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0.
It's summer. It's the summer before their first year and they're already being called in on a mission.
"You are the two special grades we have who can handle this," their teacher is telling them. "Think of it as a test of your grade before the year begins."
Satoru scoffs. The guy next to him – Bangs – gives him a side-eyed look.
Their teacher is looking at him too. "Get along," he orders, "otherwise you'll have a long four years ahead of you."
But that's the thing: he's Gojo Satoru. A kid like him doesn't need to get along with people.
Bangs and him both sit in the back of the car while the sorcerer manager drives them. She spins the tale of a curse that haunts the Tokyo Tower, its scales iridescent and its colors so radiant it entices humans into approaching it. "Up that high, workers and visitors alike report a spectacular view of rainbows during the summer," the sorcerer manager tells them. Bangs flips through the curse's file, holding it steadily and politely between them in the case that Satoru wants to read. He doesn't. In fact he is so invested in not reading what Bangs is offering to him that he misses what the sorcerer manager says next.
"A dragon?" Bangs says.
"Yes, Getou," she says. "This curse has already taken out two second grade sorcerers."
"It's whatever," Satoru is saying later, as they're walking into the closed-off Tokyo Tower. The sorcerer manager is setting up the veil now; she is visible over his shoulder until she isn't, just a blob through the veil that only someone with his eyes would be able to make out to be a human anyway. "I bet we can be done with this before Marion Crepes closes."
The corner of Bangs' mouth twitches downward as though he wants to frown. But he keeps a neutral face; Satoru is impressed. "Sorcerers and non-sorcerers alike have died here," he says, opening the door for them to walk inside, "we should show some respect."
"The non-sorcerers didn't even see what was coming, so they died quick." He shrugs and walks in, saying over his shoulder, "It is foolish for sorcerers to die to a curse like this."
"Like this?" Bangs repeats, his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah. If they weren't strong enough why did they accept the mission?" He looks around them, squinting. Cursed energy is rampant, here, trails of non-sorcerers probably upset that they had to leave their tourist trap pit stop early; smaller curses flit about, harmless and too stupid to even approach them. No big bad dragon energy yet. "By the way, Marion Crepes closes at 03:00."
"The clocks in here are broken," Bangs says, brushing by him. "Let's head up. Wouldn't want to keep you from your treat."
The elevators are also broken, apparently. Satoru groans as they begin their ascent of the stairs, annoyed. Mostly because these are new shoes, the coolest sneaker out on the market right now, and already they are digging uncomfortably into the back of his ankle.
They must have climbed six, maybe seven dozen stairs when Satoru says, "Fuck, man, why is Tokyo Tower so tall?"
Bangs stops walking and turns around to look at him. He is not out of breath, in fact hasn't even broken a sweat. Perhaps the perfect image of calm, cool, and collected. "We've only climbed a couple dozen," he says, a smile pulling at his lips, "is Gojo already tired?"
Satoru squints his eyes at him. "No," he says, and he pushes past him to continue marching up, "I'm no wuss."
And yet he's doing that thing where he holds in his breaths, tries to make himself quieter. Because this kid he was paired on a mission with is fine, utterly fine, and he's out of breath climbing fucking stairs . He's the Gojo Satoru, he's the dual heir, and he shouldn't be tired from stairs .
"You okay?" Bangs says, his mouth suddenly way too close to Satoru's ear.
"I'm fine!" Satoru shouts, his voice echoing once, twice back at them. He looks over his shoulder and down at him, sees the goofy ass grin and the raised eyebrow and wow. This kid is annoying. "What're you grinning at?"
"Nothing." Bangs shrugs, but he appears to have a hard time concealing his grin. "Though if Gojo needs... I can carry him the rest of the way up."
Satoru turns and stomps up the stairs as a means to cover up the giggling coming from his partner. No, not partner. From this kid.
(And he's never had someone treat him like this. This teasing. Most kids in the realm of sorcery know not to mess with him. It's refreshing, honestly. Even if it is annoying.)
