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As Gojo Satoru awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect. Light streamed through the window, highlighting the bulk of carapace and legs that he could see before him. He was lying on his hard, stiff back; stuck, Satoru soon realized. He tried rocking to the side, to roll off of the bed, but his he just wobbled in place, legs flailing.
The struggle to move consumed his concentration, and it wasn’t until he flipped off the bed, landing hard on the floor, that he began to freak out.
I’m a giant roach! Satoru thought. And then, despairingly: what’ll Suguru think of me now?
He couldn’t move very well, he found, as he tried to coordinate the movement of the six legs. He tripped and smashed into furniture several times as he made his way to the door. To his relief, he saw that he’d locked it the previous night. Reassured that Suguru or Shoko wouldn’t be able to just walk in and see him like this, Satoru began brainstorming ways to turn himself back to normal. He looked up to his clock on his bedside table. It read 8:02 in blinking red numbers. A little bit of panic curled in his gut. He only had thirty minutes before he was supposed to meet an assistant manager at the gate of the school for a mission. He needed to be normal by then. His thoughts raced, trying to think of ideas. Maybe if he acted like a person, he could turn back?
He tried standing up, balancing on his spindly hind legs precariously. He wobbled, using the top legs to brace himself against the wall he’d used to lever himself up. He wobbled again, and this time, he fell over with a thunk, knocking over a small shelf by his desk. That crashed to the floor as well.
He felt winded, and his entire left side felt achy and bruised. But he was about to attempt to stand again when a knock came at the door, and the sound of someone trying the doorknob. “Satoru?” Suguru’s concerned voice came through the door. “Are you ok?”
Satoru began panicking. “I’m fine!” He called out. “Just fell out of bed, haha.”
But this did not seem to reassure Suguru at all; in fact, it seemed to have a detrimental effect, if anything. “I can’t understand what you said, you sound weird. Is something wrong? Are you sick?” Suguru huffed a breath out. “I told you it was better to go inside earlier last night. It was too cold. I’ll go get Ieiri, maybe she can help.”
Satoru gave an inner sigh of relief as Suguru left his door. He had maybe five minutes before he came back with Shoko. He tried standing again, and this time managed to brace himself on the dresser. Nothing happened. He dropped back down to the ground again, and scurried back and forth, pacing. He was starting to get better at the coordination of his legs.
He couldn’t let anyone see him like this. Who knew what the higher-ups would think if the strongest sorcerer, the scion of the Gojo clan, had turned into a roach. Who knew what his teacher, Yaga, would think of his student. Who knew what his friends, Ieiri, Nanami, Haibara, and the Kyoto students would think of him. Who knew what his best friend, the person he was hopelessly in love with, Geto Suguru, would think of him. Satoru had to press his face against the wall to block out the image of his buggy body and buggy feet.
He twitched as there came more knocks at the door. “Satoru? Can we come in?” Suguru called. He could hear Ieiri grumbling about why he locked his door.
When no one responded (Satoru was too afraid to try calling out again), Ieiri said, grumpily, “Gojo, if you don’t open this door then we’re breaking it down. I’m tired and want to go back to bed. Stop wasting my time.”
Silence. Satoru tried to steathily creep across the floor as to not make any noise. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed to fit under the bed.
There was a quiet conversation between the two behind the door, debating whether or not they should actually break in. Satoru couldn’t hear the end of their argument, but the conclusion became clear when there came the sound of a body slamming against the door. “Ow,” he heard Suguru say.
“Solid door,” Ieiri commented.
“Really, I didn’t notice.” This time, instead of throwing himself at the door, Suguru must have used one of his curses to bust down the door, because it cracked in half like a piece of celery. Satoru watched their feet shuffle into the room. Suguru wore white socks, and Ieiri slippers.
After a moment of baffled silence, Ieiri asked, “Where is he?”
Suguru walked over to the window. “I - I don’t know. I heard sounds earlier, so I assumed he was in here, but . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t look like he left out the window. His phone is still here. He generally doesn’t teleport while on campus. Maybe he did leave, though.”
Ieiri sounded amused. “Well, if he left, he sure made a mess while doing so. I don’t think your curse knocked over this shelf, did it? Oh, he’s going to laugh his ass off when he finds out you broke down his door.”
Suguru’s curse, a slimy looking thing with a grotesque face, was peering under the bed at him, goggling. Satoru twitched his antennae at it, trying to drive it away. It batted at the antennae, like a cat.
