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"Higuruma."
Higuruma looked up to see Itadori standing over him. He let out a sigh and tried to smile for the young sorcerer even as he averted his eyes, straightening his back slightly.
"Hey, Itadori," he replied, sweeping his good hand through his hair. "Did you need something?"
Itadori was silent for a moment before he sat on the cold step next to the murderer, his arms folded across his knees. Despite how other people had talked about Itadori, Higuruma mostly knew him like this—quiet and thoughtful and sad, like he was. He had seen him be joyful and have fun and everything too, of course, but with the way things were, he was mostly sober.
Higuruma didn't mind. Even if Itadori couldn't be colorful all the time, who was he to judge? Itadori's color had kept Higuruma from changing into something he couldn't recognize anymore. While he still couldn't forgive himself for what he'd done, Higuruma at least knew who he was still.
"…do you still want to die?" Itadori murmured, staring hard at the ground in front of him.
Higuruma closed his eyes and let out a breath.
"Don't concern yourself with such things," he chided. "I'm an adult and I make my own decisions; it's not your responsibility to be concerned with my wellbeing."
The answer was yes, to put it mildly. But the jujutsu world had decided it wasn't done with him. They wouldn't let him be prosecuted as he should. The world at large would exonerate him, and that alone made him so sick it was its own form of punishment. He would have to bear the weight of his sins as a free man, tethered to this life by the curse he'd laid upon himself by wanting more.
Itadori let out a humorless breath of a laugh, turning his head to look at Higuruma.
"You remind me of someone," he said quietly. "He used to scold me too, for not behaving like a kid should."
Higuruma opened his eyes and dared a glance at Itadori, but still couldn't quite meet his gaze.
"Really?" he grunted, wincing as he shifted his injured arm.
"Yeah. He always told me not to call him sensei, but he taught me more than anyone else. And…when you nearly got killed…," Itadori trailed off, looking straight ahead again.
Higuruma looked at him properly, now that those big, innocent eyes were turned away from him.
Itadori, who had done no wrong. Itadori, who's name had been forever tarnished by events that he had had no part in—no control over. Higuruma had no doubt that when they met, Itadori probably could have killed him if he wanted. But Itadori had not killed any one human out of hatred or frustration. He'd only ever shown mercy, in whatever way it was required.
Gojo Satoru may have been the strongest sorcerer of their time, but Itadori was the strongest soul. And Higuruma would never be able to look him in the eye again for it.
"You can still drive with that arm, right?"
Higuruma blinked and looked down at himself.
"Eh? I…suppose so. Why, what does that have to do with—"
Itadori stood up and held out a hand to help Higuruma to his feet.
"C'mon. I'd like to introduce you," he said with a smile.
Higuruma let out a reluctant grumble, sighed, then took Itadori's hand.
It didn't take long for Higuruma to find out there would be no real introductions. Following Itadori's directions led them to a cemetery, so unless this friend of his was a groundskeeper, they were visiting a grave. His heart weighed heavy in his chest as he shut off the car and followed Itadori out down the footpath.
"He died kinda horribly so there wasn't much left of him, but there's a marker here anyway. I haven't been able to visit him since they put it up with everything that's happened," Itadori explained with an inexplicable cheeriness as they trudged through the snow.
Higuruma shrugged his coat closer around himself and frowned. He'd seen how some sorcerers died. It was never exactly a pretty thing, so for Itadori to specifically call it out for being horrible made a chill run up his spine. Not to mentioned the "wasn't much left" part. Had he been like Choso—burned to ash and blown away on the wind, never to be sewn back together as Higuruma had been?
His breath ghosted from his lips as he heaved another sigh, the chilly weight of his guilt exhaled in a cloud of mist that mattered to no one. He could curse the stars and the earth and everything in between as much as he liked for punishing him with life, while others who deserved it far more than him had been left behind, but it would make no difference here. He was just another ghost. Perhaps him and this friend of Itadori's would get along well.
