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“It’s defective,” Satoru announces as he swings into the morgue, purple cat-carrier in hand. “You got me a defective cat.”
“She’s defective,” Shoko sighs, peeling off her gloves. She peers into the carrier when Satoru places it down on the slab, brows pinching. She tilts her head left, then right. The creature inside snuffles. “Looks fine to me.”
“It breathes wrong,” he complains, “and it keeps making this coughing noise. It snores like a fucking pensioner – look, let me just—”
“Don’t you dare release your cat into a sterile environment,” Shoko snaps, slapping his hands away from the clips. “She shouldn’t even be in here.”
Satoru looks pointedly at the cursed blood dripping, violet and viscous, from the opposite mortuary cot. “Right,” he drawls. Then: “Can you send it back?”
She stares at him. “You did not just ask that.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Satoru exclaims, throwing his arms out at the thing. Its eyes, yellow and gormless, blink slowly at him through the bars. It doesn’t seem to be bothered at all that it’s in a place where dead things go. “Can’t you at least—examine it, or something—”
Shoko drags her fingers down her face until the pink undersides of her eyelids show. “Take her to a vet, Satoru. I have a medical license, not a—” She groans. “This is why I got you a cat. So you’d stop bothering me—”
The cat’s name is Thérèse. He didn’t pick it, and he doesn’t know why it’s French. She’s not a Chartreux, only a plain calico moggie, so he doesn’t think she deserves that many diacritics.
According to the vet, Thérèse has asthma. He’s given a blue inhaler and an orange inhaler. They are the same ones people use, except he has to administer the medicine through a strange suction-cup contraption.
“This seems like a lot more effort than it’s worth,” he tells the vet, which earns him a look of such bewildered horror that he’s forced to backtrack and pretend it was a joke.
(It wasn’t.)
As far as he’s concerned, Thérèse does very little to contribute to his household. She mostly just eats and shits and stares at him imploringly. Her breath smells like fish. Sometimes, when she tucks all her paws beneath her belly, she looks like a mouldy loaf of white bread.
He’s not stupid. He knows why Shoko dropped the thing on his doorstep, even if she refuses to elaborate. It’s an attempt at humanising him. Thérèse forces him to return to his flat at least semi-regularly around his ceaseless roster; she needs food and water and – occasionally – attention. At least once a day, he holds his hand out so that she can sniff it, bump her head against it. Wriggle her spine along his palm.
He supposes a cat is better than a dog. Shamanism hardly lends itself to the kind of devotion that requires.
It isn’t until he’s looking into the bottom of a bag of dry cat food that he realises Shoko’s motivations might have been more extensive. Because the moment forces him to confront the parallel emptiness of his own fridge. A squeezy bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise, a half-empty jar of red miso paste, and a bouquet of wilting spring onions comprise its contents. In the freezer, a bag of petit pois. He doesn’t even like peas.
Shoko has always been adamant that RCT and processed sugars are not enough to sustain him. Apparently, he’s missing several vital components of a balanced diet. Like vitamins. And… minerals.
Still, a cat seems like an extravagant way to force the issue. Satoru scowls, throwing a daikon into the basket. Then three punnets of strawberries. A cantaloupe. A bag of rice and 3.5kg of Neko Genki fish mix, which promotes ‘nutritional balance through love’!
Thérèse will never know the true magnitude of his charity. To her, he is simply a food bank. Worse, even. For if he is ever granted the luxury of dying in his own home, she will gorge on his flesh and think nothing of it.
(Somehow, giving his body over for a cat to feed on is still preferable to the way everybody else wields it.)
In Satoru’s dreams, Suguru finds him. First, as the boy he fell in love with (crooked smiles and windchimes, candied apricots and mikan peel, kisses that taste like herbal neem toothpaste). Then, as the man who left him (hollow-faced and miles away, golden-tongued and red-handed, magnificent and deadly in his gojo-kesa). And finally, as the curse he killed (sticky blood and winter’s chill and you should at least curse me a little at the end—)
Christmas Eve was weeks ago. The Gojo clan’s limit on grief is twenty-four hours or less – it concludes with the body’s cremation. Sorrow, turned to ash, but – Satoru didn’t cremate Suguru. Which must be why his heart is eating itself in perpetuum like an ouroboros, the pain so all-encompassing and visceral it feels like he might die from it—
Satoru twists both hands into the sheets and gasps, but the air is thick and hot as oil. His t-shirt is drenched in rapidly cooling sweat; he peels it off and kicks the duvet to the end of the bed, lying flat on his back. He can’t breathe, his ribcage is closing in on him, and the ceiling is melting into television static. Maybe he’s having a heart attack. That would be amusing – the strongest sorcerer of the modern age dying not gloriously in battle, but from a tragic myocardial infarction.