Suguru protested, saying, “You can’t get out of this, you were just as much part of the decision to do this, I swear —,”
Satoru had been distracted by the curse hitting his antennae, so he hadn’t seen Ieiri’s slippers make their way to the side of the bed. He hadn’t noticed her move to look under the bed, either. He only noticed when she interrupted Suguru with a shocked shriek. She jumped up onto the bed, out of reach.
“Roach! Roach, oh my god, giant roach, giant roach!” She said, and Suguru pulled his own curse aside to stare under the bed.
Satoru scuttled back and tried to press himself into the wall against which his bed rested, into the shadows, but he was too big to hide. It was akin to sticking your head in a box to hide from someone; all he was doing was hiding from himself.
Suguru said something very impolite Satoru didn’t think he’d ever heard his friend say before, and, at Suguru’s command, the curse lashed forward to attack him. Satoru curled into himself, braced for the impact, but none came. He looked up to see the curse, close enough to touch him — an infinity away.
Satoru hadn’t even realized he was using his technique, but now that he noticed, he could feel his reverse cursed technique rejuvenating him, healing his bumps and bruises. His Infinity was activated, and nothing could reach him unless he willed it.
When it became apparent to Suguru that a) the roach wasn’t getting its ass whooped by his curse and b) said giant roach wasn’t going to move anytime soon, Suguru backed up. Ieiri jumped off the bed (Satoru was a little pissed she’d jumped on his sheets with her slippers on) and stood next to Suguru. They observed the roach warily.
“You know,” Ieiri said after a moment. “I’ve always thought Gojo was a slob, and probably had bugs in his room. But this is going too far.”
Satoru twitched his antennae in protest, and the two jumped at this motion.
“Why can’t my curse touch it?” Suguru said, frustrated. He scratched his head. “It has to be a curse, right? Roaches don’t get that big. It’s nearly the size of the bed.” Suguru inched forward, and tried to activate his cursed technique on the roach. Nothing happened. At least now Satoru could cross “turned into a cursed entity” off his list of why he was a giant roach.
“So, it’s not a curse,” Suguru said.
“Hey,” Ieiri observed, “it’s untouchable. Don’t you get it? It has Gojo’s technique.”
Suguru tensed. He whispered, low and ragged, “Could it have eaten him?”
They looked at it, trying to judge if it was big enough. Satoru wasn’t sure what was worse: being recognized as being a giant ugly bug, or having his friends think he was eaten by a giant ugly bug.
“It doesn’t look big enough,” Ieiri said. “I don’t think so.”
Suguru, who had calmed down a bit as reason caught up with him, nodded warily. “I guess it’s unlikely.” He knelt down and reached under the bed for the roach. Satoru was so surprised that he didn’t have time to run away. Both him and Suguru stiffened when he was able to grab onto the edge of the carapace and drag him out from under the bed.
Satoru thrashed around, trying to escape from Suguru, but once he had him out from under the bed, Suguru sat on him to keep him in place. It was pretty painful; Satoru felt like he was being crushed under Suguru’s weight. His legs were toast, Satoru thought.
Ieiri reached down to poke at Satoru’s face, and found she couldn’t touch him. She got a strange look on her face; after a moment, Satoru recognized it as her biting back a laugh. “So,” she said, “there’s a giant roach in Gojo’s room. And the giant roach has Gojo’s technique. And the only one he’ll let touch him is you. Which is also very much like Gojo.”
Suguru protested. “No way. That’s crazy.” He trailed off and stared at the roach. Satoru waved his antennae at him miserably.
Suguru set his jaw. “Well, we just don’t know. In the meantime, let’s put it in my room. Since this door is toast.”
He tried picking up the roach, but it was big and bulky. It wasn’t particularly heavy though, so, after he had hooked his hands around the edges of his carapace, he managed to pick him up. Satoru’s legs waved around wildly. He didn’t like this at all.
Suguru awkwardly had to turn Satoru sideway to fit him through the door, since he was so wide. Ieiri followed, and opened Suguru’s door. It was right next to Satoru’s, which is how he was able to hear the commotion caused by Satoru knocking the shelf over.
Suguru carried the roach into his room and carefully set it on the floor. Satoru immediately fled under the bed, ashamed and embarrassed.
Suguru left, and shut the door behind himself and Ieiri, trapping Satoru in. It was dusty under the bed, but the room smelled like Suguru. Satoru’s sense of smell was altered, foreign feeling, but he could still recognize Suguru’s warm, clean smell.
