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Shoko always says it’s only a matter of time. Well, she doesn’t say it, but she’s damn sure. It’s only a matter of time before something bad happens and Satoru just - snaps .
It’s one of those things where it’s so obvious that everything is on the razor's edge that growing used to the danger is the only way to keep sane. But now and then the forced ignorance breaks, and Shoko has to see how normal people see the oncoming apocalypse she happened to graduate high school with.
(Suguru used to be his keeper. He’d sit right next to Satoru whenever he was spiralling to soothe him, fox tail all bottle-brush fluffy and curled comfortingly around the twitchy cheetah’s own. Until Satoru felt better enough to lean against his best friend’s shoulder, grumbling quietly as he petted the black fur tucked at the crown of Suguru’s head.
He was the only one always able to tell if Gojo was upset. And now that he’s gone, no one can. Shoko used to find him sitting alone, on that bench in the courtyard. Only taking up one side, careful not to let himself forget the absence beside him.
He’d tuck his knees up to his chin, wind his tail tightly around his shoulders and wrap his arms around himself. Judging from the quiet snarl he let out every time he tried that, Shoko knows that it doesn’t feel the same.)
Last week, Ijichi damn near lost his life just because he power-walked a little too close to Gojo and that was enough to trigger his chase instinct. Two days ago, Shoko walked in on him sitting on the embalming table in the morgue, repeatedly breaking the bones in his tail by biting it and then healing the broken bones to do it again.
Satoru looked her dead in the eye as soon as she set foot in the doorway. His eyes were as cold as the fathomless, bright icy sea in winter. She shuffles back slowly, careful not to break his stare. His gaze slides away and he returns to his sordid activity. She shuts the door and instinctively goes for her left pocket - where she used to keep her cigs.
(The raw glassiness she saw tracing Gojo’s bloodshot sclera made Shoko think of awful things. Even worse, at that moment she felt like she was 17 again. Like she was still outside of her body that final summer, watching Suguru crumble right under their noses and was unable to lift a finger to do anything about it.)
But she’s been quit almost 2 years, and now Shoko’s got a notepad in her pocket and a pen between her lips as she turns to face her old friend.
“You need a coping strategy,” she announces, pulling away her new formaldehyde paperweight as Shoko notices him not-so-subtly rearing a hand back to punch it off the ledge. The weight drags across the clean stainless steel, and Gojo startles.
“Whuh-huh? Shoko, seriously? I - “
“ You, ” she enunciates. There’s enough of a sharp edge to her words to get him to let her talk over him. Precise as a scalpel, careful not to draw blood or flip a switch. “ - are going insane. You are literally losing your mind to stress while forcing yourself to overwork.”
Shoko sets her jaw and looks at him, letting the silence sink. Satoru pouts, visibly shrinking into himself. He keeps her gaze, chastised. She finds herself biting at the inside of her cheek before continuing on.
(Actually, she wants to start screaming at him. Because Shoko has watched him pick and eat at his own sanity and god . She watched Satoru Gojo die and aimlessly haunt the jujutsu world as a ghostly husk of the boy he used to be.)
“The higher-ups think you should be medicated, but I just barely managed to convince them not to tell you to take some evil cocktail of lobotomy sedatives.”
Hearing this, the larger feliform’s expression contorted into something brimming with hate. A sound like a bitten-off yowl mixed with a bonesaw growl tears out of his throat. He feels a pang of guilt lance through his ribs when he sees Shoko’s rounded brown ears twitch back atop her head, instinctually frightened by the noise.
It’s bad . He always, always catches himself doing stuff like this. The worst part is that every time, Satoru promises himself that he’ll stop. He snaps at someone a little too harshly, uses too much force during a mission, and all he can do is think “ This is the last time I let myself get worse .”
And then it happens again. He makes the promise. He breaks the promise. He keeps getting worse, and it’s not like he completely can’t control himself. It’s just that he couldn’t make himself want to be better for anyone’s sake.
Y’know what? At least he’s self-aware. Gojo knows very well what he is - a barely controlled beast on a hair trigger. That wouldn’t be a problem if something or someone could stop him aside from himself.
But there is no one left, and no one new has come. So he’s stuck like this. The endless loop of missions and the jumping of the windows heartrates at the mere news that Satoru is back for more work.
“Anyways - “ and oh. Shoko is smiling now. The crinkles around her tired, dark eyes are genuine, not forced or sarcastic or anything nefarious. He sits up, listening a bit more seriously.
“We’re getting you a dog!”
… oh .
