Work Text:
10:25 p.m. February 14th, 2018
Typically, Shoko has two ways of heading into the evening on weekdays. It’s either she is starting her overnight shift in the morgue, dissecting the recent influx of transfigured bodies being dumped onto her gurneys, or she would be home, with a glass of wine and a cancer stick, ready to unwind from a usually taxing day.
Typically, Shoko wouldn’t find herself at the door of Satoru’s apartment around this time, because he would always ensure he came to her and not the other way around after every mission. However, it’s because of this habit of his, that is making the brunette hesitate to ring the doorbell.
Fuck it, she thinks. If Satoru is home, he’ll open up. If not, then Shoko has her answer and it’s time to return home.
However, deep down, she knows she can’t just leave. Especially knowing what today is.
Shoko reminisces back to their time in high school when Valentine’s Day was just another day for them. At least, for her, that’s what it was. It was an insignificant holiday that’s usually never celebrated within the Jujutsu world. Not even the Tanabata festival in July, nor Christmas Eve are considered, which tells a person a lot about the grim lives sorcerers live. What was the point, when one day you tell someone you cherish them and the next day they’re gone?
But she knows that wasn’t the case for her two friends, especially after the first year. What became secret hangouts with Satoru and Suguru to hoard food and sweets became intimate outings, with planned gifts between just the two strongest sorcerers.
If only they were brave enough to relay their feelings for each other, rather than dancing around them. They were always so stupidly adamant about denying their love for each other.
That’s the thing. When there are so many holidays to celebrate love, each holiday becomes a milestone of memories that are to be fondly cherished together in the years to come. This exact nuance is a luxury that most sorcerers couldn’t afford.
Satoru, the boy who thought he could conquer the world as long as he had his best friend beside him forever, had to learn this the hard way. He thought he had all the time in the world with Suguru, and the perfect time to confess his love would come eventually.
Even if Shoko couldn’t fully grasp how much it had affected him, she was always there to witness the deterioration of his heart. He could mask his emotions with his signature goofiness all he wants throughout the year, but only Shoko knows what he’s truly like behind closed doors, during holidays like today.
Every year on Valentine’s Day, since Suguru’s defection, Satoru would overwork himself to the bone on solo missions. He’ll leave early in the morning after entrusting the sleeping Fushiguro siblings under Yaga or Shoko’s care and disappear until the evening. It’s on days like these where he’ll just come home right away, making sure no one sees him. It was clear that he wanted to be left alone.
Usually, Shoko would respect this and maintain her distance. It’s not that she doesn’t care, but if she’s being honest to anyone including herself, she does not have the mental capacity to even try to be there for her white-haired friend. It’s futile, because the last person who truly understood Satoru left, and now he’s gone forever.
Forever. That’s why Shoko’s here today, though. This Valentine’s Day marks the first of infinity where Suguru is gone forever. A part of her hates him for not only ruining Christmas Eve for Satoru (and for herself), but also making sure that the wound didn’t have a chance to heal yet with his birthday and today being near each other and the day of his death.
His birthday is technically not his fault, but screw him. Screw him always.
Sighing, her hands drop down to the doorknob instead. Just as she expected, the door opens quietly and she’s met with a dark studio apartment. Sleek black shoes on the shoe rack are the only giveaway that someone even resides in the unit, for everything else seems untouched since the day Satoru moved in. She closes the door behind her slowly, taking her pumps off before carefully walking into the living room.
Shoko’s heart clenches when she sees him for the first time today. He most definitely noticed her presence, but is frozen where he sits and if no one knew better, they would’ve assumed he was an oddly placed statue. His head rests back against the soft couch and is turned to look out the ceiling-high windows that look out to Tokyo’s skyline. She doesn’t see his expression, and a part of her is not sure she’s ready to see that just yet.
Instead, she sighs softly and walks straight to the kitchen to pour both of them a glass of water. Lighting up a cigarette, she takes a few puffs, contemplating what she should do now that she’s here. On any other day, he’d whine relentlessly about her smoking in his home, so she decided to take advantage of the respite she was given today.
