Work Text:
“Do you believe in reincarnation, Nanami?”
Unwanted and uninvited, the whisper of the memory hits Nanami like a physical blow, pain so sharp in his stomach that he almost bows over. His hand grips his cane harshly, scarred fingers white at the knuckle, and frustration rising up his chest like a tidal wave. In the depths of his mind, he chastises his psyche because how dare that memory sift through the dirt in his mind, brimming to the surface unapologetically.
Despite his best efforts, the dull hallway lighting does nothing to help his vision as he blinks quickly, willing the memories to fade just for today. Just for right now.
In this vast school haunted by too many ghosts, this hallway carries an uneasy intimacy—dark and silent, holding the voices of the dead who fought until there was nothing left in them. Only one set of doors line the corridor, steel and tall, and the last time he was here and held any semblance of joy in his budding life of misfortune, he was a teenager with fringe.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I want to know! Don’t tell me you’re boring even in philosophical discussion?”
Nanami sighs, tucking a stray lock of blonde behind his ear as he throws the black paneling of the basement walls a pensive look.
“It’s a comforting thought, but there is no evidence for it. When we die, we die. That’s it.”
Looking back through that foggy lens, Nanami remembers just how fiercely he believed that at the time. In their world, when they sacrifice every ounce of their being for the people who know nothing about them, there is no comforting notion of the afterlife. Their world is too grim to believe that something is brighter on the other side. The same cycle of rinse and repeat, generation after generation, only reaffirmed this belief he held.
In the cruel grand scheme of things, he wishes more than anything that the memory could be mundane, irrelevant in the face of now. Perhaps it’s what followed that is responsible for why Nanami is forced to feel things with an unrelenting ferocity. Perhaps it was the look of mild disappointment on Haibara’s face, a sight so very rare, those large brown eyes shadowed with apprehension rather than enthusiasm.
Perhaps it was the feeling that flooded Nanami right after, a sense of shame for upsetting his friend, a fear of a conversation he would probably have to have. Or perhaps it was the fact that he promised himself to apologize later that day at their usual friendly dinners.
A dinner that was cancelled because they were called on a mission. A mission that was too intense to warrant a serious conversation because Haibara was trying to focus. A level of focus that resulted in Nanami in this very hallway, angry with burning tears in his eyes that he shrouded beneath a washcloth while his dear friend lay dead on a slab.
After many years of denial that molded into careful management, he’s gotten better, turning his grief into something tangible, taking the bad and creating something good. The frequent nightmare that was that mission that jolts him awake in a cold sweat, converted into an intentionally peaceful day. A lightning strike of sadness during his morning read turned into a decompressing walk to stretch his burned muscles.
But it’s that last conversation that he never got to fix, that “I could never be mad at you Nanami!” that he never got to hear.
Just as it had years ago, that guilt manifests in the shake of his hands, the precarious gallop of his heart, the trickle of sweat sliding down his neck when he overheard Panda whispering to Nobara about how Yuta’s mission had gone wrong.
It settled heavy in his gut like he’d indulged too much, that same sensation of dread weighed him down as he walked as fast as his tired left side would allow, pushing through the familiar but still unpleasant ache between his joints as he rushed down the steps to the very corridor that’s wrapped around him like an awful embrace.
So maybe that is why this memory surfaces now, reminding him of that paralyzing fear that held him down as a teenager, now rendering his fingers stiff as they space over the ‘Infirmary’ sign on the steel doors.
His heart hammers, a quiet, almost desperate ‘please’ slipping past his lips as he begs to anyone, anything that will listen before he pushes the doors open.
The smell of antiseptic burns the back of his throat, mixing with something heavier—the metallic tang of blood and exhaustion. The hair on the back of his neck rises, collecting dew drops of cold sweat, his body tense and poised, ready for the inevitable sadness and madness that grief brings.
Thankfully, the sight brings a rush of relief so overpowering that he almost falls to his knees.
Shoko is hard at work once again, her chestnut hair falling over her shoulders in shining waves, healthier than years before when their lives were nothing but grief and misery, the thought of self-care a distant dream. One of her hands rests against a tanned chest, her fingers glowing a luminescent purple that ebbs and flows over the sweaty skin. Her other hand moves in practiced ease, weaving with two fingers that are pinched around surgical needle and thread.
