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That December’s cold as all hell, and Suguru drinks tea in such quantities that Yaga introduces a limit on how much drinking water a student can use up in a day. The sun fades by half past three, the campus is almost empty to the point of almost feeling hollow, Suguru leaves to the woods on its premises and sneakily smokes, finding shelter on a huge stump in the middle of windbreak. His fingers are shaky from the cold, and his knees are numb, and.
There’s a perpetual lump in Suguru’s throat.
There’s this vile thing in his life that is his cursed technique, and, like—on the one hand, there should indeed be some reason and good in that, but; on the other—any mission of his ends up with him doubled over the toilet for a couple of days, feverish, down with flu or whatever the hell else, and then a reasonable question comes up of why the fuck is he even expected to keep doing it. At missions Suguru gets a rush as if he’s a poker player—his heart rate over one-fifty and his pupils dilated to the brim, a lump in his throat, all of them not caused by anxiety but anticipation of something. Something doesn’t ever happen, he winds himself up to the point of nothing being able to match the things he wants, and he purges the lump in his throat along with his breakfast, seasoned with the cursed taste of his newly acquired possession.
Suguru’s rarely late for their classes, he plops down to the right of Shoko, props his head up on his folded arms and stares at the ochre-orange three-o’clock sky over Tokyo through the classroom window. The dim winter sun is too lazy to keep itself at its zenith, and Suguru agrees. Yaga enters the classroom, as always, half a minute before the class starts, hisses curses under his breath, lays out the cursed corpses on the desk, and the plushies stare into the student’s slouched figures with their glassy beady eyes. There’s only three of them in the grade, but Yaga doesn’t trust them so much that there’s always at least a dozen of the dolls in the room, all of them ready to slap the ever-living shit out of them. Tea is also forbidden in the classroom—apparently, humidity makes the wood of the doors expand and break down faster. The continuous slamming of them into the wall by the sensei, of course, is not to blame. Then, he arrives. The arrogant, vain piece of superhuman with a messy head of hair, oh, yeah, Getou was overjoyed by his own despise towards the boy in his first couple of weeks of being in the college together. The all-encompassing greyness that has suddenly decided to be the Strongest, despite the fact that even in primary school Suguru could beat the absolute shit out of him in some inconspicuous alley if they knew each other back then. Getou Suguru doesn’t swear a lot but when he does, it’s because Satoru enters the classroom ten minutes late, disheveled and flushed, his jacket done up one button off or his perfectly white shirt covered in stains of coffee droplets, grins towards Yaga with all twenty eight of his teeth, and falls down onto the chair to the left of Shoko. She is the anchor and balance here, without her Suguru would’ve murdered Satoru on the third day of knowing him. If Gojo Satoru is a tousled sly sparrow that can’t sit still, then Getou Suguru is a lump of anger and gritted teeth, and there’s surely something there from his cursed technique, indeed. A perfect team. They fight, and they destroy, and they heal and they eat, and.
The orbs of curses stick to Getou Suguru’s throat, fight him, and try to get out.
That December is so cold that the newly bought winter boots don’t help his frozen feet. Suguru hides in his room, eats popcorn and does pull-ups on his high bar while watching another cheap-looking samurai film. The outside is drowning in sleet, the windows are all covered with the crust of not-yet-ice/already-not-frost which smells of ozone and, just a tiny bit, of exhaust fumes of Tokyo traffic. In theory, Satoru, just like Shoko, has his own dorm room. It’s just that Satoru, not like Shoko, doesn’t really care for being polite or the concept of personal space. He barrels into the room with the wave of ice-cold air, shamelessly takes over the desk with his notebooks, sits down at the laptop and takes up all of the sockets, criticises Suguru’s taste in cinema and chews loudly as he eats onigiri—it’s something about the taste receptors being in the back of your throat or something. Suguru rolls his eyes. Satoru taps his fingers against the desk, makes a report about their latest mission for both of them. Satoru’s fingers are always cold, even in the sauna that is Tokyo in July, not to mention how cold they must be right now. The knuckles are almost blue underneath the translucent skin, Suguru watches all of it from the corner of his vision, trying to seize the rotten taste of the curse he’d swallowed earlier with the second bucket of caramel popcorn. Caramel doesn’t really go well with the bitter trashcan-adjacent taste, but it does go well with the smell of Satoru’s perfume—the sandalwood, and cedrat, and seasalt, and, like—
Gojo Satoru has knuckles that are blue from the cold, icy eyes and perfume that’s between turquoise and aqua blue.
