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shintin · 1 year

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Forget Me Not: Chapter 36 (Run)

↳ Gojo Satoru x Female Reader

Description: Having fallen into this world, you were forced to shed blood to survive. But what about when you get tired, when you think the blood on your hands won’t wash off and give up because you have nothing to lose?

Yep, you were there, at rock bottom, rolling in the deep.

Then, there came a day when life gave you a new chance to live, laugh, and love, or so she thought.

Genre: heavy angst, sad love story, maybe tragedy, violence, lonely hearts, broken souls, +18.

Tags/Warnings: nothing but angst.

Song Recommendation: Love in the dark- Adele

Chapter index -> Next Chapter

Year: 2019

An hourglass.

She was an hourglass. Years had collapsed and buried her from the inside out. Her legs felt full of sand and stapled together, her mind brimming with grains of indecision, undone choices, and impatient as time passed from her body. The clock's little hand struck her with one, two, three, and four. Whispering hello, get up, stand up, it's time to wake up, wake up…

"Wake up! Wake up, Y/N!"

A sharp intake of breath and her eyes flew open, her skin breaking into a sudden, cold sweat, somehow staring into the brown eyes that seemed to know too much, too well. He was leaning over her, his worried eyes inspecting her, his hand caught in the air as if he was about to shake her shoulder, but he had hesitated.

"What are you doing?" She didn't recognize her own raucous, panicked voice, as if she hadn't spoken for days.

"You were screaming in your sleep." He jerked back but was still staring, unblinking, chest rising and falling.

"Who are you?"

Slowly, her hand sought a sharp edge beneath her pillow, but there was no knife. What? She dripped panic everywhere. Her hand clenched, and her eyes quickly looked for a way out. Apart from these light and clear eyes, blonde hair, with a strange, friendly smile, the room seemed familiar.

"Who am i?" said the man. "I’m a friend."

She glanced at him and tried to sit up, but suddenly the world vanished in and out of her focus, shades of grey glistening like frames on stilts, erratic movements.

"Don't rush. You're a bit late, but we have some time left." He talked like he knew her, like they were close once. It felt insane.

"Do I know you?"

"Yes."

Her heart leaped. The simplicity of his answer strangled her mind, digging for the truth.

"I’m Kento. Kento Nanami.”

The name scratched an old wound, but it didn't bleed. It didn't make sense. What was wrong with her? Why was the whole thing upsetting her?

Her head was a piece of pavement, and she was being trampled to death. She had no clue where they were. She knew nothing about Kento. Wait! Kento was Satoru's friend. Satoru knew him. Satoru. Her Satoru. Satoru, who left her alone and killed her brothers.

The wound opened up, and she remembered bleeding all over her gown, kneeling on the floor, and collapsing in a puddle of her own blood. There were hands… the hands that caught her and the scene that her eyes picked up for the last time—the corpses of her brothers. The heavyweight, which was lifted off her shoulders for a few seconds, landed twice as heavy, and because she was not ready, she was crushed underneath.

She sat up and tried to move, but she was off-balance, unsteady. Kento got up to get hold of her, but his hands stopped in the air. She clung to the bed frame, breathing fast, hands shaking.

"Take it easy." One swift appraisal was all he needed to know that she was not well. In fact, she looked terrible. Thinner than ever, with dark circles under her eyes. Tired and weak, but she was alive. She was breathing.

He lifted his head in her direction but stared at a spot directly behind her. His voice was soft when he spoke, "You look better today," he said. His gaze carefully avoided her bandaged hand.

She felt Kento's gaze like an actual weight against her chest, but she chose to study the careful bandage stretched tight across the palm of her hand because she had too much of anger to look up at his face.

As far as her memory helped, she had only injured her palm, but now her entire left hand was bound in gauze. Wait! Didn't she attempt to remove the bandage this morning?

She narrowed her eyes, opened it carefully and, as opposed to this morning, felt no pain.

Her wound had been healed, but it left a scar. Her finger moved across the scar, wondering how many more miseries she had to bear before things finally came into place. If they ever would.

She pulled herself into a seated position, looking around, thinking about the time she was transferred from the infirmary to this room…

Ah, a headache!

She had to close her eyes to steady the dizziness, but couldn’t stop herself from questioning: Was it all a dream? She did’t kiss Satoru, right?

She touched her lip, and somehow, she could still feel him. If she focused, she could relive the exact moment it happened; the moment was so intense that she could never forget it.

She distracted herself with the carpet laid out on the floor. Her voice sounded tiny when she asked, "Where is he?"

Kento sighed, running a hand through his hair and gripping the back of his neck. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him lately."

"He was in the fucking infirmary this morning!" she told him, anger and rage rising within her. She stumbled on her feet. Her legs were unsteady. She nodded and didn't know why, but she seemed incapable of stopping. She wanted to walk to the door, find him and—

"Where do you think you're going? What's wrong?"

She spun around. She looked mutinous. "What's wrong? Oh, like you don't know?"

He took a step back and reminded himself that this girl could probably kill him with her bare hands if she wanted to.

"You have already kept so much from me," she said, feeling her strength faltering.

"I swear I never meant to hurt you," he said.

She studied his face and analyzed his patient, earnest tone. She remembered this morning; it must have been this morning because she could still remember his face, lips, and tender touch. He probably carried her here, tucked her in bed. It must have been him.

But when she glanced at her body, she realized she was wearing different clothes from her vague memory and wondered who had changed them.

"You were unconscious for two weeks, and you were always here, in your room. You only spent a few hours in the infirmary after you blacked out from the blood loss," he said, standing in front of her.

