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NOVEMBER 19: 35 DAYS LEFT
As it turns out, it takes twenty days for Gojo Satoru's life to fall apart.
Twenty days. Just under three weeks. About half the time of a regular high school's summer break. Satoru's been away on missions longer than that. Hell, he's been on vacations longer than that. It was only twenty days—he was only in that stupid cube for twenty days.
And yet.
Satoru goes through the motions. He lets the students suffocate him with hugs as he laughs and subtly checks them over. He takes note of their new injuries: Maki's burns, Toge's arm, Panda's diminished size. And Yuuji...
Yuuji has two new scars on his face. He is also missing two old scars. The angular lines beneath his eyes, the scars that had once marked him as Sukuna's vessel, have vanished entirely. Satoru thinks he knows why.
"Say, Yuuji-kun," Satoru says, fighting to keep his voice casual, "you wouldn't happen to know what happened to Megumi, would you?"
It's like he's detonated a bomb. Everyone freezes, trading looks with each other. Yuuji, the poor kid, looks like a deer in headlights—no, even worse. He looks like a deer who's just watched another deer get run over. Satoru feels a flash of guilt for putting him on the spot like this.
Shoko is standing in the corner of the room. She hasn't said a word so far, but when Satoru meets her eyes, she purses her lips and shakes her head. That tells him enough—even before Yuuji begins speaking, his voice shaky and threatening to tip over into tears, Satoru knows that Megumi is as good as gone.
Yuuji's a real caretaker. He's always trying to make sure everyone else is okay. He tells Satoru to sit down before he breaks the news, and Satoru schools his face into some imitation of calm as he does so. Even as Yuuji speaks, Satoru's eyes keep drifting back to Shoko, who stares at the ground beneath her feet.
Their relationship is complicated. They're not exactly kind to each other, but Shoko is always there: steady as a rock, reliable as the dawn, with her cold hands and judgmental stare and unhealthy habits. It's more than Satoru can say for most of the people he knows.
The first time Satoru's life went to shit, Shoko was there too. He dares to say he thinks she's cutting him a bit more slack this time around. It could be because he's lost Nobara, or it could be because they've both lost Nanami, or it could be because he's somehow managed to lose Suguru a second time, in a way that's arguably worse.
Or—and Satoru thinks that this is the most likely explanation—it's because he's lost his kids.
Megumi and Tsumiki aren't Satoru's children. He's not their father. Megumi was very clear about that, even back when he only came up to Satoru's knee. They're not his children, but they've always been his kids—two whole human beings that Satoru was responsible for. When Megumi's dogs unexpectedly manifested for the first time, scaring him into hysterics, the first person he'd yelled for was Satoru. When Tsumiki fell asleep on the couch every other night because she stayed up reading, Satoru had been the one to carry her back to her room.
They're his kids. And, according to Yuuji, they're both essentially dead.
Tsumiki is a lost cause. This, Satoru already knows. The second Yuuji tells him that she's become a vessel, he sets aside all hopes of saving her. Once the cursed object inside her was activated, she wouldn't have stood a chance. Even if her body is still alive, the Tsumiki that Satoru knew—the Tsumiki who liked crime novels and astronomy and strawberry milk—is dead. She's been dead for a year and a half, ever since she fell into that coma.
Satoru hopes he never runs into the sorcerer who took her body. Seeing Megumi was bad enough. And Megumi...
Megumi is another story entirely.
One minute, Yuuji tells him. Sukuna had been in control for one minute. One minute, and he'd ripped Megumi out of Yuuji's hands, out of Satoru's hands, and taken him somewhere where they couldn't follow.
(So, correction: as it turns out, it actually only takes sixty seconds for Gojo Satoru's life to fall apart.)
NOVEMBER 21: 33 DAYS LEFT
Satoru goes back to the apartment.
