Chapter Text
Death, Itadori Yuuji realises on a bleak Thursday afternoon, is a singularly strange thing.
Something abstract and foreign, yet so permanent. A bogeyman that lurks in the darkness, lying in wait for the chance to take everyone and anyone down into its specific oblivion. Or perhaps a mother, waiting at the end of a long day to cradle their child and finally bring them home, wherever that may be.
So very, very strange.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Itadori-san," someone says from beside him, their presence enough to make him jolt. He hates it and yet still craves it. Wants them to leave, but he doesn’t want to be alone. He knows they don’t deserve to be here — he knows knows knows knows that — even then, some small part of him is crying out to simply be held. They don’t know Wasuke well enough to bear witness to the end; in spite of that, the maelstrom forming beneath the numbness wants someone to stop the debilitating and absolute static creeping through his limbs.
As his eyes flicker in their direction, he briefly wonders how long the nurse has been standing there, watching him with her large sympathetic eyes, waiting for something from him, but what? What did she want? Staring back, it takes a moment to register that she spoke at all. His brain tripping uselessly over itself to try and make sense of the words, of what he’s meant to say.
Strangely, he can hear the individual syllables, each one heavy with emotion—and yet, when he tries to tie them together, to find the meaning, they scatter like the porcelain of a plate thrown, incomprehensible.
They loop over and over until they’re no longer words, just strange abstract noises in a language he’s never learnt. When they remain elusive, unknown, he does little to fight his gaze from flitting away and returning to the body in the bed.
There’s a crumb at the corner of his grandfather's mouth. He hadn’t noticed it earlier, not when the two argued again over Yuuji visiting too often, nor when the heart rate monitor started to stutter and groan as his grandfather crumpled in on himself with a pained yell. He didn’t even notice it when the room was suddenly filled with doctors and nurses shouting over each other and trying to resuscitate the dying man.
No, it’s only at this moment, when he stands next to the bed and stares at the body of the greatest man he has ever known, he notices the crumb.
His weight shifts — more on instinct than desire — and from the corner of his eye he notices the arm raising to brush it away, ready to remove the evidence that this man was alive less than twenty minutes ago, that rice and miso were probably still digesting somewhere within him, uselessly preparing fuel for Itadori Wasuke to grumble and lecture about how Yuuji was doing this and that and everything wrong.
The hand inches closer and closer and it’s only when he can feel the strange coldness emitting from the body does he realise it’s his own. He stops, millimetres away, and forces it back to his side.
The crumb stays.
“What?” He says, finally acknowledging the nurse still standing beside him.
She doesn’t repeat her words, and he’s glad because he’s not sure if he’d understand them this time either. Idly, he wonders if she’s aware how weird this all is. How weird she is. Her job so steeped in these moments, the opportunity to witness the utter dismantling of someone’s world, and it’s just… another day for her. He will always know her face, know the downturned brown eyes and the mole to the left of the narrow lips, will always know how she looks when she must break someone’s heart, will always know the sorrow that pinches her brow and pales her complexion, but to her, he’s just one of many.
“I’ll give you some time with your grandfather; I’ll just be in the hallway if you need me.” She says when the silence has stretched too long, her voice once again soft waves lapping at the shore of his mind, there for a second and then gone.
The only acknowledgement he can manage is a quiet hum, eyes stagnant on the crumb. He’s distantly aware of the feeling of gentle hands patting his shoulder, the sound of her light footsteps heading towards the door, the cacophony of the hallway filled with hushed voices and beeping alarms when she pulls it open, and the muted silence when it’s pulled closed again, leaving him. Alone.
And time, time, it drags ever so slowly, like its intent on keeping him trapped in this moment, like there’s no relief. It holds him captive, forcing him to truly register the reality he’s found himself in, no respite, no relief. It creeps around him — around them. Dripping slow, slow, piling and piling like sand in an hourglass, and he waits to see if it’ll suffocate him, if it’ll offer reprieve.
The realisation that he truly doesn’t know what to do doesn’t so much as creep on him than punches him fully in the gut. No one’s ever told him how he’s supposed to act when his entire world is imploding; no one’s advised him of the appropriate steps when everything is just… gone.
Shadows stretch, long fingers that inch towards them, brushing their skin and painting the room in greys and blacks and the sand keeps piling.
Still, he can’t move, can’t figure out what happens next, he’s stuck in the moment and the sand won’t stop, time won’t stop and he wonders if this is what drowning feels like. For the first time since he was very young the traitorous wish that it wasn’t just him and his grandpa creeps back in, the wish that there was someone, anyone, who would turn his face away and take care of it all.
