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15
She had been too young when she lit her first cigarette. Their teacher had given her an odd look, the reprimand sitting on the tip of his tongue the moment he caught a whiff of the familiar sting. You’re too young for that, he would have said. Truthfully she had been young for a lot of things in her life, and smoking pales in comparison to the burden she had to carry every day. Hers was such a heavy responsibility for a child, but Ieiri Shoko had never complained, so Yaga-sensei let her do whatever she wanted. It wasn’t like he could lecture her into what she was too young for and what she was not. Not when he was partially one of the reasons she wasn’t the kid she was supposed to be.
“You’re going to die first if you keep doing that, right?”
Shoko drew in a breath, her unlit cigarette caught between her teeth. She didn’t need to look back to see that it was one of her classmates. It hadn’t been long since they first met, so if she was being honest, she doesn’t even remember his name. She usually didn’t bother to get into his and their other classmate’s little squabbles.
“Lucky for you, I’m one who quite literally can’t die.” She smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to have a lighter, don’t you?”
The guy tilted his head, those weird bangs of his swinging to one side. “You’re the master at Reverse Cursed Technique, right? The one who can apply it to others? Sho-chan?”
Shoko rolled her eyes at the familiarity. “Buy me a drink first, why don’t you?” Bless his heart, he had the decency to blush.
“It’s what Satoru calls you.” He replied. “Said I should call you that too.”
“Satoru…” Shoko repeated, a small chuckle escaping her. She caught the cigarette between her fingers and shook her head. “You can’t trust a word out of that guy’s mouth.”
He blinked. “All he’s been saying are praises about you, so I hope that’s not true.”
She turned to look at him fully this time. Shoko hadn’t been at the high school long enough, but she knew she was here before her two other classmates had been admitted. Gojo Satoru, heir of the Gojo Clan that he was, didn’t even get admitted until a full two weeks after her. This other guy who she hadn’t deemed important enough to remember the name of had joined another two days after him.
If she was being honest, they don’t really even spend the majority of their classes together, considering she was never really fit for the field, nor did she wish to train in that aspect. The other two however, had skillsets more fit for missions — Gojo Satoru may be an idiot, but his Limitless Cursed Technique was enough to send even the higher ups as close to on their knees as they could get, and this other guy was also apparently a Special Grade, with the ability to absorb curses and their abilities.
“He’s an idiot,” Shoko finally said.
“He is.” The guy paused, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s also worried … about you.”
That actually got a genuine laugh out of Shoko for once. “Why the hell would that stupid guy be worried about me?”
“You are the only one capable of using Reverse Cursed Technique on others.” He replied, but he had folded in on himself a little. Evidence that he hadn’t really wanted to be here in the first place. “It’s in my best interest to keep you alive. I can’t really use Reverse Cursed Technique even on myself.”
“You haven’t been injured enough to get sent to me yet, big guy.” She sighed, jumping off her seat as she began to chew on the unlit cigarette on her mouth. “I say you’re holding out well enough on your own.”
He took a second to process her slurred words. “Yaga-sensei thinks you’re going to spiral by the end of the semester.” He said. He wasn’t comfortable to be here talking to her, but it was clear he could get used to pretending as if he was talking to a toddler. Being close with Gojo Satoru, unstoppable force, must have trained him for this.
“A cigarette is not going to keep me from using my technique on you.” Shoko rolled her eyes.
“Still.” He reasoned. “You’re fifteen.”
“And I’m assuming so are you, yet you’re swallowing curses left and right.” That seemed to have hit a nerve, but that had never stopped Shoko. “Do these people even know what curses taste like?”
“Do you?”
It was clear, unabashed curiosity. Probably even desperation if Shoko was being honest.
“I read.” She answered simply. “They taste like shit.”
“They do.” The guy agreed. He looked down, his hands in his pockets. “Probably tastes as bad as a cigarette.”
She laughed. “Don’t start.”
“Satoru’s too scared to check on you himself.” He said. “He wants us to get close. Found family, we’re all each other has, and all that.”
“He has a clan literally licking the path he walks on,” Shoko replied, angstily twisting the unlit cigarette in her fingers. She started to wonder how long this guy would stall her. “I doubt he needs to find any of that found family shit.”
The guy smiled. “That’s true. But he wants to get to know us. People actually his age, you know, and not some shrivelled up uncle.”
“He can offer me a cigarette and maybe then, we’ll talk.”
“You’re going to shorten your lifespan by years.” He reasoned. “Yaga-sensei told me Reverse Cursed Technique doesn’t work the same way if it’s for mundane things like lung cancer.”
