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Holidays are a stale, clinical obligation.
In a sea of mundane requirements for a child who has never been a child, Satoru hardly notices when it is a holiday and when it is not – there are always formalities, heavy clothes weighing on already burdened small shoulders, strangers who attempt to buy their way into the clan’s good graces with elaborate gifts he has no use for, and so what is a holiday? Another trip to the shrine to pray to gods he knows do not exist?
Satoru hardly knows what Christmas even is, when there is no use for the clan’s young trophy to participate in such useless frivolities. He learns that he is not normal for this, which does not surprise him – never in his life has he been normal because that was never allowed. It’s another first year, Getou Suguru, who discovers this abnormality and rattles on about the traditions to him. And because Suguru has already dug through all of Satoru’s barriers like a titanium thorn in his side, Satoru listens, but does not think about it again afterwards.
Until Suguru bursts through his door weeks later with a bucket of fried chicken and a movie called Die Hard on Christmas day.
Holidays mean something, now.
Holidays are guaranteed time with the boy who taught the universe personified how to live.
“Satoru, let’s go inside here.”
Satoru allows himself to be pulled out of thoughts as Suguru tugs on his arm to bring them to a stop. Looking away from the sign for a fried chicken joint across the road, he follows Suguru’s line of sight – and immediately grimaces.
“Seriously,” he starts, whining for show because he knows he’s never been able to deny Suguru a damn thing, “a church? Babe, did you convert when I wasn’t looking –”
“– A cathedral on Christmas Eve, you uncultured swine –”
“– because I’m really not sure I feel comfortable raising our dog in a split-faith household and –”
The rough shove to his shoulder ends Satoru’s monologue before it can really begin, and Suguru leaps on the rare nanosecond of silence to continue arguing for them going inside a fucking church. “Come on, it isn’t every day we’re sent out together on international assignments. Don’t you want to see what Christmas is traditionally like?”
“No,” Satoru replies, staring mournfully at the neon sign promising him greasy salvation.
“Well, I want to,” is Suguru’s haughty retort – the sheer arrogance of this man, knowing he won this fight well before it even started. “You’re going to inherit the Gojo clan soon, dumbass. It wouldn’t hurt to broaden your worldly horizons.”
Wordly horizons?
Blue eyes travel back to Suguru deliberately, pointedly slowly – he tips his head down enough to look at him over the rim of his sunglasses.
And waits.
“Alright, fine,” Suguru concedes after 19.2 seconds. A near record – Satoru is minorly impressed. “It’s because it’s fucking cold as shit out here and I want out of the snow, alright? Some of us aren’t built to call the Arctic Circle a ‘brisk day’, unlike you. And – well, it is Christmas Eve. When in Rome and all that shit.”
Satoru decides to be very helpful and points out, “we aren’t in Rome, babe,” but all that earns him is the usual annoyed groan and before he knows it they’re walking up the steps of a giant stone and wood monument to a deity that doesn’t exist.
“You owe me so much food after this,” he hisses under his breath, but Suguru is a terrible asshole who is mean to him always and so he’s summarily ignored.
Hmph.
They end up shuffled into a pew towards the very back of the massive space, which makes it easier for him to scan the crowd for potential threats. Finding none, the pressing claustrophobia lessens slightly, and as Suguru busies himself flipping through the provided Bible with adorably nerdy curiosity, Satoru instead cautiously pushes his glasses up onto his head in the candle-dim space and watches dust motes float a fated path through shafts of stain glass light.
That, he can understand. Nearly half his life had been spent aimlessly floating in the dark, carried by a predetermined future he played no part in and not caring whether he stayed in the air or came crashing down to Earth. But at fifteen, Suguru was an obnoxiously bright ray of sunlight bursting through all of Satoru’s thick glass panes, and he showed him that there was color to be found in the world, if he was willing to look for it.
The rest of this?
He never quite succeeded at understanding the average human existence.
Where the hundreds of people surrounding him seek guidance and protection from a being of their own creation, Satoru knows the truth of the infinite nature of the universe – it exists in him, around him, in signs that these strangers couldn’t picture even if he spent a day attempting to explain them. Even Suguru, who feels much of what Satoru feels now, can’t truly grasp the sheer magnitude of its omnipotent indifference.
