Archive of Our Own ^beta

This is quite possibly the worst week of the semester for Suguru (so far), his beloved best friend (currently reduced to annoying fuck off flatmate status) is betraying him. Kicking him out (asking nicely) of his own house (it’s not his house, but they’ve lived here since they were twenty so it should be his house by now) it’s completely unfair (he said it was fine).

“I didn’t think you’d go so fast, you can wait till finals, Suguru.” Shoko lounges against his door frame, an unlit cigarette waiting patiently in her lips.

“I got a good deal on this place.”

Good deal, can be quite a malleable term.

There’s not much else said about it until they’re pulling up outside Suguru’s new house. The one he owns. Which is a pretty good feeling honestly.

She keels over laughing the minute they arrive.

“Oh my god, babe you aren’t going to last a single night in that thing.” She’s wiping her tears away and Suguru really doesn’t think it’s that funny.

“It’s fine,” he insists, “it’s just a bit.. old?” It’s honestly way bigger than he needs and so close to Tokyo Central he sort of overlooked the whole akiya thing.

“That thing is so haunted, you’re gonna get slammed into the ceiling by a demon, holy shit Suguru.”

“Ghosts are complete bullshit,” Suguru decides, “She just needs a little love.”

With a very optimistic amount of optimism, Suguru has high hopes for this year. He’s going to pass all his exams this time, and he is not going to let a supernatural force slap him through a wall, obviously.

Sure, when they’re unpacking Shoko says, I dunno buddy, bad vibes, bad vibes, and, like, she’s kind of right. It’s unsettled and stale but it’s also been abandoned for over two decades, so it’s fine. Probably. It’s dusty and cold and exactly what Suguru paid for.

“Good luck!” Shoko is way too happy about this, “Don’t call mommy crying when you have a nightmare!”

“Fuck off!” He happily calls back as she waves him off with her middle finger.

It’s fine, the house is great. It barely warms up when he lights the fire and he makes a mental note to check the insulation, but it’s his and he can make it into whatever he wants.

He calls his mom—not because he had a nightmare, because he wants to—and tells his parents all about it. His dad tells him about banishment rituals and Suguru only pinches his nose and refrains from calling him a very creative word or two.

He sleeps on his frameless rock fucking solid mattress close to the fire, and that's not so bad, he thinks.

Suguru doesn’t sleep well. The fire keeps dying out for some unexplainable reason. It’s only on his fourth attempt at rest when he spots it.

Firstly, he gags. Shivers convulse through him and Suguru’s fingers claw into his body to stop them. Irrationally, the primal part of his brain wholeheartedly convinces him that if he moves even a little, he’ll find death.

There’s a thing.

Like a whole fucking person peaking out from his hallway, except it can’t possibly be that because it’s defying the physics of light. It’s nothing. Its body is made of nothing. An abyssal mass, save for the eyes. Hollow holes of light. It’s fucking massive, tall and thin, it must be at least eight or nine feet, tilting its cold six-fold gaze at him. Somehow, Suguru knows it’s threatening. Or maybe it’s threatened, like how spiders are.

With no real motion at all, it’s just suddenly not there anymore.

Suguru is decidedly hallucinating. He only saw it for like, a sliver of a second, there’s no fucking way that’s real. No. He’s sleep-deprived. Not sleeping for over twenty-four hours is the same as being legally intoxicated.

He shuts his eyes and tries not to shake or cry or vomit or, like, all of the above.

Prevailing, Suguru grabs his katana. Sure it’s bamboo and merely a piece of fanish merch, but it sure as hell would hurt to get smacked over the head with. Because, y’know, solid things collide.

So he creeps down his hallway—his new very unfamiliar hallway—with a flimsy weapon, false confidence and the sheer force only cheap bamboo can create. He’s absolutely gonna kick the shit out of whoever’s here. Whoever this one hundred percent real solid person is.

As he steps, the walls grow tall. Thinning out like an imitation of limbs, coldly blowing animosity at him. Suguru feels. Right in his peripherals, attached to them even, moving with him when he darts his eyes.

Shaking and holding in his breath, expecting soulless fluorescent eyes to smite him, Suguru slowly approaches the mirror of the hall.

Because of course there has to be a fucking mirror in the hall.

The golden filigreed frame, it reflected the sun when it set over the front door. Now it threatens him with what he can’t see, teasing him with shadows that don’t promise him solace.

Suguru meets it. Meets his own horrified stare, wide-eyed. A moment and he thinks he’s the worst thing in this house. So it’s nothing. There’s nothing here. The walls are their normal height. They meet the ceiling in every way ordinary and logistical. They’re not stretching with intent to strangle.

It’s okay, it’s fucking fine, and maybe he’s hallucinating. He’s completely okay with that.

Suguru stands steady at the end of the hallway and breathes through it. Until, that awful nothing creaks behind him and he screams.

Full-on war cry, the feeble katana swings and strikes through absolute nothing, because what the fuck else would it hit but empty air? He throws himself around so hard that his katana goes through the plastered wall, the blade breaks at the handle.

“Oh. Oh no. Oh shit.” He’s going to die. “Fuck me then, I guess.”

So with his measly broken weapon hugged to his chest, Suguru bravely sleeps in his car. He doesn’t make it to his eight o’clock lecture.

“Shoko, Shoko help me.”

“It’s barely nine, fuck off.” Her voice breaks through the phone.

“Please, it’s haunted. It’s so haunted.”

“You bought it because it was haunted.”

“I bought it because it was cheap!” He corrects, hand flailing uselessly in front of him, grabbing the steering wheel like it might hold him back.

“I told you to call your mommy if you had nightmares.”

Suguru weighs the comedy value to bully material ratio before deciding against calling her mommy.

“It’s not a nightmare, Satan's purse dog lives in my house.” Momentarily, Suguru gaslights himself ever so slightly, doubting his definitely-not-but-entirely-possible hallucination.

“Are you scheduling me in for an exorcism?” She’s definitely shoving her face into her pillow as she says it.

“Pretty please?”

“No.”

“You kicked me out.” He tries, guilt-tripping her.

“I said you had like four months, fuck off.” She’s groaning into something before mumbling out something that vaguely sounds like, gimme a few hours, and hanging up.

Suguru still hasn’t gone back into the house by the time she shows up. Shoko’s carrying a box of what looks like a bunch of deranged wires or even broken electronics.

“Here, Iori’s really into this stuff, I don’t even know what half of it does.” She shoves it into his hands.

“Utahime, my replacement.” He snipes with no real intent.

“Iori, my girlfriend.” She follows him up the stairs.

“I'd better be your maid of honour.” He grumbles, not really upset at all.

“Only if you wear a slutty dress.” They both pause at the door. “Well..? Open it.”

“You open it.”

“No,” She snips. But not in a scared tone. More like it’s the whole principle of the thing, “It’s your demon, you open it.”

He opens it.

“Ladies first?”

“You chickenshit bitch.” Shoko rightfully sneers, and fearlessly enters first. “Wow, it’s way bigger than I thought.” She marvels at the high ceilings, meeting the arch above the beginning of the fateful hallway.

“Right? I googled it, turns out they tried to turn it into a couple of flats but there were so many unexplained injuries that they gave up. One guy even got paralysed after falling off a ladder.” He goes to kick his shoes off, then out of respect—fear—of his hallway, Suguru very carefully places his shoes on the genkan lip.

“Spooky,” She throws a judgmental look at him, “It almost sounds like this thing called gravity.”

“Okay, yeah, but it’s still weird.” He presses, “Yeah? That’s weird.”

“Can we go back to yesterday when you said ghosts are bullshit?”

“No.” Suguru drops the box on the bench. He pauses and looks around, the kitchen and living rooms have no wall in between, only an ornamental low beam to signify the different spaces, a hallway in the intersection. It all looks really open and inviting under the sunlight. “I turned the lights on.”

“What?” Shoko’s not even looking at him, rummaging through the assorted box for something.

“Last night I turned all the lights on.” He tests the switch, they work. “It flicked all the switches off, what the fuck?”

“Power-conscious ghost, I like it.” She snorts.

“Is this not freaking you out?”

“Nah, it’s funny how much you are though.” She teases and pulls a little black remote out. “Here,” she throws it to him, “it’s called an electric magnet whatever, ghosties make the pretty lights go on.”

“Great explanation.”

“You’re so welcome. Scary dark hallway?”

Suguru sighs into his hand, “Scary dark hallway.” He cowardly turns the light in the bright hallway on anyway.

He’s barely two steps in, explaining exactly what he saw, when the second green light flickers and he launches the EMF reader at her.

“Oh my fuck, you’re such a baby.” She holds it out for them instead.

Shoko pauses, holding a hand over her laughter in pathetic sympathy as Suguru sheepishly yanks the forgotten bamboo blade out of the wall, ears burning with embarrassment.

“Nice decorating,” She grins.

“Shut up, it was scary.”

“Uh huh, I bet.” She’s smirking that annoying fucking smirk.

“It was huge, like taller than the ceiling.” He gets out before swearing into the air.

Suguru swears his unholy, Oh, fuck that! Was entirely justified. He’ll swear it up and down, he’ll swear it on the life of his beloved childhood cat, Steve McQueen, something just touched his hair, his hair which is falling into his face because his hair tie has flown at least eight feet down the hall.

“You saw that shit right?”

“Yeah.” She quietly creeps up to it, holding out the little black box like the small band is going to bite her. Nothing. “Weird.”

She fearlessly picks it up and jogs back.

“Weird? That’s it? Does nothing scare you?”

“Centipedes, I guess.” She flicks the tie at him, “Oh, woah.”

That godawful box is flashing all its fucking lights at him like it’s pretending to be a Christmas tree.

“What the fuck, no.” He uselessly swipes at the air, “fuck off!” He glares Shoko down for cackling at his incessant batting.

“Ha! You’ve got a demon in your ass.”

“I do not have anything in my ass!” He shouts at the air, “Nothing here is allowed anywhere near my ass!”

The lights stop, he breathes, for a second, a single second, before there’s a loud bang and the hallway lights plunge them into darkness.

“Okay, so fuck that entirely.”

