the sunshine of a lifetime

by twinprimes

Summary:

White-haired boy holds his hands up in surrender, but he doesn’t look particularly apologetic. “Grumpy,” he says again, still grinning. Then dips his head in what looks like the laziest attempt at a bow Suguru’s ever seen. “I’m Gojou Satoru. Who’re you?”

Seriously, maybe this guy is a tourist. He’s talking like he’s never spoken to another human before.

Still, Suguru huffs, and then relents. “Getou. Nice t’meet you.”

Notes:

my take on them throughout high school and the future they could've had if things some things were the same and a few key ones were a little different i hope it does them justice

Chapter 1

Nearly three months living in Tokyo, and it’s still taking some getting used to. 

The people, the prices, the constant noise. Suguru feels it every time he steps outside: the constant thrumming that reverberates down to his bones. It’s new. It’s strange. It’s tiring, truthfully. Odawara seems worlds away. 

But, in a way, too, it’s fun. If nothing else, Suguru’s trips have helped: long, winding excursions from nowhere to nowhere in the city. Armed with his MP3 player, a set of fraying earbuds, and a few thousand yen, he’s charted at least a dozen courses across the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo in an effort to better understand exactly what this city has to offer. 

It is, after all, his new home. Will be, too, for at least the next several years. What a thought. 

Humming a little under his breath, Suguru adjusts his earbuds and plows down the street. Really, it’s not too crowded today, can’t hold a candle to Nakamise, which he had tried to suffer through for a full twenty minutes before giving up and skulking home a few days earlier. This street mart is quiet, populated by lonely clusters of mothers out running errands and the odd group of middle schoolers, their excited voices piercing through the quiet as they dart from stand to stand. He can feel it in the air as he wanders down the street, shoes scuffing the cobblestone: summer waiting just around the corner. It’s mid-August, the air already thickening with humidity, and even in his light t-shirt and pants, Suguru feels warm. Soon it’ll be a new year, a new term. A new school, at least if this Jujutsu High is all it’s cracked up to be.

Suguru passes by a vendor selling an array of stickers and posters and he stops despite himself. He’s been trying to save up since the move, all-too aware of the costs of the move. His parents have dismissed his concerns with easy smiles and waves of their hand and, truthfully, Suguru suspects their casualty is not misplaced; still, he can’t help but worry. But then he locks eyes with what looks suspiciously to him like a Sunny Day Real Estate poster tucked away in one of the crates, and his heart soars.

One look won’t hurt, surely. 

One look turns into about twenty, Suguru crouched in front of the crates sifting through the stacks upon stacks of band posters the vendor has to offer with glee. His new room is depressingly bare, most of the old decor dismissed as tacky or childish and abandoned in the move; more importantly, even, he’ll need stuff for his new dorm room, won’t he?

Well, that is, if he goes. Suguru rocks back on his heels for a moment, frowning. Seven months ago, he had come home from school to see his mother and father seated at the kitchen table with a strange, hulking figure of a man. The looks, he guessed, were not so deceptive: though the man greeted him warmly, announcing himself as Yaga Masamichi, he had felt the familiar, distinctive crackle of energy across the table as they’d sat, nor could he ignore the long, pointed looks Yaga-sensi threw his way in between spiels about the glowing recommendations he’d supposedly received from Suguru’s teachers. He was being sized up. Evaluated. 

But the formal offer had still come in the mail just five days after Yaga-sensei’s visit, and Suguru’s parents had begun apartment shopping in Tokyo just weeks after that. Suguru had tried to dissuade them, ever concerned about the costs, the hassle—it was only three years, and he didn’t mind having a commute, really—but they had insisted.  

So, really, then, there’s no if . In two weeks, he’ll start at Tokyo Jujutsu High with god-knows whoever else Yaga-sensei has managed to drag out of the woodwork by then. Suguru frowns once more, his excitement at the posters stymied a little as the familiar tension crawls back into his stomach. 

It’s not as if he’s nervous about the school, or about Jujutsu in general. If anything, that’s the exciting part: finally having a place where he can learn to do something useful with cursed energy instead of just killing random third and fourth-grades he stumbles across on his walks to and from school. 

He just—well, he has no idea what to expect.

“Hi there!”

The voice sounds from behind Suguru so suddenly, shocking him right out of his thoughts, that it takes every fiber of restraint to not strike the person backwards on instinct. Instead, he simply whirls around and comes face-to-face with a lanky, grinning figure. 

Well, face-to-knee, more so. The guy towers over him, and when Suguru finally stands, he finds he’s been backed right up against the crates. Personal space be damned, then. Maybe he’s a tourist.

“Hi,” the guy chirps again—boy, really, can’t be older than Suguru. “Whatcha listening to?”

Suguru blinks. The boy looks like something out of a cheap manga: he’s all hard lines and spikes and angles, his grin expanding across his entire face like a playful chasm. His hair stands up on end like someone’s just rubbed a balloon against it and, oh, it’s white. His eyelashes, too—Suguru can see them from behind the odd circular shades the boy has balanced precariously on the tip of his nose. Bone-white in a way that doesn’t look natural, certainly, but doesn’t seem bleached, too. Suguru blinks again before remembering that he has a line here.

“Um,” he offers, fiddling with the cord of his earbuds. He figures he should take one out for the sake of manners—not that this boy has many, by the looks of it—and does. “Hey.”

The boy’s smile widens. Any further, and it’ll tear his face in half. And again, a record on repeat, “Whatcha listening to?”

Suguru resists the urge to look around, wondering halfheartedly if he’s stumbled onto the set of some bizarre prank show. The boy is so animated it almost hurts to look at, watching him bounce from foot to foot like an overeager child. 

“Um,” Suguru says again. He should just walk away, save himself the trouble of this exchange, but something keeps him pinned there, stuffing his hand into his pocket and pulling out his MP3 player. “Panchiko,” he says, and turns the screen so that the white-haired boy can see. 

“Panchiko,” he repeats, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Pan chiko . I dunno them. Some weird Western band?”

Suguru balks. White-haired boy’s smile has reduced to a lopsided sort of smirk he flashes as Suguru like some businessman flexing fancy watches. “Don’t be rude,” he admonishes on instinct, and white-haired boy’s grin turns back on in full. 

“So grumpy,” he says, tone almost reverent. Behind the shock of eyelashes, Suguru can see the boy’s eyes: a bright, fractaling blue that seems to look straight through him. “So, they Western, then? American?” He says the last word in an awful attempt at the accent, and Suguru can’t stop his eyes from rolling back in his skull.

“Not sure,” he says as mildly as he can manage. “Probably. Why?”

White-hair boy shrugs. “Eh, I’m just curious. Just chatting. You seem like the kind of guy to know stuff about this crap, anyways.” He gestures to the stacks of posters. His fingers are long, slender—pianist hands. Suguru pulls a face inside his head.

“Do I?” he asks. 

White-hair boy nods sagely. “Yeah. I’m guessing you don’t like idols much.”

What the hell’s that supposed to mean? “I like idols.”

“But they’re not your thing, no?”

They aren’t, but Suguru feels like he should find something offensive in the premise of being so easily perceived as someone who would feel that way. But there’s no malice on white-hair boy’s face, just an open sort of curiosity that makes him look ten times younger. For a moment, Suguru forgets to feel annoyed; instead, a brief flash of endearment washes over him. It’s like looking at a strange baby animal, or something. 

“Hey, space cadet.” White-haried boy bobs in Suguru’s line of sight, a big, bright exclamation point on his horizon. “You know, it’s rude not to answer people’s questions like that.”

And just like that, it’s gone. Suguru sighs. “No, I don’t listen to a ton of them, I guess. But I like them just fine.”

White-hair boy nods along solemnly. “You seem like you would like B’z, or something.”

Suguru scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing! They just seem up your alley, I don’t know!” He blinks. “Alternative, I guess.”

Alternative . Suguru frowns, suddenly self-conscious. Is that supposed to be an insult? White-hair boy is still regarding him with that same open-faced expression, cheery as anything, but Suguru really can’t tell how deep it runs. 

He also does like B’z, too, but that’s hardly the point here.

“Yeah,” he offers, non-committal. Then, “I’m going to keep looking at the posters now.”

Even without looking, Suguru can feel white-hair boy’s smile burning a mark on the side of his face as best he can, still squeezed uncomfortably up against the crates, he turns back to the posters.

But the presence behind him doesn’t dissipate as he’d hoped it might. Instead the boy just shifts so that he can peer over Suguru’s shoulder, humming tunelessly. 

“More Western bands,” he says, reaching around Suguru to thumb through a stack. He can feel the boy’s breath hot on the back of his already too-warm neck, and an urge to jerk an elbow backwards into where he knows the boy’s stomach must be blots out his vision for a moment. Instead, he just scowls.

“Hm,” is all he offers in response. 

Undeterred, the white-haired boy picks one of the plastic-wrapped sheafs off the stack and studies it. “Radio-head,” he sounds out, the letters clunky on his tongue. “What a weird name. What’s this say?”

He points to a jumbled mass of English letters at the bottom of the poster, and Suguru huffs. 

“I don’t know.”

“But you know the band?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Well.” White-haired boy wiggles the poster a little bit, as if that will jog Suguru’s memory. He’s uncomfortably close still, so close that the two of them are almost pressed flush against each other, and the urge to shove him backwards returns with a fervor. “Do you?”

“Yes.” Suguru actually quite likes the band, but that’s not something he really feels like getting into now. “Some of their songs.”

“Do you like them?”

“What?”

“The band.” White-haired boy lets out a chuckle that sends another gust of hot air down Suguru’s neck. This time, despite the warmth, a chill crawls up his spine. What is this guy’s deal? “Do you like their music, then?”

“Okay,” Suguru mutters, and then turns, extending a hand. For a moment, he is wholly prepared to shove white-haired boy backwards, physically remove him from his space since he seemingly doesn’t have the decency or manners to do it himself, but Suguru stops himself just in time. White-haired boy’s face explodes in a smile again, and one of his eyebrows—also the same, freakish white—leaps up towards his hairline. This time, Suguru doesn’t bother to hide his scowl. Is this guy serious?

“Will you back up, please?” he bites out instead. “You’re in my way.”

“Radiohead,” is all he gets in response. “Maybe I’ll listen when I go home. Hm?”

“Okay.” Deftly, Suguru sidesteps the boy and fumbles for his earbuds. He’s done here.

“Hey, now, where’re ya going?” The boy reaches out and claps a hand down on Suguru’s shoulder, and he whirls back around.

“Do you seriously have no manners?” he snaps, despite himself. Shrugging, he shakes the grip off. “Stop touching me, man.”

White-haired boy holds his hands up in surrender, but he doesn’t look particularly apologetic. “Grumpy,” he says again, still grinning. Then dips his head in what looks like the laziest attempt at a bow Suguru’s ever seen. “I’m Gojou Satoru. Who’re you?”

Seriously, maybe this guy is a tourist. He’s talking like he’s never spoken to another human before. 

Still, Suguru huffs, and then relents. “Getou. Nice t’meet you.”

“Hm.” Suguru considers him, head tipped to the side. Even his outfit makes him look cartoonish: teal pants and a loose-fit black shirt and big, clunky boots to pair with the bizarre glasses still at an ever-persistent risk of falling off the tip of his nose. “So, you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” Maybe it’s the rising heat, the sun climbing higher and higher in the sky the longer they stand here, but Suguru feels almost like he’s in a dream. There’s something about Suguru that seems almost alien as he stands there, still flashing that stupid grin. Like he’s been dropped on Earth just to ruin Suguru’s morning. 

“The sorcerers,” Satoru says, like it’s obvious what he meant. “I can tell. You have some crazy cursed energy, man! I could feel it from all the way on the other side of the market—I thought you were a curse!”

He steps forward, almost as if to inspect Suguru closer like his cursed energy will suddenly start manifesting on his skin and clothes, and Suguru takes a matching step backwards. 

“I’m enrolling in Jujutsu High,” he says, and then almost kicks himself. Damnit, isn’t he trying to get out of this conversation faster? Why on earth would he offer that up? Now he’ll be stuck here for the next thirty minutes while this guy aims fifteen increasingly stupid questions about jujutsu at him, or pulls a curse out from behind his back and asks Suguru to exorcize it for him. “I start in the fall.”

A slow smile spreads across Satoru’s face, this one of a different tone than the rest. Suguru thinks for a moment about pressing the shift, but then decides against it. He really doesn’t want to know. They’re strangers, after all. As bizarrely familiar as Satoru may be, there’s no reason Suguru should stoop to his level. 

“I’m a sorcerer too,” is all Satoru offers up after a moment’s pause. 

“Huh.”

“The Gojou family.” He cocks his head to the side again, looking for all the world like a strange sort of baby bird. It almost makes Suguru smile. Almost. “You know?”

“Okay,” says Suguru, because he doesn’t really know who the Gojou family is, nor does he really care, either. 

Satoru’s smile twitches. He looks disappointed, almost, and Suguru realizes he was expecting some big, explosive reaction to that reveal. Well, whatever. He’s not getting it. Again, Suguru readjusts his earbuds and again, he sidesteps the looming figure of Satoru. He’s heading off in the wrong direction, will have to double back in a few blocks to get home, but he doesn’t care. 

“Hey,” Satoru says again, and Suguru almost groans aloud.

“Hm?”

“Suguru, eh?”

“Awfully familiar, aren’t you?” Suguru notes, grinding his teeth. “Gojou-san.”

Satoru waves a hand. “Gross. You sound like a kiss-ass when you talk like that.”

This guy cannot be for real. “Watch your mouth,” he says as evenly as he can manage. “We’re not friends, so I don’t see a reason to call you by any other name, after all.”

“We’re not friends?” Satoru says, and he sounds almost comically wounded. Suguru would laugh, if he wasn’t ready to be done with this exchange approximately thirty minutes ago. “I think we’re friends, no?”

“We’ve talked once,” Suguru deadpans. “That time being right now.”

“And I think we’re getting on great!” Behind his shades, Suguru watches Satoru’s eyes narrow, just a little. “Suguru.”

A bubble of irritation rises up Suguru’s throat, white-hot as it stops somewhere midway through his chest. He breathes in, then out of his nose in long, slow exhales. “I said watch it,” he says, finally. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Or what?” 

It’s so childish that this time Suguru does laugh, a tiny derisive scoff Satoru grins at in response. “What, are you trying to goad me into a fight? Are we twelve, or something?”

Satoru shrugs, grin still unabashed. “Could be fun. What’s your technique?”

It takes him a second, but when he realizes Satoru is being serious, Suguru scoffs again, this time a little louder. Still, he gives in to the question for reasons well and truly beyond him. Maybe he’s bored. Maybe it’s hot. Who knows? “Cursed spirit manipulation.”

“Ooh, that’s a unique one.” Satoru’s appreciation is genuine, or at least seems it. Suguru doesn’t really care. What this kid thinks of his technique is of no consequence to him.

“Yeah,” he says, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Wanna know what mine is?”

Suguru bites back a groan. “Um, I mean.” He sighs. “I don’t really care.”

“Really?” Satoru’s surprise seems genuine, as if he isn’t used to people not throwing themselves at his feet every second they get. “It’s really cool.”

“Sounds like something someone would say if they don’t have an interesting cursed technique.”

“That’s what you think.” Satoru arches one of his bright white eyebrows. His smirk turns a little hard around the edges. “I bet a thousand yen right now that if we fought, I’d make you cry like a little kid.”

Suguru spreads his hands as if to say so? “Okay.”

“Wanna test it out?”

“We’re in public,” Suguru says flatly. “Also, no.”

“Eh.” Satoru shrugs, all seemingly right as rain in an instant. Man, this guy’s moods are almost as off-kilter as the rest of him is. He waves one of those pianist hands around, then shrugs again. “Your loss.”

“I’m sure.”

Satoru lets out a laugh then, a sudden, startling thing. A flash of warmth passes down Suguru’s body—that damned sun. He grits his teeth, and Satoru grins.

