Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hysteresis- when a system’s present state depends not only on its current conditions, but also on its history. In other words, the system has “memory.”

December 24, 2017    August XX, 2007

Satoru is kinder than he had imagined, kneeling beside him and warding the cold December air that somehow still stings.

He averts his eyes, the ghost of a dead smile on his face. He wouldn’t make it any harder on Satoru. Couldn’t.

The wind bites sharply against his skin, blowing his hair in his face as Satoru stands up. He tries taking in short breaths, biting at his bottom lips crusted in blood, bracing for the strike that will surely come any moment now. The air around him shifts, crackling with energy and the smell of ozone. The split second before lighting strikes. And then-

He wakes up.

It takes him a second to adjust, his entire body going into shock and forcing him to bend over his knees, air rushing into his lungs as if they have been devoid of it until now. He coughs, once, twice till there are tears pricking at the corner of his eyes and someone is awkwardly patting him on the back.

What?

He blinks, slowly returning to himself. They seem to be in a small room, probably underground, judging by the smell. The woman worrying over him is asking him if he is alright.

There is the aftertaste of bile in his throat.

What?

He looks up and knows beforehand what he would see. Has seen it a million times before in his dreams.

The girls.

His girls.

He stumbles, gets up, walks towards them ignoring the vile comments the woman passes about his daughters. And he remembers her too, the first one to die. Remembers her as vividly as if it had been yesterday and not ten years since he had killed her.

Wants to kill her again.

He crouches down in front of the cage, the hole in his chest opening up at the sight of his children, his beautiful daughters being battered and bruised, shoved in a cage meant for animals!

He grips the cage, cold steel biting at his palms as Mimiko pulls Nanako closer, her bottom lip wobbling as she looks up at him with horror. Her sister delirious in her arms from the fever that Suguru remembers would take two more days to break. Remembers holding both the girls under a shit ton of cheap hotel blankets as Nanako returns from the brink of death, all of Sugurus's clothes hanging from her narrow frame as she shivers away.

And it is painfully clear why he came back here in his last moments. Why here of all the places. His last chance before he goes to wherever dead people go to. Almost taunting him, would he do it again? Will he make a different choice now that he knows how everything turns out?

His grip on the bar tightens, the smell of rust and blood filling his senses as he tries to muster up a smile for the girls. The woman is still talking behind him, words and curses he had heard once before. It hadn’t been like this last time.

He hadn't been so sure.

He is now.

And if he is bound for Hell, then let it be Hell.

The call rings in his shaking hands, once, cigarette almost burnt down to the tip, twice, stray hair whipping on his face and teeths biting down on chapped skin.Thrice, then there is absolute silence and the telltale sound of someone shuffling around their bedside table to find their glasses.

“Suguru ?”

He lets out a sob, words shivery in the late-night air. His screen tells him that it’s fifteen past one in the morning.

It had taken them more than an hour to make it out of the village and back onto the highway. His memories of his life were getting blurry as the clock ticked away, couldn’t remember small details like where he took the girls to eat last time. Did it take them the same amount of time then too?

They stop at a gas station on the side of the highway, a car passing by every fifteen minutes or so. The girls were sitting on the stairs outside, Nanako draped in the sweater Satoru had bought him for his birthday that year and sharing Suguru’s uniform jacket with her sister as they speed through a bag of gas station chips and cup noodles.

He wondered how long this dream would last, any variations he had experienced before ended with the bloodshed and the screams. He had never really made it this far in his nightmares.

“Suguru? Baby, are you alright ?”

And he chokes on his words, has to cover his mouth with his hands to keep himself from sobbing again. One phone call, that’s the most he could allow himself. Just one phone call.

“Mom ?”

“Suguru? Is everything okay? Has something-?”

He could hear his father's voice in the background, worried whispers tinted with shock. Is he ok? Does he sound high? Should I call his friend- what was his name, the one with white hair-

“M-mom?”

And it comes out all broken as if he had swallowed down a ball of barbed wires. Ten years. Ten years and blinded by his god complex he didn’t really have much time to grieve. Regret. But if there is something he would’ve done differently, it was this.

“Hey, baby, it’s alright. I’m right here.” He couldn’t remember the dark violet of her eyes, couldn’t remember ever hearing her so worried, had forgotten her salt and pepper hair until the memory decided to come back to him this very moment. “Are you alone? Is Satoru there with you? Leiri-san ?”

“N-no. I’m fine, mom. It’s alright, tell dad not to worry, I’m not doing any drugs for god’s sake-” he let out a chuckle, unable to suppress it in the face of his father's paranoia, “-I just- I called to say that, umm, you remember when I was- I was eight I think and I had this terrible fever for a week straight and you made chicken soup fo-”

“Suguru, where is this going? It’s one in the morning, baby. Just pass the phone to Satoru, is he nearby? Are you alone ?”

He swallowed a lump in his throat as he replied- “ No. No, he isn't anywhere nearby. Hasn’t been for a long time. I just- can you tell me what medicines you gave me then? I have paracetamol right now but I think that would be too much for a six-year-old, right? Should I maybe dilute it-”

“A six-year-old? Where exactly are you and what is-”

“Mom, please. Will a paracetamol do ?” He tried to keep his words as clear as possible, his hands positively shaking around the phone.

He could hear his mom sigh, could imagine her pinching the skin between her brows as she closed her eyes, the same expression she always used to have on her face whenever he returned from the school with his knees scraped and knuckles bruised.

“I guess a paracetamol will do if it’s urgent, but try for Tylenol next time-” she paused, doubt clear in her worried tone, “Why didn’t you call Shoko if you wanted to discuss medicine ?”

Because I wanted to hear your voice.

“I- I need to…” he drew in another shaky breath, focusing on the important stuff first, “-tomorrow, or maybe the day after that, the school might try to reach you-” He looked over at the girls, both were finished with their meals and were now looking at him with the kind of trust and innocence only children could have.

