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randomprose · 4 months ago

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and i will walk this world alone

shoko’s tears aren’t shallow, but their world gives her enough reason to grieve—shoko-centric [ao3]

Shoko doesn’t cry.

Never in public because what is there for her to cry about? Rare and special Reverse Cursed Technique user Ieiri Shoko, kept safe in Jujutsu High’s fortress, too precious and valuable to be sent to the field lest they loose the only person in her generation with the ability to heal and undo a curse’s damage.

(What a way to be rare and special, but what good is that when she can’t reverse the damage done permanently? What good is her technique if she can’t keep her friends from setting up permanent residence in the campus graveyard?)

Never in the quiet of the dorms because Gojo and Geto have the habit of sneaking into her room and into her bed when the going gets the toughest, when the days and the missions will get the best of Gojo and Geto, especially after the incident with Riko. Shoko hears the silent sobs and the muffled screams after a nightmare through the thin walls.

Not even in the morgue when the only ones who might hear her are the curses she’s dissecting to study and the people—peers, colleagues, upperclassmen, classmates, friends—she’s had to do autopsies on because it’s just her luck to have a rare and special cursed technique able to reverse engineer a curse’s effect.

Shoko cries in the shower.

She does it in the dorm’s shared bathrooms when everyone’s done for the day, and she knows none of her peers, all of them boys, would use the baths or dare step even in the locker area once they hear the shower in the third stall running for fear of being accused of a peeping tom.

It’s something she’s done since coming to Jujutsu High. Shoko’s tears aren’t shallow, but their world gives her enough reason to grieve.

But as far as everyone knows, Shoko doesn’t cry.

Not where anyone can see. Not in the dorms where her friends are likely to seek out her comfort. Not in the morgue or the infirmary where there is no room for emotions and certainly not tears when a comrade is bleeding and clinging to life on the operating table or is lying cold and lifeless under a white sheet.

So Shoko cries in the shower. The tears stop when she turns the water off.

—

When she was doing Haibara’s autopsy, she made the mistake of looking at his pale face and felt he throat seize just as her vision blurred. She promptly stepped out to compose herself and smoked half a pack of Marlboro reds before going back to finish the job.

After Haibara’s body was put in the incinerator and she’d had written her report, Shoko wept on the floor of the dorm’s third shower stall for the rest of the night until the water turned cold.

Her eyes were dry by the time of the funeral.

—

In Shinjuku when she met Geto, Shoko had taunted him because she couldn’t quite believe what he was saying. She called Gojo in hopes to talk some sense into their friend and then watched him disappear into the busy crowd with nothing but a saccharine smile and a carefree backhand wave as a farewell.

Later, she would find herself forever wishing she had done more to keep him.

Under the assault of the shower’s cold water, she turned in her hand the lighter he used to light her cigarette with, a modest parting gift. It’s a Zippo with a matte finish and a small ‘傑’ engraved on the lower right corner, the same one he’s always used to light their smokes since their first year. Shoko was with him when he bought it after getting their first paycheck.

Flipping it open, she ran her thumb through the flint wheel and watched with a dead-eyed stare as a small flame flickered before the water overhead quickly extinguished it.

Shoko wept, clutching the lighter close to her chest, and choked on her sobs as she realized she would never see her best friend again.

—

When Nanami graduated and decided to leave the sorcerer life, Shoko cried in the shower of her college dorm.

She cried because she was sad to see him go but happy that he had saved himself. Yet, there was also a horrible part of her that was furious and disgustingly jealous because how come he got to leave but rare and special Shoko had to stay? Why did Nanami have the choice to go but Shoko was only allowed out to get a medical degree for formalities sake before being reeled back in? Even then, they still had a hold on her because she was still required to do shifts at Jujutsu High Infirmary and perform autopsies in the morgue in exchange for the school paying for her full ride to college and medical school—something that was also decided for her.

On Nanami’s first day back as an official part of Jujutsu High’s staff, Shoko met his eye across the staff room and gave him a commiserating nod as Gojo slung an arm over his junior and attempted to give him a noogie.

“You’re making a big mistake. I hope you know that.”

“You never left, Ieiri-san.”

“But you did,” Shoko said, sending him a wry grin. “And yet here you are again.”