"What?" she said the word, but her lips made no sound. She was numb in some sense. Blinking and seeing nothing. “I was unconscious for two weeks?”

He looked at her, studied her. She seemed almost about carved from stone, motionless in the midst of chaos. She stared into the door with an impossible-to-read gaze. But he needed no supernatural ability to know what she was thinking.

"We need to talk, Y/N."

She closed her eyes, and her lips parted in quiet terror. It's been ages since she was haunted like this. She suddenly caught a chill. Her hands started shaking, or maybe it was her bones. Kento guided her to her bed, and she followed mechanically, so slowly, her mind still fuzzy. She was vaguely aware that he might be saying something, but she was shivering, and the words were beyond her reach.

She leaned back against the bedboard, welcoming the cold and the pain of the metal digging into her spine. She pulled her knees towards her chest and felt her feet pressing into the warm mattress.

Her gaze rested on him for a moment, cataloging his tense shoulders and disheveled hair.

"Talk," she managed to say and exhaled quietly, slowly. They hadn't spoken to each other since they returned from the wedding.

Secrets are like poison. Any fool can spit out poison, but we choose to store these painful treasures in our hearts. Swallow them every day and forcefully keep them inside. These secrets stay in place, get heavier, and fester. After a while, the only option left is to crush the heart that holds them. Kento had grown tired of secrets.

He sighed, then moved the chair so he could sit by her bed. "There are things you don't know."

"No way!”

He was surprised at her sarcasm. He hesitated, exhaled, and dragged his hand across his mouth and chin to the back of his neck. "I have no idea where to start."

Her brain was screaming at her to put cotton in her ears and tell him to stop talking. But, "Start from the beginning," she said, amazed she could bring herself to speak. She had never seen him this way before and sadly, had no way of finding out what he wanted to say. He clasped his hands together so tightly she thought he might accidentally break his own fingers.

And then, finally, slowly, he spoke. “When you turned yourself in last year, you received the death penalty. You were going to be executed."

She thought the emotional implosion of that night had ended, but much had happened since then. It shocked her to think how much she had changed over the last year. She felt like a completely different person.

"I know."

"But Satoru became involved," he said. "And he stopped your sentence."

"To piss his dad. Don’t forget this little detail!" She scoffed. Disappointment lodged in her throat, a cold stone she was unable to swallow.

Without paying attention to her interruption, he continued, "And he fed Higher Ups some bullshtit to convince them that your alive is worth more than your corpse. But they never agreed. They believed you weren't easy to deal with, that you deliberately wanted to get into school because you had an interest here, even though they never mentioned what you might be looking for."

Even if she didn't want to react to this admission, she felt something growing inside her, like his words sank into her and expanded in her chest. The blood started flowing through her veins. "Wait! I thought you all knew my brothers, cursed wombs, were in school, and you hid it from me!

"No." He shook his head. "We suspected that you came here because of Sukuna, so we all thought that he was the one you were interested in. So, to save Yuji, Satoru wanted to know the purpose of reviving a 1000-year-old curse. He used his trump card and said he would make a binding vow with you. As you know, binding vows are contracts between two or more individuals bounded by the cursed energy. Both parties have to come to an agreement on a particular set of mutually beneficial conditions. Punishment for violating a binding vow with others is considered death. So you can tell there was a lot of opposition to his decision, but he forced them to accept."

There was a snake in her throat, searching its way to her heart. "That's really interesting," she said, "Sorry I couldn't be as helpful as you hoped! Is that why you kept it a secret from me? Did you know about it?"

"I know about what?"

"YUJI!"

Her sharp tone was so unpredicted, it forced his mind to focus. He met her eyes to find she was staring straight through him, with both hurt and anger.

"Yes."

"And you hid it from me," said she. "All this time, you knew he was my brother, and you didn't tell me? How do you think of yourselves as my friend?”

She sought an answer in his face, but there was none. Every memory, every belief, everything she thought she knew about Kento was sinking in. She enveloped herself with her arms, her lips trembling.

"When you had the chance to make a binding vow with the strongest sorcerer, you chose Yuji's life over yours. Indeed it was suspicious. You were a goddamned wanted fugitive! We figured you were after Sukuna or that you knew Yuji was your brother.”

"Who is this we you're talking about? Don't you know me?" she said, obviously on edge. "Satoru couldn’t save me from everyone who thirsted for my blood. I didn't know Yuji. I had no idea who he was. I felt a strange closeness with him! That's it! And I knew Satoru was the one who could protect this kid!" she paused and looked away. It seemed strange when her lips uttered his name. "I didn't want Satoru to die, not because of his stupid binding vow for me, but for anything else," she said and clenched her blanket and dug out her nails.

I cared so deeply about Satoru, was the thing she didn't say. That the wounded boy inside him deserved happiness was what she kept to herself.

It hurt her that she could not bring herself to feel the other way about him despite her anger. Yes, he was there for her when no one else was; he gave her hope when she needed it the most; he loved her when nobody else did. But it was he who ruined her life and left permanent marks.

But what good was it to shout out these facts when the pain would not be healed?

Kento understood the heaviness of the situation. So he settled in silence, realizing how important this friendship and Y/N was to him. He raised his head and saw how a single tear escaped down the side of her face, but she wiped it with the back of her hand.

The sight was heartbreaking.

"Kento," she called, her voice worn out from the weight of so much pain. "Why do you recall all these things? What any of this has to do with me?"

"All of this has to do with you and that binding vow," he said, finally meeting her eyes.

"How?"

"You're a half-curse, half-human." He swallowed. He was looking in his hands when he said, "Curses are created when the cursed energy is leaking from humans because of their negative emotions. Half of you is a curse, yet your human part suffers when the negative energy is attracted to you. The same happens when you touch the sorcerers since they do not emit negative energy. But what happens to the positive energy? Don't you think it could be a torment to your curse side?”

