Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You can’t— I don’t understand why you’re doing this—” My voice trembles as I cry, the words spilling out in broken pieces. I can barely make out his silhouette in the pitch-black room he’s trapped me in, this makeshift bedroom that feels more like a cell. “I’m scare-”

“You’re scared of the dark,” Gojo says gently, his voice cutting through the void like a soft echo. “I know, Y/N. You’ll be okay. Just for one night.”

“Is this because of Geto?” I manage, voice breaking, desperation bleeding through every word. “I don’t understand. What did I do to deserve this?”

He doesn’t answer.

The door slams shut with a final, brutal thud that vibrates through my bones like a death knell.

I sink further to the floor, heart pounding in the oppressive silence.

I struck a nerve.

 ━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

The Gojo estate was quiet in the early morning, blanketed in pale mist and the scent of camellias blooming along the stone paths. For a place that had always felt too large, too cold, it looked almost beautiful today. Almost.

I sat at the edge of the veranda in a silk robe that wasn’t mine, feet bare against polished wood. Servants whispered in and out of the house, soft footsteps like ghosts. Everything was being prepared—every flower in place, every corridor scrubbed clean, every seal reinforced.

It was the morning of my wedding.
And I had never felt so far away from myself.

Three years.
Three years since Gojo took me away in the dark, after what happened with Geto.

Now I'm almost 19, and he's almost 20.

At first, I fought. I screamed. I broke things. I cried until my voice gave out.
Now? Now I just sorta… existed.

I looked out over the courtyard as sunlight slowly burned through the fog. Everything was so still. Too still. A part of me wanted a bird to fly overhead, just to prove the sky was real.

Behind me, I felt him before I heard him, his cursed energy like a hum beneath my skin.

“You’re up early,” Gojo said, voice lighter than I expected. Casual. Like nothing was wrong. Like nothing had ever been wrong.

I didn’t look at him. “Hard to sleep when your whole life’s about to change. Again.”

He moved closer, crouching beside me. I could feel the heat of him even without touching. He smelled like the cologne he always wore. Sharp and clean.

“You’re going to be beautiful,” he said, eyes hidden behind his dark lenses. “You always are.”

“I didn’t pick the dress.”

“You didn’t have to.” His voice softened. “I know what you like.”

I almost laughed. He thinks he still knows me. Maybe he does. Or maybe I’d just become what he needed me to be.

The silence stretched between us, not awkward—just full. Like we were both pretending this was something it wasn’t.

“I used to dream about this,” I said suddenly, “Back when we were at Jujutsu High. Marrying you. Having a day like this.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t know if I’m awake or in a nightmare.”

He didn't react, he doesn't to my outbursts anymore. He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. Because fighting him never worked. And because, somewhere in the wreckage, I still loved the boy who used to laugh under cherry blossoms.

“I’ll take care of you,” he whispered. “Just as I always have.”

I didn’t answer. I just watched the mist lift, revealing the shrine in the distance where we’d say our vows.

The shrine stood like a ghost at the edge of the courtyard, its vermilion gates dulled to a muted rust by age and weather. Paper talismans fluttered faintly in the morning breeze, whispering prayers I no longer believed in. Everything about it was perfect, staged, precise, but it felt hollow, like a painting without a soul.

Gojo’s thumb traced an idle pattern across the back of my hand, slow, deliberate. “They’re waiting for us,” he murmured, as though he was talking about a tea ceremony and not a vow binding me to him for the rest of my life. “They” being everyone from Jujutsu High, even from back then. They all knew what had happened and why I had disappeared so long ago. Some agreed with Gojo, that he was right to take me. Others didn’t agree, but who would question Satoru Gojo?

I finally looked at him then, really looked at him. Ten years and he still looked like the boy I’d met at Jujutsu High, unchanged, impossibly brilliant, impossibly strong. But his eyes behind the lenses weren’t the same; they were quieter, hungrier. They had the kind of loneliness in them that makes a person dangerous.

“Do you ever regret it?” I asked, voice soft but shaking. “Taking me. Doing this.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You think I don’t ask myself that?”

He tilted his head a little, the way he always did when he was weighing a question. “I regret a lot of things,” he admitted after a moment, the faintest tremor breaking his tone. “But not you. Never you.”

My stomach twisted. His words were a comfort and a curse at the same time.

“I lost everything back then,” he continued, almost to himself. “Geto. My faith in Jujutsu High. In people. You were the one thing I couldn’t lose. I wouldn’t.” His hand tightened slightly around mine, not hard, but firm enough to remind me how easily he could break me if he chose to.

Somewhere, a bell tolled from the inner courtyard, a soft, mournful chime. The servants moved like shadows, carrying arrangements of camellias toward the shrine.

Gojo rose smoothly and extended his hand to me. “It’s time.”

For a heartbeat, the mist lifted fully, sunlight spilling across the courtyard like liquid gold. For a heartbeat, I thought about running. I could hear my pulse in my ears, taste the air like metal.

But his cursed energy pulsed around me, invisible, unshakable, like a second skin. He didn’t even need to hold me to keep me there.

I stood slowly, my bare feet silent against the wood. The silk of the robe slid across my skin like water, heavy and cool.

Chapter Text

Morning came, but the dark didn’t leave me despite the sunlight now being visible through the curtains.

There was no clock in the room, no window. Just the slow, aching awareness of time passing, marked only by the shifting hum of the house outside the walls, and the cold that clung to my skin even as I sat wrapped in the thin blanket from the night before.

The door opened. The light from the hallway poured in too bright and too sudden. I squinted up at the silhouette in the doorway. Gojo. Of course.

He didn’t speak at first. Just looked at me. I couldn’t read his expression. “You’re quiet this morning,” he said eventually, stepping inside, closing the door behind him like it was any normal room. Like I could leave if I wanted to. He's not used to me being quiet, ever.

I didn’t answer.

He crossed the room, crouched beside me, his hands resting on his knees. Close enough to touch me, but not yet doing it.