It gave him comfort, but he still felt frazzled and unhappy. Thinking of his friends seeing him like this made a part of him just burn in discomfort. He pushed back the memory of how Suguru, how Shoko had looked at him. He wondered what would happen now. Would he live under Suguru’s bed for the rest of his life? It was kind of funny, really. All his life, everyone had these expectations of him - and he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit his expectations for himself were even higher. Which is why the thought of the heir of the Gojo clan, the strongest sorcerer, demoted to roach status was so ridiculous. After all, Satoru could still use his techniques; he still had his Six Eyes. Maybe Satoru could go out hunting curses in all his roachy glory. They wouldn’t know what’d hit them.
A light little knock came at the door, and Suguru’s voice called, “Hey, I’m coming in.” Suguru carefully opened the door, and ushered in someone else, when he saw that the roach was still hiding. The other pair of feet didn’t seem to belong to Ieiri; when the person leaned down, Satoru saw it was his teacher, Yaga.
“Hmm. I see you were not joking. My apologies, Geto.” He scratched at his beard. “And you said you think it might be Gojo?”
Satoru twitched at this, as Suguru said, “We’re not sure. It doesn’t speak. But it has his cursed technique.”
Yaga sat on his heels. “You were right about not telling anyone else. It’s better if this doesn’t get out.” Yaga turned to address the giant roach. It stared beadily back at him. Satoru was starting to get freaked out by his own lack of eyelids. “Is that you, Satoru?” Yaga asked earnestly. The thought flashed over Satoru that, if he hadn’t been the roach, this would have been very amusing. But he stayed perfectly still, not wanting to give anything away.
Yaga glanced back at Suguru, and then back at Giant Roach Gojo. He asked Suguru, “Will you step out for a moment?”
“Sure,” Suguru said, and, giving the legs sticking out from under his bed one last glance, left the room.
Yaga waited a moment, then said, “Ok, Satoru. He’s gone now. You can tell me without him knowing.”
Satoru cursed his teacher for his perceptiveness about about Suguru, but he continued to stay still. Yaga sighed. “Well, if that’s the case, maybe I better go tell Geto about that time in your first year, when I found you disguising Valentines’ Day chocolates as a package from his mom—,” Yaga broke off when Satoru involuntarily twitched in protest and surprise. He hadn’t realized Yaga knew about that.
Yaga huffed out a laugh at the reaction. “So it is you. Gojo, stop hiding and come out.”
Satoru crept out from under the bed, legs tip tapping on the wood of the floor. Yaga regarded him, and said, “We’ve got to find a way to fix this.”
Satoru waved his antennae in assent.
Yaga asked, “Do you know what caused this?”
Satoru had no way of indicating yes or no. He couldn’t really shake his head. Yaga, sensing the problem, said, “Oh. Wave your left antenna thing for a yes, and the right one for a no. Can you do that?”
Satoru had to take a moment to remember his left from right, and waved his left antenna.
Yaga went on, asking again, “What happened? Do you know?”
When Satoru replied no, Yaga frowned, and continued to question him more. After a while, Satoru got tired of answering his teacher’s questions, and wandered back under the bed. Despite all threats and cajoling Yaga did to try and get him back out again, Satoru found he couldn’t concentrate on the man. Yaga left and Suguru came back in. Satoru perked up a bit at that, but remained under the bed.
Suguru crouched down by the bed, peering at the roach. “Hey,” he said softly. “Yaga-sensei told me it’s you, Satoru. You don’t have to be embarrassed. I’m sure this’ll pass over soon, and we’ll be laughing about it.” He waited patiently, but when the roach didn’t move from his huddle under the bed, Suguru sighed. He reached over and patted Satoru’s head. “You can stick around in here as long as you’d like, or if you want to go back to your room, I’ll leave the door open. I’ve got to go, I have to cover that mission of yours.” Suguru gave him the stinkeye, but still grinned at him. “I’d swear you’re doing this on purpose, just so you can slack off, if I didn’t know better.”
When Suguru left, Satoru remained where he was. He fell into a trance-like state; not exactly sleep as he’d always conceptualized it, since he had no eyelids. However, his strange body relaxed and his mind wandered. The memory of the previous night glowed behind his eyes, floating by in the manner of a bottle bobbing down a gentle stream.
Satoru, the human Satoru, had gone looking for his friend after his brief dinner. It had been late, as he’d stayed out for a mission well into the evening. By the time Satoru had found him, it was already completely dark out.
Suguru had been drifting away from him, ever since the incident with Amanai Riko. Satoru rarely saw him anymore; if Satoru wasn’t on a mission, then Suguru was. A deep part of Satoru’s own heart had twisted, turned sour, with the business with Amanai. Satoru found it ironic that, despite his abilities to heal, nothing could repair the much more real, much more painful scar of emotion. He grinned and laughed around it, but a part of him couldn’t forget. And it was so much worse, dealing with it without his best friend.
