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The morning air is crisp and the skies are clear. Autumn brings about its love for birdsong in a subsequent act to Summer’s noisy cicada trill. It’s a change wrought in falling leaves and breezy afternoons that quiets the world’s audience in preparation for oncoming Winter.
He’s revelling in this tranquility as he jogs up to the courtyard. Suguru turns to him whilst maintaining an attempt at a scowl- a feeble one to be sure, because Satoru can see the fondness glimmering in the dark pits of his eyes even as he admonishes him.
That said, Satoru has been told on multiple occasions that he has an annoying habit of projecting.
“You’re late, idiot.”
“What?” He’s immediately pouting, lower lip cherry red and jutting with all the force of juvenile impudence. He scuffs the toes of his non-standard trainers into the ground. “Not even a good morning?”
Yaga is shooting him an intense glare that Satoru can feel even from behind his darkened shades. He grins and waves jovially, entirely unaffected by the display. Suguru slaps him, stifles a groan, and drags him into place to stand beside him. To Satoru’s right, Shoko pointedly ignores them both.
The attending Kyoto students stare in a mixture of disgruntlement and disbelief. In return, Satoru says nothing. Rather, he privately etches their faces into his memory for future entertainment. Meanwhile, one of the teachers from Kyoto- one whose name Satoru never bothered to commit to memory, begins to speak anew. Familiarity allows Suguru to catch the way his eyes wander even from behind his shades. The slow creep of a characteristically obnoxious grin is only further indictment of his growing intent, and Suguru nudges him sharply. Satoru elbows him back.
“Boys.” Yaga calls finally, tone rife with stale impatience. Satoru’s lips part in preparation to bark something witty and entirely inappropriate back, when Shoko stomps resentfully on his toe.
That shuts him up.
In truth, Satoru’s been anticipating the event for months now. While he’s not necessarily one for social gatherings, per say , he’s definitely not the type to turn down the opportunity to show away. So he smirks and catalogues the opposition, already making plans and orchestrating their inevitable demise at his own hands.
Most of them he fails to recognise, so six-eyes fills in the gaps. He recognises one Naoya Zen’in- he’s a year younger than himself, blonde and fine-featured as a Bunraku puppet. He exudes an aura of smugness so potent that it impressively counters his own. Naoya catches his eyes and tips his head back, watching Satoru down the length of his delicate nose in a way that makes his blood boil. He’s done nothing so illustrious as to have earned Satoru’s respect, so it’s a pleasant daydream to imagine thoroughly obliterating him in the near future.
There are six of them in total to match Tokyo’s five. Nanami and Haibara, being first years, have unfortunately been excluded. Next year perhaps, Satoru thinks. But he’s unfazed by the mismatch. He’s confident that he’s more than enough to fill in for a missing lot.
The team challenge sets off smoothly enough. As per tradition, they’re set to the task of exorcising the cursed spirits released on the grounds. They’re sitting in a classroom and waiting to begin when one of their upperclassmen snidely mutters something about Shoko being a liability.
“What was that?” Suguru demands, and his chair clatters behind him as he rises to his feet. Satoru watches in surprise while Shoko presses her fingers to her face and groans. Being a girl doesn’t do a sorcerer too many favours. He’s heard horror stories from the other clans and been witness to volumes more than sufficient of misogyny himself. Like so many other things, it’s all dated tradition woven into the tapestry of daily life under the pretense of maintaining culture and respect.
While this specific aspect of inequality is foreign to him- he has after all, always been the acclaimed strongest , the prodigal heir of the Gojo clan. It’s the stubborn rigidity and resistance to change that sickens him. Maybe it’s shallow of him, and selfish for not getting quite as riled up as Suguru for Shoko’s sake, but Shoko doesn’t look like she particularly approves of his heroics either. She stands even as the pair stare each other down, and crosses her arms, fixing the offending senior with a glare sharp enough to lacerate. Her gaze flicks briefly to Suguru, and the wordless understanding communicated there is sufficient to persuade him to drop his fists and step back to stand at Satoru’s side.
She doesn’t speak, but Satoru swears that her demeanour alone drops the temperature of the room by several degrees. She crosses it in three measured strides-
- and delivers a resounding slap to his face.
They wince at the sound in unanimous sympathy. Satoru feels Suguru tense beside him out of instinct, more apprehension than anything else. True to his expectations, the boy lunges, face marked with a blossoming handprint and eyes wide with rage. Shoko takes an easy step back- already far too well accustomed to dealing with male adolescents both taller than her and armed with overinflated egos- and knees him squarely in the groin.
He doubles over with an audible whoosh of air. Shoko turns and storms back to them, plops down next to Satoru and flips open her phone for a particularly vigorous game of tetris.
Nobody mentions the altercation after that, and the games begin in earnest. The three of them latch onto one another and separate seamlessly from the other two members of their team. Nobody seems to mind. Besides, Suguru’s dragonfly curse can only carry three people anyways.
Just as Satoru predicted, they’re more than capable of making up the losses- if not for him alone, then as a functional trio.
“Thanks. By the way.” Shoko mutters some time later, midway through dispelling a curse. Satoru grips another between his hands as it squirms and awaits its fate.
Suguru looks over from where he’s sitting cross legged on the carapace and playing on his phone. His face is pretty blank as usual, but Satoru reads confusion in the way his brow creases for a moment. “What?”
“I think she means your hero act.” Satoru supplies. Shoko rolls her eyes in a way that he thinks suggests an affirmative.
Suguru’s cheekbones flush, and his eyes dart away, suddenly uneasy in the face of gratitude. “Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re not upset. I won’t intervene next time if you don’t want me to.”
Shoko only scoffs in disbelief, then shoves him to make space on their impromptu transport.
Satoru knows very well that the likelihood of that promise being upheld is abysmal . Suguru’s always been the better of the two of them- he’s the gentleman to step in and hold open doors, usually the first to offer to carry the groceries, or begrudgingly pay for Satoru’s extravagant sushi orders. He thinks he might have felt bad if he weren’t so devoted to teasing him endlessly about it.
His mother would probably like Suguru. Well-mannered, well-spoken, cultured Suguru. Never with a foot out of line, and lacking the abrasive immaturity that carelessly streaks Satoru like dirty rainwater.
That said, Satoru and Shoko have both become privy to another deeper facet of him that suggests otherwise. It’s a gradual erosion of first impressions- the same way Shoko’s become more than a cold, stubborn face clad in cigarette smoke; or how Satoru’s now more than the spoiled Gojo brat with more power than he could ever handle without getting lost in his own head.
Satoru supposes that it’s not a bad thing to be known, even if the concept had been startling and entirely unwelcome to begin with. Suguru is like a parasite, he decides. Coming into close proximity has only encouraged him to latch on to Satoru for the purpose of sucking him dry. It seems that no matter how much he tries to convince himself otherwise, he simply cannot help but lean into this force of one-sided attraction that might really not be one-sided at all.
He squishes the curse between his palms in hopes of the action diffusing the thorny trepidation squeezing his ribs. Its not that he doesn’t like Suguru. They’ve been together far too long now, and its become natural to say that they’ve surpassed the barrier of platonicity.
