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They sit with Suguru’s body between them, lying out on the table. All but his face is covered by a sheet soaked with blood that was too heavy to be stopped. It drips to the floor, thick and red against hauntingly white tile.
Satoru could believe this is the afterlife, except if this were the afterlife, Suguru’s body wouldn’t be half unrecognizable and entirely limp on the table between him and Shoko.
(Or maybe it would be. Maybe Satoru let himself go down with Suguru and he’s stuck in his own version of hell - artificial light washing over the midnight morgue, Suguru forever unreachable, and Shoko staring at the body like she’s going to be sick.)
Satoru’s gaze drops from Suguru down to his arm, the skin covered in kuroyuri from his shoulder to his fingertips. Beneath his shirt, he knows there is a circle of the same flowers staining his chest and stomach, petals overlapping so there is no millimeter of skin left untarnished within the confines of Suguru’s injury.
If Satoru does what is expected of him, the flowers will be gone by morning. No reminders of his innate connection to Suguru will remain apart from the memories collecting dust in the back of Satoru’s mind.
But all he’s done so far is carry Suguru’s corpse back to the morgue and pull a sheet over him, covering the irreparable wounds as if that could make this all go away. He watched the white sheet soak up Suguru’s blood until Shoko walked in and sat down on the other side of the table.
“What are you going to do?” Shoko finally asks, her whisper shattering the silent stillness of whatever purgatory Satoru stuck himself in.
What is Satoru going to do? That’s the question of the hour, really.
If only he had an answer.
If he does what he’s supposed to, he will lose any remnants of connection he had with Suguru. He will lose the last marks Suguru left on him and he will lose any tangible reminder that he had a soulmate at all.
If he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to, he will have to hide the reminders anyways.
If he stares at Suguru’s body long enough, will it start to feel like just another casualty in a long line of sorcerers lost?
“What do you think I should do?” Satoru finally asks. “You were his friend too.” If Shoko makes the call, Satoru will be able to handle whatever she decides. If he isn’t the one to condemn Suguru’s body, he can deal with the condemnation.
Shoko sighs. The pink peonies across her face look almost white in this light. She scrubs a hand over her face, still staring at Suguru’s body rather than looking up at Satoru. Very carefully and very quietly, she says, “I think you’ve done as much as can be expected of you. Even the strongest has a limit.”
Satoru wants to reach out for Suguru. He wants to ask Suguru what to do. He wants one final touch that is not soaked in blood, touch that is reciprocated.
Is this Satoru’s limit?
He looks down at his hands, palms turned towards the ceiling. One hand pale and empty, one hand covered by deep burgundy petals. He’ll have to find gloves. He’ll have to be careful to only wear long sleeves.
“Will you—” Satoru’s voice breaks off. His throat aches as if he has any tears left. “He— he didn’t want to be buried in his hometown. He said he’d never forgive whoever buried him if post-death, he ended up back in the same place he started.”
“Okay.” Shoko’s voice is hardly audible. She nods. “Okay. We’ll bury him somewhere else, then.” She stands to her feet and shuffles away, leaving Satoru alone with the broken body of his soulmate.
If he ignores the blood on the sheets and the stench of death, Satoru could almost believe that Suguru was simply sleeping - that he’ll wake with the sunrise and everything will be okay.
But this ending has been nine years in the making. It was never going to come any other way. It was always going to be Satoru standing over Suguru’s body, hollow purple holes in both of their chests - Suguru’s marked by blood and Satoru’s marked by flowers. Suguru would not have let anyone else kill him and Satoru could not have let this go on for any longer.
“No one else can know,” Satoru tells Shoko, gaze still boring into Suguru’s face, still willing him to start breathing again.
“You’ll have to cover your arm.”
“I know.”
He hears the telltale flick of a lighter followed shortly by the scent of cigarette smoke. The hazard of smoking in the morgue has long since been lost on Shoko, and with her concern went Satoru’s as well. “We’d better hurry.”
— —
For five months, Satoru goes through life with a glove on his right hand. He teaches his classes, sends his students on missions, completes missions of his own. No one comments on it to his face.
He does overhear the first years talking about it amongst themselves. Maki says it’s probably just some new quirk and they’re overthinking it, and Satoru thinks that will probably be all he hears from them. Yaga raises an eyebrow at it, but he doesn’t ask. If he realizes what Satoru is covering, he doesn’t say.
For five months, Satoru is content with the hidden reminder of Suguru staining his skin. He is content to spend the remainder of his life - however long it may be - only peeling off the glove in the safety of his own home, only studying the flowers in the lowlight of his apartment. He traces the petals on his arm and then the ones on his chest, trailing his fingers over the sensitive skin and telling himself that he’s alive, he’s alive, he’s lived and he’s loved and he was loved by another.
Telling himself that Suguru lives on in the petals that will forever decorate his skin - that so long as kuroyuri map Suguru’s final injuries out on Satoru’s body, Suguru is not truly gone. He carries some part of Suguru with him, some part of Suguru’s soul so deeply entwined with his that one cannot hurt without the other blossoming.
(Pure love.)
It is sick and it is twisted and some days, it is the only thing that keeps Satoru going - the lie that he is not alone because the remnants of Suguru are damning scars on his own skin.
The cold winter air clears away for spring. The cherry blossoms bloom and life begins anew for everyone except Satoru, who lost half his soul back in December.
Yuuta is sent overseas, much to Satoru’s chagrin. He promises everyone that Yuuta will be back soon, but he also knows it will not be an easy fight to win.
Special grade sorcerers are just as dangerous as they are useful, and special grade sorcerers who are allowed to exist near their soulmates are ticking time bombs. Releasing Rika triggered growth Yuuta never would have otherwise been able to achieve, but it also allowed for new flowers to form on both Yuuta and Toge. Flowers easily traced to the other. It could have sentenced Yuuta to death if Satoru hadn’t intervened.
Studying abroad is the compromise.
He does not watch his students say their goodbyes to Yuuta. He brings Megumi to say goodbye early, and they leave before the others show up.
Satoru cannot help but blame himself. Special grades and soulmates are a curse only because of him and Suguru. Satoru is fairly certain Yuki doesn’t have a soulmate. If she does, it’s either a well-kept secret or she simply isn’t interested in them. Had she been the lone special grade before Yuuta came along, Yuuta wouldn’t have been ripped away from his friends because the higher ups fear special grades with soulmates - there would have been no one to trigger that fear.
Then again, if Yuki had been the only special grade, Yuuta would have ended up dead before he could even meet his friends, and Toge never would have had a soulmate at all.
Megumi starts training early, shortly after Yuuta leaves, before the fourth years have graduated, and before the other girl in his class is due to arrive. Satoru knows he’s only interested in the early start because of Tsumiki’s curse. He wants to feel like he’s doing something to help, and he’s tired of being alone in the apartment they used to share.
Satoru had been against the early start in the beginning, but he can hardly sit by and allow Megumi to be so miserable and isolated.
(He knows what that’s like.)
He sends Megumi after Sukuna’s finger because it’s supposed to be a simple retrieval mission. Instead, he finds Megumi on the roof of a school with a boy who claims he ate the finger. Which is incredibly interesting for a multitude of reasons. Namely the fact that the boy should absolutely be dead.
He asks the boy - Itadori - to let Sukuna out for only ten seconds. He doesn’t even need to lower his blindfold to avoid Sukuna’s attacks.
(If he had, he would have seen the flowers blossoming on each of Megumi’s cheeks, just under his eyes, and he would have seen the blooms decorating Itadori’s face as well.)
(But he does not see, and Megumi does not say.)
