Archive of Our Own ^beta

“When do you leave?” he asked.

Golden hue from the lamp drenched him, rain prickled like goosebumps on the window. Sat at his desk with his pencil poised like a dancer waiting for the cue to unleash, he stared. 

Stared deeply, thoughtlessly. The hand on his shoulder was cold, it had been treacherously abandoned and Satoru wondered if this was the trial to sentence him to the dirt that enveloped Suguru. Suguru whose bronze skin cradled waterfall strands of raven hair, always warm from the infectious, molten sunlight within. 

An amalgamation of the universe: light and darkness. A paradox - impossibility grinning in the face of reality. In a world where Satoru’s blindfolded eyes scouted the land like the everpresent glow from a lighthouse, he wondered if his fickle gaze had deserted Suguru when his sails needed guidance the most.

Suguru laughed, voice wafting through the air like leaves. Deservingly cold, the callousness staining his voice was born of pity. “Satoru,” he said. “I’m not here.”

Weighted, warm - Suguru’s voice was golden. It bathed him, caressing his ear in a private whisper, nails on a coffin that was waiting to sink. Satoru yearned to die hearing it.

A garden bloomed in his throat, words caught in the overgrown weeds. In his hand the pencil crinkled, wooden splinters decorating the desk. “So, you’re leaving,” he inferred.

Gently smothering him, an unattainable comfort in what was now a prison cell, Suguru shook his head. “I was never yours to keep.”

Suguru had been many things: an anchor for the furious tides in Satoru’s eyes, the fleeting calls of spring when birds hummed and grass crumpled in his hand, steadfast and omnipresent. A God: it was his shrine where Satoru’s knees collapsed, refuge and benevolence engulfing him. It had taken him years to perfect Infinity but before that there was Suguru, mortal flesh that encompassed the heat of a burning sun, eclipsing the shadows of exhaustion Satoru carried like duty.

But he had never been his. Like Satoru himself he was untouchable; unable to be caught; Suguru belonged to the clouds, to the trees and to them . Those he once swore to protect. Those he inevitably could not. 

He may have cured the restlessness in Satoru - it was his divinity that allowed it. But he was a God and God did not belong to man. Inevitably, he did not belong to Satoru. 

With ire predicted in scripture, his wrath was indiscriminate, an obelisk composed of loathing and rancour, a curse like the many Satoru watched him consume over the years. The reality was if Suguru belonged to anyone then it was fate.

Arms skated his uniform, shoulder to shoulder. The touch was light but its presence heavy, a simmering volcano that promised imminent eruption. Good, Satoru thought to himself, he wanted to burn. Wanted the scars to sculpt the memory of Suguru’s rage into his unbranded skin.

But he swallowed, refusing to glance at his chest. This wasn’t Suguru. Suguru was -

“Satoru.”

He released the broken pencil from his grasp, hand prickling with splinters. Stretching his fingers, he felt them curl instantly - preemptively. Where there was a threat, his body reacted in turn. Feeling a lifetime draped across his chest, Suguru’s arms holding him together, he wondered when love tarnished and fear bloomed. 

Melodic, a choir hummed; everything Suguru did was inspired by his Godliness. And Satoru, his apostle even when he was ousted and abandoned, would answer the call to prayer whenever it sounded.

Devoted, he answered, “Suguru.”

“Will you look at me?” he inquired, saccharine words laced with gentle yearning.

A question, but coming from him it may as well have been a command. Addicted to his wants, Satoru’s limbs manipulated like they were clay to mould. His movements were stiff but he glanced over his shoulder, too cowardly to meet his gaze and felt Suguru chisel him, sculpting Satoru into what he desired.

A blank canvas with immeasurable space to paint, Satoru let Suguru blemish his skin, breath cold and wrong. So deeply, irrevocably wrong. His skin prickled, fingers curling with intentions to touch but unable to, immobilised by the desire in his body. It had proliferated from freckles to this, a mass of regret, skin parched with how much he wanted but how little it received.

Clicking his tongue against his teeth, Suguru completed the voyage Satoru abandoned. Soon, the blue in his eyes waned and it surrendered to an ethereal vision, an image that burned beneath his eyelids materialising before him like a mirage. Asylum for a lonely man sinking into dunes made of catastrophic sorrow. 

Satoru was greedy, he always was when it came to Suguru. With ample time, he swallowed his hallowed appearance like it was salve for an incurable hunger.

As if he knew, Suguru’s eyes - half lidded, caramelised in humour and omniscience, watched him. He looked beautiful, lips crescented in an amused smile, ghostly skin marred by the touch of death, hair draped like vines. Everything about him was unfamiliar but right, the blush on his lips accentuated by the hollowness of his cheeks, the slow emerging dimples that excavated canyons on his sunken skin. So wrong, yet inexplicably right, and as always: incredibly beautiful.

Hopeless, in prayer as he spoke to the sky, he breathed, “Suguru.”

“Satoru,” cooed the deceased face of his beloved. He felt his fingers long to touch, to pull Suguru out of the grave and into his arms where the heat of his skin, coupled with infinity, would warm him. Seep life back into the brazenly dying face. To amend a wrong which should never have been right. “Oh, my Satoru.”

“You’re not real,” he told him. “You can’t-”

Suguru grinned, face morphing deviously - cunning. In the crevices of his smile was bloody torment, manic disarray, indecipherable anguish. How did he not notice sooner, when it had mattered? Why did Satoru identify it, now?

“I’m as real as you want me to be,” promised Suguru. Diving in closer, their faces a breath apart, his amber lamp highlighted the warmth in Suguru’s eyes, the ever expanding brown yielding to light. Hazel, he realised, searching the penetrative gaze. The colour of chestnuts encompassing children's laughter. “Do you want me to be real, Satoru?”

He was the honoured one but he was still a man, seated before a God. “Yes,” he confessed. “Don’t leave.”

Suguru’s hand crept into his sight, fingers ghastly like the skeleton buried in its flesh, warmed by a trickle of blood. Reverently, he cupped Satoru’s face, cold - so cold but real, flesh. Satoru’s eyes fluttered and he leaned into the touch, his own hand clouding the embrace, sheltering it from the world.

Splatters against the window warned him he was never alone, that he was watched and baited. But the sirens rang distantly, subdued by the sound of a bonfire and its submerging flames; heat crystallised on his skin, gifts from Suguru. Always from him, a man who wielded the wonders of the universe in his vacant body.

The rest of the world could wait. He was not theirs.

“Anata..”

“Suguru,” he said. His voice was beaten but recognisably his. “Don’t leave.”

An icy gale swept onto his face, slipping through his eyelashes and skating his skin. In death, Suguru made a promise he could not honour in life: “I won’t.”

Satoru knew it was wrong. That the man before him was not a curse, he was not a ghost, and he was not unwelcome. Melting under his touch, the thaw less brutal than the freeze, he concluded that he was a pipe dream, a fabrication. He was the closest to redemption Satoru would get, and unlike his predecessors, he was more.

He was his to keep.

Satoru would not let him go even if the world begged. He had given them enough, the flesh and blood of a man who’s pews Satoru excavated his grave in, his time and skill, and in one fateful mistake even his life. That was enough, he would not grant them more.

Squeezing Suguru’s skeletal frame, Satoru promised that he would not give them this.

- - - -

Suguru was betrothed to the walls of the apartment, entombed by brown paint, illegible scrawls Satoru determined as art, and a formidable blushing sunset. Safe, he thought, surrounded by strands of snowfall that descended from Satoru’s hair. 

“You still shed like a dog,” Suguru complained, his face scrunched adorably, lips pursed and eyes crinkled. Suppressed in the folds of his wrinkles were blue, protruding veins, sentiments of death Satoru’s mind would not abandon. “How do you even have hair left on your head?”

An old retort, still soaked with disgust and resignation. Shrugging, he leaned against the chair, eyes drifting to the window and following streams of water as they puddled on the ledge. “I’m just perfect everywhere.”

A scoff, loud and demanding stole his attention until his gaze situated on Suguru. Already looking, Suguru’s lips elevated into a soft yet teasing smile. He looked young enough to live - to soar and inevitably crash, the rosiness of his lips and amusement in his eyes sprightly. 

Young, brimming with youthful joy; Satoru saw prosperity inside his eyes, the desire to exist. And it was almost too painful to witness, confronted by his greatest mistake but he had to. He had to document Suguru’s life so that it would not be forgotten or rewritten: forged in malice and cruelty, bastardised by rage. Returning the smile, he held a pen in his hand, his journal the man before him.

Suguru’s innocence would not be erased and Satoru’s love would be venerated beside him, two men who loved and did so deeply, unabashed in desire. It was one of the many things he had to be honoured for. 

“Perfect?” Suguru cocked an eyebrow, his voice saturated with amusement. “We must be talking about two different people.”

Satoru rolled his eyes and shuffled in his seat, inclining to the dead man next to him. “You don’t think I am, Suguru?”

He watched him carefully, eyes searching and digging, the ruins of Suguru’s iris could not hide the truth from him. If he tried, Satoru would not relent, he would crawl on his hands and knees, fingers buried in fertile soil and search until he grasped the truth. Unearthed, cradled in his marred palm, he would worship it no matter how much it hurt.

