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Satoru has been in love since the day Suguru looked him in the eyes and saw nothing but an arrogant teenage brat.

There was blatant dislike in the way he would treat Satoru, a complete lack of respect or awe at his power, and for all that Satoru disliked him, in nearly equal levels, he craved it.

Suguru looked at him, just sixteen, and saw a boy, a classmate, an annoying jerk.  He couldn't have cared less that Satoru was revered by the world, that he had shifted the scales of the world merely by being born; Satoru bothered him, and so Suguru didn't like him.

He hadn't even known Satoru's name when he first arrived.

It was humbling, and off-putting, and Satoru had never felt so human before.

The weeks after that were filled with many annoyances for Suguru, because Satoru hardly ever left him alone.  Any opportunity he could find, he would be at Suguru's side.  Eventually, Suguru snapped, they got into what could only be called a brawl and both of them ended up lying in the dirt, covered in sweat and forming bruises, gasping for breath.  

That changed everything.

Suguru finally accepted his presence; he only complained a bit, and it was significantly less aggressive than what it had been before.

It was the spring that they first met when Satoru coughed up his first petal.

They'd finished a mission, one that had been more inconvenient than difficult, but Suguru had seen him thrown against walls and so he had made sure Satoru was alright.  It was no more than a simple question, more of a confirmation than anything else, but it had been startling.

That was the first time words of concern had been addressed at him.  Concern over him, not his technique, not the possible setbacks to training an injury could cause, but him.

He'd panicked.  It was so brutally jarring that he'd fled as soon as possible.  He had gone to his dorm and a stream of petals had flowed from his mouth.

Hanahaki was something he'd heard of before, covered in one of the many lessons his clan expected him to know.  It was a curse.  An odd one for sure, but no less a curse.

The energy from your love would linger in your lungs until there was enough to transform it into a petal, then a flower, until whole stemmed plants would come.

Satoru had not taken it well, at first.  There had been fear, fear at this vulnerability that he'd never felt before.  Suguru was his weakest point, not because he was weak, but because he was strong.

He trusted Suguru with his back, with any holes that he couldn't cover.  Suguru filled in where he couldn't, and slowly, Satoru was learning to depend on that.

His close combat had improved from what it once was, never awful but better now, because Suguru had pushed him to improve.  

Suguru was pushing him.  He would motivate Satoru, and in more than just training.  Satoru had never enjoyed life before, he'd never felt cared for, and he'd never noticed these things until now.

Suguru made him human, and humans were weak.  Suguru made him happy, and he had never been more scared in his life.

It was terrifying.

Now that he knew what there was, if it ever went away, he'd be destroyed.  

Suguru could destroy him in seconds.

The absence of Suguru would eat away at him until he crumbled.  Even the thought was distressing to consider.

This was tangible evidence of how far Satoru's defenses had fallen, how there was no point of return anymore.  Suguru had gone so near Satoru's heart that he was practically part of him.

The worst part was: Satoru trusted that Suguru wouldn't hurt him.

He'd had bounties on his head since the moment his existence was known, hundreds of millions as a prize for his life, and he was putting it all in the hands of a boy.  Closing his eyes, jumping off of a ledge, and trusting that everything would be alright.

Satoru was coughing up orange osmanthus blossoms, and he couldn't bring himself to be entirely upset.

Not when he and Suguru were the strongest together.  Not when there was finally someone who understood.

Suguru was too strong to die on some nothing mission, and it made Satoru grow confident.  Fear could only last so long in the face of them.

Perhaps it should've lasted longer.

Maybe that would've forced him to notice as everything began to fall apart.

They had one year together; one year to grow so attached that Satoru hardly felt complete without Suguru.  The strongest became a title for two in their world.

Their world only lasted so long.

Second year is when Satoru now realizes that he lost it all.

When the two of them failed their first mission.  When they walked a girl, so young for what they expected of her, to her death.  When they failed her.

Riko Amanai died, and with her went both of them.

Satoru had lost everything he'd gained.  No longer could he be human; not if his humanity cost others like her to lose theirs.

It was easier to focus on his weakness, rather than how small her body had felt in his arms.

How funny it all seemed.  In the end, it was so easy.  So easy to kill the man who'd left him in the dirt, left him butchered and split apart like sliced meat.

The man who'd put a blade through his throat and down his chest, who'd torn his thigh into pieces with stab after stab until Satoru's leg felt more like gore than flesh and his vision went completely dark.

The man who'd put a bullet through the skull of a child.  Who had scarred an X into Suguru's chest.

He had fallen so easily.  

And it didn't matter at all.

His death didn't prevent the nightmares that haunted Satoru's dreams.  It didn't prevent the constant paranoia, that if he could get around Limitless, if he could be invisible to Satoru's eyes, someone else could as well.

It didn't erase Suguru thinking he was dead and it didn't fix the fact that Satoru failed.  He had failed, had been too late, and because of it everything was shattered at his feet.

Satoru was in the pile of shards and he didn't know how many of them were him.

He smiled and laughed as if it had fixed anything, because he knew if he didn't more people would die.  Suguru had stopped him once, had kept Satoru's hands clean of blood, but he wouldn't be there the second time.  If Satoru didn't laugh, he would kill.

So, he pretended that the death of the man who'd done it all brought any relief.  As if another person dead created anything but rot.

He joked and pretended that he didn't notice the chasm between Suguru and him.  

They were growing apart.

It was hard not too, with both of them stuck on this one failure that had torn them apart, with both of them training themselves down to the bone in some attempt to make sure this never happened again.

The orange osmanthus stopped coming that year, and in their place came lilies.

Somehow, the flowers never shrunk.  Despite the gap forming between them, the flowers stayed steadily coming.  They were the most consistent part of Satoru's life back then.

Third year came and Satoru thought everything was going to be better.

He and Suguru had learned from their failure and it would never happen again.  Nothing could get the better of Satoru anymore.  He was unbeatable, barring Suguru.

They had the power to protect the next people's youth.  No more people would go through what Riko did… what they did.

They spent more time together, and Suguru was different, but so was Satoru.  They'd both changed.  Despite it, they fit into their old routines as easily as breathing.

Satoru would steal Suguru's food, and Suguru would pretend he hadn't ordered the meal for them to share.  Suguru would drag him out and spar with him in hand-to-hand combat, even if they'd both gotten far better than their first year selves.

There were new routines too.  Satoru would come into Suguru's room some nights when he couldn't sleep and they would watch movies.  There were times when Suguru would reach out and check his pulse, would brush his fingers over the scar on Satoru's forehead, as if unable to comprehend his survival.

They had both changed, and Satoru knew it wasn't all for the better, but he'd thought they'd learn to live like that regardless.

He'd thought everything could be good again.

Every once in a while, the lilies would come, but blue roses came far more frequently, with the beginnings of stems trailing behind vibrant petals.

Everything had been going so well.

And then Haibara died.

Nanami closed himself off completely and Suguru seemed not far behind.  Satoru didn't entirely understand, it was sad, sure, but this was a risk that came with being a jujutsu sorcerer, they all knew what they signed up for.  Suguru was crushed, though, so Satoru tried his best to understand.

See, what Satoru felt was anger.  Anger, when all they had to do was tell Satoru to deal with it and it would've been done, but instead they did this.   They sent Haibara off to his death, either because of their pride or their ineptitude.

Satoru was not sad; he was hardly unused to sorcerers around him dying on missions, but it wasn't typically so avoidable.  What Haibara had been sent off for was a death trap, a suicide mission that nobody gained from.  

They weren't usually so wasteful.

Sorcerers were few and far between, killing off all their students would do nobody any good.  The higher-ups knew that, which made this especially strange.  They always were so strongly opinionated about preparing for the future. 

To Satoru, this was the worst of it all: they had killed someone Suguru cared for.  It was their fault that Suguru grieved now.  They were why he was going through this.  As if they hadn't done enough to him already.

Satoru wanted to kill them.  He could tear them apart, make them feel remorse when faced with the death they so easily handed out to others.

