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The day spilled into the stained windows of the dorm Suguru was sheltering in, showering the almost-empty room with faint golden light. Suguru had been staring at it, the space that was given to him. The space in question was where he resided during his years of youth, when he still studied in Jujutsu Tech. It was rather cruel, to be forced to live with and breathe in the dust of who he used to be. The room of talismans where they place dangerous people would have been better at that point.
That would be futile, though. After all, Suguru was nothing more than an empty, exhausted vessel, thrown away like a toy used and worn out. Even if he withdrew his white flag, he had nothing left to fight back with.
Besides, in the first place, this might be his punishment.
He leaned against the headboard of his bed. Something creaked. He thought it was his bed, but he saw that the door was ajar, a familiar figure coming into sight and making himself welcome.
The air in the room suddenly became heavier.
The simple sight of him felt like retribution.
“Suguru.”
“Don’t you have somewhere else to go?” Suguru asked, avoiding Satoru’s eyes. Even if he was wearing the stupid blindfold, he could still feel his gaze—piercing, burning blue. “A mission or something? Your students?”
Satoru fell silent. Suguru started regretting opening his mouth.
“I can’t teach if my students are being treated.”
Suguru bit the inside of his cheek. The sentence reeked of accusation, even if that wasn’t Satoru’s true intention. He might as well have, actually.
The disaster in Shibuya ended just recently, after Suguru managed to take back his body—which was a miracle, even for a sorcerer. As soon as he laid his hands on the steering wheel, he surrendered—not because he couldn’t fight, but because he didn’t want to, not anymore.
“How are they?” Suguru asked in a whisper, unsure of whether he wanted Satoru to hear him.
“The kids? They’ll be fine.” Satoru crossed his arms, leaning against the wall beside the door. Keeping his distance. “Barely breathing, but fine. Inumaki is under treatment. Panda is with Yaga-sensei. Maki is burned from the waist up. Nobara’s face is deformed. Megumi is in a coma. Yuuji…”
Suguru’s breath hitched in his throat at the mention of Yuuji’s name. He turned to Satoru, expecting an answer.
“Still being decided on,” the six eyes answered, earnest. “His execution, I mean.”
Suguru’s shoulders went slack at that, a short breath escaping his lips. Yuuji had done everything in and out of his ability to help in dealing with the incident that unfolded in Shibuya, and the thought of the higher-ups disregarding his efforts and sacrifices because of something out of his control—Sukuna’s rampage, specifically—left a familiar bitter taste in his tongue.
Yuuji’s young hands were bloody and beaten, but they have always intended to help more than anything. That’s why Itadori Yuuji deserved another chance to live again.
Getou Suguru, meanwhile, did not.
“And I assume mine is set?” he asked Satoru, turning back to the windows.
Even if what happened wasn’t directly his doing, Suguru still had his history of rebellion, and though he didn’t regret what he did those years ago, he knew a miracle wouldn’t be enough to save him from his fate.
Satoru’s voice was faint. “Four months from now.”
Suguru felt his heart sink in his chest, but he didn’t do anything about it. He already lost everything in the incident—Mimiko and Nanako included. There was nothing left for him here, he already decided that on his first death.
“Okay.”
He just hoped that in the remaining months he had left, he wouldn’t gain anything else.
Two weeks went by since his arrest. Suguru figured a few things then: relearning how to move was easy, but relearning how to live was a different story.
Breathing was effortless, a movement of few muscles, but what took most of his energy was convincing himself to breathe. Granted that he was killed then brought back to life, everything felt borrowed. Stolen. The bits of air he breathes, the few things he receives, the small decisions he makes each and every passing day.
Everything felt borrowed, and he was sure it wasn’t a spirit saying I shouldn’t be here in his head every time it’s vacant.
Besides breathing, Suguru had a hard time relearning a lot of other things, such as seeing Satoru around.
“What are you doing?” He asked him, confusion in his voice.
Satoru was standing by the windows, staring at who knows what (because he was still wearing his blindfold, making it hard to know where he was looking—that is, if he was looking at anything in the first place). He held a pack of sweets in one hand, consuming the pieces at a slow pace. Old habits die hard, Suguru thought.
“Thinking.”
“In my room?”
“Yeah,” Satoru simply responded, as if it was totally normal to stay in the room of a criminal at 9 in the evening.
To Suguru’s surprise, Satoru turned to him, extending the pack to him. “You want?”
Something twisted in Suguru’s stomach. Satoru rarely shared his sweets with anyone else.