“I didn’t want to scare you,” he said, voice low, knowing what bothered me. “It was just for one night.”

I stared at the floor. My throat felt like it had been filled with gravel and sand, a sick mixture. “You locked me in.”

“You were going to run.”

My stomach twisted. He said it like it was a fact, not a fear. Like he knew. Like the thought of me escaping had already been rehearsed in his mind over and over.

“You don’t trust me,” I whispered.

Gojo sighed. A sound too human for the monster I’d started to believe he was. “I don’t trust anyone.”

He reached out then, brushing a finger along my cheek, gentle, almost reverent. I didn’t flinch this time. I didn’t move at all.

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said as if I’d believe it.

He stood again, and when he did, he offered me his hand.

"Come on," he said softly. "You don’t have to stay in here. I’ll show you around. There’s a garden. You’ll like it.”

I looked up at him. The same boy I laughed with two days ago like nothing was wrong. The same boy who saves people. The same boy that kidnapped me.

I took his hand.

Because I didn’t know what else to do.

And because, somehow, I already knew the dark wouldn’t be the scariest part.

 ━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

The hall was stunning.
Soft golden light spilled through wide paper-paneled windows, catching on lacquered trays and pale porcelain bowls. Camellia petals were scattered across the floor in perfect patterns which were no doubt arranged by hand, petal by petal. A low hum of quiet conversation drifted through the room, fragile and artificial, like glass about to crack.

Gojo had spared no effort.

It was the kind of celebration that would be remembered. Super elegant, tasteful, impossibly expensive. The kind of party you threw to cover a wound. Or a kidnapping of your girlfriend three years ago.

And they came.
Every single one of them.

Nanami, standing at the far end of the room, arms crossed, face unreadable. 
Haibara, bright-eyed and talking too much. He was nervous, maybe, or just unwilling to acknowledge the wrongness in the air.
Utahime, who’d once called me her best friend, sat with a wine glass untouched in her hand. She hadn’t spoken to me once.
Even Mei Mei had shown, dressed impeccably, face smooth as porcelain, her gaze as calculating as always. She probably enjoyed this.
And Shoko… Shoko had hovered by the door for almost ten minutes before she came inside. She always said she saw me as a little sister. I wonder what she thinks now. 

I wonder what any of them really think about this.

Gojo’s clan filled the center tables. Elders. Retainers. All of them smiling the kind of smile you learn when you grow up behind uber wealth. Their smiles were tight, practiced, and bloodless.

No one mentioned the missing years where I hadn't seen them.
No one asked me if I was happy.

Gojo never left my side.

He kept his hand at the small of my back or gently resting over mine, always guiding, always touching. He smiled too much. He laughed too loud. He made jokes like we were in love. And everyone nodded along.

“They look good together,” someone whispered behind a folding fan.

“They were always close, even back then,” said another.

“He protected her, you know. After everything.” I heard that. Do they not think I can hear them? Do they not know what he did?

Gojo leaned in during dinner, brushing my knuckles with his thumb. “Everything okay?”

I nodded, quietly. “Yeah.”
What else was I supposed to say?
That I felt like a doll dressed in silk and strings?

He poured me another glass of cherry wine, the sweet kind he remembered I used to like. The dress I wore was ivory and custom-made, every seam hand-stitched, every accessory in place. I hadn’t chosen a single part of it.

Utahime approached once, halfway through the meal, and knelt politely beside me, avoiding Gojo.

“Congratulations, Y/N,” she said. Her voice was tight. Forced. “You look… beautiful.”

Gojo’s smile didn’t falter, but his gaze sharpened.

I looked at her, and for a moment, I thought I saw the girl I used to trust. One of my closest friends. But whatever she wanted to say died on her tongue. Maybe she was scared. I would be.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

She stood up and walked away without another word.

Later, Shoko stopped at our table. Her eyes met mine, full of something aching and unreadable.

“You’re still here,” she said quietly.

I blinked. “Where else would I be?”

She flinched like I’d hit her, then turned to Gojo. “You really went through with it, huh.” She knew it was going to happen before it did. She didn't do anything to stop him. My stomach churns. 

He only smiled. “We’re happy.”

“You keep saying that,” she muttered. She knows it's wrong. 

She left before he could reply.

The Gojo clan toasted us after the meal. The elders raised their cups, faces placid, emotionless.

“To the strongest union,” one said. “May the bloodline endure.”

Gojo laughed. “Oh, it will.” Kill me now.

He pulled me into a dance after that. Slow, controlled, reverent. Like he was still trying to convince everyone that this was love. That this was fate. That this was what I wanted.

I moved with him because I had no choice.
And maybe because a part of me still remembered how it used to feel. Before everything.

“You’ve been perfect today,” he murmured against my ear. “Thank you for trusting me.”

I almost asked him, Do you even know what trust means anymore?

But I didn’t.

Because the music was playing.
And everyone was watching.

Chapter Text

I sat curled in the corner of the futon, blanket clutched around my shoulders, knees tucked to my chest. The silk pajamas I wore weren’t mine. The tea left by the door had long since gone cold.

The silence pressed in like water.

Then footsteps. Measured and deliberate. I’d learned them already. Or maybe I already did from when we were dating. I wasn’t so sure.

Gojo didn’t knock. He never did. He opened the door slowly, I know he thought it would help. Like he thought gentleness made this better.

I didn’t look at him.

He stepped inside anyway, letting the door close behind him with a soft click. “You didn’t eat,” he said, glancing toward the untouched tray on the floor. 

“I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten all day.”

I didn’t respond.

He stood there for a long time. I could feel him watching me, like always. Like his presence was something I was supposed to find comfort in, not fear.

When I finally looked up, I could barely see him in the dark, just the shape of his body silhouetted by the hallway light behind him.

“Do you hate me?” The words left my mouth before I had time to second-guess them. They sounded small in the air. Broken. 

His head tilted slightly. “What?”

