Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was a room in the basement of the dorm building that only Gojō Satoru could enter.

Yūji had wandered down there in search of the laundry room, opened door after door until he came to that one. Attempting to touch the doorknob had nearly crushed his hand. Nobara had theorized it was a responsive barrier—a hand that doesn’t belong to the caster would be crushed to a pulp for approaching. The caster was their teacher, she’d said, and offered no more information.

Yūji couldn’t puzzle out what could be in it or why it was under the dorm building of all places. The sealed rooms and weapon storage rooms were under the main building and classrooms. What was so dangerous or so coveted that Gojō Satoru had to keep it that close?

“Hey, Fushiguro,” Yūji said over dinner. “There’s a blue door in the basement.”
“So?”
“You’ve been here longest.” Yūji tilted his head to the side. “What’s down there anyway?”
Megumi’s spoon halted mid-air. He stiffened. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t bring that up.”

Nobara kept quiet as a cloud descended on Megumi’s brow. Yūji brushed it off and hopped to the next topic. Nobara said nothing, even though she’d seen it.

Gojō Satoru, leaving that room at dawn, carrying a body.

Satoru hummed as he skipped down the stairs in the early morning hours. It was that time before dawn when there was little light and a blue hue hovered in the air, cold and indifferent. Satoru wasn’t one for routine. His days were flowing things, changing on a dime and a whim, seldom the same and never boring. Except that hour. One hour of each day, the hour that had been the same for the past two years.

He opened the door on muscle memory alone, the buzzing barrier welcoming him back with a report—a pulse of cursed energy. The report had last changed that day Yūji had almost lost his hand trying to open the door, but every other time it was the same—barrier stable, no intruders, internal conditions unchanged. It was a little room by his standards, bare and dull, but it was safe. One bed, one chest of drawers at the foot of it, hanging cabinets on the wall above, some appliances and necessities—an air purifier, a heater, a change of sheets, comforter, extra blankets, a first aid kit, an IV pole.

“I’m back,” Satoru sang softly, closing the door behind him as the dull beeping of a monitor reached his ears.

The routine of an hour, the routine of his days, Satoru needed little effort to go through it. He approached the bed, humming that tune she used to love, and set about the preparations. He checked the air purifier, the heart rate monitor, the ventilation system, the network of seals carved into the cold stone floor. All clear.

Next he checked the IV bag, the slider clamp on the tubing, the cannula on her thin, clammy hand. Shōko dropped off replacements at his room once a week like clockwork and Satoru stockpiled more in the cabinets, making sure never to be caught without spare bags of fluids, cotton rounds, disinfectants, clean sponges, and the rest.

“All right.” He typed out a reminder in his phone to change the air filter in three days and pocketed it. “Let’s get on with it.”

He didn’t need to pull the blanket from her body to see there were no changes to the seal—his eyes were very good—but he did so anyway. The living corpse that had once been a friend, perhaps more than a friend, was thinner. Satoru lifted his blindfold and, though he was supposed to check the seal, his eyes went to her face.

“Ah, I should’ve asked Shōko to braid your hair again at the check-up,” he muttered, reaching out to stroke the long strands splayed out on the pillow around her like a halo. “She nags me for leaving it to get tangled.”

Poor creature. The woman was pale as the white walls guarding her, sallow cheeks, gaunt and flaky. Satoru made a mental note to get a humidifier. Her chest rose and fell minimally, a shallow movement, barely perceptible. She shivered sometimes when Satoru took the covers away to inspect the seal. The cropped top Shōko had picked up for her grew ever bigger on the thinning torso, matching light blue cotton pajama pants held at the hips by a tightened drawstring. Satoru’s fingers trailed over the curves of her ribs to the luminous purple rune on her abdomen. It was a menacing little pest, a parasite devouring her from the inside, one that Satoru could not exterminate, lest it take her from the world too.

The six eyes showed him. She was fighting it still but, after two years, it was beginning to look like a losing battle. Their combined cursed energy—hers and that curse’s—stung his fingers, prickled like needles. It swirled together and, lately, even Satoru had trouble telling where she began and the curse ended. They were consuming one another. And all the strongest sorcerer could do was watch.

He pulled down the blindfold.

“’Scuse me,” he mumbled and leaned over, one hand at her bony shoulder, the other at her hip. He twisted her body to one side, then the other, checking for bedsores diligently. His broad palms traveled the expanse of her cold, dry back. Her calves. Her thighs.

Satoru checked the PICC line that gave her nutrition—he was meticulous with spots where skin was broken. She bruised easily, and, besides, he didn’t want to risk infection. He’d grown accustomed to it in the third month, took over the weekly flushing, and learned how to handle her so as not to cause harm. He examined the cap before moving on to physical therapy.

Satoru liked that best. He lifted her arms and legs, stretched and bent them at the joints, moved and manipulated her limbs while rambling on about his day. Not that she could hear, probably. Still, it felt less lonely, less sad, to be talking.

“And then Yūji—and, mind you, he’d just arrived—says to him—"

Her eyes didn’t open, not a grunt or a moan, and Satoru preferred it that way. The only time her fight became apparent was when her brows knit together, a tremor seized her frail frame, and her abdomen contracted as if she were being stabbed. Satoru preferred nothing. Greatly.

“He cracks me up, I swear,” he muttered, lowering her right foot to the bed. He glanced at the time on his phone. “Oh, we should get going.”

There was no window in that basement room. Satoru had made sure the only access point was controlled by him. She was defenseless, he determined to keep her safe.

He went to the side of the bed and detached the IV tubing before sliding his hands under her body gently. Carefully, Satoru lifted her from the bed—too easily, damn it—heavy head rolling to rest against his chest. The hair that had grown for two years, now down to her hips, fell in waves over his arm, swishing under her curved back.

“On we go.”

Satoru carried her, thumb absently stroking her arm as he mounted the stairs and made for the back door. He brought her outside and sat on the stone stairs that faced east, arranging her in his lap so she would be comfortable and much of her skin exposed to dawn.

Sunlight broke through thin clouds in warm rays, falling over them like a splash of liquid warmth, and Satoru tilted her face towards it. She looked better in sunlight. Pinker. Healthier. He held her chin in his fingers and traced her bottom lip with the pad of one.

“It’s been dry recently,” he mumbled. “I’ll bring lip balm tomorrow. Unscented, obviously. I’m not tryina make you hurl.”

The body didn’t respond and Satoru was well past the point of numbness about that. He sighed, running through the rest of his day—a nap first, of course, and then he had a class, and maybe he would drop by that new coffee shop, Megumi might accept a ginger iced tea and the other two wouldn’t object to frappuccinos.

“I have reports to finish too,” he complained and nuzzled her temple, distracted. The scent of her skin was calming. “I’ll make Ijichi do ‘em.”

The sun climbed higher. Their time was up. He stood, stretched, holding her, and carried her back, yawning. It was muscle memory again, mind vacant as he tucked her in, reattached the IV tube, checked the monitor, the seals, the barrier. He took one long, final look at her unmoving face.

“Well then. I’m off!”

Strap in, we're about to take off! Next chapter goes up tomorrow and then I'll do Friday and Monday updates.

Thank you for reading and commenting. For more Satoru check out The Secret Wife. For more JJK I offer you boyfriend Nanami, enemies-to-lovers Aoi Todo, and fluffy boyfriend Megumi. If there are any Genshin players out here in the JJK trenches check out Neuvillete or Childe.

Chapter Text

“Why do we gotta go fish ‘em out of trouble?” Satoru whined, a hand on his hip as he stared at his teacher, his two classmates on either side of him, Shōko sitting at her desk, Suguru leaning against the wall.
“They are your underclassmen,” Yaga-sensei said reasonably. “And because I said so.” Less reasonably.

Satoru groaned, throwing his head back. Every other week it was him and Suguru, every third week Shōko too, being dispatched somewhere to help someone who’d bitten off more than they could swallow.

“It’s not our problem they’re weak.” The pop-up store he was going to visit would open in two hours.
“The strong should help the weak,” Suguru said.

Satoru rolled his eyes.

“Are they trapped in that hospital?” Shōko asked, forearms on the desk.
“Likely.” The teacher went back to his laptop, flicked through some images before enlarging the one of the hospital in question. A derelict affair, gray with busted windows, grafitti on cracked walls. “They went inside yesterday morning. We haven’t had any contact since.”
“It was her and Haibara?” Suguru asked, tilting his chin at the underclassman’s hair accessory that lay by the laptop.
“Yes. I’ll give the assistant supervisor the reports the two of them had received. You can read them on your way there. I expect you to be back by tomorrow night. Those two have a test in three days.”

They were off within the hour, crammed in the back seat.

“It’s suspected to have illusion-type abilities,” Suguru said of the curse’s power, leafing through the reports.
“Who cares?” Satoru crossed his arms and slouched. “It’s us. We’ll get it done.”
Shōko hummed in agreement, texting on her phone.
“Why would they send those two together?” Satoru asked, kicking off a session of complaints. “The guy who only sees the bright side and the girl who enables him. They should’ve chucked Nanami in there to balance them out.”
“He’s out north with their teacher,” Shōko supplied absently.
“Still!” Satoru huffed. “That pop-up store is today only!”

It was an unbalanced trio of the first-years, her and Yū making all the noise, Nanami making all the sense. A squad that had no stand-out figure like himself or Suguru, they were ordinary kids. Satoru took no interest in them outside a few sparring sessions and occasional teasing that was their due, being the underclassmen. 

At least he felt comfortable that they weren’t despairing. Haibara Yū had not heard of pessimism in his life, and she was inclined to amplify other people’s feelings instead of asserting her own. They were certainly the simpleton pair, not very efficient without the logical one to steer them, but they were simple enough not to lose hope.

“We’re here,” the assistant supervisor said.

Satoru looked at the school over Shōko’s head. A mist before his eyes, not from the car window.

“Let’s go then.”

The hospital was a square slab of gray, three stories, one for each sorcerer.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Satoru offered as the assistant put up a curtain.
“I’ll take the first floor,” Shōko said.
“Second,” Suguru put in.
“There’s no elevator, is there?” Satoru gave the smirking duo a dirty look. “Fine.”

And then he was running up the side of the building. There were two open windows on the third floor with glass broken, safe to jump through. Satoru dove in feet first. Predictably, his body sank into a curse-made domain. The air inside was hot and heavy, the sharp smell of medicine and bleach pinching his nose.

“Yuck.”

Satoru strode down the hall, kicking doors open, keeping an eye out for Haibara and the girl. There were patches of the walls and the ground with stronger cursed energy—he figured the curse had a main body hidden somewhere and kept watch through changes in the space like a spider waits for vibrations of its web.

“First-years! We’re here to save you!” Satoru howled, getting bored and sweaty. “In like three minutes I’ll be sick of this and the place will be flying to pieces! You better come out!”

He felt a flicker of energy somewhere on the left and the door his eyes fell to shimmered. A connection? Instead of kicking it down, Satoru moved back a little, got a running start, and leapt in. It was a similar sensation as when he’d come in through the window. Stronger though. A deeper level. He was starting to see the problem. There were spaces, many spaces, within the hospital, separated like cells on a honeycomb. Even if they were in the same room, they likely couldn’t feel one another. There were levels to the separation.

If those two had been there a while, Satoru reasoned they must be deeper in. He sought out more shimmering doorways—connections between the cells, unseen by others—and went deeper. The longer he spent, the hotter it got, the more annoying.

“Should’ve crushed it from the outside, this is tedious,” he muttered. He’d been overruled by his classmates so as to avoid another scolding.

Hands in his pockets, Satoru came to the final door. He felt a presence beyond it.

“Main body?” he mused and kicked it open, grinning.

In place of a curse, he found an underclassman in her underwear, lounging on a hospital bed, fanning herself with a clipboard.

“Yū-kun—“ She blinked, smile faltering. Her face turned red. “Gojō-senpai!” She tumbled off the bed, snatching her uniform from the floor and holding it to her chest. “Why—? Is Yū-kun with you?”

The girl was so painfully average that Satoru often overlooked her. The only sorceress in her family—her normie mother taught English in Tokyo or something—with the simplest technique possible. Her whole shtick was redirecting things—a thrown object, an attacking curse, a rushing opponent. As boring as a sorcerer could be, she was the first-year he had least interest in. A plain girl, average height, forgettable technique, forgettable eyes. And that atrocious hair—she’d enrolled with hair to her elbows and learned on her first mission how much of a disadvantage long hair could be if one was too slow to avoid getting caught. Of all the people, she’d let Haibara cut it into that boyish, choppy monstrosity that marked her out like a scar.

“I can’t even look at it,” Satoru mumbled to himself, turning away from a half-naked girl without an ounce of temptation. “We came to get ya. Where’s Haibara?” he asked as she fumbled with her clothes.
“We—We split hours ago. I checked every room on every floor thrice and haven’t found him yet,” she explained, pulling the shirt over her head.
“So you thought to take a nap?” Satoru asked, sarcastic.
She reddened more. “I—! I figured we’d run into each other eventually. In my defense it’s really hot in here, I thought I’d pass out without cooling off and there’s no running water.”
“Oh?” Satoru looked at her, raising a brow. “I’m surprised you can be so nonchalant when Haibara might be getting eaten.” Underclassmen were fun to bully, after all.
“Senpai!” she whined. “Don’t say that! Yū-kun said he’d be fine when we split up. I know he’s alive, it’s just a matter of time before I find him.” She crossed her arms and pouted. “Yū-kun always has a good attitude, that’s why he’s great on missions.” She fell to her knees and began digging through a backpack which stood by the bed. “I found this.”

She handed him a chunk of something harder than flesh and softer than wood. Black and misshapen. Satoru’s eyes told him it was a part of the main body.

“Where?” he asked.
She hummed. “Was it the first floor?” And stroked her chin. “Maybe the third, actually. It was on my second search, I think. But that was hours ago. I could be wrong. Ah, but if I’m wrong—"
“Focus,” Satoru said and flicked her forehead.
“Ow!”
“We gotta find Haibara before blowing this place up. How did you get this?”
“Uhh . . .”
“You forgot?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “It’s not that, just—It’s hard to think in this heat.”
“I’m blowing it up.”

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm and clung to him. “H-Hold on! If these pockets of space start to merge when you attack or the blast tears through them, Yū-kun won’t have a heads-up.” She turned, yanked her backpack closer, and pulled out a bunch of old papers taped together, which unfolded into a large map. “Here. I mapped out the spaces as best as I could. The distance from the middle is based on heat level, or depth. The hottest part I’ve been in—this room here—is near the center and the entrance hall, the hallways, the cooler spots—I put those on the outskirts.”
“With a map this big, you couldn’t find ‘im?”
“I can’t find the doorways,” she grumbled, throwing her arms up. “I don’t know how I got deeper, I only noticed because it was getting harder to breathe. That’s probably the goal—to wear people out so they don’t put up much of a fight. The pipes I could examine were severed purposely. Like the curse wanted to sweat people to the point of fainting.”