Satoru had found him when he looked up at the dawning moon. Lit in the light of the gibbous, Suguru’s dark hair shone against the matte of the rooftop tiles. Satoru, stared at him, transfixed, for an uncountable amount of time. It wasn’t until Suguru, sensing his gaze, finally looked down on him that Satoru realized he had been staring. Suguru gazed back at him for a few seconds, then waved at him with a hand, inviting him up. Satoru made his way to the roof, and sat next to Suguru on the rough texture of the tiles. Wordlessly, Suguru nudged Satoru to look up at the sky. It was just the stars, and the moon, winking down at them coldly. But then a streak cut across a darker portion of the sky, and Satoru realized Suguru had come up here to watch a meteor shower.
“It was always too bright at home to see the stars. You know, ‘cause of the city,” Suguru told Satoru at one point.
Satoru, who had been observing his face, had noticed Suguru was very thin, like he hadn’t been eating. He opened his mouth to ask about it, but something held him back. Instead, he said, “Hey. Suguru. I think I’m in love with you.”
Suguru turned to him, his mouth set in a little shocked oh. Satoru leaned forward and kissed him. It was his first kiss, so he wasn’t really sure how to go about it. As a result, he broke off a moment later, face hot and probably red.
For the first time Satoru had ever known, Suguru was speechless in his surprise and shock. When he did speak, he kept tripping over his words. “I—um—I think—I mean,” he stopped, huffed out a little laugh, and said, “What I’m trying to say is. I think you beat me to the chase, is all. Confession-wise.” And he wrapped his warm, big hand around one of Satoru’s long, pale ones.
They lay together on the roof, Satoru’s head on Suguru’s shoulder, and watched the stars.
Roach Satoru came back to himself when he heard a door slam somewhere down the hall. Feeling a little more energized, he scuttled around the room, nosing into Suguru’s things. It was difficult, since he couldn’t really open drawers with his roach feet, but he snooped where he could. He didn’t find anything exciting.
Cautiously, he crept out of Suguru’s room, into the hallway. No one was there, and mid-afternoon light streamed through the windows. Satoru stuck to the shadows as he ran around. At one point, he saw a glimpse of movement as he turned into a hall, and had to flee back to Suguru’s room to hide. When the coast was clear, he crept back to the sliding door that led out to the porch. He shoved it open with his head, and crept out into the fresh air.
It felt hesitantly warm, despite the fact the weather was just starting to turn to the chill of winter. The warmth, which was at least relaxing, was offset by the light of the sun; was far too bright. Satoru’s bug eyes burned, and he retreated back inside.
He came through the door just as someone walked around the corner in the hall. Nanami stared in stunned shock at the giant roach. Satoru stared back in horror.
Satoru didn’t start running until Nanami pulled his cleaver from his belt. He turned, scuttling away from the younger teen. It turned out that even giant roaches could move fast, given the right motivation. Nanami’s shout came from behind him, and Satoru took advantage of his knowledge of the building and all its halls to lose Nanami. Once Nanami was out of sight, he doubled back to Suguru’s room, and nudged the door shut. He knew Nanami would come looking in there if he left the door open. He then went back to hiding under the bed.
Satoru could hear Nanami’s footsteps as he went looking around the building. After a while, he seemed to give up, since he couldn’t hear anything anymore.
Satoru had almost fallen asleep again when he heard footsteps coming down the hall once again. He tensed, and held still as someone opened the door.
But it was just Suguru. “Satoru,” he said, laughing. “Nanami is freaking out about a giant roach that snuck into the dorms. I’m assuming that was you?”
Satoru stuck the antennae out from under the bed and waved them at him. Suguru laughed again. “Haibara is petrified, now. You know he’s terrified of insects?” Suguru shuffled over to the bed and sat on it.
Satoru stayed under the bed. Suguru seemed to be very casual about all of this, but Satoru was still inwardly petrified of Suguru really getting a good look at him.
“I didn’t tell them what all of this was about, though. I told them you were one of my curses that I kept in my room. We came up with some story about you being out of the country.” Suguru told him. He picked up a book and swung his legs onto the bed.
Satoru huddled there for the rest of the evening, while Suguru did his own thing. He tried luring Satoru out a few times, but it never worked. Night came, and Satoru was still under his bed. He felt jittery and energetic now, compared to earlier; he also was fairly hungry, since he hadn’t eaten anything all day.
Suguru had left and gone to get food for himself, so Satoru finally poked his head out from under the bed. He felt so restless, and it occurred to him that it’d be really awkward if he spent the night there while Suguru tried to sleep. He crept over to his own room, sans door, and crawled under his own bed instead.
