Chapter Text
On the second Monday of the month, five days before Valentine's Day, a dozen roses appear on Satoru’s desk. Suguru lives the farthest out of all of his classmates and has to take the bullet train into school, so he’s typically about thirty-seven minutes early for class. This means, of course, that he’s the first soul in Class A to walk into homeroom and see the evidence.
Suguru pauses at the doorway, blinking at the lurid red sitting on the scratched surface of Satoru’s desk. At the far back of the classroom, just in front of the cubbies, Satoru’s desk is under the only overhead light that doesn’t work, next to the window with the cypress tree that blocks the sun all morning. This makes it one of the only desks that is bathed in shadow for most of the day, in probably all of the classrooms on this floor, come to think of it.
Yaga is particular about most things in class, and it seems like the kind of thing that would annoy him. Suguru is half-convinced that Yaga hasn’t rearranged the entire classroom just for Satoru, just so he can have the dark corner to himself. Partly as a compromise for Satoru’s sensitive eyes, or partly because Yaga has long-since given up trying to make Satoru do anything (or sit anywhere) he doesn’t want to. Suguru hasn’t decided which is more likely.
In the weak morning light, the bouquet sucks up all the color in the room. Unbearably loud against the dingy greys and browns of the class. Messily obvious. Embarrassing, almost.
(A puddle of something, warm and wet and pulsing, sitting on Satoru’s desk. There’s a reason people call it bearing your heart. It’s not Suguru’s heart splattered all over Satoru’s desk, even if the hollow tremble in his ribs half-believes it. He’s too late for that.)
A few more seconds pass while Suguru stands there blinking at the roses. He feels a little like the room is collapsing around him, a little bit like he’s frozen in place; fight-or-flight-or-freeze. Except that he’s never been one to freeze in a crisis.
But this isn’t a crisis, is it?
Is it?
Shaking his head, Suguru heads towards the not-a-crisis, all the way at the back of the classroom, setting his shoes in his cubby then sliding into his desk beside Satoru’s. Pointedly, he doesn’t look to the side. He even pulls his textbook out of his bag and everything, intent on doing some studying like normal in the quiet before his classmates arrive.
Suguru is always the first one to class, with Kento arriving almost ten minutes later. That’s typically enough time to go over his homework one last time.
He lasts about six minutes and forty-nine seconds before he gives up, slipping out of his desk again to inspect the would-be gift.
Suguru has always been partial of camellias over roses, personally, which can be just as brilliantly red but have a sweeter smell than the pungent perfume of a rose. He's also more fond of the blue ones, that bloom like winter sunlight in the darkest months of the year, for no particular reason.
Satoru probably wouldn't know the difference.
His finger slides along a delicate petal, soft as skin to the touch. As soft, maybe, as someone’s bottom lip, when they’ve chewed on it for too long over a shogi board.
There's a slip of card stock tied to one of the rose stems that he notices after a moment. He bites his lip, checking once more that he's alone before he flips it over.
GS,
I hope you think of me as much as I do you. Please accept my feelings as easily as you might these roses.
-Your Secret Admirer
A secret admirer. Satoru has a secret admirer. Well, of course he does, Suguru thinks. Why wouldn’t he?
For a terrible, wild moment, Suguru contemplates ripping the little card apart and pocketing the remains, of tossing the roses into the garbage out at the far southern end of the school so that there might be no evidence. He takes a breath, then another when the urge refuses to dissipate.
It's only Kento’s familiar footsteps outside of the classroom that finally snap him out of it. He hesitates one last second before plucking a single petal from one of the drooping stems and rushing back to his desk.
His nose is buried in his textbook again by the time Kento appears at the doorway. They nod to each other once in silent acknowledgement. Kento’s eyes don’t even drift to the bouquet as he settles into his desk at the front of the class.
The rest of the morning, Suguru fails to review his homework. Instead, he taps an inconsistent rhythm with his pencil on the edge of his textbook, too preoccupied with the shock of red in his peripheral vision to concentrate.
Slowly, the classroom starts to fill, each student pausing for a moment when they spot the flowers on Satoru’s desk. He pretends not to watch them all, searching for a clue that might give away the culprit’s identity.
