chapter 17: what have you done?

cw: angst, minor character death/off screen murder, immoral approach to human life, typical jjk violence

also, timestamps in text message conversations are intentional, if that enhances your reading experience at all :)

What have I done what have I done what have I done

He jolts awake, the couch springs jolt with him. The motel room is dark, and the twins—Mimiko and Nanako, he reminds himself—are fast asleep on the bed, their tiny hands intertwined like a knot, illuminated by moonlight. The air is stagnant with the stale remains of old cigarettes. He wishes he had one. He's covered in sweat, heart racing like a horse. He rubs his fingers to get the blood off, but there is none. It'd come off fairly easily in the shower.

He blinks and the moonlight flashes silver-white, familiar, soft, Satoru's hair. He blinks again and it is gone.

The twin with darker hair stirs and mumbles. Her face is still bruised, her bones cast sharp shadows on the crevices of her skin and he knows it will take a long time before both of them will recover.

What have I done what have I done what have I done

A dull thud hits the wall conjoining his room with the neighbor's. It is followed by another thud and the shatter of glass, a man's raised voice, a woman's plea.

He stands up and straightens out his clothes. He creaks open the door so that only a sliver of the tepid, yellow hallway light streams into the room, not enough to wake up the twins. Once he is in the hallway, a scaly blue curse shaped like a viper with a sawtooth mouth appears from his void. It flattens itself on the ground and slithers underneath his neighbor's door while he waits outside in the hallway, wishing he had a smoke. It takes all of two minutes. The curse must have gnawed the man first, because the woman screams, but not for long before her voice just becomes a gurgle. The viper slips back out of the room, mouth peeled in a wide, crimson grin.

He pats it on the head and it returns to the inventory.

What have I done what have I done what have I done

He returns to the room, quiet as a shadow, and is glad to see the twins remain fast asleep.

What I must.

Jujutsu Institute Official Decree No. 1180 on the first of September in the year 2009.

In regards to Mission No. 571, requested by XXX village in Kagawa prefecture to exorcise the cursed spirit thought to be the cause of the disappearances and deaths of two dozen local villagers. Special Grade Sorcerer Getou Suguru, third-year of Tokyo Jujutsu Technical School, exorcised the curse per mission request. The corpses of 112 villagers were also found on the scene. Analysis of the remains and the Cursed Energy Residuals confirms that the villagers were killed by Getou Suguru's Cursed Spirit Manipulation Technique.

Due to lack of communication from Getou Suguru for the last five days, he is presumed to be hostile and on the run. Under Article 9 of Jujutsu Institute Regulations, he is to be executed on sight as a Curse User.

Shouko is the one who sees him first. She'd come to Shinjuku for a haircut and to scope out Tokyo Medical University Hospital. She is thinking about applying after high school (or seeing if she can just pilfer an ID off some unsuspecting resident and gain access to the morgue). Her haircut had taken longer than she'd thought, and even though she looks fantastically cute, her smoking habit has gotten so bad that she can't go more than an hour without wanting to peel her skin off. She pauses in the smoking area right out of the station, ignoring the looks of the salarymen who peer at her obviously illicit behavior, and is searching desperately for her lighter when she hears him.

"You need a light?"

Suguru waves at her cheerily, his greasy hair tied back in a bun, his clothes wrinkled. He's lost the Jujutsu High uniform (she'd heard they'd found his button, the swirl of the School's crest, abandoned at the scene of the crime in a pool of blood, it's all so very dramatic) but he retains an all-black ensemble that could convince her he's just off duty, on vacation, not a mass murderer on the run.

"Hey," he grins.

"Yo, if it isn't the criminal." Shouko isn't scared. It's as natural as Suguru coming back from a mission, and Yuna has granted him a day off for his hard work. They're grabbing a quick smoke while they wait for Satoru since Satoru's always late and can't stand the smell anyway. "You need something from me?"

"Hey, I'm the one offering the lighter."

He clicks the silver lighter open and Shouko dips her cigarette into the flame, taking a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. She offers one to Suguru, but he shakes his head, his bangs swinging with the movement.

"I guess I'm testing my luck a bit," he admits.

"Mm? I guess that means I have to ask to make sure. Were they false charges?"

Suguru shrugs. "Nah, unfortunately not."

His tone is light, casual, like they're talking about how to convince Satoru that no, they don't want to watch another action movie, maybe they can watch something with fifty-percent more dialogue and a hundred-percent more substance. Nothing suggests Suguru had just murdered over a hundred people a week ago, his own parents included.

"And just to make sure. Why?"

"I'm going to create a world with only shamans."

Shouko barks out a laugh and pulls out her phone. "Fucking amazing, Suguru, that's hilarious." It's cold and mean and when Shouko looks back at this moment, she knows it's the only time she allowed herself to be sad.

"I'm not a child," Suguru says like a child. "I don't need everyone to understand me."

