Archive of Our Own

It all happens so fast. One moment Satoru is teasing her then there’s glinting steel spearing through his stomach, blood slicking the blade, and then—then a dark blur crashes into Satoru’s assailant. There’s a loud impact, the harsh crack of stone shattering, and the image settles in place:

the would-be hitman lays in the impact-zone’s center. A tall man stands above him, long black robes, hair held neatly back, undiluted hatred on his face, wooden sandal digging none-too-gently into the hitman’s stomach. And something about the shape of his face, the amethyst gauges enlarging his lobes, he almost reminds her of…

Confusion crashes over Riko, mixes awfully with her previous shock. It’s just too much all at once. Everything is so hot, cloying summer humidity, sun blazing above, clear skies. Her heart is beating out of her chest, rattling against her rib cage, cold jitters, so nervous she could float.

“Ah! Careful!” The voice is cheery, pitched high with faux-panic—oddly familiar?—and she whips around to see another newcomer touch down on the stone, shoes soundless. A blindfold cuts starkly across his face. “Remember not to kill him!”

Pure irritation takes Long-Hair’s face. “Maybe,” he hisses at the other, “I wouldn’t wanna kill him if we had arrived before he stabbed you!”

You?

But the one who was stabbed—

Riko glances to the side. Suguru’s face is still taken by hot panic, Satoru’s has an echo of cold shock that’s steadily becoming confusion, brows knitting. She wonders how she looks. Hopes she’ll be able to calm down in time for the merger. It’d be so embarrassing if she isn’t presentable when she meets Tengen.

“Aww c’mon!” Blindfold walks over, pausing at the outer ring of cracked stone, hands in his pockets. “Heroes are supposed to be a little late! It’s fashionable, didn’t y’know?”

Long-Hair’s eye twitches. He grinds his sandal down against the hitman’s already broken ribs, completely ignores the pained groan. “You’re on thin ice.”

“...And villains are supposed to be early… so between the two of us—” Blindfold’s face splits with a grin, “we’re right on time!”

That gets a glare. “Hilarious.” Tone flat, unamused.

Blindfold makes a face. “Mini-me needed a wake-up call anyway!”

Mini-me. The familiarity of his voice clicks. Riko’s fourteen but she isn’t stupid. He sounds—he sounds like Satoru. And Long-Hair sounds like Suguru. (And isn’t that so nice? That they’re Satoru and Suguru to her? She’d accidentally called Suguru his first name at Okinawa and he’d cut her off halfway through her stuttered explanation, smiled at her with warm eyes and told her don’t worry, I don’t mind. Then Satoru had jumped in, said, hey! No fair! If you call Suguru Suguru then you gotta call me Satoru! And maybe it’s just cause they want to be kind to her before the merger—it’s fine, it is—but it makes her so happy regardless.)

“There are plenty of—” Long-Hair/Suguru (oh, yikes! That’s confusing! She’ll dub him Getō) is suddenly thrown off balance. The hitman attempts—something, she can’t quite see—and Getō kicks him back down viciously, grinds his sandal into the other’s windpipe, cursed energy suddenly so thick and choking in the air that even Riko can feel it. “Know your place.”

It’s ugly, that tone, the sneer on Getō’s face, the raw derision. Blindfold—Gojō—doesn’t seem overly concerned, though. He’s still all faux-panic, wide grin, dramatized emotion.

“Hey hey! No! Suguru! No killing! Bad! It’s No-Murder Monday today, y’know!”

Getō’s brow arches high. When he speaks, his voice is dry. “No-Murder Monday.”

Gojō nods frantically. “It’s this super hip new thing with the youth! No-Murder Monday. It’s good for the soul, or something!”

Getō remains completely unimpressed. “Go on.”

“Uhmm...” Gojō makes a vague motion. His sleek black clothing catches the sunlight, pale gold, too-bright. Around them, the mountains sing with rustling leaves and dandelion breeze. “It’s a...new branch of Zen Buddhism! Yeah! ‘Has its roots in Taoism and Confucianism!”

“You don’t know what any of those words mean,” Getō deadpans. Riko would share his deadpan expression if she weren’t busy freaking out because what the hell—

“Hmph!” Gojō huffs. “’Do too!”

“That’s wonderful,” Getō says, then smiles wide, eyes crinkling to thin lines, face like the sun, “truly, Satoru, I’m happy you seem to be aware of this oh-so important occasion that I was sadly ignorant of… but it’s Tuesday.”

“...Eh?” Gojō coughs. “That’s odd…. Haha...”

Getō sighs, expression shifting to something so unmistakably fond it makes Riko’s heart ache—no one has ever, will ever look at her like that—and rolls his eyes. His sandal removes from the hitman’s throat, and in an instant, he’s holding the other up by his collar. “You,” he tells the unconscious body, “are so lucky Satoru and Tsukumo-san want you alive.”

Then, he tosses the hitman to Gojō, who catches easily. Grins wide. “Thanks dear!”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.”

Gojō shifts the hitman over his shoulder, then casually strolls over to where they’re all still standing. Riko steps back, skin pricking, shoulder bumping Kuroi’s arm. Now that his full attention is on them, the weight of that blindfolded gaze is so heavy. Riko searches for Kuroi’s hand blindly, grasps it tight, and finds reassurance in the way it squeezes back.

“Man,” Gojō says, after a moment, bending down, just a little, “you’re all tiny.”

This, apparently, kicks Satoru out of his silence. Indignation twists over his face. “You’re just too tall! What are you, anyway!?”

Gojō grins. “You already know the answer, don’t you?”

“My Six-Eyes tells me you’re Gojō Satoru, but there can only be one of us..!”

“OOooo,” Gojō smirks, straightening back up, “sca~ry. ‘Gonna try t’ fight?”

At that, Suguru bristles, stepping closer to Satoru, blatantly protective. There’s tension in his shoulders, but his features stay hard, even. He opens his mouth, but—

“Satoru, you’re scaring them.”

Gojō pouts, looking to the side, where Getō is steadily approaching, sandals clacking. “I’m scaring them? You’re the one who burst in all full of murderous intent!”

Getō rolls his eyes, but focuses his attention on their group instead of entertaining the other. “It seems introductions are due,” his voice is pleasant, silky, and he gives them all a small little Bodhisattva smile. “You’ve likely figured it out by now.. but I’m Getō Suguru. He’s Gojō Satoru. I would say nice to meet you, but...”

Suguru shifts, swallows. Riko sees his Adam’s apple bob. “Time travel?”

“Ding ding we have a winner!” Gojō’s voice is obnoxious, and he’s in front of Suguru in an instant, hand patting his hair. Satoru bristles. “Aaa, tiny Suguru is so cute!” His head twists to the side. “Suguru! I don’t remember you ever being this cute!”

“He’s foolish and naive.”

Gojō’s hand retracts, and Riko gets the distinct impression that he’s rolling his eyes. “He’s sixteen, he’s allowed to be a little stupid.”

Getō clicks his tongue against his teeth, but says nothing more. Suguru, on the other hand, bristles. “Why are you guys here in the first place?”

