Chapter Text
Wheels touched down in Narita airport at 21:00 hours straight from Heathrow. The landscape of the surrounding city blurred into nothing but blinking lights and the faint wheeze of a plane taking off somewhere further down the tarmac. Patiently he waited for most people to remove their luggage from the compartment overhead before moving from his seat, unwilling to bump into strangers in the narrow hallway more than he already had for the past fourteen hours.
At last, only him and an elderly couple stayed behind. He threw a polite smile to the woman, muscles stretching uncomfortably around his face, as he walked by and helped her with her carry-on before stepping into the air bridge and pushing his sunglasses over his nose.
The blinding lights of the airport shone fiercely everywhere, bouncing off the massive windows and white walls as he went through the check-out process, his single piece of luggage taking forever to show on the conveyor belt and threatening to split his skull in two so he kept his eyes half-lidded and dragged a bit more patience from his already depleted well.
After getting the written news on the piece of paper currently burning a hole through his jeans pocket, he barely had any state of mind beyond informing them to the only person he trusted in the whole of London and getting a few pieces of clothing inside a suitcase after purchasing the first one-way ticket he could find.
He had, as some people on social media liked to say, already seen this movie and wasn’t too fond of the ending. Despite it, the time had come to make things right before the inevitable happened.
Pulling up a cab by the Terminal 2 entrance, he gave the driver Shoko’s address and rested his head back with a sigh, fatigue from a long flight settled deep into his bones. Not even the image of her shocked expression once she saw him standing at her porch tickled his mind enough to draw a smile on his face and keep his thoughts away from the folded square searing his upper thigh.
For the first time in over five years, Gojo Satoru touched the ground of what once was homeland.
**
Nostalgia hit like a truck once the car pulled up by the curb and the familiar sight of azalea bushes greeted him, the same Shoko’s mother used to religiously water on late afternoons as the sun was setting up. He paid and heard the car drive away as he stood there, frozen in the memory of the surrounding deck, eyes taking in the spot by the left side and under the living room window where he knelt the first time Shoko smoked, complaining about the smell, or the rounding strip of wood leading out the back porch where they hid from prying eyes the day the new kid had moved into the neighborhood so they could gossip about it, feet dangling through the gaps on the railing as Satoru carved his initials on one of the pickets, earning Shoko a week-long grounding that she took forever to forgive him for.
With the perspective of time, distance, and heartache, he scoffed at his past-self's infatuation with him from the very beginning.
Pulling himself from those thoughts, he wheeled his suitcase over and knocked on the door, praying for her spare room's availability so he wouldn't have to pull up a hotel reservation at almost 11 pm on a Wednesday night.
The door clicked open and he put on his most charming smile, meeting Utahime’s sour expression instead of the one he was expecting.
“What are you doing here?”
Her tone, while usually fun in its derisiveness and giving him ample opportunity to rile her up, only grated over his nerves as nails over chalkboard.
He gritted his teeth. “Is-“
“Gojo!? What are you doing here!?”
Shoko showed up behind Utahime’s back, immediately sensing something was wrong if the hug she wrapped him in was anything to go by. Resisting the urge to not break down in front of Utahime proved to be a feat that he barely managed by the skin of his teeth, swallowing back down the sob that threatened to rip out of his throat so only a garbled whimper came out.
“I thought you were still in London. What happened?” Shoko asked, one hand taking his suitcase away to wheel it over to the coat closet on the left and the other pulling him inside.
It took a moment to find his voice. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.” He dared throw a look over at Utahime, frown still on her face. “Alone.”
“Oh, sure,” Shoko blinked in surprise, giving her girlfriend an apologetic look over her shoulder before taking them both to the kitchen.
Relief washed over him upon realizing the layout of the house hadn’t changed since their childhood days. That there were still walls and an actual door separating them from the other girl’s prying ears even if as he crossed the threshold he got swarmed in memories of Shoko’s mother fluttering around the kitchen, flour stuck to her apron and cheeks as she baked them cupcakes before their departure for college overseas and the third part of their party was all the way over in Hokkaido, probably getting the same treatment from his parents.
It wasn't as if he expected Shoko not to tell Utahime a thing after he explained the reason for his surprise visit but the current state of his body, fatigued and with the threat of a headache pulsing behind his eye sockets, appreciated the pretension all the same.
Lost in the memories he failed to notice Shoko made tea until the smell of lavender reached his nose thanks to a cup held in his periphery. Taking it with trembling fingers, he burned his tongue through the first sip to avoid the knot that sat on his throat from spilling out instead of the words he was supposed to say.
“That serious, huh?” she commented with a knowing look.
“Huh?” he played the fool, grimacing on his second tongue burn of the night.
“Last time I saw you this upset was when… you know.”
Oh, he did know all right.
“Yeah,” he chuckled, taking the first tangent that popped into his mind. “I’m relocating from the London office.”
For the second time in the night, surprise made her blink slower than normal. Any other time and under different circ*mstances he’d be keeping tally and teasing her with a playful smirk on his lips.
“That’s great. Does Nanami know?”
He shrugged, thoughts going back to a hard liquor bottle and the tears he hadn’t shed in ten years flowing freely out of him less than 48 hours prior. “He’s been informed. I’ll just crash on your couch tonight and be out of your hair in the morning after I find a hotel.”
