Chapter Text
YOU DON’T THINK YOU’LL EVER GET BORED OF TOKYO JUJUTSU HIGH.
Every week, without fail, you pay a visit there. Even though you're already meant to enroll as a first-year next year, you visit anyway. The place has become a sort of sanctuary to you — familiar, comforting, and alive. You know every corner, every crumbling stone path, every tree that seems to have grown too close to a training arena like the back of your hand; it’s practically your second home at this point.
Jujutsu High is beautiful, from its intricate Japanese architecture sprinkled with a tinge of modernity, to its worn-out pathways and spacious training areas, to the verdant foliage adorning every nook and cranny — you could be content spending hours on end wandering its vast grounds, just breathing in the fresh air, listening to the sounds of chatter and camaraderie. It is always bright and vibrant, a pulse you can feel in your chest. It is where your clan elders cannot reach you, where the weight of the world isn’t so heavy, and it is where happiness is, if only for a little while.
You'll say it's even more beautiful than the Yume Estate, in all its glory. Because Jujutsu High is alive.
”Back so soon?” A playful, bordering-on-obnoxious voice calls out to you. “I knew you missed me!”
You turn, away from the vending machine you were using, a cold can of pastel pink clutched in your hands — your prize from the slot (after giving up your precious coins). You like the peach soda they sell here. It’s nice. It’s diabetic. It’s your little act of rebellion against whatever healthy diet your clan elders insist you have.
Before you stands none other than the strongest sorcerer, Gojo Satoru, in the flesh. With his towering height and striking white hair, you could recognise him practically anywhere. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his black uniform casually, and he’s wearing his blindfold, as always. He’s relaxed, as if he didn’t have a single care in the world. He’s also smiling so brightly the sun could file a restraining order on him.
“It’s Tuesday,” you protest. “I literally come on routine every Tuesday, sensei.”
The old prunes of your clan aren’t exactly thrilled about you leaving. It’s a waste of time, they insist. You’re only allowed to come to the Technical High on the basis of training, especially for training conducted by the Gojo Satoru. He’d vouched for you, greatly swaying your elders’ decision to let you go — even though in reality, you never actually train when you come here. You just hang out, eat snacks and fool around with the upperclassmen. Gojo doesn't care. He pretty much lets you do whatever you want, most of the time. He knows that you need a break.
You’re grateful for Gojo, really. He’s done a lot for you. He’s the one who found you, back in that quiet alleyway that day, and brought you here in the first place, after all.
”Ah, don’t deny it. I know I’m your favourite.” Gojo shrugs, narcissistically. “How did your week go?”
“It was... a week,” you decide. “Same old. Training and another mission. Akiteru says he’s going to get me harder missions from now on, though.”
”Shame,” Gojo hums. “It’s not very nice to waste all my precious effort in negotiating easy missions for you, don’t you think so? Well, the pay is better, at least.”
You wrinkle your nose.
Gojo reaches a hand out, in a poorly-concealed attempt to ruffle your hair (it would be generous to even call it poorly-concealed), the way he’s always liked to do ever since you knew him. He would gloat about your height difference, loudly and gloriously. Of course, you rapidly duck away before his hand finds your head, to save yourself the embarrassment. You brandish your soda can above your head like a weapon, for good measure.
Gojo pouts, petulantly, like a small child, which you find ironic given how you probably look like the child while standing beside him.
”Anyways,” he says, choosing to change the topic over physically attacking you (you heave a sigh of relief), “Megumi just stopped by. He’s out on the field, I think. Go cause some mildly responsible chaos.” Gojo waves you off with a few flicks of his wrist. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do though!”
“Oh!” you exclaim, pleasantly surprised. “That’s nice. Thanks, sensei. Don’t go off terrorising students again, I suppose.”
With that, you skip off to find your beloved friend.
⋆.˚ ☾ ⭒.˚
You do indeed find Fushiguro Megumi on the field, training. His dark hair is messy as usual, sticking out in every direction known to mankind. Sea urchin, you think to yourself happily. The divine dogs are out, prowling on the grass.
“Megumi—” you sing. “It’s me, your favourite person!”