He stared at Suguru studiously, attention firm like the widowed bark of a great old oak tree, roots submerged in the earth's molten core. It was the only way he knew how: completely, devotedly, helplessly. If Satoru was a compass then the man before him was his north. Suguru was his to follow.

“Hm.” Leaning towards him, Suguru rested an elbow on the desk and laid his temple on outstretched fingers. Unrepentant, he gazed at Satoru in startling precision, in wholeness. “I don’t know,” he said. “You did murder me.”

Blatant, slightly unrefined but honest: the truth was ugly, it was cancerous and immobilising. The words sat on his chest, festering and bloating, stifling his strugglings lungs. Would he ever be able to breathe again? Perhaps, he should have wondered: did he deserve to?

Suguru watched him curiously, sipping the shame leaking through Satoru’s sighs. A scientist, unruly and mad but exactly what Satoru had fallen in love with a decade ago. He longed for honesty and it was delivered; even if he choked, he would swallow every last bitter drop. Looking away, he hoped to do just that.

But whilst Suguru was inquisitive he was also benevolent. Just in his punishment, maybe even lenient even though Satoru did not deserve it. Gently, his left hand encroached Satoru’s vision and coaxed it back to him, those cold, cold fingers puppeteering ardently. Satoru shivered, blinking slowly and allowing grace to blanket him like sun rays, Suguru’s smile merciful.

“You did what you had to,” he reminded him.

Suguru’s fleeting grasp weakened as though he prepared to release it but Satoru clutched his fingers, vulnerable in nightfall, weak when the moon watched him disapprovingly. He was allowed this, he repeated to himself. 

Despite the saintly vision before him, it wasn’t real. Suguru was just a memory beholden to thoughts Satoru cherished in his mind. A wraith, collecting his anguish in vengeance no man had ever seen and never would. A beloved, returning for a final goodbye before he parted.

Breathing deeply, he nodded. Shame struck welts against his cheek, prints of Suguru’s fingers embedded in his skin - Satoru was a ship destined to sink.

“That doesn’t make it easier.” A confession torn from the condemned ventricles of his heart, he felt the words lacerate his flesh. “If I had done something sooner, before you-”

Silence.

Suguru stroked his cheek, thumb soft with unbitten tenderness. He echoed, “‘Before you?’”

Could he name the sins he committed to keep Suguru’s assailants safe? Sacrificing heavenly purity for unbridled filth, for remorseless vessels carrying cursed wombs. It was grief that spoke, unfiltered anger caught in trenches of justice. For sorcerers, he wondered if justice was a mere pipe dream.

“Suguru.” Defeat hollowed his voice but it was warm. It was his.

“Satoru.” Adoring, reverent - he closed his eyes to shield himself. 

If one called the other would answer. Even if their voice travelled through the cosmos, swallowed by black holes and syphoned through exploding nebulas observed only by desolate planets. Even if the universe continued to expand, spreading like uncontrollable wildfires that gnawed and snarled, consuming and devouring, blood seeping through gunmetal teeth that couldn’t stop - would not yield. 

Satoru would respond to Suguru even if he waited eternity to hear his voice, six eyes always searching, ears always listening. Nothing could stop him, not even if time itself swathed him in vines, hammered to celestial posts oozing unbreakable bonds. 

He would do anything for him. 

“You’re not real,” he carelessly reiterated. “You can’t decide if what I did was right or wrong. That’s not. God, that’s not how this works.”

Frowning, head still honoured on the self made podium, Suguru pondered thoughtfully. If he disagreed, nothing in his features betrayed him. It made Satoru nervous, sparking and jittery like a severed wire blinking at a pool of water. 

“I know. But it doesn’t change a thing, Satoru.” Loving, blazing, rich and warm. His name was renewed, restored dripping from Suguru’s tongue. “You did what you could. To ask for more would be cruel.”

And killing you wasn’t ? He yearned to ask. Executing Suguru on tar coloured stone, slender fingers curled and extended - was that okay? Face softening, without having spoken a word Suguru knew what he thought. Suguru read the messy scrawls of grief that engraved patchworks of misery onto his skin, and he didn’t flinch. Did not leave.

Moving impossibly closer, he nodded. “I don’t blame you, not then and not now. If you feel that this grief is your penance then so be it, I can’t carry that for you. But you did what you had to do out of duty, it wasn’t your choice to make.”

Yet it was. Born from duty or the shackles of intrinsic bloodthirst, something brutish and helpless killed Suguru, be it an anomaly or aberration of affection. No matter how many words Satoru used to salve this yawning infection, this abyss that sweltered and grew, it could not erase what he had done. What nestled against him when he inevitably slept at his desk or what trailed his steps as he wandered through the school.

A gaping silhouette clung to him, its shadow darkening in each passing day and Satoru did not know what it was, only that it was there. An ineluctable companion, hammered to his side by remorse and sorrow, of unspoken regret.

Shoko and Yaga observed him keenly, transfixed on his neck where a tumour throbbed. A tumour that itched to be sedated or better yet, removed. A tumour that held him when he slept. That was watching him in forgiving fondness and that could never hate him, not if his mind was responsible for it. 

If only they knew that Suguru was not the rope of a guillotine, securing his throat before the perilous drop; he was the martyr that had jumped in his stead, a merciful God, sacrificial unlike the ones Satoru had read about.

Satoru was the one who transgressed, a prisoner of the flesh and a coward; a man undeserving of love. A person who was granted it, regardless.

“You’re only saying that because I made you up,” he aired, sighing but lifting the frown that plagued him in his home. “The real Suguru would have called me a fool for protecting them, for choosing them. But you can’t, not as long as I control you.”

Chuckling, he acquiesced, “Maybe, but he loved you. What is love without forgiveness?”

Closing his eyes, he could almost hear the words echoed in the vestiges of his sinking memories. Subjugated by the past, he wondered if they had always been like so.

You’re such a coward , Suguru had once yelled, all this talk about being the greatest and you can’t make it on time once? Fucking once, Satoru?

  You had to wait 5 minutes, shut up. Stop complaining, Satoru retorted, rolling his eyes.

Glaring at him, Suguru hissed and seethed like an unruly serpent disturbed from slumber. Rattling, the coils of his reptilian arms waved and in them, Satoru saw poorly hidden distress. 

Fuck you, Gojo. I’m leaving.

And Suguru had. Armed with rage, Satoru’s artillery of laughs melting into pleas went ignored, his armour thick like leather, unmalleable as steel. It wasn’t until Suguru had secluded himself in his bedroom and locked that door that Satoru recognised the severity of his mistake, the error in his jest.

Head pressed against the chestnut door, he knew he looked a fool, heart beating pathetically in a final offering. Sighing, he said, I’m sorry, Suguru. I didn’t realise how long you had to wait for me, I should have - breathing deeply, he admitted that he should have done plenty of things. 

Suguru forgave gradually. As seasons embraced and departed; furious porcelain snow liquifying when Satoru smiled, marigolds budding in his cheeks when they returned to each other's body like elastic, shrouding in the encapsulating heat of reverence.

Satoru feasted on Suguru’s almond eyes - his bronze skin ornamented with rosy jubilance and teasing rage - the billowing smile which grew and subdued like the swinging branch of a pendulum. When it came to Suguru he was insatiable, there was never enough and he lamented that despite being granted everything, he wanted more. Enough to fill barren canyons and desolate valleys with the sound of his infectious laughter or the tide of his irresistible pull.

If a canvas existed then it would be proposed to worship Suguru’s callous hands, ashened with viscous blood from a triumphant battle. The world was Satoru’s orchestra and audience; it was an instrument he wielded and played, each symphony recited for Suguru; written for him; dedicated to the man; his alone. 

When he deserved it least Suguru had always forgiven him but he was dead now. Faded like a storm, arrival colossal as titans and departure as debilitating as death.

“You were a good man, Suguru,” he told him. “I never got a chance to tell you then but I can now. You were a good man. You just didn’t have a choice.”

Scoffing, Suguru’s eyes rolled in amusement. “Sure, I didn’t. I just happened to declare war, right? None of it was planned or anything,” he bantered.

Satoru knew he shouldn’t but he laughed, cheeks swelling and eyes hooded, his entire world transfixed on Suguru. It always came back to him. “Yeah, exactly. Glad to see we’re on the same page, finally.”

“We always were,” hummed Suguru. “May have taken us a while to get there but I was always with you wherever you were.”

Parched for his touch, Satoru chased Suguru’s yukata and clenched the material in his hand, holding tightly, enough so his \infinity collapsed and the material grazed his fingers, soft and supple - cotton, he deduced, expensive too. Worthy for a king, which made it suitable for Suguru.

“You staying then? Won’t leave again?”

Submerging Satoru’s grip on his clothes with his hands, lifting his head so he could peer deeply into his eyes, their faces inches apart, he swore, “I won’t leave you ever again.”

That was all he wanted to hear. The rest could wait.

- - - -

Laughter from a movie drifted through the air, discarded papers watching him from the coffee table. Once more nightfall had sequestered them, a canopy of stars peered through the patio doors. Rain pelted from rumbling clouds and he imagined that this was it, the storm they had prepared for after three days of unending precipitation. 

