Content: Post- Shinjuku/Shibuya arc Scar!jo x reader... angstangstangst...
Just a little story I badly wrote recently. Not proofread just yet but someday i'll rewrite it entirely.
WC: 4.3k
Satoru's hair has always been impossibly white, so characteristically him. Fluffy, pale as a foggy sky, milky and soft- though he always took care of it with minimal effort, it still felt like silk in between your fingertips.
And it stood tall, like him.
As you thread your soap-lathered hands through his locks, you try to remember the last time he'd properly taken care of it on his own. For months now, you'd been the one bathing him.
Shibuya has left marks on your husband that were too deep to even put into words.
Shinjuku though, it's left him even worse. A fraction of who he used to be.
Every night, you lead the same ritual ever since moving with him to your mother's house in the mountains. Where the quiet was the only thing that could reach him.
Though the water has calming essential oilsâlavender, eucalyptusâ and on some days even some lemon drops, mineral salts to help the scars scattered across his pale skin, nothing really could erase Sukuna's marks from your lover.
His eyes are closed in the bathtub like every night. Mind somewhere you can't reach even if you tried.
A ghost of himself now, he's been mute for more time than you could remember.
On some days you struggle to remember the deepness of his voice, the curious intonation he says some words with, the loudness.
Not in the medical diagnosis mute though, he can talk. But at the same time he can't. The inner turmoil inside him, which you know he fights every minute of the day, prevents him from uttering a single word.
Thankfully you know him well enough to leave him to himself. Where he tries to push away all of the trauma and bad memories that crept under his skin, deep in his bones at all times.
You know his favourite meals, what he eats and what he doesn't, how he likes his bed, or what he feels like doing without needing to communicate directly with him.
Yet, even with all of his silence, you still speak to him.
A few words can do a lot.
So at times when the frown is carved too deeply on his face, you're somewhat able to just barely ground him. Remind him that he's here and not on the battlefield anymore.
If it were up to you, he would never channel cursed energy through his body ever again. But those were affairs for a distant future you still hadn't pondered about.
Your fingertips curve inwards just a slight bit, nails grazing his scalp as you deliberately massage the conditioner into his hair now.
There are times where you struggle to fight your own trauma.
His fight was broadcasted everywhere, you were on front row watching when everything went downâ guilt tugging everywhere, helpless, desperate. Mere streets away from the fight, too close for safety, but you couldn't help it.
Every explosion, crash and slash that reached him ruined you like they ruined him. And for long, excruciating hours, you watched him.
It was crucifying on a level that surpassed every existing limit.
He left his life there, on the line.
What came out of the fight were the remains of a winner, what was left of the strongestâ bloodied, scarred tissue, and an even deeper hurt soul.
Pieces of you were everywhere too., people's ears had stopped working from the horrifying screams you'd subconsciously let out whenever his blood was shed.
Your hair was on the floor from ripping it out. Fingernails followed through the hours too, nail beds raw by the time Shoko had sedated you against your protestsâ all for your own good.
The quiet after the storm stayed longer than anything else., the brief minute the world went stillâ when everyone was silent before they broke into cheers, celebrations.
You remember your heart stopping, the adrenaline pulsing through each artery in your body. There was no happiness from your end as your eyes stayed glued to the screen where your husband's body was limp on the ground.
Within minutes you crossed the distance between him and you. Clawing your way past anything that stood between you and the thin line your husband was holding onto.
The bridge between life and death he was dancing on. You got there way before Shoko and any help came.
He was motionless on the floor.
A faint heartbeat was the only thing you heard when your ear was pressed against his leftâ over the cold surface of his chest that usually was warm and housed your head in hugs or on lazy mornings.
Shoko had come just in time to catch that snapping thread of heartbeat. Reverse cursed technique flaring to life and sewing together that pitter-pattering rhythm once more.
The way her eyes widened after figuring out his brain had almost bled beyond repairing was a face that was tattooed in your memory forever now.