The green-eyed boy stops whatever he was doing and turns to face you, nodding at you in greeting. Hm. Stoic as always. His eyes are still very pretty, though — soft, forest green, like dew-kissed, sun-dappled woods, yet sharp enough to see through all your bullshit. You’ve always found them pretty.
“You’re sounding more and more like Gojo every day,” he deadpans.
”What?” you gasp, horrified. “No way. That’s not true. I would never do that. I feel attacked.”
Megumi does not look impressed.
You’ve known him since you were ten — it’s been four years, the both of you bordering on the cusp of fourteen now. You really like Fushiguro Megumi, for all his seriousness and general dispassion with life (and with you). You really like him, because you see yourself in him. A kid with too much power, too much responsibility forced onto their shoulders. A child who had their life already written out for them in the book of fate, a child who didn’t want anything to do with their clan, or with jujutsu at all. The both of you lack drive and motivation, for the better or for the worse.
In a way, you suppose it could be called some twisted form of narcissism. (Your inflated ego is no joke). Or maybe it’s just the selfish, human instinct that drives you to seek out comfort in collective suffering, in the reassurance that you aren’t alone in the boat of your own troubles. Or maybe, it’s simply the fact that you get him, and he gets you too.
But perhaps that’s where the similarities end — because Fushiguro Megumi is willing to accept his fate. He’s made peace with the fact that jujutsu is his life, and that he’s going to become a sorcerer. You haven’t. You don’t know how to. Maybe it’s because he has something left fighting for, something worth protecting — his sister, Tsumiki — while you don’t. You don’t have… anything. It must be nice, having someone who cares about you so much, and someone you would fight the world for in return.
You wonder why you are like that, sometimes.
You toss Megumi a can of peach soda. He catches it deftly, an eyebrow raised.
”This again?” He frowns at it, and you can probably feel his judgement from even a mile away. “It’s literally liquid sugar.”
”Be grateful,” you sniff. “I’m paying for you out of my own pocket, with my hard-earned money. I toil away for this, you know.”
Megumi isn’t assigned missions yet, not until he officially enrolls in Jujustu High next year, with you. Something about being under Gojo’s protection. Gojo just throws him free cash instead. You wonder why Gojo couldn’t have done the same for you.
You sink to the ground lazily, sitting cross-legged on the soft grass, savouring the feel of the Earth under your weight. The sun is warm, paired with a cool breeze — the beginnings of March and the springtime it will bring — and you open your own can of soda. The tab flips open with a satisfying pop. The white divine dog bounds over, snuggling next to you, and you stroke its fur lovingly.
Megumi decides to sit down beside you, opting to stare his soda down instead in an intense eye-contact showdown. He seems distracted today, more so than usual.
”What’s on your mind?” you ask, glancing at him from the corner of your eye. “You’re more emo than usual. Beat up more bullies at school, hm?”
Megumi is quiet for a long while. Maybe he’s wondering if he should confide in you about whatever was troubling him.
But he eventually does, because you get him, because you’ve spent the last four years of your life painstakingly building up this little friendship you both have, brick by brick, with your own two hands. Megumi is one of your only friends, after all. One of the precious few things in your life you get to call your own.
His response is short, sharp, and unexpected.
”Tsumiki is cursed.”
Your heart stops.
You freeze, the peach soda catching in your throat. The white dog shifts nervously on your lap, sensing the sudden shift in the air.
If this is a prank, it’s a really mean one. But you know Megumi isn’t the type to joke around, especially not about something like this.
It takes you a moment to find your voice again. ”What do you mean?”
You’ve met Tsumiki before, a total of three times. Twice Gojo had brought you to her, and the other time, it was Megumi. Tsumiki was nice, you remember. Kind. Gentle eyes, soft smile. She’d smiled at you. She’d been the one to take care of Megumi all this while, throughout the hardships of their childhood. Megumi loved her.
“She’s in a coma. We don’t know how or why — but we know it’s the work of a curse.“
“Oh,” is all you say. The soda burns in your throat, suddenly not that sweet anymore.
Gods.
You want to ask him, “Are you sure?”, or maybe, “Did you check all the facts before disseminating information?”, but you think it would only make it hurt more, more than it already does. You want to deny it, to tell him it’s not real, but how can you?
“She didn’t deserve that,” you finally decide to say, quietly. “She’s a good person.”
