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The air smells like dust and field dirt. Toji inhales it all the same, his back aching from the slouched position he’s been holding, sitting cross-legged and bent over the chess board on the chabudai in front of him. It’s his move, has been for a while, and since the seat across from him is vacant, he settles for aiming his stare at the tall tree emerging from the center of Tengen’s chamber. The roots are far below the level of housing settlements that surround it like Saturn’s rings, dug deep into the soil to keep the massive trunk from collapsing and squashing everything like ants beneath a foot. The cords around it cut into the bark, thick lines of rope like a mangled, grotesque fishnet. It’s disgusting and it’s the highest form of Japan’s jujutsu defense. Somewhere down there, under layers and layers and layers of wood skin, Tengen’s current body decays.
He puts forward his queen and knows he’s lost.
Checkmate, a voice says – not quite inside his head, but not echoing either, crawling on the edge of consciousness and reality.
“Sure is,” Toji agrees, not talking about their game.
✻✻✻
“It’s a fair deal,” Toji tells Shiwoo, in April, after showing up at his doorstep with three duffle bags and two kids trailing after him.
Shiwoo smokes at the kitchen counter, occasionally leaning into the living room where Megumi and Tsumiki sit, enraptured by his betta fish aquarium. He’s got a pensive expression on his face, arms folded across his chest.
When he says nothing, Toji repeats. “I camp out in the Star Vessel Corridor for a week and make sure no one kills Tengen’s new shell and in turn, the Jujutsu Tech takes the kid.”
Shiwoo’s eyes slide over him like water down a duck’s back; quick and almost undetectable. But Toji catches it. His grin feels plastic, his teeth too sharp against the inside of his cheeks. “I’d be stupid not to take it.”
✻✻✻
In the mornings, everything is damp; the futon, the tatami mats, the bedding. Toji feels the moisture clinging to his skin, his hair sticking to his forehead and his ears, to the nape of his neck. He wakes up angry and as tired as he was when he laid down, tight in the chest. Claustrophobic and paranoid, his teeth on edge.
Toji doesn’t dream much – but when he does, it’s about the home before he knew home was a place you run towards instead of away from. A house where shadows have shadows of their own and where sunlight can’t reach through shoji screens – not that Toji minded the darkness. Nothing but Toji hid in those shadows anyway.
Around mid-morning, a man arrives.
By the contract, Toji’s not to leave the inside of the Tombs of the Star Corridor, but he’s gone through all the alleys and buildings inside the chamber within the first day. He’s seen everything to be seen. But he’s allowed to go to the elevator shaft, the crude monstrosity that cradles a wooden platform tied up with ropes and screws. And there he hears it; a rolling of pebbles caught between the ground and the sole of a shoe, unsure, almost meandering strides. The corridor is impossible to find unless it wants to be found – either by the Star Vessel or the chosen few. Toji’s been led in by an auxiliary manager, suspicious-eyed and trying not to fidget at his lack of cursed energy, entertaining the idea of how’d he get in on his own.
His foot kicks against one of the corner wooden pillars of the shaft. The wood shakes, making a wobbling, creaking sound.
Maybe he’d let the Vessel in first, let them pave the way, young and naive, palms sweating.
The sound echoes, doubling down on itself until it’s unrecognizable, a deep wailing noise of a warning siren heard through a vacuum.
He’d follow after them, their heartbeat in his ears. He wouldn’t even need a cursed weapon, just a dagger or a gun, something simple and ordinary for someone extraordinary enough as it is.
The footsteps above stop, then speed up with purpose. Toji watches the elevator platform rise with a groan and waits.
Back to the wall, cold and seeping dampness into the fabric of his shirt, his eyes track the movement of a man descending, sun-tanned and dark-haired. He’s not very tall, but there’s a long blade strapped to his back, charms dangling from the handle.
Newborns have soft bones. There’s a spot on the top of their skulls soft like putty where the bones haven’t mended together yet. He remembers watching Megumi’s heartbeat pulsing at the crown of his head, before his hair grew thick and dark and the bones fused.
For this man, it doesn’t matter; his bones crumble like dry sand, cracking along and beyond the fissures when the bullet hits them. The body hits the floor. Toji sighs and goes to wait for his breakfast.
