Archive of Our Own

Darkness. 

Then someone pronounced a name. Multiple times. Suguru couldn’t figure out what or who that voice was calling, it sounded so distant yet so close at the same time. 

“Jaku!... Ken… Jaku?!” The voice was getting closer. And suddenly, he finally opened his eyes.  

Suguru woke up abruptly. He felt terrible, to be honest, as if someone just ripped his brain out of his head. But since no one knew what that feeling would look like, and it was also very much impossible, he just assumed he had a terrible headache. 

He sat up immediately, and a nauseous feeling rose up his chest. His bones cracked and his body felt strangely… Rotten? He felt like he hadn’t moved a limb since last year. He looked around, but the room was really dark and his eyes still hadn’t adapted to it. Where was he? What time was it? What happened…? 

Before he could do or think anything more than that, someone placed themselves in front of his bed. Suguru couldn’t see their specific details, but it was definitely a guy. 

The guy in question suddenly shouted something, he was very loud for sure. 

“Kenjaku?! You’re awake!” Suguru’s brain almost exploded out of his head at how loud the guy screamed. Suguru’s sight finally adapted to darkness, and he could see a thirty year old man… maybe? He had short black hair and a really weird face: Open wide eyes, big mouth, sharp jawline. He wore simple clothes. The guy was looking at him with an expectant expression, as if Suguru knew who the hell that individual was.

“Ken… Jaku?” Suguru muttered, confused. His throat lit up on fire, the words didn’t feel like they belonged to his mouth at all. And who the hell was Kenjaku? Wait. Something in his mind tickled, but he couldn’t form a comprehensible sentence out of it. Maybe he heard of the guy once or twice. 

“W-what? Who are you?” He asked the weird man. His voice felt a little higher. 

The guy in front of him seemed a little surprised, still, Suguru’s half scream didn’t stop him from looking even closer, analyzing his face. Suguru clearly felt uncomfortable, who was this and why the hell was he in his house? If that even was Suguru’s house in the first place. 

“Mhh… You mean, you don’t remember me?” The stranger asked, kind of disappointed. Suguru didn’t understand what the guy wanted from him. And of course he didn’t remember him! He never saw that guy in his entire life! 

Suguru answered with a simple “No. I don’t.”. The guy sighed and retreated a bit. Well, at least that was working. 

“I’m Fumihiko Takaba, and I just revived you.” He nonchalantly said, as if it was a simple stroll in the park. Suguru was left speechless, even if a million questions were swirling in his mind. That guy just revived him??? How??? Was he on drugs and that was just a hallucination? Or was that… Takaba guy… On drugs, believing he had just revived him? Either way, it was impossible to revive someone, and Suguru knew it perfectly. 

“What do you want from me?” He asked, a bit rude. That tone didn’t suit Suguru, and he was aware of it. His voice could be used to command people, but Suguru never wanted to. He preferred being pictured as a calm person, but in fact, there was a stranger in front of him who just claimed to have revived him from the dead, so he needed to sound a bit stern. 

“Mh? Well, I thought we could go on an amazing tour as a comedic duo!” The guy happily exclaimed. Suguru was sure that the stranger was spilling complete nonsense at that point. There was no way the guy just proposed to him that. He either was really drunk or really high, even if he didn’t smell like alcohol, there must’ve been some weird way that made him go insane. 

“You just… Revived me…? And you want me to go on a comedic tour with you…?” Suguru repeated, rubbing his face, trying to understand what the hell was going on. 

“Exactly!” The guy shouted. 

“Get out of my house.” He ordered. He didn’t want to see this individual again in his entire life. Takaba sighed and pouted.

“Uff, I knew it… If you change your mind, call me, I left my number on your phone.” He slowly walked to the entrance, put on his shoes and closed the door behind him when he went out of the apartment. 

What a great way to wake up. Suguru had a lot of questions buzzling his brain, such as, were drugs legal now? And, how the fuck did the guy enter in his house? Anyways, he got up. 

He was wearing only a dark t-shirt and some large sweatpants, at least he wasn’t naked. It was already something. He decided to take a quick shower, his hair felt like it hadn't been washed in decades. He walked around the apartment for a bit, it was definitely his. He remembered something now. 

As he approached the bathroom, the thought of the Takaba guy being right about having revived him was still tormenting him. He knew it wasn’t possible, but… Why was he still alive then? That would explain why his body felt… Rotten. 

He looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed a lot paler than he was before… His skin was now almost the color of Satoru’s… Satoru. Where was Satoru? If Suguru was still alive, it was probably that twink’s fault. Anyways, he would’ve needed to stay under the sun for a bit and the damage would’ve been repaired, Suguru’s skin always worked like that. 

The only surprising part in his new look was… The healed stitches on his forehead. Well, he was right about feeling a very bad headache, but he didn’t actually think of being right about brain surgery. Well, who cared, he was breathing and thinking like he always did, so it probably went great. 

He took the quick shower, and surprisingly, his body felt a lot better after it. He had to cut a bit of his hair because there were dead ends, but it was fine, he still kept it long enough. He put on simple clothes. When he looked into his wardrobe, there was a bit of dust. The apartment really looked untouched. 

Suguru needed to know what date it was. The Takaba guy mentioned him having a phone, so he probably left it on the table or somewhere around there. Before he could reach the living room, he stopped in the short hallway. 

On the little piece of furniture that was there, there were three pictures. They were dusty, really dusty, as if they haven’t been touched in more than a year. 

The first one represented Nanako and him. She was smiling and holding the camera while hugging him with her other arm. Suguru recalls that that was her fourteenth birthday and he took her and Mimiko to an amusement park. They both looked so happy… 

The second one was a picture of Mimiko. She rarely smiled when taking pictures, but Suguru remembers how happy she was when he got her that plushie, even if it didn’t look really good. She even smiled wide for the photo. Suguru assumed it might’ve been her eighth or ninth birthday. 

And the third one… It was the oldest. Really old. Compared, it looked like more than a decade had passed since then. Suguru remembered it by heart, he remembered every expression, every wrinkle. The surprising fact was that he could’ve redrawn it by memory and it would’ve turned out the exact same as it was when they got it printed, Suguru didn’t even have photographic memory, guess this was an exception then. After all, the photo contained Satoru and Shoko. And he spent so much time looking at it that it signed his brain. 

Shoko was holding the camera, she had a cigarette in her mouth and she was smiling wide with eyes closed. Satoru was behind her on her left side. He was smiling wide and kept his eyes closed too. Unfortunately, a bit of the photo had been ripped on his side, creating a weird scar across his head. Suguru, on the other hand, had been ripped off whole. Originally, he was in the picture too at Shoko’s right side, but Suguru remembers the day he decided to cut himself out of the photo and just keep his two best friends. Well, he didn’t mind seeing it again. He missed them. Especially Satoru’s arm around his shoulders. 

He shrugged and went to the living room. He wanted to see his two lovely daughters. Unfortunately, there was no one in the apartment. He walked to the table and looked around. He found his phone on a furniture piece next to the door. 

He turned it on and almost had a heart attack. It was March 2019. Suguru’s last memory was of freaking December 2017. What the hell happened and why was he conscious only now? Suguru started getting doubtful. Did that weird Takaba guy really revive him? But he never heard of a sorcerer with that technique. He could’ve been even more powerful than Satoru himself. 

Suguru was worried about his daughters. Who took care of them in the meantime? Well, if he remembers correctly, before killing him, Satoru told him his whole family was alive, so probably Manami or Larue took them in. 

He sighed and opened his chats. He was scared of what he might’ve seen. Since he was considered a criminal by the Jujutsu society, he didn’t have many contacts, just the very important ones… And Takaba. 

Anyways. He leaned against the table. He opened Nanako’s chat: “Last seen, 31st October 2018” Suspicious enough. Mimiko’s was some days before since she didn’t use her phone as much as her sister did. Suguru read some of their texts, without answer, of course. They were just teenage girls… Suguru was about to tear up. He always becomes really emotional when it comes to his daughters or his loved ones. 

He called them, but their phones happened to be "Unavailable". 

He opened Miguel’s chat: “Last seen, 3rd February 2019”, Miguel texted him birthday wishes. Funny how it was just that, nothing else. 

He opened Manami’s chat: “Last seen, 31 October 2018”, Manami’s date corresponded to Nanako’s. Suguru wondered if something happened on the thirty-first of October of last year. 

He then opened Shoko’s chat, and his heart dropped to the ground: “Last seen, today 08:03 a.m.” Shoko didn’t write much, the last text was the same as Miguel’s, but still… Did she hope for a miracle? Maybe one day she would’ve woken up and Suguru would’ve texted her back… 

He was genuinely afraid to open Satoru’s chat. He couldn’t even imagine just how much the guy wrote to him. He already wrote a lot when Suguru was still alive (he never responded to any of it). But, surprisingly, a “Last seen, 24th december 2018” Welcomed him when he clicked over Satoru’s name. And, other than that, Satoru didn’t text him much during the time he was dead, he found a lot of deleted messages though. 

He turned off the phone. What the hell happened while he was gone? And why the hell has he been revived only now? And most of all, who was Takaba Fumihiko? 

To get those answers, he knew what he needed to do. And, since the only person who seemed still active was Shoko, he needed to get to Jujutsu High as soon as possible. Maybe he could’ve talked to Satoru too. 

Decided that, he put on a simple hoodie, his shoes and took his keys. It was still morning, he had the whole day to find Shoko and the others. 

When he set foot outside, it all felt really weird. Well, the city was still the same as he remembered it, but the air was… Fresher. There were less curses. As if a burden had been taken off of the world’s shoulders. Okay, now he needed to know what really happened, because the lack of curses wasn’t normal. It looked like the world had regained its balance. And it was weird. Really weird. 

The people he despised so much were walking normally in the streets. Happy, sad, angry, talkative, a bunch of faceless strangers reminded him of why he even died in the first place. 

He didn’t do anything to hurt them though, he felt a strange pang of calmness in his heart. Oh well, he should’ve taken advantage of it until he would’ve started to call them “Filthy and ugly monkeys” again. 

That said, he walked normally, as if he hadn’t just been revived from the dead, because yes: One way or another, Takaba surely did something. He would’ve been six feet under at the moment if he didn’t. He wanted to deny it with his whole soul, but he was starting to believe that that weird looking guy really casted some kind of spell on him. 