The revelation was like a thunderclap. She sat there, staring at him, stunned. She tried to stay calm even as her mind caught fire. Why had she never thought of that?

"You mean positive energy is bad for me as much as negative one???"

He nodded.

The reality of what he was saying spread like poison in the pit of her stomach.

"So you're saying this is a lose-lose situation?"

He shook his head. "You used all the negative energy you absorbed to build a special grade out of yourself. Then you healed yourself with positive energy. This is how you survived for years, Y/N, and you will continue to do so."

"I survived???" Her voice broke. "You have no idea, Kento. You have no idea because you don't even know the whole story. I had to hide from people my whole life!" Her breath hitched. "I let my humanity loose to stay alive! And you call this surviving?"

“But you have learned to conceal yourself from the cursed energy of humans. Your human part has grown as powerful as your cursed part. You were in the balance until—" He didn't continue.

"Oh, God!" She pressed her palm onto her mouth.

A shock of pain tried to reach her, to get around her new cold heart, and she managed to fight the worst. Even so, a brick of something hot and awful plunged into her chest.

"Even with your new skills, you can't hide from the positive or negative energies transmitted by touch. When I, Shoko or Ijichi touched you all this time, it wasn't just our negative energies that hurt you. Our positive energy also plagued you."

She stood up, confused and horrified. She was unable to shape words, unable to speak.

“Satoru alone was able to touch you without hurting you. He was an exception. Have you ever wondered why?" he asked.

Her mind was working fast, trying to solve an impossible equation, and a crazy theory took root inside of her, crystalizing in a way she had never thought it could.

It was a simple question, but she couldn't stop shaking her head.

"Stop," she said. "No, please don't do this to me," she begged, but Kento didn't listen. He said she needed to know by now, and she should know the truth.

"STOP TELLING ME THIS," she screamed.

"It was the binding vow," he said.

Another wave of shock, another unforeseen detonation that imploded within her.

BOOM

There it was. There was her head, lying on the floor, cracked right open, her brain spilling out in every direction, and she couldn't, she didn't… She was standing there, struck, slightly dizzy.

Horrified.

Satoru was not immune to her. He could only touch her because of that binding vow.

BOOM

She was numb, a world of nothingness; all her feelings and emotions were gone forever. She was a whisper that never was.

It was like the world had been knocked off its axis, like she had been flung from the earth and she had headed directly for the sun, like she was being burned alive and somehow, she could still hear Kento, even as her skin melted inward, as her mind turned inside-out. Everything she had ever known and thought to be true about who she was and what she was, vanished.

"Y/N," he called her name. "You already knew about this, didn't you?" he questioned.

"Please don't say anymore. Please don't say anything else," she pleaded.

“He told you that your love for him could be a side effect of your vow of loyalty toward him, but you ignored him. You knew him very well, but you never asked yourself how a person who never had a relationship suddenly fell in love."

She should have known it couldn't have been that easy, that it couldn't have been so simple. It Looked like nobody ever thought Y/N's immunity from his touch was a happy coincidence. As if everybody already knew that she was not someone to fall in love with and that there had to be a mistake. Of course, they thought it had to be bigger than that, more specific than that. While she always wanted to believe, she just got lucky.

Her heart must be bleeding out of her chest. She looked down and couldn't understand why there was no blood on her clothes when the pain in her heart felt so real.

"I'm not judging you, Y/N. It was the first time you could touch someone without getting hurt, so you held on to that little hope you had newly found."

Kento was right. Satoru was the first who had ever shown her compassion. The first and, at the time, the only person who could touch her. She was caught up in the impossibility of it, so convinced fate had brought them together.

She thought it was him.

And it was.

And it wasn't.

She wanted to laugh at her own blindness.

That binding vow, it linked them. It did bring her and Satoru together, but not because they were destined for one another. Not because he had fallen in love with her. It was just a simple connection.

Being with Satoru gave her a new kind of strength. She was still very broken, but Satoru cared for her and gave her a reason to stand up for herself when she was too down. It was affection and a desperate desire for physical connection—the things she had been wholly unfamiliar with and deprived of. She had nothing to compare these new experiences to.

Of course, she thought she was in love.

But while she didn't know much, she could tell Satoru never really loved her, because if he did, he wouldn't kill her brothers. He wouldn't hurt her.

She knew this; she had seen proof of the opposite; she had seen him doing anything to save his students.

Her faith was so shattered that she couldn’t tell what Satoru would do if she opposed him. She wasn't confident he wouldn't kill her, too. And this uncertainty alone made her certain that something was not right between them. Something wasn't real.

There was no love between them.

That's it. She got it now.

In the midst of all this, deep in the center of her chest, a part of her was burning with rage and anger like coals that had become hot and red.

She couldn't even believe that all the good things she had experienced, the interruption in her miserable life, were a side effect of a crappy bond.

"Here's another thing I wanted to say."

She turned only an inch in his direction and finally noticed the faint lines around his eyes, his forehead, the threads of silver gleaming through the neat dreadlocks fallen on his eyebrows.

"No," she said, smothering her ears with her hands. "I don't want to hear—"

"Love is the strongest source of positive energy," he said in a crude voice.

She looked at him with her fingers pinched around her ears, shaking her head, tears pouring down her face. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could ever say.

Is that why her injuries didn't heal as quickly as before?

Her heart pounded in her chest as she remembered. She closed her eyes, her lungs knotting together. All of the dots were connected now.