Culprit?
The Secret Admirer’s identity, he means. They’re not a culprit. Not someone Suguru has to catch and punish, no matter what his instincts are shouting at him.
But none of them behave suspiciously. Most of the students shake their heads a bit, rueful, probably. Someone’s finally gotten up the courage to confess to Satouru, after all. That’s a big deal. Satoru’s relationship status (single) has been a hot topic of gossip since first year when Satoru shot up ten centimeters in three months and his hair grew out into a fluffy dandelion puff.
The popular girls, when they’ve all arrived, form a semicircle around the windows near the teacher’s desk, whispering furiously to each other. Suguru doesn’t care what they’re saying, once he’s sure they’re all trying to figure out the mystery the same as himself instead of conspiring.
He sighs in relief when Yaga marches into the classroom, and everyone rushes to their seats. Yaga glowers at Satoru’s (still Satoru-less) desk for a long moment before jumping into the day’s lecture.
Suguru still can’t concentrate. Not today.
Especially not when half the class goes by without Satoru stumbling into the room. Yaga keeps glaring at Satoru’s empty desk, too, so at least Suguru isn’t the only one who’s noticed.
With only ten minutes left to class, Suguru’s pocket buzzes.
The bell rings. Suguru almost jumps out of his seat, fumbling with his phone as the rest of the class rushes out. Yaga is fuming at his desk, but that’s how he looks every day, so Suguru doesn’t pay him any mind. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he’s about to head out as well when he hesitates, looking back at the almost-forgotten bouquet on Satoru’s desk.
Suguru thinks about leaving the flowers. It would serve Satoru right for caring so little about his schooling, for caring so little about his would-be suitor. And he’d likely never find out about the incident either; Satoru’s never cared much about gossip.
Still…
Suguru grabs the roses mostly because he’d rather see Satoru’s reaction to a gift than punish him for something outside of his control (plus, he’s getting Suguru a smoothie, so Suguru is feeling magnanimous).
Sadly, they don’t have a class together again until after lunch.
Shoko has to deliver him his drink, presumably having found the other boy between classes. She raises her eyebrow at the flowers in his grip, but thankfully doesn’t say anything about them.
Not that they can exchange pleasantries, after Suguru spent an embarrassingly long time waiting outside the science classroom waiting on Satoru before giving up and rushing to his own class.
So it is that he’s Satoru-less lunch, and he’s been forced to lug around those stupid flowers all morning. Suguru fears the rumors will start up about him, instead.
Suguru spots him first. Satoru, leaning against the wall of the cafeteria, hands in his pockets, head tilted back to rest against the concrete wall, lips tilted up in a slight smile. The sunglasses don’t let him know if Satoru has his eyes open or not, but the way he’s smiling makes Suguru think that his eyes are closed into twin crescents of happiness.
The other students give him a wide berth, as if Satoru has a force field that pushes people away by almost a full meter. They know better now than to intrude on Satoru’s personal space. That’s off-limits to everyone.
(Everyone except Suguru, of course.)
“Yo, Satoru!” he calls over the heads of the crowd. “You’re late! You nearly gave Yaga-sensei a heart attack!”
Like a wind up toy, Satoru pops up and away from the wall, his smile stretching until his teeth flash in a grin.
“Suguru!” Satoru calls back, stretching out the last vowel of his name in a whine as Suguru slips inside the pool of Satoru’s invisible force field. “Yaga’s too invested in my attendance record.”
Satoru pouts, of course, but it doesn’t last long. He does a double-take when he notices the bouquet in his hand. The pout slips into something more serious, almost like alarm.
“Who gave you those?”
“They’re for you,” Suguru says, holding them out and trying not to let the sudden, hot flicker of anger show on his face as he does so.
Surely, that hot feeling in his stomach is anger. What else could it be? His blood boils as he imagines whoever got those flowers for Satoru waiting for his expression. Surely it’s anger.
(No one but Suguru should get to see that look.)
His face is hot. The hand holding out the flowers to Satoru trembles.
