Archive of Our Own

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0.01
Satoru Gojo is a professional when it comes to breaking his glasses when they’re away on overseas trips- Suguru has begun to wonder if he does it just so they all have to go into the closest store to get him new ones. It wouldn’t be surprising- Satoru is exactly the type to do something so theatrical.

“These.” Shoko looks like she hasn’t slept in thirty years in the dim lighting of the shop they’ve entered this time, and yet her smirk is so mischievous and bright Suguru feels like he has to squint against it- she’s in on Satoru’s plan, too, he’s certain- because the last pair they’d picked out had been nothing like the circular frames Satoru usually wears, and instead a bright yellow and pink star-shaped monstrosity that Suguru is still trying to forget. Yaga had sighed like they’d aged him fifty years in fifteen minutes, and Suguru had shrugged helplessly, even as Shoko had reassured him, with all the wisdom of a ‘doctor’ of her caliber (one with no degree at all,) that the UV rating on the neon-plastic nightmare was ‘suited accurately to his needs’.

(As if he needed UV protection at all.)

Satoru had called himself ‘chic’- Nanami had grimaced like he’d been considering dropping out. 
Satoru spins to face her, now, his eyes reluctantly leaving the array of blankets and ‘tapestries’ lining the wall- he’s as beautiful as he always is without his glasses, his unnaturally blue eyes practically glowing in the low light- (shining stars in the shadows of the shop-) his eyes widening, and then, impossibly, brightening, as he stares at what might be the stupidest pair of sunglasses Suguru has ever seen in his life.  
“Oh man, those are awesome.” Satoru whispers, predictably.

They are huge lenses shaped into bright pink mushrooms, and don’t even seem to cover Satoru’s eyes effectively in the slightest, and yet his smile is so handsome Suguru nearly takes out his wallet then and there.

“Horrible,” Shoko says, grating and yet somehow fond, and Satoru poses with his tongue out to take a photo.

He laughs, reaching for Suguru’s phone, and they struggle for it for a moment, before Suguru simply gives up, letting Satoru snap a dozen photos, setting one of them as Suguru’s wallpaper.

(He doesn’t mind, really. He’ll keep it that way until Satoru inevitably changes it again- he does this often. If Satoru notices that Suguru doesn’t ever change it to something else, Satoru never mentions it- just keeps doing it in some strange cycle of madness, not unlike how he keeps breaking his glasses just to have an excuse to get souvenirs every time they’re somewhere other than Tokyo.)

Suguru sighs, dramatically, turning back to the rack of sunglasses, glancing at the disinterested employee, popping her gum and scrolling on her phone- if she's annoyed by all the noise Satoru is making, it doesn’t show, and so Suguru doesn’t chastise him for it.

Suguru carefully works a more normal pair of glasses off the rack, a simple set with large rounded lenses and wire frames, passing them to Satoru as he wrestles Shoko for her phone, too. (He loses, predictably, and she sticks her tongue out at him, flipping him the finger.)

Satoru pauses, looking at the lenses Suguru has chosen, taking them from Suguru’s hands gently, their fingers brushing so tenderly it’s as if he's cradling a baby bird.

Satoru replaces the new pair with the ones he’d been wearing, shoving the mushrooms into Shoko’s hands. She tuts, gently placing them back on the rack.

Satoru snags Suguru’s phone again, looking at himself in the camera from different angles- high, low, sticking out his tongue, frowning, smiling, raising his eyebrows.

He’s handsome- the frames suit him well, giving him a boyishness that doesn’t clash with his overconfidence, but instead melds with it, makes him look like someone famous- a face that should be on tv, magazines. He’s perfect- effortless- his hair falls across his brow and brushes the edges of the frames, white curling around black, and Suguru is stricken, briefly, by how beautiful he is, even with his eyes hidden away.

“Huh- these are like my old ones.”

“Thinner frame.” Suguru corrects, and yet Satoru doesn’t say anything witty like he usually would, instead he folds the glasses, almost reverently, his eyes meeting Suguru’s like he’s searching for something- or perhaps seeing him for the first time.

Shoko looks between them, like she’s seeing something they aren’t, before holding out her hand, inspecting the glasses for the UV protection tag- not that Satoru actually needs it. But maybe it does help- Satoru’s eyes are exceptionally sensitive because of his technique- He’s held him during backlash from his technique before, keeping his cool hands over his eyes, Satoru’s own palms over his ears, through skull-splitting migraines- through nausea and dizziness, through bouts of pain so bad he can’t move for the entire day.

There had been an incident, after using his six-eyes and infinity for three days straight, where he’d been in bed for a week, so sick and delirious he hadn’t been able to respond, much less move. Shoko had tended to him, but there hadn’t been anything to heal.

‘Side effects’- she’d said, a grim line to her mouth.

Suguru had hated the Jujutsu world, in that moment, for making Satoru do this- for forcing him to give and give until he’d been incapacitated by the pain of the very techniques which made him ‘the strongest’ of them all.

Satoru Gojo is just a person, after all- one of the best, certainly- but still a person.

A human being- an irritating, overzealous, snarky little shit that Suguru cares for more than life itself, but a human being nonetheless.

He and Shoko had decided, back then, to try their best to ease his symptoms- the UV sunglasses being one of their tools.

She nods, glancing at Suguru, ‘they’ll be enough to help’, before she turns back to Satoru, “Ok- if you want these, they’re-”

“Great.” Satoru throws himself at Suguru, draping himself over his shoulders, and Suguru staggers, grumbling at him, heatlessly, “-done. Let’s go get a pumpkin spice latté, eh, Suguru? Your faaaavorite!”  
“They’re your favorite, dumbass.”“Hey-hey! Nuh-uh! I like the frappuccino, duh- C’mon, Suguru, you should know me by now! I’m hurt.”
Suguru shoves his shoulder, rolling his eyes, and Satoru swats at him, even as Shoko steps back, avoiding them both, “It’s the same fucking-”

Suguru abruptly slams into Satoru’s back as he jolts to a stop, and Satoru barely even staggers, staring at one of the tall glass cases as if it holds the secrets to the very meaning of life- so fixed on his prize that even Suguru nearly knocking him over doesn’t faze him.

Suguru is frozen by the sight of him- at the way he’s looking at the glass case with such focus and interest that his expression is almost reverent, devout. Shoko nearly bumps into Suguru from behind, making an annoyed noise, the aisle between the earring cases and the register small enough that it doesn’t allow more than one group of people by.

She raises an eyebrow, crossing her arms, visibly trying to parce what the hell is important enough that they’ve stopped dead in their tracks abruptly enough to slam into one another.

Satoru’s eyes flick up and down the case, enraptured, his brow furrowing as he squats to get a better look, peering into the display, his nose hardly inches from the glass. 
“Oh, shit- is that an earring, for real?” Suguru can tell from the way Satoru very pointedly folds his hands behind his back that he is barely refraining from touching the case. Suguru is honestly impressed- it’s a shockingly admirable level of self-restraint, all things considered. 
Suguru leans down, peering into the case of piercings, looking down to the sets that Satoru is staring at, large stretching kits of tapers, hanging beside some more ornate-looking weights and plugs.

“Tapers.” Suguru corrects, again, and Satoru doesn’t say anything this time, either, whispering ‘tapers’ under his breath.

“Suguru, you have… tapered ears, right?”

His gaze travels down to the weights and hangers, analyzing each pair like he’s obsessed with every single one.

“Stretched, yeah.”

“Oh man- what size? Are there sizes? I’d say it’s like a medium, right? A large?”

“Double zero.”

“What the- Okay? Uh…Oh! Oh shit- they have it- If I bought those for you, would you wear them?”

Suguru kneels down- Satoru pulls him close, pointing at a pair, getting his fingerprints on the glass. Suguru rolls his eyes- at least he tried.

“Which ones?”

“The- the swirly ones.”

Suguru pauses as Satoru’s gaze flicks to him, his arm still wrapped around Suguru’s shoulders. The weights are pretty, multiple spirals and curves, one of which looks sort of like it’s been carved into a wing. They’re ornate, far more conspicuous than anything Suguru had ever worn before- he isn’t even sure he’d like them. He doesn’t understand why Satoru would want him to wear something like that- he’s never been pretty, he’s never worn pretty things.

“Why?”

“I think it would be-” Satoru’s eyes flick away from him quickly, as if suddenly embarrassed, “-cool.”

Suguru knows there is something else he had intended to say, and yet he doesn’t press- their friendship had been initially difficult to form, and though still rocky, (very occasionally), flows easily now- he doesn’t- he- 
(-very truthfully, he didn’t want to risk it. It’s just- sometimes, it feels like-)
“If you buy them, I’ll wear them when we hang out.”

Satoru leans into him, squeezing him tightly- his grin brightens the entire room- Suguru is wholly arrested by it, his gaze locked to that smile, the way his brow quirks with something like mischief, turning his expression crooked, wild- he’s overjoyed, practically bursting with excitement-

For what? Suguru?

(He doesn’t know. All he knows is he can’t look away- would never even consider it.)

‘You’re so weird’, Suguru mumbles, heatlessly, under his breath, and Satoru laughs at him. 
“Oh, fuck yeah, lemme call the guy- dude it’s gonna look cool, I promise.” 
Shoko sighs, pinching her brow, “Wait, Gojo- your English is actual ass, let me do it.” 
“Dude, it is not that bad- I literally speak it more fluently than you do. I speak like, five million languages.” Suguru stands, and Satoru lifts his hand, flexing it, urging Suguru to pull him up, and he does- Satoru is surprisingly light, all legs and sinewy lines of muscle that haven’t quite come in yet. 
“You’re joking. Even your Japanese sucks.” 
“It does not.” Satoru sneers, twisting his face into an expression that should be hideous, but isn’t. 
“Yeah right.” Shoko mutters, rolling her eyes so far back into her head Suguru’s surprised her irises ever resurface.