“Well—”

“Did the merger fail?” Riko blurts it without really meaning to. She just—well. It’s the obvious thing to think, right? She knows how this sort of thing goes. They wouldn’t be here if there weren’t something horrifically wrong with the future. Not many things can cause that level of catastrophe. She’s fourteen, not stupid. “It failed, right?”

A beat, two. An acute hyperawarness strikes her, every shift of fabric over her skin harsh, August humidity sticking hair to the sides of her face. Inexplicably, her throat hurts.

“In a way,” Getō eventually says, and of course. Of course.

“Yeah the consequences were pre~tty bad,” Gojō adds.

“Oh,” she says. That hitman must’ve killed her. It crashes over her all at once, this heavy feeling that’s been building since the moment she figured out their identities. It’s heavy as the ocean, drowning her; she has one fucking reason to exist and apparently she failed to fulfill it, and people suffered for it. Inexplicably, her throat hurts. “Sorry.”

“Hey, hey,” Gojō says, “why are you looking so depressed?”

“I’m not!” Riko shakes her head, hand clenching the hem of her skit. She pushes down that feeling because it’s not something she’s allowed to have, not something she should allow herself to dwell on; she only has a couple more hours as herself, she should try to enjoy them! “I’m—it’s okay! Don’t worry! I’ll do it right this time! Promise!”

Because this is her reason to exist and the purpose she’s been raised to fulfill for so long as she remembers. It’s okay, it is.

“No you won’t,” Getō says, and she falters.

“What?”

“We’ll just deal with it before it gets bad this time,” Gojō says, “don’t worry about it.”

They’re not making sense. They’re really not making sense at all. Nothing makes sense, so she looks at Kuroi, studies the way her lips tremble, feels her hands squeeze so much tighter, warm, reassuring, and the thought occurs to her:

I don’t want to give this up.

It’s not a new feeling, but this is the only time she’s allowed herself to shape it into something coherent.

“But you can’t,” she swallows, helpless, “you can’t do that.”

“Says who?” Gojō bends down till he’s eye level with her. “’Not like anyone could stop us from stopping the merger. Not even the cute, mini versions of ourselves, who won’t try anyway.”

“Mhmm,” Getō settles in place beside Gojō. “Just say the words,” he urges, “say you wanna let us let you live.”

Let me live, I wanna live, it hovers on her tongue but she just can’t—can’t quite get it off. The school flashes over her mind, hot summer days, skin sticky with saltwater, popsicle sugar. Kuroi kissing her forehead, classroom laughter. I wanna live, I wanna live, I wanna—

She can’t quite say it; something catches in her throat, tears from her throat shapelessly. If she thinks about it right, it’s sort of funny to watch Gojō’s expression contort with panic when she just starts sobbing.

-

Getō and Gojō—(different from Getō-senpai and Gojō-senpai!)—are...weird. Hard to read. Which is odd, because Yū is good at getting a sense of people. It’s not that they feel like a threat, they just… Nanami would give him a flat expression at the description, but Gojō and Getō have a weird vibe.

“You’re weird,” Ieiri-senpai says, making a face when Gojō slips a popsicle into her hand.

He pauses, tilts his head, and Yū gets the distinct impression that he’s blinking. “Ehhh? Weird? Shōko, y’know, that’s a pretty not-nice thing to say!”

She grimaces, shifting where she’s crosslegged on the ground. Waves her popsicle. “You’re being nice.”

And—oh, that could be part of the weird feeling. Because it’s true, Gojō-senpai… it’s not that he’s bad! He’s not a bad person! But he’s not exactly...considerate either. Gojō-senpai supervised the first mission Yū ever had, only stepped in to help after Yū got swallowed by a curse, then immediately tossed a severed head at him because normally we wouldn’t bring back bodies, but I’m Gojō Satoru, so we can handle it! And winked at him. Then just watched when Yū started crying.

Gojō, on the other hand, almost cleared everyone’s schedule of curses for the next few days, demanding the missions for himself. Then, afterwards, shepherded them all—except Nanami, who took one look at Getō and Gojō and the very much alive Amanai Riko and announced he was going to bed—outside saying it’s such a nice day for a picnic! and proceeded to dump them all with a ridiculous amount of konbini food.

“Hey! Shōko, what’s that supposed to mean!? Why do you sound so suspicious!?” Gojō-senpai makes a face.

Gojō just laughs, though. He settles it place beside Getō, on one of the many metal benches that line Jujutsu Tech’s campus. They’re the only ones not sitting on the ground. “Of course I got nicer! I gotta compensate for Suguru’s awful personality, y’know!”

That makes Yaga-sensei frown, and Gojō-senpai lean forward with interest. Getō-senpai blinks, brows furrowing, scrutinizing. “Awful personality?”

Getō himself just sighs. “’Awful personality’ is a relative term. It depends how you define ‘awful’ and ‘personality’.”

Gojō snickers. And Yū gets it, because that isn’t really a straight answer at all. Which isn’t exactly unusual. Getō-senpai almost never gives straight answers to things he doesn’t want to answer, but why would…

An immediate squabble rises between Gojō-senpai and Getō-senpai. Ieiri-senpai sighs. Yaga-sensei looks like he’s getting the beginnings of a headache. He’s kinda looked like that for the last number of hours. It is sort of a bizarre situation, Yū supposes. He’s the sort of person that goes with the flow, though. Getō and Gojō are here, they time traveled; there’s no use agonizing over it or giving himself a headache contemplating paradoxes. Some things just Are.

“On a different subject,” Yaga-sensei interrupts, “Getō...san, do you also want any missions?”

“No.”

Getō’s reply is prompt, instant, not even a moment of consideration, and it sets everything into a sudden silence.

Getō-senpai snaps to look at the other. Yaga-sensei is just entirely taken back. It throws Yū, too.

“...Are you planning to share the missions Gojō-san took..?”

“No.”

“...What?”

Getō tilts his head, cradles it in the palm of his hand. Sunlight shifts over his hair, glints on his piercings, bathes him in honeyed summer gold. “You didn’t hear me the first time? I said,” he draws out the word, a bright smile taking his face, “no.”

This, this sets Yū on edge for-real. Getō’s dishonesty is sticky, tone unpleasantly saccharine. Getō-senpai has his mean moments, but it’s never quite unnerved Yū like this.

“Oh,” Yaga-sensei says, after a moment, “but you always—”

“He said no,” Gojō cuts, unsmiling.

“But—”

“Suguru,” Gojō is uncaring of Yaga-sensei, he shifts his attention to Getō, “is there any circumstance that you’d take a mission from the college?”

Getō scoffs. “You already know the answer to that.”

“I do,” Gojō agrees, smile slipping back to his lips, cheery, “but they don’t.”

A beat. Everyone stares, attention on Getō. He doesn’t give under the attention, though, merely sighs. His eyes slip closed for a half moment before slipping back open, thin. That awful smile returns. “I’d rather peel off my skin with a rusted carving knife than associate with Jujutsu Tech like that.”

