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ACT I, SCENE I
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and KENTO NANAMI
The shackles that were intrinsically embedded into Satoru Gojo’s wrists were not meant to function as restraints. They were to serve as simple reminders of who he was, of what his last name meant, and the utter vastness of what he could see. They reminded him that he was an ethereal bird in an open cage, the possibility of escape present to him at all times, but unattainable all the same.
It’s the reason why when Nanami Kento returns to his own cage, Satoru laughs. Nanami is a prodigal son and a desperate beggar all in one, and Satoru feels it’s a reminder that it isn’t that they were not able to turn away from this ghastly, ravenous world, but that there is no point, not when it is their only home.
If only Suguru realized that.
If only Satoru believed it.
They don’t speak much past Nanami’s surprisingly vulnerable phone call. Satoru thinks about it, thinks of pestering him just as he did to his other comrades, but something is off-kilter in their dynamic and he can’t seem to sort out the scale. The jests from days gone by were offshore somewhere and unfamiliar, and Satoru’s tongue sits fat in his mouth when he tries to recall them.
He finds him sitting in the morgue two nights after his return, as the world outside turns tinted blue as dusk approaches. Shoko is absent, a day with no missions means a day off to drink after all, and Satoru hadn’t expected to see the lights from the building on. He spots Nanami sitting on one of the foldable chairs lined against the tiled wall, hunched over with his elbows on his knees as he holds his hands together by his chin. He knows he should leave, and yet.
“Why are you here?” Satoru asks.
Nanami doesn’t respond immediately, “I’m not sure.”
Satoru rests his shoulder against the doorway and looks over the cold room. For the luxury the school managed to expend in the form of dorms, student stipends, and training facilities, this place was an absolute shithole. The tiles along the walls are cracked and stained grey and the floor is somehow permanently sticky in certain spots despite the number of times Satoru knows Shoko has had janitors clean them, scrubbing away with bleach. He’s never asked where the stains come from, but the way Shoko looks after an autopsy, purple and black blood splattered against her gloves and parts of her coat is enough of an answer.
In a way, Satoru thinks it fitting to find Nanami here. Nanami is a phantom in his own clothes, haunting places where he used to exist as someone else, and Satoru is no better. They linger in the morgue silently, assuming the demanding task of remaining within their reality in place of those who have left, in memory of the specters who have moved on without them.
At least his wraith is breathing, he figures. He has a beating heart, somewhere in a place where Satoru is not permitted to feel it. Sometimes, the thin, easily escapable railing of his birdcage is a damnation.
“Why did you come back?”
Nanami turns his head towards him, straightening his back against the wall.
“Do you really want to know?”
Satoru doesn’t answer because, in truth, it doesn’t matter why he returned in the end. In the play they are all a part of, they know what role to take. Nanami takes his cue to stand, his footsteps echoing in the empty room. He stops when he’s walked past Satoru, standing behind him, close enough that Satoru can smell his cologne. The light in the hallway leading to the entrance flickers for a moment, and Nanami speaks when it’s stilled.
“It’s the same reason you won’t leave.”
Satoru doesn’t move until he hears him walk away, the door at the entrance closing.
SCENE II
ENTER: SATORU GOJO
He is not an idealist, nor is he a romantic. Dreams have no place in the mind of someone who is enlightened, who can approach the impossibilities housed in one’s subconscious and invert them to be truths.
Yet, he has dreamt of Riko’s blood on his hands, of his own oozing from slits in his thighs and chest, of Toji’s melting his skin, acidic in its chemical constitution, eating away at his skin until he sees bone.
He hadn’t dreamt of Geto’s; it feels different, in person. It’s warmer than he thought it would be.
He is not a romantic, but the way it seeps into his skin, discoloring his own until his dreams are the only sanctuary where he could discern his own blood from Suguru’s, is what he thinks is love.
EXIT: SUGURU GETO
SCENE III
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and KENTO NANAMI, with Ghosts
Shoko doesn’t talk about it to him, and honestly, he’s not sure if he should refer to the awkward situation that has bloomed between them as a person, place, or thing. At least, he still thinks they’re friends. He’d still break someone’s jaw for badmouthing her, but he sees her less and less.
It can’t be helped.
We’re the strongest is silently morphed into the strongest, disfigured into existence by his own hands, and as time passes, he’s thankful that no one brings it up. He simply is, and the reality around him accepts it. The Strongest doesn’t think twice, doesn’t regret his actions, and with the way others mentioned him in passing, utilized him as a bargaining tool if he agreed with their methodology, he’s unsure if “the strongest” should be referred to as a person, place or thing.