Satoru doesn’t move from his spot, but when she returns to the living room, he’s staring at the ceiling with a hauntingly blank expression. It’s hard not to notice the puffiness around his eyes and she doesn’t remember ever seeing the Six Eyes look so lifelessly dull before.
It’s unbearable to see him like this, someone who’s usually so full of life.
Used to be, she corrects herself, setting the glass down on the coffee table. The last time she saw genuine happiness from the man in front of her was before the fateful trip to Okinawa. Ever since he came back, he hasn’t been the same since then.
Sighing, Shoko moves beside the couch and reaches out to ruffle his hair, like she used to back when they were kids. She half expects to be stopped by infinity, but instead, her hand feels the otherworldly softness of his white strands. Her nails gently scratch his scalp, similar to how she soothes her calico at home, and Shoko can feel him thawing under her touch.
Still, she says nothing, instead pushing his head closer to her chest to give him the warmth he needs. Shoko’s never been great at comforting people, her line of work desensitizes her perception of life and death. But she feels like she owes it to Satoru, just this once.
Silence wraps around them like a heavy blanket. Satoru doesn’t push Shoko away, nor does he reciprocate the hug. She’d only seen this kind of stillness in the countless corpses she had to cut up and bag.
Finally, after several minutes, Satoru speaks up in a small voice.
“You know, every morning on the fourteenth, since he left, there was always a gift waiting for me at my door? Always at 4 a.m. sharp.”
Shoko does not dare to reply to that. She forces her fingers to continue the gentle dance within his hair. He doesn’t seem to mind as he continues, his voice a bit louder now.
“They always smelled like a combination of his cursed spirits and his own scent. I just knew they were from him.”
She feels her throat seize unusually, making her take a shaky puff out of her cigarette to ease the discomfort. With how risky this act was, to begin with, she doesn’t believe Suguru would have delivered these gifts personally, probably making his curses do it for him from a distance. It’s also hard to ignore that Satoru had willingly let said curses near his home, instead of tracking down the man immediately.
These bastards, she thinks wryly. Always sentimental till the very end.
“He’d always get me my favourite chocolates, cookies, or candy, but not once has he left a message. It was stupid of me to think I’d get one but…I don’t know…”
This time, Shoko pulls him even closer to herself, hoping it’ll silently reassure him that he doesn’t have to talk about his pain if it’s only going to aggravate the wounds in his heart. She understands why Suguru wouldn’t have left any messages, since it would only make the metaphorical knife he stabbed into his best friend’s heart dig in deeper. Satoru seems to understand as he goes quiet for a few minutes again.
“Shoko,” he finally addresses her with a watery voice that makes her want to throw up.
“Hmm?” She responds quietly, her mouth feeling too much like clay to formulate any words.
A quiet inhale and then a shaky exhale.
“I’m not getting any gifts from him anymore, am I?”
Fuck, Shoko hates this. She hates that she has to vocalize the horrid truth as the final nail in the coffin of Satoru’s heart, because in reality, Suguru’s death affected her too, a lot more than his defection did. She hated that her two friends were toyed with so cruelly by fate and were put in a world where they couldn’t exist together.
Regardless of her inner turmoil, she tries to steady her voice, sounding as gentle as possible, as if she’s talking to a child.
With the way Satoru was forced to grow up, he might as well be. Especially right now.
“No, Gojo,” her brown brows furrow deeply and her eyes squeeze tight while she presses her face against his head. “I’m sorry, but there are no more gifts from now on…”
Shoko suddenly hears sniffling, and she keeps her eyes shut so that she doesn’t witness the singular tear Satoru allows himself to shed. It’s too quiet now and he feels too limp.
It almost feels like Shoko’s lost another friend tonight, even though he is very much alive in her arms.
She hugs him tighter, as tightly as she can, almost as if it’ll help his soul stay grounded in the present. It’s a worthless attempt, but it’s what she needs to appease her mind.
Several minutes later, she helps Satoru stand upright before guiding him to his bathroom. He moves with her like a puppet, stringing along with every step she takes. Thankfully, Shoko has a rough idea of where his clothes would be and soon enough, she presses a soft pair of sweatpants and a loose shirt into his arms. He looks down at them with that same blank stare, but she can tell the gears in his mind are starting to move again.
