Chapter Text
“You can always get whatever makeup of mine you want,” you tell Nobara as you tap the sharpener against the small trash bin that you have by the side of your vanity.
The teenager murmurs her gratitude as she looks at the array of different lipstick that you had set out.
You still haven’t chosen which one to wear, but you wanted something relatively neutral. You had originally wanted to go with a strong red lipstick, a Ruby Woo, but it may appear a bit too harsh against your traditional all-white bridal shiromuku . Granted that there have been many individuals that wore red lipstick, you had wanted to appear relatively youthful and young.
It’s not like you’re a virgin.
You snort to yourself.
Satoru had bought you a couple of neutral-toned lipsticks when he had gone out to get some more gloss and Chapstick for himself, and you were grateful for that.
It’s just that now you have over ten lipstick options to look over, ranging from CanMake to Guerlain.
“Can I try this?”
You glance over to the teenager, fingers tightening just a fraction on the lip liner that you’re holding.
Nobara is holding a familiar golden lipstick in her fingers and–
“Isn’t this supposed to be a very rare shade from YSL?” She asks, uncapping it and twisting the bottom portion.
The well-loved bullet slowly emerges just a peek from the lip of the container and you can’t help but swallow. It’s been several years at this point since you first received it as a gift – one of your very first anniversary gifts, actually.
“Nobara, that’s–”
You pause, letting out a little sigh before glancing down at the array of different lipsticks that Satoru had purchased for you, then back at the reflection of the teenager, who’s still holding the tube.
There’s the urge to hold your breath, but you don’t feel the familiar rub of your small familiar at your ankles. There’s no real urge to try and remember something to hold onto, because there is no need to. Just a forced knee-jerk reaction to something that’ll always be part of you, and not just because of your maiden name or your past.
It’ll always be part of you to the point where there isn’t a need for any tangible, physical object.
Not anymore, you think to yourself as you glance down at the Harry Winston ring on your finger.
You smile at Nobara, who returns the smile shyly. She reminds you that you’ve never really been an older sister with no real need to give hand-me-downs. Maybe today can be the day.
The muscles in your fingers relax. The lip liner clicks down onto the table. You pick up one of the boxes that Gojo had gotten you – a rosy, nude shade.
Tom Ford. Insatiable .
You smile a bit to yourself, rubbing your thumb against the platinum band of your engagement ring.
There’s always time for making new traditions.
“Actually, you… you can have that, if you want, Nobara.”
Her smile brightens up more and it makes your heart feel warm. You never really had a younger sister.
“Really?”
“Yes,” you respond, applying the satiny nude lipstick. “Yes, really.”
You let out a sigh you hadn’t realized you had been holding.
It feels good.
You feel sad; you feel happy.
—
—
Just like you, he has teenagers in his room while he gets ready for the ceremony.
Well, his male students and Ijichi.
Honestly, half of his brain considers Ijichi a bit of a student since he’s a fucking idiot most of the time (he makes careful note to not say this in front of you) and considers Ijichi a bit of an old man because, well. He looks like one.
He wonders if it’s because he gets no pussy.
Gojo will definitely make sure to not say that in front of you.
Definitely, considering that you had adamantly told him a month ago that you wouldn’t have sex with him until you were both married.
Why?
No real reason, although you had told him it had something to do with tradition and whatnot.
Given his own logic, Gojo Satoru should be looking like a husk of a man, because he definitely feels like it. Worse than No Nut November.
He’s not sure what fucking nut curse you placed on his penis, because no amount of Nivea lotion mixed with Cholula sauce would get him off.
Gojo’s pretty sure that he’s gotten carpal tunnel from numerous attempts the last few weeks.
Sure, Shoko hadn’t diagnosed anything, but WebMD is just as accurate, if not better. Faster, and sober too. Yeah. Sure, he wouldn’t die from blue balls but he would… definitely die from blue balls. Anyways. Whatever.