When Nanami invites him out to drink at a bar, there’s an unfamiliar sour sensation clinging to his throat through the sweet liquor he’s drinking. Nanami doesn’t tell him to slow down although Satoru has lost count of the pink and light blue drinks he’s guzzled down himself, their fruity and syrupy flavors all mixing into one. He has never been one to get drunk, but there he is, his vision hazy and unfocused while his head swims in dangerous thoughts. He’s not sure when Nanami stops drinking, but he looks over to see a glass of water in his hands, a small dish of nuts on the bar counter in between them.
Satoru laughs, because he’s sure if he really tries, if he chose to gear his prowess towards it, he wouldn’t feel the alcohol.
But he isn’t seeking contrition tonight.
“Do you miss him?”
The words are an intrusion in the meticulously crafted space between them.
“Who?”
“Haibara. Do you miss him?”
“Do you miss him?”
Nanami swirls his glass of amber liquor once. Satoru doesn’t remember him ordering it. He knows the response isn’t about Haibara, and he doesn’t care if it’s self-serving to use him in conversation. He leans forward on the bar, resting his cheek against his shoulder as his hand swirls the glass of water in front of him until it breaches over the top. It spills over onto his thumb and wrist, warm from how long Satoru has left it unattended, and he realizes he’s not even sure what time it is. The bar has no windows, just dim, warm yellow light bulbs hanging above them, a splash of neon radiating from the brand name beer signs hanging above the bar-back.
Satoru sighs, the sound muffled by his position, and then sits upright, turning to face Nanami. He holds up his last drink towards him, the color nearly translucent from the ice that has melted. He swears he sees the corner of Nanami’s mouth twitch when he raises his own glass to Satoru’s.
ACT II, SCENE I
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and KENTO NANAMI
He’s not sure when he first thinks of Nanami as a possibility, but it feels like a betrayal when he does. Nanami is seated in front of him across a glass coffee table, one leg crossed over the other as he reads from the novel settled on his lap. Satoru hadn’t thought him to be someone who indulged in fiction, but here he is, turning another page noiselessly as Satoru watches him. Summer is fading, cool air finally seeping through the crevices of windows and underneath doors. Satoru enjoys the cold, he likes feeling the tips of his ears sting and his eyes water. It humbles him, in a way. Satoru Gojo, the closest thing to a God he knew, could not alter the weather.
“Nanami,” he says.
He does this sometimes. He’ll say the man’s name just to feel the weight of it on his tongue, just to hear how it sounds spoken in his voice. It’s never quite the same as another name, but it’s almost enough.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He tilts his head and grins, peering at him over the curve of his lenses. Nanami sighs and puts his book down onto the coffee table and uncrosses his legs. This isn’t the first time Satoru’s in his apartment, far from it, but he hasn’t become used to the homely feeling Nanami has been able to capture. There’s sandalwood incense burning somewhere in the space, and all the lights are dim but enough, blanketing everything in a soft amber that’s easy on Satoru’s eyes.
“You’re much quieter when we’re alone,” Nanami states.
“Is that bad?”
Nanami leans back against the armchair and eyes him.
“You tell me.”
Maybe this is why Satoru is thinking about it. Nanami is alike to him, refusing to budge where Satoru pushed. He knows how to play around with his words, knows how to read the unsaid words in his hands and eyes.
He isn’t as talented of a fortune-teller as Suguru, but it’s almost enough.
SCENE II
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and KENTO NANAMI
Satoru is proven to be a lightweight, and the bitter beer he’s drinking sits warm in his stomach, the heat expanding into his veins. Nanami is handling his alcohol far better, but Satoru can see his cheeks become rosy. They haven’t drunk together in far too long, and Satoru recognizes that drinking is dangerous. Being inebriated like this feels reckless, but it’s such a welcoming feeling that he doesn’t stop himself. The railings of his cage blur.
He finds himself curling over with laughter at something Nanami says in response to the television show they’re dwindling in and out of watching in Nanami’s living room, and when he places a hand on Satoru’s shoulder to steady him, they both sway. Satoru feels the forces of gravity weigh down on his drunken limbs, a reminder that despite how far off his mind feels, how impossible his urges are, he is just a man, made of skin and bones. Nanami is close to him, the top buttons of his dress shirt closest to his throat unbuttoned, and Satoru hasn’t thought of skin as something inviting in years. Despite how disorienting it is to look at the flesh of another now, despite the emergence of echoes of a phantom with a blush on his cheeks and dark hair cascading over Satoru’s mouth, he leans in. He bunches the fabric of the front of Nanami’s shirt in one trembling hand and uses the other to slide up the nape of his neck, sliding into his hair.
