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When he was younger Satoru never used to go anywhere without wearing his glasses. He’d wear them to any occasion and in any place. It got him a multitude of strange looks, some people called him disrespectful when he refused to take them off indoors. He remembered Shoko stealing them, the perplexed expression on her face when she’d asked how he could even see through them since they were tinted solid black.
When Satoru grew older he started to wear bandages instead, not because they were more comfortable (though they did make his hair look better after he got his undercut) but because they made talking to people more bearable. He still got the strange looks and confused glances but people tended to assume it was some sort of medical issue and they left him alone after that.
He’d switched the bandages for a blindfold a few years after that. His power still seemed to grow stronger and sometimes the bandages just didn't shield his eyes enough and grew tired so fast it was becoming dangerous to his students. It was also far more convenient, he could slip the band on and off without needing to fix its position too often.
Throughout all these years he still kept his eyes uncovered every now and then. When he had a good day and felt stronger than usual he could go hours without even getting a headache. Admittedly he preferred to spend those exact hours staring at his lovely Suguru but that was a detail he preferred to keep to himself. See, even with his six eyes that made it so easy for him to see in complete darkness, what he saw were silhouettes, with enough profile and he had no issue judging distances. He could identify faces and expressions but one thing his technique didn't let him do was see colours. At least most of the time. He could, if he really focused, make out the wavelengths of the light and it painted a mental picture of the different hues but that in itself was more tiring than just not wearing a blindfold at all.
There was little Satoru loved more than recalling the colours of the fading sun on the evening sky, the bright flashing lights of the city at night or the shades of Suguru’s eyes. All he could do nowadays was recall it.
When he’d fought Sukuna, and Suguru had tried to stop him, pleaded and begged for Satoru to sit it out, to find another way, he’d paid for it dearly. The curse was not defeated, at least not right away and Satoru himself, the strongest, had barely scraped by with his life. He could no longer remember it all. But that image, the one he’d seen when he first woke up in the infirmary days later, of his beloved, his best friend and future spouse, it almost broke what was left of his fraying mind.
His eyes were all wrong. Not purely purple, deep and swirling colours, but red and puffed up, desperate with tears. The twisted grin of relief on his lips when he saw Satoru waking up and that strangled sound that tore from his throat. No, Satoru would never forget it.
When he’d seen the damage he had sustained in that battle…
Years had passed but every now and then he still felt sick at the thought of Suguru seeing that every day. He’d been left scarred. His once perfectly smooth and pale skin marred by deep ridges, scars that spared no part of him, injuries no amount of cursed energy could hide. The worst of all was the long mark that had been cleaved into his middle, the point where for some hours his upper and lower body had been split apart. He still didn't know how Shoko fixed it.
Even now there were days where he imagined he could feel it, agonizing pain along his torso whenever his mind made him believe he’d once again been torn in two. Were it not for Suguru, Satoru was not sure he’d survived the aftermath.
Satoru had grown used to them. The scars, the phantom pains. He’d even managed to live with the lives lost after he was defeated, the ones he failed to save. But there was one thing he would not be able to accept in this lifetime.
Satoru Gojo was no longer the strongest.
It had always been his goal to raise a generation even more powerful than him, one that could break through the chains of this wretched society. He was happy to see the project succeed even if he felt strange without the title that had defined his entire life, had defined him.
What really gnawed at him though was not losing that position, it was the reason he’d lost it.
The fight with Sukuna had drawn so much of his power and cursed energy out of him despite the six eyes. It had fed on his strength and sucked it right out of him. In a way that damage was irreversible. It restored, of course, his cursed energy. At least in part. But not fully. Never fully. He was left weakened and no longer could he replenish that power endlessly, fight to the edge of exhaustion and do it over and over. It got harder to restore his brain or to wield reverse cursed technique at all. Perhaps. It was in part due to his mind set but Satoru was no longer the same man.
Gojo remained a special grade sorcerer. He might be weaker now but there was no realm in which he wasn't miles ahead of most people but it didn't feel the same. And maybe it didn’t need to.
