He’s handsome, Kento’s always thought that; even in his run-of-the-mill black suit and skinny tie, and his little lapel pin, which he’s now close enough to clock as a sunflower. Interesting.
“You’re a lawyer,” Kento says, skipping past the man’s opening question.
“That’s right,” he replies, his eyes lingering on the empty space beside Kento. It’s a silent request for an invitation to join him, but Kento’s not ready to take the bait yet. He doesn’t want to be left dangling on a hook.
Instead, he settles further into the booth, acting far more confident and sober than he is. “What kind of question is ‘do you come here often’?”
—–
Or, a salaryman and a lawyer meet at a bar.
CHAPTER 2 added for @jjkrarepairfest Day 3 - Hook-up.
WIP Wednesday - from the beginning the man had his hand hidden, chapter 2
After a flashback to Toji's revival scene, Gojo contemplates Megumi, and also time travel. Well, they are his powers, after all, even if he doesn't yet know how to use them ...
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Back when he'd first come to upend Megumi and Tsumiki's life, he'd pester Megumi to let him brush his hair whenever he saw it sticking out at all angles. Perhaps Megumi judged from Gojo's own hair when he gave unyielding refusal. He didn't even let Tsumiki brush it, though, and if he were truly indifferent, he would probably just buzz it all off, right? That would suit his resentful asceticism to the core.
Except, of course, Megumi doesn't actually like any of that stoic crap. He likes Tsumiki. He likes living in a comfortable home with his sister, the only person who has ever chosen him without ulterior motive or reservation. He likes good food, good books, good people, and affectionate animals.
But if he cops to it too openly, if he enjoys himself too much, it will hurt more and he will feel foolish when it all gets taken away.
Gojo never managed to change that understanding of the world that forms the backbone of Megumi's personality and behavior. Ultimately, though he may disagree with how well this belief serves Megumi and how it affects his grasp of jujutsu, he wouldn't say, necessarily, that Megumi is wrong. More importantly, Megumi knows without ever having heard any of the details that Gojo didn't come into his life for his sake. The business with Toji, the deal with the Zenin, all that is just noise. Gojo came to Megumi to bring him into the jujutsu world. It was the best way possible at the time, and Gojo does usually do the right thing or something closer to that than any other questionable authority figure of the jujutsu world, so Megumi had to accept him. There weren't any other choices.
If he had to do it again —
Junpei has alluded, ever so clement in his vagueness, to a period of madness in which that thought or thoughts that begin with that supposition got quite out of hand, considering his ability to investigate them literally. This was a warning for Gojo, he thinks. In the Prison Realm, he'd begun considering the matter immediately. The ideal outcome was that his students would release him as soon as they could. If they couldn't, however …
It's only human, isn't it? To think of having the maturity and emotional stability to approach Megumi differently. Being twenty-nine instead of not even eighteen yet, and already knowing the things he and his sister needed. Being better equipped to figure out the mistakes he didn't know he made the first time around.
Why stop there, though? He could go back further. Before, he would have thought to simply kill Toji. He could still be that ruthless if he chose. It doesn't matter if Toji feels a warped sort of love for him now; he wouldn't feel it back then, and probably wouldn't ever learn it without all the murder and the dying. Gojo would still have Suguru with him, and he could probably make it so that Haibara doesn't die and Suguru and Nanami never leave, though if he wants them to be well or, heavens forfend, happy, that's another set of problems entirely.
tell me about today
your hair a knotted mess of things to say
the coat you should've kept on just in case
wet in your summer clothes, you called it fate.
you never told a lie that you didn't wish was true
will there ever be a time you need me as I need you?
I can't comprehend the thoughts inside your head,
so we're never gonna hear the end.
Oh, it's Ino, and some underdeveloped thoughts I had about the Ino - Yuuji - Haibara character type.
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Junpei quietly launches himself off a wall and hauls himself up onto the narrow balcony of house where Ino should be, breathing slow and smooth. As he pulls himself to the top of the balustrade, Ino turns unerringly to look out at him, keen but calm. There's something familiar about it which makes him hang there for a moment like a cat unsure if they can jump all the way up, or if they should drop back down.
