Archive of Our Own

Satoru loved the aroma of autumn: that nostalgic mix of freshly brewed coffee, the rustic touch of cinnamon, the crunch of dry leaves, and the comforting dampness of the earth. However, his favorite fragrance lately was something else; that faint trace of lavender that now accompanied him everywhere. Some time ago, the air used to be filled with a much more intense, vibrant sweetness, like ripe cherries, forcing its way into his nose in an almost impertinent way. Now, instead, he preferred this much subtler, cleaner nuance: fresh, relaxing lavender that intertwined delicately with the warm steam of the tea he often drank. Suguru smelled like autumn. An autumn of crunchy leaves, warm tea, and a warmth that seeped slowly under the skin. Satoru, however, was used to the absence of seasons, or worse yet, a perpetual winter. Not that idyllic winter of white snow and shared scarves, but an ugly one, smelling of damp concrete, gray frost, and a piercing cold that settled into his bone marrow, making his joints ache.

That was Utahime’s smell. His ex-girlfriend.

There had been love, of course. At least Satoru forced himself to remember it so he wouldn’t feel like he’d been a complete idiot for two years. But Utahime always found a way to turn her presence into a trap. She had a characteristic smell of temple incense, but stale incense, which instead of purifying the atmosphere, suffocated it. Her lips tasted like artificial cherry: sweet at first contact, but with a chemical, icy aftertaste that froze your tongue. Especially when from those same lips emerged words laden with meticulous poison.

"You're a faggot, Satoru. Can't you decide if you like men or women?" she had spat out one night, frowning with such genuine repulsion that his stomach clenched. "You're with me, but I know you look at others. You're a potential cheater, you disgust me."

It didn’t matter that Satoru had never been unfaithful or disrespected her; for her, his bisexuality was a deviation, a lack of character, a promise of imminent betrayal. She forced him to apologize for his own nature, to ask for forgiveness for existing outside her binary, conservative mold.

Then came the manipulation, that soft guilt that stuck to his body like mud. Utahime knew perfectly well which strings to pull to disarm him. When Satoru excelled at university, when his brilliant mind solved physics problems that took others months, she didn't celebrate it. She would cross her arms, look away, and sigh bitterly:

"It's just that you're always the best at everything, Satoru... And what about me? Do you intend to make me feel insignificant? How egocentric you are. You only think about yourself."

And Satoru, with that mind that never shut off, would end up overthinking until he convinced himself that, indeed, he was the monster. He would apologize for his intelligence. He would make himself small so as not to outshine her.

Utahime loved the trophy but hated the man. She loved walking arm-in-arm with the hottest guy on campus, the heir to a wealthy surname, the genius everyone stared at as they passed. But in private, the facade fell. For her, Satoru wasn't a person; he was a defective luxury accessory.

The worst hell was when his ADHD took over. Those afternoons when his brain flooded with dopamine and he talked a mile a minute about astrophysics, or those days of extreme paralysis when he couldn't get out of bed because the stimuli of the outside world overwhelmed him. Utahime would look at him with a mixture of annoyance and contempt, the kind of look you give a broken toy.

"Get up already, grow up. How ridiculous you look. You're a man, Satoru, act like one. Real men don't break over childish nonsense, they're not so sensitive. You embarrass me. And now you've taken to babysitting your lazy friend's kids? How pathetic, you look like a nanny. That's not fitting for someone in your position."

Each comment was a dry blow to his masculinity and his mental health. Utahime would punish him with silence for days if he dared to cry or show vulnerability in front of her, labeling him "weak" or "weird." She would block any attempt at healthy communication with a barrier of absolute coldness, demanding he be a pillar of stone, a "real man" by her archaic standards, while inside he was falling apart.

Satoru learned to hide his emotions in iron boxes. He learned that talking about his feelings was synonymous with receiving punishment. He got so used to that winter of contempt that now that Suguru looked at him with gentle eyes and extended a warm hand in the middle of his worst crises, Satoru didn't know what to do. His body was so numb from Utahime’s cold that the warmth of Suguru’s autumn, instead of relieving him, initially burned.

"So... Satoru? Are you listening to me?"

Satoru blinked, snapping abruptly out of his trance. He realized that the hot steam from his cup had completely fogged up his glasses lenses. Taking them off, he met Shoko's gaze; she had one eyebrow raised and a slightly amused smile hovering on her lips. Shoko: his best friend, his confidant, the woman who had patiently listened to him fall apart and opened his eyes during the darkest years with the black-haired woman. And, ironically, the same person who had introduced him to his new boyfriend.

"Yeah, of course I heard you," Satoru replied in that sing-song, carefree tone he used as a shield, stretching the corners of his lips into his perpetual smile.

Inside, however, he was juggling to ignore the loop of intrusive thoughts and the icy cold running through his stomach.

"Excellent. I knew I could count on you to pay for my apartment and give me ten billion yen. You're so kind, Satoru," joked the brunette, maintaining that flat, dangerously serious tone that characterized her.

"Anything for my fri... What?! Of course not!" Satoru puffed out his cheeks, feigning offense.

Shoko let out a low chuckle and took a sip of her coffee; one of those pumpkin spice ones that always tasted too strong to Satoru, almost unbearable.

"I was telling you that Nanami finally asked me out, formally," she clarified, resting her fists on her chin, studying him with those sharp eyes that seemed to read the physics of his soul. "So I'll ask again: what's really going on in that little head of yours, Satoru?"

Satoru was silent for a second. He breathed in slowly, letting the aroma of roasted beans and cinnamon from the café fill his lungs, trying to anchor himself to the present. But the anxiety weighed more.

"I think Suguru hates me," he confessed suddenly. His voice dropped three octaves, losing all its previous brightness. It sounded small, burdened, his throat tight. His long, pale fingers dug hard into the ceramic of his cup, as if he feared falling.

Shoko blinked, processing the words, then arched an eyebrow with pure incredulity.

"Suguru? The Suguru who spends half his salary on food for stray cats? The guy who, every time he sees a mangy dog, wants to adopt it and ask for permission in his building? That Suguru hates you?"

Satoru clicked his tongue, looking away towards the window overlooking the busy street.

"Yeah. That one."

"Why?" Shoko wanted to know, putting her cup down on the table, adopting a completely serious posture.

Satoru looked away toward the window, fiddling with the paper napkin until he tore a corner.

"I stood him up on Tuesday. I forgot. My brain just... erased the dinner. I got hyper-fixated on a quantum physics article and turned off my phone because the vibration was giving me anxiety. When I looked at the clock, it was two in the morning."

Shoko winced, absorbing the blow.

"Oof. Two hours waiting for you at a restaurant. And what did you do?"

"Panicked," Satoru admitted, letting out a dry laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "I sent him a testament the next morning. Apologized like fifty times, told him I was an irresponsible idiot, that I understood if he wanted to tell me to get lost, and that if he wanted to punish me with a week of silence, I'd respect it."

Satoru stopped, swallowing. His fingers tightened around the cup.

"I was waiting for the blow, Shoko. The ice. For him to tell me how immature and weird I am for not being able to keep a simple damn schedule. What Utahime used to do."

"But Suguru isn't Utahime," she pointed out gently.

"Exactly! And that's what's driving me crazy," Satoru put his elbows on the table, running his hands through his messy hair. "He showed up at my apartment that afternoon. I was trembling behind the door, ready for the lecture, and you know what he brought? A bag of strawberry pastries for me and jellies for the kids."

Shoko raised both eyebrows, surprised.

"He didn't scold you at all?"

"Nothing. Zero," Satoru's voice dropped another tone, becoming a fast, scared murmur. "He touched my cheek and told me to breathe. Said he wasn't angry, that he'd just been worried because I wasn't answering and that... damn it, Shoko, he said he understood that my head works at a different pace and that sometimes I get overwhelmed. He asked me that next time I just send an emoji so he knows I'm safe. Then he kissed Megumi on the forehead and started helping him with his homework."

Satoru hid his face in his hands. His shoulders tensed noticeably under his white sweatshirt.

"He's manipulating me, right? There has to be a trick. No one is that good for free. He's stockpiling points to cash them all in later and destroy me. It has to be that, because if it's not a plan to mess with my head... then I don't understand what the hell is happening, Shoko. I don't understand why he doesn't hate me."

Shoko looked at him in silence. Her pumpkin coffee was getting cold between her hands, but all she felt at that moment was her heart shrinking. Utahime had left him so broken that Satoru no longer knew how to distinguish an act of love from a weapon of war.

It wasn't that she thought Suguru was a bad person. God, not at all. Satoru had been captivated by him since the first night he saw him, months ago, during a chaotic party at his apartment for his birthday. Megumi and Tsumiki had spent the afternoon destroying the kitchen to bake him a lopsided cake; Shoko had arrived escorted by Nanami, Haibara, and Higuruma, but she was smuggling someone else. A stranger with long hair and purple eyes.

Satoru had fallen in love, swiftly and irremediably, at the exact moment he saw Suguru crouch down in the hallway to be at Megumi's eye level. He didn't ignore him, nor did he pat him on the head condescendingly like adults usually did; he treated him like a human being. He spoke to him with a slow gentleness, joking about how he also survived two twin girls, his younger sisters.

Suguru had always been like that: gentle, patient, terribly sweet. Satoru knew it with the logic of his scientific mind, but his brain, damaged by two years of psychological demolition, operated under its own laws. There was a despicable loop in his head that sabotaged his chest, forcing him to dissect every gesture, every blink, every prolonged silence, looking for the trick. Looking for the trap that Utahime always hid behind a good deed.

"Satoru," Shoko called. Her tone no longer held any trace of mockery.

The white-haired man pressed his lips together, feeling the air get stuck at the base of his throat.

"I know switching from one extreme to the other is shit," the brunette continued, stirring the ice in her glass with her straw. "And I know it won't comfort you for me to tell you Suguru isn't an asshole, even though I've known him since we were kids. But... I think it's something you have to talk to him about. You know. Communication."

Satoru went rigid in his chair. The word floated between them, heavy and threatening. Communication?

Every time he had tried to apply the famous "communication" with Utahime, the world had fallen apart. Expressing a disagreement or a vulnerable feeling was the direct pass to a three-day war full of shouting, historical reproaches, and manipulations that left him apologizing on his knees for things he hadn't even done. For Satoru, talking about what hurt him was equivalent to handing the knife to the executioner.

"I don't know..." he murmured, looking away towards his cup. He took a long sip, letting the subtle taste of lavender warm his tongue, though his stomach remained like stone. "I'm terrified he'll hate me if I tell him how messed up I am. That he'll get tired, tell me to get lost, and call me childish, paranoid, and a..."

"Satoru. Look. You are childish and insufferable, that's a scientific fact," Shoko interrupted, direct, without anesthesia, but with a gaze loaded with a tenderness she rarely showed. "But you also have a huge heart and you're a good guy. Make an effort. Talk to him. Real communication isn't a trial; it comes with understanding. I know it's hard because you're still expecting to be hit, but you're safe here. Suguru isn't going to hurt you."

Shoko stretched her hand across the table and squeezed his fingers with firm force, a physical anchor that brought him back to the café. Satoru swallowed, feeling a thick knot in his chest, and nodded his head slightly.

"Anyway, I'm leaving," she announced suddenly, breaking the tension as she grabbed her purse. "Those idiots at the hospital can't even put in an IV if I'm not there to supervise them. Whatever, say hi to the little ones for me. Even though every time I go to your place, little Megumi looks at me like he's planning my murder just because I smell like tobacco."

Satoru let out an authentic laugh, the first of the afternoon, remembering the image of the green-eyed boy hiding behind his legs every time there were visitors, hating the rest of the world, but clinging to him as if he were his only safe haven.