Satoru stares at him for a moment, his mouth dropped into a perfect O of surprise before it transforms into a wicked grin. Only seconds later, Suguru realizes the implication.
They’re for you.
“Wait, I don’t mean—”
“Suguru-kun is giving me flowers!” Satoru exclaims, pulling the flowers from him and practically jumping up and down, hamming it up for all the world to see. He sways back and forth dramatically, clutching the bouquet to his chest. “How forward! How charming! Suguru-kun has always been the bravest! Such a gentleman!”
A delicate pink flush creeps up Satoru’s cheeks as he stares down at the flowers in his grip, and Suguru has a heart-stopping moment where he wonders if there’s some honesty under the dramatics. But—no. No way. Satoru’s always been like this, and. And—
“They’re—they’re not from me,” Suguru chokes out, but he can feel the color drain from his face nonetheless.
It sounds like a lie. God, why does it sound like a lie?
Satoru’s grin softens to something smaller, something almost shy. He pulls off his glasses, white eyelashes fluttering as he keeps his gaze on the red petals. Suguru wishes, suddenly, that he had bought the fucking roses for Satoru. That he’d bought two dozen camellias for him, the blue ones, the ones that match his eyes in the height of winter.
Anything to put that look back on his face, because of Suguru.
“Sure,” Satoru whispers.
His thumb rubs along a single flower petal. Gentle, oh so gentle. The matching petal burns in Suguru’s pocket.
Suguru looks at his best friend, the person he knows best in the world, the person he grew up with, that he’s shared almost all of his secrets with. There are words stuck in his throat, words whose shape he doesn't recognize.
He swallows them down.
“Come on,” he replies, and forgets about the awful press of some unknown confession sitting in the back of his soft palatte. “I’m starving.”
By the end of the day, Suguru is almost back to normal. Satoru has stuffed the stems of the roses into his bag, so that the buds spill out beside his hip, dark enough that for a moment, when he spots Satoru waiting for him at the entry gates, Suguru imagines it could be a splash of blood instead.
Satoru grins at him though, the flash of his white teeth visible even from a distance, and Suguru can’t help but return the smile as he raises a hand up in greeting.
“I heard you confessed to Gojo today,” Shoko says at his side. Suguru almost jumps out of his skin when he sees her standing at his elbow. She’s not looking at him, instead eyeing Satoru with a contemplative frown on her face. “That’s too bad. If you’d waited until Friday, I would have won a hundred yen off of Mei Mei.”
“What? No. I didn’t.”
Now she turns to him, incredulous. She tilts her head towards Satoru, who is practically jumping up and down waiting for them. The flowers wobble dangerously in his bag, but he settles a hand on them, like one would to console a fussy baby.
“You sure about that?”
Despite himself, Suguru flushes. He thinks of Satoru’s thumb running along a flower petal, the same way Suguru’s had hours beforehand, in the gloom of early morning. The shadows Satoru’s eyelashes made against his pale skin. He thinks—
“Someone left them on his desk in homeroom,” he breathes quickly, to shut out the thought. “I took them to him since he missed. That’s it. I promise.”
Shoko hums. Her fingers tap against the strap of her bag, and Suguru knows she’s craving a cigarette again. Gakuganji caught her smoking last week, had confiscated them and called her parents, so she’s been going cold-turkey ever since. He nudges her lightly to break her out of it, and she scowls at him.
“Well, at least that means I’m still in the running,” she says, nonsensically. “You’ve got until Friday, okay?”
“To do what?”
“Suguru!” Satoru shouts, when they’re close enough for him to sling an arm around his neck. “I missed you.”
“It’s been like four hours.”
“Too long, Suguru! You have to get your teachers to change your schedule. Don’t worry,” he whispers, breath hot against Suguru’s neck. “I’ll help.”
Suguru gulps. From somewhere, he pulls out a teasing grin.
“Hey, why would I be the one changing my schedule? You’re the one complaining.”
Satoru winks at him, like it’s a big, funny secret.
