Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Forgive yourself for the things that turned you into a ghost.

Let me watch you love yourself solid again.”

-        Caitlyn Siehl, Phantom Hand

When he spent his summers staring at bruised skin in the name of revenge, Satoru knew forgiveness did not exist. When he woke up to broken glass and egg-white walls, Satoru prayed for the tenderness of a grave. When he got dressed, hatred digging a hole in his belly, Satoru knew there were no gods. There was only himself and he had forgotten nothing.

The coffee in his cup tasted like ash. It had run cold, but Satoru liked it that way. The single chair in his small kitchen felt sticky under his thighs. His eyes fluttered to the cracked clock on the wall and he sighed. 

It was too early. It was always too early when his body ached in a way that mattered, bruises and bones begging him to go back to bed. Harsh fists and harsher elbows had shown no clemency the night before. Judging by the state of his ribcage and the prize money on his kitchen table, Satoru knew he had won. He also knew that the rage was still near, never too far, always lingering. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to get rid of it. He knew it was pointless but he tried anyway. He tried all the time. His fingers gripped the cup until his knuckles turned white.

Other than that, he did not remember a thing. The punches he threw, the guy he fought, the cheers of the crowd, the before and the after; everything was a blur. It didn’t matter much to him. Satoru would go and fight again, as he always did, as he always had.

He settled the cup in the sink and got ready, his movements so painfully slow he thought of sleeping, but he shrugged the idea away. He had promised Shoko he would not call in sick. 

He put on a grey hoodie, glanced at himself in the mirror with an ache so horrific he felt like Death roaming around, and adjusted the hood on his head. His upper lip was cut, he was sporting the beginning of a black eye, and he felt like a cliché. His eyes always seemed on the verge of imprudence, filled with something he would have loved to abandon. And always, the sea. A deep blue he hated on most days. 

He asked himself to stop looking like this. Face full of spite and ocean gaze full of anger. He sighed again and closed the door a little too fast.

The June heat in Tokyo had a harshness that Satoru was born loving. Even at nine in the morning, he acknowledged how it softened his skin. His mother always told him that everybody in the family had a tendency to run cold. Perhaps his cold fingers and colder limbs had always made it so easy to smile at the warmth when the rest of the city was begging for respite. The jarring summer heat offered him peace, somehow, like a way for the world to be forgiven. His father used to find it weird. Satoru cared very little back then. He cared even less now.

He rode the subway and was met with troubled stares. He was used to being watched, his eyes catching starstruck attention, his bleached white hair earning him looks. Satoru stared back, as he always did. Not out of spite, but because he couldn’t keep himself from noticing. He always caught the glances, was always aware of the looks, like a sixth sense he wished to turn off. He asked himself often when he had started to notice people so precisely, and abandoned the idea of finding an answer each time. He didn’t like to dwell on it.

He could feel the sharpness, always. Of his eyes, of his teeth, of his tongue in his mouth, waiting for indulgence. He buried his bruised knuckles in the pockets of his hoodie and waited for the rain to pour.

When he reached his stop, he looked up as grey clouds began to hover. The sky was unkind today and Satoru gave a small smile in return. He walked the streets he knew by heart and reached the Ieiri family restaurant in exactly eight minutes. It was a Monday, his shift was about to start at ten, and he knew today would be so slow that time would feel like a dead weight around his ankles.

He pushed the door open, the bell ringing above his head and the familiar smell of food enveloping him. He took off his hood and his eyes landed on Shoko instantly, perched on a wooden stool behind the counter, a pen in her hand and a focused frown on her face. She was reading papers, expertly scribbling down stuff, something about accounting or taxes or whatever restaurant-related things Satoru had no interest in. He was here to work his body, not his mind.

“Someone looks upset.” He greeted, offering a coy smile as Shoko looked up.

The brunette gave him the once-over, her cutting eyes explicitly judging him. Paired with a beauty that only the moon could rival, Shoko always appeared to him as the incarnation of damnation. No one had ever survived being eye-killed by the embodiment of beauty. Except Satoru, who relished in the glares by now. He had spent more than a decade on their receiving end.

