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“But, Suguru,” Satoru whines, leaning against his friend with an arm thrown around his shoulder. Suguru rolls his eyes for what feels like the umpteenth time in the last five minutes.
“You really won’t buy me it? It’s so cute, look at it!” Satoru leans down to pick up the My Melody Cinnamoroll plush, squeezing it between his hands.
“Buy it for yourself, you have way more money than me anyways,” Suguru points out, and Satoru deflates against his side with a pout.
“It’s more meaningful coming from someone else…” He sighs, staring dejectedly at the plush. God, one of these days, Suguru is going to be able to convince himself that Satoru doesn’t have him wrapped around his finger. Evidently, though, that day is not today.
“Fine, I’ll buy it, jeez,” He complains, grabbing the toy from Satoru’s hands. “Now quit being such a girl about it.”
Suguru almost doesn’t catch it, the way Satoru stiffens slightly, the way he leans away from Suguru’s side jerkily, a half aborted action. Suguru pauses, frowning over at his friend, not sure what had happened. Was he sensing something that Suguru couldn’t? A curse?
“Satoru, are you—?”
“Ah, Suguru, I can always count on you!” Satoru interrupts, flipping so seamlessly back into his normal self that Suguru could almost pretend that nothing had happened at all. Almost.
“Satoru, did something happen? Did your six eyes pick up on something?” Suguru asks, his defenses already up, ready to fend off whatever had made Satoru react like that. However, Satoru just raises a confused eyebrow at him.
“Huh? No? Why? I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re fine,” He says, and he sounds almost normal. Suguru’s not entirely convinced. “Now are you going to buy me the Cinnamoroll or not?”
Suguru watches him for another long second, but when nothing else strange happens, he sighs, deciding to let it go. Whatever it was, Satoru was clearly over it by now, so it was fine. Instead he glances down at the plush, before heading over to the check out, Satoru hot on his heels.
“I’d say it looks like me, wouldn’t you?” Satoru asks once they’ve left the store, holding the plush up next to his face with a grin. “It’s even got my eyes.”
“Yaga-sensei would hate it,” Suguru replies, and Satoru lets out an offended gasp before they turn to head toward the bus stop.
Nothing else happens regarding Satoru’s momentary… whatever that was. But Suguru can’t help but notice that Satoru isn’t touching him as much as he usually does on the way back to campus, not throwing an arm over his shoulder or looping their elbows together or resting his head on Suguru’s shoulder during the bus ride. Which, sure, he doesn’t do it all the time, but the absence of it feels…
Weird. It feels weird.
Satoru’s not-quite-severe-enough-to-be-strange behaviour continues, much to Suguru’s worry. Nothing too obvious, it’s not like Satoru’s withdrawn from him completely, but their previously constant touches are now growing fewer and farther between. And Satoru had even shied away from a pat on the shoulder that Suguru had tried to give him at the end of their last mission.
It makes Suguru’s stomach sink into his gut every time, a feeling he’s not quite used to but definitely not a fan of. It feels wrong. Something is wrong.
He tries to bring it up a few times, he really does, but Satoru is nothing if not slippery, and he manages to weasel his way out of the conversation without any breakthroughs easily every time, no matter how Suguru phrases it.
“Satoru, is something wrong?”
“Did something happen?”
“Has something been bothering you?”
“Why are you being so…”
And, without fail, every time, Satoru would look at him like he’d grown a second head, before smiling at him, either teasingly or reassuringly, usually teasingly, and ask him if he was the one feeling alright. Because, really, Suguru, there’s nothing wrong.
It’s driving Suguru crazy.
But if Satoru is dodging his questions, there has to be a good reason, right? Maybe he just… doesn’t want to touch Suguru anymore. Maybe Suguru had gotten too comfortable with their friendship and overstepped. Maybe Satoru is trying to let him down easy.
Besides, he can’t exactly ask his best friend, “Hey, why aren’t you touching me anymore? Is it something I did?” without it sounding a little… weird.
So, he does what any logical person would do, and ignores it. For three weeks.
It takes three weeks, give or take, of Satoru shying away from his touch, of Satoru initiating almost no contact between the two of them, of Satoru completely brushing him off, for Suguru to finally crack.
