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The smoke curls up into the air, dissipating after an alluring dance. It curves and shifts, altering the air for just a slight moment, creating some sort of twisted dance only for their eyes. Tobacco, love, smoke rings and the curve of Satoru’s lips as he takes another drag, and the expanse of Jujutsu High below them.
Geto doesn’t smoke, not as often as Gojo, neither of them nearly as often as Shoko, always shrouded in the endless dance of cigarette smoke. But the smoke curls so beautifully into the air, and Satoru looks so pretty with his pink lips curved around the cigarette, so pretty as he parts his lips to blow out the dancing smoke.
“Give me one, yeah? You can’t hog them all.” He shifts slightly where he sits, so his knee bumps Gojo’s thigh, their shoulders brushing. They’ve gotten closer before - they’re stupid and horny and in love, and more often than not, late at night, their clothes end up at the foot of their bed like discarded memories, just barely worth thinking of. Touch has simply become another language for them, something routine. But sometimes, in moments like these, it feels as though every little touch means everything.
Maybe it’s the way that he feels above the whole world on this rooftop, maybe it’s the way the smoke taints the air, waltzes with the colors of a dying sunset. Maybe it’s Satoru, infinity down, white hair messy, wind blowing at his shirt so it rides up his abdomen, completely unguarded.
There’s something in moments like these, whatever it might be, where the comfortable silence stretches between them, filled still with the noise of their breath, cicadas, the breeze against their ears.
It’s like the air pauses - not a hesitant, awkward tense - like the world is taking a breath. Like he can let that breath out as long as Gojo is beside him. An inhale. A sigh. A breathy gasp, a broken moan, Gojo’s name, over and over again. He can feel it all in the air. Something lets out the breath it’s been holding and the whole world is seeped in the comfortable sounds of a soft inhale, a slight pause, final release.
He can hear Gojo’s breaths too, the slight pauses, the roughness at the edges, the soft taste of a sigh or an inhale or a choked gasp. He loves how Gojo breathes, odd as it may seem. It’s slow, deep, controlled. He likes to speed up the breaths as Gojo gasps into his mouth. Lose control, both of them. Watch them slow down as they bring their fingers together, Gojo’s slender fingertips slotting into the broad dips of Geto’s knuckles. It’s a reminder that he is alive, in a soft, sweet way that pauses comfortably after each exhale. The whole world breathes in tandem with Gojo, sometimes it feels - everything is alive, and it pauses as he hears Gojo inhale, and the whole world’s heart beats in tandem with Gojo’s
“Yo dumbass. You’ve been gawking so much you didn’t listen at all, did you?” Satoru’s voice, soft and slow in the lull of the sun-warmed day. “Wanna shotgun?”
“Feeling nostalgic, huh?” He remembers, lifetimes ago (only last year) with Satoru holding his jaw (just like this, no, tilt your head a little), Suguru patting his lips and letting his eyes flutter shut, then open, then shut again. Gojo’s lips were as heavenly the first time as the times that followed, soft and sweet (watermelon candy and cigarette smoke, sugar and tobacco and his warm, sweet tongue).
“Hard not to.” He leans into Geto, laying his head on the other boy’s shoulder. The white hairs tickle Geto’s chin and neck with every slight movement. “It’s been a while. Just us.”
The words in between the spaces go unsaid since Amanai. It’s been a while since Amanai’s death. Since we wondered if we should kill them all, if we should set it all on fire; it's been a while since saying no that that question was easy.
Geto brings his hands up to run through Gojo’s hair, twirling the messy strands between his fingers, drawing a finger down the nape of his neck, before curling his hand into the wisps of hair there, tentative.
“Yeah, shotgunning sounds nice. Promise I won’t break down coughing this time.”
Gojo lets out a soft laugh at that, a sound that vibrates against Geto’s shoulder. “I thought you were a goody two shoes until I met her. She’s worse. She’d probably scold us. For smoking.” He doesn’t say Riko’s name, instead sighing slightly. “I don’t know why I miss that brat.”
“You’ve always had a soft spot for lost causes, little brats, the ones that need a bit more care. You don’t wanna admit that you like caring about them.” The words are supposed to be joking, but they come out far too genuine.