Did you even fucking try, Shouko's inner rage seethes, but she never lets that rage out, so instead she just dials Satoru. As her phone rings, she replies in that same patronizing tone,

"Just assuming no one will understand you sounds pretty childish to me. Didn't even know it was a big bad goal of yours to be a sociopath until, well, you already became one! Thought we were supposed to share our career goals together."

Before Suguru can reply, Satoru answers with a sharp click. "What?"

"Watch your tone, dude," she says. "I'm in Shinjuku. I'm here with Suguru."

"What?! Where? Arrest him!"

Shouko laughs. "No way, I don't wanna die. I'm at the Seibu-Shinjuku Station in the smoking area. Suguru will be around." She eyes him. "Right?"

Suguru shrugs. "Sure, I gotta pick up some takeout anyway."

"Hear that, Satoru? He's gonna be around. So get here."

"Okay, I'm on my way, did he say why he did it? Did he do it?"

"Yeah, he did. He says," Shouko tries not to let her voice warble with laughter, "he wants to kill everyone who's not a shaman."

"What?!"

"Yeah, that's what I said. Anyway. Get here."

She hangs up before Satoru can respond because Satoru has probably mastered teleportation at this point, and that's her cue to leave because no one, even she, should be around to witness their break-up. Shouko thinks everyone at the station has a seventy-seven percent chance of dying in the next half-hour. Maybe she should have called Yuna instead of Satoru, in attempts to avoid yet another massacre courtesy of one of her classmates, but there's no way Suguru will listen to Yuna when he's this far gone.

"You really had to go and do it, huh," says Shouko a little more solemnly. She has five, maybe ten minutes left.

Suguru looks away from her. "Yeah. I've been thinking about it for a long time. This mission just confirmed it."

Shouko gets it. She really does. She knows how Suguru feels, and even though she'd laughed at him, she knows from that conversation during Suguru's suspension that the pull was real. Is real.

But she'd just thought they'd be enough. Her, Yuna, the School. Satoru.

"You can't come back anymore," she says.

He stares up at the sky, eyes squinting at the sunshine and clear blue sky with so few clouds. The salarymen argue about the day's numbers and the cyclists' rings are drowned out by angry honks. Shouko is hungry. Maybe she'll get some takeout too before she goes to the medical school.

"I know." He makes a move to hold her hand, but he stops himself. If he leaves some Residuals on her, the School will know, and she'll be prosecuted for not trying to kill a Special Grade even though her Technique does the opposite of damage. "I'm not sorry for what I did, Shouko. But…"

He doesn't finish his sentence. She doesn't push him to. What's the point, anyway?

"Well, I better get going." She takes one last breath and stamps out her cigarette. "Thanks for the light. See ya."

He waves, less jovially than before. "Bye, Shouko."

"Don't die, okay?" She fidgets with the strap of her bag. "Don't get killed by Satoru."

"First, rude. Second, I don't think you should be wishing that aloud." Suguru brushes his sweaty bangs out of his face. It's miserably hot today. "Kill order and all."

"Yeah, you're right. Just. Do whatever."

He laughs mirthlessly. "Gonna miss you, Shouko."

You shouldn't get to. You chose this.

"Yeah, me too," she sighs. "You jackass."

There's meaning. Significance. Purpose to it.

If it's possible for you, can you really go around telling others that it's impossible?

Are you the strongest because you're Gojou Satoru? Or are you Gojou Satoru because you're the strongest?

Kill me if you want. There's meaning to that, too.

He doesn't get any of it. Meaning. Purpose. He's never given it any thought, because why would he, he just does what he wants, gets what he wants, he wants and wants and wants and gains and gains and still that emptiness swells into an infinite void, desperate and hungry and ever expanding (in the recesses of his mind, the Domain Expansion for the Honored One suddenly clicks).

He lowers his hands, watches Suguru walk away.

All he knows is Suguru has drawn a line that Satoru only approach but cannot cross. An asymptote, his own Infinity, and Satoru is not allowed to stay any longer.

It's too hot. The sun beats and Satoru doesn't let it touch him, but there's a writhing ball of fire just as scorching screaming inside of him. The Honored One fans it as righteously as he can, because if Suguru can curse everything to hell then there is no reason Satoru can't do the same.

"You act like we're monsters."

Yuna looks ahead, clear-eyed, with vision brighter than his Six Eyes. Maybe she'd seen it all from the start, maybe that was what those little acts of kindness and mercies had been all along, morsels of bribery on the path to humanity. She had failed.

"Aren't you?"

The bamboo well empties, refills, empties with a pleasant hollow thunk, then refills again.

"I don't think I like you this honest, sensei."

He lies in her lap, and she stiffens and withdraws. She has always retreated from him. She welcomed Suguru with open arms, the polite one, the kind one, the strong one with a heart of gold churned black because sorcery can turn even a heart of gold to rot. She has never cared for Satoru.

