Chapter Text
You taught me the courage of stars before you left.
How light carries on endlessly, even after death.
With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite.
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
Of all the things he expected to happen at the tip of the Shinigami's blade, Suguru's last expectation was being granted the infinite multitude of possibilities, what-ifs, should-haves, branching out from a pivotal moment in time during the day of their separation in Shibuya. Even in the crossroads, standing beneath the heavy and assessing gaze of an impartial dealer in death, Suguru stands rooted in that very same spot. Immobilized, anguished, and utterly helpless as the true meaning of infinity dawned on him and bore down relentlessly on his soul.
Lifetimes flashed by and escaped the pitiful grip of his fingers. Everywhere he gazed, possible futures and more were projected into three-dimensional view, each and every possible choice spawning an exponential amount of more possibilities. Each point on this infinite region spoke of all past, present and future events, significant or not, happy or not, the full thread and essence of their humanity bare and exposed for judgement. One event after another flashed through his mind and the weight and sheer velocity of the information flying through his mind, cracked his resolve and pulverized his heart. He found it ironic that when one is faced with all of the information available readily from all points of time, he was helpless to do anything with it. Even in death, his old friend's ghost haunted him.
It was both fair and unfair that he was being given the chance to be a helpless witness to all of the events in the current timeline. His past, and his old friend's future without him. Suguru remembered the sheer helplessness he felt and the bone-crushing anguish creaking in his soul when he could do nothing but watch as this impostor defiled everything he stood for, and destroyed everything he loved.
Suguru remembered, with agonizing clarity. Even in the darkness, all he knew was that Satoru called out his name, and his own soul quivered at the sheer anguish he felt from Satoru and he violently fought against the shackles. He remembered how bitterly he fought. But it wasn't enough. He was never enough when the moment demands it.
Satoru once said, 'love is the most twisted curse'.
And at that time, Suguru would've agreed. He fully acknowledged that he would, if all he knew was what he knew at that time, if he wasn't a little wiser that he was now. The existence of humanity had one thing in common, and it was the guarantee of an unfair reality. Innocence was often lost and discarded after the shell of childhood is shriveled up and dried by the callousness of life's injustices. Humanity is a creature of passion and rationality, professionals of the highest caliber when it came to justifying the extents of their deeds on both ends of the moral spectrum. Humanity is capable of great cruelty, but so is it capable of great acts of sacrificial love.
Love is certainy a force of great power, he thinks. It can certainly be the most twisted curse of it all, putting it leagues above even the most dangerous and vile curse users in history. Going by Satoru's paradigm, love is the curse that would take on the veil of a human, the very same human that would put a heart inside your chest only to have it be ripped out and consumed by the very same one that gifted it to you, if the game of the fate tossed the odds against your favour. Depending on the view, love is the most twisted curse of them all.
He was the curse on Satoru's life. He was that human-shaped vessel by which this curse called Love chose to possess. But so was Satoru serving as the mutual vessel for the very same curse. In the shade of youthful memories, he still remembered the ghostly tug of heartstrings and the skipped pulse beats that plagued his ribcage. The mad fluttering and hitch in his breath when he was fortunate enough to take a small glimpse in the infinity of all things that slumbered in Satoru's eyes. The innocent and absent touches of pale fingers on his shoulder, the human warmth of friendship. They embodied the physics of electromagnetic attraction, scaled up to perfect view for the naked eye, distilled in their everyday interactions.
It was perhaps the greatest tragedy of all that they collapsed their own infinity and sealed it to the grave, when they departed on on bitter terms. Even now, the consequences of his choice manifested in the anguished howling of his soul, his very foundation for existence. It was akin to being aware of a phantom limb, still feeling the ghost of its physical presence and gestures, even knowing full well it is lost.
And here they are, standing on other ends of infinity even in death. They were not even guaranteed a chance at reunion. Even knowing his mortal shell has shriveled and decayed away, Suguru wants to vomit at the agony plagueing his soul. Every misdeed and miscalculation stirred like the curses he devoured in life, and they sprang up from the depths of his being, threatening to torture his soul for eternity. While it is the greater grief to be left on earth after another has gone, it is by far, the greatest tragedy to be the one departed all the while knowing that the one you left on earth will never be destined to travel the same path in the afterlife.
And it was this realization, that Suguru breaks.
Love might be the most twisted curse, but how could that be if this is what makes him cling desperately to whatever humanity he had left? How could Satoru say it is the most twisted curse, when he would give up everything just to see Satoru again, and get his old friend to look at him as if Suguru wasn't the one that gave him those hideous scars in his heart? How could it be the most dangerous and twisted curse in all of time, if up until now Suguru would willingly lay down everything he stood for, and would have stood for, if it meant he could have the chance to make Satoru smile again?
For Satoru, love is the most twisted curse. For Suguru, love was the indestructible chain that kept him connected to his anchor. Even now, after all he has seen and everything he has done, it has stood the test of time and is still keeping him grounded. In the dawn of these epiphanies, Suguru feels it giving stronger tugs at the site where his human heart would have been. Every tug and every pull resonates through his soul, growing in strength, and he awaits the judgement of the Shinigami.
For an entity removed from the confines of time and space, it looks at him with something akin to understanding and pity in the same breath.
Suguru stands still, and waits.
When he felt the ghostly tip of an ancient spiritual blade piercing where a human heart would have been, his awareness darkens and he lets himself fall into the abyss.
Infinity shrieks into his ears and rips at the fabric of space-time with the speed of light in vacuum. The lights of the heavens are blinding and every minute sound echoed and reverberated like the violent cries of cymbals and gongs. Coldness of air currents rips through his lungs and a shock jolts him into painful awareness. He opens his eyes and a new round of existential shock floods his entire being.
"-guru! Suguru!"
He blinks rapidly and winces at the shadows that suddenly crept towards his face. When he opens his eyes again, he felt his breath stopping, every molecule of oxygen fading from the depths of his crushed lungs. He stares, frozen where he lay on the sand, heart galloping like the herds of wildebeests thundering past the gorge. Every square-metre of his being, frozen and incapacitated as the entirety of it all came rushing back to him.
Three years of his youth, sharpened to a fine point and ricocheted past his heart. It latched on to his cardiac organ and eviscerated it with the hunger of a megalodon and he felt it circling him, chasmic eyes boring through him.
Three years of his youth, rushing back into awareness.
He felt strong hands gripping his shoulders and he flinches back against the sand, eyes wide as the same large shadow hovered above him.
"Suguru!"
What is this?
"Suguru!"
White hair, blue eyes.
White hair, blue eyes.
"Suguru!"
Satoru?
Suguru looks again.
Satoru.
Where are they? Did the Shinigami have mercy and took Satoru's soul shortly after?
"Suguru!"
A pained grunt escapes his mouth when his entire vision shook from the violence of the hands holding his shoulders with the death grip. He felt them jostling his shoulders and for the first time in a while, he feels a spark of annoyance creeping through him.
Wait, annoyance? How can a soul feel this much human emotion?
Wait, something is wrong here.
When he looks at shadow above him again, he wasn't ready for the ruthless assault of reality colliding with his very being.
Satoru's wide eyes gazed down at him, afraid and desperate. "Suguru!"
A second wave of ruthless surprise washed over him.
This wasn't the afterlife.
He was alive, again.