This first image is progress from yesterday that I forgot to post because I got back home late.
Here I made five more rounds, taking me to round ten.
This second one is my progress from today. Here I made only three rounds for a total of thirteen. The square will keep getting bigger the more I go, which means progress will seem minimal as I build less rounds.
In desperate need of a blocking board to get a more accurate measurement. Might have to DIY it.
after a long day, it’s no surprise that you’re left with no energy to take care of yourself, let alone clean up and drag yourself off to bed. luckily for you, your two boyfriends— satoru and suguru, the infamous strongest duo who are as weak as kittens for you— take it upon themselves to bathe you and wash your hair. princess treatment has never felt this good.
⋆.˚ content: SFW but MDNI 18+, fem!reader, canon jujutsu universe (alt au where geto doesn’t defect), fluff fluff fluff, humor, established polyamorous satosugu x reader, gojo and geto are WHIPPED for you and for each other, domestic intimacy, a fair amount of suggestive jokes (but the entire fic stays non-sexual), mentions of battle wounds & scars
a/n: this is a requested drabble for the non-sexual acts of intimacy prompts “taking a bath together” and “having their hair washed by the other” for a fewww different anons 🙂↕️🫶🏽 hope you all enjoy cos this was sm fun to write 💓 masterlist.
Bathwater laps softly at the porcelain edges of the tub, warm enough to turn your skin dewy beneath the draping of steam that hangs hazily over the air like a wedding veil. The bathroom's steeped in the mellow glow of an amber and blossom-pink sunset filtering through the windows that overlook Tokyo. More jasmine-sweetened steam drifts in languid, translucent ribbons from the oversized tub fashioned to fit three (thanks, Gojo clan money).
Lounging with your lovers, everything is pleasantly heavy— your limbs, your eyelids which have long fallen together, your subdued thoughts— and softened by the calming ease of being in Suguru's and Satoru's presence.
You sit between them, back resting against Satoru's steadily beating chest, his ridiculously long legs fallen open for you to sit between them with all the careless assurance of a man who has never once worried about taking up space. Suguru rests against the opposite edge of the tub with one arm curled along the rim and his legs similarly extended. Satoru's and Suguru's calves and thighs skim against each other where they border yours beneath the water, neither inclined to break the comfort of simple touch.
"You've gone quiet." Suguru's observation echoes off the tile.
"Mhm." Your answer is only half there.
"You awake?"
"Ehhh… Kinda sorta, sorta kinda," you mumble, seesawing a hand.
Satoru leans forward until his forehead lightly bumps your nape. "No sleeping yet, pretty girl. Ragdolling while we try to get you clean is a surefire way to go down Ben Drowned-style,” he teases.
You whine a little in protest even though the reference makes your lips tick. "But you guys made me so comfortable already..."
And they truly have.
The bath had been waiting for you before you'd even thought to ask for one. Actually, the idea was planted in Satoru and Suguru's heads the moment you texted that you were dead-tired and grimy to the group chat from the back of Ijichi's car. You had been the only one to head out on a mission today, Satoru spending the day teaching and training the first years and Suguru mirroring him with the third years— Satoru had weaseled his way into a full hands-on day with his students, claiming he needed somewhat of a break, and Suguru spent most of his time teaching rather than hunting curses anymore, anyways.
(You and Satoru have been on the offensive with the higher-ups for years to nail down this arrangement for Suguru. Sure, Suguru still took on the occasional mission when everyone else was stretched thin by their own duties, but for his mental health’s sake, it was best that he stuck to guiding and nurturing the current generation.
You never want to see him as hollowly depressed as he was after everything that went down when he was a student.)
When you'd finally wandered into your shared house with knotted shoulders and your thumbs aggravatedly digging out the soreness from your temples, both your boyfriends snatched you up at the genkan and herded you like wildly insistent border collies to the master bedroom's ensuite, which had been transformed into a luxury spa during your twenty minute commute.
Towels were folded up in their warmer, candles swaying happily, the massive tub brimming with fragrant bathing oils and mineral salts— literally the whole nines. All the tiny things you'd long forgotten mentioning you preferred for a long soak were present, that information lovingly archived inside two impossibly attentive minds.
Before you could burst into happy tears at the lengths they went to for you, Suguru helped peel away your clothes before passing you off to Satoru, who offered both hands the moment you stepped toward the siren call of the water on sore legs, smoothly bowing as though escorting you into a ballroom instead of a bathtub.
Between them, lowering yourself into the steaming water (which was the fucking perfect temperature, holy hell) was less like climbing into a bath— another chore to hustle through before bed when you were already so worn-thin— and more like mindlessly handing yourself over for what they both dubbed your 'princess treatment.'
Suguru's smile is a ray of gentle light coloring his words, "Are we supposed to apologize for being good boyfriends?"
"Yeah. And you have to live with the consequences," you sigh, slumping further back into Satoru. The water rocks with you.
"You hear that?" Satoru says to Suguru over your head. You feel his chin nestle into your crown, arms loosely coiling at your waist. "She's blaming and threatening us."
"This is what happens when we go out of our way and draw us all a nice bath, huh," Suguru kisses his teeth, theatrically disappointed in you and what his and Satoru's efforts have come to. "Shame. I guess we won't be doing this ever again."
That finally gets your eyes to crack, blinking past the steam shrouding your slivered vision. Suguru watches the both of you with a sleepy beam curling the corners of his mouth, midnight lashes dampened and beading at their tips from the humidity. In spite of his long hair being wound up in a picture-perfect bun straight from Pinterest— his thorough wash-day took place yesterday and he's in no hurry to rewash his hair all over again— the baby hairs coiling at his nape and hairline are helplessly frizzy, fallen victim to the moisture in the air.
