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Shoko takes another puff of her cigarette, breathing out smoke into the freezing air of the morgue, staring at the picture in her hands.
The picture of simpler times, well as simple as a life of anyone who can see curses can get, and every second she stares at it makes her urge to take another puff grow.
It was years ago today that everything went wrong. That stupid fucking mission. The mission that made Gojo- (No, not Gojo, not then. Gojo is now, then it was Satoru. Satoru the stupid teenager, who thinks himself on top of the world, with his best friend at his side and his glasses on.) Satoru come back, a scar on his head and something missing from his eyes. That made Surguru come back with dark circles under his eyes and greasy hair. That made that young girl, Rika, come back, laying heavy in Satoru’s arms. That mission that changed everything.
The mission that ended their childhood,
Satoru was the strongest, and was sent on so many missions alone that when they did see him it was with red rims around his eyes and mutters about showering and hanging out in the morning.
(At the start, Shoko would make crepes and wait with Suguru for him to wake up, before eventually checking his room, only to find a messy bed and a note mentioning a mission. Eventually, Suguru stopped waiting in the mornings and left for his own missions early, leaving Shoko to nurse a cup of coffee and go over textbooks before going into Satoru’s room to grab the note and put it in the bin. Eventually, right after she would wake up, she would go into his room to grab the note before going out to buy herself coffee.
The day she walked past Suguru in the hallway in silence only to find an empty room, no note to be seen, was the day she finally accepted that they’re friendship wasn’t a family anymore, but just friends. That she won’t be flinging crepe mixture in Suguru’s hair while mocking Satoru’s monstrosity of a crepe. That she won’t wake up to find Nanami and Haibara giggling in the corner as Satoru and Suguru try to figure out how to work the fire extinguisher. That she won’t be sitting sheepishly as they try to explain to Yaga Sensei that they didn’t mean to start a fire.
That she isn’t a child anymore, and needs to let go of this stupid, childish hope.)
Suguru was slowly getting more distant, till the point the only time Shoko saw him was passing in hallways and muffled yells at the darkness of nights.
(She may have never seen him, but that didn’t make his leaving hurt any less.
If anything, it made it hurt more, the realization that even though he left, nothing in her life really changed, because Suguru left long ago.
She found herself desperately craving the glances of dark hair in the corner of her eye and yelling in the dark.
She found herself wondering if it was her he was shouting at, instead of his own thoughts that he might still be here. That if it was Satoru he was walking with in the hallways, he might still be sitting at the kitchen in the mornings.
But she was too fucking scared to face the truth, and Satoru was too fucking busy being worked to the core like the compliant little weapon he is.
Because that’s what they all are, pawns in the higher ups abandoned chess boards, and Suguru was just a defective piece.)
Shoko found herself spending less and less time with people and more and more time with their bodies, just waiting for the day it’s one of her friends who ends up on her table, because that’s where they all end up at the end of the day.
She still wasn’t prepared for the horror of cutting into Haibara, of hearing the news of his death.
Then, what she had already thought was a decline became a straight drop.
She still remembers Yaga’s voice, thick with regret as he told her the news of Suguru. The slumped posture of Satoru when she next passed him in the halls. The empty room next to hers. The unused crepe mixture is growing dust in the pantry.
(The day Nanami left was oddly, the most clear day in the blur of repeating weeks.
Satoru had just got back from a mission, and was slumped with his head in his hands, Nanami was sitting straight-backed, staring ahead with a distant look. Shoko was breathing out smoke, watching it curl into the air.
It was the first time in a long time they were all free at the same time, and for a moment they weren’t Gojo Satoru, the strongest, Shoko Ieiri, The doctor and Nanami Kento, The only 3rd year. They were just a bunch of teenagers going through shit that no adult could handle. A bunch of tired children.
It was silent for a long time before Nanami spoke, his voice soft.
“I can’t do this for my whole life. It’s not what he would’ve wanted.” He paused for a moment before he spoke again, voice strained, “What do I do?”
Shoko was silent for a moment, before responding.
“Leave. Graduate, leave to a city, go to university, get a job.” She spoke, her voice wistful. She can’t leave, no matter how much she wishes to. She wouldn’t be able to enjoy life, she wouldn’t be able to leave Satoru. Satoru leaving is laughable. He was born into this life, he was forced into this life. Weapons don’t get to leave, and Shoko doesn’t get to live happily.
Nanami though, he can do it. If anyone can, it’s him. He’s not linked by anyone, not anymore. He can ignore the suffering and live life. Nanami is able to.
