Chapter Text
The death of six young sorcerers places Satoru on trial. It’s a rushed affair that ends with him barely skirting probation and with the task of finding replacements. Satoru standing in front of the committee, Utahime, Yaga, Gakuganji, a few others, clenches his jaw when his task is presented to him. He cuts Gakuganji off when the man starts to read off potential names.
“Are we not going to acknowledge that the curse was able to kill six of my students? It was inaccurately reported as a swarm of grade threes I sent them out together for team building and they got smacked with a grade one borderline special grade.”
Satoru’s mouth trembles with anger.
“Miscalculations happen,” Gakuganji says.
“No. Not like this. Its been a fucking pattern.”
“Gojo,” Yaga says. “Calm down.”
“They killed my students,” Satoru snaps. “They killed them because I kept Yuta alive.”
Gakuganji cracks his fingers, each pop more condescending than its predecessor. “Well, you seem to understand what you did wrong and can prevent this in the future.”
“Wrong? I didn’t do shit wrong.”
Utahime carefully places the tablet she’d been reading down in front of her. “Gojo, we’re being generous with our punishment. Take this as an opportunity to fix this.”
“Fix it.” Satoru stands straight. “Yeah. Okay. I’m so glad that they’ve taught you to roll over, Iori.”
He marches out of the room, before he marches back in and snatches the list from Gakuganji’s crooked fingers.
Utahime finds him later. He’d been sent out on a mission not ten minutes after he'd left the committee chamber, still pissed and cruel in the ways he dealt with curses. Satoru came back to campus instead of going home where his kids would come home hours later. The coffee machine in the teachers break room groans as it churns out a brew for him. There’s no more creamer in the empty jug in the fridge, so Satoru digs crystalized honey out of the cabinets to add in with eleven packets of sugar.
“I’m not a dog.”
Satoru doesn’t turn towards Utahime where she speaks from the door. He stirs his coffee carefully. Rips through the tops of more sugar and dumps them in. Stirs again, then sucks on the spoon and leaves it to stain a brown oval into the countertop.
“Satoru, I’m not a dog.”
He ignores her still until she’s huffing and crossing the room to grab Satoru’s wrist. Her fingers are rebounded, but she’s facing him now. Satoru looks up at her slowly. Mouth pressed into a severe line.
“You aren’t?”
“No,” Utahime scoffs. “How dare you say so.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
Satoru takes a sip of his gritty coffee. It burns his tongue and scalds his throat. He sits in one of the old upholstered chairs, staring past Utahime. She watches him silently before sighing and leaning against the counter.
“These processes are set in place to keep people accountable, Satoru. Don’t tell me it's a ‘rules for thee but not for me’ situation.”
Satoru takes another sip. “I didn’t kill those kids.”
“They were under your tutelage.”
“I was in a different country,” Satoru hisses. “I sent them together to watch each other’s backs on a mission that should have been a walk in the park. I gave them money to get dinner and splurge because I knew they’d be done with time to spare.”
“Gojo…”
“I have the paperwork,” Satoru says. “I have the mission specs. I have the proof. And not just from this time.”
“I…don’t know what to say.”
Satoru smiles tightly at her. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
Another burning sip. Satoru’s hands are shaking, a jittery motion that makes the cup slide across his bottom lip.
“Satoru,”Utahime says. Her voice is soft. “I’m sorry, okay? I know how you feel–”
“No you don’t.” Satoru gets up. He dumps the rest of the coffee into the sink. “And that’s fine. How are you supposed to understand me?”
“Basic empathy,” Utahime offers.
“I don’t need pity,” Satoru says. “I need my allies to act like it.”
“Allies?”
“Are we friends?” Satoru crushes the cup in his hand, tosses it into the trash.
Utahime opens her mouth. Closes it. Flounders and flushes.
“You know the higher ups are rotten,” Satoru says. “You know they manipulate the system for their advantage alone. Why do you–”
Satoru shakes his head, rubs at the scar on his forehead. Utahime is watching him almost serenely.
“Why do you, Satoru? If I’m a dog, what are you?”
“You’re right.” Satoru laughs. “I’m no better, I’m worse! They’ll put me down after I’ve sat, rolled, and barked. When they’ve grown bored of jacking off to my obedience.”
“Satoru!”
He shrugs an exaggerated motion, flinging his hands out. “You know what? I’d kill them right now and sleep like a baby in my seals.”
Utahime cringes away from him, holding an arm up between them. Satoru grins at her, jabs a finger at the space she’s putting between them like that means anything .
“That’s why, Utahime.”
Silence layers between them, interrupted only by Utahime’s pathetic attempts to calm her breathing without clueing Satoru into what she’s doing.
“I didn’t come in here to fight with you,” Utahime finally says. “I wanted to talk.”
“You wanted me to apologize,” Satoru says. “I’m not feeling it.”
