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“Hey!”
“What the fuck?!”
“You’re as rude as ever,” Getou says, eyes trained on the suspiciously spotless floor of the airport. “Still, I honestly can’t say I blame you. It wouldn’t be right for you to be effortlessly happy, seeing my face again.”
Gojo rolls his eyes. They feel heavy underneath this pair of glasses—he hasn’t worn them in over a decade, and will have to reacclimate. “Are you baiting me?”
“Whyever would I pull something like that on you, living or dead?” Geto purses his lips.
“Are you gonna laugh?”
Getou gazes at Gojo, a fist resting under his temple. “Would you like me to?”
“Your face was the face I most wanted to see,” Gojo admits, even though he knows that this truth is all Getou desired to wheedle out of him in the first place.
Getou chuckles. “I know.” He surveys the queue forming with something unreadable—Haibara waves from the line, still smiling at a comment of Nanami’s. There’s Amanai, and Kuroi, ruffling her hair. Even Yaga has emerged from his seat.
All bound for the same gate, no doubt. All bound for the same flight. All bound for whatever comes after.
“Aren’t you going to prepare to board?” Getou asks, elbowing Gojo’s side. In death, they may as well all be non-sorcerers. Gojo wonders if Getou resents this. “I don’t…know what happens if you stay behind.”
“Nah,” Gojo says, stretching back in his seat, like a cat. He takes out his ticket, urging Getou to compare their two contrasting flight numbers. “What makes you so sure you can?”
Getou shrugs. “They can turn me to ash, I don’t care. I’ve lived through worse. Satoru, you should go.”
“Not a chance.” Gojo smiles. “Mercifully, you’re no longer my compass.”
“What am I to you, then?”
“Spring,” Gojo answers, without hesitation. He gestures to their Tokyo uniforms, their far younger faces. “In this body, to me, you’ll only ever be spring.”
Getou raises an eyebrow. “Treating me like an allegory, are you?”
“Well, this afterlife makes that so easy.”
“Are you going to miss them?”
“I will. But, not as much as I’d miss you. I lost them only one time, but I lost you twice.” Gojo stares down at his hands. “Do you think we can age?”
Getou considers. “If we don’t disappear after breaking the rules, I’m certain we’ll find out eventually. Why, want to see what I could have been like?”
“You already know my answer.”
Gojo shifts one seat closer to Getou, pushing his glasses down under his eyes. “This time, I want to grow old with you.”
Getou stares back at him, color in his cheeks. “You want to grow old with me,” he repeats. “…in an abandoned airport?”
“Worse,” Gojo laughs. “I’m fully prepared to grow old with you, in an abandoned airport.” Gojo cranes his neck back, looking around the huge building. “Which one is this, anyway? Haneda or Narita?”
“Haneda, I think. Who says it’s any real place, though?”
“Sure. But, if you were right the first time…there should be soba in Terminal 1. You hungry?”
Getou sighs, fondly. “You’re asking me if I want afterlife airport food. Do you hear yourself? Besides, even if the restaurant’s there, there’s probably no one around to cook it.”
Gojo jumps up, offering Getou a hand. “If there’s no one around to cook it, there’s no one to stop me from raiding the kitchen. I’ll cook.”
Getou looks incredulous.
“I will! I’m good at most things, you know!”
“Oh, I know. But I’m not very hungry.”
“Hmm,” Gojo hums, eyes trailing over a map on the wall. “There’s a sky wedding planner.”
“Probably not here, there’s not,” Getou retorts, before the implication sinks in. “You want to marry me? After…everything?”
“Not right now!” Gojo shouts, a bit too quickly. He prods Getou’s cheek. “We look about sixteen years old. But! Once we’re forty, and hopefully look twenty-eight…I’ll strongly consider it.”
“Brat! You’re the one who brought it up in the first place!”
Gojo walks backwards, taking both of Getou’s hands in his own. “Stay with me. I’m thinking I’ll propose to you on the observation deck, right? But in terms of wedding venues? Well, we can workshop this, but I’m thinking a happy medium between the TV-Tokyo shop and the Edo Ko-Ji, ’cause I know how we are. The reception? All you can buy at the Duty Free shops. Ooh, or the Mercedes store! Do you think we could steal a car?”
“Satoru, I think we can do whatever we want. I will take a Mercedes over a pack of cigarettes, though.”
Gojo grins, impishly. “Shoko wouldn’t, I think. If she were here.”
“Do you wish she were here?”
“Do I wish Shoko were dead? No, not at all, Suguru. My students need her. And…she deserves to make it out living.”
Getou’s voice suddenly goes very grave. “And you didn’t?”
“It was fun, but you weren’t there with me, so don’t sweat that question. Here, we met again, didn’t we?”
Getou nods. “Yes, we did. But…why do you say that like it’s over?”
Gojo looks down at their intertwined hands. Getou looks down in tandem. They’re fading from sight, along with the rest of his body, and quickly.
The two of them lock eyes. “Shoko,” Gojo whispers.
Getou laughs. It’s a frail, small thing in his throat. “Looks like she didn’t have to give up on you after all.”
“One of these days, someone will successfully sever my head. And, on that day, I promise I’ll marry you.” What’s left of Gojo’s eyes plead with Getou. “You’ll be able to wait, won’t you?”
Getou nods. “I think so. I might be at the soba place, though.”
“Ugh,” Gojo grumbles. “You’re really gonna make me take that many escalators?” He’s barely a neck and a face, at this point. “I’m sorry, Suguru. I really am.”
Getou leans forward to press a kiss to Gojo’s translucent lips, and his own end up meeting the air. “Don’t be sorry for living.”