Chapter Text
Toge has come to terms with the fact that he’ll spend his life alone. It comes with the territory when you’re the Inumaki clan’s holder of the cursed speech technique.
Technically he shouldn’t even exist.
Long ago, the Inumaki clan made a pact with the other big three families in jujutsu sorcery. They swore to slowly weed out the cursed speech users, their technique having been deemed too dangerous, a threat to themselves and others. Toge is the only user to exist in the past decade. A one-thousand-and-one chance they had said, and yet he was born with the seals adorning his face. An affliction was how they saw it.
From the moment he was born his parents didn’t know what to do with him. How do you raise a child when their first word could kill you? The clan elders were quick to step in, he was a liability after all, something that needed to be contained, only to be taken out and used when it was most beneficial to sorcerer society. Eventually he learned to live in quiet defiance of all the rules they imposed upon him. The people around him either looked at him with fear, afraid that he might open his mouth, or with complete disappointment, seeing him as volatile and insolent.
The thorn in everyone’s side.
No one understood him.
It wasn’t until he was sent to Jujutsu Tech that any of that was challenged. He has classmates now and a way to communicate, albeit a strange one. He isn’t alone anymore.
Maki, the Zenin clan’s failure, who holds even more hatred for her clan than Toge does for his own, and Panda, a cursed corpse, often called nothing more than a tool of his creator – despite how false that statement may truly be. Suddenly there were people around him that are like him, in some ways more than others. Maki, for one, has an intimidating presence and short tempter, not to mention her unbridled strength that could send both him and Panda halfway across the training field. And Panda, for all the talk of him being “full of stuffing,” is actually one of the most insightful people (er, Pandas?) he’s ever met. It isn’t long before they’re holding movie nights in the common area every Sunday and joking with each other like they’ve been going to school together for years. Even with his limited form of communication, he feels like they get him in a way.
Gojo was probably the strangest of the bunch.
The first time Toge met Gojo Satoru he was only a child, no more than 7 years old. When word eventually spread of an Inumaki inheriting the cursed speech technique, the strongest sorcerer alive paid the clan a visit to meet him.
Toge didn’t really understand who he was at the time, just that he was the head of a very renowned clan that needed to be shown the utmost respect, despite the fact that everyone treated him very coldly upon arrival, hoping he would leave as soon as possible.
He was tall, and a little imposing, with an air of haughtiness that he carried with him. If he noticed the clan’s cold attitude toward him, he certainly didn’t seem to care. He asked Toge a question, though he can’t remember what it was anymore, all he knows is he couldn’t answer. Toge had learned at that point to not talk if he could help it. Some words were safe, most were not.
He remembers Gojo looking very confused, asking the elders with Toge why he refused to speak, their answer only making his brows crease tighter.
Wanting to diffuse the situation Toge uttered the only word he was sure wouldn’t come with any negative repercussions, his favorite onigiri filling. He had watched his mom make some just a few days prior and when she had asked if he wanted some, he answered.
“Tsuna mayo”
Bright blue eyes peeked out from behind round glasses, Gojo looked at him like he had grown two heads. But then he smiled, huffing out something like a laugh.
He had left the compound that day assuring Toge that when he was old enough, he’d be enrolled in the Jujutsu Tech campus in Tokyo and be welcomed with open arms. Toge still didn’t really understand what that meant but the elders seemed pleased to get him off their hands.
What really surprised him was a week later when he got a package in the mail from one Gojo Satoru.
It was a book on sign language.
Do your best! d( > _・ ) Read the attached note.
Learning the new language felt good, one of the few things he did under the elders’ watch that was his own choice. Even if he still had no one to talk to.
Despite all of it, he's never told his classmates.
It’s a complicated language, and one that feels kind of silly, especially when no one else around him understands why he’s waving his arms around like that. It took him years to learn without a proper teacher, his classmates shouldn’t have to go through all of that just for his sake. It’s a big commitment on top of their already busy schedules filled with training, classes, and missions. He uses it with Gojo a bit since he seems to be fluent in sign, but Gojo is, well Gojo. He could literally do the impossible. Toge has no idea when the man even sleeps, if he sleeps.
It’s not really a big deal anyways, he can get by with his onigiri words.
It isn’t until Maki and Panda manage to corner him one day after class that he questions his decision. Maki slams her hand on top of his notebook before he can pack it away and hits him with her most irritated glare.
