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“-therefore, if we use the law of identities, we can separate tan into cos and sin of theta,” Nora-sensei continued to drag on, and pointlessly, Suguru tapped his pencil against his graph paper.
Blandly, as the cicadas continued to buzz outside of the windows, he stared down at the small gray dots the tapping created on his half finished notes. Tap, tap, Gods, was he bored, and it was hot today. Tap, tap, he knew this. This material was boring. Tap, tap-
His lead broke.
He stared down at the snapped piece of it, feeling a bead of sweat drip down the back of his neck, and felt a little like a zombie. His hair was in his face, again, starting to fall out of its bun and fraying hair-tie. It was too hot for this, but what did he care, really? He wasn’t even writing.
A near silent snicker had his eyes shifting to his right, where a head of snowy hair was ducked to hide a grin. Under the drone of words, Suguru casually raised his notebook as inconspicuously as possible, and with a glance in Satoru’s direction, flicked a stray pen cap at his face behind the half-written pages.
He’d already turned back to the front of the classroom with a smug look when Satoru jolted, hacking a surprised noise as the pen cap rocketed into his clear glasses with a clink. The mild screech of his chair legs on the floor caught everyone's attention, and Suguru didn’t turn to acknowledge the blistering blue glare shot in his direction.
“Gojo-san!” Nora-sensei barked, and Suguru kept the pleasantly innocent look plastered on his face. Outside, the cicadas picked up their buzzing, and Satoru sank in his chair, ears bright red. The classroom felt about three degrees hotter. “This is the third time you’ve interrupted class today!”
“But Su-” Satoru started, the protest getting batted away as Nora-sensei set her chalk down with a pissy huff and Suguru continued to look like a role-model student.
“Suguru is taking his notes, like you should be doing.”
‘Suguru’s page is empty,’ Suguru thought, a smidgeon of glee running through him now that the boredom had been interrupted. A few hallways down, the air conditioner whirred to life in a useless wheeze of recycled hot air. It hadn’t worked since the eighties.
Satoru muttered a few choice words under his breath, but hunched his shoulders and piped down anyway. “Sorry, Sensei,” he grumbled, sounding not very sorry at all, and up at the front of the room, Nora-sensei threw up her hands and whirled back around to face the board, exasperatedly huffing “thank you,” under her breath.
In the back of the classroom, Suguru heard the unmistakable sound of snacks being exchanged. He wondered if Mei Mei had won her bet. It was likely- the last he could recall, she’d put money somewhere on an odd number, and three was decidedly so. He hoped she was swindling Mahito of all his allowance. That bastard deserved to be broke.
Once the quiet clamor died back down and the heat of the afternoon set back in, Suguru’s eyes fell back down to his unfinished notes. He could see Satoru's still red face in his periphery; his glass complexion would stay that way for another handful of moments, at least.
When blue eyes shifted to meet his own, he only offered a pleasant smile. The middle finger and scowl he was given in return had a toothy grin thinning his lips.
“You’re a cruel, cruel man, Getou,” Hiro whispered on his left, leaned over just enough to get the words across, and Suguru tapped his pencil against the page. Satoru was still sulking. He should have thought twice before selling his Pokémon cards to Shoko, then.
“Oh,” he whispered back, eyes on where Satoru was still seething. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“You’re such an asshole!” Satoru exclaimed the second they were free from class and strolling down to a particularly empty hallway on lunch break. Suguru stuffed his hands in his pockets as they meandered to the more secluded vending machine to get drinks, idly listening, but mostly wishing he’d remembered his chapstick.
“And you sold Shoko my shiny mew,” he said, and Satoru groaned loudly. His hands flew up as he covered his eyes with his palms under his shiny-framed glasses, head tilted back in exasperation.
“I said I didn’t know! She said she wanted it and you give away those stupid things all the time!” He protested, dragging his hands down his pretty face until the reds of his eyeballs were showing, and Suguru couldn’t help but laugh a little at his antics.
“Ignorance is no excuse,” he responded, perfectly prim and proper, something he knew made Satoru grind his teeth. “It’s not my fault you don’t know the nuance of Pokémon trading.” He shrugged, nonchalantly stepping along down the school stairs, and grinned when he could feel the frustration bubbling behind him. “That thing was worth more than you. And you sold it for three hundred yen.” He felt it when Satoru exploded behind him, and fully reveled in it when the sound of it hit his ears.
