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Satoru wakes up exactly seven minutes before his alarm, with a wet patch at his collar and a sheet-wrapped situation between his legs that can only be described as fucking mortifying. The dream is already breaking apart—Suguru’s hands, Suguru’s voice, the sheer, physics-defying amount of rope—but the afterimage is stubborn, imprinted somewhere behind his eyes. The pressure in his chest is only outmatched by the pressure lower down, which is both inconvenient and a little impressive, honestly, considering it’s only seven in the fucking morning.
He stares at the ceiling, which is the same shade of predawn grey as it was yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. If he squints, he can still see the scuff marks from where he and Haibara had that broom-handle joust last spring.
He catalogues the facts. This is his room. It is a single bed, shoved against one wall, covered in a synthetic blue sheet that’s already halfway off the mattress. The paint is flaking in one corner, and the air smells like last night’s instant ramen. His desk is an open casket of mission reports, mismatched pens, and a disturbing number of snack wrappers. A single, half-drawn curtain fails spectacularly to block the weak morning light.
He takes inventory, the way he does when he wakes up after a fight. Hands, arms, legs, everything present and accounted for. He is Gojo fucking Satoru. He is, by nearly every known metric, the most powerful sorcerer at the school—probably in the world, if you ask him (which no one does, because he’s already told everyone). He has survived curses, assassination attempts, and exactly one week on the school’s macrobiotic meal plan. He once exorcised a special grade while eating mochi with his left hand. He can do this. He can ignore a morning boner. He can ignore whatever the fuck his subconscious is trying to tell him with its endless reruns of Geto Suguru: Bondage Edition.
He closes his eyes and thinks, very hard, about vacuuming up all his cursed energy and venting it out the soles of his feet, the way Yaga once demonstrated in the world’s most boring seminar. Nothing happens. He wonders if there’s a cursed technique for post-dream blue balls and makes a mental note to ask Shoko if she’s ever heard of one.
He rolls out of bed, sheets still tangled around his ankles, and stumbles toward the door. The hallway is a corridor of institutional sameness. Cypress planks, identical shoji, the faintly chemical tang of floor wax. At the far end, the vending machine glows in the darkness like a beacon of late-stage capitalism, three empty slots where the good shit used to be. He considers just staying here, huddled in the hallway, refusing to move until the universe sorts out his problem for him. Or perhaps, autodefenestration from the top floor, because the former is not going to happen. Not in this timeline.
He makes his way to the communal bathroom, ducking past a girl from the year below who gives him a look like she knows exactly what he’s dealing with. (She probably does. Statistically, at least half the people in this building have had a sex dream about Geto Suguru. The other half are lying.)
Inside, he plants both hands on the edge of the sink and stares at his reflection. The flickering fluorescent tube overhead renders him extra haggard, which is so fun and groovy. He bares his teeth at himself. He halts immediately, not liking what he sees at all. He turns on the faucet and lets the water run cold, then splashes it over his face. He could just fill the sink and drown in it, actually.
He gives himself a stern, point-by-point internal lecture.
One: He and Suguru have been friends for almost three years. That is, in Satoru terms, forever. He has never once done anything this fucking embarrassing in all that time. Not even during the Kyoto exchange, when Suguru caught him asleep in the library with drool stuck to an open book. Not even during their first mission, when Satoru tripped over his own feet and Suguru dead-lifted him, bridal style, out of the way of a curse with a casual “you good?” that went straight to Satoru’s hippocampus and set up permanent residence there.
Two: There is absolutely, incontrovertibly, nothing hot about Suguru. He is tall, yes, and also kinda ripped. Okay—not kinda. Very. Shut up!!! Anyway, where was he? His hair is black, long enough to tie back, which he does with a kind of unconscious, offhanded grace that makes Satoru want to scream. His hands are big… and—uh. Where was he going with this again? OH YEAH. Hands. Perfectly clean. There is a small scar on his left index finger from when he almost lost it during a summer exorcism. (Satoru remembers this in alarming detail, because Satoru was there. Satoru is always there.)
Three: The only reason Suguru is in his dreams at all is proximity. They spend more time together than most married couples. They share a schedule, a mission record, and occasionally a bed when the heating craps out in the winter. That doesn’t mean anything. Correlation is not causation.
Four: He needs to get a fucking grip. Preferably before eight AM.
He turns off the tap, still holding the edges of the sink like he might snap the porcelain from the wall (he could). In the mirror, his own eyes are half-hidden behind last night’s sleep mask, pushed up into his hair like a limp sea cucumber. He leaves it there. He will deal with the implications later.
He brushes his teeth like he’s trying to remove them forcibly from his gums; toothpaste, and spite foaming over his tongue. He imagines Suguru seeing him like this and laughs, a dry bark that echoes against the tile. The sound is too loud and too lonely in the empty room.
When he’s done, he slaps his cheeks, hard, until they sting and then regrets it immediately because he fucking despisespain. Like, why the hell would he do that? He’s had enough punishment and the sun is barely gracing the sky.
Suguru is already at the breakfast table when Satoru rolls in, carrying himself with the air of a man who just emerged victorious from a twelve-round championship bout with his own frontal cortex. It’s not a good look, but it’s the only one he’s got.
The common room is migraine-inducingly ugly. There’s a couch so ancient its upholstery has faded from orange to a vague sickly beige, a TV bolted to the wall at a tilt that suggests it’s slowly losing the will to live, a low table that memorialises every beverage ever spilled in the history of the building. On the floor, someone’s left a pair of socks, artfully rolled together like a modern sculpture about despair.
Now that he thinks about it, they look kinda familiar.
Suguru sits at the small dining table near the window, a bowl of rice in front of him and the day’s first cup of green tea nestled between both hands. He looks, as always, as though he was specifically brought upon this hallowed earth to make Satoru feel like an unmade bed. His hair is up in a loose bun, but a few strands have already slipped free and frame his jaw in a way that, Satoru is forced to admit, is probably illegal in at least three prefectures. His face is composed, relaxed, not a hint of early-morning trauma. Fucking bastard.
Satoru drops into the chair opposite him, limbs going at all angles like a crash-test dummy in repose. He doesn’t bother with rice yet; he is still, technically, digesting his own humiliation.
“Did you know it’s supposed to rain for the next three days?” Satoru says, by way of greeting. “Like, constant, biblical rain. I’m expecting a guy with a beard and an ark to show up any minute. Wouldn’t surprise me if a curse tried to ride out the flood inside a big wooden boat. We’d have to exorcise it, of course, but that seems on brand.”
Suguru blinks at him. “Good morning to you, too, Satoru.”
He speaks with that unhurried cadence, the one that makes everything sound like it’s being narrated by a Japanese version of David Attenborough. He takes another measured bite of rice, chewing slowly, like this is actually the most interesting part of his day.
Satoru, for reasons unknown even to himself, cannot stop watching the way Suguru holds his chopsticks. The long fingers, the impossible steadiness. He wants to say something about it, but there are literally no sentences that don’t make him sound like either a serial killer or a guy two days away from writing poetry in the margins of his class notes.
Instead, he grabs his own bowl and starts shovelling food into it. Probably enough to feed the entire third year.
Suguru puts down his tea. “You look tired. Did you sleep?”
“Like the dead,” Satoru says, grinning. “A corpse could only dream of the sleep I got.”
Suguru gives him a look, one eyebrow very slightly up. Like he knows.
Oh goodie, heart palpitations.
Satoru takes a heroic gulp of miso soup and burns the roof of his mouth. He will not acknowledge the pain. He has endured far worse. Like the slap he gave himself earlier.
“So,” Satoru says, “you got any missions today, or are you finally taking my advice and dropping out to become a professional darts player?”
Suguru’s mouth twitches at the corner. “You’re projecting again.”
“I’d make an excellent sportsman,” Satoru says, raising a finger in grand declaration. “I have the charisma, the looks, the tragic past—”
“Your tragic past is that you’ve never experienced adversity,” Suguru says, voice soft and absolutely merciless.
Satoru feels, briefly, the urge to throw a rice ball at him. He settles for glaring, which is an exercise in futility; Suguru remains serenely unbothered, scooping up the last of his rice and setting down his chopsticks with a click.
The rest of the meal goes like this—Satoru tries not to look at Suguru’s hands, fails, stares at the TV instead, and absorbs absolutely nothing from the local news broadcast except for a vague sense that rain is indeed coming. Suguru eats at his usual pace (irritatingly slow), occasionally sipping his tea as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be this composed at eight in the goddamn shitfuck morning.
Satoru, between bites, thinks about the dream, about the way it felt to be tangled up and helpless, about the warmth and weight of Suguru pinning him in place—OKAY STOP THAT.
When the meal is over, Suguru stands up, collects his dishes, and—without looking at Satoru—says, “I’m heading out to the field this morning. Try not to get detention before lunch.”
He leaves, footsteps almost soundless on the battered flooring. Satoru watches him go, then slumps backward in his chair and exhales, long and slow, until he’s nothing but a noodle in human form.
He sits there for a while, alone with his empty bowl and the low hum of the building, before finally gathering the will to move.
He is Gojo Satoru, and he is not, under any circumstances, in love with his best friend. Where did that even come from? That’s so silly.
He repeats this several times on the way back to his room. He might even believe it, eventually.
.:.
The warehouse district is, by Satoru’s estimation, an actual piece of shit. Of course, curses would manifest in this rotting landscape. It smells like a group of prawns had a party up in here. He says this out loud, twice, once on approach and once after stepping into the wind tunnel between buildings, just to see if Suguru will add anything to the conversation. Suguru, as ever, offers nothing but a wry half-smile, the kind that says he's worried Satoru may be developing dementia.
The mission brief is a single page, folded unevenly and creased at one corner. Satoru skims it while they walk, rolling the page between his hands like he’s prepping a cigarette. Yaga’s handwriting resembles someone who tried to continue putting pen to paper whilst mid-seizure. Apparently, Suguru can read it, so the summary is—grade-two manifestation, confined to the northernmost warehouse, presumed to be the reason for the disappearance of several teenagers. The usual, really. These curses sure love kids.
The air tastes like feet (not that Satoru knows from experience), and the ground underfoot is a patchwork of concrete, oil slick, and what might generously be called puddle but more accurately described as standing water and dissolved city. Satoru’s shoes are new, which means he’s going to be pissed about the stains later, but for now he commits to the stride—shoulders forward, head up, zero fear. Suguru matches his pace without effort, hands loose at his sides. For two people who spend most of their time together, they talk very little on approach, but it’s not silence so much as an open channel—anything can be said at any time, so nothing needs to be.
At the threshold, Satoru slaps the mission brief against his palm and says, “Yaga’s got a real sense of humour, huh? ‘Expected threat minimal.’ I bet he’s not even been out here.”
“Statistically, he’s correct,” Suguru says, scanning the doorframe for sigils or traps. There aren’t any. He gestures for Satoru to take the lead.
“Statistically, he can bite me,” Satoru mutters, and then shoulders the door open.
Inside, it’s three degrees colder than outside. The warehouse stretches out in a single, unbroken column, support beams running the length of the floor, ceiling lost somewhere in the dark. The only light comes from the occasional broken skylight—bars of gold and grey that make the dust in the air look almost solid. Satoru rolls his neck, tugs the blindfold down over his eyes, and lets his cursed energy flare out in a wide, showy pulse. The space fills with electric-blue, flooding every surface, casting Suguru’s silhouette in stark relief.
“Gonna let ‘em know we’re here?” Suguru asks, drifting a few meters to the right.
“The element of surprise is for cowards and losers,” Satoru replies. “Besides, you saw the brief. Grade-two’s not gonna know what hit it.”
He advances. Suguru shadows him at a distance, moving with a fluid, nonchalant confidence that makes Satoru’s own bravado look forced by comparison. They clear the first third of the space without incident, Satoru’s many eyes already way ahead of the game. Unfortunately, the eyes don’t just pick up rotting curses gurgling in the dark, but also the way Suguru moves; the grace of a dancer coupled the stance of a Greek god. It tickles up Satoru’s sides, and is a quite unwelcome sensation, if he’s being honest.
Thankfully, it’s at that point that the curse decides to rear it’s ugly head. And by ugly, Satoru means fucking chopped.
It emerges low, skittering on jointed limbs that click against the concrete like cheap wind-up toys. There's dozens of elbow-like bends, each sprouting a new segment, a misshapen torso dragging behind. Satoru grins. It looks like his grandmother on his mother’s side.
“Contact front,” he calls, but Suguru is already changing trajectory, looping around to flank. Satoru gives the curse a flash of his teeth, then cracks the knuckles on both hands.
“Hey, uggo!” he yells, and it turns toward the sound. The face—or what passes for one—is a melted aggregation of features. Eye sockets, nostrils, something like a mouth, all of it buried in a matte-black shell. Satoru lets it come. It launches itself with more speed than expected, closing the distance in half a second.
Satoru’s answer is a pulse of blue, condensed to a point and released like a slingshot. The wave of force catches the curse midair, slams it into a support beam with a noise like a dropped piano. The beam shudders but doesn’t break. The curse peels itself from the metal, shrieking, and thrashing.
“Persistent!” Satoru crows.
“Second one at your six,” Suguru says, with very little urgency, “lower to the ground.”
Satoru doesn’t look. He sidesteps the initial curse, lets it overcommit, then spins on his heel and kicks the oncoming second curse in what he estimates is the head. The thing splits open along a seam, spraying black gunk across the floor.
He’s having fun.
The first curse recovers, scuttling up the nearest wall and launching itself from above. Satoru looks up just in time to see it coming, a writhing tangle of limbs. He considers dodging, but at the last second, he deactivates Infinity and lets it hit him, just to see what happens.
The impact is disappointing—like being wrapped in very enthusiastic duct tape. The limbs constrict, and he feels the pressure building, the curse’s energy trying to push through his own. It doesn’t stand a chance. Satoru’s field holds, unbroken. He gives it a few seconds, for the drama, then flexes once and blasts the curse off him in a spray of fragments.
“Stop playing with the curses, Satoru.” Suguru huffs, rolling his eyes as the first curse disintegrates into a fine, sticky mist.
Satoru laughs, genuinely. He wipes residue from his sleeve and surveys the mess.
They sweep the rest of the structure, Satoru in front and Suguru at his back. Satoru lights the path, Suguru closes it off, neither one of them saying much, but every movement in perfect counterpoint. When they reach the final row of empty shelving, Satoru does a dramatic sweep of the space with his arm.