Suguru's gorgeous, a fallen angel meant to tempt you into the salacious temptations of the forbidden— much like the equally stunning blue-eyed beauty cuddled up to your behind, fluffed up white hair as refreshing as winter's first snowfall and his innate charming smile ten times more devastating than the cursed techniques sown into his very DNA.
"Hey," you protest, somewhat impressed by how he's twisted this situation to his benefit. "I didn't say all of that…"
A big warm palm finds a home on your shoulder, the callouses at the base of Satoru's fingers dragging a satisfyingly scratchy path over your skin. "I didn't agree to that either. Who's gonna appreciate all our hard work and dedication to pampering her if not, well, our princess?" Satoru wonders aloud, each richly pronounced syllable traveling in a velvety rolling rumble through his chest to your back.
Suguru cocks a brow, though he soaks up the reminder with a smoothly executed drag of the wooden bath tray closer to the corner of the tub's edge. Fancy crystalized bottles rattle, winking rainbow prisms across the walls; the oceanic waves of Satoru's irises, the deep earthiness of Suguru's.
You see them in everything, the two men coloring the world you traverse in a gallery forever curated in their likeness, to the point that you couldn't name a single thing on this planet without your lovers tinting your glasses.
Sometimes, you wonder whether the sky was always that boundless, cotton-candy blue, whether the nature crawling dense coils up Tokyo Jujutsu High's mountain campus had always carried such comforting shades of chocolate-brown, or if loving them has simply trained your eyes to always pay homage to Satoru and Suguru. Whatever the case, you're ridiculously smitten.
"Appreciation isn't the point, Satoru," lightly sniffs Suguru.
You wish you could see the stupid grin smeared across Satoru's countenance as he counters, jokingly, "It absolutely is."
"It really isn't," Suguru deadpans, looking to you as if to say get a load of this guy. You giggle.
"I don't know about you, babe, but I wanna be praised for my generous deeds," Satoru announces. "It hits like a line of coke after a long day."
Suguru slowly nods his assent. "That is true… though in your case, I'd say that cake is more your style than coke of all things."
"Snoooore," you loudly mime, deadpanning.
Satoru's laughter sears through your skin, beating a hearty rhythm between your shoulder blades. Suguru fans his fingers over his mouth as he joins in on Satoru's chuckling, amusement blossoming in the air. "Alright, alright. The deluxe princess treatment package is on its way now, promise," Suguru sing-songs with a little flap of his hand, finally easing up now that he's found a way back on track. "Satoru, you'll wash her hair and I'll do her body?"
"For sure," he chirps.
Ah, how nice it feels to lounge around like prized, celebrated royalty without a care in the world while your boys work a plan to pamper you.
All it takes is a simple curl of Suguru's black-painted finger for Satoru to obediently thrust his hand past your head, palm paralleling the ceiling as Suguru pops the glass stopper of a bottle and drizzles a generous heaping of shampoo into his hand's cup.
Satoru loops his arms around your front and works the shampoo between deft palms before your eyes, vanilla and camellia blossoms wafting up to your face, which you dip towards the comforting smell with a hum. It's Suguru's favorite shampoo— you're always surprised when he shares some of it and his conditioner with you, given how he treats it like the holy grail that he alone was blessed and entrusted with.
(Even funnier how he flat out refuses to let Satoru get his hands on it. Not that the white-haired sorcerer cares all that much anyhow; he uses a 3-in-1 shampoo and calls splashing tap water on his face a 'proper face wash.' You'd think a man so prideful about his vanity would splurge on products to properly care for himself and his Adonis body— the same way he buys from luxury clothing brands on the daily— instead of winging it like a head-in-the-clouds college fratboy, but alas…
You've gotta give it to him though: his genetics are killer. Curse Satoru and the goddamned perfectly pretty Gojo bloodline. It's not fair for the rest of you 'simpletons' who actually have to put in the work to groom and maintain yourself in order to look even half as unfairly attractive as he does on a random Thursday morning. The universe shamelessly plays favorites, and Satoru is its dazzling golden child.)
"Tilt your head back for me," he murmurs, long fingers immediately finding your hair— already sufficiently wet— the second you obey.
Humming an absent tune that lulls you into closing your eyes once more, Satoru gathers up all your hair, his usual boundless energy replaced by surprising patience. You can envision the way he's likely got his tongue peeking slightly between his teeth as he smooths the shampoo down your head, working up a rich, pearly lather from your crown to your ends with painstaking care exactly as Suguru once taught him.
Nobody from Jujutsu Tech— not Shoko, not Ijichi, not even any of the students— would expect such gentleness from the strongest sorcerer alive. The same man that tears into curses with calculated, almost joyous violence and blows them apart with a well-placed Red and a dry “oopsies,” is unbelievably tender in his task of shampooing the outer layer of your hair before diving to your roots, firm yet gentle. Reverent, really.
His nails glide along your scalp in purposefully light scrapes that send shivers down your spine. A contented sigh escapes you before you can stop it. "Satoruuuu…" You subconsciously roll the r in the same purring cadence that Suguru speaks his name in.
"Yooo, chill," Satoru splutters behind you, sounding alarmed by who knows what.
Suguru fills in the blank with a suggestive smile and thinning of his eyes: "Moan my name next, baby. I'm feeling left out."
Ah. Curious, you shuffle your hips back further into the cradle of Satoru's pelvis, glad to feel a distinct lack of engorged arousal insistently pestering your back; he's as flaccid as the day he was born. Your foot goes splashing water Suguru's way next. He catches your ankle beneath the surface and chuckles sunnily beneath the playful heat of your half-hearted glare.
"You're such a hater," he chastises.
"Excuse me for trying to enjoy my bath and the princess treatment you both promised me while you two horndogs try to make something out of nothing," you say dryly, though the pretense of sarcasm is rendered null by the next (accidentally) suggestive noise that floats its way past your lips when Satoru tugs a strand of shampooed hair just shy of too roughly.
