Chapter Text
They're studying, or at least, Suguru is while Satoru's got his books splayed out on the short portable desk he brought over from his room and across parts of the floor, not even making any use of it as he comfortably lounges in Suguru's bed instead. He's preoccupied by the game he's playing, the constant mashing of the buttons of his PSP and noise of frustration the most dominant sounds in the room above the scratch of paper from Suguru's side.
Every once in a while Satoru's gaze would slide over to where Suguru's hunched over by the desk, his pen moving back and forth as he's scribbling something down. From his current angle he can't tell what he's writing, only that he's doing it on some tiny strips of paper too small to be a flash card and the length of it far too impractical to be any kind of useful.
"Why do you write on such tiny pieces of paper?" Saoru asks before he thinks about it.
Suguru doesn't stop writing but he slows his speed, as if he's trying to multitask and parse through his thoughts and an answer to give Satoru at the same time.
"It's something my therapist told me to do when I was younger. Never really dropped the habit, I guess."
That's news. "Since when do you need therapy?" He asks in disbelief and catches the way the dark-haired teen tenses as he slowly turns to meet Satoru's gaze over his shoulder, something flat in his eyes.
"Since I was a kid who kept telling people I could see monsters?" It's rhetoric but there's something bitter in it, a kind of warning.
Satoru tries to be casual about it as he shrugs to show he's not bothered. "Do you still go?"
He blinks and turns back to his desk to keep writing. "Yeah, I go once a month. Found one in Tokyo since I moved here. My ma insisted I keep up with it."
"But you don't need to anymore," he tells him: a personal observation. They're curses, not monsters, and they can be exorcised so what's the point? Why waste the money?
Suguru goes rigid again where he sits, his torso expanding with the deep inhalation he's taking as he speaks, his tone purposefully level and slow, "Who are you to say what I do and don't need?"
He knows he's misstepped, went from easy and casual right through to blasé like a stupid bull in a china shop. Satoru goes into the main menu of the game to save it and switch off the console to make up for his lack of tact. "...Does it help?" He asks instead, trying to understand.
The both of them came from very different sets of upbringing and Satoru knows he takes for granted the kind of knowledge he grew up with compared to Suguru who was left floundering for most of his childhood and teenage years until he got scouted to enrol into Jujutsu Tech. Satoru’s trying to be better but he knows he still falls short some of the time. Maybe a lot of the time. If this was anybody else, anybody other than Suguru, he's self-aware enough to know that he wouldn't even have bothered trying to make nice.
An exhale and then the pen gets set down as he picks up the paper to start folding it. "Yeah. I don't always talk about curses. Sometimes I just talk about stuff that overwhelms me."
He's noticed for a while now but Suguru's never said anything about it, has been quiet about a lot of things lately to make up for how loud Satoru is nowadays, going smaller where Satoru does the complete opposite. He thinks about pushing but he's also seen the dark shadows beneath Suguru's eyes, how he vacillates between a terrible tension in his body or so loose-limbed he looks like he's barely holding himself up.
Satoru had asked before if he was okay, but all he got was a smile that didn't reach his eyes and a generic answer he would give to anybody else if asked the same question. It annoyed him at first that Suguru couldn't be bothered to be honest about what's going on but in hindsight Satoru didn't exactly give any room for honesty, not for the kind that needed to be said, just took his answer at face value and figured Suguru would tell him when he's ready.
The failure of the Star Plasma Vessel mission took a lot out of the both of them, affected them in ways none of them could've foreseen, and he knows it's going to take time before they can go back to how things used to be between them, the way they were before - nice and easy: the two of them against the world.
It's been months and obviously nothing's changed much between them - they're spending time together in the same room but the distance between them might as well be the Pacific ocean for how far away he feels they are from each other, a kind of Infinity of their own making.
"Not all of their advice is practical," Suguru continues as he finishes up making an origami star and picks up another slip to fold. "I'm not a normal person after all, but it's good enough. It helps me gain back my equilibrium, helps me pull back my perspective. Introspection, I guess, not that you'd know."
It's teasing and Satoru grabs the jest with both hands as he scowls, nearly pouting with it, "Shut up."
He doesn't mean it and he knows Suguru doesn't take it the wrong way when he smirks at the juvenile reply.
There are two stars now and Suguru works to create a third one. Satoru wonders what he writes on them, why those pieces of papers are privy to all of Suguru's thoughts and not him. It makes him a little jealous and he knows he's being childish about it.
"What do you talk to them about?" He asks, trying to probe for an answer, for a tiny hint of that honesty that's been closed off to him for some time now and he knows he's partially at fault - too busy running around cleaning up the messes that other people make, too busy trying to perfect his technique to make sure he's never touched and hurt again. This is the first time in nearly two weeks he's been able to spend time with Suguru in the same room properly, although "properly" might be a bit of stretch.
He shrugs, a nonchalant gesture that belies the topic they're discussing. "I talked to her about Riko, and...about him. I don't give details, but..." he trails off, purple eyes going distant and it suddenly bothers Satoru that Suguru would go talk to some random stranger about the things they went through and not him.
"Why don't you talk to me?" He asks, trying not to sound whiny about it but knows he misses it by a mile.
"You never ask," he tells him and it's not accusing, just a simple fact of life. "And you're always busy. And I learned to stop looking for you."
He opens his mouth to refute, to say that he's asked before, plenty of times, but there's a difference between asking for the sake of it and asking because you genuinely want to know the answer, and at the time Satoru knew he was the former rather than the latter so he closes his mouth in shame.
"I'm not saying that to make you feel like shit," Suguru continues as he puts down the third star and picks up a bottle to pop the cork open, dropping one in before opening up a second bottle to drop the other two before closing the lid. "That mission changed us both and we're trying to cope with it in our own ways. It's just part of life and part of growing up."
"Right."
Petulance is a familiar emotion for Satoru, one that's kept him company for nearly two decades of his life, hard to temper and work around but one he knows he needs to smooth down if he wants to have any productive conversations with Suguru. He sucks in a deep breath and tells himself it's not personal even though it feels like it is.
He changes the subject, "Why do you have so many different bottles?"
There are three on the table, and one more tucked away in a cheap desk bookshelf Suguru bought at a dollar store so he can better keep up with his organization. It's built more for utility than looks and obviously not made to last but Satoru doubts it'll live past its time here in Jujutsu Tech School anyway.
"They each do different things for me," he answers as he lines the three up next to each other and points to the one at a time as he speaks, "This one is for when I'm stressed about school, this one for family, this one about our jobs."
The last bottle that had two new stars dropped in is pretty full and it doesn't take much for Satoru to figure out how terrible it is based on how many stars are cloistered in the tiny space.
"You're gonna need a new one soon."
"Yeah..." he sighs, looking tired.
"But it helps?" He asks carefully, not wanting to put his foot in his mouth again.
"It does," he nods, a slow measured thing as he takes a bottle and carefully rolls it on the rounded edge, the hollow sound travelling across the surface of the desk. "Maybe not at the start, but I'll go back to it after a few hours or a few days and read it again to see if I still agree with it or if I've changed my stance since then. There's a couple of batshit crazy ones in there that make me question a lot about myself and my psyche. I can be impulsive, worse than you, so this helps reign it in a little bit, those urges I get and feel out of control over."
The bottle stops moving and Satoru can see a few that've been unrolled and rerolled, the edges of it not as crisp as some of the newer ones. He wonders what's written in them but of course doesn't get to fully chase that thought before Suguru's saying to him quietly, a touch of shame and worry in his voice, "...I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to read them."
He swallows hard against the bitterness in his throat but answers truthfully anyway, "I won't."
He wonders what's in the fourth bottle, what part of Suguru's life it symbolizes. The bottle has a thin layer of dust over it and he can't really guess how long it's been since it was last used and whether or not Suguru's done with it. He wonders if it's a spillover from another bottle but none of them are full enough to need a second one. He wants to ask but knows better than to try.
---
It's another rare day off and he's making himself at home in Suguru's room again, this time without the pretense of studying: his Nintendo DS in hand as he listens to the scratch of pen on paper while Suguru writes, an accompanying background noise with the game music playing.