And Satoru doesn't care, he has never cared if everyone else retreats from him because he is the strongest, he is the Honored One, and he has Suguru—

But he doesn't anymore.

She resists him, and Satoru whines. He bullies her because that's what he does when he wants something from her. On a hot cloudless day when the sun cannot touch him through his Limitless, he bullies her into letting him rest his head in her lap, forces her to realize because he has to realize it too, no matter how much both of them wish otherwise—

It's him that's left, not Suguru.

She runs her hands through his hair, like he's a cat nursing a wound, and he lets her. Her touch is different from Suguru's: soft, careful, nearly afraid. But she does it, even though she clearly does not want to, because Satoru has bullied her, because surprise surprise, it's Satoru or no one.

The bamboo well empties, he can hear the buzz of a dragonfly, can see Yuna's blank face and her broken heart through the arm he rests over his eyes, through her mask of nothing that she'd let down for mere minutes before snapping back into place.

He reaches up to her. She's so small. His palm cradles her cheek, his fingertips so long they brush strands of her hair. She tenses, but she does not draw away. Her skin is damp and sweaty and her braid is messy but no makeup runs down her eyes because Yuna has not cried, and Satoru has laughed instead.

Suguru has left, and he left her behind too. Satoru wonders if, to his teacher (Grade Two Sorcerer Special Grade Cursed Object alive by luck and nothing else), he—the Honored One, the Messiah of the jujutsu world, the strongest because he is Gojou Satoru—will ever be enough.

Jujutsu Institute Official Decree #1181 on the tenth of September in the year 2009.

In light of the recent events regarding Getou Suguru, Special Grade Curse User (please refer to Decree No. 1180 for further details), Cursed Object Morimoto Yuna, teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu Technical School, has been removed from its position. Please contact Yaga Masamichi for inquiries regarding this open position.

September 10, 2009

From: Gojou Satoru

[08:19] Are you serious, sensei.

[08:21] Good morning, Gojou-kun.
[08:22] What in regards to?

[08:23] This letter. This announcement.

[08:25] I'm afraid it was out of my control.

[08:26] You didn't even fucking tell me.

[08:29] It's out of your control too, Gojou-kun.

[08:31] I became the fucking Gojou head for you.
[08:32] It's absolutely within my control.
[08:34] This happened because you wanted it to happen.

[08:37] Enjoy your vacation, Gojou-kun.
[08:39] Yaga-sensei said you're going to Hawaii.
[08:41] It's good for you to take some time off.
[08:42] I'll be doing the same. I apologize if my replies are slow.

September 10, 2009

From: Tsukumo Yuki

[21:32] Yuna-chan, nooooo. We can't both not be earning any money!

[21:34] I have some savings. I'll be fine for a bit.
[21:35] I can also still take missions, I think.
[21:36] I'll have to clarify.

[21:38] That's good, at least.
[21:39] Are you doing okay?

[21:42] I'm fine.
[21:45] Thank you for asking.

[21:51] I'm in Shanghai now. Not too far.
[21:52] I made friends with a rich Chinese businessman who studied in Tokyo.
[21:53] He's soooo rich. I'm living so well.
[21:53] Wanna join?

[21:54] Not yet, but soon.

[21:59] Great, like I said, always welcome.

[22:00] Thank you.

[22:16] Yuki-san.
[22:17] I think I understand what you meant now.
[22:17] About burning it all to the ground.

[22:18] Right? Opens your mind. Super freeing.

[22:24] Is that what you told Getou-kun that day?

[22:25] Whoa there. Don't go blaming me.
[22:27] I didn't tell him that specifically. We just talked about choices.
[22:29] And truths.
[22:35] And he decided his, in the end.

[22:38] You're not surprised about what he did.

[22:40] Nah.

[22:43] You should've told me.
[22:44] If you thought there was the slightest chance.

[22:45] Really, Yuna.
[22:47] What do you think you could've changed?

October 30, 2009

To: Nanami Kento

[11:21] Good morning, Nanami-kun.
[11:25] I apologize for texting you suddenly.

[11:26] Good morning, sensei.
[11:27] I hope you are well. It has been some time.

[11:28] Yes. I apologize for leaving suddenly.

[12:00] I wanted to check with you
[12:01] if you were still interested in pursuing a non-sorcerer path.
[12:02] Particularly in finance.

[12:04] Yes, definitely.

[12:08] Yuki-san has introduced me to an acquaintance of hers.
[12:09] Non-sorcerer, has some peripheral knowledge of jujutsu, but nothing dangerous.
[12:10] He's a Chinese businessman who studied at Tokyo University.
[12:11] His girlfriend is a college counselor.
[12:12] Would you like to be put in touch?

[12:15] That would be great, sensei.
[12:18] Thank you.

[12:19] Okay. I will connect you through email.

