Chapter Text
"Because I Miss You" by Jung Yong Hwa
The office was more crowded than usual.
Maps were spread across the table, reports stacked without much order, and the low murmur of sorcerers filled the space with an urgency that didn’t need to be loud to feel real. Outside, several areas of the country were reporting an abnormal increase in curses, and no one seemed entirely comfortable with the fact that the source was still unclear.
Satoru was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a distracted smile resting on his face. At first glance, he looked as relaxed as ever. As if none of this really touched him.
But it did.
He was listening. Watching.
"We’re going to split into teams," Director Yaga announced, pointing at the map. "We need to cover several areas at once."
Satoru’s gaze drifted to Yuuji, who stood near the table, leaning slightly forward as he read one of the reports carefully. He had changed. Not in a dramatic way, not all at once. But enough for Satoru to notice it every time they happened to share the same space.
He was taller now, quieter. More contained. He wasn’t the boy who reacted first and thought later anymore. Shibuya had taken something from him. And given him something else in return.
"Fushiguro, you’ll go with Kugisaki." He received the printed report and moved closer to her so they could read it together.
"Itadori," Yaga continued, "you’ll go with Okkotsu."
Yuuji looked up immediately.
"Yeah?" he replied, without surprise, turning toward him.
Yuuta, seated on the other side of the table, returned the look with a small, knowing smile.
"Looks like we’re together again."
"I guess we’re used to it by now," Yuuji said, almost joking. Almost.
"Tuna with mayonnaise." Inumaki added, while Panda nodded beside him. Kugisaki let out a small laugh and Megumi exchanged a concerned look with Satoru. As if damn Shibuya had passed through the school all over again.
Satoru said nothing.
There was nothing strange about that assignment. In fact, it was logical. They complemented each other well, understood each other quickly, trusted one another. He had seen it more than once. Even so, something about it unsettled him, a brief, irritating sensation he couldn’t quite place.
He knew the two of them had grown much closer since Shibuya. Most joint missions were, more often than not, the two of them together. At first, he thought it was fine. Especially when Megumi had been more focused on being with his sister after she came out of the coma.
Nobara had been off the battlefield for a while due to her injuries. That left Yuuji without a fixed team. That was when Yaga paired his two former students together for most of the missions.
Things had changed over the past couple of years. For almost everyone, it had forced them to react and mature faster, especially the younger ones who were trying to end two of the greatest evils of that era: Kenjaku and Sukuna.
The first was defeated as soon as Satoru came out of the Prison Realm. He would not make the same mistake. He would not leave things unfinished, not when a deranged curse was using his best friend’s body.
It wasn’t heroic or clean, and not as quick as he would have liked. He ran until he had no more bodies to steal and no more plans to hide. When he finally fell, there were no speeches or last words. Only silence, and a pain that still found him sometimes.
Sukuna was different.
He didn’t die in Shibuya. Not then. But Shibuya broke all of them. The loss of control, the sealing of the Prison Realm, the unexpected resistance… all of it weakened Satoru more than he would ever admit.
When the time came to truly face him, he thought for a moment that he would lose. That some things were destined to happen in only one way, along a single line.
Satoru was the strongest. But Sukuna was too. So despite his confidence — which often turned blind — he was able to recognize that trying to defeat him alone would not be easy.
That was why they defeated him together. A team with strong comrades. Satoru had been fighting for years for a world where sorcerers weren’t just hanging rags.
Yuuta, Yuuji, Megumi, Maki, among others, were a great help in that plan. Even Yuuji’s cursed brother, Choso, who had worked side by side with him. At first, Satoru didn’t trust him — he had practically helped get him sealed inside the Prison Realm.
But sometimes he was benevolent, and Yuuji was comfortable with him.
When Sukuna disappeared, he left nothing behind. No remains, no promises, no final curse. But he did leave pain, physical wounds and emotions that would never fully fade. It would be like that for all of them, on different scales, but he marked them. His mere presence in a modern world left several of them plagued with nightmares.
But the world kept turning, and like the others, Yuuji was no longer the same boy he had once been.
The same one who had given him a desperate confession when he came out of the Prison Realm. Satoru rejected him. He tried to be careful with his words; he didn’t want to hurt him. Contrary to what most people think of him, he wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t hurt his student out of pure will.
But he didn’t want to lie to him either. Yuuji was still very young, and Satoru carried too many ghosts from the past. It mattered to him that Yuuji lived his adolescence the way it should have been: school crushes, first romantic encounters, reckless teenage madness. Everything those kids deserved — nothing connected to Shibuya or to the world they belonged to.
Sorcery was a fucked-up thing.
Satoru was not a good prospect for Yuuji. Even if, at that moment, mutual feelings had existed, he was still the strongest, and that was a burden he did not want to share with anyone. Least of all with one of his favorite students.
Yuuji only insisted subtly when the day of his graduation arrived. Telling Satoru that his temporary feelings — temporary because Satoru had mentioned and labeled them that way — had not changed.
That he still loved him, that he still chose him.
Satoru said no for the second time.
And Yuuji did not insist again.
"Anything you want to add, Satoru?" the director asked, noticing his silence.
"Huh? No, no," he responded immediately. "On the contrary, it looks like you have everything under control."
He smiled, as always: a little ironic but with something sharp underneath. He did not like ambiguities very much, and that had him slightly annoyed.
