“Anything past the horizon

                is invisible, it can only be imagined. You want to see the future but

 you only see the sky.”

***

Gojo Satoru is born special. He doesn’t really have any say in the matter. 

Unlike most children, he is not born crying. His birth is a ceremonial affair, everyone gathering round as he blinks those shimmering, diaphanous blue eyes up at them with a boredom that seems uncharacteristic of an infant experiencing his first few moments in the world.

The shining star of the jujutsu sphere, a legend in the making, a prodigy. A beacon of hope, the dawn of a new era. Growing up, he hears these phrases uttered more often than he hears his own name. Childhood is nothing more than a tapestry of fine silk kimonos, nameless chaperones, long lessons, shut doors, dark places, awed whispers, cluttered dreams. 

Beginning at the age of four, he walks everywhere with his eyes closed, opening them only when something piques his interest. He tends to not look at faces unless he absolutely has to. 

Sometimes he manages to slip away from his near constant supervision, only to spend his brief snatches of freedom wandering around the estate alone. There’s nothing to do, nobody to talk to who doesn’t either gawk or avert their eyes. Whether it’s out of respect, or something else, he isn’t sure. 

It’s on one of these post-escape strolls that he first meets the boy. The boy has black hair and eyes that are not as bright as Satoru’s, but a dim, cornflower blue. He introduces himself as Aoki. 

For the first time, Satoru doesn’t close his eyes right away. 

“Your cursed energy is weak,” he says bluntly, forgoing his own introduction. Everyone knows who he is, anyway. “You’re not a sorcerer.” 

The boy’s cheeks immediately go pink as he stutters through explanations. Both of Aoki’s parents are sorcerers, he learns, who are decidedly unhappy that their child is not. He often gets berated for every little thing that he does, and like Satoru, finds himself darting off the moment a back is turned. 

“What do you do when they yell at you?” he asks curiously. 

“Pretend it’s not me,” the boy answers with a toothy grin. “I just escape from my body and look at everything from the outside. Oh Aoki, I think to myself, you poor thing, you pitiful boy!” 

Satoru furrows his brow in consternation. “Does that work?” 

“Yes. You should try it.”

“I don’t get yelled at.” 

The boy blinks his eyes owlishly, as if just now remembering who he’s speaking to. “Hm, I guess you wouldn’t.” He glances downwards, fishing around in his pocket for a while before abruptly thrusting out a hand. “Sweets also make everything better. Do you want one?” Aoki says brightly, his smile shining from his eyes. Three foil-wrapped candies glisten in his palm. 

“Are they any good?” he asks warily, looking around. His chaperone still hasn’t caught up to him. 

Aoki blinks in dismay. “What, you’ve never had a sweet before?” 

Satoru shakes his head slowly. It’s not that he isn’t allowed, per se. He’s just never eaten anything other than what’s placed directly in front of him, never sought out food for any purpose other than nourishment. 

The foil crinkles as he twists the wrapper open, popping the caramel sphere into his mouth. He uses his tongue to push it around, the candy clicking against his teeth. 

“Well?” the boy says eagerly, waiting in expectation. 

“Aoki,” he says, his voice solemn. “I think you’re my favorite person in the entire world.” 

They continue to meet, again and again. Satoru will slip away from a chaperoned stroll, or he’ll sneak Aoki into his room in the dead of night when everyone else is asleep. Before the boy leaves, he always makes sure to stuff a handful of candies into Satoru’s pillowcase. He begins hoarding them there, like a treasure trove full of little gems. 

It doesn’t escape his notice that Aoki always keeps a respectful distance between them. The way he treats Satoru is different from the way everyone else treats him, in every aspect except physical. He doesn’t mind it, though. It’s only proper when interacting with the heir of the Gojo clan, after all. He prefers it this way. 

It’s on a pale, snow covered day, that Aoki first dares to call out to him in public. 

He pretends he hasn’t heard, continuing to shuffle along in tandem with the woman at his side. He hears a frantic huffing of breath, before the boy materializes next to him. 

“Can’t you play a while?” Aoki asks, eyes bright. “I haven’t seen you.” 

The reason Aoki hasn’t seen him is because he’s been busy. His schooling has become even more vigorous now, in line with the elders’ demands: daily lectures on the history of curses, on theoretical physics, on all the things he’s expected to do, expected to be. 

Anger boils in his throat. He has lessons, responsibilities, burdens, and here is this boy, this nobody, who’s received a small fraction of Satoru’s time and seems to think that he’s entitled to all of it. 

“I have important things to do,” he snaps. “I can’t talk to you.” 

He continues to walk, eyes squeezed tightly shut, fingers digging into the hem of his sleeve. He thinks that the boy has given up, has already let out an internal sigh of relief and resolved to seek him out later, when he hears that voice again, grating on his ears. 

“Gojo-san, wait up!” 

He turns. There’s a hand reaching out towards him, reaching for his hand — a split second, stretched into infinity like taffy — and then he’s being touched. 

Nobody has ever touched Gojo. Never directly, never skin to skin. He’s untouchable, but now he’s being touched, and before he can think twice about it his eyes are springing open. 

Blue light slits the air like a throat. The snow beneath his feet turns cherry red. 

He remembers little of the immediate aftermath, other than the body, and the screams. He remembers being ushered away, a strip of cloth hastily tied around his eyes as his entire body begins to tremble. 

When he comes back into himself, he’s sitting in a room. His eyes are still covered, but he can feel the shape of the man in front of him, can evaluate the exact length of the wooden switch he holds in his hands. 

“It’s about time that you’re pushed towards your full potential. You’ve been coddled for far too long.” 

So this must be what punishment is, Satoru realizes, tensing in anticipation. He’s done something bad, something horrible, and he maybe even deserves to be yelled at. He thinks of a boy with dull blue eyes and sugar on his breath. 

“What about Aoki?” he asks, wincing at the tremor in his voice. 

“The child’s death was unfortunate, yes,” the man without a face says tonelessly. “But it’s not something you need to concern yourself with.” 

Unfortunate. He turns the word over in his head until he can pretend to make sense of it. Death is unfortunate, yes. But Satoru doesn’t need to worry, because he will never have to die in such a way; limbs splayed at awkward angles, eyes wide and unseeing, scarlet staining his body like a vulgar painting.

Not if he’s the strongest. 

So Satoru obediently splays his hands out on the desk in front of him as the man swings the switch towards his fingers. The first time, it barely slows down at all, the wood painfully thwacking his knuckles. 

The Healer on standby carefully plucks the splinters out of his skin as Satoru bites his tongue. The same thing happens the second and third time, though the impact is less forceful. By the fourth time, he’s barely grazed. It’s still not good enough. 

Repeat. Heal. Repeat. Heal. 

With each repetition, the velocity of the attack diminishes by a fraction as it approaches the layer of space around him. 

Satoru is sliced and mended seventeen times that day. By noon, he’s mastered Infinity. 

Once word spreads, he’s showered in praise. He soaks in it, absorbs it until he’s at full saturation, until the words start to become meaningless. The bloodstained snow is scraped away and dumped into the river. Everything is perfect and pure again.

He crawls into his bed that night, reaching into the farthest corner of his pillowcase to unwrap the last remaining piece of candy. It tastes sweet, sweeter than it ever has before. 

He’s Gojo Satoru, and nobody will ever touch him. 

***

“I’ve been thinking of ending the world.” 