It’s second nature to her, the ability to heal. A gift weaved into her bones like cursed silk the very moment she took a breath, and harnessed as she grew to only provide for others while her own existence went unnoticed. Like Nanami and his journey with undoing the bad, Shoko is better now. Still weathered in the eyes, still smoking, but better.
Now she teaches other young students how to hone their RCT, mindful to show them they are more than just their power. Now she sleeps. Now she smokes one pack a day instead of three. Now, those tired eyes are filled with determination rather than the resignation that comes with an autopsy on someone she once shared a class with, and for Nanami, that sight kills what remaining dread he had sitting like an anvil on his chest.
“Looks like your cover’s blown,” Shoko mumbles, a hint of amusement coloring her otherwise monotone cadence.
Across the sterile slab table, Yuta stands, looking as uneasy as ever. His posture is stiff, arms crossed over his chest, shoulders drawn up tight to his ears as a means to protect himself from his own criticism.
“Nanami-san,” he croaks in acknowledgement, offering a shaky bow before looking back to the patient on the table.
Against everything Nanami feared, Yuji lies there—equally as quiet, equally as uneasy, but flushed with fever-warm color, albeit sweaty, his chest rising steadily, and Nanami can breathe. Because he’s alive, and that memory can sift back into the recesses of his mind, forgotten until the next time Haibara decides to show his presence.
In the cold, heavy silence that follows, that usual “Nanamin!” is absent, the owner of those words staring up at the ceiling with glossy eyes. A laceration decorates Yuji’s side, deep and flaring an angry red, the skin around it slightly tinted cherry with blood that was hastily wiped away.
From years of experience, Nanami knows the application of Shoko’s technique allows the wound to heal slowly, and he can see the jagged edges shrinking while she seals the wound shut.
Despite the inhuman level of strength that he possessed even before Sukuna’s demise, Yuji isn’t resilient. Five years of calculated observation—from that pink-haired fifteen-year-old to the young man sitting before him now—Nanami has always been able to see through that invincible veneer.
The way Yuji would flash a jovial smile even with scratched cheeks and bandaged limbs, trying to convince everyone he was fine when he clearly wasn’t; trying to show his sensei that he valued life transactionally like the rest of the sorcery world, so he could get the job done.
But in this moment, there’s no curve to his lips now, his jaw set in stone, eyes fixed stubbornly above, shame sitting leaden on his shoulders.
It’s with this quick assessment that Nanami decides on his next course of action.
With a modest hitch in his step from years of arduous physical therapy, he strides calmly across the room, resting his cane against the mahogany counters before opening the cabinets above.
“What happened?” He maintains a steady voice even though his heart is thrashing in his chest, the expectation of a deep conversation hanging just beyond the horizon.
A brief silence, long enough to pick up the steady hum of Shoko’s RCT, the drip of a faucet, the thick pierce of Yuji’s skin as she stitches.
“A rogue curse,” Yuta finally squeaks. “W-we…we had already cleared out the entire church, and I was about to break the veil when one snuck up behind me. I’m not sure how I missed it. I’m not…Yuji, of course, pushed me out of the way. I didn’t sense it in time….I’m so sorry Nanami-sensei.”
Internally, Nanami blanches at the formality. Yuta was more of Gojo’s student than Nanami’s and quickly stepped into the role of teacher not long after his death. There’s a weight of respect to the title that Nanami still has not gotten used to, the weight of expectation that those younger than him hold for him. He’s held in such high regard in this big school filled with few people.
He thinks of Ino's unwavering faith in him, the way the younger sorcerer hangs on his every word during training sessions like they're gospel, seeking approval that Nanami isn't sure he deserves to give. It feels odd to be seen as someone to look up to when he feels like he’s barely getting through each day, stumbling through his early thirties, but still learning.
“There’s no need for an apology,” Nanami supplies simply, pushing aside a few plastic boxes to wrap his hands around a small tin.
It’s no bigger than his palm, rusted along the seam but shining back the fluorescent lights and his blurred reflection. He does not need a smooth surface to know what reflects back at him—the black eyepatch that cuts across the left side of his face, blonde hair that is now shorter on that same side, growing slower, with flecks of grey at his temples, the lattice of now pale scars that trail down his neck and disappear beneath the collar of his navy button up.