It's becoming a ridiculous amount of stairs when Bangs asks for a break, which Satoru pretends is a bother to the mission and to his eventual Marion Crepes but, in reality, is much appreciated. They sit a couple stairs apart and Satoru pulls off his sneakers and socks to rub at his ankles. Groans when he sees–
"Blood," Bangs says.
"Ever observant," Satoru says.
"I didn't realize you were in pain." Bangs moves a couple stairs closer, ignoring the sneer Satoru turns towards him and leaning in close to examine his ankles. "I thought you were just weak."
"You're funny," Satoru says, sarcastic. “Me? Weak?”
“You’re the one bleeding out by your ankles.”
“Tsch.” He rolls his socks back up, hiding the hiss (unsuccessfully) at the feeling of cloth sticky with blood sliding back over his raw ankles. “You'll be shit out of luck when we run into this curse; I won't help you.”
Bangs is looking at him funny.
“What?” He barks.
“Well,” he says, and he has the audacity to look almost bashful, “in your condition you won't be running into anything.”
Satoru groans.
When he goes to stand up he falters, slightly, shocked at just how much his feet can hurt now that he's given them a break. Bangs has a hand to the small of his back as an act of balance, annoyingly enough, and when Satoru goes to take another step the hand remains, Bangs stepping closer to provide that support from behind. “Ugh,” Satoru says, more so groans, and at Bangs’ chuckle he throws a glare over his shoulder.
“My offer still stands,” is all Bangs says.
He's surprisingly strong, this kid. He carries Satoru on his back well, as if he isn't a couple inches taller and all legs; his hands are sturdy, gripping the undersides of his thighs, and he only has to heft Satoru up every dozen or so steps. Finally, finally , and perhaps only because he is carrying roughly his weight doubled, does he begin showing signs of effort.
The panting, for starters. “Is Getou tired?” Satoru asks, sing-songy and in his ear. This is the first time he's actively perceived Bangs’ earrings, big black things that look to be made of glass. He's never seen earrings this big before besides in the ears of old Buddhist monks, maybe.
“You're heavy,” Bangs huffs out, hefting Satoru up again.
Satoru laughs. “I could get used to this,” he says, leaning forward so that he can let his arms dangle in front of Bangs’ chest. “Kinda nice, not having to do work on a mission.”
“I'm going to drop you,” Bangs says.
“But Getou is so nice,” Satoru mocks, “acting all polite to our manager; giving a shit about the dead. Surely it isn't a front?”
Bangs grumbles something.
“Huh?” Satoru grins. “What was that?”
“I said: be quiet.”
It's while they're going back and forth like this that Satoru realizes: they're in the domain of a curse. Hence why the stairs are continuing on forever. Hence why the cursed energy around them looks odd, concentrated and seeping into itself. And for a moment he considers telling Bangs, solving this problem and getting the hell out of here before Marion Crepes closes.
Just a moment. But, and this is surprising, he finds he's enjoying himself just as they are.
Bangs realizes himself not too long after. “Wait,” he says, and he cranes his neck to look back at Satoru. “Don't you have good eyes or something?”
“Or something,” Satoru repeats under his breath, scoffing. “I have the eyes. Six eyes.”
“Then why,” and he pauses for drama, maybe, or that's what Satoru likes to think, “why in the hell did you not notice sooner?”
“You didn't notice either,” he says, shrugging.
Bangs sighs. Squeezes his eyes shut and returns his neck to a neutral position and lowers Satoru down.
It's clearly not the curse they were sent for but one that had migrated to a stronger one. They get out easily; a curse with so simple of a domain is easy to disrupt, then exorcize. “Don't destroy it,” Bangs says to him, and so he refrains from crushing it. Watches as Bangs lifts a hand and absorbs it until it is palm-sized. Like a big bouncy ball.
“Uh,” Satoru says, and he points at it.
“You can use your words,” Bangs says, and he tilts his head back and swallows it.
Huh, Satoru thinks to himself, this is what they meant when they said curse manipulator .
