autumn term, it revolutionized the fixed environment of the university for not only Gojo and Geto themselves but for everyone on campus and beyond.

They argued, they shouted, they fought, and then the next day, they were friends.

It would have been easy to mistake it for dislike, hatred even, the way they had argued with each other. Haibara had got it from the gossip wheel that back then the air had been incredibly tense, just waiting for Gojo to call upon his network to get Geto expelled from the ground never to be seen again.

But everyone was wrong. Geto was not a simple breath of fresh air for Gojo, he was the start of a new life. He was fictional deuteragonist-adjacent as the guy who came in and spun about Gojo’s entire worldview and completely devastated the long-set axis he had always lived by.

When Nanami matriculated the next spring, things changed drastically. Gojo was an entirely different menace, a heightened paradigm of a student. Even if he had completely derailed from the path to business and inheritance that had been carved out for him, now he was the kind of person with his own true thoughts and opinions and not just that, the will to act on them.

If before he sneered about hegemony and would call himself different from all the rest, now he was the one leading the hue and cry and becoming more than auxiliary and indeed now he was different from all the rest, genuinely.

Gojo became a worldly student with his shift to double programs in philosophy and condensed matter physics and peaking with careless ease into courses of neuro-optics and theoretical chemistry and atmospheric sciences and information and media and even gastroenterology just for the shits and giggles of being able to eat free samples for the excuse of studying their effects on the digestive system. He terrified anyone and everyone just by existing.

“And his family really just let him change programs like that? The shining star of the Gojo family not pursuing business but instead sciences?”

“No, Fushiguro-kun. No, he’d never have told his family. University was something purely for himself, he wouldn’t have had his family spoil any bit of it. Not when he was truly living there for the first time.”

Where Nanami saw Gojo most often, where he had met them, was in his introductory level classes for education.

This was before Nanami had given actuality to his love for cooking, for food. Back when he simply wanted to become a teacher of maybe, economics or social sciences. Something standard.

Educational sciences, being Geto’s choice, of course, was entirely his domain. The odd area in which Gojo Satoru was not the head honcho, and it inversely seemed all the more natural for it. This was Geto’s stomping ground alone.

Geto, in his own time in the introductory courses, had been so brilliant so eager so adamant in his opinions so steadfast in his ability to be the one to revolutionize Japanese education as they knew it. It came as a surprise to the grand total of none that a special exception had been made for the second-year undergraduate to come in as a TA for the foundational classes.

He challenged everyone in those classrooms to break from conventional and teach new things, teach in new ways. Nanami was no exception. Who could have not respected Geto Suguru, at the time.

And of course, back then, even just after a few months of acquaintanceship, hardly anyone would mention Gojo without Geto or Geto without Gojo. For as long as Geto had been there giving lectures in Nanami’s classes, Gojo had been lurking in the back seats or slouching against a wall or seated in a chair pulled next to Geto’s desk and always voicing loud, argumentative comments from wherever he was located.

In their third year, Nanami’s second year, allegations of student mistreatment broke out across the news.

“Strong-minded as he was, of course, Geto became a major figure in leading the student movement.”

“What about Gojo?”

“What about Gojo indeed.”

Geto poured his heart and soul into spearheading the movement. He disappeared from Nanami’s classrooms, from club activities, and even from at least a couple of his classes as Nanami had inferred from whispered rumors across campus. This was the revolution for Geto, maybe not the one he had wanted, but the one that would set the trajectory for the entirety of his career.

“And here’s just my own thoughts on this, but it was as if Geto-san disappeared from Gojo-san’s life as well. But who knows.”

Contrary to everyone’s expectations, Gojo was not directly at Geto’s side during the controversies. With his position in society and the industry, his teachers and mentors convinced him to grudgingly stay on the sidelines for both his and Geto’s sake. They both agreed. That’s what everyone said. Gojo was powerful but only in the intangible sense. Nothing would stop a bullet from blasting his brain apart or a knife from ripping through his throat.

