#he (nanami) looks so good its abhorrent

[luvnami]

𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 (here) | 𝐖𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬 | 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 | 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞 - This is my entry for @jjkmag​ Summer Collab! It’s my first long fic in a while but I had a lot of fun writing this (that isn’t to say I think it’s very good. I hope the plot/finality was pulled off decently ok lol). I hope you enjoy it! I chose the prompt 'coming of age', though there are definitely scenes where the other prompts were present as well. Reblogs, comments, shares and likes are really appreciated!!

𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 - @getousuguruwife​ @amjustagirl​ @aliteama​

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 - Amnesia, Memory loss, Blood, Mild gore, Death, Blood loss, Bullying, Mild Racism (only in the first part), Corpses, Food, Manga spoilers, Pre-canon and canon compliant to a certain extent, Nightmares

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - Nanami Kento's life has been... Good, bad, and everything in between. He (and many others) thinks he's mature, independent, the definition of what a proper adult should be like. But really, the only way he's made it this far is because you've been holding his hand the entire time.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 6.4k

The first memory Nanami has of you sits in a blurry haze at the back of his mind.

You’re probably four or five years old at best, squatting by a puddle in the empty kindergarten playground. Nanami wonders what made him waddle over to you that warm afternoon.

His shoes, scribbled with ugly caricatures in marker, carry him to the other side of the puddle. A shadow cast by a plastic slide slices your features neatly in half like a Greek theatre mask. Nanami doesn’t speak a word to you as he stares at your chubby fingers that push a fallen leaf around in the water as the surface ripples silently.

You look up at Nanami. He’s an odd child, excluded by the other kindergarteners because of how quiet and strange he is. Nanami’s blond hair is abnormal to the immature local Japanese children. They knee the back of his legs while calling him names like ‘banana-gaijin!’ and making fun of his fancy leather shoes.

“Do you wanna play with me?”

Nanami wonders if the words you speak to him are from your heart or something constructed from a plan to bully him again.

“My mama taught me how to make boats with leaves. See?” You point to the puddle. “We can race them.”

Nanami carefully selects a leaf off of the playground’s floor. It’s still green, freshly fallen from its branch. You grin toothily, your eyes sparkling.

“That’s a perfect leaf!” you declare.

Nanami thinks he wants to play with you forever.

He follows you around in school like a lost puppy after that, clutching his hands nervously when you stand up to the children who bully him. Nanami wonders if you’ll ever turn your back on him. He arrives earlier than you every morning and hurriedly scrubs at your table with his handkerchief to get rid of nasty words and obscene drawings, heart thumping against his cotton polo. When his mother asks him why his new handkerchief is so dirty, he remains silent and grips the hem of his shirt tightly.

Children are children; Nanami learns. Afraid of abnormalities, they defend their right to innocence and ego with harsh words and various schemes. He learns to ignore the whispers behind his back. What he can’t disregard, though, is when they lash out at you.

They jeer when you trip during P.E. classes and bump into you on purpose when you carry your lunch tray. You pretend that it doesn’t hurt when Nanami holds your hand gently and leads you to the nurse’s office with scraped knees, hiccuping and swiping at your eyes roughly.

He wonders why you don’t take the easy way out and just stop being friends with him. What’s wrong with you? You hold him tightly, a bundle of thorns, in your soft hands and pretend that you’re not bleeding.

“Ken-chan?” you sniffle.

He turns.

“You’re my best friend, right?”

Nanami gulps. He doesn’t question why you cry on graduation day, bidding your final farewell to him with vague promises of meeting in the same elementary school. Something in his chest doesn’t sit right; the kind of feeling when his mother threw out his old stuffed toys after she deemed him too old for them anymore.

He watches you grow smaller and smaller in the rear window of his family car till you’re the size of an ant, his knees digging into the leather seats.

“Sit down, Kento,” his father chides.

Nanami ignores him. He watches you wave your hand in the air as the car turns around the corner and lurches into the seat.

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s genuinely surprised when he finds out that his assigned seat is right next to you on the first day of elementary school. You’re no different, mouth wide open in an ‘o’ as you stare at him.“Ken-chan!”