So, as his lawful wife, witnessing that took its toll on you too. Everything did. The dried blood you can't seem to forget was on his handsome face, the frail state he was in for weeks.
Now, you fought your own wars. You were scarred in your own way.
Nowhere nearly as bad as the man infront of you though.
"Satoru, I'm done. You can lay there for as long as you want, I'll get started on dinner." Your sweet, Honey voice echoes through the bathroom as your rise from your stool, place a small kiss on his forehead and head out.
Tonight, pasta was on the menu.
Nothing special, bolognese.
Your husband's arms wrap around your midsection as you stir the sauce. Even when he is at his lowest, his love language is still physical touch, it's still finding his place right next to youâ quieter now, but still the same.
From behind, you could feel the slimness of him. The lack of muscle he had gained and came out of the prison realm with. The sharp bones pressing against your back.
Your lips pursed, and you reached for the olive oil again. Despite your efforts, hearty meals and supplements, he still didn't gain the weight he needed back.
All that laid next to you at night was your inconsolable, bone-thin, unrecognizable husband.
But you still loved him anyway.
You remember the first day after seeing him on the metal table where Shoko had worked on him for hours.
Almost impossible to phantom when he was the loudest in the room, the light in your days.
The ocean in his eyes looked distressed, polluted with emptiness.
And yet, he was still your Satoru, the vulnerable and real one. The scared one.
The most human one you've seen in your years of marriage.
He spent the first day awake, back from being on death's door, in his room at your shared apartment in Tokyo.
You took the quick decision of leaving the city within the week. To move to your late mother's house up in the isolated mountains.
The house is a complete 360 from the business and modern living that happens in the capitol. It had no electric, smart gadgets, no real useful lock on the front door. Not even a window that properly closed.
But there were generations of love in the walls. Love from your motherâ from when she raised you within those old, crumbling, familiar walls, love from the sun, from your childhood.
He didn't run from the change. There wasn't really the right to.
So you both quietly settled there, alone.
His students visited once. He didn't dare to look at them. The scar across Yuji's face was too much for him to bear looking at, Nobara's eye patch stung.
It all reminded him of Nanami. A missing person in both of your lives. Somebody you hadn't adjusted to not having around.
You cried every morning in a secluded place behind the garden where you grew your produce.
Your mother's soil was still in optimal condition, even years after she abandoned the place, so it was fit for a little patch of tomatoes and whatnot.
Only early in the morning, before your husband had risen yet, would you let the tears spill. There, on a chair that was considered vintage now. Alone. With your own fears and pains.
Megumi's absence hurt him the most though.
His brain hadn't gotten to accept what had happened to the boy he took in as a child himself too.
They left uncertain of everything, not how they came. And you reassured them that there was no need to go through the awkward evening in the mountains with their unwell sensei again, that you were taking good care of him.
Eventually, they gave in. Sometime when he gets better, you'll invite them over again.
Nobody but Shokoâ who visits once a week, frequents your home.
It's okay, your time is fully on him anyway.
Months had passed since you last heard him form sentences.
You couldn't pinpoint the last time you watched a movie. Life had been colorless ever since Shibuya.
Before Sukuna and the scars drawn on Satoru's canvas, he was a loud person.
Sometimes insufferably so, but always energetic.
Now, you yearn for the days you couldn't hear the movie over Satoru's excessive commentary.
At night, you find yourself wishing you never complained about it. Because you'd do anything to hear him talk again as easily as he did before.
These simple things are what go through your mind as you shovel away.
Digging dirt up from generation old soil that needs to be prepped for the upcoming thousands of tulips you intend to plant.
Spring is right around the corner.
And you didn't expect to turn and find Satoru on the porch, watching.
Because he doesn't get up until his sorrows creep up into his dreams around 9 A.M.
And he surely hasn't gone outside, willingly at least, in the last three months.
So it catches your muddy-boot-wearing, sweat covered self off-guard.
You're suddenly all too conscious of your breathing, how much dirt is caught staining your worn out overalls.
