( August 2007 )
"Should I check if she locked herself in her room again?"
Ryosuke looked away from the freshly pruned tree in the courtyard for the first time in over half an hour. The gentle sway of its red leaves didn't put on an interesting show, but he couldn't stand watching his cousin fill his right cheek with air and loudly empty it for any longer as they passed time on the porch, dressed in their best black suits again after just six months. Those were the first words Satoru had spoken to him since he sat across the chabudai, which he had quickly claimed by perching his elbow in the middle of the square table to rest his head in his palm and blank out at the same tree.
"Give her some space. She'll come out when she feels ready. We still have time."
Satoru gave him a light nod. The treasure of the Gojo clan was born with many exceptional talents. Dealing with someone else's grief wasn't one of them, Ryosuke had discovered half a year before Haibara Yu's tragic death: in the aftermath of their grandfather's passing. He could still remember his face while they stood outside the old man's room — Arisu sitting on the floor by the door with tears welled up in her eyes, Satoru standing across her with a blank face, and him leaning against the wall a little further away — and how he stared at her like she was doing something wrong as she hid her face with her collar and silently cried after feeling their grandfather's cursed energy fade away.
The funeral was no different. He hadn't said a single word to comfort Arisu while the girl cried on his shoulder, only stared at the photograph on the altar with an anger that the older boy had never seen in his cousin's eyes before. Nor had he spoken of his grandfather's name again. Satoru was his pride, and Arisu was his joy. To this day, Ryosuke didn't know what the old man had done before his death to earn his pride's hatred.
This time he was trying to be more than a shoulder to cry on (when he could get her to leave her bed), although he looked lost and helpless all the time. Whenever Ryosuke walked into a room he was in, Satoru's eyes were on him, silently begging for help he was too proud to voice as if the older boy was an expert in grief.
Ryosuke sure had a long experience with it, but it didn't mean he was any better than him. All his efforts were in vain.
"Don't wear those sunglasses during the ceremony."
Satoru tilted his head to look at him. Gravity pulled down the opaque lenses and exposed the famous blue eyes they were sheltering. "Are you serious?"
"I know why you wear them. They don't. It's disrespectful to the family." His gaze returned to the maple tree. A sparrow dove into the red clouds and perched on a branch. "Don't make yourself the talk of this funeral too."
"Huh?" Ryosuke didn't repeat, and Satoru didn't push it. Neither side wanted to crown the already unpleasant day with an argument. "You're becoming just like Aunt Shiori," he said under his breath, loud enough to make sure he heard him. "Fine. I'll take them off during the ceremony."
As they returned to their much preferred silence, Ryosuke pushed his cuff to check the time. Although there was enough time for Arisu to get ready, he wished she was quicker about it while the house was still quiet. His father and uncle weren't home; Aunt Shiori had mentioned a meeting with someone important, but Ryosuke couldn't imagine a scenario where Uncle Seiichi would bring his useless little brother along to anything concerning the clan's affairs. It had to be his aunt's doing. Otherwise, he would've been there to flaunt him in his son's face.
The funeral was taking place in Haibara's hometown; a small, humble town less than an hour's drive from their old academy. He had been there once years ago to work on a group project with a boy who took the bus from the same town every morning. Haibara could have been one of the junior high students leaving the school he passed by while walking to his classmate's house.
Two years his senior, Ryosuke didn't know him well. He saw him around every day, either following Geto around or sitting on the grass to watch him train with Nanami. They only exchanged short greetings and small discussions about the missions a couple of times. He was a nice kid, respectful, full of life. Even Ryosuke had felt something was missing when he finished his morning run and no group of three was sitting and chatting on the stone steps even after doing extra laps.
"Do you think it's a good idea to force her to go to the funeral?" Satoru broke the silence again.
How am I supposed to know? Do I look like a therapist to you? He bit his tongue. This treatment was getting on his nerves. Still, he was ashamed to admit he was a little too proud to accept that he didn't know the answer when his perfect cousin needed his guidance for the first time. It hurt to know why Satoru came to him of all people.
He hadn't talked to her since their chat on the morgue's steps. She had barely talked to anyone since that day, Ieiri had told him. Satoru had only managed to get a few words out of her about how she couldn't face Haibara's family.
