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Higuruma pauses in front of the door before pushing it open, stepping into the room where Nanami Kento has spent the entirety of his time since Shibuya, though he has only been conscious for the month after Shinjuku.
Awake now, and lucid enough for visitors according to Ieiri, though Higuruma has not been one of them until now. He doesn't know the man well enough— doesn't know him at all, really; he’s only seen Nanami once before and that was by accident. Hurrying past, half-lost, he’d caught a glimpse of this same room with its door ajar, a burnt man inside cursing quietly at a ball in his hand, a cleaver of some kind sitting in front of him, Ieiri Shoko’s raspy voice saying something Higuruma couldn’t quite make out. It pinged as familiar, but it wasn’t until later that he put the pieces together: This was the same room Gojo often skulked outside of, sometimes with Ieiri, sometimes without, his cursed energy thick enough to muffle that of anyone inside.
It’d taken him a long time to connect that with Itadori’s Nanamin, spoken of with furtive guilt, who’s responsible and kind and everything an adult should be, including just a little boring, sorry, Higuruma-san. But he’d asked around, built a picture of the man himself. Itadori’s opinion was well-established, and echoed in sentiment if not veracity by the other students; Fushiguro was fond of the man, Okkotsu knew him only a little, but had heard positive things. The adults were more effusive; Higuruma learned that Ijichi considered Nanami the only sane one, the easiest to deal with, but compared to everyone else, Higuruma found this unimpressive. Kusakabe had offered only a single thoughtful sentence, tinged with bitterness: Nanami was too dedicated for his own good.
Ieiri, though, was the most informative— and the reason for his visit. She’d said through a slow stream of smoke, “I was wondering how long it’d take you to ask about Nanami. I’ve got no idea if you’d like him. You’re not a people person. He might like you.” She sounded amused, as if by some inside joke that Higuruma didn’t understand. But her expression shifted to sorrow as she tacked on, “He probably won’t. He doesn’t like many people, these days. But you both spent time working jobs that ground you down. He’d understand you, and he hasn’t lost any of his kindness, he’s the most soft-hearted idiot I know. But he wouldn’t like it.”
She’d paused for a second, as if deciding something, and added, “You should visit him. I think it’d do you both good. He needs the company, for one, and you probably should hear from someone who’s lived both lives. I’ll make sure Gojo clears out one afternoon. He’s been insufferable.”
Higuruma’d been uncomfortable with the prospect at first, but it had lodged in his mind, persistent. A choice, offered where he hadn’t expected one. A reminder that this is something that he should choose, rather than being swept into.
Either way, it seems like she’s kept her word. Gojo isn’t here, and the room is devoid of anyone but Nanami himself, sitting on the bed.
He doesn’t look peaceful. Or frail. Or nearly as torn as he had that first time Higuruma’d seen him. But he’s hurt, that much Higuruma can see, and from more than the burns that span half his body.
Higuruma knows the extent of his injuries in theory. Seeing them now is nothing short of horrific— not the sight itself, he has a strong stomach now, but to think that a human could endure that and live. Higuruma doesn’t think that he could.
“Nanami-san,” Higuruma says in lieu of a greeting. Forced politeness feels out of place here. “I came to visit.”
A tilt of the head. “I don’t know you.”
“Higuruma Hiromi.” Higuruma sketches a bow, perfunctory. “I only recently arrived.”
“Ah. Itadori-kun’s mentioned you. New blood,” he says, just a shade off caustic. “Are they treating you well?”
Higuruma takes this as an invitation to make himself comfortable, and so he sits down on the chair near Nanami’s bed. It’s closer than Higuruma expected, gives him a clear view of the exhaustion pulling at Nanami’s good eye, the way his light hair is lank and greasy.
The room smells of antiseptic and death. Higuruma wonders if it bothers Nanami, or if he’s stopped caring.
“Well enough,” Higuruma answers. He stretches his legs out in front of him, lets his feet rest under the bed’s shadow. “Did you think they wouldn’t?”