That's why she felt tired all the time. That's why it hurt when he touched her this morning. No. It wasn't this morning. Fuck!

She wasn't even sure whether it was real or not! God damn it! She knew nothing about her own life. She got so close to madness that she wanted to scream.

"I see you have figured out the rest," he said and lowered his head.

Kento looked exhausted but not defeated. He looked freer, his eyebrows unfrowned. His fists were unclenched. His face was calm in a way she hadn't seen in what felt like a long time. He looked relieved. As if he had been carrying this great burden, he thought it might kill him. As if he had felt sharing this truth with Y/N might somehow inspire a lifelong hatred between him and his friend.

But Y/N wasn't angry at all. She was overwhelmed, shocked beyond belief.

She looked as though she had been scooped out from the inside, like someone had spooned out all the organs she needed to function, and she was left with nothing, just emptiness, just complete and utter disbelief.

She tripped out of bed so fast that she pulled the covers down.

"Y/N!" Kento rushed up. "I understand that—"

"STOP IT," she finally screamed. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed, anger, heartbreak, exhaustion, and crushing devastation filling her lungs. It was the weight of all these years, the embarrassment of false hopes forged in her heart, treason, loss...

She still had a tiny thread of hope, and she had to cling to it. She had to go. Suddenly, out of the blue, she ran to the door and fled the room. She ran down the hall. Her shoes scuffed on the concrete, her feet knocking into each other as she heard Kento calling after her.

Run, Y/N. Run until your lungs collapse, until the wind whips and snaps at your tattered clothes, until you're a blur that blends into the background. Run, Y/N, run faster until your bones break, your shins split, your muscles atrophy, and your heart dies because it was always too big for your chest and beat too fast for too long and run.

Run, run, and run until you can't remember him. Run with open eyes and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Y/N.

Run until you drop dead.

Make sure your heart stops before you remember him. Before you ever remember.

Run.

Her feet pounded against the hard, packed earth, each steady footfall sending shocks of electric pain up her legs. Her lungs were burning, her breaths coming in quickly and abruptly, but she was pushing through the exhaustion, her muscles working harder than they had in a long time, and she kept moving.

If she stopped, she was scared her thoughts might kill her.

She took a deep breath and felt the crisp, icy air rush as it burned through her lungs. The wind wrapped around her, pulling and pushing and dancing, whipping her hair into a frenzy, and she leaned into it, got lost in it, and opened her mouth to inhale it.

Her body shook with unpent emotion.

How did this start? How was she going to deal with all of this? These last few weeks were already too much for her, too much to digest, too much to juggle. Now she had learned she was doomed to solitary unless she could find someone like herself, like a family member, like a brother, a sweet innocent pink-haired boy, Yuji Itadori.

If Yuji hadn't come to the morgue that day, how long would they hide everything from her? She couldn't say since everyone she trusted had lied to her and manipulated her. Everyone had been using her.

The sudden scream rippled itself from her lungs, but when she raised her head, she stifled it. She was outside the boys' dormitory.

How did, when did she arrive here? Could this be some shit dream? She rubbed her eyes, and it didn't change anything. She was awake, and this wretchedness was absolute.

Well, if it is...

She glanced around and then checked her behind. Fortunately, she was not followed.

Her hand went to the doorknob, twisted it slowly, then walked in. The wind remained behind the door. There was a heavy silence in the atmosphere that added to her stress.

She had been in this dormitory before but had never found it as empty and deserted as that day.

This shouldn’t surprise her, as it was autumn and the busy season of curses, which meant that almost all the students were sent on missions, which meant they were doing well. But this fact didn't soothe her heart rate. She didn't believe in her gut anymore.

She walked down the corridor and stood by a room she knew belonged to Yuji. She took a deep breath, cracked the door open, and stepped inside.

The first time she saw this room, she thought it must look like a typical teenage room. But now that she knew the truth, she was glad it looked like a typical teenage room because at least one of them could live something normal in life.

She ran her fingers over his manga collections and smiled with a half-smile when her eyes fell on the posters on the walls.

"It's nice to have you up."

Y//N felt flashes of heat sparked behind her eyes. Anger gushed in her throat and vibrated along her spine. She could almost taste the bitter taste of rage building inside her, and it took everything she had to clamp it down.

The sound of the approaching steps and then: "You worried me."

Y/N didn't flinch when Shoko tried to say good morning to her, but she did pretend not to hear her. Or perhaps she didn't actually hear her. Maybe she had managed to train her brain to no longer hear or see the sorcerers, Shoko thought.

Y/N turned on her heel, walked over to the bed, slowly sat on it, closed her eyes, and leaned her elbows onto her lap, putting her head in her hands.

She had become a shade of who she was. Shoko's heart felt weighed down by the depth of her pain. She wished so much that she could do something to help, to fix things, and at that moment, she remembered something from the past. She understood that Y/N would probably want to be left alone, but she couldn’t stop herself from walking toward her. She wouldn't say a word, she promised herself. She only wanted to be around her right now. So, she sat beside her and leaned her head against the wall.

An uncomfortable silence took place between them, and for minutes, neither spoke.

"You should have told me," Y/N muttered.

If Shoko hadn't seen the movement of Y/N's lips with her own eyes, she would have thought for a second that she was hallucinating and that her ears had misheard. She hesitated before giving a response.

"You talked to Kento," Shoko said.

The pain was intense, like cold steel, like knives in Y/N's chest. Painful reminiscences of today's revelations. She nodded.

"And that's why you ran as you did," Shoko said, looking at her.

Y/N immediately turned her face. "You were watching me?"

"I'm a doctor. That's what we do." Shoko smiled, but it looked tired.

