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You knew that you were in a loop.
You knew that and yet continued on and on. Not because you liked pain but because of all those chances, you would never give up on saving each of them.
The first time you woke up after your death was in your timeline. The one with Yujii, Nobara and Megumi.
You jumped out of your bed and soon knocked on Yujii's door, knowing that he would be the only one awake at this hour. Even though he had travelled dimensions across, it didn't mean that you would damage your friends' sleep schedule.
What you also did not take into consideration was that it was soon after a mission where you had injured your leg.
You looked at the heavy bandaging and you decided that the pain would have to wait for future you.
As you limped to Yujii's room, you banged on his door to let you in. As soon as he opened the door, his face contouring to one of surprise as you jumped on him to hug him. Even though it startled him, he managed to stabilise the both of you using the doorway as he exclaimed your name and asked why you were here when you should have been resting.
You kept on hugging him tight when you saw Megumi and Nobara appear from behind. You rushed to hug all three of them together, nuzzling your nose into the nearest person's shoulders which just so happened to be Nobara.
There was a sudden gasp though soon after, as you moved away, you suddenly noticed the pain in your leg as you looked down you noticed you had bled through the bandages that were tied and now some blood seemed to drip on the floor.
They hurriedly dragged you to the bed, fussing and scolding you about injuring yourself further.
(You loved them and maybe this time you would be able to tell them, at least)
The very next morning you wake up in a tangle of limbs, your legs kept in an elevated position to avoid aggravating the wound even more. You grinned as you saw Megumi and Nobara clutching onto your shirt as Yujii snored on the side.
This was real.
Maybe your death was the catalyst. Maybe you needed to die for you to return to your timeline.
(But hadn't you already died three whole times?)
But did it also mean that the changes you had made were permanent? Did they translate into the life you were currently living?
A small hint of sadness did bite into your heart. You had left behind Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, Kento and Yu.
You chided yourself. If they were still alive in this lifetime, they would all be senseis and -sans, not -kuns, kouhais or -chans.
But that didn't mean that you wouldn't miss the versions you knew.
What a curse you were in. When you were there you missed here and now that you're in your present, you miss the past.
Maybe this is the curse of human life. To always covet what was on the other side, because for humans the grass will always be greener on the other side. This was human nature so where was your fallacy? If the greatest poets and scholars would succumb to this, who were you to resist the temptation of what was and what could have been.
Satoru notices that you look a little quieter than before. Though between the rambunctious first years, Megumi took first place with his cold exterior, you were not too behind with your shyness to approach people.
His mind travels to the recent mission where even with the gaping pain on your leg you had trudged back without seeking the help of your fellow year-mates even when he saw you needed it desperately.
But this also reminded him of his friend.
God, he missed them so much. Sometimes when he looked at you, he could almost see them. Sometimes he was even tempted to ask whether you had any related cousins or members but all he knew was not to touch the subject of family with you.
The Jujutsu Society was made up of kids so irreversibly hurt by the ones who should have loved them.
He was an example. Shoko was an example. Suguru was an example. And you had been an example.
And this was the reason you had also passed away leaving him and all of the others behind.
He looked at the field as he saw the first years being chased by Maki and Panda who both were wielding weapons while he saw both you and Inumaki practicing flips.
Practising flips always made you happier. Perhaps this is why Inumaki had taken it up to himself to do so.
Satoru could never understand your happiness though. Was it the adrenalin that felt from the jumps or was it that Inumaki had taught you land with a flourish, and you who loved dramatics took to it like a fish to water.
He felt his shoulder being tapped. He looked to see Suguru standing behind him, passing him his SUPER SWEET MIXED HELL JUICE while he kept the tray of drinks nearby. He cast a glance towards his students who he called out. As soon as they saw the drinks on Suguru's hands they rushed in, each grabbing a drink.
He noticed though, that each of them kept their hands away from the boba which you happily took.
It was not the normal boba you preferred, he had noticed. It was the soda-like drink with popping boba that you preferred over the normal milk and tapioca combo.
Each of them exclaimed their thanks as they all sipped their drinks.
Well, they were missing something.
"Suguru," he said, leaning onto the man beside him, "this is the reason they like you better. Can't you be a little less student pleaser?"
He poked Suguru's cheeks who kept his smile towards the drink in his hands. A soft voice rang out in the middle of the cheers that Suguru was the best which was angled towards him, "But you're my favourite Gojo-sensei."
He looked at the voice and was not surprised to find you smiling up to him.
God, in these small moments he missed his best friend even more.
Shoko notices that you've grown thinner than before when the day of the mandated check-up comes. Between the louder half of your party, you almost go unnoticed. It wasn't because you had a forgettable presence, more like you made yourself unnoticeable between all of them.
She had also noticed the darker circles under your eyes paired with the fact that you had also been avoiding her.
Students, though rare to few visited her office, it was only because of the fact of small scraps of wounds. You, on the other hand, seemed to visit every twice a week with an offer to go outside. While it was a relief for the first two weeks, she started to get restless by the third.
Often between Satoru and Suguru, she had gone unnoticed while between Nanami and Haibara she didn't fit. With each side having their problems she found solace with the younger generation, more specifically you.
She remembers her best friend. The one she had spent days and nights avoiding work just so they could go and watch a cheesy movie and eat junk that they often weren't allowed. She remembered the weird jokes that they had thought were the funniest in the world.
But she also remembered the fierce looks in your eyes when there was a mission on hand but then she also remembered your lifeless body.