“A sorcerer of your calibre was unable to sense the curse—”
“I know, and that’s why—”
“That only shows there was something we did not anticipate upon our initial assessment before you and Yuji were sent out. There will always be a level of error, no matter how powerful you are.”
Nanami won’t allow Yuta’s usual self-depreciation to show in this moment. Not when he’s pulled off the impossible in this life they cradle—coming back from a mission alive. Mentally devoured, scratched up, and emotionally drained, but alive.
How quickly Nanami has learned to clutch that term with such care since being given a second chance.
Nanami grips his cane with measured pressure as he makes his way back to the table where Yuji rests, the young man still willfully ambivalent to the atmosphere around him.
“What did you learn, Yuta-kun? Could you sense something vaguely? Vestiges in cursed energy?”
“A little, right before it…” he trails off, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth.
“Then that means you know that feeling. Focus on grasping it during your training. Creating a better awareness of it will allow you to recognize it quickly in battle.”
Yuta’s eyes widen in recognition before he nods incessantly, wrapping his hand around Rika’s ring that rests on his collarbone
“Yes, Nanami-sensei.”
Nanami uses Yuta’s self-reflection to peer down at Yuji. Without his usual cheerful chatter, Yuji looks impossibly young. His eyelashes slightly dewy and dark against tan cheeks, the planes of his face soft and vulnerable. But it’s the look in his eyes that makes Nanami’s heart thump pitifully in his chest.
That same tortured fear he’d probably felt in Shibuya’s wreckage, when Sukuna had relinquished control and left Yuji to stare at the devastation he’d caused. To finally meet Nanami’s eyes in the bowels of that subway, riddled with rotting curses, could he see his past and present so clearly.
The fear of what he’d done, of so many of his friends wounded and dead. The fear of not knowing how to fix it. The fear of not being in control.
Is this how he truly feels right now? That he should have been in control of every aspect of the mission? That he should know everything all at once, just like Gojo had the unfortunate talent of having?
In the aftermath of Shibuya’s devastation, Yuji has thrown himself into becoming better with a willpower that has both impressed and worried Nanami.
More vigilant in training, refusing to stop until he understands every technique, every counterattack, every strategy. Always asking questions, always pushing himself harder with a jovial disposition that a younger Nanami would have envied. That a younger Nanami had seen so much before in Haibara—that same eager devotion, that same need to protect everyone around him, and still love life at the end of the day.
“Shoko, once you’re done, would you and Yuta mind giving us a moment alone?”
“Yep. Just about done.”
Nanami gives Yuji his space, retreating his gaze to focus on opening the tin in his hands with the limited dexterity he has. It’s a slight struggle, the way his marred fingers grip the seam, the weakened sensation along his fingertips as the lid gives and finally twists open. From his peripheral he notices Shoko straighten, the glow of her hand ebbing away, the clatter of utensils echoing in the room as she finishes up her stitching.
“You know the deal,” she recites, tossing the used utensils into a sharps container that rests on the wall. “Take it easy for the next few days.”
She offers a light hum to Yuji’s mumbled thanks, snapping off her gloves before digging into her white lab coat. She fishes out a pack of cigarettes, throwing one between her lips before catching Nanami’s eye. For a beat, something passes between them—the recognized weight of what they carry, watching the youth hurt themselves for a world that will never notice. The fear that one day, the outcome won’t be so favorable. But that beat passes, and with a familiar nod in his direction, she brushes out of the room, Yuta following close behind.
The double doors drift shut behind them, their pace slowing with each lingering second until they settle together with a muted thud, leaving only the hum of the fluorescent lights, the distant tick of a wall clock, and the evasive roar of Yuji’s thoughts.
Nanami waits, hoping dimly that the silence will be enough of an awkward push for Yuji to begin some sort of conversation. But the seconds drag into a full minute with no result, Yuji’s eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, cheeks slowly taking on a ruddy complexion from rising embarrassment.
Nanami ambles closer, resting his cane against the lip of the table Yuji rests on, throwing the tin lid on the steel side table next to him.
It’s a salve, a greasy concoction of oils and herbs his mother had pressed into his hands the night before he left for Jujutsu Tech, her worried and shaky fingers smoothing over his arm as she instructed him how to use it.
“For the small injuries,” she had whispered, as if she already knew the larger ones would be well beyond her reach.
