Chapter Text
file_0001 (1).SAV: vs kouhai
They make the incoming freshman stand in front of the blackboard, shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. Gojo is flitting among them and making a nuisance of himself, adjusting Nanami’s spotted party hat to the point where it needs to be readjusted and turning Haibara’s welcome sash upside-down. The third newcomer, Asano, has the good sense to stand further away, though Shoko sees the glitter held tightly in Gojo’s fist, ready to rain down on his victim.
Behind him, on a ladder they stole from the storage room, Suguru fastens the last corner of their welcome banner. As for Shoko, her job is guarding the cake.
“Alright,” says Suguru, tugging lightly on the banner to make sure it holds. Suguru climbs down the ladder, and Shoko takes in a breath worthy of her smoker lungs. “A-one, two, three—”
Shoko blows loudly into her party horn. Beside her, her classmates cheer and clap. “Woooo~! Welcome, first years~!”
The sole girl in the group mirrors their applause with a shy smile. The brown haired boy replies, excitedly, “Thank you, senpai!” The last kid, blonde, has the kind of dead eyed stare that looks like he’s a thousand miles away.
It probably doesn’t help that Gojo’s all up in his space again, exchanging his own party horn for Nanami’s hat.
Since Shoko is the only one with a sharp edge (her trusty scalpel) and therefore still on cake-guarding duty, Suguru is the one to grab the hastily tied bunch of flowers off the desk to bring over to the crowd.
“Unfortunately, Yaga-sensei only told us about you today, so we weren’t able to prepare a hat and a sash for you,” Suguru says apologetically, with all the charm of a model student. Shoko wants to roll her eyes at him. He can front all he wants, but the underclassmen will wisen up to him sooner rather than later. “Please accept these handpicked flowers as a token of our apology.”
To Shoko’s surprise, the girl actually takes a step back. “Um, thank you, Geto-san. I’m … I’m good though. Thank you.”
“Huh?” asks Shoko, a little stunned. Was that… a rejection?
“Huh?” says Gojo, loudly, and he promptly ditches the other two underclassmen to go sling an arm over Suguru’s shoulders. Nanami’s hat is hanging off his ear. “These are the flowers that I, the great Gojo-sama, personally picked from our backyard!” Suguru and Shoko had sent him off to make sure he didn’t try to intercept the cake deliveryman. “Do you know how precious this opportunity is? And yet you’re rejecting them!”
Shoko watches, amused, as Suguru attempts to block the arm around his shoulders. “Satoru,” he says. “Didn’t I already say not to word it like that?”
“Like what?” asks Gojo.
Suguru says, “You should say you got the flowers from the forest, not our backyard.”
“The forest is a plot of land at the back of the school, isn’t that our backyard?”
A little strained, Suguru says, “It’s not really a matter of what’s true, it’s what sounds nice to hear. Saying ‘backyard’ sounds too half-hearted and low-effort.” Shoko watches, amused, as the muscles in his blocking arm flex.
Equally strained, Satoru says, simply, “I don’t get it and I don’t care.”
“Ah, you!” Suguru’s gritting his teeth. “Since you put effort into finding those flowers, you should explain in a way that helps reflect that — oi, Satoru, you’re choking me!”
“If you just let me be I wouldn’t have to use so much force!” Gojo says, accusingly, and he brings his other arm up around until he almost has Suguru in a bonafide chokehold. “Besides, how can you ask me to lie to our kouhai! What kind of example do you want me to set?!”
The vein in Suguru’s forehead twitches in the way that means the appearance of a curse is imminent. Only, before that happens, the girl interrupts: “I-I would love to accept Gojo-sama's flowers!”
Gojo, called to attention by his own name, glances at her, mystified. Then the realization settles in and he grins, smug. “Naturally!” He snatches the flowers out of Suguru’s hands and shoves it at her brusquely. “Here you go! The well-wishes of your loving and compassionate senpai!”
Suguru, who has clearly given up on dislodging the extra limb plastered to him, twists around so he can catch Shoko’s eyes.
She blinks back at him.
-----
Shoko doesn’t think anything of it; Gojo’s attracted more than his fair share of bees and butterflies due to his frankly excessively pleasant looks, but it doesn’t take very long before people realize his interior is equal and opposite to his exterior. Crushes on Gojo come fast and go faster, is the general rule.