For the nth time, he’s adjusting the nagagi tucked under his hakama .
A nervous reaction, because, well… sure.
Elvis Presley may have married the both of you in Vegas, but that had been severely rushed and he had practically forced you into marrying him to save your life. You hadn’t understood at the time because it’s Gojo Satoru we’re talking about here, paired with the fact that you had just gone through one of the most traumatic events of your life the night before.
But now?
Well, he can only marry the woman of his dreams (in front of family and friends) once in his life.
Gojo Satoru is adjusting the nagagi for the nth time because he’s nervous.
He looks amazing.
He knows he does, even though Shoko, Ijichi, and Utahime had all responded with a bored answer.
( “Cool.”
“Very nice.”
“Please bring the whole set to the office by tomorrow so I have time to steam it.”)
Gojo doesn’t message the group chat anymore.
He doesn’t have the heart to remove Nanami from it. He knows that Nanami should be here; he had made a relatively drunk Nanami promise once that they would be each other’s best man for any Western-style ceremony they’d have for a wedding.
It was a promise he’d take to the grave, even though he has his Megumi and Yuji as makeshift groomsmen for his traditional Japanese wedding. The ceremony does not call for having these Western traditions, but he had told them that, just so that the two teenagers would stop bickering.
Gojo always keeps his promises, so much so that yesterday he hadn’t even bothered to show up to his father’s shrine. He had gone straight to Nanami’s.
Poured a whole bottle of Yamazaki 55 over his gravestone, ate a banh mi for him, and left a pair of baguette-shaped cufflinks.
(“I got them for you ‘cause they look a bit like penises.”)
His first love had been the last gravestone he had visited. He had made sure to take public transportation for it, even though he could have easily teleported to it. A simple close of his eyes and a blur of his senses, but he had opted to take the long route by train.
It didn’t hurt anymore to sit and talk.
Not like the first few times he had visited Nanami’s grave, whose death had been so painfully shocking.
He had hated that, had hated realizing how much he had lost again after his exit from the box.
His best friend, as much as Nanami never admitted it. He loved his best friend dearly, like a younger brother that he enjoyed to frustrate and annoy. The old noogie and wedgie deal. His brother and best friend, obliterated from the world with no actual physical remains.
It had been painful, surreal.
Geto had given him enough time to accept his descent into the darkness. After all, Gojo had been the one to have personally escorted him off this fucking plane of existence. Sure it was excruciatingly painful, but that knowledge paired along with the years that have passed have helped a bit. Sure, he had been in pain when he had seen that bastard in his former sweetheart’s body.
But.
Gojo Satoru had let go of his first love a long time ago, anyway.
The love hasn’t left, not truly, but you had both grown around each other’s aches and carried it tenderly.
There’s so many people missing from the group.
Gojo had sent the pictures individually to Shoko, Ijichi, and Utahime. He had stared at two specific people’s names for a moment, the urge to send it to them strong. He knows that he’ll get an error message from it, and then– and then it doesn’t hurt that much to not have to send it.
He lets out a shaky little exhale of a laugh.
That’s fine, he thinks. He has everyone he loves and needs here.
—
—
“Ah, Ijichi-san! Have you found sensei and his wife?” Itadori asks, all bright and bubbly and excited. There’s still a few grains of rice on the corner of his mouth, and the assistant manager can’t help but stare at them.
“Er… No .”
You better not let anyone else in here or bother us, ‘jichi, or I’ll string your nuts on my prayer beads , is what the white-haired menace had told him.
Although Ijichi knows for a fact that Gojo is the furthest person that would spend time praying, it definitely struck a chord with him, which is why he’s standing in front of this sliding door. There aren’t any locks on the temple doors in this area, anyways.
“Oh? Is there another ceremony there? Sounds like an applause–”
Ijichi side steps to where Itadori is attempting to get past the sliding doors.
“Yes, Itadori-kun, there is a ceremony happening there, it’s perhaps best if you don’t enter.”
