🌷 ﹕ this mc's a 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐑. your twenty-smth slutty neighbourhood 𝓢 weetheart who's got the blue-eyed creep falling for her in every verse ! so obsessed, he follows from fic-to-fic. but who's devouring the other first . . . ?
ֹ ִ ⊹ 𝓜.𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍 :: 𝓒𝗈𝗆𝗆𝗌 :: 𝓢𝖾𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗌 𝗆.𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍 ֹ ִ
𝐈 𝓛𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 🌷 ﹕ my exclusive fics offer a selection of delicious treats over on patreon. you're also welcome to commission me for a fic catered to all your desires ♡
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death was the only way to escape the jujutsu world. rundown by the life you were born into, you search for rest. but your trip to the snowy japanese mountains takes a cold turn when a blizzard knocks your car off course. cold and injured, you accept your fate. until a rigid stranger drags you from the snow and tells you with dry finality that you won't leave until the storm passes. he won't tell you his name nor why the barrier around his humble cabin is as strong as it is. but the snow only melts away to reveal one truth: the man who saved you is supposed to be dead.
Everyone knew it. They aired it on live television. The shattering of a weapon; the fall of a soldier.
Your young eyes could not bear the sight of crimson soaking into the snow. Your father said it was gruesome. Spilled guts and half a torso.
They panned in on his face.
You swore that you saw his smile.
Perhaps he should have been grateful that the world was knotted in chaos. The King of Curses gave no one the time to mourn its strongest.
Not that they did, in any case.
Weapons rusted. They dulled. They grew old, and then they broke. A tragedy at best. But for most, it was simply the average Monday.
You wanted to pull out your eardrums than listen to how they spoke of him.
What a waste.
What a shame.
All that arrogance for this?
But there was one that haunted you. Kept your eyes glued to your ceiling in the frigid, December nights.
Maybe he wasn't the Strongest after all.
How dare they?
"He was a person."
It was the firmest voice you could muster against your father. Firm enough for the likes of you that it had others arching their brows and your mother shaking her head.
Dinner had become the epicentre of this dreaded topic. Of a god who fell and the Strongest that was no more.
"It's just an observation."
Your father said, picking away at his food as if he hadn't just insulted the man who saved all of you. Stubborn old men and their complacency to ignorance. That was why the world turned the way that it did.
Your family called you dramatic, feeling so deeply for a sorcerer you never met. A sorcerer who would glare you down under the weight of his mighty six eyes and call you weak.
You didn't have to know him to know he was probably scared. Didn't have to know him to know that every human feared the creep of death.
Perhaps it was your technique, sharpening your empathy into a blade that often left you gutted.
Maybe you, poor you, who shouldered with the heavy knowledge of what people felt right before death— knew that the look in Gojo Satoru's eyes was far from a man at peace. Even through the television static.
A stupid part of you led you to Shinjuku when it was clear. To feel the residuals of cursed energy. To understand, was the excuse you made for yourself.
But you knew in the ache of your heart that it was to feel for a sense of peace. A shred of content. Something, anything, in the snow other than blood spilt in vain.
What you found made you vomit once you staggered home.
You were silent in your mourning for a man you never knew. Let alone met.
Mourning because your eyes had long since opened to these rusty, bloodied cogs that turned. Big, and small. Strong, and weak.
But in the end, all the same. Cogs.
Twisting, and turning, and chugging along. In this endless, hopeless marathon that was jujutsu sorcerery.
If there was Nirvana at the end of this dreary tunnel, you were sure it was a wasteland. Barren.
Enlightenment was not a possibility in your world.
Only the snow. The frost. And the winter. The cold, unforgiving winter.
Cold.
So cold.
A cloudy breath wafted from your chapped lips. Your tongue eased as the warm, bland soup comforted your mouth. You had abandoned the spoon to cup the wooden bowl. Stealing more of its heat for your drying, trembling hands. The blizzard roared through the icy mountains again.
Gojo was nowhere to be seen.
If this were a few days ago, you would have been back to contemplating what he was. A man, a monster. A ghoul with thick enough skin to withstand the harsh bite of the frost.
But now you knew with absolute certainty, that he was a god. A fallen one. Gojo Satoru.
You were surprised that he was still around. More surprised that he hadn't caught you by the scruff of your neck and tossed you out to face the blizzard. Penance for your stunt.
A deeper part of you knew that someone like him wasn't capable of something like that. Or at least, his muscle memory wasn't.
You stopped talking. Stopped asking questions. Bowed your head and kept your eyes on the floor whenever he passed. It suited him well. After the incident, Gojo committed to his vow of silence.
He barely even looked at you.
The selfishly curious part of you wanted to peep in. Use your technique and understand what he was feeling.
The smart part of you knew better. Knew that the storm that raged in him was one that would consume you whole. More violent than the blizzard and twice as ice.
For now, you could busy yourself with the questions.
Why was here?
How long had he been here?
He was alive?
But most importantly. Most frightening.
How?
You debated the possibilities. That you had met your demise in the car crash and this was what waited on the other side. The cold felt befitting. A barren Nirvana. Or perhaps hell was ice rather than fire.
Maybe you were in a comma instead, and all of this was simply a long, agonising dream. You would awake to the faces of your family, and hate yourself again for your weakness.
Perhaps you had finally lost your mind. What if these past few weeks were a figment of your imagination? Why else would a fallen god stand before you?
Why else would you be able to touch him?
Why else would someone of his strength bother with a small, frail doe like you?
Finishing your soup, you cleared your throat. No dice. The lump in it hadn't left since that day. Since you stared him in his feral eyes as he burnt his past into nothing but ash in the fireplace.
Would it have been better not to know? That the man who saved you was one who saved many? One that many couldn't save?
The same you had cried into your pillows for, even though you only knew his name.
You tried your tea next. Hoping it was still warm enough to soothe the deep ache in your chest. When it caressed your tongue, a new kind of pain stabbed away at you.
He didn't speak. Didn't even look at you. But your breakfast was laid on the table when you came out, warm. Your tea was still brewed. The fire was still lit. Your comfort put above all else, even after you had disappointed him.
You wondered how much it costed him to care, even when he so desperately did not want to.
You still feared him. Feared that cold, controlled cursed energy that buzzed from him in lightning ready to strike. Feared his hands and the might that you now understood. Feared the crystals of his eyes that were all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful.
But it was a different kind of fear, now. Because you knew what he was. Back then, now. Knew what he could become.
And sadly, what he never did.
You sighed. Pinching the bridge of your nose to bring yourself back down to earth. At the end of the day, you did not know this man. You could feel what he felt. Sympathised with what he went through. But you did not know him
How could you? Someone as weak as you could not even dream to run in the same circles as him.
Knowing that he was Gojo Satoru did nothing to ease the pit in your gut. If anything, it only confirmed your uselessness.
Rising to your feet, you took the dishes and headed to the kitchen. Memorising the creaks under your feet and the sway of the lanterns overhead.
It was easier with your coat. Today you had woken up to it laid over your bed. Repaired with perfect stitches. Seamless.
What wasn't he capable of?
You almost punished yourself. Left it on your bed and braved the cold as penance for the tension you brought back into this humble shrine. But his care would not go wasted because of your own self-destructive tendencies.
After cleaning your dishes and drying your hands, you contemplated dinner. If you could compensate for anything, it would be food. You weren't sure when he would return, and a part of you even played with the idea that he might not. The thought didn't bother you as much as it should have. Abandonment was another lesson in this life that you had sadly learnt.
The wind bellowed. Knocking into the wood. A ravenous wolf seeking to blow your shelter down.
You cast a pained glance to the window. A flurry of grey and white smeared across the glass. A haze of nothingness. Of the unforgiving, treacherous heart of winter.
Why had he even gone out? You had enough meat to last a week and a half.
The thought of abandonment loomed heavier over you now. A second, cruel wolf that threatened to gnaw at your bones as the cold did.
Thunk.
The door opened at last.
Hefty boots shook the floors in slow thuds. Enough to rattle your heart. The grate of snow and ice sliding across the wooden floors made you flinch.
The wind tried to creep in. Tried to reach your stiff body in the kitchen. But it was dragged back and tossed out as the door slammed shut.
You contemplated between fire and ice. To stand in the kitchen and wait for him to inevitably freeze you with his presence, or to brave the fire of his stare and beat him to it.
You chose the latter.
Your feet weighed. Futile attempts to drag you back to the temporary safety of the kitchen. Your heart pulled at your limbs. Pumping dread through your veins. Dread that you would see him. That he would see you.
Fighting off every anxiety, you willed yourself to the living room. To the buzz of cursed energy that still rose nausea to the back of your throat. To the man, monster, ghost, god.
He stood tall at the centre of the living room. A mighty, tapered oak. With years carved into his flesh. Across his body. Beneath his eyes in dull circles. You noticed more about him now.
The scars on his face had a pattern you understood. The length of his hair, it was longer than the illustrations back home. Eyes duller. You hadn't seen a blindfold lying around. Did he have no need for it anymore?
Over his shoulder hung yet another poor, lifeless deer. Heavy. Twisted at the neck with a wretched gash across its throat. Its dead, black eyes still reminded you of home.
Worse, they reminded you of him.
A selfish part of you hoped to meet his gaze, and you did. But was it worth the biting ice?
Worth knowing that they once put the dazzle of sapphires to shame, but were now a frigid wasteland?
You swallowed your questions with the lump in your throat, remembering your promise. To stop asking. Stop bothering. Stop getting in his way.
The true blizzard ragged between your stares. Blue, and brittle, and banishment.
You broke first. Of course you did. Simply nature, for someone so weak. Dropping your gaze in a quiet surrender. To honour this distance he had wedged between you both.
That was when you caught the tears in his haori. Claw marks ripped across his arms. A deep red soaked into the white.
You remembered the snow.
Remembered the crimson.
Remembered the residuals.
"What happened?"
Already breaking your vow. How terribly, hopelessly weak you were. Weak enough that you did not care. Tossed out your promise in exchange for empathy as you dared to step closer.
His silent glare stabbed into you. A warning for you to stay where you were. Yet he did not move, and you had long since stopped fearing his threats.
You considered the possibilities of his wounds. A curse. Wolves. Himself.
"Let me help." You said.
Pleaded.
He scoffed, as expected. You had grown so used to it that you did not flinch anymore. It was his nature to be cold, and yours to be too weak against the chills. But stubborn enough to persist.
When he spoke, it was like the first taste of water in days.
"You know what I am and yet still think you can help me?"
Even if it was ever as frigid.
This should be the part where you scuttle away with your tail tucked between your legs. With your head hung low and your eyes glued to the floor.
You promised yourself that you would not be a bother.
You promised yourself that you wouldn't run, too.
"I can try." You said.
Even if your voice shook. Even if your heart trembled. Even if every instinct within you told you to hide.
Gojo stared at you.
You weren't sure why his silence bothered you more now that you knew his name. It pricked at your skin and burrowed into your pores. Twisted your nerves into an uncomfortable shiver.
Maybe it was the weight of knowing what he once was.
Who he once was.
That unnecessary urge to fill the silence tugged at your voice again. Even with the lump, the dryness and the dread.
But as you opened your mouth, he scoffed again. Pushing past you, he dragged the mushy snow on his boots through the shrine. Leaving you with two, frosty words.
"Don't bother."
You were not sure which was more biting.
As you watched the deer's limp body, you considered its eyes. Its familiarity.
The raging blizzard outside paled in comparison to the scathe of your mind. Whispering, blistering. Reminding you that you were a bother. That you were useless.
That you were weak.
Satoru was getting sick of his own weakness.
Every time he looked at you. Every time he spoke to you. He was reminded that his claws had been swapped for hooves. That his fierce canines now laid as shed antlers at his feet.
You were everything that he was. Useless. Weak. Something he couldn't recognise when he caught his reflection in the windows.
There was a reason he had no mirrors in the shrine.
Your bothersome stare pressed into the back of his shoulders as he lugged the deer through the kitchen. Out the back door. The force he used to shut it shook the shrine.
He was sure you would scuttle. Back to your room. Maybe the fire. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if your flight won over fight again and you dashed out into the ugly blizzard.
He vowed that he would not chase after you this time.
It was in vain, he knew.
Because no matter how many years he locked himself away in these icy mountains. No matter how much he swore off his name. Burned it to ash. In the end, he was still Gojo Satoru.
Still too strong for his own good. Too weak to let a frail soul freeze to death if he could help it. The worst part of it all? Now you knew that too.
As if you needed any more of a reason to be a thorn in his side.
