Xin

Synopsis: In a universe untouched by the bloodshed of jujutsu society, you and Megumi navigate college life as "just roommates." But within the confines of a shared dorm, unspoken feelings begin to unravel, forcing both of you to confront a truth neither is ready to name.

Silence settled in the space between you and Megumi as both of you made a deliberate effort to ignore the other's existence. It would have been easier if you weren't living under the same roof.

Unfortunately, you were.

Your friends had laughed when you told them what happened, which only made everything worse. To them, the situation was hilarious. To you, it was a nightmare. Avoiding someone was difficult enough on its own. Avoiding someone who shared your apartment, attended your classes, had gym membership with you, and occupied nearly every corner of your daily life was practically impossible.

To make the situation worse, you both still had two years left to finish your degree. You’d have to put up with this condition for two more years if you both didn’t want to let your pride down and talk it out like the mature adults you were.

Just a few weeks ago, everything had felt normal. Megumi would wait outside your classroom after lectures, pretending he wasn't waiting while scrolling through his phone. He'd cook dinner for the two of you because, according to him, it made more sense than preparing separate meals. Some nights, you'd end up tangled together on the couch while watching movies neither of you was paying attention to. Other times, you'd fall asleep against his shoulder and wake up covered with a blanket you didn't remember grabbing.

Normal things that you both had convinced yourselves were just “roommate things.” Things that gradually stopped feeling platonic long before either of you acknowledged it. At the time, neither of you questioned it. It was easy to dismiss every lingering touch and every stolen glance as something ordinary.

That explanation had worked for months. Until it didn't. The beginning of the end was embarrassingly simple.

Yuji had thrown a party. Megumi wasn't interested in parties, but Yuji was his best friend, which meant attendance was non-negotiable. Before leaving, he'd tried convincing you to come along.

You couldn't. You had full plates within your grasp.

So Megumi went alone. Somewhere during the night, a girl approached him. Not just any girl, THE girl. She was a sweetheart. An angel that you swear had halos glowing on top of her head. She was beautiful…kind. The sort of person people developed crushes on without ever speaking to her. She asked him out. Megumi rejected her.

Then, the moment the party ended, he came straight home and told you. And somehow, that conversation ruined everything. Because instead of simply accepting his answer, you kept asking questions.

"Why didn't you say yes?"

Megumi sat beside you on the couch, one arm draped lazily around your waist. His expression had immediately flattened.

"I didn't want to."

"That's not an answer."

"It literally is."

You frowned.

"She's gorgeous."

"Okay?"

"Everyone likes her."

"Okay?”

"She's basically the campus sweetheart."

Megumi looked increasingly annoyed with every sentence.

"Okay."

You turned toward him.

"What possible reason could you have to reject her?"

For a moment, he simply stared at you.

Then he glanced down at the way you were practically curled into his side, your head resting against his shoulder, your hand absentmindedly tracing circles against his arm.

His expression became something caught between disbelief and frustration.

"Do I even need a reason?"

You blinked.

"What?"

"You’re literally wrapped in my arms right now."

"Right..."

"Mhm."

Neither of you spoke for a few seconds. The television continued playing in the background, forgotten.

Your heartbeat felt strangely loud. Megumi had gone quiet too.

The silence that made thoughts impossible to ignore.

You swallowed.

"Y'know..." you began.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking."

His gaze shifted toward you.

"About what?"

You hesitated. Then decided there was no point backing out.

"What are we?"

Megumi froze.

The question lingered in the room. You forced yourself to continue.

"I mean..." Your voice came out softer than intended. "We tell everyone we're roommates."

His eyes never left yours.

"But deep down..." You laughed nervously. "We both know roommates don't do the things we do."

For the first time in months, neither of you had a convenient excuse.

You watched Megumi's expression go completely blank. The kind of look he got whenever something caught him off guard and he needed a second longer than usual to process it.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The television continued playing quietly in the background. Somewhere outside, you could hear students passing by the dormitories.

"What are we?” you repeated.

Megumi's throat bobbed.

"I don't know."

You laughed awkwardly.

"That's reassuring."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

The conversation should have ended there.

It probably would have if either of you were better at handling feelings. Instead, you kept talking because silence felt suffocating.

"You've never wanted to date anyone."

Megumi's brows furrowed.

"That's not true."

"Then why haven't you?"

He looked away.

"I just haven't."

"You rejected her because of me."

His head immediately snapped toward you.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

The answer felt obvious. The more you thought about it, the less sense anything made.

Megumi spent nearly every waking hour with you. He knew your habits better than anyone, he remembered things you forgot. Hell, he'd even give up sleep if you needed help studying. Half the time, he reached for you without thinking. Yet somehow neither of you had ever put a name to whatever this was.

"So what happens now?" you asked.

Megumi was quiet.

"I don't know."

For the first time, neither of you could hide behind the comfortable lie that you were just roommates. The question had been asked. And neither of you knew what to do with the answer.

You stared at the floor while he stared at the wall. The longer the silence dragged on, the more unbearable it became.

Eventually, you laughed.

"This is stupid."

"Yeah."

"We should probably sleep."

"Probably."

Neither of you moved. A few moments later, you stood first.

"Goodnight."

Megumi nodded.

"Night."

And that was it.

The next morning, neither of you mentioned the conversation. You left for class before he woke up. Megumi stayed out working out later than usual. That evening, he cooked dinner. You ate in silence.

The day after that was even worse. Every action suddenly felt loaded with meaning.

If Megumi sat beside you, it felt intentional. If he didn't, it felt intentional too. When your hands brushed, both of you immediately pulled away. When someone asked if you two were dating, neither of you answered quickly enough. The uncertainty became suffocating.

Neither of you had rejected the possibility, neither of you had accepted it either.

You were trapped somewhere in between. Friends didn't act the way you acted, but admitting you were something more felt terrifying. Because if you put a name to it and things went wrong, you wouldn't just lose a relationship. You'd lose your best friend, your roommate, the person who had quietly become part of every ordinary day.

So, without ever discussing it, both of you chose the same cowardly solution, avoidance.

You stopped lingering in shared spaces while Megumi started spending more time outside the dorms.

Your usual long conversations become short and awkward. Neither of you wanted to cross a line that had suddenly become visible.

Which was how you ended up here now. Sitting in the same room. Pretending the other didn't exist while every person around you watched the disaster unfold and laughed. Because the truth was painfully obvious to everyone except the two people living through it.

You and Megumi weren't ignoring each other because you disliked one another.

You were ignoring each other because the answer to your question had become far too real.

And neither of you were ready to say it out loud.

Megumi tried to bury the conversation beneath routine.