“Don’t tell them I called, ok ? delete this from the call history if you could.”

“Suguru ?” There was concern in her mother's voice, his father was silent in the background but he could picture him holding his breath and listening closely.

“And please.” He begged now, “Please believe whatever they say about me. They’ll probably send Satoru, don’t make it any harder on him, he-”

“What are you talking about -”

“He’ll tell you what happened, just- just…..I love you. Both of you.”

“You’re scaring me-”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Su-”

He hung up after that. Couldn’t hold back the sobs any longer as he summoned a curse to burn his phone to ashes, only to find out that he still hasn’t acquired that one yet.

Not the same life.

He decided on breaking it and throwing it in the bushes. Immediately regretted it when his lockscreen photo of the three of them cracked and went black.

The girls still need him and he has to find a warm bed as soon as possible. There is no point in lingering on what had always been beyond fixing.

This is not a dream.

This is not a dream.

He would change what he can, fix what he could, but some things, some people, he knows he would never deserve.

July, 2007

The hallways and corridors of Jujutsu High were comically long, he thought, stretching endlessly till all you could hear were your laboured breaths and stuttering steps.

Nanami was running beside him, falling a little behind as blood trickled from his wounds. Not as serious as his classmate who Geto was carrying, practically falling apart in his arms, a weak heartbeat and pale grey skin he couldn't bear to witness.

The slightest chance of survival and then none. Nanami tried to explain to him what had happened-

Local deity..- human sacrifices- a grade two that turned out to be a special grade…

He couldn't piece together entire sentences, his childhood stutter he tries so hard to hide overpowering his senses as he panics. He doesn't know that Haibara is probably already dead.

And Suguru feels like he is underwater. Wants Nanami to shut up his blabbering. It’s no use. Not now, not when the damage has already been done. Not when-

He shoulders at the door, shouting for Shoko as he lays Yu down at the bed. The bleached white sheets immediately soaking the blood and staining it red. And it still surprises him. How much blood a human body holds. Yu’s clothes are completely soaked with it, so are Suguru’s and Kento’s, and now the sheets. And now Shoko’s coat has specks of it as she pushes him back roughly till he collides with a silent Nanami.

He too seemed to have understood that Haibara was long gone. Shoko always takes longer. All doctors want to be necromancers, she told him once. Her eyes red from chain smoking and the sunset reflecting off her tears.

She always tries too hard, would probably see a year old corpse and still try to heal it back to life. Later act as if it was nothing and then burn through an entire pack of cigarettes sitting on the balcony, coat still stained with blood and everything.

It’s heartbreaking, watching Haibara’s wounds not responding to Shoko’s technique. To feel around the room for the familiar warmth of his cursed energy only to find a slight flicker of it. To watch as his kohai stumbles backward, falls in one of the chairs and tries to breath in and out as Geto remembers teaching him- in for five, out for five.

Suguru can see his hands shaking where they are worrying at his chapped lips, his entire body tense as he tries to ward off a panic attack. Suguru wants to stop him, wants to reach out and slap his hand away from his mouth where he is biting at his nails and the skin beneath it till it breaks.

Couldn’t bring himself to move. Couldn’t do anything as Shoko finally shoves them out, shuts the door behind her.

He feels pointless, as if he is working towards something that has no meaning. Never did. And suddenly it’s been three years serving an unjust cause, an unfair god, no purpose, no result, no happy ending.

Exorcise, absorb. Over and over.

Now it's just him and a drugged second year in the corridor who is slouching on the chair and is eerily calm. Valium, he supposed. Sorcerers burn through them faster anyway.

Nanami was saying something, mumbling behind him, about leaving all the missions to Gojo. What was the point-

What was the point !?

Memories were a fickle thing, nightmares a terrifying ordeal from times he still couldn’t remember properly.

??, XX 2016 ?

Mimiko told him about it once, dissociative amnesia, in a traumatic event your brain goes into defence mode and stops making memories so as to not fry itself crisp.

She wanted to study psychology, had said, fifteen and tucked beneath his arms as the end credits of some movie roll away on their small television screen, she had said she doesn’t remember meeting him for the first time. Doesn’t even remember being held captive in a basement for two days without food and water or being beaten up either. She knows it happened, but the memories just aren’t there. The furthest she could remember back to is waking up in Okinava in the middle of the night and finding him in the bathtub, clothes and hair dripping wet and eyes rimmed red as if he had been crying the whole time.

Suguru remembers that time too, little Mimiko slipping in through the open bathroom door in her oversized green pajama set and rubbing at her eyes as she looked at him. Her frail voice asking him if he had fallen.

He had, a long time ago. This was just the landing.

Google searches on the verge of a nervous breakdown :

Cheap flights out of the country.

The fifth day after he defected from the jujutsu society, or the last day he was supposed to see Shoko and Satoru in Shinjuku, he packed all of them up and boarded the only flight out of Tokyo to Amsterdam. He didn't bother with a goodbye, didn’t spare even a single thought about leaving everything behind and moving to a completely different continent.

It had been a tedious ordeal to get back his documents from Jujutsu High, even worse to make new ones for the girls and get them through security.

“You should not be calling me.”

“I can’t call anyone else. Shoko will rat me out to Satoru.”

“What makes you think I wouldn't ?”

He smirked at that, Nanami was always predictable this way. “You have him blocked on all platforms.”

He could hear his kohai hissing under his breath before the sound of hurried footsteps filtered through the speaker of the hotel telephone. He added a new phone to the list of things he needs to buy. Right now it only has clothes and necessities for the girls, plane tickets, and another pack of cigarettes.

“He is absolutely losing his mind over here ! There are rumours that he threatened to kill the higher ups and is now on probation. They’ve given us three times the usual missions for this week all because of you two !!

