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“You can wake me up.”
An arm slides around Toge’s waist. He’s sitting upright in their bed, breaths still shallow and gasping. His heart strains at the increased effort it takes to beat so quickly. Even with Yuuta awake and moving, Toge still can’t manage to soothe the growing panic gripping at his chest. Yuuta only leans in closer, a knowing look on his face.
“You can wake me up,” he repeats. “Anytime. You know that.”
This isn’t the first time they’ve talked about this. It also isn’t the first time Toge has woken up next to Yuuta’s impossibly still body and thought that–-
Worried that–-
Remembered a time when–-
“I’m alive,” Yuuta coaxes. “We’re alive.”
Toge manages a feeble nod. He almost wishes he hadn’t told Yuuta about this new affliction of his, but the first time it happened Yuuta woke up to find Toge clear across their room with his knees pulled to his chest as he slowly came down from the panic attack of a lifetime, and not explaining himself was out of the question. No matter how many times he watched Yuuta’s chest rise and fall, he couldn’t distinguish it from the image of Yuuta’s blood-soaked, lifeless body lying on Ieiri’s examination table. That visual clung so insistently to the inside of his brain that Toge doubted he’d ever forget a single heart-wrenching detail of the ordeal.
Just the thought of it makes Toge choke up. Yuuta rubs his thumb in a small, gentle circle and begins humming softly. He’s learned to do those things over time. Whistling from the other room, making loud footsteps, even growing and constricting his cursed energy like a breathing cycle. He’s come to understand that Toge is at his most relaxed when he has consistent, tangible proof that Yuuta is still alive.
Even as he does those things, Toge still manages to worry. When his breathing has finally settled into a more normal pace, he looks up at Yuuta to find him staring vacantly at the empty wall behind Toge’s head. More often than not these days, he has that faraway look in his eyes. Toge knows that look well- unblinking, lips gently parted, color slowly draining from his face. It has Toge’s heart racing all over again.
He leans in closer, nestling his head into the space between Yuuta’s neck and shoulder and pressing a kiss into one of those vital veins. His stiff muscles soften ever so slightly.
“I’m alive,” he repeats. “We’re alive.”
This time, it’s not Toge he’s reassuring.
Their plans with Maki were loose. They just knew they all had the evening free and found a convenient place in the city to meet up. None of them really cared what they wound up doing so long as they got to see each other outside the walls of the Tokyo campus for a few hours.
It was Yuuta who suggested the diner-themed restaurant a few streets over they now find themselves tucked into a booth at. It didn’t seem weird to Toge when he first recommended it, but as they started walking over, something started nagging at him. Yuuta didn’t grow up in Tokyo. He grew up in Sendai, and all of his knowledge of these streets have come from adventures with Toge and Maki. So how did he possibly know about a place that neither of them had ever heard of before?
But Maki didn’t look concerned about it, and Yuuta seemed as content as he ever is these days as he led them here, chattering and swinging his arms back and forth. Toge didn’t want to be the one who disturbed that. He was tired of being worried and assuming the worst. They all were.
So Toge resolved himself to try and have a good time. The diner was a fun spot, all kitschy decor and big plastic menus. This was the sort of place people their age were supposed to go with their friends, wasn’t it? So why not them? There was nothing to be concerned about.
Or at least, there wasn’t. Not until Yuuta looked the waitress in the eye without even so much as a glance at the menu and ordered a large soda, a plate of french toast, and a slice of apple pie a la mode. Toge’s heart seized in his chest.
Yuuta has always had something of a nervous stomach. Between being constantly hungry from rigorous training and living in a foreign country, it’s gotten better over the years, but he still eats pretty plainly and generally avoids sweets. Sometimes even a few polite bites of birthday cake at a party are enough to leave him sugar sick. Toge’s never even seen him drink anything other than water or coffee before, except just to sip. But the candy-colored soda arrives in front of Yuuta and he knocks a swig of it back like he’s done so a hundred times. He dives into both dishes with abandon as they arrive in front of him, stopping only to pour rivers of maple syrup on the french toast before cutting into it.
