Through Dimmed Lenses


The crepes. Yuta can't help but stare at them. He's standing in front of the little stall, the scent of sweet dough and chocolate filling his nostrils. He's never particularly cared for sweet stuff, but lately...

He's been noticing small changes. He's tried to ignore them because the thought of it—of what it could mean—is equally terrifying as painful. It threatens to open up that deep pit of grief in his chest all over again.

A hand on his arm startles him from his musings. "Hey," Megumi's unimpressed expression greets him, one eyebrow raised. "Are you going to stare any longer, or are you actually going to buy something?"

"Ah, well," Yuta scratches his cheek, a warmth creeping up his neck—something close to embarrassment (though there's no reason for it. There's not). "I'm actually not that hungry."

"Hmm," Megumi hums in response. "You were looking really intently at those crepes, though."

"No, it's nothing. Let's go." Suddenly, Yuta feels the need to leave, the sun too hot against the back of his neck.

He pointedly ignores the glances Megumi keeps giving him all the way home.

000

The sunglasses rest heavy in his palm, though they shouldn't weigh that much. The frame is smooth, and cool against his skin, the lenses dark. The store's air conditioning brushes over him, sending goosebumps across his arms. He's standing here like an idiot, staring at a pair of cheap sunglasses—yet he can't make himself move, can't bring himself to buy them. Because if he did...

Lately, his eyes ache for no reason—the sun too bright, the colors too sharp, the world just a little too overwhelming. It's new and unfamiliar, yet somehow all too familiar. He's been trying not to think about it too much, opting for painkillers and a glass of cold water instead. And now, here he is. He was just going to grab some groceries, but then his eyes caught on the sunglasses hanging from one of the racks, and almost without thinking, his hand reached out, fingers closing around the frame.

In the end, he buys them, shoving them deep into the pocket of his pants. Nobody needs to know—it's not even that big of a deal. He just needed sunglasses because the sun has been glaringly sharp lately. He winces as he steps out into the summer heat, sweat already collecting at the back of his neck and seeping into his collar.

Yuta ignores the little voice at the back of his head, whispering that he's an idiot, avoiding the truth.

000

"You've been different lately," Maki says one evening. "Distant."

"Hmm?" Yuta's thoughts are ripped away from where they had been floating, the sweet in his fingers sticky and warm, another one melting on his tongue. He feels a grin spread across his features, a need to deflect (he's been so tired lately). "Nah, I'm fine," he says, popping the other sweet into his mouth, his taste buds assaulted by its sweetness.

"Now you're doing it again—deflecting." Maki frowns. They are pressed together on the couch in the student dorm, a movie Yuta can't remember the title of playing in the background.

"I guess I've been a bit tired lately," Yuta says, resting his head against her shoulder. It's not a lie, just half the truth. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize, you idiot. If you're tired, you should try to rest more. These past few months have been…" Maki trails off, letting the sounds of the movie fill the quiet between them.

"You started wearing sunglasses," Maki says instead, making all the muscles in Yuta's back ache from the sudden strain. "Do your eyes hurt? Maybe you should see Shoko."

"It's fine." It feels like he has to pull the words from behind his teeth, and Yuta hopes Maki doesn't hear the strain in his voice. He hopes she doesn't catch the other lie hidden in his response. "Like you said, it's probably just exhaustion. And I just like the design."

Maki hums, pulling him closer and kissing his cheek. She doesn't point out the half-truth in his words.

000

The sunglasses stay. The dimmed world is a relief to his overstimulated eyes. He notices some of the stares and deflects Yuji's as always overbearing questions, or Nobara's unimpressed but too-knowing expression. They are just a pair of sunglasses, anyway.

"Nice glasses," Yuji says, a grin plastered on his face. There's some rice stuck in the corner of his mouth, and Yuta decides to focus on that instead of the pounding in his chest. "Change of style?"

"Nah," Yuta replies, pushing the glasses higher up his nose. He waves his hands around but feels himself catch onto the motion the moment he makes it, pulling his hands back down to clasp them between his knees. "Nah, I just saw them. They were cheap. Been having a bit of a headache lately."