Gojo turns to face Geto, spreading his legs with a knee, sitting slotted in the space between his thighs. “Today is for us. I have you like this, and I’m never letting go. Today we pretend we never have to let go, promise me that.”
“You better not let me go.”
“If you walk away I’ll drag you back, y’know. Ya can’t just make me fall in love then leave.” His voice goes softer now, a secret shared between only them, and the wind pauses as if to stop and listen. “You give me everything. So you can’t take that away. You can’t leave me with nothing.”
“It takes a special kind of stupid to leave someone like you,” Geto says, and it feels like a confession all over again. High school crushes and blue springs and shared secrets and everything that ever felt easy, that felt right. They’re all here, just for them, crystallized in summer sunset, like all the other beautiful creatures immortalized in amber.
“You wanna take the drag?” Gojo’s voice is rough, painstakingly affected by the secrets they’re trading, the confessions they’re baring their hearts to say.
“You do it. It always tastes better off your lips.” It’s true, something sweeter makes its way into the smoke.
“Maybe ‘cuz you’re just so used to the taste of curses.” Gojo leans in to Geto, their lips just a few inches apart. “I miss this. It feels like the first time. Just- we need the drugs a little bit more.”
“Like we were before,” he muses. “You’re even prettier though.” It’s a moment of genuine truth, rare, Geto’s wounds open and bleeding fresh, trusting that Gojo will be willing to patch him up.
“Am I?” The wind makes his shirt ride up his abdomen, displaying scars from the star plasma vessel mission that haven’t quite healed. They’re rough against his porcelain skin, winding up his torso in jagged lines. They dance, as the smoke does, but there is nothing graceful about how they move sharply across his abdomen. The smoke and the scars are ghosts of different kinds. He pulls up his shirt, revealing the full expanse of his scars. Am I still beautiful to you, in all my wounded ways? Do you still love me with my scars, will you still make me smile when you know how torn my smile has become?
“You are.” He brings a gentle finger to Gojo’s scars, lets it hover there for a moment, asking rather than demanding. There’s a question in his hovering fingertips.
“Go ahead.” Gojo tries to keep his voice firm, but something wavers around the edges, softened within the spill of sunset gold.
Geto touches slowly, running a single finger around the edges of the scars, featherlight as the touch of butterfly wings. “You are, Satoru. You’re beautiful.”
Nobody is allowed to touch Gojo’s scars, they’re signs of weakness, that he was not strong enough to save Riko, but he leans into the touch nonetheless. Geto isn’t just someone. “You’re being so gentle. Like I’m fragile. I won’t break if you press too hard.” He tries so hard to choke back how his voice shakes, but it comes out thin, fragile. He might just break if Geto presses.
Geto says nothing, but the excruciating reverence held in the languid drag of his hands across Gojo’s torso speak volumes. Gojo doesn’t realize that he’s holding his breath until he exhales once Geto pulls away. The fabric of his shirt brushes the jagged scars as it falls over his abdomen.
“What’s with that look?”
“Gorgeous,” Geto says breathlessly. “Beautiful.” He kisses the tip of Gojo’s nose, then his cheeks, his forehead. Each kiss is momentarily enough, but not satisfying once Geto pulls away, like the sea coming forward to kiss the shore. He kisses, chaste and sweet, across Gojo’s skin till he’s finally smiling, no matter how much smaller his smile may be compared to the wide grin of a few weeks ago.
“I don’t deserve you,” whispers Gojo, another secret confession carried by the wind.
“You deserve the whole world.” The wind blows his bangs into his face, and Gojo leans forward slowly to push the black hairs behind his ears. He lets his fingers linger, pulling down the strong column of Geto’s throat with a single fingertip, resting finally at the valley in between Geto’s collarbones.
“This is just like the first day. All those confessions on the rooftop.”
“Do you remember? Blowing smoke into my lips, we were so close. It just happened. Who moved first?”
“I think it was you. At least until you started coughing madly.” Gojo smiles a bit more, laughing softly. “You’d never even smoked before, goody two shoes.”
“I did it just because it meant I would be closer to you. I never thought I’d actually kiss you… I wanted to, though.”