The first years’ class of two becomes a class of three, briefly, and then is cut back down to two. And when Yuuji Itadori does the impossible, rising from the dead, Satoru decides they cannot let the higher ups know until Itadori is strong enough that he cannot be so easily killed. His execution may be inevitable, but Satoru will be damned if he allows another premature death.
Shoko, of course, won’t tell anyone, and neither will Ijichi. But Satoru needs someone else who can work with Itadori out in the field, someone else with enough distaste towards the higher ups that they wouldn’t consider revealing Itadori’s resurrection to them until the time is right.
Someone who knows firsthand how abhorrent it is that the higher ups would send three kids to a location with a higher grade curse than they could handle, resulting in the death of a child.
(He doesn’t even finish explaining the situation to Nanami before Nanami agrees to his plan.)
And then, sometime after Itadori’s death and before the exchange event with the Kyoto school, Satoru’s world is flipped on its head.
He wakes, and his arm is bare.
— —
Satoru stares at himself in the mirror. His cell phone is vibrating on the counter, lighting up with Shoko’s name, but Satoru cannot answer. Nausea is bubbling up in his stomach and he’s unsure if last night’s dinner will actually creep up his throat or not.
Slowly, he reaches up to his forehead. He runs his fingers along the wisteria spanning the length of it. It stretches across the entire expanse of skin, a single thin line of purple flowers, disappearing into his hairline on either side. He doesn’t understand what it means - didn’t even know what sort of plant it was until he looked it up.
The new flowers are not the worst part. The worst part is they came at the cost of the kuroyuri on his arm and chest - they ripped Suguru away from him, stole the only thing Satoru had left.
He’s afraid this means he made the wrong decision five months ago.
He is even more afraid the universe has decided to grant him another soulmate.
Satoru does not want another soulmate. He does not want to fall in love again and he does not think he could ever love anyone the way he loved Suguru. Soulmates are generally a for-life thing, but Suguru’s life is over and Satoru is still standing. And it isn’t unheard of for people to have more than one soulmate.
But Satoru doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anyone who isn’t Suguru, and this has to be a sick joke the universe is playing on him. It doesn’t want to lead him to love; it wants to punish him for loving Suguru still, despite everything. It wants to rip the kuroyuri of a love lost out of Satoru’s hands - one more thing he cannot hold onto, one more loss to tack onto his endless list.
He knows it’s selfish. Sorcerers cannot hold onto love after death. Their bodies are burned, and with them, any reminders left on the skin of their soulmates. Satoru was never supposed to hold onto Suguru like this. He was supposed to wash his hands of the love affair of his youth, set it up in flames, and watch as the kuroyuri petals shriveled to ash before fading away.
He was selfish, he was selfish, and the universe is forcing him to pay the price.
He pulls his shirt over his head and traces the empty skin on his chest where flowers used to grow, both from Suguru’s final injuries as well as from the X-shaped scar left by Toji all those years ago. Every flower from Suguru’s scars, all of which turned to kuroyuri in the night after Suguru left, have been wiped from Satoru’s skin.
All that remains is the purple on his forehead.
His stomach lurches, and he stumbles from the sink over to the toilet just in time for whatever he ate yesterday to force its way back out. It burns his chest and his throat, and tears well up in his eyes as he struggles to breathe.
Once his body is done emptying the contents of his stomach, he sits back, shaking. He wraps his arms around his bare chest and stares straight ahead, not really seeing anything. His tongue tastes like vomit.
His phone starts vibrating again.
Even the strongest has a limit.
He coughs again, but there’s nothing left to throw up. It’s just dry heaving, and Satoru hates how his body is out of his control as he chokes up nothing but spit. He hates the universe and he hates himself. He hates the wisteria on his forehead and he hates the kuroyuri it replaced and he wishes he had killed himself back in December too. He wishes he’d left his body in the alley with Suguru’s, wishes they could have made some statement against the sentiment that all sorcerers die alone, wishes that it didn’t have to end like it did.
He wishes he were not the strongest.
He certainly doesn’t feel like the strongest now: kneeling on his bathroom floor, shivering, holding himself because no one else will.
— —
The good news is that his blindfold hides the new flowers.
He shows up on campus hours later than he should have, and he heads directly to Shoko. She’s alone when he finds her, which is good, because no one else knows what they chose to do with Suguru’s body.
Satoru locks the door behind him and before Shoko can ask why he didn’t pick up his phone this morning, he says, “I need help.”
Shoko lifts one eyebrow, unimpressed. “You go off the grid for three hours and then show up asking for—” Her gaze drops to Satoru’s hand - uncovered in public for the first time in five months. She stands up. “What happened?”
Satoru pulls his blindfold down and steps closer. He pushes his hair up out of his face so Shoko can see the new flowers. “I don’t understand,” he whispers. “If he—”
Shoko closes the remaining distance between them. She reaches up and trails her thumb across the line of flowers. “It’s been five months. We should be in the clear. And…” she shakes her head and steps back. “That shouldn’t happen either way. Take your jacket off.”
Satoru does as she asks, dropping it in a heap on the floor. Shoko takes his right arm into her hands, looking it over. “Gone,” she murmurs, turning his hand over. “Like they were never there.”
“I don’t—” Satoru’s words get caught in his throat as he chokes on the idea. Rolling it over in his head was one thing, but saying it aloud is something else entirely. “I don’t want— Shoko, what if… I can’t go through that again.”
(Because that’s it, isn’t it? Even the strongest has a limit, and Satoru cannot have another love torn out of his hands. He cannot give half of his soul to another person who is going to leave.)
(He only has half a soul now anyways; he buried the other half along with Suguru’s body. If he gives away any more, he won’t be left with enough to stay human.)
“I…” Shoko lets go of his arm and it falls back to his side. “This doesn’t make sense. Even if he came back as a curse, you shouldn’t have flowers like that. It’s been— it’s been too long. We should have been safe.” She swears under her breath and turns away.
Shoko is correct. They should have been out of the woods. They shouldn’t have had to worry, and what they had been worried about was simply the flowers disappearing entirely; not being replaced with something new.
A replacement does not mean Suguru’s soul manifesting itself as a curse.
It means the universe has replaced Satoru’s connection to Suguru with a connection to someone else.
Satoru is going to be sick again.
“Shoko—” He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head. He pulls his blindfold back up because it’s easier than having to face the sympathetic expression on Shoko’s face. It’s easier maneuvering conversations like this when everything is reduced to cursed energy and the person he’s talking to can only see the bottom half of his face.
“There could be some other explanation,” she offers weakly.
But they both know a replacement soulmate is the best explanation there is. It means they truly can take the secret of Suguru’s body to their own graves because there is no proof, and it means they didn’t condemn everyone by disobeying the rules.
It’s supposed to mean hope, but Satoru gave up on hope a long time ago.
Regardless, the flowers on his forehead are a curse. The best that could happen would be that he never runs into whichever unfortunate soul the universe linked him to. It would be best for both of them. Because Satoru does not think he can love anyone else after Suguru, and it would be cruel to even pretend.
Satoru is many things, but he will not be cruel to someone who did nothing to deserve it.
“Maybe…maybe it’s a platonic soulmate?” Shoko suggests. “Like—”
It’s a futile attempt at saving a bad situation, but Satoru does, in fact, recall the white chrysanthemums and red spider lilies crawling up Nanami’s legs and eating away at his face - the only flowers that have ever appeared on his body, too little and too late.
They were gone before the sun rose the following day.
There is no way to distinguish the mark of a romantic soulmate from a platonic one apart from your own feelings. There is no way to determine what the wisteria means. All Satoru can do is guess and pray to a god he doesn’t believe in that burying Suguru without burning him was not the gravest mistake of his life.
“Sit,” Shoko tells him. “You’re no use to anyone like this.”
