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One, he just fucked up. Big time.
Two, Shoko was off in Kyoto for a week on a much needed vacation with Utahime, and, while he would love to bother Utahime, bothering Shoko on her vacation was like asking for a death sentence. He loved the woman like a sister, but he knew that if he just transported to her, Megumi in tow and demanding she heal the kid, she’d find some way to break past Infinity and kill him in the most painful and drawn out way possible. Having almost died once, he’d rather not go through that again. Asking Yaga for advice was out of the question, because then it would turn into a lecture, and the last thing he wanted to hear right now was a responsible adult scolding him for not providing a safe environment and all that. Nanami would just tell him something like ‘you reap what you sow’ and probably tell him to go to Yaga, so he was out of the question, as well, and he sure as hell wasn’t asking Ijichi.
Three, Tsumiki couldn’t know, at least, not until she came back from her slumber party tomorrow afternoon. If he called the mother hosting said sleepover, he knew Tsumiki wouldn’t be able to enjoy time with her friends and demand to come home as soon as possible to tend to her brother. She’d been doing nothing but take care of Megumi since they were left alone when he was four and she was six, and the poor girl had never gone to a sleepover, and he’d feel like the worst guardian ever if he ruined it for her.
So, Satoru found himself in front of the emergency room of the children’s hospital closest to the park where they had been, broken bike discarded, a cranky Megumi under one arm, careful to not harm the possible broken wrist the child was sporting.
He really hoped the hospital didn’t try to contact child services. He really didn’t need to go through the whole, ‘I killed his dad and now I’m technically responsible to make sure this kid doesn’t die’ speal again; trying to explain it to Yaga had been hard enough, and the man had known him for four years. The last thing he needed right now was someone to think he was crazy or to try to arrest him for murder (even though, in Satoru’s opinion, Toji kind of – more like really – deserved it, especially after just abandoning his kids). If he had to have Yaga bail him out of that mess, he’d never hear the end of it until he died, and even then, he had a feeling Yaga would bust out a Ouija board and chew him out while he was trying to chill in the afterlife.
It also would be embarrassing to admit to his teacher, and soon to be boss, that he broke a five-year-old’s wrist by trying to teach the kid how to ride a bike without training wheels and that he let go too soon, just for the handlebars to jerk out of control and for the first grader to go high side and fall onto the asphalt, resulting in two skinned knees, an angry red and swollen wrist, and quickly bruising thumb. So, he hoped he could get this done and over with quickly, and when Shoko came back, she could patch up Megumi and he could bribe her with cigarettes to keep it quiet from Yaga.
“Hello!” he put on a big smile for the nurse at the station, hoping his natural charm would work in his favor. “My kid accidentally fell off his bike and I think he broke his wrist,”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Megumi scowled. “You let go to soon,”
“Fill these out,” the nurse handed him a clipboard, looking at him with an exhausted gaze.
Geez, does everyone in the medical field look this miserable? He thought. Shoko always looked that exhausted. It made him glad that he could just heal himself, or prevent any harm to himself to begin with since he constantly had Infinity running. He was glad he couldn’t heal others, or else he wondered if he’d be as miserable as they looked taking care of injured people, too.
Taking the clipboard from her and quickly scribbling out Megumi’s information and reason for the impromptu ER visit, he handed them back.
“How long should it take?” he asked, curious.
His phone was getting close to dying, since he had been too busy taking pictures of his day out with Megumi, taking him out to lunch before they had gone to the park, where he had presented him his bike, training wheels freshly taken off (Nanami had reluctantly helped, and had done it in less than a minute after watching Satoru struggle for a half hour trying to figure out how to take them off). While he made sure he had the weekends clear to spend time with the Fushiguro siblings, he knew Yaga would quite literally bite his head off if he didn’t keep his phone nearby in case of an emergency.
“We’ll let you know when someone can see him,” the nurse said, taking the filled out forms. “It shouldn’t be longer than a half hour. Have a seat in our waiting area and we’ll call your name when we’re ready to see him,”
“Sure thing!”