Too honest, maybe. But Yuji will take it. Yuji is like that—unjudgmental. Even after everything that happened, Yuji is nice, he's kind.

Yuji just shrugs and offers him a bottle of water. "They suit you, he says."

And that—tears at something inside Yuta. A part of him recoils from the compliment, because of what it implies, what it means... The other part, the one he tries so desperately to push down, feels a flicker of happiness. It's an unsettling tug-of-war, pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit.

"Thanks," Yuta mumbles.

"Hey, Yuta," Panda's voice pulls him from the conversation. "You wanna train?" he asks, plopping down next to him.

Yuta shrugs. "Why not?"

They spar, and Yuta wins. "You're getting good fast," Panda says later, fur matted with sweat. He tilts his head, looking thoughtful. "Your style reminds me of Satoru's."

"Well," Yuta replies, gulping down water and trying not to choke. "He was my sensei, after all."

Panda hums, a low sound of acknowledgment. "Yeah, he was our sensei, wasn't he?"

000

Sometimes, when it's late, the shadows of night bending the corners of his room dark and deep, he catches it in his own reflection—a wisp of white, a flicker of blue.

It's always fleeting—perhaps a figment of his own mind.

It's fine, Yuta tells himself. It's just the tiredness.

His eyes hurt.

000

They talk about it more now—their struggles and hurt. It's difficult and scary, but they try. His friends have asked him about Sensei, about how it felt to be stuck inside his body. Yuta has shared bits and pieces, telling them the parts that weren't too hard to discuss, but he leaves out the core of it. He could have told them how terrifying it is that his body knows things now—how it reacts differently than it used to. But that truth hurts in a way that feels too achingly close to grief.

So yeah, they talk more now.

000

Yuta didn't know what overcame him. Maybe it was the late evening sun, painting their surroundings in warm shades of orange and red—or perhaps it was Megumi's head tilted down, his expression shaded by the hint of unshed tears, their shoulders almost touching. The atmosphere surrounding them felt fragile, as Megumi shared some of his inner struggles.

And somehow, between Megumi's quiet sniffle he tried to hide and his next words, Yuta's palm landed gently on the boy's messy dark hair—a familiar gesture, burned into his memory. A warmth he still remembers and misses dearly.

Megumi flinches, jerking away, his expression twisting with anger.

A few seconds tick by, stretching out into what feels like an eternity. Cold dread coils around Yuta's chest, making it hard to breathe, an apology already forming on his tongue.

"What did you do that for?" Megumi's voice is tight, laced with confusion and hurt. After all, he doesn't do well with physical touch.

And Yuta understands. He understands it far too well, far more than anyone should ever have to.

"Sorry, I—" His throat feels dry, words sticking in his mouth as a vision of younger, grumpier Megumi flashes through his mind. Ice cream on a hot day, a clear blue sky, Tsumiki's laughter in the background.

000

The nightmare sends everything tumbling down. Yuta dreams, a mix of his own memories and his sensei's, merged into a horrifying vision. It ends with Hollow Purple, annihilating everything in its wake—a sudden slash, the taste of thick copper suffocating him as he bleeds out.

The grief he wakes up to chokes him, cries thick in his throat, his eyes hurting far beyond the threat of tears.

"Yuta." A hand on his shoulder, Maki's worried expression meets his own, her brow pinched in concern. It sends him bawling, the headache intensifying. Maki doesn't say anything; she simply draws him into her arms, allowing him to cry it out.

000

"It's affecting you more than you've let on, huh?" Maki's voice breaks through Yuta's thoughts, and he finds himself under the watchful gaze of his friends—Maki, Yuji, Nobara, and Megumi—all wearing expressions of concern. Maki is at his side, warm and comforting, and he's grateful for that. After his breakdown, she had gotten him water and tissues, sitting with him while he spilled it all. Now, in the morning light, everything seems a little less bleak, a little less heavy. And yet—

"Sorry," Yuta murmurs, his gaze dragging down to the table.