Heat starts to build in his stomach, rises in his chest, too dull to be real fury but too sharp to be anything but anger. It boils within him, fights against the crushing emptiness and he clings to it like a security blanket. There’s no direction for it, not really, but it’s tangible and it’s there and it’s something. So he lets it hold him, lets it take control as he curses his parents for dying far too young, curses the world for doing this to him, curses himself for still being a child, and despite the ache it leaves he curses his grandfather for leaving him, curses the man for doing the one thing he promised he wouldn’t; making him truly alone.
Fists clenching, he scans the body, not completely understanding why. Looking for something, maybe? But what? Some sign the doctor was wrong? Some sign that the small man who had been the only consistent thing in his life hasn’t left him?
The crumb is still there.
He can’t look at it.
His eyes zero in on weathered hands, on leathered skin, the man’s life etched in through deep wrinkles and sun spots like they’re bark on an old tree.
The image causes something heavy to catch in his throat, a dull weight that demands notice, refusing to budge as he tries to swallow, to ignore.
Still, he doesn’t look away. Hunts for the answers to a question no one has asked.
There’s dirt, right there under his grandfather's nails. One of them is chipped and another slightly shorter than the rest, but there’s dirt and that means he’ll have to wake up, Wasuke hates dirty hands, so he’ll have to wake up to clean them. He’ll have to.
As the space behind Yuuji's eyes starts to burn, wet heat inching forward to wrap under his eyelids and scratch across his vision, he wonders where the dirt came from, if perhaps his grandfather had gone outside earlier today and touched the ground, marvelled at the blooming hydrangeas the same way Yuuji had when he’d spotted them in the hospital garden on his way up to the room.
His gaze travels higher, and finds a stain on the cuff of his grandfather's shirt. It’s a speck of something dark caught upon the green flannel of a gift Yuuji brought him for Christmas a year ago. The stain is deep, embedded into the fabric and making a home among the cotton, old. Maybe from a pen, maybe from coffee or tea. His nose begins to itch, and the static reforms beneath his skin, spreading out, numbing as it goes.
He returns to his face, desperate to find whatever he’s searching for in the craggled features of Itadori Wasuke. His square jaw is still just as sharp as before, his eyebrows still thick and furrowed, his hair still white and coarse. He’s the same, and yet… He’s gone, the crumb still clinging to his ashen lips and the dirt still trapped under his nails.
The tears come like spring rain, slow at first, then suddenly debilitating. Knives split his chest and shatter his ribs, trying to reach the heart breaking beneath. Noises, low and agonised, rip from somewhere deep within him, somewhere old and forgotten where they’re supposed to stay hidden, but they’re awake now and they brutally force themselves forward, raw and unrelenting and battling against his ability to breathe.
It’s that that must trigger the lingering nurse to rush back into the room, flinging the door open in her wake and allowing the cacophony of the hallway to return, too loud, too bright.
Arms wrap around him, and he can’t fight the urge to turn into their warmth, to hide his face in the neck of the stranger and weep. The sobs tear from him, primal and broken, the sound of a small boy utterly undone.
He buries his face in further, letting the nurse's warmth be his only anchor in a world that had just shattered. She holds him tight, rocks them gently whilst softly cooing into the mess of his hair. Instinctively he noses at the scent patch on her neck, seeking comfort like an infant might in their mothers arms. It stays firm, the only hint of her designation the omegan pheromones clinging to her blue scrubs. He cries harder, cries because some part of him is aware that even in this moment, despite her kindness, despite her warmth, she’s not pack and it’s another thing he’s without.
Sand continues piling on top of him, around him, and she’s stuck in it too now, she could drown with him and he can’t let that happen. She’s not like him. She’ll have family left behind, people who’ll miss her, she’ll have pack and, and if she holds him, if she drowns, they’ll feel like this. Like him.
He wants to push her away, so save her, but his brain and his body aren’t working together. His fingers grip so tightly to the cotton of her shirt and no matter how much he pleads with himself they won’t release her.
