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Suguru had been struggling.
Ever since the Star Plasma Vessel was killed in front of him. Ever since Satoru died but didn’t quite die. Ever since all he heard out of Satoru’s mouth was Limitless, Infinity, and Stronger.
Slowly, surely, his moral compass had skewed, following the growing absence of Gojo Satoru. It had been a month, three weeks, five days, and sixteen hours since the two of them had any time to spend together. Not that he had been counting.
Idle hands ran through jet black hair, tying it into a bun and pulling it out again. Over. And over. And over.
He thought about the saying his mother used to tell him when he had too much free time. ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Suguru,’ she would tout.
He wondered what she would think of him now.
A buzz from a forgotten phone pulled Suguru from his thoughts, tethering him to his darkened, empty, Satoru-less room.
He regarded the phone, his phone, with little interest. It’s a text message from Shoko, a fellow classmate. Once upon a time, they had considered each other friends. Suguru had ruined that with his self-destructive nature, something born from the loss of his six-eyed, omnipresent god of a boy, Gojo Satoru. His best friend. His one and only. The prospect of saying those words to Satoru scared Suguru too much. He brushed his thoughts aside, unlocking his phone and reading Shoko’s message.
10:42 a.m.
Yaga has a mission for you. Take care of it.
Suguru picked himself up and dragged himself to the door. He spared no glance at the empty bed, nor at the shirt lying messily on the floor beside it. Satoru’s shirt.
The mission was the breaking point of Suguru’s moral compass, and he felt the mental walls that he had spent so much time constructing begin to crumble.
The mission he'd been sent to take care of was a lie. It was a village full of normal people. Non-jujutsu sorcerers and non-curse users. Monkeys, the assassin had called them. The thought of agreeing with the very man that had caused the downward spiral Suguru was currently facing made him sick. The villagers demanded, shouted and screamed for Suguru to kill the two curse-seeing girls, who were locked in a cage in the middle of the village. They had done nothing wrong.
He was not going to kill them.
Instead, he pulled his phone from his pocket, drowning out the incessant screams of the villages calling for blood, blood, blood. The line rang once, twice, three times.
Then, there was his voice.
“Suguru?” Satoru’s honeyed voice spilled into his ears, filling his head with calm warmth.
“Satoru,” Suguru breathed, “I’m going to kill everyone here. I’m going to kill them.”
The six-eyed boy stayed quiet for a moment. Not typical of Satoru, to be quiet, Suguru thought.
“Alright. So, you kill them all. Then what?”
Suguru didn’t know what to say.
“That’ll be sure to get you the title of public jujutsu enemy number one. Then what? You’d be on the run.”
A silence filled the line.
“You’d lose everything, Suguru. Would it be worth it? Losing me?”
Suguru sucked in a sharp breath.
“No.” he said, nearly at once. “No. No, It wouldn’t.”
“Hey,” Satoru said softly. “I can hear them yelling. Do you want to go somewhere quieter? It’ll help you calm down.”
Suguru found a quiet place, just like Satoru had asked. He let his breathing calm, allowed his heart rate to slow; He continued talking with his best friend.
“I’m tired, Satoru. I can’t keep helping these...” he stopped himself before he could say monkeys, knowing the word wouldn’t sit well with his friend. “These... ungrateful non-sorcerers. I’m tired of working my ass off for no payoff whatsoever. I’m tired of killing myself for them, Satoru.”
Satoru stayed quiet.
“Yaga and Gakuganji sent Haibara out on that mission, they knew he couldn’t handle it alone. They’re understaffed and they keep sending kids out to die over and over and over again, Satoru, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t. I won’t.”
There was a shared moment of deafening silence. Suguru almost asked if Satoru was still there, until,
“You don’t want to help non-sorcerers anymore, then don’t.” Satoru said, simply.
“What?”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Suguru. There’s plenty you can do without even dealing with regular people. You can… do paperwork, or become a teacher. Teach these kids how to survive.”
Suguru considered it.
“Come home, Suguru. Bring those girls with, we’ll have Shoko help them. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Suguru heard the line disconnect. He returned to the village; imaging how good it would feel to kill every single person here.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he took the two young girls from the cage, Mimiko and Nanako, he learned, and left. He headed back to Jujutsu Technical High School with them in tow.
It didn’t take long to return, and, as promised, Satoru Gojo sat calmly on the steps of Jujutsu Tech. In place of his usual school uniform, he wore a pair of sweatpants and one of Suguru’s shirts.