"It might be too much for her right now, but if she regrets missing the funeral, there's no taking it back." No amount of grave visits could make up for it. Years later, she was still going to hate them for taking her chance to say goodbye. "You should get her and Nanami to talk when he returns to school."
Satoru sat straight up as if he just sent him on a suicide mission. He would have reacted less if Ryosuke had done so. Suicide missions had a higher chance of leaving unscathed. He pointed at himself. "Me?"
"She's your..." He struggled to find the appropriate word. Retainer sounded too harsh on a day like that. Sister? His parents were only her legal guardians despite Satoru introducing her to everyone otherwise. Cousin? She was just a third cousin, and saying the word would put him under equal responsibility. "Of course you."
"People are overhyping your intelligence. That's the worst idea I ever heard in my life. You know how she is when she's sad."
Of course Ryosuke knew. She went after the feelings of those who were unfortunate enough to be around her while she struggled to deal with her own emotions. He had been on the receiving end of her frustration many times before, and he was there to witness how she treated Nanami that day. Her words never got to Ryosuke, but the boy seemed to take them to heart.
They were given the chance to take a break to heal both physically and mentally after the last mission. Arisu remained at the dorms until the morning of the ceremony. It was for the better. They should have asked for their funeral attires to be brought to school instead of going home. He had even agreed to drive them to the funeral himself, even if it was mostly for his own selfish reasons. But Aunt Narumi insisted on seeing them.
Nanami, on the other hand, chose to return home to get away from everything — and from Arisu, he suspected.
Ryosuke had attended a few funerals before, mostly to make appearances as a high-ranking member of the Gojo clan since their heir couldn't be bothered to. But it was the first time he was attending the funeral of someone who wasn't from a sorcerer bloodline. He wondered how his family explained their son's death to their family. Ryosuke had to lie about a car accident when one of his sister's friends recognized his surname at the car dealership. Jujutsu sorcerers rarely had social circles expanding outside their field of work, but Chisato could make friends with anyone. Haibara seemed similar to her in that sense.
"Arisu is blaming herself for what happened. Nanami also blames himself for leaving him out in the open when he ran to save her, and he thinks she's blaming him for that," he explained. They had a short talk while he took him to the train station after the boy admitted he couldn't get in any of the cars belonging to the school. Ryosuke couldn't blame him. "They need to talk it out."
Satoru stared at his face as if he woke up from a dream. "Did you check on him?"
"Someone had to. You and Ieiri are too busy circling around Arisu, and Geto is in his own world." Something was going on with Geto for a while; he walked around the campus looking sickly. But it wasn't Ryosuke's problem. He already had enough on his plate. "Haibara wasn't only her friend."
He usually kept his chats with his cousin short before he started getting on his nerves. They didn't have a lot in common. Much to his own surprise, Ryosuke still had a few more things to say until he spotted their aunt blocking Arisu's way from the corner of his eye.
"You're not thinking of going out there looking like this, are you?"
Ryosuke found himself frowning at her words. The girl had on the same black kimono she wore at their grandfather's funeral. She had long black hair reaching her lower back that even he knew how much she loved to style. He was used to seeing her wearing multiple different hairstyles in a day. That morning, she must have the strength to only cursorily brush it after days of letting it get tangled; nothing unexpected of a grieving girl.
"Go fix your hair," Aunt Shiori continued. Arisu's gaze was lowered to the floor with her hands clasped in front of her. She talked behind her back all the time, told the meanest things about her, but she knew how to behave in front of the woman. "Don't forget who you're representing."
Satoru's head snapped in their direction. He was ready to jump in before Arisu turned around and walked back to her room without speaking a word. He slowly sank back to his cushion, unsure of how to react.
Soon Arisu was back. Not a thing was different in her appearance.
"Grab Arisu," he told Satoru when he noticed the scissors in her hand.
Although the white-haired boy was quick to jump to his feet and run inside, he wasn't fast enough to reach her before the girl chopped off a chunk of tangled dark hair over her shoulder. "Do I look worthy of representing your disgusting clan now, you vile, ugly hag?"
