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“You’re breaking up with me?”
Suguru’s fist clenches, twisting her trouser leg into a knot. The caustic hurt in Satoru’s voice is to be expected – her girlfriend is nothing if not a tempest. But she hadn’t prepared herself for how starkly human she looks in this moment, sitting in front of a frankly terrifying number of chicken tenders, washed out under the fluorescent lighting, a smudge of ketchup in the left corner of her mouth. Suguru would rather Satoru smite her with Limitless, lit up like a Roman candle.
(It’s worse than tearing off a limb. How is she supposed to let go of her like this?)
“Please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be,” Suguru sighs, turning away, picking at the chipped laminate on the table. Satoru huffs.
“I’ll make this as difficult as I damn well please,” she hisses, flinging a half-eaten strip of chicken back into the basket. “What the fuck, Suguru?”
“It’s—for the best. Please understand—”
“I don’t. You’re being ridiculous! This is coming completely out of left field.” She pauses. Deflates. “It’s not coming out of left field, is it?”
She’s right. Suguru’s been distancing herself for weeks now; months, even, withering like an expired bouquet on a dusted windowsill. Half wanting Satoru to find her, half hoping she’ll turn a blind eye until Suguru’s thoroughly rotten. Except – Satoru doesn’t know how to turn a blind eye, famously. Denial, though…
They’re both well-versed in that particular discipline.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and she is. “But I can’t do this anymore, Satoru. Shamanism. Our… relationship. I’m going to leave, and I don’t—I don’t want you to follow me.”
In the last year alone, Suguru has come to know several unequivocal truths:
She is not the strongest. Satoru – awakened, divine – is the strongest, as is her destiny. And Suguru’s destiny, something she had once thought she held dominion over, is to be pulverised between the teeth of a time-honoured machine. She’s no different from the other fodder. It would be doing herself a disservice to keep pretending otherwise.
As such, they are all marked by death. Everyone, everything, dies eventually, but sorcerers play on the underworld’s driveway; the ammonia stink follows them everywhere. Suguru has spent every night since Riko’s brutal execution thinking of all the ways she might be slaughtered. The list is interminable and extensive. In a world of curses, there are many gruesome ways to die, each one more terrible than the last. The only thing worse than visualising her own demise is visualising the demise of everyone she cares about – including, notably, the girl she loves.
(Because, despite what they all think, she is not invincible. This is a lie of Satoru’s own manufacture, one so compelling, so flawless, that she’s even fallen for her own farce. Suguru knows better. Knows that when Satoru finally goes the way of all flesh, the shock of it will sear more than the pain.)
But the most recent of her epiphanies is the one causing her the most heartache. And the epiphany is this:
Suguru is not a boy. She never has been. Seventeen years of her life have been swallowed up by a pantomime of masculinity that she only recently became conscious of. And, just to be contrary, this enlightenment came in direct opposition to all her other miseries – via Satoru.
(So pretty, Suguru, she whispers like a secret, long, manicured fingers threading through Suguru’s hair. So pretty, Suguru, she exclaims, reverent, leaning down to blow Suguru’s nail polish dry. So pretty, Suguru, she avows in the dark, licking the taste of herself from Suguru’s mouth, pressing them both flush, singing endless praises—)
Each time, euphoria like static, like light. Each time, another piece of herself falling into place. Each time, a joy that screams like fear and a fear that screams like joy.
Because Suguru has seen it, the way the world of Jujutsu treats its women. Has seen it with Satoru, especially – a girl her clan didn’t want but was nonetheless their divine champion. Raised both with pride and with shame. Wholly disgusted with the carnal parts of herself until Suguru introduced her to a different sort of worship.
This is a breed of prejudice she refuses to subject herself to. The world is already cruel enough. If Suguru is to pursue this – girlhood, freedom, herself – she needs to leave sorcery behind.
(To leave Satoru behind.)
“You’re… leaving.” Satoru blinks, long, slow. She looks so painfully lost. “Alone?”
“Yes. I have to.”
