Chapter Text
"You didn't even hear me out (didn't even hear me out)
You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)
All this time
I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind)
I couldn't turn things around (you never turned things around)
'Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)"
━━━ 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑑 ━━━
19th April, 2009
The darkness that surrounded Satoru was not unknown to him. It was a hauntingly familiar colour. Satoru understood darkness like he shared an uncanny intimacy with it. He understood it in a way a deer understood its predator in its last moments; like it was so close, yet so distant. No. He understood it in a way one would understand a past lover. So close, yet so distant.
A soft whisper of the wind brushed past his ear, like the hush of a mother soothing her sobbing child. It made the trees rustle a little, and Satoru watched as a flutter of cherry blossoms parted from the branches, dancing and floating in the air as they finally found their way to his feet, stopping merely at a distance of half an inch from his shoes. They slid to the ground.
Satoru looked up— his eyes moving to the terrace— hoping to find Suguru there, hoping he’d be just as lucky this time.
Satoru had sworn to himself that he would never come back here. That the last time he was here, it was only to check on him. But spring was the season of love and friendship and all things beautiful, and yet Satoru felt nothing but emptiness. An aching feeling that would feast on his soul every night.
Love.
Friendship .
Suguru had taken them with him.
No. He had left them behind like they were Satoru’s burden now. Like they were never even his to begin with.
But the beauty. The beauty that had once existed— Suguru had taken it all with him. Suguru had walked a path laden with blossoming flowers and rustling leaves, fluttering butterflies and the sing-song tale of the birds. And he had taken them with him, leaving behind a barren land, parched and starving.
Satoru used to think that his world had paused with his spring break, but he was quick to realise his world was still moving. It was just dulled to monochromes, not too different from his own six eyes on the day he left, contracted and reduced to the nothingness of pale colours. Their electricity gone.
He sighed and looked for any signs of life behind the tainted windows. A shadow, perhaps, of a tall man he once knew so well.
He found nothing.
Part of the reason Satoru had chosen such an odd hour was to convince himself that it wouldn’t do any harm if he went to see Suguru at night. Maybe he wouldn’t even find him, unlike the first time.
It hurt to have been right. Deep down— he found himself admitting— he had hoped he would see Suguru. A faint shadow or a soft voice would’ve been just fine. Hell, he would’ve even lived off the ghost of his scent for years. Something. Anything . A sign that he was alive. A sign that Geto Suguru still walked the streets of Japan, even if it meant that Satoru couldn’t be by his side.
He turned around on his heel, defeated, when a wild gush of air hit him right in the face. Satoru flinched, his neck turning slightly to the side. Almost as if the air itself was mocking his lame attempt, it forced him to look at Suguru’s house one more time. And this time, Satoru looked. He really looked. He looked as though he were frozen, suspended in time. As though the world would collapse right under his feet if he were to move an inch, taking Suguru with him.
He looked and he thought. He thought and he thought until he had nothing to think of anymore. Until thoughts slipped into incoherent words, words moulded into memories, and memories faded into whispers. Satoru, he heard. Satoru, in here.
Satoru might be the strongest, but his resolve was weak against the ever-so-soft tone of Suguru’s distant voice. It was calling for him like the rain that taps against a window.
He took a step towards the voice. Right here, Satoru. Then another. I’m waiting for you, right here. And another. Come closer, Satoru, you’re almost there.
The voice felt closer now, like the rain was almost touching his face. Almost.
Come in, Satoru.
Under the spell, he reached the doorknob in front of him and twisted it. The door cracked open.
As soon as Satoru stepped inside, the scent of Suguru’s cursed energy hit like a wave, snapping him back to reality. He was in the house. In Suguru’s house.
What the fuck are you doing?
It was too late now. His resolve had shattered. He could not give up now, not when Suguru was barely a few footsteps away. So he traced his cursed energy and found his way to the man he could not forget, praying that he had fallen asleep by now.
Much to his luck, when he moved closer to the room he suspected Suguru was inside, he heard a faint sound of snoring. So he still snores.
Trust Satoru to laugh at a time like this.
With shaking footsteps, he walked in, and when he was met with the sight of Suguru asleep, he gasped.
He didn’t understand why he felt so heavy, or why his throat had turned dry. Had he not been expecting exactly this to happen?
In truth, he hadn’t. He had never thought he would be able to see Suguru again. To hear him. To smell him. To touch him.
His heart told him to move closer; so he did. His heart told him to kneel by the bed; so he did. His heart told him to watch him, to take all of him in one last time, and never again; so he did.
Suguru was sleeping in a t-shirt and sweats, his hair untied, his mouth slightly open as he snored. He still looked very much like the boy Satoru knew. So what had changed about him? And when had it all happened?
Had Satoru truly been so blind? Was he truly so consumed by his chaos that he failed to notice Suguru’s silent whispers? Had there been any signs? Had he secretly begged for Satoru’s help?
How did they end up here, worlds apart in the same lonesome city? What had he done wrong? Why had he let him go?
“Suguru . . .” he whispered, his hand reaching to touch his tresses. He barely grazed past them, so gently, so delicately, as if they would crush under his fingertips if he applied the slightest bit of pressure.
Satoru didn’t know how long he’d sat there, asking himself the same questions he asked every day. But the light had started to fall upon their faces by the time he realised that he should probably move. And he promised himself once more that this was the last time. That he would never come back again.
In his bones, however, he knew that wasn’t true.
Nevertheless, he walked away.