You almost yell, and Nanami shushes you as his face heats up. He finds out that your mothers had conspired to put the both of you into the same school. He can’t tell if that’s a good or bad thing just yet, but peace settles into his chest the same way the wings of a bird return to its sides after flight when you giggle at his flustered expression.

Through nine years of elementary and junior high school together, Nanami learns that you always arrange the tips of your pencils to face the right side of your pencil box, and you keep the torn bits of movie tickets shoved into your bedside drawer. You find that Nanami has a knack for dry humour — he’s blunt at every moment possible (which caused much distress after he talked back to a teacher that one time) and can usually be bribed for any favour as long as you pay him in food.

What the both of you find oddly shocking, though, is that no one else can see the creatures that swim through walls and perch in dark corners of the school.

They make you sweat whenever they get too close, bulbous eyes and strange bodies twisting in ways that shouldn’t be physically possible. Sometimes they make noises, whispering or coaxing or shrieking or crying in broken sentences.

Nanami learns to treat them as background noise. You, on the other hand, find that a little more complicated. Sometimes you latch onto him when one brushes against your arm, squeaking and swatting at them in an attempt to chase them away.

“They’re so gross!” you’d whine, pressing yourself even closer to Nanami. “Did you see that one in the gym yesterday? It had tentacles!”

In cases like this, the blond clears his throat and ignores you, averting his gaze. He doesn’t admit to anyone, not even himself, that the warmth of your skin through your uniform makes his heart skip a beat. You’ve grown so close to him that you even know that Nanami sleeps with Doraemon pajamas (absolutely, abhorrently embarrassing. He made his mother throw them out the night after you came over for a sleepover). It was inevitable for him to develop feelings.

Nanami shoves his feelings below a lid and sits on top of it, keeping them under lock and key. He’s sure this is just something to do with puppy love or ‘infatuations’ that are underlined in the puberty print-outs the school distributed, alongside scientific diagrams of genitals that the boys in his class giggle at.

Being friends is enough. Or so he thinks, anyway.

☆*: .｡.

It’s a Friday evening when the sky is dark, and street lights flicker in the distance. Nanami munches away on melon bread from a convenience store while you sip on a carton of juice. Your clubs had ended late today, so the sun was down by the time you left school.

“How’s the bread?” you ask, slurping up the last drops of your drink.

Nanami chews and swallows while you dab at your mouth with a yellow cotton handkerchief.

“It’s okay. Not as good as a bakery’s, though. Kinda stale.”

He crumples the plastic packaging in his hand and sticks it into his pocket, planning to dispose of it later. The both of you round the corner to the bus stop, and your feet fall still. A large curse sits in the middle of the road.

Numerous cars are crumpled like drink cans, smoke, and gasoline leaking onto the streets. There’s blood. Too much blood, in fact, that they seem like puddles of rain on the dark tarmac. Your juice box drops from your hand.

The curse turns to you, its teeth split vertically down the centre of what constitutes a face. Multiple eyes run down the length of its engorged body where various hands and feet stick out at random parts.

“Blood… Blood…” it moans in a cryptic voice.

Nanami stands with his feet frozen to the ground, eyes wide in horror. His knuckles turn white as he grips his school bag. Run, run, run! He screams internally, but his limbs don’t listen to him. The curse slides over the road towards him, slipping through the blood easily.

“Give me… Your blood…”

A part of the curse’s body bubbles up into a large hand. It swings itself back before throwing its newly created appendage towards Nanami. RUN RUN RUN! His legs don’t move. He squeezes his eyes shut, awaiting the impact. Except that it doesn’t hit him. Nothing hurts, except the shrill scream that pierces his ears. Nanami’s eyes snap open in horror. 

“Kento!” you yell, dangling upside down as the curse pulls you towards its mouth.

Your school bag lays on the ground below, books scattered as their pages turn red.  

“Run!”

Nanami drops everything as he scrambles towards you, tripping over his own two feet and landing face-first in the blood. His hands and knees sting. He shoves himself and gets up with his teeth clenched. You kick your feet in the air in a poor attempt to escape the curse’s grip but to no avail. Another groan is squeezed out of you as the curse opens its mouth, the foul stench of rotting bodies engulfing you.