“Fuck off, dude-” 
 (-it just feels like sometimes Satoru is the only thing keeping him sane.) 0.1
“I think I’m gonna pass out.”

Suguru groans, rolling over, “Shut up.”

“Do you think Shoko lied about the joint she gave us? What if it was laced with something- do you think she’d do that?” Satoru is pacing around his room, gesturing wildly, running his hands through his hair, spinning on his heels so fast Suguru is surprised he’s even still standing, “She totally thought I was annoying today didn’t she? She laced it, Suguru.”

Suguru sighs, into his pillow, curling it against his chest, resting his face against the cool fabric- he’s exhausted- they all are. The last mission had been cruel- the curse had been crueller- it had forced them to choose between excorcising it or saving a captive.

Suguru is trying not to think about what they chose.

“I think I’m dying. Suguru, I’m dying. Can you check my pulse, Suguru?” Satoru drapes himself across Suguru’s bed frame, trying to catch his attention, before returning to his pacing, “Suguru, I’m worried- Suguru, I’m lonely, Suguru-” It’s a prissy little whine, pulling at the last note of his name- trying to incite a reaction, trying to get him to break- to allow Satoru to snuggle up to him the way he usually does with Shoko.

Why on earth Shoko left him with Suguru this time, rather than hanging out with Satoru post-mission like she usually does, he really doesn’t know- usually they leave Suguru to his own devices while they get high and gossip together about things that don’t matter, but she’d handed Satoru a joint, shoved him into Suguru’s room, and abandoned them to pester the first-years.

Satoru whines, wordlessly, groaning in frustration while Suguru tries to fall asleep like he usually does- to forget the wretched mission ever happened.

Suguru sighs again. He’d known smoking with Satoru would be a bad idea- he’d known that Satoru and Shoko did it often, but he hadn’t realized just how insufferable Satoru would be. He’d figured Satoru had a reasonable bone in his body and would take his ’sleepover’ suggestion literally.

He was wrong.

Obviously.
It’s Satoru.  
Satoru lifts himself up off the duvan Suguru had laid out on the ground for him, swaying, and stumbles, knocking into some sort of shelf, infinity flicking on just soon enough that he manages not to injure himself.

Yet, he mumbles ‘ow’ like he hadn’t. A whine slipping from him like some sort of pathetic whistle. The shelf falls to the ground with a plastic clatter.  
Suguru turns around abruptly, looking toward him with concern, only to go very pale as his head swims and nausea rises within him. He’s so exhausted he can taste it- cotton-thick and heavy on his tongue. He just wants to forget. He just wants to rest. He can feel the acrid taste of the curse in the back of his throat every waking moment. Part of him feels it breathing inside of him, nestled in his lungs like smoke and tar, writhing with malevolent energy, turning his every waking breath to ash. 
“Lie down,” He hisses, through clenched teeth, and then, with a slow breath, calming himself, pushing back the nausea of the curse, “just lie down.”

“I’m freaking out man,”

“Just. lie down.”

“Can you make sure I don’t die in my sleep or something?” 
Suguru groans, running his hand over his face, his senses pleasantly dull even as he does it, “It’s just weed, Satoru- you done- you have done-” and then, sighing, gathering his thoughts, “you’ve done this before, fucker- ’m not cuddling with you, I’m not Shoko-” 
“I can feel everything, Suguru- I can feel the whole world closing in on me- I’m gonna die, Suguru-”

“Fuck-” He lifts the blankets, patting the bed beside himself and scooting over, “fucker.”

Satoru hums, having gotten exactly what he wanted, launching himself onto the bed beside Suguru- and suddenly his ‘horrible, terrible, awful’ high seems to be just some sort of warm fog that blushes sweetly over his face and makes his eyes glisten, encourages him to curl into Suguru’s back and drape his limbs across his waist and legs like he’s a particularly clingy blanket. Bastard. Suguru can’t find it in himself to be mad, despite it.

“Ah- see. I feel sooooo much better.” He wiggles against Suguru’s back, nuzzling his face into his shirt, and pulls the covers around them both.

Convenient.

Suguru sighs, because that’s all he can do- he’s been played. Naturally.

“So fucking,” Suguru mumbles, and then sighs into his pillow, “Annoying.”

“I was so conviene-conv- fuck you. I’m hot- I’m perfect. I don’t have to.”

“Shithead.”

“Mean.” Satoru mumbles, sweetly, and he can feel his breath puff hot and misty against the back of his shirt.

Satoru is warm against his back, and his arm is a nice weight along his waist, his leg comfortable where he’s thrown it over Suguru’s, and for a few minutes, he’s quiet, his breathing slow, his heartbeat soft- it’s unfortunately comforting- Suguru feels himself begin to drift off, easily.

“Suguru?”

Suguru hums against his pillow, half asleep, his back to Satoru as the other boy suddenly, with movements far too fast for Suguru’s mortal comprehension, leans over him, poking his shoulder, twirling his fingers through the long hair falling across his back and shoulders. At some point Suguru had abandoned his hair tie, at some point Satoru had lost his sunglasses.

“Suguru, I have a question.”

“mm.”

“Suguru,” It seems as though ‘mm’ might not satiate him, this time. (Suguru misses the arm at his waist. The leg along his- his annoyingly hyperactive weighted blanket.)

“Mm.” Suguru just hums again, anyway.

“Suguru.” ‘mm’ is definitely not satiating him.

“What?” Suguru’s voice is thick with exhaustion, slightly slurred where he’s barely awake.

“Do you ever think about kissing guys?”

What the Fuck!       
“What the fuck,” He rasps, (He’s sure as shit awake now!) “Are you serious?” His voice cracks- jumping from a whisper to nearly a shout. Suguru would splutter in indignation if he had the energy.  
“Yeah. Do you think about it?”

“How- fucking- high are you?” He glances over his shoulder, catching sight of Satoru’s blinding hair as he leans further over Suguru’s side.

“Not that high?” (‘oh really’, Suguru thinks,) “Same as you.” Satoru’s eyes are glassy, his knees spread wide as he rises up on them to loom over Suguru even further, the button of his jeans half undone as if he’d been picking at the worn threads there. He fiddles with the edge of his cotton t-shirt.

Suguru can see him perfectly, even in the darkness, owed to the rippling barely-there crystalline shimmer of power his very skin exerts, the whisper of infinity, even deactivated, (something probably only Suguru would notice) the shine of his ever-glinting irises- swirling the perfect phantom-blue of a stardust sky.

Yet, Satoru can’t even see Suguru’s face, can only see the dark curtain of his hair, the outline of his jaw, maybe the faint metal glimmer of one of his hangers- the ones Satoru had bought.

Suguru can see the glisten of his white teeth, the glisten of his lipgloss, as his lips pull into a grimace, and faintly, he feels the very energy of the air around them shift, like Satoru is going to move away despondently.

“Why do you ask?” Suguru murmurs, against his pillow, and Satoru sighs with relief.

“I think I might.” He whispers, and he can feel Satoru’s hands shaking, fisted in the blanket at Suguru’s shoulders. “Like guys.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Do you need permission or something?” Suguru turns slightly, so Satoru can hear and see him clearer- he sighs, against the linens.

“I don’t wanna freak you out. Or. Or-” Satoru clenches his teeth together, “I. I just- realized recently. I don’t know. Aren’t I supposed to tell people?”

“I don’t usually?”

“Huh?” Satoru’s eyes are wide. huge. wanting- bright and glowing and - infinite- haha- infinite- Suguru nearly laughs at the absurdity of it all. His eyelashes are perfect- little triangles of dandelion fluff. He blinks, slowly.

“Suguru?”

“Hm?”

“You said ‘you don’t usually?’”

“I mean like, I don’t usually just, like, tell people that I’m -gay?” It feels weird to say it out loud. Suguru doesn’t, usually- he honestly doesn’t know who knows or who doesn’t. His parents never ask after a ‘girlfriend’ but they offer any sort of awkward ‘boyfriend’ comments, either. They hardly ask after him at all. They care- distantly, as if looking at a pet fish through a glass. They feed him, when they have to, and they show him off plenty, but they never touch him, or look at him very long themselves, except to scrutinize what he is or isn’t doing.

That's not true.

(or maybe it is.)

They love him.

Satoru looks at him again, opening his mouth and then closing it. He does that maybe four times.

“You’re gay?” He decides on, eventually.

“Uh-huh?”

“Since when?!”

“I- m- uh- forever?” He hasn’t ever really not been gay, to his knowledge. Not that he had any point of reference to the contrary. He’d kissed a girl, once, and he’d realized, with a pang of regret, that he hadn’t felt anything at all- uncomfortable, maybe. It had only taken one kiss with another boy to tell he’d simply just not been interested in girls.

(It had been more complicated than that, of course- he’d tried to convince himself he liked girls for years- pretty much until he’d met-

Oh. 
Oh, he is so not having this realization right now.Not with him in his bed- ) 
“This whole time?” Satoru whines, with something like disbelief.

“Pretty sure you’re born with it?” Suguru rasps, trying to gather is wayward thoughts.