But that didn’t stop him from making use of all of his power and authority to bolster Geto’s campaign, nor did it stop him from working hand-in-hand with Geto when a new situation arose with a syndicate involving a couple of teachers from Todai that trafficked student hopefuls or freshman rejects.

“Gojo-san and Geto-san primarily worked to help a young girl being targeted for an upcoming scheme, Amani Riko. But things went horribly—as Toji-san knows well—and the aftermath affected all of us dearly. Me, Ieri-san, Ijichi-san, Iori-san, Haibara-kun, and most definitely Gojo-san and Geto-san. Perhaps even them the most, discounting Haibara-kun’s affliction.

Yuuji mentioned that Gojo-san described it as a simple protest gone awry. No, it was certainly because of our involvement with those two. But we’ve never faulted either for what happened even if they did themselves.”

Geto disappeared shortly after. And with his disappearance, the resistance movement simply vanished too. It was as if nothing had happened like all of their suffering and the horrors they had to endure had been nothing more than the remnants of a fever dream.

Nanami pauses and he breathes. “And that’s where my burden of the story ends. As I told Yuuji-kun, the details I will leave up to your father and Gojo-san to tell if they are willing to do so at all.

“As much as there is an obligation for you to be informed of what happened, this is still as raw as ever for Gojo-san, I believe. I wouldn’t blame him for keeping these matters to his heart still.”

So now, hunched over his half-full half-empty cup of cooled tea and settled dregs, Megumi knows better of what happened. He’s not sure what to think of it all.

“But going forward, you should know what everyone who was there back then thinks about them now,” Nanami says, “The duo Gojo-san and Geto-san thought they were, that no longer exists. With who they’ve become now, it’s entirely possible that they’d just destroy each other merely by meeting each other again. If they were to come back together again the same way as before, they’d find each other an ill-fated fit.

“And I know you know this, Megumi-kun.”

He stands up, collecting their cups. “That is about everything I can divulge to you, Fushiguro-kun. I’m sorry that you had to get involved in this. This should have been left to the adults to settle before any of you had to learn about it.”

Megumi studies his expression. It’s still as blank and taciturn as ever but there’s sorrow weaved into his words. It’s disturbing, the way it’s apparent in someone like Nanami.

“Thank you anyways, Nanami-san. I really appreciate it. I’ll be taking my leave now, please give Itadori my goodbyes, and thanks for the dinner.”

Nanami nods. “I’ll escort you out, Fushiguro-kun.”

He pauses at the doorway. “You know, in thinking about it now, they truly just were stupid, overconfident, teens who thought they could do anything.

It’s simply that even after all this time, I myself couldn’t—can’t—see Geto-san as anything less than the brilliant leader he would become. He would have been such a person.”

“But not Gojo?”

“Never Gojo.”

Google News ⋅ ⌕ “University of Tokyo” and “Gojo Satoru” or “Geto Suguru” X ▼

Tokyo Shimbun
Arrests made after explosion at UTokyo in now confirmed arson attack, investigations still ongoing
80 students and 5 teachers have been confirmed to have been injured in the firebombing. Whether or not those numbers include those who have passed away is currently unknown. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) has made considerable progress in investigating the perpetrators with newly discovered evidence and anonymous tips. A large number of the reputable Zenin clan members have been arrested. Former Gojo family attorney Kenjaku is currently being investigated along with Grand Chamberlain Sukuna…

October 5, 2016

[…]

Tokyo Shimbun
Imperial and the University of Tokyo respond to claims of corruption and harassment
Academic workers and board members of Todai have been largely accused of accepting bribes for student admissions, sexual misconduct, and unsolicited harassment. These accusations are occurring in the midst of newly opening investigations into possible illegal groups faculty members may be involved in. Principal Gakugaranji Yoshinobu and Superintendent Yaga Masamichi have spoken out in response…

