wherever you go, there you are

Yuuji casts a glance to find his teacher turned toward him instead of the TV. Yuuji mirrors him, the ring having been destroyed already anyway. "You're Gandalf, of course. Guiding the fellowship, leading me on field trips, bearing a mysterious past that doesn't get explored much during the course of the movie. And the white hair!"

Gojo blows out a burst of air. "Legolas is far more attractive, if we're matching by hair color alone."

"Have you ever shot a bow and arrow?"

"No," Gojo says, pouting.

"There you go," Yuuji replies through a grin. "Can't lay claim to Legolas so easily. Besides, you don't have a friendship with an ax-wielding dwarf."

"Have you watched the DVD extras, too?"

"I haven't. Who watches the behind the scenes?"

"Everyone with taste," Gojo says, and he goes on what is maybe a rather long tangent about the storyboards, the choice of New Zealand as Middle Earth, the crew members who wore off their fingerprints making chainmail, and Viggo Mortensen's broken toe in The Two Towers.

Yuuji is riveted. He's always been more drawn to horror movies and anime, a manga fan all his life who likes to see the adaptations of his favorites, but Gojo's collection of 2000s movies has been growing on him. If this is what Yuuji can expect from the Lord of the Rings, then maybe he's been missing out.

"I should watch more old movies."

"Watch it," Gojo grumbles.

"I was nine months old when the third movie was released," Yuuji tells him, just to watch that pained look on Gojo's face. It's hilarious.

To the side, the end credits are rolling without catching Yuuji's attention. The music's good. It can't compete with the man in front of him, who Yuuji's leaning in to hear over the music, who's closer than he realized before. There's never any competition, really; put anything next to Gojo and it's forgotten, and that was even before Yuuji saw his teacher's eyes. The conversation migrates, moves as easily as it always has with Gojo, from a joke about Gandalf onward.

After a while, Gojo reaches out to tilt Yuuji's chin back, the first knuckle of his finger pressing against the bruise. "It got you good, I see."

"I'm improving," Yuuji says in return. It's the truth; he hasn't been hit by the doll nearly as often as he was that first day. Another few days and he might be able to do this in his sleep.

When Gojo brings Yuuji's chin back down, his hand doesn't leave. Yuuji's gaze meets his blindfold and he wonders if Gojo ever feels the urge to just rip it off. Yuuji does, sometimes. Instead of letting him go, Gojo draws his hand across Yuuji's jaw, the tip of a finger dragging against the lobe of his ear.

"Yuuji," Gojo says, and his tone's all different, most of the previous humor gone. There's enough left to warm his voice, to give it life amidst the rest of it.

It hits Yuuji like a punch that they're too close. That his knee rests against Gojo's thigh, migrating at some point during their conversation, the couch small but not so small that they should be touching at multiple points. A minute ago it was good—the easy conversation, the human connection. A minute ago, Yuuji hadn't realized this was on the table, let alone on the couch.

He places a hand over Gojo's, wrapping his fingers around Gojo's wrist until he feels the bone. Yuuji knows his teacher's strength, knows it's only because Gojo wills it that he can grip his wrist as tightly as he is now. Unbidden, the memory of how cool it was when Gojo beheaded that curse and rolled it under his foot; less cool now that it feels like his own head is under Gojo's shiny black boot. It feels rotten, all of it, nothing like the laughter just minutes ago. 

There's no way to meet Gojo's gaze, so Yuuji does the next best thing and stares down his blindfold. "Knock it off. Now."

Gojo's hand grows still under his own. He draws it back. Yuuji lets it go and it joins Gojo's other hand in the air, palms raised in a conciliatory gesture. "Knocked off. Right off. Don't worry about it, alright?"

"Alright," Yuuji agrees, still tense.

Gojo slowly lowers his hands to his knees, like they're cowboys in an old Western, guns being put away. "It's getting late. Busy day tomorrow for both of us. I have a class to teach and you have the Hobbit trilogy to watch. Can't miss it, after this one."

"Right. Yeah. I heard Legolas returns in it," Yuuji manages. "Are the movies any good?"

Gojo stands, maneuvering from between the couch and the coffee table. "You'll just have to find out. The dwarf king dies at the end, by the way."

"Sensei," Yuuji says, and he tries to go for reproachful but fails to land.

"Good night, Yuuji," Gojo says, anyway, and he disappears.

