kisskawa

we're gonna live forever

[kisskawa]

ELLIE/YOON twenty one. any pronouns. carrd. interactions from @/manslutz.

CURRENTLY reading blood meridian - cormac mccarthy. listening to cover me in roses - holden laurence. thinking about ghosts and geto.

QUICK LINKS hq mlist, jjk mlist. tags.

LATEST apollo - ushijima. reservations - geto. leylines - gojo.

!! all works belong to me unless stated otherwise. do not repost/plagiarise/modify in any way.

[kisskawa]

— leylines cw major character death, lots of grief, injury, blood, ghosts of the past, love is the most twisted curse of all, bittersweet ending

gojo keeps up the facade. the jokes fall from his tongue as usual, grin on his lips, but there's something else. something wobbly and wrong as it spreads out too far, too thin. and no one misses the quiver of gojo's lip, no matter how slight.

he knows he's not faring well, each chortle harder to sound than the last. and as the moon creeps into the sky, every fibre of the strongest man sinks, heavier than the day before. everyone else can see it too, can see how he struggles. and so, they laugh alongside him and whisper their concerns to one another when they're sure he's not paying attention. it's not hard, gojo can't seem to find focus at all anymore.

for it'd only been two months since they buried you.

two months since they'd dragged your body from the cursed domain, too much blood and too many tears. two months since you'd become a casualty, remaining only as a name on reports and nothing more. two months since gojo had begun missing you, and two months since he had last stopped.

you'd come in like a storm, utterly captivating as you drew others in, magnetism in the air. all it took was a single sharp smile and a flash of lightning behind your eyes for you to peak gojo satoru's interest. it'd taken a bit more time for your relationship to advance, you weren't a fool. you'd heard of gojo, of course you had. a man with extraordinary power and a face to match, his persona of confidence came as no shock, a string of reverent men and women alike behind him, all wide-eyed and jaws dropped in their admiration. it took a while for you to see past them, see past the illusion gojo let his rumoured reputation build. but then you grew tired of the push and pull - all too aware of the quips and smirks gojo saved just for you - and pressed your lips to his, hold firm on his collar and smile curving as his breath hitched in surprise. and just like that, you had him wrapped round your finger.

it was unfamiliar. for the both of you. you'd spent your days focused on sorcery and techniques, hardly letting yourself find distraction as you climbed your way up the ranks. and gojo, he hadn’t let himself feel so committed to anyone, anything in a long, long time. he was picky with who he loved, pickier even with who he let love him. being a jujutsu sorcerer - let alone such a high level one - was tiring and dark, he did his best to separate it all from his time outside of missions. and yet, he found himself letting you reach out and pull at the mask he had worn so comfortably. bare for you to see, he was willing to quieten down and let his lips drop, exhausted, into a frown; gojo didn’t seem to mind, not as long as he was with you. and sometimes, he pondered amusedly, if you had put a curse on him.

but now gojo was stumbling, grappling for a sense of security that he could no longer find. not in the front he used to put on and not in you who he so desperately wanted, who he so desperately needed.

the night he first saw you for the second time was suffocating. he'd spent the whole day locked up, initially in his office and then in his room, hardly able to get past how everything now seemed to remind him of you. so gojo had turned in early, clamping his eyes shut as he tossed around in a bed intended for two.

he finally gave up some time closer to sunrise than sunset, eyes bleary as he ultimately granted them their wish and allowed them to stay open. and it was as he blinked away the false sleep that he saw you.

he wished he had smiled at the sight of you. maybe even screamed, that'd be logical. but instead, gojo stared, awestruck, loving, blinking only when his eyes began to burn. he didn't know it was tears, rather than disbelief or confusion, that pricked at them, not until your name lurched from his throat, a sob more than a question.

like gojo, you didn't react how expected to, no gentle hello, no admission of love but a simple "you need to let me go." you were never one to sugarcoat around satoru, knowing he'd take your words and twist them into a playful tease, stealing a kiss or two from you in the meantime.

"no, i can't," gojo replied snippedly, somehow falling back into that easy flow of conversation you two always had, no matter what form you took now.

you were about to protest, lips parted as you weighed over demanding him to or assuring him he could, when you faltered. for gojo sat in a too big bed, shaking his head petulantly as tears slowly filled his waterline and yet, you could see, clear as day, how the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. 

"ok," you whispered acceptingly instead into the air and that smile grew.

since then you'd stuck by gojo's side, though, you supposed, that was nothing new. he wandered down the hallways, you right behind him with your silent footsteps, talking to the thin air and no one dared to mention it in conversation. (“he's grieving, let him be.”)

you kept him company as he taught the first years too, lilt in his voice faded and energy sapping throughout the day. but he bore through it. the kids only had him now, and he couldn't let them down like he did you, he wouldn't. in return, nobara sought gojo from his room most nights, words firm and attitude stubborn as she grasped and tugged his sleeve tightly. she sat him down with a solid hand on his shoulder and he'd watch as itadori waltzed around the kitchen, the other two providing aid when they could. "eat," megumi ushered each time with a nod as they crowded round the table, waiting for gojo to take a bite before he allowed himself to follow suit.

you'd always been fond of megumi, having known him the longest of the first years. he was polite though stoic and sarky, and from the way he greeted you in the hallways with a low nod of his head and a call of your name, it was obvious he favoured you too. more often than not he'd turn to you to ask for guidance on training or to complain about gojo's antics and with a tender expression, you'd tried your best to provide him what assistance you could, even if the advice wasn’t always so helpful, you both knew gojo wasn’t going to to stop in his teases, he loved the boy.

but one day megumi returned from a mission battered and broken, blood caking his features and matting his hair. a bruised gojo stood by his side in the infirmary, paler than you had ever seen him. you'd watched carefully as he double and then triple checked if megumi was okay before meandering to his office, footsteps too slow, too heavy.

you'd waited as he slumped in front of his desk, body sinking until his forehead was pressed against the wood. all it took was a tremble of his body and then "fuck!" - a shout as gojo slammed his fist on the table, voice thick. it took a moment for his breathing to even out and another for him to force himself mostly upright, head supported by his hand which was slowly blooming red. still, you remained silent as gojo filled out the mission report, grip too tight on his pen, ink as thick as the blood that trickled down from the gash on his cheek.

"it was the same one," gojo broke the silence with a mumble. any louder and his voice would tremble. "the same one that...you…"

"oh," you hummed, no longer trying to peek over his shoulder at his scrawled handwriting.

