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Given her cursed technique, Shoko was the one who was tasked to do health checks on everyone at Jujutsu Tech. Yaga insisted on it, something about ensuring everyone was fit to learn and go on missions — laughable, really, because Yaga didn’t have much of a say in how many missions the students got sent on, and the higher ups couldn't care less for anyone’s wellbeing but their own.
Today was just another day, with Getou sitting silently across from her in the morgue as she reviewed the results from the tests she’d just run on him.
He couldn’t lie and claim that he wasn’t nervous, because he knows that he’s gotten worse, and that it’s blatantly obvious. But there was no way around these health checks, Yaga’s orders, and he knows Shoko is going to point out the obvious. Alas, a selfish part of him doesn’t want to talk about it, wants to be left to deal with this himself. Another part of him felt shame knowing that she knew.
“Suguru,” she broke the silence after a few minutes, sounding as disinterested as ever, but within the two years he’s known her, Getou already knows her tone is one of concern, “you’ve lost a lot of weight.”
He knew it was coming, yet he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes, shrugging and looking anywhere but her. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was supposed to defend himself here when the tried and true results were sat right in front of the two of them.
“You realise everything that's been going on with you qualifies you for having an eating disorder, right?” Her tone was blunt, as if it was the most obvious thing in the word. Suguru shuddered at the implications that carried.
“It’s not that bad.” And truly, he didn’t think it was. “I’ve lost weight, Shoko, big deal. I haven’t lost that much.”
The tired girl sitting mere centimetres in front of him only made a noise of displeasure at that, trying to not come off as judgemental, but instead prove the situation at hand is serious. There was no other way to prove it other than list out the facts she knew on the table, plain and simple, but also stress that she’s his best friend , and she’s worried.
“You’ve lost a hell of a lot of weight in the last month, Suguru. That alone is concerning enough, but what’s worse is I don’t think I’ve seen you eat anything in front of me since what happened to Riko Amanai. I hear you complain about nausea constantly, and don’t think that I don’t hear you throwing up all the time — we’re literally next door to each other,” she paused to take a breath, and Getou thought that was all, but she only continued, “you constantly look like you’re one foot in the grave lately and that’s saying something coming from me. You’re pale and sickly, the circles under your eyes sometimes make me think you’ve been punched in the face if I didn’t know any better. And the kicker? Your hair is falling out , man. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that, either. I find chunks of your hair all around the dorms and it’s thinner than I remember it ever being. And hey, who knows what else you’re hiding? I don’t know what kind of thoughts you have.”
It almost felt as if a knife was being driven right through his skull, feeling exposed and on display for the whole world to see. All he could do was shrink inwards on himself and try desperately to defend himself.
“That isn’t bad enough to be a disorder.”
Perhaps he was gaslighting himself. He didn’t really want to believe it either way, despite Shoko being the more qualified one out of the two of them.
To that, Shoko only sighed, dragging her hands down her face in despair, “Do I have to spell it out for you?” She didn’t even wait to make sure he was listening, because she knew he would. “Suguru. You have an eating disorder.”
“No, I don’t,” he forced out, his voice cracking almost like he didn’t believe his own words.
“Yes, you do .”
But Suguru couldn’t understand why, not at all. He came from a small village in the countryside, unlike the majority of the attendants of Jujutsu Tech who were from the city, so it was fair to say he was sheltered when it came to the topic of actual mental illnesses. He was more than closely acquainted with the topic of poor mental health, on the other hand. The only things he’d ever heard about eating disorders were the people who were thin and didn’t eat at all and the people who ate excessively — he wasn’t either of those.
Sure, he was rapidly losing weight, sure, he didn’t eat much, but he did eat— how else would he survive? That’s not nearly enough to make Shoko believe he was disordered.
“How?” he decides to ask eventually, not grasping the concept of this suggestion at all, “I’m not thin. I eat sometimes and I don’t eat excessively, either. So how the hell could I have a disorder?”
At least he admitted to only eating sometimes , Shoko reasoned, the sudden craving for a cigarette crawling up her spine as she turned to skim her bookcase full of medical journals and other medical books before pulling out the diagnostic manual she had laying around, flipping through the pages until she landed on the section entailing eating and feeding disorders, setting it flat on her desk and allowing Suguru time to pull his chair closer.
“Then you’ve only heard of anorexia and binge eating disorder,” she explained, “there’s more than that. God, you really are some sheltered country boy…”
That explained absolutely nothing to help his confusion, because it’s not as if explaining the obvious fact he knew nothing added to his knowledge at all. She pointed to a specific section, one that she’d become closely acquainted with in the last month after bearing witness to Suguru’s sudden decline with her own two eyes, already having the section memorised like the back of her hand.
“Eating disorder not otherwise specified,” she states, “EDNOS for short. Easier to say, I guess. When your symptoms don’t match up with any other specific diagnosable eating disorder, but the symptoms are still there. Read.”
