Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I. 

Those who knew Inumaki Toge will say this is a story about many things, but mostly about hope and grief. 

They will add it feels a bit silly because they are the same thing if you look at them from the right perspective and you’re not sure if you believe them. You’d argue people run towards one and try to escape from the other one. But you should look a bit harder, under all the heavy coats.

Perhaps you need to hear a story, and maybe this one is for you.

So all you need to know is that late one evening towards the end of February, a young man slowly packed his life in a bag and left the only family he had ever known and disappeared from the rest of the world without saying a word.

On an early morning in March said family realised it was too little too late. Inumaki Toge had become untraceable. 

Now you’re ready. This story can begin. 

II. 

Panda died two years ago. 

His best friend too, in a way.

It was weird. One would think that a magical stuffed animal would last a lifetime, that he’d be the one to outlive and bury them all, but he was the first one to go. 

A nasty curse, they said. And the only person who could’ve saved him long gone from the events of the year prior. With Yaga out of the picture, there was nothing Shoko Ieri could really do.

It was hopeless, they explained. Another brutal loss in the jujutsu society. Nothing new. 

So they grieved and carried on living.

But Inumaki Toge didn’t. He didn’t know how. Panda was the first person who he ever belonged with.

He remembers the first day they met. He remembers being so afraid, and nervous and feeling out of place, clutching the leg of this weird white haired guy as he tells Toge that in this very place he will make the best memories of his life. Toge didn’t believe him for a second, until he saw the big stuffed panda, who suddenly moved and Toge screamed because he got scared and the panda screamed too because he didn’t like loud noises and out of nowhere they were both laughing. They became best friends instantly. After that, Toge doesn’t remember a time he was happy that wasn’t beside Panda. 

And he can see the smiles on their faces in that very old photo of that very old day that is preserved in that very old frame that was definitely not made by two kids who didn’t know how to use superglue or that not all colour combinations are pretty. He smiles back at them as he carefully packs it in a bag.

This place might have killed Inumaki Toge, but he refuses to be buried here. 

III.

This story actually begins fifteen years ago, when a woman got lost in the woods. But this story isn’t actually about that woman, so you don’t need to worry about her. Perhaps it was wrong to tell you this at the very beginning, because now you can’t help but wonder about her.

So all you need to know is that that woman entered that forest with a purpose in her head, at the end of her life. But don’t think about that, because there’s nothing you can really do right now.

IV.

The sakura trees in February make the grounds of the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College fill with a welcoming air. It’s pretty hard to tell there was a war in here four years ago. It took a while to fix the buildings, the temples, the training arenas, to plant new trees and regrow the gardens. And the springs make it look oh so worthy.

Everyone agrees so. It feels like the colour is also coming back to their faces. They are all settling down on their new roles. It was hard to fill the void Gojo Satoru left, and it took a toll on everyone.

Especially his alumni. Or ex alumni. They are all almost in their twenties and that is as scary as it is exciting. They struggled a bit (or maybe a lot), in different capacities, at different times. But they are always there for each other. There’s still a lot to go through but they’ll manage. Because it takes a village, and they all love their little village. 

And that’s exactly what Yuuta, Maki, Megumi, Yuji and Nobara are thinking as they are walking down the halls, enjoying the view of the pink fields of the premise. They’ll be even pinker next month. It brings a smile on their faces. 

There’s something in the air that makes their feet feel lighter. Perhaps it’s not the air, but the path. Earlier, they stumbled upon the rare sight of Toge outside of his room. It's been a while since they saw him under the sunlight. 

Toge saw them too. He smiled back at them, waved at them from a distance, as if he was wishing them luck for their missions, which is something he did before the fight, and before Panda’s passing. They waved back, and perhaps they didn’t even need that luck because hope filled their lungs.

Things were getting better. Perhaps not everything would be as it was, they all knew that, but they couldn’t help to think that things would be okay and that was more than enough. 

And even when they come back a few days later, and the door of Toge’s room is shut down again, they think tomorrow they will see him again, or the day after that. Because things take time and grief is such a funny thing.

So they can’t help but hope and hope and hope that maybe this spring will be warmer. It’s all we do around here.

V.

In truth, Inumaki Toge left the premises of the school half an hour after his old friends left. 

He leaves wondering if they noticed the bag in his hand, because why else would he be leaving a room with a bag for? But then again, he doesn’t have many belongings, so it’s not a really big bag. That kind of thing sort of happens when you no longer belong to anyone or anywhere. 

That same day, his friends will take a drive and end up north with the intent of saving lives, and Toge will take the afternoon train down south hoping it would save him, and they won’t cross paths again for many, many years.

VI.

Okay. There was a woman lost in the woods. Maybe we should talk about her for a second.

