Chapter Text
“So, you really don’t care what he thinks?” Shoko asked as you lit her cigarette. “Even I think he was kinda harsh.”
You pocketed your lighter and leaned back against the cold college walls. “He’s got a thing for that black-haired guy.”
“Getou.”
“Sure.” You shrugged and tried to rub the ache out of your neck as you stared up at the bleak, grey skies. The air reeked of petrichor. Thankfully you’d brought an umbrella that day.
“And you’re not bothered he’s in love with Getou?” Your friend continued, her cute bobbed haircut swaying with the tilt of her head. She always looked so charming like that, when she was being a mischievous brat while pretending to be anything but.
“Dunno.” And that was the truth. “He’s not even my type. I’d rather hitch up with someone like you or Nanami. Someone less annoying. Less loud-mouthed.”
“Ooh, that'll hurt his ego.” Shoko smiled. “Well, guess you'll have to learn to deal with it.”
You took a deep breath and rubbed your face as you nodded. “Yeah.”
“Forever is a long time,” You mumbled, leaning your forehead against the cool touch of the window. Rain pittered and pattered, exploding off the glass like trillions of kamikaze planes. It almost birthed some sort of hurt in your chest. Best not to dwell on it, you decided.
“Hah? Are you talking to yourself again like a weirdo?” The one and only Gojo Satoru yowled before kicking you in the rear like a petulant child. “Pft! Figures. Knowing my luck, I would have to get married to a creeper.”
“Even if you married Getou, you'd still be marrying a creep,” you grumbled, dusting the dirt off your behind. “You need something? Or did you harass me just for the fun of it?”
You heard Gojo, your fiancé, scoff and shuffle behind you. “I just wanted to remind you to humble yourself! Just because I'm forced to marry you doesn't mean you're accomplished or cool or anything, got it?”
Being in his presence had you craving a cigarette. “Yeah, got it.”
“And Suguru's better than you,” he added, aloof voice bowing down beneath hardened, steeled words. “Don't forget that either.”
You bit down on your cheek to ward away the heat building under your skin, the magma sinking deep into your eyesockets and threatening to pour down your esophagus. The taste of iron washed against your tongue, and you released your flesh from between your molars. Sometimes, you wanted to keep boring down on yourself to see how much you could really take, but a fear of the answer too often made you think twice.
“This is starting to bore me,” you said, tilting your head as you caught a flicker of red in your rain-muddied reflection. You touched your fingers to your tongue and found blood coating the tips.
“Pah. I was gonna say the same!” You watched his reflection turn away. “Good luck trying to impress me.”
I'm not interested. You watched him walk away, slouching and with his hands in his pockets like he was emulating some kind of yankii character. He might have fit the bill, if he hadn't had such a ridiculous, brat side to him.
Just deal with it. You wiped the red on your uniform with a sigh. Tomorrow's a new day.
“Sorry about Satoru,” Getou said. He'd found you outside, tucked close against the stone wall with a cigarette in your mouth as you watched the downpour. Apparently, he liked the rain, too.
“You don't need to apologize,” you said after a drag. “It's not your fault.” Probably.
The younger sorcerer smiled a little bit wider. “In a way, it almost is; Satoru wouldn't be coming after you if it weren't for my, ah, sheer existence, I guess you could say.”
You shrugged. “You didn't ask to exist,” you said, secretly cringing as the words left your mouth.
Getou laughed. “Ho, that's a good point, I didn't think about it that way.” Another chuckle left him as he leaned against the wall beside you and stared at the rain. “It's definitely Satoru's fault, then.”
You hummed in agreement and offered him a cigarette. He blinked, but plucked one out of the box and looked it over before fumbling to tuck the end into his mouth as you held the lighter's flame out for him. You blocked the wind as he leaned in and inhaled deeply until the butt hissed to life with molten red. A beat later, Getou sputtered and coughed wildly, waving his hand through the air to dismiss your stare and the smoke's mockery.
You frowned. “You don't smoke?”
Your company wheezed and laughed, leaning back against the wall with a humbled smile. “Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” he said. “You and Ieiri—I feel like I never see either of you without a cigarette.”
“Life’s stressful, I guess.” You looked at the half-spent smoke in your hand, exhaling through your nose as you thought.
You saw Getou lean in out of the corner of your eye. His dark hair brushed against your shoulder, though it could have just been the wind, too. “It doesn't affect you?”
“Shoko reverses the negatives,” you grumbled. You stuck the cigarette into the corner of your mouth again before pocketing your hands. “Lung cancer would be an easier out than getting ripped to shreds by a curse, besides.”
“You think so?” Getou teased. “You don't think you'd go mad? Laying in bed, suffocating in your own body, just waiting to die?”