“I’m rich!” He shouted, “I could buy you a hundred of those stupid cards. What the fuck, Suguru,” Satoru exclaimed, circling in front of him as they reached the hallway, reaching up to grab him by his shoulders and shake him hard. Suguru let his head fall back, smiling like a moron as he stuck his tongue out and raised his hands in a shrug of a gesture.
“You absolute jerk, I can just buy another! What the hell d’ya need to torment me for?!” Satoru yelled in his ear, shaking him again. “Class is a nightmare with you!” He rambled, pissy words echoing slightly in the open corridor, drowning out the buzz of the outside, but not quite the heat.
Suguru couldn’t help it; he laughed, reaching to get a hand around Satoru’s neck to pull him down and grind his knuckles into perfectly messy hair. Satoru yelled, squirming like a cat and trying to body check him in response; a useless idea, really, because he was a bean pole scrawny enough to go fishing with on a good day, Yaga’s martial arts training be damned.
Suguru let him go right before the teeth found his arm, sleeves rolled up to dangerously expose skin in the heat, and Satoru spun around to kick him. The blow landed mostly harmlessly against the meat of his thigh, and as deadpan as he could, Suguru stuffed his hands back into his pockets, and said, with as little emotion as he could muster, “ow.”
“Ass,” Satoru sniffed, huffily pushing his reading glasses back up his nose, and squinting when the sun caught his eyes as he walked away. Suguru followed, quietly marveling to himself for just a moment at how the light turned blue iris into stained glass- the illumination of colorless hair melting it into the edges of sunbacked clouds, covering the brilliant azure of the sky in the eyes behind it. With a silent sigh, he resolved that he had picked on Satoru enough for today; he really was too annoyingly pretty to mess with for long.
As Satoru punched in the numbers for drinks in the machine, Suguru leaned against the side of it. Casually, in an action that was both familiar and simple, he sweeped a foot out to gently knock his against Satoru’s. He got a humph for it, but the contact still settled the both of them; an odd tick that he’d never seemed to be able to pin down. It wasn’t tactility, really, just the fact that he could do it. As if there might be something that would prevent him from touching Satoru at all.
It didn’t matter much, really. He didn’t pay it any mind as Satoru leaned down to grab their drinks, and stood back up to press Suguru’s into his hand.
Before he did, though, Satoru’s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his face in a distrustful purse. “Are you done bullying me today?” He asked, suspicious and expression stormy despite the perfectly sunny shine of his eyes behind their golden edged clouds, and Suguru let the corner of his mouth tick up.
“Yes,” he agreed, and after a moment of staring, peppered by a shifty look, Satoru eventually handed the bottle over to him. The heat felt like it would be more than sweltering soon as they stood together and enjoyed something cold. It had come back early, this year. An annoyance for everyone, really, but mostly only one. It was insufferable, but just another part of their endlessly turning lives.
“Here,” Satoru said, tugging a band off his wrist, and Suguru looked down at the simple black hair tie. “You always break yours, and then complain about it later. I got a bunch of them in black like you like,” Satoru explained, draining the last of his too sweet juice, and Suguru opened his mouth to say thank you, before he faltered.
Taking the band from the fingers offering it and sliding it onto his own wrist, Suguru wondered, “huh. I swear I’ve never broken one in front of you.” Regardless, he tugged his hair out of its less tidy than usual bun- redone several times to better stave off the heat- and watched as Satoru’s face blinked slightly in mild surprise.
As Suguru redid his hair with a non-fraying hair-tie, Satoru chewed on the inside of his cheek, and after a moment of what appeared to be indecision, ultimately shrugged. “Maybe I’m just observant,” he said, a sardonic smile tugging at his lips, and Suguru rolled his eyes as a fond feeling crushed his ribs.
“That’s one way to put it, card smuggler,” he said, tugging on Satoru’s uniform top to get him to follow, and happily listened to the complaints as they wandered back up the stairs.
“Smuggler?! I didn’t steal it, I sold it!”
