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The first time you met Shoko, was when you were all curled up in on yourself in the corner of a classroom on your first day of Jujutsu High, You managed to tuck yourself away behind the least imposing desk you could find with your knees pulled up to your chest, hoping to make yourself invisible enough so that nobody would notice you.
She walked up to you like you were already old friends, tilting her head at what you were doing before asking you, in a teasing, but not unkind tone, just what the hell you were up to. You mumbled out something about not wanting to be there, half expecting her to bully you for such a meek response, but all she did was meet you with understanding, her voice so calm, steady and even resonating, “Well shit,” she scoffed, curling her lips into a lazy smile, “that makes you and me both.”
You remembered how she grabbed your arm so suddenly, yanking you away from the self-made refuge you had built into place, introducing you as the only sane person in the entire class to the rest of everyone else. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest as you could only mutter out a soft, if not awkward, hello that was met by a few heads nodding absentmindedly and a couple of others doing the same. It wasn’t too bad, you thought; everyone else seemed to be in the same boat as you.
From that moment on, Shoko would always show up when you were hesitant about something, or anything. This became a routine for her, almost. She always dragged you along with her, pushing you to become your best self, never once making fun of you when it all went wrong. No, she always kept up a form of gentle encouragement instead.
She would never hurt you, after all, not Shoko.
So, when the lines began to blur, you didn’t notice how it all started to deteriorate.
It wasn’t like it all started with her, per se. Maybe it began with Haibara’s passing that it all started to unravel. You remembered how happy-go-lucky he always presented as, always seeing the light in everything that crossed his path, no matter how dark it all seemed to be getting. You were among those few who refused to believe he was gone when the news finally reached you, only finalising the reality when you met him cold and laid out over a slab in the morgue. You went home that day feeling a different person than the one you woke up as. Or maybe it could have happened not too long after Satoru and Suguru returned from their failed escort mission with Riko, returning to the school with the crushing weight of something left unspoken and unresolved hanging in the air.
So, when Suguru left, it was almost expected.
Satoru took it the hardest, isolating himself from everyone else but the empty space he had cultivated around him. It was as if the world had ended for him when Suguru did what he had, and he refused to participate in anything else for a while. A part of you couldn’t forgive him for pushing Shoko away during that time, even though you knew he was hurting, but Suguru was her friend, too; he was yours as well.
Although it wasn’t as if anyone was to blame, because no matter how you looked back on it all, you were all just kids. You were barely old enough to even begin to understand the gravity of what was going on, let alone what you were fighting against. You were prepared for the combat, sure, but never so much the trauma. You were simply not built as a human being to carry all that was thrown at you, given how young you all were, but you did so anyway.
Maybe you should have reached out to Shoko back then, because she was the only one who remained out of the two that you had left, but you never pushed her more than you thought was necessary. If she was being quiet during all of this, after all, you foolishly thought that it was on purpose—that she was just dealing with it in her own way—that she was fine, just as she had always presented herself as being.
You shook it off when you should have been acknowledging the clear signs of her undoing, no matter how subtle she was being. For someone who was seen as the binding glue of keeping it all together, you should have at least said something—anything—when it was crucial to do so, to the one person who you knew would stubbornly suffer in silence—insisting that it was all fine—when it wasn’t.
Instead, you just shrugged it all off when she held onto your wrist a little too tight whenever you tried to leave for your dorm or when she texted you something cryptic and vague long past midnight, hoping that you would respond in a certain way. You brushed it away back then, and even after you both made it to and passed eighteen, you didn’t see those texts as the cry for help that they truly were.
God, it was so obvious back then.
Were you being that way on purpose?
So oblivious, so ignorant.
When your studies were finally over, though, you started to talk more again. It wasn’t quite like it was before, but it wasn’t the same stagnant silence that it was for the longest time. You’d absentmindedly drop a few lines here and there, filling the once-empty space with something kinder, warmer. “Your hair looks nice at this length,” would be something you’d disclose, while still somehow missing the now permanent dark circles colouring her eyes, or the way her shoulders curled in on themselves, near the state of collapse.
To be fair, you weren’t doing too well either, but the worst had finally come to pass, and you wanted to go back to how it was, or at least, as close as possible to what you had come to miss.
Shoko mirrored it back, to an extent, at least. Half-mumbled compliments were uttered and passed on occasion with no beginning or end, just enough to never let the silence between you both linger more than it should. Both you and Shoko just existed with each other, drifting through the trenches that life had dug out for everyone, yet remaining in it as the only two left.