“And that’s why we get the big stipend,” he declares.
Suguru tilts his head, unimpressed. “You know the stipend is barely enough to cover what you spend on sweets.”
“It’s about the principle of the thing,” Satoru says. “Besides, you’re the one who provides said sweets. You could be saving so much if you didn’t bring me something back every time you go to the store.”
Suguru turns his head away, muttering something under his breath, and Satoru laughs again, louder than before.
He lets the silence settle, just for a moment, and then breaks it in the only way he knows how.
“Race you to the next building.”
Suguru gives him a look. “You know you’re going to lose. And no teleporting!”
Satoru is already gone.
He barrels into the next warehouse bay ahead of Suguru, the air still vibrating with leftover blue. He’s already running a tally of how fast he could clear the place solo, just for the record, when the shelving to his left erupts in a blast of rusted metal and splintered wood. A grade-two curse, nothing; this is something else entirely—Satoru feels it in the kick of energy, a flare thick enough to catch in the back of his throat.
This wasn’t on the mission report.
He pivots, already prepping to flex, but Suguru’s voice cuts through the chaos.
“I’ve got this one. You make too much of a mess.”
The special grade towers over the aisle, a hunchbacked tangle of limbs and bone-white plates, oily tendons threading its arms to its torso. Its face is an afterthought, a wedge of cartilage and rows of tiny, backward-facing teeth. Satoru is already moving when Suguru steps forward, rolling his left sleeve up in one easy motion.
“Don’t get too cocky!” Satoru calls, but his heart isn’t in it. He slows his stride, watching.
Suguru’s technique is all economy. He doesn’t bother with a dramatic gesture or stalling for dramatic effect. He just opens his palm, fingers fanning outward, and the air between them thickens into a dense, inky void. Out of the blackness, four appendages unspool with a wet slap.
The special grade tries to rear back, but it’s already too late—one tentacle wraps a forelimb, another anchors around the body, the third and fourth pin its back legs to the ground. The tentacles don’t bind so much as hold, every inch of movement matched and neutralised with calibrated pressure. Satoru watches the curse manipulation at work, hypnotised by the way Suguru plays puppet-master; pulling the strings, control never wavering.
The special grade thrashes, muscles bunching and relaxing in rapid sequence. One limb tries to shatter the grip, but the appendage simply absorbs the force, flexes, and then tightens. Satoru tracks every move, the silent ripple through Suguru’s body as he commands his curse, the exact second when resistance becomes surrender. He knows, theoretically, what Suguru’s technique can do. He’s seen it in training, a dozen missions, threatened against him during a particularly heated argument. But there’s something about watching it now, in this light, with the darkness clutching the curse like hands—it pins Satoru to the spot.
The immobilisation is over in under thirty seconds. The special grade’s torso splits along a natural seam, shudders once, and then slumps to the floor in a heap of steaming chitin. The appendages retract, flowing back into the air and leaving no trace except the gouges in the floor. Suguru exhales once, quiet, and shakes his wrist like he’s loosening up for the next set.
He looks at Satoru. “I was considering absorbing this one, but I have similar curses already. Can you sort the cleanup?”
Satoru realises he hasn’t moved in a full minute. His left hand is curled in a loose fist, thumb digging into the palm, and there’s a weird feeling in his chest he can’t shake.
“Yeah,” he says, voice a fraction too high. He clears his throat. “Obviously.”
Suguru rolls his shoulders, then looks up at the skylight, which is still dripping rain through a webwork of broken glass. “Let’s check the east bay and get out of here. I don’t think there’s anything else, but protocol says—”
“I know what protocol says,” Satoru interrupts, because it’s either that or admit he’s been staring.
Suguru gives him a long, unreadable look, then nods and starts walking.
Satoru stays put. He drags in a breath, lets it out slow, and runs a fingertip along the seam in the concrete where the tentacle had pressed down. The mark is deep, glassy at the bottom, like something melted its way through. Satoru wonders what it would feel like to be held that tightly, to have every muscle, every joint, mapped and controlled by someone else’s hand.
He wipes his palm against his pants and follows Suguru, who is already meters ahead, weaving through rows of empty shelves.
The east bay is uneventful, save for a family of actual rats and a patch of mould that’s probably sentient. They check the perimeter anyway, and Satoru finds himself stealing glances at Suguru. Because Suguru’s hair has come undone, and that must, like, be super annoying for him. Maybe Satoru could offer to tie it back up for him?
He jostles his head, which Suguru notices, but doesn’t comment on. That was a stupid idea. Suguru has hands. He can tie his hair up himself.
They reach the exit, and Satoru’s head feels like it’s about to burst. Like it’s being squeezed by—
Well. Time to switch off the idea-making part of his brain. Like, right now.
.:.
Satoru spends first period in the exact place he always does, slouched in the very last row of Classroom B, propped like a scarecrow against the battered wood and trying his absolute hardest not to engage his brain, lest his thoughts begin to wander again.
The school’s interior, for all its reputation, is indistinguishable from any other ancient Japanese institution—sweating plaster, paper screens patched with opaque tape, beams greying at the corners where generations of sorcerer-in-training have picked at them out of nervous habit or sheer malice. The desks are scratched with the outlines of genitalia and cursed seals, many of them Satoru’s own handiwork.
The sensei (who Satoru feels should probably be in a home, with the way he could pass as a decaying corpse) is working his way through the week’s most soul-destroying topic. Theory and Practice of Cursed Energy Dispersion. They are currently on Chapter 11: The One Where You Could Die of Dehydration Before He Reaches The Fucking Point.
Satoru goes to reach for his notebook, a compulsive gesture, before remembering that he has never once in almost three years as a student here actually brought a notebook to class. Or a pen. Or anything, really. His entire approach to education is to sit, absorb via osmosis, and then annihilate the exam curve so thoroughly that the faculty start lobbying for legislation against him.
He’s Gojo Satoru. If he doesn’t already know the answer, the question isn’t worth asking. His family have been prepping him for this long before he could even digest solid food.
He taps his fingers against the desk, intent on making sure his boredom becomes everyone else’s problem, too. The girl two seats down is already side eyeing him, but he just smiles back, sweet as strawberry mochi.
Satoru lets his vision blur out. If he wanted, he could tune in to every conversation in the building, every footstep, every scribble of pencil on paper. Instead, he lets his thoughts drift into their latest hyper-fixation.
Tentacles.
It’s not his fault !!!
Strictly speaking.
So, yeah. Yesterday’s mission is still crawling around in his head, and he can’t stop replaying the moment Suguru’s curse clamped around the special grade. It's probably just morbid curiosity, though. Nothing weird going on here. Satoru’s hands start to feel clammy—must be warm in the classroom. He tries to distract himself by counting the wrinkles in his sensei’s forehead, but loses count at forty-three.
He wonders what it would be like to be held that tightly. The wrap of pressure, the deliberate mapping of every inch of muscle and bone. He’s got a pretty solid theory that Suguru could immobilise him in half a second if he really tried. Maybe less—and oh. He’s thinking about the tentacles again.
He also wonders whether the appendages feel, like, anything, or if it’s more of a ghost-limb situation. Is it just a puppet master thing? Or is there tactile return, a sense of heat, texture, force? He needs to know. For science !!!
He needs to know so badly, it’s almost physically painful. He’s just super interested in Jujutsu, of course. It always comes in handy to collect information about other techniques.
Eventually, sensei must find the point, because the class is finishing. Satoru is already standing by the time the chime sounds, stretching so far back in his seat that the frame creaks.
“Gojo-kun,” the thousand-year-old man says, “try to be on time for afternoon drills. And bring a writing implement.”
“Will do, sensei,” Satoru winks. “If I forget, I’ll just write with my blood.”
He breezes out before the teacher can have a stroke, or whatever old people do in their spare time.
He ducks into the vending alcove at the end of the hall and buys a yogurt drink, because he’s recently decided that probiotics might counteract the effects of chronic spiritual pollution. It’ll probably just end up giving him the shits, though.
He leans against the vending machine, sips his bowel cleanser, and lets the warehouse mission replay in his head for the millionth time. Because of the morbid curiosity thing.
He swiftly halts the train of thought when he starts to imagine how the tentacles would feel wrapping around his own arm, his waist, maybe his throat.
He checks the time again. Lunch in fifteen.
He spends the intervening time searching for any excuse not to think about what’s coming next, but the harder he tries, the faster the minutes pass. By the time he’s heading to the common room, he has mapped out the next conversation with Suguru in excruciating detail.
.:.
The common room is blessedly empty except for Suguru, already in place at the low table, and Shoko, who is like their third limb. If a limb could chain-smoke and verbally abuse its closest friends.
Suguru is exactly halfway through a bowl of rice and a mug of tea. The guy goes through, like, hella carbs for someone who probably has less than 10% body fat. His hair is down, and Satoru absolutely does not notice the way it grazes the top button of his uniform. Shoko has an onigiri from the corner store, which she is eating with her mouth open and, god, Satoru could murder her for the disgusting smacking sound it’s making,
The chewing distracts him for all of thirty seconds, and then his brain slams into a wall at 160kph. Ah—yes. Tentacles.
He just kinda hovers there, halfway between the door and the table, not taking a seat. Which is so incredibly normal and doesn’t look suspicious at all.
Shoko glances up at Satoru, then across to Suguru, then back to Satoru again. Her mouth quirks ever so slightly as her gaze settles back on her onigiri.
Kay…
He cracks first. He can’t help it. There are so many questions, so little time.
“Hey, Suguru,” he intones, and the words come out with all the subtlety of a brick through a glass door.
Suguru looks up, eyebrows slightly raised. “Yeah?”
Satoru finally sits down, grabs a bowl to occupy his hands. “When you use your, uh, technique—the tentacle, whatever—do you actually, like, feel stuff through them? Or is it more like… I dunno, an energy thing?”
Suguru pauses mid-chew, swallows, and sets his chopsticks down so he can think about it properly. “It’s not direct touch, if that’s what you mean. More like pressure. Some feedback, but muted. Not as detailed as my hands, but it’s there.” He looks genuinely puzzled by the question, then shrugs. “Why?”
Shoko doesn’t say anything, but her chewing slows fractionally.
Satoru tries to keep his face neutral. He’s just asking questions. It’s allowed !!!
“Just wondering. You had really good control with that special grade. Thought maybe you’d levelled up since last time.” He pokes at his rice, suddenly, violently interested in it.
Suguru shrugs again, a little smile at the corner of his mouth. “I practice.”
Cool. Cool. He practices. That’s what most sorcerers do when mastering their techniques. Nothing crazy. He doesn’t need to know more—
“So, like, can you modulate the grip strength? Is it all or nothing, or is it like, fine-tuneable? You know… variable pressure.”
Suguru takes a sip of his tea. “It’s actually very adjustable. I can tighten or relax the hold, increase resistance, that sort of thing. Depends on how much cursed energy I put into the vector.”
“Vector,” Satoru echoes, like he’s in a dream.
Suguru, apparently deciding this is a teaching moment, and completely ignoring the way Satoru’s jaw has gone slack, sets down his cup and brings both hands up. “It’s like this—” He interlaces his fingers, then squeezes, then loosens. “If I want to immobilise something, I go for even pressure, spread out. For breaking, I focus it at a single point. For restraint, it’s somewhere in between. I can scale it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Satoru watches Suguru’s hands and feels something uncoil in his gut. He nods eleven times in succession. Still very much looking at Suguru’s hands. “That’s sick. I mean, I assumed, but seeing it—uh, I mean, cool. Super cool. Very technical.”
Is he sweating? He might actually be sweating. Some idiot must have turned the heating on.
After a full three seconds of mental blank, Satoru clears his throat. He has more questions and needs to stop being sidetracked by hands and thermometers. “Have you ever tried it on, like, a person? Like, actually tested the strength on a human subject?”
Suguru blinks, then tips his head like he’s running the numbers. “Not directly, no. I mean, I use it on curses all the time, but they’re not really built the same. I guess I could, but there’s not much point unless someone volunteers. Why?” He squints, and suddenly Satoru’s heart is falling out of his ass. Suguru might start to think that he has some kind of weird fixation on his curse, which he absolutely does not.
Satoru makes a noise that is supposed to be a laugh. “No reason. Just, you know, academic curiosity. We’re in school. I’m learning. That’s what students do.”
Shoko, who has not uttered a single syllable, finishes her onigiri and crumples the wrapper, startling Satoru with the rustle. She fixes him with a look that he doesn’t really care for all that much.
He turns to her, gearing up for her pleasant segue into the conversation. “You got something to say, Shoko, or are you just going to keep undressing us with your eyes?”
She scrunches her nose up. “Don’t flatter yourself, Satoru. If I ever wanted to see either of you naked, I’d ask Utahime to kill me.”
Suguru snorts into his tea. Satoru is mildly offended.
“Maybe I will volunteer as test subject,” he says, trying for nonchalance. “For science. Purely.”
Suguru gives him the same look Shoko did earlier. Seriously, what is with these people?
“You can come by the gym after class tomorrow. I’ll show you the range. It’s more effective in person anyway.”
Satoru gives a double thumbs up, because he’s a fucking dork. “Sure, cool, I might do that.”
Shoko stretches, arching her back, and stands. “I’m going to nap in the infirmary. Please don’t ever tell me about whatever ends up happening with Suguru’s tentacles.”
She leaves, and the silence she leaves behind is sticky. Not, like, tentacle sticky. Satoru imagines they could be sticky. He also has no idea what she’s talking about.
.:.
At 1:30AM, Satoru is stretched across the top of his bed, still wearing the day’s uniform, one arm flung over his eyes and the other hand dangling off the mattress like he might reach down and find the answer to his problems on the floor. If he had problems, that is. No problems here. Who doesn’t have any problems and is perfect a-okay? This guy.
He definitely is not still thinking about tentacles. Or how they would feel, wrapping around him. Touching him. Slipping into his pants.
And he absolutely does. NOT. Have. A. Boner. Right. Now.
His arm tightens over his eyes. He could probably break his own nose if he flexed hard enough. He’s so strong.
He wonders what Suguru is doing right now. He could go and check, but Satoru has a feeling his best friend wouldn’t be too thrilled with his bricked-up best friend knocking on his dorm past midnight. He’s probably sleeping.
Satoru lets his arm drop to his side, finally. He looks up at the ceiling, really looks, and realises that the stain is shaped like a tentacle, if you squint and ignore all the bits that aren’t.
He snorts. Then he groans, because even his metaphors are working against him. All roads apparently lead back to suckers.
