Work Text:
When Utahime parts the curtain in Shokos office, she finds Shoko in her chair, slumped over the side table next to the bed. Her doctors coat is folded over the back, and when Utahime moves towards her, she straightens, lifting herself off the table as she stands, rubbing a tired hand over her face. The vase on the table wobbles and the water sloshes back and forth, stirring the yellowing stems of the flowers brought last.
"How'd you rest?" Utahime asks, reaching out to smooth the strands of her lopsided hair.
"Not enough." Shoko exhales long and slowly, so that her spine curves when she slumps over again. Almost as if she's trying to rid her body of something vile. Behind the vacant gaze she throws at floor, Utahime can see that Shoko is trying to gather herself. She sees the twitch of her fingers - itching for a smoke, a scalpel - before she is upright again, pulling her hair back into a loose bun at her nape.
"I've gotten the supplies you asked for," Utahime passes her the bags she carries, "And food. It's onigiri from the convenience store. You can eat— You better eat this."
"And the flowers?"
"You wanna eat those too?" Utahime ripostes lightly, glancing at the flowers bunched up in her fist. Bright as day, red as blood, some of the chrysanthemums are singed at edges. Some petals are battered but still in good shape. Utahime props them upright into Shokos vase. Even in their imperfect state they look bright and vivid and alive, right next to the wilted, withered ones and Utahime frowns, dissatisfied by the ironic visual of them together.
She had found them on her way to Shokos office. They were half trampled, the poor things, on an uprooted patch of grass among the rubble in one of the courtyards. And Utahime — unable to remember the last time that she had seen something beautiful, and in a bout of overwhelming sentiment— picked them up on a whim, snapping the stems from their torn roots as the sky began to crack with the light of dawn.
Shoko scoffs softly, watching Utahime remove the wilted plants to throw in the bin. She steps into her coat as she fixes her collar, then stuffs her pockets with the onigiri. "I need to make my rounds, but I'm taking these with me." She sweeps a gaze over the bed next to the side table. "Keep watch for the next couple of hours and if he wakes, text me. Don't let anyone see him before then, just let him rest."
Utahime nods. "Any chances he'll wake?" She asks before she can stop herself.
"He probably will. It hasn't been long and I don't want to wake him. He's restless though, I don't think it's serious, but keep an eye on him just in case."
"Anything I should look out for?"
"Not really, but be alert." Shoko says, nodding to the sleeping figure, lying on the solitary bed in Shokos office. "His energy fluctuates."
Utahime nods, pressing a reassuring hand to Shokos shoulder before she leaves, and Utahime finds herself alone in her friends office, with nobody but the world's strongest sorcerer slumbering quietly in the corner of the room.
*
Out of all of Shokos workspaces in the school, this nurses office is the one Utahime is most fond of. Far removed from the blood and guts part of Shokos job at the morgue, this room is further away from the main buildings and closer to the schools living quarters. Despite having the typical furniture most associated with a nurses office (a sink in the corner for washing hands, a patients bed with a curtain and the like), Utahime knows Shoko uses this space more like a study and a storage space.
Usually lived in and comely, today Utahime finds the room tattered and unkempt.
The medicinal charts on the walls are plastered over with mantras and protective concealment charms that Utahime helped her put up. There's a window (cracked and patched in the corner) overlooking the thick, twisting trunk of a black pine in the light of the early morning. The desk near the entrance to the room is strewn over with papers and documents, warped with coffee stains and pressed under heavy, filled-to-the- brim ashtrays. There are beer cans and cigarette butts littering the floor, and while Utahime knows Shoko isn't one to express her worries easily, here she can catch the traces of her friends stress like an inkstain on paper.
Utahime gives herself the task of clearing the space up. As much as she can anyway, since fixing the cracks in the walls and properly patching up the window is a bit beyond her abilities. It's aimless and mundane - rare, in the way her tasks have been lately — but it's all she can do to keep her restlessness at bay, keep her hands and her mind under control. If anything, it will definitely keep her away from the corner of the room she first approached.