Yuuji throws his head back against the couch, tilting his head toward the ceiling. It's the same stone up there as the walls, one built in light that never feels quite bright enough. Gojo wouldn't appreciate the comparison, but it feels like Yuuji's evaded yet another special grade curse tonight, this one as unexpected as the other two. The absence of Gojo has a certain weight of its own.

"Fuck," Yuuji mutters into the empty room. "Why did he have to do that?"

There's no answer. It's not that Yuuji's oblivious to his own attraction; that much has been evident from the day he laid eyes on his teacher. He doesn't need anything explained to him on that front.

It's only that the whole thing feels like a clash of domains, the one more powerful fated to dominate, and fuck it, Yuuji doesn't want to be dominated. Gojo's earlier show of strength no longer seems as awe-inspiring. And that’s what happens here, isn’t it? Get hit on by someone who's older and more powerful—the strongest—then fool around kissing and touching for a while until he's pulling you into his bed and expecting you to bend over and take it. Great. Yuuji would rather not, thanks.

For all that Yuuji gets on well with Gojo, appreciates his strength and enjoys his company, for all that he finds him to be the sort of handsome that you can barely look away from, nothing about their situation gets him fired up. Gojo's one of three people who knows that Yuuji is alive, the higher ups of jujutsu society having decided to expedite his execution. And even when it's all resolved, when Yuuji can walk around campus in the sunlight, Gojo will still be standing between Yuuji and the chopping block even as he holds the sword, assigned Yuuji's executioner for one faraway day.

Yuuji's wanted plenty of people. It's easy to look at someone and see pretty features, white hair that could be so easy to tug, eyes so blue that you can drown in. He’s never run into the concept that if his attention gets returned, he wouldn’t want to act on it. If Jennifer Lawrence stepped off the red carpet— but that's not the same, not really. He's almost as starstruck by Gojo as he is by a movie star.

It's all moot, anyway. It's over.

When he looks down on his lap, Yuuji realizes the doll hadn't twitched even through that. I'm learning, Yuuji thinks, and squeezes it tighter before turning off the mechanism to put it fully to sleep. Maybe he’s not strong, not yet, but that won’t remain true forever.

Upstairs, he passes Gojo's room on the way to his own. The hallway lights are on, the rest of the house silent. Yuuji showers and puts himself to bed, and when he dreams it's of nothing at all.

Gojo is overly cheerful the next day, barreling through the remaining awkwardness, and Yuuji is grateful for it. He matches his teacher's energy, chatting at dinner about his choice of movies—two horror flicks from the eighties—and decides that the Hobbit is a lost cause. No need to tempt fate. Gojo's obviously some kind of Tolkien pervert.

During the fight against the special grade, Gojo taught Yuuji all about Limitless. And now it's everywhere, a layer between them during every spar, every training session, every time Yuuji hands him chopsticks at the dinner table. It's worse than the forced cheerfulness, which Yuuji can overcome, turning a conversation natural again with time.

It's weird, is all, the enforced space. It doesn't let Yuuji forget, not even for a minute, that things are different now. At first Yuuji resigns himself to get used to it, but then he imagines months of this, years. He's going to know Gojo for a long time—up until the end. When it's time for him to go, he doesn't want it with Infinity between them.

Another field trip, one where Gojo throws Yuuji against a second grade curse he sighted during the course of his own mission against a special grade.

Yuuji runs into the fight with his fists drawn. It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible, either. It’s during battle that Yuuji thinks he might be able to probe at his potential the way Gojo does with only his gaze, grasping fingers digging into cursed energy that is only his by force.

When Yuuji is knocked flying back, it’s against Gojo, who’s suddenly there instead of the wall.

“Easy there, don’t get too eager to crush your skull,” Gojo says, steadying him back up with a layer of air between them. Even with Infinity, his hands don’t linger for longer than to help him up.

Yuuji punches the curse a few more times about it, until it doesn’t get up again, until it dissolves into dust.

When he returns to Gojo, who’s saying something about a good job, Yuuji lifts his hand. “High five, sensei.”

Gojo gamely slaps Infinity against his palm.

Yuuji's patience runs dry. He pokes him in the palm, close as he can get. "Gojo-sensei, it won’t happen again, right? So quit this."

Gojo huffs. It's not a particularly nice sound. "Maybe I need the reminder."

Yuuji tries on the thought. That Gojo’s such an unrepentant predator that he needs a constant reminder to not touch his student. It doesn't fit. “I think you’re just feeling weird." At Yuuji's words, Gojo’s attention sharpens, and Yuuji goes on anyway. "Awry, like things got tilted a way they weren't supposed to. You knocked me off-balance, too. Get over it. I liked joking around with you. Unless that was also part of it, but I don’t think it was.”