Satoru groaned. Weaklings and their weakling ways.

“I’ll find the doorways, you show me where you found this chunk.”

The first-year nodded and launched into a boring explanation, dragging a finger over her crooked map.

“This is the entrance hall. We walked this far together—the crossed-out rooms are all first level and safe—and then I went to the third floor, Yū-kun to the second. This is where I got thirsty and these four bathrooms had slashed pipes. Assuming that the curse did that, the body of it is probably too weak to take down a person, so I figured it wouldn’t be near the bathrooms where people would go for water, or the bottom floors, where you would go seeking relief from heat, since hot air rises.” She tapped four uneven squares. “I think it’s in one of these places. The waiting room on the second floor was first on Yū-kun’s search, the storage room on this one had a door I couldn’t open, and these other two are staff rooms farthest from water sources.”
“The chunk?”
“I got it around here, between a staff room and the storage room. The spaces started shuffling three hours in, so even though the rooms are consistent with the map, you might walk into a second-floor room from here, or a third-floor room from downstairs.”
“Got it, got it. Come. I don’t wanna get sweatier.” Satoru led the way, finding doorways, relying on her to read the map.

He assumed the curse, if it was affected by the heat at all, might be on the outskirts, putting more distance between itself and the people who wandered into its territory. From the awfully-hard-to-read map, he drew a few conclusions and crossed out three possibilities, narrowing down the search. It was in the staff room. And he could find the way there.

The rest was mostly on auto-pilot, the first-year mumbled something or other, pointed in directions and carried her backpack while Satoru mused on the kind of dessert he would treat himself to at the end of the day.

As Satoru had assumed, they found Suguru standing in front of the room.

“Getō-senpai!” She bowed, gave a rundown of their story, and asked about Haibara.
“Shōko took him out. I was tracking down the main body,” Suguru said and looked at Satoru. “Shall we?”
Satoru smirked and grabbed the first-year by the back of her collar. “Hold on, first-year. We’re about to break out.”

It was that comfortable, silent understanding that produced his best efforts beside Suguru. How he moved to cover Satoru without a word or a signal, how Satoru knew to have his back and when, all the while holding the squirming girl, yapping like a kitten. They exorcised the bastard with moderate effort and in the rush of victory Satoru would’ve forgotten all about her, had she not burst into laughter as they flew out the busted roof and towards the sky.

He’d known women and girls who covered their mouths when they chuckled or quieted their laughter to seem more proper, but she laughed like a child does, unrestrained and purely joyful, squealing, honest, giggling her nerves away as he chucked her overhead into the air where Suguru would sail by on the cursed spirit and catch.

Instead of watching the curse perish, making sure it was done, Satoru was looking over his shoulder. She squeezed her backpack to her chest, laughing, all white teeth and pink gums. Nothing about her was interesting, nothing impressive, nothing notable. Yet in that moment, Satoru thought that she was beautiful. That simpleton-type honesty, the unreserved burst of emotion, the absolute lack of self-consciousness and concern for how she presented—flashing everyone bellow, including Satoru, a glimpse of blue, polka dot underwear—and her horribly choppy, uneven hair flying about her like susuwatari clinging to her head. She was beautiful. With the sun at her back and happy tears falling from her lashes as Suguru caught her mid-air. She was beautiful. Shiny eyes, excited, opening to look at him as if he’d given her the best moment of her life.

She was beautiful.

“Gojō-senpai!” she yelled, smiling wide and sincere. “You really are the best!”
Satoru didn’t realize he was grinning. “Obviously!”

Thank you for reading and commenting <3

Chapter Text

Bathing someone comatose was not supposed to be intimate. Satoru had at first delegated it to Shōko and then to the nurse he’d hired to teach him to care for the underclassman. Who did it wasn’t important as long as it got done.

Even so, he couldn’t help feeling sleazy when the thought of taking over that, too, had occurred to him. He’d had no ulterior motive—he knew why morgues and funeral homes hired more women than men—because he wasn’t desperate for sex or the accompanying connections. He could have more than he could handle if only he allowed people to approach. His single motive was to ensure she was taken care of while he worked out a solution to the problem.

And yet, when it had happened—the nurse getting sick and Shōko being out of town at the same time—Satoru had considered bringing in someone from the Gojō family for the interim but ultimately decided against it. He’d grown increasingly protective of her. The less responsive she became, the less she frowned and groaned in her suspended state, the more he wanted to shove the world in the opposite direction. Freeze the two of them in time and place, a hovering dimension, until he found a way to wake her. He’d already lost Suguru. Another hit would be the last straw.

Despite first impressions and hot gossip, Gojō Satoru was an adult capable of maturity and seriousness that would shock certain elders. He had approached the task with as much indifference and detachment as he could muster but the moment she was naked in his arms Satoru felt like crying.

He’d protected—saved—countless normies, friends, enemies. He’d been the shield to a school and a pair of siblings and a tortured boy and on and on. Yet it was the first time he’d felt like he held an autumn leaf in his arms. Like she would disintegrate if he made one wrong move, wasn’t mindful of his strength, of his impatience to get it over with. It tore his heart open to have someone he knew so well depend on him to such a degree. It got marginally easier during the two years.

Marginally.

Satoru lowered her gently into a shallow bath, making sure broken skin never came in contact with water, and exhaled heavily. Caretaking was more emotionally taxing than one would assume. He had three different damp cloths, two sponges, and an array of hypoallergenic, PH-balanced, fragrance-free, skin-sensitive and moisturizing shower gels. He pulled her hair back carefully and put it up with a hair clip.

Gojō Satoru was the cavalry. He was the one people called in to do the rough and destructive—killing, exorcising, containment—he wasn’t used to detail work. His hands were shaking as he lifted her arms and worked his way from the wrist to the shoulder with the cloth, trying to find the balance between scrubbing hard enough to clean but not enough to bruise. He had to stop and rest his head on the edge of the basin he’d inflated for the bath. Satoru looked at her. Past her, really. His six eyes bore into the rune, trying to discern her fate, to see something he’d missed.

It was taking too long. He should’ve been able to find a crack and break her free. But there she was, naked and curled up in the basin—a withering flower in the palm of his hand.

Satoru picked his head up and moved to the other arm. He didn’t mind getting his clothes wet, holding her to his chest as he smoothed over her stomach and up her ribs. In place of desire or guilt he’d expected, Satoru found himself feeling vulnerable and wanting to somehow console her.

She had not moved, her breathing pattern had not changed, and not a sound had whistled past her teeth, but Satoru mumbled an apology against her temple as he passed a hand over her hip bone. All he could think of was that she must be uncomfortable, sitting—leaning—against the basin like that, and that he should hurry it up and get her dressed before she caught a cold or her muscles cramped.

He pressed his lips to her shoulder in an innocent, almost reverent attempt at an apology and lifted her to dry her body off. Dressing her was a simple dance, going through the motions, by that point. When it was done and she was back in bed, tucked into crisp, soft sheets with her hair let down again, Satoru looked her over one last time before reattaching the IV tube.

Cleaning up was quick but, as he finished it, Satoru stumbled under a sudden wave of fatigue. A lot had been on his mind lately. He looked at the underclassman, the person who was his hideout. She lay unresponsive. He missed her.

“I guess I’ll let you kick me for it when you wake up,” Satoru mumbled to her and flickered to his room. He brushed his teeth and responded to a few messages, then changed into his own pajamas and flickered back, a pillow under his arm. With a flip of a switch, the room was pitch black.

“Make space,” he sang quietly, and slowly slid into bed alongside her, arranging her limbs to make sure he wouldn’t yank on the tubing or smother her in his sleep. Satoru pulled her in gently, wrapping his arms around her torso. The curse slapped against infinity in retaliation with its cursed energy and Satoru wished he could hit back. He didn’t, because hurting it could mean hurting her, and hurting her was not an option. Instead, he kissed her pallid brow and closed his eyes, rambling about his day to keep himself from straining the six eyes in analyzing what he’d analyzed seven thousand times before without a thing to show for it.

 “Y’know, they said the cringiest thing on this drama I was watching,” Satoru said to her. “Some girl passed out and the guy got into bed with her like this, saying that she might wake up if she hears his heartbeat.” He held her head to his chest for a moment, then laid it back with his arm for a pillow so her neck wouldn’t hurt. “She did by the end, obviously.” Satoru stroked her hair, breathing in her scent which dissolved everyday frustrations.

“She did.”

Episode 8 has rewired my brain. Feral Satoru is so—
Anyway, short and painful chapter today, next one goes up Monday. Happy weekend, y'all!
Thank you for reading and commenting <3

Chapter Text

Yūji was on his twelfth movie and bruised all over. Being dead and training with a boxing plushie had not been on his bingo card for the year. He watched Jake Sully conquer Toruk with rapt attention.

“Yo, Yūji.” The teacher came in with grocery bags hanging off his arms. “How goes it?” he asked, plopping the outrageous amount of snacks and treats onto the couch next to Yūji.
“Jake is about to become the Toruk Makto,” Yūji said as his teacher hopped over to sprawl at the other end of the couch.
“That so.”

The man’s profile reminded Yūji of the basement room and the way Megumi had gotten cagey about it before. It wasn’t in Yūji’s nature to beat around the bush.

“Sensei, what’s in the room with the blue door? In the dorm building.”

Gojō Satoru’s default expression—an almost smile, almost smirk, almost nothing—didn’t change. He placed his cheek in a hand, elbow on the armrest, and hummed thoughtfully.

“What makes you ask that?”
Yūji shrugged. “It’s the only locked door in the basement. Could’ve cost me a hand. I asked Fushiguro but he got weird about it, so I thought I’d ask you.”
Satoru chuckled. “Didn’t Megumi tell you not to ask?”
“He did,” Yūji admitted readily, reaching for a candy bar. “Should I not?”
His teacher pursed his lips, thinking. “Might as well,” he decided and got up. “Come on. I was gonna show you sooner or later anyway.”
“Really? Won’t it be bad if anyone sees me?” Yūji asked and belatedly realized the clock on the wall showed it was four in the morning.
“We can fly there,” his teacher offered.
“I’ll walk.”

The door opened easily to Gojō Satoru and Yūji followed him inside. Something zapped him on the way in, like a weird metal detector, cataloging him, as if he’d passed through a curtain of some sort. The room was drab and chilly with a woman lying in a bed in the middle of it.

“Who’s that?”
“A sorceress.”
“Is she sick?” Yūji asked, flashes of his late grandfather at the forefront of his mind.
“Actually,” his teacher said, taking a seat by her side. “She’s kinda like you.”
“Huh?”

Removing the blanket exposed to Yūji a seal that felt malicious. It was a swirl of purple at her abdomen and, by the look of her, Yūji assumed it was eroding her from the inside.

“She’s a vessel?” Yūji asked, coming closer. The energy that the living rune radiated was like sandpaper to his senses.
“They’ve been at a standoff for about two years,” the teacher said, rather quietly considering his usual volume. Much about him seemed dampened by the room.
“Not even you could beat it, sensei?”
He tilted his head to the side, crossing his arms. “Oh, it’s not that. All things considered, it’s a relatively weak curse. The problem is—it’s connected with her.”
“Connected?” Yūji’s eyes traveled over the shapes of her ribs, the jutting bones of her hips.
“It’s very inconvenient to me, y’know?” Gojō Satoru said, his tone brighter, joking. “I even promised her I would find a way to separate them without killing her. I’m the best after all.” His smile was bitter. “I can see that they are connected. The problem is where to cut.”
“Couldn’t Nanamin find the weak point with his technique?”
Gojō sighed. “He’s tried. Shōko has tried. Megumi has tried with the shikigami. Yūta gave it a shot. No one could do more than I could or tell me something I didn’t already know.”
“Then . . . “
“You’re a new circumstance. Maybe there’s merit in introducing you to her. You both house a curse.” The teacher dropped a hand to her arm and traced the blue lines of her veins with a finger. “I’ll admit I was interested to see how you pan out as well as if, by learning about you, I could learn how to wake her.”

Yūji bit his lip. “Is . . . Is her time running out?”
“It’s mutual,” the teacher said flatly. “They are bound into one. They were by the time I got to her. It was too late. If I kill it, I might kill her. If I tear it from her, I might kill her.” He smiled again and Yūji was surprised at how obviously forced a smile it was. “She’s held on for two years. I can’t have that.”

It was a first for Yūji. Seeing the greatest sorcerer so serious, perhaps even vulnerable. He understood why Megumi, who’d failed to help and had a similar line of misery in his own life to draw from for comparison, had told him not to bring it up.

“Sensei,” Yūji said. “I wanna help. Can you tell me how it happened?”

the year 2010

“Hi, hi!” she sang, strutting into the shared living room where twenty-one-year-old Satoru lounged on the sofa, yawning, and Shōko filled out her charts at the table. The evening news droned on. Background noise.

“Back so soon?” Shōko commented, not lifting her eyes from her work.
The sorceress sighed. “Senpai,” she said, pouting. “The way you asked that makes it seem as if I didn’t wanna stay longer. I replaced the flowers and tidied up around the headstone. Besides, Yū-kun wouldn’t want me to hang around and mope at his grave all night.”
“Nanami didn’t go with you?” Satoru asked, throwing his head back to look at her.
“He’s busy.” She stretched, groaning as her back cracked.

Satoru watched her shirt ride up, a sliver of tummy pouch on display.

“The back of an old lady,” he said teasingly.
“I will not take slander from someone with gray hair,” she said, smiling. “Gojō-senpai.”
“It’s my natural hair color!”
“And my back is naturally stiff from all the work I do.”
Satoru laughed. “Good one.”
“Hey, I wasn’t joking.” Yet she kept smiling. “I am the incredible Deflector, you know.”
“That title is still lame,” Satoru informed her.
She shrugged. “It was better than Redirector.”
“True,” Shōko quipped, rising from the dining table. She gathered her charts. “I’m off to the morgue. Anyone need me?”
“I can bring you coffee if you’ll stay up,” the underclassman offered. “I’m too buzzed to sleep.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” Shōko said and gave a brief wave as she left.

It was Satoru and her then, alone in the spacious living room. She tried to act casual, though he could tell she was nervous. Easy to read, that one. She came around the sofa stiffly and awkwardly sat as far from him as the length of the furniture allowed.

“So, um,” she muttered. “Do you also have work, Gojō-senpai?”
“Nah, I just came back from Kawaguchi.”
“Kawaguchi?”
“A time dilating curse, multiple cores, it was a whole thing,” he said.

The announcer signed off and commercials started on the TV.

“I see.” She bit her lip and readjusted her legs, pulling them up to sit cross-cross.