Maki doesn’t see it. No, she’s purposefully not watching. Toge’s trying to catch her eye but she won’t meet his gaze. She picks boredly at her fries and nods along as Yuuta talks through mouthfuls of food, rambling about the most random of topics.
“So, Yuuta,” she interjects casually, “How’d you know about this place anyway?”
He swallows a massive bite of pie and melted ice cream. “Been here a few times.”
Maki’s eyes finally flick up, connecting with Toge’s for just a split second- the first acknowledgement that she understands that something is very wrong here. She’s probably known it as long as Toge has. It would be one thing if Yuuta had simply heard about this place, or even been here a single time, but the idea that he was multiple times without them? It wouldn’t be possible. It was clear to both Toge and Maki right away. Yuuta hadn’t been here before.
But Satoru Gojo had.
If Satoru had come here before, it wasn’t unlikely that he’d come out of the same subway station that Toge and Yuuta had emerged from. Perhaps that had triggered something old in Yuuta’s brain- something borrowed and inadvertently stashed away from those four minutes and fifty-nine seconds that changed absolutely everything.
Maki stays cool, not letting her worry show for even a second. Toge does his best to follow her lead and swallow his panic down, but underneath the table he's digging fingernails into his pant leg to keep from crying out.
“It’s a cool spot,” she says through a shrug.
“I knew you’d like it,” he replies easily. “Just like I knew that you would order a burger with cheese and that Toge would order a strawberry milkshake.”
That’s true. Yuuta had ordered for them, and neither of them had attempted to override him. It was what Toge was going to order, and Toge knows Maki well enough to know that she wouldn’t have been shy about correcting him if he’d been wrong. He had been spot-on, but it was out of character for Yuuta to have done that. He’s never ordered for Toge without checking in first.
“Yeah? And how’d you know that?” Maki asks, interested.”
“Oh,” Yuuta says simply, “Because I saw the future.”
Toge and Maki both go deathly still. Toge’s not sure he’s even breathing anymore. Yuuta says he saw… what?
“Well, you know. Versions of it,” he corrects. “Patterns, probabilities, likely outcomes. Most things in life are pretty predictable, as it turns out.”
“No shit,” Maki says flatly, as if Yuuta had simply told her about something he’d seen on TV. She keeps her voice so even. “So what’s it like there? You know, in the future.”
A long slurp of soda followed by a choppy sputtering sound as Yuuta finally starts to hit ice.
“There’s a lot of disillusionment, obviously.” That strange, vacant look has started creeping into Yuuta's eyes. “Happens to all sorcerers eventually. I mean, unless you die first. You pick your poison on that one.”
“And what about you?” Maki asks, not letting up. “Is that your future? Disillusionment?”
She’s practically wringing the information out of him at this point. Toge’s not sure how much more of it he can take. If he’d been alone with Yuuta in this state, he’d have already taken him by the shoulder and started shaking him.
“Future?” he scoffs.
Yuuta lets out a rare laugh, a foreign smirk tugging at his lips. It’s been months since he last smiled, and that still held. Because this wasn’t Yuuta’s smile.
“No, he’s already there,” he continues, “He’s just hiding it from the others. He was pretty shrewd to the realities of this world right from the beginning. He knows what needs to be done, knows the cost, and he doesn’t even hesitate. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared for the kid. I was only just starting to get it when I was his age, but he already knows. This world is going to chew him up and spit him right back out.”
Toge has officially stopped breathing. Even Maki looks truly and properly stunned, no longer able to keep her reaction off her face. Yuuta pauses for a second, and when he starts to go on, neither of them dare to interrupt.
“It’s not all bad for him, though. He’s got those friends.” He drags the side of his fork through his last piece of french toast, sickly sweet syrup pooling on the plate as he cuts into it. “I mean, not that that was an accident. I knew what I was doing when I put the other students in his path. If he hadn’t had them to anchor him, he’d already be long gone.”
