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Geto Suguru has asymmetrical calluses on his hands, right by the creases of his first knuckles, where the meaty skin on his palm gives way to boney fingers. Shoko realizes this one, late Saturday afternoon when he offers out his bloody palms to her, tiny, broken pieces of glass embedded into his skin.
She asks, “What happened?”
Geto’s in pain. He isn’t saying he is, but his lips are puckered, and his typically sardonic expression is flustered, his skin grooving between his furrowed brows.
“We were wrestling,” he begins to explain, as Shoko cups the bottom of his hands with her gloved counterparts. “And I lost my balance and broke one of the dorm’s sliding doors.”
Shoko raises a brow. She had thought they were more sturdy.
“You broke a door?”
Geto frowns, “We broke a door. Yaga yelled at us both.”
Gently, she starts to pry the pieces of glass from his palms with a tweezer oozing her energy. He winces but stays still.
“Where’s Gojo then?”
Pluck.
“Who knows.”
“Oh boy,” Shoko half whistles. “You’re mad at him?”
Pluck.
Geto winces with that one, Shoko feels his hand twitch.
“I’m not, I just don’t know where he’s at.”
“Sure, sure.”
“I’m not mad.”
There’s a small shard sunk into one of his callouses, the faintest refraction of light giving it away when she bends his hand to look closer. Shoko struggles with it for a moment, the tweezers ending up slipping and nipping at the swirls of roughened skin.
“Jeez,” Geto huffs.
Shoko doesn’t even turn her head to look at him.
“Jeez,” she mimics. “Sure is nice of me to take time from my day off to take out pieces of glass from my friend’s hand.”
She knows he’s going to say something aggravating before he even opens his mouth with the way he leers at her. His eyes have always been like that—telling in the way the thin skin of his eyelids kiss as he shuts his eyes in laughter, and exposing when he's exasperated, crystallizing into something unyielding and ragged.
“Aw, Shoko,” he teases. “You think of me as a frien— ow, shit, okay, I’m sorry.”
She lets go of the skin she pinched with the tweezers.
“For real though,” she continues, curious more than anything. “Why isn’t Gojo here? He’s usually up your ass if you’re hurt.”
Geto purses his lips and moves his left hand once Shoko’s done with the extraction. He clenches it into a fist and lets it go.
“He said it was my fault we broke the door when Yaga blamed us both.”
“Okay?”
He looks at her, annoyed.
“Okay?” he parrots. “He kept trying to blame it on me, said I should have watched where I landed. He didn’t even care.”
“He didn’t care that you got glass in your hands?”
There’s a pause.
“I might not have told him.”
Shoko pauses, sitting back in her rolling chair.
“Okay,” she says, doubtful. “Let me rephrase that. Gojo didn’t notice you got glass in your hands?”
Suguru’s expression doesn’t falter, but he does look away.
“I hid it.”
Shoko groans.
“Don’t,” he drones. “I was just mad he got so defensive, I didn’t want to feel more stupid.”
“I mean—”
“Shoko.”
She scoots closer again, gingerly starting to pry out one of the last few pieces on his right hand.
“Fine,” she concedes, but not before tacking on, “I’m just saying, you’re both dumb. If he knew you got hurt maybe he wouldn’t have been such an asshole.”
They both consider it as she pulls out the last piece.
“Nevermind,” she amends. “I think he would have been an ass regardless.”
Geto snorts.
They’re running late.
Shoko flips open her phone to check the time and swishes the softening lollipop stick in her mouth to the left. She’s standing outside of a convenience store, tucked away against the glass wall plastered with advertisements. Gojo had insisted on stopping to get some snacks before the long train ride back, despite the fact that the three of them were already running late from the mission they were returning from. Geto had even brought up the fact that they were holding onto a literal, dangerous cursed object, but Gojo was determined.
She’s about to send them a text when the door chimes and Geto steps out, outright frowning. When he notices her he goes to stand by her, leaning against the glass beside her. At least she hadn’t put her shoe against it, the way he is.
“Where’s Gojo?”
Suguru shrugs, “Talking to some girls.”
Shoko eyes him.
He doesn’t follow up with anything, doesn’t ask Shoko anything, or offer her a piece of the candy bar he rummages through the plastic bag hanging off his wrist for. But Shoko catches a glimpse of the other sweets in the bag and notes that most of them were stuff Gojo enjoys, exuberant flavors far from the simple vanilla, chocolate, and mint Geto prefers.
“He knows we’re late, right?” Geto blurts. His lips pursed the way they do when he’s upset, the skin by his chin creasing.
Shoko nods and shifts her weight onto her left foot, and then right.
Geto’s about to say something else, but then the door chimes again, and Gojo’s voice mid-conversation steps out. Shoko peers past Geto, who has pointedly not turned to look. He’s talking to two girls, both in a high school uniform Shoko can’t hope to recognize what school they belong to. One of them offers her phone out to him, which Shoko actually finds to be surprisingly bold for her outward demeanor towards Gojo, batting her eyes and brushing her hair back behind her ear. Gojo smiles, quickly taps what Shoko assumes is his number, and then waves goodbye.
He walks up to Shoko and Geto with his hands shoved in his pockets.