"I'll tell him to buy an air purifier for when you come back," Satoru promised, adjusting his glasses, feeling that the weight in his chest, although not gone, had at least become a little lighter to carry.

The sun felt warm that afternoon, dyeing the streets of Tokyo with that dense, melancholic gold typical of dusk, that beautiful golden hour. The autumn breeze ruffled his white hair, and Satoru buried his nose in his scarf, seeking protection from the cold that was already starting to redden his cheeks. He still held the subtle taste of lavender tea on his tongue, a ghost of calm amidst the chaos in his head.

He had just finished his shift at the data simulation company where he’d worked since graduating. He'd spent hours analyzing physical models and algorithm flows; a strangely monotonous corporate job for someone with his brain, but it allowed him to switch his mind off for a while. He was ready to go home. Fortunately, he didn't have to look after Megumi and Tsumiki today. Toji, his next-door neighbor in the apartment building, wasn't working that night, so the kids were covered. Satoru only had one plan in mind: lock himself in, put on an old t-shirt, eat sugary gummies until his stomach hurt, and marathon Digimon on the couch. Something simple. Something that didn't require thinking.

However, the walk to the train station became a minefield of thoughts. His brain kept replaying Shoko's words, bouncing between the memory of Utahime's cold lips and Suguru's disconcerting tenderness. He was so immersed in his own overthinking loop that the noise of the city had become a blurry murmur.

Until a voice cut through the distance.

"Satoru?"

He turned purely by reflex. His blue eyes, hidden behind his dark glasses, widened, and his heart gave a violent lurch in his chest.

Suguru was there, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for him.

The setting sun fell directly on him, igniting the dark threads of his hair with coppery highlights and outlining his silhouette with a golden aura that seemed taken from a painting. He wore his usual lopsided smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes with genuine warmth. In one hand, he held a paper bag from which the sweet aroma of freshly baked buns escaped; in the other, a small bouquet of wildflowers in autumnal tones.

God. Satoru felt the impact in the center of his chest, as if a thousand arrows had pierced him at once. He fell in love with him all over again in that very second, with an intensity that took his breath away and weakened his knees. It was a perfect image. Too perfect.

And right there, behind the arrow's strike, the monster appeared.

Panic immediately filtered through the cracks of his fascination, tinging the moment with corrosive suspicion. Flowers? Why was he bringing flowers? Was it an early apology? Was he going to break up with him right there on the street? Or was it the price he had to pay for standing him up on Tuesday?

Utahime only bought him things when she wanted to cushion a blow, or when she intended to remind him, passive-aggressively, how much she "endured" his "defects."

Satoru's stomach contracted, turning to ice in the middle of the golden afternoon. His mind started calculating at a thousand miles an hour, looking for the angle of attack, the thread of manipulation, the hidden cost of that bouquet. He wanted to smile, wanted to run and take refuge in Suguru's arms, but his feet were nailed to the concrete, trapped between the desperate desire to let himself be loved and the wild instinct to flee before it hurt.

"Satoru," Suguru repeated. This time, his voice dropped a tone, becoming a soft caress that finally managed to break the paralysis bubble.

Satoru blinked, coming out of the trance. He realized, with a trace of shame, that he had been static in the middle of the sidewalk for several seconds, staring at Suguru as if he were a ghost or an impossible math equation to solve.

"Ah!" he blurted. His voice came out in a noticeably high squeak, forcing him to clear his throat. "Hi. Yeah. Me... here. I mean, standing. You? Fine. Yeah. Excellent."

Suguru arched an eyebrow, but that peaceful smile of his didn't fade. He took a step towards him. Satoru, by pure Pavlovian reflex, took half a step back. It was a subtle, automatic movement; the lingering instinct of an animal that doesn't know if the reaching hand brings food or a blow.

Suguru's smile changed in that instant. It didn't disappear, but transformed into something different: less amused, more... strangely understanding. His dark eyes scanned Satoru's face with a slowness that didn't seek to judge, but to read. He noticed the trembling chin, the clenched hands in the sweatshirt pockets.

"You okay, Satoru?" he asked. And it was no longer the typical courtesy greeting. It was a real question, one that expected an answer.

"Yeah, sure, perfect," Satoru lied, but the sing-song tone failed halfway, revealing a note of pure overwhelm.

Suguru didn't pressure him. Instead of interrogating him in the flow of pedestrians, he looked around, located a painted wooden bench near a planter, and walked towards it. He placed the paper bag and the bouquet delicately on the seat, and returned to Satoru's side.

With a slow movement, so as not to startle him, Suguru wrapped his fingers around Satoru's wrist. There was no force, no tug; just a warm, firm, and ridiculously comforting contact. An invitation.

"Come, sit with me for a moment," he asked, guiding him slowly.

"No, really, it's not necessary, I was already heading to the station and—"

"Satoru. Sit," he insisted. His voice didn't rise a single decibel, but it had that gentle, protective gravity that managed to turn off the background noise in the white-haired man's head.

He sat down. Suguru settled beside him but made sure to leave a prudent space of a few centimeters between their bodies. He didn't invade his personal space. He didn't force a hug. He just stayed there, sharing the weight of the air.

Then, to Satoru's absolute surprise, Suguru let out a long sigh and ran a free hand through his hair, messing up the impeccable half-ponytail he wore. He looked... nervous?

"I'm sorry," Suguru said, looking at the tips of his shoes with a hint of genuine guilt. "I was impulsive, wasn't I? A complete oaf."

Satoru blinked behind his dark glasses, completely thrown off by the script flip.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"This," Suguru nodded towards the bouquet and the bag of sweets, letting out a low, somewhat embarrassed laugh. "Showing up out of nowhere like this, ambushing you with flowers and buns like I'm a shoujo manga character... How ridiculous. I didn't think I might overwhelm you, Satoru. It's just that I passed the flower shop on my way out of the publishing house, saw those flowers, and thought: 'Satoru is going to love these because he's just as loud as they are.' And then I bought the cream buns because I knew you hadn't eaten anything sweet since lunch. But I didn't calculate the space right. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to suffocate you."

Satoru stared at him, his mouth slightly open.

There was no double intention. No hidden reproach about Tuesday, no emotional bill to collect. Suguru had just seen something pretty, thought of him, and wanted to make him smile. As simple as that. As stupidly healthy.

The contrast between the monstrosity Satoru had imagined and the reality of Suguru apologizing with slightly pink-tinted cheeks was too much. A spark of real amusement, the kind of lightness Satoru used to have before Utahime turned off his colors, shone in his blue eyes.

"Wait, hold on," Satoru let out a genuine laugh, covering his mouth with his hand. "Are you telling me that the great Suguru Geto, the most eloquent man in the literature department, is embarrassed for trying to be romantic?"

Suguru looked away, rubbing the back of his neck, although a knowing smile began to appear on his lips.

"Don't make fun of me. I'm trying to maintain my dignity here."

"You're such an idiot!" Satoru leaned towards him, breaking the distance that separated them, feeling the cold in his chest evaporate under the afternoon sun. "Give me that. The flowers are beautiful, by the way. I love them. And if those buns aren't double-sugared, I'm going to make you go back to the store."

Seeing Satoru hug the sweets against his chest with a bright smile, the weight of worry on Suguru's shoulders finally disappeared, replaced by the absolute certainty that, regardless of the ghosts that haunted Satoru, he wasn't going to move from his side.

Satoru opened his mouth purely by reflex to let out one of his typical excuses, to say that wasn't it, that he wasn't scared, that he was always fine. But his throat closed up tight. Because yes, the mathematical truth was that he was terrified. And Suguru had deciphered it with a single look. The worst part, what really caused him a short circuit, was that Suguru, instead of getting angry at his distrust, was apologizing.

"It's not..." Satoru began. His voice cracked, reduced to a fragile thread. "It's not that I don't like them. It's that never... no one had ever brought me flowers before."

The confession escaped him without a filter. It came out small, raw, and scared, like an old, dusty object forcibly pulled from a locked closet.

Suguru went completely still. Satoru didn't dare look at his face; instead, he looked down and focused intently on his own hands, the edge of his nails, the stitching of his sneakers. He hated feeling so exposed.

"Flowers," Suguru repeated in a whisper, as if processing a piece of data that didn't fit. "Never?"

"Utahime said it was corny," Satoru murmured, shrugging in a failed attempt to downplay it. "That flowers were for women. Or for funerals. That a real man didn't need that kind of nonsense."

The silence that fell over the wooden bench became dense, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was the thick air of someone next to Satoru who was holding back a wave of deep rage towards his boyfriend's past, swallowing it so as not to scare him further.

To break the tension suffocating him, Satoru looked away towards the bouquet resting between them.

"They're white," he blurted out, pointing at them with a clumsy finger. "The flowers. They're completely white."

Suguru blinked, emerging from his own thoughts, and looked at the bouquet as if he'd just remembered buying it. They were small flowers, with delicate petals and a snow-white that contrasted with the brown paper wrapping. Some, touched by the sunset light, shone with an almost iridescent sheen.

"Yeah," Suguru conceded, and the warmth returned to his voice like a balm. "I saw them in the display and thought of you immediately."

Satoru looked at him out of the corner of his eye, genuinely confused.

"Because of my hair color?" he asked, bringing a hand to his tousled locks.

Suguru smiled. It wasn't that lopsided, flirtatious, confident smile he usually used to flirt; it was a small, almost shy expression that lit up his dark eyes and caused Satoru's pulse to race again.

"Because of the white, yes," Suguru confirmed. "But also because they're wildflowers, simple. They're not the kind of pretentious flowers you buy to impress someone at a fancy dinner. They're the ones you buy just because. Because I was walking, saw them, and wanted to give them to the guy I like."

The blush rose up Satoru from his neck to the tips of his ears in a second. He felt his face burn, his cheeks hot as if the evening sun had concentrated solely on him. He had to look away again, but he was unable to stop the silly, crooked smile that escaped the corners of his lips.

"They're beautiful," he whispered, squeezing the bag of sweets against his body. "Thank you, Suguru."

"You're welcome, Satoru."

Another silence settled between them, but this one was soft. Delicious. The silence typical of autumn, of the wind playing with dry leaves on the sidewalk, and of two people barely learning to calibrate their rhythms.

However, Satoru's brain didn't know how to stay still. Calm didn't last long in his hyperactive, damaged head. The anxiety loop activated again, and the questions began to pour from his mouth like an uncontrolled avalanche, losing air with each word:

"But are you sure you're not still mad about Tuesday? Really? Because if you're upset, you can tell me, seriously, I'd rather you yell at me or say it to my face than pretend everything is fine and then explode in a month. And the flowers? Is it a real gift, or is it because you feel sorry for me? Did something bad happen at the publishing house? Are you going to ask me for a favor later? You don't have to buy me things if you need me to watch your cats or something, you can just ask, I always—"

"Satoru."

Suguru's voice cut him off. There was no shout, no imperative tone, not a hint of annoyance. It was an incredibly gentle handbrake.

Satoru shut his mouth abruptly, biting his lower lip. The residual panic left him frozen, feeling a burning shame in his chest. He thought he'd ruined it, that he'd talked too much, stripped himself naked and intercepted a moment that was supposed to be perfect with his trauma. He waited, shoulders tense, for the inevitable reproach.

Suguru smiled. But it wasn't a condescending or mocking grimace. It was a smile of "I see you, I know where you are, and I'm not going anywhere."

Slowly, with that deliberate, measured slowness that seemed choreographed just not to startle him, Suguru reached out his arm. He took Satoru's hands. Both of them. He completely enveloped them in his own, which felt large, warm, and ridiculously firm, overcoming his resistance until he raised them to the height of his own chest.

Satoru felt the warmth of Suguru's knuckles against his fingers and, right after, an even softer contact: Suguru's lips placing themselves with millimeter slowness on the back of his right hand.