"I didn't mean to do that, sorry!" Satoru jumps to apologize, presuming you'll give him shit for it and kick him out. But the joint snickers that both men promptly share over your head informs you that they're not exactly remorseful; and they're not even trying to play it sly.
"There's gonna be floggers and pillories in my online shopping cart by the end of the night if you two keep it up," you warn even though you're chuckling yourself. "That, or a sounding rod for you to share."
"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am," Satoru and Suguru innocently chorus.
Devils, the two of them.
But you're not any better, for you praise them in the sweetest purr possible, "Thank you. Good boys," and you all too joyfully reap the color budding across their already bath-flushed cheeks, tipping your head back against Satoru's shoulder to see his properly.
Suguru and Satoru: 1.
You: also 1.
You'll break that tie soon.
Fingers still wrapped in a delicate snag around your ankle, thumb sweeping over the protruding bone, Suguru one-handedly pumps a decent dollop of body wash into his palm, making a fist and dragging his fingers through it to warm it up a tad. "Lift your leg a little higher for me, sweetheart," he instructs, voice no louder than twinkling rain shimmering in silvery ribbons from the sky.
Conscious yet uncaring of the fact that you're already flashing him your most private parts (both your boyfriends have literally seen it all in every sexual and non-sexual scenario possible), you do just that, trusting that Satoru's solidity will keep you from sliding forward on your ass and submerging your face. Your hip flexor and quadricep tighten in a show of undemandingly easy dexterity— the movement of the latter has Suguru's eyes flicking down to watch as though you're his favorite film made human.
He scrunches his legs up in order to fit into the 'v' your own make. Shifting his grip to the back of your calf, he paints your skin in fragrant body wash from your foot, kneecap, to the crease connecting hip to thigh, coating you thoroughly and treating you to an impromptu massage along the way, thumbs kneading tenderly into muscle.
You're practically purring once he's done with your left leg. Suguru eases it back into the steaming bathwater and rinses you off with sweeping strokes of his broad hand until the jasmine-scented suds melt into the surface. Then, without breaking the tranquil rhythm you'd both settled into, he gathers your right leg in his grasp and starts anew from your foot upward, every motion as meticulous as the last.
You don't startle an inch when Satoru picks his task up again whilst Suguru works his soothing magic up your shin. Circles that bloom sweetness through your body are drawn into your scalp with the pads of Satoru's fingertips, thumbs gliding behind your ears before sweeping upward along your crown, coaxing the rich lather deeper through your roots.
His fingertips dance across your hair in broad, enthusiastic circles, working the shampoo in with enough vigor to make your head tip slightly. It's embarrassingly effective in making you lose track of where one minute ends and another begins. The little remaining tension loosens from your body like water through a sieve.
"Oh my godddd," you moan, blissful, completely swept up in their pampering that comes without a price. You melt between Satoru and Suguru without thinking, trusting the secure cradle of their bodies as completely as breathing itself. "This is exactly what I needed. This is heaven."
"You deserve only good things, especially tonight," Suguru murmurs affectionately, gently dunking your right leg and rinsing that one off, too.
"All the time, really," Satoru agrees. He leaves your hair once he's sure each strand is thoroughly lathered up. "Seeing you turn into a cute little puddle is the best bonus I could ask for. Just let us take care of you, yeah?"
He returns to you with a wooden rinse pitcher that Suguru hands to him. He cups warm bathwater into it, stray droplets sprinkling across the bath's surface when he pulls the pitcher free with an audible gulp of water. Anticipating what follows, you tip your head back and stay still as Satoru pours the first cascade of water over your head to cleanse you of the fragrant foam, his free hand shielding your forehead to keep it from spilling over your face.
"You wanna know a neat trick I thought of?" Satoru asks, voice overflowing with prideful excitement. You and Suguru rumble low noises from your throats at the same time, encouraging. "If Blue allows me to pull buildings apart at minimum output by drawing everything towards the impossibility, then it makes sense that if I put the tiiiiniest possible output into Blue—" you feel a tempered spike of cursed energy that makes the dampened hair at your nape prick to attention, "—the field of attraction is weak enough that I can siphon water from hair."
Before the dirtied water can rejoin the pooling bathwater lapping over you all, it peels from your hair like a clean, satisfying strip of tape as though the laws of nature, too, submit to the wonder that is Gojo Satoru.
You feel each saturated lock of hair lighten by degrees more than you see it. Suspended at your sides where you can spy it from the corner of yout eye, the extracted water gathers into a lazily revolving sphere no larger than a melon, pale with diluted shampoo that swirls in pearlescent ribbons beneath the bathroom's amber light. You can tell that Satoru's flicked his fingers behind you when it all goes gliding into a bucket by the tub— he probably thought to put it there in advance, you realize— with a muffled sploosh. Suguru whistles, impressed.
"There!" Satoru chirps, grin crystal-clear in his voice as though he'd unveiled the world's greatest scientific breakthrough instead of an absurdly overengineered bath hack using one of the greatest cursed techniques in history. "No gross rinse water in the tub."
"That was cool, Toru," you gush.
Suguru's laugh slips free in a quiet puff. "Good idea, baby."
The dual praise has Satoru radiating like an overjoyed sun behind you. "Right? Right?" He boasts with no modesty whatsover, chest jutting proudly against your back.
"You'll have to do that for my hair sometime, too," Suguru sighs longingly, tilting his head with a charmed look on his face. He's so cute. "I could use one of my curses, but Blue'll save me so much time. My hair's getting even longer than it already is, if you can imagine."
"Please never cut it," you and Satoru pipe up in genuine agony.