He stayed in gym until his muscles burned, stayed out longer than usual, and accepted invitations he normally would have declined. Yuji dragged him to gatherings, classmates pulled him into group dinners, and for once he stopped making excuses.

He even went out with the campus sweetheart he had rejected that night.

It should have settled things. If his feelings were confusion, distance would clarify them. If they were habit, time away from you would break it. If he was reading too much into months of shared meals, shared couches, shared mornings, and shared silences, then seeing someone else should make that obvious.

Instead, you followed him everywhere.

Every crowded room made him look toward the entrance before he could stop himself. Every party carried the brief, irrational hope that you might have changed your mind and decided to come after all. He told himself it was ridiculous. He lived with you. He could walk back to the dorm at any moment and see you there. But seeing you unexpectedly would have been easier than walking into the apartment and confronting the careful silence waiting inside it.

His date only made that truth impossible to ignore. She was kind. Pretty enough that people turned their heads when she walked past. By any reasonable measure, the evening was going well. However, Megumi spent most of it comparing her to you.

He noticed when her laugh wasn't like yours. When she didn't tilt her head the way you did while listening. He kept catching himself searching for familiar habits that weren't there.

By the time he realized what he was doing, the date had become unbearable. He wasn't getting to know her, he was measuring the absence of you.

That was the worst part. Because no matter how many hours he spent away from the dorm, no matter how many distractions he stacked on top of each other, every attempt ended in the same place: your face appearing in the quiet moments between thoughts.

Others got married, traveled, and became mentors. Life continued to move forward for everyone around you as naturally as breathing. New generations of sorcerers emerged while old names slowly faded into stories told by those who survived. The world kept changing, kept growing, kept healing. Yet somehow, you remained exactly where you had been left.

Grief had become a permanent fixture in your life. It lingered beside you like a shadow that stretched endlessly behind your every step. No matter how many years passed, it never seemed to lessen. It merely changed shape, settling itself into your routines until carrying it became second nature. There were days when you almost convinced yourself you were getting better. Then something would remind you of him, and suddenly the wound felt as fresh as the day it was carved into your chest.

The Shinjuku showdown had happened years ago. Rationally, you knew that. Time had created an undeniable distance between you and that day. Yet your memories refused to acknowledge it. They remained vivid and untouched by the passing years. You could still remember the sounds, the panic, the helplessness. You could still remember the crushing realization that the future you had spent years building had disappeared in a single moment.

While everyone else learned how to move forward, a part of you remained trapped there, unable to leave behind the place where you had lost him.

People often spoke about moving on as if it were a choice. As if healing were simply a matter of deciding to let go. You had tried. You accepted dates arranged by friends who meant well, you entertained conversations with people who seemed kind enough, you buried yourself in work until exhaustion became the only thing capable of silencing your thoughts. You chased distractions with the desperate hope that eventually they would become enough.

None of them were.

Every attempt ended the same way. You would find yourself searching for him in places where he could never be. A familiar laugh from across a crowded room, a mannerism that resembled his, an expression that made your heart stutter before reality settled back in. Every new person became another reminder of who they were not. No matter how much you wanted otherwise, nobody could fill the space Choso had left behind.

Perhaps that was because Choso had never simply been someone you loved. He had become the person through whom you understood love itself. Loving him had felt effortless. In a life surrounded by death and uncertainty, he had been the one thing that felt steady. The one person who never made you question whether you were cherished. His presence had carried a quiet kind of comfort that asked for nothing and expected nothing. Being loved by him felt as natural as breathing.

How were you supposed to replace that? How were you supposed to move on from someone whose existence had woven itself so deeply into your own that even years later you still carried traces of him everywhere you went?

You couldn't. Maybe some part of you never wanted to. His love had settled itself into places grief could never fully reach. It lingered in old habits you never outgrew and in memories that surfaced without warning. Sometimes it appeared in the smallest moments. The sight of something you knew he would have liked. A joke you wished you could tell him. A quiet evening that felt incomplete because he was not there to share it with you.

His voice had long since disappeared from the world, yet you still remembered it perfectly. You remembered the way he would lower it when speaking only to you, as if every conversation carried the weight of a secret. You remembered the things he whispered into your ear when the rest of the world felt impossibly far away. At the time, they had seemed like simple words. Looking back, they felt more like sacred promises entrusted only to the two of you.

Now those memories were all you had left.

Parts of a life that should have continued. Pieces of a future that never had the chance to exist. They were beautiful, but they were cruel too. Every memory served as proof that once, you had possessed something extraordinary. Every memory reminded you that it was gone.

Some nights, when the house felt too quiet and sleep refused to come, you found yourself revisiting those moments anyway. You would hold them close despite the ache they carried because letting them go felt far worse. They were all that remained of Choso. All that remained of the life you were supposed to share.

And no matter how many years passed, no matter how much the world changed around you, that absence never stopped feeling like the deepest wound you had ever known.

The streets of Tokyo felt strangely gentle that night. Perhaps it was because the city had finally begun to slow, the usual rush of footsteps and traffic softened into a distant murmur carried by the wind. Or perhaps it was because tomorrow lingered over everyone’s heads like an approaching storm, impossible to ignore no matter how desperately one tried.

The mission in Shibuya had occupied every conversation for weeks now. Half of the country’s sorcerers would be there, and although nobody dared voice it aloud, everyone understood the risks that accompanied a gathering of that scale.

Sleep had abandoned you hours ago.

You had spent most of the evening staring at your ceiling, listening to the occasional sounds drifting through the dormitory halls as students continued their preparations long after midnight. Some reviewed mission reports, while others sharpened cursed tools or revised strategies one final time. Everyone seemed determined to make themselves useful.

Everyone except you. Or so you thought.

A soft knock eventually interrupted your thoughts.

When you opened the door, Toge stood waiting outside. The overhead light cast a pale glow across his features as he held a marker in one hand. Without a word, he stepped inside, approached your whiteboard, and scribbled a short message across its surface.

“Let’s go out.”

You stared at the words for a moment before glancing back at him.

The request was simple, almost childish considering the circumstances, yet something about it immediately eased the tension that had been sitting in your chest all evening.

There wasn’t much either of you could accomplish tonight anyway.

Tomorrow would arrive regardless.

You followed him out into the city.

The night air greeted you immediately, cool and refreshing against your skin. Somewhere along the walk, your hand found his, fingers naturally intertwining as if they had done so a thousand times before. Neither of you acknowledged it. There was no need.

Tokyo stretched endlessly around you, illuminated by countless windows and streetlights that transformed the city into a sea of gold. For a while, the two of you wandered aimlessly through quiet streets, allowing yourselves to be carried wherever your feet decided to go.