“Suguru,” Satoru said. The curse eater didn’t miss the warm tone in Satoru’s voice when he said his name. “These must be the kids,”
Mimiko and Nanako hid behind Suguru’s legs, each peeking out from behind and staring suspiciously at Satoru.
“Hello,” he greeted, waving at Mimiko and Nanako. They cowered behind Suguru.
“You’ll scare them,” Suguru warned.
“Nah, I’m great with kids. They love me. Watch,” Satoru squatted down and smiled at them, taking off his sunglasses. “Doctors are scary, but I can make the trip there super fun,” he offered. Mimiko spoke up first.
“...How?”
Satoru smiled, eyes flicking to Suguru for just a second before looking back at the little girl.
“I can make you fly.”
The girls looked skeptical, sharing a cautious glance before hesitantly looking up at Suguru.
“He won’t hurt you,” Suguru assured. “He’s a good person.”
Mimiko and Nanako stepped toward Satoru, who pointed at them. After a moment, their shoes lifted off the ground. Childish giggles, full of excitement and wonder cut through the late afternoon silence. Suguru shared a soft smile with his friend.
The girls were left with Shoko, whose secret soft side for children was made clear when she presented Mimiko and Nanako with stuffed animals and sweets, just to make sure they wouldn’t be scared. The remains of the quiet autumn afternoon were spent in Suguru’s room.
“No mission today?” Suguru asked, careful of his tone. His white-haired friend shrugged from where he sat, which was on Suguru’s floor while he flipped through a manga.
“I told Yaga I needed to rest. I told you I’d be here,” Suguru nodded. “I see you still keep a stash of sweets for me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you cared about me or something,” Satoru joked.
More than you could ever imagine, Suguru thought. “Of course I do,” he said instead. “You’re my best friend.”
Satoru didn’t say anything in response, but the soft red tint on his ears satisfied Suguru.
The two of them sat in the quiet comfort of each other, starting off with his friend laying on the floor and Suguru sitting on the bed, and ending up with Satoru lounging across Suguru’s lap, both on the bed.
Eventually, the silence was broken. “Can I play with your hair?”
Suguru raised an eyebrow, moving his phone aside to look at his white-haired friend. “Play with it?”
“Yeah, we can switch places, here,” Satoru sat up, stretching his long legs across the bed and pointed to his lap. “Lay your head here.”
Suguru ignored the heat that rose to his cheeks and begrudgingly did as Satoru instructed. He felt careful hands pull his hair from where it had been tied, and Satoru’s long fingers ran through it, massaging his scalp.
“Does it feel nice?” Satoru asked, but there was a slight hesitance to his words; As if he was afraid Suguru might say no.
“Yeah,” he choked out, “It feels really nice.”
“Cool,” Satoru breathed. Suguru could feel him relax. “Can we do this after I come back from all my missions?”
Suguru froze at the question, causing Satoru to retract his hand. “Did I do something wrong?”
Suguru sat up, turning to face his friend. His eyes were wide, cheeks painted red and heart racing. “You... want to do this...? After every mission?”
Satoru’s face turned red, the color of his hair only making the blush that much more obvious. He nodded, “It’s comforting.”
“Comforting,” Suguru repeated.
“Well,” Satoru began, “We don’t have to, obviously. I mean, if you’re uncomfortable or whatever, or if you don’t actuallylike it and you were just saying that to make me shut up,” he spoke quickly. Frantically. “Actually, you know what, it’s nothing, I shouldn’t have-”
“Hey, shut up.” Suguru said.
Satoru stopped talking.
“If you want to, then yeah you can play with my hair whenever you want.”
“You’re... fine with it? Like fine with it?”
“Yeah.”
Satoru’s face burned darker red than Suguru’s, which was very satisfying to him. He wondered how something as simple as allowing his friend to play with his hair could make him so... uncharacteristically flustered.
“Awesome,” Satoru replied, like the genius he was. Suguru merely hummed in response as he lay back down on his friend’s lap. Satoru continued to play with black silky hair, commenting on how well taken care of it was. Suguru poked fun at how little Satoru did to keep himself cared for, noting that he didn’t even eat most of the time unless reminded to do so.
The two spent the rest of the day with each other, reading manga and watching old movies Satoru likely stole. They fell asleep in Suguru’s bed, the room a mess of snacks and books and papers.
When Suguru woke, Satoru was gone. There was a note left on the spot on the bed where he once lay. His handwriting was scratchy, but Suguru could tell he tried to make it neat.
