Archive of Our Own

Suguru doesn’t like drinking water. It tastes too much like nothing, and if he downs it, clear, it’s easy for it to taste like anything. If he’s out of it and goes to get a glass of water in the middle of the night because he’s thirsty, he’ll throw it right back up. Gin’s better. Vodka, even more. It stings and it washes everything the fuck out. When he throws a glass down back his throat, it erases every single taste still lingering on his tongue. It’s cleansing. He thinks it feels a little like fleeting freedom. It’s addicting, sometimes.

And if he drinks it enough, hopefully, he’ll stop tasting anything at all.

Shoko reprimands him for it. Tells him he’ll have alcohol poisoning one day. Suguru doesn’t think she has any room to talk with a cigarette in her mouth every hour—not to mention she’s an alcoholic herself. Satoru just joins him to crash his place, since he doesn’t drink. Suguru often drinks alone, although sometimes, he joins Nanami to drink outside of missions. Haibara wanted to join them once or twice, but he’ll always look for beer, and Suguru hardly ever has those over—they run too watery. Soft. Barely even flushes anything out. It just fills Suguru’s stomach with more garbage to throw up.

It’s not like he thinks it’s healthy; but it isn’t like he cares, either. If it kills him, then it does. Let it. He doesn’t think it will, because it’s not as if he drinks religiously, just a lot more often than what’s considered normal. You can say it’s his coping mechanism, and he won’t deny it, because it is.

But the thing is, sometimes, when you do things long enough, they make you sick.

Suguru finds this an easy discovery last time he came back from a mission and dug through his cupboard to get rum. Suguru pours it, neat. His window’s letting light through. It’s a usual day after work. By his first shot, he vomits. His carpet’s messed up, now. And he’s been standing there, still for too long it actually disgusts him.

Water. It’s like water all over again, he thinks. Nothing’s strong enough, and it keeps him in this whirling spiral. Suguru’s laugh is bitter when he asks himself, when will this ever stop.

Sick. He’s already sick of this. Shoko’s got her answer, then. He probably won’t die of alcohol poisoning now. Maybe he can just tear his taste buds out. Close his hands on his neck. Snap it. Fuck. He should stop thinking. Careful, Suguru, your thoughts have always been too gruesome. Too much. Intrusive. It’s gross, is what it is.

It’s fine, he says, mostly. This is fine. He tries to swallow those words down his throat until his body manages to convince itself it’s not rotting. Maybe all those curses have corrupted his brain. 

(Maybe all those curses have ruined him into something no one’s ever going to love. Or learn to. And that’s—that doesn’t even matter. Not right here, not right now.)

The crux of the matter is he’s gotten sick of drinking, and drinking, and drinking. Another day, another temporary part of him thrown out. Nothing ever really stays. Suguru rinses his mouth and faces his reflection in the mirror. He’s holding his hair in one hand, balled up to not get damp. He has bags under his eyes. His lips still somehow look chapped. He lets out another bitter laugh. How attractive.

Suguru takes the candy Satoru gave him from his pocket and pops it into his mouth. He throws the wrapper in the trash can and falls asleep five seconds in on his sofa.

The days blur together, and all Suguru does is work.

Work for these—these weak, ungrateful monkeys. And he shouldn’t say that, he knows, but it’s the truth, isn’t it? He’s saving no one worthy while doing this. The longer he spends his days out, on the field, his tongue a graveyard of curses, the clearer it becomes to him. This is meaningless.

He knows Satoru gets it. But he doesn’t know what’s stopping him. He doesn’t know how he can just stand there when he can see —just as clear as Suguru—and sometimes, in his weak moments, he admits to himself maybe it’s because they’re no longer a we. Between the two of them, it’s always been a matter of we; but, lately, he thinks Satoru’s slipping away. Or maybe it’s him? Maybe he’s also to blame, how he feels like they’re no longer the strongest together.

It’s just Satoru now, up there.

Suguru doesn’t want to admit it, but he hates Satoru’s limitless. That annoying technique. Hates how it’s too powerful to match and makes it impossible for him to reach. Can’t even touch his hands. Can’t even shove him just a little bit the way he used to. Can’t even take a spar with him without feeling like he’s not worthy enough.

Hah. He’s got so much pent up feelings he should probably go make a diary about it, he jokes in his head, except—that wasn’t too bad, was it? A diary; god, no, he cackles. 

But to hell with it. Suguru still finds himself buying a notebook the next day.

July 13. 01:19 A.M.

It’s one in the morning and I’ve stopped drinking.

Suguru stops at the sentence, thinking: Will I really start with this? Fuck, will I really do this, even?

Bile bubbles on the back of his throat.

I still feel like throwing up.