Then, Satoru’s other arm comes around the front of his neck as well, leaning all of his weight onto Suguru. The motion knocks him off balance, and he has to take a stumbling step forward and wrap a hand around Satoru’s middle to keep the crazy bastard from dropping straight to the floor. His glasses slip down the bridge of his nose, revealing the sparkle of his eyes to a slightly breathless Suguru.
“My Suguru is so heartless.”
“Heartless, Suguru,” Shoko agrees, with much more schadenfreude than is necessary, thanks.
He can hear the laugh in her voice. Any other time, he’d give her shit about it. Instead—
My Suguru, he thinks dizzily, feeling the words echo down a chasm in his chest. He pushes Satoru away, but his hand can feel the phantom press of the curve of Satoru’s waist for the rest of the walk.
Farther off, a car horn blares.
Shoko’s father is waiting for her at the entrance, in the family car. She sighs before heading towards him, waving at the two of them.
“You still grounded, Shoko?” Satoru asks, clearly teasing.
His grin is sharp, a little mean, just to be a bit of an asshole. Suguru nudges him in admonishment, but Satoru's grin only widens. Sharper. The smile that looks like he wants to bite something. Suguru tries not to flush again.
“Fuck off,” Shoko replies easily enough. Suguru doesn’t miss the way her hands clench and how she chews on her cheek for a moment, the nicotine craving returning. “Yeah. I won’t make it on Saturday to study. You two carry on without me.”
She makes pointed eye-contact with Suguru one last time before rushing to the idling car.
“Bye, Shoko!” Satoru calls happily, not bothering to pull away as he waves after her.
Shoko waves behind herself in response as she clambers into the front seat.
Normally two of them walk Suguru to the train station, but Shoko has been in and out of detention for smoking often enough that it’s not so different from normal when it’s only Suguru and Satoru. Except for the way Satoru keeps his arm around Suguru’s neck the whole walk, the way he stands just a few centimeters closer, so that the roses brush up against Suguru’s uniform as well.
Surely, his heart is going to beat out of his chest by the time they make it to the platform. Satoru sways into him as they stop. He's flushed from the walk, the tips of his ears bright red in the cold. It makes him want to reach out and press both hands to the sides of his head to keep them warm. Suguru watches the way Satoru’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
Suguru’s hands are cold, too. He doubts it would do much good.
“Don’t forget to study for history,” Suguru mumbles when he can think again. “We’re having that test on Thursday.”
He turns away, choosing instead to watch as the train slides into the station with a whoosh of gears and machinery. Beside him, Satoru hums.
The doors open. People start spilling out. Suguru’s legs ignore him when he tells them to start moving. He gathers up his meager pools of willpower, not quite sure why he doesn’t want to leave yet.
Satoru's arm slips from around his neck until just the phantom press of his fingers slide along to his collarbone.
Startled, he turns to his friend sharply. He hadn’t realized how close Satoru’s mouth has been to him this whole time.
“Thank you for the flowers, Suguru,” Satoru whispers into his ear, his mouth so close Suguru can feel the words vibrate along his skin, the wet heat of his breath wraps down his neck. “I like them a lot.”
He pulls away again before Suguru’s brain can turn back on, flushed and smiling, clearly pleased with himself.
Suguru’s brain refuses to work. He stares at Satoru for a long time dumbly, then has to hurry onto the train car lest the doors close on his face. He can hear Satoru giggle as he goes.
Heart thundering in his chest, he turns and watches Satoru wave at him. His entire face is lit up in a pretty red, and his grin is so wide and cute. Suguru watches it grow and grow until his teeth show, eyes squinting in pleasure. Suguru swallows, raises his hand in acknowledgement, and the doors slide closed.
Suguru isn’t sure how, but he thinks he’s fucked up.
Tuesday sees Suguru doing something he hasn’t done in almost eight years: avoiding Satoru. He deliberately misses the train into the city and has to text Yaga that he won’t be in until 11, then spends his lunch hour at the library going through his notes, and keeps his phone on Do Not Disturb deep at the bottom of his backpack.
The thought of seeing any notification from Satoru fills his stomach with so much dread he feels sick, so instead he avoids it entirely.
