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Satoru’s steps were silent as he wandered up the stone street. He was looking for him; of course he was. They’d not seen each other in a long time. He knew, in his soul, that he would have missed Suguru until the day he died, had things not gone this way.
He didn’t know then that he would miss him anyway, but then again, he’d never thought the world would take his best friend before it took him. Such a thing was unfathomable.
His six eyes sensed the other man long before he smelled the tang of blood, heard those quiet, breathy gasps of pain, which became softer as the sorcerer making them tried to breathe through it. He was talking to himself. Oh, Suguru, Satoru thought, You’ve really gone and done it now, haven’t you..?
All in all, he supposed it was a long time coming, what had happened today. He felt a little weary from fighting, but that couldn’t stop him from doing what he was about to do. A gentle tug behind his naval seemed to draw him onward. He knew he would never not go to his best friend, the man he’d loved with all his bruised heart.
The truly pathetic part, as he paused, just out of sight, heart thudding in his ears, was that even after all this time, he still thought of Suguru Geto as his best friend. Would always, always wish that silly, too-caring-for-his-own-good man had stuck around long enough for…
He watched Suguru finally notice him, watched his face drop as he ceased his muttering, then watched as he smiled casually and slid down the rough brick wall.
“You’re late again, as usual, Satoru.”
Satoru didn’t react as he stood, looking at the monstrosity before him; completely mangled, arm missing, half his gorgeous face bloodied and burned. He wanted to be sick, really, but wouldn’t reveal that for anything. Not now.
He heard himself speaking, but hardly registered it at all over the rush of blood in his ears, and a quiet ringing of shock and adrenaline as he asked the routine questions that the higher ups would surely want answers to, later. He took note of the responses, and when there was nothing more to be said, he sighed.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Suguru?” He murmured, before he could stop himself. Wasn’t sure he would have, anyway. He had to know what Suguru thought of all this shit.
“Shhh…” The sound was slow, shaking, as Geto closed his eyes and slumped a little more. “Just… just be quiet for a moment.” He swallowed, like what he was about to say caught in his throat. When he finally said it it was sudden, and unexpected, like he’d been wanting to ask it for years and was trying not to jump at the chance.
He hesitated for such a long time that Gojo wondered if he would even speak at all.
“Did you hate me? Do you hate me?” He clearly needed this answer, and the way he said it made Satoru wonder if he’d wanted to ask this for years. Knowing Suguru, he probably had.
Gojo loosed a trembling breath of his own. His fingers twitched, and his bottom lip trembled. I’m an adult man, for fuck’s sake, and the strongest jujutsu sorcerer, he scolded himself. I shouldn’t be crying over this. He hurt me.
“No.” He finally whispered, then, “I always wished I could.”
Suguru nodded, then winced. “I wish you could, too.”
Satoru closed the gap between them in three long strides, then slid down the wall beside the other man. No words, not yet.
He thought back to a time in highschool, one he hadn’t paid enough attention to in the moment. He’d thought they’d have forever, for memories like that one. But now it was one that he’d cherished endlessly for ten painful fucking years. It was one of the precious memories he sank into at night, when he was alone, when there was nobody around to see him pretend, then weep when he had to abandon the moment of peace.
He remembered that he had sat down, arrogant as he was, ever confident, and could recall the feel of the bench beneath him. He remembered he’d been eating mochi, and could still feel the stickiness and sweetness of it on his teeth as he had clutched his bag to his chest. He could remember the warm weight of Suguru’s body as he lay his head on his friend’s shoulder, absently watching him pick at his lunch.
This was before everything had gone south. Before Riko, before Toji Fushiguro, before Suguru had realised the nature of the world in its entirety. Before he’d gone downhill drastically, and Satoru had barely noticed. Barely noticed his best friend breaking under it all, and accepted the half-assed “I’m just fatigued from the heat, I’ll be fine” answer without much question, because surely his best friend would talk to him if he was struggling so badly.
It had been a warm day, he remembered. Not hot, but utterly perfect, the sun beating down on them both. He remembered, naively, thinking he understood it all. He was happy, the happiest he had ever been.
“I wish these days could last forever,” he had said, cosying himself against his best friend, since that was where he felt safest. Since that was allowed. Nothing had been off limits between the two of them, nothing too soft, or too brash, or even a little bit silly.