When they kiss, it isn’t cathartic. Satoru Gojo is still Satoru and Kento Nanami is still Kento, but it dislodges something in his mind, and Satoru refuses to let go. He embraces his greed wholly, ignoring the throbbing in his chest as he continues to kiss the man who’s allowing him to, despite knowing he won’t ever be what Satoru needs.
No, that isn’t true, Satoru thinks as Nanami wraps his hand around his wrist and moves his hand away from his hair, pressing him against the couch. I don’t need anything.
SCENE III
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and KENTO NANAMI
He doesn’t have to love him, although Nanami deserves it.
Nanami seems to be okay with it, nearly as closed off as ever. There’s an impasse accumulated between them, an intersection the two cannot seem to cross.
“Did you ever think about marriage when you were a businessman?”
Nanami blinks, surprised. “What?”
They’re eating a mound of take-out in Satoru’s living room, Satoru tilting his head back to catch an udon noodle that was about to slip.
“You know, the spouse, the house, a kid or two maybe. Did you ever think about it?”
“No. Have you?”
Satoru laughs, the sound loud and sudden, with no room for doubt.
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. Seeing you with Yuji maybe, something felt fatherly about it.”
“What a cruel thing to say, Gojo.”
“I told you, you can call me Satoru.”
Nanami picks up a dumpling, smearing the excess sauce against his plate.
“I don’t think I’m the one you want to hear say your name.”
Satoru points a chopstick at him, “Don’t do that.”
Nanami’s trademark grimace twists his mouth, “Don’t lie, then.”
Satoru stops responding, despite the tension that invades his apartment, and when Nanami stands up to leave once they’re done, he doesn’t protest.
He doesn’t have to love him, but it would be easier if he did.
Satoru stands by the doorway as Nanami prepares to leave, hunching over to slip on his shoes. When he’s done, his shoulder is facing Satoru, and his eyes are staring at where the dark wood of the doorway meets the floor.
“This isn’t going to work.”
“I know,” Satoru replies.
Nanami turns his eyes towards him, and he feels his chest tighten.
“I won’t apologize. I can’t be a dead man.”
There it is, he thinks.
“I know.”
The way Nanami is watching him, one hand on the doorknob, the other motionless by his side, is a welcomed brand of goodbye, one that Satoru knows is momentary. He has the comfort to see his friend in the morning at work, and yet a part of him is seized by urgency.
“There’s meaning to this,” he hears himself say.
Nanami doesn’t understand the words, and Satoru isn’t sure if he fully does himself, but when he smiles, the unease in Nanami’s shoulders lightens.
“It’s okay,” Satoru says. “Now come on, stop lingering. I didn’t think you were clingy.”
Nanami rolls his eyes and mutters something about Satoru being insufferable, but makes his way out. When he is left alone with his apartment, Satoru drifts into each of the rooms, silently turning off each light before returning to his bedroom, the radiant blue glow from a diffuser nestled on his nightstand washing out the white walls. He stares at it, watching it flow from blue to purple and then red until finally, it blooms into white. He turns it off and once in his bathroom, peels off each layer of clothing as if he’s coated in something vile, and turns the shower onto the hottest setting he can handle.
His skin is hot to the touch and vermilion when he steps out, the steam captured in the bathroom billowing out into the cool, darkness of his room.
SCENE IV
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and (NOT) SUGURU GETO
A cruelty spun into creation by his own nimble hands stands in front of him, taunting him with Suguru’s voice, with his eyes transfixed on Satoru failing. It doesn’t make sense, the corpse smirking at him is an abomination wearing the flesh of a devotion Satoru has tried to make amends with abandoning.
I’m sorry, Satoru hears his voice say over and over, a meek refrain on repeat as years of sensations and memories blitz his incapacitated mind. I’m so sorry.
His sentence is given to him hurriedly and painlessly.
He knows he’s at fault for his misfortune, but he trusts Nanami and the others, knows that the children he’s had the luck of knowing are relentless.
ACT III, SCENE 1
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and SUGURU GETO
His first reaction to seeing Suguru once he’s outside of the box is a blinding rush of rage. The energy that had seeped out of him returns agonizingly slowly, and his lungs burn as he breathes, the air in the subway denser and dirty compared to the reality inside of the prison realm. He surges forward, watching as Suguru’s body wavered, struggling to hold itself up, but his rushed steps come to a slow stop as realization dawns. There’s a searing sensation building behind his eyes besides the energy rebounding, a tension bordering on a migraine, as he realizes that it’s Suguru, and only Suguru.
