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“Alright, try it now?”
Suguru glances suspiciously at Shôko, as she adjusts her sunshades. She’s wearing her professional-in-a-shady-way face, he can’t tell if she knows what she’s doing or not. Ah, well. What did he expect? He sighs and decides to trust her.
Only to regret it exactly one (1) second later, when he raises his brand new prosthetic arm and a major flow of cursed energy blasts across the schoolyard.
“My hammock!!” Satoru shrieks. “You broke my hammock!!!”
“Shut up, Satoru!!” Suguru shouts back. “Shôko!! What the hell was that???”
“Unforeseen science, I’d say,” she answers, deadpan, ignoring Satoru’s ranting while he runs toward his broken property. “There must be something wrong with the cursed flow mechanism.”
She turns back to her laptop and squints at the screen, twirling a dark strand of hair around her index finger just like she always does when she’s focusing. “Ah, there was actually a comment below that tip saying it was garbage; I hadn’t seen it, sorry bro!”
Suguru can’t believe she’s browsing the internet for an answer. Just as he couldn’t believe there were jujutsu sorcerer pseudo-medical websites. Why did he agree to this madness in the first place?
“Maybe I’ve found some-,” Shôko starts, then frowns mid-sentence. “Nah, forget it, it’s even more stupid. Come on, people, you can’t invert the energy flow before you start the movement, you have no common sense...”
Suguru closes his eyes and massages his forehead, while Shôko grumbles at her screen. This is starting to annoy the hell out of him.
“Can’t we just use, like, a normal prosthetic arm?” He sighs. “Or not use any at all. I don’t really care anymore, at this point.”
It was payback, after all. Suguru is okay with what happened to him, he doesn’t even resent the Okkotsu kid for playing karma’s armed hand - well, doesn’t resent him too much.
Shôko looks at him over her shades and raises one horrified brow.
“Just who do you think I am? Cursed prosthetics are a first for both of us and still an experimental technique, for that matter. Glitches are to be expected and I will certainly not give up after a couple failed attempts. Are you telling me that you will?”
Suguru winces. Some things still sting, even now. Satoru suddenly appears behind him, teleporting directly in his personal space. Suguru hates it when he does this (it’s not completely true, but Satoru doesn’t need to know it).
“Why do you have to make it sound like this?” Suguru aimed for a dismissive tone, but it’s bitter at the edges (bitter on his tongue). “I’m just... tired, okay?”
He raises his (natural) arm helplessly, careful not to send any cursed energy in the prosthetic. He’s already ruined the best part of this yard.
“Let’s all take a break, you’ve been working a lot, both of you.” Satoru cuts in, holding Suguru’s shoulder. His voice is soft and his hand is warm.
Shôko takes her shades off and runs a hand through her hair. She grabs her laptop and gets up.
“When did you become the reasonable one?” she asks rhetorically, poking Satoru’s chest with a finger. She then touches Suguru’s prosthetic and uses the Reverse technique on it. “It was a good session and we’re making progress. We just need a few more adjustments so you don’t blast half of Tokyo whenever you move.”
She smiles and pokes Suguru’s chest, too.
“Don’t be impatient, Buddha-boy. We’ll get you there.”
Suguru sighs; Shôko’s been calling him like this ever since he came back, it can’t be helped. He smiles back; his chest feels a bit lighter despite Satoru leaning on him.
“Alright, doc,” Suguru says. “Get some sleep, though. You really look like a panda.”
“Even if I needed beauty advice, I wouldn’t take any from you,” she shrugs before leaving for the infirmary. “Don’t break the house while I’m not watching!”
Satoru’s arms are now fully circling Suguru’s waist, his chin’s resting on Suguru’s shoulder. He kisses his exposed neck and Suguru finds himself leaning against Satoru’s chest, craving his touch. The embrace is warm and solid; it soothes him and he slowly relaxes, ignoring that they are still standing in the middle of the yard. The exhaustion from the day crashes over Suguru; he didn’t think arm rehabilitation would be so tiring. His cursed energy is all over the place and his shoulder hurts.
“Hey, Suguru.” Satoru whispers in his ear, after a moment, sending a pleasant shiver down his back. “Mind if I have a look at your bionic arm?”
Suguru turns his head; he’s met with Satoru’s serious-looking face, behind his blindfold. It’s unlike him to ask this way.
“You have a new kink?” Suguru asks, deadpan.
“I have every kink, as long as they involve you.” Satoru grins and Suguru chuckles; his heart warms up a little.
“Nah,” Satoru continues. “I’ve an idea that I’d like to check, with that cursed energy mechanism.”
Suguru raises one skeptical brow.
“Now you’re pulling the genius jujutsu sorcerer act on me, huh.” He shrugs. “Okay. But let’s sit down first, I’m drained.”