August 15, 2006

Yomiuri Shimbun
Case against the University of Tokyo faculty after informal investigation reveals illicit ongoings
Superintendent Tengen has admitted to his involvement in the recently discovered Time Vessel division of the infamous Star Religious Group. The newfound division has been discovered to traffic unsuspecting youth across Japan, particularly focusing on disadvantaged youth and marginalized groups who have applied to the UTokyo, are intending to apply, or by any other reason have come into contact with admission officers. The administration was urged to admit to their wrongdoings after Renchoku High’s 3rd Year Amani Riko was found…

November 3, 2006

The Huffington Post
Student Protests at the University of Tokyo Suddenly Die Out: What Happened?
In light of Geto’s recent disappearance, no other students have stepped forward to maintain the current student activism. “The higher-ups are currently in negotiation with our student representatives for reparations and to overhaul the old system,” says Social Sciences major and student council member Yuki Tsukumo. “But Geto was the main guy leading this operation, it’s been very difficult to keep things in motion without him.” She went on to describe Geto’s decision to leave the university and the public eye and also refuted assertions of involvement from Gojo Satoru…

December 24, 2006

Asahi Shimbun
Internationally operating Gojo Industries publicizes stance on recent scandals at UTokyo
“Gojo-san, as the future leader of the Gojo family conglomerate has not been allowed to participate in the recent circumstances at Todai,” said the family’s primary General Counsel, who goes under the name Kenjaku for public appearances. “For his own safety and protection, Gojo-san strictly attends Todai to further his education in preparation for his inheritance and has not been allowed to risk the possible dangers of engaging in the school’s political climate and…

December 30, 2006

Megumi puts down his book from where he’s leaning against the balustrade, peering over at Itadori who is anxiously thumping his foot at an arrhythmic pace.

It’s been another two months, and now in the middle of October, they’re waiting in the foyer of Gojo’s house.

That the entire place reeks of old money posing as new and impersonal professionalism is what Megumi feels, in the cold vacuum of the high ceilings and inset enclaves decorated with 3D sculpted abstract paintings and empty speckled vases.

It wasn’t here where Megumi grew up with Gojo, and Tsumiki for those brief couple of years. He and Gojo lived in a rickety old thing of an apartment where they only ever had vases filled with flowers and any patterns they had were colorful and hand-painted and there’d be webs of gold tracing across them because Gojo had never been good at handling vases but he had always been awfully good at kintsugi.

The apartment was not unlike the one he had been in from birth until meeting Gojo, and probably purposefully so if only to give Megumi some form of continuity. And it did, and Megumi will always remember it as his home. Not his first home, but the first one that comes to mind at the thought of the word.

This is a house built for Gojo the venture capitalist, the house for out-of-office meetings with staff and advisors when not going out to eat, the house expected of Gojo Satoru. And it’s more than just that, now that Gojo fully and completely lives here. The house Gojo’s never called home but regardless has chosen as the domain in which he’ll be meeting Geto.

Megumi shivers in the frigidity, patting down his hoodie just as Itadori’s offbeat tapping comes to a halt only to be replaced by a hacking wheeze.

He’s been periodically emptying the bowl of melon seeds. Another nervous habit to add to the list since they’ve come in.

Before Megumi can step in to give him a harsh thump on the back, Shoko enters the room.

She looked incredibly jaded to him when he first met her, back when he was six and desperately in need of a checkup and didn’t have the words to describe the tiredness in her face as anything other than purple crescents. She’s still just as jaded, still clad in latex-free nitrile gloves and her lab coat, as always. Though still as laid-back as ever, despite the situation.

In conversation with her, he learned that firstly, Geto would be arriving in Tokyo on October 10th and spend four days in the city before officially remeeting Gojo.

“If it were up to him, he’d really just arrive in just enough time to go directly to Gojo’s and then make his way back home. But the twins love the city, and he can never say no to the twins.”

Secondly, Geto has been taking care of two twin girls: Mimiko and Nanako.

“So you’re saying that he didn’t just straight up leave the school and Tokyo—he also took in two children as an unstable twenty-year-old something?”