“You’re a funny guy, Suguru—”

“Cut it out.”

“—seriously. I think you and I are going to be good friends.”

“Okay.” Suguru sighs. Now he’s hungry, too. Somehow, this is all Satoru’s fault. 

“I’m going to head out now,” Satoru announces, gaze fixed on Suguru in a way that makes him wonder if he’s supposed to object here, or something. “But I have a feeling we’re going to see each other again soon.”

“Alright.” Suguru ducks his head, holding onto his MP3 player for dear life. 

“So monotone.” God, is this guy ever going to leave?

“Well.” Suguru spreads his hands. “I guess.”

“So interesting.”

“Could say the same about you.”

Satoru arches an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

Suguru arches one back. “Not sure if that was a compliment.” He can’t help himself. 

“Really?” Satoru flashes him another one of those slow, strange smiles, like he knows something Suguru doesn’t. “Sounded like one.”

“Well.” Suguru’s a one-track record today. He could leave, he realizes this again, but his feet stay firmly planted on the cobblestones like he’s been cemented down there. 

“Well,” Satoru mimics, and his smile is back to blazing. “See you round, Suguru.”

“How many times do I have to tell you—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Satoru’s already walking, and he turns to throw a cheerful wave over his shoulder, narrowly slipping around a family of three heading up the street towards Suguru. “See ya!”

“God,” Suguru mutters, and reaches up to scrub at his face, exhausted all of a sudden. The conversation can’t have been longer than half an hour, really, but somehow he feels like he’s been standing on this street for hours, days. He feels like he’s spent more time with Satoru than any other person in the world, somehow, and he feels wrung dry. Well, whatever. Just another face in the crowd now. 

When he drops his hand from his face, Satoru is nowhere to be seen. 

 

—

 

Well and truly, Satoru means to arrive on time.

He does. There really isn’t much to pack in terms of significant worldly possessions of his—everything he owns reminds him too much of the sterile, silent walls of the Gojou residence for him to want to bring the things anywhere but a garbage disposal. The objects that he has elected to bring with him to Tokyo Jujutsu High—clothes and bedding mostly, with a few posters and kitschy room decorations to boot—have been packed, sitting in a corner in his room since June. Really, he’s been ready to leave since June. Scratch that, he’s been ready to leave since he turned seven.

Arrival is at nine o’clock on the dot had been his instructions, delivered over the phone two weeks ago along with a slew of other move-in information Satoru had allowed in one ear and then promptly right out the other. He really, really had tried this time, though, to be there punctually. To be up and awake at seven, ready to leave by eight to beat any morning rush hour traffic. To get out of this place as quickly as possible.

But, well, then things happened. He woke up late. He couldn’t find a clean pair of pants. His sunglasses weren’t where he left them. There was nothing to eat in the kitchen. His father—well, his father did what he does particularly well, which is a lot of standing in the corner and staring and, at occasional random intervals, barking criticism across the room. And maybe Satoru had said one or two unkind things in response, and maybe that had devolved into a prolonged argument that ended with him bundled roughly into the backseat of the car assigned to drop him at school, palms itching with the urge to blow a hole in something. The family driver—a sober, wizened-looking old man who Satoru’s half-certain is too blind to even see the road in front of him—had made no sort of acknowledgement regarding the scene that had transpired outside, merely switched the car into gear and taken off, leaving Satoru to rest his head against the cool glass of the window and seethe in silence.

But by the time they’re pulling up to the big stone gates that mark the entrance to Tokyo Jujutsu High, Satoru feels calm once more. Who cares about his father? All that’s behind him now—literally. He has the next three years of his life to look forward to here, and after that, there’s no saying he ever has to set foot in the Gojou residence ever again. The thought is exciting enough to make a grown man cry.

The thunderous look Yaga Masamichi levels at him as he steps out of the car is enough to make a grown man cry, too, but thankfully he’s is no ordinary grown man—he’s Gojou Satoru—so he takes it with a smile and practically bounds up to the teacher, feeling lighter than he has all summer.

“Gojou Satoru,” is the teacher’s greeting, and Satoru remembers probably too late the formalities he so gleefully glossed over. He ducks his head low, still grinning.

“Yaga-sensei! How are you doing—wow, I feel like it’s been ages, no? How was your summer? Peaceful, I hope? Not too many curses to manage?”

Yaga’s stony expression is uncrackable. “You’re late.”

He tries for a sheepish grin.

“By three hours.”

“You know how my family can be, Yaga-sensei!” He makes brief, flickering eye contact with the man, trying his best in a split-second of a gaze to communicate just how his family can be, exactly. Maybe Yaga picks up what he’s putting down, or maybe he’s already too tired to get into anything right now, because he just sighs.

“Your belongings will be transported to your dorm,” he says, “so don’t worry about that. For now, I need you to come with me.”

An ice-cube of panic slips down the back of Satoru’s shirt. Was there homework he was supposed to have done? It’s only Friday, after all, and classes don’t start until Monday, though, right? Maybe there was some preliminary assignment he was supposed to have done? Shit, he really should’ve paid more attention to that stupid phone call.  

Still, the waters must be tested. Never before has a situation arose Satoru could not wiggle his way out of, and he doubts now will be the first. “Where are we off to?” he presses as Yaga starts up a swift march, through the main entrance gates before taking a sharp left along the edge of the forest that borders campus. Is he going to take me out to the woods and kill me? “Don’t tell me you already have dirty work for me to do, Yaga-sensei.”

“What I have for you,” Yaga says, and they’re still marching, so fast now Satoru nearly needs to jog to keep up, “is a test.”

Oh, great. 

“Your reputation precedes you, we’ll say,” Yaga continues. They’re heading into the forest now, the light beginning to dim as the thick branches capture up most of it before it can hit the soil underfoot. “As does that of your family. But I’d like to see what those techniques of yours look like right now. No training, no preparation—”

“Pardon me?”

“—just raw skill,” Yaga continues. They stop at the edge of a clearing, and Yaga gestures to something beyond the dense undergrowth that lies in front of them. “That is, the skills of you and your fellow first-years. Go through there, and you’ll find them soon enough—I told them to wait out in the open for you. I’ll lower a Veil, and then you’ll exorcize a curse and try not to cause too much damage in the process, please.” The last word feels a little pointed, somehow, but Satoru can’t bring himself to care all that much. Now this— this is his kind of test. This is what he’s been waiting for all summer.

“Well,” he chirps, adjusting the sunglasses he has balancing on the edge of his nose, “I’ll see you in a few minutes, Yaga-sensei!”

And then he dives through the bushes and into the clearing.

Two things register to him almost instantaneously as he scans the surrounding area: one, there are only two other students in the clearing, not the teeming group of five or ten Satoru was sort of expecting. He whistles low under his breath. Damn, they really are strapped for bodies. 

The second realization is much more pleasant than the first; a barely-suppressed scowl, the sunlight that flashes off familiar black hair has Satoru bounding across the clearing, throwing up a wave.

“Suguru!” he calls. “I was wondering when you were gonna turn up!”

Suguru makes a noise under his breath that sounds distinctly like a muttered “oh god.” Beside him, the other student—a short girl with a neat, severe bob—casts a look at him, then at Suguru, then back at him. 

“Oh, good,” she says. “You two know each other. That’s cute.”

“We don’t,” Suguru says at the exact same time as Satoru chimes in, “oh, yeah, me and Suguru go way back!”

The black-haired boy scowls at him. He had been more reserved when they’d talked at the market a few weeks prior—maybe he feels like he has less of an obligation to keep up appearances now. Maybe he’s just gotten grumpier. 

“No, we don’t.” Suguru insists, flashing a quick look at the brown-haired girl, who sighs loudly. She fixes Satoru with a stare and he squirms a bit, instinctively. Then, she ducks her head. 

“Ieiri Shoko,” she says, “but just Shoko is fine. I don’t care about formalities.”

“See that, Suguru?” Satoru leans over to nudge him in the ribs, and the black-haired boy practically snarls as he swats him away. “You should take after Shoko here and pull that stick out of your ass—”

But the rest of his sentence, as well as the retort from Suguru he can already feel about to break forth, is cut off as a deafening blast sounds from the other side of the clearing. Satoru just has time to whip his head around, pulse spiking, when the tree directly behind the three of them explodes into a ball of flames.

“Well, there’s the curse,” Shoko mutters. She whips something out of a holster on her leg—an ax?—and then throws herself behind a cluster of boulders, Suguru following suit. Satoru dawdles—even just hiding for a moment to get their bearings feels too much like turning tail for him—but then an entire row of trees bursts into flame behind him, the heat singeing his back, and he takes cover, too. 

“Well, that thing is fun!” he says once they’re settled, backs crammed up against the rocks. Suguru pokes his head up for a second, eyes narrowing, and Satoru mimics.

“It’s strong,” Suguru mutters. “Damn.”

It is strong, cursed energy radiating from it in waves that careen into Satoru even from all the way on the other side of the clearing, but he’s not all that phased. It can’t be more than a first-grade—Yaga can’t be that stupid—and even if it is, he could probably still take the thing out on his own. 

And he’s not on his own. There’s Shoko and, more critically, more excitingly , Suguru. Satoru had felt it then, back at the market: the sheer volume of power radiating from the stringy-looking kid skulking around the music stand, strong enough to nearly knock Satoru on his ass from a hundred meters away. And it’s even more potent now, practically bleeding through the air that surrounds him. A pocket of shadow opens up above his shoulder, and two curses of his own slither out. Suguru whispers something to them, a command Satoru can’t quite pick up on, and they’re off.

Satoru grins. This guy is strong , maybe even as strong as him. God, this is going to be fun. A ball of Red crackles to life in his palm. He locks eyes with Suguru just for a moment, and the guy gives him a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.

“Go.”

Satoru hits the ground running. The curse—some freaky, humanoid-like figure with four faces—rears up, more flames bursting from one of its mouths as it readies an attack, but Satoru skids sideways. The ball of Red strikes its flank just as one of Suguru’s curses does. The resulting explosion is even louder than the curse’s initial entrance; the clearing lights up as a cloud of flames shoots up to the sky, and Satoru rolls backwards. A body passes over him—Shoko, maybe?—and then he hears a sick-sounding thud, a screech ripped out of the curse’s mouth. Got him.

Suguru’s presence passes by Satoru, a wash of cool amidst the still roaring-flames. Satoru doesn’t even have time to open his mouth to speak before the other guy launches himself at the curse, his own technique forgone in favor of hand-to-hand combat. 

Of course, he’s good at that too—terrifyingly good, knocking the curse back meter after meter—and something stirs in Satoru’s chest. Excitement? Anticipation? Glee? He’s not sure, but whatever it is, it’s enough. He’s just gotta time it right: first, Blue, a vortex that sucks the curse in, clean of Suguru’s punches and jabs, and then—just at the right second—wait—

And there it is, the one-two punch, Blue then Red. The curse screams, a grating, animal sound, and staggers back, then hits the ground. And done.

Satoru rises to his feet. He feels sweaty and ashen, his white t-shirt totally beyond the point of saving, but otherwise fine—good, even, adrenaline still thrumming through his veins. The clouds of smoke clear enough to see Shoko and Suguru also rising to their feet, also looking mostly unscathed, and Satoru breaks out in another grin.

“Well,” he says, and claps his hands. They buzz, almost, alight with cursed energy, still. “That was fun!”

And then something screeches behind him. This time, Satoru doesn’t even have a second to turn—he can sense it’s that stupid curse, residuals stubbornly spiking once more, but he hits the ground before he can react. Coughing up a mouthful of ashy dirt, all he can do is lie there stunned as Suguru hops up off him and flings himself at the curse. 

There’s a scuffle, another flash of fire, and once more, the curse drops to the ground, residuals flattening out in seconds. Satoru throws a handful of Red at it for good measure before rounding on Suguru.

“What the hell?” he snaps. “That was stupid if I’ve ever seen it.”

Suguru doesn’t reply. He’s crouched on the ground white-knuckling his wrist. For a moment, Satoru wonders if he broke it, or something, but then he sees the real issue: a mess of charred red and black that stretches from his shoulder to just below his elbow. Satoru can’t even tell where burned clothes end and skin begins, and his stomach churns unpleasantly. The sensation only worsens when he realizes: a foot over, and they’d be looking at a dead body now instead of a decimated arm.

“What the hell,” he snaps again, and this time Suguru looks up, teeth bared. “You think I can’t fight on my own, then?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Suguru grits out. His face is ashen. “You were too busy— ah —talking your damn head off. That thing was going to flatten you.” His injured arm twitches, and Satoru watches his grip on his wrist, if possible, tighten further. 

“I’ll flatten you,” Satoru retorts, and it’s a bad insult, childish and petty like a flick on the forehead behind a teacher’s turned back, but his brain is too clogged with images of the rest of Suguru’s body looking like his arm does now to come up with anything. 

“Are you twelve?” It’s the same insult from the market.

“You know, you treat me an awful lot like a kid for someone who wouldn’t last ten seconds against me.”

He’s not even sure why he’s talking, still—just saying words to fill the still widening panicked yawn in his chest, maybe. Surugu gives him a demure look, muscles in his jaw working. His hair has come out of his bun since the fight: strands fall like spider legs, sticking to his face. Satoru has the bizarre, disarming urge to reach out and move them.

“And yet I’m the one who saved your ass,” Suguru says after a pause. “So.”

And then Shoko: “Okay, stop.” She kneels down beside Suguru, lays a hand on his wounded arm, just below the burn. “Can I?”

Suguru bites his lip and nods.

“What? What are you doing to him?” Satoru crouches down too, peering over her shoulder, and she swats at his face. “Hey! You better not hurt him more.”

“Weren't you just threatening to do that five seconds ago?” Shoko mutters, but doesn’t leave room for an answer. To Suguru, she says, “this’ll hurt for a second, but it should clear up after. Ready?”

Suguru nods, and Satoru’s stomach wrenches again. “Be careful—”

“I know what I’m doing,” Shoko says, and Suguru’s face screws up. For a moment, he hunches over, lips parted in a silent gasp. Satoru watches, eyes wide, as the skin slowly knits itself back together, burn dissolving until all that’s left is an angry-looking welt and some residual ash. Suguru flexes his fingers, then passes Shoko a small smile. 

“Hey,” he says, “thanks.”

“Reversed curse technique.” Satoru peers over her shoulder to study Suguru’s now-healed arm. “Damn. Even I can’t do that.”

“Call the presses,” Suguru mutters.

“Would’ve been helpful to lead with that little skill of yours,” Satoru continues like he didn’t hear anything.

Shoko flashes him a blank look, rising to her feet. “Well,” she intones, “I figured you might have already known. After all, I know all about you.”

“Well, of course you know about me. I’m Gojou Satoru. Who doesn’t know about me?” He jabs his thumb over at Suguru, grinning. “Well, except for him.”

“Don’t go pointing at me like that,” Suguru mutters, swatting at Satoru’s outstretched hand. “God, you really are full of yourself.”

“Well, you’d be full of yourself if you were me, wouldn’t you?” Satoru slings an arm around his shoulders, holding on tight when the efforts to shake him off start up.

“Get off me.” Suguru snaps. Satoru responds by looping his other arm around Shoko’s shoulders, who just allows herself to be marched over towards the edge of the clearing, back to where Yaga is no doubt waiting for them with unduly baited breath.

“Man, thank god for Shoko, eh? You really had me worried there for a second, Suguru.”

“Quit being so familiar with me, and don’t—” Suguru grabs at Satoru’s finger, prodding not-too-tentatively at his now-healed arm, and twists. Ouch . “—touch that, asshole. It hurts.”

“Yeesh. Grumpy, isn’t he?” he says to Shoko, who just rolls her eyes.

“You guys are really weird,” is all she says. “I can’t believe you two were friends before this. You don’t act like it.”