“I’m fine,” Satoru says - a lie that rolls off his tongue before he can even consciously decide to spit it out. He sits anyway, and he watches Shoko move around until she brings him a glass of water and tells him to drink.
He tries to brush her off, if only because an empty stomach means he has nothing left to throw up, but she won’t listen.
“If you don’t drink it, I’ll pour it in your mouth myself.” It’s an empty threat - so long as Satoru has his infinity up, she can’t do anything. But he sips on the water as if she could follow through. Small sips, less likely to upset his stomach, less likely to put him back on the bathroom floor puking his guts out like someone who can afford moments of weakness.
“We’ll have to check,” Shoko comments. By which she means they’ll have to check the gravesite, without anyone else knowing what they’re doing or where they’re going or that they’re gone at all.
Satoru’s phone goes off, tangled up in the heap of black fabric that is his jacket still lying discarded on the floor. He just stares at it until the noise stops.
“You can’t hide here forever.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Right.”
“I don’t need to hide!” He downs half the glass of water in one go, sets it on the table next him, and stands up. Which was a very, very, poor decision because the water is threatening to come back up and now Satoru is dizzy, but he won’t let Shoko know that. He’ll make it to the bathroom first, at least. “I don’t have anything to hide from. No one can see it.” He points at his forehead, conveniently covered because his technique makes unobstructed vision a pain.
“You’re going to pass out,” Shoko tells him. She doesn’t sound like she particularly cares that it’s going to happen. She also doesn’t say it like a warning; she says it like a fact. Which is odd, because Shoko is usually pretty good about medical things and shouldn’t she be saying something more like You’re going to pass out if you’re not careful?
Not that it matters. Satoru is going to be very careful, he is going to—
What was he doing?
He was leaving!
Where was he going?
He…had not decided yet.
He turns on his heel, much too quickly, and then he realizes why Shoko told him he was going to pass out exactly one moment before he goes down and the world goes black.
— —
In the in-between, Satoru’s arms are both covered in kuroyuri and sticky red blood. Suguru kisses his forehead, lips trailing over the invisible string of wisteria, and tells him he needs to wake up.
“I don’t want to,” Satoru mumbles, hands reaching out towards Suguru. His fingers pass straight through the bright white fabric draped across Suguru’s frame. “I want to stay with you.”
“You still have me,” Suguru reminds him, fingers dancing along the bloody flowers wrapping around his arms.
Satoru shakes his head, because he doesn’t, and that’s the problem. The flowers aren’t really there and Suguru’s blood is only metaphorically coating his hands and all he has is a vine across his forehead that doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t want that; he wants Suguru. He wants the love and the curse and he wants his best friend.
“You will always have me,” Suguru promises and it sounds nice, but Satoru knows it isn’t true. It sounds like three years of youth, but reality is beginning to creep back in - cold and harsh and white - and Suguru will not be able to follow him there.
Fingers brush Satoru’s hair from his eyes, and at first he thinks they belong to Suguru. But then he blinks and Suguru is gone, replaced by Shoko above him. She’s pushing his hair back so the wisteria crown is visible.
Satoru squeezes his eyes back shut immediately - too much light and too much cursed energy. Shoko isn’t the only one in the room with him; someone else is here. He thinks it might be Nanami, but he will not be opening his eyes again until the light has been turned off at the least.
“Oh,” a voice that is decidedly not Shoko says. It sounds like Nanami. It must be Nanami. Shoko wouldn’t have let anyone else in.
“Yeah.” The second voice is Shoko’s. Her hand leaves Satoru’s forehead and his hair falls back into his face. Where is his blindfold? Did Shoko take it off of him?
“So you think…” Nanami again. It’s definitely Nanami. “What do you think?”
“I…don’t know. It seems unlikely that anything could have happened with Suguru’s body so long after the fact. But it also seems unlikely that he would end up with another soulmate. I always thought…” she sighs. “You knew them back then too. You know what I mean.”
Satoru is done listening to this conversation, so he covers his eyes with his hand and mumbles something about turning the lights off. He hears shuffling from both Shoko and Nanami, and a moment later, Shoko is pulling his hand off his face and replacing it with his sunglasses. He blinks his eyes open and is met with a much darker room. The only light now is sunlight filtering in through the thin curtains.
“How are you feeling?” Shoko asks as Satoru pushes himself up into a sitting position. How long was he out for? And how did he get here?
“I’m fine,” Satoru lies. He feels hollowed out, like there’s nothing left inside of him. It isn’t all that different from how he usually feels; it’s just more tangible today. “What happened?”
“You passed out.” Shoko sits back in her seat, and on the other side of the bed, Nanami returns to his chair as well. Satoru looks at him over his glasses, but his expression is unreadable either way. “Just like I told you. When was the last time you ate?”
“Last night,” he answers easily. Honestly, how could Shoko have expected him to eat breakfast this morning? And, of course, he passed out before lunch. He pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Nanami, why are you here?”
“I didn’t know who else to ask for help,” Shoko answers. “I couldn’t carry you here on my own.”
“Awww, how sweet~” Neither Shoko nor Nanami respond to that. Go figure. “Okay, well, I have things to do today, so—”
“Oh, absolutely not,” Shoko interrupts. “You aren’t doing anything until you’ve eaten.” She stands up and points at Nanami. “Stay here with him while I go get food.”
Satoru groans, sinking back down into the pillows. “I can’t lay around in bed all day!” He calls after Shoko. She ignores him and leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. He huffs and turns his attention to Nanami. “Why are you here?”
He might have already gotten Shoko’s answer, but he wants an answer from Nanami too.
“Because anyone else would turn you in to the higher ups upon learning you didn’t properly dispose of Geto-san’s body.”
“Ah.”
Satoru knows Nanami has never been particularly fond of him. Their personalities clash, and Nanami isn’t particularly fond of many people to begin with. But he also knows that Nanami understands him in a way most people cannot. As annoying as it may be, they’re lonely together in the wake of everything that happened to them ten years ago - the two of them along with Shoko, survivors of September 2007.
But Shoko didn’t lose a soulmate back then; that was just Satoru and Nanami.
Nanami may claim he doesn’t respect Satoru and he may brush Satoru off at any given opportunity, and Satoru may spend his time purposefully trying to get under Nanami’s skin just to see him squirm, but in moments like this—
In moments like this, Nanami helps Shoko carry Satoru and he keeps secrets that could get them all exiled. And Satoru won’t poke and prod too much, because he truly does appreciate it, even if he hates the fact that his weakness is making itself known.
“Why—” Nanami stops himself. He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes out a sigh. When he opens his eyes again, he asks, “Did keeping the flowers help more than it hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Satoru hears himself say. “I just… I wanted…” He curls his hands into fists.
“You wanted to hold on to whatever pieces of him you could,” Nanami finishes. “I understand.”
“Yeah,” Satoru whispers. But holding on is dangerous for sorcerers, and Satoru has always known that. He has always known his days with flowers decorating his skin were numbered and he has always known that continuing to love Suguru would bring his downfall.
Still, he held on.
Still, he loved.
— —
There is grass growing over Suguru’s grave.
They go in the night - Satoru, Shoko, and Nanami. They don’t tell anyone they’re leaving; they just slip away. They don’t speak.
There is nothing left to say.
There is grass growing over Suguru’s grave, which means it has not been touched since Satoru and Shoko buried him.
They stare at the marker, a makeshift headstone. Shoko reaches for Satoru’s hand and he lets his infinity down so she can grab it. It’s his right hand. The one that should be covered by burgundy petals but is now woefully blank.
This is supposed to be the best case scenario. Suguru is safe in the ground and the proof is no longer even etched across Satoru’s skin. No one will know besides the three of them. Another shared memory, another shared secret. Another shared trauma they will not speak of.