Attachment- he knows , always comes with the promise of loss. But maybe that’s really only something to worry about when he’s old, and tired and weak.
They sneak out after curfew that night. Admittedly, it’s not that there’s really anyone out looking for them, but the imaginary sense of trespassing makes the entire venture more thrilling. Shoko had taken one look at the two of them as they’d snickered and whispered their plans over dinner, and promptly declined to come.
Satoru acquires one of Suguru’s hoodies as he drops by his room. His lanky frame is completely swamped in the dark folds, so it’s only natural that he shoves his nose into the collar and inhales. When he peeks out at Suguru, he only stares and shakes his head. Satoru laughs.
They trip over one another, shoving and stepping on one another’s toes as they make their way down the stairs. The air is chilly, and clouds with every breath. The trip down the hill deposits them on the roadside and they stand under the bus shelter- a little alcove of freezing metal plastered with peeling stickers and faded advertisements.
He’s got one earbud in while the other dangles at his shoulder. Suguru snatches it up with nary a look for permission. “Give it here.”
“You’ve got shitty taste.” He comments after a few seconds of listening.
“Rude.” Satoru sticks his tongue out. “You don’t like rock?”
Suguru hums and purses his lips, watching his reflection in the darkened lens of his glasses. “I prefer songs with a little less noise. What can you hear under all that clattering anyway? Its equivalent to standing next to a construction site.”
“Hah! You’re one to talk.” Satoru grins as if he’s struck gold. “I’ve seen the albums on your desk. Why do you bother listening to things you can’t even understand?”
It’s Suguru’s turn to stick his tongue out and lift his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “What can I say? The English stuff’s pretty catchy.”
They board the bus and stand shoulder to shoulder, jostling and brushing each other in incidental gestures of intimacy as the tires bounce over bumps in the asphalt. Satoru wraps one hand around a pole and drops the other around Suguru’s shoulders, biting back a laugh at the way he jumps at the sudden contact.
“I’ve made it my mission to convert you to my shitty tastes .”
Suguru snorts, but doesn’t pull away.
The convenience store is a single beacon of alight amidst darkened storefronts. Satoru glimpses a curse or two, but pays them no mind as they skitter wisely out of sight. The glass doors slide open as they approach, and their entry is greeted with a welcoming ding.
The cashier shuffles quietly behind the counter, quietly arranging the hot food in the display case before returning to their mobile game. Satoru makes a beeline for the candy aisle while Suguru elects to investigate the multicoloured bottles and packages in the drinks fridge, the sound of the clattering yakisoba tray issues an ambient backdrop.
He meanders between the shelves, feet tracing a zig-zag as his hands brush past rows of plastic packaging and painted tin boxes. It’s as much of a tactile experience as it is a flavourful one. He selects raspberry chocolate kisses, muscat gummies, strawberry pocky, meiji chocolate, candied almonds. Each of his choices are deposited neatly into the crook of his arm. Satisfied, Satoru wanders over to the ice-cream cupboard, pressing close to inspect the contents and fogging the glass.
“Really?” Suguru makes a face that he glimpses in his imperfect reflection. He’s holding a packet of sour plums and a bottle or two of some sort of tea, probably unsweetened- the utter heretic. “Isn’t it a little late?”
“Dessert comes after dinner.” Satoru advises sagely, reaching into the cabinet to pull out a package of mochi. He gives it a thought, then pulls out a soda-flavoured popsicle as well. The wrapping is a vibrant cyan, inviting in its childish appeal.
Suguru picks up a bag of fish sausage on the way to the counter and they pay, leaving the store with two plastic bags rustling in tow. Satoru pulls his jacket close and side-eyes Suguru as he fiddles with a wrapper in the dark. They make their way down the road in wordless agreement. A stroll down to the gas station and back to wait for the bus again. There’s really no need for schedules- there’s a bus every fifteen minutes. Besides, Satoru can always teleport them back if they really don’t feel like waiting.
“It’s getting cold, huh?”
“Speak for yourself.” Dark eyes land on the stolen hoodie. “Besides, aren’t you the one with your precious Infinity?”
“Hey now!” Satoru fishes the popsicle out and pops the bag with an easy twist of his hands. He slips the (almost neon-blue) corner between his teeth and bites down with an icy squeak, revelling in the sweetness that spreads over his tongue. “I’m still working on that, okay? Besides- can’t you just- I don’t know, summon a big ol’ curse with fur or something? Oh! Or maybe something with fire!”
Suguru deadpans. “When’s the last time you saw a big fluffy curse?”
Satoru shrugs and shoves half the popsicle into his mouth, bulging out one of his cheeks in an impression of an oversized hamster. Individual battles are tomorrow, and he knows that Suguru is saving his strength.
They drift towards one another as they walk. Satoru is feeling somewhat triumphant in their proximity when Suguru’s hand darts down and swipes the pack of mochi. Satoru whines in protest and swipes at his sleeve halfheartedly. The thief hops back nimbly, stray hairs mussed and caught by the breeze in his escape. “This-” Suguru says, peeling back the translucent wrap from the trio of plastic wells. “- Is for the hoodie.”
Satoru chews morosely and resigns himself to defeat while he hears him make a noise of delight. “Oh- you got my favourite!” Suguru winks, the whites of his eyes reflecting the flickering street lamps. “How’d you know?”
“Intuition I guess. I’m just that good.” Satoru finally concedes, not feeling very inclined to hold a grudge. After all, he’s saving that fuel for tomorrow. Whatever- he decides, Suguru can have his mochi. Its not like red bean is his favourite anyways.
“But you’re saving one for me. Hey!”
“Glad that’s finally over.”
Shoko watches the group from Kyoto depart in a dusty Lexus as she fiddles with the tab from her half-empty can of coffee- lovingly purchased from the vending machine by one Nanami Kento. Said junior sits with his legs crossed on the bench beside her, a book in his lap. Shoko is occupied with Satoru and Suguru playing a two-person game of tag in the grass of the training field. The two of them are grinning like idiots, and their uniforms are smeared with dirt and chlorophyll alike.
Suguru is currently kneeling on Satoru, throwing pebbles in his face. Shoko takes a long sip when a miniature explosion throws up a plume of grass and soil- courtesy of Satoru’s technique. It does the job, sending Suguru flying back.
A few moments later, Nanami looks up briefly to see Geto gleefully upending a handful of smaller curses onto Satoru as he rolls haplessly on the lawn. The latter scrambles to his feet and breaks into a run, only to trip and fall flat on his face as Suguru doubles over laughing. Shoko drains her coffee, and finds herself smiling into the top of the can.
“You two going to be participating next year?” She asks finally. Nanami looks at her thoughtfully.
“Perhaps.” He decides. “As long as they deem us eligible. I know Haibara wanted in.”
“That’s a relief.” She flattens the can. “Means I won’t be stuck with those two idiots next time ‘round.”
Nanami doesn’t get a chance to respond. “Shoko! Hey! Shoko!” Satoru is running up to them- ridiculously long legs forming strides which eat up distance too quickly. He makes for a comical silhouette, all gangly limbs and adolescent awkwardness.
