tel un minuscule printemps.... — itadori yuuji.
(spoilers for the recent jjk modulo chapter)
you start measuring time by how fast you’re shrinking beside your beloved husband itadori yuuji. at least not all at once. it’s in the way chairs feel too low, how your favorite sweater hangs looser every winter, how mirrors slowly stop being honest and start being cruel to you.
your precious yuuji pretends not to notice. he still tells you that you're the most beautiful sight in the world to him. he still holds you like it was yesterday, so deep in the embrace that it reminds you of how the sand latches to the ocean.
the fuschia haired man makes it a point to ignore everything else. he makes it a point to focus on the person that he had promised forever with, to focus on the life you had built together.
but it was unavoidable that you do notice and that you notice it loudly. you notice the way he watches you walk ever so slowly, with the need of more effort. you notice it in the way ready to catch you when you become too frail to walk.
you notice it in the way his jokes get louder, brighter, trying to make it seem like everything was just like ions ago, like it was still those yesterdays. like he’s trying to drown out something ticking inside him.
you catch him staring at old photos one night. the ones where you both were still young parents together. the ones where you both were in jujutsu high together. you had so much energy then, you could keep up with him.
but now you can't and perhaps that's why you keep the photos away nowadays, locked away where he couldn't see them. you didn't want him staring too long. to be reminded that you were getting older and he wasn't.
"you're oddly nostalgic today." you whisper to him, giving him a soft ghostly smile. "you okay?"
he doesn’t flinch when you ask why.
“just remembering some memories, my love.” he says, but his voice is careful, like memory is a blade. “that’s all.”
there’s a pause. you can feel it stretch, fragile as glass. “well, do you wanna talk about—”
“what do you wanna eat tonight?” yuuji cuts you off as he turns to you, a bright smile already in place, practiced and gentle. “do you want to eat some soba? it’s not too hard for you to chew and it would be good to nourish your bones.”
the way he says it to you made you unlock things you hadn't let yourself dissect in a long time. with such gusto, so practical, so tender, with such youth, the youth you had left behind it hurts you. and the more it reverberates in your head makes your chest ache over and over again.
“okay, then. that’s decided.” he stands up before you can finish, clapping his hands once like he’s sealing fate itself. “soba it is!”
you look at him and force a smile. you’ve learned how to do that lately. how to curve your lips just right so he won’t see the fracture underneath. you can feel your heart breaking, slow and quiet, like something eroding instead of shattering.
but you know it isn’t because of him.
you’re running out of tomorrows and he isn’t. loving him has always felt urgent, like holding water in your hands. beautiful, impossible to keep. and now you’re about to leave him alone with that eternity, with all that time he never asked for.
you wonder, helplessly, how he’ll fare without you.
he’s already had to say goodbye to so many people. friends. mentors. enemies who became mourned anyway. losses stacked on losses he hasn’t fully processed, grief tucked away behind that smile, behind the way he moves forward no matter what.
and now there will be you.
the thought hits you like a physical pain. you hadn't seriously thought about it until now. it won't be very long now. the empty space you’ll leave behind, the quiet he’ll return to, the chair that will stay pulled out for a while before he finally pushes it back in.
you and the children are mortal. even sharing their father’s blood, they are mortal. they’ll live long lives, full ones, you hope. but they will age. they will soften. they will slow. and one day, they too will leave him.
the knowledge settles between you like a shared secret neither of you dares to name. it presses on your chest until you want to scream, to cry out and cuss yourself raw, to curse any god reckless enough to allow love like this without mercy.
for a moment, you want to break.
you stop yourself because you are human.
because breaking won’t save him. because rage won’t give him peace. because this....this fragile, fleeting life is what you chose together when you decided to join your lives for bitter or for worse. for all that was good and happy.
you and yuuji have lived human lives. brightly loud ones. happily messy ones. a life people could only yearn for. it was full of warmth and loss and laughter that hurt your ribs. and this is the inevitable end of that choice.
so you stand up. "yuuji, let me help."
he looks up to you with a pout. "huh? no way! this is a husband's job!"
"and it's a wife's job to make sure to share the burdens with her husband, so move!"
"okay, okay, don't be pushy!"
you follow yuuji into the kitchen, steps slower than they used to be. you smile like you used to, like it’s a gift you’re wrapping carefully just for him and only him. you wrapped your arms around him and he sighs softly, leaning against it. he takes what he can get.
he prays every single day, to any god out there.
he prays for one more day in your arms like this.
one day more, one more. one more in her love.
it was a small spring offered against the weight of an endless winter that you both know would be forever. it was a reminder of a youth that feels long gone but still lives in muscle memory and shared habits. as it always will.
he chatters while he cooks, talking about nothing and everything. you wash the vegetables. your hands move on instinct. the steam fogs the windows. the world narrows to the sound of boiling water and his voice.
and for a while, just a while.