“You heard him!” Gojō smiles, and something about it is sharp, an undertone of steel. “Suguru-chan doesn’t have to do any~thing he doesn’t wanna do!”

Getō-senpai is first to break the silence. Complete indignation takes his face, total upset. He stands from the ground, hand forming a white knuckled fist. Uh-oh. “What the hell, you can’t just—”

“Do you know shaman mortality statistics?” Getō cuts, face flat, almost bored.

Getō-senpai falters. “That doesn’t have anything to do with—”

“Approximately eighty one percent of shamans die before they turn eighteen,” Getō says, dreadful monotone. “That’s a fifty three percent mortality rate for shamans born to shaman families, and an eighty nine percent mortality rate for ones born to nonshaman families. It’s the chief reason shamans are seen as so extremely rare; we die often. Now,” and he gets that sunlit smile again, eyes crinkling, “can you guess the mortality rate for this school?”

Getō-senpai’s eyes narrow. “I fail to see how that’s important at all—mortality statistics don’t change the irrefutable truth that there’s a moral imperative—obligation—for shamans like us to—”

“Seventy eight percent! All cause mortality!” Getō cheerfully answers his own question. “Impressive, really, some shaman institutions have even worse statistics than that, managing to even beat the eighty nine percent figure of—”

“That doesn't actually answer the question!”

Getō’s smile drops. He studies Getō-senpai with an expression that makes Yū feel cold. It’s such a clinical, unimpressed expression.

“There’ll be a day,” he says, tone bland, “when you realize every ideal you held is meaningless, that your mentality is fundamentally flawed, and it’ll be hell. It’ll be worse than hell. At that point, when you can’t find meaning no matter how desperately you search, and you feel like you’re drowning and you can barely breathe through the thick of it and all you want is to lay down and rest but you just can’t, when you’ve given everything you had left to give, this place is going to demand more of you. It’s going to eat you alive.”

“Suguru,” Gojō interrupts, quiet and serious in a way Yū has never seen, “that isn’t going to happen this time.”

A beat.

“I suppose you’re right,” Getō says, eyes slipping briefly shut. “His beliefs are still unsustainable, though; he’ll realize that eventually. And as for the college… it would have happened; the point still stands.”

Gojō stares at Getō for a moment, and Getō meets the gaze evenly. Yū’s skin picks, that unique feeling of cursed energy held barely under constraint, a frequency which taints the air. Seaside storms. He worries at his lip, thinks of saying something; he’s good at defusing things. But—

Abruptly, Gojō leans forward, just a little, and presses his lips to the corner of Getō’s mouth.

Oh.

Oh.

Yū squeaks, just a little. Both Gojō-senpai and Getō-senpai look completely mortified, twin blushes taking their face as they glance at each other then immediately look away. Oh.

“Talk about it at home?”

“Mm,” Getō hums in agreement, pulling away. It’s so soft Yū’s chest flutters. “You’re lucky you have a pretty face.”

Gojō laughs, attention returning to the rest of them like nothing happened at all. “Suguru and I disagree on a lot of things...but it’s not like he’s wrong about that one. This place is rott~en to its core.”

Yaga-sensei makes a face. Getō-senpai, though—he seems to be expertly shoving aside his previous fluster. Yū can’t say the same. Something a little worried and a bit confused, almost considering flashing across Getō-senpai’s expression. “You...you really think so?”

“Uhhuh!” Gojō grins, leans against the bench’s metal backing. His legs are crossed, one over the other. “I’d kill the higher ups, honestly, but unfortunately murder isn’t actually an easy fix to every problem.”

At that, Getō rolls his eyes.

There’s… probably a lot to pick up there. Yū’s never really been the type to think too hard about that sort of thing, though. Besides, he’s still too caught up in getting over his most recent crush. Which isn’t too hard, really—Yū crushes easily and gets over things fast. If anything, he’s just glad that Getō-senpai has someone that’ll care for him like that.

-

Gojō and Getō arrive to the hotel suite at 10:38 PM, precisely eight minutes later than the officially agreed upon meeting time, but exactly when Yuki was expecting them. Getō warned her beforehand, after all, of Gojō’s tendency to show up between five and ten minutes late.

Fushiguro Tōji is unceremoniously dumped onto the kitchenette’s white tiled floor. Yuki crouches down, tilts her head, studies him. He’s pale, hair tangled, clothes rumpled. Very, very still.

She huffs a laugh, poking Fushiguro Tōji’s cheek. “You didn’t actually kill him, right?”

“No,” Getō answers, grimace twisting his face. He’s still wearing those ridiculous monks robes. She still hasn’t managed to glean a clear answer on why he wears them. “It’s just strong sedatives. Well..even if I wanted to kill him, it’s not like I’d be able to.”

She blinks up at him, rising from her position. That’s news to her, and really, she can’t help her natural curiosity—“Oh?”

“Mm,” he hums, leaning against the hotel room’s clean beige wall. It’s the expensive kind of place that Yuki rarely indulges for herself, but Gojō and Getō seem to prefer. It’s private, too, which is what really matters. “It’d be against me n’ Satoru’s binding vow.”

“Yeah?” They’ve mentioned their binding vow in passing before, too, but she’s yet to hear the details of it. She settles into a bar chair. “Did’ja guys make that before or after the timetravel?”

“Before!” Gojō is already digging into the kitchenette’s fridge, pulling out one of the overly sweet American sodas she’d brought back from the states just for him. He pops the can, leaning against a counter. Florescent light casts him in stark whites. “We have seri~ous disagreements that had to be immediately addressed, after all.”

“Oooo,” she says, “serious?”

“The kind we’d kill each other over,” Getō answers, accepting a sip from Gojō, then immediately grimacing at the taste.

Something to kill over, huh?

She has her suspicions.

It’s hard to miss, after all, the way Getō regards nonshamans. The way he’ll avoid their touch, grimace at their proximity, look like he’s biting his tongue to avoid one comment or another. When they originally approached her—god, that was a doozy—it was Getō who dumped her with piles of her own research. Or rather, her future self’s research. Getō, unlike most of the shaman world, agrees with her that it’s much better to weed curses from the root than nip the buds. That goal, though, it can lead to some insane places.

“But the binding vow worked it all out between us!” Gojō cheerily downs his soda. “True love prevails!”

Getō snickers. “More like circumstantial mutual need.”

From there, they descend into bickering that Yuki listens to absently while she studies Fushiguro Tōji. Contemplates exactly what she’ll say when he wakes up. Forms a plan in her mind. Wonders how much she can rely on Getō and Gojō.

“I’ve been wondering,” she muses idly, filling the lull in their conversation, “how does your time travel shit work anyway? You said in the beginning it’s not parallel dimensions, that this is the same timeline you guys came from, but no matter how hard I think about it, I can’t quite figure that out. It’s giving me a headache!”

She’s a scientist after all, it’s her nature to be curious. She may focus on biology, not physics, but…

“Ask Satoru,” Getō says.

Yuki turns her gaze to Gojō.