Shoko can literally hear the windows dial-up noise as Satoru’s expression freezes and his thoughts short-circuit and crash. While he’s blue-screening, she takes the opportunity to continue her pitch.
“It’s a proven tactic amongst your clan, you like dogs, and anyone would feel at the very least a bit better after playing with a puppy,” she rattles off the points easily, counting on her fingers. “Whaddya say?”
When she looks up, Satoru has managed to shove his dropped jaw back in place and his eyes glittered under the fluorescent tube lights. Every now and then, Shoko finds herself grateful that he’s like this, no matter how much others complain. The elders hate him for it, but Satoru’s childish tendencies were always a point of comfort she could expect from him.
“I am sensing that you only heard the part about you getting a puppy,” she concludes, not unkindly. “But - yeah. We have the go-ahead and everything. All that’s left is to go and get you a new friend.”
What she doesn’t expect is for him to jump up from his perch on the autopsy table, shrieking and whooping as he does a lap around the room in pure excitement.
“LET’S GO!” he slams into the corpse rack and bounces off in a blur of white and blue, sprinting from corner to corner and making the furniture in the morgue rattle. “LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!”
At this, a giggle bubbles out of her mouth. It’s wonderfully hilarious, after all. Shoko wonders how others would react - the paragon of strength, the strongest sorcerer of their time - doing zoomies at the prospect of getting a pet.
He runs right up the wall and turns a flip, chattering and giggling to himself. Hm. Maybe it’s because she knows him that she’s able to laugh. If it was anyone but Ieri in the room to witness this, they’d probably be scared shitless.
“We can even go right now,” she calls out to the smudge of hyperactivity as it gradually slows to listen to her. “You got any meetings or work to do?”
“ Nope ~ “ Gojo chirps, blindfold already tied neatly. He pops the “p” and sings the vowels and Shoko knows damn well he’s probably lying. But that’s a problem for later, and it’s early in the day anyway. No harm in a quick errand before the sun is in the sky.
In the end, there is one victim. Shoko sorta feels bad for Ijichi, what with him being constantly bullied by Gojo into random tasks like driving him and Shoko out into the city in the hours before dawn.
Normally, Satoru is unwieldy in small spaces. Having him sit in a car is like putting a folding lawn chair in the trunk: it can work, of course, but whoever’s driving is going to want to avoid a bumpy ride before someone gets hurt.
But now it’s like he’s grown even lankier somehow in his good mood, all stretched out languidly across the leather seats. Corralling him towards the car took an extra minute, as he kept skipping around the parking lot for some reason.
Shoko takes the front seat. Ijichi’s suit is rumpled and half his hair sticks up, pillow creases on his cheek. He taps something into the car’s onboard GPS, shakily adjusting his skewed glasses. He looks at her, bleary and just a touch pleading. Shoko rummages in her coat for the paper note where she listed the shelters she’d vetted previously for visiting.
Once she’s done typing in the address for the nearest shelter, she sits back and gives poor Kiyotaka a look that she hopes conveys her apologetic sentiments. The click of the safety belt at her hip is cheerfully crisp. “Shall we get going?”
The drive is smooth and quiet. Every now and then, a canine ear flicks at the unruly bedhead Ijichi can’t fix without taking his hands off the wheel. Shoko rests her elbow against the car door and enjoys the coasting skyline view off the freeway. Behind her, Gojo is idly drumming out a staccato beat with his fingertips, still too full of elation to be able to sit still and silent.
The sun peeks over the silhouette of the buildings, the gentle rose and orange glow disappearing as the car pulls off and away into the cozy neighbourhood streets. Soon enough, they’re at the first stop.
The humane center’s nameplate is just the same as it looked in the website photo - faded green paint and the district’s name etched under the kanji for “adoption.” The lights are on inside, and through the glass door she can see a humble kiosk manned by a volunteer. Shoko steps out of the car and makes her way towards the entrance.
Weirdly enough, this is when Satoru comes down from his sugar-high mood. He creeps behind Shoko, fiddling with his hands and seeming cramped as he shuffles under the doorframe. Ijichi brings up the rear, not-so-subtly clutching a convenience store energy shot in his hand as he jogs to catch up.
“Hi there!” the volunteer chirps at their little entourage as soon as the door chime rings. He’s mousy, with brown hair and floppy dog ears like Ijichi’s framing his face. The nametag on his green uniform apron reads “ Seito .”
“Hi,” Shoko says back, stopping at the counter. “I inquired earlier this week about adoptions with the manager of this place, is now a bad time?”