You shrugged. “It's a human way to go, at least. Random. Maybe self-imposed, sometimes. But…normal.”
Time slowed for a second as Getou stared at you. You hazarded a look for once in your life, and caught the enigmatic thing's warm, obsidian eyes. They gave you pause, made you wonder, sent your mind reeling as you caught glints of jagged edges disrupting smooth, volcanic glass.
“Are you alright?” You asked without thinking.
Getou blinked, then smiled. “I just think you're interesting, senpai.” He glanced down at the smoldering stick caught between his fingers. “It's a surprise, to be honest. I think Satoru'll be in good hands with you.”
You stared down at the puddle pooling around your boots. Another self stared back, his image ruined and distorted by raindrops crashing into him, yet he was still clearer than the version trapped in your skull. Maybe the mirrored image was your real self, and you were just the distortion. “I don't have much of a choice, I guess. But I’ll try my best.”
“That’s all we can really hope for with partners, right?”
“Right.” A moment passed. “You’re oddly okay with this.”
“I’m not taking it personally,” Getou said. “How can I? Neither of you want to do this, anyway—you hardly even tolerate each other in the first place, and now Satoru’s gone extra crazy about it.”
The ground felt a little more solid under your feet, and you were a little more real, after those words were spoken. Even the reflection in the puddle grew clearer, revealing fresh colours once concealed by grey thoughts. Something would drain the world of its saturation again, but that moment would stay with you until that day came.
“Thanks,” you said with some difficulty. “The thought’s appreciated.”
“It’s the least I can do.” His hand clasped your shoulder and squeezed gently. You forced yourself not to shrink away from it like a slug trying to flee a grain of salt. “Thanks for putting up with him, senpai. Most people aren’t so charitable. Besides,” he said, leaning in close enough for his breath to brush against your ear, “I get whatever Satoru gets, and you get whatever he has, no? What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours, and all that?”
Heat scattered across your face and prickled the length of your spine. You were foolish to forget that Getou was a menace, just like Gojo, yet somehow more lethal.
“Sure.” You didn’t look at him. You couldn’t look at him. It’d be a death sentence. “You’ll get as much as he gets, I guess.”
Getou chuckled and backed off. “We’ll see.”
Gojo threw open the door to your room and zoomed inside, socked feet sliding against smooth hardwood. “It’s me!”
He slipped and fell as soon as you turned to look at him. “It’s you.” You snatched your walkman out of the air as it tipped off your desk following the sorcerer's tumble. “Why is it you?”
“Rude!” Gojo spat out in-between his pained whining. “I'm your fiancé! I'm allowed to be here!”
“That's not really how that works.” You watched Gojo melt into a starfish, stomach down, cheek smooshed against the floorboards.
And you turned away, back to your work of flipping through astronomical charts and comparing the dates and info with the briefs sent to you, the one third year who bothered to stay. The admins relied on you too much, yet thankfully left the role of guidance counselor and teacher to someone older and more tolerant like Yaga. Still, the sparks of hope that were Utahime and Shoko promised some future relief for—
“Mou, why aren't you more concerned for your fiancé’s well-being?” Gojo whined.
“I'm more concerned about your sudden desire for me to be concerned,” you offered.
Gojo gasped and sat up in a whirlwind. “I never said I desired your concern! That's so salacious.”
“Is this because Getou spoke with me?” You asked, leaning back into your chair with a sigh.
“No!” He rebuked. “Maybe,” he said. “You better not be trying to win him over ‘cause you’re jealous.”
“I’m not interested in him,” you snapped. “I’m not interested in you.”
“Hmmm, sounds fake. Everyone loves me.”
“Right.”
“You think there’s any chance they’ll call off the engagement?”
“No.”
“Can’t you, like, look into the future and figure it out?”
You frowned and sent him a look. “What?”
Gojo swayed side to side, hands tucked in the middle of his criss-crossed legs like a kindergartener. “Isn’t that your thing?” He huffed. “Doing pre-op stuff, predicting future events, never really going out on missions ‘cause you’re low-key kinda weak in the field?” A ghoulish snicker left him. “I mean, you’re waaay weaker than me, so—”
“I don’t divine for myself,” you said, voice sharp and jagged. “I help avoid disasters. I help foresee assignment outcomes and the best way to move towards or away from them. I don’t—” You swallowed and caught your breath. “I don’t divine the fates of people.”
“Well, maybe you should,” Gojo said, sobering slightly. “I don’t wanna do this, you don’t wanna do this, why don’t you just check and see how we can avoid it, huh? This is kind of a natural disaster in its own way.”
“It’s just an arrangement,” you rasped. “You’ll get over it.”
“I shouldn’t have to.” Gojo frowned in return. “I’m gonna be the strongest sorcerer in the world. I don’t have to settle for an arranged marriage.”