“Probably because we weren’t,” Suguru says, and Satoru nudges him with his shoulder. “Aren’t.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“He who lies the most throws the first stone, or whatever.”

“That’s not even remotely close to the expression,” Shoko points out.

“He’s such an idiot,” Suguru says, like Satoru isn’t there, and he can’t help himself: he pitches his head up to the sky, letting out a laugh. 

This is going to be a good three years

 

—

 

“Suguru. Hey, Suguru. Suguru.”

It’s late afternoon, and Suguru is trying to nap— trying being the operative word here. Shoko is down in the morgues with Yaga-sensei again, the two of them spending longer and longer hours in solitude trying to hone in her technique. Which, of course, leaves Suguru all alone after lessons end for the day, free to do as he pleases—in this instance, get some well-earned, well-deserved rest. It’s been a long few weeks.

Well, at least theoretically alone. In practice, not quite; there is the unfortunate fact that Shoko being busy means that Satoru is also unoccupied, and if there is one thing Suguru has learnt since arriving at Tokyo Jujutsu High, it’s that he is near-incapable of entertaining himself.

Near-incapable, or just miserably stubborn, one of the two. Whatever the case is, a peaceful nap does not seem to be on Suguru’s horizon; what is, however, is dealing with this.

So he cracks an eye open, the ceiling of the rec room slowly swimming into view. It’s his fault, really, for not just going back to his room to sleep. Damn him for thinking he could get a moment of peace anywhere but behind his own locked door. 

“What,” he mumbles, not a question but more a statement of discontent. 

Suguru tilts his head, and the figure of Satoru pops into view, cartoonish as ever. He resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“Suguru,” Satoru presses, poking him sharply in the shoulder. His nails are sharp.

“Okay, stop that.” Suguru swipes his hand away. “Hands to yourself.”

“Did you get your uniforms?” Satoru breezes onwards like Suguru hadn’t opened his mouth, much less given a request, and he sighs. What even is the point of engaging with this, if Satoru is going to talk at him regardless like he’s some sort of potted plant?

“Um.” Suguru racks his sleep-syrupy brain, blinking a few times. A package had appeared outside his door a few days ago, a thick cardboard box he’s since left unopened on his desk, neglecting it in favor of other, better endeavors—like this, clearly. “I think so. Why?”

Seemingly from thin air, Satoru whips out an article of clothing and holds it up for Suguru to see. It’s just a simple black jacket, the diagonal cut of the lapel held in place by a shiny brass button that winks down at Suguru from his position, sprawled out on the couch, and a twinge of recognition passes through him. 

“Is that my uniform?” he asks. It really, really looks like the top he had ordered. Like, distinctly so. 

Satoru’s face splits into that trademarked, terrifying grin, “It’s mine,” he says, and Suguru groans. 

“Are you serious?” 

“Why, what’s the problem?” Satoru blinks, bright blue eyes flashing behind shades. He even gives his eyelashes a flutter, that bastard. He knows exactly what he’s done here. “You don’t like it?”

“You copied me,” Suguru says, and then drops a hand onto his face, groaning again. “You’re insufferable, you know that, right?”

“I couldn't possibly know what you mean,” Satoru chirps with the air of someone who knows exactly what he means. “I went to Yaga’s office yesterday—”

Still staring at the slits of light from in-between his fingers, Suguru lets slip a scoff. Of course this is bullshit, then; Satoru would never go to Yaga-sensei for any sort of legitimate question. He's doing so under the ruse of being responsible, or thoughtful. Or so he can go that extra mile to get just a little bit deeper under Suguru’s skin, since that seems to be his only pleasure in life since arriving here.  

 “Yaga- sensei,” Suguru corrects, not bothering to move his hand. “Have some manners.”

“Grumpy,” Satoru notes, interrupting himself, and Suguru scowls. He hates that accusation being leveled at him from Satoru, if only because any response he’d habitually give to that would only prove the point further. “Maybe you should take a nap, you know. You seem awfully cranky.”

What Suguru would do to wipe that shit-eating grin off this guy’s face, if only for a moment. He drops his hand, letting it hang limp over the side of the cough. “Why did you copy my uniform, Satoru?”

Satoru’s given name feels clunky in the back of Suguru’s throat, even more awkward as it flies out of his mouth and lands on the floor between them. But Satoru had insisted, with a near-unsettling intensity, that Suguru drop the attempts at Gojou-san and just call him Satoru—“like Shoko does!” he had said, a glint to his eye. “If Shoko can do it, you can too, Suguru!” And Suguru had learned a great many things since coming to Tokyo Jujutsu High, but perhaps the most potent was that a happy Gojou Satoru was, oftentimes, the easiest Gojou Satoru to be around, and since Suguru had somehow wound up spending a solid eighty percent of his days as the principal figure around him, he might as well make his own job a little easier. So, bizarre and overly-familiar as it still feels, Satoru is now, well, Satoru.

Satoru must forget how to keep that stupid innocent mask of his up for a moment, because his smile slips into the territory of blazingly warm, and Suguru slides his eyelids shut against it. Sometimes, he feels like he’s standing next to a miniature version of the sun, the way the back of his neck heats up whenever Satoru turns on that particular grin.

Satoru’s careful not to keep it too lax for too long, though, his expression switching right back to playfully innocent in a heartbeat. “I couldn’t possibly know what you mean, Suguru.”

“Cut the crap. Are you serious? We’re going to look like kids whose mothers dressed them up like twins for their first day of elementary school, or something.”

“You don’t want to be twins with me?” Satoru drops his chin so he can peer over the rims of those stupid sunglasses at Suguru. His bottom lip juts out just a fraction, the picture-perfect Gojou Satoru pout. It’s immensely annoying and, as Suguru has also discovered, immensely successful when he wants it to be, if only because it sort of makes Suguru feel like he’s kicking a wounded puppy when he goes against it. 

So he folds, too tired to continue with the argument that no, he doesn’t really want to look like twins with Satoru, thank you very much. “I don’t care about that,” he says flatly. “I just thought you would’ve—I don’t know. Wanted your own unique design, or something. You do know we can customize them however we want, right?”

“Well, I know that.” Satoru’s tone switches to goading in an instant. “I’m not an idiot, after all.”

 That’s debatable, he thinks, but decidedly doesn’t say. Instinctively, Suguru grinds his teeth together. Any longer stuck in this conversation and he’s going to have to go to a corner-store and pick himself up a night guard. “Did I say I thought that?”

“Well, you implied—”

“I just think we’ll look a little—”

Satoru senses his floundering and pounces—literally: he drops down onto his heels, resting his elbows on the edge of the couch, two centimeters from Suguru’s face. Suguru desperately wants to swat him away again. Satoru is always too close, it seems, always with a foot halfway into his personal space bubble like they’ve been friends for years, decades, and not just a handful of weeks. 

“A little what?” Satoru cocks his head to the side. “Don’t tell me you’re saying you don’t like my uniform, are you?”

“I didn’t say that. I just don’t see why we have to match, is all.”

“Well, it’s not as if you chose the most revolutionary jacket design, you know,” Satoru points out, and, okay, fair, he’s right on that point, but still. There were at least four other bases he could’ve chosen from; Suguru has a hard time believing that he just so happened to choose the same one as he did. “And besides, I think it’ll be sweet!”

“Sweet.” Suguru rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

“Well, you wouldn’t get those matching phone charms with me—”

It’s true, Suguru wouldn’t. In his defense, though, they were exactly the sort of tchotchke thing Satoru adores—two neon-colored little animals that Sugutu had practically had to drag Satoru away from kicking and screaming—which is not usually the sort of thing he likes. At all. 

“—or phone wallpapers —”

Also true. But that request had just been bizarre. And made only four days after they had officially met, too. 

“—so I had to settle for something!” Satoru finishes, and then huffs. “Really, you left me with no choice.”

“Couldn’t you have just gotten us matching, I don’t know—” Suguru racks his brains for the least easily displayed item he can come up with. “—socks, or something?”

Satoru shrugs, face the perfect picture of mock-sadness. “Didn’t know your foot size,” he says, and it’s almost enough for Suguru to laugh at in an exhausted, borderline-hysterical sort of way. Almost. 

“You could’ve asked,” he mutters, and Satoru claps a hand down on his shoulder, giving it two firm squeezes.

“You can come with me after tomorrow’s mission and we can pick out a pair, then! How about that?”

“Oh, I don’t know—”

“Come on, Suguru,” and instantly, his tone switches to wheedling. There goes that damn lip, too. Suguru pities whatever poor person had to babysit Satoru as a child, “please? We can go to the Parco in Shibuya—oh, and then to one of those cool food places they have in the basement!” His hand, which still hasn’t left Suguru’s shoulder, smacks him a few times, excitedly. “Please?”

“I’m not going to those stupid basement places,” Suguru mutters. “They’re massive tourist traps that exist solely to scam you for double the amount of money that they should—”

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk exactly like a fifty-year old depressed businessman?”

“—and the lines will be out the door,” Suguru finishes, pointedly ignoring that comment. “If you want to go to a real yokocho, fine, I’ll do that, but I’m not doing some commercialized knock-off crap.”

“Perfect!” Finally, Satoru releases his grip on Suguru’s shoulder to clap his hands, rubbing them together, looking for all the world again just like an excited little kid. Suguru wants to scoff, cringe, but—again, too—he just can’t. “So, we’ll do Parco first, and then you’ll take me to your favorite yokocho! Sounds excellent—great suggestion, man!”

And it’s back to burying his face in his hands. A headache is beginning to bloom in his temples, the pain a white-hot coal just starting to heat up the surface. He’ll argue about this later. “I still can’t believe you got the same uniform as me,” he mutters into his palms. “There must be something wrong with you.”

“What was that last part?” Satoru, if possible, leans in closer, cupping his ear. Wisps of his tufty white hair graze against Suguru’s chin, ticking him, and he holds up a hand in defense. Satoru simply pulls it back, securing his grasp by lacing their fingers together in one smooth, deft movement—

Oh, yeah. Lacing their fingers together. Satoru’s hands dwarf his, a warmth that should feel unpleasant given the sun slanting in through the windows right onto where Suguru’s laying, but isn’t. He can feel their pulses from between their fingers, Satoru’s more strongly—a steady kick drum that sounds so loud in Suguru’s own mind he forgets to listen to the first part of the other boy’s tirade. 

“—and anyways,” he’s saying, yammering on like they’re not intimately locking hands in front of him, “I thought it would be sweet, like I said. How else will people tell we’re best friends if we don’t have something matching?”

“Best friends,” Suguru echoes through what feels like a mouthful of mochi powder. He finds his spark burying itself somewhere deep inside of him, and wrenches it furiously back out into the daylight. “I’d hardly say we’re best friends. Will you let go of my hand now, please?”

Satoru gives a small-sounding “oh!” and relinquishes his grasp, as if he genuinely had not noticed, which somehow makes Suguru feel even more embarrassed, the back of his neck prickling like a thousand fire-ants are making their home there. But Satoru, of course, is unphased, “and who would your best friend be, then, if not me?” he says, voice lofty. “Shoko?”

“Well, I like Shoko more than I like you, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t think you believe that,” Satoru says, and he drops his chin onto his folded hands, gaze now level with Suguru’s. Their noses can’t be more than a centimeter from each other, now, “not for one second.” 

“Well,” Suguru says, and now he finally does shove Satoru back, a palm to his face, extending out his elbow. He feels the distance open up between them like the gouges in the dirt Satoru’s Red and Blue leave behind after missions, and for one tiny, wild moment, he almost sits up and closes it again. God, he really must be getting hysterical from lack of sleep, or something. “You can think whatever you want as long as you get lost. I need to take a nap before dinner.”

Satoru bounds to his feet, smiling. “Alright, best friend!”

“Nope, don’t do that.”

“But you just said I can think whatever I want—”

“Think. In your own head.” Suguru taps his temple for demonstration. “Silently. Goodbye, Satoru.”

“Bye, Suguru—sweet dreams!”

From the doorway, Suguru watches as Satoru, still beaming, kisses his fingertips and throws his arm out at the couch where he lays.

And he says, decidedly, nothing in response, letting his eyelids slide shut in silence.

 

—

 

If there’s anything Satoru is learning, it’s that Getou Suguru folds. 

The first time he notices it is still early in the year, just a week or two after they’d arrived at Tokyo Jujutsu High. He, Suguru, and Shoko had grown accustomed to, at this point, going out after their missions, which usually had them deposited somewhere in Tokyo city center, anyways. It’s not always getting food—though if Satoru had his way all the time, which he very nearly does, it would be; sometimes, they go into shops to browse the keychains and plushies, or the occasional clothing store run. Other times, they simply stroll around until they find a park to deposit themselves into, armed with Homerun Bars and an hour’s worth of gossip to catch up on from the days in between missions. 

But the time that Satoru’s thinking of, the time Suguru’s latent folding tendencies first caught his attention, came one evening after a particularly long, grueling mission that had them fighting curses on the opposite side of Tokyo for close to three hours. By the time they had stumbled off the train and started dragging themselves up the hill that’d eventually shoot them out in front of the main campus entrance, Satoru’s nearly asleep on his feet, and Suguru and Shoko don’t look much better. 

“Okay, stop,” Shoko finally had said, and so stop they did, coming to a shaky halt outside a Lawson. She’d stared at Satoru for a moment, hand on her hip, before spinning on her heel to pin Suguru down with her gaze. 

“Here’s five-hundred yen,” she had said, tossing him the coin. “Get me a pack of Golds.”

Suguru had blinked once, and then twice. “Sorry?”

“Marlboro Golds. Get me a pack.”

“You’re not twenty,” Suguru had said and oh, god, this really was going to be good. Every single miserable thing that’d happened to Satoru in the past afternoon was suddenly right as rain. 

“I know that, idiot.” Shoko’s glare had intensified. How Suguru hadn’t melted into a pile of goo yet, or something, was beyond Satoru. “Which is why I’m asking you. I don’t look twenty, and he—” A thumb aimed at Satoru. “—sure as hell doesn’t act like a twenty year old, so I need you to do it. Now, if you don’t mind.”

“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Suguru had said, voice as delicate as ever. “If I get caught, we’re right by the school and—I mean, besides, I can’t imagine those things are good for your cursed energy regeneration. Can’t it—” He was fading fast. Satoru could see it from a mile away. “—wait?”

“I’m going to be very honest with you right now, Suguru,” Shoko had said evenly. “I have had a terrible day. I didn’t have a good breakfast, the train was miserable, those damn curses were even worse, and we’re still not going to be back for at least another fifteen minutes. If I do not have a cigarette in my hand within the next two minutes, I really might start crying.”

And so, one minute and thirty seconds later, Suguru had returned red-faced, a small, white-and-gold package of cigarettes stuffed deep into his pocket. He had folded—magnificently so.

And it wasn’t just the time with Shoko that Satoru had picked up on, though that one certainly makes him smile the most upon reflection, still. On countless other occasions, he’s agreed to unnecessary stops and detours on the way to and from missions, standing at Satoru’s shoulder like a disgruntled boyfriend while he ogled over sticker sheets or sweet selections. He’s surrendered himself to Satoru’s displays of affection, from his endless stream of side-hugs to the more ambitious hand-holding—though Satoru’s only pulled that off once, and not since. Hell, he even let Satoru get away with using his given name on the first day they’d met. And Satoru had been near-certain he was going to get an ass-kicking over the matching uniforms debacle, but no: Suguru’s protests had been forgotten by dinner with a nap and a few carefully timed puppy-dog looks from Satoru. 

Satoru can’t mistake it as being a product of Suguru just being a big, fat pushover, though. He had initially thought that might simply be the case—such a waste; Satoru can’t stand people like that, those who roll over and show their belly at the first sign of dissent from others. But, of course, Suguru had proved him wrong. His principles are bone-deep, and he’s stubborn enough to rival Satoru at times. But in these isolated moments, with a little bit of eyelash-batting, Suguru so often just gives in to whatever request Satoru’s leveling at him. 