“Do you ever think about me like that?” He becomes very aware, all of a sudden, of how wet Satoru’s lips are from where his teeth were worrying on his lower lip, of how flushed his face is, his brow furrowed. Of how his eyelashes are fluttering in the low light, the plane of his stomach when he lifts the cotton hem of his shirt to pick at the stitching. The loose button on his jeans- how wide his legs are spread-

He lowers his head back onto the pillow.  
(No fucking way. Not happening. Not now, not ever. Satoru is his best friend .) 
“Satoru.” It’s a warning, clear in his voice.

“No! No, I’m not asking to be weird. I was just asking. I’m just curious. I think everybody thinks about their best friend like that.”

“Huh?” It's breathy, rushed.

“I don’t know, though, that’s why I’m asking?” Satoru is picking at the threads on the hem of Suguru’s shirt now, plucking at a fraying stitch where a small tag of a skull lies on his right side, just above his hip. He can feel the burn of his touch even through the waistband of his sweats. He takes a slow breath.

“Satoru, can you just say what you’re trying to say so I can go to bed?”

“It’s awkward…” Satoru’s lip curls as he pouts, sliding his nimble fingers away from Suguru’s shirt and back to his own.

He can hear Suguru whisper, ‘so fucking annoying’ under his breath, but he pretends not to.

“I don’t wanna be weird.”

“You’re always weird.” Satoru makes a wounded noise, his greedy hands making for Suguru’s hair, his fingernails catching on a tangle and gently parting it, almost quicker than he can see- with speed that is certainly inhuman and yet unbearably gentle.

“What kind of guys do you like, Suguru?”

“Why?”

“I just wanna know…” He can feel the strands of hair Satoru is playing with pulling gently at his scalp in a rhythm, likely being formed into a braid.

“Satoru, it is… nearly 5 in the morning. You just found out I was gay, like, two seconds ago-”

“Yeah, so now we have to-” Satoru finishes the tiny braid he was making and reaches for another weft of Suguru’s hair, detangling it again, “I don’t know, talk about boys and stuff. Like girls do. I don’t know.”

Suguru sighs, and he can hear the mattress creak as he turns over onto his back, “It depends, I guess.”

Satoru fishes his hair out from under his shoulder, pulls it over top, and continues finger combing it, his extraordinary hands never ceasing their movements.

He’s beautiful, Suguru thinks- his brow pinched with focus, his mouth set in a hard line where he’s thinking too hard. Suguru almost reaches out to him, though he doesn’t know what for. 
Satoru starts talking again, when Suguru doesn't continue, his eyes darting to Suguru’s, 
“I think I like strong guys. Not like, bodybuilder strong, but like… martial artists.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

“Lots of people like that.”

“A nice body,”

“Sure.”

“Big dick.”

Suguru huffs, regretting turning over to let Satoru see his face. He turns his head slightly so he can see Satoru’s wide, mischievous grin fully, watching as he focuses on the second tiny braid he is weaving carefully into his hair.

“I’m joking- How about I guess what kind of guys you like?”

“Satoru, it’s almost dawn.”

“No it’s not. Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“Satoru…”

“Okay. How about… Suuuper tall guys. With white hair. And blue eyes. That are suuuper good at jujutsu sorcery and are your best friend. How about that?”

“Sure, can we go to bed now?”

And he didn’t mean to say it- hadn’t even registered what Satoru had said until he was already replying, and yet his breath stalls in his chest like he’s just told his biggest secret.

Satoru’s eyes widen- he can feel him curling Suguru’s hair around his fingers.

“Suguru.”

“What.” It sounds terribly nervous, even to his own ears. He had tried for irritated- tired, even. And yet it’s a breathy, anxious sound.

“You said you were into me, just now. No take-backs, and so-”

“Actually, I’m only into super tall guys with white hair and blue eyes that are my best friend as long as it’s not you.”

“Fucking rude-”

“Go to bed, Satoru.”

“You’re being mean right now.”

“Satoru, what do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say nothing, and let me say something instead.”

“What?”

“I want you to kiss me.” The room becomes so silent that Satoru quickly adds, “-goodnight. Kiss me goodnight. My first kiss-” and then, with a rush, “You: goodnight! You- friends kiss all the time, it’s not weird.” 
“Satoru,” it’s sort of reprimanding, and yet Suguru doesn’t sound angry. There’s something in his voice, some sort of emotion Satoru has never heard before. A tone nobody has ever used toward him. Something… almost fond. Suguru’s expression is hard to see in the dark, but Satoru can see the handsome line of his lips, the outline of his brow, and he doesn’t seem angry. 
“A kiss on the cheek! What if- what if Shoko’s weed kills me and this is my last moment on earth? Suguru. I’ll die without having ever been kissed- even- even on the cheek.”

Suguru grunts, slightly, as Satoru briefly digs his elbow into the meat of his thigh, hooking one extraordinarily long leg over both of Suguru’s.

Satoru’s weight on top of him nearly short circuits Suguru’s brain, his body going warm all over, a storm of static sweeping through his body.

“I’m kidding,” Satoru whispers, after Suguru is silent for too long, “I’m sorry. I just- didn’t know what to say- and, I have- I don’t- Suguru… I’m sorry. I’m sorry-”

Suguru isn’t sure if he pulls Satoru toward him or if he pulls himself up to Satoru, but he’s kissing him, in the next moment, his lips and chest pressed against Satoru’s, his hand curling in his perfect hair, strands curling around his fingers that are softer and finer than butterfly silk, the other skating along the waistband of Satoru’s fraying jeans. He’s warm in his lap, even if he’s frozen for the entirety of their kiss.

Suguru’s just high enough that he doesn’t have the inhibitions to stop himself as he presses his teeth down onto Satoru’s bottom lip, barely more than a scrape as he pulls away.

Satoru’s eyes are wide, his pupils blown huge and all-seeing- black holes in a sparkling cosmos.

“There.” Suguru whispers, his eyes locked on Satoru’s lips- Satoru is looking at him like he’s holy- like he’s the single truth of the world.

Suguru finally manages to meet his eyes, and then they’re staring at each other, Satoru’s chest heaving and his face slack with shock.

“Suguru.” He whispers, like a devotee.

The tension breaks with a deafening snap, pulling them toward each other.

Satoru surges forward, pushing Suguru onto his back as Suguru yanks him forward, forcing their hips to meet. Satoru presses against him, desire burning in their blood.

Satoru whimpers into his mouth, and Suguru seals their kiss, his tongue swiping across his lips and opening up Satoru’s teeth even further to kiss him deeper.

Satoru is greedy, panting into his mouth and grinding down into him like he’s desperate- like he’ll die if he doesn’t. He curses, his hands fumbling with the strings of Suguru’s pants and Suguru grunts, low in his chest, yanking Satoru’s shirt over his head in a single motion, pulling his own off. Satoru whines, gasping as Suguru grabs his hips, rolling up into him. He moans, and then laughs, blindly, dragging Suguru into another kiss like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him- like he’s so happy he can’t control himself- like he’s overflowing with his adoration.

Suguru threads his fingers into his hair, kissing him like he’s intent to devour, their tongues sliding together in an embrace that’s enthusiastically sloppy, their teeth clicking together sharply- but that only makes Satoru laugh again, his wandering hands digging into Suguru’s hair like he’s never going to let him go. 
“Suguru- ha- Suguru,” He grinds down, hard, their hips rolling together seamlessly- he pulls Suguru’s hair, and Suguru moans, weakly- he can feel Satoru’s hips jolt, his nails scratching at his scalp, his lips trailing along his jaw, his throat, kissing and biting, coaxing bruises into his skin. Suguru gasps, his eyes falling shut, his teeth catching on his own lip, strange, reedy sounds leaving him- eager and sharp. 
Satoru’s arm holding him up gives out, at one point, and Suguru easily uses the hands at his waist to flip them in one smooth motion, watching the way Satoru goes limp, moaning his name recklessly loud, like he’s not worried about who might here it.

“Fuck, you’re so strong,” He whispers, frantically, into the muscle of Suguru’s bicep, held steady by his head, even as Suguru laughs. One of his hands reaches to tangle in Suguru’s hair, which spills forward to curtain them both as their lips meet again, his other hand trailing low to rest at his hip. Satoru wraps his legs around Suguru’s waist so he can grind against him better, panting into his mouth, humming and whining as Suguru shifts to leave bruises on his throat, stark against his pearlescent skin. Satoru pulls his hair as he does it, arching into him, gasping like he’s close.

Suguru kisses Satoru at every angle, all the while Satoru pants and writhes, moaning when Suguru does something he likes, like he’s playing it up for an audience. Suguru splays him out across the bed and stares at the lengths of his pale skin, his trembling, willowy shape pressed against the dark comforter like it’s a piece of the heavens, flushed pink and panting Suguru’s name.

“Close- fuck- Suguru, please-” Satoru babbles, his body arching into Suguru’s like he can’t bear to be parted, dragging him down by his hair, kissing him hard, their tongues sliding together even as Satoru’s entire body jolts as Suguru runs his hand along his torso.

“I’ve got you.” Suguru breathes, like it’s instinct, “I’ve got you,” and Satoru comes, back bowing, his voice breaking off like he can’t even fathom it all.

He’s gorgeous, his face falling relaxed, his eyelashes fluttering, starry with the slight dew on his lashes, the shadow of Suguru’s name left on his parted lips.

Suguru bows his head and leans into his neck as he follows- Satoru shudders, hard, twitching with the aftershocks of his own release, pressing the side of his head into Suguru’s, panting against him.

They’re both still, for a moment, holding each other, breathing the same air, Satoru’s arms wrapped around his neck like he’s never letting go.