Maki is so pale. Her voice falls to a whisper as she asks the question that’s on both of their minds- the one they both desperately wish they didn’t already know the answer to.
“He?”
“Yeah, Yuu-”
The fork drops, clattering so loudly against the dish that Toge swears the whole restaurant turns around to look. Whatever state of consciousness Yuuta had just lost himself to shatters in an instant. He realizes himself all at once, water rushing in after the collapsing of a damn. His eyes go wide. His posture changes. He begins rocking back and forth. Toge’s chest squeezes as Yuuta’s eyes wildly lick each detail of the plates of sugar before him before finally lifting to find Toge’s.
“I don’t know what– I don’t know what that–”
Toge reaches his hand across the table. Yuuta takes it without hesitation, squeezing it tight. Yuuta had spent the last several minutes talking about himself.
“I don’t know what that was.” His voice is panicked, panting. He looks around the room frantically. “God, where the fuck are we?”
“You’re with us,” Maki says, regaining all coolness. She places a reassuring hand on Yuuta’s shoulder. “You’re okay. We were with you the whole time. Nothing bad happened.”
“I was…”
Yuuta trails off, shaking his head. His eyes lower ever so slightly. He can’t look at Toge. He can’t look at either of them.
Tears begin forming. Of all the things that have stoned over in Yuuta in the months since the conflict, that’s been the one thing he’s never quite been able to shed. He’s still as quick to cry as he was the first time he walked into that classroom in Tokyo. Yuuta keeps his eyes painfully wide open, as if he can will the tears to stop by simply not blinking them away.
“Not yourself,” Maki finishes the thought, confident. “How long has this been going on?”
Yuuta’s face scrunches uncomfortably. Toge has to stop himself from cringing at the sight of it. That was as good as an answer.
“The whole time?” Maki asks tentatively.
“Never like that,” Yuuta says quickly. His eyes flick up to Toge’s, guilt flooding his expression. “But… yes. There have been… lapses. Since, well. You know.”
The switch back into his own body. Toge squeezes Yuuta’s hand tighter. Maki is sitting next to him in the booth, frowning down at her half-eaten basket of fries as she considers the new information. While she isn’t looking, Yuuta covertly mouths the words I’m sorry to Toge. Toge shakes his head. Yuuta has nothing to be sorry for. He blinks back at Toge, two fat tears finally finding purchase.
Maki jabs a playful elbow into Yuuta’s ribs. “You have to tell us these things, you idiot. How can we help you if we don’t know what’s going on?”
Yuuta swipes at the tears with his sleeve, flicking them off his cheeks.
“And why should I?” he asks, indignant. “It’s not like anyone ever tells me about their problems.”
“Yeah, because you died for us,” Maki snaps. “You ruined your life for us. You shredded your humanity to ribbons just so the rest of us might stand a chance at living another few minutes and it fucking saved all of our asses. So no, Yuuta. None of us are gonna come whining to you about all of our stupid little problems.”
“Well you should!” Yuuta exclaims, voice breaking. “Did you ever consider that maybe I want to hear about your stupid problems?” He swipes at another set of tears. “Because I do! The stupider the better!”
Toge hasn’t heard him speak this loudly, this passionately in months. He’s been so quiet, so subdued. Seeing him like this is equal parts terrifying and thrilling. Maki is similarly stunned by the outburst. She makes no attempt to argue with him.
Yuuta looks back down at the plates of dessert he demolished, face washing over with abject disgust. It’s probably more sugar than he’s consumed in the last month. He lurches forward a couple of inches, face going pale.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
He drops Toge’s hand and takes a running departure out of the booth. Toge’s gut bubbles with guilt. He shouldn’t have let Yuuta eat all that.
Maki’s shoulders sag the second Yuuta is out of the room. “Whaaaat the fuck,” she breathes.