It's … he's reminded of Yuuji, which is. Embarrassing. This is not the time. Ino hangs up and comes to open the door for him while Junpei slings himself over the railing, kicking some mental carpets over his late acknowledgment. The similarities are superficial. Ino has always been pretty nice. Junpei has just overlooked it and taken it for granted the entirety of their acquaintanceship because, well, no need to harp any further on his shortcomings.
"What was that about?" Ino asks over his shoulder, playful. "You worried about me?"
As Junpei follows him in, he tries to imagine how Ino would react to the truth. Embarrassment fizzles on in the background of his mind.
"I guess this is just a weird one," he says in what is possibly a misguided attempt to be more honest.
This seems to go over well with Ino, though, who reseats himself at a window closer to the side where the fifteen year old Junpei and his mother live and turns a bright, interested gaze on him. "I don't think you've ever mentioned your family at all."
It's a peculiar atmosphere to be sure, both of them with their shoes on in the living room of a stranger's empty apartment. Can't be helped. Whoever ended up waiting here might have had to jump out the window in a hurry, and it'll be professionally cleaned afterwards, anyway.
"If everything goes well, we're gonna say that's my biological father's second family," Junpei responds after a moment, and watches Ino register the slight discrepancy there, something obvious only if he'd seen Nagi. How much Junpei resembles her. "But you already know this mission's kinda …"
He comes to stand beside Ino, looking through the window with him though there's nothing to see. Ino waits patiently, sure of him, that whatever explanation Junpei gives him will be fine. Just basically believing in people is one of those annoying, impossible qualities which technically accomplishes nothing and can barely be cultivated as a … skill or mindset or whatever, in ordinary people. In sorcerers, it's an even more fucked up matter.
Not in every instance, not day to day, necessarily. Junpei and his classmates trusted each other, or they did before it came out that Junpei hadn't told them basically anything about himself. Yuuji believed in Junpei quite baselessly, which sort of, somehow, made it true. Gojo believes in his students, except they're still too young or too weak for him to rely on as he would an adult. Something like that. Junpei can't quite imagine the time coming when Gojo would accept that's changed. And Ino believes in Nanami in a way that Junpei privately thinks Nanami doesn't even believe of himself, or rather, the origin of qualities that Ino admires about him aren't exactly … well, it's not like Junpei knows either of them well enough to say.
"That Junpei is me," he tells Ino. It would have been nice to tell Chizuko and the others. "When I was fifteen. Not figuratively."
"That's crazy," Ino says, plain and straightforward. But nothing in his voice suggests he doesn't believe Junpei. This too is an expression of the supposed insanity necessary for jujutsu, both thoughtless — something more reflexive and inborn than a conscious decision — and a more radical imposition of viewpoint than the utterly prosaic approach that Nanami, and to some degree, Megumi have. To face what everyone faces, and still use your heart for something, is beyond a lot of sorcerers.
After a pause that goes on a bit too long, Ino looks at him with some despair. Well. Whatever despair is for Ino, currently. He's generally an upbeat person, and it is honestly a funny look on him, beanie and comfortable clothes and all. "What, no more explanation?"
"We don't have one. Gojo never figured it out," Junpei says with a shrug. "Like him," he gestures at the house, "I didn't know anything about jujutsu. I had no idea about, like, anything that was going on, the past ten years. Except for this part."
With Junpei paying attention to the house, Ino is free to examine him closely and to think … more than he usually does? … about Junpei, he means. Ino isn't dumb. There's been nothing to think about, Junpei-wise, is all he means. He was just another guy until a minute ago.
Ino isn't stupid. Sometimes averting your eyes is more polite than inserting yourself into other people's business, though Junpei hardly knows when this is or isn't the case. Sometimes leaving shit alone is kinder than stirring it up.
"Nomura," Ino says, uncharacteristically reticent, "am I the first person you told about this? Other than Gojo?"
One day, Junpei intuits with unfortunate clarity, he may manage to meet again with Yuuji, the first Yuuji he ever knew, and account for all the decisions he made after coming here, for the lack of things changed because he didn't try hard enough. It might feel a little like this.