“Run, Kento!” you plead.

How can he turn his back on you? Sweat drips down his forehead as Nanami pulls his hand back. The adrenaline that rushes through his blood clears in a split-second moment of raw emotion; anger, disappointment, confusion, sadness. A tingling sort of energy floods his body, and Nanami takes a sharp breath of air. He sees something like a ruler — a line divided equally with ten markings, the seventh one crossed out. His fist connects with it.

The curse lets out a weak moan of pain, shaking you around as it recoils from Nanami’s hit. It’s not much, just a surface injury at most. Nanami’s limbs tremble with exertion. One more time, again and again, until you’re safe-

A thick, gross liquid engulfs Nanami as the curse explodes in front of his very eyes. He coughs, running a slimy hand over his face. It smells like death.

“Woah! You put too much into that again, Satoru.” 

“Shut up!”

Nanami looks up as he hears footsteps move towards him, the quiet splashing of blood beneath shoes.

“Ugh, this place is so gross.”

“You okay there, kiddo?”

Nanami looks up to find a male with his hair pulled back into a bun staring at him. Behind him is a white-haired teenager with sunglasses (strange, hasn’t the sun already gone down?) and an imposing-looking man.

Where are you?

Nanami glances around frantically amidst the dead bodies that lie on the ground. Not you, not you, not- A tiny sliver of hope slips into his heart when he spots your uniform, and he stumbles over.

“Woah! Slow down!”

He calls out your name, slipping and collapsing onto his knees. Your eyes are closed, and a wound on your head oozes blood. A young girl with short hair reaches out to touch you, but Nanami pulls you into his chest, his eyes wide.

“Don’t,” he whispers.

His head spins. Are these good people? How did they just destroy that big monster? He hadn’t even seen them coming. Were they going to hurt you?

“Calm down, man! We’re good guys.”

“No one’s going to trust you when you say that, Satoru.”

The girl stares at Nanami.

“I’ll take care of your injuries. Can you let me see them, please?”

He relaxes. His grip on you loosens, and the girl feels for your pulse, nodding in affirmation.

“Alive.”

Nanami breathes a sigh of relief. At this realisation, his body begins to tremble like a leaf in the wind. He digs his nails into his palms but still they quiver. His heart pounds in his chest and he struggles to take a deep breath, exhaustion overtaking him.

“Hey, you okay?”

His eyes fall shut. 

☆*: .｡.

Nanami finds out over a hot cup of tea that those monsters are called curses, and not everyone can see them.

“Lucky you!” Gojo chimes in.

Lucky? His face wrinkles in despair and Getou laughs so loud at his reaction that he has to step out of the room.

Nanami had sustained minor injuries — nothing beyond a few scrapes and some trauma. You were fine for the most part. After hitting your head on the ground, you remained unconscious for a few more days after Nanami had woken up. You were covered in a few bruises, but otherwise alright. 

Nanami was infinitely thankful for that

Yaga tells him that he has enough aptitude to become a full-fledged sorcerer. The school he teaches at is called Jujutsu High and is located on the outskirts of Tokyo. Since he’s in his final year of junior high, why not give it a thought if he wants to join them? Nanami holds Yaga’s name card numbly.

He looks up at Yaga, only one objective clear in his mind. He doesn’t want to see you hurt any longer.

“Will you teach me how to exorcise curses?” he asks.

Gojo laughs outrightly and Geto snorts. Yaga gives him a confident smile, clapping Nanami on the shoulder (he doesn’t quite like that, but he overlooks it for now).

“You can count on that.”

☆*: .｡.

Nanami’s a little apprehensive about entering Jujutsu High, especially when you decide to enrol as well. Given the ability to see curses, you were adamant about learning to help others with this ability you were gifted with. He relented and sulked for the rest of the day until you gave him a cup of pudding.

The first day Nanami and you enter Jujutsu Tech, you meet a wide-eyed boy named Haibara Yu. He’s overly optimistic and passionate — precisely the kind of person that Nanami tires of interacting with. In fact, the very first thing Haibara says upon meeting the both of you irritates him.