“Sure he did. Freshly twenty, in fact.”

Lastly, it isn’t just Gojo and Geto who have grown estranged.

“So, where’s Itadori-kun?”

“He’s at track…why, did you need to talk to him or—”

“Nothing that urgent. It’s been a while since he and I talked. I’ve been seeing him in the background of Nanami’s foodstagram quite often lately—it’s good that he’s continuing that again. You let him know for me that all of us should get together for dinner again, I’ll bring Utahime.”

Megumi has come to learn over the years that however jaded she looks, it’s not so much of a jaded countenance that she bore but more a deep-set, ever-constant nostalgia.

“It’s been too long.”

In the time between then and now, they’ve all had to separate and grow into themselves. It must have been hard for everyone after having experienced what they did together in 2006, Megumi would think. Gojo is enough evidence in his own right.

But now, here they are. At a moment of culmination. Gojo, Geto, Nanami, Dr. Ieri, and Toji: they’re been doomed to confront their pasts again at some point or another. Not that Toji seems to give any fucks, but whatever.

“Hi, Megumi-kun. And it’s lovely as ever to see you again, Itadori-kun.”

Her friendly smile slips away. Her eye bags are grossly prominent in the white lighting. It’s so white it casts blue tints on her skin, as if oxygen-deprived. She looks like the corpses she spends her after-hours in the morgue.

“Nanami will be staying with Gojo and making sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. Geto will be arriving any minute now from my place. He’s taking a taxi in case he needs a quick ride out of here alone.

“I’ll sit here with you guys until everything’s said and done. Nanami will stay in his car once Geto arrives until Itadori needs to go home.”

Megumi hums his acknowledgment while Itadori mutters a nervous “yes ma’am,” his foot back tapping back and forth to an even more eccentric tempo.

He’s been oddly anxious the entire time actually, now that Megumi thinks about it.

But before he can dwell on it further, a heavy knocking echoes in the foyer and Shoko smoothly opens the door to reveal a tall, black-haired man and two teenage girls.

It’s definitely Geto Suguru, a perfectly aged-up, real-to-life version of the green-haired purple-eyed teen fighting in the single baggiest pair of cargo pants Megumi has ever seen. He’s black-haired and black-eyed and he doesn’t smile like Gego always did but that’s him alright.

But more so there’s overlap with the simple concept of “Geto Suguru” in relation to Gojo. So much it’s insane to Megumi in a mildly hysterical sense. He looks so like he was carved out of clay in the womb just to dovetail Satoru. Or maybe it was the other way around.

It’s in the way his posture relaxes into something appalling crooked at the sight of Shoko for a moment the same way Gojo’s posture does too, the way his spine curves inward the way Gojo’s does outward, and how his gait balances in perfect alignment with the languid, carefree strides Gojo had exhibited. It’s in the way he smiles tightly at the sight of Megumi and Itadori, the way it’s carefully enigmatic and friendly in its probing the way Gojo’s is full of mischievous intent, and the way it devilishly implies inside secrets the same way Gojo’s smile does.

They’re probably the same secrets they shared with each other. They look like that kind of pair.

“Well well well, isn’t it just grand to meet the two little brats that disrupted my poor, quaint little pastoral life to meet an ex.”

And he shares the same ridiculing habit as Gojo too, apparently.

It’s apparent now, how Gojo and Geto might have gotten along so well: they’re the exact same brand of condescending vitriol and amused gazes.

“Don’t take it out on the boys, Geto,” Dr. Ieri says, ever calm, “if anyone, blame Gojo if you’d like. Though none of us here would appreciate what tolerance you might still have for Gojo already waning before you even see him again.”

Geto smiles, head ducked down as he tucks away his shoes to pad across the marble in thick socks. His smile is more genuine like this, decorated with memories of old, good friendships when they must have sat in emptied lecture halls at the golden hour trading snacks and homework answers and sneaked out of dorms at 3 AM for ramen runs and shopping cart sprees and sitting on dirty, cracked stairs sharing secrets amidst hoards of students rushing past.