Everyone knew that Gojo Satoru wouldn't leave an innocent to rot. Everyone knew that no matter the winter, or the blizzard, or the ice that he claimed to clutch his heart in a chokehold—
He was built to protect. Born a soldier. Sharpened into a weapon.
The biting truth had him tossing the deer over the log stump. Uncaring for the haphazard way that he handled the dead. No one cared about his body, back then. From what he heard, he was not even dignified a grave.
Roaring in his ears, the blizzard sought to consume him. Blurring his eyes and pelting into him in crystal shards. Cutting into the tears of his haori. It needled into his pores and locked his nerves in a blistering shiver.
Null. Null and numb. When compared to the maelstrom howling in his mind. Rattling his teeth. Spilling fire into his veins.
He snatched the axe lodged beside the log. Focused on the splinters that nipped into his dry, rough hands. His nerves no longer recognised pain. Dull weapons knew the taste of stings well.
Heaving the axe over his shoulder, Satoru stared at the deer. Its useless slump over the log. The nasty gash torn across its throat. Its deep, maroon blood soaking into the snow.
The snow.
Blood soaking into the snow.
His jaw set tight. So tight he threatened to shatter it with his teeth alone.
The dead deer's eyes reminded him of his own. As he laid there.
In the snow.
His blood, soaking the snow.
He sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. Counted to ten and reminded himself that he did not care. That he did not have the right to.
The deer's face took on a different shape when he looked at it again. Yours.
Those dull eyes you tried to hide with acts of kindness that meant nothing to him. The dejected expression you gave him whenever he scoffed at you. The uselessness. The weakness.
For a moment, he entertained the thought of how easy it would be. To lug you over one of these logs and butcher you the way he did tough meat. You wouldn't be able to put up a fight.
Correction, you wouldn't even try.
There was a resign that he recognised whenever you looked back at him. One that mirrored a deep ache in his soul that he tried to ignore. Tried to shove down to pits of his gut, where his stomach acid could eat away at it. Disintegrate it.
But there was no avoiding it.
By some miracle, or perhaps cosmic joke, Satoru saw himself in you.
Saw your weaknesses and recognised it as his own.
That was why, he had no mercy on the deer today.
The blizzard bellowed. All around him. Through him. But the only thing ringing through his ears was the wrenching, wretched howl of bones snapping and muscles meshing. Of iron tearing into flesh. Tissue squelching. Blood splattering.
With every swing.
Into the snow.
The snow.
Blood.
Blood soaked into the snow.
Speckled on his sleeves.
Staining his hands.
The fading warmth was what he clung to as he clamoured the axe through the deer's throat. Cracked through its spine. Tore through its jugular.
Its head rested peaceful in the snow.
Chest heaving. Hands scraped. Lungs burning and heart pounding. Satoru stood there with the axe hung from him. An extension of his arm. His soul. As he stared at the decapitated corpse and the blood it soaked into the pristine, frigid snow.
Was that what he looked like on that cold, December eve?
Bloodied.
And pitiful.
And weak. In the snow?
The axe slipped from his hold. Missed his foot and slumped into the frosted ground. He didn't bother wiping off his maroon-smeared hands into the snow. Instead he jerked out the knife that wedged into the corner of the log, and began skinning the corpse.
It was clockwork now, but he remembered how it felt the first time. The slimy warmth on his hands. The nausea that pooled in his throat. The stench that stuffed his nostrils for days after. His hands sharpened into weapons. Fashioned for death. But the first deer's stain itched at his palms in the middle of the night for weeks to come.
He knew that this was cruelty. There was no need to hunt, the rations would have lasted you both exactly twelve days. Fifteen, if you insisted on a few vegetarian meals.
Satoru killed the deer because he wanted to.
Because he was angry. Because he ached. Because there were no curses here for him to sink his teeth into and tear his rage out in that way.
He hunted the deer, picturing your face, your eyes, when you discovered who he was.
When you said his name. That damned.
Stupid.
Doomed. Name.
Even as he cut the dagger through chunks of thick meat, ridding fat and whatever was not edible, the image refused to leave his mind. Of your eyes. Your voice. The glimmer of useless, misplaced. . . hope.
He was done giving people hope. Done holding out for it. As far as he was concerned?
Hope died the day that he did.
Slumps of meat piled onto the log. The carcass no more. His hands cold with the stickiness of blood. He stood there to catch his breath and sink into the depths of what he had done. Eyes duller than the sky. Colder than the blizzard.
As he stared at the head staring back at him.
Aimless.
Useless.
Weak.
Its black eyes reminded him of you.
Reminded him of himself.
The room was a massacre.
Satoru hadn't tidied it since that day, where his name was unearthed from the snow and put on display to his soul that had long since cast it away.
Cupboard doors skewed open. Drawers tossed and shoved in a maze that beckoned bruises. Books littered the floors. Crumbled pages. Some ripped out and stuffed into his bedside drawer.
He scorched whatever memory he could find of the man that he once was. Gojo Satoru. The Strongest. The Honoured One.
Looking like a disgrace as he sat on the foot of his bed. Elbows digging into his knees. Posture be damned. Glazed eyes focused on an aimless spot that wasn't marred by the carnage. He had cleaned himself of all the blood and grime, but what difference did it make?
He was certain that he got everything. Everything in this blasted, cold room that dared to whisper his name. He planned on burning it all to ash as he did the newspaper.
Well. Almost everything. He could not bear to enter the room narrowed at the end of the hall. Locked for a reason. To keep it safe from his hands that sought nothing but destruction. Sacred from what he had become.
The sharp pull in his stomach complained. Reminding him that he had ignored your call for dinner. Even as the grilled meat pleased his nose and warmed a deep part within him.
You were spoiling him. He could bite his teeth and go weeks without food before you came along. But it seemed that you had a knack for re-awakening bad habits in him.
It's why he denied dinner in the first place. Your face was the last thing he wished to see.
Every time he imagined it, the deer paired with it. Followed by his own, scarred face.
Ridiculous, it was. To think that something as frail and as feeble as you could reflect even a shimmer of himself.
The blizzard grew more violent to mirror his mind. Endless, and ravenous. Killing every speck of warmth, and demeaning any weakness. It shook the walls of the shrine and poured through the gaps of this unfurnished room. Pulling at his bones. Needling into his nerves.
He rose to his feet with a deep, weary sigh. Perhaps in the heart of the blizzard, in the dead of this treacherous night, was his only path to peace.
Maybe he would find another deer. Wear his cruel mask and dig his teeth into it.
Maybe he could picture your face again. And hate himself for it.
Sliding the door open, he slumped into the hallway. Hands tucked into the sleeves of his yukata. It would stand no chance against the storm. Perhaps that was what he was counting on.
Freezing to death didn't sound too bad.
Quiet. Slow. Lonely.
Seemed befitting.
For a dangerous moment, he stopped at the door to your room. Listened. Felt. Were you asleep? Or lost in your thoughts too?
Why should he care?
The lanterns swayed above. At times he indulged the thought that it were the spirits of his students. As free and as bright as he remembered them.
He cut the thought short. Lest he wound himself up in memories he no longer deserved to cherish.
The faint crackle of fire caught his ears before the incessant hum of cursed energy did. Satoru had long since tuned out the broken flute that was your curse.
Sitting in front of the fireplace as you now had a habit of doing, you fixed your stare to flames. Unblinking. He might have thought you a pyromaniac if he didn't know any better.
Your hands weren't capable of atrocities. Couldn't hurt a fly on accident. Let alone commit arson.
Would you try to stop him if he left now? The thought bubbled a spur of irritation in his gut. He hoped not. He couldn't deal with you tonight.
He told himself that if you bothered him he would cast you out into the cruel blizzard.
His heart called him a liar.
And yet, he took a few seconds to watch you.
Watched the embers that glowed in your face. Your dull eyes barely lit, even with the warmth of gold and fire dancing in then. Were you as immune to the warmth as he was? Another shard to this damned mirror between you both?
If only he had left you in the snow. The first time was a moment of weakness. The second time was pure stupidity, but weakness nonetheless.
Guess frail things attracted frail things.
He watched as you reached for the fire poker. Mindless to the haphazard angle it sat at that allowed for heat to blister at the handle.
Clatter!
It resounded. Hitting the wooden floor in smudges of ash.
You did not scream. Not a grunt, not a whimper. Not a single, audible peep.
Soundless in your pain. With your brows pinched and your hand holding your wrist. You stared at your own burn mark. As if you were scrutinising it.
As if you saw the weakness that he saw in you. Saw in himself.
His fingers twitched.
Damn that muscle memory.
Against every nerve and cold thought, Satoru had crossed the room. He was at your side in seconds. Kneeling beside you. Lowering himself in ways that he shouldn't have to. Not to a helpless doe like you. A bothersome deer. Useless butterfly.
And yet, he scooped your hand up as if he was mindful of your fragile wings.
He watched the shock in your eyes melt into understanding, and then embarrassment. Your lips pressed together. A habit of yours, he had learnt.
He was surprised that you hadn't offered him your words. Another habit of yours he knew all too well was your hate for silence. But here you were, staring at him soundlessly while your fingers bloomed a faint burn.
The cold would make it worse. He should leave it. Leave you here. Punishment for your own weakness. How else were you to grow thicker skin if not through pain?
But Gojo Satoru wasn't capable of that.
And that's why he loathed him.
Disowned him.
Hovering a cold hand over your wound, Satoru focused. Ignored your questioning eyes and your voice that slipped into the quiet after all. A whisper he didn't care for, but still registered.
Cursed energy pulsed through his veins. Whirling to his fingertips. Glowing. Reversing.
If only Shoko could see him now. She'd scoff at him. Call him a showoff for learning what she had futily tried to teach him since the day she met him.
Probably tell him it was all for nought.
What was the point of knowing how to heal, when there was no one to save?
What was the point of learning how to heal, when he no longer wanted to save?
It was a feat not many in history had achieved. One he had unlocked on a whim after his death. He tested it on injured rabbits and deers that escaped wolves' canines.
He could tell from your gaping reaction that it was still a rarity.
The burn disappeared, skin and tissue replenishing itself. No scars. Lucky you.
Only then did he take the time to notice how small your hand was in his. A frail, pitiful thing. Smooth when against his callouses and the etches carved in his skin. His paleness still had yet to meet a match.
He dared to meet your eyes as he slowly released your hand. Watching the awe warm your stare. Awe that he remembered. Awe that he now hated.
Satoru almost regretted healing you in the first place. A begrudging call from the back of his mind told him that he would have done it no matter the reaction.
"Thank you." You said. Quiet and timid. It churned his gut.
He shook his head. He should stand. He should leave. He should call you stupid for your mindless behaviour. Hurl an insult that dimmed the light in your eyes, because it was better to destroy. Better to be hated, than to be loved.
All he could do was huff.
"You really are weak."
It was low, but hardly as stabbing as he would have intended. Every other time he had called you weak, his voice was thick with disdain.
But now, here, as he sat beside your hopeless form, looking into your hopeful eyes, and hating every second of it—
He called you weak with envy in his stare.
You flinched. You always did. Fragile butterfly whose wings fluttered at the smallest of flicks.
Raising to his feet, Satoru made his decision. Whether he pushed himself into the nightmarish blizzard or not, it did not matter. His mind would not rest tonight. He would not know peace.
Only you.
You, and the deer, the mirror that glared between you both.
You and your weaknesses.
And your hopelessness.
Uselessness.
And your hopeful eyes that he despised from the depths of his wretched soul.
Satoru did not want your hope. Hope kept people alive.
death was the only way to escape the jujutsu world. rundown by the life you were born into, you search for rest. but your trip to the snowy japanese mountains takes a cold turn when a blizzard knocks your car off course. cold and injured, you accept your fate. until a rigid stranger drags you from the snow and tells you with dry finality that you won't leave until the storm passes. he won't tell you his name nor why the barrier around his humble cabin is as strong as it is. but the snow only melts away to reveal one truth: the man who saved you is supposed to be dead.
Everyone knew it. They aired it on live television. The shattering of a weapon; the fall of a soldier.
Your young eyes could not bear the sight of crimson soaking into the snow. Your father said it was gruesome. Spilled guts and half a torso.
They panned in on his face.
You swore that you saw his smile.
Perhaps he should have been grateful that the world was knotted in chaos. The King of Curses gave no one the time to mourn its strongest.
Not that they did, in any case.
Weapons rusted. They dulled. They grew old, and then they broke. A tragedy at best. But for most, it was simply the average Monday.
You wanted to pull out your eardrums than listen to how they spoke of him.
What a waste.
What a shame.
