09:13 AM  〚February 13, 2019〛

Satoru reads the paper.

Then he rereads it until he has every single fiber of the paper seared in his mind.

Then, in a flash of madness, he takes the train to a single-room residence near a coffee shop in Tokyo.

He doesn't even knock; he just comes in.

"Suguru, what—stop looking at me like you just saw a ghost—what does this mean?" He waves the paper around. "Remember to throw your trash properly next time, idiot."

"Fuck," the idiot whispers, and then clears away the table to rest one arm on it. "Is that the in another life pr—"

Satoru takes a seat on the bed. "The in another life prompt, yes."

"Fuck," Suguru says, now with more emotion. "Fuck."

"I need other words from you, loverboy," Satoru says, waving the paper around again. "First of all, we didn't talk about this kinda prompt, and second, I don't think we can reveal this much in a public episode."

Suguru closes his eyes and looks away from Satoru. "It's called trying to brainstorm, you ass."

"Well we can brainstorm about it now." Satoru flattens the paper on the bed, straightening out the creases.

"I don't want to."

There are fences Satoru can jump—Suguru wasn't impervious to him, sure, but he knows when to push and when to pull. That's the thing with knowing someone beyond your soul, Satoru thinks, and smiles to himself briefly before steeling himself for impact. "Suguru."

"Can we forget this happened?"

"If you had so many things to tell me, then why don't you do it to my face?"

"I threw that away because it wasn't even supposed to reach you. It wasn't supposed to reach anyone."

"Right, of course. So, of course, I'm going to leave and forget this ever happened, all the while knowing the shit on here concerns me and you, is that it? And I'm going to spend more than half my weeks with you knowing about this—knowing you know I know—and I won't mention it? Copy. Crystal clear." Satoru stands up.

Suguru rubs his temples. "What do you even want to fucking know? Everything's on there."

"Suguru—"

"No. Why are we doing this?"

"Because I—" Satoru swallows, and then barrels on, "Because I miss you too, idiot, didn't you know?"

Nothing happens.

Satoru dimly registers Suguru's slow exhale. The ringing in his head is quickly escalating, telling him go right now, 'you shithead, you ruined everything, congratulations'. He's said too much again. He's ruined what semblance of peace and normalcy they've developed over the past year, and he doesn't know if they could ever return from this. Fuck, Shoko's going to murder him. Not if he does it first, though.

He doesn't even feel like he has complete control over his eyes. He only knows in some part of the back of his mind that Suguru's face had gone through four emotions in the last thirty seconds, and that he was looking more and more like someone who'd succumbed to defeat.

He hopes Suguru knows it would mean something if they'd fought over it. If he'd be cast out forever from his to-be ex-best friend's life all because he doesn't know what the word 'boundary' means. He almost wants Suguru to chuck a dictionary at him in retaliation; just anything physical so he'd know where the hell he's at.

When Suguru does speak, his voice is quiet. "What am I even supposed to say to that?" He asks, trying not to look at Satoru. "Do you seriously think I don't know?"

Satoru bites his lip—it's trembling. He can't quite place what he's feeling: is it anger? Frustration? He's definitely not about to cry, that's for sure. He dug himself a rut and lay in it; he can't just dig himself back out when he's making Suguru shovel all the dirt above him. He wants to leave, is all, but he can't.

Suguru barrels on. "It's—it's so fucking messy, Satoru, I can't—everything is—I don't know. I don't know." He sags and puts his head in his hands, running a hand through his hair frustratedly almost immediately after. "I don't know what to do with all of this," he breathes, gesturing around vaguely. "I'm only just getting some things back on track."

Satoru's words have finally reached his tongue, it seems, because he blurts out, "What? What is it that you think I want?"

Suguru looks up at him, exasperated. "I don't fucking know, for us to get back together?"

He bites the inside of his cheek. "When did I ever say that?"

"I'm not—" Suguru sighs. "I'm not doing this. That's always the problem with you, isn't it? You always—"

"I don't want us to get back together," Satoru interjects before the boy in front of him tangles things up further. "I respected your decision when you broke up with me, so why would I want that?"

"Then why did you come back?"

"Because you're my best friend." He's not shaking. He's not shaking, and it's weird, because he should be. He should be burning with everything inside of him. "Because I was going through some shit too and I thought we'd always—you know what, it's stupid. Nevermind."

