you were raised in comparison.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
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society has ingrained in all of us that bugs are bad and evil and scary and they Bite You for no reason and Sting You For Fun and I would like to challenge every single person that reads this to try to step back and challenge those thoughts. CHALLENGE that knee-jerk reaction to kill every bug you see. REALIZE that killing it doesn't have to be the answer. it's fine to not want bugs in your home. but I see so many people whose FIRST choice is to kill it, even though it'd be easy to just cup it and toss it outside. why?
one of the greatest things that got me over my extremely intense arachnophobia was knowledge. learning more about the thing I was afraid of made me realize, "oh, they're just little guys trying to get by too" and I stopped killing every spider I saw.
and it's like. no, that wasp didn't sting you for fun. it stung you because it felt scared or defensive. no, the spider in your shower isn't trying to kill you. spiders need water to live too.
you don't deem a scared dog/cat evil for biting you, do you? then why are we demonizing insects and spiders for feeling scared? they are so, so small and we are so large. they don't know anything about us, they're just trying to live life. they didn't know they built their web in a bad spot. they didn't know they built their nest next to your door. please, show some kindness to these tiny creatures. I understand you can't let infestations happen or wasps build in your walls, but whenever possible, try to put bugs in a cup and take them outside. yes, even wasps. even black widows. if you want tips for safely capturing bugs, I'm always around to ask.
also, to those who say things like, "x bug eats other pest bug, so they're okay" why? why does something have to benefit you to deserve to live? shouldn't all creatures have a chance at life, even if they're ugly, even if they don't benefit you, even if they do something you don't like? what gives you the right to decide to take the life of any animal just because ahhh it looked scary? please. all I ask is you try to be kinder. it's okay to be scared, it's not okay to pointlessly kill things.
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a/n: jjk 236 spoilers, mentions of suicide from reader’s side, no comfort, cry. around 1.4k. tagging @jabamin @hyomagiri @saiki-enthusiast @arminsumi @shotorus @satohruu so yall can suffer w me
the first signs of grief manifests in you when there’s a bright light that signifies gojo’s disperse of cursed energy, the familiar hollow purple that obliterates half the buildings around the two strongest sorcerers — one from the heian and the other one from our times. surely, your lover wouldn’t do something as foolish as involving himself with the blast, but gojo satoru is always one to take risks.
when he took up the job of taking care of megumi and tsumiki at just eighteen years old and providing all the things they needed to fluorish. gojo is risky as he convinces a kid with a terrifying curse to make some friends and learn about cursed energy. he sometimes puts himself in danger when he takes up more missions he can shoulder just to show the higher-ups that he can kill them any time.
gojo satoru has the world of jujutsu in his hands; how his birth had changed the trajectory of the society, altered the balance of the world and now—
“satoru!” you call out once the smoke clears and he’s still there, intact, smiling a sick smile like the many times you’ve seen him done at megumi and after burning french toast. you brief a sigh of relief and the pounding of your heart calms down momentarily before sukuna emerges and he’s missing a hand and a leg and your heart pulls lower and lower seeing the kid you raised be such a ragdoll for sukuna’s entertainment. but there was always the hope to isolate the king of curses’ soul and save megumi somehow. shoko and you had discussed it, you know it to be true, it has to be true, until there’s a sharp noise that cuts through your ear drums.
it’s high-pitched, like a flash of light that shines in your eyes too abruptly and you have to cover them. but it blinds you as much as it deafens; an attack from god knows which end and you swear you hear the reaper’s scythe.
gojo thinks you look beautiful like this; hand on your cheek and head in your hand as you watch him and the melodic sounds of the knife hitting the cutting board. you’re so concerned about him cutting his hand again that you’ve dragged your chair all the way into the kitchen to watch him closely, which was counterintuitive; the whole reason why he had bled in the first place was because he was looking at you so much.
he admires the way you curl into yourself on the beanbag in the apartment, a book on your lap on how to get to know your teenager better, hair falling over your eyes and the reading lamp not even helping that much in illuminating the words. gojo skims over your features and the way your chest breathes slowly, like everything good in the world. he hopes he’s able to get that with you in this life, for as long as he lives.