Utahime’s fists curl. “Fine.”
“Have you seen Shoko today?” Satoru asks, he puts his hands in his pockets. Still trembling. Maybe from the caffeine on an empty stomach.
“Of course,” Utahime says. She looks chagrin.
“Good. She misses you.”
Utahime nods, looking at the floor, her hands relaxing. “If I knew her any less I’d ask her to come to Kyoto.”
“Ha, yeah. I’m not–” Satoru cuts himself off as a wave of dizziness sends his equilibrium slanting sharply. Satoru feels his stomach in the back of his throat. His face gets numb and heavy. “I’m going to have a seizure.”
Satoru reaches for the nearest piece of furniture, gets a hand around it and halfway to the floor before Utahime is reaching for him. Infinity flickers around Satoru, buffeting Utahime away. Satoru doesn’t have much conscious control over it at this moment. The technique is registering Utahime as a threat by itself. It will fizzle out when Satoru loses consciousness, whether he wants that or not.
“What do I do, Satoru?!”
Satoru lays down, on his side, he doesn’t have medication on him to stop the seizure, nor the capacity to tell Utahime to time it. He’s down in recovery position, letting his jaw loosen to spare his teeth or dribble vomit and foam if it comes to that. He’ll be alright. Utahime’s panicked face is the last thing he really registers before he’s coming back out of it to Shoko counting his pulse out loud. Her mouth moves in the shape of Satoru’s name before his vision dips out again.
The room is different when Satoru becomes aware for the second and final time. The furniture has been pushed away, a collection of medical supplies litter the floor and Megumi is sitting by Satoru, a hand wrapped around Satoru’s wrist.
“What?” Satoru mumbles. “Why aren’t you at school?”
Megumi whips his head around to look at Satoru’s face. “Shoko, he’s awake. And talking.”
The click of Shoko’s heels reverberates through the floor. She kneels down and cups Satoru’s face. She shines a light in his eyes, frowning deeply at what she sees.
“Your pupils aren’t reacting. Can you see?”
“Yeah,” Satoru mumbles. “Why’s Megumi not at school?”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“Siezure.”
Shoko tucks her light into the pocket of her coat. “Cluster seizures, Satoru. Four, back to back, no recovery period. The longest was more than five minutes. That’s status epilepticus.”
“Mrhg.”
Megumi’s hand is sweaty where he’s gripping Satoru. He squeezes hard enough that Satoru’s fingers twitch.
“Do you feel dizzy?” Shoko asks.
“Sort of,” Satoru says.
“Vision?”
“Fine.”
“Breathing?”
Satoru’s chest shudders. “Feel out of breath.”
“Okay.”
Shoko gets up. Her heels click away. Satoru shifts his head. Someone had stuffed his own uniform top under his cheek, leaving him in his white undershirt. It must have been a battle to get off. He aches as he moves.
“Megumi,” Satoru rasps. “Is the school day over?”
“No,” Megumi says. His hair is covering his down turned face. “You weren’t stopping. They needed to give you medicine to stop it, but stupid Infinity wasn’t letting anyone in.”
“So…”
“He had to administer lorazepam to you,” Shoko says. She kneels again at Satoru’s side, slips the mask covering of a portable oxygen can over Satoru’s mouth and instructs him how to breathe.
Satoru can see Megumi’s jaw working from under the dark cover of his hair. He still hasn’t let go of Satoru’s wrist even as he scoots to get out of Shoko’s way as she feels Satoru’s throat and checks his heart.
“Fuck, Satoru,” she murmurs when she leans back. “I thought you were going into cardiac arrest at one point.”
It does feel like Satoru’s chest has spent a lengthy stay under Megumi’s elephant.
“How do you administer lor–that?” Satoru asks when the oxygen mask has been removed.
Shoko holds up a needle, waggling it between her fingers. “This. Right into your thigh.”
“Oh.”
That explains the unpleasant feeling throbbing in his muscle there.
Megumi lets go of his wrist. Satoru’s hand falls onto the floor with a loud slapping sound and a sting across his knuckles. The boy gets up and leaves, shoving past Yaga who Satoru only notices now. Utahime is still there too, sitting on the floor, chewing her mouth bright pink.
Satoru wheezes on his next exhale and Shoko replaces the mask.
“I think it was stress,” Shoko says when Satoru is finally able to sit up. “You’ve been taking your meds, right?”
“Yeah,” Satoru says. “I took them this morning.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not good,” Shoko says. “When was the last time you saw your doctor?”
“I don’t know, a few months.” Satoru rolls his neck.
“You should go back,” Shoko says. “See what’s going on, maybe look into a new prescription. Utahime said you were upset?”
“Yeah,” Satoru says. “I was pissed.”
Shoko nods silently. “Get an appointment.”
“I will. I’m going to go find my kid, I think I fucked up. Sorry for the inconvenience everyone.”
