~~~
When Gojo returned it was now evening, and he struggled through the front door with all of the designer shopping bags he was carrying. For some reason, he had always wanted to shop for women's clothing, so he took this as his chance to go all-out.
However, when he arrived back at the apartment, he found you fast asleep in the bed where he had last seen you. You were still wearing Gojo's clothing that seemed to swallow up your tiny form. Gojo set down his multitude of bags as quietly as he could before he crept around to move you under the covers of the bed. He carefully picked you up with one hand as he adjusted the covers with the other, a testament to his human strength. When you were finally situated, he crept out of the room and turned the lights off.
He stole one glance back at the room, and the pile of bags which were nearly completely blocking the doorway. As he slowly pushed the door shut, he thought he might go shopping again tomorrow.
~~~
When the morning light finally brought you out of your deep sleep, you sat up quickly as you blinked your eyes to adjust to the brightness of the unfamiliar bedroom. Outside the window, the sky was a rushing blue with not a cloud in sight. For a second, the sky looked like the turquoise sea from the ocean realm. Your head felt dizzy and the gravity of the world felt too strong, as if it was forcing you back down into bed. Your lungs quaked as you tried to inhale, the rushing blood that pumped through your brain throwing stars into your vision. You leaned forwards and squeezed your eyes tight, trying to recover from the dizziness.
Images of Suguru and Nanami in the ocean realm spun in circles behind your eyes, and you didn't know whether your dizziness was from sitting up too fast or if it was from suddenly receding from the ocean realm.
Recently you were always shocked awake, with something in the real world tearing you out of the Ocean Realm and forcing you back into reality. The process was always disorienting, but today it seemed worse. Perhaps you had spent much longer in the realm than usual.
You pushed those thoughts out of your mind as the dizziness finally faded and you realized you could smell something sweet coming from the other room. You could sense that Satoru was in the kitchen, so you slid out of the bed and tip-toed across the hardwood floor. When you saw Satoru standing in front of the stove in a Rilakkuma apron, flipping pancakes, you instantly began to salivate. You fell asleep last night before Satoru could make anything for you to eat, and you hadn't had a proper meal from your diet of vending machine food, so you became ravenous at the sight of Satoru's famous pancakes.
"Good morning, my fantastic student!" Gojo seemed to be in an incredibly cheerful mood. "I made pancakes, they're almost ready!"
"I can see..." You responded, staring at two giant stacks of pancakes that had been piled up onto plates next to the stove.
Gojo flipped the final pancake onto the stack, and turned off the stove. He grabbed both plates and walked them over to the kitchen table before heading back to grab a giant bottle of maple syrup and a carton of juice.
"Do you want apple juice?" Gojo asked, and you simply nodded. You followed him to the table as he sat down and poured two glasses of juice.
"Alright, eat up!" Gojo smiled his typical smile, but inside he was desperate to cheer you up. He wanted to see you smile and laugh again, even to make fun of him. He wanted to see you full of life.
"Thanks." You began to eat, and the taste immediately brought you back to when you were still in college. It was the morning after you were cursed, when Gojo made pancakes for you and Nanami. You remember talking and laughing as you filled yourselves to the brim with the sweet fluffy cakes, and you looked to your left where a chair sat empty. You paused eating, staring downwards as you missed Nanami so desperately.
"Is everything okay?" Gojo asked, noticing the doleful expression on your face.
"Yeah, I just zoned out." You responded monotonically, continuing to eat the delicious pancakes.
As Gojo ate, he kept watching you. You looked thinner; your shoulders seemed frail underneath the baggy shirt, and your face was almost gaunt. It looked like you had lost weight -- all of your worrying had made you forget to eat, and Gojo didn't like that.
The breakfast was quiet with you being unable to hold a conversation, but Satoru didn't seem to notice since he was too engrossed in his own thoughts; he was also wondering what you were thinking about. There was no way for him to tell what was going on inside your mind, especially with you being so quiet.
"Y/N..." Satoru spoke up. You looked up to meet his eyes, and he continued "Why were you afraid of the bath last night?"
