Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He’s wiping blood off of his knife when his phone rings.

He lets it ring out, the vibration a slight nuisance as he bends down to pick up a second knife. He slides the first one back into its usual case by his hip, a comfortable weight as it hangs. The second knife is dry save for a thin lining of red along the outer edge, a pristine clean compared to the liquid that had dripped from the first. After wiping that too clean, he bends down to tuck the now bloodied handkerchief back in the breast pocket of the corpse that lays stock-still beneath him.

He notes with mild disdain that red now paints his fingers. He’ll have to find a bathroom to clean up in before he can leave.

His phone stops ringing long enough for the dingy alley only to hold the sounds of his light steps as he maneuvers his way over splayed legs that will never move again. He tries not to make it a habit to look at his victims, but his eyes inevitably pull themselves to the two clean cuts on the body’s neck. They’re razor-thin, the only wounds on an otherwise peacefully sleeping cadaver.

He doesn’t like his job, but damn, is he good at it.

He does a final cursory glance of the charnel scene. Blood continues trickling down from the wound, slowly seeping into the body’s previously pristine white suit, but with such a peaceful look on its face, it’ll be a while before anyone thinks to notice it as anything other than a sleeping stranger.

His phone rings again. He spares a contemptuous look at the unknown caller ID before slipping it by his ear.

“Suguru Geto speaking.”

“Big client,” Toji announces, interrupting Suguru as he’s half-way to putting a spoon of pitiful watery cereal that he calls breakfast in his mouth. “They’re paying bucks we’ve never seen before. Lot riding on this.”  

Suguru puts the spoon in his mouth and chews slowly at the tasteless sludge.

“Target this time is a kid, the Gojo heir.” Toji slides a thin manila folder across the counter, bumping it into Suguru’s bowl. “No clue on the motive, but who really cares. Probably someone who wants the Gojo conglomerate’s fortune for themselves. The Gojo kid’s an only heir, so once his parents croak, he inherits all of it.” Toji scratches his cheek. “Problem is, no one knows where the kid is. Shows up at school, then fucking drops off the face of the earth until college again the next day.”

Suguru continues eating.

“Security around the school’s tighter than our monthly budget. I’m young at heart, but even I can’t pass as a student long enough to murder the kid and get away with it. So it’s your kill, congrats. Kid is kind of a loner, so you’ll have to get close to him before trying any funny business.” Toji stares at Suguru scraping the bottom of his bowl. “Oi, kid, you listening?”

“No,” Suguru says finally, dropping the bowl and spoon unceremoniously in the grimy sink to add to the already impressive pile of unwashed dishes. “It’s your turn for the dishes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it,” Toji dismisses. “The hell do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I wasn’t listening,” Suguru admits remorselessly. “You said my last hit was going to be my final kill. I’m not doing any more.”

“Fucking brat,” Toji mutters. “Doesn’t matter, it’s still yours. Quit your fucking whining and read the file.”

“No,” Suguru says, staring at the mountain of plates that threaten to teeter with one touch. Suguru wonders what would happen if he slid out the bottom one like a game of Jenga.  

“Hey, kid, I want you out of this apartment as much as you do. You’re not leaving until you do this mission.”

Suguru’s fingers dig into the porcelain edge of the sink. “They said I could leave when I was 20.”

“Great, so that’s your deadline. Big fucking whoop-de-doo. Happy?”

Suguru exhales. No amount of bargaining is apparently getting him out of this, but he can at least get something for his time’s worth. “I get the full commission.”

“Fuck no,” Toji says immediately. “It’s a 70/30 split, like always.”

“Full commission or I won’t do it.”

Toji laughs meanly. “You don’t have a choice either way. But fine, you can take the whole commission. Think of it as my birthday gift to you.”

Suguru flips him off before snatching the folder off of the counter and storming to his room. Before he can slam the door closed, he hears Toji’s final parting words.

“February 3rd’s your deadline, kid. Don’t get distracted.”

notes on target #12

• name: satoru gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall.
• personality: ???
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: ???
• likes: ???
• dislikes: ???

“Please welcome transfer student Suguru Geto to this class!”

Suguru smiles in what he hopes isn’t as painful a grimace as it feels. For all Toji complained about high security at the school, it was almost hilariously easy for Toji to push some buttons and get Suguru enrolled in all the same classes as his target for the next few months. The entrance exams were laughable in difficulty, and had Suguru wondering if he really did have prospects outside of contract killing or if the test was made stupid easy to allow any rich enough kid to pass. Either way, he’d made it in, and Toji had successfully shoved him into all of his target’s classes.

So here he is, standing in front of an utterly bored class of college students, with the politest smile he can manage.

“Nice to meet you,” he says to a receptive audience of none. His professor beams at him, though, and that’s good enough for him.

Suguru hefts his bag higher onto his shoulder as he makes his way through the crowd of desks to arrive at the only empty one, very conveniently placed right next to one Satoru Gojo.

He eyes the empty seat cautiously, before dragging his gaze back to the darkened sunglasses that covers the Gojo heir’s eyes.

He plasters on a placid smile. “Excuse me, could you move your legs?”

In response, Gojo stretches his unfairly long limbs out further across the desk Suguru is to occupy. “Nah.”

“Nah?” Suguru repeats.

“Nah. Don’t want to.”

Suguru stares at him. “This is the only open seat in the room.”

“So?”

Suguru’s hand twitches. “I need a place to sit.”

Gojo’s head tilts listlessly to the side. “Sounds like a you problem.”

Suguru’s starting to see why this kid has no friends. The students around them have begun muttering and turning in their seats, and Suguru hears the professor at the front tittering nervously.

Instead of arguing further, he puts his bag down besides the contentious desk and slides into the seat. He stares at the legs still splayed out on the desk.

“If you’d move your legs, I could take out my materials,” Suguru says carefully. Even with the sunglasses on, he can tell the feeling of being intensely scrutinized.

“I was here first,” Gojo says eventually. “Why should I have to move?”

Because you’re an asshole, Suguru wants to say. He doesn’t.

Instead, he focuses on the feeling of every pair of eyes in the classroom on his back, caught in rapture at the show unfolding before their eyes. They wanted a show? Suguru would give them a show.

Suguru stands up and punches Gojo in the face.

Toji is cackling so hard he can’t breathe.

“Jesus, kid,” he says in a moment of reprieve, bringing a finger to his eye to brush away a hysterical tear. “I never thought I’d have to bail you out like this so early in the game.” He pauses. “You won, though, right?”

“Obviously,” Suguru mutters. For all of Gojo’s bravado, it took a pitifully short amount of time to have him slapping the floor in defeat. The stick limbs Gojo called arms bended easily when Suguru pulled it back after he unsuccessfully tried retaliating from the initial punch. Suguru is pretty sure he could have killed the heir right then and there, but he figured the witnessing audience would be a tad inconvenient.

“Attaboy,” Toji praises, and Suguru grimaces. The last thing he wants is for Toji to be proud of him. “You do know you need to get the kid to like you first, though, right?”

“I’m working on it,” Suguru grouses, and Toji snickers.

“Yeah, I don’t know if I’d call punching the kid in the face ‘working on it.’ Can’t believe I had to pick up your punk ass from the principal’s office. Don’t think they bought that I’m your dad, but hey, who cares.”

“It won’t happen again,” Suguru promises, shuddering at the thought of Toji being a parental guardian of any type.

“Yeah, it better not.”

Suguru’s feet still. “Is that a threat?”

Toji bares his teeth in a grin. “If it needs to be.”

The next day, Suguru finds Gojo nursing a bandaid on the bridge of his nose. He can’t help the thrill of glee that runs up his spine when the other begrudgingly moves his feet off of the desk when Suguru approaches.

Suck it, he wants to say when he sees the scowl on Gojo’s face. Instead, Suguru smiles.

“Hey,” he starts. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Understatement of the century. “My name’s Suguru Geto, what’s yours?” It’s a question asked purely for formalities, and he’s sure Gojo knows that, but he’s still unprepared for the other’s answer.

“Your mom,” Gojo drawls out, and Suguru realizes he’s starting to see why people want this kid dead.

“Is ‘mom’ a family name?” Suguru asks innocently. “How unique.”

Gojo scowls harder when Suguru doesn’t rise at the bait. “You’d be surprised.”

Suguru’s smile stretches thin. “It’s very nice to meet you, ‘your mom.’ The name’s a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? Is it alright if I call you Gojo, instead?”

Gojo frowns so hard Suguru thinks his face might break open. A part of him wishes it would. “Do whatever you want,” Gojo finally says, and Suguru has to bite back a snicker at the irritated expression on the other’s face.

Oh, he’s going to have fun with this.

notes on target #12

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall.
• personality: bad.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: ???
• likes: being an asshole.
• dislikes: people.

Suguru decides the first step of Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend is learning about the boy in question. (Suguru has never been the best with operation names.) He plans to observe the other throughout his classes, which should be easy given that Suguru’s also in all of them, and perhaps even discover where Gojo disappears off to during lunch and after school.

Suguru is only successful in the former part of his plan. His seat isn’t always in close proximity to Gojo in all their classes, but even from afar, it’s easy enough to see that Gojo attends all his classes the same way: in that he largely doesn’t. If he’s not scribbling in his notes or arguing with the teacher, he’s either sleeping or staring listlessly into the distance. No one bothers approaching him throughout the school day, and although Suguru tries to keep tabs on him during lunch, Gojo quickly manages to get swept away in between the pulsing crowds of students. On one such particular day, Suguru finds Gojo in an empty hallway. At first, he thinks the white-haired boy must be alone, but a quick peek shows there’s a petite girl in front of him, her head bowed and arms outstretched as she offers a box, presumably of chocolates. Suguru quickly ducks behind a nearby column, watching the interaction play out from the corner of his eye.

“Gojo-san!” the admirer stutters out, and although Suguru can’t see Gojo’s expression from where he stands, he has no doubt it’s anything but favorable—he almost finds himself pitying the girl. “I really like you! Please go out with me!”

“Haa?” Gojo leers. “I don’t even know who you are.”

Suguru winces. Gojo does, in fact, know who the girl is. She shares two classes with them.

“I’m Aoi Tamaki,” she manages to get out. “I—I’m in your statistics class? And modern physics?”

The pregnant silence that follows does not bode well for her, but Suguru has to give her credit for pushing forward.

“I think you’re really smart!” she blurts out. “And really handsome!” Suguru frowns. He has no idea what she sees in Gojo, but her vibrant red face tells him she truly does believe in what she’s saying. “Would you go out on a date with me?”

Gojo shifts his weight to his left as he shoves his hands in his pockets. “No,” he responds absolutely, and Suguru watches as Tamaki’s face falls. “Why would I?”

Tamaki has no answer to that. She bites her lower lip, and even from quite a distance away, Suguru can see the tears starting to brim in her eyes. Gojo, a few feet in front of her, apparently doesn’t.

“I’ll take the chocolates, though,” he callously adds, and Suguru has to stifle his snicker. He shouldn’t laugh at poor Tamaki’s misery, but he can’t deny he finds the entire exchange just a teeny bit entertaining. Tamaki throws the chocolates down violently and storms off, and Suguru has to duck again before the enraged girl can run straight into him, but she misses him narrowly. When Suguru peeks out from his vantage point again, he sees Satoru happily walking down the hall, slightly crumpled box of chocolates in hand.

What an asshole, Suguru thinks. He’s really got his work cut out for him, but somehow, it only strengthens his resolve.

It’s his last job, so he might as well have fun with it.

Suguru decides the next step of Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend is to make Gojo aware of Suguru at all. As it stands, Suguru exists only in Gojo’s peripheral vision. Suguru’s not exactly sure how he can promote himself higher in Gojo’s eyes, but he figures sucking up is as good as any a place to start.

“Good morning, Gojo-san,” he tries one day. Gojo immediately grimaces, but at the very least turns to face Suguru.

“Gojo-san?”

“You’re technically older than me,” Suguru explains. “December 7th,” he points at Gojo, “and February 3rd.” He points at himself.

Gojo stares at him for a minute too long. “How do you know my birthday?”

Needless to say, Suguru doesn’t try that again. Instead, he focuses his attention on attempting to make small talk with the other in the quieter periods of their classes.

Key word being attempted. Gojo expertly rebuffs all of Suguru’s possible advances throughout the day with visible disdain, until he’s physically turning his head away every time he sees Suguru open his mouth. At the end of the day, when Suguru unchains his bike to pedal to his apartment, he’s surprised to see Gojo watching him, a lollipop tucked into his cheek.

They stare at each other in a stiff silence only broken by the light clinking of Suguru’s bike’s chains dancing in the wind.

“You know,” Gojo finally says. “You’re really weird.”

He walks away.

Suguru decides to count that as acknowledgement. Another step complete in Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend.

Suguru unlocks his apartment to find his new, much improved roommate Shoko lounging on the couch. Toji had only been too eager to punt Suguru out of his shitty apartment, but he’d been lucky to find an ad for a roommate just a few days later. Shoko was a med student, one who had been all too calm at finding Suguru’s knives lying around once when he’d been careless.

“You dropped these,” she’d said, and nothing more. Suguru had cautiously taken them out of her hands, watching for a reaction, but none came.

Needless to say, Shoko was rather unperturbed by Suguru’s entire existence. She seemed perfectly content silently existing in the same space for a few hours a day, and that was more than Suguru could ever ask for.

But today, when Suguru locks his bike outside the door and toes off his shoes, a question lingers on his tongue.

“Hey, Shoko,” he starts, and Shoko gives a lazy wave. “Have you heard about this Gojo kid?”

Shoko laughs. “Satoru Gojo? Yeah, I know him.”

Suguru pauses in the doorway. “You know him?”

Shoko hums, her eyes still locked to her phone screen. She’s tapping at it with a grin that Suguru knows by now is characteristic of her texting her girlfriend. “Uh-huh. Went to the same high school as him.”

Suguru shudders to think about Gojo in high school. “Huh,” he says carefully, sitting in the armchair opposite to the couch to face Shoko. “What do you know about him?”

At that, Shoko looks up. “You’re being awfully curious today,” she says with a shit-eating grin. “Does someone have a crush?”

Suguru swallows down the immediate denial. “Maybe,” he tries to admit sheepishly, but the word falls flat. He’d consider himself a good actor, but faking a crush on possibly the most insufferable person he knows (other than Toji) is a stretch, even for him.

“Aww,” Shoko coos anyways. “How cute.” She taps out a final message before flicking her phone to the side. “I know about as much as Gojo as you do, though, probably. He’s not really one for being open.” She pauses. “He does really like his sweets, though.”

Well, since Shoko thinks he’s got a crush on Gojo, he might as well really sell it. He inches closer in the chair and leans forward, almost surreptitiously. “How do you think I can get close to him?”

Shoko looks like she’s finding this exchange to be all too entertaining. “Gosh, you really do have it bad.” Suguru suppresses a wince. “I dunno, though. Buy him candy?” Suguru is pretty sure Gojo would instantly dump anything Suguru gave him into the trash, sweet or not. “Work with him on a group project or something. I don’t know.”

Suguru stares at her. “You might be on to something,” he says slowly, and Shoko flashes him an easy thumbs-up.

“Happy to help. I want an invitation to the wedding, though.”

Suguru can’t contain his grimace. “Sure,” he mutters.

 notes on target #12

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses (never takes them off?). very tall.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable. rude. arrogant.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko(?)
• likes: being an asshole. sweets.
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls.

A few pulled strings later, Suguru has successfully enlisted himself as Gojo’s one and only group mate for a project worth half of their current grade—the final step in Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend, becoming Gojo’s friend. (Again, he’s never been very good with operations.) The project’s only announced at the end of the class, to Suguru’s chagrin, so he has to chase Gojo when he flees out of the room as soon as the class ends.

“Hey,” he calls out, but it still takes a hand to Gojo’s shoulder before the other bothers to turn around and look. “How do you want to work on the group project?”

Gojo grimaces. “Do we have to talk about it now? It’s due in like a month.”

Suguru stares at him. “A week, actually.”

“Same difference.”

Same difference, my ass. “Right,” Suguru agrees through clenched teeth. “Still, we should probably figure out where and when we want to work on this.” Suguru pauses. It’s a long shot, but he might as well try. “We could go to your apartment…?” It’s the only way Suguru can think to find out where the elusive boy lives.

His plan is shot down almost immediately.

“No.” The look on Gojo’s face doesn’t give much room for interpretation.

“Okay,” Suguru agrees cautiously. “My apartment works too—”

He’s cut off by Gojo. “Why do we need to go to each other’s apartments at all?” He starts walking towards the double-door entrance, and Suguru has to hurry to keep up with his long strides. “You do your part, I’ll do mine, just text me when you finish,” he mentions off-handedly, and Suguru grasps at the loose thread hanging from his words.

“I need your phone number,” he blurts, and when Gojo turns to stare at him, he slows to take a breath. “I don’t have your phone number, so I can’t text you.”

Gojo looks entirely unimpressed, but with a long-drawn sigh, holds his phone out.

“I got Gojo’s phone number,” Suguru proudly announces as he enters Toji’s apartment. He wrinkles his nose at the tell-tale smell of long-expired takeout food.

Toji grunts from where he splays on the couch. “Big fucking deal,” he mutters without looking up from the television playing what looks to be a boating race. “It only took you literal months. You can’t exactly kill him through his phone number.”

Suguru’s eyes are drawn to the towering stack of dishes, now overflowing out of the sink into the countertops around.

“Well,” he says. “Small victories.”

It’s a small victory, indeed. Suguru now having access to Gojo’s phone number changes nothing—if anything, he’s pretty sure it’s worsening his relationship with the other. The unread messages pile up to the point where Suguru half considers if Gojo’s phone is broken and he’s not receiving the notifications at all, but when he discreetly taps out a message during class and watches Gojo’s phone buzz, Gojo only sparing a derisive glance, his hypothesis disintegrates.

It’s to be expected, to some extent, but as the deadline for their project approaches with rapid intensity, Suguru finds himself with a worry unlike any other: grades.

Even though he spends most of his time in classes observing Gojo, he’s liked by enough teachers to pass his classes with flying grades. This project, though, counts for more of Suguru’s grade than he can make up for. He spends the weekend of the deadline tapping furious messages to Gojo, and an hour before the deadline, Suguru finds his finger an inch away from the call button.

Before he can think much harder about it, he presses it.

To Suguru’s surprise, Gojo picks up.

Not that he sounds very enthused doing so, but Suguru will take the wins he can get.

“Gojo?” he asks hesitantly in the receiver.

“What the fuck do you want,” Gojo snaps, sounding crankier than usual. In the background, Suguru thinks he can faintly make out the sound of arguing.

“Our project is due in…” Suguru checks the time. “Less than an hour. Are you done with your part?”

Suguru can hear the scowl on Gojo’s face. “You had to call me for that? Didn’t I tell you to text?”

This fucker. “Not for lack of trying,” Suguru comments sweetly. “But maybe it would do you some good to check your phone once in a while.”

He hears disgruntled muttering on the other side of the phone. “Whatever. Yeah, I finished, I’ll add it to your part now.” There’s a static-y sort of silence, where the only things Suguru can hear are a clacking of keyboard keys and increased muffled yelling.

Suguru eyes the small notebook where he keeps written notes about his targets before slowly picking up his pen and flipping to the latest page. “Hey, is everything okay over there?”

“What?” Gojo says back distractedly.

“I’m hearing some yelling,” Suguru clarifies. “Is everything okay?”

“None of your damn business,” Gojo bites out. Suguru hears an extended exhale. “My parents are visiting. They fucking hate each other and don’t give a shit about me. Don’t know why they bothered showing up at all.”

Suguru stills. He hears a muffled “fuck” from Gojo on the other end of the line.

“Pretend I didn’t say that,” Gojo eventually says. Suguru hears finalizing clicks, and when he switches over to the document with their project, he finds an incredibly detailed second half to their slapdash project. “You’ll submit, right?” Gojo asks.

Suguru blinks, snapping himself out of a stupor. “What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll submit. Thanks.” He hesitates. “I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds.”

He hears a scoff. “I said forget about it,” Gojo stresses. “It doesn’t matter.”

Suguru stares at the open notebook laying on his table. “Right,” he murmurs. “Good night, Gojo.”

“Whatever. Bye.”

Gojo hangs up, but Suguru can’t seem to pull his eyes away from the page glaring up at him.

Slowly, he puts his pen down and closes the notebook.

Suguru is wholly unsurprised to see them pass the group project with flying colors, but the grade becomes bittersweet when Suguru realizes he’s very quickly running out of excuses to talk to Gojo. He’s barely cracked the surface of being considered an acquaintance, and it’s as he walks through the crowded hallways to lunch, pondering how exactly to get Gojo to notice him, that he spots a shock of white hair in the undulating crowd of people. Suguru pushes his way through, making sure he doesn’t lose track of it like so many times before, and eventually finds himself standing in front of the doors to the library. He stares at the handle, before exhaling slowly and pushing it to move inside.

He finds Gojo quickly enough, and with no better plan in his mind, approaches cautiously.

“Gojo,” he greets quietly, but he still receives a few glares from the other patrons in the room. He winces, but lowers his voice more. “Can I sit here?”

Gojo stares at him imperceptibly. With the sunglasses that remain perpetually on his face, Suguru finds it incredibly difficult to suss out any sort of definite expression from the other, although he’s gotten pretty good at noticing Gojo’s distaste for him.

“Do whatever you want,” he mutters, but he does shift slightly so as to make more space at the small table. Suguru has to bite back a grin.

“What are you reading?” Suguru asks as he sets his bag down beside the table. Wordlessly, Gojo raises his book so that Suguru can read the title: Life for Sale, by Yukio Mishima. Suguru hums. “That’s a good book. The nihilist undertones of the book were executed well, if a little over exaggerated, but I found most of the female characters to be relatively underdeveloped and two-dimensional. Have you met any of them, yet?”

Gojo stares blankly at him. “I’m five pages in.”

Suguru laughs quietly. “Never mind, then. You should let me know what you think of it after you finish, though.”

Gojo says nothing more, but the next day, when Suguru finds him at the same spot in the library, he’s startled to see Gojo with a new book.

“You finished?” he asks. Gojo doesn’t bother lifting his head to acknowledge Suguru’s presence, but a slight nod answers his question regardless.

“You were right,” Suguru’s surprised to hear Gojo say.

“I know,” Suguru says immediately. He pauses. “About what, exactly?”

The glare Gojo sends him is nothing less than entirely unimpressed. “Life for Sale,” he clarifies. “The women were trash, but I don’t think the nihilism was over exaggerated. If it was any less, the whole book would have fallen apart.”

“Interesting,” Suguru hums. “But wouldn’t you agree that Hanio was too much of a caricature, especially towards the end of the book?”

“No,” Gojo refutes with a scowl. “And if he was, that’s the whole point.”

“I can see that,” Suguru agrees. He’s half-surprised Gojo is still talking with him at all, and wonders for the first time if Gojo’s not the entire asshole he’s previously seemed to be. “What are you reading now?” Like the day before, Gojo lifts up his book for Suguru to read the title: No Longer Human by Dazai Osamu. “You really like Japanese literature, huh?” Suguru asks.

“None of your damn business if I do,” Gojo gripes, so no, Gojo was still definitely an asshole.

But as Suguru weasels his way into the library more and more often, sliding into the same seat at the same table every day, sometimes conversing with Gojo, otherwise simply sitting in a comfortable silence reading their respective books, Suguru comes to realize with no small amount of horror that there might actually be more to Gojo than being an asshole.

Gojo’s reticent nature doesn’t change much over the course of the next few weeks, but Suguru does manage to chip away at the wall between the two when he picks up miscellaneous information about the other accidentally dropped by Gojo. He learns that Shoko wasn’t kidding when talking about Gojo’s sweet tooth when he catches a glimpse of Gojo’s regular coffee order. He learns that Gojo fidgets, tapping his finger almost imperceptibly on the table, when he’s working on a particularly difficult problem. He learns that Gojo’s major, astrophysics, was chosen not only to piss Gojo’s business-obsessed parents off, but also because it’s a subject he’s actually interested in. He learns that Gojo lives in an apartment of his own, but when Suguru dares to press on its location, Gojo snaps his mouth closed.