It soothes the smallest of cuts in ways that have nothing to do with cursed ability and everything to do with a mother’s love distilled into something tangible. It’s practically useless, but to Nanami, it’s a step in a routine he’s repeated for years, a bridge between who he was and who he has become. A soothing reminder that care doesn’t have to be specific to be profound. And it's remained untouched in the infirmary cabinets unless it’s his hands reaching for it.
He dips his fingertips into the salve—cool and slightly gritty between his fingers as he rubs them together, smelling faintly of eucalyptus and something medicinal. When he glides a generous amount along the edge of Yuji’s wound, the boy flinches slightly, muscles twitching from the cool temperature, a hiss escaping his lips.
But still he says nothing.
Still, he says nothing as Nanami rubs the salve along the top of his wound, careful to avoid the sutures.
Still, he says nothing as calloused fingers brush along the raised sides, the skin already blooming red with inflammation.
Still, Nanami waits patiently, the silence like pressure on his eardrums, until Yuji’s throat clicks when he opens his mouth.
“It was careless.”
Sharp as Nanami’s dull knife, Yuji’s words slice through the tension in the air, his voice layered with so much admonishment that Nanami can practically taste acidity.
“I was so careless.”
“You made a mistake.”
Yuji doesn’t offer a retort, his gaze narrowing, the whites of his eyes glossing over with unshed tears. The unspoken response is clear: there is no room for mistakes in their job. A mistake is a guarantee of death, no matter how small. For Yuji, that mistake doesn’t threaten his own life—it threatens everyone he’s sworn to protect.
Nanami recognizes it so clearly, and watching Yuji embody the same fatal nobility that once consumed him is nauseating, bile rising, burning, and sour in the back of his throat.
“There are days when I feel helpless because I’m unable to be on missions like you.” Nanami swallows the horrid taste, the desire to mold this trait into something palpable that he has no choice but to continue. “I can…but I have grown to value my life and the things I would leave behind if I held onto that weight as I did before.”
Yuji huffs a watery laugh of disbelief, blinking away the haziness in his vision but still refusing to look in Nanami’s direction.
“That sense of duty. The need to protect the youth at all costs and accepting that my life was expendable as long as I fulfilled that purpose. That came with the understanding that any mistake I made was unforgivable but clouded my real conviction, the real reason I was actually fighting.”
Nanami’s fingers pause in their gentle ministrations as he sighs, resting his hand on the table. “While it is commendable to have the same idealism as I once had, that kind of thinking will not make you a better sorcerer, Yuji. It will make you carry burdens that aren’t yours to carry.”
Yuji finally flickers his gaze to rest on Nanami, a wave of that fear he calculated earlier washing over him with the force of a tsunami. He sits up, wincing through the pain and cupping his stitched side gingerly as he throws his legs over the side of the table.
“But you told me to take it from here,” Yuji’s voice cracks slightly, honeyed emotion sloshing inside of him and seeping through the cracks of formidable walls. “That duty you gave me. I want to carry it. I want to be worthy of it.”
And oh, does Nanami’s chest constrict to a painful degree at the raw honesty in his voice, at the way he’s looking at him like he’s afraid of disappointing him.
The recollection of that day is as clear as any memory he’s ever had, no matter how much he tries to suppress it. The ache in his bones as he sliced through curse after curse with his dull knife, voice shaking with fury and desperation. The persistent thoughts that threatened to obliterate his focus.
“Will Ijichi be okay?”
Keep fighting. Keep slicing. Calculate the chances of survival for Shibuya’s innocent if you allow a curse to escape the subway—
“Gojo is sealed, but where is he?”
Push through the pain. Push through the blackened vision on your left side. Push through the despair of your dreams that may never come to fruition.
“Is Megumi-kun okay against his father?”
Megumi doesn’t know about Toji. He should have known the part Gojo played. But he’s just a boy—
“Please, please let Nobara-kun not act in bravery without thinking it through.”
But loudest of them all, repeating like a broken tape over and over, louder and louder until he could hardly tell his own thoughts from hallucination to compensate for the blinding pain or reality—
“Yuji. Where is Yuji?”
And Nanami remembers all too vividly that look of hopelessness on Yuji’s face when he finally saw him. When he hallucinated Haibara, he accepted the task of saying what he hoped to have a little more time for.
“You take it from here.”