Your heart thudded dully in the back of your skull, its rising pace shaking the cage keeping it safe. Your throat tightened, too, while your thoughts warped and rippled into one another like your reflection, unable to stay whole under the devastation of falling rain, until you heard everything but nothing at once.
Your face must have done something strange for Gojo to look at you like you were a kicked puppy. You hated it, the way his expression flickered and the way his posture lost its self-righteous poise despite his childish way of sitting. He looked less-than. You didn’t mean to make him look that way.
“I—” He tried, but you raised a hand. He fell silent.
“I’ll look into it,” you said. “You’ll know if I find anything.”
If Gojo said anything more, you didn't hear it. You shut the rest of the world out and lost yourself in the positions of planets and the elements of each sorcerer available for future missions, comparing and contrasting the direction of energies to decide who would be best suited for which job. Losing your mind in the charts and data calmed your mind and spirit, easing you back down to an equilibrium until the sun rose again and you’d forgotten the turmoil of the hours before.
Morning already. You squinted looking out your window and closed the blinds with a quick snap. Right after the blinds settled, you heard a snore.
Gojo Satoru was asleep in your bed. His gangly arms hugged a pillow to his chest as he laid on his side, facing your way. The odd sight of peace on the younger sorcerer's face drew you in, bringing you close enough to get a good look at the snowy lashes resting against porcelain skin. He always looked odd to you, as though he were some kind of inhuman human, like an alien trying to put on the guise of your fellow terrans. But he was very much human; the glimpses caught of him during a distantly shared childhood proved as much.
I don’t wanna do this, you don’t wanna do this, why don’t you just check and see how we can avoid it, huh?
You'd never tell him you already tried to divine that. You could never relay properly how your mind burned with ways to discount your work and force self-doubt into what you knew to be true time after time after time; you were going to marry him. There was no way out.
But there were still some things you could judge.
You sat down at your desk and skimmed through files until you happened upon Getou Suguru. Your heart hit your ribs a little faster, a little harder, as you found his birthdate and recognized his element as metal. It suited him. Gojo, on the other hand, held earth energy. That coupled with the more Western-normalized fire sign Sagittarius, explained him in a way that could be regarded as violating by those who didn't understand.
You rubbed your brows and squeezed your eyes closed until sparking colours and inky black splotches danced against your eyelids. Charting the stars, understanding people, contrasting energies and suggesting changes to ensure favourable outcomes—all were the culmination of onmyoudou, the ancient art that carved the path and existence for jujutsu, yet people feared an onymoji’s ability to read people more than the destruction caused by sorcerers. Onmyoji helped empires move, assisted in bringing them good fortune and positive outcomes; they could foretell what a person should and shouldn’t do. Clairvoyance born from calculations, and the wielding of shikigami by those clairvoyants, reeked of power and the abuse of it.
Curiosity wrenched your eyes back open. You blinked away the stars and darkness until your vision and mind cleared enough to let you draw up a timeline of events and planets you’d already looked over a thousand times.
You frowned and double checked, triple checked, quadruple checked the facts after a first look. You glanced at birthdates again and again. You looked for anomalies in the calendar and cross-referenced your sources. All stayed the same, all were as they’d been five and sixty minutes ago—you were too good at your job to be wrong, yet you still always held out hope for errors and your own incompetency.
You leaned back in your chair and picked at a hangnail. You can always redirect energy for the sake of a client, you recalled; your mother had taught you as much. It might not be perfect, but we can try. You pulled at the sliver of skin until you gouged it out of your finger, leaving a bloody wound and a shred of relief in its wake.
You jumped as your door slid open to reveal Yaga. His train of thought stopped dead in its tracks as he spied the bratty Gojo curled up in your bed, snoozing without a care.
“What the hell is he doin’ here?” Your teacher groused.
“He came in to harass me, I guess,” you said. “Then apparently fell asleep when I started ignoring him.”
“Hah. Yeah, that kid can't function unless someone's giving him attention.” Your superior sighed and crossed his arms. “Anyway, you have those predictions?”
“Yeah, I—yeah, just one second.” You rubbed your eyes and begged the rest of your lifeforce to lock it in as you saved documents and compiled them in an email for all the higher-ups to view. Something about the process made your spine rattle; it must have been the fear of not CC-ing someone by accident. “Sent.”
Yaga checked his phone as it dinged. He took a moment to skim through the forecast and nodded, letting you stand impatiently before him.
“Looks like you touched on everything,” he said as he tucked his phone away. “Good job. Now get some rest, you look like shit.”
Yaga took his leave, and you stared at the oversized baby hogging your bed.
Rest. You nudged and pushed Gojo into the wall before collapsing beside him. Right.