It’s a far cry from the force of nature she’d seen just hours earlier, practically untouchable as he’d hurled attack after attack at a comparatively powerless Naoya Zen’in.
“Tell Suguru that the only reason we won was ‘cause of me!”
“Slander!” Suguru is quick in pursuit. He jabs a finger into Gojo’s chest. For all the impetuous force of the motion, his hand moves fluidly as if he’s still summoning curses. “You really think you would have won if I hadn’t told you about Akane’s technique?”
Shoko stares flatly at them and tries to hide the subtle upturn of her lips.
Despite their paltry quarreling, her cheeks ache from all the grinning she’s been subject to over the course of the event. Suguru is noticeably lighter in the face as well, the stony frown he wears like a second skin dissolved in favour of gentle eyes and an elegant curve of a smile that shows teeth. In turn, Satoru’s boyish charm is accented by cheeks rosied by roughhousing.
Shoko can’t help but gaze into his eyes- his glasses lost to the field somewhere, as he turns his head to Yaga’s shouting. It’s downright inhuman, the way they shine like captured pockets of the late afternoon sky above.
“Suguru. Hey! C’mon, Suguru.”
“Suguru!”
An annoyed grumble of acknowledgement rises above the steam and the patter of water. Its past experience that informs him that if he were to turn and look, he knows he’d see a mop of drenched white hair peeking over the top of the divider. He resists the urge until he can no longer, then finally succumbs to temptation and looks, his own hair falling in a messy curtain over his back and shoulders.
A single hand rises above the glass sheet. He squints.
“What?”
The hand wriggles its fingers in response. “Gimme some of your shampoo.”
“This is like- the fourth time.”
“C’mon Suguru, please. ” Satoru wheedles. “You’re my only hope.”
Irritating as it is, he’s not especially keen on the alternative. That is- seeing him streaking butt-naked down the hall to retrieve a bottle. The problem with their relationship being as openly close as it is, is that Suguru always manages to inadvertently receive a portion of wrongful indictment when Satoru eventually gets caught up in all manner of plots, schemes and general mischief.
It’s an inconvenient phenomena, being pulled into the gravity of the absolute, sucking void that is Satoru Gojo. Suguru had despised him for it in the beginning when being in his presence felt like constant belittlement. Nowadays, its a reassurance that help will never be far.
He chuckles to himself a little at that. He might have once thought it a curse to be so distinctly entwined with Satoru. But it’s all become so natural that he thinks that the lack would eat at him like a cavity.
So Suguru squirts a generous dollop onto his own palm before stating begrudgingly- “Catch.”, and tosses the bottle over the top. There’s a rigid thwack as it misses the reaching hand and lands on something decidedly more bony.
Satoru’s subsequent yelp is icing on the cake.
The brief reprieve of the exchange event fades. With the excitement dispelled, they’re left beached on the shores of normalcy and routine, clawing through seemingly endless days of classes interspersed with exams. Satoru hates the repetition of it, but Yaga is lenient in a way that makes it bearable. He’d always been scolded for slouching back home, for sitting with his feet sprawled a meter apart, or with his knees straightened, heels resting on the floor as if to take up as much physical space as humanly possible. Yaga tolerates these small indecencies, and that in turn keeps Satoru from venturing past the point of being wholly insufferable.
Shoko and Suguru think otherwise. Satoru is conceited, immodest and lives without the slightest inkling of the concept of physical or conversational boundaries. He’s an utter asshole, but he’s their asshole.
That familiarity is the only balm on an otherwise weeping wound.
They get questions- whispered in hushed voices from behind obscuring palms (he hadn’t missed Utahime’s impromptu interrogation of Shoko), plenty of looks, and loud appraisals of their supposed patience for him. Shoko chalks it down to her reversed cursed technique soothing any irreparable damages Satoru’s presence might inflict on her. Suguru says he’s already too far gone.
Satoru doesn’t think he’s that bad.
But sometimes, he feels the need to make it up to them. Not to say that his personality and mere existence aren’t rewarding enough on their own.
It’s the night of Tsukimi, and the titular Autumn moon hangs above in the cloudless sky- pale and full-faced, almost blindingly bright in the darkness.. So he’s sitting there with a tote bag when Shoko and Suguru arrive on the grassy hilltop that night. He doesn’t have any of the traditional pampas arrangements, but the grass cover on the hill is pretty overgrown and he thinks its similar enough. It’s the thought that counts, after all, even if the grass isn’t quite as fluffy at the tips.
“What’s this?” Shoko asks dryly, regarding his setup. She’s dressed in a thick jacket with a furred hood, and she makes a sweeping gesture with her mittened hands. “Is the great Satoru Gojo deciding to respect stuffy tradition for once?”
“Give him some credit.” Suguru sighs, climbing the hill behind her with his hands in his pockets. He’s clad in a glossy parka that Satoru remembers spilling bubble tea on once. “Tease him too much and he’ll go off it completely.”
Satoru ignores the quips and lays out his offerings. A box of sweet dango, an aromatic paper bag of sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts from a roadside vendor, and next to that, a takeout container of crisp edamame sprinkled with coarse salt. His cardboard boxes and laminated paper sachets are a surrogate for painted plates, woven mats and curving clay vases. He knows his parents would have deemed it inferior- sacrilege even, but Satoru Gojo does not care.
As it turns out, neither of his elected participants are disturbed by the lack of formality either.
Suguru whistles as Shoko says- “Wow.”
“Impressed?” Satoru sniffs, feeling his cheeks redden. He feels the brattish urge to amend what consideration he’s managed to muster for the festival. “Don’t get used to it!”
They find their places in the knee-high grass beside him. Satoru sprawls back, long limbs forming a messy starfish. He digs his fingers into the loose earth, quietly relieved at the lack of outright rejection. Shoko squeezes one of the dango between her index finger and thumb experimentally before popping the whole thing in her mouth.
“You’ll choke.” Suguru warns, deftly peeling back chestnut shell, waxy smooth and the color of polished mahogany. Then he turns to Satoru, placing the pad of his index finger squarely between his eyes. “I don’t suppose you went to the trouble of learning about the festival itself, did you?”
Satoru sits up, affronted. Oh, the ingratitude! “I know enough!” He counters hotly. Growing up in that Gojo clan had ensured that he’d been lectured on all the beliefs and traditions behind moon reading- or Tsukuyomi . That wasn’t to say that he’d paid very much attention, but he had retained the general gist of it. “You look at the moon, and old geezers write poetry. What more is there to learn?”
His mock rage isn’t enough to dissuade him from further provocation. Suguru looks amused, cheek pouched as he drops the remnants of the shell into the grass. “ Well , what about Tsukuyomi Otoku?”
Shoko grimaces. “I always thought that story was kind of gross.”
“Oh?” All reticence brought on by his alleged ignorance is gone with the promise of vulgarity. Satoru leans forward and props his chin in his hands. Suguru rolls his eyes.
“Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu were born from the eyes of Izanagi to rule the heavens. They got married. At some point, the two are invited to a feast by the goddess of food- Uke Mochi.”
