Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maybe I have yet to venture out, see the places that I hear about

Planes and trains and cars carve their lines into a curve like blade

All I get to are mistakes half made 

Suguru moves into the dorm in very early spring. It’s a long train ride from his village, he took a bus to the bigger city and then a bus to the station all while carrying a backpack and a heavy suitcase that was mostly packed by his mom. Then a train to Tokyo until finally a black car came to fetch him and he didn’t have to worry and stress over public transportation and its weird timetable. He’s not used to it, at home he takes the same line every morning to the school in the city over and then the same one in the afternoon to get back home. 

Jujutsu High is ten times bigger than whatever he expected and also a lot more deserted. He thought he’d be one of a few who arrived early but he’s alone in the dorm building with rows of rooms all emptied and waiting to be filled. Perhaps everyone else lives in the city and can afford to come later, not needing to get used to the place, to walk around the streets and commit them to memory, afraid to get lost and unused to so many turns and alleyways hidden between houses and buildings. 

At least they’re on the very outskirts of town, where it’s quieter and greener, a few convenient shops and restaurants stored here and there but otherwise not many things to do. Just rows and rows of houses and people living, waking up and going to work then coming back home to sleep. 

Quietly, Suguru surveys what will be his room for the next three years of his life. Boarding school was always a distant notion for him, something so out of his economical standpoint that he never considered the finer points of such a thing. He always thought only the rich kids ever got to do it and even then he wasn’t completely sure; all the people in his rundown middle school came from the exact same middle to low class background. He never dawdled on it until a man knocked on his door last year and offered the opportunity, sat his parents down and said there’d be people capable of instructing their son in his apparently out of this world’s ability, that he’d learn to manage it, that he wasn’t a freak or weird or alone — that they didn’t have to pay for anything and Suguru would even get an allowance.

But now, Suguru is in a small room with a twin bed, a closet and a table, four hours away from home, and he needs to just swallow whatever it is that blocks the entryway of air to his lungs and get over himself because it’s a good opportunity. No matter what he thinks now or how sad he got over his mom wiping away at her eyes while she waved him off at the station, it’ll be good for him. 

He’s tired of the constant monsters no one else sees, tired of the way he can’t explain how it comes easily to him; the urge to make the monsters into less, break them down to nothing and then swallow and consume and become.

At least here he doesn’t have to hear his mom cry herself to sleep because he woke up screaming from another nightmare. Every single night. 

Suguru wants to let loose some of his curses so they can run around the campus and then tell him about it all, take stock of the place and every hidden nook. It’s not that they talk to him as much as he understands whatever they’re seeing and feeling so deeply and intrinsically words are not necessary. Once he swallows them, they’re his in every sense, no longer a boggart in his closet but a tangible thing he doesn’t need to fear anymore. Jujutsu Tech is safe, though, and Yaga-sensei very sensibly asked him not to use his technique for the time being because there are alarms that are activated when curses are detected inside the wards, and he’ll work around it before the term starts.

So Suguru keeps them all stored away and sits down on the floor, pulling open his luggage and staring at everything from his room back home he could reasonably make fit inside. 

He takes his phone out and clicks to call his mom, sorting through shirts and pants and the occasional sock. It’s a short conversation, just reassurances that the trip was fine, that the dorms are nice and he’ll go eat in a bit. She tells him they’ll send more boxes with his things in a few days and tells him to call again tomorrow and the day after and to take pictures and send them, even if she doesn’t quite know how to work the messages in her phone. 

Throughout the next two weeks before term starts, Suguru takes a few walks in the center, uses the measly amount of money his parents gave him for the trip to buy coffee from new places and try foods that don’t exist out in the countryside. He rides the subway for the first time and goes into shopping centers and music shops to look around, to touch, to see. In his eagerness for the new, he even pierces his ears, heart thrumming with the adrenaline of doing something his parents wouldn’t approve of.

He’s eager for the allowance the school will provide him, for the money he’ll make out of exorcising curses, can’t wait to make something out himself, make a difference. He’s not naive enough to think he’ll change the world, but he wants to live a better life, buy something nice for his mom every once in a while and treat himself to the things that once seemed out of the realm of possibilities.

Tokyo is both a breath of fresh air and smoke curling into his lungs with black tendrils. He doesn’t know what he feels about the big city after fifteen years in the countryside and perhaps he’ll just have to get used to it and swallow his complaints. There are people everywhere and he can’t walk five steps without bumping into someone, the noise is nonstop and the lights even more so. Music playing in speakers and announcements coming through every ten seconds, the conversations and laughter that mingles together. It’s exciting, it’s exhilarating .

The weekend before his first class, Suguru locks himself in his room and sits in silence. He hears someone come in the room just beside him, the thump of boxes being put down, the gentle tapping of steps. 

He doesn’t go to greet his new dorm mate, overwhelmed with all the newness he already had that week and desperately needing a single moment of centering quietness. 

Monday morning, Suguru is the first one in the classroom. He sits properly at the table, unsure if he was supposed to bring a notebook or not, if perhaps the classes will be more practical than theory — how does one learn to exorcise curses really? Suguru has just been swallowing them all this time and is unsure if any other method would work for him. 

“Morning,” a girl says from the door. Suguru whips his head in the direction of the voice. She’s tall, but still much shorter than him, and her hair is cropped above her shoulders. Her face is fixed into this perpetually bored expression.

“Morning,” he replies. She’s early, but he’s earlier, so there’s that. She gives him a full once over, eyes scanning him with such uncanny clarity it makes Suguru sit up straighter.

“Shoko Ieiri,” she says, and takes the seat directly to his left. 

Suguru is still getting used to the way he can feel the energy exhaling from other sorcerers. Back home, there was no one but him (and the occasional curse) but in the city he’ll catch wind of a sorcerer turning down the street, feel the way Yaga-sensei’s energy expands all the way two buildings over. It’s weird, and new. Ieiri’s is soft, like the gentle pull of a current, coming and going in a steady rhythm, like it follows the timing of her breaths. 

“Suguru Geto,” he offers back. Ieiri nods.

They sit in awkward silence, neither willing to say more. Suguru has never been overly talkative with people he doesn’t know and here he knows no one, so he’s retreated back into a kind of quiet he hasn’t felt since the very start of middle school, when he got separated from all his friends from primary and thrusted head first into a new environment. Not that he had many friends in primary, either way, or even later in middle school. 

Back home, Suguru was the weird kid. Not because he was ugly or rude or stupid, not because he didn’t know how to fight back or how to answer insults with the same ruthlessness. He never got bullied but he never had an overflowing amount of friends either. Suguru wallowed in the brand of  isolation that came from people being unable to relate to him in any meaningful way. He was constantly world’s away, lost in his thoughts and eyes following things that weren’t there.

There were games to be made out of the curses, once Suguru got better at handling them. He liked to let the ones he already had out and make them chase after the others that would occasionally appear at school; he'd watch from the window of his classroom as they got beaten down and eventually lost the fight. And then, when the bell rang, he’d walk out and swallow them, adding to his growing collection of weird things.

The other children thought him unsettling but here, he hopes he’s just one more, lost in a sea of other people just as bizarre.

A minute before the bell, the door slides open again. The air gets so heavy with cursed energy it’s difficult to breathe. A boy with very short and wild white hair stands there, both straps of his bags on his shoulders and a pair of round sunglasses balanced on the tip of his nose. He looks over them with eyes so blue and vivid it’s like staring at the sky on a sunny day.

Suguru wants to say something, he opens and closes his mouth and ends up with nothing, words stuck in his throat and mixing with the taste of the heavy energy in the air. The boy walks inside, the pants of his uniform much more form-fitting than what Suguru chose for himself, and he sits to his right, bag dropping to the ground with a small thud. 

Again, they sit in silence. Suguru wonders where everyone else is once the bell rings, but Yaga-sensei enters the classroom and closes the dorm firmly behind him.

Hysterically, Suguru realises he’s stuck with these two quiet strangers for the next three years of his life. 

His name is Satoru Gojo, Suguru discovers later that same day. From the Gojo clan. Wielder of the Six Eyes and the Limitless Technique, the strongest sorcerer born in this age. He’s just fifteen, barely two months older than Suguru himself and already he has it all. The world likes to throw jokes around like that, to laugh in Suguru’s face with the irony of it all. 

They’re standing in the open field of the training grounds, Ieiri sticking close to Suguru for some reason, and she’s the one who offered the information about Gojo. He can’t help staring at the other boy, at the short fringe falling on his forehead, hair that has obviously been shaved down and has just now started to grow out again. His skin is pale under the soft spring sun and his cheeks turn a pretty red from the exertion.

Suguru has never seen someone who looks like that, nothing even remotely close. Gojo’s beautiful — and powerful. There’s nothing to do but stare . 

Yaga-sensei gives them a very generic class on curses and their classifications. He talks about missions, of starting with Grade Four curses and building their way up. Suguru doesn’t know how he feels about that, exactly, though he knows it was coming. He thinks of the ones back at home, of swallowing them down. Back then he didn’t put them in ranks, there were the ones who managed to land a hit on him sometimes and the ones who didn’t; the ones who hid behind the door during the night and made him cry and sob nonsensically to his parents about the monsters under his bed and the ones who looked harmless. They all ended up his to control in the end.

(He can catalogue his arsenal better after coming here, knowing most of them are low levels with a few third grades. He thinks of winning over the stronger ones in the future missions, of swallowing and gagging and then wielding their power. It makes him smile to himself.)

Now, they’re supposed to spar. Hand to hand combat. 

Suguru grew up in martial arts, his dad the proud owner of a small school back in their village. He has the build for it too, body horned from years of hard word and a father who won’t accept his kid being anything but perfect in these things. Gojo puts up a good fight, however. He’s leaner and definitely weaker when it comes to brute strength, but makes up for it with quickness and efficiency, his hits precise as he evades whatever Suguru tries to throw at him, a small smile breaking through the cold facade Gojo had maintained up until that point.

“Geto takes it,” Ieiri announces at the end of their fight, right hand held up. 

Suguru pushes himself off the ground with both hands, heaving a breath, sweat making the back of his shirt stick to his skin. They weren’t allowed to use any techniques but Suguru isn’t under the impression that he would’ve also won in that case. 

He’s still not the best at wielding the curses in his arsenal offensively. His entire life, they’ve been nothing but invisible forces that are just always there in the very corner of his eyes and his mind, like imaginary friends the other kids were always so fond of saying they had. He never used them to fight, at most, he’s made them do the chores his mom always nagged about. 

“You got lucky,” Gojo says, and it’s definitely a snarky comment, but his face is clear, almost mirthful. It’s the first thing he’s said the entire day and it makes Suguru scowl, glaring at the other boy.

Gojo’s rich, he thinks suddenly. That’s what being in a clan means. He probably grew up with private tutors that taught him all about combat, that honed each of his skills to perfection. He probably doesn’t even need to be here at all, Jujutsu Tech is just another stepping stone, just another badge in his long list of accomplishments.

Suguru needs these classes, he needs to learn and to do better because he knew nothing before. He’s a blank slate waiting to be filled. Staring up at unyielding blue eyes, he realises he needs to remedy that immediately because otherwise this world will chew him up and spit out the bones, no pity.

“Well, let’s go again and see if my luck keeps up or if it’s you who sucks,” Suguru .

“Can you even keep up?” Gojo asks, one eyebrow up. 

Suguru snarls and pushes back to his feet, rolling out his shoulders. “You’re the one who seems to be floundering around. What was that left rook you didn’t even land?”

Gojo gasps, offended. “I’ll show you a left rook.” And he raises his fist and comes for Suguru, steps heavy and a hunger for blood in his eyes. 

He doesn’t get to land it because Yaga-sensei lays one hand on Gojo’s shoulder and pulls him back forcefully, scowling at the both of them. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, like he’s disappointed. 

“Play nice now,” he says. “You’ll go again, no tricks. If I catch one of you playing dirty you’ll run ten laps around the school.”

Both Suguru and Gojo grumble at that, but do eventually stand down, sending glares at each other. 

The rest of the afternoon resembles closely what hell must be like. Suguru and Gojo spar again and again, sensei pointing out every single mistake Suguru makes out loud and clear, coming to correct his posture and his grip. Gojo also receives similar treatment, but he doesn’t seem to mind the criticism as much as Suguru does, as if it goes in one ear and out the other immediately, nothing but white noise. He reacted more at Suguru’s jabs than anything actually true that sensei has said.

It’s exhausting like nothing Suguru has ever done and at the end of the day he feels both satisfied and like a truck ran him over. 

“You don’t fight?” Suguru asks Ieiri once sensei dismisses them. Gojo follows close to him, still somehow awkward.

“Nah,” she shrugs. “I know the basics but I’m better off on the sidelines.”

Suguru tilts his head. “What do you do?”

Ieiri smirks, mischievous, but doesn’t answer.

“Reversed Curse Technique,” Gojo replies in her place. They both turn to give him wide stares. He shrugs. “I have very good eyes.”

“Ah,” Ieiri mutters. 

“What does that mean?”

“I’m a very good healer,” Ieiri says. Suguru can only do a little oh sound, still not fully understanding. 

They walk to the communal showers together and then Ieiri waves them away to go to the female side of the dorms. As she goes, Suguru can see when she pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up, smoke following her every step. 

“You’re not really all bad,” Gojo says once they’re in the locker room. Suguru put away one change of clothes there earlier in the week, but he doesn’t know if Gojo did. 

“And you put up a good fight,” Suguru replies. “Still, you lost more times than you won, so don’t get too cocky now.”

He’s not trying to be purposefully antagonistic, that’s not how he works, although it seems to just come out of him unbidden at the face of the Gojo heir. There’s something telling Suguru most things come very easily to Satoru Gojo and he doesn’t want to be one of them. 

“Well, yeah,” Gojo shrugs, unbothered. “Where are you from?”

Suguru blinks at him. “The south.”

“Are you the only sorcerer in your family?”

Suguru nods slowly and something flits through Gojo’s eye, there and then gone again. 

“That’s nice,” Gojo says. He looks around, eyes fixing first on the lockers then the open showers, studying the place. 

Suguru frowns at the statement. Nice is definitely an adjective for it, if not an incorrectly used one. 

It’s not that his parents ever made him feel bad about things he’s unable to control, but the simple knowledge that he’s different has taken a toll on him since he was five. 

He used to have a lot of nightmares, every single night without a break , these vivid dreams that made it difficult to discern reality once you’re awake. They made him scream and sob at ungodly hours, loud enough to force his dad to run into his room, worried and frazzled, the door hitting the wall with a bang that rivalled Suguru’s own screeches. He'd hold Suguru’s trembling form until the child calmed down, whispering that it was all just in his head while a smiling boy with a disfigured and bloody face smiled at them from the chair by the window. 