He makes it the whole day without seeing Satoru, up until the end of the day. There’s no way to avoid Satoru when he’s waiting for Suguru like always.
Satoru makes huge, adorably sad puppy dog eyes at him on the walk to the train stop, but Suguru manages to convince him that he’d forgotten to charge his phone the night before, so he doesn’t seem too upset.
Rather, he seems more upset that Suguru slips out of his reach the second the train doors open, before he can so much as say goodbye.
Safe in his room, Suguru finally checks his phone. He doesn’t care about any of the other notifications, but the judgemental 37 unread messages from Satoru makes him feel vaguely nauseous. He swipes the notification away without looking at the messages.
It’s fine.
He’ll deal with it tomorrow.
Except tomorrow is Wednesday, and Wednesdays are the days he stays late with his study group anyway, so once the school day ends and he’s successful in avoiding accidentally running into Satoru, he’s free to worry about what the fuck he’s doing in peace.
The study group, consisting of Nanami, Haibara, and Ino, don’t bother him today with questions, which is good. He doesn’t think he could focus on schoolwork at all.
Because really, what is he fucking doing here?
The horrible feeling in his stomach is annoying, because he’s not sure what exactly is causing it, outside of avoiding Satoru. This stupid misunderstanding that could be easily solved with Suguru saying literally anything.
Literally anything.
(“I didn’t send you those flowers, so let’s go back to normal,” he imagines himself saying, and that almost hurts to think.)
Fear curls in his stomach, but why?
What is he so afraid of?
Suguru isn’t sure. He’s been doing a pretty good job of not thinking about these types of things for years now, but Satoru won’t wait forever. Satoru isn’t a patient person, although he does give his friend more leeway than most.
Even still, Satoru won’t wait forever.
Based on previous experience, Suguru has maybe two more hours where he can ghost Satoru before Satoru will call him out on it.
Is he prepared for that? Truly?
He doesn’t know. Truly it would be easier to just open his phone. Maybe he’s making a big mess out of nothing, and he’ll discover that Satoru has been completely normal about the flowers thing.
Maybe he forgot about them, or lost interest. (His stomach curdles, but he ignores it.)
Maybe he decided that Suguru was telling the truth and is waiting for more from his Secret Admirer? It would be so easy to just. Look. Find out.
Only that, now, his unread messages from Satoru are steadily approaching the triple digits, and it makes something tight squeeze up his lungs.
Reasonably, he knows that at least half of them are memes or cat images. Suguru has gone days before with minimal interaction with Satoru’s memes with no problem.
Suguru looks at them, though, and if Satoru asks him something, Suguru will answer.
He’ll know Suguru is ghosting him, won’t he? Two whole days without a word from Suguru? It’s so suspicious.
He thinks of Satoru’s breath fanning against his neck. Thank you for the flowers, Suguru. I like them a lot.
Suguru turns off his phone.
Then, he has a horrible, world-ending thought.
What if Satoru believes it? Believes the flowers are from him, and that this is an extremely convoluted confession? If Satoru thinks the flowers are from him, what will he think now? Will he think that Suguru regrets giving him the flowers?
Immediately, he turns the phone back on.
Sadly, the messages haven’t miraculously disappeared, and the problem hasn’t fixed itself on it own.
He sucks in a breath and opens his chat thread with Satoru, only to sigh in relief when it appears to be business as usual. He doesn’t bother to back read the entire thread of Satoru’s ramblings, instead only focusing on the last few messages Satoru has sent.
Suguru stares at the stupid kaomoji for longer than is necessary or sane.
He hardly notices when study group finishes, or how he manages to get on the train or back home.
The flower petal he’d taken off of Satoru’s bouquet has already withered, drying into a warped, dusk-grey shape on his dresser, indistinguishable from dust. Suguru feels a little like that flower petal, dying of thirst, withering in the gloom of his bedroom.
On Thursday, there is a lovingly crafted, hand-made card on Satoru's desk. A layer of delicate, periwinkle-blue tissue paper sits atop white card stock with blue-printed flowers, starkly visible even through the tissue paper. Suguru squints at it, angry now instead of curious.