Toge just shakes his head. What they just witnessed was absolutely insane. Yuuta was just stuck in some pitfall of Gojo’s mind for what… an hour? Longer? The restaurant selection, the parade of sweets, the monologue of discoveries the six eyes had gifted him. None of that had come from Yuuta.
“Did you know about any of this?” Maki asks.
Toge immediately shakes his head, viscerally upset by the idea that Maki would ever accuse him of that.
But then Toge thinks about it for a second. While there hadn’t been anything this glaring before, there had been flickers. Toge knew that there was more to those long stretches Yuuta spent staring into space, and he knew that being in Gojo’s body had left a more lasting impression than he liked to let on. Toge had even gone as far as to suspect that those two things might be connected. He just hadn’t imagined it was anything like this. That Yuuta still had full access to an entire range of Gojo’s thoughts.
Slowly, Toge starts to nod. Even if he didn’t have the specifics, he can admit that he knew things weren’t totally right with Yuuta. How could they be, after all he’d endured? Toge had been trying to grant him the grace of readjusting to life in his own body, but maybe he’d been too lenient. Maybe Toge should have started tearing that wall down brick by brick, just as Maki had tonight. How else would things get any better?
Maki sighs. “Call me if this gets any worse.”
“Shake,” Toge affirms. He feels awful that it came to this.
“I don’t know how accurate any of that was,” Maki says, referring to the words that had just come from Yuuta and Satoru both, “But Gojo said friends. That means both of us, and Panda. Not just you. Helping Yuuta through this… it’s all of our responsibility. Not just yours, okay? So ask for help. We want to help.”
Toge manages a nod. Now he’s the one who’s getting teary.
“That being said… I’m glad he has you. You’re the best thing for him right now.” She makes a sidelong glance at Yuuta’s discarded plates. “An hour with me and he’s violently ill.”
Toge sputters out the smallest of chuckles. Maki flags down the waiter, asking for a glass of water and a check. Toge gnaws at his lip as he waits for Yuuta to return and goes over the events of the last hour in his mind. Seeing Yuuta like that- both as someone other than himself and the hard comedown that came afterwards- had been unbelievably disturbing. Yuuta had cried. He made himself physically ill over the whole encounter. It had been painful for him.
A minute ago, Toge was thinking that maybe he should be pushing Yuuta harder, but suddenly, he is certain that neither of them have the stomach for it. And Yuuta shouldn’t be subjected to that, anyway. He deserved gentleness. He deserved to heal at his own pace. He deserved time.
After all, isn’t that what he had given all of them? More time?
Maki’s methods had been informative, but Toge wouldn’t be repeating them any time soon. It wasn’t what Yuuta needed right now.
Toge can’t remember who it was who first started calling what they went through a war, but once they did, it stuck.
That’s what it had felt like, after all. They’d all been soldiers from the very first moment Jujutsu Headquarters started assigned them missions, so why not call a spade a spade? Especially once the fighting was over, and they all had to come to terms with the fact that what they’d seen- what they’d survived- had changed them irrevocably. They returned to their little dorm rooms as entirely different people then they were when they left them.
Despite the delirium caused by the weeks of stress and sleeplessness, Toge remembers that first night back better than any other he spent in those dorms. He’d never been more thankful to be limited in his words, because he couldn’t explain to anyone why he acted the way he did that night. It was dark when they arrived, and Toge happened to be on one of the first shuttles. When the rest of his friends entered the common room, they found Toge in with his twin-sized bed frame draped over his shoulders as he dragged it down the hallway.
Toge had decided he wasn’t spending the night alone. He had decided that Yuuta wasn’t spending the night alone. So, without waiting for permission or assistance, he simply started rearranging the furniture.
Maki basically knocked everyone down in her path to come help him. Then, she went and got her own bed. It was an impossibly tight squeeze, but all three beds managed to fit into the Yuuta’s tiny dorm room, so close to one another that it was basically just one large bed that happened to have three separate sets of sheets. Yuuta had barely spoken a word to anyone since being hastily yanked back into his body, but the tears of relief dotting his lower lash line shined with approval as he watched them work. He didn’t want to be alone that night, either.