This is supposed to be the best possibility.
So why does Satoru still feel so ill?
He pulls his blindfold down so it hangs around his neck. He and Shoko had joked about carving something into the headstone, but of course they couldn’t put Suguru’s name on it. They couldn’t carve anything that wouldn’t pose a risk, so they’d left it blank.
Blank like the skin of Satoru’s right arm and chest.
No proof that Suguru was ever here at all.
“Well,” Nanami says. “I guess you have your answer.” It should be a happy occasion - it should be hope and security. But Nanami sounds remorseful and the unspoken consequences of this conclusion hang heavy over their heads.
Satoru does not want another soulmate, and the world would be safer if he was spared the pain.
If Satoru ever meets his new soulmate, maybe he should hollow purple them before he goes through all the trouble of learning to have hope. Maybe he should end it before anything has a chance to begin.
Some say it is better to have loved and lost, but Satoru is tired of losing. He’s supposed to be the strongest, but he couldn’t even hold onto the one person he loved most. What is strength if it comes at the cost of those you love?
If Satoru were not the strongest - if he and Suguru were not two of three special grades at the time - would happiness have been reachable?
Or were they doomed regardless?
“I’m sorry,” Shoko whispers.
Satoru stays silent. Perhaps part of him thinks that if he stares at the grave long enough, it will stop feeling real. Like when you look at a word for long enough that it stops looking like a word and turns into nothing more than a random collection of lines and curves. Like he can numb himself.
There is a dull ache behind his eyes, but he doesn’t pull his blindfold back up. He’ll let the headache form, and whoever the universe thinks can replace Suguru will find willow branches decorating their face.
They stand there - just the three of them - in the quiet summer night. Satoru knows they will not speak about this, and they won’t need to. They have an understanding. They don’t say a word about their shared experiences; just knowing they are not the lone bearer of the memories is enough.
Knowing that the secrets sit on three sets of shoulders instead of one will carry them onward. They don’t need to talk. They will simply continue to orbit around each other like a trinary star system, pretending they do not need each other as much as they do.
Waiting with bated breath for the moment gravity shifts and another one of them goes under.
— —
“Did you lose your glove?” Maki asks.
“My—?” Satoru’s right hand curls into a fist. “Oh. Yeah.” He’d only managed a couple hours of sleep last night, and it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would notice that he’d left his glove at home. He has no use for it now that the flowers are gone. No one cared about the appearance of the glove, so why would they be bothered when it disappeared just as suddenly?
“What’s it for?” She leans against the staff in her hands. Behind her, Nobara and Megumi are sparring while Panda and Toge cheer them on. “I’ve wondered for a while, but Yuuta told me I shouldn’t ask.”
What’s it for?
Satoru is too tired to answer these questions right now.
“Joint pain.”
There’s a beat of silence. “...Joint pain?”
“Yes.”
Maki tilts her head. He can picture the calculating expression on her face - she’s probably trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it to keep questioning him. Finally, she shrugs. “Okay. Whatever.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you about Megumi.”
Huh? “Megumi?”
“Uh, yeah. He’s been acting weird ever since,” Maki hesitates. “Well, ever since you sent him to get that finger, actually. But especially these past several days. Nobara agrees with me, but we can’t figure out what’s up with him. And you know he won’t talk to us about it, so we were wondering if he’d said anything to you.”
Has Megumi been acting stranger than usual lately? He’s been evasive, but he’s always been like that. He regularly goes through phases where he tries to avoid Satoru at all costs, and then a few weeks later, he’ll be fine again. Megumi is just moody.
But if Maki is noticing something is off, maybe there’s more to it than just teenage mood swings.
Satoru frowns. “He hasn’t said anything to me, but I can ask him about it if you—”
“No,” Maki interrupts. “That’ll just shut him down even further. Just…never mind.” She pulls out her phone. “You’ve still got five minutes before you can interrupt us.”
“I’m not coming to interrupt; I’m coming to watch.”
Maki scoffs. “Sure.” She turns back to look at the other students. “Hey, Nobara!” she calls out before she starts jogging back over to them.
“Maki-san!” Nobara turns her attention away from Megumi and towards Maki, allowing Megumi to knock her legs out from underneath her.
Satoru smiles to himself as an argument breaks out between the two first years over whether or not that was a fair move. He should probably interrupt before anyone gets hurt, but he might just stand and watch a moment longer. They’re teenagers; they should be allowed to get into petty arguments over stupid things.
Megumi summons one of his dogs, sending it after Nobara, and Satoru is thrown back in time to a similarly warm summer day. He’s thrown back to Suguru pulling Rainbow Dragon from his curse inventory and sending it after Satoru. He doesn’t even remember what they were arguing about, but he knows it was stupid and he knows Suguru absolutely did not regret it, even with the stern talking-to he got from Yaga after the fact.
He remembers the purple petals spanning the side of Suguru’s head to match the bruise on Satoru’s own after he tripped trying to run, and he remembers Suguru holding an ice pack to the injury, apologizing and calling Satoru an idiot in the same breath.
He remembers being a kid, when the flowers were a promise instead of a punishment.
He doesn’t hope for himself, but he hopes the kids’ flowers don’t lead them down the same path as he and Suguru.
— —
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Megumi demands.
It’s been a mere four hours since Yuuji’s return to his classmates, and Megumi has already managed to catch Satoru alone to grill him about his motivations.
“I couldn’t risk it,” he answers simply.
“You couldn’t risk me knowing?” His voice tips into something harsher, something darker. Megumi gets upset at Satoru all the time, but this has a different weight to it. “Who all knew? Ieiri-san, I assume? Who else?”
Satoru rolls his eyes, despite the fact that he knows Megumi can’t see it behind the blindfold. Generally, he would have switched it out for his glasses at this point in the evening, but his glasses don’t hide the wisteria still tarnishing the skin on his forehead.
“Shoko. Nanami. Ijichi. That’s it.” He leans back in his seat. “Listen, you know I trust you, but I couldn’t risk the other students finding out, and you can’t act for—”
“I don’t care!” Megumi snaps. He jabs a finger in Satoru’s direction. “You—!” It breaks off into a groan and he turns away, rubbing a hand over his face.
Satoru gets the distinct feeling there is something he isn’t aware of. Megumi gets like this sometimes - expecting Satoru has read his mind or worked around his walls to figure out whatever it is Megumi has been trying to hide from him. But Satoru’s Six Eyes cannot see Megumi’s thoughts.
Megumi looks down at his hand, then back towards Satoru. He rubs his jacket sleeve against his cheeks and then says, “Take off the blindfold. I know you can’t see my face like that.”
“I—” On one hand, Satoru cannot take the blindfold off because if he does, Megumi will probably notice the new flowers on his forehead, and that is not anything Megumi needs to worry about. Satoru is dealing with his problems on his own.
On the other hand, Megumi has gone from violently angry to vulnerable, and Satoru is not going to play around with him in this state.
He lowers the blindfold and he looks at Megumi’s face.
Burgundy petals that Satoru recognizes all too well frame the underside of Megumi’s eyes, seared into the skin along the top of his cheekbones. Exactly where Yuuji’s scars from Sukuna taking over his body reside. There is something miserable in Megumi’s expression, and Satoru’s own chest aches with recognition.
“Oh,” Satoru hears himself say. “Megumi, I—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says stiffly.
“You could have told me.”
Megumi opens his mouth, but no words come out. He purses his lips and shakes his head. “They’re the same flowers you had, aren’t they? Kuroyuri?” He reaches his hand up to his face, fingers brushing against the petals. “I didn’t want…” he sighs. “I’ve been covering them. I didn’t know why they wouldn’t go away.”