After taking the usual train, the one he used to take when he was younger, he finally got off at the institute’s stop. It hadn’t changed much, maybe it was a bit greener. Either way, Suguru didn’t care much. He just started walking towards the building. Something that surprised him was the lack of barriers. There was no security system anymore? Why? Did Satoru do something? Suguru hoped not. The idiot already worked too much as a slave just to protect his students, he couldn’t imagine him agreeing on taking off the school barriers. 

When he arrived at the entrance, there was no trace of any guards or things like that. Unusual. No one stopped him from entering. It seemed pretty deserted, and Suguru was starting to get worried, until he looked out of a corridor’s window. Three students were “training” in the training field. Suguru carefully hid to not get caught by one of them. From that position, he could still see them clearly. There was a short haired girl with a black bandage on her eye who was screaming at a salmon-colored haired boy. Next to them, a boy with black, spiky hair was smiling. Suguru assumed they were the new first years. Strangely, they looked all injured. But the injuries in question were old, as if they already healed.  

Suguru wondered what the missions they sent first years on looked like. They were probably even more dangerous than when he was a student there. He hated Jujutsu High so much. Even then, the group seemed to have fun. He wondered why Satoru wasn’t there to train them. Was he on a mission? 

He continued to walk ahead. He needed to talk to Shoko. Her office was probably near the infirmary. Well, at least he knew that the institute wasn’t abandoned just yet, even if the staff seemed to be completely decimated. 

In fact, Suguru didn’t expect to be actually right. Shoko’s office was just right next to the infirmary. The door had a little golden target on it: “Dt. Ieiri”. Suguru was sure Shoko flexed that target to every one of her friends when she got it. Too bad he wasn’t present at the time, he would’ve loved seeing Shoko torture Satoru over it. Shoko was a calm person, but she never joked about her doctor career, just as much as Satoru loved flexing his technique. 

Before knocking on the door, he prepared himself at whatever could’ve presented in front of him. Maybe Shoko would’ve reported him to Satoru again and this time they would’ve killed him once and for all. He just tried to forget about it, Shoko was a calm person, as said before. Even if he knew that, he had a hard time knocking the door. 

He was kind of scared of the expression in her eyes. He couldn’t imagine seeing his own best friend coming back from the dead and randomly knocking on his office door. So, he hoped Shoko didn’t care about him as much as he did for both her and Satoru, but of course, he was banking on nothing, because she obviously cared about him a lot. 

He finally fished the courage out of his chest and knocked on the wood of the door. 

He heard a calm “Come in.” coming from the other side of the door. His heart swelled with joy as he heard Shoko’s voice. He hadn’t heard his best friend in forever. He gently opened the door. 

He found Shoko sitting at her desk while reading a newspaper and smoking. She looked the same as the last time he saw her in 2017. The only noticeable difference was that her eyebags were lighter, a good thing. She wasn’t overworking herself as much as she was back then. 

When he entered, she immediately froze. Her eyes widened. She dropped the newspaper on her desk and extinguished her cigarette on the ashtray quickly. 

“Uhm… Hi Shoko…” He awkwardly said, how do you say ‘hello’ to one of your ex-best friends who you abandoned almost twelve years ago, and also thought that you were dead because the other ex-best friend killed you? Shoko looked like she wanted to strangle and hug him at the same time. 

“Sugu-! I mean, who are you?” She regained her composure while quickly picking up a scalpel she had in one of her doctor coat’s pockets. She aimed it at him, as if a doctor could be able to beat a special grade sorcerer to death with just a simple scalpel. Suguru very much believed he would’ve let her hit him if she felt the need to. 

“W-wait Sho, it’s me!” He still tried to reassure her, he didn’t want her to get scared or traumatized or worse. She didn’t back down a single centimeter. 

“Don’t you dare calling me that, Kenjaku! I know it’s you, you won’t take me so easily like you did with Satoru!” She yelled. He remained silent. Who was this Kenjaku? And why did she believe he was that person? Were they so similar? And most of all, what did Kenjaku do to Satoru? What happened to Satoru? What happened? Suguru was starting to worry, and Shoko seemed to analyze his face. She was a doctor, of course she could read people better than anyone else. 

She finally lowered down the scalpel a bit. But still remained focused on him and every single move he did. 

“Fine. I’ll ask you three questions that only the real Suguru knows the answers to.” She decided. Suguru was caught a bit off guard. What if he failed the test? Would Shoko kill him with the scalpel herself? Well, maybe he kind of deserved it. Or at least, Kenjaku did, if Shoko was so reluctant to believe he wasn’t actually that guy. 

“Sure, go ahead.” He said calmly. He would’ve answered anything, because he needed to earn her trust. He didn’t really know if that was a guaranteed way to earn it, but he still needed to try. By earning her trust, maybe he could’ve asked her about his daughters and Satoru. 

She immediately spoke, trying to catch him off guard: “How tall am I?”. She looked at him, a challenging expression appeared on her face. Oh well, Suguru knew the answer to that, so he answered quickly too. 

“173 centimeters!” He exclaimed. Shoko nodded, carefully. Well, if that was the difficulty of the questions, Suguru was sure he would’ve passed the test in no time. But, he knew how Shoko was built. Of course after a simple one she would ask him one of the hardest questions a man has ever heard in his entire life, and he would’ve answered it, because only Suguru could answer Shoko's weird questions. 

“What words did Gojo Satoru tell you on the twenty-third of April 2006 at exactly 6:57 p.m.? And what were you guys doing?” She said in a dead serious tone of voice. She knew that the real Suguru wouldn’t miss that question even if she paid him a million dollars. Luckily, the real Suguru was in front of her, and he in fact knew the answer like the back of his hands. 

“Can you pass me the cig? I wanna try that too…” He imitated Satoru’s whiny voice. “And, if you want to know what we were doing, I was smoking on the balcony after a mission, and Satoru was eating sweets next to me.” He described the scene. Shoko swallowed hard as she heard that. Suguru said exactly what happened. Her hand trembled a bit. Suguru wanted to hug her, why the hell wasn’t she convinced yet? It would've been impossible for the Kenjaku guy to have known that. 

“Last question…” She muttered. He braced himself for it. “What did I tell you and Satoru in that moment, when you handed him the cig and he almost choked?” She was about to cry, Suguru knew that expression. 

“Stop it, you two lovebirds! You’re making me sick!” As he said that, Shoko dropped the scalpel on her desk and walked up to hug him tightly. Suguru returned the hug. He couldn’t believe she was really hugging him after doubting him so much. He couldn’t believe he was hugging his best friend again. 

“If you’re not the real Suguru, I’m killing you and then myself.” She threatened him from his shoulder, and he chuckled. She was surely the real Shoko though. 

“Don’t worry Sho… Someone actually revived me, somehow…” He reassured her. Maybe he could’ve asked her about that, she was a doctor, she must’ve known that technique for sure… right? He had priorities anyways, he needed to ask where his daughters and Satoru were. He wanted to see them again so much. Especially his twins. 

“Mhh… Can you tell me what happened while I was gone? And where are my daughters and Satoru?” He asked, carefully. Shoko slowly dissolved the embrace, looking kind of sad. She gazed up at him with pity, and Suguru didn’t understand the reason. 

“You… Really want to know?” She asked, unsure. That made Suguru even more curious. 

“Yes, of course. Shoko please, I need to know where my daughters are. When I tried calling them this morning, their phones were inaccessible. Do you know where they are?” He sounded desperate, but he didn’t care. Shoko knew what kind of guy he was, she would’ve understood him. 

She sat at the edge of her desk. “I’m deeply sorry, Suguru…” She muttered, crossing her arms. 

“What? What is it?” He asked, worry forming up in his chest. Why was she sorry? What happened to his daughters? Nothing bad, right? Nothing irreparable… Right? 

“They’re dead.” 

The words struck him in the heart, and they made it bleed. The world crumbled under his feet. His two lovely daughters… Nanako and Mimiko… They were dead. Liveless. They weren’t breathing anymore. He wasn’t a father anymore. He was frozen in place, looking at Shoko like she just told him he had a terminal illness. No, even worse. It would’ve been better if he was the one who died instead of his daughters. He couldn’t imagine a world where he was alive and breathing without them. There was no way. 

He shed some tears and Shoko passed him a tissue. At least she had another confirmation that he was the real Suguru Getou. 

“Who. Who did it?” He asked, he tried to control his emotions. But he was already planning on revenge. The killer of his two babies wouldn’t have gone far with him in sight. He was a special grade sorcerer after all. He would’ve been able to kill anyone. 

Shoko sighed as she was already lighting up another cigarette. Guess she didn’t drop smoking, after all. “Ryomen Sukuna, the king of curses himself.” She muttered. Suguru froze again. Well, he knew who Sukuna was, a self-proclaimed king of curses from the Heian Era, but honestly, he would’ve been ready to kill him with his own hands even if he was an individual of even higher ranking. And could someone explain to him why the fuck Sukuna Ryomen himself got revived? 

“Where is he? I want to kill him.” He declared, he didn’t care if he would’ve been facing that dude alone, maybe he could’ve gotten Satoru to help him just in case. 

“Unfortunately for your rage, he already got killed too.” Shoko said, exhaling some smoke. Suguru was left kind of disappointed. Eventually, Satoru completed the job before him. Of course he would, if there was someone who could face Sukuna, that someone was surely Satoru Gojo. He needed to thank him. And maybe talk out things a bit. Last time he saw him… Oh, Satoru… 

“Where is Satoru? I need to talk to him.” He said, innocently. Unaware. 

Shoko took a deep breath and swallowed. "Satoru is dead.” Suguru froze again. What did she just say? Satoru and the word ‘dead’ weren’t allowed to be used in a sentence together, if it didn’t mean that Satoru killed someone. Because it felt unreal, too unreal. Satoru has always been untouchable, how could anyone kill him prematurely? Suguru wanted to scream that she was lying and that that was all a dream, but it wouldn’t have been fair for Shoko to suffer his breakdowns too. 

Even then, Suguru couldn’t believe Satoru was dead. Satoru… He couldn’t imagine his lifeless body, he couldn’t imagine the spark being gone from those gorgeous azure eyes. He needed to know what the fuck happened. He needed to know who killed Satoru… His Satoru… 

“Shoko… Please. Tell me what happened.” he painfully asked. Tears were already starting to form at the corner of his eyes again. She sighed and told him to sit down. She handed him a  packet of tissues since he clearly needed them. 

