In the Grey of Sunlight
Category: Jujutsu Kaisen
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Teens
Summary:
1. “You liked it,” Sukuna says, “when that girl cried."
Or,
Yuji, loneliness, and Sukuna.
2. Satoru, a moody teenager, is saddled with Megumi, a moody six-year-old.
Chapter 1
Chapter Text
The day before Yuji goes to Jujutsu High, he leaves his grandfather’s clothes at a charity shop.
It is not by choice - Yuji would rather hang onto them. But his bag is only so large, and he will not have use for his belongings for much longer. And his grandfather would have scoffed.
His new room smells faintly of mildew, so he opens the sliding window. When he unpacks, he leaves one item on the top shelf of the cabinet - one of his grandfather’s T-shirts, still crisp and folded with acid-free tissue paper. Yuji had bought it for his last birthday, right before he fell sick.
When he realises that Fushiguro’s room is right next to his, he is more excited than he should be.
***
Sukuna appears when he slips on his grandfather’s T-shirt the next night. It’s soft and buttery, and he has brought the collar up to his nose so he can smell it, and Sukuna says in a voice like felt, “Does the little boy want his blankie?”
Yuji slaps the mouth on his cheek on instinct, the world turning red, but it just reappears on the back of his hand. “Why don’t you go weep to your friends?”
Because they’re not my friends, I hardly know them , Yuji thinks, and immediately regrets it when Sukuna howls with laughter. “That’s not what you told them. It appears we have a little liar on our hands.”
“Shut up - ”
“What are you making up for? People don’t call others friends after meeting just once.”
Yuji tries to claw the mouth off, and is left with a room full of silence. Blood drips off his hand onto the bedsheet and he spits a curse and goes and gets soap and water from the bathroom and tries to scrub it off, but the flesh-pink stain refuses to go away.
***
And - Junpei.
They talk and it is good. They talk and Yuji wants his number so they can talk some more. Junpei laughs and Yuji gets the impression he’d get piercings if he were more confident.
Dinner is easy with Junpei’s awkward snark and his mother’s willing laughter. Easier than it’s been in months. He thinks of his grandfather and has to stuff his face with greasy pork dumpling - really, his mother is so nice, so he should pretend to like it - so they don’t ask why his expression looks like that. His eyes water.
Later he ambles to Ijichi’s car, whistling a tune and adding a photo he took of himself and Junpei to his contact on his phone. That night in his dream there is a bright cyan sky and Yuji walks into the Occult Club room and Junpei is already there, and Yuji says, You trying to take my place as the linchpin? and Junpei looks at Sasaki and whispers something, and the two of them laugh, and Yuji whines and asks them to let him in on the secret.
***
Yuji vows to never tell anyone - what kind of twisted bastard would people think of him? - but Sukuna knows. He knows everything about Yuji. It is a forced, incestuous kind of intimacy.
“You liked it,” Sukuna says gleefully, “when that girl cried. You took pleasure in her pain. What would your poor grandfather think?”
Yuji does not contradict him. Could not if he wanted to.
Nobara had only known him for a couple of weeks, and he had liked her, but he wasn’t sure if she felt the same, so when she confronted him after his ill-considered prank with Gojo…well. It had felt like someone cared about him , for a change. He holds the feeling close to his heart, a miser with his reserves. It makes him feel warm.
Sukuna’s laughter recedes, and Yuji thinks he might be hearing their echoes, smug and mocking.
***
Today it is meatballs, again. He and Fushiguro are cooking together. His nose stings with the sharp smell of ginger, and his face is streaked with sweat, and Fushiguro tells him to open a window. Yuji can’t stop grinning.
It’s not that cooking is enjoyable for him - it’s that he’s always seen cooking as a team effort. (After Grandpa was shifted to the hospital suddenly Yuji was left with too much food in the fridge and he couldn’t bear to touch those leftovers so he ate instant noodles and takeout till he was broke and had to start cooking again.)
