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“Cigarette?”
Satoru pulls a box out of his pants, out of the blue, crushed and half-empty. Suguru pats at his pocket, presumably for his lighter, but looks at Satoru with the sort of little smirk he does. The sly one like he knows something you don’t. Which, to be fair, he probably does. He’s just like that.
“You smoke now, Satoru?”
A click of his tongue follows Suguru tugging one out of the box. They make eye contact, heads tilted. A standoff. A flirtation of sorts.
One of Gojo’s favorite games is chicken; he’s playing the long game.
“Holding onto ‘em for Ieiri. Yaga’ll get on her,” A ragged smile crosses his face as if he’s going to say something purposefully annoying. Wouldn’t be out of the norm for him. “I like my lungs just the way they are.”
Suguru chuckles, a rumble of thunder in his chest. Satoru swallows.
“Secondhand smoke is just as bad. Worse, probably. You gonna stop hanging around me and Ieiri?” He inclines his head, dark violet eyes catching the setting sun for a long enough second to twist Satoru’s stomach in various knots. Suguru’s hair is up in a bun, little wisps of hair falling out with every movement.
“What kind of ridiculous question is that?” Satoru deadpans, curling his lip in playful distaste.
Flickering flame, burning paper. Relieved sigh.
“So that’s a no, huh?” Suguru rests his head against the wall with a grunt, throat bared to the world. His Adam’s apple bobs. Satoru watches it rise and dip back down. Says nothing.
And for a second, there’s some sort of dissonance between his eyes, his brain, and his arms. His pinky twitches.
It’s as if the world slows to a halt. Maybe it actually does; smoke billowing from the cig between Suguru’s middle and index fingers. His lids lazy, the glint of his gauges.
Satoru is sixteen, but God, the inexplicable ache that sits firmly, right in the center of his chest, feels like it isn't. His eyes flicker around as if anyone but them would be around, before he scoffs, playfully punching Suguru’s arm.
“I’m starving, man! Let’s get this done.”
Satoru watches the city pass through the window, body twisted awkwardly so he could rest his chin on his hand.
The train ride is an hour. Suguru goes first, stepping off the train and into the depot. His loafers squeak against the tile. Satoru follows.
He’s never liked the rain; it’s an omen, Death riding in on a skeletal mare. A stench you can’t just hold your nose for.
“Hm. It’s a sunshower.” Suguru raises his hand, fingers wagging. Droplets catch in his palm, running down his digits. He looks to Satoru. Who shrugs.
“We better walk fast. The building is somewhere around here.” Satoru recites the address perfectly.
Shoulder to shoulder. Arm-to-arm. Suguru puts his hands in his pockets, slouching. Condensing himself. He’s wary. Satoru can see it in every line of his body.
In the slight circles underneath his eyes and ever-growing pallor. He’s tired.
(But isn’t everybody?)
Satoru wets his lips as they pass by the umpteenth couple holding hands, a black and white polka dot umbrella shielding them from the water. They giggle, and he catches a few words of their conversation as they pass by.
A bead of water catches on pale eyelashes.
“You know, you’re being weird today, Satoru.”
Strike one.
Satoru keeps his eyes forward, still scouting for their destination. “Whatever do you mean, Suguru?”
“Well, for one, you’re not running your mouth.”
His stomach twists. Strike two.
“Do I talk that much?” Manufactured exasperation coats his tone.
Suguru chuckles, focusing on the side of Satoru’s face. Dark eyes wander warmly. “Yes. And you’re just…subdued. Not affectionate.”
“And isn’t that a good thing for you?”
“See, it would be…if you weren’t being weird.” Cat-like, he tilts his head, bangs dangling.
Out!
Ieiri once told him something, after some dinner one night when she’d gotten herself piss drunk (also managing to get Suguru and him to drink a few, unfortunately), and pulled him out onto the engawa—away from Suguru.
“You two work really well.”