“Alright, let’s go,” he brazenly declares. “Thanks for getting my stuff, Suguru.”
Geto clicks his tongue against his teeth. Shoko sighs.
“We’re late. We’re really late.”
Gojo rolls his head towards Geto, “It’s fine. It’s not that bad.”
Geto isn’t having it.
“What if we miss the train?”
Gojo huffs, “Then we get the next one? Chill out, I only took a few minutes. You’re making us later now.”
“No,” Geto says slowly. “I’m not.”
Gojo turns to face him and leans towards him, hands still in his pockets.
“Yeah? Who’s holding us up right now?”
“Alright,” Shoko announces, pushing herself off the glass. “I’m leaving.”
They barely make it in time, the sliding train doors nearly closing on Gojo’s leg as they hopped in. The direction the train is heading in, coupled with the buildings and power lines flying by outside, has the late afternoon sun drape over them in sequences, Shoko’s knees warmed by molten amber one second, then cooled by shade the next. They don’t touch any of the junk food they bought on the train ride. When Shoko takes the bag from Geto’s side, because of course, she had to sit in the middle of them as an existing neutral territory, there’s nothing she likes.
“You both have shitty taste.”
Gojo snags the bag from her, “Then don’t eat our stuff.”
Later, once they cross the final gate into their campus, Gojo whacks his elbow against one of Geto’s.
“Want to watch a movie tonight? We can eat the snacks.”
Geto waves him off, “I’m doing laundry tonight.”
Before either can reply, he turns and leaves. Shoko and Gojo both watch him walk away, Gojo stretching back the moment his figure disappears into the dormitories, grunting as he ruffles his own hair.
“Did I do something?”
Shoko shrugs, “You figure it out. I have to do laundry, too.”
He gawks over the rim of his glasses, and groans.
“Shoko,” he whines. “Who am I supposed to hang out with? Nanami? ”
“Please,” she replies, reaching to loop a strand of her hair around her index finger. “As if he’d hang out with you.”
She doesn’t stick around to see what he says, but she does receive a text message later eloquently only including: :(( nanami said no.
“Is that Satoru?” Geto asks next to her as he finishes emptying his knapsack of dirty clothes into one of the washing machines’ hungry mouths. Shoko nods and slides the phone back into her pocket, grimacing when she feels her fingers rub against one another, the detergent she spilled earlier having left behind a sticky residue she’s been unable to wipe off well.
“He hasn’t texted me.”
The spearmint gum she started chewing by her dorm before walking over is losing its flavor. Shoko tries to blow a bubble, but it pops before it’s even pea-sized.
“It’s only been a few hours,” she says, smacking her lips. “Just go talk to him after this.”
“I already said I wouldn’t watch a movie with him.”
She decides it's about time to throw out the stale gum and walks across the row of laundry machines to a garbage can by the door and spits it out. It catches on the folds of the trash bag.
“As if that matters.”
Geto frowns and turns away to finish, pouring out the detergent and closing the contraption shut. He steps over to sit on one of the blue plastic seats all connected by a cool metal bar underneath, Shoko following to sit one seat over. The sounds of their respective washing machines whirling are muted in the long room, muffled by the sheer distance between the seating benches and the parallel rows of washers and dryers.
Shoko’s never understood why they have so many machines. At most, she’s seen three machines used at the same time, and that’s when Gojo decides to join them. But their school was like that, filling their expansive dorms and buildings with vacancy. Geto had commented on it once, during their first year, when they each sat in the front row of class, but kept an empty desk between them, still foreign microorganisms to one another.
“What’s the point in an entire classroom?” he had asked. “There won’t ever be that many of us.”
Gojo had hiked his legs up onto his desk and leaned his weight back in his chair, the wood straining against the motion.
“You rather have class in a closet? ”
Geto’s not even talking to her right now. He’s tapping at his phone, and when Shoko leans over, she sees that he’s playing a mobile version of chess.
She rests her hands by her sides, the one by Geto flat against the cracking plastic.
“Do you really not realize why you’re in such a shit mood?”
Geto shakes his head, and strands fall over his face as he hunches over on the chair he’s sitting on, his chess pieces blinking on the small screen. The two washers whirring hiccup as they shift to the next part of their cycles. Shoko’s hand still reeks of detergent despite her drying it on a towel, she can smell it from here.
“You’re obviously jealous, it’s sort of embarrassing—”
“No, that can’t be it.”
Shoko sighs, leaning back against her seat to cross her legs.
“Just tell Gojo it bothered you. He’s probably not even into those girls.”
“No,” he repeats, quiet. “That can’t be it.”
Shoko can recognize that she’s close with both Gojo and Geto, can recognize that they have their nucleus that’s shared between them, the three either gravitating towards one another, or two and one joining afterward, like teenaged, insomniac atoms.
But this pull Geto’s experiencing is different. It’s jerky. Brittle, even.
The whirring of the washing machines continues.
“Why not?” she asks, and of all things, he cracks out a laugh, the noise swallowed up by the spin cycle. Shoko wishes she had a cigarette, Yaga would never know if she smoked in here if she cracked open the window behind them.
“C’mon,” he says, and Shoko lolls her head to the side to look at him. His mouth is tangled halfway between miserable and something adjacent to amused. “You’re supposed to be the smartest one out of us.”
