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It’s little things that remind them of one another, years later.
Suguru still keeps a spare lighter in his pocket, despite not having smoked a cigarette since the last time he had bummed one off of Shoko when they were seventeen. He used to tease her about how she can never keep a lighter, especially after he and Satoru helped her clean her dorm room once and found a grand total of eleven stashed under the bed and tossed in random spots.
Shoko still keeps spearmint gum in her purse, her own nicotine gum packet empty beside the opened, yet full, package. It’s not a brand or flavor she particularly likes, but it’s Suguru’s, and it’s the gum he used to chew when they were first years and the taste of curses made him gag. He said it was the only gum that got the taste almost completely out of his mouth.
Satoru keeps a hair tie on his wrist sometimes, other times it’s tucked away in his pocket. It was one of Suguru’s, the elastic starting to wear, but it was the one he kept whenever the other allowed him to braid his hair. The day it snaps, during a mission, he angrily throws it in the trash as if he hadn’t been holding onto it for five years at that point, as if it were just common trash and not anything sentimental.
Satoru even keeps a spare carton of cigarettes on him whenever he finally manages to drag Shoko from her work, chiding her about kicking the habit as she motions for one of them. The carton isn’t her preferred brand, but Suguru’s, but she doesn’t comment on it as she scours for a spare lighter, always losing hers. Satoru doesn’t complain when she finally lights her cigarette, a few drinks in her, as she loosely talks, hands moving and blowing smoke in his face. He’s just glad she never left.
Shoko, much to Utahime’s chagrin, always stops by Satoru’s favorite bakery every Sunday. At this point, the owner knows their order by heart, handing her a bag of three pastries while being unaware that the third is never eaten. Satoru and Shoko sit together and eat, reminiscing their past. She doesn’t say anything whenever a memory comes up that leaves them in a bittersweet silence, how Satoru tries to hide that he gets choked up.
Suguru takes the girls to a bakery he hasn’t been to in nearly a decade, Nanako prattling on about the reviews she saw online and how there was a piece of strawberry cake that came across her feed that they just have to try. (Master Geto, it looks so good, see? Please, can we go?) and as he has always done since the day he took them in, he says yes, pretending he has never been to one of Satoru’s favorite bakeries. He lets Nanako drag him into the shop, Mimiko in tow behind him as the girls talk about what sweets they want to try, asking him what he wants to eat. He doesn’t have the heart to tell the girls that, despite being his family for nearly a decade, they still forget he doesn’t have a taste for sweets.
They’re halfway through eating their pastries, Satoru bringing up a story about Nanami and Haibara that has them laughing. He’s halfway through telling the second half of the story when he stops, remembering how it hadn’t been just Nanami scolding Satoru for pulling a prank on Yaga, but Suguru as well, even though he had been in on it. Shoko notices, her giggles subsiding, remembering how she and Suguru had thrown Satoru under the bus and gotten him suspended from missions for a week.
It’s too quiet between the friends until Satoru grows antsy from it and breaks it.
“I miss him,” Satoru admits, looking down at the half-eaten sweet in hand.
“Yeah,” Shoko sighs heavily, feeling her shoulders slump with the exhale, wishing the chocolate croissant in her hand was a cigarette instead. She just got to a week without one, but now, she feels like she needs to go back to the habit. It brings comfort, somber memories of large hands shielding the flame for her to light up, or pressing the tip of his own cigarette to hers to ignite it.
The silence hangs heavy between them.
As of a month ago, he has been gone for nine years.
Nine years, and the hole in their hearts still feels fresh. Some days the pain is dull and there’s enough distraction to forget about it temporarily. Other days, like today, a clear autumn day, it hurts, knowing he should be in the space between them on this bench, joking around with them and gifting them with his snarky commentary that always had them all laughing.
Satoru throws an arm around Shoko, giving her shoulder a good squeeze.
“Well, at least you still have the Great Gojo Satoru to keep you company and brighten up your life!” he laughs.
Shoko gives him a small smile, knowing that the sudden outburst of positive energy is just a mask he puts on to prevent from cracking in front of her because he had brought up Suguru. Not like she hasn’t seen it already, once they were legal, the two getting drunk and crying over old memories and stupid pictures she still held onto because she can’t muster the courage to throw them away, pictures he can’t look at without feeling his heart ache.
The silence between them feels a bit lighter as Satoru turns to teasing her about Utahime, Shoko nudging his ribs with her elbow to silence his jests. She teases back that he’s the reason she drinks, which has them laughing. Her body craves the hit of nicotine now that she’s unable to stop thinking about Suguru now, wanting nothing more than to taste the bitter smoke that reminds her of him, how he smelled when they used to go out for a smoke together. He offers her a cigarette while chastising her for breaking her clean streak but she waves him off, hand digging into her purse for a lighter but only grabbing at packs of unchewed gum.
Suguru stops in his steps, something in his chest telling him to turn his head and look towards the park they were walking by. Mimiko and Nanako are telling him about some show they want him to watch with them, but he temporarily drowns out their voices with the sound of his own beating heart, hammering against his ribs.
He recognizes those silhouettes anywhere, there, on the bench, the stark shock of white hair that seems to be untamable, a small frame that just always exuded exhaustion.
Shoko’s hair had gotten longer, he notices, and Satoru still sits like he needs to take up as much space as possible, constantly invading others spaces. They look like they’re talking, Satoru’s arm around Shoko as he leans into her, and it reminds him of when Satoru would wrap his arms around the both of them. It made him miss complaining about him with Shoko, her groaning and griping always fun to listen to. He watches from the passing crowd as she shakily raises a hand, lighter in hand, and he’s a bit disappointed that she hasn’t kicked the habit, something he quit as soon as he left.
It’s been nine years, and while they all walk different paths, he misses the days where he used to stand side by side with them. The days where they would be side by side, laughing, learning, doing missions together. The days when they were the strongest trio as first years, graduated to the strongest duo in their second years.
Before ‘the strongest’ became just that. The strongest, who, he watches, is waving his arms about and complaining about Shoko smoking, coughing overdramatically as she blows smoke in his face. If he strains to listen, he can almost hear them.
“Master Geto? Is something wrong?”
Mimiko’s voice draws him from his past, from the ones he would have considered family at one point in his life. Suguru doesn’t want to pull his gaze from Satoru and Shoko, but he does. He looks down at his current family, the girls sharing twin looks of worry as they crane their necks to look up at him. Mimiko has a furrow to her brow that only appears when she's concerned, and Nanako has an eyebrow raised, one side of her lip pursed as she cocks her head.
“It’s nothing, girls,” he waves their concern off. “Let’s get heading home, shall we?”
It hurts a little when he starts to follow after them, but it’s the path he’s chosen, the path he believes is correct.
Maybe someday, they’ll agree.
Maybe someday, they’ll walk the same path, together, the strongest trio once more.
But for now, despite the new family he has forged, he walks alone.