Getou Suguru has shaky fingers and a taste of popcorn on his tongue.
On New Year’s Eve, Satoru bursts into his room with a whole bag of sweets, three boxes filled with dango and yakitori, and proclaims, “I also ordered some sukiyaki, Suguru!” Sets everything on the counter and doesn’t leave any free space, dances to the sound of music he undoubtedly has in his mind, struggles to do a pull-up on Suguru’s high bar even once, sighs, and waltzes towards Suguru. “What have you been up to without me?” Satoru’s voice is also blue with a hint of turquoise, soft and velvety if he wants it to be, and sharp—if he doesn’t. Suguru’s voice is rough like sandpaper, covered in bleeding friction burns from hundreds of cursed orbs. Every time his vocal chords touch he feels like coughing, and it’s bitter and astringent to the point of reddened cheeks. Satoru breathes almost into his lips, enough for Suguru to feel that his breath smells of freshly smoked cigarettes and, of course, seasalt. Suguru has this unbearable urge to tangle his fingers in the blonde hair. It’s rough like hay and is sticking out in different directions, curling slightly at its ends. Oh how eagerly would he pull it the hell back, baring Satoru’s thin sinewy neck, and.
Getou Suguru has three thousand strongest curses inside him and one Strongest name stuck in his throat.
That December is cold and dry, and then the January that comes is humid and wet. December cold eases its grip on the city for a brief moment, and now Suguru has to carry a miniature towel with him to wipe the sweat and condensate off his forehead. He’s once again in the forest and in his head—appears in his room for about seven hours, of which six are spent sleeping. It’s otherwise impossible with Gojo in the same college, otherwise he intrudes into personal space, clings onto you like a leach and insists on going to Asakusa, and to the question why answers, as if it’s blatantly obvious, “The crowd, Suguru.” Suguru doesn’t understand and doesn’t want to bother about it too much, but Satoru has sharp shoulders, and cold hands, and a stupid habit of being nauseatingly annoying, so he finds themselves on their way to Asakusa at ten on a Sunday morning, and who would’ve thought that the subway could be that empty. Shoko sleeps on Suguru’s shoulder while Satoru stares at the city that’s quickly passing by the train’s window. Sometimes, when he’s this silent staring at something in the distance, Suguru’s almost in love. Almost—not because he wants some angst or something else taken from Satoru’s books that he devours one a night while he’s lying across Suguru’s futon and not letting him sleep. Almost—because it’s impossible to truly love Satoru, and Suguru’s ready to genuinely feel sorry for anyone who would sign up for that.
Asakusa’s always loud, crowded and drowning in the smell of food. Satoru’s thin shoulders in front of him masterfully manoeuvre in between the stalling tourists. In this jostling mess Gojo feels light and sonant, in his element, all the while Suguru grits his teeth and feels his throat ache from the trashcan-tasting reflux. He chokes down the thorny lump, trying not to lose sight of the fragile and angular figure, swathed in the dark fabric of the college’s jacket. At some point the thin ice-cold hand grabs his, warm and big, so tightly that it feels like it’s gonna break it any moment. Pulls, and pulls, and pulls him through the crowd—and so fast, too, that Shoko behind Suguru barely manages to follow, clinging onto the hem of Suguru’s jacket and trying to somehow balance out the asshole who’s pulling them forward. Satoru stops in front of some tea house, smiles with all of his twenty eight teeth, his smile velvety and cobalt-blue—in it, the corners of his mouth turn up and his upper lip curves into a satisfied arch, not at all like when he grins towards Yaga,—dances around Suguru, “Come on now, buy your te-a-a-a,” and.
There’s always the taste of matcha in Suguru’s mouth.