“That sucks that you gotta eat them,” he says instead. “You didn't even gag.”
Bangs wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, grimacing. “This isn’t my first time.”
Satoru laughs to himself.
“What?” Bangs says.
“Ah, nothing.” But he can't help his smile. “You just have a good gag reflex, is all.”
Bangs raises an eyebrow. Satoru motions with his hand in front of his face and– he gets it. Bangs gets it because the laugh he barks out echoes loudly back at them.
(And something about that, making someone laugh – it's nice.)
“You're a pervert,” Bangs says, but he's smiling.
1.
When they return to begin the school year later that summer, Getou acts like they’ve never met.
Satoru doesn’t notice at first. He comes into class late, fumbling the suave, cool look he had intended for and instead going for loser that gets yelled at by the teacher on the first day. Not that he had intended to be late but he had finally, finally gotten a good night’s rest and accidentally slept past his usual wake-up time of sunrise.
(Yesterday he had finally tried out sunglasses and, believe it or not, they do more than just look cool. The lack of strain on his eyes just from wearing them for half a day was enough to stop the usual pounding between his temples; he had been quick to request a pair that would entirely black out everything. Waking up without residual pain from yesterday’s headache makes being late worth it, he thinks, though the lecture he receives for it still sucks.)
It's during their lunch break when Satoru tries greeting Getou for real – “Yo! Getou!” And a small wave – that he gets the cold shoulder. At first he thinks Getou didn't hear him, surely, and as their upperclassmen bombard them with greetings and offerings of tours he realizes that no, he truly is ignoring him. Because Getou won't even look his way.
And that's– strange, considering how well their first mission together went.
After lunch is class again until early afternoon. Any time Satoru speaks in class he notices that Getou very pointedly looks at his desk, or out the window, or anywhere else. And when he speaks it is soft, short answers, as if he would rather not be speaking at all. The girl who introduced herself and immediately asked them to call her by her given name, Shoko, speaks more than he does. And she at least interacts with Satoru throughout the day.
Their teacher tells them that tomorrow will be their introductory day on the training grounds and so they get to end a little early today. Getou packs his stuff efficiently and is out the door before Satoru can finish stuffing his bag; he goes to follow after him but is stopped by their teacher with a request to stay back. Shoko gives him a look as she leaves but, now flustered that he can’t follow after Getou and he’s being held back by the teacher, he can’t decipher what it’s supposed to mean.
He’s buzzing with energy while the teacher talks to him. Something about being one of two special grades means for more responsibility, he had better act like it, just because he’s a Gojo doesn’t mean he can get away with acting cocky because that cockiness will get him killed, all boring . He wonders if Getou got this lecture too, probably one to come to class early. Five minutes early? Ten minutes early? “Do I make myself clear?” The teacher says and Satoru, very good at pretending to pay attention, nods and asks if he can leave.
Because school grounds are huge and there are several upperclassmen whom he would prefer not to fend off, searching for Getou proves difficult. He’s not on the training grounds, he’s not in the cafeteria. Satoru is even checking the bathroom when a surprising moment of introspection strikes him: why is he so obsessed with talking to him? It’s their first day. He needs to chill. And besides, who is he to chase after someone just because he had fun with them on one occasion? He’s Gojo Satoru.
So he goes off school grounds. He doesn’t ask permission. Doesn’t care. That was something his teacher had told his class: don’t leave the grounds alone, and definitely don’t leave the grounds alone without informing someone. But the school grounds don’t have a bakery and he could use a sweet treat and besides, if someone misses him that much they can call him on his cell phone.
His return is marked by dark skies, clouds rolling in with the threat of rain and the kind of current to the air that is a promise of a thunderstorm. It is past dinnertime and he does not have a single missed call or text inquiring for his whereabouts. No one noticed his absence. It’s for the better, he thinks, not having anyone notice. On his estate everyone cares, at least one set of eyes on him at all times and often to his detriment. On his estate he doesn’t get to do dumb shit like waste his life away playing video games. On the contrary; despite being spoiled rotten from birth there is an expectation that, in his youth, he at least have the ability to take care of himself. In other, more sickening words: his presence is required at various lessons, whether cooking or baking or calligraphy or whatever. Name a verb that has a lesson associated with it, he’s done it.
