Chapter Text
It was a dull and gloomy morning in mid November. Toji Fushiguro sat mustily on the public transit bus and stared emoly outside the window at the desaturated suburbs rushing past (well, not exactly, since the bus was moving at a speed of 12 km/h). He was listening to My Chemical Romance in his head since he was too broke to afford earbuds and an iPod. Hell, he was too broke to even afford this bus ride. The driver looked at him pitifully and let him on for free. Toji thought he recognized him, but he was too sad to care.
Welcome to the Black Parade started playing, and Toji was hit with a wave of nostalgia. He remembered the good ol’ days when he was tight with Gerard Way. The rock music that reverberated through his veins that night of his first concert was like no other sensation he'd experienced before, and he was so inexplicably happy he snuck into that specific hall even though he wasn't quite sure what they were saying since there were no Japanese subtitles. He had felt on top of the world, people parting around him as he stumbled closer to the stage. It was the only time in his entire I-don't-even-know-how-many years of living that he'd let his guard down, let the music wash over his stinky self. That was the only reason security found him and dragged him out (trust). As he was leaving, he threw a final parting glance over his shoulder to the guylinered man on stage, challenging his gaze for all of 0.00467 seconds before security had him shoved out and into the back of a squad car. He had smiled maniacally, unbelieving of his good luck that day.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t that tight with Gerard Way. But it was more than most of the fanbase could say for themselves.
(This all happened yesterday btw.)
The rambunctious laughter and joyful jostling of teenagers snapped Toji out of his reverie. He was about to deliver a side eye so criminal it would've put the rest of his sins to shame when he stopped, eyes widening like he was just told that his best friend and one and only had died.
Clambering on the bus was no other than SATORU GOJO HIMSELF and his side character classmates but who tf cares about them. Shiu Kong whispered something in his ear. Wait, what do you mean Gojo isn't the main character of Jujutsu Kaisen? What even is Jujutsu Kaisen?! Why is Gojo on the bus anyway isn't he hella rich?!
The cyan-eyed freak stopped right at the front of the bus and began chatting up the bus driver, who responded with far too much zeal. Toji muttered something about holding up the whole bus and being late to wherever he was going, and Shiu Kong kindly informed him that the bus was empty, and that he had nowhere to go anyway because he was houseless and homeless and broke and jobless and had no opportunities and no hoes and no bros and no goals and no morals…
Toji turned up the volume of Teenagers to drown out Shiu Kong's incessant rambling (seriously, why would he be rambling if he could spend that time gambling) when suddenly the walking human double neon streetlight turned his illuminating gaze to rest upon the magnificent hunk of muscle. The bus went quiet.
“Why's that stinky emo guy lookin at me like it's MY fault.”
Toji was so affronted that he paused I’m Not Okay (I Promise). This was a huge deal, because that was his favorite song of all time. He wasn't even the least bit concerned that the grubby little boy that killed him was standing less than the recommended social distancing distance away from him.
Toji Fushiguro was a proud man, one who denies being emo at every mention of it, since he vehemently refuses to associate himself with the alternative scene of today’s youth. Regardless, Shiu Kong very helpfully informed him one time that the young emos and goths were way cooler than he could ever hope to be. Toji then informed Shiu Kong that he thinks he should be euthanized. Shiu Kong in return informed him that he did not possess the funds for such a procedure.
“You.” Gojo spat the word like it was a curse on his tongue. In the time Toji spent gasping and clutching at his nonexistent pearls at the deforestation of his dignity, the pretty ugly boy seemed to have restored the deleted files of his fight against the one who left it all behind in his overwhelming intensity.
“Satoru, there's really no need for that…” Geto purred, resting a hand on the glaring boy's shoulder. Toji wrinkled his noise and faintly wondered if he should start quivering in fear. He also wondered how and why Geto always sounded the way he did.
“How are you still alive? I killed you!”
“Torso transplant.”
“??? Wtf Shoko is that legit.”