“You know you’re welcome to stay here if you want,” she said as he took another sip, but-“ He raised an eyebrow at her. “Shouldn’t you be going to your house instead?”
“No.”
Shaking his head he stood up, pacing over the tile the same way Mrs. Ieiri did that one and only time she found out Shoko was cheating on her tests.
“I’m sure they’ll receive y-“
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he cut her off, running a hand through his hair. An unbidden thought came to him that he ought to feel it while he still could, so he did, tugging at a strand for the sting of pain to remind him that he was still here and had things to get done.
“I know I have to talk to them and I will. Just not yet.”
His sigh prompted her to stand up from her chair as well, coming to curl her hands over his shoulders. “You’ve never been this impulsive for years, you show up to my house in the middle of the week after no one’s seen your face in I don’t know how long, and you refuse to meet your kids-“
“They’re not my kids.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not getting into that discussion with you right now. What’s going on?”
Nothing but genuine curiosity laced her tone, no trace of judgment, and it was perhaps that or the fact that she was a key participant in his plan that he felt compelled to answer her with all the honesty he could muster.
His hands still shook as he reached into his pocket to pull out the paper there, the only page that mattered out of the several given to him. Most likely she'd demand to see the rest later, using her medical knowledge to understand the numbers and technical terms plastered in printer ink along with the DICOM results.
For now she didn’t call him out for the tremors, just took his offering and gave him a clear view of the way her lips muttered around the words she was reading until her eyes got to the gist of it and her eyebrows made a bid for her hairline.
“Gojo-“
“I know,” he deflated against the counter by the sink, the same drop falling from the faucet as it had for years and years no matter how many times they tried to fix it. A constant trickle in the background. “Same type and place as mom’s too.”
“But wasn’t hers…?”
“Grade two?” he shrugged and crossed his arms. “Yeah. They caught it early enough and she still-“
For the umpteenth time his throat closed around the knot that took root the moment he sat across that doctor’s desk and got the news, the skin stretching around it as he tried his best not to cry.
He trusted her to keep the secret if he were to break down, same as Nanami did and would, but letting his guard down like that was humiliating enough once, and so it happened to be in front of the most stoic man he had ever met.
“f*ck,” she cursed and fell back onto the chair with fingers gripping so tight barely a difference showed between the pale of her knuckles and the shade of the sheet as she gingerly placed it on top of the table.
Silence hung between them as they stared at each other and the bold words from the paper glared in contrast to the wood under them.
Anaplastic meningioma. Grade 3.
Suddenly she moved, sifting through cabinets until she produced a carton from the back of the snacks pantry, a sigh leaving her lips once it lit up. It wasn't until smoke billowed in the air that she came to her senses.
“sh*t, I’m sorry. Do you mind if I-“
He waved a dismissive hand. “I already have a tumor making a home at the top of my spinal cord. A bit of cigarette smoke won’t kill me faster than this thing will.”
She rolled her eyes at his statement yet still opened the window for the breeze to filter through and take it away. Moving to stand beside it, she asked, “You’re still seeking treatment, yes? Is that why you came to me?”
Not really.
“I have to. The board will want me to fight it until the end just to save themselves the paperwork and the hassle of giving away my spot. I'll make it so Nanami's the chosen one instead of whoever they're considering.”
Shoko flashed the first grin of the night. “He’d be ruthless.”
“And it’d be so boring,” he smiled to welcome the temporary distraction.
“No more casual Fridays.”
“Or actual good coffee by the cafeteria.”
“No more snacks.”
“Only those multigrain bars he likes so much that taste like cardboard,” Shoko laughed at that so he kept going. “He’d just bitch about the budget the whole time.”
“He’d be harassing everyone down the hallways to make sure their lanyards or visitor passes are in clear view.”
“Oh, he already does that.”
“Really?”
“Yup,” he popped the p. “Has been doing so ever since he was appointed Head of Security.”
Shoko shook her head with a laugh. “Poor Nitta.”
“She’s the only one who can stand him, actually. All the interns scurry away at the sight of a patterned tie.”
“I always wondered where that came from, considering he’s so dull about everything else.”
He leaned over conspiratorially, as if there was an audience about their dialogue that shouldn’t be listening. “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but it was a gift from Haibara. All the way back in their college days.”
Understanding crossed over her face. “Ah. Makes sense.” She took in another drag. “How about that sweet girl who had the biggest crush on you? You know, the one with the blue hair.”
“Oh. Miwa? She’s living with Muta now. They’re expecting a child in a couple of months.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
The conversation fell as they both chuckled, the reality of the situation falling between them once more.
“You are taking treatment though,” she pretty much begged with her eyes, voice brittle as cracks on thin ice.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I have to.”
“Yes, but you should take it for you. Don’t you want to see Megumi grow up?”
“He’s almost 21.”
“And with a boyfriend now.”
That pulled him back against the counter. “What?”
“Yeah,” she shrugged, “and apparently it’s serious enough. Wouldn’t you want to be there for him if they move in together or get married or- What about Miki? Won’t you try to fight for her as well?”
He sighed, shortly forgotten exhaustion hitting back all at once to leave him sagging against granite, eyes casted to the ceiling. “Mom had a better chance and still didn’t make it.”