He remembered Suguru laughing softly against him, the way his low voice had been so soothing as it vibrated through his chest.
“Wow– how sentimental of you.”
He was brought out of his memories by another soft hiss of pain as Geto, finally beside him again, shifted. He looked at his Suguru again, clearly the best of them all, the most driven, the most caring. He'd just gone about it the wrong way, really.
Suguru seemed to relax a little as Satoru looked at him, despite the serious pain he must be in. Something clicked behind his violet eyes, and he seemed to accept everything, in that brief moment. His shoulders dropped, his face smoothed. Typical. He had always seemed to make sense of everything before Satoru could; some things never changed.
Satoru stilled as the dark haired man leant into him, gently at first, then a little more. He seemed tentative, in a way Gojo had never known him.
“Is this okay?” He whispered. Does this still feel right? he seemed to be asking, Can I still do this with you?
Satoru rested a hand on Suguru’s knee, and drew his body closer. “Yes.” He breathed. He wondered if they had both been thinking of that moment over a decade ago, too. As if in answer to this unasked question, Suguru drew a shallow breath, and he confirmed this suspicion without even knowing, most likely.
“I wish this moment could last forever.” Satoru could hear the gentle smile in his voice, and turned just so, so that he might be blessed by beholding the sight of the other man’s face, finally graced with a smile. His teeth, his lips, his nose, those thick eyelashes, all utterly perfect. He could almost ignore the ruined right side of his face.
Satoru bit his lip. The feeling of Suguru’s head resting in the crook of his neck was such a comfort, one he’d missed sorely, and he rested his own head atop it like they were teenagers again. He didn’t want to scare his best friend, so he forced out words that caught in his throat and made him want to sob, his voice cracking towards the end. “...How sentimental."
He knew that Suguru was dying. Knew that he had lost too much blood, and nobody would want him to be saved anyway. Nobody but Satoru. Maybe Shoko, but she was surely too far away, and it had been left far too long. Suguru knew this too it seemed, and rather than fear, there was quiet resignation on his face. “Is my family safe?” He rasped.
“Every last one of them escaped,” Satoru whispered in response, so gentle to a dying man. He likely would have said this anyway, even if it wasn’t true, just to bring this cherished individual some comfort at the end.
A long silence stretched between them, though it wasn’t as tense as it ought to have been. Countless words hung between them, unspoken, so many that they would never be able to say them all.
There was never enough time, it seemed.
“I missed you,” Satoru whispered, leaning closer still. They were pressed together, strong, powerful men that had done so much in their short lives, and Suguru still smelt just the same as he had a decade ago. “So, so much…”
“I’m so sorry,” was all the other man could offer him. And it was enough. It would have to be, for there wasn’t time for everything they both wanted to say to each other. Weeks wouldn’t be enough. A lifetime wouldn’t.
“Return this for me?” Suguru handed him a card, his fingers still nimble and long despite their obvious strength. Strength that was quickly leaving him, as those hands that had held Satoru’s trembled. Turning it over, the movement fluid, comfortable, Satoru frowned at Yuuta’s ID.
“Sure. Anything.” He breathed, as he tucked it away. He’d be selfish, for a minute. He’d allow them both this, a brief pause to just be, when it was their final chance.
“Satoru?” There was that soft voice again, crooning, gentle, like a lover. “Can I tell you something? Something…” Suguru made another pained, trembling sound, “...something you may already know?” He sounded like a teenager again, but feverish, like the few times Gojo had seen him ill.
“Of course.” He gently tugged him tighter against him, like the contact might save a man that was surely bleeding out. Leaning into his receding warmth, their bodies, changed by time, fit together just as they always had. The sky was pink above them. He had a feeling that… no, Suguru would never be so cruel as to tell him that now. Not now, not like this.
Please not like this.
“I always…” his voice was guilty, too quiet, too weak, and so at odds with the man Satoru had known. “I always did think of you as… more than.” He inhaled like it hurt. It probably did.
No. No, don’t do this.
“More than?”