He decides, in the end, to make like Suguru, and give the whole “good sleep hygiene” thing a go.
.:.
Satoru is ripped from a deep, REM slumber by a dream that is so realistic, he’s still arching his back. He comes out of it horizontal, suffocating in the heat of his own comforter, heart jackhammering, and the overwhelming sense that he is still being squeezed by about seventeen feet of inky, muscle-wrapped tentacle.
He stares at the ceiling. The stain above his bed is not, contrary to recent research, shaped like a tentacle. It is, in fact, the vague outline of Hokkaido with a tiny offshoot, like a birthmark. He blinks, and there’s a throbbing, ghostly ring of suction cups and the glint of black, wet skin in a dark warehouse.
Cool. So, he can’t even blink now. FANTASTIC.
His body registers all the important diagnostics in a two-second scan. Dry mouth, sweat-soaked collar, a catastrophic situation in his pants. He rolls his head to the side, as if this will dislodge the dream from his frontal lobe.
NOPE.
Instead, it leaves him with the slow, sinking realisation that what he’s feeling right now (arousal? terror?) is, in fact, the direct consequence of three days of thinking about Geto Suguru’s damn tentacle curse, and nothing else. The last vestige of plausible deniability melts away, right there, in the predawn blue of his shithole dorm room.
He tries, very hard, to rewind the memory tape. To find the rationale behind this obsession.
Starting at the beginning—Suguru summoned the tentacles. Suguru controlled the tentacles. Satoru watched the tentacles. Satoru asked a lot of technical questions about the tentacles. Satoru went to sleep thinking about the tentacles, and then, in his sleep, he—
Oh, god.
It can’t be.
…
He wants Suguru to fuck him with the tentacle curse.
He sits up so fast he nearly herniates his lumbar. He doesn’t even bother being subtle about it. He just clutches the blanket to his chest and stares, white-haired Medusa, at the wall.
No. No no no no. That’s not right. He likes girls. Statistically, he is attracted to girls. There have been girls in his life. Girls with normal hair and normal hands who do not have the ability to summon a fuck-ton of wet rope out of thin air. He could, if held at gun point, name, like, three girls he has liked in the last year.
Okay, maybe not liked. But he’s spoken to at least three girls.
And yes, two of them might have been Shoko and Utahime. Yes, and also Mei Mei.
FUCK!!!
He does a quick accounting, just to diagnose the level of fucked. Over the past few days, he has:
- Fantasised about Suguru’s hands (at least three separate occasions, two of which were during class, one while eating a rice ball).
- Daydreamed about what it would feel like to be pinned, actually physically restrained, by those tentacles.
- Gone out of his way to “accidentally” brush up against Suguru in the hallway.
- Lost the capacity for complex speech when Suguru did, objectively, nothing but tie his hair back with an elastic band.
- Dreamt about the tentacle penetrating a very personal part of his body
So, like, super fucked, then. Atomic levels of fucked.
Satoru makes a sound, not unlike a strangled chicken, and flops backward, blanket over his face. He kicks both feet, thrashing against the mattress, and then goes very still. He’s not panicking. A Gojo doesn’t panic. He’s just… exploring the ramifications.
Maybe it’s not even about Suguru. Maybe it’s just the power thing. Maybe Satoru, World’s Most Powerful Sorcerer™, just needs to know what it feels like to be on the other end of an overwhelming force. Maybe it’s not gay, but more of a science thing. Like when astronauts get really into being in a vacuum, except Satoru is horny for sea creatures and his best friend’s weird puppet arms.
He runs a hand through his hair and tries to talk himself down from the ledge.
“You can do this,” he says to the ceiling.
It’s not like Suguru would ever have to know. Satoru could die with this knowledge. He could take it to the grave, just like all the other totally normal, non-freakish secrets he keeps locked inside his mind palace.
Or—he could do the opposite.
He could make a plan.
He rolls out of bed, blanket still clamped around his shoulders like a fancy wizard’s robe, and staggers across the room to his desk. The notebook is open to a page that says, in large letters—
YOGURT EXPERIMENT: DAY 3
Results: no change (except diarrhoea)
Damn, he forgot about that.
Anyway.
He tears out the page and starts a new one.
TENTACLE SITUATION
Options:
- Ignore forever
- Address head-on with Suguru (no)
- Hint so expertly that Suguru brings it up first
Option three is, obviously, the only viable choice.
The key is plausible deniability. The hint campaign has to be so perfectly calibrated that Suguru will think it’s his own idea. Satoru can just nod, play it off, and if things go badly, gaslight everyone (including himself) into believing it never happened.
He’s already composing the first conversational gambit before he even gets to the bathroom.
It’s a communal bath, naturally. He casually stakes the place, looking for signs of Nanami, Haibara, or even Suguru himself. Thankfully, he’s alone, so he can comfortably spiral into madness without judgment. He grips the edge of the ceramic and leans in to inspect his own face.
It’s a good face, he’ll grant himself that. Even with eye bags and a red crease down his cheek from the pillow. He should really consider modelling once he’s got over this whole wanna be split in half by a giant tentacle kink thing.
He rehearses the opening line aloud.
“Hey, Suguru, purely hypothetically, if someone wanted to know what it felt like to be restrained by your tentacle curse, how long would it take to, you know, break free?”
No, that’s too direct. He needs more plausible deniability. He needs to get Suguru talking about his own technique, draw him out, build up the tension, then—maybe, maybe—let the conversation drift toward physical demonstration. Purely for the sake of science. Purely for the sake of a teachable moment.
He’s so wrapped up in the plan that he accidentally puts toothpaste on his toothbrush twice and then gets some on his sleeve. He brushes anyway, barely tasting the mint, eyes locked on his reflection in the mirror.
He practices his neutral face. He practices his “I’m just academically interested” voice. He practices his “oh, you mean me?” face, in case Suguru ever actually calls his bluff.
He will pull this off. He will execute the perfect campaign. He will never, under any circumstances, say out loud what he actually wants.
He spits, rinses, and grins at himself.
“Operation Restrain Yourself,” he says into the mirror.
He’s a fucking genius, and this will definitely work.
.:.
Suguru is already at the table when Satoru enters the common room, hair down and damp from the morning shower, sleeves rolled up, eating… a delicate rectangle of tamagoyaki. Satoru’s train of thought is immediately derailed. Suguru doesn’t usually go for sweet stuff in the morning. This could be a sign. Maybe Suguru is nervous. Maybe he’s on edge and Satoru, in his relentless charm, has already tipped his hand without realising.
He makes a beeline for the seat across from Suguru and tries not to look at the way Suguru’s jaw flexes when he chews. Instead, he grabs the nearest bowl, which has food in it that is clearly meant for him and no one else, and starts in on it like he hasn’t spent the last forty-five minutes plotting this moment.
“Morning,” Suguru says, all deep and sleepy.
“Yo,” Satoru replies, going for maximum casual. He picks up his own chopsticks and makes a show of twirling them through the air, as if to demonstrate world-class dexterity.
Suguru doesn’t react. This is either a devastating victory for Satoru’s naturalness, or a total failure. He’s pretty sure it’s the former, though.
He waits until Suguru is taking a sip of tea, then springs the trap.
“You ever read about how they used to restrain curses before modern technique amplification?” he asks, like this is the sort of thing he ponders every day at sunrise.
Suguru hums. “Only in history class. I wasn’t aware you paid attention to anything except yourself during those lectures.”
He’s smirking. It’s a test, obviously, so Satoru doubles down.
“I do! They had to use these really elaborate rope systems, right? Special fibres, knots, all that. Some guy in the Heian era invented a whole discipline around it.”
“Shibari,” Suguru says, still looking at his tamagoyaki. “It was repurposed from human bondage techniques. Not very effective, but it had a high intimidation factor.”
Satoru almost drops his chopsticks. Did he just—did Suguru just drop the word “bondage” into casual breakfast conversation?
He has to recalibrate on the fly. He pretends not to notice, but his pulse is thumping so hard that he’s sure the Kyoto campus can hear it.
“Yeah, but, like, I bet they never could have imagined a curse as strong as yours. Or, you know, as elegant. If you had to immobilise something, like, I dunno, a human-level adversary, how hard would it be? Hypothetically.”
Suguru sets down his chopsticks. He gives Satoru a long, even look that feels like it lasts three geological epochs.
“Haven’t we already discussed this? And also—why would I need to immobilise a human?”
Shit.
“Hypothetically,” Satoru clarifies, then takes an enormous gulp of tea to buy time. “You know. Training. Safety drills. All the stuff Yaga makes us do.”
Suguru, instead of answering, tilts his head to the side.
“Do you want me to show you?”
Satoru nearly aspirates his own food. He covers it with a cough, then grins. Nailed it.
Suguru kinda frowns, his mouth opening and closing a few times.
“…Because I did offer the other day, and then it seemed like you’d lost interest.”
Oh yeah. Suguru had asked him a question.
Satoru’s brain blue-screens. He needs an excuse, a diversion, something to preserve the mission.
“I thought you were joking,” he says, putting on his best I’m telling the truth face. “You know. You’re always worried about collateral damage.”
Suguru gives him a half smile, but it sorta just looks like he’s constipated. “I’m not worried about you getting hurt, ifthat’s what you’re thinking. You can handle it.”
Satoru feels a flush rise up his neck. He tries to channel it into confidence.
“Yeah, obviously. I’m basically uncontainable,” he says. “But maybe I’ll put your technique to the test someday.”
“Looking forward to it,” Suguru replies, and goes back to his tamagoyaki like this is just another day.
Satoru shovels the rest of his breakfast into his mouth, then stands up so abruptly that the chair almost falls over. He mumbles something about “class prep,” and heads for the door, not looking back, because he is absolutely positive that Suguru is still watching him, and if he turns around, he will combust on the spot.
Outside, he leans against the cold concrete wall and smacks his own forehead three times.
“Brilliant,” he mutters. “That went perfectly.”
He’s already workshopping the next conversational gambit before the embarrassment can settle in. He will not be deterred. He was not raised as a quitter, not even in the face of total humiliation. This is all part of the long con. He just needs a new angle.
Maybe next time, he’ll go for something more psychological. Less direct. A little misdirection, a little reverse psychology. He’s a genius. He can figure this out.
He heads to class, head held high.
.:.
By the time lunch rolls around, Satoru has gone through five separate drafts of his next conversational gambit, each more convoluted than the last. He settles on a psychological approach, banking on Suguru’s intellectual vanity to draw him out.
The opportunity presents itself in the corridor between classes. Time to lock the fuck in.
He catches up to Suguru, daps him up (which Suguru reciprocates unenthusiastically), and then spends five seconds trying to remember what he’d been practicing for three hours.
Ah. Yeah.
“Hey, question. When you’re manipulating multiple curse vectors at once, does it ever get—like—overwhelming? Not just the logistics, but all the sensory feedback?”
Suguru raises one eyebrow. “Are you having trouble with your own technique?”
It’s too soon. The opening jab was supposed to set up a volley of smart, sexy back-and-forth about the metaphysics of multi-tasking in high-stress environments. Instead, Suguru is looking at him like he has a highly contagious, airborne disease.
Satoru powers on. “Nah, I’m just curious. It’s gotta be like, full-time brain overload. You ever lose track? Forget which tentacle is which? I bet it gets intense when the target struggles.”
“Not really,” Suguru replies, in a very confused tone. Satoru doesn’t really understand what there is to be confused about. “Sensory overlap can be a distraction, but you learn to compartmentalise. Why?”
Ah. So, this is some sort of test. Satoru can bail, or he can push harder. He chooses harder, obviously.
“I was just thinking,” he says, feigning boredom, “that maybe it’d be good to train under, you know, simulated duress. Like, if someone volunteered to be a live subject. See if you could still control all the feedback.”
Suguru stops walking, which is so un-Suguru-like that Satoru almost collides with him.
“We’re back on this again?”
He sounds almost pissed off, which is highly unfair. Since when was it a crime to be curious?
Satoru does the world’s worst shrug. “I like learning, Suguru. Shoot me.”
Suguru tilts his head. “If you’re just trying to test your own tolerance, there are easier ways. You don’t have to use me as a guinea pig.”
Satoru is momentarily speechless. He recovers by affecting a cocky laugh and finger-gunning at the nearest water fountain.
“Noted! You’re just so efficient, I figured you could use a challenge.”
Suguru shakes his head, as if he’s trying to work out if he never actually woke up this morning, and all of this is some fucked up fever dream.
“If you say so.” He finally gets out, then turns and continues down the hall. Which—what the fuck? That was so rude.
Satoru stands in place, processing the exchange.
He’s pretty sure he just lost again.
He fucks caution to the wind, or however the saying goes, and hurries after Suguru. He wonders if it’s possible to die from blue balls of the soul.
He’ll get it right next time. He’s sure of it.
.:.
On the fourth day, Satoru is convinced he’s caught in a time-loop. Like that one really popular film from the west.
Satoru is staring at Suguru, who is seated at the other end of the battered common room couch, reading a book Satoru hasn’t seen before. The spine is cracked, and Suguru’s thumb traces the edge of the page as he reads, an unconscious habit that makes Satoru want to throw himself out of the nearest window.
He focuses on staring harder. Maybe if he really strains, he can force his ideals to embed within the grey matter of Suguru’s brain. He’s going at it so hard now that he might pop a blood vessel, or potentially shit himself.
“Do you need something, Satoru?”
Satoru feigns surprise, like he’s been snapped out of a trance. He sits up, leans forward, elbows on knees. He makes a show of thinking deeply, the way people in movies do when they’re about to say something profound.
“I’ve been thinking about trust,” he sighs. “You know, the whole, like, what it means to let someone actually see you. Or, even more, to let someone have power over you. Not in a weird way—just, like, the principle.”
Suguru sets the book down, finger wedged in the spine, and looks at Satoru like it’s taking all of his strength to take part in this conversation.
“Okay,” Suguru huffs. “Go on.”
“It’s just—” Satoru fumbles, which is new and exciting, “—I think most people, if you asked them, would say they like to be in control. Of their lives, their bodies, whatever. But I think there’s something kind of… freeing about letting go of that, once in a while. Like, letting someone else take over. Especially if you trust them. Don’t you think?”
Suguru doesn’t answer immediately. Satoru thinks there’s a possibility this could become violent very quickly.
“I think most people find it difficult,” he says, calmer than Satoru was expecting. “To trust that much.”
