Work Text:
Satoru fucked up, he knows it. He knows it, but there’s no way to take it back, and that might just be the worst part about it.
He’s in dire need of some advice, so he barges into Shoko’s room, absolutely frantic to get some help.
“Shoko, I need your help,” he rushes out and Shoko only throws him a lazy look, clearly not convinced of the urgency of the situation.
“I’m not here to help you manage your social life,” she eventually says and Satoru frowns, momentarily forgetting his own very real, very serious problem.
“How do you know it’s that? I could be actively dying.”
“You have a voice for that.”
“A voice.”
“A very Shoko-I-somehow-got-my-arm-unattached-from-my-body-and-now-I-need-help-voice. This is not that. This is your Shoko-I-socially-fucked-up-voice. And with that I cannot help.”
“That’s—uncalled for, actually,” Satoru mutters before he gravity of the situation slams into him all over again. “But please, Shoko, I really do need your help.”
“You’re not going to leave without at least telling me about whatever you fucked up, are you?” she asks, clearly already somewhat resigned to her fate and she only sighs when Satoru shakes his head.
“Nope,” he still says for good measure, just so she knows just how serious this is and finally Shoko gives him her full attention.
“Okay, hit me with it, then,” she says and Satoru takes a deep breath.
“I may have implied to my family that Suguru is my boyfriend,” Satoru rushes out, in case Shoko changes her mind again and because it’s actually painful to admit that and immediately Shoko’s eyebrows fly up.
“Oh, damn,” she whispers. “You really fucked up.”
“I did,” Satoru cries out and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck, I fucked up so badly. How am I ever going to explain that to him in a way that doesn’t make him lose it?” he desperately asks and he doesn’t even need to look up to know that Shoko is wincing.
“I’m not sure that there’s a way,” she carefully says and Satoru almost sobs at that.
He knows that this is bad, that Suguru is probably going to hate him for it and he has no goddamn clue how he’s every going to fix it.
“What if I just don’t tell him?” he tries and Shoko hits him over the head for it.
“You know that your family is going to approach him if they think you’re together. Things are not quite that easy for you prominent clan members,” she reminds him as if Satoru could really have forgotten that.
“I know,” he whines out because it doesn’t help with his problem at all. “He’s going to cut me out of his life, I just know it. And then I’ll have lost him and I’ll have to tell my family that we broke up and I’m not going to survive it.”
“Oh, Satoru,” Shoko helplessly says, because what else is there to say, really.
Satoru is right after all.
Suguru is going to blow a fuse, he’s going to be incredibly mad at Satoru and then he won’t want anything to do with him anymore and just like that Satoru will have lost his one and only and all because he’s stupid and can’t function properly when he talks to his mother.
Fuck.
“Maybe he won’t take it so badly?” Shoko suggests and now that makes Satoru snort out a desperate laugh.
“Yeah, right. That seems likely with how vehemently he has always protested any kind of notion in that direction,” he gives back because people have mistaken them for a couple several times already and every time it was brought up, Suguru almost exploded with anger and he always rushes to set things straight: we’re not together, how dare you even suggest that, never say something like that again.
Satoru always found his reaction a little bit over the top, especially since he didn’t mind it at all and what does it even matter if some strangers think they are together, but Suguru was always quick to shut such suggestions down.
It made it more than clear that he’d never see Satoru in that light, that he’d never want a relationship, no matter how much Satoru wished for it and to fuck up like this now is probably going to cost him Suguru entirely.
Satoru just wants to hide himself away for the rest of his life, hoping that like this he doesn’t have to see Suguru be furious with him for a change.
“What are you going to do?” Shoko asks and Satoru deflates where he stands.
She’s right when she says that his clan will most likely contact Suguru somehow so there’s not really much he can do.
“I’ll have to tell him,” Satoru whispers and Shoko hums.
“That sucks,” she says and that’s the understatement of the year. “I know it’s not much but you can come here to get smashed afterwards if you want,” she then offers and Satoru knows how jealously she hoards her alcohol so for her to offer this, he must really be in deep shit.