She told him everything. From who Yuji Itadori was, to the Shibuya incident. She told him what Kenjaku did to seal Satoru in the cube, and Suguru has never felt so disgusted in his entire life. She told him how his daughters and how some members of his family got killed. She even described Nanami’s death. Then she told him about the culling games. What kind of sick ideas Kenjaku planned, to achieve the objective of overthrowing the country, and he did it all using Suguru’s body. She then told him about Megumi Fushiguro. He already knew that Satoru took care of him and his sister, but he hadn’t realized he was already grown enough to attend the institute. 

She told him that they used Satoru to get rid of Mahoraga and Agito to get to fight to the real form of Sukuna, she explained how the whole fight went, and how Okkotsu reused Satoru’s body again later. Suguru’s heart dropped multiple times. The world suffered all that pain, especially his two best friends and those poor innocent kids just because of Kenjaku, who was doing it all in Suguru’s body. 

“You see, the original plan was to send Satoru to kill Sukuna in an easy fight or something. But, knowing how dumb Satoru is, and the fact that he was fighting his own son… I didn’t hope too much about him winning it.” She extinguished her third cigarette on the ashtray. 

“That’s why we made all that bodyswap thing with Okkotsu, Satoru was really a wonderful weapon after all… Guess the higher-ups were right.” She shrugged, Suguru knew she was joking and that was only a terrible way to cope with your best friend’s cruel fate, but he couldn’t stand hearing her anymore. 

Ryomen Sukuna almost won, and it was all his fault. Indirectly, of course, but it was still his fault. It was his fault if in 2017 he chose to attack the institute and die, because he knew Satoru wouldn’t have killed him unless Suguru didn’t leave him any more options. And he also knew just how deeply Satoru loved him, because the boy told him that himself. And, since Satoru loved him so much, he hadn’t been able to cremate his body. So, it was Suguru’s fault. He should’ve been more careful. 

Suguru felt terrible. The world was finally the place he wanted it to be, because Shoko told him that sorcerers didn’t need to hide anymore. Sorcerers were finally free from being slaves of Jujutsu society. There weren’t any higher-ups anymore. The world had turned upside down. It had developed into the utopia Suguru had wished for at least a decade. But, now that everything had been resolved, Suguru couldn’t enjoy his dream because his daughters and Satoru died, and it was his own fault too.  

He saw no point in living in a perfect world if the only people he truly loved with his whole heart were dead. Of course, there was Shoko. And she was his best friend too. But the guilty feeling would’ve swallowed him whole one day, he was sure. Maybe it would’ve been better if he just ended it all now. 

He was sure he didn’t have anything to do with the new world. He would’ve only created issues, even if it was the scenario he had pursued for so long. The other sorcerers wouldn’t have accepted him for sure, knowing all the damage he caused. Maybe it would’ve been better if that Takaba guy didn’t revive him at all. 

He wanted to die. He knew that it wasn’t a good idea to set foot outside like that. He knew it would’ve been dumb and foolish to think he would’ve seen his daughters and Satoru in a somewhat of ‘afterlife’ after dying again, but he surely preferred uncertainty over the pure hate and the endless feeling of guilt he’s going to get if he stays alive for the rest of his life. 

“Can I… See his body?” He asked, obviously referring to Satoru’s body. He wanted to see him with his eyes. He wanted to see his lifeless corpse, even if it would’ve caused him to puke, or worse. Shoko looked at him in a conflicted way. As if she didn’t want to say that to him. 

“I’ve already cremated it, we couldn’t afford another Kenjaku, especially not in Gojo’s body…” She finally sighed. 

Suguru stilled for a bit. He should’ve seen that coming. Of course they had to cremate him immediately. There was no way they’d let a weapon like Gojo Satoru in the wild, free for anybody to steal and use. 

“Shoko, I’m sorry, I need a bit of time to process it all.” Yeah, maybe he just needed some time. Maybe he just needed to isolate from other people and analyze his thoughts until he became insane and killed himself with a knife. That could’ve seemed a bit cruel even for someone like him, but it was the fate he’d decided for himself. He surely wasn’t going to die surrounded by people, so he just accepted to die alone, again. Even if this time, not even Satoru would’ve been able to witness his death. 

He liked his first one, because Satoru was the one who killed him. He loved the first one, because his one and only had been able to end his life, it could’ve been portrayed as romantic, even. But Suguru didn’t care about the meaning, because if he had to die, he would’ve wanted only Satoru to kill him. Instead, dying of your own hand could be portrayed as loneliness. Suguru didn’t want to die alone, even if he felt like that for almost all of his life. He wanted to die by the hands of the person who made him feel alive again. But oh well, it would’ve been way too much to ask Shoko to kill him. 

Because she made him feel alive too. But asking a doctor to kill one of her patients… Asking your best friend to kill you… It didn’t seem like the right idea… When it had been Satoru to do it, it had already been decided by both of them, Satoru agreed to do it when they were younger. But with Shoko… Suguru knew that she didn’t want to kill him, and he couldn’t force her. 

“Fine, call me when you finally processed it.” She just said, resigned. She extinguished her fifth cigarette in the ashtray. Would he call her? Would he really call her to tell her he’s going to kill himself? 

“I’m leaving. Have a great week…” He was going to leave quickly, he didn’t want to be seen by one of Satoru’s students. Shoko stopped him before he could open the door.

“Wait!” At that, Suguru turned around.

“What is it?” He asked. 

“Let me…” She came closer to him and put her hands on his forehead. In no time, he felt that his skin wasn’t rotting anymore. Well, it was a nice feeling that he couldn’t actually explain, because he was sure he had been the first person to experience that. “Here you go, I cured those ugly scars on your forehead, now it’s as beautiful as it was a year and a half ago.” She smiled, passing him a little mirror. 

He looked at himself. Shoko healed the scar completely, now there was no trace of Kenjaku anymore. 

“Thank you… Shoko.” He looked at himself for another bit. He wasn’t Kenjaku anymore. 

–

A week passed, and Suguru was resigned to kill himself even more than he already was a week before. He couldn’t bear it anymore. There was nothing in his life to do now. He hadn’t got his two daughters to look after and he couldn’t even talk things with Satoru. 

He didn’t even need to exorcise curses for a living, so he was completely useless. What was the point in sitting still and doing nothing all day, knowing your family died and you weren’t there to help them because of your selfish dreams of a new world? Suguru felt egoistic, arrogant, and whatever derogatory adjective could pop into one’s mind. 

Finally, he decided to tell Shoko. If he was going to kill himself, Shoko had the right to know. 

He went to the institute for what seemed like the last time. Even though it was a sunny day in March, he didn’t care. He would’ve loved dying for the second time in December, but he couldn’t wait nearly a whole year. 

As expected, there was almost no one around the institute. Again. Except for the first years, again. They were in the training field. Suguru looked from the same spot of exactly a week ago. There was someone with them. She didn’t look old enough to be a teacher, maybe she was just a supervisor of a higher class. She was probably a substitute for Satoru in the period of time where they would’ve searched for another teacher.

Her body was full of scars, she had short black hair, she was holding a sword and looked very pissed at Itadori, maybe he got an exercise wrong. Suguru spent more time trying to understand who she was than he would’ve liked to admit before recognizing the girl. She was Maki Zen’in, the same girl he called ‘useless monkey’ just a year and a half ago. She looked like she lived through so much… Shoko told him that she terminated the entire Zen’in clan, so he held respect for her now, the Zen’ins only made society worse when they were still alive and held power over the Jujutsu world. 

Next to her, there were Fushiguro and Kugisaki, Itadori’s classmates. He just now realized how much those kids suffered, and the insane part was that they were training like nothing had happened in the first place. 

When he entered Shoko’s office, she greeted him and they talked for a bit, then he said he wanted to kill himself. She was of course left speechless at the sudden declaration, as if Suguru had gone insane overnight. 

“Why…?” She asked him, as if she didn’t exactly know the reason. 

“Shoko, I am useless. I caused a lot of problems to this world and I can’t bear to live knowing my daughters have died. And that part of it was my fault too.” He explained quickly. He wanted to end it all quickly. He didn’t want Shoko to look at him like that. He didn’t want her to look at him just how Satoru did all those years ago, but she was clearly exasperated. 

“No… Please Suguru… Stay…” She pleaded him, and just that could’ve convinced him to stay, but he needed a more practical reason. 

“Tell me, why should I?” He asked, he didn’t actually think Shoko would’ve found him a real reason.  

“Satoru’s students.” She answered. She almost smiled as Suguru gave her a puzzled expression. Why would he need to stay for Satoru’s students when he was one of the causes of their pain and sorrow in the first place? She backed off a little. 

“You should stay alive to complete Satoru’s dream. Suguru, I know it’s really hard for you because you lost your daughters… But Satoru’s students lost their teacher and their guide into the world…” She explained. 

“Are you… Telling me to become a teacher to help Satoru’s kids?” He asked, carefully. It broke his heart to think of him becoming what Satoru couldn’t be anymore, and he was really sure his students wouldn’t have loved him as much as they did with Satoru. It was a matter of fact. 

“Exactly! Suguru, you’d be the perfect option at the moment. We lack of staff.” She confirmed, happily. He looked at her, she had obvious other reasons to have proposed that to him. 

“Shoko… I’m not sure if I can…” He muttered, and she sighed. 

“Suguru, please… I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but picture a world where you’re teaching kids how to fight or how to live through it all. It was… It was Satoru’s dream… To do it together with you…” She lowered her voice. 

Suguru of course couldn’t resist Shoko's pleading voice. And… It was Satoru’s dream… He loved Satoru too much to leave his kids alone like that, so maybe… Maybe he could’ve tried. 

He sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it. But if they try to kill me, it’s your fault.” He crossed his arms as Shoko hugged him. He had nothing to lose, after all. 

–

The next day, Shoko convocated the second years in a classroom to show them their new teacher. Suguru could hear the reluctant talks Maki was doing from outside of the classroom. Okkotsu, on the other hand, was very positive. Inumaki didn’t speak much and Panda was neutral. 

“They’ll love you.” Shoko told him as a joke before placing herself in front of the door. 

“I hope they’ll let me speak before attacking.” He muttered, adjusting the uniform jacket. 

“Of course! They’re Satoru’s students, it might seem surprising but they have manners.” She chuckled. Suguru was scared of the trauma he gave those poor kids in 2017. He prepared a shield curse just in case. He was sure Maki would’ve loved to chop off his head now that she was able to actually face him on par. 

“Now, you stay here. I’ll tell you to enter after I make the announcement.” Suguru swallowed but still raised his thumbs. She smiled at him before entering the classroom.

