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The laws of soulmates are the most common laws of the universe. Like physics or the sun and moons rotation they’re known and felt by all. Some have it much harder than others, perhaps going a whole lifetime before meeting their soulmate in their last few precious moments on earth.
Others Know and Feel from the moment they’re born, of the shape and desires of their soulmates every thought and emotion.
It’s a gamble of the dice how lucky one might get.
Yuuji learns about soulmates from the moment he’s able to grasp the shape of words. First from bubbling voices of familiar strangers, then to his grandpa. Who sits Yuuji down when he’s five and gives weight to these laws in the form of words.
Soulmates can hear each other's thoughts, they can feel each other's feelings. They say some can even lessen a pain by splitting it between the two of them. Two halves of a soul not completely cut apart, held together by little tethers.
“Soulmates,” he grumbles, a large warm hand idly rubbing at wrinkled cheeks. “Soulmates are a lot of trouble, think you can handle it?”
Yuuji is small and Yuuji is five and the thought of having a companion with him forever is a thrilling, wonderful thing. So he smiles wide until his cheeks threaten to split and responds with a vibrant, “yeah! I’ll love them a whole lot!”
It earns him a snort but his grandpa never tries to dampen his expectations. He simply lets Yuuji have his moments of a pure, whole unadulterated love that only children can foster.
It turns out that simply loving your soulmate sometimes isn’t enough.
Two years go by before Yuuji feels a single thing. Which isn’t unusual. Soulmates can commonly be born years apart. Some are just clumsy with their bond. Yuuji pats himself on the back with as many comforts as his child’s brain can think of.
Until the anger comes.
A blistering, consuming anger that howls and twists inside Yuuji’s chest like a monster trying to claw through his ribcage.
It’s a flash, a blip that lasts no more than a few seconds. But to Yuuji it’s a lifetime and when it finally lets go with a whiplash of hatred he finds himself in his grandpa’s arms.
He’s sobbing, a shuddering mess and his mouth burns with the taste of something nasty and acidic.
That wasn’t his anger. Yuuji has never felt something so strong in his whole, so very small, life. But it tells him something almost immediately, something that forces his sobs to spill out of his chest in a renewed sea of anguish.
His soulmate is alive and his soulmate doesn’t like him.
It takes his grandpa a few hours to calm him down. To mutter reassurances, and threaten the bastard who would curse a child with the weight of heartbreak.
That night Yuuji is allowed to sleep in his grandpa’s bed, bundled up under thick, soft blankets and hidden away from the world.
It doesn’t hide him from his mind however, and it doesn’t take Yuuji long to try and reach out again. To the space he once thought was nothing more than an empty, sleepy void.
He collides, like he always does, with the edge of his mind. But this time there’s a difference, this time there’s the unmistakable, low buzz of static. It’s clear now that there’s someone on the other side who’s using it like a shield, like a wall to guard from intruders.
A wall to keep Yuuji out.
Hello? He tries to shout
Hello! It’s me! I’m your soulmate!
Please let me in
Please love me
The wall holds firmly in place no matter how long or hard Yuuji batters at it. No matter how many hours he spends staring off into space, actively shoving and pushing and wailing for it to come down.
If anything it solidifies into a heavy, dark thing now tangible in Yuuji’s mind’s eye. Like an iron gate firmly latched shut at the edges of his consciousness.
It takes a good few rounds of therapy for Yuuji to stop shutting down to try and bring his soulmate out of hiding.
It takes a good few years for him to grow and nurture new reasons why the wall is in place and why it refuses to budge.
Perhaps his soulmate wasn’t doing it on purpose. Yuuji has read books where some people can’t control what they do to the bond. Maybe they were sad and thought Yuuji wasn’t ever coming and dammed up their side because of it.
Whatever the reason might be, Yuuji is now ten and his resolve to wiggle through the blockade is unshakable. If his soulmate won’t come out, then Yuuji will just have to go in. He finds this very reasonable and is thankful that his grandpa doesn’t start a fuss when his bookshelves fill with nothing but soulmate books.
“I’m okay,” Yuuji promises every time he’s cast a dubious look, and he thinks he really is okay. It’s not a crime to want to find the person handcrafted to be his other half. He’s still socializing and doing his school work and being a normal kid outside of the pages of words and theories.
He’ll get his chance, and when he breaks through. His shivering heart can finally shriek its depths of love and abandonment and be noticed.
The ages of eleven through fifteen aren’t kind.
Yuuji grows and grows until he’s a reasonable height for someone his age. His eyes are wide and soft, his smile unmatched in its intensity and his optimism still a solid thing made of an unbendable steel.
