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“Higuruma’s dead,” Maki says flatly.
You whip your head toward her. “What?”
“He’s dead.”
All of a sudden, your mind is blank, the katana you had been swinging forgotten in your hand. He’s dead? What?
Maki seems to sense your disbelief, and she sighs. “I’m sorry. That’s what happened.” She pauses for a moment. “You have to go fight.”
You nod numbly, knowing you have no choice – you had agreed to fight. You’re obligated to, after all. Especially since... you shake your head forcefully, clearing your mind of the thought. He can’t be.
******************************************************
You’re all but numb as you go through the motions of swinging your katana, reinforcing your body with cursed energy, healing your injuries with reverse cursed technique. It’s all the same to you because there’s only one thing ringing in your mind: “Higuruma’s dead.”
You narrowly dodge a slash from Sukuna, and he chuckles condescendingly. “This one is distracted,” he muses. “Perhaps I should put her out of her misery.”
Just then, Maki flies at Sukuna with her sword, only to be flung back. “Keep your head in the game!” she grits out. “This is no time for mourning.”
You murmur an apology and jump back into the fight, only slightly motivated. But there’s nothing that can take your mind off the dread you feel.
************************************************
You’re badly injured, clutching at the deep gash through your side. You’d been caught by a close-range Cleave from Sukuna and death seems to be already by your side. Maybe I should just die, you think bitterly. What do I have to live for, anyway? Your reverse cursed technique struggles to patch up the bleeding, but your cursed technique is basically burned out. You know you can’t hold on much longer. As you slide down against the wall to sit on the ground dusted with debris, you feel an odd sense of peace. “Yeah...” you mutter, fingers slowly resting on the cold floor only to meet a telltale warm stickiness. “Maybe I’ll die here.”
A whoosh of air, the rustling of cloth.
You peel open heavy eyes to see the blurry image of a blue-haired boy and... Wait. Ui Ui? Kirara? You feel an arm holding you up, supporting you, before your surroundings vanish and then turn into what you recognize as a blinding white room. Oh, I get it, you think blearily. “So this is the afterlife,” you mumble.
“Shut up,” a familiar voice says. “You’re not dead.”
What? You echo the sentiment out loud, but it goes unanswered. And just like that, consciousness slowly drifts away, and the last thing you hear is, “You’re not going to die.”
***********************************************
Over the course of a few hours, you drift in and out of consciousness, other sorcerers coming and going. The voice you had recognized was Shoko, of course. With the help of both yours and her reverse cursed technique, you don’t die. You survive. Finally, when you’re up and awake, propped up by the pillow on your makeshift hospital bed, you watch Shoko work, turning over the itching question in your mind. “Say, Shoko...” you start. She pauses, looking at you almost expectantly. What’s that look for?
“ Is Higuruma dead?”
“Yes,” she says simply, going back to her work.
Yes.
A simple word, but she might as well have stabbed you in the heart.
“What? How?” you ask, your voice breaking.
“He fought Sukuna. He died.” She glances at you again. “I’m sorry.”
The knife twists deeper.
You put your head in your hands, thoughts swirling in a sickening mess. “Higuruma’s dead.” “I’m sorry.” Over and over again, the same words, until a heaving sob comes out of you, and then you’re crying, the pain spilling over like a broken dam. Distantly, you feel a light hand on your shoulder. One that should be comforting. But it doesn’t feel like anything because the sensation of your heart rending, like hands are tearing it apart, is so much more prevailing. A conversation suddenly comes back to you.
*******************
“Why are you joining the fight, Hiromi?”
He glances over his shoulder. “Well, hello to you, too.”
You sigh, sitting down beside him. “I’m serious. You have no reverse cursed technique. You’ve been a sorcerer for two months. Why are you joining this fight?”
He’s silent, and you can almost hear the gears turning in his mind, working out the ‘right’ thing to say. You grab his hand, lacing your fingers through his. “Look at me, Hiromi.”
He hesitates, his hand gripping yours a bit harder. “Look at me,” you repeat, your voice soft.
