She thinks it should have a bigger impact on me, but...dying in some terrible, gruesome way is just kind of part and parcel for jujutsu sorcerers. I always tell my students it's impossible that they'll die without regrets...that's just how it is for us.
I explained that to her, but it's like she was looking for something that isn't there.
[ Or that's buried so deep, he doesn't even know how to recognize it. ]
Well, yes, those types of magicks do exist, but I wouldn't say it's more common for adventurers to come back from the dead than it is for them to not come back at all. Living as an adventurer probably isn't too much different than it is living as a jujutsu sorcerer.
There are things out there that can banish you to planes unknown with a thought, that can drag you into the deepest pits of the nine hells while you're still alive, or erase the memories of your existence from the minds of everyone you've ever known. Hells, there's things out there that can just look at you and tell you to die and you would simply do it, if they were powerful enough.
All this to say that Mina deals with people who share your lifestyle on a daily basis. She opens her inn and her heart to them, and welcomes them with warmth and compassion because she can't ever give anything less than her all, and sometimes they leave and simply don't ever come back. Or worse, their companions come back without them, and she has to see the looks on their faces, hear their tales, watch them mourn, and try not to burst into tears while manning the counter. She carries those moments with her, always.
So I don't think she doesn't understand what kind of dangers you face. I think she understands too well, and it scares her to see that you don't seem to care whether you live or die. She cares about you.
You have to prepare yourself for the worst, I get that, but if you can't promise to fight, to care, then every time she sees you, she's going to see a ticking clock. One more person she'll invite into her life who won't come back.
[ ...For a moment, he's uncharacteristically quiet, reflective, as Winter offers him clarity he hadn't been able to glimpse on his own, and perhaps that's simply because Satoru has never been a guest at the Elderflower Inn. He's only seen Sumina through the lens of this vacation, rather than what her day-to-day entails back home, and...no, he hadn't thought about it like that.
His hands lace over his middle, the bag of crisps forgotten for the moment as he tips his glance towards Winter. One more person she'll invite into her life who won't come back. ]
It's not so much that I don't care that I live or die. Like, shit, I don't wanna die, that'd be super inconvenient. It's just... [ His hands separate so he can lift one to look at the light filtering in from the window through his fingers. ] It's not like I can just...be killed. Even my worst enemies decided to seal me, instead of kill me, because they knew they couldn't pull it off.
[ He's as close to immortal as a jujutsu sorcerer can get. He's been desensitized to the impact of death, his own included. How does he give meaning back to that? Does he even want to? ]
[ It’s pretty telling, actually, that Satoru chooses to call dying “inconvenient” and not something like “horrible” or “tragic.” Winter is well aware of just how strong the man is, he watched it firsthand as he ascended to a power the likes of which his world has scarcely seen, but that's just it, isn’t it? That’s where he’d rather focus – on the strength he gained rather than the moment of weakness that put him on that path. ]
Untouchable doesn’t mean invincible, Satoru. Don’t forget they already killed you once. Just because you came back from it doesn’t mean you’ll be so lucky a second time.
That’s the thing about failure: you learn from it. They sealed you away, yes, but if you’re as dangerous as you say, they must know that’s not a permanent solution. There’s no telling what you’ll come back to find.
[ He heaves a sigh, reaching up to comb his fingers through his hair. ]
Not to say I doubt your abilities but… I think you’ve become so desensitized to your own situation that you don’t realize how it comes off. You say you don’t want to die, but not wanting to die and wanting to live are two very different things.
[ It's not easy for him to grasp, his own self-assurance getting in the way of his already stunted empathy, and if Winter hadn't added those last words, maybe it wouldn't have started to click at all. If his enemies can learn from their mistakes, then so can he, and he's already proven how those who cross him, those who try to kill him wind up. He will come back from it, stronger than ever. He doesn't want to die. He can't die.
Yet when was the last time he asked himself if he wanted to live? That should be more than implied by the opposite being false, but it isn't. It's sticky, slow, like a pit of quicksand that he sinks further into the more he struggles away from it. Why does that bother him? Of course he wants to live.
Of course he does. ]
I... [ No, he doesn't quite have the bluster to rebuff that, lost in his own thoughts as he is. ] That sounds like the same thing to me.
[ He isn't insisting that it is, though. Just that he can't pick apart the difference. ]
[ Not everyone has grasped that nuance. It’s something Winter has explained to his patron before, a being so out of touch with humanity that they could not grasp that not wanting to die was not enough to spur Winter to accept their deal – he wanted to live, too. ]
You said it yourself. Dying would be “inconvenient.” Why? Because it would get in the way of you being the strongest or taking on curses? Those don’t sound like things to live for. They’re just reasons you’re alive.