And why should he be? The first years would be spending their night in Nobara’s recovery room, so why shouldn’t the second years be together as well? At the time, Toge saw no reason to be apart from his friends ever again.
Toge stared up at the ceiling as his friends fell asleep that night, Maki on one side and Yuuta on the other, Panda’s tiny new body curled up between Maki and Toge’s feet. As he listened to their breathing noises and tracked their unconscious movements, Toge felt the closest thing he’d had to peace in months. His whole universe was in that bedroom, he realized. His family. And he’d been just inches away from losing each and every one of them.
He’d never take a single moment with any of them for granted ever again.
Eventually, Toge surrendered himself to sleep. Even though they hadn’t let him do much in the way of fighting, he’d been bone weary- every muscle in his body sore from having been tensed and clenched with stress for days at a time. He practically melted into his mattress, the faint smell of Yuuta’s washing detergent wafting over from the next pillow.
When he woke up, the bed was colder. Maki had gone, likely to go see Nobara, and had taken Panda with her. How the two of them had known to leave Toge and Yuuta alone, Toge has no idea. Perhaps it had just been sheer coincidence, or else just simple serendipity. Whatever the case, Toge woke up and the first thing he saw was Yuuta’s grey-blue eyes. He had woken up first that morning, thankfully. Otherwise, things might have gone differently.
Yuuta had been watching Toge sleep, who knows for how long. Toge’s heart swelled at the sight of him. Alive. That was all that mattered. Everything else they could sort out in time. They stared at each other for a long time, Toge wondering if he was possibly still dreaming, before Yuuta finally spoke.
“Let’s never wake up alone again.”
Toge was too startled to agree right away. It took him a second to fully grasp that the words had come from Yuuta’s mouth and not from his own mind, but they had. Before Toge could eagerly nod his approval, Yuuta dipped over the threshold and did something impossible.
He gave Toge a kiss.
It was right on the lips. No warning, no inhibition, and no hint of an apology anywhere in sight. Yuuta kissed Toge as if it was the simplest thing he’d ever done, and deciding to kiss him back was the easiest choice Toge had ever made.
It had been something he’d wanted for so long and never in a million years thought he’d get. Especially when Yuuta came back from his first round with Sukuna hacked into pieces and drenched in his own blood, ready to make that fateful decision that easily could have ripped him away from Toge and the rest of this world forever. Toge thought that his chances were long gone that day, and he didn’t even mourn them. As long as Yuuta lived, it didn’t matter what way Toge had him. They could have been best friends or perfect strangers for the rest of their lives and Toge wouldn’t have cared, just as long as that heart kept beating.
Maybe Toge was foolish not to wonder what had changed in Yuuta to make him suddenly want him in that way, but he hadn’t. He was perfectly willing to accept that perhaps his affection for Yuuta had never been as one-sided as he thought. Why waste a single second questioning something that felt so unbelievably right?
One day, the war ended. The next, it all began.
Toge tried to order them a car home from the diner, but Yuuta had pleaded against it. Not taking the train home was the same as admitting that something had gone horribly wrong, and Yuuta wasn’t ready to do that. Same as always, he wanted to pretend that everything was perfectly normal. That he was perfectly normal. Toge wasn’t sure if it was good to be entertaining that idea anymore, but what else could he do? If Yuuta found comfort in walking to the station and taking the train home, then that’s what they would damn well do.
They didn’t stop holding hands for even a second the whole trek home. They caused a small traffic jam at peak hours as they navigated their way through the turnstiles together. They stood the whole train ride because two seats never opened up next to each other and they couldn’t stand being apart. They needed each other like air.
Their sweaty fingers were still intertwined when they got back to their apartment. It had been Yuuta’s idea to move off campus the second they graduated. He had said there were just too many memories at Jujutsu Tech. Toge realizes now that he wasn’t talking about his own memories. He’d been talking about Gojo’s.
How much had he been able to glean from those little minutes spent in the wrong body?