Thérèse’s arrival is preceded by soft padding footsteps and her raspy breathing. She leaps onto the bed with the grace of an acrobat and meanders up the mattress until she’s sitting at his side. She pauses to lick carefully at one of her paws, and then, once satisfied, climbs onto his bare stomach and lies down with her head on his sternum.
Her fur tickles. Her tail sways back and forth like a pendulum, repetitive and steady, knocking every few seconds against his hip. The weight of her body is strangely soothing, and almost on instinct, his breathing slows to preserve the sanctity of her peace. She huffs quietly, and then eases into purring, which – with her asthma – is particularly thunderous. It’s a sorcery of its own, the way the sound quells the clamour in his bones.
His hands find their way to her velvet ears. They’re cold at the tips, so he begins to silk them with his thumbs. Nurturing warmth, far gentler than he thought himself capable. Thérèse watches him with sleepy eyes, and he wonders if she can see him with as much clarity as he can see her.
(Later, he will look it up. Discover that Thérèse’s vision is less vivid than his, but that the dark never quite blinds her, and in that, they are kindred.)
“Shoko,” he rasps, “you conniving bitch.”
Thérèse only blinks at him. She doesn’t understand Japanese, after all.
The moment he realises he’s truly fucked is in the staff room at Jujutsu Tech.
It’s gone 7 PM, and he’s just come back from a mission in Kabukicho. He’s tired in a weird, unfathomable way. RCT has kept his brain ticking over for days now, but having energy does not equal having rest. He feels chemically wired, like he’s six coffees deep and on the precipice of a caffeine crash, and preferably, he’d like to be home so he can allow that to happen.
But Yaga’s holding out another manila folder with his name stamped on it. “Fukuoka,” he’s saying, which, what the fuck? That’s cross-country. That’s Kyushu Island. It’s not a simple warp away, and Satoru doesn’t think he has the capacity for an extended journey right now. The rest of the information comes to him in very practical pieces: special grade, imaginary vengeful cursed spirit, ancient temple, etcetera, etcetera…
“No can do,” he interrupts, replacing his blindfold with a pair of oval Matsuda sunglasses. Wanky, Shoko had called them once, which only makes them even more appealing. “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
Yaga raises an eyebrow. Even Nanami, who had been making pour-over with his back to them, turns around with an expression of muted surprise (translation: abject bewilderment). It makes sense – Satoru isn’t one to turn down an exorcism. Especially now, when he’s so intent on running from his grief. “There are already eight casualties,” Yaga adds, as though people don’t die every day, relentlessly. “This is time sensitive.”
“I hear you,” Satoru says, like a liar, “but Thérèse needs her steroid pump, and she gets grumpy if I don’t feed her by eight. And I need to pick up tinned pumpkin on the way home anyway, apparently it helps with… digestion…”
Yaga’s mouth is stuck half-open. Nanami looks like he’s mid-aneurysm. Shoko, who’s sitting by the window with a coffee strong enough to be battery acid, snorts into her cup.
“Thérèse?” Nanami asks, eyes narrowing behind his silly nose-clip glasses. “Who’s Thérèse?”
“His cat,” Shoko answers – gleefully.
Satoru feels like his entire soul has gone offline. It’s recalibrating, revealing itself to be something terrifying and tender. He realises he doesn’t recognise himself at all. That perhaps the hard exterior of Infinity has been up for so long he’s forgotten about its sickeningly squishy innards – and so has everyone else. For the longest time, Satoru Gojo has been a lethal weapon of mass destruction. Capable of decimating cities, capable of eviscerating the human race. But in this very moment, Satoru Gojo is someone who picks up tinned pumpkin for his asthmatic cat.
This is an exposure of truly violent proportions. This is an absolutely catastrophic blow to his reputation.
“Pretend I didn’t say any of that,” he says, brusque, and then – because he has no idea what else he can offer in his own defence – flees with the flagging remains of his dignity.
(Shoko’s raucous cackling follows him out of the building. He’d be angry about it, but – he hasn’t heard her laugh in a long, long time.)
Satoru is having what the psych websites he has started frequenting call ‘floor-time’. He’s in his living room, on the carpet, limbs star-fished; a little like the Vitruvian Man, if the Vitruvian Man were a black hole of despair and hadn’t showered in two days. Thérèse is ambling around his body, hopping over his arms and legs like low hurdles. She eventually settles by his head and sneezes noisily into his hair.
“Where are your manners?” he croaks. It’s a half-hearted reprimand. “I raised you better than that.”
Thérèse, who has been his for all of three months, regards him dispassionately. She smacks her lips, gulps, and then opens her mouth in a wide yawn. Satoru notices she’s missing two molars on her left side.