Even when his grandpa falls for the third time and has to be taken to the hospital and still hasn’t gotten out.
Even when the static is still as impenetrable as the day he first saw it. Even when the practice gets so frustrating Yuuji wants to burn all his books and crack his own skull open to remove his bond all together.
When things crowd in on him and threaten to drag him under into the blackness he knows swarms his mind. Yuuji thinks back on the handful of times the wall has come down over the past four years.
Much like the first time they’re nothing more than blips of emotions. A chirp of happiness at something someone said. A sting of irritation at a task at hand.
Yuuji is even lucky enough to hear a single word, a name he thinks, “ Suguru .”
It’s progress as much as it’s accidents and Yuuji can only hold on to the hope that he’ll get to meet his soulmate and present them to his grandpa with a breathtaking smile and say- “ see! They’re perfect and amazing and it was all a huge accident, it’s okay! ”
Instead, his grandpa’s life slips through his fingers with a soft huff and the smell of fresh flowers and two declarations.
Help others, Yuuji
But don’t break yourself apart to do it
It’s…, hard, for Yuuji to comprehend the numbness and the sadness that swirl through his chest as he calls for the nurses. He can’t quite make out the sense of abandonment that closes in on his heart as he signs release forms.
Yuuji is actually quite thankful to Megumi Fushiguro for ripping him out of his own head before he can be swallowed up by it.
At least that’s what he thinks before Megumi starts talking about crazy things. Evil spirits called Curses and special grade objects and flashes Yuuji a picture of the very same box he remembers presenting his senpai’s.
“I have it,” he shrugs, handing over the empty box with ease and expects it to end just like that.
Yuuji should really know by now that things aren’t ever that simple and he should stop expecting them to be.
But it’s truly not until Megumi looks at him with a dawning horror and says “they’re going to die,” that Yuuji realizes, I’m all alone now and I fucked up .
So he wastes no time telling Megumi how to best get to the school. He only hesitates for a moment before jumping into the fray as the promise of death rattles the air. And Yuuji is a little bit proud that he doesn’t stop for a second when he’s pulling his senpai’s from an eldritch horror and rushes them to safety.
He does that, all on his own with only his grandpa’s words and the solid weight of his absent soulmate to push him through.
The corpse of his grandpa probably hasn’t even cooled when Yuuji makes his first bad decision. But he’s desperate and about to die and nothing else makes sense but to eat the finger. He’s already moved past the fact that Curses are real and shadows can become dogs.
It’s his only way to help others, so Yuuji swallows it whole and something crashes into his consciousness like a wild beast on the hunt.
It bites, drags, rips Yuuji right out of his own skin and leaves him momentarily disoriented as the Curse and his jacket are destroyed in a few artful swipes. There’s a voice that hums in his throat but it’s not his own. It’s speaking some gibberish about horrible, gross things and thankfully Yuuji is able to get a hold of himself before he has to hear anymore about innocent people and bloodbaths.
Until the voice starts to snarl in his head, hissing and spitting like an enraged tiger. It’s easy enough to tune out but the only other thing to focus on is Megumi’s shaking hands as he tries to form another symbol.
“You’re a special grade Curse now,” Megumi says and Yuuji can’t help but be confused, “I’m going to exorcise you.”
And then Satoru Gojo appears and Yuuji can’t fathom anything else in existence.
He’s read in hundreds of books that when someone meets their soulmate, they just know. Even if the bond is weak, they should still just know. Even though he’s wearing a mask, Yuuji just knows his eyes are on him. There are bits of their bond burning in his mind like livewires.
But Gojo smiles in the way one might at an interesting animal on display. It’s light and chipper in its politeness but there’s no recognition there.
To Gojo, Yuuji is the kid who’s just eaten a special grade curse item, and what are they to do about that?
Turns out, it’s to knock him out, tie him up and then talk brightly about his execution before Yuuji is even finished processing the meaning behind finding his other half.
He wants to ask, “ how can you be so casual, talking about my death? Don’t you know what I am? ” But Yuuji finds that he’s helpless against Gojo, whether it be because they’re soulmates or the force of the man’s personality.
All he knows is that when he’s given the chance to stick around the man for longer, recognition or not, Yuuji doesn’t hesitate to swallow the next finger.
Their life together starts like this, a little game that only one player seems to be aware of.
Gojo asks and asks and asks of Yuuji, for his time, his energy, his loyalty and even his life. And Yuuji gives, like a waterfall, he pours his every fiber into whatever Gojo requests of him with the hopes that there will come a moment of closure in his lifetime of neglect.