That day, she woke up and made breakfast for her family, attended a meeting, talked to her son and went straight into the forest. Fifteen years later a young man will also go missing but he’ll quickly find a new home, and in twenty someone will also die there. You can see the forest from the man’s new home.

Obviously, none of this has anything to do with you. Because you are probably in the comfort of your own house and you’ll never wander alone in a forest. Especially not in casual home clothes in the middle of winter, because you are not insane. Some will argue that the woman in the woods was insane for her actions, some will say she was driven to insanity. But in truth that lady was completely fine, she was just a victim of her circumstances. But you wouldn’t know that.

But you do know that you are a normal, decent person, so even though you’ll never wander into the woods like her, if you saw her entering, you’d have done something. You’d have helped because the look on her face gave everything away and you think you know the kind of pain she was under. Because we all have off days, but it’s the little things that keep us going. Because you know that the difference between you and that woman is very slim.

So you’d have done something. You wouldn’t just watch it happen. 

VII.

The young group of sorcerers came back to the school at the end of February, expecting Toge to welcome them back, and found themselves to be disappointed.

They will excuse his absence. In truth, they never even talked about it. They never mention the happiness that gave each of them when Toge saw them off a couple of days ago, and they won’t bring up how empty they felt when there wasn’t a pair of lilac eyes anywhere to be seen when they came back. They don’t discuss the excuses but they’ll each have one on their minds. They have learned to dance around them a long time ago.

Alarms will be raised twenty days from their return. They will storm Toge’s room and when they don’t find him anywhere, they search the whole campus for a sign of him. 

They will come up empty handed of their search, and Zenin Maki will go over to her close friend's room to cry all by herself. Kugisaki Nobara will follow her, because that’s what she has always done, and as she walks to hug her girlfriend, she will spot an envelope laying in the desk.

She doesn’t think twice before she rips it open.

At the end of the day, they all cry together reading it.

VIII.

In truth, Inumaki Toge intended to go as far as possible but shortly after, he realised that he needed a place to sleep for the night. He was in such a hurry to leave that he didn’t plan things out very well, but can you blame him? It’s not like they teach you to run away or something.

He just took a train and let his heart led him to wherever was safe. But when he found himself in front of that old familiar building, he realised it was his memory pulling the strings all along. In front of him stood an old apartment building, in a very populated area in the outskirts of Tokyo, and he entered there for the first time in over a decade. 

He hoped the apartment was still there. Well, the physical place was there, it couldn’t really move. But the person who owned it had been dead for some time and he doesn’t know what happened to the ownership of the apartment. 

The man who owned the apartment always left a key inside a flowerpot that could only be opened with a bit of cursed energy, and luckily it was still there, and it still fit.

Before him stood the place he once called home, and it was as lonely as the one he just left.

He quickly found out there was no power, or gas, or anything really, but it was something. It also wasn’t the best place in the world if you were running away from your loved ones, because some of them could figure out quite easily that it was a safe choice. Maybe because if they also left, that would be the first place they’d sought refuge in. 

But it was enough. It had a barrier so he could sleep soundly for a night and make plans and count money and think of something the next day. He doesn’t think they’ll notice until maybe in two days' time. They didn’t seem to really care that he had a bag with him when he left. He tells himself to be efficient and quick because they’ll follow his trail quite easily and he does not want to be found.

In truth, Inumaki Toge stays there for a week and no one shows up after him. It breaks his heart even more.

IX.

Okkotsu Yuuta loves talking with Inumaki Toge. He does it every day, or at least he tries to. He doesn’t know that Inumaki is leaving because that didn’t happen just yet. That will happen three whole years later. 

But right now, he’s walking down the hall to go and play videogames with Toge, possibly for the whole night because Toge is still here and he really loves spending time with all his friends. Especially with Toge. 

It reminds him why he’s still here, why he chooses to wake up every single day even when things are rough. It reminds him that he is not a monster. It’s healing in the same way it healed him back in their first year. 

Even if the missions are harder than ever, and the current state of the jujutsu world is a mess, and the void that Gojo Satoru left haunts them all, they are all still here. And that’s all Yuuta cares about.

Because after every mission, he’s welcomed with open arms to a safe home. One in which he’s something else than the only special grade sorcerer left: he is Yuuta Okkotsu, a friend. 

God, how he loves his friends. He loves the little talks, the laughing until it hurts, the silly banter, the awful pranks, the smell of the kitchen burning if Itadori is not the one cooking (and when he tries to teach them too), going shopping with Kugisaki, getting into pointless arguments with Maki, taking a nap with Panda, visiting museums with Megumi, and Toge. 

He loves to do everything with Toge. Perhaps because Yuuta considers him his best friend, even if he knows that Toge’s best friend is definitely Panda. But Yuuta will always pick Toge first. Perhaps because he was the first ever friend he had, back when he was still having a hard time with people. 