All that arrogance for this?
But there was one that haunted you. Kept your eyes glued to your ceiling in the frigid, December nights.
Maybe he wasn't the Strongest after all.
How dare they?
"He was a person."
It was the firmest voice you could muster against your father. Firm enough for the likes of you that it had others arching their brows and your mother shaking her head.
Dinner had become the epicentre of this dreaded topic. Of a god who fell and the Strongest that was no more.
"It's just an observation."
Your father said, picking away at his food as if he hadn't just insulted the man who saved all of you. Stubborn old men and their complacency to ignorance. That was why the world turned the way that it did.
Your family called you dramatic, feeling so deeply for a sorcerer you never met. A sorcerer who would glare you down under the weight of his mighty six eyes and call you weak.
You didn't have to know him to know he was probably scared. Didn't have to know him to know that every human feared the creep of death.
Perhaps it was your technique, sharpening your empathy into a blade that often left you gutted.
Maybe you, poor you, who shouldered with the heavy knowledge of what people felt right before death— knew that the look in Gojo Satoru's eyes was far from a man at peace. Even through the television static.
A stupid part of you led you to Shinjuku when it was clear. To feel the residuals of cursed energy. To understand, was the excuse you made for yourself.
But you knew in the ache of your heart that it was to feel for a sense of peace. A shred of content. Something, anything, in the snow other than blood spilt in vain.
What you found made you vomit once you staggered home.
You were silent in your mourning for a man you never knew. Let alone met.
Mourning because your eyes had long since opened to these rusty, bloodied cogs that turned. Big, and small. Strong, and weak.
But in the end, all the same. Cogs.
Twisting, and turning, and chugging along. In this endless, hopeless marathon that was jujutsu sorcerery.
If there was Nirvana at the end of this dreary tunnel, you were sure it was a wasteland. Barren.
Enlightenment was not a possibility in your world.
Only the snow. The frost. And the winter. The cold, unforgiving winter.
Cold.
So cold.
A cloudy breath wafted from your chapped lips. Your tongue eased as the warm, bland soup comforted your mouth. You had abandoned the spoon to cup the wooden bowl. Stealing more of its heat for your drying, trembling hands. The blizzard roared through the icy mountains again.
Gojo was nowhere to be seen.
If this were a few days ago, you would have been back to contemplating what he was. A man, a monster. A ghoul with thick enough skin to withstand the harsh bite of the frost.
But now you knew with absolute certainty, that he was a god. A fallen one. Gojo Satoru.
You were surprised that he was still around. More surprised that he hadn't caught you by the scruff of your neck and tossed you out to face the blizzard. Penance for your stunt.
A deeper part of you knew that someone like him wasn't capable of something like that. Or at least, his muscle memory wasn't.
You stopped talking. Stopped asking questions. Bowed your head and kept your eyes on the floor whenever he passed. It suited him well. After the incident, Gojo committed to his vow of silence.
He barely even looked at you.
The selfishly curious part of you wanted to peep in. Use your technique and understand what he was feeling.
The smart part of you knew better. Knew that the storm that raged in him was one that would consume you whole. More violent than the blizzard and twice as ice.
For now, you could busy yourself with the questions.
Why was here?
How long had he been here?
He was alive?
But most importantly. Most frightening.
How?
You debated the possibilities. That you had met your demise in the car crash and this was what waited on the other side. The cold felt befitting. A barren Nirvana. Or perhaps hell was ice rather than fire.
Maybe you were in a comma instead, and all of this was simply a long, agonising dream. You would awake to the faces of your family, and hate yourself again for your weakness.
Perhaps you had finally lost your mind. What if these past few weeks were a figment of your imagination? Why else would a fallen god stand before you?
Why else would you be able to touch him?
Why else would someone of his strength bother with a small, frail doe like you?
Finishing your soup, you cleared your throat. No dice. The lump in it hadn't left since that day. Since you stared him in his feral eyes as he burnt his past into nothing but ash in the fireplace.
Would it have been better not to know? That the man who saved you was one who saved many? One that many couldn't save?
The same you had cried into your pillows for, even though you only knew his name.
You tried your tea next. Hoping it was still warm enough to soothe the deep ache in your chest. When it caressed your tongue, a new kind of pain stabbed away at you.
He didn't speak. Didn't even look at you. But your breakfast was laid on the table when you came out, warm. Your tea was still brewed. The fire was still lit. Your comfort put above all else, even after you had disappointed him.
You wondered how much it costed him to care, even when he so desperately did not want to.
You still feared him. Feared that cold, controlled cursed energy that buzzed from him in lightning ready to strike. Feared his hands and the might that you now understood. Feared the crystals of his eyes that were all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful.
But it was a different kind of fear, now. Because you knew what he was. Back then, now. Knew what he could become.
And sadly, what he never did.
You sighed. Pinching the bridge of your nose to bring yourself back down to earth. At the end of the day, you did not know this man. You could feel what he felt. Sympathised with what he went through. But you did not know him
How could you? Someone as weak as you could not even dream to run in the same circles as him.
Knowing that he was Gojo Satoru did nothing to ease the pit in your gut. If anything, it only confirmed your uselessness.
Rising to your feet, you took the dishes and headed to the kitchen. Memorising the creaks under your feet and the sway of the lanterns overhead.
It was easier with your coat. Today you had woken up to it laid over your bed. Repaired with perfect stitches. Seamless.
What wasn't he capable of?
You almost punished yourself. Left it on your bed and braved the cold as penance for the tension you brought back into this humble shrine. But his care would not go wasted because of your own self-destructive tendencies.
After cleaning your dishes and drying your hands, you contemplated dinner. If you could compensate for anything, it would be food. You weren't sure when he would return, and a part of you even played with the idea that he might not. The thought didn't bother you as much as it should have. Abandonment was another lesson in this life that you had sadly learnt.
The wind bellowed. Knocking into the wood. A ravenous wolf seeking to blow your shelter down.
You cast a pained glance to the window. A flurry of grey and white smeared across the glass. A haze of nothingness. Of the unforgiving, treacherous heart of winter.
Why had he even gone out? You had enough meat to last a week and a half.
The thought of abandonment loomed heavier over you now. A second, cruel wolf that threatened to gnaw at your bones as the cold did.
Thunk.
The door opened at last.
Hefty boots shook the floors in slow thuds. Enough to rattle your heart. The grate of snow and ice sliding across the wooden floors made you flinch.
The wind tried to creep in. Tried to reach your stiff body in the kitchen. But it was dragged back and tossed out as the door slammed shut.
You contemplated between fire and ice. To stand in the kitchen and wait for him to inevitably freeze you with his presence, or to brave the fire of his stare and beat him to it.
You chose the latter.
Your feet weighed. Futile attempts to drag you back to the temporary safety of the kitchen. Your heart pulled at your limbs. Pumping dread through your veins. Dread that you would see him. That he would see you.
Fighting off every anxiety, you willed yourself to the living room. To the buzz of cursed energy that still rose nausea to the back of your throat. To the man, monster, ghost, god.
He stood tall at the centre of the living room. A mighty, tapered oak. With years carved into his flesh. Across his body. Beneath his eyes in dull circles. You noticed more about him now.
The scars on his face had a pattern you understood. The length of his hair, it was longer than the illustrations back home. Eyes duller. You hadn't seen a blindfold lying around. Did he have no need for it anymore?
Over his shoulder hung yet another poor, lifeless deer. Heavy. Twisted at the neck with a wretched gash across its throat. Its dead, black eyes still reminded you of home.
Worse, they reminded you of him.
A selfish part of you hoped to meet his gaze, and you did. But was it worth the biting ice?
Worth knowing that they once put the dazzle of sapphires to shame, but were now a frigid wasteland?
You swallowed your questions with the lump in your throat, remembering your promise. To stop asking. Stop bothering. Stop getting in his way.
The true blizzard ragged between your stares. Blue, and brittle, and banishment.
You broke first. Of course you did. Simply nature, for someone so weak. Dropping your gaze in a quiet surrender. To honour this distance he had wedged between you both.
That was when you caught the tears in his haori. Claw marks ripped across his arms. A deep red soaked into the white.
You remembered the snow.
Remembered the crimson.
Remembered the residuals.
"What happened?"
Already breaking your vow. How terribly, hopelessly weak you were. Weak enough that you did not care. Tossed out your promise in exchange for empathy as you dared to step closer.
His silent glare stabbed into you. A warning for you to stay where you were. Yet he did not move, and you had long since stopped fearing his threats.
You considered the possibilities of his wounds. A curse. Wolves. Himself.
"Let me help." You said.
Pleaded.
He scoffed, as expected. You had grown so used to it that you did not flinch anymore. It was his nature to be cold, and yours to be too weak against the chills. But stubborn enough to persist.
When he spoke, it was like the first taste of water in days.
"You know what I am and yet still think you can help me?"
Even if it was ever as frigid.
This should be the part where you scuttle away with your tail tucked between your legs. With your head hung low and your eyes glued to the floor.
You promised yourself that you would not be a bother.
You promised yourself that you wouldn't run, too.
"I can try." You said.
Even if your voice shook. Even if your heart trembled. Even if every instinct within you told you to hide.
Gojo stared at you.
You weren't sure why his silence bothered you more now that you knew his name. It pricked at your skin and burrowed into your pores. Twisted your nerves into an uncomfortable shiver.
Maybe it was the weight of knowing what he once was.
Who he once was.
That unnecessary urge to fill the silence tugged at your voice again. Even with the lump, the dryness and the dread.
But as you opened your mouth, he scoffed again. Pushing past you, he dragged the mushy snow on his boots through the shrine. Leaving you with two, frosty words.
"Don't bother."
You were not sure which was more biting.
As you watched the deer's limp body, you considered its eyes. Its familiarity.
The raging blizzard outside paled in comparison to the scathe of your mind. Whispering, blistering. Reminding you that you were a bother. That you were useless.
That you were weak.
Satoru was getting sick of his own weakness.
Every time he looked at you. Every time he spoke to you. He was reminded that his claws had been swapped for hooves. That his fierce canines now laid as shed antlers at his feet.
You were everything that he was. Useless. Weak. Something he couldn't recognise when he caught his reflection in the windows.
There was a reason he had no mirrors in the shrine.
Your bothersome stare pressed into the back of his shoulders as he lugged the deer through the kitchen. Out the back door. The force he used to shut it shook the shrine.
He was sure you would scuttle. Back to your room. Maybe the fire. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if your flight won over fight again and you dashed out into the ugly blizzard.
He vowed that he would not chase after you this time.
It was in vain, he knew.
Because no matter how many years he locked himself away in these icy mountains. No matter how much he swore off his name. Burned it to ash. In the end, he was still Gojo Satoru.
Still too strong for his own good. Too weak to let a frail soul freeze to death if he could help it. The worst part of it all? Now you knew that too.
As if you needed any more of a reason to be a thorn in his side.
Everyone knew that Gojo Satoru wouldn't leave an innocent to rot. Everyone knew that no matter the winter, or the blizzard, or the ice that he claimed to clutch his heart in a chokehold—
He was built to protect. Born a soldier. Sharpened into a weapon.
The biting truth had him tossing the deer over the log stump. Uncaring for the haphazard way that he handled the dead. No one cared about his body, back then. From what he heard, he was not even dignified a grave.
Roaring in his ears, the blizzard sought to consume him. Blurring his eyes and pelting into him in crystal shards. Cutting into the tears of his haori. It needled into his pores and locked his nerves in a blistering shiver.
Null. Null and numb. When compared to the maelstrom howling in his mind. Rattling his teeth. Spilling fire into his veins.
He snatched the axe lodged beside the log. Focused on the splinters that nipped into his dry, rough hands. His nerves no longer recognised pain. Dull weapons knew the taste of stings well.
Heaving the axe over his shoulder, Satoru stared at the deer. Its useless slump over the log. The nasty gash torn across its throat. Its deep, maroon blood soaking into the snow.
The snow.
Blood soaking into the snow.
His jaw set tight. So tight he threatened to shatter it with his teeth alone.
The dead deer's eyes reminded him of his own. As he laid there.
In the snow.
His blood, soaking the snow.
He sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. Counted to ten and reminded himself that he did not care. That he did not have the right to.
The deer's face took on a different shape when he looked at it again. Yours.
Those dull eyes you tried to hide with acts of kindness that meant nothing to him. The dejected expression you gave him whenever he scoffed at you. The uselessness. The weakness.
For a moment, he entertained the thought of how easy it would be. To lug you over one of these logs and butcher you the way he did tough meat. You wouldn't be able to put up a fight.