“You? A hopeless, crushing, lover boy?” He’s expecting a joke in return, for Geto to bite back, but Geto cups Gojo’s face in his hand. His thumb brushes Gojo’s lashes when Gojo leans into the touch.
“For you? Anything.”
Gojo just looks away, pink creeping up his cheeks - the color of the watermelon candies at the shinjuku convenience store (Gojo’s favorites - Geto likes the blue raspberry because it reminds him of Satoru’s eyes); he wants nothing more than than to let the sugar melt on his tongue. “Yeah, yeah. Now c’mon, it’s been forever since we shotgunned.
“It’s really just been forever in general, hasn’t it?”
Gojo grips at his jaw with slender fingers, drawing Geto closer. “That only means we have forever.” His eyes drop down, tracing the curve of Geto’s lips, like he’s already kissing them in his mind, like Suguru’s taste is a memory that he keeps reliving (he relives the memories or Geto’s lips on his to wash out all the other memories that plague his dreams, that grow like rot in his soul).
“Are my lips really that fascinating?” There’s a teasing smirk playing on Geto’s lips at the moment, and Gojo traces it, watches Geto smile, traces the moving curves and the soft scarlet color and the stolen happiness.
“Shall we ignore how you stare at me all day in class, then?” A confession hidden under a taunt - says I notice, I care, I seek out your eyes on mine.
Geto looks away, giving Gojo a flawless view of the flush working its way down his neck, red. He imagines trailing bruises down the skin, flesh against the reverent drag of teeth, redder still, forgets the red dripping down their bodies, tainting their smiles. “Just take the drag, it’s been too long.”
“Whatever you say.”
The drag he takes is tantalizing. His pretty, pink lips close in a half-smirk around the cigarette, shifting slightly as he sucks in, plush and ever-inviting and all for Geto’s view and pleasure. He loves Satoru’s lips - as much as he loves the rest of Satoru. He loves the plush feel of them underneath his fingers. He likes the voice that flows out, deep and sweet and bright and light all at the same time, and he likes the way his lips form around his voice, the way they curve around each word. He likes though, loves, more than anything, kissing those lips breathless, tilting his own lips against Satoru’s and pressing and taking and biting down till he draws out choked whimpers, ragged whines.
He’s a hypocrite, but Satoru is so perfect, it becomes hard not to stare, to be drunk off the knowledge that such perfection belongs to him, and only him.
The world takes another breath - pauses before an inhale - as Satoru brings his lips to Geto’s, exhaling into his mouth, a shared breath that tastes like the nostalgic days of rule-breaking, buying cigarettes and stealing from Shoko’s candy stash, bringing it all to the rooftop to make out. Satoru’s tongue always tasted like sugar and smoke and somehow the flavors fit together, making something that was uniquely Gojo (Geto’s favorite taste, blue raspberry and watermelon and stupid teenage shenanigans).
Geto’s eyes narrow hungrily as he takes in the smoke, pausing slightly to exhale. “Sweet.”
Gojo pulls away slightly, but their lips are still close enough that Geto can feel the smoke curl between them, the only veil set between their contact. “Y’know what’d be even sweeter…” his voice is a low murmur. It sounds like the wind against Geto’s ears, like the spill of sunset, like church bells.
“You’re a shameless flirt. Sometimes I get jealous, you know?” He pulls Gojo in closer, until he’s perfectly slotted, kneeling between Geto’s thighs, chests brushing. He drags his hand down Satoru’s back, tracing each vertebrae with a single finger. “With all those girls you flirt with like this… oh, look at that guy, pretty lashes over pretty eyes, and a pretty body to ogle at.” He grabs at Gojo’s waist now, firm but not demanding, a silent stake of possession. His other hand gently brushes Gojo’s bangs out of his face, running gently through the silken white strands. “They don’t get to touch, though. They’re all just monkeys, so shallow.”
“Possessive… I like it when you get like this. All the looks you shot me when we went to her school…”
“Stop that, please. Thinking about her. Today is ours.” He twirls a lock of hair between his fingers.