“Is that why you brought me here?” My voice cracked around the edges, thick with unshed tears. “Did I do something? Is that why you—?” I swallowed, but it felt like glass. “Is this because you hate me?”

Gojo stepped forward quickly, too quickly and I flinched, instinctively. I saw the way his expression changed when I did. Something in him folded. Broke.

He crouched in front of me, hands loose at his sides like he didn’t know how to reach for me anymore. “I don’t hate you,” he said, voice low. “I’ve never hated you. This is for your own good. It’s because I love you.”

“Then why—”

“Because I lost Geto.” His voice was sharp, sudden, like a wound that hadn’t healed, it. “Because the world took him, jujutsu sorcery took him, his own mind took him, Y/N, and I did nothing to stop it. It would’ve taken you, too. The reality of this job. You don’t understand what you were getting yourself into. Because I couldn’t…” He trailed off, exhaling shakily.

I stared at him. “So you took me first.”

He didn’t deny it.

 ━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

I sat beneath the same veranda in the garden where I’d waited the morning of the ceremony. Only now, I was in a much heavier robe, bridal silk traded for clan silk. Ivory replaced with midnight blue.

The metal from the ring on my finger felt colder today.

Gojo joined me without a word, easing down beside me like he’d done it a thousand times before. Maybe he had. Maybe this was what he’d wanted all along, this exact moment. Me beside him, wearing the name he gave me, draped in the life he chose.

For a while, we just watched the garden in silence.

Then I said it. “What did your uncle mean at the reception?”

He didn’t answer right away, but I could feel the shift in him. Like something in his posture tightened.

I looked at him directly this time. “He raised a glass and said, ‘May the bloodline endure.’ I keep thinking about it.”

Gojo tilted his head, sunglasses pushed halfway up into his hair, white lashes catching the late afternoon sun.

“That’s just something they say,” he replied casually. Too casually. “Old clan nonsense. Tradition.”

“It didn’t sound meaningless,” I said, voice flat. “He looked me right in the eyes.”

Gojo’s gaze drifted back toward the garden. “You’re reading into it too much, Y/N.”

“Am I?” Silence again. Longer this time. He wasn’t smiling now. “They think I’m here to give you, give them, an heir.”

His jaw flexed once. A tell.

I felt something twist in my gut, nausea and dread, a thread of ice crawling up my spine.

“Is that why this happened?” I asked. “Was that always part of it?”

He turned sharply to face me, eyes wide, voice low and insistent. “No. That’s not why I— That’s not why I married you.”

“Then why didn’t you shut it down?” I whispered. “Why didn’t you correct him? Why do you let them talk about me like I’m a vessel for their next leader?”

Gojo’s expression cracked, just slightly. “You don’t understand the pressure the clan puts on me,” he said, voice quieter now, less defensive. “They’ve been planning my future since I was born. I never got to choose anything. Not until you.”

The silence that followed was hollow. Raw.

And then, like always, his voice softened dangerously.

“I’d never make you do something you didn’t want to do,” he said. “You know that, right?”

But I didn’t know that. Not anymore.
Because a prison made of silk is still a prison.
And love, twisted by control, starts to look a lot like possession.

Gojo stood eventually, brushing dust from his robe.

“Let me know if you want to talk more,” he said. “I’ll be in the archives.”

I sit there alone afterwards, admiring the koi in the pond.

Petals drifted down through the air, catching in my hair and on the sleeves of my uniform. I laughed without meaning to, brushing them away just as Satoru lobbed a poorly-made snowball of vending machine ice in my direction.

“If you throw that at me,” I warned, “I’m breaking your fingers.”

He grinned stupidly and cocked his head. “Wow. What a sweet thing to say. You should write that in our wedding vows.”

“Satoru.”

But it was too late. The snowball hit my shoulder with a sloppy, cold slap, and immediately melted down my shirt.

I stared at the wet stain. Then at him.

“You’re actually dead.”

He was already running, laughing like a maniac, lanky limbs and cursed energy flickering behind him like heat waves. I kicked off my shoes and chased him barefoot through the grass, ignoring the way sakura petals stuck to my legs and the ache already blooming in my calves.

We finally collapsed under the biggest tree in the courtyard, both of us out of breath and sweating from sparring earlier.

“You’re such an asshole,” I muttered, nudging him with my elbow.

“Mean,” he replied with a faux-wounded look. “And here I was thinking you’d appreciate the cool-down.”

I rolled my eyes but leaned into him anyway, letting my head rest against his shoulder. His body was warm, all muscle and sun and aftershave. The wind rustled the branches above us, sending a soft rain of petals down into our laps.

I caught one and twirled it between my fingers. Pale pink. Fragile. Already curling at the edges.

“I wish it could always be like this,” I said, barely above a whisper.

He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked up at the sky, lips slightly parted like he was trying to figure out the right thing to say.

“It could be,” he murmured finally. “You and me. If I could just… keep you.”

I laughed a little, not because it was funny but because it felt like I had to. “Keep me?”

I hadn’t questioned it then, but the more I remember bits and pieces from before, the more I figure that even if Geto hadn’t slaughtered a village, Satoru would’ve always had kidnapping me in the back of his mind.

Back then, I thought it was romantic. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it was. He’d made me feel like I was the only soft thing in a life full of sharpened edges. The only thing worth saving from a world that didn’t care about kindness.

Because it hadn’t stopped there. Not with that moment. It had only gotten quieter. Subtler. He started walking me to every class, lingering outside every mission briefing, scowling if Nanami stood too close, snapping when Utahime teased me a little too much. And I ignored it, all of it, because I loved him.

Because I thought I was lucky to be loved by him. By the strongest sorcerer. 

And then Geto happened. The spiral. The fallout. The bodies. The blood. The betrayal.

And the night Satoru took me. That version of him, the one who wrapped me in a blanket and whispered “you’re safe now” as he locked the door, wasn’t the same boy who kissed sakura petals off my cheek beneath the tree.

Or maybe he was. Maybe I just hadn’t been looking close enough.