Man, fuck you, Gojo , Ijichi thinks, trying to pry Itadori away from the door.
The clapping only gets louder and there isn’t enough Zoloft in the world to prevent Ijichi from pulling out his own hair. About twenty minutes later, Gojo’s cellphone is thrust into his hand as he’s suddenly charged with taking a picture of the both of you, even though you had hired an actual professional photographer.
Some weeks later, Gojo prints out the picture Ijichi took, hanging it in his office in school and in the estate.
In the picture, there’s a frown on your face as your husband makes a peace sign.
If any visitor saw it for the first time and asked why you looked so upset, Gojo would have explained cheerily that it was taken shortly after he had told you he was taking all the kids with the both of you to the honeymoon.
And spoiler alert: it was one of the most fun and happiest times of your life.
—
—
“My love,” you say, voice as tender as your affectionate gaze on his face.
You wonder how he’s still managed to look so beautiful, aging so gracefully even now into his late eighties. He still has his thick shock of unkempt white hair, eyes still sparkling blue and mischief when he grins at you, although he doesn’t exactly recognize you.
Taking one of his wrinkled hands in both of yours, you sigh, smiling down at the simple band that’s on his ring finger. The man has never taken it off, not one -- and you’re certain that if he did, the skin beneath would be significantly pale.
In any other situation, it would rival his current pallor.
The doctors say all kinds of things, things that explain his current situation. Kidney problems, joint problems -- you don’t care, you have those too. It’s natural, completely normal for people that are nearing the end of their lengthy novel. Even Shoko had said that it’s practically a medical miracle that he’s managed to live this long, with all the damage that has been done to his brain.
You try not to think that he should be considered lucky for struggling at times to swallow down food.
(Or that it takes him a couple of minutes to recognize who you are. Most days he doesn’t. He simply enjoys being around you, saying you remind him of his pretty wife. You try not to cry at that.)
It’s still sad. It’s sad.
You’ve given him healthy children and those children have given you both lovely grandchildren, happy and noisy whenever they would come visit. He gave you another chance at life and finding yourself and the joy amidst the violence and grief from life.
Both of you had given each other something to look forward to, in between the ways you would inadvertently lean against each other on the couch while watching Brooklyn 99 or visits to McDonalds at two in the morning. It’s the ways that things never really changed as you grew together and watched your children grow into adults. You’d both still bicker over something miniscule, he would joke and tease you, you would give him the cold shoulder, he’d show up with gifts and kisses to ease you out of your temper-tantrum stupor.
You have both found love in each other at different times in your journey together, only to intertwine fully, tightly.
It’s been a happy fifty plus years with your Gojo Satoru.
“My love, why are you leaving me so soon,” you murmur, resting your cheek down onto the bed, head resting by his arm. The beep of the monitor is steady, matching with your own heartbeat as you close your eyes, hand in your husband’s.
You immediately lift your head when you hear a soft little wheeze.
“I have a wife, you know,” he says, wrinkly blue eyes half-lidded as he looks at you. There’s a tiny smile on his face. “She looks a lot like you. Very pretty. Looks mean. Hot.”
There’s a chuckle you manage.
“I have a husband, too. Coincidentally, he looks like you.”
Gojo closes his eyes, a smile on his lips. “Lucky man. Do you love him?”
“Very much,” you respond. “So very much.”
He hums. “What’s your boytoy’s name?”
“Gojo Satoru.”
Slowly, he opens his blue eyes again to blink up at the ceiling before looking at you.
“That’s my name.”
You nod.
“Am I your man?”
You let out a tiny laugh before nodding again.
“Oh,” he laughs breathlessly at you, his smile reaching his eyes into crescent moons. “ Oh .”
There’s a low, quiet meow that you both hear as something dark and warm slips out from under his hospital bed. Certain areas on Kimi’s body are graying, some in tiny little patches and a little evenly spread out on spots that aren’t. Just like the both of you, and very much like your physical body, he’s been aging regardless of the size and shape he takes. He still enjoys taking the form of a small fat ball with no tail and eating bread bag ties.