Suguru titters, enchanting brown eyes creasing in a blinding smile, brighter somehow for it. "Relax, you two. I won't. Aside from trimming split ends— knock on wood." He raps the wooden bath tray with his knuckles.
The exchange coaxes an involuntary smile of your own, the stretch of your lips so overly fond that your cheeks ache. It is so wonderfully, unmistakably the three of you— Suguru's easy indulgement forever balanced alongside Satoru's irrepressible enthusiasm and your habit of matching them both exactly where they stand.
Suguru re-lathers his hands to work on your abdomen, muscles fluttering in delicate butterly wings behind the bountiful garden of your skin at the ticklish feeling of his slickened touch; Satoru ladles another pitcherful over your head and repeats the process of gathering and discarding every soapy drop with Blue. Suguru glides soap up the valley between your perked breasts and beneath them as well, even massaging your tits without a lick of sexual intent; Satoru gives you one last rinse before passing curious fingers through your hair until the strands slide cleanly through his hands, gently teasing apart the few stubborn knots left over. The bathwater gently rocks against your ribs whenever they both shift, focused on their individual tasks but nonetheless in tune with one another.
By the time Suguru finishes off your front by washing your collarbones and shoulders and Satoru's just teased apart the few stubborn knots left over in your hair, your hair hangs sleek and impossibly clean, you're feeling squeaky clean from head to toe, and the bathwater around your bodies remains as clear as when you'd first slipped into it, aside from the body wash that's sluiced off of you.
You feel as though they’d somehow washed away not only the day's sweat and oils, but every bothersome thought that had settled there alongside them. You could seriously fall asleep any second without realizing you'd slipped into unconsciousness.
"Look at us working together in sync," Satoru lilts, signaling for the conditioner over your shoulder. Suguru hands it off from the bath tray without missing a beat. "The G.G. Salon is taking off."
"G.G.?" You ask, faint laughter already bubbling through your nose before he even elaborates. You're anticipating something so stupid that it's somehow funny.
"Get gucked," Satoru supplies, only to shriek a soprano's pitch and jackknife his leg through the water when Suguru aggressively pinches Satoru's big toe. "Yeesh, can't a guy joke around here? I meant the Gojo-Geto salon."
Suguru smiles serenely.
They make quick— but not rushed— work of the rest of your treatment. Suguru reaches between yours and Satoru's bodies to bathe your back while Satoru conditions the ends of your hair with the creamy fixture.
Clearing your hair of conditioner after it soaks in is easy as it was for Satoru with the shampoo. He splashes water along your back to finish off Suguru's work, and Suguru leans in to nuzzle a brief kiss against your forehead, lips lingering for only a second before he settles back against the tub's rim again, the picture of handsome relaxation. A moment later, Satoru cranes his head to smooch the side of your neck as if unwilling to be left out, then ducks past you to peck Suguru's mouth.
No words are needed in the wakeful peace that draws a curtain over you; you, Satoru, and Suguru seemingly come to a silent agreement to soak in the jasmine-fermented bath a while longer, all of yours eyes closed in bone-deep gratification. Heat loosens muscles and peels the firm grip of old aches and pains stemming from battles old and new, determined to ease your bodies that've been carved out from years and years of sorcerery. You only clamber out when the bathwater is cool enough to be drained, yours and Satoru's and Suguru's fingers and toes pruny from the extended soak.
The tired little shiver that quakes you when the air hits your damp skin is noticed immediately by Suguru, who quietly directs Satoru to empty the bucket of dirtied water down the tub before turning to you with towels straight from the tower warmer. He wraps one loosely around your hair and gently squeezes away the excess water.
His sweetened cooing of how cute you are when you're all sleepy and doted-on makes you duck your head into his touch if only to hide your face from the loving searchlights of his eyes. You allow Suguru to similarly wrap your body up in a second towel and you gleefully burrow into the fluffy comfort of it.
Satoru zips to your side in literal seconds with two more towels bunched under his arm, blue eyes alight and completely comfortable in his nudity. "My turn," he announces.
"Didn't you have plenty of turns in the bath?" Suguru amusedly points out in a lowered tone. "She's already dried off, anyways."
Satoru pokes his pretty pink lips out in a pout, sulky as a cat denied its dinner. "I want another."
"You always want another," you hum, eyes half-closed and about ready to conk out on the tile of all places. A plane could crash outside and you wouldn't even be fazed, your mind too up in the clouds and doped up on the princess treatment your boyfriends gave you to care.
“Well, I like taking care of you both,” Satoru admits with some sheepishness, scratching his shorn-short nape that you're sure is soon to be warmed pink as you and Suguru look at him with hearts for eyes. "Can't blame a guy for being in love, yeah?"
You really can't; not when you're just as stupidly infatuated with them both. Especially when, adorably, he surprises you both by turning to Suguru and toweling him off with great attention, making your dark-haired partner flush an even ruddier red than the hot water gave his body. For all of Satoru's impossible strength and impossible speed, his hands fuss with deliberate care as they work the plush fabric around Suguru's waist, folding one edge neatly over the other before tucking it securely against his hip. Then Satoru guides a stray bang that fell loose from his bun behind his ear, fingers lingering sweetly.
Suguru blinks once, twice, as though momentarily caught off guard by the simple gesture. "... Thank you, Satoruuu,” he purrs warmly.
The words are accompanied by a smile so soft it melts years off of Suguru's face, leaving behind only the boy who'd once looked at you and Satoru with that same impossible tenderness after late-night konbini store runs and shared umbrellas beneath summer rain as you all ran back to campus after shared misions— long, long before that accursed village sent him into a year-long spiral. Affection settles visibly into every elegant line of him, warming his browned eyes until they resemble polished amber.
Color rushes into Satoru's ears as he's blasted with the full superlunary rays of Suguru's love, almost shying away from his exuberant beam. "Don't mention it," he mutters, already smiling despite himself as he finally slings his own towel around his hips.
