Chapter Text
The office was more crowded than usual.
Maps spread across the table, reports piled together without much order, and the low murmur of sorcerers filled the space with an urgency that didn’t need to raise its volume to feel real. Outside, several areas of the country were reporting an abnormal increase in curses, and no one seemed entirely comfortable with the idea that the source was still unclear.
Satoru was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a distracted smile on his face. At first glance, he looked as relaxed as ever. As if none of it truly affected him.
But he was paying attention.
“We’re going to split into teams,” Principal Yaga announced, pointing at the map. “We need to cover multiple areas at the same time.”
Satoru watched Yuuji, who stood near the table, leaning slightly forward as he read one of the reports with focus. He had changed. Not in a drastic way, but enough for Satoru to notice it every time they shared the same space. Taller. Calmer. Less impulsive. He was no longer the boy who acted first and thought later.
“Fushiguro, you’ll go with Kugisaki,” Yaga continued. Megumi took the printed report and moved closer to his partner so they could look over it together.
“Itadori,” Principal Yaga went on, “you’ll be paired with Okkotsu.”
Yuuji looked up immediately.
“Yes?” he replied, without surprise, turning toward him.
Yuuta, leaning on the other side of the table, met his gaze with a small smile.
“Looks like we’re together again,” he said calmly.
“I guess we’re used to it by now,” Yuuji replied, almost joking.
“Tuna with mayonnaise,” Inumaki added, while Panda nodded beside him and Megumi cast a strange glance toward Satoru.
Satoru said nothing.
There was nothing unusual about the assignment. In fact, it made sense. They complemented each other well, understood each other quickly, trusted one another. He had seen it more than once. And yet, something tightened in his chest—a brief, uncomfortable sensation he couldn’t quite place.
They had grown much closer since Shibuya. Most of their joint missions had been together. At first, it seemed fine to him. Especially as Megumi focused more on being with his sister after she woke from her coma.
Nobara had been unable to take part in missions for a while due to her injuries. That left Yuuji without a fixed team. That was when Yaga paired his two former students on most missions.
Things had changed over the past couple of years. For most of them, it had forced a faster kind of maturity—especially the younger ones, who were facing two great evils of that era: Kenjaku and Sukuna.
The former was defeated shortly after Satoru was released from the Prison Realm. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He wouldn’t leave things unfinished—not when a deranged curse was wearing his best friend’s body.
It wasn’t heroic or clean, and it wasn’t as fast as he would have liked. Kenjaku ran until there were no more bodies to steal and no plans left to hide. When he finally fell, there were no speeches, no last words. Only silence.
Sukuna was different.
He didn’t die in Shibuya. Not then. But Shibuya broke them all. The loss of control, the sealing of the Prison Realm, the unexpected resistance—everything weakened Satoru more than he would ever admit.
When the time came to face Sukuna for real, he wasn’t whole.
But they defeated him together. As a team. All of them.
And when Sukuna disappeared, he left nothing behind. No remains. No promises. No final curse.
The world kept turning as if nothing had happened.
Satoru defeated him at his side.
Yuuji was no longer the same boy he had left behind.
Not the same one who had given him a desperate confession when he was released from the Prison Realm. Satoru had rejected him. He had tried to be careful with his words—he didn’t want to hurt him. Contrary to what most people thought, he wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t hurt his student out of sheer will.
But he didn’t want to lie to him either. Yuuji was still very young, and Satoru carried too many ghosts from the past. He cared about Yuuji living his adolescence the way it should have been—school crushes, first loves, encounters filled with new sensations. Everything these kids deserved. Nothing tied to Shibuya, nor to the world they belonged to.
Satoru was not a good prospect for Yuuji. Even if he had allowed himself to feel something back then, he was still the strongest—and that was a burden he refused to place on anyone. Least of all on one of his favorite students.
Yuuji only insisted subtly on the day of his graduation. Telling Satoru that his feelings—temporary feelings, temporary because Satoru himself had named and classified them that way—hadn’t changed.
That he still loved him. That he still chose him.
Satoru said no for the second time.
And Yuuji didn’t insist again.
“Anything you’d like to add, Satoru?” the director asked, noticing his silence.
“Huh? No, no,” he replied immediately. “On the contrary, it’s clear you’ve got everything under control.”
He smiled. Like always. A little ironic, too.
Satoru would go on this mission alone, since he was still the strongest idiot of them all.
Yuuji returned his attention to the report, leaning a little closer to Okkotsu to point something out on the map. Their shoulders almost brushed. Nothing out of place. Nothing that justified the absurd discomfort Satoru suddenly felt.
Okkotsu lifted his gaze for a second.
Their eyes met.
It wasn’t a long look, nor a loaded one. Just enough for Satoru to notice something… strange. A minimal tension. An attention that didn’t match the usual lightness—and he realized it was coming from his own side.
It was stupid.
Satoru looked away first.
“Good,” the director said. “You leave tomorrow at dawn.”
Yuuji nodded.
“Understood.”
When the meeting began to dissolve and the others moved toward the exit, Yuuji gathered the papers calmly. Okkotsu waited at his side, resting his forearm on the table.
