hunger

toji being this freak mutt of a dog given to gojo and doing his bidding although he despises him, always justifiyng the forfeiture of dignity with the paycheck (and megumi, bc that is his center. his kid, abstracted, existing as a concept. he cant think of him as his Child, in the flesh.) fleeing into self-objecrification and erasure to cope.. he thinks of himself as a thing without the burden of pride.. aww.

but their dynamic is predicated on this particular, inescapable kind of mirroring where gojo is around meg's age (in wolves) so the sheer proximity to his youth makes toji associate him with the idea of a son. but whereas toji has stripped his rs to meg of sentiment and emotional weight (or attempts to), he doesn't have access to that abstracting veil with gojo, because gojo is not his son or some kid, he's his employer, he is forced to engage with a vivid embodiment of Child he cant relegate to a more palatable role, and thus gojos more effective in the way he exploits this mesh, this loop of connection and estrangement between them due his station and temperament*

bc while toji sees in gojo the projected image of his son, gojo encountes in toji the Institution of Father but made accessible. he sees toji as a hypothesis of what paternal authority looks like when stripped of grandeur and seen as a fallible man. but instead of recoiling or being unsettled by this alien connection between them (like toji does), gojo leans into it and indulges, toying with toji and his contradictions and nudging him all the while hes using him as a piece on the board to undermine his actual father who looms as this faceless system that perpetuates gojo's lack of power within his clan