Drunk Ieiri is an oddly smiley Ieiri, and then was no different. She had clung to his arm like a vice. Like a lifeline. Short brown strands tickled the side of his neck and his face.
“We’re the strongest. Together.” He had chimed in response, humoring the drunk girl and staring into the violet of the sky, the moon hanging full and heavy.
They sat, pressed together, in the cold of late December. Although with all the beer in her, Ieiri could’ve probably taken off her coat and been okay.
She exhaled in a puff of steam. “Mm. Yeah. Even though you argue a lot. You’re good together. For each other.”
And then, “You like him?’”
He sniffled. A star flickered in the sky; a remnant of an era long passed. “He’s my friend. My best friend.”
Ieiri smiled, looking at the moon with him.
“He loves you, you know.”
They step into a sidestreet. A train passes nearby. The vibration is felt through the soles of his shoes.
Satoru finally looks at Suguru. “Just been thinking.”
Suguru appraises him, from toe to head and shakes his head. Amused.
“Well, don’t hurt yourself, Satoru. We need you in tip-top shape.”
As they crowd underneath the underhang, catching their bearing and clothes clinging uncomfortably, Satoru’s pinky twitches again. He bites his tongue.
He’s back to regular Satoru on the train ride home. Clingy and boisterous.
Suguru can’t keep that dumb smile off his dumb face. (He is unfortunately the most beautiful boy Satoru has ever seen.)
And by all accounts, everything is normal. He’s normal. For a while. It was just an off day.
(“You don’t have those, Satoru.” Ieiri says.)
Satoru’s fingers don’t twitch anymore, his eyes don’t wander, and he doesn’t want to hold Suguru’s hand, or interlock their fingers, or kiss him until both of their lips are bruised and swollen. He doesn’t want to do any of that.
They go to the mall two weeks after that mission because Satoru wants to buy some new shoes. He’d worn out the soles on one of his favorite pairs during one mission. It was the old man’s fault, for sending him on a mission without ample time to prepare.
The midday sun washes over them like a wave and Satoru thinks if he sits here any longer, he’s going to fall asleep. The chatter from the tourists is like white noise and the wind is perfectly warm. Like a memory, a good dream you don’t ever want to wake up from.
“Where to?”
Suguru wears his hair down, dark strands trailing the length of his back. Satoru has no opinion on this. Not a singular one.
“Lead the way, Satoru.” And so he does.
Ieiri presses the lit end of her cigarette against the stone of the trashcan before tossing it out. The smell of ash clings to her t-shirt, drifting by him as the doors of the mall open.
“At this point, you should just buy them in bulk. Save your time. And energy.” says Ieiri. “It’s not like you’re broke like the rest of us.”
Satoru pouts. “But then I wouldn’t get to complain about not having a pair of my favorite shoes.”
She shakes her head, “You’re such an idiot.”
“You love me,” He presses a hand to his chest, offended. Ieiri rolls her eyes.
“Walk faster, idiot.”
Suguru chuckles, trailing behind them with his hands in his pockets, always. He’s a bright mark on Satoru’s senses, the energetic equivalent of an empty, outreached hand. Waiting for someone to come by. Satoru’s hand twitches.
“And what are you laughing at? You need to walk faster too, I want coffee!” Ieiri whips her head around, pointing an accusatory finger at Suguru’s face, her metal bracelets (two from each of them) shake from the movement. Suguru raises his hands in surrender.
“OK, Ieiri, I get it. Don’t bite my head off.” His eyes wander to Satoru’s, who has turned around.
It is like throwing himself to the wolves. It is looking back at the cities of the plain burning, knowing he will be punished.
A pillar of salt in wait.
Suguru bites his lip.
Fiddling with her bracelets, Ieiri sighs, oblivious and clearly suffering from the loss of her cigarette.
“Let’s go. We’re wasting time just standing around.”
When Satoru looks back, Suguru is looking at the rows of shops. A relieved sigh escapes his lips.
He leaves the store with two decent-sized bags, but to be fair, he does need more shoes. You can never have too many shoes.