Correction, you wouldn't even try.
There was a resign that he recognised whenever you looked back at him. One that mirrored a deep ache in his soul that he tried to ignore. Tried to shove down to pits of his gut, where his stomach acid could eat away at it. Disintegrate it.
But there was no avoiding it.
By some miracle, or perhaps cosmic joke, Satoru saw himself in you.
Saw your weaknesses and recognised it as his own.
That was why, he had no mercy on the deer today.
The blizzard bellowed. All around him. Through him. But the only thing ringing through his ears was the wrenching, wretched howl of bones snapping and muscles meshing. Of iron tearing into flesh. Tissue squelching. Blood splattering.
With every swing.
Into the snow.
The snow.
Blood.
Blood soaked into the snow.
Speckled on his sleeves.
Staining his hands.
The fading warmth was what he clung to as he clamoured the axe through the deer's throat. Cracked through its spine. Tore through its jugular.
Its head rested peaceful in the snow.
Chest heaving. Hands scraped. Lungs burning and heart pounding. Satoru stood there with the axe hung from him. An extension of his arm. His soul. As he stared at the decapitated corpse and the blood it soaked into the pristine, frigid snow.
Was that what he looked like on that cold, December eve?
Bloodied.
And pitiful.
And weak. In the snow?
The axe slipped from his hold. Missed his foot and slumped into the frosted ground. He didn't bother wiping off his maroon-smeared hands into the snow. Instead he jerked out the knife that wedged into the corner of the log, and began skinning the corpse.
It was clockwork now, but he remembered how it felt the first time. The slimy warmth on his hands. The nausea that pooled in his throat. The stench that stuffed his nostrils for days after. His hands sharpened into weapons. Fashioned for death. But the first deer's stain itched at his palms in the middle of the night for weeks to come.
He knew that this was cruelty. There was no need to hunt, the rations would have lasted you both exactly twelve days. Fifteen, if you insisted on a few vegetarian meals.
Satoru killed the deer because he wanted to.
Because he was angry. Because he ached. Because there were no curses here for him to sink his teeth into and tear his rage out in that way.
He hunted the deer, picturing your face, your eyes, when you discovered who he was.
When you said his name. That damned.
Stupid.
Doomed. Name.
Even as he cut the dagger through chunks of thick meat, ridding fat and whatever was not edible, the image refused to leave his mind. Of your eyes. Your voice. The glimmer of useless, misplaced. . . hope.
He was done giving people hope. Done holding out for it. As far as he was concerned?
Hope died the day that he did.
Slumps of meat piled onto the log. The carcass no more. His hands cold with the stickiness of blood. He stood there to catch his breath and sink into the depths of what he had done. Eyes duller than the sky. Colder than the blizzard.
As he stared at the head staring back at him.
Aimless.
Useless.
Weak.
Its black eyes reminded him of you.
Reminded him of himself.
The room was a massacre.
Satoru hadn't tidied it since that day, where his name was unearthed from the snow and put on display to his soul that had long since cast it away.
Cupboard doors skewed open. Drawers tossed and shoved in a maze that beckoned bruises. Books littered the floors. Crumbled pages. Some ripped out and stuffed into his bedside drawer.
He scorched whatever memory he could find of the man that he once was. Gojo Satoru. The Strongest. The Honoured One.
Looking like a disgrace as he sat on the foot of his bed. Elbows digging into his knees. Posture be damned. Glazed eyes focused on an aimless spot that wasn't marred by the carnage. He had cleaned himself of all the blood and grime, but what difference did it make?
He was certain that he got everything. Everything in this blasted, cold room that dared to whisper his name. He planned on burning it all to ash as he did the newspaper.
Well. Almost everything. He could not bear to enter the room narrowed at the end of the hall. Locked for a reason. To keep it safe from his hands that sought nothing but destruction. Sacred from what he had become.
The sharp pull in his stomach complained. Reminding him that he had ignored your call for dinner. Even as the grilled meat pleased his nose and warmed a deep part within him.
You were spoiling him. He could bite his teeth and go weeks without food before you came along. But it seemed that you had a knack for re-awakening bad habits in him.
It's why he denied dinner in the first place. Your face was the last thing he wished to see.
Every time he imagined it, the deer paired with it. Followed by his own, scarred face.
Ridiculous, it was. To think that something as frail and as feeble as you could reflect even a shimmer of himself.
The blizzard grew more violent to mirror his mind. Endless, and ravenous. Killing every speck of warmth, and demeaning any weakness. It shook the walls of the shrine and poured through the gaps of this unfurnished room. Pulling at his bones. Needling into his nerves.
He rose to his feet with a deep, weary sigh. Perhaps in the heart of the blizzard, in the dead of this treacherous night, was his only path to peace.
Maybe he would find another deer. Wear his cruel mask and dig his teeth into it.
Maybe he could picture your face again. And hate himself for it.
Sliding the door open, he slumped into the hallway. Hands tucked into the sleeves of his yukata. It would stand no chance against the storm. Perhaps that was what he was counting on.
Freezing to death didn't sound too bad.
Quiet. Slow. Lonely.
Seemed befitting.
For a dangerous moment, he stopped at the door to your room. Listened. Felt. Were you asleep? Or lost in your thoughts too?
Why should he care?
The lanterns swayed above. At times he indulged the thought that it were the spirits of his students. As free and as bright as he remembered them.
He cut the thought short. Lest he wound himself up in memories he no longer deserved to cherish.
The faint crackle of fire caught his ears before the incessant hum of cursed energy did. Satoru had long since tuned out the broken flute that was your curse.
Sitting in front of the fireplace as you now had a habit of doing, you fixed your stare to flames. Unblinking. He might have thought you a pyromaniac if he didn't know any better.
Your hands weren't capable of atrocities. Couldn't hurt a fly on accident. Let alone commit arson.
Would you try to stop him if he left now? The thought bubbled a spur of irritation in his gut. He hoped not. He couldn't deal with you tonight.
He told himself that if you bothered him he would cast you out into the cruel blizzard.
His heart called him a liar.
And yet, he took a few seconds to watch you.
Watched the embers that glowed in your face. Your dull eyes barely lit, even with the warmth of gold and fire dancing in then. Were you as immune to the warmth as he was? Another shard to this damned mirror between you both?
If only he had left you in the snow. The first time was a moment of weakness. The second time was pure stupidity, but weakness nonetheless.
Guess frail things attracted frail things.
He watched as you reached for the fire poker. Mindless to the haphazard angle it sat at that allowed for heat to blister at the handle.
Clatter!
It resounded. Hitting the wooden floor in smudges of ash.
You did not scream. Not a grunt, not a whimper. Not a single, audible peep.
Soundless in your pain. With your brows pinched and your hand holding your wrist. You stared at your own burn mark. As if you were scrutinising it.
As if you saw the weakness that he saw in you. Saw in himself.
His fingers twitched.
Damn that muscle memory.
Against every nerve and cold thought, Satoru had crossed the room. He was at your side in seconds. Kneeling beside you. Lowering himself in ways that he shouldn't have to. Not to a helpless doe like you. A bothersome deer. Useless butterfly.
And yet, he scooped your hand up as if he was mindful of your fragile wings.
He watched the shock in your eyes melt into understanding, and then embarrassment. Your lips pressed together. A habit of yours, he had learnt.
He was surprised that you hadn't offered him your words. Another habit of yours he knew all too well was your hate for silence. But here you were, staring at him soundlessly while your fingers bloomed a faint burn.
The cold would make it worse. He should leave it. Leave you here. Punishment for your own weakness. How else were you to grow thicker skin if not through pain?
But Gojo Satoru wasn't capable of that.
And that's why he loathed him.
Disowned him.
Hovering a cold hand over your wound, Satoru focused. Ignored your questioning eyes and your voice that slipped into the quiet after all. A whisper he didn't care for, but still registered.
Cursed energy pulsed through his veins. Whirling to his fingertips. Glowing. Reversing.
If only Shoko could see him now. She'd scoff at him. Call him a showoff for learning what she had futily tried to teach him since the day she met him.
Probably tell him it was all for nought.
What was the point of knowing how to heal, when there was no one to save?
What was the point of learning how to heal, when he no longer wanted to save?
It was a feat not many in history had achieved. One he had unlocked on a whim after his death. He tested it on injured rabbits and deers that escaped wolves' canines.
He could tell from your gaping reaction that it was still a rarity.
The burn disappeared, skin and tissue replenishing itself. No scars. Lucky you.
Only then did he take the time to notice how small your hand was in his. A frail, pitiful thing. Smooth when against his callouses and the etches carved in his skin. His paleness still had yet to meet a match.
He dared to meet your eyes as he slowly released your hand. Watching the awe warm your stare. Awe that he remembered. Awe that he now hated.
Satoru almost regretted healing you in the first place. A begrudging call from the back of his mind told him that he would have done it no matter the reaction.
"Thank you." You said. Quiet and timid. It churned his gut.
He shook his head. He should stand. He should leave. He should call you stupid for your mindless behaviour. Hurl an insult that dimmed the light in your eyes, because it was better to destroy. Better to be hated, than to be loved.
All he could do was huff.
"You really are weak."
It was low, but hardly as stabbing as he would have intended. Every other time he had called you weak, his voice was thick with disdain.
But now, here, as he sat beside your hopeless form, looking into your hopeful eyes, and hating every second of it—
He called you weak with envy in his stare.
You flinched. You always did. Fragile butterfly whose wings fluttered at the smallest of flicks.
Raising to his feet, Satoru made his decision. Whether he pushed himself into the nightmarish blizzard or not, it did not matter. His mind would not rest tonight. He would not know peace.
Only you.
You, and the deer, the mirror that glared between you both.
You and your weaknesses.
And your hopelessness.
Uselessness.
And your hopeful eyes that he despised from the depths of his wretched soul.
Satoru did not want your hope. Hope kept people alive.
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death was the only way to escape the jujutsu world. rundown by the life you were born into, you search for rest. but your trip to the snowy japanese mountains takes a cold turn when a blizzard knocks your car off course. cold and injured, you accept your fate. until a rigid stranger drags you from the snow and tells you with dry finality that you won't leave until the storm passes. he won't tell you his name nor why the barrier around his humble cabin is as strong as it is. but the snow only melts away to reveal one truth: the man who saved you is supposed to be dead.
Everyone knew it. They aired it on live television. The shattering of a weapon; the fall of a soldier.
Your young eyes could not bear the sight of crimson soaking into the snow. Your father said it was gruesome. Spilled guts and half a torso.
They panned in on his face.
You swore that you saw his smile.
Perhaps he should have been grateful that the world was knotted in chaos. The King of Curses gave no one the time to mourn its strongest.
Not that they did, in any case.
Weapons rusted. They dulled. They grew old, and then they broke. A tragedy at best. But for most, it was simply the average Monday.
You wanted to pull out your eardrums than listen to how they spoke of him.
What a waste.
What a shame.
All that arrogance for this?
But there was one that haunted you. Kept your eyes glued to your ceiling in the frigid, December nights.
Maybe he wasn't the Strongest after all.
How dare they?
"He was a person."
It was the firmest voice you could muster against your father. Firm enough for the likes of you that it had others arching their brows and your mother shaking her head.
Dinner had become the epicentre of this dreaded topic. Of a god who fell and the Strongest that was no more.
"It's just an observation."
Your father said, picking away at his food as if he hadn't just insulted the man who saved all of you. Stubborn old men and their complacency to ignorance. That was why the world turned the way that it did.
Your family called you dramatic, feeling so deeply for a sorcerer you never met. A sorcerer who would glare you down under the weight of his mighty six eyes and call you weak.
You didn't have to know him to know he was probably scared. Didn't have to know him to know that every human feared the creep of death.
Perhaps it was your technique, sharpening your empathy into a blade that often left you gutted.
Maybe you, poor you, who shouldered with the heavy knowledge of what people felt right before death— knew that the look in Gojo Satoru's eyes was far from a man at peace. Even through the television static.
A stupid part of you led you to Shinjuku when it was clear. To feel the residuals of cursed energy. To understand, was the excuse you made for yourself.
But you knew in the ache of your heart that it was to feel for a sense of peace. A shred of content. Something, anything, in the snow other than blood spilt in vain.
What you found made you vomit once you staggered home.
You were silent in your mourning for a man you never knew. Let alone met.
Mourning because your eyes had long since opened to these rusty, bloodied cogs that turned. Big, and small. Strong, and weak.
But in the end, all the same. Cogs.
Twisting, and turning, and chugging along. In this endless, hopeless marathon that was jujutsu sorcerery.