“Shall we go?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Yuuji replied. “But…” He paused briefly. “Should we eat something first? I want to go over this properly,” he added, lifting the folder slightly. “I don’t want us to miss anything.”
“Sure,” Yuuta nodded without hesitation. “Your place or mine?”
Yuuji hesitated for just a second.
“Yours is closer to the departure point,” he said at last. “We can order something on the way.”
“Perfect.”
It wasn’t a special conversation. There was no reason for it to be. It sounded exactly like what it was: two teammates organizing themselves before a mission.
Even so, Satoru heard every word.
He watched them walk together toward the door, speaking quietly about possible routes and points of cursed energy concentration. Yuuji gestured little, more restrained than before. Okkotsu listened with genuine attention, tilting his head every now and then.
They passed close to Satoru on their way out.
Yuuji stopped for a second.
“Sensei.”
He inclined his head slightly, respectful, as always.
I’m not your sensei anymore, Satoru thought automatically. The title weighed on him in a strange, uncomfortable way. Like something that had been true for far too long… and no longer was. Not entirely.
“Be careful,” he said, perhaps too quickly. “Don’t get careless.”
“We won’t,” Yuuji replied with a faint smile.
Okkotsu looked at him as well, this time a little more directly.
“We’ll be back soon.”
It wasn’t a promise. It didn’t need to be.
When the door closed behind them and the murmur finally faded, Satoru remained where he was for a few seconds longer than necessary.
He didn’t understand why that trivial conversation kept echoing in his mind. He didn’t understand why it had mattered to him where they were going.
Nor why the idea of Yuuji in a space that no longer belonged to him had stirred that irritating tightness in his chest.
It was absurd.
And yet, there he was.
More aware than ever of something he still wasn’t ready to name.
[...]
Okkotsu’s apartment was quiet, wrapped in the dim light that filtered in through the living room window. Outside, the city went on as usual, indifferent to curses, pending missions, or decisions that never quite found their resolution.
Itadori sat down on the floor, his back resting against the couch. He spread the map out in front of him, though he didn’t look at it right away. His fingers traced the edge of the paper carefully, following an invisible line over and over, as if he needed that contact to stay grounded.
Okkotsu set two glasses on the low table and sat across from him. He didn’t speak. He simply watched him, calm and patient.
He had learned how to do that.
There was something different about Itadori when it came to Gojo. It wasn’t nervousness, nor open sadness. It was a particular stillness, a way of holding himself back, as if he had already learned which parts of himself he shouldn’t touch. As if he had accepted, without saying it out loud, that some emotions had nowhere to go.
Itadori finally lowered his gaze to the reports, but his eyes didn’t seem fully focused. His attention was elsewhere, on something that wasn’t there.
Okkotsu was the first to break the silence, with a gentle observation, almost careful. He didn’t say it as a reproach. Nor as a direct question. He simply let it settle between them.
It was always like this when Gojo was involved.
Itadori looked up slightly, surprised just enough to confirm that he had been seen. He didn’t respond right away. His expression didn’t change, but something in his shoulders loosened, as if keeping up the front no longer made sense in that space.
He said it was habit.
And Okkotsu understood it wasn’t an excuse. It was a truth learned through repetition. Gojo had been someone Itadori didn’t want to disappoint. Someone whose opinion had weighed more than he would ever admit out loud.
He didn’t say is.
He said was.
And yet, the weight was still there, untouched.
Okkotsu nodded silently. He had seen that kind of loyalty before. Not as blind devotion or naïve idealization, but as something deeper and quieter. Something that didn’t disappear just because time passed or because the relationship had changed shape.
Itadori folded the map carefully, aligning the edges again and again, far too meticulous for someone who used to be impulsive. That small gesture said more than any words could have.
He didn’t expect anything anymore.
But he also couldn’t pretend that Gojo hadn’t meant everything to him at some point. That he hadn’t been an axis, a refuge, a choice made even when he knew it wouldn’t be returned.
Silence settled between them again, heavier this time. Okkotsu didn’t try to fill it or soften it. He knew doing so would be a way of running away.
When he spoke, it was with the same quiet honesty that defined him. Gojo wasn’t good at seeing what was right in front of him. He never had been. But that didn’t make what Itadori had felt a mistake.
Itadori let out a short breath, almost a humorless laugh. There was no regret on his face. Only exhaustion.
"It was never a mistake."
He had never thought it was. And even if he no longer said it out loud, Itadori still felt the same way. He loved Gojo even more.
He put the report away carefully, as if closing it were also a way of closing that part of the conversation.
Okkotsu sighed quietly.
He wasn’t an idiot. For a long time now, he had noticed how his former sensei reacted—or avoided reacting—to the closeness he now shared with Itadori. The evasive glances. The tension left unspoken. That discomfort that didn’t match someone who always seemed to be in control.
The problem was that Itadori, in that regard, was still denser than usual. He struggled to read what wasn’t said aloud. And perhaps Gojo’s rejection had contributed to that more than anyone would care to admit.
Dinner arrived not long after, and for a while they stopped thinking about the mission. Okkotsu watched Itadori relax slightly and laugh softly.
He would try to help.
He didn’t like the way they were both carrying the same weight from opposite ends. He only hoped that, for once, Gojo would allow himself to look honestly at what he had been avoiding naming for so long.