✻✻✻
In the afternoon, all that’s left of the body is a bloody smear on the cement. Toji ambles to the entrance room at the sound of the elevator ascending and going back down, hands in his pockets and inhaling a lungful of spices and soft dough. There are two managers this time around, a tall, brown-haired woman and a lanky man. He’s holding a brown paper bag like it’s burning him.
When they get closer, the woman says, “You have delivery.” She’s got a boxy, strong jaw, and the muscles in it jump as she regards him. “You can ask us if you want to eat, you don’t have to order.”
Toji arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t.”
She blinks in confusion and Toji realizes that the man with her is nothing more than a student; mousy features behind a pair of square glasses. His eyes are very dark and very wide, trying hard not to look at the rusty stain on the ground. When he shifts his grip on the take-out bag, his fingers leave sweaty spots behind.
Toji takes the bag from him without a word and the kid lets out a squeak of surprise, twitching all over with desire to back away. Inside, fried chicken bao buns. Toji takes one out and bites into it. “Well,” he says, swallowing, “thanks.”
As he turns to leave, the kid makes another noise, but it’s the woman who asks, “Aren’t you going to pay for that?”
Toji scoffs at her. “I didn’t order it.”
She scowls. She’s not as afraid of him as the kid is, but she’s still not brave enough to say anything else.
“Come on, Ijichi-kun,” she says, “let’s go back.”
The first bun eaten, Toji fishes his phone out of his sweatpants and dials one of the three numbers in it. It rings three times and then it connects, the voice soft and tiny through the line.
“Hello?”
Toji halts his next step, but only for a second. “Tsumiki.”
“Hi!” She chirps, and then, hesitantly, “Do you need to talk to Shiwoo-san?”
“Mhm, yeah.”
“Oh. Okay.” There’s a rustle and a quiet, “It’s for you, Shiwoo-san,” spoken away from the speaker.
The phone changes hands and then Shiwoo says, “What.”
“You didn’t pay for the take-out.”
“The hell would I pay for, I wasn’t gonna eat it.”
Toji enters his temporary living quarters and sits on his futon cross-legged, digging another bun out of the bag.
“So stingy,” Toji tells him, clicking his tongue.
“As if you paid instead, huh?”
“Well, no.”
Shiwoo hums, satisfied with having made his point. There’s a distant hum in the background of the call, and the clacking sound of the keyboard in Shiwoo’s office.
“What are you working on?” Toji asks.
“None of your business,” Shiwoo tells him ruthlessly.
Toji rolls his eyes and stuffs the rest of the bun in his mouth. His tongue stings from the spice, and he scrapes it against his teeth, smacking his lips.
“They good?” Shiwoo asks.
“Spicy,” Toji says, and doesn’t mention that they are warm and filling.
Shiwoo hums again.
“No, really, what are you doing?”
“Go bother someone else if you’re bored,” Shiwoo tells him. But then, pointedly, “Finding someone to assassinate the Star Vessel, the last guy didn’t make the check-up, so I suppose I can cross him off.”
“Hm, sounds rough,” Toji says.
“Yep.”
Toji finishes eating, Shiwoo keeps typing and sighing, and neither hangs up.
✻✻✻
The evening passes in a series of chess games where Toji moves both parties’ pawns, guided by that intention-thin voice whispering in his ear. Privately, he wonders how far Tengen’s awareness reaches; are they confined to this damp, dark hole in the ground, the responsibility of their existence awarded by the eternity spent watching moss grow on the stone walls.
Or maybe Toji’s just too jaded, always thinking the worst. When he was a kid, he used to wonder if sorcerers saw things differently. Everyone wanted a piece of him, in the same cruel, greedy manner no matter the execution, but he just wanted to borrow Jinichi’s eyes for a moment. Just a second between one blink and another would have been enough, to see the difference.
Maybe Tengen’s everywhere at once, watchful of every blade of grass growing, every bird that has taken flight in their lifespan. Maybe they know what Toji has no chance to; the way she smiled that last morning, pressing a kiss to the soft arch of Megumi’s brow, the way sunlight caught in her eyes on the way out of their apartment.
Maybe Toji’s going stir crazy.
✻✻✻
Shiwoo’s good at his job, which means that the next day, another man is scampering around above them.