And maybe that’s the reason why he tries to be with him every moment he possibly can. This time, Toge is the one having a hard time with people. Ever since he lost his arm in the Shibuya incident, Toge feels powerless. Or at least that’s what Yuuta thinks. He has noticed every time Toge’s gaze crumbles when he can’t get his point across in onigiri language mid conversation and he subconsciously tries sign language, only to be reminded painfully that he can’t do it properly anymore. 

They don’t talk about it. Not yet, at least. Yuuta wonders if maybe he talks about it with Panda, he hopes so.

And he hopes that one of these days they’ll stop talking about silly things and nonsense and Toge will open up, just like Yuuta did with him all those years ago, and Yuuta will help him and be there for him, and remind him why he’s still here.

Okkotsu Yuuta and Inumaki Toge will talk about everything, eventually. They will also fight about it, and then they won’t talk at all. Then, Yuuta won’t hear about Toge for a long time.

In three years from this day, Okkotsu Yuuta will read the last words Inumaki Toge left for him, and he will think there were so many things he wished he could reply, things he wished he had said before it was too late. Sorry would be the first one.

X.

Twenty-one days after Inumaki Toge left, spring began and it made the fields even pinker, and all the people who knew and loved him thought they would never know a spring colder than this one.

Four years after Inumaki Toge left, their worlds would freeze again when the entire of the sorcerer world declared a manhunt, and his name would be the first on the list.

XI.

Inumaki Toge never really did have a voice.

And people with no voice might as well not be people.

That was the reason why Panda was different from other pandas, wasn’t he?

People loved to talk to him, and he really did his best to talk back to them. It was a tough deal, but it wasn’t always like that.

He remembers being a kid, and quickly finding out his words not only hurt him but also hurt everyone else. But that doesn’t mean he’s a bad kid, or at least that’s what his mom used to tell him. He was a bit different, and that was okay. He didn’t mean to do it, and she’ll love him forever, no matter what.

He remembers being told by the head of the clan that he was a very powerful cursed speech user, perhaps the strongest the clan had seen in decades, and that his voice was as delicate and sharp as a diamond sword. He was then promptly forbidden to ever talk again, unless specified to.

He remembers crying about it, and he also remembers how the very same day his mom called it ‘bullshit’ when they were back at home, as she declared that no one would ever silence her kid, not while she’s here, and if necessary she will fight everyone or anyone that comes between the happiness of his little boy. 

Because moms know there’s nothing more powerful than their love for their kids. Because moms are cool as fuck and Inumaki Toge’s damn sure is the coolest there is. She is witty, and loving, and wild, and the funniest person in every room. 

So, they come up with a made up secret language of their own while making dinner the same night. It really is not that necessary, because cursed speech users can communicate with their hearts. But his mom wasn’t from the family, and she was gifted the technique, so it was nowhere near the power of little Toge’s. 

But they didn’t need the exact words to listen to each other's hearts. Maybe a little hint would help so they use different foods to mean different things based on the fact of how much they like them. They save their favourite dishes to mean ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m here’, even if they mean the same thing. They won’t stop giggling about it for weeks as they add words to it.

Years later Gojo Satoru will find it amusing but he won’t laugh at him. Instead, he asks why bother if sign language already exists, and that’s the first time Inumaki Toge ever hears about it. He wonders if his mom ever heard about it before, but even when he learns to sign, he refuses to stop talking in onigiri flavours. 

Other people find it amusing too. And every time someone hears him talking nonsense for the first time, he can hear his mom laughing from wherever she is now and he knows she’s so proud of him.

People will praise the fact that even if his voice is so dangerous, Toge has found a way to talk to them without causing any harm, even if he makes a fool of himself in the meantime.

Maybe that’s why people loved to talk to him. He wonders if it’s why they also stopped, too.

XII.

It’s early January. Very early. January 1st type of early, and Itadori Yuuji is awake with a great feeling that this year will be their year. 

He is a very optimistic person, and even if the state of things is at an all-time low since the war, he can’t help but hope. One would argue it comes with the new year. People think that a number changing in their calendars means a new chapter in their lives and they are acquitted of every event of the year prior, but in truth we are the same people we were the day before, just a bit dumber because we think that.

But Yuuji Itadori is not like that. He’s just full of hope because he finds love in every little act of life he stumbles upon. 

And last night, as the fireworks painted the sky of Tokyo, he catched a glimpse of Inumaki-senpai watching them from the roof. He would think of it as a romantic: Toge shared the same sights as them, they were under the same sky. Some minutes later, they share the same roof because unexpectedly Toge shows up to the dinner table to eat some sweets. 

He doesn’t say anything, and no one forces him to and they try to proceed as normal as they can. It’s a bit awkward, but they do their best. 