Time continues, and she doesn’t rush him. Lets him break down, lets him quiet, then lets him break down again. She stays wrapped around him, holds him, and it’s only when his breath returns to normal for more than a couple of minutes that the arms tighten once more before releasing. The nurse gives him a soft smile. Yuuji sniffles, and after a minute of shared stillness where he feels too small for his body, too small for the nameless emotions swirling inside of him, he allows her to usher him out of the room like he’s a stray pup who’s wandered somewhere they shouldn’t. On their journey, she starts to talk with gentle explanations about procedures and formalities. Yuuji can’t make out what she’s saying, only that her voice is low and gentle, and he follows it blindly into a quiet room with beige walls and an overworked radiator, the stench of stale coffee thick in the space.
He’s sat on a brown settee, the leather worn and cracked and creaking under his weight. He wonders if there’s other grieving sixteen-year-olds who have sat in the same spot, felt the same emotions, felt the same comfort from a kind stranger. The thought sours the moment, the reminder that her kindness, whilst pleasant, isn’t special, is a part of her role. But when she returns to his side with her soft smile and sweet scent clinging to her clothes, he decides he doesn’t care how many others she’s comforted like this; he’s grateful for her presence.
A clipboard is gently pushed into his hand, one she passes as if she’s scared he might break again. He can’t blame her for the caution, fire and ice and nothing and everything battle within his chest, coats down his limbs, settles in his toes only to pulse and wane and retreat again. Patiently, she waits for him to read the forms, and he tries, tries to ignore the war inside and move, to escape the moment, but the world blurs around him. Blinking, he tries again. It blurs just as fast, unable to contend against the mounting pressure of tears building behind his eyes.
Teeth bite into the tender skin of his cheek, the pain a brief respite. He zeroes in on the feeling, real and tangible, as he blindly grabs the pen attached to the plastic by a thin metal chain. It feels like lightning in his hand, too hot and heavy for the still-growing fingers, and when he’s done, the weight and finality of his signature becomes a burning brand too much for him to bear. He shudders, bites his cheek harder, finds comfort in the copper tang that coats his tongue in response.
The nurse doesn’t say anything. Just takes the clipboard, folds it to her chest, and gives him a look that feels like sympathy but doesn’t ask for anything in return. He doesn’t realise he’s standing. Doesn’t realise he’s walking. Doesn’t realise he’s taking a box from a different nurse with his grandfathers belongings tucked neatly inside.
One second, he’s in the room that smells like stale coffee, sitting on the creaking settee, the nurse beside him. In the next, he’s alone in a hallway that stretches endlessly before him in soft, fluorescent silence.
He moves forward, however, doesn’t allow himself to falter, to feel the weight of the loneliness that is fast becoming absolute. The hallways feel like a maze, every corner looping in on itself, always empty, never ending. Distantly he thinks if this is how the heroes in the minotaur’s labyrinth felt, lost, desperate. Or perhaps the little boy with the head of an ox, was he left scared and weeping, searching for an exit that never came? Did the child beg before he became the monster? Did he remember the embrace of a mother that never held him? Was he like Yuuji? Or, was Yuuji like him?
It’s with those thoughts that Yuuji eventually finds himself in front of the hospital’s main entrance, the world before him now different from this morning, more isolating, more frightening, and nothing, absolutely nothing, feels the way it should.
He stands, just for a moment, and takes in the moon lit air with a deep inhale. It's different, yet somehow the same; the coldness still cuts against his lungs, just as it would have yesterday, and the day before. Now, however, the feeling isn’t comforting, isn’t a reminder that he’s alive. Instead, it’s just cold. Raw. Bitter. It creates something restless beneath his skin, something that shifts and coils and demands something from him that it cannot name, cannot explain.
The only thing that seems to quieten it is when he starts to move. It doesn’t disappear, still prowls along his veins, but it doesn’t screech and rip anymore, doesn’t clench around his organs and weep. With no clear destination and the need to appease the volatile feeling, he walks blindly away from the place his grandfather’s body rests.
He passes shops and restaurants filled with happy families and life, and an innate part of him knows he no longer belongs alongside them, so he continues walking. The entrance to the train station comes and goes, and still he continues walking. Tall shopping centres and busy apartment buildings turn into dilapidated single-storey homes and quiet konbinis and he doesn’t stop, feet moving endlessly like they might know the directions to return to yesterday.
When he finds himself in front of a rusted orange gate, he finally slows. A park. One forgotten to time, where grass and ivy have taken claim to the metal of slides and chains of swings. It’s the same one his grandfather used to take him to when he was a kid. If he closes his eyes and tries, he can still see the man too old to be chasing a four-year-old trip over the see-saw, can still hear his deep laughter as they kick the merry-go-round faster and faster, can still smell the pheromones fresh and sun-bathed as he’s carried home in comforting arms.
