Chapter Text
Suguru wakes on Saturday before the sun rises, feeling an ominous dread pooling in his gut. No messages from Satoru wait for him on his phone, which Suguru thinks is fine. Valid, even considering the way he might think Suguru ghosted him yesterday. Justified, perhaps, if he had a migraine like Shoko had said.
It doesn’t make him feel any better.
For most of their lives, they’ve had a longstanding tradition of meeting up every Saturday. Sometimes, Suguru can even convince Satoru to do some homework like they tell their parents.
Unbidden, Suguru thinks of the cutesy kissing kaomoji Satoru sent him, and feels himself flush. He dresses, taking a little more time than normal to make sure he looks fine. If not good, then at least like he put some effort into it. When he grabs his bookbag at the last minute, he hesitates, double-checking his wallet. He has enough to treat the two of them to ice cream this time.
Maybe Satoru will accept it as a peace offering.
If not, well, there’s a little konbi on the way that sells Satoru’s favorite strawberry mochi, too.
Once it’s a reasonable time for Suguru to actually be awake on a Saturday, he texts Satoru. Nothing much. Just a omw, see you in about an hour, hoping that all the weirdness from yesterday will somehow…blow itself over.
He’s jittery the entire time he waits for the train, tapping his foot and checking the time every few minutes. Impatient, not nervous. He’s got nothing to be nervous about.
The silence from yesterday feels suffocating, wrong-footed. If anything, though, it should be easy now. Suguru has cleared up everything with his would-be secret admirer, so now all Suguru has to do is tell Satoru that maybe the flowers weren’t from Suguru himself, but he wishes with all his stupid heart that they were.
Satoru had looked so happy, just a few short days ago. Surely, Suguru can make him look like that again. On purpose, this time.
Suguru has nothing to be nervous about. Forty minutes later, when he’s finally on the train, his phone buzzes.
Satoru takes a long time to respond. The not-nerves in his stomach wobble. Maybe he’s getting motion sick. He watches the little dots of Satoru typing (typing, stopping, typing, stopping) and forces his breathing to stay even.
Suguru stares at the messages and wonders if maybe he’s been justified in feeling like the world has been falling apart around him.
Friday, February 14, 5:45 AM
Satoru’s alarm goes off at the most ungodly hour of the day, a time of day that he still isn’t one-hundred percent sure really exists. The time of day where it feels like your screen’s resolution has crashed, and you’re running at 1080p instead of 4k or even, god forbid, 520p.
But Satoru’s prepared.
He set up everything for himself last night, knowing his brain would be running at quarter speed right now. If he had the brain power, he’d pat himself on the back for thinking so far ahead. It worked like a dream yesterday, so he knew it would work again today.
He pulls on the outfit he’d painstakingly chosen last night, slings his book bag over his shoulder, and carefully picks up the gold-wrapped box at his doorway.
The Sun isn't even properly risen yet, this early. He’d underestimated how long it would take him to get to school yesterday; somehow the early morning hour had confused him. Predawn has a terrible tendency of making him lose track of time. It won’t mess him up twice, though.
He’d even haggled with Nanami yesterday to make him not come in so early today, no easy task considering how routine-minded Nanami is.
(He’s a hard sell, that Nanami Kento, which Satoru thinks will be good for him whenever he inevitably gets his terribly boring job in sales post-college. He’d cost Satoru an entire week of not bothering him before he agreed to it.)
But anyway, he’s prepared today. Yesterday was the trial run. Today is Go-Time.
The plan is simple: Satoru is going to get to class before Suguru today. He’s going to wait him out, and then he’s going give him Satoru’s Valentine’s Day present. He’s been tying himself in knots trying to find a way to do this casually for weeks, since last Christmas Eve where they spent the day holed up in Suguru’s room, him too sick to go out, and Satoru nearly let spill how stupidly, devastatingly in-love he was.
(He maybe has spent too much money on chocolates, trying to find something perfect for Suguru, just the right amount of bitter to the sweetness like Suguru likes. He maybe has been looking up vacation rentals in Okinawa for White Day, already getting ahead of himself and looking forward to doing something special for their one month anniversary.)
(He maybe has had a record number of melt-downs, overthinking text messages and imagining worse-case scenarios. He’ll be devastated if Suguru turns him down. He wouldn’t survive it if Suguru stopped being his friend after it.)