Sunsets come and go. Blink and you miss it. Maybe the space between day and night is not so wide. The sun hovers on the horizon, a mirror image of the drowsy red glow dangling from the lip of a girl who has too many things to think about, and barely enough will to care. 

“Is that so?” Smoke puffs from Shoko’s mouth on the exhale, winding around them like ribbon. 

Satoru leans backwards, tipping his head over the back of the bench. “You don’t seem surprised.” 

Shoko shrugs. “You’ve always felt things on a different level than the rest of us.” 

He raises an eyebrow at the sky. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“After you came back from Niseko? You nearly blew up half the dorm when you discovered that Geto had eaten that last pastry you were saving.” 

“He doesn’t even like sweets.” He scowls, but nostalgia all too easily molds his mouth into a smile. “He did it to piss me off.” 

“Most people would just put shaving cream in his shoes,” Shoko muses. “Or steal some of his leftovers, if an eye for an eye is what you’re going for. Not challenge him to a duel that nearly got the two of you expelled.” 

Satoru sighs fondly. “Those were good times,” he says, something sweet welling up in his chest. He pushes it down. 

Do you hate him because you’re Gojo Satoru, or do you hate him because he’s Geto Suguru? 

The questions were easier back then, even if the answers undermined them entirely. Hate — what is hate? It’s a precedent. It’s something mutable, ever shifting and transforming into something unrecognizable from the starting material. 

“My point is,” Shoko continues, “if that was your version of annoyance, then it’s no wonder. You’ve gone so long trying to brush everything off as a joke, trying to pretend that you don’t feel anything in earnest. So when something finally breaks through, when you’re finally forced to feel something… well, it only makes sense.” 

“What does?” 

“For heartbreak to be apocalyptic.” 

The smile slips away. He pushes himself up with a sigh, turning slightly to face her. “He was standing right in front of me,” he says, uncharacteristically solemn. “I could have killed him. I should have. He basically dared me to.” 

Shoko studies him closely. “Then why didn’t you?” 

(Thumb and finger looped together; the target in clear sight. Black and white, standing a street length apart, everything else in gray.) 

He bites his tongue, dissolving the vision. “Because I would rather end the world.” 

“Maybe part of you agrees with him, deep down,” she suggests. 

“No, that’s not it,” he mutters, even though he’s not sure that’s entirely true. He tips forward and hangs his head, watching Shoko’s cigarette land on the ground before being crushed beneath a heel. 

“Why did you really let him go?” 

The questions were easier back then. 

***

There’s a sword in your throat, which has never really happened before. Then you’re dead— or dying, at least, which has definitely never happened before. You wait and wait for your life to flash before your eyes, but you find that you can’t think of a single thing.

No, there’s— 

A face. A voice. A feeling. 

And then he’s gone.

And then there is nothing. 

And then you’re suddenly existing somewhere outside of your own body, looking down at yourself. Limbs splayed at awkward angles, eyes wide and unseeing, chest cavity a study in scarlet. 

(You poor thing. You pitiful boy.)

The funniest thing about being born again as a god is realizing that you still bleed red. 

The saddest thing about waking up again is realizing that you died completely alone. 

***

Ice glazes the streets like sugar glass. The air feels almost too sharp to inhale, the kind of chill that slashes at the sinuses and lacerates lungs. This is the kind of weather Satoru finds most beautiful; everything blinding white, the roads paved with frosting. Snow has always tasted a little sweet, a little stinging where he’ll allow a crystal flake to settle upon his tongue. 

Beside him, Geto’s teeth gnaw away at his nerves, clicking like a metronome dialed to maximum tempo. Leave it to him to disrupt any moment of peace. He peers at the boy from the corner of his eye, watching the wind whip his hair around his face. He can’t fathom why Geto doesn’t seem to own a single hairband. It would be simpler to tie it up, he’d imagine. If not for his own sake, then for Satoru’s peace of mind. It’s a distraction, everything about him is a distraction.

“Why are you even here?” he huffs petulantly. 

“Because you need me,” comes the calm reply. 

Satoru tilts his head down, peering at the boy over his sunglasses. It’s not often that he feels the need to, not with other people at least. Most other people are far from interesting enough to warrant a closer look. 

“And how did you arrive at that conclusion?” He aims for scathing, but his voice just comes out in a whine. 

“You’re a loner,” Geto shrugs. “You could use the company.” 

They’re shuffling through the frozen village with no real sense of urgency. It’s getting late, but there are still plenty of people bustling about. The golden glow from shop windows and restaurants speckle the path ahead of them. In the dim evening, the icicles lining the eaves look like shining teeth. 

“I have plenty of friends,” Satoru argues, indignant. 

“Such as?”

“Shoko Ieri.”

“Shoko tolerates us.” 

“Haibara.”

Geto gives him a look. “He’s afraid of you. I’m far more approachable.” 

“Yaga sensei.”

“Our teacher isn’t your friend, you idiot.”

“Everyone is my friend, whether they know it or not,” he says loftily. “I’m the most likable person I know.”

“Many would beg to differ,” Geto mutters. 

“What was that?” he asks. Not because he hasn’t heard, but because he’s giving the boy a chance to change his reply. He can be merciful when he wants to be. 

“Fine.” Geto lets out a gust of breath. “Am I your friend, then?”

Satoru’s smile falls flat on his face. “Of course not.” 

“And why not?” the boy challenges, leaning in too, too close. 

(Because you’re not weak. Because you were strong enough to be sent on this mission with me, even though I’m strong enough on my own. Because I can choose to be fond of most people who are decent enough, but I still can’t bring myself to like you. Because I might have no choice but to respect you, and there's nothing that makes me feel weaker than not having a choice.)

“Because you have an annoying face,” he scoffs, shoving him away with a palm to the cheek. “The only plus side is that I look even more handsome standing next to you.” 

When Satoru had heard that he was being sent to a ski resort, he’d been ecstatic. But his hopes and dreams were quickly crushed when he learned that Yaga was not sponsoring a weekend getaway out of the goodness of his heart, but because of a pesky curse plaguing the area. And when he’d learned that Geto was coming with him, well, his whole day had been ruined. 

At the time, Satoru had wondered if he’d done something to piss his teacher off. 

When they finally find the curse, standing ankle deep in the snow at the base of a ski lift with their eyes bulging out of their heads, he wonders instead whether Yaga had sent them here as a practical joke. 

“What the fuck is that,” Geto deadpans. 

“The most agreeable thing you’ve said since we got here,” Satoru mutters. “What the fuck is that?”

Above them, the curse is wrapped around the cables of the lift, a writhing, shriveled creature not much longer than the length of Satoru’s arm. It’s a sickly gray color, the exact shade of black ice. He puckers his face in disgust.

“Maybe you were right,” Geto says, looking pale. “There’s no point of us both being here to deal with this… this shrimp.”

Don’t want to fall, don’t want to fall, it whimpers pitifully in a rattling voice. Mommy, I’m afraid. 

“Jesus,” Geto hisses quietly under his breath.

“Pretty open and shut case, huh?” Satoru drones, sticking his hands in his pockets. “Some idiot went on the black diamond run when he should’ve been learning to make pizzas instead. Poor boy goes tumbling head over heels down the side of the mountain, and now our little cursling is scaring all the tourists.”  

Geto stares at him blankly. “What?” 

“Pizza means stop.” He points to his feet, bringing his toes together to form a triangle. “Have you never been skiing before?”

“Do I look like someone who skiis, Gojo?”