“Damn, your shit really is haunted.” Shoko laughs. Who laughs at a horrifying time like this? Cynical fucking sociopath.

He runs to the nearest light switch, ready to beg it back to functioning.

“Where are your breakers?”

“You really think this is a switch problem?” Suguru dishes her a very pissy, very defeated glare.

“It likes flicking switches.” She shrugs.

“Breakers then, I guess.”

Mournfully, Suguru stares in the vague direction of his unexplored garage.

This wouldn’t be a problem if he had a garage door opener, a lifeline to the sunlight. But no, he has to go to the basement garage by abhorrent stairs in a dark fucking closet.

“You go first this time.” Shoko shoves him forward.

“Shit no, are you serious? That is a demon hole!” He seriously does not think she quite grasps the direness of this situation.

“Go or I’ll push you.” She sounds far too serious for comfort.

“I hope you get charged for my murder.”

Slowly, very fucking slowly, Suguru climbs down the stairs, desperate for his pathetic torch to find the box. He almost makes it to the middle of the unfamiliar room, then it fucking dies. His torch fucking dies. Suguru almost dies, he absolutely passes out. The tall fuck off figure is crouched in the corner of his garage, shinning it’s six empty eyes with.. curiosity? Suguru doesn’t have time to dissect the complicated inhuman expression. His voice is bleeding with volume and he hits the concrete floor.

So, Suguru re-evaluates his position on the supernatural and tells Utahime he’s sorry he ever doubted her. She tells him to befriend his hallway ghost.

What the shit does that even mean? Is he supposed to coo at it like a stray dog? Is he supposed to talk to the air every time something moves?

One time he actually started cussing it out after it pulled his hair tie out nearly six times in a single morning, then the motherfucker decided to lock him in his bathroom until he was late.

It was even more of a nightmare when he invited Utahime over to do a seance and it started breaking all his plates, scratching them both, putting out her candles and incessantly tugging on his hair until he promised to never let her over again.

Yeah, so, Suguru did not stay at his house that night and made Shoko look at the scabs to make sure he didn’t get supernatural sepsis or some shit.

When he’d tried to repaint his living room it apparently didn’t approve of his shade of grey, relentlessly knocking things over, fucking shredding all his furniture.

Suguru—equally empathetically and insanely—solved this by getting a book of every test colour the store had and just accepted the fact he was going to be living in a blue house, every other page torn to ribbons.

Suguru’s final fucking straw was when he felt a tug on one of his gauges, freshly stretched, and he threatened to exorcise the thing. He received an apology in the form of, fuck you, scratched into his couch. Which was honestly more fascinating than it was concerning.

Really, his hallway ghost becomes something closer to an inconvenience than a terror.

Then, the evening he finishes his last exam, Suguru totals his car on the highway.

The memory itself is vague, he only really knows that when he woke up to a painful sterile white Shoko was calmly, loudly, pissily cussing at him with smeared makeup about how he should’ve called her for a ride, until security came to keep her quiet. Suguru can’t recall anything before or after the crash, but he remembers he didn’t think he was that tired when he left. It doesn’t really matter, the only victims are his poor shitbox car and his very broken bones.

It’s a struggle getting up his annoying steep stairs with a crutch and the horrific broken shoulder-elbow combo, but he decided he’d rather do this than be stuck on wheels for eight weeks, lord knows what his hallway ghost would’ve thought about that. He can already imagine the prick rolling the chair out of his reach and making him hobble after it. Yeah nah. Hard pass.

He probably would’ve thrown himself onto his bed if he weren’t covered in scrapes and had at least seven stitches in his forehead. So he carefully struggles himself out of his shirt and he’s definitely gross enough to warrant a shower. He only curls himself into his sheets and makes everything from his car to his sweaty hair tomorrow's problem.

That specific tomorrow, Suguru discovers a much, much bigger problem.

He opens his eyes and, honest to god, almost pisses himself. Swearing in every letter of the fucking alphabet. Suguru slams himself into the wall wincing as the muscles contract around his fractures.

There’s a boy. In his room. Leaning with his arms folded on the edge of his bed, like it’s not fucking weird to sneak into strangers' houses and watch them sleep.

“Oh, hi.” He says, unbothered, “You look like shit.”

“Who the hell are you? Get out of my house.”

“Your house?” His oddly perfect features crinkle with deep offence, rising to his elbows. “Get out of my house.” Those eyes are so blue it’s comical, they don’t even look real.

“What,” Suguru does not have the patience for this right now. “No, get out.”

“This is my house! I live here! Peacefully before you came along.” He leans farther towards him, Suguru can’t even move away unless he breaks the wall, he swings and flies straight into the mattress when his good arm meets nothing. “Stop wrecking my shit. You’re an idiot.”

The man just fucking leaves. Floats, He just.. floats away.

“Are you.. You’re my hallway ghost.”

“I have a name, dickhead,” He calls down the hall, not bothering to entertain Suguru’s revelation, his voice seems to pass through the walls instead of echoing. It’s uncanny.

Suguru pulls himself up with his crutch, hobbling as fast as he can after him.

“Hey, don’t fucking walk away, this hurts!”

“Bite me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be old or something?” Aren’t ghosts, like, always old? Is that insensitive? Is Suguru being ghostist?

“What, you want me to wear my Heian kimono too? Boring.”

“You’re.. from the Hei-” He sways. Heian? Suguru finally catches up to him, mind still reeling from a thousand years.

“Fuck, you are stupid.” The apparition just glides around, his dialect feels modern, more proper than Suguru’s, a little more traditional. But modern nonetheless. “Haven’t you ever heard of sarcasm? Or did that die with everything else good?”

Suguru can only watch in wonder as the ghost he’s supposedly been fighting for three months floats through the kitchen island.

“You just went through that.” He points out, dumbly.

“It’s one of my features.” His hair doesn’t sway or bounce or anything, like maybe it forgot how to move with the body it’s attached to.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re an asshole?”

“You live in a murder house, what do you think?”

He rolls his eyes, cold and bright. As threatening as they are beautiful. Like clear deep water. Swimming to rest on the ceiling, his simple white haori flows in whatever isn’t the wind.

“Oh. I’m s-”

“Annoying.” Scathing the word down on him. “And you look grody as hell.”

“Yeah, well, I kind of wrapped myself around a pole like three days ago.” The sympathy quickly drains from his tone.

“Thank fuck you didn’t die, or I’d be stuck with you forever.”

“As if.” He scoffs, turning tail, making his way to the bathroom.

The whole thing is fucking stupid.

He bought his own house, with money he worked damn hard for, and still has to deal with shitty roommates. It’s annoying, it’s pissing him off as much as he’s struggling to wash his hair, having given up a proper shower and just sitting with his cast leg out of the bath, but it’s better than nothing.

After, the worst part is trying to keep his hair out of his face, he didn’t even try tying it, not trusting his annoying ass hallway ghost not to yank the band out. He considered a claw clip, but that would surely get yanked too, and it would hurt, then considered just hacking his hair off entirely. He finds one of Shoko’s plastic headbands and thanks every divine being for it, then curses them for sending the fiend in the next room.

“You look stupid.” He hasn’t even stepped into the kitchen yet.

“I liked it better when I couldn’t see you.”

“Rude.” He clicks his tongue, “didn’t even ask my name.”

“You didn’t ask me ei-”

“Suguru.” The menace stares him down again.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Too late, Suguru.” He smiles, not a nice smile, a maniacal shit-eating grin.

He sighs into his hand, “Fine, who are you?” Resigned, Suguru runs through his morning motions, slower and shakier.

“Satoru Gojo!” He preens, like Suguru’s supposed to know who the fuck that is.

“Fascinating.”

“Huah!?” Satoru flips himself upside down, yelling the sound directly into his face.

“Fuck off, let me have coffee first at least.” He swipes a hand through this Satoru’s head.

“Coffee is only for pathetic humans.”

Suguru rubs a hand down his face so hard he’s sure his eyelids are going to tear. He makes a mental note to ask Utahime how he can slap a ghost.

Satoru pulls his headband out as he leaves.

It only gets worse.

Satoru keeps yanking his blankets off whenever he feels he deserves attention, most of the time Suguru’s too sore to even do anything about it, opting to freeze.

He misses mornings when he could wake up without violent blue searing his groggy vision.

“What the hell is your problem? Get out of my room.”

The plea avails nothing.

The power even went out every time Suguru went near his electric kettle that morning.

He’s given up on preserving his possessions, every set of chopsticks that meets his drawers shows up snapped or bent or melted. Satoru only incessantly tells him to stop destroying his house, declaring he’ll never relent until Suguru leaves, though somehow Suguru gets the feeling he’s a little too sociable to be at all serious.

Suguru is absolutely not getting kicked out of his own house.

“Does holy water work on you?” He asks with clear intention in his face.

“Need something a little stronger to handle all this.” Satoru flashes another one of his slightly manic grins.

“Salt?”

“Fuck off.”

So Suguru starts carrying salt around, flicking him every time Satoru goes near his hair or, god forbid, his gauges.

Effectively training him to keep his distance.

“Stop fucking doing that, I’m not a dog!”

“Then why is it working?” Suguru earns a satisfying scowl.

Over time, Satoru becomes gradually less annoying, whether it’s because Suguru’s bullshit tolerance is getting stronger or if Satoru’s (denied) social isolation issues are coming undone, he doesn’t know.

Suguru hikes his knees up on the couch, slowly watching Satoru glitter in the sunset beaming through all the high windows.

“Why aren’t you all.. stringy and bullshit bright eyes anymore?”

“Stringy?” Satoru’s eyebrows crease, he pettily puts the fire out again. “You’re probably empathic or something. It’s not my fault you were such a baby about it.”

“I wasn’t even-”

“Tell that to the hole you put in my wall.”

Suguru shuts up, and Satoru stares with a satisfied quirk of his brow.

“Go play your fucking bingo old man, leave me alone.” Suguru waves through his misty body and it does nothing to disperse his headache.

“Piss off, I’m bitchin’,” He declares, “Barely a day over twenty.”