Shoko calls him an idiot. Ijichi, on Shoko's orders, refuses to drive him. Satoru sees where they're coming from—really, he does—but, quite frankly, he doesn't care. Some part of him is still holding out hope that he'll walk in through the door and find both his kids at the table. Tsumiki will have set a third plate out for him, and she'll wait for him to sit down before she starts eating; Megumi will loudly complain about how he couldn't care less whether or not Satoru is there, but he'll wait too, because he won't start eating unless Tsumiki starts eating. Satoru will pull up the chair with the wobbly leg, and they'll all tuck in, and Satoru will tease Megumi and compliment Tsumiki's cooking and regale them with stories of his last mission. Tsumiki will act appropriately awed. Megumi will call him an arrogant showoff.
Satoru pushes open the door and finds the apartment dark and empty.
There's a certain stillness that comes with absence. Satoru walks down the hall and the air feels different: heavier, more oppressive, like it knows that the usual two occupants of this place won't be coming back. He peeks into Tsumiki's room and finds it unchanged from the last time he saw it. He looks into Megumi's and finds a mess—drawers open, boxes upturned, clothes thrown over the floor. Yuuji had said there was a period of time after Shibuya where he and Megumi were separated, and Megumi had been looking for him. Satoru can imagine it now: Megumi returning here from the school, stuffing a bag full of clothes and other necessities before taking off into the night to find his best friend.
The thought makes his throat go tight. He stops imagining it.
He goes to the living room next. The TV doesn't turn on when he clicks the remote. The couch lets out a small cloud of dust when he sits down on it. Then he moves to the kitchen, where he finds a single sad bowl of leftover white rice in the fridge. He pokes at it and finds it rock-hard, so he throws it out and cringes at the thud it makes when it hits the bottom of the bin.
He'd bought this apartment ten years ago, with his shiny new Special Grade money and the stipend from the school. If he walks five minutes down the street, he'll find Megumi and Tsumiki's elementary school; if he drives another ten, he'll get to their middle school. Those were his main priorities back then, when he was choosing the location—could they walk to school themselves? Was there a store nearby that they could get food from? He'd tried taking them to school once or twice, but that arrangement had never worked out. Even at eighteen, Satoru had been swamped with far too many missions to ever actually take care of a child.
For a second, Satoru curses the higher-ups. He curses the entirety of jujutsu society. If only they were all stronger, if only Satoru wasn't needed for every mission that went awry, if only everyone would've lived, then he could've spent more time with the kids. He could've raised them in practice and not just in name. He could've made it to Tsumiki's school performances. He could've showed up on time whenever the principal asked him to come in to discuss Megumi's delinquency.
He missed out on so much, and now he'll never get the chance to make up for it.
He sits down at the table. There's a thin coating of dust there, enough to prove that no one's been by in at least a couple weeks. Satoru draws a few idle pictures in it with his finger. His name. A pair of stick figures battling it out. The Southern Cross. A dog. Another dog.
He sits there, alone in the dark, and does not sleep for the rest of the night.
NOVEMBER 25: 29 DAYS LEFT
"Gojo-sensei!"
Satoru pauses in his systematic takedown of the training dummy in front of him. He turns to peer over his shoulder; Yuuji is standing on the edge of the training yard, waving Satoru over. His face is pink from cold, which is understandable, given that it's ass o'clock in the morning. The only other person crazy enough to be training right now is Maki, and she doesn't pay Satoru or Yuuji any attention as she punches clean through her dummies on the other side of the yard.
Satoru doesn't look at her. She makes him think of Toji, which makes him think of Megumi, which makes him think of tearing the world down with his own two hands. He heads over to Yuuji, who's shifting his weight between his feet nervously.
"I have something to tell you," Yuuji blurts out the second Satoru is deemed close enough. "I think Fushiguro was fighting back."
Satoru stills. For a moment, all he hears is static.
"Elaborate?" says his mouth, without any input from his brain.
This is what Yuuji tells him: the day that Sukuna ruined everything, his cursed energy output was low. It was too low—far lower than a sorcerer of either Sukuna or Megumi's calibre. Yuuji was hit head-on by Sukuna's attack and survived without even the faintest of scars, which Yuuji has taken as evidence that, somewhere inside that body, Megumi had slammed the brakes.