“Gojo is difficult,” is all Nanami offers. Higuruma can’t argue with that. “But he has other things to do, so you should count yourself lucky he’s sparing you the brunt of it.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Higuruma answers, just to see what Nanami would say. “He and Itadori are lively. To say the least. And Kusakabe is fine, decent enough at explaining things to me, when I ask.”
“I’m sure.” That’s it, and Higuruma feels half-disappointed, half-intrigued. The disinterest is clear, but there’s more behind it, a truth that Higuruma needs to uncover. He’s never been able to resist that even when he should.
Nanami Kento is a study in contradictions, the man Higuruma has heard of is here, but warring with the listless look of the man in front of him, the slump to his shoulders and distance to his stare. Yet there’s still something compelling, empathy sparking in one dark eye, an expectancy. The delicacy of his hands, folded in his lap, one with mottled and flaking skin that peers through the loose bandages, and the other with calloused fingers, strength inherent to them.
His wounded hand twitches, like Nanami is thinking of hiding it, and then changes his mind.
So there’s some fight to him still.
“Why are you really here, Higuruma-san?” Nanami finally asks.
“I heard you left this life, and then came back. Meanwhile, I never got the chance to choose it.” He pauses, reconsidering. He won’t misrepresent himself to Nanami, not if he wants an answer that will be pulled from an old wound. “No. That’s not right. I chose it, but I chose it the wrong way, didn’t I?”
Nanami’s head tilts in interest, the cool contemplation that Higuruma’s faced before in a courtroom, but not at the school. Nothing like Gojo’s unearthly stare, something like Ieiri’s flat assessment. It could be the look of a judge. The thought is uncomfortable.
“I knew someone who chose to leave the wrong way, too,” is all he says. “Does it matter, when you chose?”
“It matters to me. I want to regret what I did. I will in time,” Higuruma adds. “But if I’m going to be a sorcerer, I should do it properly, don’t you think? That kind of thing is important.”
“Less important than you believe,” Nanami tells him. “I don’t know if it was for the right reasons. I don’t know if I left for the right ones either. My— classmate. Haibara. He died. He shouldn’t have been sent on that mission— we shouldn’t have been sent, but we were. I wasn’t strong enough, and I carried what was left of him here, and sitting in the morgue, I knew that this wasn’t worth staying for. I thought it’d be better, not being a sorcerer. I wanted to live. And then I became an adult, with a job, seeing curses everywhere and ignoring them, and I had to learn that that wasn’t living either.”
It’s the most that Higuruma has heard Nanami speak, the sincere note to his voice harsh. Resonant, too.
“There was no chance to truly help people in that job. No chance for meaning. Only the slow accumulation of small miseries that make you an adult. One day your favorite sandwich isn’t at the nearest konbini. Another, you step in a puddle on your way in to work before the sun is even up, and it’s ruined before beginning. That’s all that you can use to tell the days apart. I couldn’t tell anyone else this,” Nanami says, slow. “But you get it, don’t you, Higuruma-san.”
“More than I’d like. Out there, it doesn’t matter what you believe in. Whether you want to do good or not. Whether you want to do the right thing or not.” Higuruma swallows. “So. I did the wrong thing. Here I am.”
“And you don’t want to do that anymore.”
“No.”
“Then don’t.” Higuruma opens his mouth— it isn’t that easy, it cannot be, and they both know it— and Nanami raises a hand slowly to cut him off. “No, I understand what you mean. Believe me. Sometimes I think that if I’d stayed, I would have done the same thing.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I went to a bakery,” Nanami answers, flat, deadpan, and yet not entirely joking. “It was out of the way, for lunch, but they had casse-croute. My favorite. The girl there had a flyhead on her shoulder, you might not have seen one yet, with so many more powerful curses around. And I realized I could help her. So I did. That was it. She looked happy, she was grateful, and it was the easiest thing in the world for me to do. I’d seen it before on her, but that day, for whatever reason, I was sick of looking away. I called Gojo as soon as I’d finished the sandwich. I never went back to the office.”