"yeah," gojo swallowed thickly, "it--uh it went for megumi first, made him see you when…" his voice is even smaller as he whispers, "i couldn't help him."

something foreign begins to swirl inside you, eating at you as the cursed spirit comes back to haunt you in pieces, grotesque and deformed. thick and wilting skin, limbs twisted every which way and too many eyes glowing a bright yellow. too many teeth too. curved into a ghastly smile as it wracked an arm through your abdomen. you wondered if megumi had felt this same fear.

gojo couldn't bring himself to look away as you remembered. your eyes turned empty, hollow, as your body shuddered in aggressive heaves, growing ever more sunken with each faux breath. your form became greyer, save for the wounds that had returned, marring the remains of your skin. your blood, seeming so real, dripped onto the floor in a consistent stream and all at once, a hole formed in your stomach, baring your insides. the pain, you realised, had never left, simply pushed down and you let out nothing less than a howl, anguished and tortured, ridden with agony. it's gojo's turn to watch now, all too aware that, for the first time since he had seen your ghost, you were well and truly dead, and the tears were endless as, for the second time that day, he remained utterly useless.

a second later and you had gone. disappeared into a wisp and gojo's ears were left ringing as he wondered if any of that - of you - had ever been real.

whatever you are, it took you a week to return, just in time to witness how gojo had restarted his work on tracking down that damn cursed spirit once again. the pair of you carried forward an unspoken deal, pretending you hadn't had a meltdown on supernatural levels and gojo hadn't spent the last few evenings talking to the thin air, begging you to come back. it reminded him all too much of when he had gripped your body, unmoving and still, chants and cries falling endlessly from his lips.

gojo threw himself into the work, stomach churning each time he took a break to visit the infirmary and check on megumi's recovery. not wanting to disturb, you had gotten into the habit of sitting perched on the edge of megumi's bed in the meantime, fingers attempting to smoothen his unruly hair though only ever falling through. there's something about the sight that makes the guilt double, rising up onto gojo's tongue and threatening to spill as it burns his throat, stinging and bitter.

it paid off though. of course it did, it had to. because a month later, gojo found himself trailing after the ugly thing, just an inch from his grasp. it turned, still running, with a taunt, smile curved unnaturally wide as it laughed and spat. in a rage, gojo locked eyes with the cursed spirit and his breath immediately hitched, megumi's injuries entering his mind with a flash. 

gojo felt his jaw ache, teeth clenched together painfully as he zeroed his focus once more. he moved swiftly past the illusion, the memory, of megumi - the boy now fully recovered and fighting a lower grade curse behind him - only to fall into another. this time one of you.

he stared unwavering at the curse, unable to tear his eyes away, stuck in the grasp of haunting yellow. you’re sat in the midst of that, between the pupils and the lids, a dark shadow dancing against the unnatural colour. you run and run, trapped unknowingly in a circle, until finally, the inky cloud you were formed from reaches over and tugs its way through your core. 

gojo doesn't realise he's sobbing, doesn't realise he's screaming either. not even as the tears drip thick from his chin and his throat rubs raw, hoarse. instead all he can think of is you, and how the last thing you'd seen on earth had been the curse that stood in front of him, eyes glowing and smile mocking.

his instinct takes control as a domain takes form, curving over himself and the cursed spirit - and you. it's messy and sloppy, not up to gojo's usual standards, but he can't find it in himself to care, not when the curse stands right in front of him, your death swirling in his irises and yet still, somehow, out of his reach.

it takes but a minute for you to realise you're inside the incomplete domain, pulled in by your connection to both gojo and the curse. this - and the failed mission before - had been for you after all. that much was clear, no matter how much gojo brushed it off and pretended it wasn't. and with him in the forefront of your mind as he so often resided, you ran towards the sound of an obvious fight. and try as you might, you couldn't prevent the feeling that everything was too weighted, too slow. it was clunky as your feet slapped against the floor and your eyes, though darting, couldn't take in the sights before you. a fist, a snap of a jaw, all gone in a single blink.

it was entirely impulse when you found yourself behind gojo, a counter to the curse's inhuman speed and the angled blow it had aimed at his back. your arm was raised protectively, a makeshift shield imbued with cursed energy. there’s no time for gojo to drink you in, no time for him to appreciate you once more. instead all he can do is clap his hands together with ease, confident smile on his face as your joint technique shoots the curse back with an echo.

it doesn’t take much more for gojo to finish the curse off, refinding his stride and proving his worth as the strongest. you provide a helping hand here and there, battling it into position to receive gojo’s hits, but it’s clear to see he needed only a nudge to return to himself, his demeanour familiar and certainty reassuring.

gojo doesn’t waste a minute after the curse finally falls with a telltale thud, tugging on your wrist until you whirl into him, your mere warmth enough to have tears pricking at his eyes. there’s a newfound fervour that he kisses you with, lips slotted against yours as he pours out pure love, desperate for you to receive it all. your chest swells, heart beating rapidly until eventually you can no longer ignore how heavy it feels in your ribcage, a punishment for using borrowed time.

pressing another kiss to his lips, you cup your hands delicately around satoru’s face as though he might break, and mumble softly again: "you need to let me go."

"no, i can't," he repeats, a whimper more than anything this time round and the tears drip down from his eyes and onto your thumbs.

"you have to," you murmur in that tone you knew always soothed gojo as he began to tremble in your hold, "the curse is dead and we both know this domain won't last, can't last forever. let me go satoru, it's okay."

there’s a pause, filled only with sobs as both your hearts constrict and all gojo can do is cry his farewell, “i love you, i love you so much.”

"i know,” you smile, shaky and weak, and still, satoru can’t resist returning it, “i love you, and i'll always be with you. i promise."

one final kiss is shared, gentle but with all the passion of a million goodbyes and the love that should’ve been kindled together for the rest of your lives. satoru keeps you as close to him as he can as the domain collapses and you fade away, nothing more than a wisp of a memory. the first years all clamber towards their teacher, megumi the first to ask "what happened? are you okay?" as the trio barely catch a sliver of red rimmed eyes before gojo slips his blindfold on.

satoru hums positively, smile more assured than it had been for a long while, "yeah i'm alright" he rubs a hand in megumi's hair, "they're gone."

[kisskawa]

— savour it cw smoking, addiction, canon compliant sorry, reader and gojo are friends in grief, partially set during shibuya arc ; title creds

you and shoko have taken to hiding around the grounds of tokyo jujutsu high, tucked behind the back of the dining hall or halfway down unused corridors, smoke escaping your parted lips. it's for your sake more than hers.

she offers you a cigarette, flipping open the packet lid with practiced ease, and leans in close enough to fill your field of vision. your lips curve around your cigarette with a smothered laugh, wobbling ever so slightly before she lights it. you inhale deeply, happily.

it burns down your throat as you draw in a breath, tracing a familiar path. the drag is soothing, calming, as the tires of schoolwork and training and missions slowly lift from your tense shoulders.

you make it four puffs before the tree you're leaning on shifts, leaves shaking as a stray branch is pushed to the side. lazy hiding place, you've been caught.

suguru plucks the cigarette from your lips without hesistation, dropping it to the floor where its stamped out under his dark boot. satisfied, he meets your eyes with a reminder, "don't you know those are bad for you?"