“Application of infinity to the human body and soul,” Gojō answers, after a moment. “When contemplating the universe, people inevitably run into the concept of ‘infinity’. That there was never a true ‘beginning’ of ‘things’. It’s simply transferring that quality to Suguru and me. Technically, nothing in our memories ever happened, they just are. In other words… I removed the need for Suguru and I to have a ‘cause’. And now we’re here!” He grins widely, striking a pose. “Ta-da! World-crashing time paradox avoided!”

That...sort of makes sense. Sounds like a fucking headache, though.

“Sounds like a headache!”

“It was!”

He doesn’t trust her; it shows in the subtly careful way he watches her every move, how his lips thin when she gets too close to Getō. And it makes her shiver, that distrust. If Getō’s scary in the way of a venomous snake in the dead of night, Yuki thinks, then Gojō is scary in the way of an unstoppable force.

They’re private people, keep to themselves. She’s known them for months now and still has no idea where they return to each evening. Codependent, the clinical part of her says. They seem to keep each other in check, though, and Yuki’s never been one to stress over things she can’t change, has always been more easy-going.

She decides not to worry about it too, much. There’s far more fun things to focus on.

-

Mimiko loves Getō and Gojō with all her heart, has loved them ever since they barged into the small house that her and Nanako lived in all alone, Getō sweeping them up into his large, warm arms, Gojō slipping sweet tangerines into their small hands. Since they spirited her and Nanako away from that village under the bright autumn moon. She trusts them, she really really really does, but—

Getō is kind of scary sometimes.

His knuckles go white, fists clenching, jaw hard, expression contorted with loathing so intense it makes Mimiko’s heart stutter. His eyes are always unfocused, when he gets like that, dead to the world, looking at something Mimiko can’t see. His hatred fills the room, chokes the atmosphere, so intense it feels as though gravity has doubled. It’s deep in the night, beyond the moon’s peak in the sky, inky darkness blanketing the world and seeping into the house. Mimiko was still awake even though Nanako and Megumi and Tsumiki had all long since fallen asleep, just wanted to get a glass of water, but—

she hadn’t been able to make it past the doorframe before freezing and creeping back.

When Getō gets like this, she goes to Gojō. Tip toes down the halls and find Gojō in his study, napping in a chair. Pauses just a moment before tugging the fabric of his shirt. His eyes open, flicking first to her, then to something she can’t see, then back to her. A sigh slumps his shoulders.

“I’ll deal with that, don’t worry.”

She follows him down to the kitchen, watches from the doorway when he flicks the center of Getō’s forehead. He flinches violently, eyes regaining clarity, and that heaviness is gone in an instant. His eyes flick to Mimiko in the doorway, and his whole expression softens in a way that makes Mimiko’s whole chest warm. What did she do to deserve this care?

“Sorry,” he says, “did I scare you?”

She shakes her head. Because he didn’t, not exactly. It was the expression, the posture, the heaviness of that feeling, the echo of a hard fist, not him. Now that that’s gone, she tip-toes over to the sink, gets a glass of water.

“Suguru,” she hears Gojō say, and twists a little to see him bump his forehead with Getō’s. “’Spar later?”

“Okay,” Getō says, then weakly smiles, “thanks.”

“Anytime.”

...It’s a nice sort of love, Mimiko thinks. Softer than feels real. She wonders, cotton candy hope kindling in her chest, a certain type of wonderstruck yearning, if she can ever have something similar.

For now, though, she thinks, when Getō rises from his seat and kisses her forehead, asks if she wants warm tea before returning to bed with her sister, this is more than enough.

-

Once, Nanami was foolish enough to hope Gojō-senpai and Getō-senpai would stop pining for each other and just get together. It was sickening, to see them steal glances and hide blushes and, well, pine. But that Nanami was stupid. That Nanami was innocent enough to assume that once they got over themselves and got together, they’d have the basic common decency not to parade their affection in public.

Adult-Getō and Adult-Gojō are genuinely unbearable.

“Hey hey,” Adult-Gojō says to Gojō-senpai, interrupting the argument he’d been in with Getō-senpai, “’wanna know how to actually win against Suguru?”

A sinking dread takes Nanami’s stomach. His instincts scream that he’s about to witness something awful. It’s 8:30AM on the weekend, it’s too early for this; he just wants to drink his coffee. But for some reason both Getōs and both Gojōs have decided to occupy the dormitory common room this morning.

Getō-senpai’s eyes narrow. Gojō-senpai perks, though. Oh no.

“Okay so basically,” Adult-Gojō says, “you make him flustered!”

Oh no.

“That literally doesn’t make sense,” Getō-senpai says, “that’s definitely a logical fallacy.”

Gojō-senpai tilts his head, confused, curious. “What?”

Adult-Gojō puffs up. “Just watch!”

Only a couple more minutes before Nanami’s coffee is done..! He really wishes it would hurry up..! That sick feeling in his stomach increases as Adult-Gojō crosses the room to where Adult-Getō is reading a book, tucked into an armchair.

“Hey hey,” Adult-Gojō pokes Adult-Getō’s cheek, leaning over him from behind. “Su-gu-ru~!”

He glances up, unamused. “What?”

“Mm,” and then Adult-Gojō bites the other’s ear—the shamelessness! “Nothing, just want ya t’ know I lo~ve you.”

It’s literally so gross. It’s so gross. Nanami has never been in love, never even had one of those puppy crushes that Yū seems to—somehow—have an endless supply of stories about. Nanami, though, has no interest in such things, and no interest in seeing such things.

Adult-Getō bats Adult-Gojō away. “...Right.”

“Mhmm...” Adult-Gojō isn’t discouraged at all, in fact, he’s wearing this shit-eating grin that makes the warning bells in Nanami’s head turn into blaring sirens. “Just want ya t’ know I’m so blessed to have you. My sun, moon, love of my life, other half of my soul, my one and only—”

Adult-Getō groans, hand reaching up to cover his face. His ears are pink. “Why are you like this...”

The only silver lining of this entire situation, Nanami decides, is that Gojō-senpai and Getō-senpai both look almost as embarrassed as Nanami thinks they should.

“You say that but you lo~ve me!”

“Shame on me.”

“That’s my line!”

“Literally shut up oh my god—”

“A man isn’t allowed to compliment his partner anymore? What if I want to brag about you?” Adult-Gojō presses a kiss to Adult-Getō’s temple, still grinning. “My hot sexy dedicated principled strong wonderful amazing gorgeous huspandwife—”

“We’re not even married!”

“Ehhh?” Adult-Gojō pulls back, all faux-offense. “Really? But we said our vows and everything!”

“Binding vows aren’t marriage!”

“Damn,” Adult-Gojō says, “shoulda told me that before we added the death do us apart clause...”