Gojo’s hand is still hanging in the air. Yuuji taps against Infinity like a door knocker. For a moment, his gaze lingers on the lines of his teacher’s palm, the callouses, the curve of his thumb.

Gojo doesn’t make him wait overly long. “It wasn’t. I didn't say it at the time—I’m sorry. I made you uncomfortable.”

Yuuji nods. "Yeah, you did." He realizes only now that he's heard it that he did want that apology from Gojo. Now that he's heard it, now that it's out there, it's easier. "It happens. It's not going to be awkward forever, so don't make it awkward forever."

"You should specialize in giving pep talks," Gojo says. Infinity drops; Yuuji’s pointer finger connects with the center of Gojo’s palm. "I hear you. I'll take my wounded pride elsewhere."

Yuuji rolls his eyes, unable to take the thought seriously. As though Yuuji can wound this man's pride when he's never been able to wound his body. "You've been turned down before. You have to have been."

"Very rarely."

"Well, maybe it's good for you," Yuuji offers. "Keeps you down to earth."

"Does that sound like me?" Gojo muses.

"Not really." Yuuji's teacher is far too strong, far too handsome to ever truly be modest. Maybe when you're the strongest, you lose sight of how the ants might feel about some things. Maybe all of humanity's little worries look small to someone who can hover in the air.

"Well, I can learn," Gojo says, a thread of seriousness to his tone. "Starting now."

When Yuuji goes in for it, Gojo gives him a proper high five this time. The next time they spar, Infinity is gone, and Gojo's blows are just as solid without it. Yuuji loses himself in his post-death adventures, in movies and spars and missions, in Junpei's death and in his own relief to still be alive. And if every so often, Yuuji is lost in Gojo instead, in the definition of his muscles when he takes his jacket off to spar and in his incredible stories of life as a jujutsu sorcerer, then it doesn't have to mean anything, really.

By the time that Yuuji is reunited with Fushiguro and Kugisaki, he and Gojo have found a good rhythm again. Enough to miss the days of watching movies and fighting curses when Yuuji's once again fighting off assassination attempts, this time from the Kyoto school group. But this time around, it's not a hopeless battle, and he has allies old and new. And in the end, when the barrier has fallen and he looks up, he sees Gojo in the air, and Hollow Purple really is as breathtaking as he thought it would be.

A few days later, Fushiguro is healed enough for all three of them to hole up in Kugisaki’s dorm room to play Smash. Yuuji and Kugisaki sprawl sideways on Kugisaki’s bed, arms hanging off the side, holding onto controllers with as they argue about technique. Fushiguro’s on a beanbag beneath them, eating a chocolate bar. Yuuji’s pretty sure his classmate might be as much of a sweets fiend as his teacher, but he hasn’t been able to prove it.

These days, Yuuji knows his classmates far better than he once did. Knows Nobara as relentless and brash, knows Megumi as steady and fiercely protective.

As the evening winds down, Kugisaki the undisputed winner, Yuuji rolls over onto his back, head hanging off the edge of the bed.

“That won’t help you win,” Kugisaki tells him.

Yuuji, having never actually played a video game with other people, shrugs. “Maybe it will. Maybe Sukuna has secret video game agility powers that activate when my head is upside down.”

Below him, Fushiguro snorts. He looks pretty funny from this angle, all spiky dark hair. When Yuuji tries to steal a piece of chocolate, hand not quite able to reach all the way down, Fushiguro snorts and lifts the plate up.

"I don't want this to go anywhere except between us," Yuuji says. He’s been meaning to say it, but it hasn't ever been the right time. Maybe it won't ever be.

"Are we going through the sleepover checklist?" Nobara asks. “First games, then secrets swapping?”

“Maybe it's just that kind of night." It feels like it, a little. Empty bags of chips on the floor, no injuries hounding any of them, two friends at his sides.

Fushiguro turns fully towards him, no longer angled toward the TV. "What is it?"

Beside him, Kugisaki says, "You had better not be about to declare a crush."

"Nah." Yuuji stops there until it looks like Kugisaki might punch him, then just says it. "Gojo made a pass at me a while back, when I was pretending to be dead. We were joking around. It got less jokey."

Kugisaki's tone sounds like it could manifest her technique's nails. "What did you do?"