Suguru felt awful about that, felt scared even when he remembered what had happened when Nanami went on a mission last time.

“I need you to mail me my passport and some cash I had in my drawers.” He pleaded, guilt creeping into his voice. He never meant for his actions to affect those who he loved dearly, he never once in those ten years realised that it must've.

Nanami was quiet for some time, contemplating it over. If he refuses, Suguru would be stuck in Japan again for the rest of his life, living in the same curse infested population over and over, choking on his own bile and spit till it takes him out or someone else is forced to.

“Wh- Why did you kill all those people ?”

His voice was fragile on the other end, a slight tremor and the flickering image of a young Nanami playing with his bangs. Satoru used to make fun of them for doing that.

“They were keeping two six year old girls, shamans, locked inside a cage. An animal cage. When I reached there they were on the verge of starvation, Nanako was running a hundred and one fever, Mimiko’s eye is still bruised and they kept asking me to kill them, called them all kinds of monstrous names as if they weren’t literally just kids-”

His voice broke. It was still early in the morning and both the girls were sleeping in the next room, his last cigarette was almost burned down to his fingers. He took one trembling inhale and threw it down the balcony.

Nanami hummed on the other side but stayed quiet.

“Why, what did they tell you ?”

“That your mental health was deteriorating, it is common amongst curse manipulators. Ieiri-san is trying to convince them to a rehabilitation programme, that is, if you come back and agree to comply.”

He hummed, knowing that that was out of question. He would suffocate in the society, the rot and the dirt would kill him alive. He could feel his body trembling at times, could feel his bones bearing him down and head spinning, vision blurring and breath stuttering. Had tried to eat lunch yesterday and forgotten his body's limits, was hunched over for twenty minutes over the toilet.

So maybe it was about mental health, and maybe it had been prophesised, but that was because of the system.

“Nanami ?”

“Yeah ?”

He had always had a soft spot for both of his kohais, always felt responsible for those younger than him. He had seen Nanami suffer for the better half of the last month, the memory both a decade old and still as if it had happened yesterday. He had seen him lash out about the system and the injustice of it all, had heard all of his confessions and heartbreaks throughout the night in a drug infused haze and still gotten up with the daylight where they were sent to their respective missions.

“Do you plan on staying a jujutsu sorcerer for long ?”

They landed in Amsterdam on the first day of September, the temperature well below what they expected it to be and the journey longer than they could’ve imagined. The girls slept through most of the plane ride, only waking up twice for food and then at landing.

When they left the airport to the afternoon sun hidden behind dark clouds and the chilly air biting at their face, they hurried to the nearest taxi stand and after another hour on the road, finally reached a two BHK apartment.

It was a small thing in a back alley, one amongst the many inhabited houses lining the canal. The landlady lived on the ground floor and a cramped staircase led to a wooden door jammed in its frame. The air smelled faintly of fall and there were fewer curses here. He has a feeling that he will like it.

The drawing room was no bigger than their dorms in the school, all the other rooms around the same area and a small kitchen with a balcony that housed three dead potted plants. The drawing room has a couch too big to leave room for any other movements, a central table they have to go around to reach the front door and a terrible painting up on the wall that gives Suguru a migraine every time he has to look at it.

The girls loved it. Their eyes widened as they hurried from the corridors to the balconies, jumped over the table and then leapt on the couch, leaned over the railing to look down at the canals and the tourists beneath.

It was all very domestic, like a family of three moving into a house because the father got promoted to a new position, not a murderer slash runaway slash the worst curse user of today hiding in a small apartment so far away from Tokyo in his second chance of a life that not even the combined forces of Jujutsu High could find him.

Instead, he does domestic stuff. Goes to the grocery store and buys a shit ton of snacks and ready to make meals, a couple of cook books and meat. Vegetables were not stocked yet but he buys fruits, apples and oranges, plums and grapes that would probably rot in the fridge forever, but he still buys them. Lets them rot as a reminder of passage of time. He loses track some days. Submits an application to work at the store under the name of Suguru Hasaba.

He knew he would be accepted, the folks were practically begging for young blood to throw their lives away and work for them. He had even applied makeup to cover his dark circles and tied his hair in a respectable half up half down. He looked like someone who would suit a grocery store counter, would scan your purchase with a neutral face and tell you to have a good day with a dead smile. Would probably sneak out during break time to smoke in the back alley.

The old lady behind the counter calls him a sweetheart. Asks him if he is a student, asks him how old he is, asks for an ID. She skeptically looks over his application before telling him that he could join from the next week.

He smiles at her, she smiles back. No cursed energy, no cursed spirit, no hidden emotions and no malice. He might as well have been another seventeen year old college student looking for a side hustle. The concept of shamans and non-shamans does not exist in places like these.

He likes it here. He wishes Juno a good day in his broken english and she tells him to get home safely. He clicks a couple of pictures on his way back.

Finally, finally breathes around the rot and the death festering in his lungs, and feels free.

Time passes insignificantly. He enrolls the girls into kindergarten. Coughs up money for an evening daycare service, scouts the entire area for curses, finds a few, eliminates them all.

Exorcise. Absorb.

Makes an online profile with fake IDs, takes up more jobs to eliminate curses. It pays well and that's all that matters. Goes to parent-teacher meets, speaks in broken english. Buys the girls separate cakes for their birthday, strawberry and chocolate, buys them similar dresses for New Years, blue with ruffles.

Takes up more jobs.

Exorcise. Absorb. Money.

His birthday passes insignificantly. He didn’t even realise it was his birthday till it was late at night and he was resting his head on the cold porcelain in their small washroom, having heaved his guts out an hour before but left with no energy to make the small walk back to his bedroom.

Happy 18th, he supposed, even though on documents he would be 20 today. Mentally it’s probably 28.