Eventually, the memory fades, and the cold settles back into his bones. The park, like everything else, is a relic. Something warm turned brittle with time.
He turns, the route to his home from here ingrained into his muscles by countless afternoon’s spent running between the two. The streets are darker, quieter, and he dares to believe the whole city has drawn in on itself to mourn alongside him. When he reaches the house, it doesn’t look different, but he notices things he’d happily ignored before. The missing roof tile, the broken window clumsily patched with newspaper and masking tape, the weeds sprouting between the stone walkway. It's a shadow of his memories, like the park, somewhere once cherished but without the rose-tinted lens of home and love and family, it’s just another thing left to be forgotten.
When he reaches the door, it sticks slightly in the frame, as it always has. He braces his shoulder against it and pushes up and to the left, the swollen wood dislodging with the practiced movement. It opens to reveal the familiar chaos of the cluttered genkan: shoes, umbrellas, and forgotten post spread across the dirty wood. Yuuji ignores it all, eager instead to greedily inhale his grandfather's pheromones permeating the space, green tea and smoke, a life shared with the house, embedded into its very walls.
It’s both a comfort and a gut punch, this smell. When he first returned home after his grandfather was admitted, one half of him expected to step inside and see his old man's sturdy frame bent over the stove. The other half was left to deal with reality. The weeks between hadn’t changed that feeling. Even today, his heart beats faster for a second, the omega part of him tricked into believing pheromones equals presence, while his rational side knows that watching his grandfather collapse at the dining table was the last moment the two would share in the house.
He sighs, the memory re-tensing the muscles that had softened in the face of the comforting scent. Shifting the box to one arm, he kicks his trainers off before reaching to flick the switch. Orange light floods the space for a second, flickering off then on again with a low, constant hum. It’s not funny, but he snorts anyway. The bulb was older than Yuuji, one of those obsolete filament ones his grandfather stockpiled when LED became the norm, and now, it’s outlasted the man. Idly he wonders, as he slips into house slippers and carries the box into the open kitchen, if the several more tucked away might even outlast him.
Setting the box onto the table, the consistent tick-tick-tick of the analogue clock is his only companion as he stares at his surroundings. The house is the same as Yuuji left it this morning before heading to school; snack packets open and stale on the low table in front of the TV, dirty dishes in the sink, the ashtray next to an old recliner half-full, and his grandfather’s sudoku still open and left uncompleted on the dining table.
He watches the puzzle, tries to find where the missing 1’s might fit in as numbness eats at the space his heart should be. He can’t figure it out, he’s never really had the head for logic puzzles and numbers and all that stuff, but he doesn’t look away, too busy obsessing over the scratch of his grandfather's 3’s and 9’s. When the numbers stay despite his heavy blinks, their presence pressed into his eyelids as much as they are the paper, he finally moves, shuffling to sink into the settee.
It smells faintly of smoke and green tea. Of Wasuke.
He doesn’t bother changing. Doesn’t even loosen his tie. The weight of the day crashes into him all at once, burying him in the scratchy cushions and worn upholstery like it might hold him there forever.
Sleep takes him quickly, too quickly.
And then, something loud and metallic jolts him awake.
A heavy clunk.
The letterbox.
Sunlight creeps in the gaps left by cheap curtains, illuminating the dust motes that dance in the still space. His throat is dry, the taste lingering on his tongue almost enough to make him gag.
He coughs, startling the dust motes as they jump and spread, whilst the taste settles deeper around his mouth. He rubs at sleep-crusted eyes, confusion rising at the unfamiliar feeling of emptiness that exists within him. The stiffness in his spine and the ache in his jaw remnants of a sleep that whilst deep, was in no way satisfying.
For a few seconds, there’s nothing besides the pull to fall back to sleep. Then it hits him. Not in a dramatic gasp or a broken sob. Just a slow, sinking weight in his chest. A sad pulse in the hollowness where something used to be.
Right.
His grandfather is gone.
Yuuji lies there for a moment longer.
Just one day, he thinks. He can have just one day.
He doesn’t go to school. He doesn’t text anyone. He showers, cries, eats badly. Watches old sitcom reruns with dead eyes. Stares at nothing. Cries again.
But only for today.
Tomorrow, he’ll move. He has to.
When he wakes once again on the settee, the hollowness hasn’t abated, is still constant and takes up more space than he has available to give. He doesn’t fight it, allows it to sit, and forces himself to move.