Imagine his surprise when Suguru beat him to it on Monday. He’d handed Satoru that bouquet of roses, blushing so prettily, looking even more charming than Satoru ever dared to imagine even in his wildest dreams.
So. He’s been a bit crazy about it ever since.
Monday night he called up his chauffeur and everything, made him drive them all around the city looking for melting chocolates, having decided that suddenly, imported dark chocolates from Germany wouldn’t be enough, that he has to make his own chocolates.
Satoru races to the school, too impatient to walk. His insides feel like they’re going to jump out of his mouth. Nervous. Almost nauseous with it.
He wants Suguru to smile at him today.
Wants him to look at Satoru like he did yesterday, just minutes before class started, when he’d been leaning his head on his hand, elbow hard on the surface of his desk, like nothing else in the world mattered.
He needs Suguru to kiss him today. Needs it like he needs blood pumping to his muscles.
In the hallway leading up to homeroom, Satoru pauses. He gives himself a minute to catch his breath, smooth back his hair and button up his uniform jacket properly. Just in case Suguru is already there. Satoru texts him, hoping it won’t be too suspicious of him to be up so early.
He wants to surprise Suguru, after all. When he gets no response, so he figures he’s in the clear.
Empty classrooms on both sides of the hallway make the school look dark this early. Ominous, really. Satoru has watched enough horror movies to be a little creeped out, even if he knows the sun is already slowly rising as he stands there, hesitating.
There’s someone in the classroom already.
Satoru doesn’t recognize them, but they’re waiting by his desk. Satoru squints. He doesn’t have time to deal with more people who are interested in him, unless those people are named Geto Suguru.
Satoru clears his throat loudly, and the boy startles, whipping around, his eyes wide. Satoru almost recognizes him, as one of the other three or four boys in school with naturally light hair. The foreign exchange student that Suguru tutored, he thinks. Last year? He doesn’t quite remember. Satoru doesn’t think he ever even got the kid’s name.
“Gojo-san,” he says, with only a little bit of an accent. His eyes dart around the classroom wildly, his skin turning pale as Satoru eyeballs him. “I didn’t expect you.”
“I didn’t expect you,” Satoru parrots, taking a moment to let his faux-confidence slip back into his swagger. “It’s pretty early, you know.”
He smiles, but it feels a little mean. The boy gulps. Satoru thinks his name might have started with an R. Maybe an M? It’s coming back to him. His hair is blonde, a sandy yellow that catches the weak morning light in interesting ways, even if it’s cut at in a harsh, unflattering line at his jaw.
“No one is usually here this early,” the boy says.
Even clearly nervous, his voice stays steady and deep. If their places were reversed, and Satoru had been caught leaving something on Suguru’s desk, Satoru would only be able to make sounds roughly equivalent to that of mice squeaking.
Satoru purses his lips, suspicious.
The boy sends a longing glance at Satoru’s desk, where he sees he’s left a bouquet of purple flowers. He thinks they could be daffodils. Maybe tulips? He doesn’t know enough about flowers to tell.
“Are those for me?” he asks, trying to think of a way to turn the boy down easily without causing too much of a fuss. He doesn’t think he has much time before Suguru shows up.
“Ah, no, Gojo-san. They’re for—”
“Suguru,” Satoru says, the gears in his head clicking suddenly with an awful grinding sound.
Satoru stares at the boy whose name he still doesn’t remember. He instantly flushes, dark red painting his cheeks in oblong splotches. The boy’s eyes dart everywhere around the room again, as if Satoru saying his name will magically summon him.
From somewhere far off, faint ringing starts sounding. Satoru points to his desk, the one with the flowers on it. Purple tulips. Red roses.
No.
No no no—
“That’s my desk,” Satoru says, quite calmly, he thinks. “Suguru sits next to me.”
Satoru feels terrible, watching the expressions that flicker across the boy’s face as Satoru’s words sink in. Acutely, he feels like he’s watching a train wreck in slow motion.
He would feel sympathy, he thinks, if his own heart weren’t crashing right along with him.
The boy’s face crumples, but Satoru doesn’t get to see it for more than a second. He bows quickly, ninety degrees, his hands stiff at his sides. Satoru dredges up a smile for him, even if it feels mechanical on his mouth and all wrong.
The boy doesn’t see it anyway, too busy hyperventilating by the looks of it.