One of the only things Gojo has remained silent with after Suguru’s prodding is the reason behind his constant use of sunglasses, even inside. Suguru’s never seen the other without the sunglasses, but every time he tries to slip it into the conversation, Gojo shuts down for the rest of lunch. It’s an obviously touchy topic, for reasons Suguru can’t seem to understand. He supposes it’s not important in the grand scheme of things, but he can’t help the part of him that remains curious.

It’s that same part of him that can’t stop staring at the empty seat when Gojo disappears from all his classes one chilly afternoon. As soon as his classes let out, he finds himself in front of the doors to the library like usual, but this time he hesitates before pushing it open. He’s not sure where the pang of disappointment comes from when he sees their usual table empty of a lounging white-haired boy, but he ends up spending the rest of his lunch in the library regardless. It’s only when he stands up to peruse the shelves while returning a book that he notices a flash of white in a small, empty section of the lower bookcase. He peers down to find Gojo crouched in a corner, his head down and his arm pressed against his eyes.

“Gojo?” Suguru asks. The other startles and looks up and—

He doesn’t have his glasses on.

“You have eyes,” Suguru stupidly blurts out.

Gojo squints at him blearily. “Yes, I have eyes, you asshole.”

Suguru feels like every rational thought has at once stood up and marched out of his brain. “They’re very blue,” he says after a silence that stretches too long.

“No fucking shit, sherlock,” Gojo mutters, and he moves to bury his head in his arms again. Suguru crouches to be on eye-level with him, awkwardly balancing on the fronts of his feet.

“Are you okay?” Suguru eventually asks.

“I’m fine,” comes the muffled response.

Suguru stares. “You don’t look fine.”

Gojo lets out an exasperated sigh, but lifts his head to meet Suguru’s eyes again. Suguru is once again nearly stunned to silence at the sheer blue encompassed by his irises.

“I broke my sunglasses,” Gojo finally says.

“Oh,” Suguru says. That explains nothing.

Luckily, Gojo’s not done. “My eyes, they…” he waves around a hand before pressing it again against his forehead. “They’re hypersensitive to light and stuff. Without my glasses, I get a headache.”

“Oh,” Suguru says again. That actually makes sense. “Why didn’t you just go home?”

Gojo sends him a weak glare. “Can’t exactly drive in this condition, can I.”

Suguru pauses. “I could bike you to your apartment, if you wanted?” Again, his long shot is immediately shut down.

“No,” Gojo brushes off. “I’ve got a friend with a car who’ll pick me up in a few minutes. His school lets out soon.”

That’s the first Suguru’s ever heard of another of Gojo’s friends. “His school?” Suguru echoes. “He doesn’t go here?”

“No, Ijichi’s still in high school,” Gojo says, and Suguru mentally notes down the name. “Graduates in a few months.”

Suguru hums. “But he’ll only come in a few minutes?”

“Yeah. Not much longer.”

“Mind if I join you down there, anyways?”

Gojo stares at him, his white lashes fluttering as he blinks rapidly at Suguru. “What?”

Suguru’s already shuffling his way into the sliver of free space between Gojo and the subsequent wall. Left without much choice, Gojo shifts to make space, and soon they’re both crowded into the small cubby.

“What are you doing?” Gojo’s eyes flicker from Suguru’s face to his feet, then back to his face.

“I don’t have anything much better to do right now,” Suguru lies easily. He knows, as does Gojo, that his next class starts in just a few minutes, but it’s a class Suguru can afford to skip. He pulls out his earbuds and slips one in before offering the other to Gojo. “Want to listen? Might help with your headache.”

Gojo stares at the proffered earbud like it holds the secrets to the universe in its unassuming shape. Wordlessly, he takes the earbud, leaving Suguru to wonder why it feels like his nerves are on fire when their fingertips accidentally brush.

Later, when Gojo leans to shift the slightest bit of weight on Suguru, he’ll remember book discussions, astrophysics, and coffee orders.

Suguru’s bike has been stolen, and he’s pretty sure it’s Toji’s fault.

He’s lying, to some extent. Suguru actually hasn’t seen Toji in a little over a month, and he seriously doubts the other would drop by just to fuck off with Suguru’s bike—at the same time, he wouldn’t exactly put it past him. Either way, he figures there isn’t a problem in the world that can’t be attributed to Toji, so he has no guilt at cursing him out in his head as he sits on the steps in front of the school, swiping mindlessly through his phone to see if he has a rideshare app downloaded.

“Hey.” The sudden voice startles Suguru, and he just barely manages to keep his phone from jolting out of his hands. He turns to find Gojo, with a new pair of familiar looking sunglasses, standing just beside him. “What’re you doing?”

“Trying to find a way home,” Suguru explains after a beat. “Someone stole my bike.”

Gojo’s eyebrows furrow slightly. He shoves his hands in his pockets, tilting his head away from Suguru.

“Want a ride?”

Suguru blinks. He must have misheard. “Sorry, what?”

“I said,” Gojo stretches out. “Do you want a ride?”

“A ride on what?”

Gojo looks at Suguru like he’s being stupid. It’s not very appreciated by Suguru. “A ride to your apartment, dumbass. I’ll drive you.”

Suguru stares. “You will?”

Gojo shrugs with one shoulder. “Yeah, you look kind of pathetic alone on the stairs like that.” He starts striding down the stairs, and Suguru has to hurriedly stand up to catch up with him at the bottom.

“Who asked you?” Suguru mutters under his breath.

“What?”

“Sorry, nothing,” Suguru says quickly. He flashes a small smile. “Thanks, I’d be grateful for the help.”

Suguru’s starting to realize Gojo’s got a habit of staring at people—namely, Suguru—for too long. “Whatever,” he says after a pause that stretches uncomfortably, tearing his eyes away from Suguru’s face. “What’s your address?”

Suguru dutifully rattles off his and Shoko’s apartment address as they walk to the parking lot. Suguru can’t deny he’s a little curious about riding in a car owned by the Gojo heir. Suguru expects it to be nothing but state-of-the-art, so when Gojo stops in front of the dingiest looking car Suguru’s ever seen, it takes a while for Suguru to also stop walking and backtrack.

“Is this your car?” he can’t help but ask, eyeing the vaguely smoking hood and dented doors.

“Yeah,” Gojo grins proudly, and Suguru wonders if he’s ever seen Gojo smile before. Suguru’s horrified to realize it looks rather nice on him. “Isn’t she a beauty?” Gojo slaps the car, creating another dent into the hood already riddled with them. “Oops.”

“Sure,” Suguru agrees carefully. “That’s one word for it.”

He clambers into the passenger seat, relatively relieved to see the inside of the car isn’t nearly as bad as the outside, although it’s not exactly the improvement of the century. He gingerly picks up a stray candy wrapper and places it in the nearly overflowing cup holder filled with trash.

Suguru’s pleasantly surprised to learn that Gojo isn’t terrible at driving, at least compared to the low, low expectations he’d had. He arrives at his apartment in one piece, even if there were a few wrong turns on the way. Even more surprising, the car remains in one piece.

“Thanks,” Suguru says again as he exits the car. Gojo tilts his head so that Suguru catches a glimpse of his eyes under the glasses. He resolutely ignores the way his breath catches.

“This is Shoko’s apartment complex too, isn’t it?”

Suguru blinks. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I forgot you knew Shoko. Yeah, she’s my roommate.”

Gojo snaps his fingers. “So you’re the insomniac roommate she always complains about.”

Suguru frowns. “She’s arguably got a worse sleep schedule than me. Sometimes I think she might be nocturnal.”

Gojo shrugs. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. Does she still smoke?”

“Not inside the apartment. I still can’t believe she smokes as a future doctor. There should be some sort of rule against that, I think.”

Gojo laughs. Again, Suguru wonders if it’s the first time he’s seen it. “Shoko would sooner drop med school than smoking, probably. Tell her I said hi.”

Suguru hesitates. “Do you want to come inside?” he offers. “She’ll be home soon, anyways.”

There’s a moment where Suguru sees a brief look of contemplation flash over Gojo’s face, but it’s gone quicker than Suguru can act on it.

“Nah, I’ll pass.” Gojo pauses, his stare moving to the steering wheel in front of him. “Maybe next time, though.”

“Maybe next time,” Suguru repeats in a murmur. “Well, thanks again for the ride.”

Gojo dismisses him with a wave of his hand. “Bye.”

“Bye, Gojo.”

It’s only when Suguru’s back inside his apartment that he remembers the knives that hang heavy by his hip.

notes on target #12  gojo

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall. sky blue eyes. nice  smile.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable. rude. arrogant. ambitious. determined. headstrong.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko, ijichi
• likes: being an asshole. sweets. books. old cars. astrophysics. coffee.
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls.  group projects. brightness.

Suguru can’t begin to believe it, but he’s pretty sure Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend has become a success. Gojo’s not entirely his true self around Suguru, at least as far as he can tell, but despite the faint scowls he regularly throws at Suguru, he can tell that Gojo considers him at least slightly more than an acquaintance. The difference is noticeable most especially in his behavior, so polar opposite to the first time Suguru met him that he vaguely considers if Gojo’s been kidnapped and replaced with a much more excitable twin. Gojo hasn’t, as far as Suguru knows, which means the only reasonable explanation Suguru can think of is that Gojo’s actually slowly starting to like him.

Suguru ignores the fact it’s taken close to three months. All good things take time, or however the phrase went.

But Suguru notes with fascination as Gojo starts opening himself up in the form of much more enthusiastic chatting, a frankly absurd amount of grins flashed at Suguru that never fail to make him freeze for some reason, and touching. A lot of touching. Suguru is surprised to learn what a tactile person Gojo is, but it’s not long before he’s gotten used to the sensation of an arm thrown around his shoulder or a hand tugging at his sleeve.

So, Operation: Becoming Gojo’s Friend was a success. According to his original plan, all he needed now was to drag an unassuming Gojo into some dark alley and finish the job. Nothing was left to stand in his way.

Something in Suguru hesitates. It’s a feeling he refuses to name, even if words like fondness run through his mind. Suguru has never been the sentimental sort, and a flimsy veneer of friendship with Gojo doesn’t change that.

It’s only because Gojo’s such an influential figure, Suguru decides to tell himself. Obviously, it would be suspicious if Gojo was found dead in a ditch mere days after becoming friends with a person like Suguru, who would become the instant obvious target. If Suguru wanted to save his own skin, he’d have to wait a little longer before ambushing Gojo.

His logic makes perfect sense to himself, so he can’t seem to understand why his heart leaps into his throat when he flips his phone open to find Toji calling him.

“What do you want?” he answers. There’s a tinge of desperation in his voice that he fervently hopes Toji doesn’t pick up on.

“Geez, kid, would it kill you to be a little polite?” comes Toji’s crackling voice. “Actually, no, I don’t care. How’s the target coming along? You guys best friends and shit yet?”

Suguru frowns at his phone. “I’m working on it.”

“Still?” Toji asks incredulously. “Damn, you must suck at making friends.”

“Thanks,” Suguru responds dryly. “Was that all?”

Suguru thinks he can hear Toji burp on the other end. “Yeah. You know the deadline’s in a few months, right?”

Suguru stares at the calendar reading August 5th. “Depends on your definition of a few months.”

“Would it kill you not to be such a smartass all the time? Whatever, kid, just wanted to remind you. Don’t get all soft, okay.”

“I’m not soft—”

Toji hangs up. Suguru has the intense urge to block his number, but unfortunately, he manages to resist.

Suguru is typing away at an essay when he hears a chime from the door of the café he often likes to work at. He glances up at the noise before moving back to his computer, but his head shoots up again when he comprehends what he’s seen.

“Gojo?”

Now it’s Gojo’s turn to startle, his head swiveling to meet Suguru’s wide eyes. His own eyebrows raise to disappear under his messy bangs, but soon enough, he’s making his way through the sea of tables to where Suguru’s set up his usual work space.

“What’re you doing here?” Gojo asks as he slides into the empty seat across from Suguru.

Suguru raises an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same. I like studying here on the weekends, but what are you doing here?”

Gojo shrugs before stretching his arms in the air behind his back. “I was bored.”

“Uh-huh,” Suguru hums in agreement, finishing a final sentence before closing his computer to face Gojo. “First time here?”

“Yeah. They have anything good here?”

Suguru stares at him. “It’s a coffee shop. They have coffee.”

Gojo sticks out his tongue. “Boring.” He raises a hand to wave over a server and opens his mouth to presumably rattle off his usual order, but Suguru works one step faster.

“Caramel macchiato with soy milk, six extra shots of caramel, an extra helping of low fat whipped cream, and brown sugar on the top,” Suguru says off the top of his head. He tilts his head to look at Gojo. “Right?”

Gojo closes his mouth. “Yeah,” he says slowly, giving Suguru a strange look. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Suguru hums. “You’re going to give yourself diabetes one day, you know.”

Gojo rolls his eyes. “You’re not my mom.”

“Sorry about that, ‘your mom,’” Suguru teases, and it’s worth the indignant look Gojo sends him.

“Will you stop bringing that up?” Gojo grumbles, stretching his arms across the table to put his head down. Suguru has to resist the strange urge to pat Gojo’s fluffy mop of hair.

“Probably not,” Suguru responds cheerily.

“You’re kind of an asshole,” Gojo complains, shifting his head onto his arms to stare at Suguru. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No, actually,” Suguru says easily. “But you love me for it.”

Gojo stares at him for what feels like centuries before putting his head under his arms. Suguru hears muffled muttering from beneath, and he pokes the top of Gojo’s head to get him to look up again.

“What?” Suguru asks.

“Nothing,” Gojo mutters, but he’s not meeting Suguru’s eyes. Before Suguru can think to press any further, Gojo’s coffee—which is, at this point, really just liquid sugar—is placed in front of him, and Gojo quickly snatches at it to take a sip.

“Hot,” he’s immediately gasping. “Holy shit, it’s way too hot.” He fans at his open mouth, and Suguru can’t help his snicker.

“What were you expecting?” he asks, leaning his cheek on his palm as he watches Gojo glare at the offending coffee cup.

“Not that,” Gojo mutters. “That’s way too hot.”

“That’s why you’re supposed to wait for it to cool down,” Suguru reminds him. “Did you seriously not know that?”

Gojo’s scowl is enough of an answer. “I usually pick up my order really late,” he eventually admits, and Suguru shakes his head.

“Oh, Gojo.”

Gojo looks at him strangely. “You know, no one actually calls me Gojo.”

Suguru stares at him. “I call you Gojo.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

Suguru blinks. “Okay, Satoru.”

Suguru doesn’t like to think too hard about how easy the name “Satoru” now falls from his tongue, but it’s something he can’t help noticing every time he happens to say it—and he says it rather often, probably more often than is strictly necessary. Suguru doesn’t know what to even attribute it to, but again—he tries not to think about it too often.

What he does end up thinking about too often is now Satoru himself. This, at least, is easily attributed to the fact that Satoru has essentially glued himself to Suguru at all times, both now during and after school. When Satoru throws two pieces of paper that land squarely on Suguru’s face that he then has to bend down to pick up, he finds himself holding two tickets to a movie that had just been released the weekend prior.

“You dropped this,” Suguru says blandly, opening his palm to show the two tickets. “Are you going with someone?”

“Yeah, with you,” Satoru says, and Suguru wonders if he’s imagining the thread of exasperation that runs through his tone. “You said you liked horror movies, right?”

Suguru blinks slowly. “I did,” he says. “Didn’t you say you hated them?”

Satoru’s head tilts to the side. “I was exaggerating. Come on, are you coming or not?”

Suguru learns a few hours later that Satoru was, in fact, not exaggerating in the slightest. Satoru decides it’s a good idea for him to hold their large bag of popcorn, but after multiple startles that send nearly half of the bag onto the unassuming people sitting in front of them, Suguru snatches the bag for himself despite Satoru’s subsequent whines of disappointment. Suguru feels a sharp pressure on his hand during a particularly tense scene, and when he looks down, he finds Satoru squeezing his hand, his knuckles turning white from the exertion even as his eyes remain caught to the big screen in rapture, the movie glinting off the lenses of his glasses. Suguru figures he could easily shift his hand so that Satoru clenches this armrest instead, but eventually decides against it. It’s not like Satoru can squeeze hard enough for it to actually hurt.

At least until a sharp clap of thunder and lightning from the screen has Satoru jolt in shock, and he painfully pulls back Suguru’s fingers in a way he’s confident made a sprain. Suguru hisses in pain, but when Satoru turns to look at him with a questioning glance, Suguru waves him off. The movie’s almost over, anyways.

When they leave the theater, they’re still holding hands. “You can let go now, you know,” Suguru says mildly, and when Satoru quickly pulls his hand away, Suguru’s able to flex it slowly despite the throbbing pain that runs through a few fingers. “I think you sprained my fingers.”

Satoru’s flushed when Suguru looks up. “Sorry, I—” he starts, but snaps his mouth shut. He looks away. “Sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Suguru says. “I’ll consider it payback for punching you in the face. We’re not watching any more horror movies, though.”

Satoru barks out a laugh. “Right.” He pauses, shifting on his feet, his head angled away from Suguru. “I heard there was a new Studio Ghibli movie coming out soon though.” He’s still not looking at Suguru. “We should go see that when it comes out.”

“Sure,” Suguru agrees easily. “But I hold the popcorn.”

Satoru grins. Not for the first time, Suguru can’t help but find it blinding. “Only if you buy the biggest size.”

Suguru rolls his eyes. “Fine, you big baby.”

Suguru is walking his bike alongside him as he walks with Satoru to his car when a small gray kitten leaps in front of them, meowing loudly. Suguru’s feet still, and he glances beside him to find Satoru gone—at least until he looks down, and sees Satoru crouched in front of the small cat. He watches Satoru dig into his pocket and fish out an unwrapped onigiri, then watches as he peels open the cover to remove a few rice grains and offer them to the cat. The kitten, although it had previously been poised to jump, approaches and sniffs Satoru’s hand cautiously, before lowering its head to eat off of Satoru’s hand.

It takes a while before Suguru realizes he’s been staring at Satoru’s growing smile for a few minutes too long.

Once the cat finishes eating, it allows Satoru to pat it on the head a few times before darting off into the bushes it had come from. Satoru finally stands up, brushing his hands clean as he turns to grin at Suguru.

“We should get a cat,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets as he continues walking. “A kitten, like that one.”

Suguru follows. “We?” he asks. Satoru’s feet still.

“I should get a cat,” he amends, but he won’t meet Suguru’s eyes. “But you can help me take care of it.”

Suguru laughs. “Joint custody, then?”

Satoru grins. “Something like that.”

notes on target #12   gojo  satoru

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall. sky  ocean blue eyes. nice  pretty smile.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable.  rude. arrogant. ambitious. determined. headstrong. sensitive. awkward. kind. caring. compassionate. funny. clingy.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko, ijichi
• likes: being an asshole. sweets. books. old cars. astrophysics. coffee. popcorn. cats. touching.
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls.  group projects. brightness. horror movies.

It comes as a shock when Suguru realizes how incredibly used to he is to Satoru’s general mannerisms. When they’re about to part ways, Suguru on his bike back home and Satoru to his still incredibly ugly looking car, Suguru barely flinches when Satoru reaches out to catch his hand.

“Wait,” Satoru says, and the word falls like a stone into water. “I—” Satoru hesitates.

Suguru blinks at him. “What?”

Satoru seems to decide against something. “Never mind.” He lets his hand drop, and Suguru wonders if the phantom feeling that remains is something he should be worried about. “Do you want to go to the arcade?”

“The arcade?” Suguru asks, surprised at what he feels like was an abrupt change in topic.

“Yeah.” Satoru shrugs. “I heard there was…” Satoru coughs. “Some sort of discount today.”

Suguru hums. “Oh, yeah? Sure, let’s go.”

And so they do. Suguru still finds it a marvel that they arrive in one piece with Satoru’s car in the condition that it’s in, but the large arcade they park next to is enough to distract him.

“That’s… big.”

“Yeah, it’s usually pretty expensive,” Satoru explains as he scratches the back of his head. “There’s a pretty generous discount today, though.”

“What’s the special occasion?” Suguru asks as they approach the entrance.

“Ehhh…” Satoru leans away even as he pushes the door open for Suguru. “You’ll see.”

“That’s ominous,” Suguru mutters. They walk inside, and Suguru’s eyes are immediately drawn to a massive poster half the size of his body that reads in horrendous neon green text: COUPLES ONLY DISCOUNT!!! 45% OFF PER PERSON, PLUS 60% OFF ON SNACKS AND DRINKS!!!!

“Satoru,” Suguru says calmly. “Is this the discount you were talking about?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

“Satoru,” Suguru says again. “This is for couples only.”

“...I know.”

Suguru finally turns to stare at Satoru. “We’re not a couple.”

Satoru mutters something under his breath that Suguru can’t hear with the loud noises coming from the arcade.

“What?” Suguru asks loudly, and Satoru rolls his eyes.

“I know,” Satoru yells back. “But that discount’s too good to pass.”

Suguru eyes the poster again. “If you say so,” he says, and allows Satoru to drag him to the counter to buy tokens. The bored-looking attendant barely spares them a glance, and soon, Satoru’s gleefully jingling a bag of tokens by Suguru’s face.

“What do you want to do first?” Suguru asks, and Satoru’s answering grin looks much too wide for Suguru’s ease.

“Doesn’t matter,” he responds easily, throwing the bag from hand to hand. “I’ll beat you in any of these.”

Suguru’s hand twitches. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Satoru leers. “What, you scared?”

“As if,” Suguru scoffs. He snatches the bag of tokens from Satoru’s hands. “You’re on.”

“You’re paying for snacks if you lose,” Satoru warns, but Suguru brushes him off.

“Get your wallet ready,” Suguru says simply as a response, and Satoru’s grin widens.

“Let’s see how long you’ll last.”

Suguru lasts exactly eight games before he realizes he is utter garbage at every arcade game that must exist. Satoru’s ugly cackling follows behind him as he makes the loser’s trek to the snacks counter, and it doesn’t stop when Suguru gapes at the prices listed on the board. Even with 60% off, he’s not sure he’ll be able to make it out of the arcade with an intact wallet.

“I’ll have a bag of chips,” Suguru says, pointing. “And he’ll have—hey, idiot, stop laughing already. Satoru, what do you want?”

Satoru rattles off a list of snacks that seems to go on for miles. All Suguru can hear are the sounds of yen happily flying from his wallet, and he can’t help but lament the ugly alien plushie with comically large eyes he was planning to buy for Satoru as they left the arcade. At this rate, he’ll barely have enough for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Suguru frowns at the final price when all their items are tallied up. “Don’t we get a 60% discount?”

The girl behind the counter has eyebags deep enough to rival Shoko’s. “That’s only for couples,” she drones out, looking like she’s had to say the same to at least a hundred people before them.

Before Suguru can think to respond, Satoru’s face is pressed up against his, an arm around his waist. “Couples like us, you mean?” Satoru says, sliding his glasses down his nose to flutter his eyelashes at the other girl.

She stares at them both, her eyes lazily dragging from Satoru to Suguru before going back to Satoru. A few taps later, a much more reasonable price flashes up at them, and Suguru reluctantly opens his wallet, but Satoru’s shoving a card forward before he can take anything out. Suguru blinks, and the transaction’s done.

Satoru hums as he waltzes over to an empty table and dumps his treasure trove of snacks on the surface. He slides into the booth, but not before pulling Suguru with him.

“Wasn’t I supposed to pay?” Suguru asks distractedly when he finds his face inches away from Satoru’s. From up close, he thinks he can count each of Satoru’s individual eyelashes. He leans away, but not before seeing his eyes curve up in a smile.