Megumi watches him let out an amused puff, his smile quirking up at one corner and creasing cantal lines and he recognizes that Gojo’s a part of those memories, an unavoidable and completely integral part of those warm afternoons and chilly nights, those unrepentantly happy times.

His presence was inescapably there, and always will be. And in recollection too.

Both Geto and Shoko seem to be along similar wavelengths of reminiscence, judging from how Shoko’s fond smile folds into solemnity and Geto’s eyes thin into well-honed indifference. His gaze remains carefully measured above their heads, insouciant and insensate.

The twins shift awkwardly from where they stand clustered together by a doorway.

With the soft closing of a faraway door and sharp snaps of oxfords against tile turning to marble, Nanami enters the foyer as well.

He bows in greeting. “Geto-san, it’s been a while. Gojo-san is in the library whenever you’re ready.”

And just like that, Geto is all swift steps and the door clicks behind Nanami’s departure to the door and the girls are out in the garden. Geto's gone now.

Shoko sighs. Megumi reopens his book. Itadori continues tapping with the same old harsh dissonance. It’s early in the afternoon and the sun’s rays are at their warmest and the air has never been quite so frigid.

It’s 2:32 PM this Saturday afternoon and there’s a crumpled mess of Shibuya 109 receipts in one pocket and a napkin from the crepe shop in another and a lighter in yet another and Suguru feels their heavy masses as he walks towards Satoru’s library.

So this is Satoru’s home now.

He sees a half-empty pack of Mevius cigarettes–Shoko’s probably–thoughtlessly discarded by a clean-cut statue of an eye within an eye within an eye within an eye. He’s tempted to take it even though he’s always hated the grating drag of the tobacco and the psychosomatic, sickly sweet aftertaste the cigarettes leave.

Satoru always hated statues like that. Suguru shoves the pack into another pocket.

The door before him is large and grand and inherently unassuming beyond its intimidating, impersonal girth. This kind of door was never an issue for him at university and it’s not an issue for them so he opens the door succinctly with the old practiced movement of a knob without so much as an announcement or warning knock against the cold metal.

Satoru isn’t at the far end of the massive room like Suguru imagined; he’s a mere nine feet from the entrance. Suguru rather thought his first glimpse of Satoru after thirteen years of separation would have been of the other staring dramatically out of some tall window, bright rays just barely glancing off his white hair and he would have been standing tall and fully grown into himself.

Instead, Suguru has to make direct eye contact with a Satoru with gangly, flapping limbs—but still, none of that old awkwardness besmirching his movements—who stares at him with minute traces of awe and uncertainty through black-tinted lenses of now rectangular lenses and he looks so much like the Satoru of nineteen years.

It’s like it’s 2004 and his hair is shorter and still in a proper bun and the trees are getting greener. Satoru’s there with long limbs and those same mesmerizing eyes behind round lenses and Suguru loves him. The sunlight is warm and they’re whispering plans for the future in their favorite nook of the library and he’s intensely happy just by being here with Satoru.

It makes him vaguely ill and definitely uneasy to see before him that Satoru. It’s a feeling of deja vu that makes him think that if he lowers his eyelids the icy lights will melt into aureate undertones and he’ll be back in that other library leaning in to whisper sweet nothings.

Suguru has moved on from what happened back then. He’s definitely moved on. But he’s here in expectation of a stranger, not a ghost, and now he’s been caught off-guard.

They continue to meet each other’s gaze for a semi-awkward, mutual moment of preparation before Satoru straightens up, all traces of shock gone from his expression and countenance–and there is the Satoru he had come to see.

“Long time no see, Suguru,” Satoru says. The statement is as soft as it is awkward. It’s nothing at all like how Satoru had talked before. That guy who loved himself to the point of total narcissism and grinned like he held the world in his hands.

He bites his tongue. Hard. There’s blood, there’s nicotine. It’s grounding.