“How old are you?” He asks without really thinking if maybe that’s offensive in ghost etiquette, then he decides he doesn’t care.

“My body?” Satoru floats around in the air aimlessly, slowly somersaulting in the evening glow. “Or my brain?”

“Both.”

“Twenty-two, just.” He drifts over Suguru, making him tip his head back to meet his brilliant gaze, clarifying, “In ‘89.”

So Suguru learns they’ve never been alive simultaneously at all.

“Do you feel older?”

“I didn’t get older.” Satoru’s lip curls into something of disgust, “on my fucking birthday too. Who does that?”

“Oh, that actually sucks, man.”

Satoru’s barely younger than Suguru, that idea sort of fucks him up.

“Did you just give me a pet name?” He’s teasing again, flashing a mocking grin.

“No, you ass. It’s, like, bro talk.” Suguru cringes. That was such a straight thing to say.

“Aw, stop it Sugu! You’re making me blush.” He mockingly presses his palms against his eternally pale face, drifts down to the floor in circles.

“Don’t call me that.” Suguru repeats, less honest.

Eventually, they call a truce, driven by Suguru’s declining sanity and inclining will to salt every windowsill in the house, they call a truce from sunset to dawn.

“So, can you leave the house?” Satoru looks up from the book Suguru is turning the pages for.

“Why would I do that?”

“For fun..?” He guesses.

“Boring, turn.”

Suguru doesn’t, continuing while he has a brief part of his attention.

“There’s this old-school arcade in town, it’s got a shit ton of original cabinet games, thought you might like it.”

“Because my dreadful youth was in the 80’s?” And honestly that tone is so unnecessary for Suguru’s polite endeavour, “I’ve never been to an arcade, don’t have any nostalgia for one. Turn.”

“Why not?”

“Nice people don’t really wanna hang with a yuppie,” Satoru enlightens, “Turn.”

Suguru doesn’t even know what that means.

“Do you wanna go anyway?”

“No, turn the fucker already.” He does, the next page fwips pleasantly under his finger. “Why do you think I’m making you do that?”

Shrugging, Suguru runs his fingers over the books edge, “Cause you’re annoying?”

“No, because it’s hard.” Satoru relaxes, mumbling out, “There’s a reason spirits stay in places they like.. or are attached to. I can’t be bothered turning myself into a fucking snowflake or something because I wanted to mash buttons.”

“That’s sad,” Suguru says, feeling the texture of the hard cover, wondering if Satoru could do the same if he chose.

“Stop brooding and shut up.”

Suguru does for a bit. Then he becomes so aware of the fact that Satoru doesn’t seem to blink. Wide bug eyes just dart around, flicking back and forward over the page like it’s the most intriguing thing in the world.

“Do you know where your grave is?”

Wide bright blue snaps up at him, Suguru almost flinches from the sharpness, “Are you always this depressing?” Satoru actually holds eye contact with him, making the judgment seep into his skin.

“I’m just tryna be nice, doesn’t sound like you have many people to honour it, or whatever.”

“The hell?” Satoru scathes, though not nearly as threatening now, “I was so cool.”

“You just said you were a lonely loser kid.”

Satoru grits his teeth, clearly contemplating his position on their treaty.

“You are way too normal about this.” He settles on instead.

Suguru drives his fingers into his bridge. “Fine, keep your secrets. Also, you have to go away tomorrow, my juniors are coming over.”

“No, just because you’re being annoying, I-”

“I will salt trap you in the basement.” He earns a glare.

“I’ll possess you.” He threatens, “This isn’t even your house.”

“You can do that?” Suguru doubts it somehow.

“Probably.” Satoru snips, “Turn.”

He told the students he was a TA for to just find someone else, but fuck if these three are anything but persistent. Actually, it’s more like two persistent sunshines and their stray dog, but close enough.

Said stray dog follows him to the kitchen when he lets them inside, the other two immediately run to his living room to preen about the original detailing around the fire. By some miracle, Satoru shuts up. It’s a bit unsettling actually. He goes all bug-eyed and floats around his juniors like they’re some strange new species.

“How’s your dad, Megumi?” He pulls enough cups out for all of them.

“Fine. He’s getting annoying without a proper sparring partner.”

Suguru laughs, “I think I’m going to be pretty pathetic for at least six months.”

“Did you..” Fushiguro trails off glaring at the boiling kettle. “How’d you crash?”

Underwhelming, Suguru scratches at his nape with his good hand, “Dunno. I think I fell asleep.”

“That’s dumb.” He fixes Suguru with a stare.

Nearly anyone else would have called it rude, but Fushiguro’s words come from a place of concern. He kindly ruffles his hair with his left hand, shaky and tired from taking on the responsibilities of both.

He turns, his feet slip out from under him, because Satoru is right fucking there, doing that upside down bullshit shoving his freak blue eyes in Suguru’s face.

“Get rid of them.” He demands.

“The fuck-?” He grips the edge of his bench.

Fushiguro’s on his arm immediately, “Getou? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He lies, breathless, “Yep. Slipped.” He walks through Satoru, ignoring him so he doesn’t look completely insane, but flicks the salt shaker on the island in warning. He doesn’t make a move on it though, only collecting his juniors to sit around his coffee table.

Getou can’t fucking focus through a single part of his tutoring, Satoru is incessantly poking at Itadori specifically, it’s a wonder the boy hasn’t shivered yet. He’s trying so hard not to look pissy at the air, but Satoru’s annoying voice is not making it fucking easy.

“Getou, my guy, what’s up with this vibe today?” Kugisaki leans back on her hands, balancing her pencil on her lip.

“Vibe?” He dumbly questions, hoping his agitation isn’t that obvious.

“You’re looking at the ceiling like it kicked your baby.” Fushiguro doesn’t even look up from Suguru’s notes.

“It’s.. just hot.”

“It’s January.” Kugisaki stares judgmentally.

“Eh, it is kinda warm in here.” Itadori stretches his arms above his head, dangerously close to Satoru.

He seems to finally act on the impending desires, his cloudy fingers move faster than Suguru’s mouth can form a warning, and Itadori is smacked into the floor.

The poor boy loudly swears, fruitlessly gripping at both his friends on either side of him as the menace tries to drag him over the floor.

He very nearly shouts Satoru’s name, catching himself and can only really throw a dirty look at him while the heathen glibly floats to his spot on the ceiling. Itadori—bless his resistance—jumps straight into a stance, ready to fight his offender.

“Yuji, what the fuck?” Kugisaki’s tone reflects Fushiguro’s stare.

“I swear something just touched me! I got like fully dragged!”

Fushiguro looks like he has some sarcastic question on his tongue, Suguru groans into his hand, and all three of them stare wide-eyed waiting for an explanation.

So, risking sounding like a fucking lunatic, he admits, “hallway ghost.” He drags his gaze back to where Satoru is creeping back to Itadori, “he’s socially inept.”

He earns a glare and his hair clip goes flying, as he thought, it gets tangled and yanks him back.

“Dude, I told you-” he gets cut off, Kugisaki gives a half hearted scream, Fushiguro looks like he’s ready to throw up, Itadori has some kind of deep fascination in his face.

“Is it nice?” The bright boy asks, the other two glare at him like he’s insane.

“No. He’s an absolute fuckwit.” Suguru glares directly up at Satoru, fighting the claw clip out of his tangled hair with his good hand.

“I want to talk to it!” Kugisaki flips her book, drawing a makeshift Ouija board in the back, digging around in Itadori’s bag for a marble. Honestly, she’s a little too resourceful.

“I don’t think that’s-” He tries to protest.

It’s too late, their hearts are set on it, and Satoru looks far too eager, he can only mentally prepare himself.

Satoru doesn’t answer any of their questions, he only pushes the marble to throw around scary phrases like, I’ll kill you, and, hell is in the basement. He earns a few terrified yelps when he spells Suguru’s name out.

Kugisaki bravely, stupidly asks which one of them is going to die next, Fushiguro immediately tries to take her question back, Suguru can only plead with his eyes.

At first, he’s shocked when Satoru writes out, Yuji, Kugisaki must’ve said his name at some point and he didn’t notice. The tormented boy shrieks when Satoru roughly yanks his hood again.

“Stop bullying Itadori.” He sighs against his palm.

“Itadori?” When Suguru glances up at the oversized hindrance, he’s met with confusion, or maybe malice, or both. “He’s a Sukuna.” Satoru stares at him like he’s completely and utterly wrong. Uselessly stupid.

“That’s Itadori.” He deadpans, he doesn’t have the patience for this, he’s only barely trusting Satoru not to genuinely try and hurt him.

“Your pink motherfucker killed me,” Satoru confesses. Claiming all the air in the room before he yanks again, Itadori practically pulls the table with him, not freaking out nearly enough for being supernaturally assaulted.

Suguru breathes in so suddenly he chokes on his spit. Obviously, Yuji Itadori isn’t old enough to have killed Satoru, but the possible connection between the two is throwing him in turmoils. He suddenly really doesn’t trust Satoru not to hurt him.

“That’s not even- what- Satoru, no.” He’s already grabbing his crutch, ready to physically get up and shoo him away, “leave him alone.”

“Can you.. see it?” Fushiguro seems to make the mortifying connection, but Suguru’s already given up all his psychological credibility.

“Unfortunately, near-death experience or whatever. Ask Utahime how it works.” He cringes at himself and gnaws on his lip, considering if he should ask Itadori if he knows anything about this supposed Sukuna. He doubts anyone would’ve told him about it even if they were related. He gives Satoru a final glare before he has a chance to grab his junior again.

Satoru doesn’t like that.

He rips the ouija page out of the book, but he must be getting tired because Suguru can tell he meant to do more damage.

“I think maybe we should finish before he starts breaking shit.” Suguru slams his book shut, “Sorry.”

“He does that!?” Kugisaki had long since wielded his fire poker to defend against divine force. Suguru has absolute faith that Kugisaki, a grown woman of twenty, could absolutely take on anything that lurks in the great unknown in a fight and win laughing.

“Sometimes.” Suguru sighs, urging them to collect their things, vaguely gesturing to his duct-taped couch. “He’s getting pissy.”