His new phone was beside him, playing the looping animation of a circle expanding and contracting with the words inhale and exhale written on it. Suguru had lost focus a long time ago, the tiled floor was freezing his bones cold and the sweatpants and loose tee-shirt combo offered no protection at all.

He gathered his greasy hair in his hands again as another bout of nausea washed over him, making him almost double over as his body searched for anything else to throw up instead of bitter stomach acids.

Head reeling, he thought back to the curse he had swallowed earlier today, a special grade by Tokyo standards, but here that's all that they were. Amsterdam does not flood over with cursed energy or cursed spirits, but when it does, it births creatures so vile and gruesome that it hurts him to hurt them.

More vengeful spirits too, ghosts lingering in abandoned houses and back alleys, gurgling beneath the canals and haunting the night tourists, flickering street lights and a whisper in the wind, calling them in, urging them to jump, to drown, to give it all up.

It’s a beautiful place to die, they'd told him. And with the last snow of the season dusting the air, blurring the harsh edges of the town and the canal freezing over slowly beside him in the night light, he had told them that he was already dead.

Nights like these were few, there have only been a couple of them since he came back, but nights like these paint his perspective in an otherworldly light. Not really dissociation but quantum fuckery. Maybe he was in a coma, he thought as he got up.

Satoru had read it aloud to him once, a reddit story about a man waking up from coma, retelling that he had lived an entire lifetime in his dreams only to notice that a lamplight was flickering weird, and that minute observation was what woke him up. Maybe this was his coma life, maybe nothing he does here matters, maybe he was just sent here to suffer again.

He got to the sink in a haze, gathering his hair behind him and tucking them inside his shirt, fingers too sore to properly tie them in a bun. He splashed cold water on his face, hot water a luxury they could only afford from eight to ten in the morning.

He looked like a mess, hair sticking to his forehead and eyes sunken so far back into the sockets that they look like black lifeless cavities carved into his face. Sometimes he doesn’t remember looking this young, other times he couldn’t imagine how he managed to grow old when he looked this bad at eighteen.

He would’ve spent another eternity staring at himself in the mirror had he not heard Nanako quietly whispering her sister's name. Probably trying to wake her up from a nightmare, probably just wanting company to go to the toilet.

Nevertheless he wipes his face with a towel and ties his hair back with nimble fingers, muscle memory kicking in whenever he does it, hates when his hair flows through his fingers and slips around his hands, sensory issues and nostalgia, gosh he could throw up again.

Doesn't, obviously. His daughters need him.

October 31, 2006

He felt high, cursed energy still running through his veins and mixing with the adrenaline and dopamine. His breath came in short rasps and the pain beneath his ribs was blooming to just the wrong side of tolerable. It was supposed to be a second grade. It sure as hell wasn’t.

He withdrew all of his curses, around 12 of them, feeling slight shocks of electricity run through him as they all returned to their subdomains, a cackling around his fist, static over his head, lighting under his-

“You alright there, Suguru ?”

It was a warm October night, the last one to be more specific. He vaguely remembers telling Satoru his location when pestered about it via text. Something about a Halloween party at Utahime’s, something something about YOLO and FOMO and shit he couldn’t give a fuck about when his rib was surely broken.

“Yeah, pretty much.” He replied, his voice more stable than he felt. The adrenaline was fading off and he was slowly becoming more aware of his body and surroundings, a sensation he didn’t find entirely pleasing. “What are you doing here ?” He pushed himself off the wall and walked as respectfully as he could towards the white haired freak who stood at the end of the alley in a cheap ass cowboy outfit.

“I told you you were going to be late to the party !! That’s why me and Shoko came to pick you up, Ichiji’s here too but he’s not invited cause he’s boring and- Ohh, you’ve got a nosebleed..” Satoru stared at him, a ringed finger gesturing to his own face.

He frowned, a little blood out of his nose being the last priority on his mind but still wiped it with the back of his arm.

The black orb with the first grade cursed spirit was heavy in his pocket, the weight of Satoru’s gaze even heavier on his face.

“You coming to the party like that ?”

He had discarded his jacket before entering the alley and was only in his button down and pants. There was blood on one of his sleeves and a trail of it down his collarbone that was being soaked into the white fabric. He looked down at himself and then back to Satoru as if to say-

“Are you kidding me ? This is literally my best Halloween outfit till date.”

“Wh- seriously ? What are you supposed to be, a serial killer ?”

He shrugged, walking past Satoru to the car that was parked at the end of the alley. He could see Shoko inside, typing away furiously at her phone. “Sure.”

“That's so lame.”

“You’re a cowboy, for fucks sa-” He grimaced, the pain in his side flaring momentarily. Satoru was next to him in an instance. He took his bag from him while hooking an arm under his shoulder on the side that wasn’t injured. He made a face, as if all of this was funny.

“That’s what you get for insulting the strongest cowboy, Ru.” He made a kissy face which was promptly shoved away by Suguru, whining a little as he carried his weight back to the car and shut the door.

Ichiji turned to him, concerned before Satoru assured him that it was nothing and that they should get going. Shoko looked him up and down suspiciously, once, before curtly declaring, “Cool outfit. Strip.”

Satoru sputtered in the front seat, Ichiji looked back at him through the rearview mirror as if regretting all his life choices that led him to drive around his seniors on Halloween.

He unbuttoned his shirt, grimacing at the purple-blue bruise just above his stomach. Shoko whistled, leaning forward till she was almost up to his face, pushing him slightly backward with a hand to his chest to get a proper look at it. There were cat ears atop her head. She smelled of alcohol and smoke, of expensive perfume and cheap plastic.

“Fractured.” She tsked, “This would sting a little.”

He drew in a slow breath, feeling Shoko’s cold fingers on his abdomen, sharp and painted black digging in his skin, the sudden rush of foreign cursed energy flooding his lungs and then nothing. The relief was instant and as the pins and needles subsided, he could see Shoko returning to her purse, fiddling for something. He caught Satoru staring back at them through the rearview mirror, immediately averted his gaze as Shoko threw a much needed cigarette at him.