He forgets what quest he's trying to do, where he's supposed to go next, but he doesn't mind just wasting time doing other things in the meantime, his eyes occasionally sliding over to Suguru every once in a while.
"I thought you said you wanted to play your Digimon game," Suguru says, a slight quirk in his eyebrow that could be a question.
"I do."
"You've been staring for the last five or so minutes."
He startles, blinking in surprise. "I have?" He doesn't think it's been that long - his characters have just been idling for a while now and he can't remember what he was up to before he got distracted by the dark-haired teen.
"Yeah, since I started writing," he tells him, sounding vaguely amused as he starts folding up the stars, just two for today.
He huffs as he saves the game and sets it aside, too distracted to give it any real attempt. "You asked me not to read them so I won't," he says as he crosses his arms over his chest like it'll stop him from reaching over the space between them and plucking up a star.
"But you're curious, right?"
He shrugs, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't."
Suguru chuckles and it's such a soft sound that Satoru almost thought he misheard it if not for the smile he can see on his face. "Do you wanna try?"
"Try...what?" He asks, even as he sits up a little at the offer.
"Writing one," he says as he takes one of the long strips of paper from his table, a blue coloured one, and passes it over with a pen to Satoru, his long arm trying to breach the distance.
He takes them and looks at them like he's never seen them before. "What do I write? Just anything?"
"Whatever you feel like getting off your chest," he shrugs as he pops open the bottle that's for school and drops a star in and another bottle for work that he drops the next one in. "Doesn't have to be big or life changing, it can be something as stupid as: "I'm never going back to that restaurant out in Nishi-Ikebukuro again," or something like that."
He blinks at the memory it brings forth and he curls his lip up in distaste over it. "The one that calls itself a western restaurant?"
He grins in answer. "Yeah, that one."
"It was pretty bad, huh."
He's not sure how someone can burn a steak and still have it be raw in the middle. That’s talent in and of itself.
"Ugh," Suguru grunts at the recollection, looking like he can still smell the charred meat under his nose.
"Right, right," he stares between the pen and paper, trying to think of something to write, something to get off his chest. It goes on for long enough that Suguru snorts in amusement over his indecisiveness before going back to his studies, a highlighter in hand now as he skims over the paragraphs, leaving Satoru to himself.
He doesn't know what to write. He doesn't tend to dwell in a lot of emotions, preferring to just live in the moment, let it rush over him like an oncoming wave and then flow back out again in the next tide.
But then just like that, he knows what he wants to put down on paper as he lays it over the side of his knee to get the thought down.
I miss Okinawa but I never want to go back there ever again.
It feels right, feels like it encompasses all the good parts and terrible parts of that mission into one single sentence - the longing and the yearning as well as a deep urge for never wanting to return, to close that door and never let it open again.
"Done?" Suguru asks and Satoru understands now why the dark-haired teen doesn't want him to read his messages, something real and raw in those few little words on one tiny piece of paper.
"Yeah, how do you fold one?"
Suguru turns around from his desk and shows him how on a blank piece of paper, slowly and meticulously, and then lets Satoru practice on a couple until he gets the hang of it enough to fold his message into a star of his own.
"Here, I got a spare bottle," he offers as he pulls open a drawer and hands it over. "You can have it."
"Thanks," he says as he pops open the cork top and tips his lonely star in.
"You want some star papers for yourself?" He asks as he holds up a small stack of it in various colours.
"Sure," he holds out his hand and waits for stars to land on them.
---
Sometimes I'm scared that Suguru hates me for how badly I fucked up that mission.
I know konbini tamago sando isn't the best but they're good in a pinch. Even better when you can shove a fried chicken into it.
I miss hanging out with Suguru. Makes me wish we were back in first year.
I wonder if Yaga-sensei will get upset at me for taking a daytrip out to Miyagi to get some kikufuku to bring back.
I feel bad Riko died but I'm glad Suguru made it out alive even though he came out broken. We both did.
---
He runs out of star paper but instead of asking for more, he decides to go out and buy some for himself. They're easier to find than he thought they would be and he also spots some nice chiyogami paper, the ink vibrant and the patterns pretty. There's one in such a deep purple that it almost reminds him of Suguru's ear gauges.
He senses someone coming up to his side and catches a small shape in the corner of his vision, turning to look next to him and then down at an old lady dressed up in a pale grey yukata with streaks of navy blue on it and a mauve obi sash. She's old enough that she's nearly hunched over herself, a walking stick in front of her to keep her balance.
"Oh? It's not very often that I come across a young man such as yourself interested in origami," she says with a small smile on her face, kindly and curious.
"A friend got me started on it," he says as he holds up a pack of star paper. "We write some stuff on them and then fold it up."
"Isn't that lovely," she coos, looking joyful. "Are they wishes?"
"No, not really. I don't think so?" The things he writes are definitely not always wishes although a couple of them are. "They're just...confessions, I guess. Things we can't share with each other so we just write it down instead."
She nods, humming under her breath in understanding. "I see. Have you ever heard of the story of the crane?" She asks and it's such an odd change in topic that he wonders if the old lady is alright in the head but he decides to humour her anyway.
"The one where the crane returns a favour?"
She chuckles, one hand raised to cover her amusement as if to soften her mirth, not wanting to come off as teasing. "No, not that one. The one where you fold a thousand cranes to be granted a wish."
He nearly scoffs and rolls his eyes but manages to hold back the urge. "A thousand, huh?"
She nods again, the little bun above her head bobbing with the motion. "Yes. In old folklore, cranes are seen as celestial beings that can live for a thousand years and, in order to gain the favour of these heavenly beings, one must fold a thousand cranes, one to represent each year of their lifespan and offer it to them for their wish to be granted but," she says with a dramatic pause, "You must complete this task from start to finish within a year or else the crane will lose interest and stop watching over you."
"I see,” he hums to himself before continuing. “So you basically need to fold three a day to be able to complete a thousand cranes in a single year."
"That is correct," she says, looking pleased.
He looks at the papers, at the deep purple that reminds him of Suguru. There's not a whole lot in the world he can't get with his own money - material possessions come into his hands very easily, but maybe instead of wishing something for himself he can wish for something for Suguru instead. It's probably a fake story, a ploy for consumerism and capitalism just like Valentine's day is but he buys into it anyway - he's got money to spare.
"What's a good size to pick?"
She smiles, but she looks genuine rather than someone who operates on greed like most people tend to be. "This one would be good, I feel," she says as she picks out the pack he was looking at earlier, no bigger than a stack of post-it notes. "Paper gets heavy after a while, especially if you intend to fold a thousand cranes so this one will do."
"Okay," he nods as he takes ten of the same sized paper in designs he likes the look of at first glance, going by colour first then by patterns.
"Have you ever folded a crane before?"
"No, I haven't."
"Oh no, that won't do that all. Come, come," she tuts as she turns and starts her slow and careful walk back to the counter of the small shop, standing up on a small stepping stool once she gets behind it and pulling out a few pieces of plain origami paper from under the desk to spread out between them. Her hands are old and gnarled but still steady as she begins, "Let me show you."
He follows her step-by-step until he has a finished crane in hand, then she gives him another piece to practice on as she folds alongside him but he finishes it before she's done with the first wing.
"Well, aren't you a quick learner," she tells him, sounding inordinately pleased.
"I try," his lips quirk up at the easy way she's happy with his efforts as she happily takes the packs of paper and rings them up for him on her ancient till that's seen better days. She puts all of it into a paper bag then folds the top close and tapes it shut with a bunny sticker.
"You're a sweet boy," she smiles as she brings out a small bowl of candies and offers it to him even though he knows it's probably meant for children half his age and half his size, but he helps himself to a piece anyway, not one to say no to candy. "Come back when you've finished folding up those cranes, will you?"
"I will!"
"One year!" She repeats when he's nearly out the door. "From start to finish!"
He waves in acknowledgement and in farewell before turning to take the train back to the school, paperbag of newly purchased items held close to his chest.