And Yuuji was so happy, because if a party is what it takes for Toge to come out of his room, he will make a festival of his birthday and the entirety of Tokyo will find out Itadori Yuuji is 20 years old. It has to be good enough to convince Toge to also attend his wedding with Megumi, because he knows Megumi really loves Toge too, but that’s fairly the whole thing is fairly new and there’s not a date yet. So his birthday is the next target.

Not Maki’s, and not Yuuta’s because they are quite boring and a huge party would be already too out of place. But Yuuji is so full of life, so full of hope and he’s turning twenty, goddammit! He should celebrate all he wants. It’s going to be a party they will all remember.

And they will. But for all the wrong reasons.

Everyone knew Itadori’s idea and could sense his excitement from an ocean away. And everyone would share the disappointment when Toge doesn’t show up. 

It’s nothing new really, but this time it feels so much more devastating. And this time, not a single excuse could make up for the emptiness of two chairs. Perhaps that’s why they raised the alarms with the fact that no one had actually seen Toge in like, a month.

The sight of Toge’s empty room is the first time in a while that Itadori Yuuji is hopeless. 

XIII.

The day Inumaki Toge leaves the very old apartment is the first time Toge cries in a long time. He used to think he was could not do so anymore, having run dry months ago because that’s all he used to do.

You’d think he cried the first night in the loneliness of the dark, or when he saw the photos hanging in the wall that remind him he was once loved, or when he hugged the plushies that where still in the room of the kid he used to be, or when he entered the room of the man who owned the apartment and realised that he still doesn’t fit in his clothes and probably never will. Or maybe because he finally made the decision of leaving and accepted none of his friends cared about him.

But he already knows that.

In truth, it’s the silly little things that make grief finally catch you when you’ve been running away from it for a long time. And it finds Toge in a single child shoe that was kept in the safe, along with important papers and some savings he clearly intended to borrow. 

It’s the ugliest shade of blue and it’s as dirty as you could expect when you think of a little kid having the time of his life. So worn out you’d definitely know it was the kid’s favourite, and it was loved to the point of almost destruction. But kids don’t care about that, they think love is endless and everything’s forever and if they want to jump in a puddle, they will jump in the puddle. And Inumaki Toge sure as hell loved those shoes to the point it brought him to tears.

Not today, no. Don’t get confused. Toge cried when he was younger and promptly decided to move out of the apartment. And since that day was rainy he had to put on his rain boots, and it wasn’t until the next day he realised he had only brought one of the shoes, so he had to go back home to look for it. The man told him he saw no shoe but invited Toge to search it together. And so they did, the entire afternoon. But the shoe was nowhere to be found. So he threw a tantrum and the man who owned the apartment said that it was probably a big misunderstanding, and it’d probably appear in the next few days. 

Toge would go back there at least once a week for the rest of the year to search for it, because maybe this time there would be a new perspective he did not think of, and the man would open the door every single time. 

And now, Toge realises the old man purposely hid it so he would have to go home every single time, and he can’t help but think that the man was the biggest bastard in town, but that he himself was the biggest fool in history to not have realised sooner. Maybe they’d have laughed about it. Maybe the man would’ve also laughed because the last time he ran away from home was to go live at the campus with his new best friend Panda, and now he’s running away because Panda’s not here anymore. He was a weird man, and he laughed at the silly things in life.

Somewhere in the middle of those memories, Toge starts crying. He doesn’t know when exactly, but suddenly the shoe has these funny dots in it and when Toge realises it’s because of tears, he laughs thinking it’s the first time it was ever washed. The old man would’ve laughed, because he was just like that. And Panda too, because he always laughed at Toge’s jokes, even the bad ones. And it makes him cry even harder, to the point the shoe may be considered brand new if every tear fell on it. 

Because they aren’t here anymore and Toge has been really brave about it. But now he’s all alone and suddenly he’s an adult and he is not a kid anymore to throw a tantrum about it but he’s so afraid and there's no one to hold his hand other than grief. So he takes it. And they both leave home, without looking back. 

There is no reason to, the shoe fits perfectly in his bag.

XIV.

In truth, the young group of sorcerers did have a reason not to believe Toge was leaving that day.

That doesn’t mean they don’t regret the fact they didn’t realise at the time what was going on. It’s a few days after the search starts that Nobara brings up the idea that perhaps Toge left as soon as they did too. They will all get drunk that very same night and lament it over and over and blame themselves and the words of the fight and the letter are burrowed under their skins to the point it feels like burning. The image of Toge waving, walking away from them repeating over and over, haunting them over and over.

But the image misses an important detail. 

Toge’s memories of the day also seem to fail to notice it, too.

You see, when you cross paths with a person and you often stumble upon each other, that means you’re probably going in opposite directions. And that’s exactly what happened that day. 