“I’m so sorry, Gojo-san,” he blurts. “I must have mixed them up. I—”
“It’s okay.”
“So you mean he doesn’t know? Surely you gave him my card.”
Satoru’s smile doesn’t even slide off his face. It feels permanently soldered to his cheeks. He wonders if this is how Suguru feels, when he plasters on that polite smile he so often wears. The one that Satoru hates.
Satoru can’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to do. Suguru isn’t interested in you, he wants to say, just to be mean, just to keep him for himself, but is it the truth?
He doesn’t know.
Suguru doesn’t know anything, Satoru wants to scream at him, but he isn’t sure of that either.
(“They’re not from me,” Suguru had said, but he’d blushed like he didn’t mean it, his eyes sparkled like he wanted Satoru to hear the lie in them, the yearning. But Suguru was telling the truth?)
(Why would he go along with it?)
(Why?)
If there was a note on his desk these last few days, Satoru never heard of it. Did Suguru take it? Did he know?
God, how pathetic is Satoru? They’re not from me, Suguru had said, and Satoru didn’t believe him. He literally—
“Thank you for your understanding, and for your discretion, Gojo-san,” the boy is saying, and somehow the gifts have migrated from Satoru’s desk to Suguru’s desk without Satoru even noticing.
Somehow, he’s even all the way at the doorway, and Satoru can’t tell what his face is doing anymore, can barely see from the way everything blurs for a moment.
He stands there completely still, in the middle of the desks, for what feels like ages. Distantly, he hears footsteps, then not-so-distant, too.
Nanami enters the room, sees him standing there, then leaves again. Satoru hears him drop his bag on the floor out in the hallway. He can’t imagine why.
He takes a deep breath. The room wobbles a little on the exhale.
Outside, Haibara calls out for Nanami down the hall, a question in the tone of his voice if not the words. And now that he’s noticing, he can hear lots of other students: chattering and laughing and screaming, and the thunder of footsteps.
Satoru’s head gives a painful throb. It’s nothing compared to what is happening in his chest, though. He takes a shuddering breath, not nearly as deep as he means it to be.
“And so then I told her that—Oh, Gojo-san! It’s nice to see you here early!” Haibara’s voice chirps and Satoru can’t be here, fuck, he can’t be here right now.
“Gojo?” Nanami calls after him, the two of them now at the doorway, but Satoru pays them no mind, pushing past them and out into the hallway.
He makes it to the restroom on autopilot more than anything, glad for the sunglasses firmly on his face and hiding the first awful tears that slip down his face.
He thinks to check his phone, but there’s nothing from Suguru.
Seeing his own cringe-worthy kaomoji fills Satoru with so much self-hatred that for a single heart-stopping moment he feels like doing something terrible and painful and so, so stupid.
Suguru? he texts, because there’s still a few minutes before class, and maybe all he needs is to talk to him, to clear everything up.
(But no. No response. Suguru doesn’t even look at it.)
The world is ending after all.
Shoko calls him sometime later. An hour, maybe two. Long enough for the classes to have turned over twice. He’s managed to be left alone for the most part.
Satoru doesn’t want to answer. He doesn’t want to do anything. He hardly wants to exist, to be honest. He hasn’t left the bathroom stall, leaning against the metal wall and staring up at the blurry ceiling.
“Where the fuck are you two,” Shoko’s voice says, only the normal amount of grumpy. “You could have at least told me you were gonna—”
“Where are you?” Satoru hopes his voice sounds normal. He’s trying so hard to make it sound normal. “Is Suguru with you?”
A pause. It’s loud, wherever Shoko is. A cacophony of voices and noise around her. Outside, maybe. He thinks she has PE early. Vaguely, he thinks that maybe he needs to try harder at sounding normal next time.
“I thought he was with you,” Shoko says lightly. Another pause. He can hear a pair of heavy metal doors slam, and then silence. “He’s always with you, ya know?”
“Oh,” Satoru says, going for airy and unbothered. “I skipped homeroom today. I—I woke up with a migraine. Figured all the um. The noise and stimulus would just make it worse.”
Shoko clicks her tongue. He can’t figure out if she believes him or not. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if she doesn’t believe him.
“You gonna go home?”
“I. Yeah, I think so.”
Satoru lets out a deep breath, proud when he manages to keep most of his distress out of his voice. He tries to say something else, but can feel the way his throat is closing up again. He swallows. Stays silent.