Instead, Yuuji dies by Sukuna’s hand and wakes up to a cold table, a strange woman and Gojo’s smiling face.
“Yo!” Gojo says like he’s greeting a work acquaintance, one hand lifted for a high five, “welcome back!” Yuuji slaps it because he thinks if he doesn’t, he’s going to slap Gojo across the face instead.
How could you , he nearly shrieks. How can you just look at me like this is all okay and pretend like we’ll be fine from here.
But Yuuji has gotten good at lying to himself and to others about how okay he is. So he gets it and lets it go and swallows down the anger and the bitterness. Letting it fester in the inky black abyss that’s now up to his knees.
It’s hard to keep swallowing down his feelings when he finds out he’s going to be staying in his own soulmates basement for additional training. He’s still legally a corpse to his friends, there’s nowhere else for him to go. So Yuuji carefully keeps himself sealed tight and tries to fall into step with his soulmate's whims once more.
He’s instructed to watch movies to manage his emotions, and given a small bear with a nasty little surprise to be his training partner. This is fine , Yuuji thinks as he studies the bear, quietly charmed by its sleeping face. This is fine, this is all going to be fine .
But Gojo proves to be a force against Yuuji, be it through their fate or by his hands as a god. Gojo spends too much time with him, talks about too many things to try to rile him up, he almost sounds like he cares about Yuuji.
Until he says something he really shouldn’t have.
The movie they’re watching is an older one, something in black and white with a plot that drags at Yuuji’s eyes with exhaustion. He knows he’s not supposed to fall asleep, but it calls to him softly in between swells of grainy music.
It’s just when he starts to contemplate how to shift to get cosy, that Gojo pipes up from his side.
“Don’t slack off now!” Gojo tuts and jolts Yuuji from his thoughts, “what would your soulmate think?”
Head swiveling, Yuuji can only stare wide eyed at his sensei, at his perfect stranger who shares his soul and mumbles weakly, “what?” Because surely he misheard, surely Gojo and god and whoever else couldn’t possibly be doing this to him too.
Even Sukuna is quiet for once, his complaints about the movie cut short in favor of watching this scene unfold.
Gojo doesn’t seem to notice the shift, or takes it as an opening to nettle Yuuji as he’s been doing for the past week and a half.
“Mhm, your soulmate. I”m sure they’ve been chatting to you all this time right? Cheering you on? Ah, I’m sure Yuuji is very lucky!” And Gojo sighs dreamy but Yuuji can only hear the static grow louder as he shrieks at their bond for Gojo to stop.
The final nail in the coffin just so happens to be this-
“I wonder if they noticed you died.”
It’s said like one might talk about the weather. Like someone might ask how their nephew's new job is. It’s perfectly impersonal and Yuuji is standing before he registers his own actions. He stands and stares down at the bear in his hands, a distant part of him marveling that it hasn’t woken up yet.
Because the closest part, the current part, has finally decided it’s done playing these games. Yuuji has not spent fifteen years waiting to meet his soulmate, learning to reach through the static, for that very person to spit in his face.
“I don’t know, you never said,” Yuuji’s voice is a hard bite, nasty and sharp and so very hateful . The movie is now forgotten and even without their bond he can feel the way Gojo tightens up, the atmosphere sharp and brittle.
At least Gojo has the decency to stutter when he parrots back, “what?” he sounds lost, startled, confused in a way that should appease Yuuji's sympathetic heart.
Instead the blackness spills over and soaks his veins and his heart and his tongue. “You never said,” Yuuji repeats, like he’s talking to a child. Like for once, he’s the teacher and Gojo is his ignorant student.
“I can’t hear you. You shut me out. Did you notice?”
When Yuuji finally manages to look back at Gojo again, he feels something nasty twist in his chest at the open confusion found there and he snarls like a wounded animal in the face of god, “you never noticed did you?”
This is too much, this is all too much for Yuuji. He hears Gojo breathe, “Yuuji-” like a prayer, like a revelation. But he’s too far done and too damn tired to give a fuck about this moment. The cursed doll is thrown off somewhere to the side as Yuuji storms out of the basement. He doesn’t care where he’s going, just so long as it’s not down there and it’s not with Gojo. All he’s asking for is time to dig himself back out of the hole he’s sinking further and further into.
But Gojo, being Gojo, is quick to follow. His hands are fluttering in erratic movements, mouth moving quickly but all he can say is, “wait, stop-” and try to grab Yuuji’s wrist to halt his retreat.
Yuuji blinks and has two hands outstretched and manages to shove Gojo so hard that he stumbles. Not by a lot, but it’s enough to stun the both of them. To seal them into a vacuum of silence before Yuuji punctures it with a quiet demand, “I don’t wanna see you right now sensei, go away.”