“Oh,” he says, just as Suguru’s body falls sideways onto the floor. Satoru moves forward on instinct, kneeling on the ground as he scoops up Suguru’s body against him, his head resting against the crook of his arm. The world starts to spin around him, the ends of Suguru’s long hair spiraling into the concrete, and Satoru becomes aware of the way color is drowned out of his surroundings, muted greys and blacks steadily returning to their original shades.
“Suguru?” he asks. He fears the possibility of no answer.
Glassy eyes open and focus on him as a sluggish smile twists Suguru’s lips.
“Hey,” Satoru says. His voice is tight, controlled.
“Satoru?” Suguru mumbles, squinting to see him before laughing. The sound is worryingly wet, and Satoru feels Suguru’s upper body shake with each passing breath. “I fucked up, didn’t I?
Not again.
“We both did,” Satoru says. He moves a hand to touch Suguru’s face but hesitates, his extended fingers lingering in the air.
Suguru stirs, shifting to do what Satoru dares not to. He brushes a calloused thumb along Satoru’s eyebrow, following the curve to his temple.
Suguru’s lips move to speak, and Satoru knows what he’s going to offer before his tongue has the time to curl around a letter. He sees it take shape in a remorseful way Suguru is watching him, and Satoru can’t decide if it looks like he’s dying or about to cry.
“Don’t,” Satoru begs. His voice breaks, and he breathes through his mouth before he keeps going. “Don’t start. I don’t want an apology, let me try something. Let me try.”
He’s careful with Suguru as he maneuvers him to free up an arm. He presses a hand against his chest and tries to force his regained energy to wrap around the man in his arms. He envisions tendrils securing him, seeping into his skin until he is able to stand again, his complexion lively and unbloodied, unlike the pale skin that seemed to bruise around the loose stitches on his forehead, slim glimpses at Suguru’s brain peeking through. Suguru winces, but Satoru does not stop. He’s healed himself before, he’s rejected death, he could forge fate again.
“Stop it.”
“No, shut up.”
“Satoru.”
“I have to try. I have to—”
He feels fingers wrap around his wrist and stills. He hadn’t realized Suguru was bleeding, wine-red ichor staining his fingers and palm.
“Please,” Suguru says. “It’s okay. This is how it’s supposed to be, remember?”
Satoru bites into his tongue, the metallic taste of his own blood repugnant in his mouth, how he imagines a curse would taste. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, the two of them helplessly watching one another, breathing in and out. Satoru hasn’t thought to look at his surroundings, to consider that someone could be watching or plotting to return him to the box, but it doesn’t matter.
Satoru would have tightened his hold on Suguru regardless, leaning down to press his lips against his. Suguru doesn’t taste how he remembers, the bitter taste that haunted Suguru in life is gone, replaced by rot. He’s going to comment on it when he pulls away, but Suguru laughs, and Satoru’s resolve trembles. Their kiss tasted like memoriam, a stale homage made in honor of someone Satoru did not think he would have to mourn while they were alive, breathing in his arms.
“You know,” he says. “One of my students, Megumi, would get along with you eventually.”
Suguru is confused, Satoru can tell in the crinkle of his brows, but it eases away as Satoru keeps talking.
“I don’t know if Nobara would like you, but I’m sure she’d get over it. Yuji would eventually, too. He’s good, like that.”
“Yeah?” Suguru prompts. Satoru nods, and smiles. When it turns into a grimace, Satoru’s lips quivering, neither comment. He’s not even sure if he’s speaking coherently, but he can’t stop. Suguru and him both know what this is, able to taste the finality in his words.
Satoru pretends he doesn’t. God, he pretends he doesn’t.
“And remember Nanami? The guy a year under us? He’s doing good, we,” Satoru laughs, “I can tell you about that another time, but he’ll come around to you, too. You’d be a great teacher, maybe I could quit. Stay at home or something, maybe cook.”
“Maybe,” Suguru offers. His eyes are half-lidded, and his breathing is starting to slow.
Satoru’s been here before. He’s read this script before, has lived through all the scenes, and he’s never once wanted the ending. He still isn’t prepared for the finale.
He keeps talking. If he fills the stagnant, deadly air in between them with words and promises, maybe there wouldn’t be anywhere for the inevitable to come and collect its debt.