A kiss. Small. Chaste. A simple brush of skin against skin that, nevertheless, ran up Satoru's entire arm like an electric shock, forcing him to release the air he was holding in his lungs.

"Listen to me carefully, Satoru," Suguru said, barely separating his lips from his fingers, keeping his gaze fixed on those blue eyes glimpsed behind the dark glasses. "I'm not angry about Tuesday. There are no hidden second intentions in a notebook. I'm not going to ask you for any favor in return for this, nor am I going to demand anything from you that you don't want to give me. The flowers are just flowers. An afternoon surprise. Because I passed by your office, saw you walking with your head in the clouds, and wanted to bring you down to earth with something pretty. Okay?"

Satoru nodded immediately, unable to articulate a single word. He felt his eyes wet, his face completely flushed, and his heart pounding so erratically against his ribs that he was sure Suguru could feel the pulse through their intertwined palms.

"Okay," he managed to formulate in a whisper, in a voice he didn't even recognize as his own.

Suguru let go of his hands slowly, but didn't break contact entirely. He let his fingers remain loosely hooked with Satoru's; a near-grip that didn't squeeze, didn't imprison, but felt like a silent promise of permanence.

Satoru breathed deeply. The afternoon air now smelled of cream buns, wildflowers, and the lavender still lingering on his scarf. And for the first time since he'd left the office building, the knot of iron squeezing his stomach dissolved a little more.

He stayed a moment looking at the contrast of his pale fingers intertwined with Suguru's. Then, gathering a courage he didn't know where he was getting it from, he looked up at the black-haired man, who watched him with that infinite patience that sometimes made him dizzy and sometimes, like today, saved his life.

"Hey..." Satoru said, dragging out the words. "Do you want to come to my apartment?"

Suguru blinked, taken by surprise.

"Right now?"

"Yeah. I mean... Toji is off today, so the kids won't be there, so we'll be alone." Satoru bit his lower lip almost immediately, realizing belatedly the weight of his own words and the connotation they could take. "But it's not...! I mean, it doesn't have to be for that. I just... I don't want to be alone today. I want to be with you. We can eat the sweets, watch Digimon or something. If you want, of course. If you don't have things to edit."

Suguru stared at him for a whole second, processing the rushed invitation. And then, out of nowhere, he burst out laughing. It wasn't a restrained or polite laugh; it was one of those clean, contagious laughs that are born directly in the chest and come out without asking permission, completely crinkling the corners of his eyes. He covered his mouth with his free hand, but his shoulders betrayed the tremor of his amusement.

"What...? What are you laughing at?" Satoru protested, shrinking on the bench while feeling the blush devour his face up to his ears. "Don't make fun of me!"

"Nothing, nothing, I'm sorry," Suguru managed to say, trying to regain his composure, though his voice trembled with laughter. "It's just that... that nuance of 'we'll be alone' said with that scared bunny face you have right now..."

"It's not what it sounded like!" Satoru claimed. He pulled his hand away in a dramatic tug and crossed his arms, puffing out his cheeks in an absurdly childish gesture. "I just wanted to clarify that there wouldn't be two little monsters running down the hallway throwing toys at us, that's all. Don't have such a dirty mind, Geto. How awful you are."

"Hey, I haven't said absolutely anything," Suguru defended himself, raising his hands in a gesture of feigned innocence, but fixing him with the most mischievous and brilliant look Satoru had seen in months. "The only one who specified the solitude of the apartment was you, Satoru."

Satoru gave him a weak hit with his shoulder, but the spark was already there. Utahime's concrete winter felt a million miles away, completely eclipsed by the laughter of the man beside him.

"It's to watch Digimon!" Satoru insisted, pointing an accusatory finger at him.

"Of course. Of course. To watch Digimon. Alone. In your apartment. On a Friday night," Suguru listed, widening his smile with each word.

"Suguru, that's enough!"

The black-haired man's laughter finally softened into that warm, gentle gaze that crinkled the corners of his eyes. He reached out his free hand and ruffled the white hair with a natural confidence that Satoru found dangerously addictive. He wanted to be trapped under that touch forever.

"I would love to come to your house to watch Digimon, Satoru," Suguru assured, and his voice lost any trace of mockery, becoming an honest murmur. "Alone. Or accompanied by the ghosts of your sugary gummies, it doesn't matter. I just want to spend the afternoon with you."

Satoru swallowed, feeling the knot in his throat completely disappear. The blush didn't leave his cheeks, but the nature of the heat had changed; it was no longer the humiliation caused by Utahime's comments, but a warm current that lit up his chest from within, like a cup of tea in the middle of winter.

"Fine," Satoru conceded, jumping to his feet and trying to regain his haughty posture, though the smile betrayed his relief. "Well, let's go then. But you're in charge of making the popcorn."

Suguru took the hand the white-haired man offered him to pull himself up and stood up from the bench. With impeccable agility, he picked up the bag of cream buns and the bouquet of white flowers. Then, taking a step forward, he leaned in front of Satoru in an exaggerated, comical bow, earning a couple of curious glances from passersby crossing the crosswalk.

"For you, sir," Suguru declared with a feigned and amused solemnity. "Flowers for the handsomest physicist in the city."

Satoru received the bouquet with still slightly trembling fingers. The wildflowers smelled of clean earth, recent rain, and something fresh that cleared his mind. He brought them to his face and breathed in slowly, letting this new perfume fill his lungs, finally replacing the memory of the stale incense of his past.

"They're the most beautiful flowers anyone has ever given me," he murmured, and the honesty of his own words took him by surprise.

"Technically, they're the only ones anyone has ever given you," Suguru pointed out with infinite tenderness.

"Exactly. That's why they're already the most beautiful of all."

They began to walk together towards the train station, moving shoulder to shoulder as the city lit up around them with the first lights of the night. Their hands brushed with each step, a subtle sway of knuckles and palms. Satoru didn't dare intertwine their fingers this time, but it was no longer out of fear of being judged or labeled "weird." This time it was pure anticipation; he wanted to stretch the electricity of that near-contact, savor the tingle on his skin, and convince himself that what he was experiencing was real.

When they finally reached the entrance of the apartment building, the Tokyo sky had already traded gold for a deep, starry blue. Satoru stopped before crossing the glass door, looking at the white bouquet in his arms and then at Suguru.

"Thank you," Satoru said. His voice sounded clean, stripped of shields.

"You already told me that on the bench, Satoru."

"I know. But I wanted to say it again. Right here," Satoru took a step towards him, closing the distance. "So it gets stuck in your head."

Suguru smiled, a small, intimate, knowing expression that broke down the last defensive barrier in Satoru. And that smile, thought the white-haired man as he opened the building door for him, was a billion times more beautiful than any flower in the world.

Geto's  apartment soon began to fill with the aroma that Suguru always brought with him: a mix of sweet sandalwood incense and old book paper. Satoru loved that smell. It reminded him of the public libraries he fled to in his childhood; those silent refuges where his hyperactive mind could jump from an astrophysics tome to another for hours, without any adult scolding him for talking too fast or being "a weirdo."

Now, Satoru was curled up in a ball at the end of the couch, legs crossed against his chest and a gray wool blanket over his shoulders, watching Suguru move around the kitchen with the ease of someone who already knew by heart where he kept the glasses.

"Let's see, the refrigerator is practically deserted, unless you consider three dried lemon halves and a jar of expired jam as dinner," Suguru commented, poking his head out of the appliance's door with an amused grimace of disapproval. "What do you say we order Chinese food? There's a new place two blocks away that my colleagues at the publishing house won't stop talking about. They say the spring rolls are the size of my forearm."

Satoru stretched his lips into an instant smile. He nodded, a clean, rehearsed reflex.

"Yeah, sure. Sounds perfect."

Inside, however, his stomach contracted into a cold knot.

Chinese food. The memory of the smell of artificial sweet and sour sauce, dense and cloying, flooded his memory. The sticky texture of fried rice and those mysterious pieces of meat that his sensory hypersensitivity hated processing. Immediately, his mind dragged him back to the nights in Utahime's apartment. He saw himself sitting in front of the cardboard containers, forcing himself to swallow between waves of nausea while she watched him from across the table, arms crossed and an expression of deep annoyance.

"Eat it already, Satoru. It's food, not poison. You always have to be the damn center of attention with your ridiculous exaggerations."

"It's just... I really can't handle the texture of mushrooms, it makes me feel..." he had dared to murmur once, eyes fixed on the plate, feeling miserable.

Utahime had dropped her chopsticks on the table with a dry thud that made him jump in his chair.

"Then deal with it. I'm not spending more money ordering something else just because you're a spoiled brat. Grow up already and be grateful that I paid."

Satoru blinked, returning violently to the present. He realized that his fingers had started twisting the edge of the blanket so hard that his knuckles had turned white.

"Satoru?"

He looked up quickly, afraid of being discovered. Suguru had leaned against the kitchen frame. He held a water bottle in his hand and his head slightly tilted, analyzing him with those slanted eyes that seemed to notice every tiny variation in the physics of his body. Suguru was in no hurry, no laziness, no annoyance. He was just there, reading Satoru's silences as if they were the footnotes in one of his poetry books.

"You hate Chinese food, don't you?" Suguru asked, not in a tone of reproach, but with a gentle certainty, almost casual.

Satoru tensed, opening his mouth to protest.

"No, I didn't say—"

"You didn't have to. You made the same face I make when I have to review an eight-hundred-page manuscript on economics," Suguru let out a low laugh, taking a step towards the couch. "Satoru, look at me. It's okay if you don't like it. It's not a mandatory exam. What doesn't work for you? The taste, the smell, the textures?"

There it was. The window. A real question that wasn't seeking to judge him, but to decipher him.

Satoru swallowed, loosening his grip on the blanket a little. It cost him a huge effort to verbalize his sensory problems because the world had always labeled them "childish nonsense," but Suguru's gaze was a strangely safe territory.

"The textures," he confessed in a murmur, looking away towards his own feet. "Everything is... too sticky. Or slimy. And the smell saturates my head very quickly. Sorry. I know you were looking forward to trying that place."

Suguru put the water bottle on the coffee table and sat on the opposite end of the sofa. He didn't lunge at him; he simply stretched out one leg, gently brushing Satoru's ankle with his own through the fabric. An electric and comforting contact.

"You're apologizing for how your brain works? How arrogant of you to think that my desire to eat spring rolls is more important than your peace of mind, Gojo," Suguru joked, arching an eyebrow with that elegant sarcasm that characterized him so much. "Besides, what a relief. I wasn't that excited about the idea either, I just wanted an excuse to eat something greasy. How about we order pizza? Thin crust, crunchy, only the ingredients you choose. No slimy surprises."

Satoru stared at him. The naturalness with which Suguru had disarmed his panic, turning a trauma into a light joke about spring rolls, made his heart skip a beat. He felt the air return to his lungs, warm and clean.

"You really don't mind?" Satoru insisted, reaching a hand out from under the blanket.

Suguru caught his fingers immediately, giving them a firm squeeze.

"I would mind more if you forced yourself to eat something that hurts you just to avoid disagreeing with me," the black-haired man replied, looking at him with such pure honesty that Satoru's breath caught. "Come on, take out your phone and choose the pizzeria. I'll go get the glasses. And don't even think about ordering pineapple, Satoru, because then we'll have our first real fight."

Satoru let out a clean laugh, the kind that brought the blue light back to his eyes. As he watched Suguru return to the kitchen humming an old song, Satoru curled up more on the couch, realizing that, for the first time in two years, he didn't have to pretend to be someone else to deserve being loved.

"I'd rather have pasta, I'm craving some," he hummed, sketching a smile. Suguru nodded a couple of times, still smiling.

"Hey, Satoru."

"What?"

"Thank you for telling me. Really."

Satoru blinked, completely disarmed.