But he knows better than to burst into a chapel and denounce a religion billions of people follow, so Satoru has the extraordinary good grace to only sigh inwardly – mostly so Suguru doesn’t chew him out later, but hey, a man can pretend to have “manners” sometimes – while shifting restlessly as they wait for whatever service they’re about to sit through.
Suguru has the audacity to ignore his fidgeting in favor of flipping through the Bible like he even understands the language it’s written in. Satoru knows it well enough to translate, but that’s hardly the point – and he makes his displeasure at being so thoroughly mistreated known by leaning heavily into his companion’s shoulder.
“Hush,” Suguru chides in that obnoxiously-perfected teacher’s voice, even though Satoru hasn’t said a word since they came in here. He opens his mouth to lay out this ironclad argument, but then Suguru bonks him lightly on the head with the holy book in his hands – is that sacrilege? That’s probably sacrilege, so Satoru opens his mouth again to gleefully tell him so –
“You don’t need to actually speak to be obnoxious,” is the oh-so-cruel counterargument, “I know what you were thinking, so hush. At least pretend to pay attention when it starts.”
“At least pretend to pay attention,” Satoru mocks under his breath. “Yes, sensei, of course sensei. You won’t even understand what they’re saying, dumba – ah. Jerk.” What is it about this place, that’s he censoring himself in a language these people don’t speak?
That isn’t dignified with a response, which is definitely because Satoru is right and Suguru refuses to admit that, so he huffs a quiet breath and continues to lean his full weight on him out of affectionate spite.
It’s about five minutes into a sermon that he half-understands and Suguru understands not at all when he feels a polite little tap on his shoulder. Startled by the reminder he hasn’t reactivated Limitless with Suguru’s reassuring warmth to lean into, he looks over at the little raisin of a lady who’s smiling at him with just enough teeth to probably gum some bread, holding out what looks like the laminated bookmark from her personal Bible.
Ah, damn. His heart is just a little bit sucker punched by the kindness of a stranger – definitely another unexpected side effect of being in this place, and not a normal character trait for him – and returns the smile with his well-practiced charming smile while taking the bookmark. Flipping it over, he discovers the lyrics to hymns – specifically, he would guess, whatever Christmas hymns they’re going to sing.
Hm. He’ll chalk this up to Suguru looking clueless about the service, and not the horrible concept that this old ass lady has seen right through his discomfort at being here. With no real intention of singing the praises of something non-existent, he passes the borrowed gift over to Suguru, whose eyes light up with interest.
“You still can’t read it,” he whispers, “why are you looking at it like that?”
“Because I can at least follow along with the words? C’mon, Satoru.”
Fine, fine. Satoru goes back to watching his dusty kindred for an indeterminate, boringly slow amount of time –
Until something changes, and the hundreds of people around them begin to sing.
Sung by this many people echoing around the large space, even Satoru can’t make out any of the meaning, but he quickly discovers it isn’t the words that matter.
The song builds steam as voices join in together, intricately discordant like a tapestry of colorful paint splatters, and Satoru sits up to listen to the human connection forming around him.
The significance of the moment isn’t lost on him, and as the song builds to its crescendo he finds his eyes traveling upwards once again, where he can nearly see the notes coalesce into melodies and hover blue-red-gold in the warm light streaming in from the windows – and in the tangled web of verbal artwork forming above him, Satoru feels the cosmic power that he alone commands reminding him that even here, in this way, it exists.
It exists in the strength of unified voices, where once as a child he knew only the quiet of isolated rooms and harshly-enforced etiquette.
It exists in the crowd of people who hold a conviction of belief he never understood until he was an adult set on changing a corrupt society.
It exists in the old lady who reached out in kindness to him, where other shamans always set him apart.
And, as he looks towards the man humming next to him, he’s reminded it exists in Gojo Suguru, the center of his universe who taught him to love.
Satoru smiles to himself, leans back into Suguru with much more gentle pressure this time, and decides this year’s traditional bucket of fried chicken with a cheesy action movie might just feel extra meaningful.