Because it's the first time in so long that he's looking at you.
With those void, azure blue eyes of his.
Your heart foolishly skips a beat.
The weather warms up just a bit more after that day.
Though not even a week ago, it was still -10° in the lonely mountainsâ starting from today, maybe the conditions will improve just enough to welcome blossoming flowers and blooming crops.
Perhaps it's just enough for your own life to grow.
And the tiny one inside of you.
He lurks around the house more the next week.
He's up by the time you've headed into the garden now.
The mornings where you cry alone behind the planted flowers become harder to carry out.
So feelings start to get bottled up,
Your face barely has time to reduce its swelling before he's there, watching you in that silence you've grown to live in.
By now, you've left a chair there. For his morning show, you, aggressively, efficiently handling the most important and tiresome job there is to do.
Gardening. Growing your own fruits and vegetables.
The flowers on the sidelines are for your mere pleasure. They aren't as essential as your hardly grown produce are.
But, a bit of color in your black and white world seems appealing.
You wonder many times if the ache in your bones is a normal result of growing a new life.
3 months, that's how far along you supposed you were.
Nobody knew, but you're tuned in well enough with your body to know there was something wrong with you.
Satoru didn't notice you stopped menstruating. He probably didn't know it's already been two months since the fight.
But some part of you was glad he was oblivious. You couldn't imagine dropping such news on a man who doesn't even have a foot in reality.
Having a child is something you've wanted for a long time. So you're happy either way.
At least until he's ready, that's what you tell yourself.
Tulips are in full swing. Petals of magnificent shades paint your garden in a rainbow.
Satoru has commented about them too.
Maybe the light is shining upon you two again.
Another few weeks have passed.
You've grown a lot more tired. No pregnancy symptoms pester you, thankfullyâ apart from the occasional migraines, dizziness and soreness you still manage to hide from your husband.
He's been... present lately.
It changes a world. Warmth spreads through you everytime you see him around the house.
He's covered from head to toe, even in the humid spring weather. Scars too shameful according to him.
A sign that he still fights the last everyday.
Though he hasn't told you, you know. You know how much the lines on his skin bother him because he thinks they tell the story of a weapon that succeeded, and not a man who almost lost it all.
Because they don't say anything he thinks they do. They're marks of heroism, of power, bravery and the victory of the world's kindest man.
And you love tracing every scar on the strongest sorcerer when he's in deep sleep.
Maybe one day he'll realize he's still perfect to you.
The mornings in the garden aren't spent crying anymore, you can't seem to let any tears spill since the end of your first trimester.
You've been guessing throughout your whole pregnancy. 5 months should be how long you've been expecting by now.
It's strange. How quiet your baby is. Or how your body is. Your bump is only noticeable when naked.
Helps hiding from Satoru. Though you feel that with the passage of time, guilt eats at you more.
You'll tell him soon enough, he's been getting better, you tell yourself.
Yet, you struggle to find the words to tell him.
Now, you read a maternity book your late mother had in the dusty attic, quietly preparing yourself for motherhood on your own as chamomile tea sits on the piece of log next to your chair.
Those times become less frequent, the moments to yourself on slow mornings, the more Satoru starts breathing and functioning like a normal human again.
He's gotten the talking ability back, as well as washing his hair on his own again.
Though he insists on you doing it for him everyday. So you do.
With your hidden bump it becomes harder to bend over the bathtub behind him. But you spread your legs wide and soap the milky hair.
You enjoy it. Every second. Because things are getting better.
Then at night, when your chest hurts for reasons you don't know, and your breathing comes hardlyâ all while he sleeps soundly by you, you're left wondering what is getting worse within you.
It's at the 5 month mark after Shinjuku that you finally trust Satoru enough to leave him alone at the house so you could duck into the city for some hours to run some much needed errands.
You didn't bring him. He isn't that healed to see the city, to bring him back to the ruins of Tokyo.
But your chest has this tightness that takes your waddling, 7 month pregnant self to Shoko.