“Eh,” Satoru dismisses. “Beating you up in arcade games was enough payment for me.” He squints awkwardly at Suguru.

“Was that supposed to be a wink?”

“Obviously.”

“I thought you were having a seizure for a second.”

“Fuck you, my wink was perfect.”

Suguru’s lips twist into a wry smile. “Sure,” he agrees, reaching for his singular pack of chips among Satoru’s hoard. “Thanks for sparing my wallet.”

“You’re welcome,” Satoru says proudly, and Suguru gets the feeling Satoru really does believe himself to be a true savior of Suguru’s pitiful wallet. Suguru doesn’t really care either way, but he is starting to feel a little bad that Satoru keeps paying for everything. “Hey, where are you going?” Satoru asks when Suguru starts sliding out of the booth, a hand resting by Suguru’s wrist.

Suguru gently pulls away. “Just getting something,” he responds vaguely. Satoru’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, but Suguru’s already approaching the counter he’d eyed as they had entered, tapping the glass divider to catch the cashier’s attention. One transaction later, he’s now the proud owner of the ugliest plushie he’s ever seen in his life. He wastes no time in shoving it off to Satoru when he returns to their booth, who splutters in confusion when he finds his arms wrapped around the plushie.

“What’s this?”

“Reminded me of you,” Suguru deadpans. He’s only half lying—the bulbous blue eyes protruding out of the figure do bear a slight resemblance to the wide eyes that stare at Suguru now.

“You’re so mean,” Satoru mutters, even as he puts his head on top of the oversized head and squeezes the middle.

“I can return it if you want.”

Satoru slaps Suguru’s hand away from where it was approaching. “Absolutely not.”

Suguru can’t hide his grin. “If you say so.”

Suguru’s surprised to catch the scent of deep fried food when he arrives on campus the next day as he locks his bike to its regular location. He gets barely a few moments to walk around to the campus ground before he’s assaulted by a familiar weight on his back.

“Satoru, you need to stop attacking me like this,” Suguru complains lightly, and Satoru responds by only putting more weight on him, an arm thrown comfortably around Suguru’s back.

“Can’t help myself, you’re so easy to surprise,” Satoru shoots back, and Suguru bites his tongue before he can expose how utterly predictable Satoru is.

“What’s going on today?” he asks instead, peering at the various tents set up around the grassy field.

“Some festival something,” Satoru says offhandedly. “It’s for college pride, or something.”

Suguru doesn’t even remember the name of his college. “Nice,” he says anyway. “Classes are canceled?”

Satoru makes a face. “No, but who really cares?”

Now that’s a sentiment Suguru can agree with. He lets Satoru excitedly pull him through the various stalls by hand, listening patiently when Satoru stops to overexplain each one.

“And this one’s cotton candy, but it’s popcorn-flavored, can you believe it—”

“Gojo, is that you?”

Satoru pauses mid-explanation. With his hand still in Suguru’s, they both turn to find Shoko leaning against another woman her age with longer, darker hair that’s clipped in the back.

“I’m surprised to find you at one of these,” Shoko continues, and for once, Suguru notices there isn’t a cigarette tucked in the corner of her mouth. He guesses he can attribute that to the woman next to her. “Did you finally learn how to be social?”

“Nice to see you too, Shoko,” Satoru drawls. “Is this your girlfriend?” He nods at the other woman, who seems to be scowling exceptionally hard at him. “Gosh, was Utahime really the best you could do?”

Suguru chokes on air. “Satoru,” he chides.

“At least I have a perfect, wonderful significant other whom I love very much,” Shoko returns easily, a hand on Utahime’s shoulder to likely prevent her from punching Gojo in the face, based on the tick forming above her eyebrow. “Can’t say the same about you.” She tilts her head, her eyes moving to their still locked hands. “Or can I?”

Suguru’s not sure which one of them lets go first.

“N-no,” Satoru huffs out, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Well, whatever. I’d rather be single than date someone like Utahime.”

That seems to be the last straw for Utahime. “I’m right here, you asshole!”

Satoru peers at her over his glasses. “Are you? Sorry, I didn’t notice.”

God, Satoru really is an asshole. But as the four of them spend the rest of the day playing carnival games, eating an incredibly unhealthy amount of deep fried food, preventing fights between Utahime and Satoru every two seconds, and as Satoru leans against him at the top of a ferris wheel the college rented, their pinkies brushing just the slightest, Suguru realizes he wouldn’t have it any other way.

notes on target #12   gojo  satoru

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (19 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall. sky   ocean  cerulean blue eyes. nice   pretty  beautiful smile.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable.  rude. arrogant. ambitious. determined. headstrong. sensitive. awkward. kind. caring. compassionate. funny. clingy. charming. thoughtful. cute. affectionate.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko, ijichi
• likes: being an asshole. sweets. books. old cars. astrophysics. coffee. popcorn. cats. touching. food. digimon. arcade games. over-sized plushies. festivals. cotton candy. ferris  wheels.
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls.  group projects. brightness. horror movies. sour candies. utahime .

“Happy birthday, Satoru.”

Satoru turns around with a grin. “You remembered.”

Suguru scoffs. “Obviously. Here’s your gift,” he adds, throwing a small bag across the library table that Satoru catches with both hands.

“Aww, you didn’t have to,” Satoru coos, even though he knows as well as Suguru does the sort of fuss he would have put up if Suguru had shown up empty handed, or worse, forgotten altogether. He eagerly tears into the paper, but his fingers still when he finds the small box at the bottom of the bag. He glances at Suguru, who gestures at him to go ahead and open it. When Satoru does, he finds a small golden keychain that he squints at before holding it up against the light.

“Is this…” he starts to ask.

“A limited edition Renamon keychain? Yeah,” Suguru finishes for him. “Surprisingly hard to find, even on the internet.”

Satoru gapes at him. “How did you know—”

“You’ve complained about never being able to find the keychain before,” Suguru explains. “When you were ranting about Digimon one day.”

Satoru keeps staring at him. “That was months ago. You remembered?”

Suguru blinks. “Obviously. Why wouldn’t I—”

Suguru is interrupted by another mouth on his—to be exact, Satoru’s mouth on his. To be even more exact, Satoru is kissing Suguru.

Oh, Suguru thinks. Okay.

Then, he thinks, what the fuck. 

Satoru’s glasses push awkwardly between them, and it’s not long before Satoru moves away.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, and Suguru realizes he’s never seen Satoru turn such a startling shade of red. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

This is a terrible idea, Suguru realizes. This could quite possibly be the worst idea of my life.

For the first time, he ignores himself. For the first time, Suguru realizes he doesn’t care.

For the first time, Suguru pulls Satoru’s face forward and kisses him.

Chapter Text

They get kicked out of the library.

“I’m surprised that didn’t happen sooner,” Suguru says as they walk out, Satoru swinging their interlocked hands between them.

“What, us making out?” Satoru asks with a grin, looking much too pleased with himself. Suguru feels his cheeks heat up.

“No, us getting kicked out of the library. We’ve never been very quiet there to begin with.”

Satoru shrugs. “Who cares?” His grin widens. “I can’t wait to rub in Shoko’s face that I have a boyfriend now.”

“A boyfriend?” Suguru repeats.

“Yeah.” Satoru’s fingers tighten around Suguru’s. “That’s what we are, obviously. Boyfriends.”

Suguru can’t help but smile. “You’re awfully enthusiastic about this whole thing.”

Satoru’s glasses slide down his nose to let him stare blankly at Suguru. “No shit. You know how long I’ve been flirting with you?”

Suguru chokes on air. “Flirting?”

“Uh-huh.” Satoru nods. “The movies were supposed to be a date, the arcade was supposed to be a date, the festival was supposed to be a date,” he ticks off on his free hand. “I was going to ask you out properly the day of the arcade, but…” Satoru shrugs. “The timing was off.”

Suguru stares at him. “You call that flirting?”

“It’s not my fault you’re denser than a rock,” Satoru mutters, and Suguru squeezes their hands tight enough to hurt in retaliation.

“Is that why you told me to call you Satoru?” Suguru has to ask. “You said no one calls you Gojo, but on the day of the festival, both Shoko and Utahime called you that.”

Satoru grins. “Hey, maybe you’re not a total lost cause. Yeah, I was just curious to see what my name would sound like in your voice.”

“And?” Suguru asks wryly, leaning forward even as Satoru averts his eyes. “How is it, Satoru?”

The tips of Satoru’s ears turn red.

“It’s nice.”

“Why’d you call, kid? Calling it quits? I don’t mind taking over.”

“What? Fuck. No. Why would you ask that?”

“Because you’re taking a fucking long time, that’s why. So, what’d you want?”

“I was… curious.”

“Curiosity doesn’t get you paid, kid.”

“Will you let me finish? I was curious about who put the hit on Sato—the Gojo heir. It’s one of our higher profile targets, isn’t it?”

“Higher profile’s a word for it. Why the fuck are you asking about clients? You know we can’t divulge their identities.”

“...right. I know. I was just wondering.”

“That’s not something you need to know, kid.”

“...”

“You’re sounding awfully suspicious. Not getting sentimental, are you?”

“Fuck off.”

“Suguru, when are you taking me out on an actual date?”

Suguru looks up from his computer. “What?”

“You still haven’t taken me out on a proper date,” Satoru repeats, his voice trailing off in a whine. “We haven’t gone anywhere since we got together.”

“According to you, all the stuff we did before were also dates, right?” Suguru asks, amused at Satoru’s theatrics.

“That’s not what I meant,” Satoru mutters, leaning his cheek against his hand. “I want to go on a date date with you.”

“Why don’t you take me out, then?” Suguru suggests off-handedly. “You’re the one with the massive credit card.”

He’s somehow unprepared for Satoru to take him seriously. “You’re right,” Satoru agrees immediately, jolting upright in his seat. “Come on, let’s go.”

Suguru lets Satoru pull him up, closing his computer as he rises. “What, right now?”

Satoru grins. “No better time than the present.”

Suguru glances back. “If my computer gets stolen, you’re buying me a new one,” he protests mildly, but that doesn’t deter Satoru in the slightest.

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismisses easily. “You coming or not?”

“You haven’t even told me where we’re going.”

“You know that dessert shop on the corner of Block 8?” Satoru says as he pulls Suguru out of the library.

“The one that just opened? Isn’t that place pretty expensive?”

Satoru scoffs. “I’m buying, anyway.” He pauses in front of the steps outside the college. “It’s kind of a long walk, but too short to make it worth a drive.”

Suguru nods towards his bike, locked up nearby. “We could bike.”

Suguru can’t believe he’s even thinking it, but he swears in the afternoon sun, he sees Satoru’s eyes twinkle. “Perfect,” he cheers, and watches as Suguru unlocks his bike, tapping his foot impatiently in the few moments it takes. Suguru hooks a leg over to get situated in the seat, and as soon as he is, he feels arms around his neck, a weight pressed against his back, and a chin pressing into his shoulder.

“Satoru,” he says slowly. “You’re too close.”

Satoru, if anything, presses closer. Suguru can feel his hair tickling the back of Suguru’s neck. “No, I’m noooot,” Satoru whines.

“I can’t bike like this, Satoru.”

Suguru hears vague grumbling, but a few seconds later, Satoru has incrementally moved away enough for Suguru to get his feet on the pedals. A few minutes later, they find themselves in front of a rather posh looking restaurant Suguru’s seen in high-end food review blogs, but before he can even ask if it’s the right place, Satoru’s sliding off the bike to squint at the small menu printed by the front door. When Suguru makes his way over, he hears Satoru muttering rapidly under his breath. He perks up when he sees Suguru approach, sliding his arm into Suguru’s with no hesitation.

“Let’s get an outdoor table,” Satoru suggests, and since Suguru doesn’t mind either way, he lets Satoru drag him to a small round table with a miniscule bouquet in the center.

“Nice touch,” Suguru notes, and Satoru frowns.

“It should be bigger, I think,” Suguru is wholly unsurprised to hear him say. Before they can argue about the tabletop decoration any more, a waiter comes by to take their order. Suguru opens his mouth to say he still needs to take a look at the menu before he can order, but he’s interrupted by Satoru.

“I’ll take one of everything,” he says unflinchingly, and the waiter nods, as if that’s an entirely normal thing to do. Even as Suguru gapes at him, Satoru turns to him with a blinding grin. “Suguru, what about you?”

Suguru slowly closes his mouth. “I think I’ll just share,” he mutters to Satoru’s utter delight, if the beam he gets is anything to go by.

Suguru’s not sure if it would be worse to have all the dishes arrive at once or slowly fill their table one by one, but luckily or unluckily, he doesn’t get a choice. Their waiter walks out surprisingly fast after taking their order holding the biggest tray Suguru’s ever seen, and Suguru can do nothing but watch in stupefied awe as each plate gets transported to their tiny, tiny table. By the end of it, there’s little to no surface area he can see of the original table.

Satoru frowns. “I thought the servings would be bigger,” he says sullenly, poking at what looks to be a small serving of creme brulee.

“You want them to be bigger?” Suguru asks incredulously.

“Well, for what they cost, yeah,” Satoru says off-handedly. “Which ones do you want?”

Suguru points arbitrarily at one of the smaller pastries, a thin slice of black forest cake. “I’m good with just that,” he says faintly.

Instead of handing the plate over, Satoru simply lifts a fork with half the cake slice piled on it. Suguru can only watch as it teeters precariously on its wobbly journey towards Suguru’s face.

“What are you doing.”

“Say ‘ahhh.’”

Suguru leans away from the fast-approaching fork. “That’s way too much. Sator—” He’s not fast enough to protest. The fork’s shoved into his mouth, and it takes all of Suguru not to choke on the sheer amount of chocolate and cherry and cream in one bite.

“Is it good?” Satoru asks, even as he directs his attention to the rest of his sweets. Suguru’s still chewing, and it takes an embarrassing amount of time before Suguru can breathe again.

“I couldn’t really tell,” Suguru finally responds dryly, and when he blinks, he finds half the plates on their table wiped clean. “How did you finish so many already?”

“You were being slow,” Satoru complains. “But fine, here’s the rest of it.” Suguru gratefully takes what remains of his now utterly demolished cake.

“Thanks,” Suguru says as he eyes the already disintegrating remains. “You want a bite?” He’s pretty sure his own appetite has been appeased for the next few hours.

“Sure!” Satoru exclaims around another mouthful of whatever dessert he’s inhaled next. Suguru can’t help but wonder how Satoru’s body still functions after ingesting so much sugar. After an emphatic swallow, Satoru opens his mouth and looks at Suguru expectantly.

After a sigh, Suguru takes the fork and moves it toward Satoru, who eagerly eats from it after leaning forward.

Satoru’s face pinches. “Could be sweeter.”

Suguru vaguely wonders if he needs to take Satoru to a doctor to test for diabetes.

But Suguru decides against it, instead spending the rest of his time at the shop watching fondly as Satoru finishes his desserts, then pointing at each plate, all of which look indistinguishable to Suguru, to rattle off criticisms about the varying levels of sweetness. Suguru can barely follow what Satoru’s saying, but he can’t help but think Satoru would make either a wonderful or terrible food critiquer in another universe. He places his bets on the latter.

Suguru can only follow what Satoru says again when the topic shifts away from desserts.

“Overall, I’m not impressed,” Satoru concludes his review. “I expected more, especially with the ambience.”

“The ambience?” Suguru repeats, amused.

“Yeah.” Satoru gestures aggressively to the small outdoor space where they sit. “Where’s the romanticism? Where’s the candle-light aesthetic?”

Suguru laughs. “Is that why you wanted a bigger centerpiece?” he asks, flicking a petal of the small bouquet that sits between a sea of plates.

“Obviously,” Satoru says vehemently. He crosses his arms and sinks lower in his seat. “This doesn’t even feel any different from our not-date dates.”

Suguru hums. “I wouldn’t quite say that.” He leans in to kiss Satoru softly. He tastes like strawberries and whipped cream. “We weren’t exactly doing that before,” he says as he leans back, grinning at the stupefied look on Satoru’s face.

Satoru buries his face in his hands, but Suguru can still see the tips of his ears turn red. “You’re insufferable,” he mutters, his voice muffled by his hands.

“But you love me for it,” Suguru returns easily, and gets struck with a strange sense of déjà vu.

When Satoru’s head eventually pops back up, his embarrassed countenance is replaced with a determined look.

“You should move in with me.”

Suguru blinks. “Huh?”

“You should move in with me,” Satoru repeats more confidently.

Suguru thinks his palms might be sweating. “What?” he asks after a prolonged silence.

Satoru’s stare turns exasperated. “Suguruuuuu,” he draws out. “Move in with me.”

“Move where?” Suguru asks stupidly.

“Into my apartment, where else?”

Suguru doesn’t think he’s blinked in the past minute. “You want me to move in with you?”

“Are you going to make me repeat it a fourth time?”

Suguru finally blinks. His mouth feels extraordinarily dry, and he decides to blame the black forest cake he still feels lingering in his mouth. “I don’t—” He cuts himself off. He wets his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Satoru, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Satoru tilts his head. “Why not?”

Suguru’s hands tighten where they fist at his pants. “I don’t even know your address,” he says lamely. Which is how it should stay. Suguru doesn’t need to know Satoru’s address, right now or ever. Suguru can’t know Satoru’s address.

Because if Suguru knows Satoru’s address…

Suguru can almost feel the way his phone threatens to burn a hole in his pocket.

To Suguru’s utter dismay, Satoru only scoffs. “So?” He pulls out his phone. “I’ll just text it to you now.”

“No,” Suguru immediately blurts out, loud enough to have heads swivel their way. “No,” he repeats quieter, placing his hands flat on the table. “Don’t text it. Don’t ever text me your address.”

Because if Suguru knows Satoru’s address, Toji knows Satoru’s address.

Satoru looks at him strangely. “Okay?” he agrees with a shrug. “I can just drive you there, then.”

Suguru half considers asking Satoru to blindfold him on the ride before deciding that’s one step too far, even for him.

“I don’t know,” Suguru says weakly. “I need to think about it.” He’s lying. There’s nothing Satoru could say or do to convince him to move in with Satoru—to precariously dangle Satoru’s life over a smoking gun.

“What’s there to think about?” Satoru says callously, before his expression softens. He takes one of Suguru’s hands between his own and gently rubs circles on the inside of Suguru’s palm with his thumbs. The sensation tingles like lightning along his nerves, and Suguru wonders if he should find it worrying that he finds himself physically incapable of pulling away. “Come on, Suguru,” he says with a fond smile, uncharacteristically quiet. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t you.”

Suguru’s breath catches in his throat.

Fuck, he thinks miserably.

One week later, he’s officially moving into Satoru’s apartment. Even as Suguru drags his few belongings outside, he watches as Shoko taps at her phone with a grin. He’s pretty sure that as soon as he leaves the premises, Shoko’s girlfriend will easily replace him as Shoko’s roommate, and it has him wondering why Utahime wasn’t Shoko’s roommate in the first place. Before he can ask, he’s dragged away by an enthusiastic Satoru.

“Is that all your stuff?” Satoru asks, peering at the bags Suguru has slung over his shoulder.

Suguru hums his affirmation. “It’s all I need.”

Satoru shrugs. “If you say so. My apartment’s small, anyways, so don’t go buying a bunch of new stuff to fill it up.”

Suguru pauses as he watches Satoru struggle to open the trunk of his battered car. “Small?” he echoes. “How small?”

Satoru flippantly waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Satoru, how small?”

“Move in with me, he said,” Suguru mutters under his breath as he squeezes his way through the narrowest staircase he’s ever seen. “It’ll be great, he said.”

Satoru, a few steps ahead of him, turns back questioningly. “Did you say something?”

“Nothing,” Suguru calls back. “Are we almost there?”

“Kind of,” Satoru says cheerily and Suguru huffs an exasperated breath, letting his bangs blow out. Nevertheless, he heaves his bags up again and continues the seemingly never-ending trek.

Suguru is not out of shape. He knows this, but when he finally reaches the thin door Satoru stands proudly next to, he can’t help but notice the winded wheezes that come out of him as he tries to catch his breath. Satoru, on the other hand, seems perfectly fine. Something about this seems fundamentally wrong to Suguru.

“Is this it?” he manages to gasp out.

“Yep,” Satoru trills. With unnecessary pomp, he throws the door open. “Behold, my wonderful abode—” The door swings back on itself and slams shut. “Huh. Yeah, it does that sometimes.”

Suguru wonders if it’s too late to call Shoko and get his old apartment back.

Eventually, Satoru properly gets the door open, propping it open with his foot as Suguru shuffles inside. Once they’re both inside the apartment, the door slowly creaks itself closed, its hinges squealing all the way. Suguru stares at the tan walls, the graying carpeted floor, the sporadically flickering lights, and the miscellaneous spots that adorn the ceiling.

“This place looks worse than your car,” Suguru says bluntly.

“My car looks great, thank you very much, so I’ll take that as a compliment,” Satoru responds haughtily. “Anyways, this is the best I can get with my own money.” He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “I’m not asking my parents for an apartment.”

“Maybe you should,” Suguru mutters. Still, the shitty nature of the apartment combined with the isolated location of the apartment were probably the only reasons Satoru was still alive and not shot dead like one of Toji’s many victims.

Satoru ignores Suguru’s mutterings. “You can put your stuff there,” he gestures vaguely at the lumpy pile of cloth that Suguru supposed at one point was some type of couch. “You can look around and stuff, I need to go to the bathroom.” Satoru mock-salutes, then disappears into one of the narrow hallways leading out of the living room.

Suguru decides to take Satoru up on his offer and peeks into the various rooms, finding one bathroom, completely bare of any supplies, the kitchen, where the only supply that looks to be getting used regularly is a half-broken coffee machine, and a room filled with so much paper that Suguru instantly closes it to avoid being swept away by a deluge of textbooks. He finds another bathroom adjacent to Satoru’s bedroom, the one he assumes Satoru went into. Satoru’s bedroom, one door away, is surprisingly bare, except for a few miscellaneous knick-knacks whose functions Suguru can only imagine—as well as the ugly plushie Suguru had bought him from the arcade. The largest object in the room is naturally Satoru’s bed, but it’s also one of the highest quality materials he’s seen in the apartment thus far. It’s abnormally large, at least a queen size, and has more pillows than Suguru would think humanly needed.

That explains where most of the budget went, he supposes.

It’s only when Satoru exits the bathroom that Suguru realizes the reason behind the nagging sensation in his gut, the sensation that prods at him that something’s missing.

“Satoru,” Suguru says slowly. “You only have one bedroom.”

Satoru grins as he flops backwards onto his plush bed. He pushes his glasses up to his forehead, and Suguru can see the way his eyes dance with mirth when they curve up with his smile. “Yeah,” Satoru says easily. “Is that a problem?” He squints exaggeratedly at Suguru.

“Was that also supposed to be a wink?”

“What else could it possibly be?”

“I’m starting to think you don’t know what a wink looks like.”

“Oh, yeah?” Satoru challenges, pulling at Suguru’s sleeve to send him sinking onto the bed next to Satoru. “Why don’t you teach me, since you’re such an exper—”

Suguru kisses him. He’s learned it’s a wonderfully effective way to shut Satoru up.

And when he feels Satoru smiling against his lips, Suguru decides maybe Satoru’s apartment isn’t entirely shitty after all.

notes on target #12   gojo  satoru

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (20 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall. sky   ocean   cerulean  indescribably blue eyes. nice   pretty   beautiful  breath-taking smile. faint freckles.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable.  rude. arrogant. ambitious. determined. headstrong. sensitive. awkward. kind. caring. compassionate. funny. clingy. charming. thoughtful. cute. affectionate. perfect.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko, ijichi
• likes: being an asshole. sweets. books. old cars. astrophysics. coffee. popcorn. cats. touching. food. digimon. arcade games. over-sized plushies. festivals. cotton candy. ferris  wheels. kissing. dates. desserts. soft beds. pillows. holding hands. sleeping in. breakfast foods. whipped cream. berries.  
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls.  group projects. brightness. horror movies. sour candies. utahime . separation. mornings. bitter coffee. undercooked eggs.