Satoru would go to this mission alone, since he was still the strongest idiot of them all.
Yuuji went back to focusing on the report, moving a little closer to Okkotsu to point something out on the map. Their shoulders almost brushed. Nothing out of place. Nothing that justified the absurd discomfort Satoru suddenly felt.
Okkotsu lifted his gaze for a second.
His eyes met Satoru’s.
It was not a long look, nor a charged one. Just enough for Satoru to notice something… strange. A minimal tension. An attention that did not match the usual lightness, and he realized it was coming from himself.
It was stupid.
Satoru looked away first.
"Good," the director said. "Everyone leaves tomorrow at dawn."
Yuuji nodded.
"Understood."
When the meeting began to dissolve and the others moved toward the exit, Yuuji gathered the papers calmly. Okkotsu waited at his side, watching him as he tried to organize everything.
"Shall we go?" he asked, in a low voice.
"Yeah," Yuuji replied. "But…" he made a brief pause. "Should we eat something first? I wanted to review this properly," he added, lifting the folder slightly. "I don’t want us to miss anything."
"Of course," Yuuta nodded without hesitation. "Your place or mine?"
Yuuji hesitated for barely a second.
"Yours is closer to the departure point," he said in the end. "We can order something on the way."
"Perfect."
It was not a special conversation. It did not have to be. It sounded exactly like what it was: two teammates organizing themselves before a mission.
Even so, Satoru heard every word.
He watched them walk together toward the door, speaking quietly about possible routes and cursed energy concentration points. Yuuji gestured little, more contained than before. Okkotsu listened with genuine attention, tilting his head from time to time.
They passed near Satoru on their way out.
Yuuji stopped for a second.
"Sensei."
He inclined his head slightly, respectful, as always.
I’m not your sensei anymore, Satoru thought automatically. The title weighed on him in a strange, uncomfortable way. Like something that had been true for too long… and that no longer was entirely.
"Be careful," he said, perhaps too quickly. "Don’t get careless."
"We won’t," Yuuji replied with a faint smile.
Okkotsu looked at him as well, this time a bit more directly.
"We’ll be back soon."
It was not a promise. It did not have to be.
When the door closed behind them and the murmur finally faded, Satoru remained in his place for a few seconds longer than necessary.
He did not understand why that trivial conversation kept echoing in his head. He hated not understanding why it had mattered to him to know where they were going.
Nor why the idea of Yuuji in a space that no longer belonged to him had provoked that uncomfortable sensation.
It was absurd.
And yet, there it was.
More aware than ever of something he was not yet ready to name.
[...]
Okkotsu’s apartment was silent, wrapped in the dim light coming through the living room window. Outside, the city continued its course, unaware of any curse or pending decision.
Itadori sat on the floor, leaning his back against the sofa. He spread the map in front of him, though he did not look at it immediately. His fingers traced the edge of the paper carefully, as if he needed that contact to anchor himself.
Okkotsu set two glasses on the low table and sat in front of him. He did not speak. He simply observed.
There was something different about Itadori when it came to Gojo. It was not nervousness. Nor open sadness. It was a particular stillness, a way of holding himself back, as if he had already learned which parts of himself he should not touch.
Itadori finally lowered his gaze to everything related to the mission, but his eyes did not seem fully focused.
"You always do that," Okkotsu said, almost in a murmur.
Itadori looked up.
"Do what?"
"You become more careful when he’s involved," he replied kindly. "Even when he’s not going on the mission with you."
Itadori did not answer immediately. His expression did not change, but something in his shoulders relaxed slightly, as if there was no point in pretending anymore. As if he did not have to hide talking about someone he still cared about very much.
"I guess it’s habit," he said in the end. "Gojo-sensei was… someone I didn’t want to disappoint."
He did not say is. He said was. And yet, the weight was still there.
Okkotsu nodded slowly. He had seen that loyalty before. Not as blind devotion, but as something quieter, deeper. Something that did not disappear just because time passed.
Itadori folded the map carefully, as if the calm in doing so gave him the ability to process a clearer and more honest response.
"I don’t expect anything anymore," he added, without looking at him. "But I can’t pretend it didn’t mean everything to me."
Silence settled between them again. This time, a little heavier.
Okkotsu did not try to soften it.
"He’s not good at seeing what he has in front of him," he said finally, he knew Gojo. "But that doesn’t make what you felt a mistake."
Yuuji let out a short exhale, almost a humorless laugh.
"I never thought it was," he admitted. "I still feel the same. Even more."
He stared at the report for a few seconds before placing one of the images back in its place.
Okkotsu sighed quietly. He was not an idiot. For a long time, he had noticed how his former sensei reacted — or avoided reacting — to the closeness he now had with Itadori.
The problem was that Itadori, in that aspect, was still a little more automated than usual. It was hard for him to see those subtleties that were not said out loud. Maybe Gojo’s rejection had influenced that. It made a lot of sense to Okkotsu, so in part he understood it.
Shortly after, dinner arrived, and for a while they stopped thinking about the mission. Okkotsu watched Itadori laugh softly, relax a little, and made a silent decision.
He would try to help.
He did not like the way both of them carried the same thing from opposite ends. He only hoped that Gojo, for once, would allow himself to look with honesty… and not confuse that closeness he had with Itadori with something it was not.