“So are we going to talk about how you made a caricature of our lives in a stupid little video game first or shall we dive straight into how you’re still stuck in the past, Satoru.”

Satoru’s smile tightens perceptibly, defenses raised. “Now now now, Suguru, no need to get into the thick of things so soon–it’s rude!”

He plops himself into a sleek egg-shaped chair, gesturing at the one opposite.

“Now then, let’s talk, shall we?”

Suguru ignores the chair and instead moves to the window, cracking it open and lighting one of Shoko’s cigarettes. The drag feels worse than ever before but the rush of nicotine is welcome and helps to settle his mind. The haze pulls him away from being here in this moment.

He’s missed Satoru.

It’s an ugly thing to admit, when he wants nothing to do with what happened anymore, including Satoru himself. But part of this thing called “acceptance” comes with acknowledging the good and bad, and Satoru had always been all that was good for him back then.

He’s recovered from everything that happened, of course. But that doesn’t stop the nagging feelings of loneliness and longing when he’s at the Shinjuku station and when he’s eating crepes with the girls and when it’s past midnight and he’s walking alone on the streets and they’re not nearly as busy as in the city but if he lowers his eyelids just so the lights can almost seem like those of the city and when—

It’s a lot, sometimes, to have that strange, amorphous feeling as if something, someone is missing from his life. But he knows who that someone is—he’s not so willfully stubborn as to ignore this glaring truth just because he hates it—and he’s known that Satoru would never come back into his life the same way he had been there in the first place.

Except now, he’s here, and Satoru’s still the fucking same as he was all those years ago, under the shield of his blindingly white surroundings and new glasses, and even larger physique. And Suguru despises the way he can’t look him in the eye anymore.

Suguru must have been silent in his thoughts for a while because suddenly Satoru is right there and there’s a slender concern coating his features.

“Hey, Suguru. We just need to talk this one time, okay? I know you didn’t want to see me…and I didn’t want to see you either. But this is long due and we might as well get it over and done with.”

Satoru has changed, actually. Suguru has to admit to the fact. The old Satoru might have shouted at him, demanded answers with his questions aggravated by hurt and emotion but the years have been kind to Satoru in some ways, at least in terms of maturity.

Suguru takes a deep breath in and takes a long exhale. The nicotine is still fresh on his tongue.

He sits, and Satoru mirrors his movements.

Despite everything, they continue to sit in awkward silence, made even more awkward in that they’re both staring into each other’s eyes.

Satoru finally clears his throat and launches into speech. “So like, hmm, about that game. Let’s talk about that game. My game. Silly little thing, isn’t it.”

He laughs all high-pitched and awkward and Suguru might have found it cute before but now he just winces. Nothing here is not awkward.

Satoru breathes short, harsh puffs of air and exhales hard gusts. He sighs. “It’s just that…the things that lived and died between us. Those shared histories haunt me still to this day, surely you understand.”

He rubs the back of his neck, right at the ruffle of his undercut the same way the pink-haired boy had been when he came in. “Or maybe you don’t, I’m sure you’ve done better than I have since then—or well, maybe you haven’t, it’s not my place to make assumptions anymore, isn’t it?

“But you know what? I couldn’t keep wallowing in the past. It was so frustrating being like that, you know. I wanted to live life too, yeah? Especially when I had a kid depending on me—you must have seen him out there in the foyer, the black-haired one, he’s Megumi, Toji’s son.”

Of course he remembers Toji, that fucker. How could he forget the guy who showed up just after the shots had been fired but Riko’s body was still just as warm and had asked if he should dispose of “it” the way someone might talk about the trash.

He isn’t surprised to hear that the guy would have dropped his child like a hot potato, but he is somewhat surprised to hear that Satoru was the one to pick up the messy remains.

But good for him. He saw the wary protectiveness in the kid’s eyes when Suguru bypassed him, and there was a certain lack of affectedness to Gojo’s tone when he said the kid’s name, instead replaced with a warmth of sorts that had been reserved for Suguru himself in the past.