“Suguruuuuuu,” Satoru whines. “Look.”

Suguru clicks his tongue. “Satoru, I just need to finish this sentence,” he says, but that doesn’t deter Satoru’s prodding finger against his cheek in the slightest. With a roll of his eyes, Suguru acquiesces and turns to glance at the phone screen Satoru’s been trying to shove in his face for the past five minutes. “What is it?”

“The aquarium’s open tomorrow,” Satoru says, pressing closer even as he leans half his body weight against Suguru on their dinky couch. “We should go.”

Suguru’s eyes glance away from the screen to Satoru’s face. “What, don’t tell me there’s a couples discount?” he asks, half-joking, but when a sheepish grin slowly forms on Satoru’s face, he has to resist rolling his eyes. “Really?”

“Awh, come on,” Satoru wheedles. “Tomorrow’s December 24th, the most romantic day of the year. Obviously there’s going to be couples discounts everywhere.”

“Is that really tomorrow already?” Suguru muses. “Fine, we can go.” He pauses. “Is it a good discount?”

“Is 30% good enough for you?” Satoru says petulantly, and Suguru ducks his head to press a kiss to the wrinkle between Satoru’s eyebrows.

“Might be a stretch, but I think I’ll manage.”

Suguru peers at their receipt. “Hey, isn’t this full price?”

Satoru leans closer to Suguru to check. “Huh.” He points at the bottom. “It looks like too many people were trying to use the couples discount, so they had to cancel it entirely.”

“What the fuck,” Suguru says under his breath. “Is that legal?”

“Beats me,” Satoru says with a shrug. “Astrophysics major here, not law.”

“We haven’t even been to college in a week,” Suguru reminds him mildly.

Satoru shrugs again. “I don’t think they’ve noticed.”

Suguru finds it hard to believe their professors won’t notice the very obvious absence of one of their most high-ranked students, but he decides to play along with Satoru for the time being. “Sure,” he agrees, linking his arm through Satoru’s as they walk through the large doors that welcome them inside. “So, what’d you want to see first?”

An exhausting three hours later, they make it to what Suguru assumes is the end of the exhibits. He’s pretty sure there’s not enough in the entire aquarium to keep them occupied for such a long period of time, but with Satoru stopping to ooh and ahh at every creature that meanders by them, Suguru’s half-surprised it only took three hours at all. Still, he can’t find the unadulterated joy on Satoru’s face as anything but enchanting every time he stops to stare in awe at a sea creature. Suguru’s sure he’ll wake up tomorrow with sore legs, but it’s worth it for the beam that Satoru sends him as they walk through a final dark corridor.

Or what Suguru assumes is a final dark corridor, but when they make a final turn, the floor below them turns a striking shade of illuminating blue. The walls beam bright, revealing a coral passageway twining through the walls. Satoru squeezes his hand tight as they walk through—it’s near the usual time for lunch, so they’re the only ones in the passage, but as they step carefully through the hall, Suguru can’t also help but feel like they’re the only ones in the still world created by their surroundings—a world of fond “Satoru”s and teasing “Suguru”s untainted by anything else.

Suguru turns to slide the tips of his fingers along the glass walls that surround them. He can’t help but smile as he watches schools of fish flutter from side to side, dipping in between the various gaps between coral. When he turns to point out a particularly interestingly patterned fish, he finds Satoru already staring at him.

“Hey, Suguru,” Satoru says. “I’m in love with you.”

Suguru stills. “What?”

“I’m in love with you,” Satoru repeats simply, and Suguru realizes with no small amount of horror that his mind has entirely shut down. He finds himself able to do nothing but gape dumbly at Satoru, and after a few awkward beats pass, Satoru tears away his gaze, ducking his head away almost shyly. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “Never mind. You don’t have to say it back.”

“No,” Suguru says. He’s not sure what he’s saying ‘no’ to, exactly, but his grip on Satoru’s hand tightens when he feels it imperceptibly move away. “Satoru. I—” His voice withers. He feels Satoru’s gaze back on him, but Suguru can’t seem to tear his eyes away from their joined hands. “I—” he tries again, but his voice cuts off again before he can finish. His mouth has never felt drier.

Satoru watches him with curiosity and mild worry. “Suguru, it’s okay,” he’s quick to assure.

It’s not.

“Me too,” Suguru finally manages to say. “Satoru, I—” He clamps his mouth shut. “Me too,” he repeats lamely, and Satoru’s answering beam is almost enough for him to ignore the curling feeling of dread that stirs in his gut.

Almost.

“You’re not Geto.”

“Neither are you. Are you going to tell me who you are, or am I going to have to call the police?”

“Yeesh, slow down, girl. I’m not some old pervert—”

“You sure look like one.”

“—just someone worried about a pal. A mutual friend, let’s say.”

“...Geto?”

“Bingo, you catch on quick. Kid hasn’t shown up to school in a few weeks, and his college sent me an email about it. This is his apartment, isn’t it?”

“Why would they let you know?”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I despise that tone. I’m the kid’s guardian on file. Isn’t the resemblance uncanny?”

“Not really. Geto doesn’t live here anymore, anyways.”

“...anymore?”

“He moved in with his boyfriend. Didn’t he tell you?”

“His boyfriend?”

“Hey, what did you say your name was?”

“Don’t worry about it. His boyfriend, you said?”

“Yeah. Satoru Gojo.”

“...Satoru Gojo, huh.”

“...”

“I don’t suppose you know the brat’s address?”

“Even if I did, I don’t think I should be telling you.”

“Good choice. Thanks for all the information, kiddo.”

“Are you sure you’re a friend of Geto’s?”

“Got nothing but the best intentions in my heart for that kid.”

“...sure.”

“Satoru,” Suguru chides. “You’re late.”

Satoru only grins in response. “I was getting us snacks,” he whines, shaking the plastic bag hanging from his hand.

“You mean you were getting yourself snacks,” Suguru adds wryly as he stands up from the covered steps he’d been waiting by. “I don’t really appreciate you making me wait in the rain, you know.”

Satoru brushes a light kiss against Suguru’s cheek as he brings the clear umbrella he holds above the both of them. “Aww, I’m sorry,” he simpers. “I won’t do it again, I proooomise.”

Suguru lightly shoves him away. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Satoru grins when he returns to pressing himself against Suguru, a comfortable arm around his shoulder. “Come on, you can’t say it was entirely terrible watching the rain. Isn’t it nice?”

“Nice when I’m inside and not in danger of getting wet,” Suguru responds. “I don’t want to get sick.”

“Pfft,” Satoru scoffs. He twirls the umbrella between his fingers, sending droplets flying to the sides. “You can’t get sick from some pithy rain like this.”

“Oh, yeah?” Suguru asks, taking the umbrella that Satoru hands to him with mild amusement.

“Obviously,” Satoru shoots back, leaning back to let droplets splash onto his hair and sunglasses. “Watch me.”

“I am,” Suguru responds fondly as Satoru holds his hands out in the rain, letting the water collect in his cupped fingers before slowly letting it seep out. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.”

“I told you so,” Suguru teases lightly when he brings a bowl of warm chicken soup to the bedside where a runny-nose and puffy-eyed Satoru squints at him through fogged up sunglasses. When Satoru grumbles unintelligibly at him, sinking deeper into the blankets piled around, Suguru has to bite back a fond grin that threatens to arise. Instead, he leans forward and gently removes Satoru’s glasses, folding them and setting them to the side so they don’t dig into Satoru’s skin.

“Suguruuuu,” Satoru complains, his voice made nasally because of his cold. “Stop rubbing it in.”

“I think I’ve earned the right to rub it in,” Suguru responds easily, blowing gently on a spoon of soup. He brings it to Satoru’s mouth. “Open up.”

Satoru dutifully opens his mouth to receive the spoon. He sighs pleasantly, sinking deeper into the pillows that surround him.

“‘m tired,” he mumbles. Suguru frowns at his unusually lethargic tone, brushing away his feather-light bangs to bring a hand to Satoru’s forehead. He has to retract his hand in shock.

“Satoru, you’re burning up.”

“Am I?” Satoru asks, and now that Suguru knows he has a fever, the dreamy quality to Satoru’s voice only heightens Suguru’s worry. “But it feels so coooold.”

Suguru frowns. “I’m going to get a thermometer.” Before he can even stand up, there’s a vice grip on his wrist.

“Stay,” Satoru says, his voice suddenly crystal clear. When Suguru turns to look, he finds himself facing the full force of Satoru’s wide gaze. “Please.”

Suguru softens. “Okay, Satoru.” He glances at Satoru’s hand, still by his wrist. “You can let go now.”

“No,” Satoru says obstinately. If anything, his grip tightens. “Not letting go.”

“Oh, Satoru,” Suguru whispers. He uses his free hand to push Satoru’s bangs out of his forehead again, even though they flop back limply in place as soon as Suguru lifts his hand.

“S’guru,” Satoru mumbles, his eyelids drooping half-closed. “I love you.”

Suguru’s hand freezes.

“I love you,” Satoru repeats. “D’you know that?”

Suguru forces himself to relax. “Yeah,” he breathes out quietly. “I know, Satoru.”

Satoru seems perfectly content with this answer, but it’s not long before he’s shifting among his covers. He mumbles something under his breath, and Suguru leans in closer.

“What did you say?”

“Wanna kiss,” Satoru repeats louder. He makes weak grabby hands at Suguru, and with a quiet huff of laughter, Suguru places a soft kiss on the bridge of Satoru’s nose. “Nooooo,” Satoru whines. “On the lips.”

Satoru’s going to be the death of him one day. “Nice try. I’m not risking getting a fever from you, idiot,” he says with a light flick on Satoru’s forehead. “When you get better, though.”

Satoru squints at him. “Prooooomise?”

“Promise.”

Suguru makes good on that promise.

Any complaints he’s had ever had about Satoru’s abnormally plush bed completely fly out of his mind when he’s being pressed against the soft cushions, Satoru’s fingers entwined in his, and Suguru realizes he must be the luckiest person alive to be able to feel the sensation of Satoru’s lips curving into a smile against his. They roll over, and now it’s Suguru pressing into Satoru, his hands tangled in Satoru’s hair. Satoru’s hands wander from Suguru’s hair to wrap around his neck, to trace the contours of his face, to twine around his shoulders, and now it’s Suguru who finds himself smiling against Satoru’s mouth. The pillows around them dip just the slightest to cushion them, and again, Suguru thinks maybe he doesn’t mind that the rest of Satoru’s apartment is so shitty if it meant he got to have moments like these.

Satoru’s hands move to rest gently against Suguru’s hips, and when Suguru presses in to deepen the kiss, he feels Satoru’s hands tighten.

But it’s not the sensation of soft fingertips against skin. Instead, it’s something harsh and stiff that digs into Suguru’s hip, and he’s forced to pull back with a soft hiss. When the sensation registers in his mind, Suguru freezes.

“Suguru?” Satoru mumbles, his eyelashes brushing against Suguru’s cheek when he opens his eyes. “What happened?”

Suguru can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps out, scrambling off of the bed. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and so they fall limply against his sides. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and he backs up until his feet hit the door to the bathroom. “I need to—” His mouth snaps shut. “I’m sorry,” he repeats pathetically, and he tears his gaze away from Satoru’s wide eyes long enough to duck into the bathroom and slam the door closed, leaning his back against the door as his breaths come out ragged.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror—his cheeks are still flushed, half of his hair is falling out of his bun, but Suguru can’t really bring himself to care when the objects by his hip feel scalding hot against his skin.

Suguru pulls out his knives—the knives he’d forgotten about, the knives Satoru had accidentally brushed against just a few moments, the knives—

—the knives supposed to kill Satoru.

Suguru’s hands are shaking. He lets the knives fall limply from his hands, and they clatter harshly against the porcelain of the sink they drop into. Suguru can barely register the thin cut that appears on his hand when one of them accidentally grazes against him, and he can only stare dumbly as crimson beads well up from the wound.

“Fuck,” Suguru mutters. “Fuck.”

He hears a tentative knock on the door. “Suguru?”

“Fuck,” Suguru says again, grabbing both his knives from the sink and desperately stashing them behind the toilet—the only impromptu hiding place he can think of.

A firmer knock. “Suguru, are you okay?”

Suguru wants to laugh hysterically. No, I’m not okay, Satoru. I’m only here because I’m supposed to kill you, but now I’ve gone and fallen in love with you. What the fuck am I supposed to do? he wants to ask.

He doesn’t.

“Suguru, I’m coming inside.”

The door is hesitantly pushed open, and Satoru peers inside. His eyebrows are drawn together, and Suguru realizes he hasn’t seen Satoru look so distraught since the first time they met.

“I’m sorry,” Suguru is surprised to hear Satoru, of all people, say. A delirious part of Suguru wonders if he’s apologizing for being so easy to love. “Was I…” Satoru hesitates. “Was it too much?”

“No,” Suguru says immediately. “God, Satoru, no, never. You’re perfect.” Suguru will not look at the knives that threaten to peek from under the toilet. “I just…” Suguru will not look at the knives under the toilet. “I started feeling a little sick.” He’s not completely lying. Suguru’s pretty sure he’s a word away from throwing up.

Satoru looks like he wants to protest, but his eyes widen when he spots a thin line of red trailing down Suguru’s hand. “Suguru, you’re hurt,” he says, taking the injured hand into his so gently, so softly, his touch might as well be feather-light, but god, Suguru can’t stand it. He just barely manages to resist tearing his hand away.

“I cut myself,” Suguru says stupidly. “On the sink.”

Satoru’s eyes drag to the very round, very circular sink. “Uh-huh,” he says, utterly unconvinced. “Stay here, I’ll get the first-aid kit.”

Suguru is half surprised they even have a first-aid kit at all. “No need,” he croaks out. “I can do it myself.” He starts to move to the door, but Satoru’s gentle grasp on his wrist stops him.

“Suguru,” he says quietly. “Let me take care of you.”

Don’t, Suguru wants to say. The words claw and tear at his throat. Don’t look at me like you want to take care of me. Don’t look at me like you’d be happy with me for the rest of your life. Don’t—

Don’t look at me like you love me.

“Satoru,” he rasps out. Words distend against his diaphragm, swelling against his lungs as Suguru tries to breathe.  “I—”

Satoru silences him with a soft kiss. “I’ll be right back,” he promises, and slips out the bathroom door.

Suguru is left with nothing but his rapidly unraveling thoughts and two knives, left unnoticed and untouched on the tiled floor.

“Netflix’s so ass,” Satoru whines, pressing random buttons on the television’s remote as they both stare at a buffering screen.

“I think it’s your super old television that’s ass, actually,” Suguru says mildly, plucking the remote out of Satoru’s fingers. “Stop pressing all the buttons, you’ll make it worse.”

Satoru mutters something under his breath, but shifts to move closer to Suguru anyways, the blankets by their feet shifting as he moves. “How could our Studio Ghibli movie marathon stop before it even begins?” Satoru says petulantly, jostling the bowl of popcorn between them. Suguru has to keep a hand on it to balance it before it can spill all over Satoru’s horrible, lumpy couch.

“I told you we should just see something in the theaters.”

Satoru clicks his tongue. “The only movie out is another horror movie. You remember what happened last time.”

“Unfortunately,” Suguru mutters. His eyebrows raise when the grainy screen in front of them finally starts responding. “Hey, it finally works.”

“Nice,” Satoru cheers, but he sounds more subdued than Suguru would expect. Suguru glances at where Satoru snuggles next to him, eyebrows drawn.

“You okay?” he asks. “You seem a little tired.”

“‘m fine,” Satoru mumbles, even around a yawn. A glimpse at the clock under their television flashes a time much later than Suguru’s typically seen Satoru awake.

“You won’t fall asleep half-way through the movies, will you?”

“Of course not,” Satoru says, indignant. “At least, not until the popcorn’s done.”

“Right,” Suguru says fondly.

Satoru makes it half-way through Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind before Suguru feels his head dip to rest gently against Suguru’s shoulder. Suguru faintly wonders how exactly he’s supposed to move, now, but as he shifts slightly to pull the covers around Satoru tighter, he figures he doesn’t really mind being trapped lightly against Satoru’s body weight and the couch.

Suguru’s phone vibrates quietly against the table. Without looking at the caller ID, he picks up, careful not to disturb Satoru, even though he knows once Satoru’s asleep, it would take a bullet train approaching at 300 miles an hour to wake him up. Before Suguru can say anything, the person on the other end of his phone speaks up.

“Having fun?” an all-too-familiar voice crackles. The blood in Suguru’s veins freeze to ice. He pulls his phone away, and the name displayed cheerily on his screen hits him like a slap in the face.

“...Toji?”

“Aww, you still remember. How sweet,” comes the dry response. “You been having fun with your new loverboy?”

Despite himself, Suguru’s eyes dart to the peacefully sleeping Satoru next to him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Playing dumb? I thought I raised you to lie better than this,” Toji tsks. “Don’t bother. Went to your apartment—old apartment, I guess I should say—and talked to that roommate of yours.” Shoko. “Imagine my surprise,” he drawls out, “when she mentions you’ve got yourself a fancy little boyfriend. None other than Satoru Gojo, even. That’s why you were asking about who put the hit on him, huh?”

A million things run through his mind, but Suguru cannot think of a single thing to say.

“It’s not real,” Suguru finally blurts out. Satoru’s weight against him, which had previously felt comforting, now feels like half a ton of lead crushing Suguru’s bones. “It’s not—it’s just to get him to trust me.”

Toji barks out a laugh. “Sure, kid. You wouldn’t mind giving me his address then, would you?” Suguru’s mouth goes dry. He hears a crackly sigh. “Your silence speaks louder than you think. Well, you enjoy it while you can.” Suguru hears a horribly familiar click that sends chills down his spine—the loading of Toji’s gun. “I’ll see you soon, kid.”

He hangs up, and Suguru is left to stare blankly at a dim phone screen. Beside him, Satoru’s breaths remain stable, even as his head lolls further into the crook of Suguru’s neck.

Suguru can’t move, but he doesn’t think he can entirely attribute it to Satoru pressing against him. He’s pretty sure he’d be able to heft Satoru off of him if needed but at the same time, Suguru realizes he can’t seem to move a single muscle in his body, as one sentence runs paralyzing loops in his mind.

I’ll see you soon, kid.

Suguru’s never understood why people like going to aquariums. If they wanted to see some colorful fish flopping around in the water, why not just go to a beach? Better yet, why not just skewer, fry, and eat them?

But he doesn’t question when Riko eagerly pulls at his sleeve, pointing to the large aquarium they pass by with such contagious enthusiasm that Suguru can’t resist. The curves of her smile remind him of someone he can’t quite put his finger on, although he feels faintly as though he had a younger sister, once, although what remains of her in his memory is nothing but fragments that slip through his weak grasp.

So he pays the exorbitant fee, he watches fondly as she traces her hand along the glass, he fails to smother a grin when she almost walks into a wall while clutching the large shark plush that Suguru buys for her. She pouts when she sees his barely hidden amusement, shoving the shark into Suguru’s hands petulantly.

“If you find it so entertaining, you can hold it,” she states confidently, and Suguru’s lips twitch to hide another smile.

“Sure,” he says easily. “Almost running into a wall aside—” he narrowly avoids the elbow jab she sends his way, “—did you have fun today?”

“Obviously,” Riko says, her eyes on her feet as she balances on the edge of the sidewalk. “I thought being kidnapped would be a lot worse of an experience.”

Suguru grins wryly. “You’d think. Either way, we’ll get the ransom soon, so you’ll be able to go home in an hour or two.”

“I can’t wait to tell Kuroi about today,” Riko gushes, spinning on her heel to face Suguru. “Gosh, I bet she’s worried about me. She might punch you in the face when you show up.”

“I think I’ll survive,” Suguru says dryly. “Here, you want your shark back?”

“Yes, please!” Riko’s hand reaches for the offered shark—

—Suguru hears a bang—

—Riko’s fingers fall limp—

—and the shark drops to the floor.

When Suguru looks up, he sees nothing. When he looks down, he sees Riko lying stagnant on the hard concrete, a pool of blood spreading beneath her head. Her headband, previously a light blue, starts to turn a seeping red.

Her eyes are still open.

“God, what a chatterbox,” Suguru hears a voice. He can’t look up from Riko’s haunting gaze, staring straight at him, seeing nothing. “Took a bullet to her head to shut her up.”

Suguru’s eyes snap up to find Toji stepping his way towards him. “Why…” Suguru’s voice trails off. There’s blood roaring in his ears. “This was a ransom arrangement,” he hears himself saying. “Why did she—”

“Ransom originally,” Toji says callously with a shrug. “But some new client showed up, said he’d pay double if we killed her instead.” Toji grins. “We’ll finally be able to eat some good food tonight.” At Suguru’s still blank stare, Toji adds, “Sorry I forgot to update you. Figure it didn’t matter anyways.”

“It didn’t matter anyways,” Suguru repeats under his breath, and the slap Toji gives him on his back sends him stumbling a few feet forward.

“That’s the spirit.”

When he looks up, Toji’s gone.

When he looks at his hands, he finds them drenched in red, dripping with blood. He feels himself step back—

When he looks up, Riko’s gone. In her place, another body—this one with two knives protruding straight up to the sky—a shock of white hair—the bluest eyes he’s ever seen, but no, they glaze over even as Suguru watches—

It’s Satoru.

It’s Satoru, with two knives—with Suguru’s knives—impaled in his throat. He stares at Suguru with dull, lifeless eyes, even as the pool of blood under him slowly grows, threatening to lap against the tips of his hair.

Suguru chokes. He thinks his feet move forward, or maybe backward, but when he blinks, he’s crouching by Satoru’s body, his hands wrapped around the handles of his knives. His muscles spasm in horror, he can feel blood—Satoru’s blood—seeping into his pants, he can’t move, but he feels himself tug on the knives and—

—Suguru wakes up in a cold sweat.

“Fuck,” he whispers, tearing a hand through his hair when he finds himself sitting stock upright in bed. “Fuck.”

He feels Satoru shift next to him. He prays fervently that Satoru’s only moving in his sleep, but when he hears Satoru mumble a quiet “Suguru?” he knows the other is well awake. Suguru cannot think of a single morning where he didn't have to physically drag Satoru out of bed, but now, of course, Satoru chooses to wake up on his own accord.

Satoru shifts sleepily to sit facing Suguru. Suguru can’t look him in the eyes.

“Suguru?” Satoru asks again, taking Suguru’s hands into his own. “What happened?”

“Nightmare,” Suguru croaks out pathetically. He’s not being entirely truthful. Even though it happened years ago, the memory of Riko and the sharp end of her life still haunt Suguru—but he can’t call that a nightmare. Only reality.

Satoru’s lifeless body, though—

“Satoru,” he hears himself murmur. He switches the position of their hands so that he can slowly run a thumb over Satoru’s pulse that beats softly, that beats steady, that beats at all. “You’re here, right?”

Even in the dark of their room, he sees Satoru’s expression soften.

“Of course I’m here,” Satoru says quietly. He leans in to lightly bump his forehead against Suguru’s. “I’m not going anywhere, Suguru.”

Suguru can only desperately hope that stays true.

“What do you want for your birthday, Suguru?”

“My birthday?” Suguru echoes. “I haven’t really thought about it.” As if he can ever think about his birthday without remembering the looming deadline in front of him. A delirious part of him thinks maybe, just maybe, if he can keep Satoru to himself until that day, they’ll both be safe and free from the whims of Toji and whoever it was that had placed the hit on Satoru in the first place. It’s a ludicrous ideal, but one Suguru clings onto like no other.  

“At all?” Satoru presses. “Come on, there has to be something. It’s in less than a week, right?”