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it, sleepy and airy, and both pairs of eyes snap toward you with such immediate fondness. Your heart gives such a smitten start that it damn near ping-pongs off your ribs.
And then you open your unfiltered mouth, "You're both so cute. You two act like you guys haven't explored each other's holes for literal years."
Their expressions slacken into ones of pained amusement immediately. "Sweets, I love you so so sooo bad, but do you ever think before you reduce years of heartfelt intimacy to digging out each other's asses?" Satoru snorts.
"Please don't say it like that," Suguru bemoans, propping one hand on his towel-wrapped hip while the other drives a thumb into his creased forehead. Even so, he's openly snickering, even moreso when he slaps Satoru's chest. "Are you under the impression that you're any better?"
Satoru touches his heart with theatrical offense. "I've never said anything outrageous as her."
"You literally just did?" Suguru points out, exasperatedly tickled.
You attempt to muster a joke to chip in with, but a yawn stretches your jaw instead, eyes watering as exhaustion overtakes any dignity you might have had left.
"Awww," Satoru breathes out an impossibly stricken coo. "She's gonna fall asleep standing up like a horse."
"I was thinking the same thing," Suguru murmurs, tilting his head at you.
"I am awake and alert and alive," you mumble automatically.
Clearly, neither of them believes you for even half a second. Suguru chuckles beneath his breath before stepping forward, large hand finding the small of your back through the towel. "Looks like the delirium's getting to you, huh, angel? You've had a long day."
Satoru immediately appears at your other side. "For sure. Let's go get dressed and go to bed." Without ceremony, he bends his knees and scoops you into his arms bridal-style as though you weigh nothing at all. You let out the weakest little noise of surprise imaginable before instinctively curling against his warm chest, your cheek finding the familiar place beneath his collarbone.
"I c-can…" Your own yawn slashes the sentence in half, making Satoru throw his head back laughing as he turns towards the bathroom's entrance, "… walk."
"Oh, sweetheart," Suguru rumbles out a laugh.
"I can,” you grumble.
"You just lost consciousness mid-sentence."
"Mmmf," you say intelligently.
Suguru reaches over to straighten the towel atop your head one final time, brushing his knuckles fondly across your temple. "So spoiled," he whispers.
You hum contentedly, already halfway to sleep. "Your fault."
"Our fault," Satoru corrects, carrying you toward the door with Suguru walking beside him, shoulder brushing his every few steps. Then, as an aside to Suguru, "To be fair, we kinda made her expect this."
"I think I deserve princess treatment everyday," you exhaustedly pipe up, words dragging as you gradually drift off.
Satoru and Suguru exchange looks over your lolling head. So cute.
Day 15 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Finished the first half of the strap with three more rows of squares, totaling six rounds, as was predicted.
Day 16 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Started working on the second half of the bag strap. Four rows of squares, eight rounds.
Total rows of squares for the bag's strap (second half): 4
in which gojo accidentally finds out ryomen sukuna had a wife in a million year old book hahah,hi everyone,english isnt my first language,but i love the idea of sukuna and his wife actually being recorded and not only him as the king of curses! enjoy:)
The archives beneath Jujutsu High had never been particularly exciting.
Most of what survived from the Heian era consisted of brittle scrolls, incomplete temple records, and the sort of historical documents clearly written by people who considered punctuation an unnecessary luxury. Dust lingered in every forgotten corner, clinging to shelves so old they seemed to sag beneath centuries of accumulated history. It smelled faintly of old paper, ink, and cedar.
Gojo Satoru had been there for nearly an hour.
He was already bored.
Another page turned.
Tax records.
Another.
Rice exports.
Another.
A local lord complaining about border disputes to another local lord who was, apparently, equally interested in complaining.
"...If I have to read one more sentence about agricultural taxation," Gojo muttered, lazily resting his chin against his hand, "I'm voting we let Sukuna win."
Silence answered him.
The archives, predictably, lacked a sense of humor.
He sighed dramatically before reaching for another volume from the stack Yaga had insisted might contain "useful historical context."
Useful.
Right.
Ever since Itadori Yuji had swallowed Sukuna's finger, Jujutsu High had begun collecting every surviving document that mentioned the King of Curses. Museums reluctantly opened their vaults, private collectors suddenly found themselves entertaining visits from sorcerers, and forgotten temple archives were being translated for the first time in generations. Somewhere among thousands of years of records, there had to be something. A forgotten ritual. An overlooked weakness. A detail everyone else had dismissed.
Gojo wasn't particularly optimistic.
Still...
If history had somehow preserved a diary that read Dear Journal, today I discovered my one fatal weakness is being stabbed specifically through the left side of my chest, he'd happily spend the afternoon reading ancient calligraphy.
Unfortunately, history appeared determined to be profoundly unhelpful.
He reached for another book.
Unlike the others, this one wasn't a military record or a religious manuscript. Its leather cover had faded almost to gray, softened by centuries of careful handling, while delicate illustrations peeked from between yellowed pages. There was no clan insignia stamped into the binding, no official seal declaring it royal property.
Instead, the first page bore only a careful introduction written in elegant brushstrokes.
A record of remarkable observations gathered throughout the Eastern Dominion during my residence within the palace of Ryomen Sukuna.
Gojo raised an eyebrow.
"...Finally."
This looked considerably more promising.
The anonymous author wasn't a historian, nor a monk, nor a military advisor. Judging by the first several pages, they had simply spent years documenting unusual things worthy of preservation. Ancient weapons. Ceremonial armor. Imported artifacts whose craftsmanship had no equal. Rare medicinal herbs cultivated within the palace gardens. Strange animals presented as tribute from distant kingdoms. Cursed objects too dangerous to be handled without careful supervision.