It feels sweet, if anything, like Suguru’s version of an olive branch—a hug returned, a hand held once more.

(Satoru can’t lie: he’s been thinking about that a lot, almost enough that it should be a problem, but not quite.)

So sue him, he loves it. He loves that Suguru folds so easily, he really does. 

He loves it especially now, crammed into the same side of a tiny little booth in one of the basement restaurants at, of course, the Shibuya Parco. Satoru had barely had to wheedle before Suguru had agreed to get lunch there instead of one of his places—“think of how long the train ride will be,” Satoru had said, fully aware of the fact that Suguru’s luck for lunch could be right around the corner for all he knew. Somehow, though, it had been enough. Suguru had dropped his head in resignation, sighed once, and then waved a hand. “Lead the way, then.”

And so here they were now, shoulders pressed up against each other, Satoru gleefully examining their food—his: a bowl of soba noodles and Suguru’s: some beef skewers and sunomono salad. Ordinarily, he’d have opted for something a little sweeter, but Suguru’s requirement for going out to eat with him had been clear: “if we go somewhere and all they have is sugary crap, I’m leaving you there and walking home.” Which is fine—Satoru’s never had a problem compromising, not if the eventual outcome is worth it.

And this entirely is. The food is good—he and Suguru dig in without sparing a moment, both starved from a long morning wandering around ticking boxes off of Yaga’s latest to-do list—and for once, Suguru isn’t pulling faces about how close Satoru sits to him, maybe because he knows they have no other options. Whatever it is, it’s a win for Satoru, and he spears another noodle with his chopsticks, grinning.

“I wish we could go on more field trips,” he remarks. “Get out of Tokyo a bit. If I have to spend another day walking around fifty backstreets that all look the same as one another, I’m going to snap.”     

“It’s not so bad,” Suguru reasons, chewing thoughtfully on the end of one of his skewers. “I mean, it’s kind of nice to have an excuse to explore more. Plus, the countryside curses aren’t really a threat in the same way city ones are.”

“Yeah,” Satoru concedes. “Go send the Kyoto kids to deal with them.”

He gets a light smack on the arm for that one. “Be respectful, Satoru. Them living in Kyoto versus Tokyo has nothing to do with how good of sorcerers they are.”

“Everyone knows Tokyo Jujutsu High is better,” he points out, but drops it. Then, the earlier part of Suguru’s sentence catches up to him, and he turns, frowning. “What do you mean explore more? You haven’t seen enough of Tokyo in, what, the past fifteen years?”

Suguru slides his plate of sunomono over to the middle of the table. “You should try some of this, it’s good.”

“Blegh,” he responds. “If I wanted to have the experience of eating weird-tasting water, I’d go stick my head under the taps in the basement bathrooms back at school.”

“That’s not at all what sunomono tastes like.” Suguru frowns. He looks so serious, studying Satoru over another skewer, that he can’t help but grin, chest light. “I don’t think you eat enough vegetables.”

“And clearly I’m doing fine.”

“A balanced diet is essential for maximum cursed energy output, you know.”

“Jeez, you sound like an old man again.” Satoru eyes Suguru’s plate. “Can I have a skewer?”

Suguru deftly slaps the back of Satoru’s hand as he begins reaching for the food, not bothering to wait for an answer. “No. Get your own.”

“Ouch! But you were going to give me some of your crappy cucumbers!”

“Because I have extra of those.” Suguru makes another warning jab at Satoru’s still-hovering hand, and he heaves a loud, morose sigh. 

“Come on, Suguru. I’m hungry.”

“Eat your noodles, then.”

“But I want to try the skewers!” He leans over, bumping their shoulders, and flashes him a grin. “I’ll buy you ice cream next time we get some, how about that?”

“I don’t even like ice cream that much,” Suguru mutters, but passes him one of the skewers all the same.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Satoru says between bites. Man, this thing is good. “You new to Tokyo, or something?”

Suguru takes a bite of his salad and chews for a moment, nodding. “Yeah,” he says after a pause. “Moved here—ah, when was it now? June? After school finished. From Odawara,” he adds, and Satoru nods slowly. The name rings a bell, if faintly.

“Seaside place, right?” 

Suguru nods, gaze unfocusing as he stares off into the distance over the heads of the group sitting in the next booth over. “Yeah,” he hums. 

He has this expression on his face Satoru’s never seen before: fond, soft, around the eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. It’s—well, it’s sweet. Cute, even. He’s not often so unfiltered around Satoru—never is, really—and he feels a little nervous, almost, bearing witness to this, like one wrong move will send the scene shattering. 

And since when has he cared about one wrong move, then, huh? 

“You miss it?” Satoru prompts, and the look in Suguru’s eyes only grows fonder.

“Eh,” he says, but they’ve spent enough time together for Satoru to know what that really means: yes. A hundred percent. “It’s definitely a different atmosphere in Tokyo, but I like both just fine. Sometimes a change of pace is nice, and it’s easier to be here for my father’s work, so I’m happy.”

“What’s your dad do?” Satoru sets his skewer down, food long forgotten, and rests the side of his face on his hand. Despite the bustle of the restaurant around them, things at the booth feel calm, ocean waves with enough strength to lap at the sand, nothing more. 

He’s liked Suguru since they met back at the market, and in his eyes, they’ve been friends since that first day at Tokyo Jujutsu High. In a way, it’s hard not to consider the guy his friend: they spend nearly every day together, and some nights, too. Lessons, missions, most meals—really, the only concrete time apart he has from Suguru is when they both go back to their dorms to sleep, or the odd afternoon when Suguru goes to visit family, or something. 

But it’s not just the proximity that’s bred liking—for the first time in truly forever, here is someone who Satoru feels on even footing with. Even Shoko gets it, a little bit: that hesitancy around the edges when she snaps at him, like she can’t quite mesh the image of Gojou Satoru with the guy standing in front of her. But Suguru just doesn’t care, it seems. He doesn’t care who Satoru’s family is, or what kind of techniques he has, or what grade it says on his student ID. For the first time, Satoru feels like Satoru when hanging around him—not a Gojou, not a special-grade, just Satoru. 

It’s nice to have that, he realizes, a small smile spreading across his own face. He hadn’t noticed just how nice it is until now, but it really, really is.

Satoru watches as Suguru blinks once, twice, then tips his head at him a little bit, eyebrows raised, and realizes in a rush that he’s been tuning him out this whole time by accident, too caught up in his thoughts. Feeling a little warm around collar, he speaks.    

“Shit, sorry. Totally zoned out there.”

“Am I really that boring?” Suguru says, flicking him on the shoulder. But there’s no heat behind the gesture for once, his eyes still soft.

Satoru’s stomach flip-flops, all of a sudden, and he pauses. What the hell was that?

“Your dad,” he prompts, pushing the strange feeling aside. “His job.”

“It’s not that interesting,” Suguru says, half-shrugging. “Business consulting, so it’s nice to be in a bigger city, I guess. He did a lot of remote work for companies in Tokyo anyways, so it saves him the hassle of all that now. And my mother’s always wanted to live here, so she’s happy, too.”

“And so you’re happy here, too, then.” Satoru doesn’t know why he feels the need to confirm, but he still does, the weird feeling in his stomach decidedly not disappearing any time soon. “Not going to ditch me for those losers in Kyoto anytime soon?”

Suguru rolls his eyes, still smiling. “You and that damn school,” he says. “No, I’m not going to Kyoto Jujutsu High, and if I do get any grand ideas about transferring, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”

Satoru almost giggles at that—seriously, giggles. Instead, he rests an elbow on Suguru’s shoulder, leaning in close. Maybe too close, maybe not. Who cares? “And the first to stop you.”

“You mean try.” Suguru hasn’t leaned back, their faces still close together. In the dim lighting of the room, his eyes look almost black. 

“Oh, no,” and Satoru smiles, easy, “I’d do it.”

They stay like that for a second longer, noses almost touching. Someone seriously must have put something in his noodles—still unfinished, entirely forgotten on the table in front of him—because he kept getting the bizarre urge to reach out and touch Suguru’s face. His skin looks soft, warm, and even though it's warm in the booth already, Satoru can’t bring himself to care. Just to see what’d it be like—

“You’re ridiculous,” Suguru says with a shake of his head, shrugging Satoru’s elbow off his shoulder, and like that, the spell is broken. Suguru leans back into his corner of the booth, pulling his phone out and immediately tapping away. Feeling disappointed, somehow, Satoru leans back, surveying the restaurant. 

It’s quieted down now, the post-lunch lull almost peaceful, but the booths surrounding him and Surguru are still pretty full. There’s the group right next to them—some young professionals, it looks like—an older couple across the aisle, and a table of two young women a few tables down. They make eye contact as Satoru’s eyes rove around the room, but it’s brief, fleeting. He thinks nothing of it until he feels the sensation of being watched, all of a sudden, and looks up to meet their eyes yet again.

It happens two or three more times in the next five minutes, and Satoru’s starting to feel a little crazy—does he have some sauce on his face, or something? Did Shoko draw something weird on him when he wasn’t paying attention this morning?—when he realizes: it’s not him being stared at, it's Suguru. And the girls aren’t staring so much as—

“Oh, my god,” Satoru mutters, mostly to himself. Still, Suguru looks up from his phone, eyebrows arched, and Satoru turns. “See those girls over there?”

“Um,” Suguru scans the room briefly, “yeah, why? Is something up with them?”

“They’re checking you out.”

Suguru stills. Satoru no longer cares about the girls; he fixes his gaze on his friend, watching him as he, slowly, raises his gaze to look at the offending table. The girls’ response is instantaneous: they duck away, red cheeks visible even from all the way across the room.  

Just for a moment, Satoru’s mouth sours, the noodles turning unpleasantly in his stomach. 

“Oh,” is Suguru’s mild response, leveled already with his face buried in his phone again. Satoru cranes his neck to snoop and catches sight of Shoko’s contact. “Well.”

“Well what?”

“Well nothing.” Suguru must sense Satoru’s gaze, because he powers his phone off, setting it down on the table. “What, you think I should go over there and talk to them?”

Please don’t, Satoru thinks immediately, then cringes. “I mean, they’re clearly into you.”

“Eh.” Satoru watches Suguru’s gaze flit over to the girls again, almost imperceptibly. And then again, “Well.”

But his cheeks are reddening, ever so slightly: he’s embarrassed. Satoru is well and truly saved from saying something potentially life-ending by a sudden presence at his elbows.

It’s the girls. Oh, great. Talk about life-ending.

“Good afternoon,” Suguru says, ever the gentleman. 

Feeling like he wants to crawl under the table and escape this restaurant through the floorboards, Suguru in tow, Satoru flashes a peace sign, waving the gesture around. “Hey! Who’re you guys?”

Suguru’s glare is bright, a flash of heat on Satoru’s cheek. He ignores it.

Really, it’s like a scene out of a movie. The girls are equally red-faced, one gripping the other’s wrist in a way Satoru assumes is supposed to be subtle. There’s a muttered “you go” and then a “no, you!” and Satoru’s about to break this merry meet-cute up and excuse himself when the first girl speaks. 

“Hi,” she says, a little breathless. Even without indication, Satoru knows he is not the one being spoken to here, not remotely. “I just wanted to say—my friend here—”

“Stop,” the other girl hisses, and it takes everything in Satoru not to groan.  

“—she thinks you’re cute, and so I—we were wondering if you have—can we get your—”

The question trails off, hanging over the table, but the unsaid words are obvious, at least to him. They want Suguru’s number. 

And, look, it’s not as if he means to say anything. Suguru certainly can handle letting some girls down on his own, but before he can speak, Satoru feels his own mouth open, and then to his half horror, half secret, quiet delight, hears himself say: “Oh, that’s sweet! We’re actually on a date now, though.”

Suguru’s blow comes before he can even think about activating Infinity, a sharp smack to the fleshy part of his shoulder that’s sure to leave a bruise. 

“What the—we are not,” Suguru says, hurriedly, and he’s redder than the girls now, “on a date. He’s my classmate, and he has a weird— weird sense of humor—look—”

But the damage is done. The girls mumble apologies over their shoulders as they scurry away back to their booth, intentionally pressing themselves up against the wall so as to be out of sight.

And Satoru feels a little bad, but not enough. Not nearly enough.  

“Move,” comes Suguru’s voice behind him, hard and unamused.

“Huh?”

“Get out. I’m leaving.”

“Well, so am I, then,” Satoru says, sliding out of the booth.

“Suit yourself.”

It’s not until they’re out of the shopping center and well down an adjoining street when Satoru finally feels brave enough to speak. 

“That wasn’t too bad, huh?” he says, trying to bypass tentative as much as he can. Suguru’s cheeks are still a little pink, two twin splotches that threaten to color all the way up to his ears. “Pretty good pick on my part, I’d say.”

The punch comes before he expects it, a clean sock to the ribs. Doubled over, coughing, he watches as Suguru’s feet creep into his line of sight and stop. 

“What is wrong with you?” 

“What?” Satoru straightens, wincing. “Jeez, that fucking hurt, dude.”

“Why’d you tell those girls we’re dating?” Suguru gives him a light shove, and Satoru throws his hands up.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry! Is that what you want to hear?”

“No, I want to hear why you told those girls we were on a goddamn date , Satoru.” Another shove. Seriously, he’s going to fall into the street at this rate. “Are you out of your mind?”

“It was a—”

“Because that was not a date. I just want to make that perfectly clear to you. We’re barely even friends.”

“Rude,” Satoru grumbles, rubbing at his ribs some more. They are friends. Right? They have to be at this point. Suguru’s just being a jerk because he’s embarrassed. He does that.

“God, you’re unbearable.” Satoru watches a muscle in Suguru’s jaw flex. “Actually genuinely unbearable.”

“It was a joke, I don’t know! Ever heard of having a sense of humor?” Satoru isn’t sure if that’s what he really thought—isn’t sure if he wants to know either way—so he just rolls with it. “Clearly not.”

“Jokes are supposed to be funny,” Suguru says, and he aims another shove at Satoru, who sidesteps easily. 

“I didn’t say it was a good joke. Just that it was supposed to be one. And besides, you could do way better than those girls.” Satoru tests the waters, moving to throw an arm around Suguru’s shoulders, and to his surprise, he’s allowed. “Seriously. We’re going to find you the hottest chick in Tokyo to date, don’t you worry.”

“We are not going to be doing anything like that,” Suguru mutters, giving Satoru’s side a sharp pinch. Still he allowed himself to be half guided, half pulled by the neck down the road towards the train station. “If I ever get a girlfriend, I’m not going to let you speak to her until we’re about to get married.”

“Aw, you think we’re gonna get married one day? That’s cute—”

“Me and the girl , idiot.” Another pinch. “You’ll be lucky if you get an invite to the wedding.”

“Also, what do you mean if you get a girlfriend?” Satoru pauses at a corner, dragging Suguru to a halt, too. “Look at you.” And here he actually does reach out, fingers cupping Suguru’s jaw, just for a moment. It’s all he can sneak in before he’s being shoved off with a scowl, but still, something foreign blooms in his stomach, shoots up through his body until his fingertips are buzzing. He’s sure the smile he gives Suguru is stupid, dopey, but he doesn’t even care. “You’re gorgeous. Any girl in this city would be over the moon to have you.”

“Okay, stop.” Maybe it’s just residual from the restaurant, but Suguru’s cheeks look a little pink, just for a moment. Satoru thinks about pointing it out, drawing out the joke, but his ribs are still aching, so he decides against it.

Another day. 

“What?” Satoru pulls Suguru in close, his cheek pressing to the top of the boy’s head. Suguru’s hair is soft, if a bit tickly—well kept, even better than Satoru’s. He smells like rosewood and oranges, a bit. 

Something really is happening to Satoru. 

“I’m serious,” he insists as Suguru pulls himself free. “You’re one handsome man, Suguru.”