A while later, Suguru came looking for him. “There you are,” he said, relief in his voice when he saw the spindly legs sticking out from their hiding place. “I couldn’t find you when I came back.”
He was holding a bowl of soup in either hand, and set one down on the floor. He sat at Satoru’s desk, to have his own soup.
Satoru didn’t want to move. The soup sat there, tantalizing in its warm, steaming broth. He watched the folds of steam curl into the air gently. He wanted the soup so badly, but, stronger than that feeling of hunger was the desire to remain hidden.
It was stupid, really. He knew Suguru had already seen him. But the idea of coming out into the open was almost physically painful to think about. The humiliation, the indignity of it, curled in his gut and didn’t let him move.
When Satoru didn’t come out, Suguru set his own soup down. “Satoru,” he said. “I know I haven’t told you this before, and I don’t want you to think I’m just saying it to make you feel better. Yeah, I’m kind of freaked out. I don’t know what’s going on, and I wish you weren’t — well, a roach. But I need to tell you. I—,” he cleared his throat, face flushing. “I love you. And I love you still, even if you are a giant bug. So eat your damn soup.” His big hands, normally still and relaxed, twisted the fabric of his shirt as he said this.
Suguru’s courage pulled Satoru reluctantly from under the bed. A part of his heart had unknotted itself at those words. I love you. He crept out, awkward under Suguru’s gaze, and ate his damn soup.
——
Suguru, sensing he had reached his limit for interaction that night, gave his head a little pat before he left with their empty bowls. “You’re still invited to hang out in my room, if you want,” he reminded him. “And,” he said, grinning, “I guess we’ll fix your door tomorrow.”
Satoru found he had a lot of energy after Suguru had left. He felt awake in a way he hadn’t all day. He ran around his room, bored out of his mind. He couldn’t do anything he liked as a roach, so he was determined to wear a trail into the floor. After a while of doing this, an idea came to mind.
The next morning, Suguru came into the room and found Satoru not under the bed, but on the ceiling. “That’s absolutely terrifying,” he admitted, and Satoru, careful not to fall, came at him from above. Suguru scrambled back to the doorway. Disappointed, Satoru returned to the floor via one of the walls. He’d gone to ground much more abruptly and swiftly a few times during the night; in other words, he’d fallen. It wasn’t easy to stay on the ceiling.
Satoru watched Suguru come back into the room once he was no longer hovering threateningly above. “Ieiri is coming by in a bit. She promised she’d come and try stuff with reverse technique, to try to turn you back.”
Satoru immediately booked it for the underside of the bed, but Suguru stepped on him before he could get far. “And you can’t be hiding under the bed while she’s doing that. It just won’t work.” When it seemed like Satoru was going to escape from under the weight of his foot—after all, he didn’t want to crush him— he flipped the giant roach onto his back. It was easier to hold him that way. Satoru’s legs flailed in the air.
While they waited for Shoko to show, Suguru told him about the mission he’d covered yesterday. Above all, the most frustrating part of everything was Satoru’s inability to communicate. He desperately wanted to make remarks, joke with Suguru, or just talk. He wanted to tell his friend that he wanted to come with him; there was no reason for Suguru to be taking on these missions without him. Even if it meant being out in the open. But it was impossible to convey so much just by waving around his appendages.
Ieiri poked her head into the doorway and laughed when she saw how Suguru had Satoru pinned. She came over, and kneeled next to them.
Ieiri’s help came to nothing, though. At the end of the thirty minutes of poking, prodding, and griping (“This would go faster if you’d just stop putting up your infinity, shithead,” Ieiri remarked to him at one point), Suguru finally flipped him back over. “That’s that, I guess,” he sighed. “Well, come hang out with me before I have to leave, you can hide under the bed later. Another mission this afternoon.” Without waiting for Satoru to make any kind of reply to this, Suguru picked up the giant roach and carried him to his room.
Suguru set him down and sat on his bed. “Oh, there’s going to be some people coming by this afternoon, to fix your door. Stay in my room today, so you don’t freak them out.”
Satoru nudged Suguru’s foot with his head, but then, failing to communicate his thoughts, crawled under the bed. He’d noticed that, despite the wildness of the situation, Suguru was looking a little less stressed than before. The line that formed across his forehead had relaxed, and didn’t seem to have that chronically nauseated look on his face anymore. He was more relaxed around Satoru, and he wondered whether the change had been accomplished by his confession or his new status as a giant roach. He hoped it was the former.