“Cat,” Gojo yawns, a tired smile on his face as he points at your Kimi.
“Satoru,” you say quietly, leaning in to kiss gently over his knuckles, over the wedding band.
Your fingers gently rub at a lock of his white hair, holding it like the most precious thing in the world, and it may as well be. It belongs to the most precious person in the world to you.
He looks at you, that same smile on his face, eyes still twinkling and blue.
“Go to him, Satoru,” you tell him, giving his hand a soft squeeze.
The man’s eyes widen a fraction, the twinkling in his eyes stilling and the faintest shimmer of moisture pooling and beading on his lashes. His wrinkled throat constricts, and as you squeeze the white hair between your fingers, you know he in this split second he doesn’t see you.
He sees and hears familiar laughter, the breeze rustling classroom curtains, ebony black hair.
And then he sees you again in that stairway, wearing that white dress and holding out Kimi in his bow-and-arrow form.
You looked like a goddess then.
Your Gojo Satoru lets out a little sound, and his eyes relax a little, even for that split moment that you offer him. His eyes blink once, twice before they settle back to you, his hand warm and cupping your cheek.
You looked like a goddess then. And now, with the wrinkles around your eyes and mouth from smiling at his jokes for decades, you still like a goddess.
Your husband looks over past you, where your children are seated.
One of the twins is already crying quietly into the handkerchief that you had embroidered for him, the one that you would tuck into his lunchbox. And his youngest great-grandchild, still in his granddaughter-in-law’s arms. His heart melts, the baby looks so much like his first daughter when she was just a couple of months old. You had told Gojo how young you felt when you held Hanako to your chest for the first time, as though this wasn’t your third great grandchild.
He remembers the relief washing over him when he held his last child, when he knew that none of his children inherited his Six Eyes. Gojo Satoru never wanted a single one of his precious ones to ever take on the burden that his curse allotted him.
He remembers leaning over to kiss you on your sweaty forehead, his large hand dwarfing the one you used to hold your small child.
(“Baby, oh, baby… I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud, I’m so– oh my god, I love you, I love you so much–”)
It was just yesterday.
It was just yesterday.
It was just yesterday…
“Will it ever stop hurting?”
“No.”
Gojo swallows from where he’s laying opposite you, tucking in his glossed lips slightly before letting go. The choked sound that escapes you is more than audible in the uncomfortable atmosphere as you turn your head to the side, bringing up your hand to wipe at your face.
When he looks at you, he sees himself mourning for an old love that he thought he would never come to terms with. He sees himself in you, fragile and in pain, but taking the first step towards self-forgiveness. He’d be willing to let you break him down and use his bones as tools to build a house for yourself to live in.
The man would let you tear him limb from limb as long as his remains could protect you from the world.
“But you grow stronger. The pain will always be there and… at some point, it’ll be a familiar feeling of comfort.”
“Satoru,” you call out to him, and he leans in against you. “Will you lay by my side?”
“Of course,” he says immediately, scooting closer. His arms pull you to his chest.
“Will you lay by my side?” He asks, voice hoarse and soft.
You wouldn’t deny him this, so you do so, making yourself comfortable as you lay on your side, head resting on his chest just as you both have done for the many years you have spent together. You hear your youngest daughter sob into her handkerchief.
“Will you go to him, too, baby?”
You are quiet for a second, the thought rising to the surface yet again. You can’t find it in yourself to properly answer Satoru’s question. Frankly, you aren’t really sure how to respond to such a question, because you’re terrified of thinking of anything but your husband.
This is the man that you love. The man you held through each of his recurring nightmares, the man who would hold you when you would cry. The man you had children with, and raised with so much love and affection that both of you needed at their age.