"He's in there, sensei," Yuuji says. There's a hard determination in his voice that wasn't there before Satoru was sealed. "I know that he's in there. So—so when you fight him—" He glances at the trail of broken training dummies in the yard, the evidence of Satoru's casual training. "—just, remember that. Please. We have to save him."
Ah, Megumi, Satoru thinks to himself, bittersweet. You made a good decision, saving this one.
Satoru would like to believe that they can bring Megumi's soul back out. Really, he would, but the fact is this: when he came out of the Prison Realm, greeted by the sight of Kenjaku in Suguru's body and Sukuna in Megumi's, there had been no struggle. There was no back-and-forth between Megumi and Sukuna, no visible fight for control like Satoru's witnessed with Yuuji.
But Yuuji believes that Megumi is in there. He believes it so completely, with a total devotion that Satoru wishes he could share. Satoru does believe, to some extent, that Megumi can be saved; after all, he's one of the most stubborn kids Satoru has ever met. He has to be in there. Satoru refuses to consider the alternative, the idea that he's lost Tsumiki and Megumi in one fell swoop. But when Megumi's been pitted against Sukuna, without contact from any of his friends or loved ones, then it's hard to say.
Satoru will find out whether or not he can save him on Christmas Eve. And if he can't, then....
He thinks about what he'll have to do—thinks about making the sign for Hollow Purple and pointing it right at Megumi's face—and feels sick to his stomach.
It would be easier if it was Yuuji. The very thought of it is poison, when Yuuji is standing right next to him and declaring his unwavering belief in Megumi, but it's the truth. Satoru's been preparing to fight Yuuji for months now, and besides, he's never known Yuuji as anything but Sukuna's vessel. But Megumi, little Megumi, the same Megumi that he would tuck into bed, the Megumi who used to demand to watch M-rated horror movies and would pretend he wasn't terrified, the Megumi who would laugh so loudly whenever his dogs flopped on top of him and buried him in fur—
Satoru doesn't know if he can do it. He will, obviously, if he has to. Everything rides on him doing it. But when it comes down to it, in the end, he doesn't know if he could live with himself in the aftermath.
"I'll do everything I can to save him," he tells Yuuji. Yuuji beams back, and sticks out a hand.
"We'll get him back, sensei," he says. "He'll be okay."
Satoru looks at his hand. There are scars there that weren't present back in June when they first met. Not for the first time, he wonders if he's the one who doomed this poor kid. Yuuji, and Yuuta before him, and Megumi before them—Satoru has a long list of kids who he tried to save by throwing them into another danger entirely.
He takes Yuuji's hand and shakes it. "He'll be okay," he promises, and he hates that it feels like a lie.
DECEMBER 1: 23 DAYS LEFT
"Hey, Yuuta," Satoru says, when he's finished affectionately kicking the shit out of his most prodigious student. Yuuta pushes himself upright, wheezing, and holds up a hand in acknowledgment. "I have a question."
"Of course, sensei."
"When you cursed Rika," Satoru starts, and Yuuta flinches a little. Satoru knows it's still a sensitive topic. Yuuta has come to terms with it now, but it's still like prodding a freshly-scarred wound. "What did it feel like?"
Yuuta blinks. "I...I'm not sure, sensei. I didn't even realise I was cursing her at the time."
Right. Duh. Satoru knew that, he knew that, it's just...
"Did it feel like you were changing the course of your own life?" he asks. Yuuta is watching him with dark eyes, a hint of worry in them; of course, he's rarely seen Satoru as serious as he is now. "You told me you think the curse was triggered when you promised to stay together forever. When you said those words, did it feel...like something changed?"
Yuuta looks out to the training field. Maki and Yuuji, their two best hand-to-hand fighters, are going at each other with gusto. Satoru watches them and feels his throat go tight with shame. Those two have changed, more than any of the other students; they're quieter, older, angrier. Stronger. They are everything that Satoru tried to protect them from.
"I guess," Yuuta says finally. "I didn't...when I promised to stay with her, I meant it with my whole heart. I guess that's why. I'm sorry, sensei, but that's really all I can tell you."