If there was Nirvana at the end of this dreary tunnel, you were sure it was a wasteland. Barren.
Enlightenment was not a possibility in your world.
Only the snow. The frost. And the winter. The cold, unforgiving winter.
Cold.
So cold.
A cloudy breath wafted from your chapped lips. Your tongue eased as the warm, bland soup comforted your mouth. You had abandoned the spoon to cup the wooden bowl. Stealing more of its heat for your drying, trembling hands. The blizzard roared through the icy mountains again.
Gojo was nowhere to be seen.
If this were a few days ago, you would have been back to contemplating what he was. A man, a monster. A ghoul with thick enough skin to withstand the harsh bite of the frost.
But now you knew with absolute certainty, that he was a god. A fallen one. Gojo Satoru.
You were surprised that he was still around. More surprised that he hadn't caught you by the scruff of your neck and tossed you out to face the blizzard. Penance for your stunt.
A deeper part of you knew that someone like him wasn't capable of something like that. Or at least, his muscle memory wasn't.
You stopped talking. Stopped asking questions. Bowed your head and kept your eyes on the floor whenever he passed. It suited him well. After the incident, Gojo committed to his vow of silence.
He barely even looked at you.
The selfishly curious part of you wanted to peep in. Use your technique and understand what he was feeling.
The smart part of you knew better. Knew that the storm that raged in him was one that would consume you whole. More violent than the blizzard and twice as ice.
For now, you could busy yourself with the questions.
Why was here?
How long had he been here?
He was alive?
But most importantly. Most frightening.
How?
You debated the possibilities. That you had met your demise in the car crash and this was what waited on the other side. The cold felt befitting. A barren Nirvana. Or perhaps hell was ice rather than fire.
Maybe you were in a comma instead, and all of this was simply a long, agonising dream. You would awake to the faces of your family, and hate yourself again for your weakness.
Perhaps you had finally lost your mind. What if these past few weeks were a figment of your imagination? Why else would a fallen god stand before you?
Why else would you be able to touch him?
Why else would someone of his strength bother with a small, frail doe like you?
Finishing your soup, you cleared your throat. No dice. The lump in it hadn't left since that day. Since you stared him in his feral eyes as he burnt his past into nothing but ash in the fireplace.
Would it have been better not to know? That the man who saved you was one who saved many? One that many couldn't save?
The same you had cried into your pillows for, even though you only knew his name.
You tried your tea next. Hoping it was still warm enough to soothe the deep ache in your chest. When it caressed your tongue, a new kind of pain stabbed away at you.
He didn't speak. Didn't even look at you. But your breakfast was laid on the table when you came out, warm. Your tea was still brewed. The fire was still lit. Your comfort put above all else, even after you had disappointed him.
You wondered how much it costed him to care, even when he so desperately did not want to.
You still feared him. Feared that cold, controlled cursed energy that buzzed from him in lightning ready to strike. Feared his hands and the might that you now understood. Feared the crystals of his eyes that were all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful.
But it was a different kind of fear, now. Because you knew what he was. Back then, now. Knew what he could become.
And sadly, what he never did.
You sighed. Pinching the bridge of your nose to bring yourself back down to earth. At the end of the day, you did not know this man. You could feel what he felt. Sympathised with what he went through. But you did not know him
How could you? Someone as weak as you could not even dream to run in the same circles as him.
Knowing that he was Gojo Satoru did nothing to ease the pit in your gut. If anything, it only confirmed your uselessness.
Rising to your feet, you took the dishes and headed to the kitchen. Memorising the creaks under your feet and the sway of the lanterns overhead.
It was easier with your coat. Today you had woken up to it laid over your bed. Repaired with perfect stitches. Seamless.
What wasn't he capable of?
You almost punished yourself. Left it on your bed and braved the cold as penance for the tension you brought back into this humble shrine. But his care would not go wasted because of your own self-destructive tendencies.
After cleaning your dishes and drying your hands, you contemplated dinner. If you could compensate for anything, it would be food. You weren't sure when he would return, and a part of you even played with the idea that he might not. The thought didn't bother you as much as it should have. Abandonment was another lesson in this life that you had sadly learnt.
The wind bellowed. Knocking into the wood. A ravenous wolf seeking to blow your shelter down.
You cast a pained glance to the window. A flurry of grey and white smeared across the glass. A haze of nothingness. Of the unforgiving, treacherous heart of winter.
Why had he even gone out? You had enough meat to last a week and a half.
The thought of abandonment loomed heavier over you now. A second, cruel wolf that threatened to gnaw at your bones as the cold did.
Thunk.
The door opened at last.
Hefty boots shook the floors in slow thuds. Enough to rattle your heart. The grate of snow and ice sliding across the wooden floors made you flinch.
The wind tried to creep in. Tried to reach your stiff body in the kitchen. But it was dragged back and tossed out as the door slammed shut.
You contemplated between fire and ice. To stand in the kitchen and wait for him to inevitably freeze you with his presence, or to brave the fire of his stare and beat him to it.
You chose the latter.
Your feet weighed. Futile attempts to drag you back to the temporary safety of the kitchen. Your heart pulled at your limbs. Pumping dread through your veins. Dread that you would see him. That he would see you.
Fighting off every anxiety, you willed yourself to the living room. To the buzz of cursed energy that still rose nausea to the back of your throat. To the man, monster, ghost, god.
He stood tall at the centre of the living room. A mighty, tapered oak. With years carved into his flesh. Across his body. Beneath his eyes in dull circles. You noticed more about him now.
The scars on his face had a pattern you understood. The length of his hair, it was longer than the illustrations back home. Eyes duller. You hadn't seen a blindfold lying around. Did he have no need for it anymore?
Over his shoulder hung yet another poor, lifeless deer. Heavy. Twisted at the neck with a wretched gash across its throat. Its dead, black eyes still reminded you of home.
Worse, they reminded you of him.
A selfish part of you hoped to meet his gaze, and you did. But was it worth the biting ice?
Worth knowing that they once put the dazzle of sapphires to shame, but were now a frigid wasteland?
You swallowed your questions with the lump in your throat, remembering your promise. To stop asking. Stop bothering. Stop getting in his way.
The true blizzard ragged between your stares. Blue, and brittle, and banishment.
You broke first. Of course you did. Simply nature, for someone so weak. Dropping your gaze in a quiet surrender. To honour this distance he had wedged between you both.
That was when you caught the tears in his haori. Claw marks ripped across his arms. A deep red soaked into the white.
You remembered the snow.
Remembered the crimson.
Remembered the residuals.
"What happened?"
Already breaking your vow. How terribly, hopelessly weak you were. Weak enough that you did not care. Tossed out your promise in exchange for empathy as you dared to step closer.
His silent glare stabbed into you. A warning for you to stay where you were. Yet he did not move, and you had long since stopped fearing his threats.
You considered the possibilities of his wounds. A curse. Wolves. Himself.
"Let me help." You said.
Pleaded.
He scoffed, as expected. You had grown so used to it that you did not flinch anymore. It was his nature to be cold, and yours to be too weak against the chills. But stubborn enough to persist.
When he spoke, it was like the first taste of water in days.
"You know what I am and yet still think you can help me?"
Even if it was ever as frigid.
This should be the part where you scuttle away with your tail tucked between your legs. With your head hung low and your eyes glued to the floor.
You promised yourself that you would not be a bother.
You promised yourself that you wouldn't run, too.
"I can try." You said.
Even if your voice shook. Even if your heart trembled. Even if every instinct within you told you to hide.
Gojo stared at you.
You weren't sure why his silence bothered you more now that you knew his name. It pricked at your skin and burrowed into your pores. Twisted your nerves into an uncomfortable shiver.
Maybe it was the weight of knowing what he once was.
Who he once was.
That unnecessary urge to fill the silence tugged at your voice again. Even with the lump, the dryness and the dread.
But as you opened your mouth, he scoffed again. Pushing past you, he dragged the mushy snow on his boots through the shrine. Leaving you with two, frosty words.
"Don't bother."
You were not sure which was more biting.
As you watched the deer's limp body, you considered its eyes. Its familiarity.
The raging blizzard outside paled in comparison to the scathe of your mind. Whispering, blistering. Reminding you that you were a bother. That you were useless.
That you were weak.
Satoru was getting sick of his own weakness.
Every time he looked at you. Every time he spoke to you. He was reminded that his claws had been swapped for hooves. That his fierce canines now laid as shed antlers at his feet.
You were everything that he was. Useless. Weak. Something he couldn't recognise when he caught his reflection in the windows.
There was a reason he had no mirrors in the shrine.
Your bothersome stare pressed into the back of his shoulders as he lugged the deer through the kitchen. Out the back door. The force he used to shut it shook the shrine.
He was sure you would scuttle. Back to your room. Maybe the fire. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if your flight won over fight again and you dashed out into the ugly blizzard.
He vowed that he would not chase after you this time.
It was in vain, he knew.
Because no matter how many years he locked himself away in these icy mountains. No matter how much he swore off his name. Burned it to ash. In the end, he was still Gojo Satoru.
Still too strong for his own good. Too weak to let a frail soul freeze to death if he could help it. The worst part of it all? Now you knew that too.
As if you needed any more of a reason to be a thorn in his side.
Everyone knew that Gojo Satoru wouldn't leave an innocent to rot. Everyone knew that no matter the winter, or the blizzard, or the ice that he claimed to clutch his heart in a chokehold—
He was built to protect. Born a soldier. Sharpened into a weapon.
The biting truth had him tossing the deer over the log stump. Uncaring for the haphazard way that he handled the dead. No one cared about his body, back then. From what he heard, he was not even dignified a grave.
Roaring in his ears, the blizzard sought to consume him. Blurring his eyes and pelting into him in crystal shards. Cutting into the tears of his haori. It needled into his pores and locked his nerves in a blistering shiver.
Null. Null and numb. When compared to the maelstrom howling in his mind. Rattling his teeth. Spilling fire into his veins.
He snatched the axe lodged beside the log. Focused on the splinters that nipped into his dry, rough hands. His nerves no longer recognised pain. Dull weapons knew the taste of stings well.
Heaving the axe over his shoulder, Satoru stared at the deer. Its useless slump over the log. The nasty gash torn across its throat. Its deep, maroon blood soaking into the snow.
The snow.
Blood soaking into the snow.
His jaw set tight. So tight he threatened to shatter it with his teeth alone.
The dead deer's eyes reminded him of his own. As he laid there.
In the snow.
His blood, soaking the snow.
He sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. Counted to ten and reminded himself that he did not care. That he did not have the right to.
The deer's face took on a different shape when he looked at it again. Yours.
Those dull eyes you tried to hide with acts of kindness that meant nothing to him. The dejected expression you gave him whenever he scoffed at you. The uselessness. The weakness.
For a moment, he entertained the thought of how easy it would be. To lug you over one of these logs and butcher you the way he did tough meat. You wouldn't be able to put up a fight.
Correction, you wouldn't even try.
There was a resign that he recognised whenever you looked back at him. One that mirrored a deep ache in his soul that he tried to ignore. Tried to shove down to pits of his gut, where his stomach acid could eat away at it. Disintegrate it.
But there was no avoiding it.
By some miracle, or perhaps cosmic joke, Satoru saw himself in you.
Saw your weaknesses and recognised it as his own.
That was why, he had no mercy on the deer today.
The blizzard bellowed. All around him. Through him. But the only thing ringing through his ears was the wrenching, wretched howl of bones snapping and muscles meshing. Of iron tearing into flesh. Tissue squelching. Blood splattering.
With every swing.
Into the snow.
The snow.
Blood.
Blood soaked into the snow.
Speckled on his sleeves.
Staining his hands.
The fading warmth was what he clung to as he clamoured the axe through the deer's throat. Cracked through its spine. Tore through its jugular.
Its head rested peaceful in the snow.
Chest heaving. Hands scraped. Lungs burning and heart pounding. Satoru stood there with the axe hung from him. An extension of his arm. His soul. As he stared at the decapitated corpse and the blood it soaked into the pristine, frigid snow.
Was that what he looked like on that cold, December eve?
Bloodied.
And pitiful.
And weak. In the snow?
The axe slipped from his hold. Missed his foot and slumped into the frosted ground. He didn't bother wiping off his maroon-smeared hands into the snow. Instead he jerked out the knife that wedged into the corner of the log, and began skinning the corpse.
It was clockwork now, but he remembered how it felt the first time. The slimy warmth on his hands. The nausea that pooled in his throat. The stench that stuffed his nostrils for days after. His hands sharpened into weapons. Fashioned for death. But the first deer's stain itched at his palms in the middle of the night for weeks to come.