“I would have told you if I had known.” Satoru would have risked the higher ups and everyone else finding out about Yuuji’s survival if he’d known. It would have been worth it, for Megumi. Megumi, who tried to scrub the flowers off his arms and legs when he was little because he didn’t want a soulmate. Megumi, who had timidly admitted to Satoru that he was worried his soulmate wouldn’t like him. Megumi, who has known his soulmate was destined to die for as long as he’s known his soulmate’s identity.
If Satoru had known, he never would have cut down on the time Megumi has left with Yuuji even more.
Not that any of that matters now - the damage is done. Satoru cannot go back and undo his mistakes. He cannot reach back in time and fix what was broken.
“I thought you would figure it out on your own.”
“I’m sorry,” Satoru says, because he cannot think of a single other thing to say. He knows how heartless and empty it sounds, but he’s sure Megumi knows that he understands. He understands having a soulmate who is out of reach, whose time has to be running out for the good of the rest of the world. He understands wondering if the rest of the world is really worth your pain, if it would be so bad to just turn your back on everything you’ve ever known in order to prevent a broken heart.
“I know.” Megumi stuffs his hands into his pockets. The makeup that had been covering the flowers on his face is still smeared across his sleeve. “I’ll be fine.”
Satoru has no doubt that’s true, but the problem is that Megumi shouldn’t have to just be fine. He shouldn’t have to remember the ticking time bomb of his soulmate’s execution every time he looks at him. He shouldn’t be fifteen and resigning himself to a life of loneliness.
He shouldn’t have been fifteen years old, standing on the roof, ready to kill his soulmate hours after first meeting him and knowing that trying to exorcise Sukuna would likely cost him his own life.
There are some days that killing all the higher ups sounds far more appealing than others. This is one of those days where Satoru is one wrong word away from actually doing it.
Megumi looks up, meeting Satoru’s eyes for the first time since he lowered the blindfold, and his expression shifts from mournful to confused. “What’s on your forehead?”
Satoru smacks his palm to his head, trying to cover as much of the flowers as possible. “Nothing.”
Megumi raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t say that it’s incredibly unfair for him to have just put his heart out on the line only to be repaid by Satoru keeping secrets, but Satoru knows he’s thinking it.
Or maybe he’s just projecting.
He sighs and lowers his hand, but he doesn’t say anything. The less he speaks about it, the less real it will be. He’s hoping if he just ignores it, it will go away.
Megumi steps closer. “Are those…?” He shakes his head. “Your soulmate was Geto-san.”
“Yes,” Satoru agrees. “But Suguru is dead and I am not.” That much he can say aloud. That much he needs to remind himself is real, because sinking into a pool of denial will do no good for anyone.
Megumi touches the flowers on his own face again.
“These things happen,” Satoru tells him, like the thought of Suguru being replaced didn’t sicken him to the point of vomiting. Like he has learned to roll with the punches. Like he doesn’t still stare at his arm and wonder why it looks so empty - so wrong.
Satoru may have lost hope, but Megumi doesn’t need to suffer the same fate. So if Satoru plays this like he doesn’t care - like replacement soulmates just happen and it’s whatever - maybe Megumi won’t be afraid he’ll end up following in Satoru’s footsteps.
(Satoru never wanted Megumi to follow in his footsteps, and especially not like this. He wants Megumi to forge his own path.)
(And he wants Megumi to be happy.)
“Right.” Megumi stares at Satoru only a moment longer before shaking his head. “I should— I should go.” He turns to leave. “I’m—”
“Megumi—”
He glances back at Satoru, and Satoru realizes he doesn’t even know what to say.
He clears his throat. “Does…does Yuuji know?”
Megumi offers him half a shrug, and then he leaves before Satoru can ask what that’s supposed to mean.
Satoru swears under his breath and pulls his blindfold back up. “What do I do?” he asks no one.
(He asks someone who has not been by his side in nearly eleven years.)
The question bounces off the walls and remains unanswered. Not that Suguru would have any advice if he were here, but Satoru likes to think there’s a world out there where they’re working through this together. Where Suguru came back, where Suguru helped Satoru with the Fushiguro kids. Suguru would know how to talk to Megumi. He would be better at this.
But Suguru is not here and the list of people Satoru can ask for advice is about three names long, all shots in the dark on whether or not they’re in the mood to listen to him explain around the issue in a way that doesn’t reveal Megumi’s predicament.
This was not supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen. Suguru was supposed to be Satoru’s soulmate until death came for both of them, at the same time, because they were supposed to be eternally inseparable. They were supposed to prove everyone wrong.
And Megumi was supposed to find a love that would not slip through his hands like Satoru’s slipped through his.
— —
The exchange event, as it turns out, is a phenomenal way for Satoru’s students to have their soulmate-related secrets laid out on the floor for everyone to see. Matching up injuries and flowers is not so hard when the people who match are standing next to each other.
“Did you know?” Shoko asks him.
He’d been all but kicked out of Megumi’s room when Yuuji and Nobara showed up. Not that he minds - he’ll let the kids have their time together without interruption. They need it. He’s sure Megumi would rather talk to them than to him anyways.
“About?” Satoru leans back against the wall, arms crossed.
“Megumi and Itadori.”
“Not until yesterday.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You know Megumi. I’m surprised he told me at all.”
“He—” Shoko looks around the hall, then lowers her voice. “He asked me about it, back when we were still pretending Itadori was dead.”
Something cold settles in Satoru’s chest. “He what?”
“He didn’t say anything outright, but he was asking about soulmate flowers. He asked if it was possible that some could stay on your skin even after the body of your soulmate was destroyed, and he wanted to know if there was any way to tell if you had more than one soulmate.” She sighs. “I couldn’t be sure, but…it seemed likely.”
“You could have told me.” Irritation drips into Satoru’s voice, because if he doesn’t sound annoyed, he’ll sound desperate.
Shoko scoffs. “Haven’t you ever heard of patient-doctor confidentiality?”
“I’m his legal guardian!”
“I don’t care.”
It hits Satoru like a knife to the throat, so hard he would have stumbled backwards if he weren’t already against the wall. He and Shoko don’t always see eye-to-eye, but they understand each other. They care, even if they don’t openly admit it.
“It wasn’t my secret to spill,” Shoko says simply. “I don’t necessarily think Megumi’s choice to keep it from you for so long was the best for him, but it was the choice he made, and I respect that. I know someone else who likes to hide things from people.” She crosses over to him, pushes herself up onto her toes, and points at his forehead, her finger stopped from touching him only because of infinity. “I’m surprised you told me at all,” she parrots his words from earlier before stepping back.
Satoru purses his lips.
“You can be mad at me for not telling you, but I won’t regret my decision.”
Maybe the worst part is that Satoru feels like he deserves this. He kept Yuuji’s survival a secret from Megumi, and Megumi kept his soulmate troubles a secret from Satoru.
He doesn’t want to feel like he deserves it. He wants to believe there was no reason for Megumi to hide something so big from him except for the fact that Megumi just doesn’t talk to anyone about anything. But Megumi talked to Shoko about it instead—
It’s fine.
Shoko is right; Megumi should be allowed to make his own decisions and those decisions should be respected. And if Megumi wants to talk to Shoko, he’s allowed to do that.
It’s not like Satoru has been entirely open with Megumi either, and trust is a two-way street.
“I’m worried for him,” Satoru admits.
“I would be concerned if you weren’t.”
He huffs and sinks his face lower into the collar of his jacket. “It’s hard knowing your soulmate will have to be taken from you. They already sent Yuuta overseas, and I couldn’t do anything. I don’t know what they’ll do if word gets out that…”
“They won’t hurt Megumi,” Shoko assures him. “His technique makes him too useful.”