A key scrapes the lock, and the front door clicks. There’s a rustle of plastic, a swirl of twilit cursed energy. “Oh, look,” he tells Thérèse, “it’s someone else I raised.”
“Barely,” Megumi grumbles, setting his wares on the sofa. Satoru can smell something rich and umami. He kneels in the sector between his right arm and leg. “Tsumiki made you yakisoba.”
“That’s nice of her,” Satoru comments airily.
“What’s wrong with you?” Megumi asks. “You haven’t visited in a week.”
“Sorry,” Satoru mumbles, but it comes out less genuine than he hoped. “My wallet’s in my coat if you need money.”
Megumi groans. “I don’t need money, Gojo.”
“Well, what do you need then?”
He’s not offered a reply. Megumi stands and takes the food into the kitchen. There’s a clatter of crockery, and then the hum of his microwave. “Have you fed Thérèse?” he calls back into the living room.
“Yes,” Satoru says, because he will always feed Thérèse, even if he lacks the incentive to feed himself.
Megumi returns with two steaming bowls of yakisoba. “Sit up,” he orders.
“So bossy,” Satoru complains, but does what he’s told. They both lean their backs against the sofa, Megumi handing him a set of chopsticks. The food is blissfully fresh and seasoned perfectly. Tsumiki Fushiguro, an angel of the highest pedigree.
“You’re mildly concerning me,” Megumi imparts after a few minutes of silence. Thérèse plods over and settles herself into the cocoon of his crossed legs. Despite shikigami being more spiritual in nature, he’s always possessed an affinity with animals. “You’re all greasy.”
“Why are all of my children so rude?” he whines. “Where did I go wrong?”
“Satoru.”
“Oho, I’ve been first-named. Must be serious.”
Megumi sighs. “You’re insufferable.”
Satoru smiles in triumph. “I try.”
Silence again. They finish their yakisoba, Satoru mopping up leftover sauce with his forefinger and sucking it into his mouth. He resolves to buy Tsumiki a new notebook. One with a fancy, patterned cover. She never tires of those.
Megumi takes the bowls, and Satoru hears running water, the bubbling of a kettle. It’s peaceful, a domestic kind of white noise that soothes – and Megumi is so responsible, he can almost pretend he did something right. Almost.
The tea Megumi brings him is chamomile and lavender. “When was the last time you slept?” he asks, which is a difficult question. It’s spring vacation, and a mission-less Satoru is, apparently, a listless Satoru. He’s been in bed a lot, but time has moved so mysteriously that he can’t be sure how much of it he spent sleeping. He taps his chin.
“Is ‘I don’t know’ a valid answer?”
Megumi rolls his eyes. “No.”
A shame. “You don’t have to do this, you know.” Satoru cups his hands around the mug. It’s hot enough to be scalding, but the sting is almost pleasant. It’s something when the last two days have been a metric ton of nothing. “Coddle me. I’m an adult, I can take care of myself.”
Megumi eyes his limp hair, his pyjamas, his chapped lips. The uncharacteristic hunch in his shoulders. “It’s okay to need help,” he argues.
“Yes,” Satoru says, waggling one finger, “but that’s not your job. You’re fifteen.”
“Then whose job is it?” He points at his cat. “Hers?”
Thérèse pauses the arduous task of licking the grime from between her toes. She seems to know she’s being talked about, but ultimately decides she doesn’t care, moving on to her anus next.
“Gojo,” Megumi starts, and then corrects himself. “Satoru. I know that… last year was difficult. That something happened, even if you won’t tell me.”
“Megumi—”
“I know what grief looks like,” he continues. “I’m familiar with grief. And it’s okay to feel it. You don’t have to pretend you don’t.” He glances at Thérèse. Nods at her, as if in solidarity. “It’s also okay to let people carry you through it. It’s not a chore, Satoru. To bring you food, make you tea. Be present. That will never be a chore.”
Something gluey crawls into Satoru’s throat. He swallows it back, taking Thérèse under the armpits and bringing her into his lap. Megumi, so rude, so responsible, so wise. Maybe he did do something right. That, or Tsumiki did.
He draws his knees up so that Thérèse is squished against his chest. She doesn’t seem to mind, settling into the new position easily, purring her gurgly little purr and tucking her paws under her chin. “Alright,” he says. It comes out mortifyingly pitchy. He clears his throat. “Thank you, Megumi.”
He doesn’t cry. But he considers it.
Respite is not easy to find in a world like theirs. But Satoru and Shoko have a pact – they will find it, even if it’s in small, unusual places. It’s vital that they do, lest they drift apart irreparably.
Like now, in the cafeteria’s walk-in freezer. Shoko already has two spoons stuck in a tub of matcha ice cream. He extends his Infinity to include her, shielding her from the cold.
