Gojou-sensei’s body burned the same as any other.
It doesn’t lessen the grief that’s been keeping him company since the moment he truly realized he will never have Sensei’s company again.
It does somewhat satisfy the Sukuna sized hole in his soul that carries resentment. They used him as a weapon until the end and well beyond it.
He picks up another shard of bone with a steadiness that makes him feel divorced from his body. Kugisaki is with him. She is calm and graceful as she picks up their shattered teacher with him bit by bit. He can’t read the look in her eyes. He keeps going. Fushiguro, although steadily recovering, is still in a coma. He picks up Fushiguro’s share as well. He doesn’t look at Ieiri-sensei, she has been sitting statue still in the corner with the darkest eyebags he’s ever seen on her. It doesn’t make him feel anything. There should’ve been a better way to get the same end result. One that didn’t involve desecrating… a corpse.
He feels sick every time he sees the scar on Okkotsu-senpai’s forehead. Before he went inside Senpai looked at him, really looked at him. Yuuji’s eyes kept drifting to the scar. Their newest strongest. Yuuji felt nauseous. Whatever Okkotsu-senpai found in him made the hesitation in his eyes quickly harden to resolve. Too quickly. He didn’t go inside with them. If it was supposed to be a kindness, it failed. Yuuji didn’t argue. He should’ve still been here with him and Kugisaki. Yuuji is so tired. He keeps going.
Gojou-sensei burned the same as Grandpa did today and one day Yuuji will as well. All their humanity reclaimed in a pyrrhic victory.
He keeps going. He keeps moving. Yuuji tries and succeeds. He laughs, he protects, he fights. He fails and keeps trying. It’s twisted how fighting comes easier than laughing now. He does it even when it’s hard, even when it feels like a lie.
And then and then and then. It’s been a decade. He looks at the grave. Soon, too soon, he’ll be older than his teacher ever got to be. His stomach twists. He grips the box in his hands harder.
Everything has settled back into a peace of sorts. Curses being common knowledge now has in many ways made the jobs of sorcerers easier, it has also drastically increased the number of curses. Without Tengen’s barrier to contain the cursed energy it has spilled over to the rest of the world. Yuuji travels to wherever a hand points him to.
When he has time to rest he doesn’t. When he has his mandatory rest days he goes to cinema’s. He always pays for 3 seats.
In the beginning after… after everything, he was rarely alone. Megumi stuck close to him after waking up from his coma. Often enough he sunk into Yuuji’s shadow and stayed there for hours, days even. Megumi is strong. He keeps his promise. He loyally protects Yuuji from the loneliness crushing him.
5 years after that day they lie in bed together. Half a meter separating them like always. He thought it would the same as every other night they’ve shared a bed. It wasn’t.
“Did you love Gojou-sensei?” Megumi asks him with the delicacy of a sledgehammer held by a loving hand. Yuuji can’t hide the flinch that runs through his body. Neither can he hold in the laugh that bubbles to the surface. In all the ways that mattered Gojou-sensei was, is, his father. But it’s only in these little moments where it becomes plain to see.
And it might be because he’s feeling too much of too many things. Or it might be because he’s tired. It might be because he’s been tired for years. It might be because he knows the exhaustion will keep him company for the rest of his life. The reason why ultimately matters less then the end result.
“Yes.” Yuuji turns on his side so he can look at Megumi. “I don’t think i can stop. I know he would want me to. I just can’t.”
Megumi reaches across the gap between them to hold his hand. “You don’t need to stop. Thank you for loving him sincerely.”
They stay like that for a long time. Yuuji tells him about those months he was playing dead in Gojou’s basement. About that last month they trained together. About how he regrets not crushing his sensei in a hug. How he regrets not realizing he was in love until that love was ripped away from him by Sukuna. And when his voice gets too raw he listens. Megumi tells him about growing up with Sensei. About Getou Suguru. About a shattered blue youth Megumi has spend years piecing together. It hurts. It’s a burning kind of cold. Megumi’s warm hold on him guides him through.
The next time he locks eyes with Gojou-sensei he’s standing in the cursed artifact storeroom of the Gojou clan.
Okkotsu Yuta, now Gojou Yuta, has welcomed his first children, twin girls, into the world. He mostly attends little Rika and Mai’s celebration so he can hold Nobara’s hand through it. Both of them were cursed with short doomed loves that continue to haunt but blessed with friendship that can’t decay.
Nobara notified, not invited, them that they were gonna have a drinking party at her home after they first got the message about Maki marrying Yuta.
He holds her hand, and hopes it’s warm. From the disgusted look Nobara gives him while she wipes her sweaty hand on his hoodie after a small eternity of holding hands he has succeeded with flying colors. He laughs and it’s effortless. She effortlessly grimaces back at him. She snatches his hand back and steadfastly doesn’t acknowledge the love in his eyes.
While they were waist deep in their broken love pity party, Nobara tells him about Maki. She tells him about Shibuya. She tells him about Saori. He listens. And when her voice gets too slurred from all the alcohol he tells her about Junpei, about Nanami, about Choso. About Gojou-sensei.
“Everything makes sense now.” She mutters from where she’s laying down face first on the table. Without a shred of elegance she props her head up on the hand that isn’t keeping his own as a willing prisoner. “So much for your type being tall women with big butts. You were only correct about like tall people” she snickers.
“Gojou-sensei butt wasn’t flat!” He replies hot with offense and drunk of his tits.
Nobara laughs until she pukes.