Your first stop was a convenience store tucked between a row of apartment buildings.

The lights buzzed softly overhead as you wandered through the aisles, grabbing snacks you didn’t particularly need while Toge predictably reached for onigiri. By the time you stepped back outside, a small plastic bag hung from your wrist while the two of you ate as you walked, your conversation drifting from one meaningless topic to another.

You talked about teachers, classmates, and old missions that seemed amusing now that enough time had passed.

None of it mattered. That was precisely what made it enjoyable. For once, neither of you discussed Shibuya. Neither of you discussed curses, casualties, or the possibility of things going wrong. Instead, you allowed yourselves to exist as two ordinary people enjoying an ordinary night.

The city eventually gave way to quieter paths, leading you toward a shrine hidden away from the brighter districts. Lanterns illuminated the grounds with a soft glow while wooden prayer plaques swayed gently beneath the breeze. The place felt untouched by time, peaceful in a way that made you want to remain there indefinitely.

You paused near the entrance, watching the lantern light dance across the stone pathways.

“What do you think everyone’s wishing for right now?” you asked.

Toge looked toward the rows of prayer plaques before his gaze settled on you. His answer never came. Instead, he simply smiled beneath the collar concealing the markings around his mouth.

The two of you continued onward not long afterward, eventually finding yourselves atop a pedestrian bridge overlooking the city.

From up there, the city seemed endless. Entire lives existed within those glowing windows, thousands of stories unfolding beneath the same sky.

You leaned against the railing and gazed outward.

“It’s beautiful.”

Beside you, Toge nodded.

The wind carried the distant sounds of the city upward, wrapping itself around the two of you as comfortably as a blanket. For several minutes, neither of you spoke. There was no pressure to fill the silence.

You simply stood there together.

Unbeknownst to you, Toge spent more time looking at you than the view itself.

He watched the way your eyes reflected the city lights, the way your smile appeared whenever a particularly bright building caught your attention, the way your expression softened whenever the wind brushed against your face.

He noticed everything.

The way you laughed at your own jokes, the way you absentmtedly tucked loose strands of hair behind your ear, the way you stared out at Tokyo as though trying to memorize every street and every light that built it.

At first, you paid little attention to it.

Toge had always been observant.

Yet tonight felt different somehow. His attention lingered longer than usual. His gaze followed you more often.

There was a tenderness to it that settled somewhere deep within your chest, though you couldn’t quite understand why.

Perhaps tomorrow weighed on him more heavily than he allowed anyone to see.

As the hours passed and darkness gradually surrendered itself to dawn, the atmosphere around you shifted.

The mission returned to the forefront of your minds without ever being mentioned directly.

Toge grew quieter. Several times, it looked as though he wanted to say something.

His gaze would drift toward you, thoughtful and hesitant, before he ultimately looked away again.

Whenever you asked what was wrong, he merely responded with one of his usual rice-ball ingredients, earning a laugh and a playful roll of your eyes.

You never pressed further.

Somehow, you thought there would always be another opportunity.

Another night, another conversation, another chance.

By the time the sun began rising above the horizon, painting the city in shades of gold, the two of you started making your way back.

Neither of you realized it would become one of the most important nights of your lives.

Neither of you realized that less than twenty-four hours later, those seemingly insignificant moments would become the memories you clung to most.

The convenience store, the shrine, the bridge, the warmth of his jacket resting over your shoulders, the feeling of his hand in yours, the simple comfort of walking beside him while the rest of the world slept.

At the time, they were just moments.

Later, they would become everything.

There had been countless nights where you found yourself unconsciously sifting through old photographs of you and Suguru. Time had moved forward, indifferent and relentless, yet grief remained stubbornly lodged beneath your ribs.

You still could not accept his death. Not when there had never been a body.

Not when every part of you refused to believe that someone as vivid as Suguru Geto could simply vanish from the world without leaving anything behind.

So when you saw him years later amidst the crowded streets of Tokyo, your heart forgot how to beat.

For a moment, you thought exhaustion had finally driven you into hallucination. You blinked not only once, but twice. Yet he remained there.

His dark hair spilled down his back, his monk-like robes swaying with each measured step. He stood apart from the crowd as effortlessly as he always had, impossible to overlook no matter how many people surrounded him. The years seemed to fold in on themselves at the sight of him. Suddenly, you were seventeen again, chasing laughter beneath summer skies and believing the future would always make room for the two of you.

Hope, though fragile and long-buried, surged violently within your chest.

But something felt wrong. You could see him, yet you could not reach him.

It was as if your soul recognized the shape of Suguru while recoiling from everything beneath it. Like catching sight of a beloved home from afar only to realize every window stood dark.

He had the same eyes you once lost yourself in. The same hands that had intertwined with yours beneath summer skies. The same broad shoulders you had leaned against whenever the weight of the world became unbearable.

The same face that had once softened whenever he looked at you.

And yet…nothing. There was no warmth, and certainly no familiarity.

Only an emptiness vast enough to swallow every memory you possessed of him. It settled over your skin like winter frost, cold and instinctive, a warning your heart refused to heed.

The crowd carried him farther away. One moment he was only a few paces ahead; the next, he was already disappearing into the sea of strangers.

Panic seized you. This was your only chance.

You shoved through the mass of people without care for the irritated glances or muttered complaints thrown your way. The city blurred around you into streaks of color and noise. All you could see was him.

By the time you reached him, your lungs burned.

You stood only a few steps behind him.

“Suguru!”

Your voice cut through the noise of the city.

He stopped.

Too consumed by disbelief, you failed to notice the special-grade curses lingering at his side. Failed to notice how the people around him unconsciously veered away, as if some primal instinct urged them to keep their distance.

Slowly, he turned. The moment your eyes met, the hope inside you shattered.

The face before you belonged to Suguru Geto.

But the soul did not.

Your stomach dropped.

Because now that he was looking at you, now that those familiar eyes rested upon your face, you understood what had felt so wrong from the beginning.

Suguru had always looked at you as if he knew you. As if he could read every unspoken thought hidden behind your smile. As if your existence alone was enough to soften something inside him.

The man before you looked at you like a stranger.

A cold realization settled over you as your gaze drifted upward.

A stitch stretched across his forehead.

You finally understood why every instinct within you had recoiled the moment you saw him.

This man wore Suguru’s smile, his voice, his body. But Suguru himself was nowhere to be found.

And for the first time since his death, you realized there were fates far crueler than losing someone.

To find them again, only to discover that what remained was nothing more than their grave.