Some days, Satoru might admit that everything was his fault. He'd come back to Suguru like they weren't just in the middle of a maelstrom and started pretending that everything was okay under the pretense of friendship. But what was friendship to them at this point? When was it just them without anything else weighing on them and what they are?

He's always fucking things up spectacularly. He doesn't feel anything about it at this point.

"If you don't want me to come back then just say so," he says, voice firm. "Do it right now. Tell me, 'Satoru, I don't want you around anymore' and I'll fuck off."

"Satoru—"

"What do you really want, Suguru?" He's not pleading. "I just want the truth—I just—" He's not breathing. "I just—" He's not thinking.

This is what Gojo Satoru wants: freedom, clarity, a stop to the ebbing pain of having to dwell on thoughts and moments.

Wrong. Scratch that. He's lying to himself again.

THIS is what Satoru wants at this moment: he wants to hold Suguru's hand. He wants to tell him he hadn't waited for him to return not because he knows he will eventually, but because it doesn't matter—everything was and will always be the same for the both of them. He wants to be honest in the way he isn't when he's with himself; he wants to love and be loved, to touch and be touched, to hold and be held in return without any repercussions because Suguru is nothing but safe despite all his jagged edges. He wants to behold Suguru against the raging backdrop of the city bathed in the violent but all-too-soothing colors of the nighttime, tracing stars on his sun's skin. His sun, of whom he so greedily keeps a memento of right on the key hooks they stuck to the wall with superglue. His sun, so far out in space he can't reach him but keeps him grounded and human nonetheless.

Simple as that. They don't have to be anything. They don't need to.

Is it too much to ask for something great?

"—I just want you. That's it. I want to know if you do, too, and then we don't even have to do anything about it." He's not himself, not really. "Because I don't know how to fucking act anymore. Because...because it's tiring, you know?"

Satoru sees Suguru's chest rising and falling hollowly and thinks, Do I have to say sorry?

The problem with him was that he never says sorry in person. He's aware enough to know that he should be sorry for a million fucking things—he is, but he doesn't say so out loud. They make up the hell he sits in everyday when he's left alone for long enough. Half of them are Suguru's.

A whisper, a confession— "You already know I miss you."

Satoru sits back down slowly.

"And you already know I love you," Suguru continues a little more firmly, "Back when you just returned from Italy, remember? I was drunk."

"You remember? What about that thing from the podcast when Shoko exposed you?"

"Hazily. I don't remember much but I remember that I told you. And I played along with the podcast thing, wouldn't want to ruin your fun."

Satoru feels like someone just returned all of his insides to his body wrong. He'll take it, though, and sew it all back up himself.  "You absolute ass."

"I know," Suguru says, his face mirroring Satoru's. "I know."

It's Satoru's turn with the whispered 'Fuck' now, and he does it as slowly as he can.

The boy in front of him straightens up suddenly. Satoru is astonished at how he could sit up taller, because as far as he's concerned Suguru's spine had always been straighter than any of them were. "I'm not going to say sorry."

"I don't need it," Satoru reassures. "You don't even have to explain."

Suguru slouches back down and nods his head once in the bespectacled boy's direction. "Good, because I won't."

Satoru doesn't know how to respond to that. The seconds tick by in silence.

Devoid of anything to occupy his hands with, he begins reading the note for what he thinks is the thirty-fifth time. "You said you wanted it."

"I did. I don't know what I want now."

"Me," Satoru says cheekily, to which Suguru sends a disgusted look. "Awww, come on, let me bask in it."

Suguru rocks back in his seat. Satoru wants to push him just a little to see if he falls at some particular angle. "Do you remember saying 'sometimes we can't have the people we want when we want them because things aren't right'?"

Ah. "Yeah. Episode 23." He clicks his tongue. "Us?"

"Us," Suguru breathes out, still not taking his eyes off of Satoru's. And then it's gone in a second; he blinks and looks somewhere else. "You knew?"

Satoru rolls his eyes in exaggeration. "I'm dumb but I'm not stupid, Suguru."

"You're both, I think," Suguru deadpans.

Satoru flops down on the bed, folds his arms over his stomach, and looks straight up at the ceiling. The water stains look back at him. "You know how they say I reply in either a second or in a year?"