Satoru squints at him for a moment, eyes shifting back and forth between Geto and the whimpering curse. “I mean…” 

Geto ignores him, stepping forward and conjuring a sphere of cursed energy between his palms. Satoru has seen him do it several times before, right before the curse gets sucked into that compact little cage and forced past his lips like a pill that’s hard to swallow. He’s seen the accompanying grimace. The disgust that flashes in his eyes.

“There’s no point in that,” Satoru blurts. Geto freezes. “The curse is weak. It’s just a small lump of fear, born out of some guy falling to his death. It’d be easier to just exorcize it.”

Geto just shrugs. “There’s never any harm in practice. Containing curses is harder than it looks. In any case,” he adds on grimly, “there’s nothing that is less weak than fear.” 

Satoru watches silently as the curse is captured without a fight, then placed into Geto’s mouth and swallowed with a wince. 

“What do curses taste like?” he asks, unable to help his own curiosity. 

“Depends.” Geto purses his lips, looking uncomfortable. “Some taste like rot — like stinking sewage, like death. Others just taste bitter.” 

“Like you,” he says without thinking. Geto’s face immediately twists into something that makes his stomach drop. Satoru has never wanted to swallow his words before, but he finds himself wishing that he could gulp them back down, one bitter syllable at a time. 

But then the strange expression melts away, and what’s left on the other boy’s face is that characteristic, sleazy grin. 

“Maybe you’d like me better if I was sweeter,” he says, his voice surprisingly soft. 

Satoru looks away quickly. “Probably not.” 

Geto hums. “Maybe not.” He turns away, beckoning Satoru with a jerk of his chin. “C’mon, I want to get some shopping done before we head back. I’ll even buy you some sweets if you’re nice to me.” 

“Sweets?” Satoru practically squeals, skipping alongside him in a burst of energy. “I’m always nice to you, Suguruuu,” he coos. 

The boy flashes him a look. “Who said you could call me that?” he mutters. “You’re such a brat.”

“So I’ve been told,” he declares. 

“Have you now?” Geto says, his eyes dark. “I’m jealous of anyone who’s been lucky enough to put you in your place.”

“Shoko says I strut around like I think I own the world,” he pouts.

“You do,” the boy affirms, looking rather validated. 

“And what’s wrong with that? Isn’t ambition admirable?” 

“In other people, maybe,” Geto snorts. “I don’t know if I’d call it ambition if you already act like you hold the world in the palm of your hand. That’s called narcissism.” 

But Satoru doesn’t need the world, despite enjoying the satisfaction of knowing he could have it if he wanted to. No, the things he’d like to hold in his palms are far, far smaller. He doesn’t know what exactly, just that he’d like something to curl his fingers around — like a piece of candy, or a pocket lighter, or a hair band. Small things. 

“You see, that’s not right either. I asked Shoko if she thinks I’m a narcissist, and she said that I’m just an asshole.” 

Geto barks out a laugh. “Did she?” he wheezes. “What else did she say?” 

“That I’m a peacock,” he continues, grinning. “That I come with too much fanfare. Too much confetti.” 

Their smiles are all teeth now, and Satoru doesn’t even know what they’re laughing about anymore, doesn’t even care that the subject of ridicule is him, not when the mirth in Geto’s eyes looks more fond than malicious, not when his face softens and he murmurs—

“I like your confetti.” 

Satoru’s mouth pops open slightly. Geto pauses, as if surprised at himself. He brings his hand up, and a strange thought flashes through Satoru’s mind right before the air over his forehead receives a hard flick. 

“Ow!” he yelps, lurching backwards as if it had connected. Geto huffs, looking unsurprised at his overreaction. 

“Peacock.” 

Satoru stares at him. 

“What?” Geto says smugly. “No comeback?”

For once, he can’t think of any bratty retort, any barbed comment. So he does the next best thing. He sticks his tongue out.

“Mature.” 

Around them, the snow continues to fall, floating softly to the ground. A speck of it lands on his tongue, like a stray piece of confetti. It tastes sweet. 

They start walking back down towards the village, a single pair of footprints inked onto the white page behind them. Satoru always has his infinity constantly on during missions — or at least ones that he knows will be brief enough to not burn him out.

There’s a playful energy between them, something lighter than there’s ever been before. Suguru moves to sling an arm around him, and there’s a split second before contact where something in the air shifts, where something slips away.

(In the space between zero and one, there is infinity, and Gojo Satoru can be untouchable if he wants to, but maybe he’s tired of being beyond reach, and maybe, just maybe, there’s something that the boy who has everything still longs for.) 

Suguru’s fingers wrap around the curve of his shoulder. Satoru allows himself to be pulled in. 

***

The first time Satoru dreams of him, they’re sitting across from each other at a table, everything bleeding in red, a chess board positioned between them. Which is rather ironic, considering — 

“I don’t know how to play,” he informs his opponent. 

At Suguru’s look of atonishment, he elaborates, “I never learned.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs. “It wouldn’t have been fair to anyone else. Besides, do I look like someone who plays chess, Suguru?” 

A smile plays on the corner of Suguru’s mouth. “Some things never change with you,” he says, which is a statement that hits him in some tender part of his chest. Satoru blinks, trying to compose himself.

“Shoko misses you,” he blurts. He needs to turn the conversation around, far, far away from any acknowledgment of what has changed and what will always, always stay the same.  

“Does she really?” 

“I don’t know, she hasn’t said,” he answers, which is true. “But I thought you might like to hear it.” 

Suguru breathes out a laugh. “How is she doing?” he asks tentatively. “And Nanami?” 

“Everyone’s fine,” he lies. “Nanami hates me even more now that you’re away. I’m far less tolerable without you there.” 

“Nobody hates you, Satoru.” 

“It’s a defining trait in all of my relationships,” he says proudly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

Light dances in the other boy’s eyes, impish and unbearably fond. “Only I’m allowed to like you?” 

Satoru eyes all his chess pieces before picking up a pawn, dropping it onto a random empty square on the board. White on black. “Something like that.” 

“You look different.” Suguru cocks his head, gazing at him. “More sincere. Not quite like the boy I used to know,” he says playfully. His stare has always made Satoru feel naked. Raw.

“There was a boy I used to know, too,” he croaks, dropping the playful facade. “Every day, I wonder if the version of myself that I am now is one he would have liked. I think about that a lot.”

Geto’s mouth twists into a rueful smile. “Sounds like something I should be worrying about, all things considered.”  

“My opinion of you and my opinion of the things you’ve done is incredibly easy to separate in my head, believe it or not. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it is. You were the only one that I ever—“ he breaks off. “You were the only one. You still are.”

Suguru grimaces. “Despite everything?” 

“There is no ‘despite’ between us,” he says regretfully. “There’s nothing you could ever say or do that would change that. Maybe that’s my moral failing.”

Suguru’s eyes dance. “I thought you hated moral arguments.” 

“It’s not an argument. Just a statement.” 

 “Ah yes, you make many of those.” 

“I have a question, too,” Satoru says after a beat, his eyes stinging. 

“I’d love to hear it.” 

“When the world tells me that I’m not allowed to care about you anymore,” he whispers slowly, “what reason am I left with to care about the world?” 

Suguru’s eyes widen, his breath leaving him. Then just as quickly, he composes himself with a thin smile, directing his gaze down to the table. “Even the strongest are often nothing more than pawns.”

“How do we escape the game?” he mutters. “How do we just become ourselves?”

The boy arches an eyebrow. “The answer isn’t one you would like.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“In another life, we’d be born as non-sorcerers,” Suguru says tonelessly. “We wouldn’t have to worry about curses, or be consumed by ideologies, or try to change the world. It would just be us.”