“Jeez, will you get off me?” The crosswalk turns green, and Suguru takes off, Satoru bounding along beside him. “You’re like a monkey, or something. So damn clingy.”

“I’m way cuter than those things.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“Way cuter than those girls, too. Really, I was doing you a favor.”

“By embarrassing the shit out of me?”

“Yeah. It’s all part of my master plan to seduce you myself, actually.”

“We’re in public. Can you have some decorum? And don’t—agh, stop touching my hair, will you?”

“God, I’m starving. Can we stop at a Lawson before we get back to school? I want a snack.”

“We just ate, Satoru.”

“Okay, and I’m hungry again. Please?”

“Ugh.”

“Please?”

“Fine, fine!”

“Aw, man, you’re the best.”

“Yeah, yeah,” but he’s smiling another real, soft smile. “Whatever.”

 

—

 

The train rides are quickly becoming Suguru’s favorite part of missions.

In the beginning, he thought the actual curse killing would be the entertaining part, and for a while it was. But the curses are less interesting and more tiresome these days, and the bitter pre-winter chill that’s settled over Tokyo doesn’t help much either. 

Nor does the consumption, but that’s a whole other issue, and one Suguru is still trying to scrub his mind—and mouth—clean of, so he pushes it aside in favor of digging through his bag to find his MP3 player.

Because this is why he likes the train rides so much. The constant close proximity with others—namely Satoru and Shoko—has become familiar, expected, even comforting, if he’s being honest; the work, too, isn’t bad at all, even if the recent missions have been a little less than inspiring. It just means the only interrupted time he has to himself comes at the end of the evening, usually when he’s too tired to do much else other than hit the lights and pass out in bed, shoes-and-all sometimes. So the train rides to and from missions are his secondary source of downtime: long, winding journeys in which Suguru can sit back, put his earbuds in, and relax.

Which is exactly what he’s doing now. Suguru leans back, resting his head on the cool glass behind him, and sighs. 

“Suguru? Hey, Suguru?”

Well, relax as best he can with the veritable ball of energy that is Satoru, practically vibrating in his seat as he jabs his finger into Suguru’s shoulder over and over again.

Slowly, Suguru removes an earbud, and limply turns his head.

“Hm?” It’s all he can manage right now. The gentle whir of the train and the slow swaying of the car as it shoots down the tracks is adding weight to his eyelids with each passing second; before him, Satoru swims in and out of clarity, haloed in the sun’s last few rays of the day.

It takes Suguru a moment to realize Satoru is now gesturing to the MP3 player in his lap. “Whatcha listening to?”

“The sound of peace and quiet. Wake me up when it’s our stop.”

“Hey, no, c’mon,” Satoru whines, and there it is, that stupid pout, always so damn effective. Satoru must sit in front of a mirror every night and practice it, or something. “I’m seriously just curious. You’re always listening to that thing, after all. I wanna be included.”

He says the last part so earnestly, blue eyes wide behind his shades, that Suguru can’t help the laugh that slips from him. Holding up his phone, he watches as Satoru squints at the title, brows knit together.

“Supercar,” he reads aloud. “Who’re they?”

“A band.”

He gets a flick on the forearm for that one, the gesture gentle. Satoru can’t hide his grins very well at the best of times. “Well I know that,” he gripes. “I mean, like, what genre? What do they sound like?” He peers back at the phone again, shades slipping down his nose. In the soft light of the train car, those stark-white eyelashes seem to glow, almost, and Suguru finds his gaze reluctant to shift for a moment. 

“Rock,” he says after a pause. “I guess. Or—shoegaze.”

“Shoegaze?” Satoru echoes. “That’s a weird name.”

“The performers—they have all these pedals, for the guitars, you know, to add effects to make them sound all distorted, so the performers were always looking down at their shoes.” Suguru explains. “So, you know, shoegaze.”

“Huh,” Satoru leans in a bit, resting his elbow atop the ledge below the window. “I didn’t know you could use pedals on guitars. Like, the things you use for pianos, right?”

“Sort of. There’s more variety with guitar pedals, I think. Like, you have some that make the notes really delayed, or others that make it sound kind of robotic, or synth-like.”

“Oh, okay. So it’s just like different effects, basically?”

“Yeah, pretty much. The ones these guys use—” Suguru waves the MP3 player. “—make it sound really—I don’t know how to describe it well. Fuzzy, I guess? Like, very—” He makes an abstract motion with his hands, wiggling his fingers, and watches as Satoru smiles, slowly. “—full,” is what he settles on. “Very full. Like each note has been multiplied by ten, or something. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I get you.” 

“But—” Suguru’s on a roll now, flipping to the next song on the player. “Oh, I love these guys.”

“Sunny Day Real Estate,” Satoru sounds out, chin near resting on Suguru’s shoulder as he peers down at the screen. “A Western band?”

“Yeah, American.”

“And they’re—what, shoegaze, too?”

“Sort of.” The tinny guitar kicks in in time with the thumping of the base drum, and Suguru bobs his head a little. “They’re less noisy, sometimes. They’re more, kind of, like, clear-cut rock-ish type of stuff. Less fancy pedals, and all that crap.”

“So, what’re you listening to, then?” Satoru waves a finger at the player. “‘Cause those aren’t the same artist, obviously. A playlist?”

Suguru hums in confirmation. “Just—I don’t know. A collection of songs I’ve been listening to a lot recently. Do you—” And then, almost without thinking about it, Suguru holds out the free earbud to Satoru. “—I have two, so, if you want.”

The question hangs in the air between them for a moment. Suguru feels nervous, all of a sudden. It’s never mattered much to him what other people think of the things he likes, especially the music he enjoys, but Satoru’s opinion feels important, all of a sudden. Like a much-needed stamp of approval.

“It’s not your usual genre, I think,” he adds, a little hastily. “No Waka Inoue.”

“I love Waka Inoue,” Satoru murmurs, as if out of instinct, and then his face cracks open in a huge smile. “Are you fucking kidding? Of course I want to listen.”

“Language,” Suguru admonishes without heat, only barely conscious of the others sitting silently in the train car with them. His periphery barely exists when he focuses on Satoru; it’s like he’s a magnet for his gaze, always pulling him in, always coaxing more. “Here, come closer.”

Satoru obliges, their shoulders pressed together as he carefully inserts the earbud, flashing a thumbs up.

“Hit it,” he says, and Suguru does.

The songs flow seamlessly into one another, the hazy guitars and soft drums blending into one long stream. Ordinarily, this would be the kind of thing to send Suguru into a doze, but his earlier tiredness is long gone. Instead, he’s zeroed in to Satoru’s response to the songs as much as he can without being obvious about it, taking careful note of every approving head nod or soft hum under his breath. Gradually, the reactions get sparser and sparser, until they hit a three-song streak without Satoru responding at all. Suguru turns, stomach in knots, and he’s about to ask if he wants to listen to something else when he realizes: behind his shades, Satoru’s eyes are closed. His breath comes in methodic pulls, barely audible over the hum of the train’s engine. 

He’s fallen asleep. 

Something twists in Suguru’s gut again, but it isn’t nerves this time. Satoru looks ridiculously peaceful like this, his usual animatedness gone as his features set softly against the glass behind him, the blur of the trees and buildings they rush past.    

A warmth spreads in his chest, stretching from shoulder to shoulder. He should take off his jacket or something, provide Satoru with a proper pillow so he doesn’t bang his head against the glass when the train comes to a stop.

But when it does, just a few minutes later, there’s no head-banging; instead, Satoru’s body sways into Suguru with the motion of the brakes, and just when Suguru thinks he’s going to swing back into an upright position, his head drops down onto Suguru’s shoulder, sleep-heavy and silent. 

Suguru freezes, uncertain. It’s not as if this is some unprecedented level of physical contact for Satoru—really, Suguru wouldn’t have batted an eye if the request had been made to use his arm as a pillow when Satoru was still awake—but it feels different with Satoru asleep and unaware of his actions. Like Suguru’s getting away with something he shouldn’t, a cruel trick being played in the dark.

But that’s stupid, he tells himself, the knot tightening around itself in his stomach. Satoru has worked as hard as Suguru has these past few days, and judging by the ease with which he slipped into unconsciousness, he needs the rest. They have a while left until their stop anyways; it feels crueler, almost, to wake up. 

Crueler to Satoru, crueler to the thing still alive inside Suguru’s chest, stomach, growing by the moment. Same difference, perhaps.   

It’s a quiet trip the rest of the way home. Suguru is careful not to move a muscle. 

 

—

 

When Satoru’s alarm sounds at eight—a bright, shrill, painful sound—he thinks, for a moment, that maybe death would be kinder than this.

The cold had snuck up on him, as they so often do. He’s accustomed to tuning out the symptoms in favor of anything else, ignoring the persistent ache in the back of his throat that grows stronger each morning, the sudden onset of lethargy,—falling asleep on Suguru on the train, really—the bloom of pain that takes roost behind his eyes whenever he even thinks about sitting down to do work. It’s all no big deal, until he wakes that morning, and suddenly it’s unbearable.

i’m dying, is the first thing he texts Suguru, not bothering to roll out of bed. His whole body feels stiff, creaky, as if he’s had wooden splints inserted into the marrow of his bones. Even just raising his arm to pluck his phone off his nightstand was too much. An emoticon follow the first text, just so Sugugu can know he’s serious: ｡ °(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡

What happened? comes the response not a minute later. Up all night playing on that stupid DS again?

Satoru’s new Nintendo DS has been his recent fixation of late, accompanying him on all their train rides and late-night study sessions, but for once it’s not the source of his early-morning misery.

i’m so sick dude , he fires back. His nose has clogged in his sleep, reducing him to miserable mouth-breathing that makes the back of his throat burn, if possible, even more. When he rolls onto his side, his body groans in protest, lead-heavy like he’s fastened to the sheets. 

Even his phone is too bright as Suguru’s response pops up, a digital yell of noise and color. This time, the groan from Satoru comes from his mouth, out loud. Really? This doesn’t have anything to do with that History homework I know you didn’t finish?

It’s testament to his illness that Suguru doesn’t even remember that they had history homework—usually his missing assignments are willfully neglected in favor of more interesting things like the DS, or bothering Suguru, not simply forgotten.  

i swear, he types out, i feel like shit. tell yaga i’m sorry and i love him and i hope we get married by the sea one day but if i have to get out of this bed i’m seriously going to keel over and pass out on my floor

Okay, comes the response after a moment. Then: Feel better. Let me know if I can get you anything. 

Satoru means to respond; he’s just about to come up with some really good, pithy comment that’ll hold Suguru over during lessons, but he’s out cold again before his fingers can hit the keys.

When he comes too, the room is dark, and a jerk from his head sends it pinwheeling around him, nauseating. Satoru closes his eyes against the spin, stomach churning. He can see the half-dark sky swimming through the slits in his blinds—sunset already. He’s slept through the day and still feels like shit, go figure. 

The sheets tangled up at his ankles feel damp, and his shirt feels sweat-chilled at his neckline. Satoru cringes, a half-hearted cough forcing its way out of him. Being sick is disgusting. 

And there isn’t even anything he can do about it. In a world different from this one, Satoru would be overjoyed at the excuse to curl up in bed with his DS and avoid homework for the next three days, but he feels bad enough that the prospect of even getting out of bed to find the damn thing seems near impossible. He could play around on his phone but that too seems exhausting, bordering on painful. His heartbeat throbs in his head, an ache like waves slamming into the cliffside, and he coughs again, defeated.  

God, this sucks.

At a loss, Satoru drags himself onto his back again, body aching with the effort. He’s about to give up and just fall back asleep, sending a quick prayer to please, please feel a little better in the morning, when there’s a knock at the door.

If this is Yaga, Satoru’s seriously going to do something terrible. He’s not sure what, yet, but it’s going to suck for everyone.

“Go ‘way,” he croaks out, throat straining in protest. “Occupied.”

“Is it unlocked?” sounds the voice from the other side—Suguru. Of course. 

Brain syrupy with sickness, Satoru considers the situation at hand. He feels like shit. He undeniably looks like shit, which is the more pressing concern now. With his hair sweat-matted at the temples and his skin probably some grim-looking grayish-green hue, it’s possible that he actually hasn’t ever looked worse than this. And he’s not wearing pants.

“‘S’open.”

He really must hate himself, or something. What the hell.

The door swings open, almost tentative, and the light from the hallway shoots right into the tender part behind his eyes. A feeble sort-of groan falls from his lips, and Satoru raises a flimsy hand in defense. 

“Sorry, sorry,” comes Suguru’s soft voice. Satoru lets it roll over him, a warm blanket that instantly stills the throbbing ache sounding throughout his body. When he cracks his eyes open again, Suguru’s standing by the bed, steaming bowl in hand.

If he wasn’t so dehydrated, it’s really possible Satoru would’ve burst into tears then and there. Suguru made him food—soup, by the smell. Of course. Of course he did.

“Here,” Suguru whispers, and sets the bowl on the bedside table. A bottle of Pocari is added to the mix, and then a small pack of what looks like strawberry mochi, the kind Satoru can’t get enough of. 

“For when you’re feeling better,” Suguru says, tapping the sweets, and Satoru’s chest twists.

“Didn’t have to do all this,” he rasps out, and Suguru kneels so that they’re level with each other.

“Don’t mention it,” he says softly. “It’s just some noodles and chicken broth, but I think it’ll be good to get something in your stomach, if you can. And the Pocari’ll help hydrate you.”

“Mhm.” Satoru nods along, listless. “Yes, nurse.”

A faint laugh, a gentle noise like a cold compress wrapping around his body. Then he really does feel a chill: Suguru’s hand on his forehead, knuckles first. The sensation is heavenly. Satoru could die like this, really.

“You don’t feel dangerously warm,” Suguru says, approving, and flips his hand over so his palm presses against Satoru’s forehead now. He wants to apologize for the state of his hair, sweaty and gross, sticky along the hairline, but the gentle cool of Suguru’s hand on him feels too good for him to do anything but let out a sigh.

“Does that help?” Suguru murmurs, so gentle, and Satoru can’t fight back the nod. Whatever. If Suguru thinks he’s some sort of wuss after this, that’s fine. He’s the only one allowed to think that about him.

“I should’ve brought a compress,” Suguru continues, and Satoru can hear it just for a second, the tendrils of worry woven into the threads of his voice, so imperceptible they almost disappear in his sleep-thick haze. 

“This is good,” Satoru mumbles, shamelessly pressing up into Suguru’s hand as much as he can. It’s always Satoru touching, Satoru scrambling, Satoru with his arm around Suguru’s neck and his head on his shoulder, elbow on his thigh—on him like he’s staking claim before someone else can, and maybe that’s it, or part of it. But it’s nice, either way, to have it be the other way around: Suguru’s hand in his hair, gently separating out the strands, his breath a low hum that threatens to send Satoru straight back to sleep. 

“Here,” Suguru says, and he pulls his hand back. Satoru fights the whine that threatens to slip forth—some dignity, still, some pride. “Have a bit to eat, yeah? Then some more rest?”

“Stay,” Satoru mumbles, coughs. It’s supposed to be a request, but it comes out dangerously close to a plea—some pride, please. 

But Suguru’s small smile is warm through the darkness, and his nod is steady. “Sure.”

“I like your shorts,” Suguru says, nodding his head at Satoru’s boxers visible between the folds of the sheets. They have little Hello Kitty designs on them. Satoru must be sicker than he thought, because Suguru sounds almost shy as he says it, a small smile working its way across his face that lights up the gloom like a beacon. 

Satoru manages to flash half of one in return. “Love Hello Kitty,” he mutters, and turns his attention to the food.

He manages to get down most of the soup and about half of the drink before his stomach starts squirming in protest. Suguru sets the bowl aside with a faint clink , leaving the Pocari in easy reach, and helps Satoru lower his body back down into the blankets. 