Higuruma is quiet as he digests this; it’s all too understandable, yet an impossibility to picture for himself. He couldn’t have walked away like that, although he should have.
“I was trying to help people,” he settles on saying. “I couldn’t.”
“Are you worried about that happening here?” Nanami asks.
“No. Yes. There’s no question that I could do good,” Higuruma explains. “But would it be enough? Can it ever be enough? This isn’t perfect either. Itadori-kun and his execution order. The higher ups Gojo complains about. What the students have to do.”
“It’s wrong,” Nanami agrees. “It’s why I left, though I won’t pretend that my reasons were selfless. I couldn’t take it. I had the option to leave, so I did. Not everyone is so lucky.”
Gojo, Higuruma realizes. That’s who he must be talking about.
“But you came back.”
“I did. And I still think about it. If I’ve done enough. If, finally, I can take a break. I was wondering about it in Shibuya, when I thought I’d die.” This is too much vulnerability, an open wound bared for proof, almost in a dare. But Higuruma too is done looking away.
“I tried. I did more than enough,” Higuruma confesses. “And it was worth nothing in the end. It meant nothing.”
“Are you worried that it’ll be the same here? There will always be curses. There will always be death. It’s whether or not you can accept that. The work doesn’t end,” Nanami tells him, his eyes shadowed. Not the face of a man who wants to keep fighting— but then, Higuruma suspects that Nanami had never wanted to.
He wonders, briefly, if Nanami had ever liked the feeling of hot blood on his hands. Had ever reveled in the way that it made him feel powerful.
“Are you going to keep working as a sorcerer?” he asks baldly instead. Too straightforward, but Itadori’s worried about it. Everyone is. Higuruma suspects that them asking would be painful for everyone involved, but he is only here to sate his own curiosity, to understand. He thinks Nanami sees that, with a clarity that should be terrifying.
Nanami only laughs, the sound low and rough.
“Itadori-kun is afraid of asking outright. I think he feels guilty for what happened to me, though he shouldn’t.” Nanami’s good eye fixes on him, unerring; he must know how Higuruma and Itadori met. Higuruma inclines his head in agreement; the verdict is not for him to decide, truly, but it was Itadori who showed him that. “He’s a child. It’s me who should be apologizing to him for this burden.”
Higuruma disagrees with that, but says nothing.
“And Gojo— he’s never known how to ask for anything, let alone for someone to stay.” There’s a trace of sadness there, a history that Higuruma doesn’t quite understand. It would come out in a trial; it would be in either of their files, for Judgeman to find and Higuruma to peruse, but this is not a trial. This isn’t an interrogation either. “Shoko doesn’t need to say a single thing, and she won’t besides. She didn’t the first time. But you, Higuruma-san. You barely know me, and you’re still here, asking what everyone wants to know.”
“And are you going to give me an answer, Nanami?” he adds. Nanami’s expression is unreadable, cast in profile with the late afternoon sun.
“Yes.”
Higuruma’s lips twitch, amused despite himself.
“Do you have an answer, for yourself?” Nanami asks.
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
“There’s always going to be work, like you say.” Higuruma glances down at his hands— clean now, but blood-spattered still, uncalloused with neatly-kept nails. Not the hands of a sorcerer. Certainly the hands of a murderer, in the end. “But I’m not afraid of hard work. And someone has to do it, Nanami.”
Higuruma stands then, his knees creaking slightly. Nanami might have decided, or he might not, but Higuruma knows that may not be for him to hear.
“Thank you, then. For your time,” he says, turning to the door.
Before he does, he catches a glimpse of one thing: Nanami smiling, skin pulled taut so that it’s half a grimace, his fingers tight in the sheets from the ache of it.
The expression sits strangely on his face.
But he says, so quiet Higuruma barely hears, “I suppose the sun in Kuantan would do me no good, like this.”