He knew that this was cruelty. There was no need to hunt, the rations would have lasted you both exactly twelve days. Fifteen, if you insisted on a few vegetarian meals.
Satoru killed the deer because he wanted to.
Because he was angry. Because he ached. Because there were no curses here for him to sink his teeth into and tear his rage out in that way.
He hunted the deer, picturing your face, your eyes, when you discovered who he was.
When you said his name. That damned.
Stupid.
Doomed. Name.
Even as he cut the dagger through chunks of thick meat, ridding fat and whatever was not edible, the image refused to leave his mind. Of your eyes. Your voice. The glimmer of useless, misplaced. . . hope.
He was done giving people hope. Done holding out for it. As far as he was concerned?
Hope died the day that he did.
Slumps of meat piled onto the log. The carcass no more. His hands cold with the stickiness of blood. He stood there to catch his breath and sink into the depths of what he had done. Eyes duller than the sky. Colder than the blizzard.
As he stared at the head staring back at him.
Aimless.
Useless.
Weak.
Its black eyes reminded him of you.
Reminded him of himself.
The room was a massacre.
Satoru hadn't tidied it since that day, where his name was unearthed from the snow and put on display to his soul that had long since cast it away.
Cupboard doors skewed open. Drawers tossed and shoved in a maze that beckoned bruises. Books littered the floors. Crumbled pages. Some ripped out and stuffed into his bedside drawer.
He scorched whatever memory he could find of the man that he once was. Gojo Satoru. The Strongest. The Honoured One.
Looking like a disgrace as he sat on the foot of his bed. Elbows digging into his knees. Posture be damned. Glazed eyes focused on an aimless spot that wasn't marred by the carnage. He had cleaned himself of all the blood and grime, but what difference did it make?
He was certain that he got everything. Everything in this blasted, cold room that dared to whisper his name. He planned on burning it all to ash as he did the newspaper.
Well. Almost everything. He could not bear to enter the room narrowed at the end of the hall. Locked for a reason. To keep it safe from his hands that sought nothing but destruction. Sacred from what he had become.
The sharp pull in his stomach complained. Reminding him that he had ignored your call for dinner. Even as the grilled meat pleased his nose and warmed a deep part within him.
You were spoiling him. He could bite his teeth and go weeks without food before you came along. But it seemed that you had a knack for re-awakening bad habits in him.
It's why he denied dinner in the first place. Your face was the last thing he wished to see.
Every time he imagined it, the deer paired with it. Followed by his own, scarred face.
Ridiculous, it was. To think that something as frail and as feeble as you could reflect even a shimmer of himself.
The blizzard grew more violent to mirror his mind. Endless, and ravenous. Killing every speck of warmth, and demeaning any weakness. It shook the walls of the shrine and poured through the gaps of this unfurnished room. Pulling at his bones. Needling into his nerves.
He rose to his feet with a deep, weary sigh. Perhaps in the heart of the blizzard, in the dead of this treacherous night, was his only path to peace.
Maybe he would find another deer. Wear his cruel mask and dig his teeth into it.
Maybe he could picture your face again. And hate himself for it.
Sliding the door open, he slumped into the hallway. Hands tucked into the sleeves of his yukata. It would stand no chance against the storm. Perhaps that was what he was counting on.
Freezing to death didn't sound too bad.
Quiet. Slow. Lonely.
Seemed befitting.
For a dangerous moment, he stopped at the door to your room. Listened. Felt. Were you asleep? Or lost in your thoughts too?
Why should he care?
The lanterns swayed above. At times he indulged the thought that it were the spirits of his students. As free and as bright as he remembered them.
He cut the thought short. Lest he wound himself up in memories he no longer deserved to cherish.
The faint crackle of fire caught his ears before the incessant hum of cursed energy did. Satoru had long since tuned out the broken flute that was your curse.
Sitting in front of the fireplace as you now had a habit of doing, you fixed your stare to flames. Unblinking. He might have thought you a pyromaniac if he didn't know any better.
Your hands weren't capable of atrocities. Couldn't hurt a fly on accident. Let alone commit arson.
Would you try to stop him if he left now? The thought bubbled a spur of irritation in his gut. He hoped not. He couldn't deal with you tonight.
He told himself that if you bothered him he would cast you out into the cruel blizzard.
His heart called him a liar.
And yet, he took a few seconds to watch you.
Watched the embers that glowed in your face. Your dull eyes barely lit, even with the warmth of gold and fire dancing in then. Were you as immune to the warmth as he was? Another shard to this damned mirror between you both?
If only he had left you in the snow. The first time was a moment of weakness. The second time was pure stupidity, but weakness nonetheless.
Guess frail things attracted frail things.
He watched as you reached for the fire poker. Mindless to the haphazard angle it sat at that allowed for heat to blister at the handle.
Clatter!
It resounded. Hitting the wooden floor in smudges of ash.
You did not scream. Not a grunt, not a whimper. Not a single, audible peep.
Soundless in your pain. With your brows pinched and your hand holding your wrist. You stared at your own burn mark. As if you were scrutinising it.
As if you saw the weakness that he saw in you. Saw in himself.
His fingers twitched.
Damn that muscle memory.
Against every nerve and cold thought, Satoru had crossed the room. He was at your side in seconds. Kneeling beside you. Lowering himself in ways that he shouldn't have to. Not to a helpless doe like you. A bothersome deer. Useless butterfly.
And yet, he scooped your hand up as if he was mindful of your fragile wings.
He watched the shock in your eyes melt into understanding, and then embarrassment. Your lips pressed together. A habit of yours, he had learnt.
He was surprised that you hadn't offered him your words. Another habit of yours he knew all too well was your hate for silence. But here you were, staring at him soundlessly while your fingers bloomed a faint burn.
The cold would make it worse. He should leave it. Leave you here. Punishment for your own weakness. How else were you to grow thicker skin if not through pain?
But Gojo Satoru wasn't capable of that.
And that's why he loathed him.
Disowned him.
Hovering a cold hand over your wound, Satoru focused. Ignored your questioning eyes and your voice that slipped into the quiet after all. A whisper he didn't care for, but still registered.
Cursed energy pulsed through his veins. Whirling to his fingertips. Glowing. Reversing.
If only Shoko could see him now. She'd scoff at him. Call him a showoff for learning what she had futily tried to teach him since the day she met him.
Probably tell him it was all for nought.
What was the point of knowing how to heal, when there was no one to save?
What was the point of learning how to heal, when he no longer wanted to save?
It was a feat not many in history had achieved. One he had unlocked on a whim after his death. He tested it on injured rabbits and deers that escaped wolves' canines.
He could tell from your gaping reaction that it was still a rarity.
The burn disappeared, skin and tissue replenishing itself. No scars. Lucky you.
Only then did he take the time to notice how small your hand was in his. A frail, pitiful thing. Smooth when against his callouses and the etches carved in his skin. His paleness still had yet to meet a match.
He dared to meet your eyes as he slowly released your hand. Watching the awe warm your stare. Awe that he remembered. Awe that he now hated.
Satoru almost regretted healing you in the first place. A begrudging call from the back of his mind told him that he would have done it no matter the reaction.
"Thank you." You said. Quiet and timid. It churned his gut.
He shook his head. He should stand. He should leave. He should call you stupid for your mindless behaviour. Hurl an insult that dimmed the light in your eyes, because it was better to destroy. Better to be hated, than to be loved.
All he could do was huff.
"You really are weak."
It was low, but hardly as stabbing as he would have intended. Every other time he had called you weak, his voice was thick with disdain.
But now, here, as he sat beside your hopeless form, looking into your hopeful eyes, and hating every second of it—
He called you weak with envy in his stare.
You flinched. You always did. Fragile butterfly whose wings fluttered at the smallest of flicks.
Raising to his feet, Satoru made his decision. Whether he pushed himself into the nightmarish blizzard or not, it did not matter. His mind would not rest tonight. He would not know peace.
Only you.
You, and the deer, the mirror that glared between you both.
You and your weaknesses.
And your hopelessness.
Uselessness.
And your hopeful eyes that he despised from the depths of his wretched soul.
Satoru did not want your hope. Hope kept people alive.
death was the only way to escape the jujutsu world. rundown by the life you were born into, you search for rest. but your trip to the snowy japanese mountains takes a cold turn when a blizzard knocks your car off course. cold and injured, you accept your fate. until a rigid stranger drags you from the snow and tells you with dry finality that you won't leave until the storm passes. he won't tell you his name nor why the barrier around his humble cabin is as strong as it is. but the snow only melts away to reveal one truth: the man who saved you is supposed to be dead.
Everyone knew it. They aired it on live television. The shattering of a weapon; the fall of a soldier.
Your young eyes could not bear the sight of crimson soaking into the snow. Your father said it was gruesome. Spilled guts and half a torso.
They panned in on his face.
You swore that you saw his smile.
Perhaps he should have been grateful that the world was knotted in chaos. The King of Curses gave no one the time to mourn its strongest.
Not that they did, in any case.
Weapons rusted. They dulled. They grew old, and then they broke. A tragedy at best. But for most, it was simply the average Monday.
You wanted to pull out your eardrums than listen to how they spoke of him.
What a waste.
What a shame.
All that arrogance for this?
But there was one that haunted you. Kept your eyes glued to your ceiling in the frigid, December nights.
Maybe he wasn't the Strongest after all.
How dare they?
"He was a person."
It was the firmest voice you could muster against your father. Firm enough for the likes of you that it had others arching their brows and your mother shaking her head.
Dinner had become the epicentre of this dreaded topic. Of a god who fell and the Strongest that was no more.
"It's just an observation."
Your father said, picking away at his food as if he hadn't just insulted the man who saved all of you. Stubborn old men and their complacency to ignorance. That was why the world turned the way that it did.
Your family called you dramatic, feeling so deeply for a sorcerer you never met. A sorcerer who would glare you down under the weight of his mighty six eyes and call you weak.
You didn't have to know him to know he was probably scared. Didn't have to know him to know that every human feared the creep of death.
Perhaps it was your technique, sharpening your empathy into a blade that often left you gutted.
Maybe you, poor you, who shouldered with the heavy knowledge of what people felt right before death— knew that the look in Gojo Satoru's eyes was far from a man at peace. Even through the television static.
A stupid part of you led you to Shinjuku when it was clear. To feel the residuals of cursed energy. To understand, was the excuse you made for yourself.
But you knew in the ache of your heart that it was to feel for a sense of peace. A shred of content. Something, anything, in the snow other than blood spilt in vain.
What you found made you vomit once you staggered home.
You were silent in your mourning for a man you never knew. Let alone met.
Mourning because your eyes had long since opened to these rusty, bloodied cogs that turned. Big, and small. Strong, and weak.
But in the end, all the same. Cogs.
Twisting, and turning, and chugging along. In this endless, hopeless marathon that was jujutsu sorcerery.
If there was Nirvana at the end of this dreary tunnel, you were sure it was a wasteland. Barren.
Enlightenment was not a possibility in your world.
Only the snow. The frost. And the winter. The cold, unforgiving winter.
Cold.
So cold.
A cloudy breath wafted from your chapped lips. Your tongue eased as the warm, bland soup comforted your mouth. You had abandoned the spoon to cup the wooden bowl. Stealing more of its heat for your drying, trembling hands. The blizzard roared through the icy mountains again.
Gojo was nowhere to be seen.
If this were a few days ago, you would have been back to contemplating what he was. A man, a monster. A ghoul with thick enough skin to withstand the harsh bite of the frost.
But now you knew with absolute certainty, that he was a god. A fallen one. Gojo Satoru.
You were surprised that he was still around. More surprised that he hadn't caught you by the scruff of your neck and tossed you out to face the blizzard. Penance for your stunt.
A deeper part of you knew that someone like him wasn't capable of something like that. Or at least, his muscle memory wasn't.
You stopped talking. Stopped asking questions. Bowed your head and kept your eyes on the floor whenever he passed. It suited him well. After the incident, Gojo committed to his vow of silence.
He barely even looked at you.
The selfishly curious part of you wanted to peep in. Use your technique and understand what he was feeling.
The smart part of you knew better. Knew that the storm that raged in him was one that would consume you whole. More violent than the blizzard and twice as ice.
For now, you could busy yourself with the questions.
Why was here?
How long had he been here?
He was alive?
But most importantly. Most frightening.
How?
You debated the possibilities. That you had met your demise in the car crash and this was what waited on the other side. The cold felt befitting. A barren Nirvana. Or perhaps hell was ice rather than fire.