It hadn’t changed how people looked at him. Shoko treated him the same, most people still acted annoyed whenever he was around (though they told him more often now how much he meant to them, especially Megumi and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t need it). Of course then there was Suguru.
It took almost a month for him to stop fussing over Satoru’s wellbeing. Between Suguru loosing him to the prison realm for weeks and almost watching him die, he didn’t find it in himself to be irritated by the slightly overbearing attention. The affection helped too. It made him feel less like a monster. At times he forgot all about those hideous scars that permeated his body like a broken bone healed wrong.
All he wished for back then was to be finally happy and at peace with Suguru and to never have to see those marks again.
Little did he know he would be granted both.
The older he grew, the less his cursed energy seemed accessible to him. His six eyes were more prone to rest, not to bother him as much. He took on less missions, focused more on teaching.
Satoru stopped wearing his blindfold sometime in his mid thirties. He no longer needed it. His eyes did not exhaust him without it, rather than when straining to see through the darkness of the fabric. Truthfully, he’d been ecstatic. No more blindfold only meant more chances to see the world in all its beauty, not to hide behind fabric any longer. At times he even wore sunglasses again, the normal kind. He got to marry Suguru without anything to obscure his vision or a headache. Nothing made him happier. It was freeing.
Yet, Satoru, like all humans, continued to age. He didn't notice at first, how his vision grew a little blurry. It was barely there, barely enough to be acknowledged. When Suguru asked him one day what the subtitles on his favourite show said because he didn’t catch the phrase, Satoru found himself unable to reply. What did they say? He played it back but the words seemed blurry. He told his husband just that and a few days later he’d had a doctor’s appointment and the proof that, yes, his eyesight was declining.
They joked about it. The six eyes now needed glasses, how ironic. Admittedly, Suguru seemed to even like the look on him so Satoru had no issues wearing them. For a while it was fine. Only that it kept going down hill. Satoru could live with getting new glasses now and then, adjusting to keep his sight sharp and banish the blurry lines. That was until one day when he noticed for the first time that the world seemed a little whiter. Not black or grey but white.
He’d strained his technique, tried to grasp at the wavelengths to see if something had happened that changed the colour of the world but once the image was conjured in his mind, it seemed as bright as always, colourful and perfectly fine. Yet when he let go of the cursed energy some though not all of it faded, like a lingering memory.
He hadn’t told anyone at first, didn’t plan to. It was just a temporary problem, perhaps he was ill, his cursed energy would fix it. But it never did. For some reason, despite the hours he spent directing everything he had towards his stupid eyes, nothing made the colours brighter again. Whenever he tried to get ahold of them again by using his six eyes they seemed a little duller than before once he stopped, as if every bit of energy he spent took a little more of his vision. Every mission he went on left the world a little whiter. How long would it be until everything was gone?
It was one evening in spring, he no longer recalled the date, when Suguru and him sat on the porch. Satoru rested his head on the other man’s shoulder. No blindfold, not even his new glasses perched on his nose. Their hands were intertwined and Suguru used the other to turn the pages of his book, his silver wedding band glistening in the sun. Weird how he remembered these small inconsequential things now.
When Suguru put his book away and trained his eyes on Satoru the look in them told him that he must’ve known something was brewing in his mind, being turned over and over again. That was the thing with Suguru, he saw those things but he never pressed. Never forced him to speak. He only opted to take his mind off things. He saw it in the way one of his hands pulled Satoru’s head into his lap for no reason other than to card his fingers through his hair. Satoru let out a soft hum and had he been less consumed with the problem developing he might’ve made a snarky remark about Suguru being a softie, solely to piss him off. He was distracted from all of that once the other spoke, in that familiar gentle tone.
”The sunset is so pretty today, no? I think it’s one of my favourite shades of red…”
It tugged at something in Satoru’s chest. He wanted to see it, if only to know what specific shade he meant, which one was Suguru’s favourite? How could he know when all he saw was a faded pinkish colour? The silence lingered heavy in the air for what must’ve been minutes until Satoru after months found it in himself to speak, to admit that there might not be a solution to this.
”I can’t see it.”