Now, sitting in the stillness of the Gojo estate, married to him in name and silence, I wonder if I ever really knew him at all.

Chapter Text

The moonlight barely reached through the small window, silver shadows casting long, unfamiliar shapes along the walls. My breath came shallow as I tiptoed across the floor, pulse hammering so loudly I swore it echoed.

I had been here for a month or so now. The door was unlocked tonight. That much I knew. I'd waited. Listened. Hours of silence passed before I moved. I was careful. Quiet. Barefoot on wooden floors, every creak like a gunshot in the silence. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to try. I had to leave.

The hallway stretched endlessly in both directions. I chose left. Every step forward felt like tearing away from something heavy, something invisible. But I kept going.

I nearly made it to the end of the corridor before his voice stopped me cold.

“You know,” Gojo said from behind, calm and low, like he’d been waiting, “I was wondering how long it would take.”

I froze. Didn’t turn.

Footsteps followed. Soft. Measured.

He never raised his voice. Not when he was angry. That was the worst part.

“You really thought I wouldn’t notice?” he asked, tone edged with something too sharp to be called amusement. “Did you forget I feel everything, Y/N? Or did you not think I was home?”

I turned then, slowly, and met his eyes bright even in the dark, glowing like something that didn’t belong in this world.

His expression was unreadable. But his hands were in his pockets. Like this was just a conversation. Like we were still us.

“I’m not yours to keep,” I said, voice shaking. “You don’t get to decide my life for me.”

The silence that followed was razor-thin.

Then Gojo stepped closer, shadows sliding across his face like water. His smile had vanished.

“If you ever, ever try that again, Y/N,” he said, each word carved from ice, “I won’t hesitate to break your legs.”

He let that sink in. Let it sit. “Do you understand me?”

I wanted to scream. To tell him no. To tell him I would never stop trying. That he didn’t own me. That love didn’t look like this.

But my body betrayed me. My lips parted. And I nodded.

His shoulders relaxed slightly, like the tension had bled from him.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said softly. “You know that.”

Then he stepped forward and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I didn’t flinch this time, but I didn’t lean into it either.

“Let’s go back to your room,” he murmured. “It’s late.”

He turned first. And I followed. Because what else could I do?

 ━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

The garden was quiet that afternoon. Unnaturally so.

Not the kind of quiet that comes with peace, but the kind that comes when everything around you is too carefully curated. Birdsong too distant, air too still, the koi in the pond moving like someone had told them to.

I sat on the veranda with a book open in my lap, not reading it. Not really. Just holding it, like that was something normal wives did.

“Is that boring?” a small voice asked suddenly.

I blinked and looked up.

A boy stood just beyond the stones, watching me with dark blue-green eyes. His hands were in his pockets, posture casual in a way only boys who didn't care about expectations could manage. His dark hair stuck up in uneven angles, like he’d cut it himself or fought someone who had.

He looked like he belonged nowhere and didn’t mind.

“Excuse me?” I asked, momentarily thrown.

“The book,” he said, jerking his chin toward it. “You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”

I looked down at the open novel in my lap. He wasn’t wrong.

“You’ve been watching me?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not really. You’re just kind of obvious.”

The honesty made me laugh, quietly. “What’s your name?”

“Megumi.”

“You’re Gojo’s student?” I had heard of him. He was meant to be in the Zenin clan, but his father asked Gojo to make sure he isn’t sold off to them. 

His mouth twisted a little, like he didn’t love the label. “I guess.”

I set the book aside, adjusting the sleeves of my ceremonial silk robe. Too long, too elegant, chosen for me. “He mentioned you once.”

“Figures,” he muttered.

“And how long have you been living here?”

“Just a couple days. He said it’s temporary, until he sorts things out.”

That explained why I hadn’t seen him before. And why the rooms down the east wing had been cleaned out.

“He just got married,” Megumi added. “Did you know that?”

I swallowed. “I heard something about it.”

He nodded, stepping onto the stones, then up onto the veranda like it was his house. Like this was just another place he could make his own.

“Do you know her?” he asked. “His wife?”

I paused. Then, quietly: “A little.”

“She must be really strong,” Megumi said thoughtfully, sitting cross-legged beside me. “To marry someone like him.”

I looked at him, startled. “What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged. “He’s just... a lot. And he’s annoying. But he’s not bad, I don’t think.”

It was strange, hearing that from a child. Like he’d already made up his mind about people. Like he didn’t expect anyone to be easy, just honest.

“He’s annoying,” I echoed, smiling faintly. “That part’s definitely true.”

Megumi reached into his pocket and pulled out a rice cracker, offering half to me without saying anything. I hesitated, then took it.

“You don’t talk like a kid,” I said after a moment.

He looked at me, blankly, then down at my ring. “You don’t talk like a wife.”

That stopped me cold.

Before I could answer, the screen door behind us slid open.

“Megumiiii,” Gojo called, stretching out the syllables as he stepped into the garden. “I told you not to bother her. She’s probably trying to read.”

“She was just staring at a page,” Megumi replied flatly. 

Gojo grinned and ruffled the boy’s hair, despite the glare he got in return. “Can’t take you anywhere.”

His eyes slid to mine then. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

He was already too good at turning simple glances into warnings. Or questions. Or claims. Or accusations.

Chapter Text

The door opened without warning.

I didn’t move. Didn’t react. That was safer now.

Gojo stepped in, not bothering with excuses. He didn’t bring tea this time. No false normalcy. Just him, in black, the way he always looked before a mission.
Or after one.

He didn’t speak right away. Just stood in the doorway, watching me like he was waiting to see which version of me he was getting tonight, the one who stayed silent, or the one who still had fight left in her.

I gave him nothing.

He sighed and stepped further inside, sliding the door shut behind him.

“You haven’t left this room in four days,” he said finally.

“And?” My voice was hoarse from disuse.

“I’m not keeping you here,” he said, not for the first time. 