Unluckily for him, Toji’s just as good at his.
“Can you stop killing my contractors?” Shiwoo asks on the phone when Toji calls to ask if he’ll get take-out again. He’d like to pick his own lunch if he could.
Toji crouches next to the body sprawled at his feet, an elbow resting on his knee, the blade in his hand pointing down and dripping blood on the ground.
“Aren’t I your contractor too?”
“Not when you’re keeping me from making money.”
It’s a lie, of course. Toji knows the way Shiwoo breathes; he got paid for finding someone to take the job, and whether the job gets done or not is up to fate.
And, in this case, up to Toji.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Toji tells him easily, dragging the point of the dagger through the congealing pool of blood and drawing a single red line on the dusty concrete. There’s a rustling sound from Shiwoo’s end, the squeak of wheels on his office chair as he pushes away from his desk.
“Sure you will,” he says with a snort. Away from the speaker, “Kids, what do you want to eat for lunch?”
Takoyaki seems to be a fan-favorite, but Shiwoo bargains for chicken katsu as a main dish.
“I want chicken karaage,” Toji pipes in.
“I didn’t ask,” Shiwoo responds in a beat. Adds, less heated, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Toji hums, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth, and hangs up before Shiwoo can.
An hour later, the same manager as yesterday brings him a styrofoam box of chicken karaage and rice.
✻✻✻
The next day passes much like the ones before. Toji wanders, bored, plays chess, bored, thinks curiously about how far the word that the Sorcerer Killer is guarding Tengen has spread. And then, in the evening, the air shifts.
Tengen-shaped silhouette in his mind retracts on silent feet, leaving him alone and feeling more watched than ever before. Leaves him with nothing more than a single sentence for their parting – She’s here.
Toji ambles to the elevator room just as the four figures step onto the concrete.
He knew that the Vessel is a teenage girl. But it’s weird to put it in perspective like this, standing in front of him in her school uniform, eyes a bit too clear and a bit too wet to sell her stoic act. The way she clings to the older woman’s maid skirt just solidifies the fact that she’s scared shitless.
The boys next to her wear Jujutsu Tech uniforms, but they’re as snot-nosed as she is. Kids and nothing more, all three of them.
“Good day,” the girl greets, bowing down. “I’m Amanai Riko. Please take care of me!”
Toji, uncomfortable, asks, “Are introductions necessary?”
All four look at him without blinking. The white-haired brat hunches forward and pushes his round sunglasses down his nose to squint at Toji with eyes the color of fluorescent blue playdough Megumi was obsessed with for a while.
“Hah?” He asks, teeth bared. “Hey, old guy-” The second boy smacks him upside the head, hissing “ Satoru, ” in a quick admonishment. That’s the Gojo clan successor then, Toji concludes, an old memory tickling at the back of his mind.
At the same time, Riko the Vessel screeches, “It’s polite!”
Toji arches an unimpressed eyebrow. “Zen’in Toji. Now, if you’re done?”
The boys blink at him owlishly. Gojo brat scrunches up his nose in distaste, saying, “Agh, figures.”
Toji’s both glad and annoyed that they seem to share an opinion concerning his bastard family.
He stands aside while the group says their goodbyes, Riko clutching at her caretaker with white knuckles and shaking arms before walking to his side. Toji’s skin crawls from the weight of everyone’s stares, their eyes intruding and shameless, looking for something that’s not there.
It’s not until they’ve already turned to leave that the second kid asks the question.
“Hey, Zen’in-san, where’s your cursed energy?”
Toji smirks, privately, to himself, small and sharp without teeth, before throwing a look over his shoulders at the group. “I don’t have any.”
He likes to think the look he gives them is victorious.
Knows, without looking back again, that theirs are horrified.
✻✻✻
Toji’s not an electrician, but he’s certain there are no power lines in the chamber. Still, the lightbulbs above them shine with saturated, yellowing light. Toji never bothered with the switches, but Amanai hits every single one as she walks through what will be her last living quarters. Stone and shadows and sunlight filtered in through a hole in the sky. Toji hopes she racks up an electricity bill for the Jujutsu Tech.
She unpacks in a spare room. As in, she puts her backpack next to her futon and takes out a homemade sandwich wrapped in brown paper. Toji watches her from the doorway and shakes his head when she asks him if he wants one.