He needs to know what’s going on, and if Satoru’s not going to tell him, then he’ll just go to whoever knows his friend best, besides himself, of course.
“Shoko,” He greets, and his friend glances up at him from where she’s standing over a cadaver with a suspicious squint.
“What do you want?” She asks, and Suguru snorts.
“What? I can’t just come to say hi?”
“You can, and it’d be nice if you did, but I can tell just by looking at you that you want something,” Shoko retorts, and Suguru feels a pang of guilt at her words. She’s right, he should definitely try to spend more time with her outside of school. “Don’t tell me Gojo’s gone and injured himself again.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Suguru says, sighing at the prospect. Shoko raises a brow.
“So it is something, then,” She notes, and Suguru opens his mouth to protest, but can’t find it in him to lie to his friend. Shoko glances between the cadaver and Suguru a few times, before huffing out a sigh. “Okay, come back in five with a pack of Mild Sevens, then we’ll talk.”
Suguru follows the order easily enough, returning to the morgue minutes later to find Shoko standing outside of it, fingers twitching with what he can easily recognize as the urge for a smoke. He holds out the pack of cigarettes like a peace offering, and she smiles at him, her eyes somewhat tired around the edges.
“You better have a light, too, I left mine in my dorm,” Shoko says, snatching the pack and popping out a cigarette. Suguru just smiles, digging around in his pocket to find the lighter he keeps on him for Shoko’s sake, before holding it in front of her cigarette and lighting the end.
Shoko inhales deeply, and Suguru watches the smoke billow out of her mouth around the cig, before she leans her head back against the brick wall and motions for Suguru to do the same.
“You want one?” Shoko asks, offering the pack, like every time they find themselves in this situation.
“I’m good,” Suguru responds, following their script, as he pockets his lighter again.
“So, what’s so bad it’s got you coming to me for advice instead of Gojo?” She asks after a moment of silence, and Suguru sighs at the mention of their friend, all his previous worries creeping back into the forefront of his mind.
“I think I fucked up,” He mutters, and Shoko glances at him and puffs out a breath of smoke.
“Elaborate?”
And so, Suguru does. He spends the next five minutes telling her about how all of a sudden Satoru started acting weird around him, started shying away from their usual touching, started giving him these weird, almost pained looks when he thought Suguru wasn’t looking. How he always just laughed and shrugged it off when Suguru asked him what was wrong, but it was so obvious that something was but Suguru had no idea what he’d done.
Shoko listens to all of this patiently, waiting for Suguru to finish his rant before speaking up.
“You sure you didn’t say anything to set him off? Some little comment somewhere?” She asks, and Suguru just sighs, shoulders deflating slightly. Maybe he should ask for that smoke.
“If I did, I don’t remember it,” He admits, even if the prospect makes him feel somewhat guilty. Shoko just hums contemplatively around her cigarette.
“I have an idea of what’s wrong with him,” She eventually admits, almost cautious. “But Gojo would kill me if he knew I told you.”
Suguru snaps his head to look at her, somewhat skeptical that the answer to the questions that have been keeping him up at night these past few weeks could be answered so easily.
“Seriously? Shoko, you have to tell me, this shit is eating me alive,” He admits, even though he feels somewhat childish for it. Shoko doesn’t tease him, though, just purses her lips as if considering it.
After a moment’s hesitation, she shakes her head, but he can’t tell if it’s a dismissal of his request or of her own refusal to tell him, so he stays silent and waits.
“Geto,” She eventually says, slowly, like she’s testing the waters. “How do you… feel about Gojo?”
Suguru feels like he’s been stopped in his tracks, and he glances at his friend like a deer caught in the headlights. He’s silent for a moment too long, before he’s breaking eye contact and coughing out an unconvincing: “What do you mean?”
Shoko just keeps looking at him like she knows, and Suguru suddenly feels like the air is too stuffy, despite the fact that they’re outside.
“You’re into him,” She doesn’t phrase it like a question, but Suguru shakes his head anyways.
“I’m not,” He argues, but Shoko just gives him a blank, unconvinced look.
“Come on, Geto, it’s written all over your face.”
“He’s just—” Suguru pauses. “We’re just friends.”
Shoko raises a dubious eyebrow at him.
