Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Start.

—

For as long as Yuuji had recognized his existence did the knowledge of how he came to, come unbeknownst to him just as lengthily.

He has since abandoned the thoughts and questions relating to such, during the centuries of him traversing the world. Queries of:

When had he started associating himself with a gender? He does not know.

When had he started wearing a black cloak that reaches pass his feet? Or had carried a scythe as black as midnight far taller than he? He isn’t aware.

The name—Yuuji—is unfamiliar; yet it feels right, immediately so from the very first time he spoke it; the perfect glide of syllables against the roof of his mouth to his tongue, the comfortable movement of it on his lips, and the perfect click of the letters against his teeth. And so Yuuji he came to be.

Yuuji has lived as early as the first humans of the world were crafted from soil, and molded by heated hands and baked under the giving rays of the sun. He was there to guide those that were left behind broken and incomplete during the cruel attainment of their perfection. With a gentle hand he had brushed their eyes closed, humming over their ears a prayer for peace, then with a hand to their heart, their souls would perch onto his left palm; he hopes for them safe travels as they disperse into fragmented light.

Yuuji has been with the people in all the times that they have existed. Never leaving them unaccompanied when time and circumstance has come for them to cease to be. With a whisper of a voice that sounds akin to a lullaby, Yuuji tries his best for tranquility to take over their soul in their passing.

For Yuuji believes:

It is with kindness and innocence they were brought to the world, and it is with kindness and forgiveness will they part from it.

But Yuuji isn’t the judgment maker for the souls. He is not the one people flood the pews to kneel to. He is not the music that is sung in the churches or the name that gives birth to hope. He is not the one uttered when they hold a crucifix between their hands, and he is not the one whom tears are shed for. Yuuji isn’t the light they see above the sky, because Yuuji—for as long as humans have been alive—had always been right beside them, patiently waiting: kind and forgiving.

He simply gathers the souls in his hands, and without power in his words, accepts their need for repentance; without strength in the timbre of his voice, tell them of a promise of rebirth—and with a kiss to the souls and a tear falling from his eye, his scythe would split them into two, sending them into the afterlife.

In all his work, he has not dared to understand what happens beyond. Afraid of knowing suffering can come even if people have suffered enough. Yuuji feigns ignorance to spare himself of resurrecting the ache for it in his chest that has dulled with the passage of time. He smiles as both a comfort to himself and the next ghost of a human to come.

Yuuji understands why he exists. Has come to know where his boundaries and duties rest and stops. He doesn’t push for more nor wish for less, because he is happy with where he is—content with how he moves through the waking earth. It is a job bestowed to no one but him, and Yuuji accepts it all for everything that it is.

But there’s a hollowness in his existence. As though there is a gaping maw inside him that has never been filled up. Out of the long life of his, it is the only thing that leaves him restless. It is an itch that would fester and leave him wounded, it is a hunger that would eat away from him where his stomach should be. It is the chewing of his fingernails or the pulling against his pink-colored hair. It is the dryness of his mouth and the clenching of his jaw and grinding of his teeth. It is pain. It is sorrow; and it is no comfort.

It has disturbed Yuuji just as long as humans populated the world—just as long as Yuuji understood he lives but never knew the life before it.

He had first thought it as a curse that comes with his responsibilities. That it was inevitable for suffering to not come for him when he would often times take apart human souls from the human bodies even when they beg him not to. He believes it is the effect of being unforgiving—that it is what he deserves for settling and never asking.

But it is a phantom pain that has become difficult to ignore over decades. Absurdly so, that Yuuji has started to pray for himself for any relief to come to him. He would kneel in front of open church doors, clasp his hands over each other, press his forehead against them, and out loud he would ask for ease in his discomfort—to take pity on him and his aches. Tell them, that aside from any other, he knows they exist and believes immensely in the stories and their truth.

Yuuji is aware of the origins and the faces of the humans’ religious fidelity, and he hopes that the knowing, comes to him in a miracle.

However, as the choir sings through broken speakers in a confusion of notes, and the people pass by him without acknowledgment nor care—no sort of peace comes to visit him; as with every day, and with numerous decades since.

In desperation and the kindness of his heart, Yuuji tried to put reason in places where there is no need for one. He deludes himself that the gods must’ve thought of him selfish for praying when he is no mortal or man. He thinks to himself that his well-wishes must’ve gone amiss from the millions that flutter towards the heavens every living second. Contents himself with the possibility that they indeed have heard him, only that his healing will take time—and time is one of the few things Yuuji has in abundance.

And so, Yuuji waits; even if the silence after every praying has reached countless, unchanging centuries.

—

The hurt has come for Yuuji far worse than he had thought. Over the last several years, it has slowly morphed into something more physical in feeling. That the emptiness is heavy inside him instead of a faint subconscious weight. That there is meaning behind him grasping his chest as he struggles for breath—even though there is no necessity for mortal needs when it comes to him staying alive.

But it’s there. Bothersome with its presence; heady in that it chokes him against his throat if he doesn’t cough, doesn’t pound against his chest. Metal shackles around his ankles if he doesn’t stop to sit and stretch his legs for rest. Yuuji is experiencing human tribulations and he is quite unsure as to why.

He remains bounded to his duties and just the same, performs as he’s expected. But fatigue starts gnawing at him, in a way that Yuuji started learning to sleep—even for a minutia of a second. Started to stand idle to ease the ache in his feet from walking. Learns to appreciate the cold breeze when he feels perspiration against his skin.

Worry is etched in Yuuji’s brows and the way he bites the bottom of his lips, for a thought—as he sits on a bench overlooking a river and the setting sun—an inkling of a perchance that assaults even in his reverie and that he can’t quiet down. Yuuji looks at the orange sky dusting with stars and the dark blue of the coming night, hears the jovial laughter of people around him, and when he feels a trampling over his feet and he meets with an incredulous gaze at him and nothing at the same time before the child runs away again—did everything morph into a factual possibility.

Above his heavy breathing he hears the welcoming gong of a church far into the distance. Clutching his scythe in a sweaty palm, and the other against his tightening chest, Yuuji turns to walk—a new prayer on his lips, more urgent than the last. Yuuji begs that this time, someone answers.

—

After dutifully finishing one his soul collecting spree, the earth has been engulfed in a raven-dark night when Yuuji’s feet brought him to the closest church he could find. To search for both answers and reprieve. Just as always that it has become almost second nature, he banishes his scythe away and with knees to the hard concrete, he prays.

Yuuji has held this belief that he was borne out of something, and that, if it wasn’t something, then someone must’ve given him his breath and purpose. He finds it presumptuous to assume he has simply been be. Every time his thoughts have muddle themselves of ideas regarding the matters of his existence, the idyllic one he has filled the puzzle with was that:

Yuuji was brought onto earth by a heavenly god. That he was made from the same debris and mud as those of humans and bathe under the same sun—that he was the first person done in their likeness and to commemorate him, they gave Yuuji the job of guiding his own people to judgment for a second chance at living.

Yuuji chooses to believe he is made by the holy than to ever tempt himself to even whisper that he was birthed to by someone else entirely. For if he was made by them, then his prayers shall not be heard—was never listened to, to begin with. That his duty is a disastrous omen than a good one. That he is a pillager of souls than a rescuer. That he is more of a curse—a plague for death than providing kindly, temporary refuge in its after.

Yuuji refuses to believe he is made by the same hands that brought ill to his own people.

He trembles in his position, praying louder to block off the surging thoughts. He holds himself tight with his arms wrapping his front body, face down onto the concrete as Yuuji continues on to pray, to hope, to find answers, and to be less hurt.

Yuuji grovels at the ground but nothing came, instead he feels emptier than ever. The wind continues to whistle past him, with humans drunkenly staggering by, unknowing and uncaring for his struggles. The hurt reaches his throat that he struggles for breath—

But none came still.

The gods are quiet even as Yuuji cries for sympathy.

—

It is a rare occurrence, other than today, that Yuuji feels a feeling akin to frustration doused with misery. They prick like thousands of needles at his skin as he—for the nth time of the day—cradles a lost life in his hand, and with a wish and a kiss for the soul, he cuts it in half into all too familiar incandescent pieces of light. Tension drowns his body as the jaws of the night has come to eat away at the sky.

It was a car accident this time. The driver slamming too hard against the brakes that it careens the vehicle away from the highway, tumbling into the forest and propelling itself onto a tree. Yuuji saw the way the tree shook and heard the faintest breaking on its trunk. The driver died when his head collided with the steering wheel. Guilt in his chest from the knowing of the soul belonging to a father on the way home to a loving family.

It seemed it was his turn to buy dinner.

A frown sets on Yuuji’s face as humans pass by him to run onto the wreckage, he hears them shouting frantically on their phones. His eyes stray from the en masse towards the unmoving carcass of a deer on the middle of the road. His left hand feels a bit colder when the animal’s blood pools over itself.

Yuuji looks away. He has witnessed the same tragedy and held the same soul countless of times before but the hurt has yet to completely feel dull and unimposing, even as he moves on to the next.

He places a palm against his chest, feeling both the void and the all-commanding ache within its cavity.

It has been two weeks since that ill-fated day that Yuuji bared himself to grief in the form of prayer but nothing has changed.

It was offensive in a way, and he grapples with harboring animosity towards the divine beings or simply letting the emotion pass, to move on, and continue revering all the holy. But it scratches and breaks his skin when he remembers. Afraid that when they might see right through him if he asks for help, and judgment for him might come early due to it, Yuuji has since returned to church.

Existing is becoming more uncomfortable. Each passing day stretches further and shorter at the same time. His scythe now heavy for his arms, his clothing suffocating and tight against his body. He feels like he needs to breathe, to sleep as he feels ever more exhausted—but he has yet to feel hunger and thirst and Yuuji isn’t overjoyed of it, if they become an eventuality.

Yuuji wonders if this is indeed tell-tale signs of becoming human. That maybe, without him being aware, he would start aging day by day. And yet, it doesn’t make sense. For there is no reason that runs in his mind that could justify it. He would like to dismiss it as a peculiarity but that doesn’t seem fitting either.

Is he falling? He thinks. However, that sounds absurd, because Yuuji isn’t sure if he is even born from the gods of the heavens or—

He purse his lips, avoiding the thought.

Yuuji steps into a quiet home, or at least, it’s void of conversation today. He enters from the foyer, welcoming himself into the space with a whisper and pads his way towards the living room. The television is turned on and the flickering of its lights bounces on the walls and carves a face that stares straight into it. It was woman watching a late-night movie as she munches on sliced apples. Yuuji chuckles silently with her at a scene in the film before he veers into the left hallway.

He stops at the last door to his right and with a deep breath he steps in. It was pitch dark with the blinds covering the windows from city lights and the lamps and overhead bulbs switched off. Yuuji can make out a silhouette on the bed, a shape of a body—another woman—he steps further inside. He hears a creak to his left and his gaze lands on a swaying rocking chair and a man a top of it; cocooned in a quilt blanket, sound asleep.

Another frown sets on Yuuji’s face and a sting on the edges of his eyes that he blinks away when he slowly sits himself on the end of the bed.

Hears the hum of the oxygen machine as he reaches out to a cold hand. Yuuji bites his lips. He reaches out further and places his left hand onto the woman’s chest and with a chant spoken beneath his breath, his fingers latch onto a warm aged soul—white flame looking ball of heat, he pulls it out gently while a tear cascade down Yuuji’s cheek. He smiles bitterly and regretfully as he hears them beg him for another chance, another breath, just so they could say goodbye. But Yuuji neither has the right nor the power, and with a choked sob, and a wish for forgiveness, and just like with every soul that he gathered and came to him, they disperse in fragments when they collided with the long blade.

There’s a lodge on the back of his throat, but he pays no mind to it as Yuuji stands up shakily, struggling to find balance. With his weapon as his aid, he wipes his tears away with the sleeves of his cloak, and slowly walks himself towards the sleeping man.

Yuuji isn’t powerful in a sense that he could ever rivals the gods. He is far beneath that hierarchy and he always will be. However, he can tinker with the human world if he so chooses. But not in a way that can affect the choices of the people and the flow of life itself, not when it is beyond even the rights of all the holy and the damned.

A bitter thought blooms in his mind: that maybe the reason the gods are proven unreliable to Yuuji’s plight, is because they would be altering something greater than a simple, relentless feeling.

He shakes his head in disagreement. Yuuji shouldn’t be consequential like that. Because he knows…

He knows that he is replaceable.

He grips against the body of his scythe tighter, and grounds himself.

Yuuji presses two fingers onto the man’s temple. Licking his dry lips, a word passes through them, speaking in ancient tongue that no scripture ever wrote about. It is a lost language that only he and those above and below remembers. He steps back just as the man jolts awake. Yuuji couldn’t find it in himself to have the soulless human body grow cold and rigid when it comes to greet its child in the morning. When he scrambles towards the bed, Yuuji walks away.

He hears shouting inside the room just as he enters the hallway—

“Mom? Mom! Wake up! Mom?!”

Hears the stomping of approaching footsteps and feels a nudge against his right shoulder—Yuuji pauses and holds his breath.

He eases as it seemed the girl paid no mind as she kept running;

“Dad? What happened? Grandma?!”

“Sweetheart, call the ambulance, now—Mom!”

“Grandma, please…please wake up—"

He excuses himself from the space with a murmur when the quiet home is awoken by grief-stricken cries and loss of moments and chances.

Chest heavy, Yuuji moves on to the next.

—

This time Yuuji feels agitated, anxious, and maybe even both.

It’s a windy day today and pair with it a downpour that forces everyone back into their homes to huddle for warmth. But Yuuji sits on a park bench unbothered by the rain hitting his skin and that which drenches him as it pads down harshly onto everything above the earth.

The cold air bites at his skin but he doesn’t mind, as memories from today and all of few weeks ago come one after the other—he’s been feeling people lately. Colliding with their physical bodies when he shouldn’t have. Their stares that seemed to look onto him, only to be shaken off as a passing thought or apparition and it has kept Yuuji on edge ever since.

He chews on his nails to calm himself. There was one in particular, an old man, late into his life, living his last hours within the walls of hospice care—he was pointing at him, eyes wide in fear, babbling and tripping over his words in a way that seems to be nonsense to the other people in the room but Yuuji understood every word:

“Reaper! Reaper! There’s a reaper!”

“What are you doing here?! Get away!”

Yuuji starts biting at the flesh on his thumb, eyes glazed over and staring far away from the memory,

“Monster!”

He bites his finger in a way that hurts, harshly tugging at the skin,

“Curse!”

“Demon!”

He hisses when he breaks skin and blood dribbles out from the wound. He extends his right arm out into the rain, watching as it washes away his blood again and again.

Then realization crashes down on him, and Yuuji feels a shiver run from the top of his spine down to his toes, curling in apprehension when a weight so heavy settles inside his lower torso.

This time, it’s Yuuji’s eyes that are drowning in fear, and it is his breath that’s stuck in his throat and struggling to escape.

He yanks his hand back and close to him, inspecting it under the hood of his robe that covers it from the onslaught of the rain. And sure enough, it’s there—

Blood. Red—not ambrosia gold, red.

Yuuji’s blood has turned red and it’s falling down from the cut, that should’ve long since closed, further down to his wrist and under the sleeves of his ink black clothes.

This is a first that Yuuji has felt a sense of freezing cold. Feeling tremors throughout his body in his sitting, curling into himself as he labors for breath, eyes still wide, the certainty ever daunting—terrifying.

He hears the church bells ring in his ears and he almost cries from the absurdity of it. That the gods must have played with a fabric of the world; finding amusement in his unbecoming.

Yuuji closes his eyes hoping for a semblance of peace—away from the truth and the knowing.

—

Bleary eyes stare at the welcome arch of the cemetery Yuuji has found himself in front of. Exhaustion evident on his face—dark under eyes, cheeks a bit hollow, brows turning downwards, and chapped lips frowning and bleeding.

Who knew an omnipresent being would appear no worse for wear than any average human that appears to have gone a week without sleep. But Yuuji might just be leaning on the latter—more human he has become than godly.

He licks his dried lips, as he passes through the rusting gates solemnly.

In the past few days since the storm and Yuuji’s blood has gone from amber gold to an offending red—there has been a barrage of voices shouting at him in all directions, no matter how much Yuuji had tried to tamper with it into silence, they stayed. A disruptive cacophony of anger and pleading, and they yell at Yuuji to go to the same place at a specific time, at a specific date.

He walks through broken concrete and between tombs and nameplates he does not remember but he must’ve held them kindly in his hands regardless. At the end of the cemetery settles old names long and forgotten—overgrown with grass and mold laying upon the tombstones. When he reaches the edge, Yuuji looks to the west and sees the flickering lights of the sun disappearing beyond the woods. When he turns to look up at the sky and the first glint of the northern star comes to greet him, Yuuji walks on further.

The voices have been quiet when Yuuji finally did what he was told. For they wouldn’t quiet down the entire time he was working; leaving him fatigued, with aches in his joints and the drumming inside his chest ruthless than usual. Yuuji has since used his scythe as a walking stick, offensively heavy for long-term carry—and it nicks at him like an itch that refuse to go away. He trudges further, farther and away from the resting bones and marked graves—

Closer.

The voices whisper, as if afraid that they’ll disrupt the coming of the night and the sleeping trees. Giving them more respect that they did him during the days’ past.

Close.

And Yuuji looks up from the ground as he tried to navigate in the dark from tripping on uproots and stone. The moonlight introduces him to the biggest tree in the forest, giving light to its age in its bark and the dark green of its never-ending mass of leaves, swaying with the subtle breeze. He nears and at the very base of it stands a small, inconspicuous shrine.

Here. Here. Here.

Yuuji approaches cautiously, unsure if he can fend for himself if danger comes for him in the shadows. The surrounding blares ominous, that Yuuji is tip-toeing into a place he shouldn’t be allowed. The ground feels old and commanding on his bare feet. As though it knows the history of the world and are imbedded deep into every speck of dirt and pebble. Sacred under the bottom of his scythe and the edges of his tattered robe. Yuuji inhales, instantly heady from the pulsating power covering him—it lives like a pocket of heaven surrounded by the looming proof of finite living.

It's ancient when the scent sticks to the flat pad of his tongue. But stale when he comes to taste it. It’s like copper, or hardened bread; the stagnant air during the peak of winter, the uncomfortable smell of petrichor when the ground was far too hot when rain comes to parch its thirst.

Heaven was said to be sweet—the perfect ripening of fruit drenching the tongue. The freshest water cleansing the throat, and the calming breeze.

Suspicion rises onto Yuuji’s gait, realizing where the voices and his weary feet led him to. He stands still, waiting for what’s beyond the dark to quite possibly take him. But the silence welcomes his presence into the space—cloaking him in a comfort he has not known for so long.

Tears prickle in his eyes, threatening to fall, because it has been such a long while, that the voices are quiet, and when he feels no traitorous ache in his chest—the tears glide down his cheeks unbidden when he feels its weight peeling away from his shoulders. A sob escapes him when his hand meets the roof of the shrine—no bigger than a bird house—and for the first time in years…Yuuji feels godly than human.

He crumbles to the floor, soil hard-pressed on his knees, he clasps his hands together, lays his forehead against them, and with the moon as his carer—

He prays.

And this time, he was answered.

—

For hundreds of years, Yuuji had not known how he came to be—always having questions but never given an answer to each. He learned to live with his unknowing, learned to appreciate the loneliness, and the mystique and mystery of simply being given a life, a duty, a purpose.

And now, as he hunches over a shrine, words tripping over each other, trying to speak of everything and anything that came to mind, Yuuji finds himself and the life before he lived.

There have been varying iterations of Yuuji as a presence. Some had known of him as a god, a servant, and even catastrophe personified. Humans know of him, drawn and written in varying form and fonts throughout the centuries, but there has always been one link that tied it all together. Every time he is spoken of as a story and soliloquy or written as a cautionary tale—Yuuji has, for every moment, in the eyes of the children of the gods—is born from the deepest recesses of the soil.

Dark, molten red, just as feared as he is respected. Yuuji wasn’t born from the same earth as with people, he was born in shadows. Wasn’t baked in the sun, and wasn’t the first human made from a deity’s likeness—no. Yuuji was spun from the webs of the darkness of the far underground, and though Yuuji was indeed made in semblance of the upper deities, not because the damned carry affection for the people—not in the least. Yuuji was molded to look like them as a form of spite—humorous, and petty, with intent to offend and to anger them. He was created as a vessel for that hate and displeasure…and Yuuji never even knew. Yuuji was not nursed with loving warmth—he was bathe in the cold rivers of the underworld.

The praying had indeed been worthless from the start.

Yuuji is neither a god or a man, he just is. Existing to amble between divinity and mortality, and never be one or either. Yuuji is alive for a singular role and will remain as such until the end of his time.

Until life grows tired of him, or the gods above no longer find fascination with his character. He will live until the earth and its darkest, most impure of muck call for him to rest.

For who is Yuuji if not a hollow of a supposed man and an incomplete form of a deity. This must be the truth to the emptiness of his chest—the lack of a soul. For how can two different halves ever make a seamless, unified whole?

And so, it is with grief did Yuuji accepts the truth, and it is with sadness that he takes it with him.

He shed tears still, eyes shut tight, choked sobs echoing in the evening—even if the light of the moon touches his skin and wraps around him like a loving mother, Yuuji is still carved out from the inside, a vessel with no occupant, barren, empty. Its warmth does not seep into his skin. Does not fill him up, and does not make him feel any less half-finished.

As the forest trees stand on guard of his figure, and the wooden shrine sits serenely on the protruding bark of the oldest pine, and the shadows swallowing his surroundings yet shying away from the gaze of the moon, Yuuji understood that the voices never meant harm—far from it even.

They simply wanted Yuuji to finally know.

Amongst the thousands of paper sheets containing his stories, and of the gods, demons, and the heroes—in between each of their tales speak of adversaries beyond normal human suffering. Blotched ink and carved stone preach of experiencing the greatest of misery, the most arduous of tests and trials; that one must be broken down to their very marrow, and tiniest chip of their soul, before they could ever hold the truth in their hands. And then, do the heroes get the accolades, do the demi gods ascend to divinity, and to the deities and demons get their pardon.

As Yuuji looks up with tear-stained cheeks, staring right at the haloing white light, did he understand, one final thing—

Yuuji’s suffering has yet to end. That Yuuji will continue to endure until he returns to the cursed ground. That the void inside him will presume the torment when he leaves—until he is finally called back home.

—

In the hours’ span between his visit to the olden woods and of Yuuji reconvening with humanity to fulfill his responsibilities—did the reprieve come short-lived. It left the moment the sun started peeking into the horizon and his stride led him onto concrete pavements in disrepair, long-forgotten by the people and made to erode with time. When their soles left the soft comfort of the soil, did his scythe feel heavy again in his hands, the tension back and coiling tight on his muscles; his joints ache, and the sunken, downward pull on his face returned.

When sweat beads on his forehead and his clothing clung onto him, did Yuuji fervently wish to turn back around, only to lay back on moss and dew drenched grass, but he couldn’t—for it was the song of the trees and the meandering animals themselves that had ushered him out and towards the entrance. Yuuji bites his lips, steeling himself to be brave and to not fall prey to indulgence and folly.

For Yuuji is no man: he should not crave for more than he is given.

And for Yuuji is no deity: he must not be selfish and take more than he needs.

A tight grip on his blade, Yuuji saunters away convincing himself with every step to not look back. Far back in the mind it was, and difficult for him to acknowledge—Yuuji searches for the now mum voices, parsing through his thoughts hoping to hear even a whisper, to make out words that tell him that it’s time for Yuuji to return.

—

The day started as a rainy morning, the clouds grey and gloomy, coupled with the harsh wind—ice cold that rattles his bones.

They never gave way for the sun to peak through, and by the time the downpour had ebbed, the moon has come up in greeting dragging along with it a clear dark sky and the twinkling stars, lining the expanse with varying constellations. Yuuji was there when they were made, given stories, and given importance. Yuuji had always been there for every human victory and human failure; carries the history of the world on his palms and along the sharp blade of his scythe. Watching how the people changed and challenged the natural flow of the earth, watch them desecrate it, only to now desperately find ways to save it. He was there in every bitter war and in every bloodshed—far too many souls flying to him all at once. Within those trying times, Yuuji had a question he, still to this day, feared of speaking into existence—

Yuuji questions where the gods were during them. Were they weeping for their children swimming in their own blood? Or were they laughing and toasting with gold chalices filled to the brim with the finest grape wine as they watch them fight each other to their death? Were the gods merciful for letting them fix their own tomfoolery? Or were they merciless for never intervening with the culling?

