Chapter Text
It’s a whirl of sensation when Yuuta comes to.
His sensei’s body is bulkier, which he knows, but seeing it is different than being inside it. Feeling the strength, the heft… but also, familiar yet unfamiliar fingers twitch in response to the pull of his abdomen. It’s echoed in a clear, circular line around a skull where hair just a little longer than he’s used to tickles his skin.
He didn’t turn on the lights as he stepped into the room. Forest green walls are decorated with baby animals; kittens, red pandas, kits, puppies, bunnies. They tumble all over each other and paw at butterflies and dandelion seeds. A corner is covered in all sorts of plushies, some as small as a hamster (“Those are a choking hazard, Satoru, we can’t keep them in here.” , “Oh, come on, we can at least wiggle them at it.” , “You know how I feel about you calling them ‘it’.” , “Sorry, love.”) and others as tall as his love.
Different energy signatures dance around him, each distinct yet so foreign he feels his defenses coming up. No, not his, never his, not supposed to be his. So much information beats at his consciousness; what’s not a threat, what is, how big, how small, the best method to defend, the quickest way to kill. It beats at him like he’s new to training with Maki. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to pay attention to the tears that burn. To the sob that shoves its way up to sit in his throat.
This isn’t how he wants to learn more about his sensei.
The stubborn woman built the crib on her own even though he said he would do it when he got home tonight. They hadn’t even had it for more than a couple hours. Her and that busy body personality of hers. Not that he was much better but he could keep himself going. She was supposed to be resting. He ran his hand along the smooth wood, glad that they took her mother’s advice. He’d just been ready to throw money at one, regardless of the price, but someone with experience really was preferable. The bassinet, at least, he did put together and it was currently sitting next to their bed.
“You okay, Okkotsu? Heart rate is going pretty fast there.”
He swallows down the spit, the scream, the bile to choke out his answer. “I’m fine, just a lot.”
Shoko chuckles just off to his right and it’s so strange to know she’s there, to read her cursed energy, to not see her the way he usually can. It hurts even more to know that his sensei didn’t even see people like the rest of the world does. How cruel it is for him to have been set so apart and be so isolated for it.
A presence - loving, sweet, fierce, strong, his - stepped into the room and moved up behind him. He pressed into the touch against his lower back, gladly letting go of the very soft and very fluffy padding to twist around and whisk his love up into his arms. Her squeak dissolved into gleeful giggles, legs moving to wrap around his waist, those beautiful - amazing, miracle work, dainty - hands cupping his face. A slight bulge pushed against his stomach, delighting him so much he couldn’t help but spin them as he pulled her into a kiss. He hummed at the peach flavor because of course she was the one who took his favorite chapstick.
They all agreed to the plan and sensei even said they could do whatever with his body but now, oh god now, he wishes so badly that they hadn’t. The world is cruel, he knows that, has known that since Rika, since his family but how much more does it plan on shoving its cruelty into his face. Distantly, he hears someone telling him to sit up. He curls fingers that are not his own, tenses a stomach that is not his and pushes a body that he doesn’t want to be in until he can fold legs - longer than his, so much longer - under him.
“Look at me, Satoru.”
Blue eyes, as fathomless and deep as the ocean, pierce him with the same steadfast determination they always do. He could stare into them forever, would spend all eternity like that, sink and drown and never come up, if he could. They soften, glittering like waves under a full moon. “I’m always looking at you, Kagome.”
She knocked their foreheads together gently and he hiked her up a little further, steadied her with an arm under her butt. Like this, she towered over him and it allowed the night sky to pour down around him, hide him away, separate him from the outside world in a way that embraced and welcomed him like he always belonged. He curled a lock of hair around a finger and pressed it to his lips, never once looking away.
“Something’s bothering you.”
He walked them over to the absolute monster of a bean bag chair he’d ordered as a joke, one he’d found her curled up in more than once, and climbed into it so they were laying side by side. “I have to go to Shibuya, something’s happening.”
There are questions being directed his way that he answers on autopilot then they ask him to do a series of motor skills’ exercises. Everything feels slow, like he’s moving in molasses, like he’s being tied down, like he’s slowly being paralyzed. He wants to scream at this memory, at this perfectly recalled recollection. Wants to tell his sensei not to go.
But he can’t.
He doesn’t want to remember this. He doesn’t want to forget.
“Another curse that the one and only Gojo Satoru himself has to take care of?” She asked, propping herself up on an elbow and brushing his hair back. He sighed and let himself relax, arching his neck as she began to scratch at his scalp. He squeezed at her thigh, dragging his hand down to hook behind her knee and pull so she had to straddle him. Once she was properly settled, he ran his hand up until it was dipping beneath the oversized long sleeved tee — his, and he knew it framed his collarbones nicely but on her, it was heavenly - and he could cup the swell there.
“Bigger, from the way the reports coming in are saying that all the nonsor are demanding me by name.” It was barely big enough to be noticeable in her regular wardrobe, just enough that he could properly feel its curve, but it was there. His. Hers. Theirs.
“What?”
His other hand settled on a plush cheek, fingers dipping under the advantageously short shorts, when she tried pulling away. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Her scowl was thunderous and he admired the delicious sheen his chapstick gave her lips as the moonlight poured in through the curtains, how it bathed her. If his eyes reflected a blue sky adrift in clouds then she embodied the night, softening the overstimulation of life, blanketing a broken god, bringing rest to the one chosen by heaven and earth. “Don’t think for a sec I don’t know about the talking cursed spirits.”
His happy bubble almost popped but he just made a mental note to antagonize Ichiji next time he saw him. “We had an agreement, you proposed no active field work.”
For both their sakes, and his safety, he let Kagome sit back up properly.
“That just pisses me off more, Satoru!”
It was there, and so very hard to resist, the temptation to crack a joke, to try and lighten the situation but he couldn’t. Not with her, not about this. That wasn’t fair to her, to him. He ran a thumb over the swell, careful not to touch her sensitive belly button. “It’ll be alright, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that I can’t handle those talking mood rings.”
Her hands came down on each side of his head, leaving him with an exquisite view of her perched over him and he wished for— more time, a break, the chance to tap out. A chance to properly take her in, to give her as much as she could take and much more. To make reality the ever present desire to bathe Jujutsu tech in the blood of the elders, to rip apart even the most infinitesimal threat that could possibly exist.
“I want to go with you. I want to know you’re safe, that there’s someone beside you or just… there so you’re not alone on a battlefield, Satoru.”
He rubbed her sides even as his heart was lanced through by a helplessness that he’d shoved away so many times and its persistence in proving just how little he could protect when it came down to it. “Hey now, you talk like that and I’m going to start to worry you’ll resent our baby.”
Kagome bent down, bracketing his head now and laid the softest, most featherlight kiss to his lips that it stole his breath. “Idiot, the only thing I resent is time. Come back to me, Satoru.”
He leaned up for a kiss. “Always, love.”
As Yuuta prepares to rejoin the battle against Sukuna, he comes to the heartbreaking realization that this woman - Kagome - still does not know about sensei’s fate.