“What is with you and wanting to keep me alive, anyway?” She asked, genuinely curious. “In this line of work, I’ll be lucky to make it to eighteen.”
Silence.
They haven’t known each other for long. Probably only about a week. They had one class together in that time duration and even then, he had spent the entire class arguing with Gojo and pissing off Yaga-sensei to the point that the class had to be cancelled. She wasn’t even entirely sure he knew her full name, much less think of a reason he could possibly have to start acting like her mother.
“Gojo and I have a bet on who’s going to die first.” The guy explained.
Shoko blinked. Ah, that explains it. If she were any other person, she would have been horrified by how morbid a bet that was, but such was normal for jujutsu sorcerers.
“I’m guessing you bet against me?”
“You said it yourself,” He shrugged. “You’ll just heal yourself up. Plus, you’re not in the field.”
“My money’s on you.” Shoko said.
That honesty would have been callous if not for the fact that in their line of work, corpses were a commodity. By the way he smiled, he knew that as well. “Me too.”
“I’m not going to die on you, so leave me and my cigarettes alone.” She chastised, a hand on her hip. “Call it a coping mechanism, whatever. I like it.”
“That’s gotta be unhealthy.”
Shoko smiled. “Gojo can keep swallowing up as many sweets as he can to distract his brain from going into overload. You can keep doing … whatever it is you want to do. And I can have my cigarettes. How about that?”
“You don’t even know my name, don’t you?” There was a smile on his face now too.
She blew out an invisible cloud of smoke. “Better hope I’ll be alive long enough to figure that out, hotshot.”
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The next time Ieiri Shoko saw him, he offered to light her cigarette. The lighter on him had Geto Suguru written on the sides in neat handwriting.
She smiled and blew out a cloud of smoke in his direction.
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19
September in Tokyo had always been pretty. Shoko may be biased, but she always loved the ambiance of it. She noticed there’s always less tourists, and even though Tokyo was always crowded, it was a little less so this time of the year.
The bus was taking too long to get here. It was on time, as it usually was, but her impatience was getting the better of her. She had lost her lighter on the field while healing a wounded colleague, and it’s been minutes since she had her last fix. Normally, she could’ve gone hours before lighting another one again, but desperate times called for desperate measures, so here she was, tapping her foot against the concrete as she fought to scream her lungs out.
It was no secret she had been spiralling.
Yaga-sensei noted the way her hair was growing longer, something she never allowed to happen before. They were reaching her shoulders now, straight and dull. She was never seen without a cigarette now too, always lighting one up the moment the last one went out. Alcohol somehow got into the equation as well, and Satoru had not known what to say when he carried her back from a bar just after they found out. Her memory was hazy, but she remembered him bringing her back into their dorms, changing her clothes, and curling up beside her against both of their better judgements.
Nobody would admit it. Gojo himself was sometimes still in denial, going through the five stages of grief like a cycle, repeating through it every other week. She wouldn’t admit it. Being sent on field missions as backup was now something she was doing, apparently, even though she knew her skillset wasn’t built for that, nor was she supposed to be allowed to put herself in that kind of risk.
She was invaluable, after all. Yet she was going to lose her mind if she wasn’t exposed to the real world after everything that had happened, and Yaga-sensei had made the executive decision to allow her into the field.
“Need a fire?”
She didn’t even have the energy to pretend she wasn’t pleased to see him. Criminal outlaw and all that, Geto Suguru stood just a couple of steps away from her. He had traded in his old jujutsu uniform for a pair of sweatpants and a dark sweater, weird bangs still in place as he waved to her.
“If it isn’t the fugitive himself.” She said, her voice clipped. There was a smile on her face though, and she wondered if he could tell it was mostly real. “I thought you wanted me to quit smoking.”
He walked towards her, hands playing with a lighter. As she leaned down to the fire he sparked, she could see the neatly written handwriting of his name on the sides. The lighter hadn’t been used much, that she knew, but it was clear it was held a lot in the time they’ve been apart, if the fading letters of his name were any indication.
“I do.” He said, tucking the lighter safely into his pocket. She had the urge to ask for it, but something selfish inside her wanted him to keep it as a piece of her despite everything.
“By any chance… Were those charges false?”
No. “No.”
“You’re going to die first.” She said, and to anybody listening, it would have been a weird segue. Suguru, however, smiled. “Why?”
“I want to create a world where only shamans exist.” He replied.