“Someone looks beat up.” Shoko countered, her frown deepening as she settled the pen down on the counter.

Satoru shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, crossing the distance. Facing Shoko and leaning on the counter nonchalantly, he took a glance at the paperwork between them.

“What’s all this about?” he asked, not bothering to feign curiosity.

Shoko raised an eyebrow. “Do you care?”

“Not really.”

Satoru smiled as he answered and Shoko shook her head, scoffing as she pushed his shoulder playfully. It was enough to make him wince in pain.

“You’re gonna scare the customers away.” She sighed, gathering the paperwork on the counter into one single pile. She looked at Satoru again with eyes harbouring hard-earned concern. “Did you at least win?”

Satoru debated lying just to piss her off even more, but judging by the worried look and half-hidden unease, he decided against it. He knew not to mess with Shoko’s tenderness, especially when she offered it so sporadically.

“Yeah, I did.” Satoru repressed a yawn, pinching his nose slowly before scrubbing his eyes. It eased the headache slightly. “120 000 yen.” He kept his eyes closed for a moment, enjoying the lack of visual information. He could feel Shoko’s disapproval radiating all over.

“That’s not much.”

Satoru opened his eyes, only to be met with a stare even harsher than his own. He shrugged again, every movement a mountain to climb, every single word requiring the force of ten men.

“Yeah, but better than nothing.” He turned away from the counter, making his way to the kitchen slowly, “I’ll treat you to some chuck flap this weekend.”

“Don’t bribe me, you demon.” Shoko answered from the other room, winning a smile from Satoru as he turned on the faucet.

The cold water hit his knuckles. It sent daggers into his fingers. He gritted his teeth, staring mindlessly at the blue and lilac canvas coming to life on his hands. The sight was old news, but it always impressed him how willingly his skin bended under a punch. Always ready to mark and act as a reminder, constant and everlasting, of what he devoted his nights to. Maybe that’s why he was so good at it. Maybe his skin’s eagerness to wear wounds with elegance was what drove him to fighting in the first place.

“Do you need painkillers?”

Satoru looked up, pulled away from his half-aware state by Shoko’s stern voice. She was leaning against the kitchen’s door frame, paperwork forgotten on the counter, her steadfast attention on Satoru. Fifteen years of compassion, never weakening once. Satoru sometimes wished Shoko would stop caring.

“No, it’s okay.” Satoru’s voice sounded low even to his own ears. “I don’t want them.” He turned off the faucet, grabbing a towel to dry his hands.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted them. I asked if you needed them.” The brunette countered. Her words sported the undertone of authority.

Satoru shook his head slowly, wiping his knuckles with little care. Always so fucking kind, Shoko .

“I don’t want them or need them.” Satoru threw the towel away. He turned to his friend with a small smile on his lips. “I’ll live.”

“I know you will.”

Shoko smiled back, the same way Satoru’s mother had the day his father left. The same way everyone always seemed to smile at him; with a kind of grief you could only feel for the living.

The day was slow. Satoru pretended not to drag his limbs around the restaurant, flashing his nicest smile to customers so his black eye and wounded lips wouldn’t be deterrents. It worked, for the most part. It was not enough to completely drive off the questioning looks, but it was the best he could do. Shoko offered moral support, her steadiness always moving in Satoru’s orbit, soft smiles and nods to ensure he was holding it together. 

When Satoru was fetching orders in the kitchen, he always paused for a second, rubbing his eyes and taking a breath, lilac fields for knuckles. He would have to mend them tonight, he thought. Nothing was enough to keep the dizziness at bay.

Lunch break consisted of instant ramen prepared between two orders, the burning feeling welcomed by his stomach. In the afternoon, mostly older retired people visited the restaurant, looking for a distraction under the summer heat. Satoru liked them the most, because they were always too eager to chat about themselves to question him about the state of his face or the colour of his eyes or his choice of hairstyle. He simply nodded along to their stories, letting out soft appreciating sounds, making them feel heard even for a second. 

