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Satoru lets out a happy laugh as he exorcises the last curse of today’s mission and he isn’t too proud to admit that half of it is relief. Today’s mission had been long and while it hadn’t been particularly difficult there had been a lot of curses.
And a lot of them had techniques that Suguru wanted for himself, so Satoru hadn’t been allowed to simply exorcise all of them; that would have been quicker than just weakening them enough for Suguru to transform them into those black orbs he swallows.
But the last curse Satoru just exorcised had been a very standard one, so Suguru wasn’t particularly interested in it.
Which is just as well, Satoru realises when he turns around to Suguru, because he’s already sitting in front of a considerate amount of curses. They almost form a little pile and the thought briefly makes Satoru smile, before he takes in Suguru’s face.
His brow is pinched, the corner of his mouth pulled down and he swallows as if he’s already fighting the bile rising up in his throat, even though Satoru is sure he hasn’t even started to swallow the curses.
Satoru quickly counts the curses and when he comes up to twelve he winces himself. Even one curse leaves Suguru sick to his stomach and throwing up more often than not; if he swallows all of them one after the other, he probably won’t make it out of the bathroom for the rest of the day.
“Are you going to swallow them all?” he asks, walking over to Suguru until he is standing right at the little pile, carefully pushing one of the curses with his foot. “Seriously?”
“What else is there to do?” Suguru asks with a deep sigh as he scrubs a hand over his face. He doesn’t seem very enthused about this, even though it was him who said he wanted all of these curses.
“I know, but even one leaves you sick, right? What are all of them going to do to you?” Satoru can’t help but to ask, because he hates seeing Suguru sick on a normal day, and the amount of curses waiting to be ingested is not normal, not by any stretch.
“Nothing worse than one would, probably,” Suguru gives back and he sounds very, very tired.
Satoru opens his mouth to argue that, but he closes it with an audible click. Suguru is probably right anyway; if one already leaves him sick and heaving into the toilet, Satoru doubts that two or ten or twenty can make that any worse than it already is.
Suguru reaches for the first orb, but Satoru’s hand shoots out, closing around his wrist, stopping him from taking the curse.
“What are you doing?”
“Are they going to go, like, bad?” Satoru asks, tilting his head in question. “If you let them sit for a while?”
Suguru blinks at him as he digests that question.
“They are not food, Satoru,” he finally mutters. “They are not going to go bad. They are just going to sit there, just like they are now.”
“Okay,” Satoru nods, decision made, and he starts to stuff his pockets with the curses.
“What are you doing?” Suguru asks, sounding exasperated but he doesn’t help Satoru and he’s running out of storage space real quick.
He’ll probably have to juggle a few of the curses like the world’s worst juggle balls if Suguru doesn’t get with the program and help him.
“If they will hold, then there’s no need for you to immediately swallow them, right?” Satoru asks, not stopping to stash more curses into his pockets. “Let’s just go home, where you’re comfortable in your own room and where a toilet is nearby and then I can hold back your hair when you throw up and I can get you some snacks as well and even though it’ll suck—because it will always suck—maybe it’ll suck a little less like that.”
He can’t bring himself to meet Suguru’s eyes as he says it, fearing that he might be revealing too much already, showing just how much he cares for Suguru, about Suguru, but even like this he sees the smile that flits over Suguru’s face at his suggestion.
“Alright,” Suguru agrees and holds a hand out for his own share of curses. Satoru’s pockets are already close to bursting and Suguru’s pants fit more of them anyway, so Satoru is more than happy to hand over as many as he can.
Suguru goes a little paler with every curse that disappears into his pants and Satoru knows that he already dreads what’s to come. With the sheer amount of curses, he’ll probably be out of commission until tomorrow morning or maybe even until the afternoon and Satoru vows then and there to personally kick Yaga to the moon, should he barge in with another mission for them before Suguru feels better.
“Do you want to stop somewhere to pick up something to eat? My treat,” Satoru offers once all the curses are safely hidden away and immediately Suguru’s eyes narrow.
