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So here he is, staggered, dull-eyed, his hand spread against the living-room wall like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. His dark hair is scraped back, messy, and his breathing is messy too. And Satoru loves him. He loves him.
“Suguru,” he says, and Suguru doesn’t answer.
It’s just the two of them here, in their private quarters, sealed off from the rest of the school, and still it’s always felt like a public space. It’s his Six Eyes, feeling the students in the outer buildings, the jostling of bodies and indignant protests and Yaga preparing tea in his office, and all of it feels so comforting until it doesn’t, and Satoru just wants to be alone here, safe here, with the love of his life. Who’s falling apart.
His messy breathing, his chest working too hard, mouth parted and glossy. His eyes, fixed on a point in the middle distance. Satoru takes Suguru’s head in his hands, careful thumb sweeping back and forth down the line of his jaw. Suguru flinches.
“Hey,” Satoru says quietly. “I know you. I trust you.”
Suguru makes a pained sound, like he’s been punched. His eyes wheel toward Satoru’s desperately.
“I know you,” Satoru repeats, stroking his face. “You’re not a bad person. You’re not what you’re thinking about. You’re not gonna do it, Suguru.”
He chokes, his arm falling, hand sliding down the wall. Satoru steps closer, propping him up like a failing plant, hands cupping his stricken face, and here’s Suguru in his arms, still choking against him, trying to breathe. There’s no light in his eyes, like it’s a place they both might fall.
“You’re my Suguru,” Satory murmurs. “And I trust you.”
—
There were people who didn’t, Satoru knew, and fuck them all. People who had seen a skinny teenager with his bruised eyes and erratic temper and written him off as a disaster waiting to happen. And he was a disaster, maybe, delirious with ideas that smelled like blood, kept him sleepless. But he was also Satoru’s. From the moment they met he was Satoru’s.
And then he was older, slower, on mood stabilizers and a cocktail of drugs that scared both of them more than swallowing curses ever had, although Satoru tried not to show it. Because the curses had never taken little parts of Suguru away—his brightness, his lopsided smile, the way he squinted as he laughed—and the medication did.
They went on every mission together, Satoru refusing to let the higher-ups send him out alone. They co-taught, because Suguru couldn’t always manage on his own, panic making his eyes unrecognizable some mornings, and his students knew to be gentle with him, something Satoru both loved and hated to see.
But they also knew that they could come to Suguru with questions Satoru had no patience for, practical matters and moral agonies, and he would never turn them away. Soft skills, Satoru called them, a little dismissively, because he never understood the point of softness unless it was Suguru he was soft with. Another way of putting this: that Suguru was, palpably, human in a way Satoru could never be.
On days like today, Suguru feels a little too human.
Satoru should be used to it, should have adjusted with time, but part of his soul could never reconcile those two images of Suguru, wildly different: the boy he’d loved, confident and reckless, mischief in his mouth, and the man who woke up with death in his eyes, weeping quietly in bed. Somewhere along the line Suguru had pulled away from Satoru, but also pulled away from himself, and the feeling of that yawning space between them was almost intolerable.
On the worst days Satoru needed to help him eat, little mouthfuls of white rice he could barely keep down. They stayed in and played bad movies and Suguru could barely follow the plot, but Satoru whispered as they watched, catching him up, fingers woven with Suguru’s shaky hands. Sewing him back together, a holy paste, kintsugi. Refusing to let him be left behind.
Because he’d never wanted to be the strongest; not really. He’d wanted to be Suguru’s.
—
So tonight is a slow night. He texts Yaga, calls out sick for them for the morning, which Yaga acknowledges in the same resigned way he always does, because no one can argue with Satoru. Then he unties Suguru’s hair, cards through it gently with the tips of his fingers, and nuzzles the nape of his neck. Suguru lets out a little breath and it’s like he was holding it for both of them.
“All right, baby,” Satoru murmurs. “Let’s do your hair.”