It’s always easier to love someone after you know their tastes in food. Megumi likes his meatballs with a lot of ginger and his grandfather used to like them unsalted and Yuji has grown sick of meatballs but he won’t say that to Fushiguro.
He watches as Fushiguro kneads the mixture with a focused little furrow in his brow, and says, “Sometimes I wish I could live in the kitchen,” and Fushiguro replies, “You’re a glutton,” and that’s not what Yuji meant at all, at all. He laughs and bumps his shoulder against Fushiguro’s, and pokes Fushiguro’s cheek when he tries to hide his smile.
***
“You won’t die alone,” says Sukuna. “I’ll be there with you.”
Yuji spits toothpaste into the sink. There’s a tiny bit of blood. He swipes his tongue over his gums, tastes the copper there. “Gee, you promise?”
“Do you really think you’ll be surrounded by people? It will be you, me, and your executioner.”
Yuji’s been craving sushi more often. He contemplates going alone to the little restaurant by the waterfront - he already took Kugisaki and Fushiguro there last week, so they won’t want to come again. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Incestuous .
“If you know everything about me, why bother asking me anything?” Yuji snaps. “Go away. I’m going to watch a movie.” He yanks open his bedside drawer.
“The one you wanted to watch with the Yoshino boy?”
Yuji turns the television volume up loud.
***
It is not their fault.
It’s his fault.
But Fushiguro is Fushiguro - a mule on his good days. So Yuji says nothing, and ignores the feeling of Something’s wrong , and wonders why Sukuna has not gloated once since the massacre at Shibuya. The silence in his head is unsettling, a normal he is no longer used to.
***
Yuji’s execution order is nullified. He wants to tear his own skin off.
The sun is too bright. He goes to where Yuta and Maki are and says, “I have some ideas on how to save Fushiguro,” and does not think about how he will die.
Chapter 2
Chapter Text
Satoru wakes to Toji looming over him, and his first instinct is to blast him with Hollow Purple. He stops himself because that would also mean blasting the crumbling building complex around him, and that will be expensive.
Toji’s face morphs. Is Satoru dreaming? He remembers, vaguely, that Toji is dead, so how is he - ah.
Megumi.
The brat doesn’t strictly resemble Toji - he’s got softer eyes, with hair that sticks up like a sea urchin - but it’s the way he looks at Satoru, bored, with a downturn to his mouth, like Satoru isn’t the strongest sorcerer alive and didn’t kill his dad.
“If you came here to say you had a nightmare,” says Satoru, “you’re out of luck.”
“I didn’t. You snore. Sleep quieter.” He’s got on oversized teddy bear pajamas that used to belong to Tsumiki, but he holds himself like he’s wearing a hand-woven silk wraparound.
“Listen here.” Satoru didn’t choose to sleep on the Fushiguro children’s lumpy, food-stained couch - Yaga had sent him, telling him that, if he was going to assume responsibility for Megumi, he couldn’t leave him unsupervised at this age. Satoru can’t wait till the kids are shifted to Jujutsu Tech. “It’s not my fault you’re a light sleeper. Close your bedroom door.”
“Tsumiki likes it open.”
Satoru covers his head with his sweat-damp pillow and wishes Suguru were here, he always knew how to deal with kids, knew when to smile and how to comfort, knew the ways to deflect their incessant questions. (Except now, Suguru would be the last person Satoru would trust with kids).
***
There’s flakes of dried blood beneath Megumi’s nose and a cut on his upper lip, and embers of quiet anger that look misplaced in a six-year-old’s eyes. It would be easier if he was throwing a tantrum. But when has Megumi made anything easy for Satoru?
Shoko hunkers down so she is almost at eye level with him and brushes his hair from his forehead. In the dim light of the school gym her dark circles appear deeper. “What happened?”
It is obvious: Megumi got in a fight. He’s always getting into fights. Satoru massages his temples.
Megumi scuffs his shoe against the floor and glances away. From his position beside a half-shuttered window, Nanami lifts his chin curiously.