How proud he had been, even in that moment, on the brink of death, to entrust something so important but burdensome to someone he believed in so completely.
Now, slightly incapacitated but alive, watching Yuji carry that weight with honor but the same self-destructive determination Nanami once had, he realizes application of this measure requires more than just responsibility.
“I should have sensed it,” Yuji whispers, shame lacing his words with an intensity that doesn’t shock Nanami. “I should have been faster. Should have been better prepared. I train every day until I have nothing else left to give, and I study every technique because I can’t—I won’t let anyone else get hurt because I was not good enough.”
Nanami can sense the spiral, can practically see its vines wrapping around Yuji’s neck, thorned and digging as he struggles to get out every word in his tirade of untethered emotion.
“Itadori-kun—”
“You trusted me with something important. This life, these missions, the ideals I have. And I can’t mess it up. I can’t be the reason someone else dies. I can’t be the reason you or Yuta or anyone else gets hurt because I was too slow to see what was coming.”
“Itadori-kun—”
It’s not enough to stop him, because still Yuji persists.
“You’ve given me so much responsibility…taught me so much and believed in me when no one else did, and I just…I need to be better. I need to be worthy of what you’ve given me.”
His cheeks red from exertion, his eyes welling with tears, his knuckles bleach bone-white as he grips the edge of the table. His shoulders are tense, drawn up to his ears as if a child being scolded, his body shaking with a vibrating anxiety Nanami once had after his very first mission as a first-year.
The sight of it all kicks some instinct, some dormant feeling in Nanami’s gut that makes him want to reach out, to rest his hand on his shoulder, to tell him everything he needs to hear that he probably never received as a child.
So he does.
Nanami grabs a rough-textured rag from the side table and wipes the remaining salve from his fingers before casting it aside. He wastes no time with his next action, resting his hand on Yuji’s shoulder, warm and sweaty, absorbing the impact of his flinch from the touch. He watches those shoulders relax slightly, feels the shakes in his body subside with every breath he takes. As if the touch is soothing.
“You have taken on this task in ways I never could have imagined. But I want you to do better in ways I lacked. I want you to carry that duty while still thinking about yourself. While still valuing your own life. Because Yuji…”
The next words curl up his throat, the pressure enough to make the corners of his eyes sting with their severity. When he speaks again, his voice is softer, more vulnerable in ways he hardly allows than outside the privacy of his own home and those he renders important to him.
“I would rather see you sitting here with stitches, frustrated and alive, than dead on a slab.”
Yuji’s breath hitches, and for one devastating moment, he looks so young, childlike and cherub, but so overwhelmed by the burden he’s been carrying.
“And furthermore...if you have ever carried an ounce of doubt about my pride in you, please know those feelings are false.”
Yuji furrows his brows, the skin between his eyebrows pinching slightly as he takes in his sensei’s words, disbelief painting his features minutely.
Nanami sighs, the weight of what he wants to say sitting on his chest, gripping him in a fear that once they leave, they’ll turn into another self-imposed curse he carried from keeping Haibara so close.
He pats the side of Yuji’s neck affectionately, the corners of his lips curling just so.
“I am proud. Of who you were when we first met. Of the strong sorcerer and man that you are now. My pride in you knows no bounds. Please never think otherwise.”
Once the words finally slip past his lips, he feels lighter than he’s ever been. The anxiety of the possibility of that pride taking root into a curse still lingers, resting on his shoulders like a phantom weight, but for the first time in a long time, he takes comfort in knowing he had the strength to still act despite it all.
As for Yuji, the tears that have been budding on his lower lashes finally spill over, rushing like rivulets down his cheeks, and suddenly he’s moving—launching himself forward and into Nanami’s arms with the kind of desperate need that bypasses all thought.
He’s heavier than he looks, and it takes Nanami aback, a grunt of surprise leaving him as he wobbles precariously on his weakened side, his arms flailing as he tries to regain his balance.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Unexpected. That’s the only way he can describe how the words hit him. Their weight substantial enough to force him to the floor if he allowed it. Their connotation equally as devastating. His breath catches in his throat, his arms now freezing mid-air as the words continue to echo in the sterile room. In his ears like a persistent ringing.
Dad.
A myriad of emotions flood through him.