“Did you say something like that to Gojo? Or in front of him?” She asks, and Suguru, heart racing in his chest and his cheeks feeling uncomfortably warm, takes a second to process her words.
“Um… no? I don’t think so?” A pause, Shoko doesn’t say anything, so Suguru continues, “Why?”
Shoko levels him with a flat look, before sighing, seemingly relenting on something.
“Look, it’s not my place to tell you this, but whatever you’re feeling about Gojo, y’know, in here—” She taps the center of Suguru’s chest with a finger pointedly, “—I’m almost certain that Gojo feels the same way. And that’s probably why he’s been acting weird around you recently.”
Suguru still isn’t entirely sure what she’s getting at, or maybe he’s just being intentionally dull, but she hits her point home with her next statement.
“Apparently, even the Gojo Satoru doesn’t know how to act around his crush.”
And Suguru, who has dealt with his fair share of special grade curses without flinching, without a worry in the world, suddenly has no idea what he’s supposed to say to that. What he’s supposed to do with that information.
A crush? Satoru? On him?
What?
He opens his mouth to say something, and Shoko seems to catch onto what he’s going to say before even he does, because she just holds up a hand to stop him.
“Nope, I’m done now. Advice given. The rest is up to you two to sort it out for yourselves. My role in this is done,” Her tone leaves no room for argument, but Suguru wants to say something anyways, because none of this makes sense. There’s no way Satoru likes him like that… there’s just no way.
But Shoko has made her stance fairly clear, so Suguru accepts defeat, mumbling out a quiet, thanks for listening, before shuffling away from his friend and heading back to his dorm, needing a moment away from everything in order to process all of this in peace.
However, the universe is not kind to Suguru, so when he gets to his dorm, Satoru is there.
He shouldn’t necessarily be surprised, seeing his friend laid out on his bed, playing mindlessly on his gameboy with jerky movements, clearly struggling to pass the level of whatever game he’s playing. It’s not as though Satoru didn’t often come to his room uninvited, but he hadn’t done so for a few weeks. Not since things got… weird between them.
“Yo, Suguru,” Satoru greets casually, sitting up and crossing his legs, eyes still glued to the screen, it’s then that Suguru notices, cheeks heating slightly, that Satoru is—
“Are you wearing my hoodie?”
“Huh?” Satoru asks, still mashing buttons. “Uh, yeah. I got cold.”
Right, he got cold. Right. This is fine, it isn’t like it’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened. It isn’t like Suguru thinks he looks cute or something.
Nope, not that at all.
“Where’ve you been?” Satoru asks, finally seemingly beating the level and flipping the gameboy closed, his eyes flickering up to Suguru’s. He’s not wearing his sunglasses, Suguru notes.
“Talking with Shoko,” Suguru replies, still standing in his own doorway. He steps in once he realizes it, and closes the door behind him, toeing off his shoes and placing them next to Satoru’s sloppily discarded ones.
“Bleh, explains why you stink,” Satoru says, ever the gentleman, and Suguru just scoffs, coming to sit next to him on the bed, shoving at his shoulder in playful annoyance.
Satoru freezes up slightly at the touch, as he has been doing for the last three weeks, and Suguru internally deflates. Maybe it was too much to hope for, having Satoru in his room again, acting normal again, that whatever was going on between them would disappear, just like that.
“Actually, Suguru, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Satoru says, and he sounds so uncharacteristically unsure that Suguru can’t help but glance over at him, somewhat bewildered. Satoru is chewing his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes anywhere but on Suguru. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks.
Suguru’s heart skips a beat, and he can’t help but recall Shoko’s words. Whatever you’re feeling about Gojo, I’m almost certain that Gojo feels the same way.
Suguru’s throat feels dry.
“Uh, yeah, what— what is it?” He inwardly curses himself for the stutter, doing his best to steel himself for what Satoru’s about to confess.
“Well, there’s something I haven’t told you. About— about me,” Satoru says carefully, and Suguru swallows, nodding minutely.
“You can tell me anything, Satoru.”
“Right, it’s just…” Satoru pauses, seemingly unsure of how to continue. “Well, this is kinda… weird, I guess. I just don’t want you to think of me differently.”
Suguru’s heart is beating out of his chest. He doesn’t know what Satoru’s trying to say to him right now, but it almost sounds like…
A confession.