Satoru waves a hand. "No, no," he says. "My fault for asking. Thanks, Yuuta. Go get yourself a drink or something, you look awful."
He pats the kid on the head and wanders off to somewhere where no one can see him. He ends up in the shadow of a building, where he leans back against the wall and closes his eyes.
The first time Satoru ever met Megumi, his first thought had been: ugh. He looks just like his dad. His second thought had been: ugh. He acts just like me.
Sometimes, Satoru wonders if he cursed the kid.
Get stronger, he told him that day. Strong enough to keep up with me. When he said it, it had felt like he was speaking it into existence. He'd looked down at Megumi and knew, deep in his bones, that he would do everything he could to bring him up as a better version of himself.
That was probably where it started. That was probably the moment where he ruined Megumi's life. It's like a domino effect: the moment Satoru saw himself in Megumi was the moment he sealed Megumi's fate.
Here's the thing about sorcerers: they are born with power. To be born with power is to never know who you are outside of it. Satoru has only come to realise in the last few weeks that, for all that he tried to let Megumi come into his strength at his own pace, Megumi never stood a chance. In a world like this, he was always going to be seen as nothing but his power. Even Satoru, at first, had only seen his power.
Satoru rubs a hand over his eyes. "Sorry, kid," he says to the empty air. "I'll give you a proper apology the next time we meet."
DECEMBER 4: 20 DAYS LEFT
These days, Satoru has a decent amount of time to himself. He abandons his fancy penthouse apartment and spends most of his time at the Fushiguro place instead. He dusts off the furniture. Brings in flowers that he picks off the sidewalk outside. Tries to trick himself into thinking that the place feels lived in.
When he cracks open the window in Tsumiki’s room to air it out, he notices the photos taped to her wall. There aren’t very many of them—some are just scenery, some are of her and her middle school friends, and there are a few with Megumi. There is a single, blurry picture of the three of them together, taken by some stranger years ago when Satoru insisted on dragging the kids to the zoo. Satoru stares at that picture for a few seconds too long.
He asks Shoko for a favour. It’s an old request, really—he’d asked the same of her years ago, a few months after he took in the kids. If I die, he’d said back then, and Shoko had inhaled her smoke so fast she’d started coughing.
You’re asking about if you die? she’d asked, dumbfounded. You? Gojo Satoru?
Someone should tell the kid what happened to his dad, Satoru had said back, ignoring the shock in Shoko’s eyes. If there was anything he could say about Fushiguro Toji, it was that the man had reminded him that he could die. Until Toji sank that knife through his throat, Satoru had never once truly thought to make a plan for after his death.
But then Toji happened. And then Megumi and Tsumiki happened. And now Satoru can’t stop turning over every scenario in his head, thinking of all the loose ends he needs to make sure are tied up in case he kicks the bucket.
So he calls Shoko. “If the fight with Sukuna goes badly,” he starts, and she sighs. She already knows what he’s asking of her.
“You want me to do your dirty work for you?” she asks dryly. Her voice is tinny over the phone. “Yes, I know. I’ll tell him.”
Shoko does not bring up the fact that the chances of Satoru dying and Megumi living are paper-thin. For this, at least, Satoru is grateful.
DECEMBER 7: 17 DAYS LEFT
Satoru's twenty-ninth birthday passes with little fanfare. None of the students know, and he doesn't tell them. Ijichi is the first one to congratulate him. Shoko is the second, and also the last—Satoru knows that she only remembers because she overhears Ijichi. It’s fine. Satoru doesn’t take offense. He realises, with a start, that he’s missed her birthday too: it passed while he was sealed.
“Sorry I missed yours,” he tells her, as they both watch Maki and Yuuta spar on the field. “The big two-nine.”
“No one calls it that,” Shoko says idly. She’s flicking the switch of her lighter without ever letting the flame actually take form: an old habit she developed after she quit smoking, and one that she’s never quite managed to shake. “Besides, I think you’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“Bigger than your twenty-ninth birthday? And my twenty-ninth birthday? Impossible.”