You slept beside Megumi, untouched by the unrest that haunted the hours after midnight. Your breathing rose and fell in gentle rhythm, soft enough to be mistaken for silence itself, while the silver moonlight poured across your features like something sacred. For a moment, you did not seem real to him. You looked far too delicate to exist within a world as cruel as this one.

Megumi watched you quietly.

His fingers wandered through your hair with absent tenderness, as if he feared the moment would dissolve if he touched too harshly. Nights like these always left him restless. No blood stained his hands tonight, no curses lurked beyond the walls, yet exhaustion still lingered beneath his skin like an old scar that never truly healed. The jujutsu world had hollowed something inside him long ago, carving itself into bone and spirit alike until even peace felt temporary.

But you…You remained the only thing untouched by the ruin of it all. You were the devotion that carried him through both salvation and ruin.

Sometimes Megumi thought loving you felt dangerously close to worship.

He wanted this moment to stretch endlessly into eternity. Wanted to remain here with his face buried against your shoulder while the world unraveled somewhere far beyond reach. With you, the noise faded. The endless expectations, the violence, the suffocating weight of being needed by everyone except himself. Your embrace felt like standing beneath starlight after surviving years trapped underwater.

And selfishly, he wanted more of it.

Megumi held onto you the way lonely people cling to the last light left in the world. Quietly and desperately. Like letting go would send him collapsing into something he could never return from.

Yet the words remained imprisoned behind his teeth.

He loved you with a depth that frightened him, but Megumi had never known how to love loudly. His affection existed in silence; in the careful way he pulled the blankets over your shoulders, in the way his eyes softened whenever you looked away, in every promise he carried alone without ever allowing you to hear them.

Beneath that calm expression lived countless futures he wished to give you someday. Softer mornings where he hugged you from behind as you make breakfast, a life untouched by bloodshed. A home where neither of you had to fear tomorrow.

But the world still demanded too much from him.

So for now, Megumi could only lie beside you in the quiet dark, memorizing the warmth of your sleeping form while silently mourning all the parts of himself he had not yet learned how to give.

For now, all he could do was continue taking from your love while offering only fragments of himself in return.

Someday, he thought. When the world loosened its grip around his throat.

You stood alone in the living room of the house you and Kento once bought together. The lights were off aside from the dim lamp near the couch. Rain tapped softly against the windows while your memory box sat open on the floor in front of you. Old photographs and loose receipts were scattered around your knees as your trembling hands searched desperately through everything inside. Tears blurred your vision until you could barely recognize what you were holding anymore. You just needed to find that camera.

Earlier that day you had gone out and about with Yuji and Ino. Just a quiet afternoon spent catching up over coffee while pretending life had somehow continued normally after everything. Ino laughed softly when a familiar melody drifted through the café speakers. He mentioned how Nanami once sang that same song to you when he proposed.

You smiled instantly. Of course, you remembered. How could you not?

Yuji leaned forward curiously and asked you to tell the story since he had never heard it before. You opened your mouth so easily at first. You were ready to relive what had once been the happiest moment of your life aside from your wedding day itself.

But then your thoughts stopped. Your smile slowly faded as panic settled into your chest.

Because no matter how hard you tried you could not remember what Kento sounded like when he sang to you.

You remembered everything else. The warmth of his hands, the way his tie sat slightly crooked that day, the small nervous smile he tried to hide while looking at you like loving you had always been the simplest thing in the world.

But his voice felt so far away now. Like an echo buried beneath years of grief that your mind could no longer reach no matter how desperately you searched for it.

The realization hollowed you out instantly.

And now here you were throwing things aside without care while quiet sobs shook through your body. Old letters, batteries, train tickets. Anything that stood between you and that camera.

How could you forget his voice?

There had once been nights when you could not sleep unless Kento whispered beside you first. Low murmurs against your skin. Gentle and warm, as if every word he spoke to you were sacred. You used to know every cadence naturally, every sigh, every pause hidden between sentences.

So how could something so precious disappear from you?

Your fingers finally brushed against the small digital camera buried beneath old belongings. You nearly dropped it trying to turn it on. The screen flickered weakly before old files appeared one by one.

Photos popped up first.

Kento is standing in the kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, pretending to be annoyed that you are recording him.

A blurry picture of him half asleep on the couch.

Another of him glancing back at you over his shoulder while sunlight spilled through the apartment windows.

Then finally…a video.

Your breath caught as you pressed play.

“Kento! Say hi to the camera!”

Your voice sounded lighter back then.

The camera shook slightly before turning toward him.

“Hello there.”

Your entire body froze. It was his voice.

Calm, deep, and gentle in that quiet way only Kento ever was.

Your hand immediately flew over your mouth as a broken sob escaped you.

“What’s that for, wife?” he asked from behind the screen.

“It’s for our future kids! Now they can see how handsome their father looked back in the day!”

A quiet sigh left him. Faintly amused.

“Is that so…”

The video shifted suddenly as he reached toward you.

“Give me the camera, wife,” he murmured softly. “They should see how beautiful their mother is too.”

You laughed behind the recording as you carefully handed it to him. Then the lens turned toward you instead.

You remembered this moment.

You remembered how embarrassed you felt whenever Kento looked at you for too long. Like he was seeing something precious you yourself could never understand.

For a few seconds, neither of you spoke.

Then softly…so soft the recording nearly missed it.

“Mhm… I love you.”

Silence filled the living room afterward except for your uneven breathing.

You stared at the frozen frame on the screen while tears slipped endlessly into your lap. Kento had once existed beside you so vividly that forgetting him felt impossible. Yet time continued moving anyway. Cruel and indifferent. Slowly sanding away little pieces of him while you helplessly tried to keep everything intact.

His voice, his habits, the exact way he used to say your name.

You feared the day grief would steal those from you completely.

Maybe heaven was trying to be merciful. Maybe forgetting was its way of helping people survive unbearable loss.

But you did not want mercy. Not if it meant losing Kento a second time. Because the memories were all you had left of him now. And loving Kento Nanami had never been something your heart knew how to do halfway.

You felt the sudden shift in the quiet equilibrium you had grown used to. For hours, the apartment had known nothing except the rain striking the windows in endless waves, but now the air felt unbearably heavy. Uneasy and suffocating, like the entire room had begun sinking beneath dark water.

Then you suddenly sensed cursed energy lingering outside your door. Your heartbeat faltered.

You moved toward the entrance quickly, peering through the peephole before your breath caught painfully in your throat.

Your boyfriend, Yuji, stood there beneath the storm, completely drenched.

Rainwater dripped from the strands of his pink hair in streaks, falling from his jaw and sleeves all the way to the apartment hallway floor. His hoodie was soaked through and clung to him, and under the dim overhead light, his shoulders looked unsteady.