Satoru watches as he tips the board, black and white marble pieces cascading to the floor. They clatter against the tiles, the sound hauntingly reminiscent of a smattering of applause. And then it’s quiet. 

“You wouldn’t be saying that if this wasn’t a dream.” 

“We can say whatever we want here.”

Satoru pauses, then says the truth. “I don’t think I would have liked you very much in a world like that.”

A moment of awareness passes between them, charged with something raw and brutally honest. Suguru hides his smile behind his hand. 

“Me neither.”

***

The snow is painted with blood, cherry syrup on shaved ice. Satoru looks away. 

It’s not the first time they’ve witnessed death while on a mission, not the first time there’s been collateral damage. It’s been a year since the job in Niseko, and most of their assignments since then have been with each other. At some point, Yaga seemed to realize that a switch had been flipped  — from begrudging tolerance, to baffling codependency. 

“I don’t need anyone,” Satoru had once proudly proclaimed. Now it’s become, “Suguru too, right?” 

The best way to find a best friend, Satoru has decided, is to start off by hating them. Liking someone right from the get go is just disingenuous. Instantaneous friendships, love at first sight… such things have always struck him as shallow and stupid. 

The next step in obtaining a best friend, and perhaps the most crucial, is to attack them with intent to kill — preferably over a minor dispute. Any other form of bonding activity pales in comparison to mutually attempted murder. 

Ever since then, Satoru has had two shadows. He drags Suguru along with him wherever he goes, whether the boy likes it or pretends that he doesn’t. A reserve of hair bands circles Satoru’s wrists beneath the sleeves of his uniform, now that Suguru has taken to an updo hairstyle (after some prompting) that makes him decidedly less depressing to look at. 

He often finds himself surprised by his own clinginess. Now that he’s had a taste of human contact, he can’t get enough — he drapes himself over Suguru’s shoulders, hangs off of his arms in a way Shoko says is reminiscent of a whining toddler, curls his fingers around the back of his neck, playfully buries his face in Suguru’s hair. 

His friend bears it all with stoic acceptance, making peace with the fact that Satoru has a newfound need for touch that can apparently only be fulfilled by him. They’ve reached a point where Suguru shoves him off only once out of every ten times Satoru launches himself at him. Objectively, he considers these to be rather impressive figures. 

They’re stronger together. Satoru can’t find it in himself to deny that anymore. But no matter how many times they go through the motions, he can tell that Suguru never gets used to it.  The blood. The death. Victory with an aftertaste of loss. To Satoru, it just tastes bittersweet. 

The swarm of curses has already been either obliterated or consumed, the body of the one civilian casualty already cleared away. He hooks his chin over Suguru’s shoulder, his nose all but pressing into the warmth of his neck. 

“What are you thinking?” he asks softly. 

“Nothing,” Suguru replies, a distinct tightness to his voice. He stares at that singular spot on the ground. “It’s sad, that’s all.” 

“What is?”

“Death is sad. Don’t you think so?” 

“Death is…” he fishes around for the right word. “Unfortunate.” 

“Unfortunate,” Suguru echoes flatly. His lips twitch with a smile. He turns his head slightly, cheek brushing against Satoru’s hair. “Then you wouldn’t cry if you lost me?” 

Somehow, Satoru hadn’t factored that in. If he really tries to think about it, Suguru’s death wouldn’t hold the same weight as that of a non-sorcerer, or even another classmate. He’s always been different; different from everyone else, different from Satoru. He’s someone who would be missed if he was gone, whose absence would be felt not necessarily in the grand scheme of things, but on a smaller, molecular scale. 

Haibara would lose an older brother figure. Shoko would lose the one friend she could always count on for a light. Yaga would lose one of his star pupils, the one who actually knows how to keep his ego in check, and Satoru—

Satoru would be alone again. 

What would the death of Geto Suguru mean to him? The question hangs in the air, but he doesn’t have to wonder too much; not when the answer is sitting right there in the pit of his stomach, a hollow sphere of space threatening to devour him whole. 

“I wouldn’t cry,” he answers, shrugging. “I might just destroy the world.” 

It’s meant to be phrased as a joke, nonchalant and light as air. Instead, the words come out painfully earnest, with a gravitational pull of their own. 

“Satoru,” the boy simpers, a smirk growing on his face. “I didn’t know you cared. I did, however, know that you’re an arrogant brat.” 

“What?” He can’t help but grin, somewhat giddy with relief that his friend has enough energy to tease him again. 

“You really think you have the power to destroy the world?” 

“Don’t I?” he says with a sleazy wink. 

His friend snorts. “I don’t know. You’d have to prove it to me one day.” 

“I will.” 

“In your dreams,” Suguru says scornfully, looking utterly unconvinced. 

Satoru likes it better like this; when all of the boy’s skepticism and contempt is directed at him, funneled into a single person rather than a vast, untamable space. Better that the weight of that heavy gaze is lifted off the dark stain of blood and focused on his eyes instead, shadows washed away with blistering, blue fire. 

Everything feels alright so long as Geto looks at him. Sometimes he feels like they were made to tame each other. 

“You wound me,” he groans dramatically, clutching as his chest. “I’m dying, I’m fading away…” He slumps to his knees, reaching up with a trembling hand. “Don’t cry, Suguru,” he says mournfully. “I wouldn’t want you to cry for me.” 

Suguru snorts. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” 

“Don’t do anything stupid either, no matter how much you lo—“ 

He lets out a strangled yelp as he’s yanked to his feet by the back of his collar, a button digging into the base of his throat. 

“No need,” Suguru breathes, his voice cloyingly sweet against his ear. “You’re stupid enough for the both of us.” 

Satoru’s eyes slowly slide over to him. The feeling in his gut swirls, then shifts, developing a mind of its own. It was always going to turn into this, at some point or another. The realization strikes him between the ribs, bypassing all his defenses. They were always going to end up here. 

Fingers curl around his neck, breath ghosting over his cheek. A small, wary voice in the back of his mind informs him that he’s been compromised, and the little dancing devil in his stomach starts up that nauseating jig, and his eyes, burning, searing, soaking in every drop of color and texture and taste and sound, drift away from Suguru’s apocalyptic gaze to settle into the hollow between his collarbones. 

Stupid.  

***

Where do gods go when they sleep? 

Somewhere… somewhere less lonely. 

***

Riko Amanai was born special. This, at least, Satoru can understand. 

Maybe this is the beginning of the end, the first sign of doom: being charged to protect someone whom he can actually understand. He’s never been able to bring himself to care much before; not about other people, and certainly not about non-sorcerers. This girl is just another ungrateful brat. A nuisance. Something to get over and done with. 

And yet he wants her to have this; a few more hours of sand scraping between bare toes, of water slapping against sticky sea-salt shins, of chasing each other through the shallow waves while cackling themselves hoarse. One more day of being a child, a nobody. It’s an envious thing, he muses, to be nobody at all. To be remarkably ordinary. He doesn’t think he could ever survive such an inadequate existence — but to have the choice might be a blessing in its own right. 

Satoru is sixteen years old and still struggling to cling onto the smaller things; innermost thoughts and feelings, little joys and hushed desires that are gradually crowded out by an ever expanding infinity. So when the brat puffs out her chest and proudly boasts about her divine purpose in the world, all he can see is the imperceptible, child-like quiver of regret in her mouth. And he understands. 

The more that you become, the less of yourself you’re allowed to keep. 

