Archive of Our Own ^beta

But he thought it would be fine. He thought that if Suguru didn't want to speak to him about it, then it would all work out. It was uncommon, but it's not the first time Suguru kept secrets from him. The situation would resolve itself, like always. And so Suguru's defection came as something so unfathomable to Satoru, something in all his innocence of short teenage years he never would've seen coming.

He thought they'd be able to surpass any and all troubles with enough time. Their bond was unbreakable. Special. Forged through pain and perseverance like ashes in soil after a forest fire. So how could he have not noticed when Suguru snapped? Was he that unaware? Did he have too much blind faith in that bond?

No. To say it was the fault of trusting their relationship would be to discard all it was built upon. He had every right to trust Suguru. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault.

Satoru knew him— no, Satoru knows him, because he still refuses to use past tense, to believe he's gone away— and he wouldn't have done all that without some sort of reason. Right? There had to be.

It's funny. As if back in their first year at Jujutsu High, trying to evade punishment for forgetting veils or slacking off, Satoru's mind always seemed to jump to defending Suguru's actions, desperately attempting to rationalize his behavior. Because he knows him. He does. He does. And in this scenario, where it all still feels so unreal, where he had his teacher sincerely ask if he killed his own best friend the moment he returned, he has to convince himself that Suguru still has his morals and ideals. He clings to that notion, he trusts him, because if that's not true, then what is? What good was the foundation that relationship was built upon, if Suguru could leave so easily?

Satoru assumes it was easy, at least. He hopes it wasn't. He wishes.

Nobody prepares you for this sort of thing. Nobody can prepare you, because there's no description of pain quite like feeling it yourself.

Jujutsu sorcerers earn close to nothing for risking their lives every day. They are born into the world with powers of varying degree, with only others with similar powers ever being made aware of such, lest the rest of the world think you're utterly insane. But at least you have those other sorcerers at your side. You forge bonds closer than anyone could ever ask for, not out of choice but out of necessity, out of having no one else in the world to understand you.

Gojo Satoru was born with the most power anyone could ever ask for. He was acutely aware of this, mildly self-centered as it was of a statement, yet it was isolating in ways he'd refuse to admit. And it was even more isolating than the normal Jujutsu sorcerer, because he wasn't normal. He was in his own world within that world.

Until Suguru. Satoru would go misunderstood by many, but at least he had Suguru at his side. At least Suguru— for some time, until clearly there grew a gap that Satoru blindly missed— was able to measure up to him. Understood him for who he was. There was no infinity when Suguru was standing by him.

Now Suguru is gone. Now infinity is always up.

Suguru is gone. It doesn't even feel like a real statement to him anymore. It didn't even when he said it the first time.

He's gone. Gone. Gone not even as in dead, but as in left, as in abandoning him for something Satoru couldn't understand, and Satoru scolds himself for the thought but it's almost worse that way, that Suguru left not out of being taken from him by means out of his control but rather out of a choice.

It was so ironic to him, in a way that almost made him want to laugh past the ache in his vocal cords and the tears constantly crawling behind his sky-colored eyes, how he could be considered a modern god in the Jujutsu world, yet be completely unable to stop the one person who meant the most to him from quietly walking out of his life. He was powerless in the one moment where it mattered.

He held his hand out to Suguru one last time, but not for him to take it, like always. He held it as a weapon, as a simple object of destruction, as Satoru was viewed by so many.

It horrified him that he had even for a moment thought he could do it. He could never do it. He wasn't strong enough. He wouldn't be able to carry that burden.

Suguru had left a note in his packed-up room, along with a photograph of the two of them and Shoko. Satoru had combed over it what felt like a million times, trying to search between the lines, find deeper meaning in a straightforward farewell.

But there was nothing else to it. It was perfectly Suguru. From his choice of vocabulary down to his handwriting, thin and neat strokes of a pen. Yet why was it still so unreal? How could the person closest to his heart do something so unfathomable, but have it appear so normal in his hands?