“Oh, not really,” Seito says lightly, unlatching the gate and joining the new patrons in the foyer. “We’re a 24/7 shelter, but Sundays are usually quiet at around this time so forgive us if we seem a bit inactive.”
“My apologies,” Ijichi rushes, still with his unopened drink. “We should have called or contacted earlier to discuss a scheduled appointment…”
It’s at that exact moment where his breath hitches and he hiccups, the jolt nearly sending his glasses to the floor. He scrambles to push them back from where they slid, wireframes clinking against the glass of the little bottle.
Shoko turns away from the worker for a moment, using a hand to guide the jujutsu manager towards the seats against the wall. She mouths “ I got this ” at him, and Ijichi shakily nods as he concedes to leave the conversation.
“He’s a nervous type, huh…” Seito murmurs conversationally. Shoko hums in mild assent. “No, just… very stressed.”
“Is he the adopter that you mentioned to Boss? She told us that a lady from a medical clinic was looking into companion hybrids for her workplace, and I’m assuming that was you.”
This actually makes Shoko pause for a moment to think. “He wasn’t who I was particularly enquiring about, but maybe he’d do well with an emotional support of his own.” Another window to partner with might be good for him, she theorizes. Maybe then Ijichi could have someone to split the work with.
“But, yes, I am a doctor - Ieri Shoko, nice to meet you - and we’re visiting to assess if any of your available wards are compatible with a coworker of mine.” She jabs a thumb over her shoulder, to where she presumes Gojo is idling.
“Right this way!” A set of keys appears from the green apron’s side pocket, jingling as Seito walks towards a door leading deeper into the building. Shoko follows, hands buried inside her lab coat’s pockets.
Immediately as she sets foot into the kennel area, a little caramel-coloured blur collides into her side and bounces off, falling to the floor.
It’s a girl, no older than 10, dressed in a red tracksuit and well-worn white sneakers. Her cat ears are more rounded than pointed, and the fur on her short tail is sandy with jagged lines of spotted black.
She groans, rubbing at her forehead. Righting herself, she sniffs and stares down Seito with round, dark eyes. “Who’s this? She smells like a hospital.”
“That’s rude,” he chides softly, herding the kid to the stride to properly face Shoko. “And she’s an adopter.”
When she hears this, the girl looks up at Shoko with the most dead-serious stare a grade-schooler could possibly muster and bites out a matter-of-factly “I’m not going with you.”
The doctor puts her hands up in mock surrender. “It’s not me you gotta worry about.”
Despite being only up to her ribs, the girl cocks an eyebrow in an impressively vivid “ huh? ” expression. “Who else would I have to worry about?”
“Nobara! Be nice!” the shelter worker scolds, herding the girl behind him with a hand on her shoulder. But even Seito looks a bit puzzled.
Shoko nods. “I see. Nice to meet you, Nobara-san.”
Nobara sniffs again, self-satisfied with the grownup-sounding honorific the visitor has addressed her with. The silence lingers a little longer before Shoko feels her heart drop at that ice-cold, hollow feeling of something being very off.
“ Who else? ” Does she not see Satoru? Had he not chimed in at all? No way.
She power-walks back to the lobby without saying anything, Seito and little Nobara following on her heels. Just Ijichi. The energy drink bottle is opened and empty, on the floor by his ankle. He startles upright when he hears the footsteps.
“Oh, hell…” Shoko bites at the insides of her cheek and tries not to mutter any more curses under her breath. Ijichi seems to sense the panic.
“Did you see him leave?” she asks, more resigned than curious. He shakes his head no, tail whipping behind him in agitation.
Shoko fends off the urge to scream into her hands and straightens her posture instead. “You trace the route we took here, I’ll go into the neighbourhood.”
Ijichi is jittering in place, wiry and in full fight-or-flight. God, she’s gotta compensate him when all this is over. His voice cracks a little. “G-got it!!”
Shoko’s about to head out herself when a small hand grips at the edge of her coat, tugging. It’s Nobara. The slant to her mouth is pensive, but she sounds sure of herself when she speaks.
“You don’t know this neighbourhood. I’ll guide you.”
She’s right. Shoko is tired enough as is, and even without fatigue, navigation isn’t her strong suit. The warm glow of the morning is seeping into the streets outside, piercing the gloomy twilight.
“Well, then,” she nods. Her breath feels heavy in her chest, but there is no dread. The ache to self-medicate does not resonate in her ribcage, the memories from back then do not scream at Ieri Shoko for her failure.
Maybe today could still end peacefully. “Lead the way, please.