For a fraction of a moment, he was young again, and all the things he has ever tasted came back clutching at his throat—curses, blood, things he never meant, things he never told him. And it was so, so tempting to take a piece and indulge in it, in the momentary freedom from his mistakes—
But he couldn’t. The taste was the compensation that came with his resurrection, with his existence, and who was he to free himself of something he was deserving of?
Satoru waited, and as he waited, he avoided Suguru’s stare. Whether it was out of fear of his intentions being read or something else entirely, the black-haired man didn’t know. He couldn’t tell if this was some act of civility, or forgiveness, or maybe spite, and normally, he would press and push anything to find out.
Instead, Suguru shook his head. “I’ll pass.”
He figured he shouldn’t. He wasn’t staying long, anyway.
Cursed spirits don’t need sleep as much as mortals do, so when he was still an occupied vessel, Suguru didn’t receive a blink of rest for possibly years.
Fast forward, he found himself staring at the ceiling, eyelids heavy with exhaustion but unable to dip himself into slumber.
He heaved a sigh. His sleeping schedule was only one of the many things the evil Kamo Noritoshi fucked up for him.
It didn’t help that Satoru was sleeping near him, on a futon spread out on the floor next to his bed. He was getting tired too, Suguru noticed—possibly from all the work he had been handling, trying to check up on anyone greatly affected by what happened while handling Yuuji’s situation. He heard he was being given missions too, either to clean up the mess or to deal with completely unrelated issues.
Plus, Satoru’s stay in Prison Realm must have taken quite a toll on him. He never shared his experience there with anyone. No one dared to ask. But everyone led themselves to an unspoken yet collective verdict: whatever happened, it shook the strongest sorcerer to his core.
So Suguru insisted that he slept in his room, pointing out that at this rate, the sorcerer could pass out on the way back to his own place. The silence after asking was so suffocating, Suguru nearly took the offer back. But Satoru agreed, surprisingly.
Cautiously, Suguru turned to Satoru, who was lying on his back, an arm over his eyes. He watched as his chest barely moved, barely rose. That was the thing about him; he rarely slept, and whenever he did, he did it so still that back then, Suguru was afraid that he’d died without him knowing.
So at that time, he looked for other signs of life from Satoru’s sleeping form, and he did eventually, but they were never positive ones.
Satoru was clenching his fist, his knuckles whiter than what was physically possible. He was tense, and the faint light from the streetlights outside didn’t hide the beads of liquid trickling down his face. Whether it was sweat or tears, Suguru couldn’t tell.
Weakly, Suguru reached out to Satoru—an automatic reaction, a habit he developed out of the multiple times this has happened. But Suguru’s hand stopped some distance from his fist, and his heart fell off his chest.
He activated infinity.
Satoru developed the routine of activating infinity before going to sleep, which was undeniably a good defense in case anyone attempted to assassinate him in his sleep. When they were still teenagers, it became a barrier that prevented anyone from shaking him awake, making it difficult every time he overslept.
But Suguru discovered a way to deactivate it. The first time he found out about it, he laughed so hard that Satoru woke up, completely clueless. Since then, he had been using it again and again.
Now, however, Suguru hesitated, out of fear of finding out that it doesn’t work anymore. Or worse, that he was the reason why it was activated in the first place.
A strangled scream left Satoru’s lips, and Suguru decided that his fear wasn’t the main problem at the moment.
“Satoru.”
It was the first time he said his name since the start of his stay, and it slipped out of Suguru’s lips almost easily. It left a taste on his tongue, though—the foreign tinge of familiarity, laced with the thought of being a stranger, a traitor to the name. The feeling was similar to speaking the name of a divine being, summoning someone who should not be summoned by sinners like him.
“ Satoru .”
Suddenly, Suguru’s hand met Satoru’s clenched one, feeling cold skin and slight trembles. He was so surprised that he withdrew his hand, washed with regret as soon as he distanced.
A moment passed. Two. He didn’t move, but— “Hey.”
“Hey,” Suguru whispered. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“I didn’t even know I was asleep,” Satoru joked in a tired tone, making Suguru snort.
This, too, was familiar—making moments between waking hours and sunrise, when the two of them couldn’t sleep, couldn’t close their eyes and rest. It was one of the few times they could be themselves, one of the few times when they could act their age—boys, fools, one of the youth whose shoulders were free from the weight of the world.