He could hear her speech. It was about being nice and stuff like that. And she underlined at least three times to not attack him. He heard Okkotsu ask why would they attack him, and Suguru was already sweating. Hearing those words from Okkotsu, the one who swore to kill him in 2017 was surely a new experience. Then Shoko told him to come in, and he almost got his head chopped off. 

Luckily, he prepared that shield curse, because Okkotsu had already thrown his blade. 

“How are you still alive?!” The boy screamed in a pitched voice, already on his way to kill Suguru once and for all. Before he could get his sword back, Maki stopped him. 

“Wait. That isn’t Kenjaku.” She told him, and he froze, looking at Suguru better. 

“Well… Uhm, in fact he is Suguru Getou.” Shoko awkwardly told them, and the students all turned their heads towards her. 

“Ahah… Sorry…” She lit up a cigarette. Okkotsu looked even more furious. “Wait! Before you kill him, give him a chance!” Shoko ordered him. He stopped, but he looked like he was ready to kill Suguru at any moment if needed to. 

“Ugh. As much as I hate to admit it, Doctor Ieiri is right, Yuta. Let him talk.” Maki conceded. Suguru didn’t actually think she would’ve spared him for the moment. Especially not from her. 

“Salmon salmon.” Inumaki said. and Panda followed him:

“Inumaki’s right, he doesn’t look like a threat.” 

Suguru swallowed the piled up bile and reminded himself that he was doing this for Satoru. For his Satoru. He was doing it for Satoru and Shoko.

He unstabbed the shield curse from Okkotsu’s blade and calmly walked up to the boy to give it back. Okkotsu reluctantly took it. Then Suguru walked back next to Shoko. 

“I’m Suguru Getou, as you may or may not remember… I’m here because Shoko asked me to be your new teacher.” He presented himself in the calmest way he could’ve. “I don’t want to force you guys into anything. You can just use me if you need some advice against curses or fighting in general.” He continued. “I will supervise your training from now on, I hope we’ll get along just fine.” He concluded, smiling awkwardly. 

The second years looked at him kind of conflicted. Okkotsu still seemed to think the right option was killing him, Maki was between that and not giving a shit, Inumaki didn’t give a shit, Panda too. 

“So? Any thoughts or comments?” Shoko invited them to share their opinions. Suguru wasn’t really sure if he wanted to hear them. 

Okkotsu finally gave up and put his sword back in the folder. 

“I’m letting you live for now. But, you still need to earn my trust. Two years ago, you hurt my friends and Gojo-sensei.” Of course, Okkotsu was people’s number one defender. Of course, Okkotsu would remember his crimes for his entire life, but Suguru didn’t care. As long as he accepted him as some kind of teacher, it was enough. 

“But. If you even dare to lay a finger on one of my friends again…” He started to threaten, and Shoko stopped him. 

“Yuta, we get it.” She crossed her arms. 

“Sorry, Ieiri-san.” He apologized. 

Maki seemed to think about it for a bit, analyzing Suguru from head to toe. Then she finally decided to speak her mind. 

“If you’re being honest with your proposal, then it’s nice to have the advice of an older sorcerer, especially a special grade. But I’m not very convinced either. And I’m very sure I’d be able to chop off that head of yours.” She very kindly said in front of his face, Shoko didn’t stop her though, maybe she found the situation endearing. 

Inumaki and Panda just made two incomprehensible (to Suguru) comments, but he was pretty sure those were threats too. 

When the meeting finally ended, the students left the classroom, leaving Suguru and Shoko alone. 

“Come on! They already love you!” She exclaimed, lighting up her second cigarette. Maybe he didn’t understand how the word ‘love’ worked for Shoko, but somehow, she was right. They hadn’t killed him after all. It was already something. 

“Uh… Okkotsu didn’t drop his guard even once while I was in the room.” He commented, adjusting his uniform jacket. 

Shoko chuckled. “Can you blame him? You almost killed his friends and stole his curse the last time you saw him…” She exhaled some smoke from her mouth. Suguru couldn’t blame him at all, and he wouldn’t have. If he was still alive it was Satoru’s fault. Yuta and Maki probably spared him because they realized they had their teacher’s real best friend in front of them. And, since they thought Suguru died, as a favor for Satoru, they kept him alive. Satoru’s students really loved their old teacher a lot, Suguru had to admit. It was still crazy to think about it, because he still remembers a sixteen year old teen that swore to never babysit ever again. Insane was the fact that he ended up being the best teacher that institute has ever seen and will probably ever see. 

Well, life was just like that after all. 

–

Before he could’ve realized, he was getting presented to the first years. 

“And he will be your new teacher, any questions?” Shoko asked, after ending her ‘incredible’ speech. Now that Suguru had a closer look at the first years, he noticed just how much the fight and Sukuna affected them. Especially Itadori and Fushiguro. Their faces were ruined by those scars. Not to mention Kugisaki, who almost died in Shibuya. 

Yuji was the only one really interested in what was going on. Megumi looked a bit confused, but over all he was depressed, Nobara on the other hand, looked disgusted. He really didn’t know why. 

Yuji raised his hand, and Shoko invited him to speak. 

“Miss Ieiri, correct me if I’m wrong but… He’s the person who got possessed by Kenjaku, right? Just like my mother… So he’s the real Suguru Getou?” He asked, mumbling. 

“You’re right Yuji, he’s the real Suguru Getou.” She responded. 

“But wasn’t he already an enemy to Jujutsu high even before getting possessed by Kenjaku?” Yuji continued, innocently. Shoko and Suguru were left a bit embarrassed by the question, Yuji didn’t look like a threat by asking so gently, but he could’ve put up a fight with Suguru just as much as Maki or Yuta could’ve. If not even better. 

“In a way… Yes, he was. But now he’s offering his help to you guys, so just accept it if you want. If you don’t, you can also ignore him. He’s pretty boring at times, so I guess that the second is the best option.” She joked.   

“Well, thank you Shoko…” Suguru sighed. 

Yuji raised his hand again, and Shoko told him to speak. 

“What’s your cursed technique?” Yuji asks. Was he taking notes? Suguru didn’t want to be studied. What the hell. Before he could reply to Itadori’s question, Megumi did. 

“He eats curses, just like you, Yuji. It’s just a slight difference. He’s not a vessel, he can take control of the curses he swallows just like a tamer and their tamed animals.” He explained calmly, Yuji took notes, while Shoko and Suguru stared at him, confused. 

“How… How did you know all this?” Suguru asked, he was speechless. He couldn’t figure out how… 

“Yeah Megumi, stop being a nonchalant stalker already!” Nobara laughed. Megumi sighed and looked at the ceiling in search of divine help. 

“Ugh, it’s not like that, I haven’t stalked anyone. It’s just… I heard Gojo yap about him for almost ten years, I know pretty much everything about him… Even things I’m not really sure he would want me to know…” Megumi awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. Well, that was kind of embarrassing for sure. Even though he was almost happy that Satoru continued to talk about him to his kids… It meant just how much he missed him. 

Kugisaki raised her hand and Shoko told her to speak. 

“Where did you buy those shoes, Getou-sensei? Just so I can avoid the shop…” She asked, already taking notes on her phone. Suguru must’ve seen it coming. Nobara had been staring at him with a disgusted expression for the whole meeting, of course she found some kind of ‘ick’ in his style. Shoko suffocated a laugh. 

When the meeting ended, Suguru had the feeling the first years liked him more than the second years did. Well, the second years had a very valid reason to dislike him, after all. 

–

Some time later, in an empty classroom. Suguru was wondering just how much he would’ve held on doing that job. He was doing it for his two best friends, and he cared about them even more than he cared for himself. He sighed. Well, he would’ve held on until the newer generation was completely capable of facing the new world. Then, maybe Shoko would’ve let him kill himself. 

He thought about how nice it had been to see Utahime and Mei Mei again. They were still a bit doubtful, but Shoko’s happiness convinced Utahime and some money convinced Mei Mei. He also had the chance to get to know Ijichi better. He had been a first year student when Satoru and Shoko were in their third year, and they never got to meet properly because Suguru left in the second year. Suguru learned that Satoru held a lot of respect towards Ijichi for some reason, he didn’t really understand why, though. Ijichi looked exactly like a guy Satoru would’ve despised. 

Just as he was about to start preparing for the next lesson, someone knocked at the classroom’s door. 

He told them to come in, and Yuji slowly and carefully opened the door. 

“Uhm… Getou-sensei, can I ask you some questions?” He asked, stopping on the threshold of the door. Suguru turned around and greeted him with a smile. 

“Of course you can, Itadori. You can ask me anything, I’m here to help, am I not?” He invited him to sit down, and Yuji walked over to his bench, sitting on it. 

“Well, in reality… I came here to apologize.” The kid looked down at the pavement. Suguru looked a bit confused. What did Yuji do? Did he get in trouble? Suguru was sure he couldn’t have done anything so bad that he needed to apologize to his teacher. 

“Mh? Why so?” He asked, crossing his arms and leaning on the teaching post. Yuji started scratching the skin of his fingers, a clear sign of nervousness about something. 

“Yuji, are you feeling okay?” He asked, more concerned now. The kid quickly nodded. 

“Yes… I… I just recently discovered that in Shibuya… Nanako and Mimiko Hasaba had gotten killed.” He started. “And, since the killer in question was Sukuna, then I am responsible too. So I want to apologize about the fact that I contributed to killing your daughters.” He blurted out, at last. Suguru looked surprised by the sudden confession. He wasn’t angry, neither disgusted, just sad. 

“Yuji, it’s not your fault at all. You weren’t in control of your body at that moment. I understand that you feel guilty, but, realistically speaking, you couldn’t have done anything to save them.” Suguru calmly told him. He never expected Yuji to feel so guilty about the death of people he didn’t even know. Yes, Suguru knew Itadori was kind-hearted, but to be tormented to this level? He would’ve never guessed.

“You’re probably right, but I still feel guilty… All the problems Sukuna created are basically my fault for eating that damn finger back then, and being so selfish to decide to stay alive for a bit more.” He confessed, and Suguru was left speechless. Yuji already trusted him enough to tell him his struggles? 

“Yuji, you aren’t selfish or egoistic for choosing to continue to live. Anyone would’ve picked that option. And it’s not your fault. It’s Sukuna’s. And maybe a bit of Gojo's. But it’s not yours. You did everything and more anyone could’ve expected from you. I appreciate your worry though, but don’t fuss about it too much.” He told him, gently putting a hand on his right shoulder. 