It's not like she's avoiding the space, she tells herself. There's no need for her to linger near him, and a part of her doesn't want to. Because every time she glances over at him and lets her gaze linger, her chest feels tight and a hard solid lump makes itself known at the back of her throat.
(She has only done this twice so far, and would not like to experience it again.) Even though it's not like she can see much. He sleeps with his back turned to her, face to the wall, curled under a white cotton sheet.
She hasn't even met him properly yet. She has exchanged no words with him since his return two days ago, and imagining what she would say to him countless times has done little to change that.
The first time she saw him was when she was hurrying through the cold, through one of the courtyards, preoccupied with an urgent task she had to check up on with Nitta. She didn't mean to stumble upon upon him away in the distance, flanked on either side by his students, having an impromptu meeting. She saw him turn his face her way before his presence even registered. Their eyes met and maybe she nodded, maybe he smiled at her. The moment was brief and fleeting, and her feet didn't stop even though her mind did, trying to preserve the sight of him for at least a few seconds as she walked on.
Of course it made sense for the students to cling to him after his return. Like planets orbiting the sun, the kids (including her own) had been keen to volunteer their help in the aftermath, too eager. Utahime saw hope glimmering in their eyes, felt the lift in their spirits after his return. Her heart had clenched tight, wanting to scold them for at least letting the blood dry on their clothes before they took on more tasks.
Utahime tries not to think about this too much. About how this strange lull that's come right after the suspension of their war.
It's only been two days since the final date for battle was declared.In the next month no less, and just like that, every sorcerer is caught in this momentary reprieve. What an odd suspension of things, she thinks. How simple it must have been for him, to change the course of their battle, like a moon pulling the tides.
But the new deadline hangs over them like a knife interrupted. Even in this unprecedented break there are pieces left to pick, plans to make and strategies to work on. She will have to confront this reality in a few hours, right after she takes over the shift from Ino in the late afternoon, when she heads back into damage control.
Nose wrinkling, she begins with the ash trays, emptying the powdery pungent contents into the bin under the table. She organizes the papers strewn across the desk, off the floor, and picks up the cans that clatter at her feet (at this she winces, glancing over her shoulder to look at him, who does not stir at all.) She makes sure that the charms are holding up in maintaining the rooms secrecy.
And when she's finally done, and since she can no longer put it off, Utahime heaves a big breath, reaching for the only chair in the room. The one that Shoko left by his side. Its drawn near to the bed, and Utahime wheels it a little further (but not too much) before settling into it at a comfortable distance.
If she lets herself look at him — getting over her disbelief, the surreal feeling of having him back into the world, into this room — she finds that she can count the breaths he is taking, with the rise and fall of his shoulders.
In another better timeline, this would've felt like seeing him after an overseas mission. Where she wouldn't have given much thought to his absence at all, and having him back wouldn't have been so laden with demands for him. Demands that stemmed from the loss, desperation and hope of the ones that took on the burden of the world in his absence.
The more she looks at the back of his head, the more she wills him to turn over. Just so she can decide for herself whether it was him that she missed, or the usefulness of his abilities that kept the world from collapsing. (She strongly suspects that she already knows the answer to this.)
Because the world had collapsed, and it collapses over and over in her mind when she thinks of her losses, and everything seems all the more rotten and all the more vile for it.
In the midst of it all, maybe she can forgive herself for thinking of him like a lantern in the dark. Not because he was some God-gifted saviour, but because she knew him enough to see him as he was. Stress-causing, foolish and unserious. Reliable, honest and trustworthy.
Utahime is still watching him when he turns over abruptly and she starts, swallowing down a swear when she knocks her elbow painfully against the side table. Then she shoots him an instinctive frown, which is easier now that he's turned his face her way. She'd be lying if she said her breath didn't catch at the sight of him, and has to wonder at how many cycles of relief she can possibly go through (especially with a suddenly aching elbow) for just one person.