It was a question for another day. Yuuta had been through enough tonight. Toge takes a step into the apartment only to find his progress impeded by Yuuta, still clasping his hand tight and standing rooted at the door. Toge looks back at him, perplexed. His body had gone rigid. Toge feels the familiar tendrils of worry creeping up over his skin for what must be the hundredth time that day.
“I’m so sorry, Toge.” Yuuta’s voice has gone breathy and ragged. “I should’ve told you. I’m so sorry you had to find out like that. I’m so sorry you had to see me like that.”
Toge retreats immediately back to him, basically throwing himself into Yuuta’s arms. He digs his face into Yuuta’s chest and shakes his head. It’s the same as earlier. Yuuta has nothing to apologize for here, and he shouldn’t waste another moment trying to do so.
“No, Toge,” he breathes. “You don’t know what you’re forgiving.”
Toge slowly peels himself back, looking up to see Yuuta’s face more clearly. There’s a pained, troubled expression on it. Toge finally releases Yuuta’s hand so he can use his own to give Yuuta’s shirt a little tug, beckoning him to say more.
Yuuta sighs and crosses the room, practically collapsing into one of the stools at their kitchen counter. He must be exhausted. Toge knows he’s probably meant to sit down next to him, but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. He’s too jittery. He stands right in front of Yuuta instead, the two of them at eye level as Toge stares at him expectantly.
“Let me think for a second,” Yuuta says softly. “I get confused sometimes and I… I really want to get this right.”
Toge drifts forward an inch, close enough that his legs graze Yuuta’s knees. He can wait all night if Yuuta needs him to. Yuuta closes his eyes for a few moments of concentration and then lets out a sigh.
“When I was in Satoru’s body,” he explains reluctantly, “I had full access to all of his memories. They all just rushed right into me, but I couldn’t let them, right? Because I had to fight. So I filed them all away as best I could. But then… when you all put me back… I woke up and I realized they were still there.”
Toge nods. So that’s why he gets stuck sometimes. Why he got lost today. Twenty-eight years of memories would already be enough to overwhelm his own, but twenty-eight years of a six-eyes user’s memories? That’s an insane amount of information. No one other than Satoru Gojo himself was built to handle that much data.
Yuuta scrubs a hand over his face, raking it back into his hair. “Well, I didn’t realize it right away,” he admits. “But for that first month or so, I had all these opinions, all these insights on people and I had no idea where they were coming from. Even now I can’t always sort through it all. I don’t know what’s mine and what’s… his.”
Toge feels his heartbeat start to climb. Yuuta is still rubbing at his face, growing more and more agitated by the second. Toge can barely stand to watch it.
“You’re gonna hate me,” he whimpers. “If I tell you this, you might hate me.”
“Okaka,” Toge says aloud, since Yuuta won’t look directly at him. “Okaka.”
Toge could never hate him. Never. But Yuuta suddenly looks so miserable that Toge can’t help but feel slightly on edge. What could possibly be so bad? When Yuuta looks back up at him, his eyes are red and rubbed raw, tear-filled all over again.
“I love you,” he says breathlessly. “I love you so much, but Toge… I didn’t always know that.”
It takes Toge a moment to put the pieces together. Once they start to fall into place, his breath hitches.
Yuuta said… he said that it took him a full month to even realize his brain needed unscrambling. It took him that entire first month to get it sorted… but he and Toge… they shared a kiss on that very first morning.
“I wasn’t supposed to figure it out for years,” Yuuta continues, voice turning frantic. “Satoru knew that. He knew that we were going to be together one day. He’d figured out that we were compatible somehow, I don’t know how it works, but he knew. He knew that you felt that way for me, and he knew that one day I was going to feel the same way for you. But it was gonna be years, Toge. We weren’t supposed to be together for years.”
Toge feels like his brain is short-circuiting. It’s all too much information at once. He doesn’t know what to make of it all, and Yuuta isn’t giving him any time to think.