So you sigh. It isn’t a question you answer. It’s not a question you should answer.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmurs. “I shouldn’t’ve asked.”
Gojo’s wrinkled hand caresses your hair, and if he feels the dampness on his shirt, he doesn’t say anything about it.
Around you, you can hear your family sniffling.
“It’s okay, babe,” he says quietly, syllables dragging out long and soft and breathy. “It’s okay.”
When you look back up at him, he’s smiling at you, eyes completely dry in comparison to yours. They’re a brilliant blue, like the waters off the coast of Italy that you love so much. You inhale deeply and smell his soap, but all you can truly feel is the smell of salt water in your lungs.
“I’ll see you, Satoru,” you whisper quietly.
He hums, nodding.
“I’ll see you, baby.”
His smile relaxes.
It doesn’t hurt at all, you realize, as his eyes slowly close.
The little black cat, black as soot and night sits at the foot of the bed.
He doesn’t seem bothered whatsoever by the loud crying around him in the room. But he does make a mmrroowrf sound when one of your grandchildren hugs their grandfather’s feet, sobbing loudly. So he scoots over, a bit closer to where your hand is resting over the no-longer beating heart.
Kimi looks at you with his round, beady eyes.
He sniffs, smelling for your own pulse.
It’s very faint. Soon, you will be sleeping with your husband and he will be no longer.
He knows he should be sad, but he feels so relaxed as he tucks himself under Gojo’s arm, stretching his amorphous body to press a damp nose to your finger.
The little curse creature blinks slowly, looking at you with such a fond expression as he purrs.
He remembers seeing you for the very first time and knowing that you would be his favorite little human. Five years old and pudgy and smelling like milk and somehow bleeding out so much weird curse energy.
He just knew he had to nibble your toes.
Kimi looks at you.
Your heartbeat is growing fainter, and so is his purring.
He blinks slowly, keeping his gaze on your face. You may be a wrinkly old hag, but you’re still his pudgy five year old that smells like milk. You’re still the little girl he enjoys chasing around, chomping her ankles and stealing plastic bags from underneath your sink. You’re still the girl he had saved those years ago, straying from your side one time to locate Gojo so he could heal you.
You’re still the little five year old girl he had vowed to be with until your final breath.
His eyes start to close as he presses his nose more against your fingertip.
Your pulse is soft and quiet, and he inflates and deflates to the gentle rhythm.
He looks at you one last time; there’s a little smile on your face.
Around the three of you, your family is inconsolable with weeping.
Kimi closes his eyes.
His little stubby tail wiggles one last time.
It’s so bright.
It’s so bright and you’re incredibly annoyed with everything that’s happening right now.
It could be worse, you think to yourself as you get up from the ground. You stare hard at the shiny black Fiat 500. Your family’s mechanic really was right. Fiat really does stand for Fix-It-Again-Tony.
What type of fucking car purrs and doesn’t start?
Well. Even if you had to fix a tire on the side of the road by yourself, you managed to get it done. This is definitely something to write home about, since they always questioned your ability to get anything accomplished outside of studies and fashion.
After all, who could say that they managed to replace a tire on the side of the Amalfi coast, in a cream Dior dress and staggeringly high heels?
Sure, several friendly Italians had stopped by to offer assistance, but you had to prove a point. Even if the point cost a very gross oil smudge right smack dab in the center of your dress. That’s fine. So you had plodded on with the supplies the rental had provided with you, the radio from your vehicle playing out some oldies.
It was I’ll Never Smile Again by Frank Sinatra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra while you had Googled the WikiHow for replacing a tire.
Ironic.
Man, you think to yourself, it could be worse but it could seriously be so much better.
Everything’s fine, there are several boutiques nearby and a gelato stand that would soothe your frayed nerves.
Oh man, you think to yourself as the mint green scarf that had been keeping your hair out of your sweaty face flutters off into the wind. Muttering several curses, you run after it, risking life and limb and broken ankles as you chase the damned fabric over cobblestones.
