Chapter Text
As far as missions went, Gojo Satoru was fairly certain this one was going to be a slightly boring one.
Being called to travel all the way to somewhere in the countryside of Japan, having to ride a train for 6h while having to drive for another hour and a half only to check in at a rundown inn that would otherwise be considered picturesque but instead looked like it had seen better days was already a good enough indicator, in his opinion, of how the rest of the mission was going to play out.
It wasn’t the first time he was being sent on a mission to such a remote corner of Japan, but it was the first time he sincerely doubted they needed him , specifically, to go. In many ways, it was a mission like any other – the reports of mysterious disappearances in the outskirts of a small village had started piling up, and a quick check had shown abnormal levels of cursed energy. Most missions were like this, and Satoru thought it was so simple that even Utahime could probably manage to complete it by herself (ha).
Still, a mission was a mission, and he was never one to turn down the opportunity to travel and be away from the higher ups for a couple of days at their expense nonetheless, even if it meant spending far too much time on public transport for his taste.
The inn he was staying at was owned by a middle aged couple – the Shimadas –, though in practice the wife seemed to be the one in charge whilst the husband had a more passive role tending to the reception. The husband had seemed surprised when Satoru had walked in carrying only a small suitcase, and Satoru had assured him he’d only need to stay for one night.
“Are you sure?” the man had asked, eyeing him oddly – he often looked rather out of place, to be fair –, and Satoru had amended his reservation to be for two nights instead. After all, no reason as to why he shouldn’t take his sweet time going back to Tokyo.
It was then that the wife had walked in, looking far too hurried for a place that seemed to be stopped in time, and had greeted him politely, quickly attempting to carry his suitcase to his room.
“No need,” he’d assured her, so she’d led him to his room instead, explaining all the while everything he needed to know. Breakfast was served at 8 but he could choose to have it sent to his room instead, check out time was flexible, lunch and dinner were optional but he could request them, there was a small leaflet on his bedside table with information and directions on several touristic spots in the village, and room service could include laundry service if he so requested it.
Satoru had explained he was only there for two nights, but the info had flown right past her – she seemed far too engrossed in the fact that she had a guest to serve to actually listen to what he had to say.
“Are there many other guests here?” he asked once they got to his room, trying to pull the conversation to where he wanted it. “I heard this town is a nice tourist destination.”
The woman seemed to hesitate as she pulled out an extra blanket from the closet, running one of her hands on it to smooth it down in an almost anxious manner. “It used to be,” she finally said, placing the blanket neatly on the perfectly made bed. Ah , there it was, “but tourism has weakened in the past few months,” she admitted.
“Really? I can’t imagine why,” he said, cheerfully. “The town seems beautiful.”
It was. With a pointed absence of modern buildings and surrounded entirely by lush green vegetation, Satoru had felt like he’d gone back in time the further in he drove. He’d looked into it; the mountainous valley had been a rather popular touristy location, especially in the spring and summer, but its popularity had plummeted in the past five months due to the very same mysterious disappearances he’d been sent in to resolve.
“There’s been some incidents,” Mrs. Shimada admitted, looking at him almost apologetically. “A few people have gone missing over the past few months. We have some hiking trails along the mountain but it’s easy to get lost and fall down somewhere. Lately, however, there’s been some speculation that there might be more to it.”
“Oh?” he asked, curiously. “Like what?”
Mrs. Shimada shrugged, looking more relaxed. She’d likely been worried she’d scare him off. “Ghosts. You know how people can be.”
He did. He also knew people could be right. It wasn’t a ghost, but he supposed some people might consider them similar.
“Well,” he said, just as cheerfully as before, setting down his suitcase on the bed so he could get to unpacking, “thankfully I’m not superstitious.”
Mrs. Shimada seemed to acknowledge it as the dismissal it was, and quickly started making her goodbyes, telling him he could order dinner after settling down if he so wanted to. Before she left, however, “Just in case,” she said, hovering near the doorway to his room, “be careful if you go into the forest, and don’t swim in the river at night.”
“Sure,” he lied, knowing exactly where he’d head after dinner. “Just to be safe.”
☾
Satoru unpacked his suitcase despite knowing it was a waste when he intended on spending so little time there, and took a quick shower before heading to dinner.
He pondered between going out to explore the town and eating out somewhere, preferably getting dessert afterwards to tide him over during his exploration of the forest later, but ultimately decided to have dinner at the inn, exorcize the curse, and spend the entire next day finding the best homemade desserts around town before soaking in his private onsen during his last night at the inn.
After dinner, he told the owners of the inn he was going on a walk. Mrs. Shimada immediately looked up at him from where she’d been busily wiping down the tables in the dining room.
“It’s a little late,” she said, looking at him with suspicion. “Remember what I told you.”
“Don’t worry, Shimada-san,” he said, cheerfully. “I’m just going to explore the town.”
“At this hour?” she said, stealing a furtive glance at the clock hung on the wall behind him.