"For what?"

"That you don't like Chinese food," Suguru replied, shrugging with total naturalness. "You could have kept quiet. You could have forced down a dish that disgusts you just to not 'bother' or keep the peace. But you chose to speak. That's very important, Satoru. It means you trust me."

Satoru stood mute, watching Suguru's silhouette disappear beyond the kitchen threshold. After a few seconds, the echo of everyday noises began to fill the apartment: water running to wash the broccoli, the metallic sound of drawers opening in search of a pot, the click of the fire igniting. Normal things. Routine noises that Satoru had always associated with the tension of not making noise, but which now, in some magical way, felt like the map of a home. Like an act of pure love.

He stayed sitting on the couch, the blanket still over his shoulders and that perfume of sandalwood and literature floating around him. For the first time in two very long years, he didn't feel the weight of an invisible debt. He didn't feel like he had to pay an emotional tariff for the simple fact of existing.

A rebellious little warmth, the kind that tickles your stomach, began to spread through his chest. He peeked over the back of the sofa, his blue eyes shining behind his glasses.

"I like grated cheese on top," he announced loudly towards the kitchen, recovering that spoiled, sing-song tone that was so much his own. "But not the powdered kind that looks like plastic, okay? The real piece, freshly grated."

"You're a real spoiled brat, Gojo Satoru," Suguru's voice came from inside, filtered by the echo of the pot, but it sounded impregnated with absolute amusement. "There's a block of legitimate Parmesan in the refrigerator. Grate it yourself if your royal standards don't allow you to eat the bagged kind."

Satoru smiled so much his cheeks hurt. He jumped up, letting the blanket fall onto the cushion, and walked towards the kitchen with steps that, for some strange reason of physics, felt incredibly light, as if gravity had decreased just for him.

When he crossed the threshold, he stopped to observe. Suguru had taken off his publishing house jacket and rolled up his dark shirt sleeves to his elbows, revealing firm forearms as he chopped the broccoli with impeccable skill. He had a rebellious strand of hair falling down the side of his face, and the light from the kitchen lamp gave him a domestic air, so intimate and so damn handsome that Satoru's heart stopped.

Oh, no. Satoru leaned against the wall, feeling a completely new and hilarious panic settling into his head. Are you serious? Can I actually fall more in love with this man? Is there a mathematical limit to this, or is my brain going to explode from so much dopamine? It's not legal to be this perfect, Geto Suguru.

"Are you going to stand there staring at me like a hungry cat, or are you going to get the cheese?" Suguru asked without looking up from the cutting board, though a mischievous smile was already forming on his face.

"I was doing a quality analysis of your cutting techniques," Satoru retorted immediately, stepping forward to disguise the fact that he was completely melted. "Your knife angle is terrible, literature major. Leave the Parmesan to me before you leave me boyfriendless by slicing off a finger."

Suguru let out a low laugh and, as Satoru passed by him towards the refrigerator, took the opportunity to bump his hip against Satoru's in a soft, playful shove. Satoru didn't protest; on the contrary, he stuck a little closer to his side, enjoying the smell of autumn, the pasta cooking, and the wonderful certainty that, as Shoko had said, he was finally safe.

The ceiling of his bedroom had exactly three cracks.

Satoru knew this because he had been counting them for three hours. The first was small, a simple cement spiderweb trapped in the plaster. The second was longer, a gray thread that crossed the lamp and abruptly disappeared into the corner. The third was the worst: it started right in the center and branched out in several directions, like a map of dry rivers leading nowhere.

He had been awake since six in the morning. It was almost ten. His body was still trapped in the same position: on his back, the sheets tangled between his legs like soft chains, one arm stretched towards the nightstand, where the phone vibrated every few minutes with an insistence that drilled into the back of his neck. He knew he should get up. He knew the world out there demanded he shower, get dressed, answer messages, pretend he was a functional person. Exist.

But his brain was flooded with a dense static, a cold fog that turned off his circuits.

It wasn't laziness. That was what hurt the most, what he had never been able to explain to anyone. It wasn't that he didn't want to move; it was that the order got lost somewhere between his mind and his muscles. He could repeat get up, get up, move a finger, just one, but his body simply didn't respond, as heavy as wet concrete.

"You're lazy."

Utahime's voice arrived clearly, as real and stale as the incense of her old apartment. He could almost feel the mattress sink, as if she were sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at him with that chronic annoyance that froze his blood.

"You just want attention. Always the same. Acting interesting with your neurotic childishness. Real men get up even if they don't want to. But you've always been a faggot, Satoru. So delicate. A little princess who needs to be begged."

Satoru squeezed his eyes shut. The ceiling cracks disappeared behind his lids, but the voice didn't. It got stuck in his chest, squeezing his lungs.

"Shut up," he whispered into the empty air, his voice broken and small.

The phone vibrated again against the nightstand wood.

Summoning an effort that hurt to the marrow of his bones, Satoru reached out his hand. The blue light of the screen burned his pupils through the gloom. It was Suguru. Three messages.

[Suguru]: What time are we meeting today?

[Suguru]: I was thinking of going to the market to get something for lunch, is it okay if I stop by your place first?

[Suguru]: Satoru?

His stomach dropped to his feet, turning to stone in a second.

Shit. The date. They had agreed to eat together, to go for a walk in the warm sun, to do any of those normal things that normal, healthy people do on Saturdays. And he was still there, stuck to the sheets because of his own defective brain. Unable to be the man Suguru deserved.

His fingers trembled so much on the glass that he could barely hit the letters. He typed. Deleted. Rewrote with his pulse racing and panic scraping at his throat. Finally, unable to formulate a coherent sentence, he sent chaos in text form, a testament of pure desperation:

[Satoru]: im sorry im sorry im sorry i cant today i dont know i cant get out of bed its not an excuse really i know if you want to be angry with me be angry i understand perfectly im so sorry cancel everything whatever you want ill pay for whatever you spent later i dont know i cant im sorry

He hit send and dropped the device hard, letting it fall onto the mattress as if it burned. He covered his face with his forearm, returning to the darkness behind his eyes, waiting for the impact. The cracks in the ceiling seemed to expand, threatening to collapse on him.

The phone vibrated a few seconds later. Satoru didn't want to look. He knew perfectly well what came after a confession like that. He knew the script by heart: "Not this again," "You always ruin plans," "I'm tired of your childish excuses."

But, with his heart pounding erratically against his ribs, he moved his arm away and looked at the screen.

[Suguru]: Don't worry.

Satoru blinked, his gaze fixed on the glass. That was it. Three words. No passive-aggressive reproach, no meticulous interrogation. Just a "don't worry."

The phone vibrated once more in his trembling hand.

[Suguru]: Do you need anything? Food? Silence? Company without talking?

Satoru stared at the screen until the letters distorted into a bright blur. His thumb moved purely by instinct, typing a response that was born directly from his vulnerability, without filters or defensive shields:

[Satoru]: i dont know

And then, ten seconds later, unable to stop the tide:

[Satoru]: i dont want to be alone but i cant talk

It was too honest. Too raw. Too exposed. The kind of confession Utahime used to punish with days of icy silence. But he had already hit send; he couldn't hide anymore in his iron boxes.

Suguru's reply came in less than a minute:

[Suguru]: I'll be there in twenty minutes. You don't have to talk. Or get up. I'll just be there.

Satoru let the phone fall onto his chest and fixed his eyes back on the ceiling. The three cracks were still exactly in the same place, but Utahime's voice, for some reason, had become a distant murmur, losing its suffocating strength.

Twenty-one minutes later (Satoru counted them one by one, his eyes fixed on the red numbers of the digital alarm clock), the echo of a key turning in the lock cut through the apartment's silence.

Suguru had had a copy for two weeks. Satoru had given it to him wrapped in a gift ribbon with a scribbled note that said "if you lose it, I'll kill you." In reality, the process had left him terrified. For him, the keys to his personal space meant danger; Utahime used to use hers to burst in without warning, searching every corner to check if he was "doing something weird" or deviating from her control.

But Suguru operated under other laws. He had never opened that door without knocking first. And now, although Satoru hadn't answered his last text, the bell had rung three times before he dared to use the key. A soft warning. A safety margin in case Satoru preferred solitude.

"Satoru?" The voice filtered from the hallway, gentle, stripped of the shrillness and historical reproaches he was used to. "It's me. I'm coming in."

The click of the door closing was followed by slow footsteps, deliberately noisy so as not to startle him. They were accompanied by the rustle of a paper bag and, immediately, a familiar aroma flooded the air. Lavender tea. And a rustic touch of cinnamon.

Satoru didn't turn his head; the paralysis still kept his muscles numb. But he heard the rustle of the bag on the kitchen counter, the sound of footsteps approaching the bedroom, and Suguru's silhouette stopping right at the threshold, respecting his space.

"Hi," Suguru murmured in a low croon.

Satoru didn't answer. Not because he didn't want to, but because the connecting cable between his brilliant brain and his lips was still broken.

"It's okay," the black-haired man assured, deciphering the emptiness with that infinite patience that characterized him. "You don't have to say anything. I'm going to sit here on the floor, is that okay? Move a finger if you agree."

Satoru dragged the index finger of his left hand over the sheet. A millimetric gesture. Almost invisible. But Suguru's gentle eyes caught it instantly, and the sound of his body settling against the wood was soon heard.

He stayed there, sitting on the floor with his back against the nightstand and his legs stretched out parallel to the bed. He took a thermos out of the bag, leaving it aside without opening the cap to preserve the heat, and then pulled out a pocket-sized book with worn, yellowed pages.

"I'm going to read for a while, okay?" he said, opening the volume to a random page. "Softly. You stay there, you don't have to do absolutely anything."

And he began to read.

Satoru couldn't process the words. His mind was still submerged in that dense static, but he clung to the cadence of the reading. The way Suguru softened his voice at the periods and drew out the commas with a warmth that filtered under his skin. It was a melody that didn't demand consideration, that didn't expect thanks or charge emotional bills. Just a pure act of presence.

Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. Time became a malleable mass. At some point along the way, without being able to control it, a hot tear slid down his temple, soaking the pillow. Then another. And another, releasing the accumulated pain in his chest.

Suguru didn't interrupt the reading. He didn't activate the alarms with a "why are you crying?", nor did he pressure him to grow up. He just continued reading, his tone constant, transforming Satoru's crying into something safe, into a perfectly human reaction that didn't deserve punishment.

After an hour, the subtle sound of the book closing marked the end of the chapter.

"I'm going to pour the tea into a cup," Suguru announced from the floor. "I brought Earl Grey tea, the one with lavender. Do you want some?"

Satoru moved his finger again. A silent yes.

Suguru stood up with a slight groan —sometimes joking that the floor was starting to take a toll on his back— and headed to the kitchen. From the bed, Satoru listened to the symphony of routine: water running, the tinkling of dishes, the heat preparing itself. Everyday noises that in his past announced storms, but now drew the map of a safe haven.

When Suguru returned, the room filled with the steam of two steaming cups. He left one on the nightstand, just within reach of Satoru's pale fingers, and held the other between his palms as he slid back to the floor.

"It's hot," he warned. "Be careful. Take a sip when you're ready. Or don't. It doesn't matter."

Satoru closed his eyes. The fog was still there, but the sharp cold of the concrete winter had dissipated. The bedroom smelled of lavender, cinnamon, the dry leaves of old books, and the sweet sandalwood that Suguru always brought with him. The wooden floor creaked slightly when the black-haired man leaned back, resting his head against the edge of the mattress, just centimeters from his hand.

They weren't touching. But the warmth was there.

"You know something?" Suguru murmured, as if sharing a thought with the air. Satoru remained still, urging him to continue with his silence. "Bad days aren't failures, Satoru. They're just days. And they pass too."