“And me?” She grips the table’s edge hard, knuckles shocked white. “What about me?”
“This isn’t about you,” Suguru grits out, and – it’s not. Not entirely. Maybe, if Satoru weren’t the Six Eyes, the greatly acclaimed wielder of Limitless, the cynosure of Jujutsu society, Suguru would feel able to ask the impossible (come with me, come with me, come with me). In that universe, she might even beg. But to do so in this one is absurd.
Besides, Satoru is heterosexual. That’s never been in question. And Suguru has never, not once, been an exception to a rule – not in death or sorcery, and definitely not in love.
“Of course it’s about me,” Satoru argues. Her eyes are glassy, tears teasing at her waterline, and gods – Suguru isn’t sure she’ll survive if her girlfriend starts crying. “You’re leaving me. Am I not good enough to stick around for?”
Her stomach twists. “That’s not—You’re perfect, Satoru. You’re everything. It’s me, I’m not—I’m not good enough. I don’t have it in me to keep watching people die. To keep putting my life on the line, for—” She takes a deep breath. It shakes on the exhale, but it doesn’t matter. She has to keep going, to finish. “For what? The cycle of violence will continue. It’s a marathon game with nothing but death at the end of it. I can’t do it, Satoru. I won’t. That’s why I’m leaving – nothing more.”
There’s quiet in the aftermath. Satoru, watching her, the discordant clamouring of the restaurant swelling into a crescendo. People blathering, children shrieking, chicken hitting hot oil and being ground to mush in people’s mouths –
The Six Eyes narrow, blistering, blue. “You’re lying.”
“Satoru—”
“No. If you’re going to abandon me – this, us – at least do me the courtesy of being honest.” She crosses her arms. Glares. “A lie of omission is still a lie, Suguru.”
She shakes her head, feeling a little frantic, a little desperate, now. “What do you want me to say?”
“Something more original, maybe. ‘A marathon game with nothing but death at the end of it’?” She laughs. “Please. As if that’s news, Suguru. You’re telling me it took you three years to figure that out?”
“You’re being cruel.”
“No. I’m angry.” Sure enough, there’s an electrifying lurch of energy. Like a thunderstorm’s overture, the air is thick, alive. It’s neither a threat nor a senseless display of power. Suguru hasn’t seen Satoru lose control like this for a long time – not since she died and came back a bona fide goddess, sacrosanct. “Tell me the truth.”
The thing is, Suguru hasn’t said it aloud yet. Not even to herself. She’s mouthed the words, over and over – in the mirror, beneath the shower, alone in bed. She’s traced the shape of her body and acknowledged the innate wrongness of it, sketched fantastical versions of herself in the margins of textbooks, but – she hasn’t given it voice. Because to give it voice is to make it tangible. Real. It fosters consequences, opens her up for retribution.
Except, she wouldn’t even know if it weren’t for Satoru. Her girlfriend – her peculiar, loud, exceptional girlfriend – held up the mirror completely unwittingly. It’s only fair she understands the extent of what she gave Suguru, the weight of the words she spoke.
(So pretty, Suguru.)
“I’m—” She chokes, the size of the confession too large. She hates that she doesn’t know the sound of it, yet, that she didn’t practise it before this moment. But for whom? Satoru’s never appreciated a script, not when her very existence is dictated by one. So, in the end, isn’t it about raw simplicity?
“I’m a girl.” Three words, said plainly and subdued, and yet they have her folding at the waist, stomach aching. “I’ve always—I realised. That I’m not a boy. That I’m… a girl.”
Satoru doesn’t ask her to repeat herself, to clarify. She just stares, face still as stone. Time stops its forward motion, the whole world soundless, airless. Their table in this KFC, in Shinjuku, Tokyo, is a microcosm. Nothing else exists.
Then Satoru opens her mouth and says, “And?”
It’s so unexpected, so… anticlimactic. The lack of impact makes Suguru feel vaguely sick. “What… do you mean?”
“Is that supposed to change something?” She shrugs, so casual it’s aggravating. “I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to break up with me.”