The only thing Gojo craves is destabilising people, covering stuff up, withholding information and yapping on and on, manipulating them, bending the world to his will. If Gojo Satoru were a normal person, he would have thousands of curses around him at any given moment, but Satoru is the goddamn Strongest, and sometimes Suguru wonders whether all of those shenanigans are anything at all, whether his status really has to do anything with it. Fingers-through-fingers—Shoko rolls her eyes, and Suguru’s back is all goosebumps and his forehead is covered in cold sweat. Satoru starts another one of his lectures about some idiotic manga he’s read recently, skips down the street, holding Suguru tight, and Getou feels like he’s holding onto a condensed cloud of chaos. Fingers-through-fingers, three hops down the street, and now Suguru’s head aches, ink-black dust collecting in the corners of his vision, the vocal chords don’t work, and he wants to go home, even though damn Satoru will get to him there as well. Getou buys a pack of cigarettes and smokes three one after another—Satoru steals one more, Shoko hesitantly agrees to take the fifth, and—there—the half of it is gone already. The subway ride home feels shorter—it’s always like that, going one way feeling longer than it actually is, and all that. Getou enters his dorm room, loudly, almost demonstratively slams the door, exhales. Satoru Gojo behind the wall turns up his music, and the thin materials that the dorm is built out of does an incredibly bad job of keeping the noise down. Suguru imagines Satoru pulling off his shoes, unbuttoning his jacket and taking off his perpetual glasses in favour of a thick bandage that allows him not to see the surroundings. Suguru imagines Satoru’s fluttering movements in the space that he knows by touch merging into a singular dance-like entity, a curse of sorts, oily pearly orb that Suguru would be so scared to swallow—not because of the taste, but because of the implications that eating it could have for his, Suguru’s, “fragile spirit”.
Gojo Satoru has pearly oily movements, endless emptiness at the tips of his fingers, and slender arms, and.
Getou Suguru’s fingers are shaky.
The spring bursts into Tokyo with the night rain shower, grey glow in the cobalt-blue—like Satoru’s smile—night sky. Suguru makes himself mulberry tea, Yaga sets out his dolls in the middle of the classroom and introduces them all to Panda. Satoru comes in late for the class, gives Suguru the cigarette he’s borrowed two months ago back, grins towards Yaga and squeezes Panda’s soft plushie body so hard as if he’d never had toys in his childhood but always wanted some. His eyes at that moment are filled with puppy-like excitement, Suguru licks his lips, prepared to curse at the idiot so that he’d sit down and calm down, but Shoko beside him mutters something Satoru’s way and he falls down by the other side of her like a salt-and-sandalwood-scented avalanche. Suguru feels like he’s been doused in water, he holds his breath and closes his eyes, thinking about the fact that later in the evening Satoru will come to his room and try—to no avail—to do a pull-up on his high-bar, dance to some Europop and, of course, fall asleep across his, Suguru’s, futon. And it will be warm.
Suguru watches One Piece in the evenings, and when Satoru, like an oceanic breeze, wanders into his stifled, musty-smelling personal space after seven, he ruthlessly spoils plot twists, giggles uncontrollably at the idiotic moments and tries to explain even the most obvious. Puts his ice-cold fingers onto his shoulders, squeezes softly, breathes down his neck, and Suguru feels hairs stand up along his hairline at the back. At moments like that, Suguru’s ready to accept the existence of Gods, which he would otherwise object. At moments like that, there’s an ocean raging inside Suguru. Satoru props his pointy chin up in the dip between Suguru’s trap and clavicle, his hands elegantly flow down the lines of Suguru’s wide shoulders. He stands like that—doubled over, putting all of his upper body weight onto the spot on Suguru’s shoulder—for a minute, and then suddenly plops right in front of Suguru, covering up the view of the screen.
“Suguru, if you could eat only one fruit for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
Suguru thinks of aquamarine eyes and sandalwood that cocoons him. He licks his dried lips, the corner of his mouth twitches as if he’s holding in a smile (when, in fact, he’s trying to collect himself). If Suguru Getou could, he’d hate Satoru so much that the Heavens would split open and swallow the boy whole. If Suguru Getou could, Satoru Gojo would sleep across his, Suguru’s, futon every night. Satoru Gojo’s lips taste like dango, Suguru thinks.
“Peach,” he says, nevermind the fact that if he could, he’d live only off of Satoru’s matcha, vanilla ice cream and strawberry-flavoured kisses. Instead,
Getou Suguru’s eyes shut close and his eyelids flutter.
Gojo Satoru plops across his legs onto the futon, his angular shoulders and slender neck fit perfectly into the curves of Suguru’s thighs.
In the April haze, Tokyo smells of gasoline and burnt oil. His feet stick to the bitumen of the asphalt as they approach the location of their latest mission, and he curses through gritted teeth watching as Satoru, in his blindingly white shoes, floats towards the building’s entrance, not leaving footprints. Sometimes Suguru’s not in the mood to put up with all of these stupid tricks like infinity between the soles of snow-white Converse shoes and grimy asphalt. That’s when Satoru, dressed in his impeccable white shirt and white shoes, goes on and kills four dozen curses with a single movement of his pale hand, ruthlessly demolishing the inner scaffolding of the buildings and watches everything around him fall to ruins with that unblinking, unwavering heavy stare of his. That’s when Suguru’s hands go limp and his tongue goes numb, and his lungs struggle to expand for air. Fucking maniac, that’s who Satoru is when he gets into it too much. The only thing left for Suguru to do is swallow the rotten-tasting cursed orbs that float his way.