He wondered if Satoru did that just for him.
The note began like this;
“Suguru!! ☆ <3 ☆”
Suguru loved the stupid doodles his best friend left.
“I had to leave pretty early :( Yaga wouldn’t leave me alone this morning. But I already talked down Gakuganji. He pisses me right off. Anyway, I wanna be home early today so I’ll take care of this mission pretty fast. I want to play with your hair when I get back, too. I’m sorry you couldn’t wake up to me this morning.”
Suguru sighed, clutching the letter and bringing it close to his heart. He folded it, carefully, and slid it under his pillow. Suguru left his room.
Satoru didn’t return home early. But Nanami visited for a short while, asking Suguru what he would want as a little gift from Hakone.
“Something sweet will be fine.” Suguru replied softly.
“Sweet. You’ve been hanging around Gojo too much, I see.” Nanami scoffed. Suguru shrugged in response, saying,
“Maybe. But I was planning on sharing with him.”
Nanami murmured a noise of acknowledgement before taking his leave. He didn’t like sticking around much these days. Not after what happened to Haibara.
Suguru wasn’t sent on any missions that day. Yaga mentioned in passing that the curse eater needed to take a mental break. Which was true, but he felt restless with no mission or Satoru to occupy his constantly busy brain. He took it upon himself to clean up around the dorms. He started on his own, tidying up the mess that his best friend left behind the night before. He made his bed and smoothed the sheets, swept the floor, and tossed in a load of his and Satoru’s laundry. Once finished with his room, he moved next door, opening Satoru’s.
It was a mess, as expected of the six-eyed boy; the bed unmade despite the neglect it had faced the past week, and there were clothes and candy wrappers and glasses and bandages strewn about. Suguru sighed, ignored the swelling in his chest, and got to work.
He placed everything in Satoru’s controlled chaos-type of organizational method, keeping desks and tables crowded, but organized. He made the bed, swept the floor, and wiped off all the surfaces that were dirty.
It was pushing ten o’clock when Suguru finished his anxiety-spurred cleaning spree. He changed, choosing to take a hot bath. He turned on a playlist he’d never admit to liking—something with soft and sad songs—then continued to soak in the water. He washed his hair and shaved his legs, the latter being something that his snowy-haired friend often made fun of him for doing. [fs6] Suguru just enjoyed how it felt with his pants.
After his bath, Suguru lay in bed, a lit candle on the nightstand and dressed in one of Suguru’s sweatshirts, enjoying a detective novel.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. The itching feeling of annoyance tapped behind his eyes, but he checked the notification anyway. It was from Shoko.
12:45 a.m.
Gojo just got back. He’s making a fuss about you.
Suguru ignored the increase in his heartrate.
12:45
Send him to my room, please
Shoko didn’t respond, but there was a knock at his door moments later. Satoru entered without needing an invitation.
“I’m home!” He called, dragging out the last bit. Suguru laughed quietly, throwing his head back to look at Satoru.
He stood in the doorway of the dorm, already changed into the clothes that Suguru had spent the day cleaning and folding.
“Room for one more?” Satoru asked casually. Suguru stared back in mild adoration
“No,” he replied, matching the casualty of his friend. Satoru smiled, taking a seat on the bed as close as humanly possible to Suguru as he could. Suguru noted that his infinity was off.
“So,” the six-eyed boy started, “I’m back from my mission.”
“That you are,”
“Mhm,”
There was a beat of silence between the two boys.
“You want to play with my hair?” Suguru asked. He could hear the obnoxious smile on Satoru’s face as he spoke.
“Yes, I thought you’d never ask!”
Suguru rolled his eyes in only the most loving way, folding the corner of the page he left off on and setting his book aside. He pulled his hair down from the ponytail it had been in and laid down on Satoru’s legs. The six-eyed boy wasted no time in playing with Suguru’s hair.
“Did you wash it today?” Satoru asked, pulling on his friend’s hair. Suguru wondered what he was doing with it.
“I did. I had a bath earlier,”
“Ah, man,” Satoru pouted, “I wish I could’ve joined you.”
“Whatever,” Suguru said, reaching up and taking off Satoru’s glasses, the latter swatting his hands away.
“Quit moving, Suguru, I’m trying to do something,”
Suguru did as he was asked, laying still on his friend’s lap. The gentleness of Satoru’s hands nearly lulled him to sleep, but he was pulled from the edge by the sound of the six-eyed boy loudly announcing he was finished.
“Ta-daa! It’s perfect, what do you think?”