“Nothing could make me see you differently,” Suguru finds himself comforting Satoru, despite his own internal panic. “So don’t worry about that.”
“Right,” Satoru agrees, though he still sounds hesitant. And really, what could it be, if not what Suguru thinks it is? What else could make his friend nervous like this, what else could make him avoid Suguru, what else would make him blush like that?
“Well, Suguru, the truth is, I—”
“I do, too.”
“I’m trans.”
Wait, what?
“You— huh?” Suguru says, mind reeling. That’s not— that’s not what he thought Satoru was going to say at all. And he’d even—
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘I do, too’?”
“I mean, that’s not—” Suguru paused. “I thought you were going to say something else.”
“Oh,” Satoru replies, and they both sit in silence for a long moment, neither looking at each other, both just processing what had been said.
“Wait, so you’re… you’re trans? Do you want me to start calling you ‘she’?” Suguru finally breaks the silence, but nearly punches himself at what he lands on.
“Huh? No,” Satoru makes a face, before making an aborted gesture with his hand that does little to explain anything. “No, the other way.”
“Ah,” Suguru replies. “Okay.”
Silence envelopes them again, and Suguru finally snaps back into himself, realizing with a jolt just how subpar his response was. And, when he glances up at Satoru, his friend is staring pointedly at the floor, his face in a carefully crafted mask of calm that doesn’t fool Suguru one bit.
“Shit,” He mutters, before reaching out to grasp Satoru’s shoulder. His friend finally, finally looks at him, and for the first time in weeks, doesn’t shy away from the touch.
“Satoru, I don’t see you any differently. I don’t think of you any differently. Why would I? You’re still my best friend. You’re still Satoru,” He pauses, considering his words. “You could’ve told me any time. Really, it doesn’t change anything.”
Satoru finally eases up at that, his eyes relaxing into a fond relief. Suguru feels trapped by them suddenly, before his mind is spinning back to a moment, a moment that he’d hardly even registered, but suddenly, Satoru’s behaviour for the past three weeks makes perfect sense.
“Oh, shit,” He groans, rubbing a hand over his face. “It’s because I told you not to be such a girl, isn’t it?”
Satour’s expression is somewhat awkward, but he also seems mildly amused by Suguru’s reaction, and he just shrugs.
“I overreacted. I just thought that maybe you were… I don’t know. Against it, or something.” And that’s maybe the closest thing to an apology Suguru will ever hear from Satoru—not that he has anything to apologize for. Suguru was the one saying stupid shit without thinking.
“Besides, I was being a bit of a girl,” Satoru grins playfully, and Suguru shoves his shoulder slightly, ignoring his friend's laughter.
“Shut up, it was a dumb thing to say, okay?” Suguru relents, and Satoru just bounces back from the shove, grinning ear to ear.
“Okay, I told you, now you tell me,” He says, leaning forward, curiosity written all over his face. Suguru just stares at him blankly.
“Tell you what?”
“What you thought I was going to say,” Satoru clarifies. “What that whole ‘I do, too’ thing was about, duh.”
Suguru pales.
“That was— that was nothing. Forget about it. I got the wrong idea, is all,” Suguru says, but Satoru doesn’t seem convinced, of course he doesn’t, if Suguru knows anything about his friend, it’s that he’s stubborn to a fault.
“It didn’t seem like nothing, you were blushing like crazy,” Satoru teases, and Suguru feels his face betray him by heating up again. “And you should’ve seen your face a second ago when I brought it up again, if anything, it seems pretty important, Suguru.”
“It’s not,” He argues, but once Satoru’s set his mind on something, it’s unlikely he’ll let it go until he’s satisfied with the answer. Maybe Suguru can make something up? But what?
“Yeah, like I’d believe that.”
“It’s just— Shoko just gave me the wrong idea about something, it doesn’t matter. I thought there was something else going on, but there wasn’t, and we’ve cleared everything up now, so let’s just drop it, okay?” Suguru tries, and Satoru watches him for a long moment with squinted eyes, and Suguru meets his eyes defiantly.
