cityboys

first love late spring

miraj

Frustrated that however kind, however pretty, however funny and however perfect for Yuuji someone is, it won’t ever matter because they were doomed the moment they decided to knock at his heart after someone else has built a home out of it.

(If you have reservations about reading this because you are not familiar with the source material, don't be hesitant. You could change only the names of the characters and this would be a seperate entity of its own. You can read it and understand it and let it break you just fine even if you have never read a single line of Jujutsu Kaisen)

I never knew that the best piece of written media I have ever consumed in my entire life would be a 111k word College Alternate Universe fanfic about these two boys in a shounen anime/manga series, but here we are.

Listen, I figured I was going to be absolutely crushed by the first few pages alone, both by the contents of the story and by its writing, but what really sold me was the "sweater" sequence that opens and narrates most of chapter 2.

How, while looking back to try and figure out where exactly was the breaking point in what led to the events of the book, Fushiguro goes as far back as the vanishing of his sweater from the hardwood of Itadori's aparment. How, throughout this opening we are immersed into the first glimmers of their relationship and are lulled into a false sense of security—and how, just with a single sentence at the nine tenth of the sequence, the rug is pulled underneath us. How, it guts us and twists the knife for good measure with a single sentence. How, we come to the same conclusion as Megumi does in that instance.

That part is very consistent, the "coming to the same conclusions as whoever is narrating the story" part. I feel like I understand everyone, no word left unsaid is unexplained, no touch withdrawn out of character. It felt like, through the entirety of this book (because it is a book, it has far trancended just being FanFiction), that I was seeing through the minds of the characters. Like I could see their wiring, understand them wholly, feel their loneliness like it were mine. Like if I could reach behind the screen, I could fix it all. Like I would want to.

This truly and honestly broke me more than a couple of times. I am months late to this, eight to be exact, but I am glad I still found it. It feels dramatic, and maybe it is, but it did truly change my life. I cannot believe I found something so precious, in general and to me, and that it is free for my enjoyment. I cannot fathom the effect it had on me, how many times I cried because Yuuji just acted too much like me or how many breaks I had to take because it was too real. I don't know, and possibly will never know or understand how someone can write something so objectively beautiful and so subjectively characteristic.

Through my breakdowns on twitter I somehow managed to persuade (rather unknowingly) two of my friends who never even watched the Anime and don't know who anyone is to read this fic, which makes two out of three who I have convinced over all. Will they take the same things out of is as I did, highly doubtful. Will it be any lesser even if it is different, remains to be seen. Thank you, for you writing this, for whatever higher power made me found it. I truly do owe this body of text so much, the amount of words I have written for it seem lacking.

first love late spring

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