Suguru sat up, questioning the weight on his back. Satoru dragged him to the bathroom, pushing his hair over his shoulder so he could see the style.
“It’s... a braid,” Suguru said, carefully lifting the hair. It was well done, clearly made with care and effort.
“I practiced, just for you,” Satoru said with a smile, placing his hands on his hips. Suguru smiled softly, running his fingers over the braided hair.
“Well done, Satoru. Thank you,” he breathed.
The two shared a comfortable silence, the quiet buzz of old flourescent lightbulbs being the only thing breaking their shared moment.
Satoru spent three days taking a break from missions, nearly all of that time being in Suguru’s room.
“You have your own room, you know,” Suguru would nag, but he never truly minded the prolonged stay of his friend. It was much better than never seeing him.
After three days, Yaga personally hunted down Satoru and shipped him off on another dangerous mission. By then, Suguru’s mental health break was over and he, too, was sent on a mission. Shoko stayed behind, learning reversed-curse healing techniques–likely by cheating on her medical exams–and teaching Mimiko and Nanako how to use their own cursed techniques. They were turning into excellent sorcerers.
Yaga and Gakuganji wasted no time in pushing all the work on Satoru. Again. Suguru was left with missions far too easy to keep him busy while his friend was gone for days on end, dealing with special grade after special grade after special grade. He would barely even return home, half the time having to book a hotel room and stay in the area he was due to work in. Suguru was tasked with helping Mimiko and Nanako learn to fight without relying on their cursed technique. The mundane slowly ate away at Suguru’s patience.
As time passed, Suguru grew restless. He ate less, feeling too sick from the curses he swallowed to find an appetite. Satoru became a more and more rare occurrence around Jujutsu Tech, barely finding the time to even text Suguru, much less anyone else. Yaga even began sending him overseas. Suguru feared he was losing the only person who ever tried to care about him.
Months passed as they neared the end of the year. Suguru had been put under house arrest for an altercation during a mission. He had injured a non-sorcerer on purpose. Not enough to kill them, of course. He was put to work organizing old files and taking care of archived information. He came across a file titled ‘Kenjaku’. The name made his stomach churn.
Against the wishes of Yaga, Suguru flipped through file. It listed all known hosts of the parasitic curse known as Kenjaku.
It was special grade and highly unstable, a being that could inhabit dead bodies and assume their entire identity without anyone knowing. The only way of telling it was Kenjaku would be a large stitch running the length of the forehead. This is where the curse resides, infecting its host’s brain and taking control over all its cognitive functions. Since Kenjaku has access to the long term and short term memory, it is possible that it can live in a host for centuries and not arouse any suspicion. Its origins and current whereabouts are unknown.
Suguru felt sick. He closed the file and finished his work, leaving the archive room and heading straight to his own room.
It took seven months for Satoru to return to Jujutsu tech. Suguru sat against the wall in his room, waiting for Yaga to let him off house arrest. The Kenjaku file sat heavy in the forefront of his mind. His phone buzzed from wherever he had tossed it. Suguru spared it a passing glance.
It was from Satoru.
11:28 p.m.
i'm home
Suguru stared at the message for much longer than he should have. He didn’t respond. He didn’t get up. He stayed, sitting against the wall on the floor of his room.
Time passed, though he wasn’t sure how much. After a while, Suguru stood. He walked to the bathroom.
The sound of the water spilling from the faucet into the tub drowned out any stray intrusive thoughts poking and prodding and tearing away at Suguru’s sanity. He tied his hair up into a bun and sank into the bath. The water was hotter than usual, but he didn’t mind. It kept him grounded.
He didn’t hear the quiet knock on the door of his room, nor did he hear it open, or hear the soft footsteps of his best friend. Suguru only noticed the presence of Satoru when the door of the bathroom opened gracefully.
Satoru stood in the doorway, the darkness of Suguru’s room only making his white hair and blue eyes more noticeable. In the dim light, Suguru could see miscellaneous cuts and bruises. Even despite it, he looked ethereal. Divine. Suguru didn’t stop himself from staring.
“Satoru,” he breathed. Satoru swayed, hesitantly stepping into the bathroom. He closed the door behind himself.
“I was waiting for you,” Satoru started. “You never miss it when I come back from missions.”
“Yeah,” Suguru sank lower into the warm water.
“Yeah.” Satoru said in return.
A quiet silence passed. Suguru regarded his friend, only catching his movements from his peripherals. He heard Satoru kneeling behind him, tugging his hair down and watching it fall. Suguru felt ragged hands carefully run through his hair. He relaxed under the touch, letting himself fall back into the familiar calm of Satoru.