"Yeah?"

"My reply's a year late, then, but I love you too, Suguru." He looks back at his friend. "The difference is that I understand it." He looks back away, sheepish, scared— "It's all I have of you."

Suguru smiles softly. Satoru wishes he could burn this image in his mind forever. "Wrong. And you lied down on the note."

Satoru sits up and yanks the note out of the bed. "Fuck you, I was trying to have my movie moment."

"You're always having your movie moment!"

"Yeah, cause I'm so movie-genic."

"You'd beat Shakespeare with the amount of words you invent on a daily basis."

"Shakespeare would not even begin to understand the machinations of my mind, alright?"

Suguru laughs at him. Satoru imagines that this is how stars are born: out of the tinkles of his beloved's laughter, out of love. Out of the loss of all the promises they'd made because they didn't matter anyway, out of the impulsive cross-city rides and difficult situations and soft beds. Out of the heavy sting of truth.

"I love you," Satoru says again. "I love you. You're stupid."

"Didn't you get the memo? I love you, so you're the one that's stupid."

Satoru clucks his tongue. "So what now?"

Suguru gets up from the chair and sits on the bed beside Satoru. He stares down at the white-haired boy staring right back at him, unblinking, regarding him in that passive way he always does during lazy afternoons and early mornings with nothing to do. Satoru could taste everything they'd lost; it was burning, acidic, but it was familiar.

"I don't know," Suguru confesses quietly. "I don't want to feel caged, though."

"Did you, before?" Satoru reaches his hand out to Suguru. It's an olive branch more than anything; it's a gauge of peace.

Suguru puts his palm on top of it and waits for Satoru to intertwine their fingers.

It's unfamiliar. They've done this a million times before even when they still weren't together yet this one felt new. Raw. It feels like a second skin suddenly grew over Satoru's pale, clammy hands, ones that don't feel like they're his at this moment. Still, there's a jolt of happiness—their fingers still interlock together the same way they used to.

Their hands are still made for each other, then. 

"I guess. Yeah. I felt like I couldn't breathe—you kept trying to help, and it just felt like—like—"

Satoru squeezes the hand nestled safely in his. "Like it was too much. Yeah, I felt that too, except in reverse, I guess." He looks back at the ceiling. Every single day in that goddamned Italy stint felt like a struggle. He felt like he was swimming with no shore in sight, had felt like he was drowning even though the waves felt like they were his to command. He remembers thinking, very vaguely, that he was letting himself slip through his own fingers.

"Wrong time for everything," he murmurs. He doesn't want to wonder whether or not this still isn't the time for them—it isn't, he knows that, but he'll be damned if they miss another chance when it finally comes.

Satoru's tired of trying to catch shooting stars all his life.

Suguru asks Satoru's earlier question. "So what now?"

Four breaths in loaded silence, their chests rising and falling in the same beat (just like always, just like how it should be). And then:

"So nothing," Satoru answers, his hand rubbing circles on Suguru's worn ones. It's enough that we know. It is. If Satoru were to be honest, it always has been. Suguru alone is enough. "Sound good?" 

Suguru's smile wavers. "Yeah."

"Okay," Satoru replies, closing his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he could still see Suguru's faint smile: his lips are upturned, he imagines, and there's a slight dimple on his right cheek. His eyes would be half-crescents even with just a small smile because he had the most wonderful eyes that went with every single smile there ever was on Earth. He would look illuminated even without the help of the sunlight weakly streaming through the windows, because that's just who Suguru is.

He sits up, face mere inches apart from Suguru's, and says quietly, "C'mere." (*come here)

It's natural: Suguru falls almost automatically into his embrace, his head fitting perfectly in the space between Satoru's neck and shoulder. Satoru gives little pats on Suguru's back in what he thinks is a soothing manner and places his head just on top of Suguru's. What had they been doing, fucking around and missing each other's touch like this? As if they could ever last a long time without it.

They stay there, still, their hearts beating right next to each other for the first time in more than a year. Satoru wants to gouge his heart out and put it in Suguru's ribcage just right beside the one beating there so he doesn't have to take care of it for Suguru anymore. It's easy, giving your heart to someone; it's even easier when you know they can break it just as easily as they keep it alive.