"Ieiri and Nanami know," he answers with his eyes fixed on his old house, which means yes, because while Ino might not have much to do with Gojo personally, he probably knows who mostly controlled the flow of information there. There's no need for Ino to hear that Junpei told Nanami everything in an unprecedented fit of optimism, which, from what Junpei could discern through observation, ruined Nanami's mental state for about a week.
Didn't that force him to hound Gojo for most of that week, though? Really, Gojo should thank Junpei for that. Once Gojo heard about the whole domain expansion situation, Junpei's sure he would have continued to harass Nanami about his, but Nanami wouldn't understand why unless someone explained the situation to him. And maybe Gojo would have, eventually. Junpei just hurried it up a few days, maybe?
What difference does a few days really make? It's been years since Nanami first tried working on his, and he can't imagine he wouldn't have heard if Nanami had succeeded. Which is a shame, considering Nanami might have to fight Mahito again tomorrow.
He hasn't made things … worse, surely?
"Ah …" Ino says, awkward and wise, as Junpei puts both hands over his mouth and doesn't scream because he's an adult. He already grew up! This was an extra eleven, one hundred percent free years that he didn't earn in any way! Well, nobody 'earns' them. You just live, or you don't.
DO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO, CHAPTER 2: 42.2K, need to finish Toji's fight with the second years and poor Yuuji's disaster dinner. I meant to include more sex scenes but currently there is only a questionable blowjob. This also may get divided into another chapter, but I don't really want to!
HUMAN JELLYFISH 2, CHAPTER 5: as a result of being divided into another chapter, what remains is now 7.8K. Ijichi's part got cut due to plot issues. Ino's part got expanded.
THE STARS IN IT ARE DIM, CHAPTER 1: 8.3K. This is finished, I guess, since I decided to put the fully and unambiguously consensual sex scene for once *cough* in chapter two.
UNTITLED AGE REGRESSION TOJIGO: 19.7K and counting. Medusozoa!Gojo & Toji several months after the end of DWYAGTD/FTB. Gojo gets cursed and temporarily becomes physically eighteen again, but he retains his adult memories and personality. At first.
I think this should be about four chapters now that I'm trying to cut things into more reasonable sizes. Pitched (to myself lol) as "the age gap returns with a vengeance," and "'it would be easier to try to fuck him' though said about someone else now boomerangs around and hits Toji in the back of the head," it will also be Shoko's turn to haunt the sex scene, though she is both alive and still an adult.
human jellyfish 2: junpei time travels and changes nothing (chapter 4/5)
Rating: Teen and Up
Relationships: none
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Not A Fix-It, POV Gojo Satoru, POV Yoshino Junpei, Canon-Typical Violence, mild body horror, POV Fushiguro Megumi, Surprise POV
Word Count: 19 251 (92 254 total)
Summary:
Time is almost up and Junpei hasn't had his quarter life crisis yet. At the last possible second before the mission he's been waiting on for over a decade materializes on Nanami's desk, Junpei gets a tattoo, an existential dilemma or three, shrugs at his sexuality, and, unfortunately, is perceived.
WIP Wednesday - working title "the worst threesome" gojo/toji/kong (sfw)
This is not something I'm actively working on, but the concept amuses me. Medusozoa!Gojo menaces Kong attempts to negotiate a special present for Toji's birthday. He runs into one or two problems, such as having misread their past relationship.
"Never?" Gojo finally asks, a thin spread of embarrassment glazing his otherwise calm voice. "You said you worked together ten years? Never?"
What does the length of time have to do with it, Shi-Woo could ask, like you just hit the ten year mark and then every coworker who's stuck around that long is free game, but he sort of knows what Gojo means and it would be disingenuous to act like he doesn't.
Indeed, Gojo continues quite unnecessarily: "He killed me and I still let him hit it."
"Yeah, that's ..." Shi-Woo can tell Gojo is baiting him. They're in this together, though. He should play along a little. "... I'm sure that works super well for you two, but, you know, for the rest of humanity —"
"You don't like it?" Gojo echoes himself from the first night he broached this, and the tone is. Markedly different. He's relaxed, that's the most unnerving part. Simple and curious, like he's asking about Shi-Woo's family. His favorite food.