Satoru nods, a little too vigorously. “Right? But, like, if you could, if you found the right person, it might be worth it. Just for the experience. Just to see what it’s like.”
Suguru leans back, the book resting in his lap. “Are you talking about me, or is this another of your philosophical exercises?”
Satoru opens his mouth, then closes it again. His brain is screaming at him to abort, abort, abort, but he’s too far in to back out now.
“I just think it’s interesting,” he murmurs, and then, because he can’t help himself, adds, “And maybe, if you ever wanted to try, I’d be a good candidate. For the experiment.”
Suguru studies him for another long moment. “You’ve been acting strange, Satoru. Is something wrong?”
Satoru snorts, way too loudly for it to be genuine. “No way. I’m totally normal. Just, you know, exploring the boundaries of human experience. For science.”
Suguru raises an eyebrow and immediately goes back to his book. It’s like he doesn’t even want to talk to Satoru.
“If you say so. Let me know if and when you actually need something from me.”
Satoru nods, then sits there in the silence, watching Suguru’s thumb move along the paper, over and over. He taps the edge of the table, twice, then gives up and just stares at the blank television screen.
He’s out of ideas. He’s out of hints. He’s starting to think that, maybe, he’s not as good at this as he thought.
By the time Suguru finishes his chapter and gets up, Satoru has not moved. Suguru mumbles a goodnight. Satoru just hums.
The light in the common room is gone. The vending machine glows blue and sinister in the corner. Satoru is alone, unless you count the phantom of every failed plan he’s ever hatched, which by now could populate a decent-sized village.
He tips forward until his face sinks into the couch cushion. The fabric is scratchy, warm with other people’s body heat, and smells like someone has rubbed their sweaty balls all over it. Satoru regrets it immediately. He stays anyway, cheek mashed into the crusted patchwork.
“Why am I like this.” He mutters, voice muffled by the ball pillow, to no one in particular. Maybe he says it to the universe. He would appreciate her wisdom right now.
Alas, she does not answer, but the vending machine makes a noise like a dying cat. He’ll take what he can get.
Satoru tries to sort it out in his head, one last time.
Four days of advanced conversational strategy, wasted. Zero progress on the tentacle front. One very concerned Suguru look, which will now live in Satoru’s mental time capsule forever.
He can’t keep doing this. He can’t have another dream where he wakes up on the precipice of an orgasm. He can’t sit through another breakfast pretending not to stare at Suguru’s hands.
His hints have not worked. They have never worked. They are not going to start working now.
He sighs, a long, shuddering exhale that inflates the couch cushion under his mouth and makes it smell even worse.
He flips onto his back, arm flopping off the edge of the sofa, fingers brushing the cold tile. He stares straight up at the ceiling, which is at least free of tentacle stains.
“I give up,” he says to no one. Not even Ms. Universe, this time.
.:.
Satoru shoulders open the door to the Jujutsu Tech infirmary with enough force to guarantee the handle will rattle for the next hour. There could be, like, dead people in here, but he doesn’t care. Because this is far more important. Soz, or whatever.
Shoko is already inside, back turned, both hands deep in the open guts of a supply cabinet. She is engaged in an activity that, to the untrained eye, could be called “re-stocking” but Satoru knows she’s just fucking around in there to avoid paperwork. He watches as she transfers a single roll of gauze from the second shelf to the third, pauses, and then moves it back again. There is a stack of similar rolls already on the countertop. Yaga definitely did not ask her to build the pyramids of Giza with medical supplies.
Satoru hops up onto the examination table, the disposable sheet ripping underneath his thighs. He has no idea why they even use those things. Who is being protected from the spread of pathogens by a few sheets of glorified toilet paper?
He spreads out, occupying maximum surface area, and then reclines on both elbows. Might as well get comfy to put on this spectacular show of pure, unbridled nonchalance.
Shoko does not turn around. He waits a full minute, the clock in the hall ticking away like it’s judging them both, before crossing one ankle over his knee and clearing his throat.
“Got a question,” he says, as loud as possible, just in case she’s developed selective hearing loss.
She lets the roll of gauze in her hand drop, then slides the cabinet door closed. Very slowly. As if she has all the time in the world. As if Satoru isn’t here, asking her a question.
“What?”
He can barely make out the actual word she says, because the sound she makes is mostly a sigh, mixed with a groan.
“It’s hypothetical.”
Shoko finally turns, arms loose at her sides, and leans back against the cabinet. She tips her head a few degrees, eyes Satoru up and down as though she’s considering his most breakable parts.
“All your questions are hypothetical,” she says, “except they never are.”
He likes that about her. No one does a better straight man routine, for a lesbian woman.
“Okay, but this one’s important,” Satoru whines. He brings both hands up, frames them in a little rectangle, like he’s presenting evidence at a crime scene. “Suppose someone—someone you know, but not me—develops a… very specific and somewhat unusual interest and wants to communicate this interest to someone they’re close to, but without making it weird. How would you do that?”
Shoko doesn’t blink. “What kind of interest?”
He looks down, like maybe there’s an answer printed on the paper beneath him. “It’s complicated.”
Shoko lets the pause drag. She’s a virtuoso at not helping people out. He tries to fill the silence, but his mouth is dry. This never happens.
She beats him to it. “Is it complicated because it’s about Suguru’s cursed technique?”
Satoru’s entire body jerks very violently at that VERY UNCALLED FOR jumpscare. He slips sideways off the table, a tangle of limbs and expensive hair, and lands on the tiled floor with a sound like a dropped side of beef. He lies there, sprawled, staring straight up at the lights. There are sixteen tubes in the ceiling, three of them flickering. He allows the sensation of acute humiliation—from his tailbone to his ego—wash over him for a few seconds, before pushing up on one elbow. Shoko is still watching, arms crossed, not even bothering to hide the amusement anymore.
He straightens his shirt. “Wild assumption, doctor.”
Shoko doesn’t respond. She just arches an eyebrow (that is definitely overdue a wax, in Satoru’s humble opinion).
He clambers back up to sit, legs dangling off the side of the table. He must soldier on. “I’m just saying, in a general sense. If one had an appreciation for, say, the finer points of curse manipulation—if one wanted to explore those points in a, uh, non-professional context—how would you recommend bringing it up?”
She considers this. “You want to get freaky with the tentacles, and you want Suguru to be controlling them.”
His ears burn. “I never said tentacles. That’s a vulgar interpretation.”
“You talked about nothing else for a week,” she says. “You stare at his hands like they’re made of kikufuku. Also, you asked if his curse could multitask. In public. While drooling.”
Satoru makes a face. “I do not drool.”
Shoko uncrosses her arms and steps forward. She’s close enough now that he can see her pores, which—ew gross. They need to have a face mask night, and soon.
“You’re not subtle, Satoru.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then finds that he’s forgotten how to operate his own tongue.
She sighs. “Have you considered just telling him?”
He blinks. “Telling him.”
“Use words. Say what you want. That’s what most people do.”
He stares at her, horror and awe battling it out in his chest. “That’s not how this works,” he manages.
Shoko shrugs, like this is the most pedestrian thing in the world. “It’s exactly how it works. He’ll either say yes, and you get what you want, or he’ll say no, and you learn a valuable lesson about boundaries.”
Satoru briefly wonders if he’s hallucinating, because there's no way his plan is failing again.
The silence that follows is thicker than the gauze pyramid on the countertop. Satoru’s jaw works. He looks at the tray of instruments on the counter, briefly contemplates jamming a scalpel into his own jugular, then remembers Shoko would just heal him anyway, possibly while live-streaming the event to Utahime.
He slides off the table; dusts imaginary lint off his pants. “Forget I said anything,” he mutters, and pivots for the door.
“Good luck,” she calls out, just as the door is swinging shut behind him.
Satoru stands outside in the hallway, heart slamming, face so hot he could fry a rice cracker on it. For a second he contemplates walking into the nearest wall at full velocity. But then he hears it—the low, absolutely unmistakable sound of Shoko fucking laughing, somewhere inside the blinding light of the infirmary.
He wants to be angry about it, but mostly, he just wants to die. Not like she’d ever let him. No, she just keeps him alive purely for her own entertainment, so she can bully him.
He settles for punching the wall, which does nothing to the reinforced concrete and even less for his dignity.
He shakes his head, mutters something about all his friends sucking, and lurches off down the hall.
He will not be taking her advice.
.:.
The gymnasium is the closest thing Satoru has to a church. The vault of it is all steel beams and exposed pipes, the parquet floor lacquered a shade of orange found nowhere in nature. There’s a hoop at each end, the nets patchworked with zip ties and duct tape, and a line of cracked windows that only let in sun for about an hour a day.
Satoru is here, as usual, to atone for his sins by sweating out the urge to be molested by an octopus. Also, to show off his mad skillz. But mostly to atone.
Right now, he’s about halfway through making Suguru eat shit for the sixth consecutive play. He pivots, fakes a drive, steps back with a flourish, and drains a three with so much follow-through that his wrist nearly dislocates.
“Kobe!”
The ball snaps the net (what remains of it), ricochets off the backboard, and—
“FUCK YEAH!” Satoru shrieks, slamming his fists on his chest. “Who’s the real MVP? Go-jo! Go-jo! Go-jo!”
Satoru grins at Suguru, who is holding up two fingers, his mouth a violently straight line. “You’re a fucking cheat.”
“Let it go, you lost,” Satoru says, jogging backwards and waggling both hands in victory. He’s never needed a scoreboard; he keeps score in vibes.
Suguru doesn’t dignify this with a response. He collects the ball, dribbles once, and walks it back to the top of the arc, where he spends the next thirty seconds spinning it on his fingertip while re-tying his hair with the other hand. Satoru can feel bits of his brain falling away like a wet cake.
It gets worse when he uses his teeth to coax the hairband from his wrist.
“Did you sleep at all?” Suguru asks, eyes narrowed just the tiniest bit as he takes in Satoru’s face, which—okay, fair—looks like it’s been dragged behind a truck.
Satoru shrugs. “Sleep is for the weak.” He slaps both cheeks for emphasis.
Then promptly realises that he's slapped the wrong cheeks. That’s where his head is at right now.
He still has his hands on his ass when Suguru gives him a strange nod and turns to dribble the ball back up the court. Nice. A super normal thing to do. Not at all worthy of mental evaluation.
They run another set. On the last drive, Satoru tries to juke left, but Suguru predicts it perfectly, cuts him off, and snatches the ball away.
“That’s a foul!” Satoru crows.
Suguru passes it back, doesn’t even bother to check up. “You’re the one grabbing my shirt.”
Satoru looks down, and yes. Suguru’s shirt is in his fist. He lets go, rolls his eyes to re-establish a sense of indifference. “Blame the refs.”
Satoru lets his mind go walkies for a bit, to distract himself from Suguru using his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He glances up, desperate for something to latch onto that isn’t glistening abdominal muscles. In the high windows, a line of pigeons gathers to watch the show, and Satoru wonders if pigeons even understand what basketball is. Do they gather together to play their own little games? Might be hard with the whole wing situation—
“I figured out the next step, by the way.”
Satoru is suddenly much less interested uninterested in athlete pigeons. His neck whips back in Suguru's direction.
“What, you mean in basketball, or—?”
Suguru shakes his head, passing the ball back to Satoru. “My technique. The curse manipulation.”
Satoru gulps. “Yeah?” He bounces the ball once, hard enough that it nearly dents the floor. “What’s new?”
Suguru grins. “I can swap sensory input with any active summon. It’s a complete overlay—sight, touch, everything.”
Satoru’s brain takes a full three seconds to process the information. Then he laughs, but it sounds more like someone stepped on a chihuahua. “Like a remote control? Or are we talking, like, full VR experience?”
“More like,” Suguru pauses, squinting for the answer. “Astral projection, but with feedback.”
Satoru’s mind races. All the possibilities. “So, you could, what, send a tentacle into the next room, and actually feel what it’s touching?”
“Any distance, technically. I still have to control the vector, but the sensation is… accurate.”
Satoru is so excited, he momentarily forgets to breathe. Is his plan working? His plan might finally be working.
Suguru seems to pick up on the silence, because he adds, “You’re the reason I cracked it, you know. All those questions. Had to see if it was actually possible.”
Satoru blinks. He’s still clutching the basketball. His knuckles are turning white. He passes it back to Suguru like it’s currently on fire.
“That’s—uh. That’s sick, Suguru,” he says, but the words come out kind of flat. “So, you can do it with, like, any curse? Even… the big one?”
Suguru laughs. Why would he laugh at a time like this? “Yeah, even the big one.”
Satoru doesn’t know what to say. He might, actually, not be capable of responding. The inside of his head is all rubbery suckers and puppet masters and big hands. Fuck he wants it so bad he wants Suguru to—
Suguru bounces the ball to him, gentle, like he’s handing a gift to a child. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” Satoru mumbles, completely missing the ball and watching it roll away. “Just—uh.”
Suguru looks concerned again. He needs to do something, anything. Preferably something that makes him look like a functioning human being.
“I need water,” he says, and then starts walking, but very much not walking and actually running, toward the locker room at the far end.
When he gets to the bathroom, he leans over the sink, both hands braced on the porcelain, and stares at his own reflection in the spotted mirror. There’s no way to play this off. The flush is already rising in his cheeks, and the only thing keeping his head from exploding is the cold water he practically baptises himself with.
He doesn’t want to think about it—about what it would mean if Suguru could feel everything the tentacles felt, about what Satoru would do if given the chance to test that theory in practice—but the thought is already wedged in there, behind his eyes, impossible to dislodge.
He breathes through his mouth, trying to reset his nervous system that has apparently completely shut down and wants him to die on the pissy floor.
He stares at the water and tries to become the water. He tries to do mindfulness. He tries not to think about tentacles, about the texture of them, the way they wrapped around that curse, or the way Suguru’s technique could now, theoretically, let Suguru feel that sensation in perfect detail.
A drop of sweat runs down his nose and joins the sink runoff. He watches it spiral down the drain.
After maybe ten minutes has passed, and Satoru has managed, somehow, to fend off a full-scale mental breakdown, he heads back towards the gym. Suguru is sitting on the bleachers, arms folded, watching the door like a hawk with a fringe.
“You were gone a while,” Suguru says, not unkindly.
“Had to commune with the spirits,” Satoru replies. “They say hi.”
Suguru squints. “Did you throw up?”
“No,” Satoru says. “But if I did, it would have been majestic.”
Suguru doesn’t look convinced.
