playlists
what a waste | "army dreamers" x kate bush
synopsis: on what would have his twentieth birthday, you visit geto's grave
pairing: suguru geto x reader
themes/content: semi-canon curse au. angst. language. death/loss.
word count: 1.3k
a/n: here's some angst bc i've been in a mood for the past few days and am allergic to being happy!
The grass is damp under your skin, the rain from this morning clinging to your clothes, the smell of wet earth lingering despite the absence of clouds in the sky. This is the closest it’s gotten to raining on this day in years, what would be a sign of late winter opening into spring, but today it just feels dreary and cold.
Sighing, you place the bouquet of lilacs - his favorites - onto the stone, careful to not cover the plaque adorning the granite. At this point you could recite it in its entirety without needing to see it, the words burned into your mind from the countless days you spent reading and rereading it, hoping that the shape of the characters would finally make it sink in.
Suguru Geto
Cherished and loved.
The epitaph still feels halfhearted, empty. Even though you and Satoru spent weeks trying to figure out what to write, everything you came up with felt hollow, unable to capture his essence. You wanted to do him justice, but you just couldn’t; he’s more than a plot of land and some words engraved in stone.
Of course, it’s a moot point: the grave is empty, anyways. After the fight against Toji, Shoko had to completely destroy his body, the risk of it being used maliciously too great. A shudder runs down your spine as you picture it, the cruelty of using your best friend’s corpse for something malevolent.
Would he notice? Would it bother him to know what had happened to his flesh? What makes a person, anyways; is it the body, or is it something else? You hope he doesn’t mind what had to happen to him after his heart quieted and his breathing stilled.
Are you at peace, Suguru?
You can’t help but wonder if, after everything, death brought him a respite from the pain he endured while alive. You knew the nature of his cursed technique, the necessary consumption of evil; in absorbing it, did it make him, too, evil? Was he plagued by the darkness he was destined to destroy?
You hope not. Despite the wickedness he witnessed, he nevertheless dreamed, hoping for a brighter future.
–
“What did you wanna be when you were a kid?” you ask through a mouthful of ramen.
Suguru sits across from you in the booth, forearms resting on the table as he eats his lunch. “What do you mean?” he questions, tilting his head ever so slightly.
“What did you want for a job? There’s no way you wanted to be a sorcerer,” you chuckle. “Like, I wanted to be one of those people who makes the cool brick patterns along sidewalks.”
He holds back a laugh at your answer. “I’m not sure, I don’t think I ever really thought about it.” He pauses, taking another bite of his food. “But I guess if I had to pick, probably a musician or something, maybe guitar, I always liked how they could make something sound beautiful with just their hands,” he muses softly.
“I could totally see you on a sick guitar,” you grin.
“Yeah, but I got my cursed technique too early. I never really got a chance to do anything but this,” he shrugs. “Maybe in another life.”
“Maybe,” you smile.
–
Now, the guitar you picked out for him, an acoustic one crafted in dark wood, sits in the back of your closet collecting dust. You were supposed to give it to him for his birthday. He was supposed to play it. He was supposed to be here, be alive, be celebrating with you.
Pain shoots up your palm as you look down, realizing your hands have been clenched into fists, your nails beginning to draw blood. Shaking out your arms you take in an uneven breath, a desperate attempt to steady yourself.
All the things he never got to do.
“I’m sorry, Suguru,” you whisper to yourself, placing a bloodied hand over the grass covering his grave.
He should be here. He never even got to turn twenty, never got to have kids or the family he wanted, hell, he was just a kid himself when he died. Just a fucking kid.
–
“That…that can’t be right,” you stammer. “There’s no way.”
“I’m sorry,” Satoru places a hand on your back, tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. “I - fuck - I couldn’t save him. I was too late.”
“No, no, no, no,” you begin to spiral, gaze rapidly shifting over the ground as you process his words.
Suguru was dead. Killed by a man named Toji Fushiguro, trying to protect the Star Plasma Vessel, the one who was supposed to assimilate with Master Tengen.
“I don’t…I don’t know what happened,” Satoru chokes out, “But…I saw his body. He’s gone.”
A scream echoes down the corridor - was it yours? Everything feels far away as Gojo wraps his arms around you, sobs racking your body as you cry into one another.
–
Shaking your head, you wipe the tears that have begun to fall as you remember the day you lost him. Despite the years that have passed, you remember it like it was yesterday, the way the setting sun covered you and Satoru as the night air came in, unable to move from that spot as you wept together.
The sickest fucking part was that it didn’t even matter.
When Riko Amanai, the Vessel, was found dead, they just got a replacement, another body to stand in for Master Tengen’s needs. They told Suguru to protect her with his life and he did, but ultimately the loss of hers was inconsequential to the upkeep of Jujutsu society; just as one flower died they plucked another.
But they couldn’t regrow Suguru’s soul.
–
Four men.
That’s how many it took to carry his body from the basement of Jujutsu High. You watched in silence as they passed you, unspeaking, unwavering, unbothered as they bore his weight.
It feels wrong, somehow, like he should be heavier. He always had this gravitational pull, this universe-sized soul that drew everything to him - shouldn’t they be able to feel that?
How heavy is a body? How heavy is the grief it carries?
–
“Hey,” a voice pulls you back to the present, the sun beginning to hang low in the sky as you ground yourself, idly tugging at the dirt beneath you. “I’m glad to see you,” Satoru greets warmly as he walks across the graveyard towards you.
Since the last time you saw him he’s aged, the creases around his eyes deeper than a twenty-year-old’s should be, an air of sadness clinging to him like wet clothes after being caught in the rain.
“You too,” you smile as he sits next to you in the damp grass.
Neither of you explicitly make plans to see each other here every year, yet you both tacitly know you wouldn’t miss this, the annual reconvening one you simultaneously cherish and dread. Suguru deserves to be celebrated, but it’s also a reminder of the time he didn’t get, the birthdays cut short when his life was stolen from him.
The two of you sit in silence for a while, content without speaking as a cool breeze picks up, dusk settling in.
“He should be here,” Satoru mutters, his knees tucked up to his chest.
“I know,” you murmur as you lay on your back, gaze unfocused on the darkening sky above you.
Another momentary pause falls between you.
“Did you love him?” he asks.
“Yeah,” you answer truthfully. “Did you?”
“Yeah.”
You let out a shaky breath. “Satoru?”
“Mhm?”
“Do you think that was enough, that we loved him?”
He tilts his head to look down at the grave that separates you, the lilacs you brought now lightly covered in a layer of dew. Sighing, he brushes away the tears that had been forming along his lash line. “I hope so.”
“I hope so, too.”
He reaches an arm out to you, holding your hand in his as you both place your empty palms onto the dirt.
“Happy birthday, Suguru,” you whisper.
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