It’s only because Suguru turns at that very moment that he spots a flash of silver.

Suguru instinctively shoves Satoru to the side, almost sending him careening into a nearby KFC sign.

“Hey, what was that for…” Satoru trails off when he turns, finding a thin silver knife embedded in the wall just inches from where the side of his temple was a few moments ago. “Where did that come from?”

Suguru’s feet are utterly and terribly paralyzed to the ground.

“Yeesh, working with knives is such a pain,” he hears, and he can only watch with mounting horror as Toji turns the corner. “I don’t know how you do it, kid. I think I’ll stick to guns, personally. Much better success rate.”

Satoru peers over Suguru’s shoulder. “Who’s that?”

Suguru’s tongue flops limply in his mouth. He can’t speak.

“You could look a little happier to see me, you know,” Toji draws out. “You didn’t forget, did you?”

Satoru tugs insistently at Suguru’s sleeve. “Suguru, who’s that?”

Suguru finally pulls himself out of his stupor. “Satoru, get behind me.”

“Huh?”

Suguru shoves Satoru behind him. “Don’t move.” His fingers twitch—he hasn’t sparred against Toji in some time, but he’s still pretty sure he can get to his knives faster than Toji can shoot.

Toji scratches his head with the barrel of his gun. “Ugh, you ended up being one of those overprotective boyfriend types, huh?” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not here to kill him—at least, not yet.”

Suguru’s mouth is dry, even as he feels Satoru’s grip on his shoulder tighten.

“What’s this guy talking about?” Satoru mutters, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by Toji, whose teeth stretch out in a grin when he sees Satoru.

“Satoru Gojo, in the flesh,” he crows, stepping forward the same time Suguru takes a step back. “Your beloved boyfriend hasn’t told you anything, has he?”

“What’s there to tell?” Satoru challenges, and Suguru has to resist the urge to slap a hand over his mouth. “I know everything about Suguru. What the hell are you on?”

Suguru wants to throw up.

Toji laughs loudly. “Everything, you proud bastard? You know everything about him?”

Satoru rises to the bait. “Obviously. We don’t hide things from each other.”

“Satoru,” Suguru says quietly, as bile rises in his throat. “Don’t.” He swallows dryly. “He’s not worth it.”

“What?” Satoru turns to Suguru. “You just want to let this guy talk about whatever he wants? I don’t care if he’s not worth it, he’s being annoying.”

“That’s not—”

Suguru’s interrupted by Toji’s delirious cackling. “Oh my god,” he wheezes out. “You guys are too much. Geto, how do you think the kid will feel when I tell him why you’re even dating him in the first place?”

“…seriously, are you high?” Satoru bites out. He leans an elbow against Suguru’s shoulder. “I can’t follow a single thing you’re saying.”

“I feel better than high, kid,” Toji declares, spreading his arms out wide. “How’s this for following what I’m saying: that brat you’re clinging on to?” He points at Satoru’s hand, still clutching a vice grip on Suguru’s other shoulder. “Doesn’t give a shit about you. You think he’s acting all lovey-dovey because he wants to? You’re a target, kid, nothing more. I’m not even here to kill you: just reminding Geto that he is.”

Suguru is faintly aware of his heartbeat thumping dully in his ears.

“Well, toodles,” Toji drawls. “I’ll see you both around. Or maybe not.” His face pinches. “Hopefully not, actually. Geto, you know where to find me when you need to pick up your commission.”

He walks away. Suguru lets him.

“God, is that what homeless people are like now?” he hears Satoru whine. “Just making shit on the spot?” Satoru pauses. “Hey, how’d he know your name, though?” He shrugs. “Whatever. He’s probably a weird homeless stalker or something. Why can’t he try to get a job or something instead?” Satoru shakes his head, starting to walk back on their original path. “Anyways, what were you saying about your birthday?”

Suguru still hasn’t moved.

When he does, it’s to catch Satoru’s wrist.

“Satoru.” Satoru turns, his head tilted. “You need to be careful.”

“Haah?” Satoru stretches out. “Careful about what?”

Suguru doesn’t know what to say. “Toji—I think he might try to hurt you.”

Satoru turns so that his entire body faces Suguru. “Who the hell is Toji?”

Suguru’s fucked up.

“Wait, was he that homeless guy?” Satoru’s head tilts more. “How do you know his name?”

“He said it,” Suguru blurts out stupidly.

Satoru’s eyes narrow. “No, he didn’t. Suguru, what’s going on? How do you know that guy?”

I don’t, Suguru wants to say. It would be so easy to say—but the words won’t leave his mouth.

“Suguru,” Satoru says slowly. “He was lying, right?”

Obviously. He’s being crazy. Delusional. The words sit heavy on Suguru’s tongue, and by the look on Satoru’s face, he knows that whatever Suguru says next, Satoru will believe him. Because Satoru trusts him. Because Satoru loves him.

Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to say anything.

Satoru takes his glasses off. “Hey, Suguru. Are you going to say anything?” He waves a hand in front of Suguru’s face.

Suguru closes his eyes. “He wasn’t,” he breathes out. His entire body thrums in tune with his erratic heartbeat.

Satoru leans closer. “What?”

“He wasn’t,” Suguru rasps out. “Lying. He wasn’t lying.”

Satoru is a fidgety person, something Suguru has noticed ever since they first met. Whether it’s tapping a pen against a desk, bouncing a knee, or pulling at his fingers, Satoru is always moving. For the first time, Satoru stills completely.

“What?”

“How many fucking times do you want me to say it?” The words explode out of Suguru. He feels jittery, like a touch would be enough to evaporate him on the spot. He steps away, dragging a hand across his face. “Fuck. No. I didn’t mean—”

“What do you mean, he wasn’t lying?” Satoru asks—no, demands—with a step forward. His sunglasses hang loosely from his hand. “Suguru, that guy was talking like he was an assassin, and he kept ranting that you were one too—what the fuck do you mean, he wasn’t lying?”

“It means he wasn’t lying,” Suguru says miserably. He can’t meet Satoru’s eyes. He takes a shuddering breath. “I work with Toji. We’re contract killers. You were going to be my last target. My last—” Kill. He can’t say the word out loud.

Satoru laughs. There’s a tinge of hysteria that runs under his voice. “Suguru, what the fuck?” he chokes out. His eyes search Suguru’s face. “Is this a joke?”

Suguru so desperately wishes he could brush it away as a joke. “It’s not a joke.” He pulls his eyes back to impossibly wide, impossibly blue eyes. “It’s my life, Satoru.”

“What the fuck,” Satoru repeats. “Suguru, what the fuck?”

What the fuck, indeed. Suguru doesn’t know how else he expected Satoru to respond. “I’m only telling you because you need to take Toji seriously,” he tries to explain, and his hand stills in midair before it can reach Satoru. “He could try to hurt you—”

“Fuck that,” Satoru spits out. “I don’t give a fuck about Toji.”

Suguru clutches Satoru’s hand before he can turn away. “You need to,” he stresses. “He’s dangerous, and I—”

“I don’t give a fuck if he’s dangerous,” Satoru repeats, and its his exact nonchalance that Suguru was worried about. “You’re a fucking contract killer? You’re supposed to kill me?”

Suguru hesitates. “Only originally, but I—”

“So everything was a lie,” Satoru interrupts. “All of it.” He stares at where Suguru grasps his hand. “And this? Even this, right?”

Suguru’s mouth runs dry. “No,” he tries desperately. “In the beginning, maybe, but I—” Satoru pulls his hand out. Suguru feels the loss acutely. “Satoru, please. I loved you—”

“Past tense, huh?” Satoru laughs. It sounds like broken glass. “The first time you can even bring yourself to say the words, and they’re in past tense. You sure are quick to move on when you don’t have an excuse. God, I thought you were just fucking shy.” He huffs out a bitter laugh. “I always thought I could pick up on your tells. I always thought you were a terrible liar. But faking this was just too easy, huh?”

Suguru grabs Satoru’s hand again. “This wasn’t fake, Satoru. It never was.”

“Don’t touch me,” Satoru says coldly. “Don’t you dare ever fucking touch me again.”

Suguru drops his hand.

“You…” Satoru trails off. There’s something dark brewing in his beautiful eyes. Suguru can’t seem to look away. “You knew, this whole time, that I meant nothing to you.” Satoru holds a hand up even as Suguru tries to protest. “And still. You let me become friends with you. You let me take you out. You let me care for you, you let me sleep in the same bed as you, you let me kiss you, you let me—” He chokes out a watery laugh. Suguru hates it. “Suguru, you let me love you.”

“Satoru—”

“Don’t.” Satoru closes his eyes. “Just stop.” His voice falters on the last word. He brings a hand to his face. “God, I’ve been so stupid.”

Suguru can’t say a word.

Satoru lets his hand drop. When he opens his eyes, they stare dully at Suguru. There’s only one other time Suguru’s seen them so lifeless, and a shudder involuntarily runs through his body.

“Suguru.” The name falls flat into the space between them. It’s broken, tattered, torn to pieces. Suguru thinks he can almost see the sharp shards of his name laying scattered on the ground, and he has the distinct realization that he’d cut himself over a hundred times if he was given a chance to piece them together again. “I never want to see you again.”

Suguru can only watch numbly as Satoru walks away.

He doesn’t turn back.

notes on target #12 gojo satoru

• name: satoru “your mom” gojo
• birthday: december 7 (20 y/o)
• appearance: white hair, sunglasses. very tall. sky ocean cerulean indescribably blue eyes. nice  pretty beautiful breath-taking smile. faint freckles.
• personality: ass. bad at fighting. confrontational. impatient. unlikeable. rude. arrogant. ambitious. determined. headstrong. sensitive. awkward. kind. caring. compassionate. funny. clingy. charming. thoughtful. cute. affectionate. perfect.
• family: see gojo corporation. no siblings. no contact with extended family.
• friends: shoko, ijichi
• likes: being an asshole. sweets. books. old cars. astrophysics. coffee. popcorn. cats. touching. food. digimon. arcade games. over-sized plushies. festivals. cotton candy. ferris  wheels. kissing. dates. desserts. soft beds. pillows. holding hands. sleeping in. breakfast foods. whipped cream. berries.  
• dislikes: people. confessions. girls. group projects. brightness. horror movies. sour candies. utahime . separation. mornings. bitter coffee. undercooked eggs.

Suguru finds his stuff outside Satoru’s apartment. Two bags—

—and an ugly alien plushie with huge blue eyes.

There’s a note on top of one of the bags.

Don’t bother trying to kill me in my sleep. Found a new apartment. Don’t even try searching for it. Thanks for nothing.

Suguru’s thumb traces the letters in Satoru’s recognizable chicken-scratch handwriting. The ink’s still wet.

He crumples the note in his fist, picks up his bags and the plushie, and begins the long walk to Shoko’s apartment.

It starts raining halfway on his walk, because why the fuck not. He knocks weakly at Shoko’s door with the back of his hand. He’s pretty sure he looks like a drowned cat.

It’s Utahime who answers the door, and her eyes widen when she sees Suguru’s pathetic state. “Geto?”

“Hi, Utahime,” Suguru greets wearily. “Is Shoko home?”

Utahime’s eyes flick from Suguru’s face to his sopping shoes. “Uh, yeah, one second.” She ducks back into the apartment, and a few moments later, Shoko’s now the one staring at Suguru.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asks incredulously, even as she ushers him inside. Suguru takes the towel Utahime hesitantly offers gratefully. “You look terrible. Did Gojo dump you or something?”

Suguru huffs a quiet laugh, even as the cold from the rain seeps into his bones. “Something like that.”

Shoko moves to sit in front of him. “Actually?” On the other side of the apartment, Suguru notices Utahime making a cup of tea in the kitchen. “Geto, did Gojo actually dump you?”

“Kind of,” Suguru says lamely. “I deserved it,” he murmurs. “I hurt him.”

“You hurt him?” Shoko repeats, and Suguru flinches. “Hurt him how?”

“Not physically,” Suguru hurries to say. He gratefully accepts the steaming cup of tea that Utahime hands him. “Just—” He stares into his wobbly reflection from the tea’s surface. “I fucked up.”

Suguru sees Shoko glance at Utahime. “Uh-huh,” she says slowly. “Care to elaborate?”

“Not particularly,” Suguru mutters. “I’m sorry, I just—I didn’t know where else to go.” He takes a sip. It does little to warm the chill that spreads across his insides. “I’m sorry for intruding. I can leave, but Satoru won’t—” He cuts himself off. “I can leave,” he repeats lamely.

“You don’t have to.” Surprisingly, it’s Utahime that speaks up. “No one’s using the guest bedroom. You can stay.”

Suguru straightens. “No, I can take the couch,” he begins to offer, but Shoko smacks him lightly on the head.

“Hey, idiot, she said you can take the guest bedroom, so take the guest bedroom.” She glances at his face. Suguru doesn’t bother trying to hide the way his eyes droop with exhaustion. “In fact, why don’t you go and get situated now. It’s late enough, I think.”

“Yeah,” Suguru says quietly. “I think I will. Thanks, again.”

He feels himself acutely miss Satoru’s plush bed when he trudges over to the guest bedroom. It’s not just that he feels the loss of, but also the gratuitous amount of pillows, the obnoxiously large blankets—but most of all, more than anything, he misses Satoru. He feels the absence of Satoru beside him, an arm curled around his shoulder, a leg or two sprawled over his, like the absence of a limb. It takes an embarrassing amount of time for him to fall asleep, and that too only after reluctantly pulling the ugly alien plushie into his arms as a weak simulacrum.

He’s not very surprised when he wakes up with a stuffy nose and a dull thumping in his forehead. He struggles out of bed, finding the rest of the apartment empty when he peeks his head outside.

In class, there’s food in the fridge, he finds a text from Shoko on his phone.

Thanks, he slowly types back, but with a weary glance at the refrigerator, Suguru decides he’s not actually all that hungry and trudges back to his lonely bedroom to scroll mindlessly through his phone. He taps Satoru’s contact on a whim, and is utterly unsurprised to see he’s been blocked, but is unprepared for the way it hits him regardless. He’s sinking deeper into the stiff bed, cursing his existence as a whole, when Shoko calls.

“Hey, Geto,” Shoko greets before Suguru can say anything. She sounds distracted. “I, uh, just wanted to let you know—Gojo’s back at college?”

Suguru sits upright. “What?”

“Yeah, I just saw him go into the library, I think. Not really a lot of other kids around who have white hair and wear sunglasses.”

Fuck. Satoru can’t be at college, especially not with a flaming brand of a target on his back. Suguru has no doubt in his mind that Toji is ready to storm into the college at the drop of a hat, guns blazing, and Suguru’s once again hit by the horrifying feeling that he’ll have to see Satoru bleed out in front of his eyes.

“The library?” he repeats, even as he tugs on a jacket and struggles into his shoes. “He went into the library?”

“Last I saw,” Shoko says uncertainly. “Wait, I think he left.”

“Fuck,” Suguru mutters. “Okay, I’ll be there.”

He gets there too late. Satoru’s nowhere to be found in the library, even though Suguru scours every square inch. He goes to his afternoon classes, if only to catch a glimpse of white hair, but he never finds it.

Satoru can’t be dead already.

Right?

Hey, Shoko, he types out with one thumb as he glances around a Satoru-less classroom. Can you text me anytime you see Satoru again?

Shoko sends him back an ok-emoji, but it does little to relieve Suguru’s tension.

Reluctantly, Suguru returns to being a diligent student at his university. His professors are wholly unhelpful when he asks about Satoru’s whereabouts, and his classmates even more so. He finds himself returning to the library more often than he’d like to admit, tracing the grooves of the table they had spent so many afternoons at.

It’s all to no avail. Suguru, at the very least, knows Satoru’s still alive, only because of the sporadic updates Shoko gives him, but he’s always a few seconds too late when he arrives on the scene himself.

“I think you should move on,” Shoko says haltingly one day, when she sees Suguru panting and out of breath after running across half the campus. “I don’t know what happened between you two, but I think you should let it pass.”

Suguru lifts his head. “I can’t.” He can’t explain it to Shoko—that if he takes his eyes off of Satoru, if he loses track of Satoru one more time, it could be the last Suguru will ever see of him.

Shoko must see something in his eyes, because she never brings it up again.

Attempting to track Satoru becomes a futile endeavor Suguru quickly finds himself on the verge of giving up on—not through choice, but rather utter failure. He’s tapping absentmindedly against the side of his phone, trying to think of a countermeasure he can take—tracking Toji instead of Satoru, maybe—when his phone buzzes with a notification. Suguru’s heart leaps into his throat as he fervently, fervently hopes it’s Satoru—

It’s not.

But it’s a picture of him. A terrible, blurry picture that Suguru can barely make out if he squints, but a picture of Satoru nonetheless. He’s staring out a window, sitting by a table Suguru can faintly place in his mind—

Thanks, Shoko, he starts typing, but his fingers still. Shoko hadn’t sent the picture.

Toji had.

It’s bait, Suguru slowly realizes. Toji’s dangling Satoru in front of Suguru like some kind of lure, and he can already imagine the leer that must have spread over Toji’s face as he sent the image. There’s no caption, but the message is clear. He’s taunting Suguru.

Suguru falls for it—hook, line, and sinker.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Suguru doesn’t bother responding. He pulls at Satoru’s wrist like he’s so used to doing, before dropping it like hot coal. “Satoru, you need to come with me.”

“Like hell I do,” Satoru mutters, pulling his arm further out of reach. Suguru pretends the subtle motion doesn’t sting. “How did you even find me?”

Suguru looks around at the café where they had sat just a few months earlier. “Lucky guess,” he mutters, even though it was anything but. His phone, a picture, a captionless text, threatens to burn a hole in his pocket. “Satoru, please. Do you trust me?”

Satoru stares at Suguru. “No,” he says slowly. “I don’t trust you at all.”

Suguru inhales sharply. “Fair,” he croaks out. “Look, I—” There’s no time for apologies. “Please. If these last months have meant anything to you, come with me.”

Satoru stares at Suguru’s outstretched hand imperceptibly for what feels like ages.

He takes Suguru’s hand.

“Where are we going?” Satoru asks mildly as Suguru drags him outside the shop. Suguru’s too busy whipping his head back and forth for any sign of Toji. He still doesn’t understand how he was able to arrive in time to shove Satoru away, but something about it doesn’t bode well with him. When the coast looks clear enough, he shuffles Satoru into a nearby alley.

“Wait here,” Suguru says, peeking his head outside the corner. “Just stay here.”

There’s an awkward pause. “Is this where you’re going to murder me or something?” Satoru asks, and Suguru’s head swivels to gape at him.

“What?”

“I mean, what do you want me to think?” Satoru gestures at the admittedly shifty alley they stand in. “Pretty prime spot for a murder you’ve shoved me in.”

“No,” Suguru breathes out. “God, Satoru, no, I wouldn’t—”

He shoves Satoru to the floor.

Satoru’s succeeding yell of surprise is quickly muffled by Suguru’s hand against his mouth, even though he’s forced to quickly pull away when he feels a strange wetness on it.

“Did you just lick my hand?” Suguru asks incredulously.

“Reflex,” Satoru admits shamelessly. “What’d you do that for?”

“I thought I heard a gunshot.” Suguru looks up, and finds a sharp hole right above where Satoru was standing. “Fuck.”

“Congrats, because you did,” Toji applauds. Shadows flicker against his face, even as he lifts his gun. “Damn nice reflexes, kid. I could have finished it quickly, but looks like you’ll make this a little harder for me, huh?” He pauses. “Oh, and happy birthday, I guess.”

“Fuck off,” Suguru hisses between his teeth, standing up to shield Satoru from Toji’s view. “You’re not hurting him.”

“Please,” Toji scoffs. “I don’t think I could hurt him anymore than you have. Death might be a mercy.”

“Fuck you,” Suguru spits, even though the words cut deeper than he’d like to admit. He turns his head slightly. “Satoru, when it’s safe, hide.”

Satoru scrambles to his feet. “Right, right,” he agrees. He shifts to stand behind Suguru, although it’s made a bit inconvenient with his extra height. “Uh, so when exactly would that be?”

“Now,” Suguru grits out, and he swings a fist to Toji’s face, one he easily ducks.

“That’s all you got?” Toji asks, amused. “God, you’re out of practice.”

Suguru’s not done. His arm swings down, carrying the momentum from his feigned punch—there’s a glint of metal—and he’s stabbed Toji in his back, between his shoulder blades. He pulls the blade out instantly, but it’s still enough to send Toji staggering backwards slightly.

“Ooh, not bad,” Toji says with a barely noticeable wince. “So you didn’t forget everything.” He rolls his shoulders back, tilting his neck to the side until it makes a disgusting crack. “Good to see, but you’re not exactly my target. He is, though—” Toji points behind Suguru, to… nothing. “Hey, where the fuck did the kid go?”

“Nice, Satoru,” Suguru mutters under his breath. He slips his second knife from his hip into his left hand. “Sorry to disappoint,” Suguru says louder to Toji, whose teeth stretch into an uncomfortable grin, “but it looks like I’ll be your opponent for today.”

“Didn’t want to do this, kid,” Toji remarks, even as he ambles towards Suguru, his gun lolling from his hand, “but you leave me no choice.” He has Suguru trapped against the far wall of the alley, and Suguru can feel grit against his fingers as he scratches at the soft stone behind him. “I’ll kill you first if that’s the only way I can get to him.”

“It is the only way,” Suguru says distractedly. He’s collected a sizable amount of dust and miscellaneous rock in the palm of his hand behind his back.

Toji frowns at the mild response. “Hey, what are you doi—” In one swift motion, Suguru pushes the collected gravel into Toji’s face, before ducking down to swing a leg across Toji’s feet as he stumbles back, a hand against his face. His grip on his gun loosens, and there’s a brief moment where Suguru thinks he might be quick enough to snatch it out of his hands, and he drops a knife in preparation to catch it, but a harsh kick to his chest sends him slamming against the wall again, hacking out a cough that tastes salty against his lungs.

“You little fucker,” Toji snarls. He fires his gun, and Suguru ducks barely in time for the bullet to whizz past his ear. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

“Smarter than you, at least,” Suguru rasps out, even as he rubs his chest with the back of his hand. He just manages to deflect another bullet fired at him with the blade of his knife. It pings off before bouncing off the stone around them to land limply on the ground.

Toji laughs, a grating noise that rubs harshly against Suguru’s ears. “At least I’m smart enough not to fall in love with a target,” he sneers. “You really thought you could get away with your fairytale ass romance?”

Suguru hesitates—for a moment, but it’s enough. In a flash, there’s the cold barrel of a gun pressed to Suguru’s temple.

At the same time, Suguru holds a blade to Toji’s jugular.

Toji leans forward. Suguru’s knife draws a thin red line against his skin, but Toji doesn’t spare a flinch. “Nice try,” Toji murmurs, and the skin around his face tightens into an ugly grimace of a smile. “But you’re out of shape.”

I’m going to die, Suguru realizes with striking calm. He sees Toji’s finger twitch, and closes his eyes. No matter—when Toji shoots, Suguru’s arm will spasm outward. When he dies, he’s taking Toji with him. There’s a certain sense of relief the knowledge leaves him with.

Despite that, he flinches when he hears the shot.

When he hears the shot, not when he feels it.

He cracks his eyes open and finds Toji reeling in shock, his arm skewed to the side. A smoking hole inches away from Suguru tells him where the shot went. He swivels back to Toji and finds a familiar knife embedded in his shoulder, and when Suguru looks at his own hands, he realizes he’s only holding one knife. He looks behind Toji and finds—

“Satoru,” he breathes out, and he’s shoving past a groaning Toji to hold Satoru’s face in his hands. “Didn’t I tell you to run?”

“I just saved your life,” Satoru complains, even as his hands go to cup around Suguru’s. “Don’t you think I should get some credit for that?”

Suguru doesn’t spare Toji a glance. “You idiot. How did you even get my knife?”