Yuuji does not know the answer nor does he fully comprehend how the gods go about placing importance upon human existence. For Yuuji sees them for what they are: humans when broken to their finest of flesh, and most refined of souls, all end up looking the same—equally important and equally inadequate. It is why he doesn’t understand the favoritism, cannot perceive it with his constitution.

Or maybe he did, once. Only that, it was washed and drowned away when Yuuji—cradled in the hands of the shadows—washed him with the flowing tears of Lethe. Maybe the shrine had not told him everything of his own story.

Regardless, Yuuji is someone that resides in neither. He has no place to speak or the power to meddle even if he could, no, wanted to. Even humans and other measly gods have feared questioning the divinity, so why shouldn’t Yuuji be the same?

Midnight had turned its head, and the humans are slowly making their way to bed. The artificial city lights dying one by one, finally giving way to the grace of the silver-lit sky and the serene silence only achievable above the snoring of the people. And yet, Yuuji’s work is far from finished. And he feels nothing but tattered washcloth that has been sullied and thrown away. It never fails to take a toll on his empty visage—exacerbating its ache, helping nothing but amplifying its torment.

Yuuji notice that he is feeling ever more human by the day.

Obvious with how mortal eyes would sometimes linger on the place he stood a few seconds ago when he has to stop to catch his breath. How he would hit shoulder to shoulder with passers-by; with them stepping on his robe, or tripping over his feet when he feels all sluggish with his movements. There have been multiple chances of him finally getting caught by the living and it always leaves him with immense dread. However, there seem to be some godly interference at play that manages to save him every time.

When queries begin to occupy their human thoughts in a way that reflects in their irises when they catch a glimpse of his face under the hood of his robe through their periphery, and are so close to verbalizing the uncertainty, they would no sooner walk pass by him confused on why they stopped in their tracks than curious about who this man with unconventional clothing that fits ill with their stature walking along the streets with them. Beneath his breath Yuuji thanks whomever gladly tampers with the veil between the common and the holy, purposefully choosing to keep Yuuji’s anonymity from the mortals—for purposes most likely of entertainment than actual instinctive worry, but it does not matter to him, he expresses his gratitude towards them regardless.

It is also with fortunate circumstance that for all the time he has lived, Yuuji has always been a friend to the dark, even if he used to not feel that way in return. Remembers how he pushed away the idea of being born from sinful earth and yet here he is, exactly what he has long feared. It has since been remedied by time however and soothe by the encroaching woods of the bygone years. Yuuji has come to accept and understand himself, the reason of his creation, and the nature of work that comes with it.

And so, Yuuji idles by within the dark, sure of himself to never be gazed upon, and never to be perceived by the unassuming human eyes. He walks the shadows between fading life force to fading life force, invading burning houses, crouching into earthquake shattered building debris, and sitting down onto plush carpet, stained with blood and a naked corpse, or over glossy hard wood looking onto the beeping of a heart monitor. Yuuji is far comfortable being unseen and he would prefer to be so for as long as he is able.

Yuuji may know the story of the world, but like the others he does not own his life—and it is this glaring fact that cements Yuuji between the push and pull of his identity.

Distracted by his thoughts, Yuuji manage to guide himself in front of a rooftop door, to lead him into an open space free of the distraction of neon traffic lights, the orange tinge of the street lamps and the humming engines of cars and slow-paced walking of individuals on the streets. Yuuji is with the company of nothing else but the vast inky black above, the shining stars and the crescent moon to his left—

And to his right, of a man that's standing on the edge of the building.

In the freezing night that man is wearing nothing but a black shirt that hugs his physique just right, tucked perfectly into dark blue dressed pants held tightly around his hips by a black belt, with well-maintained dress shoes snug around his feet. The man stares below, and Yuuji notice in amazement how blue his eyes are, bright in contrast to the night, his hair—white as snow—out of place for someone his age. The man looks as though he is in his late twenties.

Hiding in the dark, Yuuji tilts his head, not understanding but free of judgment in his curiosity, as to how such a man is contemplating on jumping from one of the highest buildings of the city. Brows knit together, his eyes roam down to the man’s arm hidden inside his pants’ pockets, and observes a cloth slung onto one of his forearms as it sways stiffly with the wind.

Yuuji is not one to ask, however, and never one to intrude and push the buttons. That just with every time he’s done this since, he relaxes into his standing posture and aching feet, to wait—patiently as always, for what might come next.

But as the stars move across the galaxy, the man of alabaster-skin, cottony-white hair, and with the oceans in his eyes, have not once move or to indicate in his stance of an intent in recklessly jumping. If it weren’t for the way he shuffles from foot to foot, and the blinking of his white eyelashes, or the subtle twitching of his lips—the man appears no less than a dignified modelist sculpture. Similar to those marble statues Yuuji have seen being picked and carved into a perfect idyllic aesthetic, fit to be gazed upon and marveled for hundreds of years to come.

Ever the tolerant being, even if weariness has come for his tired limbs, and his insides still gravely hollow and uncomfortable, Yuuji waits still.

And it is there, when Yuuji has resigned to a possibility of the man changing his mind and walking away—he turns his body around, but he remains at the edge, standing unbothered, as though it does not worry him that a sudden strong gust of wind could most likely push him off even if he did not want to. With the calm breeze now on his face and pushing his hair back, Yuuji sees the unapologetic beauty of the man. This was a new experience he belatedly realizes that Yuuji stares physically enamored by a person, and he has seen his fair share of faces and bodies.

The thought on his tongue, but Yuuji is afraid to say it—

The man before him could rival the magnificence of the deities and Yuuji hopes no one peers into his thoughts or else anger could befall both him and the mortal before him.

The taller man stares into the dark, right onto where Yuuji has been waiting, few feet aways from each other.

That’s…odd. Yuuji thought to himself.

The darkness is his strongest companion and it has not once failed Yuuji in keeping him within the veil of anonymity. He metaphorically shakes off the worry bubbling in him. Before he could even process another thought, a voice carries over to Yuuji, soft, almost melancholic. His eyes stray back onto the man’s own, noticing how his lips move to repeat the words the reaper has missed—

“Are you here for my soul?” The man asks, peering at Yuuji—he thinks, for that should be impossible.

Instinctively, Yuuji hikes his shoulders up, grip on his scythe tight, the need to flee if it escalates pounding against his hollow chest, pulsating in his muscles, in his blood. He lets the silence permeate as Yuuji waits, testing the raging waves flashing in the man’s boring eyes—still staring into the dark, onto Yuuji.

Should I…?

An almost audible gasp escapes him because the cavity that is his soulless body, Yuuji feels something warm, swirling within his chest comfortably. It spreads to his squared shoulders and tremors up to the tips of his fingers. There’s an unexplainable easing in his constitution, and—and this has not happened since—

He licks his lips, palms sweating, afraid to dare, but Yuuji is surged with the need to push; to finally move a significant piece on the chess board of life—for his own curiosity or his own entertainment— he is unsure. However, he wants to see where it takes him.

Yuuji doesn’t understand, can’t identify the core of the feeling even if he tries. Fear towards the omnipotent gazes far, far back in his mind. It is a shock to a system that all it has ever did was run away, but when his chest all but feels no type of ache from being caved out and empty—Yuuji wants to risk.

 He steels his gaze, alight with his audaciousness, he opens his mouth for a reply.

“You have yet to die, so no.” Yuuji responds, but comically shaking his head immediately after, knowing that neither both shall carry into mortal sights and ears.

 But much to Yuuji’s surprise, the man replies with a nod.

A small smile grazes the man’s lips, but it reached his eyes regardless. At its edges they wrinkle for obvious signs of glee; their pupils look to Yuuji like the surface of the seas during high morning—open and welcoming. He sees how their shoulders slump, relaxed like a traveler at their journey’s end, the thick fabric on their arm falling just a bit in result, to caress their left leg. The man tilts his head to the right, just a bit, enough where Yuuji sees how his eyebrows drooped downwards and a sigh escapes, and intermingles with the soft windy night.

A lump form inside Yuuji’s throat, eyes wide in confusion, holding his scythe ever closer to his side. Instinctively, Yuuji grabs onto his chest, gripping knuckle-white tight at the dark robe.

The man looks on, a bud of longing so…so obvious in his stance, bared at seemingly no one else but Yuuji.

I don’t understand, what—

“Should I jump from this building then?” He says, even softer than the first, and it embraces Yuuji in a weirdly welcomed tenderness.

The man’s voice sounds old—familiar. Not godly, per se, more…friendly, kinder, affectionate—

A lover.

Yuuji falls to his knees, both hands on his chest, tears brimming in his eyes; he bites his lips, refusing for a whine—that feels so much like yearning—to be heard. Refuses to part his perplexed, hurting gaze away from the calming blue beach waves of the other.

“Take another chance at rebirth, hm?” He sounds jokingly patronizing, but Yuuji shakes his head, fervently disagreeing, all the while the man approaches him with confident strides. “So that I, for even a meager second, can finally spend time with you—"

He crouches in front of Yuuji, his own eyes looking like the blazing sun peeking out onto the ocean’s horizon of the man’s eyes. Tears finally fall when another body other than his own—ever since Yuuji has walked the earth—holds his cheek steady, pad of his thumb stroking comfortingly over it.

“What do you think, Yuuji?”

Yuuji thinks his void of a figure has never felt the truest of quiet before; not until this moment.

Chapter Text

Born To Bleed.

—

People are made up of stories like how they are made of flesh and bones, of organs and thoughts then emotions. Driven by survival, the need to live, to feel as though they are living.

It is with determination to grasp that need within their hands and selfishly keep it for themselves, do letters and words start appearing, start being turned into tales and histories. Written and carved by hasty fingers, stamped in ink that are hard-pressed on parchment, stone, or paper. Pages upon pages of the mundane and the marvelous, the self-important, the charitable—the varying iterations of living, of being alive.

As there is this instinctual belief: of one needing to leave a mark in the world, that rattles the human psyche; it boils in their blood, gnaws at their nerves, influences their nature, their ability to roam the waking earth, keeping them alive and leaving them restless. They fear the lack of it sometimes, or that there is excitement of wanting to achieve it, and there is indifference for it as well; accepting the monotonous fate and settling for what is instead of wandering the worlds for what will.

Such was Yuuji, once. Or maybe it was merely in dreaming.

But beings like him do not dream. Nightmares even more so, an impossibility. Yuuji never sleeps longer than a second; as quick as when one blinks or that of a hummingbird flapping its wings for flight. And before it, before he was ever bound to agony, Yuuji never slept at all.

However, things have been…different lately. Different since he saw him—that man with the whitest of hair, the bluest of eyes drowning in sadness and a misplaced sort of hunger, with their close-mouthed smile of relief, and the adulation in his deep set, yet kindly in tone of a voice, as he said Yuuji’s name.

Everything has changed since him.

And Yuuji does not know how to navigate the feelings that came from it. Does not understand the slow filling of his core when his hand graced his cheek. Cannot fathom the lack of being caved and hollowed out when he breathes in, and all Yuuji could smell above the city air of dust and rapid industrialization, was he. No one else but him.

But instantly did Yuuji feel fearful right when he was almost on the edge of falling; overwhelmed by his presence and what it does to him, does to his body that had been since he, aching and empty. Yuuji’s body is petrified for something else entirely. Grounded in the fact that he had played with cards beyond his ability—beyond his rights and what he was brought to earth for.

He feels thousands of searing gazes on him; as is above and so below. Yuuji swallows the words on his tongue in terror, eyes quivering with anxiousness as he look on at the man—who now cradles his face between their hands—imagining the jaws of the heavens opening to come and maul his body, tearing it apart to nothing, or the claws of the underworld waiting to drag him back deep into the underground as his blood drips from the gashes, reuniting with the ancient earth, that drinks away at him until he is no more than a shell of the darkness he is made out of.

Judgment can fiendishly come for him, unforgivingly so, if Yuuji—

If Yuuji leans into the touch. If he learns of his name, and speak of it with revere, and holds his hand with his, Yuuji—

Yuuji shall cease to exist if he stays.

He swims with the regret, drowns in it when knowledge of the silent, foreboding threat became a feeling that is now all too real.

Yuuji is no man: to yearn too greatly that it leaves him hoping.

Yuuji is no divinity: to yearn too greatly that he be bequeathed of human affection.

But Yuuji wants to exist. Wants to feel like he matters and isn’t simply one of many. He obsessively wants to keep the blood in his veins. To feel the seasons on his skin, to watch humans come into the earth, see them grow, then guide them back in death for another chance of living. Yuuji loves how alive the world is, to simply let it go.

It is why everything that he did on this rooftop is a misstep. Having made a grave mistake, leaving him unsure and doubtful if the gods below shall still help him. He gambled with his position too easily just because—for the first time in his life—Yuuji felt like there was no line in between his person, he just is. He bartered with fate because he made Yuuji feel as though he is no one else but Yuuji. And now—now Yuuji is even closer to veering beyond the boundary of non-existence. All because of him.

Just because it’s him.

So Yuuji runs. Pried himself out of the man’s arms, and melding into the safety of the shadows, Yuuji ran, refusing to look back and into those grief-stricken midnight blues, even if it left Yuuji feeling just the same.

—

He feels the moss comfortingly against his body, and plush in his fingertips. The breeze of the night that travels from tree to tree, playfully swirling around leaf to leaf, carrying the scent of the damp soil, and ripening fruits, and aging wood, before it tickles Yuuji’s cheeks—like a kiss from a loving matriarch.

But the moon is in hiding, and so Yuuji is bathe in nothing but the dark, and it feels restless with him around. He feels it nipping at him, tugging him further under but they had yet to be given order to. Yuuji is unwelcomed in the first place that had provided him something akin to peace.

Yuuji smiles to himself nonetheless as he stares up into the stars, silver glinting in his eyes of gold. He blinks, and look on and high even if they are weary and his lids are heavy. His body trembles above the earth, too tired to sit itself up. He is fit for a sleep—a long one but he refuses such, even if it means he stays in wake with the festering ache invading his entirety with such intensity, that thoughts of him dying being easier than staying with it, has crossed his mind far too many times in the weeks’ that passed since.

Since him.

Yuuji rolls to the side when a wave of pain that feels like he is burning inside out, barrages from the cavity in his chest, spreading into every nerve-ending, tips of his fingers, to ends of his toes. Tears roll down to the ground, as it worsens; he screams in agony and it echoes within the silence, bouncing straight back into his ears. He hugs his body, tight, tighter. Laboring for breath as it turns shallow the same time his sight goes blurry and his body grows nothing but numb.

The pain has been all-too consuming today that Yuuji had come to abandon his duties to lay down on the ancient earth that has once brought him both the truth and relief. He found solace in the oldest tree of the forest, and the shrine snug atop its bark; fused with the very grove of the pine, as though it grew right out of it. He threw away fulfilling his responsibilities to settle himself in a place that had embraced him in a warmth he had rarely known and given privy to. But that warmth is fleeting; the woods dissatisfied with him for what he had done that it ushered away any comfort it had openly provided him with. However, with nowhere else to go, Yuuji encapsulates himself with what was left behind.

Fatigue of fighting against the torment caught up to him soon enough. Too weak to protect himself, Yuuji feels the shadows crouching over him, choking him for his last breath.

But he’s not worried of dying, not when the voices have yet to come for Yuuji to tell him of his end. Have yet to be written by the storytellers of the divinity and the fools of the damned.

Maybe they still find pleasure in his suffering. Still find it sweet and delectable on their tastebuds, his tale an entertaining jest of a conversation across their round table. His vessel of flesh still too tender, lively; blood still too thick and embarrassingly red. Yuuji still feels too alive to be thrown away or torn apart and then forgotten.

Yuuji takes it as mercy, and takes his need for slumber the same.

The shadows blanket Yuuji from the world, hiding him from the stars and the fresh earth and fusing him with the nothingness, but Yuuji is too tired to be afraid, and with the knowing that the deities refuse to claim him back—still too fond of the torture, he closes his eyes to catch sleep.

In the back of his mind, manifesting as a voice far, far away from him, he hears the darkness lull him to silence with a story.

Of a tale somewhere between a nightmare and a dreaming.

—

Dusk has come and it came for Yuuji relentlessly.

Yuuji does not know how long he has locked himself away from the gazes of the people of his village. Refuses to acknowledge the gravity of the pounding against the wooden door, rattling in its hinges—the shaking reverberating inside the small, tucked in a corner, space of his home—if he can still call it that.

Bile lodges in his throat that he spends into the commode he’s kneeling in front of. Salty tears fall down his face, as with the scent of breakfast and stomach acid thick in the air. Saliva coats his fingers when he slowly pulls it out of his mouth, remnants of food stuck to the skin.

Yuuji cries some more. Loud in that it drowns out the jostling of the doorknob, the shouting beyond the aging wood, and weight of more and more footsteps crowding the only place he had found solace.

Yuuji has never been Yuuji for the two decades of his life. Was raised to be a person but never ended up becoming one. He was taught to dream, to believe, to be afraid, and to be brave—and it all fell for naught.

Because Yuuji has never been Yuuji. His body will never be his own, and he will never know how it ages. How his skin will form lines under his eyes, how his stare would hold that sheen that comes from having lived a life too long. Will never know the pain in his joints, or know the feel of carved wood on his palm as he uses it to learn to walk again. Yuuji will never know of years ahead—but dying, dying is right beyond the cracking and splintering sound of the thin oak. He will know from the white loose clothing he was forced to wear, and the square white fabric that shall soon cover his face. Yuuji will know from the chalice the he will hold in his hands and his blood that will fill it.

At his coming of age, of a measly living of twenty-one, Yuuji shall understand how it is to die.

The tears fall to the floor when he lays his head on the cold lavatory, sobbing for his life wasted, for his life nonexistent.

He couldn’t find the strength to stand nor to fight when the door is slammed open and hands of far too many held him up only to drag his defeated body away from the only place, he comically found reprieve.

Disgust spikes against his skin, wishing he can slither away from it, from everyone, and everything. The hands on his arms feel old and clammy, the voices rough—a gurgling in every ending syllable, speaking over seemingly phlegm-covered throats that with only a retching kind of coughing could they ever manage to clear them out. The struggle that comes with age, evident in their pace while they pull him towards their village temple.

But Yuuji has lost the will to run, and to yearn for freedom, because—as they pass through the familiar arch—he was never given one to begin with. The urge to vomit sits uncomfortable in his stomach when he takes a whiff of cedarwood incense and hear the chiming of gold-colored bells, and the swaying of dried wheat straw braided into ropes flicking harsh against the breeze.

His eyes are blurry from tears yet to fall and the darkening of the landscape; but every time he feels the icy-bite of the stone pathways nipping at the soles of his bare feet, that regardless, Yuuji knows where he is headed.

It is just the same as when he was at the age of years of three. Everything just as familiar as when he was ten. Nothing having changed as he grew to eighteen, and everything will remain unmoving between the two hours before and of right now.

He is brought down to his knees at the entrance, pebbles digging into his skin and palms, and never once having stopped crying—he rests his forehead on the ground.

Maybe Yuuji is hoping for some sort of repentance, or for one of the elderly to change their mind and take pity on him, granting Yuuji pardon and free will. That Yuuji is probably hoping for something, or maybe, he’s simply tethering himself to his final moments of feeling the soil on his body, and wind on his hair, and the warmth of the people, even if they’ve only been unkind. For there is nothing to hope for anymore.

Yuuji should have never hoped. Never dreamed. Never believed.

—

Yuuji is far from being a non-believer. However, he is neither a theist nor does he trust in God-given wealth and fortune. There was irony in how Yuuji chooses to live with his lack of belief and he is very aware of it; however, he remains unbothered. Even if he can see the elderlies’ disdain on their faces when he visits the village to sell hunt, and hear the murmurs leaving the residents’ lips whenever he passes by the shrine without stopping to bow, with firewood freshly axed and weighty on his shoulders. He ignores the fact that their discontent with Yuuji’s practice made blatantly obvious in their eyes and their words whenever they have the energy to talk to him; a talk that has more to do about his ailing grandfather than about him.

Yuuji is a hard-headed individual, confident in his countenance and extremely rare to swaying against his principles; far ashamed for being such.

But looking back at it now, and knowing what he does, Yuuji would have done anything to force himself to believe. Even if it means he breaks everything he knows about himself, then remold as another, just so it is with aging does he perish instead—because a pretender is far better than becoming an offering.

He wonders what his grandfather would think about all of this, if he was still alive.

Before Yuuji had learned to open his eyes, walk, and say his first words, it had always been those rough, and aging hands that held him close and raised him. It was the man’s gruff voice that taught Yuuji how to read, the slight pain on his side when he gets pinched taught him how to behave. And the embrace of a palm over his own little hand taught him how to write.

Yuuji’s grandfather was strict but kind. A personality that drives away most people but it is that rough around the edges temperament that lulls him peacefully to sleep. The older man never had an affinity for people, and it’s why Yuuji grew up away from the village.

Their house hidden within the forest, a half-day trek from their home made of straw and bamboo, to the scent of fresh bread and newly butchered boar meat and that peaceful chaos only achievable by humans living surrounded with vast kin. But the lack of people was alright with Yuuji, as he never truly felt alone when the heavy weight that rustles his hair from time to time is enough comfort, and is enough of a companion for him.

It was when Yuuji had felt contentment in his life and responsibilities, did his grandfather manage to catch a cold that got worse every passing day, and did the visitors begin to come knocking on their door.

It was odd at first, when before, all the acknowledgment they were given by the people were subtle smiles, and stiff inclining of their heads in their direction when they visit town to shop. Short and clipped conversations even to his grandfather that has lived in their village longer than some of them. No sooner however, when the patriarch of his family is almost immobile and bed-ridden, did the constant weekly barrage of townsfolk, start leaving Yuuji frustrated.

For every instance that they stand outside their home, and call for their attention, immediately do his grandfather haul himself up from resting, and even if it looks as though a step easily leaves him breathless, the man, with an iron grip on one of his sides, and pain obvious on his face, walks slowly towards the entrance—greeting the men beyond then exchanging quiet conversation. Yuuji had tried somewhere in between their visits, to convince his grandfather to ignore their heed and to leave them alone the same way they do with them, but the man would always reply by weakly waving an arm at Yuuji, ordering him to fetch water, or tend to their small field at the back—ignoring and pushing Yuuji away then pulling the main door closed on him.

Frustration turns to anger when one day, as he returned from catching game and expecting their visit in the late afternoon, in mid-morning, Yuuji passes from the side of the house and towards the trail in the front—a shortcut to the well, that right when he was to turn a corner, he overhears his name leaving the other men’s mouths. It halts Yuuji in his step, surprise obvious in the rise of his brows and amber eyes. He accidentally exposed himself longer than he should, and as they noticed his exasperated gaze onto them, the elderlies immediately shifted their conversation into whispers—his grandfather follows along, ignoring Yuuji still.

Yuuji clenches his teeth in his anger, his hold on his catch tight, walking quicker pass them in heavy footsteps—emotions so obvious in his gait. Yuuji has never really been good at hiding his feelings; his grandfather never taught him to hide.

He hears his name spoken quieter a few more times when he rounded to the other side, and hidden from sight.

So, it’s about me.

He approached his grandfather after they have left, back on top of a bed made with dried straw and poorly-plucked feathers.

“What were you and the shrine elders talking about, grandfather?” He starts, sitting down on the stool, a wet rag on his right hand to then meticulously wipe the older man’s arm—gentle ministrations a sharp contrast to the ire carrying in his voice.

“It is nothing to concern yourself of, child.” Yuuji pauses in his movements, but when he feels the testing gaze of his grandfather burning a hole to his bowed head; Yuuji breathes in, and turns to the basin by his left to soak the cloth clean.

He bites his lips anxiously, unsure whether he should keep pushing.

“I heard my name, several times. And that is why it is something that concerns of me.” He squeezed out the excess water and goes to wipe the man’s leg.

Silence fills the space, an adamant finality to their short-lived conversation. Hard he tries to ignore the itch in his chest to keep prodding, but he refuses to force the elderly only to make him far exhausted as a result. So Yuuji, with lips tight, dutifully cleans his grandfather’s body, swallowing and biting down the words thick on his tongue. It is when he sits him up, to get him dressed did the weary voice of the other consumes their small home of nothing but a pair of worn-out beds, a lavatory, a table for two, and a cooking pit.

“When I die,” he starts, slurring in his words. Yuuji feels his heart stop then drum so fast in his ribcage that it is starting to hurt. “When I die—Yuuji look at me.”

Immediately he obeys, kneeling on hard wood just to stare at the other, eye-to-eye. Yuuji feels tears welling up in him when his grandfather gazes at him with nothing but forgiveness. He leans into the touch perched on his hair, and then did he cry silently.