Because even if Toge intended to leave this place because of everything and everyone, he couldn’t go without saying goodbye. So he had to make a stop before leaving, and therefore he headed to his best friend’s grave. 

And on his way there, he sees his old friends and they see him. They wave at each other, and Toge thinks it’s a bit ironic, and both parties continue their ways. The group of friends heads to exit the campus while Toge goes deeper in it. One would not think he was trying to run away if he wasn’t going towards the exit. It’s a bit of common sense really.

So his friends only think about it as Toge being finally out of his room and they don’t look back as they walk through the doors. 

And Inumaki Toge won’t look back either after he leaves Panda’s grave and actually makes his way towards the exit. He will take one last look at the place he called home for the longest time, the place where he made the most of his memories and he will walk slowly, but avoiding all the places that bring memories he doesn’t want to recall. 

That means he can’t say his goodbyes to Gojo Satoru, he knows he’s not brave enough to do so. He doesn’t know it yet, but that very same evening he would go home to him at the other side of town, so there’s no need for a goodbye. 

XV.

Okkotsu Yuuta kissed Toge once, when they were young and careless and still a bit in love with the world. Maybe they were in love with each other too, but people will say they were too young to know what love really is about.

But people don’t experience life the same way sorcerers do. Life is too risky, too fast, too dangerous. You could lose everything and anyone at any given moment, so you have to make the most of it and learn to cherish the little things.

So when you are eighteen and you survived a war, and one of you is now the only special grade sorcerer left and must tell actual grown up grownups what to do, you kind of feel like you lived a thousand lives already, and you deserve a happy ending.

Well, maybe not a happy ending, those are rare here. But you deserve some peace for a while. You can’t help to think that it gets better, eventually, maybe for a little time, maybe it’s no longer than the time you spend with your best friend laughing so hard it hurts. But there is something and you’re so ready to hold onto it. In here, we hope and hope and hope. Maybe things will get better tomorrow.

But Okkotsu Yuuta knows better than to wait and see what tomorrow will bring. The idea that life has plans for us can be nice for a bit, but there’s nothing more romantic than going against those odds. You have to make things better on purpose. If Okkotsu Yuuta waits for love, love will never find him because hope was never on his side. He used to worry about everything that could happen, until he found out he had a weight on the matter. He could make things happen.

So he starts doing the things he wants, the things he loves. Like having little rendezvouses with the boy he likes to see if there was something more there.

It was a very chilly Autumn night, but it wasn’t downright freezing. It was nice. 

The kiss, too. A bit shy, but that was probably because the participants of it also were. Neither of them had ever kissed someone before so perhaps people were right. Maybe they weren’t in love with each other just yet, but as the breeze danced between their hairs, Inumaki Toge thought things would finally be alright. 

Life was getting better and they were choosing to hope on purpose, to love on purpose against all logic, against all odds. And you can’t be in love if you don’t know what hope is. 

So around here, we hope and hope and hope. 

XVI.

I know I said to not think about the woman who got lost in the woods, but there’s something about her, isn’t it? You can’t just help to think about her. You’re not the only one who keeps her in mind, so don’t worry about it, you’re not a weirdo. At least, not the only one.

Maybe it’s because it was so abrupt, so devastating. And it’s the details that make you wonder. Or at least it did a young man wonder, all the way up north. He will overhear the circumstances and because his own life was killing him too, he won’t stop thinking about it for a long time.

All he thinks you need to know is that even if she walked with a purpose in her head, that doesn’t mean she had the intention to die. 

Perhaps if he had been there, he would’ve done something. He wouldn’t have just watched, not like them.

XVII.

Inumaki Toge doesn’t really know where he ends up when he steps out of the train but he can’t help to think he was once here a long time ago. 

Given the fact that it’s somewhat of a rural area, he concludes that maybe he was here for a mission a long time ago, or maybe in a similar town in the area. Rural towns are known to have little cursed energy, so it’s a good place for students to start learning.

It takes him no time to decide that he likes this place regardless. He concludes the eeriness and melancholia come with the whole running away ordeal and he stops hearing his feelings for a bit.

Right now, he has to find a place to stay the night and then a job to afford to continue to spend the night there.

The first time is not a problem. He quickly finds out this town is near a very popular tourist attraction: a beautiful mount in the middle of the woods that had the most beautiful views from the top. You could see the big city of Tokyo from a distance up north, the wide range of colours the woods had to offer, the ocean down south, a lot of really old temples, the cultivation fields at the west and the flowers fields at the east. 

So finding a place to stay wasn’t a problem. The town had a pretty motel with not so many people because very few tourists come to this specific town. So it’s not so expensive and Toge arriving here doesn’t feel odd, and he doesn’t stand out.