Those nights lasted until he was around nine years old and learned to be quieter — until he learned to be more purposeful with his technique and just got rid of the ghosts following him around himself. Still, they’re like a charred mark in his childhood. He knows his mom still doesn’t sleep well, prone to walking up at the slightest of noises, all because of him. 

He wonders — ever since coming into the Jujutsu world, since having learned that there’s hundreds and thousands of people like him out there — if other parents actually know how to get rid of the monsters under their children’s beds. If it was only him crying quietly night after night until exhaustion took over his body, eyes fixed on a shadow standing by his door and blocking the only exit. Sometimes the same curse stayed for weeks, at which point Suguru’s technique would work by itself, brought out by sheer fatigue of fighting it, and the monster would become nothing but a small sphere that Suguru’s mind induced him to swallow whole. 

“You know,” Gojo starts, voice deceivingly light and bringing Suguru out of his reveries, “that was the first time I’ve ever lost a fight.”

Suguru has his undershirt halfway through his head and he flounders around with it at the statement, tied hair catching on the fabric and pulling painfully. Once he untangles himself, he turns to gape at Gojo.

“No way,” Suguru shakes his head, sure that the other is pulling a joke at him.

Gojo shrugs, like the admission is nothing more than weather talk. Suguru feels pride swell in his chest at having beat the one people consider the strongest sorcerer alive at something . 

“I always trained with my technique rather than at close range,” Gojo says. He shucks his jacket and his undershirt in quick succession, pale back coming into view. He’s taller than Suguru but much leaner. “Which doesn’t mean I’m bad at it. Like I said, this was the first time I ever lost.”

“Well,” Suguru says, a shiteating grin taking over his face, “I can always give you some tips.”

Gojo laughs at that, the sound loud and echoing in the empty locker room. “You won’t have time for that, I’ll kick your ass next time.”

“It’s on then,” Suguru nods. They both grin at each other, something less hostile setting between them.

They shower and go back to the dorms, quiet once again but now awkward, and Gojo vanishes behind the door directly beside Suguru’s, white hair but a speckle of light in the darkness of a disappearing sunset reflected through the windows. 

Their first mission goes well. Easy, even. It’s a second grade that gives them a bit of a fight but nothing bad. Ieiri stays back, pale skin and eye bags fading away as the veil overtakes the sky and separates Suguru and Gojo from the rest of the world. 

Suguru expected himself to feel… not scared but perhaps anxious. That’s not what overtakes his body on the ride over. He taps his foot up and down on the floor, filled with so much restlessness it’s difficult to contain inside his body. In contrast, Gojo is completely at ease, head tilted up against the rest of the seat and eyes closed.

In the week they’ve known each other, Gojo’s has become slightly more talkative and Suguru doesn’t know if he’s happy or just more desolate over the fact he’s stuck with the guy for the next few years. Gojo’s prone to ignoring every social cue in existence, prone to bragging and speaking loudly and out of turn, prone to leaving dishes in the sink of the communal kitchen and being late to just about every single class they have. He’s plain disrespectful to their superiors, which is what grates against Suguru’s nerves the most unpleasantly. Growing up in a city with less than a hundred habitants ingrained in him such a deep sense of propriety he couldn’t get rid of it even if he scrubbed himself clean with acid.

Suguru is surprised by how well he and Gojo work together, though. Despite their rocky first week, once they’re in camp they don’t get in each other's space and easily side step each attack, covering every base. Suguru is sure Gojo could have taken the curse alone — he’s been sent on missions even before coming to Jujutsu High, Suguru’s heard, and is already a First Grade Sorcerer in ranking — but Gojo doesn’t seem bothered by being made to be a team player. He takes it graciously, if not with a few obnoxious phrases in between, and lets Suguru make his own mistakes.

Suguru doesn’t know if it makes him mad or not — he’s not exactly grateful but also not exactly scornful of it either. He’s been witness to just how unsubtle Gojo is and doesn’t necessarily want to be on the other side of his mocking.

Most surprising of all, however, is how fascinated Gojo seems to be with Suguru’s Technique. Ever since Yaga-sensei blocked out an afternoon for Suguru to train with it, Gojo’s kept asking about which curses were in his collection, how many, to see them, for Suguru to make them do this and that, if there’s a limit for the amount he can consume.  

(Suguru hopes there isn’t. He wants thousands of them, even if they taste like dirt rags going down his throat.)

“Don’t exorcise it,” Suguru says, holding up a hand to Gojo, who stops his fists just in time, eyes wide in shock. “I want this one.”

Gojo goes weirdly quiet in a way that Suguru has never seen before. He’s a constant stream of noise, incapable of holding still for longer than a second, of not saying the string of thoughts happening on his brain the moment they form. It’s obnoxious and annoying, and Suguru’s tired of it.

The curse gets compressed, Suguru’s technique coming forward with an ease that has been there since he was six and didn’t comprehend exactly what was happening. The curse’s already been broken down, and it submits without any more of a fight. It turns from a giant hookworm into a small sphere in under five seconds, then falls into Suguru’s awaiting palms, emitting a low light in the darkened space. He weighs it around, but it doesn’t feel any different from every single one that has come before it, doesn’t smell of anything either. It’s solid and ordinary looking. His first Second Grade Curse.

He doesn’t glance at Gojo as he brings it to his lips and swallows, throat working around the bigger intrusion. Like every time before, it goes down without a hitch. It tastes vile, but then, when does it not? His entire body shudders with the violent need to immediately throw up. It happened a few times, bile coming and spilling down his mouth — not the curses, never the curses, once they’re swallowed they don’t come back up anymore. Suguru has to hold still, body trembling with the foul aftertaste left on his tongue, the way every breath brings forth the stench of it. He hopes fiercely his face isn’t doing anything embarrassing and knows it’s a lost cause.

“Oh,” Gojo exclaims from his left, “that looked crazy . How does it taste?”

Suguru can only side eye him, deadpan, still fighting the bile that’s climbing up his throat. He’s found it’s better if he hasn’t eaten anything before swallowing a new one, no food in his stomach to fight with the very specific tang. 

“Bad, uh?” Gojo nods. “Does it change from curse to curse? I’d think the nasty looking ones would also taste bad but I guess if they’re normal looking enough then it shouldn’t be so bad?”

“Doesn’t make a difference,” Suguru eventually answers.

“Really? How shitty for you then.”

It makes Suguru snort unwillingly, laughter spilling out of him with the shock of the statement. Indeed, how shitty for him.  

“I suppose you get used to it,” Gojo shrugs, taking the lead to get out of the abandoned parking lot they had found themselves in that afternoon. 

Suguru doesn’t say that he couldn’t. Doesn’t think the stench and foulness could ever become something he enjoys or can do casually. He can pretend to; make his reactions less intense, work on his poker face, but the sickness will always take over, he will always be unable to actually eat a meal right after.

He will never get used to it but Gojo doesn’t need to know that; not him with his Limitless and his Six Eyes and the easiness of being that comes with never having had a single hard moment in life.

“I suppose you do,” Suguru agrees halfheartedly. 

Their surroundings are battered and destroyed, some fancy cars beyond saving and a few columns completely gone. It makes Suguru worry both for the building’s integrity and what they tell people about their cars getting totaled while parked underground.

Yaga-sensei and Ieiri are waiting for them outside, the latter has a cigarette lit between her lips, smoke flying around, but their teacher doesn’t seem to care for it, his face a mask of hardness. He’s very serious, sensei, it’s difficult for Suguru to guess what he’s thinking at any given moment.

“Anything broken?” Ieiri asks, dark eyes flitting between Suguru and Gojo.

Suguru rolls his shoulders around once at the question, taking stock of his body for the first time after the adrenaline rush has drained out. He’s in for some bruises in his rib cage and his back where he got thrown around a few times, and his left shoulder hurts like a bitch when he lifts his arm, but nothing major. He shakes his head at Ieiri.

“As if a grade two could ever land a hit on me,” Gojo scoffs.

Suguru swallows around nothing, body tensing back up.

“All done then?” Yaga-sensei questions, dusting his pants. The veil starts to be lifted around them, the pink sky of a sunset appearing back through it.

Gojo hums. “Suguru swallowed it up,” he laughs. “You guys should’ve seen it. The curse went from this huge thing to a small sphere, ha!.”

Gojo hasn’t bothered to call Suguru by his surname since the very first day, no honorifics or respect paid. Perhaps Suguru should be more offended, but he finds it hard to care about things like that when Gojo also doesn’t bother to extend anything akin to politeness to the people older than them.

“Good,” Yaga-sensei nods. He motions for them to enter the car and Gojo goes first, taking the front seat and loudly telling the driver to make a stop at this specific street so he can buy some boba tea.

Ieiri touches Suguru’s arm, stopping him before they can follow inside. “I’ll check you out when we get back to the dorms,” she offers, voice quiet so that sensei doesn’t hear them from where he’s leaning over the car roof and staring. The cigarette stump gets thrown to the floor and stepped on, fire dying out in a second. “You’re favouring your right shoulder, it looks painful.”

Suguru can’t help but smile a bit. Ieiri is so easy when compared to Gojo. She’s quiet, sure, but her brand of silence matches Suguru’s. 

“Ok, thank you.”

She nods then throws him a wrapped candy, something minty and not like the stuff Gojo normally keeps on himself at all times. Suguru grins at her and pops it into his mouth. It’s not enough to completely overthrow the taste of the curse, but it does help, in a way, and it doesn’t make him want to throw up either, which is nice. They enter the car one after the other, having come to a certain kind of peace agreement at that moment. 

He finds Ieiri in the dorms, following the labyrinth of corridors to her door, the only one with the light on in a long row of darkness. She’s the only girl here. They barely have a smattering of ten upperclassmen, and the three girls that are part of them are on the floor above. She shares the kitchen with him and Gojo, the only one on the first floor, but she walks back to this desolate part of the building alone every night, and walks out of it every morning. 

“Come in,” she says, sliding open the door. She’s in pajamas already, a long sleeved shirt but short bottoms, it’s all in green and has a pattern of frogs all over it. 

Suguru took a shower before coming, and not even the hot water could wash away all the bruises and pain from pulled muscles. He’s limping when he walks and if he breathes too deep then his ribcage disagrees with the movement. Ieiri offers her bed and he sits down heavily on it, entire body laden with aches. 

She touches his shoulder first, hand soft and purposeful in its grip. Suguru sucks in a breath, expecting even more pain before he can feel relief, a stranger to how her technique works. 

He’s enveloped in her cursed energy, like syrup dripping through his arms and being injected into his veins. It’s not painful, perhaps a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn’t last either. Suguru counts five seconds and then it’s gone, his shoulder feeling good as new. He moves it a bit, surprised. How amazing, that there’s a way in this world to just skip through the healing process and weeks and days of being achy and sore. 

“My ribs next,” he murmurs, because breathing is still a chore at that point, “please.”

Ieiri hums softly. The ribs take longer, more than five minutes even, and she mutters something about broken bones and how she’s never fixed one before so he should stay very, very still for this part. 

“Thank you,” Suguru says once he feels like a human being again, maybe half an hour later. His body is still heavy with tiredness, sure, but no longer in any pain. Ieiri doesn’t acknowledge it.

“God, I need a cigarette after that,” she mutters, pushing away from where he’s still sitting on her bed. The comforter is blue, he notices for the first time. 

“Can I come with you?”

“What?”

“To smoke,” Suguru clarifies. 

Ieiri gives him a long look, eyes searching his face for something. He doesn’t know what she finds but she relents in the end.

“C’mon,” she says, head motioning for the door. She grabs a pack of cigarettes from her table, the small box lost among a pile of papers with different renditions of the human body and a mess of handwritten notes. 

“Where?”

“Downstairs,” she answers. “Have you ever smoked before?” Suguru shakes his head no but follows her dutifully down the stairs. At night the air is colder this far away from the town and the wind bites against his uncovered skin despite it being late April. “You’re so tense all the time, it’s not good for you.”

“You shouldn’t put me opposed to Gojo,” he can’t help but say. Ieiri smiles at him, the mischievous streak appearing back in her eyes. 

“Gojo is a bit too carefree, perhaps,” she concedes. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be less of a goody two shoes, though.”

“What?” Suguru sneers, offended. “I’m not a goody two shoes!”

“No, you’re not,” Ieiri agrees sarcastically. “You just really like following the rules. And being on time for class, and simpering to Yaga-sensei.”

“That’s not…”

“C’mon, Geto,” she presses against his arm, pushing him to the side of the building where there’s a little darkened alleyway. 

She passes him a cigarette and he holds it awkwardly between his thumb and pointer finger. 

“Like this.” Another cigarette goes between her lips and she cups one hand around it as she brings the lighter up, thumb working against the latch so the fire spurts out. She inhales deeply, the point burning bright in the darkness of the night, then blows the smoke straight into Suguru’s face. He grimaces at the foul smell. “You, now.”

He sighs but takes the lighter from her hands, copying the motions he just saw carefully. 

“You have to really breathe it in. Don’t just hold the smoke in your mouth, that does nothing.”

Suguru takes a long drag, the way he saw Ieiri do, but it goes down his throat like molten lava, burning his lungs and everything on the path there. He breaks down in a coughing fit, trying pitifully to heave in breaths between every painful wheeze. Ieiri laughs loudly at him.

“Yeah, that happens,” she says, face bright with unrestrained glee. 

“God, you suck,” he mutters, still heaving a bit. It’s not worse than swallowing a curse but it’s also not an overly pleasant thing to do. 

“Eh,” she shrugs. “Do it again, it gets easier.”

Suguru side eyes her with distrust but does eventually bring the filter back to his lips. His hair is down and it sticks to his cheeks, blown by the soft wind, it’ll probably smell like smoke in the morning. Most of the cigarette burned down by itself while he had his coughing fit and a small spattering of ash falls down to the ground in front of his feet when he taps against it. The second time is slightly better and he only coughs twice, grimacing through it. 

Once Suguru actually inhales some of the smoke, though, he understands why people put themselves through the whole revolting ordeal. A nice haze takes over his brain and he props himself against the wall of the building, feeling lightheaded. Ieiri just continues smiling at him, she has finished her first cigarette and is lighting up a second. 

“Nice, right?”

Suguru hums in agreement then laughs, the stress of the day melting down through his body and dripping down his fingers. “My mom can never find out about this.”

“How would she know? You’re hours away from home, Geto, live a little.”

“She’ll know,” he counterpoints. “She always does. It’s like she can smell when I’ve done something I wasn’t supposed to do.”

“Isn’t that just all moms?”

“Maybe,” he hums again. In under ten minutes he’s finished his first ever cigarette and he stares at the stump on the ground after stepping on it to kill the fire. 

“Another one?” Ieiri asks, thrusting out her half full pack at him. Suguru shakes his head.

“I think I’m good with just one for today.”

Ieiri smirks at him. “Goody two shoes,” she taunts. 