However, when Satoru tilts his chin up slightly, Suguru can’t help the way his eyes fall to Satoru’s mouth, just for a moment, not long enough to mean anything, before they’re snapping back up to meet Satoru’s again. Maybe he didn’t notice. Maybe Suguru’s face isn’t as red as it feels.
“Oh,” Satoru says, his eyes widening with understanding, because the universe, as previously stated, hates Suguru. “Suguru, do you—?”
“Shut up, Satoru,” Suguru grits out, his face on fire. He’s so caught up in his own damning slip up, that he almost doesn’t notice how red in the face Satoru’s gotten, his blue eyes darting around Suguru’s face as if searching for an answer to his unasked question.
“Oh, oh,” Satoru murmurs, catching Suguru’s eyes with his own again.
“You thought I was going to confess to you, didn’t you?” Satoru asks, sounding somewhat breathless. Suguru winces slightly.
“No?” He responds, but it sounds unsure, even to his own ears. He fights the urge to wince again.
“You thought I was going to confess to you, and your response was ‘I do, too’, Suguru,” Satoru tells him, like Suguru didn’t already know.
“Okay, this has been great,” Suguru says suddenly, standing from his place on the bed, turning away from Satoru in an attempt to save whatever was left of his dignity. “I’m gonna go. Let’s just forget about this, okay?”
However, when he moves to walk away, he’s stopped by Satoru’s hand on his wrist. Suguru’s breath catches in his throat, and he snaps his attention down to where those fingers are wrapped around his arm.
“Suguru, don’t go yet,” Satoru says, his voice indeterminable. “Stay.”
And how could Suguru say no to that?
So, he grimaces and turns around, facing Satoru again. Satoru, who’s as red as Suguru is, he realizes belatedly. Satoru, who’s searching his expression with his eyes, before scooting over in the bed and patting the spot next to him, encouraging Suguru to sit.
He does, because, as aforementioned, Satoru may or may not have him wrapped around his finger. God, he’s fucked.
“Suguru,” Satoru whispers, his hand still wrapped around Suguru’s wrist, and Suguru glances over at his friend, cautious. “Can you just say it, I’m dying over here.”
“Say it?” Suguru croaks out, not entirely sure what Satoru is asking for. Or, maybe that’s a lie, maybe he’s just buying time.
“Don’t play dumb, Suguru, it doesn’t look good on you.”
Suguru actually snorts at that, some of the tension easing from his frame. He knocks their shoulders together and mutters out an asshole, before Satoru is laughing lightly at him.
He finds himself entranced by it, his eyes glued to his friend’s face as he chuckles, his shoulders shaking with laughter and his eyes warm and soft and fond, and Suguru—
“I like you,” Suguru admits, his voice hushed, like he’s telling a secret. Like it hasn’t already been tacitly established between them.
Satoru grins at him, his face warm with a blush of his own, and he leans towards Suguru, knocking their foreheads together, their noses bumping against each other’s in an action that has Suguru’s breath catching in his throat.
“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Satoru teases, and Suguru huffs out an amused sigh.
“Don’t be a dick, Satoru.”
It’s then that Satoru leans forward, pressing a kiss to the corner of Suguru’s lip, and Suguru thinks he might die, just for a moment. His heart skips a beat and he feels his face go impossibly redder, before Satoru is pulling back, his own face akin to a tomato.
“Satoru,” He whispers, and Satoru just smiles.
“Suguru,” Is the response he gets, and Suguru can feel it ghosting over his lips.
“Kiss me?” Suguru asks, and Satoru grins at him, complying with his request without a second thought.
Their mouths press together, inexperienced and clumsy, but it fills Suguru’s chest with warmth, and when Satoru’s lips move against his, he flutters his eyes shut, leaning into the feeling.
“Suguru, am I your first kiss?” Satoru asks teasingly when they pull away from each other, and Suguru knocks their heads together.
“As if that wasn’t yours too,” He points out, and Satoru just laughs lightly, and Suguru likes him so much.
“Satoru, be my boyfriend?” He asks, a knot of nervousness forming in his chest as he awaits the response. Satoru pauses briefly, his eyes widening slightly, before he’s smiling, softer than Suguru thinks he’s ever seen him smile before, and pressing a kiss to Suguru’s cheek, then to his other one, then a chaste one to his lips, grinning ear to ear.
“I thought you’d never ask.”