“We’re not letting you wander around yet, Satoru,” Shoko says. She’s cleaning up her supplies with one hand, the other reaching for Satoru like she wants to yank him back down onto the floor.
Walking is a bit stiff on the first few steps, but Satoru brushes off Shoko’s outstretched hands.
“Yaga, stop him,” Shoko admonishes. Her fingers barely miss grabbing the cuff of Satoru’s pants.
Yaga puts a firm hand on Satoru’s shoulder before he can get to the door, redirecting him to the chair from earlier, now halfway across the room. Satoru grits his teeth, but sinks down when he’s pushed.
“I need to go find Megumi before he chooses shadows over his current existence.”
“I’m sure he’s with the other kids,” Yaga says.
“The others are here?”
Yaga looks regretful. “Yes.”
“Oh my god, why?” Satoru puts his head in his hands.
“Satoru, I couldn’t give you life saving medication, what was I supposed to do?” Shoko snaps. She’s still cleaning stuff up.
“Not show all my kids my seizing body,” Satoru groans. “And isn’t Tsumiki the little doctor?”
The room gets quiet. Satoru looks up from his palms.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“You wouldn’t let her or Yuta past Infinity,” Yaga says. “We went to her initially.”
“Oh.” Satoru swallows. “Why–where are they now?”
Shoko finally gets off the floor. She sets her bag on the counter and fills a cup of water for Satoru. She has to wrap his uncooperating fingers around it.
“They didn’t really like looking at your seizing body,” she says. “Drink that entire cup.”
Satoru drinks the water. He’s being watched like he’s about to go up in flames. By all but Utahime, who won’t look at him, and Satoru doesn’t have the energy to convince her that it wasn’t her fault.
“How do you feel?” Shoko asks when he’s done.
“Kinda like I’m gonna hurl,” Satoru says. He leans back into the sinking cushioning. “Fuck me.”
Shoko smiles dryly at him, she takes the cup and quietly asks Yaga to find a bowl or trashcan for Satoru to hold. He’s given a little trashcan that was under the sink. Satoru curls an arm around it, presses his face against the cool plastic. It smells slightly like old food.
“We might want to take you to the hospital this evening,” Shoko says. She’s sitting on the arm rest of the chair.
“Maybe,” Satoru murmurs.
The silence is heavier this time.
“Do you…want to?”
“Maybe.”
Shoko sighs. “Okay, we–”
“No,” Satoru interrupts her. “I don’t want to go. Just–let me sit here for a little bit.”
Eventually she moves away from him to talk quietly with Yaga and Utahime. Satoru cradles the trashcan like it’s a baby, blinking rapidly as his vision tunnels and goes out.
“Fuck,” Satoru breathes. “I can’t see, Shoko.”
The familiar smell of her hands enters Satoru’s nose as she cups his face. Shoko peels back his eyelids, he hears the light click on. Then off. Shoko makes a frustrated noise.
“Your pupils are reacting now. What the fuck?”
“I dunno,” Satoru says. He’s exhausted. So tired he feels a little insane with it.
The hot cold sensation of Shoko’s reverse curse technique makes Satoru’s stomach jump and Infinity fizzle along the left side of his body. Shoko hisses at him to keep it in check, and presses her hands to his temples. She cradles his skull for three minutes.
“Better?”
“No,” Satoru says.
“Is there any input?”
“No,” Satoru says. “Completely dark.”
Six Eyes is all but absent. A little flicker buried somewhere in the back of Satoru’s brain.
“Fuck.”
Shoko’s hands curl into his hair, nails digging into his scalp.
“Hey, it’ll be okay. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”
The trashcan is shoved back into Satoru’s arms. He clutches it as Shoko moves away.
“Never after something so…violent,” Shoko murmurs.
Nerve grating silence. Satoru digs his fingers into plastic.
“What do we do?” Satoru asks. His voice is level. “What do we do if this happens in the middle of a fight? What do we do if this cripples me?”
Silence.
“Hello?!”
“Satoru,” Yaga speaks up. “If it cripples you, then it does.”
“No,” Satoru says. “I don’t accept that. I’ve done everything I can to fix this, I’m not getting taken out for something like this.”
“Satoru–”
“No. I refuse to let Toji do this to me!”
“It's not just Toji. Your–”
“I’m still built for it!” Satoru snaps. “I’m still built for my technique even if it wears on me. I was fine before I got stabbed through the fucking face!”
“That’s what happens when you receive life altering injuries that you neglect, Satoru,” Shoko says, her voice razor thin and cutting. “Now calm down. We don’t need you seizing again.”
Satoru simmers. He sinks further against the chair, swallows down bitter, coffee flavored bile. He wonders if he should just vomit. Sometimes that’s enough to kick his body back into gear.
“I’m better than this,” Satoru says through grit teeth.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Yaga says.