“I have to fight,” he says, his voice quiet. “Because of what I did. There’s-...” He trails off. “There’s no going back,” he continues.
“But there is. You can make this right.”
“How?” he says bitterly. “I’ve turned my back on the law, and it’s turned its back on me. If I make it out of this, I will turn myself in and let justice be served. I’m a criminal,” he finishes quietly.
“You can’t think like that,” you say desperately. “You have to have hope. That... that time doesn’t define you. You’re a good man, Hiromi.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’m already someone who can’t look someone like you in the eyes.”
*******************
“Someone who can’t look someone like you in the eyes.” The words come back to you in a rush. Because... Because he could never escape that guilt. Because he killed two people, and he could never forgive himself for that. Because he didn’t believe he was worth forgiveness.
“But no one held it against him,” you whisper, voice hoarse. “No one held it against you , Hiromi, you-...” The words only turn into more tears, the memory of him – mere pathetic scraps compared to the man himself – dragging you deeper into despair.
*********************************************************
Hours, then days pass. The King of Curses is inevitably defeated with the help of the seemingly reincarnated Kugisaki. Even though the battle has been won, the costs hang over the remaining sorcerers like smog, and you are no exception. Every day, the memory of Hiromi haunts you, along with all the what-ifs . What if he had listened to me and stayed out of the fight? What if I had gone down with him? What if he had never been in the Culling Games? What if he had never killed those people? What if, what if, what if. They say there are five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Perhaps it’s possible to feel all of them at once. Your thoughts are conflicting, all of the different possible angles floating around:
There’s no way he’s dead; it must be a fluke.
How could he have let himself die? How could he have let that happen?
I wish that I had been there instead.
I don’t know if I can live without him. Maybe I should just die.
Maybe he’s better off dead. Where that crushing guilt can’t reach him.
All of the different possible angles and more. All the crushed wishes and hopes for the future. You can’t help but be withdrawn, spending most of your time alone with your thoughts. Shoko doesn’t give up on you, though, and she’s probably the only reason you don’t do something irreversible. Still, you feel the pain of his death sharper each morning, and it steadily builds to the point of being unbearable...
...until one day.
You peer into the common room where everyone is gathered, drawn by the voice of none other than Maki, who is yelling at... wait, Yuta? You frown, disbelief gathering on your face as you walk into the room.
“...and then there’s the Executioner’s Blade strategy,” she’s saying, seeming to be listing off things that went wrong. “I should have let Higuruma handle the voice recorder.”
Just then, your eyes land on a familiar face. A familiar body. Wait-
“ If Sukuna hadn’t just been playing around, he could have easily snuffed out my life. But here I stand alive and kicking,” Hiromi says.
And there’s just a single thought in your mind for that one second after seeing that familiar face. Alive and kicking, indeed.
And then everything all once is flowing in, every single thing you thought over these past weeks, every single wish and curse and regret, and Hiromi, he’s standing right there, he’s alive-
“ Hiromi,” you say, your voice seeming far away, everything seeming like something you’re watching on a screen, something far away that you are only a spectator to.
Familiar eyes lock with yours, and there’s a sharp intake of breath from the man you love. “[Name],” he says breathlessly, and the way he says your name is like stumbling upon a beautiful view, like taking a breath of fresh air, like coming home. Tears flow from your eyes unbidden, and then he’s stumbling awkwardly toward you, putting his functioning arm around you, holding you close, stroking your back.
“You’re alive,” you whisper, words dripping with disbelief.
“I’m alive,” he confirms.”
***********************************************************
You’re sitting alone with Hiromi after having overcome your initial shock. You’re not sure what emotions you can pick out of the mess of your mind other than happiness. And you are happy. The more important question is whether he is happy. You had requested that he tell the entire story from the beginning, and he obliges.
“When I got hit by that final Cleave, I thought I was dead on the spot,” he says. “Thought I’d been sliced clean in half. Like a KitKat?”
“That wasn’t funny,” you say, even as the smallest of smiles crosses your face.