Suguru breaks the silence. "I have a question."

Satoru breaks free from the embrace and lies back down. He nods, an indication for the boy in front of him to continue, and takes the hand he was holding back into his. He's making up for lost time now. He closes his eyes, focuses on the very real and very human touch he's having now.

"Where did you go during that month we couldn't talk to you?"

Ah. That. Satoru remembers it all very vividly: he'd been broken then, more than he would ever admit. He'd gone somewhere he knew nobody would be able to touch him. "I went home," he says, and opens his eyes to Suguru looking at the note he'd probably picked up from the bedside table. "I went home because I couldn't look at the house the way it was then. You'd forgotten some of your things and I had to clear it up, and then I saw this letter—you know, you should really stop leaving your papers everywhere, I thought you had the reputation for being the neat hygiene freak—it was unfinished and it wasn't addressed to anyone but I knew it was for me. I wanted to tear it apart but I couldn't, so then I took it home with me and I tried to burn it. Well, I also couldn't, because I thought it was the only thing from you I'd be left with ever. I stamped it out. I left it in your drawer when I brought you coffee that one night I returned."

He felt like baring his soul like this was only right. He hadn't imposed on Suguru's truth; it was lying there on his floor after all, but he felt like this was all a give-and-take, one that they've started doing more since their split.

Suguru says nothing, so he continues. "I left because it was as stuffy as ever in there. It's all Gojo-sama this, Gojo-sama that. I lasted a few weeks and thought, 'you know what, fuck it' and left at midnight like a star in a movie scene. Which I should be, by the way." He laughs quietly at himself. "And I was supposed to return to the sad apartment all by myself. I even had the playlist for it—I'll show you some time—but I texted Shoko and bugged her for your address because you were the first thing I wanted to come home to. I told myself I'll do it this once and then never again. I just wanted to see how you were doing. It didn't matter if it was as an ex or as a friend or whatever. Just me to you."

There's a slight ache to it. Satoru tries to feel around in his brain for any semblance of the pain he used to feel when he remembered what happened two years ago, but it's receded into a vague kind of loss now, a scabbed-over wound of nostalgia that's just a little bit out of reach.

He cried only once. He'd been alone in his room in the ancestral house then. He didn't even feel it approaching—it just crashed into him with the force of everything he's ever told his best friend and dissipated just as quickly. He'd been left confused more than sad after that entire ordeal, but maybe he just didn't understand what the hell he'd been feeling then.

There was an inescapable kind of truth that haunted him during those days: he'd have to keep talking with Suguru because he'd been stupid enough to agree to that dumb fucking podcast idea even if they both knew it wouldn't work. He'd have to keep seeing Suguru laugh, smile, probably even cry for the hell of it. That wasn't the damning thing. It was that he wanted it; he craved it, felt like if he was to let go of Suguru then he'd go out with all his memories of him intact. They'd promised. Then again, they'd promised each other many things.

Suguru's voice jolts Satoru out of his reverie. "How did you know I was awake?"

"You're an engineering student, of course you'd be awake," Satoru scoffs, "And if you weren't then you would have woken up with me knocking on your door."

Suguru frowns down at him. "Way to be a guest."

"Yeah, well, mi casa es tu casa (*my house is your house;). Literally."

"This isn't your house, Satoru."

"Really? Cause I'm almost falling asleep, look." Satoru lolls his head and starts snoring loudly.

"Shut up," Suguru says, flicking Satoru's forehead with his free hand. This earns a "Hey!" and a flick of retaliation.

Satoru gets to know one of the truths of the world in the two hours he stays at Suguru's. This is how you fix things, he realizes—you seize the mistakes you've made and stitch them together to make a self-portrait. Then you give that portrait to someone who'd seen you as you are without any pretense. They'd take it, take you, heart and soul and skin and sinew and everything. They'd been there at the sidelines when you were stitching your portrait. They were part of the mistakes you picked up. Eventually they fall in just the right place if you decide one day to fit their puzzle piece back into the tapestry of your life—they'd always belong there, you realize, and set aside the needle and the thread. It's all going to be okay. You're going to be okay, if a little bit unsure, but that doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things anyway.

But that's too much for a truth. In all actuality, Satoru realizes for the first time in his life that he and Suguru are going to be okay.