Usually Suguru would light heartily flick a few grains of salt at him, but he really, really doesn’t want to agitate this version of Satoru.

Kugisaki and Itadori practically drag each other to the door, fire poker wielded like a weapon of war, shouting vague threats.

“Yuji would kick your piss baby ghost butt!” She yells into the air, Itadori loudly agrees, despite better counsel from Suguru.

Fushiguro seems entirely unfazed by it all, Suguru can only guess it means he’s either entirely convinced of the supernatural and possibly psychic, or he thinks it’s total bullshit and is in heavy denial right now.

“Getou, are you sure you’re not like.. hallucinating?” Right, the latter then.

He meets Satoru’s pissed off pout over Fushiguro’s shoulder.

“I wish I were.” At least then he’d have a reason for people thinking he’s batshit insane.

Something passes over Satoru’s expression, it’s gone before Suguru can catch it. His eyes meld back into the hollow spectres they were when Suguru first saw him, extra sets opening on his cheeks.

Shock and almost surprise send chills up his spine when Satoru hisses, loud and echoey in the big room. Satoru peels his face back, fucking hisses at him and disappears. The sound resonates coldly under his skin.

“Actually, are your parents fine if I crash?” He does not want to sleep in the same house as that thing right now.

He doesn’t see Satoru for the two days he stays at the Fushiguros’, confirmation that he is, in fact, real, and Suguru hasn’t lost his mind entirely.

He’s welcomed into their home, immediately wrapped in Megumi’s mom's arms, fussing over how irresponsible he is driving while tired.

She brushes his hair out, braiding it out of his face properly for the first time in way too long She catches him up on the petty dramatics at her work. They both love shit-talking her boss.

Suguru probably would have stayed longer, but Toji insisted that he couldn’t neglect his form and made him do fucking one-arm one-leg push-ups, until his wife berated him for it. Megumi doesn’t show him much sympathy, snipping, I told you he was getting annoying.

He takes an angry haunted house over unrelenting arm-wrestling any day. He’ll miss the cooking though.

The door, faded and red, the old rusted handle switched out to a new copper one, taunts Suguru. He sighs, defeated.

“Satoru..?”

The house is cold, somehow colder than the winter air outside.

“Satoru~” he sings the name without any real response, but he can’t light the fire and his electric heater won’t turn on. He knows there’s no point in trying to fix or replace it. It’s not broken.

So Suguru wraps himself up in every blanket he has and tries to sleep. It doesn’t work. He’s shivering even suffocating himself in marino.

Begging for a little mercy on the sundown treaty, Suguru’s breath unfruitfully freezes in the air.

His pleading doesn’t warm him up, but at least it stops getting colder. The house soaks up the morning sunlight the next day, Suguru takes it as a good sign.

The good sign doesn’t live up to its name. He can’t open any of his fucking doors. Yesterday he had to beg Satoru to let him into and also out of the bathroom. His kitchen cabinets keep angrily slamming shut, he’s honestly fucking scared to put his fingers anywhere near them, fishing utensils out with tongs. Suguru’s starting to get really fucking sick of having cold-ass showers.

“Satoru! This is my fucking house too, it’s signed to my name!”

The rent-free motherfucker set his dinner on fire that night. Eventually, he’s going to get tired, right? He’s starting to consider actually salting the edge of his bedroom at the very least, but using that weakness to really hurt Satoru (beyond their bantering) feels a little cruel.

He thinks maybe the ice finally cracks when Suguru gets his casts cut off and Satoru actually trips him the very same day. Sure his bones aren’t broken now, but fuck it hurt to slam into his stupid wooden floor. He just gave up and lay there wincing until the throbbing in his head and his femur subsided. He gives Satoru the benefit of the doubt and just assumes he never broke a bone in his life. Suguru didn’t really see so much as he felt the guilty demeanour in the air, it almost could have felt like panic.

His bed was warm that night.

“Are you going to keep tormenting me, or actually talk?” Suguru speaks flatly around his coffee, leaning on his kitchen island. He has to go back to work next week, and he really doesn’t think he’s going to be able to handle a job and a pissy hallway ghost simultaneously. “I know you suck at this people thing, but, like, conversations are free.”

Satoru’s freak show blue appears barely a centimetre from his face and he fucking chokes.

“Don’t-” he coughs through his words, “stop doin’ that, fuck-”

He backs up and Satoru only fixes him with a hard stare, the secondary and tertiary eyelids, usually invisible, crack with malice.

“What is your problem?” He snaps.

Satoru doesn’t answer with words, but the house creaks with animosity.

“Is this about Itadori? ..Or Sukuna, I guess.”

“Gee, no, I really liked my murderer's dead ringer walking around my house.” He bares his teeth, rows of them, unusually sharp, he looks like he might hiss again or maybe just bite him.

Suguru might just deserve it.

“Well, I really liked it when you slammed me into my fucking floor.” Suguru argues, disgustingly proud of that guilty flick of Satoru’s eyes, “We’re even. I won’t bring him round again.”

Satoru’s still pissed, but he closes his mouth, the pout is a lot less threatening.

A few nights ago Suguru had searched the mysterious name and came across nothing but a singular overexposed mug shot from a count of arson, it was unsettling how much he really does look like his junior. When he didn’t find any link to Satoru, he’d searched Satoru’s surname instead, found only a rumour about a cold case of a wealthy businessman's son.

It’s an injustice if he’s ever seen one. Being tripped on tender bones doesn’t really seem like it measures up to Satoru’s death.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Satoru doesn’t apologise, he should, but he doesn’t. They recall their truce.

His hair ties start flying out again, now he finds the interaction more warm than annoying.

It’s nice coming home from work or suffering through his rehab with Toji and his house is already warm. He makes sure to verbally thank Satoru every time, not missing the way the air buzzes around him.

They fall into their practised routine again, but Suguru feels like there’s still some new wall between them, it’s thin, but noticeable.

He’s back to multitasking, flipping pages of Satoru’s books while studying, ironically this division of his psychology course is about severe delusions and every condition that comes with them, something he’s hopefully not suffering from. It’d be a shame if he had to go back to his Satoru-less life.

He flips the cover up to peek at what Satoru’s chosen from his collection today, “Why don’t you watch Netflix instead? I’m pretty sure this series got adapted in two-thousand-ten or something anyway, I don’t know what platform it’s on though.”

Satoru glances up briefly, lost.

“Can you use a touch screen?” Suguru prompts.

“You’re just saying words.”

Suguru laughs and pulls his phone out, it thunks on the other side of the coffee table in front of Satoru.

“See if you can do your poltergeist thing.”

“I’m not a poltergeist.” Satoru stares dumbly down at the block. He tilts his head cutely before smacking his palm on it. Suguru can’t help the little laugh that bursts up, he can’t help but notice Satoru looks proud of the sound. So much he does it again. Against Suguru’s efforts, he laughs harder.

With an exemplary tap, Suguru demonstrates the modern age, “Like that, can you touch it?” He doesn’t actually know what screens respond to, Satoru’s touch might be too cold or, like, intangible.

He repeats the action, tapping at the small icons, opening his photos. Tipping his head the other way too, Satoru preens at his success.

“Who’s that?”

“Shoko,” Suguru leans into his hand, ignoring the persistent ache in his elbow. “She doesn’t want to come here cause you rudely tormented Utahime when I brought her.”

“She was annoying,” He gives Suguru a bright eyed, satisfied grin. “Didn’t come back, did she?”

Suguru only rolls his eyes, letting Satoru get away with his bullshit. Habitually. He scrolls until he finds photos of his hometown, or his sisters.

“Why the fuck is it so clear? It’s like a mirror.”

“Phones have come a long way, if you can use this, you could probably use my computer or something.”

“This isn’t even a phone,” Satoru corrects him, “It’s a camera dipshit.”

“It’s everything. A TV, a phone, a camera, you can use the internet anywhere—that has an interface now, by the way.”

“I don’t like it. Turn my page.” Suguru’s phone flies back across the table, and Satoru mutters something about witchcraft. Suguru sighs and looks up the prices of second hand TV’s, tempted to see what Satoru thinks of modern technology.

Least it give him something to watch at night instead of Suguru himself.

Every time Suguru stirs in the night and his eyes crack open, they’re always met with Satoru’s fuck off shade of blue. And it, like, glows.

“If you’re going to hang out in here at least pretend to be asleep.” Suguru’s never going to get used to it.

“Is it better or worse to know I can see through my eyelids?”

“What the fuck?”

“I can see the entire house at once.”

“What the fucking fuck?”

“You really gotta tame that ass hair, my man.”

Suguru would’ve been comfortable going his whole fucking life without hearing that.

He has an early morning tomorrow, so he only glares and rolls away. It doesn’t stop Satoru’s looming presence drilling holes in the back of his skull.

“Satoru. Fuck off.”

“My house.”

“My name signed-”

“My name on the mailbox.”

Suguru flips to glare properly, and it’s true, because the mailbox is one of those built into the fence and he hasn’t bothered to replace the faded copper Gojo plaque drilled into the stone.

“Is that a challenge? I will pry it off right now.”

Satoru only stares at him flatly, they both know there’s absolutely no way he’s going to drag himself out of his bed right now to peel off a plaque that's been marinating in moss for thirty years.

“Then stop it with the eyes.” Suguru angrily flips over again.

Satoru does not stop it, and Suguru barely sleeps with the unsettling pressure of being watched. He considers adding the nuisance to the sundown treaty they made.

Once Satoru is introduced to the internet, Suguru starts counting the days before he realises his mistake. Suguru didn’t hear anything from him for nearly a week, when he’d finally gone to hunt him down and make sure his computer was still recognisable, Satoru hissed as soon as the door was open, nearly fourteen hours deep in the new trending slime videos that were plaguing YouTube.

“Chill out, you have to give that thing a rest or it’ll set itself on fire.” Suguru cannot afford a new computer right now, and with the new semester starting next week he was going to need his PC back anyway. “At least watch a movie or something.”

He switched over to Netflix, surprised how cold his desktop is, searching for something that’ll keep him entertained beyond the mind-numbing routines of slime reviews.