Shoko snorts. It’s funny because she and Satoru don’t celebrate each other’s birthdays at all. They stopped sometime around their early twenties; Satoru's not the best at keeping track of dates, and Shoko frankly doesn't care. In fact, the last time Satoru celebrated a birthday was...
Ah, he thinks. On the field, Maki sweeps her staff out and catches Yuuta's ankles. She sends him flying with about twice the strength Satoru is used to seeing from her.
The last birthday he celebrated, aside from his own, was Megumi's fifteenth. Last year. The memory makes him feel like his ribs are caving in. He'd bought a cake, that same old coffee cake from the bakery down the street like he got every year, and he'd gotten candles and more streamers than usual to try and make up for Tsumiki's absence.
Megumi had hated it, obviously. He’s always hated his birthday—not for any sentimental reasons, but simply because he despises being the center of attention. Satoru had found that out the hard way the first time he tried celebrating Megumi’s birthday. He had, admittedly, gone a little overboard—sue him, he was trying to get on the kid’s good side—but, in his defence, what kid doesn't like huge balloons and firecrackers and things that go boom?
(Megumi. Megumi didn’t like those things. It had taken a good twenty minutes and some hurried negotiation with Tsumiki to coax Megumi out of his room, and Satoru hasn't tried doing such a big production since.)
It's then that he realises: Megumi's birthday is coming up again. Fifteen days—it's less than the time Satoru spent sealed.
"Oi, Shoko," he says. "Do you remember that bakery that Nanami always went to?"
Shoko raises a brow. "Why would I?"
A month and a half ago, Satoru could've gone and asked Nanami himself. Now, that's no longer an option.
"I'll ask Ijichi," Satoru says, instead of addressing the gaping absence of yet another friend. There's no one else on the field but them two and Maki and Yuuta, but Nanami might as well be lying on the ground in front of them for how much attention he commands. "Maybe he'll know."
"Maybe," Shoko says, noncommittal. "Why? You want a cake?"
There's another question in there, unspoken. Satoru has never cared much for his birthday before. Why now?
"It's not for me," Satoru says, and doesn't elaborate. Shoko doesn't press the issue. She flicks her lighter again, and this time she lets the flame stay on.
"Do you really think there are any bakeries still open right now?" she asks.
Satoru shrugs. "It's worth a try," he says. He hopes the bakery is still open. He hopes any bakery is still open, because if he doesn't find one, then in fifteen days' time he'll have to roll up his sleeves and make a cake himself—and, to be honest, no one wants that to happen, Satoru included. He's never been good in the kitchen.
Megumi was never great at cooking either. Satoru had always joked that he got it from him; now, the idea leaves a sour taste on his tongue.
(Tsumiki had been good at cooking. He doesn't like to think about that, either.)
DECEMBER 15: 9 DAYS LEFT
According to Megumi’s admittedly-dotty paperwork, he was born in the University of Tokyo Hospital. How Fushiguro Toji managed to pay for the birth, Satoru has no idea, but now, as he returns to the hospital, he can't help but feel a little nostalgic.
Everywhere, there are signs that people left in a rush: bedsheets thrown open, trolleys in the hall, a can left sitting at the bottom of a vending machine. It’s like everyone just stepped out for a break. When Satoru gives in to his curiosity and wanders over to the infant care unit, he finds it much the same.
He fiddles idly with the empty cribs and wonders if they’ve remodelled in the last sixteen years. Have they already replaced the room where Megumi was born? When Satoru was thirteen years old, completely unaware, was Megumi being brought into existence in one of these wards?
They’re useless thoughts. Satoru spares the empty rooms one last look before he returns to the floor he’s most familiar with. The long-term care unit looks eerie without the usual retinue of nurses pushing trolleys around.
Her name is still on the door. It makes sense, Satoru supposes—the night she woke up was the night the world ended. No one would’ve thought to replace the plaque. When he stops in front of the sixth door on the left, the name Fushiguro Tsumiki stares back at him, the characters clinical and precise.
Satoru peers inside the room. The bed is made. The countertops are bare. There’s no sign of the girl who lay inside this room for a year and a half. Tsumiki now exists only in the apartment, where her fingerprints are smeared over furniture that gathers dust.