Shoko tuts. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“I just want to - ”
“He said he’s fine,” Satoru drawls. “Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s healthy. The kid needs to toughen up, you know. For the Jujutsu world. What’s he gonna do if some curse comes and rips half his face off? Tattle to the higher ups?”
Nanami looks like he wants to break something in half. Shoko’s eyes are flinty. “Gojo, can I speak with you? Outside?”
“Nah.” Satoru slings his jacket over his shoulder. “I’ve got shit to do. Fans to please.”
“Watch it, Gojo,” says Nanami in a low, warning tone.
“Or what? You’ll what? Punch me in the face? Fight me? I’d like to see you try.” Satoru’s voice has become a growl. His fingers twitch. He’s itching to tear right through someone. He won’t, but let them think otherwise. He doesn’t care. He’s tired of caring. He thinks of Suguru and the basketball hoop bleeds into the backboard, which bleeds into the wall.
Nanami steps forward, his jaw ticking, but Shoko holds him back with a hand on his chest. “He’s spoiling for a fight.” She looks at Satoru like he’s a pile of cockroaches on a trash heap. He can’t remember the last time she looked like that. “When will you finally grow up?”
“Maybe when the rest of you take those sticks out of your asses.”
Shoko sighs, dropping her face in her hand, and her shoulders droop, and she looks so much older than eighteen, and Satoru feels guilt catch at his edges, but he keeps his grin on his face. Nanami says, “You’re a piece of shit, Gojo,” and Satoru replies, “Tell me something new,” and from the corner of his eye he sees Megumi curled up against a wall, his hands over his ears, and in between blinks he shifts into a boy with hair the colour of fresh snow and eyes the blue of tropical waters.
***
As much as he wants to walk away from Megumi, he cannot walk away from routine.
Here are the things he gets used to: Pouring out a glass of warm milk and setting it next to his coffee at the kitchen table. Walking to the bus stop each morning with sticky little fingers clutching his hand, because warping doesn’t give the same sense of normal. Damp crumpled takeout bills in his pocket for takoyaki and mochi instead of cold soba and mochi.
Sometimes he buys cold soba for dinner even though he doesn’t like it, and Megumi always looks at him askance when he forces it down.
***
Summer presses down like a weighted blanket that has overstayed its welcome.
It is on Satoru’s slog to the refrigerator for a cola that he finds Megumi splayed on one of the kitchen sofas, staring at the whining ceiling fan. There’s dirt on his cheek and his eyes are red. His face maintains its passivity only just so, a dam about to burst open.
Ignore , thinks Satoru, opening the fridge door. Ignore , he thinks, cracking open the can.
Megumi brings his knees to his chest, holds himself like that. Maybe he’s not always getting into fights. Maybe Satoru needs to march down to his elementary school and have a nice little chat with the principal.
Satoru puts the can down on the counter, and it could be that he’s tired, or it could be that the last drops of his anger have been wrung out, because he does not stop himself from saying, “Want to head out for some ice cream?”
Megumi raises his head. The silence stretches. That’s fine. Satoru has grown used to silence. “Huh?”
“Ice cream, you know. The thing normal people like. It’s hotter than the devil’s asshole outside.”
It’s a place Suguru used to go crazy over, an air-conditioned, pastel-saturated shop with jars of fat chocolate chip cookies that sell for 140 yen a piece. Megumi looks around with dinner-plate eyes, twisting the hem of his froggie T-shirt. Satoru orders a double scoop of matcha and Oreo with chocolate flakes, and before he finishes talking, the man behind the counter is reaching for the matcha - he must have served Satoru the same thing at least ten times before.
Satoru looks at Megumi for a long time before he asks quietly, “What flavour do you want?” and Megumi points at the orange sorbet, his breath fogging up the glass.
Their ice creams are already melting down their waffle cones by the time they are two minutes away from the shop. Satoru watches as Megumi licks at his cone with an anxious little furrow in his brow, and his shoes seem lighter, and the sun doesn’t seem all that bad, and when Megumi looks up at him and says, “What?” he turns so Megumi cannot see his smile.