Oddly enough, Suguru agreed with the statement. ‘Observant, huh,’ he thought, and weirdly enough for a reason he wasn’t sure of, it seemed nearly fitting.
“Yo, snob,” Shoko greeted him a week later, when he ditched Satoru in their classes’ study period to sneak a smoke with her on the roof. Satoru didn’t enjoy smoke, Suguru knew; he hated the burn of it just from breathing in someone else's drag. Suguru had never bothered to explain what they were doing on the roof, since there was no point, but Satoru wasn’t his only friend. Shoko was pretty great, too.
“I got your stupid seven’s,” she said, tossing the fresh pack his way, and Suguru caught them before they could fly over the railing. He scowled when she smirked around the caster in her mouth.
Well, great, when she wasn’t being...Shoko.
“The nerd says you’re beating him up,” she grinned, all too well knowing, and Suguru rolled his eyes. Shoko was in a different homeroom from them, since she’d transferred later in the year from Tokyo, but they’d all met by accident around winter. Being friends was never quite as easy with other people than with her.
“The nerd sold you my shiny mew card. Which you bought,” Suguru accused, and Shoko threw her head back with a cackle.
“Oh, it made my day. Just the thought of the look on your face...” She wiped a fake tear from her eye, smile self resplendent and far, far too smug. “Gods, I would have paid money.”
“You did pay money, raccoon eyes,” he pointed out, none too lively, and Shoko shook her head, cheshire grin still too wide on her face.
“So worth the three hundred yen,” she said, exhaling out a cloud of smoke, and inhaling the nicotine. Suguru held out his hand for a light, exasperation settling at the base of his throat like a lump when it was given to him.
“Cheap bastard,” he muttered, flicking the lighter on as he pulled out a cigarette.
“Oh please,” Shoko said, and twirled her fingers in a fancy trick until a very shiny, very familiar card whipped into his sight. “Panties in a twist over mew?” She poked, and Suguru nearly dropped the lighter reaching out to snatch it.
“You don’t understand,” he grumbled as she only doubled over and laughed louder. “They don’t even make these anymore. The things I had to do, you tyrant, the things,” he stressed, and Shoko tilted into his shoulder to push him off balance like a pair of dominoes.
“Ahhh, but you should really lighten up on Gojo,” she said, as they leaned against the thin rail and enjoyed the breeze from so high up, cooler so far away from the ground and the heat. Suguru glanced at the motion of flowing dark hair, loose and short, and wondered how on earth she had gotten away with getting it cut with parents like hers.
Shoko tilted her head his way, raising an eyebrow when Suguru only hummed. “I’m serious,” she said, tapping her cigarette to let the extra ash fall. “He’s the reason I get you seven’s, yanno.”
Suguru’s grows furrowed at that. “Satoru?” He questioned, puzzled. Shoko shrugged a shoulder, gesturing aimlessly with her cigarette hand.
“Yeah,” she nodded.
Suguru frowned, then, light forgotten in the breeze. “Satoru doesn’t know I smoke,” he said, the oddity of it leaking into his tone, and Shoko’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.
“Really?” She wondered. “Weird. A few months ago, we were walking back from lunch, and he mentioned that your favorite brand was seven stars- that you hated the cheaper shit.” She raised her hands, a wry look on her face. “Sorry to burst your bubble,” she apologized, sounding genuine. “Were you not telling him for a reason?” She asked, and Suguru blinked, feeling off kilter.
“No, no,” he started, still lost over the fact that... Satoru had told Shoko. He’d never questioned it when, after the first few times they’d met up together on the roof, she’d pressed a pack of sevens in his hands and asked for him to not be a jackass in return. “He just doesn’t like smoke, so I figured he didn’t need to be involved.” He’d told her she needed better standards, and took the pack.
“...Huh,” Shoko hummed, blunt, and breathed in another drag. They turned back into the breeze, cool when it ruffled their hair, and eventually fell back into their usual small conversation in the time they had left before the next class would start.
While they talked, it nagged on him. How on earth had Satoru known? A few months ago they’d still been a little more like frenemies than the close they were now- granted, a few months ago had been decidedly far removed from their first year of knowing each other, and constantly winding up in a scrap of some kind.