Here such a practice is not required. Here he has all the time in the world, day one of it. Now having returned from an afternoon out he spends all this time in the world roaming about campus.
It’s like this he finds him, Getou. He smells something foul first – cigarette smoke? On campus? – and then hears Shoko’s voice. She’s in the women's bathroom. It is perhaps not so odd for her to be in the bathroom – if they’re anything like the men’s bathroom then there are windows for the smoke, not like it is doing that good of a job – but it is odd for Getou, whom she is talking to. They’re chatting together. Maybe even smoking together. And Satoru isn’t bitter, certainly not, and so he enters the women’s bathroom.
His entrance confirms his earlier thoughts; Getou immediately stops talking and looks down at the unlit cigarette in his hand.
“Oh, hello Gojo.” She turns and blows smoke out the window. She looks back at him and says, “This is the girls’ bathroom, you know.”
He laughs. “Tell that to Getou.”
“I did.” She lifts the cigarette to her mouth. It dangles precariously out of the corner of it and yet no ash spills onto her uniform. “He followed me in here.”
Getou throws her a glare. She surely knows he’s doing it, what with the way she smiles despite not looking in his direction. “I would smoke outside but it is about to rain,” she says, answering his question before he can even ask.
“Hm,” he hums, noncommittal. And because he doesn’t care to continue on a conversation he is not invested in, he turns his attention towards Getou: “Hey. Why are you ignoring me?”
Getou coughs. Shoko’s eyebrows fly up her forehead, her smile plastered on her face. He knows when a smile is faked, years of clan bureaucracy under his belt. But he also gets the impression that she is interested, if only due to the fact that she makes no attempt to move or look away out of politeness.
Finally, if only because the several seconds of silence is excruciating, Getou says, “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
Satoru looks over the rim of his sunglasses at him. He’s seated on a chair that someone had to have dragged in ages ago, leaning back with terrible posture and crossed ankles. A completely different student than the one he had presented himself to be in the classroom earlier. “Sure you do. You won’t even look me in the eye.”
Somehow his words are challenge enough; Getou silently meets his gaze.
This serves to piss him off. “You were fine during our mission,” he says, digging his heel into the tiled floor. It’s a test of a theory. Getou’s eyes flicker down to the action and immediately back up and Satoru knows for certain now: Getou does not simply miss things. He perceives even the smallest of movements. “What gives?”
Getou doesn’t say anything, just holds his gaze in quiet defiance. After several seconds Shoko removes the cigarette from her mouth to ash it out the window. Several more seconds and Satoru tsks , pushing his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “The silent act isn’t as cool as you want it to be,” he says, not bitter at all, and he leaves the restroom.
They don’t exchange another word, not even a pleasantry, until they are assigned their “first” mission of the school year a few weeks later.
“I would be better without him here,” Satoru says as they pull up to the closed-off mall. Their teacher looks at him through the rearview mirror and shakes his head. “Seriously. I could take on this curse in half the time it will take if I’m dragging him along.”
Getou scoffs, seated next to him in the backseat. But he doesn’t say a word.
“You’re still a first year,” their teacher says, “so you’ll go together on missions.”
“On all of our missions?”
Their teacher sighs.
Get in, get out. Their teacher emphasizes that along with some other teachings that Satoru hears only in part. He is too distracted by a sign plastered up on the sliding glass door of the mall: a Digimon figurine release exclusive to a store here, in this mall. Only 100 made for this initial release. And he’s not normally a figurine kinda guy but from the gloss finish poster alone it looks like something a true fan like him would want.
“Did you hear any of that?” Their teacher asks him. Satoru nods.