“Wait. Ube Mochi? Like the potato?”
He’s met with a look of exasperation. “No. Uke .”
Satoru holds up a finger. “So you’re saying they got married even though they were siblings?” He turns to Shoko, who’s ignoring him in favour of peeling a sweet potato. “That’s pretty gross.”
“Do you want to hear the rest or not?”
He reaches for the dango and waves his hand in a gesture for him to continue.
“So Tsukuyomi goes to the feast ‘cause his wife is busy. And when he gets there, he’s so grossed out by the way Uke Mochi prepares the food that he kills her right there. Amaterasu labels him as an evil kami and estranges herself.”
“And that’s why we have day and night.” Shoko pipes. She breaks her peeled potato into chunks and hands them each a steaming piece. “Tsukuyomi is the moon, and he chases Amaterasu- the sun, across the sky.”
“That’s sad.” Satoru comments, accepting the offer. Suguru shrugs and pinches a bite off his own. “I guess. Kind of deserved it if you ask me. It’s pretty rude to kill someone who’s invited you to dinner.” He pauses and his eyes soften. Satoru doesn’t miss the way they flick quickly towards him. “They say the closest they ever get is during an eclipse.”
“ Boring .” Shoko cuts in, drawing out the syllables and jabbing her potato at him. “I’m not here to analyse this shit. Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental.”
Suguru scoffs. “As if!”
“Aww.” Shoko snickers. “You’re such a softie.”
His throat bobs as he swallows, and Satoru’s gaze is transfixed, the pallor of his skin lit by the ghostly moonlight which bathes them all in a soft, uniform glow. The gentleness of it erases fine detail, and Geto’s complexion comes off smooth and unmarked like glazed porcelain. His eyes and hair are stark in contrast, forebodingly dark, akin to strokes of calligraphy brushed over pristine parchment.
“I’m leaving.” Shoko says, her gaze piercing through him. “Keep up with those lover-eyes and I’m leaving.”
In response, Satoru throws himself over Suguru, who wheezes in alarm. He ignored his distress and gets to draping himself over his shoulders and resting his chin on the top of his head. “Poor lonely Shoko.” He sings, the feeling of Suguru’s hair tickling his chin making him scrunch up his nose. “You getting jealous huh? You know , Utahime seems nice-“
His attempts to play matchmaker perish prematurely as she lunges at the two of them with a shout. Suguru tips back, spitting obscenities and the three of them tumble, falling into a flailing mass of limbs.
As he’s dodging slapping hands and grinning like an absolute idiot, Satoru meets Suguru’s eyes, and thinks he’s beginning to understand the moon’s fruitless chase.
It really doesn’t bother Shoko that her two classmates are practically joined at the hip. Really.
She thinks they’d started out on roughly equal ground- though that’s an absolute lie if she’s ever heard or told one.
From their first meeting, Satoru Gojo had promised to be a rising star. He was- is practically a god walking amongst mortals, and annoyingly enough, he knows it. He proclaims his supposed strength with all the stupidity of a crowing rooster and loves his own voice.
On the other hand, Suguru is his polar opposite. Shoko had always found him more relatable. He’s the graceful evening to Satoru’s garish sun.
Shoko- well , Shoko’s somewhere in between. She’s grown up as the mousy, average daughter; reminded routinely of her fragile mortality in the way she’s called in to use her reversed cursed technique on wounded comrades. Dying comrades. She’s hardly fit to stand beside the two. The insidious whispers that follow her only give this assurance further substance.
It’s as she flits and ruminates through these thoughts that Nanami staggers through the door of the infirmary. He’s blanched beyond humanly pale and shaking, his eyes are blown wide with panic and he’s staggering like an injured animal.
She doesn’t think she’s ever seen him tremble.
The illicit cigarette drops from her lips as she finally registers what he’s carrying in his arms. Not his blade- something larger and substantially more bulky.
“Shoko. Shoko! ”
His voice is half a scream and his breaths come out ragged like he’s sobbing. Shoko drops everything and rushes to his side.
Haibara is already dead.
No matter how much she exerts herself, his flaccid corpse stubbornly grants no response. It’s almost like this is an act of mockery, Haibara exhibiting some final measure of autonomy. Shoko pulls away to breathe. Her mind is clouding steadily with exhaustion and her fingertips are numb, her chest heaving with fatigue. It’s in this very moment that she realises that half his body is missing. There’s a huge chunk of his torso gone, and if she looks long enough, she can pick out the white of the remnants of his ribs through the gore. His eyelids are open- or maybe they’d been torn off completely, all Shoko can see are the whites, yellowed and tacky. She registers faintly that her right hand is resting in the soft pile of entrails spilling over the edge of the table. She thinks of the meat aisle at the supermarket and tries not to throw up.
She’s about to give it another go when Nanami collapses, slumping lifelessly over the insurmountable burden of his dead friend’s body. There’s no choosing really. Its almost a mercy that the option of a dilemma is snatched so quickly away
What is Nanami even thinking to consider placing this responsibility on her? Haibara’s corpse is heavy, but it isn’t anything close to the weight of the world that Nanami has just set on her shoulders. Shoko succumbs to the pressure- intense enough that it physically feels like she’s being forced to her knees, and hunches over Nanami where he lies on the floor. Stupid Haibara. Stupid Nanami. The blood seeping through her pants is searing hot, and she feels her face burn with rage.
She knots her fingers in the tatters of his uniform, hard enough that her knuckles go white, and channels all her fury into repairing the damage.
In the end, it’s no trouble at all. She relaxes as she feels Nanami’s chest begin to rise and fall in regular rhythm, and steadies herself in synchronicity with the metronome throb of his carotid pulse.
For all her laidback demeanour and mask of nonchalance, she has always been talented. So when the supervisors and Yaga rush in soon after. She rises to her feet calmly and reports the situation.
Yu Haibara is dead. Nanami Kento is alive.
Shoko watches silently as they carry the corpse into the morgue, then helps them transfer Nanami onto a proper gurney. Yaga sets a hand on her back and stops her from following his prone form out. He murmurs.
“You’ve done well. I’m proud of you.”
Rare as it is to receive a compliment from him, she can’t find it in herself to reply. Moreover, she doesn’t know what would even entail an appropriate response. She finds herself wanting, in equal parts to scream, cry, shut down. She ends up foregoing any of the above, and convinces herself to pull on the stone-faced facade she’s so accustomed to, suddenly hyper aware of the scent of cigarette smoke laden on her breath.
Then he’s gone, and Shoko is alone.
She sits on the edge of the metal table and lights a second cigarette, staring blankly into the mosaic arrangement of bloody fractals left puddled on the floor. She’ll later learn that the incident occurred because of a mistaken curse classification. While Nanami was lucky to escape with his life, the higher ups will only continue to sit pretty and unaffected, removed from their quotidian world of death and curses and loss.
It suddenly becomes easy to sympathise with Satoru’s scorn for their system.
She may be decidedly more entrenched in her mortality than Suguru and Satoru, but the acrid drag of smoke through her lungs quietly reassures her that acceptance leaves no room for fear.