They sit on the outside corridor of one of the warehouses, right where Shôko was doing bullshit science on useless websites and calling it research. Man, she hasn’t changed one bit.
“Okay, Jet Black,” Satoru says. “Let’s get your cursed energy channeled, first.”
He removes his blindfold and Suguru’s heart beats a little faster as he feels the six eyes focusing on him, looking right through him. White clouds move lazily through Satoru’s blue irises, mesmerizing. Suguru shivers when his partner taps at the base of his neck with one finger. Oh. Satoru taps again on his temple and sternum, sending a few impulses of his own cursed energy into Suguru’s system through pressure points. That’s clever. Suguru focuses on his breathing and massages another spot on the side of his knee. The trick works rather well; Suguru can already feel his internal turmoil receding and his curse energy flow getting slowly back on track.
Satoru watches him for a moment and gets a bit closer, taking the prosthetic hand in one of his and bringing it right to his eyes.
“You were moving your cursed energy through the meridians, right?” Satoru asks.
“Yeah,” Suguru acquiesces. “But there seems to be an amplifier or something, I was sending only a bit of energy, it shouldn’t have blasted the yard.”
“It was fun, though!” Satoru chuckles. “Except for my hammock, poor thing didn’t stand a chance...”
“Shut up, Satoru.”
“Don’t be so serious,” Satoru gently chides him. “You have a cursed laser cannon for an arm, that’s pretty cool!”
Satoru’s fingers are massaging his synthetic hand. Suguru groans; he would rather have them on his own flesh. He unties his messed-up bun and ruffles his hair just to feel something organic.
“You could try using the surface of the arm instead,” Satoru continues.
Suguru frowns, thoughtful.
“It’d be less accurate, though,” he states dubitatively. He’s starting to feel Satoru’s cursed energy on the prosthetic and it’s weird. But there’s something familiar to it that doesn’t completely freak Suguru out.
“Not if you follow a pattern.” Satoru suggests.
With the tip of his index finger, he draws a line along one of the arm’s meridians all the way to Suguru’s shoulder, imbuing it with his cursed energy. Suguru blinks stupidly.
“... Oh. Considering it like a blade instead of simple flesh, huh.”
Satoru nods in approval. His smile is strange, a bit crooked at the edges. Suguru stares at his hand and tentatively sends an infinitesimal flow of cursed energy right in the path that Satoru drew on the synthetic arm.
Its (his) index finger twitches.
Suguru is so startled that he bumps his forehead against Satoru’s. They both laugh like nervous teenagers, resting their hands on each other’s nape. They meet halfway for a kiss which soon turns out more frantic than expected, all hungry tongues and playful teeth.
“You think we can roll our way inside the warehouse?” Satoru asks, breathless against Suguru’s mouth.
“Or we can go back to our room.” Suguru’s tongue caresses his lover’s lips, reveling in his moan.
“Too far. And I don’t think we ever fucked in here.” Satoru’s peculiar eyes glint with lust, his lips stretch with mischief. Suguru chuckles and shakes his head.
“Are we really keeping a record?”
“Stop pretending you’re not, you fake Buddha.”
Satoru’s hands are already moving under his t-shirt, caressing his hips, sliding to his abs. Suguru shivers and has a shaky laugh.
“One of us has to be the reasonable one.”
“Fuck reason. Come, Suguru, let me teach you some fun!”
Satoru drags him to the entrance of the warehouse. He chuckles again as he closes the door behind them.
“That’s our first time in this warehouse and with a bionic arm. Maybe you were right, I might end up with a new kink.”
Suguru laughs and pulls him into a deep kiss.
“You’re a lost cause, Satoru,” he whispers.
“Takes one to know one.”
* * * * * *
“Garbage, garbage,” Shôko enunciates absentmindedly, scrolling the JujuStack website for enlightenment. “Garb… Hm?”
Suguru wonders if she’s finally found something interesting. But she shrugs, crushing his hopes to get this done and over with.
“Just kidding,” she says mildly. “That’s Gojo Satoru’s bullshit. Next.”
“Wait, how did you know it was me?!” Satoru interrupts her. “I made sure to leave no trace.”
Shôko throws him one of her “do I even have to answer that” glances and takes her most annoying voice to read the post out loud:
“Personally, from a purely objective standpoint, I think it’d be more efficient to have the prosthetic material move the cursed energy flow instead of the opposite. World-class Gojo Satoru bullshit, bro.”
Satoru chuckles.
“I don’t care, it’s the most liked post in the whole thread. People know a genius when they see one.”
Suguru gives up and lies on the wooden floor of the warehouse’s outside corridor. God. This really is his life, now.