Eventually Suguru got up, and announced that he was headed out. Satoru scrambled from under the bed, but one of his legs got caught on the metal foot of the bedframe. With a crack, Satoru’s momentum tore the limb right from his body.
“Oh shit!” Suguru said, grabbing his hair, a panicked look on his face. He had been watching Satoru when it happened, and rushed forward.
Satoru shook himself. Wow, that really hurts, he thought, and then, with a crackle and pop of joints, regrew the limb with reverse curse technique.
Suguru stopped in his tracks, still clutching his hair. He breathed out and dropped to his knees. “Damn it, you stupid roach,” he said, and grabbed Satoru into a really awkward hug. “Don’t do that again. That was horrible.” He let Satoru go, and tugged on the dismembered leg, still stuck on the frame. It came loose, and Suguru numbly waved it around.
He got back up, and said, “I really do have to go. But,” he started, and began rummaging through the drawers of his desk. Finally, he pulled out a roll of blue painter’s tape, and began wrapping up the legs of the bed. He also taped anything else he thought might catch Satoru’s legs. A fair amount of his furniture also was ejected to the hall. Satoru tried to indicate that he didn’t need to do that, but Suguru either didn’t see or didn’t care. He was on a mission of a different kind.
Finally, once Suguru seemed satisfied, he dusted his hands off and looked around. Blue tape was now the theme of the bedroom. He’d even pushed his wooden bookshelf out of the room, worrying it might come down on Satoru if he bumped into it. By this point, he was probably very late to wherever it was he needed to go.
“Alright, I think that’ll be better,” Suguru said. “I’ve got to go now. Please be careful and not rip any more limbs off.”
He headed towards the door, but Satoru determinedly stuck to his heels. Suguru turned on him. “What is it? I have to go.”
Satoru waved his antennae at him. Suguru stared, and continued on. He had to stop again as Satoru followed.
“Satoru, you can’t come with me. Think about it; everybody’d be able to see you. I can’t just go around town with the world’s largest roach following me around.” At this, he opened the door just enough to slip through, and shut it before Satoru could stick any appendages after him.
Pissed, Satoru waited a moment and then teleported into the hall. Suguru jumped in surprise. “Shoot, I forgot you could do that.” He sighed. “Satoru, you can’t come with me. Even if you teleported to where we were going, the manager would see you. We have to keep this quiet, the less people that know, the better.”
Haibara Yu, bright smile on his face like usual, came around the corner. “Hey, Geto, they’re looking for you out in the courtya—,” the rest of his sentence and his smile both dropped when he spotted the roach. He didn’t say anything, just stumbled back around the corner and away, looking like he was going to pass out.
Satoru hadn’t realized his antennae had folded in dismay until Suguru crouched in front of him. “Satoru, look at me. Look at me. Don’t feel bad, that’s just how Haibara reacts to insects. It isn’t a big deal, it’s fine.”
Satoru was suddenly hyperaware of his bug body, and felt disgusted. Feeling mortified, he teleported back into Suguru’s room, and hid under the bed. Even this didn’t seem like enough. He wished there was a hole he could hide in, so he never had to feel the light of day again.
Suguru peeked his head into the room to make sure Satoru hadn’t teleported elsewhere, and said, quietly, “I’ll be back by six or seven, alright? See you.” He closed the door gently behind him.
Satoru stewed in his own feelings for the afternoon. It was actually fairly cold in the buildings today; because of the age of the buildings on campus, including the dorms, they had no central heating. The past few days had been unreasonably warm for early December, but now the cold had definitely settled in. The wood floors felt cold underneath him; he felt stiff with the chill.
He slept more, but felt jumpy and nervous with all the sounds that accompanied the installation of his new door. He couldn’t relax until they went away again.
Evening came and went, and Satoru jolted awake in the quiet darkness of Suguru’s room. It was late, he could tell. He listened for Suguru, but there was no indication of his presence. He came out from under the bed, and looked around. No Suguru, and the door was still firmly shut. Satoru paced back and forth, worried. Suguru had said he’d be back by seven, right? What if he’d gotten hurt? Satoru cursed himself. He knew he should have gone with him; instead, he’d sulked under the bed like a kid in a tantrum.
He teleported out of the room, and went down the corridor until he reached Ieiri’s room. He scratched his legs at the door, but no one answered. No light came from beneath the door, so she probably wasn’t in; Ieiri often didn’t go to bed until the early hours of the morning.
Stealthily, he crept out of the dorms and across the courtyard to the infirmary. Frost coated the grass. It was so cold he couldn’t feel the ends of his legs, and he tripped a few times on the way.
