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Satoru knows that something is wrong with Suguru.
The part where Satoru holds back Suguru’s hair while he retches in an alleyway after their latest mission isn’t new. Suguru’s technique has always had a physical cost, one that Satoru has tried countless ways to alleviate, from carrying around anti-nausea medication to taking extra care to pummel curses to the brink of exorcism before Suguru swallows them, all to varying degrees of success.
“Well, that looked awful,” Satoru remarks, lightly patting Suguru on the shoulder. “How about we get some ice cream after this, to get the taste out of your mouth?”
There’s just slightly too long of a pause before Suguru says, “Sure.”
And this is the part that’s new for Satoru, seeing Suguru hesitant where he’d once been certain, subdued where he’d once previously matched Satoru’s energy. He’d first noticed it when he’d found Suguru in that village, a terrifying blankness on his face as he’d stood there surrounded by the corpses of the villagers he’d killed. But Satoru thinks it might have started earlier than that, maybe even all the way back to the incident with Amanai Riko.
Despite Satoru’s efforts it hasn’t gone away, not after he’d helped Suguru cover up what he’d done, and not after they’d graduated Jujutsu High and transitioned to being full-time sorcerers, either.
Once outside the veil, Satoru can tell that Suguru isn’t in the mood for the usual post-mission debriefing, so he handles talking to their auxiliary manager and tries not to think about how that had typically been Suguru’s role.
Suguru doesn’t say anything until they get to a nearby convenience store for the promised ice cream, answering in a monotone when Satoru asks him what flavor he wants.
When they go to check out, Suguru tenses up. Satoru immediately goes into high alert, scanning their surroundings, but only turns up a low-level curse hovering over the cashier’s head.
Satoru glances back at Suguru and then towards the cashier incredulously. Suguru’s mouth tightens, as though he’s annoyed at himself for letting Satoru notice his reaction, and that’s confirmation enough for Satoru. He’s still a little confused, but he snaps his fingers and obliterates the curse anyways.
After they’ve paid and left the store, Satoru finally speaks up. “What was that about? We just took down a first grade; you can’t have been scared by that one.”
Maybe he could have phrased it more tactfully, but Satoru is a problem solver. He needs to understand what the issue is, because then he can fix it.
“I wasn’t scared of it,” Suguru says, “it’s just—they keep coming. No matter how many curses we exorcise, no matter how many I swallow, there’s always more.”
“But we’re the strongest,” Satoru points out. “We can handle all of them, from the convenience store curses to the special grades.”
Apparently that was the wrong answer, based on the way Suguru grimaces and turns away.
Satoru takes a bite of his ice cream instead of saying anything else. He hates how he always feels like he’s one step behind Suguru these days, constantly tripping over himself trying to catch up.
Suguru starts walking towards their auxiliary manager’s car and Satoru hurries after him before he can get left behind, reaching out to catch Suguru’s hand with his own. Suguru startles a little at the contact, but lets Satoru lace their fingers together without complaint. Satoru holds his hand for the entire drive home.
That evening as they’re getting ready for bed, Satoru’s phone lights up with a call. He rolls his eyes at Suguru upon seeing the caller ID, but picks it up anyways.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he says into the phone. “Seriously? We only just—fine. Yeah, yeah, first thing in the morning.”
He hangs up without waiting to hear the rest. “Our next mission,” he says to Suguru. “You’d think they could give us one day before throwing the next one at us.”
Suguru just shrugs at him from where he’s sitting on the bed.
Satoru thinks back to how Suguru had looked after today’s mission, and wonders if maybe it’s an issue with the frequency. He sits on the edge of the bed beside Suguru and tentatively asks, “Would it help if we started splitting up for missions again? I know the last time you did a solo mission was like, a whole thing, but maybe…”
After Suguru’s little murder incident, Satoru had twisted the higher-ups’ arms into letting the two of them be assigned together on all their missions going forwards. While two special grade sorcerers can make quick work of anything, it has still effectively doubled their workloads.
And it’s not that Satoru thinks he needs to babysit Suguru so he doesn’t snap and murder another village, but he sometimes feels like if he looks away for a moment then Suguru will be gone. He’d come so close to losing Suguru on that day and he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let it happen again.
