I could list all the reasons why I am invisible.

And still, it would not be enough. Because the more I think on it, the more I gaze upon that void in my chest, stored in the centre, in the cage between my ribs, the more I realise the truth. I am invisible.

Forgotten Shoko Ieiri. It ought to seem amusing to me. It was always like this, since I was a little girl, since I was a teenager at Jujutsu Tech and nothing seemed to matter more than a lighter and a box of cheap cigarettes. I was always invisible. It was always so.

And I thought I had a home between two people who, in silence, showed me the crude reality: I did not belong to their world, and I never would.

The clock advanced with its unreachable hands, each sound emitting the anxiety of an erratic heartbeat, of a stabbing haemorrhage... of a lost life.

The hospital was chaos. A multi-vehicle collision on a street had brought in the injured, the dead, and patients in a state of complete emergency in less than thirty minutes.

Shoko Ieiri felt like having a smoke. "The holidays are the worst time of year," she would murmur to the sky, as if speaking to her two best friends from her teenage years.

But those two had died as well, hadn't they? They had left life on different paths, with different purposes, but bleeding the same crimson red that now stained the streets.

Christmas Day is haunted.

I try not to care. It's easier to pretend that's the case than to give explanations, to admit the reason behind everything I feel.

I watch everyone around me die. Everyone who was ever a part of my life. I watched them all die. I did nothing to stop it, to halt it. They just... died. And neither I, nor my Reverse Cursed Technique, could bring them back.

But the problem started when I was young, you know? I was never special, even though I always acted calm, as if I couldn't be bothered. I was. Oh, I really was. So much.

I never had enough power to accompany Gojo or Geto on their difficult missions. I was never on their level. Never. I just patched up their scrapes and tried to explain to them how to do what I did, with my 'woosh and zap' so they'd understand. But I was never on their level. Never.

I used to mooch around Jujutsu Tech and hang about with the first-year students, Nanami and Haibara, to pass the time while the other two were off elsewhere. But I wasn't on their level either, I couldn't stay. I didn't fit. I never fit in anywhere.

At night, I'd cry silently, so no one could hear me. I tried, with great difficulty, to create and map out a future where I could help others, and the answer showed itself to me as a white coat, a stethoscope, and a medical diploma. I felt so useless, because I was always an extra in someone else's story. Everyone had the spotlight on Suguru and Satoru, as if I didn't matter. Because I never did, really. People had to look over both their shoulders just to see me.

I was never special. Never.

One afternoon, walking through the streets of Tokyo, I saw a teenage girl my age, far too pretty and perfect, having a fag. I knew all there was to know about it and the consequences, that it was an addiction. But giving it a go seemed a better idea than the endless sleepless nights, the headaches, and the blocks in my jujutsu techniques.

It seemed a better idea than looking at myself naked in the mirror and seeing that my skin didn't quite fit my muscles and bones. It seemed a better idea than feeling the pain that came with healing and watching those I cared about die. It seemed a better idea than living in a reality with nothing to hold onto, because no one was there to help me keep from falling.

Except nicotine. Fags. The smoke. The lighters. Inhaling that drug and letting it fill my lungs, ease my mind, and relax me for at least a few minutes before returning to this shit world.

And that's how I started to separate from the low self-concept I had to cross over into the realm of: "I can't be arsed" and keep on living. But it still broke me a bit on the inside, unconsciously.

And I don't blame Haibara for this, he was like a piece of sunshine on Earth and he didn't deserve to die. I personally tried, in vain, to give him a spark of life like all those times he'd made me laugh in the past, when he was alive. I couldn't. I also covered what was left of his corpse in the same cold morgue.

And I don't blame Amanai for this, I only knew her corpse and memories that weren't even mine. She seemed like an angel; she didn't deserve to die either. Yes, I repeated that to myself as I covered her corpse in the morgue.

And I don't blame Geto for this, he had his own problems too and I would never have been strong enough to talk him down. Even knowing what he was doing was wrong, I supported him. After everything, even though I wasn't his friend and didn't matter to him, he did matter to me. And I told him, ash falling to the floor, I told him I cared about him, as I covered his body with another white sheet.

And I don't blame Nanami for this, I was fond of him. He was the only person who used his brain in this jujutsu world, and I was even happy for him when he quit. But the only thing he did wrong was come back. Yes, that was the only wrong thing, I repeated to myself as the fag moved between my lips while I exhaled and covered what was left of him with another white sheet.

And I don't blame Gojo either, even though he was a prat. Even as my footsteps echo on the white ceramic tiles and I contemplate his corpse on one of my cold slabs... No, I can't blame him.

Even when my technique makes the parts of his body join back together to form what they once were. No, I can't blame him. No matter how all the memories and the loneliness come back at once, second after second in that morgue... I can't blame him. And I couldn't either when my tears rolled down my cheeks and splashed onto Gojo's pale skin, nor when my sobs became loud enough to echo. No, I couldn't. I can't blame him.

And I could never blame any of them, in that cold, lifeless place, in that morgue where they all ended up after performing great deeds for the world. I could never blame them, no matter how hurt I was, because they all left without returning and forgot to take me with them, leaving me more alone than before...

And no, I couldn't blame a single one. Even if I was just a waystation, someone nobody cared about. I had to learn to live with ghosts, because I couldn't manage to become one of them.

author's note: instead of "gege, when i catch you gege", this feels like: "brooke, when i catch you brooke", hahaha 😭. sorry, guys. i swear, it was very necessary.

⋆.𐙚 ̊ this was for you, my love, @will-0-w.