The worst that’s ever come of it is more material to add to someone’s black history folder.
And then, a month before the end of the first semester, Suguru asks a favor from her during their smoke break. It’s a serious one given the way he doesn’t smoke himself, staring out contemplatively while inhaling her secondhand cancer.
The favor is: “Do you think you can speak to Asano-san?”
Shoko exhales. “About her crush on Gojo?” she checks.
Suguru sighs. “Yeah.”
“Is it that serious?” Shoko asks, frowning. “I guess it’s a bit long for a crush, but it’s not like she spends enough time alone with him for her to know better.”
“It’s not for a lack of trying,” says Suguru, wryly, and then he presses his thumb into his forehead. “Asano-san is very … driven. Satoru and I are always going in and out on missions so we don’t meet her very often, but she’s been getting more enthusiastic each time we do.”
In moments like this, Shoko resents Suguru for being so straight-laced. She loves to gossip, and normally so does he, but something about the “preciousness of the younger generation” (bah!) makes him more tight-lipped about them. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try. “For example … ?” Shoko hints.
“For example, be a good senpai and respect your kouhai’s privacy.” Suguru shoots her an unimpressed look.
Shoko pretends she can’t see him through the smoke. She clicks her tongue. “This is not how you ask for favors,” she informs him. He rolls his eyes at her. They're going to get stuck that way; Shoko considers telling him but his eyes are small enough it might not even be noticed.
Eventually, because even if he finds the underclassmen adorable, Shoko still ranks above them in his heart, Suguru says, reluctantly: “Asano-san knocked on the door during Satoru’s post-mission nap a few times to ask after his health but she woke him up.” Shoko winces. "And yesterday she tried to get him to try her handmade dessert right as we were heading out for kikufuku …”
Shoko inhales and blows out a plume. “Wow.” So the newcomer has been trying to encroach on the designated Gojo-Geto destress time. “That’s … not good.”
“Satoru is starting to get annoyed,” says Suguru helplessly. “If this goes on he might snap on her, and you know how he is. What if Asano-san takes it too hard?”
Hah. This double standard-holding, favoritism-playing bastard. Shoko gives him the 'ok', index and thumb pinching her cigarette, her other fingers straightened out. “Got it. I’ll go ahead and speak to her. But I hope you know that this is very sexist and not progressive of you.”
Suguru splutters. “ Sexist ?”
“Aren’t you?” Shoko asks with a smirk. “Don’t you want me to speak to her because we’re both girls?”
She dodges Suguru’s swipe for her hair. “Shoko!” Suguru complains, and then he gets serious. “But, well, who else can I ask? You know that Asano-san doesn’t like me.”
Which, to this day, is still a surprise to her. It’s something she and Gojo like to tease Suguru about — the smooth and suave Geto being unable to charm a girl — but the good-natured ribbing doesn’t make the reality any less baffling.
“And I can’t ask Satoru. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Shoko echoes.
Suguru nods. “So then who am I left with? Haibara-kun?” Suguru goes a little shifty-eyed and it makes Shoko laugh because speaking of crushes, Haibara’s earnest hero-worship probably counts as one too, right? “Nanami-kun?” …yeah, probably not. “ Yaga-sensei ?” Definitely not.
“Okay, I get it,” Shoko says, putting out her cigarette, and then she slaps Suguru hard on the back. He flinches and she considers it her victory, despite her stinging palm. “I’m your last hope, your only saving grace, you worship the ground I stand on. I’ll find time to speak with Asano.”
“ Shoko ,” he says, gratefully.
Shoko throws him a peace sign, and disposes of her cigarette butt. “Wait for my good news, loser.”
-----
It’s the last day before break, and Shoko and Suguru have moved their smoke break indoors to escape from the heat. She waits until he takes a drag to say, “You don’t have to worry anymore because Asano’s gone.”
Suguru chokes. “Huh?” he asks, between his coughs.
“Ah, sorry. Let me start again. Asano’s quitting jujutsu tech.”
Suguru’s coughs increase in frequency. “What —” he wheezes, “what did you say to her?”
Shoko huffs. “All proper senpai stuff, ye of little faith.”
“And that’s why she’s quitting?”
Shoko pauses, takes out the cigarette and pins Suguru down with a stare. “She’s not quitting because of love stuff, dumbass. We didn’t even talk about Gojo. The freshman trio got sent on a mission a few days ago, remember?”