"it was just the one, suguru," you offer a placating smile and beside you, shoko snuffs out her own cigarette, "it's the end of the week, we were tired from lessons."

suguru sighs, more than aware just how draining the entire dire world of jujutsu sorcery can be. it's part understanding, moreso affection, that has his index finger tracing a line from your brow to your cupid's bow. "just the one over this whole week?"

you nod, letting his finger push into your lip, "promise." you've never had reason to lie to him, genuinely trying your best to cut down the habit.

suguru hums, easily won over as he murmurs the softest "alright" before kissing you, lips sliding over yours with poorly concealed mirth. suguru kisses you like he's trying to leave a lasting print on you, ignoring shoko's exasperated huff, ignoring the lack of air, ignoring it all. just you and vanilla lipbalm and residual smoke - he doesn't mind the taste all too much.

the kiss does its job, searing heat branding itself into your memory. it's an intense impression you return to more times than you care to admit, stare glassy and mind dazed. you're not sure how you ever lived without his lips on yours, not sure how you'll ever have to. because a month later, suguru geto is gone.

you wish you'd stopped smoking when he asked. now, without his support, you know you can't.

the habit follows you through a life suguru can't, through the pains of growing and the joys of experience. you're quick to soothe your nerves with a cigarette after a mission, quicker still when your students start getting sent out, one by one. you monitor them closely, hold onto them dearly, and hope you're not missing any signs that you should've seen.

it makes you blame yourself prematurely when you're late to arrive to shibuya. the reports will mention it, you're sure. having made your way there after a tense phonecall with gojo, you feel more than sick, stomach folding over and over in on itself.

out of habit, you pull out your pack of cigarettes, thumb seperating one from the rest. when gojo finds his way to your side, it's still unlit, though filling the space between your fingers as you fiddle mindlessly, just letting the weight ground you. you'll light it when this is over, you decide, when everyone's safe.

one look at geto undoes it all. you falter.

unable to keep your eyes on him and the messy, sickening stitches that disgrace his figure, you let your focus dart to gojo, finding him already looking at you. his features remain stoic in front of the imposter, but the quick drop of his gaze to your trembling hand gives his concern away.

you will yourself to stop shaking.

it doesn't work.

you'd known what had happened to suguru, of course you had. you still love the man who lost his way, the grief persists. gojo had kept you close, kept you protected when all turned to ashes and dangerous curses preyed on the vulnerable, the misguided. because despite the pain, gojo wouldn't let you hear it from anyone else, he couldn't.

seeing geto before you hurts more than anything. smile stretching wide across his face and eyes a gloomy storm, he's so unfamiliar that your chest aches. the reality of the situation drops onto your aching shoulders like a dense weight, ugly panic building in your core as heat pricks at your eyes and you struggle to breathe.

on instinct, your spare hand makes it way deep into your pocket, fabric only just covering your worsening shakes. your fingertips find metal and you hold onto the lighter tightly, bones creaking with the force. it was geto's lighter - suguru's - before he had discouraged your habit, deciding the shortlived pleasure wasn't worth the slow damage. it wasn't like he had smoked all that often anyways, mostly carrying around the lighter for your and shoko's use.

the worn wheel from years of use, the loud clinking lid, and the scratch of your shared initials carved into the base helps stave off the growing feeling of madness, of your mind finally breaking under its burdens. it leaves only a bitter taste. you nod at gojo, letting him know you're okay for now, as much as you can be. but nothing could've prepared you for geto's attention, eyes leering and accusing and finger pointing at your long forgotten cigarette, now crumpled in your grip.

voice like nails on a chalkboard, a shudder heaves and wracks its way up your spine, "don't you know those are bad for you?"

[kisskawa]

omg… i’m sorry i think i submitted that instead of an ask T_T LOL but my sentiments are the same…. ily and am sending u kisses

giggled sorry!! i was like i have a submission...? but i love youu!! <3 i miss writing and being on here so often and leaving love letters in ur inbox ;; as soon as this week is over and reading week starts, im gonna be bothering you all the time hehe

[ohkento-deactivated20240214]

THIS WAS SO CUTE !! ( LINK ) this is an obligation tag. you have to do it !! 😡🫵🏾

🧸. @kentoangel @dgrymn @chosoist @dilfhos @todorosie @andypantsx3 @hisoknen @jilval @pinkmirth @honeybleed @tteokdoroki @softwiingz etc.

[scarabrat-deactivated20241205]

a very tired shadow meister n his always-hungry-at-the-worst-times weapon, always n forever on the same wavelength <3

⭐️ @soumies @shotorus @pawchive @bunicate @hash-slinging-slasher-trash @pastelle-rabbit n you!!

[soumies]

cutest picrew ever made ෆ thanks for the taggie dilly bee !!

mr. grumpy pants + somi who's always ready 4 bed ..

🍰. @meowzfordayz @kitashousewife @missmeinyourbones @ufo-ikawa @augustinewrites @margumis @tetzoro + whoever wants to join

[ufo-ikawa-deactivated20240208]

so cute! thank u for the tag @soumies, it’s nice to meet u :’)

i had to make oiks w his signature 😋 otherwise it would be committing a crime against myself…. and me blushing bc im endeared by anything he does.

no pressure tags: @augustinewrites @kisskawa @queenelleee @oikawabi-sabi @sookisaurus @itadorey @kithsune @gojoest @renhoeku + anyone else who wants to join !

[kisskawa]

mwahh ty for the tag ari @ufo-ikawa <3 u know i had to do kawa too hehe + im drawing a blank on the .2 writers i follow so feel free to use this as an open tag lmaoo

[furiwokaaan]

9 years

[kisskawa]

trying to be better w content warnings so lmk if i miss anything you guys need <3

[kisskawa]

current state of mind

[kisskawa]

ellie… i wish i could read that gojo fic again with fresh eyes. u know how much i love oikawa and yet, i think that might beat honey and lemon on my list of faves - it was that good!!!!!!!!!

thank u for sharing ur baby w us… i will treasure it forever :’)

kissing u a million times over!! i mustve reread this ask and ur tags countless times and im still smiling like a fool each time!! thank you so so much for ur kind words ari baby, it makes me sooo happy to hear your response to leylines! <3 you somehow managed to pick out all my fave lines whilst writing hehe i love that they could draw an emotional response for u!! im gonna treasure you forever!! <3

[kisskawa]

— leylines cw major character death, lots of grief, injury, blood, ghosts of the past, love is the most twisted curse of all, bittersweet ending

gojo keeps up the facade. the jokes fall from his tongue as usual, grin on his lips, but there's something else. something wobbly and wrong as it spreads out too far, too thin. and no one misses the quiver of gojo's lip, no matter how slight.

he knows he's not faring well, each chortle harder to sound than the last. and as the moon creeps into the sky, every fibre of the strongest man sinks, heavier than the day before. everyone else can see it too, can see how he struggles. and so, they laugh alongside him and whisper their concerns to one another when they're sure he's not paying attention. it's not hard, gojo can't seem to find focus at all anymore.

for it'd only been two months since they buried you.

two months since they'd dragged your body from the cursed domain, too much blood and too many tears. two months since you'd become a casualty, remaining only as a name on reports and nothing more. two months since gojo had begun missing you, and two months since he had last stopped.

you'd come in like a storm, utterly captivating as you drew others in, magnetism in the air. all it took was a single sharp smile and a flash of lightning behind your eyes for you to peak gojo satoru's interest. it'd taken a bit more time for your relationship to advance, you weren't a fool. you'd heard of gojo, of course you had. a man with extraordinary power and a face to match, his persona of confidence came as no shock, a string of reverent men and women alike behind him, all wide-eyed and jaws dropped in their admiration. it took a while for you to see past them, see past the illusion gojo let his rumoured reputation build. but then you grew tired of the push and pull - all too aware of the quips and smirks gojo saved just for you - and pressed your lips to his, hold firm on his collar and smile curving as his breath hitched in surprise. and just like that, you had him wrapped round your finger.