Satoru's favorite color is gold, not blue. Everyone knows that. In second year, when the flurry of voting on the Student Council candidates had reached its fever pitch, Satoru spent weeks trying to figure out each candidate's favorite color, for reasons Suguru still doesn't get.
(For the record: Mei Mei is Green, Takaba is Red, Utahime is Lavender, Suguru is Blue, and Satoru is Gold.)
It’s a poor bid at Satoru’s feelings, to send him a card in blue. Mentally, he crosses out everyone in their grade as suspects for this ‘secret admirer,’ as no one in their grade would ever forget the impassioned speech Satoru gave that year on the merits of gold.
(Personally, Suguru thinks he could quote it verbatim, because of the way it made his stomach bubbly when Satoru said brown eyes that look gold are objectively the best.)
Suguru supposes that the powdery color matches Satoru's eyes, at least. It would be a good guess from one of their underclassmen. Thoughtful even, from someone who doesn’t know any better.
And Satoru will be pleased either way, he supposes. A follow-up from his Secret Admirer.
Maybe now, he’ll realize that the roses weren’t from Suguru. Maybe now, he’ll actually try to find out who sent them. Maybe now, the Secret Admirer will reveal themselves, and Satoru might actually respond positively to the confession. Valentine’s day is just around the corner, after all. Surely, the note has instructions on where to meet up for a romantic in-person confession for just such an occasion.
The thought makes him feel ill.
Suguru thinks about the shy flush of Satoru’s cheeks, and wonders at the swooping dread in his own gut. Satoru’s blushing smile, his arm warm where it wraps around Suguru’s neck. Hot breath whispered just against his skin.
When he passes through the gap between their desks, Suguru swipes the card up in a quick, mostly-hidden motion, despite the emptiness of the classroom. The awful, tight feeling in his chest swells up again. Anger, probably. After all, he hasn’t even figured out what to do about the flowers fiasco, and now there’s this very obvious love note sitting on his desk? Suguru can’t hand him this.
He can’t let Satoru see it, either.
He doesn’t want to think too hard about why he doesn’t want Satoru to see it, but the feeling is all-consuming. So, instead of any rational course of action, he slips his thumb under the black heart-shaped sticker holding the card together, peeling the tissue paper away to read the delicate calligraphy written inside.
Geto Suguru, it begins, and Suguru slams the thing down on his desk. Kento, only just stepping into the room, raises an eyebrow at him. Suguru can’t even wave him off with the way his whole body has gone into shock. He waits until Kento is settled back at his desk before daring another peek at the letter.
Geto Suguru, is still written oh-so delicately along the paper.
It doesn’t change into a different name, no matter how hard he stares at it. Without bothering to read the rest of the note, he shoves it deep into his backpack, halfheartedly wishing he could shove this whole situation in there with it.
He doesn’t dare look at it.
He can’t be normal if he reads it, if he has to know the awful truth that’s sitting in the back of his mind about those stupid flowers. And he has to be normal. He’s been ghosting Satoru for days; if he acts weird now…
Unbidden, the memory of Satoru’s mouth floats to the top of his memory again, so hot against his skin. The way he could practically hear the smirk in his voice when he’d said, “Thank you for the flowers.”
As if genuinely, he thought they were from Suguru. As if the thought was not only welcome, but pleasant even. Exciting. He’d smiled so wide when Suguru handed them over. He’d blushed so prettily.
Something in Suguru’s chest does a funny flip.
Because maybe…maybe this actually isn’t a bad thing. Because….
Because—
Because if the card on Satoru’s desk is for Suguru, then maybe the flowers were /also/ for Suguru. So if no one is actually thinking about confessing to Satoru, maybe it’s…
Maybe it’s okay that Satoru thinks Suguru got him those flowers.
Maybe it’s okay that Satoru thinks Suguru…confessed to him on Monday.
He flushes, trying and failing to suppress the way some unknown thing starts building up in his chest, up to the back of his throat.
Before he can start unpacking what exactly, that makes him feel, he hears a set of footsteps clattering in the hallway. Much too frantic to be Kento.
No way it’s—
“Suguru! I caught you!”