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Teens
Summary:
1. “You liked it,” Sukuna says, “when that girl cried."
Or,
Yuji, loneliness, and Sukuna.
2. Satoru, a moody teenager, is saddled with Megumi, a moody six-year-old.
Chapter 1
Chapter Text
The day before Yuji goes to Jujutsu High, he leaves his grandfather’s clothes at a charity shop.
It is not by choice - Yuji would rather hang onto them. But his bag is only so large, and he will not have use for his belongings for much longer. And his grandfather would have scoffed.
His new room smells faintly of mildew, so he opens the sliding window. When he unpacks, he leaves one item on the top shelf of the cabinet - one of his grandfather’s T-shirts, still crisp and folded with acid-free tissue paper. Yuji had bought it for his last birthday, right before he fell sick.
When he realises that Fushiguro’s room is right next to his, he is more excited than he should be.
***
Sukuna appears when he slips on his grandfather’s T-shirt the next night. It’s soft and buttery, and he has brought the collar up to his nose so he can smell it, and Sukuna says in a voice like felt, “Does the little boy want his blankie?”
Yuji slaps the mouth on his cheek on instinct, the world turning red, but it just reappears on the back of his hand. “Why don’t you go weep to your friends?”
Because they’re not my friends, I hardly know them , Yuji thinks, and immediately regrets it when Sukuna howls with laughter. “That’s not what you told them. It appears we have a little liar on our hands.”
“Shut up - ”
“What are you making up for? People don’t call others friends after meeting just once.”
Yuji tries to claw the mouth off, and is left with a room full of silence. Blood drips off his hand onto the bedsheet and he spits a curse and goes and gets soap and water from the bathroom and tries to scrub it off, but the flesh-pink stain refuses to go away.
***
And - Junpei.
They talk and it is good. They talk and Yuji wants his number so they can talk some more. Junpei laughs and Yuji gets the impression he’d get piercings if he were more confident.
Dinner is easy with Junpei’s awkward snark and his mother’s willing laughter. Easier than it’s been in months. He thinks of his grandfather and has to stuff his face with greasy pork dumpling - really, his mother is so nice, so he should pretend to like it - so they don’t ask why his expression looks like that. His eyes water.
Later he ambles to Ijichi’s car, whistling a tune and adding a photo he took of himself and Junpei to his contact on his phone. That night in his dream there is a bright cyan sky and Yuji walks into the Occult Club room and Junpei is already there, and Yuji says, You trying to take my place as the linchpin? and Junpei looks at Sasaki and whispers something, and the two of them laugh, and Yuji whines and asks them to let him in on the secret.
***
Yuji vows to never tell anyone - what kind of twisted bastard would people think of him? - but Sukuna knows. He knows everything about Yuji. It is a forced, incestuous kind of intimacy.
“You liked it,” Sukuna says gleefully, “when that girl cried. You took pleasure in her pain. What would your poor grandfather think?”
Yuji does not contradict him. Could not if he wanted to.
Nobara had only known him for a couple of weeks, and he had liked her, but he wasn’t sure if she felt the same, so when she confronted him after his ill-considered prank with Gojo…well. It had felt like someone cared about him , for a change. He holds the feeling close to his heart, a miser with his reserves. It makes him feel warm.
Sukuna’s laughter recedes, and Yuji thinks he might be hearing their echoes, smug and mocking.
***
Today it is meatballs, again. He and Fushiguro are cooking together. His nose stings with the sharp smell of ginger, and his face is streaked with sweat, and Fushiguro tells him to open a window. Yuji can’t stop grinning.
It’s not that cooking is enjoyable for him - it’s that he’s always seen cooking as a team effort. (After Grandpa was shifted to the hospital suddenly Yuji was left with too much food in the fridge and he couldn’t bear to touch those leftovers so he ate instant noodles and takeout till he was broke and had to start cooking again.)
It’s always easier to love someone after you know their tastes in food. Megumi likes his meatballs with a lot of ginger and his grandfather used to like them unsalted and Yuji has grown sick of meatballs but he won’t say that to Fushiguro.