He lit it and inhaled the nicotine, his muscles relaxing minutely as the warmth filled him up. It wasn’t a particularly cold night and the windows were rolled down to let the smoke out, a ratty J-pop song playing on the radio and the sound of Satoru humming along to it filled the silent drive on the highway.

Shoko grabbed his face again, usually a lot more touchy when she’s a couple shots in, tilting it one way and the other before plucking the half burnt cigarette from his lips and passing it to Satoru. He could feel the Six eyes on him, eyeing his reflection in the mirror, watching him from all the angles and planes, boring down on him with an intensity he didn’t know what to make of. It was like standing too close to a flame, unbearable warmth but warmth nonetheless.

His nerves were on fire, like goosebumps breaking over his arms and neck as Satoru took one long drag and threw the cigarette out of the window, as Shoko dug her knees in his side, kneeling on the car seat to loom over him with an eyeliner pen in one hand and a frown on her face.

“Lighten up, Batman, or are you gonna mope the whole night and ruin Utahime’s party ?”

She is like that sometimes, couldn’t see past Utahime’s approval and dies at all her smiles. Selfishly puts her above everything else, above everyone else. And neither of them is religious anymore, a workplace hazard, truly, but devotion is something you couldn’t ever beat out of them.

“Hmmm, Satoru ? Do you think he needs eyeliner ?”

Shoko is devoted to Utahime. Childhood friends, she once told him how she cried when she left for Jujutsu High but would rather die than ever confess to her. Satoru is dedicated to his power, his technique, his status as the ‘Strongest’. More of a concept than a man, more of a god than a human.

Suguru could only say that he is devoted to his grief. It’s been five months. It was one failed mission. There were two dead bodies. He was out for three hours. Satoru was presumed dead for two and a half of them. They were sixteen. They still are sixteen, for fucks sake he should be out there partying, not fighting something that could never be defeated, throwing up everytime he swallows a curse and hiding in his room till the tremors stop but that’s where he is. He should be able to talk about it with his friends, not go mute in the backseat of their car and scare them. That's what shitty people do, that’s what weak people do, that's what people who have devoted themselves to a false god do.

He looks up at the mirror again, meeting Satoru’s gaze through them, head on, and it’s true what they all say. Six eyes, could see everything, could pierce through every illusion and know the truth, rotting and festering, beneath it.

“I think he needs tequila.”

Things happened differently here, Suguru thinks, or maybe his brain has finally given up on trying and is making up memories out of nothing.

Not big stuff, not even significant enough to change the trajectory of fate, but present enough to make him question his sanity.

That night was one of the worst ones, when sleep was a faraway thought and hunger clawed at his insides but the idea of food would make him throw up.

Haibara was still in the infirmary, Suguru had not had the strength to go back there again. A coma, they said.

It was well past midnight and he could feel the underlying tension thrumming through the walls, no one would be sleeping tonight.

His stomach rumbled, but he had gotten used to it by now. Usually when they couldn’t order out, Nanami used to cook for them. Nanami was out of commision, sent back to his family home which he despised.

Before Nanami and Haibara, he remembers the three of them, huddled in the thickest of coats and mufflers, Satoru in his fluffy white ear mittens and his hair sticking up in the winter air, stumbling across the campus in the dead of the night.

They would be giggling like little children sneaking into the kitchen to find a late night snack, careful not to wake up the parents. Shoko would hush them, swat at their shoulders with no force. Satoru would stop every once in a while and open his mouth wide to eat the snow. Suguru would pull him forward by the sleeve. He would turn back, every once in a while, and insist that this is a bad idea. The wind would pick up speed and Satoru would loop and arm around him, pull him forward. Shoko would do the same on the other side and they would descend the millions of steps of Jujutsu High as a human centipede of three, stumbling and giggling all the way down and to the nearest twenty-four hour convenience store.

It hasn’t been like that for a long time, the three of them. It hasn’t snowed that bad either, this winter.

It started raining sometimes around midnight. The small pitter patter of it on his window sill and the sound of wind rushing through the long corridors. It is interrupted by a knock.

He knows who it is, three continuous taps, break, then a series of irritated continuous tapping that wouldn’t stop untill he opens the door.

“What ?”

Satoru looks tired, his hair down and skin pale, standing in only his white tee and sweatpants. He had returned late yesterday, crashed into his room immediately. Suguru had been waiting for him at the infirmary.

He looks well now, showered and smelling of petrichor and ozone.

“Wanna go to Sasha’s ?”

It was the 24/7 instant ramen place they usually haunt after missions, just outside of JH.

“It’s raining.”

“So?” Satoru shrugs. It is awkward, their voices echoing in the empty hallway. They haven’t been close this summer.

“I’m not hungry.” He lied. His stomach, as if listening to their conversation, rumbled at that very moment.

Satoru raised an eyebrow, still lingering in the doorway. He had discarded his glasses and his eyes shone every time there was lightning.

“Come on.” He reached forth, hooking his hand around his sleeve and pulling. Suguru went willingly, the door shutting behind him.

Truth be told, he was worried he wouldn’t be able to keep the food down. He told as much to Satoru who again shrugged and said they'd see.

He followed him blindly, not having much to say. They reached the infirmary and Suguru had to excuse himself from going inside. Lingered in the hallway watching the rain as he tried to pry on Shoko and Satoru’s conversation. It wasn’t very interesting.

They came out a moment later, Shoko looking the worst of the three of them. They walked the familiar steps to the entrance, picked three umbrellas and walked out. No more laughter, no more innocence. What would Yaga even do if he discovered them sneaking out ?