Except, Gojo says, "Didn't it feel good? Ramming us together like toy trucks?"
There was a sort of innocence to Gojo, once. He and Toji had observed it from the vantage point of a nearby building as Gojo and his friend effortlessly fended off two assassins, then swept off with Amanai Riko and her caretaker like everything would be okay, because until then, though they weren't yet aware of it, everything always had been. Arrogance in the young, earned arrogance especially, is a type of innocence.
And every now and then there's an echo of it in Gojo's upturned face, his deliberately higher and often melodic inflection. The way he's always seating himself around Shi-Woo to make himself less tall, though sometimes, like now, it backfires; this is like every time Shi-Woo was escorted into the office or personal study of someone too rich to dirty their hands, either to receive the job or to account for some fuck-up by one of his contractors. Never his own. Not until now.
Whatever Gojo sees in his face, the stiffness of how he's standing, he smiles, slight and gentle, as if touched by some sentiment Shi-Woo is not at all certain he's showing, let alone experiencing. "It'll feel good this time."
"do what you are going to do" / "from the beginning" marginalia
yeah it's not getting done and I might need to make a third chapter for "do what you are going to do" if I can't manage to cut down Toji scrapping with the second years ... I have booted Naoya and the Zenin confrontation to ch2 of "from the beginning," though I'm not sure yet if I will go through with the full Mai & Maki storyline. halfassed plot that sprouts from what was mostly porn + character study is the worst tbh
junpei: i kNoW what i'M dOING with time travel now ok leave mea LoNe i'm fixing it
toji: man fuck this jujutsu shit i'm so normal
toji: ah btw i'm obsessed with you and you'll have to kill me again to get rid of me
gojo: ok (:
junpei: what the fuck
megumi: ok i mean i don't care & actually i probably don't want to know but wtf is this
gojo: the enemy of my enemy is my friend with benefits
toji at the same time: delayed one way death pact (consensual)
megumi:
gojo: can I change my answer
Okkotsu gives him a faintly aggrieved look, like a wild animal who just watched him litter in the forest.
trying to finish DWYAGTD & human jellyfish 2 before the end of the month but for some reason this line really tickles me. Toji & Yuuta have little in common except a weird closeness to and/or identification with two of the same people (Gojo & Maki). In this scene, I specifically imagine Yuuta as the tanuki from the video where the person behind the camera is feeding feral cats in the mountains and then they turn around and the tanuki is just standing there. but as Yuuta the tanuki would be going : |
HUMAN JELLYFISH 2 CHAPTER 4: at 23.2K words. I thiiiink everything is done-ish except for the climatic fight scene. I decided to keep the Ijichi and Ino sections for now because maybe they're not that bad ... I would really like to finish and post this so I can finish & post the Gojo/Nanami fic!!! The majority of which I wrote BEFORE the Gojo/Toji stuff, but now, unfortunately (?), they cover some of the same ground from different angles. Let's just say it was on purpose.
DO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO CHAPTER 2: currently 25.8K words. I feel like I can finish this without adding another chapter, something that I have resolved to make a stronger effort to avoid doing in future works. Most people's chapters are like, 2K-5K, maybe? It would be more practical to write like that.
FROM THE BEGINNING CHAPTER 2: at 5.3K words despite genuinely trying not to work on this. In any case, I think this chapter will be maybe 1-2 more sex scenes, and plot I decided to move from DWYAGTD for various reasons.
UNTITLED "THE WORST THREESOME" KONG/GOJO/TOJI SCRAP: this is nonsense, but I've accumulated 4.5K words and I keep picking away at it every now and then because the premise is extremely funny to me even though I don't like how I'm writing Kong. Voice just doesn't feel good. This is my attempt to explore if/how/when dwyagtd!Toji bottoms, how Gojo has a healthier attitude about sex stuff but is still frankly unhinged, and how absolutely aghast Nearly Entirely Normal Only Real Adult Kong is about every single bit of this. A cuck chair has been included but at least part of the fic might be fighting over who's supposed to (who gets to) sit there.