“Never mind,” Satoru says. “Forget I said anything.”
Suguru is silent for a moment, and then says, “Do you ever think less of me for what I did that day?”
“What?” Satoru asks, baffled. He shakes his head urgently. “No, not at all.” If anything, he’s upset with himself for not realizing until then how bad things had gotten for Suguru. “I’m not going to hold a…a temporary lapse in judgement against you.”
“But you wouldn’t have had that kind of ‘lapse,’ right?” Suguru says.
“Are you kidding?” Satoru says. “Remember, back at the Star Religious Group’s compound? The only reason I didn’t kill all of them right there and then for what they did to Amanai was because you were there to stop me.”
He sighs and leans back onto his elbows, looking up at the ceiling. “Listen, Suguru. Do you know what it means to be special grade?”
Suguru seems thrown by the apparent change in subject. “What?”
“It’s someone who can overthrow an entire country single-handedly,” Satoru says. “You and I, that’s something that we each have the power to do. And yet I find myself constantly stuck in these excruciating meetings with all the stuffy higher-ups, and the entire time all I’m thinking about is how easily I could just—” He makes the hand sign for Hollow Purple.
Suguru’s eyes widen at the sight, even though it’s not pointed anywhere near him. Looking uncomfortable, he says, “I don’t think we can keep using murder to fix things.”
“I know, I know. I’m not actually going to do it,” Satoru says. At least not right now, but he’ll keep it in his back pocket as an option. “It wouldn’t make a difference anyways, they’d just get replaced.”
He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised that Suguru doesn’t seem too reassured by the statement. “Let’s just call it a night, okay?” Suguru says. “Apparently we’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”
“Wait,” Satoru says, sitting up. He can’t leave things here, not when all he’s managed to do today is make things worse. Catching Suguru by the arm, he leans in close to kiss him and says, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Suguru replies.
That day in the village, Satoru had run up to Suguru and taken his face in his hands. He’d carefully wiped the blood off of Suguru’s face, forgetting in his alarm to hold himself back like he usually would. A moment later he’d come to his senses and had immediately jumped back, stammering apologies.
Instead of recoiling like he’d expected, Suguru had reached back out to him, the blankness fading a little as he’d taken Satoru’s hands in his own. “I need your help, Satoru,” he’d said. “I can’t fix this on my own.”
And so Satoru had wiped the remnants of the village off the map with judicious use of Blue, he’d lied to the higher-ups to corroborate Suguru’s story that he’d been too late to stop the curse from killing the villagers, and afterwards he’d kissed Suguru for the first time.
Now, Satoru can’t help the smile that spreads across his face upon hearing Suguru say those words. He knows that Suguru is probably just saying it for his sake. Maybe he means it, but certainly not to the same degree that Satoru does. But Satoru has been in love with Suguru since he was sixteen, and this is already so much more than he’d ever dared to hope he’d get.
He kisses Suguru again, thrilled when Suguru accepts it and kisses him back. Satoru knows that he can make Suguru happy, and he’s determined to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Suguru leans back into the pillows and Satoru follows after him like he always has and always will.
Satoru’s next idea for getting Suguru out of whatever funk he’s in involves their kids.
When Suguru had brought Mimiko and Nanako back to Tokyo, Satoru had helped him get them set up at the Gojo clan’s estate. After graduating Jujutsu High, Satoru and Suguru had joined them there, where they’ve all lived ever since.
Along the way, Satoru had tracked down Fushiguro Toji’s son and stepdaughter that had been more or less bequeathed to him by Toji’s dying words. Upon realizing that the two of them were living on their own, he’d spirited them away to the Gojo estate as well, and had thought himself very responsible and mature for putting together their makeshift little family.
(Suguru had seen it a little differently at the time, saying, “Did you really forget about a child for an entire year?”
“I was kind of occupied at the time!” Satoru had protested in return.)
They’ve taken all four children to a local park on one of their rare days off, and this is where Satoru’s big plan kicks off.
“Alright, Megumi,” Satoru announces, “just like I told you.”
Megumi rolls his eyes at Satoru—rude!—but summons his Divine Dogs anyways.
“Ta-da!” Satoru says to Suguru, gesturing at them.