“You dropped it,” Satoru’s eyes flick away from his face. “I waited for an opportunity and just went for it, I guess.”

Suguru gently leans his forehead against Satoru’s. “I fucking love you. You know that?”

Satoru stares at him with wide eyes. “I, uh—”

“Oi, lovebirds, I’m still fucking here.” Suguru reluctantly pulls his hands away from Satoru’s face to turn and face Toji, who watches them with an entirely unimpressed expression. Suguru’s unsurprised to see him wrench the knife out of his shoulder without a wince, but he still flinche when he watches it clatter dully to the floor. “You guys are so fucking repulsive you might be making me homophobic.”

Satoru and Suguru stare at him.

“Well, whatever.” Toji spins his gun around a finger. “I’ve had enough of playing around.” In one fluid motion, he aims his gun and shoots in the direction of Satoru, but the bullet misses. Satoru turns around in confusion, and it’s then that Suguru notices the feral glint in Toji’s eyes as he raises his gun again—

—Suguru shoves Satoru out of the way—

—but not before getting hit in the shoulder and a ferocious pain tears up Suguru’s arm and Suguru hasn’t even realized he’s crouched on the ground but Satoru sinks down to meet him and his frantic hands flurry around the wound and Toji grins as he leans down to press the barrel of his gun against Satoru’s forehead and Suguru’s heart stops beating but one click later blood doesn’t paint the floor beneath them and Toji frowns and Suguru ignores the burning of his shoulder when he grabs a bloodied knife that lays on the floor and—

—he stabs Toji in the neck.

Toji’s eyes widen. He stares at Suguru with something akin to shock—something maybe even akin to pride. Blood burbles out of the wound, still staunched by the blade, and with a tremendous amount of effort, Suguru pulls it out. Toji collapses to his knees, and it takes all within Suguru not to do the same, even as he leans on one knee. He watches Toji sway, before toppling to the ground like a felled tree. Suguru holds his breath for a few minutes more, but Toji shows no signs of stirring.

Suguru staggers against the wall. With Satoru’s hand by his uninjured arm, he sinks down to sit against the loose gravel of the floor.

“Hey, Satoru,” he whispers, even as his head lolls to the side. Satoru’s face starts to blur in his vision. Suguru thinks maybe it was rather awful timing for him to get sick so few days ago. Even so, Satoru’s eyes, wide and panicked, seem as clear as day as Suguru’s eyelids droop. “I love you.”

Satoru chokes out a laugh. “Yeah,” he murmurs quietly. “I know, Suguru.”

Suguru focuses on the sensation of Satoru’s fingers tracing the lines of his palm as he struggles to keep consciousness. “Did you call the police?”

Even with his hazy vision, he can tell the way Satoru’s face pinches at the mere suggestion. “Nah. I called Shoko, though.”

Suguru laughs quietly, even though the movement jostles his shoulder and sends daggers of pain through his arm. “Good choice.” His voice quietens. “You’ll stay, right?”

“Of course,” Satoru says quietly. His fingers tighten around Suguru’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

With a ghost of a smile on his lips, Suguru lets his eyes slip closed.

Suguru wakes up upright in Satoru’s bed. When he blinks, he sees Satoru dozing off in a chair beside him, one hand tangled with Suguru’s. With his eyes closed and his head drooped against his chest, he looks as peaceful as a cadaver—

Suguru freezes.

“Satoru.”

Satoru doesn’t move.

“Satoru,” Suguru tries again insistently, his heart moments away from leaping out of his throat. “Satoru!”

Satoru almost startles hard enough to fall off the chair. “Whuh?” he splutters out, blinking rapidly until he sees Suguru. “You’re awake?”

Suguru’s hands wrap around Satoru’s. “Satoru, are you okay?”

“Am—am I okay?” Satoru stutters out incredulously. “I’m not the one that got shot.”

Suguru relaxes minutely. “So you’re okay? You’re safe?”

Satoru flushes a pale red. “Yeah, it’s—whatever. I’m fine.”

“Thank god,” Suguru breathes out, and he lets himself slump against the soft pillows cushioned around him. “I was worried.”

“About me?”

Suguru smiles weakly. “Who else?”

Satoru says nothing. His gaze travels to their interlocked hands, but he doesn’t try to pull away.

“Satoru,” Suguru says softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Was it really—” Satoru cuts himself off. His thumb rubs absent-minded circles around the skin of Suguru’s hands. “Was it all fake?”

“No,” Suguru replies simply. “None of it—” It’s Suguru’s turn to cut himself off. “It was fake,” he slowly admits. “At first. Annoying you after all our classes, following you around during lunch—that wasn’t real. And I’m sorry.” He stares at their hands. “But everything after—lunches at the library, coffee dates, arcade dates, movie dates, festival dates, aquarium dates, Ghibli movie marathons—” Suguru pauses haltingly. “That was real. Being with you, Satoru—that was real, to me.”

A few beats pass before Satoru speaks up again quietly. “I still don’t trust you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

When Suguru looks up, Satoru’s staring straight at him. “But I want to try.”

Suguru hesitates. “Satoru?”

“I want to try,” Satoru repeats. “To trust you again.”

Suguru can’t help his guileless smile. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. My name’s Suguru Geto, what’s yours?”

Satoru’s hands tighten around his, even as a fraction of a smile starts to appear on his face. “Your mom,” he teases lightly back. “But you can call me Satoru.”

Suguru smiles. “It’s very nice to meet you, Satoru.”

extra;

“Hey, shouldn’t I be in a hospital?”

“Nah, Shoko fixed you up. Real handy having a doctor friend.”

“That’s… good to know. And… Toji…?”

“Dead.”

“Oh.”

“Mentioned something about a kid before he croaked, though.”

“Toji had a kid?”

“Kids, actually.”

“...”

“Hey, Suguru, how do you feel about adoption?”

“...what?”

“Never mind, we can talk about that later.”

Chapter Text

It starts, as most things do, with a punch to the face.

Satoru is pinching the bridge of his nose, his head tilted up to the bland ceiling above him, as he listens to Yaga drone about “reputation” and “consequences” and “suspension” and—

“Suspension?” Satoru asks suddenly. “The hell do you mean, suspension? I’m the one that got punched in the face.”

Yaga stares at him. “So you were listening.”

Satoru rolls his eyes. “Barely. Look, can I go? I think the asshole broke my nose.” He’s lying. At worst, it’s bruised. Even if it’s not, Satoru probably won’t do anything more than to slap a band-aid on it. Yaga reluctantly waves him out of the office, and after grabbing his bag, Satoru readily takes the invitation to leave.

“And then the asshole punched me in the face,” he yells on the phone as he walks out. “Can you believe it? He punched me in the fa—”

“You’ve said this four times already,” the voice on the other end interrupts. “Anyway, it sounds like you kind of deserved it.”

Satoru pulls his phone away to stare, appalled, at the screen. “Na-na-mi,” he pulls out. “You’re so rude to your senpai!”

“Sorry, Gojo-san,” Nanami drones out in response, not sounding very sorry at all. “Can I hang up now? My class starts in two minutes.”

“Awwh, but wouldn’t you rather talk to your favorite senpai than go to—aaand you hung up.”

Satoru stares at his dark phone screen with mild disappointment before pocketing it with a shrug. He’s half-surprised Nanami picked up his call at all. He winces when he rubs against the bridge of his nose, then scowls when he remembers the bastard who made it hurt in the first place. He doesn’t remember anything about the other guy, except for some weird looking bangs. Asshole guy with bangs, Satoru decides to call him.

So he has to survive one class with him. Fine. Satoru can manage that. As long as it’s just one class.

Asshole guy with bangs has somehow managed to wriggle his way into every single fucking one of Satoru’s classes. Thankfully he doesn’t sit next to Satoru in most of them, but just the sight of his perpetual mask of placid calm in his peripheral vision is enough to make Satoru’s blood boil. The fucker has the audacity to introduce himself to Satoru, although he forgets the other’s name as soon as he says it. He’ll stick to asshole guy with bangs, thank you very much.

Satoru’s not sure how much more obvious he can make his distaste for the other. Short of punching him in the face (an idea not entirely abhorrent to Satoru), he’s not sure what else more he can possibly do. Either this guy was as dense as a rock, or, well… a masochist. Satoru puts his bets on the latter.

He sticks to Satoru like a leech. In their statistics class, bangs guy leans in to ask Satoru a question. When Satoru actually takes the time to check the question, it’s the very first one in the textbook.

“Are you serious?” he asks incredulously, leaning back. “The answer’s in the title of the book.”

The thin smile on asshole guy’s face grows thinner. “Wow, thanks, Gojo. You’re so smart.” It’s plastic flattery at its finest, and a part of Satoru is even impressed with how much sucking up the other’s managed to do in a day. It doesn’t decrease his disdain for the other in the slightest.

“I think you’re just stupid,” Satoru mutters under his breath. It doesn’t go unheard, judging by the slight twitch of asshole guy’s eyebrow, but Satoru is left for the rest of class in blessed silence regardless.

After an exhausting day of dodging bangs guy’s advances, Satoru’s mildly surprised when he finds him by the school’s entrance, unlocking his bike. When he turns slightly to meet Satoru’s blank stare, Satoru’s vaguely horrified to realize his bangs aren’t really that ugly against the setting sun.

“You know,” he says instead. “You’re really weird.”

The lollipop in his mouth digs into his cheek when he walks away.

Satoru realizes he’s going to have a horrible day when one of his classes announces a group project—something that would be bad enough on it’s own, but when he realizes fucking asshole guy with bangs is his only other group member, he has to resist the urge to drop out of university entirely. Instead, he hightails it out of class immediately, but it’s not long before bangs guy catches up to him.

Reluctantly, he gives his phone number. He has to resist the urge to block it immediately.

from asshole guy with bangs one week ago
Hi, this is Geto!
Have you looked over the rubric for the assignment yet?

from asshole guy with bangs six days ago
Sorry for the double text
Have you started working on your part?
I’ve just started, but we can work together on research if you want

from asshole guy with bangs three days ago
Gojo?

from asshole guy with bangs two days ago
Hope your weekend is going well!
Just a reminder our project is due in two days

from asshole guy with bangs yesterday
I’ve finished my part of the project, by the way
How is your part going?

from asshole guy with bangs 2:03 A.M.
Hey, our project is due today btw

from asshole guy with bangs 5:17 A.M.
Have you finished?

Satoru realizes he’s going to have a fucking terrible day when his parents show up, unannounced, at five A.M. in the morning.

“Is this really where you live?” his mother complains when he first opens the door, and Satoru has to resist the intense urge to slam the door in her face. “Really, Satoru. You could do better, you know.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

The lines on his mother’s face tighten. “That’s no way to greet your mother.”

“Lovely to see you, mom,” Satoru grits out. It almost physically pains him to get the words out.  “What the hell are you doing here?”

She ignores him entirely to peer around him into his apartment before shuffling past him inside. Her critical gaze darts from the vague spots on the walls to the low ceilings to the baggy couch in the middle. “What a mess,” she tuts, and Satoru feels his grip on the door tighten. He slowly pushes it closed, so as not to tear the door off of its hinges entirely.

“It’s five A.M.,” he reminds her. “I haven’t exactly had the time to clean up.” His voice drips with acid, but his mother doesn’t seem to notice as she disdainfully brushes a section of the couch to sit on it primly.

“Don’t tell me you’re a late riser,” she chides. “Didn’t we teach you better than this?”

You didn’t teach me shit, Satoru wants to say. “Whatever,” he mutters instead. “I’m going back to sleep.”

He hears a sharp inhale. “Satoru, you wouldn’t.”

“This is my fucking apartment,” he bites out. “You can’t force me to wake up at the ass crack of dawn anymore, mom.” He pauses. “I left that house for a reason.”

He doesn’t bother waiting for a response before stalking back to his room for a few more hours of sleep.

Not that he ends up getting any. 7:03 A.M flashes cheerily at him when he squints his eyes open again, and he momentarily mourns the loss of three hours of extra sleep—a luxury he can only afford on the weekends—before begrudgingly slipping his sunglasses on his face and shuffling to the bathroom. When he finally returns to the small living room, he’s disappointed but not surprised to see his father standing across from his mother. They talk in barely hushed whispers, but silence immediately when they see him.

“You still wear those stupid glasses?” It’s the first words Satoru’s heard his father speak to him in months. He isn’t sure if he prefers his father’s reticent nature or his mother’s ever-persistent nagging, but he’s once again reminded of how much nicer his life passes without them in it.

He pushes his sunglasses higher up on the bridge of his nose. “So what if I do.” It’s a challenge. His father doesn’t rise to the bait.

His mother, though, does. “Satoru,” she says, and the name grates harshly against his ears. “We told you not to wear those silly glasses of yours so often.”

Satoru’s jaw clenches. He’s not sure how many times he’s tried to explain the reason for his frequent use of sunglasses—he’s lost count—so he doesn’t bother trying again. Instead, he pinches the space between his eyebrows in exasperation.

“Look, what do you guys want,” he asks dully. His mother exchanges a look with his father.

“Can’t we just visit our only son?” his mother tries to simper, but her words land horribly fake and Satoru can’t hide his grimace.

“Try again,” he says dryly.

“We think there’s a hit on you,” his father says blandly after a pause that stretches too long. “Someone hired to kill you.”

Satoru thinks faintly he’d still rather prefer living with someone meant to kill him over his parents.

“So?”

His father’s face pinches. “It’s not confirmed, but whoever put the hit is likely after the business. We can’t have the corporation compromised.”

Satoru has to bite back a sour laugh. “Right,” he agrees sardonically. “It would be so terrible for the company if I happened to so inconveniently get murdered.”

“Satoru—” his mother starts, but Satoru decides he’s heard enough from his parents for the next few months.

“I don’t care,” Satoru interrupts with a raised hand. “I’d like to see someone get close enough to murder me anyway, but thanks for your oh-so-benevolent concern. When are you guys leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning,” his father responds curtly. Satoru has to resist pulling out half of his hair.

“Tomorrow morning!” he repeats with false cheer. “That’s great. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my room for the rest of the day. Do feel free to not make yourselves at home.”

True to his word, he spends the rest of his dull Saturday staring blankly at his ceiling. He paces around a bit, always stopping by the door to see if he can make out anything other than hushed fervent whispers or the slight creaking of feet against the floor. At some point in the day, he hears the tell-tale squeak of the front door opening and closing, but it returns with the faint smell of fine dining. A lunch outing, Satoru guesses, but he’d honestly rather not even know for sure. His only stomach rumbles mildly in protest later in the day, but Satoru ignores it to type mindlessly at his computer instead. He feels his eyelids start to droop when he notices the time, but they snap open again when he hears voices rising in volume outside his door.

“—your fault he turned out this way,” he hears first, and he has to resist rolling his eyes. His parents have had the exact same argument at least fifty times over—he doesn’t really even know why they bother.

“My fault?” he hears his mother screech. “My fault? Who was it that let him buy those stupid sunglasses in the first place?”

“As a joke,” he hears his father’s exasperated response. “Akira, how many times do we have to go over this? I didn’t think he’d actually wear it around all the time. And for what—because he can’t handle a little light? He gets that pathetic sensitivity from you.”

“From me,” comes her offended gasp. “At least I was around for him to get something from me, I can’t say that about y—”

Satoru’s eavesdropping is cut short by his phone vibrating against his desk. He glances wearily at the caller ID: asshole guy with bangs. What a nice cherry to top Satoru’s lovely day. He half considers letting it ring out to voicemail, but he’s pretty sure he’s the reason Satoru’s phone has been blowing up regularly all week, and he’d really rather it stop. With some reluctance, he picks up the call.

“Gojo?”

“What the fuck do you want,” he bites out. His parents’ voices rise in the background. Satoru can’t bring himself to care.

There’s a beat of hesitation. “Our project is due in… less than an hour.” The project. Right. Satoru had kind of forgotten about that. “Are you done with your part?”

Obviously, Satoru wants to bite out, before realizing bangs boy had no way of knowing that he had, in fact, completed his part of the project the day it was assigned. “You had to call me for that?” he asks instead with a scowl. “Didn’t I tell you to text?”

“Not for lack of trying,” comes the response, the words thick with sarcasm. “But maybe it would do you some good to check your phone once in a while.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Satoru mutters under his breath. “Whatever. Yeah, I finished, I’ll add it to your part now.” He pulls open the document he’d haphazardly slapped his part into, before rummaging around in his email’s trash to find the document the other had shared him to. He drags over the text, ignoring the way his mother’s shrieks turn a pitch higher.

“Hey, is everything okay there?”

Satoru stares at his phone.

“What?”

“I’m hearing some yelling,” comes the slow response. “Is everything okay?”

Why the hell is he even asking? “None of your damn business,” he snaps, but he can’t help the way his fingers still over his computer keys. The words are out before he can even think about them. “My parents are visiting. They fucking hate each other and don’t give a shit about me. Don’t know why they bothered showing up at all.”

Satoru stares at his dim reflection against his phone. Why the fuck did he go and say that?

He rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Pretend I didn’t say that.” He drags his attention back to his computer, pasting his final section into their collaborative document. “You’ll submit, right?”

“What?” comes the distracted response. Satoru frowns at his phone. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll submit. Thanks.” There’s an awkward beat of hesitation. “I’m sorry if I overstepped my bounds.”

You did that when you punched me in the face, Satoru wants to say. “I said forget about it,” Satoru says instead with a scoff. “It doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t. He doesn’t know why he told bangs boy at all.

There’s another pause. “Right,” he hears slowly. “Good night, Gojo.”

As if reminded of his fatigue, Satoru has to fight back a yawn. “Whatever. Bye.”

He hangs up. In the other room, his parents have quieted—he hopes they’ve tired themselves out enough to keep silent for the rest of the night. He tosses his phone to the side before flopping back on his bed. His sunglasses press into his face as he stares at the ceiling.

Thank god he won’t have to wake up to his parents tomorrow.

He thinks—hopes, really—that’s the last he’ll ever have to see of asshole guy with bangs. Unfortunately, because life fucking hates him, the other manages to find him during lunch. Satoru sequesters in the library during lunch for a reason, and he half considers spending it in the bathroom when bangs boy keeps showing up, day after day, to make forced conversation. He doesn’t, in the end, but he decides to attribute that to his ultimate laziness instead of the creeping sensation that Geto might actually be interesting to spend time around.

When Geto’s not being obnoxiously pushy, Satoru is horrified to realize he’s perhaps not the annoying asshole he’d assumed he was. He seems to show genuine interest in the few pieces of information Satoru divulges, and it’s such a novel experience that it sometimes catches Satoru off guard.

“Do you work anywhere?” Geto asks one day in the library.

Satoru frowns. “Yeah,” he reluctantly admits. “Research lab. I’m taking a hiatus, though, they’ve paid me enough to keep me going for a few months.”

Geto’s eyes widen slightly. “Oh, yeah?” he asks. “What is it that you were researching?” After Satoru tells him, he nods thoughtfully. “Sounds important.”

Satoru can’t help but stare. When he’d told his parents about the job, his mother had laughed in his face. It’s such a striking difference in reaction that it renders him speechless for a moment.

In that very moment, he sees Geto look to the side. “So, is it close to where you live?” he asks awkwardly. Any previous ease from the conversation has disappeared entirely, and Satoru can’t help his frown. It’s not the first time Geto’s prodded about his apartment.

“Dunno,” Satoru answers blandly. “I forget.”

They don’t talk for the rest of that lunch.

Satoru also doesn’t miss the way Geto observes him throughout their now routine library lunches. He finds that he doesn’t really mind, in the end, not when he’s able to observe the other himself in equal measure. He learns that Geto doesn’t get hungry easily, but when he does, it’s always for takoyaki, for some reason. He learns that Geto picks at his nails often, a habit he doesn’t even think Geto’s aware about, with the way his eyes always glaze over when he does it. He learns that despite being in all the same classes as Satoru, Geto much rather prefers teaching over his chosen major of astrophysics. When Satoru pushes on this, when he asks why Geto would take astrophysics at all, his mouth snaps closed.

Similarly, it’s Satoru’s mouth that snaps closed when Geto abruptly brings up his sunglasses.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Geto starts. His head is tilted as he stares at Satoru with a curious expression. There’s nothing malicious in his gaze, but Satoru still can’t help the way he stiffens under it. “Why do you always wear sunglasses? Outside, I can understand, but why indoors, too?”

It’s an innocent question, free of the derision he’s so used to hearing associated with his glasses from his parents. Still, he bristles with discomfort.

“None of your fucking business,” Satoru snaps. His words sting with a brand of hostility he hasn’t needed to use since he first met Geto. But he doesn’t retract his words, instead snapping his mouth closed to sink lower sullenly in his chair. He watches Geto carefully for a reaction.

It doesn’t come. Geto shrugs easily, and they fall into a silence for the rest of lunch that’s not as uncomfortable as Satoru would expect.

Either way, he’s convinced Geto jinxed him. Just a few days after it comes up in conversation, Satoru drops his sunglasses in the hallway between his classes, and the sudden onset of light distracts him long enough for a sudden flood of students to tromp over it. He stares at the mangled plastic in shock for a few moments, before bending down to pick it up with a sigh. It’s unsalvageable, so with no small amount of loss, he throws it in the trash. He has spares at his apartment, anyway, but he’s got a few hours to go before he can even return home at all.

He thinks, foolishly, for a moment, that he might be able to get through the rest of the day regardless. He’s almost immediately proven wrong when he chances a glance outside and finds himself with a pounding headache thanks to the unfettered sunlight streaming in. He brings a hand to his forehead, lightly rubbing against it to assuage his pain with no real success, before stumbling his way over to the library. He hesitates at their usual table, but he has to tear his eyes away when the light sears the table for too long.

At some point in between, he texts Ijichi. A part of him feels bad for needing to rely on a high school senior for transportation, but a much larger part of him wants him to bang his head repeatedly against the wall so he can feel something else other than the dull pounding that throbs across his forehead. Ijichi will survive—Satoru, on the other hand, is increasingly doubtful that he will.

So he fits his entire body into the small space under a set of shelves that he finds. It’s quiet, but more importantly—dark. He burrows his head into his arms and resigns himself to a few hours of restless sleep while he waits—

—only for his head to shoot up when he hears his name in a familiar voice. He just barely manages to avoid banging the top of his head against the bottom of the shelf.

Geto’s staring at him with wide eyes. He’s staring like he’s never seen Satoru before.

“You have eyes,” he blurts out.

Satoru squints at him. “Yes, I have eyes, you asshole.” Although at the moment, he thinks he’d really rather prefer not having them at all.

Geto’s still staring at him. “They’re very blue,” he says after a pregnant pause.

Brilliant observation, Satoru wants to crow. “No fucking shit, sherlock,” he mutters instead, ducking his head beneath his arms again. He’s not even sure how the other managed to find him, but he really was enjoying stewing in misery and chronic pain by himself, so if Geto could just leave—

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Satoru responds, his words muffled by his arms.

He doesn’t have to look up to feel Geto’s stare. “You don’t look fine.”

God, he really can’t take a hint. With a sigh, he raises his head again. “I broke my sunglasses,” he said blandly.

“Oh,” comes the mildly confused response. What is he even saying ‘oh’ to?

“My eyes,” Satoru eventually clarifies with a hand in the air. “They… they’re hypersensitive to light and stuff. Without my glasses, I get a headache.”

Geto blinks. “Oh,” he says again, comprehension painting his tone. “Why didn’t you just go home?”

Satoru would love to go home. “Can’t exactly drive in this condition, can I,” he points out with a glare that even he can tell is weak.

There’s a pause. “I could bike you to your apartment, if you wanted?”

What is with him and wanting to get into Satoru’s apartment? Satoru has to fight back a scowl. “No,” he dismisses easily. “I’ve got a friend with a car who’ll pick me up in a few minutes. His school lets out soon.”

Geto looks thoughtful after Satoru explains Ijichi’s situation. Before Satoru can move to bury his head in his arms again, Geto interrupts his sulking with another question.