“Why do things feel so different?” Satoru asked. His voice barely broke a whisper as he spoke, and Suguru could feel his hands shake as he carefully ran them through his hair.
Don’t start this conversation, part of him warned. But Suguru was never one to take his own advice.
“You’re gone,” he started, immediately hating how weak and vulnerable his wavering voice sounded. “Almost all the time. I barely see you anymore,”
Satoru stayed quiet.
“You kill yourself, over every single little mission. You come back and don’t have the time to breathe before being sent on another one, and then another and another, and don’t you see?”
The words spilled out of Suguru before he could even try to stop. He wasn’t sure if he could stop.
“I don’t know how much more I can handle, Satoru. I’m tired of this.”
Satoru didn’t reply.
Suguru wasn’t expecting a reply.
The silence of the bathroom was killing him. He could hear the blood push through his veins, and the quiet sound of water droplets hitting the floor. Confused, he turned to glance at Satoru.
Tears spilled down his face, falling from his shimmering, unnervingly bright blue eyes. His face was barren of emotion despite it.
“Yeah,” Satoru said. “Yeah. I get that. I’m sorry, Suguru.”
Suguru had never seen him cry before. He hated it. He hated it. He wasn’t equipped with the emotional strength to know how to comfort others—something learned from a childhood (if one could even call it that) of emotional neglect and weak parental ties —so he merely wiped the tear from Satoru’s pale cheek. His thumb left a wet trail in its wake due to having been in a hot bath for so long, but Satoru leaned into his touch, nonetheless.
“Can we just... go to bed, or something,” Satoru asked shakily. Suguru nodded, watching with slight disappointment as his exhausted friend left the room, shutting the door carefully behind him. Suguru rushed washing his hair and body, hurrying to get out and to Satoru. He dressed, dried his long black hair, and joined his blue-eyed friend in the other room.
Suguru’s bedroom was dark when he entered. The only light in the room came from Satoru’s phone. He was already wrapped in the soft, woolen blanket Suguru’s mother had made for him as a Christmas gift a few years ago. The curse-eater joined his friend on the bed, pulling him close as he settled in.
“You’re not one to be very touchy, what’s wrong with you?”
Suguru shrugged at the question, replying, “Is it making you feel any better?”
The six-eyed boy took a moment to think about it. After a moment, he shifted, laying his head on Suguru’s chest.
“Yeah, it is. A little. Can I kiss you?”
Suguru’s eyes widened, and he sat up. He scrambled to find the right words, but none came to him, all slipping from his mind at once. Satoru remained quiet, his pale blue eyes burning holes into Suguru’s contrasting brown eyes. Eye contact with Satoru was always unnerving.
“Um,” Suguru said. “Like, on... Uh,”
“On the lips. A real kiss,” Satoru clarified.
“On the lips,”
“Can I?”
Suguru covered his mouth in an attempt to cool the explosion of heat that bloomed in his cheeks. Satoru was his best friend, and yes, he had the occasional thoughts about being more than friends with him, but those thoughts were always grabbed in a stranglehold and thrown in a box under lock and key. Doing something that might cause him to lose Satoru... It was too risky. But lo and behold, here lay Satoru, asking for a kiss. Something Suguru thought about every single time they were together.
“Yes,” Suguru said. “Yeah, please do,”
Satoru was quiet for a moment, staying still.
Suguru began to regret saying yes. What if it was some prank? What if Satoru only asked because he assumed Suguru would say no, what if he never liked him in the first place? Is he only Suguru’s friend out of pity? What if-
All of the thoughts in Suguru’s brain came to a screeching halt when Satoru kissed him. He focused on how Satoru was definitely wearing chapstick, and how warm his hands felt on the back of Suguru’s neck. He focused on how perfect this moment felt.
When Satoru pulled away, Suguru followed. He crashed into his friend sending both of them over the edge of the bed.
There was a silence of sorts. Suguru couldn’t define the feeling.
“Did I do good?” Satoru asked from beneath him. Suguru’s heart rate increased tenfold.
“You’re amazing, as always,” He replied, reaching for his friend’s hand. They laced their fingers together, staying in their places on the floor. Suguru wondered how long this would last before Satoru went back to being too busy to spend time with him. He wondered if Satoru knew about the parasitic curse that plagued the bodies of the dead.
Suguru wondered what would have happened if he had killed that village of people.