Suguru walks out on them and never returns. Satoru is left with a single text:
Sug ᕙ(`▿´)ᕗ: take care of each other
Shoko receives an identical missive. It’s cold, and feels impersonal, but they agree that its far preferable to the alternative of receiving nothing at all.
They sit and find comfort in each other’s company that night on the floor of Satoru’s bedroom. Satoru hasn’t dropped his infinity since Toji Fushiguro, and Shoko leans into the noticeable absence of warmth that has come to define his presence.
Beyond the curtained windows of the dormitory, night and day pass heedless of their torment.
They pay it no mind.
Nature decrees that the world continues to spin. In the months following the day of Suguru’s disappearance, the seasons flit through their cycles and the atmosphere paints and sloughs in recurrent succession.
It’s a cold winter’s day. Despite the layer of slippery ice coating the pavements like plaque on badly maintained teeth, the streets are busy. It seems that they’ve reached the unanimous decision as a community that there isn’t time to slack, especially not to cede to the whims of unfavourable weather.
Climate change has helpfully ensured that the seasonal drop in temperature occurs later and later each year. Persistent autumn aside, it’s been ages since Satoru’s truly been able to feel the cold. He has his infinity to thank for that. Hence the choice to dress in garments far too light for the weather. He’s chosen the wool sweatshirt mostly out of sentimental value. It’s one of the few things he’s maintained from Geto’s wardrobe, and he’s not particularly keen to let it go.
If anyone were to ask, how insanely comfortable it is makes his stubbornness around its retention easily justifiable.
“Satoru.”
It’s akin to a joke told in bad taste. A remark made too soon after a devastating tragedy. Satoru might have been offended if his chest didn’t immediately ache so terribly in shameful, visceral pining.
He’s torn between ignoring and rushing towards the offending voice. He compromises and settles for glancing over his shoulder, not wanting to commit entirely to acknowledgement should the voice turn out to be a figment of his overactive imagination. It’s a subconscious decision, a tactical attempt at avoiding any potential humiliation- at the ethereal hands of an apparition no less. Even now, he’s trying very hard not to admit to knowing that the emptiness in his chest all these years isn’t attributable to his infinite void. That void is formless and misshapen, hollow and lacking character in a way that is distinctly not-Suguru.
What he sees makes him freeze. Amongst the crowd, his eyes pick out dark hair framing the gentle curve of a familiar face. The brief glimpse doesn’t elucidate the features nearly enough, but his six-eyes lock on to the presence like a polarised magnet and etch their certainty into his mind.
Suguru smiles. He looks entirely too casual for a man who’s massacred an entire village.
“Miss me?”
His voice is molten gold, seeping into the broken cracks of Satoru’s wayward shards. The dialogue is hardly important. Regardless of what he says, Satoru is certain that the way his world grinds to a jarring halt is universal over any iteration of the current circumstances.
It’s cold. Freezing . He realises abruptly that he’s dropped his infinity in a knee-jerk reaction to hearing that voice, once so synonymous with security. It’s an annoying quirk of habit, but he doesn’t reinstate it. For the first time in years, he allows snowflakes to settle on his skin.
“Suguru.” The word leaves him in a whisper. It feels wrong to say it, as if speaking the name will bring about the vicious calamity that is Suguru Geto. Satoru has been witness to the way other sorcerers utter his name like a curse, has seen the way they prefer to tiptoe around his existence, more comfortable with the notion of forgetting rather than dealing with the excruciating fact that they’d lost one of the brightest minds of their generation.
Satoru thinks its hilarious. But unlike Suguru, he’s still bound by those figurative shackles that disguise themselves as promises of loyalty and obligation. He’s on thin ice as it is, and he knows its really only his power which blots the execution order that the higher ups and great clans are practically itching to dole out to him alongside the matching label on his best friend.
“Yo.” Suguru is mere feet from him now. His fingers brush Satoru’s sleeve, and his features twist in distaste. “You really kept this one? I thought Shoko would’ve snagged it.”
Satoru manages a laugh that comes out sounding more like he’s choking. His throat is painfully dry.
“Mm- had to fight her for it.”
“You lost then.” Dark eyes twinkle up at him. “She only let you keep it ‘cause she felt bad.”
“Probably.” He agrees, then tugs Suguru over, guiding him through the crowd so they’re standing in a less crowded square of sidewalk. “She was your friend too, y’know.”
He snorts. “Do you think I’d forget? Nah, dropped by to say hi once in Shinjuku, remember? But she’s so busy. I asked her to the movies once and she said no.”
Satoru sputters, momentarily caught off guard. “You- You asked her to the movies ?”
“Yeah. It was a horror flick I thought she’d like. Would’ve asked you too, but from what I hear, you’re busy with your new responsibilities.” He points, waving his finger midair as if mulling over his words. “Babysitting, right?”
“That’s one way to put it.”
Satoru knows he ought to take him into custody. Or at the very least- try and do so. They both knew he wouldn’t. He chose to let him walk free in Shinjuku, and he intended to do the same now.
It was a well-known fact that Satoru was a character who was practically defined by his eccentricity, as inconsistent as the tides were prone to fluctuating. But Suguru had been a constant and unchanging mass in the all-consuming vortex of his life. He’d started off a dust mote- a swirling speck which had gathered into a planet irrevocably caught in his orbit. He’d been his anchor. Even now, it seemed that he gravitated towards him unconditionally.
“Nice chat.” Suguru finally says. He reaches over and squeezes the bare skin of Satoru’s wrist, just as his eyes lift and bore into his own. “I’ll see you around.”
Coming here was a mistake.
That’s the line that repeats incessantly through Shoko’s head as her feet carry her from one bed to the next. There are too many casualties, and even with the extra help she has, its becoming abundantly clear that this night will end with a pile of corpses and detached limbs that will far outweigh those who are still living.
She’d just barely made it with Ijichi. In the vast chaos blanketing all of Shibuya, it had been regrettably easy for him to be left bleeding out for so long. Her thoughts wander instinctively to the length of the recovery period. But it’s not only him she’s uneasy about.
By choosing to leap into this battle headfirst, they’ve all prematurely committed to a long road of recuperation. Coming here was a mistake, a prime marker of idiocy and lack of foresight, and the effects are going to be long-lasting and brutally unforgiving.
Satoru is the most stupid of them all.
Despite her reasoning with him mere hours before their departure, he’s still stupid enough to walk into the trap alone, and Shoko thinks it more than likely that he’s been properly caught this time around. For one, the number of incoming patients would likely be in decline if Satoru were still fighting. Past experience is indication enough that his very presence is a surefire way of turning any battle- no matter how messy, into a self-limiting condition.
But it seems that they’ve finally stumbled across a single, damning anomalous point of data.
This realisation sinks a weight in her chest. It’s inadequate. a paperweight mimicry of the intangible gravity she’s come to associate with him.
It nestles in the pit of her stomach, and her insides feel like they’ve been wrought and wound tortuously around the intrusion, vessels twisting painfully, lengths of gut in torsion edging towards irreversible ischaemia. If Satoru has been sealed or killed, then a part of her has died in stubborn solidarity.
