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I should’ve killed him.
That was the consensus. That was the order.
The moment I stepped into that alley, the world narrowed to one singular thread: Suguru Geto. He was already on his knees, barely conscious. Bloody. Weak. Broken in all the ways that counted. His cursed spirits dispersed like smoke. His body trembled under the weight of a thousand wrong decisions.
And when our eyes met, he didn’t flinch. He smiled.
Like he wanted to die.
Like I was doing him a favor.
But my hands—those hands that could level a city, erase a soul, warp time and space—couldn’t move. Couldn’t kill him. Not Suguru.
Instead, I reached out. And for a moment, I thought maybe I was the one bleeding out. Maybe I had gone insane.
But I picked him up.
He was heavier than I remembered.
He didn’t wake up for days.
Shoko didn’t say anything when I brought him in. Just stared at the mess I dumped onto her table, and then at me. Her cigarette hung loose between her lips.
“You’re insane,” she said finally.
“Probably,” I replied.
She didn’t press. Just started working. She looked exhausted the entire time, like she was stitching up an old friend’s ghost.
He lost the arm. Shoko tried, god, she tried. But it was too far gone, the cursed rot had spread too fast. And there were too many other injuries to prioritize—chest wounds, fractures, internal bleeding, infection...
He wasn’t supposed to live.
But he did.
Somehow.
Because I brought him in. Because I couldn’t let go.
I sat beside him every day. I didn’t speak. Just... watched him breathe. The rise and fall of his chest. The twitch in his fingers. The way his mouth would pull into slight frowns, even in unconsciousness, like he was arguing with death.
His hair was longer. Messier. His skin pale. Scarred now, even before Shoko finished closing everything.
The great Suguru Geto, crumpled in a hospital bed.
And I—I didn’t know if I was waiting for him to wake up or begging the universe to keep him asleep. Because what the hell do you say to someone like that?
What do you say to someone you should’ve killed?
“Hi.”
His eyes opened.
A slow blink. His lashes were crusted, his pupils adjusting to the overhead light. Then they found me.
He didn’t speak for a long moment. Just looked at me like I was a dream. Or maybe a hallucination. Or a memory of a friend he once loved.
Then he moved.
Or tried to.
A gasp tore from his throat as he tried to lift his left arm—only to find nothing there.
He looked down.
He stared.
I didn’t move.
His voice was hoarse when it finally came out. “What...?”
“You’re in Tokyo,” I said, casually, like it was any other day. “Shoko worked on you. You’re alive.”
His eyes dragged up, slow and disbelieving.
“You didn’t kill me.”
“Nope.”
“You were supposed to.”
“Mm-hm.”
Silence.
His breathing hitched.
“You should’ve,” he said, quieter now. “You were supposed to. That was the deal.”
I reached for the cup of water on the bedside table and offered it to him. He didn’t take it.
So I drank it myself.
“You lost an arm,” I said.
“I noticed.”
“Thought you should know.”
“Why didn’t you do it?” His voice was raspier now, strained. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
I leaned back in the chair and let my head tilt against the wall. There was a drip machine humming quietly next to us, and the sun was low through the blinds. Golden hour. It always made things look softer than they were.
“Because I didn’t want to,” I said simply.
He stared.
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“The higher-ups—”
“Wanted your head on a spike. Still do.”
“Then why—”
“Because I don’t care what they want,” I interrupted, sharp this time. I met his eyes. “You think I give a damn about those fossils and their fake morality?”
His lips pressed into a thin line. I could see the tension in his neck. The grief clinging to him like smoke.
“I hurt people, Satoru. I killed them. I betrayed everything.”
“I know.”
“So why?”
I stood up.
Not in anger. Not in frustration. I just couldn’t sit anymore. I walked to the window, hands in my pockets. My reflection in the glass was faint—tired. I hadn’t slept.
“They would’ve just used it as an excuse,” I murmured. “Another name to add to their hate list. Another reason to tighten the leash. Kill Geto Suguru, the traitor. Let Gojo do the dirty work. Just another weapon in their arsenal.”
He was quiet behind me.
“I’m tired of being their dog,” I said.