“Thank you, Satoru,” Ieiri smiles pleasantly and sits down at the food court table. Her coffee is black with the tiniest bit of sugar and enough whipped cream to give Satoru a visual sugar high. Suguru, on the other hand, has a large soda, orange, he thinks , and a basket of fries for them to share.
“It was nothing.” Satoru chimes, sighing wistfully. He waves a french fry in front of Ieiri’s mouth. She eyes him before biting it, chewing it like a cow would cud.
“Can we stop by the bookstore before we go back?”
Satoru holds out a fry in front of Suguru’s mouth, watching the other boy look at him, then the fry, before biting down, lip brushing Satoru’s finger. When he jerks his hand back, like he’s been burnt touching a hot stove, Suguru laughs.
“I don’t see why not. Satoru?” Ieiri looks up from her phone, looking between them.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
Torrents of scalding water catch in the reddened palms of Satoru’s hands, pink foam soap slick between his spidery fingers.
Satoru stands there, looking into the mirror, his hands throbbing after vigorous scrubbing. His hair is sticking up in some places. (The spot Suguru touched with his lip burns.)
Shuffling over to the paper towel dispenser, he pats his hands dry. And lets his head rest against the cold tile of the wall for a minute, plush lip resting between sharp teeth.
He thinks of Ieiri and the moon and the biting cold and wandering fingers. A drunken mistake that tasted like cheap beer and chashu pork.
“He loves you, you know.”
It was then that the sliding door opened and Suguru stepped onto the engawa, interrupting their conversation. Ieiri looked between them, smug, before standing, drunkenly making her way back into the room.
Suguru took her place. He sat a few inches away from where she’d just been sitting and stared into the sky with him. Satoru didn’t look at him, face flushed from the alcohol and eyes beginning to feel heavy.
“The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“What?” Satoru blurted out, turning to the other boy, who simply laughed. Hair down, face pink. Satoru’s heart thudded in his chest, cold washing over him.
“You know the story?”
He shook his head.
“Natsume Soseki, the author, overheard one of his students translating ‘I love you’ directly. Believing that it was an affront to Japanese sensibility, Natsume came up with the phrase as a subtle alternative. Or so the story goes.”
“Or so the story goes, ” Satoru mumbled drunkenly, fiddling with the zipper of his puffer jacket, looking away from the sky.
A second passed where neither of them said anything.
“What does the moon have to do with love though? I never understood that, Suguru.”
Sliding closer to him, close enough that their legs were touching, Suguru sighed.
“It’s poetic, Satoru. Inviting someone to look at the moon with you and agree with you that it is beautiful. It’s like doublespeak, you know.”
“Mm.” Satoru turned to look at Suguru. His violet eyes were black in the night. All-absorbing. Intoxicating . The brunette’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. Satoru watched, leaning forward ever so slightly. Caught in a trance.
Suguru’s breath smelled strongly of alcohol and his breath escaped from his mouth in puffs of white steam as they neared one another. Liquid courage, maybe.
Satoru swallowed.
And went in for it, pressing his lips against Suguru’s. His hands propped him up, elbows shaky and palms face down on the cold wood.
A man comes into the bathroom right then, staring at Satoru strangely before trudging over to the urinals. Satoru rubs the side of his face and catches the door before it shuts, entering the bookstore proper once again.
His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out, opening it in one fell swoop.
ieiri: we’re outside, you ok?
me: just peachy o(≧▽≦)o
ieiri: ok .
ieiri: sugu wants ice cream
ieiri: he told me to tell you that
Satoru bites at his lip, the corners of his mouth upturning.
me: omw rn
me: pls try to convince him to get something other (!!!) than adzuki
ieiri: (￣^￣)ゞ on it boss
He smiles at that and winds through the maze of shelves, making his way to the front of the store, and pulling open the door.
Ieiri and Suguru are leaning against the wall, looking like proper teenage dirtbags, Ieiri still drinking her coffee. She shakes her head sadly, I tried. Satoru nods, I understand, fighting a smile. Suguru looks between the two of them, confused.