[12:21] Thank you.

[12:25] You're welcome.

[12:45] Sensei, are you around? Can we meet?

[13:11] I am currently in Shanghai but will be back in Tokyo eventually.
[13:14] I would like to see you if you are open to it when I am back.

[13:16] That would be great.

[13:17] Feel free to text me though, if you need me.
[13:18] I will let you know when I am back.

November 12, 2009

To: Ieiri Shouko

[03:32] Your essay is written very well.
[03:33] I've sent you an email with some edits.
[03:34] I sent Yaga-sensei my recommendation letter
[03:34] that he can just sign and send in. You should be fine for the December deadline.

[03:37] Wow, sensei, you're up early. Or late.

[03:39] I'm not your sensei anymore, Ieiri-san.
[03:41] No need to address me as such.
[03:42] Yuna is fine.

[03:45] Well you can call me Shouko.
[03:47] Thanks for the edits and letter.

[03:50] You're welcome.

[04:22] How are things at the School?

[04:24] Not great.
[04:26] Nanami's quitting after he graduates, but you know about that.
[04:27] He told me you've been helping him out.
[04:27] Yaga-sensei's crazy busy.

[04:30] And Gojou-kun?

[04:32] He's still mad at everyone.
[04:35] He's off campus a lot. I dunno if he's looking for Suguru.

[04:45] Honestly though sensei, if you're worried because you left, I think he understands.

[04:55] I am really very sorry, Shouko-san.

[04:56] Don't be.
[04:57] We all did what we needed to do.

Fushiguro Megumi is a very bright child, no matter that his school teachers are a bit off put by how sullen and quiet he is. His marks are at the top of the class, but he does not show them off, (nor does he have a parent whom he can show them off to), and he prefers playing alone at recess rather than with his unbearably loud classmates. Being quiet means the bigger kids in class have tried to bully him, but it is now half-way through his first-year and Megumi has created a reputation for himself. Nothing that sends him to the teacher's office, but enough that bullies know to leave him and his collection of toys (a stack of books, a single bucket and half-broken shovel for the sandbox, a box of half-missing crayons, his black Labrador plush that Tsumiki patched up recently) alone.

Being alone is how Megumi prefers things. His own thoughts are louder when he's alone, and he thinks his thoughts are rather good, so he mulls over them like he's watering a plant, letting the roots dive deep and the branches divide, unperturbed by the outside. He is glad that the other kids leave him alone. If only Tsumiki would leave him alone, too—(except Megumi doesn't really wish for that).

There are times, though, when Megumi is disturbed not by his classmates or his teachers or Tsumiki or even the stray dog he pets on the way home (when he does, he has to be careful to shower and clean his clothes right when he enters the apartment, because the last thing Tsumiki and he need at home are fleas). Sometimes, Megumi spaces out on the playground, methodically building his castle and guessing the number of grains of sand in each tower when something moves in the corner of his eye. It's always weird, contorted, unnatural enough that the fact that only Megumi reacts to it immediately tells him that other people can't see it. Usually, it's a flying yellow miniature humanoid with thin dragonfly wings and bulging eyes; it makes unintelligible noises like it is gargling saltwater. It never really does anything. Often it flies towards Megumi, but always swerves away when it gets too close, and then it disappears. Sometimes, it's a scarlet worm-like thing, with an indiscernible head and tail but a gaping human mouth in the center of its body that repeats the multiplication tables over and over. It leaves a trail of gleaming purple ooze as it moves, emitting the odor of charred flesh. Megumi always runs away from it when it comes close, but the worm-thing never gets too close anyway, as if Megumi is wearing some repellant.

It doesn't happen often, maybe once a month or so since he'd started going to the same school as Tsumiki, so he doesn't tell her because she is usually focused on other things, like their next meal or new clothing. It does make for some awkward explanations when they run into a supernatural thing on their way home and Megumi has to drag her on a different route, but once they're in the apartment building, they're usually safe. Megumi can feel it. He always feels calmer at home.

One particularly cold day, the school dismisses them early in anticipation for a snowstorm that will hit in the early afternoon. Megumi and Tsumiki shuffle their way home and are a block away from the apartment complex when they come across a woman in a long, gray jacket and white earmuffs standing in front of a telephone pole. It's not like Megumi knows every single person in his neighborhood, but the woman stands out in a way he can't put his finger on. She stares intently at the telephone pole, as if it is the most interesting thing in the world (there is not a lot in his neighborhood but there's more than an old stick of wood). Her palm is pressed against the pole, and then, something golden ripples from the pole like an epicenter of an earthquake, connecting with several other structures around them in a large circle.

Megumi blinks rapidly and pulls Tsumiki's sleeve. "What's that woman doing?"

Tsumiki's nose is bright red from the cold and a bubble of snot is right at the tip. Megumi knows she wishes for nothing but the hot cup of lemon tea she will drink at home with the last shortbread cookie from the most recent batch the konbini grandma had given them. Still, she looks in Megumi's direction.