It wasn't a chronicle of Sukuna himself.
It was a catalogue of everything the painter had considered remarkable enough to immortalize.
Gojo settled more comfortably against one of the archive shelves and turned the page.
The first illustration stretched across nearly two sheets of parchment.
The palace.
Even rendered only in ink and faded mineral pigments, it was immense. Layer upon layer of rooftops climbed into the surrounding mountains, connected by covered corridors, open courtyards, hanging gardens, and terraces that overlooked forests stretching far beyond the horizon. Tiny handwritten annotations surrounded the painting, noting architectural techniques, imported timber, the placement of ceremonial halls, and the irrigation system responsible for feeding the sprawling medicinal gardens.
"...Rich bastard," Gojo murmured.
He turned another page.
The eastern armory.
Another.
The medicinal gardens.
Rows upon rows of unfamiliar herbs spread beneath carefully constructed trellises, each labeled meticulously by the painter. Several paragraphs described their uses in treating fever, poisoned wounds, and cursed-energy exhaustion. It was the sort of obsessive documentation only someone completely fascinated by their subject would bother recording.
Gojo skimmed most of it.
Then his eyes caught something near the corner of the illustration.
Someone.
A woman knelt between the rows of herbs, entirely unaware she had become part of the painting. She held several freshly cut stems in one hand while examining another beneath the afternoon light, her attention fixed solely on the plants before her. There was nothing ceremonial about the moment. She wasn't posing. If anything, she looked as though the painter had simply happened to capture her while documenting the garden itself.
She was... striking.
Not in the exaggerated, idealized way noblewomen often appeared in commissioned portraits, but with the effortless sort of beauty that felt almost accidental. The painter had somehow preserved the softness of an expression never intended to be remembered, the faint smile of someone completely absorbed in whatever occupied her thoughts.
There was no caption naming her.
No explanation.
The accompanying notes continued discussing medicinal herbs as though she weren't there at all.
Gojo frowned for only a second before turning the page.
Interesting.
Probably someone's wife.
Or a servant.
Whatever she was, she clearly wasn't what the painter had been trying to preserve.
At least...
That's what he thought.
The next several pages were exactly what Gojo had expected.
Ceremonial naginata gifted by a northern clan. Bronze incense burners cast in the likeness of dragons. Imported lacquerware. Silk dyed with pigments so expensive the accompanying notes spent nearly half a page explaining their origin. Whoever had ruled this place had clearly never been told the meaning of moderation.
"...Yeah, yeah," Gojo muttered as he turned another page. "Very rich. Very terrifying."
The painter certainly thought so.
Every object had been rendered with painstaking care, accompanied by meticulous observations written in an elegant, restrained hand. There was no embellishment, no mythology, no exaggerated admiration—only patient documentation by someone determined to preserve what they had seen exactly as it was.
Gojo almost missed her the second time.
The painting itself depicted one of the palace's inner courtyards. Stone pathways wound between shallow streams that carried water toward the medicinal gardens, every bridge and carved pillar labeled neatly along the margins. Near the edge of the page, almost hidden beneath the branches of a flowering tree, the same woman from the herb garden crossed the courtyard with a woven basket resting comfortably against her hip.
Different robes.
Different season.
The same gentle expression.
He paused only long enough to convince himself it was a coincidence before turning another page.
The palace infirmary occupied nearly two full illustrations. Shelves climbed from floor to ceiling beneath carefully painted bundles of drying herbs, rows of ceramic jars, handwritten remedies, and instruments whose purpose Gojo couldn't even begin to guess. The accompanying notes remained as methodical as ever.
The palace infirmary contained an unusually extensive collection of dried herbs, prepared tinctures, and medicinal texts.
Several labels were amended during my stay by the lady of the inner residence, whose familiarity with the apothecary exceeded my own understanding.
She received servants and laborers seeking remedies with notable patience, regardless of rank. Such interruptions appeared to occasion no objection from His Majesty.
Gojo frowned.
"...She was treating servants?"
The sentence lingered with him longer than he expected.
Not because someone within the palace knew medicine—that wasn't unusual.
Because whoever this woman was, she seemed to move through the palace with remarkable freedom. Servants sought her out. Physicians accepted her corrections. And apparently, Ryomen Sukuna himself had never objected.
"...Huh."
He turned another page.
Then another.
Without realizing it, he stopped looking at the artifacts first.
Instead, his eyes searched for her.
She appeared beside an aviary housing brilliantly colored birds brought from distant kingdoms, one perched comfortably along the wooden railing as she watched it with quiet fascination. Another painting captured a covered corridor after heavy snowfall, the architecture clearly intended as the subject, yet there she was again in the distance, carrying fresh bundles of firewood alongside two laughing servants. A study of the palace gardens at the beginning of spring placed her kneeling beside newly planted herbs, sleeves rolled neatly above her wrists as she worked with soil-stained hands while gardeners carried tools around her as though the scene were entirely ordinary.
She never acknowledged the painter.
More curiously, the painter never seemed particularly interested in her either.
She simply... happened to be there.
Again.
And again.
Gojo flipped back several pages.
Then forward.
Gojo turned the page with considerably more enthusiasm than he had intended to admit.
Another illustration unfolded across the parchment, this one depicting one of the palace's inner courtyards surrounding a wide koi pond. The painter had devoted remarkable attention to the water itself, carefully reproducing each reflection of the surrounding architecture and every ornamental stone lining its banks. Bright carp drifted lazily beneath lily pads while flowering trees arched overhead.
Near the edge of the painting, almost hidden beneath one of those trees, Sukuna stood with his arms folded while the same woman crouched beside the pond, one hand extended over the water.
Several koi had gathered around her.
One had practically climbed into her palm.
The accompanying note read in the same restrained hand.