But finding a job might be a problem. Who would want to hire a boy with just one arm and no voice? That’s the whole reason he didn’t fit in at the sorcerer world anymore, but he then had an excuse. And now, he doesn’t even have official school records, because the general public hates sorcerers and he can’t just go waving the flag of the enemy.

You’d think that Inumaki Toge was screwed. But in truth, Toge had a bit of hope remaining inside of him.

He may not have the best relationship with people, he doesn’t really know how to do that anymore. But he knows flowers like the back of his hand and a job in the flower fields seemed promising.

He also knows this place but it’ll take him a bit to realise he also ran away from here a long time ago.

XVIII.

If you asked Maki Zenin about the relationship between Okkotsu Yuuta and Inumaki Toge, she’d probably roll her eyes. She’s absolutely sick of them, she has always been.

She’s sick of the longing stares and the inside jokes she will never understand, the way they don’t need to talk to communicate with each other. It amazes how Toge makes Yuuta act like an actual teenager and forget the weight he carries on his shoulder, and how Yuuta is the only person who can make Toge actually behave like an adult when it’s necessary. They work together, Yuuta and Toge. As friends, as partners, as lovers, as comrades, whatever you want to call them. 

She says the day they are not next to each other the world would probably end.

But in truth, they already spent a year apart and the world didn’t end, all those years ago.

And the world won’t end either all those years after, but for a while it will feel like it did.  Sobbing, clutching the stupid letter on her hand, Maki Zenin can’t help but blame herself, over and over.

Mostly, because that is what girls are taught: everything that happens in this world is somehow their fault. And she knows it’s not like that, she has made a good amount of work trying to heal from the damage this has caused in her life. Being born without cursed energy wasn’t her fault, the way her family treated her wasn’t her fault, her girlfriend nearly dying when they got separated wasn’t her fault, Mai’s death was not her fault, Panda’s death wasn’t her fault.

But Toge. Toge may be her fault. The fight certainly was. If only she was not so short tempered, so quick to confront people. If only she understood emotions better, or trauma or grief. If only she had been better.

No one blames her, not even Toge. Not only because they all blame themselves (given the fight wasn’t just a normal fight and they were all part of it), but because Toge blames himself too in that stupid letter. 

Tomorrow, she will be the first one out the door. She will find Inumaki Toge even if hell freezes over, because she knows better than anyone that guilt can consume a person whole and there are four words that can bring him back home.

XIX.

What’s important about Yuuta kissing Toge is that Toge kissed him back, and it was all Yuuta cared about. The world could end tomorrow and it'd be fine.

It wasn’t.

XX.

A cursed speech user leaving his family because he doesn’t feel heard. Think about that for a moment.

Obviously, it has nothing to do with you. Just as little as that woman getting lost in the forest. Because you are a normal, regular person and there’s very few cursed speech users left in the world. Actually, just one family. 

And you are not one of those, and you can’t help but be pleased by the fact because you grew up being told that consent is a very important thing and you just can’t force people to do what you want them to do. So you just can’t imagine the moral dilemma that comes with having a power like that because there are things you must never do, under any circumstances. You mustn't tell lies, you mustn't steal, you mustn't kill and you mustn't force people. We can all agree on that.

Except not all of us are sorcerers. So perhaps there’s an exception when there’s a curse and you just have to kill it and you have to force it to crush itself to death. And maybe there’s another exception when you have to save civilians and force them out of the battlefields, and make them run away even though they are probably injured or in shock, but the time is running out and you just can’t think how that will affect their trauma in a future, you are just making sure there is a future to begin with. 

But you can’t make your friends fetch you a soda. Well, maybe as a prank when you are really, really close with them, and you all laugh it off. You’ll fetch them a soda tomorrow as payback anyway. It’s fine when you already talked about it before, and there are boundaries. 

But that's it. There are no more exceptions. You can’t force them to spend time with you, to make them remember your birthday and buy you the gift that you really, really want, to listen to your problems.

But it’s tricky, especially when you are a kid and you’re growing up and you can’t really control the things that you do. And you do things you will regret the rest of your life, even if your mom tells you it doesn’t mean you’re a bad kid, that you didn’t mean to do it, and that she’ll love you forever, no matter what. But it’s not enough, because she’s just a one-man-army against the rest of the world, and she won’t last forever. But ideas… ideas last forever and so you carry her in a silly little language you two made up.

But it’s a kids game. And as you grow up, people will start taking you less and less seriously because of it, to the point you feel like they don’t care at all. They speak to you, but they won’t speak with you, because they don’t want a reply.

And even if you were once considered powerful and competent, suddenly you’re a kid again and no one is there to hear what you want to say. Even if you want to apologise for all the things you said and did in order to get a bit of attention. And you can’t help but think it’s so ironic that you have the power of making people do what you want with your voice, but you just can’t even make them hear you. But at the end of the day, you can’t force them to say sorry and you can’t force them to forgive you.