He's just rounding the bend for the last leg of the stairs when he sees Suguru at the top about to make his way down.
"Hey," he calls out, just loud enough to be heard.
"Hey," he returns, pausing at the top to let Satoru reach him. "What'd you get? Chocolates?"
"More star paper, among other things. You heading off to a mission?"
There's no overnight bag that he can see so it probably won't be a long one, or too far away. The shadows beneath his eyes look terribly dark and he wonders why he never really noticed it before - has it always looked that bad?
"Yeah, just somewhere out in Komozawa park," he tells him, confirming Satoru's theory.
He hums, eyes flitting away in thought before turning back to the dark-haired teen. "That's the Olympic Park, right? I heard there's a nice yakiniku place there. Wanna get some dinner there after your mission?"
He huffs, his eyebrows half-cocked in a wry look. "No way I'm going to a yakiniku place after throwing up my guts."
"Lemme guess, more soba for dinner then?"
He snorts. "More like having tea for dinner, and maybe my leftovers from lunch if I can handle it. Anyway, the manager's probably waiting for me so I gotta go," he tells him as he walks past Satoru and starts heading down the stairs.
He watches him go and decides to ask, "Have you heard of the story about the crane?"
Suguru pauses as his foot lands on the next step down before looking over his shoulder to answer, "The one where she becomes someone's wife to return a favour?"
He nearly laughs. "Nah, not that one. I'll tell you when you come back."
"Sure. Don't wait up," he says with a careless wave over his shoulder, resuming his trek downhill.
"See you later."
---
It's late when he feels Suguru come back from his mission, his cursed energy spiking and roiling around him, agitated and angry as he sluggishly goes into his room and moves about the small space before leaving again, presumably for the showers.
Satoru decides to keep waiting, his fingers going through the motions of folding the paper at precise angles. By the time he's back from his shower, Satoru's already got his first five cranes finished and is now just killing time with his Digimon game until Suguru decides to come in through the doors he purposefully left open for him.
It's a few minutes later before Suguru walks through, his hair loose and dripping onto the towel around his neck, looking like shit even freshly showered, but he makes himself sit down on the bed anyway with a long, weary sigh. The shadows beneath his eyes look deeper under this lighting and the dark-haired teen looks like he'd rather be in his own bed and dead asleep right now but he asks anyway, voice raspy, "Tell me about the crane story."
He saves the game and then switches off the console, turning around on his chair to look at Suguru as he tiredly dries the ends of his hair with the towel, careful not to let it drip on the bedding even though Satoru couldn't care less.
"There was this little old lady at the shop I went to today," he starts off by saying, "She saw me pick up some star paper and asked me what I was doing since it's not often boys like us go in for origami paper."
"Pfft."
The sound makes him grin, "I told her what we do with the star paper and she asked me if they were wishes and I told her they were more like confessions."
"And?" Suguru prompts and leans back on his arms on the bed, clearly done with the effort of manually drying his hair.
"And then she asked me if I knew about the story of the crane and I basically answered the same thing you did."
He snorts, a smirk growing on his lips. "Of course, dumb and dumber over here," he says referring to the two of them.
Satoru laughs and continues, "She said that in old Japanese folklore, cranes are these heavenly beings that live for like, a thousand years. And you know how crazy people were in the old days: they think if they do something wild enough it'll grant them a wish from these celestial beings. So someone decides to fold a thousand cranes, one to represent each year of their lifespan, and offer it to them so they could have their wish granted. But!" He pauses here but doubts he's being as mysterious or as dramatic as the old lady, "It needs to be completed within a single year from start to finish otherwise the crane loses interest and goes to find someone else to bother, I guess," he finishes a little lamely, shrugging it off.
"Sounds like the crane has commitment issues."
He rolls his eyes, "Look, even I wouldn't wanna watch someone for a whole year trying to fold a thousand cranes."
Suguru shrugs, eyes blinking slowly as they catch on the five cranes sitting on Satoru's desk. "You need to fold three or so a day to make that deadline of one year, then," he comments, closely repeating what Satoru said to the old lady earlier in the day.
"Pretty much. Easy, right?"
"Yeah, when you put it like that," Suguru gets up from the bed with a slight groan. "A thousand sounds daunting but three a day is not bad at all," he remarks as he heads out, grabbing the door to shut it behind him. "Goodnight, Satoru."
"Goodnight," he says back and follows the cloud of cursed energy still buzzing around Suguru like an ugly, writhing thing. Shortly after, he hears the soft whirr of the hairdryer being used and Satoru turns back to his desk to grab a new piece of star paper to write:
Sometimes I wanna rub my thumbs under Suguru's eyes so I can help get rid of the smudges there.
---
The day starts off normal but ends in tragedy and he's immediately sent out before he's even given all the details. All he knows is that Haibara was alive this morning and then by late afternoon, just as the sun was setting, he was dead.
It takes him half a day to get there, pitch black darkness by the time he steps out of the car, and it doesn't take him more than ten minutes to take care of the curse that took Haibara's life but the auxiliary manager is too fatigued for the long drive back after what happened earlier so he agrees to settle down somewhere for the night for their sake.
It’s a single-bedroom with basic facilities but he doesn't sleep, eyes on the phone waiting for a reply back from Suguru other than:
- nanami's fine
But he doesn't get anything else, even after he's asked what's going to happen afterwards. Suguru must be busy, that's the only answer Satoru can come up with for his lack of updates. Shoko must be busy, too. And Nanami...
He hustles the manager as soon as they come out of their room the next morning, leading them towards the receptionist to check out of their one-night stay and trying to get them to hurry along with their breakfast even though he knows he's not being particularly fair.
By the time he gets back to the school, the funeral is already over with and everybody's too quiet to want to talk to him about it. He's feeling a little keyed up - he didn't really expect them to wait but Haibara was his kouhai, too, even if he didn't get to spend as much time with him as the others did.
Over the next couple of days whenever he meets Nanami's eyes, there's a scathing look to them, like he blames Satoru for Haibara's death, not even wanting to be in the same room as him but that doesn't make sense because it's not like he was the one who gave them the mission with the mislabelled grade.
After the third day he sits down on his desk and writes:
It's fucked up how Haibara died but I don't know why Nanami's so pissed off at me.
The next morning he finds Shoko making an extra strong cup of coffee, the shadows beneath her eyes dark enough to even rival Suguru's, and he asks her what's Nanami's deal.
She gives him a withering look, like he's being a child, and maybe he is but he doesn't think he deserves to be hated on by his kouhai over something he didn't even do. He tells her this much and gets an eyeroll in reply like he's too dumb to put the pieces together himself and she has to spell it out for him.
"He's upset you got to walk away from that mission and Haibara didn't."
He frowns, "And that's my fault?"
Shoko pulls a face at him like she's deeply unimpressed by his temper tantrum, "Obviously not, but you're an easy outlet," she finishes with a shrug and brings her coffee up to her lips to sip at.
He rolls his eyes and lets out an aggrieved sigh, "Wow, awesome. What a great position I find myself in: being the metaphorical punching bag for someone who doesn't know how to handle their own trauma," he bites out sarcastically.
She snorts, levelling him with another sharp look. "Wow, pot-kettle much?"
"Yeah, but at least I'm not going around glaring at somebody who went out of their way to finish the mission."
She sighs like she's done with the conversation. "You don't get it, Satoru."
Something in him snaps. "You think I don't? You think I've never gone through my own fair share of fuck-ups and trauma? You think I walked away from that shit fine?" He unzips his jacket and nearly rips off the buttons of his shirt to expose the long scar on his neck and chest as he pushes up the fringe covering his forehead. "You look at me and tell me I don't get it!"
She hisses, meeting his anger for anger. "Fuck, fine! Obviously I forgot," she retorts, something snide in her tone.
"Nice that one of us could," he says as he walks away, roughly buttoning up his shirt to cover himself up again but too agitated to deal with the zip and flap of his jacket.
He catches Suguru's cursed energy coming up to the kitchen but Satoru walks the other direction before they can cross paths, too annoyed to want to stick around to try and make nice - Suguru's been ignoring him, too.