“That doesn’t mean you won’t,” she gritted out, suddenly up in his space with pain and pleading in her brown eyes mixed with the same fierceness that drove her to prove everyone in high school wrong when they claimed she was a bum that cheated on every test and made her push through the grief of losing her mother by sophom*ore year and finish her college degree.
“If you didn’t want me to make sure you got through this you shouldn’t have stopped here first, because now I’ll take you to the other side even if I have to drag you by that ridiculous white hair, you hear me?”
“Kinda hard to do that when there’s no longer a single hair on me, don’t you think?” he tried to tease but it came out sad instead, voice breaking around a sob that escaped the moment she wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug, half cigarette left pressed and forgotten by the windowsill.
Fatigue continued its threats to bring him down yet she held him up as he grieved, one of her hands soothing the very same hair she threatened to pull a second ago.
Eventually, he forced himself to calm down enough to sniffle, “I’ll do it if you help me with something,”
“It’s too early for you to start manipulating your way around this,” she groused back, making him chuckle.
“I need your girlfriend’s help in getting everything ready for Miki and Gumi,” he felt her pulling back so he tightened his grip, not ready to let go of her warmth yet. “Just in case it doesn’t work. You know how high the chances are it won’t.”
After a final squeeze, she pulled back with a sigh. “Fine. Now take your ass to the guest room. I’ll bring you dinner in a minute.” Not giving him a chance to fight back she added, “Don’t think I can’t tell when you’re on the verge of a migraine. Go lie down.”
So he did.
**
He spent the next 72 hours holed up in the guest room, curtains drawn shut and drowning in misery, ice packs and pills, until finally, finally, his head decided to give him a break at 4 am on the third day.
Exhausted and disoriented he headed into the kitchen for some tea and found Utahime already there, working through a coffee batch and set for work in her fancy suit and hair pulled up in a ponytail.
“If you can show up at the office today I have a clear spot at two pm to discuss your case,” she said over the lid of her thermos snapping shut.
“Good morning to you too,” he muttered, rubbing one eye.
She gave him a tight-lipped sarcastic smile. “Do try to show up on time. I have a court hearing at three.”
With that she left, heels clicking softly all the way to the front door, so, foregoing tea, he went back the way he came and fell in bed with a sigh.
**
He ended up being late and it wasn't his fault. For once.
After he had successfully passed out for another couple of hours Shoko woke him up with breakfast and directions of meeting her by the hospital’s cafeteria around noon so she could have him talk with the neuro-oncologist, Dr. Ino something.
Now, Satoru hadn't gotten so much as a cold in the last years, a record considering his childhood and early adulthood, so it had been quite some time since he'd last stepped into a hospital. Still, the guy looked much too young for him to hold such an important position. He trusted Shoko's judgment going into this but trepidation still crawled up his spine. That was, until Yaga showed up to act as Neurosurgeon. However good or bad Dr. Ino ended up being, it gave him a sudden piece of mind that Yaga would be there supervising the process.
What started as a casual conversation over coffee in the cafeteria ended up having to be moved to Yaga's office due to the nature of their dialogue and to check and discuss the results of his previous tests so they could add the remaining members to the care team: a neuropathologist, a radiation oncologist, and two nurse practitioners plus a neuropsychologist and Shoko as his unofficial nutritionist.
He had wanted to complain, tease her about influence peddling, but couldn’t deny her the effort of making sure he had direct and immediate help without the bureaucracy of an appointment and with the best team available.
It all fared well, considering the circ*mstances, until Yaga turned those dark glasses to him once everything was set and it was just the three of them in the office, and said, “Welcome back, kid. Wish it would’ve been in better circ*mstances.”
The few times he had broken down had been bad enough so he swallowed through his emotions and merely acknowledged the words with a nod.
Much later, he sat next to Shoko but in her girlfriend’s office this time, head swarming between a treatment schedule and dietary plans as they discussed how to plan around his plight.
“You’re looking to settle your legal matters in case of an incoming death, correct?” Utahime asked him at last, making him appreciate her business attitude.
On his periphery, Shoko frowned but he didn't call her out on it. While he appreciated her positive attitude and impulse to help, they had to make sure everything was settled in case it all went awry.
His survival chances were low and he had the paperwork to prove it.
“Yes. I need to settle a will, make sure Gumi and Miki get handed everything and the board throws a fit once I appoint Haibara as head of the company instead of Nanami.”
Shoko snorted at his joke as Utahime, unsurprisingly, merely curled her lip and narrowed her eyes at him, hair of her ponytail softly swinging.
“Okay. I’m going to need some paperwork from you and we can meet again next week. When does your treatment start?”
“Next Monday,” Shoko answered.
“Good. Then we could have a meeting a couple of days later,” her girlfriend nodded again, picking up several binders as she stood up. “I really need to go now. See you tonight?”
Shoko got a loopy smile on her face that made him gag and roll his eyes to the side, purposely staring at the abstract painting hung above the desk. Several trees posed in a line by opposite riverbanks, each detailed in a different rainbow color as a nice, subtle hint.
He should get one like that for his new office, in only purple, fuchsia, and blue hues. An office that he hadn’t been to yet, his mind suddenly provided.