No matter how you looked at it, after all, everyone else was slowly disappearing, one way or another. Satoru took up teaching, determined to save the next generation of future sorcerers from themselves, refusing to allow what happened to Suguru, happen to anyone else. Kento reconsidered other options, unsure if Jujutsu was a path he wanted to stay on. Mei Mei went private. Utahime got an offer elsewhere. Shoko, however, had stayed put, and you had decided to remain on call, but only through contract.
It wasn’t that you had a proper conversation with her, however, until you were looking for something in particular.
Clothes sharing had been a common enough thing with you, Shoko, and Utahime when you were all sharing the accommodation halls. A top might have gone missing from the dryer and would have shown up on someone else, or you might have borrowed a hoodie if it was chilly outside. Nobody would ever question it, because eventually, everything would turn back to where it was supposed to be, and it was never a problem.
Until you needed something back.
It wasn’t anything major; just an old long-sleeved sweatshirt that everyone had signed right before the summer break that changed everything else. It was right before Riko’s incident. It was when Haibara was still alive and laughing. It wasn’t where you left it, and Utahime’s text came back that she never touched it, with the only other person who knew where you kept that old thing being Shoko.
You wanted it back, just as a little piece of memory.
You were on the phone with her when you brought it up, cycling through yet another cryptic, quiet call. She’d usually have something playing in the background, like an old film, but it was some muffled music that bounced around the walls, making her sound a bit more muted than usual.
Overall, she sounded off. More so than before. It was enough to set off some sort of alarm within you, even if it was faint. Shoko wasn’t a stranger to being distant, but there was something charged between you both that had finally managed to give you pause.
Maybe she was just tired.
“You remember it, right?” you asked, yawning into the phone.
Shoko hummed. “Yeah, ‘course I do,” she replied, her voice a soft murmur. “You up for getting it?” she then asked after a beat of silence had passed. “I’m throwing a little get-together; Satoru’s here for once, Utahime said she might swing by.”
You blinked at your phone, pulling it away from you for a moment. It was late enough that it would start to get bright outside soon. “You moved?” you asked, letting slip another yawn.
“Yeah, took me all day,” she half laughed, “nowhere too fancy, just somewhere private. You coming?”
Something churned in your stomach, like a slow turn of unease that simmered within the depths. It wasn’t that it didn’t make sense for you, but the timing somehow seemed off, especially with how busy you knew everyone else was. Satoru was going to be taking some sort of exam that qualified him to teach, and Utahime was in a different city entirely.
Shoko noticed the pause.
“You there?” she asked.
You cleared your throat as soon as she did, nodding, before realising that she couldn’t see you. “Yeah, can do,” you replied, your voice hoarse but masked with a smile that made you sound warmer than you felt. You tried to convince yourself that it was maybe just a quiet thing, that she invited you out of convenience. “Want to text me the address?”
“Will do,” she said a little too quickly, hanging up the line before you had a chance to say goodbye.
You blinked into no direction in particular after that, trying to push that strange gut feeling out of your system, but it was something about the timing and the way she spoke that didn’t feel right.
But it must have been fine, because it was Shoko, and she wouldn’t ever do anything to make you upset.
Not her.
You ended up making a stop at a late-night convenience store on your way there, which was a bit further out than the one you’d usually go to. It was the same one that both you, Shoko, and Suguru would sneak off to while Satoru distracted Principal Yaga with some strange excuse. You’d present fake IDs together, pretending to be older and more mature than you all really were. You’d laugh as you’d walk quickly out of the joint, finding some shady bench to exchange sips of what the three of you could barely afford; something bitter and smoky that pretended to be wine, as you all masqueraded as being tipsy, even if it had just been a few gulps at best.
It felt bittersweet to buy it again, with a real ID that time, but it felt nostalgic to do so.
The building she moved into was older and worn around the edges. You almost didn’t find it as you navigated into a dodgy street you couldn’t even recognise. You checked the address a few times, hoping not to run into any sort of trouble. It seemed fine, technically, since in the end, you were where you were supposed to be; it was just that the signs on the street had rusted off, leaving the street perhaps recognisable only to those who lived on it. You shrugged it off for the time being, though, figuring that it was just a starter apartment and that everyone had to begin somewhere.
It wasn’t like it was too difficult to find her place, either. It looked just as she had described it; plain, if not forgettable. The music inside drew you in, sounding familiar and reminding you of simpler times. You remembered why now, recognising it as the song that she used to put on when it was just you two, when you were both being just teenage girls, all broody and quiet and lost in thought. The sort of song that played into the dead hours of the night on a loop, as you’d both fade in and out of sleep.