“Well then, shall we?” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “There’s a new place on Takeshita I've been wanting to try!”
Suguru passes the basketball to Satoru. It hits the floor once before he catches it.
“Your side still hurt?” Satoru asks, dribbling the ball. There are bandages wrapped around his knuckles. He lines up his feet with the three-point line, sneakers squeaking against the hardwood.
He likes basketball, mostly because he’s extremely good at it. (Like everything else.)
The basketball soars, falling through the net effortlessly.
“You’re so full of shit, Satoru.” Suguru makes the same shot, sticking his tongue out in concentration. Satoru watches. The sweat running down the length of his jaw, over the little mole nestled beside his earlobe. The crookedness of his bruised nose after yesterday, a mark that wouldn’t ever go away (a mark that Satoru made), and the bandage laid over the cut on his bridge. The way his lips are red from biting them in anticipation. The way the tank top that was underneath his button-up hugs his waist. When he looks away, his stomach feels funny.
“That’s not very nice, Suguru. How was I supposed to know you wouldn’t dodge my fist?”
A pass to Satoru—who takes a few steps back and then one to the left. Swish. He passes the ball back.
“You almost broke my rib, Satoru.”
“And you punched me in the face.”
“After you tried to break my nose.”
“Ah.”
Suguru scoffs and dribbles, once, twice. At the last second, before the ball leaves his bruised hands, he pivots ever so slightly to the right. The basketball bounces off the rim and hits the floor.
“H.” Satoru sing-songs, fetching the ball. He holds up four fingers, his other hand planted on his hip. “Four left to go.”
“Shut up and shoot.”
Satoru raises himself up on his toes a few times before jumping, leaning back as the ball soars through the air, hitting the backboard and falling in the hoop.
“Ooh, feisty. You know, I really like that about you, Suguru.”
Satoru picks up the ball again and holds it out to Suguru, spindly fingers sprawled across it.
“Yeah?”
And for a second, Satoru’s unsure whether Suguru’s about to kiss him or punch him in the stomach repeatedly. (He’d probably deserve it.) He looks down his nose in waiting, not anxiety or apprehension, just waiting for Suguru to do something. Anything.
Suguru looks at him a lot more, lately. Lingering gazes or quick peeks when he thinks Satoru isn’t paying attention. (An honestly laughable concept.)
Despite that, sometimes Satoru thinks Suguru has forgotten all about that kiss on that cold December night. That he’s forgotten the way he’d fisted Satoru’s jacket and cupped his head, nails biting Satoru’s scalp. That he’s forgotten the way Satoru tilted his head for him and how he laughed against his mouth, amused.
That he’s forgotten how Satoru came to his senses and pulled away, wiping his mouth and disappearing into his room for the rest of his night.
The next morning, nothing had ever happened the previous night, as far Ieiri knew. As far as Satoru cared. (As far as he would admit.)
Suguru makes the jump shot perfectly.
“What do you wanna eat?” Satoru leans back on the couch, looking at Suguru, who is sitting on the other end. A book is snug in the other boy’s lap, a bookmark hanging halfway out of its spot between the pages. His nose is still crooked.
“Don’t know. You?”
Satoru scowls. “Well, obviously I asked you because I don’t know.”
Suguru toys with the ends of his hair. He got it cut the other day and all of a sudden, has started wearing it down all the time. Not that Satoru’s complaining.
“Chicken?”
“On me?”
“On you.” Suguru puts his book down on the side table and goes to get his shoes.
“Thank you, come again!”
Satoru holds out a drumstick once they sit down, crumbs landing on the table. Suguru edges away, lip curling slightly in disgust. “Anyone ever told you that you eat like a five-year-old?”
“You, Ieiri. The old man. Nanami. Utahime.” He bites into the meat and then shovels a spoonful of coleslaw into his mouth. “Pretty much everybody.”