“When I die, and it will be soon—” He shakes his head frantically, grasping at the weak hand atop of him with his. “I want you to run. Far, far from here Yuuji.”

“Grandfather…” he chokes on his words. Hands working their way down his cheeks as he does, then Yuuji sees incessance in the older man’s eyes.

“The moment I breath my last; I want you to run, my child.” His forehead rest tenderly upon Yuuji’s, “You should have never borne the weight of your parents’ sins. It should have never kept you chained to this place. I should have not been complacent; I should have upended the earth if it meant you are free— forgive me, Yuuji.”

“Grandfather, I—I do not understand.”

Yuuji never knew of his parents. It has always been him and the older man. He had asked him about them when he was younger, childish jealousy overrunning him when the children of the village tease him for lacking both and even just one. His grandfather always gets mad, however, when he does. The furrowing of his brows, and flickering annoyance in his eyes, and the scowl on his lips, but even then, the older man refuses to utter a single syllable.

But he dreamed of his grandfather speaking of them once, when the other thought Yuuji would never remember for he was too young at three.

“You are the perfect mix of them. With the hair and eyes of your father, your nose and mouth a copy of your mother’s. I am delighted you appear as both of them than either, little one. I will raise you in sunshine. So, be at ease and go to sleep, Yuuji.”

Since then, Yuuji had thought it was hurtful for the man to speak of them, and so, Yuuji taught himself to never mention his birthparents ever again.

“Know this, Yuuji. You are your own person,” Roughs hands wipe away tears that have fallen on Yuuji’s cheeks, affectionate brown eyes looking back at his confused ones. In a hush voice, he speaks—

“That fate be damned, my child. I want you to leave. Do not look back, and never return.”

—

There’s almost a shadow of a smile on his lips at the memory, an apparition of a glint of humor in his eyes, and a chuckle brewing in his stomach. The situation however, proves such acts inappropriate, offensive even, if they see his face. For Yuuji is surrounded by the shrine elders, and has succumbed to the pain of the bindings on his wrists, and the sting of his knees digging into splinters of the wood flooring. He had had been manhandled to enter and to splay himself at the center of the temple, only to be forced down by his shoulders in a kneeling position in front of the pristine and well-polished oppressive statue of the village deity.

Yuuji found it preposterous that, out of all the gods to worship, they chose a god of calamity. If it was any other else, then there might have no need for his blood to the drench the earth for good harvest and peaceful seasons, more so now, that winter is nearing and fast approaching.

He felt it under the three-layer of clothing Yuuji was made to wear. While he was being dragged towards the temple, it dug through the seams, slithering its way inside to lick at his skin. He knew of it immediately, when the hairs on his body stood on end, and a chill ran down his spine; it is familiar and far worse when you are made to trudge through it, in the middle of the woods and far from other people.

If he was near river, and below the yawning forest, Yuuji could’ve known sooner. Then with instinctual survival he would have, by now, chopping down fell trees for firewood, and trapping wild animals to salt and preserve for the long snowy nights. He imagines the hearth alive and dancing in every hour of the day, warming up their home, himself and his grandfather.

Yuuji had not known of this practice, did not know that the people participated in it; but he had heard and read stories. He wonders how many other youths were placed in the same position as he, and how he unknowingly must have benefitted from such atrocity because of his social apathy. However, Yuuji knows that if he had known, long before it became his turn, he would have done everything to stop it.

No one has the right to play with life this way; potently sacrilege for such frantic believers as they—far more so nonsensical, as it is all for one malevolent divinity.

Over the sheer white fabric hiding his face, he was able to perceive the carved stone statue painted in gold, surrounded by fresh flowers, and every variation of crops, fruits, and vegetable, grown from their grounds.

It was unnecessarily big, about eight-feet in height standing eerily in front of him. Four arms protruding from its torso, that—comically Yuuji thinks so—has a mouth in its middle. The image has four eyes as well; two in the place where they should be, and the other right below each. He couldn’t understand what it was when he was young and he foolishly found himself wandering inside before a caretaker grabbed him by the arm and threw him out. There was something stuck to the left of its face—a piece of bark, of sorts. Yuuji is weary if this unusual figure of a man truly is the perfect representation of the god themselves. He is skeptical; then again, does asking questions matter?

The old voices that bounce over the walls remind him of his dead grandfather. Guilt blooms in him that he has to swallow over the lodge in his throat, feels his hands suddenly tremble, opening and closing—antsy.

Yuuji was given bits and pieces of a grand ominous thing, that he refuses to blame himself for not following, when, as his grandfather is laying on his back, eyes closed, quiet—stayed such for a few hours; and Yuuji, not doing as told, stubbornly sits next to him, tears in his eyes, as he covers the cold body with a blanket.

Too caught up in his emotions of losing the only family he ever had, that when he hears several footsteps towards their abode, that which turns to an obnoxious knocking, did Yuuji mistakenly let anger consume him. If the older man was alive when it happened, he would have given Yuuji the worst scolding of his life. However, he wasn’t with him anymore, never will be.

The stool clatters to the ground, and with heavy strikes of his feet against aged wood, Yuuji pries the door open, vile words on the tip of his tongue, at the edge of shouting them, at them, as tears keep falling from his eyes.

That was the day Yuuji discovered witchcraft—or at least, that is what the villagers call it—and how his ignorance of it brought a great omen to his circumstance. His naivete and refusal to believe hunted him down the way he does for wild board and flying geese, the way his axe strikes standing trees and plucking too many fruits off their branches. It asks of Yuuji for penance for his agnosticism or else punishment will greet him at the end of its whip.

It struck with a gravity unknown to him, that it left him toppling to the ground as though the earth caved beneath his feet. They did not even have to lay a finger on him; they simply proclaim in a language he does not recognize for Yuuji to lose consciousness.

That was three days ago. Locking himself in the lavatory to vomit from stress and nausea, was six hours ago, and he is a quivering mess of a person right now.

He hopes his grandfather finds it in their heart to forgive him, for not running.

There’s a rustle of clothing to Yuuji’s left. He turns his head to see a shaman in dark blue robes pass by, watches as the man bows at the statue with refined grace, then almost mechanically, he turns to his right, and in the same spot kneels, sitting on his calves.

A cold feeling spikes inside Yuuji leaving him observably trembling in place. He stares wide-eyed in fear, when a golden chalice is placed in front of him, sees a block of wood painted in black laid down next to it. A defeated sob almost broke out into the air if he was not able to catch it in his throat, when—glinting from the lit torches—a blade appears under the shaman’s sleeves, and settled with a pure white fabric, atop the varnished oak.

Vicious weakness comes for Yuuji, that he almost fell to the floor again, if it weren’t for an arm catching him by his shoulders just in time.

“Sit properly, child.” It is said with such disdain that Yuuji’s teeth clatters against each other. “You do not want to anger and disrespect the Lord.” He sounds as though every word he spends on Yuuji is the worst ordeal one could ever experience.

His entire body shaking, Yuuji forces himself to sit upright, breath uneven as it moves the fabric that’s hiding his face. Immediately do the man’s left arm recoil away from his body. He relaxes back to kneeling in front of the statue and with Yuuji in a confused shock, the inky blue-clad man presses his palms and forehead flat on the floor—

“Forgive me, My Lord, for touching your vessel. It had to be done, for we want no such scratches on him, when you come to inhabit the body.”

What?

“What?” He questions breathless, his thoughts reeling and crashing into themselves.

 I am an offering for abundance and prosperity. That—that the land will be cursed with drought and death if I was not—

A vessel?

Yuuji stares at the face of the statue, and he nearly recoils in terror, when he sees its lips tugging at the corners, a smile splitting in its face, showing too much sharp teeth. His pulse picks up in speed when a manic laughter blares in his ears. Cold sweat runs down from his forehead when he blinks them away, and unconsciously tugging against the soft fabric that ties him.

The shaman stands up, blatantly ignoring Yuuji’s query and panic. He turns, and again, Yuuji is alone with the carved stone. The aged voices seemingly of greater distance away than before. His eyes remained glued at the statue, afraid, that if he looks away, the arms would come to life to strangle him, his bones breaking and bending in their grip, his mouths feeding off of his flesh, salivating for his marrow that comes easy with all his teeth. Then Yuuji’s eyes would be last thing it would eat, so the human can see how, with a wicked grin on their lips, eats his heart whole, and ultimately, Yuuji entirely.

Drowning in his delusion, far back Yuuji hears the sliding doors open, and is then brought back to reality, when the entire room with its people welcomes the new addition in unison.

“Good evening, Head Shaman Uraume.”

“Yes, good evening.” Yuuji hears soft footsteps approaching, and through the same side to his left, the new shaman reaches his view.

They were short in stature, wearing a white kimono underneath a black robe worn only on their left shoulder, and over a purple skirt that reaches past their ankles. They’re skin pale as the moonlight almost, such is their hair with a length that stops at the bottom of their ears, they sport a curious streak of maroon with it, that runs horizontal from behind their head. They wore an impassive gaze when they kneel in the same spot as the previous, bowing the same way to the statue, and then they turn—to face Yuuji, obsidian eyes looking directly into his.

Yuuji swallows his nerves, pulling at the fabric on his wrists again.

For a brief moment Uraume’s eyes landed on his arms placed between his legs, and a dissatisfaction bordering on annoyance passes in them. They look back at Yuuji sharp as if the gaze could physically cut through him.

“Enough. You are desecrating the body with your fruitless need of survival.” Yuuji’s hikes his shoulders closer to himself, affronted by the statement. “Do not tempt my nerves with your frivolities. If you carry such indignance to the matter you are currently face in; it is too late. The covenant has been made long before you were born.”

Far too many questions are running around Yuuji’s mind. His feelings, ever since he was dragged out of his home, are nothing but a convoluted mess; struggling with himself which one he should feel, to place himself in, just so Yuuji can ground himself to reality. He is suspended in all of the inner turmoil, turning voiceless even if all he wants are answers.

Everything is falling apart.

Why did Yuuji not heed the warning in his grandfather’s voice, in his hunched stature and in his stern brown eyes?

“…I know how stubborn you are, however. A blessing and a curse of a constitution that you have acquired from me—”

Uraume’s eyes return to an unemotional dark night sky lacking of the moon and the stars, seemingly satisfied of Yuuji for obeying. They incline their head to the side, inspecting the objects the previous shaman brought. They return their gaze to Yuuji, and with hands resting on their thighs, shoulders straight, and no sort of feeling passing in their eyes, simply the flickering amber red of the torch fires,

“Let us begin.”

Yuuji’s world crumbles beneath his feet.

His breathing grows ragged as he stares back, still. All at once, he can no longer see his life beyond the moment; quickly does he forget the wind on his back, the leaves brushing his cheeks, the soil on his feet, the heat of the sun, the humid greeting of the rain, the sound of the rippling rivers—everything he has loved about being alive. Yuuji is struggling to grasp them with his senses, with his memories. He stares miserably at the chalice—imagines his blood overflowing the cup and pooling over his lifeless body.

“My child, just this once, I want you to believe. Yuuji—Yuuji, for such moment, you have to hope.”

Yuuji cries silently, for what he believes will be the last time.

—

When Yuuji was ten, he basks in his grandfather’s love for books.

Returning from frolicking in the nearby hillside, covered in grass and flower petals, and smelling like the summer sun; there was a skip in his step as he enters their abode.

“I’m home, grandfather!” He greets enthusiastically coupled with the harsh opening of the main door that it hits the wall behind it, shaking the house in its foundation. There was a wide smile on his face, his shirt turned into a makeshift basket as he holds the hem of it with his left hand. Filled with the berries he had found their bushes of and marked with a red cloth tied to their flimsy branches, so he can come back to them in a weeks’ time to fetch their yields.

“Grandfather?” He asks again, while he pads his way to the corner table, grabbing the fruit bowl atop of it and dumping in his fresh gather.

He brushes the dirt on his nose, as his eyes roamed their small home for no presence of the older man. Yuuji is alone, but he was not worried, assuming the other man must have gone to the village to refill supplies.

A sneaky thought grows in Yuuji as he washes his hands in a bucket filled with well water. A cheeky snicker leaves his lips, as wet, clean hands clasp over his mouth while he tiptoes towards his grandfather’s bed.

With mischievous practice, he kneels on the floorboards, and resting the left side of his face upon it as well, he looks under the mattress elevated in the air by a bedstead made of well-crafted wood. Sure enough, Yuuji sees the familiar big box, he come to call it, at the very back. With his small physique, Yuuji crawls under, and grabs the trunk by their metal handle and using his feet as leverage by hooking them over of the foot of the bed, Yuuji pulls the trunk out.

One thing about Yuuji’s grandfather is that the man is particular about cleanliness. Wanting to never leave a spot untouched with a wet rag and a broom, and conveniently for Yuuji, that included the space under their beds.

Unbidden joy fills him when he gazes onto the familiar, brown-painted rectangular box. He almost jumped in his sitting when he clicks the latches loose and the creak of the lid reverberated in the home. He props the lid against the side of the bed, while Yuuji’s small hands, graze a dozen of heavy leather-bound books inside, and the stacks upon stacks of loose-leaf paper tied together by a thin rope.

Yuuji lays on his stomach right next to the chest, after he grabs the smallest book in the pile. His feet kicking in the air, Yuuji pulls at the string and slowly winds it over and under the pocket-sized book. He lets the twine fall to the floor then opens it in excitement.

Out of all the books inside the big box, this was Yuuji’s favorite, simply because it was written by his grandfather.

The stress and curves of the letters are familiar to Yuuji, has observed it when the man taught him how to write by copying him the handwriting and placing it next to his grandfather’s. The perfect spacing between the words, the heavy push of the brush against the paper when he ends a phrase with a dot.

It read to Yuuji as free-flowing thoughts. Gathered information of banal things, instead of one coherent idea. Written in quicker successions but legible nonetheless. The pages talk of gods and goddesses, their powers and roles with regards to their divinity; this wasn’t a surprise to Yuuji, as his grandfather is an immense believer like the rest of the people in the village. The ink would list their names, some of them even crossed out with harsh lines and others even blocked out with the black pigment entirely.

It was like that for several pages, but the further into the notebook he skims, the uglier his grandfather’s writing becomes. Like the pen would lift from the page far sooner than intended that it leaves sentences unfinished with random drops of ink at the end of them. Yuuji can barely make out the words that slurred with the quickness, the quivering showing in the bending of the letters.

This was Yuuji’s favorite book, simply because he made a game of it: decipher his grandfather’s handwriting.

He observes the strokes, tracing it with his finger, trying to voice out the words he had managed to understand.

Yuuji sits up, runs to his own bed, and hidden under his mattress, Yuuji pulls out a folded paper and a cylindrical-shaped charcoal, thin at a tip, and covered in a cloth tied around it by twine. Yuuji walks back, eager to write down his discoveries.

He had been working on this spread for the past two months, quicker he would’ve gotten if his grandfather would leave more often. He opens the heavily-creased paper, placing right next to the open book, his right hand holding the charcoal, as fits perfectly in his palm, and hovering the tip over the paper.

During his observations he found out it was another sort of list, just that it is written as paragraphs rather than numerical. Up until this point Yuuji is halfway through recording the dizzying handwriting, but he refuses to read through it until he finishes transcribing them up to the very drips of the ink, and the unended sentences.

If his grandfather shall not finish his story, Yuuji will. He just has to copy all of it first.

It was the bigger and bolder words that he founds the most struggle with. Printed on paper so haphazardly that Yuuji can only make out two or three letters per word.

He continues to stare at them until the sun slowly disappears under their window. And when he had finally managed to write down a word in a way, he knows is right, the night sky is in bloom outside. Immediately does Yuuji gather himself and the belongings. Harshly shoving his, back into his bed and then carefully tying the book back up, locking the trunk as quiet as he possibly could, and pushes the box, far, far back under his grandfather’s own.

Satisfied and relieved that he still cannot hear the familiar footsteps of the older man, Yuuji makes his way to the cooking pit to light the torches and start on dinner.

Yuuji had only managed to decipher a singular word for today, but it was part of the harder words, so he was fulfilled of his progress, nonetheless.

He was flicking stones against firewood when the word wormed its way into his lips.

“R…i…tual.”

The hearth flicks to life and the groaning of the oak door follows.

—

The chalice of gold is placed on Yuuji’s hands, his head tilted at an angle by a palm on his forehead and his sight can go nowhere else but towards the eyes of the statue. He is held in place in a way that his neck is exposed in the orange light of the torch flames while it sheens with his sweat. His heartbeat pulsing in his veins that moves beneath his skin writhing with his shallow swallows of fear.

Uraume situates themselves in front of him, and Yuuji had to close his eyes when he hears them wiping the blade with the cloth, flicking its tip against their fingernail. He breaths through his mouth, the cloth clinging to his face, wet with his tears and perspiration. Yuuji tries in his shaking gait, to center himself to concentrate, digging for a memory at the very back of his mind.

The big box. The ink on paper. The book.

Ritual.

He parses through that isolated bubble of his early life for something—anything that can explain to himself whatever is happening. Trust falling apart at the seams.

Did grandfather know? Of—this?

But Yuuji refuses to fall, his thoughts running from one to another for a singular piece to make sense. Feels them colliding, eating and tearing each other apart; Yuuji’s reality obscuring itself every second, he stays in his head.

A light makes its way beneath his eyelids, dragging Yuuji back from succumbing. He opens his eyes, and he wishes he shouldn’t have, however.

Yuuji is alone with Uraume. The hand long-gone on his face, vision unobscured as the wet fabric is folded to perfection atop the block of black wood. The blade is inches away from him, that the light bounces from it and stings in his eyes.

He was far into himself and his breaking psyche that Yuuji had not noticed the dozens of footsteps milling towards the exit; did not notice how quiet it had suddenly become.

“The Lord does not fancy being surrounded by commoners unless he requests such; and so, it is simply you and I, Itadori Yuuji.” Uraume pulls the blade from his face, and Yuuji can somewhat breath again.

“You will listen to me, Itadori. And you will listen well.” They stare at Yuuji, the blade placed on top of the shaking chalice that is still nursed by Yuuji’s trembling hands.

A threat. An omen. An inescapable destiny.

“You are to perform a Binding Ritual with the Lord Ryoumen Sukuna—the first one in a century. You are to bequeath your body to Him and for the first time in a millennium, the Greatest of the Gods shall walk upon the earth once more.”

A ghost of a smile had almost reached Uraume’s lips. Yuuji bites his tongue, questions a barrage on its flat base.

“Wh—Why me?” They stared at him. Kept staring still, that he feels the presence of the knife heavier on the sacred cup.

“You are born in an unfortunate family. Humans are needlessly selfish, ambitious, and obstinate; your kin, is no different. A perfect subservient father to an autocratic-fanatic of a mother—that is you Itadori Yuuji. In flesh, and blood, in the very color of your hair and the tone of your voice. You are here because your mother believed in the greater good, and your father…well, he believed in your mother.”

A grin splits in Uraume’s face, a hunger in the eyes that had never left Yuuji’s.

“Your grandfather, a fickle one he is. Refusing to give you away to the Lord.” An upset frown now their face, and with a voice as though they have uttered such a spiel before, they declare;

“In so long as there is a living blood beyond the prophesized, thou shall not seize such from their arms. It is in death or in absolute submission, shall the One be taketh and given to the Almighty Lord—”

Right, the book.

Understanding pools in Yuuji’s eyes, and before he could reign himself in, his lips beat him to it,

“Then do the very skin, the very heart, the very life, is forgone. The Lord will be welcomed to the earth when the blood drowns the cup of gold and The Name is spoken by The Destined mouth. One’s mortal life is forsaken in barter for The One and Only—His long-lasting divinity.”

Yuuji catches his breath, inhaling deep until it fills his lungs, and exhales with his entire body that has grown far exhausted. Letting their words, his words, seep into his skin, syllable by syllable into sorrowful understanding

Uraume stares almost in wonder at him, then it passes as quickly. They lift the blade, striking the tip with the rim of the chalice, the sharp tone invading Yuuji’s hearing.

They hum, “I believe I owe your grandfather an apology. I did not expect such a man to have gone far in his studies.”

“Fortunate that you are, Itadori Yuuji. It seems up until his very last breath—” Uraume nears their face close to Yuuji’s right ear, with a whisper, they speak;

“Itadori Wasuke was traversing the world of ancient literature, to set you free.” Yuuji feels his heart stop in his throat, tears brimming in his eyes once more as Uraume pulls away to look straight at them.

“Shame it truly is. He was not able to tell you to run.”

Tears cascade over his cheeks, his sobs bouncing against the walls—guilt, such strong guilt, consumes Yuuji’s very being. He wails with a voice that scrapes against his aching throat and born from the deepest parts of him.

Yuuji was looking for a feeling to ground himself in, and this is it. Yuuji is stuck in here, and here he shall stay—

“Repeat The Lord’s name Itadori Yuuji,” He looks up from tear-filled eyes onto Uraume. “The name of Ryoumen Sukuna.”

He hears the swing of the blade in the air, feels the skin on his neck pry open beyond muscle and veins, hears his blood draining into the cup, feels Uraume guide his hands that holds it, up to catch his liquid.

—

There is a phenomenon that exists solely for the mortality that, when one is nearing death, do memories, long buried and even unknown to one, comes trickling down on them like a ravaging waterfall.

They remember their birth, their life in infancy, to their youngest of years, every moment, every detail—it is a barrage of their lived life. No one understands why this occurs, but it is widely believed that it arises as a form of comfort for the dying; to remind them that one way or the other, they have lived—and hopefully, they can live again.

Either in this life, still. Or another one entirely.

When blood fills Yuuji’s throat that it rises to his mouth, Yuuji remembers.

He remembers the finest print in the smallest book of the big box:

Gods are brutish, and prideful; are narcissistic, and most especially—they are powerful.

Yuuji hears his grandfather’s voice narrate it for him.

“At ease Itadori Yuuji, you shall not die. Your soul shall remain within that body until you speak of the Lord’s name.”

Yuuji stares at Uraume’s back facing him. Seeing the overfilled chalice daintily placed in front of the statue along with the blade, the red hardening over its sharp edge. Yuuji topples to the ground, blood running down his wound and pouring out of his mouth. His eyes are closed, tired, as he hears Uraume speaking in a tongue he does not know, far different than the ones the shamans used on him. It sounded ancient, with Uraume’s voice deeper than usual.

“Itadori Yuuji, open your eyes.” He follows; even when it was anything but easy for him to do. “Come, kneel in front of the Lord. Crawl if you have to.”

Gods are naturally obsessive of power; and they abhor with such intensity, when there is another deity far stronger than they.

Uraume is ruthless compared to the others. They were careful at hurting his body, dirtying it, and making sure he was never hungry. However, Uraume seems to not care. Or maybe they do, it’s just that, they care more of having their immortal God finally walking into the line of mortality than he.

It makes sense, Yuuji prefers this even; the torture feels more sensible than the pandering.

With his hands still tied in a cloth that has sipped his blood of red, Yuuji crawls closer to the carved stone and the Head Shaman—defiance long gone in him. Emptiness is now all he feels as he slips and fall in his own pool of gore, trying to abide by the order. When Yuuji is there, everything about him of sight to scent is iron and deep, fresh red.

He sways in his position, but he managed to kneel just has he’s been doing hours before; tied arms between his legs, unmoving now instead of shaking. In the dimming torch lights, Yuuji sees them writing beneath the statue with his blood, and a type of marking right below. His eyes almost flutters to a close when he feels Uraume’s palm rest on his forehead. It’s cold, like coming winter, and it is an unusual comfort to him. Even the way their fingers glide, into what Yuuji assumes is the same marking with his own blood, feels like some type of grounding.

Uraume speaks more in ancient tongue, but Yuuji understands enough with had transpired, to expect what shall happen next.

“Itadori Yuuji, My Lord,” Uraume says with such revere, chalice of his blood nursed in their hands, their arms outstretched up in the air, offering it to the divinity. “His body shall house Your Greatness as You cross towards mortality. We have waited for centuries My Lord, and soon—soon you shall lead the world into the Age of The Damned. As was prophesized!” There’s some kind maniacal tone to Uraume’s voice, while Yuuji watches them prostate in front of the statue.

With a weak turn of the head, Yuuji looks at the god’s face. In his position of somewhere living and dying, Yuuji finds it outrageous—still, that this is the face the people of the village kneeled to. It is abysmal and jarring, how fanaticism changes a person—changes lives.

There is a flicker of an anger pounding in his chest.

For the stronger a deity is, the easier it is for them to bend the rules of the world.  

“Itadori Yuuji. Speak of the Lord’s name and the binding vow shall be.”