Still, something felt wrong. There was no chatter in the partially ajar door, no clinking of glasses, no laughter. Maybe Satoru had already left? Maybe Utahime was running late?
You pushed inside, even if something in your core made you hesitate. It smelled like stale moisture and old cigarettes. The walls were bare, and there was an absence of a light fixture, leaving a singular bulb dangling in the middle of the studio. The furniture was sparse, save for a futon pressed against the wall.
You held onto the bottle tightly as you walked in.
“Am I late?” you asked, looking around the unit.
Shoko sat by an open window, the pane pushed up with her arm dangling out of it with a cigarette pinched in between her fingers. She tilted her head outwards just far enough to exhale outside before leaning back in. Her voice came in as soft and reassuring, but not with an answer that you expected. “No,” she replied, “I invited just you.”
Your eyes twitched into an involuntary squint, blinking at her. You looked around once again, letting the unease settle a little deeper that time, beginning to welcome the suspicion you had initially felt.
“But you said…” you trailed off, your words thinning out halfway as you took in your surroundings and then the very state of her. “Shoko… are you okay?”
She simply smiled at you.
Was she okay? She thought about that answer for a moment, thinking that maybe you should have asked her that back then, when the pain was fresher. Maybe you did at some point, and maybe she ignored it, maybe you were both feeling the same type of way. She remembered pushing you away, just as she did with everyone else, but she also remembered how not everyone came back.
“I’m fine,” she lied, breaking the silence at last. “I just wanted to spend some time with you, that’s all.”
You nodded slowly, settling into the futon that wasn’t too far away from her, holding up a bottle with a sarcastic smile. “Got our old favourite,” you said, trying to push away from the fact that she lied to you about what this was, “think it’s as bad as we remember?”
Shoko smiled again, pushing herself off the window ledge. “One way to find out.”
You ended up drinking more than you needed to.
For you, it was a sense of obligation to soften the stiffness that had otherwise taken root in your body, making you feel more on edge than you should have been, failing to register that it was a genuine warning that radiated in your core. For Shoko, however, it was just easier that way. She had always been the heavier drinker, even though, oddly enough, every time she handed the bottle back to you, it felt just as full as it did before, like she wasn’t drinking with you, but just pretending to do so.
She was otherwise warm beside you, her shoulder brushing against yours, her body pushing into yours, making you feel grounded and looked out for, making you feel safe.
But still, you knew that this couldn’t last forever, and you had to go back to sleep soon.
So, you announced it, fumbling slightly with your words as you tried to voice your departure. “Well, I should get going,” you slurred, stretching your arms over your head, shaking off her hold on you, your eyes screwing shut, missing the way her eyes narrowed from you pushing her away.
You half expected her to protest just like she had always done; joking, fakely pleading for you to just stay for a little while longer as her fingers looped around your wrist, tugging you back, holding your hand to her face.
However, this time, she didn’t say anything.
Just fixing you with a calm smile.
You returned it, albeit nervously. “We can, um, go to the store tomorrow,” you tried to offer, promising her something to do together again, just in case it was loneliness she had been experiencing, “pick up some furniture or something, maybe a vegetable or two so you don’t just have booze filling out the fridge.”
She didn’t laugh with you; she didn’t even mirror your tense expression that begged her to reciprocate, that longed for her to offer you some comfort in what you refused to see in her.
It wasn’t quite malice, but it felt hostile, though not quite at the same time. Something about the way she had been acting simply just felt… deliberate.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment, as if she had to really think about an answer so simple, before slowly wrapping her arms around your waist from behind, pulling you back towards the futon, “we can do that together.”
You paused at the way she said it, the tone being too even, or rather, too calm for someone who should have been just as drunk as you.
“Because you’re not going back,” she added, her arms tightening around you as she noticed you tense up.
A snort escaped from your nose, believing that she was joking, because she had to have been. “What?” you asked, disbelief colouring your voice.
Her arms, however, didn’t loosen, and if anything, they tightened just a little bit more. Her voice sounded more sure that time, as if she had been rehearsing the correct way to bring it up to you, “I don’t want you to leave,” she said once more, her voice quiet and tired, “you’re always leaving, just like everyone else.”
You tried to turn in her arms, trying to meet her eyes to understand her, but all she did was press her face into your back, breathing in slowly. You sighed at the gesture, a small part of you trying to convince yourself that it could have just been nostalgia. That it was Shoko being sentimental over moving, that she was a tolerant drunk, so of course, she was still coherent. That it was all just fine.
“I’ll text you when I get home, yeah?” you offered instead, glancing at the door. “We can talk more often, I promise.”