They walked in silence for a little while longer, with Itadori's head on a swivel as he stopped to read headstones and took meandering twists and turns. Higuruma kept close to him, feeling the tender weight of grief that the young sorcerer carried and deciding it needed company.
"Here," Itadori said eventually, stopping in front of a lonely headstone and crouching down to clean the snow off of it.
"Hi, Nanamin. It's been a while. You probably didn't miss me much though, heh. I'm sure it's really nice where you are, and you're enjoying not having to work anymore."
Higuruma stood silently behind Itadori as he talked with the dead man, his eyes tracing the engraving on the headstone curiously.
Nanami Kento. Died only a few months ago, and quite young too. He'd heard the name a few times from the other sorcerers he'd met, and it had almost always been said with a deference that let Higuruma know just how much this man's presence had demanded respect, despite not yet being thirty.
"C'mere, Higuruma," Itadori said, gesturing for the lawyer to crouch down next to him.
Higuruma grimaced but obliged, wanting to indulge Itadori's sorrow, even if the young man looked more cheerful than he had all day. Grief was strange like that though, he supposed.
"Hey, Nanamin, this is my friend, Higuruma-san. I met him a couple weeks after you died. He's pretty cool too. The others say he's almost as talented as Gojo, isn't that something?"
Higuruma felt his cheeks heat despite the cold winter air and cleared his throat awkwardly. Even if the compliments would never be heard by anyone else, he felt ashamed that they were said at all. He didn't deserve this kind of praise after what he'd done with his so-called talents. Especially not from Itadori.
"He learned Domain Expansion within a couple of days of having his technique, right? That took me months, and even then mine is barely realized. He learned RCT too, while fighting Sukuna. I did my best to keep him safe, but I didn't do a very good job. It's okay though, luckily Shoko fixed him up so I don't have to feel too bad about it."
Itadori looked at Higuruma now, and Higuruma felt his breath catch in his chest as those amber eyes locked onto his, refusing to let him look away from his guilt.
"I thought about what you said to me, Nanamin, when he was about to die. And I tried really hard to be the sorcerer you knew I could be. Because Higuruma trusted me to be that too, right at the end. It felt like I had both your hands on my shoulders in that moment. And at the same time, I missed both of you so much I could barely breathe."
Higuruma bit down on his lip hard as Itadori continued to look at him with those wet eyes. Why, goddammit, why him? Why of all people to care about Higuruma did it have to be him? One whose soul, no matter how many had attacked it and tried to defile it, was pure to the end, while Higuruma's was blasted and ruined by the choices he'd made. By the executions he'd carried out with no jury to blame.
"Itadori," he rasped, but Itadori shook his head unblinkingly.
"I'm really glad I still have him," he said tightly, his eyes welling with tears, "because he reminds me so much of you, Nanamin, it makes it hurt a little less that I wasn't able to save you."
Itadori finally released Higuruma's blackened soul from his grip and looked back at the headstone, reaching out to touch it with cold fingers. Higuruma tried to feel relieved to have been let go, but he didn't.
"I think you really would've gotten along well," Itadori said. "Nanamin was the most adult person there was. He always took responsibility for himself and the people weaker than him."
Higuruma let out a breath.
"He probably would have found me childish, if that's the case."
"No. He would have understood why you did what you did, I promise. He felt the same as you did, I think, about how people let their darkness hurt other people. I know he didn't blame people for hating what the world had done to them. He always got annoyed at me for trying to be responsible for it though, so he'd probably say something to you too about how people have to manage themselves first before worrying about what others are doing," Itadori replied calmly.
Higuruma looked down at his shoes.
"He sounds like he was a wise friend," he murmured, running a gloved hand through his hair and disturbing the snow collecting there.
"I know you would've liked him, if he was still alive. He was grumpy like you too."
Higuruma chuckled with a sniff.
"Yeah…I think I would have."