it was unfamiliar. for the both of you. you'd spent your days focused on sorcery and techniques, hardly letting yourself find distraction as you climbed your way up the ranks. and gojo, he hadn’t let himself feel so committed to anyone, anything in a long, long time. he was picky with who he loved, pickier even with who he let love him. being a jujutsu sorcerer - let alone such a high level one - was tiring and dark, he did his best to separate it all from his time outside of missions. and yet, he found himself letting you reach out and pull at the mask he had worn so comfortably. bare for you to see, he was willing to quieten down and let his lips drop, exhausted, into a frown; gojo didn’t seem to mind, not as long as he was with you. and sometimes, he pondered amusedly, if you had put a curse on him.

but now gojo was stumbling, grappling for a sense of security that he could no longer find. not in the front he used to put on and not in you who he so desperately wanted, who he so desperately needed.

the night he first saw you for the second time was suffocating. he'd spent the whole day locked up, initially in his office and then in his room, hardly able to get past how everything now seemed to remind him of you. so gojo had turned in early, clamping his eyes shut as he tossed around in a bed intended for two.

he finally gave up some time closer to sunrise than sunset, eyes bleary as he ultimately granted them their wish and allowed them to stay open. and it was as he blinked away the false sleep that he saw you.

he wished he had smiled at the sight of you. maybe even screamed, that'd be logical. but instead, gojo stared, awestruck, loving, blinking only when his eyes began to burn. he didn't know it was tears, rather than disbelief or confusion, that pricked at them, not until your name lurched from his throat, a sob more than a question.

like gojo, you didn't react how expected to, no gentle hello, no admission of love but a simple "you need to let me go." you were never one to sugarcoat around satoru, knowing he'd take your words and twist them into a playful tease, stealing a kiss or two from you in the meantime.

"no, i can't," gojo replied snippedly, somehow falling back into that easy flow of conversation you two always had, no matter what form you took now.

you were about to protest, lips parted as you weighed over demanding him to or assuring him he could, when you faltered. for gojo sat in a too big bed, shaking his head petulantly as tears slowly filled his waterline and yet, you could see, clear as day, how the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. 

"ok," you whispered acceptingly instead into the air and that smile grew.

since then you'd stuck by gojo's side, though, you supposed, that was nothing new. he wandered down the hallways, you right behind him with your silent footsteps, talking to the thin air and no one dared to mention it in conversation. (“he's grieving, let him be.”)

you kept him company as he taught the first years too, lilt in his voice faded and energy sapping throughout the day. but he bore through it. the kids only had him now, and he couldn't let them down like he did you, he wouldn't. in return, nobara sought gojo from his room most nights, words firm and attitude stubborn as she grasped and tugged his sleeve tightly. she sat him down with a solid hand on his shoulder and he'd watch as itadori waltzed around the kitchen, the other two providing aid when they could. "eat," megumi ushered each time with a nod as they crowded round the table, waiting for gojo to take a bite before he allowed himself to follow suit.

you'd always been fond of megumi, having known him the longest of the first years. he was polite though stoic and sarky, and from the way he greeted you in the hallways with a low nod of his head and a call of your name, it was obvious he favoured you too. more often than not he'd turn to you to ask for guidance on training or to complain about gojo's antics and with a tender expression, you'd tried your best to provide him what assistance you could, even if the advice wasn’t always so helpful, you both knew gojo wasn’t going to to stop in his teases, he loved the boy.

but one day megumi returned from a mission battered and broken, blood caking his features and matting his hair. a bruised gojo stood by his side in the infirmary, paler than you had ever seen him. you'd watched carefully as he double and then triple checked if megumi was okay before meandering to his office, footsteps too slow, too heavy.

you'd waited as he slumped in front of his desk, body sinking until his forehead was pressed against the wood. all it took was a tremble of his body and then "fuck!" - a shout as gojo slammed his fist on the table, voice thick. it took a moment for his breathing to even out and another for him to force himself mostly upright, head supported by his hand which was slowly blooming red. still, you remained silent as gojo filled out the mission report, grip too tight on his pen, ink as thick as the blood that trickled down from the gash on his cheek.

"it was the same one," gojo broke the silence with a mumble. any louder and his voice would tremble. "the same one that...you…"

"oh," you hummed, no longer trying to peek over his shoulder at his scrawled handwriting.

"yeah," gojo swallowed thickly, "it--uh it went for megumi first, made him see you when…" his voice is even smaller as he whispers, "i couldn't help him."

something foreign begins to swirl inside you, eating at you as the cursed spirit comes back to haunt you in pieces, grotesque and deformed. thick and wilting skin, limbs twisted every which way and too many eyes glowing a bright yellow. too many teeth too. curved into a ghastly smile as it wracked an arm through your abdomen. you wondered if megumi had felt this same fear.

gojo couldn't bring himself to look away as you remembered. your eyes turned empty, hollow, as your body shuddered in aggressive heaves, growing ever more sunken with each faux breath. your form became greyer, save for the wounds that had returned, marring the remains of your skin. your blood, seeming so real, dripped onto the floor in a consistent stream and all at once, a hole formed in your stomach, baring your insides. the pain, you realised, had never left, simply pushed down and you let out nothing less than a howl, anguished and tortured, ridden with agony. it's gojo's turn to watch now, all too aware that, for the first time since he had seen your ghost, you were well and truly dead, and the tears were endless as, for the second time that day, he remained utterly useless.

a second later and you had gone. disappeared into a wisp and gojo's ears were left ringing as he wondered if any of that - of you - had ever been real.

whatever you are, it took you a week to return, just in time to witness how gojo had restarted his work on tracking down that damn cursed spirit once again. the pair of you carried forward an unspoken deal, pretending you hadn't had a meltdown on supernatural levels and gojo hadn't spent the last few evenings talking to the thin air, begging you to come back. it reminded him all too much of when he had gripped your body, unmoving and still, chants and cries falling endlessly from his lips.

gojo threw himself into the work, stomach churning each time he took a break to visit the infirmary and check on megumi's recovery. not wanting to disturb, you had gotten into the habit of sitting perched on the edge of megumi's bed in the meantime, fingers attempting to smoothen his unruly hair though only ever falling through. there's something about the sight that makes the guilt double, rising up onto gojo's tongue and threatening to spill as it burns his throat, stinging and bitter.

it paid off though. of course it did, it had to. because a month later, gojo found himself trailing after the ugly thing, just an inch from his grasp. it turned, still running, with a taunt, smile curved unnaturally wide as it laughed and spat. in a rage, gojo locked eyes with the cursed spirit and his breath immediately hitched, megumi's injuries entering his mind with a flash. 

gojo felt his jaw ache, teeth clenched together painfully as he zeroed his focus once more. he moved swiftly past the illusion, the memory, of megumi - the boy now fully recovered and fighting a lower grade curse behind him - only to fall into another. this time one of you.