He needs something modern but absolutely not reality, Satoru would eat that shit up and be insufferable about it for way too long. He just opens the blockbuster tab and lets Satoru pick. No doubt whatever Satoru chooses Suguru’s  probably not going to like it. Satoru seems like more of an unhinged underground cursed movie enjoyer.

Satoru discovers something to be much, much more annoying about.

Suguru’s going to burn his stupid computer. This is his own fault, entirely, utterly, completely, his own fault.

Satoru won’t fucking shut up about Digimon, he’s already six seasons deep in it, but at least he’s too busy to watch Suguru sleep now. Still, he has not solved his problems as much as he has diverted them.

“I showed you the internet so you could get familiar with the decade or something. Not because I wanted you to beg me to find you trading cards I can’t afford!”

“It’s the experience!”

“Go outside and experience the sun, piss off!”

But Suguru is merely mortal and cannot control whatever divine force punished him with Satoru’s presence, so he sighed, resigning himself to hunt the internet for fucking treats for his goddamn haunted hallways.

With a long lamentable groan, Suguru complained about it to Shoko, sort of under the impression that she was so aware of his ghostly problems, which only ended in Suguru insisting, like, a lot of times, that he was not crazy, nor did he pertain brain damage and reminded Shoko of the whole super scary hair tie incident and Shoko slowly reminds him that sometimes hair ties just snap. Which is actually not what happened.

Shoko books him an MRI anyway.

And so, Shoko shoved him in a giant magnet and confidently said, This probably won’t rip the metal in your bones out, he learnt he, in fact, did have an awkwardly healed hairline fracture on his skull, which does absolutely nothing to help his confidence in his own sanity.

Honestly the band of concernees is getting a little too big and a lot too overt about it.

Fushiguro doesn’t even try to hide how crazy he thinks Suguru is when he tells him to say hello to Satoru too, otherwise he’ll get annoying and lonely, and probably break shit for attention.

“Just exorcise your supernatural cat already.”

Unfortunately, Suguru’s already resigned to his new reality.

Satoru had cackled, “I like this one, you should bring him round more.”

“Can’t, you’ve banned his boyfriend, he’s a little pissy about it.”

Once Satoru finally got it that his least favourite and favourite are a package deal, he started letting them both inside. Only on the very specific condition that Itadori is to never wear red or leather. Itadori—constantly clad in yellow these days, for Satoru specifically—waits out the apparitions insensitive baseless harassment. Satoru inevitably finds a new favourite, as the people who interact with Itadori usually do.

Itadori seems completely on board with the idea of ghosts immediately. Maybe a little too fast, spouting some weird paranormal theories about spirits being trapped in time or something and apparently the walls play memories or some shit and Suguru—who is balls deep in the supernatural plane—could not understand a word he said.

He also brought along some.. thing. A ghost box, Fushiguro dubs. Suguru doesn’t know what it does but every time Satoru taps it it lights up. Itadori spent nearly the whole night having a tapped-out conversation with him, while Fushiguro sat beside him, looking at his friend like he’d hung the goddamn stars.

Rude. When Suguru talked about his ghost Fushiguro flat-out asked if he was a nut case. What a way to pick favourites.

Sort of beyond the point really. Time passes, they have a thing going.. or something. A friendship. A totally normal inter-realm friendship.

Their peaceful bantering doesn’t last particularly long, Suguru goes and fucks it up again, as he inevitably does to every relationship he’s ever had. Bar Shoko.

Walking to his lecture like always, over the engraved brick path, Suguru was kicking a stone with a childish manner, sweeping it a little too far sometimes, but never missing.

He’s probably walked over these bricks every day for at least four years. For the first time, he does a double-take.

Just another unassuming pink brick, engraved, Satoru Gojo, The Strongest of ‘86.

Unmindful of the state of his knees, Suguru drops down right in front of it, he just lets his skin slam into the pavement. Jejunely, he expected something much more ceremonial to happen when he traced the grout. Satoru did that once. Satoru held this brick. Satoru put it in the ground. And absolutely nothing happened when Suguru touched it decades after.

Suguru shakes his head, eyes falling back to the tiny piece of history Satoru left behind. Tracing his hands over where Satoru’s once did. He used to study in the same library, walk the same halls, turn the same handles and kick the same doors.

Satoru Gojo really used to live.

Without really meaning to, Suguru reads the one below it too. Nausea reeks in his gut, making it turn over twice when he reads it outloud.

The King of ‘86, Ryomen Sukuna.

Classmates are one thing. The similarity suggests something much sicker. A rival, an equal, or a friend. Maybe all of those.

It should’ve been ripped out in ‘89. He’s fucking appalled no one has had that thought it three decades. That no one’s acted upon it. Not even Satoru’s parents, who are young enough to be alive.

And the whole thing just wrecks Suguru for days.

“You studied in Tokyo.” Never pausing scribbling notes into his portfolio or flipping Satoru’s pages when he speaks, “The Strongest, huh?”

“Told you I was bitchin’.” He smugly floats himself around Suguru’s head occasionally sweeping cold winds through his bangs.

“Actually,” Suguru snips, scribbling out yet another incorrect spelling of deindividuation, “I was gonna say it sounds like the kind of stupid nickname you’d make up for yourself.” Preemptively, he prepares for the cold was of malice that wracks his spine, doubling down anyway. “Be honest, did you buy that brick yourself or was it gifted?” Suguru smirks up at him.

“Rude, I won the national baseball tournament. Twice.” Satoru flashes one of his happy manic grins.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” He grins, patiently waiting for Satoru’s pissy offence to die down. “It’s weird to think you got a degree.” For some reason, it’s unfathomable.

“First, fuck off I was going to be valedictorian, also, I didn’t.” He flips himself upside down, bringing his face to Suguru’s, “on account of being dead as shit and all.” His tone doesn’t imply he’s that bothered about it.

Bravely, Suguru offers himself up to the monsters maws and hopes he doesn’t get bitten, “You were.. classmates.”

“We were friends.” Satoru’s voice goes entirely flat, he drifts to sit criss-cross on the table top.

“Is it bad if I rip it out?” I sort of already bought a shovel.

Satoru laughs, genuinely. It catches them both off guard. it’s a rare sound, no matter how annoying and loud Satoru is, Suguru’s only heard his laughter twice. It warms him up immensely, makes his chest feel much fuller than it could physically be.

“You should buy your own, replace it.”

“I already have one with Shoko, I could get another.” Suguru grins at the thought, he meets Satoru’s eyes again. He’s never going to get sick of Satoru’s face. “Were your eyes always like that?”

“Like that?” Satoru preens, lazily drifting around the air again, moving like merely a relaxed cloud in the wind. He splays himself with unnatural grace, infectiously fascinating to watch. “You mean all deep an alluring? Romantic? Gorgeous and threatening?” He supplies, “You think I’m pretty, Suguru?”

“You’re so annoying.” Suguru blushes. Which is dumb because there is nothing to be blushing about except maybe that Satoru’s right and Suguru’s thought so for a while.

Suguru braces himself and asks the hardest question that’s been eating at him. He stares very hard at a cursive, Identity.

“How did you die?” Suguru’s too much of a coward to look up, but he can feel Satoru’s emotions influence the house around them, discomfort, maybe surprise.

“We’ve been over this.” Satoru draws himself back to his book, back into his shell.

“How did he kill you?” He bravely clarifies, and Satoru snaps his book shut, letting the unknown force of the house pull Suguru’s portfolio from under his hands. It lands uncomfortably close to the fireplace.

Satoru’s lips pull into a tight line, but something in his eyes shows a desire to share the story. After all, not even the local papers told it.

“I can show you.”

“Oh? okay.” Suguru says, without really considering what he’s agreeing to.

“It might suck though.”

Satoru’s face betrays everything Suguru can feel, keeping steady while the air ignites in panic. He doesn’t get a chance to ask what that means before Satoru crosses his fingers and reaches for his skin.

“Wait.. what are you doing?” Backing up instinctively, Suguru fears him, “Satoru, what are you doing?”

Everything blacks out.

Suguru doesn’t know what the shit is happening but he knows he fucking hates it. He can’t feel the edges of his skin, all there is, is fear. Cold and chilling in a way Suguru’s never experienced, he’s in the dark garage, his knees crack on the stairs as he sprints out without a real reason why. All he knows is that he can’t be in that room anymore.

His wallpaper is not this colour. This wallpaper is blue and gold, an ugly vibrant floral pattern, this is the dank wallpaper he ripped down the first week he was here, but he doesn’t get a chance to glance at it, consider it. His eyes won’t listen to him, locked onto the bright red exit, a hopeful feeling almost glimmers inside him.

It gets crushed by laughter. Not even that, the pathetic hope gets fucking ripped out of his skin, in its absence he feels like he’s been gutted. He loathes the cold hysterics licking at his neck, reducing him to a useless sack of skin.

Something slams into his temple, Suguru doesn’t feel it exactly, but he slaps against the floor, a hand grappling at the varnished floorboards. That isn’t Suguru's hand. It’s paler, slimmer, the carefully cared-for nails split and bleed against the wood. He knows exactly whose hand that is.

Dragging viciously down the hall, Satoru lashes and fights with everything from his teeth to his toenails. Suguru wants to cry, but he can’t, his eyes don’t even heat up, this isn’t his life.

Did Satoru not cry?

He was so wrong about Sukuna looking like his junior. This thing isn’t even human. Hanging it’s sickening grin like an honourable artwork, eyes tearing at the seams, pupils blown wide, fucking enjoying the thrill.

Suguru would give anything to close his eyes, to close Satoru’s eyes.

Unable to move at all, he’s useless, he can’t run or scream or even fucking beg. Suguru is never going to be able to stare at his kitchen the same again, the red track painted on the hallway floor, on the half step, seeping into every crack, splaying over the island bench. Satoru’s body cracks violently when he’s tossed onto it. Suguru doesn’t count how many times the axe comes down, by the time he’d even thought maybe he should there were too many to count. That’s not even the worst part.

Satoru never closed his eyes. He watched, he never even cried for his own death.