His head is bent forward, and his wrist curls right under his chin, tugging at the sheet that covers his body like a cocoon. Utahime can't see much of his eyes under the fine strands of his white hair, but she can just about trace the forward curve of his lower lip, pushed forward into a pout by the press of the pillow against his cheek.
This draws out a fond scoff from her. How boyish he is still, she thinks, observing how the sharp lines of his features have been softened by the aimless touches of sleep.
Utahime leans back into her seat with a heavy sigh, tired, pulling out maps and strategy notes from her sleeve. Perhaps it is best to pore over these than let her mind wander to dark, mournful places in the silence. She will mourn when she has rested. And she will only truly rest when all the work that's left to be done is done.
But it doesn't work when she tries to pay attention to her notes, her mind isn't helpful ten minutes later when she gives up and leans back to rest her eyes. Her mind isn't helpful because all she sees is blood and bodies and curses. Writhing and twisting behind her eyelids. Even her memories turn against her, flashing repeatedly and rewinding back. Back to the extent of her helplessness at the front lines. Back to the pale, limp corpse of a young girl, held in the arms of another.
Utahime nearly drifts to sleep like this, with her mind numb and partially anxious. Before she hears the rattling, it is the forceful push against her cursed energy that splinters her fatigue.
Alarmed, Utahime rises to her feet immediately, commanding a protective film over herself with her cursed energy.
He seems to have shifted in his slumber. The thin cotton sheet is thrown askew and off his body. She notices his hands first, clenching and unclenching. She hears his shallow and ragged breathing as his face turns to the ceiling. The clear agitation marking his face scrunches his eyes shut, makes his mouth wince. It mirrors the disturbance in his cursed energy, breaking from it's usual restrain to ripple around him in sporadic bursts.
She calls out to him in alarm, reaching his side in an instant but he doesn't seem to hear her.
The window in the room clatters noisily in its frame, it's glass panel swings open to slam against the wall. Behind her there's a tearing noise, as the pages lift off of the desk as if hit by a gust of strong wind. Except that the air is still as stone, and there is no movement against her skin. The pens roll off and clatter onto the floor. The vase on the side table tilts off balance, bobbing in the air, pouring and spilling and spilling until—
Until it straightens back up again slowly, consciously, right as rain.
Everything stops.
The noise, the shaking. The overwhelming supernatural force of his cursed energy abates. The metal of the bed frame creaks in a long, wailing groan.
With gasping breaths and his head bent forward, Gojo Satoru jolts upright.
Utahime tenses, nearly giving her silence to his name as she draws near him. Mid-step, she sees herself as an intruder, and in a sudden flush of both nervousness and regard, she finds herself averting her gaze to offer him privacy. She turns her attention to the side table by turning away from him before he can notice, arranging objects on the table top to seem busy, as if she hasn't just witnessed him waking up in a panic.
Still, she watches cautiously over her shoulder as Gojo shifts, turning to set his feet on the floor. He releases a long, exhausted sigh before slumping over with his elbows to his knees, pressing his palms to his eyes. She keeps her eye on him until his breathing eases, watches as the things in the room begin to right themselves. The pen and papers return to the desk, and the window closes itself shut.
She observes him, her heart sending a burning pulse up her throat. What could she possibly say?
Gojo raises his head and Utahime is back to facing the side table again, cheeks flaring at the thought that he might've caught her looking.
"You're awake." She says after a moment, more to announce her presence than anything else. She is realizing that awake Gojo is very different from a sleeping Gojo. Awake Gojo makes her twice as nervous and just as uncertain.
Her fingers roam the table top aimlessly, touching objects like she's fixing them into place. They fidget with the flower stems, they turn the water jug so that the handle faces her just so. But then she wraps her hand around the smooth glass handle, pours out a glass of water with as much purposeful intent as she can muster. As if it will somehow forgive her the need to acknowledge his return with actual words. (Because words would be useless of course.)
She turns before she can think too much about it, stepping towards him.
Gojo blinks up at her, eyes hazy as he gives her a once over.