The mall inside looks like one out of a cringe horror movie, everything cast in a blue-gray kind of lighting – in part from the veil lowered outside, he knows – and the echo of footsteps their only company in the quiet. They don’t talk to one another and for that Satoru is grateful, too focused on finding the store that sells the figurine to actually care to hold a stunted, probably awkward conversation. They take the stairs to the second floor. No figurine. No curse either, though he can see the tendrils of its energy. They’ll find it eventually, he thinks. This figurine – now that’s an investment worth prioritizing.
He finds it on the third floor. The store is still open, the figurine still advertised in the window. Which means there is at minimum one left. He rushes in without a word to Getou and looks at the shelves beneath the window display and, low and behold, ten boxes left. He grabs one and, his excitement winning over his desire to be cool and silent, he quietly exclaims.
“What are you doing?” Getou says.
His voice is grating (is not grating) and ruins his celebration. “I’m buying a figurine,” he says, though he feels no obligation to explain himself. He doesn’t get a response and so he looks up at him, shocked to be on the receiving end of a glare. “What? Jealous you can’t afford it?”
Getou’s eyebrows raise up in what Satoru can only guess to be a look of actual, genuine anger. “Whatever. I’m going to look for the curse.”
“Pfft.” Satoru looks back to the figurine. “Good luck.”
He waits for Getou to leave before he fishes his wallet out of his pocket. He sets down the correct amount of money in the tray on the counter and turns to leave–
Not even his reflexes could save him from the impact of Getou’s body crashing into his own. The force with which Getou was thrown has them both colliding with the back wall of the store, glass display cases shattering around them. For some reason he doesn’t even activate his Infinity, glass already embedded in whatever skin was exposed. The back of his head pounds white hot. It appears he took the brunt of it; Getou rolls over in an instant, a hand grabbing the front of Satoru’s shirt and pulling hard . He falls towards him without grace and flinches at the crunch of the plaster and wood flooring where he had just been. A quick glance shows a large, lumpy curse with a hint of Getou’s cursed energy now dissipating into nothingness.
“What–?” He manages to get out, laughing. It's one of his inopportune coping mechanisms: laughter. “What the fuck?”
Getou’s eyes dart about his face and his body, his hand still gripping the front of his shirt. “Are you okay?” He asks, breathless, and Satoru surely is imagining that he is pulling him closer. “What’s wrong with your Infinity?”
Ah, right. He's surprised Getou remembers the name of one of his techniques. “Nothing’s wrong with it,” he says, and he activates it.
The activation of his Infinity doesn’t hurt, per say. In fact at this moment he chooses to not push him out, a very active thought that more so hurts his head to think about than it would ever hurt Getou. Regardless he pulls his hand back as though scalded, his eyes wide and focused on him like he is a child caught touching something he shouldn’t have. And there isn’t time to think on that because whatever curse that had thrown Getou in the first place has now entered the shop.
The curse itself is rather unique. For one: it is currently invisible. He can see how it got the surprise on Getou. The more he looks at it though the more he realizes it isn't actually invisible, not quite, but rather is the reflection and displacement of light in such a way that it is nearly invisible. Which is interesting but not its most spectacular feature; currently it is manipulating the light it is displacing to fire at them. Satoru sees this and thinks to himself that the next four years are going to be like this, some babysitting act of this guy who refuses to interact with him from his high horse, and that upsets him more than the situation they are currently in.
“Move,” Getou commands, and not a moment too soon; the curse hurls the light at them and they maneuver out of the way before it hits them. Not that Satoru needs to move, his Infinity his protection, but there is ‘tanking hits’ and there is ‘tanking hits intelligently ,’ and he prefers the latter.
Something else bothers him though, something he asks about when he and Getou manage to escape out the employee exit in the back and run down the hall towards the public-facing area of the mall: “How did you know to move?”
Getou gives him a sidelong glance. “I just knew,” he says, no further elaboration as they run out into the open space of the third floor mall.
The curse is there, had been lying in wait. It’s a strategic one, that is for certain, and they are turning the corner when it flings force at them again. And again Getou circumvents it.