“Woah! Blondie, are you from an emo band or something? Your hair really matches the vibe!” Haibara had gasped.

You struggled to suppress your giggles, biting on your lower lip as you turned to the side. Nanami, on the other hand, didn’t find it quite as funny.

“No, I’m not. Nice to meet you too,” he replied monotonously.

It takes all of the following month for Nanami to get used to Haibara’s eccentricities. He always does his best during training, mingles enthusiastically with the upperclassmen and chows down on at least two bowls of rice during break time. The most annoying part about him is how Haibara seems to get along so well with you.

You laugh too loudly for Nanami’s liking at his jokes, squeeze in between Haibara and him (brushing shoulders with the both of them! Seriously!) when they’re standing together just to listen in on Haibara’s monologuing, and sometimes even end up sparring with him instead of Nanami.

The blond curses that there is an odd number of first years and peers in the mirror after his shower as he wonders what he would look like with a black bowl cut. He even tries to finish more than one serving of ginger pork on one particular day and gets sent to the school nurse for a tummy ache.

Though, the three of you have chemistry that works out when fighting curses. Nanami is the primary damage dealer of the group, while you learn how to provide support with Haibara and create openings for Nanami to attack. So on your first ‘real group mission’ assigned to you by Yaga, you can’t help but set off with overflowing excitement.

It isn’t often that you have the opportunity to step outside of Jujutsu High on your own without supervision. Even on weekends, you’re usually expected to train or study. The sun shines warmly down upon the streets of Asakusa, and tourists and locals alike swarm the city area.

“Hey! We should totally give Sensou-ji Temple a visit later!” Haibara suggests, pumping his fist in the air.

“We’re not here to sightsee,” Nanami sighs.

“That’s what you said the last time we went to Okinawa, and guess what, Nanamin! We didn’t even get to try their sushi!”

“Yeah, and you forgot to bring back souvenirs for me, Ken-chan,” you chime in.

“I told you to stop adding -chan to my name.” 

“Why not? Doesn’t it sound cute?” 

“Mhm!”

Haibara nods furiously. Nanami ignores the both of you with a sigh. He slings a bag containing his sword over his shoulder once more as the crowd barely makes space for you to move through.

“We can’t take too long,” he relents.

The cheers and high-fives that you and Haibara give each other make a vein bulge on Nanami’s temple. He tries not to read too much into the way you immediately begin discussing what places to visit and eat at with Haibara — didn’t you care for his opinion? He shakes his head and increases his pace, leaving the both of you behind.

Nanami ignores the cries of ‘Ken-chan!’ and ‘Nanamin!’ that ring out through the crowd. Whatever. If you want to be with Haibara, then Nanami will gladly get out of the way for you. He drags his feet on the pavement and settles for a cup of iced tea in a nearby cafe gloomily.

What Nanami is doing is… childish. He knows, at the very least, that he should be happy the both of you have met a nice new friend. But he can’t help the jealousy that rises in his chest like smoke in a chimney when he sees you cling onto Haibara the same way you used to do to him.

Was Haibara nicer, more good-looking, stronger, funnier, gentler, better than every single trait in Nanami combined? You no longer ask Nanami how he slept the previous night, instead running over to Haibara and greeting him cheerily. Forget about how you used to come over to Nanami’s house to study after school — you and Haibara disappear to who knows where after training everyday.

He bites down on his straw. The bitter taste of a lemon seed fills his mouth and Nanami spits it out onto a napkin with more force than necessary. He takes a deep breath. He should make things clear to you, then, and let you know how he feels about you. To him, it sounds a little like love.

Nanami’s face flushes with embarrassment. Love is… Love isn’t this. It definitely isn’t getting jealous over your relationships with other people, nor is it forcing you to accept his feelings out of spite. He finishes the last bit of his iced tea, the straw making a gurgling noise as it fails to suck up any more liquid. He leaves his money by the counter and walks back outside, returning his heart back to its safe, clicking the lock shut once more. His shoulders sag as he lets out a pent-up sigh.