He starts by tidying the space, bins the snack packets, and empties his grandfather's ashtray. Washes the dishes and opens the curtains. Pulls navy slippers from the box alongside a broken glasses case and a worn jumper that still carries the strong scent of Wasuke. He must have worn it only the day before, Yuuji thinks. It's so heavy in pheromones that it’s almost like he’s in the room with him.
There’s other items, books and pens, a vase that Yuuji had hastily bought from the hospital gift shop on his first visit, a photo of his grandparents cradling the baby that’ll become his father, another of Wasuke and Yuuji on Yuuji’s first day of primary school, their smiles wide and identical apart from the two front teeth missing from his own.
A life, one somehow contained within six cardboard walls, and still so full
The threat of tears builds behind his eyes again, but he fights them, refuses to linger in the pain, to disappoint the man he idolised. Still idolises.
He can hear Wasuke’s gruff voice after his parents’ funeral, can almost feel the weight of his palm on his shoulder: “There’s a difference between feeling pain and planting roots in it, kid. Let it hurt, just don’t water it.”
The box is emptied. Its contents returned to their homes. He collapses it, tucks it under one arm, and makes his way to the front door, picking up the plastic bag of recycling on the way.
Yuuji doesn’t notice the envelope at first, too focused on juggling his full arms and slipping out of his house slippers simultaneously.
It’s only when he’s sitting on the ledge of the genkan, pulling on his ratty red trainers, that it catches his attention.
Thick. White. Almost pearlescent.
He blinks. Surely he would’ve heard something like that come through the letterbox?
Then he remembers the thud that woke him yesterday.
Oh.
So this mysterious letter woke him?
How rude.
It goes ignored at first, Yuuji barely blinking as he leaves the imprint of his trainer on it on his way out of the door to head to the recycling bins.
The streets are empty and it’s only the familiar sound of screeching and laughter from the nearby primary school that reminds him that, oh yeah, he’s supposed to be somewhere. He pauses, considers rushing home and throwing on his uniform, then remembers the arduous journey that is two trains and a twenty-minute walk and figures another day won’t hurt. He’s barely passing anyway, and it’s not like there’s anyone to tell him off for skipping now. His eyes water with the thought, at the bluntness of his mind, but he blinks the wetness away. Moves forward. Doesn’t water the pain.
The house is still empty on his return, mysterious letter completely forgotten until it catches under his foot, the glossiness of the paper tripping him forward. Only by the grace of god and his athleticism does he not end up bashing his face on the wooden floor. Kicking the offending item with a huff, he waits until he’s switched back to his house slippers to finally pick it up, surprised to find his name embossed on the front in a fancy curling script instead of his grandfather's.
It’s thrown alongside the other junk mail, old newsletters about knitting that his grandfather couldn’t bring himself to unsubscribe to after his wife died and bills that Yuuji should probably look at sometime soon.
Yuuji doesn’t do much with the rest of the day.
He cleans a little, more out of a need to distract himself than a disgust of the dust and grime that’s settled, runs a half-hearted hoover over the rug and tries to scrub the inside of the kettle even though he knows his grandfather used to say you shouldn’t. Checking the fridge causes him to wince at the smell, and Yuuji makes a note to clear it properly tomorrow.
At some point, he ends up back on the settee, curled sideways beneath the blanket that smells like his grandfather. He doesn’t cry, nor does he smile. Instead, he tries to find existence in the vast nothingness that prevails.
He watches the sky change through the window, hears the busy streets when school lets out, and quiets again, the familiar sound of the old man two houses down yelling at his cat to come inside. The world moves. Yuuji doesn’t.
When it gets dark, he forces himself to eat something. Then he showers again, avoids the mirror for a reason he doesn’t understand and changes into his grandfather's jumper, uncaring that it sits far too tight on his frame, and returns to the settee.
Only once more that day does he see the letter, watching him from beneath a pile of post, almost like it’s waiting.
He ignores it.
Again.
The next morning is a little brighter. And he tries to replicate it, tries to bring the light into himself and continue on like time insists he does. But, he can’t and instead finds solace in the fact the sun is in the sky and it’s something. With the windows open, he starts cleaning out the fridge, the breeze fresh and warm against the tenderness of his skin.
Not long passes until he’s interrupted. A sharp knock at the door distracting him from the biohazard he thinks was once leeks. Now, it’s more reminiscent of a science experiment gone terribly wrong.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A quiet curse falls from Yuuji’s lips as he looks towards the clock, the analogue hands reading a little past eleven am, aka the time he should really be in school.