When Suguru’s hand stilled in its movement he could’ve sworn a piece of his heart had gotten torn from its place.
”What do you mean, baby?”
”The colours, I can’t see them, not really. They’ve been fading for some months now.”
He didn’t get mad that Satoru kept it a secret then. Suguru never got mad at him, not really anyway. When he asked for a better explanation his tone was tentative as if he didn't want to hurt Satoru any more than he already could tell he was.
And he told him all of it, every last attempt to regain the ability to see the different hues of the world, every single failure, he recounted them all. Satoru couldn’t tell at what point the tears had begun to stream down his face but it didn’t matter when Suguru’s thumbs brushed them away over and over.
They both grappled with it over the next months. To Satoru it wasn’t like he imagined. Not like loosing a limb or fucking up an important meeting. It felt almost like loosing a person, a part of himself. Not to death but the kind of loss you felt when a loved one became a stranger.
Each day when he opened his eyes to a little less of the world he could barely stop himself from crying.
When Megumi’s thirty-third birthday came around he spent the entire day drawing on his diminishing cursed energy just so he could share this moment with his family and remember it in all its colour even if the next day the outlines of his home’s furniture seemed more fuzzy as the lack of colour blurred his vision.
Almost a year had passed since he told Suguru about it all. It was just another lazy spring morning. He awoke no different than usual, right across from Suguru’s sleeping face. That is at least what he assumed. He could only see the faintest traces of it.
A heavy feeling settled in his gut and he could feel his throat closing up. It was time, wasn’t it?
His beloved was still asleep when the realization began to draw on Satoru. The same time tomorrow he might not see that same face. Never like he used to.
”Suguru… Suguru, please wake up.”
His voice must’ve cracked, he could barely get the words out but he needed the other to look at him. Just so he could look back. When Suguru opened his eyes a strange sort of relief came over him, his shoulders sacking even if he’d never noticed them tense in the first place.
”Satoru?”
”Hey…”
Satoru could only assume he could tell from his voice or the tears in his eyes because Suguru remained silent just keeping his eyes fixed on him.
For a last time Satoru focused, gathered the bits of cursed energy that remained and the world lit up like fireworks as the colour sprang into frame like booting up a computer. He saw it all, the soft morning light that filtered through the cracks in the curtain, the canopy of black hair that fell like a waterfall over Suguru’s shoulders. And his eyes. Deep purple abyss that stared right back at him, soft like satin, gleaming. Their colour was lighter in the morning. People tended to assume Satoru’s favourite colour was blue but if anyone asked him he’d describe this exact shade of purple.
He could’ve looked around the room, gotten his phone and stared at every photo he’d ever taken but as his concentration began to waver and his mind grew tired he was helpless to do anything but gaze into his lover's eyes.
When Satoru did finally close his eyes he didn't dare open them again for an eternity. The image was seared into his mind and he wanted to stay there, in that blissful morning light.
”Satoru…”
Finally his eyelids fluttered open and he was greeted by nothing but white, no faint traces to let him know something was in front of him, no speck of colour, not even Suguru. A pained sob tore from his throat and within a moment he felt a pair of arms encircling him, could feel Suguru pull him close to his chest to soothe the ache. He felt it but he saw none of it. His voice was nothing but a whisper spoken right at his ear.
"Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m still here Satoru, I’m still here, I won’t leave. It’s okay…”
It took weeks for him to adjust, to get used to opening his eyes each morning only to see as much as he would’ve had he kept them closed. To walk around, unable to rely on anything but his ear and touch and Suguru’s guidance. He got used to it but it didn’t make any of it hurt less.
His friends and family were more careful around him, they tried not to stumble into him as much, lest they unbalance him when they used to run full force into him and knock him over in jest. Suguru talked more even if just to help him navigate his day and his voice might have been the only thing keeping Satoru sane.
He could no longer see these terrible scars, long healed but present still. He couldn’t see them but in some cruel twist of fate they ran deep enough that he could easily feel them whenever his hands brushed over his skin. He spent hours doing it, memorising the placement of each ridge as if it would help him map out how he must look now.
