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You said, only he makes me feel like this. Like the ground beneath your feet was solid and would keep you steady, until he whisked you away. Like you were flush with deadly flame, and his hands were cool water. Like you could move your arms without hitting something, or hurting someone, because he’d catch your wrists.
So you laid in his arms for months, and whispered Gojo-sensei, Gojo-sensei, if only to hear his answering murmur, if only to hear the thudding heartbeat that marked him human instead of god. It took you to the heaven that is time away from the hell of jujutsu sorcery, and you did not have to face the world in his iron arms.
You were so weak around him.
He never berated you for it, or even minded. He probably liked you the better for it.
Oh, right, you were afraid around him too. You didn’t know how to act.
He felt like the width of the universe.
He felt like the mystery of time.
You didn’t care for either, you just wanted the gorgeous man in front of you. When he started folding you into his chest, that fear started. You’d never done something like that. He was older. Nanami gave you looks. He told you you were a child. He told you Gojo was dangerous. Gojo had burdens no one should have. Gojo shouldered the weight of society. Gojo was a walking bomb. Someday he would slip and wink out of existence, or he would catch everyone in his blast radius and burn them alive. You were only fifteen. You could not deal with someone like him.
So you were a child. (So you were still on fire.) And yet there was no parent to hold your hand. Gojo-sensei wasn’t your parent, but he was a safe harbor. He was the strongest, the smartest. He was your teacher. An immovable mountain. And he wanted you, of all people, some simple vessel with a life debt and a death penalty. He promised away your uneasiness and put his hands over your ears, to block out evil, to block out your own mind.
How could you not collapse into him?
You made the mistake of thinking your pain was the center of the world. He only encouraged you.
Then he locked himself away, and you got a scar between your eyes, and you learned what it meant to kill. And you locked yourself away, because you left a precious part of yourself with him; something that had puddled into his hands when he slept with you in the dark, trickled slowly out of the hole in your body. He kept even that safe.
You lost Nanami. He was right. He was right about a lot of things, not just that.
You lost Kugisaki. Your nerves could not bear her smile, and they snapped. Maybe Gojo’s snapped long ago. Then you taped them back together, and made up a new way of looking at the world.
The box opens. He doesn’t look the same anymore. Nothing about him has changed; it’s only you. When you brush white bangs back from his forehead, the first thing he gasps is
Suguru
In your heart, you fill in the ensuing silence with a waterfall of possible connections.
Suguru, I miss you —
I hate you —
What have you done? Are you still alive?
Can you come back to me?
You don’t even know their story, but the way he says his name is enough.
His eyes lock onto yours. You aren’t sure if he sees you, but you don’t care. You aren’t sure if he ever loved you, but you don’t care.
You kiss his forehead. You cry. You will never return to what you were before, but he offers you what he took with cupped hands anyway. Your body rejects it. He tries to piece you back together, but he cannot. It is a fruitless endeavor. You have become entirely different since he saw you last.
He says, you came —
Good job —
I’m proud. It couldn’t have been easy. I knew you could do it.
Leave it to me, now.
He doesn’t say, please smile. He knows better than that.
He doesn’t know you anymore. You never knew him. (You can love someone you never knew. It happens all the time.) He falls asleep before you; you walk over to the smudged window and heave it open. There is no moon. Outside is a patchwork of deep blues and shadows and all words unspoken. He comes up from behind you and wraps a hand around your waist.
Gojo-sensei, you say. Let’s start over.