he stared unwavering at the curse, unable to tear his eyes away, stuck in the grasp of haunting yellow. you’re sat in the midst of that, between the pupils and the lids, a dark shadow dancing against the unnatural colour. you run and run, trapped unknowingly in a circle, until finally, the inky cloud you were formed from reaches over and tugs its way through your core. 

gojo doesn't realise he's sobbing, doesn't realise he's screaming either. not even as the tears drip thick from his chin and his throat rubs raw, hoarse. instead all he can think of is you, and how the last thing you'd seen on earth had been the curse that stood in front of him, eyes glowing and smile mocking.

his instinct takes control as a domain takes form, curving over himself and the cursed spirit - and you. it's messy and sloppy, not up to gojo's usual standards, but he can't find it in himself to care, not when the curse stands right in front of him, your death swirling in his irises and yet still, somehow, out of his reach.

it takes but a minute for you to realise you're inside the incomplete domain, pulled in by your connection to both gojo and the curse. this - and the failed mission before - had been for you after all. that much was clear, no matter how much gojo brushed it off and pretended it wasn't. and with him in the forefront of your mind as he so often resided, you ran towards the sound of an obvious fight. and try as you might, you couldn't prevent the feeling that everything was too weighted, too slow. it was clunky as your feet slapped against the floor and your eyes, though darting, couldn't take in the sights before you. a fist, a snap of a jaw, all gone in a single blink.

it was entirely impulse when you found yourself behind gojo, a counter to the curse's inhuman speed and the angled blow it had aimed at his back. your arm was raised protectively, a makeshift shield imbued with cursed energy. there’s no time for gojo to drink you in, no time for him to appreciate you once more. instead all he can do is clap his hands together with ease, confident smile on his face as your joint technique shoots the curse back with an echo.

it doesn’t take much more for gojo to finish the curse off, refinding his stride and proving his worth as the strongest. you provide a helping hand here and there, battling it into position to receive gojo’s hits, but it’s clear to see he needed only a nudge to return to himself, his demeanour familiar and certainty reassuring.

gojo doesn’t waste a minute after the curse finally falls with a telltale thud, tugging on your wrist until you whirl into him, your mere warmth enough to have tears pricking at his eyes. there’s a newfound fervour that he kisses you with, lips slotted against yours as he pours out pure love, desperate for you to receive it all. your chest swells, heart beating rapidly until eventually you can no longer ignore how heavy it feels in your ribcage, a punishment for using borrowed time.

pressing another kiss to his lips, you cup your hands delicately around satoru’s face as though he might break, and mumble softly again: "you need to let me go."

"no, i can't," he repeats, a whimper more than anything this time round and the tears drip down from his eyes and onto your thumbs.

"you have to," you murmur in that tone you knew always soothed gojo as he began to tremble in your hold, "the curse is dead and we both know this domain won't last, can't last forever. let me go satoru, it's okay."

there’s a pause, filled only with sobs as both your hearts constrict and all gojo can do is cry his farewell, “i love you, i love you so much.”

"i know,” you smile, shaky and weak, and still, satoru can’t resist returning it, “i love you, and i'll always be with you. i promise."

one final kiss is shared, gentle but with all the passion of a million goodbyes and the love that should’ve been kindled together for the rest of your lives. satoru keeps you as close to him as he can as the domain collapses and you fade away, nothing more than a wisp of a memory. the first years all clamber towards their teacher, megumi the first to ask "what happened? are you okay?" as the trio barely catch a sliver of red rimmed eyes before gojo slips his blindfold on.

satoru hums positively, smile more assured than it had been for a long while, "yeah i'm alright" he rubs a hand in megumi's hair, "they're gone."

[kisskawa]

— leylines cw major character death, lots of grief, injury, blood, ghosts of the past, love is the most twisted curse of all, bittersweet ending

gojo keeps up the facade. the jokes fall from his tongue as usual, grin on his lips, but there's something else. something wobbly and wrong as it spreads out too far, too thin. and no one misses the quiver of gojo's lip, no matter how slight.

he knows he's not faring well, each chortle harder to sound than the last. and as the moon creeps into the sky, every fibre of the strongest man sinks, heavier than the day before. everyone else can see it too, can see how he struggles. and so, they laugh alongside him and whisper their concerns to one another when they're sure he's not paying attention. it's not hard, gojo can't seem to find focus at all anymore.

for it'd only been two months since they buried you.

two months since they'd dragged your body from the cursed domain, too much blood and too many tears. two months since you'd become a casualty, remaining only as a name on reports and nothing more. two months since gojo had begun missing you, and two months since he had last stopped.

you'd come in like a storm, utterly captivating as you drew others in, magnetism in the air. all it took was a single sharp smile and a flash of lightning behind your eyes for you to peak gojo satoru's interest. it'd taken a bit more time for your relationship to advance, you weren't a fool. you'd heard of gojo, of course you had. a man with extraordinary power and a face to match, his persona of confidence came as no shock, a string of reverent men and women alike behind him, all wide-eyed and jaws dropped in their admiration. it took a while for you to see past them, see past the illusion gojo let his rumoured reputation build. but then you grew tired of the push and pull - all too aware of the quips and smirks gojo saved just for you - and pressed your lips to his, hold firm on his collar and smile curving as his breath hitched in surprise. and just like that, you had him wrapped round your finger.

it was unfamiliar. for the both of you. you'd spent your days focused on sorcery and techniques, hardly letting yourself find distraction as you climbed your way up the ranks. and gojo, he hadn’t let himself feel so committed to anyone, anything in a long, long time. he was picky with who he loved, pickier even with who he let love him. being a jujutsu sorcerer - let alone such a high level one - was tiring and dark, he did his best to separate it all from his time outside of missions. and yet, he found himself letting you reach out and pull at the mask he had worn so comfortably. bare for you to see, he was willing to quieten down and let his lips drop, exhausted, into a frown; gojo didn’t seem to mind, not as long as he was with you. and sometimes, he pondered amusedly, if you had put a curse on him.

but now gojo was stumbling, grappling for a sense of security that he could no longer find. not in the front he used to put on and not in you who he so desperately wanted, who he so desperately needed.

the night he first saw you for the second time was suffocating. he'd spent the whole day locked up, initially in his office and then in his room, hardly able to get past how everything now seemed to remind him of you. so gojo had turned in early, clamping his eyes shut as he tossed around in a bed intended for two.

he finally gave up some time closer to sunrise than sunset, eyes bleary as he ultimately granted them their wish and allowed them to stay open. and it was as he blinked away the false sleep that he saw you.

he wished he had smiled at the sight of you. maybe even screamed, that'd be logical. but instead, gojo stared, awestruck, loving, blinking only when his eyes began to burn. he didn't know it was tears, rather than disbelief or confusion, that pricked at them, not until your name lurched from his throat, a sob more than a question.

like gojo, you didn't react how expected to, no gentle hello, no admission of love but a simple "you need to let me go." you were never one to sugarcoat around satoru, knowing he'd take your words and twist them into a playful tease, stealing a kiss or two from you in the meantime.