There's already little bits of grass poking through the newly packed earth and Satoru sits down hard at the edge of it, fuming and angry and hurt that even Shoko sees him as nothing more than someone to take out their frustrations on. Maybe he's being unfair - everybody's stressed out after that catastrophe that took the life of a student; stupid summer stress - but everybody else seems to forget that he's a kid, too, and he's just as human as they are.
He doesn't know how long he sits there being livid for but it doesn't feel like a long time before he feels Suguru's cursed energy coming closer towards him, approaching him calmly and slowly like Satoru's a frightened animal liable to attack at a single hint of provocation.
"Shoko says she's sorry."
He scoffs, rolling his eyes. "Whatever. Like she ever actually apologizes for anything."
"Neither do you," he points out.
"Yeah, but at least I don't go around blaming people for shit that's not their fault," he snaps, feeling even more agitated now that Suguru is here.
"Is this about Nanami? He's just...grieving," he finishes after a short pause, like he wanted to say something else in place of that.
"I didn't even get to go to the funeral. He probably thinks I don't even care. Like we all didn't just hang out the other day and tried to race each other for the train."
The weather had been good that day and they went out to a restaurant where you could make your own okonomiyaki and cook it yourself however you wanted to. It'd been fun and he never thought that'd be the last time they would hang out as a full group.
A soft sigh. "You're right. I'm sorry."
"I don't need you to say sorry."
"But you want to hear it from someone, right?"
There's an edge in Suguru's voice, hard and flat, like he's waiting for something, like a fight or a reason to shout and argue in front of the grave of their dead kouhai who only got to be cremated with half of their body.
"No. I just want people to stop treating me like I don't have any fucking feelings. Like I don't hurt the way they do. Like I don't bleed the same as everybody else. It's harder to hurt me now than before but I'm human, too."
Another sigh and then a quiet murmur, "You make it easy to forget."
Devastation runs through him like a knife at hearing that from Suguru, worse than Nanami's new hate towards him, worse than Shoko's nonchalance. He thought Suguru would understand him best but he guessed he was wrong after all.
Suguru takes a seat next to him but Satoru willfully turns his head away from him to better hide how wrecked he feels at hearing his best friend, of all people, say that to him.
He just wants to be alone.
It feels like nobody really wants him around anymore, not even Suguru whom he thought knew him best.
He thinks about writing on a star but realizes how useless it all feels, nothing but a waste of time, and a waste of paper, and a waste of space.
Suguru's cursed energy roils and writhes, just as alive as he is and it hurts to be around him. He's about to get up and just go to his room when Suguru starts to talk.
"The day Riko died and I got my ass kicked to hell and back," he begins slowly, like he's trying to measure his words and find the right combination of things to say. "A part of me thought I wasn't going to make it but another part of me felt relieved that if I'd died there too, then at least I wouldn't have to be the one to bury you. Maybe they'd bury us next to each other here and then maybe we'd welcome Haibara when it was his time, but we both survived. Miraculously, despite the odds, we lived."
He remembers opening up his eyes to the sky, feeling overwhelmed with how much everything around him suddenly seemed to make sense, the things that had been beyond his reach before were now right in the middle of his palms. He'd already known then that Riko was dead so he went after that man himself and made sure he'd never get to see the light of a new day.
It was the highest of highs and then the absolute lowest of lows.
Suguru draws in a shuddering breath and continues, "You make it easy to forget but I remember the day you got stabbed right through your chest by that guy and I knew then that you weren't the god people say you are. You're just like me; just another stupid kid with stupid visions of grandeur," he huffs, smiling ruefully as he shakes his head. "I was talking out of my ass when I said it's the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak but I clung to that moral because if I didn't, if I turned a blind eye to it, then I would've been just another person using others as a stepping stone, and I didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole. If I did, I knew there would be no coming back from it."
It's not an apology, but it's his heart - it's Suguru's soft beating heart held out between them with the faint hope that Satoru would come and put his own next to it so they can cover it up with both of their hands combined.
He swallows, feeling his words get stuck in his throat for a moment as he turns until he's facing Haibara's grave again, his short 16 years of life.
"You stopped me that day from probably making the biggest mistake of my life," Satoru confesses to the grey stone. "I don't think I would've stopped if it'd been anybody else who came in through those doors instead of you."
"You would've," he says with surety.
He shakes his head. "No, I wouldn't. I know enough to realize I was on the edge of a cliff that day and you were the only person who could've pulled me back from jumping, from falling."
They sit there for minutes, for hours, until it starts to get dark, the setting sun taking away part of its warmth, and Satoru feels his stomach cramp from hunger because he hasn't eaten a proper meal since the afternoon just before he had to leave to take care of the curse that took Haibara from them.
He's munched on candies and snacks since then but none of those things make a full meal.
"Come on," Suguru says after a nudge of his arm. "Let's find something to eat. What do you feel like?"
"Omurice," is the first thing that pops into his head. He remembers Haibara talking about a new place that opened up nearby that did risotto and lasagna and omurice but then went and commented how he thought Satoru would probably love to try the castella pancakes instead. He huffs at the memory of it and lets himself get pulled up to his feet, Suguru grabbing at his shoulder to turn him so he can zip up his jacket properly for him.
As if reading his mind, Suguru asks him, "You wanna try that cafe? Haibara talked about it last week. We can go check it out."
"Yeah, sounds good."
They leave the school cemetery grounds behind them and how sad is it that the school has its own cemetery for the students that pass while under their care and guidance?
When he sees Shoko and Nanami waiting under the torii gates, a part of him wants to hide behind Suguru and another part of him wants to turn around and just go back to his room - who needs food? He's not that hungry after all - but Suguru must've pre-emptively known he was about to make a tactical retreat because he grabs his arm to pull him in and then puts it around Satoru's shoulders to keep him walking. Disgruntled, he follows along but feels himself losing appetite rapidly.
"What're you guys hanging around out here for?" Suguru asks and Satoru already has a sinking feeling in his stomach.
"Too lazy to cook. Was gonna head out and find something to bring back," Shoko tells them.
"Satoru wants to go to that cafe Haibara mentioned a while back. You guys wanna join us?"
It's quiet and Satoru doesn't bother looking up from where his eyes are fixed to sky with the slowly passing clouds overhead, waiting for the moment Nanami decides he'd rather bail out and starve than spend time sitting at the same table, let alone in the same establishment as him, but Satoru's surprised when he's the one who says: "Okay."
And off they go down the steps together. He wants to hang back, be the last one of the group so he can find a moment to escape the awkwardness but Suguru steadfastly keeps his arm around Satoru's shoulder so he just grits his teeth and bears it. He can break the hold easily enough but he feels like he shouldn't have to, feels like Suguru can tell based on the tension in his body and the way he's not bothering to contribute to any part of the conversation happening around him when he already knows neither Shoko nor Nanami care much for his opinion or think much of him.
The cafe is within easy walking distance and Satoru spends the entire time hoping for a phone call or a text from Yaga telling him he's needed for a mission somewhere. For once, when he needs it the most, no mission is forthcoming.
When they arrive at the cafe and get a table for four, he's upset when Suguru sits across from him and Shoko nabs the seat next to Suguru which means Nanami's left with the last spot next to him. There's a brief moment of hesitation from the blond but he does eventually sit down, accepting the menu when the wait staff comes over with a cheery welcome and complimentary cups of water. They'd just arrived and Satoru already wants to go back to the dorms, feeling out of place and like he doesn't belong.
He opens the menu but he's completely lost his appetite, just randomly looking through all the pictures and options even though nothing appeals to him, not even the castella pancakes on offer that Haibara said he’d like.
When the wait staff comes back to take their orders he just defaults to the first thing he sees, probably the simplest meal on offer. "Omurice set A, please," he says when it's his turn to order and then hands the menu back.
"You're not getting anything else?" Suguru asks, a lilt of surprise in his voice.
"No," he says with finality as he takes out his phone and pretends he's busy. He knows he's sulking but he doesn't want to be here anymore than they actually want to spend time in his company. He's too angry to make any effort and just wants to go back as fast as possible.