Always leaving the room tidier than it was when he entered. Always bringing something to the table, never taking anything to go. Like he’s a vacuum, sucking up the dirty, dark stuff no one wants to touch, the last man on the battlefield making sure the curses are gone by eating them. His body as the stronghold for the damage he finds. 

Fever-addled, Satoru thinks to say: how do you do it? Where does it all go? 

What comes out: “I don’t think you’re real.”

Suguru’s laugh is so soft Satoru wonders for a moment if he’s imagining it. But then he feels a hand on the edge of the bed, fingertips gracing his wrist, and the same, soft voice, now speaking. “Want me to stay longer?”

“Okay,” Satoru whispers. His thoughts move through resin, obscures them with fog the second they leave his brain: he wants to hold Suguru’s hand. He wants him to smooth his hair down again. He wants to feel his soothing coolness everywhere, down to his atoms. 

It’s embarrassing, so much so it almost registers as a kind of pain added into the mix, but he’s too tired to care.

“I can go if you don’t want, really,” Suguru is saying, ever the gentleman, dark brows smashing together in the center of his forehead. If he could, Satoru would reach out, smooth them over until that peaceful smile was returned. He likes his smile. 

“Okay,” he says again, tongue thick in his head, and Suguru must get it, the underlying request— please stay, please— because he nods, reaching out to pat Satoru’s wrist a few times, gently. 

“Okay,” he echoes. 

And Satoru’s out before his eyes have even fully shut. With Suguru positioned there, at the head of his bed, chin buried into his own folded arms, it’s the best sleep Satoru’s had in a long time.

 

—

 

“It’s looking good, really,” Yaga-sensei is saying as Suguru packs up his bag, tossing pencils and notebook in with reckless abandon. “Really. Your progression since the start of the year has been impressive.”

“Thank you,” Suguru says, zipping his bag shut. He’s not trying to be rude, rushing out of the classroom the second the clock hits four, but he’s not exactly eager to stick around for much longer, either. The sun is setting earlier and earlier these days, leaving Suguru feeling cramped and restless as the classroom darkens before the lesson is up, and, plus, his stomach is all but screaming at him for some good, proper food. All he’s had today is some crappy corner-store snacks with Satoru; he’s ready for a real meal, and then to pass out by eight p.m. The perfect Friday evening.

“We’ll keep working on the simple domain,” Yaga-sensei continues, oblivious to Suguru’s antsiness. “I gather it’s been pretty quiet out there these past few weeks from your and Satoru’s reports—”

“Mhm.”

“—but, still, it’s a good next step in terms of development.”

“Right.”

“After all, summer’s getting closer, and that’s always a busy time for exorcisms. We want to make sure the two of you are ready for that.”

“Yeah,” Suguru says, nodding. His stomach, feeling much less agreeable, clearly, lets out a defeated-sounding yowl, and Suguru grimaces, face warm. “Ah, sorry—”

But Yaga-sensei just smiles, waving a hand. “It’s alright, it’s late. I imagine Satoru has you wrapped up in festivities for the rest of the evening, anyways, so I won’t keep you.”

Suguru frowns at that, puzzled. “Festivities?”

And Yaga-sensei frowns back. “No? He didn’t say?”

“Say what?” A small needle of worry worms its way into Suguru’s aching stomach, burying itself deep. What on Earth could Satoru possibly be up to that requires festivities, much less ones Yaga-sensei knows about and he doesn’t? 

“Well, it’s his birthday today, so I assumed—”

And the needle catches, exploding into a full-fledged ball of panic that falls heavy to the base of Suguru’s stomach. His appetite all but throws itself out the window. “Birthday?” he echoes. 

“He didn’t say anything?” Yaga-sensei asks, mild amusement scrawled on his face, and Suguru’s out the door before he can even get a proper goodbye in. 

Satoru hadn’t said anything about it being his birthday, that Suguru is sure of as he marches through the halls of the school toward the wing the dorms are located in. So, then, really, it’s not as if Suguru can be faulted for not knowing—clearly Satoru didn’t want him to know, or just didn’t care. Regardless, guilt plunges in his stomach like the water of a bath draining; by the time he’s made it outside Satoru’s dorm, fist poised to knock, he feels distinctly off-kilter, flustered. So terribly unlike himself. 

But isn’t that just the Gojou Satoru effect?

“Oh, hey,” is Satoru’s mild greeting. He’s wearing a plain white shirt and gray pants, his glasses occupying the rare position of onto his head rather than their usual place slipping down his nose. “What’s up?”

“Satoru,” Suguru begins, then pauses, hesitant. It’s rare that Satoru misses an opportunity to talk about himself simply because he forgets ; thus the logic follows, then, that he omitted the fact that today’s his birthday for a reason. Should Suguru even say anything?

But he’s here already, and the thought of Satoru alone on his own birthday, silently waiting for someone to come celebrate with him makes Suguru feel inexpertly uncomfortable—unhappy, even—so he bulldozes onwards. 

“Is today your birthday?”

Something flits across Satoru’s face, too fast for Suguru to pin it down, and then he breaks into that easy smile of his. “Yeah, it is. How’s you know?”

“Yaga-sensei asked if we had festivities planned.” 

Satoru huffs a laugh. “Classic.”

Satoru doesn’t seem to have much else to say other than that, and Suguru flounders. Should he leave? Will it even make Satoru happy? Clearly, he doesn’t seem all that thrilled about the concept of his birthday to begin with, standing in the doorway with a blank, faraway sort-of look on his face.

But then the image comes back to the front of Suguru’s mind: Satoru alone, waiting, and his resolve steels at once.

“Let's go get ice cream,” he says. “My treat.”

“Okay,” Satoru replies, and his smile comes easier this time. “Sure.”

They end up at a place right by school, only a five minute walk which is good, as it’s bitterly cold this evening. They snag the last table inside, backed up into the corner. Satoru, predictably, gets strawberry, piling his bowl high with sprinkles. Suguru settles, after some debate, for black sesame. 

“I’ll never understand you,” Satoru says as Suguru returns with his bowl. “Always getting the weirdest flavors wherever we go. Who even likes black sesame?”

Suguru rolls his eyes. “Plenty of people do, otherwise they wouldn’t sell it in so many places. Have you ever even had some? It’s actually really good.”

“Besides the point.” Satoru stabs into his ice cream with enthusiasm, sprinkles scattering across the table. 

Suguru breaks off a small bite and holds the spoon up for Satoru to take. “Here. Try it.”

For a moment, Satoru just stares, nose wrinkled, but then Suguru watches as something flashes in his eyes. Then, before he can do anything, Suguru watches as he leans in, not bothering to hold the spoon himself, and takes a long, slow bite.

Instantly, Suguru feels his face heat up. “Will you cut that out?” he hisses, all too aware of the busy shop behind him, the parents with their kids out for a late-night treat. “Don’t be weird. We’re in public.”

“Be weird?” Satoru pulls away, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. From behind those shades, his eyelashes flutter, and Suguru groans to himself. “I couldn’t possibly tell you what you mean by that.”

Suguru’s swipe is poorly aimed, half-hearted—he can’t bring himself to imbue the gesture with anything real. Satoru blocks it easily, grinning.

“You have to be nice to me, you know,” he continues. “After all, it is my birthday.”

Suguru can’t argue with that. He mulls over that for a moment, watching as Satoru plows through his ice cream, more and more loose sprinkles joining their fallen comrades on the tabletop—Suguru’ll have to clean those up before they leave—before, finally, breaking the silence. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Hm?”

“About it being your birthday?” Suguru takes a bite of his ice cream and tips his head to the side. “You’re usually very, I don’t know. Forthcoming with things about yourself that would result in you getting free food, or whatever.”

Satoru snorts, then sets his spoon down, a faint sigh hanging off his lips. “There’s no real exciting reason. It just wasn’t a big deal for me growing up.” He shrugs. “My parents never celebrated it, so it just doesn’t feel important, I guess.”

He’s bullshitting, plain and simple, but Suguru figures it’s best not to press the issue, thumbing a bruise that’s already sore, half-healed. So he just raises his ice cream in half-toast. “Here’s to your first proper celebration, then.”

Satoru bumps their cups together, grinning. “And you even let me get a large cup instead of a small! This really is a celebration.”

“The one day of the year I’ll let you extort me for money,” Suguru says with a smile. “Better savor it.”

“Oh, I will. I wish Yaga—sorry, Yaga- sensei —had blabbed earlier. I could’ve made you take me to that cute stationary store in Shinjuku.”

“As if you need anymore damn stickers. But we can go tomorrow, if you want,” Suguru adds, watching as Satoru’s face lights up. “After all, I didn’t get you a present or anything, so it’s only fair.”

“Damn right it is.” Satoru jabs a finger in his direction, grinning. “I’m going to be milking this shit for months—”

“Language.”

“—like, oh, Suguru, you almost forgot my birthday, buy me lunch. Hey, remember that time you didn’t do anything for my birthday? Yeah, I’m still pretty broken up over that, why don’t you top off my Suica card?”

“Okay, I didn’t forget,” Suguru mutters, face warm. “You didn’t say anything about it. Seriously, if I’d known, I would’ve done something way nicer than some cheap ice cream—”

“I know, Sugu, I know,” Satoru says with a wave of his hand. The nickname slips out, so smooth Suguru almost doesn’t notice. Satoru certainly doesn’t, continuing on with his ramble like nothing happened, but Suguru feels as if someone’s pressed pause on him. Warmth pools in his chest, the same from the train, an unrelenting blaze. He tries to tamp it down, put a lid on it—he doesn’t want to be ridiculous, not on today of all days—but it bleeds out all the same, staining his cheeks, chalking his mouth.

But Satoru, mercifully, for once is oblivious. 

“Happy birthday,” Suguru says in earnest once they’re outside again, breaths fogging in the air in front of them. It’s cold, but Suguru still feels the warmth of the ice cream shop clinging to him, and perhaps that’s what inspires him to throw an arm around Satoru’s shoulders, pulling him in for an awkward half-hug.

It’s not often he initiates the physical contact between the two of them; in fact, save for the day Satoru got sick, Suguru’s pretty sure he’s never been the one to reach out first. But it’s his birthday, and they’re happy, and why the hell not?

Satoru lets out a surprised noise in the back of his throat, still for a moment before leaning into Suguru with full force. They nearly go tumbling into the street, Suguru bracing himself against the lamppost to stop the fall. Satoru’s weight is limp, heavy against his side, a bundle of heat that burns right through his jacket and shirt and into the spaces behind his ribcage. Satoru stops with his face inches from Suguru, and it hits him like a punch to the teeth: it would be so easy—

And then Suguru’s pushing him back, a healthy distance reopening between the two of them. He feels it like a muscle strain, somewhere deep inside of him, but Satoru grins like nothing’s happened and slings his own arm around Suguru’s shoulder.

The walk like that, moving as if tied together, the whole way back to campus.

 

—

 

The mission was supposed to be simple, but then again, they usually are.

An older woman, mid-sixties, made a call to the school back in March about a presence she’d felt around her house. At first, she’d thought she was being stalked, but a half-assed police investigation was able to dispel that. Then, she’d attempted to get psychiatric care, thinking that must be the root of it all, but, again, the situation stayed the same. Finally, as a last-ditch, desperate attempt, she’d called up Tokyo Jujutsu High, begging for whatever resources they had available.

Of course, Satoru and Suguru are sent out to deal with it over nine months later, in January.

“You know, it’s a miracle this woman hasn’t killed herself,” Satoru remarks as they laze around in her kitchen. Well, Satoru’s lazing; Suguru, ever the forward thinker, has been marching up and down the house, trying to get the curse to reveal itself. There’s a presence palpable in the air, but the stupid thing doesn’t want to show its face, and after thirty minutes of walking around the premise, Satoru’s finally decided to take his first self-scheduled break. 

Suguru hasn’t, of course, so the glare he gives Satoru is only in passing as he exits the living room where he’s been poking around. “What the hell, Satoru?”

“I’m serious!” Satoru throws up his hands in defense. “Dude, are you kidding? If I was some poor old lady and I had this malevolent presence floating around my house that I couldn’t see or do anything about, and my only solution was to call up a bunch of teenagers and have them deal with it for me, I’d probably just kick the can and save myself the embarrassment of it all.”

“It’s not embarrassing to ask for help, you know.” Suguru’s voice floats into the kitchen from the bathroom, his new area of search. “I mean, you don’t, obviously, but I think the general population has more or less caught on to that.”

Satoru huffs a laugh. “I’m not saying it’s embarrassing. I’m just saying the situation is unfortunate.”

“You’re telling me,” comes Suguru’s grumble, complete with what sounds like a cabinet door being slammed shut.

Another laugh escapes him. “Well, If I was some old woman, and this shit was happening to me, I’d probably think, well, I’ve had a good life, you know, I’ve lived long enough. Let’s just call it quits while we’re ahead.”

“If Yaga-sensei could hear you right now, you’d be hanging from the entrance gate by your underwear,” Suguru says, reemerging from the bathroom and setting his sights on the hall closet. Satoru can see a small smile curling around his lips, and he tallies another point to himself, another silent victory.

“Well thank goodness it’s just you, then, and you think I’m hilarious. And adorable. And handsome and perfect and so on.” 

Suguru’s wearing his hair up in a bun today, leaving Satoru with a perfect view of the back of his neck as it flushes ever so slightly pink at his words. Boom, score. Ten points to Satoru. He grins, breathes in deep, then promptly stops.

“Ew,” he says, immediately going to plug his nose. “The fuck’s that smell?”

“Dunno,” Suguru says, the frown audible in his voice, and Satoru clambers out of his seat and heads over to the closet. He’s just in time to watch Suguru pull at a piece of loose paneling in the wall once, twice, and finally rip it off with a jerk.

“Jeez,” Satoru says, and then immediately regrets opening his mouth; the smell—clearly coming from inside the wall—increases tenfold, so strong now he can practically taste it. “Oh, my god, dude.”

Suguru’s nose wrinkles, but he seems otherwise unphased, sticking his head into the hole in the wall. There’s a pause, a bit of shuffling, and then—

“Oh, shit.”

“What? What is it?” Satoru resists the urge to smack Suguru’s arm and haul him back out of reach from whatever he’s just stumbled across in there. 

Suguru crouches, and there’s a moment of struggle before he pulls back, a bundle of— something in his arms. It takes a second for Satoru to piece together exactly what he’s looking at, but when he does, his stomach lurches a little. 

“Oh, dude, what the hell.”

It’s a cat—a small, black, scrawny looking thing—and it’s certainly not alive.

“The lady mentioned she had a cat,” Suguru murmurs, fingers curling in the cat’s fur. “Thought it might have gotten run off by the curse, or something. Guess not.”

“Do you think the curse did this?” Satoru asks, and Suguru shakes his head.

“There was a gap in the mesh surrounding the air vent outside,” he says quietly. “The cat must’ve crawled in at one point, and I guess he couldn’t get out.”

“Oh,” Satoru says, and his stomach twists again, but this time it's not really because of the cat. He conceptually likes animals just fine, but in practice, he’s had no real contact with them, nothing that particularly endears him to the concept of pets or anything as a whole. Suguru, clearly, has though, and it’s the glazed-over expression in his eyes that really digs into Satoru as they sit there, crouched in silence.

Suguru’s the first one to move after a moment, standing sharply. “I’m going to go bury it,” he says in an odd, vague tone of voice. “I don’t think that lady should come back here for a while, and even if she does, I’m not going to leave the cat out for her to find.”

“Okay,” Satoru says, uselessly, as Suguru steps past him. He stays inside for a moment, tidying up to make himself feel helpful. By the time he joins Suguru outside, the grave’s already been dug and the body deposited; Satoru watches as Suguru kneels in the grass, carefully smoothing the dirt over with his hands. He could use cursed energy for that, they both know it, but he doesn’t.

This time, it’s Satoru’s chest, not his stomach, that wrenches painfully. 

