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Gojo breaks hearts. This is not a metaphor.
He dangles between the edges of the universe and infinite galaxy that is all too ready to bedazzle him every night, until he finds a particular ray of light that outshines the rest and tells it whispered lies of being the most beautiful one he’s ever seen; until he doesn’t anymore, and Utahime will be there, every single time, without fail; to collect the pieces of their soul and catch the slips of their tears in a jar.
The crystal flask the Queen of Hearts gives her for safekeeping is heavy on the hand, the stopper snapping shut with a soft click just as Gojo turns, eyes filled with mirth and all the charm of the world. “You done?”
“Just about,” Utahime replies, trying to reel in the guilt of countless days of staying by his side, watching him dance with the stars every night in hopes of taking the brightest one home only to tear their hearts in half; because such was the role bestowed upon the Knight of Night.
The queen’s most trusted adviser, cunning and deceiving just as he was otherworldly in allure; who ordered Gojo to embark on a quest far long and wide, in search of a treasure priceless in value but eternal in worth. He didn’t need an assistant, but the queen evidently thought otherwise when the day for his departure surfaced and he came upon the carriage with a lowly palace maiden already in it.
He took one look at her and simply told the driver to carry on, and reaped the virgin hearts they’ve been doing for decades.
Utahime fixes the dropper and fastens it in her belt, feeling the weight of the shards poking her conscience. It felt heavier tonight. “How long do we have to keep doing this?”
The look Gojo gives her then is one she was all too familiar with.
Only she’d only ever seen it in hidden shadows, lurking beneath the lines of witness and accomplice to a ritual she’s grown to know by heart after helping him rip it apart innocent maidens for too long. That same devious turn of lips and glint of the eye that spoke of galaxies and infinites and Utahime finds herself taking a step back, because no, this is not how the story goes—
Until she backs away enough to lose footing and ends up in the arms of the one who made everyone in it tremble in excitement during the chase and then agony shortly after and oh.
So this is how it feels like.
(Back when they are in the carriage riding off into the night with his hands laced against hers and heart coiled tightly in anticipation of what is to come: Utahime wonders, briefly, what she could have done to make the Queen upset and why she felt the need to have a piece of her suffering as proof—
As if fate playing a cruel irony on her and forcing her to live out each day watching the man she longed for long for others wasn’t divine punishment enough.)