The girls finished their hushed conversation about dinner plans and other things that he tuned out of for the sake of their relationship privacy and the squirming nerves swirling around his stomach, figuring if Nanami hadn’t called yet it meant his presence wasn't demanded at the company for the time being. Still, he ought to stop by the next morning.
“Ready to go?” Shoko asked, breaking him out of his reverie.
“Yeah,” he whispered, giving the painting one final look before turning around, the old feeling still squeezing. “You know, you’ve gotten disgustingly mushy with age.”
Shoko snorted at his teasing as their feet clicked down the hallway and the elevator pinged open at the end of it.
“The pot calling the kettle black. I remember you and him being much worse at our young age.”
“f*ck you, I’m not that old,” he quipped back on principle. If he made it through the next six months, he’d be turning 34 in December and still at his prime, thank you very much.
She laughed, the sound echoing around the walls as they entered the small space, bossa nova drifting through the air on their way down to the lobby.
“You still touched more than was appropriate for any public or private setting. As if the world disappeared whenever you looked into each other’s eyes.”
It did. Nothing else seemed to matter when those lion eyes looked back at him, and he was always looking for any excuse to make them do so.
Out of words and fear of breaking down again, he offered Shoko a small smile, meant to be wistful but falling too hard on the sad edge of its spectrum.
Shoko groaned, not giving the reaction he expected. “Stop looking like a kicked puppy. You’re gonna make me feel guilty for what I’m about to do.”
“What?” he asked over the sound of the building door whining open. “Shoko, what are you planning?”
**
Fear kept him glued to the car seat.
“No.”
Shoko ignored the way his voice wobbled, rolling her eyes. “We’re already here by the front door and I texted I was coming. It’ll look stupid if we just sit here until either of them pops their head out of a window.”
He crossed his arms around a huff, focusing on her sheer audacity instead of the thought springing on the back of his mind that eventually the muscle mass he worked so hard to build would be gone by a few IV drips.
The only reason he didn’t put up much of a fight once he realized she wasn’t taking the usual route to her home was that he didn’t want to involve her in a car accident, having filled his quota a long time ago. Now that they were stationary, she couldn't possibly believe she’d manage to pull him out of the car.
She sighed and got out, rounding up and yanking the door open before he had the chance to pull down the lock like a petulant child without regard to the control keys sitting in her hands.
“If you won’t come out I’ll bring them here and I’m sure you’d rather have this conversation inside.”
“Depends,” he muttered, unwilling to give in just yet. “Is that old fart still alive?”
Shoko snorted. “Mrs. Matsuda is still very much alive and stationed at her usual place by the east window.” She threw a look behind her and turned back with an amused smile, twirling her fingers in front of his nose. “Bet her small, creepy eyes are staring at you right now.”
He shuddered and got out of the car, figuring the sooner he could get this over with the sooner he could get a hotel room where people got paid to do what he wanted instead of his loser friend and her grumpy girlfriend helping him in the annoying ways that matter because they liked him for some reason. Still he dared a look two houses over and noticed the usual lacy curtain slid back as it had been for the past forty years.
“Good boy,” Shoko grinned as she rang the bell.
The phrase threatened to dig up memories he’d rather not think about right now.
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, and then, “Can’t believe I’m gonna die before that hag.”
Her chide –most likely a ‘she’s not a hag’ which was a total lie or ‘you’re not gonna die’ which could be another lie, depending on how much life hated him, and, considering how it had been going for the past five years, he’d die a sudden death after being snuffed dry in just three months, not witnessing another December 7th sunrise ever again- got cut off by the door swinging open.
“Hey, Auntie Shoko, I was just about to ca-“
Tsumiki’s gasp was loud enough to echo through the silent house and, despite his tries to mentally prepare himself for this moment, they faded away to nothing when faced with a girl he pretty much considered a daughter or something close to the definition, despite the absences and the failings and what he had ever said about the matter. Then his heartbeat jumped faster at the sight of wild black hair showing up behind her frame, green eyes that once looked up at him with adoration now only adorned with the scorn he was aware he deserved.
Lips in the same shape of a biological father long gone asked the only pertinent question for the situation.
“What are you doing here?”
Tsumiki, ever so sweet and gentle and willing to give people second chances even when they didn’t deserve them, scowled at her brother, elbow digging into his ribs.
Satoru tried and failed to find words so Shoko answered for him. “We have something to talk to you about. Mind if we come inside?”
After a few more seconds of hard staring Megumi turned around and headed to the kitchen on the back, Tsumiki sliding to the side to allow them further in with a look to the slid curtain over their shoulders before shutting the door closed.
For a silly and fleeting reason, a small smile escaped Satoru’s lips as he toed off his shoes.
**
Unlike at Shoko’s place, there were no walls separating the layout of the house except those encasing the coat closet by the door, the half bath by the stairs, and his old bedroom behind the kitchen. Only open floor plans and white walls surrounded them with minimalistic and modern decoration that came with the renovated home he bought eleven years ago when a pair of siblings fell into his lap and he made the decision to care for them.
The distance from the front door to his back where he sat on the kitchen island tickled around his nape, joined by the onslaught of light coming in from the French doors leading to the patio where a couple of dogs lazed around grass under the blazing sun.