Suguru just seems confused. “Dogs?”
“Not just dogs, the dogs!” Satoru says. “Megumi’s got the Zenin clan’s famed Ten Shadows technique!”
Suguru continues to stare blankly at him, and Satoru starts to wilt a little. “And I thought maybe you could, uh, help him learn how to use it? It seems kind of similar in principle to your technique.” But now he’s second-guessing that intuition. “Or not, I guess. I can just crawl back to the Zenins and—”
“It’s okay!” Suguru cuts him off, to Satoru’s relief. “I’d be more than happy to.”
“Awesome!” Satoru says. He ushers the other children away to keep them occupied while Suguru works with Megumi, but eventually Suguru waves them over as well.
“You all could stand to learn this part as well,” Suguru says. “It’s not just about using your summons, you need to be able to get in close as well.” He demonstrates some basic hand-to-hand combat moves and the children eagerly copy along.
Satoru ends up lounging under a tree, drinking a soda and watching his brilliant plan work out. He laughs when Suguru steadies Megumi after he overcommits to a roundhouse kick and teeters precariously on one leg.
Eventually Suguru comes over to join him. “You want to help out at all with this?” he asks.
“Nah,” Satoru says. “You seem to have it in hand, Sensei.” He sticks his tongue out and winks at Suguru.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Suguru says. He rolls his eyes, but Satoru can see that he’s trying not to smile.
Suguru dismisses the children, having apparently finished his lesson for the day. He takes the soda that Satoru offers him and sits down beside him.
As the children run around and play with the dogs, Satoru rearranges them so that Suguru is laying down with his head in Satoru’s lap. Suguru good-naturedly submits to it, even when Satoru starts running his fingers through his hair.
Satoru had fantasized about doing exactly this when he was younger, but he’d never said a word about it to Suguru. He knows that he can come off as clingy, that he’s a handful, and so he’d kept his distance, afraid that he’d scare Suguru off.
But he realizes now that in doing so he’d left Suguru alone instead, and it had nearly cost him everything. It’s a mistake he won’t ever make again.
“You mentioned the Zenins,” Suguru says. “Are they still on your case about Megumi?”
“God, are they ever,” Satoru complains. “Zenin Ogi in particular won’t leave me alone about it. He’s constantly saying he’ll make Megumi his heir, that kind of garbage. I think it’s because the current clan head is getting up there in years, so Ogi’s angling to be named his successor.”
“So what, he wants Megumi’s technique for the political leverage?” Suguru asks.
“Yeah, but I’m not letting him anywhere near Megumi,” Satoru says. “Honestly though, between you and me I’d actually prefer it if Ogi got the position. The other one in the running is his brother Naobito, and he’s…ugh.”
“Hm?” Suguru says. He sounds innocent, but Satoru knows he gets a kick out of hearing inter-clan gossip.
“For starters, he’s constantly drunk,” Satoru says. “But the real issue is that if he gets it then his son Naoya is almost certainly next in line, and I fucking hate Naoya, he’s an insufferable prick.”
Suguru nods thoughtfully. “I can see why you wouldn’t get along. He sounds nothing like you,” he says, and laughs at Satoru’s gasp of indignation.
The reason Satoru is so comprehensively up to date with the latest clan gossip is that not long after graduation, he had been named the new head of the Gojo clan. He’d been groomed for the role since childhood so it hadn’t come as a surprise, but it had come with many new responsibilities.
“Stop squirming,” Suguru says, fussing over the folds of Satoru’s formal kimono.
Satoru makes a show of grumbling before he submits, delighting in having Suguru’s hands on him. It turns out that the clan head is required to do a lot more schmoozing than he’d initially expected. The private time that he gets with Suguru before the countless excruciatingly dull social events he attends is certainly a pleasant silver lining though.
Satoru spends the first hour of the party socializing and mingling with various members of jujutsu high society, trying not to let his boredom show. He’s heard enough lectures from Suguru already chastising him for that at previous engagements.
Finally, he spots a familiar face across the room and drags Suguru along with him as he makes his way over. “Principal Yaga!” he exclaims. “Congratulations on the promotion.”
“Hello,” Suguru says, bowing respectfully.