Riko dies. 

Satoru dies. 

The boy is reborn. 

The girl is just dead. 

They’re swimming among a sea of faces, features all contorted with the vilest kind of joy. Applause roaring in his ears like blood. Riko draped over his arms. His best friend standing in front of him, the reflection of two ghosts in his eyes. 

In that moment, Satoru is fueled by something far larger than rage. It’s the fear he had felt as he was quickly fading away; body shredded like ribbon, spilling onto the cobblestones like an untied bow. The realization of his own mortality, the knowledge that the world will continue to exist even when he’s no longer in it. And riding on the coattails of that all encompassing fear is the sheer ecstasy of enlightenment — surely there is now ichor running through his veins, and surely now if someone were to slice him open he would flood the cities with gold, and nobody would be able to stop him from staining the world with blood. 

Satoru could kill them all. He wants to kill them all. 

It’s Suguru who stops him. 

“I hear them, still.” 

Suguru’s words are barely lit, his voice whisper soft in the twilight.

They don’t talk about it for days after, for weeks. Suguru’s confessions come only in the dark, brief excerpts of grief that he’s willing to share. 

“Their applause, their stupid clapping hands,” he continues in a scoff. “It echoes in my ears, and I can’t get rid of it.”

The stronger you become, the more of yourself you lose. 

I hear them too, Satoru wants to tell him. He hears everything — that ghastly applause, the murmur of snowfall, the crinkle of candy wrappers, the false cheer in a trembling voice, the longing to be special, the longing to be alive. 

He feels everything too much and all at once, so he has to block it out in whichever way he can: closing his eyes, closing his ears. Tune out the sympathy, the anger, the disappointment, the grief. Cornflower blue, blood on the snow. Scrape it away, dump it in the river, let the water wash away his sins. How unfortunate it all is. 

I feel loss, too, he wants to say, but he isn’t sure if that’s ever been true. He’s made sure of it. 

The stronger you become, the less room you have for ghosts. 

***

He was such a kind boy, the people who didn’t know him at all will later say. Before he let all of that hatred into his heart.

Kindness, Satoru thinks, is inherently selfish. People are kind in order to feel good about themselves, in order to pat themselves on the back and declare themselves a moral, upstanding member of society. It’s the ultimate reason anyone does any good in the world, though some are better at hiding it than others. Better at hiding it from themselves.

It’s self-servitude masquerading as selflessness. In reality, hatred is the most altruistic emotion of all. To hate someone is to give them a part of yourself, for nothing in return. 

Before Suguru became the only thing that mattered, Satoru hated him with all of his heart. There’s a kind of love in that, he figures. Perhaps the most endless of all. 

***

The second time he dreams of Suguru, they’re walking along the shoreline. The second dream comes years after the first, but nothing much has changed. The scene is a watercolor of beiges and aquamarines, the delicate sea foam sparkling across their feet like bejeweled lace. The sand is studded with starfish, washed up and left to dry. Suguru stoops down to pick one up, then gently tosses it back into the water. 

“I heard you’re a teacher now,” he says, his voice a fragment of the breeze. His tone is unreadable. 

“Of course you heard,” Satoru remarks. “You live inside my head.”

Suguru gives him that look that he always uses when Satoru has just said something completely senseless. “Where else am I supposed to live?” 

“Last I checked,” he scowls, “you’re still alive.” 

Suguru doesn’t acknowledge this. He continues to bend over every few steps, collecting star after star and sending them back to where they belong. “You, a teacher. Imagine that.”

“I never said I was a good one.”

Suguru pauses, raising an eyebrow. “I never said that, either.”

The lighthearted tension fizzles, then dissipates, a mere ghost of the easy banter that used to charge the air between them. It’s been replaced with something heavier now, something more impermeable. 

“There’s millions of them,” Satoru says, staring at the creatures littering the endless stretch of sand. “You can’t save them all.” 

“But you could,” Suguru replies, straightening up. “Couldn’t you?” 

“No.” His throat is dry, the ocean breeze wicking all the moisture out of his body. “I’ve never been able to save everyone.” 

A faint smile, equal parts ironic and genuine, plays at the corners of his lips. “But you try. You’ve started to care, Satoru.” 

A star sinks into the water, creating ripples. Sand cakes around his knees where he’s kneeled down into the sand. Side by side, two boys praying to all the things they no longer believe in. 

“All those things you preached back when we were in school must have finally gotten to me,” he says at last. “It’s only ironic that you managed to convince me instead of yourself.” 

Suguru is quiet for a while. “Sometimes I wish we were both dead.” 

Satoru smiles grimly. “That’s a bold declaration. Is it so that we could both be born again? Maybe then we would’ve liked each other better from the start. Maybe then I could’ve been the person you wanted me to be. Back when it mattered.” 

“That’s not it.” Geto takes a deep breath, something lifting from his shoulders and unraveling into the wind. “From the very beginning, Satoru, I—” 

The worst thing about dreams is that they always end before they reach the end. 

***

Satoru stares at the boy in front of him coldly, his lips pursed. Betrayal simmers in his chest, red hot and uncomfortably out of place. It was never supposed to come from someone so close, never supposed to come from him. He grits his teeth. 

“Explain yourself,” he growls. 

To his credit, Suguru doesn’t so much as flinch beneath the withering gaze. The most he offers up is a sheepish smile, his hand tucked behind his head to rub awkwardly at the nape of his neck. 

“Listen Gojo, if I had known you were saving it—“ 

“You said you didn’t want any,” he hisses, heat continuing to crawl uncomfortably up his neck. “You said they were all for me.”

Suguru doesn’t even bother trying to argue his innocence. How can he, when the powdered sugar evidence is still smeared around the perimeter of his bottom lip? 

The boy scoffs, his expression morphing from tentatively apologetic to peeved in a split second. “Are you forgetting that I’m the one who bought you those damn pastries, in spite of your generational wealth?” 

“Gifts are given, not eaten,” he protests furiously, glaring at Geto’s attempt to steer the argument away from the main point. He curls his fingers around the edges of the cardboard box, which had been carefully tucked away in the corner of their shared snack drawer only to be found empty just minutes ago. “You said sugar gives you a headache!” 

“Would you stop your yapping?” Geto groans, rubbing at his temples. “The only headache inducing thing here is you.” 

“If you’re this cunning about something as sacred as a man’s sweets, I can’t imagine what kind of schemes you could get up to in the future,” he cries, pointing an accusing finger. “Can you even call yourself a jujutsu sorcerer?” 

Geto has the audacity to look appalled. “What does that have to do with anything?” 

“There’s only one way to settle this, Geto Suguru,” he says with an air of finality. He tosses the box at Geto’s head, which sails by harmlessly and hits the wall as the boy easily sidesteps the attack. “We’ll have to fight to the death. Any last words?” 

“Last words are overrated,” the boy drawls, his hands in his pockets. “I think what holds more weight isn’t the last thing you say, but the last thing you hear.” 

“Lucky for you,” Satoru smirks, “that gets to be the sound of my voice.” 

“So fucking dramatic,” Geto mutters, shadows already blooming around his feet. He shifts, placing himself in a fighting stance. “You’re going to regret this.” 

“Oh, I promise you,” he replies, flinging his glasses onto the floor, “I won’t.” 

“I sincerely regret my actions, Sensei!” Satoru shouts forty-seven minutes later, hands fisted in his lap as he kneels on the floor. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper, despite being forced to cohabitate with the devil himself—“ 

“He started it—“

“My blood sugar levels were at unspeakable lows—“ 

“Enough, both of you,” Yaga barks. “Shameless. Is this all you have to say for yourselves after knocking out an entire wing of the dormitory?” 