She is, isn’t she.
She can hear the commotion inside of Geto’s dorm when she turns into the hall, long before she even stands in front of the door. But once she does, something thumps inside the room against it and she can make out Geto’s antagonizing voice complaining about something that sounds similar to shirt , or maybe shit. When she finally opens the door, she’s smacked in the face by a pair of shorts, and Gojo’s laughter bursts out midway in the sentence he was saying that she didn't get to hear.
Geto is staring at her, wide-eyed.
“What the hell are you two doing?” she asks, poking the shorts that are now on the ground with her shoe to make sure that they are, in fact, shorts and not boxers.
“Packing,” Gojo explains from the bedside, where he’s sitting on the floor, an open suitcase in front of him. Nothing is even folded within it, just rolled up haphazardly and wedged in to somewhat fit.
“For?” she asks, and Gojo beams.
“Suguru’s staying a weekend with me at a place my family owns in the countryside.”
“Oh?”
Geto sighs and steps over a series of shoes wrapped up in plastic bags by Gojo’s socked feet and picks up the shorts that had hit her.
“Yeah, but I’m regretting it already.”
Gojo shoots him a dirty look, “ What? I’m just saying we’re only leaving for like four days, stop packing like you’re going out for a month—”
Geto whips around so fast Shoko thinks she sees the bun on his head jiggle.
“I’m not!” he protests. “You’re just making this way more difficult than it has to be. Why are you even trying to pick out outfits for me?”
“Because,” Gojo says as he raises a finger. “I used to go there as a kid. What happens if someone recognizes me and sees my ugly friend?”
“Ugly?” Geto repeats, astonished. “These are the same clothes I wear here, Satoru. What makes them not ugly here?”
Shoko maneuvers her way around them to Geto’s bed, shuffling up to rest her back against the pillows and have her legs stretched out.
Gojo tilts his head, “Who said they weren’t?”
Shoko snorts.
It seems to remind the two that she’s very much there, and Gojo turns her attention towards her, bumping into the suitcase on the floor as he scoots over to rest his arms on the bed.
“Do you have any plans this week? You’re free, too.”
“Nah,” she says. “Just going to take the weekend off.”
Gojo turns his head to look at Geto, and Shoko can’t tell what sort of face he’s making from Geto’s receiving expression, but then Geto talks, and the mystery is solved.
“Well,” he asks. “Do you want to come with us?”
Gojo’s dumb eyes are wide and expectant when he looks back at her, and his cheek is squished up as he rests the side of his face against his arms.
“Come on, Shoko,” he whines. “Come with us. Don’t leave me alone with Suguru.”
“I should be the one asking her to not leave me alone with you,” Geto chides as he lowers himself to the ground to finish packing, taking one of the balled-up shirts in the case and unfurling it.
It honestly is an ugly shirt.
She sighs and sinks in the bed, rolling onto her side to face the two who are gazing at her expectantly.
“Sure,” she says. “I’ll go.”
The plan is to leave on Thursday morning and come back Sunday night. It’s an almost five-hour trip from their campus, and though Shoko doesn’t point it out the morning they meet up by the dormitory’s patio, Geto does bring an extra bag compared to her and Gojo’s one. She’s too groggy, yawning as she nestles into the travel pillow hugging her neck.
“I hope it’s still how I remember it,” Gojo says on the train ride over, peering out through the small oval window on his side. It isn’t spoken directly to Shoko, but she overhears all the same.
“Is it like a summer house?” Geto asks.
Gojo hums and taps a knuckle against the thick glass.
“Not really? It’s kinda small.”
“So, a small vacation house?” Geto continues, and Gojo looks away from the window as they enter a tunnel, the world outside engulfed by black with the occasional yellow light.
“It was more like a hideout.”
Geto lowers his voice, “What? ”
“Can’t wait to spend a weekend at a hideout, ” Shoko adds.
Gojo huffs, “It’s not like that. It’s a pretty secluded spot, so when I was a kid sometimes I’d be brought there. But that sorta stopped once I was like, 10.”
Shoko wonders if they should be talking about this on a train, but at least the row behind them is empty.
“What happened when you were 10?” she asks.
“I figured out most of my techniques. Didn’t need a hideout anymore.”
“Oh,” they both say.
Shoko waits to see if Geto will say anything in response, but when he doesn’t, she readjusts her neck pillow and leans her seat back the furthest it can go.
“Well,” she says. “Now that you’ve disclosed some weird childhood information, I’m going to nap.”
Gojo stares at her, “You can sleep on trains? All the bumping makes me sick.”
So that’s why Geto bought some motion sickness relief tablets earlier.
She reaches into her pocket and plucks out a small plastic container, rattling it in his direction.
“Melatonin gummies,” she explains. “Goodnight.”
“Shit, Gojo,” Shoko says. “I thought you said it was a small place.”
She can hear the shifting of loose stone as Gojo walks up to stand beside her, craning his neck up to look at where she’s staring—which isn’t much, just the triangular, dark wooden entryway that has a NO TRESPASSING sign hanging off a rusted, twisted wire from the peak.
“There’s only two bedrooms,” Gojo defends. Stone crunches again as Geto joins them, pushing Gojo between his shoulder blades.