I turned to him.
He looked smaller in the bed. Gaunt. Fragile. Like if I said the wrong thing, he might disappear.
And maybe he would.
“So,” I said, “I decided to be selfish.”
He blinked.
“They want you dead. And maybe you think you should be. But I don’t. So I’m keeping you.”
“You’re... keeping me?”
“Yup.”
“Like a stray?”
“Exactly like a stray.”
A broken sound came from his throat—half-sob, half-laugh. He turned his head away from me and exhaled slowly.
“I don’t deserve it.”
“Probably not.”
“Then why—”
“Because I don’t care, Suguru!” The words came out sharper than I meant. I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t care what you deserve. I care that you’re here.”
More silence.
Then, so quiet I almost didn’t catch it:
“I wanted to die.”
I swallowed.
“I know.”
“I thought you’d... do it.”
I walked back over and sat down again. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and looked him straight in the eye.
“If anyone else tries to hurt you,” I said, “I’ll kill them first.”
His eyes widened.
“I mean it. Higher-ups, other clans, even your little cult—especially your little cult. You’re mine now.”
“Yours?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yup. And selfish. And powerful enough to get away with it.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Like he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Then, finally—finally—he said: “I don’t know who I am anymore, Satoru.”
I reached out.
Carefully. Gently.
And for the first time in years, I touched him.
My hand landed on his cheek, warm and solid.
“I do,” I said.
His eyes shone.
And he didn’t turn away.
Later, in the quiet of the hospital room, after the lights were dimmed and the city buzzed faintly outside, he said:
“Do you regret it?”
“No.”
“I’m a mess.”
“I know.”
“I might never be whole again.”
I leaned back in the chair, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest.
“You’re still Suguru.”
“That might not be a good thing.”
“It’s the only thing I want.”
That night, he fell asleep with his one hand curled near his chest. He looked vulnerable. Like a boy. Like the student I used to laugh with. The partner I used to fight beside.
And I sat there, guarding him from the ghosts.
I couldn’t save him before.
But I would now.
Even if it meant tearing the world apart.
It started with the small things.
Brushing teeth. Tying robes. Buttoning shirts.
I pretended not to notice at first—how long he stared at his reflection, or how tense his shoulders got when he tried to open a door and it wouldn’t cooperate. It wasn’t pity. I just didn’t want to humiliate him. He already looked at his left side like it was haunted.
“I can do it,” he said once, teeth clenched, when I went to help him put on a shirt.
I didn’t argue. Just nodded and stepped back. I watched the struggle out of the corner of my eye, silent, until the sleeve finally made it over his shoulder. He sat down on the bed afterward and didn’t move for five whole minutes.
The bruises were still fading from his skin. His body still shook when he slept. And his eyes—those eyes that used to burn with conviction—were quiet now. Cautious. Empty sometimes.
I made him tea in the mornings. He never asked. I just did it. I’d set the cup down in front of him and ramble about the news, or a mission I skipped, or how Nanami still acted like he was 40 years older than he was. Geto didn’t say much. Just stared at the steam for a while before drinking it.
“You always make genmaicha,” he said one morning.
“It’s the best tea,” I said.
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“I liked houjicha more.”
I looked up from my seat. His voice had an edge of life to it. Small, subtle. But there.
I grinned. “Houjicha it is.”
The next day, I bought five brands of it. Made him taste test each one.
He rolled his eyes, but he smiled a little when he thought I wasn’t looking.
It took a few weeks for the first threat to come.
A sealed envelope. No name, just an old wax insignia of one of the smaller clans. I opened it while Geto was asleep.
Inside was a polite letter:
“We understand your connection to the traitor, but we must insist that this blight be handled properly. Failure to do so will force us to escalate the matter.”
I burned it.
Then I went to their compound and escalated first.
They weren’t expecting me.
I didn’t kill anyone that time—just shattered some bones, ripped apart their barrier, and left one of the heads with a fractured skull and a very clear message.
They wouldn’t send another letter.
“You’re bleeding.”
Geto stood in the kitchen doorway, frowning at me.
I glanced down. There was a slash across my arm, barely noticeable. I hadn’t even realized I’d taken a hit.