"She's probably putting up a sign."

"Do you know who she is?"

Tsumiki shakes her head. "C'mon, Megumi. I'm cold."

"I…" Megumi is a naturally curious child, but he is not stupid. He knows better than to talk to strangers, especially ones who stare at telephone poles for no apparent reason and can cause gold light to shoot out and disappear. Something tells him, though, that this stranger will not hurt him.

"You go ahead," he says to Tsumiki. "I want to see what she's doing."

"Megumi!" Tsumiki trots after him. "That's weird, you can't just go up to adults and ask them that!"

Megumi ignores her and hurries close. The woman's palm is pressed against a faded strip of yellow washi paper, kanji that Megumi can't quite discern scribbled on it.

"Excuse me?"

The woman turns around. Her earmuffs are fuzzy, most of her face is hidden by a thick purple scarf, but her eyes are as dark as Megumi's hair and soft but sad like she's always crying. She does not react much to Megumi, but she lets go of the washi and presses another sheet of paper—an advertisement for a new internet company—pointedly over it.

"May I help you?"

"You…" Megumi blanks out a bit. "What are you doing?"

"I am putting up an advertisement," the woman answers.

Megumi peers at the paper, old, wrinkled and torn. "You didn't put that up. That's been there for ages. What's under it?"

"Megumi!" Tsumiki pinches his shoulder, but it doesn't hurt because his jacket is puffy and warm. "Sorry, he's just curious."

The woman nods, and Tsumiki blushes at her.

"I'm not just curious," says Megumi sourly. "She was doing something weird. There's some kind of writing underneath the advertisement. I saw something gold shoot out from underneath it."

"Megumi, what are you talking about? Did you read some weird manga again?"

"I don't even like manga, Tsumiki, stop—"

"You two should go home," the woman interrupts. She's not even looking at them, but instead her gaze is turned over her shoulder at an old bike shop that had closed last fall. The suggestion is not rude, but it's quite direct, and Megumi's stomach tenses like it does when the teacher at school gets upset because someone (not Megumi) threw a baseball into the classroom and broke the window.

"Sorry for bothering you," Tsumiki bows, her palm pressed to the back of Megumi's hair to make him bow too.

"You were not a bother." The woman turns back to them, and as Megumi stares closer, he thinks one of her eyes has some gray-blue in it, like the eyes of the blind grandpa his schoolteacher takes care of. "The storm will hit soon. You should be indoors."

Tsumiki nods furiously and pulls Megumi along with her. Megumi wants to protest, but something about the woman makes him feel badly for pushing her. He lets Tsumiki drag him back home, but right when they're about to turn the corner, he looks back. The woman is still there, watching them, but behind her there is something dark and ugly, something he knows Tsumiki can't see, rising from behind the nearest trashcan. A steely jet-black beetle with thirty legs, three sets of eyes blinking on its shell, scuttles toward the woman. Its wings are outstretched and chatter and there are—are those teeth underneath its wings?

Megumi jerks back toward her. "Watch out!"

The woman does not even glance behind her. She raises a hand, crimson liquid trickles down her finger, and then from the back of her hand, a red blast erupts into the beetle. It fades into the air like ashes scattered into the wind, just as silent. Tsumiki turns around at the commotion, but does not see anything.

His sister is mortified. "You are so embarrassing."

The woman does not seem to mind. She bows deeply at the waist, straightens up, turns, and leaves.

Yuna expects Jujutsu Technical Institution to find her eventually. She is not in Shanghai for long; in fact, she's more often in Tokyo than she lets others know, but she is not trying particularly hard to hide. Even though she has only given Yaga a P.O. box for a physical address, her phone number remains the same, and she imagines that if the Institution or Higher-Ups were truly invested, they could track her number and locate her. She arms Toji's, no, her apartment in Edogawa with a multitude of seals and specialized Curtains, but more to keep curses out than to truly remain Hidden.

She is therefore not surprised when she comes home one snowy day, months after her departure from the Institution, to find her door knob completely twisted off and her entrance ajar.

She isn't worried. The Residuals are familiar enough.

She pushes open the door and takes off her shoes at the entryway. She sets her heels neatly next to a pair of giant pristine white tennis shoes.

"Gojou-kun, you owe me a new door."

His head cranes up over the edge of the couch, the same tufts of glossy white hair in haphazard style, his sunglasses now exchanged for ones that are thinner and more rectangular than before.

"I'll call someone to fix it tomorrow." He lounges like he belongs on her couch even though it is too small for him; his shins dangle off the arm. She wonders if he has grown more since she last saw him. He's dressed casually, in a sky-blue sweatshirt and black jeans, white socks patterned with pineapples. "Sketchy place you live in, sensei. Doesn't suit you."