“Megumi-chan’s actually the one who inspired me to create the game. Or well, not inspired I guess. Motivated maybe. When I first started taking care of him, I had no idea how to handle a child. So when he mentioned he liked video games, I kinda went on a rampage buying all sorts of games from Super Mario Bros to Pokémon to Dragon Quest to Digimon and you know what? That cheeky little brat only liked those animal simulator games.

He laughs lightly, somewhat nervously. “But most of those games were non-return so I played a lot of them with Tsumiki—she’s Megumi’s step-sister—and well, I dunno. The idea just sort of came to me one day.”

Satoru grins at him. It’s the first expression of happiness he’s worn this entire time that looks remotely real. “It was cathartic at the least, to have something to create and play around with pretty loosely in those years.

“To tell you a secret, I never told anyone else about it. Not Shoko, not Kento, not little Megumi, not Tsumiki—my own little thing. You can imagine how difficult it was sometimes, for a blabbermouth like me.”

He can imagine. Of course he can imagine.

“So, well, I guess I’m sorry? But at the same time, I’m really not. I’m sorry that I took our life and smushed it into a stupid little thing of a game, but it was a stupid, silly little life that we shared together, wasn’t it? I’m sorry if it might have offended you, or opened up any old wounds. God knows I would have lost my shit.

“But for me, I’ll always have those regrets for everything I did, everything I lost, everything I gained in return. Having something real, physical, visible like this little game of mine, it made me think that maybe life would be okay with those regrets. I—”

“You’re funny for thinking you can talk about regrets, Satoru,” Suguru breaks in. His throat feels raw and there’s something awful clawing at his stomach again.

If Satoru had regrets for everything, then Suguru has infinite regrets, whatever it is that defines his regrets as more. He regrets how he was 19 and couldn’t think of Satoru as enough, that instead, he had to pursue a burning sense of injustice that left him decimated without the energy or time or motivation to fight back anymore.

Ultimately, that’s what killed him, back then. Nothing Satoru had ever done, really. Suguru burnt himself out. It wasn’t like Satoru had changed and evolved and reconstructed himself into someone Suguru couldn’t reach anymore. It was Suguru who fell behind and he himself was the only reason why he’d lie in bed alone, craving touch and wanting to feel the throb of a pulse against his fingers and simply remaining there all curled up instead of simply calling for Satoru who he knew would have dropped anything for him, even if he hadn’t been just in the other room.

And he had done it all for Satoru, in a misguided hope that by erasing all the rot and corruption plaguing the school they could go on to do the same for Tokyo and Japan and farther and farther, and then Satoru could be at peace. No more need for his family, for himself to fight to remain as the strongest when there was no competition to fight in and he could simply be Satoru sans Gojo and everything the name encompassed.

But no. If twenty-year-old Suguru could be asked what his goal was then, it was to beat the system. But systematic forces are always at work and someone like Suguru, a person who thinks they’re someone special, someone unique enough to be different and bring a downfall to an apparatus of manipulation and mechanization and dehumanization—someone like that stands no chance.

He had to go. He couldn’t stay and let those authored feelings of shame and ridicule proliferate to the point where he’d hurt others, like Satoru.

He’s underestimated Satoru, how much he’s been able to recover since then. What he looked like to Suguru just now, it’s still all true to who Satoru is. But it’s balanced with his cultivated solace.

He’s found balance, but Suguru’s still as off-kilter as he had been the day he left Todai. He had to go, but really, has he done much better on his own?

Not that this all belies what has changed over the years. He’s smiled, he’s laughed, he’s loved, he’s had peace. But he spends more time grieving and regretting than he does thinking about how much happier his girls have made him.

“Satoru, I—” he breathes in, and out. “I just can’t. I can’t be here and act like everything’s fine now, not when things weren’t fine even back then before everything got bad. It’s that, oh god, Satoru, what we had between us, that wasn’t love.”