“Occupational hazard,” I said, reaching for a paper towel.
“Did you go somewhere?”
I shrugged. “Just out.”
He watched me clean the wound, his expression unreadable.
Then, quietly: “Was it because of me?”
I froze.
The silence stretched.
I didn’t lie.
“Yes.”
He looked down.
I turned toward him. “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t look like that. I made the choice. I’d make it again.”
“Satoru—”
“I told you,” I interrupted. “I’m being selfish. I’m keeping you. They want to touch you? They go through me.”
His throat bobbed.
“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he said.
“You didn’t have to.”
The second threat came less politely.
A direct summons from the higher-ups. They didn’t dare issue it publicly—not when I was still the strongest—but I knew what it meant. They wanted a face-to-face. A warning, maybe. A chance to remind me who signed the paychecks.
I didn’t show up.
Instead, I sent them a message.
Three scrolls.
One contained a photograph of Geto lying in bed, peaceful and alive.
The second held the shredded remains of their original execution order.
The third had one sentence:
“Touch him, and I’ll put all your names on a tombstone.”
They didn’t reply.
“Is that wise?” Shoko asked me later, after stitching up a dislocated shoulder from another clan trying to ‘take matters into their own hands.’
“Probably not.”
She lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “You really are ready to burn it all down, huh?”
“If it keeps him breathing?” I met her eyes. “Every last brick.”
She didn’t argue.
Just exhaled smoke and muttered, “You always were a pain in the ass.”
Geto started venturing outside a few weeks later.
Not far. Just down the hallway. Sometimes into the garden behind the compound I rented. I caught him once, standing barefoot in the grass, the morning sun casting long shadows across his frame. He looked... lighter. Not happy. But present.
He didn’t see me watching. I didn’t say anything.
Another time, I found him sitting in the hallway, knees pulled close, watching students train from a distance.
“Do you miss it?” I asked, sliding down the wall beside him.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Not the missions. The rest of it.”
“The kids?”
“The noise. The camaraderie. The idea that we were doing something right.”
I didn’t speak.
He looked at me.
“I lost my way, Satoru.”
I didn’t say no, you didn’t. That would’ve been a lie.
Instead, I said, “Then let’s find a new one.”
He blinked at me.
“You and me,” I continued. “Forget the Jujutsu world. They already wrote us off. Let’s make our own rules now.”
He stared.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
One night, he woke up screaming.
I was already up—I don’t sleep much anymore. I rushed in and found him tangled in sheets, breathing hard, soaked in sweat.
His eyes were wild.
I touched his shoulder, gently. “Suguru.”
He flinched so violently I thought he’d hit me.
But he didn’t. He just stared at me, chest heaving.
“It was just a dream,” I said quietly.
“...I killed children.”
His voice was broken. Barely there.
I didn’t respond right away.
Because there was no defense for it. No erasing it. No fixing it.
But I didn’t look away.
“You’re here now,” I said. “And they can’t take that from us.”
He didn’t cry. He never cried.
But he collapsed into me that night. And I held him until morning.
I killed six more people over the next two months.
Not civilians. Not innocents. Just the ones who tried to take him from me. The ones who sent bounty hunters. The ones who tried to drag his name through the mud even after the dust had settled.
I didn’t feel guilt.
I felt relief.
They deserved worse.
And I had the power to give it to them.
We started eating dinner together every night.
He cooked once, awkwardly, one-handed, and I helped him chop vegetables even though I could have done it all with Cursed Technique. He rolled his eyes when I offered to float the knife in the air with Blue.
“I’d rather not lose my other arm,” he said flatly.
“Rude.”
“You’re a menace.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smirked. Just for a second.
And I held onto that like it was sacred.
There was a night—months in—when the lights flickered in the hallway.
Old wiring. Or something supernatural. We never figured it out.
But I found him sitting on the floor again, back to the wall, knees pulled to his chest.
I sat next to him without asking.
“It’s not fair,” he said after a long pause.
“What isn’t?”
“That I get this.” He motioned around. “Peace. Safety. You.”
I tilted my head. “Would you rather I killed you?”
