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01.
I glow pink in the night in my room
I've been blossoming alone over you
Sunset pours in between half-drawn curtains, fireflies starting to communicate in the distance. One flashes, another responds; they dance together in their respective languages, tied by nature and fate.
Satoru is curled atop his bed watching the outside world through slivers of screen doors, awaiting Suguru’s return from a mission. As they grew stronger they were given more solo duties, the strongest duo becoming nothing but a previous title, their time together stripped away even more than usual.
Suguru was scouted and taken from the countryside, skin kissed like honey with freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, scattered in constellations under his eyes and up to his temple. His hair fell, smooth obsidian strands, past his shoulders with bangs that stuck to his forehead on hot days, ones he slicked back and hid when he’d get caught in the rain, ones that tangled with Satoru’s own when he’d go to find solace in the other boy after long days, the only company he desired.
Today wasn’t one of those long days. He did some training, read magazines that were laying around, but nothing too tiring. If he’s being honest, the only thing on his mind has been Suguru’s arrival -- it’s hardly been a day, a day no different from all the others where they were separate, but something deep in Satoru felt empty , like something was missing. Where his restraint should’ve been, perhaps, because every time he addressed this digging feeling it was Suguru’s face that came with it, the idea of running his fingers through Suguru’s hair, letting his hands trace collarbones and down the muscles on his back, and to say he was excited, giddy like a child with every passing minute was an understatement. He was burning, taking with him the camellia that had been driven through his heart.
It began raining.
No message from Suguru.
Satoru assumed that he won’t be able to ramble about nonsense tonight, that he wouldn’t have the luxury of time alone with Suguru where curses, where other sorcerers and the world itself couldn’t reach them. It’s only one night, he thought, it’s not that big of a deal , but he wanted Suguru now, not later, not tomorrow. The lack of communication from the other side left his chest feeling heavy, with it his eyes, but he fought the urge to drift away, focusing on the fireflies, now sheltered at the bushes outside the sliding doors, a slight awning blocking the rain. How lucky they are, to be together, to be carefree despite being bound to something so much greater than they are. A creature so small in the grand scheme of the universe held overwhelming significance to Satoru tonight, it drilled it’s way into the forefront of his mind, and he dreamt of what it would be like to one of those fireflies, eternally dancing the night away with their loves.
02.
And I hear my heart breaking tonight
I hear my heart breaking tonight
Do you hear it too?
After five days of radio silence, the news Satoru wanted the least greeted his ears.
The village Suguru was assigned to had been massacred. Over a hundred civilians, residuals matching that of a certain curse manipulator. Childhood home, splattered and empty. Murderer on the run.
He’s gone rogue.
There’s no way…there’s no fucking way he did! Not Suguru…anyone but Suguru.
He imagined the sight of hands stained one of his favorite colors, that of the lollipops he sucked on and the strawberries they picked out at the summer market. Splattered on Suguru’s skin like an abstract painting, dripping down his cheek, following the jawline Satoru always wanted to run his finger along. Everything is racing through Satoru’s head at once, feelings of betrayal muddying the desire that panged against his chest just a few nights prior. Emptiness ravaged his soul, like half his heart was missing.
Shoko calls. He’s in Shinjuku.
Satoru runs.
His sunglasses are secured in his back pocket, phone in another, and his eyes hurt but he’s running like his life depends on it. He could warp, he knows, he’s gotten it down for the most part, but nothing about his current state was stable enough to handle that, let alone be accurate. So he’s running, running the way he does away from curses, like the way he’d chase after dragonflies when he was a kid, like the way he runs to avoid Suguru’s attempts to tackle him after out of line jokes, after his usual actions that made him a menace. The way he ran , because there won’t be another time like that, not anymore.