You opened the door immediately.

Usually, Yuji arrived with warmth spilling out of him before words ever could. He always wore that grin of his, relying on his loud laugh and dramatic complaints about the rain before pulling you into his arms anyway, just to hear you scold him for soaking your clothes.

But tonight there was nothing. He didn’t wear his smile, he didn’t greet you with his teasing remarks. There was no trace of the boy who always seemed too bright for the darkness surrounding him.

Only silence standing in his place.

Your chest tightened instantly.

“Yuji…?” you called softly. “What happened?”

For a moment, he only stared at you. Not really looking. Just standing there as rainwater continued dripping from his clothes, while something hollow and exhausted flickered behind his eyes.

Then suddenly, he stepped forward.

His arms wrapped tightly around your waist with desperate force, almost painful in the way he held onto you, like he was trying to keep himself from collapsing completely. His body trembled against yours, freezing cold from the storm outside, and the second he buried his face into your shoulder, you felt the uneven shake of his breathing.

Your hands slowly moved against his back.

“Hey,” you whispered carefully. “Talk to me.”

His grip tightened.

For a few seconds, the only sound filling the apartment was the rain striking the windows and Yuji trying desperately to breathe through something destroying him from the inside out.

Then quietly… so quietly it almost disappeared beneath the storm…

“Junpei’s gone.”

The words did not feel real. Your breath caught sharply in your chest.

Yuji had spoken about Junpei with so much hope before. Fragile hope, but hope nonetheless. Like if he fought hard enough, reached far enough, he could still save someone before the world swallowed them whole.

“I couldn’t save him,” he whispered suddenly.

His voice cracked apart instantly.

“I was right there and I still couldn’t do anything.”

The grief in his voice felt unbearable.

You felt him curl inward against you, shoulders trembling violently now as if the memory itself was crushing him alive. Neither loud nor dramatic. Just quiet devastation slowly hollowing him out piece by piece.

“I told him everything was gonna be okay,” he choked out. “I told him we’d go back together.”

Every syllable sounded heavier than the last.

You carefully pulled him further inside before shutting the door behind him, sealing the storm outside even though it changed nothing. Rainwater gathered beneath his shoes in soft puddles across the floor, but neither of you cared enough to notice.

Yuji looked exhausted. Not physically. But this exhaustion settled somewhere deeper in him. Somewhere beneath skin and bone, like something inside him had been ripped open and left there bleeding quietly where nobody else could reach it.

You reached up slowly, brushing damp strands of hair away from his face.

His eyes looked painfully red. Filled with tears he had probably spent the entire night swallowing down alone.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you whispered softly.

Yuji let out a broken laugh beneath his breath.

“How isn’t it?”

His voice wavered badly.

“He was right there.”

The look in his eyes nearly shattered you.

Because somewhere along the way, Yuji had probably already convinced himself that Junpei’s death belonged to him. Like guilt had wrapped itself around his throat so tightly he could no longer separate grief from punishment.

Before he could look away again, you cupped his face gently between your hands.

“Look at me.”

Reluctantly, his eyes lifted toward yours.

“You tried to save him,” you whispered. “You stayed with him until the end.”

Something inside him crumpled instantly.

The tears he had been holding back finally slipped free, silent and devastating as they traced down his face. His head lowered again, shoulders shaking beneath your hands, and this time he stopped trying to silence the sound of his grief.

You held him through all of it. Through the guilt suffocating his lungs, through the sorrow deep inside his chest, through the unbearable weight of surviving when Junpei could not.

───── ⋆.✶

Fate had been draining the life out of you for years. Death moved endlessly through jujutsu society like an unavoidable ritual, swallowing sorcerers one after another until grief no longer shocked anyone. Funerals blurred together and condolences became rehearsed. Mourning became another responsibility sorcerers were expected to survive.

But your husband becoming part of that cycle was something your mind had never once allowed itself to imagine. Satoru Gojo and death did not belong in the same sentence. Anyone with sense would have called it impossible.

And yet you stood frozen before Mei Mei’s crow feed, forced to witness the horrifying clash between two monsters who stood far above everyone else. The screen flickered violently with destruction capable of leveling cities, but none of it mattered to you. All you could see was him.

Blood stained the fabric of his black shirt while his breathing looked uneven. Exhaustion carved visibly to his body, yet he still smiled with that infuriating confidence that made the world believe he could survive anything. You hated that smile at times like this. Hated how recklessly beautiful he looked standing at death’s door as if death itself could never truly claim him.

Just hours ago, his fingers had rested gently against your cheek.

“Don’t look so scared,” he murmured softly, brushing his thumb beneath your eye. “I’ll come back before you know it.”

Like it was a sacred promise, like he believed it completely. Then you watched the man you promised forever to split apart before your eyes.

Your body collapsed before your mind could process it. Your hands struck the floor painfully hard while the world around you dissolved into distorted noise. Some shouted, some cursed, and somewhere nearby, quiet sobbing broke through the silence.

But none of it reached you properly. Because all you could think was that was your lover. Your husband whom you shared your youth with. Not the strongest, not the humanity’s shield, and certainly not the honored one.

Denial twisted violently inside your stomach. Breathing suddenly felt impossible. Your throat tightened until it burned raw while your entire body trembled uncontrollably beneath the crushing weight of what you had just witnessed.

This was wrong…because Satoru was supposed to win. Satoru always won.

The realization clawed deeper into you with every passing second. The same hands that intertwined with yours during sleepless nights now hung lifeless. The same blue eyes that once softened only for you stared emptily into nothing. He was gone. And somewhere inside you, something collapsed with him.

Then, through the suffocating haze of your grief, you heard something far worse. They were planning to use Satoru Gojo’s body as a vessel for Yuta Okkotsu.

Slowly, your head lifted toward them. The room fell silent the moment they saw your expression.

Yuta lowered his head without a word, Shoko avoided your gaze entirely, Yuji looked away like he physically could not bear to witness your reaction.

You felt rage crawl beneath your skin. How could they do this? Even in death, Satoru still could not rest.

His entire life had been spent carrying the unbearable weight of everyone’s expectations. The strongest, humanity’s shield, the honored one. People looked at him and saw power before they ever saw a person. Even within the privacy of your marriage, he struggled to fully lower his guard. Vulnerability did not come naturally to a man raised to become a weapon. And now they were turning him into one again.

“H-how could you do this?!” you screamed, your voice cracking apart mid-sentence as tears streamed uncontrollably down your face.

Mei Mei inhaled slowly before speaking. “We don’t have a choice. You know that.”

Maybe you did. But everything felt unbearably wrong, It was too fast.