I blinked slowly, then turned my face toward the wall. “You’re not letting me leave, either.”

“That’s different.”

A humorless laugh slipped out of me. “No. It’s not.”

Gojo crossed the room in three strides, crouched in front of me. He didn’t touch me, but he didn’t need to. His presence was the kind that filled all the air in a space.

“You think I’m the bad guy here. I’m not.”  he said quietly.

“I think you’re an idiot,” I whispered.

He didn’t respond. Not right away. Just stared at me with those glowing, inhuman eyes. His power curled around him even when he wasn’t using it. He never turned it off. I don’t think he knew how anymore.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer.
Dangerous in its calm.

“You’re lucky to be here with me, Y/N. You’re being a brat.”
He tilted his head, like the idea genuinely puzzled him.

I met his gaze. “This isn’t love. I don’t love you anymore. I want to go home.”

“No,” he said flatly. “You’ll come around.” He stood then, turning away. The moment cracked a little, the heat of it, the tension replaced by something worse: resignation. “You can stay in here and pout if you want,” he said. “Or you can come out. Walk the halls. Read. Talk to me when I’m home.”

“I don’t want to do that. I’m not gonna just… get used to this.”

“Be that way. I have a mission. I’ll be back in a few days, the maids will be doing rounds and checking on you.” He violently slides the door shut behind him.

━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

I sat at the vanity brushing my hair, slow and mechanical strokes, the same way I had nearly every morning for a decade. Not out of vanity, I didn’t really care how I looked. Nobody was seeing me anyways. And not even out of interest, but out of habit. Routine. The small ritual was the only part of my day I still had control over. The brush glided through my hair with a faint static sound, the strands catching the morning light like thin silk threads. My reflection stared back at me, pale and distant, like someone I might have known once but had forgotten the name of.

Behind me, I heard the familiar hush of silk robes, the faint click of wooden sandals being left at the door. Even after all this time, my body stiffened before my mind did. Every sound here belonged to him. Every rhythm of this place had been shaped by his presence.

Gojo didn’t knock. He never knocked.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” he said, leaning lazily against the doorframe like we were just two people in love, like I hadn’t been his captive for ten years. His voice was light, conversational, but there was always something in it, a pressure beneath the air. “You okay?”

I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t have anything to say but because I knew anything I said would be the wrong thing. Silence had become its own kind of armor.

He stepped inside, the soft pad of his bare feet muffled by the tatami, until I could see him reflected in the mirror. He was taller now than when this started, older, more assured in the way he moved. No longer the boy I’d once known, but a man who had molded an entire world to keep me inside it. His hair was still white and careless, his eyes still too bright, but there was a weight to him now that hadn’t been there before.

He rested his hands on my shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like this was still a marriage built on choice.

“Come with me today,” he said casually, as though inviting me on a stroll. “To Jujutsu High.”

That caught me off guard. I hadn’t left the estate since the day he brought me here. My hand paused mid-stroke, the brush caught in my hair like a snagged breath.

I set it down slowly, glancing at his reflection in the mirror. “Why?”

He smiled, not wide, not manic, just calm. Pleasant. “Thought it might be good for you to get some fresh air. Talk to other people for once. Meet my students.”

I blinked at him. “Meet your students.”

“Yeah. The ones I’ve been talking about. Yuji. Nobara. You already know Megumi.”

I turned on the stool to face him, careful to keep my voice steady. “You want me to go out in public.”

“I want you to be seen,” he corrected gently, his hands still a loose weight on my shoulders. “As my wife. People already know we’re married. But they don’t see you. They think I’m being overprotective.”

“You are being overprotective,” I said quietly.

He tilted his head like I was being difficult on purpose. “I’m being careful. It’s not the same.”

I stood slowly, crossing to the window. The long sleeves of the robe brushed the floor as I moved, too heavy, too elegant, chosen for me. The wind rustled the trees outside, tugging gently at the hanging wind chimes. From here, the world looked so open. Free. Like something I could still belong to.

“And what do you expect me to do?” I asked, still looking out the window. “Smile and nod? Pretend I chose this?”

Gojo came up behind me, voice soft at my ear, almost tender. “No one’s asking you to lie.”

“Aren’t they?” I said, voice bitter. “Isn’t that what this whole thing is?”

He didn’t answer. 

“I think it’ll be good for you,” he said after a beat, his tone lighter, coaxing. “To be around people again. You don’t have to say much. Just… come. Please.”

The word please sounded foreign on his tongue. Like something borrowed from another language.

I turned and looked at him then, really looked at him, at the man he’d become, the one who built an entire life around the lie that I belonged to him. His posture relaxed, his eyes searching mine like there was still a chance I’d give him what he wanted.

And yet.

He looked hopeful. Not in the desperate way he used to. But in the terrifying, confident way only Gojo Satoru could manage, like he truly believed this was all okay now. Like time had rewritten history, smoothed the edges of what he’d done. Like ten years of being his prisoner could be softened with sunlight and introductions.

“I’ll think about it,” I said finally, though my voice was flat.

That was the closest thing I could give him to a no.

And like always, he took it as a yes.

Chapter Text

The courtyard smelled like fresh-cut grass and faint chalk dust from the training fields. Warm sunlight filtered through the trees, catching in my hair when I tilted my head back.

Gojo sprawled across the steps like he owned the whole school, long legs stretched out, one arm hooked lazily behind his head while the other waved dramatically as he told me some outrageous story about embarrassing a higher-up during his last mission.

I laughed. Not the polite kind, but the kind that slipped out of me too fast, unguarded.

“See? You do think I’m funny,” he said, pushing his sunglasses up his nose with exaggerated flair. “Most people just don’t have the sense of humor to keep up with me.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I said, still smiling despite myself.

“Ridiculously charming,” he corrected, grinning like he’d just won something.

I rolled my eyes and nudged his shoulder with my knee. “You’d be a lot easier to tolerate if you weren’t so aware of it.”

He laughed, leaning closer, invading my space without hesitation. “But then you wouldn’t smile like that, would you?”