“I need a cigarette first.” She declared, dismissing Sasha’s completely and entering the neighbouring pharmacy. They followed, Satoru looking around while he reaches for another pack to add to Shoko’s two. It was a slow week-night and no one else was on the street or in either of the shops, the rain added to the loneliness as if the weather itself was in mourning.

They didn’t talk much. By the time they were finished with the food it was almost two in the morning and Shoko was searching around for a lighter in her pockets. Without a thought Satoru offered her one, and it was pretty obvious that he stole it.

He does that sometimes, steals insignificant stuff. A lighter, a keychain, candies, Suguru’s guitar picks, his hair ties, his cigarettes, one time his heart. Does this almost subconsciously, slips stuff into his pockets so effortlessly like a magician.

Suguru had caught him doing it once, had been aware of it since.

“You shouldn’t steal from small businesses.”

Satoru shrugs, reaches forth to take his half burnt cigarette from him, puts it to his lips and blows smoke into the night air.

“You shouldn’t smoke. You’ve lost enough weight.”

Shoko was a few steps ahead of them, the cold night air blowing her hair all over the place and whistling past his ears. Satoru threw the cigarette without finishing and Suguru felt the urge to tackle him to the ground and beat him bloody over it. Instead, he asked him the question that had been bothering him since morning.

“How did you know Nanami and Haibara would need help ?”

He stumbled at that, a shocked expression passing his features before carefully being covered behind infinity. He looked like he could laugh. Or cry, Suguru doesn’t know. There was a time when he could read Satoru down to the T, then after Toji something shifted and it was as if his Satoru was gone, replaced by someone else, someone far more powerful and eccentric and sad.

“Just a hunch.” he replied, and Suguru knew it was a lie.

“Just a hunch ?” he repeated, incredulous. He was tired of lies and half-truths and having to pretend that nothing is wrong or nothing has changed, that they are the same as they’ve always been. “You travelled three hours in the opposite direction on just a hunch ?”

“Stupid, isn’t it ?” he turns towards Suguru, bright blue eyes turned storm grey, “it’s like I knew Haibara was gonna die, saw it in a dream once. Super realistic, lasted for years.”

“He’s not dead.”

“I guess.” he shrugged, pushing his hands in his pockets as the wind picked up again. “I’ve been thinking a lot recently, about how maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. It’s like I travelled back in time, or at least my soul did. Do you know that the existence of a soul can be proved by quantum theory-”

“What ?”

“-and quantum theory also leaves the possibility for time travel, so if the two are somehow connected, maybe this is a parallel uni-”

“Wait, so you saw the future in a dream ?”

Satoru tsked, “That's what I've been trying to say ! It wasn't a dream at all-”

“You’re making no sense right now.”

Suguru startled for a moment, scared if it was he who had spoken out loud but turns out it was Shoko. They have reached the top step and it was now time to part, go back to how things were before. Nostalgic and lonely.

“Try to sleep, and whatever dreaming ability you’ve suddenly sprouted-” She pointed her cigarette at Satoru, but her eyes were locked onto him when she said the next part.“-don’t tell the higher ups about it.”

He muttered a small ‘you too’ before pulling Satoru back towards their dorms, it was dark in the hallway without any moonlight and Satoru took the lead, all seeing Six-eyes and stuff. His palm was warm in Suguru’s and his soft fingertips burnt his skin, the hallway alternated with patches of light and the absence of it and through it all the only constant was the scalding touch pulling him forth.

He sometimes wondered how he had managed to survive so long without it. If what he had been doing could even be classified as survival.

Satoru unlocked Suguru’s room, slipping inside and pulling him behind before locking the door. His heart picked up as Satoru pulled him to the bed, mind racing in all directions and nerves jamming up. He always has a full body reaction to his best-friend, a breath hitching, palms sweating, knees wobbling kind of thing. It was kind of embarrassing.

They pull back the covers and huddle beneath, side to side and in the same bed after almost a year. He knows that if he leans in a bit, tries to kiss Satoru, he will kiss back.

“Was I in this dream?”

Satoru doesn’t answer for a long time, his eyes a dark navy in the lack of light just staring at his face with an expression Suguru no longer excels in interpreting. He didn’t look like Suguru’s Satoru, then, but like someone who has seen stuff, has the forbidden knowledge of the future, an unkind future.

He finally reaches between them and rests his palm over Suguru's eyes, shutting them close. With a final murmur which he could feel against his lips, Satoru just says-

“Sleep. It’s been a long day.”

Amsterdam, September 08 2008

He’s had years to think about it, about where he would be without the violence. What he would do if not hear those monkeys scream and beg and bleed at his feet, what he would do if he gets a chance to be a different person.

Leave.

That was the first one, cramped in his old room in the gojo-kasa he sometimes misses wearing and the sound of the crowd outside. Would often dream about abandoning everything, packing only what is necessary and leaving. His girls would grow up in a small town school, he would maybe go to college, get a literature degree or an arts one.

Change the system.

That one has been hard the first time around too. His methods were gruesome, his ideologies fucked and his undertsanding of the world and how it works around curses almost negligible. So now it’s more like-

Research. Then changing the system.

“How much for that ?”

He pointed at an ugly mural hanging behind the old lady, slyly pocketing one of the knuckle rings on display at the stall. Jujutsu night markets weren’t a common thing around the world, usually concentrated in Tokyo and a few scattered across Japan. Amsterdam luckily had one, a back alley Thursday night kind of thing which could only be accessed by a chosen few. Of course there were back routes from where a few humans have sneaked in and opened up stalls selling books about Jujutsu history they’ve stolen from some establishment or other.

“Hundred twenty.” The old lady grumbled. It was obvious that even she hated that mural, something so cursed could hardly be loved.

“Ahh- afraid that’s too much for me.” he leans in over the counter, whisper shouting as his voice is being drowned out by the thunder. It will start raining soon, he needs to hurry. “Do you know anywhere I could find books on curse manipulation? Or about the death paintings?”