Satoru looks an absolute mess, with his hair windswept, the jacket of his uniform unbuttoned and hanging limply along his frame. His whole face is pink, either from exertion or the cold or both.
“What are you doing awake?”
Satoru pouts. He’s already pink, but somehow gets even pinker, flushing up to the tips of his ears.
“You finally stopped being weird yesterday,” he says, marching to his desk and making a huge affair out of collapsing into it. “I wanted to make sure I caught you today, at least.”
“I—”
Suguru’s words dry up in his throat.
He knew Satoru noticed. He’s not stupid, after all. Kento slides open the door with more force than necessary, pulling them out of their moment. Scowling darkly over at Satoru, he marches into the room ominously, sinking into his seat without so much as a word.
“What did you do to Kento?” Suguru asks, glad for the distraction, even if Satoru’s lower lip juts out into an even more exaggerated pout.
The look only lasts a moment before he breaks, winking and sticking out his tongue.
“I may have accidentally ran into him in the courtyard.”
“You should watch where you’re going if you’re going to run like that around normal students, Gojo,” Nanami calls darkly, not bothering to turn around.
“I’m sure he’s over it by now,” Satoru stage-whispers, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
Suguru can’t help but be charmed by Satoru’s antics.
Satoru chats with him the rest of the morning, as their classmates trickle in. Suguru forgets the entire world exists for that half hour, much preferring to watch the way Satoru's eyes shine in the early morning light. The way his lips quirk up when he's saying something mean.
The way he pillows his head on his hands, tilting it so that he's staring up at Suguru, hiding his mouth under the sleeve of his uniform.
And maybe, he thinks, as Yaga shouts to settle the class down, maybe this is okay. Maybe the shy little smile Satoru sends to him is okay.
Maybe he can let himself have this.
He wakes suddenly the next morning, shock already coursing through his body, before he’s even looked at the time. The sun is spilling into his bedroom from the window, which fills Suguru with a sense of dread not appropriate for Friday mornings.
The universe is a cruel, cruel mistress, and not only because it’s obvious that he slept through his alarm. There’s lot of other reasons, too, although he can’t think of any at this moment. Not with the way panic and fear choke all of his senses out of his brain.
He rushes out the door, stumbling to put his shoes on as he goes, trying not to feel like an anime cliche even as he runs at a dead sprint towards the train stop. The sun is suspiciously high in the sky for his whole run, but he can’t think about that right now.
He can’t even spare a few fumbling seconds to look for his phone to check the time.
It must be a record, how fast he races to the platform, wheezing as he skids to a halt. A rush of chilly air brushes past, devastatingly refreshing where sweat is sticking his hair to the back of his neck. He hadn’t grabbed a hair tie in his mad scramble, and it’s still a tangled mess from sleep. He breathes in the fresh air for only a second, however, as the train pulls into the station and he rushes on, too paranoid to dither.
The digital clock on the far wall of the car reads 15:55 in blinking red lights, but it’s been broken for almost three months now, so he doesn’t pay it any mind. Instead, he starts to search through his bag for his phone, ready to ascertain the damage.
Aside from his textbook, the folder with his homework, and his one composition book, the only other thing in there is that stupid, pale-blue letter.
No phone.
Suguru wants to curse. Instead, he takes a deep breath, willing himself not to panic.
It’s no matter. He’s not addicted to his phone or anything. Surely Yaga has already pieced together that Suguru won’t be in for homeroom. Satoru will be whiny about Suguru not replying to his texts, but when Suguru shows up, looking a mess and piteously without his phone, Suguru is sure Satoru will forgive him.
It’s fine.
Suguru runs shaking fingers through his messy hair, adrenaline still making him jittery. It’s gotten long enough that he can sweep it up into a messy topknot, so he shoves a pencil through it all to help keep it all in place and hope no one calls him on it.
It wouldn’t matter much, he supposes, since he doesn’t have his phone.
Not that Suguru is freaking out about that. He’s completely normal.
Still, he rushes all the way to school from the train stop, hardly noticing where he’s going until he runs right over a sheepish-looking Larue waiting conspicuously by the gates. There are too many kids milling around for Suguru’s stomach not to drop; it can’t be anything but lunchtime by now.