I hated how warm my chest felt at that. Back then, it didn’t feel dangerous to let him in. Back then, Gojo’s brightness wasn’t a cage. It was a shield. His confidence made me believe the world couldn’t touch us if I was near him.

The bell rang in the distance, sharp against the quiet. Gojo groaned and flopped backward across the steps, arms splayed like a starfish.

“Classes are overrated. Let’s ditch and get boba, I know a good spot, it’s not that far.”

I shook my head. “We can’t just skip.”

“We can. And we will.” He turned his head toward me, his grin softening into something quieter, almost tender. “Come on, Y/N. Live a little. Don’t you trust me?”

And back then… I did.

━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━ 

The car rolled to a stop at the base of the long stone steps leading to Jujutsu High. The temple-like gates loomed ahead, carved wood darkened by years of rain and sun. Even after a decade, the sight of them was enough to draw something sharp and aching up from my chest memory, like a splinter.

Gojo slipped his sunglasses down from the crown of his head to the bridge of his nose as he stepped out first. The late-morning light caught on the pale strands of his hair, turning them silver. He moved like this was his kingdom, because here, it was.

“C’mon,” he said brightly, looking back at me. The change in his voice was immediate and louder, breezier, like a switch flipped. “They’re probably already waiting.”

I followed him up the steps. My palms were cold despite the warmth. The long sleeves of my robe brushed the stone with each step. I kept my eyes forward, but even that wasn’t enough to block the sensory onslaught: the smell of cypress, the faint hum of cursed energy in the air, the rustle of students training somewhere nearby.

He slowed his pace for me without seeming to. His hand hovered near my back but didn’t touch, here, in view of others, he was careful. He always had been at Jujutsu High.

Inside the main hall, sunlight streamed across polished wood floors. Waiting just beyond the threshold were three teenagers: one boy with bright pink hair and a grin too big for his face; a girl in a crisp uniform, arms crossed and eyes sharp with curiosity; and, standing slightly apart, Megumi, taller now, jaw sharper, but unmistakably the boy I remembered.

“Yo!” Gojo called out, throwing his arms wide like a man entering a party. “Your favorite sensei has arrived!”

“Unfortunately,” the girl muttered under her breath, though her eyes flicked over me quickly, assessing.

“Who’s this?” the pink-haired boy asked, tilting his head.

Gojo’s grin widened, easy and bright. “This,” he said, gesturing toward me with both hands like he was presenting a prize on a game show, “is my wife.”

The word hung in the air. The students blinked. Megumi’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes softened when they met mine. Recognition. Memory.

“How’d you get a girl like her?” The girl snarks

I smile a little in response.

Gojo, meanwhile, had slid into his public persona like a second skin, cheerful, teasing, unshakably confident. “Try not to overwhelm her with your charm, okay? She’s been cooped up with me for a decade. Don’t want her realizing she could’ve traded up sooner.”

Their laughter, awkward though it was, tangled in my chest like a thorn. Because I remembered that voice, that tone. Before everything, before the walls and the silence and the word wife turned into a collar, he had sounded like this with me. Quick-witted, easy, irreverent. He used to make me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe. That was the boy I’d once loved, and he was wearing that version of himself now, for them.

“Itadori Yuji,” the pink-haired boy said with a grin, breaking the moment. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nobara Kugisaki,” the girl added, sharp but not unkind.

I inclined my head slightly, voice quiet but steady. “Y/N. It’s… nice to meet you.”

Gojo clapped his hands once. “Great! Now that we’re all friends, how about we–”

I watched him, the way his shoulders were looser here, the way he tossed his words like confetti. Even his laugh was different, lighter, freer. For a moment, if you didn’t know better, you’d think he was exactly what he pretended to be: a gifted, eccentric teacher, adored by his students, unburdened by the past.

But then he glanced at me, just a flicker, a split-second check, and I saw the other face underneath, the one only I knew. The weight. The ownership. The subtle reminder: you’re here because I brought you here.

Megumi stepped closer, his voice low. “It’s been a long time,” he said.

I looked at him, really looked, and something in my chest shifted. “It has,” I murmured.

Gojo, oblivious or pretending to be, threw an arm around Yuji and Nobara. “Alright, team! Show her what you’ve been working on. Make your sensei proud.”

They moved, chattering, and Satoru stayed behind for a moment, near me. His voice dropped, the charm stripped away. “You’re doing great,” he said softly, like praise. Like a leash disguised as comfort.

I kept my eyes on the students ahead, my voice just as low. “You sound just like you used to.”

He smiled without humor. “Guess some habits die harder than others.”

And then, as if nothing had passed between us, he straightened, clapped his hands again, and strode forward to join his students, the world’s strongest sorcerer, everyone’s favorite teacher, not the man who had built my prison.

Chapter Text

It was one of those rare quiet afternoons at Jujutsu High, when the cicadas hummed louder than the curses. The four of us had sprawled out under one of the big old trees in the courtyard, textbooks and half-empty snack wrappers scattered across the grass.

Gojo was flat on his back, sunglasses tipped onto his forehead, one arm lazily thrown over his eyes. “This is cruel and unusual punishment,” he groaned. “Making us study and fight curses? Abuse. Plain abuse.”

“Then fail your exam,” Shoko said, flicking an eraser at his shoulder. She was lying on her stomach, chin propped on her palm, her hair falling like a curtain as she scribbled on her notes.

“Shoko,” I said, suppressing a smile, “you know he’d just copy off Geto.”

Geto smirked, adjusting the knot of his hair. “He does already. Soon they're gonna start separating us during exams

“Hey!” Gojo shot up, pointing dramatically at me. “You’re supposed to be on my side, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” I argued, trying to sound offended. But Gojo just grinned, like he always did when he was riling me up.

Shoko reached out without even looking and hooked her arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer against her side. “Don’t listen to him. You’re fine. You’re smarter than he is, anyway.”