But how on earth…? Suguru stared up at the clouds as they rolled overhead, listening with half an ear as Shoko told a story about her old school (because Shoko’s stories were wild on a good day and entertaining as all hell on a bad), and thinking with the other.
Internally, he felt the want to furrow his brows when he realized that he’d never quite asked Satoru his opinions on smoking in the first place. Racking his brain proved no off-hand mentions in conversations from Satoru’s own mouth, or any written statements. He’d just...decided. Knew, maybe, was a better word. Suguru had simply woken up one day with the thought that Gojo Satoru disliked cigarette smoke, and gone about his life like he hadn’t magically manifested information he couldn’t have known.
He was still thinking about it after he’d washed the taste of tobacco from his mouth, and gone back to class to start on classical literature, Satoru already almost asleep in the desk beside his own.
It didn’t make any sense- but, the longer he thought, the more he realized it was a common occurrence. He’d never told Satoru what his favourite dinner was, but he’d still somehow guessed, or known, that Suguru liked fish of any kind. Satoru had never told him about his sweet tooth, or about his particular dislike of white chocolate and matcha kit kats, and yet, Suguru still knew with certainty he did.
Sat at his desk, staring down at the book they were reading for class that week and brain absorbing absolutely none of the lecture around him, Suguru couldn’t stop finding little coincidences.
He’d known Satoru had come from a plucky, shitty family- just had, no substance to it whatsoever.
Satoru had looked at him one afternoon they’d spent not studying, squinted, and both unprompted and undiscussed, rambled that when Suguru decided to get tattoos, he should think about dragonflies.
He’d never needed to ask to know that Satoru’s hair was natural as it was, that his eyes worked fine, and that the glasses were mostly for blue light and sun sensitivity.
Satoru had never been surprised at any of his interests, had seemed like he'd expected the things he’d normally need to have learned but in hindsight, had simply known.
Silently, eyes stuck and fixated on the wobbly kanji on the page below him that was at least five behind the class, he delicately set his head in his hands, elbows sharp where they sat on the desk. Snacks, dates, birthmarks, even school subjects- they’d never once discussed them. They’d all just...shown up. Suguru blinked down at his book, and slid his eyes over to where Satoru was smushed against the top of his desk.
There was a thin line of drool on his bottom lip, his glasses laying crookedly on his face from being pressed into the wood at an odd angle; he was snoozing away, because he thought literature was boring and preferred numbers over words, despite being a bit of an academic slob. Without having to think about it, Suguru knew he didn’t usually drool in his sleep.
He looked back down at his own desk, swallowed the sudden clammy feeling down with the burn in his throat, and tried his best not to explode where he sat.
It only got worse the following week.
Once Suguru was aware of it, it never ended. Now, he saw every single instance where one of those miraculous coincidences would happen, and need to take a minute to tear his hair out for it.
He was going insane, he’d thought, walking home to the train with Satoru stepping on the sidewalk bricks laying in individual directions besides him. It was an action he knew his idiot had done since he was just a little kid, despite not having met Satoru until they’d been teenagers- though still did now, because there was no one around so concerned about appearances to reprimand him for it. Satoru always went for the sideways ones, because they were ‘more difficult not to fall on.’ He’d never directly said any of it, before.
Suguru stared up at the clouds, and prayed for perhaps the first time in his life, that he wasn’t losing his mind.
“Geeze, Suguru. You’ve got eyebags worse than Ieri,” Satoru muttered, way too close to his face and in perfect pinching distance. Suguru felt his eye twitch. Stiffly, he reached up until he could poke Satoru’s cheek with the but of his pencil eraser, and then slowly pushed him away. His throat burned, and his eyes felt red. He’d lost count of how many times bile had bubbled up his throat this morning alone.
“Satoru. I’m gonna kill you,” he promised. The words were a little raspy.
“No wonder you have no boyfriend,” Satoru said, perfectly deadpan, and Suguru had the distinct thought that he’d never told his lanky prince charming he was gay.
With a thunk, he let his head fall to the desk and open workbooks below him, hair spilling over his shoulders. Suguru heard his pencil fall to the floor with a clatter. A hand patted his shoulder in sympathy, and with a terse grip, he snagged the wrist it belonged to before it could leave. When he opened his mouth, the only thing that came out was a pitiable gurgle, and he could feel the expression of careful disdain that hid away real sympathy on Satoru’s face more than he could see it.