“I literally operate without a license (17 btw) why do you think it's a good idea to ask me.”
“I think the more pressing matter at hand,” Geto spoke up, “is why are you still stinking up public transit?”
“...huh?”
“DUDE WE WIRED YOU TRIPLE WGAT THE STAR RELIGIOUS GROUP WOULDVE PAID YOU TF DID U DO WITH ALL THAT MONEU”
Toji scoffed and leaned back in his seat, stretching his arm around the back of the seat next to him. Shiu Kong, who was suddenly sitting across the row from him, wrinkled his nose as Toji's smelliness wafted through the air.
“Love of the game.”
Geto just started crying because bro was so dumb. Shoko muttered something about finding the acceleration of someone as they were launched off a building 145 m high with a final velocity of 12 km/h (hey that was the initial velocity of the bus! but it's at rest now) and how she wondered if someone in the comments could solve it. Toji was confused because he thought she studied biology or something, not physics.
“Now, if you'd so kindly excuse me, I've got places to be.” Before the teens could inquire further, and before Shiu Kong could interrupt with sum ermmm akshewally no u dont ur kinda homeless…!, Toji whipped out a picture of his home and proudly showed it to the gaggle of adolescents. They craned their necks from where they were standing, unwilling to step even a picometer closer to the reverse air freshener. It was a picture of a dumpster torn from the morning paper, somehow made up to look like a loft, and absolutely swarming with rats.
Geto, ever the diva, wrinkled his nose. “Why is that one a ginger while the other ones are bald?”
“Why do you have weird bangs? Leave him alone.” Toji fired back.
Geto held up his palms in surrender, but his brows were still laced together in what might’ve been awe, curiosity, disgust, or all of the above (typa bio multiple choice question EVERYONE in the class is getting wrong) as he gazed at the scrap of paper trembling like an anime cat girl in the big man’s hand. He also considered telling Toji that he really didn’t have any excuse to be so stinky considering he actively chose to furnish a dumpster.
Toji cleared his throat and fixed the nibbled cheese lookin ahh collar of his sweatshirt. “The rat man with the ushanka gave them to me,” he said sophisticatedly, “one man's trash is another man's treasure.”
“Is that what you said when you abandoned your son?”
Toji threw his head back in a full-bodied cackle. The bus window behind him cracked due to the sheer size of his forehead. But his villain monologue had yet to begin when his laugh died on his lips as a little emo boy stepped out from behind Gojo's freakishly spindly legs.
They stared at each other for a moment, the little boy leaning against Geto’s bontan pants. There was a reckless hope in his wide, defiant irises, a hope that he would catch a glimmer of recognition in the older man’s eyes—ones that bore such a heavy weight of semblance to his own that he couldn’t bear to hold onto the burden alone much longer.
“Yo, uh, not to be rude or nuthin, but what's ur name again type shi type shi.”
The new gen emo clutched his iPad in his tiny black polished fingernails and glared at Toji like that was gonna do something. 2’9” v.s. 6’4” btw.
“How old are you anyway, like, 6 or 7?”
“SHUT THE FREAK UPPPPPP.” The kid screamed and stormed past him, running to the back of the bus and plopping down. Geto called after him and rushed over like a mother would to her wounded child. The boy was surprisingly maternal. He would make a great parental figure to a couple of adoptive daughters. A girl dad, if you will.
Gojo stood there awkwardly as Toji continued to not know who his own kid was. Shoko snuffed out her 29th cigarette of the day on the “No Smoking” sign beside the driver before proceeding to cough like Baizhu.
“UGH OMG y’all stalled the bus for 12 minutes and 23 seconds I literally could’ve walked home in that time… smh…” Toji stood up and stretched, the cracking of his joints rippling through the bus along with his increased stank buff acquired from taking up more space. Geto fanned the air around where he was coaxing Megumi out from underneath the back bus seats.
“See y’all in the next chapter or something~!”