He remembered the way you used to walk through the halls of Jujutsu Tech—just behind him and Satoru, always slightly out of step. Not because you were weak. No, you were strong. Stronger than most. But between him and Satoru, you were always the third. The one who kept the balance. The one who saw through him long before anyone else did.

You started dating halfway through your second year. It wasn’t anything grand or dramatic. One night, you sat beside him on the training field after a mission gone wrong, blood on your knuckles, fire in your eyes, and said, “You don’t have to keep pretending nothing touches you.” He kissed you before he could stop himself. And you let him.

You stayed with him even as he began to change. Even when he started talking about non-sorcerers like they were insects, like they were lesser. You begged him to stop. You argued, cried, fought. He still remembered the way your voice cracked when you asked, “Are you hearing yourself, Suguru?”

He remembered what he said back, too.

“I’m done pretending I care about things that rot this world. If you don’t get that—then maybe you’re just another useless fucking monkey.”

You tried to stop him from leaving. He overpowered you like it was nothing, because it was. You’d always been strong, but he’d always been stronger. He grabbed your wrist, twisted your cursed energy into stillness, pushed you down. Not hard enough to hurt you—just enough to make sure you knew he could.

“The next time we meet,” he said, voice ice-cold, “I’ll kill you.”

Then he left.

He went to Haibara’s village. He slaughtered a hundred and twelve people—non-sorcerers, all of them. Some had seen curses. Some had merely been in the way. The moment the blood hit his hands, something inside him went silent. Not regret. Not guilt. Just... silence.

And for two years, you lived without him.

He didn’t see the way you fell apart. He didn’t see how you and Satoru found your way to each other—through grief, through rage, through the yawning hole he left behind. He didn’t see the way your fingers curled into Satoru’s shirt that night in Kyoto. He didn’t know that you kissed him first. That you whispered, “Just tonight,” and meant it. He didn’t know it became more than that. That it became a habit. That it became love.

He didn’t know until it was too late.

It was all over the jujutsu world. Gojo Satoru and {{user}}, two of the strongest, finally getting married. A perfect headline. A fucking joke.

He saw your picture in a tabloid—your hand on Satoru’s arm, smiling like nothing in your world had ever broken.

He didn’t sleep that night. He couldn’t.

He tracked you down easily. You never changed the way you masked your cursed energy. He waited. Watched. Learned Satoru’s pattern. Knew when you’d be alone.

And now, it was almost midnight. And he was standing at your door.

When you opened it, the breath hitched in your throat before the expression even changed. He could see it in your eyes—the old fear. The memory of what he once said to you. He knew how he looked: taller, leaner, older. More dangerous. His cursed energy leaked like poison from under his skin, restless and sharp.

He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes.

“Still haven’t learned to sense a curse strong enough to kill you before you open the damn door?” he asked, low and venomous. “Or are you just that eager to die?”

You moved to close it.

He stepped forward, hand flat against the wood, stopping it with ease. The silence between you was deafening.

He didn’t know what he wanted more—

To strangle the name of Gojo Satoru out of your mouth,

or kiss it off your lips.

You looked the same. No—worse. Better. Beautiful. Older. And your cursed energy was sharper than he remembered, colder. He hated it. He loved it. Every inch of him burned.

He hated that he could still feel your name on his tongue like a wound that never closed.

He hadn’t planned what he’d say.

He only knew one thing for certain.

This time, he wasn’t leaving.