He pushes against her shoulder, laughing loudly in the night air. They’re hidden away from the world, four hours away from his village and there’s no one to say they’re not supposed to be doing this. It’s exhilarating, it’s scary. Suguru is fifteen and he’s all alone in another city. Suguru is fifteen and he’s smoking in secret, laughing softly as Ieiri blows even more smoke in his face and then starts talking about something Yaga-sensei said earlier in the week, about their algebra homework because it doesn’t matter that he broke a rib today, he still has to do math.

Suguru is fifteen years old and he has a whole life ahead of him. It’s a funny thing to think about, tucked away in a forgotten but overly important part of the world, it just feels like he has the same amount of responsibility any other teenager might have. His pain free body reminds him differently.

Gojo is laid down on the couch in the living room when Suguru and Ieiri walk back in together, the light of his DSi illuminating his face. He glances up at the two of them when the door slides closed.

“You smell like smoke,” his nose wrinkles. Ieiri shakes her pack of cigarettes at him, it rattles softly, half empty. Gojo hums, eyes flickering to Suguru with confusion, but he doesn’t say anything else. 

Suguru falls asleep quickly and deeply once he lays down. The next morning he calls his mom, she asks if he’s done anything wrong that week already. He smiles through another cigarette, the adrenaline of disobeying making him feel both guilty and wide awake, and says no, not really . 

This life lived mostly underground

unknowing either sight nor sound

till reaching up for sunlight

just to be ripped out by the stem

Suguru walks in the common room fresh from the showers, hair still wet and skin humid with the moisturiser his mom sent in the last box from home. It’s a Friday night and he feels a tiredness that’s foreign in its intensity. His new schedule takes a toll — it makes him think perhaps a fifteen year old shouldn’t have to divide his time between studying, fighting a total of at least ten different curses a week, long drives to undisclosed locations and naps stolen in the backseat when he doesn’t have a pressing assignment for the next day and needs to write that instead.

Yaga-sensei does not accept any excuses for Literature assignments being turned in late, no matter how bad your wrist was fractured by a Grade One curse. It’s hell. Suguru is in hell and everyone else is just playing along with it. 

The first thing that hits him is the acetone scent clogging the entire room. He frowns and zeroes in on Ieiri, who’s sitting on the floor by the center table of the living room, the entire surface taken by different colored nail polishes. Gojo is on the couch, his ever present DSi in his hands and the loud music from his game mixes with the dialogue from the shitty drama on the TV. He never cares for keeping the volume down, unbothered by Suguru’s constant side eyes and Ieiri’s verbalised complaints. 

“We ordered pizza,” Gojo says as way of greeting. He’s surprisingly tame at nighttime, also prone to the human-like sensation of tiredness. He glances at Surugu over his DSi, blue eyes softened by the warm lights and the way his short fringe falls on his forehead, his dark red sweatshirt contrasting nicely with his pale skin. 

“Nice,” Suguru nods, kicking his slips off in the genkan and sitting beside Ieiri, legs extended in front of him, muscles aching from the intense training they had earlier. He’s itching for a cigarette but hasn’t had the time to buy his own pack and doesn’t dare ask Ieiri for one if she doesn’t offer it first. “Which color are you doing?”

Ieiri looks at him with a raised eyebrow. Her hair is pulled back and held by a claw clip in the form of a flower and there’s a stick held between her teeth, its point stained with a rainbow of different colors and betraying its long time usage. She lifts one of her hands, palms inward, and her nails are all coated in this nice deep purple that reflects the light. 

“Are you allowed to have painted nails here?” He asks, because although Jujutsu High is surprisingly lax when it comes to uniform rules, he supposes everything has a limit. 

Ieiri shrugs and spits the stick out on the table. “Can’t see my nails if my hands are wrist deep in some poor bastard's guts. I don’t think they care, to be honest, and if they do then I’ll just take it off. It’s the weekend right now, anyway, I have two days.”

Suguru hums and props his back against the couch Gojo’s laying on to focus on the drama while they wait for the pizza. 

Their few shared weekends have been slightly awkward if not downright tense. Neither of the three of them seem to be very sociable — Gojo doesn’t count, because his problem is he misses every social cue in existence and doesn’t give a fuck about it, so there’s no middle ground — and it makes for long nights filled with whatever the open TV channels decide is sufficiently good to stream on a weekend night and takeout they take turns choosing or fighting over. 

“Do you have blue?” Gojo asks suddenly. Suguru turns to watch as he stretches over the couch to check the wide range of selection of nail polishes Ieiri has acquired and dumped all over the table. “Can you do mine too?”

Suguru tries not to choke on air. It’s not that he cares about things such as gender norms and he’ll be the first to admit painted nails look cool, but Gojo — rich brat raised in a very traditional clan Gojo — would seem like someone who scoffs at the idea of men doing things that are normally considered girly.

Ieiri seems a little shell shocked at that, too. “Really?”

“Is that a problem?” Gojo asks, wide blue eyes almost daring her to contradict him, but Ieiri doesn’t seem the type to care for that sort of thing either. Gojo glances over at Suguru and all he can do is shrug his shoulders, trying to demonstrate it’s not something he’ll start a fight over.

“No,” Ieiri says, then rummages around with her unpainted hand to find three different bottles of blue nail polishes, ranging from dark to light. “Choose one and I’ll do yours next.”

Gojo breaks into one of what Suguru has labeled his characteristic sunny smiles, pleased at being indulged, like receiving a ‘no’ was never an option. “Nice,” he mutters to himself, and throws his game switch to the side to analyse each color with a type of scrutiny Suguru hasn’t seen him use for much else. He ends up choosing this pastel blue with some subtle glitter that glints against the light.

Suguru leaves them to it and goes to get the pizza all the way by the school entry, annoyed by being asked to do so but complacent to his fate once he’s out in the clean air. When he gets back, Gojo is sitting with his legs crossed on the floor on what was previously Suguru’s place, his right hand resting on Ieiri’s knees as she applies coat after coat of sparkly baby blue to his nails. He’s complaining about her missing a spot and Ieiri curses him out and says she’ll make him do it himself if he doesn’t stop whining.

Suguru makes space for the two pizza boxes in the middle of the myriad of nail stuff occupying the center table then sits back on the floor next to them, foregoing the now empty couch. 

“Next time we go to the city I’ll get those fancy stickers,” Gojo says, his eyes following intently each and every movement of Ieiri’s hands. “Do you think they make Digimon ones? I’d like to have Digimon on my nails, I think.”

“I know a shop,” Ieiri offers. 

“Hello Kitty, too.” Gojo nods to himself, like he’s mentally making a list of all the nail related things he would like to buy now. Suguru can admit to himself, in the privacy of his thoughts , that it’s cute. Gojo hasn’t tried to bond with them much outside of class hours, always playing his games quietly by himself and only offering the occasional obnoxious comment every now and then.

There’s also been the three different fights he’s had with Suguru over the way he washes the glasses and leaves socks scattered around the common areas, but that’s neither here nor there. 

Suguru wipes the grease off his fingers in a nearby paper towel and then starts sorting through all the different nail polishes himself, turning the bottles this way and that to see the liquid move. He fishes out two different black ones and waves the one without glitter at Ieiri.

“Me next?” He asks.

Gojo looks over at him and an almost crazed look of glee overtakes his face. “Do blue instead, so we match!” 

“No, thank you,” Suguru shakes his head, batting Gojo’s hand away when he tries to take the black vial.

“Hey, careful!” Ieiri shrieks at them. “If you smudge that I’ll kill you, Gojo. This is hard work.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismisses but obediently sets his right hand to rest nice and immobile by the table, admiring the way the light hits the glitter. “You’re such an emo, Suguru. Always in black, with your cool earrings and long hair and brooding to the side, thinking you’re above the rest of us. Do something different!”

Suguru raises an eyebrow at him, warmth stirring in his gut at being complimented by Gojo even if it’s disguised as an insult. “You think I’m cool?” He asks, taunting and sarcastically flirty.

“That’s not what I said.” 

“It’s what I heard,” Suguru shrugs. 

Gojo rolls his eyes but Suguru can see how his cheeks tint pink under the lights. Ieiri laughs at them and pushes Gojo’s hands out of her lap.

“All done, you. Now sit nice and quiet while it dries. Geto, which one do you want?”

Suguru gives her the black bottle and she shakes it around before opening it, the pungent smell of vernix already having overtaken the entire room — they should have probably cracked one of the windows open, but now it’s too late. They spend a good fifteen minutes in silence, the TV offering background noise as Ieiri bends over his hands to meticulously paint them a perfect black. 

The night finishes with the drama on the TV being swapped for a random movie Gojo choses and pizza slices being passed around while they try their hardest not to hit their nails on anything. They hold everything awkwardly for half an hour and stifle their giggles when Gojo inevitably smudges his thumb and Ieiri complains loudly all the way while she redoes it. 

Yaga-sensei makes them take off the nail polish come Monday morning, citing rules and that he can’t just ignore some things, but none of them complain about it. Next Friday night, Ieiri sits in the living room again, a red bag filled with supplies and open wide on the center table waiting for them when Suguru leaves his shower. 

This time he chooses a nice violet, to match his eyes. 

Suguru has just finished a long call with his parents when a weight drops down beside him. He’s on the steps in front of the dorm building, sitting alone with one leg elongated in front of him so the task of watching the top of the black sneakers turn this way and that is easier. He’s migrated to a more comfortable position over the half an hour of conversation he had with his mom, explaining how the first month has gone, what he’s seen and what he’s eaten. He described his classmates; tried not to hear the worry in her voice when she asked if he doesn’t feel alone with so few people. 

He turns with a start and curses himself for having been so lost in the conversation he hadn’t kept watch of the surroundings for people approaching. Gojo grins up at him, a rare moment of his eyes being uncovered by sunglasses, and the full force of his blue gaze makes Suguru shudder even though it’s a reasonably warm day, if already the end of it. 

“What are you doing here all alone?” Gojo asks, almost singing each syllable. He always speaks with a little lilt to his words when he’s being purposefully annoying, like life is one big performance he’s presenting all alone. 

It grated on Suguru the first few days, but now he’s reasonably used to it, after a full month of hearing it everyday. 

Suguru waves his phone around. “Calling my parents.”

Gojo grimaces. The reaction is surprising in its unexpectedness. “Thank fuck I never have to do that .”

Suguru laughs despite himself. It comes out of him like a punch and takes the sinking feeling he’s been wallowing in for the better part of an hour with it, the anxiety that comes from lying over and over again to his mother about his well being. He never expects such sincerity from Gojo, although it seems like it’s the only thing he knows how to give. 

It’s difficult to imagine Gojo’s life being anything but picture perfect, even with his statement just then. Suguru knows Gojo came from money; the type of money that’s unfathomable for normal people like him, the type of money that buys manors big enough to house an entire town and has made Gojo completely unable to grasp the real value of anything. But Suguru also grew up in a nice — if small — house, and still managed to come out a little broken out of it, so nothing is out of the realm of possibilities these days. 

“Hm,” Suguru nods. He’s not really uncomfortable by the statement, and has full knowledge that not everyone’s parents are as nice as his, or as understanding, but it makes him feel bad all the same. “They worry about the school being so far away,” he ends up saying, trying to sound casual.

“I don’t call but sometimes they do. Well, not them , but one of the clan elders called yesterday to complain about my ‘behavior’,” Gojo makes air quotes on the last word and pushes one of his shoulders against Suguru’s, like they’re in on the joke together. “Apparently, the stunt I pulled on the last mission was unacceptable and I should treat my superiors better.”

Suguru eyes him carefully, trying to hold back a smile. “You should be more polite.”

Gojo laughs. “Not you too, Suguru. I’ll be respectful to them when they’re respectful to me. What can they do about it anyway? I’m stronger.”

“And not at all arrogant,” Suguru says.

Gojo doesn’t take offence, just shrugs and pushes against Suguru’s shoulders again. He’s uninhibited in a way Suguru couldn’t ever hope to be, his entire body seems light, like life is unable to hold him down even if it tries.

“Do you have to call anyone else? I was going to that corner shop down the road that sells the caramel popsicles I really like. If you’re done then we can go together then watch a movie.”

Suguru glances at the black screen of his phone. He waits another few seconds — doesn’t know why — then nods. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” he says and gets up. He offers a hand to Gojo, who grins up at him and takes it, palm soft and dry, weight pulling against Suguru’s when he straightens to his full height with the aid. 

For some reason, the TV won’t connect with the DVD player that night and they fight with the devices for half an hour before giving up and huddling together in Gojo’s dorm with his laptop. The room is a mirror image of Suguru’s but less decorated and more disorganized. There’s a pile of clothes in the bureau’s chair and a collection of action figurines on the shelf, some books and mangas scattered at random places from where Gojo probably last read them. 

It’s not uncomfortable, when they press close in the twin bed with sheets that smell like detergent and strawberry body wash. Gojo’s body is warm against Suguru and the movie is fun, if a little stupid. They switch it for an anime episode when it’s done and Gojo chatters away about the lore of the whole thing until the clock hits midnight and Suguru is fighting to keep his eyes close to pay attention to the other’s rant. 

“Go to bed, Suguru,” Gojo murmurs, smiling softly. He closes his laptop and puts it aside in the mattress. “We have an early class tomorrow.”

Suguru grunts and drags himself up, body still warm and pliant. He waves at Gojo and mutters a goodnight. 

They’ve been building up to something and it's like that singular night opens up the floodgates to it. Suddenly, Gojo is always there. He comes into Suguru’s room unprompted and without knocking, taking over the bed like it’s his, socked feet propped against the wall and wild white hair framing his head against Suguru’s pillowcase. He doesn’t seem to have any concept of personal space or privacy and will, without blinking an eye, just strip and change in front of Suguru or straight up steal his shirts and socks — as if he’s in need of those. 

He asks Suguru out to try the new crepe place downtown and the new cafe two blocks over that has these cakes baked in animal forms. He pulls on Suguru’s arms and talks loudly next to his ears, touches the gauges on them and asks if they’re real, drags Ieiri unwittingly into his jokes and their outings and simply does not care what anyone thinks of his manners. 

He sits with Suguru during breakfast while they wait for Ieiri to be ready for the day — always at an ungodly hour because class starts at eight and Suguru is a morning person although Gojo is obviously not — and follows him out when he decides to have a smoke and watch the sunrise. It’s a bad habit, and a new one, but it helps with the constant anxiety that seems to brew into Suguru’s chest like grape juice fermenting in a winery, stronger with each passing moment. 

It’s different, to have people actively look for his company. Suguru is unused to the constant presences around him, unused to the way Gojo seems genuinely excited to see him in the mornings, smile stretching over cheeks red from sleep and blue eyes that are at their least perceptive of the day brightening at the sight of him. He’s unused to how Ieiri just shares his silence, unbothered by it, how she talks calmly and makes mean jokes that are different from Gojo’s but that make Suguru smirk back at her in complicity, unused to the way their sarcasms share the same brand. 