Satoru liked watching her. Not because he meant to date her—he’d have to settle hard to do that—but because she was expressive. Everything she felt was written on her face all the time. Since Haibara’s passing, she’d taken on a part of him, it seemed to Satoru. The talk-a-lot part. And drew the rest from Nanami. She was less childish now. Haibara had been her partner in crime, a duo acknowledged even by Suguru for the ridiculous pranks they played on their third classmate to ‘lighted up the mood’.

Satoru missed those days. When she’d been immature and a little thoughtless, but always cheerful. When Haibara was alive. And Suguru was by his side. He got to his feet, feeling antsy and bitter and regretful and intending to remedy it the only way he knew how—by training to exhaustion.

“Gojō-senpai,” she said. She wasn’t looking at him, as if she didn’t want him to read her expression. “I was going to watch this new comedy special that premieres tonight and . . . Do you wanna watch it with me?”
Satoru smirked. “What? You lonely?”
“Lonely? Of course I am.” She tried to laugh it off. “I mean, without Ken-kun and Yū-kun—Anyway, that’s not why I’m asking.” Her smile was forced. “I could use a laugh. And you often stay up training and stuff.” His expression must’ve changed because she hurried to add, “You don’t have to, o—"
“Popcorn’s on you,” Satoru announced, flopping back down. With his legs stretched out he took up a good 2/3 of space but she didn’t complain or poke his side like Shōko did when she wanted him to move. Instead, she padded to the kitchenette and searched through cabinets.
“Microwaved okay?” she asked, glancing at him over her shoulder.
“Yup.”

Satoru watched her putter around, that small, satisfied smile on her lips. He didn’t take note of her often. Since the hospital mission, he’d taken time to look at her maybe once. She’d grown a little taller, her figure less square, her face thinner.

“Your hair’s long again,” he heard himself say.
She started, fingers clutching the package she was about to put in the microwave tighter as she swallowed. “Yeah,” she said, strained. “Yū-kun cut it for me last time and . . .  It’s stupid, but I felt like I would lose that memory if I went and got it cut.” She shook her head light breaking through unshed tears. “It’s stupid. I know it looks bad with so many pieces of different lengths, but . . . I guess I wanna hold on a bit longer.”
“Looks fine to me,” Satoru said, turning his focus to the TV.

She put the bowl of popcorn between them and chuckled when he stuffed his face. The program began and the two hours it lasted slipped away like sand falling through one’s fingers. She laughed so much—that awfully loud, unabashed laughter that took him back to the moment he’d truly seen her, noticed her. For two whole hours, for the first time since Suguru left, Satoru was carefree.

He wiped tears from his eyes, face hurting from grinning so long, as she got up to run to the bathroom during the final break before the finale. Her phone fell from her back pocket and onto the sofa as she sped off. Satoru’s attention drifted and, when the screen lit up, he looked over, curious.

She never talked about personal things. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched for a woman who was turning twenty that year. In fact, he thought Haibara might’ve made a move if he’d lived longer. Satoru was sure she was oblivious about that and he respected Nanami’s choice not to enlighten her.

The phone was unlocked and the screen showed a text message conversation.

From: Mama <3
He’s better now. I just got back, dear. He’ll go to a hospital in the morning.
With that boy who was best in your school? This late?
You would tell me if you were dating, wouldn’t you dear?

I’m glad. Tell auntie I’ll bring them some fruit tomorrow.
Yes, Gojō-senpai. And NO. I’m not dating him!!
I told you, he’s having a tough time over the thing with his friend. I don’t know how else to cheer him up. I think he likes to hear people laugh so I asked him to watch it with me. I haven’t seen him smile in a while.
I’m relieved.

The messages that had arrived and drawn his notice as she’d left were:

From: Mama <3
OK dear. Call me in the morning. I have classes from 9. I’m going to bed.
Goodnight.
I love you.

“Has it started?” she yelled from the hallway, her slippers slapping against the wooden floor.
“Starting now!” he yelled back, scooting farther from her side of the sofa, eyes on the TV.
She came running, skidded around the furniture, and fell back into her seat with a sigh of relief. “Made it!”

The last commercial played. She took her phone, smiled at the messages, and began typing.

“What’s that smile for, Deflector?” he asked. “Could it be—a boyfriend?”
She turned red. “Wha—It’s my mom, senpai!” She pushed a hand through her hair and put the phone aside when the final skit began.

Satoru dedicated half his brain to looking like he was paying attention, the other half to mulling over what he’d read, what he thought, and what he knew. She was like Haibara after all. Simple, but kind-hearted. Satoru could never want someone as plain, weak, or simple as her. But that kind heart. He could use some of that.

“Thanks for keeping me company, Gojō-senpai,” she said as the credits rolled. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “Goodnight, if you’re going to sleep.”
“Aren’t you?” Satoru asked, rising.
“I think I’ll stay up.” She smiled faintly. “I promised Ieiri-senpai coffee.”
“You’re actually staying up for that?”
“Not just that.” She turned her head away from him, looked at the windows by the kitchenette. “I like the sun at dawn. It’s the gentlest light of the day.”

If you were wondering why he was taking her out to see dawn . . . Welp.
Thank you for reading and commenting! Next chapter goes up Friday!

Chapter Text

“Gojō-senpai. You adopted a child?” she whispered.

Megumi sat in the living room, doing homework.

Satoru shrugged. “I wouldn’t say I adopted him. It’s more like . . . I’m supporting him and his sister financially.”
“How is that not adoption?”
“It’s not like they live with me.”
“Do you act as a parental figure to them at all?”
Satoru gagged dramatically. “Hell no. I’m twenty-one, you know?”
She glanced at the boy writing at the dinner table with concern in her eyes. “Has he had breakfast?”
“How should I know?”
“Senpai.”
“Hey, I’m not his dad.”

She sighed and went over to Megumi, approaching him the way one approaches a skittish animal.

“Hello there.”
Megumi looked up from his notebook and stared blankly. “Hi.”
She introduced herself and sat down across from him. “I was about to heat up some food, so I wondered if you were hungry.”
“I’m fine.”
She nodded sagely. “That’s okay. It’s a bunch of super weird foreign dishes that you can’t even get at restaurants anyway. I’m sure no one but me cares to try all that new stuff.”
Megumi perked up. “What dishes?”
“Oh, a bunch of them. Here, I can show you. I did make too much and I do feel a little bad that I have no one to send the leftovers to,” she went on, rising. “I guess you don’t have classmates or siblings who like to try good food.”
“I have a sister.”
“No way. I’ve always wanted a sister,” she said.

Satoru leaned against the wall and observed. He’d figured she’d be good with kids. She totally seemed like the domestic sort. Watching her slowly draw Megumi out of his shell confirmed Satoru’s suspicion that she would make a good wife to someone. Watching Megumi eat and even let her help with his homework confirmed a different thing—little Megumi was crushing on her.

Satoru laughed to himself and filed that away for later. Megumi was very cute when teased and it wasn’t often that Satoru got such juicy material. He would be receiving the stank eye for the foreseeable future.

the year 2011

On a hot summer day in the year 2011, Satoru walked into the morgue, looking for Shōko, to find the underclassman there. She sat, hunched over, on a metal table, holding a bloody towel in her hands. Her hair was down to her waist, matted with blood at the back of her head.

“What happened to you?” Satoru asked, sauntering in.
“Hair grabbed. Ripped a bit of scalp. Hurt more than you’d think,” she mumbled. “Ieiri-senpai just left. Should be back in two hours, I think.”

Satoru put a hand on her head and pushed down, leaning over her to check the spot.

“She healed it already. I’m sitting here ‘cuz the blood loss made me dizzy,” she muttered, not resisting as Satoru inspected the freshly-healed skin. “It’s my fault for not putting it up in a bun.”
“Why don’t you cut it?” Satoru asked. “Shōko can do it, if you don’t wanna go to a salon. She did an okay job with my fringe once.”
“It’s really silly, you’ll laugh at me.”
He straightened. “Try me then.”
“It’s . . .” She bit her lip. “I’ve had bad dreams. Stupid dreams, I know. I know it’s unreasonable to connect the dots like that, but . . . The last person who cut my hair died horribly.” Her fingers trembled, painted with blood from the towel. “And then my mom wanted to cut it and I just got this awful feeling. My stomach dropped, I was sweating.” She drew a shaky breath. “I felt like she would drop dead right in front of me.”

Satoru pitied her silently.

“It’s ridiculous, I know.” She tried to laugh. “It’s not like there’s a reasonable connection between that and Yū-kun’s—Anyway, I’ll put it in a bun next time.”
“Next time a curse grabs on, it may be more than scalp.”

“I know. Gojō-senpai,” she said and paused before looking up at him. “You probably never thought about this, being so strong, but I’ve kind of come to terms with it—I’m not untouchable, I’m not undefeatable. I’m going to die on a mission. Alone, probably. Young, probably. So many sorcerers have.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “People way stronger than me died that way. I’ve been through it in nightmares a few times. It’s not that bad, I don’t think.” She swallowed. “I hope I can outlive my mom at least. I don’t want her to be sad like Yū-kun’s mom was.” As if startled by her own words, she jolted. “Ah, I’m babbling.” And tried to smile. “Sorry, senpai. It must be boring to you, all this grim talk.”

“I’ll cut it.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not gonna drop dead from cutting your hair, I’ll tell you that,” Satoru said, crossing his arms.
She leaned back. “I—I don’t know, senpai, I—"
“I’ll cut it,” he said. “You’ll lose your head because you’re scared to let other people do it. I’m not gonna die anytime soon. “
“Can you . . . promise that?” she whispered, lowering her eyes.
“I can.”
“Okay.”

And then he was standing behind her, hair falling through his fingers as he sectioned it out. She was quiet. He took the first scissors he found—Shōko would scold him for using random ones later—and nudged her head forward gently. The haircut was choppy, sloppy, obviously done by an incompetent hand, but Satoru didn’t have time to make a joke about it because her shoulders started shaking.

Standing in a pool of cut hair, some bloodied, some wet, most of it dry, she was crying.

“Is it that bad?” he asked quietly.
“No, senpai. I—" She sniffled. “I feel so weightless.” When she turned to look at him, she was smiling despite the tears running down her cheeks. “Thank you.”

It was curious how seeing that text to her mother changed Satoru’s view of the underclassman. He found himself taking advantage of her desire to cheer him up. When the elders pissed him off or Yaga-sensei scolded him or a hint of Suguru popped up in a report, Satoru needed a distraction. Without Suguru around, she was the single persevering sanctuary.

“What’s wrong, senpai?” she asked when he walked into the training room where she was working out.
“What makes you ask that?” Was it that obvious?
She swallowed and smiled. “You don’t usually train with other people. Well, other than Megumi.”

That was very like her—to try and spin the situation to make others comfortable. Was she afraid Satoru would leave if she pointed out that he only sought her when he was disconcerted? Or was she happy to be someone’s safe place?

Satoru shrugged. “I don’t have many underclassmen to bother, you know.”

She laughed cordially and stretched to get a towel. The T-shirt she wore with black leggings was oversized and revealed the curve of her waist when she bent to grab her water bottle. Satoru found himself thinking she must be soft to the touch.

“Senpai,” she said, dabbing the sweat off her forehead. “Wanna get a treat with me?”
“Oh?”
“I trained super hard! I deserve dessert.”

She was such a bad liar. It was half comical and half endearing. She didn’t even like sweet things that much.

“Sure. You’re paying,” Satoru said.
“Seriously?” she asked, playful. “Senpai, aren’t you, like, super rich?”
“Totally.”
“How mean.” Chuckling, she capped her bottle. “Lemme shower real quick. If I’m paying you gotta pick the place.”

Satoru waited for her in the living room, scrolling through the news. There were several accidents he picked out that could be attributed to Suguru’s group. They’d avoided direct conflict—the deadly sort, anyway—so far. Yet deep down he knew it would come to it. One last confrontation.

“Seeenpaai.” She bounced into the room, looking stylish in high-waisted pants and a loose blouse, a small backpack swaying behind her, decorated with fluffy and childish pins and charms. “Are you dozing off? When I’m about to buy dessert?”

Satoru pocketed his phone and looked at her. He drank her in, trying to consume her bright optimism. To be infected with it. If he could’ve taken the smile from her lips with his, he would’ve kissed her for it. If only he could be that cheerful and carefree.
He got up.

“Nah, I’m ready.”

Her expression turned more and more desperate, the longer his order got, and Satoru loved it. It was hilarious. It took his mind off the responsibilities, issues, expectations, and duties of being the strongest. It was his guilty pleasure—though he rarely felt guilty about it—to put the burden of his mood on her and sit back while she painted over his anguish and discomfort with humor and patience.

She gulped. “A-Are you sure you can eat all that?”
Satoru rubbed his chin. “You’re right.” Hope returned to her eyes. “I might go for a second round after.” And died out completely.
“Ah, o-okay . . .”

Satoru laughed and watched her open the backpack and check her wallet miserably. Cute. For the first time, he thought she was kind of cute.

A waitress brought her coffee and his four plates of sweets. Satoru dug in happily and listened to her talk about her mother’s students and the shoes she wanted to get.

“Gojō-senpai,” she said near the end of the hour. “Are you okay?”
“Hm?” Satoru hummed through a mouthful of cake.
“I-I mean obviously you’re fine, you’re the strongest, but . . . Like, in general.” She averted her eyes and held her glass, fingers sliding over the smooth surface just to be employed.
“What? Ya worried about me?” he asked.
She bowed her head. “I, um . . . I heard . . . Getō-senpai might’ve . . . moved closer.”

The frosting in his mouth tasted bitter.

“Oh, that. Don’t worry about it.” It came out colder than he’d meant it.
“Right, sorry.” She sipped her coffee and watched people walk by through the cafe window.

“We should bring Ken-kun next time,” she said absently after a while. “Maybe he’d like the pan au chocolate here.”
“Sure,” Satoru said. He preferred their group of two—unlike other sorcerers, she didn’t bring that pressing reminder of his position and its demands with her. With her, he felt almost normal.
She took out her wallet and counted the money. “I could get an americano to go for Ieiri-senpai.”

Satoru called Ijichi while she went to the cash register to pay. “You have access to staff data, right? Yeah, with her. Send me her bank account info. I’ll flick your forehead. Yup, asap.”
“Shall we go?” she asked as Satoru hung up, carrying the americano in one hand.
“Yeah.”

The stroll back was comfortable and not too long. Satoru took the chance to log in and transfer the price of his sweets and a bit more to her account. She chatted about commonplace things—the weather, the fashion, work hours, training problems—and asked about Megumi and Tsumiki, carefully picking subjects that wouldn’t touch the topic of curse users and bring up Suguru. Satoru liked the sound of her voice. It was soothing and gentle and it made his mind quiet and free, like guided meditation.

When they came to the school gates her phone rang and she shot him an apologetic look before answering.

“Yes? Yes, this is her. Yes, that’s my account. I’m sorry what?” She frowned. “A transfer?” Her eyes bulged and Satoru tried not to laugh. “Of how much? From whom?” she shouted, slack-jawed.