Shiori was taken aback by her nerve to talk to her like that. Even the boys had to take a moment.
"Ungrateful brat!" Aunt Shiori roared while Satoru caught Arisu's wrist before she could grab another handful of her hair. "This clan fed you when your mother left us to deal with her mess and ran off to who knows where with our money. Father should've handed you and your mother over to the higher-ups when she came to him begging for money for a worthless brat like you."
As Satoru turned to face his aunt, different emotions were passing through his eyes: Anger, hate, disgust... Then his expression went blank. Ryosuke could feel the change in the air.
His voice was chillingly calm. "Watch your mouth."
Ryosuke took a step forward to place himself between his cousin and his aunt as the black smoke-like matter began to dance between his bent fingers, yearning for cursed energy to feed on. And his cousin had a lot of it, more than enough to appease its endless hunger. It would cost him his arm; that was the best-case scenario. It would most likely be the death of him, but Ryosuke didn't care. He was as bloodthirsty as the Dark Matter at that moment.
Satoru's attention shifted from Shiori to Ryosuke. He stared at his face as if he finally found the answer to a question that he had been searching for his entire life. The answer didn't please him.
His grip on the shaking girl loosened for a moment, allowing her to escape and swing the scissors at the woman. Ryosuke snatched them out of her hand while Satoru embraced Arisu tighter.
"What's going on here?" he heard Satoru's mother say, followed by a gasp. "Arisu, what did you do to your hair?"
"Don't touch me!" With scissors now out of the picture, Satoru deemed it safe to let her go. She dropped to her knees and started crying while Ryosuke looked away. Her voice was much quieter as she repeated her plea. "Please don't touch me."
Aunt Narumi's green eyes trailed between Arisu and her sister-in-law, who was unphased by the attack. As a Limitless user, she could easily stop the girl if she wanted to.
Narumi was fuming. Her eyes widened as she turned to Shiori to demand an explanation. But the first bullet was fired by the older woman. "Discipline your impertinent brat."
"Who do you–"
Narumi cut off her son. "Satoru, take her to her room and wait for me there." Unwillingly, Satoru unballed his fists and kneeled beside her. Whatever it was that he whispered in her ear, the girl nodded between her tears and let him pick her up. He glanced at Ryosuke for one last time before carrying her away. Narumi turned to Shiori after they left. "You are in no position to tell me what to do with the girl under my care, Shiori. Know your place."
"For all the trouble her mother caused us, you could've at least taught her to be grateful we didn't get rid of her years ago like we should. Did you forget that your son almost died last year? And where was she?" the other woman retaliated. "But what do you know about disciplining children? Your son is even more mannerless than her."
The tension in the air was suffocating. Ryosuke was holding his breath not to get in the radar of either woman as he stood only a few steps away, the scissors still in his hand.
Narumi's gaze slipped to his face before returning to Shiori. She had pity in her eyes when she looked at him. "And what do you know about raising children? Let the head of the clan worry about the troubles," she said with a demeaning smile. "Your father found you unfit to do so, don't you remember?"
Shiori returned a lopsided smile; the three-decades-old scar had left her with muscle impairment when a special grade curse had slashed the left side of her face from her jaw to under her eye. She didn't say anything before walking away from the scene, but he knew what lay under that smile.
Ryosuke cleared his throat. "Aunt Narumi," he said. "You might need this."
"Thank you." She reached for the scissors. "Oh, honey, did she cut you?"
He looked at his hand to see the blood gathered in the lines of his palm. "It's just a superficial cut."
Ryosuke found his aunt pacing in her room when he went after her, cursing her sister-in-law under her breath. He closed the door and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest as he patiently waited for her to let it all out.
"What else can you expect from the children that woman raised? One is more spoiled than the other. And to think that boy is the next head of the clan... if my foolish brother doesn't bring us to ruin first. How could you doom our family like this, father?"
Shiori was Gojo Kousuke's only heir for eight years until her crown was stolen by his secondborn. The old man had silently waited, watched his daughter study, train, make connections to one day take the claim that belonged to her. He had waited until Seiichi turned eighteen to tell Shiori that the clan never found her fit to take over his position, that her future children weren't going to carry the family name and she should have expected what was going to happen.