“Oh, Suguru, I did actually want to talk to you about something,” Yaga says, and ignores Satoru’s protest. “There’s a position open for a new teacher at Jujutsu High. Would you be interested?”
“Me?” Suguru says, taken aback. “Wouldn’t Satoru be better?”
“Ha, absolutely not,” Satoru says.
“Satoru’s an asshole,” Yaga says at the same time. “He’d be a terrible influence on the kids.”
Satoru graciously disregards the comment and says, “You’d be great at it, Suguru. Megumi and the kids love it when you teach them.” The more he thinks about it, the better of an idea it seems. “Imagine what you could do when molding the minds of the next generation of sorcerers!”
Suguru looks intrigued. He and Yaga discuss the logistics a little more, and then Yaga eventually drifts away to the rest of the party.
“I can see it now,” Satoru says as they peruse the dessert table. “You, a teacher. I bet you’re putting together the lesson plans already.”
“I do need a hobby,” Suguru says dryly.
“Come on, I can tell you’re excited,” Satoru says.
Suguru shrugs. “It certainly sounds better than sitting around waiting for the next mission.”
“I think we’re both getting a little tired of the rat race,” Satoru remarks.
“It doesn’t feel like there’s any meaning to it anymore,” Suguru says. “I want to live in a curse-free world. But even if we exorcise curses every day for the rest of our lives, we’d still barely make a dent. On the other hand, if I can raise strong and intelligent allies, then maybe I can actually make a difference.”
Satoru nods encouragingly, stuffing a forkful of cake into his mouth.
“You know as well as I do that the jujutsu world is rotten to the core,” Suguru continues. “It needs to be reset. But I can’t do that on my own.”
“You’re right,” Satoru says. “But you’re not on your own, remember? You have me.”
As they’re about to leave the party, everything goes to shit.
“Hey, Satoru!” a voice calls out. Satoru’s Infinity blocks the accompanying hand that tries to clap his shoulder.
“Oh goddammit, not this fucking guy,” Satoru mutters under his breath as he turns around. “What do you want, Naoya?”
“Can’t I just say hello?” Naoya asks, like the prick that he is.
“Hello,” Suguru says, bowing again. “I’m Geto Suguru, it’s nice to meet you.”
Naoya doesn’t bow in return. “Zenin Naoya,” he says curtly.
Suguru straightens up and looks Naoya up and down from his stupid bleached hair to the bottom of his obnoxious Zenin clan-crested kimono, subtly raising his eyebrows in Satoru’s direction to indicate that he’s unimpressed.
“Hey, hey,” Satoru says, getting into the double act now. “Show some respect for your elders, will you?” He can tell that Suguru is hiding a smile, given that Satoru—despite Suguru’s best efforts—has never shown respect for his elders in his life.
Naoya sneers at him. “Just because you have the same hair as my grandfather doesn’t mean I owe you the same respect.”
“At least mine is all natural,” Satoru snipes back. He peers at the top of Naoya’s head with ease, thanks to the several centimeters of height that he has on him. “Looks like you need some touch-ups, your roots are showing.”
Scowling, Naoya steps back so Satoru isn’t looming over him anymore. “Chit-chat aside, I overheard you two talking to Yaga,” he says. Fucking of course he did. “And I figured I should let you know before you get your hopes up that the higher-ups would never let Geto become a teacher at Jujutsu High.”
“The fuck are you on about?” Satoru says. “He’s a special grade sorcerer, it’s a slam dunk.”
“Sure, if it was you,” Naoya says. “But someone like Geto, with no pedigree and an unconventional technique, well…” He makes a mockingly sympathetic face and Satoru somehow restrains himself from punching him. “Short of Geto marrying his way into the Gojo clan it’s not going to happen, and I don’t think he’d look very good in white.”
“Shut up, Naoya,” Satoru snaps, having had enough of this. “Can you not find some hole to die in already?”
Naoya grins. “Thinking of dealing with me like you did our dear Toji?”
“Please,” Satoru says, rolling his eyes. “The Zenin clan never gave a shit about Toji, and they certainly didn’t bat an eye when I killed him. Don’t bother trying to make a big deal of it now.”
Naoya just huffs at him and glides away.
“Don’t listen to him,” Satoru says to Suguru. “You’d be an amazing teacher.”
