Work Text:
As I see it, yes.
Suguru has to get in close to read it, as Satoru holds the 8-ball inches from his face, divine perception granted by the Six Eyes be damned.
“I knew it!” Satoru cries, draping an arm around Suguru, the latter’s elegant features pulling into a frown. “I’m less likely, because I’d be too good to get caught.” He sticks out his tongue when his best friend rolls his eyes at him.
“Criminal ability is not something to be proud of, Satoru.” The sounds of two girls fighting over a pillow carry over from the next aisle. “But, I’d say cursed spirit manipulation would be more helpful than limitless, no? I wouldn’t even be at the scene of the crime.”
“You don’t need to be there — your curses shit and piss your residuals everywhere,” he says to Suguru, who had slid out of his arm the second he mentioned piss.
But there’s that glint in his eyes. The glint that shows that he’s let down his exterior, relaxed out of the discipline of his conduct. And Satoru knows that it’s on as they bicker about who has superior unlawful skills on their way out of the store.
It’s a rarity that their schedules have matched up; they’re always sent on different missions, both being the strongest and all. Which is a good thing, because Suguru’s insufferable enough — imagine if there were precious non-sorcerer lives at stake.
Besides, what sort of ridiculous mission would warrant the both of them?
“But it’s not only about criminal ability — it’s also about who’s more likely to become a criminal in the first place,” Suguru remarks, glancing pointedly at Satoru. “Remind me, who here has been to the higher-ups’ office so much that he knows which exact incense they burn?”
The dirtiness of the park bench is no problem, as Satoru lounges above it. Two kids are playing tag behind him. “Nah.” The one in the white shirt is declared ‘it’. “You know what I think?”
He leans in close.
“It’s always the goody-goody ones that turn out bad. They’re always hiding something behind their righteousness. Lulling all the innocents around them before suddenly revealing they were rotten all along.”
The glint in Suguru’s eyes is gone, replaced by something Satoru hasn’t studied enough to properly describe. He’s up close, though, so he tries to take it in.
In fact, he’s awfully close. All the better for documenting how to manipulate him, he supposes.
Satoru doesn’t realise he’s disabled Infinity until the dampness of what he prays is only water soaks into his uniform. He recoils, looks away but catches a last glimpse of Suguru’s eyes as he does.
It’s the default look. Calm. Veiled.
The white-shirt kid trips on nothing and falls face first, crying out in pain. The second is quick to comfort them.
“B-but you might have a point. A previous track record doesn’t exactly help,” Satoru admits, laughing at the surprise blooming on the other’s face.
“Admitting defeat?” Suguru teases. “That's a first.”
Satoru’s smile widens. “Defeat?”
The kid in the white shirt leaps up to tag the other, and blows a raspberry when accused of cheating by feigning injury.
“I don’t see myself being sentenced to death anytime soon,” he says, grinning as he pulls the 8-ball that started the argument out of his back pocket.
~*~
His room’s door is blown off its hinges. But, for all his haste, he does not know what he is looking for.
He knows Yaga is back in his office, and can see him pull the bottle of wine kept under his desk. It’s a shit hiding spot — he, Shoko and Suguru—
The wall is no match for his hand. Plaster rains down before being caught in his Infinity.
His eyes reflect in the vanity mirror. The eyes that couldn’t decipher each look in that other pair. The eyes that had failed him where it had mattered the most.
The eyes that know that the stolen 8-ball is tucked away in his dresser.
It’s no match for the wall, and Satoru turns off Infinity this time, welcoming the sting of the glass against his unmarred skin.
His phone is ringing. Ink is bleeding onto the wall. It’s staining the plush carpet.
He screws his eyes shut like it would help, like he can no longer see the words screaming from the top of the dice.
As I see it, yes.