Megumi in tow, Satoru made his way over to the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. Setting Megumi into one seat, Satoru took the seat beside him, letting out a sigh as he sat himself down.
Five minutes had passed. Five grueling minutes of whatever juvenile basic programming show playing on the television, and Satoru was bored.
His knee bounced impatiently, drumming his fingers. Megumi sat still, arms folded and pouting.
“Sorry we have to wait, kiddo,” Satoru tried to apologize. “Hopefully it’s just a sprain and you just have to ice it for a few days,”
“I’m never riding a bike ever again,” Megumi’s scowl deepened as he sunk deeper into his seat. “Ever.”
“Don’t give up so easy, Megumi! We’ll just have to wrap you up in bubble wrap so you don’t get hurt again!” he joked, laughing despite the glare Megumi shot him. “C’mon, that was funny,”
The sound of the entrance to the children’s emergency room sliding automatic doors' annoyingly alerted him that they would no longer be alone in the waiting room. Satoru opted to ignore whoever was bringing their snot-nosed brat to the emergency room of the children’s hospital, probably some parent over-reacting, in order to focus on Megumi.
“Do you wanna play ‘I Spy’?” he asked.
“No,” Megumi pouted, folding his arms with a wince as his wrist bent uncomfortably. “I don’t want to play anything. I want to go home,”
“Well, kiddo, we can’t go home until they check you out-”
“Excuse me?”
Satoru’s head whipped up at the sound of the familiar voice, his heart skipping several beats as he recognized the voice as one that he hadn’t heard in almost a full year.
“My daughter fell while playing with her sister, and hit her head pretty hard. I think she needs some stitches, but I’d also like to check to make sure she isn’t concussed,”
There, standing at the nurse’s station, was Geto Suguru: wanted curse user, currently holding a child with a bleeding forehead, another child clinging to his other hand as she sniffled pathetically.
“Suguru?” his voice, a hushed whisper, filled the silent waiting room. Megumi turned to look at the source of Satoru’s heartbreak, unsure of what to make of the scene.
“Fill these out, and someone will see her as soon as they’re available,” the nurse said, the same spiel she had given Satoru, as she handed Suguru a clipboard to his free hand.
“Is there any way to get her seen immediately?” he pressed. “I’d rather get this taken care of as quickly as possible,”
“No, I’m sorry, we’re pretty short-staffed today. You’ll just have to wait, but it shouldn’t be long until our main pediatrician is free,” she apologized.
Suguru mumbled something under his breath, noticeably tightening his hold on both girls. Freeing his hand from its’ hold on one twin, he quickly scribbled out the forms on the clipboard, the last time he had written that frantically being when he was rushing through a test on jujutsu code during the start of their third year together.
“Please, feel free to sit in our waiting room,” she took the paperwork from him as he knelt down to pick up the other girl, gestured towards Satoru. “And you’ll be seen shortly,”
When he turned around, both twins in his hold, Satoru felt his breath hitch in his throat.
It was Suguru. Satoru’s Six Eyes confirmed it, so there was no doubt about it. Seeing his face brought back a slew of memories, good and bad. Memories of arguing with one another in class, memories of sharing desserts and leaning into one another as they watched movies or played games together.
Memories of the other shutting him out, memories of Satoru not prying further for the sake of focusing on his own techniques. Memories of a dirty street, full of people, Suguru’s back turned to him as he failed to bring him home.
Satoru’s mind was full of memories of Suguru, the other right in front of him, the only person who could ever be on his level.
The only person Satoru would ever call his equal was right before his Six Eyes.
Ever since he had saved the girls and had taken them in as his own, Suguru’s days had been pretty normal in comparison to what they had been while he attended Jujutsu Tech. He woke up, usually from the girls crawling into bed with him, staying cuddled up in bed with them while they watched television or told him about the dreams they had the night before, then got up and dressed for the day, scammed people out of their money by disguising himself as a monk while taking in a few smaller grade curses, and ended his day with the girls curled up in his hold, safe, warm, and fed; far from the hell they had been living in before he had found them.