“Your treat?” he asks, clearly mistrusting Satoru’s words, and maybe rightfully so, Satoru realises as he goes bright red in the face.
Usually he pesters Suguru until he pays for everything, even though Satoru has the money to buy their lunch and dinner, and probably the entire shop on top of it, but he likes knowing that Suguru is taking care of him, however unwilling it might be on Suguru’s part.
And it’s not as if Suguru ever outright refuses Satoru; he complaints and he huffs about it, but in the end he always has his wallet ready and he never ever asks Satoru for the money back. Surely he must like taking care of Satoru as well?
“My treat,” Satoru still repeats, because this time, he’ll pay. Suguru’s day is only going to go downhill from here on out and Satoru wants to do at least that for him.
Suguru looks at him as if he doesn’t believe a single word that comes out of his mouth but he nods anyway. Satoru did see him check if he has his wallet, though, and he presses his lips together. It’s a deserved distrust, but he’s going to surprise Suguru today.
“Isn’t there this café one stop away, the one that makes the little cupcakes you like so much?” Suguru asks and seems confused when Satoru puffs out his cheeks in anger.
“But I want to pick something you like,” Satoru mutters, trying to put his hands into his pockets before he remembers that they are already full with curses and Suguru sighs again.
Satoru can’t quite read his thoughts off his face this time so he simply has to wait him out; wait for him to tell him where else they could go, so that he can pick something he likes.
“They sell sandwiches there as well. I like those,” Suguru finally offers and Satoru narrows his eyes at him, but he can’t spot a lie on his face.
And normally he can, because he knows all of Suguru’s tells by now.
“Alright, then,” Satoru rushes out. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” Suguru agrees and starts to walk towards the direction of the station, Satoru happily skipping after him.
That café does make amazing cupcakes and if Suguru likes the sandwiches there as well, then that’s even better. They get a bunch of cupcakes for Satoru because he can’t quite decide which he’d like, and Suguru picks out two sandwiches for himself as well, which makes Satoru smile. When their total is called, Suguru already reaches for his wallet, as if he forgot all about Satoru’s previous words—or maybe as if he doesn’t trust Satoru, which ouch—but Satoru is faster. He pays for everything before Suguru even gets a chance to pull his wallet out and when Suguru raises a surprised eyebrow at him, Satoru simply smiles smugly at him.
It might be a first, but he stands by his words. He said it’s his treat and so it is.
Suguru takes the train ride back to rest a bit, his eyes closed and his shoulder pressed against Satoru’s and Satoru is this close to do something stupid, like rest his head against Suguru’s, so he busies himself with the cupcakes.
By the time they make it back to the dorm, he’s already two short.
Suguru immediately makes for his room when they get back to the school and Satoru follows him, hot on his heels, because he did mean it when he said he’d hold his hair back when he has to throw up.
“Do you need me to get you anything else? Something to drink, maybe?” Satoru asks, hating how bad Suguru will feel in a bit and Suguru is clearly confused by his attentiveness, going by the little crease between his eyes.
“Do you still have—” he still starts but then hesitates for some reason. Satoru waits him out though, because it’s not often that Suguru asks for something and Satoru will make sure to get it, whatever it is. “Do you still have some of those hard candies you usually carry around with you?” Suguru finally finishes his question. “Those help, sometimes,” he admits and Satoru smiles excitedly at him.
“I do! Wait, I’ll go get them, I have a whole bag in my room!” He rushes to the center of Suguru’s room, unloading all of the curses from his pockets onto the table before he turns around again, leaving Suguru briefly to get him exactly what he wants. “I knew you like them, I just knew it,” he mutters under his breath, happy that his foresight of buying like fifteen packs of those candies is going to pay off now and he grabs an armful of them once he’s in his room.
By the time he gets back to Suguru’s, he already has a curse in his hand.
“Here, I have however many you like,” Satoru exclaims, dropping the bags on top of the curses and Suguru levels him with a deadpan stare.