Suguru will never forget the sickening repetitive thwack, thwack, the wet splats that followed each strike, or the harmony of laughter and screaming. The horrible shrill sound defaced Satoru’s bright tone.

His forehead hits his coffee table. Suguru’s second-hand coffee table that Shoko had found last year. The table that didn’t exist in 1989.

He barely made it to his bathroom before he vomited. He can’t even breathe anymore, each inhale catches like he’s still dying, like Satoru’s dying.

“Oh, fuck.”

Satoru floats mildly above him, his hair defying gravity as he drifts. Suguru shoves his fingers into his eyes until it hurts.

“Why would you-” he gags, the painful wet motion sends sticky chills through his gut, then he doesn’t ask his question. It’s really not fair to make Satoru relive something like that just so Suguru can get a pitiful version, censored of sensation.

He flushes, fighting off another dry wretch, swaying when he stands.

“Lookin’ a little pale, Sugu.” Satoru doesn’t share anything in his tone.

“Sweet fuck, I wonder why.” He grips the sinks edge, staring up at an unbothered Satoru, eyes burning. “You didn’t cry.”

“Would tears have saved me?”

They wouldn’t have. Hot water burns lines in his cheeks, an ugly sob wracks him.

“I’m- I thought you’d take that better.” Satoru floats until he’s directly in front of him again.

“Why would I fucking- take that well!?” He chokes, sobbing out this long deep sound.

“You knew I was mur-”

“I didn’t know it was-” he doesn’t finish. What the hell was he expecting? For Satoru's death to be as crystal clear and sterile white as his hair?

“It’s not like it hurt, right? It wasn’t supposed to hurt.”

“It- no, it didn’t hurt.. but I- you-” Suguru doesn’t know what he means to say. He wrings his eyes, he just needs to go to his bed right now.

Soon as he steps into the hall he has a disgusting realisation, Suguru glares widely down at the faded dark stain that he couldn’t get out of the floor. He’d unknowingly traced those tiny gouges, wondering if maybe they came from a chair or a shoe.

They were made by death and fingernails.

He can’t deal with this right now. He needs to rip his countertop off, pull out his floors, get rid of those dark stairs.

Suguru needs to lie the fuck down.

The door handle shakes violently under his fingers, it takes nearly four tries to open it. Barely stepping up to his bed, Suguru’s bad leg gives up on him.

Satoru stays with him, drifting parallel in the air, Suguru shivers with slick cheeks, meeting Satoru’s apathetic curiosity.

“Do you feel nothing about this?” Suguru accuses, curling into his sheets impossibly farther.

“Why do you feel so much?”

“I care about you!” Suguru screams, shattering his voice halfway. What a fucking moron actually. “Satoru- ‘Toru, you’re special to me.”

“Really?” Satoru's eyes blow wide, he drifts closer and Suguru has to roll onto his back to accommodate the proximity.

Suguru’s sure he must look like shit, sweaty and red with an ugly crease in his brow.

“Are you stupid?” He sniffs an ugly sound.

“I thought you hated me.”

Suguru stares up at him with angry disbelief.

“You’re annoying. I don’t want to be fucking m..” maimed, gutted and eviscerated so you can lie dead in cold blood, “..in my kitchen..”

“My kitchen.” He corrects with a weak grin. He could stand to be a little more empathetic at least.

“You’re unbelievable.” Suguru shoves a hand into his eyes.

Dry ice meets his wrist, it tugs. Suguru doesn’t understand what’s happening at first, he panics and writhes away from the unfamiliar sensation. His eyes find Satoru’s, concentration and concern. He reaches out again. Long icy fingers trace the panic and grief smeared on his cheeks.

“I didn’t think you’d be this upset.” It’s not really an apology, but it holds the tone of one, Suguru thinks the effort Satoru’s putting in to simply wipe his tears is plenty of remorse.

It’s so lucid. So real on his skin, when he tries to place a hand overtop Satoru’s it meets his own burning body.

“Oh.” He shifts to lean up on his side a little, wiping his own face as he goes. “Is that hard?”

Satoru hums, drifting until he could have been lying beside him. His translucent body doesn’t really shine in here as it does in the sun, that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful.

“Does that- when you remember it, does it hurt, or is it just scary?”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Satoru’s blues seem to emit their own presence, bright in a way that demands the room's attention. “I think, for a long time after I couldn’t.. think? I was just a thing.”

Suguru sniffs, crossing his arms over himself and wishing they were Satoru’s, “Stringy six-eyed thing?”

Satoru nods, his stare cast further than Suguru can hope to see, watching the distance intently before it flicks back to Suguru’s.

“What changed?”

“Some guy put a hole in my wall.” He glares without any real malice, the traces of a smile in his cheeks. “The idiot tried talking to me, made me feel like a person. Asked me questions and cared about my answers.”

Suguru laughs, it’s wet and his voice is still raw.

“Really? It was me swearing at you like a shitty roommate?” It’s hard to believe.

“Yeah,” Satoru’s smile is warmer than his skin could ever hope to be, “that was the start.”

Suguru tries to reach him again. He doesn’t meet anything solid, but as he passes through the translucent skin of his hand small tingling settles in his fingers. He slowly runs them up and down through his forearm and Satoru moves to accommodate him.

It’s a fascinating feeling. Not quite warm or cold, just something, a current of pressure.

“Do you feel that?”

“No.”

When Suguru meets his eyes again, he looks content despite the lack of sensation.

He thinks, hands aren’t really that sensitive, they’re so used to being in contact with things, the skin is thicker. He could try brushing his fingers through Satoru’s nape, maybe the soft backs of his knees.

“Is there somewhere easier to feel?”

“Yes.” There’s a small stilt in his voice. “I don’t think you’d want to see it.” He doesn’t miss the way Satoru curls around his core.

He already knows, he’s already seen all of it.

“Can I?”

Satoru carefully searches his eyes, his manifested haori dissolved under his will, the undershirt melts away when Suguru surely reaches forward.

He wouldn’t call the thing wrapping Satoru’s middle a scar. It never healed, it’s not bleeding either. Just an abyssal mass, more of a void than anything. Comprised of what must be hundreds of long thin lines, stray cuts mare a little higher than the line in places, the pattern carries through his forearms, telling a story of brutality, it feels like some sacred evil thing. Suguru wonders if a mere mortal like himself should even try to contact the malevolent divinity Satoru’s preserved in his body.

He glances up a final time, drinking in the unfamiliar look of vulnerability in Satoru’s face, before gently sweeping his fingers into the hereafter branded over his navel.

A shiver wracks his crystalline body, Suguru’s sure if he could breathe, he’d have made some kind of involuntary noise.

“Did it hurt?” He flinches back, “I di-”

“I felt it.” The sentence is as raw as it is simple. Satoru immediately grabs at his hands again, unfruitfully passing through them. Suguru guides himself to where Satoru wants him.

The abyssal flesh is nothing close to solid, but it holds a certain density, closer to water than the rest of his airy body. The motions of Suguru’s fingers ripple through the inequity, wracking Satoru as he feels for the first time since his death.

His icy grip burns on Suguru’s forearms in a rare moment of lucidity.

It takes an embarrassing number of seconds for him to figure out what happens after that. It can be easy to forget, Satoru doesn’t have lungs to sob from, or blood to colour his face in sharp gruelling red, but the currents his hands create ripple all the way up into Satoru’s eyes.

Suguru’s fingers reach to wipe the overdue tears, he makes a stuttering brief contact, the tear on his fingers burns, shocking him until it dissipates when the energy burns up, leaving it to be just another unfinished dead thing.

As he whispers Satoru’s name, and quietly asks if he’s okay, does it feel bad, does it feel good, does he want it to stop? He never gets an answer, Satoru doesn’t have one. He doesn’t know the difference between panic or shame or comfort, he hasn’t felt any of it since December of ‘89.

So Suguru rubs faltering touches into subzero skin, and slowly the draw of sleep takes him. Whatever Satoru had done to show him his death, it was closer to a dream than a true experience, he remembers it vividly, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it, but it’s closer to a nightmare than anything else. He hopes Satoru remembers it like that too.

He drifts away as searing cold tears shock the soft backs of his hands.

Something small changes between them then.

Satoru gets, like, clingy. And if he was clingy before it was a lie.

“Let me out.” Suguru repeats.

“You always leave!” Satoru wails at him, shaking the entire front door and every single window in the open space with his tantrum.

“Well, I spent all my savings on food and shit over the summer, Satoru. I need to work.” Uselessly, Suguru tries the copper door handle again. It’s not even fucking turning anymore, and Suguru just knows if he tries go through the garage, Satoru will trap him like a rat. “Lemme out! I’ll fucking salt the door, don’t test me.”

“No!” Briefly, Satoru bares his teeth, gnashing them in his face once, but Suguru isn’t afraid of him anymore so he just pissily swipes through Satoru’s face, “It’s bor—ring without you there.”

“Just.. do what you usually do while I’m out,” Suguru snips a little too sharply, “I have friends other than you.”

Satoru makes this weird clicking noise at him. It’s all sharp and Suguru knows it has a threatening intention. It’s so adorable. Satoru pouts and clicks at him and Suguru melts a little. He wonders if Satoru adopted some of those more feral mannerisms from spending so long as a mindless apparition.

“No.” Satoru whips in front of his face so fast that Suguru actually flinches back, smacking his head on the painted wood, “Stay.”

“No.”

“What,” Satoru says so flatly. It doesn’t sound like a question at all. “No.”

“Have you never been told no in your life?” Suguru snaps, yanking the handle again. “I need to go.”

“You’re going to make me wait here until you get back again!”

“Yeah, I am.” Suguru agrees, taking in Satoru’s pissy expression, and for a moment he sees hurt, “..Is that all you do? Wait for me to get back?”

Seriously trying to pry the thing open, Suguru swears and Satoru simply wraps himself around the warmer body, arms and legs circling him. Shivering under the cold tingling, Suguru can’t decide if he hates it or not.

“Don’t leave.” Suguru shudders as Satoru’s voice vibrates directly into his skull, feeling it more than hearing it, “You always leave now. It’s lonely here.”

