You sat in the Fushiguro’s small, worn apartment, the clinking of forks against glass dishes coming from below you as Megumi and Tsumiki ate their dinner in front of the television. The cartoon playing provided an airy feel to the living room, an occasional laugh from Tsumiki pulling a soft smile to your face.

From the corner of your eye, you watched as Satoru shifted to rest his cheek against your shoulder, a small puff of air leaving his nostrils when his body relaxed against yours. A quiet pitter-patter of rain had begun to hit the window panes and matched the pattern he tapped onto the back of your hand.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he hummed. “Maybe a little tired.”

You looked down at him, his breathing even and the alabaster skin beneath his eyes tinted mauve from restless nights. “It’s just us here, Toru. They’re not paying attention.” Although you wouldn’t outright say it, you always knew when he avoided telling the truth.

He toyed with your fingers for a moment. “I really am tired, sweetheart.”

Things were different now, but you knew that. Satoru used to feel invincible, an amalgamation of his youth and being the strongest sorcerer translating into an aura of confidence that radiated from him like a shimmering aureole. Nowadays, he wasn’t much older—or suddenly weak—but he’d been pulled from his own bubble and into a world that everyone around him had to face much earlier.

Not everyone could be saved and no one could stick around forever—he now knew this to be true. It had always been in the back of his mind, but every day that passed seemed to nail the idea deeper into his psyche.

It was a culmination of everything, he thought. Both the father of the children who sat in front of him and the two adolescents themselves, deaths of his juniors who deserved to be here more than he did, and the simple way in which the people he knew like the back of his hand seemed to change into things he couldn’t recognize.

“Satoru,” you whispered against his temple, “I think you think too much.”

“There isn’t much else to do,” he replied.

“Your mind’s always running, isn’t it?”

“It’s the same as always; things are so different from how they used to be.” He buried his face further into your shoulder, muffling his voice. “It’s whatever now, I know. But I miss it.”

“I miss it too,” you admitted. “We rarely see Shoko, and Nanami’s, well, not the same.”

Everyone had found something to bury themselves in after whatever loss they may have faced, because there was more than plenty to go around. For Shoko, it was anatomy textbooks and the morgue, and whatever breaks she gave herself were spent with a cigarette dangling from her pink lips and a salty snack that substituted dinner stuffed in her hand.

“Sometimes I think Geto would’ve been a lot better at this.”

Geto.

It was rarely Suguru nowadays.

Your words were caught in your throat at the mention of his name, but Satoru seemed unaffected. It might have been his way to push the memories back, but his voice still rang with a twinge of regret.

“At expressing his feelings?” you joked after a moment. “Something tells me he would have been anything but better than you.”

He squeezed your hand in mild amusement. “Not just that, the kids too. He could have been a little more helpful than I am, I think.”

“Not true,” you chastised. “Isn’t that why I’m here too? I pick up from wherever you leave off, Satoru.”

“You’re the better part of us,” he mumbled. “I know it’s not fair, but I need you.”

“We need each other,” you corrected him. “We’re partners, Satoru.”

“Do you really think that’s true?”

Although it proved itself to be impossible, you often wanted to take some of the weight he held on his shoulders and place it onto your own. He’d had the expectations there his whole life, long before you were ever in the picture, but Satoru still acted like it never weighed him down.

You pushed strands of hair away from his eyes, letting them fall near his temple. “How could it not be?”

There wasn’t much the two of you had in life that stayed consistent, other than each other and the seemingly never ending issues that came with jujutsu society. Subconsciously, you knew that was part of the backstitch that held you and Satoru Gojo together, like two mismatched pieces of fabric sewn along the edges to create something that could withstand wear and tear.

“Y’know, in my world it’s only us two left,” you murmured, looking down at him, “and our new little friends, too. Everything and everyone else just comes and goes.”

Satoru slid an arm around your waist, the lingering scent of gourmand perfume that stuck to your clothes and the soft humming of the cartoon in the background comforting him.

For the first time in forever, he felt his mind settle into the same apartment his body was in, surrounded by the scent of a garlicky dinner and pages of neatly solved equations on homework assignments. Satoru was no longer looking behind him, only up at your warm eyes.