She was a stronger sorcerer than her two younger siblings, the smartest of them, the finest cursed tool user of her era, and she had worked hardest to rebuild the clan's reputation that her father had diminished by repeatedly and unsuccessfully challenging the higher-ups. Even Ryosuke's good-for-nothing father being ahead of her in the line of succession was the biggest insult to the woman. Seiichi was only slightly better than Shohei, but no one dared to question him after he fathered a child with both the Six Eyes and the Limitless.
"I'll make sure she apologizes to you later," he said. Shiori stopped her pacing. "I believe leaving her alone for the time being would be better. She is grieving, and Satoru is more overprotective of her than ever after what happened. It's not worth escalating things with him."
I should follow my own advice as well. That was a careless move on my part.
His aunt smiled. "My perfect boy, you're the only man in this family with a good head on his shoulders. If only you were in charge of the clan... You deserve it more than anyone."
Becoming the head of the Gojo clan would give him access to the Calamity, and that was exactly why he knew he was never going to be allowed to ascend to the position if something was to happen to his cousin and his father, even though he was the third-in-line on paper, especially with the rumors surrounding the fruit of his father's affair.
It was a sweet dream; one day being able to unlock the full potential of his technique through the special grade tool forged by the first Dark Matter user that had fallen into the hands of his Limitless user brother in a brutal civil war. Since that victory, it had become a tradition for the head of the clan to use the Calamity, yet not a single Dark Matter user had been allowed to be the head of the clan, even if they were the firstborn or the only heir.
The tradition no longer meant anything thanks to his cousin. He had taken the Calamity from his father before inheriting the title and handed it to an outsider as if it was a toy he quickly lost interest in — to an outsider with an ill-fitting technique. Ryosuke was the only one born with the right technique to activate the true power of the three-piece staff, but as long as he couldn't lay his hands on it, it mattered neither to Satoru nor his father that Arisu couldn't use it properly.
"Satoru can have the clan. I'm aiming for something higher."
"What are you planning?"
"Nothing concrete yet. But I think Arisu's hypersensitive cursed energy perception might be useful for my plans. I was worried that something happened to her when I heard what happened during the mission." Shiori's face changed. Her dissatisfaction reflected on her age lines. "For some reason, I can't get my hands on proper information, but from what I managed to gather, it's a miracle she and her other classmate got out of that church alive."
"What a misfortune," she said without the slightest hint of care.
That Haibara died or Arisu survived? he wanted to ask her. "Do you trust my judgment, Aunt?"
"You know I do."
He smiled. "All I need you to do is to keep it civil with her when she's home. It'd be very unfortunate if she feels threatened and hides behind Satoru." She nodded, though half-heartedly. "If you excuse me, I want to check if my mother woke up before we leave."
In the most secluded, tranquil corner of the building, there was his mother's room; away from everyone, away from her husband. Love never had been a part of their marriage, but there had been a time they shared a bedroom until her husband abandoned her in her grief, blaming the night terrors the poor woman was suffering from on why he ran to the arms of other women.
Most days Ryosuke found her in her rocking chair, staring at the little private garden that could only be accessed from her bedroom. If she was having a good day, she would busy herself with embroidery.
Yurika was a lonely woman, and her son didn't know how to share her loneliness.
"Hi, mom," he softly greeted her.
She looked up from her canvas. In her faint smile, there was a sadness that never left her hazel eyes. "Is it a holiday?"
"We're given a day off. I came to see you and pick up a few clothes."
He had taken his tie off and unbuttoned his collar to give his outfit a less gloomy look. There was no need to mention the funeral of a seventeen-year-old kid — only a year older than her daughter when she was killed. She was oblivious to why they visited home. Ryosuke knew better than to think that his father acted mindful for once in his life; it was more likely that he hadn't bothered visiting his wife since the news reached home.
"The weather is beautiful today. Do you want to take your embroidery outside? I can carry your chair if you don't want to sit on the grass."
"No, thank you," she quietly replied as she returned to her craft.