”She’s not even a sorcerer,” Megumi says, aggrieved. He doesn’t usually show this much emotion. Your heart breaks a little, for him, for his sister. “She didn’t do anything.”
”I know,” you murmur. “Life isn’t fair this way.”
You both sit there, staring into the distance in some kind of mournful silence.
”Tsumiki’s not dead,” you try to reassure him. “Just unconscious.”
”She’s not dead yet,” he says bitterly. “We don’t know what the curse can do, and will do.”
You don’t really know how to reply to that. It’s the truth, harsh as it may seem. Instead, you choose to shift closer to Megumi, till your shoulders touch, hoping to offer whatever little comfort you can through proximity. He doesn’t move away from you, and you take it as acceptance.
Life isn’t fair. It’s never been. Not to Tsumiki, not to Megumi, not to anyone you know. Life’s never been fair, and jujutsu has always been crueler.
⋆.˚ ☾ ⭒.˚
When you were younger, you sometimes dreamt of burning the world down.
It was a tempting, intrusive little thought — you would stare down at the illusion of the flickering flame on your fingertip, watching its glow illuminate the room in red and gold, and you’d wonder what would happen if you let it grow. If you let it spread, if you let it engulf the world and conquer everything.
It would solve all your problems — no more curses, no more clan elders, no more jujutsu. Everything would simply go up in flames, disappear into ashes, and you’d be free. You would stand upon the summit of the highest mountaintop, gazing down at the earth, triumphant, at the world of chaos and ruin you’ve created.
It was a little bit morbid for a child to be thinking of, but you were younger, you had no morals, and you were in your rebellious phase. It was just make-believe — the kind of dream where you indulge yourself in to escape reality for a moment, the kind where you could do whatever you wanted that you could never pull off in real life. It was but a fickle, fleeting fantasy, just like how some children dream of becoming millionaires or finding their one true love. Your dream just happened to be a little more violent. But well, your world happened to be a little more violent, anyways.
It would have made for a good villain origin story, you suppose. In another lifetime, in another universe, you might have been the one to burn it all down. Some people might hesitate if given the choice, but you think you wouldn’t. You don’t really care. Maybe you’ve been conditioned not to. Or maybe, deep inside, you’ve never been that good, that noble of a person. But it’s not like you’ll ever find out in this lifetime of yours.
But now, you don’t know. You don’t know what to do anymore. If someone were to give you a matchstick and tell you to set it all on fire, you don’t think you would, not anymore. You're just tired. Of fighting, of sorcery, of curses. Of your world. You live day by day. You don’t know what to do, and you don’t know what you really want to do anymore.
But you do, don’t you? It has always been the same, always been the dream — that dream of yours that seemed too far away and out of reach. That dream that you were never born with hands that could destroy, eyes that could perceive, and a soul tied down to the world of sorcery and jujutsu. Your dream isn’t loud — it’s the quiet kind of want, the kind that burns as a single, orange flame in the cavity of your chest. It’s the kind of secret you keep locked inside the deepest compartments of your heart, not to be opened by your elders or the world, not to be seen by your eyes for as long as you live. Because for as long as you live, you are a sorcerer, and your dream is nothing but a flimsy secret in a treasure chest.
When did the dream start? Where did it even come from? You don’t know who even lit the flame in the first place, who even offered you a taste of the matchstick, because you know your clan elders would have never. They too wonder where you get your defiance, your silly little dream of escaping from. Sometimes you wonder, if you should just hurl the treasure chest into the ocean, and let it sink to the bottom of the seabed. Your elders would like that. You don’t know if you would. Would you really be happy, if you just gave up on your dream? It’s unachievable, after all. It’s a lie to yourself, an illusion you can immerse yourself in and fool yourself into believing. But in the end, above everything, it is all but a dream, and you are all but the fool.
But you can’t. You just can’t bring yourself to let go of it. You could stand on the line of the shore with your box in hand and it would refuse to leave your grasp, clinging on to your palms, your skin, your heart. And even if you ripped it away from your hands, the flame might not snuff out under the enormity of the sea. It still burns, still blazes today, for everything that it’s worth.