His hands write it on his own, and he laughs. Whatever. It’s true. Who does he have to lie to, like this?

I’ve coped with alcohol for so long that I don’t know how to go without it. It’s funny, I guess. And Well, I think God, why did I write that it’s funny? Maybe ironic. But that doesn’t work either, and that’s my problem. Nothing works. I try to drink again, sometimes. Mix things up. Took it lighter; I had a beer. Satoru’s gonna have a field day.

There’s a pause, a still. Some sort of realization.

Satoru would, but they haven’t talked for so long it’s hardly likely for him to hear about it. Suguru chalks their distance up to work and leaves it there.

After a beer, I took some pincer shanghai. Doesn’t cut it. I remember the times when the taste of it would numb my mouth ‘til morning. It doesn’t matter now. Both make me retch. Like I said, I still feel like throwing up. 

He ends it at that.

July 29. 04:30 A.M.

Why am I doing this.

Shit. This is only my second entry and I’m already questioning it. I asked myself if this would really work too much yesterday. I feel like even my mind got sick of it. But you know what. I think this would be good for me, somehow. I need to get used to new things. I need to rip off this want of familiarity from myself and get used to things changing because they already have. I need to know how to get used to being alone. I was too late to change it, so I just need to sit down and take it, because I let this happen. this i feel like maybe but i miss

I think I still can’t be honest with myself.

August 04. 09:55 P.M.

Vodka still doesn’t taste the same

I thought if I drank before it hit midnight it would change something. I guess not. Still threw up. Nothing’s coming back to me, and. Hah. I don’t know how to admit this, but that scares me. Sort of. Because—do you get what that means? I don’t think I’ve stressed it enough that I miss passing out from drinking too much. I want to take shots by myself until morning comes and I collapse just before an assignment. I miss missing work because I’d be too hungover for Yaga to send out, and Satoru will whine at the unfairness of it all. 

Nothing’s going to come back. That I know now. Not the taste of vodka, not high school, not missions that I wasn’t by myself, not the sight of the beach in Okinawa and the wind in our hair. Sometimes, I want those back more than anything.

August 12. 02:47 A.M.

There’s a lot of things I wish I could have right now.

Maybe if it were any time but now, I would say a peace of mind, for once. That’s what I often wish for. But it’s 2 am and I can’t keep pretending I’m not lonely. I can’t keep pretending there’s no regret in distancing myself from everyone I know. Can’t keep pretending I’m doing all that well without Satoru either. I wish he could just show up at my doorstep so I wouldn’t have to explain how I’ve been feeling. Or say sorry. But when I see him I get reminded I can’t touch him and maybe, somehow, this is better—

August 17. 11:22 A.M.

-

There’s a large entirety of nothing within me and it scares me, some days. But then I wake up another day full of pent-up rage that’s been simmering inside me, too, and it feels nothing like that emptiness. Like I’m two people at once—there’s this guy with nothing and this other one with everything. I don’t know which one I want to be.

September 02. 01:30 A.M.

Why am I still doing this if there’s no meaning to it.

I’ m sick of everything and everything makes me sick

September 09. 05:59 A.M.

-

Maybe Satoru and I should have just killed them. That day, perhaps it would have had meaning to, all while Amanai’s corpse watches. I don’t like the taste of eating my words more than I do cursed spirits, but I’m going to have to do it now. I wish we just killed those monkeys with our own hands.

September 09. 03:00 P.M.

I told myself my thoughts were dangerous.

I think something fucked up my brain. I visited Haibara’s grave. The wind probably cleared my head. I wonder if being dead would be better than this because what meaning do I even have

September 13. 12:56 A.M.

I feel as though my body is strange,

It’s sick, I think. I do nothing but work with these hands that don’t feel like mine. I try to get back into drinking, but that’s not happening any time soon. My mouth feels like it’s rotting. I eat curses for breakfast. For lunch. For fucking dinner. I hate this. I don’t even know why I’m doing this alone. It doesn’t make sense because he said we’re the strongest together and the curses didn’t taste as bad with him back then and if we were the strongest why 

Suguru rips the page off.

September 17. 03:44 P.M.

Today, I almost massacred an entire village.

Two hours ago, I almost became what I promised myself I would never be. I was almost there. If I clung onto something, then I don’t know what it is.

Maybe I wanted another shot of vodka. I sure need one.

September 17. 04:02 P.M.

-

I think I’ve at least gone a little crazy.

September 17. 04:03 P.M.

I also took in two kids.

Two small figures shiver on the corner of his living room, holding and shielding each other from him, seems like. They’re dirty. They probably stink. They’re dressed in tatters. Suguru just took them in.

Fuck.