The light was on in the infirmary building, and he could see a figure silhouetted in the light of the window. He ran forward and carefully nudged the door open, enough to hear what was going on inside.
“—late, I’m sorry. It took longer than I thought.” Satoru slumped in relief at the sound of Suguru’s voice. He barged in, pushing the door out of the way.
Shoko was healing Suguru’s arm. His sleeve was torn and bloody, and Satoru could see some of the wounds through the rents in the fabric.
They jumped a bit at his abrupt entrance. “Oh, it’s just you,” Suguru said tiredly. The lines on his forehead had reappeared.
Satoru waved his antennae angrily, and clacked with his mandibles at them.
Shoko shooed him out. “No dirty roaches crawling around this space. Even if the roach is you.” And so Satoru was kicked out onto the porch.
He huddled miserably in the cold for about fifteen minutes, after which Suguru finally came out. “See? All better,” he said, swinging his arm in a loop. Satoru stared at him flatly. “Hey, at least I didn’t lose it, like you did,” Suguru complained to him.
Satoru wished he could give Suguru a piece of his mind, but he compensated by burning his shoelaces into oblivion. Suguru yelped in surprise and pulled his feet back, and stared at the ruined parts of his shoes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Satoru,” he said. “I know you’re frustrated. But my shoes. Why my shoes?”
Satisfied, Satoru wobbled on ahead. He was really stiff now, and wanted to get back inside. Suguru followed after, annoyed.
It wasn’t much warmer inside, unfortunately. Satoru checked out his new door. It looked like the last one, just less dented. Suguru, still mad about his shoelaces, didn’t bother opening the door for him, so he teleported inside. He tried to crawl onto the bed and under the warm covers, but he couldn’t really pull it over himself, and only managed to get partially covered by the blanket. He had already slept all day, but the cold had wiped him out, so it was not all so surprising when he passed out for the night.
He woke to find the quilt pulled completely over him. More of the soup leftovers had been left in an open space. It had congealed overnight, and looked cold, but Satoru felt warm inside that Suguru had thought to get him food. Weak winter light streamed through the window.
He had his soup, and cursed himself for sleeping in. He scrambled out of his room — the door had been left cracked — and to Suguru’s, hoping he hadn’t gone on a mission already.
Suguru was still asleep. Satoru paused in the doorway, surprised. He hadn’t thought that he’d gotten up before him. At the sound of the door, Suguru blearily opened his eyes. “Satoru?”
Abashed, Satoru retreated back to his room. He looked at the clock, and saw it was only seven.
A moment later, Suguru padded in, rubbing his eyes. He was in his pajamas. Satoru tried to wave an apology at him for waking him up, and Suguru seemed to understand. “No, it’s fine, I usually get up around this time anyway. But guess what? I have the day off! ‘Cause of my arm.” He waved it around. “It feels fine, but I’m not complaining.” Suguru grinned at Satoru. That was the damnedest thing about him; no matter how early it was, he was rarely grumpy. Satoru could never.
Suguru sat on his bed, and said, “Tomorrow too, remember?”
Satoru pulled a blank on what he meant. Apparently he managed to convey this with his roachy features, because Suguru gently prompted. “The seventh? It’s tomorrow.”
Satoru had completely forgotten his own birthday throughout all the madness. While much of their missions and work was situational, and could demand their attention at any time, anything that could be scheduled was always second in importance to birthdays. And since there were so few students, everyone’s birthday was a day off to celebrate. Despite Satoru’s current status as “out of the country”, apparently they were still celebrating.
Satoru didn’t know how to feel. He’d never looked forward to his birthday until this year; last year, his friends had thrown a party for him, and he’d had a great time. But now, the probability that he’d spend his birthday as a giant roach was looming and increasingly likely.
Suguru was chewing on a fingernail. He was silent, lost in thought. Satoru was crawling along the wall when he said, “Satoru, I was thinking.” He wished he could make a joking reply to that particular comment. Suguru had a very serious look on his face. “Do you think cake is bad for roaches? Like, I know they usually eat garbage, but I don’t want to give you anything that’d kill you—,”
Satoru fell from the wall and landed on his back. He tottered there for a moment, then flipped over. He ran over and bit Suguru on the ankle. Stop being stupid, Satoru thought, I’m going to have cake even if it kills me. He hoped he hadn’t jinxed himself with that thought, but there were worse ways to go.
——
Suguru hung out with Satoru all that day. At Satoru’s prompting, he pulled out Satoru’s Gameboy from his bedside table drawer.
“Seriously, you still have one of these?” Suguru asked, amused. Satoru prodded him with one leg. “What, do you want me to play, uh—,” he checked the cartridge, “Super Mario Bros? Really? And you’ll do what? Watch?”