“But he’s not wrong, is he?” Suguru says. “The higher-ups have never liked me, and they could definitely override Yaga if they felt like it.”
There’s a look of doubt growing on Suguru’s face that Satoru doesn’t like. This is the first thing that Suguru has shown genuine enthusiasm for in a long time, and Satoru is not about to let fucking Naoya of all people ruin it for him. “Maybe,” he admits. “But the higher-ups would have to be idiots to do that.”
They both pause as they consider that.
“Maybe you should—” Suguru starts.
“Do you want to get married?” Satoru blurts out.
Suguru stares at him incredulously. “I was going to say maybe you should talk to the higher-ups, but I suppose that’s an option too.” He shrugs. “I’ll do it if you really want, but I’m not taking your family name.”
Honestly, Satoru does really want it, but that’s not exactly resounding enthusiasm from Suguru. Instead of addressing that he says, “That probably defeats the purpose, then. I’ll talk to the higher-ups and make sure they see sense.”
“Thanks,” Suguru says. “You’re always going to bat with them for me. I don’t like that I keep putting you in that position.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Satoru says. “Messing with the higher-ups is the best part of my day.”
Suguru smiles a little, but still looks discomfited.
“Are you okay?” Satoru asks. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
Suguru sighs. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“I know,” Satoru says, resigned. It’s already on his list of problems to be solved, and he mentally circles and highlights it. “God, Naoya’s such a dick. Can you imagine how much worse he’ll be once he’s officially the clan heir?”
Suguru makes a face. “Is his father really going to get it? I thought you said there was someone else in the running.”
“Yeah, Ogi, the one who keeps trying to steal Megumi from us,” Satoru says. “But he’s barely hanging in there. All signs are pointing to Naobito at this point.”
“Hm,” Suguru says.
Satoru grins and nudges Suguru with his elbow. “Oh, I know that look. Come on, tell me what’s going on in that big beautiful brain of yours.”
Suguru lightly smacks him away but says, “Could you back Ogi’s claim? With the Gojo clan’s support, would he be able to get it?”
“Mm…maybe,” Satoru says. “But it would mean we’d be tied together, politically, and that sounds like a pain in the ass.”
“I bet he’d stop bugging you about Megumi though,” Suguru says. “And if he gets it then he, and by extension the Zenin clan, would owe you.”
Satoru considers this, intrigued.
“Not to mention the added bonus of screwing Naoya over,” Suguru adds.
Satoru laughs. “Oh, I like the sound of that.” He leans over to kiss Suguru on the cheek. “Scheming is a good look on you. If the teaching thing doesn’t work out then maybe you should go into politics instead.”
Sure enough, after Satoru has another little chat with the higher-ups, Suguru is hired as the newest teacher at Jujutsu High. Not long afterwards, the Zenin clan head dies and Zenin Ogi is named as his successor.
And just as Satoru had hoped, Suguru seems to be thriving in his new position. Mimiko and Nanako will be starting at Jujutsu High soon as well, with Megumi joining the following year, and Satoru cautiously allows himself to believe that they can build some kind of happiness together.
But because apparently nothing good in Satoru’s life can last, they hit an unexpected roadblock.
“The higher-ups want to execute this kid?” Satoru repeats incredulously.
Suguru nods. “There’s a special grade curse haunting him, supposedly his dead childhood sweetheart. She violently attacks anyone that tries to hurt him.”
“Romantic,” Satoru says. He turns off the stove where he’d been preparing dinner and comes to sit with Suguru at the kitchen table.
“I suppose so,” Suguru says, smiling briefly before his face falls again. “But since Yuta can’t control her, the higher-ups think she’s too dangerous.”
“And you think you could teach him, right?” Satoru says.
“Yes,” Suguru says, running his hand through his hair in agitation. “But the higher-ups won’t even give me the opportunity, they’re just scared of what they can’t control.”
Satoru pulls Suguru’s hand away from his head, holding it in his own. “Want me to go talk to them?” he asks.
Suguru sighs. “Yeah, can you? I hate to keep asking you this but maybe you could do it, Satoru. Maybe you could convince them not to execute him. There’s only so much they’ll listen to me.”
“On it,” Satoru promises.