“It’s been so long,” Satoru mourns. “It’s been years. Why is he still hurting me?”
And that does break coming out of Satoru’s mouth. Burns him in shame as if comes out pitiful and wounded. Satoru turns his face away from where he thinks people are standing in the room. He wonders if the rest of the campus knows Satoru Gojo has spent an indeterminate amount of time crippled on the breakroom floor.
“Keep the kids away,” Satoru says. “I’m going to sleep.”
“...because Infinity stayed up when he was unconscious? That’s my only working theory. Put double strain on his brain.”
Shoko’s voice is muzzy. The sound of sleet spits against the window across the room. Satoru opens his eyes. He can see out of his left normally and with Six Eyes out of his right. Satoru lets out a sigh.
“I can see. Kind of.”
Yaga turns to look at him, approaching in two quick strides. He cups Satoru’s face, turns it one way and then the other.
“Your eyes do look clearer. Shoko?”
Out comes the light. Flash bangs Satoru so badly he jerks and hisses. Shoko purses her lips.
“I don’t know. They are clearer. Six Eyes?”
“Back,” Satoru says.
“Okay. Can you refresh your brain?”
“Why…didn’t I do that before?”
Shoko’s eyebrows go to her hairline. “Could you?”
“I don’t know,” Satoru says in wonder. “I think my brain cells are dying.”
“Try.”
Satoru’s little brain refreshers are so unconscious at this point that it makes him pause as he tries to remember how to kick it into gear. And he supposes it wasn’t completely gone, because it just ramps up instead of coming screaming back to flood through his system. Light, and blobby shapes come through his right eye and Six Eyes sharpens to its usual flare. This is only slightly agonizing for a moment before Satoru’s tired brain assimilates back. It takes two seconds. A long time. Satoru can normally refresh in one half of half a second.
“It’s not back yet in my right eye, but it’s getting more input.”
“Good,” Shoko says. “Why did Infinity stay up?”
“I don’t know,” Satoru confesses. “I’ve been practicing trying to keep it up while unconscious. Maybe my hard work finally paid off.”
“In detriment to your health,” Yaga rumbles.
“Still trying to figure out how to have my cake and eat it too with this one,” Satoru says.
He smiles something strained at the three clustered faces. Satoru is tired of being here, of watching worried, scared, and purposefully blank faced, crowd him. The trashcan is now lukewarm. Satoru drops it onto the floor.
“Utahime, why are you still here?”
She startles at being addressed, then frowns at Satoru. “Are you really asking me that?”
“Sure.” Satoru gestures at the window, dark, streaked with the golden light of the outdoor lamps. “It's late, Kyoto is pretty far off. You don’t want to miss the train.”
“The train is gone,” Utahime says.
“Ohoh, you’re staying here?” Satoru wiggles his brows. “Gonna be a good night in the morgue.”
“Shut up,” Utahime hisses. “I hate you.”
“I know,” Satoru says.
“Stop it you two,” Shoko sighs. She rubs an exhausted hand up her face, cupping it around her eyes. “Just. Stop.”
Utahime takes a breath, looks down. “Sorry, Shoko.”
“We’re all tired,” Yaga interjects. “There’s a bunch of scared, hungry kids in my office right now. Tell us what we need to do Shoko so we can do it.”
“It’s up to Satoru if he wants to stay here or go home. Personally, I think you should stay here, but I know the kids make things hard.”
“I can stay here,” Satoru says. “The kids will be alright on their own tonight.”
Shoko jerks a nod. “Great. Pick a room close to someone. I’m going home.”
When it’s just Satoru and Yaga the man turns to Satoru.
“One day you’re going to need Utahime, you should play nice.”
“I do not want to have this conversation right now,” Satoru says. He lets his head fall back against the hard back of the chair. “How scared are the kiddos?”
Scared enough that when Satoru staggers into the door of Yaga’s office, Tsumiki almost takes him off his feet careening into his chest.
“Sorry,” Satoru says. “Sorry, sorry.”
Yuta looks haggard in the light from the lamp on Yaga’s desk. He stood when Satoru opened the door, took an aborted step forward and then lingered until Satoru smiled at him. And then he comes and lets Satoru put his hand in his hair. Megumi, sitting on the floor in a corner with White, won’t look at Satoru.
One doctor's appointment later and Satoru is on a new set of meds and back on missions. Yaga had done everything he could to keep Satoru grounded, but a day off for a doctor’s appointment was all he could get. It’s been a busy season. The weather has been a confusing mix of biting cold and warm days, stirring up infestations and making life generally more miserable. Life at home is also stressing Satoru out. The kids are being weird. Tsumiki and Yuta are walking on eggshells around him and Megumi is indifferent to everything .
But like anything under strain, something is bound to snap.
“Dad,” Tsumiki says one afternoon when Satoru comes banging in from France. She takes the bag of goodies he offers her and sets it aside. Crossing her arms over her chest, Tsumiki lets out a shaking sigh. “You’re being stupid.”