It would be for Suguru.  It would be for himself.

It would take him from Suguru. 

Suguru was not coping well and Satoru wouldn't leave him.  He would stay by Suguru's side and do whatever he could to help, no matter how small.

Anything was enough for him, as long as it was for Suguru.

Their days were spent in closer proximity than ever.  Satoru would finish missions faster and faster to get back to Suguru's side, bringing back snacks to try and tempt him into eating, dragging him into naps with high-pitched complaints and anything else that it took.

He tried, and he knew it wasn't perfect but he tried.

It didn't matter.

None of it mattered when he heard the news.  

When he came back from a mission, looking forward to dinner with Suguru, and Suguru had been labeled a criminal, a murderer.   His Suguru, the same one who'd held him back and guided him to do right, was called a murderer.  It was insane!

There was no way it was true!

But Suguru didn't show up at the school.  Yaga was saying all the same things as everyone else, as if he truly believed Suguru would leave them all behind like that!

Then he was given a new mission, one only he could do: kill Suguru Getou.

It was absurd!

They wanted him to- to kill Suguru, as if he was some curse to be exorcized!  As if this was simple and easy and not a contradiction to everything Satoru was!

He couldn't do it.  He wouldn't do it!

How dare they.

After all they had done, it still wasn't enough.  Suguru had given years to the school, had carried the weight of being a special-grade despite having little to no training.  He had helped people, had swallowed their negative feelings and used them as weapons to defend more people.

Suguru had done everything for them, and this was how they repaid him?

Satoru couldn't believe it.

It had taken barely any time for everyone to label Suguru a traitor, but they were wrong.  They'd all see.

His faith didn't die.  Not as night fell, not as the sun rose.

Days went by with no sign of him, of any change.

Shoko called him one day.  She was in Shinjuku; Suguru was there with her.

He wasted no time in going out to them, clinging desperately to the hope and shoving the deep, aching fear beneath everything else.

That day is not one Satoru likes to recall.

See, he'd known for some time that Suguru hadn't felt the same as him.  That where he coughed petals and flowers, tearing apart his insides to make room for Suguru, Suguru did not.

Suguru had always been better at things like that, not getting too attached.

Satoru hadn't thought that rule applied to them too.  To him.

He'd thought they were the same, a pair, set on pedestals above the rest.  Even if Suguru hadn't loved him, he'd thought there had been something.  An understanding, a bond, something.

He… had been wrong.

Are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest, or are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo?  What a stupid question.  

He refuses to answer it.

(He doesn't know if he can. )

On that day, Suguru turned his back on Satoru.  He put his life in Satoru's hands, knowing that the only one to get hurt would be Satoru.

He had stood, watched as Satoru came as close to begging as he ever had– the desperate, silent pleading for Suguru to turn back, the betrayed anger as he left anyway– and it hadn't been enough.

Satoru made it home that day, agony in his lungs, and coughed up a bouquet so bloody that he almost thought they were spider-lilies.

There had never been blood before then.  Now, it came as frequently as the flowers.

And the flowers came frequently.

They would bloom during missions, choking him with every sight that reminded him of Suguru, logical or not.  Whenever he returned to his dorm, there would be a bundle waiting to leave his throat.

He'd eat out and vomit red in public bathrooms.

He would wake in the night, the picture of a dead girl in his arms, of a back turned against him, and sleep in a bed that didn't belong to him.  By morning the pillow would be bloodstained and petal-covered.

Everything he did brought him back to Suguru.  There were a million small things, and hundreds of bigger.  He couldn't find an aspect of his life that Suguru had left untouched.

Perhaps there were a few days that he didn't have petals on his tongue, but they were often worse than the alternative.

Meetings with his clan tended to go that way.

They wanted him to marry.  To find some woman with a strong technique and a good family and begin making heirs.  They wanted him to play puppet for them, to be strong and powerful, but bend to their every whim.

Satoru left those meetings so numb that he wished the flowers would come.

They were killing him slowly, he was well aware, but he didn't mind.  It's how he felt.

He could've removed them.  Could've flooded his lungs with cursed energy and burned away his feelings alongside the flowers.

Shoko had told him as much when she found out, but she knew the answer long before she said anything.  Shoko had been there, had seen the moment they met and guided him to their last moment together.  She knew as well as him that he would sooner let it kill him then remove the only tangible thing he had left tying him to Suguru.

There's something cruel in him, he knows, something that is dead to everything except Suguru, because when he saw Shoko, buds began to open.  And she knew, he knows that she did, because there had been a twist to her face that he would call bittersweet on anyone else.

Somewhere deep inside of him, there is guilt, but more than that, there is nothing.  She is not Suguru, and for that reason alone, he can hardly bring himself to care.

It is awful, and wrong, but there are stems twisting around Satoru's heart that leave no room for anything else.

Sometimes, he wishes they'd squeeze and crush him for good.

It's becoming easier and easier to lie.  To pretend that he still feels joy, that when Suguru left, he didn't take some crucial part of Satoru with him.

Shoko will never quite understand.  She had always had a degree of separation between them, but Satoru didn't have that.  He went all in.  Satoru had spent his mornings leaning on Suguru's shoulder; his noons stealing food that was halfway ordered with his preferences in mind; his nights were spent with Suguru as often as they weren't.

Satoru had given Suguru all of himself and now he's left with the void that remains.

Missions are all that fill his days.

He's got double the workload; luckily, he has plenty of time to deal with it.  There's hardly anything better he could be doing.  Occasionally, he thinks he should be angry, at Suguru, at the higher-ups, but he can never muster up the effort.

Day-by-day, month-by-month, this is how his life goes.

His time alternates between training or going out on missions.

Class is a joke.  Yaga has two students left and both of them have bigger responsibilities than what he's teaching.

Eventually, when Satoru can look at Shoko without feeling petals flutter, they start meeting up again.

It's infrequent and slightly stilted, but it's one step towards normalcy.

It's the first step of many to come.

…

Two years come and go from that day in Shinjuku, and a memory comes back to Satoru.

He searches for a bit and finds an address.  It leads to a shabby building in an old neighborhood.

The kid was there.  Megumi, Fushiguro Megumi.  That man's kid.

Satoru had forgotten about him, about the man's last words, he hadn't cared too much at the time.  Honestly, he hadn't cared too much now.  The only reason he'd come was because he knew the Zen'ins didn't have him yet and he was curious.  What sort of offspring would a man like that produce?

Instead of one child though, Satoru finds two.  A sister, Tsumiki, a non-sorcerer.  There would be no worse place for her than the Zen'ins.  They would hate everything about her, if they even bothered to take her in.

In what is perhaps a bit of a daze, Satoru arrives home with two children and plans to prevent a sale to the Zen'in clan.

He doesn't know these children, and arguably, based on their father, he should hate them, but Satoru doesn't feel the way.  He's not in the mood to let clans destroy two more children.  Even if that means he has to take them in himself to stop it.

It's weird.  His apartment isn't furnished for children; it's hardly furnished for him.  He spends more time on missions than he does here, it was more a place to sleep than anything else.

That's going to have to change, he realizes quickly.  He's already had to give up his bed, because he's not awful enough to force the children he took in to sleep on the couch, and the couch is horrible on his neck.

As it is, his apartment is only a two bedroom place, so he'll need to start looking for a new, bigger apartment.  He supposes they could technically share, but it's not happening. If they're going to be Satoru's wards, they're going to have their own rooms.  It's not as if he doesn't have the money to spare.

And that's how his next few days go.  He calls out of missions, for the first time in years, maybe ever, and takes the kids out.  They find an apartment, and, through the power of vast amounts of money, are allowed to move in before the week ends.

They find stuff for their rooms and help Satoru set it all up.  It ends up taking far longer than it should and only half of it gets done, but it's something.

Satoru wakes up one morning, early afternoon really, and finds Tsumiki in the kitchen, making breakfast for Megumi.  She looks so mature; Satoru can't stand it.