But what keeps you there? Good or bad, what occupies your thoughts? What do you see when you close your eyes and think “I have to make it to tomorrow, if only just for this”?
[ Things to live for, instead of reasons he's alive...
That it's something he can't answer right away is telling enough, and it...chafes, to realize as much, to confront so plainly just how muddled and messy his own humanity is. Perhaps Winter is more well-adjusted than most, but Satoru would wager that most people could pinpoint easily what they're living for. Their passions, their family, their friends...and yet here he is, a man who could hold the world in the palm of his hand and crush it if he so chose. A man who has lived under constant thread of danger and death since the moment he was born, to the point where even staying here has been a shock to his system.
A man who is experiencing real, genuine human connection in ways he hasn't in ten long years.
It's not so unlike that fateful question Suguru had once asked him. If he's alive to be the strongest...then what is he living for? What is Gojo Satoru living for?
He closes his eyes, as Winter advises, exhaling through his nose. ]
For my students. For them to have a better tomorrow than today.
[ ...though for the first time in a very long time, he realizes...that isn't all he wants to live for. That doesn't quite cover it. ]
[ For Winter, alone and dying in the depths of an abandoned temple, his reason for living had been revenge, plain and simple. Things to live for don't have to be good, but with those moments a decade behind him, he's discovered that the good things are much more worthwhile. He can only hope that his time at the hotel, around people who care about him, Satoru has begun to learn that as well.
That it takes him a while to answer is indeed telling, but it's not something Winter is here to judge him for. They're picking apart the tangled mess of Satoru's humanity piece by careful piece. Time is essential to the process, as is a gentle hand.
When an answer finally comes, Winter smiles softly, something knowing in that pale gaze. To live for one's students, for the next generation, is admirable. It speaks to how much his friend actually cares about his duty as a teacher, where his flippant attitude might say otherwise.
But he also knows what — or who — spurred this conversation in the first place. ]
[ It isn't everything. Even back home, it wasn't always everything, but his relationships, his time had been sacrificed to his jujutsu, to his missions, his students. He has Nanami, he has Shoko, yet even the time he can spend with them is always about sorcery, too. About work, about their livelihoods, about the sacrifices they have to make, the pieces of themselves they carve away in the process.
...So much of his time here has been so different. It's challenged his self-perception in quiet ways, many of which he's only just realizing, many others he hasn't realized yet. Acknowledging this might seem like a small thing, but for someone like him, it's monumental.
His smile slants. ]
You already know the answer to that, don't you?
[ His reason to live...oh. Oh, that's...soul-searing, a hand gripping his heart, both straining and warm at once. ]
I guess the rest of you guys are alright, too. Wouldn't want to make your handsome face all puffy and splotchy if I died on you.
[ His already knowing look turns moreso at that, lips lifting in a smirk. That's a yes without having to say as much, and instead he rises from his chair to offer Satoru a hand up — though if he's allowed, he'll pull his friend into a hug, too, brief but warm. ]
If you die on me, Satoru Gojo, I'll kill you.
[ Grim as it is, the sentiment is punctuated with a laugh. He pulls away to pat Satoru on the shoulder. ]
Now, I believe there's someone you should apologize to, isn't there? Someone who should probably also hear she's one of your reasons for living, hm?
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no subject
She thinks it should have a bigger impact on me, but...dying in some terrible, gruesome way is just kind of part and parcel for jujutsu sorcerers. I always tell my students it's impossible that they'll die without regrets...that's just how it is for us.
I explained that to her, but it's like she was looking for something that isn't there.
[ Or that's buried so deep, he doesn't even know how to recognize it. ]
no subject
I wonder... do you know much of what it's like to be an adventurer in Mina's and my world?
no subject
[ So, shouldn't that mean she should understand all the more why it wasn't that big of a concern to him? That he simply...moved on, because he had to?
Nothing good would come from dwelling on his own brush with death. ]
no subject
There are things out there that can banish you to planes unknown with a thought, that can drag you into the deepest pits of the nine hells while you're still alive, or erase the memories of your existence from the minds of everyone you've ever known. Hells, there's things out there that can just look at you and tell you to die and you would simply do it, if they were powerful enough.
All this to say that Mina deals with people who share your lifestyle on a daily basis. She opens her inn and her heart to them, and welcomes them with warmth and compassion because she can't ever give anything less than her all, and sometimes they leave and simply don't ever come back. Or worse, their companions come back without them, and she has to see the looks on their faces, hear their tales, watch them mourn, and try not to burst into tears while manning the counter. She carries those moments with her, always.
So I don't think she doesn't understand what kind of dangers you face. I think she understands too well, and it scares her to see that you don't seem to care whether you live or die. She cares about you.