I leaned into her instinctively, her presence steady and grounding. She always did that, stepped in before Gojo could tease me too far, before I started shrinking into myself.

“Smarter?” Gojo gasped, clutching his chest like she’d stabbed him. “Betrayal. My own best friend, siding with Y/N.”

“Face it, Gojo,” Shoko said coolly, “if brains were cursed tools, you wouldn’t be special grade.”

Geto laughed so hard he almost tipped over, and I couldn’t help joining in. Gojo pouted for a grand total of three seconds before flopping back down, muttering, “Fine, but I’m still prettier.”

“Unfortunately,” Shoko muttered, ruffling my hair.

Shoko squeezed my shoulder once more, as if to say don’t worry, I’ve got you. And back then, I believed it.

━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━

The first time I saw Shoko again was in the hall outside her office. She froze. Not because she thought I was dead. She never believed that. She knew Gojo too well for that. Despite everything, everyone knew he loved me deeply, even if it was a sick, twisted kind of love.

But seeing md here, at Jujutsu High of all places, after years of absence... that was something Shoko never expected.

I stood near the window, half-turned toward the sunlight, a book clutched loosely in my hands like I wasn’t quite sure if I was meant to be holding it. I was older now, of course. A little thinner. A little quieter. But still me.

For a moment, her throat tightened, and I caught the flicker of it, the same bitter taste she’d swallowed at the wedding. The ivory dress. The way I’d nodded at her like a ghost when she told me, “You’re still here.”

Now I was standing in front of her again. Breathing. Blinking. Free enough to visit this school where Gojo had locked so many doors.

"...You’re here,” Shoko finally said. Her voice came out flatter than she meant.

I glanced up, startled. “Oh. Hi, Shoko.”

It was such a simple greeting, but it scraped something raw in her chest. I said it like I’d only missed a week. Like the last time she’d seen me, I hadn’t been sitting at a table with Gojo’s hand caged over mine, smiling with that hollow look in my eyes.

“I didn’t think-” Shoko stopped herself, exhaling smoke from the cigarette she’d almost crushed between her fingers. “I didn’t think he’d ever let you walk out of that house.”

My lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. I didn’t answer right away.

“I... get to come sometimes,” I said carefully, like the words were on loan. “He’s... more lenient now.”

“Lenient,” Shoko echoed. Her laugh was bitter, sharp. “That’s one way to put it.”

I shifted uncomfortably, eyes dropping to the book in my hand. I could tell she remembered that exact look from the wedding, the way I’d wanted to say something but couldn’t. Like the words might burn if I tried.

For a moment, the hallway was too quiet. Then Shoko sighed, softened, and reached out to touch my arm, just briefly. “You look the same. Still stubborn. Still you… I’m glad.”

My throat bobbed as I swallowed, but I managed a small, trembling smile. “Thanks.”

And just like at the wedding, she knew I couldn’t say everything. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But this time, at least, she was seeing me outside the glass cage. And that was something. Maybe she could help, could get me out.

My fingers tightened on the edge of the book until the paper bent. I glanced up and down the hallway like I was checking for something, then looked back at her.

“Shoko...” My voice was barely above a whisper. “Can I—can I ask you something?”

Her cigarette paused halfway to her mouth. “You can ask me anything.”

“I…” I hesitated, the words swelling up like a bruise. “I don’t have long. But if—if I gave you something, or if I asked you to—”

I stopped. My pulse fluttered at my throat, and my knuckles whitened against the book.

Shoko’s eyes narrowed. She stepped a little closer, lowering her voice. “Y/N. What’s going on?”

My lips parted, trembling, and for a second she saw it: the same look from the wedding, but now mixed with desperate, flickering hope. I swallowed hard. “I can’t keep living like—”

“Sweetheart.”

The word cut the air clean in half.

We both turned.

Gojo leaned casually against the far wall, blindfold tilted just enough to suggest an amused gaze. His hands were in his pockets. He looked like he’d been there the whole time.

“Here you are,” he said brightly. “I was wondering why you’d disappeared.”

My shoulders stiffened before I could stop myself.

Shoko’s face smoothed back into a mask, but her fingers twitched around her lighter.

Gojo strolled toward us, his smile easy, his voice full of false warmth. “Catching up with old friends?”

“Yeah,” Shoko said, her tone carefully neutral.

“That’s good. You used to be so close.” He reached me and slipped a hand around my waist, his thumb tracing a slow circle just under my ribs. “I’m glad she’s still got someone she can talk to when I drag her to these silly training sessions with these brats.”

His words were soft, almost kind, but they pinned Shoko in place like needles.

I forced a faint smile. “We were just-”

“Just talking,” Gojo finished for me, nodding. “That’s fine. I don’t mind her talking, Shoko. In fact, I think it’s healthy. Don’t you?”

Shoko held his blindfolded gaze. “Sure.”

Gojo chuckled, tilting his head. “Though I do have to steal her away now. We’re expected back.”

His hand tightened on my waist, lightly, but enough to move me a step toward him.

“Thank you for keeping her company,” he added, still smiling. “You’ve always been so good at that.”

The words sounded like a compliment but landed like a warning.

Shoko flicked ash into a nearby tray, her jaw tight. “Anytime.”

“Great,” Gojo said, breezy again. “C’mon, sweetheart.”

And just like that, he guided me down the hall, his voice a low murmur I couldn’t quite make out.

Shoko watched us go, smoke curling around her face. I could still feel the moment I’d tried to ask for something. Tried to ask for help. I wondered if I’d get another chance, or if Gojo had just taken it away forever.

Chapter Text

The moon was a thin coin in the sky when I tried again, a year or so after the first attempt. The window yielded like it had the first time I’d slipped toward freedom: a promise of air, a sliver of the world I’d been kept from for years. I swung a leg over and felt that for one bright, awful second that I might actually clear the sill.

Then he was there. Not the slow approach now, but sudden and terrible, a shadow collapsing the room.

“Stop,” Gojo said, voice flat as a blade.

