Jujutsu Disk

Chapter Two: Husk

A tall man stands before an apartment door. His white hair whisps in every direction and his piercing blue eyes hide behind a pair of shades despite the fact he's indoors. He was well put together in a careless way which made him stick out like a sore thumb here. The paint is peeling and stained. The carpet in the halls was discolored and littered with blotches of dark brown. Did someone spill their groceries? Did someone forget the restroom? Did someone die? The halls smelled rancid enough they might as well have. He looks around in near disgust as he hesitantly knocked on the door. He wipes his hand on his pants as if the door was covered in a thick layer of goopy sludge he had to wipe off before it burned him. A man opens the door. His eyes are bulging and shiny, his face dressed in wrinkles. A sorry sight for most.

"Choso! Is that you?" Scrimbles exclaims as he throws the door open, almost smacking his white-haired visitor in the face as he does. His face falls when he realizes who is at his door.

"Sorry, it's just me"

"Gojo....why are you here?" Scrimbles looks confused and almost surprised. Losing his second son was the worst thing that has ever happened to him, it's taken a lot out of him and it's reflected in his dark circles.

"You required my services to find your disk?" Gojo adjusts his glasses and takes a brief look around as Scrimbles invites him inside. "My disk!" Scrimbles exclaims, remembering that he lost it. "My JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders Original OST Vinyl Soundtrack with Enhanced Audio..." His voice trailed off. "Can I get you anything to drink?" Scrimbles asked as he wandered into the kitchen.

"Nah, I think I'm good," Gojo calls out, taking a moment to look around at Scrimble's living space. Everything was in disarray. The kitchen table was cluttered with papers and what looked like several books' worth of manic rambling, something about goats for pages and pages. The handwriting looked frantic; it was messy and spilled across the page barely legible. The place reeked of alcohol and damp basement that clung to Gojo's lungs and throat like thick goopy sludge. With clutter there usually is accompanied a form of soul, a busyness that makes the house lived in. The clutter in Scrimble's house was devoid of any personality, any soul that might possibly inhabit a lived-in home. This apartment was as empty as the man himself. This is the apartment of a man who has truly lost it all, a man so engulfed by despair he has sunken to the very depths of hell and instead of fighting back, he let it swallow him.

"Damn, you live like this?" Scrimbles returned with another can of beer in his hand. "You know how it's been since the divorce, Gojo" The divorce, it always boiled down to the divorce. Scrimbles based all of his issues on the divorce. Since Suguru let him, especially since he took Choso, Scrimbles had been incomplete. His son had given him a driving force to be a stand-up citizen, someone his son could be proud of, someone he'd be proud to call his father. Seeing Scrimbles now, so hollow, it filled Gojo with a sense of pity. "Yeah, I get it"

"So, the disk?"

"You needed me to help you find your disk, you told me what happened to your disk, you said you woke up and it was gone, I can use my Cursed Finding Technique to locate the disk."

"Well that settles that then, I really appreciate your help with this, Satoru" Scrimbles was genuine. The support during this time really meant a lot to him.

As he started chatting with Gojo about the details of the lost disk, Scrimbles mind began to wander. He wondered how Suguru dealt with everything. How did he handle the divorce, how did he lose his son? How did this happen? He prayed for Choso's safe return.