Satoru realizes, the same he had with the apartment, that something needs to change.

He wakes up early the next morning and spends far too long trying to make an edible breakfast that children would eat.  He's never had to cook for himself before past a few simple meals; as a child, the cooks did it all, and he's been practically living off of takeout these years.

It isn't the most appealing food, but Satoru puts most of the burnt or raw portions on his own plate and what's left for the kids is actually fairly decent looking.

Tsumiki is up first, to prepare food for Megumi, and she cries when she sees the food.  Satoru panics, Megumi wakes up, finds Satoru near his crying sister and blames him, and everything falls apart that morning.

The next morning goes a little better.

Satoru is going to make sure all of their mornings go better.

What doesn't go as well is trying to set them up for school.  Satoru doesn't know how to sign children up for school.  He, technically, has no legal connections to them.  Satoru isn't their parent, can he even sign them up for school?  Surely he has to know somebody who knows how to do this!

There is a frenzied process after sending the children to bed where Satoru goes through just about every contact in his phone, and a rush of cold goes down his spine as he hits Suguru's name.

He'd forgotten.

These past few days, he'd been so distracted, racing through setting up two children's lives, that he hadn't thought about it.

A heavy stone sinks in his gut, some dark feeling twists around his throat.

Suguru wouldn't begrudge him this, he knows, Suguru wouldn't even care.  Satoru is well within his rights to live however he pleases.

He can't though.

Suguru planted roots deep into Satoru's being, whether or not he stayed to see them grow doesn't change that.  Satoru doesn't know who he was before Suguru showed up.  He doesn't know if he was anything at all.

There is a portion of Satoru that exists solely for and because of Suguru.

Everything that resembles humanity in him was crafted according to Suguru; it was shaped and guided by Suguru's actions.

How could he ever forget that?

Satoru… is aware that he cannot live how he had been living before.  That the constant work-survive cycle is not one that can raise children to any degree, and he cannot leave these children to survive alone.

He cannot allow himself to live in the shadows of Suguru's past.

So Satoru, in a genius fit of stupidity, decides there's only one thing he can do to stop living as a ghost in his own life, and hits the call button.

The phone rings, and Satoru doesn't know what he's hoping for, an answer or one more rejection.

It rings.  And keeps ringing.

…

The phone goes silent.

A voice comes out.  Grainy through the speakers of the phone, but a sound as familiar as breathing to Satoru.

Suguru speaks, and there's a moment where Satoru is struck by a sense of rightness.  Everything falls back into place.

It does not last long.

Seconds.  That is how long Suguru's voice stuns him, how long it keeps him from realizing the obvious.

Suguru hadn't answered the phone.  What Satoru is hearing is a voice-mail, one that isn't what the one they had recorded together, the match to what Satoru still uses.

It's funny, so Satoru laughs.  He laughs for having ever expected anything else and laughs as thorns leave his throat scratched and raw.

His grip on the kitchen table is the only thing holding him up as laughter shakes his body.  He curls over his stomach, wheezing for breath as tears bud in his eyes.

Blood leaves puddles of stark red against the wood of the table, in them chrysanthemums lay whole, undamaged despite everything.

Satoru stays like this until everything dies down.  Until the trembling nears an end and he can shove the frenzied emotions behind a locked door.

Really, he doesn't think this next bit was his fault.

Across the room, there’s a soft shuffling of feet.  "Gojo?"

He takes a slow breath, painting a smile on his face, "What are you doing up, Megumi?  Did you miss me already?"  He teases.

Megumi turns the corner and blinks up at him, clearly half-asleep but Satoru feels like there's definitely judgment in his eyes.  Satoru almost feels offended.  It doesn't last long, not when Megumi is still doing his tired little adorable hobble towards the kitchen.  "I'm thirsty."

Satoru exhales a laugh, "well, let's get you some water then."

He turns his back to Megumi, trusting that everything would be alright for the thirty seconds it'll take him to fill a glass.

A chair scrapes against the floor as Megumi takes a seat.

"What are these?"  He hears, humming before responding with a jovial: "I don't know, what are they?"

There's a little breath from Megumi that Satoru swears is a sigh, and it's one of the hardest things he's ever done to not burst into a fit of giggles.  The kid is like a grandpa.

"They’re flowers," Megumi says in his put-upon way, “but they're all bloody.”  

Glass shatters against tile.  Satoru jolts, biting his lip to keep from swearing.

"Gojo?"  Megumi asks, and Satoru wishes he couldn't hear how it had gone quieter, how wariness had crept in, all of the ways that it lacked his usual uncaring demeanor.  He sounds like a child.

He forces a small laugh, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck, even if Megumi can't see it through the dark.  "Whoopsies!  I dropped the glass, how silly of me!"

He hadn't thought.   How stupid of him.

It was dark, but Megumi wasn't blind.

Satoru gets a new cup.  He fills it with water and ignores all of the questions that Megumi doesn't ask.  Once the water is gone, Megumi is carried out of the kitchen and put back to bed; there is a layer of Limitless between them.

The shards on the floor cannot reach Satoru, but he nearly wishes they could.

Megumi was not meant to know.  Not for a long time, at the very least.

That night, Satoru cleans the floor of the glass.  He assembles stray pieces of furniture, unboxes knick knacks that haven't been gotten to yet.  Satoru does many things that night, but he does not sleep.

The next morning, he makes their breakfast and covers it, leaving a note for them in case they wonder where he's gone.  

He goes on a mission or three or many more.  The curses are all painfully easy to defeat, so he keeps going until he loses count and the sun is past halfway in the sky.

It is evening when he returns, says the clock.  Tsumiki is on the stepstool he bought for them, doing the dishes from what must have been either their lunch or their dinner.

There is something in Satoru that sinks.  It is combined with such a heavy apathy that Satoru thinks he will drown beneath it.

There is shock in their gazes when they notice him, and Satoru feels like he has failed all over again.

He can't do anything for these kids.  He will fail them, just like he failed Riko, just like he failed himself and Suguru.  Whenever anything counts, Satoru always fails.

Satoru's throat itches when he speaks, a greeting or an excuse, Satoru doesn't know even as the words leave him.

He cannot bear to look at them, knowing how much he's failed them already and how it'll only get worse.  Suguru would've done so much better; he'd always been better with kids than Satoru.

None of the missions had been exceptionally difficult, but still Satoru feels inexplicably exhausted.  He makes some half-hearted attempt at smiling, and shuffles off to his bedroom.

A hand catches the leg of his pants.  He glances down and Megumi's face is pursed, his eyebrows are pinched together and his voice is ever so serious when he says: "You're okay."

There's something about it, about the way his eyes are harsh with concern and how his words come out closer to a command than a question, that makes the back of Satoru's eyes ache.

It has him biting down on his lip to push back the urge to fall apart.

He shoves a hand into Megumi's hair and ruffles it until the boy's face scrunches with annoyance.  

"Of course I'm okay, I'm the strongest."  He says and pretends that his voice isn't choked from holding back tears.  Megumi doesn't give him that courtesy, the brat, and the skeptical look brings a wet laugh from his throat.

"Really, I am!"  He insists, "I'm super strong!"

Megumi doesn't say anything, just states at Satoru doubtfully.  Slowly, he nods, with a look on his face that's so blatantly unbelieving that he can't have even tried to hide it.

Satoru sticks out his tongue and makes a face.  Megumi, after a moment of pause, does the same.  Not a second goes by before Megumi is back in his normal position, arms crossed and face calm as ever.  Satoru would almost be tempted to doubt what he saw if he didn't know better.

The contrast is hilarious and Satoru laughs.  A petal floats down to the floor.

Tsumiki shuffles over to them, hesitant as she moves and with a soft little voice, but her words hit Satoru like a train.  "We're glad you're back."

Satoru bends to the ground, kneels to be at their level, and pulls them to his chest.  He holds them close and buries his face in dark hair and pretends that there are no tears when he says: "I'm always going to come back!  You'll never be able to get rid of me!"