He watches as Fushiguro kneads the mixture with a focused little furrow in his brow, and says, “Sometimes I wish I could live in the kitchen,” and Fushiguro replies, “You’re a glutton,” and that’s not what Yuji meant at all, at all. He laughs and bumps his shoulder against Fushiguro’s, and pokes Fushiguro’s cheek when he tries to hide his smile.
***
“You won’t die alone,” says Sukuna. “I’ll be there with you.”
Yuji spits toothpaste into the sink. There’s a tiny bit of blood. He swipes his tongue over his gums, tastes the copper there. “Gee, you promise?”
“Do you really think you’ll be surrounded by people? It will be you, me, and your executioner.”
Yuji’s been craving sushi more often. He contemplates going alone to the little restaurant by the waterfront - he already took Kugisaki and Fushiguro there last week, so they won’t want to come again. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“It bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Incestuous .
“If you know everything about me, why bother asking me anything?” Yuji snaps. “Go away. I’m going to watch a movie.” He yanks open his bedside drawer.
“The one you wanted to watch with the Yoshino boy?”
Yuji turns the television volume up loud.
***
It is not their fault.
It’s his fault.
But Fushiguro is Fushiguro - a mule on his good days. So Yuji says nothing, and ignores the feeling of Something’s wrong , and wonders why Sukuna has not gloated once since the massacre at Shibuya. The silence in his head is unsettling, a normal he is no longer used to.
***
Yuji’s execution order is nullified. He wants to tear his own skin off.
The sun is too bright. He goes to where Yuta and Maki are and says, “I have some ideas on how to save Fushiguro,” and does not think about how he will die.
Chapter 2
Chapter Text
Satoru wakes to Toji looming over him, and his first instinct is to blast him with Hollow Purple. He stops himself because that would also mean blasting the crumbling building complex around him, and that will be expensive.
Toji’s face morphs. Is Satoru dreaming? He remembers, vaguely, that Toji is dead, so how is he - ah.
Megumi.
The brat doesn’t strictly resemble Toji - he’s got softer eyes, with hair that sticks up like a sea urchin - but it’s the way he looks at Satoru, bored, with a downturn to his mouth, like Satoru isn’t the strongest sorcerer alive and didn’t kill his dad.
“If you came here to say you had a nightmare,” says Satoru, “you’re out of luck.”
“I didn’t. You snore. Sleep quieter.” He’s got on oversized teddy bear pajamas that used to belong to Tsumiki, but he holds himself like he’s wearing a hand-woven silk wraparound.
“Listen here.” Satoru didn’t choose to sleep on the Fushiguro children’s lumpy, food-stained couch - Yaga had sent him, telling him that, if he was going to assume responsibility for Megumi, he couldn’t leave him unsupervised at this age. Satoru can’t wait till the kids are shifted to Jujutsu Tech. “It’s not my fault you’re a light sleeper. Close your bedroom door.”
“Tsumiki likes it open.”
Satoru covers his head with his sweat-damp pillow and wishes Suguru were here, he always knew how to deal with kids, knew when to smile and how to comfort, knew the ways to deflect their incessant questions. (Except now, Suguru would be the last person Satoru would trust with kids).
***
There’s flakes of dried blood beneath Megumi’s nose and a cut on his upper lip, and embers of quiet anger that look misplaced in a six-year-old’s eyes. It would be easier if he was throwing a tantrum. But when has Megumi made anything easy for Satoru?
Shoko hunkers down so she is almost at eye level with him and brushes his hair from his forehead. In the dim light of the school gym her dark circles appear deeper. “What happened?”
It is obvious: Megumi got in a fight. He’s always getting into fights. Satoru massages his temples.
Megumi scuffs his shoe against the floor and glances away. From his position beside a half-shuttered window, Nanami lifts his chin curiously.
