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Shoko says he's stupid. Calls him a whole bunch of names to mask how sad she really is. It's the look in her eyes that gives her away. Most wouldn't think much of that bored stare. It's always a deeper level with Shoko, what’s behind her expressionless features. Like she's hiding. Satoru's gotten good at finding her.
The day Suguru walked away from him on that street in Shinjuku was when it started, it was just a wheeze at first. An odd sensation but even odder that it was even there, he hadn't been sick since he mastered RCT. He didn’t feel ill though, other than the suffocating coughing and how his lungs never seemed to get enough air, like he’s always just sprinted a mile and couldn’t catch his breath.
He ignores it. It gets worse.
He doesn’t go to Shoko until he coughs up the first petal, it's a blue that's reminiscent of his eyes. The color of the sky on a cloudless day with flecks of cobalt. When he shows up at her office, he has three petals in his hands.
“Hanahaki,” she says after thoroughly examining him. He gives her a look. Is he supposed to know what that is? She settles down in the rolling-chair across from him. He kicks his legs from his perch on the metal exam table. She regards him with a gaze everyone would find nonchalant besides Satoru. With the exception of Utahime and... Well, maybe not Suguru anymore.
“It’s a disease for unrequited love.” His legs stop mid swing. After a short pause, he laughs. It sounds hollow.
“Yeah, good one Shoko.” Her big brown eyes flick away momentarily. She’s serious.
“It only affects sorcerers,” she says quietly. Like it would lessen the blow. Satoru scoffs. Of course it does.
“Flowers develops in the lungs, causing the afflicted to cough up petals.” Symptoms can include trouble breathing, shortness of breath, fever, chills and extreme cases; suffocation. It’s fatal. Once the flowers grow and fully bloom, the person who contracted Hanahaki dies from being unable to breathe.
“As you found out, RCT can’t fix it. Maybe slow it down a bit.” Shoko says quietly. She was acting so unlike herself, like he was already dead or something.
“How do I get rid of it then?” he asks, leaning back on his hands as he resumes kicking his feet. He isn’t sure if he’s trying to look more unbothered for her or himself.
“There’s two ways.” She rolls over to her bookshelf and grabs some boring looking textbook. She flips it open and shuffles some pages around before she finds what she’s looking for. Her eyes scan over it, her mouth down-turning into a frown as she does. Then she speaks again.
“One way is to keep it, which eventually will kill you.” Yeah, not the best option. Sorcerers died young but he didn’t want to be one of them even if growing old does sound boring now that Suguru was- Well, that’s not something he wants to think about right now.
"The other is surgery. Removing the root completely.” Her eyes continue to scan the rest of the page but she doesn't read it out loud.
“Well, obliviously that one,” Satoru says with a grin. He doesn’t get why Shoko seems so upset. Or, well, he does because he knows he’s being delusional. He knows getting the flower removed isn’t the perfect solution it seems to be. There has to be stipulations.
“If it gets removed you... The feelings you have go away and you lose all your memories of that person.” She doesn’t look at him while she says this, trying to keep all the emotion out of her voice but it still slightly wavers. She was the only person he told. He was so happy then, realizing how he felt. He didn’t think being in love was ever in the cards for him. He had made peace with it by the time he met Suguru in their first year of Jujutsu Tech, when he was far too young to even determine his future.
His fall was quick, his feelings for Suguru speeding into him like the Shinkansen. Ironic that he fell in love so quickly and that very same thing is what’s going to kill him slowly. Who better to do him in though? It’s not like anyone else could hurt him quite like Suguru could.
“Maybe you…” Shoko trails off. She closes the book in her hands with a snap and tosses it on the desk next to her. As she shifts in her rolling-chair, she looks up at him, trying to catch his gaze. He stares at the mole on her cheek instead.
“Maybe you should tell him?” Satoru can't believe she has the audacity to even suggest that.
“I’m not telling him.” Because what would be worse than dying from a flower in your lungs? Telling Suguru that he was in love with him, only to have the other man tell him to his face that he didn’t love him back.
“So, you’re getting the surgery then?” Shoko asks. The answer isn’t immediate, but she isn’t surprised by it in the least.
“I... I don’t know.” The unrequited love for Suguru was suffocating, sure, but thinking about no longer having that love... No longer being able to know Suguru. That’s what makes him feel sick.