“Thanks, I guess,” he mutters and turns back around to the door. “I’ll go destroy the best thing in my life now, then,” he adds on and while it sounds overdramatic, that is exactly how it feels to him.
But there’s no way around it—he already knew that before he came to Shoko—and he just has to be a big boy and get it over with.
He makes his way over to Suguru’s room, dragging his feet a bit, but he still arrives at his door sooner than he’d like.
Satoru takes one deep breath before he knocks and then he shuffles unsurely around as he waits for Suguru’s call.
Instead of doing that, Suguru comes to the door himself, and Satoru flinches.
“Satoru? What’s wrong?” Suguru asks and of course something must be wrong because Satoru normally never knocks. He never needed to, he was always welcome to barge right in, but he knows that he’s going to lose that privilege as soon as he tells Suguru what’s going on, so he better starts behaving accordingly as soon as he can.
“Can I come in?” Satoru asks and Suguru’s face clouds over with worry.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asks and then reaches out to take Satoru’s temperature. “Are you sick?”
“No. Suguru, can I come in?” he asks again and cherishes the way Suguru’s name feels in his mouth.
He’ll probably have to refer to him as Geto once this is all over and that alone is almost enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“You’re freaking me out,” Suguru says but he does step aside to let Satoru in.
“Sorry, I just—there’s something I have to tell you,” Satoru mutters and he can tell that his words do nothing to alleviate Suguru’s worries.
“Okay, spit it out then,” Suguru says once the door is closed behind Satoru and Satoru wrings his hands in front of his chest.
“I just want to start this off with the fact that I didn’t really mean to and I’m really very sorry. If that helps at all.”
“It would, maybe, if you could tell me just what exactly it is you did,” Suguru gives back and Satoru knows that there’s no way around this, that he has to come clean about this and yet he still stalls for a few more precious seconds.
A few seconds more where Suguru doesn’t hate him yet and Satoru hoards them as greedily as he can.
“I made a mistake,” he finally starts with and Suguru frowns.
“Okay. What kind of mistake?” he asks and Satoru starts to pace in his room.
“My mother called me today, and you know how talking with her always gets me,” he explains and Suguru nods, because it’s not news to him that talking to anyone from his family fucks Satoru a little bit up every time. “And she keeps pestering me about finding someone to settle down with and to preferably start producing heirs as soon as possible.”
“You’re not even eighteen yet,” Suguru interjects and Satoru shrugs, because that really has never mattered to his family.
If it were up to them he would probably already be a father, preferably a few times over, just in case they can have more overpowered Gojo’s.
“Not the point,” Satoru mutters.
“What is the point then?”
“The point is that I may have panicked?” he asks and then falls silent again, unable to find the words.
“And done what? Satoru, seriously, do I have to pull every word out of you?” Suguru wants to know, clearly getting impatient now and Satoru takes a deep breath before he finally spills it all.
“I may have blurted out that I’m already seeing someone, but that I wasn’t ready to tell them yet, just so she would get off my back, but of course she didn’t and instead pestered me to know who it was and her guesses were getting increasingly disturbing so I eventually just blurted out that I’m seeing you.”
He doesn’t dare to look at Suguru, doesn’t want to know what kind of face he’s making at hearing that and he’s sure that the yelling is going to start any moment now.
Instead Suguru stays quiet. Eerily so.
“Suguru?” Satoru finally asks and when he looks at Suguru he’s not prepared for the crestfallen look he sees on his face.
“Why would you do that?” Suguru asks, his voice barely above a whisper and he looks so hurt that Satoru feels like the scum of the earth, knowing he was the one to put that look on his face.
He would have preferred anger, he thinks.
“I just—I panicked. I didn’t think.”
“How is that the first thing you can come up with, though? Shoko is right there. Why did it have to be me?”
“Maybe—” Satoru starts and then decides to fuck it. Suguru is going to hate him one way or another, so it’s probably best to put it all out there. “Maybe because it was the first thing I thought of.”
