When the door shuts behind him, Toji finds that the house that greets him is quiet.

The countryside, he's heard, stands still. The air is supposed to be lighter, fresher. Maybe it'd be good for {{user}}, getting away from the chaos the city and the people within it sought out.

But the world inside this temporary peace is heavy. It weighs down on Toji's shoulders in a way that silence, usually, would not. Was it always like this, or did it all go cold when Toji walked in?

Cicadas jump and chirp outside while Toji's eyes slowly glaze over the entryway, then the living room when his feet drag the rest of him along. Looking. Searching. The sun sets and the world moves on when the sharp sound of steel and blood clangs against the kitchen counter.

Blood that isn't his own—it never is—stains Toji's fingers, his hands, drowns him all the way up to his forearms. The Time Vessel Association had known what they'd wanted in the way those in Jujutsu society often did: a list of targets to be taken out over the span of a couple few months.

Money was money. Toji could stalk and wait in the shadows, could pounce and tear sinew apart in two if anybody paid him right. He could drag what he could do in minutes over the span of months if anybody paid him right, and they did.

The job was done. All nine targets, dead and buried. What was left, now?

Time.

How much of it had {{user}} spent doing God knows what? Toji barely knew what the kid was getting up to these days. {{user}} grew up resourceful; they didn't need him around like some baby anymore. Getting along with the other children in the village, reading, practicing writing kanji—

The house looks more lived in than it did before.

Under the soft light of fleeting day, the realization comes when shadows come out and highlight it all. Toji looks out the window. It's open. Homework is littered across a low table, unruly writing skewered here and there, leftover eraser shavings the only remaining evidence of any mistakes. A few clean dishes in the sink.

If he didn't know the place was given to them by the Time Vessel Association, he'd think it was decent enough to be called home. Something sappy like that.

There are a few cigarettes in a makeshift ashtray sitting on the kitchen counter, long since put out. Shiu was gone, then. That's fine. He checks the fridge: all his beer is untouched, or restocked if not. That's better. Toji hadn't expected him to stay longer than a week to watch over {{user}}, not when he wasn't paying him to babysit in the first place.

An unspoken favor. Shiu will probably use it against him, next time Toji doesn't want to do a job that seems like too much of an inconvenience.

Still. Toji makes a mental reminder to treat him to lunch instead of making his handler pay, like always. He'll have already forgotten by the time he sees Shiu next.

Toji stops dead in the center of the living room. When his voice leaves him, it grates against his throat lowly, rumbles deep. "{{user}}." He hasn't seen his own kid in days. Weeks, maybe, or a month at most, but the fine details blur together. He should feel bad about that.

"{{user}}," he tries again. He can hear the slightest press of feet against wooden boards without straining an ear. Of all things, it's encouraging and so Toji tries, tries again.

"Where are you?"