“Ooookaaaay.”
Fuck, he thinks. She knows. Shoko is too smart not to know when he’s fucked up. She takes a breath, and Satoru braces himself.
“I’ll tell the nurse, so you don’t get in trouble.”
That’s it from her. She doesn’t press it. Satoru smiles, watery and wavering. Even over the phone, he can feel the sharp press of her curiosity and growing suspicion, but she doesn’t ask. Satoru doesn’t deserve a friend like Shoko.
He swallows again, tries to say any of that aloud, but he can’t get any words past the lump in his throat.
“I’ll tell Geto if I see him,” she says into the awkward silence.
“No! No, that’s not—” Satoru takes a breath, trying to swallow all the words back into his mouth, too panicked, too desperate. “I—” he searches his mind for something normal, for something that won’t rip him apart at the seams. “I already texted him. It’s fine.”
He’s not going to cry out all of his troubles on the phone.
Not to Shoko, and not in a grimy bathroom stall on a Friday morning.
Shoko hums.
Satoru wobbles, forehead pressing into the bathroom door. Willing her not to push it. Please. Please don’t push it.
“Okay,” she finally says, although Satoru can tell she wants to say something else. Unconvinced. “But call me if you need anything, okay? You know I…”
Shoko trails off, but Satoru knows what she means. Neither of them are any good with emotions, with genuine words of affirmation and all of that. The two of them are similar in that way, much preferring to let their actions speak for them. Or else have Suguru act as their emotions-interpreter. Suguru is so good at that.
Satoru almost starts bawling again. God, he feels so pathetic.
“I’ll be there, if you need me to, okay?” she finally bites out. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Satoru says, and nearly dissolves into tears. He knows his voice is wobbling, knows he sounds like he’s crying, especially when he can’t take it anymore and hiccups, tears finally slipping down his face. “Okay, Shoko. Thank you.”
He hangs up on her before she can say anything else, and stays very still for another few minutes, just until he stops shaking, until he can take a breath and not feel like his chest is ripping open.
He makes it home, somehow. Collapses right into bed without bothering to change. He checks his phone one last time, but still nothing from Suguru.
He has a few messages from Nanami and Shoko, but he doesn’t bother opening them. His head is pounding, just behind his eye, at the junction of his jaw. He probably cried so hard he triggered a migraine. Just his luck.
He pulls the covers up over his head, closes his eyes and shivers, pain and grief all mixed up in his system.
He gets to sleep, somehow. Small mercies, but the sleep is dreamless.
Satoru is waiting for him when he gets off of the train. He didn’t think he would be, for some reason.
He looks good, leaning against a metal beam, but then Suguru always thinks Satoru looks good. He’s wearing a pair of black joggers, the kind that make his long legs look even longer than they are. Paired with a navy blue Henley with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows, he looks casually devastating. It makes Suguru feel awkward and overdressed in his dark-wash jeans and form-fitting black tee.
His sunglasses are hanging off the collar of his shirt, and his eyes are so insanely blue that Suguru almost can’t believe it. His shirt makes them look darker, somehow; like a still, deep lake in the middle of summer. Easy to get lost in; easy to drown in.
Suguru’s breath catches in his throat.
So. Okay.
Yeah, he loves him.
Suguru is in love with Satoru. It feels right, normal. Easy somehow. Like part of him has known for years. He’s such an idiot for not knowing that until right this moment.
He waves, watching the way Satoru’s shoulders raise in the distance, and knows that he’s been right to be nervous today. His lips tilt in response, a small, almost involuntary smile before he raises a hand back in acknowledgement.
“Hi,” Suguru says.
Wants to kick himself, a little, for how awkward he sounds.
“Hey.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Hmm?”
Satoru looks at him for a moment, something guarded and vulnerable in his eyes, before he turns away and starts walking, hands shoved into his pockets. Suguru wants him to sling an arm over Suguru’s shoulder.
“Shoko said you had a migraine yesterday.”
Suguru nudges him, shoulder to shoulder. Satoru flushes pink.
“Right,” he says, a little out of breath. “Yeah. Yes. I um. Slept it off. Sixteen hours. You know. Does wonders for whatever my dumb brain decides to put me through.”
Without even thinking about it, he reaches out and settles his palm along Satoru’s neck, making a sympathetic sound.
Satoru jolts, nearly jumping out of his hold.