“Don’t make it worse,” he warns, just as he urges him forward to open the door.
The first thing Shoko notices in the house is the surprisingly high ceiling, though they make sense with the triangular shape of the home and its sloped, thatched roof. As she steps in, still looking up, she notes the wooden beams strapped to the roof with layers of thick rope.
“It kinda smells,” Gojo says, and Geto hums in agreement.
They’re not wrong. It is humid. It reeks of space left for air to inhabit, of time kept away from the outside world by unopened windows and shut doors. Other than the two bedrooms and the one bathroom, there’s not much else but a dated kitchen that’s a part of the open, living room space.
“This was your hideout?” Shoko asks.
“Mhmm,” Gojo nods, just as he starts to rummage through the few tables pushed against the wall and the few boxes stacked on them. “I wonder if I can find some of my old shit.”
Shoko nods along, “Which is the larger bedroom?”
Gojo points to the door on the right, “I think that one.”
Geto catches on but opens his mouth too late.
“Dibs,” Shoko claims, and Geto groans but accepts the defeat.
They get to see the village once they’re a bit more settled in.
It’s a lovely place. Though it’s the middle of Summer, Shoko can see the far-off surrounding snow-capped mountains, their patches of white radiant in the sun. As the three follow the path alongside the main road, Gojo leading while Geto and Shoko walk alongside one another, she sees cows in the fields of grass that are stubbornly hued yellow towards the left, the bells around their neck ringing gently when they dip their heads to graze. To the right, a small stream that leads to the distant rice paddies she had caught a glimpse of when their taxi drove them in.
“There’s a bunch of tourists,” Gojo says once they reach a plaza littered with a few larger shops and some smaller stands.
“People want to get away, I guess,” Geto says, and Shoko breaks off from them to sightsee.
She comes to a stop in front of one stand, the clerk greeting her before returning to scribbling something down into a journal. There are drinks in a cooler that has cold spring water trickling in from some sort of natural refrigeration system that captures her attention, so much so that she doesn’t notice Geto joining her and reaching for one of the cooled bottled teas.
“My dad’s village had stuff like this when I visited,” he says. “I used to stick my hand in the little waterfall until my fingers hurt.”
She can see it. Can see a shorter Geto with shorter hair shoving his plump fingers into this natural contraption until his bones would ache and his skin would bloom red.
“My family is from the city,” she explains.
He knows this. They’ve talked about it before, but she says it anyway.
“Mm, my mom is, too.”
She knows this, too.
When Geto pays for his tea, the clerk tells them of a spring nearby that’s less frequented by tourists.
“If you want to feel the cold water,” he says, motioning towards the cooler, and Geto looks bashful.
When they regroup, Gojo is carrying three bags: two plastic, and one brown, wrapped into a suspicious, bottle-like shape.
“Did you get booze?” Shoko questions and he hushes her as someone walks past.
“How did you even manage?” Geto asks, and Gojo rubs at his nose.
“I have my ways,” he coos, and Geto rolls his eyes.
“You don’t even like drinking,” Shoko points out.
“But you two do. It’s fine, I got my own stuff.”
He raises the hand holding onto the plastic bags, and Shoko can see juice and a whole liter of soda in one.
“Your teeth have to be rotten.”
His lips part into a wide grin, and Shoko thinks he looks like a child. She can imagine him younger, a gap in his teeth from where he surely lost one of his baby teeth. In her mind, him and Geto would have matched.
“See,” he says. “They aren’t.”
“Still,” Geto interrupts, and Shoko is confronted with teenage Gojo once again. “Did you get actual food? You said you would.”
“I did. I got stuff to make sandwiches and some noodles.”
“Barely considered food, but alright.”
Gojo shakes the bag towards him, “Did you want vegetables or something?”
Shoko tilts her head, “Are vegetables that foreign of a concept to you?”
“I can’t stand either of you,” Gojo scolds. “After I invited you to such a nice getaway—”
Their phones all vibrate at the same time while they gather in front of the stove and sink, preparing their noodles. Shoko doesn’t look at hers, but Gojo and Geto do and telling by Geto’s concerned expression and Gojo’s frank lack of a reaction, it might be something she should be worried about.
“What’s up?”
“There’s a storm warning for today and tomorrow,” Geto explains.
“Are the storms here bad?”
Gojo shrugs and dumps his noodles into the pot they found in a closet.
“Sometimes there’s flooding but it never got bad bad.”
“It might be worse now,” Geto argues. “With climate change and everything.”
Gojo gawks at him, “Are you serious? It’s fine, we might just lose power or something. Also—”
He tears open his noodles’ seasoning packet and dumps it into a bowl, pointing to the dried scraps of what look like mushrooms and carrots.
“Look, there are vegetables in this.”
Geto grabs the bowl and tries to pour the dry seasoning into Gojo’s mouth. Shoko evades their thrashing by scooping up her noodles into her own bowl and immediately leaving the vicinity, just in time as Geto starts to snicker and Gojo starts coughing.