Suguru rises, slightly, staring down at him, at the blotchy flush along his throat and collar, the bridge of his nose, under his eyes- his kiss-bruised lips, the bites along his neck.

“Holy fuck.” Satoru whispers, staring at him.

Suguru’s brow furrows, a laugh spilling from him- he’s gorgeous, his hair spilling over his shoulders in tendrils of black ink, the obvious muscle in his torso and arms slick with sweat- he’s wearing Satoru’s earrings, and now, the bruises of his kiss, trailing along his throat, down to his chest.

Satoru laughs with him- It’s an adorable laugh- awkward and boyish and so very him.

“Do you want to be my boyfriend,” Satoru whispers, like it’s a secret- like he hadn’t just been calling his name like he’d wanted the whole world to hear it.

“Yeah.” Suguru murmurs, letting the word shape itself onto Satoru’s neck, where it makes him shiver.  
 
   0.00
 
Satoru kisses Suguru on the cheek, wet and sloppy, and Suguru can’t help but kiss his hair and pull him to lie his head in his lap, Satoru’s impossibly long legs cascading over the side of the couch. Shoko makes a gagging motion with her hand, sticking out her tongue, and Nanami’s grip on his pencil shifts like his aim is to break it- Haibara nudges him, laughing.

“Stop, Kento, it’s sweet.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Nanami says, as he glares daggers into Satoru’s face.

Satoru grins, burying his face into Suguru’s sweater, his arms wrapping around his waist.

“Stop being gay- we have an assignment.”

“Uh? We already did our part? We’re the best, remember? Not to mention- that’s kindaaaa homophobic, Shoko.”

“Okay? And? I’m a lesbian, Satoru. I’m allowed to be homophobic.”

“You what?”

“What?” She raises an eyebrow, gnawing on the stick of her lollipop, tearing the paper off layer by layer. Satoru sits up, his expression wholly disturbed.

“Dude, Gojo, it’s obvious.” She adds, “Don’t tell me you thought…”

“Is it really?” He asks, looking around, frantically. Suguru makes no particular expression at all, and Satoru furrows his brow, frustrated by his betrayal.

“Wow, did he really not know?”

“You overestimate him, Yu.”

“Everybody knows, Satoru.” Suguru adds, eventually.

“Damn. Really?” Satoru mutters, “For real?”

“Everybody.” Shoko confirms.

Satoru is the most brilliant, impossibly stupid and yet intelligent person to ever exist, Suguru thinks, he is the light of the world- he is all the ‘good’ rolled up into one.. slightly bratty, know it all- he’s mostly good, at least- he’s mostly all the good in the world in some sort of package, rolled up. It makes sense, when Suguru looks at him, at the way he bats away Shoko’s tickling fingers, at how Haibara nudges Nanami with his shoulder, and how Nanami goes to rescue him anyway. ( they both lose, whatever game they were playing- Shoko does not take prisoners.)

Satoru is light and life and
     and Satoru is dead.  1. Satoru’s corpse is an ugly thing, his forehead and throat split wide, giant wounds prying open his chest and lungs. He’s been gutted, his open torso only hidden by the remains of his jacket and shirt. His eyes are unfocused, with unintentional, unwilling tears leaving his skin moist even after his heart has stopped- there is a massive circle of wreckage around him, as if he were the eye of some great storm.Suguru can’t stop staring. Not even as the tears come, not even as they go. He’s not sure how long he stares, he’s not sure when he slowly lowers himself to the ground to sit. He’s not sure when he looks away, but only that he can’t see Satoru anymore, after a while. He comes back into his body to the sound of a distant car alarm, to the sound of birds, to the sound of traffic, far away.It seems unfair, that Satoru is dead, and there is traffic. People coming and going- non-sorcerers. Non-sorcerers like Fushiguro Toji. He doesn’t remember having closed Satoru’s eyes, but he must’ve, because he knows they were open before. Staring at the sky.Maybe Satoru closed them, (the thought comes unbidden, without his permission:) maybe Satoru is alive.He looks at the body again, searching for any sign of life- there are even stab wounds in his legs- unnecessarily brutal- he’s horrifically pale, like every drop of blood has left him.He reaches madly for a pulse, places his shaking hands over his lips, over his nose, begging to feel the warmth of his breath. A laugh that cries, ‘ Suguru what are you doing?’ Nothing happens. A sweet-smelling breeze tousles his pretty white hair. Some of it is crusted over with blood. It’s turning brown, thickening. He looks up at the sky, at the churning blue and white above. It is a very nice day to die, if you are anybody but Gojo Satoru.But since it is Satoru on the ground, covered in blood and smelling coppery and foul for it, Suguru finds that this day is very mundane indeed— that it’s too temperate, that the clouds are too far apart, that the traffic is particularly noisy. That maybe all the non-sorcerers should die. That maybe even all the sorcerers, should too. That the grass is too green. That the wind is too gentle. Satoru had been smiling, just a moment ago, and even when he looked shocked, a katana pierced through his chest, Getou had turned away, burning that perfect smile onto his eyelids. He had left.  Because Suguru and Satoru are the strongest.(Because Satoru is the strongest. Because he’s Gojo Satoru.)  Like a record scratch, he sobs, nausea filling his senses like he’s been crushed by an ocean wave.   ‘were.’ ‘was.’ Satoru was the strongest. He can feel despair filling him, surging through his chest like it’s replaced his blood. He can hear himself cry out, distantly, but he can’t feel his body, can only close his eyes and beg for this nightmare to end. To wake up and find Satoru sleeping in past his alarm next door, to wake up and cradle him in his arms like a madman.    He opens his eyes.
    Satoru’s dead.  
    This is, This is… Maybe he screams. He feels like he can hear some unholy noise ricochet around him. He doubles over, dry heaving. “Suguru, you look awful.” -and that’s Satoru’s voice, in his ear, and Satoru’s hands, by his throat, rubbing soothing circles along his clavicles, but the cacophony in his head still wont silence, not until he feels the weight of a body on his back- not until he looks up and finds  Satoru’s body to be gone, black boiling liquid mixing with blood. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s dead, too, and he’s with Satoru now, and everything is okay. He’s losing his mind, succumbing to insanity, he’s certain.     ‘we were the strongest.’ He’s going to be sick. He can’t see, can barely breathe. He can only pull in reedy gasps that sting in his lungs and make his throat burn. There is no more smiling behind his eyelids- even when he blinks Satoru’s mutilated body comes to him, the ethereal white light behind his spotty eyelids making the vision all the more intense. 
One moment more- that’s all he asks- that’s all he wants- please, please- one moment more, and then a thousand on top of it-
“ Satoru -” it comes out as no more than a choke, clogging his throat, and the voice- the weight on his back- shushes him, soothes him, “ Satoru-”He’s losing it. He’s going insane. He cannot fathom having survived Gojo Satoru- he cannot understand it. And yet he hadn’t been crying for himself, for his death which most certainly will come at any moment, he’d been crying because it’s Satoru, dead in a pool of blood. He does not have any tears left. 
It should’ve been me, I’d always thought it would be me, I need it to have been me- I need it- 
He lets the presence behind him manhandle him until he is lying on his back in Satoru’s drying blood and likely plenty of his flesh. He can hardly breathe, his lungs aching, but he’s suddenly so quiet he can hear the raspiness of each breath. Above him, straddling his hips, hands on his shoulders, is a figure he could recognize even through death.     ( and perhaps it’s then that he realizes he can’t smell the coppery blood anymore, only the rich and musky scent of Satoru’s cologne.)  Because it’s Satoru , four wings spread from his back, and two from his hips. They have closed eyes engraved on them, as if made of white marble, and they look sharp, dangerous, beautiful. He’s smiling down at him with perfect teeth, gauzy white robes covering his body. He looks almost like a living, breathing statue, his chest slowly rising and falling, almost too perfectly.     Either he’s hallucinating- or-    Oh, he thinks, I cursed him.      “Maybe a little,” Satoru smiles, radiant, and it looks wrong, “But did you really think I’d leave you here all by yourself? Look at you, Suguru. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”     His laughter is like a chorus, trumpets from the heavens. Suguru wants to die. “Who knows what you’d get up to, Suguru,” he rises to his feet, carefully, reaching a hand out to help Suguru up, “when everything faded- er, exploded, out of existence, it was like a string dangled in front of me. I simply caught the string. Y’know?”
    No, he doesn't know. Doubts he could’ve done the same.  
It was an unkind death, from the looks of it, a horrifying battle ended only by the knife between his eyes. Resentment- anger, fear, hatred- he’s sure that Satoru had had enough of them all in his final moments- that Suguru had bundled all of them up and wished a fate worse than death on the one person he’d never want to suffer. And as Suguru grabs his hand and is yanked into his chest, he realizes just how tall Satoru is, now. How different. How unlike himself.He realizes what he has done. Satoru immediately wraps his arms around him, smiling down at him like he’s precious, coveted. Not some teenager who failed to save his life.They’re both so different now. And only a few hours have passed since they last saw each other.
Since he last saw Gojo alive.  
He feels nauseous again. But there’s this- this feeling boiling under his skin. 
Relief.  
“Don’t blame yourself.” ‘Satoru’ murmurs, “It’s really not much different. I don’t mind it.”“Satoru.” he tries again, and it’s less choked, but still a whisper.“Man, the higher-ups are gonna be pissed.” That incites panic in him- “They can’t know, Satoru, they’ll make me exorcize you-”and that’s funny, apparently, because Satoru laughs again.“Do you think you can?”Suguru looks down at his blood-soaked hands, through blurry, aching eyes.He doesn’t say anything. 
He wouldn’t know.