Satoru pulls out a chair by the empty bed and sits, propping one ankle on top of his knee the way he always used to do when he visited her. He stares at the pillow for a moment. His Six Eyes tell him that there is nothing there; his stupid brain tells him that whatever’s left of Fushiguro Tsumiki might still be lingering, the way the cribs in the infant care unit had been left half-prepared and frozen in time.
“Oi, Tsumiki,” he says to the empty air. “Your brother’s causing trouble again.”
He’s spoken to her like this before. The last time it happened, it was, again, because of Megumi.
The summer after Tsumiki was cursed, Megumi had all but disappeared from the house. They'd been fighting all the time back then: the unstoppable force of Satoru's delusional optimism against the unmovable object of Megumi's terrified rage. Satoru had travelled around the world and back to look for the culprit who cursed her. At the end of May, when he came back from another mission with no leads, Megumi had thrown a pillow at his head and demanded to know what being the strongest was worth if he couldn't even save Tsumiki.
Satoru hadn't answered. Megumi was only saying it because he knew it would hurt; Satoru had waited out the storm, until Megumi came traipsing back into the house after three days of radio silence and curled up wordlessly on the couch. Satoru hadn't seen much of him for the weeks following that. They rarely saw each other at home even before Tsumiki's curse, what with Satoru's overseas missions, but that summer it felt like Satoru never saw Megumi at all. Even when he wasn't on missions, he'd come home to a dark apartment. The fridge was always empty. Megumi didn't make contact except for the occasional text to let Satoru know he hadn’t been kidnapped.
Satoru still doesn't know where he went that summer. He’d returned from an overseas mission in late August and Megumi had simply been there again. That moment is still burned into Satoru’s brain: the relief of finding Megumi on the couch, unharmed, nose buried in one of his nerdy books.
“Your hair’s getting long,” Satoru had said, because he was good at everything he did except for things like this. “I’ll cut it tomorrow.”
“I don’t need you to.”
“You think I’m subjecting a poor hairdresser to that monstrosity you call hair? Please.”
Megumi hadn’t agreed, but he hadn’t protested after that, either. The day after, Satoru had sat him down on the edge of the bathtub. It had been hot. Satoru lugged the box fan into the bathroom, even though Megumi called him an idiot for it—"When the hair goes everywhere, you’re cleaning it up,” he’d said, but he still leaned forward to catch the breeze like the little hypocrite that he was. Then Satoru had cleaned up Megumi’s hair around the edges, snipping off the remnants of those weeks that Megumi wouldn’t tell him about, and they’d both chosen to sit in silence with the low buzzing drone of the fan.
Satoru suspects that Megumi went to Shoko that summer, or even Nanami. Both of them would’ve let him crash without spilling the beans. In any case, Satoru never pushed, and Megumi never offered; it wasn't until Tsumiki's birthday that they'd had a proper conversation.
Megumi had demanded that Satoru clear his schedule for the sixteenth of September. Satoru had agreed. On the fifteenth, he gave Megumi money to go buy Tsumiki's cake while he went and got decorations; on the sixteenth, they went to visit her. Megumi let Satoru hang the bright orange streamers around Tsumiki's bed for two whole minutes before he complained that they were eyesores and ripped them down. They'd stuck seventeen candles in the cake and stood on opposite sides of the hospital bed. Satoru had sung Happy Birthday. Megumi had hurled the fallen streamers at him in an attempt to make him shut up.
On Tsumiki's seventeenth birthday, things had felt normal, if only for a moment. Satoru had stayed behind after Megumi left and talked to her about everything she’d missed, everything that she would have to catch up on.
Now, more than a year later, he does it again. He tells the empty room about what’s happened, about the world that Megumi had tried so hard to protect Tsumiki from. He talks about how Megumi’s made friends—real friends, yes, aren’t you proud—who are willing to die for him. He talks about how Megumi’s grown so much in just the last six months. He talks until his voice goes hoarse, and then he clears his throat and stands.
He pats the edge of the bed as he gets up. “Wish him a happy birthday, won’t you?” he says. “If we both say it, he’s bound to hear one of us.”