Their ritual, the net of little gestures that holds their lives together. They sit tangled on the couch, his arms loose around Suguru’s broad shoulders, and he combs through the silk of Suguru’s hair with his fingers, massaging his temples, slow and easy. Easy: they could be easy. Everything’s so hard, but it’s a soft Thursday night, some punk band Suguru likes playing at low volume in the kitchen, and for a while—a few hours, a few moments—they can pretend it’s easy.
Abruptly Suguru tenses. He turns to look up at Satoru, fretful, mouth drawn tight.
“Satoru,” he whispers. “I think I’m—I’m worried I’m going to—”
“You’re not,” Satoru says. “You haven’t and you won’t.”
He’s heard it all, the old litany. He doesn’t need Suguru to finish his sentences to know what comes next, the long trail of rot and poisoned ideas. To Satoru it’s no different than all the nights he spent rubbing Suguru’s back as he hunched over the toilet, retching on curses that wouldn’t settle.
It’s exhausting. They’re both exhausted by it.
“I’m sorry,” Suguru says. “I know it’s—”
“It’s okay,” he says, stroking Suguru’s hair. “I’m here.”
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Suguru says.
“I know,” he says, “but it’s going to be—”
A whimper, Suguru’s throat working desperately, like he’s trying not to do it again.
“Hey, hey,” Satoru soothes, catching his face in his hands. It’s raw, tear-streaked, a wildness in his eyes. Satoru wipes at the wetness with his thumbs, kissing the places where it used to be. “Come back to me, baby.”
Slowly he traces patterns in Suguru’s scalp, nesting circles, aimless lines.
“Think about what’s happening now. What do you feel?”
“You,” Suguru chokes.
Satoru bends to kiss the top of his head, tender, benevolent.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” he says. “It’s just you and me.”
—
He likes these moments best, when it’s just the two of them tangled and soft, the feeling of Suguru’s skin against his, something pleasurable about his measured breathing. When he’s Suguru’s world, and Suguru is his.
On bad mornings when he stirs before dawn and feels Suguru restless and shaky next to him, the simple happiness of rolling over and swallowing him up—arms winding around his belly, thighs bracketing his thighs, lips and nose against his hot neck. Breathing in every inch of him, making a wall against the world, a veil better than either of them could cast in the field. More thorough, more finely woven, made with a magic no one can touch. “My Suguru,” he mumbles, mouth squashed against his neck. “I’ve got you, baby.”
And Suguru smells like salt and suffering tonight, his hands trembling in Satoru’s, but they can fix this, he knows it. They can narrow the world to the two of them again, the only shelter where Satoru has ever felt safe, although it’s hard to explain exactly the kind of safety Suguru offers, exhausted and warm against his chest, kissed quiet. It’s real, though. His body feels sure of it.
When Suguru is boneless again in his lap, eyes half-closed, Satoru nips softly at the pink shell of his ear. “C’mere, sweetheart,” he says, and Suguru listens, nudging closer against him. “That’s it. Perfect for me.”
He can still remember the first time he found Suguru like this, wrecked. He was just a dumb kid; what did he know? The best person he knew was leaning against his dorm-room wall like he couldn’t stand up, and his words didn’t make sense, and he was gasping into his hands about turning into something bad and Satoru was terrified. He boxed Suguru in with his arms, realizing how little of him there was, and he called for Shoko. Screamed, maybe; afterwards his throat was raw and his heart was unsteady, watching Shoko palm weakly at Suguru’s forehead, testing for a fever they both knew he didn’t have.
It wasn’t that kind of hurt.
“Things aren’t going to be the same,” Shoko said, the two of them sitting in the emergency room together, waiting for Suguru to come back out. “I need you to understand that, Satoru.” And Satoru had turned his head, made a dismissive gesture. He was waiting for Suguru to come back. In some ways he’s waiting still.
—
After a while he leads Suguru to the bath, hands interlocked, and fills the tub with warm suds. Carefully he strips Suguru down, baring his skinny white chest, the crooked line of his back, remembering when everything about him was power, fullness, sly energy. And then he rolls up his pant legs and puts his feet in the water, Suguru safe between his knees.