"Here." She says, offering him the glass in her hands. Gojo takes it wordlessly and she straightens, feeling stiff as she folds her hands together in front of her. True to habit, she finds herself relying on etiquette and proper posture to ward off the on setting awkwardness.
Gojo pours some of the water out into his hand — the excess drips to the floor in a wet clap — slathering it onto his face, down his neck as if to combat an unknowable discomfort. It dampens the neck of his black t-shirt, but he splashes his face again and Utahime reaches for the jug again too, silently stepping forward to refill his empty glass.
He thanks her so softly that it takes her a while to register it. When she looks at him to make sure, he's raised the glass to his lips and downs the water in an instant, even though it doesn't do much to wash away the exhaustion from his voice when he speaks.
"Time..? " Gojo mutters roughly, setting the glass down on the floor, pushing it behind his legs and under the bed so it doesn't get get in the way.
"It's five thirty in the morning." She answers, placing the jug back, noting how the window behind her washes the room in a cool blue glow that grows lighter by the second.
Gojo grunts in response, scratching at his head, causing the white tousled mess of his hair to stick up in all directions, like needles in a pin cushion.
Utahime imagines smoothing it down.
It's so stupid to find it so difficult to look away. She cannot tear her eyes away from him. To see him here, alive and breathing and just— present. It makes her feel strange, uncertain. Its setting her on edge, this tender spot in her chest that keeps making itself known for him. It keeps her pulse jittery and makes her cautious, because Utahime finds herself wanting to reach out to him, to hold his face in her hands and makes sure he's real.
A moment passes, and Utahime breaks the silence by offering him an explanation about Shokos absence.
"Shoko," Gojo mutters, rubbing his fingers into his eyes like he's trying work some sense of wakefulness into himself. "Why didn't she wake me up?"
"She didn't think it would be wise. Nobody knows you're here. She had me bring her supplies and asked me to—"
"Babysit? " Gojo offers wryly.
"No," Utahime replies firmly. "She just wanted to make sure you were okay before—," Utahime hesitates, not wanting to mention future plans in case Gojo gets ambitious and riled up. "Before our next steps. Eat a little, get some sleep. That much time in the prison realm and the cons—"
"I am not unstable, Utahime. I don't need to be watched."
"That's not what I said, and that is not what Shoko thinks." Utahime returns evenly. It would be stupid of him to misconstrue Shokos vigilance as anything other than concern. "She mentioned you were restless, and that your cursed energy was—"
"I'm fine, Utahime. This isn't new just because she found out about it now." Gojo runs an agitated hand through his hair. "It happens."
"Since when?"
"Does it matter? It's not the first time, and it won't be the last."
Utahimes expression must've shifted, surprised and concerned as she feels, because Gojo raises an eyebrow, the side of his mouth quirking up in a humorless smile. "What? You've never had nightmares before?"
Mine was interrupted by yours actually. She thinks, and then, Did you dream about your students too? Did you dream about death and blood in a pitch black darkness?
Utahime swallows these thoughts and finds that she does not want to be stern with him, and that this not how she imagined their first proper conversation going.
"I didn't know." She says instead.
"There's no reason you would, Utahime." Gojo returns quietly.
The dreaded silence ruturns, and Utahime reaches for straws of conversation she could begin with, and finds that work and useful information is the only thing she is capable of getting out, so she briefs him on the whereabouts of the other sorcerers, the locations they'll be cleaning up, and what the kids are up to.
"The kids..." Gojo repeats vaguely, raising a hand to his head, rubbing a spot into his temples like it hurts. Like he's just now remembering everything all over again. "Shit. And yours?"
"They're um, they're..." Utahime has to fight the lump rising in her throat, surprised that it takes this little, and the fact that Gojo asks. Their positions as teachers and mentors overlaps in this way, and Utahime finds herself wanting to express her grief, confess her shortcomings and the ways she let her students down. Maybe even ask him how to bear it. (Would he even know? Would it matter?)