Days are better after that.  Not because Satoru is naturally good at pseudo-parenting, but because he has to be.  He has to be better.  He can't let himself fall apart, because he cannot allow that weight to be pushed onto these children.

He goes on his missions and makes sure to keep an eye on Megumi and Tsumiki the entire time, unwilling to risk missing a moment of their distress and being like all the people in his own life.  He manages to set up their schools, with no small amount of struggle.

It is work.  He has to improve at things he had never had reason to think of before and he has to do it quickly, but Satoru is strong.  He is good at things, and this is no different.

Even if it kills him, he will not allow these children to be like him.

He will give them everything: food, gifts, shelter, schooling, the chance to be children without fear, someone to turn to when they face problems, anything they could ever want, he will get for them.  He'll be so present in their lives that they'll be annoyed.

He will give them everything he had, and so much more.  

They may not be his kids, but he will move Heaven and Earth to give them the childhood they deserve.

For the first time in a long time, he thinks things might be okay.

Months go by, and things change, but not significantly.  He begins training Megumi.  It becomes abundantly clear why the Zen'in were willing to pay such a pretty penny for him.  He's a prodigy, to say the least.  His ability with his technique is amazing, even if clumsy and imperfect.  It's no fault of his own, the limitations of a child's body and lack of training more than anything else.

It is not a pleasant realization.

Satoru can understand the experience of adeptness intimately, that does not make him any more prepared for raising a child like himself.  He certainly doesn't want to emulate his caretakers.

Here, Satoru is lost.

He had been raised with the best tutors in every subject, whether it be English, Jujutsu, or anything else.  They were thorough in their teachings and he left knowing all the information required of him.  By no means were their methods unsuccessful.  Satoru lived up to their expectations after all, but for the longest time, that's all he was.  The Strongest was a shallow title, only after he became Satoru Gojo did things mean something to him.

So, for better or for worse, he will not be using the same methods.  If Megumi's potential is never fully realized because of it then so be it.

There is only one person he's ever trained with who left him feeling human.

Everything always seems to circle back to him.  

It's funny, in a bittersweet sort of way.  Satoru could fill vases from the flowers he chokes out, could water them with the blood from his throat, but it is Suguru's hands he imitates as he corrects Megumi's form.  

Suguru was a forest fire and he burned Satoru into the ashes that now nurture future generations.

He was the beginning of Satoru; he was his destruction.  He is the kindest person Satoru has ever known.

In an odd way, Megumi and Tsumiki have almost become the same thing.  They have given a new life to Satoru, new reasons to find joy in things that had turned monotonous.

Satoru awaits the day they destroy him.  He doesn't know if he'll survive that, but then again, he didn't think he would survive Suguru's either.

They don't know, not that it would change anything if they did, really.  It isn't a concept they'd be able to understand quite yet.  It isn't a burden that he plans on giving them.

Certainly not now, maybe not ever.

And so the years go by.

They grow into teenagers, still adorable, Megumi has the same pouty face and Tsumiki's eyes never lose their kindness.  Satoru's little angels, don't believe anyone who says otherwise.

He goes to a million parent-teacher conferences for Megumi, fighting this and fighting that, and Satoru couldn't be any prouder all the while.  What a little do-gooder.  He's just like his sister, if significantly more violent about it.

Tsumiki has this knitting phase, she makes lopsided sweaters, gloves that are slightly oddly shaped, and scarves.  They're perfect.  Satoru never wears anything else in the winter.

The flowers didn't stop, not that he thought they would, but there is no more blood.  It doesn't hurt anymore, not in the same way it used to.  It is an ache, one that hurts more some days than others, but he lives on.

Suguru is a past he will cling to and fight for, but he will not let it hurt him anymore.  They all deserve better than that.  His kids, Suguru, and himself.

Eventually, he does explain the entire thing to the kids.  Coughing up flowers isn't the most inconspicuous thing and when they finally ask the question, he answers, no holds barred.

They get everything that Satoru can share.  They hear about their first meeting, and the missions that came after, the training sessions that bordered play, and all of the stupid things they did together.

They hear the mainly good, but also the bad, and anything else Satoru thinks to tell them.

Satoru is not ashamed of their past.  He is not ashamed of his love.

No matter the time they've spent apart or the things that Suguru has done, Satoru is not ashamed, nor does he plan on moving on.  He will continue forward, bringing the remains of what they'd had with him at his side, as he's done for so many years.

He will never forget, but Satoru is more than that now.

There are people who depend on him, people who he can't let down.

Suguru would understand that, he thinks.  He was always the type of person to go above and beyond for the people he cared about, something as small as this would hardly be anything to him.

These years have gone by, and for the first time, Satoru fills a vase with flowers he's grown himself and there is joy.  His house is decorated with signs of all the people he cares about and Suguru's shouldn't be hidden any more than anyone else's.

Soon after, he becomes a teacher.  He sees a Zen'in girl with skills born of determined hard work, born from passion and the fire of being put down by others, and thinks of Megumi and… him.  The Zen'in clan certainly has a way with producing wayward prodigies, he thinks with no small amount of amusement.

There's a cursed speech user, shunned and ostracized by the small society that he belongs to, but pushing through despite it, finding new ways to communicate and grow alongside his friends.

He teaches his own teacher's son.  A bear, made by a technique, but no less human for it.

Students are a funny thing, he learns.  Or at least, his are.  Satoru Gojo is the strongest, this is a simple fact.  Nobody could stop him if he decided to go rogue, or do anything else, for that matter, but these kids don't have a care in the world about that.  To them, he's their stupid teacher.  An idiot, a semi-competent one, but an idiot nonetheless.

They have not one ounce of respect for him.  It's hilarious, Satoru couldn't have asked for anything better.

For all that they take training seriously, and he has very diligent students, they are still soft, kind.  They have yet to face the horrors of full sorcerer life, the people you don't save in time and the ones you have to kill, the brutal futility of life.

There is still childishness in them, even the ones who have been hurt or mistreated, and Satoru swears he will protect it with his life.  They will not face these sights until they are older, more prepared.  They will not be sent on missions beyond their level, they will not be abandoned to a fight that they aren't ready for.

Satoru will not let them die before they graduate highschool.  He will die before that happens.

He doesn't know how much of that they know, but he's sure they know enough.  At the very least, they know he won't let anything happen to them.

In return, nobody says anything when he turns away during lessons to cough up bundles of flowers, when he tucks them into vases or any other available spot.  Somehow, somewhere along the line, they had heard the same stories he had told Megumi.

Maybe not all of them, but enough for them to understand.

When he meets a boy, surrounded by the curse of a childhood love, it's like looking in the mirror and seeing his past self.

The higher-ups want to schedule him for execution.  A boy, only slightly older than Megumi, Tsumiki's age.

Satoru was already trying to dismantle the corrupt hierarchy before this, but if he hadn't been this would've set it in stone.

He refuses to allow this to happen.  Not now, not during his lifetime.  If he must use all of the power at his disposal to stop this then so be it.  There will be no sacrificial lambs, no children killed.  This is one point that he will not bend on.

Yuuta has such potential, even from the beginning.  His cursed spirit girlfriend is an absolute beast, but given time, Yuuta could probably stand with her.

He's a bit of a klutz, but rapidly improving.  For someone who had never touched martial arts or a sword before now, he is at an impressive level.

Already, he's been classified as a special grade sorcerer.  Satoru has yet another prodigy on his hands.  At this point, he thinks he has more prodigies than not.  He must just be that good of a teacher.

In Yuuta is this guilt.  He seems to blame himself for every person hurt by Rika.  Satoru can understand the sentiment, even if he knows it's false.

As a teacher, it's his job to teach Yuuta that it isn't his fault.  No matter how it feels or what he might've done in a perfect world, they were children, it wasn't his fault.