"no, i can't," gojo replied snippedly, somehow falling back into that easy flow of conversation you two always had, no matter what form you took now.

you were about to protest, lips parted as you weighed over demanding him to or assuring him he could, when you faltered. for gojo sat in a too big bed, shaking his head petulantly as tears slowly filled his waterline and yet, you could see, clear as day, how the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. 

"ok," you whispered acceptingly instead into the air and that smile grew.

since then you'd stuck by gojo's side, though, you supposed, that was nothing new. he wandered down the hallways, you right behind him with your silent footsteps, talking to the thin air and no one dared to mention it in conversation. (“he's grieving, let him be.”)

you kept him company as he taught the first years too, lilt in his voice faded and energy sapping throughout the day. but he bore through it. the kids only had him now, and he couldn't let them down like he did you, he wouldn't. in return, nobara sought gojo from his room most nights, words firm and attitude stubborn as she grasped and tugged his sleeve tightly. she sat him down with a solid hand on his shoulder and he'd watch as itadori waltzed around the kitchen, the other two providing aid when they could. "eat," megumi ushered each time with a nod as they crowded round the table, waiting for gojo to take a bite before he allowed himself to follow suit.

you'd always been fond of megumi, having known him the longest of the first years. he was polite though stoic and sarky, and from the way he greeted you in the hallways with a low nod of his head and a call of your name, it was obvious he favoured you too. more often than not he'd turn to you to ask for guidance on training or to complain about gojo's antics and with a tender expression, you'd tried your best to provide him what assistance you could, even if the advice wasn’t always so helpful, you both knew gojo wasn’t going to to stop in his teases, he loved the boy.

but one day megumi returned from a mission battered and broken, blood caking his features and matting his hair. a bruised gojo stood by his side in the infirmary, paler than you had ever seen him. you'd watched carefully as he double and then triple checked if megumi was okay before meandering to his office, footsteps too slow, too heavy.

you'd waited as he slumped in front of his desk, body sinking until his forehead was pressed against the wood. all it took was a tremble of his body and then "fuck!" - a shout as gojo slammed his fist on the table, voice thick. it took a moment for his breathing to even out and another for him to force himself mostly upright, head supported by his hand which was slowly blooming red. still, you remained silent as gojo filled out the mission report, grip too tight on his pen, ink as thick as the blood that trickled down from the gash on his cheek.

"it was the same one," gojo broke the silence with a mumble. any louder and his voice would tremble. "the same one that...you…"

"oh," you hummed, no longer trying to peek over his shoulder at his scrawled handwriting.

"yeah," gojo swallowed thickly, "it--uh it went for megumi first, made him see you when…" his voice is even smaller as he whispers, "i couldn't help him."

something foreign begins to swirl inside you, eating at you as the cursed spirit comes back to haunt you in pieces, grotesque and deformed. thick and wilting skin, limbs twisted every which way and too many eyes glowing a bright yellow. too many teeth too. curved into a ghastly smile as it wracked an arm through your abdomen. you wondered if megumi had felt this same fear.

gojo couldn't bring himself to look away as you remembered. your eyes turned empty, hollow, as your body shuddered in aggressive heaves, growing ever more sunken with each faux breath. your form became greyer, save for the wounds that had returned, marring the remains of your skin. your blood, seeming so real, dripped onto the floor in a consistent stream and all at once, a hole formed in your stomach, baring your insides. the pain, you realised, had never left, simply pushed down and you let out nothing less than a howl, anguished and tortured, ridden with agony. it's gojo's turn to watch now, all too aware that, for the first time since he had seen your ghost, you were well and truly dead, and the tears were endless as, for the second time that day, he remained utterly useless.

a second later and you had gone. disappeared into a wisp and gojo's ears were left ringing as he wondered if any of that - of you - had ever been real.

whatever you are, it took you a week to return, just in time to witness how gojo had restarted his work on tracking down that damn cursed spirit once again. the pair of you carried forward an unspoken deal, pretending you hadn't had a meltdown on supernatural levels and gojo hadn't spent the last few evenings talking to the thin air, begging you to come back. it reminded him all too much of when he had gripped your body, unmoving and still, chants and cries falling endlessly from his lips.

gojo threw himself into the work, stomach churning each time he took a break to visit the infirmary and check on megumi's recovery. not wanting to disturb, you had gotten into the habit of sitting perched on the edge of megumi's bed in the meantime, fingers attempting to smoothen his unruly hair though only ever falling through. there's something about the sight that makes the guilt double, rising up onto gojo's tongue and threatening to spill as it burns his throat, stinging and bitter.

it paid off though. of course it did, it had to. because a month later, gojo found himself trailing after the ugly thing, just an inch from his grasp. it turned, still running, with a taunt, smile curved unnaturally wide as it laughed and spat. in a rage, gojo locked eyes with the cursed spirit and his breath immediately hitched, megumi's injuries entering his mind with a flash. 

gojo felt his jaw ache, teeth clenched together painfully as he zeroed his focus once more. he moved swiftly past the illusion, the memory, of megumi - the boy now fully recovered and fighting a lower grade curse behind him - only to fall into another. this time one of you.

he stared unwavering at the curse, unable to tear his eyes away, stuck in the grasp of haunting yellow. you’re sat in the midst of that, between the pupils and the lids, a dark shadow dancing against the unnatural colour. you run and run, trapped unknowingly in a circle, until finally, the inky cloud you were formed from reaches over and tugs its way through your core. 

gojo doesn't realise he's sobbing, doesn't realise he's screaming either. not even as the tears drip thick from his chin and his throat rubs raw, hoarse. instead all he can think of is you, and how the last thing you'd seen on earth had been the curse that stood in front of him, eyes glowing and smile mocking.

his instinct takes control as a domain takes form, curving over himself and the cursed spirit - and you. it's messy and sloppy, not up to gojo's usual standards, but he can't find it in himself to care, not when the curse stands right in front of him, your death swirling in his irises and yet still, somehow, out of his reach.

it takes but a minute for you to realise you're inside the incomplete domain, pulled in by your connection to both gojo and the curse. this - and the failed mission before - had been for you after all. that much was clear, no matter how much gojo brushed it off and pretended it wasn't. and with him in the forefront of your mind as he so often resided, you ran towards the sound of an obvious fight. and try as you might, you couldn't prevent the feeling that everything was too weighted, too slow. it was clunky as your feet slapped against the floor and your eyes, though darting, couldn't take in the sights before you. a fist, a snap of a jaw, all gone in a single blink.

it was entirely impulse when you found yourself behind gojo, a counter to the curse's inhuman speed and the angled blow it had aimed at his back. your arm was raised protectively, a makeshift shield imbued with cursed energy. there’s no time for gojo to drink you in, no time for him to appreciate you once more. instead all he can do is clap his hands together with ease, confident smile on his face as your joint technique shoots the curse back with an echo.

it doesn’t take much more for gojo to finish the curse off, refinding his stride and proving his worth as the strongest. you provide a helping hand here and there, battling it into position to receive gojo’s hits, but it’s clear to see he needed only a nudge to return to himself, his demeanour familiar and certainty reassuring.

gojo doesn’t waste a minute after the curse finally falls with a telltale thud, tugging on your wrist until you whirl into him, your mere warmth enough to have tears pricking at his eyes. there’s a newfound fervour that he kisses you with, lips slotted against yours as he pours out pure love, desperate for you to receive it all. your chest swells, heart beating rapidly until eventually you can no longer ignore how heavy it feels in your ribcage, a punishment for using borrowed time.

pressing another kiss to his lips, you cup your hands delicately around satoru’s face as though he might break, and mumble softly again: "you need to let me go."