His question takes her back to the headcounts she did mid-battle when she could. Looking out for the signs of her students whereabouts, just to know that they were alive and fighting. She would keep each morsel of her relief to boost her own morale, and the words would churn in her head like a mantra of her own. Alive and well. Alive and well. Alive and—
Dead. Alive and also dead.
"They're with yours. Safe. " She manages, blinking rapidly, feeling for an instant, like she's like lying. Even though this is as much as she can give without touching this particular thorn in her ribs. "They're all taking turns helping out, with patrol, with supply runs. They should be resting, but the children are stubborn."
She stops herself from adding a just like you to the end of her sentence. He doesn't insinuate the same towards her either, but the memory of a far away voice rings in her head, spoken with fondness and amusement.
They must take after you, Utahime.
Gojo nods, leaning forward again as he places his elbows on his knees, reaching up to curl his fingers around the back of his neck, tapping them lightly. He remains silent, turning his face away from her to stare blankly at the floor.
The faraway look in his eyes is back, his restlessness is palpable. He's taken to joggling his knee, his hands haven't stopped moving since he's woken up. Running over his face, pressing into his temples, his eyes, pushing his hair back. Right now his fingers are back to his knee. Tap tap tap.
"You okay?"
"I'm the strongest aren't I?"
It's a little insulting that he tries this on her of all people, as if that ever stopped her. She is far beyond pitying him for his burdens, but she sees his tired eyes, the downward slope of his shoulders.
"That's not much of an answer, Gojo."
"Well what do you want me to say, Utahime?"
"You don't have to say anything." She says gently, and then, trying to be humorous."God knows you talk alot."
Gojo acknowledges this with a sarcastic, upward turn of his mouth and a huff through his nose. "You must want me back in that box then."
"Don't joke about that, " Utahime admonishes, frowning deeply, displeased at this turn in their conversation. What a horrible thing for him to assume.
"Why?"
"Because it's not funny and it is not true."
Gojo glances at her curiously, scanning her face in a way that makes her want to read his mind.
This is unlike their usual back and forth banter, which always had been, essentially, just that. Right now his words are so devoid from their amusement, so cryptic and disdainful in their inflection that she finds herself matching his energy in her own uncertain way.
"And you?" He asks abruptly, turning his head his to look at her properly for the first time since he's woken up.
Gojo takes her in quietly, attentive and unblinking and so still, that the only movement she can discern from him is the slow, deep breath he is taking. His gaze is cool and observant, Utahime has a hard time not feeling conscious.
"Me?" She asks.
He shrugs, jerking his head towards the door.
"Don't you have other useful things to do?"
"Well," Utahime begins dryly, feeling an old, familiar prick in her chest as she twists her fingers together, feeling caught. "Don't you have elders to respect?" She retorts.
This seems to bring about something of a laugh from him, and for a moment he is exactly like the Gojo she knows, — Gojo as she last saw him —even though a part of it rings hollow.
"I meant, you're the only one here right now aren't you?" Gojo says airily, leaning back on his arms to observe her.
"I told you, Shoko had work and she asked me to be here."
This is the truth in it's simplest terms. Shoko had done Utahime a favor by giving her a few hours respite in her office. The supply run marked the end of her shift anyway. All the sorcerers had been assigned tasks and took them in turns, so that everyone had a chance to catch their breath to the extent that they could.
Utahime doesn't tell Gojo that she had wanted to see him more terribly than she was actually capable of admitting, but not badly enough to shirk her duties. Not badly enough to make space for her selfishness in the aftermath of the chaos.
"You don't think I've gone crazy in the head?" He asks offhandedly. He scans the room, assessing the scattered damage of what his cursed energy did. The things he didn't clean up. Then his eyes flitter back to hers. "Or is it that you just don't care?"
"I mean, you've always been an idiot," Utahime retorts, growing frustrated at his unusual standoffishness. Why is he asking her such strange things? Is this about the nightmares earlier? What does he even mean by these questions? "And I've stuck around this long, so what do you think Gojo? "
An understanding flickers in his eyes, maybe she imagines his gaze relenting into something soft, but it passes, and is voice is even when he speaks to move on, and doesn't answer her question.