Couldn’t, even if he tried. 
Satoru looks kind of scary, he’s so beautiful.“You’re dead.” Suguru says, looking at the stain of blood on the concrete, feeling like he’s the one that died. “I guess I am.”  1.2 Suguru looks terrible, emptied out and hollow, impossibly fragile in the hold of Satoru’s arms. Satoru pulls him closer to his chest, letting Suguru collapse into him. His knees go weak, and Satoru simply lifts him as he faints, holding him in his arms.It occurs to him, again, that he’s dead, when he sees the blood on the ground, but seeing Suguru’s haunted expression, seeing the wounds on his flesh and the blood on the ground, it becomes very real. And yet, he doesn’t feel anything.Probably because, at the moment, he feels like he has been blessed by the heavens. The chosen one.He can feel the world around him, with his six eyes, and yet the stinging pain he’s used to doesn’t follow- he is everything- the entire world bows to him, holding its breath in supplication. Suguru breathes weakly in his arms, and he can hear the blood rushing in his veins, just beneath his sweat-soaked, too-pale skin. He’s burning to the touch- so very mortal. He carries Suguru forward, toward the stairs to Jujutsu High, and then pauses.Suguru had mentioned the higher ups. He gazes up at the stone gates and it occurs to him, once again, that he’s dead. He frowns as he sets Suguru down, and he concentrates, on his shape, on his perception of himself. On Suguru’s perception of him, where his curse had been born. There’s this tiny thread connecting them, whether due to the way he was reborn or due to Suguru’s cursed technique, he doesn’t know. He can feel Suguru’s unconscious mind plucking at it with worry, like his hands are smoothing over a loose stitch in a sweater. He can also see, in some bizzare way, glimpses of himself in Suguru’s eyes. His grief, his regret, a painted image of how he’d looked as he’d said he could take Toji by himself.He feels more than sees his shape glimmer and change, shifting into that image, dried blood sticky on his uniform. Once he’s certain he looks like how he had before he died, even the blood splatter on his flesh imitating where his wounds would’ve been had he healed them, scars dutifully taking shape, he picks Suguru up again, a quick, cataclysmic rage rushing to life within him as Suguru shifts, a broken sound leaving him as it jostles the wounds on his chest- a horrible criss-cross of blood. He feels very blind, so much so that he can see everything, and yet it all boils down to one thing. One perfect explosion of blood and flesh that used to be a man- one task he must accomplish, after he sets Suguru down to be tended to. The death of Fushiguro Toji.    2.Suguru wakes up to the bright lights of the clinic, his chest tingling with dissipating cursed energy. “There you are,” Shoko mutters, “You wouldn’t wake up. Satoru’s been insufferable.”
Satoru-  
“ Satoru-” The sound is choked out of him, barely a wheeze as he lunges forward, and Shoko’s nails nearly dig into him as she pushes him back down.“He’s fine, he used a reversed cursed technique on his wounds.”“He- what?” That’s- that’s impossible- he’d seen-“He said you might be confused.” Her teeth worry at her lip. “Suguru, I’m concerned-”Satoru barges in, looking nothing like a cursed spirit, and yet Suguru looks at him, and somehow he knows that he is. There’s no strange cursed energy, he blends in with his usual energy signature, and yet… He looks hungry, staring at Suguru, like he’d devour him with just his eyes. There is something ancient in cosmic in those eyes- universes unfolding in his irises- they reflect infinity more than they ever had- endless blue skies and impossibly bright stars, so cold they’re burning. There is something connecting them. A string, perhaps. He can feel Satoru run imaginary fingers over it, pulling at Suguru’s awareness of it, and goosebumps rise over his skin. “I’ll take Suguru back to his dorm if he’s ready,” he says, and Suguru knows for a fact that they’ll be sharing a dorm from now on, though he doesn’t say it. That Satoru (that he) couldn’t bear to be parted.  Suguru didn’t really think he’d live much longer after Fushiguro said that Satoru was dead. He knew in his soul that it was true, at the time. Could taste it on his tongue like the acrid flavor of a curse. He’d expected to die, there, in Tengan’s room. He’d thought the last thing he’d ever hear would be Fushiguro’s voice, idly murmuring ‘Megumi’ to himself. But he’d woken- impossibly he’d woken.He’d run right to the border of the barrier that should’ve protected them both, and he found Satoru, right where he’d been.     Lying on his back--“Man, I thought I’d figured out the reversed cursed technique.”Satoru, now having manifested himself in his school uniform, stares at Suguru like he’s waiting for a response. He’s sitting on the desk in Suguru’s room like he owns the entire space. Suguru cannot think- he cannot breathe. He is waiting to wake up from this nightmare. “I bet you could’ve.” He says, absently. “Yeah. He stabbed me with a cursed tool, I think. Wouldn’t that mean I couldn’t come back though? Crazy.”     Suguru does not know what to say. There is nothing to say.   2.2 Satoru is covered in blood when he returns from getting Amani’s body.His gaze is vacant, far away, her body cradled to his chest in a way that seems unintentional.“Satoru.” Suguru breathes, even as Satoru sets her body down- his shape is trembling at the edges- were he physical, his hands would be shaking- just at the fingertips, little twitches where he’s too much power and too much godhood all at once, locked inside a mortal body- Suguru can imagine it.But he’s not mortal, anymore. His very presence is blurring, sharp, stark colors and infinite darkness, writhing and shifting where reality cannot begin to understand him.“Are you hurt?” Suguru whispers, gently touching his face, his chest and sides, where blood is splattered, soaking his hair, his t-shirt. “It’s not mine.” Satoru murmurs, vacantly. His eyes are far away- he’s looking down at the ground, even as Suguru wipes blood from under his eyes.Suguru doesn’t speak, at first- at least not to reply to that- he’s thinking, trying to put pieces together that don’t fit, jagged and contradictory.Suguru gently lifts Satoru’s chin, trying to force their gazes to meet- the entire world is held in Satoru’s eyes, wholly limitless, universes upon universes, a cascade of realities and possibilities.And it is filled with pain.“Satoru,” he urges, and Satoru is still avoiding his gaze, “Look at me.”Satoru does- fixes his gaze to Suguru’s.“You have to have a good reason to kill someone,” Suguru whispers, “You have to weigh whether something is good enough to kill for. It has to have meaning.”“There was meaning.” Satoru counters, scoffing, “The reason was that they should be dead. And now they are.”“Satoru.” He chastises, sharply, setting his jaw, and Satoru frowns, tilting his head, cradled in Suguru’s palm, pressing his lips to his hand. “You can’t just… do things simply because you’re able.” Suguru whispers, something pained in his expression as he says it. “But I am able.” Satoru counters, “If I am able and I am willing, why should I not?”“You have to be better than that, Satoru. You are better than that.”“I’m not.” Satoru mumbles, into his skin, “I’m a curse. I’m dead. They killed me, and they killed her, and now they’re dead. They deserved it. Fushiguro, those cultists… I might even kill the higher-ups. They killed me, Suguru, surely you-” Suguru’s lower lip twitches, only for a moment. His expression trembles, as if wavering, and then goes cold.It is the face Suguru makes when he’s too empty to cry, but the pain is hitting him hard enough that he would, if he were anybody else. It is haunted, far-away. Pained.It stops Satoru in his tracks- his mouth clamps shut.Suguru steps away, lifting his arms, vulnerable. “I killed you.” Suguru says, “I failed to save you.”Satoru takes a step forward, and Suguru takes another step back.“You should kill me.” Suguru says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Satoru nearly falls to his knees- nearly crumples with the way it strikes him.“Suguru.” He croaks. Suguru steps forward, grabs Satoru’s hands, wraps one around his throat and aims the other to point toward his chest.“So kill me.” Suguru whispers, as intimate and reverent as ‘I love you’. “Suguru-” He rasps, and he tries to pull away, but Suguru holds him fast- their connection through his creation keeps him from wanting to. In this moment, Suguru’s will tangling with his own, he feels power tangle around his fingers, forging the anticipatory birth of Hallow Purple on his fingertips. “To die by your hand…” Suguru breathes, “That would be alright.”“No.” Satoru snaps, and he yanks his hands away, even despite the intention of killing threading through his very being- Suguru’s wants and desires- he separates himself from them, and wraps his arms around him, tightly, “I won’t.”Suguru doesn’t speak. He just stands there, like he’s not even alive.“Okay.” Suguru says, tonelessly, like he’s too tired to argue, but won’t ever agree. 2.3“I killed Fushiguro,” Satoru says, casually, a few days later. Suguru nods, cleaning the dish he’s holding with a wet rag, warm water flowing over his hands. “He told me about his son. I think I’m gonna go find the kid. Maybe in a couple years.” Suguru stares forward, emotionlessly, cleaning the plate like they’re having the most ordinary conversation in the world. “Is that okay?”“What’s his name?” Suguru says softly, “I’ll help you look.” “Megumi? Or something? Fushiguro Megumi.”Suguru drops the dish he’s holding into the sink, and doesn’t react when it shatters. Satoru jolts, looking at him with worry, pulling his hands out of the sink, checking for blood, and Suguru doesn’t do anything, staring at his hands like he’s not even seeing them. “Shit- Suguru?”“Are you going to kill him?” Suguru asks, softly, his gaze still fixed on where their hands are joined.  “No- no! Fuck, Suguru, do you think I’d do that? He’s probably barely even three right now. I- Suguru-” and when Suguru just keeps staring, his hair falling into his face, Satoru grabs him by the shoulder, lifting his face with a gentle hand, trying to catch his gaze. “Suguru?”Suguru won’t react, as if he’s frozen. His breathing has picked up, rapid and uncontrolled.“Suguru,” He calls, a little louder, and Suguru startles, abruptly, his eyes wide, focusing on Satoru’s face. He’s hyperventilating, his pulse rabbit quick- Satoru can hear it, through his enhanced senses, can see where his cursed energy is writhing, tumultuous and aggressive. “Let’s sit,” he says, gently, and Suguru is looking past him, at the kitchen tiles, his fingers shaking, idly. “Suguru, sit.” and Suguru nods, tries to sit down carefully, as Satoru does, but he mostly falls to his knees, carefully maneuvered down without hitting any cabinets only by Satoru’s hands guiding him quickly.He guides Suguru to lean against the cabinets, sitting down with his knees tucked to his chest.  He whispers to him, guides him through slow breaths the best he can, and Suguru grabs his hands so hard that he’s sure if he weren’t a curse, it’d hurt. Suguru rests his forehead on his knees, his eyes shut, his hands clasped in Satoru’s, until his breathing slowly evens out. “I hate him- I hate him-” Suguru whispers, frantically, through clenched teeth, even as Satoru tries to help him breathe, to calm down. “I know,” Satoru whispers gently, “I know- I know- He’s dead- I promise, he’s dead- I’ve got you, Suguru, I swear-” They sit there for a long time.  Shoko says it’s a ‘panic attack’. Gojo won’t tell her what caused it, even though he knows. Something Fushiguro had said, Suguru tells him, later. The name ‘Megumi.’  
‘Oh yeah. Megumi- that’s what I named him.’ 
  2.4 There’s a woman. She says non-sorcerers cause curses. Suguru whispers something like, ‘You could just… kill all the non-sorcerers,” and the woman laughs- like it’s funny.Satoru knows better than to find it funny- it is something he had thought about when he had carried the body of a little girl- ( and that’s funny, because isn’t he their age?) and people had clapped- when he spread his great- holy form, born of negative human emotion, his resentment and longing in death- his desire to be with Suguru only a moment more, and they didn’t even react- couldn’t see what their ideology had cost him- he’d slaughtered them all.Erased them so sharp and wholly that there hadn't been a single trace they'd ever even existed- any residuals had faded by the time anybody had even thought to look.He should've made a show of it, rather than simply obliterating them, carving hollow purple through the room with such perfection that not even blood remained- he should've made it a spectacle. A lesson.But then they really would’ve forced Suguru to try and exercorsize him- and he’d never put him in that position- never. But this… Yuki… Satoru really wants to kill her. He doesn’t like the way she’s looking at Suguru- he doesn’t like the things she’s saying- because they make Suguru look as if he’s in pain. And there is nothing worse than that.But Suguru must know, even if Satoru doesn’t do it, because all of a sudden, he looks very, very pale. 
Satoru swears to himself that he won't kill again. (Not without a good reason, like Suguru had said- Suguru is a good enough reason not to, anyway.)
  3.It’s only a few days later, when Suguru decides.    It’s not exactly a decision.     Not really. It just happens. He doesn’t plan it, as he’s walking through his neighborhood. As Satoru walks beside him, buzzing with sheer energy. He’s laughing, his arms put behind his head, and he can almost forget that Satoru is dead.  
“Suguru, is this your boyfriend?” It is the first time she has acknowledged him in years- the first time she has shown interest in his personal life. His mother teases, and Satoru blushes, even though he has no blood. Suguru can only nod, silently, and watch as Satoru gapes, blushing harder.  
He walks into the door, and he stabs thoughtlessly at his plate of food, thinks about how Satoru will watch him until he keeps it down, muses over the clock tick, tick, ticking, nods when his father asks if he’s doing well, thinks about how kind they’ve been to him- because they have, really- they’re being so polite and friendly, and Satoru whispers, ‘ this is so nice,’ when his father goes to refill his glass and his mother brings in some red wine for them to try with their steak and he stands up and he does it.     Suguru kills his parents. 
Satoru stumbles back, out of his chair.