“You can see it,” Satoru says around his panting, “you have to.”
Getou tsks and beside him, a curse springs up from nothingness. Some pocket somewhere in space around them holds these, certainly. (And Satoru is surely not interested in how that works, why his eyes haven’t yet deciphered the way from whence Getou’s curses manifest. The only thing he cares about is saving his own hide.) “It is trying to keep us away from it,” Getou says instead, not an answer, and it clicks. That’s why it threw Getou away from it; why it uses its power now to keep them away. It is creating space between them in order to protect itself and take them out from a safe distance; it must be extremely difficult to manipulate the constantly changing light that comes with being near another.
In a way, Satoru can relate. It’s difficult to manipulate his Infinity to let someone in, per say, and so when he is using it he often just blocks out everyone. (Today he wanted to show off, maybe. Why else would he challenge himself and let Getou in?)
Getou says, “You can distract it, right?”
“Me? On distraction?” He scoffs. “Let me just…”
But Getou is already gone.
Getou gags when he eats this curse. It is unlike the first time Satoru saw him swallow a curse – the dragon spirit that had haunted Tokyo Tower back in the summer – and he almost feels bad for the guy. Feels worse when he spits up whatever he had for lunch. “You good?”
He shoots him a glare and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I’m just asking, I’m not–” Whatever , why does he care to explain himself? He sighs. “I’m gonna go look for my glasses.”
They had fallen off back in the wrecked store when Getou had been thrown at him. He squats down and picks through shards of glass for a bit before the crunching of glass alerts him to someone crouching down next to him.
“Here,” Getou says, and he lifts up part of a snapped wooden shelf. There his sunglasses are, shattered like the rest of the stuff here. He grabs them, frowning when pieces of the lenses fall out too, and to boot: they snap right in half at the bridge, the other half falling out of his hand and back to the mess below. They both stare at the fallen pieces, unmoving.
A muffled laugh draws his eyes up. Getou’s face is controlled besides a quivering lip; when their eyes meet he laughs again, this time aloud. “I’m sorry,” he immediately says, though his apology is hardly legitimate with how he lifts a hand to his mouth to muffle his laughter again. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, and then he gives up the act.
Satoru’s frown deepens, his eyes narrowing on Getou. “Alright, alright, laugh all you want,” he says, annoyed, and somehow that eggs on Getou’s laughter more. He clutches at his stomach and laughs, his face red and his eyes squeezed shut. It’s like this is the funniest thing he has ever experienced, Satoru’s misfortune. He’s about to tell him to knock it off, his mouth even opening to do so, when he sees something glint in between Getou’s teeth.
He squints.
And immediately blurts, “Oh, you have a tongue piercing.”
This gets Getou to stop laughing, though he’s still smiling. “Huh?” He wipes at his one eye and then the other, chuckling. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have a tongue piercing.” And he sticks out his tongue.
He sticks out his tongue like the lead actress in a bad porno. This is the first and immediate thought that enters Satoru’s head and he blinks hard, reeling. Why is that the first thing he thinks of? He doesn’t even like the dude. He doesn’t even like dudes.
But another thought takes over: it suits him. He looks good with it. And Satoru can’t stop staring at it.
Getou must take his shocked silence for disgust; his tongue retreats back behind his teeth and like that, the spell that had overcome Satoru dissipates. “Tch. I should’ve known you were a prude.”
A prude? Satoru lets out a noise that can best be described as a guffaw . “I’m not.”
“You’re acting it.”
Satoru rolls his eyes and says, “I preferred it when you weren’t talking.”
They had left off like this back in the summer, the constant digs at one another. This is what he had expected when school started a couple weeks ago; this is what he wants. But after a couple quips, quiet takes over once more. And he isn't one to complain (he is most certainly one to complain, but he isn’t one to admit that he wants Getou to be his friend to himself, let alone out loud), so he settles into the silence.
Back at school he reports right to Shoko while Getou does the paperwork.