It is intoxicating the muck of vile emotions now running through him. Barraging him with feelings that all lead to one, singular, link—a thought:

It is an extreme gamble. But with the right god—the proper god, will it be worth the risk?

Risk.

Yuuji remembers another memory, one more recent than the rest.

“Forgive me, Yuuji.”

His grandfather should not apologize to Yuuji, not when Yuuji owes his grandfather far too much. It is the reason why Yuuji wants to fester in this guilt and the only way for him to do so—is if Yuuji gives far greater than what he was given. Yuuji does not like unpaid kindness, and his grandfather was kind to him for far too long.

In the direst of situations, with his blood drained out of his vessel of a body, cradled in the deep curved set of the chalice, and with the kneeling body next to him and the foreboding statue painted in gold, waiting for him to speak of their name—there’s a drumming determination, resistance pumping his dying heart. Yuuji takes a deep breath with his hollow body, that he exhales as he opens his mouth.

Yuuji is a person that does not sway against his principles. He is hard-headed, he is brave, and he is strong—and most importantly: Itadori Yuuji defiantly wants to live.

Even if this turns him into someone anew, Yuuji—

“My child, just this once, I want you to believe.”

Yuuji will believe.

Even if he becomes a shell of who he was, Yuuji—

“Yuuji, for such moment, you have to hope.”

Yuuji will hope.

He closes his eyes tight, hands clenched, voice shaky, he utters;

“With my very body, my very blood, my heart, my flesh, I shall bequeath all to the Lord—"

Below the blacked-out name of a god, and the voice of his grandfather speaking in a hushed whisper with his last breath; Yuuji remembers the grooves of the lines of its name and the syllables of them on the older man’s tongue.

“To forgo my life of mortality for the Lord…For the Lord God Gojo Satoru.”

He hears Uraume’s scream far in the distance. Farther and farther away from him, until it is merely a remnant of a fading echo.

Even if nothing shall be the same anymore. Even if he shall never come to greet his grandfather at the end of it, Yuuji—

“That Fate be damned, my child. I want you to live.”

Chapter Text

Thoroughfare.

—

Dreams are fragments of the past, the future and all of their possibilities.

They are memories and paths not having taken, and waiting to be.

They are who you were, who you could have been, and who you could be.

Dreams are of you and your choices.

Truth, the dreams shall become, if they are given the power to be.

—

Yuuji awoke to the sounds of birds chirping above the trees and the skuttle of the critters on the ground. His eyes open to the greens of the moss and the sweet scent of sunlight on dew grass.

He can feel his bones groan with his weight as Yuuji slowly rises to sitting. Save for the animals that he hears around him, Yuuji is surprisingly alone. For during his sleep—or did he instead lose consciousness from the pain, he is unsure—Yuuji felt a heavy weight against him; a soothing caress on his trembling back, and of fingers running through his hair.

There is a thought as to who; but Yuuji is far afraid to place them into words.

Afraid. The absurdity of the feeling he thinks. How he lets it overwhelm him in such a way that it rattles his very being, how visible it is in feeling when it claws at his skin to tear him apart, leaving Yuuji bleeding and crying. The way fear blooms and bubbles in his chest, and it stays there, spreading and rising in his throat, making him sweat, making him tremble, leaving him breathless—making him run, and Yuuji does. Every time, Yuuji runs as far away as he can.

He looks down to one of his hands, palm-facing. He peers through the memories, the dreams, and with a shaky breath Yuuji lowers three of his fingers, and he stares at the two that’s left.

Twice. Yuuji could only be brave twice in his life—in his dreaming. A laugh grows deep in him, and it resonates in the cold early morning air as Yuuji laughs, guffawing hysterically that it disturbs the peace of the woods. Yuuji laughs with his hoarse throat, his aching chest, and tears free-flowing down to his cheeks.

Yuuji feels as though he is grasping at nothing. That his memories are in such disarray that he cannot, does not know what is the truth any longer. The word, the feeling, of being lost, still feels too oppressive, too small to encapsulate everything that has happened since Yuuji has existed, since he woke up.

He is a deliverer of the souls; he knows that much is true. Brought into earth to aid the people and alleviate them of their short-lived suffering. He is born to be so, destined to have become such, even if he is but darkness-incarnate, and his blood has turned red, and he has turned more mortal than divinity; Yuuji is a vessel for the greater good and he is satisfied with it.

“Be brave, Yuuji.” His grandfather tells him, but Yuuji buries his head further into his arms, hugging his legs closer to himself. The older man sits next to him in the corner he was found.

His grandfather came home late today, and Yuuji thought that he would never return and he will be left all alone. Yuuji feels his old rough hands carding through his unkept hair. He whines against his tears, too young at six to understand that his grandfather was merely away for a few moments and that always will he return.

“I will not always be here with you, and someday I will no longer be here at all.” Yuuji almost pulled away from the touch, but this is his grandfather and he does not want to hurt him. “Be strong, Yuuji. So that, when the time comes you will no longer cry when you are alone.”

“But can I be something else? Someone…someone else entirely—”

Yuuji had to catch himself by his left elbow, when the torturous hurt returned for him. A feeling of gravity pushing against him with an intensity that can crush his bones and render his body down to an imperceptible slop. He struggles for breath, sweat bathing his skin, as Yuuji fights against it; he grits his teeth from the pain as he anchors his other elbow to the ground, digging them deep into the moss and the soil. Yuuji screams in anguish when he turns his body, back facing the peering sun, his knees skidding against the earth, tattered robes clinging to him, and his scythe laying lifeless a couple feet aways.

He rests his head on his clenched fists as it has gotten far more overwhelming, relentless, unforgiving. Yuuji feels he is finally at the precipice of returning to the deep earth, to finally face the ire of the gods; and he knows it will be ever worse, knows that it will leave him nothing—that Yuuji will be nothing, will cease to be, will be replaced.

From the darkness he is born from and to the shadows he shall return.

Just as he feels he is breathing his last breath—Yuuji’s body is raised from the ground.

With tear-filled eyes, he watches his body being pulled from the mud, late in realizing how the earth beneath him caved in, several feet deep, the roots of the trees caging him inside, so close to being swallowed and to never return. He feels hands under his arms hauling him back to the surface, feels the heat of the sun on his skin again, how effortless it is to take breath, the contentment in his core, in his chest.

A shiver runs down his spine, when he understands.

“Easy, Yuuji.” He hears above him.

Surprise and fear, and such palpable relief, swims in his eyes, when his gaze lands on the sun high in the sky, the flapping of the bird wings, and rustling of the leaves, and the cool breeze. His breath hitches in his throat as Yuuji stares at the looming shadow barely blocking out the light, stares at those blue eyes approaching him closer while he lays unmoving on the ground.

His white hair moves with the wind, as once again, he is crouching right next to Yuuji, and again, a hand of his reaching out to him. Yuuji flinches when his palm came too close to his face, but the carding of long, nimble fingers on his hair, was such comfort that Yuuji had almost forgotten this should not happen.

Almost, at least. For the wrath of the gods are hard to forget, to ignore even if Yuuji desires to.

Yuuji moans in pain, turning his head away from the touch when his bones rattle beneath his skin again, and every hair in his body stands on end. Between the thrumming ache and Yuuji returning to the edge of passing out, an arm snakes under his knees and then his shoulders; and once again, he feels himself pulled even up from the ground, even higher this time.

“Are you okay?” His voice of concern soothes his aches that the crease between Yuuji’s eyebrows disappear, his clenched jaw relaxing, and stuck air easing in his throat—shaky, but he can breathe, even if for a little.

Yuuji finds he is being carried in the man’s arms, spots on his body warm where it meets the other’s. His amber eyes appear burning in the sunlight as he stares with half-lidded eyes up at the raging blue waves of the man. They must have observed the second-guessing and the budding apprehension in them, because the frown on his lips smooths into a small smile, and the infuriation in his eyes shift to something calming; even his stance feels more relaxed as they stand in place, carrying Yuuji against him like he is weightless.

“It’s okay, Yuuji. Speak.”

Yuuji licks his lips, tasting the dirt and sweat, and the salty tears, all potent on his tongue. He breathes shallow, and exhales the same as he opens his mouth.

The thing with Yuuji living for such a long time is that he has not spoken to anyone but himself. And even then, he rarely does; a word or several as a means to bring coherence to tangled thoughts. He speaks to the souls, but it was never reciprocated, and he spoke in words that does not allude them to. He speaks to the gods, but it is of rarity that they reply, preferring to listen to the woes and performing instead detectable miracles and spectacles for the humans to see.

Yuuji speaks but he has not spoken to someone in the living. Not since the rooftop. Not since him.

It came out rough, his throat horribly abused from screaming, but his voice had managed to hold onto that spark in his pitch, the ecstatic bounce for every syllable, and the crisp clear loudness that only his voice can somehow easily do.

“I’m…okay.”

He sounds tired, but is familiar to his ears. Yuuji witnesses the multitude of emotions pass in the man’s eyes, how for a moment it glazes over, looking far and away from the moment but also right next to Yuuji. There’s a pinch in his brows in confusion, right when he was close to catching one of them.

But that is—

“That’s good,” The man says with a squeak at the ending that he clears his throat immediately for.

Yuuji could not retain the thought when the reply bore almost instantaneously, an upturn on the edges of his lips when Yuuji’s exhausted eyes caught the bobbing of their adam’s apple and the blush on the tips of the other’s ears from embarrassment.

The man hikes Yuuji up a bit higher in their hold, enough where his breath fans his pink-colored hair, and his own body presses closer to the other. He feels the rocking of his form when the taller man turns, and hears his steps navigating over breaking twigs and pressed grass.

“It looks like you’ve went through hell.” He speaks over the chirping of the birds.

And Yuuji lets out a short chuckle for it.

“You can say that.”  He replies, rough still, voice dragging and scratching inside his throat.

“Hm, I’ll leave you to rest then.”

Yuuji sees the familiar entrance of the forest, and he belatedly realizes that he let himself get swept away in the comfort again.

“Wait—” He tries to move, but the other only presses Yuuji closer onto him. “I cannot—"

“You’ll be okay, Yuuji. Trust me.” He stares into the man’s defiant eyes—whirlpools in the middle of the deep waters, threatening wreckage and ruins for anyone that sails to the center; but it is otherwise, safe.

Yuuji waits. But the pain did not return.

Instead, all Yuuji feels when he presses his head against the man’s right shoulder is the inviting heat of his clothe body, and hears the steady beat of the heart in their chest.

He remembers the two—turned three raised fingers.

Yuuji closes his eyes when the cool shade of the trees feels nice and cold on his skin, and as he breathes in the scent of the pines from the man before him, Yuuji nods, yielding.

“Okay.”

“Fantastic.” He hears the smile in the other’s voice.

The sun seems brighter over Yuuji’s eyelids, but he is far into exhaustion to open them again to see.

“Sleep, Yuuji. You’re going to be alright soon.”

The man enters the cemetery clearing and presses his shoes onto the cracked concrete as Yuuji lets himself crave the slumber his aching body and breaking disposition needs. Under the sound of gravel crunching from every footstep and the screeching of iron from the wind, and the humming that vibrates inside the man’s chest, Yuuji is blanketed in a tranquility that is somehow, soothingly familiar.

—

When Yuuji opens his eyes, it is far into winter.

He breathes himself to life, filling his lungs with the frosty air, and catching his breath that has turned misty from the sheer cold of the surroundings. He sits up, perturbed and weary for the unknown. When he tries to blow warm air onto his palm, Yuuji feels the bindings on his wrists that had turned red. Quickly does he grapple with its knots, loosening the coils around him and finally, setting himself free. The skin is harsh pink, fabric burns above the scratches, oozing clear drying liquid. He pays them no mind as Yuuji scrambles to his feet, his gaze turning with his body as he inspects in terror as to where he is. He rubs his hands over his forearms when the winter bites at his skin.

Yuuji swallows his saliva—and he is reminded of what had transpired.

Immediately, his hands shot to his neck; and he feels the drying blood over and around the gaping wound, feels his fingers prod inside it, the softness of his flesh over the pads of them—but Yuuji can breathe, and Yuuji is alive—feels alive.

He is confused, but this is better, he thinks, than what could have been.

Maybe Yuuji is in limbo, remembering what his grandfather had told him. How, there people in this world that die far too early, and with that comes regret and unfinished stories. And people such as them, stay somewhere in the in-between of life and death, roaming aimlessly; some find peace, while others carry-on longing.

Yuuji was skeptical of the story, even as he was told of it at his young age; believing that humans do not go anywhere, only back to the earth and deep into its soil.

“But how do you know, grandfather? Have you seen them in the limbo?” Yuuji questions, voice in a weird pitch at thirteen now that puberty has come for him. He speaks over a dinner of vegetable soup and cold bread.

“No, I have not seen them in limbo—”

“So why do you think it is true, then? I do not understand.” There is a pout on Yuuji’s lips, a furrow between his eyebrows as he stares at his grandfather’s amused glance. “How can you believe in something you do not see? Have not even traveled to? I think it is a waste of thought. But as a story—ow!”

A hand flies to Yuuji’s forehead, a glare in his eyes and to the spoon his grandfather used to hit him with, it was a light flick but it stings regardless.

His grandfather’s places it back into the bowl, staring at its contents before scooping up a heap of chunk-sliced carrots and potatoes, it hovers close to his mouth, as his eyes turn back to Yuuji; empty, simply gazing.

“Someday, my child. You will understand.”

Yuuji freezes in his standing and walking through his memories, when the howling winds rustles his robes, and slaps against his sensitive skin; he covers his face with his forearms to fight against the harshness, pushing him back to several steps. Alarm rises in his gait, as Yuuji feels it shaking the trees, and comes the snow laying upon their branches falling hurriedly above him. Yuuji runs for safety, tripping over his blood-soaked kimono, and bare feet inches deep in the snow. Frost gathers on his lashes and the tips of his hair, while Yuuji trudges through the cruel winter as behind him pounds of snow fall to the ground. He runs forwards and far from where he had been, dodging the snowfall, but remembering to stay in a straight, forward track. One way or the other, getting lost and not knowing his way back is a normalcy for Yuuji, especially when he goes too far into the woods for hunt and gather and staying in a single path is easier to lead him somewhere than veering in multiple directions.

Wherever his feet lead Yuuji, he makes sure to write and draw down the trail, measuring hours by how the sun settles in the horizon and how its light cascades down the earth. He would carve out markings on old standing trees for cardinal directions. And every time, Yuuji always manage to find his way home. Right now, Yuuji can use what he had known, what he had grown up on and had come to built him into who he is.

Yuuji manages to veer from the danger when the ground goes quiet and the trees have stopped shaking, and snow does not rattle the woods in their falling wake; but Yuuji keeps moving. Even when winds now dance around him more serenely, Yuuji keeps walking. He hugs his body against himself tight, rubbing at his skin and continuously trekking the woods to heat his body for warmth. For if he does not find shelter soon, Yuuji might as well have sacrificed himself for nothing.

Yuuji hikes in ankle-deep snow, teeth clattering, his body turning blue and purple, before he sees a flickering amber in the distance. He looks above and sees the grey sky turn darker. He pushes further, knowing that nightfall will be far harsher without a fire. However, the closer Yuuji gets, the more familiar the woods became. Worry causes him to pause, even as the wind pounds hard on his back and his body crawling with frost.

“I’m still here.” He whispers to himself.

 A couple feet away from him, Yuuji sees the engraving on a trunk that he had made to mark out directions. His lips quiver in distress regardless of how harsh he bites over it. But he blinks away the wetness in his eyes, rounds out his breathing, and snuff down the sob, to bury it deeper within him, stomping them to a quiet.

This is no time for Yuuji to feel hopeless. He has to find shelter first, or how else could everything be given a matter?

“If—If I was able to run away when I could not,” He reassures to himself while he draws nearer to what Yuuji can now obviously see is a fireplace, he steps further in shin-deep snow, “Then…then I can do so again.”

“Yes, I am sure.”

“I am.”

“I will.”

Yuuji talks to himself when he feels the tickle of the heat of the flames on his coloring skin. To quell the simmering dread in his gut and of the possibility that he might have failed.

But before it could consume him and drown Yuuji into a far colder place, he arrives to a warm tent with a hearth blazing with life. It was bigger than he expected, standing a foot taller than him and spans the same six-and-a-half feet in both width and length. Shaped in a long triangular structure, under his hands he notes it being made of thick cowhide leather on the outside, then lined with soft silken wool on the inside. It is laid over and propped by thick wooden poles, one for the back, the front, and another above tied horizontally between them, four corners of the shelter anchored to the ground for what he can only assume are by heavy metal stakes. It was similar to the ones he had, and used to make, but…bigger. Yuuji is not strikingly tall, but he is taller than most in the village.

From the carving on the bark, Yuuji is somewhere North, and that means he had woken up further above, a place he had yet to explore and mapped. A frown blooms on Yuuji’s lips from the oddity of all of this. For every human, and animal alike knows, that no one enters the North when it is winter. Because winter here is angry, and ruthless, and merciless. And so why—why is it here?

Yuuji hears the howl of the winds as he come to sit himself near the fire, and he exhales in relief, almost melting in his spot on the bare ground. The warmth is embracing him lovingly, and the embers are summer fireflies in his eyes. Safety feels good, even if the way to get it has been quite arduous. He feels the frost dry and disappear on his skin, and the moisture on his wound dries soothingly slowly.

The winds pound against the leather, heavy and hard that it shakes the foundation.

“Hm? A visitor?”

Yuuji’s head whips to his right, pushing himself to standing, and staggering to the back of the tent.

Behind the flaps of the shelter where the voice carried to him, Yuuji can feel a presence standing right in front of it.

His heart drums in his chest, and his breath stuck in his gaping throat. The cold licks at his skin again, when a pale hand grabs the edge of the leather pleat. Anxiety in his eyes as Yuuji holds himself, when a hood peeks inside and comes the rest of their body.

“I am surprised you have managed to find your way here.” The man is tall, almost half-a-feet taller than Yuuji. His physical disposition perfectly fitting their voice that retains the deep timber of it, as he brushes the snow off his own set of a white kimono.

Over it is layered with a robe that looks like the color of the sky with the hood attached to the neckline. The hem of the white clothing is gradated by a midnight blue, decorated with red-headed herons and bamboo trees; an inky black river runs over it—and when the man turns to his right to pat their back—Yuuji sees a white tiger pouncing, sharp teeth bared to the observer, their claws the same; the man’s obi dyed in color sapphire. He wears white pronged footwear that disappears above the clothing; moving like a free-flowing stream while perfectly balance atop a pair of getas.

The man is dressed in clothing none in the village could ever afford.

Yuuji waits with bated breath when the man plops down to the space he was seated before, sighing in relaxation. His face is obscured by the hood still, but Yuuji sees a growing smile underneath.

“It has been eons since I heard of my name befall a mortal’s lips.”

The man’s voice and words rings in Yuuji’s ears, comprehending all at once, where he is, and who this person might be. Yuuji trembles in his standing, close to falling to the ground and succumbing to his own heavy weight.

The man’s pale arm brushes the cowl back, letting it settle down and bundle around his neck.

Over the snow-white head of hair that cascades down to his eyes, he looks to Yuuji with them—blue as the sky, as the river, as his robe; the fire in his eyes. The man—the god beams right at Yuuji, all teeth, far amused, far delighted.

“How did you come to know of it, human?”

—

“I see, that is quite a story you have—Yuuji, was it?”

Yuuji nods sitting across from the god with the blazing hearth giving them distance. It was an unusual set-up he has managed to place himself into. Trading himself to a god, to run away from another god—it is comical, really; the muddled inevitability that he is in. Given false choices only to end up somewhere that’s a path or two different, but ultimately, it is the same.

Yuuji shakes his head, burying the thoughts. He had escaped a fate he did not want, and as choiceless as it feels to him, at least, Yuuji made the choice. That distinction matters to Yuuji, no matter how small it is, it matters.

Behind the embers of the hearth and the sound of wood breaking and falling into ashes, Yuuji watches the god feeding more wood to the fire, his face lit and shadowed by the flames. Compared to the statue from before, this deity looks far more pleasant to the eyes; attractive, if he truly desires to place a name for it. His skin is snow, the one that appears translucent, when the sunlight hits its surface in a particular way and that it shimmers. His hair almost the same, but it is dyed in a shocking pure white, difficult to even be compared to the greying and whitening of those aging. And his eyes—Yuuji had only seen them in artworks and imbedded in jewelry craft, but they are the perfect intense blue of aquamarine gems, and yet are not shy into gleaming lighter or even darker; and as Yuuji stares at them behind white lashes—they shift to alexandrite purple when the fire reflects in them right.

So, this is what a god looks like.

“Have you come to fancy me, mortal?” Heat rises to Yuuji’s cheeks up to his ears, and embarrassment pools in his eyes from being caught.

The deity chuckles, leaving him more mortified.

“Forgive me,” he says, hiding himself behind a raised hand, as he looks on at the god’s delighted blues, their figure more relaxed in their sitting, propping themselves with their arms stretched behind them. “It was not my intention to make you uncomfortable.”

The fire sways, the burning wood crackling, embers and ash dancing, all in front of Yuuji, as a grin bears fruit upon the god’s face.

“I am far from uncomfortable, Yuuji. Were you not taught of the fundamentals of worship?”

Yuuji shakes his head, inching further from the fire, from the deity when all too quickly, Yuuji feels a changing in the atmosphere. The storm beyond the tent quiet, the snow refusing to fall to the ground—waiting for something, for what will happen. Yuuji’s back grazes the tent when he thinks he can see the god leaning over the bonfire towards him unscathed.

However, the divinity remains where he is seated, with eyes aflame staring right through him.

“For gods of both new and old, we are covetous of two things, and both lead to our existence as deities.”

The god crosses his legs, hunching forward and placing his head atop his left hand, he raises the other, a finger high in the air.

“One: desire and affection, deemed as the same, interchangeable, and it feeds us regardless of how banal of a feeling they are within the vastness of the uniqueness that comes from being human. There is a…perverseness to it when we receive such human worship. Freely they wait, blindly they follow, strongly they believe; what God should not be left hungry and craving with their veneration?”

Yuuji swallows down his nerves when the deity raises another finger, and the storm comes alive once more, cocooning the tent from the outside.

“Second: power. Power is everything to the gods. It is not necessary for us to sleep, to eat, to rest—inconsequential they are to our existence in comparison to your people. But strength, unbridled strength, we consume them in magnitude. The more the people speak of our name, build temples and carve stones in our likeness and honor, the more our role as a divinity is anchored in the natural state of the world—power follows, and if one is fortunate, they follow in abundance. For the stronger a deity is,”

Striking blues stare into Yuuji, a smile on their lips—waiting. He wiggles the fingers he has raised in the air.

Yuuji licks his trembling lips, continuing the saying, “the easier it is for them to bend the rules of the world.”

A flint and a spark, and a fire is raging above their ocean eyes, consuming Yuuji, dragging him to the middle and leaving him breathless.

“Fantastic,” they approve, a satisfied purr at the end.

The god raises another finger, a third.

“As I said, I was not uncomfortable by what you have said, Yuuji; because no matter how insignificant or all-consuming they are, power is power, and desire is desire. Gods are selfish—I am selfish, and I have an obsession for both.” The deity grins, too much teeth, manic in their eyes.

Yuuji feels like he is drowning, body burning in the flames and being soothe by the waters at the same time. Heart in his throat, face alight with warmth that crawls down to his neck and hiding underneath his clothing. He bundles them in his hands that had raised to his chest, instinctively trying to protect himself from the moment.

“Now,” he claps, and the atmosphere is back to simply the welcoming warmth of the hearth and the whistling winds outside. “Let us get that wound cleaned up, hm?”

Yuuji is too far from the entrance to ever attempt running.

He walked warily towards the god as the other ushered him to sit across from them closer—arm’s length apart. The moment his knees hit the cold ground, a hand grabs his chin, tilting his head upwards. Yuuji kneels rigid in the other’s hold, overwhelmed by the god’s quiet power, as though hidden behind a veil and contained to perfection. Their right-hand hovers over his neck, before a thumb swipes against the gash.

“Hm, this is quite a deep cut. It seems that Head Shaman got too excited.” He snickers, and Yuuji feels his eyebrow twitch, somewhat irritated. “No matter. You are here with me and have called my name in the other’s stead.”

The god’s lips purses in distaste from what Yuuji thinks is his flesh protruding from the wound, writhing every time he breathes.

“This type of red does not suit you, Yuuji. Something better shall be prepared.”

Below his sight, Yuuji can make out a subtle white blue glow; his eyes blowing wide in surprise, breath stuck in his chest, as he physically feels the wound closing, the muscles and veins mending and melding back together. His lips quiver when he can no longer feel wind passing through the wound and making its way into his throat.