He twitches, madly, his hands audibly cracking.

The fork in his hand is now lodged in his mother’s throat.

Red wine splashes on the white tablecloth.

It will be hard to get out.

The spray of blood hits his face, but he doesn’t flinch- doesn’t hear it hit the armoire behind him in a wide arc, candy apple red- sugary and dying-

He doesn’t move.

He’s used to blood. 
“Suguru?” Satoru whispers, and Suguru watches as his mother makes some pathetic sound of confusion. 
He looks toward Satoru, and the curse looks like he’s going to be sick, his hand moving unbelievably quickly, plunged through Suguru’s mother’s chest. She’s choked in pain, her jaw dropped wide in shock.

Suguru’s father is screaming- and yet he does not move to attack his son- he does not even move to attack Satoru.

He is too kind for that.

Satoru lunges forward, cutting him open. Gutting him, chin to belly, with one of his wings.

It is a hideous, wet sound- something tears, something splashes-

Suguru watches blood mix with wine- there are pieces of his father on the tablecloth.

It is red.

Satoru stumbles, slipping on blood, gazing at his hands.

They are red.

“Suguru-” He sounds scared, “I’m not- I didn’t mean to- Suguru, I didn’t mean to, Suguru-”

Everything is red.

His eyes film over with blood. He watches his father twitch- rattling out his death throes-

Everything is red.

And Suguru can feel it, in the back of his mind, that little bond that ties Satoru to him, the one he most certainly just yanked, curled around his finger, the one he just used to force Satoru to kill.

It’s stained where he’s touched it- carmine and sticky.

The clock keeps ticking.

Everything is red.

The knife underneath his hand is clean- polished wood and well-kept steel.

It’s smooth, cold- silent.

His mother is gurgling, on the ground, and so he kneels down and stabs his steak knife through her carotid. And then again, through her jugular, through her windpipe.

The steak knife is even smoother, now- with the wet slide of blood- too smooth- it slips from his hand- he reaches to catch it and it cuts him on the way down.

He doesn’t feel it, but it makes his hold on the knife unsteady- he switches it to his left hand.

Everything is red.

Satoru is staring,

Satoru is scared.

His father is next, and though he’s mostly dead, Suguru stabs him once, twice to be sure.

Perhaps he’s sick- perhaps he falls to his knees on the concrete outside and dry heaves until he can’t breathe.

If he does, Satoru grabs at his shoulders- comforting a murderer-

and then there is blood on his shirt, too.  
It turns red, red, red-       They weren’t bad people, really, and they probably didn’t deserve it, but he kills them anyway.Satoru watches, frozen, his hands covered in blood.Suguru can hear flies buzzing in his ears- the same ones he had seen trying to feast on Satoru’s corpse.Satoru had taken in the violence, and when it was done, he’d destroyed their spirits. Like a curse. And Suguru had made him.  
Suguru had made him.  
  3.2Suguru had forced him, had controlled him like a curse, so really it’s his fault.Suguru kills his parents, and it’s messy.He doesn’t mean to be cruel about it. He doesn’t mean to listen to them gag and cry. He really doesn’t. but he does. He listens. And watches and watches and watches. They cry his name. Or maybe they don’t.Suguru remembers them crying, though, despite his untrustworthy memories, his unstable mental state. He sees darkness surrounding him. It creeps into his lungs. He can feel his skin crawl. He can feel the acid in every curse he eats purge him of their wickedness. His parents' voices spawn the evil, and their blood on his sneakers breaks them firmly. There is something traumatizing about watching someone like Gojo Satoru die- (even if he’s not really dead). 
A non-sorcerer killed the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer probably ever. And at first he walked away. He killed Satoru and walked away and he was fine and he probably felt very very proud of himself and he probably enjoyed it and gojo satoru was just a boy and he didnt deserve it. he didnt deserve it he hates non-sorcerers hates them hates them hates them 
    Suguru doesn’t really feel like himself- his old self- the one that hadn’t met Fushiguro Toji. That’s where it all went wrong, he thinks, watching the blood lap onto his shoes. 
    Fushiguro Toji. 
But Fushiguro Toji didn’t kill Suguru’s parents.But yeah, Suguru thinks, tilting his head back to watch the lightbulb in the kitchen fizzle out, it was, really, because of Fushiguro.   
“Suguru?” 
‘Cause of non-sorcerers.“Suguru!”     He had to kill his parents. It was them or Satoru. It was them or him. They might as well have killed Satoru. “Suguru, hey!” He tells the angel of Satoru that much, with a bowed head and a whispered tone. 
 ‘I’ll kill all the non-sorcerers if it brings you back to life.’
(It won’t.) “You don’t mean that.” 
    ‘I’ll kill all the non-sorcerers so that nobody ever has to die again.’ 
“Suguru, tell me you don’t mean it-”     The angel stares at Suguru, and he looks afraid.  “Please, Suguru, you can’t possibly do something like that,” 
They don’t execute him when his parents are found murdered. When they come back to the school and Suguru’s shoes are covered in blood. They don’t even investigate. 
“You can’t okay? You can’t!” 
Everybody knows he did it. 
“But you can.”
Nobody will admit to knowing, and he’s not punished, cause they cant afford to punish him, but they do assign him a therapist. 
“You can, Satoru.”Principal Yaga looks very guilty lately.  Maybe they think they broke him.Maybe they’re right.     4. Suguru is assigned to kill ( consume) a curse that is killing perfect non-sorcerer families in the housing district he used to live in. By himself.It’s probably a curse produced by his parents’ grisly murder. ( It’s probably not.) But to him, the voices, gurgling, bedtime, home before 9, are his parents. There is a person, at his feet, sobbing, crying, spilling blood onto his shoes and he just lets her die. When he gets back, he tells them.  Something about Satoru’s expression looks scared, again.  He thinks it’s funny. That a cursed spirit is scared. (Maybe Satoru thinks Suguru will force him to kill again. He won’t. He won’t- that’s why he hadn’t let Satoru come with him- he can’t trust himself not to reach out to Satoru with his blood-soaked hands. He knows Satoru will reach back, and that’s the problem. That’s the problem- the real Satoru wouldn’t.) He kills a family of non-sorcerers when he technically could’ve saved them, and he serves six months in isolation. They don’t put him in jail.They should.but they don’t.There is no jail that can hold someone like Suguru Geto.and they cannot afford to kill him.    4.2 
Not yet.
  Fushiguro Toji is a non-sorcerer. 
was

is

was

is 
will always be, regardless of whether or not he’s alive.
Gojo Satoru proves that.