Shoko wanted to say she didn’t understand. She wanted to be able to say that he was being outrageous and that this was hilarious and that he needed to get a grip, but she couldn’t. The signs were there, and even though both she and Satoru never noticed — or perhaps, acknowledged it — it was clear Suguru had begun spiralling after the death of Amanai Riko, and the assassination attempt on Satoru.
Non-sorcerers weren’t easy to stand for. They lied and they hurt and they don’t even know the sacrifices Shoko and the others have made for them. They were ungrateful, and they were vile, and they were partly the reason they even had to do this to begin with. Every loss and pain they had to shoulder for people who don’t know any better — who can’t even be grateful — was bound to break somebody, but she had never expected it to break Suguru.
Strong, chivalrous Suguru, who wanted to keep her alive. Righteous Suguru, who believed it was the strong’s duty to protect the weak. Suguru, who she never expected to break under the cruelty of the unknowing people they had to protect.
Perhaps that was her first mistake.
Seeing Satoru, the strongest, on the brink of death by the hands of a man with no cursed energy would have broke her too. Maybe she didn’t have the power and the means that Suguru had to be able to do the things he’s been doing now, but she would have done something. And it wouldn’t have been anything good.
“You won’t try to kill me?” He has the audacity to ask.
Shoko was sure that even if she could, she wouldn’t have been able to. Such were the effects of Satoru’s wish — found family, we’re all each other has, and all that. Sometimes she regretted just how real those words had become, because then she would’ve been able to get her phone out and call for the school. She would’ve been able to ask them to come and contain her friend who had now become the most dangerous curse user in the entire jujutsu community.
“I wouldn’t be able to. Not the way Satoru could.”
Suguru looked down at her. She had always been a little behind both of her friends when it came to height, but the difference had never felt so staggering now that Suguru didn’t bother to slouch like he always had.
“You’re not going to call him?” He asked.
Testing his luck, he really was. If she were any wiser, she would.
She blew out a cloud of smoke in his direction. “Not yet.”
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“Why didn’t you kill him?”
Yaga-sensei knew better than to expect an answer from her, but he asked it all the same. Shoko inhaled, and blew out the smoke aimlessly. “I can’t.” It wasn’t a good enough reason, and by all accounts, she should have been punished for neglecting her duties as a jujutsu sorcerer.
Both of them knew the unasked elephant in the room though, but they knew he wouldn’t have been able to do it either.
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28
“I owe you.”
Satoru had been silent, and he had said only that as they faced each other, on opposite sides of the autopsy table.
“Smoking was never going to make me die first, Satoru.”
“A man can dream.”
Shoko willed herself to look into the corpse of her friend. His eyes were closed, and he looked peaceful, almost young. Right arm torn at the shoulder, his side was wet with darkening blood. She would have to strip those clothes herself and clean him up, do her usual routine as with any other corpse. As if this wasn’t her best friend. As if they hadn’t once been a family that found each other. As if they weren’t once all the other had had.
It almost made her want to pick up another cigarette, despite all the years it had been since she had last done that.
Five years, to be exact. She had stopped smoking on her twenty-third birthday, smoking her last one with Satoru, who had coughed and wheezed through it until it snuffed out. There was never really a reason for the sudden decision, but using Reverse Cursed Technique was now something Satoru had realised was cheating against their bet, and he had demanded she stopped doing it. The idiot was still trying to kill the only one he had left because of a stupid bet from their high school days. Still, she had indulged him and stopped altogether, his number on her phone on speed dial whenever she has the urge to reach for one.
Most of the times, those urges would occur on September.
She had done autopsies on her colleagues before. Being the only doctor on call in the school and for people working in the field, she had her fair share of mournful partners sitting in the background as she went about her work, listening to their regrets. Sometimes, when she was feeling particularly heartless, she would be annoyed at the emotional state of them. There were moments where she chose to ignore all their babbling, stitching and cleaning as she went, none the wiser to the sobs in the background.
Geto Suguru’s body on her table seemed to have shaken her to the core, though, and as grown as she was, she wanted nothing more than to curl into his side the way Satoru had with her when they first got the news of his defection.
“You have a fire?” She joked, her voice weak.
“Don’t be stupid, Sho-chan. I never did.” Satoru answered, and they both knew what he chose not to say.
“Why’d he start carrying around that lighter, anyway?” She managed to ask.
She was glad she was wearing a mask, as having her face half covered would have Satoru none the wiser of her teeth attempting to chatter. Her hands shook against the gloves, and she flexed her fingers as she moved the scissor to cut through his clothes.