Satoru knows what it's like: questioning everything you did, wondering if you had done just one thing would everything be different?  You turn over every action, picking apart at yourself for things that you either couldn't have foreseen or prevented.

Yuuta has had to feel that way for too long.  If Satoru can provide any comfort, he will try his hardest.

Dead and turned traitor are closer than Satoru likes to think about.  They're both gone, but Rika is dead and Yuuta has to live with that.  At least Satoru has the comfort of knowing Suguru is alive, if out of his reach.

Eventually, after quite some time, Yuuta becomes qualified enough to go on a mission with Toge.  As support, told to stay in the background away from combat entirely.  It's basically the same thing!

Well, with Satoru minorly watching over them via the Six-Eyes to make sure nothing goes extremely wrong, it's basically the same thing.

But it's fine, Satoru has plenty of time to spare to watch over his delicate little students.  His own missions barely have any of his attention, that's how little effort they take.

Upon first glance, Satoru realizes something is wrong.

There's a veil, perfectly normal, but it isn't Ijichi's.  It's stronger, more constricting.  It's almost familiar, but distinctly off, for numerous reasons.  He suspects, but he can't be sure.

Another thing, there's a strong curse with his students.  His students who are meant to be on a, what, semi-grade one mission, if that?  

It doesn't seem to be entirely beyond their capabilities, so Satoru isn't going to step in, but it isn't right.  This can't be the higher-ups either, they've already made their move and while they aren't particularly fond of either of these two of Satoru's students, they aren't so dumb as to do something like this.

There's one glaringly obvious option, but he can't be sure yet.

His students manage to deal with the curse without getting too injured, but Satoru prepares to head out anyway.  There are some things he needs to double check.

With this, it would be better to be safe than sorry.  

Satoru doesn't know whether or not he hopes to be wrong.

His mission doesn't take long to complete and transportation is instantaneous.  

At the scene of the crime, he notices something.  His students wouldn't have realized, couldn't have really, but there had been another person with them.  A highly skilled one, based on how well they could conceal their cursed energy from Satoru's eyes.

Despite that, there are clear residuals.  Satoru could never mistake them with anything else.

He has spent hours, days, memorizing this cursed energy, committing every detail of it to memory.  He wouldn't forget it, not even on his deathbed.

This was Suguru.

Suguru had been the one to do this.

He had trapped Satoru's students and made them fight one of his curses.  He had watched it all and then let them go.

Suguru had observed.  Had set them against a curse he knew the exact strength of.

He was testing them.  Testing Yuuta.  

It would be odd, entirely unprompted and unnecessary, if not for Rika.

Now, it is possible that Suguru was just curious as to how accurate the rumors surrounding her are, or whether or not he could convince Yuuta to join his cause, but Satoru doubts that.

See, one time, many years ago, Suguru had told Yaga that any curses bound to something were beyond him, unattainable for his collection.  It hadn't made sense to Satoru at the time– why would a bound curse be any different from an unbound curse?  He could see that the cursed energy flow wasn't too different, so it had seemed wrong that Suguru wouldn't be able to.  He can see it more clearly now; a young Suguru, unused to the Jujutsu world and already not entirely fond of it, hiding one way that they would try to use him as a tool.

That means that if Suguru got close enough, Rika could be his.  What a terrifying thought for the world.

In which case, this entire goal would be obtaining Rika, by whatever means possible, Satoru imagines.

Of course, he could be wrong, unlikely , but possible.

Which means that Yuuta is likely all that stands between Suguru and the power that is Rika.

Satoru's student isn't caught in the crossfire, he's the target.  What else should he have expected?

Why else would Suguru have shown up after all?

This is where he has to draw the line.  If Suguru shows up again, if he tries to lay a hand on Satoru's students, Satoru will kill him.  If Satoru has to choose between the lives of his students, of even just one, or Suguru, he will choose them.  He has to.

He will not, he cannot, allow these children to come to harm.

Even if it means tearing himself into a million little pieces, splitting his body and soul in two, even if it causes him unspeakable agony, even if he is never the same afterwards.  

Satoru is a sorcerer and sometimes that means making hard choices; it means putting others above yourself.  Satoru would rather kill Suguru and bury himself with him than allow his students to be hurt.

This, he knows, Suguru would understand.  He has daughters, after all, girls who he slaughtered a village in defense of.  He would understand, he'd probably do the same thing.

The thought doesn't help.  Nor does it smother the hope that maybe it won't come to this, that maybe Satoru is wrong.

He cannot help but hope, futile as it may be.  Infinity is a wonderful barrier, but Satoru is awful at keeping people out.  He always has been, time hasn't changed that.

Despite everything, despite the years and the crimes, Satoru doesn't think there's ever been a moment where he fully gave up on Suguru.  He'd always thought that one day everything would be fixed, their world a better place, and Suguru would be back with him.  He would've welcomed him back anytime, would've defended him to the death.

Realistically, this is a fate he should have grown resigned to many years ago, it was inevitable.  It would be foolish to ever believe otherwise.

Satoru is a fool.

He is an idiot, because when he sees a mass of cursed energy enter the school's boundary, Suguru's energy closely intertwined with it, he is eager.  There is wariness, caution, but it's a negligible amount.

Even as he watches Suguru approach his students, he is not afraid.  Suguru wouldn't hurt them now, not after essentially announcing his presence to the entire school, and that besides, they're young sorcerers.  He wouldn't hurt them if he didn't have to.  

Yuuta will be an exception, if it comes to that, not the rule.

That's what his heart says.  From everything he knows about Suguru, the years they spent at each other's sides, he trusts this wholeheartedly: he will not hurt Satoru's students unprompted.

It's just a matter of making sure he stays unprompted.

Easy enough, probably.  Suguru's temper had always been a drawn-out thing, slow to anger and all that.  Explosive when it finally happened, but rare.  There was nothing his kids could do to provoke that.

They would be fine.

Satoru wouldn't let them be hurt; Suguru wouldn't hurt them.

He still doesn't wait to arrive.

He's the first one there, all the others closely behind him, and, for the first time in far too long, he sees him.

Suguru has an arm thrown around Yuuta, a casual grin on his face like this was as normal as could be.

For a moment, Satoru is blind.  He looks out at the world and all he sees is the possibility of what could have been, of what he could've had.  Of what could've been theirs.

He sees Suguru, a teacher at his side, the students theirs instead of his.  They'd be demons, with both him and Suguru as teachers.  They'd be unstoppable.

Maki would only be better with weapons, what with Mister Pick-Them-All Suguru.  Sword, nunchucks, staff, Satoru couldn't think of a weapon that Suguru hadn't trained in.

Suguru's girls would be part of it too, the ones he picked up on that mission so long ago.  Nanako and Mimiko.  Satoru would know their names from more than just files.

Maybe they'd be close with Megumi and Tsumiki, raised side-by-side.  Who knows, maybe they'd be something closer, because if Satoru still had Suguru he'd never leave his side.  He'd cling like it was first year all over again.

He'd make the foods that Suguru likes and pretend that he doesn't see him sweetening it for Satoru.  He'd dry his hair properly, like Suguru was always too lazy to do, brushing through it afterwards to keep it soft.

There still would've been struggles.  The higher-ups certainly wouldn't have been any better.  It wouldn't have been perfect.

It would've been home.

And Satoru watches the image of it shatter.  He throws the first stone.

He throws out some comment about Suguru's ideals and when Suguru's stare moves to him, he is only half-glad.

Satoru can't help the aching in his lungs when Suguru turns to him.

There is a puzzle piece connection that comes from having Suguru look at him again, a missing slot filled.  At the same time, there is a callousness in the eyes which had always held so much compassion; it is painfully jarring.

In so many ways, he looks like the same Suguru.  In almost all the ways that matter, he’s so different.

Satoru wishes that things had gone another way.

Instead, here he stands now, faced with the first person he ever truly cared for, listening as war is declared against the school he's dedicated to fixing, the same school that holds his students.

He listens as the person he loves describes how, exactly , he plans on attacking what used to be their home.

