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They weren’t alone because in many ways, Gojo was never alone. Teaching Yuta to operate his body was his current priority, but he could never be too far from his duties to everyone else. Through the open windows of the adjacent gym, Yuta could hear Kusakabe barking orders at an eager Itadori during their own switch training. A few fields over, Maki’s quieter observations while training Higuruma against someone he couldn't catch in his domain were barely perceptible, even with the Six Eyes. Yuta could picture it, Maki declaring that she had killed her clan before the spar even began. Maki was brave and sure and true like that, and she wasn’t currently speaking to him.
With his cloak draped over Yuta like he was a magician's birdcage, Ui Ui had ducked underneath just for a second to whisper, “Don’t listen to Maki-san. You’re doing the right thing. I’d do the same for my sister.” And then he had whisked Yuta’s soul away to Gojo’s body before he could respond, like a dove reappearing in the hands of an audience member.
Somehow, Yuta had thought being inside Gojo’s body would make the dread that had been boiling in his stomach for the last six years go away. Like it was Gojo’s eyes and sinews and Cursed Technique that understood just where the fulcrums to move the world sat. What he actually got was light lancing pain through his skull and a body too big for him to pilot, more like a wild animal accidentally trapped in a suburban house than a real monster. Once, Gojo had picked one of his terrible American movies for them during a class bonding night he’d literally teleported away from halfway through, and Maki had cut her eyes at Yuta on a line. Wherever you go, there you are. Yuta has never been brave enough to escape himself entirely.
The scant weeks they had left pressed at his temples alongside the overload of the Six Eyes. Gojo would train him this morning and move to Itadori in the afternoon. Another strategy meeting before dinner that Gojo would probably skip again to go into the city and look for Kenjaku. Repeat until–
“Hey now, don’t waste my time like this, Yuta-kun. Eyes up.” Gojo skimmed past his longer reach once again, Rika’s ring scraping Yuta’s neck. A jab to his solar plexus with the other hand, and he was winded on the floor again. Gojo stood over him, smirking and stretching his wrists. Yuta’s pretty sure he’s never had that kind of look on his face before. Untouchable.
The first Rika had ensured that no one could touch him when she was around. He had lied to himself that it was her who was untouchable, who had half-killed his classmates. He had always felt distinctly permeable. Gojo had stepped into that seal-lined room below Jujutsu Tech, and he’d been immediately sure that at last, this man would be able to kill him. The reverse wasn’t true now. He still didn’t stand a chance against Gojo in his body, all the gifts of Limitless not quite matching up to the untouchable soul of Gojo Satoru.
In many ways, Gojo was never alone. But Yuta suspected that wasn’t true in the only way that mattered.
“Gojo-sensei. When you had to kill Geto. Because I–” His words tumbled over each other like he’d crumpled ass over head to the ground. When he had practiced this weeks ago, he hadn’t imagined that he’d be in Gojo’s body. He was abruptly aware of how he was still on his back. “I don’t want you to be lonely anymore. You can take whatever you want from me instead.” And he rose up to kiss Gojo.
“What the hell?” Gojo did a backbend to dodge, also to a depth that Yuta had never been able to flex, leaving him hovering off balance over Gojo. Yuta didn’t miss how Gojo made the barest abortive motion towards steadying him as he straightened up. He swallowed, all his skin suddenly prickling hot. He hadn’t let himself think of what would come after the kiss.
“First of all, I was not having sex with Suguru, which was the whole problem.” Gojo thrust his finger at Yuta’s chest. He stepped back instinctively, even as he sputteringly pulled up Infinity. “Second, you think I can’t do better than a scrawny kid who’s shaking at the thought of just kissing me?” Yuta looked down at his hands. He hated that he was making them shake. He hated that it was him here in Gojo’s body, that it was Gojo in his, and every time before that Gojo had laughed him off.
“Maybe you can’t!” he snapped. Gojo laughed at that too, one harsh incredulous bark. “It’s been a year since, and I haven’t seen you loving anyone.” Why did Gojo have to always be so evasive? Why couldn’t he…why couldn’t anyone just take what Yuta was capable of giving? “I’m not asking you to love me! I know that I haven’t been able to become as strong as you are. But you could have someone beside you, at least at night.” He felt raw, scraped out under Gojo’s cold gaze that was made no less cold by coming from his own head.
“Oka-ay…and you thought that I–you know, The Strongest–would be some pathetic pervert, diddling kids?” Gojo made a terrible little hand gesture with the last phrase. Yuta dug his nails into his palms, then placed them flat on his thighs once he remembered again that they didn’t belong to him.
