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They’re young and thus immortal. The world is a fruit for them to pluck and devour — not that they would, but they know they could, and it makes at the difference.
They’re the strongest duo. Friends, though neither of them will ever say the word.
(My best friend, Gojo will say one day, years later. But he is wiser then, and he knows the worth of loss.)
“Hey, Suguru.”
Sprawled onto Gojo’s bed with lazy elegance, head resting on his fist, Getou opens one eye.
“Yeah?”
“So, that girl and you…” Gojo starts, wriggling his eyebrows.
He’s lying on the floor, curled around the fan in an attempt to steal all its coolness for himself. It’s the middle of summer, and it’s hot — unbearingly so; against the might of nature, man’s only recourse is stealth, lying low and keeping his voice down as he waits for the sun to abate.
Getou glances at Gojo with a look of picture-perfect innocence.
“You’re talking about Shoko?”
“Ew, ew, no! That civilian we saved with the long legs and the short skirt. She was all over you, and you escorted her to the infirmary…”
“She was healed and her memory was wiped. No scars. She’ll be fine.”
Getou’s tone is calm, matter-of-fact. Gojo looks at him curiously with eyes that see too much and yet not enough.
“It’s a pain to date non-shamans,” Gojo says, carefully.
“It is,” Getou agrees, neutrally.
Gojo doesn’t understand the twisted relief that uncurls in his chest. Getou definitively deserves a girlfriend with long legs and a pretty, willful face and enough presence of mind to use her distress as a pretext to grab his arm and press her boobs against him as they went to the infirmary. She looked fun. She looked fine.
Yet there’s that thing in his chest that breathes vicious happiness at the same time that he scours Getou’s blank face for traces of regrets.
He gives up, shrugs as he shifts position around the fan.
“Eh. You’d get bored with any chick that can’t kick your ass, anyway.”
Gojo chuckles and turns on his belly, burying his face in the crook of his arms. He’s tied his hair up in a bun and sweat shines on his bared nape. There’s something strangely beautiful in it, the idea of a painting: unruly raven-black strands, glistening golden skin, white shirt clinging to the lines of his body — a kind of surrendering suggested in his very relaxation, pinned by the heat as he is.
“You’re right, I would. Introduce me to one of your sisters, Satoru.”
“I don’t have sisters, and I wouldn’t introduce a fine Gojo girl to a thug such as us.”
Getou laughs again. Something relaxes in Gojo, though he doesn’t know what or why.
They banter and they laugh and the afternoon crawls slowly through the heat, toward the future that will separate them.
***
They’re young still, wearing the mask of smiling arrogance. They are powerful and lethal and they know it; they’ve worked and bled for it.
It’s night. It will be dawn, soon; for now, though, the sky is nothing but cloud-covered darkness. The only light comes from a wrecked streetlight which bleeds a dull glow in blinking intervals.
They’re just outside the now ruined remains of an abandoned school. Gojo forgot to lower the curtain again, but there’s no real neighborhood, only the mountain road and the forest nearby, so he’d argued that nobody really needs to know.
Getou finishes swallowing his ninth curse of the night and retches, grimacing. Gojo pats his shoulder.
“Not an acquired taste, huh?”
“Nope.” Getou wheezes as if he could breathe hard enough to wipe the taste from his tongue. “Fuck. We still have beer?”
“… Well,” Gojo starts, holding the can he’s just finished.
He’s not sheepish, that’s not his style, but he is slightly repentant. They exhausted their snacks while they trekked up the mountains; unless Getou is up for chewing on random mushrooms on the way back, he’s stuck with a curse flavor down his throat for the next two hours.
“Asshole.” Getou curses at him without real anger. They’ve always had a “first stealing, first served” policy about food. “Give me that can.”
There still are a few drops of beer left in it, amberish on Getou’s stuck-out tongue. He closes his mouth, visibly trying to make the taste last as long as he can.
He grimaces.
“Nope, not enough.”
They’re young and stupid then, and maybe Gojo’s slightly drunk on cheap beer and the bored thrill of an easy victory, and maybe it’s half a joke or yet another proof of his famous carelessness that his idea is to lean toward Getou, angle their mouths together and kiss him.
He doesn’t know, himself.
He won’t know until much later, when it’s too late.
Getou doesn’t budge, perhaps to call his bluff or perhaps for a reason he doesn’t know, either. His lips open easily against Gojo’s, chapped and dry in a way that sears into his mind.
Getou’s mouth tastes disgusting, like the corruption of curses swallowed whole. Gojo’s mouth tastes like cheap alcohol with the lingering echoes of the chemical-tasting candies they’ve binged upon as they exorcised the school. Getou chases after that taste, slow swipes of his tongue, with a careful intensity that sends dark heat down Gojo’s veins.
They break away, after a while. Getou’s hands are in Gojo’s hair and Gojo’s fists are clenched in Getou’s shirt. The proximity feels easy, natural.
They’ve always been friends, after all.
Getou grins.
“That helped.”
“Hope you’re weighing my sacrifice,” Gojo grimaces.
“I do. Come on, let’s get back to civilization.”
The taste in Gojo’s mouth is an unnameable abomination with a sick tinge of bitterness. He licks the candies dust from the empty wrappers in his backpack to try and make it pass, to no avail.
They walk back to the car. They never kiss again. They’re friends.
Until they both forget it.
***
They are adults. Still young, one could argue. It doesn’t matter. Getou’s actions fell far beyond the purview of youthful indiscretions a long, long time ago.
Gojo looks at Getou and sees the missing arm, the hideous wounds that are all at once burns and tears and none of these things. That Getou manages to smile bearing them is nothing surprising. He’s always been strong. They’ve always been strong, the both of them.
That'd been the root of the problem. People looked out for Utahime, not for them, Gojo didn’t look out for Getou, because the both of them were tough. The strongest duo. No time to waste on those who can grin through the pain when you’re too busy managing your own or the weak’s.
In the end, Gojo has solved the equation by becoming the most powerful being of his generation. No need for anyone to care for you when you can destroy any problem. Getou –
Getou has fallen into his nightmare of a pipe dream.
And still no one has cared for him. He’s built his “family” and collected thousands of curses and nobody is standing with him now. He’d have won against Yuuta if he’d kept all his curses with him or brought the rope sorcerer along, but he’d sent them to protect their allies instead and none of them had objected because he was strong, wasn’t he? He didn’t need to be protected.
He did. He does, alone and wounded and facing death — facing Gojo with a smile that turns painfully sincere in the end.
Gojo kills him — one blow — and feels the pain fall slow over his shoulders, seep through his bone and bite into his heart.
My only best friend, he’ll say to Yuuta later, words heavy with things he’s never said and things he should have done and the memory of a kiss flavored with the dregs of human thoughts swallowed again and again until they overflowed.
Now the taste of Getou’s blood clings to his tongue, carved into memory just as sharp as the kiss.
Gojo clings to the radiance of one last smile, of the blushing that brought unwarranted innocence to a cynical face. He takes comfort in the certainty of a painless death brought by his own hand, much better than what Getou could have gotten from the old farts.
He didn’t curse Getou; he’s got no shadow behind his shoulder, no Rika-chan of his own as a pitiful simulacra of the real thing. He’s not Yuuta (he’s stronger than Yuuta.) He knows when to let go and the wisdom of (forcing yourself to believe that you’re) being happy that a friend is finally at peace…
The blood of Getou is still bitter on his tongue.
Gojo smiles: he always does.