Sometimes he let Suguru pick out his clothes though he usually insisted on doing it himself. What did he care if he looked ridiculous? He needed that autonomy, he needed to feel as though he wasn’t crippled beyond repair, a useless, broken ragdoll.
His eyes were what had made him special but he no longer had them.
A twisted part, one he wanted to disavow with every fibre of his being, had expected Suguru to leave. He was marred beyond recognition, no longer strong like he used to be and a part of his spirit died with him. But he never did. Satoru should've known that sweet, perfect Suguru had never been capable of doing anything but staying.
Months later, after the initial despair and sense of loss waned, it became easier to live everyday like this. The tears lessened, he smiled more again. And to his surprise he did start to recognise some things that had changed for the better.
With the loss of his sight and cursed energy came the loss of his limitless. Of course he’d felt powerless and vulnerable, he still did. Yet, with it came a renewed trust. Even if by force of the situation, his unwavering faith in Suguru and in the rest of his family deepend, he needed to allow himself to depend on them at least a little more. He allowed Suguru to let his more protective side take over from time to time.
Even more positive, with the absence of the limitless, the full inability to conjure up infinity for the first time in his life, it was like a barrier had been broken down. Yes he’d grown over the years but in the back of his mind Satoru always had the option to become untouchable if he needed to. That was gone. Satoru had never felt quite so human.
Connections came easier to him and every moment became more cherished than the last.
Of course, he also liked annoying Suguru. No matter how much he loved him, he would never stop teasing him to his heart’s content. Making him describe everything in ridiculous detail in the least fitting of moments, making him explain colours in vivid and impossible detail. And Suguru indulged him every time. Never would Satoru admit it wasn’t solely pettiness driving him to ask for tirade after tirade of descriptions.
There were still days where he missed the colours so much he could hardly get out of bed.
There were still days where he missed looking at his loved ones so much it made him sick.
A few years after the last bit of colour faded another painful realization infested his brain. His mind was struggling to remember. To recall the colours it no longer conceived of and at times they didn’t seem quite right when he thought back on the pictures. Unlike with his vision it didn’t seem he’d ever fully loose that ability, like some semblance of it would always remain with him but it scared him anyway. Satoru knew the day he forgot the colour of Suguru’s eyes was the day he’d die.
His hearing improved. By now he could pick up on every lilt of other people’s voices, he could decipher their emotions easily. The sweet honey of Satoru’s name on Suguru’s tongue became his substitute for everything else.
Life went on. It went on when Megumi and Yuji adopted a little girl and Suguru and him (though Megumi would never admit it) became grandparents. Life went on when Suguru, like him, retired a few years later. It went on when Shoko and Utahime announced they were leaving Japan. Together. Finally they all said, it had been long overdue that they get their own little paradise. It went on with every little moment and morning.
Life went on because Suguru loved him the same.
And so did he. With every wrinkle he could feel forming on the man’s face, every complaint of old age creeping up on them. Even when Suguru told him they were matching now, both sporting white hair. He regretted nothing more than never getting to see that. Sometimes Satoru would ask Suguru to describe them both. What did the love of his life look like now? How had he changed? And what would Satoru see if he could look in the mirror himself? Always his questions were answered and always Suguru ended it by saying “You are so beautiful, Satoru.”
It was a late winter night, they were both far into their eighties now that Satoru got that same feeling he’d gotten all those years ago. The tiredness that had told him the time had come, only now it felt more peaceful. When they went to sleep that night Satoru didn’t say goodnight.
“Goodbye, Suguru.”
The warm and calloused hand he had come to know so well brushed over his cheek, the soft caress a familiar reassurance.
”Goodbye, my beautiful Satoru. I will see you again.”
When satoru opened his eyes in the afterlife all he saw was white. That is until the fog lifted and colour slowly started to fill his vision. Bright and everywhere. None of it was dull. Flowers and neon signs and so many things more mashed together in a surreal landscape. He felt giddy and so light as if he was floating. Looking down he appeared younger, not a scar on his body, not even on his head.
”Yo, Satoru!”
He could not wait to turn around and see his favourite colour.