Satoru hangs his head and tries to look decently cowed. “I’ll pay for the damages in full,” he says sweetly. 

“You could have bought a million pastries with that money,” Suguru mutters under his breath. 

“It’s the principle of it,” he snaps back. 

“You’re not one to talk about principles, Satoru—“ 

“Out of my office. Now.” 

“I held back, by the way,” Satoru croons as soon as they’ve scampered from the room and are well out of earshot. Suguru doesn’t entertain that comment with a response. 

They’d both been holding back, and they both know it. If the wall hadn’t caved in when it had, Satoru isn’t sure if he would have been able to stop. He can still feel his heart hammering in his chest, not from exertion, but from some kind of unbridled glee. He hasn’t felt more alive in years. 

Liquid ice hums in his veins, invigorating him, sparking some dormant part of him into consciousness. He could beat Geto Suguru if he really tried — there are few sorcerers he wouldn’t feel confident going up against — but even so, with an opponent like that, he might even have to call it a fair match.

Living up to his legacy? Ridding the world of curses? Saving the masses from entities they’re not even aware of? None of that has ever been Satoru’s calling, as much as he tries to drill it into his head. From the moment he was born, he’s been told that he will become the most powerful, and it’s this sole notion that drives him forward. 

If he and Suguru were to fight, truly fight, he would win. Still. No one else has ever made him lose his breath. He stares ahead, fixated on the sight of the retreating back in front of him. The boy pauses, as if he’s heard Satoru’s thoughts. His head turns. 

“Next time you want to spar with me,” Suguru calls warmly over his shoulder, “you can just ask.” 

***

Gojo stands with the setting sun against his back, a boy bleeding out in front of him. He doesn’t see the sorcerer hellbent on creating a new world, a new order, but the boy that he once knew. The only boy who had ever known him. 

He crouches down, gravel crunching beneath his feet as he lowers himself into the shadows. This is one of those times where he would very much like to escape into the air, but this time he has no choice; he’s stuck in his own body, forced to remain present, the weight of his own words pulling him down into the center of the earth. 

“_____________.

  _______________.” 

The boy smiles, his voice choked and soft. He blinks, and they’re just Satoru and Suguru again; two best friends just trying not to kill each other. Trying not to be killed by anyone other than the other. Blood seeps like spilled ink on a page. The sun has left them behind, leaving them as colorless outlines. 

In this penultimate, gray-scale moment, it’s just the two of them against the world. 

***

A ball clatters loudly against the backboard, the sound echoing through the mostly uninhabited gym. The sound of cursing immediately follows. A pair of deft hands plucks the ball out of the air before it hits the ground, dribbling it absentmindedly. 

“What’s the score?”

“Thirteen-zero!” Satoru calls out. There’s a stare like a knife in his back as he molds his face into the picture of innocence. 

“Do you have any integrity at all, Gojo Satoru?” the boy behind him asks in earnest. 

“I’m not counting the shots I let you make,” he says in reply. He spins on his heel, tossing the ball over his shoulder while walking straight towards his friend. Behind him, he can feel the swish of the net stir the air. 

There’s a strange delight in seeing the jump in Suguru’s clenched jaw. “I don’t know how you cheated, but I know that you did,” he says peevishly.

“I don’t need to cheat for you to be a loser,” he chirps. “Cheer up! You can give Shoko a little visit, and I’m sure she’ll fix up that wounded pride of yours in no time.” 

His friend scoffs, punching him in the chest without any real force. Satoru lets him. “I’m not the one who needs to manage their pride.” 

Satoru sticks his lower lip out, rubbing his sternum with an exaggerated wince. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Suguru rolls his eyes, a familiar irritation tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Pride fuels everything you do,” he snorts. “Even when we’re out in the field exorcizing curses, helping people, it’s all about your pride. You do everything for yourself.” 

It’s a topic that’s often come up for debate recently, though Satoru thinks that talking themselves in circles is a pointless exercise. The only plus side is getting to see Suguru so riled up, which is a form of entertainment in itself. The down side is that Satoru absolutely abhors people trying to make a point about his character. 

“You saying I need to care more, or what?” he says, trying to keep his voice light. “Does it make any damn difference what my feelings are when I’m the best at what I do? They use us like fucking hound dogs, Suguru. That doesn’t mean I need to wag my tail at every order.” 

An ugly grimace warps that face he knows so well. “It’s our job to—” 

“Fuck our job,” he snaps. “Do you really believe that we exist only to serve?” 

“Life is about finding a meaning, Satoru.” The boy’s lips are pressed into a thin line. “A purpose. Otherwise, what’s the point?” 

“I have a purpose,” he says, more forcefully than he means to. “And it doesn’t involve devoting myself to people who can’t even see a curse hovering two inches above their nose.” 

Suguru’s eyes darken. “You of all people should understand. You were born special,” he scoffs. “You were born to be the hero.” 

Satoru hates it when he talks like that. Like Suguru can no longer separate the concept from the boy, like he’s seeing Satoru through the lens of the rest of the world rather than his own two eyes. It only ever comes through in brief flashes of irritation; but when it does, Satoru is overwhelmed by the urge to squirm away from the shrewd gaze, to rip off his glasses and tie a solid black cloth over his eyes instead. 

“Hero and villain, good and evil,” he recites in a bored voice, schooling his features into something unreadable. “Those words are meaningless to me. There is only what should be done, and what absolutely should not, and it’s the job of the individual to define those standards for himself.” 

Suguru looks at him sharply. “In a world of curses, how can you say there’s no evil?” 

“I didn’t say it doesn’t exist,” he shrugs. “It just doesn’t mean anything to me.” 

Suguru lets out a breath of air. He takes a step backwards, sneakers squeaking against the vinyl floor. His eyes have gone a little wild, a little lost. He’s no longer arguing — just simply looking to Satoru, despite everything, for all the answers. 

“Then what does, Satoru?” 

***

There’s a flash of blue light; a final, weary sigh. 

And then the boy who became a god is alone once again.

***

“You were my meaning. 

The only one I ever had.” 

***

Geto Suguru was born a nobody. 

Two non-sorcerer parents, an insignificant family name. He relays this information to you in a monotone voice, like he’s reciting lines from a biography. And it makes sense now, why someone from such a mundane background should have all these big, fanciful ideas about duty and honor. Such a mortal exercise: the search for meaning in a meaningless world. 

When you’re able to see everything, feel everything, when the fabric of space can be molded like putty in your hands, it turns out that everything begins to matter very little. 

There’s a boy who was born special, and there’s a boy who was born nobody. The reason? There is none. He tries to search for one anyway. 

And you wonder, if you could just love him — just to prove that he is somebody, just to prove to yourself that you can — well, then what greater meaning could there be than that? 

***

“Have you ever been in love?”

What a weird question, Satoru thinks. 

Exactly the kind of question Suguru would think to ask, especially three drinks in. His own head is already swimming after just a couple sips of sake from Shoko’s cup. How unfortunate that the one and only thing he seems to be less than skilled at is holding his liquor. The bitter taste lingers in his mouth like a stain, his eyes stinging from the burn. He pops the sugar cube Suguru’s passed to him under the table, letting it slowly dissolve on his tongue. 