It was so simple that Yuuji could almost cry.

The hands leave his jaw and neck, crawling down to the rest of his body, clearing the scratches and burns on his wrists, and the bruising on several parts of his skin. Immediately, Yuuji feels rejuvenated, staring and grabbing over all over himself when the glow ebbed and disappeared. No trace of a scar, no hurt, no ache—no evidence of what had happened.

Yuuji peers up at the god, gratitude on the tip of his tongue, on the smile on his lips, appreciation obvious in his eyes but it all disappears when Yuuji catches the god in his view, staring at Yuuji with an indiscernible emotion on his blues, in their close-lip smile, and slight tilt of their head, of their relaxed shoulders and their countenance quiet. The god appears almost human, kneeling in front of him, arms place upon their thighs, and staring down at Yuuji. Could even pass off as one, the way their power sits steadily around them, barely visible and imposing; like a brush of the wind on one’s cheeks, it is there but easy they are to forget. But the god smiles too wide, their eyes too bright, their hair stark white, too formal, too commanding even if all they are doing is gazing down at him, at Yuuji.

The distance as well, Yuuji feels greatly, despite how easy it is for him to reach out his arms towards the god and catch their hands with his. There’s a bridge almost, that Yuuji is not allowed to cross—placed there so as Yuuji can never forget that he is all but human and the person in front is never one at all.

Alone, the god presents to be, at the other end of the crossing.

Yuuji inhales, smelling the ashes, the snow, the damp soil, cold pine, and burning wood letting it all seep into his body, familiarizing himself to wherever he is: of home, the North, the tent, the presence of the holy being. Then Yuuji breathes out, and with a smile, he copies the god in front of him. Straight shoulders, slight incline of his head to the side, the looking, gazing, staring back and over the divinity.

And it is a smile that reaches his eyes—eyes that blaze with the fire; warm, welcoming.

For someone so grand, he appears quite lonesome.

“Thank you.” Yuuji says and it carries over the heat of the hearth and the blizzard beyond. It reaches the god in a way that his eyes grow wide in surprise, and his body jolting in place, as though unused to the gratitude.

Then the deity grins, a glint in their eyes—amused as they are, and it reflects such as Yuuji feels their power thrumming, scorching, and then flooding the surroundings, the deep night.

“You are most welcome, Yuuji.”

For one reason or the other and unbeknownst to him; Yuuji in this time, for this moment, is far from feeling afraid.

—

Yuuji wakes in the morning, and he wakes alone in the tent.

The fire long-dead, and the storm long gone.

Yuuji rises from his rest, supporting himself with his arms to the soil, only for his fingers to land on soft fabric. He pinches and rubs it between them. From what Yuuji can see and feel, it is a kimono made of silk dyed into a hibiscus red then stitched with golden thread. Yuuji holds it in his hands and unfolds the clothing in front of him, letting it drape down to the ground. He stares mesmerized down at the hem decorated with gold vine leaves, black flowing river, an embroidered red moon—thread shades darker than the cloth; and in the corner to the right, there is an orange tiger pouncing, teeth and claws bared to the observer.

Heat decorates his cheeks as he remembers the god’s own clothing. Hugging the fabric to his chest, Yuuji looks around the tent, and still, there is no trace of them.

Yuuji accepts it as a gift. Holding it with his left, he pushes himself to stand with the other. He looks down at his robe that long since turned red from his blood and agrees with the deity, that he is in need of a change—and a good wash over of his body, for that matter. Just as Yuuji turns his head towards the entrance, there situates a pail, a piece of cloth hanging upon it.

Yuuji smiles, pinks on his cheeks, ever more grateful.

He brings the water to the back of the tent and thereafter placing the cloth inside to soak. Yuuji begins to undress himself, stepping out of the blooded kimono then disregarding it far to the side. Droplets of water fall back into the pail as Yuuji wrung the rag over it; the water feels warm as he rubs away at every patch of drying blood on his skin that he can reach. Cleansing himself of the final remnants of the night that was calling for winter.

The clear water turned murky once Yuuji finishes. He wipes the excess water off his body with his hands before grabbing the gifted clothing from the ground. He feels the softness of the silk over his shoulders and down to his ankles when Yuuji lays it on his figure; he crosses one of the opening ends of the clothing over the other, then grabbing a black obi, Yuuji wraps it over and around his waist, securing the outfit with it by a knot on the front.

Yuuji silently notes to himself how it all perfectly fit and form his physique, and how comfortable they are on his skin. He brings the pail down on the farthest edge of the tent, as Yuuji places the bloody clothing inside of it to soak. He huffed in satisfaction; fulfilled and clean he feels, Yuuji turns around towards the entrance.

Then Yuuji walks outside, still with his bare feet, to greet the sun with his presence.

The forest is covered in snow, deep and white, and it showered the bare trees, resting on their limbs and branches. It is quiet in the only way winter in the woods can. The sunlight softly glazing over the white lands, making them shimmer under the rays. He roams the snow for indents of strides so as to follow where the god might have gone, but there is none.

Worry fills Yuuji’s gut as he steps further into the snow and surprise he feels when, even though it is cold on his skin, it does not penetrate. Wind passes by him, and it rustles his clothing, his hair, it nips at him, and yet it does not make him shiver. Yuuji presses his hands on the snow-covered ground, and it feels the same.

He plops himself upon it, feels the moisture on him, but it is just that: cold, wet, soft snow. A smile is on his lips knowing how it happened. He laughs jovially, deep from his abdomen, that it hurts his lips, and pries beads of tears from his eyes—Yuuji has not laughed like this in so long.

Yuuji has not felt such tranquility in so long.

He rises to a sitting, looking onto the wide forest, delight in his voice.

“G—!”

Yuuji coughs harsh, stomach acid running up his throat. He is stunned in shock.

“Lord Go—”

“S—!”

Each time he evokes the name of the god, it leaves like a breath from his mouth. Refusing him ability to speak more than a syllable or else bile shall threaten to encroach up and out of him.

The wind wizzes around the forest as Yuuji sits on the snow, confused while he holds his throat in his hand.

The god is still nowhere to be seen.

The next time Yuuji sees him, the night has returned. Just as he had lit the fire, the flaps of the tent are pulled aside, and the familiar robe of the deity greets Yuuji.

“Where have you been?” He questions before the god even fully stepped inside.

It caught them by surprise, pausing at the entrance. Over his cowl they stared at Yuuji—looking for something within him; overwhelming blues into his defiant browns. And it seemed they might have seen it; the something Yuuji himself does not know of, and it unnerved Yuuji the way their lips curl up into a mischievous grin that barely reaches their eyes.

Uncanny—the first thing Yuuji thought of it.

“Missed me, did you, Yuuji?” He says with a chuckle, walking into the space and sitting down on the same place as yesterday.

“You disappeared.” Yuuji bites his lips, catching the pout in his voice.

“Hm, not exactly. I am a god, one of nature. And so, in essence. I am everywhere.” He leers at Yuuji, a twinkling in their eyes—and instantaneously, a heat blooms on the human’s face.

Yuuji falls to his side, curling into himself, “Ugh, you saw of me, on the snow.”

“Indeed. It was quite a charming sight; seeing you try and fail to speak my name.”

“That as well, why can I not speak of you?”

Yuuji peers from the ground towards the god, who has laid his towering stature down on the soil—copying him. Their eyes meet, as the dancing flames above them stand witness.

“So, you indeed do not know of the customs. Peculiar you are, Yuuji.” Interest is in their eyes, and he looks to Yuuji without blinking. “Humans cannot simply utter a divinity’s name, unless granted and given permission to. Names carry too much power; it is why you have to speak the god’s name during the binding ritual.”

The god points towards Yuuji, and he follows how the finger moves up and down his frame and back to his face.

“Think of your human body. You eat and you rest to sustain it; for humans cannot survive without such form. It is, in a way, your people’s own power. Hence why, gods cannot simply covet your body—there must be consent; because power comes with sanctity. Our names function the same. Admittedly however, we know how to place the amount of power upon them, but it does get difficult to ignore when used for sacred ceremonies.”

“But the Head Shaman, the worshippers—”

“Understandable, as you are human, but the Shaman you speak of has long since been a vessel occupied by another deity, and from your story it is by a servant to the malevolent god, and so their names come freely to them. Also, gods are known by many names, Yuuji. The name of the god you were supposed to be offered to, is an aged name, ancient in existence,” This time, he points to himself, smile slowly fading in front of Yuuji’s sight. “Similar to my own.”

The color of the deity’s eyes shifts to something darker—the deepest of the depths of waters, the upturn of the corners of his lips falling to a ghost of it.

“I cannot bequeath my name to a human I have just met. Much less, a human that had used my name for spite.”

Yuuji shoots up from the ground, sitting with squared shoulders, shaking when the storm winds bombard into the tent, killing the ravaging flames into a flickering of a light.

His body shakes with the cold, the budding fear coiling in his gut, as the god slowly rises to sitting; in the darkness and freezing night, their eyes glow in malice.

“It is quite audacious of you, to use my name. What did you expect out of it, hm?”

Memories of the temple comes crashing down into Yuuji, remembering his gaping wound and body covered in his own blood.

“I had no choice.” He answers in a whisper.

The wind blows inside harsher—the light goes out. Within the tent it is simply Yuuji, the suffocating shadows, the omnipresent God and their tantalizingly cerulean glare.

“And so, my name came up in convenience.”

“No!” Yuuji shouts, focusing his sight to the only light in the forest—their sharp blue eyes.

He hears a click in the air, the eyes moving side to side, seeming as though the god is shaking their head, disappointed.

“I am not to be lied with, Yuuji.” The god presses, and Yuuji cowers into himself when the voices go a few octaves deeper. “You do not simply lie to a divinity.”

“Just as I told you, I saw your name in my grandfather’s book—heard of it on his lips before he died. And I thought, if I could make a choice, even if it is this, even if it is calling for you—for help, I wanted to make it.”

“Make it?”

“I want to be free!” He shouts in the dark, tears in his eyes, flowing down to his cheeks and his brand-new clothing. “Life has never done me favors. I was told that I am made to be the vessel of the God of Calamity! That I was offered by my parents to their fanatics long before I was even born. I had no life; I was never given one.”

He rubs his wrists frantically over his face, his sobs filling the night.

“My grandfather, he told me believe—to believe in your name, and I did; it was the last remnant of my hope, of my desire to live, to be free as I spoke of you. Even if it is contrived, at least—at least it was a choice I made, not anyone else, me. This is the truth and I am—I am sorry for lying.”

Yuuji’s cries echo throughout the woods even if he buries his face in the palms of his hands. Feeling like he is returning to the same discomfort, the same inevitability. Yuuji curls into himself in his kneeling, making himself smaller, if it means he’ll be spared, left alone.

“Yuuji…” he hears it as a whisper right next to him.

He shakes his head, “I am sorry, I truly am, but I just needed something of my own. Forgive me, please!”

Yuuji feels hands prying his own away from his face, pulling him up to a proper kneeling. With grief-stricken eyes, Yuuji looks into the god’s, with sympathy in their own. One of their hands make their way to his left cheek brushing his tears away.

“It is alright now, Yuuji. I understand.” He sees the small smile on the god’s lips, his brows down turning, and hears a tired exhale leaving him. “However, between the God of Malevolence and myself; I’m afraid I am no different.”

The cold harsh snow enters the shelter, the wind howling inside, as the surroundings grow into a pitch black. The blizzard blows harshly into Yuuji’s eyes forcing them to close. He brings up his forearm to shield them, but when Yuuji comes to peer back into the dark—the blue eyes are gone; the heat of their hand on his face barely leaving a feeling.

The storm returns outside, and the fire burns back to life.

Yuuji, in deep distraught, is alone again.

—

Yuuji waits.

And in Yuuji’s waiting he has realized that hunger and thirst do not come for him. It is non-existent in every moment of his waking, does not feel it as he walks upon snowy grounds, looking up, under, and beyond for the god.

But Yuuji sleeps. Whether it be an act of his own body to retain his sense of mortality or to make a fool of himself to believe that he is still alive, in its sense; Yuuji has no answers. He retains these acts that comes easy and natural for his short-lived body, but he no soon realized, when Yuuji reaches a downslope in the South that leads to his home—that he has no need for them.

It is odd, he is sure; but Yuuji has been experiencing stranger things lately that it does not chip at his spirit unlike the rest have done. He, for one, is in conscious search for the god, that had a moment ago, threaten him in a way, broke him down and flung him back into the feeling and memories of the incense and the overflowing chalice—before the god disappeared into the night with a blink of Yuuji’s eyes.

Unbelievable, he thinks for himself as he almost trips on a protruding tree root, that Yuuji is here and walking bare feet in the snow, to search for a divinity that is somehow anywhere and everywhere. They must be looking down on him right now in amusement, on top of one of the pines or even far above the sky—or maybe the god is not here at all. For Yuuji has noticed the way the shadows bend to his whim, how it had engulfed their stature when they fought and Yuuji had come to anger him. Of how the deity commanded the dark winter into the tent, snuffing out the flames, suspending Yuuji in place, lost in the dark except to the glow of their eyes.

“He said, he is a god of nature,” Yuuji is nearing the boundary to his dwelling. “Then he must be Lord of the winter—no, it does not feel appropriate enough. Or maybe the night—no, the dark? Shadows? Hm…”

He is lost in thought, letting his feet lead him down the familiar trail that he had come to naturally make from walking and pressing down the grass and soil with his feet. Nature making space for him and accommodating his growing body as the once narrow path when he was eight, grows wider to fit him in his travels at twenty to twenty-one. Even above the snow of winter or the fallen leaves of autumn, the soil remembers Yuuji, knows when it is time for him to return home.

The tent was pitch dark that night. No indentation of the foundations or the shapes of the hearth, there was simply nothing.

“Nothing? He is the God of Nothing—?” Yuuji pauses in his steps when he realizes he is back in the middle of the forest.

“What?” He turns his body confused and thinking if he had made a wrong turn. As few feet away, Yuuji sees the tent covered in snow. It takes a moment for Yuuji to gather himself, before he follows the same direction down to the South—a thought brewing in his head.

He passes through the same trail, surer when he meets with his previous trek still embedded deep in the snow. Yuuji walks further, skidding down the slope. And just when he recognizes the marking on one of the trees that indicates the boundary, Yuuji turns right, heading to the village.

It will take him half a day, but Yuuji is growing weary of merely having just himself as a companion and the deity is not exactly an option nor are they available. But there is not much of a camaraderie to offer him fancy when the forest is nothing but a winter wonderland. From the highest points of the trees to the tips of their branches down to their uproots, everything is of shocking white. It seems it is Yuuji that is of odd color with his red clothing, pink-hair and tan-skin. A sore thumb within the vastness of the space.

During his traversing, the sun has gone from the East, to greeting him above the sky, and then preparing to settle in the West when Yuuji finally reaches the second boundary marking; he heads straight to the village.

But the walk spans longer than he remember, the forest seemingly growing larger, no signs of smoke in the air from the burning fireplaces, no clatters of voices and carriages. He sniffs the air and sure enough, the familiar musk of human living is nowhere in the air. As Yuuji keeps moving forward, the middle of the forest is back in his sight. The sun is now halfway down the sky as he contemplates what comes next. He picks at the fingernail of his right thumb with his teeth, anxious about the thought that’s growing.

That growing feeling of fear deep in his gut while he paces in place in the center of the woods. He looks to his right seeing his foot prints disappear as snowfall once again begins. He stares straight into the forest, the dark beyond of it, considering anxiously on the several choices in his head.

He breathes in deep, he speaks “Sa—” Nothing.

He huffs in frustration, hands clenching at his sides.

“For what it is worth,” Yuuji speaks, when the rays of the sun are slowly disappearing in the horizon. “I am not cross at you…Lord” He cringes into himself at the word, not so enthused to have it leave his mouth for a second time in appeasing.

Yuuji turns from his position to his left, moving towards the East and away from the sundown.

“You know, I do not believe in any of you,” He hears the winds blow in the distance, and an amused smile grows on his face, “at least not until the temple—not until this. Of seeing you enter the tent, and of my familiar forest turning into something I do not know of anymore.”

Yuuji walks up the incline of the hillslope. He was betting on this. On the possibility that the god cannot simply change the actual architecture of nature, but only bending it—to where Yuuji is both here and nowhere at the same time; he is glad he is right.

Long had Yuuji thought that he was somewhere locked within the living while simultaneously on the edge of the land of death. However, that is not exactly correct, but it is not wrong either. For gods do indeed live somewhere between them, but it is not the limbo, or the in-between and whatever the humans have come to call the sanctuary—they reside somewhere above it, larger, greater, more sacred. And Yuuji, in this moment, is somewhere in that above, an isolated pocket of space made of winter and nights because the divinity he called upon, is such a recluse of a god.

From every snowflake that falls, every tree that stands, winds that has been called, and the clothes on his body—it is the divinity’s power and it is sanctified.

“Always thought of my grandfather’s books as mere tales and inconsequential works and markings. It seems I stand corrected.” Yuuji’s legs naturally carry him up the hill as his clothing drag over the snow and the winds pushing harsher at him; telling him almost to turn back. But Yuuji simply anchors his feet deeper into the snow, moving forward with an arm shielding his vision.

“I read of you, you know, Lord.” He shouts over the growing blizzard and the greying and darkening sky. “You were there, in small prints of my grandfather’s smallest book. It was a striking thing, your name. Glaringly well-written as it is surrounded by chaotic letters over-blotched in ink—either written too lightly or written in a way that digs into the paper.”

Yuuji nears to the top of the hill, and the storm swells slower around him.

He is interested, then.

“I did not understand why it was, but I could imagine my grandfather writing it, pausing to look at your name the moment he flicks the quill up from the paper. And now, I know.”

Yuuji heaves a sigh of relief, when the storm has come to pass and quiet when his feet finally step into sacred ground.

“You are not a kind God—” A strong wind almost topple Yuuji to the snow but he catches himself just as his body was close to falling down the hill. But he laughs in humor at it, loud and resounding in the dark.

“But your existence gave me a choice when I thought I had none. I recognize that you are as cruel, as devious, greedy and selfish; but—”

Yuuji’s eyes land on where a well-kept temple should be. Remembering how well-lit it is in his village, the elderlies running around, performing chores and strenuous labor to keep the shrine maintained and running. Instead, the temple looks cold, hollow, in complete disrepair with its foundation rotting. Left to the merciless hands of time, and unkind jaws of nature towards human creations. Overgrown with trees and their saplings. The roof meeting the floor, and surrounded by the fallen structure of the ceiling and broken shingles, peeks the head of a statue, obviously cracked and chipping even in the dark.

“But I think you can be different.” He steps closer to the shrine, feeling the cold stone pathway on his feet. “I believe you can be different.”

Yuuji feels the broken and splintering wood on his palms.

“It has been eons since I heard of my name befall a mortal’s lips.”

Yuuji smiles, soft, accepting, unafraid.

“I believe in you, Gojo Satoru.”

—

It seems, Lord God Gojo Satoru has been alone for a really long time.

For how can people serve a god that exists as nothing and everything at the same time? For who can know that there is a god for the dark and the shadows, and the nothingness between it?

Satoru is a god whose story could not stand the test of the ages, but his role as a divinity is far too rooted into the cycle of life and existence that he could not simply go away. His godhood left to be written in a three-sentenced paragraph of an olden book before the next talks of another name.

But the god could not disappear when people—people like Yuuji—find it easy to fear the dark, and the possibilities of what lurks within them. The fear to stay outside when the long winter nights come to the people, staying with them the longer they enter the season. Scared of the ghosts and monsters spoken over a fireplace that thrives in the dark when the moon is whole and the cloud casts grey and shadows upon the land.

Who can know there is such a god to be worshiped like he?

Yuuji did not know either, and it was only in his dying did he remember of the deity’s name and remnants of their ever-fading story.

He could almost feel sympathy for the god, as the texts imprint themselves in his mind and as he stares onto the decrepit building washed out by age and the flowing of life. In the pits of his stomach when the silence is a vacuum to his surroundings, as though the world is afraid to breath, to stay alive. Snow has since refused to fall onto the ground when Yuuji climbs up the steps of the ruined temple. Air in suspension as he sits at the top of the stairs, staring out and into the dark, soulless forest.

He holds his hands together, sitting them on his legs—he waits. For something, anything.

The white bed of hair, the blue of his eyes, the tiger awaiting to maul him stitched to cloth.

Yuuji waits, and still none came.

“Satoru!” He shouts in the air, and yet it carries nowhere.

“Gojo Satoru! You have given me your name, so I know you are listening!” Yuuji stands, hands cupped around his mouth, reminiscent of him calling to the mockingbirds when he is deep into their territory. Difference though, is they answer him in abundance, but the god is stubbornly refusing to even breath life back into his own world.

“Come on! Speak to me!” The forest stays quiet, afraid to spook their hunt by breaking twigs and rustling the leaves of overgrown shrubs and bushes, afraid to breath as though it could carry to the fawn, making it run from their arrowhead and the strained creak of the pulled string of their bow. The animal runs far into the woods, no longer to be seen.

However, Yuuji is no wild animal to spook especially when he is actively looking for the arrow to split the air to careen towards him and to strike deep into his flesh. Yuuji is openly walking himself into the blazing fire, craving it to burn his skin, mar his body, turning him to ashes.

And yet the god seems to refuse his invite, choosing to be far and unreachable, to be anywhere and everywhere staring at Yuuji, no matter how he calls.

Stubborn. Selfish. Such a prideful God.

“Fine.” Yuuji speaks with a hurt, walking down the steps and towards the slope of the hill. “Do what you will, and I shall do mine.”

In the darkness of the forest, he treks back to the tent, a semblance of an ache and offense festering in his chest as he refuses to look back towards the lone temple. No one waits for him for it to even matter.

Yuuji walks, adamant to not return. He does not speak of the name any longer, nor did the god come to visit him either.

—

Yuuji is alone.

Has been alone for quite some time now.

Days lost to his uncaring of counting, but if he can measure them to how he used to live—it has been weeks. Most likely two, maybe even three, or absurdly four, he does not know.

And it also does not matter. For Yuuji is trapped here, wherever this is, in a forever winter and a forever night, alone. For the god has yet dared to show their face, but Yuuji knows they are watching. Would watch how Yuuji lights the fire when it turns dark, watch him stare at the snow that would fall to the ground and how he lets the wind that would beat against the leather put him to sleep—all irritatingly monotonous.

Yuuji had tried to walk far, farther away but somehow, he would always return to the center, to the tent. Suffocatingly stuck in a forest he once known like the back of his hand but is now too different, repetitive. He also has not talked out loud since the discovery of the temple. Keeping to himself and his dragging thoughts to spite the omnipresent God—copy him, and their silence.

However, Yuuji is or once was human, and they do not thrive being alone, unaccustomed to the quiet it brings and the feeling of seclusion. It is torturous to him and his mentality. The longer the days go by, the more he traps himself within the tent, refusing to step back into the snow and feel it on his skin. Soon, the hearth follows Yuuji’s lonesome, the night remaining stark dark, as he grows more uncaring of bringing light and warmth to embrace him. Yuuji simply sleeps onto the damp ground surrounded by scent of soil and pine, and he wakes the same—staying there, waiting for the repetition to happen rather than fighting against it.

The sun alive outside, but Yuuji curls into himself on the ground, settling to stare at the tent, rather than to move anywhere else.

“You are no different.” He mumbles to himself, tired.

Within the shelter, the world beyond is quiet, save for the subtle fluttering of the snow falling down and the slight movement of the leather from the calm gust of wind—the land itself is unmoving. Yuuji is cocooned in the shadows of the tent, laying on his side as he idles the day by, staring at the woven wool, soft and plush on his fingers.

“That is quite rude of you, Yuuji.” The man feels a looming presence behind, at the familiar spot, at the other end of the hearth. “I merely spoke as such in jest.” A strained humorous voice bounces off the space.

In the mid-morning, the night seemed to have come early inside.

Yuuji breathes slow, closing his eyes, his hand laying over the wool, caressing it with an uncharacteristic calm in the presence of such divinity.

He remains silent, his back facing the other, a definitive distance; building himself a metaphorical wall between the god and he. And it seems the deity understood, rooting himself in place rather than jumping over, demanding attention.

For the god stays seated, just as quiet, watching.

—

Itadori Yuuji is human; Very much so is he a perfect essence of it.

The complicatedness towards emotions he has, the uniqueness of resiliency, empathy, and of at times the unjustifiable pride he carries heavy. Yuuji is quick to feeling follies just as quick as he is to feeling knowledgeable the next. Itadori Yuuji is human just as much as every other person there is.