Suguru stares back at her blankly.
“Ugh,” Shoko says, with feeling. “Head down.” Suguru lowers his head without question, because that's apparently his first instinct. Shoko feels a wave of fondness for him, and that’s why she’s more light on the thumping she gives his empty skull. “You forget that not everyone’s like you and Gojo. You two think curses are all fun and games, but they're still super dangerous to other people. Especially untrained sorcerers.”
Suguru gives her an ‘ah’ in realization.
“Anyway, Asano met her first curse and got a nasty wound on her thigh. Haibara had to carry her back. When I was working on her in the medical room, she told me she wasn’t coming back next semester. I was a good senpai and comforted her and everything, but she was pretty set on her decision. So, whatever. Let her go then.” Shoko’s home field is the morgue, but she’s not in the business of encouraging people to make corpses of themselves.
Suguru is silent for a while, and then he sighs. “I guess that’s for the best. Though maybe a failed puppy love might have been a kinder end.”
“Eh,” says Shoko. “Given that the other party is Gojo, I have my doubts. But forget that, let's talk about you."
Suguru frowns. "What about me?"
"I thought you'd a little more … I dunno. Disappointed."
Suguru’s thumb is back on his forehead. Oops. “Shoko, I know you just said I’m out of touch, but I’m hardly about to blame our kouhai for being unable to perfectly exorcize a curse while their adult auxiliary manager stands off to the side —”
“You have strong feelings about this,” Shoko interrupts, a little amused. “And that’s not what I’m talking about, dumbass. I was referring to your whole ‘use your precious gift to bring about world peace!’ shtick.”
“That’s overgeneralized,” complains Suguru. “And that’s my own personal thing. I’m not going to go around holding other people to my own moral standards, especially not when they’re old enough to have their own thoughts and opinions on stuff like this.”
Shoko says, dry as a desert, “Oh. You’re not, huh?”
Perhaps because someone's Six Eyes see a disturbance in the force, a cry rises in the distance, growing louder with every passing syllable: “Yo! Suguru! Shoko! Ditch the cigarettes and let’s get ice cream!”
Suguru might have flushed a little, but it’s hard to tell when they’re both already damp and sweaty. “That guy’s different,” he mutters, vaguely. “He’s like a blank slate. He’s just needs a little — I’m not trying to overstep, but —”
Yeah, Shoko kinda gets it. It’s just funny watching Suguru squirm. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says with a laugh. “Baby-Gojo still needs Mama-Geto to hold his hand, we get it.”
“That’s not — Shoko!”
“I heard my name and it sounds like we’re making fun of Suguru!” yells Gojo, slamming open the window to shove his head in. “Hey guys, let’s grab — oh yuck.” He backpedals. “You two reek . Yaga-sensei’s gonna kill you when he smells this room.”
“Meh,” says Shoko. “It’ll be fine if we air it out.”
Gojo peers at them over his blind-man glasses. “The room ’s gonna air out, but you two aren’t. The stink’s gonna be in your uniform for days. It’s gonna be gross.”
“No one’s asking you to smell it.”
“I can’t help it! I’ve got a nose like a hound!”
“You do not .”
“Do too! I’m telling you, I always know when you smoke because of this!”
These two losers. Shoko grins and puts away her box and lighter. “Sounds like Geto and I need to air ourselves out, then. Did someone say ice cream?” At that, she lifts herself onto the window sill and waits for Gojo to come and bring her down.
Gojo does so with great enthusiasm. “Ice cream!”
“Yaga-sensei might find this room and give us detention,” says Suguru helplessly. He hoists himself through the window after them anyway. “But he’s definitely going to know we left campus and then we’ll be writing reviews until the morning.”
Gojo pretends to think about it. “Let’s go all in! Bring the underclassmen, too!”
“You know, Satoru, doing the wrong thing with more people doesn’t make it less wrong.” Suguru is grinning as he says this, which means he’s already sold, he just likes to play hard-to-get.
That’s when Shoko remembers. “Oh, by the way, Gojo,” she says. “You only need to conscript the other two boys. Asano quit school.”
“Woah. That’s wild,” says Gojo, in the way that implies he has no idea why he should care.
Bah. That’s on her for having any kind of hope for him.