“I think you need a break. Drinks?” Satoru offered, and Suguru made another unintelligible noise when the wrist in his grasp slid up to become a palm instead. “I’ll take that as a ‘drinks,’” Satoru hummed, far, far too cheerful, and Suguru peeled himself off the desk to get up when he was tugged.
He was talked at more than with as they walked out of their study period, the sticky heat of the humid summer rolling through clinging his clothes to his skin in a way that was just about unbearable. Vaguely, as Satoru rambled on about Digimon, he thought, he wondered how he was standing it. Satoru just about died when something was slightly uncomfortable enough on his senses to be icky in any way shape or form. He nearly missed the last stair step, and wondered how in the hell he knew that about his best friend. He couldn’t remember Satoru ever mentioning that he hated clothing tags dragging on his skin, before. So why did Suguru undeniably know?
“-so I said, ‘you’re just a poser,’ which obviously riled him up, which was great, because then he was just going to make a bigger scene, and- Suguru, when the hell was the last time you slept?” Satoru said, interrupting himself as Suguru swayed his way to the vending machine, leaning into the hands that found their places on his back and shoulder.
“Dunno,” he mumbled, and it was true. He’d spent all week cultivating his luxury eyebags, tossing and turning and unable to stop thinking for more than a few minutes at a time. He’d begged his mother for a melatonin three nights in a row, but after a particular stint of his in middle school, she'd only narrowed her eyes and pointed him to the pantry for a snack every time he asked instead.
When he’d turned helplessly to his dad, the jerk had only shrugged, muttering something about how pills weren’t always a solution behind his book.
Useless adults. The lot of them.
“Just- sit down, then. I’ll get us drinks, kay?” Satoru hummed, the words floating in one ear and out the other, and settling against the brick floor that was blessedly cool in the shade, Suguru wished desperately for a cigarette. He was going to get lung cancer and die, but it’d be worth it.
“You actually look like shit,” Satoru chattered above him, and Suguru rubbed at his temples where a headache was starting, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
“Thank you, captain obvious,” he muttered sullenly, and some of his pissy-ness deflated when a foot gently tapped his side for the simple gesture that it could. Closing his eyes, Suguru tried to keep his spiraling thoughts from wondering about that, too.
After the brief clang of falling bottles, the shadows in front of him shifted enough that Suguru opened his eyes, curious. In front of him, Satoru was crouched down on his feet, holding out a bottle of his favourite flavored milk with a sympathetic look.
“You really do look terrible,” he quietly said, holding the drink out, and Suguru tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear as he took the offered item. He hadn’t even bothered to put his hair properly up today- instead leaving it halfway down in his rush to wake up even a little bit later.
“Thanks,” he murmured, the bottle cool in his over-warm hands, and simply pressed it to his cheek for a moment before going to unscrew the cap. As Satoru stood, the brand logo caught his eye, and Suguru froze. Hand skating along the side of the vending machine, he wobbly picked himself up to something standing, staring down at bright colors of kanji in complete and utter disbelief.
This was one of the only brands of flavored milk he could drink that didn’t royally mess with his acid reflux. Satoru had said he’d looked sick, when they’d met up at their train stop. Satoru had always gotten him this particular milk, whenever he bought drinks, and he thought Suguru looked sick. The first time they’d found this vending machine, Satoru had bought first.
Suguru was going to lose his mind.
Irrationally, and probably from the lack of genuine rest over the last week, he felt himself bristle with anger, and couldn’t help it when the churning slosh of it overflowed its pot. Beside him, Satoru pushed off the vending machine to drop his own bottle in the trash can a few paces away, and Suguru lost it.
How on earth were these things happening? It didn’t make any sense- Satoru knew just anything, Suguru knew things he couldn’t, the world wasn’t tilted right and nothing was making any sense.
Fueled by mindless rage, he chucked the bottle as hard as it would go in the direction of Satoru’s head, fully expecting it to- not make contact. To splash against- nothing, nothing at all, and only get Satoru’s pretty-eyed attention.
Instead, it hit the back of one white head with a hollow clunk, and as the halfway undone cap popped off, white the same color as the head it had slammed into splashed all over the pressed uniform below.