Tomorrow, she’ll go down to the tree base and Toji will go up to the surface, to the fresh air and a kid he can’t raise. He’s not hungry.
✻✻✻
He calls Shiwoo sometime around midnight. There’s a click as the call connects, and then a heavy sigh of a person who just got woken up from deep sleep before Shiwoo says, “What.”
“It’s tomorrow,” Toji tells him.
Shiwoo is quiet for a while, not even a rustle of sheets to be heard through the speaker. Toji’s beginning to wonder if he fell back asleep when he finally says, “Okay,”
“Did you tell Megumi?” Toji asks, figuring it’s as good a time as any. Thinks about how he’ll walk to the car tomorrow and there will be Shiwoo, smoking out the window, telling him Megumi’s already gone.
“Did I tell your son you’re giving him away?” Shiwoo hisses in response, incredulous. He sounds put out. Angry, maybe. No longer sleepy. “No, I didn’t.”
He hangs up, leaving Toji with a disconnected call and a handful of crushed hope.
Through the partition between their rooms, Amanai sits up and asks him, “Who’s Megumi?”
Neither of them was sleeping, but now all the pretense is up.
“What do you care?”
Undeterred by his tone, she continues: “Is that your daughter?”
Toji gives her a look. He could ignore it – but who’s she gonna tell? Tomorrow at this time, there will be nothing left of Amanai Riko.
“Son,” he tells her.
She blinks, inching closer, almost out of her futon. “Do you have pictures?”
Toji arches an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
She shrugs. “I like kids, they’re cute.”
Toji thinks about Megumi and his sullen silence, the quiet disappointment and betrayal in his eyes whenever Toji steps over the threshold of the latest apartment they’re renting. There’s nothing cute about it, but he finds himself thumbing through his phone anyway.
The photo is easy to find, as it’s the only one he has on this phone, sent to him by Shiwoo during one of their conversations.
Amanai is at the foot of his futon in a blink, shuffling on her knees to take a closer look.
Megumi and Tsumiki are sitting at the table in Shiwoo’s kitchen, a plate of pancakes stacked high in front of them and a jar of strawberry syrup spilled across the tabletop, dripping down onto the tiles. The text it’s attached to reads: I’m charging you for this.
Amanai points at it, asking, “Is that your daughter?”
“No.”
“Your friend’s?”
Toji’s face contorts in some way at the idea of Shiwoo and him being friends and stays that way when he thinks further about Shiwoo being a parent. But it’s not like Toji has a right to judge.
“It’s complicated.”
Amanai stays quiet for a bit, wrapping a loose thread of her pajama pants around her finger. “Is he looking after them while you’re here?”
“Yeah,” Toji responds, retracting his phone as she’s no longer looking at it.
She nods to herself. “That’s nice of him.”
“Sure,” Toji snorts. Shiwoo’s a lot of things, but nice is not one of them. It’s not like he had a lot of choice when Toji already put their stuff in his spare bedroom. It’s usually Toji’s, when he doesn’t feel like going home after a job – and when Shiwoo doesn’t want him in his bed. But its purpose is to sleep in, which is enough for the kids.
He thinks they’re done here, so he’s about to tell her to go back to her room and leave him alone. But then she looks at him through her bangs, guilty, and tells him, “I don’t think I want to do this.”
Toji locks down on the icy sensation that rushes down his spine like a blade.
“What?”
She fidgets with her hair, looking at her knees. “I’m- Why does it have to be me?”
Toji wonders if Shiwoo’s sleeping soundly, maybe feeling that Toji’s out of his depth for once, ironically in the exact disgusting, emotional predicament he hoped Shiwoo would be in with Megumi.
“Because it’s the way things have to be,” he tells her, numbly, fingers crossed that she doesn’t see through his bullshit.
“But it’s not fair,” she says, bitter, her teeth clenched. “Why do I have to give everything up? No one asked me.”
Her eyes are the kind of blue of the deep ocean. In the grand scheme of things, she’s a single drop dragged into the tide, inescapably a part of it. No one asked her because it was not the type of thing that gave her an option. This whole thing, the waiting and expecting and preparing, none of it was for her. Toji was never here to guard her.