Suguru was in his embrace, his spindly back cushioned with Satoru’s chest. Even though he wore a stolen black sweater he could feel the gales traversing Suguru’s veins, a rush of ice that no amount of heat could thaw. It made him curl his arms tighter, possessive of what he had lost and so hopelessly found.

“Do you still love going to the movies?” 

Suguru sank further into the pillows and then turned away from the TV, his face beneath Satoru’s, eyes relaxed with intrigue. Looking down at him, Satoru’s hand gilded from its position across his waist to his face and flicked a stray strand onto the sofa.

“I guess. Haven’t gone in years so I don’t know.”

Knowingly, Suguru smirked, his fingers crawling up Satoru’s shirt and resting on his collar, steady pulse beating against his pale skin. Glacial monuments with irrevocable grandeur, Suguru was beautiful but he was lost, he could not be retrieved from the icy womb that cradled him. Satoru arched into the touch, savouring it for what it was.

“Do you want to go?” questioned Suguru. “Or should I ask, do you miss it?”

Frowning, Satoru contemplated his answer, leaping from one extremity to another, unsettled and unsatisfied with what he thought. “I don’t know. Maybe, sometimes? But I don’t want to go, it seems kinda lame to go alone.”

“That never stopped you in the past,” Suguru pointed out.

Nodding, he chuckled, admitting, “yeah, I know. But I still go alone to get food or shop for stuff, just.” The answer rumbled inside him, warning if he didn’t confess it, it would flare and burn his cowardice. “I think going to the cinema was our thing, I enjoyed it because it was what we did. Without you, I don’t think I ever want to go back.”

When they seceded all those years ago, two oceans parting through divine will, orchestrated by the man who lay beneath him, Satoru sacrificed plenty. Blood was not enough, his joy and pleasures were next. On a platter bountiful with offerings, Satoru relinquished his love for movies, arcades, and treacherously, the beach. 

They belonged to a gluttonous past which would not surrender them to his future. To a man who had stolen them with his departure.

And so, hopelessly, he gave them up. After sacrificing Suguru, what was one more thing? By that time he was a poster child of loss, with vacancy advertised on his chest he knew that it was only a matter of time before he lost everything else.

Suguru hummed, softly. “Would you like to go again? I wouldn't mind doing that with you.”

He should have thought before he responded, managed the voracious words until few remained, but instead he said, intelligently: “What?”

“Do you want to go to the cinema, Satoru? With me.” 

Blinking rapidly as though his eyes were alight, he smudged the harsh lines of Suguru’s sunken cheekbones and hollow eyes, lost for words. “Uh.”

“You don't have to decide right now,” Suguru placated. “But what I meant is that the offer is there if you ever want to. We can do that again. I know there's a 24 hour cinema in the city so we can go whenever you want to. No rush.”

Earnest, Suguru followed his widening eyes, their hazel gentleness a coaxing hand for a drowning man. If he was surprised by Satoru’s mild demeanour then he didn’t say, consoled the emotion before it could scatter across his face. 

Curious, Satoru had to ask, “You want to go? Is that why you're asking?”

Huffing a smile, stretching despite Satoru’s body blanketing him, Suguru shrugged. “Well, it would be nice for us to do something that isn't here. Your apartment is nice Toru but it's so fucking boring. You got me feeling like some kind of trophy wife.”

“You’re literally older than me.”

Grinning now, Suguru taunted, “Not for long.”

He felt agonising sorrow seize him, the words incredibly loud. Not for long . 

It was true that a time would come where Satoru would outlive Suguru. His feet would have tread the soiled dirt, lingered in the mountains as sunrise eclipsed the darkened snow, and breathed the lilies decorating his porch with vigour. 

Witnessed by frailty and destruction, Satoru would live longer than his beloved, Suguru. The one who once dreamt of farmlands at the cusp of mountains, wandering through temples of age, perpetual merriment staining his tanned skin. Denied this by the hands he lay beneath, that stroked his hair in tenderness they would not dote in life.

Indescribably, his chest tightened. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. Detaining his sadness like the criminal it was, he continued, “But that just means you’ll have to listen to me the second I am. Can’t talk back to your elders, Suguru.”

“We’ll see about that.” Eyes glinting like the sharpened edge of diamonds, Suguru’s mirth was inextinguishable. “Who knows, you impress me enough I might do it willingly.”

Sighing, Satoru slackened against the sofa and nosedived into Suguru’s neck, their faces as close as neighbouring leaves on a single branch. Mindlessly, he tightened his right arm against his chest and pulled him closer, ignoring the way Suguru’s bones protested beneath his stretched skin. Still cold, still dead, it only made him hold on dangerously.

Responding immediately, Suguru burrowed a hole into Satoru’s neck, nestling in the space he demanded for himself. Underneath Satoru’s skin, shrouded with infinity, he was untouchable and he was safe. Even from Satoru himself. 

“So, is that a yes to the cinema?” Frozen lips mumbled against his skin, pressed against his jugular like a witty blade. 

Nodding, he confirmed, “We’ll go tomorrow. During the day I’ll see what’s playing and we’ll take it from there.”

When the time arrived, Satoru tore his wardrobe apart to find something to wear, clothes that would hold him together as he threatened to fall apart at the seams. He settled on comfort: black sweatpants and a jumper, an oversized denim jacket that he had never worn, and a baseball cap that flattened his hair against his eyes.

Wearing the blindfold in public was customary for him but it distorted Suguru’s face, reducing him to energy he no longer carried. Discomfort meant little to him if it meant he could see Suguru undisturbed, and it was just for one night. He could make the sacrifice. 

Seated on the sofa, feet crossed on the coffee table was Suguru. Like Satoru he wore an all black ensemble, cascading hair held back by his ear, a glimmering gauge winking at him. His yukata was gone, replaced by clothes Satoru could have sworn he had just seen in his closet. Breathing deeply, Satoru had to concede that he looked beautiful, heavenly even when he dressed like the ordinary.

Hearing him, Suguru looked back, the beginning of a smile already moulding his lips. He scanned Satoru from head to toe, appreciative and impressed, settled by what little he was given. Without wasting time, he rose to his feet and crowded him, his body so much more pronounced in Satoru’s hands.

“You look good,” he commented in Satoru’s ear, hands washing the surface of his jacket, roaming without a destination. “I thought you’d wear your uniform, you know that?”

He did, it was why he committed to something new. The clothes in his wardrobe served more as decoration than useful - when the convenience of his uniform was alluring and school was his only journey, why wear anything else? But this, a shared moment in the enclosed space of their searching arms, was important. It was the soft call of seagulls over a mulling sea, a relentless breeze which commanded and observed.

It was a date, the first they had ever been on. Satoru wanted to look good for Suguru, to know what it felt to be admired and cherished for something that wasn’t innate or exemplary. Perhaps, this was the only way he could be Suguru’s alone, granting something that nobody else had ever been given.

“We’re going out,” he explained. “I thought it would make sense to wear something comfortable.”

Shooting him a knowing look, Suguru affirmed innocently, “And the uniform isn’t?”

“Shut up.” He snatched Suguru’s hand and held it, their fingers entwined like an intricate stitch of homemade sweater. Warm, soft and his. “You can’t speak, you stole that entire fit from my wardrobe.”

“I did, I did.” Suguru’s eyes were wicked and dangerous. “For you. I thought you’d like to see me in your clothes. Don’t you?”

He would never be absolved for his transgression, it seemed; seeing Suguru wear his clothes calmed him, satiated an unquenchable thirst. It reminded him of their formative years when Satoru’s belongings were not his own and Suguru would regularly claim a sweatshirt or scarf. When Satoru would stroll into his room and sprawl on Suguru’s bed unflinchingly, resolve strong and trust immeasurable.

It was unsurprising to find multiple things missing when Suguru disappeared, he had probably mistaken them for his own. In possessive and desperate longing, he hoped they would remind him of Satoru whenever he used them. Leaving Satoru’s soul may have come easily for him, but forgetting the memories would not; Suguru abandoned him carelessly, his only consolation was that he could never be left behind.

Years had passed and he didn’t know if that longing held any truth, Suguru’s temple was ransacked and stripped of his identity when Satoru came to reclaim it. Where he expected to see pictures and jewellery, he found broken dressers and splintered paperwork, useless to his conquest. 

But as Suguru stood beside him, their hands clasped and a distinct sheen of delight across his milky face, Satoru pushed those thoughts aside. Clenching, he tugged them towards the door.

“You always were a thief,” he said eventually, for the lack of a better response. “Now let’s go. There’s a 1am showing for a new horror movie and I think you’ll like it.”

Pulled along and serenely composed, Suguru had blinked as the apartment disappeared and a dark room hosting their screen appeared. Satoru led them to the back of the hall, noting the presence of another but inexplicably at the bottom of the screen. Following his gaze, Suguru laughed when he saw the loner.

“Does he think the demon won’t see him if he’s sat right there?”

Chuckling, Satoru nodded. Suddenly, a devious thought came to mind and he smirked, glancing at Suguru. “I don’t think he’s realised we’re here. I should scare him during the movie.”

“Oh Satoru, that's the best plan you’ve come up with in a long time.” Eyes gleaming, he said, “Do it when there’s a jumpscare.”

“Obviously.”