“What the hell, man? What am I going to put in my noodles now—”
“Starve then—”
It was only a matter of time until they lost power. Shoko could hear the primordial rumblings of a storm blowing into the village from inside the house, the trees swaying in the wind that slowly matured from a breeze to a nearly continual howling, overwhelming the quiet night. The power blinks out once while they’re crowding the television in the living room and they all stop talking in anticipation, then it flickers back on, and blinks out for good.
“The signal was shitty anyway,” Gojo says. “But what do we do now?”
“We should find candles,” Geto suggests.
“Obviously,” Gojo says, setting down his now cold food. “But what do we do after?”
Shoko pushes herself up to stand and catches a glimpse of the rain pelting the windows. The storm didn't appear to be letting up, and a bored Gojo is an unbearable Gojo.
She prompts, “Maybe you have some games lying around here?”
Their resulting search for entertainment yields only a pack of playing cards, but they do find an opened pack of candles in one of the closets. Gojo tries to sniff them before brushing away the layer of dust on them and starts to sneeze, but as they start to light them around the house, they all wrinkle their nose at their odd scent. It’s almost lavender, but not. Once the house is adorned with flickering honey light, Gojo brings out the booze he bought, which turns out to be a single red wine bottle, and they sit in the living room on the floor. Gojo and Geto sit beside one another, and Shoko facing them.
“Have you ever played Go Fish?” Shoko asks as she starts to shuffle the cards.
Geto is opening the bottle and pouring him and her a cup each.
“Yeah,” Gojo replies. “I just thought you’d suggest poker or something.”
The room smells of wax after Satoru accidentally blows out a candle, the faint lavender scent that had been burning for hours now engulfed by the sudden smoke. The three of them are huddled around the empty wine bottle on the floor, Geto and Shoko’s lips tinted garnet from finishing it off. Gojo is sober, nursing a lukewarm glass of the bubbly melon soda he bought.
“So,” Gojo says as he settles down again after coming back from the bathroom. “We’re mixing truth and dare and spin the bottle now?”
Shoko nods, “Bottle lands on you, you pick which.”
“We could have just played poker,” Geto remarks, to which both Gojo and Shoko shush him.
Outside, the thunderstorm they’re caught in continues. It’s brutal, the power has been gone for hours now, the flickering golden lights of candles illuminating the corners of the rooms, and lining the top of the television. Originally, they had the candles closer to them on the floor, but after Gojo knocked his foot into one and sent it rolling over, hot wax and all towards Geto, they decided otherwise.
The first person the bottle lands on is Shoko. Before either can ask, she rolls her shoulders back and decides, “Truth.”
“Boring,” Gojo complains.
Geto ignores him, “When was the last time you lied?”
Shoko hums, lolling her head side to side.
“Gojo, when did you send me that picture of you shopping?”
Geto looks over at him as he frowns, remembering.
“You mean, the long sleeve shirt I asked you if it looked good?”
Shoko nods, wagging a finger in his direction.
“Yeah, that’s the last time I lied.”
Geto snorts and Gojo hunches forward, scowling at her.
“What?” he barks. “You said it looked good! I bought the shirt. It was expensive, too.”
Shoko shrugs, “What a shame. Next.”
Geto reaches over and spins the bottle, and they all watch as its rotations slow down to ultimately point at him.
“Truth,” Geto says before he’s even asked, and Gojo groans.
“You can pick dare when it’s your turn.”
“Fine, fine. Shoko, you want it?”
She shrugs, “Sure. Was your first kiss good or bad?”
Geto doesn’t feel shy easily, but a mousy expression drapes over his features, softening the creases of his glassy eyes. Shoko’s not even sure why she asked.
“We were kids,” he answers. “It wasn’t anything, really.”
“Boy or girl?” Gojo asks.
“Seriously?” Geto says, brow raised. “Does it matter? Besides, my truth is up.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Shoko tries. “Tell us.”
Geto’s definitely shy now, and he rubs at the back of his neck in a circular motion.
“Girl. She was a classmate.”
Gojo could at least pretend he’s marginally disinterested, but maybe Geto won’t notice since he’s almost drunk. Shoko, for one, can feel the indefiniteness of her thoughts, her final words trailing off into a haze.
“How old were you?” Gojo continues to question.
Geto looks over at him, purses his lips, and thinks. Outside, lightning flashes, and the house rattles moments later.
“Hm, like, 10? Maybe 11.”
“That’s cute,” Shoko hums. She knocks her foot into Gojo’s. “It’s your turn, spin the bottle.”
He does, and it lands on him.
“Truth,” he blurts, and Geto shoves him.
“You give us all that shit and then you pick truth?”
Gojo shoves him back, “You wouldn’t even be able to make up a good dare.”
“Is that a bet?”
Shoko glances at the window again, the rain unrelenting.
“Shoko, do you want this one, too?” Geto asks, and her vision slinks back to them.
“Same question I asked for Geto.”
“My first kiss?” Gojo confirms. They both nod.
Gojo leans forward to hold onto his ankles.
“I haven’t kissed anyone.”
“What?” Geto blurts. “You talk to girls all the time.”
Gojo sheepishly cranes his neck to the side, “Yeah, but I still haven’t kissed them.”
“I don’t believe it,” Geto continues, and Gojo stares at him.
“That’s rude.”
“No, it’s not,” Geto argues. “It’s you. You’re you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I haven’t kissed anyone, either.”