He squeezed his eyes shut and scoured through his mind trying to come up with their names, frustrated when blank space was all he got as an answer.
You may experience temporary memory loss or mild cognitive impairment, Mr. Gojo. It is highly advised you keep calendars or journals to help you cope better with the cognitive changes during your treatment.
He shook Dr. Kusakabe’s voice away with a blink and accepted the tea mug offered to him, mint this time, resigning himself to living off dry leaves swimming in water for however long all of this would take. If his dietary planning was anything to go by, he’d be mourning the taste of coffee for days to come.
“What did you want to talk to us about?” Tsumiki asked, leaning over the marble counter as her brother did the same on the opposite side by the sink, probably putting as much distance between him and his legal guardian as he could. Gojo couldn’t blame him.
Prompted by that and before Shoko could reply, Satoru found himself speaking.
“It’s cancer.”
Ominous silence fell between them, cut only by Tsumiki’s sudden ragged breaths.
“What?”
Salt gathered at the corner of her eyes, making frustration burn through his chest and lacing the next words that clawed out of his throat like rising bile.
“Brain tumor. On the edge of metastasis. The same one that took your grandmother almost six years ago.”
Miki’s tears slid down her face then, making his own throat bob around the ones he refused to spill. By the corner of the kitchen counter, Megumi’s eyes softened and widened, cold exterior forgotten in the face of the news.
“How much time?” he asked with a steady voice despite the frayedness of his frame.
“Unknown,” Satoru replied.
“Life expectancy then,” Megumi pushed.
“53% in a 5 year rate if I manage to beat it into submission, but that’s what they said about her too.”
Megumi deflated to the side with a scoff and a shake of his head, a hand coming up to cover the way his jaw trembled.
“Just wanted to let you know so you’re prepared the moment you get the phone call,” Satoru added, “and don’t worry about the assets. The will is being drafted as we speak.”
The coldness returned to Megumi’s frame, adrenaline-quick, limbs and face instantly pulled taut. His eyes were hard as he stared down at who, by law, would stop being his legal guardian near the end of the year.
“Is that what you think we care about? Your f*cking inheritance?”
“Hey, no swearing-“ Shoko cut in.
“That's all you should be focused on,” Satoru barreled.
After I pulled a page from your biological father’s book and left you to tend to yourselves when you still weren’t ready to face the real world. Left you to grieve the loss of your grandmother all on your own and didn’t make it back when the same happened to your grandfather, as estranged as he was.
“I can’t believe you,” Megumi spit. “You show up here out of nowhere, after all this time, just to say you’re dying like- Like we’re supposed to pity you?”
Satoru cut off Shoko’s next protest with a hand.
He could deal with anger. Before coming here anger was all he expected and would've walked away disappointed if it didn't come across. So far Shoko and Utahime had been nothing but kind, pretending he didn’t f*ck things up beyond repair five years ago but finally someone had the guts to stand up to him and it came like a breath of fresh air after the coddling that seemed to coat every interaction with the very few people that had known about his diagnosis so far.
“Had I wanted your pity I would’ve shown up on my knees, Gumi-chan,” Satoru smiled with no humor behind it. “Or would you have preferred getting the phone call and paperwork once it was too late? That was my first option too but Nanami insisted on me doing things the right way.”
“Whatever,” Megumi scoffed, slamming the door to the patio open to go sit where his dogs lay.
“Are you really dying?” came Tsumiki’s voice, small and subdued.
“No,” Shoko said.
“It’s highly possible,” he followed, too tired to put up a front and well aware that the fake smiles and the lies had brought him here, acting the same as Toji Fushiguro once did.
A sin he told himself time and time again he wouldn’t commit. And yet.
“No, we’re not letting him die,” Shoko repeated through gritted teeth. “He’s starting his treatment on Monday and I need your help keeping his butt in shape.”
Tsumiki's smile came out wan as she wobbled dangerously in place. “Sure. I-” she rubbed a hand over her forehead, blinking slower than normal. “We can work around his schedule so he keeps company. Is he getting chemo?”
“Ventricular access is being considered. For now he’ll go under the Gamma Knife,” Shoko answered.
They kept talking about his procedure as if he wasn't right there. Damn medicine workers and their bonding over medical conditions.
Tsumiki nodded and attempted to take a step to the side. The moment her hand slipped off the marble Satoru moved, holding her right before she had a chance to fall to the floor.
“Bring her here,” Shoko directed him towards the couch, moving every cushion to help lie her in with her legs held high propped in them and the throw blanket too for good measure. She took a fashion magazine from the coffee table and started blowing air into her face when a warning bark reached them.
Kuro! yelled a voice in his mind, kick starting a memory that had him moving through the kitchen and rifling through the cabinet drawer next to the pantry before walking out the French doors with Megumi’s insulin emergency kit before Shoko got to finish the instructions on where to look for it.
**
Much later, she returned from a smoke and a check up on Megumi where he practically lay melted against the outdoor furniture in company of his service dogs. After ruffling Miki’s hair from where she remained on the couch under an impromptu nap, she plopped on the seat next to his on the kitchen island with a sigh.
“Told you it was a bad idea,” he muttered around a sip of reheated tea.
“They deserved to hear it from you,” was all she offered.