Adult-Getō opens his mouth to respond, but—

“Clause?” Nanami asks, despite himself. This is the first actually interesting thing they’ve said. It’s just—weird, to refer to part of a binding vow as a clause. Although long, lengthy, almost contract-like binding vows aren’t unheard of…

“Yeah!” Adult-Gojō whips out a giant binder, thick with paper. He flips through, and Nanami reluctantly comes over just as he settles on a page almost halfway through the binder. Oh wow, that print is small. Adult-Gojō’s finger skims the text before settling on a subheading. “See! This one means—”

“That one means that if Satoru dies so do I,” Adult-Getō interrupts, snatching the binder and snapping it shut. “It’s not something romantic at all.”

“Yeah yeah whatever,” Adult-Gojō pouts. “And Suguru is oversimplifying it, by the way! There are a lot of asterisks attached!”

“...Yeah,” says Nanami, still somewhat reeling from the sheer size of that...transcript of a binding vow? “That looked like a lot.”

“Right?” Adult-Gojō groans. “And we have to recite it like, every six months!”

“Which is entirely your own fault, considering it’s you who insisted it have a time limit,” Adult-Getō says. “We wouldn’t have to do that if we made it permanent.”

“But I don’t want it to be permanent!”

That gets an eyeroll. “Idiot.”

“Optimist.”

“Same thing.”

“Hypocrite!”

“Yeah yeah,” Adult-Getō says, then leans over and kisses his partner. Across the room, Getō-senpai and Gojō-senpai steal a glance at each other, pink. Gross. Nanami leaves quickly, returning to his coffee, which is finally, finally done.

It’s seriously some sort of curse that Nanami got stuck watching Gojō and Getō pine idiotically and be in a loving relationship. Seriously.

-

Gojō irritates Satoru beyond belief. He shamelessly takes the last cookie. Unapologetically snatches sweets straight from Satoru’s pockets whenever he’s out. Takes so many damn missions that Satoru suddenly has a lighter workload than he’s had in years, which is—nice, actually, but it’s a matter of pride! He talks down to Satoru, calls him a child, tells him not to rush so much. But what irritates Satoru most of all, what he truly hates in a way that’s almost foreign—

“When are you going to tell me what happened with Suguru?” His voice is hard, serious in a way he rarely shows. They’re at a vending machine, early afternoon washing the countryside in honeyed golds.

It’ll be worse than hell. Getō had said, At that point, when you can’t find meaning no matter how desperately you search, and you feel like you’re drowning and you can barely breathe through the thick of it and all you want is to lay down and rest but you just can’t, when you’ve given everything you had left to give, this place is going to demand more of you. It’s going to eat you alive.

Every word is burnt into Satoru’s memory, each wretched movement of Getō’s lips captured in sharp definition by Six-Eyes and preserved in stasis. His blood had run cold, then, dread and disbelief churning in his stomach.

“Never,” Gojō says, cheerily fetching daifuku from the dropbox and ripping open the package. He offers Satoru one; Satoru scowls.

“What the fuck,” he says, “if something that bad happened—”

“Satoru,” Gojō cuts, waving him to follow back down the street to where Suguru and Getō are sitting outside a cafe, “it’s in the past.”

“No,” he bites, “it’s in the future. My future. Just cause you, I don’t know, fucking screwed up somehow, doesn’t mean—”

“It’s not going to happen this time,” Gojō tells him, flatly. “At least, not the way it did with my Suguru. Just be attentive, look to make sure Suguru is actually okay, don’t let him brush you off; be there for him, and it should be fine.”

He’s so vague. He won’t say anything specific, and it’s not okay. It’s not okay at all because this is Suguru they’re talking about. Suguru, who likes lemon water in the mornings and rants for three hours about philosophical positions that Satoru has never even heard of until he’s red in the face, who brings him stupid souvenirs and is a total control freak, who goes along with all Satoru’s stupid ideas and supplies half of them himself. Suguru, Satoru’s best friend.

“That’s a cop-out,” he says, and they’re approaching Suguru and Getō now, but are still just out of hearing range, “you can’t—”

“The details of what happened with my Suguru aren’t something either you or mini-Suguru should be burdened by,” Gojō says, and before Satoru can protest: “And besides, I’m not gonna break my Suguru’s trust by saying shit. Sorry-not-sorry!”

That’s—more logical, Satoru acknowledges. And now they’re almost to where everyone else is gathered, dammit. He clicks his tongue.

“Fine!” And he makes sure to raise his voice enough so that it catches the attention of both Suguru and Getō. “Then at least explain the ridiculous outfit!”

Gojō pauses at that, for a moment, then snickers. “Suguru’s outfit?”

“He’s wearing monks robes! You guys still haven’t explained what the hell that’s about!” He splays himself on the grass beside Suguru, who nods.

“Yeah, seriously. It’s sort of...”

“Ah well...” Gojō settles down at the circular table next to Getō, looking serious, and Satoru actually gets his hopes up for like, two seconds. “Suguru actually runs a cult! Be careful he doesn’t recruit you into it!”

“Ugh,” Satoru groans, burying his face in Suguru’s shoulder. “Stop bullshitting!”

“Okay okay,” Gojō appeases, shit eating grin, “the truth is, Suguru actually had a revelation and dropped out of high school to become a Buddhist monk. One hundred percent, definitely.”

“Yep,” Getō says, “I suddenly realized I should, uh, live according to the principals of….nonviolence. Live laugh love.”

“But!” Gojō makes a dramatic motion. Satoru never quite realized how much he speaks with his hands till observing his counterpart. “When someone managed to defeat me, he finally came out of the monastery that he’d hidden from the world in!”

“Defeat you,” Suguru says, doubtfully.

“Yeah!” Gojō nods. “It was awful! Poor little me...I was stuffed in a tower guarded by a dragon curse and Suguru had to be my prince charming and rescue me!”

Getō’s face cracks with a small. “He was wearing a pink dress, too.”

“I was so weak from being trapped in there that Suguru had to princess carry me!”

Getō nods sagely, tone bubbling with mirth entirely at Satoru and Suguru’s expense. “And then we had a romantic dinner in the dilapidated remains of a konbini.”

“And I just couldn’t hold myself back, I said Suguru, I know you’re a very pious man, but won’t you please abandon it for me? And he very dramatically put a wig on and said yes!”

“It took months to regrow my hair,” Getō nods, fingers touching it fondly. He’s barely keeping a straight face. “Since I was, y’know, bald. From being a super—” and his voice cracks on the edge of a laugh, “dedicated Buddhist and living in a monastery for so many years.”

“Oh ye-ah,” Gojō cackles, “totally, and then Suguru started crying because he missed his hair so much—”

“and Satoru also started sobbing because he missed my hair so much—”

“and then we were like ‘dude maybe we should get married’, and—”

“then—” whatever Getō was gonna say totally dissolves into laughter. Satoru has never actually seen him laugh before. He doesn’t laugh quite the same as Suguru, he laughs deeper, lines in different places. Both he and Gojō sound like a pair of damn hyenas.

Satoru’s skin burns. “Liar!”

“Ooooh S-Satoru mini-you called me a liar just listen to him he’s so—” and there’s another laugh. “And then—”

“Let’s go,” Suguru says, grabbing Satoru’s hand and pulling him to his feet. Satoru has never heard a better idea in his life. Gojō and Getō intruded on their mission anyway! He stumbles after Suguru, truly both to stomp and run, which ends up just making him uncoordinated.