“Clearly,” he drily gives back and then, with a deep breath, pops the curse into his mouth and swallows it, just like that.
Satoru can’t take his eyes off his throat, entranced by the way the curse extends it, letting Satoru know exactly how far down it already is, and when Suguru swallows, Satoru swallows reflexively with him.
It always looks a little bit painful, how Suguru swallows these curses, but he once told Satoru that that’s not the case of all. It’s the taste that upsets him, most of all, and Satoru cannot help but to wish that the curses would taste like Suguru’s preferred candy, just to make this easier on him.
“Bah,” Suguru says, once the curse is down and Satoru takes that opportunity to pop a candy into his mouth.
“You said it helped,” he defends himself when Suguru glares at him, but he does close his mouth and Satoru can tell that he sucks on the candy as well.
It makes Satoru go a little bit hot under the collar and he quickly averts his eyes. When they drop to the stash of curses still on Suguru’s table, that feeling doesn’t dissipate, though. There are still so many left to swallow.
“Do you want to move this to the bathroom?” he asks, mentally counting down the minutes until Suguru starts to heave, because they have gone through this enough times by now for Satoru to know the pattern.
“Might be best,” Suguru agrees, voice tight and he turns around and leaves, trusting Satoru to follow him with the curses.
Suguru takes a second one as soon as he sat down next to the toilet and swallows that, too, a third following quickly.
Satoru watches him, completely enraptured by the sight and it’s only when Suguru glares at him that he realises that he’s staring.
“What are you looking at?” Suguru bites out and Satoru presses his lips together so the immediate answer of ‘You’ doesn’t slip out.
In all honesty, though, Satoru wouldn’t even know how to put it into words, what it is he’s looking at, what he wants. Because how do you explain to your best friend that you might be fantasising about turning into a curse yourself just so that he can swallow you whole, so that you can live inside of him, safely nestled in his cursed energy.
The thought alone makes Satoru blush; there’s no way he could ever say those words to Suguru.
Satoru is pulled out of his thoughts when Suguru starts to heave though and he’s quick to hold his hair out of his face, just like he promised.
It’s a long evening after that.
~*~*~
Satoru can’t shake the thought. It’s stupid and probably all kinds of wrong, and in all honesty, a little bit disturbing, but the thought that Suguru could swallow him won’t leave his mind.
It’s not something that can be done, because Satoru—for all his talents—cannot turn into a curse without dying, and he’s really not looking to do that, so wistful thinking is all he has.
Until another idea enters his mind.
It happens after another mission when Suguru holds his hand out for the curse that got knocked out of his hands earlier and rolled closer to Satoru than to himself.
“Could you bring me that curse?” he asks, blinking up at Satoru who bends down to pick up the orb.
It fits into his hand well, swirling black and golden and if he didn’t know what it would do to Suguru he’d find it pretty, almost. It’s a ball of energy, all compressed together, given shape so that Suguru can swallow it easier.
And maybe, just maybe, Satoru can infuse some of his own cursed energy into it. Just a smidge, just a tiny little bit, just so that he knows and no one notices. That should be possible, right? Because like that, it would almost be as if Suguru swallows him, instead of the curse and Satoru prays to all the deities he knows that he doesn’t go bright red at the thought.
Still, he can’t help himself; once the thought entered his head he simply has to go through with it, and so when he hands the curse to Suguru, there’s the faintest trace of his own cursed energy on it.
Hopefully it’s small enough to not be detected by Suguru, Satoru thinks with mounting despair as Suguru brings it to his lips, hesitating for only the briefest of moments before he swallows it down.
His face scrunches up, like it always does when he tastes a curse but soon it smooths out into confusion.
“Everything alright?” Satoru asks, despite the way his heart is beating rapidly in his chest and Suguru jerks with his question.
“Yeah,” he gives back, voice low and clearly not even convinced himself, but he doesn’t elaborate as he gets up. “Let’s get back, before this—” he waves a hand at his stomach “—starts to act up.”