Satoru blinks at her. “What?”
Tsumiki raises a brow at him, a habit she picked up from Shoko. “You’re being stupid.”
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Miki,” Satoru chuckles. “Too many souvenirs for one week?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Dad,” Tsumiki sighs. “You need to take a break. This isn’t good for you.”
“I’m okay,” Satoru assures. “Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Do you know how many times you’ve said that to me?” Tsumiki says. “It’s…you’re such a liar .”
“Tsumiki,” Satoru breathes. “I’m not lying.”
“You are. You always do. I’m not a baby. You can tell me the truth”
“I–”
“It's not protecting me either!” Tsumiki swipes a hand between them. “How do you think it feels to think you’re okay, because that’s what you say , and then watching you seize for almost nine minutes out of nowhere?”
“I don’t–”
“I know you can’t help somethings,” Tsumiki says before Satoru can continue. She refolds her arms, brow crumpled, “but you could at least try to understand what we’re feeling.”
Satoru looks down at his socked feet, choking suddenly on a burning ball of emotion and hurt that crawls up his throat. Tsumiki has always made Satoru feel like a normal person. She doesn’t need him because he’s Satoru Gojo, just because he’s Satoru, her dad. She’s so good at making him feel human. And now she’s staring at him with something close to the looks he gets from his peers and students, telling him he’s not capable of understanding her emotions. Satoru covers his mouth quickly before a sound can come out of him.
“Dad?”
“I feel you, Miki,” Satoru rasps.
“...really? So you’ll take some time off?”
Satoru stares at the floor harder, wishing he’d kept his eyes wrapped. “Its never that simple.”
Tsumiki makes a frustrated sound. She paces off down the hall before pivoting on her foot to look back at him. “Well you’re being a stupid liar!”
She runs up the stairs leaving Satoru trying to get answers out of the floorboards.
Satoru makes dinner alone that night in a house that’s unnaturally quiet. Yuta at least sits at the dining table to work through his math. He has to though, he’s god awful at it. Satoru quietly helps him with the problems, leaning over Yuta’s shoulder feeling disconnected from his body as he murmurs about quadratic equations. Yuta is in a year lower math class and he still struggles to understand what Satoru is saying.
Megumi gets home from baseball, goes to his room, puts a door between himself and Satoru’s greeting, and hasn’t come out since.
And Tsumiki hasn’t made a reappearance down the stairs.
“Here go,” Satoru says as he slides Yuta a plate.
The food is half burnt, a casualty of Satoru’s distracted mind. Yuta smiles tightly at him. Satoru raps his knuckles against Megumi’s door a few times before he gives up and covers both Megumi and Tsumiki’s plates. They’ll know where to find them in the fridge.
Satoru and Yuta eat in silence. He still keeps an eye on Yuta’s food intake, not as harshly as before but bad days bring out bad habits. Satoru has to push his own nausea down and eat at a steady pace. His bad day shouldn’t bring out bad habits in others.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Yuta offers when they’re finished. He’s whispering like he can’t find it in himself to speak loudly into the quiet house.
“No,” Satoru says. “Leave them. It’s fine.”
“Co-cool. Uhm. I–”
“Do you think I’m a liar?” Satoru asks.
Yuta swallows. “Well. Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Night, sleep, space, tends to heal some wounds, but in the morning Tsumiki doesn’t speak to him as he herds the kids out the door for school. Aimee and Jackson are waiting for her at the curb. Aimee notices something wrong immediately, and Jackson–a new friend of Tsumiki’s–sends a dark look at Satoru. The boys join them without much fanfare. Yuta is the only one that sends a stilted wave back at Satoru.
Yaga finds Satoru in the middle of a dojo, sweating a spot in the middle of his shirt, staring down at his wrapped hands.
“You’re scaring the students.”
“I’m not a teacher today,” Satoru says.
“You will be a teacher tomorrow though.”
Yaga picks his way across the room. Around the mess Satoru has made.
“Did you have to do this?”
“Well there was nothing big to blow up,” Satoru says.
Satoru can see his old teacher through the mirrors that wrap around the room. He examines Satoru like he’s a bomb about to go off. Satoru is better than that though. The only things broken in this room are things designed to be broken. Satoru is leaking sweat and cursed energy, but nothing has manifested.
“What is it?” Yaga asks him.
“Oh, nothing, my kids just hate me.”
“Hate you? I find that hard to believe.”
Satoru huffs a humourless laugh. He peels his shirt off, tosses it onto the floor and walks over to his duffle bag. It’s been slumped against the wall Satoru had chucked it at nearly four hours ago. He digs out a water bottle and a towel he accidentally stole from a hotel in Peru.
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?” Yaga asks.
Satoru ruffles the towel through his hair, grimacing behind the cover of his forearm. “I’m a liar.”
