Chapter Text
There are a few things that go across space and time.
For example, gravity.
Newton proposed that gravity is a force that pulls two objects towards each other. The bigger the mass, and the smaller the distance between them, the stronger the force is. A few centuries later, Einstein came up with the theory of general relativity. He noted that gravity is the bend on the spacetime plane itself, leading to objects and even time or light moving differently in such curved fields.
Both theories, though different, agree that gravity is a massive deal in the universe. Perhaps that is also why gravity also holds the meaning of something important and serious.
For a less scientific, more abstract example, there is conviction.
A person's conviction, or belief, can surpass eras, sprouting in places hundreds of miles away, jumping from one head to another, from the days of the medieval to the era of electronics. That’s how knowledge is passed down between generations, how revolutions kick off, how mankind survives and develops.
And there was a boy who believed.
"There's no way I can forget about you."
And that conviction single-handedly finds its way to bloom long after it was supposed to wilt.
From the time this boy was born, he has his memories of his previous life. Or some of them, to be precise. He doesn't remember the exact details from day to day. The memories are all scattered glimpses of moments he lived through in that lifetime. They are all puzzle pieces he ultimately can put together, like a giant kaleidoscope forming a certain pattern.
He also can’t recall how he died. Try as he might, he can’t find a leftover clue of his own ending, if he was killed gruesomely like his previous job was at risk of, or if he died normally by some disease. He just knows that he felt at peace when it happened. As far as he was concerned, it was a normal, acceptable death.
It's an imperfect record, but he feels it deep in his guts that those were real and that he did live another whole life.
The boy's current name is, once again, Itadori Yuuji.
As he grows up, he realizes that there are no curses around like what he faced in the previous life. When he has been long enough in this world to understand the relationships of living beings around him, he comes to understand the exact importance of a certain white-haired person who frequently stars in his memory fragments.
A man who stood tall in winter, between camellias glaring red.
A man who was far too different from the rest of the world.
A man who, in spite of that, looked back at Yuuji like the boy was something so precious.
When Yuuji is old enough to go to the library or operate the internet, he tries locating the Jujutsu organizations. He finds nothing. No building, no documents, not even some tell tales or urban legend. It’s as if the partial knowledge in his head is just a straight up fairy tale made up by his little brain.
At that point, Yuuji can no longer remember the names of anyone in his old life. Although he did remember a handful of faces, that winter man’s included obviously, no kanji nor syllables comes up in his mind. He could only stare at the empty Google search bar, useless since no one and nothing can be searched anyway.
So when one day in his 4th grade there are two transfer students in front of his class, his heart almost stops. Although they are now kids, they still have the same faces as his two best friends and partners. How they don’t change much even after growing up would’ve been funny if not for the near mortification Yuuji experiences at the time.
So it was really all true?
No wait. It could be just a coincidence.
I can’t even remember their names.
The mulling in his head stops when they begin to introduce themselves.
“I’m Fushiguro Megumi.”
“I’m Kugisaki Nobara.”
It feels like something is freed and floods inside the boy’s chest. He almost cries at the spot.
Is it possible to meet a new person and think that it’s right of them to be born with their name? Yuuji normally doesn’t think so. But it is the only thing he thinks, no, feels with all his heart. Those names suit the spiky haired boy and the brown haired girl.
In conclusion, those are their—his old friends’—names, the ones he held so dear back in those days.
Suspecting that they might hold the same memories, Yuuji immediately closes in on them and introduces himself. They just nod affirmatively, as though they are simply new acquaintances. And when Yuuji brings up a few topics about the past, they look at him with confused eyes.
That is when Yuuji realizes that he is the only one who retains the memory of the previous life. As a matter of fact, he might be just having a very long hallucination and everything is an elaborate fever dream.
That is also the moment Yuuji completely gives up trying to find something from his old life.
Nevertheless, the three end up forging a tight friendship. Practically joined by the hips, they play, study, succeed and fail together. Even when they end up in different classes, they always meet each other after class. And it continues to middle and high school, as they promise to pick the same school each time.
As if pulled together by whimsical force, they are a trio again.
Seasons go by. Years keep changing.
It is Nobara’s 18th birthday. The ever-spirited youth seems to receive extra allowance to spend for this special occasion and decides to make the best use of it: By splurging in Shinjuku, hopping from one shop to another, one food stall to the next.
Trailing behind her are Yuuji and Megumi, holding numerous paper bags. Of course, those are all the fruits of Nobara’s hunt.
As they are currently resting in an outdoor cafe, the birthday girl scrolls her phone.
"There is a limited sale three blocks from here. I need to go there!" She shows her screen to the boys with full vigor.
Megumi doesn’t even bother to see what’s on her phone. Instead, he just lets out a long sigh in his seat.
"Kugisaki, do you really need us to go with you?"
"Of course, Mr. Sourface! You’re not letting a lady bring all those alone, are you? And while we're at it, maybe you will find some new outfit that is NOT a hoodie, Itadori!"