The memory comes out of nowhere; broad shoulders, shaved head, thighs like tree trunks. The school’s only male PE teacher, and the one they always send after truants. Yuuji gulps. He’s fucked.
Maybe if he ignores it, they’ll just leave. The hope is quickly dashed as the knocking starts up again, louder and harsher.
Oh fuck.
He’s really fucked.
Yuuji goes to hold his breath. Playing with the childish idea that if he’s completely, one hundred percent, still no one will be able to see him. The inhale catches the odour of the rotten veg still in his hands and the stench makes him gag loud enough there’s no way whoever’s on the other side of the door doesn’t hear it.
Well, that’s that idea gone.
“Itadori-Kun. I know you’re in there.” The familiar sound of Yoshinobu-san’s voice causes his shoulders to relax. The old man lives two doors down, and was the closest thing to a friend that Wasuke had, both as grouchy and stubborn as each other.
Yuuji sighs. The idea of explaining to Yoshinobu that, yes, he is technically skipping school, and no, it’s not because he’s taken up a side job selling drugs but because his grandfather, Yoshinobu’s only friend, died right in front of him, is about as appealing as using the leeks still stinking up the kitchen for dinner.
With the bravery of a frontline soldier, Yuuji ties the bag and throws it into the bin. He stiffens his shoulders, rinses his hands and starts the maybe five-metre trek to the front door. The dread makes his steps heavy, each one a struggle and he thinks maybe he gave up on the staying really still plan a bit too early.
The door opening feels like the swing of the executioner's ax. The visage of the 5’5, 90lbs when wet, older than the wheel, Yoshinobu Gakuganji’s scowling face sending a shiver of pure fear up his spine.
“Yoshinobu-san,” he says, bowing an almost perfect 90 degrees. He can’t see the man’s reaction, only the tips of his feet, snug in worn tabi and zori. It’s at that moment that Yuuji realises that whilst he was brave, he was in no way seasoned in the way of combat. A sharp thwack echoes through the genkan, then the familiar shooting pain caused by a wooden cane striking the skull.
“You better have a good reason for not being in school, kid.” The man growls, pushing past Yuuji’s groaning form, now curled on the floor.
The scent of slate and old paper follows the Alpha, washing over Yuuji’s still prone body. With deliberate care, Yoshinobu removes his sandals and places them neatly in the genkan’s rack. The sight makes Yuuji blush in quiet embarrassment, the tidy zori a sharp contrast to his trainers, kicked off in a chaotic sprawl.
He winces as he pulls himself to sitting, one hand balancing his weight and the other rubbing at the throbbing lump now forming on his crown. Yoshinobu huffs quietly, using his cane to knock the arm holding the omega up and beelining to the kitchen, not even staying to watch as Yuuji crashes to the floor again.
He stays there momentarily, eyes fixated on the ceiling as he listens to the older man move around the kitchen. Tears scratch his throat and nose, and Yuuji doesn’t understand why. That’s what he tells himself, as he tracks the fluttering threads of a spider web caught in the breeze of the still open windows, that he doesn’t know why the appearance of the ill-tempered man would make him break his ten-hour streak of no crying. But he does know, knows the sight of Yoshinobu without his crotchety counterpart in the way of Wasuke is too soon, is too much, too real. Yuuji hadn’t seen the man more than a polite bow as the two passed one another in the hospital visiting room.
Yoshinobu Gakuganji wasn’t one of his people. Wasn’t like Ito-san down the street, who always stops Yuuji on his way to school to check if he’s packed a lunch, or like Sasaki-san who always gives Yuuji extra change when he buys bread from her bakery. Yoshinobu doesn’t care about Yuuji. Yuuji is Wasuke’s grandson and outside of that a stranger to the man.
Silence settles, only broken by the tap, tap, tap of Yoshinobu’s cane against the wooden floor. It’s thick and heavy, like snow that bites at fingers, seeks out bones and when it finds them, curls around the skeleton and seeps in. Yuuji has never thought silence could be something suffocating, something that makes it hard to breathe.
Something clatters in the kitchen sink. Yuuji startles, sniffing hard and wiping a sleeve against his damp eyes before forcing himself up, his body suddenly far heavier than it was this morning.