Perhaps you should stop talking right now. Perhaps, you shouldn’t have ever talked. 

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to you, because that is not your life, those are not your problems and you are a normal person and you can’t even imagine what would you do if that ever happened to you.

Maybe one day you’ll hear a story about it.

XXI. 

Megumi Fushiguro remembers the first time Toge ever left him. He doesn’t remember it hurting like this, though. 

Back then they were kids. And when you are a kid you think that love is endless and everything’s forever, and even if Toge left he would be back, eventually. He did come back the very next day accusing him of stealing his favourite shoe while he threw at him the other pair. Megumi remembers it hurting more than Toge actually leaving. It wasn’t like now, when he completely disappeared.

Besides, Megumi knew Toge chose a new home alongside Panda. It didn’t bother him at the time because he had Tsumiki and she was all he needed, but it still felt weird. Gojo told him to not worry about it, that if he wanted to play with Toge he knew exactly where to find him. He also promised him that even if Toge doesn’t live here anymore, he will always take care of him and that was clearly said with the intent to soothe Tsumiki’s worries but it didn’t bring any comfort to Megumi because Gojo was… well, Gojo. 

A few years later, when he was a teenager he would kind of feel offended (because teenagers find offence in every little thing in life), because what does a panda have that he doesn’t? Toge and Megumi were good friends and literally shared a home, so why did he choose to leave him for a panda he just met? 

And what about now? Did he find better friends to run to? Were Toge and him friends anymore? Had they ever been? What would Satoru say? What would he have done? 

And then, he remembers. And Megumi almost kicks down the door of the living room as he approaches his friends to tell them he knows where Toge may be. He feels dumb the idea didn’t occur until two days later but it’s still worth the shot.

Half an hour later they do kick down a door only to find an empty apartment that was so full of Toge. He was everywhere. In the way the plates were stored, how the cushions of the couch were placed, the food in the pantry, the way the bed was made, the clear attempts to relive the plants. But Toge was nowhere to be seen.

And nothing was more devastating than the fact they had been too late, again.

XXII.

Nobody really knows how Inumaki Toge lost his arm.

Perhaps Panda did but he’s not here to tell us.

The only thing we know is that Toge was put on civilian duty, that he wasn’t found in his designated area and that Toge doesn’t blame Itadori for it. 

In truth, we are not sure if Toge even knows what happened. Okkotsu remembers when he found him, under all that debris two days after the incident. He remembers the wound and the dry blood in the cement and Maki’s voice telling him that he was still breathing. He remembers thinking it was a miracle he was even alive. Shoko tells them so, too.

He also remembers the look on Toge's face when he first woke up, but we won’t talk about it because it was too painful for all the people involved.

Yuuta blames himself for the longest time about, well, everything. If only he had been there. For Maki, for Maki’s friend, for Toge, for Gojo-sensei. He promises all of them that he won’t let any of these things happen again, that he would be here.

And he does stay here, besides them, all of them. He trains with Maki, he cooks with Itadori, he goes shopping with Kugisaki, he naps with Panda, he visits museums with Megumi, he has long talks with Gojo-sensei in his grave and he kisses Toge.

And Toge kisses him back every time. 

Even when Yuuta broke his promise and had to be sent to a month-long mission back in Sendai, Toge still kissed him goodbye. He told Yuuta it was fine, to not worry and that it wasn’t his fault he was the strongest there was. 

Yuuta remembers thinking in the plane that it was a point of no return for him, he was absolutely smitten of Inumaki Toge and he couldn’t wait to go back home to him.

He would be back shorter than expected because things were, in fact, not fine.

Nobody really knows how Panda died.

Except for Toge but he’s not here to tell us.

XXIII.

Running away it’s harder than you think, even if it’s the third time you’ve done it.

Actually, getting a job is scarily difficult and that’s a grownup thing. So of course it’s hard. In all the times Toge ran away from home, this is the first one he’s actually an adult and he finds it a bit too inconvenient. 

He has to worry about getting healthy food, and a roof to sleep under, and nice clothes, and he has to know how to make a good curriculum, and how banks work to get a debit card, and how to be around people and how to get a goddamn job. No one is ready to become an adult. Perhaps someone should’ve stopped us.

But Toge can’t just go back. It’s been a month and he still hasn’t found a promising job, and it would be so embarrassing. 

He does some odd jobs in the fields around town because the story he has come up with makes people feel sorry for him, but not sorry enough to give him a full proper job. He thinks the whole ‘mute-boy loses his arm and home to a culling game colony’ story would be enough but it clearly wasn’t. Adults are supposed to understand the economy too, and if Toge did, maybe he’d come up with a better story.

He won’t need a story, at the end of the day. Because one night as he is leaving work an old lady will approach him and see right through his lies.