You never asked for your power. You never asked to see the world through a haze of deceit and wonder, never asked to live in a place where another’s truth could be rewritten with a wave of your hand. It’s too artificial, too superfluous, too cruel for you. But life has never stopped to wait for you to ask, and life has never stopped to give you a choice to make.
You wonder if one day you’ll find the courage to let the fire grow, to let it spread, to let it consume something. Not the world, not the people who made you who you are, but maybe, the lies you’ve told yourself. Maybe the illusion of who you thought you were meant to be, who you think you could have become. Who you think, quietly to yourself sometimes, you might still be able to be, someday.
For now, though, the flame remains small, tucked against your palm, locked inside the treasure chest of your heart. You let it burn quietly in the darkness, unsure of whether it is a promise or a warning, or both.
You’re a sorcerer. You’re just a sorcerer, and nothing more. That’s all there is to it, isn’t there?
⋆.˚ ☾ ⭒.˚
You decide to ask Megumi to go see the cherry blossoms with you — to attend Hanami, the Cherry Blossom Festival. You think it would be a good way for him to take his mind off things for the time being. A distraction, put simply. That’s what you’re good at, no?
You’ve never gone before — you’ve never had anyone to go with nor the chance to go with anyone — so this year would be your first time attending the festival. Hakari and Kirara had gone recently though, and they’d told you all about it.
“It’s just flowers,” Hakari had shrugged nonchalantly. “If that’s what brings you joy in life, then go ahead. The food is alright, though.”
”It’s a tourist trap,” Kirara sniffed. “Everything was overpriced. Word of advice, don’t go to Ueno Park.”
It sounded like decent fun to you (since Megumi would be paying). You suppose Hakari and Kirara are the types of people to only find joy in casinos and cold, hard cash in their lives, anyways.
After some convincing, you manage to successfully persuade your elders to give you an off-day, and after some subtle threatening, you manage to successfully convince Megumi to go with you to none other than Ueno Park. You’re a very persuasive person, you’’d like to say that. You’ve also smartly omitted the fact that Megumi would be providing for all your food expenses in your pitch.
Cherry blossom trees line the paths of Ueno Park, their branches heavy with soft pink and white blooms, swaying gently in the breeze. The air is thick with the scent of sakura — sweet and almost intoxicating. Families gather under the trees on picnic mats, their laughter blending with the chatter of strangers. Couples sit on benches, their hands intertwined as they admire the flowers around them.
The cherry blossoms themselves are nothing short of mesmerising — their petals, delicate and almost fragile, appearing to glow in the soft light of the morning sun. They sway in the breeze, creating a gentle rain of petals that floats down to the ground, carpeting the earth in soft pink hues. It’s easy to lose track of time as you gaze at them, captivated by their gentle beauty and the way they seem to fill the entire space with an almost magical feel.
There’s a soft, bittersweet feeling to it all, like life itself, fragile and fleeting, yet enduring in its own way. You can almost taste the shortness of it, the quiet sadness of it. And yet, for this moment, it feels a little as if the world has slowed down, for just a moment, for just the both of you.
Ha. You knew coming on a Wednesday was a great idea. (Hakari and Kirara had gone on a Saturday. Idiots.)
You glance up at Megumi beside you. He’s looking up at the trees, his green eyes flickering with a sort of quiet wonder. In the soft morning sunlight filtering through the canopy, his sharp features are illuminated in the light, making them appear softer, and more within your reach. He’s always been nice to look at. Must be those Zen’in genes.
Megumi looks over at you quizzically, probably having noticed your burning stare from the corner of his vision. You give him a closed-eyed smile.
”Beautiful, isn’t it?” you ask.
He nods. “It is.”
”Which is more beautiful — the trees, or me?”
Megumi doesn’t even miss a beat. “The trees.”
You glare a hole into the back of his head.
Your attention soon catches on a small shop selling mochi in the distance, effectively dissipating your anger. What can you say, food is your mortal weakness. You hook your arm onto Megumi’s, and lug him over.
“Two sakura mochi, please,” you tell the shopkeeper, a petite old lady with greying hair and smiling eyes. She takes two pink confectionaries and places them into a paper bag, and you bat your eyelashes at Megumi.
”My money ran away. I wasn’t beautiful enough.”
He grumbles something under his breath, but eventually takes out his wallet.