“Your stupid monk robes and stupid blindfold are stupid and lame!” he calls, in goodbye. This time, it’s Suguru who laughs, and Satoru who follows the cue.

-

Suguru hates Getō. No, actually, seriously. It’s not the puppy-hate sort of irritation that Satoru holds towards his own counterpart, Suguru actually fucking despises Getō. Hates that despite how absurdly powerful there exist hints of him being, he refuses to take a single mission. Hates the sheer apathy he exhibits when Suguru attempts to guilt-trip him into actually doing what is his duty to do. Hates the condescending lilt to his voice, the way he looks at Suguru as if he’s worth less than the dirt on his shoes, the ease that he replies to each of Suguru’s accusations, hates—hates—

hates that Getō is right.

Suguru has never won a single argument or debate with Getō.

“What are you doing anyway?” He says it to fill the silence, to distract from the meaninglessness that pervades his throat, mouth. The truths that Getō have presented him sit in his mouth like a curse. Chew like glass between his teeth.

Getō looks up from his notebook, pen pausing. The library’s lighting casts him in eerie blues. He considers him for a moment, looking down from where he sits, legs crossed one over the other, in one of the library’s flush chairs, and sighs. “Deriving the validity of Satoru’s conception of the moral circle using axiomatic truths.”

Suguru frowns, shifting. The cold stone floor presses against his bones uncomfortably, position growing awkward. He presses his back against the wall, lays flat the leg that he’d had folded up to his chest. “Axiomatic truths?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

Axiomatic truths are the irrefutable foundations of this world, things that are evident without proof or argument. They’re for when you are truly sure of nothing. Suguru never wasted much time with them because he’s never needed to.

A sick feeling slicks his throat. What the hell is Suguru supposed to do with this? Getō has torn down his worldview, trampled it beneath his sandals, proven this cycle of exorcism and ingestion meaningless, but he hasn’t offered any alternatives. He’s stumbling in the dark and apparently so is his counterpart.

“Oh,” he says, after a long moment, and tries not to think about conception of the moral circle too hard because what the hell sort of implication is that? “I’m—I’m gonna go. Good luck, I guess.”

Getō waves him off.

Suguru leaves the library and wanders campus for maybe ten minutes before heading to Jujutsu Tech’s dōjō. He feels boiling, brimming, bubbling, churning with a vague upset that he just—doesn’t wanna address. So he kicks a sandbag instead, the sound of his heel hitting into it being absorbed into the quiet.

That’s where Gojō finds him. He steps into the room unannounced, shoes scuffing against the tatami. “Something on your mind?”

Suguru is breathing hard. He didn’t shed any clothing and the fabric of his uniform feels sticky against his skin, uncomfortably tight. Suguru presses his heel into the tatami, letting that familiar sensation ground him. Everything smells a little like sweat and rice straw.

“No,” he says.

“Is Suguru lying to me? That’s a bad habit, y’know!”

Something defensive prickles down Suguru’s spine. It’s just—it’s so shameful, to be so unsure in the framework that he’s held such confidence in for years. To be in such doubt of that which has governed his life since middle school. “Fuck off.”

Gojō pauses, leaning against a wooden beam. His hands shove into his pockets. “Did Suguru say something to you?”

Suguru turns his face to the side. Afternoon sunlight splays over the floor in warmly colored panels, the color of honey and forest fire and amber. Suguru feels encased in amber.

“It wasn’t anything in particular,” Suguru mutters, voice small. “Just...he’s...”

“Yeah, I get it,” Gojō says, voice light. “Suguru’s a crazy bitch of the first degree, but it’s not like he’s wrong about everything.” He shifts a little, hand coming up to rub his neck, just under his Adam's apple. “You can talk to me about it, if you want. Or mini-me. Either one. I’ve...seen you at your worst, there’s nothing you could say that’d make me think any less of you.”

Suguru doesn’t know what face to make, so he scowls, letting himself sit cross-legged on the ground. His heart is still beating so fast, his lungs hurt, a little winded. “Yeah?”

“Mhmm! It’ll be okay. You’re strong, y’know?”

And that makes him snap, just a little. Because here the older version of Satoru is, saying that as if he doesn’t have fucking teleportation, ability to erase matter, true untouchability, immunity from the basic woes of living—exhaustion, headaches, need of sleep—as if—“I’m not the one with the literal world breaking technique, Time-Travel-san!”

Gojō is in a class of his own, that’s all. Maybe it was a little bit of a shock to see him, to see even a fraction of Satoru’s capabilities given another decade. Suguru just doesn’t—doesn’t wanna fall behind, that’s all. He doesn’t want to become some domestic housewife that doesn’t even take missions.

(Maybe that’s unfair—Getō obviously does plenty of things, even if he doesn’t take missions. Turned in a full list of all shaman casualties from 2006 to 2018. A catalog of curses. Has referenced meeting with other special grades, something about research and curtains, but—)

“That’s not true,” Gojō says, after a moment, then walks over. Crouches down. “Any manifestation of infinity is world breaking. You,” he stretches a hand out, pokes his index finger gently into Suguru’s uniform, pressing into his chest, “have an infinity in your technique, too. There’s no limit to the curses, and by extension, techniques, that you can harbor. Even my technique has a ceiling of things it can do, a limit to my potential. But you don’t, Black-Hole-san.”

“...But,” and he can’t quite find the words. Just feels so damn lost.

“Y’know,” Gojō tells him, all casual, “I was jealous of you in first year.”

That, that catches him off guard. He frowns, brows furrowing. “You—really?”

“Oh yeah, for sure! I got over it eventually cause—” he waves his hand vaguely to the side, “being jealous sucks and I love myself very much, thank you, but in first year? Here’s this countryside nobody with a technique rivaling mine and the personality everyone wanted me to have. I really respected it despite myself, y’know? Your dedication and passion and how much you care. You’re a really strong person, Suguru.”

“Ugh.” Suguru covers his face, arm over his eyes, letting himself flop down from his cross-legged sitting.. His back hits the tatami mats, legs stretching out over the floor. “How come you got so—” a low noise of frustration. His skin is so warm. “sappy.”

Gojō laughs. “Cause I lo~ve you!” Suguru slips the arm from his face, sneaking a glance at Gojō. He’s peering down at him, smile on his face. Something soft and serious. “I love you. Not the same way I do my own Suguru but I love you. You’re loved.”

Suguru looks away. “Lame.”

Another laugh. It tapers out into the dōjō’s quiet. Suguru watches dust catch in the sunlight that spills out in panels from the outside-touching edge. His chest feels all cottony.

Eventually:

“Just...” Gojō’s voice sinks into the quiet, and he sits crosslegged on the floor beside Suguru. “Know I’m here, ‘kay? That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“...Okay,” he says, eventually, a little mumbled, quieter than he wants. He sits up. Hesitates a moment, and—climbs into Gojō’s lap, legs not quite fitting, head nestling into the junction between his neck and shoulder. Gojō’s arms wrap around him in an instant, pressing him tight, hugging him close. It’s so warm, this stability. Suguru clears his throat. “I’ll—keep it in mind.”