Surprise, because this is a term of endearment Yuji has never expelled into the air, even if a Freudian slip. Nanami has long ago forgone the insistence to correct Yuji when he calls him ‘Nanamin’, choosing instead to look the other way with a faux air of dismissal, even as something akin to fondness swells within him every time he hears it.
While unpleasant given the moment, dread wiggles like a maggot in his stomach, threatening to devour the good inside of him. Dread from that unspoken role Nanami has taken on with his students. Protector, advisor, confidant in battle, someone to look up to. Someone to strive to be. He’s come a long way in accepting that the sensation he feels will always be present, but never strong enough to overpower him. The unexpectedness of life carries some degree of dread, and he applies that mentality to the sorcery world as well.
But there is something deeper. Something more visceral in magnitude, a fierce protectiveness, a warmth that spreads from his belly up to the cavity in his chest. A warmth that floods him at the thought of knowing there is a sorcerer like Yuji in this world. Someone who, beneath the bloodshed and misery of the life they live, has a heart filled with so much hope and love for the world that there is nothing that could blacken it. Not even the grips of mangled fingers of Sukuna’s soul could deter him.
His mind slows from its frantic pace, thoughts finally finding their rhythm, and his arms settle around Yuji’s shoulders, one hand coming up to rest against the back of peach pink hair. The embrace is tentative at first, almost awkward, then firmer as he allows himself to accept what Yuji has just offered him.
Dad.
Before his second chance at life, Nanami had never given too much thought to having a family. But lately, he’s begun to ponder. To wonder what it feels like to be paternal. To hope that every day is filled with happiness and joy. But perhaps that’s not all it is.
Perhaps it is that festering wrongness that filled him when he first met Yuji, to see someone so young cursed with a strong entity like Sukuna and forced to prove to those older and more ignorant that his life had value.
Perhaps it is that shock when he first saw Yuji’s conviction, his drive to be better.
Perhaps it is the fright that rushed through his veins like ice water when Yuji fainted after intruding on Mahito’s domain.
Or the profuse feeling of desperation of wanting Yuji to just stay away when Mahito placed those puppet-stitched hands on Nanami’s chest in the subway, ready to wipe him from existence.
It is the way Nanami wishes he could have been that person for Yuji growing up, instead of alone, without a mother and father, and left under the care of a grandfather who was still grieving the loss of his son.
It is the way he brims with barely restrained excitement at the realization that he has someone to teach, to watch grow and smile, to watch laugh and love the world when it only shows its evil underbelly.
If Yuji realizes his own slip of words, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Nanami can feel the pool of moisture on his shoulder, can feel the slight hiccup where his hand rests on Yuji’s trembling back.
He realizes quickly, with a damning sense of clarity, that he would rather experience the pain of being burned again than to correct Yuji.
There’s nothing more to say.
He can feel the trust and appreciation in the air around him that bloomed to life from that single word. He understands something he’d never been able to name.
This boy—this young man—has become precious to him in ways that transcend duty or mentorship. Manifesting instead in the satisfaction that if the word were to slip again, Nanami would never say a thing unless Yuji looked to him for acknowledgement.
But he knows how awkward Yuji is going to feel once this delicate moment ends, so Nanami does it for him. He pulls away softly, patting his shoulder once more to drive the moment home to a gentle conclusion that doesn’t require more conversation.
“Reapply once more.” Nanami presses the sealed tin into Yuji’s open palms, tapping the lid three times. “I prefer applications twice a day, once in the morning and once before bed. An additional application is also best after training.”
Yuji’s hands curl slowly over the tin, trapping it inside his large hands, cradling it as if it were something fragile. He snorts quietly, shaking his head. “You got it. I’ll bring it back once Shoko gives me the all clear.”
Nanami hums in dismissal, already turning his attention to cleaning off the side table with a distracted efficiency. “You need it far more than I. Salve and RCTs will do nothing for my wounds.”
There’s an unspoken agreement in the air, resting on the heaviness of the gravity of Nanami’s wounds. But Nanami peers at him quickly as he tosses the threadbare rag into the trash, taking in the way Yuji’s smile grows slowly, his grip tightening on the can. He’s not sure what he’s thinking, but Nanami feels nothing but pride regardless. Perhaps when Yuji has taken on the role of sensei in the future, there will be that one student who excels in a way he deems worthy to dedicate the care of this salve.
