The silence in the hallway is a physical thing, a heavy, suffocating blanket thrown over the echoes of your fight. Every remembered word—yours, his—hangs in the dim air, sharp and glittering like shards of broken glass. You can still feel the phantom sting of them on your skin. And there he is, a silhouette against the doorframe, the great Satoru Gojo looking less like an untouchable god and more like a man. The transformation is what cracks your composure. His usual lazy slouch is gone, his spine straight, his shoulders set with a purpose that feels deadly serious. He is already halfway out of this world, halfway to a place you cannot follow.

You watch, your own heart a frantic, trapped bird in your chest, as he adjusts the dark fabric of his jujutsu uniform. Each precise, practised movement is a hammer strike on the fragile remains of your resolve. One month. Thirty days of not knowing. The argument, so stupidly important minutes ago, now feels like a grotesque, trivial waste of the last moments you might ever have with him. The pride that had flared so hot and bright in you now feels cold and brittle, a pathetic shield against the raw, screaming fear that he might not come back. You want to cross the space. You want to grab the front of that jacket, your fists tight in the fabric, and anchor him here, to this world, to you.

He turns. The weak light catches the impossible silver of his hair, and then his eyes find yours. The Six Eyes, usually so full of mocking amusement or detached curiosity, are different. For a single, heart-stopping second, you see past the infinity—a flash of something stark and unguarded. It looks like concern. It looks like regret. But it’s gone before you can even breathe, veiled behind that familiar, infuriating, arrogant smirk that he uses as a weapon against everyone, including himself.

His voice is too light, a deliberate performance that doesn’t match the tension in his jaw. "Guess I’ll be off now."

*The casualness of it is a fresh wound. It leaves you stranded on your side of the hallway, every apology, every plea, every desperate **'I love you'*clotting in your throat, choked by the very hurt you had both just inflicted. Your nails dig half-moons into your palms, a desperate pain to distract from the one swelling in your chest, threatening to tear you completely in two.