“The second years would have a hard time getting used to you, but it’s okay. I think Maki would see how valuable you training her would be.”
“I would have to apologize,” Suguru breathes. Satoru barely hears him. He holds him tighter, careful as his fingers dig into his skin. He’s 17 and 28, the weight of the world dying in his arms.
“It’s okay,” he says. Suguru’s eyes are refusing to stay open, and his breathing is slowing. Satoru closes his eyes when Suguru’s close, and repeats the words, over and over, until he feels Suguru's head limply rest against his side, his chest still.
Satoru does not weep.
He moves.
Paranoia grips him as he stands, looking down at the puckered stitches and bruising across Suguru’s forehead. He has to leave behind the body to go help the others, that’s the logical action to take, but what-ifs plague him. He decides to pick Suguru up, carrying him as he starts to run. He must look like a fool, but he needs to find the others. He doesn’t know who’s around him but the foul stench of both fresh and drying blood is everywhere, and death stains the floor and walls, clinging to the living bodies of civilians who are unmoving and staring into space. He knows he’d be faster without Suguru, but he can’t force himself to put his weight down.
Residuals and energy is splattered across the tiles and concrete, and he can feel a myriad of spirits and humans alike, so much so that he nearly misses the chunks of a corpse a few feet away from him as he clears another area. He skids to a stop and turns to see an abstract, multidimensional art piece constituted of bone, blood, and flesh painted onto the concrete ground, leading the viewer’s eyes—his eyes—to a familiar pair of pants and shoes, a weapon bandaged with dotted fabric resting in it all.
Satoru doesn’t believe it.
He sees it. He sees it with each of his eyes and feels it, but he won’t believe it. It’s absurd. It doesn’t make sense. He rejects the sheer possibility of it.
He hears himself heaving, and he breathes hard and fast enough to make up for the body in his arms, for the body beside him. He needs to snap out of it; there are others. There are always others, others that matter, and yet he can’t keep them there.
He moves.
EXIT: SUGURU GETO and KENTO NANAMI
SCENE II
ENTER: SATORU GOJO and SHOKO IEIRI
In the aftermath of it all, grief becomes a common tongue for Satoru. He isn’t certain how to connect subjects to verbs eloquently or how to spell out complex words, but he understands the language when it’s spoken in front of him, written into eulogies and family notices. He understands Yuji, Megumi and Nobara clearly, recognizes that they’re speaking in the present tense, but everything feels rooted in the past.
Maybe all of Satoru hadn’t made it out of Shibuya, maybe there was some part of him adrift in prison realm.
He doesn’t mourn publically. He hadn’t over a year ago, and he refuses to now. He reigns it in until breathing feels natural again, until the feeling of his carved out chest becomes dull. He visits Shoko in the morgue when she tells him that their bodies are there, that now is the time if he wants to say goodbye. He isn’t sure if it’s considerate, but when he steps through, Shoko is standing in between two slabs of metal, a hand curled on each. She looks towards him, her eyes worn and puffy as they turn on him. It reeks of cigarettes and liquor, and Satoru doesn’t have the strength to make a joke.
When he steps towards her and glances at the tables, he feels his throat constrict. One has Suguru’s body, the sheet pulled up so that only the top of his forehead is visible, the top of the stitches barely visible. The other has the lower half of Nanami’s body, two blue medical sheets draped over him so that nothing was visible. The stiff fabric dipped by his waist and lay nearly flat against the table where his upper body should have been, the outline of hidden lumps and stretches of what Satoru assumes are ribs scraping at his last remaining restraint.
He needs to leave. He’s about to when his eyes meet Shoko’s again, the heavy-hearted kindness in them that has no right existing in such a hopeless place serving as the final crack in Satoru Gojo’s resolve.
He didn’t remember what it felt like to cry.
When Shoko approaches him, her own eyes glossy, he decides he never will again. He covers his eyes with one of his hands and presses his fingers against his eyelids until he’s disoriented by the appearance of shapes. He lets her hold him as he shook, the two of them caught in between two everlasting eclipses. He teeth ache from the way he holds himself back even now, the only noises able to breach from his silence the most stubborn hiccups and shaky inhales.
“Have we ever hugged like this?” Shoko asks, sniffling.
Satoru laughs, but it’s a mistake, the sound clipped and interrupted by a sob. He doesn’t recognize himself, doesn’t recognize the trembling mess of a man holding onto the back of Shoko’s coat as she clings to his own jacket. Whoever they will be an hour from now, a day from now, will be a Satoru Gojo and Ieri Shoko who survived, once again.
END