“Will you be alright without me?” He mutters, staring right into her eyes with tired eyes.
She just smiles, she won’t be alright, but she wouldn’t be alright with him here either. Satoru huffs a laugh, leaning over to ruffle Nanami’s hair. They both haven’t been alright since that blasted mission, long ago. Nanami hasn’t been alright since the death, but maybe, just maybe, when Nanami leaves, he will be alright. Nanami makes an annoyed noise, batting Satoru’s hands away.
Shoko makes eye contact with Satoru for the first time in months, and as Satoru gives her a soft grin, she looks away.
What a sad trio they make. It’s not the one any of them expected, but despite everything, she thinks, at least she has them.
She hopes Nanami will have a good life at least. Maybe one of them can not just survive but live.)
The day she realised she stopped thinking of Satoru as Satoru but as Gojo was the day that last spark of hope extinguished.
(She walks into the classroom, something that despite still being students hasn’t been used in a long time, and stopped next to Yaga and Satoru.
Satoru and her are graduating today, something she’s been dreading. She doesn’t want to graduate without Suguru, neither of them do.
When she looks at Satoru, she realised he’s not wearing his glasses, which have been an almost constant figure. There are only three things she’s come to know for certain. One day, she’ll die alone and miserable, the morgue will never be empty, and Satoru will always wear his glasses.
The glasses that marked the start of his, her and Suguru’s friendship. They went out after their first mission, to celebrate, and quickly figured out that Satoru’s eyes drew way too much attention. They all went together to a glasses shop and spent hours cackling over different glasses and impressions of Yaga. They left the store, glasses on Satoru’s face, a grin on Suguru and a sense of peace in Shoko’s chest. A realization that, if she were to die tomorrow and it was by her dumbass best friend’s sides, she would die with a grin in place.
So, as she stares into the white bandage wrapped around his eyes, a new realisation struck. It’s over. She won’t die by their side because Gojo is busy being the strongest, Suguru left and Shoko is alone.
She sighs, before turning away to Yaga.
“You ready to finally graduate, Gojo.”)
((She misses the stunned posture, the indications of wide eyes and a slowly fading smile. She misses the defeated slump of his shoulders and the soft sigh. She misses the bittersweet smile at her back.
She doesn’t know it, but she was the last person to know Satoru, because he isn’t Satoru, Shoko and Suguru’s idiotic best friend but Gojo Satoru, the lonely weapon on the top of the world.
She doesn’t know it, but Gojo stopped being Satoru the day Suguru left.))
The day Suguru was on her table, in her morgue was one of the worst days of her fucking existence. She didn’t make eye contact with Gojo, didn’t try to talk to him. They don’t do that anymore. They haven’t done that since the days of Satoru.
She thought that was the worst day of her life, the day that left her thinking of dark hair every time she tastes smoke on her lips.
She was wrong, because as she glances away from the photo to the bloody table, to the corpse, to Satoru, she knows she’s alone. She knows she’ll die alone, because her bestfriends are both dead, the crepe mixture grows dust, Nanami didn’t escape, and Shoko was right, they always end up in Shoko’s lab.
She may have been the last one to know Satoru, but Gojo was the last one to know Shoko, because now all she is Shoko, the addict doctor.
So as she turns, slipping her white gloves on, she knows it’s time to get to work.
All this because of one, stupid fucking mission.
What a joke.
–
A picture lays on the ground, stained with blood.
All you can make out is a brown haired girl grinning into the camera.
If you were to find that picture before the death and body switch of Gojo Satoru and Yuta Okkotsu, you would find a picture of a kitchen with the sunrise shining through the windows.
The picture is taken like a selfie, one quarter of the photo is of a brown haired girl with a mole grinning sharply with her eyes crinkled as she holds the camera out, her hand up in a wave.
The blond one, and the brown haired boy are jumping away from large flames growing on a stove, mouths open with laughter.
Two older boys, one black haired and one with white hair, look frantic as they both seem to be pulling random parts of a red fire extinguisher, as white foam covered the entirety of both of them.
The background is a kitchen, flames growing from the stove and flour covering the floor, pieces of foam flung into the ceiling dripping off.
A large man stands in the doorway, glasses fallen down his nose and mouth open with shock as flour covers his entire front.
On the table sits a pile of questionable crepes, covered in all sorts of sweets and sugars.
But that was then, and now all the photo is a charred piece of paper, stained with the dark brown of dried blood. All that can be seen is a brown haired girl smiling.