Only the remains of her office existed in the space you had went to. An abandoned x ray machine, dusty stethoscope. Abandoned drawers of medicine and other medical supplies.
You manoeuvred the old machine well enough to see your baby on the screen.
The blurry scan showed nothing of the gender, well none that you could understand so you just moved on after watching the growing fetus for a bit.
It settled slowly within you, the fact that you were becoming a mother soon.
A sharp pain struck you again.
Chest tightening, breaths shortening like always.
Then you moved the gel tip of the ultrasound machine over to somewhere people don't see when they go to a sonography.
Left lung, under. Your heart.
Where you find another life growing inside of you.
At first, you think it's a trick of the ancient machine.
Static crawls across the corner.
Your hand trembles as you press the probe harder against your chest.
Your heartbeat reaches your ears.
A continuous, strong thump,thump, thump.
The sound coming from your chest is uneven through the machine's speakers, distorted by age and dust.
This isn't where a shadow should be.
The room suddenly feels too small.
You go home with bags full of food in the truck. Sweet delicacies you can't bake for your sweet-toothed husband.
He lights up like the sun does to the world in the mornings.
And that night you can't sleep.
Especially not after coughing up blood twice during his slumber.
The world seemed to have tilted sideways since that day in the doctors office.
Now you don't fill the silence, because there is no silence.
Your husband is his talkative self, though always rambling about superficial things until his past hits him and leaves him quiet for a second, he's talking.
When his students visit, still with no Megumi, but this time all of them, he's there just enough to be their sensei again.
Jokes find him easily like they always did before.
And you're happy in a way you haven't been in a while.
Maybe the growing baby in you will make everything better.
There's a chance there's nothing wrong.
It's on a ordinary Thursday you try to tell him you're pregnant.
A loaf of bread was in the oven, nothing out of the ordinary. You make a batch almost everyday.
You chicken out on the last moment and hide the smaller one.
He laughs at the burnt bread, it's a fullâ healthy, hearty laugh.
The fleeting thought about your pregnancy mind catching up to you slips your mind as you bask in the delightful sound.
Only when your own chuckles were interrupted by loud, strong chain of coughs faintly laced with blood did you realise that hiding your condition would soon be getting harder.
You realised that when you woke up late for once to find him smiling down at you.
Calloused hands running up and down your spine.
His beautifully scarred face, illuminated by the invasive sun seeping through your curtains.
You were scared he'd notice the paleness in your complexion, the thinness you hadn't had before.
The little bulge in your stomach pressing against him.
And you didn't know if you had the courage, or the time to tell him before it was too late.
The radio was on in the living room. Satoru was humming a tune when a sharp pain shot through your whole body.
It wasn't coming from your chest this time, and it wasn't like the previous pains you'd felt.
Before you could even process what was going to happen, or the liquid dripping down your legs, a loud scream escaped you.
He appeared in the kitchen to find you hunched over the sink, holding your stomach.
That was the first time he noticed just the size of your stomach.
The swell that was too small to be full term, but it was.
His eyes didn't catch the blood spilling from the corners of your mouth, the other hand your had on your chestâ because he was already taking you to the car.Â
Panic overrid his senses.
Fear consumed him. Guilt, regret, bile built up in his throat as he went pass multiple speed limits to get you downtown.
He pulled over to materialise you both into Shoko's office because he knew he wasn't going to make it by driving.
You were hauled onto a stretcher of some sorts, a bed. You weren't even sure with the amount of pain consuming you.
Satoru was screaming, profusely shouting something you couldn't hear as you lost ability to listen. Your eyes were dropping, and it all hurt so much.
You did feel something pinch you, maybe on your wrist. On your spine perhaps, or on your forearm. But you couldn't pinpoint exactly where what you assumed were needles being shoved into you.
Because you felt heavy. Your chest more than your stomach though.
Not a single coherent word came from you apart from threads of "It hurts." over what felt like an eternity.