"no, i can't," he repeats, a whimper more than anything this time round and the tears drip down from his eyes and onto your thumbs.

"you have to," you murmur in that tone you knew always soothed gojo as he began to tremble in your hold, "the curse is dead and we both know this domain won't last, can't last forever. let me go satoru, it's okay."

there’s a pause, filled only with sobs as both your hearts constrict and all gojo can do is cry his farewell, “i love you, i love you so much.”

"i know,” you smile, shaky and weak, and still, satoru can’t resist returning it, “i love you, and i'll always be with you. i promise."

one final kiss is shared, gentle but with all the passion of a million goodbyes and the love that should’ve been kindled together for the rest of your lives. satoru keeps you as close to him as he can as the domain collapses and you fade away, nothing more than a wisp of a memory. the first years all clamber towards their teacher, megumi the first to ask "what happened? are you okay?" as the trio barely catch a sliver of red rimmed eyes before gojo slips his blindfold on.

satoru hums positively, smile more assured than it had been for a long while, "yeah i'm alright" he rubs a hand in megumi's hair, "they're gone."

[kisskawa]

— leylines cw major character death, lots of grief, injury, blood, ghosts of the past, love is the most twisted curse of all, bittersweet ending

gojo keeps up the facade. the jokes fall from his tongue as usual, grin on his lips, but there's something else. something wobbly and wrong as it spreads out too far, too thin. and no one misses the quiver of gojo's lip, no matter how slight.

he knows he's not faring well, each chortle harder to sound than the last. and as the moon creeps into the sky, every fibre of the strongest man sinks, heavier than the day before. everyone else can see it too, can see how he struggles. and so, they laugh alongside him and whisper their concerns to one another when they're sure he's not paying attention. it's not hard, gojo can't seem to find focus at all anymore.

for it'd only been two months since they buried you.

two months since they'd dragged your body from the cursed domain, too much blood and too many tears. two months since you'd become a casualty, remaining only as a name on reports and nothing more. two months since gojo had begun missing you, and two months since he had last stopped.

you'd come in like a storm, utterly captivating as you drew others in, magnetism in the air. all it took was a single sharp smile and a flash of lightning behind your eyes for you to peak gojo satoru's interest. it'd taken a bit more time for your relationship to advance, you weren't a fool. you'd heard of gojo, of course you had. a man with extraordinary power and a face to match, his persona of confidence came as no shock, a string of reverent men and women alike behind him, all wide-eyed and jaws dropped in their admiration. it took a while for you to see past them, see past the illusion gojo let his rumoured reputation build. but then you grew tired of the push and pull - all too aware of the quips and smirks gojo saved just for you - and pressed your lips to his, hold firm on his collar and smile curving as his breath hitched in surprise. and just like that, you had him wrapped round your finger.

it was unfamiliar. for the both of you. you'd spent your days focused on sorcery and techniques, hardly letting yourself find distraction as you climbed your way up the ranks. and gojo, he hadn’t let himself feel so committed to anyone, anything in a long, long time. he was picky with who he loved, pickier even with who he let love him. being a jujutsu sorcerer - let alone such a high level one - was tiring and dark, he did his best to separate it all from his time outside of missions. and yet, he found himself letting you reach out and pull at the mask he had worn so comfortably. bare for you to see, he was willing to quieten down and let his lips drop, exhausted, into a frown; gojo didn’t seem to mind, not as long as he was with you. and sometimes, he pondered amusedly, if you had put a curse on him.

but now gojo was stumbling, grappling for a sense of security that he could no longer find. not in the front he used to put on and not in you who he so desperately wanted, who he so desperately needed.

the night he first saw you for the second time was suffocating. he'd spent the whole day locked up, initially in his office and then in his room, hardly able to get past how everything now seemed to remind him of you. so gojo had turned in early, clamping his eyes shut as he tossed around in a bed intended for two.

he finally gave up some time closer to sunrise than sunset, eyes bleary as he ultimately granted them their wish and allowed them to stay open. and it was as he blinked away the false sleep that he saw you.

he wished he had smiled at the sight of you. maybe even screamed, that'd be logical. but instead, gojo stared, awestruck, loving, blinking only when his eyes began to burn. he didn't know it was tears, rather than disbelief or confusion, that pricked at them, not until your name lurched from his throat, a sob more than a question.

like gojo, you didn't react how expected to, no gentle hello, no admission of love but a simple "you need to let me go." you were never one to sugarcoat around satoru, knowing he'd take your words and twist them into a playful tease, stealing a kiss or two from you in the meantime.

"no, i can't," gojo replied snippedly, somehow falling back into that easy flow of conversation you two always had, no matter what form you took now.

you were about to protest, lips parted as you weighed over demanding him to or assuring him he could, when you faltered. for gojo sat in a too big bed, shaking his head petulantly as tears slowly filled his waterline and yet, you could see, clear as day, how the corners of his lips twitched upwards ever so slightly. 

"ok," you whispered acceptingly instead into the air and that smile grew.

since then you'd stuck by gojo's side, though, you supposed, that was nothing new. he wandered down the hallways, you right behind him with your silent footsteps, talking to the thin air and no one dared to mention it in conversation. (“he's grieving, let him be.”)

you kept him company as he taught the first years too, lilt in his voice faded and energy sapping throughout the day. but he bore through it. the kids only had him now, and he couldn't let them down like he did you, he wouldn't. in return, nobara sought gojo from his room most nights, words firm and attitude stubborn as she grasped and tugged his sleeve tightly. she sat him down with a solid hand on his shoulder and he'd watch as itadori waltzed around the kitchen, the other two providing aid when they could. "eat," megumi ushered each time with a nod as they crowded round the table, waiting for gojo to take a bite before he allowed himself to follow suit.

you'd always been fond of megumi, having known him the longest of the first years. he was polite though stoic and sarky, and from the way he greeted you in the hallways with a low nod of his head and a call of your name, it was obvious he favoured you too. more often than not he'd turn to you to ask for guidance on training or to complain about gojo's antics and with a tender expression, you'd tried your best to provide him what assistance you could, even if the advice wasn’t always so helpful, you both knew gojo wasn’t going to to stop in his teases, he loved the boy.

but one day megumi returned from a mission battered and broken, blood caking his features and matting his hair. a bruised gojo stood by his side in the infirmary, paler than you had ever seen him. you'd watched carefully as he double and then triple checked if megumi was okay before meandering to his office, footsteps too slow, too heavy.

you'd waited as he slumped in front of his desk, body sinking until his forehead was pressed against the wood. all it took was a tremble of his body and then "fuck!" - a shout as gojo slammed his fist on the table, voice thick. it took a moment for his breathing to even out and another for him to force himself mostly upright, head supported by his hand which was slowly blooming red. still, you remained silent as gojo filled out the mission report, grip too tight on his pen, ink as thick as the blood that trickled down from the gash on his cheek.