-----
Later, Shoko compares Asano’s resignation to the first kindling of the wildfire that stole their youth from them. Truly, not so significant on its own, but it was like a tacit understanding was broken and firewood tossed itself into the pile one by one. The failed Star Plasma mission. Haibara’s death. Suguru’s defection. Nanami’s resignation. The growing frequency of wounded entering her medical bay and corpses leaving it.
Gojo’s phone call after a long night of monsters, saying, simply: “Suguru’s dead.”
… when did the fire start burning? Why did she never notice?
end of file
time: august 2006
Outside an extravagant temple, a shadow feasts on a dead man.
what - are - you?
A few hours earlier, a quasi-god was born. In one move, the quasi-god blasted through the upper limit of cursed power and technique, and sent cursed energies everywhere into disarray. Curses spontaneously burst into being. Millennium-old cursed fetuses took their first shallow breath. And the shadows of the temple, steeped in its own sort of mysticism, made some lazy bobs. Originally, they would have faded out soon enough.
The quasi-god then came to the temple, killed a man, and left. His presence starts the shadows churning anew. Hours later, the condensed shadow drags itself into the sun’s dying light, stumbles over the dead man, and, at a loss of what else to do, begins to eat.
oh - wait - we - know - you
Something not quite right locks into place.
The shadow is born to three things: the ring of a gong resounding through heaven and earth (though not for him), the cheers of those who fancy they hold the favor of a god (also not for him), and a misunderstanding.
you - are -
The shadow is born of three things: the flickering darkness (the cheering crowd lit a fire), the incomplete corpse of a man (mid-thirties, tough to chew), and a hatred for weak, ignorant humans.
- the - seething - hatred - humans - have - for - humankind.
you - are - too - ear-ly, says heaven and earth, when the ring of the gong finally dies down and it begins to apply duct tape to the rips in its reality. too - ear-ly - ma-hi-to.
I think I’m pretty timely, actually, thinks the shadow. And what’s a mahito?
----
The first meal the shadow has is probably the worst he’ll ever have.
Cursed spirits have no need for flesh, blood, or factory-processed plant fiber, and he’s hard pressed to find anything else amongst the wreckage. Unfortunately, the shadow realizes this only after he’s finished eating.
What should I do now? wonders the shadow, bloated and heavy and way too uncomfortable for it. I can’t keep this thing in me. Throw it back up?
But when the shadow tries, the flesh regurgitated bears no resemblance to the flesh ingested; it’s ghostly pale and saturated with the shadow’s own cursed energy. It’s also sticky . The flesh clings and coats the shadow in a manner best matched the way doctors slip on latex gloves.
The ex-shadow kneels by the red-stained earth and looks down at his new and shapely hands. He plops himself onto his front, and then rolls onto his back; it itches when his newly acquired black hair rubs against bare skin. He glances towards his feet and wiggles his toes.
“A̵h̸,” he says. “I̶'̶m̶ ̴s̴t̴u̴c̷k̷.”
----
A man-like creature walks slowly down a busy city street. He is dressed like a monk, wearing light brown robes with thick collars and hemlines down to the knees, but the rest of him subverts any monasticism. His hair is ample and carelessly tossed by clumsy hands. His flesh, where exposed, is discontinuous, and between adjacent flaps of skin are deep gashes that appear to bleed wisps of purple-black.
A middle-aged man crosses his path and immediately swerves away, shuddering, feeling as if the very sanctity of his soul had been breached. In the next moment, his left eye bulges as if it were doubled in size, his jaw fuses into place, clipping his own tongue, and his agonized scream comes out more like a muffled whimper. He clutches at his own chest, the closest approximation he has for where it hurts.
The man-thing doesn’t pause, doesn’t look back. “W̴h̸a̴t̸ ̸w̴a̷s̶ ̸t̵h̴a̸t̷?̷” he asks the wider world. His finger flex, recalling the phantom sensation of the soft, gooey object he had just casually pinched.
A moment of silence. Then: i-dle - trans-fi-gur-a-tion.
“W̵a̵s̵ ̶t̴h̴a̶t̸ ̵m̷y̸ ̶p̶o̸w̵e̷r̴?̷”
for - ma-hi-to.
The man-thing realizes, “T̴h̸i̷s̸ ̷i̷s̶ ̷t̷h̵e̵ ̵p̵o̷w̷e̷r̶ ̵o̸f̷ ̸M̵a̵h̵i̴t̴o̴.̴”
There is no answer. The humans buzz and scurry about. Like headless flies, these things. The man-thing walks himself to the edge of the road, pressing close to the walls as if he hopes to fuse into its shadows.