“Satoru.. I’m not leaving you. I have a job, I have school, I have friends and a life outside. I just don’t have enough time to always be shut in the house with you anymore.” He explains, so wishing he could lean deeply into that touch, but Suguru’s going to dissect that thought later.

“When you’re dead you better not ignore me then.”

“Don’t say it like that,” He chides, affectionately, “You sound like you’re gonna curse me or something.”

“Maybe they’ll burn you for witchcraft and I’ll get to have you sooner.” Satoru fantasises.

“People don’t do that in this day and age.” He sighs, hoping and waiting for a rare flicker of lucidity to pass over the precious line where their bodies would’ve met.

“How fucking long ago do you think the 80s were?” Satoru hums, relaxing deeply, the house stops creaking and Suguru’s goosebumps dissipate smoothly. “Are you stupid?”

“I don’t know, man. There was a lotta cult stuff going on then.” Suguru purrs, relaxing with him. It’s honestly stupid how much Satoru’s emotions influence their space, let alone him.

“It wasn’t that bad.” Hands run their not touch all over Suguru’s chest, hooking over his shoulders without the tightness that should prevail, “I really would’ve loved to feel your heart beat.”

Suguru laughs and tries to reach for Satoru’s hair where it’s brushing cold pickles along his cheek. Of course, he never reaches it, his fingers only wind through his own, but if he thinks hard enough he could pretend it’s Satoru’s.

Now he’s standing here fiddling with his hair while forgetting to be angry.

“Satoru,” He coos gently, “Please let me out.”

Departures seamlessly become something Suguru has to allow time for. Mostly, if Suguru runs his hands all through Satoru’s body and slowly describes how he’d hug him goodbye, the door opens smoothly and easily. Other times, it ends in cursing threats and only once did it end in a salt circle around the door.

One which was kicked away when Shoko invited herself in and Suguru genuinely just stood outside the open door while she glared back at him. Searching the floor, the ceiling, she comes up empty.

“Fuck are you doing?”

“We’re fighting,” Suguru holds his portfolio tighter, “He’s going to eat me.”

Shoko stares at him so flatly, “You’re fucking scared of your houses hebbie jebbies?”

Defensively, Suguru straightens out his collar, because he’s already decided for himself that he’s actually not crazy, “You’re having a very hard time with this haunted thing, aren’t you?”

They stand and stare dumbly for a moment, both of them coming to the realisation that Suguru is, in fact, scared of the newly disturbed threshold of his home.

“Are you actually not coming in?” Staring him down with deep judgment—which is honestly so disrespectful, Satoru should give her a good scare for that—she sighs, “Get in here or gimme a light.” She’s already pawing his jacket open.

“What happened to yours?” He flips two cigarettes out anyway, a Seven and a Marlboro, they started mixing their boxes back in high school.

“Iori,” Shoko mumbles around the smoke while Suguru holds the lighter over the tip.

“It’s sweet,” Suguru soothes, staring hard into his daunting oversized house while he lights up on his front porch, “she cares about you.”

“She is not going to care about me if withdrawal turns me into a right cunt.” Her smoke surges through her nose with a huff.

He almost tells her he thinks Utahime could be right about at least a small recession in smoke breaks but he’s not really brave enough to fight her right now.

“Cunt is misogynistic in that context,” He points out.

“I am a woman, go die.” She snaps, then adds, “Good boy.”

He goes to light his own, the Zippo won’t light. It won’t even spark. At first, he just goes ham on it until his finger starts burning, but there’s definitely fluid in it.

Satoru is glaring at him, just peeking out from the top of the doorframe.

“Can I have that?”

Shoko easily lets him light his on the end of the other. He makes sure to give Satoru a pointed look of triumph. Childishly, Suguru blows smoke straight through him, even though Satoru can’t possibly smell it, he still cringes, floating out of its reach. He’s honestly quite surprised Satoru didn’t just rip it out of his lips, maybe he’s not as powerful outside of the house. He doubts Satoru’s holding back to avoid embarrassing him in front of Shoko.

“What are you looking at?” Shoko crinkles up her nose.

“Who do you think I’m looking at, Sho?”

He earns another dramatic eyeroll, “You’re way too normal about this.”

Suguru laughs, shaking his ash off the side and into the gardens he hasn’t bothered to deal with yet, “Satoru said the same thing.”

“He’s right.” She copies Suguru, phone in hand, sucking in the last few before slamming the butt down on the rail Suguru was not particularly planning on repainting, “You know, homeowners usually exterminate pests when they move in.”

“Don’t call him a pest.”

Waving her hand nonchalantly, Shoko fearlessly walks through the threshold with this look that says she’s not waiting for him to put away the pissbaby attitude any longer, “If he weren’t a pest he wouldn’t have been pre-exterminated in nineteen-eighty-whatever.”

“He can hear you.” Suguru cringes as Satoru floats towards Shoko with some new fascination with her hair. He’s really hoping Satoru doesn’t tug it.

“Dude. What the fuck happened to your kitchen?”

He sways, ducking away from Satoru’s threatening, though probably harmless swipes at him, “What d’ya mean?”

Suddenly, Suguru becomes aware of the mess in a way you only do when there’s a judge present.

“..DIY.. impulsive DIY.”

When Suguru had cracked off the cultured marble—his original plan had been to reseal it—the sickening old wood top underneath showed its unweathered surface, the marks made it look closer to a chopping block than a countertop. So he’d tried his very best not to fall into the grip of anxiety and torn the whole thing off. He cried about it when Satoru just mildly watched him throw it in the backyard and burned it.

“It uh.. didn’t go to plan.”

Shoko fixed him with a hard look, like she didn’t believe Suguru could even be impulsive.

“There’s also uh.. a hole in the hallway.. there’s a mat on it, so it’s probably fine.”

“Why?”

What kind of reason is there for pulling seven floorboards out?

“Creative intuition?”

“It’s this your weird ghost shit again?” She scathes.

“You said you believed me.” Suguru almost feels wounded, anxiety claws at his skin. Shoko’s opinion is actually very important to him. Ten years of friendship will do that.

“I believe that you believe you can see something.” She turns around again, settling for snapping a coffee cup directly on top of his counterless island.

Suguru gestures vaguely from Satoru to Shoko, who only shrugs like, The hell am I supposed to do? Suguru flips him off and walks to help Shoko with the very broken kettle.

“I don’t have time for this,” She declares, “You’re here to help plan Iori’s birthday.”

“What about my birthday?” His is way closer than Utahimes.

“Did breaking all your bones not give you enough attention this year? Your highness, oh great Suguru Getou?” She drawls, sloshing hot water over his makeshift bench without any care at all, “Shut up before I send your pathetic pansexual butt back to Sendai in a box.”

Suguru silently stirs his coffee, trying his very hardest to ignore Satoru’s exaggerated cackling. That was, like, pretty unnecessary honestly.

The third rolls around and at first, Satoru just keeps zipping around the room like, I get Suguru to myself all day, Suguru you’re mine now, Suguru, lets hangout all day, Suguru, Suruguguru, and Suguru had to go and break his heart and leave.

“You’re fucking bullshitting me.” Satoru seethes.

“‘Toru, I have people waiting on me.” Though, this time Suguru retraces his growing habit of stroking through Satoru’s hands, wistfully twisting his fingers through the abyss scarred on his arms, finding deep Satisfaction in the shiver he earns. Sometimes he wonders, if Satoru could blush, would he? “I’m sorry, Satoru, we can spend all day playing board games tomorrow.”

But right now, Suguru has so many shots to work his way through. Twenty-four of them, specifically.

“Fine,” He snaps, clicking his teeth just to be sure Suguru knows how pissed he is, “But you better feel guilty knowing that I’m just going to be sitting here.” And Satoru plops right down on the floor, crossing his arms and legs with a scowl. “Waiting.”

Trying his damn well hardest to slice Suguru to ribbons with his gaze, Satoru curls up his shoulders and makes the whole house reek of malice, but the pout is just a little too much.

“You’re the cutest, Satoru.” He gushes, “I’ll be back before midnight, ‘Toru.”

“Promise?” He spits, something a little hopeful swimming through layers and layers of deep blue.

“Promise.” And Suguru waves him off.

The promise gets shattered into about a million pieces when Shoko’s card gets eaten by the ticket machine at the station and Suguru’s, like, at least fifty percent sure his wallets in Haibara’s bathroom or something. Probably.

Somewhere between Shinjuku and Chiyoda, at almost twenty past two, Shoko breaks her heel and Suguru’s like, Don’t even worry about that, I’ll just go bare foot, and Shoko tells him his sense of direction is so dead and buried it’s practically a tripping hazard in hell, so she just fearlessly flicks her hair at some guy with a fuckboy car and he drives them home, and at first Suguru was like, Maybe I should write my fucking obituary, but Shoko spent the whole drive telling him all about the most efficient and traceless ways to kill a man, so, like, okay a guess.

“Gimme ya keys.” Shoko almost trips right over the rail.

Dumbly, Suguru pats her pockets, “You don’t have th’ keys?”

“Why would I have your keys?”

“Hm,” He stares, squinting, thinking like really hard, “Satoru!” He knocks, “Satoru, can y’open the door?”

“Stop,” Slowly and slurring, Shoko slams her palm down on his arm, “Sugu, your fucking ghost isn’t gonna-”

The copper handle rattles twice before the door creaks open.

“See,” Suguru preens, “He’s a useful pest.”

Instinctively, Suguru looks up, finding a very, very pouty Satoru curled up on the ceiling.

“You’re late.”

“M’not,” Suguru denies, fucking with the lock for a little too long before he shuts the door again, “It’s the witching hour, m’right on time.”

“The witching hour is bull.” Satoru enlightens, watching Shoko stumble her way to the kitchen, mumbling, Stop saying odd shit, Suguru.

Following, a tone more clumsy, Suguru slips on his eviscerated cultured marble.

“Shit, I think I need a chair.” Suguru grips onto the counter edge, cracking the fuck up for no reason other than Shoko’s face when she sneezes into her water.

“You’d fall off your face and break it off.” Shoko manages through her giggling.