“Hey,” he says, stopping just short of where Suguru sits. “Um, I cleaned up in there. Figure we should probably call it quits while it's still light out, head back tomorrow or something, maybe. See what Yaga recommends.”

For once, Suguru doesn’t criticize Satoru’s lack of honorifics. Instead, he just stands, wiping his hands on the front of his jacket. His gaze is still distant as he looks at Satoru and nods. 

“Alright,” he says simply. “Let’s go, then.”

And here’s the thing that sticks at the forefront of his mind throughout the following few days: Satoru wouldn’t have left the cat there, sure. He would’ve taken it outside. He might’ve even carved out a little hole with a ball of Blue, or something, and left the body there. But at the end of the day, it’s just a cat. Maybe he’s an asshole for thinking that—and he’s starting to feel, more and more, like he might be—but even so, Satoru doesn’t know anyone who would go to the lengths of compassion and care where they end up on their knees, digging a grave for an animal they didn’t know with their own hands. 

Anyone except for Suguru, that is. 

And it shouldn’t surprise him. Really, it doesn’t. The headphones, the soup, the ice cream on Satoru’s birthday—it feels as if everything Suguru does is an act of selfless service. Every move is made with intention—how he can leave the room better than he found it. How he can make people smile harder than when he met them. How he can care unashamedly enough to make Satoru care, too—about a cat. A random cat. He doesn’t even like cats, but it’s all he thinks about for the next week: Suguru’s gentle hands combing through the dirt, carving out a final resting place for the already-dead thing he found in a hole in the wall of a woman’s house who he’ll never speak to again. 

It makes him angry, honestly, to think about too much. All the tireless care, thoughtless work Suguru puts into the world around him, and not a single request for anything back. Satoru doesn’t even think he’s ever been asked to pay him back for, like, spotting him for the train fare. Something as stupid as that, for someone as trivial as Satoru, and still, he just does it. 

So that’s how Satoru finds himself standing in the door of a kid’s toy store with Shoko in tow. Suguru’s in his one-on-one lessons with Yaga all afternoon, so Satoru had sensed the perfect opportunity to enact his plan: to get Suguru a plushie that looks like the cat they had found as a—what, a condolence prize? A thank-you gift? An apology?

He’s not totally certain. In fact, the longer he stands here in the doorway, the weirder about this whole idea he feels. But they’ve come this far already, and he’s pretty sure if he tells Shoko they’re turning around and going home she’s going to kick him, so with a sigh he ducks his head and steps inside the shop.

“I drew a picture of it,” Satoru says as they pause, taking stock. He digs the scrap of paper out of his pocket and holds it up for Shoko to see. 

She frowns at it. “You drew a picture of the dead cat? On the back of your social studies homework?”

“Okay,” Satoru says, scowling, and stuffs the drawing away. “Don’t make it sound so creepy. It’s not of the dead cat, it’s of the cat, I don’t know, healthy and happy and alive. I just thought it would be helpful, maybe. Sue me.”

He’s been like this a lot recently: irritable, aggravated, uncertain. Tripping over his own feet, embarrassing himself with his own lack of direction and control—since when has he ever gone anywhere with a plan, much less a drawn out vision of it, huh? His stomach’s in knots more often than not. His thoughts are ending in question marks.    

At his shoulder, Shoko just shakes her head and makes one of those stupid, I-know-something-you-don’t faces. “You’re so weird,” she says. “Let’s be snappy about it. You still have to help me with the math homework for tomorrow after this.”

“Right,” Satoru says, math quite possibly the furthest thing from his mind right now. “Sure thing.”

It only takes a few minutes to hunt down a few viable options, and Satoru pulls Shoko in the corner to assess her opinions of them. 

“Which one’s cuter?” he asks, holding up his two favorites. “Him or him?”

“Is cute really what you’re going for here, though?” she asks, tapping her chin in—probably a mockery of—deep thought.

Satoru scowls. “Well, I don’t want to get an ugly, hideous, deformed cat plushie, now, do I? That would be weird.”

“And this isn’t?”

Satoru throws his hands up in the air, the plushies windmilling about. “Fine, okay, whatever. You’re no help. I’m getting this one.”

“I think the other one’s cuter.”

“Shoko, I swear to god—”

Satoru secures his purchase with sweaty palms and a weird jerk to his voice that leaves the cashier staring at him in silence for a second too long. He’s not sure why he’s so nervous about this, if nervous is even what he’s feeling right now—it feels bigger than that, somehow, more complex, more uncomfortable. Maybe the curse they never found at that old lady’s house possessed him and made him clinically defective, or something. That might explain it.

“You know, Satoru,” Shoko says as they make their way back in the direction of the school, “you might be the only person I’ve ever met who would commemorate you and your friend finding some old woman’s dead cat by getting said friend a stuffed animal representation of said dead cat.” She huffs. “You really are so interesting.”

“Okay,” Satoru says again, neck burning unpleasantly. “Can’t I just, I don’t know, try to do one sweet thing ever in my life? Is that so wrong? Are you ever going to stop making fun of me for this?”

“I just think it’s funny, is all,” she says. “It’s very—you.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know.” Shoko shrugs, grinning. “A little awkward, a little weird. Kind of charming, if you look at it right. I’m sure Suguru will be thrilled.”

Satoru resists the overwhelming urge to stop walking and lay face down in the middle of the pavement. “Please don’t say it like that,” he groans.

“Like what?”

“Like you think he’s going to think I’m a creep and then never speak to me again and I’ll have to change my name and transfer to Kyoto, or something.”

“Okay, I think that’s a bit dramatic,” Shoko says with a scoff. “It’s a stuffed animal, Satoru. Really not that serious. He gets you things all the time, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yeah. So it’s not special when he does it. Or—” Satoru thinks about that last part for a second. No, it is special when he does it, that’s the problem. Every second-nature gesture, every offhanded favor or gift, it all feels stupidly, infuriatingly special even though it's all happened a million times at this point. And Satoru can’t even do one thing in response without being weird about it. He really must be possessed. That’s the only explanation here. “—or whatever. Whatever! It doesn’t matter. I don’t care.”

“Clearly,” Shoko says. Then, quite suddenly, “man, you really like him, huh?”

This time, Satoru does stop walking, just for a second. He stares at Shoko.

“What?” she says. “Take that how you want. I didn’t say you wanna marry him—”

“Well, no, but—” Satoru falters. Isn’t that what she meant? Is he crazy? 

Does he like Suguru like that? Is that it—why he’s been so on-edge, freaked out? What kind of reaction is this to liking someone? 

“You like him,” Shoko continues, simple as that. “How you like him, I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t want to know, but you do. There’s nothing wrong with liking your best friend, you know. Most people would say that’s the prerequisite for being friends with someone to begin with, you know.”

“I know that,” Satoru says, a little faintly. His heart feels like it’s grown limbs and is trying to crawl its way out of his mouth. “You’re just—I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know!”

“Clearly you do!”

“You’re implying things,” Satoru says, grimacing, “that are, um.”

Shoko arches an eyebrow. “Um?”

“I don’t know,” he says, miserably, letting his shoulders slump. “I think I’m going crazy.”

Shoko gives him a faint pat on his shoulder, that same omniscient look on her face. “I’m sure you are.”

He wants to tear his hair out. 

Four hours later and a great deal more jittery, somehow, Satoru finds himself standing outside Suguru’s door, cat in hand, heart entirely bypassed sitting in his mouth for lying twitching on the floor somewhere down the hall. Something is seriously wrong with him. In his sixteen years of life, never has he felt this—this nervous . What the hell? 

Hand infused with lead, it seems, Satoru knocks. He hears a moment of shuffling and the door cracks open, one of Suguru’s brown eyes peering at him for a moment. 

“Hey,” he says, the room behind him coming into view as he holds the door open wider. “What’s up?”

Satoru is unashamed: he loves Suguru’s room. If he could live there instead of his own, he very well might. There’s just something so calming about the place—the soft yellow of the lamps from Nitori Satoru had insisted he have a say in; the band posters lining the wall; in the corner, shelves of vinyls, a record player spitting out static; Suguru’s bed, neatly made, blankets folded at the foot. The place smells just like him, too: rosewood and oranges. 

“Um,” Satoru says, embarrassment washing over him, hot and itchy. He holds the cat plushie out for Suguru to see. “I have, um.”

“You have a cat,” Suguru supplies, eyeing it. “‘S’cute. That’s what you and Shoko were running around doing today?”

Of course she ratted him out. That bastard. “Yeah, it’s—” Oh, god, he’s a freak. He’s a freak and Suguru is going to laugh at him and he’s seriously going to have to move to Kyoto. “It’s for you.”

Suguru looks up, eyebrows arching up to his hair. He’s wearing it half-up, half-down this evening. It looks—well, it doesn’t matter how it looks. Satoru swallows his thoughts, a mouth of sand, and holds it out to him.

“I thought,” he says, unbearably tentative, “you know, when we saw that lady’s cat, you were—or, you seemed sad. Obviously. So I got you this. ‘Cause it kinda looks like him, you know?”

For a long, painfully long moment, Suguru says nothing, simply takes the plushie out of Satoru’s hands and studies it, eyes wide. When he looks back up, Satoru’s sure he’s about to get the mocking of a lifetime. Instead, he gets a warm smile.

“Thank you,” he says, so serious, and Satoru wills with all his might for his face to remain its usual pallor, just for a moment, just until the door closes.

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck furiously. His chest keeps soaring, then crumpling, then soaring again, a seesaw that’s making him feel faint. Maybe he’s sick again—maybe that’s it. “I know it’s lame—”

“Are you kidding? This is adorable,” Suguru holds the cat up as if to say look! Look what I got! “Thank you,” he repeats, smile widening. 

“Yeah,” Satoru says, stupidly. “‘Course, um—I gotta—homework, but—breakfast?”

Lunch? his brain supplies hysterically. Dinner? Every day? Please?  

“Sure,” Suguru says, still smiling. “Night, Satoru.”

“G’night.”

Back in his room, Satoru throws himself down on his bed, whips out his phone, and pulls up his messages with Shoko.

you so knew, he types out. Her response comes a moment later.

You’re weird. Go to bed.

And then, a moment after that: It’s been getting hard to watch. Glad you figured it out.

Figured it out feels like a strong way to put it, but he’ll take it for now.

 

—

 

Suguru spends most of his birthday alone.

His reasons for hiding out are not significant, nor interesting, like Satoru’s were back in December: he simply has a lot of work. He wakes up in the morning with his history project deadline looming over him—some report on the various socio-political relations between the sorcerer dynasties of large—and so it’s a quiet day for him, spent cycling through tea bags and burying his face in a stack of books.

It’s only when he’s at the editing stage—it’s late now, must be about 4 p.m.—when Suguru rewards himself with a break, picking up his phone. A few messages from Satoru have come in.

i think it should be a crime to have to sit and do work for as long as i have 2day .·°՞(≧□≦)՞°·.

seriously i think my ass has fused with my desk chair

And then, finally: please tell me you have not gotten anything to eat yet

With a faint smile, Suguru texts back: No, not yet. Just finished up my report. Want to get something?

The response is instantaneous: sweeter words have never been spoken. meet outside in ~10?

Sounds good.

Satoru is only two minutes behind his proposed meeting time which, really, for him, is the equivalent to being twenty minutes early. He bounds up to Suguru, nose and cheeks already pink with cold. With his green puffer jacket and white hair sticking out at all angles like a halo, he looks almost like a snow-capped Christmas tree. 

Maybe it’s just the birthday sentimentality catching up to him like it does every year, but Suguru can’t deny the flood of warmth that passes over him. It’s—well, he looks sweet, like that, grin taking up half his face. Satoru looks sweet.

“There’s the birthday boy,” Satoru says, greeting him with a punch to the arm that has no weight behind it, their version of a hug. “The big one-seven. How’s it feel?”

“Like I know more than I’d ever want or need to know about the Zenin clan,” Suguru says, and Satoru grins.

“Try having Shoko explain trigonometric ratios to you for three hours,” he says. “I don’t know who I thought was more likely to cry at the end of it—me or her.”

Suguru laughs. “I’m not in the mood to walk far,” he says. “Want to check out that ramen bar we saw the other day?”

It’s quiet for a Saturday evening. They secure a table at the back of the restaurant and Suguru listens, nail dragging along the rim of his glass, as Satoru recaps his disastrous day of studying in full, complete with two separate impersonations of Shoko that aren’t quite necessary to the plot but have Suguru doubled up laughing both times, anyways. In turn, he gives an extensive recount of all the sorcerer dynasty drama he’s learned about, Satoru reacting along like he’s watching a soap opera. Suguru keeps trying to cut himself off, all-too-aware that Satoru’s probably hamming his reactions up for his sake and that, in reality, no in the whole school finds this stuff interesting, barely even him. By the third time, Satoru leans in, dropping a hand down on Suguru’s outstretched wrist. 

“Dude,” he says, all solemn and serious. “If I thought you were boring, I would’ve told you months ago. Seriously. This is the first time anyone’s talked to me about sorcerer politics without me being sent into a coma five minutes in. You can’t leave me hanging now.”

And so Suguru continues, cheeks warm, chest light. 

The food is good, too. Satoru, in typical fashion, floats the idea of announcing that it’s Suguru’s birthday in hopes someone will buy them free drinks; Suguru shuts that down with a glare. When the time comes to pay, Satoru’s slapping his hands before he can even get his wallet out.

“Don’t even think about it,” he warns. “You’re not allowed to pay on your birthday. It’s bad luck. I’ll probably die in my sleep if you do, and then you’ll feel awful about it forever.”

“I’m pretty sure you just made that up,” Suguru says, but he backs down all the same. 

They take the long way home, Satoru moving on to regaling Suguru with the latest gossip he’d learned via Utahime. Some embarrassing anecdote about Yaga falling asleep at a meeting with the Kyoto school—“man, I’d fall asleep too if I had to go to those things,” Satoru says; “you just wouldn’t go,” is Suguru’s response, and that earns him an easy laugh. Another Shoko impression, this one better than the first two, and Suguru’s sides are aching by the time they get to the point where they split off, Suguru going to his dorm, Satoru going to his. 

“Thanks for this,” Suguru says, as sincere as he can make himself sound. He’s dawdling, he knows it. A half-part of him wants to ask Satoru to come over just to extend this evening a little longer, selfishly milk it for all it’s worth. Suguru can put on some records and they can keep shit-talking the higher ups, Satoru interrupting himself every five minutes to bitch about the incense Suguru’ll light or ask for a snack. But that feels something too on the edge, too ambiguous. He’ll do it, and he’ll have fun, and he’ll ask for it again, and again, and again, and when it’s not enough, when he needs more of Satoru’s life to fuse with his, he’s not sure what his next request will be. 

And that terrifies him.

Satoru’s smile is easy. He claps a hand down on Suguru’s shoulder. “‘Course,” he says. “Happy birthday, again. Sorry I didn't get you a present, or anything.”

“Well, I didn’t get you one either, so it’s only fair.” Suguru allows himself to return the smile—that’s the easy part. His face aches with the gesture; he’s been grinning all night. It’s too second-nature, around him. “Next year, eh?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll get you the best gift you’ve ever received, probably. Just you wait.”

“I’m sure.” Suguru lets his voice run dry for the effect, but his smile stays the same. It’s too damn easy.

Satoru blinks, as if deliberating. Suguru watches as he takes a half-step towards him, then another. 

And then he leans in. It’s just a quick kiss on the cheek, the gesture so fleeting Suguru wonders for a split second if it was maybe just a badly-timed hug. But Satoru’s eyes are wide when he pulls back, flitting from him to the walls to the floor back to him in rapid succession like he can’t decide what he wants to look at more. The grip he has on Suguru’s shoulder is hard, too, but Suguru can barely feel it around the burn on his cheek, the heat that spreads throughout his body, hot coals under the surface. His stomach is doing leaps, jumps, sprints around the track. 