Yoshinobu doesn’t look up as Yuuji enters, and Yuuji thinks it might be the nicest thing the man has ever done for him. In the kitchen, the two not quite strangers yet not anything more exist for both an eternity and no time at all. No words are said, the reality clear in the broken glasses case held by knobbly fingers, clutching it like it's as fragile as spun gold.
Wasuke is dead.
Eventually Yoshinobu coughs, breaking the silence. The glasses case is placed gently back on the shelf, the man’s touch too tender for such a rundown item, yet it's the reverence it deserves.
The slate and old paper scent has softened, thinned out by a grief neither mentions. It entwines delicately with the remnants of his grandfather’s scent, and it smells like Yuuji’s childhood. He shudders a breath and looks at the window, wondering why he thought it was a good idea to open them.
“So, what’s your excuse, punk?”
Yuuji blinks, clearing his throat with a wet cough as he scratches at the back of his neck. “My excuse?”
Yoshinobu huffs and settles himself into one of the wooden chairs, his fingers absentmindedly reaching for Wasuke’s pen left next to the unfinished sudoku. The sight makes Yuuji cringe, makes him want to shout, to scream, to tell the old man to fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off.
“For not being in school.” He says, voice too tight to be normal, despite his attempt. It’s enough to stop Yuuji’s death glare, and the alpha uses the chance to grab the suduko and turn it in his direction.
“I forgot.” He answers honestly.
“Right.”
Yuuji sinks into the chair opposite. Silence follows, an unwelcome intruder where muttered curses and dry laughter used to live. Bile churns in his stomach, and he focuses on the tap of the pen against yellowed paper to distract himself. The rage returns in increments as Yoshinobu pauses, then lifts the pen to fill the empty blocks.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He snarls. The words out before he can stop them.
The Alpha doesn’t flinch, doesn’t react, just continues to write neat little numbers in the vacant spaces, too small, too perfect against the messy chicken scrawl of his grandfather's handwriting.
“I said,” Yuuji growls, hand shooting out and gripping the older man’s wrist hard enough for him to drop the pen, loosening it only slightly when the other gives a visible flinch at the strength, “what the fuck are you doing.”
The rage is blinding, a fire that flickers in his eyeline and makes his muscles burn. So focused on it, he doesn’t notice the man slowly reaching for his cane with his free hand, nor when he starts to raise it slowly, the hit against the already tender spot on his scalp the only thing bringing him back to the moment.
He lets go in an instant. Eyes widening as he takes in the already purpling skin on Yoshinobu’s wrist.
“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit, I’m sorry, Yoshinobu-san, I don’t-“ he starts to say, his words broken by a sob that wrenches unbidden from his throat. He tries to ignore it, to continue, words coming more frantic, more strained as breath becomes harder and harder to take “-I don’t, I don’t know why I-I did th-that.”
He’s hyperventilating by the end. The walls creep closer. The bruise grows and pulses, travels up Yoshinobu’s arm. And suddenly, it’s not Yoshinobu; it’s Wasuke. It’s Wasuke halfway through berating him and suddenly curling in on himself, it’s Wasuke clutching his chest and jerking like the heavens themselves had struck him. It’s Wasuke dead on a lonely hospital bed with a crumb stuck on his lip.
Another hard thud brings him back; for once, he’s thankful for Yoshinobu’s inability to be kind. The walls are still too close; the air is still too thin. But it’s no longer his grandfather in front of him, and it’s enough.
The Alpha doesn’t say anything as Yuuji calms himself down, doesn’t move. He just sits and watches, pen still absently tap, tap, tapping on the paper.
“You know, Itadori,” he says at last, once the omega’s breathing evens out. Not quite steady, but not gasping anymore. “I used to be a headmaster.”
“What the fu-“ Another thwack, this time across his knuckles, cuts him off mid-curse.
“I let you swear at me twice, Itadori. Out of respect for your grief for Wasuke. I will not let you do it again, out of respect for myself.”
A tense pause passes, Yuuji’s emotions too fragile and raw to settle into the conversation the older man is obviously planning on them having. He wants to fight back, plans to, but the bruise catches his attention. A purple shackle against the blue veins hidden behind the delicate skin. The fight leaves his body. He slumps in his seat. Nods. Looks away.
Another thwack.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, boy.”
He looks at him.
Another thwack.
“Don’t glare at me, child.”
Internally, Yuuji rolls his eyes. Externally, he does the same.
Another thwack. Harder. The skin of his knuckles crack at the hit, pin pricks of blood spouting to the surface. Yuuji stares at the bruise again. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak.