Satoru picks up the basketball again to give a real-time demonstration on just how fine he is. More than fine. Tip-top condition, one might say. His hands are not shaking.
He lines up a free throw, fires it, and misses by a good six inches.
.:.
Dinner is always a highlight in the dorm, if by highlight, Satoru means barely edible, occasionally dangerous, and only improved by the presence of Suguru and/or the promise of a sweet treat.
Tonight, Suguru is sitting at the far end of the table, assembling his meal in a meticulous order—rice, then miso, then a tiny mountain of pickled daikon, which Satoru would normally bully him for but cannot because he has, for the third time in ten minutes, nearly dropped his chopsticks.
He’s running at about 30% normal processing capacity. The rest of his brain is soup. The kind with chunks.
Satoru’s hands tremble as he goes for a bite. The chopsticks miss entirely and instead of tofu, he nearly stabs himself in the cheek.
“So,” Satoru says, attempting to play it off, “good ball sesh today.”
Suguru makes a noncommittal noise. He’s watching Satoru like a psych observing a patient trying to get through a cognitive test.
“Couldn’t hit a free throw to save my life,” Satoru tries again.
“You were distracted,” Suguru says. “Unusual for you.”
Satoru laughs, a little too sharp. “Yeah, well, sometimes the mind gets tired before the body.”
Suguru tilts his head, like he’s waiting for a punchline. Satoru doesn’t have one lined up. Shit. He can’t think of one.
The television is on, volume so low it might as well be muted. Some game show. Every minute or so, a canned burst of laughter sends Satoru into fight or flight mode. The only thing he can focus on is the shape of Suguru’s hands as they hold the bowl.
He’s halfway through a bite when he drops his chopsticks again. They clatter to the linoleum, and he swears, bending under the table to retrieve them.
“Want to talk about it?” Suguru asks, so softly Satoru wants to scream.
Satoru bangs his head on the underside of the table as he comes up. “Nothing to talk about! I just… uh. Just tired. Didn’t sleep. Blame Shoko.” He doesn’t explain what to blame Shoko for. Suguru should just know.
Suguru squints at him. “You haven’t even seen Shoko today.”
Satoru would like to shrivel up and die, actually.
They eat in silence for a while. Satoru wants desperately to fill the void with words. He can be normal and speak normally. He can prove to Suguru that he can be trusted in a room with windows, and corners.
“So, the thing about—” he starts.
Suguru looks at him, expectant.
Satoru’s mind blanks. “The thing about… the gym is that it’s haunted. I think I heard a ghost. In the bathroom.”
Suguru’s face does not move. “You were in there for twenty minutes.”
“Digestive tract of steel, what can I say?” Satoru replies, with the kind of laugh that would make a psychiatrist rich.
Suguru puts his bowl down. He laces his fingers together; a motion so calm it almost resets the atmosphere in the room. “You’re being weird. Weirder than your baseline.”
Satoru’s mouth is so dry he almost can’t speak. A tiny Shoko pops up on his shoulder, flips him off, and tells him to stop being a fucking vagina and tell him, already—and he very nearly does. But then clarity smacks him in the face, and he flings tiny Shoko to her death. Good riddance.
“I was thinking that maybe—” Satoru tries again, but aborts at the last possible second. “Maybe we should get one of those mini fridges for the dorm. For cold snacks. You like cold snacks, right?”
Suguru blinks. “Is this what you’ve been thinking about all day?”
“Pretty much!” Satoru shouts, way too loudly for a conversation between two people that are sat less than a metre apart.
Suguru lets out a long, drawn-out sigh. It’s the closest he gets to an emotional outburst. “Sure,” he says. “We can look at fridges tomorrow.”
“Awesome,” Satoru smiles with all his teeth. “Perfect.”
He focuses on the remainder of his meal. The silence is worse than any scolding could be.
When the food is gone, Suguru rises, gathering both their dishes and deposits them into the sink. He follows Suguru down the corridor and up to the cluster of doors that is their floor.
Suguru stops at his door and turns, one hand still on the handle. “Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”
Satoru shakes his head in a way that proves the next words out of his mouth are a lie. “Nah. Healthy as a horse.”
Suguru stares at him, expression unreadable. “Okay,” he says, and then disappears into his room.
.:.
Dinner is curry, again, and it’s just as watery and just as brown as every other Thursday. Shoko is already halfway through her serving, an island of pickles bobbing in the sauce, while Satoru chokes down his own bowl, meticulously picking out the potato chunks.
Shoko’s phone buzzes, the vibration so loud against the table that Satoru almost throws his bowl five feet in the air like some fuckass cartoon character.
“I’m staying off campus tonight,” Shoko announces, without looking up. “Utahime’s got an early mission, so I’ll be at hers. Don’t burn anything down.”
Satoru’s head snaps up at the name. There’s a sound in his neck like a twig breaking. “Utahime?” he says, with barely contained disgust.
“Utahime,” Shoko repeats, still not meeting his gaze.
Suguru pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth. He glances at Satoru, then at Shoko, and then returns to his food as if nothing has occurred.
Satoru is aware that his face has done something unfortunate. He wills it back to neutral, but the muscles are not cooperating. Shoko finally looks at him, a pointed and extremely dry little tilt to her head, and then at Suguru, who looks a little lost in the sauce, if Satoru’s honest. The sauce being whatever curdled ingredients are sitting in his bowl.
There’s a bloated pause that is close to being long enough that Shoko will get pissy because her friends should take an interest in her escapades. Satoru hates having to be fake nice about Utahime. Maybe even more than he hates his current obsession with wanting strange objects in his anus.
“Cool,” Satoru eventually forces out. “Great. I’ll just be here, holding down the fort. I’ll keep Suguru out of trouble.”
Shoko’s mouth tugs upward at the corner. Weird.
“Don’t have too much fun,” she says, with a smile that gives Satoru the willies.
She leaves without further comment, but the trajectory of her exit is not random; she walks close enough to Satoru that the sleeve of her hoodie brushes his shoulder, and then out the door.
Satoru tracks the empty space she leaves behind, and feels, physically, the volume of the room contract. He wants to call her back, tell her to fuck off Utahime for one night and remain as his pillar of emotional support. She’s such a shit friend!!
Suguru finishes his bite, sets down his spoon, and wipes his mouth on the napkin with all the tranquility of a monk. “Do you want to catch up on the assignment, or are you going to watch the haunted vending machine thing? You’ve been pretty into haunted stuff lately.”
Satoru takes too long to process the question. His brain is still shuffling through possible responses to Shoko’s abrupt departure. Each of them so far have been on the intelligence level of a dead, sunbaked rat.
“Is that the episode where the ghost is just a guy in a costume?” he asks, defaulting to the safest possible conversational setting.
Suguru gives the faintest of shrugs. “I think so. It’s always a guy in a costume.”
Satoru tries for an endearing chuckle. It ends up sounding like one of those Halloween decorations they sell at the bargain store. He picks up his own spoon, rotates it in his hand, and tries to remember if he was ever capable of eating without emulating a creature from a far away land.
They finish their food in silence, the television filling in the gaps with strange wails and the sound of multiple cans clinking together. When Satoru’s bowl is empty, he pushes it aside and stretches his arms over his head, making a big show of loosening his shoulders. “I might just go straight to bed,” he says. “Early day tomorrow.”
He absolutely does not have an early day tomorrow, but he is the master of deception and trickery.
Suguru gives him a look that is almost definitely sarcastic. “You’ll actually sleep before midnight?”
Satoru grins like someone who has never been taught to smile properly. “I’m turning over a new leaf. It’s called personal growth.”
“Let me know when it sprouts.”
Satoru doesn’t dare attempt to laugh again. He’s learnt that lesson.
He’s sure Suguru is about to say something else, but instead he just stands, collects both their trays, and moves to the sink to rinse them.
“I found that game we used to play all the time in first year,” Suguru says, as he dries his hands. “You want to give it a go, see if it’s still as shit?”
Satoru perks up. Hallelujah! A chance to focus on something and still spend time with Suguru without it being awkward!!
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
.:.
The game is definitely still as shit. It’s a racing sim, one with pixelated cars and sound effects that are just remixed samples of a guy making “vrooom” noises into a condenser mic. The PlayStation two is so battered that it sometimes needs to be cajoled into booting with a slap on the side, like the naughty little device it is. One of the controller’s left trigger is permanently sticky, which gives an unfair advantage to the player who can brute force their thumb into submission. Satoru is that player, at least for the first four rounds.
They run the same circuit over and over, the same mirrored tracks and rainbow-lit tunnels, Satoru always in the lead until, suddenly, he’s not. The fifth race, Suguru pulls ahead at the last lap, his car drifting perfectly around every turn. Satoru blames the controller, then the lag, then the unfair allocation of power-ups.
When Satoru loses two in a row, he’s forced to admit defeat.
“You cheated,” he huffs, setting the controller down with a theatrical sigh. “You’ve been practicing.”
“I haven’t touched this since you last made me play,” Suguru says, not looking away from the screen.
“I call bullshit.”
Suguru finally glances at him. “Does it hurt, being so competitive?”
Satoru smirks. “Why be a loser when you can be a winner?”
The old TV throws blue light across Suguru’s cheekbones. Fuck. He isn’t distracted anymore. Satoru picks at the hem of his sleeve, then at the seam of the couch, then finds himself watching Suguru’s hands as he cycles through the post-race menus.
They order takeout, because dinner was ass and Satoru needs a palate cleanser. Suguru calls the place and puts in the order. Ramen—miso for Satoru, shoyu for himself—and two trays of gyoza, which Satoru will end up eating three-quarters of. The place is just two blocks over, and it always gets something wrong, but it’s cheap and Suguru is paying.
While they wait for the delivery, Satoru flops onto the floor, lies on his back, and stares up at the ceiling fan.
“Shoko’s definitely not coming back tonight,” he says, for the third time.
Suguru leans over the arm of the couch, lets his hair hang down, and says, “Why does that matter to you?”
“I don’t want her to come in and see us gaming. She’ll say we’re codependent or something.”
Suguru’s laugh is a real one, deep and surprised. “We are codependent.”
The doorbell rings, which is fantastic timing because Satoru was just about to mentally spiral. He springs up, jogs to the door, and returns with a plastic bag sloshing with soup and condensation. He sets everything on the table, divvies up the containers, and plucks a gyoza out of the tray before even sitting down.
They eat, cross-legged on the floor, the game paused behind them showcasing a slow, looping victory lap of Suguru’s in-game car.
Satoru tries to focus on the food, but his mouth doesn’t feel like a mouth, and the miso soup has a bitter aftertaste he’s never noticed before. He keeps glancing up at Suguru, watching the way he holds his chopsticks, the way his hair falls over his eyes when he bends forward. Suguru is completely relaxed, posture open, knees spread, back propped against the couch. He eats like he always does, with slow concentration, as if there’s nothing else in the world worth looking at.
At one point, Suguru reaches over and plucks a gyoza directly off Satoru’s tray. Not even a speck of hesitation, just a flick of the wrist and then the bite. Satoru freezes with his own chopsticks halfway to his mouth, staring.
Suguru looks up. “What?”
“Nothing,” Satoru says, and shoves one in his own mouth.
When the food is gone, Satoru leans back onto the couch, arms stretched out along the backrest, and lets his head flop sideways toward Suguru.
“Movie?” he asks, in the world’s worst impression of a casual voice.
Suguru doesn’t answer, just picks up the remote and starts scrolling through options.
“Not that,” Satoru says, when a horror movie pops up. “I don’t want to have nightmares again.”
Suguru raises his eyebrow. “So, you’re good with haunted vending machines, but draw the line at Paranormal Activity?”
Satoru pouts. “Tell me with a straight face that the bedroom scene doesn’t shit you up.”
Suguru just laughs at him.
He whines and pleads and, in the end, gets his way. Kung Fu Panda. The first one. Suguru rolls his eyes, but presses play.
Satoru sinks into the couch and lets his legs sprawl out so that his left foot just barely brushes Suguru’s ankle. He expects Suguru to move away, but Suguru just shifts, so that their feet are now pressed together under the table, heel to heel.
It is twenty minutes into the movie when Satoru glances over to find Suguru sleeping soundly. Not dozing, not in a light nap, but fully asleep, head tipped onto Satoru’s shoulder, breath warm and regular against his collar. He feels a tickling sensation on his neck, and to his absolutely dismay, becomes aware that the source is Suguru’s hair.
Satoru goes completely rigid. It’s not just Suguru’s hair that is touching him, or his face. Their legs are pressed together under the table. Suguru’s hand is twitching against Satoru’s thigh. His heart is doing something it has never done before—skipping, then hammering, then skipping again. He wishes for the sixth time this evening that Shoko was here. If he’s about to suffer a cardiac event, and she’s not here to save him because of fucking Utahime, he’ll haunt her so much worse than the vending machine ghost ever could.
The movie runs on. Satoru does not move. He barely breathes. He sits there, pulse in his ears, as the animated panda achieves self-actualisation and the credits roll in a wash of colour.
Suguru doesn’t wake until the very end, when the Netflix interface starts auto playing the next recommendation. He lifts his head, blinks, and for a second just looks at Satoru, eyes half-lidded and unguarded.
Nope. Time to bail.
He tries to form an excuse. He’s tired. His tummy hurts. He’s been chosen for deep sea exploration and leaves tomorrow for a six-month excursion.
His mouth opens, then closes. He stares at the TV. His left hand is gripping the couch cushion so tightly that he’s lost feeling in three fingers.
Suguru yawns, stretches, and says, “Sorry. I must have been more tired than I thought.”
“It’s fine,” Satoru says, and he isn’t entirely sure if he’s said it in Japanese, or fusion of every language he knows. (Four, but now is not the time)
Suguru is still looking at him.
Satoru meets his gaze, which was a fucking stupid idea. He cannot do this. He needs to leave.
He should say something right now. Anything.
Thanks for a great night, pal. I’m going to mosey on back to my bedroom now and hit the sack. Catch you on the flip flop.
Yep. That’ll do. He’s going to say it. The words are on the tip of his tongue. Here they come.
“Iwantyoutofuckmewithyourtentacles.”
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHAT THE F U C K !!!!
Suguru sits up, like someone has just thrown a bucket of ice over him. He’s very much awake now. The cushions beneath him still show the cave-in of where his body leaned against Satoru a minute ago.
Netflix is still running on autoplay. A message flashes up on the screen. Are you still watching?
Satoru wishes he could press yes. Wishes that Suguru was still asleep. Wishes he hadn’t opened his fucking mouth.