Hiromi chuckles. “Alright, fine. In any case, I realized I was alive when I felt the pain. Then I was back in that monitoring room, and then I thought I was dead because the doctor-”
“Shoko,” you interrupt.
“Because Shoko said something along the lines of ‘he’s probably going to die.’ And then I thought, ‘well, if I’m going to die, at least I fulfilled my role.’”
“What do you mean?” you press.
“I’m not sure how to explain it,” he admits. “But there was this peace I felt. I mean, the plan hadn’t gone as we expected. But at least the cursed tool was gone, right? I did something. And then-” He stops abruptly.
“What is it?”
Hiromi sighs, his silence dragging on for a few more moments. “If I’m being completely honest, I wanted to die. I..” He sighs again. “I wanted to die,” he finishes simply.
You don’t respond, unsure of what to say, heart twisting and mind racing for what to say.
“But I realized that was a selfish wish,” he continues. “Because death is the easy way out. I can’t do that. I don’t deserve it.”
You lock eyes with him and open your mouth to speak, to say something profound, to comfort this broken man, but nothing comes out. Nothing comes out because there aren’t any profound or truly comforting words you can use in this situation. There aren’t any words because there’s no way to understand exactly what he’s going through. He can’t forgive himself for what he did, and he doesn’t believe anyone can forgive him.
So you say the only thing that you can think of.
“I forgive you, Hiromi.”
“...What?”
“I forgive you.”
His eyes widen, and he exhales a long breath, leaning back as he puts his hands on his face.
“You have no idea how liberating that feels.”
A comfortable silence settles between you for some long moments before he continues his story.
“And then, after all of this, according to Shoko, I did die. For about two minutes.”
Hiromi pauses, and he doesn’t need to finish because you’re already piecing together what happened. His heart stopped, but his brain was still working? So, then... a combination of his newly found reverse cursed technique and Shoko’s saved him?
“ Whatever you’re thinking is exactly what happened.”
“How do you know that?”
“How would you not know that?”
You roll your eyes. “Continue.”
“After that, everything just passed in a blur. Shoko refused to tell me anything besides the fact that you were alive.” He smiles a bit. “Maybe that was for the best.”
“Why?”
“I probably would have died again trying to look for you. I almost got cut in half, remember?” he jokes.
“Again, that’s not funny.” You sigh. “I mean... I thought you were dead. Maki told me out of nowhere, and then I had to fight. And then I almost died, too. And then...” you trail off, not wanting to burden him with the darkness you had descended into. Tears threaten to spill over again, and you force them away. “I’m just really happy you’re okay,” you say softly.
He pulls you into a warm embrace, chin resting lightly on your head. “I know it was hard,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry you didn’t know. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for,” you mumble.
“I do,” he insists. “It must have been hell to go through. Until I knew you were alive, I felt like I was going through hell. And when I found out you were fine, the first thing I should have done was find you. But I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”
You wrap your arms around him tightly, and in that moment, you realize his solidness against you, the realness that he is alive, might be the best thing you've ever felt.
“What are you going to do?” you ask suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know... you can’t really go back to being a lawyer, right? Are you going to become a sorcerer?”
Hiromi is silent, and just like that other time and many times before, you get the distinct feeling that he’s turning over answers in his mind, puzzling out which is the best.
“Yeah, becoming a sorcerer sounds nice,” he says, but you can hear the lie loud and clear.
*******************************************************
In the end, Hiromi does end up becoming a sorcerer. Just like everyone suspected, he’s ranked Grade 1.
“I’ll bet I can work my way up to special grade,” is what he’d said when he got his ranking.
“I’ll bet that you think you can become the next Gojo Satoru,” you had said dryly.
“Well, I’ll bet that’s not outside the realm of possibility, either,” he had replied.
Honestly, you’re just happy to have him back.
It’s said that you only know how much you love someone when they leave – that distance makes the heart grow fonder. But what might be more accurate is, “You only know how much you love someone when they come back.”
Because in that moment that you had seen Hiromi again, alive and only slightly worse for wear, it had hit you like a Black Flash: that you love that man known as Higuruma Hiromi beyond words, incomparably and incomprehensibly so.