She took another whiff of her cigarette. You hated when she did that but you weren't around there anymore.
"Oi Sherlock," she called to the small creeping shadow who froze in their steps and then entered sheepishly.
"Hello Ieiri-san, why are you smoking again?" You asked.
"And why are you avoiding me, Sherlock," she questioned back taking another whisp from the cigarette but soon extinguished it when she saw you turning a little blue from holding your breath.
You had always hated the smell too.
"I'm not ignoring you Ieiri-san. I've just been a little busy," You defended from your spot near the doorway.
She hummed and then said, "Busy doing what exactly? Not eating definitely."
"I'm eating properly, I promise. All three meals. You can ask Megumi, Yuuji and Nobara about it."
"Then why is it that you're still roaming around?"
You looked like a deer caught in headlights. You shuffled your feet around the ground.
Shoko in no way was a patient being by nature nor did she get excited to play therapist to a kid under Satoru but you would always be an exception.
Because you had always made an exception for her when she needed you the most so perhaps this was her way of amending the times she couldn't support you.
"I wasn't able to sleep," you finally muttered softly.
Ah, that explained the dark circles and sudden weight loss. Not sleeping at your age would mean altering somebody's hormones.
She stood from the chair and stretched a bit. Ah, the crack of hips felt good now that she was getting old. She had always imagined that she wouldn't live this long with the number of hits on her but there was always a damp on the plans. She moved towards her drawers pulling out packets of food and then motioned to you," Help me out a bit by taking this to the common room."
You looked startled but took the lead as you grabbed some and put them on the table. As you moved to go away, she pulled you close, forcing you to sit beside her and said, "Where are you going? Who's going to finish all these snacks, huh?"
And if she found a blanket over the two of them the next morning with a quick photo of them on her phone, she didn't mind much.
Megumi though quiet notices a lot around him.
He notices underneath Yuuji's loud lewd proclamations an underlying sadness, he notices how often Nobara goes to cafés, spending a god-awful amount of money on them, he notices the time of the year when even Gojo-sensei goes quiet, and Getou-sensei goes on leave to visit Nanako and Mimiko and even Ieiri-sensei comes up from her office. Sometimes even Nanami-san and Haibara-san come to visit them at the school, not shooting a single remark towards Gojo.
He knows why they come.
He knows why Gojo-sensei goes quiet and why he even rotates around you on those days.
He, himself sometimes looks at you and misses the one he knew back then. When Gojo was awkwarder in his handling when Getou-sensei was a little too absent for him and Tsumiki.
Sometimes, late at night, he drags the pictures from under his bed where he stares at the grins on everyone's face.
On those days, you get annoyed though, he notices. Almost everyone hovers over you on those days and you being a quieter being hate all that. So he drags you out to practice hand-to-hand combat.
While often you preferred using swords, an instant bonding experience with Yuuta-senpai, you were also an expert in that and while he didn't need to fight, it was always preferable to learn it.
He also notices that you keep to yourself a lot nowadays, your loudness under wraps, preferring to spend more time in the training fields.
It seemed as if you were trying to get something out of your system. Like soon you would start clawing it out.
So one day he took the opportunity to drag you away to the city under the veil of secrecy to the arcade. There was something both of them loved there-claw machine games. Armed with one of Gojo's credit cards, he paid for the numerous games that both of you played and then carried the toys you had won from the games.
He saw your eyes lighting up as you dragged him to enter a dingy photo booth. He stood there with the mountain of toys and action figures while you posed.
He held the small photo in his hands, quickly putting it in his wallet.
A photo of you and him making a heart at a camera.
(And if he sometimes used to take it out to smile at it, who would know?)
The day you died again, you were on a mission with Inumaki-senpai and Maki-senpai.
Though, usually, Inumaki-senpai and you were assigned missions on your lonesome due to your higher grades, sometimes even the both of you needed help from other people so the three of you decided to team up.
It was just supposed to be one curse and not an army.
And here you were, huffing and wiping your sweat away, slashing the sword in front of you to dissipate the curses while Inumaki-senpai and Maki-senpai took two other corners.
You could see from the corner of your eyes that Inumaki was now just kicking away the curses, using his voice sparingly while even Maki was getting tired.
There were still so many coming. The three of you wouldn't survive.
So you did what you have been doing for a while now, you pushed Maki and Inumaki out, drawing up a barrier and not allowing them to enter.
You could hear their horrified shouts as the barrier formed, you turned to shoot them a quick smile noting the blood now coming out from Inumaki's mouth and you decided that you had made the right decision.
You turned towards the barrage of curses, sword ready but you could see a slight shiver in your arms.
You steeled yourself. You have people waiting for you to come back.
You didn't come back, Nobara grasped onto both Yuuji's and Megumi's shirt as all three stood together.
(But they were never meant to be a triad. They were always a quartet.)
On the other side stood Maki and Inumaki along with Panda and even Yuuta who had flown over from Africa to come to your funeral.
But perhaps the worst of them all looked Gojo-sensei. He was still grasping onto a spare uniform of yours, looking like someone took away the world from him while Getou-sensei held onto a drink. When Nobara looked closely, she saw that it was your favoured drink while Ieiri-sensei stood to the side, her eyes reflecting so much yet so little.
You were gone. This was the last time she would ever see you again.
(She had forgotten to tell you how she loved you amid all that life entails for them.)
You opened your eyes again, and hovering over you were the baby blues of Gojo-sensei but there was a certain youthfulness to his face.
You thought in horror. You were back in time again.