Even if he would like to believe that he is one not so easily driven by impulse, emotions come like rivulets to him, difficult to ebb once they are there. Yuuji is selfish for the sake of tranquility, greedy for the sake of his desires just as he runs away from feelings that births from conflict. It is not self-serving for him to feel anger, or jealousy, or sadness—it is the opposite to his obsessiveness for peace, for serenity, to no longer be lonely.

Itadori Yuuji is human and he does not like being alone.

And maybe it is why he did not run when he needed to, because where would he go? Who will he run to? All his life, his grandfather was all he had, and now that the man is gone, does Yuuji still have a place in such a world?

It is a known truth to Yuuji himself that he dislikes the feeling loneliness; however, it does not mean he cannot live with it. But when he is given a choice between knowing he can exist with another, rather than to not—Yuuji is aware of what he prefers.

Yuuji wakes from his short slumber with a greeting from the dark winter.

The hearth has been lit, and he can smell the ashes in the air, the embers a flurry in his periphery. The storm is back, but it seems the gaze on his stature has not once left.

He can feel their eyes roaming his body, measuring him and his movements, his intentions. A lurking predator silently watching their prey. Yuuji can feel him everywhere, staring at every breath he breathes, at the pooling of his hair on the soil, at the way his clothing sticks to his body, hugs his waist and waterfalls down to the ground like running blood.

Yuuji ignores the sensation that runs down his spine, refusing to turn around; to even acknowledge their existence.

“Yuuji.”  He ignores. Hiding his face away further onto his right shoulder.

“Talk, Yuuji.”

And it was said in a way that only a deity could; deep and commanding that it held his curled figure hostage, urging him to turn around to look, to open his mouth to speak. But Yuuji persists, moving himself instead further and onto the very edge of the shelter. The soft wool kissing the tip of his noise, his left cheek.

An exasperated sigh floated in the air, the wind sweeping inside of the tent, blowing the fire larger, bigger that his shadow grows, engulfing Yuuji in midnight; but Yuuji refuses to move, and neither did they.

The fire returns to normal and again the quiet borne with ego and defiance falls heavy over them.

But it was an eerie noiselessness that itches at Yuuji’s skin; compelling himself to start the conversation, disregarding his feelings of unjust and of getting hurt. The silence is overwhelming him, because the presence of the divinity tells him they are within the space, but he is also aware how quickly they can disappear from it. Because for what else can Yuuji lose, except his loneliness?

With his ears pressed to the ground, Yuuji hears the slow descending of footsteps towards him. His nails scrape over the soil, waiting with bated breath.

Yuuji feels their back pressing over his, and his heart careens into such fast beats when a hand roams over his nape, long fingers dragging at his heating skin, up to his hair, scratching his scalp, and playing with his pink strands between. Hot, Yuuji feels about the touching, the weight next to his; searing over his face, and body warm within his tight clothing.

But it washes away, cold like a river in early morning, his heart skipping several beats, when the god’s voice speaks above him, close to him.

“I did not mean to scare you, Yuuji. Apologies.”

And Yuuji hears the sincerity, the truth, the asking for truce. It blankets him almost, the unnatural offering of clemency of a divinity to a mortal like he.

“Are gods really this prideful and stubborn?” He hears a snort from above, the hand on his hair, lowering down to his ear, gracing his skin, that reddens in every spot the deity touches, in response of sorts.

“Careful, human; for you are still speaking to one.”

“That is the intention.” He says with a smile.

Yuuji pushes back to the heat of the other body, the serene touching of fingers; he accepts—the apology, the truth.

“Hm, you’re quite the stubborn one yourself. Looking for me so adamantly, do you care so little to your position within here?”

“The opposite actually,” Yuuji grabs the hand with his, and the deity pauses, hears their breath taking a halt. He maneuvers his laying body to face the other, feeling their gaze on him. “I care greatly for it, and it is exactly why I searched for you.”

Yuuji places their hand back on his hair, it took a moment, but he sighs, falling onto the returning touches, relaxed. His brown eyes glow with the hearth and he stares at the spring blue sky looking down back at him.

He smiles, as he continues, “Just as I have told you, I do not fear you anymore.”

“Oh, why so?”

“Because...it is difficult to fear someone that is as lonely as oneself.”

The firewood crack against their weight, falling down into ashes, the hearth screams bright red in the aquamarine—shifting deep purple. The embers fly, haloing over the god—and godly does he look in Yuuji’s eyes.

“That is a presumptuous notion to have, mortal. Divinities prefer being solitary; we were made to be so, in fact.”

“You know what I mean, Satoru.”

The casualness of how he said their name, brought a steering in his stomach, warmth in the cavity of his chest—flattery, he thinks it is. Brought a blush onto Yuuji’s cheeks, tips of his ears, and down further into his clothing. He can only hope, the fire hides it from the other.

Yuuji spoke no more, but he is aware that the god can see it in his countenance, in his small smile—the memory of the abandoned temple, of the mossy stone pathways, and the broken stone-carved statue. A hand hovers over Yuuji’s face blocking his view of the deity.

“An oddity you truly are, Yuuji.”

He pushes the hand away, and for a moment he almost saw a flush on their own cheeks, but it disappears when the reflection of the flames lick at their face. Their hand draws back to the musings, short strands between pads of fingers.

“Do you not like it? If so, I believe it would come easy for a god like you, to smite me from this world.”

“Would you want that? For me to snuff you out of existence?”

Yuuji thinks for a moment, and for the first time, he is unsure of what to answer.

He knows, now fully aware, that Yuuji can never leave such a place. Will stay here with the deity as long as he is permitted to. That this is the option he had traded for the other, and there are no takebacks.

Would this be alright? Is this…mundanity enough?

“Yuuji?”

Over his musings he hears the god call for him, he peers up into the questioning eyes.

“I do not know.”

“Come again? That is not what you have cried to me for.”

Blush peppers Yuuji’s cheeks, a pout on his lips; a small smile grows on the god’s face at the sight.

“I don’t even know if I am alive still, to speak over such—”

“So long as you have a soul, you can always have such choice.” The divinity cuts him off, matter-of-fact in tone.

“I see. However, I cannot leave this place, right? I am…stuck here.”

Silence follows; a pause in the natural state of the world.

“You made that choice, Yuuji.” The god’s brows furrow, an annoyance almost brewing in their eyes.

“I know!” Yuuji says trying to placate, sitting himself up, as the hand fall back to their side. “It’s just, between the repetitiveness and the dying—is there truly a difference?”

The frown on the god’s face deepens in a scowl, annoyance now palpable on their gait and the air. The god grabs hold of Yuuji’s face, forcing him to look at them, deep into their eyes—whirlpools trying to pull him in.

“Another lesson, Yuuji, in making deals with the divinity.” They say, inching their face closer and closer that their breath fans Yuuji’s dumbfounded face. “There are consequences when you play with cards you do not have; as one does not simply flip the stories they were made to be, without leaving unscathed.”

Yuuji’s body slam back onto the ground, hard that it leaves him breathless for a moment. He stares wide-eyed and mouth agape at the snarling pale face inches away from his. Dark blue glimmering and glowing in the night, overflowing with anger as they stare at him; their eyebrows furrowed in fury, nostrils flared, his ragged breath tickling Yuuji’s skin.

Yuuji feels the god’s weight atop him, caging him in their arms.

Gods are selfish—I am selfish.

“Risks, Yuuji, do not bear fruits or rewards. Toying with chances in the name of the gods, by the use of mortal thoughts and machinations, for an option—a choice; is an act that is unsightly even to the most holy.”

Yuuji’s heart sounds as though it demands to be released from his chest; he holds his breath.

“Wagering with divinity does not result in gratification, human. The moment it becomes binding, you wait; wait until it comes for you, for a payment in return.”

Yuuji feels the god’s nose brush against his before they dip their head to the side, their breath caressing his left ear.

“I gave you a place, a choice, my name. Your soul is bound to me as I will. For what, that is with my choosing to make.”

The deity speaks in a deeper tone than he had ever heard before and Yuuji’s heart skitters to a stop—

And I have an obsession for both.

“You are mine, Itadori Yuuji.”

—

“You’re awake.”

Yuuji opens his eyes to cream-colored ceilings and clinical white overhead lights. He feels the soft mattress on his body, feels it cleaned from dirt and debris, the pillow cold and plush on his face. He is tired from sleep, but otherwise, he is alright.

“You were crying a lot, in your dreams.”

Yuuji turns his head to his left, his body still has the aches, but with the running air conditioner and its comfortable breeze, Yuuji does not mind the hurting.

The man is there, sitting poised on a chair, legs crossed over the other, a hand propped on his knee, as his head lays over it. The other holds a book, pried open by fingers slipped between the pages. The blue eyes look on at him over reading glasses, a circular frame, fitting perfectly upon their face.

He watches Yuuji, the man, almost calculating, the way the eyes move and observe his weary body. He stays unmoving, observing.

It is when Yuuji turns to his side, did he notice his black robes have long been discarded, the red cotton sweater and long dark blue sweatpants, both loose and comfortable over his heated skin. Yuuji gazes at the oceans hidden under glass, sees their waves crashing over sand dune beaches and jagged rocks—calming but dangerous.

Yuuji smiles, face pressed on his forearm as he uses it as a cushion, a tear falls, and then another; and immediately the man stands, book laid down on the mahogany chair, as their hands outstretched to hold Yuuji’s face, caress his cheeks, thumbs brushing the onslaught of tears away. And Yuuji engulfs them with his own as he silently cries, gazing impeded by his crying. But his smile never left his lips, never left even as he spoke.

“I’m sorry.” He says, rubbing his fingers over the back of the other’s hands in consolation.

“Forgive me, Satoru. For making you wait.”

Yuuji remembers, and he remembers well.

Chapter Text

The End.

—

The human mind is a fickle thing.

It is unique to every individual, and varies in how it functions for different people. It has born both envy and spite from the gods. When it is the minds that brought forth endless achievements unto human living, and brought with it damnation as well. Starting as a seed that then be propagated as cruelty for thoughts and ideas.

Despising they are towards human thinking, refusing to recognize how the people were born in the likeness of their own divinity, in that selfishness and pride has come easy to them because. And so do jealousy, wrath and oppositely, so does empathy. They have molded those holding mortality as double-edged swords, all to bring forth a sense of equilibrium. That humans are unkind but they can also be good people.

Made and forgot they did of humans love of wagers; of their fortune, of their thoughts, their fate, their beliefs, of their lives. To possess what they desire, humans take risks—even if it leaves them nothing but bleeding. But when they do succeed, have their needs fulfilled, it is a feeling unlike any other, and humans crave such, even if it becomes their breaking; they shall perform beyond what they are required of, to hold it in their own hands.

Obsession molds the human psyche with a quickness, causing great disruptions to the natural balance of the world.

Another fact, the gods of old and new, seem to have forgotten, in their own apathy.

—

Yuuji remembers a story, one that surpasses the fear of passing time, and the vast and constant changes of the vivacious universe. He remembers tucked tightly in the covers, a candle close to his bed, as the rainy season comes for their village. Yuuji comfortingly lays under a white blanket, a smile on his face, excitedly watching his grandfather’s rough fingers feel the spine of his books, before he comes to pick up one of hardbound on brown leather.  The older man grabs the lid, slowly closing the trunk so as not to disturb the night. The wind howls outside, shaking their home with its anger; but Yuuji isn’t scared, not when his grandfather is walking towards him.

The man approaches Yuuji’s bed, and the child scoots to the other side, making space for the other, as they climb up and under the covers. Immediately does Yuuji crowd the other’s space, attaching himself to his grandfather’s side, as an arm wraps Yuuji in a warm embrace.

Bright brown eyes, gazes on at the man, his smile never once leaving.

“What story is it tonight, grandfather?” Yuuji queries, watching as the man pries the heavy book open, seeming to exactly know what page to read and hold between his fingers.

“It is a tale of old, Yuuji. One that is about sacrifice and freedom.”

“Is it good?” He asks again, inching closer to look on at the book, however, Yuuji could not understand any word that is written, looking to be inked on paper with the use of a different tongue. Yuuji pouts, disappointed.

A hand nestles atop his head; soothing, gentle strokes on his pink tresses.

“It is my favorite story of all.”

—

The god’s eyes are burning waters as they stare at him, their touch searing on his skin, as their hands creep over his arms before they settle on top of his. He lays beneath the god, movement at their mercy, caged between their thighs, the weight of their body, the soft caress of their clothes, and their divinity surrounding them, that engulfs Yuuji within.

The space feels ever smaller, with their lack of distance. Yuuji trying his best to breathe without it wavering, without it having to travel to the face above him. He struggles to forgo the feeling of their noses touching, of the intensity of his gaze, and how his hands had come to travel from his palms, fingers carding through his forearms, his elbows, grazing down to his clothe torso, before they settle with a halt on the openings of his kimono.

Yuuji breathes deep—deep that he feels it within the very depths of himself, his body twitching, staving away the simmering heat coiling in his core. And he breathes out ragged, hot when the divinity’s forehead rests on his own, and their legs enclosing Yuuji’s form further onto them. His eyes—bright, electric, effervescent eyes, stares, and gazes, at and into Yuuji, he feels. Feels the god peering into his soul, his ill-fated begotten body. With the bluest star within the Universe as his eyes, he feels himself trying to reach for it—even if it means he has to come back down to Earth burning.

“You have offered yourself to me, Yuuji.” The god whispers, between the minutia of space between them; between their lips. “I do not take kindly to takebacks.”

A nail grazes his chest, and Yuuji feels his body come alive. A gasp born out of his mouth, his eyes blown wide fighting between surprise and the heady, and heavy urge to be all-consumed by lust. His back arches, that his torso presses over the god’s, when the pad of their finger smooths over his heating skin—so, so much of a feeling of being burned on the inside.

“Wait—” A hushed whine falls from his lips, seeing one their hands on his obi, tenderly prodding the knot, playing with its twists—waiting. His head falls back to the ground eyes returning to the god’s pupils, dilating, unbecoming for a mortal like Yuuji, as it expands over the blue of their eyes, a black hole, tempted to swallow Yuuji whole.

He gulps against the drying of his mouth, his throat, the raging coiling in his gut, loud, sensitive, waiting for him to give in.

“Yuuji…” He feels like he is melting, the god’s voice, their breath kissing his skin, his reddening cheeks—so, so close of their lips brushing over each other. A puddle in the ground he thinks of himself, when the god rests their cold cheek onto his, rubbing it against him; nuzzling.

“You are mine, Yuuji.”

He stares at the tent, breathing ragged through his open mouth, arms remaining above his head, even when the deity’s own have long since stopped holding them hostage—their left rubbing at the exposed skin on his chest, his right, playing with the fabric on his waist, slithering down to his hip, squeezing. He shut his eyes tight, legs rubbing against each other, his heart beating hundreds a minute.

Does Yuuji want this? To be tied to the deity in this way? To offer more than just his blood, his life, his soul. To let Satoru touch him in the way he’s imagining, to let him peer over his figure, commanding blues detailing every curve and movement of his body as the god kneels over him, between his legs, over the untied blood red colored clothing on the ground—the fire blazing to Yuuji’s left, a witness to his submission, to his acceptance.

Do I want this?

To know of Satoru’s touches, how he touches, over him, under him, in him; how sure is Yuuji, of this burning need to offer more, to fall. Would he regret when all is over, and the sun is back in the sky? Would he feel it as a mistake when he opens his eyes and the god is gone again, their marks healed from his skin. Would he cry if he was offered another neatly-folded clothing next to his waking figure?

Doubt runs in his mind that it throws Yuuji away from the moment, imagining every possibility, and somehow it all ends on the god leaving, and Yuuji stuck in perpetual loneliness.

He only realizes he has been crying when thumbs are over the edges of his eyes, catching his tears in their palms.

“You are crying, Yuuji. Why?” Satoru’s voice is filled with so much concern that it warms the ache in his chest, even just a bit.

And Yuuji, opens his mouth to answer, blurry sight onto the patient sky above him; but Yuuji is voiceless, nothing but his breath when he tries to speak—he cries again, more, ever-flowing.

“I shan’t touch you Yuuji, if that is what you want.” He hears their voice over the blazing hearth. “That, I promise to you.”

And Yuuji trusts that, knowing Satoru won’t go further until it comes from his own mouth. So, Yuuji silently sobs within the god’s hands that are on his cheeks—crying for everything that couldn’t be, could have been, and shall never be no longer.

Everything in Yuuji’s life comes falling down, slipping from his fingers, never to be caught in his hands again; blown away by the wind and buried under his village temple, sown into the unattended field of their backyard, tended to grow from the ground, but left before it can fully bloom. Yuuji had thought he has reached the precipice of his hurting, has come to accept it all and its ending, and yet, here he is, under the warmth of the very deity he offered himself to, feeling the brush of the hearth, and the winter world against his back—and Yuuji is falling, and as he falls, he remembers all of the hurting, and it is eating him from the inside.

The strokes on his cheeks, the nuzzling on his nose, the whispers over his hair, does not feel enough. Even though he welcomes it all, and it sends a shiver down his spine and makes him deliciously tremble—it is not enough.

“Satoru…” he says between his cries.

“Yes, Yuuji.”

It is a quiet the world has come to be, the tent the only space that feels alive.

“Can you hug me?”

Arms wrap around Yuuji’s torso, reciprocating it with his own around the god’s neck, and he buries his face on their shoulder. Their hand rubs over his back, the other holding him tight against their body.

His hair moves as the god speaks, “Cry, Yuuji. You will be okay.”

—

Yuuji sits on the bed, legs crossed atop the mattress, waiting.

“I’ll drop by the convenience store for a bit. Stay here, Yuuji.” The man says, as he wears a jacket over his loungewear, before stepping into his running shoes.

Yuuji makes an attempt to move from his place, but the man glares at him, halting him in movement.

“I’ll come with.”

“No. Stay here.”

The man stares him down, as though daring Yuuji to follow. He sighs, rescinding.

“Okay.”

“Good.” From the entryway uncaring if he has already worn his shoes, the white-haired man makes their way to Yuuji, rustling his hair with one of his hands, a smile on their face.

“I don’t want you to disappear too soon; especially now, that I finally have you right next to me.”

And Yuuji couldn’t even respond if he wanted to, because the man was out the door with a click of the lock, before he could even process what the other has said.

He plops down back on the bed, cheeks red, heating.

“Is it okay for me to be here?” He whispers to himself, looking up, and seeing the glass wall behind him in his periphery. He did not expect waking up in such a lavish apartment, but then again, he should have, knowing who Gojo Satoru used to be.

He turns to his side, staring at the lone chair, the book still propped on its seat, a page folded towards the inside to indicate a bookmark. His eyes still feel heavy, fading pink he is sure from all of the crying he has done. The penthouse is quiet save for the running air conditioner, the constant mist of the humidifier scented of what Yuuji can guess are white lilies, and his moving against the duvet and the blanket over his lower body. The attention of his at the artwork screwed onto white walls, fall onto the sweater he is currently wearing, feeling the soft cotton on his skin, the scent of pine between its very weaving; and Yuuji remembers this being the fabric the man was carrying on the rooftop, the one that swayed stiffly against the night winds.

And when Yuuji moves to swallow, he grows cold, realizing the dryness in his mouth down to his throat. He sits up, hand clenching over the bedding, the other on his torso—hungry.

Yuuji is thirsty and in need of food.

“Ha!” he manages to say, the fact weighing down on him, shackles on his ankles and wrists, noose around his neck, a glint of a guillotine above him.

He jumps away from the bed, late to realize he was simply imagining, but with how he is fearing and the hollowness in his chest loud, it felt all too real. Scared to return or the even touch the mattress, Yuuji decides to walk around the space, to make his way to the kitchen, obsessively aware of the feeling of roughness in his throat. He holds it with a hand, as Yuuji strides past the connecting living room.

A completely open space, entire wall of the left a wide window down to the city, short-lengthened walls impeding the transition from area to area; even the bathroom is simply hidden behind frosted glass—you cannot see a face, but the outline of a bathing body could be. Yuuji looks away, flushed, proceeding in a straight line towards the kitchen on the other end.  

Yuuji passes by the dining table, too clean, seemingly unused, and to the stainless-steel sink and tap. He grabs a cup from the drying rack and twists the handle open, and water fills the glass easily. But before Yuuji could take a sip, there was a beep at the entrance door, and he walks with the drink in his hand to follow the sound.

He waits, hands over the cup, a few feet from the foyer, when the door opens, and his eyes are greeted by the hood of Satoru’s jacket, a hand holding a plastic bag propped over a wall. He enters with wet spots on his clothing.

“Ugh, fucking rain.” Yuuji hears the man mumble, back facing him as the other busies themselves to lock the door.

“Hello.” And Satoru jolts in place in surprise, that a smile makes it way to Yuuji’s face.

The human turns their head, looking to Yuuji from the side, with a reprimand is on the tip of their tongue, but their own upturned lips beat them to it. He fully turns his body, toeing his shoes off, pacing towards Yuuji.

He stops in front of him, and Yuuji had to look up from the height difference.

“I thought I told you to stay in bed, hm?” He says, an eyebrow raised.

“Ahh,” he looks down, embarrassed and just then he remembers the water in his hands. Yuuji slightly raises it towards the other. “I got…thirsty.”

Yuuji swallows, remembering again, he yet to have taken a sip.

Several emotions swirls in their eyes, as Yuuji simply stares back, worried. Then the other nods, before walking pass him, to the kitchen.

“Where did you get it? If it’s from the faucet, that’s unsafe—there’s filtered water being dispensed in the fridge.”

The man places the plastic bag down onto the table, making his way behind the island counter to grab several plates and utensils. Yuuji follows inside, staying standing, satisfying himself by looking onto the man moving around his own space.

“It’s quite alright, I’m certain it shan’t make me fall ill.” Yuuji smiles in reassurance, when Satoru returns on the table, placing sets of steel and porcelain down on the varnished wood. He stares at him, assessing, before grabbing the cup from Yuuji’s hold.

“Doesn’t matter,” Satoru walks back to the sink dumping the water and setting the glass inside, taking another and saunters to the fridge—and Yuuji, again, can only watch. “If I say it’s not good for you, then it’s not good for you.”

“But—” The man hands the filled cup back to him, and he takes it.

“Sit, Yuuji.”

The plastic rustles by the human’s doing, pulling out packaged food, that are still hot and steaming.

“Satoru,” he says slowly, still standing over the man who has come to sit on one of the chairs—too many for one person. “I am not human.”

The silence, loud, deafening, that Yuuji has to ground himself by gripping tight over the drink.

“Yuuji.” The man says, eyes never landing onto him, simply staring at the table, hands almost crushing the Styrofoam in their hold. “Sit down and eat.”

There is this instinct in Yuuji to follow, whether it be born from the memories or simply because of the moment, Yuuji concedes. He sits himself across the other, the long wooden mahogany table their only distance between. There is a few more seconds of quiet, before Satoru returns to opening the lids of each take-out box, and as the scent of food fills the space and the tense void still over, around and surrounding them, Yuuji finally finds the time to drink.

Cold water flows down his parched throat, and he sighs in relief at the feeling, settling well in him. He catches the amused eyes of the other and the slight smirk on their lips.

“Want another?” His cup quickly empty, Yuuji nods.

This time Satoru brings out a pitcher.

And just like that, the strained atmosphere is gone.

Yuuji understands the ethics of how to eat, having observed people all his life, but not once has he felt any form of being ravenous. However, as the man sets in his plate heaps of cooked meat, stir-fried vegetables, and a mountain bowl of rice—drool almost dribble out of his mouth. Yuuji is unsure if his internal structure even copies that of a human, or that he simply looks like one from the outside, but his stomach does not growl at the presence and delectable scent of food—but he is in such unexplained hunger that he truly has turned ever more mortal.

The thought weighs heavy on him, along with the knowing that shall come after. After all, in the depths of one’s suffering do they experience some form of reprieve; what it is this time, Yuuji has no answers. But he does wish at the very back of his mind, that it is something of good.

“I don’t know if you can use chopsticks, so I brought out a few spoons and forks for you.” The white-haired man tells to him, as he taps the ends of his chopsticks on the table to align in his fingers, before he grabs a soy-marinated strip of meat from his plate into his mouth.

“I believe I can make use of them; I have been watching for a long while after all.” He grabs the slender pair of metal in his right hand, cold against his palm, that with almost known dexterity Yuuji had placed the chopsticks over his fingers, he grabs a thinly sliced carrot with absolute precision, and into his awaiting lips.

This is the first time Yuuji has come to taste human food. The idea of satiation has turned more of a dull memory than an actual substantial feeling. His tastebuds feel alive; salt and umami and texture on his tongue—it is unusual still, but it is, tasty, delicious is the word, he thinks, to describe it.