Slowly, Gojo becomes Satoru and Ieiri becomes Shoko and they relax together in a unit, comfortable in each other’s presences. It has taken them a month, but they’ve found their middle ground. Suguru and Satoru’s fights are explosive but fleeting and Shoko is a stable character, she’s not prone to rage or screaming nor putting up with their bullshit. It’s easy to exist with them in the tiny dorms, to share a kitchen and a couch and the days of his life. It’s easy in a way that it has never been to Suguru, in a way he never thought he would get. 

When June comes upon them, Suguru has started to think of the three of them as a team more often than not. If he’s somewhere, of course Satoru and Shoko won’t be too far behind.

“Here,” Shoko says, passing her pack of cigarettes to Suguru. Satoru follows with a lollipop pop between his teeth, something cherry and awfully sweet.

“Thanks,” Suguru murmurs instinctively as he pulls one out, he holds his hands around his mouth as Shoko brings the lighter to the tip of his cigarette.

Satoru watches in an odd show of silence. Most times he’s not present for their smoking sessions, preferring to stay bundled up in his blankets rather than braving the outside just to accompany Shoko and Suguru in their bad habits. He’s wearing this white t-shirt and a flannel that Suguru suspects is his, round sunglasses perched on his nose. The entirety of the right side of his body is touching Suguru, arms looped with his and steps synced. He smells like cologne, vanilla and sugar from the mochis he had earlier. 

“Can I try?” Satoru asks after a beat. 

Shoko side eyes him. They had a rare day out and took the subway to the center to go to an arcade. It was Satoru’s first time riding it and his reaction was miles better than Suguru’s own, two months ago, all excited giggles and animated commentary. 

“You’re not gonna like it,” Suguru says, already used to Satoru’s sensitivity to anything even remotely strong smelling – he always wrinkles his nose at Suguru when he comes inside after smoking. Satoru shrugs and reaches for the cigarette between his lips, petulant at being denied something. Suguru blows the smoke in his face for that, the way Ieiri did to him that first time.

“You don’t know that,” Satoru retorts.

Satoru takes a deep drag of the cigarette unprompted and without any previous coaching. They’ve stopped in front of a random shop, watching for his reaction. It takes two seconds before he starts coughing uncontrollably, tears brimming in his eyes and tongue lolling out of his mouth in an awful grimace. Suguru shares a single look with Shoko before they burst into laughter.

He takes the cigarette back from Satoru, afraid he’ll drop it from the weird perch he has it in between his fingers, probably imitating the way Suguru does it himself, always reluctant to admit he doesn’t know how to do something.

“It burns,” Satoru wheezes.

Suguru pats his shoulder, holding back more laughter. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know,” he whines. “You and Shoko are always doing it, so I thought it couldn’t be as disgusting as the smell. Why the fuck would you inhale that willingly? I feel like my lungs are on fire.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Shoko says, and blows more smoke on Satoru’s face. He waves his hand around in a comical way, trying to disperse it.

When Suguru takes a drag, most of the cigarette having burned away without being smoked, he turns his face away from Satoru, sympathetic and remembering his own first time smoking.

“It gets better with time,” he offers.

“I’m not doing that again,” Satoru huffs and starts walking away from them, lollipop firmly back in his mouth. His lips are shiny with spit and some kind of gloss. It got on the filter tip of the cigarette and tastes like strawberry.

Suguru chuckles, throwing the stump away in a nearby trash can. Shoko does the same and immediately offers another from her pack. He takes it and starts following the outline of Satoru through the crowd as he works the lighter. The arcade is another block away and the sun is bright, warm enough for no jackets and announcing summer will be merciless. Satoru’s white hair shines under the sunlight, in a perpetual messy state. It’s grown a bit more since they first met, but it’s still awkwardly short. Satoru runs his hand through the locks constantly, like the length bothers him too.

Shoko starts a conversation about an odd essay they had to write the other week, mindless chatter that Suguru finds easy to pay attention to. They catch up to Satoru in another few steps because he’s stopped to look at Digimon plushies on the vitrine of a shop and it reminds him of the nail stickers he still wants to get. 

It’s easy, he thinks, to exist in this moment. He’s miles away from everything that used to be known but no less comfortable because of it. The brush of Satoru’s hands against his arms, Shoko’s biting commentary once Suguru teases Satoru gently about his childish tastes, it feels almost like home, whatever version of it he could hope to build so far away from his village. 

Perhaps he’ll visit in the break, once he has the time, once he doesn’t feel so disconnected and like he’s living two different lives.

I wanna be loud, so loud I’m talking seismic

I wanna be the thunder of hundred thousand hooves moving quick

There’s something to be said about power and strength in a world ruled by those who wield the most of it. In Jujutsu, it’s either kill or be killed, and it’s difficult not to learn that quickly and in the most brutal of ways. 

Summer comes with a vengeance and brings with it a wave of curses that crashes through them like a tsunami, washing away everything in its path without mercy. Curses know no softness, they are not like humans, not prone to bouts of emotion or pity. They strike with ruthlessness and you need to be better than them to survive. 

So many people die, Suguru thinks on some of the darker nights, because the nightmares never did go away and he’s still prone to waking up at odd hours heaving between sobs, a scream lodged in his throat that he never dares let out because Satoru is just one wall away. They go to schools, playgrounds, and residential buildings. He sees lifeless bodies, tiny beings that were deprived of their right to live too soon, sees destruction and families crying because they’ll never have a real answer as to what happened. He sees it all and understands .

Jujutsu exists to protect non-jujutsu sorcerers. They’re there to make sure the least amount of people possible goes through this. 

Suguru was warned about the busier season, how the warm months were the worst, but he still couldn’t have prepared for it if he tried. He’s battered in a way that’s beyond simple exhaustion by the start of July, haunted by what he’s seen and sporting bruises in places he never thought possible. There’s so many visits made to Shoko’s dorm rooms at night that Satoru’s pouts in the mornings, whines about being excluded from their hangouts – like they’re doing something fun without him and it’s not just Suguru doing his best not to cry while Shoko runs her technique because no matter what, he's no longer a child and tears are only reserved for them.

It’s difficult for Suguru to show weakness in front of Satoru. He can’t be touched if he doesn’t want to, the curses are unable to land a hit, to hurt him. On one hand, it makes it easier for Suguru to strike without having to worry for his partner but on the other, it also makes him feel like a failure every time he hits a wall with too much force and sees stars swimming in his vision. 

It takes one too many concussions for Suguru to realise his obvious mistakes.

(And Yaga-sensei points them out too; says he relies too much on his curses, on Satoru covering his bases, that he’s weak when it comes to push and pull because he doesn’t account for the variables. Says Satoru won’t be there forever to pick up the slack and then what ?)

The scolding keeps Suguru awake for a few nights. It’s new for him to have his errors thrown so haphazardly in the light, to have someone criticise him like that, no matter how good the intentions. He knows that’s what sensei is there for, but the bitter taste on his mouth lingers longer than any curse ever could, it makes him feel ashamed , and that’s worse than simple disappointment.

So, Suguru starts waking up even earlier to do his drills, runs a few laps around the track then goes to the gym, trains his hand to hand combat with painstaking care. Yaga-sensei comes around some mornings and corrects his form, offers up second and third year students to spar with him, gives tips on every way to improve. Sensei isn't nice about anything, but Suguru doesn’t need nice , he needs to be pushed.

Eventually, the bitterness goes away, but not his desire to improve.

He doesn’t ever want to be lectured about weakness again, to have someone point out his flaws. They shouldn’t exist in the first place, so he’ll fix all of them. He’s not Satoru, he reminds himself, he can and will be touched, so he’ll make sure it’s on his own terms from then on, that he gives no more openings to be thrown around by subpar curses.

When he comes back to the dorms after his morning routine, Satoru is normally fresh off the shower, still pliant with sleep and smiling at the sight of Suguru sweaty and ruffled from exercise. He’ll drape over Suguru’s back in the kitchen, uncaring of how gross he is, ask for breakfast, lock his arms around Suguru’s stomach and match their steps as Suguru goes through the cupboards. It was annoying at first, the constant touch, but Suguru is weirdly used to it now. For someone who never before had such a close relationship with another person outside of his family, the easiness of Satoru’s affection doesn’t bother him. 

It’s gratifying actually, like a prize no one else gets to have, because not long ago Suguru realised that not once, since the very beginning of their friendship, has Satoru kept Infinity up around him. It feels like a big act of trust, like a hand given without asking for anything back and Suguru treats it with the kind of reverence it needs, holding it softly somewhere deep inside his heart. Every single time Satoru’s bare skin brushes his, it sends electric thrills through his veins.

(Suguru keeps these revelations to himself though. He wouldn’t hear the end of it if he said these thoughts out loud to Satoru.)

As the summer months drag on, Suguru loses counts of how many missions they do, of how many curses he swallows, one after the other without pause. His stomach becomes queasy and it’s difficult to keep a healthy diet most days — because he does throw up more often than not, even though it’s in the bathroom of whatever place they’ve stopped for food after, where no one can see — but he tries . 

He thinks Satoru knows anyway, because whenever Suguru comes out of the bathroom in the chosen restaurant of the night, he’ll pat the place next to him and steal most of the stuff off Suguru’s plate so it’ll look like he ate. He swaps them for the things that are easy on the stomach, boiled potatoes and noodles, things he’s seen Suguru get himself after missions. 

(God, Suguru thinks every time. God.)

His collection grows so exponentially he almost loses count of it. He swallows his first first grade, then his second and his third and then it’s meaningless to think of them in these kinds of terms anymore. He stops being thrown around during fights, stops having to quietly take Shoko for a smoke after a mission just to have her use her Reverse Cursed Technique on him somewhere Satoru won’t see him whimper in pain.

He becomes stronger, strong enough to get a Grade One Ranking by the time September rolls around with its chill winds. He thinks it has something to do with the danger he poses with his technique alone, a thought that never really crossed his mind, but that these days he’s wont to mull over.

In the quiet of the night, he imagines the damage it would cause if he simply let all the curses under his possession run havoc and gets a deep understanding of why the higher ups want to keep in his good graces. He’s dangerous — not like Satoru, who could wipe a city away with a snap of his fingers and who can see things beyond Suguru’s wildest imagination, but dangerous all the same, dangerous enough to be kept docile.

It’s funny to think of his technique like that when he never has before, always treating it as more of a burden than anything because the vile taste of the curses follow him no matter what. But wielding a dragon larger than life and using it as nothing but a ride home gives Suguru a shot of pure adrenaline, of power in its most raw form cursing through his veins. 

Here is this impossibly powerful creature, and he’s under my command. He'll roll over and show his belly if I will it so.  

“Suguru, we’re both the strongest now, you know,” Satoru said when Suguru got his new student card, the Grade One Sorcerer displayed proudly on it. He rolls each syllable of Suguru’s name on his tongue. “There’s not that many Grade One sorcerers these days, and I think we’ll get Special Grade soon. Now that’d be fun. We can take a Special Grade curse together already, anyway. It’d be nice if you had it in your collection, imagine it rolling over and wagging its tail.”

Suguru doesn’t know why but at some point Satoru decided they’re a package deal. Suguru doesn’t ask nor corrects him when Satoru uses ‘we’ where months ago it would’ve been ‘I’, doesn’t want it to change again. 

“Can you bring out that one?” Satoru asks one afternoon. They’re out on the training tracks, some second years on the other side of the field and a lone third year in the bleachers. It’s one of the last hot days of the year now, September falling through them like sand in a small hourglass.

They had sparred, hand to hand and with no cursed energy. Satoru won for the first time since starting school and Suguru has been pretending not to sulk for the last ten minutes. 

He raises an eyebrow at Satoru, willing to indulge but also not wanting to give in too easily. “Be more specific.”

“The pink one.”

“Pink one,” Suguru echoes. Satoru nods enthusiastically, sunglasses sliding down his nose a bit. Suguru fights the urge to fix them. “Which pink one?”

“That one that’s flat, Suguru!” He makes a shape with his hands. They’re sticky with the filling of a mochi he just had and his fingertips are tinted purple from it. 

“The stingray?”

“Yeah, that one! Bring it out, I want to play with it.”

“They’re not toys, you know,” Suguru says, amused. He brings the curse out all the same. It circles Satoru a few times and ducks away from his sugar-covered hands. 

Satoru pets the curse like it’s a normal dog. They’re no longer sentient once Suguru has hold of them, so it’s difficult to say if it enjoys the caress or not — it just does what Suguru tells it to do. 

“It likes me, I think.” Satoru nods, like he heard what Suguru was thinking. 

(Suguru likes Satoru so perhaps everything he controls is also bound to be the same.)

“It’s just a curse,” Suguru replies, instead of that. “Stop wiping your fingers on it, that’s gross.”

Satoru turns to beam at him, unbothered by the scolding. It’s impossible to bring his spirits down in any meaningful way and Suguru envies that part of his personality the littlest bit, it must be nice, to know instinctively that no one else will ever be able to beat you when it matters.

Satoru is weirdly fascinated by all of Suguru’s curses. He was there for most of them, now, helped fight them in their mindless state of rage, and it seems funny to him that they can become so docile. He likes the rainbow dragon the best, Suguru knows. 

(That one gave Suguru a concussion so bad he saw stars the entire drive back to the school. He threw up twice and Satoru had this worried frown on his face the whole time, hands afraid to touch anywhere near Satoru’s head while he laid down on the back seat of the car. Shoko stayed behind for that specific mission and gave them a long lecture about safety once Suguru was deposited in her medical bay. It was the last time Suguru got a concussion, though, so there’s that.)

“Do a flip,” Satoru says seriously to the curse. It stays floating in front of him, not moving. “You’re no fun, Suguru! Make it do a flip.”

“I just told you it’s not a toy. That’s a Grade Two.”

“Eh, I could exorcise it right now if I wanted to, so make it do a flip instead.”

Suguru raises an eyebrow at him and in the next moment the curse disperses, disappearing back into Suguru’s arsenal. Satoru’s pout is monumental. 

“No fun!” He screeches, pointing a finger at Suguru. “Let’s fight if it’s like that, if I win then you have to make it carry me back to the dorms.”

Suguru shakes his head and lays down in the grass. The thigh bun his hair is kept in bothers him once he tries to cushion his head and get comfortable, so he removes the hair tie, letting the shoulder length locks fall down around his face. It’s the end of the day already and from here they’ll go straight to the showers, Suguru looking forward to washing away the sweat from his temples and roots.

“No way, I’m done for today.”

Satoru whines, hands coming down to shake Suguru’s shoulders incessantly. “You’re just afraid I’ll win again. Don’t be such a sore loser, Suguru.”