UNTITLED GOJO&TOJI TIME TRAVEL: just a little 1.3K exercise to see if this has any bones to it. Sort of like if DWYAGTD/FTB ends up going bad, and the Toji & Gojo from those stories scrape together a time travel solution. Silent conspirators adult!Gojo-in-teen!Gojo's body & seemingly reformed house husband Toji versus jujutsu politics and Kenjaku in early 2006. Gojo gets to try again with Suguru and jujutsu reform, Toji gets to try being a real dad, and they deal with the complications of each endeavor and also of having already decided beforehand that their relationship is over while still being the only ones who know each other fully. Meanwhile, Suguru and Shoko, once they discover Gojo's silent conspirator, absolutely think Toji was some kind of groomer who got fired from training Gojo as a kid and Toji is like jesus christ not again I didn't do it !!!!!! i just killed him !!!!!!!!! why is it getting worse each time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Songs I loosely associate with Nanami to herd my brain back to writing him. Starts out teen years, moves roughly into adult years. This is probably a bit of a downer playlist.
"Never Not Try" is from this Phantom Parade edit and I kinda find the lyrics depressing to apply to Nanami, but w/e, associations are gonna associate
"Nothing's New" is from this Shibuya Incident AMV
"Fire" is from a comic I swear I reblogged but now I can't find it
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Fushiguro Toji/Gojo Satoru, Gojo Satoru/Nanami Kento (mentioned frequently)
Additional Tags: Post-Shibuya Incident Arc, POV Gojo Satoru, altered mental states, dubious consent, anal sex, rimming, coming untouched, spit as lube, asphyxiation, choking, top Fushiguro Toji, bottom Gojo Satoru, background time travel, age gap haunts the sex scene despite no longer existing, nanami does not appear yet sorry he just also haunts the sex scene
Word Count: 17.3K (chapter 1/2)
The sex scene that was missing from do what you are doing to do, and I will tell about it because Toji was in Shibuya murder mode, plus way too much insight into Gojo's questionable coping methods.
One (1) person out of the total four who commented on do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it asked about Gojo's POV, quite innocently and not at all implying or requesting anything.
My thoughts at the time: "hmm well almost half of what I've written so far is Gojo POV, so it might retread ground I've sort of covered already with the Corinthian, plus I have 2 other things to finish ..."
Cut to now, where I have 10.5K of the missing sex scene(s) and some Feelings About Nanami written. I mean. You write what you can't find to read, for sure, but it feels like I'm repeatedly running a toy train into a wall, switching to another track, running into a wall there, switch again & repeat. I wish I could just sit with one and work it out, but unfortunately, it hasn't worked out like that.
I did manage to work on Human Jellyfish 2 a tiny bit. 21.4K now, hemming and hawing over scenes with Ijichi and Ino, two characters I felt obligated to include because they are canonically there for the storyline but don't really feel very strongly about, and as a result, am not loving what I've written.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
🧧summary: Shiu and Toji cross paths more than once, and they can only pretend to be just business partners for so long. Shiu tries not to get too invested and Toji tries not to chew his own fingers off on multiple occasions. Let's just say neither succeeds
🔪warnings/tags: past child abuse, referenced/implied SA, canon-typical violence, toxic relationship
After testing the teleportation circle tattoo, it's all willemdafoeforeheadtap.gif oh right, the only person here who has a time/space technique is, in fact, Gojo.
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It would be nice to blame it on Mahito. It's all too easy to believe that what Mahito did to him, his soul first and then his body, did twist something up and then set it in stone in some way that even his full resets can't undo. He sometimes thinks that's what Gojo saw when he first came creeping up the stairs to the school, wringing his hands. And he can't blame Gojo for being unforthcoming on this particular matter. Junpei has never asked about this, specifically.
He hesitates at the door out of Shoko's clinic, trying to decide if he should turn around and ask again what Gojo saw when he looked at the activated tattoo. Or he could ask about the past instead. If he wants to ask at all, he should go back before Gojo and Shoko finish their conversation, which they probably will soon if they haven't already — they've been friends for so long, through so much, that they sometimes barely need to speak — because Gojo might teleport out.