"Don't apologize," Yuji says, his tone kind and understanding, as always.

"We noticed," Nobara adds, taking a big slurp from her tea. "It's just—it's hard. We thought we knew enough, but… we didn't know at all, huh?"

"I just—" Yuta starts, hesitating as he collects his thoughts. "My body... it's not just the memories. My body knows things now—reacts to certain things..."

He remembers his outburst, the anger that bubbled up when they had casually discussed using Sensei's body during their fights, dismissing Gojo's humanity so casually.

"My eyes hurt often now," he blurts out. "The sun is too bright, and the world is too loud."

"So that's why the glasses," Megumi says, his tone shifting to a more serious note. "I had an inkling that something like that was going on, but… you should have said something sooner."

Yuta bites his lip, guilt washing over him. "Sorry," he repeats, remembering the head pat and the fleeting warmth of care. "I'm sorry about that head pat. It's just… Gojo-sensei cared for you—in his own way. But he cared so much."

Megumi's expression turns sad for a moment, but then he nods. "It's okay. It's fine. I know he cared. Our relationship was... complicated, but I know he cared." After a moment of silence, he adds quietly, "I cared too."

And Yuta knows—he knows this as well as he knows his own beating heart.

"Let's visit his grave," Yuji suggests, breaking the low mood that had settled around them. "Together."

000

It's not the only grave he visits, there are many, but this one isn't a grave at all—there's no physical resting place, only a metaphorical one.

In the morgue, there's an old, scratched-up desk with names carved into the dark withered wood. Yuta doesn't need to look closely to know what they say: Geto Suguru and Gojo Satoru underlined with a "duh" and a smiley face.

Scrawled among the names are other fragments of nonsense, lost to the flow of time.

Yes, Geto Suguru has no burial. There's only this desk, old yet clean, clearly cared for, blue Forget-Me-Nots on top of it in a vase.

Yuta visits it once when the tide of sorrow that isn't his own threatens to drown him, making it hard to take a breath. Shoko has given him some privacy; the morgue is quiet, the scent of antiseptic lingering in the air. It's almost peaceful.

The tears are harsh and choking but silent. Yuta cries for Geto Suguru that day because his Sensei had refused to—hadn't truly grieved, not really. Not enough.

He mourns the person beneath the cold hate and destruction, grieving the young boy who once roamed the halls of this very high school—a man who, even in death, couldn't find peace. Instead, he was controlled like a puppet on a string, a mere pawn in a game of destruction and death.

When he returns to the dorms, red-eyed and sniffly, Maki wraps him up in another of her hugs and doesn't let go for a while. Later that night, as Yuta helps her salve her burn scars, he talks quietly, letting the words flow from his tongue—just small stories, tiny snippets of lives lived over ten years ago.

"You know why Gojo-sensei hated peach-flavored ice cream?"

Maki hums, eyes closed and basking in the warmth of their shared closeness.

"One day, he ate so much that he got a stomach ache. Geto had to hold his hair away from his face while he threw it all back up." Yuta snickers, and even Maki can't help but smile.

"That sounds just like that idiot. Heh, served him right."

And Yuta silently agrees.

Later, when they snuggle even closer and Yuta's eyes almost fall shut, Maki kisses him behind his ear, soft and careful, a quiet whisper of goodnight following him into an exhausted, deep sleep.

He was not alone; the memories of his sensei were treasures he could carry—proof of the life Gojo Satoru had lived and the sacrifices he had made for a peaceful future. It was what Gojo Satoru had lived by, after all: 'No one's allowed to take Youth away from Young people.'


Something possessed me to write this. Once the idea popped into my head, it wouldn't let go: What if Yuta not only inherited Gojo's memories after taking over his body but also his mannerisms, cravings, and quirks? The story might feel a bit messy and all over the place at times, and I'm not sure if it all makes sense, but since Gege really didn't give us much, I had to write this. I had a lot of fun exploring Yuta's character this way. I hope you enjoy it!