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"I forgot which flavour do you like."
A sudden phone call in the bleak afternoon, Satoru's eyes widen as he chuckled at the first sentence that came right out of Suguru's lips that day. "What? Is that why you're actually calling?"
The voice in that phone sounded distant, yet gentle as he croaks a muffled laugh. "No, probably just because I've been missing you, a lot ."
Despite the ugly croaking sound made out by the curse beneath his foot, Satoru gleefully laughed at the declaration, leaning onto the air as if there's a wall he smiled to himself, unaware of the ache growing in his heart after, he replied. "I miss you too, my love."
After that, an awkward silence remain before a faint. "... Miss you too, my heart."
There was no usual banter of tease in between, no more dragging the talk before saying I miss you, it has been like this for almost two months, maybe three, who knows. Satoru put no mind to it, tried to, despite the roaring of danger in the back of his own mind begging for him to actually talk it out. He also ignored the strange pause after he called him out with the usual endearment term, my love, he called. His love.
Things had changed after that thing happened.
That thing, the death of the Star Plasma vessel, the appearance of Fushiguro Toji, his almost death and what had come right after.
He remembered the somber night filled with silence and anxiety as he felt his lover's anxious hold on his hand, and as he felt how his lover shakes as he embraced his body the later night. Remembered how that night he had no chance of escaping his extremely anxious lover.
Scared is a simplification, of all the things that had fallen upon them, scared is much too simple as a statement. To him, he couldn't explain just everything with that single word belonging to fear.
But he was far stronger than his lover which cowered in fear that night in his embrace.
Was far stronger to accept the world had moved on, it moved on.
The phone call ended as always, promises of 'I'll meet you at school later' , while barely promising anything at all. Later could mean two days later, or even up to three weeks later. This was fine, it's fine, he kept convincing himself, hushing the weird gut feeling inside of his chest even as he cradled his lover into a deep kiss to shush the yearning of that comforting warmth the later night.
It was a miracle both of them even got that chance to meet, a usual rendezvous in either one of their rooms. As he met with Suguru's tired gaze, he stepped inside and was met with a hunger wilder than beasts. Suguru devoured him like tomorrow won't ever come, fair enough , he thought. Sometimes tomorrow does seem like a chance unreachable by any means.
He embraced that hunger, even with the mismatched gaze lingering with exhaustion more than the usual yearning he wished he had met, he ignored it. The mission must've been a pain in the ass, he simply thought.
Yet, Satoru did not sleep that night.
The only thing he remembered after a long night worth of reconciliation with the warmth he had missed for far too long due to separation obliged by duty, is how haunting his lover's face looked.
He lied in their shared bed inside of Suguru's room, closing his eyes, pretending to sleep as deep as sleep can gets him. And he knows his own lover doesn't sleep either, he knows something is wrong between the two of them but neither had the actual courage to talk about them.
The thoughts of it inside of his head kept echoing, we'll talk later, and the absolute incredibly credulous belief that they will be fine. He will be fine, despite being yelled at by his inner conscious and, as ridiculous as it sounds, his own six eyes.
Heh , even six eyes knew far well than to kept quiet to this ever growing distance between the two of them.
Satoru couldn't blame it on anyone, on himself, or on Suguru.
Both of them had been exhausted, even as they rush through inside of each other's room begging for each other's touch as a consolation of what's to come and what had came, there would always be a knock on each of their door begging for the grace of their incredibly ridiculous power to shield those mortals which had barely to no power to shield themselves from.
Satoru hated it, but can he blame anyone for this? For this situation which they could only yield?
And he knew, the upcoming downfall of the love he had cling on to for far too long, the upcoming downfall of this faulted relationship opposed by fate and even heaven itself. But giving up has never been in his own dictionary, not now, not yet . And he will clung on to any spare of love and kindness his distancing lover graced upon him.
And Satoru did not sleep that night.
He kept himself peaceful in the darkness that couldn't even be called a darkness, as six eyes kept himself awake all the time. As six of his own eyes kept seeing, kept prying.
This ever growing distance between the two of them will absolutely be the death of him.
Satoru did not sleep tonight.
He kept feigning ignorance, faux bliss at the fact that his exhausted yet awoken lover is oblivion to the fact that he has not sleep, yet .
Even so the bliss of oblivion often does not come for one graced by the Gods above.
He felt a faint movement, his lover shifted as he slightly pulled himself into a tighter embrace. Satoru can feel Suguru's chin on top of his head, then he felt the shift again as he feel his hair slowly falling on his face. And then, Suguru placed a deep kiss on his forehead.
"I will forgive you if you no longer love me in the morning," his lover faintly said.
Placing a gentle kiss even gentler than the things he said about himself. Cradling a face Suguru suppose is, was, sleeping by the time he had silently confessed through the air inside of the room they both shared, about the feelings he harbored deep inside of his own air, he kissed Satoru in total oblivion of how awake he is.
Suguru kept whispering apologies, for any reason he may or may not have figured out. Kept kissing his forehead as if he's a fragile being needing care more than anything would ever be cared of, the way Suguru cradled his face, the way Suguru carefully touches him. I'm sorry, he whispered, once. Forgive me , he lamented, twice, thrice. Until uncountable came to a thought.