He tries to remain present while Nobara’s talking to Maki across the room. He fails. Partly his own fault, partly the strange insistent tug he feels on his senses. Nobody else seems to notice it. Torn between choosing how best to handle this, the choice is ripped away from him by Yuta homing in on him armed with a conversation he’s sure he doesn’t want to have despite not having a clue what it’s about. So he flees with a muttered excuse of needing the bathroom and none of the inherent grace of a special grade sorcerer.
Before he knows it his fleeing has turned into following that tug. It leads him to a storeroom kept hidden by a surprisingly strong barrier. More surprisingly the thing that beckons him to find it leads him through it without issue.
He snaps back into his body the second it hits him in quick succession that 1. he is in the Gojou clan cursed artifacts storeroom 2. he, special grade cursed vessel Itadori Yuuji, especially shouldn’t be here.
His instincts nail him to the floor, preventing even the illusion that he will do the responsible thing and leave to find Megumi. Since leaving isn’t an option anymore, he instead reaches out to the box containing whatever so voraciously wanted to be found by him.
It’s a beautifully carved wooden box, carved eyes stare at him until he tastes ash on his tongue. This thing feels like the prison realm. It hurts to look at. He wants to look away. He feels sick. Dread steadily continues to build higher and higher in his core.
He opens it with the foolish hope the dread will dissipate. It doesn’t. What he sees is…
Blue.
Lovely burning blue. Blue that sparkles with mischief. Blue that shines with confidence. Blue that petulantly asks you to forget the unforgettable. Blue that burns you. Blue you wanted to burn with. Blue you thought would be the last thing you see before you die. A dead blue that looks at you alive.
Yuuji doesn’t know how long he stands there looking at Gojou-sensei eyes. The gouged out remnants of a love he hoped was resting.
What drags him out of the spell he was under is Megumi softly gasping when he sees what Yuuji saw. His eyes shift to yuuji and the shocked dismay twists abruptly into profound sadness. Hands reach out to wipe away Yuuji’s tears. More tears quickly take their place. He reaches for the box. And Yuuji doesn’t let go. He can’t do this again.
He crumples to the dusty floor of the store room. Keening like a wounded animal. Hunched over and cradling Gojou-sensei to his chest. Megumi crouches before him. He’s saying things.
Yuuji can’t hear anything except the blood rushing in his ears.
Lightning quick rage settles over Megumi completely and just as fast that rage gets leashed with terrifying control. He pulls out his phone to call somebody.
Nobara joins them soon. She takes a moment to look at this awful reunion. And then she’s pulling Yuuji up on to his feet and bundles him and their teacher into her bright strawberry red car. Megumi stays behind to stop anybody that tries to make them stay.
Okkotsu. Gojou. Yuta-senpai. He let’s them go. He even helps them leave. Megumi doesn’t want his help, but he still takes it. Despite this they both know that Megumi won’t leave without at least a pound of Yuta’s flesh.
Yuta gives it all willingly. His smile is loving and cuts deeper than the damming evidence of their collective failure etched into his face. Yuuji doesn’t want to see it.
He holds Gojou-sensei’s eyes in his lap even after Nobara deposits him on the coach in her apartment. The day passes in a blur. And so do the ones that come after.
Megumi and Nobara stay with him through it all. They only leave him when they’re fighting the sorcerers sent to retrieve the Six Eyes into submission. They always return.
They talk. They listen. They say everything. They say nothing.
He tries, he really truly does. He wants so very badly to help them back.
He doesn’t have anything left to give. Terror has him in chokehold when it dawns on him that giving might never be an option for him anymore.
“You’re overthinking it Yuuji.”
He hopes they’re right. He doesn’t really believe they actually are. He hopes regardless.
At night he holds Gojou-sensei, they in turn hold him.
And when he dreams he sees Blue and feels warm hands hold him.
He hears
A laugh.
His eyes shoot open.
Ieiri Shoko stands besides the bed. The bed Nobara and Megumi bundled him up in blankets and the warmest kind of loyalty.
Far away he can hear the sounds of sorcerers fighting.
It’s just him, her and the remain of Gojou Satoru.
Her eyes are old and knowing and the bags under them are pitch black. A part of him knows their eyes are same except that he doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know.
She smiles at him. He tries and fails and grimaces back at her. She doesn’t care.
“It was a bit difficult to sneak in but Okkotsu owed me a favor.”
Ah so that’s who has been keeping Megumi and Nobara busy for so long.”
Her eyes shine mischievously as if she heard his thoughts loud and clear. He looks down at Gojou-sensei and holds him closer to his chest.
The scent of cigarettes cradles her like a cloak don’t let him forget she’s there. He doesn’t want to know why she’s here. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. She doesn’t care.
“We should talk about what happened back then and what’s going to happen next.”
He doesn’t want to but he listens.
According to her the eyes refused to burn.
“Refusing to be mundane even in death is very much a Satoru thing to do so i wasn’t that surprised.”
It was her version of kindness to hide this from them and leave the eyes to Gojou-sensei’s heir.
She stops and mediates the fight for the Six Eyes as a final kindness.
Her kindness tastes like smoke.
Elusive but lingering.
She probably cared a lot.
The thing about loving people is that although people can leave you and love can twist into something unrecognizable, the experience of loving never truly leaves you. Bit by bit loving teaches you, influences you, merges with you. To love is to be changed. The things you love haunt you by becoming a part of you.
10 years ago he looked upon his corpse and thought quietly “oh… i love you.”
Now he looks at the last bit of the corpse of his love and thinks with a voracious appetite “oh i want you to haunt me deeper.”
Sick and tired Itadori Yuuji stands before the grave and swallows the eyes whole.
They burn all the way down.
Slit’s open beneath his eyes.
A mouth opens on his cheek.
“Yuuji?”