His heart clenched in his chest. Nostalgia has always left an unpleasant taste on his tongue, but it was the only type of bitterness he could ever tolerate. He came to dislike it only because all it brought him was space to yearn, to wish they could go back to those days when things were as simple as simple could get for two sorcerers like them.
The taste became much worse when he realized he didn’t deserve to.
Suguru didn’t bother sitting up when the door of his dorm opened, thinking it was his usual visitor—so he was surprised to hear something heavy be placed on the table.
Satoru rarely brought anything with him.
He shifted his position on the bed, turning to see the absence of white hair, replaced by black falling down until the figure’s waist, wearing a lab coat instead of a jumpsuit.
Suguru’s eyes widened. “Shoko?”
Shoko turned to Suguru upon being called. Despite the distance between them, the first thing the former curse user noticed was the dark circles around her eyes. They weren’t that dark during the last time they saw each other, and it made him wonder what the cause of it was.
“You really came back,” Shoko said, turning back to the case. “And here I thought I’d be finally free of one idiot in my life.”
Suguru’s eyes widened with surprise at the statement. A familiar feeling stirred in his stomach, and it came out as a weak but wholehearted laugh.
“Harsh,” he responded, smiling a little. “You talk to your patients that way, Doc?”
“Just you.” Shoko approached Suguru, a smirk spreading on her lips as she wore her surgical gloves. “And Gojo, when he gets his ass kicked.”
Suguru sat up, trying to imagine Shoko treating Satoru after getting badly beaten. He snickered. “Must be rare.”
Shoko sighed. “Yeah, you have no idea.”
“I imagine you were happy to hear that I’m alive, then.”
“You can continue imagining. Anyway, hold still. I came to check your stitches.”
A month, almost. Suguru still couldn’t sleep, and neither could Satoru. But they try anyway, and sometimes they try together, in that certain corner of Suguru’s dorm where they lie together—Suguru on the bed, the bedsheets being changed by Satoru every once in a while because Suguru bleeds easy; and Satoru on the floor, on the tiny space that Suguru cleans from time to time, in case the six eyes decided to make himself welcome for the night, as he frequently did.
Every night, silence fills Suguru’s lungs; tension always comes after. He felt like anytime, something could happen—something between the two of them. But most of the time, the sun rises just fine.
Other times, though—
“I could have saved you.”
Suguru opened his eyes, surprised. “What?”
“I could have saved you,” Satoru said, repeating himself without hesitation.
The former sorcerer fell silent.
If Suguru were Suguru from those years ago, maybe he would have agreed. He remembered how he started falling into a state of confusion and frustration after Amanai Riko, how he suffered day in and day out because of the burden brought by her death. He was convinced he was carrying it alone back then, because Satoru at the time had been doing way better than him, improving at an alarming rate.
Satoru became the strongest, and Suguru fell behind. It made him feel left out, lonely. So he decided to stick with it, to deal with everything alone.
If he were him from those years ago, he would have definitely agreed. He would have said yes, would have expressed how he learned to hate the six eyes because of it.
But that’s the thing: he wasn’t, not anymore. “Don’t be dumb. I chose what I did.”
“Did you choose to leave me, too?”
Suguru froze.
“Did it have meaning, like how everything did?”
He turned to Satoru. The six eyes still had his arm over his eyes, a sleeping position he had been using since the first time he slept in Suguru’s room for a reason he didn’t know. It made Suguru feel disappointed, since he couldn’t see Satoru’s eyes—but he figured it must be part of his punishment, too. No one deserves to see the eyes that shed tears for them after their betrayal and departure.
“Yeah,” Suguru said past the lump that formed in his throat. “I chose that, too.”
He closed his eyes, trying to swallow down the bitterness of his lies. “Go to sleep, Satoru.”
“You know, I don’t think I see the point of this.”
Shoko raised an eyebrow at Suguru, curious as she continued to clean the stitches on his forehead. He accidentally busted some of them (while Satoru was around; the six eyes panicked more than the former curse user did, and it would have been the funniest thing ever if it weren’t for Suguru feeling dizzy), so Shoko came to the rescue and repaired them.
“Keeping me here, I mean,” Suguru continued. “I’m surprised they didn’t dispose of me as soon as I surrendered.”
“Well,” Shoko hummed. “If it makes you feel any better, at least your body would be useful for future dissections, now that you’re here.”
The face of the former curse user twisted with horror at the thought of being used in experiments.
The doctor let out a laugh, but a ghost of a frown replaced it as soon as it appeared. “Though, I don’t think you should be asking questions you already know the answers to.”