She presents herself as Tomogiku Ayame, and Toge connects her name with a temple some towns over surrounded by the prettiest flower fields he had ever seen and with a great view of the woods. She doesn’t let him reach for his cellphone to type his own name.

“There’s no need to give me your fake name, kid” she continued, and Toge's heart skipped a beat. “People from around here didn’t know the Inumakis, so there’s no need.”

Before Toge can even ask why the people from around here would know about his family, the lady is able to read his face perfectly. 

“Oh, so you aren’t faking it because of them, no. You’re hiding from someone,” she concludes. 

Toge is so embarrassed about everything. The fact she can see right through him, the fact that he didn’t even think people might know about his clan, that the reason why he is so lonely is so obvious, that it is taking him a month to find an actual job.

 “Don’t worry, nobody suspects a thing. But I… well, no one can really fool me, kiddo, and let me tell you that many people have tried before,” she laughs.

Toge looks at her with wonder in his eyes, and actually sees her for the first time. She looks old but not old enough that people would think she is helpless. Her entire hair is white and grey though, but it fits her nicely. She has the kindest indigo eyes Toge has seen in a while. And there is something soothing about her, so perfectly calm and comforting.

And then, it hits Toge. The lady is surrounded by cursed energy, neatly folded and gently preserved in a way only a very skilful sorcerer that spent years perfecting it could do. The lady noticed his own, too. And when she smiles at him, he smiles back even if she can’t see it through the mask.

“There’s not many of us here, kiddo, not anymore,” she said with a hint of grief, “and the flowers have told me you’re looking for a job, so perhaps you were interested in an offer and a cup of tea.”

Toge was so tired and everything had been so hard, and she seemed to be as lonely as him, so he accepted it without even thinking of it as a trap. He doesn’t even question the flower thing. If you’re worried about it, let me tell you it was not a trap, but rather a deal of a lifetime. 

The thirty-sixth day after Inumaki Toge ran away, he entered through the doors of a temple two towns over with an offer of a job and a cup of tea, and inside he would find a home. He wonders what will make him leave this one too, but it will take years until he finds a reason good enough.

XXIV.

Years from now, when people tell this story, there will be a common misconception. People think that the reason behind everything was because of Panda dying, and Toge not being able to cope with that.

But that’s not true. People just need to listen to the story better, and wait for it to finish before they go around throwing blame. Because that’s the first thing we do when we read stories like this one. We need someone to root for, and we need someone to blame, so you’re probably looking for reasons to hate Okkotsu, or Maki, or someone. Because history is filled with people pitted against each other. Two teams. One wrong, one right. Us against you. 

But life is not like that. This story either.

Because when Panda first died, Toge had all of his friends at his side and even if he felt like dying he found a way to keep going and walk beside them.

It was the first time they actually lost one of them, so they stuck together, keeping each other close, keeping each other alive. And then things got back to normal. Or perhaps a new normal was settled. And Toge didn’t like it.

And they will fight about it. In truth, the fight was not really about that, but that’s what Toge thinks. 

And the fight was not reason enough for Toge to leave, but that’s what his friends believe because they need a reason to blame themselves. They do think they are the bad people of Toge’s story. 

But grief is such a funny thing, it clouds your memories and doesn’t allow you to think.

Because if the fight was the reason Toge left he would’ve done so during the autumn, shortly after he almost killed himself.

XXV.

Perhaps you are very confused by the timeline of events as of now. Don’t worry. It’s normal when you are grieving. 

So to make a long story short, there was a war a few years ago and the world didn’t end, but Inumaki Toge lost his left arm and his mentor. 

A year later Yuuta kissed Toge, and then sometime after that, Yuuta left and Panda died.

And the world stopped for Toge for two years, but he really did his best to not let it stop his life. Then, he got tired of it and got reckless, and there was a fight and somewhere in those lines Toge finally lost himself and all of his friends.

And so, he left all of them at the end of February.

His family barely noticed it until March 5th, at Panda’s memorial. Or moreso, the lack of one because Toge wasn’t there to plan it. But they gave him space because times had been hard, so no one raised any alarms when he also missed Yuuta’s birthday two days later. He doesn’t like to celebrate it anyways.

But worry crept by March 20th, when they realised there had been a whole month of no communication with Toge, and he had missed Yuuji’s 20th birthday, which they were all looking forward to. 

The next day, they forced the door of his dorm to open, and in the desk layed a single envelope, with no name or address. 

It was read that same night and the search for him began the very next day, but Toge was long gone and no one could tell them where he was.

An apartment door would be kicked down a few days later, and temple doors would gently open far away.

Oh, and fifteen years ago a woman got lost in the woods. But that’s not important.

What’s important is the little kid who got lost in the same forest a year later.