He counted down the seconds eagerly.

Her eyes snapped to him. “Wha—? No, I was not expecting—Can’t you send it back?” she said to the bank worker who’d called and clicked the mute button to talk to Satoru. “What the heck, senpai? That’s enough money to buy a car, you can’t—!”
“Oh! I was supposed to pick up Megumi forty minutes ago,” he said, grinning at her expression of disbelief. “Well, thanks for the treat, see ya!” And he flickered away, laughing as her shout echoed through the school grounds.
“That’s entirely too much money!”

She was so cute.

the year 2013

“It’s her birthday next week,” Shōko said, zipping up a body bag.

Satoru rocked in a chair off to the side. It was nice and cold in the morgue.

“You got that off her chart,” he teased.
“Obviously.”
“Why tell me?”
Shōko shrugged, propping up her clipboard against a hip. “She gets everyone birthday gifts.”
“Hmm. So you wanna go halfsies?”
“Or,” she said, “you can buy it and I’ll sign the card.”
“Hey, I’m not made of money. I’m supporting two orphans, you know?”
“You owe me for Tuesday,” Shōko said simply. “I don’t have time to go shopping. Pick something and I’ll get a card.”
Satoru sighed. “Fine.” He grabbed his phone and started brainstorming. “She’s turning twentyyyy—“
“Three,” Shōko supplied, walking over to the next table.
“Does she carry bags?”
“Have you ever seen her carrying a bag?” Shōko asked dryly, unzipping the body bag.
“I’m not her supervisor. I don’t pay attention. She’s the only one who cares about birthdays and thoughtful gifts and all that around here.”
“I think it’s safe to say a luxury bag isn’t something she’ll accept or use.”

Satoru pouted. “What then? She’s kinda broke, isn’t she? She sends her mother money from missions, I think.” Shōko was absorbed in her work, so he went on. “Her technique is so horribly boring too. It kills me to think I could do what she learned in twenty years when I was five years old.” And on. “At least some girls have looks, you know? Appearance goes a long way and she’s so plain.”
“Is there a point coming up or did you just want to complain?” Shōko asked.
“My point is—she doesn’t put on makeup, right?”

Shōko shrugged.

“You’re no help,” Satoru whined. “She basically has nothing going for her. It’s kinda sad if you think about it.”
“You owe me,” Shōko said. “I’ll get the card.”

It took Satoru three days of being an absolute menace to Nanami to get some options for the birthday gift and he settled on a set of high-end hair-care products and a pretty hair clip with Swarovski crystals. Shōko wrote the card which he signed before ordering Ijichi to set up some decorations in the living room for a quick surprise. They didn’t have time for a whole party, but Satoru managed to get everyone there for ten minutes which was enough for the gifts to be handed over and congratulations expressed.

Nanami stopped by and left a cake from some bakery, Ijichi gave her the first picture the first-years took together in a decorative frame, and principal Yaga told her to take the rest of the week off and go see her mother. Satoru was the one who hung around when the others left, mostly because he wanted the cake, and he munched away while she wiped happy tears and sent everyone thank-you texts.

“Best birthday ever!” she said, hugging the framed photo to her chest. “I’ll go give Yū-kun some flowers tomorrow before meeting up with mom.”

Satoru hummed absently, a fork in one hand, his phone in the other. Megumi was getting in trouble in school and it was amusing that the principal thought Satoru would do something about that.

“You and Ieiri-senpai went overboard, Gojō-senpai,” she said, looking at the hair clip.
“What would you have wanted instead?” Satoru asked, fully planning on blaming Nanami.
She smiled. “You could’ve watched another comedy special with me. That was fun.”
“Sure,” Satoru said and licked the fork clean. “I’ve got no plans tonight.”
“Really, senpai?” she asked and her cheeks were pinker than usual.
“Yup.” He shrugged. “I might need you to win over Megumi if he gets pissy with me again.”

She laughed and it was that sweet, airy, bright laughter that made her beautiful. Despite the choppy hair and the uneven skin and the crooked smile, she was beautiful. Satoru felt her laughter in his chest, in his bones, it tickled the pit of his stomach like a memory from a past life. He liked her best when she was laughing.

“Don’t you worry! The Deflector will fish you out of hot water when you need her to,” she said and flexed a bicep that was not impressive.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s get on with it,” Satoru said and patted his stomach. “I’m stuffed.”

He hadn’t given it much thought before offering to keep her company. The previous time it had been fine. And though Satoru was sought-after and always popular with the fair sex, he had not, in his mind, thought it possible that she was falling for him. She was attracted to him, of course. Every woman who was attracted to men, wealth, power, or good looks was. Yet he’d learned—courtesy of Suguru who was fast in warning him not to give false hope—how to be admired while making it clear that he was not available.

Of all the women who would’ve loved to have him in any way he would allow, he was certain that that particular underclassman, despite a crush she was sure to have or have had at some point, would never, not in a million years, act on it.

So he’d thought.

“So, um, Gojō-senpai,” she mumbled near the end of the program.

Satoru had been on the edge of dozing off. He lifted his heavy head to look at her. She was wearing the hair clip. Her face was very, very red.

“Senpai, can I say something embarrassing?”
Satoru blinked. A sense of dread touched him like a moist mist. “Sure,” he said jovially. “Nanami won’t tell me any of your secrets. And you’re so fun to bully.”

She hesitated. Satoru hoped it would end there.

“Actually, I don’t think Ken-kun knows this. I, um, kind of recently realized it myself.”
“I don’t promise not to make fun of you,” he said, hinting.
“I’m serious,” she said quietly and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll just—Senpai. I like you. R-Romantically, that is. I like spending time with you, even if it’s not often and when you cut my hair, it was such a relief—"

Satoru called her name.

She blanched.

She knew.

“Listen, I’m flattered and all, but—"
“Right, of course!” She jumped off the sofa as if she’d been burned, laughing awkwardly. “I get it, senpai. It was silly of me to—Well, I won't waste more of your time.” She grabbed her backpack from the dining table and sped off, saying, “Thank you for the gift, I’ll see you around!"

Satoru sighed heavily. The living room was chilly all of a sudden.

No further comments, your honor.
(the real pain starts here, bby, gear up)

Thank you for reading and commenting, see ya Monday! <3

Chapter Text

the year 2014

Satoru didn’t think the rejection was so severe as to warrant the kind of avoidance it produced, but he made peace with it. It wasn’t as if she’d been indispensable to him, or as if they’d been the chummiest of buds. Sometimes he caught sight of her running away, turning a corner or running off at the hint of his coming. It was funny one day and annoying the next, but life went on.

Suguru would’ve scolded him for not having more tact, not handling her more delicately, but Suguru was a wanted criminal so maybe he had no leg to stand on. Satoru figured it would sort itself out. She was twenty-four years old. An adult ought to be able to recover from momentary embarrassment.

He didn’t know she’d started dating someone or that she was considering stepping away from sorcery and living a normal life. Trying to squeeze information out of Nanami was trying to draw blood from a stone and Shōko said she was cagey about private matters with her. No doubt because Shōko would spill to Satoru if he asked.

He thought he didn’t care. He didn’t care, in fact. It wasn’t as if he’d changed his mind or was suddenly infatuated with her. She was, had always been, so very below him, with nothing to recommend her—no power, impressive rank as a sorceress, no family name, no connections, not even beauty or money. He’d entertained the possibility of accepting the affections of a woman at some point—he was a desirable twenty-five-year-old bachelor after all—but like every other time, he’d arrived at the conclusion that he was simply unable to return that affection.

It was on a random day when he was coming back from a café with several sweet treats to taste test, that he ran into her on a date. She was prettily dressed—a beige shirt tucked into a long brown skirt, a stylish backpack that matched her leather shoes, black tights—with a peach-colored gloss on her lips and a blush on her cheeks. The man next to her wore jogging pants, worn-out sneakers, and a creased gray T-shirt.

“Oh, Gojō-senpai,” she’d muttered, white as a sheet.
“Hm?”

Satoru saw why she’d paled when the man whose hand she held faced him. He was tall and muscular—an instructor at a dojo, she told him in the introductions—with bleached hair, poorly dyed platinum blond. He didn’t have blue eyes, but Satoru did feel like he was looking at a knock-off in some warped mirror. To his credit, he did not laugh. In fact, he was curious. He wanted to know all the details.

“Senpai? Oh, from high school,” the boyfriend mumbled, clearly disinterested. “Goro, was it?”
Satoru did not laugh. It was an effort Suguru might’ve praised him for. “Gojō.”
“Right, right. Well, I’m sure you two have to catch up and all. Babe, I’m gonna meet Taka at the usual Internet café. I’ll see you at dinner, all right? Make the chickpea thing again, I liked that one.”

And Romeo was gone.

“That—"
“Cool guy,” Satoru said, trying to sound casual. Deadbeat—was what he actually thought.
“Y-Yeah,” she stuttered. “He’s always helping his dad at the dojo, so he can’t meet his friends often.”

The usual Internet café? She was such a bad liar. And his dad’s dojo? Yikes.

“I’ll walk you to the station,” Satoru said to move it along.
“Thank you.”

She held her head low. Something about that irked him.

“Shōko mentioned you’ve been busy lately.”
“Yeah . . . I’m saving up,” she said, looking away.
“Oh? Getting married, are we?” Satoru joked.

Her chin dropped to her chest and his stomach dropped right after.

Satoru had seen many unbalanced couples, but this was ridiculous. One could tell a lot from body language and he happened to have very good eyes. The guy was some deadbeat loser with no personal style, trying to stand out with hair he couldn’t afford to dye properly, probably clinging to his dad or—god forbid, her—for money, avoiding his life’s failures by acting like a teenager and partying the days away at an Internet café while his—incredibly too good and gullible—girlfriend stayed at home, taking meal orders like a mother does from a spoiled child.

“You’re actually gonna marry him?” Satoru heard himself say and wished he hadn’t. His tongue had been quicker than his brain.
“It’s different for us, Gojō-senpai,” she said softly, eyes vacant. “Ken-kun knows what I mean. The older we get, the more likely the next mission will be our last one.” She bit her lip and Satoru thought it was a waste—the makeup and clothes—she looked pretty. “It pays well, thankfully, but I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead.”

If Haibara hadn’t rolled in his grave before, he sure was rolling now.

“I guess that makes sense,” Satoru said neutrally.
“Senpai, I—” She stopped walking and looked up at him. “I wanted to apologize. For springing . . .  that on you. And for avoiding you.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been in a weird place, but I shouldn’t have been so rude.”
Satoru waved dismissively. “No sweat.”
“Thank you. I don’t want to end anything on a bad note.”

The silence that followed was awkward.

“So, when do we save the date?” Satoru asked, just to break it.
“Oh, I don’t know yet. I’m saving for an apartment first,” she said. “I want to buy my mom her own place—that’s my current focus.” Her smile was the first he’d seen of her in a long—too long—time. Refreshing.
“Mr. Boyfriend has his own place, then?” There was no reason to pour salt on a wound, but some part of Satoru was convinced she could still snap out of it and open her eyes. He would blame Haibara’s spirit for haunting him with such ideas if ever asked.
“Ah, no, that’s—I think I’ll worry about us once my mom is settled,” she said. “He wants to move in, but we’ve only been dating a year . . .”

There was hope, Satoru thought. He could’ve bet the guy was living at that dojo and looking to escape his parents. She was the caring type that would let that happen. The type a man could wear down.

Satoru felt oddly protective of her all of a sudden. But then, it was none of his business. He reined it all in.

“We’ll be seein’ you around a bit longer, then.”
“Yeah,” she said. “At least two more years, I think.”
Plenty of time to break up. “Good,” Satoru said.

the year 2015

Every month Satoru expected to hear from Shōko that the underclassman had come crying after the breakup. Every month he was disappointed. That guy was wearing her down, that much was sure. She came to the school in between missions—and she had taken on so many back-to-back—her skin gray, undereyes dark, eyes bloodshot. Even Nanami was moved to action. Satoru watched him stop her in front of the school from a window.

“Nanami seems pissed,” Satoru said to Ijichi who had brought him some documents.
Ijichi leaned over to look and his expression turned sour. “It’s . . . complicated.”
“Deadbeat trying to lock her down?”
“You’ve had the . . . pleasure  . . . of meeting the man in question?” Ijichi said.
Satoru scoffed. “Some pleasure.”
“Of course, it’s not up to colleagues to dictate one’s life,” Ijichi said and pushed up his glasses the way he did when he was stressed. “However, it’s difficult to stand by when someone is being taken advantage of and say nothing.”
“Is it working?” Satoru asked.
Ijichi adjusted his collar. “It’s . . . always been a challenge for her not to offer a helping hand.”
“That why she’s been working so much?”
Ijichi swallowed as if he wanted to say something and knew he shouldn’t. “I’m given to understand,” he said stiffly, “there may be debts she is trying to pay off.”

Satoru had walked away from the encounter with the lovers relatively unaffected, but the longer it dragged on, the more he found himself wanting to intervene. Haibara definitely would’ve. Suguru probably wouldn’t have. Shōko wouldn’t. Nanami did and it wouldn’t work.

Satoru whistled. “Isn’t that a pickle.”

He would come to regret that inaction.

Yup, he's huffing a lot of copium—you snooze, you lose, my guy. Alternative title: man's first experience with jealousy.
Short one today but the next chapter is hella long, so hang on! Ty for reading and commenting <3

Chapter Text

She used to hum some silly tune when she pranced around the school, Satoru realized when the humming stopped. It was an abrupt cessation and only once he’d walked past her so many times, expecting to hear it again, did Satoru come to terms with the fact that he never would.

Nanami had broken it off. Satoru had heard from Ijichi. Nanami had taken her aside one last time and had spoken his mind—confronted her with some truths she wouldn’t have confessed out loud. It had ended in a snap and they were no longer talking. She was hurt, Nanami resigned to stay out of her life, wishing her well despite the break.

Every time Satoru saw her she looked worse—less happy, less healthy, less energetic. The Haibara part of her had died in that relationship, it seemed. She used to skip around and spout happy-people nonsense back in the day. Now she went with empty eyes, hollow and hopeless, as if she was on a long road to the guillotine. Satoru grew unreasonably irritated. He knew it was unreasonable, as he had no claim or care for her life, really, but it was so obvious a problem with such a simple solution that it drove him up the wall that she grit her teeth and bore it instead of cutting herself free of dead weight.

He understood why Nanami had stepped aside. It was infuriating, watching her work herself to the bone for some half-wit loser as if she couldn’t see or believe that she deserved better. Satoru had kept the frustration to himself successfully. Until the morning before her final mission, that is.

Satoru hadn’t slept well and was awake hours before dawn, sprawling on the couch in the shared living room as he waited for daylight.