They both turn to look at her.
“Really?” Gojo prompts, and Shoko nods.
“I haven’t had any interest, honestly.”
“See,” Gojo teases, reaching over to pull on a few strands of Geto’s loose hair. “Maybe you’re the weird one, Suguru.”
He shrugs him off, “Whatever, man. Shoko, it’s your turn.”
She spins the bottle lazily. It slows and lands on Gojo.
“Dare,” he declares. “But I have an idea.”
“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Shoko says.
“I know, but since we’re talking about kissing—”
“We aren’t,” Geto interrupts. “We were talking about first kisses, not kissing .”
“Whatever,” Gojo bemoans. “Let’s just kiss. Let’s get it over with it.”
He turns his attention towards her, the same needless veracity he applies to everything else in his life oozing from his mischievous words.
“You down or what, Shoko?”
She blinks.
“I guess.”
Gojo scoots closer to her, “Nervous?”
She rolls her eyes, “Don’t be an idiot.”
They kiss. It doesn’t last long enough for her to get a taste of the soda he was drinking. When they pull away from one another, they both scrunch their noses.
“I don’t know if I liked that,” Gojo admits.
“Agreed,” Shoko says, and Geto laughs.
“Okay,” she says, suddenly with an idea of her own. “Now we kiss Geto.”
His eyes go wide, and he looks back and forth from Gojo to her.
“What are you talking about?”
Shoko nods, “It’s only fair. It’ll be weird if it’s just me and Gojo that kissed. If we all kiss it’s not.”
“I would argue it’s weird that we’re all kissing,” Geto contends.
“And I would argue you’re being a baby,” Gojo follows. “Do you not want to kiss me, is that it?”
“No, I,” he stutters. “It’s not—”
“It’s not a big deal!” Gojo intercedes. “And then you get to say you kissed me, you know how many girls would be jealous—”
Geto groans and runs a hand down his face, squeezing the bridge of his nose.
“Oh my god, shut up. Okay. Fine.”
Shoko and him kiss first. She can feel Gojo staring and tries not to laugh during the brief, personal moment, but afterward, when their faces drift away, her and Geto’s eyes meet. This up-close, it kinda hurts to look and Geto looks a little goofy with his focused eyes and the flush on his cheeks.
“Gross,” she says.
“My turn,” Gojo chimes, and the flush on Geto’s cheeks worsens.
She wonders if they’ve forgotten she’s in the room. Probably not, but there’s a possibility.
But Gojo’s spine is rigid when he scoots closer to Geto on the floor, and his hands are planted on his knees, knuckles bone white, as he sits cross-legged. He’s not even trying to be a little subtle, but when Shoko throws her gaze over to Geto, he’s not faring any better. Since his hair is loose, strands of it are stuck on his sweaty forehead, and he keeps fidgeting with his hands. Like this, doe-eyed and trying his hardest not to stare at Gojo’s mouth, she thinks he looks younger, boyish.
“Do it already,” she adds, more to remind them of her existence, god forbid they do something gross in front of her.
And just like that, Gojo Satoru kisses Geto Suguru in front of Shoko Ieiri, for what she knows is the first time. It lasts longer than when they had kissed her, but Shoko doesn’t bring it up. In fact, she doesn’t say anything. Suguru pulls away first, and for the instant he keeps his eyes closed after, Gojo keeps his open.
How they make her feel pervasive or like an intruder for watching them kiss after a round of dare from truth or dare is beyond her, but unease scrapes at her mind. She tries to ignore its unfounded reasoning.
If they start dating and something happens—
She clears her throat, and Gojo and Geto push themselves away from one another.
“Ugh, ” Gojo protests. “Why does your mouth taste so bad? Don’t you wash your mouth after you eat your curses?”
Nevermind.
Geto’s expression darkens, eyes narrowing.
“My mouth does not taste bad.”
Gojo shrugs, “I mean, I’m the one that kissed you, how would you know?”
“I kissed Shoko and she didn’t say anything.”
They both look at her.
“Mm,” she hums. “I don’t know. I just think both of you are bad at kissing.”
“That’s not what we’re talking about,” Gojo protests, stretching out his legs. “You’re both impossible, my talents are wasted on you.”
“I’m going to make you sleep in the storm,” Geto warns, and Shoko moves to pick up the bottle.
“Are we done?” Gojo asks, just as Shoko dumps the bottle in the plastic bag they have set up for trash tied to the front door.
“Geto mentioned poker,” Shoko smirks. “Think you can beat me?”
During one of Geto’s turns, he’s distracted, cards left face-up on the floor, body turned to face the window. He edges closer, stands, and peers out. Before Gojo or her have a chance to ask what he’s looking at, he says, “Do you get fireflies here?”
Gojo scoffs, “I’m not a tour guide. I don’t know.”
Geto ignores him.
“I think you do,” he continues. “I’m going to look.”
“Isn’t it storming?” Gojo asks.
“It hasn’t thundered in a while,” Geto explains. “I don’t even think it’s raining.”
He turns to look at them, and then back at the window.
“I’m going to look.”
“Suguru, wait—”
But he’s already turning on his heels, stumbling a bit as he struggles to open the door and disappears.
“Should we follow him?” Gojo asks. “He’s kind of drunk.”