“I don’t know how to stop. I don’t think I ever can. That last week, it feels like a lifetime and a lifetime ago all at the same time, I guess. I guess that’s why it keeps replaying in my head, that week.” His voice is raw, real, and that makes it all the more painful.
“Just keep your eyes on me. I won’t leave. I won’t die on you. So just keep your eyes on me. ”
“Don’t. I don’t know if I could bear another dead body to hold, especially another person I care about.” He adds, softer now, “especially not the person I care about the most.”
Every movement of his lips curls around the cigarette. It rolls against his tongue. The curve of his mouth against the cigarette is perfect, like the rest of him. “I want to go first, though. So I never have to live a day without you.”
Gojo opens his mouth, as if he’s planning to argue, but instead he sighs. Smoke escapes his open lips. “Okay.” Geto wraps two fingers around the cigarette in Gojo’s mouth. He’s close, dragging all of Gojo’s attention to the heat of his proximity.
The backs of his knuckles brush Gojo’s lips as he pulls the cigarette away. “I hope I don’t have to wait too long then, after you die.” He smiles softly, knocking his knee against the inside of Suguru’s thigh. The movement is intentional. The contact is healing, like jigsaw pieces fitting together, curves pressed into each groove, a silent snap as it all comes together to create a bigger picture, to draw out the silhouette of Satoru and Suguru on the rooftop, sunset spilling against the smoke curling around their forms. “What did you take my cigarette for? Get your own, ya freeloader.”
Geto lets the cigarette rest against his tongue, licking into the sweet taste of it. “You get a new one. I want this one. The other ones don’t taste like your spit.”
“That’s gross,” he laughs.
“It’s true.” He takes the cigarette out of his mouth, exhaling out the dancing smoke, watching till it dissipates from the golden air.
“Well the other ones don’t taste like your spit now, and that one does.” Gojo is joking, but no objection leaves his lips when Geto narrows his eyes and slides the cigarette between his lips. His finger lingers on Gojo’s lips just a moment too long to be an accident. It’s unapologetic, natural. The planets do not apologize for being caught in the hypnotic orbit of the sun. The rain does not apologize for falling, plastering their shirts to their skin, nor will Suguru apologize for staring at Gojo with his wet hair falling in his blue eyes, with only a thin white shirt pressed tight to his skin. It’s only natural, something obvious - the stars and the rain and the beating of Suguru’s heart and all the times Satoru’s stayed awake, kissing Suguru over and over again in his mind - it’s all so easy.
When Geto pulls away, the cigarette is resting firmly between Gojo’s lips. “There. You can have it back. I only wanted a drag.” His eyes never leave Gojo’s, which are widening by the moment. He sounds so unaffected, so unaware of the sheer magnitude of impact his every movement leaves on Gojo. The finger on his lips, the shared spit over the cigarette, smoke passed between their lips.
“That was hot as fuck.”
“Shut up before I take your cigarette again,” Geto replies, his voice fond.
Gojo laughs. “Can’t really taste you as well as I’d like though, with just this cigarette…”
“Yeah?”
Gojo takes the cigarette out of his mouth, dragging Geto close by the jaw to exhale into the space between his lips once more. “Yeah.”
Geto lets out an exhale before bringing both hands to Gojo’s hair. “I probably taste like tobacco anyways. Just take another cigarette.” His voice is the sultry murmur he only uses when Gojo and him are close like this, a tone that curls around Gojo’s heart like the cigarette smoke does in the air.
Gojo brings his hands to Geto’s waist in return, shifting to straddle Geto’s thighs, pressing closer until there’s no space between them, chest to waist the the crease where their hips meet their thighs. “It tastes better off your lips.”
“You’re using my words against me…” Geto’s accusation is playful, laughter hiding behind his failed attempt to be serious.
“That’s ‘cuz you're good with words. I’m not.”
Geto brings one hand up to run his thumb over Gojo’s lips, pressing into that wet, pink mouth that shows up in too many of his dreams, his fantasies, his shameful late-night desires. He presses his finger in just a little deeper, grazing over his teeth. He swallows, so hard it hurts, and notices the matching bob of Satoru’s Adam's apple as the white haired boy tilts his head back, parting his lips further. “You have other ways of talking. So it doesn’t matter.” When you kiss me, you say it all, when you touch me, fingertips and the brush of your palm, knees knocking, shoulder to shoulder, tongue against tongue. He pulls his finger out, rubbing the spit on the asphalt floor.