He’s in front of restaurants on an avenue, he’s been here before but everything is so hazy it feels like a dream and he can’t recall where in his memories this place is stored. The smell of teriyaki mixes with that of grease-fried chicken, the air heavy from the crowd and midday humidity. People walk around him as he stands idle, about to turn and search for Suguru until he sees that familiar obsidian hair, towering ever so slightly over a sea of unsuspecting people.
Satoru feels like his limbs are tied, he’s helpless and he’s being pulled in every direction, all leading him down a different path, yet he doesn’t move. Whatever is left of his heart wants him to run, arms wide and ready to embrace because in the days Suguru was gone he realized the desire eating away at him and he missed him so much, and if he didn’t do something now he might never get to again, but it’s not the time. Nothing about this situation could make it the right time.
Instead, he lets Suguru come to him.
Explain yourself, Suguru!
They argue. Satoru could’ve killed him, yet instead he watched him walk away.
It’s raining again.
It's like a summer shower
With every drop of rain singing
"I love you, I love you, I love you
I love you, I love you, I love you
I love you, I love you, I love you,"
03.
I could stare at your back all day
I could stare at your back all day
He remembers dawn, at a lake Suguru found during one of his nighttime walks. They had snuck out when it was still dark, in tow their phones and a rolled blanket encasing a variety of stolen snacks for a makeshift breakfast under the flowering trees. The water wasn’t too deep, but more than enough for a much-needed swim following the end of classes, summer bringing a chance to actually relax for once given there isn’t too much of a rise in curses to exorcise. Today it was just them, Suguru and Satoru, the world before their eyes.
Suguru’s legs hung over the ledge, cigarette between his fingers. He knew Satoru couldn’t handle the smoke all that well, and deliberately moved positions so the boy lying on the blanket behind him wouldn’t become a victim to the wind. This made conversation harder, with them being turned away from one another, but Satoru didn’t mind; besides, it gave him reason to stare at Suguru without the risk of being caught.
A year of missions at the school plus whatever encounters they had prior to enrollment had given each boy an assortment of scrapes and scars, some barely memorable and others seemingly permanent, areas of restored and raised skin. Beneath his shoulder blades, where his waist pulled in and parallel to his spine, scars decorated Suguru’s back of different shapes and sizes, some healed on their own and others by Shoko, reminders of the path he’s found himself down. Satoru has seen him look at his flesh in the mirror with disgust, disappointment painting his face, but Satoru saw nothing but memories woven in with those stitches, each mark an applique on the casted bronze that made Getou Suguru. Delicate, distinctive. No one could compare and Satoru just stared, mentally mapping each line, each patch, wondering how they would feel under the tips of his fingers. Time passed, a cigarette growing dangerously shorter, and if it was up to him he’d stay like this until the sun had fully rose until Suguru’s skin could be dripping as sticky and golden as the peach Satoru started to puncture his way through, juice coating the palms of his hands. Opening it up, split down the middle, a half handed off without a word.
They often found themselves like this, communicating in even the heaviest of silence. Not a sound, not a touch -- they understood each other in ways that were invisible to outsiders, like there was a string tied to their fingers sending signals back and forth. Words weren’t necessary when just company was enough.
And I know I've kissed you before, but
I didn't do it right
Another memory flashes of a late night, the room illuminated only by the tv screen, some variety show with people making a fool of themselves.
“You could offer me all the money in the world, and I would never go on one of these shows.” Suguru never peeled his eyes away from the entertainment, a tone of disbelief with his words.
“Oh, come on, don’t you think it would be fun?”
“Not in a million years.”
“Ugh, you’re such a buzzkill, Suguru.”
“Woah, sorry for having a sense of dignity. Maybe I just don’t like the risk of my ass being out on television.”
“What a shame. I wouldn’t mind seeing that.” Satoru winked, taking a sip of the rich alcohol Suguru had come over with.
“I hate you.”
“Enough to turn down a game of truth or dare?” He bit on the tip of his tongue, holding back the devilish grin that he felt wanting to emerge.
Suguru sighed. “Yes, but also no, only because I want to see you make a fool of yourself.”
