July Project Fic 6: Higuruma/Yuuji
i’m nothing but nausea, nothing but reverie, nothing but longing
7,230, written across four days
“Itadori,” Hiromi asks calmly, “what are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Hiromi blinks, waiting for a real answer. It is obvious, that’s true. Itadori is taking a bath—in his clothes and also in Hiromi’s tub instead of the perfectly serviceable one at his own house.
“Itadori,” he prods.
“You were right,” says Itadori. “It does feel better than I expected.”
Hiromi closes his eyes. It’s a terrifyingly easy habit to fall into when this person is involved.
He forces them open. “How long have you been like this?”
There’s a low hum that’s not reassuring in any way, shape, or form. “Who knows. A while.”
“You’ll get sick.”
“I never get sick.”
“Itadori,” Hiromi sighs, dragging a hand over his face, “get out.”
Itadori raises an arm, indolently stretching it out toward Hiromi. “Help me up then.”
“You don’t need my help.”
“No,” Itadori agrees serenely. “Help me anyway.”
He shouldn’t.
Hiromi takes his hand.
It grips him tight, yanking him down into the water.
Thirteen years after their first, fateful meeting, Hiromi’s favorite mistake pays him an unexpected visit.
Canonverse, Post-Canon, Older Yuuji, Older Man/Younger Man, Porn and Angst, Bittersweet, Past Situationship, Pining, Suicidal Ideation, Under-negotiated Kink, Rimming, Anal Sex, Drowning, Asphyxiation, Coming Untouched, Offscreen Somnophilia, Past Gojou/Yuuji, Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo Spoilers
Now and then, there comes a story that makes me go, "Yes, this is what I was put on this earth for." It's the sheer satisfaction of writing them. Among my existing JJK works, the ones that made me feel this way are the kidnapping fic, the fic in which Modulo Yuuji time travels to the Shinjuku Showdown, the time travel fic written before Modulo came out where Yuuji from a dismal postcanon setting time travels to the isolation chamber in Episode 1—and now this hiita fic.
Higuruma's PoV came to a lot more smoothly than I was expecting, and using his eyes and thoughts to sketch out a Yuuji who's slowly, inevitably transitioning from the boy we see at the end of JJK canon to the man we see in Modulo is the most fun I've had writing in quite a while. The sex also expanded my horizons! I haven't written extended/repeated drowning as a kink before, and my earlier stab at it was a much shorter affair that wasn't from the PoV of the one being drowned.
What I like most is the ending though. That's what catapulted this fic into the aforementioned personal list.