You then parted from her, stepping towards the door.
She let you go that time.
You exhaled, finding relief that she wasn’t being weird anymore, but then your relief caught in your throat almost immediately, not being able to place when she must have done what she did.
The door was locked.
“Shoko?” you called out, your voice soft at first. It was a dodgy area, so she must have done so at some point, so nobody else could just waltz inside, but no response came.
You turned around to look at her when you didn’t hear an answer.
She was sitting now with her legs crossed and her posture upright, but with her head dipping to meet with her hands folded over her lap. Her eyes glistened with something that wasn’t quite tears, but something similar, glinting with something left unsaid. She swallowed thickly, trying to keep everything else under wraps for a little longer, as for what it was—it wasn’t clear—it could have been anything, from grief, to anger, to resentment, to even just complete and utter madness.
You brought up the issue again. “Shoko,” you said once more, sounding less confident that time. “Can you open the door?”
She said nothing.
You tried to laugh after that, but it came out as a strange sound that sounded shaky around the edges. “Okay…” you trailed off, forcing something to fill out the silence, your voice cracking ever so slightly. “You know how I get when people mess me around like this…”
And yet, there was still nothing.
You pulled at the door handle, trying to see if it was something obvious, but the door remained almost sealed shut. It wouldn’t budge, let alone shake loose.
All you could do was sigh and take a deep breath as you pulled back. A part of you expected her to dangle the keys for you, ready to throw them your way, maybe laughing at you when you stumbled to catch them, but no such interaction came. All that changed was that her head was no longer dipping forward, but was in line with her posture that time. Her dark eyes blinked in line with yours, locking onto your concerned gaze as soon as you made the connection. You blinked back as she did, searching for an answer, and yet in her vacant depths, you found none.
And though her lips parted to move, the words that left her mouth were not the ones you were expecting to hear. As clear as day and sounding oh so very sober, she addressed you smoothly, “I’m not teasing you,” she denied, “nor am I messing around,” she then added, pausing, waiting for you to connect the dots that she had laid out for you. “I just don’t want you to leave.”
You swallowed hard again, the lump in your throat feeling heavier that time. You felt the dread travel through your system, anchoring in your gut like an unwelcome weight. You could only stand there as you were trapped between confusion and concern, maybe teetering on the edge of betrayal, as you tried to piece together just what exactly she had lured you into.
“It’s all going to change again,” she murmured in a voice so low that you had to take a step forward just to catch what she was saying. “I’ll be working at the med bay, away from everything—everyone else, and you’ll be freelancing, like you said,” she trailed off, sounding more and more bitter with each parted word, “Satoru’s going to be a teacher, so’s Utahime, just further away. Mei Mei’s going private… and Suguru…”
“Hey, hey, hey…” you tried to talk her down, unsure of whether you were supposed to be more concerned that she was going to do something to herself or you. “My hours might be flexible – I might still see you often enough.”
“Won’t be like before though,” she shook her head, “my hours are looking long.”
You stepped forward again, trying to stay calm even as your voice slurred noticeably now. If it was uncertainty that she was feeling, then you understood that. “Yeah, but…” you tried again, “that’s what we all trained for, right?”
Shoko shook her head once more, slower this time. “I don’t know,” she said softly, “maybe I’m starting to see what Suguru meant.”
The words hit you harder than you expected, cutting through your alcohol-addled mind like ice in your heart. Something about the cold clarity in her tone left you feeling even more uneasy, like this had been something she was thinking about before, if not for a long time.
You could only blink. “Shoko?”
She didn’t answer right away, her eyes focused on the bottle. You followed her gaze and noticed something on the floor, like a fine dusting of powder pressed into the rim of the bottle and crushed onto the floorboards.
Before you could say anything else, she shifted on the futon, dragging her foot along the floor and wiping the rim with her sleeve to smear away the coat of whatever it was that had been left behind.
“Must’ve been the cigarette ashes,” she brainstormed, hoping to lull you in with a lie that your intoxicated mind would deem reasonable enough.
You laughed, thinking it had to have been a joke, but it came out more as a scoff. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“I’ll take care not to spill that stuff inside,” she muttered, flicking her eyes towards the window.
“You know what I meant,” you just about nearly snapped before taking a deep breath, forcing yourself to calm down. “I mean, you know what he did. So why would you go and say something like that?”
She looked at you, but this time, unlike all of the timers before, there was not a single hint of warmth behind her eyes. Her gaze was flat and drained, as if something in her had finally shut down, leaving behind a shell of who she once was.