**
Dinner, courtesy of Shoko, turned out to be a stilted affair that had him looking in between the quizzing looks Shiro kept giving him with a tilted head and the pale complexion on Megumi's face as he picked at his plate, clearly without much appetite but forcing himself to eat some anyway to prevent another sugar drop. All the while, Shoko and Tsumiki worked on a calendar to be printed and taped to the fridge along with a weekly meal plan. After enough awkward silences he excused himself and headed into his old room to officially settle in, finding it exactly the same as the last time he set foot in it.
To avoid walking around the house like the ghost of the distant past he headed to his office the next day, taking in the natural light streaming into the building from the massive windows and polished floors, bringing a shine to it that his sunglasses didn't appreciate much. After poking his head in and out of the wrong departments and greeting people he hadn’t seen in years he finally reached his floor and found none other than Ijichi himself talking to whom Gojo suspected was his secretary. As usual, the man blushed under his teasing, burning brighter red when Satoru slipped some bills into his palm and sent him to fetch a donut box.
Satoru officially greeted his secretary and asked to be put up to date, entering his office for the first time. There were large windows that would definitely need some blackout curtains and a massive desk that made him remember his work laptop, sitting comfortably forgotten on his bedside table. Finding a notepad and a ball pen, he set out to write down manual notes and ask whoever came around to send all pertinent data to his email. As he was scribbling down some nonsensical swirls to make the ink flow and cooperate, the door to his office got knocked on once before opening to reveal a pleasant surprise on the other end.
“A bit far off from your office, don't you think?” he smiled. “A humble 5,936 miles, give or take.”
From the door Haibara laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You asked for the head of Finance, yes?”
Satoru stood up from his seat to give the man a hug, tighter perhaps than he’d usually make it but the other man said nothing, just squeezed back as good as he got.
He looked like no time had passed at all, Satoru noticed upon pulling back. Same bowl cut, same wide eyes full of wonder, same warm laugh.
“Nanamin transferred you here because I was coming, didn’t he?”
Haibara had the decency to blush at least. “Your transfer wasn’t the only move made to the branch, Gojo-san. We’d been planning it for a while and your coming here was just the tipping point to kick start it all.”
Satoru smiled. “Now you have to tell me all about it.” He redirected them to take a seat by the desk, noticing Haibara’s limp not as noticeable as it used to be.
“It gets worse in the winter,” Haibara grimaced as he sat down.
“We’re glad you’re still with us,” Satoru assured him, preventing the conversation from going down that path. “Now, bring up the juicy gossip. How long have you been here?”
“Ever since you transferred to London.”
“And how come I didn’t know any of this?”
“Because you were busy with other things,” Nanami’s voice cut through from the door. Carrying two cups in his hands, he handed one over to Haibara with a modest kiss to his cheek –as if Satoru didn’t know any better- and the other over to him.
“Awww, aren’t you sweet bringing me coffee?” Satoru cooed, turning it into a scowl upon noticing his cup didn’t have the precious elixir but yet another hot concoction made of dry leaves. At least it was green tea so he let it slide.
“No matter how much he begs, don’t bring him coffee while he’s here,” Nanami said to Haibara. To Satoru he remarked, “If you really wish to catch up on gossip you’ll be working closely with Yu while I monitor things from the Operations department. Whenever you need transportation Ijichi will be glad to provide it for you-“ both Satoru and Yu snorted around their drinks at that, well accustomed to Gojo’s antics with the man, “and before you ask, yes, the entire building is aware of our relationship and our son.”
“Relationship?” Satoru’s voice came out shrill, going higher once Haibara raised a hand to show a golden band sitting there. “And a son!? What do you mean a son?”
Haibara answered instead of Nanami. “We eloped around four years ago. Yuji came along shortly after that.”
“Nanamin,” Satoru chided. “You knew this man has always wanted a big, flashy wedding and you gave him a sloppy Vegas elope? That’s not very nice of you.”
“We didn’t want to make it seem inappropriate or like we were rubbing it in considering everything you were going through.”
And just like that, all joking mood deflated out of him. The events of the past six years coming September flickering through his mind.
His mother’s passing. His father’s declining health due to depression after. Paperwork and his official transfer to the headquarters in London. Leaving his kids behind to take over his father’s company and legacy. The man’s death not long after. The utter failure to those words branded on his mind like a moral compass, guiding every action until then.
All of it, all the sacrifices and the lack of sleep and the regret, only to end up here, struck by a generational fate he already knew the outcome of.
“Well, I’ll still have to get you a wedding gift,” he joked around a too wide smile that Nanami saw right through if his frown was anything to go by.
“What you have to do is go home and take it easy. It’s not like the company won’t function without you here,” the man said.
“No, what I need to do is for you to put me up to date so I can work,” he smiled, saccharine sweet, knowing before Nanami sighed that he had won.
“Better make good use of your time then. You’re barred from being in this building before 9 am and after 3 pm.”
Satoru groaned. “Did Shoko put you up to that?”
“No,” Nanami frowned. “Yaga did.”
“Fine,” he relented, knowing better than to try to override his Neurosurgeon.
Despite being CEO it seemed everyone held more authority over him than his own personal license due to this damn thing in his neck. Sharing the donuts with Haibara and Nanami helped him stop grumbling about it. For a while at least.