Geto is high, drugged and dazed, not because of the cigarettes.
“Then can I say something? A confession.”
Geto can do nothing but nod.
It’s a practiced routine, honed to sheer perfection, but Gojo has never been one for routines (Geto~ so boring, the same thing over and over again, where’s your zeal for life!) and had never been one for a singular definition of perfection (perfect is boring, you have to do better than perfect, that’s when things get fun).
Nothing is routine about the way they kiss, nothing is the same, no matter how many times they do it. That’s one of the myriad of reasons why Suguru loves Satoru, because he never fails to surprise, because each kiss feels new, because they’re teenagers all over again - this is their first kiss, without the clumsy trepidation.
It tastes like cigarette smoke. Like forgetting.
This time it’s desperate - Geto’s favorite, slow and searing, not messy, but brimming with unstated desire, promises of passion, all the weight of everything passed between their lips (Gojo likes them soft, sweet, vanilla and airy laughter).
Gojo’s head is tilted to slot his lips against Geto’s, and his hair falls to one side (it’s grown out - Geto hopes he never cuts it) and Geto brushes it over, hands threading through the snow-white strands.
The press of their lips is firm, insistent, and every sensation feels new. The sunset is different from the last time they kissed in the setting sun. It tastes like cigarettes this time, combined with the array of candies on Gojo’s tongue - different flavors each time. Geto sucks on Gojo’s bottom lip, and the strangled whine Satoru lets out, the notes of that beautiful music, are a different arrangement.
“Kissing you always feels new…” Geto’s breathless murmur is said close - too close - and the words fan over Gojo’s lips, tasting of cigarettes. Geto pauses, then pushes in again to kiss Gojo’s plush bottom lip, sucking on the skin there once more, before dragging his teeth over the already-kissed-raw lip. “Always something different with you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean,” Gojo says, inquisitive. He knocks their foreheads together. His hand pushes up underneath Suguru’s shirt, to thumb at the bare skin. His fingertips eventually reach Geto’s scars, the jagged cross spanning his chest.
“It means… I never get bored of kissing you.” A slight nod, and Gojo’s palms are flat against his chest, brushing the scar.
“Is this okay?” he presses a palm into the junction of the cross, where the two scratches meet in a brutal clash.
Geto winces slightly, before relaxing his shoulders. “It’s okay,” he sighs.
Gojo smiles and presses a little harder against his chest till Geto lays flat on the concrete. One of Gojo’s hands is cradling his head, as if to not discomfort him as he’s pressed against the ground, and the other pushing upwards till his shirt rides up, leaving his torso bare.
“I think I get what you mean now. When you said I was pretty even with the scars. ‘Cuz-” He pauses, as if choosing his words. “Because you’re beyond beautiful. Like - fuck, what’s the word - etheral.”
“I-” Geto’s breath hitches when Gojo’s hand resumes its trail across his torso. “Sats-” He cuts off completely when Gojo’s lips brush across his chest, lowering himself between Geto’s thighs, over his splayed, bare scars.
“So pretty…” Each curve of his lips around each syllable reverberates around the jagged lines on his torso, bounces around as an echo in his ribcage.
His tongue drags across the damaged skin, his lips lingering at the edges of his scars before working their way back to the center of the cross. “Fuck Toru I-” He attempts to move around, but Gojo’s hand is resting firm at his hips.
They stay like that for a while, Gojo’s lips moving over his scarred skin, in a soft, open-mouthed show of single minded devotion.
His lips pull away once he’s kissed every inch of the lacerated skin and he shoots Geto an almost apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I might have gotten carried away…” He kisses softly at the center of the cross once more, slick with the remnants of Gojo’s kisses, the relentless drag of his mouth. He uses the hand cradling Geto’s head to pull Geto up, maneuvering them so that Gojo is sitting between an upright Geto’s thighs, staring at the concrete as a scarlet flush takes over his cheeks.
Geto kisses him again, soft and sweet just the way Gojo likes it. “Not at all. It felt nice…”
“Can I kiss you again?”