Satoru squeezed his eyelids shut, losing the battle against a new wave of tears.

"I'm sorry," he managed to articulate. His voice was a raw thread, a vibration so fragile it threatened to break in his throat.

"Why are you sorry?" Suguru asked with a transparent curiosity, free of judgment.

"For not being able to be normal."

The following silence was thick and tender. With millimetric slowness, Suguru stretched his hand over the edge of the mattress until his pinky finger brushed the back of Satoru's. A warm and ridiculously comforting contact.

"I don't want you to be normal," Suguru stated, looking at him with such pure honesty that it hurt from how beautiful it was. "I want you to be you. And you, sometimes, have days like this. It's okay. We'll get through them together."

Satoru opened his eyes, finally abandoning the cracks in the ceiling. He turned slowly to look at Suguru's profile silhouetted against the soft light from the window; his dark hair falling messily over his shoulders and the tea steam enveloping him in a golden aura.

"Thank you," Satoru whispered, feeling that, for the first time, autumn was winning the match against winter.

"You're welcome," Suguru replied, and in his voice floated again that gentle smile that soothed Satoru's head noise so much. "Now, if you feel up to it, take a sip of tea before it gets cold. And if not, well, nothing. I'll drink both."

Satoru almost laughed. It was an attempted chuckle, a small, strange, raw sound that emerged from some very deep corner of his chest, finally breaking the ice left in his throat.

He didn't get out of bed. He didn't shower. He did absolutely none of the things the outside world dictated he "should" do on a Saturday morning. He wasn't the productive man or the stone pillar his past demanded he be. But, with millimetric slowness and his fingers still slightly trembling, he slid his arm out from under the sheets and reached his hand towards the ceramic cup steaming on the nightstand.

It was a titanic effort, his own way of telling Suguru "I'm trying, thank you for waiting for me."

And Suguru, from his spot on the wooden floor, watched him hold the cup and widened his smile as if he had just won the lottery. As if that clumsy movement from Satoru were the most brilliant scientific achievement in history.

God. Satoru felt the impact right in the center of his chest, an electric and warm shock that swept away the static from his mind in one go.

There it was again. That fulminant, clean, devastating arrow he had already felt on his birthday and in the middle of the golden sidewalk when he saw him with the wildflowers. But this one was different; it didn't come with the perfect facade of a manga romance. This one was domestic, raw, disheveled, and real.

As he took a slow sip of tea, letting the lavender taste warm his tongue, his hyperactive brain —the one Utahime had always tried to shut down with contempt— started calculating at a thousand miles per hour, entering an absolute short circuit of pure dopamine.

"Seriously? Am I going to fall more in love with this guy? Isn't there a mathematical limit to this, or is my head going to end up exploding?"

Because Suguru wasn't celebrating the university genius or the heir to a wealthy surname; he was celebrating the broken Satoru, the one who couldn't get out of bed, the weirdo who drowned in his own fog. He was giving him an entire Saturday of his life just to sit on a hard floor and read to him in a low voice, asking for nothing in return.

He squeezed the cup between his hands, feeling the rebellious warmth tickle his stomach. He looked at Suguru out of the corner of his eye over the rim of the cup, noticing the dark strand falling over his face and that gaze that was pure "you are safe here." And for the first time in two very long years, Satoru surrendered to the wonderful and terrifying certainty that he was lost, absolutely and irremediably in love with Geto Suguru.

Dinner was passing with unusual tranquility. Satoru had managed to make an edible curry thanks to Tsumiki —who, at twelve years old, cooked better than he did— and Megumi had set the table, complaining just enough. It was a normal domestic scene. The kind Satoru treasured in secret; according to Utahime's logic, verbalizing happiness was tempting fate.

"Satoru-san," Tsumiki said, putting her chopsticks down on the bowl.

"Tell me," he replied, his mouth full of rice.

"Is Suguru-san your boyfriend?"

Satoru almost choked. He coughed, brought his hand to his chest, and felt Megumi's green eyes fixed on him with the uncomfortable intensity that only a ten-year-old possesses.

"What?" he managed to articulate, his voice an octave higher.

"At school they say that when two people like each other and spend a lot of time together, they're boyfriends," Tsumiki explained with total naturalness. "You two spend a lot of time together. And you look happy."

"I wouldn't say happy," Megumi intervened, separating the peas from his plate in a flat tone. "Satoru turns red every time Suguru-san comes over."

"I do not turn red," he protested, feeling his ears burn.

"You turn red," the child stated without looking up.

"You turn red," seconded Tsumiki, smiling like a little strategist.

Satoru fell silent, watching them. Two years ago, they didn't exist in his life. Now they were asking about his romantic situation with the same lightness they asked for dessert.

Inevitably, his mind dragged him to the past. He remembered a university dinner where someone asked Utahime if they were a couple. Satoru had nodded with a smile, but that same night, in the car, she had spat:

"Girlfriend? Satoru, don't waste my time, I'm looking to get married, you should know that."

He never used that word in front of anyone again. He didn't know what they were then; an abstract label that meant nothing, but weighed like a boulder.

"You don't have to answer," Megumi said, breaking the trance.

Satoru blinked. "Huh?"

"We already know you like him," the child repeated, bringing a pea to his mouth. "It shows."

Tsumiki nodded, serious: "Yes. You like him a lot. And he likes you. That shows too."

"And you...?" Satoru swallowed. "Is that okay with you?"

The question escaped without a filter. He felt ridiculous asking for the approval of two minors, but they were, along with Shoko and Suguru, his whole world. Megumi looked at him with those deep eyes he had inherited from Toji.

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" he replied, as if it were absurd.

"He's kind," Tsumiki added, counting on her fingers. "He brings us jellies, helps us with homework, and never laughs at you when you make a fool of yourself."

"You make a fool of yourself very often," Megumi clarified.

"Thanks, Megumi. You're a ray of sunshine," Satoru said flatly.

"It's not an insult. It's a scientific fact."

Tsumiki let out a low giggle, and Satoru joined in. In the end, even Megumi twisted the corner of his lips.

Later, after washing the dishes and putting the kids to bed, Satoru locked himself in his room. He stared at the phone for ten minutes before dialing. Suguru picked up on the second ring.

"Satoru? Is something wrong?"

"No," he replied immediately. "I mean, yes. But it's not bad. It's... weird."

"Breathe," Suguru asked on the other end. Satoru obeyed out of pure reflex. One. Two. Three breaths of air.

"The kids asked me if you're my boyfriend," he blurted, like ripping off a band-aid.

The silence that followed was dense, but warm. He could guess Suguru's smile through the line.

"And what did you tell them?"

"Nothing," he admitted, lowering his tone. "I went blank. I don't know what we are. I know you're Suguru, I like you, and we're together. But I don't know what to call it. Utahime said 'boyfriend' was lowering oneself, that it's just... teenage stuff and god, I don't know, isn't it too soon to think about calling you fiancé? God, now I'm rambling."

"Satoru."

"Hmm?"

"Breathe again. What do you want us to be?" Suguru's voice arrived with such gentle slowness that it felt like a hug. "Whatever you choose. No pressure. If you want me to be your friend, your companion, or if we invent a new word, it's all the same to me. I don't care about labels; I care about being with you."

Satoru pressed the device against his ear, feeling his pulse race.

"And if I want to call you my boyfriend?" he whispered.

"Then I'm your boyfriend. And it's an honor."

"It's silly," Satoru murmured, blushing in the room's dimness. "It's just a word."

"Words matter, Satoru. Because you matter."

Satoru covered his face, unable to stop the silly smile splitting his face. "You're so sappy."

"I know. Do you like it?"

"...Yes," he admitted in a thread of a voice. "I do like it."

"Good. Now go to sleep. Your boyfriend is hungry for your curry tomorrow."

"You'll get indigestion."

"It'll be worth it."

Hanging up, Satoru lay back against the pillow. This time he didn't dissect the silences or look for the trap. He just smiled in the darkness, savoring a two-syllable word.

Boyfriend.

Suguru was his boyfriend. And, for the first time in two very long years, defining love didn't terrify him.

Suguru's phone rang on a Saturday afternoon.

Satoru was resting on the couch with a bag of gummies between his legs and a documentary about black holes playing in the background. Beside him, Suguru was absently stroking his hair while reading. It was one of those moments of peace that Satoru was just barely starting to believe in.

Suguru looked at the screen. His hand stopped.

"Everything okay?" Satoru asked, not taking his eyes off the TV.

"My mother," Suguru replied. His voice already sounded different; tenser, smaller. "I'm going to answer in the kitchen."

He got up and crossed the sliding door. Satoru was left alone with the black holes but stopped paying attention to them. He pricked up his ears.

At first, only controlled murmurs reached him. Then, Suguru's tone rose. It wasn't a shout, but something akin to a plea.

"Mom, we've talked about this."

Pause.

"It's not a phase."

The reply on the other end sharpened, cutting.

"Because I don't like girls. It's not a decision. It's..."

Suguru didn't finish the sentence. He just listened. His silence hurt more than any shout.

Satoru went rigid, squeezing the bag of gummies. He heard a dry "fine, I have to go" and the click of the call ending.

Silence.

Satoru waited for the typical choreographed exit: a fake smile and a "it's fine, just mother things." But Suguru didn't come back.

Two minutes passed. Uneasy, Satoru got up and slid the door just a few centimeters.

Suguru was leaning against the counter, his back turned. He held the phone with loose fingers, staring at the white wall as if searching for a non-existent answer.

"Suguru?" he whispered.

He didn't turn around.

"I don't need you to fix it," Suguru said, his voice broken, cascading from an internal scream. "I just need you to stay. And not talk for a while."

Satoru felt a dry impact in his chest. The panic of uselessness paralyzed him.

"You have to fix it," Utahime's voice dug into his memory. "If you're not good for that, you're good for nothing. Selfish. You only know how to receive."

His brain flooded with static. He wanted to hug him, call Shoko, find solutions, but not knowing what to do froze his feet.

"Satoru," Suguru called, guessing his paralysis. "You're overthinking it. Come here."

It wasn't an order; it was a hand extended in the air.

Satoru walked with clumsy movements. He stopped beside him, not daring to break the distance. His hands hung uselessly.

"Let's sit down?" He hated how small his voice came out.

Suguru nodded. They slid to the floor, backs against the cabinet, legs stretched towards the fridge.

Suguru's shoulder trembled slightly. He wasn't crying, but something vibrated beneath his skin, contained to the limit. Then, before his logical mind could sabotage him, Satoru tilted his head and rested it on his boyfriend's shoulder.

He didn't offer answers. He didn't ask what happened. He just synced his breathing with his.

Suguru tensed for an instant. Then, very slowly, he rested his cheek on Satoru's white hair.

The fridge hummed. The echo of black holes floated in the other room. Satoru stayed there, motionless, not solving anything, just populating the void.

"I'm sorry," Satoru whispered after a while.

"Why?" Suguru's voice didn't tremble as much anymore.

"For not knowing what to do," he admitted, squeezing his eyelids shut. "I should say something to help you, but I feel useless."

Suguru pulled back just enough to look at him. His eyes were red, wet, but his gaze was of a softness that stung.

"You did exactly what I asked."

"Huh?"

"I asked you to stay and not talk," he added with a tired smile. "You stayed and kept quiet. What else would I need?"

"But I didn't do anything," Satoru insisted, feeling the knot of anxiety. "I didn't hug you, I didn't tell you everything would be okay, I didn't..."

"Satoru," Suguru took his hand, squeezing his knuckles with gentle firmness. "Sometimes, 'nothing' is the whole space. You don't have to save me. I'm not a quantum physics problem you need to solve. I'm just a guy who had a shitty call and needs to process it."

"And me?" Satoru asked, naked. "What am I here for?"