If Gojo doesn't want to talk about something, he'll avoid it forever. He has a Limitless for conversation, too. Has Junpei ever really tried, though? It's one thing if it has to do with Gojo's history or the way his techniques work. He has a bit more of a claim if it's about him, doesn't he? Can't he put his foot down?
Truthfully, Junpei has never done that. Or you could say that the last time he did it, it was just another mistake on top of a pile of more than enough. He's never exactly been bold, though he was probably less afraid before the bullying. And then … he came here, chastened, and no matter how much he trained and tried, he never got any stronger than grade two.
Grade two is fine, Junpei, he remembers Gojo saying, bonking him on the head with a fan he folded out of a document he very likely was supposed to keep, eyes bandaged, a close-mouthed smile that's small and, in retrospect, enigmatic. The important things about you can't be graded, haha. We don't even know what they are to begin with.
Enigmatic is an exaggeration, maybe. It's just that Gojo certainly doesn't tell anyone else it's fine to be a grade two. Naturally, Megumi's technique means that he'll surpass that soon, and both his first class of students and his second will be right there with him for the most part.
Well. Maybe he's said so to others. It's hard to imagine, somehow. Gojo used to weaponize his tactlessness; Junpei was incredibly irritated the first time he was subjected to the spectacle of Gojo interacting with Iori, though it does seem to be a thing for them, some aggravating relict of their time together as students. He doesn't do it to actual students, though. And Junpei may have been one of the first people Gojo mentally classified as a student, despite the fact they just barely escaped being enrolled at the same time. That's why he used to call Gojo senpai.
As in all things, though, a silent, mental classification inside Gojo's head is stronger than mere aspects of reality. It wasn't until after Gojo killed him that things loosened up a little. That's a … sort of bonding experience, he supposes. And even then, it wasn't until last year that Junpei would call them friends, although in practice, he wouldn't. Gojo and Shoko don't call each other friends. Gojo, who loves to hang off of Nanami's shoulders and pester him to hang out, doesn't call Nanami a friend. Ijichi runs a third of Gojo's life, bureaucratically speaking, and Gojo bullies him, sort of … affectionately? … at best. As if to bother to use a very normal word to describe each of these relationships is too sentimental. There are complications with each relationship, sure. Junpei is well aware of the weirdness he brings to the table.
He's never been as honest with his classmates, so maybe Chizuko is more than a little justified to feel the way she does. But he didn't exactly choose to be honest with Gojo. Gojo was there first, and he would have always seen something inside Junpei.
He'd been insightful enough as a seventeen-almost-eighteen year old, and he's worse now, standing in the doorway that leads back to the warren of examination and patient rooms that Shoko maintains in her clinic. One where he readied the bodies of dead sorcerers, one where Gojo ran his cursed technique through Junpei's body and did something he regrets, twice, and this time tried to hide it. Gojo looks at Junpei, blindfolded, and instantly sees the whole of what he wants merely because Junpei is here, dithering, and because though there are complicated things about who Junpei is, Junpei himself is simple. Emotionally speaking, a primitive organism, he's sure.
"Will you tell me?" Junpei says as quick as he can, because he won't ever be able to put his foot down with Gojo, or Yuuji, or anyone, probably. He can still do something. He can act first; he can prove he doesn't just go along with things. "Tell me what you think you did wrong."
That's what his intuition about Gojo's evasiveness, and perhaps some other lingering tidal factors, tells him is the problem. Indeed, Gojo grins with immediate humorlessness, teeth showing.
"A wide-ranging topic," he says as if quoting someone, if not something anyone said out loud. The projected assessment of someone like Nanami, Shoko, or Yaga, twirled on one of Gojo's massive property damage causing fingers like a hat.
Junpei doesn't say, you have never knowingly wronged me. The issue is not his opinion.
"You think the time travel is your fault," he says while Gojo still delays answering.
Gojo's smile turns wry and sincere, or anyway, that's how it looks with his eyes covered. "All that studying paid off."