“Fine by me,” Satoru is quick to agree. “I do have your candies, still.”
“Great,” Suguru says, though his mind is clearly far away and things don’t get better on the way home.
Suguru barely speaks to him and he vanishes into his room as soon as he can, closing the door firmly into Satoru’s face, without even taking his candy.
“Fuck,” Satoru whispers to the closed door, because surely that must mean that Suguru caught on to him and is now mad, right?
What other explanation is there?
Except that things are back to normal the next day, and neither Satoru nor Suguru bring up the previous evening. It feels as if Satoru dodged a bullet there and he vows to never do it again.
He’s simply not made for the rush of nerves that brings him.
~*~*~
It keeps happening. And it’s not entirely Satoru’s fault, he’ll die on that hill if he has to. He tries to not do it anymore, keep his hands off Suguru’s curses so there can be no temptation to infuse them with his own cursed energy, but somehow they always end up in his hands.
At this point, Satoru would suspect Suguru to know, but if he does, he surely would have said something instead of letting Satoru do as he pleases, right?
But Satoru can’t find another explanation for it and he knows that he has to ask, has to come clean about it, but he’s scared.
Scared that Suguru will find him disgusting, that he’ll be mad, that he’ll kick Satoru out of his life.
So Satoru doesn’t say anything, right until it’s all too much and he breaks.
It happens when they are back in Suguru’s room, relaxed after a mission, Suguru showing no signs of being sick, even though he must have swallowed at least one curse, because Satoru saw him transform it. Well, it’s for the better, really, if Suguru doesn’t end up sick after each and every one, and Satoru is happy for him.
At least right until Suguru shoves the curse right into his hands.
“Hold this for a second, will you?” he asks, not waiting for Satoru’s answer and so Satoru is left holding the curse.
He barely gets five seconds with it, before Suguru takes it out of his hands again and immediately pops it into his mouth as if it were his favourite candy and by now infusing Suguru’s curses with his own cursed energy has become second nature to Satoru, so of course there’s a small amount of it in the orb.
And just like always, Satoru goes incredibly hot when Suguru simply swallows it down.
“Huh,” Suguru mutters, once he can and then he fixes Satoru with a look. “So it is you.”
“Huh?” is all Satoru can get out at that, panic fluttering in his belly, because surely Suguru has found him out.
“You turn them into something—tasty,” Suguru admits, and he licks his lips as if he wants more.
Satoru feels faint.
“I do what now?” he presses out, unable to believe that Suguru is not yet yelling at him for being incredibly inappropriate and invasive but Suguru only gives him a soft smile.
“Whenever you hold a curse they taste sweet, almost like spun sugar. And they don’t give me such a hard time, either. I usually can stomach your curses pretty well. How is that?” Suguru asks, curious and still happy about this and Satoru sits heavily down on his bed.
“Fuck,” Satoru mutters as he buries his face in his hands.
He didn’t even stop to consider if Suguru would be able to taste his cursed energy—because why would he—and he has no idea how he’s ever going to explain this now.
“So it is something that you’re doing. Tell me, Satoru.”
“I’d really rather not,” Satoru whines out and then hisses like a disgruntled cat at Suguru when he starts to poke him all over.
“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Suguru chants and Satoru drops his hands with a groan.
“You’re going to be so mad,” he mutters, immediately making Suguru frown.
“Why would I be mad? Did you not listen? Whatever it is you’re doing is making this so, so much easier for me."
“Yeah, you say that now,” Satoru whispers under his breath and mentally calculates if he can make it out of Suguru’s room before he catches him.
Suguru immediately steps into his way, clearly knowing that’s going on in Satoru’s mind.
“Satoru, talk to me,” he demands, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Satoru gulps.
Satoru opens his mouth, even though he can’t think of a convincing lie and Suguru stares him down.
“Do not even think about lying to me.”
And it’s not as if Satoru can, not with that gaze pinned on him.
“I’m infusing them with my own cursed energy,” he finally admits, voice high and thin and wishing the ground would open itself up to swallow him.