Satrou jerked, freezing where he’d stopped mid stride, and Suguru watched in a curdling mixture of frustration, confusion, and horror, as the sticky liquid dripped from his sodden hair to splash onto the brick below.
Slowly, Satoru turned around, an expression of wide eyed disbelief on his pretty, slack jawed face. “You...you just threw milk at me,” he said, weirdly emotionless. Suguru felt his muscles lock, and had the wherewithal to at least think ‘oh, that’s not good.’
“Why did you just throw milk at me,” Satoru said again, the words having picked up in intensity, and Suguru could feel the confusion and hurt like it was his own; he opened his mouth, the twisting, gnarled frustration still heating his guts like a furnace.
“I- I thought it wouldn’t- I don’t-” He sucked in a breath that rattled for all the wrong reasons, and felt his fists ball at his sides.
“You bought me milk. Why’d you get me this flavor?” He demanded, only a little below a shout, and with white dripping from his equally colorless hair into his eyes and down his slim nose, Satoru stared at him in shock.
“It...doesn’t bother your acid reflux, much,” Satoru stumbled, eyes wide, brows drawn, and entirely bewildered as the hurt melted away into plain confusion, like Suguru was nuts and not everything else. Suguru felt his heart lurch to a stop. He was going to be so dizzy when he wasn’t currently losing his mind. God, there was already bile inching up his throat. For a second, he wished fervently that he’d drank the damn thing instead of thrown it.
“How the fuck did even you know I have that?” He yelled, entirely at his wits end and not a clue how to find his way back to sanity, because this was nuts, it was beyond fucking nuts- and Satoru blinked, eyes still wide, but like he thought it was obvious.
“You’re you,” he said, entirely disbelievingly, and Suguru was going to have a stroke.
“I never told you that, dipshit,” he hissed, swallowing down the burn. “I never said it once.”
Satoru finally fumbled, still dripping with the beverage he’d bought and likely getting stickier by the minute. “You…” He trailed off, blinking rapidly as he seemed to try to think about it, and Suguru watched the dawning confusion on his face very rapidly turn into the same dumbstruck blankness that he’d been suffering for a week. “Oh, my fucking god,” Satoru mumbled, and Suguru resisted the urge to tear out his hair.
“How did you know, Gojo?” He spit, a little harsher than necessary, but feeling vindictive that Satoru was finally getting a taste of what he’d been eating by the spoonful all week.
“Hey-” Satoru protested, only to cut off as his face rapidly pinkened, turning a blushy red for no apparent reason. Suguru made a face, and Satoru scowled, scuffing his foot as he shuffled closer so they could speak quieter.
“You’re gonna be so weirded out,” he said, the words meek but his face meeker, and Suguru squinted his eyes in something like derision as he watched Satoru tug nervously at his knuckles.
“What, did you stalk my mom’s facebook or something?” He asked, desperate for any kind of answer. He didn’t think he’d even care, at the moment. If Satoru was some high profile stalker somehow, then fuck, at least he’d have one side of the missing equation.
“No. Uh. More like. Uhm,” Satoru mumbled in stutters and a slew of nervous gestures, trailing off with a slurry of words too fast and too low to hear. Suguru squinted, leaning forwards, and swallowed past the combined scent of bile and milk.
“What?” He pressed, the question sharp. Satoru inhaled a breath, eyes staring skyward, and looking very much indeed like he was psyching himself up for something. Suguru wondered if he really had stalked his mom’s facebook. She posted all sorts of shit on there, he knew. Most of it was probably embarrassing enough to kill a man.
“I may or may not have grown up- dreamingaboutsomeonethatwas, maybe, probably, you,” Satoru spilled, the words rushing together as he squeezed his eyes shut and spit them out. Suguru stared at him for a long moment, feeling more tired than he thought he ever had, and only blinked when Satoru peeked one eye open.
“So you. You used to…” He trailed off, squinting. Suguru had been right; he was getting dizzy. Unsurely raising a pointed finger, he said, “you used to have dreams.”
“Yeah,” Satoru nodded, still flushed as red as a fire truck.
“About someone that was...maybe, probably, me?” He asked, sure he was going to wake up any minute and reality would make sense, again.