This is how you’re going to end, you think to yourself as the ground slopes down, down the hill that leads to the beach and the vast blue stretch of the Mediterranean. You would make a fool of yourself, snap your ankles and tumble down the dirt. You couldn’t die like that, because how would you be able to brag that you replaced a tire in Italy, all by yourself?
You pause, fingers grabbing onto the metal chains that acted as a loose fence, a fence to keep idiots such as yourself hurtling down the steep hill.
You pause, because someone below had grabbed the damned mint green fabric.
You pause , because there’s a very handsome someone along the slope of the steep hill looking up at you, a familiar smile on that familiar handsome face and your heart still in your chest and your fingers ball into fists.
They look so familiar, like an old Disney intro that you feel you’ve watched before. Deja vu in its most visceral form. The blood pumping through your arteries feel like honey, syrupy thick as you’re enveloped in something you know you’ve experienced. You just can’t put your finger on it.
Throat tightening, you feel your eyes heating up, shoulders squaring as you tighten your grip on the metal chains, the one that’s supposed to keep idiots such as yourself hurtling down the steep hill.
You’re an idiot. You’re the idiot that the metal chains are meant to keep out.
You step over the chain link fence, rushing down and practically tripping on stones and dirt and yourself. Knees get scraped against the dirt and your cream Dior dress is absolutely ruined, but you don’t care.
Right before you could possibly smash your head against the rocky flooring below, the man catches you.
There’s a rustle of your silk dress and his linen shirt, and in the process of him breaking your fall, the scarf flits away from his grasp. It dances in the breeze, melding between the point where the sky and the ocean feels as though it one.
Everything is blue on the Amalfi coast.
Overhead, you hear the seagulls squawk, and it seems as though both of you don’t even notice how your scarf has escaped the both of you.
The handsome man stares down at you, an expression that matches yours. In the distance, you can hear the purr of your black Fiat’s stupid engine. The radio is playing Amore Mio Aiutami, and everything seems to fizzle at the edges as you smell the sea salt in the air, along with peaches shampoo, and jasmine green tea. In your ribcage, your heart beats wildly against its confines as the man carefully sets you down onto your feet.
The sandy and rocky floor is a difficult base for your heels, so your hands dart out for his shoulders. As if on instinct, his arm wraps around your middle, keeping you close.
There’s pink on your cheeks and also on his.
“Do I…”
…know you?
Your heart is hammering so hard in your chest. It feels so strange.
“There aren’t many Japanese here on the coast,” he tells you, voice sounding so dear to you that it makes your heart clench when you hear him speak for the first time. “You been to Amalfi before?”
“Yes,” you say, your brows furrowing at your own response.
No– what? No ! You… You haven’t. This is your first time ever coming here. In fact, this was one of the first places you’ve ever been to without someone from your family or a babysitter keeping careful watch over you. This had been a gift for yourself for graduating college.
(“I found you,” is what you wish to say. The breath is gone from your lungs, nose pressed against his neck, breathing in the smell of the sea and the sun and fresh fabric. His shirt would be stained with your tears and splotches of mascara. “I found you.”
He would have smiled, pulling away to look at you, study your features. His arm would have tightened more around your waist, one hand on your cheek to thumb away the tears escaping your eyes.
The man would have leaned in. He would have planted a kiss to your forehead.
“You found me.”)
“Have you… been here before?” You ask, trying to break the silence. The both of you are still holding each other: his arm around your waist and your hands on his shoulders. Neither of you are pulling away, as though magnetized to this exact moment.
He nods his head, and you can swear that there is the slightest glimmer of tears glazing over them.
“Yes,” he says, voice so soft that it’s barely audible over the sound of the crashing waves, the cries of the seagulls, the music playing from your Fiat, the beating of your heart within its confines.
Somewhere on the horizon, your mint green scarf is forgotten in the deep blue of the crashing ocean waves.
“I’ve been here before.”