Suguru knows better than to argue than Shoko when she has her mind set on something — he had learned the hard way. So he listened to her commands, and leaned over the desk to read the criteria neatly set out in the book as if this did not cause Suguru’s world to crumble around him a little more.
Acid burns in the pit of his stomach and bile rises in his throat at how she really was right. Because he didn’t fit any of the other criteria, it was true: he didn’t binge eat, didn’t purposely throw up (if anything, the thought of throwing up because of eating terrified him), and he didn’t really have any problems with his body either — at least not enough to constitute to his restrictions on eating. It was about having control over this fucked up life he lived as one of the strongest sorcerers at only 16 years old. With all the curses he consumed, thousands of them writhing beneath his fingertips and making a sick home in his stomach, each and every one never got easier, tasting like a rag that was used to soak up vomit, and he had never gotten used to that. Restricting his food intake was the only way he could regain control over the things he put into his body, because god knows he had zero autonomy.
Shoko leaves him to let that sink in for a few minutes, because she knew damn well that finding out big news about this was a big deal, especially when you’ve been knee deep in convincing yourself that your habits are normal, because they’ve become normal to you. It was funny though, in a morbid sense, that she really was right all along despite his persistent denial.
“You get what I mean now?” she speaks up when he finally looks up, taking the book and slotting it back onto the shelf beside her. With great shame, Sugaru just nodded without saying a single word.
“You don’t have to be ashamed of struggling, Suguru,” Shoko spoke as softly as she could manage after a moment — comforting him had always been difficult in any context, because he was stubborn as a mule and wouldn’t get things into his thick skull. “I’m here to keep monitoring you, both because it’s my job and you’re my friend . And I’m not losing you, not if I have anything to say about it.”
Her tone was stone cold serious, trying to truly embed into Suguru’s brain the implications that if he continues to live this way, it may just prove fatal — whether that be dying of complications due to malnutrition, or all the other side effects of his habits impacting his work as a sorcerer enough that he’d get himself killed in an entirely avoidable way on the job. Something about that made him feel… Numb. Truthfully, he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything at all.
Shoko felt too young to be dealing with this alone. God, she needed a cigarette or five whenever Suguru finally left the morgue. Her job often crossed the line between personal and professional, but it really erased that line entirely when it was one of her best friends who she had to have a serious discussion with about how if he doesnt start getting better he’s going to end up killing himself , and whether it be accidental or intentional, she’s not even sure at this point.
The silence was thick in the air after that, and in all honesty, Shoko was too tired to tell him to get out and get some rest and to go fucking eat for once. Thankfully, Suguru eventually read the room after a minute or so and started to stand up, not looking her in the eye as he spoke.
“Well… Thanks again, Shoko. I should be going.”
Shoko just nodded, waving him off, resting her head against the cool metal of the desk. Seriously , Suguru owed her a new pack of cigarettes.
Only Satoru and Suguru sat at the table in their, admittedly pretty small, common room. Usually, Shoko would be there to join them to eat, but today she was so preoccupied with the workload in the morgue that she couldn’t be there to join them.
It was dead silent between them besides the scrape of cutlery on plates; Satoru had been away on so many lengthy, distanced missions lately that they rarely had the time to sit and talk anymore, and if they got the chance, it was in the fleeting moments between him being dispatched on another mission. It wasn’t as if Suguru wasn’t also busy, because the higher ups were working him down to the bone too, but it just so happened that anytime one of them was available, the other wasn’t. This was the first time in months they’d even had the opportunity to sit down for something as simple as dinner together, and Suguru was ruining it. Making things awkward, again .
He’d cooked for the two of them, considering Satoru would probably burn cereal, but while Satoru is eating like a man starved, Suguru can’t bring himself to do anything other than absentmindedly push his food around his plate with his fork. It took a minute, but Satoru eventually caught on, frowning a little as he finally looked over at him.
“Are you gonna eat?” he asked, entirely lost on why his best friend was just… sitting there, with the same amount of food on his plate that there was 5 minutes ago.
“Mhm,” Suguru hummed halfheartedly in response and continued with the same lifeless motion from before.
Satoru left it there and continued to eat, finishing up his food and going to wash up before he sat back down minutes later, right next to Suguru.
“Hey,” he spoke in an uncharacteristically soft tone, almost like he was afraid the other boy would break, “is there a reason you’re not eating? I know you said it was just the heat, but like… you’re really thin nowadays, Suguru. I don't think the heat alone does that.”
Suguru swallowed back the bitter taste of bile in his throat, trying to distract himself from the upcoming confrontation and his complete lack of an appetite — but he didn’t know how to explain this to Satoru; he’d been consuming curse after curse for weeks on end, and between missions he’d been practically confined to his bathroom throwing up near constantly because of it, his throat raw and damaged, his usually thick hair dull and brittle and falling out in clumps, bags under his eyes somehow even deeper than Shoko’s, barely having the energy to drag himself around anymore. He’d put on a bit of an act for Satoru, but the mask crumbled easily and was barely even an adequate facade regardless, with his appearance and reluctance to take a bite of his food making it painfully obvious.