“But—” She makes a strangled noise, leaning over the table and lowering her voice. “You’re not gay. You don’t like women—”
“I love you, Suguru,” she says, then gasps, a hand over her mouth. “Or—Sorry, is there a different name you want me to use? I didn’t—”
“It’s okay.” Her voice is thick, a marble in her throat, because of course Satoru is saying all the right things – so out-of-character and only days after Suguru resolved to detach herself, run away. But then, hasn’t her girlfriend always been delicate when the situation truly demanded it? “I haven’t really… thought about it yet.”
“Do you want help?” Her hands twitch, almost eager. Like she wants to be a part of this – like it’s exciting and not the most terrifying revelation Suguru has ever had. It soothes the cruel, hateful thing in her chest. It paints the world in softer colours. It makes her feel like everything might be okay. “We should pick something pretty, don’t you think?”
(So pretty, Suguru.)
Suguru sniffs, trying to catch the hot, oncoming tears with her fingers. She fails. They come heavy and fast, torrential, soundless yet still gutting. But before she has the wherewithal to collect herself, Satoru is there, cradling her jaw, mapping the curve of her lips with her thumb. “Oh, sweetheart,” she coos, then kisses her forehead, her nose, the hollows beneath her eyes. Suguru has never felt relief like it. “Why were you so afraid?”
“Not of you,” she admits, heavy, sorrowful. “Never of you.”
Satoru hushes her. Draws her in, Suguru’s head pressed to the soft part of her stomach. “You know I’d always protect you.”
She nods. Wraps her arms around Satoru’s waist. Her girlfriend’s blue button-down smells sweet and floral – lavender, white jasmine. With a gentle hum, Infinity encircles them both. “Satoru—”
“You can ask me.” She tugs at the tie in Suguru’s hair, letting it loose, scratching at her scalp. “Go on.”
Come with me, come with me, come with me. The absurd request from another universe – surely not? There’s too much for Satoru here; to ask her to leave would be asking to limit the limitless. Unless –
(There’s a yukuta in a box, at the bottom of Satoru’s wardrobe. Peach pink, dotted with white morning glories. “For omiai,” Satoru had told her once, shoving her socked feet into Suguru’s lap and obnoxiously chewing a wad of strawberry bubble gum. “Even the Six Eyes needs a husband, or so they say.”)
In the end, she doesn’t ask. She demands it. Which is even more absurd, but Suguru is realising that she doesn’t care. She leans backwards, looks up at her, reaches a pivotal conclusion. “Come with me,” she says, resolute.
Satoru’s answering smile is miraculous and exquisite. Too wide, too many teeth, so quintessential. She bends down, tilts their heads together. “See?” she murmurs. “That wasn’t so hard.”
(It was. But – at the same time – it really, really wasn’t. Suguru felt as if the sky might collapse on top of her with the weight of a million stars, but she should have known – Satoru would never let it. She has authority over such matters as the cosmos.)
At some point, the tears dry up. A combination of Suguru’s own willpower and her girlfriend’s careful ministrations. Satoru cleans her face with an obnoxiously yellow napkin, kisses her one more time – chaste, but rich with a thousand promises – and then slides back into her side of the booth. The abandoned chicken tender quickly finds its home again in her mouth. She inhales one, and then two more. By the fourth, she looks ponderous, pausing halfway through. Ketchup plops onto the table when she thrusts it out like a baton. “I could be bisexual,” she announces, somehow sounding put out. “You underestimate me.”
Suguru’s laugh is short, bright, still a little wet with residual catharsis. She’s struck, perpetually, with how much she adores this girl. It’s in all the ways Satoru asserts herself, so brazenly beautiful, so deservedly unashamed. Suguru can only hope there is more love to be discovered in their pursuit of freedom. “You’re so stupid.”
“I’m stupid? You just tried to break up with me in a KFC!” She shakes her chicken for emphasis, rolling her eyes. “I mean, seriously. Were you actually expecting to succeed?"