“Nobody deserves me,” he answers with a watery grin. His voice is painfully hoarse. Suguru turns to him with a stare of disbelief, the one he reserves for whenever Satoru’s ego seems to have climbed to new peaks. A beat passes, then two, before the silence is punctuated with an eye roll and a scoff. 

“Keep telling yourself that.” 

Satoru leans his head against his hand, his eyes fluttering shut. For the very first time, he thinks that Suguru has looked at him and not truly seen him at all.

***

Distances are starting to feel larger than they used to. The space between Suguru’s shoulder and his; the days between one fleeting smile and the next; a once playful gap in perspectives now widened into a gaping chasm. The warmth in Suguru’s eyes is steadily slipping away, one degree at a time. They don’t talk about why, but they both know why. 

Sometimes, Satoru can still feel the weight of her in his arms. 

Sometimes, purely as an exercise in vanity, he closes his eyes and reconstructs the moment Suguru walks through that door to discover that he’s alive. He paints the room in different colors, transforms the preceding events so that when those eyes land on him they’re filled with relief instead of horror, the haunting smattering of applause smeared away and varnished with something blissfully sinless. 

In these self-serving daydreams, he’s able to bask in his newfound weightlessness. There is no shrouded girl in his arms, because she’s alive and safe at home, not for her sake, but for his. Two boys step out beneath the open sky, into a golden, warm-toned day. There is no blood in his hair. Suguru looks at him, and smiles. 

“Are you even glad that I’m alive?” he snaps one day. 

Reality is much more gray. 

“I’m glad,” Suguru replies woodenly, hardly looking up from his food. “I’m really glad, Satoru.” 

He frowns. Annoyance flares, jagged and bitter. It stings at his throat, makes his eyes all hot and itchy. His collar feels too tight. He wracks his brain, searching for something to cut through the tension, something that will get Suguru to just look at him the way he used to.

“She… she wasn’t going to be herself for much longer, anyway,” he mutters. “Not after the integration. I mean if you really think about it, what kind of a life is there for someone whose soul will be inextricably fused to some immortal geezer?” 

The thing about addressing the elephant in the room, is that you need to do so gently, and with great care. A provoked animal can trample through an entire village without a second thought, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. 

When Suguru finally looks at him, he feels his bones snap beneath the weight of the gaze. “She was loved, Satoru,” he says. “That made her more alive than both you and I.” 

When he stands up, Satoru doesn’t watch him leave. He just replays it over and over again in his head, the words trampling over every over thought.

She was loved. She was loved. She was loved. She was loved. 

That made her more alive than— 

you. 

“I didn’t mean it,” Suguru says later, whispering into the dark. Satoru has been pretending to sleep for the past half hour, but they know each other’s breathing too well. Their beds, a body’s length apart. An unbreachable gulf. 

“Mean what?” 

“…about Riko. And us. About you, I mean. I didn’t mean to say that you’re not…” He hears a deep breath, then a choked off noise. “Satoru, you’re—“ 

“I know,” he says quietly, though he’s not entirely sure exactly what he knows. “I know.” 

“I was going to take her home.” There’s a brief, but thick silence between one sentence and the next. “I gave her the choice, and I was going to take her home.” 

Shame curdles in his stomach like bad milk. 

Sometimes he can still feel the weight of her in his arms. Sometimes he can still see the blood on the snow. Sometimes he can feel the ever growing absence of Suguru’s hand resting on his shoulder. 

Sometimes he wonders if he’s Gojo Satoru because he’s untouchable, or if he’s untouchable because he is Gojo Satoru. 

There’s no point in saying sorry. The word has always felt meaningless and misshapen in his mouth, anyway. 

“You’re alive, Suguru,” he mutters into the stillness of the room. “You’re alive to me.” 

***

“It was never quite the same after that. Was it?” 

Tonight’s dream is painted in shades of violet. The never ending staircase is bathed in lavender light, the steps descending endlessly into deep, amethyst shadows. It feels like the setup to a nightmare, had he been alone. 

They climb down, side by side. Shoulders an infinity’s width apart. Hands not quite brushing. 

“What changed?” he asks.

Suguru looks at him in disbelief. “You’re Gojo Satoru. You were always untouchable, but you changed into something more. We both became something different, for different reasons. You, because all that you needed was yourself. Me, because all that I needed was—” His voice breaks off, and he turns his head with a sigh. “Was an equal,” he continues. “I lost that, Satoru.” 

He feels sick. “You didn’t lose me,” he says, even though he knows he was away, he was distant, there was too, too much space— 

“We had always looked down on the world from the same angle,” Geto says with a sharp laugh. “But suddenly you were somewhere else, somewhere higher than me, and I was stuck on Earth swallowing down all the filth and the rot. You became a god, and what did I become?” His voice starts to climb, a rasp roughing up the edges of his words. “Be honest with me. In your eyes, we’re all monkeys to you, aren’t we? Every last one of us. What does a man that can conquer the entire world hold in high regard? Is life not just a game to you?” 

“Life is a game to everyone,” he spits. “Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. I just have a better view of the board, that’s all.” 

“And an almost perfect probability of winning,” Suguru laughs. “That’s why it would be unfair to everyone else.” 

“That’s not true,” he says, pressing his mouth into a thin line. “I haven’t always won. You only need to lose once in order to lose everything. And I did.” 

“Is this your way of apologizing for killing me?” Suguru says cheerily, his eyes forming crescents.

Satoru freezes. It all comes leaking in through the cracks, the way real world memories abruptly do when you’re in the throes of a dream. So that’s why he’s seeing Suguru yet again, after so many years of empty sleep. His best friend, whom he should have killed years ago, is finally dead. 

“I would never apologize for such a thing,” he huffs, neutralizing his expression. “I lost you long before I killed you, Suguru. In the end it was you playing god, not me.” 

“I guess so,” his friend says, his voice still falsely bright. “I don’t mind, anyway. I told you that if you killed me, it would mean something.”

“Yeah?” he snorts. “It means that you’re fucking dead.” 

“Many men would choose death over spending another second in your presence,” Suguru replies mildly. 

It feels nice. It’s like they’re in high school again, bickering with no bite, antagonizing each other just for the hell of it. Back when none of it mattered. 

When had things begun to matter to him?

“There was a point where I could have become you,” Satoru says quietly, popping the bubble of nostalgia. “But there can only be one of each of us. Your downfall secured my salvation. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.” 

Geto raises an eyebrow. “Why would you be grateful towards me?” 

“That day, you never asked me to join you,” he says throatily. “Not even once.” 

Suguru’s mouth twitches. “I knew that you wouldn’t have.” 

“I wouldn’t have,” Satoru agrees. “But I would’ve thought about it. And isn’t that what really counts?” 

There was a point at which their lines could have intersected. A point at which they could have both existed together, where they could have both been the strongest. Black and white, mixing into gray. Red and blue, mixing into purple, hollow, nothing. 

Satoru hadn’t realized that he’s stopped moving. He alone stands utterly still, poised at the top of the steps. He’s been walking downwards for an eternity, it seems, but he’s still at the summit. Darkness licks at his shoes. Below him, a boy is dissolving into smoke, one atom at a time. 

“Thank you, Suguru,” he whispers, shadows crawling up his spine. “And I’m sorry.” 

Suguru slowly turns, violet eyes staring up at him wordlessly. There is no longer anything for him to say, therefore he no longer has any reason to speak. He’s only a dream, after all, only a memory— 

Suguru opens his mouth. He takes a single step upwards. 