Yaga frowns but shakes their hands, Panda laughs in excitement as he throws the ball with Satoru. Shoko bites the inside of her cheek, and there’s a dimple that becomes visible on the outside. Suguru’d love to report success but the only reason they’ll be able to get away with two dozen human corpses is that Satoru cried when he told Yaga about it, and if that’s not something to make his, Suguru’s, never-dormant fury flare up more.
Then Satoru comes into his room and leaves his icy fingerprints on his shoulder blades, sending waves of goosebumps circulating throughout the entirety of his, Suguru’s being, lightly bites his neck and instantly licks the bitemark away.
Then Satoru looks him in the eyes through his bandages and says that Suguru smells of home, and his breath hitches somewhere in his windpipe, reifying as a familiar lump stuck in between the sensitive tissue and provoking an uncontrollable desire to cough out his lungs. He forces a smile—a tiny gesture compared to Satoru’s grin—and his fingers, acting on their own volition, touch the pale soft cheek across from him. Satoru lets out an almost blissful gasp and leans into his hand—his face is just as ice-cold as his fingers, cobalt-blue and breeze-scented, but the corners of his mouth curl upwards and his upper lip straightens into the graceful arch, and the parts of his cheekbones that are free from the bandages flush bright pink. If Getou Suguru could, he’d take a Polaroid photo of what he’s seeing, to carry it in the chest pocket right beside his heart for the rest of his days.
It’s April in Tokyo outside, and they’re sixteen.
In the confines of this stuffy dusty room with his hand on Gojo Satoru’s cheek, Getou Suguru’s ready to say that he’s happy.
Okinawa seems like a beautiful, miraculous break in this entire story. Getou Suguru couldn’t even begin to ask about something like this, but now here’s Gojo Satoru in his Hawai’ian shirt against the background of the blue waves and a piña colada glass, and he can’t think of anything else for some reason. It’s hot—sticky and salty, as it always is, but still Tokyo’s May heatwave doesn’t compare. He taps absentmindedly against the rim of the glass, and the taste on his tongue and in his throat is for once not rotten but akin to Satoru’s kisses—all tropical fruit and drunken stupidity, sky-blue tongue and sharp eyes. The voices echo around the beach in curls of ocwanic foam, salty crystals of high frequencies and ringing bells of empty temples. One day, Satoru and him will find themselves on the ocean shore, just the two of them, no need to guard or fight anyone or anything, no need to be responsible for someone else’s life when they’re still not sure how to be responsible for their own. He pulls Satoru’s sunglasses down from his forehead to the bridge of his nose and leans his head back onto the sun chair. Behind his closed eyelids, he pictures the two of them, but older (and wiser, he wants to believe), sky-blue lines of Satoru’s smile and sky-blue glow of the background. He pictures his own flushed cheeks and sandalwood scent coming off the Hawai’ian shirt which he will use to pull Satoru closer to himself, and the taste of orange juice and dango on his lips and neck. If Getou Suguru could, Satoru wouldn’t be babysitting Riko Amanai right now, but would be right here with him, enjoying the taste of the salty breeze that’s stained Suguru’s neck.
One day, when it’s all over, Suguru’ll decide to leave the college and all of his ideas of noble patronage of the defenseless behind, and that’s when, he hopes, he will take Satoru to some abandoned manor in the mountains so that he could breathe easy and be calm for once, so that there would be no rotten taste anymore, and instead there would just be the humid air of the woods and the blues of Satoru’s eyes. In his now, Riko Amanai’s shrill laughter scares the birds that hide in the foliage on the edge of the beach, and Satoru runs up to him, steals half of his cocktail and ruffles his hair, “Why are you sitting down, Suguru, look at you!” And runs off to build his sandcastles with her.
That night, Suguru will watch the remnants of sunlight fade beyond the edge of Okinawan ridge. Gojo Satoru’s icy fingers will land onto the back of his head, slowly waltz their way towards his shoulders. A brief blue dango-tasting kiss will be left on the crown of his head.
And then nothing will go as it is supposed to.