She came in quietly, thinking he was asleep, and Satoru startled her by sitting up swiftly. “Boo!”
“Oh my—! Senpai, you almost gave me a heart attack,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest.
The cheap engagement ring pissed him off. “What are you creepin’ around for?”
“I wanted to see dawn.” She swallowed. “One last time, from the school.”
“Right. Today’s your last assignment?” Satoru asked casually, trying to seem uninterested.
“Yeah.” She bowed her head. “I’ll head out after dawn. It’s a great view from the stairs at the back.”
“Is it?” Satoru rose from the couch. “I’ll tag along then. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it from that spot.”
She bit her lip as if she wanted to protest but decided not to last-minute. “Sure.”

He stepped outside with her. She fidgeted awkwardly as they stood at the top of the stairs, not so close as to rub shoulders, but close enough that he could feel her shift her weight, feel her cursed energy fluctuate from nerves.

Suddenly she turned to him and bowed. “Thank you for taking care of me all these years, senpai. I’m happy to have lived here and met you. I’m happy to have been a sorcerer.” She straightened. “I’ll live long and well. And I’ll send New Year’s cards! Please pass that on to Ieiri-senpai if I don’t get to see her.”

Regret and relief mixed on her face—a crooked smile, a bashful blush, an unseen weight on her shoulders. That smile was so damn fake. It pissed him off. She couldn’t even smile anymore.

“You still like me, don’t you?” Satoru said, surprising them both.
She avoided his eyes. “That’s unfair, senpai.”
“C’mon, you’re settling for that guy.” He didn’t want it to pour out like that, but it proved difficult to stop.
“I—" She drew a breath and scrubbed a hand over her face. “People do their best. He’s not a bad person. Not everyone can have everything, senpai.” Her voice became quieter. “It’s not something you can understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” Satoru said plainly, shoving his hands into his pockets. “He’ll bleed you dry if you don’t break it off. There’s still time to change your mind.”
“Change my mind and do what?” she snapped.

It was the first time he’d heard her raise her voice to someone.

“Do what?” Her desperate expression stirred up something painful in him. “Wait to bury Ken-kun next? Wait for you to change your mind? Wait to die alone and in pain as some cursed spirit devours me?” She scoffed. “What is there for someone like me? Gojō Satoru can never understand what it’s like to be nobody. What it’s like to take every assignment knowing you might not survive it. What it’s like to have to choose.” She stepped back, away from him, and whispered, “You’ve never had to choose, have you, senpai? You can have it all, right? You are Gojō Satoru.” Tears welled in her eyes. “But I am nothing.”

She shook her head, smiling bitterly. “The people I’m helping don’t know I’m helping them. The colleagues and friends I want to grow old with are dying left and right. Every mission I’m praying I live to see my mother again.” Her lips trembled. “Some of us have to choose.” She sniffled. “Quite frankly I’m tired.” Wiping her eyes, she said, “So yes, I’m settling. I’m settling for a normal life, doing a normal job, living with a normal man. I’m settling. I’m choosing to get married and start a family so my mother can give her love to grandchildren, so she can be surrounded by people in her last days. I’m settling for a broken man and I’m choosing to try and heal his heart.”

The sun rose on the horizon, warming her flushed face.

“I’m choosing to quit. This will be my last mission. I chose that too.” She walked to the door and paused before leaving to say, with uncharacteristic cold and detachment, “I do still love you. But you don’t know what that means. My fiancé may not be perfect, but he does. He loves me. I choose that. I choose to be loved.”

She closed the door softly. Could’ve slammed it shut, but she didn’t. That so was so like her.
It occurred to Satoru that it was a strange thought to have. How would he know what was or was not like her? He stood alone in the light of dawn as recollections rushed to him in quick succession, painting a picture he’d only ever grasped bits of, in full.

Yes, he’d often made it his mission to get her to laugh, but that was because she was pretty when she laughed. Nothing more to it. And he did stay up a few times when he could’ve slept, because he knew she’d be up to see dawn and she was sort of endearing when she padded out of her room, hair disheveled, yawning, with her face puffy, blinking like a cat. Sure, he’d felt something—briefly—when he’d realized that she’d tried to cheer him up after Suguru left. So maybe he’d gone over to bother her, back when she’d lived at the school, whenever he’d fallen too deep into brooding, but that was because she was stupidly bright and positive and fun to tease.

It wasn’t like she was the only woman who had a good heart. It wasn’t like she was the only one who was good with Megumi and who never failed to bring back regional sweets from long missions and who remembered to buy Shōko cigarettes just as she was about to run out. It wasn’t like it was only her, keeping the fridge stocked up with everyone’s favorite drinks and tidying the kitchen after Satoru had rummaged through it, looking for snacks.

Satoru didn’t want her. He didn’t. It made no sense. She was so below his league—a whole different dimension. Weak and plain and meek enough for some muscle-head asshole to wear her down so much that her friends couldn’t recognize her. Satoru wanted none of that. He would never settle for some weak-willed, mild-mannered, simpleton woman. He would never.

He would never.

Never let her slip through his fingers.

Satoru flickered to the front gate, steered by impulsive desire. She jolted, narrowly avoiding running into him. Her nose was red, eyes bloodshot from crying.

“I’ll come with you,” Satoru said.
“I don’t want you to.”
“I’ll make sure you come back safe.”
“I don’t want you to!” She tried to run past him.
Satoru grabbed her wrist, blurting out the impossible conclusion drawn from his own actions. “I want you!”
She stilled as if he’d frozen her solid with those three words. “What?”
“I want you to laugh again,” he said, trying to explain to them both, irritated and out of his element. “Even if you quit and you never return here—I want you to be happy.” His grip on her tightened. “You’re not happy.”
“How would you know?” she hissed, yanking to no avail.
“I’ve been watching you ever since you started dating that guy. You haven’t been happy.”

“You are such a child,” she spat, pure venom. “You don’t even understand what you’re doing. How much it hurts to hear you say this. How awful you are for saying this.”
Satoru set his jaw. “I mean it.”

He wasn’t sure if he meant it. His usual confidence evaded him. It was all her fault. He said the words to keep her there, mind working overtime to try and figure out what was wrong with him. Why was he irritated? Why did it prickle him to watch her leave? Why was it so damn unbearable to let go?

“You don’t!” she shouted and finally freed herself. “You can’t,” she whispered, holding the wrist to her chest as if his touch had stained her skin. “You’re used to getting your way. You’re selfish, you want what you can’t have because you can’t have it.”

Satoru wondered if she was right. Was that all? Was there such a side to him? Was that the name of the feeling twisting his gut and making him want to grab and lock her where that guy couldn’t erode her any more?

“You don’t want me to be happy. You want me to keep orbiting you and loving you and giving my time and energy to you. You don’t see that because you haven’t lived in a world that didn’t have you for a center.”

Could that be the case? What was romantic love like? What was the feeling? Did it differ from the awful sensation burning him up from the inside? Why did he want to restrain her all of a sudden? Why did he want to press her to his chest until they became one? Was it only so she could understand his point of view? Was it so he could check—make sure—that what he felt was the same as what she felt when she said she loved him?

“I did nothing to deserve what you’re doing,” she cried softly.

Why the hell could her voice cause him so much physical pain?

“If you want me to be happy, go away. Stop hurting me. Leave me alone.”

Satoru was numb. He watched her run away as if he was nailed to the ground, grappling with his feelings, trying to make sense of everything that had assaulted him from that morning.

It all haunted him for the rest of the day. It replayed in his head like a scratched tape, coming back worse each time. It made him ill, like a bad omen. Satoru told Megumi he could ditch school for the day if he was ready to train and busied himself with playing the upbeat teacher. Something gnawed at his stomach. Megumi noticed, but didn’t prod when Satoru brushed it off with a joke.

Something was wrong.

Satoru had stayed up till midnight in the living room, expecting to meet her when she returned to give her report. He went to bed unwillingly, guessing that she’d decided to send in a written report—or email—so she wouldn’t have to face him. Slipped through his fingers after all.

He sat on his bed with a heavy sigh, torn between stuffing it all down and examining his feelings and conduct in detail. Had he fallen for her or had he wanted her to stay infatuated with him? Was there a difference between the two? Why wasn’t it like that with other women who wanted him? Why was she the exception?

His phone rang, screen lit up. Shōko’s name. Satoru debated not answering, but she wouldn’t have called at all, especially in the middle of the night, unless it was a problem only he could solve.

“Some people are sleep—"
“Morgue. Now. I need you to exorcise this curse before it kills her,” she said, firm and clear.

Satoru’s heart leaped into his throat. He didn’t need to ask who. The moment she’d spoken he’d felt out and located their cursed energy—Shōko’s and hers.

He appeared in the morgue, the call still ongoing, phone hanging limply from his fingers. Shōko was bent over a table, her gloves stained with blood, frowning. And she lay there, stripped to her underwear like that time he’d found her in the curse’s domain, writhing in pain as a purple rune swirled over her abdomen, a chunk of which was missing—a half-moon shape of torn raw flesh and gushing blood dented her waist. She moaned and grunted, swaying in and out of consciousness.

“Hurry,” Shōko hissed, bracing to shove a dislocated shoulder back into the socket.
“Sen—" the underclassman wheezed. “Mom . . . tell m’ mom . . . died quickl—“ She seized, eyes rolling back into her head as blood leaked from her nose
“Save it,” Shōko bit out and pushed, making the younger woman scream. “Hang on.”
“Nn—" She couldn’t speak, tears spilling over her temples, down to her ears. “Eating—Can’t—"
“What?” Shōko said, leaning over to grab a needle.

Satoru understood. He saw. It was eating her. The rune was complete and the wheel spun, weaving her cursed energy with its own. A curse which could consume and regurgitate itself. Once connected, it would consume the entirety of both and spit back out only itself.

“Shit,” Satoru swore, looking over her.
“Go. I can’t work if she’s struggling,” Shōko said urgently.
“I can’t,” Satoru breathed.
“What?”
“It might kill her.”

Shōko looked at him as if he’d spoken in Latin.

“I can’t kill her,” Satoru said.
Shōko recovered in record time, eyebrows drawing together. “Shut them both down, then. I need to work. She might not survive anyway.”

Satoru focused cursed energy into his palm and reached out. Her eyes snapped open. Fixed on him. It was a goodbye, the final greeting in her eyes. He clenched his teeth.

“I’ll find a way, so hold on,” he said and shocked her body, knocking her fully out.

Her head thumped against the table, the luminous rune flickering, weakening. Shōko worked fast and Satoru couldn’t do much to help. He left them at dawn, shaken to his core. Shōko was done by the evening.

The underclassman lay unconscious on the operating table, tubes running in and out of her broken skin, mended flesh bandaged. The rune was recovered and swirled menacingly. Shōko dabbed away crusted blood as she explained the situation.

“This is the best I can do,” Shōko said. “She’s not dead yet. Unlikely to wake up unless you can exorcise the curse. Her body can’t do much healing when they’re . . . attached, or whatever the case. Best I can do is keep the body alive while she struggles to fight it off.”

Satoru slumped into a chair with a deep sigh.

“Can you tell how long?” Shōko asked, tossing aside a bloody cotton round to grab a cigarette.
Satoru peered at the rune. “Could be years.”
“With this body? I wouldn’t give her more than three.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Her cursed energy is not at a level that can fight it off, but it can’t replenish because she is fighting it off. Her body might start drawing out some to try and heal in time, that’ll only accelerate her defeat.”
“Yup.” Shōko lit the cigarette and took a drag. “She has four missed calls from her mother. We’ll have to sort that by tomorrow evening.”
“Yeah.”
“She wanted us to say she died quickly.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think she’ll survive.”
“Yeah.” Satoru rose. He looked at the body, the rune, the underclassman he could’ve followed and protected if his feelings hadn’t been so entangled as to have made him hesitate. “I’ll talk to Ijichi. Can you keep her here three more days?”
“Sure.” Shōko flicked off ashes. “What are you going to do?”
“Tell them she’s dead.”
“And then?”
“I’ll take care of it. Just keep her here a bit longer.”

Satoru told Ijichi to contact her family—the fiancé and her mother—while he sought out Nanami. The blond was found outside a construction site, fresh off a mission.

“I see,” Nanami said coolly, but his eyes were dull and empty like the day Haibara’s corpse was brought back to the school. “As far as I know, her mother has been told about the danger of our work, but not the specifics. How do you plan on explaining this to her?”
“I don’t,” Satoru said calmly.
“You don’t?” Nanami repeated slowly and anger began to brim under his skin, held back, but Satoru felt the sting of his cursed energy bristling.
“She’s not gonna make it. Said to tell her mom that she’d died quickly, right before she passed out.”
“If she’s not dead yet, her mother has the right to know.”
“Nanami,” Satoru said. “She is dead. She’s the curse now. It’s the body alone that persevered and only because Shōko is helping. You can give it a try with your technique but if that doesn’t work it’s a wrap. She’ll be dead in a few hours.”

Nanami squinted. Could he tell that Satoru was lying? Would he call him out? He couldn’t win against Satoru, no matter his feelings.

“Her mother won’t have closure without a funeral,” Nanami said in the end, regarding Satoru with suspicion.
“Ijichi will call soon. Don’t worry about the funeral.” Satoru turned to leave. “You just show up.”

Satoru returned to the school, flickering into the hallway outside the assistants’ break room, to see Ijichi gripping the edge of a table as if he would snap the wood in two. He was red in the face, a phone to his ear, and losing composure to such a degree as Satoru had never seen before.

Ah. The fiancé.

“What I’m trying to convey—" Ijichi tried and was cut off, left to chew on his lips as he pushed his glasses up with shaky fingers.

Satoru came in and raised a brow.

Ijichi—the proper, professional, always-by-the-book, meticulous Ijichi—looked at him and clicked the speaker button.

“—and she wouldn’t want me to be hung up on her, you know? She would’ve wanted me to move on and be happy. And honestly, I’m so stricken with grief, I really can’t think about a funeral and stuff.” Her fiancé’s voice.

Satoru understood Ijichi’s anger. He also considered murder.

“Honestly, I’m in shock and I have to focus on me and healing from this and stuff. You guys can call her mom, right? Tell her she doesn’t need to contact me, I’m honestly kinda falling apart, I definitely can’t go to her funeral and all that. Thanks for letting me know. Hope it goes well.”

And that was all Romeo said.

Ijichi hung up without saying a thing. He took a long, deep breath, seething, and straightened his clothes slowly.

“I’ll be contacting her mother shortly,” he said stiffly. “The principal will speak to her personally to offer to arrange the funeral. Was there something you wanted before I go on?”
“Yeah,” Satoru said. “When they start planning the funeral, let me know. I’ll pay for it.”

He flickered to his room and sunk into bed—clothes, shoes, and all.

“God fucking damn it.”

Breaking news—man discovers feelings.
Thank you for reading and commenting, y'all make my day <3

Chapter Text

A/N: fic was written before the end of the Shinjuku showdown arc so I started winging it from here. It’s being posted as the arc is developing though, so if someone who’s in these chapters dies that’s on Gege (ch.236 happened in the meantime…I don’t wanna talk about it…), I’m just a hopeful fanfic writer.