It threatens to sink lower and crush her, an anchor clasped around her ankle and drowning her in the revelation that one of the only true friends she has left is well and truly gone.
She keeps herself afloat by running her mind through well-worn paths of logic. The frequency of their use ensures reliability. She thinks of triage and limits the human propensity towards making assumptions. Shoko forcibly steers her thoughts from worry and devotes her focus to her patients. Though everything she’s ever known and loved seems to be slipping away from her, she’s not selfish enough to condemn those entrusted to her care to the same fate.
She curses, hands slipping through gore and viscera as she pours cursed energy into a young man she thinks she’s seen following Nanami around. She can only do so much. She drops the outflow once the massive haemorrhage has ceased, then digs out her suture kit to close the more alarming lacerations. She’s elbow deep in the kid’s abdomen when Yaga bursts in, Megumi Fushiguro strewn over his shoulders.
Neither are in good shape, and its far from fair to outright abandon her current patient for a new one.
“Over there.” Shoko orders, not looking up as she points at a bed on the other side of the impromptu infirmary. “Take his jacket and pants off, put pressure on anything crazy so he doesn’t bleed out. Make sure he keeps breathing”
Yaga acquiesces with only an affirmative spoken in curt acknowledgement. She knows he can trust him.
Shoko’s hands never stop moving as she pushes on with dogged resolve. Though her fingers and instruments are slippery with blood, she continues making neat throws along the length of the boy’s perforated diaphragm.
It’s going to be a long night.
Satoru can’t remember the last time he’s felt this tired.
The rubble of the cracked tiling digs into the flesh of his knees, and it’s all he can do to focus on that sensation rather than ponder the dissipation of his infinity. He feels naked, vulnerable, and he’s alone.
The prison realm cinches midway down his torso, its fleshy hold cupping the boundary demarcated by his last two ribs. It pins his arms to his sides and squeezes like a live thing, quashing any resistance he dares summon in a timely fashion.
Everything feels heavy. Time inches past him like a recalcitrant animal dragging a wounded leg. Satoru slouches, allowing the tenuous attachments to support the full-bodied aching that has settled into every inch of his frame. There’s a little bit of give, just enough to pitch him off balance. The weight of defeat and of failure is unshakeable. It’s been decades since Satoru Gojo was defeated- and even then, not in earnest.
Suguru Geto smiles down at him. The expression is too toothy, the eyes too wide with unrestrained delight. His eyes follow the line across the imposter’s forehead, dripping something translucent and viscous. He’d been kind enough to reveal his identity, and Satoru really can’t decide whether he’d have preferred to remain in the dark.
It’s not Suguru. Something ugly in his chest writhes in disgust at the thought of that parasite puppeteering his hollow limbs. Squirming maggots settled in the depths of an urn filled with a loved one’s ashes.
His thoughts stray to thoughts of some stranger digging up Suguru’s body, he thinks about foreign hands molesting cold skin, leathery fingers carding through dark, silky hair. It’s an act of larceny committed with such possessive, self-assured greed. The thought of it makes his mind fill with such profuse rancour, a primal response to the very audacity of taking what was only ever meant to be Satoru’s.
Although Suguru’s body hasn’t aged a day past that on which Satoru had killed him, its new occupant is ancient, so irrefutably so that its very age is palpable in the way it moves and holds itself. It is precisely the combination of all these discrepancies that forms its mechanical caricature of Suguru, all imperfect emulation and familiar mannerisms reproduced in cheap counterfeit.
“Poor thing.” It says, and reaches down to cup his cheek, fingers tenderly tracing the edge of his jaw. Even its touch is wrong. Satoru’s face pinches and he jerks away, resentment simmering in his eyes. Mahito laughs, but he pays the curse no mind. He wants to scream at it to stop speaking, stop breathing - wants to compel it into ceasing all wrongful employment of Suguru’s memory.
“You put up a good fight.” It commends patronisingly, shaking its head and smirking. He forces himself not to flinch as wet drops of its cranial exudate splatter his cheek. “I don’t even know whether to feel sorry for you. Who would’ve thought that you’d fall so readily for your best friend ? Someone you killed, nonetheless. Ah well. It seems you’re only human after all.”
It kneels before him and lifts a hand to thumb at the sticky drops that blotch his cheek like tears. Its fingers bracket the side of his face and creep higher. There, the index finger pauses at the junction between his nose and the corner of his eye, and Satoru wonders if it’s going to pluck out his eyes.
Thankfully, it only hums appreciatively and ventures further upwards, pressing its frigid palm gently against his temple. It’s such a blatant act of violation, but he can’t bring himself to snap or struggle. Its pathetic , the way he freezes in place and shudders helplessly instead.
“Well.” It whispers, digging the nail of its thumb into his hairline and leaning in so their faces are mere inches apart. Its breath is unnaturally cold against his skin and its eyes are lifeless, glassy like those of a shark.
“Do me a favour and stick around in there.” It says pleasantly. “We’ll both be patient together, and I promise I’ll put you out of your misery when the right time comes around. You wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer for this precious crush of yours, would you?”
Satoru can’t stop the laugh that manages to force its way past his lips. “If you think I was ever waiting around for Suguru, you’re dead wrong.”
It’s an inaccuracy he deems worth mentioning. Their relationship had never been passive in the way that there hadn’t been a moment of idleness between them even after Suguru had gone rogue. They’d spent the years chasing each other in an endless cycle. Night and day in circling multitudes.
It chuckles, drawing away and letting its fingers trail over Satoru’s face in a grotesque approximation of a lover’s caress.
“I wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to get into that head of yours. Not for the world.”
Even after removed, its touch lingers. Satoru curls his lip, averts his eyes and wants nothing more than to claw the impressions from his skin.
The sensation remains even after it swallows him whole and leaves him in the dark. It’s a persistent reminder of the claim it’s laid on him, a requisition that he might once have cherished and reciprocated had the touch borne the signature of another soul.
He shuts his eyes and thinks of an overgrown hilltop lit by the soft glow of a full moon.
Suguru is gone.
So for the first time in a long while, Satoru waits.
“Hey.” Suguru had once said, hovering over the cooked food counter at the supermarket. “The soba here looks pretty good.”
“Yeah?” Satoru’s attention is entirely elsewhere. He’s got Shoko in a headlock and is staring ravenously into the bubbling depths of the deep fat fryer. “Well I want the katsudon. Ignore Shoko. She wants to spend your money on, get this- grilled mackerel.”
Suguru wrinkles his nose. “That’s old people food, y’know?”
“Says you!” She breaks free of Satoru’s octopus grip and snaps, determined to defend her preferences. “Zaru soba? Really? Get your geriatric tastebuds away from me, you prick!”
“Hey now, who’s paying?” Not that he minds, food here is cheap. It’s a small price to pay in exchange for the promise of infinitely more valuable memories. “Yeah!” Satoru exclaims as he skips over, toting a package bound in too much cling wrap. Despite the immense wealth belying his name, he’s no doubt enthused at the idea of a free meal. “Don’t be ungrateful!”
“I’m going to celebrate when I finally get away from the two of you.” Shoko had declared with finality. “I’ll have the biggest party, just you wait.”