“I’d say ‘prone to white lies’,” Yaga hums.
“Great. Thanks.”
“Satoru,” Yaga sighs. “You’re brashly honest when it comes to everything but yourself.”
“Then it shouldn’t matter.”
“I highly doubt anyone thinks that.”
Satoru looks at him. “It’s so much easier if people just…didn’t care. I know that’s so much easier for everyone anyways. Kento, Mei Mei, Utahime, the Higher Ups, they don’t care, they eat up the shit I feed them and everyone is happier for it.”
“Why is it easier?”
“Becuase I won’t have to worry about them worrying.”
Yaga laughs. A full bellied thing that makes Satoru bristle.
“What’s funny?”
“Satoru, it's not your place to police people’s emotions. You can’t, especially not people who care about you.”
“I know,” Satoru scowls. “But they’re kids.”
“Smart kids.”
Very smart kids.
Satoru sighs. “I don’t know how to fix this one. I can’t give them what they want.”
“Then you can’t give them what they want,” Yaga says. “But you can give them something. Your kids love you. They’ll come around.”
“Sure.”
“Clean this up, and stop moping. I need to show you something about a relic found in Alberta.”
Satoru sniffs, nods, and bends down to repack his bag. Yaga walks out of the room and when Satoru’s sure he’s gone he stays crouched on the floor, wraps his arms around himself and swallows back the soul consuming desire to weep.
Things don’t get better. They don’t get better because Satoru gets busier. The Higher Ups don’t budge. He misses one of Megumi’s final baseball games of the season and when he tries to ask about it Megumi tells him point blank that he doesn’t deserve to know. He arrives late at a career day for Tsumiki and she doesn’t smile at him the entire time. Maybe it’s because he gets up in front of a room full of people and lies through his fucking teeth. His only moments of peace at home are working through algebra with Yuta or burying himself in his bedding.
Satoru is miserable. A misery that drags at everything he does, that makes his Purples doubly devastating. He’s back to sleeping in Yaga’s office any chance he gets, including when he could go home.
Satoru takes out of country missions with a buttload of complaining now. He tries to fight for himself with the Higher Ups, but things are nasty out there and Satoru is more or less keeping the sorcerer world from folding under the slightest pressure. So he’s in America, down in some crappy town built on peanut economics fighting a regenerative curse when his phone rings. Satoru gets the device out of his pocket, a touch screen that came onto the market recently, just to glance at it. It’s Megumi’s school. Horror fills Satoru and he answers. He gets the gist of it over a connection struggling over several thousand miles that’s only getting through at all because Satoru’s phone isn’t entirely normal. The gist is: Megumi, fight, blood, angry parents, refusal to just let the kid leave, come get him now or expulsion. The curse throws a bus at Satoru. It crumples around Infinity and Satoru steps around it only to get hit with a fucking tractor. The curse forces him out of the sky into the burnt out shell of a damn peanut factor. It spews a mouthful of sharpheaded seed pods that Infinity is being stupid about.
Satoru’s phone rings again.
Megumi’s school.
Satoru lets it ring through, fires off Red at the curse, ducks behind a conveyor belt when more seeds come pelting towards him at the speed of sound. It’s getting faster too.
The phone rings a third time.
“Give me five damn minutes," Satoru breathes. He lets it ring out then desperately swipes through his contacts. He puts the phone to his ear, holds it with his shoulder and leaps into the air to get above the curse.
“Come on,” he mutters into the phone as he fires down Red and Red and more Red. “Pick up.”
“...Gojo.”
“Oh thank fuck! Nanami, Nanamin, Kento, the Sun To My Sky–” Satoru pauses to drop a kick onto the curse, sending it careening across the factory floor.
“What–are you fighting a curse?”
“Yeah!” Satoru says. He ducks a flying hunk of machinery.
“Why are you calling me?”
“I need a favor, like super super bad. I will pay you, or delete your number from my contacts, or get you a million boring sandwiches if you do it for me.”
“ No.”
Satoru charges the curse, clapping his palms together to teleport behind the thing and the cloud of seeds it’s surrounded by. He hits it again, two kicks this time, drenched in his power. It won’t die.
“Kento, please . I know I’m a pain in the ass, but I need help.”
Another motherfucking tractor folds itself around Infinity. It pushes Satoru back hard enough he slams into the wall on the opposite side of the room.
“Ow,” Satoru groans, rolling his neck, taking the phone from his ear to glance at it for damage. “Are you still there?”
“You need help?” Kento’s voice sounds distant and not just because he is distant.
“Yes,” Satoru says.
He steps around the tractor and starts to conjure up Purple. He’s sick of this shit. The curse screams an outraged cloud of seeds in his direction that shreds the metal wall behind Satoru.
“What do you need?”