Nanami eventually gets up but he doesn't stay gone for long before he's sitting back at the table, easily rejoining the conversation happening between Suguru and Shoko, their kouhai asking what subjects they chose for their research paper about Jujutsu during their second year.
After a while he feels the need to get away, just for a little while, just to get a breather, so he leaves them at the table so he can head over to the toilets.
It's empty when he gets in which is a relief as he goes over to the sink and washes his hand and then washes his face, wondering if he can get away with sneaking out just so he doesn't have to deal with having an awkward dinner with two people who probably don't even want him around being a wet blanket.
He feels rattled to his bones, an ache deep in his chest that reminds him of the time he got stabbed. It feels worse because the feeling comes and goes with every thought of the people he once thought of as his peers and doesn't fade away a single moment.
He sighs as he grabs a couple of paper towels and wipes his hands and face with it, taking in long, deep breaths for himself as he throws out his trash before going back outside.
Their food is just starting to arrive when he sits back down on the table along with a set of cutlery. Despite wanting to leave as soon as possible he still waits for everybody to be served first before grabbing the knife and fork.
"Thanks for the food," he mumbles to himself as he cuts a straight line down the omurice and lets it flop open. It's a little overcooked but he doesn't really care, can barely taste anything as he eats forkfuls of egg and rice together, not giving attention to whatever the others are saying as they eat.
He's done before everybody else and thinks about going up to pay for the table so he can use it as an excuse for his pissy mood and then just walk out so the others can take their time with their dinner and not have to deal with his sulk but just as he's about to get up, Suguru's legs cross over onto his side of the table and traps one of his own between his limbs. He throws him a glare but Suguru's not even looking over at him, just chatting to Shoko about calculus and how they're probably never going to end up actually using it in any real useful way. It's not really enough to stop him from leaving if he wants to, especially if he decides to use Infinity to push him off but decides to tolerate it for a while longer, bear it for as long as he can, his mood getting worse and worse as they keep talking around him.
Suguru's legs around his own are a solid weight keeping him tied to the table, like a jailor would its prisoner.
He takes care of his emails, purging anything he deems irrelevant or unimportant from his inbox and gives his thanks when a staff member comes to clear up his empty plates only to immediately make a noise of confusion when a castella pancake is placed right in front of him, along with a small jug of some fruit drink he vaguely recalls seeing on the menu.
"I didn't order this."
"I ordered it for you," Nanami says around a bite of salad and it surprises Satoru that he would even bother when he's pretty sure the blond hates his guts.
"What for?" He grumbles as he looks away from the dessert, not even tempted by the smell of it. The omurice roils in his gut and he has to breathe deeply to get rid of the urge to throw up.
There's that deep ache in his chest again and he has to work his jaw to give himself something else to focus on other than the cloying smell of maple syrup and the vice-like grip of Suguru's legs trapping his own.
He wants to go back to his room.
There's a clink of cutlery next to him before Nanami tells him quietly, almost contrite, "I realized I wasn't being fair to you. You didn't ask to survive just as much as Haibara didn't ask to die."
He scoffs, feeling uncomfortable now for a different reason as he crosses his arms over his chest but it only seems to amplify that terrible pang. "Wow, okay."
Anger is something he's used to receiving - when he does something the higher-ups don't approve of, when he falls short of the clan's expectations of him, when he pisses Yaga-sensei off again for forgetting about the curtain for the hundredth, thousandth, millionth time in a row. Anger towards him is something he's used to, something he's learned to deal with, another thing to compartmentalize and put away. If it's petty enough he'll even laugh about it.
Remorse, on the other hand, is about as rare as his birth that took over four hundred years in the making.
He feels Suguru's leg squeezing around him but he can't tell if it's in reprimand or in comfort. It could fall either way, at the rate they've been going lately. Right now, it feels like a trap, its jagged and rusty teeth digging into the meat of his flesh.
"I'm sorry, Gojo, please accept this as my apology."
He huffs, knowing there's no way he can actually get a pass with being angry forever anyway. "Fine, sure."
He can smell the melted butter, and the dusting of icing sugar, heavy in his nose and making his gut churn with discomfort. He shouldn't have come here if he'd known they were just going to ambush him.
Suguru squeezes his leg again, harder and it makes him snap, at the end of his rope, "What," and that's when he sees the unimpressed look sent his way as Suguru subtly nudges his head towards Nanami. He fights the urge to roll his eyes, can't believe he has to actually pretend to be fine as he turns towards his kouhai and nearly startles at seeing the blond bowing in his seat, head low. He swallows hard at the sight, feeling uneasy as he tells him, "Hey, no, get up. It's fine. It's whatever. We can just drop it."
He feels himself burning with embarrassment because he can tell some people are looking their way and he'd really like it if Nanami sat like a normal person and they all went back to eating and pretending like they're normal students grabbing some dinner together.
"I'm sorry, Gojo, please accept this as my apology," he repeats as if he didn't hear Satoru the first time.
He flaps his hands like an awkward bird. "It's fine!" He hisses and thinks about hitting Nanami on the back to make him sit back up again. "Get up. Get up, get up!"
"I'm sorry, Gojo, please accept this as my apology."
Shoko's snickering under her breath and Suguru's leg squeezes his own and he feels like he's about to burst into flames.
Unsure of what else he could possibly do to get Nanami to stop bowing like that, he turns to the castella pancake, grabs the spoon and shoves a big bite right into his mouth, his teeth clacking around the metal as he forces it in. "Appohohee affeppep," he muffles out, covering his mouth to stop crumbs from flying out.
Shoko snorts out in laughter while Satoru struggles to chew around the bite of pancake in his mouth, icing sugar and melted butter all over his lips. It's dry as hell because he didn't get to soak it in maple syrup or smother it with whipped cream but it gets an amused snicker from Suguru and even a quiet huff from Nanami at the ridiculous display.
Satoru forces himself to swallow and then chase it down with a drink of water before repeating himself, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, "Apology accepted."
He knows he's flushed red to the tips of his ears and he refuses to make eye contact with anybody as he drowns the pancake with the provided syrup and bowl of whipped cream and pretends to be too busy eating to contribute to what other conversations they're having now.
Suguru's legs wrapped around his own feels like an anchor, one he doesn't mind having anymore as he slathers a piece of pancake in maple syrup and whipped cream.
The conversation seems more easygoing now but he can't tell how much of it is from the improvement of his mood or because things aren't as tense around them anymore. Even the other customers around the cafe seem to have breathed a sigh of relief for them.
He feels better, lighter, less like he wants to run away to the nearest alley and throw up everything he'd consumed in the last hour. The food tastes nice and he finds that he likes having Suguru's legs tucked close to his own.
On the way out, they walk past a florist that is just closing up shop for the day, little blooms bumping with each jostle they take as they're transferred back inside. He pulls away for a moment and goes up to the lady who's bringing in the little buckets of flowers for storage, little bits of petals and leaves stuck on her clothes and even her hair from her long day's work.
"Excuse me, is it too late to buy a bouquet?"
She smiles at him as she sets down the dahlias onto the leaf-strewn floor. "Not at all! Do you have something in mind?"
He can feel the others paused not too far away from him, just the distance of one shopfront, curious but not interrupting as he interacts with the lady and asks her, "Do you have any white anemones?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," she says as she goes around a small bend to another display of white blooms and brings out the aforementioned flowers and sets it on the front counter with an empty vase to begin an arrangement. "Is there anything else you'd like to pair it with?"
He follows her further in until he's in front of the receptionist area, looking around until he finds what he's looking around. "Asters, and jasmine, if there's any left," he requests and hesitates for a moment before deciding to tell her, "It's for a friend who recently passed away."
Her smile slips to one of condolence, her hands pausing for a brief moment in the middle of the arrangement before she murmurs softly to him, "Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss."
A half-smile settles on his face in thanks and watches as she gathers the other flowers and tucks a few asters and sweet smelling jasmine amongst some leafy stems and baby's breath into the bouquet before bundling it up for him, tying it in a silky white ribbon that curls gently at the ends.