The girls, of course, did not constantly revolve around him, not always at his side. While he was working, they always played off together on their own, usually roping him into little tea parties or acting out some elaborate story with their dolls while he was the audience when he wasn’t busy. When he wasn’t working, he often was doing chores while they played about, their laughter filling the halls of their current home. Today, he heard the pitter patter of their feet as they ran through the halls of their apartment, giggling as he washed the dishes from lunch.
“Be careful!” he called out, recalling Nanako taking a tumble after slipping on the floors in her socks after he had freshly mopped yesterday.
“We will!” Nanako shouted back. From where her voice came from, he could tell they were in their bedroom.
He smiled to himself as he scrubbed at a particularly stubborn spot on the frying pan, their little voices always settling his nerves. Today hadn’t been particularly hard, just dealing with annoying patrons and keeping face to non-sorcerers, but he had called it an early day, content to just lounge about with the girls rather than go out in the late summer heat. Maybe, if it cooled down in the afternoon, he’d take them to the park to burn off some of their unending energy, maybe end the night watching them play in the rooftop garden trying to catch fireflies like they did two nights ago-
Thud!
The sound of something falling made his heart jump into his throat, dropping the sponge and pan into the sink with a clatter. His first fear was that maybe a dresser fell, or maybe one of the bookshelves in the girls’ room, bolting towards their direction. The wail that followed definitely didn’t help settle his nerves, the cry distinctly Mimiko’s.
“What happened?” he asked, panicking as he rounded the corner and came into their bedroom to find both girls crying, Nanako frantically trying to calm her twin. Thankfully, no furniture had fallen, but the sight was still worrisome.
Mimiko was holding her forehead with both of her little hands, screaming as she hiccupped from how hard she was crying, blood pouring profusely from between her fingers and trickling down her face. Nanako was starting to cry harder, mainly from fear because her sister was bleeding so much.
“W-we were p-playing, and – and-” Nanako tried telling him, a hand coming to grasp at his shirt as she fell into a fit of tears.
“Can I look?” he asked, kneeling to their level and trying to keep his voice calm and quiet to not worry the girls any further. Mimiko gave him a nod, struggling to take in a breath. “It’s okay, I’m here,”
The reassurance helped her stop screaming, her wails turning into little sobs, her lip wobbling as she gave out a pathetic little “okay,” for him.
He knelt down in front of her, placing his hands gently on Mimiko’s. Carefully, and as gently as he could, he pried her bloody hands away from her forehead, letting out a gasp once he saw the damage. Through Nanako’s warbled speech, he could tell that they must’ve been playing and Mimiko fell and bumped her head against the corner of her nightstand, resulting in her splitting her forehead open. Grabbing a hairclip from the nightstand and pinning her bangs away from the wound, he realized that this wasn’t something he could just so easily slap a bandaid on and call it a day. While the girls were prone to little scrapes and bruises from simply being children, this gash definitely needed stitches, and he let out a sigh of defeat, realizing that this would warrant a hospital visit.
He really didn’t want to deal with non-sorcerers today, but the girls were his priority. With how loud the sound was from her falling, she might have hit herself hard enough to give herself a concussion, and while he knew plenty of basic aid thanks to his time back at Jujutsu Tech with Shoko, he was better off leaving this to the professionals.
So, with a sobbing Mimiko on one hip currently bleeding onto a spare clean dishtowel he handed her to put over her wound and a blubbering Nanako on the other, he headed to the hospital.
The last thing he expected was to run into Satoru, of all people, with Toji Fushiguro’s grumpy looking small son sitting in the waiting area of the emergency room, the only other two people there.
“Here?” he asked the nurse hesitantly, giving Nanako’s hand a tight squeeze as she held his hand in both hands.
“Yeah?” the nurse raised a brow. “That’s the waiting room?”
“Is there a different waiting room?” Suguru asked, shifting Mimiko to prevent her from slipping off his hip.