Yuuji, who is just minding his ice latte, just laughs. "Hahaha, I'm fine with this."
It is a busy Saturday in the city, with everyone either acting like Nobara or following around people like Nobara. However, Yuuji pays it no mind.
It’s just that in Yuuji’s head, it feels so nostalgic. Not even in their younger days. It’s like they did something like this, numerous times, in another point far beyond what they could ever remember.
“What’s wrong?”
Yuuji frowns a bit at the question that comes out of nowhere. He looks at Megumi, who just stares at him.
“No, nothing.”
Nobara raises her eyebrow, skeptical yet concerned. “I really gotta ask now. Why do you have that look on my birthday?”
“What look?”
“That look.” She points at Yuuji’s face, as if the latter can somehow look at himself. “Like you just staaare at a distance and shut up for a little bit too long. You realize you sometimes do that, right?”
“No I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do. Ever since we were little brats, in fact. Fushiguro noticed it first.”
“Do I do that, Fushiguro? That doesn’t sound like me.”
“Exactly. Which is why it is eerie that you actually do it.”
Losing the battle, since his friends turn out to be pretty perceptive and he can’t lie to save his life, the pink-haired teen just lets a meek “Uh-huh…”
Megumi pats his arm with a solemn look that seems to say ‘We will drop this conversation but feel free if you want to continue later.’
It is so like him.
“Alright boys, rest is over! Time to go to the next war! Chop chop!”
Nobara declares while she raises from her seat. Cream matcha latte in one hand, she ushers her friends to move their asses. Quickly dissipating the aura full of hanging questions between them.
It is so like her.
Just as they start to walk away from the cafe, a song begins to play. It's a song Yuuji has heard vaguely somewhere.
And then-
"Gojo, that's mean."
Just five meters away, from the corner of the block, two men and a woman slightly older than them walk leisurely.
And one of them, as if time has stopped for him, is the star of Yuuji’s memories.
“Why? Better to reject them right away than giving false hope, right? Isn’t that what Suguru said, too?”
“That’s for a different case. Don’t twist my words, Satoru.”
Gojo. Satoru.
Gojo Satoru.
That’s right.
It suits him. It is him.
He ’s laughing now. He even has his old companions back, together like a pack of wolves. Bantering and laughing, strutting along the pavements like the city is theirs.
Emotions bubble up inside Yuuji’s ribs.
Shit, I'm so happy I'm gonna cry.
This is it. This is a world that has no need for Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer. Sensei can live his life as a normal person now. No, in the first place, he might not be a teacher this time around. He looks too young for that too.
This man is just a normal person now, free of inhuman burden. No need to bear the ridiculous responsibility of having too much power that he never asked to be born with in the first place.
But it's better if we don't meet. Gojo-sensei has a better life now.
He might not even possess the memories, just like Fushiguro and Kugisaki. Yuuji should not bring him traces of a lifetime that does not exist. Days that only brought his sensei impossible pressure and alienated him from the rest of the world.
29 years that made him a deity amongst flowers: a being that can never fully understand another, nor be fully understood by another.
To the very end, Yuuji wasn’t even sure if he truly understood what Gojo-sensei really wanted. Why he was okay with dying while leaving Yuuji behind. If that gaze that Yuuji always thought of as ‘loving’ was really anything as heavy as that word.
Yuuji could only contribute all of that as the choice of Gojo Satoru, the strongest Jujutsu sorcerer. With all the merits and responsibility it entailed, whether the person himself actually liked it or not.
Even so, the younger still went with his own guts and declared what he himself wanted.
‘There’s no way I can forget you.’
I don’t want to forget you.
From the bottom of his heart, that’s what he wished.
[ The scars of that day, the love I received ]
Yuuji can’t lie. It scares him. That he is the only one who remembers.
Why is it that they meet again?
Is it a curse or a blessing to carry these memories alone?
All his life, Yuuji tries to find the answer. But everytime, he gets stuck.
No. It’s not that he gets stuck between the two options.
It’s that he doesn’t want the answer to be “a curse.” Even when all the pangs of pain in his heart point to that answer, he tries to find a contradiction that proves otherwise. Anything to prove that this is not an abominable, malignant tumor that he has to live with.
Not when all those memories are, for better or worse, dazzling.
Reunion with Fushiguro and Kugisaki was already done and practically shoved to his lap without warning. But this time it is different. It’s literally a crosspath with multiple different endings far better than the only one Yuuji ever knew.
Our paths should not cross again.
My memories are mine alone. No matter how painful it is.
This time, he can choose to reject.
[ I'll throw it all to the fire and head for the light ]
With a resolution painfully clutching his heart, Yuuji walks away, following his own two friends.
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Suddenly, someone grabs his hand from behind, halting him in his tracks.
With a lump in his throat, Yuuji forces himself to look back at the person who just stopped him.
White hair, round sunglasses, a wallet—Yuuji's—in his hand. With a long forgotten voice that somehow fits him so perfectly, the man asks.
"Hey, is this yours?"