Maybe you were in a comma instead, and all of this was simply a long, agonising dream. You would awake to the faces of your family, and hate yourself again for your weakness.
Perhaps you had finally lost your mind. What if these past few weeks were a figment of your imagination? Why else would a fallen god stand before you?
Why else would you be able to touch him?
Why else would someone of his strength bother with a small, frail doe like you?
Finishing your soup, you cleared your throat. No dice. The lump in it hadn't left since that day. Since you stared him in his feral eyes as he burnt his past into nothing but ash in the fireplace.
Would it have been better not to know? That the man who saved you was one who saved many? One that many couldn't save?
The same you had cried into your pillows for, even though you only knew his name.
You tried your tea next. Hoping it was still warm enough to soothe the deep ache in your chest. When it caressed your tongue, a new kind of pain stabbed away at you.
He didn't speak. Didn't even look at you. But your breakfast was laid on the table when you came out, warm. Your tea was still brewed. The fire was still lit. Your comfort put above all else, even after you had disappointed him.
You wondered how much it costed him to care, even when he so desperately did not want to.
You still feared him. Feared that cold, controlled cursed energy that buzzed from him in lightning ready to strike. Feared his hands and the might that you now understood. Feared the crystals of his eyes that were all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful.
But it was a different kind of fear, now. Because you knew what he was. Back then, now. Knew what he could become.
And sadly, what he never did.
You sighed. Pinching the bridge of your nose to bring yourself back down to earth. At the end of the day, you did not know this man. You could feel what he felt. Sympathised with what he went through. But you did not know him
How could you? Someone as weak as you could not even dream to run in the same circles as him.
Knowing that he was Gojo Satoru did nothing to ease the pit in your gut. If anything, it only confirmed your uselessness.
Rising to your feet, you took the dishes and headed to the kitchen. Memorising the creaks under your feet and the sway of the lanterns overhead.
It was easier with your coat. Today you had woken up to it laid over your bed. Repaired with perfect stitches. Seamless.
What wasn't he capable of?
You almost punished yourself. Left it on your bed and braved the cold as penance for the tension you brought back into this humble shrine. But his care would not go wasted because of your own self-destructive tendencies.
After cleaning your dishes and drying your hands, you contemplated dinner. If you could compensate for anything, it would be food. You weren't sure when he would return, and a part of you even played with the idea that he might not. The thought didn't bother you as much as it should have. Abandonment was another lesson in this life that you had sadly learnt.
The wind bellowed. Knocking into the wood. A ravenous wolf seeking to blow your shelter down.
You cast a pained glance to the window. A flurry of grey and white smeared across the glass. A haze of nothingness. Of the unforgiving, treacherous heart of winter.
Why had he even gone out? You had enough meat to last a week and a half.
The thought of abandonment loomed heavier over you now. A second, cruel wolf that threatened to gnaw at your bones as the cold did.
Thunk.
The door opened at last.
Hefty boots shook the floors in slow thuds. Enough to rattle your heart. The grate of snow and ice sliding across the wooden floors made you flinch.
The wind tried to creep in. Tried to reach your stiff body in the kitchen. But it was dragged back and tossed out as the door slammed shut.
You contemplated between fire and ice. To stand in the kitchen and wait for him to inevitably freeze you with his presence, or to brave the fire of his stare and beat him to it.
You chose the latter.
Your feet weighed. Futile attempts to drag you back to the temporary safety of the kitchen. Your heart pulled at your limbs. Pumping dread through your veins. Dread that you would see him. That he would see you.
Fighting off every anxiety, you willed yourself to the living room. To the buzz of cursed energy that still rose nausea to the back of your throat. To the man, monster, ghost, god.
He stood tall at the centre of the living room. A mighty, tapered oak. With years carved into his flesh. Across his body. Beneath his eyes in dull circles. You noticed more about him now.
The scars on his face had a pattern you understood. The length of his hair, it was longer than the illustrations back home. Eyes duller. You hadn't seen a blindfold lying around. Did he have no need for it anymore?
Over his shoulder hung yet another poor, lifeless deer. Heavy. Twisted at the neck with a wretched gash across its throat. Its dead, black eyes still reminded you of home.
Worse, they reminded you of him.
A selfish part of you hoped to meet his gaze, and you did. But was it worth the biting ice?
Worth knowing that they once put the dazzle of sapphires to shame, but were now a frigid wasteland?
You swallowed your questions with the lump in your throat, remembering your promise. To stop asking. Stop bothering. Stop getting in his way.
The true blizzard ragged between your stares. Blue, and brittle, and banishment.
You broke first. Of course you did. Simply nature, for someone so weak. Dropping your gaze in a quiet surrender. To honour this distance he had wedged between you both.
That was when you caught the tears in his haori. Claw marks ripped across his arms. A deep red soaked into the white.
You remembered the snow.
Remembered the crimson.
Remembered the residuals.
"What happened?"
Already breaking your vow. How terribly, hopelessly weak you were. Weak enough that you did not care. Tossed out your promise in exchange for empathy as you dared to step closer.
His silent glare stabbed into you. A warning for you to stay where you were. Yet he did not move, and you had long since stopped fearing his threats.
You considered the possibilities of his wounds. A curse. Wolves. Himself.
"Let me help." You said.
Pleaded.
He scoffed, as expected. You had grown so used to it that you did not flinch anymore. It was his nature to be cold, and yours to be too weak against the chills. But stubborn enough to persist.
When he spoke, it was like the first taste of water in days.
"You know what I am and yet still think you can help me?"
Even if it was ever as frigid.
This should be the part where you scuttle away with your tail tucked between your legs. With your head hung low and your eyes glued to the floor.
You promised yourself that you would not be a bother.
You promised yourself that you wouldn't run, too.
"I can try." You said.
Even if your voice shook. Even if your heart trembled. Even if every instinct within you told you to hide.
Gojo stared at you.
You weren't sure why his silence bothered you more now that you knew his name. It pricked at your skin and burrowed into your pores. Twisted your nerves into an uncomfortable shiver.
Maybe it was the weight of knowing what he once was.
Who he once was.
That unnecessary urge to fill the silence tugged at your voice again. Even with the lump, the dryness and the dread.
But as you opened your mouth, he scoffed again. Pushing past you, he dragged the mushy snow on his boots through the shrine. Leaving you with two, frosty words.
"Don't bother."
You were not sure which was more biting.
As you watched the deer's limp body, you considered its eyes. Its familiarity.
The raging blizzard outside paled in comparison to the scathe of your mind. Whispering, blistering. Reminding you that you were a bother. That you were useless.
That you were weak.
Satoru was getting sick of his own weakness.
Every time he looked at you. Every time he spoke to you. He was reminded that his claws had been swapped for hooves. That his fierce canines now laid as shed antlers at his feet.
You were everything that he was. Useless. Weak. Something he couldn't recognise when he caught his reflection in the windows.
There was a reason he had no mirrors in the shrine.
Your bothersome stare pressed into the back of his shoulders as he lugged the deer through the kitchen. Out the back door. The force he used to shut it shook the shrine.
He was sure you would scuttle. Back to your room. Maybe the fire. Hell, he wouldn't be surprised if your flight won over fight again and you dashed out into the ugly blizzard.
He vowed that he would not chase after you this time.
It was in vain, he knew.
Because no matter how many years he locked himself away in these icy mountains. No matter how much he swore off his name. Burned it to ash. In the end, he was still Gojo Satoru.
Still too strong for his own good. Too weak to let a frail soul freeze to death if he could help it. The worst part of it all? Now you knew that too.
As if you needed any more of a reason to be a thorn in his side.
Everyone knew that Gojo Satoru wouldn't leave an innocent to rot. Everyone knew that no matter the winter, or the blizzard, or the ice that he claimed to clutch his heart in a chokehold—
He was built to protect. Born a soldier. Sharpened into a weapon.
The biting truth had him tossing the deer over the log stump. Uncaring for the haphazard way that he handled the dead. No one cared about his body, back then. From what he heard, he was not even dignified a grave.
Roaring in his ears, the blizzard sought to consume him. Blurring his eyes and pelting into him in crystal shards. Cutting into the tears of his haori. It needled into his pores and locked his nerves in a blistering shiver.
Null. Null and numb. When compared to the maelstrom howling in his mind. Rattling his teeth. Spilling fire into his veins.
He snatched the axe lodged beside the log. Focused on the splinters that nipped into his dry, rough hands. His nerves no longer recognised pain. Dull weapons knew the taste of stings well.
Heaving the axe over his shoulder, Satoru stared at the deer. Its useless slump over the log. The nasty gash torn across its throat. Its deep, maroon blood soaking into the snow.
The snow.
Blood soaking into the snow.
His jaw set tight. So tight he threatened to shatter it with his teeth alone.
The dead deer's eyes reminded him of his own. As he laid there.
In the snow.
His blood, soaking the snow.
He sucked in a breath and shut his eyes. Counted to ten and reminded himself that he did not care. That he did not have the right to.
The deer's face took on a different shape when he looked at it again. Yours.
Those dull eyes you tried to hide with acts of kindness that meant nothing to him. The dejected expression you gave him whenever he scoffed at you. The uselessness. The weakness.
For a moment, he entertained the thought of how easy it would be. To lug you over one of these logs and butcher you the way he did tough meat. You wouldn't be able to put up a fight.
Correction, you wouldn't even try.
There was a resign that he recognised whenever you looked back at him. One that mirrored a deep ache in his soul that he tried to ignore. Tried to shove down to pits of his gut, where his stomach acid could eat away at it. Disintegrate it.
But there was no avoiding it.
By some miracle, or perhaps cosmic joke, Satoru saw himself in you.
Saw your weaknesses and recognised it as his own.
That was why, he had no mercy on the deer today.
The blizzard bellowed. All around him. Through him. But the only thing ringing through his ears was the wrenching, wretched howl of bones snapping and muscles meshing. Of iron tearing into flesh. Tissue squelching. Blood splattering.
With every swing.
Into the snow.
The snow.
Blood.
Blood soaked into the snow.
Speckled on his sleeves.
Staining his hands.
The fading warmth was what he clung to as he clamoured the axe through the deer's throat. Cracked through its spine. Tore through its jugular.
Its head rested peaceful in the snow.
Chest heaving. Hands scraped. Lungs burning and heart pounding. Satoru stood there with the axe hung from him. An extension of his arm. His soul. As he stared at the decapitated corpse and the blood it soaked into the pristine, frigid snow.
Was that what he looked like on that cold, December eve?
Bloodied.
And pitiful.
And weak. In the snow?
The axe slipped from his hold. Missed his foot and slumped into the frosted ground. He didn't bother wiping off his maroon-smeared hands into the snow. Instead he jerked out the knife that wedged into the corner of the log, and began skinning the corpse.
It was clockwork now, but he remembered how it felt the first time. The slimy warmth on his hands. The nausea that pooled in his throat. The stench that stuffed his nostrils for days after. His hands sharpened into weapons. Fashioned for death. But the first deer's stain itched at his palms in the middle of the night for weeks to come.
He knew that this was cruelty. There was no need to hunt, the rations would have lasted you both exactly twelve days. Fifteen, if you insisted on a few vegetarian meals.
Satoru killed the deer because he wanted to.
Because he was angry. Because he ached. Because there were no curses here for him to sink his teeth into and tear his rage out in that way.
He hunted the deer, picturing your face, your eyes, when you discovered who he was.
When you said his name. That damned.
Stupid.
Doomed. Name.
Even as he cut the dagger through chunks of thick meat, ridding fat and whatever was not edible, the image refused to leave his mind. Of your eyes. Your voice. The glimmer of useless, misplaced. . . hope.
He was done giving people hope. Done holding out for it. As far as he was concerned?
Hope died the day that he did.
Slumps of meat piled onto the log. The carcass no more. His hands cold with the stickiness of blood. He stood there to catch his breath and sink into the depths of what he had done. Eyes duller than the sky. Colder than the blizzard.
As he stared at the head staring back at him.
Aimless.
Useless.
Weak.
Its black eyes reminded him of you.
Reminded him of himself.
The room was a massacre.
Satoru hadn't tidied it since that day, where his name was unearthed from the snow and put on display to his soul that had long since cast it away.
Cupboard doors skewed open. Drawers tossed and shoved in a maze that beckoned bruises. Books littered the floors. Crumbled pages. Some ripped out and stuffed into his bedside drawer.
He scorched whatever memory he could find of the man that he once was. Gojo Satoru. The Strongest. The Honoured One.