The man-thing wonders, “T̴h̷e̴n̵,̵ ̴a̷m̵ ̵I̷ ̴M̶a̶h̶i̴t̸o̸?̷”
Before he even finishes verbalizing his theory, the former shadow already knows the answer. It’s innate knowledge, like a child’s first cry is innate, like locking fingers is innate: he has a different name. He is not Mahito.
And yet.
It’s not that he cannot become Mahito. For, as heaven and earth has decreed, he is merely early. He is but an earlier iteration that was unexpectedly solidified to existence by that spontaneous act of gluttony. Whatever composed the flesh of that dead man is a tough, uncompromising thing, and in incorporating it, he’s made himself durable enough to live.
The man-thing regards his body once more, remembers the malleable texture of the soft object. The stickiness of the soul, the power inherent in possibilities. The barest inkling of a domain.
This is what it means to be Mahito. Take on the name, take on the power.
It’s not a bad deal at all.
But it is then that Mahito feels a tug from the core of him, underneath the spiritual flesh, above the spirit itself. He turns his head, and follows the sensation off into the distance.
location: tokyo prefectural jujutsu high school
“Hah? Are you hard of hearing, old man?” Satoru kicks at a stray rock and Limitless sends it hurtling over the nearest building. “Do you know how valuable my time is? Even back in the Gojo compound people had to make appointments to meet me, so what makes you so confident in calling me asking the same questions again and again and again? I’m going to have my people send you an invoice soon!”
From his phone’s receiver, a buzzy tinny voice says, “ — it’s not unreasonable to ask you for more details considering the cleaners can’t find the body, Gojo-san — “
Satoru very valiantly resists hanging up the call. It’s a game he plays, where if Satoru is the one to rage-quit the call he loses, and Gojo Satoru never loses . “Then go buy yourself some glasses! I didn’t touch the stupid body! What would I even do with it? Eat it? Fuck it?”
“ GOJO SATORU ,” the receiver blares angrily. Hah. Satoru is so winning this one, but for every second that passes the victory feels less and less worth it. “ Watch your language! ” Satoru sticks out his tongue, even though he knows the old man on the other side can’t see it. “ We’re just trying to clean up your mess — ”
Heh. Satoru sneers. Who the hell is this guy trying to fool? As if Satoru hasn’t been running around all this time cleaning up their stupid messes.
“ — we just need to know where you put Zen’in Toji’s body! ”
“Oh, is that the auxiliary manager?”
Ugh.
As if hearing a savior, the tinny voice says, relieved, “ Geto-kun !”
Double ugh.
“Tch. Why are you always following me around?” Suddenly, Satoru no longer feels like this is a battle worth fighting. It’s only the lingering desire to uphold his reputation that keeps Satoru from pressing down on the ‘end call’ button, but it won’t be long before that runs out, too.
Geto blinks his round golden eyes at him, and drags a sheepish hand through his cropped black hair. “You were being very loud, Gojo-kun. I came over to see if anything was wrong.” Then, in the direction of Satoru’s phone, he asks, “What seems to be the problem, manager?”
Geto’s so smarmy and perfunctory and boring . But the guy on the phone falls for it, hook, line and sinker, and starts detailing the whole thing, including the three other phone calls Satoru received about this very matter. Seriously, no one values his time around here. Shit, whatever. Let these two mouth-breathers entertain themselves then.
“Oh, that’s very troubling,” says Geto, cocking his head thoughtfully even though no one is watching. “But manager, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. When Gojo-kun and I left, Fushigoro Toji’s body was absolutely still there. If it helps, I can swear a binding vow on it.”
“ Ah, well, in that case … ” says the manager, confused. “ If you’re absolutely certain … it’s not like we don’t trust you, Geto-kun, so don’t worry about the binding vow. It’s just, where could the body be? ”
Geto says, “No, I understand your difficulties, manager. I don’t know the situation, but maybe wildlife dragged it away?”
“ We searched everywhere within a mile! ” complains the manager, and Geto makes a noise. “ ... I guess there’s nothing to it. We’ll make another round of investigations before we close the case. Thanks, Geto-kun .”