He is dead and alive at the same time. 
Even dead Fushiguro proves annoying. Even dead non-sorcerers--Suguru very abruptly looks at himself in the mirror. He can see Gojo hovering over his shoulder, brushing his teeth, though he has no need for it. He is nodding, encouraging him to proceed with his mandated therapy. He grits his teeth. Daily Affirmations.The therapist that the school had assigned him tells him that these are the most important things in the world. (He’s pretty sure they didn’t tell him he killed his parents. or that family.) They diagnose him with some sort of personality disorder- post traumatic stress- major depressive disorder.Somebody calls him schizophrenic, at some point-‘anxiety’ is brought up more than once,‘insomnia’-he stops listening. They make him use behavioral therapy, Using logic to change a stubborn mindset.He doesn’t feel very stubborn, or like his mindset is very wrong. He killed his parents because he felt like he had to. (even if it was wrong) and that family. (also wrong.) Because he had to. (He had forced Satoru to kill. That was wrong. That was evil.)  —Daily Affirmations. He can’t think of any, at first.“I’m strong” comes to mind. Satoru’s corpse comes to mind.The strong shouldn’t die, he thinks to himself, very suddenly, ‘punish the weak.’That’s an abrasive thought, at its core. Violent. The opposite of therapeutic. ‘Love to the strong.’That one is better. Non-sorcerers created curses.All Non-sorcerers are weak.It wasn’t a curse that killed Gojo Satoru. Does that mean Fushiguro Toji is, by default, strong? (was?) He sighs. “Did you figure out some?” Satoru asks, with a smile.
Daily Affirmations are stupid, anyway.
“No.”  5.Satoru pretends to age. That’s probably the worst part. When he’s ‘20’, (When Suguru is 20) he very hesitantly says,  “Suguru, do you remember that kid I told you about?” “Who, Megumi ?” and Satoru beams, because Suguru doesn’t collapse because of a single word. As if he would. As if he’s fragile. He’s not.“I was thinking of going and whisking him away today. Is it too soon?” “Will it make you happy?”Satoru looks at him, a strange expression on his face. He looks up at the sky, through the window in ( their) dorm. “Yeah, I think so.”   5.2 “ Y…you’re… ” Fushiguro’s boy backs up, tripping over his feet, “ Something’s wrong with you…” “Hey,” it’ll be hard for Megumi to remember that face, framed in soft black hair, but he knows the name like his own, written on his heart with something like love beside it, “My name’s Geto Suguru, and this is Gojo Satoru. Is your name Megumi?”(Geto Suguru. ) There’s a little girl, too, his sister. “ Yeah, his name’s Megumi, ” she says, softly, “ I’m Tsumiki. It’s nice to meet you. Are you cursed?” “ No, no ,” Gojo says, “ It’s nothing like that.” She laughs, politely, when he does, and Geto knows, knows from the way ichor leaks from her heart, that she’s a non-sorcerer. That she is part of the sickness, the disease, the corruption. She’s part of what killed Satoru.    ( Directly .)And this boy-- he’s got that same sour expression he did. Fushiguro Toji. “Your father sent us to come get you,” Satoru is saying, squatting, smiling.Suguru finds his bitterness fades, with Satoru right here beside him. For a moment, he forgets.  6.They rent an apartment, off campus.There is normalcy, there, in helping Megumi with math, in reading Tsumiki’s bedtime stories. There is humanity in it. Satoru smiles all the time, wrapping his arms around Suguru’s waist, and saying, ‘I think children agree with you.’
“I think children agree with you.” Satoru pulls Suguru’s bun down, gently, “They make you smile.”

“Do they?” Suguru hums, and Satoru leans heavily on his back, as he does the dishes, inhaling the chamomile scent from their laundry detergent on Suguru’s sweater.

“Yeah. You even smile at Tsumiki, and I know you …struggle liking non-sorcerers.”

Suguru can feel the flush rising to his cheeks, covering his ears red, and Satoru laughs softly, kissing his shoulder.

“It’s okay. I think you’ve been doing better.”

“Yeah?” Suguru says, with something like a challenge, and Satoru rolls his eyes. 
  6.2 Suguru grows into his handsome features, and every day, Satoru finds that his burning need, that desperation for Suguru’s touch, for just one more touch, one more minute, the very thing that shaped him as a cursed spirit, grows. One day, after Megumi and Tsumiki have been sent to a friend’s house, he can’t take it anymore. He can’t take Suguru’s glances when he thinks he’s not looking, he can’t take the muscular planes of Suguru’s back hidden away by his shirt. He wants everything. Like it used to be.  “Suguru, do you love me?”and Suguru replies easily, “Of course.” Because they have said it in their minds, hundreds of times, unbidden.But not like this. He sees Satoru’s expression, watches those ungodly wings spread from his back. “Suguru.”He watches Satoru discard his accursed form’s outer robes, letting them slink off his shoulder. He can feel the rush of want echo from his mind, ricochet off of Satoru’s desperation, and return to him. He brushes his hands across the planes of Satoru’s waist, and the tingling burn of a curse’s flesh meets him. He nearly flinches away. He stands up, and Satoru’s form shifts. It’s how he would’ve looked, at 20. How he never got the chance to. He pulls off his blindfold, smiling with his teeth. “Suguru.” Suguru places his hand on his face, brushing a thumb underneath one perfect, celestial eye. Satoru’s eyelashes flutter, perfectly white, nearly translucent at their tips, ‘ dandelion wishes,’ Suguru thinks, absently, and Satoru presses closer, ducking to catch his lips. He feels something tug at the back of his mind, those threads that connect to all of his curses making way for what is practically an entire length of silk that stretches between him and Satoru, a great hulking, twisting rope, tying them to one another. Satoru hums into his mouth, pulling their hips together. He’s sighing, though curses have no need to breathe, dominating the kiss with a feral confidence. Cursed energy flows through his lips, tasting shockingly sweet compared to what he’s used to, electrifying like lightning in his mouth. Satoru whines, trying to pull Suguru impossibly closer.     7Suguru stares at a wooden cage, containing two little girls, and his heart beats fast, faster. He feels a panic attack rising in his throat. He wishes Satoru were here- he feels his fingers twitch, feels the urge to tug on that thread, that bond of desperation that had grown Satoru’s curse in the first place, and compel him to slaughter. He could blame a curse. He could blame Satoru.  He turns around, and he punches the man to his right, cursed energy spraying from his hand in a wild arc. He pulls his sansetsukon from the mouth of Fushiguro’s container curse, leaning the weapon against his wrist, and lashes out with it, breaking the other man’s jaw. There is so much blood.Everything is red.He kills them all.  He returns to Jujutsu High and Satoru looks at him like he knows. “Your staff is dirty.” He says. He realizes his sansetsukon is caked in blood, and pushes it back into a container curse, removing the evidence. Satoru watches as he does. His hands are covered in grime. His shirt is ruined. There is someone’s brain fluid splattered on his shoe. He will have to buy new sneakers again.
Satoru knows.  
 (He doesn’t leave because he wants to, no, he leaves because he should. He leaves because Satoru looks at him with fear, and hesitance, like he’s fragile. As if Satoru isn’t a cursed spirit. As if he’s not doing this for him.)    7.1
“You can’t say it’s impossible for someone to do something that is possible for you- Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”
Satoru’s entire world is shattering- he feels as if he is dying again- he feels worse. “Or kill me,” Suguru says, simply, and Satoru cannot see the crowd of people, the blurs of grey passing him, for he only sees Suguru, standing not far from him, within distance and perfect angle of the purple he can feel budding at the base of his spine, curling through his nervous system to try and make its way through his fingers, “There’d be meaning in that, too.” Suguru does not even watch to see if he will do it- perhaps that is his single mercy. He turns around, beginning to walk away, and with the crowd parted as it is, as blind to cursed energy as they are, it would be as if Suguru had simply ceased to exist, or faded into the crowd, so obliterating and sudden, so complete and abrupt his end would be. It might even be painless- there in an instant, gone in the next. Purple would erase him from this world in less than a second, faster than even a heartbeat. He would not even be aware of dying. Satoru lowers his hand. He cannot do it.He will not.It is the same thing, in that moment. 7.2
They meet, often.

Satoru is lucky enough to be similar to a calamity curse- something like Sukuna Ryoumen- a curse that can go wherever it pleases.

Satoru leans into his side, and Suguru almost gives it all up, as he often does- almost returns to Jujutsu Tech at Satoru’s side- which is the exact reason why he can’t- he loves Satoru too much to let the non-sorcerers live- to let what they did to Satoru go unavenged.