“I need you to get Megumi from school for me. He got in trouble and they refused to release him alone.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes! I’m going to lose you. But he goes to Ando Middle.”
“Okay. His siblings?”
“They can get home by themselves. I’ll text Tsumiki about Gumi.”
“Right.”
“Thank you, Kento,” Satoru breathes. “Let me know what you want and I’ll make it happen. Laters!”
Satoru hangs up, lets the phone fall onto the floor and fires off Purple. It hits the little weak spot in the curse’s left armpit that Satoru had finally located on his last attack. The thing irrupts like the world's largest, grossest dandelion, and it doesn’t reform. But the building, a metric ton of steel, shakes and groans and creaks. Satoru thinks a resigned, fuck me, before the ceiling falls in on top of him.
The night is old when Satoru drags himself home. He’s covered in dust, a smattering of little cuts, and he smells like peanut butter. He’s bone tired and got his ass chewed out for collapsing a multi million dollar building. Everything is quiet in the apartment. Satoru stands in the genkan, keys limp in his hand as he listens to nothing. He almost turns around and leaves. He doesn’t want to bring noise into a place that feels cleansed by his kids. But Satoru thinks he won’t stop if he leaves again tonight. The keys go on a little hook by the door where Tsumiki, Yuta and Megumi all hang their keys as well. All three are there. Satoru brushes his knuckles against them.
“Gojo?”
Satoru jumps, whirling around to find Kento blinking at him from the couch. His hair is mused and there are nap scars carved into his face.
“Hey!” Satoru whispers. “Why’re you still here?”
Kento gets off the couch. He folds his arms over his chest, blinking rapidly to get the sleep out of his eyes.
“I…just figured it would be better if I didn’t leave them alone. I made them dinner.”
“Thanks,” Satoru says. “I appreciate it.”
Satoru draws closer so he can clap Kento on the shoulder. He’s in a t-shirt, one of Satoru’s actually, and it’s such a bizarre sight that Satoru snickers. Kento frowns at him, his nose wrinkling.
“Why do you smell like–what is that?”
“Peanut butter,” Satoru says.
“Where were you today?”
Satoru waves Kento off. He’s too tired to talk about backwater American towns and dandelion curses.
“Megumi?” Satoru asks.
Kento frowns hard. “Stubborn. You definitely raised him. He did more damage to the person he was fighting.”
“Never doubted him,” Satoru says. He smiles as he reaches up to unwind the sweat stiff bandages from his face.
“You shouldn’t–”
“Yeah. Duh,” Satoru interrupts. “But I don’t have any problems with him beating up bullies. I will talk to him about not doing it in the middle of the school day.”
Satoru drops the bandages onto the counter in his kitchen. He fills a glass with tepid water and drinks it leaning heavily against the sink. Kento moves stiffly behind him, lingering as he watches Satoru. The house is lit only by the oven’s overhead light and a night light from the aquarium that projects waves onto the ceiling. That thing is years old, and the blue glow has dimmed enough that it’s more of a hint of an image. Satoru can’t bring himself to throw the little thing away. The lights, blue, yellow, catch along the golden mess of Kento’s hair, the only thing truly visible in the dark.
“Shoko told me about your seizures,” Kento says. His voice barely eclipses the space between them.
“Yeah,” Satoru says. Everyone knows, everyone knows .
“Are you– You’re fine, right?”
Satoru drinks another glass of water. He puts the glass upside down in the sink and turns to face Kento.
“Peachy.”
“Satoru.”
Satoru smiles at Kento. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“I asked.”
“You asked, wanting me to say, ‘peachy, Kento’, yeah?”
“No. I asked because I’m genuinely curious.”
Satoru swallows and keeps smiling. “I’m miserable. Really just deeply unhappy.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All good,” Satoru says.
Pushing himself off the counter, Satoru pulls his uniform top off. It really does reek. He hopes it won’t make the rest of the laundry littered around his room smell like peanuts. Maybe he’ll get it dry cleaned, make it someone else's problem.
“What can I do to make up for taking care of my kiddos?” Satoru asks Kento.
Kento watches him silently for a few moments before he sighs and his arms fall down from around his chest.
“You don’t have to, Satoru. They’re kids. It’s our job to take care of them.”
“I agree,” Satoru says. He yawns. “But let me repay you.”
“I’ll take you up on that sandwich offer,” Kento relents.
“I knew you weren’t going to be able to stop thinking about that,” Satoru says. He wiggles his brows. “It’s a date. You and the sandwiches, I’m just there as a successful wing man. You’re going to have gorgeous slider babies.”
“Satoru.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“Hah, I’m so tired,” Satoru laughs, closing his eyes and rubbing his hand across the tight muscles in the base of his neck.
“Go to sleep then. I’ll head out.”
Satoru yawns again. “No, you can sleep on the couch, leave when the kids go to school. I’ll grab you blankets.”