“You have a responsibility,” he tells her, frank. “This is not about your feelings anymore.”
She blinks and tears gather at her lashline. “That’s really mean.”
“It’s a mean world,” Toji responds, his mouth a tight line.
“I could still leave.”
Toji thinks about knocking her unconscious and carrying her down himself. He’d find the right spot, he’s sure, properly motivated. Cut open each root until he finds the right one.
Megumi’s got his eyes, twice as cursed, like a forest river, carving its way through mountain stone diligently. Eventually, maybe it would pour into the ocean, but it would cause some damage first. Toji will make sure of it, even if he has to hand him over to the Jujutsu Tech.
“You won’t,” he tells Amanai.
Eventually, she nods in agreement, and goes back to her own futon, defeated.
✻✻✻
Shiwoo calls back before dawn.
“Hey, we'll be there by 8,” he says through the speaker. If he’s still angry, it doesn't show in his voice.
“Alright.” Then, “You're all going?”
“I'm not going to leave a kid alone in the apartment,” Shiwoo tells him in response.
Because he's not Toji.
“The traf-what?”
There's a voice in the background, small and quiet, but so easy to pick up for Toji's ears.
“Can you tie my shoes?”
“You don't know how to tie them?”
“No, Tsumiki does it for me,” Megumi says.
The shortest, tiniest pause from Shiwoo that can’t even be called that, and then a muted groan as Shiwoo crouches, his knees popping. “Let me show you,” he tells Megumi. “This side goes here, then like this, then you make bunny ears-”
“Bunny ears?”
“Yeah, look, and then loop around and pull.”
“Ohhh.”
“You wanna do the other?”
“Mhm.”
Toji keeps quiet and listens, and looks down at his sneakers, the laces yanked on tight across and tucked in – because no one taught him either.
Shiwoo would be a good dad.
The thought is sudden and disturbing, but Toji feels it, viscerally, in his gut.
Shiwoo won't leave kids unsupervised and he’ll bargain with them to eat real, healthy food. He would cook and go to parent-teacher meetings and he’d know what to do with knees scraped raw.
He’d do it better.
He could tell Megumi people are kind and, from him, it wouldn't even be a complete lie.
✻✻✻
The morning finds them both with rocks in their stomachs. Each for their own reason, they fold their beds and gather their belongings with movements laced with lethargy.
Amanai hefts her backpack across her shoulders, dressed in her school uniform like she's just ready to go to class.
“Do you really think this is how it has to be?“ she asks him one last time, standing on the top of a stairwell carved out of stone, curving and leading down into the darkness.
Beats me , Toji wants to tell her, because he doesn't care, won't care. “Yeah,” he says instead, thinking about bowing so low his neck and back ache, thinking about the dark basement and cold cement slick with warm blood. Thinking about thinking that same thing, so long ago. Is this really how it has to be? Is Toji really destined to eat scraps like a dog under the table for the rest of his life?
Yeah.
He wants to tell Amanai it's easier once you accept it, but he doesn't. It won't matter soon.
He watches her descend the stairs until his eyes can’t discern her from the darkness. Then, he turns and leaves.
✻✻✻
The air smells like sunshine and grass. Toji gets shown out by a manager and gets to the parking lot just outside the Jujutsu Tech property when the sun is cresting over the treetops at the horizon.
At the lot, there’s only one car, Shiwoo’s work van, with a big backseat, good aircon, and heating. Tinted windows.
Shiwoo’s smoking against it, watching him approach impassively and Toji gives him a jaunty wave, jacket slung over his shoulder, his duffle smacking against his knee as he walks. It’s just the two of them, staring at each other, and a heavy feeling – like mud and sand settling at the bottom of the lake – crawls to the pit of his stomach.
It dissipates, slowly, as Shiwoo exhales, blowing smoke like a dragon, dark eyes always calculating, cunning, and tells him, “The kids are sleeping in the back.”
Toji grabs the jacket off his shoulder and holds it in a fist to have something to do with his hand.
He gets in the car while Shiwoo finishes his cigarette and stares into the backseat (juice bottles tucked into the doors, the kids covered with thin, spring blankets, curled into each other) until they get on the road.