"I have plans you know. For the next month. Dangerous and bat-shit crazy."
"Well," Utahime folds her arms, "Set up a meeting and we'll talk about it."
"I'm not kidding, Utahime. This isn't a joke."
"I am not joking, Gojo."
She holds his gaze, seeking the familiarity of him, somewhere, wishing more than anything that things could be back to the way they were a few months ago. If he wanted her help, he had it. Was it hard to ask? He could start by annoying her, tease her with other kinds of stupid questions first. Ha! You cryin' Utahime? Did you miss me Utahime? Give her the chance to say yes.
Gojo looks at her like he doesn't understand. Like she's said something he didn't want or expect her to say. Which is baffling in itself, and her head is starting to hurt if she's being honest.
"Why are you even—" Gojo cuts himself off, before he averts his gaze to the ceiling. "Ah. Right, Shoko was worried and she left you in charge."
"I am not in charge of anything. She is worried, so are the kids."
So am I. She wants to say, but it is always easier to talk about others feelings than her own.
Maybe he knows this? Because Gojo scoffs, nonchalant and indifferent and it settles like a burning coal in her chest.
"What?" Utahime begins bitterly, hurt that he would be so dismissive about the people that care about him. "Does it bother you that they worry?"
It's takes him a moment to answer.
"It's unnecessary."
"What on earth does that mean?"
"I didn't do anything to deserve it. The worrying."He says simply. "I'm the one that got myself trapped after all, but they're the ones that suffered for it."
Utahime stares at him, dumbstruck by his admission, surprised that he would even think of such a thing.
"That is not your fault." She says before she even thinks about it. Her voice unknowingly rendered sharp and final by her vehemence. She finds that she can be stern with him on this of all things.
She does not want an argument from him on this, because she cannot have Gojo shouldering the blame of everything alone. What a stupid, oversimplified notion. There were so many factors, so many horrors that played into this, how could he think he could shoulder every wrong?
Utahime feels the anger seep out of her as Gojos words settle, as if something has punctured her hot-hearted chest.
It leaves her voice too, and she feels suddenly, too exhausted to be irritated or annoyed, especially since it is so far from what she truly feels. Thrown by his words, Utahime doesn't have it in her to moderate her emotions anymore. So she abandons her inhibition and her voice turns into something tender-hearted and warm.
"Gojo you mustn't —" She takes an inadvertent step forward, wanting to reassure him.
Gojo does not look at her, his face is withdrawn, eyes cold and distant. She realises that he might not heed her words, he might not even believe her, but she can't have him thinking he deserves the blame. "Please, you can't blame yourself. This isn't just yours to bear."
Utahime reaches out then, stepping into the space between his knees, to place a hand on his shoulder.
"People don't worry about just anyone, Gojo. No matter how strong they are."
A moment passes in the silence, Gojo watches as Utahime leans over him, her hand hovering close but not touching.
"Utahime, " He says cautiously, with wide, watchful eyes. "You know I can't feel that."
"I'm aware." She replies just as carefully. A decades worth of time is more than enough to get acquainted with this technique of his. Maybe it's better this way. It is better because there is much to be done. It is better because there is no space between them, for an indulgence like this.
The resistance is elastic underneath her fingers, a flexible mesh of air that repels her touch, that keeps him from her. That's alright, she decides. More than alright actually, since it saves her troublesome sensation of feeling his warmth. It dulls the magnetic pull of him. Still, she finds herself tracing the shape of his infinity as she speaks.
"People usually have good reason to worry." She tells him, as her hand begins from his shoulder, her fingers wandering upwards— her gaze follows — gliding over his neck, his jaw. Alive and well. Her mind tells her.
"Deserved or undeserved, foolish or not," Utahime turns her hand over as it rises. This is where her knuckles would graze the side of his face, then lower, her palm would turn and she would press her thumb, gently to the corner of his puzzled, downturned mouth.