Nanami squints at his phone. The golden sunlight makes it difficult to read his messages, but he manages to pick out four missed calls from you and a hundred text messages from Haibara. His blood runs cold when he scrolls to the last text that he received.

Haibara Yu, 4.25p.m.:  curse help 6 cho

It’s currently 4.35p.m. 6-chome is a 15 minutes walk away, five minutes if he sprints fast enough. Nanami hopes that you’re okay, that Haibara has enough sense to call for other back-up or avoid the curse.

Nanami’s feet pound under him as he shoves his way through the crowds, earning distasteful looks and swears. He doesn’t care. Not when you and Haibara are facing a possible grade 2 curse alone, and not when it’s because of Nanami’s irresponsibility and useless emotions that had caused the three of you to be separated.

His breath comes quick and hard and his thighs burn, screaming for relief. He makes a sharp turn and almost crashes into a bicycle.

“Watch where you’re going!” an angry housewife yells, but her words fall on deaf ears.

Just a little more, he begs.

Nanami hears the fighting before he sees it. The sound of metal meeting metal and the roar of the curse sound uncharacteristically comforting to him as he draws his sword, racing to bear a fighting stance.

But he’s too late.

“Yu!” you cry out as Haibara crumples onto the ground.

His eyes meet Nanami’s. His uniform is tattered, face bearing wounds and his right arm is bent at an unnatural shape, almost like a knotted tree branch. You seem relatively unhurt, although your breathing is laboured.

“Kento,” Haibara wheezes.

Nanami’s feet don’t move. His chest heaves, perspiration pouring down his face and drenching his uniform. The grip on his sword slips ever so slightly. The curse stands at the end of a ruined district. You aren’t trained to fight in such close quarters, or reduce the number of casualties to a bare minimum. 

And Nanami hadn’t been here to provide damage to exorcise it.

“Who are you? Another small fry?” the curse scoffs.

It takes the body of a geisha, dressed in luxurious robes that whip about in the air. Consciousness? This isn’t a grade 2 by any means — it’s a special grade curse. The will to fight slips out of Nanami like water from a cup, trickling from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.

“Haibara!” Nanami shouts.

The male gives Nanami one last smile from where he is.

“You’ve got it from here,” he whispers, lips barely moving.

The geisha stretches out its hand, a portion of its obi moving along with it. You and Nanami watch in horror as Haibara’s head is neatly decapitated from his body. His blood drips off of the ends of the robes as the curse cackles, his head rolling to a stop as his half-closed eyes stare up at Nanami like a dead fish’s.

“You think you can beat me? Look at your little friend!”

Fury rushes into Nanami like a wave meeting the shore.

“You’ll die here by my hands!” the curse roars.

You take a step back as the geisha prepares to launch another attack, silk sashes drawn back into the sky before they plunge back at you two in an aerial attack. Nanami leaps through the attacks as his body moves faster than he can process it.

You, on the other hand, create a shield out of cursed energy to try and deflect the attacks. At the very least, Haibara deserves a proper burial. There isn’t time for mourning now, and you have to wipe away the tears that pool in your eyes. You try to ignore the way his head rolls closer to your foot and bumps against it gently.

Nanami lets out a yell of anger. His cursed energy swells as he cuts his way through the sashes, movement based on momentum than anything else at this point. His mind is clouded with regret and frustration. Nanami channels his anger into his sword, the ten destined lines appearing before his eyes once more.

The curse lets out a cry of pain as it stumbles back, sashes redrawn as it tries to gauge its wounds. Blood gushes from a slash on its side and Nanami darts forward again — again, again, again, until its dead. His legs, however, are weaker than what he thinks they can bear. Nanami stumbles in his step.

“Ken!” you shout.

The curse grins. It takes little to no time to regenerate, skin overlapping raw flesh as it gets back onto its feet.

“You’re weak,” it taunts. “First your friend, now you. I’ll be sure to savour the last one as well!”

Nanami struggles to get back onto his feet. He gasps, heart ripping a hole through his chest. He’s so exhausted; so worn out, that his arms refuse to raise his sword above chest height. He curses.