“Mind if I join you down there, anyway?”

Satoru stares at him. “What?”

Even as the question leaves his mouth, Geto’s crouching into the sliver of space next to Satoru, and he’s forced to shift and accommodate another person into the space meant for neither. Satoru can’t help the way his eyes dart from Geto’s feet to his face, then back to his feet, tucked right beside Satoru’s.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t have anything much better to do right now.” He’s not even trying to hide his lie. They have the same classes—Satoru’s well aware that the next one starts in just a few minutes. Still, he finds his mouth dry while he watches Geto pull out a set of earbuds, plugging the cord into his phone before holding one of the buds out to Satoru. “Want to listen? Might help with your headache.”

Satoru can do absolutely nothing but stare stock-still at the innocuous white earbud. It feels like years pass before Satoru’s able to hesitantly reach out and take it, and he has to swallow dryly when he feels his face heat up as their fingertips brush for half a moment.

Satoru almost forgets about his headache. With light orchestral music in one ear and blissful silence in the other, only interrupted by their shared breaths, he finds his eyes slipping closed, unconsciously leaning against the boy beside him. It’s the music that relaxes him, Satoru decides, and definitely not the comfortable weight of someone against him.

from geto 5:03 P.M.
https://tinyurl.com/5x2bcwjy
Cool astrophysics vid I found!
Thought you might enjoy

to geto 5:17 P.M.
did you fucking just
did you just do that

from geto 5:18 P.M.
What do you mean?

to geto 5:20 P.M.
did you just fucking rickroll me you asshole

from geto 5:20 P.M.
Did I?
Whoops
Got you to respond to a text tho lol

to geto 5:21 P.M.
oh you BASTARD
and what if i just block you now huh

from geto 5:21 P.M.
You wouldn’t

to geto 5:21 P.M.
don’t test me asshole

from geto 5:22 P.M.
:)

So maybe asshole guy with bangs isn’t as much of an asshole as Satoru thought he was. So maybe that’s why Satoru only refers to him as Geto anymore, even though the syllables of Suguru linger in the back of his mind. So maybe Satoru offers to drive Geto back home for no reason, even though the small smile he receives in return—maybe the first genuine smile he’s ever seen from him—has Satoru’s heartbeat increasing at a dangerous rate. So maybe Satoru hesitates for a split second when Geto invites him inside.

So maybe he falters when he finds Geto in casual clothes at a café he’s never visited before but immediately adds onto his list of regulars. So maybe he’s stunned into silence when Geto so easily rattles off Satoru’s coffee order, something he’s never explicitly mentioned to Geto. “But you love me for it,” Geto says, and so maybe Satoru’s forced to hide his burning ears under his arms and so maybe he has to bite his tongue before he can shove his foot in his mouth. Geto smiles at him, with something bordering on fondness, and so maybe Satoru lies.

“You know, no one actually calls me Gojo.”

So maybe, Geto becomes Suguru.  

So maybe he throws two movie tickets at Suguru, hoping he’ll pick up on the obvious invitation before exasperatedly spelling it out for him. So maybe he fidgets with worry when he finds how much he was crushing Suguru’s fingers during the movie, and maybe he even breathes a sigh of relief when Suguru still so readily agrees to come to the movies again later with him regardless.

So maybe Satoru’s tongue slips.

“We should get a cat,” he says mindlessly. “A kitten, like that one.”

“We?” Suguru asks, amusement tinging his tone. Satoru’s tongue feels like lead in his mouth.

How is he supposed to explain he can already imagine them living together? Suguru hasn’t even picked up on one of the many hints Satoru’s dropped in their time together—hell, Satoru has no idea how close Suguru thinks they are. He pulls his eyes away.

“I,” he corrects, “should get a cat. But you can help me take care of it.”

So maybe Satoru has a bit of a crush.

So maybe that’s an understatement.

So maybe Satoru stares at Suguru’s outline against the setting sun and thinks he’s the most beautiful person Satoru’s ever seen, and so maybe his hand moves of its own accord to tug at Suguru’s sleeve.

“Wait,” he says lamely, even as words rise in his throat and threaten to overflow onto the ground below. “I—”

Suguru blinks—it’s enough to shatter Satoru’s mental bubble. “What?”

He swallows. The words dissipate against his tongue. “Never mind.”

So maybe Satoru pulls back, but not before remembering an email he’d received just a day ago—a discount at the arcade he frequented in his free time. So maybe Satoru tests his luck. “We’re not a couple,” Suguru reminds him when they arrive to face the garish neon poster that screams about the discount, and so maybe Satoru mutters “not for a lack of trying” under his breath that Suguru thankfully doesn’t hear. So maybe Satoru has a bit too much fun crushing Suguru in every arcade game ever. So maybe he pays anyway because it’s Suguru. So maybe his eyes widen when Suguru returns with the ugliest plushie he’s ever seen, and so maybe he mentally vows to never part with it—so maybe he slaps Suguru’s hand away when he even playfully suggests returning it.

So maybe Satoru’s a little too eager to show Suguru around the university’s festival. So maybe he has too much fun tangling his fingers with Suguru’s, pretending like they’re on an actual date and so maybe he misses the sensation of Suguru’s fingers against his own when they both suddenly pull away. So maybe he ignores the way the phantom feeling lingers. So maybe they end the day on a ferris wheel, Satoru leaning against Suguru, Suguru gazing outside and Satoru gazing at Suguru, and so maybe Satoru realizes he would actually rather like to kiss Suguru.

So maybe, Satoru realizes he’s just the tiniest bit in love.

“Happy birthday, Satoru.”

Satoru can’t remember the last time he celebrated his birthday—hell, he can’t remember the last time someone remembered his birthday. He turns around with a grin that only grows wider when he spots Suguru, a small bag in hand.

“You remembered.”

“Obviously,” Suguru scoffs, and he says it like Satoru’s birthday is something to be remembered, something to be cherished. Like Satoru is something to be cherished. “Here’s your gift,” Suguru adds, and Satoru just barely manages to catch the bag he throws his way.

“Aww, you didn’t have to,” Satoru whines, even as he eagerly tears through the wrapping. When he finds a small box at the bottom, he turns to glance at Suguru, who only waves him on. He opens it, to find—

“Is this…”

“A limited edition Renamon keychain? Yeah,” Suguru says easily. “Surprisingly hard to find, even on the internet.”

Satoru can’t bring himself to do anything but gape at Suguru, even with the keychain in his tight grasp. “How did you know—”

“You’ve complained about never being able to find the keychain before,” Suguru interrupts, as if it was common knowledge. “When you were ranting about Digimon one day.”

Satoru rants about Digimon every day. The keychain in particular, though—

“That was months ago. You remembered?”

“Obviously,” Suguru says again.

Satoru is struck by the impossible urge to kiss Suguru—

—so maybe he does.

He pulls away after just a few moments, and he doesn’t need a mirror to know how red his face is. “I’m sorry,” he splutters out when he sees the blank expression on Suguru’s face. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Suguru blinks. Something in his eyes shifts. Before Satoru can retreat even further, Suguru’s hands are suddenly in his hair, their mouths once again crashing together.

Oh, Satoru thinks. Okay.

Satoru thinks it’s rather fitting that their first date-date is at a dessert shop. It’s one that just opened recently, too, so he’s the first one off the bike when they finally arrive, his eyes scanning the small menu on the front door.

And what a small menu it is. “They don’t even have any drinks,” Satoru mutters despondently under his breath. “Well, they have this that could be given as a drink, but that seems awfully inconvenient, they should really just—”

He interrupts himself when Suguru finally catches up to him. He slips his arm into Suguru’s, pointing at a lone unoccupied table by the entrance. “Let’s get an outdoor table,” he suggests, and Suguru agrees easily. It’s only when they move closer to the table that Satoru realizes just how tiny it is—including the small centerpiece. In all honesty, Satoru was expecting an entire bouquet of roses. How else was the place supposed to feel romantic? They didn’t even have any candle lights.

“Nice touch,” Suguru says anyway, and Satoru can’t resist his frown.

“It should be bigger, I think,” he murmurs, but before he can criticize the small flower any more, the waiter comes to take their order. Satoru doesn’t really even think Suguru’s had time to look at the menu, but it figures he doesn’t matter, since— “I’ll take one of everything.” Satoru tries not to let his amusement show when he sees the way Suguru gapes at him immediately after. “Suguru, what about you?” he asks innocently.

“I think I’ll just share,” he eventually mutters, and Satoru beams.

The dishes arrive in moderate time, but Satoru finds himself once again disappointed by the pithy serving sizes. Suguru looks appalled when he brings it up, but reluctantly points at a thin slice of cake when Satoru cheerily asks him which one he wants.

Satoru hums, taking a fork and toppling half of the cake over onto the fork. He’s nothing if not a helpful boyfriend, after all. He raises it slowly, making sure it doesn’t fall over—

“What are you doing.”

Satoru grins. “Say ‘ahhh.’”

Suguru’s not quick enough to dodge. Satoru doesn’t quite manage to stifle his snicker when he sees the way Suguru’s cheeks bulge with cake, but he quickly diverts his attention to the rest of his desserts while Suguru struggles to finish his singular bite. “Is it good?” Satoru asks, even as he shoves a small flaked pastry into his own mouth.

It still takes a few moments before Suguru can respond. “I couldn’t really tell,” comes his dry response. His eyes widen when he sees how half the plates have been wiped clean. “How did you finish so many already?”

“You were being slow,” Satoru complains mid-chew, but still hands over the rest of the utterly demolished cake to Suguru, who eyes it with barely concealed disdain. Satoru can’t help the thrill of glee that runs through him when Suguru reluctantly feeds him the cake, and makes a mental note that it was definitely the best dessert of the bunch.

“Could be sweeter,” he still ends up saying, ignoring the subsequent incredulous look Suguru sends him. Once he finishes off the remaining few desserts, he claps his hands before beginning his rapid-fire criticisms of each. “That one wasn’t sweet enough, that one definitely wasn’t sweet enough, I think they forgot to put sugar at all in that one, this was the only one that was maybe too sweet—but at the same time could have used more of it—” As Satoru rattles them off, he has the wonderful realization that he would make a fantastic food critiquer. Maybe in another life. “—consistency was all kinds of off on this one, and, well, this one was just plain ugly. The colors? Ugh.” He lets his pointing finger finally drop. “Overall, I’m not impressed. I expected more, especially with the ambience.”

“The ambience?” Suguru repeats with a laugh.

Satoru sulks deeper into his seat. “Yeah. Where’s the romanticism? Where’s the candle-light aesthetic?”

“Is that why you wanted a bigger centerpiece?” Suguru snickers.

“Obviously,” Satoru agrees. He tries to resist the urge to sink lower in his seat and fails. “This doesn’t even feel any different from our not-date dates.”

“I wouldn’t quite say that,” Suguru hums, and he places a quick peck on Satoru’s lips that he’s utterly unprepared for. Suguru tastes like chocolate and cherries. Just the right amount of sweetness, Satoru thinks dazedly. “We weren’t exactly doing that before,” Suguru adds easily, leaning back utterly unaffected. Satoru kind of wants to punch him in the face. On the lips. With his lips.

He’s forced to bury his face in his hands. “You’re insufferable,” he mutters.

“But you love me for it,” Suguru says, so easily, and Satoru is struck by the horribly wonderful realization that maybe he does.

“You should move in with me.”

Satoru doesn’t even realize he’s said the words until he registers the shocked look on Suguru’s face.

“Huh?”

“You should move in with me,” Satoru repeats slower. The words feel more concrete against his tongue.

Satoru can see Suguru start to pick at his nails. “What?” he asks again after a silence that stretches too long.

Satoru has to resist rolling his eyes. “Suguruuuuu,” he pulls out. “Move in with me.”

Suguru stares at him blankly. “Move where?”

Satoru stares back, stupefied. “Into my apartment, where else?”

“You want me to move in with you?” Suguru asks, and there’s something off about the tone of his voice. It’s stretched thin and taut, like a frayed string ready to snap at any moment.

“Are you going to make me repeat it a fourth time?” Satoru asks, but his eyes keep drawing back to the way Suguru’s hands fidget.

Suguru blinks. “I don’t—” He stops. His eyes dart to the side, then back to Satoru. “Satoru, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Satoru raises an eyebrow. “Why not?”

Satoru watches as Suguru’s hands drop below the table. “I don’t even know your address,” comes his weak excuse, and Satoru can’t hold back his scoff.

“So?” If that was all that was keeping Suguru on the fence… “I’ll just text it to you now.”

“No,” Suguru says, suddenly and vehemently. Satoru, along with at least five other people around them, stares. “No,” Suguru repeats, and his hands are back on the table. “Don’t text it. Don’t ever text me your address.”

Satoru thinks this is kind of odd coming from a person who had, just a few months ago, so ardently prodded at Satoru to drop any sort of hint about his apartment’s location.

“Okay?” he ends up agreeing with a shrug. “I can just drive you there, then.”

Suguru still looks utterly unconvinced. He’s started picking at his nails again. “I don’t know,” he finally says. He’s staring at Satoru, but his mind seems to be a million miles away. “I need to think about it.”

Satoru has to resist another scoff. “What’s there to think about?” He pauses, then gently takes Suguru’s hands into his own. They still as soon as Satoru touches them, rubbing light circles against his skin. “Come on, Suguru,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t you.”

It’s true. Satoru is admittedly new to the idea of dating, something Shoko constantly insists on teasing him about, but he’s not completely clueless. He’s had light crushes before, he’s even kissed a few people before—everything, all of it, pales in comparison to Suguru. Satoru has a faint notion that perhaps his entire life thus far has been waiting for this moment: sitting in an overpriced, overrated dessert shop with his hands in Suguru’s, waiting for an answer.

There’s a moment—a brief one—where Satoru considers retracting his offer. There’s something lingering in Suguru’s eyes other than uncertainty, something that sits uneasy in Satoru’s gut when he notices it. Before he can put a name to it, Suguru squeezes his hands.

“Okay.” The word slips out as a hoarse whisper. “I’ll—” His face pinches. “Okay.”

Satoru beams. “You’ll move in?” he asks, just to confirm. Suguru’s cheeks pink when he’s faced with the full force of Satoru’s grin, but he still nods minutely.

“Yeah, Satoru.” There’s a small smile on his face—if Satoru didn’t know any better, he’d say it looked bittersweet. “I’ll move in with you.”

from suguru <3 7:12 P.M.
https://i.postimg.cc/3RrMfQFT/162.jpg

to suguru <3 7:12 P.M.
ok RUDE
my eyes are lovely and pretty and gorgeous and you love them <3
those aren’t even the right shade
smh

from suguru <3 7:12 P.M.
https://i.postimg.cc/ZnMCKc5W/image.png

to suguru <3 7:13 P.M.
SUGURUKRUAWEFWJKF
im feeling targeted (；￣Д￣)

from suguru <3 7:13 P.M.
That’s the point

to suguru <3 7:13 P.M.
ur so mean to ur favorite person ( ´༎ຶㅂ༎ຶ`)

from suguru <3 7:13 P.M.
:) <3

to suguru <3 7:14 P.M.
:( <3

from suguru <3 7:14 P.M.
You’re right tho
They’re the wrong shade of blue

Satoru’s wonderful dream of getting married to Suguru in a river of chocolate, standing on marshmallow shoes, is rudely interrupted by an insistent poking against his shoulder. Half-asleep and clinging onto the threads of his dream that slip away even as he tries to catch the vestiges, Satoru simply rolls over and burrows more into the sheets that surround him. It doesn’t stop the poking—if anything, it only increases their fervor.

“Five more minutes,” he mumbles, cheek squashed against his pillow.

“Five more minutes, my ass,” he hears someone grumble lightly. “Wake up, Satoru.” And maybe it’s the fond way his name’s delivered that Satoru cracks open his eyes—slowly, to avoid the inevitable deluge of light to assault his senses, but it never comes. He blinks, and finds Suguru’s face inches from his in a softly lit room.

“Hi, Suguru.”

“Hi, Satoru,” Suguru murmurs fondly. Satoru’s enamored with the sound of his name in Suguru’s morning voice, still raspy with sleep. “It’s almost ten A.M.”

Satoru hums sleepily. “Is it really?”

Suguru laughs quietly. “Yeah, sleepy-head. I think it’s time for you to wake up.”

“You’re still in bed, too,” Satoru argues mildly.

“I’ve been up for three hours,” Suguru corrects, brushing Satoru’s bangs away from where they press into his face. “But you haven’t really shown any sign of waking up, so…”

Satoru mutters unintelligibly into his pillows. “Why aren’t the blinds open?” he eventually asks, propping his head up slightly on his pillow. Behind Satoru, the single window in their room is still shuttered closed—not that Satoru really ever opens them, anyway, but he’s still half-surprised Suguru didn’t take it upon himself to do just that. Satoru’s mother had always particularly enjoyed thrusting his window open as soon as the light hit the glass, and Satoru half-attributes the worsening sensitivity of his eyes to her.

Suguru’s hand curls around Satoru’s. “Thought it would hurt your eyes if I opened them too quickly,” comes his simple answer, and Satoru has to resist the urge to kiss him, before realizing he has no reason to. So he does—a quick, chaste kiss—and when he pulls away, Suguru stares at him with wide eyes.

“You’re perfect,” Satoru declares quietly. “You know that, right?”

Suguru’s mouth opens, then closes. His lips twist into a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t know about that,” he murmurs, pulling his eyes away, and Satoru frowns before shuffling closer.

“You are,” he says simply, and Suguru’s smile softens.

“Okay, Satoru.” He drops a soft kiss to Satoru’s forehead before sliding out of the bed. Even as Satoru squints up at him with a frown, hands weakly reaching out again, Suguru only smiles. “I’ll be making breakfast, so don’t be late.”

Satoru lets his hand drop uselessly. “I don’t think there’s anything in the kitchen,” he mutters.

Suguru laughs. “There wasn’t. I got some things this morning while you were still sleeping.”

Satoru gapes. How can someone like Suguru even exist? A part of Satoru thinks deliriously it’s too good to be true. A larger part of Satoru tells that part to shut the hell up.

“Hey.” His hand darts out to circle Suguru’s wrist loosely. “You really are perfect.”

Something flickers in Suguru’s eyes. “Sure,” he agrees quietly. He leans down again to let his lips brush Satoru’s forehead. “Actually get out of bed now, okay? If I have to come in here again I’m tearing the blankets off.”

“Suguruuuu,” he whines back, even as the other slips out of the room. When Suguru’s gone, Satoru buries deeper into the sheets. When he brings a hand to his mouth, he realizes he’s smiling.

Satoru thinks, not for the first time, that he might be in love. But also, maybe even more terrifyingly—

—he thinks he might be loved.

So maybe that’s why, when he turns to see Suguru with light blue strokes painting his cheeks from the light against the aquarium, a faint smile ghosting across his lips, the corners of his eyes curved in a small smile, Satoru thinks—

Oh.

“Hey, Suguru.” His voice feels fragile. “I’m in love with you,” Satoru hears himself say.

Suguru’s fingers, from where they had been lightly tracing the glass wall beside him, freeze. “What?”

“I’m in love with you,” Satoru says helplessly, hopelessly, honestly.

Suguru stares at him. Satoru’s not sure if he’s blinked in the past minute.

“Sorry,” Satoru blurts out after a silence that stretches too long. “Never mind. You don’t have to say it back.” His face feels flushed, but his hands feel like ice. He moves, maybe unconsciously, to tug his hand out of Suguru’s, but the other’s grip tightens.

“No,” he hears Suguru blurt out. There’s a serrated edge to his tone. “Satoru. I—” His words dry up. “I—”

“Suguru, it’s okay,” Satoru interrupts. There’s something brewing in Suguru’s eyes, something like hope and anxiety and maybe even fear—

“Me too,” Suguru finally says. Satoru is nearly swept away with a wave of relief that trickles into his veins and calms his rapid heart. “Satoru, I—” Suguru’s voice falters. But he sends Satoru a weak smile, and it’s enough for Satoru to beam back. “Me too,” Suguru repeats, quieter, and it’s enough for Satoru to squeeze their hands together, it’s enough for Satoru to forget the storm clouding Suguru’s eyes, it’s enough for Satoru to playfully tease Suguru when he almost walks into a wall on their way out—

It’s enough for Satoru.

Satoru’s fucked up.

He lightly taps the back of his hand against the bathroom door. “Suguru?”

There’s a clattering noise inside. He thinks he hears a muffled “fuck.”

He knocks harder. “Suguru, are you okay?”

The succeeding silence from the other side of the door threatens to wind around his throat and suffocate him. He slowly puts a hand to the knob, and he has to let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when it turns under his hesitant grip. “Suguru, I’m coming inside.”

Suguru’s shaking.

Minutely, but Satoru still doesn’t miss the way faint tremors run through his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Satoru immediately blurts out. He has to resist the urge to tug anxiously at his own fingers. “Was I…” He swallows dryly. “Was it too much?”

Suguru finally meets his eyes. “No,” he says easily, immediately, obviously. “God, Satoru, no, never. You’re perfect.” Satoru feels his shoulders relax. “I just…” Suguru’s hand twitches. “I started feeling a little sick.”

Satoru frowns. He really hopes he didn’t pass on his earlier sickness to the other. Before he can complain, or make a joke to lighten the mood, his eyes are drawn to the way Suguru’s hands move to once again pick at his nails. It’s the very motion that causes Satoru to notice the line of blood against his skin.

His eyes widen. “Suguru, you’re hurt.” He takes Suguru’s hands into his own, squinting at the trail of red. Where had it even come from? It hadn’t been present just a few moments earlier, so how—

“I cut myself,” Suguru blurts out, interrupting Satoru’s rambling thoughts. “On the sink.”

Satoru glances at the sink—the circular sink with no edges. There’s no blood along any of the sides.

“Uh-huh,” he says anyway, deciding the cause was entirely unimportant compared to Suguru and his wound. He slowly pulls his hands away, already missing the warmth from Suguru’s skin. “Stay here, I’ll get the first-aid kit.” If he can find it. He knows he has it somewhere, but the exact location slips his mind—for Suguru, though, he’s sure he’ll remember.

“No need,” comes Suguru’s raspy voice. “I can do it myself,” he tries to say, moving towards the door, but Satoru stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“Suguru,” he murmurs. “Let me take care of you.”

Suguru stares at him like this is an entirely novel experience—as if Suguru hasn’t already done the same for Satoru a hundred times over, as if Satoru wouldn’t give the world to him in a heartbeat, as if Satoru wouldn’t love Suguru in every lifetime.

“Satoru.” Suguru takes in a shuddering breath. Satoru gets the distinct feeling there’s something to all this that he’s missing. “I—”

Satoru swallows his next words with his mouth against Suguru’s. “I’ll be right back,” he murmurs quietly, and with one last hesitant glance, slips out of the bathroom—

—and had he turned perhaps a millimeter more to the right, he might have noticed the flash of silver in the corner of the bathroom.

Satoru’s dreaming that he’s been locked into an airplane bathroom. It’s not a particularly fun dream to be having—he’s pretty sure he can hear dream-Suguru laughing hysterically at him from just outside—so when he feels faint shuffling beside him, it doesn’t pain him too much to crack open his eyes. He thinks, at first, that Suguru might just be shifting position, but when his eyes adjust to the darkness of their room, he sees Suguru sitting rigid and upright.

“Suguru?” he mumbles sleepily. He tries to blink away the sleep from his eyes, despite it being largely unsuccessful. When he gets no immediate response, he prods again. “Suguru?” He shifts to sit facing Suguru—

—who’s picking at his nails. His hands are shaking again.

Satoru slowly takes them into his own hands. “What happened?” he asks softly.

“Nightmare,” comes Suguru’s raspy answer. Satoru frowns. In the dark, he can’t make out Suguru’s expression, but he can see the way he refuses to meet Satoru’s eyes. Judging by the way his hands still tremor lightly in Satoru’s hands, Satoru’s pretty sure Suguru’s nightmare is in no way on the same level as getting stuck in a bathroom. The realization cuts into Satoru—he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to help.