Y/N shook her head and even laughed a sad, twisted laugh. "You won't even deny it," she said. "Unbelievable!"

"I'm sorry," Shoko said, dropping her head. "I really am sorry."

"You should've told me!"

Y/N's eyes were deep and steady, frightening serious, Shoko felt a bolt of panic pierced her through the chest. "You have no idea how many times I wanted to."

Silence.

More silence.

The minutes passed between them, silent and still, stopping only to hear them breathe.

Then a whisper.

"I have a brother."

Shoko raised her head and watched her.

"I have a brother," she said again, her voice so soft. "Yuji is my brother." Her eyes were focused on a point far from here, pinched together in pain, confusion, and something that looked regretful.

"I should've known," she said to her. “I could sense his pain, and he was always strangely familiar. I don't know how we can even share the same parent."

Y/N thought Shoko might have an answer for this, but when she saw her silence, she sighed and looked down. Her voice was so low Shoko could hardly hear it. "I should protect him," she said, nodding her head. "After what happened to my brothers, It's a matter of time for Higher Ups to kill him as well."

"They don't know about you and him." A break, then Shoko proceeded, "Also, wait a minute! I thought you spoke with Kento."

"I did."

"And what exactly did he say?" Shoko crossed her arms.

Y/N smiled. It was a slow, delighted smile. The kind of smile that would break into a laugh and could light up her features. But she closed her eyes, her face so touched, so amused. She tilted her head, and suddenly she started laughing. Out loud. Laugh and hiccup and desire to die, disappear, so desperately.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Kento told me everything, and I was an idiot for thinking things could be different," she told her. "For thinking my life could ever be better than it was, that I could be better than I was." She tried to speak again but instead clamped a hand over her mouth, like she couldn't believe what she was about to say. She forced herself to swallow the stone in her throat. She dropped her hand. "A curse." Her voice was raw, aching. I was never made to be happy. “I'm a damned fool. A feral creature consumed by her own agony."

Y/N had realized that deep down, she was harbouring a small hope that one day she would have a normal life. Somewhere deep down, she had found a way to cling to that useless possibility. And now that was gone. She would never be touched, hugged, kissed, or loved.

She could see herself. She could see herself the way she could be, the way she would be if things were different, but now she would forever and ever be alone.

She took a shaky deep breath, her mind whirring, her own brain no longer a safe space to inhabit because she couldn't stop thinking. She couldn't stop wondering. She couldn't stop anything, and it was like she was caught in what could be a head-on collision she was not the innocent bystander.

"Can I ask you a question?" Shoko said.

"Ask."

"Why do you think Satoru killed your brothers?"

Y/N was so shocked and unprepared to answer such a question that she was momentarily speechless.

"I mean," Shoko broke, finally losing her composure, her voice rising pitch. "You don't just kill your girlfriend's brothers out of the blue, do you?"

Y/N wanted to believe that Satoru was more than the mold he was forced into, that maybe he didn't want to kill her brothers, that Higher Ups forced him into it; but again, who could force Satoru Gojo into something he didn't desire?

"You can kill anybody," Y/N said, feeling hysterical. "If you do not have sentiments for them. At least, that's as far as I know." Her fists clenched. She didn't want to talk about her past beliefs. She didn't want to talk about Satoru. Ever again. She wanted to rip her heart out of her chest and throw it in the ocean for all the good it had even done her.

She didn't want to feel anything for him anymore, but then again, she remembered how all their feelings were nothing but a delusion.

"It wasn't all his fault, for God's sake," Shoko was fast to say, staring at the carpet, all terror and desperation. "They had become curse users, Y/N. Your brothers kidnapped Saitama Urami East Junior High students and caused multiple deaths around the Yasohachi Bridge. Higher Ups asked Yuji and Nobara to take over the mission, but since Satoru knew what it would do to you and Yuji, he volunteered to do it to prevent the disaster," she paused. "And to prove your innocence in Exchange Event."

Panic and terror clouded Y/N's consciousness. She swallowed harshly, struck at the heart. She felt as if she had been sanded up to the bone. A desperate emptiness burned through her, leaving her feeling faint.

How could all this shit be real? Why wasn't she waking up yet? Why had no one reached out to tell her it was okay, it was just a bad dream, that everything would be okay?

“Y/N?” Shoko muttered, looking at her with anxious eyes.

"How come he never told me?" Y/N asked, eyes closed, lips half mumbling.

Shoko turned her face away, leaning her temple to her palm. She regretted not wearing her white robe today of all days because she superstitiously believed that piece of cloth could make her bulletproof against situations like this. It was as if all the answers were hidden in one of its pockets and the painkillers in the other, but right now, without her magic robe, her hands were empty.

Shoko placed her hands on her knees as she tried to sigh. She didn't look at Y/N when she whispered, "He wanted you to hate him."

Y/N was still; her eyes widened.

Shoko went further, "And it worked. Hatred and pain forced you to wake you up when nothing could." She smiled. It was a little less exuberant than it usually was because she, too, was sick of all these craps.

For Shoko, it didn't seem right that so much horrible crap should be allowed to come down in such a short time. There should be a fail-safe in the universe. Somewhere, something that automatically would shut down in the event of extreme human agony. Maybe an emergency lever. A button, even.

This was ridiculous.

"He did to bring me back?" Y/N said, her mouth halted midmotion, then swallowed.

Shoko pressed her lips together in a nod.

Y/N didn't react. Knowing this did nothing to soothe her. It made her feel strange and foreign, like her life was never her own, like she was an actor in a play directed by strangers.

Old Y/N would've cried. Broken Y/N would've split open from the sudden impact of today's heartbreaking revelations, the depth of lies, and the pain of feeling so profoundly betrayed. But this new version of her refused to react; instead, her body wanted to shut down.

