things that rot softly

Gojo Satoru | canon-compliant | angst no comfort | roughly 1.1k wk | MAJOR CHARACTER DEATHS | Sukuna hug + Suguru reflections

They call it a gift.

A miracle. A legacy. A bloodline wrapped in infinity.

They call it a blessing — to be the strongest.

But no one ever asks what it costs to live like this.

Gojo walks through blood like it’s water. Each step is silent. Smooth. Weightless. He doesn’t stumble. Doesn’t hesitate. He moves like someone untouchable — like a god that forgot how to pray.

They see power. He feels rot.

The Six Eyes see everything. Except how to save anyone.

His students die before he does. Always. That’s the pattern. That’s the curse. That’s the truth no one says out loud.

Suguru’s death was just the beginning. Nanami followed. Haibara. Kuroi. Nobara’s heartbeat, maybe. Geto’s smile — gone twice.

He sees Suguru everywhere.

In the ash that clings to Gojo’s sleeves after battle. In the stubborn flowers that bloom between cracks in broken pavement. In incense smoke curling toward a ceiling, as if it’s still reaching for gods who stopped listening. In the golden light before sunset, when everything feels like it might be forgiven.

Even the silence hums like Suguru used to — soft, ironic, never fully at peace.

Grief sharpens Gojo’s sight.

He sees him in Megumi’s stillness, in Nobara’s righteous fury, in Yuuji’s aching heart that wants so badly to save everyone.

He watches them laugh at something dumb, shoulder to shoulder, and it hits him like a blade through the ribs.

Shoko. Suguru. Himself.

Once, they were the ones laughing like that — unbroken, stupid, believing the world could be bent back into place with just enough strength and love and time.

The echo hurts more than silence ever could.

Even Megumi — even his Megumi, the boy he promised to protect — was swallowed whole by something Gojo couldn’t stop.

And Yuuji. Sweet, doomed Yuuji.

Every time Gojo breathes, he counts the names he failed to keep alive.

He doesn't blink anymore. It feels like too much of a luxury.

There’s no joy in being the strongest.

You stop being human the moment people start expecting miracles.

They don’t ask if you’re okay. They ask why you didn’t win faster.

They don’t ask if you’re grieving. They ask why you let someone die.

They don’t ask if your heart broke. They say, “But you’re Gojo Satoru. You’re the strongest.”

As if power makes you immune to pain.

As if being able to destroy mountains means you’re not allowed to cry.

He has dreams, sometimes.

Dreams of a simpler life. A drowsy morning, someone’s breath against his neck. A home. Hands that don’t reach for help — just reach because they want him. Not the title. Not the shield. Not the legend. Just… him.

But when he wakes up, there’s only silence.

The kind of silence that echoes off the walls of an empty house.

And then there’s the moment.

The moment everyone misreads. The one they’ll replay forever, trying to decipher.

The hug.

Gojo pulls Sukuna into his arms — but not for victory. Not for strategy. He hugs him like a father saying goodbye to a son who never got to grow up. Like a teacher mourning a student whose body became a battlefield. Like a man letting go of the last thread of love he had left in this world.

“I see you,” he whispers — not to Sukuna. But to Megumi. To the flicker of him that Gojo hopes is still in there, curled in some quiet, untouched part of his soul.

It’s not a tactical embrace. It’s a funeral rite.

His arms are a coffin. His silence, the eulogy.

He holds the monster wearing Megumi’s skin, and for one breathless second, it feels like he’s cradling the child again — the one with shadows in his eyes and kindness in his silence.

And when he lets go…

He lets go of everything.

He stands in the middle of a battlefield — still fresh, still red, still warm. A crater where a city used to be. His blindfold hangs loose around his neck.

He doesn’t look proud.

He looks tired.

His arms are stained. Not with blood — with guilt. With failure. With love that couldn’t save anyone.

“What use is power,” he whispers, “if it leaves me alone?”

No one answers.

They never do.

He remembers when he used to laugh more.

Loud. Annoying. Careless.

Suguru used to roll his eyes and say, “You laugh like nothing matters.”

Back then, it didn’t.

Not yet.

Not until the missions started ending with body bags. Not until every conversation began to sound like a goodbye. Not until everyone he loved became a memory.

Now, when he laughs, it sounds like static. Something broken trying to mimic joy.

People worship power.

But power doesn’t hold your hand when your best friend dies. Power doesn’t comfort you when you stare at a child’s grave and realize it’s your fault they’re in it. Power doesn’t say “I forgive you.”

It just sits there. Heavy. Cold. Absolute.

The world thinks he has everything.

But all Gojo Satoru has… is time.

Too much of it.

So he walks alone. Not because he wants to — but because there’s no one left to walk with him.

And maybe that’s the real curse.

Not the Six Eyes. Not the Limitless. But the silence after the war ends. The empty seat beside him. The birthdays he forgets on purpose because remembering hurts worse.

He is the strongest. And the loneliest.

Sometimes, late at night, he kneels at an altar only he can see.

No candles. No prayers.

Just names.

Suguru. Nanami. Haibara. Nobara. Riko. Kuroi. Megumi. Yuji. Again. And again. And again.