The aftermath of Shibuya is quiet.
The solitude that laps at the edges of her subconscious threatens to consume her. Night after night, she lies in bed and catalogues her losses. It’s almost contradictory- what with all the color and vigour attending Jujutsu High has brought into her life, but she thinks she has dulled in some sort of way since she’s come into either of their orbits.
Shoko reaches through empty bottles in search of one with an intact seal, and thinks of a waning moon fated to never undergo a waxing cycle.
Nanami is dead. Suguru is dead. Yaga is dead. Satoru is gone.
Shoko falls into a lonely rhythm and watches the skies.
It’s a warm summer night when Satoru Gojo is unsealed. The air is hot and muggy and there’s the lingering scent of incense that’s just a little too cloying- like an overeager mouthful of sponge cake.
Cake. He’s suddenly aware that he hasn’t eaten in ages. The last meal he had was that packet of instant ramen he’d had in the lounge before they’d all headed off to Shibuya and-
Memories flood into him in a single unrelenting rush. As if on cue, his six-eyes shiver and click into bleary focus like the activation of a dated machine fallen into disrepair. The result is a sudden influx of information, a torrent of tepid water let loose from behind a crumbled dam.
Satoru doubles over and retches violently. He grinds the heels of his hands into his blindfold, desperately pressing at his eyes as color explodes behind their lids. The darkness brings no relief, and his fingers form claws as he tears the cloth from his face.
How many years has it been? The thought sends panic streaking through his higher functions and the world spins around him. For all his disorientation, he manages to wait until his every sense doesn’t feel like its a hair's-breadth from exploding before lifting his head.
Stygian darkness gives way to light. After his prolonged stay in the sunless void, the soft morning glow filtering through the murky windows is stark, brilliant and blinding. Suguru before the pane a meter away, looking sick and skittish as a stray cat. His face is ashen, his face gaunt and his lips are bloodless. He’s little more than a silhouette, a porcelain moon cast in darkness from the way it has eclipsed the sun.
Satoru meets his eyes.
Neither of them speak for a long while.
They’ve both been dealt the death penalty.
Suguru casually murmurs this into his collarbone as they stand in the shower. For all the gravity of the news delivered, his mind is blank beyond the thought of how soft and warm those lips are as they graze across his skin. Satoru’s been too weak to maintain his Infinity since he’s emerged, his mind has fallen into the unfortunate habit of going all sorts of places to cope with the boredom of total isolation and his divided focus doesn’t really give him a choice beyond allowing the water to drench him. Its ticklish and uncomfortable; more than anything, its unfamiliar, and all he can imagine are reaching skeletal digits, numerous and ever present in the dark.
One of Suguru’s hands rests on his shoulder, the other cups his waist. He’s merciful in the way he allows the rush of the water to fill the space between them, eliminating any need or obligation for verbal response. Satoru exhales slowly through his nose and presses their foreheads together. His hair streaks both their pale faces with grey and copper residue as the water runs the dirt from the strands, but the matted locks dull the tactile rasp of rough sutures as they find one another.
Satoru thinks of a time, many years ago, when Yaga had put them both in detention for accidentally demolishing the west quarter of the student dormitories during one of their little squabbles. It’s funny how so little has changed since then. They’re still chasing one another- now over boundaries of life and death rather than down school corridors.
It seems only fitting that they receive equal punishment now.
They shower in silence, hands moving over one another in symbiotic rhythm, birds relying on instinct and falling into migratory patterns lost to time. Neither of them speak.
Dressed in oversized wool sweaters, they deposit themselves on the leather couch afterwards. Suguru’s old apartment is cold and empty, but the space is littered with clues of a life once lived. There are children’s drawings in crayon plastered to the fridge, clothing of shades ranging from pastel pink to charcoal grey folded into neat piles, and a creased shopping list left on the kitchen counter. Somehow, these faded promises of a bygone life only accentuate the destitution.
Suguru says nothing when he drops his head onto his shoulder, barely moves as he shuts his eyes and kisses the hollow of his throat.
“I’m tired.” Satoru murmurs, it’s a tender confession that Satoru feels is long overdue. Suguru tilts his head, and his cheek presses against the side of Satoru’s skull.
“I know.” He says quietly. Then, “Me too.”
They sit there in silence, slouched in each other’s meagre warmth and melding into a boneless heap of limbs. They’ve both been extricated from their bodies like fish scooped from a tank, and deposited carelessly back into incompatible arrangements. Satoru’s mind flickers back to a simpler time; the two of them sprawled in similar fashion over his bed and watching old horror movies.
Reality has detached itself from the two of them. It’s a pretty awful sensation that comes with feeling so utterly abandoned. It occurs to him that they’re both equally broken now; pieces of pottery laid in a careless amalgamation, lacking even the barest resemblance to their past selves, neither whole enough to repair the other.
Satoru turns his head and presses his nose into the crook of Suguru’s neck. It comes out muffled, nearly a sob, but intimately close. “I love you.”
“I know.” Suguru whispers, and lifts a hand to stroke his hair in quiet consolation.
“I know.”
The courtyard is empty when they arrive. Suguru leans on his shoulder, hair matted with cool sweat. Satoru squeezes his hand in comfort, and they walk up the stairs in silence. There they wait, in full view with their fingers entwined. For a fleeting moment, it feels like they’re sixteen again.
But normalcy is as irrelevant and unremarkable to him as a stranger he might have once passed on a street corner. Or perhaps, like a corpse left cooling in the dirty snow of an alleyway. Normalcy is long gone and rotted, and Satoru is haunted by the void left by its absence.
Shoko wanders up to them, the skin beneath her eyes dark and her mouth pulled into a long thin line. She stops before them and regards them both.
“You two look like shit.”
Suguru laughs weakly. Shoko closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around them both, burying her face into Satoru’s sternum. “I’m sorry.” She whispers, voice laden with regret. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry .”
He drops his free arm over her shoulder and pulls her shaking form close. He’s no fool. This is going to be the last time. Satoru lifts his eyes from hers long enough to glimpse a small crowd in approach. Utahime, Gakuganji, Yuuta.
No Nanami, no Yaga.
Those final omissions lodge in his throat.
“Satoru Gojo. Suguru Geto.” Naoya Zen’in materialises from behind Yuuta, smiling knowingly. His eyes are alight with a disturbing kind of glee. “You’re both under arrest.”
Satoru can’t muster any anger. He feels neither derisive, nor afraid. It feels like a test, so he merely tips his head in a quick nod.
Megumi steps forward from the shadows to join Yuuta, and the two move to take them into custody. He eases Suguru onto Yuuta’s shoulder and follows behind, Megumi flanking him in muted acceptance. It’s a peaceful affair. After all, neither of them are in any shape to put up a fight. Shoko stumbles back and sequesters herself to the side, her face stony and her expression unreadable.
Satoru doesn’t need his six-eyes to know that her gaze never breaks as it follows them unflinchingly through the doorway.
He keeps his eyes fixed on Suguru’s nape and doesn’t look back.