Suguru knows it’s bait, but it makes him crack one eye open again and glare at Satoru. Satoru’s face morphs back into glee, knowing he’s won. It’s so hard not to indulge his every whim when he looks that happy once he gets his way.

They go again, Suguru’s hair fluttering around his shoulders because he’s too lazy to put it up again and doesn’t care enough for it. Satoru makes a few mistakes, eyes flitting back and forth between Suguru’s face and their surroundings, and Suguru lands one hit to every two he receives, so it’s fairly nice, even though he does lose in the end. 

He’s not as sore a loser as Satoru though, so he takes the ribbing with a soft smile and gathers their things from the grass, throwing Satoru’s uniform jacket to him. He brings the stingray curse out and Satoru sprawls on its back, never once untrusting of the creatures once they’re Suguru’s to control.

On the way back to the dorms, he chatters away about a level he’s playing on the DSi, head cushioned on the curse and his eyes looking up under his white lashes at Suguru from where he makes the stingray float next to him, just a meter off the ground. 

Summer is over, the last of the warmth melting away as the cold winds take over and they have a reprieve before missions start coming in again. Most of them are grade two and down at the moment, and Suguru and Satoru are better than that, their powers spared to be used elsewhere at the moment.

Suguru isn’t prone to bragging, would be horrified to ever sound as arrogant as Satoru can do casually, but it does make him proud to know he’s part of the highest leagues. 

One of the best. 

He looks at Satoru’s smiling face as he speaks, the way he relaxes around Suguru like nothing could ever touch them in this little bubble, and tells himself he’ll only get better. He might never reach Satoru’s level, prevented from doing so by fate itself, but he can come to a close second, he can make sure Satoru’s always protected. 

And even if Satoru might never need such a thing, such stupid sentimentality, there are millions of people in the country with no way to protect themselves from the things they can’t see. It’s Suguru’s responsibility to make sure they live, to ensure life continues, because he has the power to do so, and they don’t. 

You have me floating like a feather on the sea

while you’re as heavy as the world 

that you hold your hands beneath 

“Morning,” Shoko offers as she comes into the kitchen. It’s early for a Sunday, and Suguru is back from his solo training, shirt sticky with sweat and limping with every step he takes. 

“Can you fix my ankle?” He asks, mixing sugar into a cup of green tea then adding creamer to it. He sets it to the side to cool then takes a sip of the black coffee he made for himself. “I sprained it while running.”

Shoko raises an eyebrow at him. She seems to constantly have this bone deep tiredness to her, although she’s the one who has the healthiest sleeping habits out of the three of them and the least amount of strenuous missions. She barely ever leaves the campus, really.

“Whatever,” she shrugs. “Sit down and let me see.”

Suguru props his foot on the chair in front of her and in all of two minutes he feels good as new again. 

“Don’t put much strain on it for a day or two,” Shoko says, sprawling on the seat, fingers tapping against the top of the table in a way that tells Suguru she’s ready for a morning cigarette.

“Coffee?” He offers, hopping back to his feet and rolling his ankle a few times. It’s still bizarre for him, that he can hurt himself then get fixed just like that.

Shoko makes a noise that sounds like an affirmative so Suguru pours the rest of the coffee from the pitcher in a mug and passes it to her. At that point, Satoru drags himself into the kitchen, soft with sleep. The shirt he’s wearing hangs a size too big on his shoulders and Suguru recognises it from his own drawer of pajamas. He’s not wearing his sunglasses yet and the back of his hands push against his eyes, rubbing away at them.

He sits next to Suguru, half his body leaning against him, dangerously close to making the chair topple over and take both of them to the ground. Suguru slides the tea cup all the way in front of him and Satoru starts mixing away with the spoon without even looking up.

“Ugh,” Shoko mumbles from the other side of the table. Suguru raises his eyes at her.

“What?”

She sneers at him. “You’re both disgusting, you know that?”

Satoru blinks, face raising in confusion. “What did I do? I just got here,” he says, lips pouting with the lilt of his words.

Suguru’s heart does this lurching thing in his chest, and he has to take another sip of his coffee to try and make it stop. Satoru is always at his most dangerous in the morning, at least for Suguru. He likes how pliant he gets, the way he can be coerced from one place to the other, body soft and warm and constantly searching for Suguru’s touch.

“What didn’t you do?” Shoko echoes. Satoru sticks his tongue out at her then goes back to his tea, still not fully awake. “Geto, wanna go for a smoke?”

Satoru whines loudly at that, like a petulant child who hasn’t got his way. “No, I just got here! Let’s have breakfast first. Suguru, can you pour me cereal?” 

Suguru looks from one to the other, weighing his options. Shoko makes the decision for him as she raises herself from the chair, coffee mug in one hand and pack of cigarettes in the other. Her soft pink lounging robes are tied tightly down her middle and her socks have little brown bears all over them. “Meet me downstairs when you’re done, will you?” She mutters, walking out.

“Uh,” Suguru says.

“She’s in a mood.” Satoru clicks his tongue. “Suguru, cereal?”

Suguru weaves a long sigh but in the end he does pour Satoru the disgustingly sweet cereal topped with chocolate chips and adds the milk to it, laying both the bowl and a spoon in front of him. 

“You’re my favourite, you know that?” Satoru says, smiling mischievously as he digs in. Suguru fights the blush that tries to take over his face at the words, knowing they don’t mean what he wants them to mean.

“And you’re worse than a spoiled child,” he deadpans.

“Eh, it’s important to keep a youthful spirit in our line of work, you know. People die everyday, we have to keep going or we'll topple over too.”

Suguru raises an eyebrow at him. “Is that so?”

“You know that too,” Satoru shrugs. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

Suguru glances at his halfway done coffee and decides it’s the best decision to eat something then in case they get an unexpected mission later. He whips up an omelette and some tofu, making extra because he knows Satoru will steal a few bites from his plate even if he insists he prefers a sweet breakfast over savoury.

The day before was a surprisingly good one, they had one mission and Suguru swallowed the grade one curse with surprising ease. He didn’t even throw up after and could eat again by dinner time, so he wants to keep the momentum going. 

“I’ll go down to meet Shoko,” Suguru says once they’re both done eating. Satoru doesn’t even try to pretend he’ll help put the dishes away in the dishwasher. 

“Do you want to play MarioKart before lunch?” Satoru asks, one foot coming up on the chair so he can prop his chin on one knee. 

“Hm,” Suguru agrees. He goes for the door, taking a coat from the rack that is probably Satoru’s from how nice the fabric feels against his fingertips.

“Take a shower before,” Satoru says, watching him go. Suguru glances back at him, the soft light of the morning coming through the window and shining a halo on his sleep rumpled form. You know I don’t like how the cigarette smoke smells, it’ll be all over my room.”

Suguru swallows around nothing and can only nod before closing the door with a click behind him. 

Shoko is sitting in the front steps when he goes down, a coat twice her size over her robes — probably also Satoru’s, because he’s the one with money enough for multiple coats between the three of them — and the smoke makes a cloud around her head. Suguru drops down heavily by her side and takes the offered lighter. The October morning chill is already brutal and it’s only bound to get worse as the year runs its finishing course.

“I think I like Satoru,” he says by way of greeting. 

Shoko doesn’t react. No shocked gasp or wide eyes, she simply taps against her cigarette once, ashes getting carried away with the wind. 

“Yeah,” she nods. 

“Isn’t it weird?” Suguru asks. He doesn’t know how to feel about it, and has been wrestling with the knowledge for days at that point.

Satoru has woven himself into his life, into his routine. He wasn’t there and then he was and now Suguru can’t think of how he survived before. It was lonely, at home, and having Satoru around is different. Different even from Shoko’s easy companionship.

“Why would it be?” Shoko asks. 

Suguru shrugs. Why, indeed. Satoru is like the sun, in that everyone and everything in their world seems to orbit around him, bending to his every whim. Perhaps it was inevitable that Suguru would get caught in his path, that he too would become enamoured by the blue eyes and red cheeks, by the shiny lips and the warmth of his skin. 

“I don’t know. It’s Satoru. Satoru Gojo. Doesn’t everyone want to be him or be with him or whatever corny things people say these days?”

Shoko finally glances sideways at him, face souring into a frown. “I don’t.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” she retorts. “Satoru is an idiot and it’s very difficult to hold any respect for his person after talking to him for any longer than five minutes. It mostly says something about your sanity and sanctity of mind that you’ve somehow decided to like him.”

Suguru laughs at that. It’s true. He remembers being annoyed at the beginning, on that very first week, in the month that followed after. The incessant chatter was an abnormality for someone who had been as isolated as Suguru, and then it became the norm. It’s only been six months but he already misses the noise when Satoru is away these days, even if he can still appreciate the silence. 

“He’s the strongest,” Suguru murmurs. “That’s what I mean. It feels silly to say I like him. He doesn’t need things like that.”

“Why, because he can never like you back? Or because he’s so strong that having crushes and dating is now beneath him?” Shoko deadpans. She kills her cigarette on the cement of the steps and lights another one immediately. “You’re stupid too, if you think that.”

Suguru frowns, he puffs the smoke out in tiny rings, a trick he learned from a video and had been practicing for weeks, unconsciously waiting for the moment Satoru sees it and says it’s cool. 

“What do you mean?”

“He likes you too, dumbass,” she says with the same calmness of a storm. “He’s all over you the entire day, it’s disgusting. Have you seen him letting anyone else touch him?”

“Uh,” Suguru mutters. 

Shoko shakes her head, like Suguru has managed to piss her off somehow. “Being around you both has burned away at my patience.”

“You never had any to start with. And I thought you liked me.”

“Barely. Depends on the day.”

There’s a pause while they just smoke in silence, sun rising beneath the heavy clouds. 

“Should I tell him?” Suguru asks.

It’s not like him to worry, but just the other week one of the third years died during a mission and a gloom has taken over the school with the heavy grief of his classmates. As Jujutsu sorcerers, they don’t always have tomorrow promised, and it’s a thought Suguru’s been battling with as his months in the campus stretch longer. 

“I don’t know, Geto,” Shoko says. She gets up, picking the stumps of cigarettes on the ground to throw in the trash inside, her empty coffee mug on the other hand. “Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t. I can’t tell you what to do.”

She walks back in the building, doors sliding close behind her back. Suguru finishes his last cigarette alone, legs bouncing up and down with both the cold and his constant anxiety. 

“I wish you would, though,” he whispers to the air. It always seems easier if someone tells him what to do, if they point to a path.

Satoru is Suguru’s problem to solve, however, and he understands that. He’s somewhere upstairs, Suguru knows, probably bundled back in his blankets, DSi between his hands and soft music playing in the speakers, waiting for Suguru to be done and come back.

Suguru heaves a heavy sigh and gets up, ready to take a shower and get on with the rest of his day, whatever battles it involves.

The knock to the door rouses Suguru from a bad dream. It hadn’t yet become a nightmare, but it was edging close. He blinks awake in the darkness, trying to discern what’s wrong through the heavy cloud of dizziness from being awakened from deep sleep. He waits, unmoving in the single bed. Another knock sounds around the room.

“Yeah?” He whispers into the nothingness. The door slides open, just enough for someone to fit through with a blanket and a pillow hugged to their stomach.

Suguru sits up at the sight of Satoru, all ruffled from sleep, pajamas hanging low on his hips. It must be late. They had gone to bed just after eleven, both exhausted from a mission and the sun isn’t yet showing signs of rising through the flimsy curtains the school offers in each of the dorm rooms. 

“Is something wrong?” Suguru asks when Satoru just closes the door and walks closer.

He drops on the bed, crawling over Suguru’s form to take the wall side, body stretching and tangling the sheets, barely covered by the blanket he's carrying with him. He inhales deeply and then relaxes fully.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Satory says.

“Why are you here?” Suguru asks, but he’s laying back down too, not even waiting for the answer.

It’s impossible to fit in the bed without touching and they maneuver around for a moment to make it work. Satoru’s legs tangle with his, the bare skin of his thighs brushing against Suguru’s hands as he finds a comfortable position. The pillow he came with gets flinged to the floor in order for them to share the one already on the bed, heads tilted close, breathing the very same air.  Suguru throws the blankets over them and hooks his arm on Satoru’s waist, bringing him even closer so the scent of his body wash and strawberry lip balm can flood over his senses with every breath. He’s braver in the dark, and even if he doesn’t understand why Satoru is there, he’ll take advantage of it. 

“Is everything ok?” He whispers again, words brushing against Satoru’s cheeks as they come out. Satoru nods, white hair smelling like his matching strawberry shampoo. Suguru hopes he will still be able to smell it on the pillow when he goes to sleep again the next night.

“Hm,” Satoru hums, chest vibrating with it. “It’s ok now. I was just too cold. Go back to sleep, Suguru.”

And Suguru does, he closes his eyes, breathing deeply and feeling every point of contact between their skins, the heat radiating like a furnace from Satoru. He’ll overheat during the night, Suguru knows he’s prone to do so and prefers summer pajamas all year long because of that fact. He runs his hand up and down Satoru’s back, relaxing deeper into the bed as they match every inhale and exhale, the very beat of their hearts syncing.

He sleeps. 

The nightmare doesn’t come back. 

The memory hurts, but does me no harm

your hand in my pocket to keep us both warm

the poor thing in the road, its eyes still glistening,

the cold wet of your nose,

t he earth from a distance

See how it shines

“It’s freezing,” Satoru whines, pressing closer to Suguru as they trek down the street, having just finished a mission.

They’re both beyond battered, clothes stained and covered with multiple layers of dust and the gross pus the curse squirted everywhere. It was a Special Grade — their first one, and Suguru keenly feels the difference that gives them the special title. They fought for what must have been over seven hours and in the end he didn’t even get to add the curse to his collection because he passed out from being drenched in poison at some point and Satoru had to deal a killing blow.

The hotel is another block over but the late November cold is relentless against their wet uniforms. They’re in a city three hours away from Tokyo, higher in the mountains and windier without all the insular buildings. The train back is scheduled for the next morning.

“I thought you died,” Shoko says once she sees them approach the entrance to the hotel. She’s standing by the alleyway next to it, not smoking but smelling strongly like she was just doing it, a long black coat thrown over her perfectly clean and not at all thorn uniform. Suguru feels real bitterness rise in his chest, mixing with the fatigue and pain.

“I wish I did,” Satoru mutters. 

“You smell gross,” she wrinkles her nose when they come closer.

“Well, so do you and you don’t hear me saying anything.”

“Got drenched in this weird saliva slash pus slash poison thing,” Suguru answers. Pushing Satoru’s shoulders a bit. “I think I inhaled some of it. I can taste the gross in the back of my throat and I didn’t even get to swallow the curse.” He shudders a bit, trying to take solace in the fact it could always be worse and not feeling better by that knowledge at all. 