They chose their seats, undetectable by CCTV and obscured from the person’s sight. Trailers streamed one after the other and Suguru watched them intensely, the light illuminating his face and broadcasting contentment. Unable to glance away, Satoru stared and mapped the contours of his face, the tremble of his lips as he suppressed a smile, and the crinkles tugging his eyes to memory.

He didn’t think a day would come where Suguru could be anything but beautiful in his eyes. It seemed as unlikely as releasing the love brimming in his chest. Something he would never do, not even if it was required to save every last soul on earth. 

“The screens in front of you by the way, not here.” Suguru hadn’t even looked in his direction.

Agreeing, Satoru confessed, “You’re more interesting than boring old trailers.”

Sneaking a sideway glance, Suguru hummed. “Only took you a decade to say it.”

A decade spent yearning, he longed to say. Where he dreaded nightfall and its callous solitude, where the morning sun bruised his skin with tally’s and ticks of another day without them at each other's side, moments of agonising regret and hurt. 

Had Suguru stayed, Satoru would have told him every day: when sunlight draped across his skin and haloed his inky hair, or when sleep tousled his lashes and massaged the knots out of his shoulders, when Suguru would smile softly, pushing him away when he leaped onto the bed and clung to to him. Satoru would have been what he needed, he could only wish he had the chance to prove it.

“I told you all the time,” he lied, indignant.

“Only in your dreams, Satoru.”

Grinning, Satoru said, “You mean when I dreamt of you every night?”

Face scrunching, Suguru shook his head, expression concealed by his waterfall hair. “You’re so sappy, shut up, honestly.”

Yet brazenly honest, no longer perturbed by fear, by the presumed weakness of tenderness. His affections had spent years isolated in towering shame, how the strongest man alive was subdued by the fickle tranquillity of love. But it granted him nothing, stealing moments of ebbing joy until all that remained was the blistering winds of want.

For as long as he could remember Satoru slept to the memories of Suguru and woke to his fading visage, face trickling from his mind as reality gripped him to the present. It hurt and as the years passed the pain soured; sleep was fragmented, his thoughts scattered, Suguru existed in the perils of his convoluted existence. He refused to leave even when Satoru begged him to.

“It’s the truth though.”

“Sh.” Suguru waved his hand until it smothered Satoru’s lips. “The movie’s starting.”

The lingering spotlights dimmed and the screen blackened, speakers relaying a foreboding hum until the name of the movie slammed onto them, white block letters bleeding in their descent. Smiling, he leaned his head against Suguru’s protruding shoulder, breathing harshly through his nose as he settled.

Like a deflating balloon, Suguru’s head slowly relaxed onto Satoru’s, their bodies as close as they could be despite an arm rest between them. Canopied in darkness as the movie ran its course, Satoru felt calm. Peace from the frenzy of his life and its tumultuous thoughts, reprieved from stress. He felt safe and in some twisted way, free. The shackles tying his feet to the floor were singed and he could soar, seeking the sun as it burned ferociously.

With Suguru by his side anything was possible, it always had been. He wished it could remain like that, if time and life permitted. But with the uncertainty of his job and the stipulations which arrived with his technique, he was tethered to expectations he occasionally fought. 

Change was necessary, it was inevitable. However, with the sole pledge of protecting the children he was prepared to keep his feet on the ground even as it sunk him further into precarious allegiances. People depended on him, the Fushigoru children were orphaned and alone. He could not fight his way out of every disagreement.

Glancing at Suguru, eyes arching as they made out his soft smile and the sharp slope of his nose, he wondered if that was a good enough reason for him, if he would agree. There was no telling and he didn’t want to ask.

“It’s getting to the scary bit,” Suguru whispered, nudging their arms together. “Go, scare him now.”

“How do you know?” Satoru’s eyes showed the fearful man hiding his face behind the excessively large box of popcorn. If there was a time to strike, it would be now and he wasn’t going to let it pass.

Rolling his eyes, Suguru murmured, “One of us has been watching the movie and it isn’t you. Now go! Before he gets too scared and leaves.”

Without thinking it through, Satoru teleported to the empty seat behind the man, Suguru’s growing grin edging into his mind. Short, the man's ruffled hair splattered across the chair like spider webs, auburn and silky smooth. It trembled as his body twitched, preparing for the climax of a suspenseful scene and Satoru felt an answering smile, hands itching with the need to do something.

Through overhead speakers the music built into a monument of fear - charged with grandeur and despair, inevitability breathing down their necks as the moment arrived, the doomed protagonist would be smothered by her actions, consequences arriving despite how desperately she tried to outrun them. When the shrill of a violin pierced their ears Satoru decided enough and threw his hand before the man’s eyes and grabbed his shoulder, squeezing with force he would not be able to deny.

Erupting through his skin was terror, scorching and swift, vibrating like seismic tremors preluding a natural disaster. He yelped - no, screamed, throwing his food onto the floor and jumping out of his seat, stumbling on unsteady legs, knees collapsing onto the matte carpet. Breathing deeply, Satoru watched him quiver and retreat, eyes blown in panic, his body itching closer to the screen as he tried to locate the culprit.

Teleporting to Suguru, Satoru threw himself onto his shoulder, mouth stuffed with his fist to quieten the brimming laughter. Beside him, Suguru shook with glee, struggling to speak but trying nonetheless: “The- the way he fell! Satoru - Satoru the way he fucking fell!”

Nodding incessantly against him, he whispered through tears, “You should have seen his face. Oh my God, I thought he was going to piss all over the floor. He was fucking gone. He was done for.”

It triggered another wave of delight, their laughs mounting as the movie boomed around them. The man ran out of the hall, fleeing with confidence he did not feel, face betraying the horror he felt inside. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been so funny, after all it was hardly becoming when he was 27 years old, but he found that he didn’t care.

As salty streams dipped onto his tongue and Suguru clutched him like he was a lifejacket keeping him afloat in unpredictable water, nothing mattered. Everything beyond their joy was irrelevant, inconsequential like the coffee he dropped on the way to class or Shoko’s judgement when faced with a mutilated cadaver.

Suguru always brought out the best in him.

“Did he leave?” Suguru leaned forehead, face searching the room. “Satoru, has he gone?”

“Yeah,” he answered, breathless, weightless, soaring . “Ran out of here as soon as I came back. Poor guy wasn’t expecting it.”

Suguru’s gaze met his, crescent eyes wrinkled and graceful, aged like perfectly mulled wine. Satoru yearned to capture his face in the moment, to deposit the photo in his wallet and carry Suguru with him wherever he went. If he voyaged the seven seas or travelled to the highest sky, Suguru would journey with him in his breast pocket. 

They’d always be together like pages of a book or the hue of his iris, dilating and enshrouded, omnipresent regardless of what he saw. It could have been his - it still could, if only Suguru agreed to stay. 

Their chuckles disbanded, chest rising and falling with the remnants of their amusement. Shaking his head, Suguru remarked, “You’re going to hell for terrorising him like that, Toru.”

“You told me to do it!” he protested, beaming like a burning cross, his sins ebbing with each flame and its consequent embers.

“Are you 5? You’re acting like you’re 5.” 

Satoru huffed, moving the strands from his eyes and staring deeply at Suguru. He was many things, he held duality of man in his fingertips, painted portraits with every stroke, anchoring the shapelessness of his soul in a crowded port. Forgotten and maybe even lost. But he was not 5.

“Worth it. He won’t be going to the cinema alone anytime soon.”

For a moment they were silent, Suguru performed a valiant attempt to watch the movie but his cheeks inflated and a laugh burst through his lips, head thrown back. Satoru could only follow, their childish antics enough to reduce him to blubber.

“You got that right, he won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. You made sure of that.”

Smiling, he echoed, “Worth it.”

They finished the movie with Satoru’s scattered attention fixed on his partner and Suguru watching him keenly, undeterred by the eyes following his every move. By the time he teleported them back to the apartment, it was nearing 4am and he knew he should sleep, at least attempt to rest before his alarm bellowed at 6am.

So he crawled under his duvet and raised the edge when he saw Suguru linger near the door, casually inviting him. Rolling his eyes Suguru slipped in beside him, purposefully leaving a breathing gap between them. In the darkness, Satoru stared at the offending space, wondering how to breach and eradicate it. 

Even with the distance he could feel coldness emit from Suguru like ruffled fallen leaves, the distance gliding onto him like a homemade quilt, each square decorated with passages of lost time. He didn’t want to lose anymore, he wanted Suguru beside him so he could sleep. 

“I can hear you thinking, Satoru.” Quiet and amused, but kind. “What’s wrong?”

He was long past shame, it couldn’t touch him no matter how loudly it slammed its fists against the window, trying to storm in. Slinking closer, he asked, “Can I hold you?”

Suguru’s body was unresponsive as though he hadn’t spoken, words offered in prayer and sacrifice seemingly unheard, Satoru’s soul barren growing cold between them as it sought Suguru’s warmth. He would freeze if he was denied, shrivelling into nothing or an exhaled breath - a last word - fleeting thoughts that could never be revisited. 

Yet he couldn’t help but slacken with relief, bones melting onto the mattress as he accepted that it would be because of Suguru. A lover who’s visage comforted him in darkness wearing a smile that fought wars, offering a final touch born of mercy, of love . Satoru did not mind death if it meant he died as someone worthy of benevolence.