Shoko shrugs, “Up to you.”
She doesn’t even know why Gojo bothered to ask. He gets up after a hiccup of hesitation and follows Geto out. Shoko can hear him calling out Suguru at least once before they apparently walk too far away.
The house is quiet.
She doesn’t want to go outside.
Just from them opening the door twice she can tell how muggy it is from the warm temperature mixed with the rain, and she can only imagine the squelching of the wet ground from the rain, and the likelihood of the storm picking back up before they have a chance to make it back inside.
But she’s never seen fireflies in person, now that she thinks about it.
Not that she’s particularly spent time thinking about it, or found the lack of insects to be a source of hardship in her life, but Geto seemed excited, and they were here, and so was she.
So, she goes.
Geto’s right, the storm has cleared for what feels like the night.
The scent of ozone loiters in the field she finds them venturing out to. The ground is muddy and wet, sucking in her shoes as she heads over to them. Once she’s only a few steps away from him, she can hear Gojo grimacing at the squelching sounds of their steps as they move further out, both Shoko and him trailing behind Geto. It’s disgustingly sultry, the heat from earlier joining forces with the thunderstorm to conjure the worst possible humidity. Shoko can feel her shirt start to stick to her back and sees Gojo roll up the sleeves of his up to his elbows.
“Don’t get what he wants to see so bad,” Gojo mutters, and Shoko’s not even sure if she was supposed to overhear, but she did so she responds.
“He said he saw fireflies.”
She knows Gojo thinks it’s stupid, childish maybe, in the judgmental purse of his mouth when he looks back at her, but slowly, the field becomes alive around them. Dots of yellow light start to blink around them, and they come to a stop. Shoko can’t count how many there are, but they flare in and out, sometimes flashing between blades of the long, willowy grass they’re standing in, and sometimes above them, swirling in the nighttime air.
“Suguru, look—” Gojo calls out, though his voice gives out.
The fireflies look like embers by Geto, twinkling weightlessly in the air around him. He’s smiling the way he does when Shoko knows he’s happy, his brows pulled close together and sloping down over his jovial eyes. Moonlight entangles itself with his dark hair, constellations surely knotting in its wolfish strands. She’s about to tease Gojo for clearly malfunctioning at the sight but stops when she averts her eyes to him.
Shoko’s never seen Gojo look so boyish in the two years she’s known him. Sentimental tides usher in a faint flush to his cheeks and though she knows Geto can’t see from where he is, she can. Up close, Shoko Ieiri can see the way Satoru Gojo looks at Suguru Geto, suspended in disbelief, and for one clarifying moment, everything makes sense. The teasing, the jokes, the fights, Geto in the laundry-room, ailed with a self-diagnosed illness.
No, he had said. That can’t be it.
Shoko knew, knew that her two best friends felt something towards one another, but she chalked it up to teenage boy things like hormones and puberty, but this is different. This is—
Oh, she thinks, as Gojo steps towards Geto, masking the fondness that had vice gripped him with banter.
“Can we go inside now?” he calls out. “You got to see your bugs.”
That’s how it is.
Her head is nestled against Geto's surprisingly bony shoulder, held down by the weight of his own resting on hers. This close, he smells of something faintly herbal, but still sweet.
But maybe that’s Gojo, who’s resting his head on Geto's chest.
“You know we have pillows right?” Geto says. Shoko feels his mandible’s movement as he speaks.
“We know,” Gojo and her respond. Gojo even shifts closer.
Moments like these, Shoko feels like a child.
Technically, she still is. She’s only 16, but the number seems to mean less and less each year. But like this, idly listening as Gojo and Geto start to talk about some video game she doesn’t particularly care for, she remembers.
She remembers school nights spent reading books underneath her comforter with a flashlight clumsily held in place under her chin, pressed against her chest. She remembers leaning on her toes to peer at the pot her grandmother would toss sliced carrots and onions into before being ushered away from the stove.
She’s not sure when she stopped thinking of herself as a child.
Oh god, she thinks. I’m being sentimental.
It’s kind of gross.
She swallows back whatever was starting to clamber up her throat and grimaces. She hasn’t brushed her teeth yet. Her mouth tastes stale, smoke overtaking the candy-flavored lip balm Gojo had left on the bathroom counter that she had used before they had sat down hours ago. She tries to recall where she packed her toothbrush while swirling her tongue across her teeth, and Suguru seems to feel the motion.
“That feels weird,” he comments, and she can see Gojo perk his head up to look at her.
His head resting on Geto's chest has turned into his arm as well.
“Just have a bad taste in my mouth.”
Gojo smirks, “Oh? Would that be the cheap cigarette you thought we didn’t see you smoke earlier?”
Shoko stares at him, “Obviously, Gojo. Cigarettes aren’t candy flavored.”
“I mean,” Geto interrupts. “Some are. There’s menthols.”
“Okay. Cheap cigarettes aren’t flavored.”
The closer to sleep they drift, the more nonsense their conversations welcome. Gojo questions Shoko if her technique could reattach a limb, and Shoko questions if Gojo's vision can be used in an airport security check.
But then quietly, when Shoko thought that maybe Gojo had fallen asleep, he asks Geto, “Why are you a sorcerer?”