TLDR: not canon from here on

Her funeral was short and intimate—her mother falling apart in the circle of friends and neighbors who’d come to pay respects, along with Nanami, Ijichi, and the principal. Shōko handled the papers, Yaga-sensei didn’t question Satoru’s story, and Ijichi did as ordered—her body stayed at the school after Nanami’s failed attempt at separating them. Two people knew about it—Satoru and Shōko—and three people suspected it—Nanami, Ijichi, and Yaga-sensei—but it was Satoru’s will and that was enough to evade scrutiny.

Satoru watched the funeral from afar. He didn’t bring flowers or words of comfort for her mother or an anecdote to share. He watched people arrive and then watched them leave—no fiancé—and then he went to interview palliative care nurses. Of the thirty applicants, he found one acceptable and gave her the cover story before agreeing on hours. Money, of course, was not an issue.

He picked a room in the basement—moderate size, no window, one point of entry—and started on the barriers while three branch-family members cleaned and sterilized every inch of it. No one questioned the need for the hospital bed and medical equipment delivered from across the ocean, but Nanami did come to see him.

“Here.” He put a key with a cutesy, girlish charm on it, in the palm of Satoru’s hand. “Her mother said the apartment’s no good if she can’t share it with her daughter.”
“Why give it to me?”
Nanami shrugged. “Maybe she found out who paid for the funeral.” And walked away. “Maybe she wanted to give it to anyone but that man.”

When the room was done and the barriers active, Satoru went to the body storage and scooped her into his arms, minding the tubes. She was cold and pale, but her face twitched now and again, giving Satoru hope that she could survive until he figured out how to separate them. He flickered to the room, laid her down, and tucked her in, but hesitated to leave. Shōko had been with her in the morgue, at hand if something happened.

Satoru stood halfway between the bed and the door when she whimpered. He flinched, her pain a physical blow to him who didn’t know how to remove it. She would have the nurse in the morning. Satoru couldn’t leave her alone in the dark for a whole night.

He fetched the clothes he’d bought for her from his room and changed his own there before teleporting back. Then he sat by her side, watching for a change of expression, and set about undressing and redressing her when there was none.

Wrapping an arm around her, he pulled her to his chest and held her there while he got the hospital gown off over her head. He paused, wondering if it would’ve felt different had he hugged her, back then, instead of grabbing her wrist. Wondering if she would’ve been angrier or calmer, if she would’ve cancelled her mission to cool off or skipped it entirely to get away from him. He wondered what it would feel like if her limp arms rose and hugged him back. If she giggled into his shoulder or tucked a smile against his neck.

He laid her back down and shimmied the pajama pants up her legs. Shōko had changed her out of the blood-flecked underwear. The top was trickier but Satoru managed and, at last, had her dressed. Sloppily, but dressed nonetheless. He checked the appliances and the barriers before turning off the light and crawling into bed next to her.

It was odd that he didn’t feel in the wrong about it. In fact, he wanted to pull her closer, wrap around her and try to join her fight with his cursed energy. Satoru put a hand over her stomach. It zapped him, pushed back like a binding vow he could not get in the middle of. He sighed and brushed some hair back from her face.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered to her in the dark, caressing her forehead and temple gently. “I’ll get on it tomorrow. You’ll be shocked when you see what I can do when I narrow my focus to one problem. I’ll fix it, so hold on. I’ll find a way.” A wave of affection surged in him, the kind he had not felt before, and Satoru found himself leaning in. He pressed his lips above her brow. “I’ll find a way. I’m the strongest after all.”

Present day

Before Satoru could put together a plan of attack with Yūji as an ally, the world fell to chaos. From the prison realm to a duel with the king of curses—it was quick thinking and possibly prescience on his part that had prompted him to arrange guards and a caretaker from the family to keep her safe and alive.

She had entered the eleventh hour, Satoru saw when he returned to her. Her cursed energy was whittled down so much he could barely feel it, flickering in and out like candle flame. Shōko confirmed that her organs were failing. The moment of truth had arrived—within the week she would be dead or alive again.

There was an addition to the team that Yūji felt could be useful. Chōsō—the eldest of ten, apparently—was an incarnated Death Painting Womb, a half-human, half-cursed spirit entity with blood manipulation powers.

“If the curse is mixed with her and they’re both flowing through her body through blood, then maybe Chōsō can thin the connection between them by separating the blood that’s hers and the part that’s not, and then you can make the cut, sensei,” Yūji explained as they walked down the stairs into the basement.

He’d mulled over it, but Satoru was convinced there had also been some meeting or discussion he had not been invited to for such a thorough and thoughtful idea to form. He could sense Megumi’s logic and Yūta’s knowledge of curses, Shōko’s theories on the connection and Maki’s decisiveness in the plan, along with fragments of others.

“You gathered some committee about this?” Satoru asked, half-joking.
“Kinda,” Yūji admitted. “But I didn’t say why—well, not to the people who didn’t know. Fushiguro and the senpai helped with the plan. We only asked for suggestions for a hypothetical situation from the others.”
“Right.” Satoru stopped in front of the door and turned to Chōsō before opening the way. “Just so we’re on the same page—if you do anything at all without my permission, I will not hesitate to exterminate you.”
“That’s reasonable,” Chōsō said coolly.
“It is?” Yūji cut in.
Chōsō shrugged. “Being protective of your family is natural.”

They stepped inside. Chōsō didn’t flinch at the zap from the barrier. Satoru went around the bed, pulled the cover down to her hips, exposing the rune, and crossed his arms.

“I would like to start with an analysis of her blood,” Chōsō said neutrally, regarding the comatose woman.
“Does that require you to put your hands on her?” Satoru asked, eyes narrowing.
“It would help.”
“Gently,” Satoru bit out.

Chōsō touched the woman’s shoulder, gaze shifting to the rune. Yūji looked across the bed at his teacher and jolted. Satoru was on edge, focused intently on Chōsō’s every move. Ready to kill instantly.
He wasn’t kidding.

“They are one,” Chōsō observed.
“We know that,” Yūji said. “Can we separate them without killing her?”
“No.”
“That’s unacceptable,” Satoru said.

They were running out of time.

“Not safely,” Chōsō amended, pulling his hand back.
Satoru swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“I can parse out what part of the blood is hers. If I drew all her blood out of her body along with the curse and separated it into two streams while cycling in clean blood—which, in itself, might kill her—technically, the curse could be exorcised without danger to her at that point.”

“Why isn’t it safe?” Yūji asked as his teacher rubbed his chin, thinking.
“The separation of the streams and the exorcism must be simultaneous to avoid blowback,” Chōsō said. “There is no room for mistakes or complications.” He looked at Yūji. “It’s like trying to thrust a blade between pages 101 and 102 of a closed book. Even if you knew which two they were—even if the pages were distinctly colored—you are more likely to stab, slice, or rip the book in trying to do it than to accomplish it.”

“But Gojō-sensei can do it, right?” Yūji said, turning to his teacher.
“Of course I could.”
“Yet he cannot perform both sides of the task,” Chōsō said plainly.
“Can’t you practice to get in sync before giving it a try?” Yūji asked.
“She’s on borrowed time already. Like he said, drawing the blood out might very well kill her on its own,” Satoru said, surfacing briefly from his thoughts.
“You’ve taken care of my little brother. I am willing to assist if you decide to try,” Chōsō said.
“Tonight,” Satoru said. “I’ll have it all ready tonight.”

The school staff received notice that training ground B was off limits for the week and by the time Yūji and Chōsō arrived, passing through five distinct barriers, the hospital bed was in the middle of it. Yūta and Shōko stood a few steps back while Satoru secured the tubing.

“All right,” Satoru said and looked at the gathered persons. “Yūta and Shōko, I’m counting on you for the reverse technique if this works.”
“Can I do something?” Yūji asked.
Satoru nodded. “You’re the runner. If I need to send someone out to deliver information or obtain something, be quick.”
“Can do!”
Chōsō approached carefully. “Your family, your call,” he said to the greatest sorcerer.
Satoru nudged a mini-fridge at the end of the bed with a foot. “Here’s the clean blood. How long will it take for you to cycle out all of hers?” Satoru asked.
“Minutes.”
“And to separate them outside the body?”
“Less than a minute, unless the curse causes an issue.”
“It won’t,” Satoru said and stared at the rune. “It, too, is nearing the end. It is weakest at this point, right before the cycle completes and it regurgitates its strong self.”
Chōsō observed the comatose woman. “The shock will kill her body, most likely.”
Satoru jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Yūta and Shōko. “That’s what they’re here for. You worry about replenishing as you drain, I’ll do the exorcising, and they’ve got the rest.”
“Fine by me,” Chōsō said.

Yūji had never seen Gojō Satoru nervous, so he couldn’t say with certainty that he was, but his teacher came to her side with uncharacteristic hesitation. Yūta and Shōko moved to the foot of the bed as Choko opened the fridge and gathered the blood bags.

He returned to the side of the bed, saying to Satoru, “Upon your command.”

Gojō Satoru took off his blindfold and cast it aside. He drew a deep, long breath and brushed a thumb over the apple of her cheek before flexing both hands to ready himself.

“Go.”

It happened in a flash—it seemed to Yūji who stood on the sidelines, watching over his shoulder, positioned to take off at a sprint at any moment. Chōsō threw the bags in the air and they burst, spears of blood coming together in a serpentine shape which split a vessel to invade at one side of her neck as darker, tainted blood began to drain from the same vessel on the other side. No one said a word, four people focused as one on a mission deemed to fail.

Her body paled on one side, regaining color on the other as Shōko and Yūta stepped closer, each grabbing a limb to infuse the body with reverse cursed technique. The world slowed to a stop as the liters of blood evacuated from her vessels began to split into two distinct streams—one more blood and the other more cursed energy. Chōsō watched the split like a hawk, hands pressed together as he weaved out the curse from the sorceress. Gojō Satoru was tension personified, not blinking as he waited for the split to be complete.

“Now!” Chōsō shouted.

Gojō Satoru’s hand came down on the parasitic curse.

First her breathing stopped and then there was all that blood to cycle back in with some from the blood bags and Gojō Satoru watching helplessly as Ieiri Shōko worked on reviving the body of the person he couldn’t bear to lose. Yūji was at his wit’s end.
The panic and bustle stopped at once, like someone had made a precise cut in the atmosphere.

“Did it work?” Yūji asked, bewildered, as Satoru stumbled to her bedside.
“She’s breathing,” Shōko said.
“She’s alive,” Yūta tried, looking to the teacher for a reaction.
“Time will tell,” Gojō Satoru said gruffly and bent over the frail body.
“Come, Yūji,” Chōsō said as he turned to leave, the other two following suit. “Privacy.”

Yūji cast a final glance back right before they hit the innermost barrier and saw his invincible teacher holding her torso to his chest, his striking eyes hidden by the fringe of white hair.

It was that time before dawn when there was little light and a blue hue hovered in the air, cold and indifferent. Satoru carried her outside, as he’d done every day for two years, and sat on the stone stairs that faced east, arranging her in his lap so she would be comfortable and much of her skin exposed to dawn. Her steady breaths gave him hope, the pink hue of her skin made him expectant—watching for a change, a reaction, a gasp and a dramatic awakening.

It didn’t come.

Satoru sat with her, rubbing his cheek against her forehead absently as gentle sunlight spilled over them. He wasn’t sure if he could go on. How much longer. He wasn’t sure anymore. Time was a cruel opponent.
The sun climbed higher. Their time was up. He stood, stretched, holding her, and her head lolled against his collarbone.

He turned, dawn warm on his back. A quiet whimper fell on his ear and stole his breath. Simultaneously terrified and excited beyond reason, Satoru dared to look down.

She frowned weakly. Exhaled. An eye cracked open.

“Dawn?” she croaked, voice thin from disuse.
“It’s the gentlest light of the day,” Satoru whispered.
His arms were trembling.

Btw (ending spoiler for this fic, if you care read no further) this will have a happy end (guaranteed, it’s been written for some time!). I’m fully side-stepping canon with this one. Happy thoughts, happy vibes. My antidepressants can only do so much, y’know?
Thank you for reading and commenting <3

Chapter Text

Waking up to a world with a two-year gap between the life you’d known and the life in present time was an ordeal. Satoru did his best to explain what happened as he carried the newly-awakened underclassman to the morgue for a checkup. His heart was racing still, the warmth of her body set him aflame through the uniform, the sound of her weak voice testing his sanity—how many times had he waited with bated breath to hear her speak, how many nights held her body to his chest as if the proof of his being alive could call her back from the edge of death?

“I guess it makes sense I feel so drained,” she mumbled in a daze, eyes fluttering shut as she rested her temple against his chest. “I feel like I’m in a dream.”
“Don’t strain your voice,” Satoru said gently, doing his best not to jostle her too much as he descended the stairs.
“For two years . . . I mean,” she croaked and seemed to wander off for a moment, absent, before pulling herself back to finish the sentence, “I thought you were angry with me, senpai.”

Satoru’s stomach clenched.

“Oh, there’s Shōko,” he lied, rushing ahead.

It was a spear straight to the chest—the fact that he’d spent so many early mornings by her side, caring for her body, hoping for her recovery, accepting the fact that he was in love but, to her, it was yesterday that he’d tried to dissuade her from leaving. He’d pined and hummed and talked to her every day for two years, but to her he was the selfish bastard who’d waited for the last possible chance to say he wanted her and couldn’t even say it with conviction.

Shōko agreed to leave the details and tragedies of the two years to Satoru to break down gradually, nodding to his serious look as he set the underclassman down on a chair. He caught himself going to sit and hold her in his lap and had to quickly correct the habit—she could hold herself upright. If she noticed, she didn’t comment, smiling slowly at Shōko who began a thorough inspection.

Satoru called Ijichi with orders to find her mother and bring her without breaking the news fully. Next, he arranged a full-body checkup at one of the top private hospitals in Tokyo—he had the cover story about a comma and private care ready, along with a ‘mistake’ in medical documents, courtesy of Shōko, and the ‘incorrectly identified’ body in the coffin—and then whisked her away from the morgue, carrying her to the car that waited outside the school gates. It twisted his gut how surprised she seemed at the casual way he scooped her up.

He expected the reminders of his unrequited feelings would be many. After all, she’d never consented to being kept a secret or being hidden from her mother. For all he knew, every single thing he’d said to her unmoving self as she struggled in a losing battle was unwanted, every tender touch that had broken his heart to bestow upon her unresponsive form was a crossing of the line, and the fact that he’d kept her to himself, Shōko, and a few students—which he’d done to protect her—could easily seem like unhealthy possessiveness from her point of view.

“Looks like I have many people to meet,” she whispered as he lowered her to the back seat. “I think it hasn’t hit me yet that time has passed. It’s like I was . . . on that table in the morgue last night.”