After devouring your mochi, you both walk around the park some more, stopping by another stall selling hanami dango (your sweet tooth cannot be stopped — oh, did you pick that up from Gojo?), as you admire the sakura and soaking in the atmosphere of community, beauty and warmth. Somewhere along the way, a little boy accidentally kicks his football into your path, and you cheerily send it back to him. His face lights up with a toothy smile from the simple pleasure, and you think, it must be nice to be a child again.
Not long after that, you almost crash into an escaped beagle barreling down the pathway at life-threatening speeds. Megumi, ever the dog lover, scoops it up and returns it to its owner, a middle-aged lady who looked to be on the verge of tears from all that stress. She thanks you and offers to give you money as compensation for your help, and you were just about to gladly accept the cash (because why wouldn’t you?), when sadly, Megumi turns her down.
And afterwards, a kind old lady compliments your outfit, saying that you and Megumi make a cute couple. You laugh and tell her that that isn’t the case (you wish it was, you think to yourself secretly), but she simply smiles mysteriously, looking like she didn’t buy your story. (But it’s the truth!)
The afternoon passes by in a blur, just as quickly as it started, like a hazy daydream — dappled in the hues of evanescent joy and transient spring.
“Thanks for the invite,” Megumi tells you, as you both head back to the train station. The last dango remains on your wooden stick — the green one — and you shove the whole thing in your mouth like the glutton you are, savouring how the taste of matcha explodes on your taste buds in a mess of soft, chewy dough.
You know Megumi is really just alluding to your attempt to distract him from his sister’s condition, but neither of you want to talk about it in the moment, not when you two finally get this rare moment of time away from everything you’ve been running from, so you simply let it slide.
“See!” you say triumphantly. “You love going out with me. You were just too shy to accept my offer at first, because I’m too cool for you to be seen out in public with.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Megumi rolls his eyes, but you catch the small smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth, brief yet unmistakably there. He tries to hide it, the way he always does, but you see it, and that’s already enough.
Maybe this is why you stay, despite everything. It’s why you haven’t burned the whole world down yet in a fit of rage, you suppose. It’s these little joys in life that you get, the rare moments of bliss like this, that are worth living for. You suppose it’s this mindset that has kept you going all this while, despite your bitterness and resentment for jujutsu and the life you have to live. You look forward to going to Jujutsu High every week, you look forward to meeting Gojo and Megumi and the seniors you love at campus, you look forward to getting a taste of normalcy in the form of cherry blossoms and sakura mochi and hanami dango.
Maybe it’s escapism, in a way. You run from your problems, hiding far away in a place where it cannot reach you, for a single, blissful moment. For that moment, you can pretend you are but a normal civilian, oblivious and carefree, and you can pretend the world is yours, in the way you have always wanted it to be. It doesn’t last forever, no, but it is nice while it does, and it’s everything you have ever wanted.
It’s how you cope. It’s the same way how humour is your coping mechanism, in a sense. They’re both a temporary escape, a temporary distance you place between yourself and your pain.
It’s a little bit ironic — you still stay, only because you can run away, even if just for a little while.
But you know running away and pretending can’t work forever. You can’t keep running — jujutsu will always catch up to you. You can’t keep pretending — you’ll always have to come back, to return to your roots. There is a well-known saying in the world of sorcery, that ‘one can never leave once they step foot into the world of jujutsu’. They don’t say it for no reason. Yaga doesn’t ask the first year students if they know what they truly are getting themselves into, in every single enrolment interview he does, for no reason. But you, you were punted into that world, without even being given a choice to make in the first place. You can lie to yourself all you want, but your lies can never become your reality. It’s nothing but an illusion, of happiness, of freedom. You’ll have to accept this truth one day — the cruel, cruel fate you have been born into — and the question is not if, but when. You will have to accept, that you are made to be a sorcerer, that your life is sorcery, that sorcery is everything that you are and everything that you truly have.
But life is ephemeral, like the fleeting beauty of sakura and spring. Humans are but mortal creatures. You suppose that your single, blissful moment lasts for now, short and infinitesimal as it may be. For that moment, you can be someone else. Someone lighter. Someone free. And you’ll hold on to it, with everything you are, with everything you have, because really, sorcery is just your everything.