Shoko checked the clock on the wall. "You'd better leave," she said and turned to face Y/N. It was then that she realized she was digging her fingernails into her palm. "You should run away."

Y/N was stunned. This might be the very first time she had heard anyone, but herself talk her thoughts about running away. What kind of sick game was this?

"This was a promise," Shoko added. "I was supposed to help you escape if something happened to you and your baby." She sighed and stared at the ceiling. "I need you to know how sorry I am, for keeping you here, for stopping you from leaving, for everything we've made you endure."

Y/N didn't expect this. Of all the things she thought might happen, she could never have dreamed a scenario such as this. In her experience, she was usually the monster. She was the one expected to make amends. And now, she was speechless. Speechless by the experience.

Her perceptions of life resulted from the seeds most of those around her planted in her heart. They took root in her as she grew, settling deep into her soul. Good ones had been planted well. They flourished and found homes in her heart. They built trunks around her spine. They were steadying her when she was most flimsy, planting her feet firmly when feeling most unsure. But the bad ones, the seeds Toji gifted her, grew poorly. Her trunk was infested and spoiled until she was hollow and housing the interests of others and not her own. She was forced to eat the fruit those perceptions had borne, held hostage by the branches growing arms around her neck, suffocating her to death.

Now, after years, she had to do the hard work of sucking the poison from her past.

"Shoko," she said gently. "None of that matters anymore."

"I know," Shoko said, sadness raining from her tone. "But it kills me to know that everything could have been different." She watched the movement in Y/N's throat as she swallowed hard. "Forgive me," she whispered. "Forgive me for hurting you. I gave you false hopes, and I'm so sorry."

When Y/N finally spoke, her voice was rough with emotion. "There is nothing to forgive." She took a deep breath and felt her pain easing a little, like icy hands were closing around the wounds festering in her flesh. It wasn't until then that she began to speak. "It's okay." The pain flowed out of her eyes as she looked away.

"You're running out of time, " Shoko said, trying to change the subject, as if time were the kind of thing you could run out of, as if it were measured into bowls handed to us at birth. If we ate too much or too fast or right before jumping into the water, our time would be lost, wasted, and already spent. But time is beyond our finite comprehension. It's endless. It exists outside of us. We cannot run out of it to lose track of it or find a way to hold on to it. Time goes on even if we do not.

"Why?" Y/N asked, and Shoko told her how the elders, especially those of the Gojo clan, were on their way to the school to convict her of her assault on their family's successor, Satoru.

Finally, Y/N seemed to grasp the gravity of what Shoko was trying to relay. Her shoulders stiffened. Her eyes narrowed. "To convict me?" She laughed. "For an assault against their heir?" She sneered. "They know no one can harm him! They just want me out of the way for good! That's just some dumb excuse!" she said, but she didn't look at Shoko. She seemed lost in her thoughts, chewing on her lips as she stared into the distance.

"Which is why you shouldn't waste time," Shoko said.

Y/N shook her head. "I'm not going anywhere without Yuji. I can't leave him here amongst sorcerers."

Shoko was on her feet in an instant. "Are you seriously doing this?"

Y/N nodded.

"You can't just grab him and run away. It's not logical!" Shoko said. "How are you going to protect him? Hm? As fugitives? Stealing to survive and hiding from the world? How is that any better? You'll be worried every single day, constantly looking over your shoulder, terrified of ever leaving Yuji alone. You may survive it, you're used to it, but he's going to be miserable, and you know it!"

Y/N nodded, staring into her hands, trying and failing to hide her despair.

"It doesn't make sense, Y/N," Shoko told her, struggling to moderate her voice. “We all care about Yuji. We don't want him to worry about getting killed or chased by bounty hunters. We have to keep him here. You can't keep him safe. That's why you made a binding vow with Satoru to protect Yuji, and you know he wouldn't let anybody hurt his students!"

Something changed on Y/N's face. For a moment, the light went out of her eyes. "He failed to protect his own daughter!" Y/N's voice broke. "How is Yuji going to be any different? At least he will be alive with me, or I'll die while protecting him!" Her chest was heaving so hard that her body bowed. “You stay out of this!”

"That's not being alive," Shoko said. "That's not living—"

"How would you know?" Y/N snapped. Her mood shifted so suddenly that Shoko was stunned into silence. "What do you know about being alive?" she demanded. "You think you've had it hard, but you don't realize that you've always had a roof over your head. You've never been consumed by grief and guilt to drive you almost completely insane! You've never lived inside of your own head!"

Shoko shuddered, stung by the venom of her voice. She had never seen Y/N so bitter, so cruel. She is just upset, she said to herself. She is just scared and worried, and she doesn't mean any of it, not really, she kept telling herself. She took a deep breath. She didn't lift her head to see Y/N's face when she said, "You're right. I have no idea how it is to live out here, no idea what it is like to starve or kill for money and watch people die in front of me, but you do, don't you? And now you're dragging Yuji down that path as well. You want him to have the same fate as you?"

Words, Y/N thought, were such unpredictable creatures. No gun, sword, army, or king could ever be more powerful than a sentence. Blades may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying into the future, digging and failing to rip their skeletons from your flesh. These weren't nice things to say. Not now. Not after what she had been through. Not after trying to pick up the hopes and dreams and fumbling to glue them back together.

Y/N swallowed hard. "No," she tried to say, tried to inhale. Her lungs were swelling up, and her heart was racing so fast she could hear it pounding in her ears. All she could think was No. I don't wish for Yuji to have a life like mine. She couldn't let his life to fell apart, not again. It broke her heart to imagine it. To think of him struggling to find a way to stay alive.