"Told him to fuck off, more or less."

"Good," she says. "What the fuck is wrong with him?"

"Many things," Fushiguro says, carefully. His expression is a little too intense. "He stopped?"

"Yeah. Of course he did." Yuuji turns over to more easily look between them. "I just figured I'd ask. Has he ever done that with you?"

Fushiguro shakes his head.

Kugisaki's in agreement. "Nope. I'll ask Maki if she knows anything from the second years."

"I don’t want it to—"

"I’ll leave your name out of it. Chill," Kugisaki says.

"That's fine, then." For all that it's kind of private, he hasn't wanted Gojo and himself to forever be the only bearers of this particular moment.

After a while, Kugisaki says, joking, "Do you need like, therapy now?"

Yuuji groans. "No. Shut up."

"What, I grew up being warned about this sort of shit, but it’s all new for you as a guy. You’re not trained to expect it. Men aren't as resilient, anyway."

"He didn’t molest me," Yuuji splutters.

"Yeah, well if you liked it, you wouldn’t have worried about us." Kugisaki gives both of them a look. "His dick would have a nail through it if he tried it with me."

And— yeah, that's some of it, wasn’t it? Wanting to make sure that his friends are being treated well. But also, “I like him. I don’t know. I didn’t want to be wrong to like him.”

"Tell us if he bothers you again," Fushiguro says. "Immediately. I don't care if you're pretending to be dead again."

"That was a one time thing," Yuuji says, huffing. "But yeah. I will. It won't happen again, though." After a while, he asks, "Anything either of you want to get off your chest?"

"None of your business," Kugisaki says.

"Fushiguro?"

"I've had enough for tonight."

"Did I make it awkward? Him being your guardian or whatever?"

"Don't be an idiot," Fushiguro says, shoving more sweets in Yuuji’s direction.

According to Maki, there's no rumor of Gojo with another student. The only rumors that they're able to drum up are of people Gojo's age or older. Kugisaki still spends the rest of the month glaring at Gojo. Yuuji doesn't delude himself into hoping that Gojo doesn't know why, not when Gojo sends him an over the top hangdog look about it when Kugisaki's glares get too fiery. You did it to yourself, buddy, Yuuji thinks, but he ends up distracting Kugisaki anyway from trying to set Gojo on fire with her eyeballs. Fushiguro's quieter about it, but no less intense.

They settle, eventually. Can't hold a grudge forever, not when the grudge goes around bribing you with dinners after missions and sweets at all times of day. Yuuji's the first to sign himself up for sushi and donuts, his classmates following suit.

It's rare that Yuuji is left alone with his teacher after the conversation with his friends. Fushiguro arrives early to class, while Kugisaki stays late, and dinners out always include at least one of them. Yuuji's kind of embarrassed by it, kind of warmed, kind of irritated, too. He misses spending time with Gojo without two grumpy shadows dogging his steps.

"I'm heading into town after class," Yuuji says one day, his friends busy on the other side of the classroom. "I need to restock my manga collection. Do you want to come with?"

Gojo cocks his head. "Are you using me for a free ride?"

"No, that would be rude. I’m trying to get you addicted to my favorite series. And then maybe I can borrow manga from you instead of having to go to town."

"A devious plan," Gojo says, lips twitching. "Are you ready to go?"

"What, now?" Yuuji laughs. "Yeah. I'm ready."

Gojo tilts his chair to the side to look over in his other students' direction. "Early dismissal. Don't get up to any trouble."

When he holds out his hand, Yuuji takes it without hesitation, feeling reality fall around him. Behind him, he hears Kugisaki's voice, but it's too late. Gojo warps them to an alley near the bookstore, startling a stray cat who hisses at the both of them. Yuuji brings them by the used bookstore first, where from his backpack he produces an older series that he's lost interest in, exchanging it for a couple Demon Slayer volumes in good condition. Gojo and his outrageously expensive shirts don't fit the store, but he gamely checks out the displays. From there, it's to the new bookstore, where Yuuji makes good use of the pay that is allotted for Jujutsu High students when they take missions. He'd even gotten backpay for the missions he took while he was considered dead. Plenty to throw around at manga!

Yuuji draws Gojo's attention to several series. When he returns with his own volumes, he finds Gojo looking down at a different cover.

Yuuji holds his hand over the cover, censoring it from view. "No, not that one. The superhero mentor pervs on his students. It'll give you bad ideas."