Suguru bit the inside of his cheek. She was right; he did know why.
“You’d think the guy is incapable of emotions, but he’s been like that since he became a teacher,” the doctor explained, shrugging. “Itadori-kun isn’t the first kid he tried to save. Something about the youth and how it’s a crime to steal it from the young.”
She paused. “But I guess your case is different.”
“But why—”
“But why you?” Shoko leaned back, scanning the former curse user’s forehead, then his face. Subtle traces of confusion and frustration, she noted. Maybe even denial. “He was never mad at you, Getou.”
Suguru turned to Shoko, eyes wide with surprise.
“Well, for a week, he was,” Shoko added nonchalantly, as if it helped.
He groaned.
When they were teenagers, Suguru always tried to make an effort to understand Satoru; his values and morals, his thoughts and emotions, what ticks him off and what cheers him up. Gojo Satoru was an array of buttons too complicated to understand, a bunch of puzzle pieces too confusing to piece together, and Suguru then thought he knew most of it, if not everything.
But Suguru now knew he was far from right. He couldn’t understand him at all.
And the worst thing is: he couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Satoru for it.
After all—
“You still love him, don’t you?”
He winced, as if Shoko was still repairing his stitches.
His heart clenched in his chest, and it made one thing understood: the answer was obvious. The answer was clearer than anything. Three letters. One syllable. All of it resting on the tip of his tongue.
Yet he didn’t dare answer Shoko, didn’t dare say anything. Instead, he leaned back on the headboard of the bed and closed his eyes, letting the word melt in his mouth. It tasted less like realization, and more of retribution.
Shoko knew. She always has. “Well, I’m done for the day. Wanna smoke?”
Suguru opened his eyes again. “I thought you’d quit.”
“I did, but I’m feeling nostalgic.” Shoko smiled, fishing something in her pocket. She showed two sticks of cigarettes. “I bought one for the two of us so you can celebrate my very last stick with me. No pressure, though.”
Suguru stared at Shoko, remembering all the times they filled the air of dawn with smoke and soft voices, another one of those times when he could forget about the taste of curses, even if it was with something that was slowly destroying his body.
We’ll eventually die anyway, Shoko used to say jokingly.
His sins screamed at him, crawling in his throat and reminding him of the curses he swallowed, but Suguru took the stick from Shoko anyway, like how he asked for a piece of candy from Satoru that same night. Because maybe a taste of something else would be okay, maybe being free for a little while wouldn’t be so bad.
After all, what’s a crueler punishment than false hope?
“I thought of something this morning.”
Suguru snorted, raising an eyebrow. “That’s surprising.”
“You died, you came back to life, and yet you’re still the worst person ever,” Satoru whined.
He let out a laugh. “Whatever. What were you going to say anyw—“
“I thought, What if I kill you myself instead? ”
Suguru froze, surprised. He turned to Satoru who was sitting by the table, busy with the lollipop that he had been eating ever since he came to visit.
Then, Suguru started considering it. It wouldn’t be difficult for Satoru—he already did it once, he could always do it again. And it wasn’t like Suguru would fight back; even if he physically could, he still wouldn’t.
He heaved a sigh. Satoru was wearing his blindfold again, but even if he wasn’t, Suguru would still never figure out if he was just joking. That was his thing, saying things and never indicating his true intentions.
Not this time, though. Satoru didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to—because Suguru already knew what he was thinking.
I don’t want to watch you be killed by someone else.
“You’re so selfish, you know?” Suguru shook his head in feign disappointment, playing it off as a joke. “If you wanted me all to yourself, you could have just said so.”
Satoru didn’t respond. Suguru didn’t wait.
He was selfish too, after all.
“Wanna go to the sea?”
Almost 2 months since Suguru surrendered and yet he has never gotten anywhere outside his room, much less anywhere outside the school. Well, restricting a criminal was common sense, and it was better that way anyway. Sorcerers scattered around the area, and as much as he didn’t dread his execution, he didn’t want it served earlier than set.
—so for Suguru, surprised was an understatement.
“Isn’t it illegal?” Suguru asked, raising an eyebrow.
Satoru shrugged. “Yeah. So?”
“ So? Satoru, you understand the consequences behind bringing a criminal outside prison, right?”
Satoru groaned, and suddenly, Suguru felt like the two of them were back to being teenagers.
“Consequences,” the six eyes repeated, disgusted. “Bah! Doesn’t matter. It’ll be fine. Besides—“
Satoru stopped before he could finish his sentence, for a reason Suguru didn’t catch.