“It’s good.” He looks to Satoru in amazement, picking up braised meat and sighing in delight at its taste, shoulders slouch, relaxed. “This is from the convenience store, truly?”

Satoru shakes his head, a smile on him as his gaze trained from Yuuji’s lips back to his eyes. “Nah, I thought you’d like it more if it’s actually made with talent and skill. There’s this restaurant I go to, owned by this old couple; it’s popular with the locals here, especially at lunch time, so this was hard to get my hands on.”

“Ah, forgive me, then. I did not mean to cause you trouble.” His eyes fill with guilt, and the man can only snort in humor.

“Yuuji, if it’s you, there’s never any trouble.”

And heat crawls back on Yuuji’s face, red from his cheeks down to his neck. He looks down and away at the smirking male, choosing to attend himself with the dishes.

Here Yuuji sits, with the sound of utensils hitting porcelain, of water being poured in glass, the whirr of the air conditioner and the far away blaring of car horns down on the streets. Here Yuuji idles, happy that he finally knows what he had missed out on by never being hungry, only to then be confused at the normalcy of everything. For Yuuji does not feel the calling of his duty, did not even realize that one can take off his robes, and that this feeling that he cannot bring out his scythe—as though it is not needed anymore.

Has he truly lost all of his divine powers? Is the truly being demoted into a human? And where is the aching that had burdened him all this while whenever Satoru is near and when he speaks of his name? And where is the searing, and drowning hurting that has come to be what is mundane and normal to his existence?

He looks up at Satoru, who has since finished his serving, collecting his dishes to bring to the sink for washing.

Is it, truly? Could it be?

A finger lands on Yuuji’s forehead, Satoru’s arm outstretched in front of him, head tilted to the side staring at him with a smile.

“What’s got you stuck in your thoughts again?”

Should I—Should I ask?

“Why am I here?”

“Huh?” The man’s brows furrowing, blue eyes looking affronted.

Yuuji backs away, setting down his chopsticks on the table, “I mean, I am supposed to be working, trying to help souls pass towards the afterlife. That is my duty—in this world, at least. So, why…”

Yuuji breathes deep, the flinting of anger in the man’s eyes making him wary, but he has to ask, it does not make any sense.

“Why am I here, Satoru? How can I be here?”

Yuuji jumps in his seat when the chair scrapes harsh over the hardwood flooring, as Satoru abruptly stands grabbing his empty dishes and Yuuji’s unfinished ones before making his way behind the counter and towards the sink. And Yuuji follows, standing more slowly in his seat, strides behind Satoru.

He hears the opening of the tap and the gushing of the water, as he walks closer, simply a foot behind the other.

“Satoru, please. I need to know.”

The man’s bowed head, turns to look up at the splash wall. The tap turns off, and with their back straight, the raindrops over the clothing long since dried with time, Satoru turns to his right, looking to him, arms crossed over his chest. And he feels his body shaking with guilt at the storms in the other’s eyes when they fully come to face him, leaning over the sink counter. The blues clouded by grey—sad, pitiable, grieving.

“Forgive me, I didn’t—”

“Yuuji,” he calls out eyes darkening even more, tight smile on their lips, face looking more tired by the second. “Would you like me to tell you a story?”

Yuuji remains standing, hands clutched to his chest, waiting.

—

The sun peeks through the flap of the tent, and Yuuji wakes with a body next to him. A solid figure against his back, a weight over his waist, an arm a pillow on his head. And when he turns, the face of the god greets him for the new morning.

“You are awake,” Yuuji speaks voice groggy and tired for falling asleep to crying. The arm under him bends where the hand plays with his hair. Yuuji sighs content, turning his body to his and right nuzzling onto the chest of a god.

The deity chuckles, pressing him closer by the hold on the small of his back, “I have not slumbered at all, as gods do not need such.”

Warm is all Yuuji feels—warmth and comfort, with his face buried on the deity’s clothe chest that smells of crisp pine and clean winter air, fulfilled as their hand brush over his back, and the growing fringe of his pink hair.

Yuuji fancies this; the moment, the ministrations, the scents, the close proximity—

The god.

He buries his blushing face further on their chest, hands looping around their torso.

Yuuji has come to like the god of the dark winter, the nothing, the shadows. He groans into the fabric over his face.

The absurdity, of such a feeling.

He holds the divinity tighter in his embrace

But I do not dislike it—far, far from it.

“Yuuji?”

“Hm?” he replies, mumbled by the robe over his mouth.

“What has your thoughts been, to have gotten you seemingly acting in such worry?”

Yuuji shakes his head, red on the tip of his ears, his nape.

“Can you not tell me?” The god’s voice nears towards his left ear, a hand pressing over his nape, the other hugging his tighter against their body.

Yuuji shakes his head again, disagreeing—feels his body twitching, trembling.

“Then what is it? Tell your worries to me. I am a divinity, if it is an answer you seek, I have such in abundance.”

Yuuji remains in silence.

“Come on now. Speak to me, Yuuji.” The god’s lips brush the lobe of his ear, and Yuuji falls at the touch.

Pushing his face off the god’s chest, arms untangling from the embrace, only for his hands to grip tight on their white kimono, as the aquamarine gems that are their eyes, stares at Yuuji, that are again, bright within the shadow of the shelter. A thoughtful face, showing to him how concerned they actually were.

And the familiar tightness in his core pounds against Yuuji’s resolve, the heating of his body, making his lips too loose, his mouth too thirsty, that he speaks before he could even stop himself.

“I like you, Satoru.”

Fast, simple, easy. His eyes tiptoeing between the emotions of presenting his outmost affection or simply drowning in his palpable lustful yearning.

Yuuji squeaks, instinctively backing into the divinity, when the hearth breathes to life, the sunlight gone, the world growing dark, darker—the darkest it has ever been. The winter shakes the tent, snow falling over and over the leather, but somehow it remains standing; the air a whirlwind outside, trapping Yuuji and the god within. And he does not dare to look back into their eyes, as the fire grows bigger and larger, the deity’s shadow following suit—as though it can maul Yuuji at the very moment.

The world is loud, disorganized; a flower vase filled with water atop the dinner table, then breaking into pieces, with its content flowing unimpeded by the containment---all at once every drop of liquid falls to the ground. Within the space, Yuuji feels the land of winter crack, and shatter under his gaze, and when he breaths, to simply ground himself, and that his hands have curled onto the forearm of the god, as a way to somehow tether himself from being dragged into the black abyss, the space starts to mend, picking itself back up, glueing itself together with mud and clay.

The hearth dances in Yuuji’s eyes, but did the night remain outside and does the shelter within be doused in dark and shadows. The world righted itself somehow—the god almost crashed and burned his own home, but they have managed to find a way to fix it, just as Yuuji was on the edge of feeling fear.

“Yuuji.”

A hand on his cheek, and Yuuji lets the touch guide his face towards the divinity.

“Yuuji…” They repeat, nearing with those tantalizing eyes of crystal waters.

“Yuuji.” His name a mantra on their lips, when their noses come to touch again, and the space once more feeling ever smaller.

Satoru’s lips slot over Yuuji’s, and it seems he forgot how to breathe. He imagines the god taking it from him, as they changed their position to the one from the other night—Yuuji encased in their hold while the god—in all of their divinity looms over him. His arms make their way to the other’s neck, pulling Satoru closer to him, deepening their kissing, and when Satoru’s hands grab at his waist, pulling him up his legs that his lower body is resting over their thighs, and their tongue licks at his bottom lip—asking for entrance—Yuuji mewls, obligingly opening his mouth, welcoming the dancing of it over his own.

Satoru kneels between his parted legs, hunching over Yuuji trying to catch his lips, latching deeper into the kissing—adamant to not let him go, to not let Yuuji breathe nothing but his musk, and his own palpating arousal in the air. Their hands found their way on his skin, parting the kimono, pushing it up to his hips. Their nails dig onto his flesh, sure to leave crescent dents, as it rides up, squeezing his thighs every time.

“Yuuji…” The divinity moans his name, at loss for breath even if they had no need to. “You feel so good on me, Yuuji.”

Their hands crawl further up onto the inside of his thighs, and when they spread his legs further apart to accommodate more of their form, held tight that the markings are sure to leave red on his tanned-skinned, Yuuji moans, complying so, so quickly. His hold on Satoru’s neck dangling him, his only anchor, as his body is raised halfway from the ground, almost sitting onto the other’s lap, by how incessant Satoru is at feeling him.

“Close.” They say in labored breathing. “Come closer, Yuuji.”

“Yes.” He replies the same. “Yes, Satoru.” The god’s name coming out as a purr, as Yuuji brings his lips onto the divinity again, this time licking their soft swollen ones for permission and how easy does the other acquiesce, but nipping at Yuuji’s bottom lip before he does.

The god settles Yuuji over his lap, remaining on their knees, as his hands continue to squeeze and prod at every spot of his exposed skin.

“Good, Satoru.” Yuuji says mid-kissing, against the other’s lips, “So, so good.”

And he moans loud that the fire next to them flare in response—when Satoru finally makes his way to the fabric over his erect member. He feels the god’s fingers playing with the hem, nail slightly grazing the sides of his length, and his whine drowned out by Satoru kissing him breathless, fervently as though Yuuji is the very power that makes him—the very strength of his very own divinity.

“Ah!” Yuuji shouts, when the fabric is pushed to the side and his erection stands expose in full mast, leaking precum as the god’s eyes gaze over it, their foreheads against each other, inhaling deep of each other’s breath—Yuuji’s hot, burning, and Satoru’s cold, freezing.

“Satoru…” He whines, closing his eyes embarrassed by the other observing his length as it twitches, as Yuuji curls his legs at the sides of Satoru’s own.

“I’m here, Yuuji.” And the peck on his right cheek, nuzzling it with their own after, sends a warmth in his gut, from such potent affection.

And Yuuji stays seated upon the god’s thighs, a hand on the small of his back that dips into the curve of his bottom, as the other inches closer to his length, beading precum at the tip. Yuuji waits, eyes now open, with bated breath at what Satoru is planning to do next; unashamed now of his fervent arousal, tight in his muscles, sweat on his skin, and leaking of his member.

“Yuuji.” The god says, cheeks still pressed onto him, face hidden from his view.

“Yes.” He immediately responds pressing his face onto the god’s, willing himself to not move his lower-half just to guide his length to the other’s still hand.

The god chuckles, retreating their face away slightly so he can nuzzle his nose over Yuuji’s red and heated cheek, he feels and hears the god inhale his scent, exhaling it, satisfied. “I have yet to ask a question.”

Satoru’s face returns to be gazed at by Yuuji, eyes full of mirth, a wide smile that reaches their eyes—

Human, Yuuji thinks he appears.

The tip of their nose bump over his. His lips offering a chaste kiss to Yuuji’s own.

“I want you to answer properly, Yuuji. Alright?” And Yuuji nods chasing the other’s lips only for them back away—Yuuji pouts, dissatisfied. But the deity simply offers him a smile, and light squeeze to his behind.

“Remember what I told you? About your mortal body?”

“Yes.” He replies quickly, understanding where the conversation is going.

Satoru’s forehead presses over his again, before their face climbs up to rest atop his hair, he speaks, clear into the dark space.

“If I am to proceed further with your pleasure, our pleasure, I ask for your consent.” He speaks, kissing the top of Yuuji’s head. “Most gods do not necessarily do this for carnal things such as coitus, however...”

He whispers over the tips of his hair, the embers in flight, and wood snapping from being burned, falling from its own weight.

“I have grown to respect and admire you, Itadori Yuuji. With the length of time that we had, I have thought of you as a worthy companion.”

Yuuji sighs at the confession, as a smile follows.

“Is that why you chose to drag me into your home? Instead of housing within my body?”

“Quick you are of thought, human.”

His hands roam towards the god’s face, ushering them to look into his brazen eyes, bright and burning. His thumbs brush over their pale skin, and the god simply settles himself within the palms of his hands.

“Were you that lonely, Satoru?”

And the god stares, at peace, before he inches his lips closer to the mortal.

“Indeed, I must have been, Yuuji.” he offers a peck, before Satoru’s head dips lower towards Yuuji’s neck—and he inhales sharp, a long, drawn-out moan right after, when he feels the divinity’s teeth nipping on his skin, their lips sucking over it; claiming him, marking him ever more.

“It seems I was not made to live through perpetual winter alone.” They speak over the angry red mark on his skin, licking it to maybe ease the heat that comes with it.

“Can I take you, Yuuji? Your very flesh, your fallible soul, your affection, your tears, your stories. Can I have them all, Yuuji? Let me feel the brunt of all of it, alongside you.”

And before Yuuji knew it, tears shed down his cheeks, biting his lips to stop himself from sobbing; so, he simply hugs Satoru, a hand over his nape, the other on the back of his head, urging him to keep marking him, every corner of his skin. He hides his face upon their white hair, body arching when Satoru bites at the joint that meets his neck and his left shoulder.

“Yes, Satoru.” Yuuji whispers, fingers carding over snow, “I am yours—I will be yours, Satoru.”

A surprised moan escapes his mouth, when his body was pushed flat on the ground, as Satoru begins to bite and suck against every expanse of his skin they can reach. And he almost curls back up onto their lap, when—finally—his leaking length is given the long-awaited attention. The deity’s hand rough around it, gliding up and down in a perfect rhythm, parroting the time he sucks hard over his shoulder, to Satoru’s thumb pressing over the tip. And Yuuji feels like he is melting, a pool of lust when the deity’s left arm begins to untie his obi, his kimono already falling off by the forearms when Satoru burrows his face over them, licking his sweating skin, and kissing after every bitemark he leaves.

He squirms under the weight of the god, when Satoru begins to pump his length faster, as frantic as how his long, slender fingers, slip through the twists of the knot, untying the fabric—and he squeaks, his arousal thick within the space, when Satoru pulls it off of him, the fabric whipping sharp in the air—it leaves Yuuji breathing more ragged, shallow, his length leaking more precum. He hears the god chuckle over his exposed chest flushed pink along with the rest of his body.

“Did you fancy that, Yuuji? Having a fondness for submission, hm?” he bites at the space in the middle of his chest.

Yuuji whines embarrassed from being seen, discovered. But it all ebbs away, replaced with a full onslaught of neediness and lust, when his kimono is finally untied; falling slowly down on the ground, pooling over it, as though it is—

“Blood.” The god says above him, who has come to raise his torso, their entire weight on their knees, as the bluest of eyes roam every dip, and curve, and crevice of Yuuji’s body. And his length twitches, in the other’s hold, that has paused so as to gaze the entirety of his figure. And Satoru licks the bottom of his lips, with their pupils blowing wide—a pair of vast darkness, impatient to devour the human whole.

“You appear as though you are swimming in blood.” They grin, pure, unadulterated desire consuming him; but Yuuji simply whines for it, begging Satoru place it all on him.

“This type of red truly does suit you, Yuuji.” Satoru looks to be crawling back down to him—a predator inching their way to their finally cornered prey. “You look absolutely beautiful.” Satoru says with a purr, and it sends Yuuji into bucking his hips over the other’s fist, his length even more red and hard; the compliment so unexpected that it leaves him wanting for more, opening a box he never even knew he had sealed away.

“Satoru…” he whines, his hands going between their pressing bodies, and down onto the other’s clothing. “Yours as well, please.” Yuuji says, and whether he spoke as such that it borders on revere, it does not matter to him, not now when he has openly agreed, for the god to take all of him, and everything he can give.

The god groans over Yuuji’s stomach, aroused by the subservience, the veneration.

“Do not speak like that Yuuji, or else I shall end up taking you mercilessly.”

Yuuji’s member twitches in the other’s hand, that amused eyes look to the mortal, whose face has gone far redder than imaginable.

Satoru moans, his left hand guiding Yuuji’s pair to his obi, as the other strokes the member slowly, trying to offer the other the best orgasm that he believes they deserve. He kisses upwards from Yuuji’s navel, travelling to his left tit. “Undress me, Yuuji.”

His lips latch onto the hardened bud, and a deep moan careens from Yuuji’s very core, as Satoru begins to lick over it, sucking, and biting to a maroon red that has now littered his upper body. His fingers tremble over the deity’s clothing, trying and then failing to untie the fabric wrapped around Satoru’s strong, lithe waist; but Yuuji is determined to try, thoughts of what lays behind pounds ruthless against his core, to his member twitching as Satoru’s rubs at the tip spreading the cum over the entire length, as he drags his hand down to the base, a ring of clear and white liquid when he pulls the fist back up, to flick the tip again.

His shaky hands have managed to untie the fabric. And then Yuuji tries again and futilely once more to weave it off of the deity, that his struggling whines makes Satoru chuckle endearingly over his chest, wet with their spit.

“Adorable, Yuuji.” Satoru praises, as his left hand that has been massaging Yuuji’s right chest, travels down towards his pair, to aid him, because Yuuji somehow sounds like he is close to crying simply because he couldn’t rid of the clothing.

He nudges Yuuji’s hands away and the other obliges, hands situating themselves on the god’s dark blue robes, pulling it further down their shoulders when it has been laying askew over their wide back.

“Hurry…” he whines pushing the robe to bunch over the other’s hip but it’s sleeves hook around the other’s arms—and Yuuji, this time, truly feels like he is on the verge of crying. “Ah, haaa…unfair.”

The god laughs beneath their breath but Yuuji hears it still, being as they are the only people in this makeshift world, “Yes, yes.”

With light of the hearth Yuuji watches pale fingers slipping the obi off of their body, throwing to the side next to his own. And Yuuji watches when Satoru crawls back up at him, hair sticking to their forehead, eyes alight—burning oceans with the flames; a sly smirk upon their face, their left hand returned to treading his left thigh, gripping it in a way that his soft muscles bulge between the fingers. “Surely, you can untie this one, yes?”

And Yuuji obliges; that in a more coherent of mind, he would have curled into himself in mortification, by the promptness of how he followed the order, hands shooting back down to the other’s waist, untying the kimono from the side of their left—and once again, their right hand over Yuuji’s still aching, still twitching member, waits for him with an unknown centuries’ worth of patience.

And again, Yuuji fights to breathe, his heart feeling as though it will burst out of its confines, his legs shaking, hands trembling, a shiver after another over his back, the hair on his body bristling; Yuuji tries to breathe open mouthed, as his hands finally make their way to the god’s exposed torso, the opened clothing, almost trapping Yuuji inside what feels like the very object of his arousal—silk falling daintily to the sides, and Yuuji sees, everything.

He feels like he is fighting for even his consciousness to stay.

Dizzy almost, staring at their toned muscles, hard-looking, but soft over the pads of his fingers when he touches. He watches the way they move and flex as Satoru peels his hands away from Yuuji’s body, to pull their clothing off of themselves, remaining however, looming over him; their chest close to his face, and Yuuji feels parched, mouth dry, eyes glazing over it seems, looking and feeling the cool skin of the other, wet in perspiration. And something between a whine and a moan is stuck in his throat, watching his length twitch, feeling his lower abdomen inside flaring, as the god’s own member is hovering over Yuuji’s—hard, red, veiny, leaking, of obvious wide girth, long—

Yuuji gasps with barely any air entering.

Oh gods, how could that ever fit?

Heady in the air, is Satoru’s musk when Yuuji breathes through his nose—scenting both of their arousal littering the space. Yuuji feels like he is falling, further and further, when hands guide his around the other’s neck, over their sweltering back, as Satoru’s own returns to his length, the other spreading his legs further apart, as the deity closes in on him even more. And when their lengths glide over each other, Yuuji—Yuuji unapologetically sinks into the feeling, any hesitation and fear gone, a mist that quickly dissipates in the winter air.

“Yuuji…” Satoru moans over his skin, mouth back on his chest, his right teat, copying what he had done to the other, their hand now grabbing length to lay over Yuuji’s as he glides his fist around them. Squeezing at the base, pulling up to the tip, rubbing it over the other as there oozing cum mixes with each other into the only scent they breathe with—and how intoxicating it is to Yuuji’s nose, light-headed from the carnality of their actions.

“Ahh…good—so, so good. You feel so good, Yuuji.” Satoru hisses against his hardened nipple, as he begins to thrust into their own hand, and over Yuuji’s length, cum as lube as their tip grazes over each other—Yuuji is lost in his own sounds, bucking his hips with Satoru’s rhythm.

“You are so good, Yuuji.” The deity praises, the admiration for him so potent that he can taste it in his tongue—thick, sweet, making him ravenous, making him to want for more, more, selfishly in abundance the only way humans can crave.

The nail on the slit of the leaking opening of his member, becomes Yuuji’s undoing; the coil that has been pulled tight for too long, unraveling at such speed that it is leaving him almost disoriented, his back arching off the ground, the fabric still remaining over his arms, hiding Satoru’s head latched on his chest, as he hugs the back of it feeling the arousal and the need for it to be released.

“Satoru! I—ah! I’m, haaa—!” Words slurring, dots over his eyes appearing as he stares blown wide with lust up at the tent.

Satoru’s thrusting over his length becomes more frantic, no pattern, simply chasing their own high, knowing that Yuuji is close to coming with him. A mix of grunts and groans and of calling the human’s name over their own skin, patched with red bitten marks; eyes fluttering from another onslaught of lust as they think of how clean and untainted Yuuji’s legs still are.

“Haaa…Yuuji, come with me, Yuuji. Haa! Yuuji, cum—”

And Yuuji does, body pulling towards Satoru’s that the other has to hold him back in his arm—the orgasm propelling Yuuji into the other’s lap, his legs locking Satoru by their hips, as he unconsciously grinds his length over the other’s and the open fist, to finally, finally, find the release. He feels his cum spurting out from the tip, but Satoru doesn’t stop, thrusting and pumping even though Yuuji is shaking and his spend sticking to their heaving bodies.

“Satoru—!” He braces himself on the other’s back, nails digging and scratching onto the god’s skin.

“I’m coming, Yuuji. I’m—!” Yuuji moans, long, and in such ecstasy with the divinity as he feels Satoru coming all over him, mixing with his own. Underneath of their overwhelming pleasure-filled stupor, the ground shakes beneath them, the hearth threatening to flickering into nothing, the world raven black for a short moment, the snow almost melting, wind bringing humid air.

But just the same a moment ago, the world rights itself again.

“Yuuji, Yuuji, Yuuji.” The god mumbles over his heated cheek, eyes closed, nuzzling him. “You were so good, Yuuji. That was so good.”

“Me too, Satoru.” Yuuji replies, slowly coming down from his high, belatedly knowing that he has managed to pull himself off the ground and onto the god’s hold when he came. His cheeks grew red again. He nuzzles back, his nose pressing over the god’s temple, smelling himself, their sweat, the cum, the musk, seeped deep onto their skin.

Satoru’s hands rub over Yuuji’s sides, calming ministrations, to ease the mortal from the immense gravity of the orgasm, and to ground even the god himself, to his own world. Yuuji’s own snaked back around their neck, pulling Satoru close in his embrace. His face brushes with their white locks, and he sighs, satisfied.

“I like you, Gojo Satoru.” Yuuji says again, surer of himself, more intentional to be heard by the other.

And Satoru pauses in his touching, breath still in their throat. For a moment, hurt digs deep in Yuuji’s chest, almost pulling away because of it, but the god’s arms wrap over Yuuji’s back, holding him tight—close.

His chin rests over Yuuji’s right shoulder, the fire burning solemn on their side. There was a need of Yuuji to run, to not listen, to cower again, in his own futility. But—

He embraces Satoru even tighter in return, even if his chest is filled with nothing but hurt.

How can Yuuji run away, when Satoru has been as lonely as he?

“For gods, they find it difficult to fell affection the way humans do.” They start, a hand rubbing in circles on Yuuji’s back, as if the god knows that Yuuji is overthinking. “A feeling such as love, is abstract to us. It is incomprehensible to us as an emotion. More of a passing thought, than it is something that can so quickly binds us to another.”

The divinity snuggles against Yuuji’s neck when he feels him shaking.

“Desire is easier to see, to hear, to feel, and drown in. It is a shame, that I cannot fully understand how you feel, Itadori Yuuji.”

Yuuji tries to pull away, tears threatening to fall. But the god—Satoru—keeps him in place, and if any possible even closer on him again. Their lips come for Yuuji’s pink tresses, and they stay there, eyes closed, the human’s weight over hm an unbelievable comfort.

“Admittedly however, I somehow end up envying how such feeling comes easy to your people. That I have found myself deep in thought, thinking, if I desire to feel it—liking another.”

He kisses the top of Yuuji’s head. Soft, apologizing.