“I have to think about it," is the parting he gives Shoko before he teleports out of the room. Except, he doesn’t think about it. He does whatever he can so he doesn’t have time to think about it. He throws himself back into missions, going above Yaga’s head right to the higher-ups to start assigning him any mission that pops up. No matter what grade, as long as he’s constantly busy, he won’t have to face what’s happening. Every day he coughs up more and more petals. Each one a varying shade of darkening blue.
He trusts Shoko to keep her mouth shut about everything.
She doesn’t.
“Are you just going to avoid this?” She asks him one day after hunting him down and cornering him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’s lying, of course. He thinks if he’s annoying enough that Shoko will just drop it out of exasperation.
“You’re going to die if you don’t do something about this.” Satoru thinks that he dies either way. He either suffocates on flowers or he gets rid of the only person he’s ever truly loved. Both sound like dying to him. Truthfully, he hasn’t resigned himself to either fate. He still feels so lost and he pushes down the want to talk to Suguru about it. It’s hard having the person he’s always turned to out of reach.
“I called him.” She says suddenly, practically a whisper.
“What the fuck did you say?” His words are slow, venomous.
“I called Geto.” Her voice is stronger this time. He can tell she’s getting mad as well. She doesn’t get to be mad. Satoru doesn’t think so. He’s the one suffering. Suguru left him. Satoru wasn’t enough for Suguru to stay.
“Why did you call him, Shoko?” He growls as he rounds in on her, towering over her petite frame menacingly. She doesn’t back down. She stares up at him defiantly and says:
“He didn’t answer.” Good. Now, Shoko just needs to leave it alone and never try to call him again.
“But I left a message.” Fury settles in his stomach, and he refuses to speak to her for the next several days. During those days he receives calls from Suguru. He ignores them. The texts he leaves unread. It’s when he finally stops giving Shoko the cold shoulder that Suguru corners him on a mission.
He’s off in the middle of nowhere, tracking down a slippery curse. It’s nothing strong, it’s just sneaky. Satoru’s finally caught it and amid throwing blue at it when Suguru shows up, flying in on his manta ray curse. It was one of Satoru’s favorites. He named it Bubbles. Satoru named all Suguru’s curses... Or did. He doesn’t know what curses the other man has now but he does know none of them have names. At least not ones Satoru gave them.
“What the hell do you want?” His tone is cutting. Suguru smiles pleasantly or at least he tries to. Satoru can tell one of his fake smiles apart from his real ones. His real ones always had Satoru’s heart stuttering.
“That’s not a very warm welcome after not seeing each other for a while.” Suguru chuckles humorlessly. Satoru rolls his eyes.
“You should be grateful I don’t just kill you. It’s what I’m supposed to do.” It’s true, Suguru is basically enemy number one right now. A curse-user. A traitor. A murderer. Satoru doesn’t see all of that. All he sees is someone that used to be his best friend, someone he still loves. Overwhelmingly so.
“Shoko told me you were sick.” He sounds worried and Satoru wonders just how much Shoko told him. How in depth. Does Suguru know it’s Hanahaki? Does Suguru know it’s because of him?
“Like Shoko, you need to mind your own business.” Not like either one of them could do anything about it. Suguru doesn’t love him and Shoko can’t make him. Satoru will handle this, just like he does everything nowadays. Alone.
“Not like you even care.” He says like it’s an afterthought, he doesn’t even mean to say it out loud. Those honey brown eyes Satoru adores so much shine with a sadness that pisses Satoru off. Suguru sighs softly, forlorn.
“Satoru.” No. That’s isn’t fair. Suguru doesn’t get to say his name like that. Like nothing has changed. Like he cares. Like he loves him.
“You know what?” Satoru asks, mouth twists into a sneer, shoulders tense and arms crossed over his chest in an attempt to look as closed off as possible.
“Fuck off, Geto.” The look of hurt flashing across Suguru’s face is the last thing Satoru sees before he teleports away. Causing Suguru pain doesn’t relieve any of Satoru’s though. That’s the day he coughs up a full flower. A blue rose the color of indigo. It's a symbol of unrequited love, a metaphor for that which is unattainable. How fitting.