“But why?” Suguru demands to know again and Satoru locks his eyes with.
“Because it’s something I wish was true, so I couldn’t think of anything—anyone—else,” he admits and then waits for the unavoidable anger that’s sure to follow his words.
“You—want me to be your boyfriend?” Suguru mutters and Satoru shrugs.
“Yeah. I have, for a long time. I know how you feel about that, though, so I get it. I know you must be mad, I know you must be disgusted. And I wish I could change it, I wish I could take it all back, but things with my family are not quite that easy and they are not going to ignore this. I expect them to contact you some time this week, so I thought it’s best to warn you before that.”
“Wait, hold on, stop,” Suguru rushes out and holds up his hands as if that could force Satoru’s words to a stop. “What do you mean, you’ve felt that way for a long time?”
“Just that. I’ve been in love with you for months now, Suguru. What else do you want me to say?”
“But you never said anything!”
“Right,” Satoru lets out a bitter laugh. “You think I am that eager to get rejected? I know how you feel about that, I’ve seen the way you react to people assuming this about us, so I always knew I had no chance at all. But I didn’t think with my mother, and now it’s all fucked up.”
“How I feel about that?”
“Suguru, please, can we just skip ahead to the point where you yell at me and tell me to get out and never come back? I can’t do this,” Satoru begs him, because he’s not a fan of dragging the inevitable out like this but he was not prepared for the way Suguru steps forward and takes his hands in his.
“Satoru, I love you,” Suguru says and it’s so out of left field that Satoru doesn’t even understand what’s happening.
“You’re mad at me,” he gives back and watches how Suguru shakes his head, his hair flying.
“I’m not, gods, I’m not! Satoru, I love you. I’m in love with you.”
“But you—that can’t be, you always yelled at people who assumed things about us,” Satoru mutters out, because he wasn’t imagining that. “Even Shoko knows that you’re going to kick me out of your life for this, that’s how much you hate the notion of a romantic relationship with me.”
“Fuck, that’s so not true,” Suguru rushes out. “I’m sorry it came across like that! It’s just—whenever people assumed that I was so hurt because it wasn’t true and there was no way in hell that you’d ever feel that way about me, so I got defensive.”
“What do you mean, I’d never feel that way?”
“I just mean—what would you ever see in me?” Suguru asks and squeezes Satoru’s hands. “I thought I had no chance. I’m not from a big clan, I am nothing special, so why would you ever feel that way about me?”
“Because you’re Suguru,” Satoru gives back as if that explains everything and to him it does.
Suguru is Suguru and that’s why Satoru loves him.
“I didn’t know,” Suguru mutters and rests their foreheads together. “Satoru, I didn’t know. I never would have expected this.”
“So—you’re not mad,” Satoru has to say, because it still makes little sense to him what is happening.
“I’m not mad. I’m overjoyed. I want to be your boyfriend.”
“Really?” Satoru has to ask to make sure.
“Really,” Suguru immediately gives back. “I’m sorry I ever made you think otherwise.”
“It’s not as if I ever said anything to make you think you have a chance, apparently,” Satoru replies even though he wonders how that can be, but maybe that’s a conversation for a later point.
“But I know better now,” Suguru says and tilts his head to brush a kiss over Satoru’s lips. “Boyfriend.”
The word makes Satoru all tingly and he can’t help the big smile that breaks out on his face.
“Boyfriend,” he agrees and dives right in for a real kiss. “I like how that sounds.”
“Me, too,” Suguru admits and when he pulls Satoru in for a bone-crushing hug, he goes easily.
They stay like that for a long time and even though Satoru knows that there will have to be at least one more conversation to be held about this—at least about the expectations his clan will have for Suguru—he thinks that all of that can wait because there’s no power out there that could make him pull away from Suguru at that moment.
Or ever again, but he thinks it might be a little bit too soon to admit that as well. Small steps, he thinks, and buries his face in the crook of Suguru’s neck. He already has what he wants in his arms after all. Everything else can come later.