“No, sorry,” the nurse said, tone annoyed. “Just go take a seat and I’ll call you when someone’s ready to see her,”
He rolled his eyes, turning to go reluctantly sit in the same area as his former best friend. Picking the seat the furthest away from Satoru, he sat down, Nanako sitting in the empty seat beside him as Mimiko sniffled in his lap.
Maybe, just maybe, Satoru would shut his mouth for once, and they could both pretend they never saw each other, and once this was over, Suguru could pretend this day never happened.
Unfortunately, Satoru is Satoru, and even though Suguru had killed people, had left him heartbroken in Shinjuku almost a year ago, he couldn’t help himself from talking.
“Suguru,”
“Satoru.”
“Playing house?”
“Don’t look at me, don’t even speak to me or so much as even breathe in my direction,” Suguru threatened, or, he tried, as best as he could with a whimpering child in his lap, the other sniffling beside him in her seat.
Quite threatening, if father figures concerned over their small children are considered a threat. To Satoru, it looked quite adorable despite how dangerous he knew Suguru could be.
“Why would I want to look at your ugly face, anyway?” Satoru turned his face away from Suguru’s glaring gaze.
“Real mature, Satoru,”
“Since when do you have kids? Keeping secrets from Shoko and me? Damn, how old were you when you-”
“Just stop talking,” Suguru held onto Mimiko a bit tighter. “I’m not here to make idle chit-chat, you know.”
“Fine!”
“Good!”
“Wonderful!”
“Great!”
“Grand!” Satoru huffed, turning his back to Suguru once more, choosing to face Megumi. “Hopefully we’re not waiting much longer,”
“You’re acting like a jerk, Gojo,” Megumi noted, wincing as he shifted with his broken wrist. “Don’t be a jerk,”
“You don’t be a jerk,” Satoru warned. “Don’t act as if your teacher isn’t worried about you getting into fights, Megs,”
“Yeah, but you’re being a jerk to a total stranger,” Megumi reiterated, blissfully unaware as to who Suguru was to Satoru. “This is why my teacher called you a snob,”
“I’m not a snob,” Satoru rolled his eyes. “Besides, he deserves it,”
“Oh, really?” Suguru interrupted.
“Yeah, really! You’re the one who left!” Satoru snapped. “Me being a jerk to you should be the least of your concerns right now!”
“It actually is,” Suguru rolled his eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have more important matters to attend to then arguing with you like we’re five,”
“See, Megumi? I’m not being a jerk,” Satoru turned his attention back to his ward.
“No, now you’re both being jerks,” Megumi scowled. “But you started it,”
“Hey, whose side are you on? You’re supposed to back me up!”
Suguru was trying his best to drone out Satoru’s voice, unable to prevent his familiar voice from gracing his ears, when Mimiko patted his cheek with her hand.
“It stopped bleeding,” she sniffled, wiping the last remaining tears from her face. “Can we go home now?”
Observing her face, he did notice that the gash on her forehead had begun to sluggishly bleed, the skin around it still swollen and red, starting to purple to what was sure to become a dark bruise. While she had calmed down, there was still the lingering worry that she may have concussed herself. He brushed the few bangs that had fallen from the clip from Mimiko’s head, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, careful to not press anywhere near the gash.
“I wish we could, but you need stitches, and I want to make sure your head’s okay,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “After that, we’ll go straight home. I promise,”
Mimiko leaned into his hold, pressing her face against his shoulder as best as she could to avoid agitating her forehead. Even with the burning feeling of Satoru’s Six Eyes upon him, Suguru disregarded it in favor of focusing on his adopted daughters.
“Um, Master Geto?”
“Yes, Nanako?”
He watched her purse her lips, fidgeting with her hands as she tended to do whenever she was nervous about asking for something. Usually, she did that when she was asking him normal questions, like ‘where do babies come from?’ (he told her he’d tell her later, when she was a bit older) or ‘can I have more food?’ (the answer was always ‘yes, eat as much as you’d like,’ unless she was asking for more dessert, to which he’d limit so she wasn’t pulling a Satoru and eating nothing but sugar), but she was more focused than she usually was, and he was a bit nervous as to what her question would be.