"I think,” Her palm faces his cheek, cupping nothing but air as her thumb hovers on the space above his cheekbone, right next to his eye. Gojo blinks up at her, lashes fluttering when their eyes meet. His are dazzling and pale, like still water in a sunlit pond, reflecting the entire sky back at her.
"A person worried for is a person loved."
Gojos hand comes up to wrap around her wrist, and it feels like nothing. He takes a breath as his lips part wordlessly, and she reads her name off of the movement.
Utahime.
Is it a warning? Should she step back and leave him alone? She thinks he's going to reach for another wall, pull her hand away, pull up another barrier that isn't just physical and she absolutely has to at least get some words out before that happens, before he withdraws entirely. Before she does too.
"Were you?" Gojo asks in a quiet hush, eyes searching hers. "Worried?"
"Gojo I— " Voice thick, she falters before she even begins, aware of the heat rushing to her cheeks, the tightness in her throat and the distracting way with which Gojo searches her face. An overwhelming, terrifying feeling blooms in her heart. She hopes the answer she gives is the one he is looking for.
"Yes." Her voice wavers, the bottom of her vision blurring. "Of course I was."
Simple words, hard to say.
Palm to skin, her hand presses unwittingly to his cheek. It occurs to Utahime right then that he did not pull it away, and his infinity drops like it was never there to begin with. She registers everything all at once. The strands of his hair against her fingertips as she cups his face. The graze of his knees against her hakama and the touch of his fingers curling around her wrist, moving down her arm.
She doesn't know who moves first, but it's like she stumbles forward and lands — graceless and fumbling — into his arms. She hears the exhale that the impact draws out from him, feels his breath, warm against her ear.
Alive and well. Her mind tells her with desperate relief. Alive and well.
Her shuddering breath, her racing pulse all become churning noises in the backdrop of her mind. Her thoughts are welded together tightly and repetitively, like the links in a long winding, circular chain. I missed you. I missed you. I missed you. I'm sorry. (Sorry that you were decieved that way.) I'm sorry. (Sorry that you were taken from us) I'm sorry. (Sorry about kugisaki and fushiguro.)
I missed you and I'm sorry.
She ends up like this with Gojo. With her chin over his shoulder, and his nose buried into the groove of her neck, into the collar of her kosode. There are tears welling up behind her closed eyelids. Gojos hand — resting firmly across her back — moves when she sniffs. His fingers move upward quietly, curling over the back of her shoulder, winding up into her hair as he pulls her closer.
Funny how she's gone from counting his breath to feeling the rise and fall of his ribs against hers. There's so much of him here, in her arms. Alive and extant and thriving. Another blessing to count, in more ways than one.
It’s Gojo that loosens his hold after a long, lingering moment. His palms settle loosely at her waist, his temple warm against her neck when his forehead presses deeply into her shoulder. Utahime strokes the back of his head with one hand, wiping at her face with another, gathering herself. Voice low, she whispers out a prayer of gratitude.
Gojo seems to hear her and he raises his head, his nose nearly brushing hers as he leans back a little to look at her. Does he know that his face is barely inches from hers?
"What was that for, Utahime?"
Clearing her throat, Utahime rises, blushing furiously as she separates herself from him but not unkindly. "It was a prayer for a friend."
"Shokos not one for prayers, Utahime."
"She's not the one I prayed for, Gojo." She answers pointedly, even though she can see clearly, thankfully, the mirth flickering in his eyes. He knows perfectly well that she uttered the words for him.
"Miss me much, Utahime?" Gojo is looking at her, and some part of the universe feels like it's been set right, because that idiot is honest to goodness smiling now and it's knocking something loose and tender in her chest.
Utahime pretends to scoff, like it's the most absurd thing she's ever heard, even though it's hard to do because the corners of her mouth keep turning up. "I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Yeah, actually."
"And would you believe me if I said that I did? Immensely?"
"Yes." Gojo nods, eyes glinting bright.
"Of course I would.”