you feel it before you see it in the screens that the fight is broadcasted from — something is missing. a light has switched off, satoru has stolen the blanket at night and left you freezing again, seeing your favourite snack missing from the fridge. and you run. past the students you’ve raised, past the bright blinding screens and into the battlefield, past the debris and each crunch of cement under your feet brings a fresh bout of tears to your eyes. the tokyo winter is cool, snow starting to slowly fall upon you and the saltiness on your face seem to crystallise and harden and you’re not even sure any more. there’s a tingling feeling in your feet, in your finger tips and a pull of your heart. you know where gojo is before you see him.
“s— satoru…” you mumble, eyes welling up with more tears when his bottom half stays standing, baggy pants stained with red, red and more red and you’ve never hated a colour like you do now. you hate it, you hate it, you hate it even when he’s proposed to you with a red velvet box and gotten you valentine’s day chocolates in that same darker red and there is just too much blood.
and then it’s like the hierarchy of grief doesn’t matter any more. all those articles you’ve read preparing yourself after gojo’s fated meeting with death at sixteen, and then after shibuya — you think you can’t handle any more of the collecting and patching up and crying and headaches and holding a finger up to your chest and hoping you’d kill yourself with your own technique. the only time you’d accept the absence of the bright blue on his face is when he was sleeping and his chest moved with even breaths, not like this.
not like this.
“satoru—” your voice cracks and you cannot even see. tears and tears and mucus and the fresh crunch of snow under your feet as you step closer to his severed body.
“baby…” he mumbles, barely above a whisper, hand twitching and reaching out in the direction of your voice because this is infinitely worse than getting stabbed in the neck by toji fushiguro, perhaps a little worse than seeing your best friend of your high school life get manipulated by a cursed user. satoru wants to demote all of that and say that seeing you stumble to your knees in front of him while you hyperventilate and sob hurts the most.
“d-don’t move, ’toru, we— we’re going to get you b-back, okay?” you’re playing with god now. “shoko!” the doctor stifles a sob at your cry, broken up by the feedback of the sound system. she knows you’re trying to defy god.
“i don’t think—” the light is slowly dying. the world’s light, the student’s light, your dawn and dusk. “m-my love, everything is…”
“satoru, please, you need to—!” they say the last sense to go is touch and hearing. you crouch to his face to see him react to your warmth, eyes moving an inch to where he thinks you were and puts all of his cursed energy into one hand just so he could hold your cheek. you, warm as always as the sun and everything good in the world, a new rush of warmth overtaking his hand when your tears flow over his battered, tired hands, the same hands that has drawn over his love time and time again over your body and you are a canvas made of gojo satoru’s endless, unconditional ardour.
“i-i’m…” it fades out, his voice box is almost gone and you wail again and the snow from below wets your knees. his name is all that leaves your lips and you think if you can’t play god, you can only beg, even if your religion is solely gojo satoru.
“no, no, no no nono, satoru, c’mon, baby, stop it!” you scream in his face, words all mushed together when you feel the breath of life leave his chest, the blues die out in his eyes, “i love you, i love you, darling, i love you—” your lover barely manages to muster a small smile and you scramble all over his chest, clutching at the tattered black t-shirt and his hand that is starting to go cold and he has the energy to mutter out a stupid remark like gojo satoru always does.
“i’m sorry i got y-your favourite outfit stained with red, princess…” satoru whispers and that breaks the dam fully. you sob and groan and cry and wail until your voice is hoarse and you cannot speak any more and gojo wants nothing but to full heal himself again just so he could stop your crying. perhaps hold your face in his hands and kiss your forehead and nose and lips and embrace you until you couldn’t breathe. perhaps even to tell you he loved you more than anything and everything; more than poems and that foolish line he just had to say at the end and kikufuku and waking up next to you.
but in what world will gojo satoru ever get repose and a normal life? you hope for every other universe to have him be a preschool teacher, or maybe a florist, or even a superstar. but not in this one, no.
the hand that caressed your cheek is replenished again with cursed energy.
satoru gives you three squeezes.
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