You run over to Nanami, grabbing his uniform and dragging him back. The curse starts to chant ominously. Its face turns dark, taking steps that sway its body with thick, lacquered geta. You shove Nanami back as you’re engulfed by its domain, swallowed up by darkness and spit into a tatami room. He barely has time to call your name before you disappear.

“Shit!”

Nanami stumbles back onto his feet, but sinks down onto his knees again. His shoulders quake as he tries to suck in breaths of air, but his throat is too dry. He coughs and adjusts his grip on his sword. Shit, shit, shit. All of his partners tossed themselves at death as if it was an idle thing just to protect him. What was Nanami doing? He would never become a sorcerer like this, never be able to protect you.

He grits his teeth. He’ll never be enough.

Nanami picks up his sword, wrapping his fingers around its hilt one more time. He dashes towards the domain, tasting iron as he hacks and slashes at it. Again, again, and again. His hands turn numb and his cursed energy flickers like a candle’s flame, but there’s one thing Nanami’s insistent on — getting you out of there.

The domain finally collapses as Nanami finally steadies himself on his feet. You roll to the ground, breath shallow. Your uniform is sliced up in different areas and a pool of blood begins to spread where your head meets the floor.

“Ken…?” you whisper.

Nanami smells it — the scent of death. Why did he ever choose to become a sorcerer over an ordinary high school life? He wouldn’t have dragged you into this mess, caused you to be hurt time and time again. Nanami calls out your name tentatively. You don’t respond.

The curse roars with laughter as your eyes fall shut, “Don’t you see how I’m so strong? You’re nothing compared to me-”

Nanami sees red. He launches himself forward, brandishing his sword even if it’s for the last time.

He doesn’t remember what happens afterwards.

Nanami sinks into a pool of blood, head spinning with exertion. Your body lays to his left, Haibara’s head to his right. He collapses to the ground.

☆*: .｡.

When he comes to, Nanami’s eyes struggle to adjust to the white light that floods the room. It smells vaguely like antiseptic. He slowly sits up, body aching with exhaustion with telltale bandages wrapped around most of his exposed limbs.

A drawn curtain separates his bed from the rest of the room, which he assumes to be Jujutsu Tech’s sickbay. He runs a hand over his face and lies back down, letting sleep take him by the hand and lead him a step further from reality.

Nanami wakes up a second time when Shouko returns to the room. He stares at her, blinking once, then twice.

“Nanami?” she asks softly. “Can you hear me?”

He tries to reply, but his throat is parched. He ends up coughing, wrinkling his face as pain spreads through his ribs. Shouko rushes to get him a glass of water and calls the rest (namely Yaga and Gojo) over. Nanami nurses the glass as Yaga takes a seat by his bed.

There are no questions, only condolences and murmured explanations of what had happened. The only thing Nanami picks up is that you’re alive. That’s more than enough for him to relax, nodding dumbly along to Yaga’s words.

The curse had been on the brink of death when Nanami collapsed. However, he had put up enough of a fight for nearby sorcerers to come to his aid and finish it off. There was no doubt about it — it was a special grade curse. Yaga apologises for the miscommunication and loss of Haibara’s life. Nanami doesn’t reply.

No amount of apologies could turn back time and bring Haibara back.

It takes him a few more days before Nanami’s able to hobble around the school, aided by crutches. Gojo pokes fun at how he seems like a grandpa but even his jokes don’t bear the mean edge they usually do. Getou leaves a can of vending machine coffee by his bedside table and Shouko brings him some wildflowers. Nanami leaves the plush cat Yaga had made for him untouched.

Nanami struggles against the nightmares that plague him. In one Haibara cradles his decapitated head in his own arms, asking Nanami why he hadn’t saved his life; in another you die, guts spilling onto the streets with your eyes bulging from your skull. Nanami wakes up in cold sweat. He calms his breathing alone and doesn’t sleep a single wink.

It’s a rainy day when Shouko lets him enter the morgue. Haibara’s body is laid in a shroud of white, his head positioned to appear attached. Had he ever been so pale? Nanami’s fingers grip his crutches, gritting his teeth.