“Yes. More than… more than this world. Better. More than… more than my friend. You were better than a friend to me, Satoru, you understand?” His words were slurring a little now, and he looked sleepy. Satoru wanted to shout at him to keep his fucking eyes open, but he looked so peaceful that he didn’t question, and allowed them to fall shut. He didn’t know if that was the last time he’d get to see that breath-taking violet.
Why are you speaking in the past tense? He almost demanded. You’re still all that to me. “Suguru?”
“Hm?”
“I love you, too.”
The other man gaped at him, for a few moments, and Satoru wondered just when they had both grown up. Grown into this.
Then he smiled. “At least curse me a little, at the end.” His chuckle rattled in his chest, weak, and more so by the minute.
Satoru squeezed his eyes shut as a lump built in his throat, and he knew he was going to cry. Just for a minute, he told himself. Nobody else had to see or know. “I could never be so cruel.” He knew just what Suguru was talking about, yet he wouldn’t ever condemn him in such a way.
Suguru’s chest rose again, then fell, a deliberate, calculated breath. He swallowed. “I regret nothing.” He suddenly said adamantly. He sounded like he did that day after he’d razed that town, killed his parents. Unbearably sure of himself in his own plight. “Nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” Satoru whispered. If he was going to just…
“Nothing,” Suguru growled as he repeated it, “except for… except for you.” He spat the word ‘you’ like it tasted bitter. “And… that I never…”
God, he was crying too, now. Satoru reached out and wiped the twin tears away as they rolled down Suguru’s bloodied cheeks, not bothering with his own soaked face.
“Look at us.” He tried, but he could hardly muster the jovial laugh he spoke with. “Grown men, crying like babies.”
Suguru didn’t find this funny, the reminder that they were no longer teenagers in quiet love with each other. “I don’t even know you.” He whispered. It was clearly the gravest mistake of his life. “I know... nothing about you, anymore.” His voice broke as he said it, thick from crying.
And it was true. They’d seen each other enough times in ten years to count on one hand. Brief, accidental meetings that they had both come away from shellshocked and nearly catatonic. They didn’t know each other at all.
“I know you.” Satoru whispered, and he truly believed it. Everything Suguru had said and done in the last few minutes was so painfully him. His mannerisms, his tone of voice, it was all the same.
“Tell me about you.” Suguru requested urgently. “I want to know what you’ve been doing. Tell me everything.”
And so he did. He spoke, and spoke, and spoke long after Suguru’s breaths had grown fast and shallow, and his skin ghostly pale. He spoke about his students, spoke about Megumi, and the mundane, lovely life he’d built. Coffee shop interactions. How he had seen a stray cat the week before, and it had been the gentlest thing as it ate from his hand. About his job as a teacher. His hobbies, few as they were.
He wasn’t that different, he reasoned.
And yet that didn’t save anyone. His six eyes told him of the exact moment in which his best friend’s heart slowed, then stopped, and he ceased talking mid-word.
He sat there for a long time, vibrating with tension, with the desire to break something, to smash his head into the brick wall behind him so he might not have to feel such agonising grief. He’d never been taught to handle these things, the unfairness, and now it seemed like an oversight by every adult that had had a hand in raising him.
He could kill everybody in the country without breaking a sweat, and wanted to, and yet, as he sat there, he somehow, through this grief, reasoned that it wouldn’t bring his beloved Suguru back.
As it was, he stood, dusted his clothes off robotically, then crouched once more. He brushed Suguru’s hair back from his face, still stunningly beautiful, the prick, and he wished he’d taken longer to look at him in life as they had sat beside each other, and spent every tender moment that things had been perfect all those years ago just looking at him.
He pressed a tender kiss to each of Suguru’s eyelids, hoping that at any moment, he would jolt from this nightmare, snap awake in a cold sweat. He would then pad barefoot down the hall to tell his best friend in the whole world about what an awfully gut-wrenching dream he’d just had, and they would sit awake for hours talking through it, then he’d curl up like a cat at the foot of Suguru’s bed, which his friend had pretended to hate but they both knew he adored and he would go to sleep and when he woke in the morning he’d stretch and talk softly as they got ready for school together and–
But no. No.
As he walked away, he didn’t wake up in his dorm in 2006. And he couldn’t wake his best friend to tell him about anything at all.
Because Suguru Geto was dead, and no amount of grief, silent or otherwise, would be strong enough to bring him back.