It’s infuriating to Satoru that the higher-ups still don’t understand. Whatever Suguru wants is what Satoru wants as well, and so Suguru’s word ought to be as good as Satoru’s when it comes to having the full authority of the Gojo clan.
Maybe they really should get married, and then it would finally sink in.
“Thanks,” Suguru says. “I managed to keep their claws off of Yuta for now, but I don’t know how long that’ll last.”
“I’ll get them to convene an emergency meeting right now,” Satoru says, pressing a quick kiss to Suguru’s hand before leaving. Dinner will have to wait.
“Hey, what’s with the long faces?” Satoru asks. “I’d almost think you all weren’t happy to see me!”
Satoru thinks it’s a pretty funny joke considering that the higher-ups’ faces are all hidden behind the usual panels, but judging by their silence none of them seem to think so.
He rolls his eyes. “Alright, we can get down to business. We need to talk about Okkotsu Yuta.”
“Satoru?”
Satoru turns to see Suguru at the door of the council meeting room and waves him in. “Hey, you got my text! Welcome to the party!”
“What’s going on?” Suguru asks, joining him in the center of the room. There’s no Infinity between them when Suguru reaches out to touch Satoru’s face. His fingertips come away red. “Is this blood? What the hell happened?”
“I killed them all,” Satoru says.
“What?”
“The higher-ups,” Satoru explains. “I killed them all.”
“Killed them—you said you were going to talk to them!” Suguru exclaims. He looks around the room and Satoru watches his eyes widen as he finally notices the higher-ups’ panels knocked askew and splattered with blood, the indistinct shapes of their bodies still partially hidden behind them.
Satoru shrugs. “I tried,” he says. “It didn’t work. They were only going to defer Yuta’s execution, and that wouldn’t have been enough. Even with our protection they still would have tried to pull some shit and have him killed anyways, you know how they are. This was the only way to guarantee his safety.”
Usually Satoru can get the higher-ups to do what he wants, but this time they just hadn’t been willing to listen to reason. And Satoru wasn’t about to let that happen, not when it was threatening the happiness that he and Suguru had worked so hard for so long to achieve.
Suguru had been right: the higher-ups were scared of what they couldn’t control. There’d been something so satisfying in seeing the fear on their faces as they’d realized that Satoru wasn’t going to accept their decision.
He wonders if this is how Suguru had felt that day in Mimiko and Nanako’s village. It’s not even some sense of justice or righteousness over protecting a helpless kid, it just feels…good.
“Satoru,” Suguru says, “didn’t you say that even if we took out the higher-ups, they’d just be replaced?”
Now they’re getting to the fun part. “But they won’t,” Satoru says. “It’s like you said, the Zenins owe me, remember? And the Gojo clan will do whatever we tell them. That’s enough for us to fill out the new higher-ups with our own allies.”
“Are we even going to have any allies after this?” Suguru asks.
“What could anyone even do to us?” Satoru says breathlessly, laughing a little. He hasn’t felt this hopped up on adrenaline since he’d fully unlocked Limitless. “They’ll all do what we say; they won’t have any other choice! We’re the strongest, how could they stop us?”
It looks like it’s finally sinking in for Suguru, something like wonder spreading across his face.
“We have the higher-ups, we’ll train the next generation,” Satoru continues. “We can fix this rotten world, Suguru, we can remake it how we want.”
Before he can say anything else, Suguru reaches out to take Satoru’s face in his hands and kisses him, hard. Satoru enthusiastically returns it, probably getting blood all over Suguru as he clutches tightly at him but he doesn’t care. He thinks he might even taste it.
When they break apart, Suguru presses his forehead against Satoru’s. “Thank you,” he says.
“Of course,” Satoru says. “I’d do anything for you.”
“I know,” Suguru says, sounding a little awestruck.
There’d been something of an air of desperation to all of Satoru’s previous displays of devotion, where he’d felt like he was constantly chasing after Suguru in order to understand what he needed. But now, when Suguru steps back a little to look Satoru in the face, his eyes bright and alive, Satoru thinks that maybe he’s finally caught up to him.
“I love you,” Satoru says.
“I love you too,” Suguru replies, and this time Satoru thinks he might even mean it.