Suguru blinks.
“Okay. Why?” he then asks and oh, Satoru hadn’t known that this could get any worse.
“No. Absolutely not. Nu-uh. I’m not telling you that,” he rushes out, because Suguru might tolerate the cursed energy since it helps him, but when Satoru confesses why he really does it—he might as well kill himself where he sits.
“Yes, you are,” Suguru says, assured and steady and without a hint of doubt in his voice and Satoru crumbles like a badly stacked house of cards.
“Because like that it’s almost as if you’re swallowing me,” he wheezes out, immediately hiding his face in his hands again, only waiting for the deathblow to come.
When nothing happens for a long minute, he dares to peek out between his eyes, only to find Suguru staring at him, eyes wide and face incredibly red.
“You wanna explain that any more?” Suguru finally gets out and Satoru really, honestly would love to do nothing at all like that, but now that it’s already somewhat out there it feels as if he can’t stop.
“It’s just—you know—sometimes I think how amazing it would be if I could turn myself into one of your orbs, just so that you can swallow me down, so that I can live inside of you and never be parted from you and if you don’t mind, I’m going to kill myself now,” Satoru rushes out, so red in the face it feels as if he’s going to catch on fire and it doesn’t help that Suguru only blinks at him.
“I would prefer it if you didn’t do that,” he finally says, stepping even closer to Satoru, forcing his legs to open until he can step between them.
Satoru fears his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and it only gets worse when he has to crane his neck to look up at Suguru.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Satoru blurts out, because what else could Suguru possibly want to do and he doesn’t know what to do with the smile he gets in return for his question.
“I thought more about doing this,” Suguru gives back and leans down to capture Satoru’s lips in a kiss.
It’s hot and it’s wet and Satoru is sure he makes an embarrassing noise when Suguru bites at his lip and it puts a lot of things into perspective for Satoru.
“Oh,” he breathes out when Suguru moves away and he chases after him, desperate to get his lips back on his own.
“I like it,” Suguru mutters into the scant space between them, instead of meeting Satoru in another kiss. “I like knowing that you live inside of me, that you’re a part of me now and the fact that you make these damned curses all the sweeter is only the cherry on top,” he admits and Satoru is glad that he’s already sitting down because there’s no way his shaky legs could have carried him through that confession.
“So you’re not mad,” he summarises and Suguru chuckles, making a delighted shiver run down Satoru’s spine.
“I’m not mad.”
“And you don’t mind,” Satoru goes on, slowly finding his footing again and going by the way the smile turns into a smirk, Suguru damn well knows it.
“I don’t mind,” he agrees.
“And you love me,” Satoru boldly states, because he wants all of these things and he loves Suguru, so if Suguru also wants these things, then he must love Satoru in return, right?
“I love you,” Suguru agrees easily and then dives in for another kiss. “And I don’t want you to stop what you’re doing,” he says into Satoru’s mouth before he seals it again and Satoru could die happy like this.
“I won’t, I won’t,” he promises when Suguru gives him a moment to breathe and he slings his arms around Suguru’s neck, pulling him down and down, until Satoru falls back on the bed and Suguru almost crashes into him.
“Careful,” Suguru admonishes him, only barely able to brace his fall with a hand and Satoru muses that he wouldn’t mind, being crushed under Suguru like this.
But maybe that is for another day.
“Tell me more about how good I make them taste,” he says, nibbling at Suguru’s chin and something hot and molten curls in his stomach when Suguru lets out a low chuckle.
“See if you can taste it,” he gives back and leans down for another kiss, one so deep that Satoru is sure the taste left behind must be from the curse.
“I’m not sure, we might have to do that again,” Satoru pants out when they part and when Suguru moves in again, Satoru is barely able to kiss him back, he’s smiling so much.
He should have known that infusing Suguru’s orbs with his cursed energy was a good idea, because Satoru only has good ideas, and this—this is certainly the best idea he ever had.
And going by the way Suguru can’t seem to move away from him, he thinks the same.