The eastern pond houses carp of uncommon size imported from the southern provinces.
The fish proved unusually receptive to the lady's presence, gathering readily whenever she approached the water.
His Majesty was observed accompanying these visits with surprising regularity.
Gojo stared.
"...You followed them to the fish."
Another page.
The painter had chosen to document the palace kitchens during preparations for one of the seasonal banquets. Servants hurried between enormous iron cauldrons while trays of elaborate dishes disappeared toward the dining halls. Every utensil had been painstakingly sketched and labeled with almost obsessive precision.
Near one corner stood the same woman.
She held a small porcelain cup toward Sukuna with unmistakable skepticism painted across her face.
He appeared... unimpressed.
The note beneath explained nothing and somehow everything.
Among the imported goods presented during my stay was a variety of mountain tea said to be favored by western nobles.
His Majesty expressed no opinion regarding its quality.
The lady declared it comparable in flavor to boiled bark.
It was not served again.
Gojo lowered the book.
"...She bullied the King of Curses into changing tea."
He snorted.
"...Good for her."
The next illustration depicted one of the open verandas overlooking the palace gardens.
Several palace cats had claimed the afternoon sun for themselves, sprawled shamelessly across polished cedar floors without the slightest concern for royal dignity. Most ignored everyone entirely.
One, however, had selected Sukuna.
The enormous white creature slept comfortably across his lap while he continued reading a scroll as though the additional weight had ceased to surprise him years ago.
A second cat had curled against the woman's side, entirely content to steal the sleeve of her kimono as a pillow.
The note beneath was concise.
Contrary to expectation, the palace cats appeared entirely unafraid of His Majesty.
A number demonstrated equal attachment to the lady.
Whether this reflects discernment or poor instinct remains uncertain.
Gojo barked out a laugh.
"No. Absolutely not."
He looked closer.
"...Why are there so many cats?"
He turned another page.
The palace had been decorated for one of its larger seasonal celebrations.
Lanterns stretched across every corridor. Musicians occupied the gardens. Nobles drifted between pavilions dressed in layers of embroidered silk, each household distinguished by elaborate colors and patterns. The painter had clearly intended to preserve the ceremonial garments worn throughout the festival, filling nearly the entire page with notes describing imported dyes, weaving techniques, and regional embroidery.
Only after several moments did Gojo notice them.
They weren't standing together.
Not exactly.
She spoke with several noblewomen near one veranda while Sukuna stood some distance away among his retainers.
There was nothing unusual about that.
Until Gojo noticed their robes.
Different cuts.
Different embroidery.
The same silk.
The exact same deep crimson woven with black thread that caught the evening light differently from every other garment in the painting.
His eyes drifted to the note beneath.
During the Mid-Autumn celebration, the household of His Majesty wore garments fashioned from the same southern silk recently presented by foreign envoys.
The weaving was said to have required nearly three years to complete.
No comparable textile was observed elsewhere within the palace.
Gojo blinked.
"...Matching outfits?"
He leaned back, rubbing one hand across his face.
"I don't know why that's bothering me more than literally everything else."
By now he'd completely abandoned any pretense of researching Sukuna.
He wasn't looking for cursed techniques anymore.
He wasn't looking for weaknesses.
Every time he turned another page, he found himself hoping—
Just a little—
That she'd be there again.
There couldn't have been many pages left.
Gojo realized that only because the parchment had begun to thin beneath his fingers. The paintings grew larger now, less concerned with cataloguing individual objects and more interested in preserving places before the passing seasons altered them once again.
It almost felt as though the anonymous painter had grown fond of the palace by the end of his stay.
Gojo couldn't really blame him.
He turned another page.
The western library occupied nearly the entire illustration, shelves climbing toward an impossibly high ceiling while afternoon sunlight spilled through open lattice windows. Scrolls lay stacked across low tables beside brushes, loose sheets of parchment, and unfinished copies of medicinal texts waiting to be rebound.
He barely looked at any of it.
She sat near one of the windows with an open book resting across her lap, completely absorbed in whatever she was reading. Across the room, Sukuna appeared to be doing exactly the same.
Neither acknowledged the other.
Neither spoke.
The silence somehow looked... comfortable.
The note beneath the painting was characteristically restrained.
The palace library remained open throughout the daylight hours.
Conversation within was uncommon.
His Majesty and the lady frequently occupied the western alcove during the afternoon, often departing no sooner than the changing of the lamps.
Gojo stared for a moment.
"...They read together?"
He let out a quiet laugh.
"That's... unexpectedly adorable."
The next page depicted one of the palace's covered walkways after a summer rain. Water still clung to the tiled roofs, reflecting the evening light in scattered ribbons of gold. Servants hurried about drying wooden floors while gardeners collected broken branches left behind by the storm.
Near the center of the painting, the woman stood beneath the shelter of the corridor, one sleeve extended beyond the roofline to catch the falling rain.
Sukuna stood beside her.
Not participating.
Simply... waiting.
The painter's note read:
Summer storms commonly delayed activity throughout the palace.
His Majesty appeared remarkably patient on such occasions.
Whether this disposition owed to the weather itself or to his company, I cannot confidently determine.
Gojo covered his mouth.
"...You're killing me."
He turned another page before he could think about why that sentence had made him smile.
The final illustration unfolded slowly beneath his hands.
It stretched across both pages.
The western balcony overlooked nearly the entire valley beyond the palace, where mountains dissolved into evening haze beneath a sky painted in shades of amber and violet. Vines climbed lazily around carved cedar pillars while lanterns waited to be lit with the coming dusk. Every stone, every beam, every flowering branch had been reproduced with almost reverent precision.
Only after several seconds did Gojo notice them.
Not because they had been hidden.
Because they fit the scene too naturally.