"I've had to be judicious with my savings, since I'm not taking missions." Yuna shrugs off her jacket and hangs it in the small coat closet. "It was cheap and unexpected of me."

"Looks the part." He sits up fully to peer closely at her. "You've lost weight."

"Perhaps." She moves to the kitchen. "Would you like some tea?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

Yuna's apartment is modest but sparkling. A spotless counter, save for a bowl of apples and loose bills, separates the living room from the living room. She has gingham placemats and a full set of dishware. Dried flowers dangle over the sink, and she has hung some of her best calligraphy work on the walls to hide the peeling paint. Some are even done in regular ink, not her blood. Most of the furniture is old, but she'd bought a new sheet patterned with lavenders to drape over the couch and a new lilac knit throw to match. She wonders if Satoru, with his sharp eyes, can somehow discern the remnant elements of Toji in this space, even though she has done such a thorough job erasing him from every dark corner of it.

(Never mind the topmost shelf of the closet with an old weathered shoebox, a photograph, a videotape, a pale green glass float with "Hummingbird" inscribed on its bottom).

She fills her kettle with water and sets it on the stove, then pulls open the cabinets to search for tea.

"What are you doing here, Gojou-kun?"

"Just wanted to see you. Was rude of you to just leave like that."

"I've replied your texts." She pulls out a jar of loose-leaf jasmine tea and empties some into her old teapot.

"Never apologized."

"I was fired, Gojou-kun. I don't think I have anything to apologize for."

"You weren't fired, you left," he laughs. "If you didn't want to leave, you could've fought. Those old coons would've never fired you if you'd told me about it."

"You didn't need me there any longer."

"What about Shouko and Nanami, eh?"

"Shouko was already preparing for her license and has a fixed position at the School following graduation from medical school. I introduced Nanami to a non-sorcerer college counselor and wrote him a letter of recommendation for university. I made sure my students were stable before I left."

Satoru's breath is eerily close when he speaks next, puffing right over her head. She hadn't heard him get up from the living room. "You forgot one."

She pours the tea leaves into a teapot and withdraws two teacups from the cupboard. "You have never needed me, Gojou-kun."

He watches her inspect the teacups, ensuring they aren't cracked.

"Maybe not," he admits. "Not until after Suguru left, anyway."

"Even after he did," she says, moving through this moment like they're strolling through the park and not a minefield.

"We're really not going to talk about it?"

She knows what he's referring to, that day Satoru decided he could not blow Suguru to bits and had let Yuna close for the first time. She swerves bluntly to avoid it.

"No. We're not."

Unexpectedly, Satoru yields. He helps her carry the tea tray to the living room and they sit down on her couch, side by side, a cushion's width separating them. He smells different, woodsy and warm, with a touch of orange spice. It is a distinctly wintry scent.

"Are you wearing cologne?"

Satoru is full of surprises today. She catches the faintest blush across his cheeks.

"Yeah," he mutters. Since when has Satoru ever been self-conscious? Yuna finds herself smiling for the first time in what feels like years.

"It's nice," she offers to assuage his embarrassment. Satoru flushes deeper. "I like it."

"Thanks." He looks like he wants to crawl into the ground. "I thought it was an adult thing to do. Now that I'm gonna be a teacher and all."

"What?"

"I told Yaga-sensei I would take your place," he says. "I'll be teaching after I graduate. Yaga's gonna sub in in the meantime."

"Really?"

"You don't need to sound so surprised, sensei."

"You shouldn't call me that anymore."

"Then what should I call you?"

"Yuna is fine."

"Yuna," he says slowly, rolling the syllables over his tongue like it's foreign. "Yuna. I've been calling you that in my head for years, but it feels weird to say it aloud."

Yuna just sips her tea and ignores the way something charged settles in her stomach and in her bones. She doesn't know if she's pleased or on guard. She ignores the way her skin prickles, the way it does when she's alone with Satoru. It's only been a few months, but she'd forgotten at least a bit of it: the way Satoru's presence devours a room and everything inside it.

"I wouldn't have thought you would be a teacher."

"You don't think I'll be good?"

"I did not say that." She thinks for a bit. "I just did not think you would have the patience to teach people weaker than you."

"Just because they're students doesn't mean they're weak." He looks at her. "Myself being a proven point, right?"

"You know jujutsu strength isn't all I'm talking about." She doesn't add, I worry that one day your students will snap and massacre a village, like mine did.

"Whatever you're worried about, it's too late, I signed a contract and it's what I'm doing," he says. "I've been looking for you all summer to try and get pointers."

"I don't believe any part of that sentence."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Yes. You could've found me much sooner if you were trying. And you have never respected me enough to ask for my advice."

"Fine, to the first part. But the second part's not true."

Yuna decides some battles aren't worth fighting and instead drinks her tea. Satoru scoots closer to her.

"I thought you'd need some space," he says, "with the way you left."