“No.” The answer came quickly. Then, quieter: “But I still don’t think I deserve it.”
I thought for a moment.
Then I said, “It’s not about what you deserve.”
He looked over.
“It’s about what I want,” I said. “And I want you. Here. Breathing. Alive.”
He didn’t speak.
So I added, “You can try to earn it, if it makes you feel better. But it’s not going to change my mind.”
He exhaled, deep and slow.
And then, in the quiet, he leaned his head against my shoulder.
I started sleeping again.
Only a little.
But enough.
Sometimes he stared at his scars. Touched them. Not in shame. More like curiosity. As if he was still surprised his body hadn’t just given up.
Once, I caught him watching me train. I was showing Yuuji a reversal technique and nearly threw my back out pretending it was difficult. When I turned, Geto was by the door, arms crossed, something like fond exasperation on his face.
Later that day, he said, “You’re still showing off for children, I see.”
“I’m always impressive,” I said.
“You’re also aging terribly.”
“Rude.”
He stopped flinching when I touched him.
Started leaning into it.
I’d brush past him in the hallway and his fingers would graze mine. Small, tentative things.
And one morning, while we were both brushing our teeth, he looked at me through the mirror and said, “You look tired.”
I spat into the sink. “Rude.”
“Let me finish.”
He rinsed his mouth and turned to face me.
“...But you’re smiling more now.”
I blinked.
And he smiled, soft and real.
I don’t know when I fell asleep beside him. Only that I woke up to his hand resting gently over mine.
His breathing was steady. His expression relaxed.
No ghosts.
No screams.
Just us.
In the silence, I whispered, “I’ll kill the whole world if I have to, Suguru.”
He didn’t wake.
But I think, deep down, he already knew.
Sometimes, I forgot how quiet he could be.
Suguru was never the loud one, not like I was. He existed in stillness, filled silences like breath — subtle, natural, constant. Even back then, he never needed to talk much. He was all expression: a sharp glance, a twitch of his brow, a knowing smile. And now, with the world no longer demanding his rage or conviction, he was softening even more into that silence.
But not in a way that worried me.
Not anymore.
Now it felt like he was choosing to be here. In this quiet. With me.
The first time he laughed — actually laughed — it was over something stupid.
I had burned the rice.
Not just a little. Completely. Smoke had filled the kitchen. The smoke alarm was shrieking. I was waving a towel like a lunatic and Suguru had walked in with this completely blank expression until he saw the blackened pot and my panicked face.
He snorted first.
Then he laughed. Full-on laughed.
It hit me like a punch to the ribs.
“God, you’re hopeless,” he said, wiping his eyes. “How did you survive on your own?”
“I have fans,” I said. “They cook for me.”
“Fans?”
“I’m very popular.”
“Mm. Pity.”
But he was still smiling. Wide, real.
And I burned rice on purpose the next week just to hear it again.
He started growing plants.
It wasn’t something I expected. But one day I came home and there were three potted succulents lined up on the windowsill. A few weeks later, he was tending to small herbs in the courtyard. Basil, mint, rosemary.
“Do you know how to cook with those?” I asked.
“No.”
“So why—”
“They’re alive.”
That was all he said.
But I got it.
Spring came.
We were still tucked away in the mountains outside Tokyo. Far enough from the higher-ups’ reach, close enough that I could teleport if I had to. Suguru spent more time in the sun. He wore lighter robes now, looser sleeves, hair tied in a low knot at his nape.
Sometimes, I caught myself just… watching him.
Watching the way his eyes tracked birds across the sky. Or how he crouched down to water a seedling, the ends of his sleeves dragging in the dirt. Or how he tucked his hand into his sleeve now, the one where his arm used to be, like he wasn’t ready for it to be seen but didn’t want to hide from it anymore either.
There was grace in him still.
Even broken.
Maybe especially then.
He stopped sleeping in the guest room.
No announcement. No explanation.
One night, he followed me into mine. Pulled the sheets back. Climbed in.
Didn’t say a word.
And I didn’t ask.
I just reached over, turned off the lamp, and shifted closer so our legs touched under the blankets.