She rested one hand against the wooden railing, looking out across the mountains with an easy smile that suggested she had been speaking moments before. Even trapped forever in ink, there was movement in her expression, as though the next breath would bring another story.
Beside her stood Sukuna.
Close enough that the sleeves of their robes nearly touched.
His posture remained exactly as history remembered it—relaxed, imposing, completely certain of itself.
But...
He wasn't looking at the mountains.
He was looking at her.
Not intensely.
Not possessively.
Just...
Listening.
Like wherever the conversation had wandered was more interesting than the sunset behind it.
Gojo felt something in his chest quietly shift.
He looked closer.
Their robes were different from those worn during the festival.
Different embroidery.
Different colors.
Yet the silk itself caught the fading sunlight exactly the same way, woven from the same impossibly fine thread that shimmered with identical depth beneath the evening sky.
His eyes drifted lower.
There.
A simple band of gold circled her left hand.
The same band rested upon Sukuna's.
For several seconds, Gojo simply stared.
Then, almost mechanically, his eyes dropped to the final note written beneath the painting.
His Majesty seldom remained available for portraiture beyond matters of state.
During my residence, I found him most frequently upon the western balcony in the company of the lady of the inner residence.
Though I first intended to preserve the architecture, the gardens, and the quality of the evening light, I confess these figures appeared so often within them that omitting either would have rendered the observations incomplete.
Perhaps future generations shall remember this palace for its sovereign.
I suspect those who truly visited it will remember that it was once lived in.
Silence settled over the archives.
Gojo looked back at the painting.
At Sukuna.
At the woman.
At the matching rings.
Then back to Sukuna again.
"...You've got to be kidding me."
He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head as he closed the book halfway.
"I came down here looking for dirt on the King of Curses..."
His thumb lingered between the pages.
"...and somehow I ended up reading a thousand-year-old married couple's photo album."
His eyes drifted back to the woman one last time.
He still didn't know her name.
The painter had never written it.
Not once.
Yet by the end of the journal, she felt just as impossible to forget as the man history had immortalized.
Gojo smiled to himself.
"...Man."
Another glance at the final painting.
"I don't think anyone mentioned the wife."
BONUS :)
Gojo closed the journal with far more care than he'd opened it.
"...Well."
He rested a hand against the worn leather cover for another moment before sliding it neatly back into its place among the shelves.
"So much for finding Sukuna's secret weakness."
Instead, he'd somehow spent the better part of an afternoon reading what amounted to centuries-old candid sketches of a palace... and wondering why history had neglected to mention the woman who seemed to inhabit every corner of it.
He still didn't know her name.
The painter had never written it.
Not once.
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Yaga.
Gojo answered with an exaggerated sigh.
"If you're calling to ask whether I've discovered the King of Curses' fatal weakness, I'm afraid the answer is no."
A pause.
"I did, however, discover that historians are terrible at prioritizing information."
"...What are you talking about?"
"Long story."
"It can wait."
Yaga's voice remained as even as ever.
"I need you upstairs."
Gojo glanced once more toward the shelf where he'd returned the journal.
"...Now?"
"Now."
He pushed himself off the floor with another dramatic sigh.
"I was busy."
"I know."
"...Research."
"I know."
Gojo smiled to himself.
"Fine. What's so important?"
"We've hired another instructor."
That caught his attention.
"Oh?"
"They'll be assisting with first-year practical training."
Gojo raised an eyebrow.
"Didn't know we were hiring."
"We weren't planning to."
"...Sounds mysterious."
"It isn't."
Yaga paused.
"I want you to show them around the campus."
Gojo groaned loudly enough that Yaga almost certainly moved the phone away from his ear.
"You're making me do orientation?"
"You're the only instructor available."
"I hate being available."
"I'll see you upstairs."
The call ended.
Gojo slipped his hands into his pockets and headed toward the archive stairs, throwing one last glance over his shoulder at the shelf.
He took one last look at the balcony painting before closing it completely.
The woman smiled forever from faded mineral pigments, unaware that a thousand years later someone was trying very hard to figure out who she'd been.
Gojo smiled to himself.
"...Still think you would've made this book way more interesting than your husband."
With a quiet shake of his head, he disappeared up the staircase.
The archives fell silent once more.
The old journal remained exactly where he'd left it, tucked neatly among hundreds of forgotten records.
Waiting.
A/N: honestly the thought of him falling in love with this guys wife is hilarious lmao
Day 13 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Worked up three decreases. Three rows of squares, six rounds.
Day 14 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Making up for the lack of days by working overtime. I made ten rounds for five rows of squares. I officially finished with the decreases and began building up the sleeve length. Hopefully, I'll only have to do three more rows of squares to finish this half.
Total rows of squares for the bag's sleeve: 10
I had to take long breaks because of my wrist and I forgot to post the day 13 progress which is why I'm posting both days together.
Day 12 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Back from the dead once more and I'm moving on to the first half (left) of the strap. Should be easier since it's only 18 squares or less per round because of the decreases instead of 40. Four rounds for two rows of squares.
Total rows of squares for the bag's strap (first half): 2
Day 12 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Back from the dead once more and I'm moving on to the first half (left) of the strap. Should be easier since it's only 18 squares or less per round because of the decreases instead of 40. Four rounds for two rows of squares.
Total rows of squares for the bag's strap (first half): 2
Day 11 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: two rounds, one row (kinda). This one was split between two days because I was getting a pedicure when I started it.
Current total rows of squares for the bag's body: 14
Probably, HOPEFULLY, the last row before I FINALLY start working on the sleeve.
Day 10 Progress Report On Green and Black Checkered Bag: Two rounds, one row.
Current total rows of squares for the bag's body: 13
I originally thought that would be enough, but I forgot the way I was doing it and the yarn was different so the squares are smaller. I'll probably need one more before I start working on the sleeves.
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