You have to prepare yourself for the worst, I get that, but if you can't promise to fight, to care, then every time she sees you, she's going to see a ticking clock. One more person she'll invite into her life who won't come back.
no subject
His hands lace over his middle, the bag of crisps forgotten for the moment as he tips his glance towards Winter. One more person she'll invite into her life who won't come back. ]
It's not so much that I don't care that I live or die. Like, shit, I don't wanna die, that'd be super inconvenient. It's just... [ His hands separate so he can lift one to look at the light filtering in from the window through his fingers. ] It's not like I can just...be killed. Even my worst enemies decided to seal me, instead of kill me, because they knew they couldn't pull it off.
[ He's as close to immortal as a jujutsu sorcerer can get. He's been desensitized to the impact of death, his own included. How does he give meaning back to that? Does he even want to? ]
no subject
Untouchable doesn’t mean invincible, Satoru. Don’t forget they already killed you once. Just because you came back from it doesn’t mean you’ll be so lucky a second time.
That’s the thing about failure: you learn from it. They sealed you away, yes, but if you’re as dangerous as you say, they must know that’s not a permanent solution. There’s no telling what you’ll come back to find.
[ He heaves a sigh, reaching up to comb his fingers through his hair. ]
Not to say I doubt your abilities but… I think you’ve become so desensitized to your own situation that you don’t realize how it comes off. You say you don’t want to die, but not wanting to die and wanting to live are two very different things.
no subject
Yet when was the last time he asked himself if he wanted to live? That should be more than implied by the opposite being false, but it isn't. It's sticky, slow, like a pit of quicksand that he sinks further into the more he struggles away from it. Why does that bother him? Of course he wants to live.
Of course he does. ]
I... [ No, he doesn't quite have the bluster to rebuff that, lost in his own thoughts as he is. ] That sounds like the same thing to me.
[ He isn't insisting that it is, though. Just that he can't pick apart the difference. ]
no subject
[ Not everyone has grasped that nuance. It’s something Winter has explained to his patron before, a being so out of touch with humanity that they could not grasp that not wanting to die was not enough to spur Winter to accept their deal – he wanted to live, too. ]
You said it yourself. Dying would be “inconvenient.” Why? Because it would get in the way of you being the strongest or taking on curses? Those don’t sound like things to live for. They’re just reasons you’re alive.
But what keeps you there? Good or bad, what occupies your thoughts? What do you see when you close your eyes and think “I have to make it to tomorrow, if only just for this”?
no subject
That it's something he can't answer right away is telling enough, and it...chafes, to realize as much, to confront so plainly just how muddled and messy his own humanity is. Perhaps Winter is more well-adjusted than most, but Satoru would wager that most people could pinpoint easily what they're living for. Their passions, their family, their friends...and yet here he is, a man who could hold the world in the palm of his hand and crush it if he so chose. A man who has lived under constant thread of danger and death since the moment he was born, to the point where even staying here has been a shock to his system.
A man who is experiencing real, genuine human connection in ways he hasn't in ten long years.
It's not so unlike that fateful question Suguru had once asked him. If he's alive to be the strongest...then what is he living for? What is Gojo Satoru living for?
He closes his eyes, as Winter advises, exhaling through his nose. ]
For my students. For them to have a better tomorrow than today.
[ ...though for the first time in a very long time, he realizes...that isn't all he wants to live for. That doesn't quite cover it. ]
no subject
That it takes him a while to answer is indeed telling, but it's not something Winter is here to judge him for. They're picking apart the tangled mess of Satoru's humanity piece by careful piece. Time is essential to the process, as is a gentle hand.
When an answer finally comes, Winter smiles softly, something knowing in that pale gaze. To live for one's students, for the next generation, is admirable. It speaks to how much his friend actually cares about his duty as a teacher, where his flippant attitude might say otherwise.
But he also knows what — or who — spurred this conversation in the first place. ]
Is that everything?
no subject
...So much of his time here has been so different. It's challenged his self-perception in quiet ways, many of which he's only just realizing, many others he hasn't realized yet. Acknowledging this might seem like a small thing, but for someone like him, it's monumental.
His smile slants. ]
You already know the answer to that, don't you?
[ His reason to live...oh. Oh, that's...soul-searing, a hand gripping his heart, both straining and warm at once. ]
I guess the rest of you guys are alright, too. Wouldn't want to make your handsome face all puffy and splotchy if I died on you.
no subject
If you die on me, Satoru Gojo, I'll kill you.
[ Grim as it is, the sentiment is punctuated with a laugh. He pulls away to pat Satoru on the shoulder. ]
Now, I believe there's someone you should apologize to, isn't there? Someone who should probably also hear she's one of your reasons for living, hm?