He loves washing Suguru’s hair; loves that they use the same shampoo, that they smell like each other, and every time Satoru noses kisses into his hair he smells like he belongs to Satoru, and Satoru is his. The music is fainter now, just a soft rhythm like a heartbeat, and Suguru is warm between his thighs, breathing slowly through his mouth.
“God, you’re so good,” Satoru says, caressing his shoulders. “So good for me, baby.”
He chokes a little, and when Satoru touches his face he looks up, dazed, wet-eyed.
“I’m gonna hurt you,” he says.
Realistically, he has. He’s hurt Satoru more than anyone has ever hurt him. He’s also loved Satoru more than anyone has ever loved him.
“Never,” Satoru says smoothly. “My Suguru would never.”
“What if I hurt the students?”
“You wouldn’t hurt the students. You love them, down to the last brat.” He tips Suguru’s chin up with one finger, kisses the side of his cheek. “I know you better than anyone, don’t I? Don’t you trust me?”
Suguru nods, hesitant.
“Well, there you go,” Satoru says. “My Suguru’s good. He’s the best person I know.”
Silence for a while, the soft plink of the tap.
He’s heard it all before, every outcome Suguru is afraid of, every bad end he’s sure he’ll come to, or make Satoru come to. He’s listened as nightmares spool out of Suguru’s mouth, dark and liquid, like curses coming back up again. And maybe this is where they all came from, some place at the seat of his stomach, battened for years on the worst things people can do to each other, or worry they will.
“I want to make you proud of me,” Suguru whispers. “There’s so much you have to do for me that’s not—it’s not reasonable, Satoru.”
“When have you ever known me to be reasonable?” he says, grinning. But Suguru shakes his head.
“I don’t want to be a burden to you,” Suguru says. “I never wanted that. I wanted to be so—” he breaks off wetly. “I wanted to be strong. For you to be proud of me.”
These conversations are always the hardest for Satoru, because he never wants to lie; not to Suguru, not to himself. He needs to find a kind of honesty when he tries to reassure Suguru or neither of them will believe it. He rinses Suguru’s hair carefully, pretending it requires immense concentration.
“I’m proud of you,” he says finally. “You don’t have the kind of strength the world recognizes, because the world is bullshit, but that doesn’t mean you’re not strong. And carrying you doesn’t make you a burden.” He wrings Suguru’s hair out gently. “I happen to like carrying you.”
“But it’s hard,” Suguru rasps.
Satoru shrugs.
“Yeah, it’s hard,” he says. “A lot of things worth doing are hard.” He picks the glass of hair oil from the ledge of the tub, rubbing a few drops between his palms: tangerine, sharp and fragrant. With soft hands he works his way through Suguru’s damp hair. “I mean, I fucking love you, Suguru,” he says. “I’m extremely fucking selfish and I do these things for my own benefit, because I like being around you so much.”
That does make Suguru laugh—a quiet snort, a wry glance.
“Right,” he says. “Selfish.”
“Incredibly,” Satoru agrees, kissing the top of his head.
And he is, more than Suguru has ever been able to acknowledge. If he wasn’t selfish he would be this patient with everyone, willing to slow down, to make space. But he isn’t; he would hate it. This is a part of him only Suguru has access to, some tender thing Infinity can’t shield, and it breaks a little whenever Suguru breaks. The only time he feels pain anymore is when Suguru hurts.
More than anything, he’s selfish because he wishes Suguru was strong like he used to be. That he didn’t need to struggle so hard, constantly paddling to stay in place, the current pulling him back. That the pills didn’t keep him both alive and half-dead, parts missing, like a drawing of Suguru reconstructed from a memory, a half-forgotten dream.
He’s selfish because he’s egotistical enough to believe that one day he’ll say the right words and that person will come back, that Suguru will finally be able to forgive himself for what he’s done, what he’s so convinced he’ll do.
And he’s selfish because he wouldn’t trade this for anything: Suguru warm and trusting between his knees, breathing even, reaching back to squeeze Satoru’s thigh.
“I’m selfish too,” he says, tender-eyed, and the worst part is that Satoru almost believes him.