If he were to die then it would be by Suguru’s sword, head exiled in Suguru’s guillotine, the last breath on his skin belonging to Suguru. It would all have to come to him, no one else, not after everything he had given them. No, if his time was up then hell or heaven would accept him from Suguru’s arms and he would make sure of that.

He would be with him in the end, that was his prophecy to keep. It would not be denied to the man who gave the world everything only to be thanked with nothing. 

“I suppose for one night you can,” Suguru said, as though he was doing Satoru a favour. “Come over he- oof!”

Satoru didn’t wait for the sentence to finish and threw his arm across Suguru’s chest, his leg above his knees and pulled, reuniting their bodies underneath the blanket. One they had shared years ago, so long ago he thought he dreamt it. 

“Alright then.” Suguru didn’t sound frustrated or irritated, his voice was low and calm. “That’s one way to do it.”

Pressing his body against every inch of Suguru’s, Satoru hid in his neck and felt his head relax on his white hair. It had been far too long, he had missed this longer than he had experienced it. Tightening his grip, he banished the thoughts as best he could.

“Goodnight Suguru,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Satoru. Sleep well.”

Holding onto his beloved, how could he not?

- - - -

After the cinema date, Suguru was lively, his boisterous personality shining like sun rays through grey clouds. Satoru could only agree as he requested they walk through national gardens at 2am knowing no one would be present but them.

Throwing a hat over his ears, Suguru then wrapped a scarf across his neck, swaddling Satoru as though he was a helpless child. Perhaps he was, he depended on infinity to keep him comfortable, after all. But one look was enough for him to realise that would not suffice this time. 

They wandered through the garden, pausing at the pond to observe jittering fish - koi’s, large and intricately coloured, accompanied with goldfish and carp, their bloated stomachs translucent in nightfall. It delighted him to no end, feeding them scraps he found littered on the ground despite a clear and visible sign advising against it.

They returned to the port of Tokyo, Satoru snacking on strawberry pocky with a cake in his pocket. His arm was linked with Suguru’s as stars peered at them and it was liberating to be seen, to finally be free with the only one he wanted. Suguru agreed as he scuffed pebbles with his feet, gazing at the illuminated skyline, bustling city life just within arms reach. 

Satoru glanced at him, leaning against the railing. “You miss the city?”

“No.” Suguru shook his head, short strands bracketing his thin face. He looked angelic under the moon's glow, an omen of good tidings and peace. Satoru yearned to hold him and never let go. “Guess at heart I was always a mountain man. It’s pretty looking at the city from afar but being in it?” His lips quirked in a self-deprecating smile. “Not for me. I had my fill.”

“Yeah.”

The longer Satoru kept Suguru by his side like a surreptitious affair, the harder it became to ignore that the grave longed for Suguru. He was dying before him. If he held him close to his chest then he wouldn’t have to confront Suguru’s deepening eye bags or the tightness of his wrinkled skin, the way it paled and and blushed yellow, disease seeping through his veins as they clogged from idleness.

If Suguru was hidden in his chest he didn’t have to see any of it, so that’s what he did. Clung to him the way a gluttonous black hole would sip and seize, his arms searching like gaseous tendrils, drawing constellations to completion. Don’t look , he demanded. He can’t leave if you don’t see it. He’s yours as long as you keep him here.

Selfish, foolish but enamoured; Satoru would never be satisfied, he would always crave more. He could not let him go.

So when Suguru followed him during the day, appearing in the courtyard as Satoru watched trembling leaves, he didn’t know what to think. It was cold, a grey awning of plump clouds towered over them and none of the students were present, in their dorms or classes. Satoru could hardly believe what he saw, feeling displaced - torn in disarray by a familiar face in a deceptively familiar place. They had never met during the day, this was the first time.

Suguru grimaced when the school breached his eyes, head cocking to the side almost contemplative. Donned in his yukata, hair filed into a loose bun, his presence was loud - an obelisk in school grounds, something that emerged from the earth's mantle and towered over them. Large and undeniable, Suguru arrived at Jujutsu High with indescribable resentment and relief.

“Still a shit hole,” he commented, inspecting the grounds. “Guess most of the budget is being spent on paying you.”

Satoru thought he gaped, muscles listless in the face of his colossal fear. There was nothing he could say in response when Suguru’s cheekbones pierced through the curse energy protecting the school, his gunmetal lips downcast. Everything about him looked lifeless but it was heightened during the day, colouring him with an otherness that could be ignored at night - that refused to be ignored in the dreary sunlight.

“You’re…here,” he said unhelpfully. 

Grinning brightly, the expression a caricature of warmth - of peace in joy, of security in heat, Suguru nodded. Approaching him, he replied, “I missed you so I thought I’d pay you a visit.” The expression on Satoru’s face must have been disheartening as his steps faltered, eyes furrowing in uncertainty. “Unless you didn’t want me to? I. I’m sorry, I thought maybe.”

Like a sleeping soldier awakened by trigger words, he shook his head, quick and once. “No,” he said, quiet in spite of his anxiety. “No, I do want you to. Pay me a visit that is. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

Searching his face, Suguru was taut and closed, unconvinced by Satoru’s flurry of words. But it was just a stepping stone for him to cross, a bridge between worry and satisfaction, anxiety soon to be a thought of the past. Abolishing the distance between them, Satoru paused at Suguru’s feet.

Tender and gentle as though Suguru’s ivory skin was vulnerable like snowflakes, he touched his cheek, smiling soft and giddy. They stood on troubled soil where love bloomed 10 years ago, that frizzled and severed, a broken stalk of their affections deteriorating at their feet. The seed was still there, it could be nourished once more.

“I’m happy you’re here,” he confessed, stroking his skin unknowingly. “I always want you near, you know that right?”

The look on his face admitted he didn't. “You sure know how to convince a guy.” 

Shrugging, Satoru grabbed his hand and held it on his fingertips, sandpaper skin aged with battle and misuse. Distantly, he remembered Suguru’s fingers dancing with his pencil as he stared into nothing, lost in thought. The way his wrist flared across paper, aimless and slow, words and patterns originating like hieroglyphs of a lost language.

Perhaps that's what they were, in his messy scrawls was a truth abandoned to anonymity, confessions Suguru would never utter but loitered around him. Each line was an omission, a plea that Satoru would never be able to read. Which was what the author wanted, and inevitably got.

“How about we go for a walk,” he suggested, taking his hand casually even though his hold was not. Firm and possessive, it was fortified by fear. “Things have changed a lot since you were last here and everyone’s mostly busy. I can even show you my office.”

“You have an office,” Suguru questioned, eyebrow raised, symmetrical strands of hair coupling the amusement in his gaze. “You, Gojo Satoru, have an office.”

“I am a teacher.” 

Or a human shield, Shoko had remarked in the past. The battered fields of Satoru’s chest entrenched ticking bombs, craters birthed by their sisters engraved his soul; he was a walking war, fury costumed in ocean eyes and milky hair. His long legs speared through the dirt, the manipulation of his fingers barking orders like the hoarse voice of an army general. Bloodthirsty and hollow, he filled the void inside with blood.

Blood that was supposed to pour from the guts of his enemy, transgressors who erred those he loved - those he lived for. But he was an impotent man, drowning in an hourglass that had suffocated Suguru to death, and would now do the same to him. Duty was remorseless as it was traitorous, it would not hesitate to point the scope at the person holding the rifle.

“So, I’ve heard.” Smirking, Suguru requested with a mocking bow, “I’d like to see your office, Gojo-sensei.”

Chuckling, he said, “We can take the scenic route.”

A grimace contorted Suguru’s face but he agreed, following Satoru's lead with their palms fused like welts in a blacksmith's fire. Inseparable now, they could only be devastated by nothing short of a catastrophe. That too, if Satoru let go, which he did not intend to this time. 

His to keep; Suguru was now his to keep.

They visited the fields where Suguru had once chased Satoru using the hump of his curses, propelled into the air as he lurched for his foot. Emerald grass woven with exhaustion composed the garden, scattered trees where they would read, sleep, talk. Winter was cruel in Tokyo, the ground looked lifeless, cluttered with clumping leaves, scented with petrichor.

Leading to his office was a corridor they had trudged through abundantly, together and alone, exuberant and fatigued. If he listened closely he could hear echoes of their laughter reverberate inside the stone walls, footsteps scuffing concrete floors and their lack of grace - of care cocooning them from the horrors that lie ahead. If the memories ambushed Suguru as they did him then the man didn't show it.

Perpetually thoughtful, his eyes were bright and eerily focused, but languid and casual as though he was unaffected. He walked demurely, head held to the skies as he looked down at the school, at the past he ruthlessly severed, and Satoru wondered if he truly did not care.

It had been 10 years and the journey’s through the ashen stoneways did not get easier, lingering in the alleys and emboldened by his stay, memories awaited him with every turn, at every corner, ineluctably brutal and cold. Time had eased the burden, with students coming and going, their complaints loud and Satoru’s laughter louder. But it was tiresome to carry, pushing the rock uphill it pledged to tumble down every time, no matter what steps he took to prevent it.

Like Sisyphus, Satoru was beginning to wonder if the rock was destined to crush him. If he was biding time for that imminent tragedy. (If after all these years, it could be a tragedy.)