Her focus wavered visibly and, despite Shōko’s recent thumbs-up, dread crept over Satoru. He gave the address to their driver and sat next to her, at once relieved and guilty when her head dropped on his shoulder as the car turned.

“Yeah, listen, a lot has happened—obviously—but you’ll hear it all in time. You don’t need to worry about anything but regaining your strength now.”
“Ieiri-senpai said my cursed energy might never recover to what used to be my base level,” she muttered.

Satoru thought he could tell, having spent so long replaying their every interaction as he waited for her return, that she was barely keeping it together. And given that her fiancé had not been among the first to see her, Satoru guessed that she knew how that had worked out and didn’t want to ask.

“Sleep. I’ll wake you when we get to the hospital,” he suggested, shifting closer so she could lean on him.
Her head dropped forward, nervous laughter whistling past her lips. “I’m . . . kinda scared to sleep. T-To be honest, I’m not sure this isn’t something I made up in my head.”

Satoru had touched her hand—the one with the cannula especially—so many times, traced the veins or stroked her skin, that he did it out of habit, covering it with his. He gave a gentle squeeze.

“It’s real. You lived. You don’t have to sleep, but rest. Close your eyes. I’m here.”

She didn’t seem convinced but didn’t fight him either. Didn’t pull her hand away.

Satoru carried her into the hospital, torn because she seemed not to want him to but clung onto him as if letting go would dissolve them both into dusty ghosts in a dream of a delusional mind. The private room he’d requested was sterile and all-white, his family name on the door instead of hers. When the doctor assumed she was his wife, Satoru corrected him calmly but she shrank into herself as if it stung. Her freshest memory was one of being hurt by him, after all.
He moved the conversation along.

“And with those scans, we’ll have a full report,” the doctor explained. “We’re ready to get started.”
“Can you wait another hour?” Satoru asked. “Her mother is on the way.”
“All right. You can call the nurse in when you’re ready.”

The physician left after shaking Satoru’s hand. When the door slid closed behind him, Satoru sat in the chair by her bed and explained about her funeral. She was near catatonic, the mention of her mother seemed to have petrified her fully.

“I’m sorry. I was the one who decided to do it this way,” Satoru said.
“N-No, that’s . . . It’s what I wanted, I told Ieiri-senpai to tell her that,” she mumbled, distant, confused. “My mom . . .” Her eyes widened. Panic. “Where—?” Her breathing picked up speed. “Is she still teaching? Is my—?” She bent over suddenly, starting to hyperventilate as tears spilled from her eyes—wide with fear and desperation—and her hand flew to her chest.

She sobbed once. Twice. Satoru’s heart cracked. Deep. The way she cried, he found out, was just as she laughed—unrestrained and honest, almost child-like but so intensely sorrowful that he couldn’t help but draw closer. She wailed out loud, a raw, gut-wrenching sound that was broken and alarming, so much fright, confusion, and frustration bursting out straight from her soul.

“It h-hurt so much, senpai, I—” She sniffled. “I thought I would go crazy f-from the pain, it was like burning alive, it hurt so much, I wanted m-my mom, I wanted to die already it hurt so bad,” she cried, falling to pieces right in front of his eyes. “I h-hoped Ieiri-senpai would kill me just to end the pain, I couldn’t breathe, it shredded me from the inside I—”

It was more trauma than an ordinary person could alleviate and Satoru had expected it, having asked in advance for a psychiatrist and a list of psychotherapists who worked with similar, albeit less paranormal, cases. He couldn’t say anything, wasn’t sure whether he’d done well or ill by keeping her alive. Satoru didn’t know what to do. All he could, was be.

He wrapped his arms around her shaking body and pulled her in, pressing her ear to his chest as he’d done often in hopes of letting her know she wasn’t alone. Whether her body remembered or it was an unlikely but effective grounding action, she went limp in his hold, crying quietly as he rocked her back and forth, his chin resting on top of her head.

No words were exchanged until her mother came into the room. As Satoru pulled away from his tired underclassman, the woman might’ve fallen to her knees from the shock, had he not darted to her side and seized an elbow to keep her upright. The sight of her mother wrung out the rest of her feelings and Satoru left them hugging and crying, after putting the key to the apartment on the bedside table. He stepped outside—a nurse was replacing the name Gojō with the correct one—and slumped into the nearest seat.

Ijichi came up to him, looking somber.

“About Shibuya and everything,” Satoru said, not looking at him. “Let’s not tell her yet.”
“Understood.”

After being discharged from the hospital, the underclassman went home with her mother. Satoru cleared out the basement room and took down the barriers. He must’ve looked grim because no one brought up the people carrying out a hospital bed and numerous appliances. Those who’d known her didn’t ask questions about the unexpected revival. At least not when Satoru was within earshot.

The students exchanged looks but no words. When Satoru woke out of habit just before dawn, he sat in bed, contemplating the unfortunate circumstance and how unprepared he was for it. He’d known, of course, that it would end up that way—she had no memory of his role in keeping her alive and he’d instructed both Shōko and Ijichi not to say anything, but it still stung that his feelings and experiences of falling deeper and deeper in love with her were so one-sided.

He wondered if it was karma for having rejected her back in the day. Back when he was admittedly a menace and somewhat out of touch with the way normal people experience the world. When he could’ve sworn he would never in his life become infatuated with someone like her, though he was probably already falling for her, the arrogant dumbass. Too blind with pride and vanity to realize his missing piece was the kindest heart in the world, the one that beat for him when he was least worthy.

It was a good thing she was recovering in the normie world. There was so much Satoru had yet to tell her about those two years and then Shibuya, Shinjuku, and everything else, the shock of it would’ve landed her back in hospital.

He went outside at dawn, unable to bear the stuffiness of his room and the dorm building, and sat on those stairs alone with a sigh. Satoru closed his eyes when sunlight hit him and soaked it in for a moment, trying to keep it together and review the day that awaited him, when his phone rang.

Her name.

“Yes?” He’d answered before the second ring, concern and excitement mixing in his chest, thinning his breath.
“Ah, senpai. I was about to hang up, sorry to call so early in the morning, I didn’t mean to rouse you.”
“I was up.”
“Oh.” There was a pause. “Then, um . . . I was wondering if you had time today?” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to see you.”
“I have time.”
“Okay. You know that park in front of the apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“There in an hour?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Satoru hung up, biting the inside of his cheek. His heart was restless, fingers itching for her skin, eyes hungry for the sight of her. He got to his feet and went to change clothes.

He found her sitting on a bench under an oak tree. She wore a long green dress, her hair in two neat braids. She smiled lightly when she spotted him and Satoru’s heart lurched.

“Hey.”
“Hi,” she said as he took a seat next to her. “Sorry, I’m still working on my voice. I can’t be very loud yet.”
“It’s fine.”
She bit her lip, head lowered, eyes fixed on her shuffling feet. “The doctor said it was crazy that I’d lost so little muscle mass. Apparently, that’s consistent with daily physical therapy.”
“Yeah?” Satoru said casually.
“Yeah.” She wiped her palms on the skirt of her dress. “When I get my voice back, I’ll be good as new.”
“That’s good.”
She glanced at him, hesitating. “You . . . were the one who took care of me.”
“And Shōko. And a nurse. It wasn’t just me.”
“Why?”
“If I hadn’t let you go—”
“Senpai,” she cut in gently. “You kept me alive for two years. It’s thanks to you that I got to see my mom again.” She chuckled awkwardly. “I don’t know how to begin to thank you, to be frank.”
“Go on with your life.” He crossed his arms. “And if your cursed energy doesn’t recover, don’t do any more missions.”
“Yeah, I think that’s out of the question.” She turned to him. “Senpai, will you answer honestly if I ask something?”
Satoru faced her. “I will.”

She wrung her hands, avoiding direct eye contact.

“When you carried me into the car and later the hospital, I felt . . . comforted. Calm. Like it triggered something in me that signaled safety.” She pursed her lips, gathering courage. “Were you the one doing my physical therapy a-and everything?”
“Yes,” Satoru admitted, bracing. “But I didn’t—”
“I know.” She colored. “The, um, gynecologist decided to do some additional testing when he heard I wasn’t taken care of by family. There have been cases of comatose patients being . . . assaulted by male staff in some hospitals,” she explained.

Satoru made his decision then and there. He told her everything—from the nurse he’d hired and Shōko’s help to the fact that he’d taken over, that he’d dressed and bathed her and failed time and time again to separate her from the curse. How he’d hesitated to act because the smallest mistake could kill her. How he used her presence to ease his mind, sleeping by her whenever he couldn’t handle the world.

“It was all my doing,” he said in the end. “I didn’t give you a vote and I didn’t tell your family. The others only wanted to help, but I take responsibility for taking your life into my hands.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I might’ve snapped inside when Suguru left. I don’t think I knew what helpless meant until it happened. I relied so much on you after that. The possibility that you might be next chilled me to the bone. I might’ve gone crazy, but I thought . . . if I could save you from an impossible situation, then I could save everyone. Even him. And the longer it went on, the bigger a burden I placed on you and your recovery. Obviously, that was me being a selfish idiot, but by the end of it, I felt like I couldn’t live with myself if I gave up.”

Her face was blank, like she couldn’t comprehend what he was saying.

“If you don’t wanna see me ever again, I get it. The one to blame for all of it is me.”
She rose from the bench, a conflicted expression on her face.  “I . . . need to think.”
Satoru got up too and put some space between them. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he said and turned to leave.
“Senpai.”

Her voice nailed him in place.

“Why?” she asked, unshed tears pooling at her lashline. “Two years of your life. And you didn’t have to do it yourself. Fixing me didn’t fix anything else in the end. So why?”
“I didn’t want to let you go,” Satoru said plainly. “I couldn’t put it into words back then and maybe I don’t deserve to say it now, but . . .” He set his jaw. “You’re the one,” he said. “I couldn’t kill you and I couldn’t lose you. That’s all.”

We're finishing up next week (Monday+Friday), so I'll thank you in advance for sticking around. I honestly could not have expected that so many wonderful people would stumble across this story and stay with me through the updates. This was very spur-of-the-moment for me when I started watching the new season but I'm happy my passion to tell this lil' thing came through.

If you want more Satoru, check out The Secret Wife (though I know a lot of you already have—thank you!) and as for more JJK, I have a Todo Aoi one-shot to edit and a Nanami one-shot to finish up, so you can expect that by the end of the year. I hope you're having a good day today! <3

Chapter Text

Her mind had no memories of those two years. Her body did, she realized one night when she couldn’t fall asleep. When her eyes fell shut, she heard a whisper—a voice like Gojō Satoru’s—about a TV drama and his day. The more her cursed energy stabilized the more reminiscences surfaced from it. Alone under a blanket, she felt cold, missing the reassurance of a solid, breathing human to ground her, a phantom heartbeat in her ear as if one had lulled her to sleep time and time again.

At first, she’d thought it was her imagination, but having heard it out from his own mouth—that he’d carried her outside to get sun every morning and that he did her physical therapy without missing a day and that, occasionally, he’d slept by her side—it would admit of no doubt that the touch, sound, and warmth she missed were all his.

Her younger self—the self she’d been before her heart had cracked—would’ve been over the moon. A more reasonable self might’ve been livid at his presumptuousness. But the self that she was—unmoored from the world too long, afraid to learn the devastating things they were all hiding from her still—felt lost and craved safety. The kind of safety that had descended on her when he’d taken her into his arms, when his heart thumped against his breastbone as if to get to her through his ribcage.

She’d thought it odd how easily he reached for her. Gojō Satoru who kept everyone at a distance, who wasn’t one for emotional speeches or grand gestures, a man she had convinced herself had not a single streak of a romantic—he touched her so casually. As if it was the most natural thing for him to take her into his arms. As if it was a given that he would hold her if she cried. And, as she’d learned, that had been the case for him but, on her side, he was the man who’d torn her heart to pieces and then tried to rip the stitching just as she had sewn it back together.

Gojō Satoru had indulged and teased her as much as any underclassman, but had not otherwise favored her. She’d known it was a bridge too far to hope for his affection but her heart had wanted him all the same. Yes, he was attractive and powerful, and yes, rich too, but although he could be abrasive and disrespectful, she thought he was a dutiful person. He felt the weight of his power and, flaunt it as he might, he crumbled to pieces when, despite it, he failed to protect someone. He would complain and kick up dust, but he never hesitated to come to someone’s rescue. He would sing and dance about how much he didn’t care for others and then exert all his power and influence to preserve a stranger’s life.

The desertion of Getō Suguru had visibly shaken him. He was invincible but not heartless. She saw the change in him right before he adopted Megumi and Tsumiki—the maturity born from pain, that he’d resolved to shoulder the burden of raising a stronger generation. She’d known then that those children wouldn’t have the visions of dying that she’d had because they would have him. Everyone could depend on Gojō Satoru, but could Gojō Satoru depend on anyone?

That had been her guiding star in allowing him to monopolize her time when he was down. She hadn’t been naïve, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. When news of curse users stirring up trouble came, there he was, the strongest sorcerer, suddenly bored enough to want to bother her. When elders pushed against young sorcerers with potential, there he was, accidentally bumping into her at the dorm building, craving snacks he knew she would offer to share. When another portrait was added to the row of deceased colleagues, there he was, itching to go try some new dessert.

She hadn’t been a great sorcerer. Evaded death mostly by luck, she knew. Her power was laughable, she knew, but she had inherited a late friend’s optimism because she’d realized it was the only thing keeping her generation of sorcerers afloat. The ray of sunshine that was Haibara Yū—she became it, going out of her way to point out the bright side even if there wasn’t one, taking time to show the people who were as hopeless and terrified as she was that someone cared, even as little as to remember their favorite drink and keep the fridge stocked with it.

They were doomed without a Yū-kun. So she became him. Carried him in her soul for the sake of all those who hadn’t grown up under the shield of Gojō Satoru like his students eventually would. She got everyone gifts and brought flowers to every funeral and listened to tear-filled confessions of how desperate a position it was to be one of them. The deeper she got into it, the more she understood the senpai who’d turned on their world.

Having Gojō Satoru’s trust had been the crown jewel of her efforts. All turned to him and he turned to her. As useless as she was in terms of sorcery, she felt most useful in terms of caring for her peers. She’d crushed on him before he took her into his confidence and grew to love him more after he did. Being of service to someone gave her purpose, but that purpose dwindled as the number of people left to comfort did. And when he rejected her feelings it was the end. She was useless again, needed by no one but her mother, so she made the choice to leave.

It hurt to think that all their silly outings and random hangouts hadn’t endeared her to him as they had him to her, but she’d felt as if she’d been removed from the world of sorcerers cleanly, with the precision of a scalpel and one quick, supremely painful cut. Gojō Satoru didn’t need her. Those who had needed her were all dead. She’d had to move on.