It takes a solid seven seconds before Suguru blinks.
“What did you just say?”
Satoru’s mouth is open, but he’s not sure what to do with it. He briefly considers pretending to have said nothing, or of using a random word like “hedgehog,” but the game is up. He’s a man with his parachute already deployed.
He takes a breath, as if the extra oxygen might help.
“I want you to fuck me with your tentacles.”
It echoes off the common room walls. Satoru might projectile vomit. He silently pleads for the room to develop a sinkhole and swallow him, or at least a fire alarm to postpone this conversation. God, he’d rather run into the flames willingly than do this right now. Or ever.
Suguru’s face doesn’t seem to know what emotion it wants to settle on. It flicks through mildly terrified, to confusion, to fury. Satoru really hopes he isn’t having a stroke.
When Satoru doesn’t start laughing, Suguru seems to get even twitchier. His eyes flick to the corners of Satoru’s mouth, then to his hands (which are clenched, white-knuckled, on his knees), then back to his face.
Suguru gives him the thousand yard stare. “Say it again.”
Satoru can feel his pulse in his ears, in his teeth, in the weird patch behind his knee where he once got stung by a jellyfish. But he says it again, because what’s he gonna do, lie? “I want you—specifically you, Geto Suguru—to got to town on my ass with your tentacle curse. Please.” He adds the last bit because it feels important, and also because his mother raised him to be polite.
Suguru opens his mouth. Nothing comes out but a slight whistle. Satoru assumes there were supposed to be words included with that puff of air.
He finds them not much later. “Is this a joke?”
Satoru’s turn to blink. “Does it sound like a joke?”
“Yes,” Suguru says, flat. “You do this all the time. Fuck with people and see how far you can push it.”
Satoru grits his teeth. “Not about this.”
“About everything,” Suguru corrects. “You once convinced Nanami that the Prime Minister had banned the sale of all French inspired baked goods because he caught his wife in bed with a Frenchman. You replaced every single password in the building with variations of ‘big dicks.’ You—” He stops, as if reeling in the list. “I don’t know when you’re serious, Satoru. You never are.”
He means it. Satoru wishes he’d learnt this lesson along with all the other children when they’d sat cross legged on the tatami mats, listening to sensei read The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Fuck that stupid kid.
“If I was joking,” Satoru says, voice wildly unsteady, “I wouldn’t keep talking about it. I wouldn’t bring it up over and over again, to the point where Shoko wants to tranquillise me. I wouldn’t—” He can’t finish the sentence, so he chews the inside of his cheek.
Suguru’s eyes narrow, just a fraction. His hands are still, but there’s a tremor in the tendon running up his left forearm, like he’s fighting an urge to throttle or to run.
“Why?” Suguru asks, voice quieter. “Why do you want that?”
Because I trust you. Because I can’t stop thinking about it. Because I can’t stop thinking about you.
“Because I want to know what it feels like,” Satoru says, teeth set. “You’re the only one who could actually do it. And because, when I saw you use it on that special grade, I haven’t been able to think about anything else. I just—” He stops. “I want it.”
They have a staring competition. It’s not fun, though, and for the first time Satoru thinks maybe he’s really gone too far this time. Maybe Suguru will stand up, leave the room, refuse to speak to him ever again, and he’ll have to sleep on Shoko’s floor for the rest of his life.
Suguru’s jaw flexes, and just like in Satoru’s imagination, he does stand. He’s going to leave. He doesn’t believe Satoru.
“I don’t believe you.”
Nope. No way. Satoru’s brain whites out, and then he’s standing, and then his hand is around Suguru’s wrist, and then Suguru is turning around, and Satoru is right there in his face, close enough to count his eyelashes. Suguru is not walking out of here with the wrong idea.
“Alright. Believe this.”
Suguru doesn’t have time to react. Satoru presses Suguru’s palm flat against the front of his joggers, where the situation is, quite frankly, impossible to misread.
Satoru has never, in the entire time they’ve known each other, ever ever seen Suguru’s face do what it’s currently doing. He's not even sure he could describe it accurately with a gun held to his head.
There’s a weird, vibrating moment where neither of them breathes.
Then Suguru’s fingers tighten, and Satoru sucks in a gasp he can’t control, and well—
That’s it.
Suguru surges forward, kissing Satoru so hard it’s like a punch to the face. And fuck, if it isn’t the best punch he’s ever taken. They topple backwards onto the couch, and Satoru is instantly aware of every inch of his body—his hands gripping Suguru’s hair, Suguru’s thighs bracketing his own, the heat where their chests slam together. There’s a weird noise in the room, though. It’s really taking away from the experience and—oh. Satoru is making that noise. How embarrassing.
He’s never been kissed like this. Not even close.
OKAY so he’s never actually been kissed before !!! Sue him!
He tries to keep up, to match pace, but there’s no space to think about strategy, no time to wonder if he’s doing it right. Suguru’s teeth catch his lower lip, pull, then release, and in the next instant Suguru has Satoru by the jaw, forcing his face up, making him open, making him—
Satoru forgets how to breathe.
He makes another mortifying noise and yanks Suguru closer, until their knees are mashed together and their hips lock in a way that has Satoru praying to a god he doesn’t believe in that he won’t prematurely ejaculate and ruin the whole thing before its begun.
For a split second, Satoru thinks they might both just die here, fused at the mouth, starved of air, clothes barely holding the rest of their bodies in. He’s never been this close to another human, never been inside anyone’s orbit like this.
He thinks about asking Suguru where he learned to kiss like this. Surely, he’s been practicing. Hopefully not on a human. He doesn’t mean on, like, a curse or something, though. That would be weird.
That’s kinda hypocritical of Satoru, actually. He wants to be fucked by one—
Maybe Suguru used a soft fruit. Something with a bit of give. A peach, perhaps?
His current train of thought dives off a cliff when Suguru’s tongue flicks against his teeth and then bites, gently, at the side of his jaw. There’s no way this is some elaborate dream. Satoru must be lucid. Even in his best, horniest, sleep paralysis visions, Satoru has never once imagined it would feel like this. Suguru’s hands are on his hips, pinning him to the battered common room couch. He can feel every twitch and flex through the fabric.
Suguru breaks the kiss, just a few centimetres, just enough to let Satoru breathe. Satoru doesn’t want to breathe.
“You sure about this?” he asks, and the way his voice is already hoarse makes Satoru want to pass the fuck out. Or away. He’s not fussy.
Satoru answers without thinking. “Yeah. I think I made that clear, idiot.”
The next thing Satoru knows, Suguru has him by the wrist, leading him down the hallway. Satoru’s heart is beating so loudly he’s positive Shoko can hear it in Kyoto. The floor is cold under his socks, but Suguru’s hand is fire. He can’t wait to get burnt.
They get to Suguru’s room, which is so much tidier than Satoru’s, so really was the only choice. There’s a faint scent of whatever hair mask Suguru uses, and a single, perfect line of books arranged on a low shelf. Satoru tries to say something about the books, to make a joke about how Suguru is a secret nerd, but his mouth has given up all function except panting.
Satoru expects another round of kissing, maybe some awkward undressing, but Suguru just looks at him, back pressed against the now closed door.
Satoru is really hoping he hasn’t lost the will. He’s been nursing a boner for over an hour now. The rest of his body is surely beginning to die of blood starvation.
He’s about to vocalise the fear he has for his own life. And penis. It’s not a very sexy thing to have to say, but he opens his mouth anyway.
And then promptly shuts it because Suguru rips a hole in the air.
The fucking tentacle. He’s doing it. He’s going to fuck Satoru with his tentacles ohmygodohmygod.
The first time Satoru saw this in action, it had been in the field, and the tentacle had been wrapped tight around the neck of a curse. Seeing it now, in the narrow, lamp-lit confines of Suguru’s room, sends Satoru’s last semblance of sanity straight to Jupiter.
The tentacle hangs in the air between them, not quite advancing. Satoru gives it an encouraging nod, because apparently, he has non-verbal conversations with soft-bodied marine invertebrates now. It, or more likely, Suguru, seems to take this as permission. Slowly, it closes the distance, stopping somewhere around the level of his sternum.
Suguru eyeballs him. “Tell me if it’s too much.”
Satoru laughs, but it’s more of a desperate wheeze. “If it’s too much, you’ll know.”
The tentacle wraps around his wrist. It’s not slimy, just cool, with a firm, almost rubbery texture. Satoru shudders, the sensation so foreign he nearly forgets to breathe. The tentacle tightens, just enough to press the bone under the skin, then relaxes. Satoru can’t help it—he lets out a noise, a strangled little mewl, and his knees go wobbly.
Suguru steps in, steadying him. With one hand he pulls Satoru’s arm up and out, exposing his flank, while the tentacle slides further, up his forearm and around his biceps. The pressure is perfect. Restraining, but not painful. Satoru has never felt more exposed, more alive.
More like his going to bust a nut, imminently.
“Is this what you wanted?” Suguru asks, eyes glazing over.
Satoru squeaks out a form of confirmation. He hopes Suguru can speak mouse.
Suguru’s eyes flicker. He brings his other hand up, tracing his thumb over Satoru’s bottom lip, and Satoru makes another questionable sound. “Let’s see how much you can handle.”
More tentacles appear—two, three, four. They’re smaller than the first, more agile, and they wrap around his ankles, looping behind his knees, tugging until Satoru’s back meets the mattress.
He stares up at the ceiling, but all he can focus on is the sensation. The cool, steady pressure around his wrists and ankles. The feeling of being completely and utterly at Suguru’s mercy. It sends a shiver right through him, licking at his spine and settling in the pit of his stomach.
Suguru’s voice floats into his ears. “I’m going to try something. Tell me if it’s too much.”
Satoru goes to give him a thumbs up and is met with resistance. Duh. He’s being held down by, like, seven feet of ocean monster.
Suguru closes his eyes, and suddenly the tentacles feel… alive. Not just moving. Watching. Sensing him. The touch at his wrist grows more focused, the grip at his ankle pulses with his own heartbeat. It’s like being held by a living thing, not just a tool.
Suguru opens his eyes. “Flipped the switch. I can feel everything now.”
Satoru trembles all over, like a jelly that’s just been flicked. “You can feel me?”
Suguru nods. “Everywhere you touch it, everywhere it touches you.”
The knowledge is too much, too fucking much. He tests the theory—shifts his wrist, flexes his fingers, rubs his palm over the tentacle’s surface. Suguru exhales, harsh and shaky, and his knuckles go even whiter.
Satoru tries to get up, to lean into the touch, but the tentacles hold him in place—just enough pressure to let him know who’s in control. He strains against them, and they flex back, unmoving.
“Fuck,” Satoru gasps. “You’re really strong.”
Suguru just smirks. Fucking bastard.
Satoru’s brain blanks. He can’t think, can barely see. All he knows is the grip around his body, the heat in his blood, and the sound of Suguru’s voice, getting rougher with every second.
The tentacles adjust, moving Satoru further up the bed, pinning his wrists above his head. One slides along his thigh, up the inseam of his joggers, not quite touching but so close he can feel the cold radiate.
Satoru’s voice breaks. “Do it. Don’t make me beg.”
Suguru leans over him, bracing one hand next to Satoru’s head. The tentacle at Satoru’s thigh presses closer, up and over the waistband, dipping inside. Satoru arches off the bed, and the tentacles at his shoulders and ankles hold him down, unyielding.
“Is this too much?” Suguru asks, which is mildly irritating, but is voice is so thick now Satoru can barely handle it.
Satoru shakes his head so hard it’s a miracle it’s still attached to his neck. “No. No. Keep fucking going.”
Suguru’s eye kinda twitches, but he regains composure pretty damn quickly. At least one of them is showing some resilience. “Good. Because I’m not sure I can stop.”
The tentacle at Satoru’s waist finds its way under the elastic, wraps around his cock, and squeezes. It’s cold and alien and nothing like anything he’s ever felt before, and he makes a sound that is half-scream, half-moan. Suguru tenses above him, lips parted, and Satoru once again remembers that whatever the tentacle feels, Suguru feels too.
He tests it, rolling his hips up, rubbing against the texture. Suguru shudders, biting down on his own knuckle to keep from making noise. The tentacle moves, painfully slow, up and down the shaft, every motion mirrored by a twitch of Suguru’s fingers, a flex of his arms.
Satoru loses his mind. He tries to move, to buck, but every limb is locked in place. A low pressure builds in his gut. He looks up at Suguru, sees the sweat on his brow, the hitch in his breath, the way his eyes have gone glassy and strange.
Okay. So, neither of them have resilience.
“Come here,” Satoru gasps. “Kiss me.”
Suguru leans down, kisses him, and the tentacle’s grip tightens, matching the rhythm of their mouths. Satoru feels himself unravel, pulled taut and then snapped, coming apart in Suguru’s hands, in the curse, in the air.
He’s never felt anything like it. Obviously. He’s being jerked off by an octopus. A squid??
Whatever the fuck Suguru’s curse is.
The pressure disappears from his limbs, and Satoru thinks he might be done for the night. He’s never come quite that hard before, and now he’s boneless, flat on Suguru’s mattress, body throbbing with aftershocks and the fading memory of cold, inhuman grip around his cock. He lets his wrist flop to the side. There are marks there, like the ghosts of hickeys, but in the perfect oval of a tentacle’s hold. He wants to show it off, tell everyone, paint it on the side of the school’s gym like a mural.
Maybe they’ll work up to butt stuff. It’s not like Satoru has done that shit before. Not that Suguru would know.
Wait. Does Suguru know? Oh, that would be so beyond fucking embarrassing—
“You want to go again?”
Satoru’s bones grow back in an instant. Including the one he’ll be needing for some of the activities. Perhaps?
“Fuck yeah, I wanna go again. Is that even a question?”
Suguru chuckles under his breath, and then boy, is it go time. A flick of the wrist is all it takes. This time, a tentacle with a split tip slithers from the void.
The phrase “lets see how much you can handle” bounces around in Satoru’s skull.
Welp. Suguru wasn’t kidding.
It hovers above him, a shadow in the air, then dips down, tracing the line of Satoru’s chest, then his stomach, pausing at the waistband of his boxers. Suguru lets it linger there, then brings his own hand down, sliding Satoru’s underwear off.
There’s something quite thrilling about having your cock and balls out in front of your best friend and his giant remote controlled void dildo.
The new tentacle loops around his thigh, then his other thigh, spreading his legs open. He stares at the ceiling, breathing hard, and tells himself not to get too worked up this time. He can’t let Suguru think this is easy.