“That for such, I thought—it must be nice to be human—and then I catch it, the absurdity of the yearning.” He laughs, over the sound of Yuuji sniffling against them. “It seems I really was not made to be lonely.”

He hikes Yuuji up in his hold, where he is a few inches taller than the other, as Satoru gazes affectionately with a smile and a flush peppering their cheeks, summer sky eyes onto his grey cast suns of own.

“I shan’t lie, to you Yuuji. I truly do not understand the weight of such proclamation, but you, here with me—it feels right. I like you, with me, here.”

Yuuji breathes deep, eyes wide, blinking his tears away.

“But you being alive, Yuuji—such feels of a perfection like no other.”

—

“Wake up, Yuuji.”

Yuuji opens his eyes, to the god crouching over him, a hand on his forehead, a peaceful smile of Satoru’s lips. He yawns, stretching his clothed and cleaned body on the ground, before he grabs their arm with his own, burrowing into their palm,

“Good morning, Satoru.”

The god chuckles, amused, fully aware that the world is still in dark and shadows.

“Yes, good morning. Come now, I’d like to bring you somewhere.”

The god’s arms help Yuuji to rise, the hearth burned down to into nothing but ashes, the outside quiet as Yuuji finally stands on his feet. He smiles at Satoru in gratitude.

“Where are we going?” He asks, walking to the snow, as the god holds the flap of the tent to the side for him, and they follow soon after.

“To my shrine, do you remember?” They begin to walk over the snow lands, in pace with each other side-by-side.

Yuuji nods, “Yes, you tried to push me off the hill from getting near.” A tease in his tone, eyes peering up at the god, whose tip of their ears a jarring pink in the white expanse of the space.

He hears the crunching of the snow beneath their feet and the other’s geta, leaving a trail as they head to the East, it is still nighttime but somehow, Yuuji can see clearly even to the beyond of the woods.

“You are a cheeky human.” He replies, arms hidden in the sleeves of his robes. “I thought you would use my image for something quite careless.”

“I would never do such thing!” He tries do defend himself, voice loud in the quiet woods.

“You were brave enough to call for me, and so I refused to take chances.” Satoru says in an all-knowing way of a tone.
“Hm…You might be right; my grandfather had told of me to be far involved with my emotions.” Yuuji agrees after a moment of contemplation. “The pinching to my sides I would get, because of how I fall easy to anger, and in pits of despair when I am sad.”

“Your grandfather raised you by themselves, yes?”

Yuuji nods, as they make a turn when another marking of his boundary is in their sights, and then did he remember—

“Ah! I forgot to ask you,” he exclaims, eyes back on the god, who urges him to proceed with a slight nod, but their eyes stay forwards. “This is my forest, or at least, my village’s forest. How were you able to make this?”

“I only did half the work.” He says smiling. “This is a possible future I plucked from the order of the world. When you called of me, all the same, I saw your home, the temple, the ritual, and felt the bite of the wind, that I thought, it would bring you a sense of familiarity if I copied the woods behind your house and beyond. And a grounding of sorts, if I replicate the coming season.”

The god turns to Yuuji, a sweet upturn upon their lips, clear waters staring at him. A flush of pink bloom on his face, falling closer in step to the god, bumping his side with the other.

“And you say, I am the cheeky one.”

The god’s laugh booms in the space, open and unimpeded, and it brings such a giddy grin on Yuuji’s face.

“This was a nice change, I admit; as most of the time, I live in unending darkness.”

“You do?”

Satoru nods, “I have no need for a surrounding, a view to exist. Even my temple is a relic of the past when people use to know of me; suspended forever in its broken state. I couldn’t copy yours as it is someone else’s, and so I just took mine to take its place.”

“Couldn’t you just simply change this space instead of living in a forever night?”

“I can, but it is of no consequence or a bother to me to live within the nothingness.”

They fall into comfortable silence after that, walking in the dark towards the hillslope in the distance. Yuuji stays close to the other, feeling their warmth on him. Placing his head to their forearm as they continue to trek in deep snow.

“Do you like being a mortal, Yuuji?” Satoru asks, when they begin to hike the incline towards the shrine.

Yuuji was surprised by the question, but takes it into contemplation, digging for a definitive answer in his mind.

“I do.” He says, when he finds it, and do the snow flutters over them. “It’s complicated to be one, however; the itching need, to find a purpose in living, the struggle to survive and not simply let the flow of time and aging take you. To open your eyes, both worried and joyful to know that there is another tomorrow. To grow, and learn, and fall—to make mistakes, only to have the courage to pick yourself back up; I like it, being a person.”

And Yuuji admits the truth, no use in lying to Satoru as they close in to the dilapidated temple, the snowfall decorating his hair and clothing in specks of white. The god, remains by his side, quiet as Yuuji speaks in the night again.

“I like the unnecessary complexity of the feelings that comes with it as well. It almost feels like hypocrisy, the way an emotion flows from one to the other but it is that flip-flopping that makes people, well, people. A boiling pot of so many things all at once, inside of us—and I really, really like that.”

The god chuckles by his side, “I see. That is quite a flattering thing to say about your kind, but I understand.”

Yuuji looks to his right at the god, and a degree of worry begins to grown in him, as Yuuji once again, feels the intangible distance between them, even though the god is mere inches away, Yuuji couldn’t—can’t reach him.

“Sa—”

“We’re here.” The deity cuts him off, ignoring Yuuji’s reaching hand as they make their way to the temple.

Yuuji is left to follow him behind. Watching again, from afar, as though they have not shared a moment of deep-seated yearning. His worry turns to fear, when he observes Satoru reaching out a hand to graze his fingers on the splintering wood.

“Yuuji.” He turns, and Yuuji falls back several steps, hand reaching for his throat, shaking as he stands at the end of the stone pathways, his eyes, fixed onto the blade on Satoru’s right.

“What—”

The blade seems to glint even in the dark, and Yuuji feels like he is choking in his own breath.

“A final lesson for you, Yuuji, about gods and their divinities.”

Yuuji wishes it is fear he truly feels.

“When one, or a thing is offered to us, they become our property. We can mold them as we like, wield them to our use, play with a life on the palms of our hands.”

Yuuji hopes that it is dread that shakes his form, and rattles his bones.

“You cannot return a gift offered to you; it is sacrilege, it is against the common law of my people.”

And Yuuji wishes he is crying because he feels betrayed, and that he is angered, but the lonely god is walking towards him, tears running down their own face, their breath wavering with every word they spoke, his own figure shaking that the blade trembles in their hold.

“Satoru.” He says under his sobs.

“I am offering you a final choice, Yuuji.”  As he stops halfway from him.

Yuuji steps forward, “Satoru.”

“Yuu…” his name dying faster than intended as Satoru turns breathless before he could end the word.

“Itadori Yuuji,” he repeats swallowing the hurt in their tone. “I will provide you two choices—choose one and I shall make either come true.”

“Gojo Satoru, I am not leaving you!” Yuuji shouts over his tears, sprinting almost towards the god, catching their robes in his hands, burying his face in his clothed chest, wailing loud in the dark, in the divinity’s ears. “I refuse to go anywhere, Satoru!”

“Yuuji, you can stay here, with me; to sleep and wake with me in this world. Just us in perpetuity.”

Yuuji shakes his head, urging the other to stop speaking, “Satoru, please…”

“Or you can live. A life beyond these unchanging woods, where time moves with the seasons, and you age, and learn, and make mistakes, only to have the courage to get back up again.”

A shaking arm embraces Yuuji by his shoulders, their lips on the top of his head.

“Satoru, please, I cannot leave you.” And Yuuji continues to cry, tears free-flowing, drenching the other’s robes, but Yuuji feels the divinity’s own tears, falling onto his hair.

How will you be when you are alone again?

“You have to, Yuuji.” He whispers, solemn, defeated. “Living, was all you ever wanted to have, and none of that is here. It will be alright with time, Yuuji. Everything shall eventually fall into place.”

Yuuji succumbs to his own weight, the arm over him letting him fall to his knees, as the tears continue to well in him, and overwhelming hurt chokes his throat, and the ache treacherous to his form.

“This is cruel, Satoru. Even for you.” He speaks over his hands covering his face, and Yuuji sobs still loud in the night, still a dagger to the god above.

The blades swings in the air, and he is again reminded of a memory.

“You can stay here, Yuuji.” He hears the bitter tone at the end of the sentiment.

A hand rests on his hair, trembling fingers on his scalp, leaving ghosts of touches in their wake.

“What is your choice, Itadori Yuuji?”

—

A bead of water escapes the faucet, dripping down to the sink, clunking with the half-washed and unattended porcelain plates.

Satoru remains with his back leaned against the kitchen counter, and Yuuji, a foot away, waits for him to speak.

“You are here Yuuji, with me, now, because I want you to be. I shirked you from your duties because, from the moment I finally saw you at the rooftop after so long—I never wanted to let you go. Right now, I’m honestly playing with a fire I can’t control with you being here.”

A series of storms begin to brew within the man’s eyes, harsh thrashing of the waves, breaking everything that comes close to it, that even Yuuji himself, falls in unease.

“I’m aware that my old friends are going to make it so that I suffer again in one form or another—extending this tiresome infinity or maybe something much worse. But I—” Satoru shakes his head, biting at the bottom of his lips, staring hard onto the floor. “I’m desperate to finally hold you again, Yuuji. To have you in my arms, and for you to be right next to me.”

There’s a coiling in Yuuji’s core, at the blatantly honesty from the other, and it almost made him want to close their distance and have Satoru in his arms again. However, the frown on the man’s lips quickly form to an irritated scowl, the sad eyes of his, igniting in ire when it draws back to Yuuji.

“When you left my domain, I got stripped of my divinity and cursed to mortality.” Yuuji inhales, grip over the cotton sweater tight, but Satoru simply chuckles at the memory. “The other gods were enraged at what I did of trying to bring you back, and the uselessness that resulted from it.”

The mortal looks to him, a simmering disappointment in their eyes, arms clenching tighter over his chest. “How could you risk like that, Yuuji? I warned you to not play with cards you don’t have; why didn’t you listen!?”

Tears prick at the corners of Yuuji’s eyes, lips quivering, guilt thrumming through him.

“I did not want you to be lonely, Satoru. I—” he licks his lips trying to find his words on the barrage of both feelings and memories. “I did not want for you feel it ever again.”

Anger breathes into the other’s gait, pushing himself off the counter, hands clenched to their sides as Satoru’s feet pounds hard over the wood flooring, making his way to Yuuji, nose flared, jaw clenched—such obvious wrath directed to only he.

Satoru grabs him by the collar of his sweater, shouting, broken, right at Yuuji’s face. “And look where that got you, Yuuji! Look where that got us!” Tears fall from Satoru’s eyes, exhaustion so heavy in his crumbling figure.

He exhales, and the weariness is there, full of it, and Yuuji stands witness to how Satoru is so close to falling.

“You could’ve been reborn in a new life, Yuuji. Time would have made you forget about me.” Grief edges his voice, and Yuuji had no choice but to hold the man tight in his arms, crying against their jacket for apologies. The hand on his collar eases but only to fall over Yuuji’s form, embracing him just as firm.

Satoru speaks above him, over his pink hair, voice wavering, “You know now, don’t you? That a soul cannot live apart a human body. So why—” The man chokes on his words.

And Yuuji can only cry, in their hold, upon their chest.

“I’m sorry, Satoru. I’m sorry…”

“Why did you have to leave your heart—your soul with me, Yuuji?”

And Yuuji couldn’t give an answer. Or at least, one that can ease the pain in the other’s voice, brush the stinging remorse of his tears, and calm their raging heart and trembling body down into something more serene.

“Why do you have to be so reckless? And now here I found you, an abomination of somewhere between a human and a god, because you were punished for giving up your soul—and here I am, in my ninety-seventh rebirth as a human, carrying all of my memories, and that up until this one, none of those lives had you within it.” Satoru chokes with his own words, hurt so visceral, Yuuji can feel it in their trembling.

And Yuuji cries harder, such heavy guilt, bringing him to his knees, but Satoru’s embrace is there to catch him, letting him be cradled in his hold.

“I did not know at the time, Satoru. Forgive me for making you suffer; it was never my intention.” He shakes his head for his naivete, “I was greedy, I was selfish. I wanted—I wanted to live, but I did not want to leave you behind.”

Yuuji’s sobs reverberates in the apartment, the follies of his once-forgotten humanity finally crashing down on him, carving him out further into a hollower form. And somewhere, between the crying and of the other rocking their bodies gently, Yuuji had wished to have not remembered, had never stepped foot in the rooftop, had never felt the sudden weariness of his body telling him that Satoru has been born into the world; to have never known the reason for the gaping maw of his body.

And yet, Yuuji always somehow finds defiance, at end of his every wavering.

He can beg to forget, to go back to the river of forgetting, drown in it—to find a way to run away again. But Satoru is now here, good and safe in the way he hugs him, warm in the way Yuuji hugs him back. And so, Yuuji must not forget, especially when the other has been living through all of his lonely lives without him.

“You’re jumping to conclusions again, Yuuji.” Satoru says above, a dash of humor in their tone, but it still sounds gruff against their throat. “I have never once regretted taking in your heart; to have fallen into the temptation of consuming your very flesh—I will never harbor guilt with that. I don’t care if I suffered, if this still ended up happening to me—I don’t care, Yuuji. But it didn’t have to result in having to give up a life.”

Satoru’s hands fall to Yuuji’s cheeks, stern, red from crying eyes onto Yuuji’s surprised ones, puffy and swollen just the same.

“I’m just really, really, angry at you for being so careless.” And a smile is suddenly on Satoru’s lips, his fingers pinching Yuuji’s cheeks who is still on the edge of crying, feeling like the other had forgiven him so quickly. “Carving out your chest when you knew I could never bring you to experience pain, right when you were on the road to the afterlife. You understand now don’t you, Yuuji? What your greediness did?”

And Yuuji nods, laying his head over Satoru’s warm and open palms. Because of course Yuuji knows, taking care of humans was all he has lived for.

“The heart is the carrier of the soul.” He says softly, breath fanning the other’s skin. “And I left both, with you.”

There was nothing but silence as they stand in front of each other. Nothing but the rustling of their clothing, as Yuuji stretches his arms to bring them up and around Satoru’s neck, nuzzling his face on the other’s shoulder. Nothing but the sound of Satoru carrying him in his arms, a hand on his back, the other underneath his thighs, leaving affectionate kisses upon his nape.

Another droplet falls from the faucet, and once again, life is brought to a focus. In the tense air, Satoru solemnly whispers.

“And soon, you’ll be leaving again, too.”

But Yuuji does not answer, refuses to give one, opting to simply bury his nose under Satoru’s jaw, silent.

Yuuji’s turning to humanity is a part of his suffering, and soon, when he finally can no longer stand, completely powerless, will the darkness and the voices come for him with voracity.

The gods weren’t punishing him for being near the other, it was Yuuji’s mistake to think so. Gojo Satoru is the flint that will spark and burn down the woods, if he touches him and speak of his name. For the human is the finale act of Yuuji’s long-winded tale; that simply the earth and the heavens, are reminding him, that he cannot run away any longer should he choose to fall.

And Yuuji shall take hold of it. All of it.

Itadori Yuuji shall make a wager with the gods for one last time.

—

“For every one of my lives, your soul manifested with me.” Satoru says, sitting on the plush cream-colored sofa, and Yuuji sits next to him, head leaned over the backrest, amber eyes watching Satoru doing the same. “I think the gods thought it was a hilarious joke, or maybe it was to spite me for what I did; to have me remember the fact over and over again, that for every new life I’ve been living, you were never there.”

And Satoru snorts at the thought of it.

“Rubbing it in my face that I had no choice but to consume your soul because if I didn’t, where would you go?”

Because souls are meant to exist within the in-between, parsed through by the divinities of life, to look for which one they believe deserves another life. That a soul is not made to be anywhere but within it; even under the nursing of an all-powerful god, the soul shall simply vanish, and along with it, the memories of the people that remember.

“I know it was futile regardless, but…” he purses his lips, brows furrowed as his eyes stare at the wall in front of him. “I couldn’t leave even a piece of you behind, even if means I have to carry you within me.” He turns to Yuuji, a smile.

And Satoru looks beautiful like this, his hair falling down on the soft couch, their body turned to Yuuji, right cheek pressed onto the backrest, his blue eyes mimicking the sky behind him, expansive beyond the glass, legs crossed atop the cushion, sweet, reassuring smile on their lips, and one his hands crawls to Yuuji’s own slotting his fingers between his—holding him tight, like always, every single time.

That Yuuji copies Satoru, how he sits, how he held his hand, and how he looks and smiles to him. Safety, even if it is for a moment, truly feels good.

“In my first rebirth, it was a fabric of the red clothing I gave you. The second it was a ring; fifteenth was a book; twenty-seventh was supposed to be a shell I picked up from the ocean beach. The thirtieth was more intangible; I was playwright because of it—a skill, and I was worried how I’d be able to give it you if I met you—” he laughs amused at all of the memories. “But it seems I did not have to worry at all.”

“You lived a long life, Satoru.” Yuuji says, pushing sympathy deep into his core, knowing the other shall only get frustrated with him.

And the other rolls their eyes, the cheekiness of it, bringing a wide smile on Yuuji’s face, “Ugh, tell me about it. And none of them were any less insufferable.”

This time it was Yuuji’s turn to laugh, at just how easy Satoru can make him feel less at fault, less shameful to what he had done.

“But at least, this time was good.” A pink flush invades Satoru’s face, sporting a mischievous grin. “You’re here, and now it feels like everything up until this point was worth it.”

And Satoru crawls to him, as Yuuji’s hands hides his reddening face. Feels the dip on the furniture for every move the other does. Arms encasing him against the backrest he has cornered himself to, Satoru’s breath against his right ear.

“In this life however, your heart manifested into cloth that I customed to be made into a hooded sweater.” And Yuuji feels his body sit rigid, letting the other pry his hands away from his face, to be replaced by chaste kisses on his cheeks, his temples, his forehead, tip of his nose— “Does it feel good? To be finally reunited with it? To feel like you’re complete?” a kiss to his lips.

“I’m sorry it took me to be human to finally understand, and it took several lifetimes to get to say—I love you, Itadori Yuuji; and itt will always be you.”

And Yuuji does not answer, instead he grabs a hold of Satoru by the collar of his jacket, and slot his own lips onto the other. It brought a surprise gasp from the mortal, but soon enough, Satoru is kissing him breathless, again.

Gojo Satoru is now a repetitiveness he can no longer live without; that Yuuji can only wish that the world can give them another chance.

—

It was night when Yuuji made his way back into the delves of the cemetery forest, where everything started.

He can hear the other’s steps behind him, following wherever he goes. Just when he thought he could slip away from the man, thinking that he had fallen asleep, he was misled when the iron grip over his torso, told to Yuuji, the he cannot go anywhere with the other with him.

The trees have grown just as dark, merely silhouettes of them in his view, the animals have gone to sleep, and it is only Yuuji and him—the visitors, making noise.

The dry leaves break with every step they take.

“They’ll hurt you, Yuuji.”

“Yes, Satoru.”

“The worst of torments you can imagine.”

“I know, Satoru.”

“They will kill you over and over and over again—” A hand over his right wrist. “Do you—do you understand what that means, Yuuji?!”

He looks to the shrine a few feet aways from him, and Yuuji smiles, accepting. And then does he turn, bringing the shaking hand atop of his palm and encasing it with his other. Yuuji gazes at it, feeling the touch, the other’s rough skin. He holds it tight, squeezing—as an apology maybe, to the other, because Yuuji has come to accede, and he has no intentions of retreating.

“I do, Satoru. I know.” He looks up at their sad eyes, glazing with unshed tears. “And I have to accept it all.”

And Satoru knocks his head over Yuuji’s, knowing as well, that he can’t change his mind. That staying, again, is not an option.

“Will I have to wait for another hundred lifetimes to be able to touch you again?”

Yuuji can only smile, the truth buried under it, aware that if the man knew, of what recklessness he is planning to step into, Satoru shall never let him go. Even if it means the cycle of his life will repeat, and of more and more of memories stacking atop one over the other. That the man will wait for him, just as always, just with every rebirth, with his soul with him, hoping, praying that in the next life, Yuuji is with him.

However, that is a suffering none should ever endure—even for a fallen god like he. Yuuji should not be worth such to the man, but for some reason, and a reason he can echo with, he just…is. He does not know when he’ll even return—if he ever will. For his life right now, isn’t his in the first place. And even if he did, within that slim chance, would Yuuji even appear as something akin to a human?

So Yuuji decides, with hands held over the other, to leave with the truth.

“Forgive me, Satoru. I do not know the answer to that. However, should we meet again, I promise to you I will remember; and if not that, I will know, at least, that it shall always be you.”

With a final squeeze of his hand, Yuuji lets go, and he turns to walk to the wooden shrine. The moon is up in the sky and when his feet meet with their silver light down on the ground—weightless is all he feels. His knees press to familiar moss and soil, his hands clasp together, and for the first time in a while, he prays.

In his praying, Yuuji tells a story, regardless if all of the deities of old and new, had stood witness to all of it, he speaks in the olden tongue under his breath. As the moon’s light embraces him in a welcomed warmth, Yuuji speaks of another tale, one the gods have yet to know of, and one that might leave them intrigued. He does not beg, he does not fear, and he does not cry in sorrow.

‘I shall accept it all’

Yuuji ignores the shouting behind him.

‘I shall return to the ancient earth, just as promised.’

“Yuuji! I—I changed my mind! You can’t go! Not when—not when I finally have you!”

Yuuji feels the ground shake beneath him, feels his body breaking from a demanding weight that has him on his elbows, curling into himself.

“Yuuji!”

Yuuji cannot breathe, the sweater on his body clinging to him tight.

“Please!”

‘I will take everything all of you shall offer.’

Yuuji gasps, finally, finally, at the end.

‘I swear on my soul’

Satoru runs, runs as fast as he can towards the divine being, encroached by the light of the moon and the darkness that surrounds. But the woods seem to refuse, lengthening every time Satoru thinks he is getting close, his heart in such ache, tears falling over his cheeks, breathless—but he runs, because he finally, finally, has the man in his arms, after so long, and he can’t, simply and so easily let him go.

His feet stomp over the sacred soil uncaring of any more punishment that shall come to him, he’ll gladly have it, if he could just— he reaches an arm, just when he thinks he is nearing—but Satoru feels like he’s back to where he started—he can’t reach Yuuji.

His body gives in to his weight, toppling to the ground, as he watches how it shakes underneath the other, hearing him scream in agony—but Satoru couldn’t move even if he tries.

“Again,” he says, barely even breathing; because does it matter?

“I’ll be losing you again, Yuuji.”

Yuuji’s form is breaking in front of Satoru’s eyes, another sick and vile joke from his colleagues of old, making him remember, never letting him forget of the choices he had made. Tears continue to fall, his chest aching, heart heavy, his body almost lifeless;

As Yuuji’s own leaves the world, the way the souls he had tended to do—fragments of colorful light.

It flutters into the air, only to fall onto the soil, seeping deep, deep into the ground where Satoru can only dream to reach.

The forest returns to a quiet, the moon hidden behind a cloud, the world dark—and Satoru is there a couple feet away from the oldest tree of the woods. The moss is soft under his shoes as he slowly rises to a stand, and without second thought or a preamble, he brandishes his anger, his hurt, and the never-ending treacherous feeling of the other never being next to him; all of it that has festered in him for several lifetimes, everything onto the shrine in front. Satoru is grappling it apart, plank by plank he wrenches them from rusting nails, hearing it break   sees it break and split in his ears. And Satoru does not stop even if his hands are bleeding and of open cuts on his palms, he sobs eyes impeded with onslaught of tears, all loud in the silent night that looks onto him with pity as one broken wood by another the miniature falls to the ground.

He heaves for breath, injured and bloody fists to his sides. With tears still ravaging again his grief-stricken face, and the hurt sharp in his cries—Satoru waits.

Gojo Satoru waits, but none came for him.

And when he tries to speak, everything finally comes to a conclusion.

For Gojo Satoru’s ninety-seventh lifetime, he again, is alone. Was made to feel how it could be with the other, but was never given the chance to fully care for and hold it all in his hands. How easy, it all slips away from his fingers.

He chuckles darkly, forlorn etched in his very gait, as he kneels over the broken shrine, splinters digging into his skin. Satoru hides his face in his bleeding palms, as he cries, the loudest he can, for the loss of the only one that had ever mattered; of grief his now only remaining company.

“The least you bastards could do, is to leave me with his name.”

Another lifetime awaits Satoru.

But then again, does it still matter?

From the dust thy is born from, and to dust thy shall return.

A life must end for a new one to begin.

—