Nanami hopes he’s still around to see who that student may be.
The infirmary doors burst open, steel metal swaying rhythmically as a shorter man with platinum blonde hair walks through. Inumaki, his mouth free of the protection of his high collar, his cursed markings glowing with importance in the bright lights. His purple eyes dart between Nanami and Yuji, taking in the situation in that quiet way he’s had to learn growing up.
“Mustard Leaf?”
Nanami has never been able to discern what Inumaki says in his clipped vernacular. Truthfully, he feels as if the students make up their own dialogue, and Inumaki crafts his words given the situation. It brings a faint sense of fondness to his chest, their behavior echoing many inside jokes he had with Ijichi and Gojo in their youth.
Yuji hops down from the table, eyes dry and slightly red, smile bright as always. “I’m good! Shoko and Nanami cleaned me up.”
“Tuna,” Inumaki parrots in response, flashing his phone in a question that Nanami quickly gives up on trying to decode.
“No way? You got the tickets!” Yuji rushes over to his friend, snatching his discarded shirt from the bottom of the table and slowly sliding it on.
“Salmon Roe.”
“The bad special effects are the best part!” Yuji laughs, a bit watery but still genuine, the sound finally painting the room in something other than discomfort and death. “Nanami, you should come watch Human Earthworm 7 with us.”
Nanami huffs a slightly affronted noise, blinking rapidly at the invitation. “Thank you for the offer, but I think I will pass.”
He watches as Yuji bustles around the room, wiping down the table with sanitation wipes, closing the cabinets before automatically reaching for Nanami’s cane that rests on the table. He offers it to him with the same unconscious care he always shows in everything he does.
“Here you go.”
Nanami collects it with a simple nod, his throat tight as he finds that groove in the wooden head he’s grown comfortable with.
They make their way out of the infirmary together, Yuji chatting excitedly in between Inumaki’s one-worded responses. There’s pitched laughter and a rush of words about movie monsters and plot holes, their voices echoing down the hallway. Nanami follows silently behind them, refusing to correct the way they automatically adjust their pace to ensure he is not left behind.
He watches with a newfound fascination and profound grief. These students have managed to form bonds with each other even though their lives are constantly on the brink of death. But Yuji, once a pariah, now flourishes with every relationship he makes, every handshake he creates, every grimace Megumi throws his way that holds no heat, every bag of Nobara’s that he carries with fake complaint.
It’s almost like a flash into the past. No longer Inumaki and Yuji, but now himself and Haibara, and that conversation comes back once more.
“Do you believe in reincarnation, Nanami?”
His previous assessment of the question remains the same.
“It’s a comforting thought, but there is no evidence for it.”
But his sentiments feel shaky as he watches Yuji now—the way he gestures animately with his hands, the bright curiosity in his voice that pulls laughter from Inumaki, the unconscious kindness in everything he does—Nanami feels something knot harshly in his chest.
It’s not reincarnation, he tries to reaffirm. Souls don’t return in new bodies with the same generous hearts.
And yet.
And yet Yuji carries that same unshakeable optimism, that same fierce determination to protect everyone around him. The same way of finding joy in small things—awful movies, shared meals, quiet moments between battles. The same ability to make those around him want to be better, to hope for something beyond the darkness of their world.
Just like Haibara.
“When we die, we die. That’s it.”
But maybe there are other ways for them to live on. In the lessons they leave behind, in the love they instill, in the way their spirit finds new homes in unexpected places. In this school, constantly floating around a good-natured young man with peach-pink hair and a tenacity for never giving up.
In a way, Haibara has never left. Nanami simply feels his presence so much more.
It’s not reincarnation. But it is in the way he sees vestiges of Haibara in the glow of Yuji’s smile, in the way that long-ago conversation about hope and second chances has led him to here, to this hallway, following two young men who have become something he never thought he’d have.
A family. Or more specifically, a son who shares no blood with him, but trusts him enough to call him ‘Dad.’ It’s a weight of responsibility—not a burden of mentorship or duty he once held, but a privilege of being someone Yuji looks to for guidance, for comfort, for protection—and that settles in his chest like something warm and permanent, rooting on his veins that lead to the thankful thrum of his heart that has given him life again.
It’s a challenge Nanami is more than happy to accept, a role he never expected to fill, but he cannot possibly imagine living without.