Suguru opens his mouth—to say what, he hasn’t the faintest idea—but in a rush Satoru beats him to it. He drops his grip on his shoulder and gives an awkward half-wave, half-salute. 

“G’night,” he says, and that’s it. The door to his hallway is already swinging shut before words finally materialize on Suguru’s tongue: you kissed me. 

He imagines a phantom Satoru’s response, snark-filled and sure of himself. Good observation, Suguru. Got any others for me? A shameless confidence with which he moves, a head that never falters. Though the kiss had seemed nervous—Suguru, dazed, touches his cheek like he might feel it there, still, squirming under the skin—a little shy like Satoru so rarely is. For some reason, that only makes Suguru’s stomach land its flip with more force. 

And he does touch his cheek, just for a moment, before the gesture makes his skin crawl—like something out of a high-school rom-com, honestly. Platonic is what you make of it, and Satoru’s always been—well, Satoru. Big, showy, full of displays that fill the room with their light and noise. The sun, if he grew legs and strange hair, walked among men, playing pretend as one of them. Is a kiss on the cheek so weird, coming from him? 

Suguru’s pulse chatters in his ears, a steady drum he’s convinced could be heard down the hall, through the door, all the way in Satoru’s room where he no doubt sits on his bed, thinking nothing of this while Suguru stands here, dumbfounded, trying his best not to think everything. 

 

—

 

The remaining months of the year pass without incident. In some ways, everything changes: the frost burns away to endless rain, a dampness that soaks the sidewalk and clings stubbornly to all of Satoru’s jackets. The missions become more serious, more unsupervised—twice he and Suguru are sent on overnighters, and both times Yaga only mandates they check in once. Shoko spends most of her time in the morgue now, honing her technique, so it’s he and Suguru on the field. The curses get bigger, the summer impending. The stakes get higher. Lines about responsibility and duty begin to creep into Yaga’s lessons; soon, there will be new first-years, people to set examples for, he says. More than ever, the hard-hitting questions are leveled: what does it mean to be a jujutsu sorcerer? Why should one want to be one in the first place? Does the reasoning even matter?

(Satoru thinks no, Suguru thinks yes. They butt heads over it, serious arguments that turn nasty on a few occasions. They don’t speak for two days after one, and Satoru feels the absence like a hole, a yawning cavity in his side. But Suguru is the one to apologize first.)

In some ways, though, nothing changes: he and Suguru still spend most of their time together—on missions, at meals, doing work, simply lazing about procrastinating all three of the other things. They’re spending more and more of their downtime in each other’s rooms—though, usually, it’s Suguru’s, Satoru sprawling himself out on the bed while Suguru camps out at his desk, armed with a mug of tea and those ever-present headphones. Often, these hang-outs are under the guise of work, but as the year draws to a close and final assignments get handed in one by one, they turn into aimless periods of coexisting, no set direction in mind. Sometimes, they’ll spend the whole day without talking, simply rotating around each other in comfortable silence like twin planets.

It’s heavenly. It’s all Satoru could want. His shirts smell permanently of rosewood, citrus-tinged on the right days, and he wants none of it to change, ever.

He doesn't try his luck with something as ambitious as a cheek kiss again, but gestures like hand-holding—usually to demonstrate a point , or whatever ruse Satoru can come up with fastest—and sitting pressed up against each other become more and more common. On the odd day when he’s feeling particularly benevolent, Suguru will even allow Satoru to rest his head on his thigh, or sprawl out in his lap for a few minutes like an overgrown house cat; usually, though, these attempts are met with a grumble and a shove, a hard line in the sand.

So no cheek-kissing. Nothing of that sort. The deranged panic he’d been immersed in after the cat incident has faded into an ever-present buzz at the back of his head, the base of his spine, the tips of his fingers, but in the right light it fades to nothingness. What he has is good, and there’s no reason to push it further. He can learn to take what is not his.

Unwillingly, though, and with a lot of bemoaning to Shoko, who laments his use of hypotheticals and would-be scenarios— I do know you’re talking about yourself, you know —but gives good advice, if a little harsh. If you’re not going to do anything about it, then suck it up, Satoru, I don’t know what to tell you.

More often than not, he plays dumb, his silent concession over text that one time a deeply-buried memory that only unearths itself late at night when he can’t sleep. But the box he’s built it into is strong, and most days he forgets there’s any issue he’s tiptoeing around to begin with. Things are good. They’re really good.

They’re especially good right now, sprawled out on the floor of one of the rec rooms, glass threatening to tip out of his hands for the millionth time that evening. It’s the last day of classes—or was—and he, Suguru, and Shoko had gone out to dinner to celebrate. Then Suguru had been coerced into purchasing a bottle of shochu for the three of them to split, and now here they are, Shoko and Suguru on the couches, Satoru on the floor. 

He really hates the shochu—Suguru had warned him that he might as he eyed him skeptically outside the convenience store—but two, three glasses in and the burn of the taste is subsiding.

He’s drunk. Laying-on-the-floor-giggling-to-himself drunk. It’s wonderful.

“Sure you don’t want to come sit up here?” Shoko’s voice floats down from the heavens. She and Suguru have the TV on in the background, some reality show he’s only been half-paying attention to. He turns his head, the movement, sloppy, and considers the prospect.

“Lemme put my head in your lap,” Satoru says to Suguru, “and then yeah.”

Shoko makes a disgusted-sounding noise in the back of her throat and turns her attention back to the TV. Suguru glances down at Satoru. “Don’t be weird,” he says. He’s drunk, too—Satoru can see it in the dopey tint to his grin even as he tries to chastise. 

“Not weird,” Satoru counters. “Perfectly reasonable request. Wouldn’t you say, Shoko?”

Unlike Suguru, Shoko’s chastisement is not affected one bit by whatever she’s had to drink—the glare she fixes him with is almost enough to get him to snap out of his haze. Almost. “Keep me out of your weird—ugh, whatever.” She takes another long, slow swig from her glass and fumbles for the remote. “You two are so odd. I’ll never understand it.”

“Rude,” Satoru points out, and rises to his feet, swaying. The room seems to spin around him, and it takes him a second to remember where he’s headed. With a grin, he locks eyes on his target. 

“Ow,” Surugu mutters as Satoru drops himself unceremoniously onto the couch, head immediately coming to a rest on Suguru’s outstretched thigh. “Watch where you’re flinging yourself.”

“So that chick’s cheating on that guy?” Satoru waves a hand at the TV. His drink is still where he left it, sweating onto the carpet, and he misses it, suddenly. “Lame. He’s hot. I don’t know what she’s thinking.”

The words fall from his mouth unbidden. Is the guy on the TV hot? Satoru squints at him, frowning. Long, dark hair done up in a bun as he moves around the kitchen, clearly distraught over the news of his girlfriend’s latest escapades. When he speaks, though, his words are calm, measured, thoughtful. 

Underneath his head, Suguru’s leg spasms.

Yeah, alright. Satoru lets out a laugh. He’s hot. Whatever.

“What’s so funny?” Satoru turns his head to see Suguru peering down at him, smiling. In the blue-beam glow from the TV, his features look soft, sculpted like marble. Satoru wants to touch his face and see if it really is as smooth as it looks. 

Satoru just shakes his head and turns back to the TV. 

“I dunno about that,” comes Shoko’s voice. “He’s a bit of an asshole, no?”

“No,” Satoru mumbles, turning so his face is all but buried in Suguru’s thigh. It’s the comfiest he’s felt in a while. “Not an asshole. Serious. Like you.” He pokes Suguru at that, earning a scoff in response.

“I’m not that serious,” he protests.

“Stick up your ass,” Satoru says, and closes his eyes against Suguru’s leg.

“I wouldn’t say that,” comes Shoko’s response, floating over to him. “Though you were very serious when we got here, for a while. But not in a rude way.” She pauses for a moment, the hum of the TV filling the silence, then, “I think Satoru’s rubbed off on you a lot, actually.”

“Huh?” Satoru can feel Suguru’s gaze on him. “Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. You’re friendlier now—well, more open, I guess; you were always pretty friendly. More joke-y.” Satoru hears a shift from her, a shrug. “Maybe I’m wrong, but—”

“No, you’re definitely right,” Satoru says, voice muffled by the fabric of Suguru’s pants. “My magnetic personality has transformed yet another person. And who wouldn’t wanna be like me, anyways?” He shifts, humming to himself. “I’m awesome.”

A flick on his temple and another scoff from Suguru come at the same time. Satoru swipes clumsily at him, whining. 

“Don’t flick me,” he protests, and hears a laugh from Shoko. “I’m drunk. Incapti— incapacitated . That’s like kicking a baby.”

“Yeah, Suguru,” Shoko says, a mocking hint to her voice. “Poor baby Satoru. Look at how cute he is. You wouldn’t hurt him, would you?”

Satoru turns, flashing his attempt at an adorable grin up at Suguru. It probably looks a little weird, lopsided, but Suguru’s responding smile is warm all the same, and Satoru turns his attention back to the TV. 

The noise lulls him, his own swimming in his head something akin to being rocked to sleep, and he doesn’t realize his eyes have slid shut until he hears a movement beside him, the sound of Shoko standing up, stretching.

“Night,” he hears her whisper. “Don’t have too much fun.”

Satoru can imagine her smirk, self-satisfied in her own knowledge. He tries to sit up to tell her something—he hasn’t figured that part out yet—but only makes it half of the way through the movement before dropping back onto Suguru’s legs with a groan.

“Ow,” he says again, and Satoru finally opens his eyes again. Shoko’s gone. The TV’s on mute. “Watch the head.”

Even drunk, he’s still on alert, cautious. Something dangerous blooms in Satoru’s stomach, spreads up through his chest to his head, leaving him dizzy. Suguru’s face shines down on him, soft with a smile, and somewhere in Satoru the words piece together: “was I sleeping?”

Suguru huffs a laugh. “Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

Fair point. Satoru tries sitting up again and makes it all the way this time, though he immediately lets himself go limp, face smashing up against Suguru’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he mumbles, tongue heavy. “Tired.”

“Bedtime?”

“That guy looks like you,” Satoru says, ignoring the question. He wants to stay here forever, he thinks, warm and content at Suguru’s side. “On the TV. The—yeah.”

“The hot one?” Suguru asks, then immediately stiffens. Satoru can taste his panic in the air, fresh and sudden. Always so conscientious. Always worrying. A vacuum for the bad around him.

And Satoru doesn’t care. He realizes this now, slowly, between languid blinks and commercial snippets. It's all true, anyways: the guy on the TV, Suguru, what he thinks about him. The cheek-kiss. The head on the shoulder, even now. Why run from something that lives with you, in you? Especially if it feels this warm, nice?

He’s drunk, really drunk. “Hot,” is all he manages to get out, and then Suguru shifts, hands displacing him, holding up for inspection. He lets his head loll forward, grinning stupidly.

“If you puke on me, I’m going to be so pissed,” Suguru says, and that earns him a laugh. “Bedtime, I think.”

“I wanna hang out with you,” is Satoru’s leveled protest, and he kicks himself into gear, sitting up of his own accord now so Suguru knows he means business. 

“We’ll see each other tomorrow,” says Suguru. Ever the realist. Ever the logic machine. “No classes, too. You can sleep in, and then we'll see what Yaga-sensei has for us. It’ll be fun.”

“I wanna hang out with you now,” Satoru tries again. “For a little bit more. C’mon.”

“You’re drunk.” Even though Satoru’s bearing his own weight, Suguru’s hands haven’t left his shoulders. “Another time. You should sleep soon, or you’ll start feeling sick. Let’s go, yeah?”

He’s not getting it. How has he not gotten it? What more can Satoru do, realistically, before it borders on predation? He’s throwing himself at his feet here, has been for weeks, months. The stupid cat. The dinner, the kiss—does it not click? Satoru grits his teeth, a groan of frustration escaping him.

“What?” 

His concern is so genuine it slaps Satoru in the face, sobers him up just enough to realize what he needs to do now. With only a half-formulated idea in place, he closes his eyes and leans in. 

And then they’re kissing. And it’s all Satoru’s wanted, all he’s wanted for months. 

Suguru stays frozen in place for a second, two, and then jerks back, a hand on Satoru’s chest, driving them apart. He feels the physical space open up like a black hole, wants nothing more than to close it in an instant, but Suguru’s hand is unrelenting. 

“What—” Suguru’s mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again. “Satoru—”

“Please,” he says, not even sure what he’s begging for. “Sugu.”

“Stop.” Suguru’s eyes are wide. A thousand tiny micro-expressions flit across his face, and Satoru’s not even sure if sobriety would help him better understand them. 

Something swells in his chest, a raw, hot surge of emotion that threatens to worm its way out his eyes in the most devastating way possible. He realizes slowly that this is it: he is being rejected. Suguru is telling him to stop. 

“I—” he starts, and he doesn’t even know where to go next. All he has is his name, and he whispers it this time. “Suguru.”

Suguru shakes his head. “You—you’re drunk, you don’t know—”

“I’m not—” And okay, he is, but not that drunk. Not so drunk that he can’t enact what he’s been desperately trying to avoid thinking about for months—he did that just fine thirty seconds ago. “Not that drunk.”

A line of worry splits Suguru’s brow. His mouth hangs open again, uncertain, and Satoru takes advantage of the pause, leaning in again.

“I want—” They’re almost nose-to-nose. Suguru’s usual scent blends with the acrid reek of cheap alcohol, a heady concoction that makes Satoru’s head swim dangerously. “I know what I want,” he gets out, finally.

And it’s Suguru closing the distance this time. The kiss is slower, softer. Suguru tastes like mint. His lips are warm, soft. Satoru reaches out, balling a gentle fist around his collar, more to keep himself steady than anything, and Suguru responds with a hand cupping the back of his head, fingers threading through the short hair on the nape of his neck. 

Something is exploding inside of him, an atom bomb re-detonating on repeat. Why haven’t they done this before? Suguru deepens the kiss, a pressure that makes stars erupt in Satoru’s chest. Why don’t they do this all the time? 

But just as soon as it started, Suguru stops, pulls back, lips parted. His eyes are still wide, brows still knit together. Satoru doesn’t like the frown, or the stress. Maybe if they kiss again he’ll stop worrying—

“Okay,” Suguru whispers, another steeling hand on his chest, and Satoru stops. “Okay.”

“It doesn’t—” Satoru leans back, scrubbing a desperate hand over his face, willing the words to come from somewhere. His brain feels fuzzy, disconnected from the rest of him. His lips tingle and, oh, god, he wants to kiss him. He wants to do it five, ten, a hundred more times. What are they doing? “I mean, we’re still friends. This doesn’t have to change—things.”

Why don’t they do that all the time? Satoru wants to scream. 

“Okay,” Suguru whispers again, blinking once. 

“You’re my best friend.” Satoru feels clumsy, stupid. The dangerous feeling rises in his chest again, threatens to burst out. What are they doing? What is he doing?

Ever attentive, Suguru finds one of his hands, squeezes. “You’re my best friend, idiot.” Another squeeze, a sigh. “'Toru.”

Satoru’s laugh is a little weak. “I’m drunk.”

“Yeah.” One more squeeze, then Suguru’s standing, sliding off the cough, Satoru in tow. “Bedtime. We’ll tidy up in the morning.”

“Okay,” Satoru whispers, and allows himself to be led out of the rec room, up the stairs to his hall. He wishes it were Suguru’s room. He wishes the past twenty minutes had never happened—he had wanted to do it right, not like this. Had he wanted to do it at all?

Yes. Suguru opens his door, ushers Satoru in with a hand on the small of his back, the touch so gentle it might as well not be there. Yes, he really did. That’s probably the worst of it all.

“Okay,” Suguru says once Satoru’s sitting on the edge of his bed, hands folded in his lap. “Bedtime.”

One-track record. Satoru nods, then blinks up at him.

“Night,” he whispers.

“Night,” comes the reply. The door shuts with a gentle click , and Satoru closes his eyes.