She went home after his welcome party drunk and cried in her bathtub because whywhywhy. Nanami got out. He did the thing none of them could, so why did he came back?

Yet she really meant it when she said, ‘Welcome back, Nanami. I missed your grumpy face’ but, god, does she felt horrible because even as she said it all, the while she was thinking, ‘I’m happy you’re here again. I know I shouldn’t be, but misery loves company.’

It’s tragic as it is wonderful, and to alleviate her guilt, Shoko paid for their tab on the first night they went out as colleagues.

—

When Gojo brought Geto’s lifeless body after the fight, Shoko didn’t cry.

She didn’t cry when Gojo laid out the body of their best friend in the morgue. She didn’t cry when Gojo dropped his weight on the nearest chair and pulled her against him in a bone-crushing hug, muffling his cries of anguish by burying his face on her torso and soaking the front of her shirt. She didn’t cry as she cleaned Geto as best she could after Gojo had let her go.

Shoko didn’t cry when they decided to bury Geto because neither of them could bring themselves to destroy their best friend’s body, and she didn’t cry as she once again held Gojo’s shaking form as rib-rattling sobs wracked his body.

It happened a month later after she’d passed her report on Geto’s death, after the whole thing had been discussed and rehashed by the higher-ups over and over, after the rebuilding had started, and after Gojo had been sent out to a mission overseas. It happened after her shift at the infirmary, after getting her nails done that afternoon, doing some errands, and right after eating the first decent dinner she’d had in weeks.

Shoko cried on a random Tuesday night in her bathroom as soon as she turned the shower on and the first drops of water hit. She felt like an idiot going through the motions of cleaning herself even as the tears wouldn’t stop falling, but she stayed under the shower long after the hot water ran out.

—

Shoko didn’t cry when she found out Nanami and Yaga died.

With Nanami, she already knew the inevitable the day he came back to be a sorcerer. And Yaga—well. The old man has had a hit on his head since he stopped being the higher-ups’ lapdog. She’s just relieved neither of them ended up on her table.

The first and only time Shoko cried in public was when Sukuna had killed Gojo.

Shoko has had a lifetime of watching her friends and colleagues die, but Gojo Satoru was always supposed to be the exception. The ultimate untouchable.

The first tears that fell were more out of shock. They slid down her cheeks before she hastily wiped her face dry with a violent swipe of her hands.

Ui Ui and Kirara collected Gojo’s body from the battlefield and delivered him straight to her operating table.

Time to put Ieiri Shoko’s rare and special cursed technique to the ultimate test. She was going to pull the Six Eyes, their generation’s Strongest Sorcerer and her best and oldest friend, from the jaws of death.

—

Shoko didn’t bring back Gojo Satoru.

It’s not that she couldn’t, but more that his spirit was no longer willing. He was content to stay where he is and Shoko could not resent him for that. Not after everything he’d been through. Not after everything they’ve been through.

After the memorial, the Gojo clan collected their prized possession and Shoko let them without putting up a fight.

When she was done tending to the wounded and signing off autopsy reports on their dead, Shoko went back to the quarters the school had temporarily provided for her while the rebuilding efforts in the country are on the way. She strips as she went and stepped into her shower with the heater set to the hottest temperature.

And then, finally, she cried.

Shoko cried for all her friends, all she’d lost, and all that remained.

The mortality rate of Jujutsu Sorcerers is absurdly high and their average lifespan is laughably low. Shoko would never begrudge her friends for going when they did, but she just wished she didn’t have to be the one left behind, wished she wasn’t the one to disprove the statistics.

She wept and sobbed and wailed. The running water failed to muffle the sound of her grief reverberating against the tiled walls, her sorrow and misery echoing all around her.

When she felt she’d cried all the tears she’d shed in this lifetime and was sure the water running down her face was only coming from her showerhead, she finally turned the water off.

Shoko stepped out of her shower and wiped herself with a towel almost on auto-pilot. When she looked up to stare at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, her eyes are dry.

Her grief perseveres—bone-deep and weary, heavy and suffocating, tucked under her ribcage forevermore—but the tears always stop when she turns the water off.

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #writing #ieiri shoko #shoko #shoko ieiri #happy birthday queen!!#you derserve So Much More than how gege did you #did i write this on a random weekday after getting my nails done eating good and crying for a solid half hour in the shower—mayhaps

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