Satoru buries his face in Suguru’s sweater, sighing, kissing his shoulder. Suguru stares down at him, and, with a hint of absurdity, thinks that Satoru looks sort of small, like this.

“Have you ever- if you-” Satoru frowns, wrapping his arms around Suguru’s waist, “Suguru, I have a question.”

Suguru raises an eyebrow, a laugh perched just under his chin,“Oh?”

“Do you ever wish you weren’t the strongest?” His hand is trailing through Suguru’s hair now, like he’s soothing him- Suguru closes his eyes, leaning into his touch.

“I’m not stronger than you, so no, not usually.” Satoru scoffs, rolling his eyes, mumbling ‘you’re no fun’ under his breath.

“Ha- why do you ask?”

“Sometimes I wonder if-” He trails off, looping Suguru’s hair around his fingers, petting a particularly silky strand with his thumb, like he’s lost in thought.

“Satoru?” Satoru sighs, pulling his leg away and turning over, nearly jostling Suguru off of the small bed. Satoru stares at the wall, irritation brimming in his aura, like he’s plucking at the length of silk that still connects their souls. It reverberates with sheer frustration, making a darkly beautiful energy fill the room.

“Do you hate me?”

“No.” Suguru replies, easily.

“Are you lying?” 
It occurs to him that he is, in some horrible way, and that he also isn’t, so he stays silent, instead. He does not know when the line began to blur- he does not know when his emotions started molding together- he loves Satoru more than anything- hates him most of all. He tries to still their connection- close it off, and the turmoil in Satoru’s energy gets stronger.  “I knew it. We are the strongest you know- You and me. And since I’m a curse, it’s just you now.” 
Something slithers through the bond they share, something like resentment- though from which of them and for whom, he has now idea. He cringes, acid reaching into his throat.

“Did you?” He whispers, voice hoarse, he clears his throat, correcting: “Do you?”

“What?”

“Wish that you weren’t the strongest?”

“Yeah. It’s like you’ve said though, I’m not Gojo Satoru if I’m not the strongest. And I really don’t know how to be anybody else.”

“Satoru-”

“I wouldn’t have died like that if I wasn’t the strongest. But, maybe if I were stronger I wouldn’t have died at all. I don’t know how to feel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.” Gojo’s grin is blinding, even in absolute shadow, like it’s glowing.

‘I hate him’ Suguru thinks, followed by, ‘I love him more than anything.’

The cicadas chriping and frogs croaking make the open window almost insufferable, and yet without it, Geto is certain that the heat in the room- intensified only by the tense silence between them- would be unbearable.  
  8.It turns out that curses either follow their creator or are stuck to the place they died. And so Suguru cruelly tethers Satoru to the school, as he kills thousands of humans.( He doesn’t want Satoru to see.)  and so, when Geto Suguru returns to the school, to kill Okkotsu Yuuta, or to take his curse, or any sort of lie he’s come up with, Satoru is kind and benevolent and kills him. Because Suguru forced him to,  
don’t you see, you forced me to-- 
you forced me to, he thinks, as purple winds around his fingers. You made me.   
Suguru’s eyes widen with surprise, a little laugh slipping from him. He is soaked with his own blood, his head tilting, his brow furrowed with pain.

“At least…” Suguru sighs, swallowing, trying to coax his aching throat into shaping the words, “Curse me a little, at the very end.”

Satoru stands, looking very hollow, more a corpse than even Suguru, and steps toward him.

It will be fast- it will be merciful. Suguru will die anyway, but it will be long and painful. He cannot be saved. Satoru has no choice but to kill him.

He steps toward Suguru, kneeling at his side, and Satoru places a kiss into his hair, drawing another laugh from him, weak and breathless. His eyes close, his head tilting to lean into Satoru’s embrace.

He gently wraps his hands around Suguru’s neck, mindful not to graze his wound, and Suguru tilts his head back, closing his eyes.

It would take only the slightest wave of cursed energy to break his neck, with his hands so close to his throat. But it would mean, with near absolutely certainty, that Suguru would not be able to come back- at least not as a curse. It would be robbing himself of any chance of Suguru.

But it would also be freeing Suguru permanently.

He is angry that Suguru is forcing him to do this- forcing him to live the rest of eternity alone.

But he loves him enough to do it.

He feels Suguru’s bones under his hands, thin and mortal.

It takes only the slightest shiver of cursed energy to do it.

He listens to the way Suguru’s spine breaks, the way his brain stem tears, his collarbone snapping from the force- his breath stops mid exhale, letting out a soft wheeze as it unnaturally releases, his heartbeat throbs half a beat more and then goes silent, frozen. His head grows heavy in Satoru’s hands, broken on the axis.

He presses his lips to Suguru’s temple, cradling his body, holding him close. 
  8.2 Geto would know what to do, Shoko thinks, as she watches Gojo spread his massive wings, letting them extend and extend and extend , but she’s not Geto, and Nanami’s not Geto, and Principal Yaga isn’t Geto, and Gojo is angry, she knows- everyone knows, in fact, the whole world probably knows. But they don’t know that Gojo is angry because he had failed, in Geto’s last moments, to curse him as Geto had done for him. Geto Suguru died with the sun on his face, on a very abnormal day, which is not unlike but not exactly the same as how Gojo Satoru died. Gojo should’ve disappeared, when Okkotsu landed that arm-removing blow, but instead he peeled away, manifested fully. The separation must’ve been agony. She doesn’t have the energy to pretend she has any concept of it. She doesn’t have the energy to figure out just how long Gojo’s been a cursed spirit. Gojo shouldn’t have been able to kill Geto. They were always outliers. If Sukuna Ryoumen is the king of curses, if Rika is the queen, perhaps Gojo Satoru is some sort of god. An angel. She wonders if that’s what Geto thought, in his last moments, when Gojo killed him. Gojo won’t tell anybody what his last words to Geto were. Not completely. “I told him I loved him.”“Really?”“Nah. Could you imagine the look on his face if I had?”
The look on his face.  
Shoko supposes morbid curiosity could’ve led her there- to the look on Geto’s face when Gojo told him he loved him.Gojo wouldn’t say it so simply, though.He wouldn’t just say ‘I love you’, (probably.) Maybe he said, ‘we’re the strongest,’ or maybe he said, ‘i trust you’ or ‘i’ll see you again, right?’ or maybe he didn’t have to say anything like that at all. Maybe Gojo Satoru said ‘I love you’ for the first and the last time. Doesn’t matter. Shoko doesn’t get to hang out with both of them ever again. What’s left of Satoru, anyway? A figure, an epitaph. He’s beautiful.  9.Megumi is sixteen, staring up at another boy, the first time Gojo sees himself in his eyes.It is a terrible thingto be a mirror image of someone like Gojo Satoru.  This boy- shirtless, wearing a simple pair of joggers, splattered with curse blood, is a shock of pink hair against blackened concrete.and also, apparently, Sukuna’s vessel. Gojo Satoru’s heart does this nauseating leap- dread gnawing at his flesh. “I… ate that thing.”“Really?”“He did.” 10.“Give me ten seconds with Sukuna, do you think you can do that?”There is warmth, in Itadori’s smile, in his skin, in his eyes. Sukuna’s manifestation sucks it from his body in an impossible way. Nothing but frost and violence incarnate brandished in his eyes. “The Gojo heir is a curse?” Sukuna cajoles, “How the hell did that happen?”  Gojo Satoru grins- it is not with mirth.Sukuna Ryoumen smiles back. “What a fascinating era to be reborn into.” Fushiguro Megumi is afraid of Sukuna Ryoumen.Megumi is not afraid of Gojo Satoru.Not since that first day. 11.“Y- you’re -”Megumi had felt it- that flex and distortion of energy where Gojo Satoru bled into the very space around him- warped reality to make room for his presence-and he’d felt the warmth of his hand, smelt the herbs in shining black hair where loving hands worked oil into it in devoted acts of service-he’d felt a strange sense of comfort- one he couldn’t explain.Something went wrong along the way. Sometime around when Tsumiki was cursed. It had changed them all. And then he was gone, like he was never there, like he was dead.Megumi has always grieved silently- retreated into himself in favor of tears or sobs. The loss of Geto is no different. Gojo’s insanity is different than his. Gojo was a curse- but Suguru Geto ? He’d always just been a man.  
“Or kill me, Satoru. There’s meaning in that, too.”  
 
I would’ve gone with you. I would’ve gone with you, I would’ve gone with you i wouldvegonewithyouiwouldvegonewithyouiwouldvegonewithy-
“The sink didn’t do anything to you,” Megumi says, blunt and exhausted, as the countertop crumbles beneath Gojo’s grasp. He lifts his hands, slowly, shaking off the rubble as an afterthought. “He isn’t coming back,” Gojo says, his great six eyes all devoid of tears, though there is wateriness in his accursed voice, stinging the air like great bells, haunted by a choir, “he left.”He’s not in his right mind. “He left.” Megumi mutters, “Must’ve been a good reason.”“A good reason.” Gojo whispers, mostly to himself.
A good reason- one good enough to kill for- 
 -one good enough to leave for. Megumi doesn’t want to have to comfort this man anymore, and he doesn’t want to have to watch Tsumiki breathe through a tube anymore, but he keeps doing it anyway. He is not capable of change.Habit.There must be lots of good reasons for leaving Fushiguro Megumi behind.Lots of people have done it.   12.
Lots of people have done it.  
Yuuji’s corpse is an ugly thing, pale and decrepit, his skin sticking to his bones in an unsightly way. Megumi can’t stop staring. Not even as the tears come, not even as they go.