“I just… I can’t,” he mumbled out after a full minute of silence, knowing that Satoru’s piercing eyes were staring holes into the side of his face, “I can’t eat, I’m not hungry . And if I eat, I’m just going to throw it back up.”
Satoru tilted his head to the side, akin to a dog, and if the situation were any lighter, Suguru probably would’ve laughed at the action.But all he could feel was his appetite slipping away even more and burning hot shame settling in the pit of his stomach, consuming him slowly from the inside.
“You could’ve asked for me to come back early, y’know?” Gojo spoke after a moment, mulling over how he wanted to say this in his head, “like, this isn’t something that just happens overnight, I—“
Suguru could see the exact moment in Satoru’s eyes when he came to the realisation of what had truly been going on in his absence, expression turning incredibly bitter. “Have the higher ups been sending you on missions while I’ve been gone? Let me guess, they’re sending you on all these solo missions and forcing you to keep consuming more curses— that’s what’s making you ill, right? Those old bastards, I’m gonna—“
“Satoru,” Suguru pleaded desperately after a minute of the other boy (he realised how painfully young they were, to be treated as the best alive and the only ones for the job) ranting about the higher ups, “I took the missions on because I thought I could handle it— and I really thought I could. I mean, what kind of special grade ‘strongest sorcerer’ would I be if I couldn’t take on a few missions, right?” he laughed humorously, but he wasn’t amused at all, “they just continued sending me on more and more while you were always away on long term missions. Day after day, just— exorcising and consuming. Who the hell am I even doing this for anymore? Myself? For the betterment of other people? At what, the cost of my own sanity ?
“You know, every time I close my eyes, all I can see is Riko Amanai dying in front of me?” he laughed breathlessly, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden, and really nothing about that was funny at all, “How I just— let her get shot. Fuck, Satoru, she was fourteen goddammit, but what do the higher ups care about some 14 year olds death, right? And with every single curse I consumed the feelings just got worse and worse, all I can taste now is vomit. I guess I stopped eating because everything tasted foul, and I want control , you know how bad I want control over my own life?
“Shoko tried her best. I know she did. I’ve bothered her so goddamn much, she even went out of her way to find a diagnosis that fit me.
“Isn’t all of that fucked up, Satoru?” Suguru stared up into the other’s rarely exposed eyes, his own eyes wild with adrenaline, “I can’t even handle that, and here you are, the strongest — you don’t even need me anymore, do you? You won’t need me after I just admitted all my weaknesses. How dare that I ever be called strong when compared to the Satoru Gojo.”
If there was one feeling Suguru despised more than anything in the world, it was feeling helpless, and god, he was feeling so, so out of his depth right now. Even moreso when Satoru said nothing in response but pulled him into his arms anyways, and Suguru crumbled at the affection, all the ugly feelings that’d been festering beneath his skin for months bubbling up to the surface as he felt his body wrack with sobs.
“I’m sorry,” he croaked out into his shoulder, suddenly feeling so embarrassed for letting his feelings get the best of him.
“I wish I could’ve been here,” Satoru mumbled back, like he didn’t even care that Suguru had just spilled his guts to him. He wanted to retaliate and lash out that nothing was okay, that he shouldn’t waste his breath on someone as broken as him, but the hand running through his hair soothingly not even moments after made him sob even harder.
Time must’ve passed that he was unaware of, because when he came to, Suguru was in his own bed, still in the arms of his best friend. He blinked a few times, eyes sore from the amount of crying he’d done.
“What…” he mumbled, somewhat dazed as he pulled his face away from Satoru’s shoulder, incredibly confused on how he’d gotten here.
“Back with me?” Satoru only smiled that same stupid smile, “I couldn’t get a response out of you, so I thought bringing you back to your room would comfort you… I know, I know, I’m a genius.”
Suguru huffed — that was the Satoru he knew and, unfortunately , loved.
He went to start apologising, but it’s like the other boy could read his mind, because he immediately started wagging his finger in front of his face as if he were a child. “Noooope, no apologies, don’t wanna hear it. You’ve been through enough, man. I’m glad you could get it all out somehow , y’know?”
Suguru just deflated, flopping his full weight back into Satoru as if all the energy had just been drained from his body entirely. He was exhausted after all the adrenaline had worn off.
“Oof.” Satoru grunted at the sudden weight against him. “Okay, okay, I get it, time for bed for you.”
He let himself be manhandled at that point, moving the two of them more comfortably under the covers, Suguru still flopped over him, making things a little awkward, but they made it work in the end.
It was so silent for a while that Satoru could honestly believe Suguru fell asleep if it wasn’t for his breathing, finally coming the quiet mumble of a “thank you”.
Satoru didn’t say anything as Suguru dozed off moments later. He was just glad to be home, and that there were no more secrets between them.
…He’ll have to talk to Shoko tomorrow.