Like a fish out of water, she’d done her best to build a life while pulling away from the school, trying to become someone else’s anchor. On the final day, right as her heart had healed over, he’d carved a new scar into it. She wouldn’t blame him for the outcome of her mission—it was a long time coming, she simply was not strong enough—but she couldn’t deny the relief she’d felt when he’d materialized before her in the morgue. A piece of her had believed he would fix it all.

Now that he had, she didn’t know what to think. Part of her felt that he’d become overreliant on what she’d represented to him—safe space or otherwise—and another part saw in it an opportunity to return to that time she was still happy and believed in a future that wasn’t tragic for their society. They weren’t on equal ground, that much was evident. Back then, she’d wanted him too much. In the present, the opposite seemed to be the case.

Her bedroom door opened slowly.

“Are you all right, my love?” her mother asked, coming in with a frown. “Can’t sleep?”
“I’m okay, mama . . . I’m trying to decide what to do.”
Mother sat next to her on the bed. “As long as you don’t go back to that dangerous place, I’ll support you any way I can.”
She squeezed the woman’s hand. “I know, mama.”
“Are you thinking about that boy?”
Heat crept into her cheeks. “He’s a grown man, mama. We’re both adults.”
Mother shook her head. “He’s an angel to me, if he paid for the doctors that brought you back.”
“Yeah. It’s complicated.”
“Did he say something to you?” Mother asked and touched her cheek gently.
“He told me about the funeral,” she said, opting to omit. “Felt bad about not telling you after, but they didn’t want you to get your hopes up and be crushed. He took responsibility for everything.”

“Well, my love, I don’t know your friend’s character but, frankly, I didn’t think he would hold on to this apartment and maintain it when I left him the key. And when you were crying in the hospital, he looked heartbroken. I won’t pretend to know what’s happened between you, but I’ll pay him back every yen if you’ll be free from feeling indebted.”
“No, it’s not indebted, I . . . I’m confused. I’m not sure where we stand now. He might’ve been by my side, but we didn’t live the same two years.”
“If you want to find your footing again, that’s fine. If you don’t want to be reminded of that place, that’s fine too. You must do what’s best for you, my love. Your friends will understand.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “Mama, will you sleep here tonight? When I wake up alone, I think I’m in a hospital again.”
“Of course, sweetheart. Of course.”

The next time she called, with the full picture of what she’d missed fresh in her mind—courtesy of Ijichi who’d been beyond helpful and accommodating—Gojō Satoru readily met her by the water. Tragedies and victories were settling inside her like kicked-up sand on an ocean floor. A light breeze pushed her hair back as she pulled the cardigan she wore closer to her body. He came in his uniform, glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose.

“My cursed energy has reached its new limit,” she said, staring out at the horizon. “I’m not returning to the school.” The mention of it sliced her heart, tiny cuts, razor-made. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like to live and fight through it.
“Okay,” he said gently.
She bit her lip and pivoted to face him. “How do you really feel about me? What do you want for the future?”
Satoru’s expression was a wistful one. “I want you to be free of pain. I want you to live a long, happy life. No matter who you need to cut from it to make that happen.”
She took a deep breath. “That last morning, I told you I still loved you.” And crossed her arms. “I’m not sure if that’s the case now.” She swallowed. “You didn’t answer my first question.”

“I love you,” Satoru said. “I want to make you laugh. I want to take you out and show you everything that’s changed. I want to make you happy. I want to walk you home and to watch cheesy comedy shows with you. I want to be where you are, even if you’re done with sorcery.”
“And if I want to leave and forget about everything?”
“Then I’ll never bother you again. Whatever you need, I’ll do it.”

The amount of tender affection in his eyes, in his mannerisms—he held back, making efforts not to reach out and touch her, she noticed—and in that warm voice wrapped around her torso like the red string of fate. He cared about her—openly, obviously. Profoundly.

She took a step closer to him. “We’re not stable like this.” And met his eye. “Can we start over? As an office worker and teacher who went to the same high school.”
“Yeah,” Satoru said, took the hand she offered, and pressed it to his chest. His heart was racing as he looked down at her, the blue of his eyes deep and warm and loving. “Yeah, we can.”

A bit of her POV this time. One more chapter to go!

I just posted a fluffy Nanami one-shot, if you'd like to check that out. Otherwise, thank you, as always, for reading and leaving such encouraging comments.
I hope you're having a great day <3

Chapter Text

“Have you seen Gojō-san?” Ijichi asked Ieiri Shōko who was filling out charts in a conference room.
“He’s on a date.”

Weeks of finding stable ground led up to their first date. And then another. And another.

The office job she’d taken was neither ideal nor horrible, but it was close to the apartment and her mother’s workplace, allowing them to have their lunch breaks together. She spent her free time watching the many movies she’d missed and catching up with family friends who were still celebrating her return to the world of the living. Every weekend they had an outing planned—the blue-eyed teacher she’d gone to high school with and she—and after several long conversations about feelings, boundaries, and plans, their relationship gained the stability she’d needed to pursue and nurture it earnestly.

Despite having met her upperclassman’s students, she managed to leave all thoughts of sorcery behind and did a decent job of ignoring the curses she could see around town. Balance returned to her life and she cherished every second of it, finally free of pain, tragedy, and fear.

“Have I told you that my mom’s going on her business trip this Wednesday?” she asked her date and took a bite out of her melting ice cream cone gingerly.
“Yeah,” Satoru said, holding an identical cone. “Back next Wednesday, right?”
“Right. So, I was wondering . . . I haven’t been alone in the apartment since I left the hospital and, um, I wanted to know if you would be open to sleeping over?” she asked. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, but it would be a relief to have someone else there.”
“Can do.”

He insisted on being the one to drive her mother to the airport and stood a few steps behind as she hugged the woman goodbye. Surprising both of them, her mother, instead of leaving right away, went and hugged Satoru too.

“Be well, dears,” she said warmly before looking at her daughter. “I’ll call you when I get to the hotel, my love.”
“Travel safely, mama.”

The ride back to the apartment was comfortable and filled with casual chatter, but the mood shifted when they went into it. The uneven history of intimacy between them had been the main reason they had not engaged in it from the jump in their re-introduction. Satoru was perfectly respectful of all her wishes and frequently checked in, even when all he wanted was to hold her hand as they strolled by a river on a date, while she searched for balance between craving him out of habit and out of acute desires.

The upbeat persona he’d perfected since her death did wonders in terms of keeping them both comfortable and dispelling nerves when they approached unsteady ground. Gojō Satoru had matured beyond what she could’ve imagined in those two painful years and had a way of assuring her that he was always open to what she was comfortable with, that he wanted her, without putting pressure on her or wavering in patience.

He made jokes as she locked the door, doing his best to ease her nerves without pointing them out. In a hurry to get busy and flustered about the endless possibilities of their trial cohabitation, she tripped on the stair at the genkan and would’ve introduced her nose to the floor had he not pulled her up in time.

“Ah, sorry, I—I must’ve gotten lost in thought,” she mumbled, getting her feet under her.
“I won’t be offended if you’ve changed your mind,” he said.
“No.” She cleared her throat. “No, I want you here, just . . . I don’t know what to do or say sometimes.”

Whether it was their age or his resolve to stay in her life, at times that would’ve procured merciless teasing for her back in the day, he became calm and honest, holding space for her to work out her feelings and how to communicate them.

“You can’t go wrong if you say how you feel,” Satoru offered.
She bit her lip.
“We don’t have to talk about it right here and now,” he said and patted her head. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Relief flooded her as they went inside—he to lounge in the living room, she to the kitchen to put tea on. Their dynamic was so complicated she had trouble explaining it to her therapist while omitting sorcery, but when he came up in sessions and she backed herself into a corner with frazzled trains of thought, her therapist always brought her back to base—he wanted to be with her. He wanted to make it work. All she had to do was meet him halfway.

She brought the tea out—he was flipping through the channels, yawning—and plopped down next to him. He pulled his arm back, offering the space at his side. She cuddled up to him and Satoru wrapped the arm around her, stroking her side absently as they sat in silence for a while, a TV drama playing.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, breaking it first, “because when I want to be affectionate with you, I get this voice in the back of my head questioning whether it’s because of my feelings or some subconscious conditioning. And maybe it doesn’t matter, ‘cuz the result is the same, but I get in my head about it and then I don’t act and I feel bad. I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone in our relationship.”
He glanced at her, hand trailing up her arm to squeeze her shoulder. “I don’t feel that way. As long as you’re alive and you’re talking to me—that’s all I could ask for.”
“Does it matter to you? Why I want to be close to you?” she asked quietly, looking up at him.
Satoru hummed. “I guess not. I mean, I’m to blame for any conditioning and I don’t want that to bring you down every time you soar, but in general—if you want to be close to me, I’m happy. No matter the reason.” He tugged her closer and kissed the crown of her head.
“Okay.”

He flipped to the comedy channel they’d watched together back at school. A special by an upcoming standup comedian premiered, melting time away as they cuddled. She laughed until her stomach hurt, forgetting all worries for the moment, and peeked at him from the corner of her eye.
Satoru was looking at her as if she was the only woman in the world.

“Aww, ya blushin’?” he asked and poked her cheek.
“Yeah . . .”
Satoru grinned. “Cute.”

With a single word, he could make her heart race like crazy. It was unbelievable how safe he made her feel. Gojō Satoru who’d been her crush, her idol, a friend, a caretaker. Gojō Satoru who’d loved her quietly for two years without hurting her once. Who’d given her the sun every day from her favorite spot.
Her pulse quickened more and she pushed her forehead into his side, hiding her face.

Gojō Satoru. Who was her boyfriend.

Satoru couldn’t get enough of her. If he’d conditioned her in some way, he’d done it to himself twice over. The more time passed, the more she regained footing and her personality reemerged. She was still that bubbly, optimistic girl from his fondest memories, telling him about her colleagues at the office and how they’d thrown her a surprise party for her promotion. Still she remembered everyone’s favorites and lent her ear to anyone who needed it and, despite the distance she’d put between herself and the world of sorcery, asked about his day and sent homemade gifts to his students. She kept birthdays in a calendar—Shōko’s, and Ijichi’s, and Satoru’s, and those of his students and her family friends—and prepared cards and presents for them diligently.

She was everything he’d spent two years hoping for and more. If she would have him, he was hers forever. Her mother had seen through him and given her blessing, but Satoru decided to wait for her to be ready. He’d known from the day he realized he loved her that she was the only one. He had a lifetime to give her—whether he announced it to her immediately or down the line, it was hers all the same.

Her mother called as she heated dinner and Satoru set the table. It made the ex-sorceress giggle when her mother asked to speak to him too. He’d become her family so naturally she hadn’t noticed it. It was as if he’d been hers from the beginning.

Satoru laughed at her choice of toothbrush for him—yellow with a ducky on top—and executed a tickle attack when they were mid-brushing, making her guffaw and spit foam everywhere. Chuckling as he choked on the minty toothpaste, she saw them in the mirror, standing side by side with their mouths all foamy, and pleasure bloomed in her chest. If there was such a thing as domestic bliss, they were the picture of it.

He hopped over the low coffee table and onto the sofa after they stepped out, saying, “I don’t promise not to steal a snack in the middle of the night.”
“That’s all right. Um . . . you’re fine there?”
“Sure,” he said casually, arranging the pillows to stretch out fully.
“O-Okay.”

She got spare sheets, a pillow, and a blanket for him, spread them out while he changed into the pajamas he’d brought along.

“Night. Yell if you need me,” he said brightly as she turned to leave.
“Yeah. Good night.”

She closed the door of her bedroom and leaned against it with a sigh.

Satoru scrolled on his phone for a while after lights out. When her bedroom door opened, he figured she was slipping out to the bathroom, but she came to him instead. He put the phone aside as she sat on the coffee table.

He sat up. “You okay?” And carded fingers through her hair gently.
“I want you to sleep in my room,” she mumbled, casting her eyes down.
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” She scooted forward and took his hand. “I want to fall asleep with you next to me.” Glancing up at him, “Please?”
Satoru squeezed her hand and moved his free one to caress her cheek. “Okay.” He leaned over and hugged her, then pulled her closer to lift her—out of habit, he realized, and paused.
“Okay,” she mumbled against his collarbone and looped her arms around his neck.

Satoru scooped her up and carried her to bed, his heart thumping wildly at the fact that the body in his arms was so very alive. Strong, and breathing, and healthy, and awake. He laid her down carefully and slipped undercovers as he’d done so often before, but it was different. It was better. She looked at him with love in her pretty eyes and, when he rolled to his side to face her, she scooted closer to him slowly. Satoru embraced her, pulling them both to the middle of the bed as she tucked her head under his chin.

He rubbed her back, saying nothing.
Her shoulders began to shake.
He pulled back.

“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” she said, wiping tears.
“It’s okay.”
“Gosh, why am I crying?” she whispered, frustrated.
“It’s okay,” he repeated, leaning in to press his lips to her forehead. “You’re okay.”
“It’s like, all of a sudden, I stopped feeling lonely.” She stifled a sob. “It was cold all the time.”
“I know.” He took her flushed face into his hands. “Your doc said it might be a lot for you—the first time we sleep like before, after your recovery. It’s okay if you’re overwhelmed.”
“I’m happy though. I don’t want to cry like this, I’m—I feel so happy.”
“I know. Me too.” He stroked her hair. “It’s fine to cry. You’ve been through a lot.”
“So have you,” she said, voice breaking.
“And it was all worth it,” he said, dispelling the traces of guilt in her eyes.
Her lips trembled and a new wave of tears burst forth.
“Hey, I didn’t say it to make you cry harder,” Satoru said, smiling at that honest little face.

That was very like her—to get so happy she burst into tears right after crying for a different reason. The simple, loving heart on that woman. Satoru adored it. He wanted to make her even happier. He wanted her to laugh every day, to kiss her every smile and every pout.

“Senpai—"
“Satoru,” he whispered, wiping her tears with his thumbs. “Call me Satoru.”
“Satoru,” she said, red-faced and determined. “I do still love you. M-More than before, I think.”
He smirked. “You think?”
She puffed up her cheeks. “I know.”
He chuckled. “Good. I love you too.”

She pressed her lips together. Hard.

“Gonna cry more?” he teased lightly.
She nodded. “P-Probably.”
“Cute.” He kissed her brow and her nose and each cheek before kissing her lips. “You’re so damn cute.”

With tear-trails down her cheeks and a blush up to her forehead, with a pout on her lips and her hands pressed to his chest, with that child-like laughter breaking through forgotten sadness and the affection in the way she nuzzled up to him, she was beautiful.

She was beautiful.

And she was his.

The end!
Thank you for reading if you made it this far, thank you for the sweet comments that made my day, and thank you for giving my lil' story a go! If you'd like more JJK I've got boyfriend Nanami, another Satoru and enemies-to-lovers Aoi Tōdō, boyfriend Megumi and angsty Suguru for you.
I hope you're having a great day <3