Just before leaving, the blonde -known for never leaving anything incomplete- told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could take as much time as needed and to please not show up in the building if he didn't feel well enough to keep the rumors from spreading around after the difficulty of holding his current status within the board.
Once he made it home, after walking aimlessly around a city that seemed different and not have changed at all, darkness had already fallen and both other occupants in the house had tucked in for the night so he settled on the couch with the dinner plate left for him in the oven and zapped through the channels until coming across yet another Lord of the Rings marathon.
Sunrise found him there with a minor crick on his neck and his clothes from the day before.
“Good morning,” Tsumiki called from the kitchen.
“Good morning,” he croaked, dreading the conversation yet knowing it was necessary. Dragging himself to his ensuite bathroom he quickly brushed his teeth and walked out, leaving his shower for later.
The new calendar that was to lead his new routine had indeed been printed and taped to the fridge next to his weekly meal plans, covering his surgery that day and the month's rest before he started radiotherapy three times a week. His eyes raked over the Not Allowed items regarding his nutrition as she served breakfast for both of them.
“The appointment is usually around two hours long,” she started. “I’ll go with you since Gumi had a meeting at his job to change his schedule and work it around your sessions.”
“I-“
She lifted up a hand to cut him off. “Don’t. I know why you had to leave. It sucked and it brought up awful memories but I understand, and unlike Gumi, I’d rather not wallow in anger or hold it against you. Not when you’re going through this.”
He breathed through the frustration burning down his ribcage. Her gentleness felt too much like coddling. “You should. A death sentence above my head doesn’t excuse how I abandoned you.”
“Which is why you should get better then,” she teased, eyes twinkling, “so Gumi makes you beg for forgiveness for the two of us.”
Her smile still was sweet and forgiving but he figured she was right in the fact that Megumi would make him grovel as he deserved and smiled back, ignoring the tug on his heart.
**
Good morning, Mr. Gojo, my name is Nakamura Fumiko and this is Adachi Mai. We’ll be the radiotherapists handling your treatment. Please replace your clothing for this hospital gown and remove all metal and electronic devices from your person.
The tiled floors of the bathroom were cold as he got changed, same as Tsumiki's hands as he handed over his clothes, watch, and cellphone.
Please lie down on the scan couch. We’ll need to fit a head frame for your treatment. Adachi-san will now inject four local anesthetic points where the frame will be attached to your head. You may feel some pressure and tightness around the pins on your skull but it should ease up within a few minutes.
Pressure and tightness ended up translating into an expectation by the first puncture of the frame, a reason to grunt during the second, stinging and hurting like a bitch during the third, and barely feeling the fourth through the pain on the back of his head. Cursing his body’s natural resistance to opioids, he muscled through the lack of effect from the anesthesia and gritted his teeth to force himself not to move a muscle lest they needed to repeat the torture again.
We’ll perform an MRI beforehand to get a better visual of your tumor and the area surrounding it so we can program the most effective way for the radiotherapy you’ll be treated with. Do you have any allergies or preexisting medical conditions that weren't mentioned in your records?
“Other than the mass threatening to suffocate my brain? No.”
The woman didn’t laugh at his joke, just gave him a tight-lipped smile as she injected the contrast through his IV. Simmering heat setting fire down its path followed the length of his arm right after, making his jaw tighten until the frame attached to his head made it clear how much of a bad idea that was.
She should loosen up, he thought, for it was him, the one cracking the silly jokes, lying on a padded table with the vacbag pressing uncomfortably against his nape and being made to wiggle for a more comfortable position so he wouldn't move throughout the length of the clanging and beeping and eerie sense of doom inside the tube.
At least after the MRI scan they transferred him to a suite, a loose term for an empty room with a couch, a funky machine and the lingering smell of bleach in the air, where a few minutes were given for him to breathe deep and attempt to relax as his treatment plan got checked with the results of his MRI and settled into the machine’s computer controls.
Your treatment will begin now, Mr. Gojo. Please lie down. During the treatment, you may be moved around gently as you’re redirected to where the machine needs you to be. The entire process will be monitored through the cameras and you may contact us through the intercom as and when you wish. You may also listen to music if you want to.
The only way to describe the machine was as one of those things in the space movies Gumi loved to watch, white and made of metal and with the uncovered potential of its artificial intelligence possibly waking up and deciding human beings were inferior, thus deciding to turn Planet Earth into a smoldering pile of ash.
“Peachy,” he muttered through the discomfort before the nurse left and closed his eyes the moment the machine started whirling.
Thirty minutes later, the repetitive classical music grated on his nerves more than soothed him, becoming increasingly harder to ignore thanks to the headache blooming by the pins stuck to his forehead. Still he tried to take deep breaths and not focus so much on it.
The world tilted on its axis once he was brought to a sitting position some time after to have the head frame removed. His scalp burned and tingled as the pins were pulled, head throbbing around the dizziness. He tried to pay attention to what Yaga was saying; three out of four words flew by his head anyways.
Glad for Miki’s presence there with a hand on his shoulder as she nodded along to what they were being told and asking all the pertinent questions, he focused on keeping his eyes closed and not stare at the wobbly tiled floor so the nausea wouldn’t keep crawling its way up his throat. He didn't feel like getting Yaga a new pair of very expensive Prada shoes.