"That will be 3,960 yen, please," she says as she holds out the bouquet of flowers for him.
He puts down a 5,000 yen note on the little money dish between them in payment. "Please keep the rest for yourself," he says as he takes the bouquet from her and offers a short bow in thanks before leaving.
The others pause in their conversation when he comes back out of the shop, looking between him and the new addition in his arms before they continue walking.
The wrapping paper crinkles in his hand with each step they take to head back to the school and his nose is flooded by the smell of flowers. In his free hand he loops the end of the ribbon between his fingers, curling it around and around and around, the glide of the silk so smooth that it never catches and it never stops.
"For Haibara?" Suguru asks after a while even though it's obvious it won't be for anybody else.
"Is there a specific theme, or...?" Shoko trails off as they start down the street that will eventually lead them back to the base of the mountain. The edge of the barrier gets closer, shimmering in the near distance, something that the others can feel but only he can see.
"Anemone for sincerity, aster for remembrance, jasmine for Haibara's friendly nature," he lists as he points out to each flower individually for the others to see.
"Well chosen," Nanami murmurs as he eyes the bouquet with something like sadness, regret and a deep sense of grief.
"How'd you know so much about flower meanings?" Shoko asks as they come up to the stairs and begin their way up.
"I did ikebana when I was younger. It was supposed to discipline me," he doesn't say how they forced him to do it when he'd already been awake for too many days in a row trying to keep up with the clan's rigorous training schedule, barely even any time to use the bathroom between lessons. He'd basically been running on fumes at that point trying to keep his techniques from slipping but he had to steady his hands to make sure his appearance and the flower arrangement came up to snuff before he was allowed to go and have any sort of rest.
It's not something he likes to remember.
Shoko whistles as if she's impressed even though the real story is much darker than she thinks, "Damn, what didn't you do as a kid?"
Have a childhood? He doesn't say but figures his silence should be enough to speak for itself.
The grave is exactly as they left it some hours ago except for a couple of flat patches of grass where he and Suguru had sat earlier.
He lays the bouquet down, throat feeling tight at the loss of someone so young and so bright. Haibara was the one who held the most amount of optimism for being a sorcerer, for helping people - the kind of person who did it not because he expected any thanks in return but because it was the right thing to do to help those in need.
Haibara had the heart and courage to do what needed to be done but Jujutsu society would've taken the best parts of him, chewed him up and spat him back out without care - they would've ruined him, without question. Even if he hadn't died barely a handful of days ago, he would've surely died later: a jaded man with only regrets to fuel him.
Satoru resolves to change it. He doesn't know how yet but he'll find a way so that nobody else meets the same fate as Haibara.
It's too little and too late for his kouhai who's already dead and buried but for Nanami, for Shoko and for Suguru, for the others who've yet to come, he'll make sure they're strong enough to withstand the blows that will inevitably come their way.
He grits his teeth against the rush of grief, the sudden wave of anguish, overcome by his own regrets, trying to keep himself together because it wouldn't be fair otherwise - he's supposed to be the strongest.
A warm hand lands on his shoulder, and then one more on his other side, then a palm on the space in the middle of his back.
He's thankful when nobody says anything but he knows they're all fighting their own tears, all mourning and grieving the same way he is.
He hopes Haibara has found peace.
Later that night, freshly showered and after he's done folding his five cranes for the day, he grabs a piece of star paper to write:
A part of me was resigned that I was probably going to end up alone and I'd convinced myself I'd be fine like that. I was wrong.
And then another:
I didn't know this would be how it feels like to have friends. Real ones.
---
In all the days, weeks, months and nearly full year since the failure of the Star Plasma Vessel mission, he's never once visited Riko's grave. She's somewhere in the school's cemetery, too, in a plot further inside, a marker for those sacrificed for the greater good. All the other chosen vessels have their names etched into stone there but Riko is the only one who has an urn to be buried with.
He got her edelweiss for her courage to do what had be done, erica for the loneliness she must've felt, peonies for her bravery and will to live, and sweet peas to say goodbye.
He remembers the weight of her body in his arms, small and light in death even though she'd seemed larger than life itself when she pointed fingers at him and screeched in his face.
There's already an old, withering bunch of flowers by her grave when he arrives and he knows cherry blossoms when he sees it. Kind, gentle, transience of life - he supposes Suguru would know her better, if only slightly.
They'd only spent three days with her but she's continued to shape their lives even now.
He leaves her behind now to go back to his room even though it's still the early afternoon, catching Suguru as he's stepping out in a white button up and black slacks while he gets a new uniform refitted to replace his previous set, one hand holding up his long hair in a high ponytail, a hair tie hanging out of his mouth and a duffel bag slung around his shoulder.
"Heading out?" He asks as Suguru closes the door behind him and deftly pulls his hair into his usual bun, tying it off to sit properly.
He thinks of the cherry blossoms left on Riko's grave and wants to ask about them.
"Yeah, some middle of nowhere village complaining about whatever, you know how it is."
"Ugh," he eyes the duffel bag, guessing it'll probably be an overnight trip like the time Satoru had to go take care of that mislabelled curse and couldn't make it back in time. "Sounds lame. Want some company?"
Neither of them can really afford to do joint missions anymore - why waste resources sending in two Special Grade sorcerers to complete a mission when one is obviously more than enough?
"Nah," he says as he adjusts the duffel bag and pats his pockets to double-check he's got everything. "It's a quick in-and-out job. Will take me longer to get there than it would to exorcise the curse. It'll be dark by the time I get there."
Satoru shrugs as he goes up to his door and opens it just as Suguru's about to walk past, adjusting the duffel bag as he goes but pausing just at the threshold, violet eyes stuck on something inside Satoru’s bedroom.
"You've got three strings of them already?"
He turns to the curtains where three sets of cranes are left hanging, held aloft by red string. He's got a handful more on his desk but he won't do anything with them until he's hit another fifty.
"Yeah, not bad, right?" He grins as he walks in, leaving the door open for Suguru to come and go as he pleases. He wants to ask about the flowers but decides not to. "When do you think you'll be back?"
"Hopefully by lunch tomorrow. If not, then maybe by dinner time."
He sits down and looks around at his cluttered desk, at the opened pack of chiyogami paper strewn atop the surface, the pens, the star paper, the opened bottle where he's growing a small collection now. He grabs it and holds it up to Suguru, gives it a little shake as he says, "Look."
The dark-haired teen gives a little huff of amusement and a wry clapping of his hands before asking, "What's in it?"
He shrugs as he sets it back down. "Everything. I'm not as methodical as you," he teases and then gives his friend a sloppy salute. "See you when you get back."
Suguru looks like he has something he wants to say, or maybe ask, but in the end he just smiles. "See you," he chuckles as he steps back from the doorway and closes the door as he leaves.
He thinks back on the flowers, how they must've been there since maybe April and it's September now. A whole season has passed since Suguru's last visit.
His fingers itch towards a strip of paper and he pulls it forward, grabbing a pen and clicking it open to write:
I've hated ikebana since I was a kid but then I look at Suguru and it makes me think of hibiscus: how he could still be gentle despite everything.
---
It's late when his phone rings and it's unusual Suguru would call him at this hour. Or even call him at all. Lately, they talk and hang out when they either happen to be passing by each other or when Satoru wants to invade Suguru's room but they haven't called each other since their second year. He stops in the middle of folding up his third crane and squishes his phone between his ear and shoulder once he's answered it.
"Yo."
"Satoru."
He pauses in the middle of doing the crane's head and tail in the same fold, trying to pinpoint the tone in Suguru's voice but can't quite make the mark.
"All done with your mission then?" He asks instead as he slowly folds up the paper and gives the crane its beak.
"That story about the crane you told me a while ago," he starts off and it makes Satoru blink a little bit in surprise that Suguru would call to ask about that of all things but it seems important somehow so he answers him.
"Yeah, I'm making a goal of folding five a day for 200 days to make a thousand cranes, what about it?"
"How many have you got now? A hundred-fifty-something?"