“But I couldn't wait. I couldn’t bear to. I woke up next to you that morning and I couldn’t take my eyes off of you and something just… bloomed in me. I knew all at once what you were to me, what you meant to me. And once I knew… the thought of waiting for even another second seemed impossible to me, so I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
Each word of Yuuta’s is so seeped in guilt, and Toge keeps trying and failing to find a reason for it. Why is he acting like this is a bad thing? Yuuta stole back years of their lives.
“Don’t you know how selfish that is, Toge?” he asks, a broken sob bubbling out of his throat. “I’m a wreck. I’m falling apart at the seams and I’ve made it your problem.”
“Yuuta,” Toge tries. He is not a problem. If anything, he is a gift. He gave Toge all these extra years with him. It’s the bravest, most selfless, most wonderful thing he could’ve done.
“What if we were supposed to wait?” Yuuta is still babbling, undeterred. “What if I jumped the gun? What if we needed me to have that time to get my shit together and I fucking blew it?”
“Yuuta.”
Toge’s voice is more insistent this time. He won’t listen to another second of this nonsense. The idea that he thinks there is anything on this planet that could keep Toge away from him is so utterly ridiculous that in any other circumstance, Toge would actually laugh. Yuuta is his whole world. Toge can’t breathe when Yuuta isn’t beside him.
And that was true long before Yuuta figured out his feelings for Toge. It would’ve continued to be true if Yuuta had never figured it out. There’s nothing he could do to stop that.
“It’s okay if you hate me.” Yuuta’s voice has dropped to a breathy whisper. He lets his head fall between them, hair flopping forward over his eyes. “Actually, no it isn’t.” He shakes his head. “If you hated me, I don’t know what I’d do.”
Finally, all of the emotions that have been slowly gathering beneath the surface today start to spill over all at once. Yuuta’s shoulders shake with sobs as it all pours out of him. Toge can no longer stand an inch of distance between them.
He crawls into Yuuta’s lap, paying no attention to the precarious fit of both their bodies on the little stool. He slides backwards for a second, but Yuuta is already there, gripping him as if he was about to fall into the mouth of a volcano- like he might lose Toge forever if he doesn’t hold on as tight as he can. Toge inches even closer, not leaving a single speck of space between their bodies as he starts showering kisses up Yuuta’s neck and jawline, all the way up to his ear.
How long had Yuuta been carrying this burden around with him? How many days had he spent worrying that Toge would leave him if he found out the truth? Toge wanted to kiss him for every day he spent living in fear- for every second, even. Toge wills his lips to work faster. It’s all he can do at a time like this.
Toge can’t say I love you. It’s one of his only true regrets when it comes to the restrictions of his technique. Sometimes it feels like torture to not be able to tell Yuuta just how much he loves him- not to shout it from the rooftops- but Toge has found solace in finding ways to show Yuuta instead.
“You should be–” Yuuta interrupts himself with a hiccup as his sobs start to ease, “Angry at me.”
Whatever capacity Toge had for anger and fury and rage fell out of his body the second the war was over. Even if Toge had it in him to feel those emotions anymore, he wouldn’t. Especially not for Yuuta. Yuuta was doing his best. He had stepped up to give everything for the people he cared about and he still had the audacity to think he could be considered selfish for any reason? That was all Toge needed to know about him. Right down to his core, Yuuta was good. How could Toge do anything but reward those good intentions?
His kisses start trailing over to Yuuta’s cheeks, both of them wet with sheets of tears. Yuuta lets him kiss them away. Toge keeps working until Yuuta’s breath has finally regained steadiness and every inch of him has felt Toge’s lips. Only then does Toge pull slightly back to look at him properly. Yuuta’s fingers press into the hollows of Toge’s ribcage to keep him steady.
“Takana?” he asks gently. Yuuta sighs.
“Yeah. That’s why I didn’t tell you sooner,” he admits, working hard to meet Toge’s eyes as he speaks. “I was so mixed up for so long. I didn’t want you thinking that I was mixed up about you, though. You have been the only thing that has made any sense to me, and that’s been true since the very beginning.”