She just looks at him, her unspoken skepticism obvious, and Satoru groans.

"Fine, I was pissed and wanted to find you, but Shouko said you'd need it, and that if I found you too early it'd put a big target on your back, the Higher-Ups would think we're colluding to help Suguru, blah, blah, blah."

"Is that what they think I'm doing?" Her teacup clinks against its saucer.

"It's a rumor."

"That's rich."

"Are you surprised?"

"No."

"Good," says Satoru, satisfied. "It means you're not dumb."

"Did you think that I would help him?"

"Honestly?" he shrugs. "I think everyone has thought at some point that we would. You, me, Shouko. I think we were all being watched for a while, just to make sure."

Yuna adjusts herself on the couch. Her shoulder bumps into Satoru's as she tucks her knees underneath her.

"Have you seen him? Since everything?" Satoru asks, and Yuna knows he is being honest, not fishing out of suspicion. She is not immune to the longing that his casual tone cannot hide.

"No. I haven't. There is enough chatter about him in the jujutsu underworld, but not enough to pinpoint where he is."

"You'll let me know if you find anything specific?"

"Of course, Gojou-kun." She doesn't ask what he would do, should she actually find Suguru's location.

"So what are you doing then?" Satoru looks around her apartment, eying her outdated television, the scratched edges of her desk and the office chair that is missing a wheel. A new, pristine laptop sits on the desk, next to a vase of fresh flowers. Her curtains are clean and laundered. He looks at her. "Are you just hiding out here until the dust settles?"

"No. I'm doing some research, but I plan to register as a private sorcerer, if I can."

"Why wouldn't you be able to?"

"I don't know if the Cursed Object status will be an issue."

Satoru shakes his head. "Shouldn't. Yaga-sensei's latest Cursed Corpse will be able to register as a sorcerer. If a fucking panda can be a sorcerer, so can you."

"A panda?"

Satoru shakes his head harder. "Don't worry about it. So you're just going to be a freelancer? Thought you'd have bigger dreams than that."

"I've never had big dreams. But I may meet up with Yuki-san eventually."

"Really? You're going to travel abroad with her?"

"For some time."

"That's exciting." He doesn't sound excited. "So you're gonna leave for real."

She eyes him, discomfort growing the longer Satoru inhabits her space. She cannot explain why she wants to reach out and touch him. It is as if that afternoon by the koi pond, when he'd rested his head in her lap and had touched her cheek, had awakened a possibility she'd never considered prior: that Satoru not only is accessible, but that he is inviting her in. Some part of her, a part she's never harbored or acknowledged before, wants to accept, if only because he is the only option.

"What are you really doing here, Gojou-kun?"

He glances at her, starlight flashing in the setting sun. "Why do you sound so suspicious?"

"I'm not. I just…want to understand what you want."

"Would you believe me if I said I don't want anything? That I just wanted to find you? And I dunno…sit for a bit? Drink some tea? Is that believable?"

He drinks the tea, as if to prove a point. Satoru has never needed her, except maybe that's not true anymore. Just like he said, not until Suguru left, and Suguru is still gone, which means Satoru is here because he needs her, for a reason that is not too hard to figure out once Yuna finally recognizes that she's feeling the same thing. Suguru has left a gaping wound in both of them, vacancy that even Infinity can't fill, but it tries. Yuna has run from it the way she always has, but this time Satoru is chasing her and there is no choice other than to let herself be pulled into his gravity.

Perhaps she does have a choice, but she doesn't acknowledge it, because the reason this gaping wound is here in the first place is because Yuna thought Suguru hadn't needed her.

"It will still be several months."

He looks at her, perplexed.

"Before I leave," she clarifies. "It'll be a few months. I'll still be here."

She catches it—relief, disappearing like the evening rays in her apartment, and he grins at her.

"Great. No moving now that I've found ya, okay?"

"Sure, Gojou-kun."

"Though this place is a dump. I can pay for you to move to a nicer place, y'know."

Some place I can make sure you won't run away without me knowing.

"No, thank you."

"Suit yourself. I'll get someone to fix the door tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Great. Do you have snacks? Desserts? Let's watch a movie."

She doesn't fight it. She just lets him in, watches him take up her space. She allows it, because she may have a choice, but she does not think she will survive its consequences.

She starts seeing Satoru frequently, after that.

He has a repairman fix her door, but he makes a copy of her keys. It becomes a not uncommon occurrence for her to come home and find Satoru watching her shitty television, feet kicked up on the coffee table, snacking on a variety of sweets, their shiny wrappers littering the ground. Sometimes she doesn't see him for weeks at a time; other times he's there nightly, loud and whiny, all one-hundred-ninety-centimeters crowding in her tiny kitchen as he asks what's on the menu, never asking how he can help. He's a grace note in her life's melody, never consistent enough to fold into her rhythm, but present enough to add color.