“I need to walk off all the delicious food I just ate,” he said, lowering his sunglasses and throwing her a wink. “I’ll be back later!” he announced, swiftly turning around to make his way out.
The inn was located at the edge of the small city; close enough that a short car ride or a 20 minute walk would get him there, but far away enough that the only noise you could hear was the sound of the wind rustling the leaves on the trees and the occasional hoot of owls perched nearby.
Satoru didn’t have a map, and he didn’t have enough reception either to use the Maps app on his phone, but he didn’t need it; as he ventured deeper into the forest, he could already sense the cursed energy nearby, making it easy for him to follow it.
Predictably, the nearer he got to the river – the famous river where more than a dozen teenagers had disappeared after deciding to take a dip during the hot summer nights –, the stronger the cursed energy was.
There was, however, something eerily off about it.
When Satoru had been assigned to this mission, he’d done so with the knowledge that there was more to it than met the eye. It wouldn’t be the first or second and definitely not the last time a curse was categorized as grade 1 or 2 only to turn out to be something completely off the charts. Even if he were to come face to face with a special grade curse, it would be fine, because Gojo Satoru was the strongest, and there wasn’t a single curse or person who would be able to take him down.
The problem was, as Satoru walked closer to the source of cursed energy he sensed, he realized the cursed energy he could feel was definitely one he’d felt many times before. He hadn’t come across it in a while – ten years, to be more exact – but it was unmistakably–
“Suguru?”
☾
Satoru had met Geto Suguru during his first year at Tokyo Jujutsu Tech.
Satoru had thought Suguru was too uptight; Suguru had thought Satoru was too conceited. On all accounts they should have fit together like water and olive oil and, for a while, they did – neither willing to spend a minute longer than necessary in each other’s presence –, until eventually Suguru bit the bullet and approached him.
“Wanna spar?” he’d asked, completely out of the blue, during one afternoon in which Shoko had slinked out of their classroom to go smoke and Suguru had, surprisingly, stayed behind. He always went with her, but Satoru always pretended he didn’t notice, eyes conveniently hidden behind his sunglasses.
“What?” he’d asked, taken aback but unwilling to show it, instead trailing his eyes up and down his form. “With you? Why, so you can lose?”
Suguru had snorted – and then Satoru was really taken aback, because Suguru had never looked so amused near him before – but he hadn’t backed down. Instead, “Come on,” and Satoru followed him outside.
One spar had been enough for Satoru to stop underestimating Suguru and for Suguru to smile smugly as he finally took Satoru down a peg.
“I only lost because we weren’t using cursed energy,” Satoru had said, even though he’d heard some of their upperclassmen whisper about how improbable and completely out of pocket it was that that two first years were already Special Grades – and Satoru knew it wasn’t Shoko.
“Cursed energy isn’t everything,” Suguru had retorted, and Satoru remembered not really agreeing – leading to them bickering the entire way back to the dorms – but in the end, they hadn’t walked away from each other with the usual mass of annoyance hanging over their shoulders every time they interacted. Instead–
Satoru had spent more time without Suguru than the time he’d spent with him, but he’d never been able to forget him.
They’d been inseparable for nearly two whole years, but then everything had changed. Amanai Riko’s death had changed something in them, for better or for worse, and without Satoru even noticing they’d drifted apart. One could argue all the missions they’d been sent on separately had driven a wedge between them, but Satoru knew better – Suguru had been miserable, and Satoru had been too focused on getting stronger.
One day, Suguru disappeared.
“I’ll make sure to bring you some souvenirs,” had been the last thing Suguru ever said to him, and it hadn’t even been in person. They’d been on the phone as Suguru traveled to a remote village on a mission; Satoru had just been returning from one of his own.
Suguru had never brought back any souvenirs, and Satoru had never been able to give him the ones he’d bought for him. Instead, Suguru had exorcized the curse he’d been hired to get rid of and had taken two little girls with him as he disappeared into the night without a trace.
Over the years, Satoru had tried to find him. Desperately, even – every mission he took was an excuse to look for Suguru, and all of his free time was spent trying to track him. He knew the scent and the feel of Suguru’s cursed energy intimately but, despite all his efforts, he’d never been able to find it again.
“If he doesn’t want to be found then you’re not going to be able to find him,” Shoko had told him one day, some five years after Suguru’s disappearance. “Maybe you should–”
She’d never been able to finish her sentence, because Satoru had walked away.
Maybe he should move on. Stop trying to find Suguru in every person he saw and in every corner of every street, both in Japan and outside. Stop hoping he would suddenly come across his best friend – the one he’d never gotten to hold quite the way he’d wanted to – and would be able to get him to go back home with him.
Instead, Suguru was right there.
His hair was longer and his face was more mature, his traces more defined, but he was undeniably Geto Suguru. His cursed energy felt the same as it always had, his eyes were blown wide with shock, and he was dressed far more casually than Satoru had imagined him to be every time he fantasized about their reunion.
Suguru.
He’d missed him so much.
He was never going to let him out of his sight again.