You paused for a second.
"When I sleep..." You chewed on another bite of pancake. "I end up on this beach. And Kento is floating in the water. He won't wake up, no matter what I do."
"I see... you dream about him." Satoru responded.
"I don't think it's a dream." You responded. "I first went there after I was kidnapped, when I supposedly died. I think it's an actual place."
Gojo's head tilted slightly downwards as he maintained eye contact with you, staring directly into your eyes through his tinted glasses. He realized this was the place you met Suguru.
"Tell me more." Gojo stared intently, his eyes drilling into your soul.
"It's... just a beach. With an endless coastline. Suguru has been there for longer than I have... He told me about going to school with you, about how he spiraled into destruction... But now Nanami is there too, always floating in the water."
"What else did Suguru say?" Gojo pressed, desperate to know more about his one and only.
"I don't remember specific things. Maybe it really is a dream..." You trailed off as you broke the stare between you and Satoru, casting your gaze towards the ground.
"But, you met Suguru there, and you'd never met him before that, right?" Gojo continued to press you for answers.
"I think so..." You responded, no longer engaged in the conversation as you took another bite of pancake. Gojo sighed, realizing he wouldn't be able to get anything else out of you for now as the two of you finished your giant plates of pancakes.
"Thank you for the pancakes." You spoke as you finished your plate. "I'm going to see Kento now."
"I'll go too, just to say hi." Gojo responded.
You got changed into the clothes that Gojo had bought for you the day before, not bothering to get annoyed at the fact that Gojo had not gotten you a single pair of pants -- only skirts. You dressed in an Armani silk blouse and jacket with a flowing maxi skirt.
During the short walk to the hospital, Gojo admired your outfit. He was proud of himself for choosing something that looked simply so pretty. He also managed to get things that fit your exact size, which he was also proud of. He wondered if he would be a fashion designer in another life.
Gojo followed you as you walked up the front steps of the hospital, and wondered how long it would take for you to move on. It was unlikely Nanami would ever wake up, especially from Ieiri's account of what had happened. You had seemingly brought him back from the dead, but if you had done it successfully, Nanami should have been awake right away. Gojo was ready to move on, but you seemed to not only be trapped in the strings of grief, but something much darker as well.
~~~
The cycle continued, as you spent your days by Nanami's bedside and your nights at Gojo's apartment. Sometimes you couldn't do anything at all, you just sat there and stared into the distance. Your mind was caught like a fish on a hook, being dragged away from reality against your own will. It would drift through the crevices of your mind and find memories and thoughts that you had forgotten for years and years.
When you were a part of reality, you weren't much better.
Every day, Gojo hoped to see some sort of improvement in your mood, and every day he was disappointed. You still weren't able to function on your own. You couldn't even brush your teeth on your own, Gojo had to sit you down and painstakingly brush your teeth like he would do for a child.
Every morning, he made sure to make you a big breakfast since you never ate anything on your own. However, sometimes you would just skip it because you simply wanted to see Nanami so badly. You spent your nights in the Ocean Realm as your soul dipped beyond sleep and closer to death each day, your body slowly becoming more and more materialized in the ethereal world. Each morning you would wake up and crave the sight of Nanami breathing, and would rush to the hospital without a single word to Satoru.
Of course, Suguru noticed this inside the ocean realm. He could feel you become more solid, making more contact with his eternal body. You never said much anymore, spending your nights watching over Nanami's floating body. You had long since cried your last tears, and with nothing left within you simply stared.
The routine continued, and Gojo found himself simply going shopping day after day. When he didn't know what else to do, he would head off into town and go to a new designer store. He bought random accessories, shoes, coats, even bed linens. Whenever he saw something cute that was meant for a woman, he would purchase it for you even if it would simply sit in your closet. Gojo only seemed to get you incredibly feminine and formal clothing, with blouses and skirts and high heels and you mostly left them unused in your closet. Gojo never once thought that this amount of shopping wasn't healthy; he had no clue that it would ever come close to an addiction.
~~~