The door to his office was unlocked but when the two men stepped inside, he was diligent about locking it. Suguru entered further into the room, cataloguing the sparsely furnished floor, his fingers running along the surface of his lounge chair. Objectively, he knew it was uninspiring and barren, the desk was pressed to the wall and housed only a phone. On the other end of the room was a small table, shouldering a vase that Yuji had filled with flowers. Navy petals wrinkled on the wooden surface, decay emerging from neglect.

Light from the circular window laved Suguru, dripping from his shoulders, casting a mystical glow at his feet like the frothing mouth of a waterfall. He stood within the pearly glow as a king, sharp lines, cutthroat edges, finely pressed and forged; art that had been created in fierce worship, in fearful honour. Beautiful like the forests around them and as dangerous as the gales capitulating them.

“It's empty,” Suguru said eventually, evenly. “Do you spend any time here?”

Shrugging, he relayed his tedious schedule. “When I’m not working, sleeping, or in meetings. This is where you can find me.”

“You don’t sleep,” Suguru needlessly pointed out, standing in front of the window facing him, expression shadowed by the darkness of his halo. “You spend hours in meetings and work?” Chuckling humorlessly, he finished, “Work doesn’t end.”

Walking out of his saintly embrace, he paused before Satoru. Clasping his hands, the gaping sleeves draped across his legs. There was judgement in his gaze and if Satoru stared hard enough, budding ire that could burn them both. 

“Well, there’s no shortage of curses and with everything going on I need to keep on top of stuff, I have to-” 

“You don’t have to anything, Satoru.” Defrosting, an unfinished argument sparked between them. Not today, he thought, only Suguru wouldn’t listen. “If you just-”

“They can’t be left to carry this alone,” he justified. “With my abilities I can. I don’t need a caretaker, I just get it done.”

Breathing deeply, Suguru’s nostrils flared. Satoru could feel his heart tremble, weakened by the emotions on Suguru’s face. Were they out of care for him? Was he angry on Satoru’s behalf? He hoped so. Tentatively, he admitted that he needed it to be.

“Do you think they’ll praise you for what you did? The sacrifices you made?” Suguru’s eyes were ablaze, kaleidoscopic with fury. Power surged through them, static and unpredictable, submerging the gentle bonfire into a flourishing inferno. 

“No, but it isn’t about that,” he attempted. Head shaking, he took a step forward, arm outstretched to grasp him. “The kids-”

Moving out of the way, Suguru avoided his touch, flinching as though it was the knife that betrayed prophets of the past, a rustic dagger spoiled with the blood of saints. Was that what Satoru’s touch had become? A weapon, deceitful and unworthy; undesirably rotten and treacherous.  

Betrayal leaked from his presence alone, a promise that he would not serve, he would not protect. He would take and cleave, a butcher who’s saw hacked through the brittle bones of his loved ones. A gasp lingered in his throat but like the apologies he owed it would not leave.

“‘The kids’?” Suguru repeated brazenly. “We gave everything to save their children but who saved ours?!” 

Suguru walked further away, his silken attire dragging across Satoru’s filthy floor, reminding him that beauty was wasted on him. Desolate walls and parched floorboards creaked, throbbing for a taste of Sugurus sanctitude. He wasn’t wrong, he rarely was. Satoru didn’t want to think of it regardless.

A broken plea disguised as a yell, little girls with matted locs, grey fractured skin; malnourished , the doctor said, neglected . An insidious auction, discarded inky hair ruffled in the wind, an empty gaze and its surrender before a fight. Forgotten stomachs, mottled grief, a quiet voice rising before an avalanche.

He tried to breathe. 

Suguru was more wrath than man, lips curled in malice, shoulders straight like a shield. He was formidable, tongue bathed in the rich, seeping blood of sinners, stream of words slamming into Satoru. The downpour was torrential, it was rabid and Suguru’s mouth foamed, gnarling teeth digging into his lips in promise - in a challenge. 

“When it was their blood on the walls, when they were locked in cages and beaten with sticks - who saved them, Satoru?” 

Their eyes met and he didn’t recognise who he saw, but he knew that he belonged to him. Fine lines chiseled wisdom and resentment into Suguru, and he looked old but simultaneously young. Stolen by grief, he was an amalgamation of defeat; he spoke but would not listen. He was listless and lost. He was burning on a stake and Satoru wondered if he had put him there.

Punishingly, Suguru’s forgiveness was obsolete in this weathered sorrow. And how could Satoru ask for it when he was right? The omniscient, irate man held knowledge in the cusps of his trauma, in the raven hair which came undone in the wind, the deceptively arched eyes, his touch that was always so gentle.

So gentle Satoru never knew if he deserved it but he wanted to. He had never desired to be good enough for anyone until Suguru. It was a testament to his character, that not even Suguru wanted him no matter how hard he tried.

In calm he did not feel, he said, “We can’t punish the mass for the actions of a few. There needs to be a reason. A purpose to the bloodshed - a point, Suguru. We have to-”

“Do you think when the time comes they’ll thank you?” 

Suguru’s interruption stole the next words from his mouth. He listened, drifting in a welcomed abyss, questioning all the while, who are they ?

“You’re nothing but a weapon for them. A battle cry, a monster, a tool . When you give them the last of your will, do you think they’ll commend you for it? No, Satoru. No. t

They’ll seethe because you broke their temples and stained their homes, too blind to see that we never had a home to begin with.” 

Distress anchored Suguru’s words in his heart. He knew all this. He didn’t need the reminder. 

“You are fighting a losing war,” stressed Suguru, defeated once more. Satoru remembered seeing the same empty eyes in Shinjuku. The world was cold then too. “I hope however they honour you is enough. But know that to me it never will be. You were made for more than this.”

Suddenly Satoru felt his limbs shorten, his hair grow, Suguru towered over him displeased and upset. He gazed at his hands, recoiling at how small they had become and that's when he heard it. Voices whispering and conspiring, unintelligible but he knew what they said.

Their words were law, their rule tyrannical and Satoru was caught in the middle, shaped and resized until he fit in their pockets. Until their wishes became his duty. Born to tumultuous waves and governed by autocratic gales, he was waiting for the sun, for the moon, for a star to shepherd his sinking boat before he succumbed to the ocean floor.

Sailing adrift with no tide to carry him, Suguru had been the prevailing wind fastening his sails, urging him to shore - to the infeasible land he had only seen from afar. With snides and remarks softened by hugs, Satoru was guided to somewhere he could have called home, he now does. 

They didn't anticipate Suguru, nor had he when he arrived at Jujutsu High but that was when the conditioning failed. It unspooled, the thread splitting like strands of nervous hair, and he found a world beyond himself. A reality where Suguru’s amber eyes melted the frost consuming Satoru’s, where they shared their favourite desserts and yelled profanities across the hall. Where the world wasn't so large now that he had someone to share it with.

And it was only when Suguru left, voyaged into the waters that once threatened to subjugate Satoru, that he realised how close to devastation he became, once again. It had been breathing down his neck, saliva pooling around his throat like a noose, biding time until he harnessed the power in his touch and became the strongest as he was decreed to be.

Satoru was born to lose an unstoppable war, Suguru knew this better than most. The time he spent getting there was consolation for what would be a bitter, despairing end.

Nodding slowly, he could only agree with Suguru’s silent plea. “I know. But this is the way it has to be and the way it will. We’ve known that from the beginning.”

Eyes scrunching in pain, Suguru’s face was a collection of melancholic stories, purging through his pores and his wrinkles, bursting like a dam. “You say that like you're a dead man walking,” he accused.

Huffing a laugh, abysmally sad and pulverised by it, Satoru replied, “I guess I am. This was how it was going to end from the beginning.”

Satoru once thought that he would do something - be more, plenty of Suguru’s walked through those gates and not all of them made it back. Through words and lessons he could shape resilience, teach them how to forge strength, rely on each other but remain independent. Through the inside out he aspired to be the change Suguru needed.

But he felt disillusioned, perilously confused, unsure of who he was anymore and where he slept. Names and faces, curses and users, they all blotched and ruddied; indecipherable, Satoru didn’t know how to contain the detachment he grappled within. 

Surely, Suguru could understand the need to try if nothing more. To know that even when death eventually approached, Satoru’s regrets were born of failure to succeed, not to begin. After all, he too had a vision that he tragically died for. In the end, the only comforts and aspirations they had were the things they would be willing to lay down their lives for.

“I don’t want this to eat you alive, Satoru.” Shaking his head, Suguru continued, “You deserve-”

“Please,” he beseeched, tired of the conversations, of the circles they would run and milestones they would miss. There was no convincing either of them, they had always been irredeemably stubborn. “I don’t want to argue about this. Can we move on?”

Sighing, Suguru yielded but not without consequence. He stormed out of the room, carrying light from the overhead window with him, tossing Satoru into the deepest well of the ocean: lawless, invincible and dull, it thrashed his body in an unseizable current, what lay ahead and behind unknown. Struggling to find leverage in the liquified ravine, he felt his final breaths call for Suguru, imploring him to return.

He wouldn’t though. Like all the times in the past, once he made a decision to leave the man would honour it until it killed him. Satoru could loiter in his doleful office as long as it took, Suguru would not-

“Are you coming or not? You promised me a tour, didn’t you?”