Geto just kisses him in response, long enough to know that the kiss lingers on Gojo’s lips, but too short for him to reciprocate.
At that, Geto smiles, and kisses him again. And again. And again. Their faces are kiss-bruised, their hair messy from threading their fingers through the other’s hair, their eyes wide-blown.
The sun’s already set by now. The stars hang in the sky like the freckles that litter Gojo’s cheeks in intense summer heat. Like the memories flecking their minds (burning bright, but in this moment of forgetfulness, far away enough for them to only focus on each other’s moonlight, the brightest thing in the sky).
“Gojo, what’s your favorite star?” An odd question, but a beautiful one at that, because there are so few stars that shine in a particular manner, at least from their lowly perch.
Gojo’s soft voice brushes over Geto’s lips. “You. Right here.”
It’s such a ridiculous line, so characteristic of Gojo, yet so inherently stunning in its implications, that Geto can not help but crack a smile. Gojo traces the movement of his smile with his eyes, blue fire trained upon Geto’s lips. “Polaris. It reminds me of you.”
“What’s that mean? The north star?”
Geto nods, a conspiratory flash in his eyes, as if some clandestine exchange is being made. “Because you guide everyone. And shine bright. And you’re the most beautiful star in the night sky.” He punctuates his words with a chaste press of his lips to Gojo’s, sighing into the kiss.
“The sun shines brighter, at least from here.”
“I was getting to that,” He scolds, before continuing. “But you’re far away from a lot of people. You hide; they don’t get to see you close. You guide them from a distance.” He turns quieter now. “You don’t want them to burn up.”
“Poetic.” He’s not teasing. “Then I have a question for you. Why do I let you get close? I care about you the most… So why’d I let you burn up?”
Geto leans in, parts his lips. “You didn't let me get close, I got close. The moon didn’t tell us to come and meet her, but we fell in love. With that curiosity. With that fire for what lies further than our imaginations itself. So I fell in love.” He kisses Satoru, this time deeper, parting his lips underneath the softness of Satoru’s own, and all of the sweetness of Satoru’s throat pours into his.
When they pull away - after seconds, minutes, eternities, would it matter? - Gojo’s voice is rough. “I love you.”
Geto intertwines their hands, running his thumb over the dips and valleys of Satoru’s knuckles. “No need to say such things. Small words for a feeling like this, bigger than the night sky. And I know. You tell me all the time.” He places a small kiss on Satoru’s lips again, feeling Gojo nod against the kiss.
Geto picks up another cigarette from the pack, lighting it with the matches and popping it into his mouth. “But I love you, just for the sake of saying it once.”
Gojo laughs, mumbling something like hypocrite under his breath. “Light mine up, yeah?”
“Lazy ass, grab a matchstick.” He leans in anyways, pressing the tip of his cigarette to Gojo’s own, watching the smoke curl into the air in between them.
Gojo’s staring at his lips the whole time, eyes darting downward hungrily. “Thanks…”
Geto smiles, before looking directly at Gojo, eyes lingering for a moment too long. “Do you think Riko is one of the stars? That superstition that once you die, you become a star. I- I’m sorry for bringing her up but-”
“Polaris,” He states, then again, with less trepidation in his voice, with utmost certainty, “She’s Polaris.”
“Why?”
Gojo thinks for a while, taking a long drag. “She just is.”
“It’s been so long… Shoko’s still going to be out tomorrow. And I know where her new candy stash is. So, call it a date?”
“I'll be here for most of the day tomorrow, probably. So just come around before I finish the last of the cigarettes.” His voice has that playful lilt to it, and it’s a gorgeous noise that Suguru misses.
Suguru places one last kiss to Satoru’s pulse point at his wrist, smiling against the skin as he separates their fingers. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I will, I promise.”
When Suguru turns around before leaving, his eyes linger on Satoru, linger on his outline against the stars, below polaris, cigarette smoke curling around his silhouette.
The promise of tomorrow is enough for them now. Promises that smell like cigarette smoke, taste like kisses under the stars. Something Riko never had, not even in life, and something Satoru and Suguru swear they will create, in spite of death.