Satoru started chattering his teeth three blocks back, already underdressed for the cold and made worse by the fight. His fingers are ice cold and barely protest the touch from Suguru when he blows soft hot hair on them before pulling Satoru closer and stuffing their hands together in the pocket of his ruined coat, it’s not much but it’s better than nothing. They follow Shoko inside with small steps, pressed close and tired but still giddy with their huge success. 

They enter the elevator together and Shoko presses all the way on the opposite side from them. At least it’s late enough that the lobby was relatively empty and they only got a few weird looks on the walk there. 

“What’s the damage?” Shoko asks, eyes scanning their forms and catching on where their uniforms have been torn with what were obviously claws. 

“Suguru fell two floors down on his back,” Satoru rats off immediately. Suguru huffs. 

“And Satoru definitely swallowed some of the poison! Also, there’s slashes on his back because the idiot turned Infinity off in the middle of the fight for whatever reason.”

“I thought you weren’t breathing, I was checking!”

Suguru squints at him, vexed. “And you wanted to be next or something?” 

Satoru puffs his cheeks with air, face red from anger, exertion and the merciless cold wind. The elevator dings and opens but it’s not their floor. An old lady stands in the corridor and she checks each of them over, stare heavily judgmental, and then just lets the doors close again, not getting inside.  

“Awkward,” Shoko mutters and Suguru can’t help but laugh, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. He pulls Satoru even closer by the hands that are still in his pocket.

“Stop being annoying and behave,” he admonishes in a murmur, ignoring the petulant look Satoru sends his way before his head falls against Suguru’s shoulder, apparently unenthusiastic to engage in a fight for once in his life. Maybe he feels worse than he’s letting on.

They’re all sharing a room and Shoko makes the both of them take a shower before looking them over, unwilling to have the bedsheets sullied by whatever substances are clinging all the way from their hair to the fabric of their uniforms and their shoes.

Satoru gets healed first, the deep slashes on his back worrisome enough that Suguru doesn’t even let him put a shirt on before Shoko can look it over. They’re an angry red, pulsing blood and looking extremely painful and Suguru feels even worse that he didn’t realise it was that bad earlier. He shouldn’t have let Satoru walk the two kilometres to the hotel, should have called a taxi, no matter how gross and drenched in unknown liquids they both were.

Satoru only grimaces through it, however, seemingly no more than mildly uncomfortable with his situation. Suguru is overtaken by tangible relief once the cuts disappear and only pale unmarred skin is left, not a single scar to tell the story of what was once there. Satoru shudders when it’s done, pulling his pajama shirt over his head and settling to watch as Suguru goes through the same ordeal. 

“That was three broken ribs,” Shoko says to Suguru, after his own turn is over. It definitely felt like it once he got in the shower and the adrenaline wore off too. 

“We should celebrate our first Special Grade mission,” Satoru pitches. He’s sprawled on the second bed, soft cotton shorts low on his hips and a sliver of his stomach peaks through. They all have on these stupid matching t-shirts that Shoko bought on a whim, different colors but following the same theme. Satoru’s is this light grey color with a pink octopus printed on the front. 

He makes it look good, somehow, even though Suguru feels silly in his and Shoko’s yellow one is only mildly cute. 

“I’m dead,” Suguru mutters, throwing himself across from Satoru, the mattress bouncing under his weight. Satoru giggles at the motion. 

“No such thing.” Satoru pushes against his stomach using his foot. “Let’s order snacks and put it all on sensei’s tab.”

“Get those paprika chips,” Shoko pipes up, wiping down her hands with an alcohol cloth, the smell permeating the air and chasing away the last of the stench left by Suguru and Satoru.

“And drinks,” Suguru says, voice muffled by the pillow he’s smothering himself in. 

“Done and done,” Satoru agrees, stretching over to reach the telephone and dial the reception desk’s number. “Should we try for champagne?”

“We’re fifteen.”

“Goody two shoes,” Shoko taunts. Suguru raises his head to send her a venomous look that goes ignored. “But yeah, Yaga-sensei will check everything we got tomorrow.”

“Ugh,” Satoru groans loudly. “He’s always ruining all the fun.”

Suguru is used to sleepovers in hotels at this point, though most of the time it’s only him and Satoru. Shoko is always a welcome addition to their duo, however, and he’s double glad she’s there, if only because otherwise he’d have to suffer through the three broken ribs all the way through the night and the two hour trip back to the school. He refuses to think of Satoru’s own aggravated injuries, what didn’t happen, didn’t happen and all that. 

They settle on the beds, Satoru and Suguru close together on one and Shoko sprawled like a starfish on the other. It’s not atypical for the both of them to share a bed. Ever since that first night, Satoru’s taken to constantly coming to Suguru’s room at odd hours of the night. He’ll drape over and make a small space for himself in the sheets, like it’s the most natural thing ever, caged between Suguru and the wall, body pliant and warm with sleep. It helps with the nightmares, though Suguru supposes Satoru couldn’t have known about that.

(In contrast, it’s an absolute disaster for Suguru’s growing crush on Satoru and his ever present morning wood, to which he’s taken to hightailing out of bed as soon as his eyes open.)

Suguru likes it too much. Likes the soft feel of Satoru’s warm skin against his, the way he can count every breath Satoru takes, likes to bury his nose in soft hair that smells like strawberry and to push Satoru’s collection of flimsy pajamas shirts up to bring him closer by the waist. He likes falling asleep to the sound of their mingled breaths and to wake up to Satoru’s voice, deep and scratchy in the morning. 

Christmas is coming soon and Suguru will leave for two weeks to visit his family, and already he doesn’t know what he will do in that time, if he’ll be able to sleep at all without Satoru there. 

That night, Suguru drifts off to the sound of Satoru’s easy laughter, something on the TV show they put on was apparently incredibly funny and deserving of his unbridled glee. Suguru cuddles closer and Satoru raises one arm to accept Suguru’s face burying against his neck, where the scent of the neutral hotel body wash mixes with something that’s uniquely him, and soothes whatever was left of the day’s anxiety. Satoru’s body still shakes with his occasional chuckles and his chest moves when he talks, but Suguru doesn’t care and sleep overtakes him completely as Shoko makes a loud comment that sounds taunting.

He wakes early the next morning with the full light of the sunrise coming through the windows, none of them having remembered to close the curtains. Satoru’s dead to the world, and the only visible body part of Shoko’s from under all the blankets is the very top of her head. Suguru’s migrated to his back during the night and now it’s Satoru whose cheek is squished against his chest, lips pouting in sleep and long white eyelashes fluttering against his red cheeks. 

There’s candy wrappers and empty cans of soda all around the room, their train is in two hours and their clothes are scattered in random places still.

There is no moving for him, though, and Suguru accepts his fate, closing his eyes again and indulging in the warmth of the moment, praying to whatever god is out there that this isn’t a fluke. 

“Satoru,” Suguru calls as he comes into the living room, bare feet pattering against the wooden floors of the corridors. “Have you seen my black…” He pauses mid phrase because the black joggers he was gonna ask about are being worn by Satoru at that exact moment. 

(Suguru swallows around air, because all three of them have taken to sharing clothes, the occasional coat and sweatshirt. Shoko specifically loves Satoru’s collection of anime merch because they’re all a hundred percent cotton and very comfortable to sleep in, apparently. But every time Suguru sees Satoru in his clothes it does something to his brain, his very teenage and horny riddled brain.)

Satoru’s in his usual position on the couch, legs thrown over the backrest and head propped on a throw pillow from his room, video game blasting music in full volume. He gives Suguru a brief glance over the switch.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Suguru says. “Aren’t you going to pack?” 

“For what?”

“The school issued cars are leaving in two hours.”

“Yeah, I know.” Satoru nods.

“Did you pack yesterday? Not procrastinating for once in your life?” Suguru guesses. 

“Nah, I’m not going home. No need to pack.”

“What?” Suguru asks, dumbly.

Satoru glances at him once more, white-blonde eyebrows furrowing in something akin to concern. “I’m staying at the school.”

“No, I got that. But why?”

In a rare move, Satoru pauses his game and sits up properly, shirt falling back down and hiding the sliver of his skin that was showing in his sprawled position. 

“Well, I don’t know if they would let me come back if I decided to go for Christmas so my best bet is to just not to go. I don’t want to play with fate too much, you know.”

“What?”

“What’s with you today, Suguru? Is the cold weather making you slow?”

“No, that’s not…” Suguru shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “So you're just gonna stay at the school, alone?”

“I mean, yeah?” Satoru frowns at him. “It’s just two weeks. I’ll have the dorm for myself and maybe finally pass this demonic level on my game. Maybe if a mission pops up I’ll take it, it’s not good to be overly bored.”

Suguru opens and closes his mouth, trying to come up with something coherent to say and finding nothing. His heart squeezes in his chest at the thought of Satoru spending Christmas alone in the dorms, the school desolate of both students and most of its staff. 

Satoru doesn’t talk much about his family, except the occasional jab, but for some reason Suguru didn’t really think it was bad enough for them to try and stop him from coming to school. Ugly thoughts shurn around in his brain, the memory of Satoru’s birthday earlier in the month and how his eyes seemed to sparkle under the lights of the candles Shoko and Suguru got for him, cake big and disgustingly sweet, just how Suguru knows he likes, how it looked like he was about to cry . 

“Oh,” Suguru finally mutters. Satoru smiles at him, something small and supposed to be comforting, but it doesn’t do its job. “Ok, that makes sense. Sorry, I was looking for that one jacket I lent Shoko last week.”

“It’s in the coat rack!” Satoru answers promptly, face clearing up a bit as he points in the direction of the genkan. “I saw her leaving it there earlier.”

“Thanks,” Suguru says and goes to get the jacket, even though he’s not planning to pack it at all. 

In the end, he throws the jacket on although it’s definitely too flimsy to undertake the December weather, and pats his pants pockets to check for his lighter and pack. 

“I’m going for a smoke,” he calls as the door closes. 

It’s not a lie, Suguru has been trying to make up for the following two weeks in which he’ll be unable to smoke by firing cigarette after cigarette after cigarette in the last three days. It makes Satoru wrinkle his nose and make him change clothes every time he comes close, but his nerves need the soothing, brain overly prone to overthinking and anxiety.

He lights up what will probably be his last cigarette until the next year then clicks on his phone to dial, taking deep drags and holding them in his lungs. He’ll have to shower before getting in the car, otherwise his mom will smell the smoke on him from miles away and he doesn’t want to deal with sermons when it’s been over nine months since the last time they’ve seen each other in person.

When he walks back into the dorms, his shoulders are a little lighter, he drops the jacket in the rack again and goes to usher Satoru up.

“Satoru,” Suguru calls. “C’mon, I’ll help you pack,” he says, taking the DSi from Satoru’s hands and pausing the game forcefully.

“Suguru!” Satoru whines loudly. “Didn’t you hear what I said literally ten minutes ago? I’m not going home!”

“No, you’re not,” Suguru agrees. “You’re coming over to mine.”

“What?” Satoru freezes, shell shocked. His blue eyes are wide when he looks at Suguru.

“I just called my mom. She says she’d love to have you over, so you’re coming.”

“No, I’m not. I already told the principal that I was staying, Suguru.”

“Satoru,” Suguru whispers, taking both of the other boy’s hands and holding them close to his chest as he pulls him to his feet. “Tell them you changed your mind then, it doesn’t matter. What are they going to do? Say you can’t come? I’d like to see them try.”

Satoru blinks at him, still uncomprehending of the situation.

“You want me to come?” Suguru nods, keeping eye contact and trying his hardest to make sure Satoru can feel it emanate from his skin just how much he wants him to come. “Ok. Ok, I’ll come,” Satoru mumbles, cheeks a fiery red. 

Suguru smiles at him, heart lurching in his chest again. “We gotta be quick, the car will be here soon and I still need to shower.”

“You do stink.”

“Hey!” Satoru’s laughter echoes in the corridors as Suguru ushers him to his room, listing what he’ll need to put in his luggage for the trip.

The trip south is long and tiring, but Satoru is endlessly entertained by public transport and overly enjoys being in the train. He hasn’t gotten used to it even with the frequency of their travels with the school, and Suguru hopes he never does. The whole three hours they’re stuck in the train, Satoru gazes out of the window, head laid on Suguru’s shoulder and sharing his earphones, the pop songs he prefers blasting between the two of them. He drifts to sleep in the second hour, and Suguru has to shake him awake at their stop. 

From the station, they have to haul their luggage through two more bus rides until finally, just as the sky is turning a deeper shade of blue and greeting the nighttime, they arrive at Suguru’s small village. It’s quiet and there’s a layer of snow on the ground, speaking of a winter that’s harsher up in the mountains than in the city. Satoru shudders the entire five minute walk to Suguru’s house, because he refused to listen when Suguru told him to dress warmly before leaving the dorm. 

It’s the most peculiar feeling, something charged with melancholy and stained with nostalgia and sadness, to walk through the streets of his hometown. Suguru is reasonably neutral about the place, he doesn’t hate nor does he love it, but ever since he was a little kid, he knew he’d move out as soon as he could. It’s stifling, to be surrounded by the same people, to change and grow and form new opinions while everyone around you seems frozen in time.

“Are they nice?” Satoru whispers the questions just as Suguru pushes open the gate to the front yard. He looks apprehensive, body drawn together with tension, his white hair that has finally grown out enough to be stylish half hidden by the hat Suguru put on him after they left the train and the cold air first hit.

Suguru smiles, trying to convey a kind of confidence he doesn’t really feel. “They are.”

“They don’t… they’re nice to you , right?”

Suguru understands the question, perhaps more than Satoru expects him to. 

“Yeah,” he nods. “You’ll see, they’re the best.”

What follows is a tearful greeting from Suguru’s mom and a long and tight hug from his dad, who’s less probable to outwardly show his emotions. They fuss over him for a moment, saying he lost weight, that his hair is longer. His mom fixes his bangs and frowns at the gauges on his ears, soft fingers touching them. They’re rushed inside and there’s introductions made, luggages set aside and coats ranged. It’s warm in the house, with some Christmas decorations on the walls and mantle. 

Satoru stands to the side, doing his best impression of a polite young master. Suguru’s mom seems immediately taken by him. She’s heard Suguru’s stories of his days, most of them filled with Satoru, who’s become a protagonist in his life, and she’s ready to accept the boy with both arms open, not even hesitating to say he’d be the most welcome at their house when Suguru called earlier to ask, even if it was incredibly last minute.

His mom touches Satoru’s cheeks and his hair, calls him a handsome boy and asks what he thinks of the school, if they’ve been treating him all right too, if it’s not too hard. Suguru relishes in the way it makes Satoru blush a stark red and splutter through what can be only called the first time Suguru’s ever seen him attempt to be anything other than incredibly dismissive of their elders. 