Satoru is not a fan of participating in the mutual jerk-off, but it is his phone and his data plan. “What, no ‘thank you, Gojo-sama’?” he asks. “Whose phone’s minutes are you taking up, ma-na-ger~?”
“ Gojo-san! ” shouts the manager, while Geto simultaneously sighs out a “Gojo-kun.”
Satoru pulls up the most shit-eating grin he has, and doesn’t feel a single muscle of it. “Huh? Did you say something, manager-kun? Oh, what’s this? My fingers, they’re twitching! It’s like they want to… block your number…?”
After a moment of silence, the phone grits out a “ Thank you, Gojo-san .”
“You’re welcome,” says Satoru blithely, ignoring the eyes of the busybody standing next to him. “Remember to pay the invoice~”
The call abruptly drops.
Now that’s more like it.
Satoru snaps the phone closed and turns his head. “What? You need something? My time is now billed at a hundred yen a minute.”
Geto sighs, as if he weren’t the one who butted into Satoru’s business in the first place. “Well, I wanted to speak to you on your lack of manners but I guess I’ll keep it short.” He runs another hand through his cropped hair. Showoff. “How are you feeling? About Amanai-san.”
Satoru rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
Another sigh. “It’s normal to not be fine, Gojo-kun.”
“Sure,” says Satoru. “Right back atcha.” He hopes the irony rolling off his tongue is visible. ‘It’s normal to not be fine,’ his ass. Geto doesn’t look affected by it, what does he expect from Satoru?
Geto looks at him, and then shakes his head. “And another thing. If, hypothetically, you wanted to do something dubiously legal in the future, it’s better that you let me know beforehand. I’ll be able to cover for you better.”
Under Satoru’s unimpressed eyes, Geto turns back the way he came and throws back a one-handed salute.
Hah. So even after saying all that to the cleaning crew, Geto still thought Satoru had something to do with the missing body?
Performative hypocrite.
-----
Satoru guns for his bed as soon as he gets out of the shower, even though the sun hasn’t fully set yet. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if he skips dinner; he’s hoarded enough desserts in the communal fridge to last him a night at least.
The nice thing about jujutsu tech is that ever since Satoru started attending it, he hasn’t had any trouble falling asleep. Every once in a while, he even has a fun recurring dream. Sleep pulls him in gently, like it’s an old friend, like he’s falling into a hug … or at least, it did.
There’s something a little different about the way he falls unconscious this time; the journey is not as smooth, not as complete. It feels like as soon as Satoru flexes a bit, he’s on the verge of jerking awake.
Something’s missing.
But he’s having the dream again, today.
In Satoru’s dream, he’s holding onto his phone, a tinny voice rambling on and on about missing bodies and how incompetent their cleaning crew is, how everyone should just get fired, blah blah blah.
Satoru swivels his head around, frowning, and he repeats the words he said earlier: “I didn’t touch the stupid body. What would I even do with it? Eat it? Fuck it?”
What’s wrong with this dream? What’s missing from it?
The world around him starts to tremble; small, near imperceptible fractures etch themselves into the clear sky; the trees closest to Satoru begin to splinter.
And then it's like a cloud passes overhead. The world dims every so slightly and a slight coolness brushes past him like a breeze. Satoru relaxes, relieved, and the cracks vanish from view.
“ — where you put Zen’in Toji’s body! ” the phone is roaring.
A tired voice calls over. “What’s going on here? Why is our manager working his lungs so hard?”
Satoru can’t help the grin. “ ——— !” he says happily. The name still doesn’t come out properly but that’s no matter. “Hey, get this! This guy somehow lost track of an entire corpse and he won’t stop calling me about it!”
“Ah?” says his companion, walking towards Satoru. “They lost a body? Manager, you’re … quite impressive?”
Satoru puffs out a laugh as the phone nearly shakes from the force of the other side’s screams, “ WE DIDN'T LOSE THE BODY. IT WASN’T THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! ”
“Okay, okay, calm down, we understand, manager,” says his companion. “You couldn’t see the body. Completely understandable. The dirt is dark, right? And the corpse has black hair. But manager, the sun is starting to set, visibility is only going to go down from here. You don’t have much time to waste on us.”
The phone rattles off a string of expletives.
Satoru tries to hold back his laughter, but upon opening his mouth all that comes out is a stream of ‘hahahahaha’s.