Still, she smiled again. That part felt familiar enough: the smile that had always comforted you. It was wise of her to use it now, just when you needed something familiar. Something that felt safe. Something that wouldn’t arouse the wrong suspicions again. She had already been on thin ice with you all night, and she seemed almost disappointed that you weren’t succumbing to something, but you weren’t sure what. Maybe she expected you to crash the night at hers, that seemed to be the look she gave you when you started protesting at the door, but no, it had to have been something else.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just wanted company,” she assured a second time. She then reached for you, almost cautiously, her fingers brushing against yours so softly that you almost pulled away from the chill she had left behind.
“You can give me that,” she murmured, “a bit of company for a bit longer?”
You hesitated, but then nodded slowly, trying to understand what it was that she was truly doing. “Of course,” you replied carefully, “just don’t say things like that again. I’m still not over—“
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, nodding again, but beyond that, she said nothing, allowing the silence to stretch for far too long and then settle between you both again.
When she finally looked away, it wasn’t guilt that made up her expression but something much more bitter than that. It seemed to curdle everything else within her, leaving something sour behind that you couldn’t quite place.
Curling up on the futon beside her, you decided to let it go. The seating was a bit stiff, maybe lumpy, but you didn’t comment on that, just letting the exhaustion of the night take you under. You couldn’t think of anything else anymore, your mind running blanks. Maybe this piece came with the apartment as a starter piece, and you could fix up something better together. You’d only just gotten your summer salary, but so had she, so maybe you both could work together to get a real bed, or a sofa that converted into one.
For now, though, it would do.
She rested her head on your shoulder as you leaned back, your eyes fluttering shut as you tried to focus on the dimly lit ceiling. Your vision tilted, and the room swung back and forth, still flooded with cheap booze. A night of sleep and some painkillers washed down by lots and lots of water would do the trick.
Another memory came flooding back, making you shudder at how bad you all used to feel. You remembered how Satoru would shake his head and tell you that’s exactly what to expect from drinking poison, trying to feed you something healthy while the three of you shuffled, just about half dead in a zombie state, to the nearest fast food joint to get the greasiest thing into your stomachs as fast as possible.
Sleep was just right around the corner, and you felt warm with all of these thoughts swimming around in your mind, but then she just about caught you right as you were about to slip away into the early hours of dawn.
“Do you think I’m wrong for doing this?” she asked you.
Your breath caught as you tried to search for a response, yawning it out in a hoarse, exhausted voice, “Doing what?”
She didn’t respond, leaving you wondering if she had ever said anything at all.
“Shoko?” you asked just to be sure.
All she did was hum, acknowledging you, but not exactly answering you all the same.
“For not letting you go,” she replied, her voice calm.
“You’re saying strange things again,” you murmured, feeling your eyes droop closed again.
Shoko smiled, her voice shifting into something playful, but sounding a little off beat. “Of course I am.”
Your consciousness drifted, almost involuntarily so. You felt sluggish and strange, tired, but at the same time erratic. Shoko, on the other hand, wasn’t fading away the same way you were, and watched you with an almost eerie calmness, as if waiting for something specific to happen.
“I mean, maybe I messed it up today,” she murmured, brushing her fingertips along your cheek and then across your scalp, her motions soothing and soft, “but I’ll figure it out next time.”
Your voice was hardly there anymore. “Figure what out?”
She half scoffed, half laughed. “Remember how I cheated to get the conventional degree in medicine?” she smiled, asking you something that she wasn’t expecting you to answer, watching you drift off properly that time. “It wasn’t just a placeholder; I did actually pay attention to some parts of it.”
You hummed, already twitching off into a deep sleep.
“You’d be surprised just what sorts of things can go undetected,” she said, continuing to run her hands up and down your body in a gentle, almost loving caress, “miscalculated dosages and that sort of thing.”
Shoko laughed to herself as she watched your body break into a series of deep breaths and exhales, humming quietly to herself as if satisfied with something minimal. Though she tilted her head, nudging you gently just to make sure of something.
“You awake?” she probed.
You didn’t respond, but she waited around just in case, but after about a minute or two had passed, there wasn’t as much as a murmur or a nod or anything of the sort.
So instead, she nodded to herself, seeming satisfied—for now—leaning in to press a kiss against your temple, holding her lips in place for longer than what was necessary.
“Well,” she spoke up again, more to herself than you, “sleep tight.”
She then pulled back, settling you right over her lap, smiling genuinely that time. Right before closing her eyes, she whispered something to you that felt more like a threat than a promise:
“Next time I’ll get the dose right, and then you won’t be able to even make it to the door, let alone leave me.”