His eyes darted to the door where Suguru stood, exasperated and begrudgingly patient. He would not forgive easily for their troubling conversation but Satoru couldn’t find it in him to care. A small smile spread across his face, cheeks elevating even as his eyes fell to the floor.

He came back. That was all that mattered.

“Don’t tell me this is all you had to show, Gojo.”

“Come,” he encouraged, finding the strength to move and join Suguru’s side where he effortlessly belonged. “I’ll show you the graffiti we did in second year.”

“Did anyone ever cover up the millions of dicks you drew on the wall?” he questioned, curiously amused.

Smirking, Satoru replied, “They’re welcome to do so, once they find it.”

Suguru’s laugh ricocheted in the corridor, hauntingly loud and euphoric. It seemed there was life in these empty walls, still.

- - - -

Jasmine waves rippled in the sky, clouds fermented by an unending thunderstorm. It was cool but with Suguru at his side, he could hardly feel it. Snaking across his arms, the wind prickled his skin but achieved little else. Possibly because of the body slumped across his chest, Suguru’s face nestled in the junction of Satoru’s neck.

The torso’s coalesced like finely threaded ribbons, successfully melding until there was no Satoru, there was never Suguru, it was just them. Two men; wraiths or omens; a God and his devotee; synchronised souls that beat to the same heart. Only one of them no longer had one. He refused to think, out of the two of them, who that was.

With Suguru’s legs bracketed by Satoru’s, arms securely folded around each other's waist, the sun’s glow sheathed them into a picture of contentment. Imperceptible hands carded through Satoru’s hair, but he could hardly feel it, every bit of his skin sheltered by the man on his stomach, the body engulfing his own. 

He felt safe, consumed by Suguru’s body, devoured by the soft strokes at his lower back, the puffs of air lapping at his throat - where his heartbeat thumped quietly, at rest and peace. Barley and wheat oscillated like sleeping ships, rocked by a reverential ocean, fortified with the moon’s motionless eyes. Nobody could see them here, laying in a field of gold, beneath the bone coloured sky, staring quietly as their hands spoke for them.

They had come here at Satoru’s insistence and while Suguru rolled his eyes, teasing, “don’t wanna share me with anyone, Gojo?” he agreed easily, following the red footsteps until they ended here. Their own utopia, a piece of heaven segregated from the rest of humanity, a place where the only sounds they could hear for miles around were the songs of birds and calls from insects humming around them. 

His eyes were covered by the layered crinkles of his flopped hair, bandage and hat left behind on his dresser. But he saw everything: the way Suguru’s back elevated with every breath, crickets bouncing in the distance and the dancing flower beds at their feet, so close yet so far, a prismatic display of nature’s craftsmanship. He wondered if Suguru would want to see it before they left.

“Satoru,” he mumbled, cold lips smeared against his throat, slurring the name. “What’s wrong? Why are you thinking so hard?”

Tightening his grasp, Satoru breathed deeply, inhaling the scentless man atop him. Opening his eyes, he gazed at the aureate landscape, wishing they would never have to leave. “Nothing. Just happy you’re here with me.”

“There’s nowhere else I would rather be.”

Easily spoken, doubtlessly confessed, Suguru said it as though he hadn’t left and that inevitably, he would not leave. Satoru should have let it go, dampened the fire boiling his trepidation but he never was good at backing away. Not when it came to them, not about this. 

“You left though,” he said, an echo of valour. “You would rather be in the mountains or with-”

“Satoru.” Suguru’s face slowly lifted from his neck. “What’s wrong? Where is this coming from?”

Concern ripened Suguru’s face, it cleaned the blurred edges of his unforgettable decay making him appear younger, lively, alive . Maybe it was because that was the only way Satoru could imagine him. Vibrant, golden with joy, his face full of the life stolen from him. Young, untouched by the horrors of their youth. Beautiful, the only way Suguru had ever existed.

His soft eyes, laden with sleep. peered into Satoru’s and it was too much, like he was staring into the heart of the universe where humanity’s heart beat in tandem with his own, or the answer for their wreckage - their consequent survival flitted to his feet, enveloped by destiny and dying hope. Suguru’s eyes were an oracle and whatever they prophesied would be ineffable, Satoru a mere vessel or bystander to getting there.

Terrified, his hand moved swiftly and certainly, cupping Suguru’s chin and caressing his cheek. Always touching, always yearning, always wanting more than he had. 

“Nothing. Nothing, I’m just.” Exhaling, he felt his chest threaten to implode, desire and affection proliferating uncontrollably. 

He loved Suguru. By the Gods and high heavens, he was so deeply entrenched in this man’s palm that he was a mere puppet for him to control. A memory, burning embers from an almost extinct fire, a word that was spoken and already forgotten. But Suguru was the beginning of his life, the first breath he took, the ground he sought when he crawled to his feet, his eyes and the immensity of his untouchable soul. 

Every atom that composed his body belonged to Suguru and he didn’t know. The men never had the chance to know. Satoru wondered, if he ever did, would it have mattered?

“I,” he tried again, uncharacteristically weak. Reduced to stumbling and falling as though he had never ran before. “I just wish you never left, I guess. That you could have been with me always. The two of us together no matter what happened or who. I wish you would have told me. I really, really wish you did.”

Suguru’s eyes never strayed from his but they crystallised, hardened by grief Satoru recognised now that he had spent a decade trying to understand it. Bracing himself for the crash, he let Suguru plunge them into the ground.

“I was weak,” he spat, eyes welled with disgust. “How could I confess that to you, Satoru? How could I tell you that I had become one of the very things you hated?”

“You weren’t, though. You weren’t weak, you were just…” Suguru’s eyes were sharp as they watched him, promising to flee if he didn’t like what Satoru had to say. “Ill,” he finished, holding onto him tighter in case he left. “You were ill, just like me.”

“You were not-”

“I was,” he said, interrupting Suguru’s rampage before it could unleash. “I was a wreck too. Guess that’s why I didn’t realise how much you were hurting. Continued to hurt.” He searched his eyes, looking for a truth that would hurt more than any affliction he had ever faced. “Still hurt.”

Softening, tension slipped from Suguru’s face and he breathed deeply, whispering, “Anata..”

Satoru shook his head, having said enough and heard more than he ever needed to. There was no resolve, the answer to this impenetrable equation would remain a mystery, the way it was intended to. He was too weak to shoulder the answer, whatever it would be. Perhaps it was safer this way knowing that the unknown was malleable, could be stretched and contorted to fabrication whilst the truth was firm, it was shaped and unyielding. 

It did not care for Satoru’s feelings, as bleak as they may be. The truth existed to be impartial and unwavering to the human plight.

“You scared me, Suguru. When you came after all those years, smiling without a care in the world, staring at me like I was nothing, just some dirt on your shoe. It fucking terrified me. Knowing that this was who you were now, who you had become under my eyes.”

Suguru’s fingers paused on his lower back, suddenly clenching the skin as though he burned at the admission. Perhaps this fear of his, written in crimson ink, was true, its veracity coagulated in the scrolls of time. Suguru returned to the grounds he had left with little remorse and confronted Satoru like one would a child, fearless and entertained.

Satoru’s entire world amounted to him, the patter of his footsteps and the wrinkles when he smiled, the swiftness of his hands and the strength in his immovable fingers, but that did not mean that Suguru was damned to the same fate. They both relinquished their iron fists after Riko’s death, the only difference was Satoru wanted to capture Suguru again but Suguru refused to be caught.

He was too late. Always, far too late. And he was enthralled, always so deeply, irrevocably in love.

Suguru frowned, eyes squinting as sadness settled within them. It felt like the peace which had accosted them was suddenly obsolete, a wonderful day suddenly ruined because Satoru could not keep his thoughts to himself. Forcing a smile onto his face, he moved Suguru closer to him and pressed his closed, pursed lips against Suguru’s thinly stretched temple. In his chest, his heart rattled.

Suguru exhaled, relaxing onto Satoru as though the conversation never happened, his cheek resting on Satoru’s chest. It was a warm homecoming, despite Suguru’s perpetual chill and now that Satoru had a taste, he wanted more. A peck was not enough to satiate the ravenous beast inside that wanted to swallow Suguru, devour him until he was bone and even then, he would chew on the calcified limbs, grunting and crunching, reducing them to powder.

If he was a stronger man, he would let the powder wash into the waves, returning Suguru to the universe, relieving him to an ease he had not felt in the world. But he wasn’t. He was a selfish, impoverished man who would not stop until nothing remained. He had consumed all that Suguru had to offer, their souls merging, cells coupling into one. Until he bastardised the human body into a monster, an oblation of his love and yearning, a masterpiece he would be buried with.

It was clinical and crazed how deeply he loved Suguru, how his soul was eclipsed with Suguru’s radiance, his arms bled with Suguru’s blood. God, he loved him so much he could hardly breathe.

Pulling Suguru up, he kissed his hair, brittle strands melting under his touch. But it wasn’t enough, he kissed him again, and again, and again until the object of his ardent desire laughed, arms tightening around Satoru’s waist.

“What’s wrong with you?” Suguru asked in between chuckles. Satoru could hear the smile in his voice, the way it beamed. “You trying to eat me or something?”