“They won’t hurt him directly,” Satoru corrects. “They might make me send him away too. Or they’ll try to send Yuuji away and he’ll have another unfortunate accident.” He hangs his head. “And it’s all my fault anyways. The higher ups wouldn’t be so concerned about soulmate infighting if not for…”
He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Shoko knows.
“You didn’t leave. It is not your fault.”
“I didn’t kill him when I should have.”
“You were seventeen—”
“You think the higher ups care about that?” He pushes himself off the wall, gesturing widely. “They wanted Yuuta dead at sixteen and Yuuji dead at fifteen! It doesn’t matter that I was seventeen. I was the Strongest even back then, and Suguru turned his back on me. There was no reason for me to not kill him right there.” He sighs and leans back. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if it was entirely my fault or not. I’m the only one of us left. I have to shoulder Suguru’s half of the blame too.”
Shoko shakes her head. “You don’t have to pay for Suguru’s sins. He paid for those himself.”
“Everything he did after we spoke in Shinjuku is blood on my hands.”
“You should not have been expected to kill him!” Shoko rarely raises her voice, so when she does, people tend to listen. Satoru tends to listen. But right now, she isn’t seeing the point.
The point is not whether or not expecting seventeen-year-old Satoru to kill his soulmate was right or just. The point is that it doesn’t matter - the higher ups do not see children as children; they see children as expendable sorcerers they can send out to do their bidding. And Satoru failing to fulfill that expectation in postponing the inevitability of Suguru’s death has put his students in danger.
It has put Megumi in danger.
Satoru doesn’t play favorites, but he’s known Megumi since the boy was seven. He watched him grow, he trained him, he knows Megumi has already gone through more than any kid his age should have to.
And now, because of Satoru’s failure, he’s added another weight onto Megumi’s shoulders.
He isn’t sure, exactly, who all matched up Megumi and Yuuji’s flowers and injuries, but he’s sure most of the Kyoto students either figured it out or heard through the grapevine. And if what Megumi said is right - if the Kyoto students were truly following orders to kill Yuuji during the game and make it look like an accident - then Gakuganji’s students are loyal enough to tell him.
(And the whole ordering students to kill Yuuji thing is another issue entirely that makes Satoru’s blood boil, but there is nothing he can do about that. He has no proof and the higher ups wouldn’t care even if he did. Gakuganji would get away with a slap on the wrist, because the higher ups would have all been rooting for Yuuji’s death from the sidelines if they knew.)
(Maybe they did know.)
He’s sure Utahime knows about the soulmate thing too now, though he’s also certain she was oblivious to the orders to kill Yuuji. Utahime might spend every moment she’s in Satoru’s presence acting like she hates his guts, but she would not condone the murder of a child.
Between her closeness with Shoko and her knowledge of what happened ten years ago, Satoru certainly categorizes her as safe. They may not be able to have a civil conversation, but Satoru does trust her.
“If you never forgive yourself, you are going to break,” Shoko tells him.
I don’t deserve forgiveness, Satoru thinks, but he won’t say it aloud. Not even to Shoko. He will hold that sentiment next to his heart, tuck it away in the space next to Suguru, and he will be fine. He will not break - he’s the strongest.
“I’m okay.”
They both know it’s a lie.
They both know the truth will not be spoken.
— —
“Okay.” Shoko steps back carefully, hands still hanging in mid-air like she might find one last thing she needs to fix. “You should be good. It’s supposed to be sweat-resistant, but try to keep an eye on it.” She exchanges her makeup brush for a mirror and holds it up so Satoru can look at his reflection.
His hair has been pinned back from his face with black hair clips, giving Shoko access to his forehead so she could cover the flowers with makeup. Satoru was not particularly interested in wearing his blindfold for the baseball game, so he’d decided to take a page out of Megumi’s book and cover the wisteria.
Unfortunately, he has very limited knowledge about makeup. He let Suguru try putting eyeliner on him exactly once, and it was a disaster. Satoru is not fond of things being close to his eyes, and he could not get the blinking and eyelid twitching to stop.
Suguru had still managed to make it look nice, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. Especially not when Satoru keeps his eyes covered most of the time anyways.
So he’d asked Shoko for help, and she’d rolled her eyes but still agreed.
Satoru studies himself in the mirror, twisting and turning his head, trying to look at it from every angle to be sure nothing can be seen. Once he’s satisfied, he flashes Shoko a thumbs up. “Looks good! Thanks!”
Shoko hums as she sets the mirror down. “Sure. Let it set for a minute before taking the hair clips out, and come find me if it needs to be touched up at any point. And don’t forget to wash it off before you go to bed.”
Satoru nods sharply. “Yes, ma’am.”
Shoko rolls her eyes. She opens her mouth to say something else but is interrupted by a knock. She frowns and looks over towards the door.
“Shoko?” Utahime’s voice calls from the other side.
Shoko visibly relaxes and Satoru sits back in his chair. “You can come in,” Shoko says.
The door opens just long enough for Utahime to slip into the room. She makes a face at Satoru, which Satoru returns with a similarly disgusted expression, and then she comes to sit down next to Shoko. She leans her head on Shoko’s shoulder and takes one of Shoko’s hands into hers.
“Why is your hair like that?” She asks Satoru.
“Did you come here just to hold your girlfriend’s hand and harass me?” Satoru fires back.
“Only the first part. Harassing you is a fun bonus.”
Satoru scoffs. He reaches for his sunglasses and puts them on.
“Seriously though. What’s up with your hair?”
“Nothing!” Satoru reaches for one of the hair clips to start taking them out, but Shoko leans forward and catches his wrist before he can. He should have put infinity back up as soon as Shoko was finished. She doesn’t say anything, but she does give him a Look that he knows means he is not supposed to let his hair back down yet.
“I am so confused,” Utahime states, looking back and forth between Satoru and Shoko. Her gaze ends up lingering on Shoko. “What’s up with him?”
“He’s being Satoru,” Shoko says tiredly. “Does he require any more explanation?”
“Infinity is off,” Utahime points out.
“Well obviously I couldn’t put these hair clips in myself,” Satoru tells her, despite the fact that he definitely could. “I just didn’t have a chance to put infinity back up before you walked in here. It wasn’t exactly my top priority considering I know Shoko isn’t going to attack me.”
Utahime raises an eyebrow. “By that logic, you think I won’t attack you either.”
“Shoko would be devastated if you tried to kill me!” Satoru exclaims. The next sentence falls out of his mouth before he can stop it: “No one wants a soulmate who’s been exiled from jujutsu society and sentenced to death.”
Utahime’s eyes widen in horror while Shoko snorts.
This is the difference between Shoko and Utahime: Shoko experienced September 2007 firsthand right alongside Satoru while Utahime experienced it secondhand through Shoko. Utahime is horrified when they treat what happened lightly, and Shoko will laugh when Satoru makes jokes that should not be laughed at.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Utahime tells him.
“What, you think Suguru’s gonna come back from the dead and haunt me?” He stands up and stretches. “Quit worrying so much. You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”
Infinity goes back up half a second before Utahime tries to kick Satoru’s shin.
“You are the worst,” she grumbles.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Shoko, can I take these out now?”
“Sure,” she says, which might just mean she’s ready for Satoru to leave so she can spend some time alone with Utahime. Satoru doesn’t mind. Utahime will have to go back to Kyoto soon, so it’s understandable that she and Shoko want to spend time together alone.
He picks the clips out of his hair and sets them down on the table next to the makeup before striding out of the room.
Just as he’s leaving, he catches a whispered snatch of conversation.
“Seriously, what was going on before I got here?” Utahime asks.