"My boyfriend," Suguru decreed, as if it were the simplest law of the universe. "The one who stays when there's nothing to do. That's you."

Something warm and thick rose in Satoru's chest, chasing away the static. It smelled of white flowers, lavender tea, and the sandalwood of the kitchen.

"Are you okay?"

"Now I am," Suguru replied, and his smile touched the truth. "Thank you."

"I didn't do anything," Satoru insisted, in a thread of a voice.

"You did everything," Suguru concluded.

They stayed on the floor, fingers intertwined, the monotonous noise of the kitchen filling the space. Satoru still didn't have an instruction manual, but Suguru's hand didn't let go.

And that, he understood, was more than enough.

Satoru had been quiet for two days.

It wasn't an obvious silence; he hadn't locked himself away or ignored messages. But Suguru knew his signs: the evasive look, the monosyllabic answers, that smile that appeared and disappeared too quickly.

They were sharing Suguru's couch in front of a movie neither was paying attention to. Satoru kept his head resting on the backrest, arms crossed over his chest. A defensive posture. Rigid.

"Satoru," Suguru paused the film.

"Hmm?"

"You seem off. Did I do something?"

Satoru took so long to answer that Suguru's unease morphed into real concern.

"It's nothing," he finally said, forcing a carefree tone that failed halfway.

"It's nothing." His shield phrase. The one he had repeated for two years with Utahime to avoid conflicts that, anyway, ended up exploding in his face. The lie he learned to swallow until it turned to stones in his stomach.

"I don't believe you," Suguru replied with gentle firmness. "And I'm not accusing you of anything, but something's up. I just want to know what it is."

Satoru clenched his jaw. His fingers began to twist and untwist a loose thread on the edge of the blanket.

"You forgot about the kids," he let out, his voice vibrating tenser than he intended. "On Tuesday. I asked you three times to pick them up because I had a meeting. And you forgot."

Suguru blinked. His face moved from confusion to recognition, and from there to guilt. He rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous gesture.

"Shit," he murmured. "You're right. I'm sorry, it completely slipped my mind. I had a last-minute meeting and..."

"I don't want excuses," Satoru interrupted, feeling his voice crack. "I don't want explanations. I just want you not to forget. Because when it happens, my head..."

He stopped himself, biting his lip. The wool thread gave way under his fingers.

"Your head what, Satoru?" Suguru insisted in a whisper.

Satoru closed his eyes. This time it wasn't Utahime's voice sabotaging the air; it was his own raw pain.

"My head interprets it as you not caring about me," he confessed in a thread of a voice. "That I'm not important enough for you to remember what I ask. I know it's not true, I know you're not her... but it still stings. When someone forgets something involving me, my brain translates it as me not being worth enough."

The subsequent silence wasn't cold. It became dense, heavy, impregnated with an honesty that hurt.

"You're right," Suguru stated.

Satoru opened his eyes, disconcerted. He expected a defense, a counterattack like "you forget things too" or "it's not a big deal." But Suguru remained firm in his fault.

"I'm sorry," the black-haired man continued, measuring each word. "It wasn't on purpose, but the damage is done. You have every right to be upset, and I'm not going to ask you to get over it."

Satoru swallowed, disarmed. The psychological conditioning Utahime had inflicted on him had only prepared him to apologize on his knees or defend himself with claws; he didn't know how to process a legitimate apology.

"What can I do now to make it right?" Suguru asked. "I can't rewrite Tuesday, but I can act now."

"I don't know," Satoru admitted.

"I propose something," Suguru turned on the couch to face him. "I'm going to set alarms on my phone for everything involving the kids and for every important thing you tell me. If I fail again after that, the fault will be entirely mine. Does that sound okay?"

Satoru studied him. He detected no second intentions, no hidden agendas. Just a real apology and a practical solution.

"That sounds okay," he managed to say, regaining stability in his voice.

"Good," Suguru nodded. After a brief pause, he added, "Satoru."

"What?"

"I can't promise you that I'll never forget something again. I'm human, it's going to happen. But when it does, I need you to tell me. Don't swallow it, don't suffer alone in silence. Can we agree on that?"

A thick knot formed in Satoru's throat. Suguru wasn't demanding impossible perfection; he was asking for communication. He was asking him to expose the wound even if he had caused it.

"I'll try," he promised. It was the cleanest sentence he'd spoken in days.

Suguru smiled. A small, tired but honest grimace.

"That's enough for me."

That night, Satoru didn't stay over.

It wasn't out of anger or as punishment; he simply needed space. His head was still processing the conversation, and although everything had ended well, something was churning in his chest. Boundaries. Those famous boundaries the world always talked about.

Suguru had drawn one without needing to raise his voice: I can't be perfect, but I don't want you to suffer alone. And Satoru, used to iron walls, still didn't know how to inhabit such an open space.

He arrived at his building with his hands deep in his pockets. As he passed Toji's apartment, he noticed the door ajar. Lights on, the metallic echo of pans, and a dense aroma of home cooking.

He peeked in. Toji was cooking with his back turned. At the table, Megumi was concentrating with his tongue slightly sticking out, visibly losing the battle against a notebook full of fractions.

"Brat," Toji said without turning around, detecting his presence. "Don't you have your own place?"

"Yeah," Satoru replied, entering without an invitation because he knew full well Toji would never formally invite him. "But I came to save Megumi. You don't know how to explain math."

"I know how to explain fractions," Toji grumbled, flipping whatever smelled like ginger and onion in the pan. "The problem is that this little monster is stubborn."

"Paternal inheritance," Satoru murmured, sliding into the chair next to the boy.

Megumi looked up from the paper and scanned him in a second, evaluating.

"You look weird," the little one decreed.

"I'm not weird," Satoru replied, gently snatching the pencil from him.

"Yes, you are. You have a sad face."

Toji turned completely, leaning his arms on the counter. He stared at him for a moment with that uncomfortable, direct scrutiny that characterized him.

"The brat has a good eye," Toji interjected. "You've got a face like a beaten dog that you can't handle."

"Nobody beats me," Satoru protested, though the term stung more than he intended to show.

"I didn't say they hit you. I said you have that face."

Megumi, oblivious to the adult subtext, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Tiredness was starting to win.

"Finish the exercises," Satoru instructed, pointing to the line. "Three and four. Then I'll take you to bed."

"Don't take me to bed," Megumi protested, his voice already thick. "I'm not a baby."

"You're a giant baby," Toji stated. And Satoru knew that, in that man's rough language, that was the closest thing to a caress.

Megumi finished the two exercises in five minutes thanks to Satoru, who explained the riddle of fractions using drawings of cats. As soon as he finished, the child practically fell asleep on the notebook. Toji carried him in his arms with an ease that always made Satoru envious —given that the little one already weighed a fair amount— and took him down the hall towards the bedrooms.

Satoru was left alone in the kitchen, his gaze fixed on the extinguished stove and the pan still resting on the burner. He sank so deeply into his thoughts that Toji, upon returning, found him in the exact same posture.

"You're still here," Toji noted, frowning.

"I'm still processing."

"Processing isn't standing around like an idiot staring at an empty pan."

Toji snorted, rubbing his face tiredly. He opened a high kitchen cabinet and took out two small glass bottles with colored labels. Satoru recognized them instantly.

"Aren't those the apple juices you buy for Megumi?"

"I don't have alcohol, moron," Toji grunted, slamming one of the bottles in front of him. "I live with kids. I have to drink something to keep from going crazy, and this is all there is. So drink."

Satoru took the bottle. The juice wasn't cold, but he didn't care. He took a long sip. Sweet, cloying, childish. But at that precise moment, strangely, it felt like a balm.

"Alright," Toji said, collapsing into the chair opposite him with his own apple juice. "Spill it."

"What?"

"What's bothering you. Don't give me that look. You've had a storm brewing under that white hair since you walked in. If you don't spit it out, you'll be here all night staring at my kitchen and drive me completely crazy. Talk, now."

Satoru fell silent. His long fingers began to scratch the bottle's label, peeling it off millimeter by millimeter.

"I argued with Suguru," he confessed finally, in a low voice.

Toji took a drink of his apple juice, unperturbed.

"So? Couples argue, Gojo. That's what they do."

"We didn't argue badly," Satoru clarified. "We argued... well. We talked. He apologized, I told him how I felt, and we agreed he'd set alarms so he doesn't forget important things."

Toji arched an eyebrow, incredulous.

"So what's the damn problem?"

"That he set boundaries," Satoru replied, his voice cracking on the last word. "He told me he doesn't want me to swallow the pain. To tell him when something hurts me. And that's a boundary, isn't it? Telling me to talk, to... well, you know, communicate."

Toji looked at him in silence. He drank another sip of his apple juice and grimaced.

"And that makes you angry?" he asked.

"I don't know," Satoru admitted. "I don't know if it bothers me or if I'm dying of fear. Utahime never set healthy boundaries; she never said what she wanted or what bothered her. She just applied punishments when I did something 'wrong,' but she never explained what she expected from me. Now Suguru tells me exactly what he expects, and I... I don't know how to react. It's like being given a map whose coordinates I can't read."

Toji set the bottle down on the table with a dry thud. He let out a long, deep sigh, as if gathering the strength he needed to pull up a memory he didn't feel like stirring.

"I'm going to tell you some shit," Toji said. His voice lost its usual rough edge, becoming grave, slow. "When I started with Megumi's mother... I was a walking disaster."

Satoru looked up, thrown off. Toji never talked about her. Ever.

"I come from a rotten family," Toji continued, staring at the empty pan. "Violent. Controlling. People who crush you to remind you what you're worth and what you're not. I left that house with more cracks than skin. And when I met the brat's mother... she was the opposite. Calm. Patient. But damn firm."

"Firm?" Satoru wanted to know.

"She set boundaries for me," Toji nodded. "All the time. At first, they drove me crazy; I thought she was controlling me, treating me like a kid, or looking down on me. Until one day she sat me on the couch, fixed me with her stare, and said: 'Toji, I don't set boundaries because I don't trust you. I set them because I love myself. And I love you. I want this to work, but for that to happen, we both need to know how far we can push without breaking.'"

Satoru swallowed, processing the impact.

"And what did you do?"

"I understood it through hardship," Toji admitted, with a bitter half-smile. "It cost me, but I got it. Boundaries aren't meant to lock you in, Gojo. They're so the other person knows where you stand. So they don't step on you by accident. So they don't have to guess."

"You think so?" Satoru whispered.

"I know so," Toji stated. "Look, kid. That guy, Suguru, is nothing like your witch of an ex. Stop comparing them. She didn't set boundaries because she didn't care about you; she wanted you weak, dependent, mute. He sets boundaries because he cares about you. He wants a relationship of two, not one where you're just a defective accessory."

Satoru squeezed the juice bottle between his hands, feeling the plastic give.

"And if I cross them without meaning to?"

"Then you stop, apologize, and learn," Toji replied, shrugging. "That's how this shit works. No one is born knowing how to be in a relationship, especially coming from where you come from. But if he has patience and you're willing to try... you've already got half the road paved."

"And the other half?"

"The other half is not running away when it stings," Toji answered, getting to his feet. "Because it's going to hurt. It's going to be uncomfortable, and sometimes you're going to want to tell everything to go to hell. But if you stay, and he stays... that's it. There's no other secret. Because believe me, if boundaries bother you, it says more about you than you think. The one who gets angry because you set boundaries is precisely the one who was taking advantage of their absence."

Satoru remained sitting in someone else's kitchen, the words echoing in his chest.

"You know something?" he said after a while.

Toji, who was already washing the pan under the tap, didn't turn around.

"Tell me."

"You've never talked to me that much in a row. I'm starting to get worried."

"Shut up, brat, or I'll kick you out."

Satoru smiled. A small, fragile grimace, but real.

"Toji."

"What?"

"Thank you."