Itadori nodded, more or less convinced. 

“Thank you, Getou-sensei.” As Yuji said that, something lifted up from Suguru’s shoulders. Yuji smiled again.

“Getou-sensei, I also wanted to ask you what you thought about curses’ taste…” He carefully asked, afraid to get a different answer from what he’d expected. Suguru chuckled.

“They taste disgusting. Like vomit and shit.” He answered, poor Yuji had to eat Sukuna’s rotten fingers. Honestly, he wondered how they tasted like, they were probably the worst. He was ‘lucky’ he had to eat only nineteen of them though. Obviously, he wouldn’t have wished for anyone to taste one of Sukuna’s ugly fingers. 

“Exactly!” Yuji’s eyes lit up again. “I thought I was the only one who could’ve understood how bad they tasted…” He chuckled. 

“No worries, you’re not alone, Yuji.” He responded. Suguru felt the duty to look after Itadori, the poor boy had been cursed with his own awful ability. Suguru really wouldn’t even have wished for his worst enemy to taste a curse. It was a fate way too cruel for anyone. 

They talked about that for a bit. Yuji was the very first student that got really confident with Suguru. That made him happy. Maybe he could’ve continued for a bit more. Encountering students like that wasn’t something that happened everyday. If Suguru had to be completely honest, he kind of saw himself in Itadori. And he really didn’t want Yuji to even come close to thinking of what he thought when he was a teenager, so he would’ve done anything in his power to protect him from rotting away.  

–

During the passing days, Suguru spent more time teaching the first years than he did with the second years, after all, they were already really strong, both in mind and body. Suguru loved training the first years, Yuji and Nobara were always so energetic. They would’ve lit up a candle even without a lighter by just how joyful they were. 

Yuji at the time was still focusing on cursed energy control, while Nobara worked on improving her technique. Suguru helped them in all the ways he could’ve, by going on missions with them, tutoring, teaching. And it was working, both the girl and the boy were getting better. That of course made him happy. Maybe he was really fit for teaching to the newer generations. 

The only thing that worried him a bit was Fushiguro. He had already mastered his technique in a lot of ways, the only thing he needed to complete was his domain, and Suguru couldn’t be of any help with that, because he didn’t have one. In fact, he couldn’t help Megumi in any way, because Shikigami users were really different from Curse users. Especially Megumi, who could summon the Ten Shadows. 

One could think that they were similar, both of them worked with “animals”, but those were just the appearances. And training wasn’t the only thing Suguru was worried about. Megumi had suffered a lot. He saw his sister and his father die because of his own hands when he had been possessed by Sukuna. And as much as Fushiguro could deny it, Suguru was sure of how cruel Sukuna could be, maybe during the fights he switched to Megumi’s body for a couple of milliseconds to make him realize who he just killed. 

That would’ve been very traumatizing, and, if it had actually happened, Suguru wouldn’t have known what to say to Megumi. Because the poor kid one day was almost saving his sister and his father, and the other was making a speech at their funeral. Death really came quicker than anything else when it concerned your loved ones. Suguru could feel how Megumi must’ve felt. He lost half of his family too. The only difference was that Megumi was only sixteen years old, and now he was completely alone, he had only Yuji and Nobara left. 

Suguru really didn’t want him to feel lonely, because if he ever needed someone to talk to, there were a lot of people available to listen to him, and Suguru was one of them. But Megumi… He was different. He just looked so sad at times. Like he had accepted his father and sister’s death a long time ago, even if Suguru had the feeling that he would’ve started crying if someone pronounced their full names. But maybe he had always been like that.

Suguru still felt kind of impotent. He wasn’t the right teacher for Megumi, Satoru was. Satoru always spurred him to reach his full potential, saying that he one day would’ve had the ability to even surpass him. And now that Megumi, in a way, “surpassed” his father, who would’ve kept him working hard? Suguru wouldn’t have defined Megumi as a lazy person. On the contrary, he was very hard working. But he lost the reason to do it all. He didn’t need to get even stronger than he already was, because in his entire life, maybe he would not encounter another curse so strong to require him to use his completed domain. 

Still, Suguru continued to support Megumi in the best way he could. The boy always told him that there was no need to cheer on him. One day he would’ve completed his domain and he would’ve reached his full potential. It wasn’t a matter of “if”, it was a matter of “when”. And Megumi was willing to wait more time. Suguru couldn’t blame him, after all, there was no need to rush anymore. 

Satoru would’ve called them both “pussies”. Yeah, he definitely would’ve. 

Suguru was signing some papers in his office, when he heard someone knocking at the door. That afternoon, he and Itadori needed to discuss a mission, but the appointment was set for almost an hour later. Well, Suguru didn’t mind meeting a bit before, he always liked explaining things. 

“Come in, I didn’t expect you to be so early, Itado-” Megumi opened the office door. It was the first time Megumi went to Suguru’s office without getting called specifically by the teacher. 

“Sorry to interrupt, if you have to talk to Itadori, I’ll leave.” He said, politely. Megumi was always extra polite, even with people he knew since when he was a literal child, for example, with Shoko. He was nothing like the person who raised him, Suguru wondered how. 

“No no Fushiguro, you can stay here how much time you want. Do you need help with something?” He reassured him and asked about the reason he came to his office. 

“In fact… no. I just needed to talk to someone. In particular, you.” He said, scratching the back of his neck. That catched Suguru’s attention. Megumi needed to talk to him? That was the first time he asked him something. 

“Of course, sit down.” He invited him to take one of the two seats in front of his desk. 

“Do you want a drink? Cola? Sprite?” He offered him. Maybe Satoru spoiled him with unhealthy drinks when he was a child. Suguru found out from Shoko that he could keep a mini-fridge in his office. She obviously used it for her beers, but, he always kept some drinks in case his students needed some energy while talking about missions. The second years always refused (Only Maki and Yuta, really. Inumaki and Panda loved them), but the first years seemed to enjoy them. 

Megumi sat on the chair, but gently shook his head. “Maybe… some water?” He asked, unsure. Suguru nodded and passed him a 0.5 liters bottle of water. Megumi took the little bottle and thanked him. 

“So, what did you wanna talk about?” Suguru enrolled him in the discussion. 

Megumi took a moment to actually start talking. “I… I want to know more about Satoru.” He finally stated, and Suguru understood. Megumi wanted to know more about his dad when he was still a simple student like him. After all, Suguru was the perfect person to ask about that, he was one of Satoru’s best friends… And… Maybe something more. Yeah, definitely something more. Megumi knew it. You could see it in his eyes. He knew Satoru loved Suguru. He wanted to know what kind of guy his father has been obsessed with for his whole life. And also… What kind of guy his father was. 

“You really want to know that? I thought he made sure you’d be full of him and his antics by the moment he was gone…” He joked, and Megumi cracked a smile. 

“Yes, in exchange, I can tell you what kind of guy he was in his twenties.” He proposed, and Suguru immediately accepted. He wouldn’t have missed the opportunity of talking about that idiot with Megumi for anything in the world. It was the least they both could do… To keep Satoru alive. Even if he was only in their words. 

When Megumi smiled, he looked a lot like Satoru. They were crazily similar, even if Suguru knew Satoru wasn’t his biological parent. Sometimes, they really looked alike. And Suguru was really fine with it. Megumi wasn’t similar to Satoru only when he was happy, but when he isolated himself too. Because Suguru, as much as he remembered a happy Satoru, most of the times he saw an overworked teenage boy forced into a reality he didn’t want to be in, so he just ended up isolating himself. 

What a terrible society they grew up in. Obviously Suguru made sure that Megumi didn’t ever feel alone. It was his duty just as much it was to keep Itadori safe. 

–

“Ugh, that curse was so annoying.” Nobara whined, quickly cleaning her uniform skirt from the dirt. “And the fact that you made me deal with it all alone while watching with that silly smile of yours is even MORE annoying!” She screamed at a very calm Suguru who was walking behind her. 

Suguru chuckled. He liked how missions worked in the new society. Students below grade 1 were forced to have a teacher as a backup. Now the risk of dying had gone a lot lower than how it was back then, and he loved it. Nobara was a great sorcerer too, she hadn’t gotten in any real danger even once, because if she did, he would’ve intervened. 

“Don’t worry, Kugisaki. The hard-work will show results, one day.” He said, solemnly. 

“Tch, I think you’re even worse than Gojo-sensei was with this training stuff.” She muttered, calming down a bit. “Ugh, I’m so hungry… Unfortunately I don’t know this part of Tokyo well enough to name a good place to eat something.” She huffs. 

Suguru looked around. Near there there was the same crepes shop Nanako and Mimiko always loved going to. Or at least, two years ago there was, maybe they’d already closed it. He turned on his phone and quickly searched. Surprisingly, it was still open. 

“Getou-sensei, why did you suddenly stop?” Nobara asked, tiredly. She looked back at him. 

He raised his chin. “There is a crepes shop nearby, do you like crepes?” He proposed. 

“Crepes?! Where?” Her expression immediately lit up. 

Suguru smiled and showed her the location on his phone. “Just around the corner… Nanako and Mimiko used to love that place…” He let the memory slip past his lips. She looked at him, kind of puzzled. She was probably trying to remember who those girls were, and Suguru found it funny, because she reminded him a lot of Nanako when she tried to remember an individual they met only once. In this case though, she only heard of them, so it was fine if she couldn’t recall. 

Nobara sighed, probably giving up. 

“Well, I think we should buy some crepes to honor them.” She proposed, crossing her arms happily. Suguru agreed. After all, he would’ve liked to taste those crepes again after so long. Maybe if the cashier hadn’t changed, he could’ve gotten recognized. He really used to bring Nanako and Mimiko there every week. 

When they sat at the table, Suguru brought out his notebook and signed Nobara’s improvements. The girl was happily munching on her crepe. 

Now that he got to have a closer look at the girl’s technique, he found a vague similarity to Mimiko’s. They both worked with dolls in some way, even if Nobara looked 10 times more aggressive with the nails and the hammer. Guess it was just a feature of Satoru’s students.

Suguru realized just how strong those kids were. No wonder their teacher was Satoru Gojo himself. He sighed to himself. He was starting to like those children, even if he promised to himself that he would’ve left them the moment they would’ve learned everything a sorcerer needed to know. 