It is a twisted place, rotten and cruel, the product and producer of a heartless world; despite it all, Satoru has found love unlike any other in it.

Suguru intends on going through with it though.  Satoru can see that much easily.  Not that he ever really doubted it.

It's amazing, he wonders, how the way Suguru calls his name hasn't changed.  He is tearing apart everything that Satoru has worked for and yet he still sounds like home.  He still soothes a part of Satoru that nobody else has ever reached.

And he still turns his back on Satoru.

Vines in his lungs twist, breath comes shorter and shorter, and he's angry.

It feels like third year all over again: the desperate mix of anger and dread, the sight of Suguru's back searing into his mind, knowing it isn't born from trust like it used to be, but from separation.  

Years have passed since that day in Shinjuku, but there is a festered wound in Satoru that time has never healed, a weeping cavity of betrayal and despair.

He can't stand it.  He can't bear having to see this again, knowing that, for all that it's different, it's exactly the same as back then.

I can't let you go, he says, or some variation of it, just to keep Suguru looking at him.

Still, it only delays him for a moment.  Suguru looks at him, and– with a smile that sends flower buds to Satoru's throat– threatens to hurt his students.  He has them all surrounded by curses, as if Satoru would've fought him while they're in range of being collateral.

Satoru wants to say Suguru knows he wouldn't, that it was a show for everyone else so he could walk away again, but he doesn't know.  After all, why should Suguru care to continue understanding a person who he left in the past?

It has him tasting orchids and camellias.  Such beautiful flowers, only to be stained with blood and dirt, whites and pinks turn to browns and reds, sullied by the world.  Perhaps, left alone they could've thrived, not here though… never here.

The last thing he sees of Suguru before he leaves is the way he watches the flowers drift to the earth.  Expression twisted in a way Satoru can no longer recognize.

Everything is hectic in his wake, the school in a frenzy to prepare and discuss and his students aren't content to be kept out of loop.

He wants to go home.

Home, with his kids, with the shadows of Suguru that had always haunted him but never like this.

For now, he has to clean up this mess.  He needs to go to the meetings and organize countermeasures, like the subservient sorcerer they want him to be.

Once all that is done, he will bask in the peace of home.

He has a feeling there won't be much left, soon.

…

The day comes quickly.  December 24th.

For the entire morning, everybody around him is on edge, waiting for the attack.  It isn't until it finally happens that the tension seeps out of people's shoulders, combat, as opposed to waiting, is something they know how to deal with.

To Satoru's eyes, the sight is horrifically beautiful.

It's like a rainstorm of cursed energy.  The slow beginning as the first curses show up, the heavy downpour as hundreds start to press out.

The sky darkens under his gaze, clouds of cursed energy so closely packed that they nearly converge into one.  There are traces of Suguru strown throughout the entire mess, a vortex of all the curses’ mixed energies, held together by the chain of his resolve.

What a grotesque view, he thinks, blinking slowly behind his bandages, as a slaughter begins.

He is kept busy, there is a significant number difference between the curses and the sorcerers and it is his job to make sure the gap is insignificant.  The strongest curses go to him and the cannon fodder are taken care of by the rest.

It's all a little too orderly, he realizes.  He's being attacked with a constant barrage of as few curses as possible, just enough to keep his attention on them and not anything else.

Like the school.  Yuuta.

A distraction.

Suguru is buying time, keeping him away from his students.

How annoying.

He's stuck here, dealing with enemies that only he can safely defeat, while his students are attacked.  What an irritating move by Suguru.

Satoru can't leave, or other sorcerers will die, but if he wastes the time to take care of these problems, his students could very well be dead by the time he arrives.  It's clever, exactly the kind of move he should've seen coming.

There's really not much he can do, other than finish his fights faster and get to his students as soon as possible.

Of course the only person left with Yuuta was Maki, the only other student of Satoru's that Suguru wouldn't mind killing.

Just perfect.   Except… ooh, idea!

Oh, he's insufferable, Suguru will be so annoyed!

Satoru brings over a lower ranked sorcerer, tells them to inform Toge and Panda that their mission has changed, they are to return to the school immediately.

If Suguru wants to play petty then Satoru will play petty.

Besides, all they have to do is manage to stall Suguru long enough for him to arrive.  He probably won't even hurt them too badly, just enough to temporarily incapacitate them.

They'll be fine; Satoru trusts Suguru.

And anyway, there are only a few more curses in the area that need Satoru's attention, after that, and likely the one man creeping around the corners of his vision, Satoru will be free to go.

Only a little longer, they can hold on for that long.

It doesn't take too long for him to finish.  Only a few minutes.

It's still too long.

Satoru arrives at the school with a blink.  He takes a second to look at everything: the fight is over, his students are all relatively fine, and Suguru’s cursed energy is flickering weakly along the outskirts.

Without hesitation, it is the first place Satoru goes.

He finds Suguru slumped against a wall, shoulder a mess of red and blood splattered across his face.

It's wrong.

It shouldn't be like this, he thinks.

He knows- he knew that he'd have to kill Suguru here, that this would be their last meeting, but it wasn't-!

Satoru's throat is blocked- he can't breathe.

This wasn't how it was meant to be!

They'd walked by this wall a million times as students.  They had laughed and joked, had leaned on each other's shoulders, and now Suguru was dying here.

Suguru was dying; Satoru was going to kill him.

He could survive the wounds he had right now, if Satoru let him leave, if Suguru managed to get help, he could live.  It wouldn't be perfect, but he could survive.   Satoru wasn't going to let that happen.

It was going to be his fault.

“Satoru,” Suguru says, like it's a breath of fresh air.  “You're late.”

He's smiling, his back pressed against brick, blood pooling where an arm used to be, but he looks at Satoru and he's smiling.

He has to know why he's here.  He has to know that Satoru is going to kill him, but he's smiling anyway.

“Your students could've been hurt, sending them was reckless.”  He chides, head resting against the wall, eyes drifting shut.

“It’s fine,” Satoru says, “I trust you wouldn't hurt them too badly.”

Suguru laughs, 'sand Satoru wishes it were a happier sound, not some airy noise of wistfulness and disbelief.  

“Trust, huh?  I didn't know I had any of that left.”

“You never lost it.”  He replies, and the quiet that follows isn't entirely surprising.  

Now would probably be the time, he thinks, to kill him.  The thought doesn't click.

It's not right.  Satoru can't do it now, what if Suguru has something else to say.  What if he interrupts him and then his last message never makes it out.

What if he has a message he wants Satoru to take to his daughters, or- or anyone!  

Satoru has to do this!  He has to!  And he can!  He is more than capable of killing Suguru here!  Just about anyone would be!  But he can't!

He would do anything else, anything else!

Is he Satoru Gojo because he's the strongest or is he the strongest because he's Satoru Gojo, Suguru once asked him.  It's both.  It's neither.

Satoru is who he is because of Suguru.  The Strongest was a hollow shell, a person so far removed from humanity that they could hardly be called that.  The Strongest was a child with a name, but they existed because of their strength, for their strength.  Satoru Gojo came into existence because of Suguru!

How could he do this?

How could he kill Suguru?

The man who ran a cult was the same boy who shared candy with Satoru.  The man who killed hundreds, thousands of non-sorcerers was the same boy who held Satoru back from doing the same, who had set him on the path he was on now.

Suguru Getou was the root of everything Satoru Gojo was; he could not exist without him.

But it seemed he would have to.

Suguru tosses him a thin card, tells him to return it to his owner, and Satoru hates the finality in the sentence.

He hates the way Suguru says that he never hated them, never hated him.   He hates how they lived in a world where he couldn't smile from the bottom of his heart.

He hates that he realizes… if he doesn't kill Suguru here, he will die alone.  He will die and there will be nobody to carry that on.  Suguru's death will be solitary and gone.

Satoru is losing time, there isn't much more he'll get.

There are a million things he wishes he could say, a million things over a million days, but he doesn't have that.  He only has one thing, and it's all of them.