How long his eyelashes had been! A small scar runs down his left temple (“After my sister shoved me in the playground!” Haibara had chirped), and his bangs remain as perfectly cut as they had been when he died. Nanami half expects him to sit up, to grin and laugh at his twisted face.

“Why’re you so stiff, Nanami? It’s just a joke!” 

Justajokejustajokejustajoke.

A chasm opens up in Nanami’s stomach. His crutches clatter to the floor as he races out of the morgue, stumbling when pain shoots up his right leg. He retches dryly and tears pool in his eyes. Shouko silently covers Haibara and closes the door, Nanami’s tears falling alongside the pouring rain.

That night in his dreams, Haibara slices Nanami’s head off. He wakes up with his heart racing and tears slipping down his cheeks.

Nanami visits you the next day. He had been reluctant to do so — what if you blamed him for everything, for Haibara’s death and your injuries? He wouldn’t be able to bear it, to be hated by you. His hand hovers over your dorm doorknob, hesitating. Nanami takes a deep breath as he swallows his anxiety and opens the door.

It’s as if nothing had ever happened.

You sit on your bed, neatly tucked under the covers with a book sitting on your lap. Warm sunshine pours through the open windows and the penguin plush Nanami had won for you at a festival still sits by your desk. You look up when he walks in.

Nanami calls out your name. You stare at him.

“Sorry, but… Who are you?” you ask quietly, a sense of confusion lacing your words.

He stops by the door and Nanami’s heart sinks to his feet.

“I’m Kento. Nanami Kento,” he repeats, words tasting like ash in his mouth.

Checkered curtains flutter in the wind and the pages of your book butterfly open to an unread chapter. You keep your eyes focused on Nanami, eyebrows slightly furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” you reply.

☆*: .｡.

A toxic mix of trauma and a severe head injury had caused your amnesia. Nanami lays in bed at night, staring up at the ceiling. If only he hadn’t let his emotions overtake him, if only he had been there a minute earlier, if only if only if only. Regret dulls his sense of taste and emotions. He no longer takes joy in eating anything (even those croissants Getou had bought while out on a mission), nor does he even crack a smile at Gojo’s antics.

Nanami returns to training once he is physically well again. He becomes the only first-year to attend Yaga’s classes, sparring practice conducted with the second years. He goes out on missions alone and learns to provide both defense and offense for himself. Nanami trains, he exercises curses, he returns to school. He repeats this same cycle mindlessly over and over again. 

Time heals, they say. Nanami wonders how much time it must take for him to let go of everything.

Nanami learns to hide his disappointment. His face becomes a strong facade for whatever his weak heart truly feels. The quiet sigh he lets out when no one’s around, the stretching of his neck after yet another fruitless day of training — Nanami decides that he’ll leave the world of sorcery once he’s graduated.

Seasons change and Nanami becomes a second year, then a third year. Getou falls away. The seniors graduate and new freshmen enter the school. Nanami keeps these things in the back of his mind as he raises his sword for a countless time, striking the training doll with ease.

You work with Shouko in the infirmary, occasionally helping out with office work. The school had deemed it better to keep you under their care than to release you outside. Like a rehabilitated animal, Nanami thinks.

You still remember no memories of him. Nanami brings you sweets and souvenirs from his missions, letting you trace your fingers over the fancy packaging with a sparkle in your eye. At this, Nanami swallows back his confession of love once more. He can’t bear to burden you with his feelings.

You form new impressions of him. Nanami turns into the stone-faced and adorable boy who treats you like fine China, always sticking his hands out awkwardly when he tries to give you something. The tips of his ears burn red when he lies — especially when you ask him, “Nanami, did you buy this for me?” and he shakes his head furiously.

You think he’s kind. He comforts you when you cry over lost memories, unable to remember the faces in photographs that had once been so familiar. The first thing Nanami does after returning from a mission is to rush to you. Were you okay? Did you have your meals? One time, he came over without getting his injuries checked and collapsed by your feet. You scolded him after that, tenderly dressing his wounds.

“Nanami!” you said crossly, a pout on your face.

He tries to forget how he had asked you to stop calling him ‘Ken-chan’. He ducks his head, hissing when you douse his skin in antiseptic.