Even then, Suguru had the feeling they knew it all already. They had already faced the most dangerous thing they’ll ever get to meet in their life, and they somehow all escaped alive. Suguru held a lot of respect for them. 

–

Some time later, on a nice afternoon in the early April spring, Suguru had just finished another section of training with the second years. They were already capable of fighting, but they still needed to keep doing to not unlearn it. Other than that, Maki and Yuta’s form of wielding a weapon wasn’t exactly precise, especially Yuta’s. It was probably Satoru’s fault, since he had never held a weapon in his entire life. 

Suguru wasn’t a master in that either, of course, but he remembered how to use a weapon decently, and he could tell that Yuta was freestyling most of it. Other than that, Inumaki still needed to improve his technique (Same as Nobara), and Panda… Well… Uh. He was emotional support. 

“Alright guys, you all did so well!” Suguru smiled and clapped his hands softly to put an end to the lesson. They were in the training field, and it was already starting to get late. 

“Of course we did.” Maki muttered. “Thank you… Getou-sensei… I guess.” She crossed her arms, looking away.

“Yes… I have to admit it, your advice is so helpful, Getou-sensei! You might be better than Gojo-sensei at teaching…” He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, smiling. “I still hate you, though.” He remembered him. Suguru chuckled. 

“Salmon salmon.” Inumaki said. 

“Aww… You guys flatter me…” Suguru says in a soft voice, then he picks up his notebook again and checks the last things for that day, when suddenly Shoko came to pick up Yuta. She did it other times, Suguru noticed a pattern of two times a week. He never asked the kid about it because he was scared it would’ve meant sentencing himself to death, and Shoko wouldn’t have given him a clear answer anyways. 

“Alright guys, see you later!” Yuta waved at the friend group quickly, before following Shoko away. Maki, Inumaki and Panda didn’t seem bothered or surprised by that, they were probably used to it. Suguru though, couldn’t take the question off of his mind. Yuta never got hurt during training or during missions, and he was one of the only sorcerers who could use RCT without needing external support. So, why would he need to go to Shoko weekly? 

Suguru decided to ask the other students for more, maybe they had some information. 

“Maki, Inumaki and Panda… Sorry to interrupt…” He gained their attention. “Sorry for my curiosity either, but… I was wondering if you guys knew why Okkotsu sometimes goes with Shoko after training.” He asked, closing his notebook. Maki looked at him indifferently. 

“He told us that it’s a weekly check up. Probably related to the rehabilitation after the fight with Sukuna.” She explained. That made sense, Yuta had to do a lot against Sukuna. 

“Tuna mayo.” Inumaki continued. And maybe Suguru still hadn’t spent enough time with the boy, but he really couldn’t understand a single word of what he was saying. Panda and Maki, on the other hand, nodded their heads in agreement. Panda, noticing the visible confusion on Suguru’s face, decided to translate. 

“It’s nothing too important, or at least, nothing to worry about.” He calmly repeated. 

Suguru nodded. “Do you think they would mind if I followed them?” He asked, carefully. Maki shrugged, still unfazed. 

“I don’t think they’d get angry. They’re both very chill people, as long as you don’t put up a fight with them.” She responded. 

“Okay, thanks a lot for the info, have a great evening.” He politely took his leave and started following them. 

“Bonito flakes!” Inumaki happily said. “You too, sensei!” Panda kindly translated. 

Suguru carefully hid in Yuta’s cursed energy. The kid possessed so much cursed energy that Suguru sometimes was scared even humans could see it. After all, Yuta was second only to Gojo himself in that factor (Well, now he was first…). It was a great hiding spot, and it caused Shoko and Okkotsu to not get suspicious about anything. 

Shoko and Yuta didn’t go to the infirmary though, they continued to walk past the institute, in the woods surrounding the building and the outskirts of Tokyo. It was already getting darker, and Suguru almost couldn’t see them anymore. Where the hell were they headed to? The mud felt too loud under his feet, but he still did a good job. He used to hide in forests in the past too, and he did it all in the monk outfit. Ah… The good old days. 

Still, Suguru was a twenty-nine year old man now, and age was really catching up to him, maybe he should’ve stopped stalking people at some point in his life. Even if it was a very recreational activity, because it kept your whole body focused and it was perfect for training. That gave him an idea for the next lesson with the first years. He would’ve challenged them to stalk him on a trip to Tokyo and he would’ve determined who the best stalker was based on different aspects. Oh yeah, he was so good at teaching. 

Then, Shoko and Yuta suddenly stopped. Suguru almost tripped over, but he quickly hid behind a tree. He heard them mutter something. He was too distant to actually comprehend their words. Well, he was sure he would’ve heard them clearly if he was still in his seventeens. Unluckily, he wasn’t. He continued to look for almost a minute, they were discussing something, then Shoko told him to “Shut up and go inside”? Suguru might’ve heard wrong, because… Inside were? They were literally standing in the middle of a forest at 7 p.m. 

Yuta lowered himself in the ground and Shoko followed him. Suguru didn’t lose time and quickly went to check where they disappeared. Surprisingly, he found a hole in the mud. It wasn’t very deep, Suguru could see the end of it, and there was a ladder too. He didn’t want to go underground, but he had to understand why there was a bunker in the middle of nowhere and why Shoko and Yuta just entered it. 

He took a deep breath and slid down the ladder. When he touched the ground he made no sound. He was trained to be as quiet as possible. He left the ladder and found himself in front of two very disappointed looking people. 

“Oh! Uhm… Hi Shoko… Hi Yuta… I just… Happened to pass by and uhm… I fell into this hole and… ahah…” He awkwardly tried to explain. Shoko and Yuta didn’t look angry though, they were just tiredly staring at him. 

“I thought you were better at stalking, sensei… Why do you think I let my cursed energy spread like that? Did you really believe I wasn’t doing it on purpose?” Yuta asked, crossing his arms. Now that he pointed it out, Suguru felt kind of dumb. Yuta gave him the perfect hiding spot to bring him there. And he fell into his trap like a poor, defenseless bunny, he felt so stupid. 

“Caught you in 4k, mr. Suguru Getou.” Shoko smiled. From his perspective, she liked making fun of people too much. He really hated it when he did something so dumb that even his mind asked itself why he thought it would’ve been a good idea in the first place. 

“You… You wanted me to follow you!” He replied, crossing his arms and looking away. 

She sighed. Finally regaining some seriousness. Yuta looked a bit concerned too. The boy always had that nervous expression. 

“We need you… To see something…” She said, in the calmest tone she could’ve brought out. 

Suguru was getting a bit scared, but he still followed them as they turned around and started walking through the grey tunnels. They surpassed a bunch of locked doors. 

“Mhh… What do you keep in there?” Suguru asked, kind of scared. Maybe he didn’t want to know what was really in there. Yuta turned his head slightly. 

“We kill sorcerers, and we’re about to kill you.” He said, coldly. Suguru suddenly stopped. 

“What?” He couldn’t believe what he just heard. Was it all a nightmare all along? Or was he seriously going to get killed? His heart rate spiked up, he really shouldn’t have followed them, he knew it. His skin rapidly lost color, he couldn’t believe that after all that time, Shoko would’ve betrayed him like this, he couldn’t believe those nice people were actually serial killers. Who knows how many victims they already ruined the lives of. Well, too late anyways, at least he could’ve seen his daughters aga-

“Sike!” Yuta happily declared, as Suguru regained color again. “Those are just fake rooms to deviate the unwelcomed guests.” He shrugged. Fuck. Suguru really got scared for a minute. 

That made him realize… He didn’t want to die.

Before he could process the thought more, they finally arrived at the room they needed. On the outside, it looked the same as the others. Suguru, from behind Yuta and Shoko, could read the number on the target: room 572. He didn’t understand what special meaning there was behind it, and he surely wouldn’t have asked Shoko, who was now putting the password in the locker. 

“Is this thing anti-cursed energy or something?” Suguru asked. Yuta was about to explain, but Shoko preceded him. 

“It’s a binding vow we made. Only me and Yuta can open this door.” She chuckled. What a creative way to use binding vows… Suguru thought. They entered a dark room, Shoko closed the door behind. If Suguru had to tell approximately the dimensions of it, he would’ve guessed it was the same as one of the dorms at Jujutsu high, maybe there was a side room for a bathroom though. He felt something really powerful in front of them, and he was about to start fighting, when he recognized it. 

He recognized it even before Yuta turned on the lights. 

There was a person in front of them. He was sleeping peacefully on a hospital bed, attached to a few machines. He had an oxygen mask on his face. Suguru didn’t even need to come closer to him to recognize every detail. He knew that face by memory. And he… He never saw that person on a hospital bed. 

His throat went dry. He could see Yuta in the corner of his eye, who opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t. Suguru was frozen in place, but at the same time, he wanted to run and kneel next to that hospital bed and cry and scream and puke. He wanted to hold Satoru in his arms, he wanted to hug him, to squeeze him. Just like they did when they were younger. He missed Satoru so much and he fully understood it only in that moment. 

He slowly walked up to the bed and stood at Satoru's left side. Suguru really almost vomited on the ground when he saw his pale face. Satoru looked like a dead corpse. He was so pale you could almost confound his skin with the bed sheets. Other than that, he had some scars on his arms and neck. Suguru had never seen a single scar on his soft body. It made him question what on heart could’ve bypassed infinity. Satoru’s white hair was just a centimeter longer, it fell on the pillow softly. He wanted to caress the boy’s head, stroke his hair, like he used to. His face looked a bit skinnier, nothing much though, he was sure Shoko and Yuta had been taking good care of him. 

He noticed Satoru was breathing. The display next to the bed signaled a bit of heart movement, but it was really, really, really low. He stared at Satoru for much more than he intended to. 

“Getou-sensei, I brought you a chair.” Yuta said from behind him, and the sound broke his trance. He almost flinched out of fear, but then he realized it was just Okkotsu trying to be nice. 

He looked at his student, a bit lost, then he regained his composure. “Yes. Thank you, Okkotsu.” Yuta smiled at him, but his expression was sad. Suguru knew perfectly what that was, and it was the worst thing he could see on someone’s face: pity. Because Yuta somehow lost all his rage he held for Suguru when he saw his face. And Suguru didn’t even know what to say. What did they even expect him to say when they decided to show him the person he loved the most reduced in that state? What were they thinking about when they had that idea? 

The only person he was sure that couldn’t get hurt in not even a million years was now in some kind of coma, hardly breathing, held together by some machines. And Suguru wasn’t able to say anything. The words died in his mouth one by one. He would’ve liked to ask Shoko at least a million questions, but where should’ve he even started? 