“You.” Satoru said, the usual indifferent smile on his face. There had been something else in his expression, something that she didn’t want to unpack. “It had always been for you.”
Shoko managed to swallow back the bile in her throat, her stomach dropping.
“That bet was a little joke we had, and I bet you would die first because of your ridiculous nicotine addiction.” He laughed, though it sounded empty. “For all his talk about wanting to keep you alive, he sure as hell was too committed to taking that damn lighter everywhere he went.”
“I can heal myself, Satoru.” She reasoned, before wondering why she was even bothering defending his honour. Four of their students were in the hospital wing right now, injured but now dead, which both of them had expected.
“He knew that. Probably the reason he didn’t bet on you.” Satoru explained. He plopped himself down on the chair in the far corner, and Shoko spared him a glance. He was not wearing his usual blindfold, leaving his eyes clear as he surveyed her work. “Or maybe because he just liked the thought of you outliving us.”
“Your pride couldn’t handle that.” She said, as she shrugged the upper half of his clothes off. His body was filled with bruises and cuts, no doubt from Okkotsu Yuta before Satoru had even arrived at the scene.
“No.” He agreed with a large grin. “But we really wouldn’t know what to do without you. Suguru, especially. He wouldn’t have known what to do.”
Satoru wasn’t usually this honest. Perhaps death has made him soft for now, and she knew that she should treasure this moment of vulnerability with him now more than ever, when she was so sure those walls of his would be back up even higher after Suguru’s death has sunk in.
“Yeah, he would’ve.” Shoko countered softly. “He would’ve defected.”
“You’re different.” Satoru said, laughing. “To him, I mean. Oh man, you really were.”
“What would he have done then, if you know so well?” She asked against her better judgement.
Satoru’s laughter ceased. She spared a glance at him to see his stare had glazed over, quite a rare occurrence for the Six Eyes.
“He would’ve…” He began. “He would’ve been too broken to defect, Shoko. Probably would have drunk himself into a stupor and tried smoking. I’d be the one going on a rampage, Suguru would just want a piece of you with him.”
She hasn’t heard him call her Shoko in a long time. Maybe ever. Perhaps they both weren’t in their right state of mind just yet, still reeling, probably not even processing the dead body on her autopsy table was their best friend. It hadn’t felt real, even with the feeling of his cold dead skin under her gloves.
Suguru had always been warm, that she knew for sure.
This body wasn’t Suguru’s. This body was cold and bloody and missing a right arm. The same right arm he’d use to reach into his pocket and light her cigarette with, the same right arm he’d use to wrangle Satoru whenever he got a little too rowdy. His eyes were closed, his hair left down from his usual style. There was a cut on his face, on his usually unstained cheek. His eyelashes were wet, and if Shoko had any less restraint, she would have run her thumb along them, wiping away his tears.
This wasn’t their Suguru.
Her vision blurred and her hand slipped against the table, something falling from his pocket at the movement. She didn’t even notice she had faltered from her spot before she felt Satoru’s arms around her, and she almost jumped at the feeling of him, not knowing how long it had been since he had turned off his infinity to get this close to her.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t. “Okay.” Satoru wasn’t either.
It was a mercy to act like they didn’t know that, so he held her up as she willed her knees to start doing their goddamn job again. She couldn’t be bothered to act ashamed that she was using Satoru as leverage to be able to stand, and they had been through too much together for him to deny her this. He may have been an idiot who liked to tease, but she was the only one he really had now, and so he held her up.
She was only starting to get a hold of herself when her vision cleared enough to see what had fallen to the floor.
The lighter had faded in age. Geto Suguru had long been erased from the sides of it, but the butane itself had been unused. It was clear it had been fiddled with in its lifetime, and Shoko liked to think that he’d bring it out to think of her sometimes, of the life he left behind all those years ago. Perhaps it was the piece of her Suguru couldn’t bear to lose despite everything, bringing it along even when he was standing on the opposite side of the battlefield, believing the opposite side of the spectrum.
“Sho-chan.” Satoru said, his voice gentle for once.
“I’m okay.” She bent down to retrieve the fallen lighter, and her hand itches to grab at the pack of cigarettes she always kept in her pocket despite quitting five years ago. “I’ll be alright.”
Satoru knew she was lying, but then again, he was too, so he held her up all the same.
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The next time Gojo Satoru saw her, she was on a window seat somewhere in the old classrooms they never use anymore. She hadn’t noticed him at the door, fiddling with the lighter that had fallen from Suguru’s pocket.
When she lit a cigarette and blew a cloud of smoke in front of her, he said nothing and walked away.