He says them all, until they no longer feel like sounds.

Until they feel like scars pressed into the roof of his mouth.

He dies on his feet.

Facing the void. A smile on his lips — not arrogant, not smug. Just… done.

The blow is clean. His body splits like a ribbon. No scream. No resistance.

Because for once, Gojo Satoru doesn’t try to win.

He lets go.

And in that split second — in that single, final breath — he feels peace like he’s never known it.

Not because he succeeded. Not because he won. But because it’s over.

They’ll say he died too soon, too young. But he didn’t.

He died exactly when he was supposed to — when he was finally allowed to.

Death wasn’t the punishment.

It was the gift.

An ending. A release. A softness the world never let him taste while he was alive.

And maybe, just maybe — in another life, he’ll wake up somewhere quieter. Not a battlefield. Not a grave.

But a home.

Suguru will be there, eyes warm, arms open. Nanami will nod and pour the tea. Yuuji will laugh with all his teeth at something Nobara said. Megumi will sleep peacefully for once, head resting on a pillow, not a burden.

Kenjaku (Geto?) x Reader | Angst / Grief / Yearning | roughly 800 wk

You kiss him like a prayer made to the wrong god.

Not because you believe he'll answer. But because silence is lonelier than blasphemy.

His lips are soft, familiar. Still. Still Geto’s. Still shaped like every love confession he never had time to say out loud. Still shaped like the words you always thought he’d have more time to give.

He lets you kiss him.

And that is the cruellest thing.

Because Suguru never let you kiss him like this — not when he was angry, not when the world was slipping from his fingers, not even in the silence after his choices cracked everything open.

But this thing in front of you, this thief draped in his skin, lets you touch him like a shrine.

Like maybe if you’re gentle enough, you’ll awaken the dead.

He died alone, didn’t he?

Shot in the head. By Gojo — of all people.

You weren’t there. You never got the call. They didn’t even give you a body — just a name scratched off the registry of the living, like that was enough. Like grief is something you can fill out paperwork for.

The next time you saw his face, it was standing in a crowded room. Alive. Smiling. Not him.

And you should have screamed. Should have run. Should have ripped the stitched smile off that corpse and demanded your mourning back.

But instead — you kissed him.

He tastes like forgetting.

Like ash and metal. Like time turned sour in your mouth.

You whisper his name between kisses like an incantation. Like repetition might rewind the universe. Like somewhere inside that body, Suguru Geto is still curled up, waiting for you to find him.

"I miss you," you say.

Not to Kenjaku. Not to the imposter with patient hands and a scientist's curiosity. But to him. To the boy who once told you curses deserved to live, too, even if it meant becoming one.

You don’t think he heard you — the first time. So you say it again. Louder this time. Tangled in the dark. Fingers in his hair. Desperate.

"I miss you, I miss you, I miss you—"

He pulls back. Only slightly. Just enough to look at you through a stranger’s eyes in a borrowed skull.

“Do you?” he asks.

And the way he says it, like it’s funny - makes you want to scream.

Because this isn’t love. This is necromancy with lipstick. This is calling a ghost by name until it answers in someone else’s voice. This is trauma dressed in the costume of a second chance.

You trace his jaw with your fingertips. It’s the same. Exactly the same.

“Why do you let me do this?” you ask. “Why do you let me pretend?”

He shrugs. A small, amused thing.

“Because I like watching you lie to yourself.”

Your throat closes.

He touches you like it means nothing. Like your grief is a science experiment he’s been cataloguing for months. Every kiss you give, every gasp, every desperate repetition of “Suguru” is just more data.

He touches you like he’s curious whether your love was strong enough to bring the dead back — and equally curious whether it’s strong enough to keep you from tearing him apart once it fails.

You want to slap him. You want to break every part of him that isn’t Suguru. But you don’t. Because you are so, so cold. And he is warm.

And in the absence of justice, warmth will do.

Sometimes, when you look at him just right — in the shadows of your bedroom, when the lights are off and his breathing slows — you almost see him. The real him.

The boy who burned too brightly. Who looked at the world and saw rot, and tried to cradle it anyway. Who smiled like he was already halfway into hell, but was willing to carry you there with both hands.

You tell Kenjaku stories.

About the temple. The way Suguru used to light incense like he believed in it. The way he would hum under his breath when he cooked. The way he once held you on a rooftop and said, “If I make it out of this alive, I’ll start over. I’ll be good.”

Kenjaku doesn’t interrupt.

He just listens. His eyes unreadable. His fingers brushing yours like a ghost mimicking memory.

And when you’re done talking, you lean in again. Kiss him.

“Maybe if I kiss you enough,” you whisper, “his words will fall out.”

“Maybe if I keep kissing your mouth,” you say, “he’ll come back to me.” But he doesn’t. And you’re starting to think this is all you’ll ever have.

A corpse that breathes. A mouth that moves. A monster who knows the exact shape of your grief — and fits into it perfectly.

You sleep beside him like a loaded gun.

Waiting.

For him to slip. For him to smile wrong. For him to say something that finally breaks the fantasy.

And when that moment comes — when he sighs and says “You’re pathetic, you know that?” — you smile.

Because at least that sounds like him.