“Shower and change. You’re still in your outside clothes,” she instructs quietly. “I can order dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.” Dull, blue eyes stare at her with weak defiance.
Shoko nods. That’s fine by her if she’s being honest. She’s satisfied that he’s responding properly now and doesn’t feel the need to force food down the man’s throat, especially when he looks like he’ll throw it back up at any given moment. She watches as he shuffles into the bathroom before shutting the door behind him.
Letting out a shaky exhale, she heads back to the living room to get his forgotten glass of water and brings it to the nightstand in his room. She then waits outside, leaning against the wall and listening to the flow of water moving through the pipes until they don’t anymore. Before she can consider leaving, she hears Satoru calling out to her from bed.
Peeking inside the room, she sees that he’s lying on his side with his back facing away from her. His white hair pokes out in tufts under the covers like a soft cloud.
“Are you going home?”
Well, when he asks like that, Shoko can’t find it in herself to say no. So she replies truthfully instead.
“I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
It’s quiet for a second before she hears a soft exhale from his direction.
“Okay.”
Sighing, she walks over to his side of the bed and crouches down where his face would be if he wasn’t hiding them in the covers. A waft of his cherry and spice scented body wash enters her nose.
“How’s your head been today? It must hurt badly now, right?”
Shoko only gets a sound that’s between a grunt and a huff in response. That’s more than enough to confirm her suspicions. Even if someone was of the same calibre as Satoru, overexertion of cursed energy would eventually catch up to them in ways that were painfully disorienting. Having a supposedly infinite supply meant jack shit in this regard.
“Can you lower the output to your brain a little? I want to try something.”
He grunts again, but this time moves the sheets away from his face so that Shoko can observe his flow better. Once she senses the energy around his head dimming, she places her hand on his forehead and allows her own to spread through her skin before it reaches the point of contact. Immediately, the man sighs with slight relief, his lashes brushing against his cheekbones ever so softly.
“That…feels better,” he mumbles tiredly, exhaustion finally evident in his voice. “Thanks…”
Soon, his breathing evens out and the output to his brain goes back to normal, signalling Shoko to remove her hand so that there isn’t an overflow. He looks years younger in his sleep with the way his facial muscles are relaxed and he seems to be at peace. She could only hope that, at best, he had a dreamless sleep tonight.
Good dreams would only cause disappointment when Satoru wakes up again. Nightmares will make him avoid sleeping in general. At least he’d get some rest if he didn’t have any dreams to focus on at all.
When she finally leaves the apartment, she makes sure to lock it from the inside. Greedily, she takes in a breath of fresh air when she exits the lobby and heads toward the school’s black sedan. When she climbs into the backseat, Ijichi greets her with a sombre expression.
“Gojo-san…”
“He’s fine. I made sure he fell asleep.”
The younger man sighs. “That’s good,” he mutters quietly while starting the car. “I was concerned for him towards the end of the mission.”
Shoko only hums at this, opting to look out at the flashing streetlights as they make their way back to school. However, something glitters in the corner of her eye, finally making her notice the cluster of pink and white gift bags in the car seat next to her. Mentally, she counts about ten of them.
“Ijichi, what are these bags?” She asks quietly. Though, she feels like she has an idea.
“Oh! Uh…Gojo-san made a last-minute shopping trip to buy everyone Valentine’s Day souvenirs. He even went out of his way to make them personalized for everyone…”
“Oh.”
“Yours should be the one closest to you, Ieiri-san,” he continues. “I believe he labelled it as such.”
Sure enough, an obscenely glittery, pink bag with her name on the tag sits beside her. Tentatively picking it up, she starts rummaging through the tissue before uncovering the actual contents of the bag.
Inside sits a pack of expensive, blackberry-flavoured nicotine candy, some dark chocolate, and the novel she’s been wanting to buy since its release. The one she mentioned to Satoru in passing once.
Shoko sighed for the umpteenth time that night, her heart feeling heavy with the events that transpired earlier and the gift so obviously put together with care in front of her. Shutting her eyes, she leans back against the headrest, allowing herself to formulate one last thought in her mind before she shuts this entire day away for good.
This is all so fucked up.