“Oh, you’re on, Suguru.”
The night ensued with all the ways they could possibly embarrass each other, from Satoru’s truth of which of the curses they’ve fought would he have a one-night stand with, to Suguru’s dare of seeing how many caramel candies he could fit in his mouth at once. They drank, messily, dark liquid spilling onto the carpet and dizzying their heads, the world spinning when Suguru made some snide comment that ended up with them wrestling on the floor. Suguru was laughing too hard to put his all into it and laid beneath Satoru, straddled on his lap and he looked up at crystalline eyes dripping with an emotion he couldn’t pinpoint as he asked, “Truth or dare?”
“Let’s switch things up. Dare.”
“Alright. I dare you to kiss me.”
Satoru laughed, shaking his whole body and the one underneath him. “Child’s play, Suguru! If you wanted to kiss the great Gojo Satoru so badly you could’ve just asked.”
“I just did.”
Satoru felt his heart stop, and he couldn’t tell if it was the intoxication hitting or realization, because looking down at Suguru with his cheeks reddened, hair undone and lips slightly parted, the sight of his tongue running across his canines, a little voice in Satoru’s head said Oh, shit.
I really want to kiss him.
So he did, and what was meant to be a series of pecks turned into hesitation, the feeling of hot breaths exchanging, then something only a result of them both being so starved for a touch like this, Suguru nearly licking Satoru’s top lip for permission to let their tongues dance within each other, sloppy and charged with something resonating deep inside the both of them. Before he knew it, Satoru was being flipped and now Suguru was the one on top of him, continuing to kiss each other like the world as they knew it would crumble the second they stopped.
Satoru couldn’t remember what came next. He remembers the touch of skin under the pads of his fingers, he remembers hands drifting to the waistband of his pants, but everything after that first kiss was blurry, perhaps from the alcohol, or from the euphoria that came with Suguru’s touch.
All he knows is that they woke up the next morning barely dressed under the same bedsheets, heads heavy and the stain in the carpet never cleaned. This night was never brought up again.
04.
Can I try again, try again, try again
Christmas Eve, 2017.
Suguru had declared war, him and his group, his family, against jujutsu society. One attack in Tokyo, another in Kyoto. His plans to obtain the queen of curses, Rika, squashed by the boy who gave himself wholly to her, an act of pure love.
When Satoru found him in the alleyway, he was inches from death’s door; right arm missing, and too weak to stand.
“You finally made it, Satoru.”
Banter, like always. Since the moment he saw Suguru’s face again, since he sensed his energy, there had been a weight placed into Satoru’s shoulders. He’d fight, of course; it was what he was born for, what he’s trained for, what his duty as a jujutsu sorcerer was. Suguru had been the one to show him that, even if his efforts over the last ten years said otherwise. Despite the burden, Satoru would do what he needed to do. Besides, he was the strongest.
Suguru said he had no regrets, though his face said something else.
He said that this world wasn’t one where he could laugh from the bottom of his heart.
Satoru didn’t want to believe it, but after all, he still trusted him.
“Suguru.”
…
“I think I loved you.”
Shock, and then a laugh. The kind that came from the depths of Suguru’s body, lips twitching upward in a smile and eyebrows turning in, a sign that he was being genuine.
“At least curse me a little at the end.”
…
“To be fair, Satoru…I think I did, too.”
A nipping breeze made its way through the alley, chilling Satoru to his bones even more than Suguru’s words did.
This was everything he wanted. To love and to be loved, amidst the bloodshed that came with being a jujutsu sorcerer, to have someone to come home to. It’s everything he could’ve had if the world hadn’t failed them, if fate had been on their side. The way they laughed, the way they chased each other across campus, the way they understood each other without even a word. In some form, they were already like those fireflies, the ones Satoru watched and yearned to become. He just wishes they could’ve had a bit longer, just even an inkling more of time.