“I—What are you even saying?”

Satoru’s looking at him and he’s stricken and Suguru wants to shut the fuck up but he just can’t.

“Do you really think that that fucked up thing we had together, that that was love?”

He needs to shut up. He doesn’t even believe what he’s saying. Suguru’s a horrible person.

“I loved you, maybe. Not enough to have lived by your side and grown old by you. Only enough to have ruined your life.”

“Suguru,” Satoru says, and the way he says his name is harsh and almost berating.

He’s always done this to himself, to Satoru. It’s like he’s back to being twenty and freshly naive and thinking he can pioneer something great, some actual real full change in the world, and because experience is disillusionment because he’s become enlightened he knows he’s chosen a bad bad unsustainable path. But he lies to himself anyways and tells himself there’s no turning back, that if he stops for a moment, regret will eat him up and where will that leave him?

So he has to lean into this choice this conviction he has to embrace it as fully as he would if he had been as willing as that naive twenty-year-old something and he decides that he has to do everything he can for the sake of the way he’s chosen to live and if that doesn’t involve Satoru if that hurts Satoru, maybe that’s the inevitable fallout.

Everything that he did was right but no it’s wrong, but if he acknowledges that he’ll be left to look at himself, this thirty-three-year-old something and he has to find a way to compensate for everything he’s lost for everything he left behind for everything that could have been. For a future that could have been with Satoru.

He’s suffocating here, in the smell of untouched books and Satoru’s cologne and the lingering feeling of their words on the air and he just needs to get the hell out.

“Fuck you, Satoru,” he says. It comes out louder than he expected.

“W—What? I’m sorry, but this was literally the most confusing conversation we’ve—”

“Goodbye. I hope we never see each other again.”

He wanted to confess he was lying just then, that he still loves Satoru that he misses him that given the choice—if perhaps, Satoru had asked—he would have abandoned everything to live here with him again.

But the part of him that’s still twenty-something doesn’t let him acknowledge out loud even after all this time that maybe he was just deluding himself.

But he doesn’t say any of that, and he turns, and he leaves.

Megumi, Itadori, and Shoko are all privy to that last shout. They watch with half-curious half-apprehensive eyes as Geto seethes in his march towards the entrance, and they listen to his booming, impatient call for the twins to follow him.

Megumi dimly recalls something Nanami had mentioned as Shoko curses and runs to the library and as he and Itadori shoot up and move towards the door, something uttered like an offhand comment but impossibly full of emotion. “In the end, maybe it was all miscommunication. The two of them never really talked much in those final days. I am certain they held no proper sort of conversation prior to Geto-san’s departure.

“And everyone just watched these two seemingly perfect people part ways like they weren’t everything in the world to each other. Tragic, isn’t it, what saying the wrong things and not saying anything at all can do to people.”

Megumi watches Geto storm by, how Gojo himself practically flings himself out from the library—wide-eyed and surprised words clinging to the O of his mouth—before he stutters to a halt and stands there, one hand clinging to the frame and the other seizing against the stile.

He thinks that it’s certainly tragic, to see this scene and imagine it as an equally ill-fated alternate conclusion to two people who parted ways, this time saying all the wrong things instead of not saying anything at all.

Geto moves quickly and fluidly in his exit but just before he’s about to pause, just before turning the knob, just before he makes his irrevocable exit, his gaze breaks off inconsequentially with the unconscious realization of uncertainty. His posture is still neat; his head doesn’t turn around nor do his movements falter, but Megumi can see the accumulation of years worth of the feelings of having missed someone so much that those feelings become standardized in a repertoire of standard emotions. And then Geto exhales sharply and the moment is gone.

The door opens and shuts behind Geto.

Megumi breathes in. There’s something like frustration in his lungs. He looks up at the ceiling. It’s the highest in the building. He thinks of Gojo hitting his head against ceiling lamps and dropping vases and linoleum floors.

He breathes out, and he sighs.

All for naught then.