That is exactly what they did. Suguru sat on the floor, and Satoru hovered over his shoulder. It was the most entertainment he’d had in days, since the dorm’s only TV was in the lounge, and he was pretty sure Haibara would have a heart attack if he saw the dreaded roach watching K-dramas from the couch.
Suguru finally called it quits sometime in the afternoon, claiming that his fingers were numb. Truth be told, Satoru was feeling particularly numb himself; there was a cold draft that came under his door and made his joints hurt. He wondered if he was an old man roach. After all, he was nearly seventeen; he must be the oldest roach on record. Or did you only count the time since he was turned into a roach?
Suguru went to go get food, and Satoru shivered under the bed. If he had to be a roach, why did it have to be around the coldest part of the year?
Believe it or not, it was more soup that Suguru brought back. Satoru was so sick of soup. He was excited for the change of pace that was coming with tomorrow’s promised cake. He ate the soup anyways, though.
That evening, Suguru said, “Hey, I know it’s pretty cold out, but it’s supposed to be really clear tonight. We can go look at the stars while we wait for your birthday. Of course we’ve got to stay up until midnight.”
Satoru couldn’t express how awful the cold made him feel. He felt dull and tired just with the chill inside the building, let alone out exposed to the frost and cold. But he couldn’t help but remember how Suguru’s face had looked under the moon, how his smile was framed next to the stars in his mind’s eye. He did not remember the chill of the night, but how his heart had glowed when he was with Suguru. So he waved his antennae at him in assent, knowing folly but no fear.
They waited until ten, when everyone had retreated to their own respective rooms. Suguru carried a huge bundle of blankets, and Satoru had to nudge him a few times to keep him from running into things.
They got to the door without encountering anyone, and Suguru opened it and managed to drop half his blankets. Satoru skittered outside, and Suguru, once he had retrieved all his blankets (where did he even get all those, Satoru wondered. He had at least five, three of which he’d never seen before), he closed the door behind him gently. For Satoru, getting to the roof was easier than ever, but Suguru had to summon a curse to fly him up.
It was — to be entirely accurate — fucking freezing. The roof didn’t have frost on it, but Satoru was sure it was just a matter of time.
Suguru spread out a blanket on top of the roof tiles, and invited Satoru over. Once Satoru was on the blanket, he heaped three more on top of him, keeping only one for himself. Suguru laid back to look at the sky; Satoru had to face towards the pitch of the roof and see the stars above that, or else he’d have difficulty seeing anything. Thanks to his Six Eyes and the natural facets of roach eyes, he could watch Suguru and the stars at the same time.
Suguru let out a long, deep breath, and said, “The moon is bright tonight.”
It was. It had been the full moon only a day or so before, so the moon was still at its brightest. Suguru lapsed into silence, and, a few minutes later, Satoru realized he was asleep. How he managed to fall asleep when it was so cold was beyond him. Satoru watched the moon crest over the roof, and the stars brighten.
He huddled in his blankets, but they didn’t really do much. He wondered if roaches even produced body heat, and shuffled closer to Suguru.
As time passed, the night grew darker around him. He looked at the moon, nonplussed, but it still shone above. It left bright afterimages in his eyes. He tried to move, to nudge Suguru — it was time to go in, whether it was midnight or not — but he found his joints locked stiff. He lacked the energy to try very long, and slumped in place.
It was not the night getting darker, Satoru realized. His vision was failing.
Satoru could have told anyone that roaches and cold weather didn’t mix, but he hadn’t really thought all that much about it. You never really noticed when the roaches disappeared in the winter; you only thought about them when they were there.
It wasn’t so bad, he thought. Given a choice, he might have picked the cake. But, he thought—summoning the last dregs of energy, moving to the side a fraction, settling his head on Suguru’s shoulder—he didn’t have any regret in this particular ending. As his sight faded into the darkness between the stars, the last illumination he saw was the glow of the Suguru’s moon-bright sleeping face. And that was enough for him.
——
Just past midnight on December 7th, Suguru woke to the nudging weight of something resting on his shoulder. Blearily — stiffly, how’d he manage to fall asleep in this cold?— he rubbed his eyes open. He looked down on the gently snoring figure nestled on top of his arm. His white-blue hair looked mussed, and Suguru was certain he’d wake with a cow-lick. His dinosaur-print jammies looked perfectly cozy; though, raising his head, Suguru thought his feet would get frostbite if he stayed out any longer. Carefully, as his arm had fallen asleep under Satoru’s weight, Suguru picked up his beloved, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and carried him inside.