They eat dinner all together on the table, something suitable for the harsh weather, and Satoru pushes his chair closer to Suguru’s the same way they do every night at the dorm, blind to the little smiles Suguru’s mom keeps sending their way. It’s a peaceful night and by the end of the meal they’re ushered upstairs, a futon set on the floor of Suguru’s childhood bedroom and clean sheets piled on the side. 

By the time they fall on the bed, leaving the futon untouched to squeeze together in the twin mattress, the house is quiet, Suguru’s parents also having turned in for the night. 

Suguru pushes Satoru’s hair out of his face, the white locks fighting against any semblance of order. Satoru’s cheeks are a healthy red from good food and a warm house, and he smiles at Suguru, eyes full of an emotion Suguru doesn’t dare name. 

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Suguru asks, when it’s clear Satoru won’t say anything. They’re so close their noses almost touch, the only light in the room coming from the lamppost outside.

“You look like your mom,” Satoru murmurs.

“Oh,” Suguru mutters, suppressing a smile of his own. “Yeah, I do.”

“It’s cute,” Satoru continues. “You’re both very pretty. With your hair long like that you’re like a little clone of hers, though you definitely have a much bigger build. Your shoulders and stuff. That’s your dad, I’d think, he seems very fit, too.”

“You think I’m pretty?” Suguru teases, smirking. Even in the darkness of the bedroom he can see how Satoru’s eyelashes flutter, bashful.

“You know you are,” Satoru retorts. “Every time we have to go to a high school the girls chase around you like lost ducklings. Cool Suguru with his long hair and ear piercings and mysterious demeanor, they all fan themselves when you pass by, you know?”

Suguru chuckles, flicking softly at Satoru’s forehead. “You’re so annoying. They chase around you too, don’t pretend to be modest now. I saw that third year flirting with you on our last mission.”

“Hm, she gave me her number.”

“Did she, now?” Suguru’s not prone to jealousy and he knows Satoru’s not his so there’s nothing to claim. It doesn’t make the ugly stir of possessiveness in his gut any less real. 

Satoru hums, face filled with mirth, like he knows exactly what Suguru is thinking. “I lost the paper with it, though. Too bad.”

“Terrible,” Suguru halfheartedly agrees, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice. 

For a few moments it seems like Satoru will fall asleep, his breath evening out and matching Suguru’s.

“What about you?” Suguru asks on a whim, voice awfully loud in the silence, even if he’s whispering.

Satoru opens his eyes again, the blue of his irises almost glowing. “Hm?”

“Who do you look like? Your mom or your dad?”

His expression turns thoughtful. “My father, I suppose. Maybe a good mix of both of them. The hair is my father’s side of the family — the Gojo genes, and I have my mother’s nose.”

He says it in a very clinical way, like he never thought to analyse such a thing before. Suguru grew up with his grandmother saying he smiles just like his dad; with his only aunt braiding his hair and telling him stories about doing the same for his mother when they were both little girls. It does something to him, when Satoru talks about his family in such a distant way — it makes Suguru want to show him what it is to be loved like that, to have people know all the intricacies that make up the person you are.

He wants to know all there is to know about Satoru, he wants all his secrets and all his tears, wants to know his childhood stories, what he liked to play and who he played with, what was his favorite subject to learn. Suguru wants and he wants and he wants and he doesn’t know if he can have. 

These conversations had in the dark, these glimpses of intimacy Satoru grants him like measured sips of water after leaving him stranded in the desert for days, they feel like the most pure of gold being gifted to him. Satoru’s happiness is easy, he shares it without hesitation and with anyone, without bargains or conditions, it’s his sadness that Suguru wants to understand. 

Suguru wants to know what made the light in his eyes so dim in those first few months, when they barely knew each other, he would fight anyone who threatened to make it dim again. He wants to understand so that he can make sure it never has the chance to happen again, wants to be in the frontlines of whatever fight Satoru has with his past, to hold his hand while he braves through it. 

“Satoru. Are they nice?” Suguru echoes the question from earlier. “To you ?”

Satoru doesn’t react, his breaths still synced with Suguru’s. “They weren’t mean,” he says eventually. “They were never there to be anything, really. I wouldn’t be able to describe their personalities if I tried. I was raised mostly by nannies.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why would you be? It’s not your fault. I think it’s better that they weren’t very present, really, maybe if it was the contrary I’d never had the courage to just leave and then I’d never have met you and Shoko and get to do all these cool missions. And the nannies were nice, they always did everything I asked.”

Suguru can’t help the blush that overtakes his own cheeks this time, although the last part of the statement explains an awful lot about Satoru’s personality. 

“Then I guess I’m not sorry. Forgive me for being awfully corny, but I’m glad we met.”

Satoru grins. “You’re forgiven since I’m glad we met too.”

“Why can’t you go back, though?”

“Clans are very traditional, Suguru,” Satoru starts. One of his hands comes to brush Suguru’s hair, soft and careful, fingernails scratching nicely against his scalp. He talks softly, mindful of the time. “I didn’t need to come to Jujutsu High, you know? We have our own system and very qualified tutors to teach the kids who are born there. I was supposed to continue my schooling just the same way it’s always been, ever since I was four. I really wanted to come, though, to have a real school experience. The elders were against it, for whatever reason, so I was just going to leave and do it anyway, because they couldn’t stop me. We made an agreement, in the end.”

“What is it, the agreement?”

“I get to do what I want and they still get to say I’m part of the Gojo clan.”

“That’s all?”

“Isn’t it enough?” Satoru gives him a funny look. “It’d look really bad for them if the strongest sorcerer of this age just renounced the entire clan, so they just accept whatever I say. It’s not the best but it’s enough for now.”

There’s a million things to be said and none of them seem to be sufficient. Satoru deserves more, more than talking about his family like they’re business partners and he’s a product to be sold. 

“You can always come here,” he offers in the end. “My parents really liked you and they’ll probably spend the next few days doting on you like you’re their long lost child. I know it’s not the same, but…”

“It’s perfect,” Satoru stops him. “Thank you, Suguru.”

It strikes Suguru as odd, for Satoru to say anything that polite. He doesn’t really say please , or sir , or thank you , like he’s simply entitled to all and everything the world has to offer. And here he is, thanking Suguru because he’s providing affection.

(God, Suguru thinks, his heart doing a wild dance inside his chest. God.)

Suguru wakes up alone in the bed, sheets tangled around him and a sock missing, and that too, is odd. Satoru has never once woken up before Suguru when they share a bed. There’s sounds coming from downstairs and once Suguru puts himself together enough to descend, the sight that greets him makes him think maybe he’s still dreaming.

“Suguru, sweetheart,” his mom calls from the kitchen, long hair up in a bun, an apron tied tightly around her waist. Beside her, Satoru stands proudly, also adorned in an apron and holding a spoon, a wide smile overtaking most of his face. “Satoru was helping me with breakfast, like a proper darling. We just got done, come. I’ll pour you some green tea.”

“Satoru helped?” Suguru can’t help but ask, unable to mask the suspicion in his voice. Satoru pouts at him from over the counter as Suguru’s mom putters around to get them all mugs.

“Mrs. Geto says I’m an amazing helper, if you need to know.”

“You burned water not once but twice.”

“That was then and this is now.”

“It set off the fire alarm!” 

“Why do they even have those in that school? Fire is the least of our problems.”

“Now, boys,” his mom stops them, both hands help up. Satoru goes quiet immediately, chastised, and Suguru has to stop himself from laughing at him. 

Yaga-sensei would hate to know Suguru’s mom has done in a day what he hasn’t been able to achieve in a whole year. 

“Why get killed by a curse if you can just die in a kitchen fire, am I right?” Suguru mutters, trying to make sure his mom doesn’t hear that part. 

“Suguru! Can you just try the food, stop being so skeptical of my skills. Maybe I just wasn’t trying before.”

Suguru’s father comes down too, face puffy from sleep, and drops a kiss to Suguru’s head before taking the seat opposite from him. Satoru’s eyes twinkle at the gesture and Suguru knows he will be teased about it later.

“Good morning, Mr. Geto. I helped with breakfast this morning, I hope you’ll like it,” Satoru says, in an impressive show of good manners. “I’d like to thank you again for having me for the holidays, I know it was very last minute.”

Suguru’s mom pats him on the cheek, charmed beyond measure and assures Satoru it’s no problem to host such a nice young man in their house. Satoru winks at Suguru from over her shoulders, pleased like the cat who got the canary, and nods away at his mom. Suguru tries to feel anything but completely in love with the other’s antics and fails.

(Suguru hopes it’s not obvious in everything he does, just how taken he is with Satoru, but from the way his dad smiles at him over his freshly poured mug of green tea, he knows it’s a lost cause.)

Satoru pulls their chairs close together and sits down, waiting until Suguru’s parents start eating to dig in himself. The food is good, the rice maybe a bit undercooked, but no one says anything and Satoru glows for the rest of the day, all smug with self satisfaction.

I remember the view,

street lights in the dark blue,

the moment I knew

I’d no choice but to love you

On Christmas eve, Suguru tells Satoru to dress nice and takes him to the only fried chicken restaurant in the entirety of the city. It’s crowded with couples, other teenagers sitting close and whispering to each other. Satoru follows him inside, their arms wrapped together. 

Satoru’s definition of dressing nice is shockingly casual, but he looks nice in his dark red t-shirt, festive and comfortable. 

“Is this a date, Suguru?” Satoru asks when they sit down, his eyes twinkling under the lights, his usual sunglasses pushed up on his head, holding his wild fringe back. 

Suguru’s dad was peeved to see him wear it inside the house, although he wouldn’t outrightly complain, too polite to have a go at other people’s children. Suguru had to explain in not many details that Satoru’s eyes were very sensitive to lights and he got migraines from it, at which point his dad just waved him off, amused at his desperation not to let them think anything not nice about Satoru. 

“Would you like it to be?” 

“I asked first.”

Suguru tries to smile through his nerves, keeping his usual polite expression on, though he knows Satoru stopped falling for it a long time ago. “Then yes, it’s a date.”

Satoru gets up from the table and for a moment Suguru’s heart falls all the way down to his stomach, the terrible feeling of being drenched in ice cold water overtaking his body. It doesn’t last, because all Satoru does is change places to sit on Suguru’s side instead of in front of him, the sides of their body touching from shoulders down to their legs. 

“Good,” he says. Satoru’s cologne saturates the air between the two of them, vanilla and a more musky undertone, a smell Suguru could follow in the dark, blind and dazed. 

It’s a few seconds before Suguru’s breath is back to normal, his heart still beating valiantly fast, recovering from the whiplash. “Good?”

“I thought you were never going to ask.” Satoru smirks. “It took you a moment there.”

“You could’ve done it first.” Suguru pushes against his shoulders, fighting the blush overtaking his face. 

“That’s not very gentlemanly of you, Suguru,” Satoru clicks his, shaking his head like he’s disappointed. “Of course it had to be you.”

“Yeah? Why?”

Satoru just continues smiling, all cheeky with mirth, eyes full of unbridled glee and excitement. This is how Suguru always wants him: loose and happy, dressed in Suguru’s shirt and smelling like they used the same shower products that morning, unburdened by missions and responsibilities. 

“You’ll get it one day.”

Suguru shakes his head, unable to stop mirroring the same expression Satoru has on. He’s giddy with nerves, disbelieving that Satoru actually wants it to be a date, even though he knows logically they’ve both been building up to this. Suguru isn't dense , he’s seen the looks Satoru sends his way, he knows the way they behave is not platonic in the slightest, would’ve arrived at this conclusion even if Shoko didn’t gag and boo at them. He’s just been waiting for it to bend enough to break, and break it did. 

They eat between quiet laughter, heads bowed close and whispers being exchanged. Suguru talks about growing up in the village, of taking the bus every morning to go to school one city over, he talks of lessons with his dad and learning math at the kitchen table with his mom, all things he’s kept to himself in the months they’ve known each other. In response, Satoru tells him about a childhood in a big estate, of escaping his nanny and skipping class, of driving all his tutors mad with his constant rudeness and refusal to abide by any kind of rules. He talks of stuffy parties and children just as pretentious as their parents, of afternoons that were always too quiet.

(Perhaps, Suguru thinks, that’s why he’s so loud. There is no silence that can survive Satoru Gojo, no ceremony that stands to par with his need for simpler things. Satoru deserves to laugh and to run and to do all the things he didn’t get to do when he was a child.)

They walk back to the house, hands intertwined and hanging between them. It snowed even harder during the last two days and their shoes leave a trail of footprints in the white, steps measured to avoid slipping in the ice. Satoru’s nose is red, as are his cheeks. His eyes are unbelievably blue in contrast with the winter scenery. 

He’s the prettiest thing Suguru’s ever seen, he never wants to stop looking. 

“You can smoke if you want, I don’t mind,” Satoru says eventually.

“I didn’t bring any cigarettes,” Suguru answers. Even with the gloves, his fingers are stiff with the cold. He brings their tangled hands inside his coat pocket, trying to warm them up. “Didn’t want my mom to smell them on me.”

“I never would’ve thought you’d be such a mama’s boy, Suguru,” Satoru teases. 

“Well.” Suguru doesn’t deny it. “I’d rather if they both didn’t know about the more unsavoury things that go on in Tokyo. It’s hard enough for them, already, knowing they’ll never really understand curses because they can’t see them.”

Satoru hums but doesn’t say anything. Suguru hasn’t told him about the nightmares, about the long nights when he was a kid. 

Satoru stops just before they turn on Suguru’s street and pulls him even closer, back propped against the wall of a random house. 

“I have a pack in my bag, if you want,” he offers.

It surprises Suguru, because Satoru is very loud in his dislike for Shoko and Suguru’s nasty habit. He raises an eyebrow and asks, “why did you bring it?”

Satoru shrugs. “I thought it’d be a spare one, so you wouldn’t have to go out and buy more if yours ended. We can go for another walk later if you want and I’ll spray my expensive perfume on you after. Your mom will never find out.”

Suguru laughs, his face inches away from Satoru’s. “You hate the smell too.”

“I like it on you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” Satoru murmurs.

“Why bring it then?”

“You seemed stressed. And you always smoke when you’re stressed, it looks like it helps. I don’t know, I thought…”

Suguru stops Satoru’s train of thought by leaning forward and brushing their lips together, whatever Satoru was going to say dies in a lost haze immediately, a choked gasp escaping him at the motion. When there’s no protest, Suguru presses harder, their lips are cold and chapped and it’s perhaps not the best first kiss, but (and this makes Suguru lightheaded to think about, because he wants it so bad) they can always do it again and again until they get it right. 

Satoru sags against the wall, spreading his legs so Suguru can step closer between them, his fingers finding the back of Suguru’s head and pulling against his loose bun. Dark hair cascades around them and makes a curtain as Suguru breaks the kiss then leans forward for another one, opening his eyes for all of a second just to see the debauched expression in Satoru’s face. Satoru hums into it, pleased, and parts his lips to deepen the kiss. He tastes like lemon soda and grease from the fried chicken, and it’s the best thing Suguru has ever tasted. 