“Hey,” she starts staring at him like she expects him to know why she’s so pissed, “you know sign language.” It’s not a question. Toge can only blink back at her, unsure of what she wants. “Gojo mentioned it to us yesterday,” Panda adds, looking a lot less angry and more concerned compared to Maki. “He was surprised we didn’t know. Toge, how come you never told us?”
The anger in Maki’s eyes and worry laced in Panda’s is enough to surprise him, he truly didn’t think they’d be this upset.
He shrugs, “Sujiko takana.”
I can get along just fine talking with you guys.
Maki doesn’t look too pleased with his answer, but they drop it after that.
It happens around three weeks later, when Toge is wandering the halls of the school late one evening after getting back from a solo mission, unable to find either Maki or Panda around anywhere – which, as a known prankster, is very suspicious to him. Maybe Maki was planning on getting back at him for wearing her glasses around campus the one day she accidentally left them on the common room coffee table. He notices one of the doors to their classroom is left ajar – strange since class ended hours ago – and sneaks up to it, hoping to catch them in the act. He slams the door open as quickly as he can, without any warning, before realizing he was sorely mistaken.
Instead of anything nefarious, he finds them all settled on the ground surrounded by books, startled by the loud sound he just made, all their eyes lock on his silhouette in the doorway. Maki is frozen with her hands positioned a peculiar way in the air in front of Panda. Gojo sitting on one of the nearby desks with a textbook propped lazily on one knee.
Looking closer at Maki’s hands he can recognize the shape, it’s not anything to do with jujutsu – the visible cover of a very familiar looking textbook on Gojo’s lap even confirms it.
She’s speaking, in JSL.
The sight stuns him into complete silence, frozen in the doorway, unable to comprehend the sight in front of him. Eventually he bites, raising up his hands in front of him and going slow. A test of sorts.
“What’s going on?”
Panda scratches his head, “It was supposed to be a surprise… but we were um…” He looks to Maki for help.
“What do you think?” She signs back with the same curtness she would have if her words were spoken out loud.
He almost gasps at how confident she already is with the language. How long have they been doing this already? He doesn’t even know what to say back, outside of Gojo and a few stilted signs with some of his relatives he’s never been able to hold a full conversation. He never expected that anyone else would willingly want to learn, and he was okay with that, but now…
Maki and Panda, and even Gojo,
They’re all learning sign language – for him.
He feels something wet slide down his cheeks. The next thing he registers is Panda’s furry arms around him, with Maki being pulled into the mix by both him and Gojo, wrapping Toge in a group hug.
“Did you ever think that maybe we wanted to communicate with you better? Dummy, learning a little sign language isn’t going to slow us down.” Maki’s voice sounds a little thick as she speaks, but maybe that’s just because Toge’s face is being smushed into Panda’s furry stomach.
“You’re allowed to want things, Toge,” Gojo adds, ruffling his hair, “This isn’t your clan.” Normally he’d be upset at Gojo messing up his spikes – they can take a lot of time to perfect in the mornings – but right now the physical touch only makes him choke on a small hiccup through his tears.
He can’t remember the last time he’s cried like this.
Soon after, a new classmate joined their year. The most tired, lost and depressed boy Toge has ever seen, Okkotsu Yuuta. Gojo told them about his predicament after their subsequent beating by Rika. Being attached to a massively powerful and rage-filled curse since he was eleven. Toge immediately felt empathy for him. He knew the looming torture of cursing someone without intention. Of hurting those closest to you without meaning to. Of feeling like something less than human because of what you carry with yourself every day. Toge is in a much better place now than he ever was at his clan’s estate. Jujutsu Tech is more of a home to him than anywhere, maybe with some help, it could be the same for Yuuta.
He wants to help make that happen for him.
Though he was a little slow on the uptake, Yuuta eventually shed his anxious outer shell (well, mostly) and fit right into the group of misfits that made up their first-year class. Toge has watched him grow over the months into a sorcerer worthy of his special-grade title. He can’t help but admire him for his fierce strength and gentle soul.
Shortly after Toge’s first mission with him, Yuuta finally started to warm up to him, instead of avoiding Toge like the plague and jumping at every “konbu” that comes out of his mouth. Maki and Panda roped him into their afterschool JSL lessons as well. It was a short conversation over the dinner table, Yuuta was easily convinced. Although, Toge can’t tell if it’s because he’s so used to being pressured into doing things by now or if it’s because he genuinely cares. He hopes it’s the latter.
Maybe, with more time, he’ll get to know Yuuta better too.