He had barely died, yet they were already discussing how to use what remained of him. You had not even been allowed the time to grieve properly. All you wanted was to see your husband one last time. Instead, they offered you his body inhabited by someone else.

“You all loved the strongest,” you whispered shakily. “I loved the person inside him.”

Silence followed your words.

Because deep down, every single one of them knew you had every right to be consumed by grief and anger.

You turned away before anyone could stop you. The moment the doors shut behind you, your composure shattered completely. Your legs nearly gave out beneath you as another sob tore violently from your throat. The corridor blurred through tears while your chest ached so badly it felt unbearable to keep breathing.

You had only just gotten him back from the Prison Realm.

After all those weeks of waiting, praying, surviving without him, you truly believed fate had finally shown you mercy. You still remembered the way he held you after being unsealed, burying his face into your neck while laughing softly.

“I missed you too, you know.”

Now you would never hear his voice again.

And this cruelty was far worse than the Prison Realm ever was. Because this time, there would be no bringing him back.

Your thoughts spiraled helplessly toward the life you once shared together. His confession beneath a starlit sky. The wedding vows exchanged through smiles and tears. The quiet conversations about leaving jujutsu society behind someday. Growing old together somewhere peaceful. Somewhere far away from curses and death and responsibility.

You had allowed yourself to dream of a future with him. Now those dreams felt humiliating.

What if you had begged him harder to leave? What if Yuji Itadori had never eaten Sukuna’s finger?

What if this was all just some cruel nightmare? You bargained desperately with a reality that refused to change for you.

Your sobs echoed weakly through the corridor until your lungs burned from the strain of it. Somewhere inside your apartment, his cup probably still sat unwashed beside the sink. His shoes were likely still waiting near the doorway. The bed still dipped slightly on his side because neither of you ever fixed the broken frame.

The world still carried proof that Satoru Gojo existed. Yet somehow, he was gone.

Then the clinic doors opened. Your breathing stopped instantly. White hair, blur eyes, tall figure.

Your heart recognized him long before your mind could protect you from the truth. Hope surged through your body so violently it physically hurt.

Satoru…The name nearly escaped your lips. Your body already moved toward him before reality caught up.

Then he spoke. And it was not your husband standing before you. It was Yuta Okkotsu wearing the body of the man you loved.

Everything looked the same. The height you used to lean against after exhausting nights. The hands that once cradled your face so carefully despite their strength. The eyes you memorized so completely you could picture them even in darkness.

But none of it belonged to you anymore because the soul inside him was gone. The realization hollowed you out completely.

Yuta froze the moment he saw you. Guilt flashed across Satoru’s face so painfully familiar it nearly made you collapse all over again. He opened his mouth slightly, like he wanted to apologize, but no words came out.

What apology could possibly exist for this? Your body moved before your mind could stop it. Trembling fingers reached toward him instinctively, desperate in their longing. Maybe it was pathetic. Maybe it was selfish. But you just wanted to feel him one last time.

Your fingertips brushed against his cheek. Warm, still warm. A broken sound escaped your throat.

Satoru’s body instinctively leaned into your touch for half a second before Yuta visibly stiffened in realization.

And somehow, that hurt more than watching him die. Because even his body remembered loving you.

But he did not.

Tears blurred your vision as your hand slowly fell away from his face. You stared at the man standing before you and realized you would never hear Satoru laugh again. Never hear him tease you for stealing his clothes. Never feel his arms wrapping around you after missions. Never wake up to his sleepy complaints about early mornings.

You could not even remember if your last words to him were “be careful” or “I love you.”

Now you would spend the rest of your life trying to remember. The cruelest part was that he was standing right in front of you. And you still could not reach him.

Yuta shut his eyes tightly. Because for the first time since taking over Gojo Satoru’s body, he truly understood that he was walking around inside somebody else’s love story.

───── ⋆.✶

This was requested! <3

You looked down at the city lights and the restless buzz of Tokyo below as you sat across from Hiromi at a candlelit table perched atop one of the city’s high-rise buildings. Jazz music drifted through the open air while the glow of passing neon reflected faintly against the glass surrounding you. When you finally glanced up, you were met by his gaze immediately. It was mesmerizing, so intensely focused on you that it nearly unraveled your composure. There was something dangerous about the way Hiromi looked at people when he cared for them. Like he had already reviewed every flaw, every hidden motive, every fragile part of you, and still arrived at the same conclusion; to stay.

He had been persistent about taking you out to dinner after weeks of drowning himself in legal work. Case files stacked endlessly across his apartment. Late-night calls from clients. Court appearances that stretched from morning until dusk. You watched exhaustion settle deeper beneath his eyes each passing day, yet somehow he still made room for you within the chaos of his life.

Every morning, he would appear outside your door before work with a bouquet of roses resting in his hands, dressed sharply despite the lack of sleep. His tie was always slightly loosened by the time he arrived, briefcase tucked beneath one arm while he guided you toward his car with a quiet tenderness that never felt rehearsed. Caring for you came naturally to him, almost instinctively, as if affection was the only argument he never needed to prepare for.

The drive to work was always the same. The low hum of the engine, his hand resting lazily against the steering wheel, and the woody scent of his cologne lingering heavily in the enclosed space, leaving you dazed long after stepping out of the car. Sometimes he would glance at you at red lights with that small, exhausted smile that softened the sharpness of his features.

“You’re staring again,” he murmured once, amusement threading through his tired voice.

“Can you blame me?”

“No,” he replied simply. “But you’re making it hard for me to think objectively.”

You laughed quietly, and for a brief moment, the fatigue weighing on him seemed to lessen.

That was the problem with Hiromi. He knew how to make you feel safe without ever promising permanence. You could see the devotion written into every action, every glance, every moment of patience he offered without hesitation. Hiromi was a man built to argue, to dismantle lies until only truth remained standing. Yet with you, he never cross-examined his feelings. Never objected to them. You were the only verdict he accepted without appeal.

And maybe that was why it unsettled you so deeply. Because all of it felt familiar.

The exhaustion consuming him, the quiet tenderness hidden beneath restraint, and the way he carried responsibility until it hollowed him out from the inside. It reminded you too much of someone you had once loved.

Kento.

The realization came slowly, like an old wound reopening beneath skin that never healed properly. Sometimes Hiromi would loosen his tie after a long day and lean back against his seat with his eyes closed, and suddenly memories would surface before you could stop them. Kento returning home late from work. Kento rubbing exhaustion from his face while insisting he was fine. Kento carrying burdens silently because he thought it was easier that way.

It had been years since you last heard from him. At first, you tried everything to find him. Calls, messages, mutual acquaintances. You even went to his workplace hoping someone would give you answers, but the moment his name left your mouth, the atmosphere turned cold.