Balance wobbled again as he was helped into a wheelchair, sighing in relief once his glasses slid over his nose and the blaring lights became a muted nuisance in the background.
He’d like to say he remembered the trip down the hall, up the elevator, and into the room where he spent his overnight observation but it all became a hazy memory, a tickle on the back of his brain unsure if it was a dream or not, like the first three years of his college days. As it was, proper consciousness didn’t arrive until the next morning when the discharge orders came.
Once he stepped out and into the parking lot, after assuring Miki he was fine so she'd go to work without worrying too much, it took him a moment to recognize the car picking him up and couldn't find a voice to return the greeting that came his way.
He merely grunted a response to Ijichi, swallowing back down the bile burning at the back of his throat as he slumped over the backseat. It barely held off until they pulled up by the curb of his home where his hospital-provided breakfast became a stain on the sidewalk through a hastingly opened door.
**
The smell of food lured him awake, cheek pressed against dark blue fabric and a small puddle of drool gathered by the corner of his mouth. In all his years living in the house he’d never slept more on the couch than he had now and he'd been back in the country for less than two weeks.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Shoko greeted from his periphery, placing a tray on top of the latest issue of Discover Magazine sitting on the coffee table.
“Why are you here?” he rasped through a dry mouth.
A glass of water got pressed to it a second later. “Small gulps, champ. I’m near the end of my lunch break and don’t feel like cleaning up your carpet.”
He huffed but did as told, sitting upright and keeping the sips gentle even as his throat burned from what happened outside. He’d also like to get some food in him despite the raging war between hunger and nausea set on his stomach as battle ground.
“I only have about-“ Shoko continued, checking the watch on her wrist, “ten minutes before I have to leave so please try to pay attention.”
Another sip and he shook his head, feeling a bit clearer as she pointed to it. “You’re supposed to take those bandages out and keep your head elevated for the next week. Clean the sites twice a day and apply this antibiotic ointment for the next three to four days,” a small box was pressed into his hand then she pointed to the pill bottles lined up behind the tray. “Corticosteroids for swelling, Advil for the migraine, antihistamine for the funky rash in your arm. Your body reacted funny to the contrast.”
“No wonder it burned like hell,” he muttered around the rim of his glass.
She gave him a look. “Let me guess, you didn't tell anyone.”
He shrugged, still thirsty after the last sip.
Shoko sighed as she got up to refill his glass and flicked his ear on the way back, fighting back a chuckle at his pout. “I know you may not remember 2016 that much but you need to report every single little thing. Every mole that suddenly shows up, every mild fever, every minor razor cut. It could make a difference in our reaction time to whatever it is your body brings up during your treatment, okay?”
He mumbled once more so she insisted.
“Okay,” Satoru grumbled at long last so she'd take that pointed look away from him, which she did, staring at the pills again. “Please take them all. Especially the first ones. Unless you want your head to look like a hot air balloon six months from now. Your follow up is scheduled for next week. Gumi will be here by 4 and I’ll come back later tonight. You should feel out of it for the next couple of days so take it easy, all right?”
Still slightly numb, he focused on the most important part of her speech and nodded, feeling some type of way when she moved a hand to ruffle his hair and as her nails scratched over his scalp it brought the reminder that all that now remained of his white locks was an awful buzzcut he got to avoid his hair getting in the way of the metal frame. The following radiotherapy was sure to bring it all down anyways.
“Thanks,” he choked through the emotion in his chest and the dryness still sitting on his throat.
“Anytime,” she smiled before leaving.
He got through most of the food, fighting with the nausea all the way, made sure to take all his pills, and dragged his feet to his room where he collapsed face-first on the bed for another nap, forgetting to place a couple of pillows under his head to keep it elevated as instructed.
**
Halfway through the third day and feeling marginally better he took his first shower since the surgery to get the sticky feeling off every crevice and the smell of sweat from his skin and headed into the office in dark jeans and a button up that took too long to put on. His energy reserves still stood dangerously low but at least he could spend most of the day without nausea or acid reflux.
He only had a few hours before getting kicked out of his office so he tried to make the most of them before the weekend came.
It all fared well until, as he was about to leave, his secretary gave his head an inquiring look she wasn't able to mask in time and upon realizing she'd been caught she bid goodbye with a, “Have a good evening, Mr Gojo.”
Satoru smiled through the discomfort and waved a dismissive hand. “Funky, huh? Just figured I could try a new look.”
He left before she had the chance to reply or mention something about the very obvious scabbed spots in his scalp.
**
Early Saturday afternoon he awoke from another nap on the couch by someone knocking on the front door.
Barely paying it any mind, he tried to go back to the comfortable sleep he’d been in but got interrupted once more. By the third time the sound came around he got up on wobbly legs, grumbling as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and opened the door to have the floor swept from under his feet.
It had to be a dream, one of those he hadn't had in a long while, probably kickstarted by the melatonin he was forced to take every night in order to catch up on sleep that wasn’t as repairing as the banner on the bottle made it out to be.
There was no other explanation as to how or why a face he hadn’t seen in over ten years looked back at him, amber eyes in a pretty face open in shock as they took in his current form: rumpled, sweaty, with four sore spots around his scalp and hair shorter than it had been since before they met.
“Satoru?”