Shoko eventually coerces him into a checkup after seeing him cough up a flower. She has to take an x-ray since it’s hard to see with cursed energy. The x-rays of his lungs filled with flowers is hauntingly beautiful. Shoko doesn’t take her eyes off of it as she says:
“RCT won’t slow it down anymore, I... It’s in the final stages. Gojo-” Her fingers curl into the fabric of her skirt.
“It’s now or never. It’s the surgery or you live with this until it kills you.” She looks at him then, brown eyes meeting blue.
“Unless you tell him, Gojo you can just-” He cuts her off, hissing at her like an injured cat.
“Just what? Tell him and still either die or remove him from me completely?” He runs his hands through his hair, feeling frustrated. What the hell dd Shoko think was going to happen? He confesses to Suguru and the other man gives up his maniacal plan to kill every non-sorcerer and then he and Satoru run off into the sunset, get married and adopt a Saint Bernard?
“But he-” Shoko tries. Satoru grips his hair, resisting the need to rip it out in vexation.
"He left me, threw away our friendship and left me alone. He doesn’t love me if he’s going to do that.” He’s wheezing, talking too much makes it hard to breathe. He knows he sounds childish, but he doesn’t care. The ache in his lungs is too much. With each labored breath, he feels the flutter of petals.
Shoko doesn’t bring telling Suguru up again, but she does constantly nag him about the surgery. ‘You’ll die if you don’t’ she says. She mentions the balance of the Jujutsu world. She isn’t wrong. If he died, then who will be the boogeyman for the curses? Still, it doesn’t sway his indecision like she thought it would.
Satoru starts noticing the flowers are messing with his cursed energy. He’s struggling with RCT again and his Red will blow up in his face like it did when he was sixteen. This doesn’t deter him from going on missions. Blue can take care of even high-level curses just fine.
Except one day while he is trying to exorcise a grade one, usually pretty simple, he goes into a coughing fit. His body wracks with devastating coughs as he chokes up a full flower. The curse takes advantage of the opening and strikes. Satoru doesn’t remember much of what happened but thankfully the auxiliary manager called Yaga when the veil came down.
Satoru’s tucked into a hospital bed when he comes to. Suguru is sitting next to him, features morphed into the worrisome look he’s always get while they were in school. It feels nostalgic. It makes Satoru’s heart ache while his lungs burn.
“You look terrible.” Suguru breaks the silence first. The tone is teasing and familiar and it makes Satoru want to cry.
“I feel like ass, so,” he says in a tone that matches. He doesn’t know why Suguru is here. Or how Suguru is here. He assumes he’s at Jujutsu Tech but Suguru shouldn’t be able to sit next to him without alarms blaring. Suguru smiles at him, it’s one of his fake placating ones that are usually hilarious because they are never directed at him. This one is and it makes Satoru want to punch it off his face.
The smile doesn’t last long, it falters as quickly as it comes, and he goes back to looking worried, even though that isn’t quite the right word for it. Harrowed. He looks harrowed. Satoru knows that look. The same he wore the summer when they were seventeen. Satoru had asked, several times and all he got in return was ‘I’m fine’ or he was brushed off. Suguru didn’t let him in, he closed himself off and suffered alone. Hm, how funny, Satoru is doing the same thing now.
“Frowning that much will give you wrinkles-” Satoru tries to joke but it falls flat.
“You should get the surgery.” Suguru says, avoiding Satoru’s eyes. He can’t look at him or… More like he won’t. What a coward. He could have the decency to look Satoru in the eyes when he’s stomping his heart to pieces. ‘Get the surgery.’ Satoru knows the underlying meaning of that. ‘I don’t love you.’
Satoru already knew that. He prepared for that. Apparently not enough because it still breaks his heart. Satoru’s breath hitches and he holds it, pleading for the sorrow rising inside of him not to overflow. He wasn’t going to cry in front of Suguru. He rolls over, away from the black-haired man and musters the steadiest sounding voice he can.
“I’m tired. You should go.” Six Eyes tells him that Suguru reaches for him, fingertips just shy of his shoulder. They hover there for a moment before retreating back. Wordlessly, Suguru stands and leaves the room. Satoru coughs up another flower, this time the petals are the color of Suguru's hair and flecked with specks of blood. The black rose lays on the pillow next to him and he stares at it until Shoko comes in hours later.