It was unfair. It was so horribly, staggeringly, painfully unfair. And he knew that his life was supposed to be unfair, and that Jujutsu sorcerers never got to live out a normal existence. But unfair was supposed to mean receiving life-threatening injuries, fighting agonizing battles, putting the protection of the general populace above one's own safety. Not unfair as in watching your closest companion walk out of your life and knowing that somehow it makes perfect sense, no matter how many painful times you try to spin it.

It's not supposed to be unfair in a way he can't spring back from. It's not supposed to be irreparable.

Satoru always saw himself as someone who could bounce back from anything. And by viewing Suguru as his equal, he made the mistake of assuming the same of him no matter the situation.

Right now, as he sat atop the roofs of Jujutsu High, his sunglasses off, he could see Suguru. Not visibly see him, but rather sense his cursed energy, the shape of his soul, something that had carved out a spot in Satoru's heart to where he could recognize it effortlessly. Like breathing, he could find him. And it tore daggers into Satoru's chest how he could see him and be so out of reach.

Satoru knew he had the power to take him back, by force. He could be selfish. He could use the power that six eyes and limitless granted him, teleport to Suguru's location and all but beg for him to change his mind. But Suguru, the one he knew, would be disappointed. He wouldn't want that.

Yet all he could think about was being selfish. Satoru had put the pieces together already after their final exchange. He wasn't stupid. Suguru's idea to create a perfect world for jujutsu sorcerers, a world absolved of normal people, was bullshit. Utter bullshit that was unfathomably impossible. And Suguru wasn't stupid either. He knew this. Satoru knew that he knew this. But it would seem that Suguru would rather die for a hopeless cause in the name of something true to himself, rather than spend his life fighting for virtues and causes he didn't believe in.

And that's when Satoru wanted to be selfish. Because was he not good enough to compensate for that? Sure, yes, the life of a Jujutsu sorcerer was horrific, and came with almost no benefits. But they were together at least, right? Their sorcerery had brought them together. Did Suguru no longer see him as good enough to stay for, at one point? When? Could Satoru have done something about it? Could he have been better? Taken less solo missions?

The hypotheticals bring him back to reality as he finds his fist once again clenching over the uniform button he found at the ruins of Suguru's home village. A symbol of their youth. Of their time together. Of his departure. Hours ago, he had glared at the blood in his hands from the same squeezing with a burning rage, with distress and anger and confusion all dancing in his bright blue eyes like a wildfire. Now he looked down at it with a simple lifelessness. The red slowly pooled in a tiny circle from where the button had pricked his palm, but he didn't care.

Agonizing over unanswerable questions wouldn't get him anywhere. He could sit here for another hour thinking to himself, but the reality wouldn't change. Nothing would, because it was over. The situation was over. The carefree days he naively thought he'd always have were over. But it's hard to not think about it all, when Suguru was often all he ever thought about.

He'd have taken a bullet for that man had the opportunity presented itself, infinity or not. He didn't expect Suguru to be the one to hold the nose of the gun directly to his heart. He felt like he'd died twice in one lifetime.

Satoru stood up. He tucked the button away in his pants pocket, ignoring how blood speckled itself in small stains across the opening. He'd ask Shoko to heal the wound later, when he could work up the ability to face her.

He turned his head away from the direction of Suguru's cursed energy— never minding that he could still sense it, like eyes in the back of his head, the blessing of six eyes manifesting itself as a curse unable to curb Satoru's natural instinct to reach out for him— and walked down off the roof. He landed on the pavement as quiet as a mouse, feet not quite touching the ground as he made the slow walk back to his dorm. Infinity wouldn't let anything truly reach him. And he refused to let infinity down ever again.

Nothing would ever touch him. Nothing would hurt him. Not again. He wouldn't be so ignorant. Not again.

He wouldn't make the same mistakes twice.