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Gojo Satoru wanted a friend.
Life as the “strongest sorcerer”, who changed the balance of the entire birth just by being born, wasn’t all that in Gojo’s opinion. It sucked, frankly.
All he did was attend classes and practice his powers. He was locked up in his room otherwise, he never got to go outside, he never had any friends and he never spoke with anyone but his tutors. Life as the strongest was lonely and Gojo would trade it in an instant to be a normal guy with someone warm pressed by his side, telling a joke to make him laugh.
When was the last time he had laughed?
When Gojo was younger, he read a book about an old Japanese legend that claimed anyone who folded a thousand paper cranes would be granted a wish. Gojo decided then and there that he would fold a thousand paper cranes and ask the universe for a friend.
He didn’t have any papers. He had books but he didn’t really want to rip papers out of the only things he had to entertain himself to make cranes. So, he took a singular paper from class every day. A thousand paper cranes meant a thousand papers. A thousand papers meant a thousand days of stealing one paper a day, which added up to nearly three years and if he took into account days when he messed up, it would be basically three years.
Those days he messed up were the worst. The second he folded something wrong or ripped an edge of the paper, the tears welled because oh god anything less than perfect wouldn’t be accepted and his wish wouldn’t be granted and this wouldn’t do, he had to start over, but he was wasting time –
He spiralled.
His room was a prison but he managed to find solace in the little time he took every day to craft a little paper crane and hide it under his bed. No one ever came into his room but he would rather be safe than sorry and hide the precious things.
Sometimes Gojo sat in his room with his arms wrapped around himself because he didn’t remember the last time someone had actually touched him. His nails dug into his arms unconsciously as he tightened his grip around himself and fell asleep curled up on the cold floor, hot tears running down his flushed cheeks and his head tucked into his chest.
The loneliness was overwhelming. Sometimes he didn’t know what to do with himself other than cry. He cried a lot. Never in front of other people because he wasn’t supposed to show weaknesses. No, he cried in his cold, lonely room in one of the corners with his hands pressed over his ears and his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath and calm the shuddering sobs wracking through his body because why was he born this, why couldn’t he have been a normal kid with normal parents and fucking friends.
Gojo had never met his parents, so he didn’t know what a family was supposed to be like, but he didn’t think they left one of their own all alone for his entire childhood. He didn’t have friends either, he wondered what that would feel like? He needed to hurry up with the cranes so he could experience it.
The day Gojo folded his last crane was the day Yaga Masamichi came for him. He introduced himself as the principal of Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School. Gojo didn’t even wait for him to finish explaining before he was standing and tossing what clothes he had into a stiff leather bag. “I want to go.” He had said, a desperate tinge to his voice and his eyes practically begging.
“Okay.” Was all Yaga responded with.
At Jujutsu High, Gojo met Shoko. She was a little weird, dazed and a protégé at reversed cursed technique, which was something not even he could do. But she knew who he was, she knew so she would have expectations. Maybe the stupid crane thing didn’t work after all. Maybe it was just a legend and Gojo had been stupid enough to believe it, because why the fuck would it be true and –
Oh.
Wait.
Who was that?
Geto Suguru? A sorcerer from a non-sorcerer family? He was special grade? Like Gojo? He didn’t know who Gojo was? No expectations?
Maybe the wish did work.
Maybe the Gods granted him his person after all. The Gods gave him Geto Suguru, someone who would carry the burden of the “strongest” with him, relieving him of a burden akin to Atlas’. The Gods gave him someone unafraid to talk back to him, someone who would put him in his place, and Gojo was going to treasure him.
Perhaps it was inevitable that Gojo would fall in love with him. He believed they were fated for each other, something like the strings of fate or whatever. They were made for each other, they had to be, right? Why else would Geto come to him when he finished his last crane.
He didn’t think he could ever tell Geto, though. He cherished the darker haired boy way too much to risk running his mouth and ruining the bond they had built, didn’t want to risk driving away the one person he cared about the most. So, he kept them in. He grabbed his feelings and built a barrier around them like his Infinity, impenetrable to anyone except those he let in (which would be no one, because no one was to know how he felt).
He hid behind saccharine smiles and dramatic actions; he hid behind too big smiles and he cried behind closed doors. He cried because why wasn’t it enough what he had already? Why did he want more? He wanted, and he wanted, and he wanted so badly. He wanted Geto to kiss his glossy lips, he wanted to know what his best friend tasted like, he wanted to sleep with his body pressed against Geto’s, relishing in a warmth he had never experienced before.
He wanted.
He wanted in the silence of his room on sleepless nights where his insomnia plagued him or nightmares ravaged him. He wanted as he watched Geto consume another curse and he rubbed his back when the darker haired boy threw up because the curses tasted disgusting. He wanted whenever he heard Geto’s laugh or saw his smile.
After Toji, it was worse.
The warmth he wanted, he now craved ten times more intensely. It was comfort he desperately needed after he had been brought to the very brink of death by Fushiguro Toji. And he couldn’t have it, because Geto was distant, or maybe Gojo had failed him, had he done something to make a rift this big grow between them? Was this his fault?
Did he fuck up his wish?
Then Geto left.
Then Geto left .
Geto Suguru murdered a village full of people, slaughtered his parents and left, dropping the weight of the world right back onto Gojo’s shoulders. He left and Gojo was the “strongest” again.
Never in his life before had he been surrounded by more people, and yet never in his life had he felt lonelier.