“I’ll do the surgery,” he tells her. Her voice is soft when she answers ‘okay.’ That’s all they say to each other for the rest of the day. Shoko sits by his bedside, quietly, and lets him mourn the loss of Suguru all over again.
It doesn’t take long for the surgery to be scheduled. It’s kept on a need-to-know basis. So far only Shoko and Yaga know. Plus, the sorcerer surgeon that flies in from America. Shoko didn’t have the skills to do this, she could deal with all the aftercare though. After the flowers are removed, Shoko can heal the surgical damage with RCT. Satoru as well, when his starts acting normal again.
They had to go to an actual hospital for the use of the correct equipment, Shoko is off helping the surgeon prep. Yaga had stepped out for a phone call a while ago. It leaves Satoru alone, as the meds Shoko gave him work through his system. A dose strong enough to put him under.
He’s a little out of it when he feels the flicker of familiar cursed energy, one that he would never fail to recognize... Well, not after today. The removal of the flowers takes with them his love and memories of Suguru. The other man will be a stranger to him. His mind betrays him with wondering if he’ll finally be able to kill Suguru then, without his feelings and cherished moment holding him back.
“Satoru.” The melodic voice that haunts Satoru’s dreams whispers. A hand, rough with callouses, cards through snow white locks.
“Suguru,” he murmurs softly. Suguru’s hand trails down from his hair to cup his cheek, his thumb swiping across the fullness of it gingerly. Satoru leans into the touch with a content sigh.
“Suguru, I miss you...” He blinks his eyes open, vision swimmy from the drugs. He makes a happy noise when Suguru comes into view. His black hair falling around him like a curtain as he bends over Satoru’s bed.
“I know." It's a soft exhale of a sound.
"But you’ll be happier now.” Suguru says but it’s wrong. He’s wrong. Satoru won’t be happier. Suguru makes him happy. Suguru also makes him sad and angry and all kinds of other things. Being in love with Suguru was a whirlwind of emotions. Satoru has never felt so intensely for another person before. Suguru was his first. Suguru was his only.
“No- I- I love-” He tries to protest but Suguru hushes him. He caresses Satoru's cheek, almost adoringly, his breath hitching as he takes a shaky breath.
“Shh, I know.” Suguru’s voice wavers like he was about to cry. Satoru frowns, he didn’t want Suguru to be sad. He tries to say something else, but he can feel himself fading out, the drugs finally kicking in fully to put him under.
He feels a gentle kiss on his forehead before he finally drifts off into darkness.
When he comes to, he feels woozy. He tries to sit up, but he’s pushed back down immediately.
“You shouldn’t get up.” It’s Shoko’s voice. He blinks, his eyes open slowly, wincing at the bright light of the room. She notices and walks over to the light switch and dims the lights.
“I healed all the scarring, but the drugs will take a while to burn completely out of your system.” Drugs? Oh, that’s why he feels this way. Make sense. But scarring? He doesn’t remember exactly why he was here or even where he was. He doesn’t think it’s Jujutsu Tech. Shoko looks down at the clipboard in her hands and says:
“It went smoothly. Dr. Espinoza was able to remove them all.” Wait, remove what again? He almost asks Shoko about it but then he remembers...
“Suguru was here.” Shoko drops the chart in her hands, it clatters to the floor loudly.
“What did you say?” Her voice has an edge to it. Maybe because he brought up Suguru... The other man has been a sore topic for both of them since his defection. Shoko is upset too. Satoru understands, he gets it. Suguru being gone felt like a missing piece to him. Like a part of his soul was gone.
“Suguru. Earlier, he talked to me-” He winces, a migraine brewing behind his eyes. Why was he here again? His mind is still fuzzy from the drugs.
“Gojo, you shouldn't be able to...” She trails off, looking conflicted. She tells him to stay, to not move and that she’s going to go find Yaga and the surgeon. Surgeon? Oh, yeah, he was undergoing some surgery. He still feels hazy, he can’t remember why.
All he remembers is Suguru’s lips against his skin. The kiss on his forehead that felt like he was saying goodbye.
Satoru takes in a deep breath, his lungs ache, and he lets it out slowly. He feels it... The fluttering of petals in his lungs.