“I’m shocked you got this injured,” she says, a cigarette dangling from her lips. He wonders how she is able to get away with it, the whole smoking-in-the-morgue bit, when he realizes it is unlit and it doesn’t smell of smoke. Only her uniform smells. “Were you distracted?”
“Huh?”
She laughs a little and repeats herself.
“Nah,” and he hisses as her technique stitches up the skin of his scalp. It is a hot sensation, not painful but odd, like the sped up version of skin stitching itself back together. He can’t get used to it just like he can’t do it himself. “The curse threw Getou at me and I didn’t react fast enough.”
She hums and applies a balm to a now-scab on his cheek. “Why wasn’t your technique up?”
He heard her but he still goes, “Hm?”
She doesn’t say anything, just continues applying the balm to his different cuts.
He ponders it until Shoko is done tending to his wounds and Getou walks in the morgue. Him and Satoru meet eyes; Getou breaks eye contact first, looking at something on Satoru’s face and then turning to Shoko as he greets her. That annoys him so much so that he hops up from his seat and leaves without so much as a goodbye. Shoko shouts after him to keep up with the balm or else his wounds will scar and he shouts back some noncommittal response.
Only when he is back in his room does he let out his frustration with a groan, flopping onto his bed with no regard for the fact that he is still wearing his dusty, dirtied uniform. He doesn’t know why he wants to talk to Getou when he annoys him so much. He was fine before their mission together this past summer. He was even fine dealing with it once he accepted that for some reason, he did not want to talk to him at the start of this year. And yet that laughter–
He groans again with how hot his face gets. That laughter – that tongue piercing – keeps returning to the forefront of his mind. Why does he want– ugh , why does he want to see it again? Why now does he recall the glisten of a silver ball on his tongue, the way his lips quirked up at the sides, clearly a smile? The hint of it through uncontrollable laughter…
It’s some time before he is bothered to move; his stomach growling reminds him that he should probably eat dinner. He lifts his head and looks at his alarm clock on his desk: 19:56–
He sits up abruptly.
There on his desk sits the figure he had bought at the mall. The kicker: he had forgotten it in the aftermath of their fight with the curse. So how did it end up here, in his room and in perfect condition?
He doesn’t even need to ask that question: Getou’s cursed energy is all over it.
He smiles.
“You know,” Shoko says to him, “you’re driving him crazy with the cold shoulder.”
Of course he knows. Suguru is driving himself crazy with the cold shoulder. “And?”
She laughs at this and lights her cigarette, offering the lit match to him. He declines, cigarette unlit in his hand, and she waves out the flame. “Why? Didn’t you two get along during your first mission?”
He watches her inhale something that is terrible for her health. The smoke lingers when she exhales it, her lips parted just enough to blow it up and away from him. She knows he hasn’t gathered the courage to smoke his own and tries to at least be mindful of blowing right into his face.
She catches him watching and meets his stare. “Well?”
“Tch.” He looks away, embarrassment warming his ears and cheeks. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Who am I going to tell? Gojo?”
She very well could. He could tell her his secret and she could run right to him and blab. Will she? “I like him,” he says softly. He’s kindling it by talking about it but now that he’s spilled it, he can’t stop, “I started liking him and– I thought I could ignore him until it went away.”
But it hasn’t gone away, this crush.
She doesn’t react adversely to his confession. He had suspected she wouldn’t, though there is always a chance. People aren’t gay and open about it – at least they aren’t here. “But he’s persistent,” she says, her voice light with a laugh.
He knows what she means: Gojo is persistent, yes, but so is his crush.
“But he’s persistent,” Suguru echoes, willing away his blush.
At least this hobby of her’s – the smoking – won’t hurt her in the long run, what with her cursed technique; he knows this will only hurt him and yet, and yet–
They both look up at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Gojo runs up to them, panting and flushed red, and in his hand: a boxed figurine. Suguru stares hard at it.
“Suguru,” Gojo says, and Suguru’s eyes snap up to his bright blue ones, “thanks!”
–And yet he can’t quit it now.