Would it be ‘is my sister going to die?’ (no, she’s just a little hurt, but the bleeding stopped, so she just needs to get stitched up and then they’re ready to go home) or would it be something like–
“Isn’t…Isn’t Gojo Satoru your best friend…?” she asked, quiet, as if he’d yell at her for asking, even though he had never once raised his voice at her and her sister since he had taken them in. “You said he is…”
Satoru quieted upon hearing Nanako’s question, his shoulders tense as he waited for Suguru’s answer.
“He was,” Suguru said, avoiding the stare from his one and only.
“If he’s your best friend, why are you being mean?” she asked. “You said friends are supposed to be nice to each other,”
“We fought, and it’s been that way ever since. It’s different,”
“Mr. Geto?” the nurse called. “Doctor Kujo can see you now, in exam room four,”
“Oh, thank the gods,” Suguru mumbled under his breath as he stood, Mimiko still held tight in his grasp, Nanako tailing behind.
He didn’t spare a passing glance to Satoru, following the nurse down the hall to the examination rooms.
His heart and mind were memories away from this cramped waiting room, remembering fond times, shared secrets hushed between quiet hours of the late night, beds and secrets shared as they allowed their barriers to be down, vulnerable to no one but the other. Memories of Satoru’s earlier teenaged years flooded into his brain, of Suguru quietly crying into his shoulder at the responsibility of being gifted the status of ‘special grade,’ tears of frustration welling in his eyes as he gripped the back of Satoru’s sleep shirt, unspoken frustration over Amanai’s death filling the void between them, Satoru’s hand unconsciously resting above his breast to reassure himself of the thud-thud, thud-thud, of Suguru’s heartbeat. Heartbreak in Shinjuku, watching the back of the only one he ever considered his equal walk away, chest full of glass and heart painfully cold; oddly reminiscent of watching Suguru’s back now, as he followed after the nurse down the hall to the examination rooms.
“Gojo?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you know that guy?” Megumi asked.
“Yeah,” Satoru sighed. “Or, at least, I thought I did… Don’t worry about it, Megumi! It was nothing!”
“Sure it was,” Megumi rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna change the channel,”
As Megumi took the remote for the television from him, despite his worry, he fell asleep as the narrator to Megumi’s documentary droned on about the natural habitats of white wolves.
“Mr. Fushiguro?”
Satoru startled, the nurse addressing him with a bored look on her face.
“Huh?”
“Mr. Fushiguro, we’re ready for you in exam room one,” the nurse reiterated, rolling her eyes. “I called for you three times already,”
Mr. Fushiguro? Huh, he thought, getting up from his seat and hoisting a frustrated and tired Megumi onto his hip. Better me than his old man, I suppose.
“Let’s go get you patched up, Megs,” he said, smiling down at his ward as Megumi pushed at his hold.
“Let me down! I can walk on my own, you know,” he pouted.
“No can do! My dear little boy is injured, so he doesn’t need to move a single finger!”
Satoru’s laughter filled the hallway, full of antiseptic and the sterile scent of alcohol, and Megumi’s face pressed into his shoulder made him realize that everything would be alright.
It was starting to get late as Satoru, Megumi in tow beside him, left the hospital, the street beginning to fill with people as the end of the work day came about.
“Looks like Miki’s going to have my head,” Satoru sighed. “Sorry, Megumi,”
He hadn’t liked how rough the doctor had been when examining his swollen wrist when applying and molding the fiberglass to his skin, rambling off directions on how to care for it and what Megumi wasn’t allowed to do with the cast on as his broken thumb and sprained wrist healed.
“Gojo?”
“Yeah, kiddo?”
“It hurts,” Megumi pouted, lifting his splint sadly.