I love you.  I have always loved you.  I will always love you.  “Will we meet again?”  He asks.  Did you love me?

And Suguru laughs a little bit, the same fond exasperation that Satoru had heard a million times before and more.  “At least curse me a little at the end.”

Yes, he thinks he hears.  I did, I do.

Satoru raises his hands, death trailing up after him 

and

he

chokes.

Suguru dies, and Satoru falls.

There's so much blood, but all Satoru can focus on is the absence where Suguru used to be in his vision.  His cursed energy doesn't move the same anymore, it doesn't swirl and dance like life within life, it lingers, like on any other corpse.

The trace of Suguru is thick, but it's slowly drifting away.  It won't stay forever, not like this, not like Suguru.

The knowledge eats away at him.  It claws at his ribs, and his heart, and his lungs; it tears an abyss into the person Satoru is, leaving a dark hole where something once resided.

Everything hurts.  His knees are stinging, his chest burns, and his head pounds.  

There is nothing that matters though.

The pain of his body is insignificant compared to the gut-wrenching agony of his soul.  The call for a missing piece, now entirely out of reach.

His hands are covered in flowers, a growing pile at his feet.  They are red and blue and yellow and every color in-between, they are love and sorrow and longing and trust.

For Satoru Gojo, this moment is pain, it marks the beginning of carrying the weight of his love by the blood on his hands.

For Suguru, though Satoru will never know this, this moment is the best way he could've gone.  He dies watching a tangible expression of Satoru’s love float to the ground.

He dies knowing he is loved, knowing that Satoru loves him infinitely, and is selfishly glad for it.

In this moment, they are together.  In this moment, they love and it hurts, but they love regardless.

Their bodies rest in a bed of petals, layers of flowers so thick that the ground can hardly be seen through it.  One chest rises and falls, slowly and brokenly as if a weight was pressing down on their chest.

They lie in a field of love, born of understanding and nurtured by blood.

On that day, only one body dies, but Satoru will not leave the same as he entered.  There is a portion of his soul that leaves with Suguru, waiting for the day that they can be reunited.

On that day, he pulls himself together, returns a lost ID, and pretends that burning agony doesn't race through his chest with every breath he takes.

Satoru goes home to a house of children, orphaned by his hands, and wonders if he's already failed them too.

Whenever it seems to matter… he always fails.

He goes through the motions, and it hardly matters that he feels so dead inside he can hardly think or that he can barely scrape a full breath in, because nobody sees him.

The kids are at school and his students train themselves enough that his absence isn't noteworthy.

They don't need him anymore.  Anything from here on out can be taught to them by others, specialists in their fields.

The only job he has left is to protect them, and he can do that from a distance.

He doesn't need to drag any more people down with him.

Day-by-day, he completes his missions; he does his job and keeps everybody safe.  There is little else he does.

Satoru has proven that he cannot be trusted when it comes down to it.  Whenever he cares about someone, it always goes wrong; which must mean Satoru is the problem.  As long as he isn't involved, everyone should be fine.

After all, it was his birth that made these curses so much stronger.  In the grand scheme of things, isn't everything his fault?

If he had just managed to stop Suguru's spiral, or if he hadn't lost to Toji in the first place..!  If he hadn't let down his guard… or if he just hadn't been born!

This all happened because he was born!   If he wasn't here, Suguru would be.  Haibara might've not died if curses’ power hadn't scaled to balance his.  Nanami wouldn't have had to face his best friend's corpse at seventeen.   Shoko wouldn't have to dissect her underclassmen, people who couldn't measure up to Satoru and died because of the bar he raised.

Even his students would be better off.  Megumi and Tsumiki would have their father, and maybe he'd do alright; Maki doesn't need him, she would thrive under anyone's training and Suguru had wanted to be a teacher, they'd be a terrifying duo; Panda would just turn to his father more, and it was hardly a loss, he had been good enough to train Suguru, Satoru, and Shoko.

Maybe Toge would struggle with it.  It's harder to learn control if there's nobody who you can safely practice with, but somebody would find a way.  

And Yuuta…

Yuuta's execution still wouldn't go through, Suguru would find a way to stop it, or- or anyone else.  

Satoru being gone wouldn't change anything for the worse, if anything, it'd only make it better.

And yet, Suguru loved him anyway.

This is the thought that fills Satoru's mind as flowers spill forth.  Lilies, chrysanthemums, camellias, those and so many more litter the floor.

It was almost more painful that there were no thorns, that the love he shared with Suguru with Suguru didn't hurt.  That loving Suguru was as natural to Satoru as existing and not even his death changed that.

Satoru kneels on his dining room floor, surrounded by a ring of flowers in full bloom and knows that the only one wilting is him.

He is withering away faster than any of the petals that grow in his lungs.

He can hardly bring himself to mind, not when the sunlight keeping him alive has disappeared.

It is, perhaps, awful of him.

There are people who rely on him, people who care about him.  How awful he must be to be content with dying and leaving them all behind.

After all, there are children who are technically dependent on him.  He served as the closest thing they had to a parent for many years.

What a shame… that they were stuck with him.

He doesn't pull himself together; it doesn't get better, but he stands and begins cleaning the mess he's made.  He will not let them see him like this, they don't deserve that.

And he wishes it was different, that things would get better and he wouldn't have to hurt them like this.  He doesn't know if it'll happen though.

Satoru had grieved the loss of Suguru when he'd been alive, now that he was dead, it was so much worse.  He doesn't know how it'll get better, when it feels like a jagged knife has been used to saw his soul apart, leaving a festering, oozing wound behind.

Satoru loves these kids, but he wonders if it's enough.  Wonders if it would be better for them if he died quickly, rather than slowly rotting from the inside out and forcing them to watch.

Oh, he'll try to hide it, but they'll figure it out eventually.  They're smart kids.

He can only hope it goes well.

He can only do his best in the meantime, no matter how… numb he feels.

So that's what he does.  For the next few days, weeks, he keeps going.  He pretends that everything is normal, and sometimes he can convince himself that it is.  He smiles and he laughs, because there are children who deserve a childhood as free of death as he can make it.

There are days that are better than others, especially as time goes on, but there are far too many times when Satoru finds himself in an old, untouched dorm room, the fraying threads of his soul tied together by memories of better times.

It isn't good.  He doesn't think it will ever be truly good again, but it's likely the closest he'll get.

He watches Megumi's first day at Jujutsu Tech; he lets Tsumiki hang out with friends, she hasn't woken in weeks.

Just another failure atop his growing pile.  A bitter reminder of the futility of his actions, his inability to protect the few people he's come to care for.  He couldn't even protect his daughter from some curse.   As if that wasn't meant to be the one thing he was good at.

Megumi, understandably, has a long period where he is out of sorts, cold and mean in a way that is largely unlike him, for all that it may seem similar from the outside.  He says cruel words, does hurtful things; Satoru doesn't begrudge him it, he never could.

They learn to cope, and Satoru has teams of sorcerers dedicated to figuring this out; there's hardly a point to being a clan head if he can't even use his resources to cure his child.

Eventually, as curses wont to do, a problem arose.

It shouldn't have been anything too major, just a finger of Sukuna popping up, needing a little resealing.  Heck, Megumi got the mission; it really was meant to be as simple as: grab the finger, make sure nobody gets hurt.

Yeah, it didn't go like that, at all.

Somehow, through some hilarious stroke of luck, a kid ate the finger and survived .

To reiterate, a kid ate Sukuna’s finger and just laughed it off like nothing happened.  Satoru had only just met Itadori Yuji, but he liked him already.

Of course, the higher-ups found this to be much less humorous upon hearing of it.  

They wanted to execute the kid; finally managing to destroy one of the cursed fingers that had plagued them and ridding themselves of the possible threat if Itadori’s current control failed.

It was a win-win for them.  Not so much for the kid they wanted to kill, but Satoru would bet they didn't care about that.