“He resigned a long time ago.” That was all they said.

No explanation, no indication of where he went afterward. It was as if he vanished from the world deliberately, leaving you behind with unanswered questions and the remnants of a relationship that never truly reached its conclusion.

A part of you wanted to resent him for it. The least he could have done was tell you he was leaving.

But another part of you understood him too well to hate him completely. You remembered the suffocating pressure of his corporate life, the endless demands that consumed every waking hour until exhaustion became part of him. Maybe solitude was the only defense he had left.

Still, understanding someone did not make abandonment hurt any less.

“Are you okay?”

Hiromi’s voice pulled you back so suddenly that your shoulders tensed slightly. Concern lingered openly across his face now, his brows drawn together as he studied you carefully.

“O-oh, yeah,” you answered quickly. “I just got lost in thought.”

His gaze narrowed slightly, like he was weighing the credibility of your statement.

“A weak defense,” he said quietly.

You blinked before letting out a soft laugh. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re avoiding the question.”

Despite the words, his tone remained gentle. There was no pressure behind it. No demand. Hiromi had always been strangely careful with you, as though he understood some parts of your heart were still under litigation.

You noticed the way his thumb brushed absentmindedly against the rim of his glass before he spoke again.

“You know,” he began softly, “I think we should consider living together.”

Your eyes lifted toward him.

“It’d be safer,” he continued. “Especially with everything happening lately.”

The shift in his expression was subtle but noticeable. The softness in him sharpened slightly, lawyer instincts slipping back into place.

“Do you know about the incident in Shibuya?” he asked. “Mass casualties. Witness statements barely line up. The entire thing sounds absurd.”

Your stomach tightened instinctively.

“There was a man involved,” Hiromi continued. “An executive from some large company.”

Something cold crept down your spine.

Hiromi glanced toward you briefly before speaking again.

“Nanami Kento.”

I’m really grateful for the requests. I feel honored to be entrusted with your ideas. <3

I’ll start writing right after my next fic!

You stood there, staring at Noritoshi as if he were a stranger woven from memories you could never fully abandon. Everything about him had changed. At first glance, you could barely recognize him if it were not for those eyes of his, beautiful enough to remain engraved within you no matter how much time had passed.

For a moment, the years dissolved before your eyes.

You could still remember every little thing the two of you once shared. The warmth of his hand resting against your cheek as if you were something painfully fragile. The secret intertwining of your fingers whenever no one was around to witness it. The quiet way your hearts once seemed to beat in perfect harmony, as if they had memorized one another long before either of you realized it.

And now, all that remained were ghosts of feelings buried beneath distance and silence. At least, that was what you kept telling yourself.

Yet the glimmer hidden within his eyes betrayed the words he once laid out for you.

The wind passed gently between the two of you, carrying a silence so delicate it almost felt sacred. Neither of you moved, neither of you knew how to.

Seeing him now with shorter hair nearly made you laugh at the irony of it all. Noritoshi had once treasured his long, dark hair as if it were a part of the future he had carved out for himself. He wore it with pride, preserving every strand for the day he would stand as the clan head of his prestigious family.

But that version of him no longer stood before you.

The man in front of you looked exhausted in a way sleep could never fix. His once put together appearance had unraveled into something disheveled and weary, as if life itself had finally forced his carefully built walls to collapse.

And you could not help but wonder what finally broke him enough to realize that sacrificing himself for the clan would never truly make him happy.

Because you certainly could not. Not when he chose duty over you. Not when he ended everything because becoming the next heir mattered more than the softness of your love.

Exhaustion traced itself across the features your fingers once touched with such care. Yet despite the ache lingering within your chest, seeing him again felt strangely refreshing. Perhaps because, for the first time, he no longer looked like the person his clan demanded him to be.

He simply looked like Noritoshi.

“You look good with your haircut,” you murmured softly, finally breaking the silence that had settled so heavily between the two of you.

His hand twitched faintly at his side, as if muscle memory urged him to reach for you before remembering he no longer had the right to.

A quiet laugh escaped him then, breathless and brittle.

“You’re the first person who’s said that.”

The words lingered in the space between you, fragile enough to shatter if either of you spoke too loudly.

Once, Noritoshi would have taken pride in appearances. Every strand of hair perfectly maintained, every movement carried with the dignity expected of someone born into the Kamo clan. Back then, responsibility clung to him like a second skin, tightening around him even as it slowly stole pieces of who he truly was.

But now, standing beneath the fading light, he looked painfully human.

His gaze rested on you for far too long, quiet and lingering, as if he were mourning something only the two of you could understand.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” he admitted softly.

The confession settled deep within your chest, awakening an ache you thought time had already dulled.

Because neither did you.

Yet standing before him now felt painfully familiar, like returning to a home you no longer had the right to enter.

And perhaps that was the cruelest part of it all.

Noritoshi still looked at you with love lingering quietly in his eyes, gentle and unwavering despite the years that had passed between you. It was there in the way his gaze softened whenever it landed on you. In the way his hand still twitched at his side like some part of him still remembered how it felt to hold yours.

He loved you. You knew he did. But love had never been the problem. The world around the two of you had always been far crueler than that.

Duty and expectations. The weight of a clan that demanded pieces of him until there was barely anything left to give. And you hated it.

Hated how fate allowed him to become the person you had always needed only when the two of you no longer belonged to each other.

For a fleeting moment, you wondered what would have happened if the world had been kinder to the two of you.

But the silence between you already carried the answer.

In another life, perhaps Noritoshi would have been yours.

In this one, all you could do was stand there loving each other quietly while the world pulled you apart once again.

There had been numerous times where Choso fantasized about living a quiet, domestic life with you. Ever since Yuji introduced you to him, Choso had been unable to get you out of his head. Every minute, his thoughts drifted back to the smallest details about you. The accidental brush of your hand against his sleeve, the way your eyes lit up with quiet awe whenever you watched him train, and how your smile alone sent warmth rushing through his body.

He thought about you far more than he could ever bring himself to say aloud in your presence.

Whenever you tagged along with him and Yuji, Yuji would always place you between the two of them, hoping to ease the distance Choso kept around himself before silence could settle in. Yet despite Yuji’s endless attempts to push him into confessing, Choso would always freeze the moment he stood face-to-face with you.

You were breathtaking.

Every word he rehearsed the night before fizzled out of his mind like carbonation escaping from a shaken soda can.

It took him hundreds of failed attempts to realize he simply could not do it. But you were his dream, his fragile, impossible dream, and Choso refused to give up on you so easily. He only needed more courage. Until then, he decided he would protect you instead. Like they say, actions speak louder than words.