“Satoru.” He blinks at his name, whispered so softly into the silence that blankets them. Suguru’s hands trail down to the middle of Satoru’s wrist, rubbing gently. “You’re here, right?”

Satoru’s breath catches in his throat.

“Of course I’m here,” he responds simply. He bumps his forehead gently against Suguru’s. “I’m not going anywhere, Suguru.”

It’s only minutes later, when Suguru’s breathing slowly evens out, that Satoru’s able to fall back into a restless sleep.

It ends, as most things do, in front of a KFC.

“…seriously, are you high?” Satoru asks incredulously. He ignores the way he can feel Suguru’s shoulder tensing under his elbow. “I can’t follow a single thing you’re saying.”

The asshole homeless guy spreads out his arms like some caricatured villain. “I feel better than high, kid,” he crows, and Satoru has to resist a scoff. Overacting much? “How’s this for following what I’m saying: that brat you’re clinging on to?” He leers at Satoru’s hand on Suguru’s shoulder. He can’t help the way his grip tightens. “Doesn’t give a shit about you. You think he’s acting all lovey-dovey because he wants to? You’re a target, kid, nothing more. I’m not even here to kill you: just reminding Geto that he is.”  

…yeah, no, Satoru still can’t follow a single thing he’s saying.

“Well, toodles,” the homeless guy finally says. Toodles? Satoru thinks. “I’ll see you both around. Or maybe not. Hopefully not, actually. Geto, you know where to find me when you need to pick up your commission.”

He walks away. Satoru can’t resist motioning an akanbe at his retreating back.

“God, is that what homeless people are like now? Just making shit on the spot?” Satoru snickers, but one part of the homeless guy’s ranting sticks in his mind. “Hey, how’d he know your name, though?” Geto wasn’t a popular family name, was it? A lucky guess, probably, Satoru decides with a shrug. “Whatever. He’s probably a weird homeless stalker or something. Why can’t he try to get a job or something instead?” Actually, Satoru shudders to think of that guy with an actual job. Maybe he was better off out on the streets. “Anyways, what were you saying about your birthday?”

It’s a few steps later that he realizes Suguru hasn’t moved an inch. He turns slightly back, at the same time Suguru’s hand darts out to grab his wrist.

“Satoru.” There’s something off about his voice. “You need to be careful.”

“Haah?” he pulls out. “Careful about what?”

He can see Suguru swallow. “Toji—I think he might try to hurt you.”

Satoru turns completely. “Who the hell is Toji?”

Suguru is entirely and terribly stock-still. Satoru’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

“Wait, was he that homeless guy?” He tilts his head. “How do you know his name?”

The imperceptible widening of Suguru’s eyes strike alarm bells in Satoru’s head.

“He said it.”

Satoru stares. “No, he didn’t.” Satoru wasn’t following along with half of what the guy—Toji, apparently—had said, but he would have noticed if he’d dropped a name—but he hadn’t. “Suguru, what’s going on? How do you know that guy?”

Satoru waits. I’ve seen him on the streets before, he waits to hear. I saw him get arrested on TV, he waits to hear. You don’t forget an ugly face like that, he waits to hear.

Satoru waits, and nothing comes.

Something rises in Satoru’s throat. Maybe it’s bile, maybe it’s acid, maybe it’s flowers, maybe it’s words.

“Suguru.” There’s no response. “He was lying, right?”

An absolute silence stretches between them.

Satoru ignores the erratic thumping of his heartbeat. Suguru’s just trying to remember how he knows the guy, obviously. “Hey, Suguru.” He takes off his glasses to wave a hand in front of the other’s face. Suguru doesn’t even blink. “Are you going to say anything?”

Suguru’s eyes slip closed. He looks—

—defeated.

Suguru murmurs something under his breath, so quietly that Satoru can’t make any of it out. With a frown, he leans closer. “What?” he asks.

“He wasn’t,” Suguru says hoarsely, and he pauses. Satoru blinks. Wasn’t what? he wants to ask, but Suguru’s not finished. “Lying. He wasn’t lying.”

Satoru freezes.

“What?” he hears himself ask again.

“How many fucking times do you want me to say it?” Suguru explodes. His eyes are still pinched closed. When he opens them, they simmer like dimly lit embers.

Satoru can’t breathe.

“Fuck,” Suguru mutters. He takes a step back, pulling a hand over his face. “No. I didn’t mean—”

Satoru’s stepping forward before he’s even aware of it. “What do you mean, he wasn’t lying?” He’s faintly aware of the way his sunglasses dangle off of his hand. “Suguru, that guy was talking like he was an assassin—” Satoru can’t even believe what he’s saying. “—and he kept ranting that you were one too—what the fuck do you mean, he wasn’t lying?”

Because if he wasn’t lying…

“It means he wasn’t lying.” Satoru gapes at him. Suguru won’t meet his eyes. “I work with Toji. We’re contract killers. You were going to be my last target. My last—”

Satoru can’t help the ugly laugh that bursts out of him. “Suguru, what the fuck?” His head is pounding. He’s pretty sure it’s not just because of his eyes. He stares at Suguru with something bordering desperation. “Is this a joke?”

Please, the word thrums in tandem with his dull heartbeats. Please, please, please.

Just say it’s a joke.

Say it’s a joke, laugh it off, Suguru, please—

“It’s not a joke.”

Please.

Suguru finally meets his eyes. “It’s my life, Satoru.”

Satoru wheezes out a breathy sound that can barely be considered a laugh. “What the fuck,” he repeats. “Suguru, what the fuck?” It sounds like a plea.

He sees Suguru’s mouth move. Satoru can’t hear anything over the rising ringing in his ears.

“He could try to hurt you—” he’s finally able to hear, and Satoru has to swallow down another bitter laugh. Toji could try to hurt him? Toji could try to hurt him when Suguru irreparably already has, a thousand times over?

“Fuck that,” he interrupts. “I don’t give a fuck about Toji.”

A hand on his stops him before he can turn away. “You need to,” Suguru says. “He’s dangerous, and I—”

“I don’t give a fuck if he’s dangerous,” Satoru spits out. His skin simmers where they touch. “You’re a fucking contract killer? You’re supposed to kill me?”

He sees something flicker in Suguru’s eyes and for a single hopeful moment, Satoru thinks he’ll deny it all. Never, Satoru, he’ll say. There’s been a huge misunderstanding, he’ll say.

He doesn’t.

 “Only originally, but I—”

“So everything was a lie,” he interrupts. “All of it.” His eyes pull to where Suguru’s hand rests so gently against his. There’s a dull throbbing against his skin. “And this? Even this, right?”

“No,” Suguru says immediately, but his face pinches. “In the beginning, maybe, but I—” Satoru tears his hand away. It burns. “Satoru, please,” Suguru tries. “I loved you—”

The words dig into Satoru like shards of glass, and he chokes out something halfway between a sob and a laugh. “Past tense, huh?” I loved you. “The first time you can even bring yourself to say the words, and they’re in past tense. You sure are quick to move on when you don’t have an excuse.” An excuse. That’s all it ever was, wasn’t it? “God, I thought you were just fucking shy. I always thought I could pick up on your tells. I always thought you were a terrible liar.” An ugly grimace twists at his lips. “But faking this was just too easy, huh?”

There’s acid against his skin where Suguru reaches for him again. “This wasn’t fake, Satoru. It never was.”

Satoru has to fight back rising bile in his throat. “Don’t touch me.” Suguru’s hand twitches against his. “Don’t you dare ever fucking touch me again.”

Suguru’s hand drops, and Satoru can breathe again.

“You…” Satoru starts to say, but his voice fails him. He tries again. “You knew, this whole time, that I meant nothing to you.” He holds his hand up when he sees Suguru open his mouth in protest. “And still. You let me become friends with you. You let me take you out. You let me care for you, you let me sleep in the same bed as you, you let me kiss you, you let me—” His throat clogs with unsaid words. “Suguru, you let me love you.”

And isn’t that the worst part of all?

“Satoru—” He hears Suguru’s voice falter.

He’s heard enough.

“Don’t.” Satoru’s eyes slip closed. “Just stop.” He presses a hand to his face. He feels nothing. “God, I’ve been so stupid.”

He thinks, foolishly, Suguru might say something regardless. He doesn’t.

When Satoru finally opens his eyes, his vision’s blurry. He can’t tell if it’s because of the hot stinging at the corner of his eyes or because of how long he hasn’t worn his sunglasses. He thinks either way, he’d rather not know.

“Suguru.” The name’s never fallen so blandly from his mouth. It lands with a finalizing thud in the gaping space between them. “I never want to see you again.”

It’s almost too easy to walk away.

He makes it exactly two blocks before his feet can’t move any further. He spots a bench and moves towards it on auto-pilot, the back of his legs awkwardly hitting against the side when he finally slumps down into the seat. He’s still gripping his sunglasses in one hand, and when he happens to catch a glimpse of his dark reflection against the shades, he has to tear his eyes away. The vague pounding in the back of his head is reason enough to think that he should probably put the glasses back on, but he can’t seem to do anything but clench the plastic tightly in his grasp.

It takes a few moments for him to realize he’s not breathing—or if he is, the oxygen he’s taking in certainly isn’t going to his lungs.

It takes a few more moments for him to realize that might be a problem.

His chest is tight, like a spring coiled against itself; his forehead continues pounding like beats against a drum; his eyes remain squeezed closed when he tries to crack them open; he can’t even make out the sensation of his nails digging into the skin of his palm.

He wonders faintly if he might be having a panic attack, but that was stupid, because he was Satoru Gojo and Satoru Gojo didn’t have panic attacks.

So he inhales shudderingly, feeling for all intents and purposes like he’s breathing through a straw, but finally manages to crack his eyes open. He pries his own hands open, ignoring the phantom sensation of a warm touch against his, ignoring the memories of soft and lingering fingers, ignoring the red crescents he sees are now embedded in his palms.

“Fuck,” Satoru mutters aloud.

He still can’t seem to quite comprehend recent events. So maybe, Satoru starts from the beginning. So maybe he remembers how strange it was that Suguru just happened to show up in all of Satoru’s classes one day. So maybe he remembers gratuitous false flattery and incessant prodding about the location of Satoru’s apartment. So maybe he remembers his parents’ visit, and so maybe he realizes with no small amount of horror they had been right all along.

At the same time—

—maybe Satoru remembers lunches in a quiet library. Maybe Satoru remembers comfortable conversations about books, coffee, stars. Maybe Satoru remembers a pair of broken sunglasses, and maybe Satoru remembers a hand offering a small white earbud.

So maybe Satoru remembers seeing Suguru’s brilliant smile and driving Suguru home and fortuitous coffee shop encounters, and so maybe Satoru remembers embarrassed flushes and shy grins. So maybe Satoru remembers movie not-date dates, a shared bag of popcorn, a promise for next times. So maybe Satoru remembers a dimly lit arcade, pressing a cheek against Suguru’s and finding it all too easy to fake being a couple, a table full of snacks, and so maybe Satoru remembers wrapping his arms around an ugly white stuffed alien with huge blue eyes and vowing to never let go. So maybe he remembers almost double dates with Shoko and Utahime, fried food, ferris wheels.

So maybe Satoru remembers a paper bag, a box, a yellow keychain. So maybe Satoru remembers first kisses, and so maybe he remembers Suguru leaning in for more.

So maybe Satoru remembers pressing together on a bike meant for one and unimpressive dessert shops and kisses that taste like frosting and an easy tug that pulls Suguru into his bed and lazy mornings in a barely lit room even as morning light wraps around the contours of Suguru’s face and so maybe Satoru remembers canceled couple discounts and fish meandering through coral and unspoken and spoken “I love you”s and so maybe Satoru remembers kissing in the rain and hazy memories of warm chicken broth and Suguru’s mouth curving into a smile against his and so maybe Satoru remembers Ghibli movie marathons and tugging a shaken Suguru back to sleep after a nightmare and so maybe so maybe so maybe so maybe so maybe—    

—so maybe, Satoru crumbles.

 Later that night, in a bed now entirely too large for Satoru alone, he dreams of nothing at all.

from suguru <3 2:11 A.M.
I’m sorry

The number you are trying to call is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

Satoru is struck by an immense sense of déjà vu when he hears his name once again called in the coffee shop his feet had unconsciously dragged him to.

“Satoru?”

There’s only one person left who would ever call him that. With a vague sense of dread curling in his gut, Satoru looks up from his phone. He’s not prepared for his breath to leave him entirely when he sees Suguru again.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Instead of responding, Suguru’s hand brushes against Satoru’s wrist—only for a moment, but it’s enough to sting like a cold fire. Satoru isn’t sure if he’s relieved when Suguru’s own hand flinches away.

“Satoru, you need to come with me.”

Satoru doesn’t bother trying to hide the scowl on his face. “Like hell I do,” Satoru mutters, unconsciously shifting his arm away. He pretends not to notice the way Suguru’s hand twitches. “How did you even find me?”

“Lucky guess,” Suguru murmurs under his breath after his eyes flicker around the café. Satoru’s pretty sure he’s lying. Then again, he’s not pretty sure of anything at all, anymore, not when it comes to Suguru. “Satoru, please. Do you trust me?”

He bites back a laugh. Is he really asking that?

“No,” Satoru says simply. “I don’t trust you at all.”

He doesn’t miss the flicker of pain that flashes through Suguru’s eyes. “Fair,” Suguru mutters quietly, and Satoru has to pretend to ignore the way his eyes cloud over. “Look, I—” Suguru cuts himself off. “Please. If these last months have meant anything to you, come with me.”

Satoru so desperately wishes he could walk away. It would be easy, he knows. He stares at the proffered hand and remembers a similarly outstretched hand with an earbud, months ago. He closes his eyes, and takes his hand.

For once, the touch doesn’t hurt.

What does hurt, though, is getting unceremoniously shoved to the ground as soon as Suguru sequesters them both into a darkened alleyway, a hand clamped over his mouth. Instinctively, Satoru’s tongue darts out.

Suguru stares at him. “Did you just lick my hand?”

“Reflex,” Satoru shrugs. “What’d you do that for?”

He’s still not entirely convinced this isn’t some ploy to murder him in the random alleyway, but Suguru’s frantic expression seems a little hard to fake.

Then again, he did fake quite a few months of a relationship, so what did Satoru know?

“I thought I heard a gunshot,” comes Suguru’s breathless explanation. A few moments later, Satoru hears a quiet “fuck.”

“Congrats, because you did,” comes a familiar voice that sends chills down Satoru’s spine. Still pressed against him, Suguru turns rigid as well.  “Damn nice reflexes, kid. I could have finished it quickly, but looks like you’ll make this a little harder for me, huh?” It’s the fucking homeless guy again—what was his name, even? Tojininin? Whatever his name is, he pauses to scratch the back of his head with the barrel of his gun. Is that dried blood Satoru can see on the end? “Oh, and happy birthday, I guess.”

Satoru turns to stare at Suguru. It was his birthday.

Satoru wonders absently if he had ever remembered to cancel the one restaurant reservation he’d made months in advance. He probably hadn’t.

“Fuck off,” Suguru mutters under his breath as he stands up. “You’re not hurting him.”

The homeless guy—Toji, Satoru decides to call him—guffaws. “Please,” he scoffs. “I don’t think I could hurt him anymore than you have. Death might be a mercy.”

Satoru has to bite the inside of his cheek. In front of him, he sees Suguru stiffen.

“Fuck you,” he finally spits out. Turning his head, he says, “Satoru, when it’s safe, hide.”

“Right, right,” Satoru mutters, finally getting to his feet. “Uh, so when exactly would that be?”

“Now.” It’s all he needs to hear from Suguru before Satoru’s ducking under a bar and slipping past both Suguru and Toji to scramble into the area just outside the alley. He fumbles with his phone, fingers hesitating over the number pad before dialing the only number he knows that can help.

“Satoru?”

“Hey, Shoko,” Satoru gasps out. His heart is still rabbiting in his chest. “Hey, yeah, so, I might need some help.”

There’s a crackly silence. “You know Geto’s been moping over you for the past week, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Satoru dismisses. “I kno—wait, what?”

“He’s been so depressed I think he made himself sick,” Shoko pulls out. “I can’t believe you broke up with him. He keeps saying he fucked up but won’t share any other details. What exactly happened with you guys?”

Satoru stares dumbly at his phone. Break-up seems like a bit of an understatement.

Still, the knowledge that Suguru was affected, in any way at all, has something bubbling in Satoru’s throat—surely that couldn’t be fake, right?

“Ehhhh,” Satoru says awkwardly. “Uh, I’ll tell you later. I really need your help now, though, can you ditch class and come to the location I send you?”

He can almost hear how Shoko rolls her eyes. “Sure, I’m bringing Geto to that location, too, though. His mopey ass is contaminating our apartment.”

Satoru coughs. “Yeah, no need, he’s already here.”

“What?”

“Okay, thanks Shoko, bye!”

“Gojo, wh—”

Satoru hangs up. A few taps later, he’s successfully shared his location with Shoko, but he has to pocket his phone before he can get a response when he hears a harsh clattering from the alleyway he still stands a few feet from.

His feet are moving before he even realizes. He stands at the mouth of the alley—Toji’s back is the first thing he sees, along with a glint of silver on the floor. Before he can comprehend what he’s doing, he’s picked up a knife. Suguru’s knife—has he always carried them around? Satoru faintly remembers his fingers pressing against something rigid against Suguru’s hips, mere moments before Suguru had fled to the bathroom. Was that why—

His spiraling thoughts crash to a halt when he moves forward and sees the barrel of a gun against Suguru’s forehead.

“Nice try,” he hears Toji sneer. He still hasn’t seen Satoru. The barrel pushes harder into Suguru’s skin. “But you’re out of shape.”

Satoru stabs him in the shoulder before he can think. Toji’s arm jerks upwards and the gun fires—

—but the bullet lands uselessly on the wall beside Suguru. Satoru lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He immediately lets go of the knife, stumbling back with some concoction of confusion and pride. Had he just stabbed someone?

“Satoru.” He looks up when he hears his name. All of a sudden, there’s hands cupping his face.

It’s warm.

“Didn’t I tell you to run?” Suguru asks breathlessly, and like magnets, Satoru’s hands draw to wrap around Suguru’s. They fit perfectly together, like they always have.

“I just saved your life,” Satoru complains mildly. “Don’t you think I should get some credit for that?”

Suguru’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You idiot. How did you even get my knife?”

In the end, it’s Satoru that has to tear his eyes away. “You dropped it,” he explains lamely. “I waited for an opportunity and just went for it, I guess.”  

Suguru bumps his forehead lightly against Satoru’s. There’s a small smile on his face, and Satoru thinks god, I’ve missed this.

“I fucking love you,” Suguru says helplessly, hopelessly, honestly. “You know that?”

Satoru’s entirely unprepared for such a declaration, and his eyes widen under his glasses. “I, uh—”

Before Satoru can say anything—although he’s not even exactly sure what he would say at all—they’re interrupted by the homeless guy who Satoru had admittedly kind of forgotten about.

“Oi, lovebirds, I’m still fucking here.” He clicks his tongue as he easily plucks the knife out of his shoulder. “You guys are so fucking repulsive you might be making me homophobic.” At Satoru and Suguru’s joint blank stares, he shrugs. “Well, whatever. I’ve had enough of playing around.” Satoru tenses when he sees Toji fire the gun, but when the bullet flies past his shoulder, he turns in confusion—

—it’s a mistake.

The next thing he knows, he’s been pushed to the side, something that’s happened to him more often than he’d like in the past week, but even as he catches himself against the wall, he turns and sees—

—blood, but it’s not his.

For a hysterical moment Satoru thinks maybe it’s Toji’s, but his vision focuses enough for him to notice Suguru, a knee on the ground and a hand clutching at his shoulder. Satoru’s crouched beside him in an instant but he doesn’t know what to do because Suguru’s been shot and god, Satoru’s fucking useless but then there’s no more time to think because there’s the feeling of cold metal against his head and he freezes and he feels Suguru still next to him and thinks maybe that’s it, well, he’s had a good run, kind of—

—but then Suguru moves, faster than Satoru’s ever seen, to snatch a bloodied knife off of the ground and his arm swings and the knife has disappeared into Toji’s neck and then Suguru pulls it out and there’s a gush of blood and—

—Toji topples.

Satoru can only gape as he sways. A few moments later, he’s unmoving on the ground. Satoru can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the pool of blood that spreads under his head.

It’s only when he feels a hand clutching his arm that his attention snaps back to Suguru, who isn’t looking awfully steady on his own feet, either. Satoru places a cautious hand on Suguru’s arm, the one that isn’t soaked with red, as he helps him sit with his back against the wall. Words burble in Satoru’s mouth, but before they can overflow and spill, it’s Suguru that speaks.

“Hey, Satoru,” he says in a hoarse whisper. Satoru has to bite his tongue before he can tell Suguru to shut up and focus on not passing out. “I love you.”

Satoru swallows. “Yeah,” he says quietly, tracing the lines of Suguru’s hand with his fingers. “I know.”

Suguru hums with satisfaction, even as his eyes droop further closed. “Did you call the police?” he asks, and Satoru has to resist a scoff. As if.

“Nah. I called Shoko, though.”

Suguru’s quiet laugh in response makes the tips of Satoru’s ears turn hot. “Good choice,” he murmurs. His grip on Satoru’s hand tightens, just the slightest. “You’ll stay, right?”

Satoru huffs out his own quiet laugh. “Of course.” His lips tilt into a small smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“...Satoru, who is this?”

Satoru’s grin widens. “How kind of you to ask, Suguru!”

Suguru stares at him. “Satoru, did you kidnap two random kids off the street?”

Satoru gasps, scandalized. “Suguru, I would never!” Suguru’s stare does not grow any more unconvinced. “Aaaanyways, this lovely lady is Tsumiki—” A girl half the height of Satoru waves cheerfully at Suguru. “—and this grumpy kiddo is Megumi. We adopted them!”

Suguru continues staring. “We adopted them?”

Satoru waves a hand in the air. “Semantics. I adopted them, we adopted them, what’s the difference?”

“Satoru,” Suguru wheezes out. “You can’t just—the paperwork?”

“I pulled some strings,” Satoru admits shamelessly. “The paperwork’s all fine.”

Suguru pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t think—”

“Well, I do think,” Satoru declares, and he pushes the shorter urchin-haired boy in front of him. “Megumi, say hi!”

Megumi stares blankly at Suguru. “Your bangs are weird.”

Satoru sees Suguru’s eyebrow twitch and has to bite back a snicker of his own.

“Caaaareful, Megumi-chan,” Satoru lilts out. “Suguru-chan’s really good with knives, so don’t get him mad!”

Now it’s Suguru that stares blankly at Satoru.

“Too soon?” Satoru asks, batting his eyes obnoxiously at Suguru.

“Maybe,” Suguru mutters. “Look, Satoru, I don’t think we can just adopt two kids like this out of the blue—”

“I filled out the paperwork. The paperwork, Suguru! You can’t go back on paperwork.”

Suguru looks wholly unimpressed with Satoru’s paperwork. “Kids, Satoru. Don’t you think we should talk about this?”

“We did,” Satoru dismisses. “Remember? I told you about Toji’s kids that one time.”

“That was one time,” Suguru says slowly. “Three months ago.”

“Aww, see, it wasn’t even that long ago.”

Suguru sighs. “Satoru—”

“Come on,” Satoru interrupts softly, pulling at Suguru to tug him closer. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t you.”

He means it just as much as the first time he said it, so many months ago.

Suguru softens, and Satoru closes the gap.

So it starts again, like most things do, with a kiss.

“Gross,” Satoru hears Megumi say behind him.

So maybe he smiles against Suguru’s lips and thinks yeah, nothing can possibly go wrong.