everything is wonderfully great.
everything is fine. you both believed it is.
until the thought of the end.
you don’t tell him you’re scared. you asked the doctors to do the same. you don’t need to. you can see it in his eyes, even when he smiles at you. he knows. he always has. this was the end and he knows.
instead, you try to spend all of your days with him, smiling and giggling, walking when the day was good, when your legs felt strong enough. you enjoy the rest of spring holding his hand, telling old stories, hoping for more.
but you could feel about your body is breaking down, as it must and as it should and you hold him at night, the last brush of sakura flowers breathing into the room under the moonlight.
you never thought that you would ever have to give him something heavier than the fear of losing you. and it was responsibility. a curse. a selfish request. a foolish request. a request that you knew he would still keep, even if it hurts.
“promise me, yuuji.” you whisper, fingers barely curling around his. “promise me you won’t stop being human just because it hurts.”
he breaks then. ugly, helpless sobs, shoulders shaking like he’s the one dying. “i don’t want to forget.” he says. “i don’t want it to stop hurting.”
“then it won’t, my love.” you say gently. “pain means you loved well. and that i am with you.”
when you’re gone, the world doesn’t end. that’s the cruelest part. it keeps going. people keep laughing. the sun keeps rising. yuuji learns what eternity really means as he keeps burying children after children, grandchild after grandchild.
he was not fighting the thought of endless time, but it was that continuation of endless loss. loss that even he, the strongest, could not prevent. he tries to keep your promise at first.
he stays close to people. to the remainder of your family, of your friends. yuuji lets himself care. lets himself be stupid and hopeful and soft. and every time someone ages, every time someone slows down, the dread coils tighter around his ribs.
he watches it happen again.
eventually, his love starts to feel like a countdown. a countdown for the things he could not take anymore. it was a countdown that would not end, even when it ends for others.
hana’s funeral is quiet. too quiet for someone who burned so brightly. white flowers. incense curling into the air like prayers that won’t be answered. yuuji stands at the back, hands in his pockets, shoulders rigid. he hasn’t cried yet. he hasn’t cried in a while.
his friend was almost unrecognizable from afar. yet when she gets closer, it was like he could recognize her once agian. she looks older. sharper around the edges. still unmistakably herself. she doesn’t say his name at first. instead, she just stands beside him, her eye fixed on the casket.
“you okay?” she asks, already knowing the answer.
yuuji exhales slowly. “i don’t think i can do this anymore.”
she turns to him then, frowning. “do what?”
“say goodbye.” his voice is steady, which scares him more than if it weren’t. “every time i do, it takes something i don’t get back.”
nobara scoffs softly. “yeah? welcome to being human.”
he shakes his head. “you don’t understand.”
she studies him and something in her expression shifts. not fear. recognition. “you’re pulling away, finally.....” she says, stopping before looking at him again. “aren’t you?”
“i have to.....i need to. i....i can't.” he replies, heaving slightly before collecting himself. in a way that made nobara think that gojo satoru was in front of her again.
“if i keep loving people like this… i’ll disappear. it will be too much and i....i will lose it all piece by piece.”
“hana would hate that.” nobara snaps. "she would hate that."
“i know.” he says, quietly. his eyes becoming somber, sadder at the mention of you. he purses his lips in a flat line. “you would too.”
silence stretches between them, thick and aching.
“i loved so much, i want to love so much.” he adds, dulled eyes fixed forward. “she asked me to stay human. to let it hurt. to let it exist.”
nobara softens. “and now?”
“and now i’m scared that being human means surviving everyone i love in this way.”
the ceremony ends. people leave in small clusters. nobara lingers. yuuji was preparing to leave. megumi had told him to stay, but he had found himself refusing the zenin hospitality.
“you don’t get to disappear completely.” she says. “i won’t let you.”
yuuji almost smiles. almost. “i won’t say goodbye, nobara.” he tells her instead. “not anymore. if i don’t start…i don’t have to finish.”
"no." he shakes his head.
kugisaki nobara could only watch him walk away, her aged, weary hands clenched, knowing better than to chase him. she could only sigh and hope the best for the world, for him.
itadori yuuji isolates himself after that. lives quietly far from people's wandering eyes. he hides himself carefully. he still laughs sometimes, at food, at dumb jokes, gambling for fun, calling todo when the loneliness gets to him. but all that is still rare.
but then the memories that sneak up on him, as it always does. but he tries his best to keep it away from him. he looks at everything from a distance now. always from a distance. he could not let it get too close. not anymore.
yet late at night in that tiny spring, when the world is still and the past feels close enough to touch, he remembers your voice. your beautiful tender voice reverberating. haunting him in the way you loved him. overwhelmingly.
that’s the cruel mercy of it.
even alone, he remains human. because he never stopped loving the people he can no longer say goodbye to. especially you. never you. after all, you were the love of his life, for the rest of his life.
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