Some things don’t change, though. You still keep your pencil box immaculately neat — the tips of your stationery always pointing to the right side. Though you don’t have any more movie ticket stubs, you carefully clip the pictures of your childhood Nanami had given to you together and keep them under your pillow. 

One day, you munch on a yummy biscuit Nanami brought back for you. He sits on the floor and polishes his sword, peering at it from every angle to make sure it’s evenly oiled.

“Nanami?” 

He hums.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look like you’re from an emo boy band? Your hair matches it.” 

Your shy laugh rings out in the room as bile rises in Nanami’s throat. He sheathes his sword and lays it on the ground.  

“Yes, they have.”

He struggles to smile, his gut twisting.

☆*: .｡.

On graduation day, no one else but Nanami receives his certificate with a flower corsage pinned to his chest. The room is empty save for him and Yaga, the chirping of spring birds breaking the silence.

“I’m glad to have been able to teach you, Nanami,” Yaga broods. “You’ve grown a lot.”

Nanami does not reply. He bows deeply and strides out of the main building. All of a sudden, the traditional architecture and nature that surround Jujutsu High seems stifling. His skin crawls with the urge to leave as soon as possible. 

“Nanamin!”

He jumps. Turning around, he finds you grinning happily with a bouquet of flowers in hand.

“Congratulations on your graduation!” you chirp.

Nanami accepts the flowers awkwardly and rests them in the crook of his elbow, his other hand clutching his certificate. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves of nearby trees and a wave of sakura petals descend from their branches like rain.

“Nanamin,” your voice grows softer. “Are you leaving forever?”

He swallows, then nods wordlessly.

“Will I ever see you again?”

“I wanna be with you forever, Ken-chan!” you wailed.

“Forever’s a long time,” Nanami replied.  

He handed you his yellow cotton handkerchief, face wrinkling when you honked your nose into it. Gross. His neck hurt from sticking it out of the car window. He can hear his father tapping a finger onto the wheel impatiently, his mother silent as she stares out the front.

“B-but!” 

Your bottom lip quivered and Nanami let out a sigh.

“Fine, fine. I’ll be with you, okay?”

“Really, Ken-chan? Forever?”

“Yeah, really. Forever.”

You grinned in the waning sunlight as your mother tugged you away.

“I’ll never forget you, Ken-chan!” you shouted.

The car window rolled up and he watched you disappear into the horizon, turning as tiny as an ant.  

Nanami swallows his heart into the pit of his stomach.

“Probably.” 

“That’s not a definitive answer, Nanamin.”

“What do you want me to tell you, then?”

There’s a slight tremble in his voice. The plastic wrapping of the flowers crinkle under his grip and waves of emotions rush over him; the biggest out of all of them regret. He struggles to breathe underwater, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and nose plugged up. A sakura petal lands on his shoulder. He doesn’t bother brushing it away. 

“Say,” you whisper, taking a step to close the distance between Nanami and you.

He gulps as you place a hand upon his chest. He can feel the heat of your skin through his uniform and Nanami’s too dumbstruck to respond.

“Why don’t you give me your second button?”

Your eyes meet his. A smile toys with the corners of his lips and suddenly Nanami blurts out a nervous “Okay.”. His mind flickers back to Haibara momentarily; how you had appeared to like him so much back then. But he chooses to shove those memories into the back of his mind once more as you produce a small pair of scissors and snip the thread.

“You always take care of me, Nanamin. It was natural of me to fall in love with you,” you breathe, cradling the swirl patterned button in your hands.

A gust of cool air slips into his unbuttoned shirt and Nanami’s breath hitches.  

“Do you like me too?”

Your question is innocent. With the way you peer up at him, there’s no way that Nanami can lie. Your glittery eyes were the same ones he had fallen in love with all those years ago. He wonders if he still loves you in the same way as he did then; as faultless and innocent it had been. His heart sits on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah, I do.”

Your eyes crinkle at the edges as you smile, an evident sigh of relief escaping your lips. You slip the button into your pocket before tugging Nanami even closer towards you. He yelps as your chest presses against his and the tips of his ears turn red.

You plant your lips by the side of his.