"163," he says as he pops it open and sets it down with the others before getting a fourth piece of paper. "It'll be 165 tonight. I usually do it before bed."
"So you've been making it for about a month now."
"Yeah, just a bit over," he says as he slides his thumb against a fold to make good crisp lines.
There's silence for a while, long enough that Satoru finishes his fourth crane and is about to start on the last one when Suguru suddenly asks him, "What are you wishing forf?"
He thinks about deflecting, saying it's just for fun - wishes aren't real and they don't come true for the likes of them - but something tells him not to, something like instinct begging him to be honest.
He lays his hands flat over the paper and holds for a moment before telling him, "It's a wish for you."
"For--" he stutters and then lets out a breath that almost sounds like an aborted laugh. "Why?"
Satoru thinks about all the ways he's messed up and fallen short since last year, how it feels like everything has been one long fuck-up since the failed mission with Star Plasma Vessel, with Riko. It's been nearly a year and he still hasn't figured out how much is enough before he can ask for forgiveness, to earn it, if he will ever pass muster again. He doesn't even care about wanting it from Yaga, or from the higher-ups or even Tengen, even though they're probably the one who deserves it the most. It's Suguru. It's always been Suguru.
"You know how you write on little pieces of paper and fold them into stars?"
"I don't really see how that correlates," he says slowly, like he's trying to understand. "Are you writing your thoughts on the cranes? What about the star paper, then?"
He shakes his head and dives right in head first without checking the depth.
He stops folding the crane and pushes it aside, taking the phone back from between his ear and shoulder to tell him, "I fucked up."
"What?" He sounds confused now, rightfully so.
"I should've listened to you that day on the beach," he tells him and hears a low sound on the other end of the call, like Suguru taking in a sudden deep breath in surprise or maybe shock that they're talking about something that's already a year gone. "But I didn't, because I thought that as long as we were together, we had nothing to worry about, nothing to fear; nothing could ever touch us."
He learnt the next day what it meant to be catastrophically wrong and that he wasn't as strong as he thought he believed himself to be.
"Are you wishing for forgiveness, then? From me?" Suguru asks, voice quiet.
"No, the act of folding those cranes one by one every day for 200 days is, but the wish is still for you."
"What's the wish?" He asks, almost urgent.
He flaps his free hand awkwardly in front of him even though Suguru can't see it. "The old lady didn't say anything about whether or not my wish would null if I told someone about it."
He chuckles, sounding amused that Satoru would take something like this so seriously. "You believe that?"
"I don't know what I believe in anymore," certainly not that he’s a god, not even close. "I thought I was sure about myself, about--" us, he doesn't say, "--but I guess in the end, I'm just a stupid kid." Just like you.
There's a small sigh, almost fond and he can almost see the smile on Suguru's face, not the one that used to be genuine and happy but is now simmered down to something bittersweet. "Satoru, tell me your wish."
He closes his eyes like it would help his courage to confess to him. "I wish for you to find happiness."
Suguru sucks in a sharp breath before exhaling slowly, falling quiet. Neither of them talk for long enough that Satoru starts to wonder if the depth of his confession was too much but he doesn't want to take it back - it's too important.
"I think I'm gonna leave for a while," Suguru tells him quietly, something guilty along the lines of the words.
"What?" He feels breathless suddenly, like someone had punched him right in his sternum.
"I'm gonna sort myself out for a bit," he starts off slow but then he gets a little firmer, a little surer, more confident. "I'll need to talk to Yaga after this but I'm not leaving because of you or because of the things that happened. I..." he pauses, takes a deep breath and lets it out in a shaky exhale, "I had a close call today so I need some space and get some perspective back into me; find a new balance within myself."
"Right," he nods, trying to understand, sure that he does. "Right. When are you coming back?"
"You said you're gonna make five a day, right?"
"I'll make the rest of it all in one day," he says without thinking and knows it's a stupid thing to say but he's assured when Suguru just laughs at him.
"Don't be stupid," he tells him, repeating Satoru's thoughts back at him. "Five a day. You've already got a headstart. I'll come back when you've hit a thousand."
He nods sharply. "Okay. You've got a little over five months to come back," in the grand scheme of things, five months isn't a lot.
"168 days then."
"167," he corrects.
"Wow," he drawls. "You're really gonna hold one day over me?"
"Yes," he grins, feeling proud over something so small.
He snorts and Satoru can almost imagine him rolling his eyes.
There's a quiet murmuring of words on Suguru's side, sniffles and whimpers. Suguru's words get muffled into his clothes but he can hear the soothing sound of reassurance from him before he comes back to the phone. "I gotta go. Goodnight."
"Wait," he calls out, a little panicked.
"Yeah?"
He swallows the lump of fear in his throat as he asks, "It's not five months of complete silence from you, right?"
"I'll contact you, every once in a while but...I really do need space."
"Okay," he says, trying not to feel downtrodden and like a kicked puppy.
"I think it'll be good for you, too."
He pauses for a moment, eyebrows furrowing in thought. "Why do you say that?"
"I think the both of us..." he trails off for a moment before continuing, "It's not right to say that we got attached to each other or anything like that but it's obvious we started to define ourselves by the things we do together. And it'll be good to have a break from each other, right? I don't know about you but I can admit to myself now that I depended on you a little too much and I wanna learn how to stand on my own two feet again."
"Before you, I've never even--" had a friend, had an equal, someone who saw him for him and not a Gojo, or his Six Eyes or every other thing that defined him first before himself.
"I know," Suguru tells him, like he can fill in the gaps of his silence better than Satoru can. "Which makes it even more important for us to figure ourselves out - who we are without the influence of others. I need to find my new equilibrium and I think it'll be good for us in the long run."
He huffs, feeling petulant. "Fine."
He has the audacity to chuckle at him. "Don't be angry."
"I'm not angry," he says, sounding all sorts of angry. "I'm just...upset, but you're right. I can see now that I was - that I started to look to you too much to be my compass."
"I can guide you, but I can't help you lead your life, just as you can't for me. We have to learn how to stand apart, just as we learned how to stand together. Otherwise, can we rightly call ourselves the strongest duo if we crumble from one failed mission?"
He closes his eyes and nods even though Suguru can't see him. "Right."
Another soft murmur in the background and Suguru telling him apologetically, "I really gotta go now, Satoru. I'll call you another time, or text."
"At least once a week," he tries to bargain. "And I'll send you pictures of my progress, too."
"Don't cheat now," he can hear the smirk in Suguru's voice
"When have I ever cheated," he scoffs at the accusation.
He snorts. "I could spend a whole hour talking about all the times I've witnessed you cheat but not tonight."
He rolls his eyes. "Fine, fine. Once a week."
"Five a day."
And then Suguru hangs up without a goodbye, but he supposes it's not actually a goodbye - it's just a break.
He folds up the last crane and then slinks off into bed.
---
Yaga comes into class the next morning and tells them that Suguru is taking a leave of absence for the foreseeable future. Satoru already knew but he still couldn't quite temper his emotions in check at hearing it straight from their teacher's mouth. He sees Shoko turn her head sharply towards him but he refuses to look her way.
He's not angry, but he's sour, just a little bit.
They're given the bare minimum regarding the mission that Suguru was sent to take care of, that he succeeded in exorcising the curse that was terrorizing the village but how the villagers insisted that it was the fault of two children instead.
"Children?" Shoko repeats, her voice low and dangerous. "They're blaming it on children?"
Yaga sighs, looking tired, "It's unfortunate but it's our lack of resources which led to the oversight of two young sorcerers left without protection."
"Not just two though. There's probably hundreds or maybe even thousands of us out there without help. If my parents weren't retired shamans I wouldn't have known anything about Jujutsu until one of you guys found me, maybe not even then."
He barely listens as both Shoko and Yaga start on a debate that's borderline an argument while he thinks back on his phone call last night with Suguru, the soft whimpers he heard that must've been from the children Suguru had found in the village and Satoru had been too selfish for his attention to let him go take care of them.