“Sorry,” Shoko responds, “but it really isn’t my place to explain.”
Satoru closes the door softly behind him. At least Shoko is consistent in her decision to hold soulmate secrets close to her chest. Satoru appreciates it more now that it’s his secret she’s refusing to offer up to even Utahime.
There’s still a couple hours before the baseball game starts, so Satoru decides he’ll go check in on his students - make sure they’re all ready to take down Kyoto. After all, he can’t let his students lose to Utahime’s.
— —
Satoru tries to convince the higher ups to let Yuuta come back for a visit in October, but they adamantly refuse, which means Yuuta has to FaceTime in for Toge’s birthday party.
It’s a simple occasion. Maki and Nobara ordered a cake. Yuuji, Megumi, and Panda put up decorations. Satoru convinced the school to pay for it by lamenting about how Toge wouldn’t be able to spend his birthday with his soulmate because the higher ups won’t let Yuuta come back for even one day, and then he ordered way too much food as his own personal middle finger to the higher ups.
They’ll have leftovers for the next week, but Satoru doesn’t think anyone will complain.
They eat and talk, and a movie Satoru doesn’t recognize plays in the background. Toge has his phone in his hand the whole night so Yuuta can be involved as much as possible, and when his battery dies, Maki offers her phone up while Toge’s charges.
Satoru is grateful, at least, that Miguel agreed to give Yuuta the day off so he could join the party virtually.
The party itself was Maki and Panda’s idea, and Satoru seriously had half a mind to just teleport to Africa, grab Yuuta, and bring him back for a day as soon as the two had brought it up to him. But he isn’t sure he could transport someone else such a far distance, and he didn’t really want to risk it.
As it is, Toge seems to enjoy it.
Everyone does, really. It gives them time to relax and just be kids. For one evening, they aren’t worried about curses or training or executions or the weight of the world.
Shoko stops by for cake near the end, once everyone has settled in to watch a new movie - one Satoru actually does recognize this time. Yuuji is asleep on Megumi’s shoulder. Maki has her arms around Nobara. Toge has Maki’s phone propped up against him as he lays on the floor, the camera pointed at the TV screen. Panda is lying on the floor, making offhanded comments about the movie every once in a while that usually draw out a laugh from Toge and groans from Maki and Nobara.
“This was a nice thing to do,” Shoko tells him. “I miss doing stuff like this.”
“Me too.”
They’d really only done stuff like this before Suguru left. They tried once afterwards - just him and Shoko and Nanami - but it felt empty without Suguru and Haibara. They’d ended up stopping the movie halfway through and just going to bed.
Not to mention Satoru and Nanami suddenly had double the workload, meaning more missions, meaning less free time to just relax and watch a movie with friends.
Shoko takes a bite of the cake, watching the kids. “Do you think they’ll let Okkotsu come back soon?” She asks after a moment, keeping her voice soft.
“I hope so. Sorcerers’ time together is so limited to begin with. Anything could happen at any time. Tomorrow is never promised.”
“Yeah,” Shoko agrees. “I just hope they get more time like this than we did.”
“I do too.”
— —
Eight days later, everyone ends up in Shibuya.
Everything that happens is a blur at first. There is no way all of the civilians can be saved, but Satoru is going to try to save as many people as he can. They are not disposable, they are not disposable, Satoru is not coming face-to-face with the realization that Suguru could have ended this easier than him because he lacked the concern Satoru has about civilians.
The blindfold is off, and Satoru doesn’t even take a moment to consider the flowers on his forehead. No one here knows him nor do they know what happened with Suguru. Satoru is working alone.
He does not spare another thought towards Suguru - he cannot afford that right now. There is so much to do, so many people who he wishes he could save, and he cannot fail.
He is the strongest, and if he fails, he puts everyone else in danger.
He is going to make it, he’s going to—
What is—?
“Yo!”
He’s
H
“Satoru!”
Fingers fly up to his forehead. Breath catches in his throat. Cold slinks through his body, settling in the pit of his stomach.
He is entirely at fault.
But, no— Maybe it’s— It could be a transformation technique. It could be—
He turns.
There stands Suguru’s body, a smile on his face and an injury lining his forehead that matches up with the wisteria on Satoru’s. It can’t be transformation or shapeshifting. Satoru’s Six Eyes say that standing across from him is none other than Suguru Geto, arm and chest healed, Satoru’s soulmate. His only soulmate.
There was never anyone else.
It all seems so stupid now. They should have dug up the grave to be sure, but Suguru’s body should not have been in a usable state after five months.
Satoru still does not understand what happened, but he knows this is his fault. He knows this would not have happened if he’d done what he was supposed to - if he’d destroyed Suguru’s body and cleansed himself of the flowers that could only ever bring pain.
They mean love, Shoko had told him the first time kuroyuri appeared on his skin, or they mean curse.
The two are not all that different, in Satoru’s experience.
“It’s been a while,” Suguru’s voice tells him. Suguru’s cursed energy swirls around him. Suguru’s eyes bore into his own. Suguru is within reach, but it is not Suguru.
Beneath the voice and the appearance and the cursed energy, beneath Suguru’s body, there is someone else. Someone else is wearing his skin, sharing the flesh with Satoru’s soulmate, pushing Suguru out of control of his own body.
But Suguru must still be in there, because the body’s wounds appeared as flowers on Satoru’s skin. If Suguru were gone entirely, there would not be wisteria on Satoru’s forehead, because the body standing across from him would not house the soul that his soul is connected to.
For three years, Satoru believed in the possibility of a happily ever after. The big sorcerer families have never cared much for soulmates - in their eyes, children without flowers are preferable because they are free to marry anyone their parents like without worry of soulmate interference at any point. But Satoru was going to change that. Satoru was not going to hide his flowers for the sake of a loveless marriage arranged by his parents, and Satoru was going to hold onto Suguru until death finally dragged them both under. Satoru was going to love and he was going to hope and he was going to change the distaste towards sorcerers with soulmates.
He and Suguru were the strongest. If anyone could change the world, it would be them.
If anyone—
He remembers the flowers after each mission, remembers how slowly, it turned into only flowers on Satoru and only wounds on Suguru as he got more familiar with using infinity. He remembers the rose petals and the daffodils and the cherry blossoms.
He remembers the hushed whispers from their upperclassmen - a year of three first year students who all have flowers. Back before anyone knew that Satoru’s flowers and Suguru’s flowers could be traced to the other’s injuries. Back before anyone knew that Shoko’s flowers mirrored the injuries on Utahime’s skin. Back before, before, before…
(Back before the brief appearance of flowers on Haibara and Nanami, back before the call for help from Nanami as he clutched half of Haibara’s corpse in his arms, back before the blood of one hundred fourteen people stained Suguru’s hands,back before Suguru turned his back and Satoru lowered his hand.
Back before the world shifted under their feet, the rug was pulled out from underneath them, and Satoru, Nanami, and Shoko were left standing in the wake of the end of their world.)
Something grabs onto Satoru’s body, wrenching his arms behind his back, pulling him down, away from Suguru, away away away…
The world goes dull.
All of Satoru’s cursed energy floats out of his reach, the colors fade, and Suguru’s body stands over him. Suguru’s body, because Suguru is not the one maneuvering it right now. Satoru knows this just as surely as he knows this is the only way he could fall.
By Suguru’s hands.
Soulmates and sorcerers don’t mix because love is weakness and sorcerers cannot afford to be weak. Satoru cannot afford to be weak.
But he was. He let himself be convinced he had reached his limit and that asking him to properly dispose of Suguru’s body was one step too cruel. But these rules exist for a reason, and now, everyone else is going to pay the price for Satoru’s weakness.