Shoko tuts. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“I just want to - ”
“He said he’s fine,” Satoru drawls. “Whatever happened, I’m sure it’s healthy. The kid needs to toughen up, you know. For the Jujutsu world. What’s he gonna do if some curse comes and rips half his face off? Tattle to the higher ups?”
Nanami looks like he wants to break something in half. Shoko’s eyes are flinty. “Gojo, can I speak with you? Outside?”
“Nah.” Satoru slings his jacket over his shoulder. “I’ve got shit to do. Fans to please.”
“Watch it, Gojo,” says Nanami in a low, warning tone.
“Or what? You’ll what? Punch me in the face? Fight me? I’d like to see you try.” Satoru’s voice has become a growl. His fingers twitch. He’s itching to tear right through someone. He won’t, but let them think otherwise. He doesn’t care. He’s tired of caring. He thinks of Suguru and the basketball hoop bleeds into the backboard, which bleeds into the wall.
Nanami steps forward, his jaw ticking, but Shoko holds him back with a hand on his chest. “He’s spoiling for a fight.” She looks at Satoru like he’s a pile of cockroaches on a trash heap. He can’t remember the last time she looked like that. “When will you finally grow up?”
“Maybe when the rest of you take those sticks out of your asses.”
Shoko sighs, dropping her face in her hand, and her shoulders droop, and she looks so much older than eighteen, and Satoru feels guilt catch at his edges, but he keeps his grin on his face. Nanami says, “You’re a piece of shit, Gojo,” and Satoru replies, “Tell me something new,” and from the corner of his eye he sees Megumi curled up against a wall, his hands over his ears, and in between blinks he shifts into a boy with hair the colour of fresh snow and eyes the blue of tropical waters.
***
As much as he wants to walk away from Megumi, he cannot walk away from routine.
Here are the things he gets used to: Pouring out a glass of warm milk and setting it next to his coffee at the kitchen table. Walking to the bus stop each morning with sticky little fingers clutching his hand, because warping doesn’t give the same sense of normal. Damp crumpled takeout bills in his pocket for takoyaki and mochi instead of cold soba and mochi.
Sometimes he buys cold soba for dinner even though he doesn’t like it, and Megumi always looks at him askance when he forces it down.
***
Summer presses down like a weighted blanket that has overstayed its welcome.
It is on Satoru’s slog to the refrigerator for a cola that he finds Megumi splayed on one of the kitchen sofas, staring at the whining ceiling fan. There’s dirt on his cheek and his eyes are red. His face maintains its passivity only just so, a dam about to burst open.
Ignore , thinks Satoru, opening the fridge door. Ignore , he thinks, cracking open the can.
Megumi brings his knees to his chest, holds himself like that. Maybe he’s not always getting into fights. Maybe Satoru needs to march down to his elementary school and have a nice little chat with the principal.
Satoru puts the can down on the counter, and it could be that he’s tired, or it could be that the last drops of his anger have been wrung out, because he does not stop himself from saying, “Want to head out for some ice cream?”
Megumi raises his head. The silence stretches. That’s fine. Satoru has grown used to silence. “Huh?”
“Ice cream, you know. The thing normal people like. It’s hotter than the devil’s asshole outside.”
It’s a place Suguru used to go crazy over, an air-conditioned, pastel-saturated shop with jars of fat chocolate chip cookies that sell for 140 yen a piece. Megumi looks around with dinner-plate eyes, twisting the hem of his froggie T-shirt. Satoru orders a double scoop of matcha and Oreo with chocolate flakes, and before he finishes talking, the man behind the counter is reaching for the matcha - he must have served Satoru the same thing at least ten times before.
Satoru looks at Megumi for a long time before he asks quietly, “What flavour do you want?” and Megumi points at the orange sorbet, his breath fogging up the glass.
Their ice creams are already melting down their waffle cones by the time they are two minutes away from the shop. Satoru watches as Megumi licks at his cone with an anxious little furrow in his brow, and his shoes seem lighter, and the sun doesn’t seem all that bad, and when Megumi looks up at him and says, “What?” he turns so Megumi cannot see his smile.