He pauses right before he steps out the door. He’d missed her birthday this year—her eighteenth. He was in America at the time, and it had taken two straight hours of pestering Megumi over text for him to send Satoru a picture of him at Tsumiki’s bedside.
“Happy birthday to you too, Tsumiki,” Satoru says quietly. As always, he is making up for his mistakes long after they’ve happened. “Sorry that I’m so late.”
The hospital room is silent. Satoru walks out the door and doesn’t look back.
DECEMBER 20: 4 DAYS LEFT
He digs up the old candles from the apartment, in the drawer where Tsumiki kept them. There are still parts of Tokyo that remain whole—Satoru could easily go hunting for a pack of new candles that aren’t wonky and half-melted, but he feels like he owes Tsumiki this much.
The bakery that Nanami liked so much is within one of the colonies. Satoru pops in for a look and finds that the shelves have already been picked to bits. It’s obviously been abandoned since Halloween, and whatever edible food was left has long since been snapped up by the Culling Game players.
Satoru sorts through his options. Shoko is only marginally better at cooking and baking than he is, so she’s out. Ijichi too. As for the students—they’re all terrible cooks, save for Yuuji, and Satoru can’t bring himself to tell Yuuji that Megumi turns sixteen in two days’ time.
He doesn’t think Yuuji actually knows when Megumi’s birthday is. None of the students do, except maybe for Maki, because the Zen’in had tried to come for Megumi on every single one of his birthdays until Satoru made it clear that the sale was off.
So Satoru’s on his own again. What’s new? He scrounges the supermarkets, grimacing when he finds expired milk and eggs. He finally hits gold with a boxed cake mix. Triple chocolate fudge, the box proclaims. It looks disgustingly sweet. Megumi would’ve hated it.
Satoru brings it home anyway, along with the extra ingredients that the box says he needs to mix it with. He puts it on the kitchen counter, right in the middle, and leaves it there for two whole days.
Looking at it makes his chest hurt. Not looking at it hurts more.
DECEMBER 22: 2 DAYS LEFT
The cake turns out slightly sludgy. When Satoru takes it out of the oven, it’s uneven and bumpy, with some parts that look suspiciously underbaked. Satoru shrugs and pops the candles in anyway. Sixteen of them, sorely mismatched, dotted around the edges of a shitty box-mix cake. Satoru peers into the candle box and finds an old white dog-shaped cake topper at the bottom.
Tsumiki had bought that cake topper for Megumi’s eighth birthday. Satoru remembers how she’d asked him what Megumi’s ‘invisible pets’ looked like; he’d ruffled her hair and told her they were huge dogs, as tall as she was, but loyal and fiercely protective. Tsumiki had nodded thoughtfully. Months later, she’d stuck the dog topper on Megumi’s cake with a proud smile.
Satoru takes the topper out now and puts it right in the middle of the cake. It lists slightly to the left. He pushes it back upright and watches it tilt again. Clearly it’s a lost cause.
He lights the candles. Arranges the cake in front of Megumi's chair so that it looks like there's someone sitting there to blow them out. He walks over to the other side of the table, which is his usual spot when it comes to the kids' birthdays—normally, he stands here with his phone out, recording as he warbles out Happy Birthday in the most tone-deaf voice he can manage.
Now, though, Satoru doesn't pull out his phone. There's nothing to record. He doesn't sing, either, because that feels like he's tipping just a little bit too far into delusion. He just hums softly to himself, tapping his nails on the counter to the beat, and watches the candles burn.
When the wax threatens to touch the cake, Satoru blows the candles out and returns them to the box. Then he stands in the dark kitchen and stares at the cake.
The first cut should be given to Megumi. Satoru has to do it instead—he takes out a knife and cuts the cake into a neat ten slices, ignoring the way his throat goes tight and his eyes start to burn. He sets aside one slice for Megumi and another for Tsumiki. Then he hesitates.
Megumi wouldn't care if Satoru got a slice or not, but Tsumiki would. After Megumi was done cutting the cake, she'd hand Satoru a fork and insist that he have a slice as well. So Satoru goes ahead and sets aside a third slice, too. He'll eat it later tonight.