Shame bubbles up in the pit of his stomach and he gets up from his seat, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor loud enough to make both Shoko and Yaga stop talking and stare at him.
He takes the missions sitting in a tidy pile on Yaga's desk and leaves the room to get them done so he doesn't have to think about anything else. Shoko tries to follow him out but she's never been the type of person to chase for answers and gives up shortly after when his long legs widen the distance between them too much for her to be bothered with.
Days pass and Suguru keeps his promise of calling in the late evening but the conversations are short and almost curt, sounding tired and, at one point cuts off completely when a sudden cry pierces through the air loud enough to make Satoru jump in his seat and knock his knees on the underside of his desk, rattling everything on the surface.
Suguru texts back nearly half an hour later with just a single word saying:
- nightmare
And Satoru doesn't know what to reply to that so he doesn't.
He folds the chiyogami paper into cranes every night, half of his focus on the cranes and the other half on his phone waiting for something from Suguru. It's a little terrible how much he's clinging to the hope of wanting to receive anything from him, anything at all and he's aware now that Suguru probably has a point about the both of them needing space from each other.
He's folded 200 pieces before Suguru calls him again and he wonders if he's been keeping track, too.
"Hey," he says into the phone as he pierces the back of the crane with a needle and pushes it through to the other end, stringing it up with the others.
"Satoru."
"Suguru," he returns, holding back a grin as he takes another crane to string up.
"Those bottles in my room..." he trails off, sounding unsure, and it makes Satoru pause a little bit before he stabs himself with a needle from not paying attention.
"What about them?" He asks as he sets down the string of cranes and pokes the end of the needle into an eraser.
"I don't mind if you read them," he says in a quiet rush, like he's worried he's going to change his mind and take it back.
"Why?"
Suguru ignores him. "The three bottles out on the desk, you can read those, but not the bottle on the shelf."
"Why?" He repeats, trying to see where Suguru's coming from. It's a lot of trust to be given, especially for things he's not sure he deserves to know. He'd wanted to read them but that had been an idle thought. It's different when he's now given permission, almost like Pandora's box.
"I'm not ready for you to read that one yet," he tells him, almost purposefully avoiding the real question.
He eyes his own bottle on his desk, slowly filling up as the days and weeks pass. He figures, by the time Suguru comes back, he'll have accumulated a decent amount.
"Okay," he says in the end, willing to make a trade. "I've been filling up the bottle you gave me so, you can read those when you come back."
"Cool," he breathes out almost in relief. "Send me a picture of the cranes."
"Sure. I'm still stringing them up but later."
Suguru hangs up after a hum, and it's another short conversation but it feels a lot more substantial than the others as he picks up the needle and continues on his task of getting his cranes all in a nice row.
When he's got all four strings of fifty cranes hanging off the curtain, he takes a photo and sends it to Suguru before going to the room next door.
The three bottles are at his desk and he willfully skirts away from looking at the one tucked away in the bookshelf, popping all three corks open to spill them out onto the surface of the table before picking up five at random to read.
When the hell are we ever gonna use trigonometry in real life? This is bullshit.
Gentle as a dead friend's hand, resting on my shoulder - this autumn sunshine : Nakamura Kusatao.
I wonder if my parents regret having me for a son the way I sometimes regret having them as my parents.
I'm never going back to that restaurant out in Nishi-Ikebukuro ever again.
Hya! Hyo! Hyuhyoi! And she says we don't have common sense? Laughable.
He chuckles at the last one, thinking fondly of that day.
Carefully, he refolds them up to put them back in their respective bottles, leaving the other stars for another time.
---
It's hot and sweltering, feeling like it's practically the peak of summer even though they're already in autumn, and every step going back up to the school feels like he's getting closer and closer to the giant ball of gas in the cloudless sky. Infinity is good for a lot of things but warding off sunstroke is not one of them but that's when having Reverse Cursed Technique comes in handy.
He breathes a sigh of relief when he finally crests the top and he sees Yaga, Nanami and Shoko with some new kid a little too on the skittish side to be able to survive being a sorcerer, standing just a little bit hunched over with their arms held rigidly at their sides like like a little boy playing soldier.
"And who's this?" He asks and raises an eyebrow at the mousy squeak from the newcomer as he comes up behind them.
"This is Ijichi Kiyotaka, our new intake," Yaga introduces, "I expect you all to watch over him," he adds with a blatant look thrown his way that he refuses to make eye contact with.
Satoru slips down his sunglasses to take in the new kid and sees the way they're fighting hard not to tremble under his scrutiny. "Damn, you're gonna die so fast out there," he says and Shoko bursts out laughing at his lack of tact while Nanami grumbles his name in vain under his breath while their newest first year becomes even paler than they already are. He puts his glasses back up and waves it aside. "It's fine. I'll help you out," he grins as he swings an arm over the boy's shoulders and pulls him along. "Nanami, come with me. Shoko, you can do whatever you want and Yaga-sensei can do whatever Yaga-sensei does."
Ijichi tries looking over his shoulder imploringly at their teacher but Satoru's gonna show him that Yaga won't ever come to his rescue, no matter how much he begs - he'll learn this truth for himself sooner or later.
Surprisingly, Shoko follows along with them, looking amused and ready for another laugh while Yaga sighs behind them and mutters something under his breath before walking off, leaving the students to take care of the newbie.
"Okay, talk to us: what's your technique?" He asks as soon as they come across a training ground.
"Uhm," he flounders, looking confused as he grabs onto his elbow in a nervous gesture. "I don't know if I have one?"
He raises his eyebrows in mild shock. "No? But you've obviously been scouted so you must've shown some kind of promise to be brought to the school."
He purses his lips, an uncertain curl to his lips as he tells them, "A sorcerer found me inside his barrier of a...uhm, curse he was trying to kill. He said if I hadn't pointed out the curse behind him in time he said he probably would've died."
"X to doubt," Satoru says with a heavy roll of his eyes. "He probably said that to rope you into the idea of being a sorcerer - appeal to the hero that's inside all of us," he adds with no small amount of snide sarcasm. "There's a shortage, you know? Because we keep dying."
The new guy swallows hard, eyes going wider than before and somehow getting paler.
He's probably laying it on a little too thick but it's better if the new kid quits now while he's ahead and aware of the dangers if he doesn't think he can handle it rather than just die like a rat.
He holds back a sigh and decides to be a little bit nicer about it, aware of the dark glare aimed his way from Nanami. "Well, I can say you definitely have more cursed energy than the average guy out there but not enough to really imply you'd have a technique unless you have an ace hidden up your sleeves."
Ijichi shrugs, looking helpless and like he's starting to regret enrolling in this school.
"Obviously they're not gonna send you out on any missions from the get-go because that'll be dumb as hell," he says with a grin, "And you're the only one in your year group right now so chances are pretty high they'd pair you with Nanami for missions."
"What about Ieiri-san?" He asks, looking hopefully in her direction for assistance who only gives him an unhelpful wave paired with a sly grin.
"She's the healer so she basically stays put here at the school."
They give a slow nod before turning that hope towards him. "And...yourself?"
"The kind of missions they send me on are the stuff of nightmares."
The newbie sweats even more profusely now - hopes all but dashed to the ground.
"It's fine!" Satoru laughs, "For now just focus on school work, get the lay of the land and hope to whatever god is out there that they don't assign you a curse with a mislabelled grade."
"That happens?" He says after a very obvious gulp of fear.
"You have no idea."
"Gojo, stop scaring him," Nanami finally decides to cut in even though he doesn't deny any of his claims.
"You know I'm doing them a favour. If they can't survive then there's no point," he insists.
"I wouldn't say paralysing them with fear is much of a favour," Shoko quips, looking bored now.
"When it comes to fight or flight, even runners have their uses. The worse one is if you freeze," he says as he turns to them and lowers his voice in a near threat, "And I'm gonna make sure you never freeze."
The kid swallows hard against the growing panic but the one thing that surprises Satoru is when Ijichi nods gamely in spite of it and that's when he decides they're smarter than they look. And he's going to do whatever it takes to ensure their new kouhai doesn't die the way Haibara did.