“ GOJO SATORU! ”
“Satoru,” says his companion firmly. Satoru shuts his mouth, though he can’t stop his shoulders from trembling. “Please be more respectful. Failing eyesight is a natural part of the aging process, but despite that, our managers are still working very hard —”
The phone hangs up.
Satoru finally lets loose his laughter and, high off the victory, rushes to entangle the other boy. “It’s finally over!” he cheers, and then he turns to face his companion. Loose black strands tickle his chin. “So, what are you up to now, ——— ?”
“A shower,” is the exhausted reply from a face completely obscured by darkness. “Sleep. It’s been a long day.”
Despite Satoru’s best efforts over the years, including multiple careful applications of his cursed technique and many more accidental wakings, he still can’t see the guy’s face or make out the guy’s name. Satoru’s not too fussed about it, though. The physical parts aren’t as important in comparison to everything else, and part of everything else is:
“ ——— , are you feeling uncomfortable?”
There’s a lengthy pause. “Well,” says his companion. “A bit. I wish things were different, I guess. Riko-chan was young. There were so many things she never got to do.”
Satoru nods, hesitantly. He’s not sure what bothers him about this answer, because it doesn’t feel wrong, per se. It just feels like it’s … not enough. Too shallow; not a lie but missing a whole lot. “I think so, too,” he says, finally, unable to come up with something better. “We failed to protect her.”
“... Yeah.”
Was that the right thing to say? Was that the wrong thing? Satoru tries again. “I totally would have chosen her life over the lives of all those cultists combined.”
His companion laughs, weakly, and Satoru has to bite his lips before he makes a comment on it. He doesn’t even know what to say. “Can’t say I disagree with that,” his companion says, and then he switches tracks. “But that’s pretty unlikely now, right? Needing to choose.” He gently nudges Satoru in the ribs. “Seems like you’ve improved your Limitless technique and got quite the boost out of it.”
Satisfaction rises in Satoru at the praise, but he still feels a little uneasy. “I’m just that cool,” he says, but he can’t make it as energetic as he normally would. Nothing about today’s dream feels normal, and Satoru feels an unfamiliar helplessness. “I’m gonna need to work on it more though,” he tacks on, a little hesitantly. “I don’t have the technique perfectly down yet.”
Thankfully, his companion seems to recover on his own. “Looks like the great Gojo-sama is going to learn the value of practice, then,” he says, and Satoru feels himself relaxing. “Well, work hard. Also let’s go get some kikufuku tomorrow, after I wake up. My treat.”
“Ah?” says Satoru, surprised. “What’s the occasion?”
A hand pries at Satoru’s arms. “Your digivolution, idiot. Now let me go, I need to go shower and then pass out.”
Satoru loosens his arms with a great deal of reluctance. “I’m gonna hold you to it!” he calls in the direction of his companion's retreating back.
“Yeah, yeah.”
-----
“It’s too outrageous!” complains Satoru, two days later during his required checkup. “He completely missed our appointment and I had to go buy kikufuku in real life instead! With my own money!”
“Oh great Gojo-sama,” says Shoko, and her next press is definitely harder on his skin than the one before. “For fuck’s sake, stop informing me of imaginary fights with your emotional support imaginary friend. I cannot express to you how much I don’t care.”
Satoru sniffs. “He’s not imaginary, and he would never treat me like this!”
“Seems like he already did. Missed appointment, remember?”
Satoru pouts, only to see Shoko turn away resolutely. It still doesn’t work on her, damn. “Shoko-chan is so mean. But I was thinking, maybe it was because I was too calm when I fell asleep yesterday? I tend to dream more when I go to sleep annoyed or right after a long mission.”
Shoko yawns. Ugh. She’s so unreliable. “So basically, you dream of him whenever you’re emotionally distressed or physically overstimulated.”
“That’s not it!” The great Gojo Satoru doesn’t experience either of those things!
“Oh my god,” says Shoko. “Gojo, I’m writing you a clean bill of health. Get the hell out of here and send in Geto.”
Satoru sputters. “You’d rather spend time with him over me ?”
Shoko shoves him. “Push me any more and the answer is ‘yes.’ Now go .”
“Fine, fine.” Satoru stands up and dusts off his pants. “Also, when you give Geto his bill, add five hundred yen to the total.” At her look, he elaborates, “It’s my listening fee.”