“I was wrong,” he says. His face breaks out into a soft grin; the kind that he reserved for supernova blue eyes and an overgrown ego, the kind that had only ever been seen by Gojo Satoru, even after they’d broken apart. “I think it would’ve been us, anyway. In any other world.” 

The world tips on its axis by eighteen degrees. Satoru takes a single step down. 

***

Those who wield the power of Six Eyes are usually able to sense more than any other mortal. Unparalleled vision, heightened awareness of one’s surroundings, extraordinary perception. 

But on that day, standing in the middle of a busy street, feeling more than you have ever felt before, the only thing you’re able to see is him. People blur past you as nothing more than smudged shadows. He’s standing far beyond your reach, but he’s the only tangible thing left in the world. 

“If I were able to become you…” 

Come closer. The distance between us is not so wide. 

“This foolish ideal of mine would become a lot more real, don’t you think?”

I was going to kill them all. I would have killed them all. You stopped me. You stopped me, why did you stop— 

“If you want to kill me, then kill me,” Geto says, beginning to turn away. “There would be a meaning in that.” 

You grit your teeth, reaching out with your hand perfectly poised, your target perfectly aligned— 

Come closer. Touch my hand. Define me. 

And then he’s gone. 

***

Sitting on the roof is a silhouette of a boy, a boy who isn’t supposed to be there. Satoru stops short, staring. He can tell who it is from his profile alone, even though the sun is setting and everything is washed in saturated golds and grays. He makes an effort to hold back an agonized groan, though the effort is small. 

“This is where I come to contemplate,” he says crossly. “Go away.” 

Satoru has never been at a school amongst other peers his age before. Always private lessons, private tutors, private training. Hardly a week has passed, and he’s already disoriented by how much there is to take in. People are constantly trying to talk to him, trying to walk alongside him, trying to touch him — as if it’s a casual, throwaway thing to make contact with another. 

But not Geto Suguru. 

Not Geto, who is perfectly poised and polite to all of his superiors, who keeps to himself but is somehow respected by everyone, who even Shoko has a soft spot for despite Satoru having made it his mission to get in her good graces first. 

It’s infuriating just how good he is. Not just in the skill department, for which Satoru has no need to envy, but simply in the being-a-person department. He’s prickly but kind, antisocial but charming, confident but not obnoxious. He’s altogether decent. Satoru has no idea how he does it. 

“Dusk is my favorite time of day,” the boy mutters. “Everything is mostly dark, and mostly quiet. Just a ghost of light staining the sky.” His hair pools onto his shoulders like ink, the shorter strands framing his face. He doesn’t look at Satoru when he speaks.

“Okay,” Satoru says impatiently, sparing the sky a cursory glance. “Can you wax poetry somewhere else?” 

Geto turns to him then. The stare he fixes him with has Satoru’s next sardonic remark dying on his tongue. There’s something studious about the boy’s gaze, like he’s analyzing every line and curve in his face, mapping it out onto a graph. Satoru is no stranger to being stared at —  but being seen is another matter entirely. For the very first time, with Geto’s inquisitive eyes roaming his face, he entertains the possibility that someone might actually fucking understand, might finally see him for what he truly— 

“You’re a shithead,” Geto comes to his conclusion. “Aren’t you?” 

Satoru’s eyes roll up towards the sky. “You could say that,” he drawls. “And you must be pretty lonely, coming up here to watch your stupid sunset all by yourself, and then insulting the first person who comes along to keep you company.” 

Geto snorts. “Are you here to keep me company?” 

“I was actually planning on kicking you off the ledge, but now, purely out of spite…” 

What else can he do? He bends down to take a seat next to him, legs swinging off the side of the sloped roof. Geto glances at him, looking slightly perplexed. 

“Am I the lonely one?” he asks after a moment. 

“Yo Geto,” he hums in monotone, staring straight ahead. “We don’t need to talk.” He tries to focus on whatever is happening in the sky, squinting at the gradation of wispy fuchsia clouds into quiet, sleepy blues. 

“People like you a lot, don’t they?” Geto says thoughtfully, despite Satoru’s more than generous offer of companionable silence. “Maybe worship is a better word. It just seems a bit lonely, that’s all.”  

It’s the most Satoru has ever heard this guy talk. He doesn’t know why the boy has decided to start now. 

“This dusk of yours,” Satoru says mildly, pushing his sunglasses higher up onto his nose. “It’s taking a bit long, isn’t it? You seem to have all the time in the world to flap your mouth.” 

Geto leans back on his hands, a lazy grin stretching across his face. “It’s slow to come, but quick to go,” he murmurs. “The space between day and night is not so wide, you know.” 

“Maybe I could,” Satoru begins, leaning his cheek against his hand and drawing a loop in the air with his finger, “I don’t know. Prolong it.” 

“You may be Gojo Satoru,” Geto remarks. “But even you don’t have the power to stop the sun from setting.”

“Says who?” he shoots back. 

Geto huffs, his eyes narrowing. “Are you really so full of yourself—“

“You already know the answer to that,” Satoru replies cheekily.

“I guess I do. You think you’re the best.”

“I am the best,” he says without skipping a beat. 

“I’m not cocky enough to claim to be at your level,” Geto says, calm but firm. “But one day, I’ll be up there with you. I’ll make sure of it.” 

“Oh, but you and I will never be able to exist together,” Satoru smirks. “One day, I might even have to kill you.” 

Geto pauses, then rolls his eyes. “So dramatic, and for what?” he mutters. “You’re insufferable, you know, but I do respect you. I wouldn’t mind dying for any jujutsu sorcerer.” He pauses. “Even if it’s you.” 

Satoru doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t think he would ever die for Geto. There would be no point, since he would never die while Satoru was around, anyway. He guesses that’s the difference between them. 

“There,” he says, tearing his eyes away to stare ahead instead. “Sun is down. You happy?” 

“Happy?” Geto mumbles dazedly, as if coming out of a dream. “No. Not quite.” 

For a moment, Satoru finds himself wishing they could sit there for a while, frozen in time; shoulders not quite touching, the sun never quite setting. Not quite happy and not quite sad. Just straddling the horizon. Waiting for something to matter.

***

Gojo Satoru has been thinking of ending the world. 

He sits on a blanket of galaxies, his legs spread out in front of him. Fallen stars settle upon his tongue, sweet as snow. The world rests in the palm of his hand, a small, blue-green marble spinning slowly in place. Beside it, the sun glows like a firefly in the night. 

This dream is painted in infinity. 

Suguru had been right, he thinks. He could do it. He’d always bragged that he could, hadn’t he? In jest, in agitation, in deep, earnest longing. 

(You may be Gojo Satoru. But even you don’t have the power to stop the sun from setting.

Says who?)

Here, he can do anything that he wants, anything at all. And why should the world keep on turning? He can’t think of a single reason why it would matter. 

He curls his hand into a fist. The sun blooms like a wind-torn flower, reflecting candlelight in his eyes. A planet descends into darkness. Somewhere an eternity away, he hears someone call his name.

***

Where does Gojo Satoru go when he sleeps? 

Toward. Toward, toward— 

***

“Hey, Satoru!” 

*** 

Towards somewhere less lonely.  

***

You open your eyes and there he is, leaning into you. He pauses, a breath away. Between your lips and his, there is infinity;

(a sun blazes through its dying moments; an earth is blanketed in shadow, and all around the world echoes the sound of a final, tortured sigh—) 

and then there is nothing.

“There’s a niche in his chest

 where a heart would fit perfectly

                and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place —

                                                                                            well then, game over.”