As for the rest...
Satoru puts his hands on his hips. He likes sweets, but he'll admit that eating an entire cake is a bit much, even for him. He's lucky he knows a gaggle of growing teenagers.
He takes out his phone and sends off a quick message to the school's group chat.
Gojo Satoru: anyone want cake?
Gojo Satoru: triple chocolate fudge flavour!!!
Gojo Satoru: (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Zen'in Maki: you are a grown man
Okkotsu Yuuta: cake??
Itadori Yuuji: sure sensei i'll take cake! :D
Itadori Yuuji: why do u have cake tho?
Satoru's fingers hesitate over the keyboard.
Gojo Satoru: no reason!
No one seems to pick up on the lie. Yuuji accepts the excuse easily, and the other students move on. Apparently, Satoru's sweet tooth and erratic nature are enough for them to believe that he'd somehow acquire a cake in the middle of the apocalypse for no particular reason. Satoru divvies up the remaining slices for his students, then pauses as the realisation hits him.
He looks up, at Megumi's slice. He'd left the dog topper in that one.
"Yo, Megumi," he says. "Is this the first time you've shared your birthday cake with a friend?"
There's no answer, obviously. The dog topper stares back at him, faded eyes unblinking. But the more Satoru thinks about it, the more sure he is: Megumi has never shared his birthday cake with a friend before. It's only ever been Tsumiki and Satoru, and occasionally Nanami and Shoko if they needed help finishing it. Not once has Megumi ever put away a slice in a plastic container to bring to his friends at school.
"You antisocial little jerk," Satoru mutters fondly. "The one time you have friends, and you're not even here to eat it with them."
He packs the slices into takeaway containers. Then he eats his own slice. He doesn't cry, but it's a near thing, and when he's done he puts his head in his hands and forces himself to breathe.
Megumi's sixteen today. Wherever he is, Satoru hopes that he's okay.
Somewhere in the back of a borrowed mind, a faint memory twitches.
Sukuna raises a brow. "Oh?"
Beside him, Uraume looks up sharply. "Sukuna-sama?"
Sukuna waves them off. Fushiguro Megumi is nothing more than an afterthought at this point; the boy's soul is like a vase that's been filled with water and then left to sink. He's got no air left to push back at Sukuna, no bubbles to rise to the surface—and yet.
Sukuna's already got what he wanted from the boy, but it seems Fushiguro is still finding ways to entertain him. He tilts his head for a moment, listening to whatever faint thoughts are going through Fushiguro's mind right now. It doesn't seem like Fushiguro is even aware of the fact that he's thinking. What Sukuna is experiencing now is simply a memory, brought on instinctively by...something.
Sukuna listens harder. Then, slowly, his lips creep upward in a grin.
"Uraume," he says. "You know that I took you in for your cooking skills."
The words bring back memories from a thousand years ago, of Uraume serving up dishes of rice and meat cooked so perfectly you'd never be able to tell it was human. Uraume bows their head, likely recalling the same memories.
"Indeed, Sukuna-sama," they say.
"Have you ever tried your hand at baking?"
A pause. "I do not believe so, Sukuna-sama."
"Today is a good day to start," Sukuna says idly, adjusting his sleeves. Fushiguro's memories flash before him like reflections in water, able to be dispersed by the simple touch of a finger; Sukuna watches out of idle curiosity. He sees a series of quiet celebrations, of cakes with single candles and two presents stacked neatly on the table. He sees Gojo Satoru.
Interesting, Sukuna thinks. Very interesting.
"Is there anything in particular that Sukuna-sama would like?" Uraume asks.
Sukuna hums. He waves away the memories, and Fushiguro Megumi's soul sinks just that much deeper. Sukuna's made an ocean trench of their shared body, and he watches as the echo of Fushiguro Megumi grazes the bottom.
"A cake, perhaps," Sukuna says, and smiles with all his teeth. "It's Fushiguro Megumi's birthday, Uraume. We should celebrate, don't you agree?"