As he was staring into the void, Shoko came to the other side of the bed to check Satoru’s information on the monitors. She looked calm, as if that was a weekly routine. After a bit, she wrote something in her notebook. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked. Shoko turned her head a bit to look at him. She gave him an expression that told it all: “Isn’t that obvious?”. But she still answered his question with words. 

“You were in a terrible state, I couldn’t just tell you that somehow Satoru was still ‘alive’.” She responded, unfazed. Because she was right. He would’ve gone insane if he discovered Satoru in that state immediately after being resurrected. He would’ve killed himself. 

Silence followed. Yuta was standing behind him like a plastic toy soldier. Shoko checked some other things. All that, while Suguru was still staring at Satoru. 

“What are his conditions at the moment?” Suguru asked, afraid of what she might say. 

Shoko sighed, a bad start. “You could say he’s in a coma, to make it easier. But it’s harder than that. His heart is beating, he can breathe, he can eat. But his brain is completely gone. Fried. Guess spamming Infinite Void and RCT wasn’t a good idea…” She tried to explain. Suguru wasn’t sure she knew what she was saying either. Somehow, Satoru wasn’t dead yet. But just somehow. 

“Why does he have so many scars?” Suguru asked, foolishly. He knew that in some way Satoru had gotten “killed”, but that didn’t explain why Shoko’s RCT hadn’t been able to clear his skin completely. 

“My RCT can’t go over things Sukuna made with a ‘special’ binding vow, I don’t really know, but maybe he wanted them to be permanent. And also, I don’t think Satoru would’ve liked me taking off his ‘cool ass scars’.” She chuckled. Shoko always put a joke at the end of her sentences, maybe she tried to make the situation lighter, since Satoru was her best friend too. “And these on his arms aren’t even the worst ones… The one that cut him in half was.” 

Suguru almost choked. Satoru got… Cut in half? And nobody cared enough to tell him that sooner? Shoko just shrugged and Yuta looked petrified. 

“Can I… See it?” He asked, not really sure if he even wanted to. Shoko knew he didn’t want to, but he needed to. He needed to see. She sighed, and told Yuta to turn around, even if he already knew what it looked like. Okkotsu just turned around without any complaint. 

Shoko carefully pulled up Satoru’s shirt. He was in his pajamas. Luckily it had two pieces, Suguru really didn’t want a curious Okkotsu to get flashed. Shoko pulled it up and stopped at his chest, so Suguru could have a full view of the damage. He would’ve really wanted to vomit at the sight. He couldn’t bear it anymore. Shoko’s technique really did miracles, because Satoru was not only divided in half, but more than half of his torso was of a different color. It was the spot where he had lost more blood in his entire life, and Suguru had no trouble believing it. Shoko indicated with her finger the other injuries and explained a bit of them to Suguru. 

“Suguru, sit down, you’re paler than him.” Shoko chuckled, lowering Satoru’s shirt back down. Suguru looked at her, he wondered if she ever felt the need to puke while putting Satoru back together. She covered the corpse with the blanket again, and Yuta was kindly invited to rejoin the conversation. 

He looked at Satoru for a bit more, hoping that his sight would’ve been enough for him to come back again. He was sleeping peacefully. At least, Suguru wanted to believe that. Who knew what he felt in that trance between the nothingness… And more nothingness. Suguru wanted to drag him out more than anything, but he in fact didn’t know how to repair fried brains. 

“For how long has he been like this?” Suguru finally asked. Shoko sighed, she was about to respond, but Yuta preceded her. 

“Twenty-fourth of December 2018.” It has been… four months. It wasn’t a lot but… It was enough to notice how far you could go. 

Shoko looked at Yuta, then at Suguru. She scratched the back of her neck. 

“Well… I know it might seem sudden but… One of these days, we wanted to end his pain once and for all…” Suguru’s heart dropped. It fell. For a long time. Until it squished on the ground. 

“No… Please…” He pleaded. He was really pleading. He couldn’t believe himself. “Just… let him be like this a little more…” 

“Of course… He’s not going anywhere anyways…” Shoko conceded. The three of them knew that nobody really wanted to let Satoru go, they all cared too deeply about him. But if they really cared so much, then they had another reason to let him go. Suguru just needed some more time. He would’ve let him go. He did it the first time at the KFC, he did it the second time when he found out he was dead, it wouldn’t have been hard to do it a third time, was he wrong? 

“Have you guys really tried everything?” He asked, almost desperate at that point. Unfortunately, Shoko and Yuta nodded. 

“As much as we know, there is no method of reviving people from the dead…” She exhaled. There is no method of reviving people from the dead. The words resonated in Suguru’s mind. They echoed in his mind, because deep down, he knew they weren’t true. 

He looked at Shoko and at Yuta, he wanted to plead them to give him one more week, but there was absolutely no need to spend the next few days searching desperately for something or someone that could make Satoru talk again, because the answer had been in front of him the whole time. 

He quickly turned on his phone. Takaba’s number was still there. It wasn’t a dream. Takaba Fumihiko was a real person. Maybe Suguru shouldn’t have told him anything about that place or about Satoru, maybe Suguru should’ve just accepted to let go of Satoru for the third time. But he didn’t. Because it had taken him surprisingly so long to understand how he couldn’t live without Satoru. To understand that he wanted to love him and fill him with kisses until he exploded. He wanted to hug Satoru again. 

And Takaba was a real person. 

–

Yuta and Shoko were looking at him weirdly. 

“Are you sure he’ll be of any help? … I mean… That’s… Takaba.” Shoko whispered into his ear, as the weird guy was analyzing Satoru’s body. They didn’t spend a lot of time explaining what the situation was. Takaba was weird, so he understood almost immediately, far more easily than how Suguru reacted when he first saw the corpse. 

“I don’t doubt his skills as a sorcerer… But… Reviving people?” Yuta continued, on his other side. They were both really doubtful of this. Suguru couldn’t blame them, he thought of Takaba badly too, before realizing he was actually an insanely powerful sorcerer. Suguru believed in him. If he somehow revived him, then he would’ve revived Satoru too. Whether he wanted to or not. Seriously, Suguru was starting to think about forcing him. Maybe he was going insane. 

Takaba finally sighed, after looking at Satoru for a whole ten minutes. 

“I mean… I could try…” He said, unconvinced. He could try??? That’s it??? 

“Excuse you? Do I need to remind you that you revived me?” Suguru crossed his arms, annoyed at the guy’s unbothered expression. Takaba rubbed his face. 

“It doesn’t work at command! My technique is very restricted sometimes and very free for some others…” He shrugged. Suguru happened to hear a quick explanation of Takaba’s technique by Yuta while they were waiting for him. Basically, when Takaba found something funny, his technique activated to make it real. 

“You really can’t think of anything funny to revive him?” Suguru asked, he was getting pissed. Why the hell did he revive him and couldn’t revive Satoru? Was it because Satoru was unfunny? He, in fact, made terrible dad jokes for a 29-year old dude, but he didn’t deserve to die for that. 

“No… Sorry…” Takaba scratched the back of his neck. Suguru was left silent. Shoko and Yuta too, not that they ever expected something to happen in the first place. That last bit of hope was gone, because if not even Takaba, a sorcerer who revived another sorcerer, could revive Satoru, then who would’ve? 

“It’s fine then. Thanks for the help…” Suguru forced a gentle tone. Shoko was already accompanying Takaba to the door, as Suguru sat again on his chair next to Satoru’s bed. He took Satoru’s scarred hand in his own. It felt cold. 

Satoru had always been a cold person, but just to touch. His personality was as warm as a sunny day in summer. Suguru had been one of the few people to ever touch Satoru, and he knew how cold his skin could get. But it had never been so frigid. He really felt like a corpse, even if he was slightly alive. Suguru’s calloused hands in comparison were two boiling furnaces. 

During that month, he had regained his tanned skin, pretty long hair. He now looked very different from Kenjaku. He wasn’t a dead corpse anymore, he felt like a real person. And he realized it only by looking at Satoru on the verge of decomposition. 

He was about to caress his calm face, when he heard Takaba’s comment. 

“Have you ever noticed he looks like a frog?” 

Silence. Yuta and Suguru quickly turned their heads towards the door, where Shoko was about to let Takaba go. Suguru calmly left Satoru’s hand and got up. He also calmly started walking towards Takaba. 

“That’s it. I’m killing you.” He also said that very calmly. Yuta immediately ran to him and took his arm to hold him back, panicked, but he really wasn’t doing anything, if Suguru wanted to let go, he could’ve.

“No, Getou-sensei! It’s just a joke, right?!” He tried. Shoko on the other hand, was doing absolutely nothing to prevent Suguru from killing Takaba. Well, she enjoyed the show. 

Takaba raised his hands as a sign of surrender. Shoko chuckled. 

“Yuta, come on let him go, I would like this guy getting punched too…” She commented. 

“Wait, Suguru! Has anyone ever told you that you look like a princess with those long hair?” Takaba exclaimed, and silence followed. Yuta looked puzzled and Shoko was trying not to laugh. Suguru had long hair, yes, but that was literally his only feminine aspect. If you’d ask him, he would define Satoru more as a princess than himself, because, even if Satoru had short hair, he acted like a spoiled brat, and still had the ‘pretty boy’ privilege. 

“Are you on drugs?” Suguru asked, after a bit. It genuinely felt as if every time he had a conversation with Takaba, he was on drugs, which was weird, because they literally talked only twice, and the feeling was the same both times. 

“No! I mean… I just noticed the similarity! Have you ever watched ‘The princess and the frog’? It’s that movie where the princess kisses the frog and it becomes a beautiful prince!” Takaba explained, and everyone in the room went silent. They all knew that movie, Suguru had also been forced to watch it countless times by Nanako and Mimiko. Shoko probably just heard of it once or twice, but still knew the concept, Yuta maybe saw it when he was a kid. 

Still, he couldn’t see the correlation. “Excuse me…?” Suguru asked. 

“What if you try to kiss him and he magically comes back to life?” Takaba joyfully asked. That was the most bullshit-like and unrealistic thing Suguru has ever heard in his entire life. The feeling was probably reciprocated by Shoko and Yuta. “It would be mad funny…” Takaba continued. 

Shoko, hearing Takaba’s comment, lit up again. “Wait, this could actually work!” Maybe all that smoking and drinking actually got to her head. Or maybe it was just really late in the night. It was almost midnight, after all. Yuta and Suguru looked at her like she just declared she was eating cement. “If Takaba thinks this is funny enough, then it will happen!” She continued. 