I did. I turned. He stepped forward so fast the cool night air between the window and me vanished. He didn’t argue, didn’t bargain. His hands closed on me with the practiced strength of someone who had learned how to make people stop without shouting.

“Please,” I whispered. “Satoru—”

He didn’t answer. One hand was at my shoulder; the other went for my leg, pulling me back before I could scramble. I stumbled. Pain exploded like white light.

There was a sound, dull and sickening that the moonlit room swallowed. My vision blurred at the edges. Heat and shock ripped through my lower body. I tried to stand, and the world tipped.

“Don’t move,” he snapped. The command was absolute.

I couldn’t feel my right leg properly. Panic bleated in my throat. “Satoru—” I started, a plea turning into a scream as the reality of the injury sank in.

He didn’t hesitate. His face was a mask, too close and controlled when he did it. There was no theatrics, no twisting of bone for the sake of cruelty; it was a single, brutal application of force in the place he knew would stop me. The mobility left me in a clean, surgical instant.

I crumpled, the tatami going hard against my palms. Pain skittered through me in waves, searing and absolute. The moonlight painted the room with a thin, unkind clarity. I tasted metal from the shock, and saliva pooled at the corner of my mouth.

Gojo’s breath came in shallow bursts. For a half-second, a sliver of something that could have been regret crossed his face. Then he knelt and gripped my leg to test it, fingers pressed like instruments.

“You idiot,” he said, and there was nothing tender in it. “You nearly got yourself killed. You nearly got me to kill you.” He said, just to scare me. He wouldn’t kill me, not really.

I tried to speak and couldn’t find words that would help. The world narrowed to the ache in my bones and the sound of my own ragged breathing.

He hauled me up by the shoulders with an uncompromising strength and dragged me back from the window. My other leg buckled under me; he didn’t let me fall. Instead, he set me down on the futon with a roughness that made the sting flare again.

“I told you,” he said, voice low and sharp as ice. “If you try to leave, I will stop you. Permanently.”

The way he said it removed any possible ambiguity. This wasn’t a threat to frighten; it was a statement of fact.

He wrapped my leg, harsh fingers working to steady a bone that had betrayed me. He moved like someone who’d practiced first aid as a necessity of battle, precise and clinical but his hands trembled enough that the bandage came away sticky with my own sweat. He could’ve fixed it using his technique, I knew he could’ve.

“You will not leave me,” he murmured, and the whisper in his voice was dangerous and full of a worshipful cruelty. “Do you understand?”

I tasted the word “no” on my tongue and swallowed it down because I knew the consequences. I nodded, small and hollow.

He stayed by me until dawn, watching the window I had tried to pass through as if it might argue with him. He spoke once in the night, voice barely above the rustle of the house: “I didn’t want it to come to this. But I will do anything to keep you.”

When morning came, I could barely move. The broken leg refused to hold weight; the other leg trembled from the strain of carrying me back. He carried me to the room he’d allotted me and locked the door behind him.

━━━━━━･❪ 🎕 ❫ ･━━━━━━

The shoji door slammed shut, rattling in its frame.

I stood frozen, my pulse roaring in my ears. The book was still in my hand, its edges digging into my palm, but I couldn’t unclench my fingers.

Gojo’s laugh cut through the silence was loud and wild, cracking in places like broken glass. “Help.” He drew the word out, mocking, his smile too wide. “You were going to ask her for help.”

My stomach plummeted. “I-”

“You think I don’t see it?” His blindfold hung loose around his neck, his eyes blazing. “Every look. Every hesitation. Every time you think if you say the right words, someone will save you.” He stepped forward, his shadow swallowing me. “They won’t. They can’t. Because you’re mine.”

I shook my head quickly, my voice trembling. “I wasn’t—I didn’t-”

“Don’t lie to me.” His tone was ice now. The sudden drop was worse than the shouting. He ripped the book from my hands. Then, with a sharp, ugly laugh, he hurled it across the room. It smacked hard against the wall before falling spine-up onto the tatami.

I flinched, but his eyes never left my face.

“I thought you understood,” he said, his voice breaking at the edges. “Ten years, Y/N. Ten years I’ve kept you safe, hidden, untouchable.” His hand slammed against the wall beside my head, the wood vibrating under his palm. “And the first chance you get, you try to slip a message to Shoko like I wouldn’t notice? Like I haven’t spent every second watching you?”

Tears stung my eyes, hot and traitorous. “Satoru, please-”

That only made him laugh again, louder this time, unhinged. “Please? Please what? Please let you go? Please pretend I didn’t see you about to beg her to pull you out of the life I built for us?” His grin stretched, manic. “You think she’d actually help you? You think anyone would? Are you dense?”

He caught my chin in one hand, tilting my face up until his piercing eyes locked onto mine. His fingers were too tight, pressing bruises into my skin. “They all knew. At the wedding, they knew. At Jujutsu High, they know. And what do they do?” His thumb dragged across my cheek, deceptively gentle. “Nothing. Because you belong here. With me.”

My voice cracked. “I don't- I don't belong with you. This is prison.”

His expression shattered for a split second, something raw, desperate flashing through his eyes. Then the smile snapped back, jagged and cold. He pressed his forehead hard against mine, his breath sharp, quick, furious.

“You can call it whatever you want,” he whispered. “But you’re not leaving. Shoko won’t save you. Nobody will. I’m the strongest, don’t you get it? No one can take you from me. No one. And nobody’s stupid enough to try it, either.”

The air between us burned with the truth of it, suffocating and absolute.

He finally pulled back, releasing my chin, but only to grab my wrist instead. His grip was firm, unyielding, as he dragged me away from the wall, away from the fallen book.

“Don’t make me remind you again,” he said, his tone deceptively calm now. “Don’t make me show you what happens when you forget who you belong to.”

And then he guided me deeper into the house, his hand locked around my wrist like a shackle, his smile smooth again, as though nothing had happened. “Let’s get you to bed, you’re tired.”