Satoru wanted to let out a soft laugh, to tell him ‘of course it hurts,’ but he hadn’t broken a bone since that incident almost three years ago, and he only knew what pain felt like as a young adult. Being sheltered and put upon a pedestal since birth, he never knew pain as a child.
If broken bones and broken hearts hurt this bad as an (almost) adult, then he couldn’t bear to think about what it would feel like to a child, more specifically a five year old whom he only recently began taking care of.
He reached out a hand and ruffled Megumi’s unruly mess of hair, giving him a sympathetic smile.
“It’ll only be like that for a week, I promise,” he said. “Once Shoko comes back home, I’ll make sure she patches you up nice and good, okay?”
“Ieiri can do that?”
“Of course she can! She can fix anything with her technique!” he lied, the faint scarring on the side of his left thigh from when he fell through a second story window his first year while tackling Suguru out of the way of a First Grade attesting to the early days of her healing, when she was still rough and could only do small sessions without nearly passing out. “That’s why she’s the best doctor around, better than anyone,”
“Okay,” Megumi gave a small smile at that.
Satoru walked a little further ahead of Megumi, crouching down once he was in front of him.
“C’mon, hop on!” he offered. “I’ll give you an ultra-rare, amazing signature Gojo piggyback ride!”
“No, it’s lame!”
At least he was back to his usual self, Satoru thought to himself as he laughed.
“Too bad!” he picked up Megumi, the child flailing his limbs as he put him onto his back. “Let’s go get something for dinner! My treat!”
Since Tsumiki was out of the apartment for the night, Satoru was already planning on spending his weekend over at the Fushiguros’, crashing on the couch rather than making the trip back to the college. Spending the weekends he had free with the kids had slowly become routine over the past several months since Suguru had left, his little reprieve from the jujutsu world.
“Can I pick this time?” Megumi asked, hitting the top of his head with the heavy cast around his wrist.
“Ow! Only if you stop hitting me!”
“Can we get udon?”
“Sounds good! With extra veggies to help you heal. Shoko says they’re good for you, you know,”
“No red peppers,” Megumi demanded. “They’re yucky,”
Satoru laughed, genuine, his stomach aching as he found that he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face despite his heart aching.
“Sure thing, ‘Gumi,”
For him, for Tsumiki, Satoru Gojo would do anything, even give up sweets if it were their request.
The Fushiguros were his family, and indulging in their simple requests made him feel more at home than he had ever felt living at the Gojo estate with those he shared a biological makeup with.
Satoru was gone by the time he finally left the hospital, both girls struggling to stay awake as the afternoon bled into night. Thankfully, Mimiko just needed stitches, the doctor applying the liquid stitch and slapping a bandaid over it while she had sat in his lap, not wanting to be away from him. The doctor had given him a list of things to keep an eye on, Suguru drowning out practically everything she had said to him as soon as she had let him know that Mimiko was fine and didn’t have a concussion. He had never been so relieved to go home, the door to their home shutting behind him softly as he carefully maneuvered the halls with both girls asleep in his arms.
He was so tired, the few dishes he hadn’t gotten to still sitting in the sink as he shuffled past the kitchen, making his way to his room. He probably should set them down, maybe get Mimiko changed out of her bloodstained shirt and clean them up. He should probably go finish the dishes and maybe make dinner, his stomach rumbling in protest, but he ignored it for the time being as he laid the girls down on his bed, careful to not wake them.
He was so exhausted, the panic and worry finally subsided as he settled into bed, the girls on either side of him. A little nap wouldn’t hurt, he reckoned. They all had exhausted themselves, adrenaline rush out of their systems, the girls especially after crying so much, and when they woke up, he’d have to make sure they were alright and make them something to eat, but for now, they would rest.
Mimiko’s head lolled onto his shoulder once he got comfortable, snoring softly. Nanako blinked open her eyes once, twice, before adjusting on the bed and pressing against his other side, his arm around them both.
Fighting the urge to yawn as the last rays of the sun illuminated the room in the blood orange glow of the sunset, he closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep, ignoring the way he kept seeing bright blue eyes behind his eyelids.