Suguru kneels between Satoru’s legs, one hand braced on his knee, the other guiding the curse like it’s just an extension of his body. Which it kinda is. “I want to try something else,” Suguru purrs.
Satoru puts on his best I’m a pro at all sex things face. “I can handle it. Whatever it is.”
The tentacle strokes up and down his thigh, then circles his cock. The grip is softer this time, almost teasing. Satoru groans, arching into the touch. The tentacle squeezes at the base, then up the shaft, then back down. Satoru can hear himself whining like the overstimulated whore he is.
Suguru watches every twitch, every spasm. He looks at Satoru’s face, then at the place where the curse holds him, then back again. Satoru feels like a lab rat, and it turns him on even more.
The tentacle shifts, sliding lower, tracing behind his balls, prodding gently at the tight ring of muscle there. Satoru’s brain blanks out for a second, then comes back online with a vengeance. “Oh, fuck,” he groans. Way too loud.
The pressure on his hole builds. Satoru mildly registers that the tip is coated in something wet, and cold. He doesn’t get to ruminate on it, though, because in the next breath he’s breached.
He forgets to breathe, and when he finally manages to pull air into his lungs, it’s with a sob. “Fuck, Suguru.”
Suguru’s hands tighten on his legs. “If it’s too much, tell me. I mean it.”
Satoru’s jaw vibrates with the force of keeping his internal demons contained. “No, it’s—fuck, it’s so good, keep going.”
The tentacle pushes deeper, stretching him open. Suguru’s breath hitches with every inch, like he’s feeling it too.
Oh. That’s right. He is.
Satoru grins, wicked, and clenches around the tentacle. He wants to frame the way it makes Suguru’s face twist. Wants to save the way Suguru gasps to his Spotify playlist.
“Shit. ‘Toru,” Suguru breathes out.
Satoru’s laugh breaks into a moan as the tentacle crooks upwards. “Fuck fuck fuck. I think m’gunna come aga—ah.”
The tentacle is fully fucking in and out of him now, slow, and deep. Like, deeper than Satoru thought was possible. He thrashes, restrained by the curse, every nerve ending burning. His cock is rock hard, tight against his stomach, leaking all over himself.
“Touch me,” Satoru begs, “please, please—”
To Suguru’s credit, he doesn’t dillydally for even a second. His hand closes around Satoru’s shaft, stroking in time with the tentacle’s thrusts. The double sensation—cold and slick inside, warm and heavy outside—is so much that Satoru thinks he might die. Can you die from coming too much?
He bucks, chokes, and tries to twist away, but the tentacles hold him steady.
Suguru leans in, mouth at Satoru’s ear. “You look so good like this,” he nibbles on Satoru’s lobe. “So fucking loud.”
Satoru’s mind is going, going, gone. He tugs at his wrists, but the tentacle binds are unbreakable. “Gonna come,” he slurs.
“Not yet,” Suguru says, and squeezes the base of his cock, cutting off the orgasm before it can break.
Satoru lets out an ungodly yelp, the sound torn out of him. “Holy shit—fuck—”
The tentacle inside him pulses, matching his own heartbeat. Suguru strokes him, then stops, then strokes again, always just on the edge, never letting Satoru finish.
He’s at the fiery gates of hell. Suguru is the fucking devil.
“Please,” Satoru begs, “please, I’ll do anything, just let me—I need—”
Suguru mouths at his jaw, the edge of his voice wavering. “You can take more, can’t you?”
Satoru tries to nod, but it’s more of a frantic wobble. “Yes. Yes. Anything.”
Suguru pulls the tentacle out, slow, savouring it, and Satoru sobs at the loss. He barely has time to recover before Suguru’s fingers are there, three stuffed in all at once. It’s less of a stretch than the tentacle, but the thought of Suguru himself being inside him has Satoru’s back bowing off the mattress.
Just as he’s about to drop off the cliff edge, Suguru’s fingers still. Back on his edging bullshit.
Satoru moans, fat tears cresting along his lashline. “Please, Suguru, I need you, I need it, I’ll do anything—”
Suguru grabs Satoru’s jaw, forcing his head downwards to meet his gaze. “I said, not yet.”
Satoru’s cock twitches, a fresh glob of pre-come spurting across his stomach.
He twists his hands in the bonds, desperate to touch, to anchor himself. “Let me touch you,” he gasps.
Suguru gives him a pained look, then releases the tentacle holding Satoru’s right wrist. Satoru grabs for Suguru, yanking him down, kissing him hard. Their mouths crash together, teeth and tongues, messy and desperate.
Satoru is so hard it hurts. He whines, and Suguru laughs against his mouth, a sound so gentle it almost breaks him.
“Want me inside you?”
Satoru thinks he’s misheard. Surely Suguru didn’t mean him? As in his penis inside Satoru’s asshole? Not the tentacle?
Sure, Suguru can feel everything through the tentacle anyway. But that wasn’t the point. Satoru can’t quite remember what the point was.
Shoko’s face flashes behind his eyelids, which is, like, totally not the time or place. But it’s the knowing look she always gave them when Suguru would wrap his arms around Satoru in the common room. Or when Satoru would braid Suguru’s hair. Or when—
Ah.
He’s in love with Suguru.
‘Kay. Big revelations.
Suguru clears his throat, and when Satoru glances over, he’s sheepishly rubbing his neck. Which is fair enough, Satoru just disassociated after Suguru asked him a very vulnerable question.
Satoru looks him dead in the eye. “Yes—I would very much like for you to get all up inside me. Right now. Please.”
Less than two minutes later, Suguru is lubed up and slamming into him. He bottoms out in the first thrust, and Satoru relishes in the blunt heat of him, bigger (somehow?? Like, holy shit !!) and hotter than the tentacle.
It burns, but Satoru loves it. He wraps his legs around Suguru’s waist, pulls him closer, takes every inch. Satoru clings to his shoulders, nails digging in, breath coming in high, sharp gasps. Every thrust hits something deep inside him—something he didn’t even know he owned, but shit, does it feel like chewing 5 Gum.
Satoru can’t stop talking. “Fuck—so good—never—holy sh—” He’s babbling, but it seems to power Suguru like the national grid, because he goes harder, faster, his own voice joining Satoru’s in a litany of groans and broken syllables.
The bed creaks, the headboard smacking the wall. Satoru hears it distantly, like it’s happening in another room. Nanami is going to be sooo pissed about the noise.
But Satoru couldn’t give less of a fuck. All that matters is the way Suguru fucks him, the way it feels to be filled. To be restrained. To be owned.
“You close? I—fuck. I don’t know how much longer I can—ah.”
If Satoru wasn’t already close (which he is), the sweet melody of Suguru whining and panting, his words breaking off halfway through, absolutely roundhouse kicks him off the edge. He comes all over himself, hot ropes shooting across his stomach. He thinks he might have some in his eye, actually.
He’s still coming when Suguru follows, hips stuttering, a guttural noise ripped from his throat as he buries himself in Satoru’s ass. Satoru feels the heat inside him, the pulse of it, and if he had anything left in the tank he’d probably come again.
Suguru collapses on top of him, chest heaving.
Satoru lets his hands wander, tracing the sweat on Suguru’s back, the scars he never noticed before. He should probably tell Suguru about the whole loving him thing. That might be something he needs to know.
Eventually, Suguru rolls to the side, pulling Satoru with him so they’re face to face, tangled up, legs and arms everywhere.
Satoru opens his mouth to lay his soul bare, but chickens out like the sopping wet paper towel he is.
Suguru smiles, pushing Satoru’s damp hair back from his forehead. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”
Satoru blinks, then huffs out the world's most awkward laugh. “Y’don’t say.”
He doesn’t miss the way the edges of Suguru’s mouth pull downwards, ever so slightly. But then he’s being pulled into Suguru’s orbit. Arms envelop him; Suguru’s lips ghosting over his forehead. Everything grows hazy, until the light recedes fully, and he’s drifting off surrounded by Suguru.
.:.
Satoru wakes up to the sound of someone else breathing. He’s cold and hot at the same time, and the mattress is different. He tries to roll over, but his body is clamped tight on all sides. It takes a full three seconds to understand that, first, he is in Suguru’s bed, second, Suguru is next to him in said bed, and third, he has a dull, ongoing ache in his ass.
That last one triggers a memory dump of the previous night. So many tentacles. So much come.
Suguru’s arm is slung across his torso, heavy in a weirdly comforting way. He can’t tell if Suguru’s sheets were white before they began last night, or if that’s just the colour they’ve been stained. Either way—they are rumpled to the point of looking like ocean foam after a typhoon. Satoru’s thigh is pressed so tight against Suguru’s that he can feel every shift, every twitch of muscle. Suguru’s breath is hot as it hits the back of Satoru’s neck, and it has him tensing underneath the covers.
Satoru waits for the standard rush of humiliation or panic, but it doesn’t arrive. He tries to fish for it, just in case. Still nothing. He’s pretty sure this means he’s dead.
He wiggles a bit, testing the rest of his body for signs of life. His wrists ache, though there’s no visible marks. His knees are creaky. There’s a vague, ambient tenderness in his lower back, like he went three rounds with Yaga in hand-to-hand combat. The dude is a tank.
He turns his head a little further, just enough to see Suguru. Who is awake and looking at him.
Suguru’s hair is loose, the black of it making a ridiculous halo on the pillow. He’s not blinking. He’s just… there, breathing Satoru’s air.
No words permeate the space between them. Satoru tries to decide if this is some new liminal state between friendship and whatever the fuck comes after whacky tentacle sex. He decides to go for the low-hanging fruit.
“Good morning,” he says.
Suguru keeps his eyes trained on Satoru. “Good morning.”
Yeah. You know what, fuck it. He’s going to ask. If he could muster up the stones to ask Suguru to engage in ass-play puppetry, surely, he can ask about what this means. Because it wasn’t just ass play. They kissed. Suguru’s cock was inside him. Although it was everything he could have wanted and more, it wasn’t the initial agreement.
He clears his throat, which is still kind of raw from, like, an entire evening of yelling. “Is this a thing now?”
Suguru finally blinks. Then frowns, a very subtle furrow of his brow. After a few more seconds, his eyes widen a fraction as they lock back on Satoru. “Yes,” he says. “This is a thing now.”
Satoru waits for the caveat. For the gotcha moment. But it doesn’t come.
He lets his head drop back to the pillow and stares at the way the morning sun dances across the ceiling. He feels his mouth pulling into a grin. Allows it. Lets it unfurl and bloom over his cheeks.
He sucks in a deep breath, which is promptly shoved out of him with a palm to his chest. He’s rolled flat, and then Suguru is above him, lips pressing insistently to his.
Satoru lets out a surprised yelp, but melts into the affection instantly. He brings his arms up, tangles his hands in Suguru’s hair, and lets himself fall back into the same rush as last night. There’s no world outside the room. There is only the taste of Suguru’s mouth, the weight of his body, and the burn of his hands running up Satoru’s sides.
They break apart once the whole not breathing thing becomes somewhat dangerous, both gasping for air like they’ve been held underwater. Satoru opens his mouth to laugh, or maybe to joke about how he’s already very erect right now. But—
“I think I love you.” He breathes, all dreamy, floating on stardust and clouds of cotton candy.
Then he realises what he’s said, and the cotton candy melts into a puddle of rotten, sticky goo.
Suguru smiles into his neck. “Is that so?”
Satoru wants to throw himself out the fucking window. To feed himself to a curse in the woods.
“'Toru, look at me please,” Suguru says, so gently that Satoru wants to curl inside himself.
He turns his head back towards Suguru, ignoring how bitten his cheeks must be right now.
Suguru props himself up on his elbow, gazes. down at Satoru. “I think I love you too. In fact, I know I love you.”
Satoru makes a sound that is not dignified in any capacity and drags Suguru down by the back of the neck. The kissing resumes at a pace that suggests they are both operating on a very short fuse. Suguru gets a hand under his knee and hauls his leg up, and then somehow Satoru is on top, sitting squarely on Suguru’s lap, which is a development he endorses completely. At this angle, he can feel the heat of Suguru’s erection. He rolls his hips once, and they both groan in unison.
They’re practically dry humping each other like wild beasts rutting in the dirt when it all comes to an abrupt end. Satoru’s stomach growls so loudly that it vibrates the mattress. Suguru stops. Then he laughs, a low, rumbling sound that does nothing to quell just how fucking horny Satoru is, and pulls them both sideways until they’re horizontal again, every available surface of Satoru still in contact with every available surface of him.
Satoru internally chastises himself for taking so long to realise that he wanted his best friend all this time. He wonders if Suguru has wanted him all this time, too. He adds it to the long mental bank of questions he has set out to annoy Suguru with and allows himself to be pulled out of bed by the most beautiful hands.
.:.
By eleven in the morning, they’re fed, watered, and just about recovered from… their escapades. The halls are quiet, but somewhere above, the distinct drag of Nanami’s vacuum cleaner can be heard. It is the most grating sound in the world. Especially when he goes over the same patch of floor twenty-seven times.
Satoru is on the couch in the common room, Suguru’s arm heavy around his shoulders and both of their legs tangled up, a shared blanket pooling around their ankles. The television is on, volume low, playing a rerun of some early-2000s sentai show where all the actors are visibly too old for high school. Satoru hasn’t looked at the screen in twenty minutes. Suguru is definitely not watching. He’s reclined with his head tilted back, eyes closed, face so at peace it looks like a statue from a very gay, very specific Greek temple.
Footsteps ring out in the hall, and then Shoko barges in through the door, bag slung over one shoulder, hair barely contained by a navy blue beanie. She stops in the threshold just long enough to do a full sweep of the room—the couch, the two of them, the general air of catastrophe resolved—and then proceeds to set her bag on the table and head straight for the kitchen alcove.
The complete lack of acknowledgement sends Satoru straight into a spiral. Not only are they both essentially fused together, but Shoko didn’t even say hello !! What the fuck is up with that?!
Satoru begins to mutter under his breath as they listen to her in the kitchen, the clink of a mug against countertop, the mechanical whirr of the ancient electric kettle, the shuffle of a cabinet door. Suguru chuckles as Satoru continues with his barrage of insults, throwing one or two in for Utahime (who isn’t even here) because she deserves it anyway.
Shoko reappears with a mug of tea, the steam rising in a neat, disciplined column. She sits in the armchair directly across from them, crosses her legs, and drinks in silence.