Satoru gets Kento blankets and a pillow from his own bed because he has a stupid amount and the spares went to Yuta. Satoru makes the couch into a bed half dozing, moving on auto pilot. Kento hovers and when Satoru is done he pats Kento’s chest and shuffles off thinking about nothing but showers and his bed.
He falls asleep twice under the hot pelt of water.
Three hours of sleep later and Satoru is up. He pulls on a fresh uniform and stuffs a roll of bandages in his pocket before he goes to rouse the kids. Kento is in his kitchen frowning into the fridge. The smell of eggs and grilled fish drags Satoru away from the boys room to snoop over what Kento is doing.
“We had mackerel?”
“No,” Kento says. He has a handful of greens from the bottom drawer of the fridge. “I brought it last night. Left overs. Do you want tamagoyaki?”
“Oh, careful there, Ken,” Satoru simpers. “I might never let you go.”
Kento stiffens at the nickname, but he doesn’t reprimand Satoru for using it. He turns away, dropping his vegetables on a cutting board. Satoru is also sure they didn’t have that many vegetables either. They were due for a grocery run.
“Answer the question, Sato ,” Kento says.
“Ew,” Satoru laughs, “don’t call me that. But yeah, I do. Thanks. I haven’t eaten breakfast in weeks!”
“Idiot,” Kento says.
Satoru shrugs and goes to complete his first task of waking the kids up. He can hear movement in the boys room when he knocks. Probably Yuta, that kid sleeps about as much as Satoru does. Which is to say they have a total of sixteen hours combined under their belts at the end of a week. Satoru has offered him a variety of sleep aids, but their insomnia is of the supernatural influence and thus laughs in the face of melatonin gummies.
“We have half an hour, up and at ‘em,” Satoru calls. This he repeats up the stairs to the loft before he goes to get his medication.
With Kento in the house and Satoru running on burrowed time, the morning is less awkward. The kids aren’t as quiet as they eat. Tsumiki keeps polite conversation with Kento and talks a little bit with Satoru, even laughing at a joke he makes. Kento leaves before them, murmuring something about being late for work–Satoru needs to ask him what he does now–and then it’s just Satoru and his kids. He lingers behind them as they get their shoes on, Megumi and Tsumiki bicker about mundane shit while Yuta makes non-committal comments.
“You kids have a good day,” Satoru says, and he feels like he’s forcing it out of his throat. And like every morning he smiles at them and says, “love you.”
Unlike recent mornings, Tsumiki looks back at him, and meets his smile with her own.
“Love you too, dad.”
“Are–you’re not mad at me anymore?” Satoru asks, like a desperate thing much younger than he is.
Tsumiki makes a miserable sound. “I don’t know.”
“Okay. You guys want pizza tonight?”
Satoru spends his day on missions, and on a series of trains, and sitting on the top of Tokyo tower, swinging his legs as he writes his own list of potential first years. There is no time to sit with the stranger that is grief in the empty house that is mourning. He has a job to do, a future to build and a temple full of old farts to infuriate. And so, Maki Zen’in is at the top. It’s a cheeky little list, a fuck you and your opinions list. Satoru is quite proud of it. He’ll go to the Inumaki’s in the coming weeks to ask after their downy headed cursed speech user, see if they’d give the boy up to be trained by Satoru Gojo. He’s hopeful; there are few others if any others that can train a young person with such a technique. Panda, already a topic of discussion between Satoru and Yaga. And last, Yuta Okkotsu. Rika is dormant, but she doesn’t experience as many stressors; currently Yuta has his own little safeguard with Megumi’s easily provoked anger and Tsumiki’s ability to make friends with everyone, including corpse looking boys with debilitating social anxiety. So Satoru would like to see how Rika can be used to help them out, and of course he’d like to help Yuta break the curse. It is this final addition that makes Satoru excited to stand before the screens and watch them vibrate with anger.
Standing, stretching, Satoru slides the list into the pocket of his uniform. He’ll give it to the Higher Ups in a few weeks after he’s gotten around to speaking with the Inumaki’s. He steps off the edge of the tower, free falling for a few moments before bolstering himself up. The sun is slanting down, and moisture gathers in Satoru’s hair from a storm cell moving in from the west. It’s a mild evening, a breeze starting to sweep up the streets. Satoru lands close to his favorite pizza spot, catches the end of a bandage that slips from behind his ear to be grabbed by the breeze. He unwinds them, smiles at the people who glance or stare, and then he meanders. Window shops for nothing, thinks about pizza and luxury brands in windows, thinks about watches he’ll never use, and clothing that’ll rot in the coffin that is his closet. And he doesn’t think about how quiet the house is going to be when he gets home. Or about Yuta’s sad eyes or the door between Megumi and Satoru or Tsumiki’s absence and the horrifying purgatory of ‘ I don’t know’ .
Eventually he gets dinner, plasters on a smile and goes home.