Looking like a disgrace as he sat on the foot of his bed. Elbows digging into his knees. Posture be damned. Glazed eyes focused on an aimless spot that wasn't marred by the carnage. He had cleaned himself of all the blood and grime, but what difference did it make?
He was certain that he got everything. Everything in this blasted, cold room that dared to whisper his name. He planned on burning it all to ash as he did the newspaper.
Well. Almost everything. He could not bear to enter the room narrowed at the end of the hall. Locked for a reason. To keep it safe from his hands that sought nothing but destruction. Sacred from what he had become.
The sharp pull in his stomach complained. Reminding him that he had ignored your call for dinner. Even as the grilled meat pleased his nose and warmed a deep part within him.
You were spoiling him. He could bite his teeth and go weeks without food before you came along. But it seemed that you had a knack for re-awakening bad habits in him.
It's why he denied dinner in the first place. Your face was the last thing he wished to see.
Every time he imagined it, the deer paired with it. Followed by his own, scarred face.
Ridiculous, it was. To think that something as frail and as feeble as you could reflect even a shimmer of himself.
The blizzard grew more violent to mirror his mind. Endless, and ravenous. Killing every speck of warmth, and demeaning any weakness. It shook the walls of the shrine and poured through the gaps of this unfurnished room. Pulling at his bones. Needling into his nerves.
He rose to his feet with a deep, weary sigh. Perhaps in the heart of the blizzard, in the dead of this treacherous night, was his only path to peace.
Maybe he would find another deer. Wear his cruel mask and dig his teeth into it.
Maybe he could picture your face again. And hate himself for it.
Sliding the door open, he slumped into the hallway. Hands tucked into the sleeves of his yukata. It would stand no chance against the storm. Perhaps that was what he was counting on.
Freezing to death didn't sound too bad.
Quiet. Slow. Lonely.
Seemed befitting.
For a dangerous moment, he stopped at the door to your room. Listened. Felt. Were you asleep? Or lost in your thoughts too?
Why should he care?
The lanterns swayed above. At times he indulged the thought that it were the spirits of his students. As free and as bright as he remembered them.
He cut the thought short. Lest he wound himself up in memories he no longer deserved to cherish.
The faint crackle of fire caught his ears before the incessant hum of cursed energy did. Satoru had long since tuned out the broken flute that was your curse.
Sitting in front of the fireplace as you now had a habit of doing, you fixed your stare to flames. Unblinking. He might have thought you a pyromaniac if he didn't know any better.
Your hands weren't capable of atrocities. Couldn't hurt a fly on accident. Let alone commit arson.
Would you try to stop him if he left now? The thought bubbled a spur of irritation in his gut. He hoped not. He couldn't deal with you tonight.
He told himself that if you bothered him he would cast you out into the cruel blizzard.
His heart called him a liar.
And yet, he took a few seconds to watch you.
Watched the embers that glowed in your face. Your dull eyes barely lit, even with the warmth of gold and fire dancing in then. Were you as immune to the warmth as he was? Another shard to this damned mirror between you both?
If only he had left you in the snow. The first time was a moment of weakness. The second time was pure stupidity, but weakness nonetheless.
Guess frail things attracted frail things.
He watched as you reached for the fire poker. Mindless to the haphazard angle it sat at that allowed for heat to blister at the handle.
Clatter!
It resounded. Hitting the wooden floor in smudges of ash.
You did not scream. Not a grunt, not a whimper. Not a single, audible peep.
Soundless in your pain. With your brows pinched and your hand holding your wrist. You stared at your own burn mark. As if you were scrutinising it.
As if you saw the weakness that he saw in you. Saw in himself.
His fingers twitched.
Damn that muscle memory.
Against every nerve and cold thought, Satoru had crossed the room. He was at your side in seconds. Kneeling beside you. Lowering himself in ways that he shouldn't have to. Not to a helpless doe like you. A bothersome deer. Useless butterfly.
And yet, he scooped your hand up as if he was mindful of your fragile wings.
He watched the shock in your eyes melt into understanding, and then embarrassment. Your lips pressed together. A habit of yours, he had learnt.
He was surprised that you hadn't offered him your words. Another habit of yours he knew all too well was your hate for silence. But here you were, staring at him soundlessly while your fingers bloomed a faint burn.
The cold would make it worse. He should leave it. Leave you here. Punishment for your own weakness. How else were you to grow thicker skin if not through pain?
But Gojo Satoru wasn't capable of that.
And that's why he loathed him.
Disowned him.
Hovering a cold hand over your wound, Satoru focused. Ignored your questioning eyes and your voice that slipped into the quiet after all. A whisper he didn't care for, but still registered.
Cursed energy pulsed through his veins. Whirling to his fingertips. Glowing. Reversing.
If only Shoko could see him now. She'd scoff at him. Call him a showoff for learning what she had futily tried to teach him since the day she met him.
Probably tell him it was all for nought.
What was the point of knowing how to heal, when there was no one to save?
What was the point of learning how to heal, when he no longer wanted to save?
It was a feat not many in history had achieved. One he had unlocked on a whim after his death. He tested it on injured rabbits and deers that escaped wolves' canines.
He could tell from your gaping reaction that it was still a rarity.
The burn disappeared, skin and tissue replenishing itself. No scars. Lucky you.
Only then did he take the time to notice how small your hand was in his. A frail, pitiful thing. Smooth when against his callouses and the etches carved in his skin. His paleness still had yet to meet a match.
He dared to meet your eyes as he slowly released your hand. Watching the awe warm your stare. Awe that he remembered. Awe that he now hated.
Satoru almost regretted healing you in the first place. A begrudging call from the back of his mind told him that he would have done it no matter the reaction.
"Thank you." You said. Quiet and timid. It churned his gut.
He shook his head. He should stand. He should leave. He should call you stupid for your mindless behaviour. Hurl an insult that dimmed the light in your eyes, because it was better to destroy. Better to be hated, than to be loved.
All he could do was huff.
"You really are weak."
It was low, but hardly as stabbing as he would have intended. Every other time he had called you weak, his voice was thick with disdain.
But now, here, as he sat beside your hopeless form, looking into your hopeful eyes, and hating every second of it—
He called you weak with envy in his stare.
You flinched. You always did. Fragile butterfly whose wings fluttered at the smallest of flicks.
Raising to his feet, Satoru made his decision. Whether he pushed himself into the nightmarish blizzard or not, it did not matter. His mind would not rest tonight. He would not know peace.
Only you.
You, and the deer, the mirror that glared between you both.
You and your weaknesses.
And your hopelessness.
Uselessness.
And your hopeful eyes that he despised from the depths of his wretched soul.
Satoru did not want your hope. Hope kept people alive.
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A girl on TikTok shared the PlayStation username her dad made for her when she was little and I thought it was so cool I checked if it was taken on ao3.
IM SORRYYYY
Also I can’t remember anyone ever so if your my moot just pretend I tagged you
Oo this is fun, ty for tagging me. This username is pretty self explanatory honesty. I wanted to include my name and ghost’s and I love angel numbers! Thus angel444riley (I’m thinking of changing it tho!)
Tagging (no pressure): @sweet-honey-tears @h3avenlyglory @toothfairys @semenriley @simonriley09 (+ any others that I didn’t include but want to participate)
My username is kinda randomly selected but I was thinking about my name and wondered what it has to do with Heavenly/Heaven and glory came to mind. I wanted to play on how my name has something to do with Heaven and chose glory and that's how I ended up with this username tbh😭
@corsetdevious, @neighbourscat, @sexyscintillatingsoulaan, @aizawash0e, @mtcloudsworld, anyone else who wants to participate, and no pressure!
Well if we're being technical mtcloudsworld is supposed to look like this:: " m.t cloud's world "
Hopefully I can explain this without confusing anybody, but originally I wanted my full middle name in the tag. I tried it out, didn't sound right to me, so I shortened it to "m.t."
Then, I went with cloud('s) because I like the idea of my mind floating on a cloud. I often feel like my mind drifts on a high when I'm spaced out or when I'm focused on something important. It's the determination and diligence I have in myself when I'm zoned in and I love the calming sense of that.
And world? Well, you're entering a world about me, about my hobbies/interests and who I am as ✨Cloud~✨
No pressure tags:: @jellywrites1218 @liliacsdelight @hotgirlgenniesblog @porcenina @kiatheinsomniac @michaelpilled @sakunai
mine is a very straightforward one: I'm Kia and I've always had problems with falling asleep.
some followers who have been here for many years though will notice that I'm much better today than I was when I was still in school and first began this blog tho! I've been temporarily medicated since and I find that the hours I work mean that sleep comes much easier haha
“sweetheart” because I love the nickname, and it's more in a condescending / slutty way bc that's what satoru calls my persona / oc in their ship <3 and then the -icism was a play on religious / cultish themes to fit in with my pseudonym eden
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──── 𝐜𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐱 ˊˎ -
⊹₊ masterlist / rules
꒰ pairing: Pantalone | Feofan x Reader ꒱
꒰ word count: 0.7k ꒱
꒰ c.w: MDNI, suggestive content, reader hates the smell of cigarettes ꒱
ᯓ✩ 𝒑.𝒔: I know I said I'd post this days ago but I've been working overtime this week sobs. Here it is now though! Also, yes, I like the band hehe
You hate cigarettes. More specifically, the smell of them.
A cruel irony, given that your banker fiancé is a chainsmoker who’s already received a new pair of lungs once before. You’re constantly luring him into the shower with you to scrub the scent of tobacco from his hair and skin between more heated activities; the estate uses up more fabric softener than ever before and there’s no shortage of work for anyone in the area who doesn’t mind working as a laundry maid; bowls of mints are placed in strategic places throughout the building: the table by the master bedroom balcony, the chest of polished hardwood drawers in the foyer, the desk in his study… and his nightstand.
He knows of your hatred but doesn’t go too far out of his way to accommodate you – he’s centuries old and has cut down from 20 sticks a day to 8 after all, a great improvement in his opinion. This is a very old habit that he believes will die only with him. That being said, he’s not a complete asshole either – not to his sweet fiancée that he loves to spoil rotten. He hardly smokes indoors the way he used to now, opting to stand by an open window or sit in the gardens, lounge on a balcony or the terrace, even. A leather, fig and sandalwood cologne helps to cover the scent of smoke that clings to his clothing and hair, he accepts that the price of kissing you after a smoke is a mint on his tongue first.
While you curl into his side upon dark indigo silk sheets, he takes a moment to admire the rapid rise and fall of your chest, your lashes shut over pleasure-glazed eyes. This is a familiar routine, you getting so dazed from orgasm that it takes you a few minutes to come back down. He tenderly tucks a strand of sweat-dampened hair behind your ear. He’s covered in a similar sheen from getting so hot and carnal with you, silvery scars from past surgeries glistening across his chest.
Pantalone sits up and slips on a silk robe, picking you up bridal style to set you down in his lap as he sits down in the window seat of the bedroom, cracking the window open. When you shiver against the chill of the outside air, he rubs his palms over your arm and grabs a light blanket from nearby to cover you with. His chin props atop your head while you curl into his bodyheat, your side pressed to his chest and your knees brought up, legs over one of his thighs so you can look at the winter snowscape outside, gardens dusted with white. Your eyes close again though, still on a high of hormones from the orgasms he gave you.
With his arms still around you, he frees his hands and you hear a metallic clink, the quietest of roars from the sound of lighter fluid burning. You let out a small huff as the scent of tobacco fills the air after he takes a drag. His fingers pet your hair as if to placate you, not unaware of the way your nose has scrunched in that adorable way. You press your nose to the silk of his robe to try and evade the terrible smell.
“You’re terrible…” You grumble and he simply smirks as he takes his next drag, blowing most of it out of the window but saving the last part to aim towards your face. “Feofan!” His laugh echoes in the room and his lips press to your temple.
“Forgive me, my love. You look far too adorable when teased. I’ll stop.”
“Smoking?”
“Don’t push your luck.” He quips, aware that you know that’s not what he meant. He lounges against the rest of the seat while you curl into his chest, tucking your face into his neck so closely that it’s like you’re trying to crawl into his skin to evade the stench of tobacco.
“My sweet girl…” He muses as he smooths your hair back with his free hand, tapping his cigarette outside the window given the lack of an ashtray here. “I’ll have to make up for it, won’t I? Maybe some new cor lapis earrings for you, how about new winter dresses? I’ll have Chiori herself commissioned just for you.” He grins with the sort of a pride only a wealthy man who loves to spoil his woman possesses when you let out a noise of approval and nuzzle your nose gently below his ear.
The cigarettes are a small price to pay, really, despite how much you hate them.
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