Satoru props his chin on Suguru’s shoulder and glares at her. He hopes if he glares hard enough, it’ll hurt her somehow. Just a little. Nothing huge.
She does not speak.
She drinks her tea.
She does not move.
The silence is so immense it forms its own gravity. Satoru’s jaw starts to tick. He’s going to say something. He’s going to fucking—
“About time.” Shoko breathes into her mug.
Suguru muffles his laugh in the fabric of Satoru’s shirt.
Satoru, who was fully prepared to hop in the ring with her for being a bad friend, pivots instantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means,” Shoko says, still not looking at him, “if you’d waited any longer, I’d have had to transfer to Kyoto just for a quiet night’s sleep.”
Suguru, who still hasn’t opened his eyes, says, “We appreciate your patience.”
“Do you?” Shoko deadpans.
Suguru finally looks over, just enough to meet her stare. “Yeah. I do.”
She looks at Suguru, then at Satoru, then back again. “You’re going to need to be normal about this, at school.”
Satoru barks a laugh. “I’m always normal.”
Both Shoko and Suguru turn their heads to look at him. The effect is so synchronised it’s like they rehearsed it. Their faces are identical—dead eyes, arched brows, a shared disbelief so complete it’s almost romantic, to be honest.
Satoru raises his hands. “Hey! I can be normal. I’m a paragon of normalcy. Just watch me.”
Neither of them dignifies this with a reply. Shoko returns to her tea, Suguru lets his head fall back again, and the sound of the TV washes over them all.
Satoru is content to just… be. He’s not thinking about technique, or the next mission, or whether Suguru will ever speak to him again. He’s thinking about lunch, and maybe, after that, doing the thing where he buries his nose in Suguru’s hair and tries to inhale all the air in the room.
He’s pulled from this reverie by Shoko reaching for a slip of paper on the table. She looks at it, then slides it across the surface until it bumps Satoru’s knuckles.
“Found this on the counter,” she says, “when I was making tea.”
Satoru picks it up. The handwriting is neat, severe, scratched into the paper with such a pressure that any harder would’ve ripped the page.
PLEASE REFRAIN FROM LOUD ACTIVITIES PAST 12AM.
It is signed by none other than Nanami Kento.
For a full minute, Satoru doesn’t react. Then he screeches so hard it peels paint off the walls.
“Oh my fucking god, Nanami heard us,” he crows. “We’ve—he’s—”
He dissolves into sputters, his stomach spasming so hard he thinks he might pass out.
Suguru, without moving, mutters, “Oops.”
Shoko drinks the rest of her tea in a single go, stands, and heads for her room without saying another word.
Satoru lets the note fall to the floor. He leans into Suguru, who doesn’t push him away, and lets himself laugh until Suguru has to blow on his face to kickstart his breathing again.
If this is what being normal feels like, he could get used to it.
.:.
Satoru doesn’t remember agreeing to meet in the training yard at six, but here he is, shoes already soaked through with dew and the inside of his jacket clinging to his shirt like a wet dog. He can tell, even with his blindfold still pulled tight across his eyes, that Suguru has been out here for at least twenty minutes. Six Eyes, innit.
When Satoru steps onto the dirt, Suguru is mid-form, arms up and weight shifting through a kata. There’s a kind of gravitational lensing that happens when Suguru moves, a local warping of air and space that means Satoru can’t look anywhere else. Satoru drops his bag with a slap and sheds his jacket, which he immediately regrets, because the air is approximately three degrees above freezing and the thin fabric of his shirt is an open invitation for hypothermia.
Suguru clocks him right away, doesn’t pause or break stride, just completes the movement and pivots so he’s facing Satoru head-on.
“Morning,” Suguru says, voice barely louder than the wind.
Satoru stretches his arms behind his back, pushing his chest out in a way that is both limbering and a calculated flex. “You know it’s not actually morning until after sunrise, right? What kind of masochist gets up in the pre-dawn?”
“The kind who wasn’t blessed with being the strongest and has to work hard for his place here,” Suguru replies, tone super serious but face not so much, and finishes the kata with a shallow bow. “You ready?”
Satoru grins. “I was born ready. I was ready before you even thought about being ready.”
Suguru rolls his eyes, stepping into the opening stance, left foot forward, weight balanced. Satoru mirrors him. They hold the pose for a moment, each mapping the other’s centre of mass, the tilt of the head, the tension in the knuckles.
There’s no countdown. They just go.
Satoru takes the first step, as always, testing Suguru’s reach with a feint to the left. Suguru doesn’t react, but Satoru can feel the energy shift—a slight narrowing of the eyes, a minuscule tilt of the jaw, an uptick in the charge between them that says he’s not going to fall for the same trick twice. Satoru pivots, darts in low, and tries to sweep Suguru’s leg, but Suguru reads it and is already mid-air, the movement so smooth Satoru almost doesn’t see it happen.
Suguru lands and closes distance, hands up, aiming a palm strike at Satoru’s shoulder. Satoru parries, grinning, and uses the momentum to try to throw Suguru off-balance, but Suguru just flows around the resistance, like water in a broken pipe. They go at it for a solid minute, the slap of flesh on flesh and the scrunch of dirt underfoot the only sounds in the empty yard.
There are three times where Satoru thinks he could probably win, and he lets all of them slide—to be nice and not show his boyfriend up. Suguru slips into Satoru’s blind angles without being asked; Satoru pulls his strikes at the last millisecond. It’s like a highly choreographed dance, each of them swirling around each other as effortlessly as sakura petals in the breeze. Suguru’s hands are so steady that Satoru can feel the intent in every brush, every correction. Three weeks of dating has not changed how they fight, but it’s changed the texture of the spaces between movements.
When Suguru catches Satoru’s wrist to correct his form, his grip lingers longer than necessary. Satoru lets him. He looks down at Suguru’s hand wrapped around his arm and does not, under any circumstances, make a joke about how big Suguru’s hands are. He’s above that now. He’s mature.
“You’re telegraphing your strikes,” Suguru murmurs, fingers tight on Satoru’s pulse. “Again.”
“I’m trying to teach you to be more observant,” Satoru says, and Suguru huffs in a way that’s mostly just his breath fogging in the cold.
“Is that what you call it?”
Satoru grins wider. “I have to go easy on you. Otherwise, you’d never learn.”
Suguru squeezes his wrist, hard enough that Satoru almost yelps, then lets go.
“Alright. You asked for it.”
“Do it, fight me,” Satoru breathes, and they’re back at it, faster this time, a blur of hands and feet and the occasional FUCK when one of them gets clipped in the shin. Satoru is pretty sure that, at this point, they’re just showing off for each other.
They finish with both of them panting, Suguru’s hair now loose around his face and Satoru’s shirt clinging to his chest.
“Not bad. You’re improving,” Suguru says, dragging a sleeve over his mouth.
Satoru shrugs, like he didn’t just expend every ounce of energy he had and now wants to die quietly. “I could do this all day.”
They pick up their bags and head for the building, walking side by side. The walk is short, maybe two hundred meters, but it feels longer with the cold and the way Satoru keeps brushing his shoulder against Suguru’s. Suguru doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t lean in, either. Satoru tries to play it cool.
When they reach the doors, Suguru holds it open for Satoru. Satoru makes a big show of bowing and thanks him, earning an eye roll. He’s smiling though, so technically that makes Satoru the winner.
After class, Satoru waits until Suguru is done packing up. He loiters by the door, pretending to study the mission schedule taped to the wall. When Suguru joins him, they walk the hallway together, silent but in sync.
Suguru’s hand finds the back of Satoru’s neck. It’s just a warm, solid press of palm to skin—two seconds, maybe less, before Suguru lets go and keeps walking like nothing happened.
Satoru keeps walking. He does not make a face about it.
…
He makes a face about it.
.:.
Satoru is keenly observing the way Suguru’s throat bobs when he swallows when Shoko slams her lunch down onto the table next to him. He startles, clutching his chest, perhaps to feel if his heart is still beating inside its confines. He glares at her in all her audacity, but she just tilts her head, as if to say, what? Did I just expose how pathetic you were being?
Satoru grumbles under his breath, picking at his bento.
Shoko glances back and forth between the two of them. She must then decide that there is nothing interesting about the situation, and begins to silently peel back the wrapper of her onigiri.
Satoru waits, very patiently he might add, for her to power up her bitch motor. But she just nibbles away quietly, like a little demon trapped inside a gerbil. It’s weird. He tries to will her into making a comment by staring as hard as possible, but she just raises an eyebrow.
He cracks first.
“Are you not going to say anything?” he asks, mouth still half full.
Shoko takes another delicate bite, chews, and only then responds. “What would you like me to say?”
“I dunno,” Satoru says. “Something about how we’re being gross and codependent. Or how you’re jealous of our superior bone structure.”
Suguru puts down his chopsticks. “You do tend to get possessive,” he says, not looking at Satoru but clearly talking to him.
Satoru shouldn’t have said anything. They’re going to gang up on him. He hates them both equally.
Shoko sips her coffee and lets the silence stretch.
And stretch.
Satoru is going to request a transfer to Kyoto.
“If I cared about the details of your weird sex life, I’d ask. I don’t.”
Satoru coughs, nearly chokes, and has to wipe rice off his chin. “There’s nothing weird about it. It’s extremely normal.”
“You say that like it’s true,” Shoko says, and for the first time, Satoru detects a hint of a smile at the edge of her mouth. “Isn’t using a curse to restrain a human kinda unorthodox?”
Suguru shrugs. “Maybe. It’s also efficient.”
Satoru beams, proud. “See? Efficient. We value efficiency.”
Shoko doesn’t answer. She just takes another measured bite and studies Satoru over the top of the can, like she’s conducting a silent experiment.
It’s at this point that Utahime makes her entrance. This is quickly becoming the worst day of Satoru’s life.
She heads straight for Shoko, stops at the end of the table, and bends to plant a kiss to her cheek. Shoko’s face goes from pale to scarlet in under a second. Satoru files away the reaction for material to beat her with later.
Utahime straightens, adjusting her bag, and then looks at Satoru and Suguru like they’re a pair of escaped zoo animals.
“How’s it going?” She asks, and Satoru wishes she’d evaporate on the spot.
“Awesome,” Satoru intones. “We were just discussing the mechanics of advanced curse manipulation. It’s really boring shit, you should leave.”
Utahime ignores him and turns back to Shoko. “You want to get ramen after my mission? If you don’t have to work late.”
Shoko nods, eyes glued to the table.
Satoru waits until Utahime is gone, then glances at Suguru, who is eating like nothing happened. He leans in, real close, and whispers, “Can you name five people who genuinely like her?”
Suguru doesn’t respond. He just swipes another piece of food off Satoru’s tray. “Can you name five people who genuinely like you?” he whispers back.
“Yes. Of course I can.”
“Go on. I’m all ears.”
“You’re both insufferable,” Shoko says, still not looking up.
Satoru throws his hands up, nearly knocking over his bowl. “We’re insufferable? You’re the one who shows up late and brings nothing to the conversation.”
“I brought onigiri,” Shoko says. “And peace and quiet.”
Suguru snorts. “She has a point.”
Satoru scowls, then slumps back in his chair. For the rest of the lunch, he sulks in silence, chewing each bite with maximum volume. Suguru’s foot bumps his under the table, and when Satoru looks over, Suguru is watching him with that infuriating, unreadable half-smile. He wants to kick him, but he kind of wants to see if Suguru will do it again.
Eventually, Shoko finishes her food, dusts her hands off, and says, into the middle distance, “It’s nice to eat lunch without the mutually oblivious pining for once.”
Satoru snaps his head towards her. “Ever considered minding your own damn business?”
Shoko cracks the tiniest grin. “I have been, Satoru. For like, three school years. It’s been exhausting watching you two dance around each other” Her eyes sparkle. “Fuckin’ homosexuals.”
Satoru opens his mouth to reply, but before he can get a word out, Suguru’s hand slides under the table and lands, warm and heavy, on his knee. Satoru snaps his mouth shut so fast it clicks.
He supposes she isn’t exactly wrong.
.:.
Satoru is not technically supposed to be in Suguru’s room at this hour. But honestly, fuck the police. The police being Yaga in this situation.
He’s sprawled diagonally across Suguru’s bed, one bare foot propped on the desk and the other hanging off the edge of the mattress. He’s been there for an hour, watching the ceiling fan spin. If he stares long enough, the afterimage burns blue into his vision and the whole world looks like it’s underwater.
Suguru is exactly where he always is, upright against the headboard, a book in one hand, the other arm curled behind his head. There’s a cup of tea on the nightstand, growing cold by degrees. Satoru wonders if Suguru is waiting for him to say something, or if he’s just really engrossed in his book and has forgotten Satoru exists.
He lets the silence stretch. He wants to see who will break first. It’s like a fun kind of contest. Satoru wins all contests.
It’s not until the ceiling fan whirs itself into a new speed, making a noise like it’s about to throw a blade, that Satoru decides it isn’t actually a contest at all. Because if it isn’t a contest he can’t lose.
“I’ve been thinking.”
Suguru’s eyes don’t move from the book. He turns a page and says, “Be careful.”
Satoru sits up, cross-legged now, hands braced on either side of his thighs, and stares directly at Suguru’s face until he feels the weight of it settle. The air is thick, humming with the residual charge of a thousand unspoken things. Satoru is not a subtle person. He can’t do subtlety to save his life.
“We should do the thing again,” Satoru says. “The thing with the tentacles.”
The silence that follows has substance, like fog, or the space between thunderclaps.
Suguru lowers the book slowly, setting it spine-up on the nightstand. He shifts to face Satoru, and Satoru squirms under the weight of his gaze.
“Are you asking…” Suguru narrows his eyes. “Or telling?”
Satoru licks his lips, surprised at how dry they are. “I—I’m asking.”
Suguru cocks his head, like he’s running the answer through every possible filter. “Interesting. Because it sounded like telling.”
Satoru isn’t proud of the way his whole body tenses.
“I’m asking,” he repeats, quieter.
The air goes cold at the edges first, like a window left open in winter. Then Suguru smirks, the one that does something unfortunate to Satoru’s ability to think in complete sentences. In an instant, the atmosphere tears, and four tentacles slither from the space between worlds, in the pocket that Suguru has carved out to hold all of his treasures.
They curl between the two of them, heading steadily for Satoru. He doesn’t back up. He tips his chin up instead, and waits.
This time, he knows exactly what’s coming. And he’s more than ready for it.
(It’s him. He’s coming.)