The water ran in the sink for a second of silence. Then, without looking at him, Toji said:

"Don't thank me. I just told the truth. Now get out of here, go to your apartment, and go to sleep. Tomorrow the little monster has homework, and you're going to check it."

Satoru got up, left the empty bottle on the table, and walked towards the exit. At the threshold, he stopped.

"Toji."

"I told you to shut up."

"You're a piece of stone, but you're not a bad person."

"Satoru, I swear if you don't walk through that door right now..."

"I'm going, I'm going."

He went out into the hallway with his hands in his pockets. The apple juice had left a sweet trail on his tongue, and his head, for the first time all day, felt a little clearer.

Boundaries weren't a punishment. They were a map. And maybe, with time and patience, he would learn to read it.

The building was submerged in a sepulchral silence when Satoru closed his apartment door.

Two in the morning. The neighbors slept. Megumi and Tsumiki had been lost in their rooms for hours, and Toji, in the adjacent apartment, was probably also asleep. The whole world seemed to have switched off, as if someone had pressed a pause button on reality.

Satoru stood for a moment at the entrance, his back against the wood, contemplating the gloom of the living room. The streetlight filtered through the slats of the blinds, drawing pale, symmetrical lines on the floor. It looked like a scene from an old movie; lonely, black and white, suspended in time.

He took off his shoes slowly and shed his jacket. He left the keys in the dish by the entrance with a metallic tinkling that sounded ridiculously loud in the early morning. Then he walked to the sofa, let himself fall onto the cushions, and fixed his gaze on the ceiling.

The three cracks were still there.

He counted the first. The second. He stopped at the third, the one that branched out like a map of dry rivers. But, for the first time in many days, he no longer saw them as a threat of collapse or a reminder of his own defects. He saw them as scars of an old building that, despite winter and earthquakes, was still standing. A refuge that resisted.

"Okay," he whispered into the empty air, trying to anchor himself. "Think."

And his brain, obedient, complex, and finally free of static, kicked into gear.

Toji was right. He hated it, but he was right.

Boundaries weren't a punishment; they were a map. And he didn't know how to read them because no one had bothered to teach him. Utahime didn't establish boundaries; she planted traps. Invisible borders that changed location every morning, impossible to foresee or respect because they didn't exist. She never said "I don't like this"; her mantra was "If you loved me, you'd know." And Satoru spent hours, days, weeks trying to guess which rule he had broken without even knowing it existed.

"You're a physicist, Satoru," she would say with a smile that died before reaching her eyes. "You should deduce what I need without me opening my mouth. If I have to ask, it doesn't count anymore."

And he tried. He would break his head trying to read the mind of someone who changed the rules of the game just as he was about to win. Because in the end, he understood years later, it wasn't about him getting it right; it was about her needing an eternal excuse to be angry. To punish him. To remind him he would never be enough.

Satoru sat up on the sofa, put his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

The echo of the nights in that apartment assaulted him in the gloom. She crying; him standing, paralyzed by uselessness. Her accusing him of being selfish, of inhabiting his own insensitive world. Him apologizing over and over for offenses he hadn't committed, for intentions he never had. Her demanding a hug only to push him away with disgust, decreeing that he didn't even know how to hold her, that everything about him was defective.

"I need you," she would say, her voice broken. "But you're never there. You're always in your numbers, your nonsense. You don't care how I feel."

And Satoru, who sabotaged his own sleep to get her exams done early; Satoru, who canceled his own projects to be available at her first ring; Satoru, who shrunk until he disappeared to fit her whims... believed her.

Of course he believed her. Because that's what psychological manipulation achieves: it convinces you the sun revolves around the earth, and when you finally discover the truth, you no longer know if you can trust your own eyes.

"I don't want to be like this," Satoru whispered into the darkness of the living room. "I don't want Suguru to pay for what she broke in me."

He spoke his name out loud, letting the three syllables float in the room.

Suguru.

And invoking him worked like a spell. His image appeared with a sharpness that stole his breath.

He saw him sitting on the floor of his bedroom, reading in a constant whisper so as not to disturb his paralysis. He saw him laughing with the kids, crouched down to their height while teaching Tsumiki to fold a paper airplane. He saw him crying because of an onion in the kitchen, mocking his own tears with that laugh that crinkled his eyes. He saw him looking at him as if he were valuable. Not as a luxury accessory or a campus trophy. As a human being.

"He's real," Satoru murmured, and the words escaped from some secret drawer in his chest. "In a world full of empty people, he's someone real. He says what he feels and expects me to do the same."

A thick, clean warmth flooded his chest, chasing away the static in his stomach.

He was in love.

It wasn't the arrow of the first night, that fulminant impact upon seeing him being kind to the children. It wasn't the simple attraction to the curve of his smile. It was something deeper, a solid foundation. It was the certainty of having seen his bad days and wanting to stay. It was knowing his vulnerability and not wanting to run away. Knowing he wasn't perfect, that he also dragged shitty phone calls and tiredness, and yet, with his seams exposed, wanting to walk beside him.

He was truly in love. For the first time in his life.

And precisely because of that, because he loved him with an intensity that made him dizzy, he had to act. He couldn't turn Suguru into his savior.

That was the great temptation, wasn't it? Find someone good and hang the label "he's going to cure me" on them. Deposit in their hands every wound, every void, and all the responsibility for his own happiness. Turn him into a hero. And when that hero failed —because everyone fails, because they're human— punish him for not living up to expectations he never asked for.

That's exactly what Utahime had done with him. She turned him into her emotional punching bag and, at the same time, her imaginary savior. She demanded he read her mind, rescue her from her own demons, be perfect. And when he failed —because no one can achieve that— she punished him with the whip of contempt.

Satoru refused to repeat the cycle with Suguru. He wasn't going to force a cape on him that didn't belong to him, nor allow his own restoration to depend on his hugs or his pretty words. Because if his stability hung by that thread, the day Suguru was exhausted, the day he couldn't hold him up or was dealing with his own hells, Satoru would crumble. And worse: he would end up blaming him.

"I don't want that," he whispered, his eyelids squeezed shut. "I don't want to love him badly."

He thought about Utahime. About everything she had inoculated under his skin: that he was too loud, too intense, unbearable. That his ADHD was an excuse for laziness, his bisexuality a deviation, his emotions a ridiculous nuisance. That showing vulnerability was weak and asking for help was for failures. He had swallowed every word. He had internalized them so much that he no longer needed her to spit them out; his own mind reproduced them in a distorted loop.

"You're worthless. You're a burden. You're just annoying."

And then Suguru would arrive with his tea, his white flowers, and his infinite patience to show him with facts that it was all a lie. But Satoru couldn't quite believe it. Two years of psychological demolition didn't disappear just because someone new told you that you were safe.

He needed professional help.

The idea froze his blood. Therapy. Stripping emotionally naked in front of a stranger who owed him nothing; stirring the wound on purpose to clean it. But he was more terrified of continuing like this. Continuing to hope that Suguru would save him with a kiss. Continuing to feel that any disagreement was the end of the world and believe, deep down, that he didn't deserve to be loved.

"I'm going to find a therapist," he decreed out loud. The words sounded fragile, but immense. "Not to build a perfect relationship, or to transform myself into the ideal boyfriend. For me. Because I'm tired of feeling broken, and I want to stop being afraid of good things."

He fell silent, listening to the rhythm of his own breathing and the steady beat of his chest.

"Because I want to love him well," he whispered. "And to do that, first I have to learn to love myself. Even though I don't have the slightest idea how to do it yet."

A solitary tear slid down his cheek. He didn't wipe it away. He let it trace his skin, warm, until it died at the corner of his lips. It wasn't a tear of sadness; it was one of those that springs forth when you make an irrevocable decision. The kind that tastes of pure liberation.

Minutes passed. Hours.

Satoru didn't move from the sofa, didn't turn on the TV, didn't reach for his phone. He just inhabited the space, letting his thoughts fluctuate like leaves blown by the wind.

He smiled with a width that stretched his cheekbones. And then, as if his brain decreed that the quota of crying and nostalgia was covered, an archived memory emerged.

The book.

Days ago, he had stumbled online upon an old edition of The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Suguru once mentioned his fascination with Russian philosophy and how his university readings had reshaped his world. Satoru stored the detail in his hyperfixation archive. Now it made sense.

He turned on his phone. 3:30 AM. The blue light of the screen assaulted his pupils, but he ignored it. He located the virtual bookstore, found the copy, and completed the purchase.

It was a clean impulse, stripped of the static of anxiety. He wasn't buying a hall pass to mitigate guilt, nor trying to cushion a future punishment. It was, simply, the desire to give something beautiful because he had thought of him. Without tricks. Without emotional bills.

"A gift isn't a weapon." Toji was right about too many things.

He placed the device on the nightstand. The package would take a couple of days to arrive. He wouldn't wait for a special occasion; he would give it to him on any random Tuesday, just for the genuine pleasure of seeing his smile.

The night began to fray. The hue of the street transitioned from pale yellow to orange dawn as the first birds rehearsed a timid song. The building's silence persisted, but it now had a different texture, a promise of freshly brewed coffee and a new routine.

Satoru remained on the sofa. He hadn't slept, nor did he intend to. He spent the wakefulness talking to himself, closing ghosts, and charting his own route. Dark, dense circles framed his gaze, his clothes showed signs of confinement, and his white hair pointed in all directions.

But he was smiling. A small, exhausted grimace, the kind that springs forth after an internal truce. It wasn't the euphoria of explosive happiness, but the relief of one who confirms: "I survived this night and came out better than I went in."

"Good morning, world," he whispered, his voice raspy from hours of mutism.

He rubbed his eyelids. The subtle throb in his dark circles operated as a physical reminder of his own humanity; he wasn't a stone pillar, he was a man who needed rest.

He checked the clock: 7:00 AM. Suguru would still be asleep, so he would wait to write him a basic message. Maybe a simple greeting accompanied by a sun emoji, or an honest "I thought about you." Or perhaps he would immortalize his dark circles with a playful reproach: "look what you make me suffer." Suguru would reply with his slow laugh, decreeing that he looked handsome even in disaster, and Satoru would feign indignation while melting inside from pure dopamine.

He stretched on the upholstery, hearing the creak of his joints protesting the immobility. Despite the physical discomfort, his head didn't feel heavy.

He wasn't healed; the demolition of two years wasn't reversed in a couple of hours, but he had taken the first step: the firm resolve to rescue himself. Not for Suguru, not for the children's well-being, but for himself. Because he also had the right to inhabit joy. A premise that, weeks ago, would have churned his stomach with pure guilt.

A ray of sunlight pierced the slats of the blind, reaching the palm of his hand. Satoru looked at it with the fascination of someone discovering light for the first time.

"Maybe," he murmured to the empty living room, "this healing thing isn't an impossible equation."

He rested his eyelids for just twenty minutes. When he opened them, the sun dominated the space and the building was recovering its daily pulse: footsteps on the upper floor, distant slamming doors, the murmur of pipes.

He picked up his phone and typed:

[Satoru]: Good morning. I spent the night thinking about you. About me. About us. I love you. When you wake up, take your time. No rush.

He examined the lines three times. It seemed like excessive exposure, a disarming without guarantees. He deleted the confession of insomnia, restored it, hesitated again. Finally, he pressed send without correcting a single letter. Suguru was a gentleman, and he was learning to lose the fear of showing his naked heart.

He got to his feet, walked to the kitchen, and lit the fire for tea.

Outside, the sun claimed the Tokyo sky. Inside, in the corner of his chest that the damp concrete had kept frozen, something was beginning to bloom again. It wasn't spring yet, but winter was finally over.

The book had arrived the day after his sleepless night. Satoru left it on the nightstand, wrapped in kraft paper with a white string bow and a small sprig of dried lavender. It needed no further justification; lavender smelled like Suguru, and that was enough.