Did keeping the flowers help more than it hurt?
If any other body had tried to trap him like this, Satoru would have pulled out any trick up his sleeve to prevent it.
But he already killed Suguru once, and he couldn’t even deal with what needed to come after.
“C’mon now, Satoru,” Suguru’s voice chastises. “Are you letting your mind wander during a fight?”
Even if he wanted to, Satoru could not wield his cursed energy to destroy Suguru’s body for a second time. He can’t reach it, and without his cursed energy, he is nothing.
This is checkmate.
“Who are you?!” Satoru demands, because he needs to know. He needs to know who took Suguru’s body, who is using it to exploit the only weakness Satoru has ever had.
“Suguru Geto, of course.” He places a hand over his chest. “Did you forget? How sad.”
“Your body…and your cursed energy…” It’s true, they match Suguru’s. Based on sight alone, there would be no way to tell the difference. “My Six Eyes tell me you’re Suguru Geto.”
But.
But Satoru has more than sight and Six Eyes. Satoru knows Suguru down to his very essence.
“But my soul knows otherwise! So hurry up and answer. Who the hell are you?!”
Suguru’s body laughs and he reaches up to his forehead. He pulls and Satoru realizes that the wound was stitched up as Suguru’s hands lift the top of his head, separating it from the rest of his body. “I can’t say I’m surprised you knew. Soulmates are such a pain sometimes. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Satoru bites down on his tongue hard enough that he draws blood. He wonders what sort of flower has shown up on Suguru’s tongue in place of the injury.
“It’s a cursed technique that allows me to hop between bodies by switching brains,” Suguru’s voice explains. “Of course, it lets me use this body’s innate techniques as well. I coveted his cursed manipulation, so I couldn’t possibly pass up such a golden opportunity, now could I? I had to use reversed curse technique to preserve the body as you left it for months so you wouldn’t realize what happened until it was too late.” He places the top of Suguru’s head back on the body, tightening the stitches until it’s settled back in place.
The wisteria on Satoru’s forehead seems to burn.
“I suppose I should thank you. None of this would have been possible if you had simply disposed of his body properly.” He clicks his tongue. “Perhaps soulmates are occasionally useful.”
This is—
Satoru’s throat aches. His head hurts.
This is…
This is all his fault. And he has lost the ability to do anything about it. He’s been taken off the board. Everyone else will have to pay the price of Satoru’s love.
Satoru trusts them. He knows they will be okay.
But this should not be their price to pay. They should not have to hurt because Satoru made a mistake, they should not have to be here. Satoru should have been sent alone, and he should have taken Suguru’s body down with him.
He should have been sent alone, and he should have blown up the entire train station, killing both himself and whatever remnants of Suguru’s soul still reside in his body.
“Don’t worry.” False reassurance drips into Suguru’s voice. “The seal will be over soon enough. In a hundred— No, maybe a thousand years.” He steps closer, leaning down so he is eye-to-eye with Satoru. “You’re just too strong. You’re in the way of my plans.” Suguru’s hand reaches out, his thumb skimming across the flowers on Satoru’s forehead. It burns and it burns and it’s Suguru’s skin and once, a very long time ago, Suguru touched him like this while in control of his own body. Once, Suguru touched him reverently, tracing flower petals on his face, kissing Satoru’s forehead, holding onto him like he was the only thing in the world worth loving.
“Luckily, even the strongest have something that makes them weak.”
(And Suguru Geto has always been Satoru’s Kryptonite.)
Soulmates.
How ridiculous.
Flowers aren’t the reason Satoru fell in love with Suguru. Flowers or no flowers, Satoru would have been sucked into the black hole that is Suguru Geto regardless. How naïve to think something as simple as a soulmate could bring down the strongest sorcerer.
Satoru does not love Suguru because Suguru is his soulmate; he loves Suguru because Suguru is Suguru. Suguru is strong and he is stubborn and he is the worst soul to fight with for control of his body and despite everything, Satoru loves him and Suguru loves him back.
This is not the end.
Whoever is inside Suguru’s body will fall.
Satoru’s soul knows this. Satoru’s soul knows Suguru.
This is not the end.
Suguru is still in there, and as sure as Satoru knows the sun will still rise tomorrow, he knows that Suguru still loves him.
He knows that Suguru will fight.
This is not the end.
— —
The prison realm is dark and lonely.
Satoru places his blindfold back over his eyes, covering the wisteria from no one.
It seems so idiotic now. How could Satoru have ever had any soulmate apart from Suguru? How could they have just stood over his grave and not thought to dig it up? How could Satoru have thought keeping the final flowers would be worth the risk?
He has faith in everyone, but—
But all of this could have been prevented.
If, ten months ago, with Suguru’s body on the table between him and Shoko, Satoru had just told her they needed to follow the rules. If they’d done what needed to be done. If they’d treated Suguru as the curse user he was instead of the friend they’d lost nine years prior.
If Satoru had not done something as stupid as falling in love.
There is no use dwelling on the past. It cannot be changed.
But Satoru doesn’t have a whole lot else to do right now. He is alone, with only the memories of youth to keep him company. Only the memories of friends who are gone and students he put in danger. All he has now is a past he cannot reach into, his body frozen in the moment he saw Suguru’s face again.
Soulmates are such a pain sometimes. Wouldn’t you agree?
Shoko was not quick enough to make it to Utahime to heal her properly, and she has that reminder seared into her face. Utahime was told she had to relocate to Kyoto after she graduated in an effort to keep her away from Shoko. Maki was forced to cover up her flowers until she could leave the Zen’in Clan. Nobara’s grandmother didn’t want her to attend Jujutsu High because she knew the stories about sorcerers and soulmates. Nanami was not shown he had a soulmate until there was nothing left he could do to save him. Haibara was not shown he had a soulmate until his time was up. Yuuta was shown he had another soulmate only to be forced across the sea from him. Toge was shown he had a soulmate only for his soulmate to be taken out of his reach. Megumi looked his soulmate in the eye and told him jujutsu law require he die moments after the realization that it was his soulmate he was speaking to. Yuuji only met his soulmate because of something he did that gave him a death sentence.
A world that dictates the person or people you are supposed to keep in your life forever, only for you to be born into a life where you cannot keep hold of the soulmate you are given, is nothing short of cruel.
And yet, there is not a single cell in Satoru’s body that regrets the time he spent with Suguru by his side. He would not give those three years of youth up for anything. He would not wish to have lived a life without that love.
It is bitter tragedy and it is the only reprieve from the anguish of being alive. It is kuroyuri - love and curse, woven together into a single blossom.
Satoru thinks of Megumi, eight years old, tearfully admitting that he was scared of a soulmate who doesn’t love him. And Satoru, hypocrisy burning his throat, had said That wouldn’t make sense. Why would the universe give you a soulmate just for them to not like you?
Megumi had called him out on it - pointed out that he knew Satoru’s soulmate wasn’t in his life anymore, because if he was, Satoru would have brought him to meet Megumi and Tsumiki by that point.
That’s true, Satoru had told him. But just because he isn’t here doesn’t mean I don’t love him. I will always love him.
At the time, it seemed to put Megumi at ease.
He thinks, now, Megumi knows that is not as gentle of a resolution as he’d played it off to be. He wishes he could have shielded Megumi from everything - wishes he could have pulled out a nice fairytale where he and Suguru were still together instead of sentenced to an aching love across battlelines. He wishes he could have bargained with the universe to give Megumi a soulmate that would not bring him pain. He wishes—
He wishes.
Wishing does not do anything. Wishing does not change the past, does not erase Satoru’s mistakes, does not save Megumi or Yuuji. Wishing does not take the flowers away.
Still, Satoru wishes, and he dwells, and he waits.