Sometimes he brings others with him: Shouko, Kento, once even Yaga, but it's rare. Yuna meets with the others on neutral ground, coffee shops or parks near the School. Even though the others now know where she lives, they do not venture into her space, as if they can sense who it used to belong to. Only Satoru, who listens to no one, who refuses to be haunted by ghosts (because the only thing he cared about enough to haunt him is still alive by his choice), who earned his right there by killing its previous owner, barges into her apartment like it's his, some childish transaction of ownership by force.

Yuna doesn't stop him.

She believes him after some time. That he's there, just because he wants to sit with her and drink some tea. He comes around enough and doesn't ask much of her other than tea, sweets, dinner, ghost touches once in a while. Sometimes he comes by with Cursed Weapons or Objects that he doesn't want to officially register in the Gojou inventory and "your apartment is plastered in seals, Yuna, like it's overkill but that means curses won't come near!" She lets him store them in her closet for the most part, but puts her foot down when Satoru is sent on a Special Grade mission in Osaka and comes back with a finger of Ryoumen Sukuna because she does not think her seals are strong enough to repel Special Grades.

Everything in the last two years—Toji's betrayal, the unrepenting surge of curses, Yuu's death, Suguru's decision—had burned Yuna's soul so finely until there was nothing but ash. She would not have bet that it would be Satoru, of all people, who would find the shallow husk of what remained and nurse it, bit by bit with teaspoons of purpose, back into existence. She does the work she needs to for Yuki, delves into the stacks of Jujutsu High's library (she is still an alumnus, at the least), but is most content when she returns home and finds Satoru already on her couch, shoes kicked off, mouth occupied with a lollipop as he concentrates hard on the newest video game he has connected to her television. He brings takeout with him sometimes, urging her to eat greasy yakisoba instead of cooking something healthy so that she can instead take the second controller and participate in whatever asinine competition the game dictates they play. She has no interest (despite being freakishly good at it) but does what Satoru asks, because she wants to, because she does not mind. They do not mention Suguru, even though they've both heard the news: he's taken over the Star Plasma Vessel Association, rebranded under some name but it's certainly him, and the jujutsu underworld is aflutter with the presence of a new god.

They ignore Suguru and everything that happened in the last two years.

It lasts for a season.

One spring evening, Yuna washes the dishes while Satoru rummages the freezer for mochi ice cream. He rummages for a long time, long enough for the freezer air to permeate into the small kitchen space and for Yuna to point out that he is driving up her electricity bill.

"It should be right there, Gojou-kun. It shouldn't be hard to find."

She lathers the sponge with dish soap and scrubs at a particularly stubborn grain of rice on her bowl. He doesn't answer her, just keeps the freezer open.

"Gojou-kun?"

"You know that asshole. The one that killed Amanai."

Yuna looks up at him sharply, but his face is still blocked by the freezer door. Dinner had been a fairly normal affair—beef curry with steamed vegetables—even if Satoru had been a tad quieter than normal. He had just gotten back from a mission, after all, and Yuna attributed it to him being tired and had let the evening news take up the space of his typical chatter.

She should have known better. Satoru does not get tired.

"I asked him if he had any last words, and he told me he had a son he was gonna sell to the Zen'in clan in a couple years."

Satoru's voice is casual, like he's recalling the meteorologist's forecast and not the last words of a man he'd torn apart.

"I've been lookin' for that kid in my spare time. But it's hard to find him. Didn't know where to start, so had to go pretty broad." The freezer door shuts. His glasses are off, and he looks at her with the full power of his eyes, fractals hovering on a smooth sheen of frozen ice. "It took a while. Finally tracked some marriage to a woman named Fushiguro and some kids in Saitama. So I went."

The water runs hot over the dishes and the suds circle the drain, but Yuna makes no move to turn off the faucet. Her pink rubbered hand grips the edge of the sink and her heart beats so fast she is certain Satoru can hear it.

"Couldn't find him," he continues, even though she knows how this story will end, "but I found you there. Your Residuals, all over. Seal after seal, spell-work built on itself for years. Clear as day."

Satoru's eyes are blazing now, if the gates of heaven could burst into righteous blue flames and incinerate all those unworthy of approaching. Her hummingbird heart beat beat beats, but she has always been good at hiding it, this amount of fucked up inside of her—

Satoru slides his finger underneath her chin and tilts it up so she properly faces him; his touch is ice cold from the freezer, but the fact that she can feel it means Limitless is off and Satoru will want to feel her die with his own hands and not his Technique.

"Then I remembered," Satoru whispers, voice low, quiet, calm before the storm, before the dam breaks, before the gates of heaven or hell tear wide open, "those weren't his last words. His last words were, 'Ask your teacher.'"

Satoru's hand squeezes around her throat and Yuna does not even gasp.

"So tell me, sensei. How the fuck did you know Zen'in Toji?"