"it was the same one," gojo broke the silence with a mumble. any louder and his voice would tremble. "the same one that...you…"

"oh," you hummed, no longer trying to peek over his shoulder at his scrawled handwriting.

"yeah," gojo swallowed thickly, "it--uh it went for megumi first, made him see you when…" his voice is even smaller as he whispers, "i couldn't help him."

something foreign begins to swirl inside you, eating at you as the cursed spirit comes back to haunt you in pieces, grotesque and deformed. thick and wilting skin, limbs twisted every which way and too many eyes glowing a bright yellow. too many teeth too. curved into a ghastly smile as it wracked an arm through your abdomen. you wondered if megumi had felt this same fear.

gojo couldn't bring himself to look away as you remembered. your eyes turned empty, hollow, as your body shuddered in aggressive heaves, growing ever more sunken with each faux breath. your form became greyer, save for the wounds that had returned, marring the remains of your skin. your blood, seeming so real, dripped onto the floor in a consistent stream and all at once, a hole formed in your stomach, baring your insides. the pain, you realised, had never left, simply pushed down and you let out nothing less than a howl, anguished and tortured, ridden with agony. it's gojo's turn to watch now, all too aware that, for the first time since he had seen your ghost, you were well and truly dead, and the tears were endless as, for the second time that day, he remained utterly useless.

a second later and you had gone. disappeared into a wisp and gojo's ears were left ringing as he wondered if any of that - of you - had ever been real.

whatever you are, it took you a week to return, just in time to witness how gojo had restarted his work on tracking down that damn cursed spirit once again. the pair of you carried forward an unspoken deal, pretending you hadn't had a meltdown on supernatural levels and gojo hadn't spent the last few evenings talking to the thin air, begging you to come back. it reminded him all too much of when he had gripped your body, unmoving and still, chants and cries falling endlessly from his lips.

gojo threw himself into the work, stomach churning each time he took a break to visit the infirmary and check on megumi's recovery. not wanting to disturb, you had gotten into the habit of sitting perched on the edge of megumi's bed in the meantime, fingers attempting to smoothen his unruly hair though only ever falling through. there's something about the sight that makes the guilt double, rising up onto gojo's tongue and threatening to spill as it burns his throat, stinging and bitter.

it paid off though. of course it did, it had to. because a month later, gojo found himself trailing after the ugly thing, just an inch from his grasp. it turned, still running, with a taunt, smile curved unnaturally wide as it laughed and spat. in a rage, gojo locked eyes with the cursed spirit and his breath immediately hitched, megumi's injuries entering his mind with a flash. 

gojo felt his jaw ache, teeth clenched together painfully as he zeroed his focus once more. he moved swiftly past the illusion, the memory, of megumi - the boy now fully recovered and fighting a lower grade curse behind him - only to fall into another. this time one of you.

he stared unwavering at the curse, unable to tear his eyes away, stuck in the grasp of haunting yellow. you’re sat in the midst of that, between the pupils and the lids, a dark shadow dancing against the unnatural colour. you run and run, trapped unknowingly in a circle, until finally, the inky cloud you were formed from reaches over and tugs its way through your core. 

gojo doesn't realise he's sobbing, doesn't realise he's screaming either. not even as the tears drip thick from his chin and his throat rubs raw, hoarse. instead all he can think of is you, and how the last thing you'd seen on earth had been the curse that stood in front of him, eyes glowing and smile mocking.

his instinct takes control as a domain takes form, curving over himself and the cursed spirit - and you. it's messy and sloppy, not up to gojo's usual standards, but he can't find it in himself to care, not when the curse stands right in front of him, your death swirling in his irises and yet still, somehow, out of his reach.

it takes but a minute for you to realise you're inside the incomplete domain, pulled in by your connection to both gojo and the curse. this - and the failed mission before - had been for you after all. that much was clear, no matter how much gojo brushed it off and pretended it wasn't. and with him in the forefront of your mind as he so often resided, you ran towards the sound of an obvious fight. and try as you might, you couldn't prevent the feeling that everything was too weighted, too slow. it was clunky as your feet slapped against the floor and your eyes, though darting, couldn't take in the sights before you. a fist, a snap of a jaw, all gone in a single blink.

it was entirely impulse when you found yourself behind gojo, a counter to the curse's inhuman speed and the angled blow it had aimed at his back. your arm was raised protectively, a makeshift shield imbued with cursed energy. there’s no time for gojo to drink you in, no time for him to appreciate you once more. instead all he can do is clap his hands together with ease, confident smile on his face as your joint technique shoots the curse back with an echo.

it doesn’t take much more for gojo to finish the curse off, refinding his stride and proving his worth as the strongest. you provide a helping hand here and there, battling it into position to receive gojo’s hits, but it’s clear to see he needed only a nudge to return to himself, his demeanour familiar and certainty reassuring.

gojo doesn’t waste a minute after the curse finally falls with a telltale thud, tugging on your wrist until you whirl into him, your mere warmth enough to have tears pricking at his eyes. there’s a newfound fervour that he kisses you with, lips slotted against yours as he pours out pure love, desperate for you to receive it all. your chest swells, heart beating rapidly until eventually you can no longer ignore how heavy it feels in your ribcage, a punishment for using borrowed time.

pressing another kiss to his lips, you cup your hands delicately around satoru’s face as though he might break, and mumble softly again: "you need to let me go."

"no, i can't," he repeats, a whimper more than anything this time round and the tears drip down from his eyes and onto your thumbs.

"you have to," you murmur in that tone you knew always soothed gojo as he began to tremble in your hold, "the curse is dead and we both know this domain won't last, can't last forever. let me go satoru, it's okay."

there’s a pause, filled only with sobs as both your hearts constrict and all gojo can do is cry his farewell, “i love you, i love you so much.”

"i know,” you smile, shaky and weak, and still, satoru can’t resist returning it, “i love you, and i'll always be with you. i promise."

one final kiss is shared, gentle but with all the passion of a million goodbyes and the love that should’ve been kindled together for the rest of your lives. satoru keeps you as close to him as he can as the domain collapses and you fade away, nothing more than a wisp of a memory. the first years all clamber towards their teacher, megumi the first to ask "what happened? are you okay?" as the trio barely catch a sliver of red rimmed eyes before gojo slips his blindfold on.

satoru hums positively, smile more assured than it had been for a long while, "yeah i'm alright" he rubs a hand in megumi's hair, "they're gone."

[kisskawa]

did in fact come back from holiday and cry over gojo . hm

[kisskawa]

i need to write for kawa (and lowkey geto) again soon ough </3

[kuroononeko]

Little Great King with his little treekawa minions!🌳🌳🌳

(This was his birthday art, i forgot to post it here🫠)

[ufo-ikawa-deactivated20240208]

@manslutz

[maronjapan9art]

Naoya

[3-aem]

爱