“I’m sorry.” Suguru means it. He stares at Satoru almost a full meter away from him, suddenly feeling like that meter might as well be an entire ocean. “I overslept and left my phone at home. I didn’t know.”
Why didn’t you tell me, he thinks, a little desperately, looking at Satoru’s shoulders as they walk.
Satoru only shrugs. He doesn’t look at Suguru.
“What’s there to be sorry for?”
“Your whole day sounds like it was a wash,” Suguru says, somewhat helplessly. “I’m allowed to feel bad about it for you.”
“Are you?”
Satoru tilts his head, just enough to slant a single look his way. Suguru catches his elbow and stops.
“Satoru—”
“Never mind,” Satoru says, all forced cheer. “Let’s head back, yeah? I need to work on that paper for Tarukane-sensei.”
Satoru tries to pull away, but Suguru’s grip on his elbow tightens.
“You don’t want to get ice cream anymore?”
Suguru bites his lip, watching Satoru watch him. His eyes dart over Suguru’s face multiple times, quick as lightning. Suguru wonders what he’s looking for. He watches a pink flush crawl up Satoru’s neck, watches the way his upper lip wobbles a little as he thinks.
“Do you want to?”
“I do,” Suguru says instantly. “Yeah, Satoru. I do want to. Let me take you out for ice cream.”
Satoru closes his eyes, every centimeter of him trembling. Suguru wants to wrap him up in his arms and protect him from whatever it is that pinches up his face like that.
“Okay,” Satoru says, his shoulders relaxing finally.
He smiles, and it’s a small, tentative thing.
Suguru finally gives in to the impulse and tugs him close, slipping his arm around Satoru’s shoulder and steering them back a block, to the little ice cream shop Satoru’s always bugging them to stop at. It’s a little tricky since Satoru’s shot up like a bean pole recently, almost a full three centimeters taller now, but he curls into Suguru, like maybe he wants it too, so Suguru makes it work.
Satoru loosens up at the little shop, especially when he realizes they have his favorite flavor back in stock. His Ramune-flavored monstrosity is bright blue, and it stains his tongue a matching shade of it. Suguru short circuits a little at how cute it is when he finally gets Satoru to laugh at something he’s said.
They sit side-by-side on one of the little green couches at the shop and chat, and everything is almost back to normal.
(Suguru doesn’t want normal anymore, though.)
Still, normal is better than whatever defeated mood Satoru was in earlier, so he’ll take it.
The walk back to Satoru’s place is almost normal, too.
Satoru relaxes, slowly, into their old rhythm, too hard-wired to match Satoru’s energy after all these years. Pretty soon Satoru’s back to his usual over-the-top self, going a mile a minute.
Right up until Satoru lets him into his room, and Suguru spots the bouquet of roses, hanging upside down on the bedpost of Satoru’s bed, carefully drying.
“And then obviously we can get lunch afterwards, I was thinking we—”
He closes the door and runs right into Suguru’s back with a short ‘oof’ sound.
“Suguru, what—”
But he’s already side-stepped him, his gaze following Suguru’s to the drying roses by his bed. He takes a sharp breath, makes a tiny sound of distress that makes Suguru look back at him.
A mistake.
Satoru’s expression crumples.
“Right,” Satoru says, pushing past him and grabbing the bouquet, pulling it roughly from its spot. A few dried petals fall to the floor. “Don’t worry about those. It’s nothing. Um. Well, I guess they belong to you, technically. Right? Sorry I didn’t believe you. I—”
Hesitating for a second, he drops them on his desk and backs away. He looks miserable again.
“You were drying them?” Suguru asks feeling a little insane. “You—did you want to keep them for longer? When you thought they were from me?”
Satoru makes another little sound in his throat.
“It’s dumb. I know.”
“It’s not dumb. Satoru—”
“Did he talk to you, yesterday?” Satoru asks, fleeing to the other side of the room. “The boy who gave you those flowers?”
Suguru stares at the flowers, then stares at Satoru.
“Larue? Yeah. Did he talk to you? Is that why—”
“Never mind!” Satoru nearly shouts, shrill and hysterical. “Forget it. Let’s start with the grammar homework.”
Suguru un-sticks himself and grabs at Satoru’s wrist. Satoru looks at him like he’s ready to bolt. His eyes are shining, with what Suguru suspects are unshed tears.