"I love you, my heart, my skies . I love you."
But why would he?
Why would he not love him anymore?
Why would he apologize? He had thought, keeping it to himself in midst of that unblinding darkness. Was it about the subconscious distance? I don't mind, it was understandable, he thought to himself. Ridiculously oblivious, insanely positive, he had forgotten not everyone can bear the burden he bore.
Then comes that day, a truth revealed right in front of his eyes as the days he feigned ignorance over every single little signs went to a total waste. He was faced by a man named a traitor, previously his dearest. He was faced by a gaze he could even barely recognize.
"Where are you going?" The grief in his own voice was unrecognizable as he glared for an explanation to the man declared culprit and a traitor to the world they had been living in, a corner of his own heart kept begging, kept demanding that he take him along.
What of this world if he couldn't keep the only thing that can hold him grounded?
"Explain yourself, Suguru."
There's nothing to be said, to be explained. He knew what he did even before everyone told him. He knew Suguru like he knew the skies that hovered above, knew him like a soul attached to one another and almost impossibly separable. He knew him like the back of his own hand, and now despite this all, he stood there like a stranger they were before he called him my own heart .
"Suguru," he croaks, barely even heard perhaps. His hand uselessly hanging in the air he called again for the love of his own life. "Suguru."
It chokes him, the realization that hits, when he loses the grip of his own lover and away he left him behind.
What is he now, if not the pitiful lover of a traitor? The traitor which had left him in the dark instead of taking him along to the depths of hell just as he wanted him to? What of him, if not the lonesome God yearning to return into an embrace no longer welcoming of him?
He remembered how his heart was ripped apart, tear into pieces like papers of his own grades after exams. He remembered the agony over realization of what comes and what have be.
A thought flutter as he lamented one day, and he chuckled at the mere thought alone.
Was this what he meant by no longer loving him? Was this what he was apologizing about?
Why didn't he talk to me?
I would hold his hand even through a dark path filled with nothing but the pain of thousands of thorns.
The strongest, the one who bear the world's pitiful fate on his own shoulder, that's what he is to the world. Not a human, barely even one as he is born with the expectation he'd too become a God.
But to Suguru Geto, to his love, he is nothing but a mere fragile being to shower with care rather than a weapon needs handling.
I wonder if I am still the same fragile thing he made to be, if I am still the same man worth of nothing but his love and his love alone.
This lonesome God yearned he returned to that familiar embrace, to that warmth he knew far too familiar to be strange of. He stood still in a room they used to share together, falling to both of his knees mourning for someone that has not even disappear yet, he mourned and shut himself from that grief. The world moved on, not his, but the world has moved on. And so should he.
Even as years turned to decades, and his heart, despite the grace of time, hitches to see that familiar smile no longer held the warmth he was used to have all on his own, his . There, neither a friend nor a lover, stood a traitor and an enemy with intention no further to malevolence.
Yet still his blind self, his selfish self, wishes he could actually come with him. The selfish corner in his own heart yearned to hold his hand and laughed and cling to the only warmth of spring he had ever known. But he stood still, clenching, at the remaining self control he had left over the agony his heart had.
“Satoru!” gleefully, he called. “It’s been a long time.”
That voice calling out for his name jab like a thousand needles, the softest, fondest, voice as he smiled like nothing ever happened between the both of them as he waves his hand to him. Has the past never matter to him? Has the kiss they shared, the room, those memories. Left unattended in the past ignored like nothing but a passing moment, then whatever shall he do with them? Whatever shall he do by then? How much strength would it take him to contain himself still and strong, to not rush and wrap him in a desperate embrace?
He should be applauding himself for being so strong, isn't he?
The strongest, that is indeed his title. The only one who could bear such a cruel fate and such a cruel destiny upon him. They put his strength which was barely there upon a pedestal even when he was crumbling behind a facade of a God. It was ridiculous, it was the worst .
He wanted to escape, he wished he could.
Yet as he point out a finger against the love of his life, gathering so much strength in midst of all those hurt. Bearing the fate this cruel reality had put upon him, he clenched over then to the dead body of his own lover, hoping that he wouldn't have to do this.
The wounded self of his lover scoffed, smiled. “Kill me if that was what you needed to do.”
No, he screamed. All I needed is you. All I ever wanted is to hold your hand and walk by your side, wherever it might be. All I ever wanted is you, was you, always you .
He croaked nothing out of it, neither the feelings he harboured nor the grief, nor the yearning to come along with him even to death.
Nothing left then, except for the peaceful dawn that seems almost mocking, except for the blipping sound of blood drenched to the floor. Satoru fell down to his knees, trying to find any ounce of warmth left in the body of his beloved, his victim .
With his remaining strength he slowly muttered, his voice croaking in grief.
“I beg of you, take me with you.”
Nothing answered, no one answered. It was only him shaking as he embraced himself in the cold warmth belonging to his lover.
“I wish you would take me with you, my darling.”