-

There are some places in the house that the kids are simply Not Allowed, and with a sinking stomach, Tsumiki realizes that she’s found herself in one of them. She didn’t mean to, it was late at night and her head was fuzzy and she thought—thought. It doesn’t matter what she thought because she’s here now and doesn’t know how to get out; the door she came through is not locked, but wouldn’t open for her.

She assumes it’s a shaman thing.

Dammit.

“Tsumiki-kun.”

This is so obviously a room she’s not supposed to be in, with its sharp florescent lighting and clinically clean tiled floor, with the shelves on the wall stocked with objects that Tsumiki knows by instinct not to touch. There’s a brain on the central table, kept within a vat and suspended in clear fluid. It’s creepy in here, eerie in a way that sets her skin on edge.

Mimiko or Nanako could get away with being here. Megumi too, she thinks. But her…

Maybe it’d be okay if Gojō found her, but it’s not Gojō who found her. It’s Getō in the doorway, fingers still on the handle, looking down at her, unsmiling.

“I’m—I’m sorry!” Her eyes press shut on instinct, but she forces them open. Closing your eyes doesn’t make the problems go away. “I didn’t mean—”

“You’re shaking,” Getō observes, tilting his head, almost curious. “You’re afraid. I haven’t even done anything.”

It’s true, he hasn’t. Not really. But that’s where the problem is; he dotes on Mimiko and Nanako and treats Megumi kindly but with her… Getō dislikes her, so much that she’s not even allowed to touch him. It’s not that Tsumiki is afraid of Getō, it’s that she knows what happens to adopted children whose guardians don’t want them. And Gojō doesn’t dislike her, treats her just the same as Megumi and the girls, lets her ride on his shoulders and spoils her with treats, but—but adults care about other adults more than they do children, especially children that aren’t theirs by blood, and…

“I’m really sorry,” she repeats.

Getō sighs, briefly digging his thumb into his forehead. “Come on,” he says, hand dropping. He opens the door, leaving ample room for her to exit.

She hesitates a half moment before carefully slipping past him and through the door, back into the hallway. She’s careful not to brush him. Getō closes the door behind her, and she watches, somewhat amazed, as the door disappears entirely.

“Huh...”

He clicks his tongue, turning his back towards her and walking down the hallway. She uneasily follows. They make two turns before reaching the kitchen. Sneaks glances at him until he sighs, face twisting with something Tsumiki can’t quite identify. “It wasn’t entirely your fault,” he tells her, digging out a teamix from the cabinets, “Satoru should be more responsible with the curtains.”

Curtains?

At her confusion, Getō rolls his eyes. Doesn’t elaborate. It’s not the fond sort of exasperation, she thinks. Tsumiki bites the inside of her cheek, twisting fingers in the hem of her skirt.

“I’ll be more careful,” she says, “I’ll be more careful to recognize doors before entering them. I’m sorry.”

“...You’re still shaking,” he says.

Because—because Tsumiki isn’t afraid of Getō, but she knows what it means to have no responsible adults taking care of you. She’s seven not stupid. And—and Gojō reintroduced her and Megumi to Tōji, technically her father, which means if Getō tells Gojō he doesn’t wanna keep her and Megumi, it’d be so easy for Gojō to just give them back to Tōji, but that’s not—he already abandoned them once already. It doesn’t feel like it’d be stable. And that’d be OK, maybe, if it were just her, she’s seven but she can take care of herself if given money and shelter, but Megumi deserves this stability that Gojō and Getō have provided.

“Me and Megumi don’t have to be a pair!” She blurts, entirely impulsive, and feels mortified when Getō’s expression twists with noncomprehension. “I mean—I mean if you don’t want me, please—please keep Megumi. He’d forget about me eventually! He’s not a fussy kid! It’d be okay! He wouldn’t—”

“What are you talking about,” Getō says flatly.

She takes a deep breath that shudders down her spine, rattles her lungs. “You don’t like me,” she says, “and you don’t want me, and when adults don’t want kids they abandon them. I mean, I mean it’s okay to get rid of me but not Megumi, please.”

Getō stares at her for a long, long moment. It’s the dead of night and warm kitchenlight shades over them both. Something complicated flicks over his expression.

“A child shouldn’t worry about that sort of thing.”

She gnaws at her cheek. “I don’t, I don’t mean to be insulting. But you’ll keep Megumi, right? The girls like him...”

“The girls like you, too,” Getō says, and then pinches shut his eyes. Briefly digs a thumb into his forehead. Opens his eyes, hand dropping to his side. “Tsumiki-kun, I care for Satoru, and Satoru cares for you; both you and Megumi will stay with us however long you want. Do you understand?”

It’s hard to trust adults. But—Getō doesn’t seem like he’s lying to her, and it lines up with what she’s observed of him, and Gojō hasn’t let her down yet, so…

“...Okay,” she says. Breathes deep, and tries to let herself be hopeful. “I understand.”

-

As a general rule, Shōko doesn’t give a fuck.

Stay out of her lane, she’ll stay out of yours. Her future set itself in stone when she was eleven and figured out reverse cursed technique for the first time, and that was OK. Friends come and go, people live and die, and that’s OK. Don’t get too attached, but don’t close off. Go with the flow; it’ll turn out fine. Things are rarely so bad as people make them out to be. So it was OK when Gojō and Getō appeared out of no where from some apocalyptic future, and it was OK when they refused to elaborate beyond ‘yeah it was a hellhole!’, and it’s OK that they don’t say much about themselves. But—

There are some things that make her curious.

It’s a hot day, almost a year after Gojō and Getō appeared, and it’s one of those rare days where everyone is at Jujutsu Tech. Especially rare, because Getō is also here, and he very rarely shows up on campus. Under the bright summer sun, Gojō and Getō’s scars make themselves more apparent.

“Ugh,” Satoru complains, half out of the pool, arms hanging over sunwarmed concrete, “we should get days off like this more often! Like, a whole week where everyone is off!”

There’s a gnarled line of white, starting just below Gojō’s Adam’s apple, cutting down his throat, collar bones, extending beyond the neckline of his white T-shirt. Another scar, too, just by his hairline, which Shōko only noticed when he briefly ran his hand back through his hair. And Getō…

“That’s impossible, idiot,” Suguru says, sitting on the pool’s edge, legs in the water.

Getō is reading in a sunchair, chest bare. The most obvious scar on him is the one that runs in a ring around his skull, stark white, surgically precise. The second most obvious—only less so because its rarely uncovered—is the enormous ‘x’ across his chest, shoulder to hip on each side. The third is thin silver, almost unnoticeable, running from his sternum down his abdomen; she recognizes it instantly.

An autopsy scar. Incomplete, like the procedure was abandoned halfway.

That one, that one makes her curious.

“Ughhhhhh,” Satoru pouts. “But I wanna have a week off with everyone!” He twists towards his counterpart. “Can’t you, like, clear the whole country of curses or something?”