Toge reaches out and sweeps Yuuta’s hair out of his face, tucking it back behind his ears. He was preparing to lean in for another kiss, but an uncomfortable look has settled on Yuuta’s face. There’s something more that he needs to say.
“It’s just… Toge, I mean it when I say I know everything,” he whispers, “I know absolutely everything about Satoru’s life.” He swallows thickly. “And his relationship with Suguru Geto… Toge, they were in love. They loved each other so much.”
His one and only. Toge had once heard Gojo refer to Suguru Geto as that. He had wondered briefly what that had meant, but had decided it wasn’t his business to speculate.
“But they didn’t have time,” Yuuta reports miserably. “They only got to be happy for a year or so before it all got ripped away and god… now I know how that feels.”
Toge is aghast when he thinks those last words through properly. He hadn’t even considered that along with all of Satoru’s observations and memories that Yuuta would also be forced to carry all of Satoru’s traumas. All of his heartbreaks and failures and pains over Satoru’s many years in sorcery- now they were all Yuuta’s burden to bear as well. It’s no wonder his head has been messed up. He’s been carrying all that extra weight around with him.
“And I would do anything,” Yuuta continues, “Anything to keep that from happening to us. I want us to have all the time in the world, Toge. That’s all I want. I just want time.”
Toge nods eagerly, reaching up to cup Yuuta’s face with his hand. “Shake,” he affirms. They’ll have it. If Toge has any say in the matter, Yuuta will have as much of Toge’s time as he can possibly give- every minute, every second, every breath.
With all that off his chest, Yuuta’s body starts to relax. He keeps his grip on Toge steady, but the tension in his shoulders starts to unravel and his face, still red from crying, regains some of its composure. Toge feels himself melting at the sight of it, sinking even deeper into Yuuta’s lap. He’s practically a puddle at this point.
“If anything like today ever happens again… if I’m not myself, will you… will you come get me?” Yuuta’s voice is soft, almost childlike. He tilts his head sweetly. “If anyone can, it’s you.”
It takes absolutely nothing to get Toge to agree to that. Every moment of Yuuta’s confusion today had been complete and utter agony for Toge. His only regret was not stepping in the second he realized something was amiss.
Yuuta explains slowly that there are certain triggers that make Satoru’s thoughts more prominent in his mind. Both Jujutsu Technical campuses. Seeing Megumi or Shoko. Oddly enough, convenience stores. Apparently Satoru couldn’t enter one without leaving with a bag of candy, and now, neither could Yuuta- something he often didn’t realize until he was already back home. Yuuta sheepishly confesses that there’s even a stash of the accidental purchases up in the cupboard above the refrigerator- the one place in the apartment that Toge is too short to reach without assistance.
Toge promises dutifully to never let Yuuta near a sweet again without checking first, committing each and every detail Yuuta shares with him to memory. It kills Toge that he didn’t figure this all out sooner- that he could have been helping all this time. Yuuta must sense that.
“I think the reason it’s been so easy for me to hide it from you,” he ventures, “Is that it almost never happens when you’re around. When the two of us are here together… when I’m with you, I always know exactly who I am.”
Toge finally leans forward to place that kiss he’d been saving from earlier on Yuuta’s lips. Yuuta kisses him right back, letting the kiss deepen. Toge has at least a hundred more questions about all he’s learned tonight, but he’ll save them for another day. Right now, this conversation is more important. Since Toge can’t reassure Yuuta with words, he wants to do it like this. He wants to kiss Yuuta into knowing that Toge could never hate him, not for anything.
That night, they sleep in the bed with their bodies so connected that it makes their sheets hot and sticky with sweat. Neither of them care. They’re close enough that when Toge wakes up first the next morning, there’s no need for him to worry. His proof of life is in the warm breaths tickling the skin on his cheek. It’s undeniable.
He’s alive. They’re alive. The rest, they’ll figure out later.