After what feels like a lifetime but must be only a couple minutes, they separate, breaths mingling as they stand close, the cold air turning it into white mist. Satoru laughs and Suguru can feel it against his chest where they’re pressed together.

“Does this mean you’re my boyfriend now?” Satoru asks.

“I don’t have to ask first this time?” Suguru taunts, unable to help himself and stealing another quick kiss. Satoru just looks too good, all flushed cheeks and pleased eyes, lips shiny with spit and red from being bitten. 

“No, I’ll take this one burden from you.”

Suguru laughs. Giddy, so so giddy. He feels like he’s floating on a cloud, better even than the first time he flew on one of his curses, the swooping in his stomach more addictive than any other type of adrenaline. “Yeah, that means I’m your boyfriend now. And you’re mine.”

Satoru nods, smile dimming into a more intimate grin, his eyes warm with adoration. He kisses Suguru again, long and languid, the taste of their lunch dissolving into something that’s pure and unadulterated Satoru and Suguru, mixed together in a tangible sense. 

“And I’m yours,” he agrees.

The two weeks pass in the blink of an eye. If Suguru’s parents see the way the two teenagers seem even more tangled in each other than before, they don’t comment on it, happy to indulge both their son and his newfound boyfriend. They send knowing looks at each other and coddle Satoru, indulge his sweet tooth and call him endearments that have the boy red in the ears and escaping back into Suguru’s room with quick steps.

It’s nice to see him receive attention like that, funny to realise he has absolutely no idea how to deal with it. Suguru grew up with the coddling from his parents, years of being an only child, so he’s not peeved to share their affection with Satoru, he deserves nice things, all of them. 

There’s a family lunch on Christmas day, and another one on New Year’s, they visit a temple nearby and make resolutions. On the dawn of the first day of 2006, Satoru and Suguru escape to the front porch, dragging blankets out and pressing close to watch the sunrise, each of their breaths appearing in the air with how cold it is. 

“What did you wish for this year, Suguru?”

“I can’t tell you or it won’t happen.”

“That’s only for birthday wishes,” Satoru whines. He’s wearing funny pajamas with little eyes all over the pants, Shoko’s weird taste for lounging clothes having rubbed off on him. 

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” he nods, sure of himself as always. “So you can tell me, I’m curious.”

“Well,” Suguru starts, “I just want it to be a good year. Maybe find higher curses to add to my collection. Become stronger.”

Satoru hums. “We’re already the strongest.”

“We don’t have the Special Grade ranking yet, so I wouldn’t say that.” What he means is he isn’t the strongest, although when Satoru groups them together like that it makes him feel all warm inside. 

Satoru is on a league of his own, and it’s nice that he thinks Suguru is there with him, but there’s a thousand things he needs to do better if he wants to ever compare. 

“That’s just formalities, I doubt they can find anyone better than us in the whole of the Jujutsu World.”

Suguru side eyes him, amused. “You shouldn’t boast like that, you know? It’s impolite.”

Satoru laughs, the sound loud in the quiet of the yard, the first rays of sunshine from the new year hitting his eyes and making him seem like an angel, like something that isn’t completely real. Suguru has to pinch himself to make sure he didn’t make Satoru up sometimes, but he doubts his imagination could ever come up with someone quite so beautiful, quite so perfect.

“It’s not impolite if it’s true,” Satoru shrugs. “Only the weak have to play by the rules, Suguru. People like us are the ones who set them.”

Unwilling to argue philosophies with someone as hard headed as Satoru and ruin their nice morning with technicalities, Suguru just hums, not agreeing or disagreeing, and pulls Satoru closer so he’ll lay on his shoulder. 

They stay outside until Suguru’s dad finds them an hour later, both their faces flushed with the cold and lips swollen from exchanged kisses. The day is surprisingly clear of clouds, sky blue, although the sun is a mockery of warmth with all the snow still sticking to the ground and the bare trees. 

When they leave two days later, Suguru asks Satoru on the train, “so, what did you think of them?”

Satoru smiles, small and just for Suguru. “They’re nice. Next time I want your dad to give me lessons in fighting.”

“Next time, uh?”

“Well, of course,” Satoru tuts. “I have to come every holiday now, Suguru. We’ll be in-laws one day, I have to make your mom like me more than she likes you.”

Suguru laughs, heartbeat fast. He’s in love, he thinks, undeniably lost to Satoru’s every whim and need, no escape now that he’s had a taste. The way Satoru is willing to just slot himself in Suguru’s family makes him content too, he would give Satoru everything, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

He’ll call when they’re back at the school, to make sure Satoru’s welcome for Spring Break too, although he knows his parents would never disagree. He thinks Satoru’s already her favourite anyway, if just for his eyes, she’s always been a sucker for pretty things. 

Shoko comes back two days after Suguru and Satoru and finds them on the couch, Satoru laying fully on Suguru’s chest, face hidden in his neck and breaths even, deep in sleep. 

She smiles at Suguru, all smug and knowing. Her luggage drags and makes a keening noise that wakes Satoru up just enough to raise his head and frown in the direction of the disturbance. 

“You just got here and you’re already bothering me,” he says. 

Shoko gapes at him and moves her luggage around some more on purpose, the one wheel complaining loudly. 

“Begone, demon!” Satoru screams, hands flailing in her direction.

Suguru chuckles at their antics. “Welcome back, Shoko.”

“See, you should be like Geto, he’s a fake ass bitch but I’ll take the pretending over whatever you got going on.”

Satoru pulls himself up at that, mouth open in mock offense. “Don’t call my boyfriend a bitch!”

Shoko shudders from head to toe then audibly gags. “God, I knew it’d be even worse when you guys got over the awkwardly dancing around each other phase. Please, don’t ever say anything like that to me again or I’ll let you both die on my table as vengeance, I’m not kidding.”

“Shoko!” Satoru gets up and Suguru misses his warmth immediately. “You’re such a meanie! Did you bring souvenirs?”

Shoko bats Satoru’s hands away when he tries to grab her backpack. “No, I didn’t.”

“Suguru’s mom gave us leftovers but I won’t share if you don’t either.”

“Yes, we will,” Suguru says from the couch, but gets ignored by both of them.

“I was in Kyoto, it’s not another word, they have all the same sweets that we have here.”

“I know, I was born there. Did you get the Kikufuku I asked you to?”

“No,” she says, but starts rummaging around the bag and pulls out a slightly crumpled box. She throws it at Satoru, who whoops loudly in commemoration. “You’re such a child.”

“There’s kamaboko in the fridge,” Satoru offers, already pulling one of the sweets out of the box and stuffing his face with it. Shoko sighs at him. 

“I’ll go shower and unpack first,” she says. “Dinner together?”

They nod at her and Satoru comes to lay back against Suguru, offering some of the sweets in a surprising show of willingness to share, which he hasn’t done much before when it comes to his favorite foods. Suguru glances at Shoko as she goes to disappear into the corridors and she throws him a thumbs up, smiling like the cat who got the canary. 

The last months of their first year fly by like the birds migrating back from winter. It’s still cold, but the promise of spring around the corner keeps them going through studying for finals in empty classrooms, training outside in the harsh weather and long train rides to gloomy locations infested with soul sucking creatures. 

Rinse and repeat.

Suguru feels disconnected some days, when he has to study algebra after punching through the guts of a First Grade and tasting its blood, after watching his rookworm hold the curse into place so it can be reduced to nothing and then into something tangible for Suguru to consume. It doesn’t get easier, it never gets easier, and he still throws up more often than not and cries in the shower because he’s so nauseous it feels like he’ll never be able to eat again sometimes. 

But Satoru helps. It’s soft and tender, just what Suguru needs not to feel like a horrible burden that weighs him down. Satoru’s all perceptive eyes and soothing hands, he’ll pick through Suguru’s food during dinner, take long walks to the corner store to get the one brand of ramen that Suguru can stomach in the very bad moments. He rubs Suguru’s back as he hauls in the toilet because the cursed energy just won’t settle and it makes all the hairs in Suguru’s body stand straight with how hard he’s shuddering through each heave, eyes watering and tears spilling down his cheeks. 

Satoru helps with the way he never says anything about it, never cites these moments of Suguru, never uses them as munition in their ever current fights or calls them a weakness. 

It eases the sting that Satoru too has his down times. These take the form of migraines that seem to overtake all his senses, that make him cover his eyes and whimper in the bed for hours on end, medicine unable to sooth his pain in any tangible form, the entire room dark. The Six Eyes overwhelm him, Suguru knows, seeing too much nonstop reaches a painful peak, and Satoru crumbles under it. 

They both take solace in the other’s presence, in being there and cuddling close after each and every single mission, of being able to unwind and trust . They’re a team, a package deal. The two strongest, no matter their weaknesses.

Suguru turns sixteen on a Friday, with Satoru and Shoko singing him happy birthday after a long day of classes and training. They huddle close in the kitchen and give him nice gifts then let him choose the takeout places for the whole weekend. Satoru paints his nails violet and says it’s to match Suguru’s eyes. Suguru paints his own blue. Shoko gags at them and paints her own black, saying she’s mourning the times of peace she had before they started dating. 

February is as it always is, no matter the place. It’s cold and miserable and made harsher with the end of the school year, but it doesn’t stop being Suguru’s favourite month. It’s that childish pre-installed emotion, has been built and rebuilt since he was a baby and his parents hyped it up and counted down the days until he was one more year older. They call too, both his mom and dad sing over the phone and Satoru laughs at how red it makes Suguru. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Geto!” He screams from the back, a stupid party hat perched on his white hair. “I have pictures! We had a party for Suguru and we bought him a cake!”

“Ah, Satoru, darling,” Suguru’s mom says from the phone, voice fond. “You’ll have to send me the pictures because Suguru is always stubborn with those, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Tell me about it,” Satoru says, throwing one arm over Suguru’s shoulder to bring him closer. “Don’t worry, I’ll send everything. And don’t get too sad your baby boy’s growing up either, he still likes coloring books. Me and Shoko got him these nice ones as gifts!”

“Satoru!” Suguru squeals, pulling his phone from Satoru’s hands and walking in fast steps away from him. Satoru shrieks, giving chase. “Stay away, you’re so embarrassing, oh my god! Mom, they did not get me coloring books, that’s a lie.”

“I’m giving your mom updates,” Satoru argues, still running after Suguru in the living room and reaching for the phone. “It’s important she knows I’m taking good care of you. And we did get the coloring books, you’re the liar!”

“I’m not a child,” Suguru almost screams, but he’s also smiling, unable to hold up his facade. “You’re so much worse anyway, there’s a whole bunch of dolls in your room.”

“Those are collectibles!”

“Yeah, I bet. I saw you making two of them kiss the other day.”

Satoru actually shrieks at that and throws his entire body in Suguru’s direction. They fall to the floor, wind blown right off Suguru’s lungs and the heavyweight of Satoru over him. When he focuses back on the phone, his mom is laughing at them. 

“I’ll call you later, darling,” she says. “You have fun over there. Happy birthday again.”

“Thank you, mom,” he says. The call cuts off and Suguru chucks his phone away, grabbing at Satoru’s waist and swapping their positions in a single move.

Satoru looks up at him from the floor, white hair like a halo around his face and cheeks dusted with pink from all the running around they just did. He smirks, self satisfied, like this is exactly where he planned to end up from the beginning.

“You’re impossible,” Suguru mutters, lowering himself so their bodies are pressed flush together and their faces stand millimetres apart. “It’s my birthday, you should be nicer.”

“I’m always nice,” Satoru retorts but his breath catches a little, giving him away.

“That wasn’t nice at all.”

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to teach me better manners then, right? You love doing that already.”

Suguru puffs out a little laugh and then brings their lips together, deepening the kiss as soon as Satoru’s body goes slack under his hold, fully trusting Suguru to take over. He tastes sweet, like the vanilla cake they just ate and the strawberry icing that was too sugary for Suguru to stomach more than a single spoonful, mixed with Satoru however, it’s just perfect. He hums into it then draws back, leaving a few quick pecks to sooth the whine Satoru lets out. 

“You’re mean,” Satoru says.

“No meaner than you.”

“And you hold grudges,” Satoru grouses, head falling back in dramatics. It leaves his throat bare for Suguru, though, and he’s nothing if not an opportunist. There’s a loud hiss as Suguru attacks the sensitive skin with his teeth, but in the last month he’s been learning what buttons to push when it comes to handling Satoru like this, and his neck is always a glaring red one, in that it will melt him into a helpless puddle every time. 

He leaves a last lingering kiss on the injunction between his jawline and ear, and Satoru trembles with it. Suguru hums, drawing back to kiss him on the mouth again. 

“This is better than the coloring books,” he says. Satoru laughs, so flushed you’d think he’s feverish. 

“If it wasn’t I’d be really, really mad,” Satoru grumbles, a shy smile playing on his lips. He’s lost his sunglasses somewhere during the chase, and his eyes look like the purest blue ocean, looking up at Suguru with so much fondness it makes his heart squeeze in his chest. 

Suguru hums, and they just stare at each other for another long moment, the ticks of a clock sounding from the kitchen in the background. 

“Satoru, I…”

“Can you guys be less gay when you know I’m around? I only left for ten minutes to go get the fireworks from my room.” Shoko’s voice startles both of them, and Suguru rolls back from Satoru, guilty. 

Satoru doesn’t move from his position, though, just glances over at Shoko with a shit eating grin, completely shameless. “You’re just jealous you’re still single.”

“You wish,” she snickers, pulling the fireworks out from a yellow bag. “Stop grabbing at each other and come help me set this up.”

They get up, pulling and pushing at each other while putting on their coats. Shoko snaps at them three times before Satoru finally relents in his tirade of loudly singing the birthday song very close to Suguru’s ears. They set the fireworks in front of the dorm, each holding out a different one and color explodes all around them, smoke going up in circles and mixing together in shades of blue, purple and green. 

It’s the best birthday Suguru has ever had, and later that night, when Satoru is sound asleep on his bed, he can pull the boy closer and say what he didn’t get to say earlier.

“I love you,” he murmurs in the darkness, voice soft as his lips graze Satoru’s forehead. 

There’s a hum that startles Suguru, because he was sure Satoru was dead to the world, and he’s a heavy sleeper. A blue eye peers at him, though, soft and dazed with fatigue. 

“I love you too,” Satoru says. 

And it’s that simple. Suguru doesn’t care that they’re young and there’s a whole life ahead of them. Nothing matters but him and Satoru, their breaths mixing together and the warmth of their bodies pressing close. Maybe they’ll die tomorrow because of a curse or maybe they won’t, but at least they had this.

Suguru loves Satoru. And Satoru loves him back.

(God, he thinks. God.)