“Besides, what?”
A moment passed. Two.
“Besides, I’m here.”
Suguru turned to Satoru. Surprised was absolutely an understatement, even more so when he spotted the pink on his cheeks.
With the way Suguru’s heart skipped half a beat, anyone could convince him that they did go back to being teenagers and get away with it.
Satoru sighed, breaking the silence. “It’s fine if you don’t want to. I can just—“
“Wait.”
Satoru stopped in his tracks, turning to Suguru who was trying to hold back a smile.
“Wait for me. I’ll come with you.”
—and that was how they ended up where they were: at the shore nearest to the high school.
Suguru stared into the horizon, squinting while his eyes tried to process the light of the setting sun. It had been a while since he went outside, so he had grown accustomed to the sunlight filtered by the stained windows of his dorm.
But the feeling of the gentle sea breeze greeting his face, the feeling of his feet slightly sinking into the sand—if anyone asked, he wouldn’t deny that this was better than breathing in dust.
Peaceful , Suguru thought. So peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Heart heavy in his chest, he closed his eyes.
I shouldn’t be here.
“Took the kids here before,” Satoru said out of nowhere.
The scenery then shifted; what was dark was now bright, and the former curse user found himself imagining Satoru watching his students with a fond smile spread across his lips.
The thought tugged at the edges of his lips. “You are such a sap.”
“Shut up,” said the six eyes, though without bite.
Suguru hummed, mind wandering; wondering what it would have been like if he stayed. He could have watched the students with Satoru, and watched Satoru, and watched himself fall for Satoru with every passing second like the way he didn’t know Satoru was at the moment in the present.
Repentance could come in what if’s and what could’ve been’s, Suguru noted—but Satoru changed the subject before he could indulge in it. “Why are you wearing pants to the sea?”
Opening his eyes, Suguru checked his clothes. He was wearing an old pair of sweatpants and a loose shirt that he borrowed from the six eyes because all of his own were soaked with blood.
He turned to the other, who was wearing shorts despite the cold. “Freezing to death would be a boring way to go.”
Satoru raised an eyebrow at Suguru. He was wearing his glasses then, which Suguru was secretly thankful for; it was heavily tinted to hide his bright eyes, but the former curse user found the blindfold particularly annoying for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint. “They’ll get wet, though.”
Suguru shrugged. “Yeah. So?”
He watched as the other’s face went through different emotions one by one; from shock, to processing, to something else entirely—something that made Suguru pause in place.
When they were teenagers, Suguru noticed that mischievous smirks made Satoru look a lot younger.
“Hey, I was just kidding. I didn’t have anything else to—No, Satoru. What are you doing? Satoru, stop! This is my only pair of—”
So he kept a list somewhere, a list of things that had the same effect: smiling, laughing, chasing each other around like children, and calling him Suguru like his first name was his first breath of fresh air for the day.
“Do you ever get tired of trying to clean up other people’s mess?”
Satoru looked at Suguru, who was staring at the sunset. They settled together on the sand by the shore, sitting next to each other after almost half an hour of messing around, which only ended because Satoru was worried that Suguru’s injuries might get worse.
“This isn’t about the bedsheets last night, is it?”
Suguru turned to Satoru, glaring as embarrassment painted his cheeks pink. “No.”
Satoru chuckled at Suguru’s reaction, then shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, then.”
The former curse user frowned. “Yes, you do. You weren’t being discreet about fighting the higher-ups about my execution, Satoru.”
Satoru steeled at the mention of Suguru’s execution. He was never the type to hide. He wore everything in his sleeves, from his beliefs to his grudges. He doesn’t hide what he fights for, and he doesn’t hide how he fights for it.
—but Satoru was like his limitless technique: when you see everything, you don’t know what to do; you don’t know where to start.
“Give up, Satoru,” Suguru said softly. “It’s not worth it.”
Silence dawned as the sun dipped into the horizon. It was colder than it was a while ago, and Suguru wondered if it was the absence of the sun or of their voices.
“Suguru.”
A moment passed. Two. “Yeah?”
“Do you choose this, too?”
Suguru glanced at Satoru. He could see his eyes behind his dark-tinted frames, but he couldn’t see his intentions for everything he had done and had been doing since Day 1. If the two of them really went back to being teenagers, maybe Suguru would have sacrificed something for answers to his questions.
—but they didn’t, so he figured he shouldn’t.
