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By the time Yaga dismisses them, it’s midnight and Suguru wants nothing more than to collapse on the couch and sleep straight through the next month.
He’s tired. Satoru’s tired. They’re both running on fumes after a three-day mission—covered in sweat, dirt, blood, and whatever makes up the inside of vaguely bug-looking curse spirits—and on the brink of crashing. Anyone in their shoes would be exhausted. If it were under any other circumstances with any other students, three first grades would have been a ludicrous assignment for two first years. It is a ludicrous assignment for two first years, regardless if they’re the strongest or not.
There’s still blood dribbling down from Satoru’s nose, the telltale sign of his six eyes reaching their limit. Suguru’s split lip still throbs, no doubt swollen and purple now. Go clean up and get some rest. I’ll tell Shoko you’ll see her in the morning, Yaga had told them after it was clear they weren’t getting anywhere with the debrief. Suguru doubts the first part would be happening anytime soon though he appreciates the thought anyway.
“I need to sit down,” Satoru suddenly announces as they’re staggering down the hall. His arm is slung over Suguru’s shoulder, both for the physical touch and for the support, and his head hangs, the sunglasses sitting on his nose bridge clearly not doing enough to stave off the overwhelming feedback from his technique. Suguru frowns.
“Can you make it until we reach the commons?” he asks. Satoru taps his fingers twice into Suguru’s side. No. Suguru exhales from his nose. “Ok. We’ll stop in the classroom here.”
He doesn’t argue that the commons is only a couple steps further down the hall. Usually, a snarky remark would be sitting at the end of his tongue, something along the lines of calling Satoru a big baby, but it’s midnight. Suguru doesn’t have the energy for that, and Satoru may complain a lot, but this time, he’s genuinely wrung out. Bickering is a daytime activity, when they’re both rested and can back a starting jab or kick.
Now? It’s a miracle the two manage to make it into the classroom without knocking anything over.
Satoru falls into the nearest chair without a word and Suguru sinks into the one next to it. Through the uncovered windows, moonlight illuminates the room.
“Don’t fall asleep here,” Suguru cautions when Satoru tosses his sunglasses onto the desk and rests his temple against his arm. The other boy waves a hand flippantly.
“‘M just resting my eyes. They’re itchy.” That’s Satoru’s way of admitting he’s overdone it, though Suguru doesn’t point it out. Instead, he watches, then carefully extends a hand to cross the distance. Infinity lets him through without a hitch.
It always does.
“How does that feel?” he asks once his hand’s covering the top half of Satoru’s face. Satoru lifts his own hand to wrap around Suguru’s wrist.
“Your hand’s warm,” he mumbles, leaning into the touch. Suguru lets him stay like that, even as the breaths against his palm seem to slow and the minutes tick past. It’s nice like this—despite the blood that covers their skin and clothes, the bone-deep ache that settles into his limbs, and the fact that they’ll just repeat the process again within the next week, Suguru relishes this moment. He lets it settle, holding it in the place that Satoru has carved into his chest.
They sit like this for a while, neither of them saying anything. In the darkness of the night, the stars twinkle. Suguru can see them in the sky through the glass panes of the window, can feel Satoru’s soft strands of hair against the back of his hand, and he can hear the hum of a T.V. still running. There’s a woman singing a song that he doesn’t recognize. It sounds like one of the Korean shows Mei Mei always watches—she must have forgotten to turn it off.
“Suguru,” Satoru suddenly says, startling him. When he turns, moving his hand away from his friend’s face in the process, Satoru blinks up at him. He does it one eye at a time, like a dumb reptile, and Suguru can’t help the snort that leaves his throat. Satoru frowns. “Suguru.”
“I thought you fell asleep,” Suguru hums, wiping away a bit of the blood caked to Satoru’s face with his thumb. Satoru scrunches his nose up and closes his eyes again.
“Nah,” he mumbles. Pauses, then, “Dance with me.”
Suguru stares at him, bewildered. There’s a beat, and then Satoru pushes again.
“Dance with me,” he repeats. Suguru continues to stare.
“You’re delirious,” he finally manages and Satoru whines, childishly pressing his head further into the desk that it rests on. When he cracks open an eye once more, Suguru looks at it and he sees the starry night sky reflected in Satoru’s pupil.
“Before the song ends. Just a quick dance, Suguru.”
Across the miniscule distance between their desks, his hand reaches over to wrap around Suguru’s arm. Satoru brings him with himself when he pushes to his feet, fingers clutching onto the fabric of his jacket sleeve, and nearly stumbles once he’s fully standing. Suguru holds him, grounds him, then lets out a fond huff.
The smell of strawberry gum wafts from his open mouth. He must've chewed a stick on the way back in the car.
“Are you really going to do this with your eyes closed?” Satoru just smiles, holding Suguru’s hands in his own. It’s enough of a response on its own, so another exasperated sigh leaves his lips. “You’re ridiculous.”
He doesn’t protest when Satoru begins to sway to the faint tune of the song playing from the old TV down the hall, sliding across the tile flooring of the empty classroom that’s filled with nothing but old desks, moonlight, and two worn down teenagers who have the weight of the world on their shoulders. It doesn’t matter that neither of them know how to dance. Satoru goes through choppy movements and Suguru follows.
In the dead of night, they drift through the room in messy steps with their fingers intertwined, dragged along by the barely audible notes of a song neither of them know—a song that neither of them ever will know once it ends. By the time the sun rises, the song will have faded, a remnant of an early morning hour confined to nothing but a memory.
But right now is different. Right now, the song fills their steps and the sway of their bodies. It fills them with emotions that buzz in their chests.
As they spin around again, Satoru laughs, laughs in the way that makes his eyes crinkle and the blood over his lips crack, and in a way that leaves Suguru unable to do much more than stare, starstruck. Maybe it’s the tiredness in his bones or the ache of his limbs clouding his thoughts. Maybe it’s the delirium getting to him. Regardless, the rest of the world fades away, and Suguru finds himself laughing, too. It comes from the place that Satoru carved into his chest and fills his lungs, fills the air that surrounds them. One of Satoru’s hands slips from his own, finding a place to rest on his shoulder instead.
Suguru looks at Satoru as if he were the one to hang the stars in the sky. Loving Satoru is easy, he realizes then. Loving Satoru is easier than anything he’s ever done.
I love you, Suguru says in the way that he caresses Satoru’s hand in his own.
I love you, he says in the way that he lifts his free hand to cover Satoru’s eyes again.
I love you, he says in the way he pulls Satoru closer to himself, in the way he leans forward into the space between them, in the way he steps into his orbit.
Between them, the moment lasts for infinity. Suguru doesn’t want to let go.
Neither of them notice when the song ends. In their own pocket of time, they sway side to side, lost to the world around them. Suguru’s hand falls and Satoru lets his head drop into the crook of Suguru’s neck.
Satoru’s still covered in blood and grime. The tackiness of it sticks to Suguru’s palm when he puts his hand on the back of Satoru’s head, staining his skin red, leaving dark marks on the fabric of his jacket where Satoru’s face rests. Still, Suguru doesn’t move away. He tangles his hand in Satoru’s hair, holds their intertwined fingers at chest level, and presses his nose into Satoru’s neck.
In the comfort of the scent of strawberry gum and the feeling of scratchy fabric against his skin, Suguru closes his eyes.