He had been rehearsing the delivery for two days. He wanted it to be natural, a simple: "I saw this and thought of you." But nothing in the physics of his brain was simple. That's why he decided to wait for him outside the publishing house. He wanted to return the surprise, appear out of nowhere and trigger that lopsided smile that always weakened his knees.

After a train ride that served as a breathing exercise, he arrived at the glass and concrete building. At the reception, a middle-aged woman with thick-rimmed glasses interrupted her typing.

"Suguru Geto?" she checked. "He didn't come in today. He called early to say he was sick. Flu, I think. He sounded pretty bad."

Satoru's stomach dropped to his feet.

"Sick?" he repeated, as if deciphering an unknown language.

"Yes," the woman smiled sympathetically. "Are you his colleague?"

Satoru hesitated for a second. Then he smiled, and for the first time, he didn't use his smile as a shield.

"I'm his boyfriend."

"Oh. Take him something to eat, then. Single men eat terribly when they're down sick."

Satoru thanked her with a hasty bow and ran out almost immediately. His heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour, but it wasn't panic; it was a new concern, an electric impulse pushing him to take care of him.

On the way to Suguru's apartment, he raided a pharmacy: he bought paracetamol, throat lozenges, and some effervescent vitamin C tablets that he didn't know if they worked, but they earned points. At a convenience store, he added instant miso soup, bottles of ginger tea, and saltine crackers.

He arrived at the building with the bags rustling and his heart in a fist. He climbed the stairs two at a time until he stood before his door. He rang the bell. Silence. He pressed again.

"Suguru?" he called, raising his voice. "It's me, Satoru. I went to the publishing house, and they told me you were sick. Can I come in?"

On the other side, he heard clumsy, dragging footsteps, the echo of a dull thud against furniture, and an unintelligible groan. Finally, the lock turned. The door opened just a few centimeters.

"Satoru," Suguru's voice was a disastrous rasp, as if he'd swallowed sandpaper. "I didn't want you to see me like this."

"Let me in," Satoru asked, leaving no room for replies.

"I'm a mess."

"I don't care."

"It's a horrible flu. I'll get you sick."

"I don't care, Suguru. Open the door."

After a sigh and a moment of hesitation, the door opened fully. Satoru almost didn't recognize him.

Suguru was leaning on the frame, wrapped in a blanket that seemed to have lost its dignity hours ago. His hair, usually impeccable, fell in lackluster strands over his shoulders. His nose was reddened from constant rubbing with tissues, and his eyes carried dark circles that rivaled the ones Satoru had sported two nights ago. His skin had a grayish pallor, and a dry cough shook his torso at regular intervals.

But what truly stung Satoru was his expression. He looked embarrassed, as if being sick constituted a personal failure; as if he should apologize for having broken.

"Suguru," he murmured, softening his tone. "You're in pieces."

"I warned you," he coughed, covering his mouth with his fist. "You shouldn't have come. You'll get sick."

"I don't care about the flu."

"You should."

"Suguru."

The name carried an authority that surprised them both. Satoru crossed the threshold, dropped the bags, and with a delicacy unprecedented in him, placed a hand on his forehead. It was burning.

"You have a fever," he decreed, as if discovering gunpowder.

"No kidding," Suguru ironized with a languid smile. "I've been like this for two days."

"Two days? And why didn't you tell me anything?"

"I didn't want to worry you."

Something twisted in Satoru's chest. It wasn't anger; it was the mirror of his own history reflecting back at him. "I didn't want to worry you. I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want you to see me broken."

"To bed," he ordered, closing the door with his foot. "And don't argue with me."

Suguru arched an eyebrow, thrown off. "Are you giving me orders?"

"Yes," Satoru picked up the supplies and pushed him gently towards the hallway. "Get used to it. I'm the nurse in charge."

"You're a terrible nurse," Suguru coughed, though he let himself be guided. "Last time you made me tea, you put the bag in cold water."

"I learn fast."

"You have ADHD, Satoru. You don't learn anything fast that doesn't obsess you."

"You have the flu, so shut up and lie down."

The bedroom was a chaos of tangled sheets. Satoru pushed a couple of Russian novels off the duvet and helped Suguru bury himself under the covers. The dark-haired man collapsed against the pillow with a groan of pure relief. Satoru watched him from the edge, assessing the damage.

"When did you last eat?"

"I don't remember."

"Yesterday. Maybe. A piece of bread."

"A piece of bread?" Satoru stood with his hands on his hips, unconsciously copying a typical Shoko posture. "That's what you eat when you're alone and sick?"

"I didn't have the strength to go out and buy anything."

"You could have called me, Suguru. I would have come right away."

"I didn't want to be a bother."

The words floated in the air of the room. Satoru recognized them instantly; they were the same ones he had repeated to himself a hundred times. Hearing them now from the other side stung in a completely new way.

"You are never a bother," he stated in a low voice. "Ever, okay? Just like I'm not a bother when you hold me up. That's... that's part of this. Of us. Taking care of each other."

Suguru looked at him with his eyes glassy from fever, but charged with an intense brightness. He sketched a small, crooked smile that was immediately buried by a coughing fit.

"Look who's talking about taking care," he managed to joke between gasps. "The same guy who was afraid to confess he hated Chinese food."

"I've improved," Satoru replied, heading towards the kitchen. "And you're going to do the same. Stay there, don't move."

"I have no intention of doing so."

"Not even for the bathroom."

"That's biologically impossible, Satoru."

"Then hold it."

Suguru's laugh, rasped by the cough but genuine, escorted him to the hallway. While opening the miso soup packet and pouring it into a pot on the fire, Satoru experienced an unprecedented sensation in his chest. There was no trace of the anxiety static or the panic of failure.

It was... pure security.

He was taking care of the man he loved. And, for the first time in his life, he didn't feel useless, defective, or clumsy. He just felt that he was, exactly, where he was supposed to be.

The soup took ten minutes to heat up. Satoru served it in a large bowl, sprinkled some fresh chives, and carried it to the bedroom along with a napkin.

Suguru sat up slowly, sinking against the pillows. His cheeks were flushed with fever, his lips chapped. Satoru sat on the edge of the mattress, holding the steaming bowl between his hands.

"Here," he offered the spoon. "Slowly."

"I can do it myself," Suguru protested, though his fingers faltered when trying to hold it.

"I know. But let me do this, okay?"

Suguru studied him for a moment. Then, surrendering in silence, he accepted the first sip. The warm broth soothed his throat, and Satoru perceived how his shoulders unstiffened.

"It's good," he murmured. "I didn't know you could cook."

"It's instant. I just heated it."

"Well, you heated it with style."

Satoru let out a light giggle that morphed into a thick warmth when Suguru returned the smile. They ate in a comfortable silence, the kind that envelops. Satoru offered the spoon, waited, and repeated the gesture. His hands operated firmly, free from the static of overthinking. He just inhabited the present.

When the bowl was empty, he put it on the nightstand and handed him a paracetamol with a glass of water.

"For the fever."

"You're a dictator," he managed to complain, but swallowed the pill without protest.

Satoru stayed there, still. His arms hung at his sides, and his mind, for once, felt a clean peace. No quantum problem left to solve in that square meter.

"Satoru," Suguru called, his voice attenuated. "What are you really doing here? You went to my office, bought supplies, fed me... Why?"

Satoru looked away towards the window, where the sunset was beginning to set Tokyo ablaze in orange.

"I had a gift for you," he confessed. "A book. I wanted to surprise you after work, see your face... but you weren't there."

"And you found me a mess," Suguru smiled with a trace of melancholy. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing for being sick," Satoru replied, softening his tone. "Listen. The night we argued, I didn't sleep a wink. I was thinking, and I made a decision. I'm going to find a therapist."

Suguru looked at him, expectant.

"I'm not doing it so that 'us' can be perfect, or to turn myself into the ideal boyfriend," Satoru continued, and this time his voice carried a maturity without cracks. "I'm doing it for me. I'm tired of carrying this weight, and I refuse to turn you into my savior. It's not your job to wear that cape."

Suguru tried to speak, but Satoru touched his lips with his fingers.

"Utahime used me as her punching bag and her imaginary hero. She demanded I read her mind and rescue her from herself, and when I failed, she punished me. She convinced me that I was the defect. I believed it so much that now any expectation triggers panic in me, and every time someone cares for me, I expect them to bill me for it."

His eyes moistened, but he didn't look away.

"I love you. I love you in a way I didn't think was biologically possible. And precisely because of that, I can't put my healing in your hands. It's not fair to you, nor healthy for me. I need to learn to stand on my own so I can walk beside you. Without it being your responsibility."

The silence that followed was dense, but strangely tender. With millimetric slowness, Suguru stretched his hand across the sheet until he intertwined his fingers with Satoru's.

"I carry my own baggage too," Suguru admitted in a murmur. "I shut down when things go wrong, like you saw with my mother. I struggle to ask for help; I grew up believing that if I didn't appear strong and invulnerable, I was worthless. That's my own burden."

"Don't compete in wounds," Satoru interrupted. "This isn't a test."

Suguru sketched a fragile, genuine smile.

"You're right. I just want you to understand that I don't want to be your therapist, Satoru. I want to be your partner. The guy who stays even when it stings. I won't be perfect; I'll screw up and have shitty days, just like you. But if we decide to talk and not run away... that's the whole secret."

Two clean tears traced Satoru's cheeks.

"You're insufferably sappy when you have a fever."

"I always am," Suguru admitted, widening his smile. "But the virus removes my filters."

"Then don't use them anymore. I like you disarmed."

"I like you, however you are."

Satoru let out a sob that mixed with a silly laugh. He leaned in, pressed his forehead against Suguru's, and closed his eyes, ignoring the burning heat of his skin.

"I bought you The Brothers Karamazov," he whispered against his lips. "You mentioned you liked Dostoevsky months ago, in some random chat. My head is a mess, but it held onto that."

"You're incredible."

"I know."

"I adore you."

Satoru opened his eyes, measuring the millimeter distance between them. "Can I kiss you? Even if it leaves me defenseless?"

"You'll catch it, Gojo."

"I don't care."

Suguru sighed, finally surrendering: "Then kiss me."

The kiss didn't have the aesthetics of a novel. Suguru's lips bore the signs of dehydration, tasting of painkillers and miso. There was a clumsy brush, an attempted cough that forced Suguru to pull back, and Satoru's laugh vibrating against his cheek before resuming contact, this time with a deliberate slowness, soft and deep.

When they separated, Satoru still had the shine of tears in his pupils, and Suguru's nose was redder than ever.

"I love you," Satoru said.

"I love you," the dark-haired man returned.

They settled into the tangled bed as dusk faded outside. It wasn't a perfect idyll. They would argue, make mistakes, and deal with the ghosts of the past, because that was what being human entailed. But they were going to stay. And that, Satoru understood as he rested his head on his shoulder and felt Suguru's fingers get lost in his white hair, was the right answer.

"Hey," Suguru whispered, his voice broken. "Where's the book?"

"By the entrance. Why?"

"Because I want you to read it to me out loud when my fever goes down. Like I do for you."

Satoru smiled, feeling his face hurt from so much happiness. "Deal."

Outside, the sun set over Tokyo. Inside, two broken people were learning to hold each other, not to magically mend each other, but to take the heaviness out of healing. Because sometimes, love isn't about instant salvation; it's the real promise that winter is no longer endured alone.

"Satoru."

"Tell me."

"Thank you for coming."

"Always," he promised, and the word sealed the air.

Between the distant murmur of the city and the aroma of ginger, Satoru closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep. His mind was finally silent; his heart was full. It wasn't an ending, but the first day of the rest of his life. And for the first time in two very long years, he felt an immense desire to see the sunrise.