✻✻✻
Shiwoo’s apartment didn’t change in the few days Toji was away. There aren’t crayon scribbles on the walls and toys on the ground like tripping hazards. The place is orderly and well-maintained, the only evidence of children present is the fuzzy, fairy-tail blanket Tsumiki has entrusted to Megumi, draped across the couch.
The kids woke up halfway through the drive – Tsumiki welcomed him back with a wide, sunny smile, and Megumi only blinked at him sleepily, neither happy nor sad to see him – and now are holed up in the spare bedroom.
Toji makes himself at home in the living room, in the kitchen, opening fridge and cupboards, changing channels. He’s not hungry, he doesn’t want to watch TV, but he likes to make his presence known, fingertips smeared on the glass surface of Shiwoo’s coffee table.
And he’s bored, restless; he doesn’t want to deal with Megumi, so he slips into Shiwoo’s office instead.
“Why are you pissed off?”
Shiwoo looks at him from stapling a stack of papers together, the stapler held in a slack grip before his knuckles tighten and it snaps closed with a loud clack.
“Leave it, Toji,” Shiwoo tells him, disregarding him in favor of tossing the newly stapled papers into one of the drawers.
Toji won't leave it; he likes the pain best when it's picking at a bleeding scab. He leans across the desk, both to tower over Shiwoo and get in his face.
“Megumi's my kid,” he tells him, as if that could ever be questioned.
Shiwoo's eyes go all tight in the corners, tight in the thin line his mouth presses into. “Yeah,” he says, “he is.”
The scar on his mouth itches, taunting him with the memory of being small and helpless. He throws his arms up, asking, “Well, what should've I done? Huh?”
Shiwoo exhales, like he's tired. “Toji,” he starts, hand coming up to rub his forehead. “I don't want to argue about this.”
“You've got no right to be angry,” Toji tells him. “This is the best option for him. Who should I have given him to? My family? ”
“How about yourself?” Shiwoo snaps at him, venomous. “You didn't even try.”
“Of course I didn't!”
Shiwoo startles, not in fear but like he didn't expect Toji to yell.
“I didn't try painting either. Or to write a book. I know I’m not fucking made for it.” Toji swallows. “It would be a waste of time.”
Shiwoo reads between the lines, fine print and all because he knows the way Toji thinks. His shoulders drop. He looks good, but unhappy, and Toji thinks he has no right to it. Who is he to feel bad about this?
“You should've at least given him to someone who cares.” It’s not said meanly, but the words still cut.
“Like who?”
Shiwoo doesn't take long to answer, but the words are quiet, like he's trying to keep it a secret anyway.
“Me.”
Toji opens his mouth, then closes it again. Shifts uncomfortably, jealous and angry that Shiwoo doesn't look embarrassed at all.
“I- huh?”
Shiwoo lights a cigarette before he answers, blowing smoke through his nose harshly. “You heard, asshole.” Then, after another pull, ashing the cigarette into an empty Redbull can, “Give him to me.”
Incredulous laughter bubbles up in Toji's throat, but he manages to swallow it, if barely. “And what, I get visitation rights every time I come over?”
Shiwoo grins meanly, says, “Joint custody,” sharp and meant to sting.
“You don't like kids,” Toji responds. Shiwoo's good with kids, but he doesn't like them – which is infinitely better than liking kids (or just one, in particular) and not knowing what to do with them.
Shiwoo rolls his cigarette between the pointer and middle finger, admits, quiet and adverting his eyes, “I like these ones.”
Toji’s hands go numb, a bit tingly around the wrists, his heart like it's not his own, beating out of sync with the rest of him.
Shiwoo watches him with thinly veiled pity. “Don't overthink it,” he tells him.
✻✻✻
In bed that night, Toji climbs over Shiwoo, straddling his lap while he reads.
“You mean it?”
Shiwoo glances at him over the edge of the book, bedside lamp throwing warm light and soft shadows across his face. “Yeah,” he says, simple and honest, and goes back to reading. His eyes are like cooling coals; still smoking, still radiating heat, but only burning if held too long.
Toji’s insides feel scooped out, guts and all, nothing but his feeble bones and skin left behind. He drops on the mattress sideways, leg still thrown over Shiwoo’s lap, and exhales into the bedspread, weightless.
“Okay,” he says, closing his eyes and falling asleep with Shiwoo’s hand resting over his ribs.