Satoru loved to listen. Shoko sometimes had to intervene, popping over his shoulder like a sunflower, her enchanting voice saying Hello there, sorry to interrupt, but I have to grab this one , before taking his arm and nudging him toward other tables. That always gained laughter from whoever Satoru was listening to, and it made him feel less bad about cutting their monologue short.

When evening unravelled, Satoru’s time was up. The clock hit seven and Shoko almost dragged him out of the restaurant, forcing him to go home, begging him to rest and tend to his wounds before tomorrow. The evening shift was Shoko’s problem today, not his.

“I can still help out, if you need me to.” Satoru said, lingering at the door as more customers were pouring in. It was uncharacteristically crowded for a Monday. He felt bad for abandoning his best friend to fend for herself.

“I don’t need you to help out.” Shoko shooed him away, stepping back in the restaurant with a grin on her face “Go home. Get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Satoru let out a breath. His shoulders felt heavy. He would have to check for bruises there.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to-”

The door closed in his face. Shoko shooed him away again through the shopfront’s window as she mouthed a very explicit get the fuck away . Satoru grinned from ear to ear, rolling his eyes as he turned on his feet. It had started to rain softly. He let it fall on his hair, mindlessly looking at the grey clouds above him.

He did not go home. Satoru had known all day that resting would have to wait. He had promised his trainer to come to the gym today to review last night’s fight and prepare a strategy for the next, although he was still not sure this served any purpose. Satoru didn’t care much for etiquettes. He didn’t care much for strategies either. They tended to evade him completely once he stepped in the ring. All that remained was burning red.

The mountain of debts his dad had left behind constantly loomed over his head. He was trying to overcome it. He refused to let his mother work more than two jobs. She didn’t have to know about this, and the world kept going around. She didn’t have to see the bruises and witness the knockouts. She didn’t have to hear about the exhaustion, the deep sleep induced by concussions, or the lilac field on his knuckles. All she needed to know about was the money. The rest, Satoru had kept it hidden under bandages for eight years.

He dragged his feet for thirty minutes to the boxing gym and wore his shoulders a little higher as he approached the building. The warehouse look of the establishment, red bricks and large windows gloomily towering over him, had always appeared welcoming to Satoru. He went round the place instinctively, into a small alley where the side-door was located and spotted Yuji’s familiar face, waiting in front of the door, a hood on his head that failed to shelter him from the rain. Satoru suppressed a smile.

“Still out there doing their dirty work, uh?” He greeted, approaching him. He was more a boy than a man, swimming in the easiness of his sweet sixteen. Yuji looked up sternly, uncrossing his arms, his features softening as soon as he recognised Satoru.

“I swear. At this rate, they’ll never let me train.” Yuji whined as Satoru ruffled his hooded head with an amused smile. “They’d rather have me stand in front of that fucking door for hours.”

Satoru laughed, pulling away slowly to hide his aching body, and buried his hands into his pockets once more.

“You gotta earn it.” He answered reassuringly, talking from experience “You know how they work.”

Yuji sighed, his sweet features melting into a frown.

“How does being a bouncer make me earn anything?

“See it more as you ensuring security.” Satoru shrugged and leaned on the wall. “Newcomers have all been there.”

Yuji scoffed, looking at the floor for a second. “Well, not all of us, apparently.”

He locked eyes with Satoru once more. A single strand of his pink hair was falling into his left eye. Satoru frowned, confusion settling on his face, slightly bending his head to the side to probe the boy into saying more.

Yuji looked around, suddenly unsure if he was allowed to speak. “I heard they pulled in a new guy they found. Nobody really knows where he’s from. People are saying he went straight into training.” His voice was faint, almost a whisper. “Fushiguro keeps moaning and bitching about it.”

Satoru tensed up, his balance suddenly lost. “When?”

“Nanami-sensei found him yesterday after your fight. He went spying around to watch some street brawling, you know how he is.” A pause. Yuji sucked in a breath, his expressive features unable to hide his nerves. “The guy was knocking down everybody .”