“How long you got?” she asks.
He checks his watch. “I’m teaching the second-years geometry in thirty minutes.”
She stares at him. “Geometry?”
“Yes. Crucial stuff.” He shoves a frankly improper amount of ice cream into his mouth. “We draw barriers with compasses,” he mumbles around the spoon.
“Are you serious?”
“Cursed energy circulation is all about vectors.”
She snorts. “That’s not how I’d describe it.”
“Yeah, and that’s why you don’t teach.” He points a finger straight up. Wags it left, then right. “How did it go – hya, then hyo?”
“And then hyuhyoi.”
“Exactly.”
“Your inability to understand was a reflection on you, not me,” she grumbles. “You just had to be dramatic and go die first.”
He gasps. “Asshole.”
“Idiot.”
Shoko pinches his sleeve and drags him to sit with her against a crate of frozen gyoza. She props the tub on her knees and begins digging a moat around the edges until there’s a matcha ice cream island. “How’s Thérèse?”
“She’s a nuisance,” he moans, ruining Shoko’s work by scooping a large chunk straight out of the centre of her island. “She tried to snatch the tofu out of my miso soup this morning. She’s supposed to be a carnivore.”
Shoko raises an eyebrow. “Miso soup? Cooked breakfast?”
“What can I say? I’m branching out.” It’s true. There’s pleasure to be found in rituals, even small ones. Boiling dashi, steaming rice, grilling mackerel. Serving his cat her own meal. There is so little stability in his life; like Shoko, he’s constantly on call, sleeps sporadically, and supplements his energy with RCT. But now, he always cuts out time for breakfast with Thérèse.
(At one point, taking care of himself almost felt like a failing. As though it were proof he wasn’t doing enough, committing enough of himself to the cause. Self-neglect felt natural. Comfortable. Strange, that grief has grounded him, and that a cat has taught him otherwise.)
Shoko’s smile is thin and secretive. “I’m glad,” she says.
He puts down his spoon. Drums his fingers on his knee. Beside him, Shoko waits in silence. Her under-eyes are a bluish-purple, her lips raw and bitten. He has the sudden urge to wrap her up in his arms, hold her tight enough to be inescapable. Instead, he asks: “Why did you get me a cat?”
He thinks he already knows the answer. Because, whilst the wounds are still open, betrayal still fresh, penitence paralysing – there are many stark ways in which Thérèse has altered things, and Shoko has seemed surprised by none of them. She’s devious and conspiratorial, and Satoru loves her for it. But he needs to hear her tell him why out loud, because she’s been sitting with it all alone.
“I didn’t want to lose another friend,” she admits quietly, and then it’s as though her bones turn to liquid. She slumps against his side and Satoru receives her on instinct, setting down their ice cream, taking the weight so she doesn’t have to hold it. She’ll have to shoulder the burden again in less than fifteen minutes, but – for now – he hopes this is enough.
After all, Suguru was hers, too. Their love for each other was different, and maybe its taste grew bitter, but he knows the gravity of that is immense. It’s a decade’s worth of sorrow all cashing in at once. And instead of seeking solace in him as she should have, she gave him Thérèse.
“Thank you, Shoko,” he murmurs, for her compassion, for her sacrifice. He kisses the crown of her head and she hums, eyes closed and smelling like smoke and sweet matcha.
“You’re welcome, Satoru.”
He still doesn’t find his bed every night, but when he does, Thérèse accompanies him without fail. Following a thorough exploration, she usually settles in the crook of his elbow, back against his stomach, the top of her head pressed against his mouth. Her fur smells like sunbaked rocks. Her purring sounds like a lullaby.
Thérèse is a rescue. She’s approximately six years old, but they can’t be sure when her origins are so dubious. She’s too placid and well-behaved for a stray. Her immune issues reek of neglect.
Satoru lies in the dark with her, scratching the soft fur beneath her chin. “Did your first family not love you, either?” he whispers, the question unfurling from his mouth like a moonflower. Thérèse just snorts in her sleep, her wet nose bumping into his thumb. “That’s okay,” he says. “We can figure it out together.”
Love is strange, he thinks. It often arrives late and takes on various shapes. Like a best friend who smokes too much. Like two parentless children. Like a cat that needs his help to breathe and helps him breathe in turn.
People say cats don’t really love back. That they’re instinctive animals who only deal in food and shelter. Maybe he’s delusional for thinking Thérèse is different; maybe he isn’t well-versed in it, but he’s sure this is love. She greets him at the door, follows him into the bathroom, to bed; her small, scruffy body so at home in his arms. Shoko picked an intuitive, precious creature; Thérèse, so persistent and present when he needs her.
Even if, in the end, she was to devour his carcass, he wouldn’t mind. He thinks that can be a kind of love, too.