He runs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath. He forces a smile, the brightest he can. “You should clean up,” he tells the two girls huddled close, and one of them—Mimiko, was it—shuffles a little. They still don’t move. “You have wounds, they might get infected.” Nothing. “There’ll be food after you shower, I promise.”

The girls hesitate, but it makes them move, nonetheless.

Suguru breathes a sigh of relief. “Sit over there,” he points to a sofa. “I’ll run you both a bath.”

Minutes into preparing the kids a bath, Suguru wonders what the hell he’s doing, not for the first time. He’s unstable. He’s hardly in any state to take care of two children. That’s just not—it doesn’t make sense.

His hands pause over the tub’s faucet. It doesn’t have to, does it. It doesn’t really have to make any kind of sense. Yeah, if, if—if it has a purpose, a meaning, just to let these kids live, then it’s enough. It’s enough. 

He opens the faucet and waits for the water to fill. His hands fall to his pocket, and he dials Satoru.

It rings only once. “What, you’re talking to me now?” Satoru’s voice through the static is what probably breaks him, then. So it still sounds like him. He didn’t change at all that much, did he.

“Suguru? Say something, ba—is that the sound of water running?” he pauses. “Did you call me while you were in the shower? Hah, y’know, if you were this lone—”

He stops the tap. He laughs, low. Almost a little hysterically. “Satoru. Shut up.”

Suguru could almost hear his frown. The one where his face would scrunch up whole. Made him look damn stupid. “Rude. You’re the one who called.”

“… Come here,” Suguru finds himself saying.

“So you were lonely after all?”

“Come here,” he repeats, more firmly. More certain, this time. Sure. “I want to see you.”

“Suguru, man,” Satoru laughs nervously. “What.”

The man mentioned only smiles, soft. “I said I want to see you, so hurry up, slowpoke,” he checks the water’s temperature. After concluding it was warm enough, he goes outside. Satoru was still dead silent. “Oh, and maybe get me some small yukatas? Whatever works. Thanks, Satoru.”

“The fuck do you even mean—” Suguru hangs up.

He turns to the girls, phone in hand, a smile that’s no longer forced working its way into his face. “Your bath’s ready.” The two look at each other first before bouncing off the sofa, heading to Suguru’s direction.

The moment he finishes bathing the kids, his door opens; forcefully. A little angrily. By it stands Gojo Satoru, two yukatas in one hand, a clenched fist on the other.

“Explain, Suguru,” he begins. Suguru just smiles. He drinks in the sight of Satoru. Still the same. And annoying. He takes the yukata with a thank you and the girls pry it off his hands. Satoru just gapes after him. “What the—” he stops at the sight of Nanako and Mimiko. “Did you. Were you—were you hiding children all this time?”

“Oh, no,” Suguru says. “I just took them from my mission some hours ago.”

“Took them.”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell is even happening,” Satoru mutters to himself. Scowling, he turns to Suguru aggressively. “Okay. You said you wanted to see me. What was that all about. What is this all about—lay it on me, Suguru. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

“Turn off your infinity first,” Before Satoru could say something, Suguru follows it up. “I’ll tell you everything. Just turn off your infinity first, Satoru.”

Satoru looks him down, contemplative. “Fine. Only because I trust you.”

He turns his infinity off. Suguru can feel it; his soul knows it, perhaps you can say. The impossible reach to trek between them is gone, and he can feel it. This trust—to touch him—to think he had that for Suguru.

Contented, he inches into Satoru’s space and presses his lips to the other’s. “Huh,” he says, after he pulls back. “Doesn’t taste like curses, I guess.” but doesn’t say, better than curses, better than clear water, better than a shot of vodka.

Satoru stands still. His glasses sit askew, making his eyes a sight for all to see. It’s blown wide open, two infinite universes stretching out across Suguru.

Still off a high, his mind-to-mouth filter is temporarily compromised. It’s not a surprise when he says: “Your eyes are beautiful. Have I ever told you that?”

When Satoru does say something back, it’s in the middle of him hysterically laughing. He looks a little deranged, with manic eyes, but that’s Satoru. “So were you away all this time ‘cause you were lovesick, Suguru, huh,” he cackles. The kids had to cover their ears. Maybe Suguru has to say it to them later that Satoru was just as batshit crazy as he was.

They both know their distance wasn’t because of what just happened between them, but this isn’t the time and place to talk about it, and they always were the type to deflect with jokes. So Suguru just tells him, fond: “Satoru, please do us all a favor and put a lid over your mouth.”

“You love this mouth, though,” he answers back, a manic grin still on his face.

Suguru covers the children’s eyes and flips him off.

September 17. 07:13 P.M.

Yeah. Maybe I’ve gone a little insane.