“You are so gross, dude.” Suguru chews a fry. Rests his head on his fist. Satoru shrugs and smiles around his mouthful of food before swallowing. He sets the drumstick down.
“Gimme a fry.” Satoru makes grabby hands, avoiding the other boy’s watchful eyes until he looks away long enough for Satoru to steal some.
Suguru sighs and looks out the front window of the KFC wistfully.
A long stretch of silence passes where neither of them says anything, Satoru catching glances of the other boy’s face between mouthfuls of coleslaw.
“Do you regret kissing me, Satoru?” Is that why you ran from me? Left me cold on the engawa?
Satoru pauses and then swallows. Comtemplates what to say.
“Yes. I did.” He wipes his mouth and hands, grease staining the brown napkins. He feels diminutive, childish. Shrinking under the gaze of Suguru, head still resting on his fist.
“So, what was it—the fact you were kissing a boy?” Suguru smirks and it’s like a twist of a knife, “Or the fact you were kissing me? Both, maybe?”
Satoru’s Adam’s apple bobs. His throat dries. Confrontation is his mother tongue, where he exists in a state of comfort, even as a kid. Yet the words are stuck on his tongue. The fat of his lip is caught between his teeth. Discomfort shrouds him like a second skin.
“I regretted it, at the time.”
Satoru looks around the restaurant. No one is here except for them and the workers behind the counter. Thankfully. Satoru’s pinky twitches.
“At the time. You had a change of heart then?”
He sees the chance to lighten the mood and he takes it. Like a shark in the bloodied waters. “Flexibility is good, you know. You shouldn’t be so rigid, so hard.”
That gets a chuckle out of Suguru. It’s kind of dead-sounding, but it’s a start.
“Sure. There’s a crumb on your cheek, Satoru.”
“Open up!”
Suguru’s lips part as Satoru’s chopsticks place a piece of chashu pork in the other boy’s mouth. Both of their lips are wet with broth and the takeout bowl sits between them on top of the kotatsu. A window is forever cracked slightly, a remnant of when Satoru tried to open it and broke it.
Noodles find their way into Satoru’s mouth, broth dripping down onto the table.
Jujutsu High is painfully quiet, not that there are that many jujutsu sorcerers to begin with, but Satoru finds that he doesn’t mind the stark quiet. He slides a leg underneath Suguru, using it as leverage to scoot closer. He nudges his head against Suguru’s shoulder, but not before pressing a (surprisingly unsure) kiss to the mole on the column of his throat.
He clears his throat, blinking rapidly. “What are you reading?”
Suguru looks at him with this little smile, one that makes Satoru’s chest feel funny, then at the window, and finally, at the book. “Botchan.”
Satoru nods in recognition and then looks at the window. The moon is not completely full but still just striking, just as beautiful, as it’s always been. His hands sneak up Suguru’s sweatshirt, frigid fingers poking and prodding.
“Your ramen is getting cold.” A glare, one that doesn’t deter him in the slightest.
“I know.” He scoots even closer, clinging to the other boy’s side. Skin to skin. He pouts. “I’m just so bored, Sugu. Entertain me.”
Suguru pats his head, not even looking up. “Shhh.”
“Read to me.”
“Mmm?” The hum lands on Satoru’s ears sweetly, honeyed. Suguru turns a page, starting a new chapter.
“Read.”
The other boy hesitates for a half-second before sighing fondly.
“‘Won't you go fishing?’ asked Red Shirt. He talks in a strangely womanish voice. One would not be able to tell whether he was a man or a woman. As a man he should talk like one. Is he not a college graduate? I can talk man-like enough, and am a graduate from a school of physics at that. It is a shame for a B.A. to have such a squeak.” Suguru murmurs, quiet enough for Satoru to just only hear.
Hand sprawling across the other boy’s chest, Satoru scopes out a heartbeat beneath his fingers. His face presses into the crook between Suguru's collarbone and the right side of his neck. He thinks this is the way it is supposed to be.