The lady looked at him a second too long, wrinkled and age old eyes assessing him from head to toe. He wasn’t wearing anything that would give him away as a Jujutsu sorcerer, in his black sweatshirt and pants with a beige coat he thrifted thrown over it, a cap low on his head as protection because he was still a murderer on the run. He had left his hair down. They were getting to the length where a bun would be too much effort and a half up- half down would make him look like a teenage girl.

“I used to sell them.” The lady frowned, looking over at her meagre collection of books, “A girl bought them all last year.”

“All of them ?!” Suguru wasn’t sure how many were even written, knew there weren’t many copies of them though, only a dozen or so, but someone buying all that still sounded suspicious.

“Yeah, fishy as hell. Looked a lot like you, Japanese. Thought she was one of them sorcerers with those weird face markings, but couldn’t say for sure.”

That piqued his interest, because sorcerers rarely frequented these markets, less so to buy books that could easily be available in the vast library of JH. A curse user, then? He met a lot of them the first go round, but none fitting that description.

“Face markings, you say?”

The lady hesitated behind the counter, picking at her frail apron while contemplating. The thunder was getting louder, moving towards them it seems. The other shopkeepers were emptying their displays, pulling down the shutter as strong winds rattle the old tin of their stalls.

“She- she has stitches running across her head. All the way-” the lady mimicked with her finger, cutting a straight line across her forehead. The motion sent a chill down his spine, he stumbled with the wind, reaching up to keep his cap from flying away.

His instability must’ve broken the women out of a stupor, for she hurriedly began clearing the counter too and shoving away books and murals in a drawer.

“Is there something else you need?” She asked pointedly. He shook his head and left, a turmoil of thoughts running through his head. Stitches across a forehead. He’s sure he’s read about that somewhere in his last life. So somewhere not good.

He made it halfway through the back alleys and the complicated maze system before the rain started coming down in heavy droplets, forcing him into a sheltered nook in the street, small enough for only a couple of people but protected against the wind on all sides. People were still running around in a mess outside, warding their heads with their hands.

Rain today was unexpected, the temperature was dropping for another harsh winter in the canals of Amsterdam and a shower would surely speed up the process.

He ought to buy a new coat, he thought as cold wind sent shivers down his spine. He searched around his pocket and took out a cigarette, a little confused when he couldn’t find his lighter.

Till there was the unmistakable click of one beside him.

Till there was the unmistakable smell of ozone and strawberry surrounding his senses.

He whipped up his head, coming face to face with none other than Satoru Gojo. And he was right there, looking just like the teenager Suguru always remembered him being.

He doesn’t though, not really.

He hadn’t been there long enough to see an eighteen year old Satoru, his limbs as lanky as ever and hair messy and shooting up in all directions, pushed up by his blindfold. He hadn’t shifted to them till he was 25 the first time.

“Yo, Suguru.” Satoru smiled, his voice as joyful as ever but this time Suguru saw right through the facade. “Long time, huh?”

“Wh- How ?” Suguru couldn’t help but ask, incredulous “Ten years in Tokyo and you didn't reach out once, and suddenly you found me in Amsterdam in a year !?”

Satoru laughed, his voice ringing in their small crook. The wind outside was taking a violent turn, rattling shutters and flapping branches, the sound of thunder overpowering it all.

“Come on !! You think it took me a year to find you? I had your address pinned by the end of September, Ruru.” He pouted, an unnerving chill to his voice that made Suguru step back.

He hit the damp brick wall with a thud, his brow furrowing in confusion as his hands clench into fists. His cursed energy leaking from them.

“You’re acting weird.”

“I've been through some shit. Hell,-” He laughed again, “-I died and came back. You did, too. Weird is an understatement.”

Suguru glared at him, “No- no you…, listen, if you’re gonna kill me then just-”

“You think I have it in me to do that twice?” He asked, head tilting in the way he does when he is studying a curse before exorcising it. Almost flirting with it before he kills it.

“Then why ?” Suguru nearly screamed. Today of all was the last day he wishes to see Satoru.

He stood silently at the mouth of the cavity, his dark clothes blending him in the background and highlighting his hair and skin, little flashes of light illuminating his face from time to time.

“Haibara woke up.” Satoru muttered, fiddling with the lighter he stole from Suguru god knows when. He reached forth and snatched it back, his fingers barely brushing Satoru's.

“I know.”

He lit up his cigarette, taking in a long drag before exhaling. Shoko called him that morning. Apparently Nanami gave her his number, those two love to gossip among themselves. Does that mean the others know too? Will they be coming to take him back? Will they take the girls too? Will he-

He needed to calm down. He wasn’t thinking straight, saying all the wrong things, asking all the wrong questions. Calm down. In for five, hold-

“Don’t you see it?” Satoru stepped forth in his space and any thought of relaxing abandoned him. “This is not a fixed timeline. We can do things differently here-”

“I know that too, Jackass.” Suguru spit. He was mad at Satoru but the reason was lost to him. Maybe it was just seeing him after a year or eleven that was doing things to him. Maybe it was that Satoru knew where he was and still took so long to stop by. “Why are you here?”

Why? Why now when you didn’t care enough the last time? Why do you even care this time, it’s not like he deserves it or anything-

Satoru's jaw clenched, brow tightening as his lips turned into a line. The crack in the facade. He stood motionless before him, fists clenched by his side and Suguru could do nothing but watch it, is not brave enough to reach forth and comfort him. Not anymore.

"I told you something. Before I-" he swallowed, and it wasn't hard to understand what he was trying to say.

Before he killed Suguru.

"-I fucking told you. And you're still asking me why-"

"I don't remember." Suguru lied through his teeth. Truth is, he doesn't want to remember. Because if he does remember what Satoru said to him, his last words to Suguru, he might just lose his mind. Because weren't those three words proof that everything else, his entire life and its purpose, his years of suffering were a waste of time.

Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing, or whatever Dostoevsky said.

He is barely clinging to his sanity most of the days, he doesn't need to remember stuff that will push him further.

"You do. And you suck at lying and you're still where you were ten years ago. Nothing has changed, nothing will change because you refuse to accept that you need fucking help !"

"Why are you here ?"

"I'm not gonna lose you this time."

He chuckled, "you don’t get to decide-"

"I'm not gonna lose you.” Satoru enunciated, every word marked with conviction that scared Suguru. “I've got a second go at life, and unlike you I'm damn set to make it better than the last one."

Satoru is breathing heavy, his chest heaving and hands shaking slightly. Suguru had rarely seen him so out of order. He wishes to reach out, to pull him close, to hold him till it all settles down.

Instead, he offers him his cigarette. Half burnt, as usual. And it is a fact that Satoru has never smoked a cigarette that hasn’t touched Suguru’s lips first.

He took it with shaking hands, putting it to his lips and inhaling deeply till there were tears in the corner of his eyes. He coughed, once, twice before inhaling again. Suguru wondered if it was a bad idea to offer him one after so long.

“So what, you’re just gonna-” Suguru shrugged as Satoru looked up at him, passing the cig back. “..impose yourself on my life. I don’t get a say?”

“Exactly!” he smiled, sinister, all his perfect teeth on display.

Suguru could feel his usual Satoru shaped headache settle in as he pinched his brow, “Listen, I’m still a curse user with a record. You can’t just-”

“I don’t care.”

“You should!” He nearly screamed. “You can’t be seen with me.”

It hurt him to say that, to write his own fate in blood but that was the truth. Satoru has stuff to do, things to put right. Suguru himself has shit to figure out. He can’t burden Satoru any more, can’t risk his chance of a perfect world, a happy ending.

“Give me your phone.” Satoru suddenly demanded, holding out his hand.

“What ? Why ?”

“Just-” He didn’t wait for an answer, crowding Suguru against the wall and reaching into his coat pocket to take it himself. And he never became immune to this kind of shit, the casual intimacy of it all, the burning touch and the lingering warmth. The hunger for it, the starvation for ten years.

He’s afraid if Satoru touches him right now, skin on skin, he would simply combust.

He pulls out Suguru’s phone, flips it open and passes a comment about his homescreen, princess princess, seriously ? Suguru glares at him, replies something about the girls listening to them, tugs his coat closer, checks the time. They’ll be leaving the daycare in twenty, he doesn’t want to keep them waiting.

“How-” Suguru had wished to know this for long. Now that he had got the chance to do so, though, the words wouldn’t come to him. “How long after me-?”

Satoru offered him his phone back, a text chain open with Satoru’s name on top followed by an emoticon heart. A single message on his side of the chat. I missed you.

“I’m in a bit of a time crunch, following a special grade cursed spirit.” He shrugged, “And I doubt you want to see me any longer. I added my number in there, do text me the next time you feel like you miss me.”

“I won’t.” He replied, no heat or truth behind his words. Satoru just laughed.

“I’ll call, then. Next time I'm in town.”

Suguru didn’t bother replying, snapping his phone shut. He would have to ask his neighbour to pick up the girls in his car. Cas has a son around the same age in the daycare and he has been kind enough to pick the girls up on certain occasions.

“What happened after you- I died? The girls, did they take it well?”

He has to know. He has to hurt to make amends. Satoru simply stares at him, his blindfold hiding his gaze but not helping the pinprick feeling Suguru gets, being at the focus of it. Satoru reaches out a hand towards him, rethinks, puts it back in his pocket.

“Next time.”

That’s all he says. Suguru doesn’t have the heart to tell him that there won’t be a next time.

??, February 03 2011

“I’m not gay.” Suguru grumbles, sipping from his gin and tonic with a straw as another man winks at him.

He turns the other way and Manami frowns, leaning in closer to whisper-

“You’re not ?”

“No.” He shook his head, “What made you think I was ?”

“Well-” she hesitated, “You’re not straight, obvi. I mean, I just kinda assumed you might be gay. With all the yearning and shit you do for that Gojo-”

“I don’t yearn !!”

“How do you know you’re ‘not gay’ ? Have you ever even tried moving on ?”

Suguru tsked at her, irritated at the implication that he was some simp still stuck up on his ex of four years.

“How do you know you’re not gay, huh ?” He mocked back, and Manami looked surprised.

“I am. Bi. Did you not know?”

Suguru stared at her, stunned. They have known each other for three of those four years. It’s embarrassing to admit it now that he had absolutely no clue about this.

“O-of course I knew.” He lied, laughing as he choked a little on his drink, “I was just mocking you- I mean, it's obvious that you’re bi, like, obvi. Come on, I know you.”

She looked at him skeptically, taking a swig from her beer before sighing.

“Look, as your secretary and only friend right now, it makes my life extremely boring to know that someone as pretty as you is wasting their potential on that stuck up arrogant bastard. You need to get out there!! Get some action, you know what I mean !”

She punched him in the arm, a weak attempt that did nothing to him except sting a little.

He had discarded his usual robes and kimono today for an oversized band tee and jeans. Manami had thrown some chains and earrings at him, surprised at every new piercing she found on him. Had said it was a birthday present, he had no idea she would bring him to a gay bar of all places.

One filled with Monkeys, at that.

“Come on, it’s just sex !” She had said.

“I don’t like them touching me.” He grumbled back, downing a shot as it burned all the way down. It’s been ages since he had been out drinking, the music ringing in his bones and throat burning in a good way.

“That’s because they’re not touching all the right places.” She said, chuckling as she bumped shoulders into him. He side eyed her, making his disinterest in the whole business very clear.