“Everyone already thinks that,” he choked out. “You know the clans all think you adopted me because you’re f-fucking me, right?” The whispers in the halls of the Gojo family compound after his heirship ceremony, sneering that Gojo was losing his head over his new toy. A flash of pity in Kamo Noritoshi’s eyes. Zen’in Naoya’s fingers pressed into his wrist like bruised fruit as he purged poisoned blood from him. Very impressive, Gojo-chan. Now I understand why Satoru picked you out even though Megumi’s face is prettier. Too bad he’s not around to enjoy it.
Gojo tipped his head back, the parts of his face that Yuta could see smoothing out and becoming almost gentle. “Yeah. I do know. It’s traditional.”
Cold rushed through Yuta’s chest. He had seen a portrait of Gojo as a child at the clan compound, thin limbs and long snowy eyelashes wrapped inside dragonfly-painted silk. He felt huge all of a sudden, looming over him like this. Never stand over Rika when she’s asleep. Never touch the small of Maki’s back. “I. Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no. Not for me. I’m the Six Eyes,” Gojo waved away. “Nah, those gross old men were just picking out women for my first time, but I left home before then anyway.” Yuta didn’t know how old Gojo was when he left home, but it couldn’t have been older than fifteen. He did not voice this. “You’re such a sweet kid to worry, Yuta-kun,” Gojo sighed. Being called sweet was not a compliment, Ishigori had told him. It felt like being laughed at, even more than any of the times that Gojo had actually laughed at him. “You should really look out for yourself. If any of our prodigious clan’s creeps touch you, feel free to lop off a few hands.” He made a little chopping motion. “Not like they were using any of them for sorcery anyway.”
“Okay,” Yuta said, staring at the ground. Another failure swallowed down. He already knew he couldn’t, even if anyone did touch him. Not that they would, not now that Gojo had been unsealed.
“Seriously, you know no one asked you to do all this, right?” Gojo continued, rubbing his chin. His attempts at scolding him like a responsible adult didn’t come off any sterner in Yuta’s body than his own. That didn’t make the humiliation burning in Yuta’s stomach any easier to bear. “Do you even like men?” Yuta shrugged. He wasn’t sure if he liked anyone like that at all. But he knew he loved Rika, and he loved his friends, and he loved Gojo. Shouldn’t that be enough?
“Men like me.”
“Yikes,” Gojo responded. Yuta flinched.
“Ishigori liked me,” he mumbled. “Zen’in Naoya liked me.” Much worse men have liked him, so why couldn’t Gojo? He would have let Naoya put his hands on him a thousand more times if it meant Gojo would open his.
“Okay, well, don’t take that to heart. Naoya’s a little rat bastard who just wants to take something he sees as mine so he can rub it in my face.” Gojo sounded almost bored, the same way he did when he would badly explain a cursed technique. “Probably the same with Ishigori too, whoever the hell that is.”
“Oh.” Yuta swallowed around the tears that formed in his throat. Something he sees as mine, not something that was his. Because he didn’t actually belong to Gojo. He didn’t belong to anyone. He had thought for so long that he belonged to Rika, but it turned out that she had belonged to him.
“Um. Maki killed him. Naoya, I mean.” Yuta couldn’t hear her and Higuruma sparring anymore. They would come to find Gojo, sooner or later. Hysterically, he wondered if Maki would look at the two of them and see another reason that her disgust with him was justified. Maki has never wanted someone to belong to her.
“No one tells me anything,” Gojo groaned. “Hey, that’s good for her, considering–-everything. She got strong, huh? You don’t have anything to worry about then.”
“Yeah,” Yuta said weakly. Nothing except Geto’s body running around Shinjuku, Gojo without someone he loved to live for, and the hungry void on the other side.
“So that’s settled.” Gojo bounced back onto his toes and held his hands in front of him in a loose fighting stance. He was so practiced at moving along conversations he was tired of. “Keep your lips to yourself, and if anyone molests you, kill ‘em. Good talk!” And then, “You can stop doing that, by the way.”
“Huh?” Yuta squeaked it out, nose half-clogged with tears he was trying to gulp back without Gojo noticing.
“Trying to use my cursed energy to get ‘Rika’ not to come out. That’s not going to work in my body. I got it covered.” He wiggled his hand, and now that Yuta was looking more closely, it was shining with both their cursed energy signatures pouring into the ring. “Ah, see, now that’s why you should forget about your sensei. ‘Rika’-chan’s getting jealous! Isn’t it cute when a nice girl gets jealous for you?”
She isn’t jealous, she’s scared, Yuta did not say. There was no purpose in trying to make him understand what that felt like on what increasingly seemed like one of the last days they’d ever have together. She’s always hated you, Yuta did not say.
He brought Infinity up between them and let his dream of disappearing into Gojo settle into the pit of his stomach alongside all the other wants it carried.