And this time when he retreats to the bedroom he’s been borrowing in his own soulmate's house, Gojo doesn’t follow suit.
Maybe it’s childish, but Yuuji can’t help but feel the sting of his lifelong rejection burn tears into his eyes when no footsteps come racing after him again.
“Pathetic,” Sukuna whispers and Yuuji can’t possibly think about disagreeing. He just moves with mechanical grace, ripping blankets and pillows and the comforter around until he makes a little nest to hide inside and perhaps die of neglect.
Yuuji thinks it would be fitting to do that here in this house. And he wants to keep being angry and scream and thrash but there’s only Sukuna in this small warm space. Sukuna, and the static wall that taunts Yuuji even now.
Gojo can’t even bring it down now .
So Yuuji, ten years older and aged with a bitterness he hadn’t expected, finds himself beating at the wall again. But this time he knows who’s on the other side. This time Yuuji has seen his soulmate smile and laugh and scowl and say his name.
Satoru Gojo , he wants to shout, I hate you .
But the second Yuuji thinks those words, he feels it.
A tickle.
Then a nudge.
A push.
A presence.
Gojo .
The feeling is barely more than a sparrow perched on Yuuji’s awareness. It’s so small, like fingertips trying to push through a wall of roses and thorns that’s grown for too long.
Yuuji hates that it warms his chest to feel another person, he wants to stay mad. He wants to be petty and mean about all the years he’s spent thinking his soulmate hated him.
Maybe Gojo did hate him, before they met.
That thought makes the weight recoil slightly, but Yuuji won’t let him go this time. He grabs ahold of the very essence of Satoru Gojo. He threads his fingers through the ones in the thorns. Yuuji only needs this to shove the storm of his heartache into Gojo’s mind and drag them down together in the undercurrent.
Why did you cut me off?!
I don’t know
Why did you not recognize me?!
I don’t know
I hate you
...you should
...
...Yuuji?
Yuuji presses his face into the comforter and lets the tears come. Let’s loud noises of pure despair shake him until he thinks he’s going to come apart. The last time he cried this hard was also because of Gojo, always because of Gojo.
Yuuji is starting to think he should have just died with the Curse at the school and been done with it.
Gojo is urgent in his mind. An unintelligible mess of confusion and sadness and something Yuuji can’t pinpoint because Gojo can’t shape it into words. The only thing Gojo can seem to do is tread in the perfect storm of his soulmate and occasionally try to say something.
It’s not until Gojo stops struggling to form words that terror seizes Yuuji.
He can feel them slipping apart again, the static creeping ever closer.
“Sensei,” Yuuji tries to say but his voice is raw and tender. Sensei, sensei, sensei, Gojo -
The door cracks open just an inch and Yuuji croaks miserably, “Satoru?”
He feels his soulmate before he sees him, feet fast and arms curling around Yuuji as he sniffles and hiccups and knots his fingers into a silky black shirt.
There are no hushes, no cooing, Gojo doesn’t try to take away Yuuji’s right to mourn their separation. He just holds on tight, half collapsed into the blanket nest to get to Yuuji and his face pressed into petal soft hair.
This close, their minds are able to brush up against one another properly. This close, Yuuji is on full display to his core, all of his emotions having bled out in one violent burst. But Gojo doesn’t try to talk, instead he fumbles again with the bond, trying and failing to push something at Yuuji.
It’s so funny, Yuuji thinks blearily, his soulmate was supposed to be perfect at everything. So there’s something a little charming about feeling him muddle his way through something that’s supposed to be natural.
Yuuji waits though, wondering just what he’s going to be given. And when the feather soft touch of a wordless apology ripples through his soul, he speaks.
“I’m not gonna forgive you that easy.”
I know
“...I’m sorry I said I hate you.”
It’s okay
“Are you…” Yuuji falters, feels exhaustion tugging at him from every angle. But he has to ask now that he’s numb from the explosion, “are you upset it’s me?”
Gojo tenses for a moment before soothing a hand down Yuuji’s spine, shifting to murmur softly by his ear, “no, I’m lucky it’s you. I couldn’t ask for a better soulmate.”
There’s something freeing about hearing those words and feeling in his mind that they’re the truth. But Yuuji is too tired to be completely forgiving, so he curls closer and says, “we gotta talk, and you owe me big time.”
Gojo’s chest hums with a small chuckle, “I do, how about I start with breakfast in the morning?”
Something nuzzles along his jaw now and the last thing Yuuji see’s is white lashes and shiny blue eyes as he mumbles, “okay, it’s a deal.”