“Damn,” Shoko says. “Sort of a mood-killer there, Gojo.”
“It’s okay,” Geto says. “But I don’t know. I’m strong. I can do it. Some people aren’t strong and can’t, so I should protect them, right?”
Gojo huffs and rolls off of him, “Again with this righteous shit.”
Geto frowns and sits up, Shoko grunting as she has to sit up herself.
“If it’s different for you then that’s fine,” Geto says. “But don’t rag on me.”
Shoko yawns. “I mean, why shouldn’t he?”
They both look at her, Geto furrowing his brows in betrayed confusion.
“See,” Gojo says. “I’m right.”
She shakes her head, “No, shut up. You’re never right. But it’s true, why the savior complex?”
Geto stares at her, and then casts his gaze away, at the space on the matted floor between his splayed-out legs.
“What else would strength be for?”
There’s something there, something Shoko can see and hear, but she can’t touch it, doesn’t know what tools she could use to grasp it, or what to even do with it.
But Gojo plows right through.
“I mean,” he says, and already by his tone, Shoko knows it’s going to be something stupid. “You could use strength to punch someone in the face. Or like, stab them.”
There’s a pause, but then Geto laughs, and the sound is something untroubled and infectious because Gojo starts to laugh too, and maybe it’s her drowsy state of mind, or maybe it’s the wine that she still hasn't really gotten over, but Shoko starts to laugh, too.
Shoko wakes up later, her neck aching and her joints stiff as she sits up, using Geto’s arm as leverage. For a moment she wonders if it's morning, but a look out the dark window with the sky still painted soot confirms it's not. It's raining again, but the pelting on the window and roof is far less volatile than earlier.
They must have fallen asleep together on the floor.
She stands slowly and quietly, looking down at the mess of two teenage bodies linked together. Satoru’s arm is flat across Suguru’s face, and Suguru’s body is twisted away from him, though their legs are entangled. She reaches for her phone, makes sure the flash is off and takes a picture. More of the candles have snuffed out during the night, so they’re barely discernible in the pixelated dark blur on her phone, but she doesn’t delete it.
She leaves them and steps outside to have a smoke. She stands under the triangular doorway, underneath the hanging sign they left untouched. Occasionally, the rain mists her knuckles, and the glow of her cigarette end will glimmer when there’s a breeze, but it's manageable. It’s idyllic, even. There’s not a conscious soul nearby. It’s just her and the archaic natural laws that occur for a storm to take place.
She stays out beyond her cigarette coming to an end and takes a second look at the photo on her phone. To her knowledge, there’s no way to add a custom name, so it’s simply dated at the bottom in her phone’s original font.
She tries to remember childhood friends. She tries to recall playground nicknames, inside jokes, birthday outings, but nothing comes to mind. None had felt crucial to her nine-year-old, 12, and then 14-year-old self. Time just passed. Shoko felt no hesitation when she graduated from a school, or resignation when a friend moved away. It just was, there was no addendum of nostalgia or loneliness.
But tonight she had followed Gojo out to see Geto and the fireflies because she thought she would miss something. She thought something would take place that she would not be able to witness.
Will she remember tonight when she’s 27? 42? Should she commit to memory the two golden-hearted boys inside, the rustic decorations on the wall, the scent outside, or which constellations currently hang above them in the sky, hidden behind rain clouds?
That feels excessive. She’ll remember what she needs to.
That’s how memories worked, right? Fragmented recollections that can be pieced together to form an altered whole of something that once was. Maybe she’ll remember portions; maybe she’ll remember kissing them, but not the food they ate. Or maybe she’ll remember the fireflies, but not the clerk from the store.
Besides, she doubts those two would stray too far from her in their livelihoods; they both already show up with the simplest of injuries from their sparring, she’s sure the gravity of their wounds is only going to double, and then triple.
They’re not on the floor where she had left them when she steps back inside. But when she wanders to her bedroom, she sees that their bedroom door is half-open, a single candle burning on the windowsill above their mattress. She sees a wrapped up lump of a body with white hair peeking out on the bed, and Geto in the act of lying down, facing the opposite way.
Yaga is standing by the dorm’s main entrance when they’re done putting their bags down in their rooms.
“What a warm welcome back,” Gojo taunts. “We really are your favorite students, huh?”
“You’re my worst students,” Yaga replies. Gojo grins.
“Did you have a good break?”
Geto nods, “We did.”
“That’s good.”
“So?” Shoko asks. “Are you just welcoming us back or is there something wrong?”
Yaga sighs.
“Utahime and Mei Mei have been missing for a few days near Kyoto handling a case. We want you three to go check it out.”
Gojo outright cackles, “Utahime? Nice. She’s going to hate it.”
Geto sighs, “She’s older than you, you should try to respect her a little more.”
Gojo waves a hand, “ Please. Don’t lecture me, you’re just as bad as I am.”
“Am not.”
Shoko reaches to pinch both of their arms, and they both yelp in unison.
“Come on, you morons. They could be in danger.”
Yaga mumbles something that neither of them hears and Gojo crosses his arms behind his head as Geto shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Alright,” Gojo exhales, like this is something strenuous, and not like he was absolutely animated a moment ago. “Let’s go.”