A hand was holding yours.Â
The harsh edges and the familiar creases on the palm you traced every night told you exactly whose it was.
You pushed out of mere instinct, because you felt your legs were open in the standard laying birthing position.
Not because you could see or hear Shoko telling you to. But because it hurt so much, your stomach, that you just wanted to push it out.
The pain stopped when you pushed one last time.
Then you felt light as a feather with each passing second.
You assumed your baby was wailing.
You wished you could see whether it was a girl or a boy.Â
The words I love you desperately wanted to escape you and reach the little one.
Satoru wasn't holding your hand anymore.
It panicked you not to see or feel anything. You wanted him near you more than the child.
Then a weight was placed on your chest.
Your hand shot up to hold the small frame on instinct.
The smile on your face was genuine.
You wished you could see them.
Something told you it was a little girl though, mother's instinct.
But with the little force you had in your arms, you brought them up just enough to press your dry, cracked lips against their forehead.
The room blurred at the edges.
A cough followedâwarm, metallic.
You barely noticed the weight lifted from your chest.
She's delicate. Soft and beautiful just like you.
Your was body lay out cold on the metal bed.
Then it was buried six feet underground in a casket that was too big for what you had become, all bones and degrading limbs.
He knew you weren't really there, underground. But the memory of your body relaxing, tension leaving your shoulders, your chest dropping for one last time as you took your final breath was something he'd never forget.
Something that had him picking himself apart everyday.Â
Shibuya had changed him.Â
You have erased him. Turned him into pure nothing.
A walking corpse, father of a baby spun from starlight that didn't deserve to have an absent father.
He remembered the noise in the room, the frantic beeping of the many machines that were attached to you. Far more than what he assumed a normal labour included.
He remembered the blood on the child you birthed, the one you grew under his nose.Â
His stomach was always in knots when he held her, yet she tilted his world with her sudden appearance in his life that he could find it in himself to see her as anything but his shared creation with you.
Then he remembered the never ending pool of blood coming from you.
The tears that prickled on Shoko's waterline as she panicked meant no good when nothing she did stopped the bleeding.Â
No cursed technique, no stitching, no drug induced through IV.Â
She'd shouted so loud for him to leave the baby to you and help herâ help her in any way at all to stop the red liquid that wasn't supposed to be leaving you, that he dropped his daughter into your arms.
Unknowingly, letting you have your first and last moment with her.
Fear was all that coursed through his veins, raw. Unmistakably consuming him from every side. His hands were red with you, he was scared.
The room had gone quiet as you held your baby, eyes closed, a soft smile on your tired, sweaty face.
Shoko's choked cry said much more than any words ever could,
He took her out of your arms to tell you to hang on.
But it was already too late.
Cause of death, internal haemorrhage was written on the death certificate.
But it was more than that.
A tumour you'd hid from him, nestled deep within your heart that grew its life as you grew another.
He found the motherhood book on the piece of wood hidden behind the flowers in full swing.
Spring has never felt so cold despite the warm weather.
The mountains were freezing for him though.
Weeks had passed already.
The ghost of you lingers around him.
At least that's what he tells himself because he still feels you.
Your sweet laugh echoing in the empty hallsâ following him around like invisible company, the plates you had put on the table that day were still left in their placeâ perfectly untouched like life hadn't continued.
For him it hadn't anyway, he was still at the hospital.
Still in the dark, but no longer in the battlefield.
She has your eyes, and he's thankful for that because he didn't have the chance to see them before you left.
Why does the strongest sorcerer have a child harboured from pure love in an empty bed? Where he can't give himself to her because you've taken everything with you?
The cold creeps up in different ways despite the scorching sun outside.
It's in the halls, in his heart.
Not a sorcerer, the strongest, a lover.
Nothing but a father without any consciousness.
And he feels it the most when he's wasting away, in your empty bed, as he holds your last act of love to him.
His darling little angel.
He wishes he didn't have to lose his angel to met another one.
Sorry about that.. Satoru fluff medicine in my masterlist tho!