“Yup,” Satoru confirmed, the word nearly a squeak if not for his lower register- well, lower in comparison to anyone who hadn’t hit puberty yet- and his flush only turned more magenta. Suguru blinked, opened his mouth, shut it again, and slid back down to sit against the vending machine. After a moment of hesitation, Satoru followed him, his uniform squelching wetly in its shoulders when he sat.
“...So we’re both just insane, amazing,” Suguru mumbled, head beginning to well and truly pound. Beside him, Satoru turned his head in surprise, the motion faster than it should have been, and Suguru could just picture how wide his sky-like eyes were.
“Both?” He said, sounding much more invested than either of them really probably should have been. Suguru picked his head up, leaning it against the metal behind them, and slid his eyes over to where his best friend sat.
“...You do things. I know things. Stuff we really couldn’t,” he explained. “Like you just...know something, without knowing how.” He watched as Satoru’s eyes carefully widened, surprised, the longer he thought about it. Suguru closed his own, leaning his head back. “I know you don’t like smoke. I dunno how. But I know you don’t. You gave me hair-ties last week, even though I’ve never broken one when you’re around.”
“Oh,” was the quiet reaction he was given. He huffed, too tired to snort. Oh was right. “...Shit.” There was a ringing thunk beside him, and Suguru smiled at the thought of Satoru banging his head on the metal of the machine.
“Yeah, shit,” he smiled, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a shoe nudge his own. They fell silent for a long moment, hearing the faint sounds echoing down the hall of moving students and chatter and hundreds of footsteps. Suguru winced, knowing they were officially now missing class. His throat hurt, though, his head was pounding, and Satoru was covered in milk. They had bigger problems.
Speaking of.
“I’m...really sorry I threw milk at you,” he muttered, cracking an eye open to glance at Satoru. “I thought it would...bounce?” He questioned more than said, and Satoru gave him an incredulous look.
“You thought it would bounce?” He repeated, a smile tugging on his lips, and helplessly, Suguru shrugged. Satoru’s face split into a ridiculous smile, and he covered his eyes with his hands, skin sticky and still looking wet. “We are so fucking stupid,” he giggled, and Suguru lightly shoved him.
“We?” He asked, light with the new comfort of having Satoru drowning in the insanity with him, rather than standing aside unaware, and got a snort.
“I’ve done that before,” Satoru said, looking up with a hesitant, sheepish smile, pulling his hands away from his skin and taking some of the milk with them. Suguru almost blanched, leaning forwards in disbelief.
“You have?” He asked, beyond shocked, and Satoru’s face scrunched with the thought of old memories, though the smile never left.
“Yeah? When I was younger, I’d do shit all the time like spill things, and then not understand why I’d get messy.” Suguru dropped his face into his hands, and let his shoulders shake as he laughed, wheezing like an idiot and only honking harder when Satoru inhaled some of the milk dripping down his face.
“Satoru,” he started, when he could breathe again, “let's go home.” Blue eyes only looked at him in relief, soggy white hair nodding in agreement beside him, and tired smile inviting in a way that only decades of familiarity could make it.
“Yeah. I’ll text Shoko to get our stuff. Just say you got sick, or something.” Suguru leaned back, offended.
“I’m the one who’s sick?” He mockingly protested as Satoru stood up with the pop of a few joints, pulling his fancy new flip phone from his pocket, and only got a pointy-toothed grin.
“Yeah, sickboy. You look like shit, remember?” He teased, and Suguru stuck his tongue out in response when Satoru held his hands out to grab, gladly holding on to be pulled up to his feet. “Don’t pass out on me,” Satoru joked, and Suguru rolled his eyes, but accepted the partially wet arm around his shoulders anyway.
“Sure,” he agreed, “but only if we can go to my house. I want to shower, and you need to shower.” He smiled, feeling his brows crimp with genuine joy as Satoru barked out a laugh.
“And who’s fault is that?” He demanded, and Suguru answered, “everyone’s but mine.”
Shoko gave them their bags a long handful of minutes later, raised a brow, and told them in not so many words that everyone on the train was going to stare at them.
She was right. They did. Suguru still didn’t regret it, even when Satoru smeared one sticky hand over his cheek so he wouldn’t miss out on the ‘fun’ either.