So, as Satoru did more often than not, he made a mess of their plans.  Itadori Yuji, Sukuna’s vessel, became one of Satoru’s first year students.

Naturally, everybody hated this decision, tried to convince Satoru to do literally anything else, and were all kindly ignored.  He wasn't going to just let them kill a random kid.  And Megumi wanted him to live, so Satoru made sure that he would.

He takes this kid in as if he's one of his own, and he is now.  

It isn't like he's hard to train, Yuji is one of the most naturally physically gifted people Satoru has ever met.  His grasp of cursed energy is lackluster, but then again, he's only just been exposed to it.

And, for what it matters, he's a good kid.  Satoru had told him that the higher-ups planned on executing him, on using him as a means to an end before throwing him away, and he'd agreed.  For the sake of the safety of everyone around him, he'd agreed to be executed when the time came.

Not that Satoru planned on letting that happen.  If he could control one finger, who was to say he couldn't control twenty?  Why couldn't he live a full life before the day of his natural demise came?

It wasn't like there would be many people strong enough to kill him when the time came, and nobody could force Satoru to kill a kid if he didn't want to.

He was one of Satoru's students now; Satoru protected his students.

That was who he needed to be.

With the addition of a new mentee, his schedule got slightly busier, but life continued on.  He went on his missions, trained the kids, and, on rare occasions, sent them off for missions of their own.  

This became his new normal; just another child to shield as best he could, to allow them to keep their youth for longer than he had.  It wasn't a complaint, this was hardly something he minded doing.

Occasionally, frequently , he would sit at the table, head in his hands and a letter in front of him, there would be no updates on a cure.  Megumi only sometimes joined him, but when he did, they would sit quietly with each other, leaning on each other physically and emotionally.

Losing Tsumiki wasn't easy– she wasn't dead, but it felt like a near thing.  It felt cruelest this way, the constant presence of hope in Megumi's eyes that Satoru feared having to kill.  He hated the chance that one day she might fully slip out of their hands, that he'd have to break the news to Megumi that she was gone for good.  

It had been a while, but it hadn't gotten easier.  Satoru knew that it really wouldn't.

Maybe that was why he was so distracted trying to find a solution.

Distracted enough to not notice that the mission, Yuji's first, was odd.  Distracted enough to show up too late, after Sukuna had carved the heart from Yuuji's chest in front of Megumi.

It is agonizing.  Not just seeing another child too young to be in a grave, but seeing Megumi's face after witnessing it.

He'd never been exposed to such things before, not truly– Satoru had done his best to give him as normal of a life as he could, even with his past and his future in mind.  He'd thought it had been a kindness, but seeing his face as he stares at the cooling corpse of his classmate, knowing he hadn't prepared him to go through this, it feels like he had been far crueler.

Megumi is just a boy, kind under the cold exterior.  Saroru hates this, hates seeing the swirl of despair, the horror, the dawning realization of what a sorcerer's life consists of.  He'd been meant to have more time; Satoru had wanted to give him more time.

Satoru collects his students, sends them both to Shoko for a look-over, and deals with the remains of their mission.  He knows that there will be people assigned to cleaning up the entire mess, but he deals with Yuji's body personally.  It's the least he can do.

After all, it was him who missed the higher-ups planning.  It was him who was meant to watch over Yuji, to prevent these exact types of situations; instead, he let all of his first years be put in danger and let one of them die.

Satoru was tired of this.  He was tired of losing kids to problems that should've never existed.  He was tired of bringing too young bodies to Shoko.

All for nothing.  For the pride of men who believed they knew best.

They walk children to their graves, and Satoru is trying but nothing has changed.

He knows change on such a large scale takes time, but watching the pile of dead teenagers grow as he crawls towards a better future is not how Satoru had thought it would go.

It feels like he's doing something wrong.  If he'd been doing it right then no more kids would've died, right?  It's a stain on his mind– he thought he'd been doing the right thing, but maybe he'd been wrong, maybe he was setting these kids up for a worse future than they would've had without him.

For a moment, he can't help but think Suguru would've done better.

Maybe it would've been better if Satoru had been the one to kill all those people,  if it had pushed Suguru to stay at the school and actually improve things.

He has no evidence it would've gone any differently, but it feels true.

Even when Yuji wakes up, miraculously not dead, the feeling doesn't go away.

It doesn't go away when he decides that hiding him away is the only way that he can be kept safe.

It doesn't go away when he watches his students adjust to being two, as they get used to an empty spot and he never corrects them.

It doesn't get better as a cursed girl stays stuck in her coma and he sees day-by-day as her brother gets more familiar with loss.

After far too long passes for a child to be practically isolated, he reintroduces Yuji to Jujutsu society, sliding him back into the first-years as if nothing had ever changed.

Megumi is upset with him because of it.  Because Satoru had lied to him, had let him believe this person, who he'd slowly been learning to tolerate, was dead when he knew otherwise the entire time.

Nobara doesn't seem to care much, though admittedly Satoru doesn't know her as well as the boy he raised.  She is detached, in a way, separated from the casualties on missions– they don't stick with her the same way it does for the others.  Satoru wouldn't call her unaffected, but farther from it.

Really, it makes her the best of them.

Suguru and Satoru had both grown wrong when faced with death, Yuji already seems like a bleeding heart, and Megumi is both too detached from the general populace and yet so strongly attached to a very select few, bound to eventually overbalance one way or the other.

Emotion is often a liability, not that he thinks she's entirely immune either.

None of them are, he thinks, as he watches Yuji get reaccepted into their group, they're all just kids.

Just kids, as weeks go by and Megumi begins to truly bond with his classmates, participating in their jokes, letting himself be dragged along as Nobara shops or Yuji bounces from place to place, sharing little details about his life.

It's reminiscent of his own past, back in happier times.

Now, the trips out he used to take are reflected in his students.

They go on the, now much more scrutinized, missions and they laugh, pushing each other around one second and then watching each other's back the next.

Megumi's expressions get softer as he faces Yuji, more indulgent with Nobara.

Time and time again, Satoru watches as they slowly slide into place, as it turns from a bond to home.

As it becomes two forms of love.

One day, Megumi comes out of the dorm and finds Satoru.  He is quiet, one hand in the fur of the demon dog at his side, the other hidden in a pocket.  When he takes it out, it’s to show Saroru a petal, a bright, bold, yellow petal.

And it feels like the day Megumi first found out, except this time it's him facing this.

Satoru wouldn't wish this upon Megumi, not even if it's innocent for now, if it doesn't hurt, if there are no bitter wounds or heart wrenching memories.  It's a cute concept, hanahaki, a physical representation of love.  That isn't what it is though.  It is every bit of pain that loving creates, bundled up in such a beautiful form that you think you don't mind.

It festers, piling up all those careless comments or thoughtless acts until it overflows and either kills you or makes you wish it had.  If you leave it, it grows, and eventually the roots go so deep that to remove it you need to kill the feelings they stem from.

An impossible decision, if you loved someone enough to bear all the pains then this would just be another of those, if you didn't love them enough then you would've never reached this stage.

In the back of his mind, he wonders if he's been too accepting of his own hanahaki  and that's why this happened.

But this is one thing he can do.

Satoru has made many mistakes in his life, he has failed far too many times, but this he can do.

Megumi will not make the mistake Satoru did, that he still can never quite regret.

The flowers are a reminder and a wound of themselves; they are love and they are hatred; they are Satoru, they are Megumi, they are Suguru, they are Yuji.  For Satoru, these flowers carry the weight of his grief, they are his life and they will be his death.

Let Megumi give Yuji flowers, not born from the flesh of his lungs, but grown from the earth.  Let their love be shown painlessly and let them love without self-sacrificing to do so.

Satoru may have loved with his blood as the price, but let Megumi be different.  Let him love without cost.

Satoru has failed in many things, but let him have this.  Let Megumi be better than him.

If nothing else, let him have a love that ends happier than Satoru's.

That would be enough for him, and he likes to think it would be enough for Suguru too.