So Choso stayed close in every way he knew how. He carried your bags before you could reach for them yourself. He lingered near doorways to make sure you walked safely behind him. And whenever the nights in Tokyo grew colder, he would silently drape his jacket over your shoulders despite Yuji teasing him for how obvious he was being.

And every single time, you smiled at him with that same gentle warmth that made his chest ache.

Sometimes, late at night, Choso allowed himself to imagine impossible things. A tiny apartment tucked away from the violence of jujutsu society. The smell of dinner filling the kitchen while you hummed softly beside him. Your fingers intertwined with his beneath warm blankets while rain tapped against the windows.

Peaceful, ordinary things. Things someone like him was never meant to have. Yet you made him selfish enough to want them anyway.

The promise tasted bitter in his mouth the moment he watched Sukuna hurl your body across the ruined streets of Shinjuku.

Time seemed to stop as blood streaked across the pavement. Choso sprinted toward you with panic clawing violently through his chest. The destruction around him blurred into meaningless noise as he dropped to his knees beside you and pulled you into his arms with trembling hands. Your body felt far too fragile against him, far too still.

“No… no, please…”

His voice broke apart before the words could fully leave him.

Tears blurred his vision as he watched consciousness slowly slip from your eyes. Blood stained his hands no matter how desperately he tried to stop it. He pressed trembling palms against your wounds as though sheer desperation alone could force life back into you. He could do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

His promise shattered before him with cruel ease.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, though he no longer knew what he was apologizing for. For being too weak. Too slow, too late.

Maybe he was apologizing for loving you at all.

Because the moment you entered his life, fate had already decided to take you from him.

Your lips parted slightly, as if you wanted to say something. Maybe his name, maybe goodbye. But the words never came. Your hand twitched weakly against his chest before all strength left your body completely.

And then came the silence. A horrible, suffocating silence that swallowed the entire world whole.

Choso stared at you in disbelief, waiting for your chest to rise again. Waiting for another breath that never came. His hands trembled harder as he pressed his forehead against yours, desperate enough to pretend your lingering warmth meant you were still there.

But warmth faded cruelly fast. He never got the chance to tell you he loved you before your pulse disappeared beneath his fingertips.

Grief hollowed him out from the inside as quiet sobs shook his body. The future he had secretly built inside his heart crumbled into dust before his eyes. No small apartment. No quiet mornings. No life beside you.

Somewhere amidst the agony, one thought consumed him whole.

He would have to spend the rest of his life remembering you longer than he had ever known you.

You roamed the streets of Tokyo while the city carried on around you. Neon signs flickered against rain-soaked pavement, voices bled together somewhere in the distance, cars passed by without slowing. Life continued so normally that it almost felt cruel. Your thoughts drifted elsewhere entirely. You couldn’t remember how long it had been since you left Jujutsu High. At some point, the days stopped feeling important enough to count. Morning and night blurred together until all that remained was movement. Mission after mission, street after street. The slow feeling of yourself slipping further away each time you closed your eyes.

And then you felt him. The cursed energy was familiar long before you saw him. It felt heavy, restrained. It was impossible to not recognize who it was. You stopped walking immediately. Of course it was him.

Ever since you made the binding vow, you knew this moment would come eventually. The curse had been eating away at you little by little. At first, it only surfaced during missions. Then it lingered afterward. Thoughts that should have horrified you no longer did. Death became easier to look at, easier to justify. By the time the higher-ups noticed, the outcome had already been decided.

Execution order. Executor: Yuta Okkotsu

The irony almost made you laugh. The jujutsu world claimed sorcerers existed to save people, yet the moment someone became difficult to save, they were discarded just as quickly.

Yuta stood beneath the glow of a vending machine a few feet away, pale light catching against the exhaustion carved into his face. His uniform looked wrinkled, like sleep had become something distant to him lately. The katana resting at his side remained untouched. Even now, he hadn’t reached for it.

When his eyes met yours, something in his expression gave way almost immediately. You remembered when that look used to hurt. Now it only made you tired.

“So,” you said quietly. “They finally told you.”

Yuta did not answer right away. His lips parted slightly before closing again.

“…Yeah.”

Silence settled between the two of you. The city noise suddenly felt very far away.

“What did you do?” he asked at last.

A dry laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “That’s the problem.” Your eyes drifted briefly toward the pavement. “I didn’t do anything.”

The curse shifted faintly beneath your skin. You could feel it constantly now. Like something alive curled inside your body.

“Every time I use the vow to save someone, it gets worse,” you said. “I knew there’d be a limit eventually.”

Yuta’s brows pulled together immediately. “Then stop using it.”

You looked at him for a moment. Both of you knew you never would. If someone stood in front of you dying tomorrow, you would still choose to save them. Even if it destroyed you completely afterward.

Yuta seemed to realize it too because his expression tightened almost instantly. He looked away briefly before reaching into his coat pocket. When he looked back at you, there was a small envelope in his hand.

“Train tickets,” he said quietly. “Leave Tokyo tonight. I’ll handle the rest.”

Your eyes lingered on the envelope for a few seconds before you shook your head. “No.”

His expression changed immediately. “Why?”

Lately, there were moments you barely recognized yourself. People died in front of you and sometimes you felt nothing at all. Sometimes violence came too naturally. Sometimes you caught yourself thinking the way the curse would think instead of fighting against it.

“There’s still time,” Yuta said quickly. “We can figure something out.”

“You don’t know that.”

“We’ll try.”

The response came too fast, too desperate. Your gaze softened slightly. “You can hear it too, can’t you?” you asked quietly. “The curse.”

For months, he had noticed the changes. The slight delay before you reacted to certain things, the emptiness that sometimes settled behind your eyes, and the unfamiliar weight tangled into your cursed energy. He noticed all of it and still chose to believe there was a future where this ended differently

“I’m still myself right now,” you whispered. “That’s why I need to stop this before it gets worse.”

“No.” Yuta stepped forward immediately. “Don’t say that.”

“Then what should I say?”

He fell silent. Neither of you had an answer. Wind moved faintly between you, cold against damp skin. Somewhere nearby, another train thundered through the city before fading back into the noise of Tokyo.

“You know what happens to sorcerers like me,” you said quietly.

The words settled heavily between the two of you because both of you had seen it happen before. Sorcerers consumed by curses, people who crossed a line and never found their way back from it.

Yuta’s grip around the envelope tightened.

“There has to be another way.”

It did not sound confident, It sounded like someone trying desperately to hold onto the last thing they could still save.

“You saved me once too,” he said quietly.

Something twisted painfully in your chest. “And look where it got me.”