“Yeah,” he answered. “I choose this, too.”
He wasn’t staying long, anyway.
“Satoru.”
“Yeah?”
“Do me a favor. Don’t let Itadori Yuuji get executed.”
This time, Satoru was the one who woke Suguru up.
He was still trying to blink away the drowsiness in his eyes when he realized that the other was sitting up, and he was surprised to see beads of sweat and tears glistening and trickling down the sides of his face.
“Satoru?”
Satoru turned to Suguru, and Suguru could have sworn he felt his heart crack. That was the first time he had seen his eyes, but he didn’t want it this way, where the blue of his irises were bright and scared —something anyone else would have never expected from him.
“Hey,” he whispered worryingly, putting a hand on Satoru’s shaking one. Sitting up, he reached towards him, and like a moth to a flame, he followed, clinging desperately onto Suguru as he melted into his touch.
Gojo Satoru came from a major clan of sorcerers. Because of the abilities he inherited, he was recognized as a weapon, a fighter, a conqueror. Many mistook him for a deity, higher among all.
But the truth? He was untouchable, not invincible.
That was one thing Suguru swore he would never do—forget that Gojo Satoru was human, too.
“Suguru,” Satoru cried, shaking. Suguru felt his hold on his shirt tighten. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me again. Please.”
Suguru sucked in a breath, feeling guilt pick harshly at his skin. He didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything—out of fear of making promises he couldn’t keep.
Instead, Suguru held Satoru’s face and lifted it so that their eyes met. He wiped his tears away with his thumbs, and without a word, he brought him closer until their lips touched. Satoru didn’t react. Suguru didn’t wait for him to.
“I’m sorry,” Suguru whispered. “I’m sorry, Satoru.”
Satoru laid a hand on Suguru’s and leaned forward, wanting to meet him and his lips again. He kissed him, and Suguru could taste his tears through it, his sadness and loneliness. Salty, he thought. And painful.
But he drank them—he drank them all, hoping that he could carry some of his burden before he goes.
He was at fault for some of them, after all.
Suguru woke up in white hair and warm arms the next morning, and for the first time since he came back, it finally sinked in.
He was alive, and he was going to die again.
Sunlight welcomed itself into Suguru’s room as soon as he set the curtains aside, but that wasn’t enough to warm him up. The climate had gone cold, and everyone was starting to wear a few more layers of clothes.
Meanwhile, Suguru was wearing a few more layers of something else—emotions he couldn’t explain, emotions he didn’t want to dissect out of fear of changing his mind about how his life will come to an end.
3 months and 2 weeks passed since his surrender.
2 weeks until his execution.
He leaned against the wall next to his windows, recalling how he wished he wouldn’t gain anything else in the remaining time he had.
Alas, nothing was worse than fate, for it gave him the one thing he was scared of getting back.
“Suguru.”
Suguru turned to the door, smiling. “Good morning, Satoru. Is it time already?”
Satoru didn’t return the smile. Suguru didn’t blame him.
The former approached the latter and soon closed the space between the two of them with a kiss—then another, and another.
“Any last words?” whispered the six eyes.
The curse user hummed, thinking; trying to memorize every shade he could find in his eyes, wondering if he could take the memory with him.
“I was never mad at you, you know,” started Suguru. “It wasn’t your fault. And though it’s true I chose to leave you, I didn’t say I didn’t get hurt.”
“After all,” he held Satoru, laying his forehead against his. “You are my best friend. My one and only.”
Then he kissed him. “I’m glad it’s you.”
Satoru closed his eyes, and Suguru laughed before leaning in to leave another kiss on his lips. He didn’t want his tears to be the last thing he sees.
As exhaustion weighed heavy on his eyelids, Suguru came to a conclusion: curses were bad, but memories were worse. Because curses were bitter, easier to hate.
But memories—memories tasted like the paper on the butt of a cigarette. It tasted like the sugar on a piece of sweet. It tasted like saltwater, sea breeze, the first name of the person you love, and the saltiness of their tears when you kiss them while they cry.
Memories tasted like hope and love and blood , and as much as he wanted to hate it, he knew he couldn’t. Because before he was a curse user or a sorcerer, Getou Suguru was a human—and bound to humanity are complications like holding onto memories, no matter how much they hurt.
“Sensei, is it true? What they were saying about Getou-san’s execution?”
“Huh? Oh. Called off, right? Yeah. He was found dead in his dorm this morning. Anyway, how are you feeling, Yuuji-kun?”