Gojō laughs. “Nah. Sadly,” and he makes an exaggerated face of despair, “I’m not actually omnipotent. There are some things even I can’t do!”

Shōko does have her suspicions…

Satoru sighs dramatically, slumping all over the side of the pool. “That’s so lame!”

“Looks like that one week vacation has to stay a fantasy,” Suguru sighs, but it’s amusement in his voice. It’s an unrealistic idea, after all. He flicks Satoru’s forehead. “Now stop complaining.”

Haibara laughs, says it’d be fun, though! Nanami is keeping himself underwater, surfacing only briefly before plunging under again, as if that’ll save him from having to deal with the world. Yaga looks vaguely uncomfortable. The subject doesn’t change; Haibara and Satoru talk about how to make it happen in that playful way of discussing a fantasy. Nanami tells them And, eventually—

“One week vacation for all of you, huh?” Getō shuts his book with a sharp snap. “There’s a way it can happen.”

Gojō freezes. It’s brief, so brief Shōko almost doesn’t notice, but he does freeze. A moment later, he’s cocking his head at Getō, eyes peering out from behind his opaque black glasses. “You don’t mean...”

“I wouldn’t say anything I don’t mean,” Getō sighs, “idiot.”

Gojō looks like he’s gonna say something, but Haibara—“Wait,” he blurts, face scrunching, “I don’t get it! How...”

“It’s true,” Getō says, small smile making home on his lips, “that there’s nothing my Satoru can’t defeat. There isn’t a single curse on this earth that poses real threat to him. But it’s impossible for him to do something like clear an entire country. He can only hit one location at once. Curses form too quickly even for him to keep up with it. But...”

“But our technique works semi-autonomously,” Suguru says, voice a little numb, eyes widening; disbelieving realization. “But—the whole country? You can’t seriously… that’d take a ridiculous amount of curses.”

“Good thing, then,” Getō says, somewhat amused, “that I have a ridiculous amount.”

Gojō sucks in a breath. Almost sounds shaky when he speaks. “You’re sure?”

“You think I’d joke about it?”

“No,” Gojō says, after a moment, then grins so wide and bright it hurts. It’s a flowery expression, summer sun, searingly delighted; naked adoration. “No, you wouldn’t! Hah! ‘Knew you still cared somewhere in there!”

Getō makes a face. Tries, although not to any real degree, to stop Gojō from bending down and pecking kisses to his brow, forehead. “Jeez,” Getō mutters, “it’s for them, not them.”

“Mhmm~” Gojō is still grinning. Shōko can see lovey-dovey hearts around them, giddy sparkles, rosy pink. It’s kind of gross.

And it doesn’t make much sense, either, why Gojō would be so happy about this, why Getō didn’t offer his help earlier. It shouldn’t make sense, at least. But—well. She has her suspicions. In the end, though…

it’s none of her business.

-

It’s the height of August heat, height of busy season, and everyone’s at the beach. Everyone. It’s a special occasion, after all. Riko is playing with Satoru’s younger counterpart in the sea, mini-Suguru’s chatting with Shōko on the sand, Kuroi is talking to a very uncomfortable-looking Tōji, and Tsukumo is talking with Nanami and Haibara, Yaga’s sunbathing, and the kids—Megumi, Tsumiki, Mimiko, Nanako—are playing just a bit too far in the water for comfort, but it’s OK. Both Satoru and Suguru are keeping close watch on them.

It’s okay. It’s good. It’s all so much better than anything Satoru really thought he could have.

“Ugh,” he says, making a face, “I’m way too young to feel old.”

Suguru hums, face shifting towards him, sunlight catching on his lashes, on his hair—lazily tied back to combat the summer heat—and he’s so gorgeous. He’s so beautiful like this, legs dangled over the edge of his dragon, weight pressed back into his palms, relaxed slope to his neck. It’s unreal.

“You do look the part.”

“Hey!” Satoru shifts his position on the back of Suguru’s dragon. They’re overlooking the whole beach, above ocean, just high enough that the highest seaspray almost manages to touch Suguru’s dangling feet. “Take that back! I’m a perfectly aged thirty year old!”

Suguru arches a brow. “Thirty?”

Satoru pouts. “If you can subtract time for being dead then I can subtract time for prison realm!”

“...Uhuh.”

A small pause. Seaspray. Laughter. Unintelligible chatter. Ocean breeze. It smells like seaside.

“Seriously though,” Satoru says, “this is nice. In prison realm… I half thought when, if I got released, it’d be after some absurdly long amount of time. That I’d meet some apocalyptic wasteland, which, well, ‘guess that did sort of happen, but not after a thousand years. God, I couldn’t tell the passage of time at all. Time relativity, know? I could count heartbeats but that hardly counted for shit since I didn’t know if Prison Realm changes the ‘reference’ point. Ah—you have that look like you have no idea what I’m talking about, sorry sorry.” He groans. “How come I’m the one that got stuck with the monologuing problem!?”

(Another remnant of his time in Prison Realm. Talking to himself for minutes/hours/days at a time, chattering to the skeletons.)

Suguru’s eyes crinkle. “You think it’d suit me better?”

“Yeah! You were the one that was always going on some long speech about some bullshit or another!”

“...Right.”

“I really hated it, y’know! Not really cause of the content—not like prejudice towards nonshamans is new in shaman society, I was desensitized—but more because...” a vague motion, “it was you saying it.”

“I won’t apologize,” Suguru tells him, and Satoru knows. (Maybe someday, though, maybe.)

“I know I know,” he says; they’ve talked about it, after all. Suguru isn’t smiling anymore, but that’s progress, too. “Y’know...we have a lot of shit in that binding vow, but,” he rubs at the scar just below his Adam’s apple, “there’s nothing in there that restricts your speech. But you haven’t mentioned your ideology even once, to anyone. Well, maybe Tsukumo. But no one else.” A laugh catches in his throat, a little teasing, “What, you ashamed?”

Suguru rolls his eyes, of course. “Stop asking questions you know you’ll be disappointed at the answers to.”

(They’ve talked about it. Extensively, at length, long into many nights of crafting a binding vow of which neither will contest the terms of.)

“Yeah yeah, it’s not that, I know I know.” He runs a hand through his hair, presses his tongue to his canines. Cocks his head at Suguru. “You just want there to exist a version of me that doesn’t know what you did, right?”

Something flicks over Suguru’s face, a bit like a grimace, a little like defeat, not entirely unfond. “...You really gained a nasty streak, huh?”

“What can I say?” Satoru grins, sticking his tongue out. “You’re a bad influence, Suguru!”

Suguru’s half-grimace cracks down the center, lips quirking, eyes crinkling. He’s so pretty when he’s happy. “Sure sure,” he says, then: “what’s with that expression?”

“Nothing,” Satoru says, smiling stupidly, closing his eyes and seeing every bright spot of cursed energy; Suguru, the kids, the smaller kids, cursed energy dazzling and steady and alive, “just thinking I’m really lucky.”