What the fuck is he doing? How has he made Satoru feel so bad?
“I told him I’m not interested,” he starts.
It’s enough to make Satoru still, make him stop half-heartedly trying to break free of Suguru’s grip. Suguru takes a single fortifying breath, remembering everything he’s been telling himself over the past week. He can do this.
He says: “I’m sorry I fucked up Valentine’s Day, Satoru. I’m so stupid. If I had known it would make you so happy, I would have bought you the fucking roses. Pink ones, too, that match your blush. The yellow ones, too, so that you could have some in your favorite color. Satoru—”
“Fuck,” Satoru says. His lips wobble, and then a tear slides out of his eye. Startled, Suguru rushes forward, cups his face gently, wiping the offending wetness away with his thumb. “You’re not stupid, Suguru.”
“Yeah, I am,” Suguru argues, his heart swooping when Satoru’s miserable little frown softens into a tiny smile. “You were so happy, Satoru.”
Another tear leaks out of Satoru’s eyes.
“I’d been, uh. I’d been planning on getting you chocolates for Valentine’s Day. To show you how I felt before everything. Yes, I was happy.”
Suguru’s heart breaks a little bit for Satoru, but then he catches up to the rest of the sentence. His brain sort of pauses.
“You got me chocolates?”
Satoru nods. His smile drops a little.
“I was gonna give them to you yesterday. Only—only—”
Suguru shuffles forward, crossing the last few centimeters between them and pressing his lips to Satoru’s. Urgent, desperate. Anything to get that terrible wobbling frown off of his face. Satoru gasps against his mouth, then brings his hands up to grip at Suguru’s shoulders. They kiss and kiss and kiss.
He pulls away when he feels lightheaded, gasping a little for breath.
“Will you give them to me now?” Suguru asks, pressing another kiss to the little moue of Satoru’s mouth.
“Do you—” Satoru hiccups, then kisses him again, as if to reassure himself. “Do you really want them? I made them. They’re probably terrible.”
“Don’t care,” Suguru says, then wraps Satoru in a hug so tight he wheezes. “If they’re from you, I’ll love them.”
Satoru makes a strangled, choking sound and buries his nose in Suguru’s neck.
They stay like that for a long time, wrapped around each other, Suguru pressing tender little kisses to Satoru’s mouth, his cheek, his jaw. Until Satoru shudders and pushes him away weakly. His face is flushed, red like he’s been running nonstop. Suguru wants to bite him.
“Let me get them,” Satoru says vaguely, stumbling over to his backpack. “The chocolates.”
He unearths a little gold-wrapped package and hands it to Suguru. Suguru reaches into his own bag and pulls out the strawberry mochi, holding it out for him. Satoru beams. It’s—fuck.
It’s everything Suguru has ever wanted. They trade gifts, but the sweets stay abandoned on the floor after that, because Satoru reaches for him, hauling Suguru over and kissing him again, laughing with it. Suguru grins into the kiss, feeling like he’s floating, feeling like he’s on top of the world.
“Hey Suguru,” Satoru says, sometime later, when the manic energy has left them and they have settled down enough to start on their actual homework. “Be my boyfriend.”
Suguru chokes. He looks over at Satoru, who is smiling at him even as he blushes.
“Yeah. Okay.”
Satoru’s grin stretches until his teeth show. He looks down at his math worksheet, then drops his pencil and pounces on Suguru, until they fall backwards onto his bed. Suguru groans to hide his laugh.
“Good,” Satoru whispers against his neck. “No more misunderstandings, okay?”
“Yeah.” Suguru wraps his arms around Satoru’s neck, just to hold him there. “I promise.”
Satoru kisses him again.
It’s perfect.
EPILOGUE
On White Day not quite one month later, Satoru gifts him a delicate bouquet of camellias, white as snow, as Satoru’s own hair, and a spare key to his apartment.
“For after we graduate,” he says, pressing the flowers into Suguru’s hands.
And Suguru, because he refuses to be left behind, hands him four massive sunflowers, each almost as wide as Satoru’s splayed hand, and a shining silver promise ring.
“For after we graduate,” Suguru echoes.
They kiss in the shade of an early blooming Sakura tree, crooked and happy. Satoru’s mouth tastes like strawberries. He can’t really smell him over the flowers wedged between them, and Satoru smiles so wide that Suguru ends up pressing his lips to his teeth.
It’s perfect.