“I love you,” he mumbled. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Suguru hardly reacted, laughing loudly. “I love you too, you dumbass.”

“No.” Petulant but once the dam broke, the water was beyond his control. “No, you don’t. But it’s okay because I’ve always loved you and I always will. You know that, right? I love you so fucking much, Suguru, I’d do anything for you.”

“Satoru…”

“Suguru,” he whispered the name against his skin, calling for his God in the cloudy sky hoping He was present, that He would answer. “Suguru, Suguru, Suguru.”

Nodding against him, Suguru nodded. “I’m here. I’m always with you.”

“Don’t leave me alone again, please.”

How pitiful, he thought, shielded by Suguru and alone in acres of forgotten crops, that he paraded his faults, wore them so flagrantly it almost convinced him that it was okay to be enervated, so weak . When it wasn’t, it had never been safe in his entire life. Yet he couldn’t withhold the declarations. If he was going to shatter, then he wanted every shard of glass to hurt. He wanted to eat the serrated pieces and choke on his blood, incapacitated completely, fractured and crippled beyond repair.

If he was going to break for the first time in his life then it had to count. It had to mean something. 

“I won’t,” Suguru promised, voice hitching with confusion. “I told you, I would never-”

Shaking his head, hair swirling like blades, he felt each piece cut into him with surgical precision. Squeezing Suguru, he feared if he let go of him, he would never recover.

“But you did before. How do I know you won’t again? That something won’t come up, or I won’t say something, or-”

“Satoru.” 

Firm, unforgiving, merciless, Suguru silenced his tongue with a simple name. His, but it didn't feel like it belonged to him anymore. Obscured by a fog of despair, everything about him was misplaced, like a hat or the keys to his apartment, thrown to the side and forgotten. Unimportant, frequently unnecessary. Satoru deteriorated, the soil beneath him hooking into his flesh and pulling, stealing the skin from his bones.

Was he a person anymore? Was all that was left of him the cursed energy swamping his cells, remnants of ancestors who had died for notoriety, for absolutely nothing? He didn’t even know their names. 

He was something. Something unbecoming, weathered and shrivelled by incandescent rage. It was killing him, this inearthed anger impeccably concealed with flourishing flowers and opulent grass. Costumed by jubilation, he sometimes forgot it existed but it did. It always had. And now, it was ravenous, it wanted and would not be satisfied until it received. 

Sighing loudly, he nodded his head. “Suguru.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he repeated. “You can’t get rid of me again, I told you this. What do I need to do to prove it to you? Just say it and it’s done. I’ll do anything for you. Anything.”

Satoru couldn’t profess the secrets in his heart, the ones that dreamed for their tombs to be one, their bodies to rot side by side, their bodies entwined so that in the future, if someone happened across their grave they would see them together. Not as separate entities but as one. He wouldn’t be alone, he wouldn’t be a Gojo - he would be one thing and that was Suguru’s. The only thing worth being.

“Nothing,” he said instead. “I’m just emotional, you know how I can get sometimes. There’s just…so much going on all the time that I forget to shut off, stop making sense. Forget I said anything, let’s just-”

“Hey.” Suddenly, slender fingers grasped his chin and squeezed, Suguru’s eyes encroaching his vision. “I love you, okay? That means nothing is too much for me, even if you think it is. I know you think you have to get through this alone but you don’t. I’m by your side and I will be until you force me out. I left you before but trust me, that’s a mistake I won’t be repeating twice. Not again.”

He will. He will and it won’t be by choice but did it matter? Does it matter how death strikes, when its blade is fatal nonetheless? They had always been on borrowed time, each moment a protest against fate, every second cloaked from the wandering eyes of destiny that promised to tear them apart. He tried to hold on as long as he could but he didn’t even notice that Suguru was letting go, he let his palm slide through Satoru’s without a word. 

“Everyone leaves eventually, Suguru.” He thought of the once familiar faces now painted in the halls of memories. They didn’t pledge to stay but they never told him they were leaving either. “We can’t make promises like that in our line of work.”

“Your line of work, not mine. So, I can. I don’t do that shit anymore, I have no allegiance anywhere, no one I want to go to. It’s just you for me, only you. And that’s how I want to keep it.”

Satoru’s heart mewled because he sounded so sure. Words laced with ambrosia, they were reinforced by steel, impenetrable as though they had no weakness. But everything did;  there were stipulations to being the strongest and it meant you were mortal, you were flesh and bone, all the things that could mar and break.

It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. It was not how the day was meant to go.

So, he stayed true to himself and summoned the cowardice that had gotten him this far and took a deep breath. There was a time to be brave, he thought, a moment where his limbs would inflate with adrenaline and there would be no gong, no alarm, no warning just…an innate feeling, an intrinsic need to do. But that was not now, he wasn’t sure if it was in this lifetime.

In the next maybe, if Suguru resolved to stay rather than flee, if Haibara wasn’t slaughtered and Nanami wasn’t fragmented, where Shoko would never pick up the bottle and ignore his calls for days, citing she was busy when truly, she couldn’t break the surface of the water suffocating her. Maybe then, he would be brave enough to face himself. Just not today.

“Okay,” he whispered, agreeing halfheartedly. “I believe you, Suguru. If you say-”

“You don’t. Stop lying to me.” Frowning, Suguru made a move to leave Satoru’s embrace but it terrified him, his fear materialising once more. He clenched Suguru as he held him, refusing to let go. Not again . “Satoru, let me go, I need to-”

“No. Whatever you want to say you can say from here.”

“I want to see your face,” insisted Suguru. 

He shook his head, eyes closing momentarily and waiting. “I’ll print a picture for you.”

“Satoru…”

“No.”

Childish. Maybe this would be Suguru’s final reserve spent, wasted on Satoru’s inability to grow or change. Like the day diluted into night, he could only wait for the transformation, expectant of the inevitable and seated front row to view it. It was how it was always going to b-

“You’re so annoying sometimes,” Suguru said but he laughed, endeared. 

The hands which should have loosened remained and the face which was supposed to fade like a drop of colour in a vast ocean hid inside him, seeking comfort in Satoru’s skin, inhaling it as though it was scented in the finest perfume. Inexplicably, he wasn’t frustrated. 

Hands curling around his waist, Suguru’s fingers dug into his stomach like claws, voraciously greedy and unrepentant, taking as he pleased as though he could because it was his to take. And he wasn’t wrong with his assumption, Satoru was entirely his and if Suguru sipped the final drop of blood from his body he would be grateful that it was used to sate his thirst. What was love if not sacrifice?

Satoru’s gluttonous sacrifice, an offering to a deity he could not keep, a plea to remain when all else died. To feel wanted he had to be taken and he longed for Suguru to feast.

Quietly, he replied, “If it’s only sometimes then I’m failing somewhere. Need to up my game.”

Heart racing against Suguru’s nonexistent one, he waited for a sign, the judgement he would receive from such a brutal jury. Could he be absolved from his weakness? Would he ever feel as strong as cataclysmic waves? If heaven existed, would Suguru save a place for him? Did he deserve to be honoured there?

Suguru must have agreed. “You’ve done what you could to get this far, Satoru.” His weight was calming, light but loaded, skeletal physique padded with wishes of the mind that conjured him. “You’ve been strong, you’ve been weak, and you’ve been everything in between.”

“I know.”

“You’ll continue doing that until you get where you need to be.” Consoling, Suguru spoke quietly. Satoru was swaddled by the gentleness of his tongue, covered by its fervour. If Suguru said it then it must be true. “No matter how hard it gets, how many people you lose, how lonely you feel and how scary it all is. You’ll survive until you reach where you’ve always wanted to be.”

Ashamed but liberated, he confessed, “With you. I’ve always wanted to be with you.”

“Then you’ll get to me, eventually,” Suguru promised. “Wherever I am, I’m waiting for you. And if you’re not with me then I’ll crawl out of whatever hell I’m in to get to your side. Is that good enough?”

It wasn’t but then again, what more could Suguru offer? After giving his life, throwing away his soul for Satoru’s consumption, what was left for him to give but empty words and emptier promises? But out of all the people in his life, he had given Satoru everything he owned. With light pockets and a body that had yet to melt into the burning ground, Suguru was poorer than him.

Yet there he was, draining himself still to make Satoru feel better. That meant something even if it wasn’t enough to sate him. Emptying one’s cup to fill another's, that was a wordless declaration that meant more than words themselves.

“So, you’ll wait for me?” he asked, selfish, selfish, selfish .

He felt a smile against his body. “For however long it takes.”

“Good, good. I have some things I want to say to you when we finally reunite,” he said absently, the burdensome feelings alleviating slowly. 

In a way only Suguru could accomplish, he felt composed by the reassurance, less adrift and finally seated. History told him this was a temporary feeling, one that would not last as he eventually returned to the pinnacle of despair gazing into a blistering abyss. But perhaps this time he wouldn’t be alone, with the man on his body by his side. 

An apparition, ghostly like mist but real enough to have, to hold; Suguru would be by his side even in death, his smile weak but soul strong. Wherever Satoru went, he would follow like his shadow and that would be enough, he supposed. Until they met once more, for the last time in his existence, this would be enough to get him there.