He sighed, long and deep. Then his fingers curled gently into the fabric of my shirt.
That was it.
From then on, the space between us belonged to neither of us.
I wanted to kiss him.
I didn’t. Not right away. Not even when he leaned close while pouring tea, or when his fingers brushed mine as we passed things back and forth, or when he fell asleep with his head on my shoulder during one of those long, rainy afternoons.
I waited.
Because this wasn’t about me.
This was about giving him room to come back on his own terms.
“You’re watching me again,” he said one evening, not looking up from his book.
“Mm.”
“Why?”
“You’re prettier than the mountains.”
He rolled his eyes, but I saw the flush creep up his neck.
“Liar.”
“I don’t lie,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “I just exaggerate poetically.”
“That’s worse.”
“Not to poets.”
He turned a page. But his smile lingered.
He asked me to help him bathe.
That was the first time he looked afraid again.
It wasn’t about nudity. It wasn’t even about the scars. It was the vulnerability.
“I can do it myself,” he said. “It just takes a while. But…”
He looked down.
“But it hurts,” I finished for him.
A nod.
So I helped.
I kept it respectful. I didn’t touch more than he allowed. Held the washcloth gently. Poured water over his back. Washed his hair like I used to when we were seventeen and invincible.
When I dried him off, he didn’t speak.
Just looked at me with this strange, unreadable softness.
Later that night, I felt his lips brush my cheek as I dozed off.
He kissed me for the first time in the garden.
It wasn’t a big moment. We weren’t arguing. We weren’t laughing. We were just standing there, side by side, watching the sky shift to lavender at dusk. He leaned into me, gently. I felt his forehead rest against my shoulder.
Then he looked up.
And kissed me.
Quietly.
Without fear.
Without hesitation.
It lasted all of four seconds. Five, maybe.
But my world cracked open.
“I think I love you,” he said, days later, while we were folding laundry.
“Think?”
“Don’t push it.”
I chuckled. “You took long enough.”
“I didn’t want to ruin it.”
“You didn’t.”
He didn’t say anything else. But he folded his shirt one-handed, slowly, and brushed his fingers against mine as he passed it over.
We sat outside together that night, backs against the porch steps.
“Do you ever wonder what it would’ve been like?” he asked. “If none of it happened?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you hate me for it?”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Then I said, “No. I hate that I wasn’t enough to stop it.”
“You couldn’t have been.”
“I wanted to be.”
His hand found mine.
“You were enough to bring me back.”
Love came in small, consistent things.
In the way he started humming while watering plants. In how he sat beside me while I read mission reports and occasionally leaned over to correct my grammar. In how he put tea on for me before I even asked. In how his body slowly found rhythm with mine again, curling around me in sleep, waking beside me with quiet contentment.
He still had nightmares. But fewer.
He still stared at his scars. But softer.
He still doubted. But he let me hold the weight of those doubts, at least sometimes.
The world didn’t forget him.
But it stopped trying to reach him.
Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the message I carved into the ground every time someone tried to hurt what was mine.
Either way, they left us alone.
And in that silence, he learned to live again.
We didn’t talk about redemption.
This wasn’t about being forgiven.
It was about continuing. About choosing to live one more day. And then another.
I once asked him what he wanted to do with that life.
He said, “I want to grow something.”
So we planted trees in the spring. Little saplings. Sakura. Ginkgo. Plum.
I teased him for crying when the first one bloomed.
He said I was imagining things.
But I saw his fingers press to the bark like it was holy.
Years later, I woke up to him tracing the curve of my face with his fingertips.
“Mm?” I murmured.
“You’re aging,” he said.
“So rude.”
“You have lines around your mouth.”
“They’re laugh lines. Because you’re funny.”
“Mm. You’re going grey.”
“Silver. Distinguished.”
“Old.”
“You’re lucky I love you.”
He smiled.
And I thought:
I would do it all again.
The killing. The hiding. The threats.
The chaos. The defiance. The war I raged to protect him.
I’d do it again.
Because in the end, this is what I bought with blood.
This quiet. This warmth.
This boy, once lost, now lying beside me in the morning light.