“Thats not even a sentitentce.” Suguru grips his stitch. His laughter came in short uncontrollable gasps.

“A senti-ten-tice!” Shoko throws her head back. Suguru can’t even squeak out a shut up.

“Sweet fuck- I can’t breathe.” He’s practically swung himself over the island. As their giggling dies out, post-cackle nausea hits him like a freight train. “Fuck me. You’re dumb.” He tells Shoko, “Your face is dumb,” He shakes his head, with his last few chortles.

“I am,” She corrects, messily wiping water from, like, everywhere unsuccessfully, “So hot.”

“You are babe.”

When Suguru catches her eye he mockingly wiggles his eyebrows, earning a scowl and a middle finger. Suguru rolls his eyes, laughing into his hand.

“I’m- you know where my room is..” He stretches and sways, snatching up a water bottle that's probably lukewarm by now, “Imma sleep on da couch.”

“Ae, ae, cap’ian,” Shoko swears vaguely down the hall and he’s pretty sure that means she tripped on the rug.

Suddenly, he flinches so hard he almost drops the bottle and himself onto the floor when Satoru’s fuck off blues are in his face again.

“Stop sneaking up on me, Jesus.” Suguru rolls his head back, slamming into the couch and regretting not slowing to the pace of his brain, resting his incoming headache.

“Why don’t I make you laugh like that?”

“Cause you’re not funny.” He chuckles out loud. Satoru doesn’t share the sentiment, he doesn’t really look hurt, more annoyed. “Is that a real question?” Suguru lolls his head to meet the apparitions gaze, trying to blink through the alcohol haze. “You ain’t known me very long, this last years just been hard.”

Satoru sinks, he doesn’t break their eye contact, considering Suguru’s slightly slurred words with more care than the brain they came from.

Satoru says something. At first, Suguru thinks he’s tilting his head in question, then he sees it’s actually his whole body, slowly tipping into that upside-down thing he does, almost like he’s anxious. Suguru head tips with him, subconsciously trying to keep their faces parallel, but of course, his neck only goes so far, so he just tips over as his slow brain catches up with his body.

“What?” Based on that expression, he really probably definitely should’ve been listening.

“Is it because of me?” Satoru snaps. It’s sort of like that pissed-off caring thing Fushiguro does.

Suguru doesn’t understand the question. He slowly runs every one of the words through his mind. Because of what? Satoru doing what?

“What?” He asks intelligently.

“Are you stupid?”

“I’m fucken wasted, chill.” He rubs his fingers against his temple, sinking farther into the couch cushions. “Is it ‘cause of you? It being hard?”

“Yeah.”

“Like- annoying me n’ shit?”

“Sure.” Satoru floats directly above, parallel to where Suguru lies. The considerate position for Suguru's neck is much appreciated.

“Nah.” He slowly pulls at his hazy brain for the right words, “you, like, being around.. is easy.”

Satoru doesn’t interrupt, but he’s falling closer, those baby blues are starting to feel all fuzzy in his frontal lobe. A weird itchy feeling, but that doesn’t matter, Suguru’s supposed to be explaining his feelings or something, not staring at airy skin with some starstruck look or whatever.

“I was worried—when I moved—I was worried it was gonna be too quiet.” Lethargy weighs his eyes as he blinks. “I get stuck in my head a lot.” Absentmindedly, Suguru brushes a hand over Satoru’s cheek, there’s no real contact but that doesn’t matter. “You.. keep me-” He clicks his tongue when his sentence escapes him, “You make it easier.”

It’s vague but it’s about the best he can do right now, he drops his arm onto his chest, turning his head to a comfier angle.

There’s no weight to it when Satoru drifts down, but the familiar cold where their bodies would have met still sends chills through Suguru. His head falls into Suguru’s chest, lacking only warmth. A small smile tugs at his face as he shuts his eyes and just dozes for a moment.

He doesn’t know how long he’s out for, but when Satoru’s translucent body starts flickering in and out of sub-tangible he feels significantly more lucid.

“You got older today,” Satoru says, like maybe Suguru would forget that.

“I did.” He’s twenty-four now, “Twenty-four sounds a little too serious for me.”

“Dunno,” Satoru jokes a little sardonically, “Never had that problem myself.” He smiles, warmer than his skin will ever be again, “Promise I won’t ditch you when you get all wrinkly and you drop your six pack.”

“Don’t worry,” He drawls, “Pretty sure the pecs are permanent at this point,” Suguru blinks at Satoru’s ever-open eyes, wondering again, “If you could blush, would you?”

With that cocky self-assured thing Satoru always has about him, doing everything like people should get out of his way first, he smirks, “You asking if I like you, Suguru?”

“Not really,” His heads all full of fuzz, jostling his brain with every breath. Belatedly, Suguru thinks he should’ve taken the opportunity to flirt with him, “More.. do you miss being warm?”

Slowly, Satoru watches him, his rising chest, where the heart beat Satoru’s already mourned being unable to perceive drums away. Sadly, he whispers, “Of course I miss being alive.”

“What do you miss the most?”

Lazily, Suguru goes to stroke his hair, and they both forget that it can’t happen. Satoru tries to ram his head into it, he passes through Suguru’s wrist.

“Fresh bread,” He says rather dully, “Sweets. I used to love sweets.” Satoru blinks in time with the ticking clock, “Brown paper. The smell of it. I had a Nissan. Miss my car, I guess.” When he speaks, Satoru’s eyes never leave his, “I miss feeling that moment right before you need to change gears and the whole car starts shaking a little. Like flying. I miss being moved.”

“Moved,” Suguru repeats, because it’s not quite the same as being touched.

“Having.. an environment.” Satoru mumbles, an afterthought by whisper, “A place that remembers I exist.”

Suguru thinks about the wallpaper he’s torn off, all the defiance he faced while doing it, every wordless argument they had before they truly met.

“You didn’t want me to change your house because it still has you in it?”

Frictionlessly, Satoru shrugs against his chest, “I thought if everything I left here disappeared I might too. Like, if I were forgotten, I would just..” He makes vague little circles in the air, faded out into nothing, “But now, I don’t mind, as long as you don’t forget me it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Almost, with the low light of the fire Suguru has no memory of lighting, his skin is very nearly shining golden. Satoru would’ve been just as beautiful alive, Suguru decides.

“How much effort would it take to hug me?”

The question, as innocent as it is complex, seeps deep sadness into Satoru’s perfect blue.

“Maybe next October, when the veils thinner.” Satoru pauses, considering Suguru’s lazy fingers that keep brushing through the slightly thicker atmosphere where Satoru’s earlobe would’ve been, “Maybe if I bound myself to you instead of my house.”

Before Suguru gives himself a chance to be fearful about it, because he knows he’s thought of it before, he bets Satoru has too, and he blurts, “Will you kiss me then too?”

His nose crinkles up like it's an instinct, it takes Suguru a long time, and maybe a little bit of offence before he figures out what this unfamiliar expression means.

Shyly, Satoru whispers, “Are boys allowed to do that yet?”

Suguru just wants to wrap him up, squeeze him until all the hurt is gone.

“Sometimes. In some places.” Suguru admits, “As long as it’s not in public, most people will leave you alone.”

“You’d look pretty dumb kissing air in public.”

Suguru doesn’t realise he’s laughing until his apparitions giggling in response, instinctively, trying to cuddle himself into Satoru and by an absolute lick of faith, Satoru solidifies right then. They cling together so tightly, locking each other around waists and pulling on hair. Roughly and desperately making each other feel as much as they can, pain or not.

Three seconds. The first, Suguru tries so desperately to shove his face into Satoru’s hair, only to discover he still cannot smell him. The second he spends fatefully grappling for Satoru’s face, getting his chin up and tilted just right. The third, their lips pass through each other instead of colliding.

“Fuck.”

“I’m sorry.” Satoru floats above him again, letting Suguru shuffle, “I can’t do it on purpose.”

Softly, Suguru reaches for him again, Satoru draws forward as if Suguru’s palm could even do that.

“Here,” Satoru offers, coaxing Suguru’s finger with his own, he guides him inside, lining Suguru’s fingertips up with his lips, “Now.. just pretend it’s me.”

“That’s the cutest thing, Satoru,” Suguru melts, and draws himself up to give Satoru a peck, barely hitting his fingers at all, but Satoru does this fast little blink, shaking his head like he’s nervous and Suguru just knows, if he could blush, he would. His hair all flies out, nonsensical to gravity, Satoru stutters twice before he speaks.

“You can’t be so fast, that’s embarrassing, Suguru.” Satoru admonishes him, then goes right back to his chest, hand dancing through Suguru’s, shocking him with barely there icy touches, “You’re so embarrassing.”

“Crushes do tend to do that.”

“Whatever,” He snips, denying, “Crushes are for dweebs, I don’t have a crush.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” He coos, slowly running his fingers through his wispy body until he hits water, and Satoru makes a beautiful sound. “‘Toru,” Suguru's voice gets entirely drowned by the song of a mangled whimper, he just wishes he could brush back Satoru’s hair and kiss his forehead, “Satoru.”

“Shut up,” He seethes, sinking a little inside Suguru’s body like he wants to feel the feedback so bad he’s rejecting the impossible, “Kiss me again.” He demands, “And don’t be embarrassing about it this time.”

But obviously, Suguru can’t, so instead he just spins little circles through Satoru, talking him through all the places he would kiss, touching down his neck and through his collar, reminding him and describing the feeling of a sucked nipple or a bite to the ribs, right until he can stroke through the rift in his abdomen, getting Satoru up, getting him over his chest, and really kissing up on his navel, the only place with sensation is perceptible at all.

“Okay,” Satoru admits, hugging his own body like Suguru is, hugging themselves and pretending that's not quite it, “Maybe,” He stresses, “Maybe I have a tiny crush on your stupid bangs.”

“My bangs are awesome.”

Satoru, in a moment of lucidity, jabs him right in the jugular notch, calls him an idiot, and then promises to chew them off in eight months.

“You better not forget me before October. I’m putting my existence in your hands here,” Satoru chides, leaking a scent of trust all through the shared home.

“And I will treat it with care,” Suguru promises.