"I want Yuji to live a long, happy life," she said, her voice small and shattered. "They have taken everything from me. I can't lose Yuji too."

"Please don't kill me for what I'm about to say," Shoko said and rubbed her forehead. Let's release the Kraken. She closed her eyes and cursed herself. This one was going to cause her great trouble. "Your family needs you."

"What the hell, Shoko?"

"Your other brother." A sigh. "Choso. He is alive, and they haven't been able to catch him yet."

Every moment in the world dropped dead right then, because they woke up and realized they would never be as important as this one.

Y/N lost the sensation in her knees. She held on to the wall to steady herself, her bones shaking inside her. "Choso is alive?" she said, hating how it sounded, hating that she sounded shocked.

How much more secret was there for her to learn about? How many more had they kept from her?

Shoko nodded. "Kento was supposed to tell you, but I guess you escaped too early. Choso wasn't there when Satoru found the other two."

Y/N's tears fell backward as they burned their way through her throat. "I have two brothers." A blank stare with a hint of a smile that didn't reach her eyes, instead like a vat of acid seeped into Shoko's skin.

"You have to find him, Y/N," Her words were soft. "Choso probably knows about the fingers stolen by curse users from the school. They had a purpose in stealing them. Find a way to get rid of these fingers before they get a hold on Yuji."

A heavy, cold dread fell over Y/N's body. "Curse users, they stole Sukuna's fingers?" Her heart was pounding, racing, and running through her body, and she was trying to focus and stay calm. "But why? Do they work for Sukuna? My brothers probably didn't know about Yuji, or they wouldn't do that," she said and realized how ridiculous her words must appear from the outside. Because she didn't know her brothers, and it was just a bet on her inner belief that they might have inherited some human emotions like her.

Then she remembered her vow with Sukuna. Twenty fingers, Yuji dies, and she becomes Sukuna's servant.

No, she couldn't allow this. She shook her head; her hands were tremulous.

Shoko stared at her. She never thought Y/N would be capable of looking so scared. But still, she stood on her feet. She would go to any lengths for them because Yuji and Choso were the only things stopping her from diving into a pool of her own insanity. They needed her. She had to fight for them. They were her only family.

Y/N drove her feet to the door and suddenly stopped. Yuji stepped into the corridor with Megumi. He seemed paler and slimmer than she had seen. He had something in his hand, distracted, not noticing the woman looking at him.

But then he looked up and froze.

His lips were parted as if to speak, and whatever he held hit the ground, shattering into so many sounds it startled Megumi and Shoko.

Yuji had not yet had the chance to see Y/N on her feet, and he was looking at her with eyes fixed on her face, his chest heaving, his face fighting so many different emotions. He seemed half terrified, half hopeful.

And while she realized that she should probably be the first to speak, she suddenly had no idea what to say.

"Y/N, you are up!" Megumi's face cracked into a huge smile. A rare occurrence.

Yuji started moving across the hallway in a stupor. It felt strange for Y/N, like everything had begun to slow down, like this moment wasn't real, somehow.

There was so much pain in his eyes.

She felt like she had been punched in the gut.

But then, he reached her, and there he was, right in front of her, his arms wrapped tight around her, and she melted into his embrace, relishing warm comfort, the familiarity with no pain in touch. Her hands reached around him, slipped up his back, and gripped him hard. She didn't even realize silent tears had fallen down her face until he pulled back to look her in the eye.

He told her not to cry, called her his sister, and whispered it was okay, that everything would be okay. And she knew it was all a lie, but it still felt good to hear.

He studied her face, like he had seen her for the first time. "I can't believe you're my sister! How come your hair is not pink!"

Yuji laughed; his laughter was like a hundred little bells, joyous, wholesome, and contagious. Y/N lured him into another fierce hug, holding on as much as she had time. He was happy, so relieved and thrilled, and maybe he would sleep with a lighter heart tonight.

Yuji was so full of life, so full of energy, so excited to have his sister around, but then it occurred to him. He came out of her arms. His suspicious look shifted between Y/N and Shoko.

"You are leaving, aren't you?" Yuji asked, and she was startled to hear it out loud. His fists clenched, tearstains streaked across his face, and his bottom lip trembled even as he fought to hide the pain in his voice.

Her heart split clean in half.

Footsteps were heard, and soon Megumi appeared beside him, with his hand on Yuji's shoulder, silently inviting him to calm down, assuring Yuji that he was there for him.

"Answer me!" Yuji demanded, sniffing back the last of his tears, fists beginning to shake.

"Yuji, don't do this," Megumi said gently, lovingly, and squeezed his shoulder to calm him.

"What? She's leaving me behind, just like everyone else!" He heard accusations in his voice and did nothing to hide it. "Am I wrong? Tell me I'm wrong!"

Time seemed to stand still.

Everything she wanted to say and everything she had wished to say fell to the floor and scrambled upright. Paragraphs and paragraphs began building walls around her, blocking and justifying as they found ways to fit together, linking and weaving and leaving no room for escape. Every single space between every unspoken word clambered up and into her open mouth, filling her with so much emptiness she thought she might just float away.

Shoko's face creased as she pulled herself together. She took her time responding. "She has to go," she said, "to find a way to save you and your other brother."

Yuji didn't respond. He only blinked several times and stared at Y/N. He was still in disbelief, with a face filled with anger, betrayal, and confusion.

Y/N pulled Yuji back into her arms and held him firmly; even though he wanted to push her away, he caved fast. Yuji was angry but preferred to be mad at her in her embrace. Her hand brushed his hair, and she kissed his forehead. Then she told him everything, with all the details, as quickly as she could before the elders came to school.

