Work Text:
Part of Jujutsu Tech's building is dedicated to the dormitories that students reside in. The place has always had too many rooms to fill, most left empty, with just a few filling up each year with the new students arriving. Most of the rooms that actually have someone in them are located in useful spots, somewhere near a kitchen or a bathroom to be the first one to use the rooms early in the morning.
In a hallway that had nothing but empty rooms, not a single one in use over the past years, one of the beds hasn’t had its used bed sheets changed in years , albeit now covered in dust after years of no one using them to stay warm after sunset. Yet no one dares to clean it, to even step inside anymore. The air in there is heavy, filled with dread, passed laughter and far too many bittersweet memories for the people who still remembered it.
-
"Hey, do you still have some of those sweets you bought in Tokyo last time?" The first thing Suguru heard was that annoying, unmistakable voice, next he was faced with a head of white hair.
"You're not getting any of them." Suguru grumbled, leaned over an assignment that seemed to progress far too slowly. Briefly, he wondered if Gojo would even care to finish it or whether he'd just take the lecture from Yaga again. There were few things that were actually effective in disciplining Gojo Satoru, the golden child unwilling as ever to learn.
He didn’t even like the sugary sweets all that much, it was simply to tell his brat of a friend no.They had been bought to last him for at least a few weeks, having maybe one a day at best, but he was certain that if Gojo got a hold of them he'd get a few days of them at the best, a few hours realistically. A hard lesson he had had to learn the last time he left something in the kitchen, only to find it finished by the time he was there again for breakfast. The crackling of packaging behind him coupled with the lack of a response made Suguru whip his head around with a glare. The food thief didn't seem to care for that in the slightest, already unwrapping the small candies in his hand as he sat on Suguru's bed as naturally as if it was his own.
-
Books stand on a shelf, waiting to be read by anyone curious enough to look inside - the bookmarks haven't moved on by a single page for the past ten years.
-
“Do you ever shut up?” The words had passed his lips before Suguru could even think about them…was what he might have claimed in his own defense. In reality, the question had been the most prominent one in his mind ever since Gojo had decided to interrupt the peaceful dinner he was having before he had entered the kitchen, sat at the table with him and just slammed the book in front of Suguru shut as if whatever he had to tell was the most important thing in the world and listening was mandatory.
Those felt like fair circumstances to ask that question, especially if the person sitting across from you had been talking for what felt like a century, but might have just been fifteen really boring minutes. He was never good at estimates.
“Not without reason.” The grin he was faced with was enough to assure Suguru that this would be a terribly long evening.
-
A pack of cigarettes is still stashed under the mattress, destined to remain half full. The windowsill has a few burn marks on the outside, even they look weathered.
-
Suguru was almost 17 when he had his first one. Late at night, he had meant to take a walk outside before he would go back to sleep and had stumbled across Shoko. Her having one between her fingers wasn’t an unfamiliar sight. Her eyes directed him to the spot next to her on the ground.
He sat down. A silent understanding of sleepless nights passed between the two.
She held out her hand, an offer to share.
The smoke felt like it was scratching at his lungs. He wasn’t even sure he inhaled it correctly, but it was coughed out seconds later.
Shoko’s amused face looking back at him was all the incentive Suguru needed to try a second time. Naturally, it was taken as a challenge.
The sun wouldn’t come up for a few more hours, but it was a little less dark now.
-
A few pens were left on the desk, the one with a chewed up cap set the furthest to the side.
-
“You’re awful! Did no one ever teach you any manners?”
They had taken to studying together, although for Satoru it was more sitting on the bed and staring at papers while Suguru seemed to actually work on something. He was somehow always confident enough that his grades would persevere regardless of it, and that god awful confidence seemed to be, almost unfortunately, well deserved. (Suguru would have had to lie to say he hadn’t hoped to humble the other a few times.)
Despite that, he sat in on study time, always seeming to do something to keep his focus. Foot tapping against the floor, fingers drumming against the book in his hands, or, like now, chewing on the goddamn pen Suguru had borrowed him, landing him a second one against the head, which was met with a dramatic whine as he let himself fall onto the bed in the same fashion as if a little plastic to the head would have affected him at all.
“You’re mean, Suguru. At least as bad as me.” The complaint was lackluster at best, no effort behind making it sound genuine at all. At least he rolled onto his stomach to look back over the papers again.
“Sure, sure. We can be terrible together then-” He paused, taking another look at Satoru, who had the cap of the pen right between his unfortunately perfect teeth. “I’m gonna throttle you.”
“You can try!”
A pillow flying across the room. Its walls were soon filled with the sounds of a half-hearted fight and laughter of two teenage boys.
-
In the corner, a picture frame, three teenagers whose smiles looked like they never had a worry in the world. The sweatshirt that still hangs over the chair hasn't been worn in forever. It's doubtful it would fit its owner anymore. It's even more doubtful anyone will ever return to get it anyway. If one were to turn the handle, to unlock the door, its hinges would creak as it gave way to whoever wanted to enter, but that particular sound isn't familiar to anyone anymore.
-
It was in his own bedroom that Suguru had begun to learn that there were layers to Gojo Satoru. For once, his classmate had actually wanted to do some work, inexplicably that had to take place in a room that wasn't his own.
Now not only had the boy barged into his room - Suguru wasn’t sure he had ever actually witnessed him knock before entering a room - but he had decided to claim his spot on the bed with nothing but pure confidence. Violent thoughts crossed his mind. Ignoring Gojo seemed like the best strategy, but after the silence lasted just a little too long, suspicions arose.
…The guy had fallen asleep. It was the first time Suguru could get a good look at him without the fear that he'd be accused of staring any second.
-
There are certainly still a few shirts that used to fit Satoru left in the closet. He never cared to get them, or didn’t dare to.
-
A soft sigh passed his lips, gentle fingers combing through white strands of hair, carefully working at the scalp beneath it. The touches always had such genuine affection behind them.
It's almost regrettable, endlessly affectionate with each other in their actions.
But the words - they had never spoken them out loud.
"We're the strongest." was a quiet promise. One that they were a team, a pair. That they belonged together. They could take on anything. Anything as long as they were together.
But promises are only words after all.
So maybe it's for the better they never said more than that.
-
Satoru still recalls the layout of the room, the way furniture had been arranged so it felt exactly right. If he really wanted to, he might have remembered the order of the books on the shelf. He doesn’t want to remember, it feels too intimate, the breath caught in his throat too heavy when he thinks about it for too long.
So he doesn’t.
He doesn’t think about it. Doesn't let himself.
He has spent more than enough time in the school to know how to avoid that particular hallway, no matter where he was headed. There was no need to find flashes of the past, memories still buried deep inside.
Deep enough to ignore, but an iron grip on them. Because forgetting him is just as terrifying. And Satoru is the strongest. He doesn't get terrified.
But when he walks down a different hallway, past a bedroom with two students inside, and their laughter is loud enough to be heard through the wooden door, he can't help but be reminded.
It's almost like he hears himself behind the door, he hears them both. And they're only fifteen, and life isn't all too easy either. But they are okay.
The illusion passes in a flash. It would be ridiculous to entertain for any longer, ridiculous to dwell on a past he can never have back.
The two boys behind the door are concerningly similar to them…and yet. Yet he remains hopeful.
Life will be unkind to them, it is a certainty with the one they live, but if Satoru can help it, it will never be quite as unkind. Lonely. So as Satoru does, he shoulders the responsibility of it, takes it upon himself. If he can be better, do better than he did back then, they might look back on their youth with more ease and a feeling far more fond than the one that weighs on his chest when he does.