Insane. He doesn’t believe it. He’s never overslept that long.
“Geto-senpai,” Larue says.
“Sorry, Larue. I didn’t see you there.”
His eyes are frantically scanning the haphazardly packed students, searching for a gleam of white hair. Larue says something that Suguru doesn’t quite hear. It’s only when he’s sure he doesn’t see Satoru anywhere that he turns back to Larue, who he now notices is holding—
A single purple tulip and a little package wrapped in sky blue wrapping paper.
“Oh, sorry, are you waiting for someone?”
Suguru politely tries to sidestep him, only for Larue to shadow the movement, keeping his path blocked.
“Ah yes,” Larue replies. “Yes, actually, I am.”
He starts to blush, the red of it clashing with his pale skin, his yellow hair. His eyes are blue, Suguru realizes with a start: a reedy, stormy blue-grey that he’s never noticed before. Larue is a transfer student from Europe, and his first year in Japan he’d shadowed Suguru, who had agreed to help him with his Japanese grammar for the semester. Three years in, his Japanese has improved by leaps and bounds.
To be honest, Suguru has mostly forgotten about him.
He blinks, taking a step away from him, back towards the exit.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Senpai,” Larue tries again, into the awkward silence. Suguru takes another half step back, bringing his backpack up in front of himself like a shield. “Did you like my other gifts?”
“Your other—” Suguru starts, then chokes on his tongue.
Larue is determined, Suguru will give him that. He hardly even deflates when Suguru keeps looking at him, feeeling a little like he’s stepped off the edge of a building.
“I wanted you to have these,” Larue says, holding out the flower and package to him. “I don’t think you’ll return my feelings, but I wanted you to know. How I feel about you.”
Suguru stares at him dumbly.
“I can’t,” Suguru replies, a little helpless.
His eyes dart around the courtyard again, where he sees several curious eyes turning his way. Not a single pair of eyes that he’s looking for. Desperate, he wishes something, anything would come save him from this.
No one has ever come to save Suguru from himself though, not now and not in the future. He swallows.
“So it’s true? You are interested in someone else?”
“I—”
The denial is on the tip of his tongue, but suddenly it feels huge and impossible and acrid against the roof of his mouth. Is he interested in anyone else? He’s never thought about it so much, not until—
Not until a bouquet of roses landed itself on Satoru’s desk, and Suguru abruptly realized that he may have lost his only shot.
“Yes,” Suguru squeaks out, more honest than he’s been in what feels like his entire life. “I’m sorry, Larue. I—I have to go.”
He rushes past him, ignoring the way Larue calls after him.
He needs to find Satoru. It still feels like something huge and painful is caught in his Adam’s apple. Whatever it is, he’ll only be able to get rid of it if he looks at Satoru. If he tells him—
The bell rings. Students scatter, making their way to classes again, and Suguru tries not to feel like the world is spiraling out of control. It’s no big deal.
So he’s late. So he forgot his phone.
It’s a non-issue. He’ll just.
He’ll see Satoru later, and he can explain, and maybe he can say some of the words he thinks are forming somewhere in the back of his brain.
Maybe.
(He doesn’t see Satoru for the rest of the day. Shoko tells him he disappeared during lunch, that maybe he skipped the afternoon. He’d told her he had a migraine coming on, after all. Suguru gets detention for skipping classes and tries very hard not to worry.)
(He worries a lot.)
The sun is already setting by the time he gets home, and his phone, predictably, is sitting dead on his nightstand. When he plugs it in, he sees he only has three texts from Satoru, from 6 and 7 in the morning.
Suguru calls him. He swallows heavily when it goes to voicemail, pushing down the desperate urge to bury his phone in the backyard and never leave his bedroom ever again.
“Yo, Satoru,” he starts with a hiccup, hoping he doesn’t sound panicked. He’s so normal; nothing at all happened today. “Sorry I was late. I overslept and left my phone at home; can you believe it? I—I missed you at school today. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
A deep breath.
“Yeah. Bye.”