Shoko cleared her throat. "I hate to ruin this reunion, but the clock is ticking."

By the time the two siblings finally broke apart, they had tears in their eyes.

Yuji smiled, but his smile soon wore off. He lowered his head, as if it was not easy for him to say what he wanted.

"We'll get through this," he said, answering her silent thoughts. "All of it. We're going to be okay. We'll be fine." He touched her shoulder, allowed his fingers to trail down her arm, and held her hand tightly. She closed her eyes and tried to savor the moment.

"You'll work it out," he said. "You will find our brother and a way of destroying Sukuna's fingers. Promise me!"

She was afraid to speak. Fearful of what promises had done to her so far. But even in the darkest hours, light is hiding somewhere. She had to let hope flourish once more, even though hope was a dangerous, terrifying thing for a woman like her to have.

“You're going to get out of this, and I'm going to find Choso, bring him home, and make sure everything's fine. I swear to you, Yuji. I'll take care of everything. You just get stronger every day. All right? Don't worry about a thing. Do you understand?"

Yuji blinked at her. He nodded.

"Good." She stepped forward to plant a kiss on the top of his head. "Good," she said again. "You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. I'm going to make sure everything is fine, okay?"

"Okay," he said, wiping away the last of his tears.

"Good," she said for the third time, still staring at his smiling, innocent face.

She smiled back, giving him everything she had, and then darted out the door.

For so many years, she had lived in constant terror of herself. Doubt had married her fear and moved into her mind, where it built castles, ruled kingdoms, and reigned over her, bowing to its will until she was little more than an acquiescing peon, too terrified to disobey, too scared to disagree. She had been chained, taken captive in her own mind. But finally, she had learned to break free.

She was no longer afraid of fear and would not let it rule her. Because for her family, she would reach into the earth, rip out the injustice and crush it with her bare hands.

Y/N took a more confident step forward, this time bracing herself against another sudden, biting gust.

She had never had anything called home in her entire life. Home was not a place for her. She always found a place to hide and store her valuables temporarily, but they were nothing like home. On the other hand, this school had become the first place she ever found sanctuary. The first place she ever felt safe.

She wasn't familiar with the feeling of leaving home; this was the first time she would miss a place. But what could she do? Since sometimes leaving is the only thing you can do.

She sighed because she knew she would be considered a curse user as soon as she left the school boundaries, but she didn't care at all. Everything had a cost, and this was a small price to have a family.

The wind climbed into her clothes, then wrapped itself around her bones. Icy fingers tiptoed up her pant legs, clenched their fists around her knees, and pulled. Suddenly she was not sure how she was still standing. Her blood felt frozen, brittle.

Something heavy fell on her shoulders—a coat.

She looked back to discover that Satoru was holding her blue scarf and hat.

She stopped, stopped breathing, talking, and thinking.

His eyes were moving, studying her. He looked at her with such intensity she wondered if he was even aware he was doing it. She wondered if he knew that when he looked at her like that, she could feel it as acutely as if his bare skin pressed against her own.

Memories crashed over her, scalding her in waves; the weight of his body against hers, the taste of his lips, the heat of his breathes, his sharp gasps for air, and the things he had said to her only in the dark.

She gulped. It indeed did things to her when he looked at her like that. It made her crazy because she hated that she couldn't control this, that this thread between them would remain unbroken till one of them died, and she didn't want him to die.

It was only two months ago, just two months ago, that he was hers.

Carefully, she took the hat and scarf and wore them. Satoru looked into her eyes then. It felt so wrong for him to be this close to her without being able to touch her at all. But he had said his goodbyes two weeks ago, that night in the infirmary.

He looked at her again for just a split second and looked away, and for a brief second, she caught the charge of emotion in his eyes.

'Don't cry,' she said to herself. 'Don't cry.'

She hated him. She hated him for doing this to her heart, hated her body for being so weak, for wanting him, missing him despite everything. She didn't know whether to cry, kiss, or kick him in the teeth, so instead, she said, without meeting his eyes, "You were right. Love really was the most twisted curse of them all."

Satoru fought to swallow back the lump in his throat and turned his head, ready to abandon any rational thought that he was compelled to accept after witnessing the agony he had brought to her life, but she was long gone.

Even six eyes couldn't find her if she didn't want to be found.

Run, run, and run until you can't remember him. Run with open eyes and your mouth shut and dam the river rushing up behind your eyes. Run, Y/N.

Run until you drop dead.

Make sure your heart stops before you remember him. Before you ever remember.

Run.

Her legs screamed. They didn't want to walk away from him. Loyalty, she thought, was keeping her behind, but she pushed them faster anyway. Her lungs were sawing her rib cage in half, but she forced them to process oxygen regardless. Her cursed energy was concealed; she knew he couldn't see her and wouldn't chase her, but she had to keep moving. There was no time for human deficiencies.

She was always welcomed in her loneliness, in her sadness. In this abyss, there was a rhythm she remembered. The steady drop of tears, the temptation to retreat, the shadow of her past, the life she chose to forget had not, would never forget her.

She reached the school crossing and put her hands in her coat pockets, and suddenly her fingers touched the cold metal. A knife. Not just any knife. A knife he gave her. She closed her eyelids to stop the tears from falling. Then her hand tightened around the knife.

She had to be honest with herself. She was never going to forget him. There was no doubt this school felt like home because he was here. Because for the first time, she found safety and peace between his arms in front of that restaurant as his hand was bleeding from her cut.

He was her home.

Her bones against his, that was her home.

And without him, she was going to be homeless for the rest of her life.

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