He broke the silence, knowing what he needed to say just to make these last moments real, to make them worthwhile. “Hey. Truth or dare.” Before the man on the floor could answer, Satoru was already making strides over to where he sat.
Suguru smiled. “Dare.”
Satoru crouched down, their faces just as close as it was on that drunken night. “I dare you to kiss me.”
Another laugh. “Y’know, Satoru,” Suguru had reached out and started messing with the other’s bangs, drying blood webbed through the platinum strands. “If you wanted the legendary Getou Suguru to kiss you so badly in these last few years, you could’ve just asked.” He struggled to get the last words out without a chuckle to follow them up, a real grin plastered on his face, not the type he put on for his acts, the fake ones he shot at his enemies. The toothy kind, Satoru’s favorite.
He returned the smile. It was contagious, and for the first time in ten years, even if it was just for this moment, his heart felt whole again. “I just did.”
He leaned in, then a pause, and in a near whisper he said, “Idiot.” before closing the distance, a spark that wasn’t there the first time, and a spark that will never be there again.
It was a soft kiss. There was no rushing, no hunger. It was deep and though he wasn’t the one dying, Satoru felt like his life was flashing before his eyes — or rather, their life was flashing before his eyes. Three years of memories that he savored, the way he would always savor this kiss, three years pouring out from his soul and into Suguru’s, three years he was eternally grateful for, even if it meant he’d never be that happy again.
He didn’t even realize the tears coming from his eyes until he felt Suguru’s remaining hand wiping them away, holding his face in the process. When he pulled away their lips were still dusting against one another, his own were trembling and it was then he noticed the streaks under Suguru’s eyes, they had both been crying and
it hurts. it hurts so much.
“I’m tired, Satoru.”
fuck. no, it hurts. i love him.
“You came here for a reason, didn’t you?”
“I love you, Suguru.”
“I know. I love you, too.”
i’m sorry.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. All in due time. This is where destiny led us.”
it could’ve been different. we could’ve been happy.
“I know.”
Cursed energy swirled to his fingertips, the same ones that had so delicately wanted to trace circles on Suguru’s skin forever, desire warping into destruction.
He doesn’t even remember it happening. One second Suguru was alive, and the next he wasn’t. There was blood, there were tears, and Satoru didn’t know which of it was his and which of it belonged to a dead man. He wrapped new bandages around his eyes, head pounding, and left the scene for cleanup. No one noticed how his hands were shaking, the lump in his throat. He wanted to go somewhere far away and scream, a scream so loud that reached the Kyoto branch, that reached the Gojo estate, that reached the countryside, that reached Suguru, wherever he may be.
He warped. Impulsively, in the middle of all the commotion — he just needed to be alone. The place felt familiar, trees alongside a small cliff, bare with leaves limp on a slushy winter path, descending down to a frozen-over waterway. A lake, deep enough for a swim. A ledge, perfect to have a smoke on.
He screamed. The entire depths of his soul shook his body down to each of his fingers and his toes, his legs giving out and collapsing him to the ground. As much as he wanted to cry, nothing came out other than pained shouts, rasping his voice and in the end, he found himself holding his chest to his knees, in comfort and in safety. The burden that was on his shoulders was gone and had been replaced with a paperweight in his chest, a sad excuse of a replacement for the half of his heart that was forever gone.
He could only hope to get the world on his side some other day, perhaps when it was his time to go, and ask if it would be so kind to let him find Suguru in his next life, to let them have their happy ending. No jujutsu sorcery, no blood being spilled by their hands. Just a life together, where they could watch the sunset over glasses of strawberry lemonade, where they could run around in the first snow of the season and catch fireflies in jars, and never have the fear of letting go, because Suguru would always be there to catch Satoru, and Satoru would always catch Suguru until it was time for them to turn to dust again, leaving behind a lifetime of kisses, bouquets worth, blossoming together.
Try again, and again, and again
And again, and again, and again