Something clicked in Suguru’s mind. It was hope. A new spark of hope had been created. Maybe he could really hug Satoru again. Maybe they could really talk things through and make peace after all those years of waiting and yearning. 

“You’re right...” He muttered, now only Yuta was looking at them weirdly, slightly concerned. He was probably thinking they all went dead drop insane in not even five minutes. 

Takaba made a happy sound. “Before you try, just know this will take a lot of cursed energy since he’s literally Satoru Gojo. So we should make a binding vow.” He thought out loud. 

Suguru nodded. “Ok, tell me the conditions.” 

Takaba thought for a bit. Suguru waited patiently, he wanted Satoru to live again. Honestly, even if the condition was for him to die in his place, Suguru would’ve accepted, he didn’t even care about himself at the moment. He just wanted Satoru to be able to be happy again. He wanted to take him out of that endless dark void he was trapped into. 

“If this actually works, you’ll go on a four month comedic tour around Japan with me!” Takaba happily exclaimed, tending his hand for Suguru to shake. He didn’t even hesitate to grab it. 

“Fine, I don’t care, let’s just get this over with.” 

–

Suguru walked near the bed. Satoru was pale, motionless, exactly how he found him about a few hours ago. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to do this. He was going to kiss Satoru again, after something near thirteen years he hadn’t. Still, he remembered exactly how his lips tasted like, and he was really doubtful those cold lips could resemble even a bit of the sweet flavor he had when they were teens. Takaba was on the other side of the bed, Yuta a little behind him. Shoko was 1 or 2 meters distant, she didn’t want to get involved if things escalated. 

Suguru leaned down slowly. Satoru smelled rotten and Suguru hated it. As much as Shoko and Yuta were taking care of him, Satoru was slowly dying. Suguru tried to not think about that, especially when they were trying to revive him. Shoko had taken off Satoru’s oxygen mask just for that, he needed to be quick. 

He closed his eyes and softly pressed his lips against Satoru’s. It was the most tender kiss he gave someone in a while. He opened his eyes and backed up, when Satoru started coughing. 

Satoru started coughing. Satoru started coughing. Satoru started coughing. Satoru was alive. Satoru was alive again. His brain repeated the scene multiple times before actually registering what Satoru did next. 

Satoru rubbed his eyes, and pronounced the first words after getting revived from the dead. “S-Suguru?” His voice trembled. Everyone in the room exhaled air they didn’t even know they were keeping. Satoru was there again and it was the real him, no fake copy, no differences. Suguru felt like he was going to faint. 

“W-where am I? Am I in the afterlife? Are we dead? God I’m so glad I can finally see you again, Suguru…” Satoru immediately started rambling. 

“Gojo-sensei? Gojo-sensei, you’re talking! You’re alive!” Yuta probably couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Suguru had never seen the boy so happy. 

“What? W-who is talking? Yuta?!” Satoru blinked multiple times. “And behind you, is that… I can’t see… It’s all too bright… S-Shoko?” He finally recognized his best friend. Shoko smiled. 

“Yes, it’s me… You idiot…” She muttered. 

Suguru huggged Satoru tightly. Very tightly. 

“Oof… Damn Suguru, you’re choking me! Like, I know you missed me… There is no need to kill me again…” He joked as he patted Suguru’s back. He didn’t want to let go though, none of them did. 

“How dare you joke about that, ungrateful brat.” Shoko chuckled.

“Sho, c’me here I wanna hug you too!” He happily exclaimed, the other still squeezing him.

Suguru was really going on that comedic tour with Takaba. 

–

Shoko and Suguru were in front of the classroom door. They could hear the voices of the students inside. Suguru remembers, almost a month ago, being in that same exact position. The only difference was that now he didn’t need to feel anxious about anything. Except for the fact that Satoru was late. Again. 

Him and Shoko had convocated both the first and the second years in that classroom to present them their “New” teacher, they said. Someone commented that they didn’t need another teacher. Suguru and Shoko had to try very hard not to burst into laughter. Talking with unaware kids was funnier than anyone ever thought. Suguru would’ve loved to see their reactions when Satoru would’ve finally entered the room. 

Satoru finally appeared next to them, he was adjusting his uniform jacket, sweating. Suguru and Shoko never saw Satoru sweat so much. His students were really something he took by heart. Ironic. He was still trying to hide it with his usual playful demeanor. 

“Come on! What are we waiting for?” He did little jumps on the tip of his feet. Satoru wasn’t wearing a blind fold. He refused to. He wanted to see his students with his own eyes, even if the process was going to hurt him a bit. After all, in that world he didn’t need to keep his guard up constantly. He could turn off Infinity and nobody was going to attack him. 

Suguru might’ve sounded pretty fucking obvious, but Satoru’s eyes were the most beautiful he’s ever seen and will ever see. The sea in them was endless, the sky azure, and the clouds soft. They were a whole painting, and he was one of the luckiest people in the world: Satoru loved looking at him, so he had access to them whenever he wanted to. 

Suguru gently rested his hand on Satoru’s arm. That seemed to calm him down a little. He then hugged him and kissed the top of his fluffy white hair. 

“Everything is gonna be okay, Satoru.” He tenderly whispered in his ear. “They love you.” Satoru was clearly holding back tears with all of his willpower. He gripped Suguru’s shoulders tightly. It had been a whole week and Satoru couldn’t wait more time before seeing his kids again, especially his son. Also, they cleared everything, and Suguru had expressed his feelings to Satoru, who happily accepted him back. 

“Come on you lovebirds, you’re making me sick.” Shoko chuckled as Suguru left the embrace. “Satoru, stay put. We need to do a speech before you can enter.” Satoru nodded but reluctantly left Suguru’s loving arms. 

Shoko and Suguru entered the classroom. Everyone went silent. Okkotsu was smiling, calm. He was the only one calm in the room, everyone else was scared Shoko would bring another ex-dark sorcerer as a teacher. 

Shoko started her speech. The students paid attention, listening carefully. Yuji was even taking notes. 

When Shoko finished, Maki had already put a hand on her sword. Just in case. She was slick though, so no one else had noticed except Suguru and maybe Yuta. 

The doctor finally yelled a “Come in.”, so Satoru could hear it clearly. 

The door opened and Satoru slowly walked in the center, next to Shoko and Suguru. 

He excitedly said: “Oppappi!”, standing on one leg and making the hand signs. 

The class went silent, then Suguru stepped forward. “It’s your long dead teacher, Satoru Gojo!” He said, matching Satoru’s happiness. 

Silence again. 

“Gojo-sensei?!?!?!?” Nobara and Yuji screamed in unison. 

“What the fuck.” Maki commented. 

“Salmon roe.” Inumaki continued. Panda didn’t bother to translate. Yuta started laughing. 

Yuji and Nobara came to hug Gojo like he just got resuscitated. In fact, he did. Maki still looked confused, and Yuta started to explain to her, Inumaki and Panda what happened. The only one who still hadn’t said a thing was Megumi. He was frozen in his seat, eyes widened. 

After finishing with Yuji and Nobara, Satoru went to hug him too, and he immediately got up. They hugged for a bit, and that was probably the first time Megumi showed a bit of emotion. He started crying in his father’s embrace, sobbing quietly. Satoru whispered something to him, but Suguru didn’t hear it clearly since Yuji and Nobara were asking Shoko a million questions. He just saw Megumi nodding quietly. 

He was happy. Finally Megumi had his father back. 

–

Four months later. 

Satoru was sitting on an airport bench. 

There were a lot of people passing by, but he was looking at the billboard. His eyes were covered only by a pair of rectangle-shaped glasses. He was still getting used to not using his technique. It was kind of hard, since he basically kept it on for half of his life without ever taking it off. And, he liked his glasses, so he would’ve worn them even if he didn’t use them as protection. 

He was definitely bored. The bench was empty, so he had no stranger to annoy with his weird antics. He couldn’t even try to hit on random ladies to feed them delusions, Suguru wouldn’t have been happy with his Satoru going around older women. 

Finally, Shoko and Megumi came back with some snacks. His eyes immediately lit up at the sight. 

“Gojo, here’s your coffee, just as you like it, more sugar than actual coffee.” Shoko handed him the plastic cup. He took it happily. 

“Thanks Sho!” And drank it all in one go. Megumi and Shoko sat next to him. They were engaging in a conversation about the sedimentary process of the rocks, and Satoru, as much as he pretty much knew how it worked, didn’t want to discuss with them. He just wanted the presence of one person. Of course, he loved going around with his son and his best friend, but sometimes they were really boring. 

He looked at the billboard again, and a smile appeared on his face. Suguru and Takaba’s plane had just landed. 

He got up excitedly, inviting Shoko and Megumi to follow him. They calmly got up too, following Satoru through the airport, until they reached the landing section.

After about twenty minutes, a tired Suguru and a very happy Takaba appeared from the aisle. Suguru lit up immediately when he saw Satoru waving at him. 

Satoru jumped on him, wrapping his arms and legs on his loved one. Suguru laughed and carefully put him down, still keeping his arms around him. Satoru noticed how his grip was softer on his waist, where he had been cut in half. Suguru still hadn’t seen him naked a lot of times, but he had already memorized where every single scar was, and kept attention on not hurting Satoru by gripping too much. Satoru melted every single time, because Suguru’s embrace was so warm and filled with love, that he couldn’t do anything other than that. 

Also, his one and only pressed kisses on his neck, exactly where one of the worst cuts had been made. Satoru considered himself the luckiest man in the world. Maybe he didn’t even deserve to be loved and cherished this much, but Suguru would’ve filled him with even more love if he said that out loud. He was really lucky indeed. 

Satoru didn’t want to get separated from Suguru again. Ever. He was all his now, his one and only.

“I missed you…” Suguru whispered against his skin. 

“I missed you too…” Satoru responded. “How was the tour?” He asked, grinning. 

“Horrible.” Suguru groaned, hiding in Satoru’s shoulder. 

“Nuh uh, it was amazing!” Takaba screamed, as he overheard Suguru’s complaints. Shoko laughed. 

“You guys are insufferable.” She commented, smiling. Megumi agreed calmly, crossing his arms. 

Satoru had finally got everything he ever wanted. And he knew it wasn’t only a dream. Because Suguru was holding him, and he felt real. Everything felt real. 

He was really going to get used to this.