Gojo's hand joins his blindfold in covering his eyes, tilting his head into his hand. "Yuuji," he whines. "I'm not indiscriminate."

"Yeah? What's your criteria?"

"Pink hair and the ability to make me laugh.”

It probably shouldn't feel good to hear that. Like something out of an after school special, a teacher saying that the student is special with a handy acronym on the screen for things to watch out for. The problem is that it feels good to be wanted even as much as he doesn't quite want Gojo to act on that want. It's something, knowing that the prettiest man Yuuji has ever seen wants him.

Yuuji lets his hand drop onto the cover. "I should stop teasing you after I accepted your apology."

Gojo's blindfold peeks out from under his hand. Yuuji wishes it were his eyes instead. "You can tease me all you want."

“Don’t tell me being told off is doing it for you,” Yuuji says, leaning against the display table.

“No, that’s not it.” When Gojo's hand drops from his face, even the blindfold can’t hide the fond look. And maybe that’s doing it for Yuuji. "Or maybe just a little. You get that expression, you know the one. Like you might hunt me for sport if I step out of line."

"And you'd… like that," Yuuji gathers. "That's weird of you."

"There's no such thing as a normal jujutsu sorcerer."

That much, Yuuji will believe. "Come on, I'll show you to the series that I think you'll like."

"Not the superhero one?"

"I'm too busy to hunt you for sport, sensei. I have homework due this week."

They grab food together afterward. It feels like sneaking out, never mind that he's doing it alongside a supposed authority figure. When Yuuji returns to the high school, Fushiguro and Kugisaki look at him like he's their misbehaving child, and Yuuji can't help but laugh at them.

"What a good set of glares those two have," Gojo says, quietly enough that it won't be overheard. "You're well-loved."

"You think so?"

Gojo's hand stops halfway in the air. Yuuji remembers the gesture from when Gojo would pat his head sometimes, just one of the easy gestures now gone. "Yes. It's a very, very good thing. Go on now, tell them I didn't eat you up like the big bad wolf."

"How long have you been waiting to make that joke?"

"I have a whole arsenal of little red riding hood puns just waiting to be released," Gojo says, his hand lowering to tug at Yuuji's red hood instead.

The first time it happens, Yuuji goes from one day out from his grandfather's death, packing his belongings at home while his grandfather is being cremated, back to the moment he ate Sukuna's finger. It's too late to do anything about it even if he wanted to and he's so confused anyway that he just carries on the same way he had in the original timeline. Twelve hours later, he's waking up the morning of his grandfather's cremation and then he's on the rooftop eating the finger again. Six hours later, he's lying in bed and then he's on the rooftop eating the finger again. Three hours later, he's in the containment chamber learning about Sukuna's fingers from Gojo again and then he's on the rooftop eating the finger again. And then this time around, it seems to be over. Yuuji keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it looks like the really weird version of Groundhog Day is over.

As he places his grandfather's bones into the urn, Yuuji thinks it's a shame that the loops couldn't have started just a little earlier, for a few last moments with him. And then Gojo pops another finger out of his pocket and offers it to Yuuji, and Yuuji is like, oh wow, here we go again. He asks Gojo if there's anything weird that's supposed to happen aside from the possibility of Sukuna taking over him and Gojo doesn't seem to know what he means, so he just downs the finger and continues on. Twenty four hours later, he's back at the crematorium again, having met Nobara and started his jujutsu training. Maybe this time around, Yuuji spends longer at the cemetery, maybe he asks more questions of Gojo than previously, knowing that in twelve hours he'll be back here again.

At the detention center, Sukuna eats the finger and Yuuji makes the vow and wakes up in the morgue and he's spirited away to the basement. Then Sukuna eats the finger again and Yuuji stands before him and realizes he's already made this vow, already failed because he doesn't remember it from the first time around. Maybe he manages to argue for a better vow, maybe this time at least he gets to remember making the vow. He gets five tries and thoroughly realizes he's outclassed when it comes to Sukuna; only thing to do about it is to get stronger. If he remembers, it's now that he tells Gojo about the odd effect of eating Sukuna's fingers; they conspire together for the best deal that Yuuji can make.

Anyway, all this to say, Yuuji's redo of Shibuya nearly drives him insane. Maybe eating 11 fingers at once means 11 of the 24-hour loops and so on, or maybe an 11-day loop, then 5.5 days, then so on. He keeps waking up to his worst nightmare again and again and again. Going round and round the bend as per the title. Sorry, Yuuji. You suffer beautifully.