Once Yoshinobu is satisfied with his attention, the cane is settled across the table, idle hands picking up the pen once again.
“As I was saying,“ he starts, scribbling a two into one of the boxes. “I used to be a headmaster.”
Yuuji stays silent, teeth grinding as he watches the man move the pen down and to the left. Another two.
“Your grandfather was very interested in that information over the last two months.” Up and to the right, a three.
“Yoshinobu-san, I don’t want to be rude but-“
“If you don’t want to be rude, then don’t be.”
“Fine, I don’t care about being rude. I don’t care about what you used to do, to be frank, I don’t care about you. You’re just some crotchety old bastard who used to come over and help my grandad make the house smell like goddamn smoke.” Yuuji spits out.
The pen moves to the bottom of the puzzle, another 3.
“Are you mad I’m finishing the sudoku for Wasuke?” Yoshinobu says after a beat.
The fire rises again, licks at his tissue and sinew. Yes he’s mad. He’s fucking infuriated. How dare he?! How dare he come into this house and touch what was his grandfathers’, deface it with his neat little numbers. How fucking dare he.
He looks at the bruise still blooming.
“No.”
Another 3 is added, the scratch of the pen over paper the only noise between them.
“Wasuke hated when things were left unfinished.” It’s said flatly, almost monotone, like Yoshinobu is talking about the weather. If Yuuji wasn’t glaring so hard at the bruise he might have missed it, the rattle of the old man’s hand, the clench, the release.
Guilt hits Yuuji like an avalanche. Of course. Yoshinobu is just as heartbroken, is just as raw, just as confused. He’s older, can hide it better, has spent years honing his control. But the emotions are the same, the grief burrowing itself into their very beings and making a home in the place where love and fondness once grew like wildflowers. He wants to apologise, wants to say something, wants to share this pain. But Yoshinobu is Yoshinobu, isn’t that type of man.
“You’re right. He did.” Is what he offers, and the long, slow inhale from the alpha lets him know that he’s sorry too.
One of his grandfather's 5’s is crossed out, a 6 written neatly in the corner left. The anger doesn't leave, but Yuuji slowly understands that it’s not for Yoshinobu, that it’s not his fault.
“As I was saying,” The man says after a harsh cough, “your grandfather was very interested in my tenure as a headmaster prior to his death.”
“Are you gonna take me in Yoshinobu-san? Is that why? Am I gonna have to call you sensei?”
A sharp glare stops him from continuing.
“Absolutely not.”
A moment passes where nothing is said, eventually Yoshinobu lets out a sigh, tenderly placing the pen beside the sudoku before reaching for the shiny pearlescent envelope still atop the junk pile.
“Why haven’t you opened this Itadori?” He asks, letting the letter drop in the empty space in front of Yuuji, the weight jolting the old table.
He shrugs, picking it up and turning it in his hands, noticing the flicker in Yoshinobu’s expression when he spots the footprint embedded into the material and snorts under his breath. “‘S‘probably just junk.”
The man sighs again, a thumb rubbing at the crease between his brows as if he’s trying to fight off a particularly annoying headache.
“Are you not curious as to why I’ve been telling you about my previous profession?”
Yuuji shrugs again, dropping the letter as he does. “You’ve not really told me anything about it though? Just said you used to be a teacher.”
“Not a teacher. A headmaster.”
“Yeah, yeah, a headmaster, fine,” he acknowledges, then under his breath, “what’s the big difference anyway?”
“The difference, Itadori, is that a teacher teaches. A headmaster runs the school.”
“Okay. Big whoop.”
The cane is in the air before he can react, the pain landing across the already torn skin of his knuckles making him flinch.
“Open the letter.” Yoshinobu says, pen back in his hand as he fills in the top left spot with a 7.
Yuuji picks the letter up. The only driving force is the hope that once the Alpha stops his cryptic Yoda shit, he’ll finally leave and Yuuji can return to melting into the polyester of the settee.
A booklet falls out, alongside copious papers and a cheque. All of it pristine, all of it foreign. He looks at the pile and then to the man bent over across from him. Back to the pile. Back to the man. The pile. The man.
The words across the top of the booklet finally catch his attention. They’re crisp, sharp black against the colourful foliage of the image they’re printed on, beneath them sits a group of students in clean neat uniforms, talking and laughing and having a whale of a time if the picture is to be believed.
Jujutsu Preparatory and Boarding School.
“…What the fu-“
Yoshinobu stops the curse with another sharp thwack against his head.