“So, I don’t want to worry you but-” He pauses for emphasis. “We’re about to be killed!”
Shoko’s stomach bottoms out. The sinking feeling that had come about during Shibuya grows to the magnitude of a planetary attraction. Satoru’s smile does nothing to abbreviate the horror of the situation. She’s certain that she’s drowning now, her lungs filling gradually with water that creeps down her trachea and settles like lead in her pleura. Suguru tosses Satoru off his back with an impressive heave of his shoulders, evidently not sharing his enthusiasm in their approaching demise.
It’s a feat to force the lump out of her throat when she speaks. “You guys really do have the dumbest ideas.”
Unsurprisingly, it’s Suguru who has the decency to apologise.
“I’m sorry.” He says, eyes creased with exhaustion. “I- I really did try to convince him.”
“You’re the one who’s overly eager to die.” Satoru quips back, and Suguru rounds on him, his teeth bared like a snake coiling to strike. “That doesn’t mean that you have to die too, you fucking idiot .”
“Please-” The motion of his shrug is so indifferent that it borders on delirium. “ - You’re the one who went and did whatever you wanted for a decade. So you’ve got not right to tell me that I can’t choose how I want to die-”
“Shut up!”
Her voice cracks. The resonance of her tone echoes with all the abrupt consequence of gunfire. Her hands ball into fists at her sides, and she imagines throwing herself against the translucent barrier which separates them. It’s glass reinforced with cursed energy, so such an attempt would be nothing but logically futile.
“Can’t the two of you just shut up for once?”
Satoru and Suguru are finally silent, quelled by her outburst and standing quietly, shoulder to shoulder for the first time in decades. Shoko feels like a child again, inadequate, a mortal cast in the shadow of divinity. But that hasn’t ever stopped her before. But Shoko knows that she’s never been anything outside of extraordinary. It’s a simple prerequisite if choosing to dwell amongst gods and monsters.
“You don’t need to apologise.” She hisses, feeling the years of accumulated resentment and fondness coagulate and force their way out from between her gritted teeth. “You don’t need to worry about me worrying about you , and you certainly don’t need to pretend that my feelings matter here in the slightest. ”
It’s harsh. Accusatory. If she were anyone else, she might have opted to dispense comfort in what she knows are their final hours. However, she’s never been the sympathetic sort, and to offer solace with such largesse is simply beyond her capability.
Decades of numbness make it easy for her to steel her resolve and level them both with a glare both icy and grave. She spits her words, her voice rising for fear of releasing the knot in her throat. She can’t afford to cry, and she won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her shatter.
“I know neither of you care, and I know the two of you are going to be selfish to the bitter, fucking end. So if you’re done listening to the sounds of your own voices, just know that I’m going to be the one who’s going to be cleaning up your corpses when this is all said and done. So let me be selfish for my own sake. Just for once.”
Suguru says nothing. He’s practically been dead for years. His insistence for his own execution is what gives credence to Satoru’s own wish for death.
“Okay.” Satoru whispers finally, and she sees the faux determination leave his eyes.
All of a sudden, it’s as if she’s facing a stranger. This distinct emptiness is what makes her finally understand that the trademarks of vigour he’d once possessed- the gasoline fuel which had propelled those lofty aspirations of change and reform, were left in the empty hallways of Shibuya station.
Shoko leaves them to attend to her duties. There are preparations to be made.
Satoru is barely lucid in the end.
The deciding committee decree that he is undoubtedly the greater threat. Satoru is erratic, they say. With Suguru removed, there is no telling what he will do. Shoko bites her tongue and does not call them foolish, even though the urge gnaws at her and fills her guts with vitriol. If there's one thing in life that inspires consistency in Satoru, it is his readiness to sacrifice himself, and all the world around him for Suguru.
So he will die first.
She doesn’t think she can perceive a reality where one might exist without the other. She thinks such a world would rock and drag itself into oblivion, crushed by the weight of its own bulk. Lacking one of two crucial forces on either side of its axis, there would be nothing left to inspire its continued centrifugal spin.
Even with his overt willingness to comply and the utter lack of necessity in the extravagance of restraints they’ve elected to use, Shoko is the one to sedate him. He’s smiling nonchalantly at her, chattering on even as she pumps a cocktail of opioids and relaxants into his veins. It just makes it all the more difficult to bear when his words begin to come more slowly, his syllables slurring as he droops. His eyes glaze over, and Shoko feels like she’s searching for a facet of clear sky through windows fogged with condensation.
She squeezes his hand, etching the feeling of it into her deepest memories. Short clipped nails, skin made tender by the lack of hard wear, skin so pale the veins appear blue.
She lets him go, and Satoru is guided to his knees in the middle of the courtyard.
After what feels like an eternity, Yuuta steps forward. In response, Satoru lifts his head sluggishly. It lolls to the side, baring his throat and the underside of his chin in one smooth motion. If he recognises the boy, he doesn’t show it.
It’s over much too quickly, swift in a way that is almost certainly painless. The blade bites into his throat and Satoru sinks to the ground, drugged to the point that he barely twitches, functionally mute and open-eyed as his blood pumps evenly to saturate the stones around him.
Toji Fushiguro had made the lethal mistake of using a blade void of cursed energy. Whether for good or bad, history has informed the present. Suguru stands to the side with his face blank, eyes dark and void of any legible emotion. He averts his gaze as Shoko approaches Satoru’s prone form and squats beside him, threading her fingers slowly through hair drenched with blood until his rasping breaths cease, and the butterfly shiver of his feeble pulse fades from beneath her fingers.
She feels the last of his once-defiant cursed energy flicker out like a match and nods.
Suguru follows Satoru’s trodden path. He’s graceful even now, looking almost skeletal with how haggard he’s become. He does not falter as he dips his knees into the blood seeping in between the pavestones, and his bound hands settle behind him in what might have easily been mistaken for a gesture of restful prayer.
Yuuta offers himself again, and Shoko does not miss the way his blade grates in its sheath as he draws it a second time.
Above them, the sky has discoloured into a bruised and blotchy expanse of dull purple and reddish hues, a forceful and vulgar amalgamate of warring night and day. Shoko watches the light fade from Suguru’s eyes, and pays witness to the minute twitches of his lips as they mouth an unheard epilogue. She stares into the bloodied mess of his throat until Utahime gently pulls her to her feet.
Shoko flicks out her cigarette and makes her way to the morgue.
It feels… symbolic somehow. At least- that’s the comfort she offers herself as she sits between the two bodies of her only friends.
The two bodies she’s been ordered to destroy.
She will oblige them without further question. The lit furnaces are testament to her loyalty. She’s never shared Satoru’s rebelliousness, nor Suguru’s vindictive streak. Shoko hates herself for it. But in the end, she’s the only one left. What more can she do but keep on living?
The loss feels insurmountable and jarring. Aberrant as a complete disruption of circadian rhythm.
Hypothesis proven: the world simply ceases to move.
“Fools.” She murmurs. For all her natural candour, it’s hard to distinguish the intended party of her address.
The bodies say nothing. She turns to the dying embers of her cigarette for company and fills her lungs, allowing herself to drown in the burning smoke.