Chapter four: Dandelion

Dandelion's symbolism is benign. Dandelions are seen as a weed, but they are resilient, they rebel against those that don't like them and keep growing anyways. In another life Yuuji didn't see beauty in them in the same way he does now. He looks at patches of grass and dandelions in the otherwise gray sidewalk and feels content. Right now the flower is a cheery yellow. Yuuji likes it and smiles.

He's been making lists lately, a whole lot of them. He makes a grocery list instead of grandpa, a list of his favorite colors, names of actors that have yet to debut, comics and even one about the list he could make. He doesn't do much apart from that, but he feels a sort of calm categorizing the things he sees.

Dandelions are on top of the "flowers I want in my funeral". He thinks that maybe it's not the best idea to do a list about that, but sometimes when he sleeps he sees visions of his grave, his grave in the future. Or well, dreams of it, because there's people weeping around his grave everytime he sees it.

The point is, he's been trying to be…more stable? Less emotionally wrecked? More connected with who he is right now…?

He honestly doesn't know why he even bothers. 

(Yet, he still hides little trinkets he finds pretty and buys on impulse in a small little box under his bed. Tucking them away as if those little joys should not be seen. He doesn't know that his grandfather knows, doesn't question why he gives him more money than before and that sometimes they go walking around the city.)

But his grandpa has been lately into gardening. He would invite Yuuji to kneel to the ground and run his hands in the cold dark earth to proceed to talk about "how when he was young I wanted to be a gardener! And I even told your great grandma I wanted to be a maple tree!"

He's the reason he's been looking at flower seeds, actually. He promised him that if he helped plant herbs and some spices he could choose something to plant. The thought, oddly lingered on.

Then Satoru finally popped out from wherever he was hiding, crouching in front of him. "Whatcha looking at?"

Yuuji, who was sitting on the floor of a public library, just extended the book he was reading. "See yourself"

"I can see just fine, doesn't mean I can understand why a brat would be reading a botany book"

"It's not botany, well, not really. It's  a hanakotoba book"

Satoru, who can't sit properly, shrugs. "It seems the same for me. But I'm interested in why you're interested in plants. Is it an assignment? Oh, I know! You are planning to confess to someone with the perfect flower!"

"No, no and no," Yuuji says, already exasperated and as if he hadn't missed this insufferable man in the two weeks he was gone. Then he smiled as he prepared to talk. "My grandpa wants me to pick gardening and he wants me to choose something to plant. But I want it to… I don't know, have some meaning? I don't want to plant something that looks pretty but its meaning isn't."

He can feel Satoru's piercing stare from behind his sunglasses. The man sits properly beside Yuuji, ignoring the looks thrown their way by people passing by. He looks like a man that actually has his shit together, even if he's not. He finally takes the book from the boy's hands and goes through some pages. He stops on one specific page. 

"Uh, didn't know that dogwood meant this." He turns to face the boy. "Kid, I'm not sure why you want it to have meaning. Isn't a flower pretty on its own?"

"I guess."

"Look, it's okay that things have no meaning or to not know the meaning. Meanings and beauty are man made concepts, after all. Sometimes we want things to mean something that is not" His voice didn't seem completely on it, at some point his gaze returned to the page he was looking at, grazing it with his fingers.

"What does dogwood mean?" He asks curiously.

The man startles, eyebrows going up. Then they go down and it's as if a wall has been put up. "Nothing, a silly thing. A friend once gave me some flowers from a dogwood tree as a gift. I thought he was being silly and telling me I was a dog or something stupid like that. Look, I'll help you find a pretty flower and even buy you some seeds, but we have to get going. Too much work to do"

"Okay"

And work they did. Yuuji felt constantly tired, and eventually had to tell his grandpa about the nice young man that taught him how to fight. His grandpa was happy, he thinks. He wasn't sure until the old man made a point in inviting Satoru for dinner, though the man had declined because something had 'come up' at work.

"What a pity that he couldn't come." He commented on the night of the dinner. "He seemed like a nice young man on the phone. And god knows that a man that can make you put that much work into something is exceptional."

"Grandpa! I work plenty" He had pouted.

"Yes, just not on the things you might actually like." He frets, looking at Yuuji with a worried look that was rarely on his face. "You've always been a good boy, though lately you've been…down. I was really scared something had happened at school. You rarely talk about it anymore"

The not boy looks stunned and lets out an easy laugh. (Sometimes it's really easy) "I'm fine, just been a little distracted lately. I don't think my friends like me very much"

Grandpa sighs. "So that 's it. I'm not saying it's not bad that you think your friends don't like you, it's just that you can find better friends. Yuuji, you're a good kid and too kind for your own good; people see that and want to ruin it, believe me, it happened to your father"

"To my dad?"

"Yes, he…he had some unsavory company"

He's probably talking about his mother. Not that he could blame him.

"Okay. Grandpa, I couldn't reach the dogwood page on the hanakotoba book you recommended to me" More like, the book was unceremoniously shoved on its shelf and Satoru took his wrist and ran to continue training. "What does it mean?"

Grandpa's whole face lights up. "Oh! It has such a pretty meaning. I think it is something like, a love that survives adversity. I also saw some other interpretations that meant: ' am I indifferent to you?' It has such romantic undertones, though. Why do you ask? Planning on choosing that one?"

Yuuji blinks and slowly processes the meanings. "Yeah…I think I will"

Sorcerers do not give birth to curses. It is not discutible. Or at least it should be. Though, Gojo Satoru is not so sure anymore. It is what's been swimming on his head since that day he fell under the cursed technique of a young sorcerer boy that did not know what was possible in this world and what was not.

That technique…he thought he was going crazy, he could feel his own energy leaking from his body and trying to find something, something or someone to curse. If he hadn't realized it would have been catastrophic. He couldn't imagine a curse born of himself. Couldn't and wouldn't, as he managed to crush the entity before it would be even born. 

Taking a shaky breath he reminded himself that it wasn't Yuuji's fault, no matter that it was his technique. He didn't sense insincerity when he made him promise to not use it anymore. After his little disappearing act he had been researching for other uses of cursed energy that he could teach the boy. He knows the boy will need it. 

Satoru swears to himself that he doesn't like that brat anyways, but even to himself sounds weak. Ha, he's really losing it.