"Mom, you need to get more sunlight. And walk. Aunt Shiori told me you aren't moving enough." She was a tiny woman, pale-skinned and grayed before her time. In every visit, he found her fading more and more. "Just fifteen minutes, alright? We can walk around the pond, and you can take my arm if you get tired. Why don't you tell me about the flowers again? I'm afraid I keep mixing their names."
"I don't want to go outside."
His mother had always been a quiet woman. He remembered her sitting at the camelia with Shiori and Narumi, silently listening to the passive aggressive remarks they threw at each other. But she always loved being outside, to walk among the flowers she tended, to tell her children about each. She suddenly became a very talkative person when it came to her flowers. Chisato used to pretend that she was interested in them while Ryosuke always complained about how he should be training with his sword instead, only to get pinched by his older sister.
Now it was Shiori who made sure her flower garden was always tended even if she didn't leave her room to see. So her sister-in-law had brought a few of them to her little garden. Sometimes he felt guilty for running back to school at every opportunity and leaving his mother's care to his aunt. Sometimes he wanted to run even further away.
"What was that noise earlier?"
"Arisu got into an argument with Aunt Shiori. It's not something you need to worry about."
"She's a very sweet girl. Shiori is being too harsh on the poor kid," she hummed before spacing out in her embroidery. Ryosuke was locked out of her world once again.
"Yes," he muttered as he walked out of the room. He gently closed the door. "Poor kid."
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( 2017 )
"Either chew quietly or play with your food outside."
Jorogumo ripped off a chunk from the cursed spirit she was feeding on as she lifted her head to lock her glowing golden eyes with the woman propped herself up on her elbows. Like a scolded puppy, the beast looked at her apologetically and swallowed the piece dangling between her sharp teeth before dragging the remains of her early breakfast out of the bedroom window to the rooftop.
Arisu dropped herself back on the bed and shut her eyes. Her brain was resisting succumbing to the sleeping pills. It was inevitable that her body was eventually going to build up tolerance for them. There couldn't be a worse time for it. She thought about popping a second one, but the sunrise was minutes away.
She tossed and turned in the bed, counted sheep, buried her head under the pillow, considered overdosing on the rest of the pills in the bottle... By the time Jorogumo, fed and slightly less irritated than she was before ripping apart a cursed spirit on her master's expensive handmade carpet, climbed back inside from the window, the first rays of the sun had already filled the room. Arisu had a total of zero minutes of sleep the entire night.
"I can't do it anymore." She climbed out of the bed and headed to her dressing room. Jorogumo watched the woman dig through her winter clothes for the damaged wooden box. "It's the third night in a row. I'm going to die from exhaustion if I don't do something about it."
Jorogumo cowered in her corner when she returned to her bed with it. She had been keeping her distance from the box since Arisu brought it home. Arisu could feel the conflicted emotions the shikigami was going through, how much she wanted to hide back in her cage, but she had a duty to protect her master.
They shared a history Arisu couldn't fully unveil. Unlike the Limitless and Dark Matter, her technique didn't have a user manual to be passed down for generations. The previous masters of the spider had lived tragically short lives, and the last one was executed as a child for being mistaken to be cursed four hundred and twenty-seven years ago. A lot had been lost in the technique's history.
Perhaps in one of her previous life cycles, she was killed by the rest of the severed finger lying in the box her master was now holding in her hands. Only a handful of things could scare a beast that had lived many lives and seen many things. Ryomen Sukuna was one of them.
"I can't keep this in my apartment. It's already attracting curses. Soon it'll start attracting the windows' attention. What do you think, should I bury it somewhere in the summer house?" Jorogumo's head perked up. "No, I can't keep it under control there."
The spider hissed as she sank back to the corner.
"I understand. But what am I supposed to do? He'll suspect I'm hiding something if I start asking questions. I'll have to wait for him to come to me." Jorogumo looked unimpressed by her plan. "Yeah, yeah, knowing him, he might never speak about it, but I have no other choice right now."
She hissed again.
Arisu ignored her complaints. "Why would he need this if he wasn't intending to hand it over to the school? And why would he make me look for it?" she asked herself. "What are you planning, Ryosuke?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE,,
Ryo seeing Geto spiral: Not my problem.
Ryo, at the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons a decade later: Fuck...
He's my pookie I love him so much.