Satoru felt confusion settle in his belly. He also felt that he didn’t really want to dwell on this today. Nanami Kento, his trainer, usually didn’t like recruiting directly from unsupervised fights. He had this strange belief that anyone fighting in the streets and not in a ring was doomed to be a madman with no ethics. Satoru didn’t think he had much ethics of his own, but never questioned it.

“It’s unlike him.” Satoru stated blankly, more to himself than to Yuji.

“I know.” 

For a second they just looked at each other, both questioning if this meant something good or bad. Both having blind faith in Nanami’s instinct, but sensing a lingering feeling of doubt. Resentment, almost, on Yuji’s part. The pink-haired boy shrugged their feelings away.

“Anyway, you should go before they beat my ass for having too much fun.” Yuji leaned back against the wall, waving to Satoru with little enthusiasm, the remnant of a smile tugging at his lips. “I’ll see around?”

Satoru nodded, frown still visible, and opened the door.

The air inside was hot and humid, the light in the entrance always a bit too dim to his liking. On his right stood a row of identical lockers against a brick wall, different only for their numbers, his sporting the number six. A corridor further away led to the showers. Satoru was not here to train, he knew he was in no state to do so. He just needed to talk to Nanami and get it over with.

He started to walk, the familiar layout of the place easy to navigate. The level ground was the training space, made up of three different rings and boxing bags of all sorts. The high windows on the brick walls were covered with blinds that Satoru despised with all his might. He had brought up the idea of letting natural light in to Nanami, who had snickered and answered a definite no . He had gathered that this had to do with discretion. It didn’t make him hate it less.

On the back wall, near the main entrance to the place, a metal staircase led to an upper floor comprised of the coaches’ office. A place where hushed talks, negotiations and deals happened. Walls that heard about strategies and dreams and careers and money. Satoru remembered being there, twenty-one and in love with turbulence, begging Nanami to give his fists a reason. Five years later and he still hated that place.

Satoru looked around, greeting a few people as he did so, receiving congratulations for yesterday’s fight. He accepted the compliments with grace, even though he couldn’t remember a thing. He thanked people as they chanted his praises, a flow of your famous killer left uppercut and that jab sent him flying and you need to teach me that move, man . Satoru had no clue what they were talking about. All he had to show for it were bruises and an ache.

Satoru wiped droplets from his nose, his hair still wet from the rain, and looked around one more time. The ring at the far end of the place was occupied, and even with dizziness clouding his mind, he could recognise Nanami’s signature blonde hair anywhere, even from a distance. He didn’t pay much attention to whoever was in the ring with him. As he started to walk with a purpose, a hand grasped his wrist slowly, the person falling in step next to him. Satoru met kind eyes.

“Hi there, killer boy.”

Yuki’s voice always sounded like candy to him. Satoru reciprocated the smile, slowing his steps down and coming entirely to a halt to look at the girl next to him, embraced by beauty in every delicate way.

“Don’t call me that. It makes me feel like shit.” Satoru warned, his tone playful, an everlasting sternness in his voice.

Yuki hummed mindlessly, her careful eyes falling to Satoru’s hand as she expertly held it up between them, still holding his wrist. She eyed the lilac fields on Satoru’s knuckles, looking worse and worse as time went by, and let her fingers dance on sensitive skin. Satoru repressed a painful sound, knowing better than to move his hand away, letting Yuki inspect it silently, waiting for reprimand.

“You didn’t put ice on it.” Yuki stated matter-of-factly, turning Satoru’s hand to make his palm face up. Her voice was like sugar. Satoru knew to be wary of it. Yuki was the type of woman to wish you death with an angelic smile. That’s why when she retired from fighting, she became the promoter for most of their fights.

“I forgot about it.” Satoru looked down at his hand. He assessed the damage. “I went home and crashed out.”

Yuki brushed her thumb over Satoru’s knuckles, pressing just slightly to win a pained groan out of him. She smiled devilishly.

“Always a reason, uh?” Her voice was so sweet Satoru might as well have drowned in it.

She let go of Satoru’s hand, crossing her arms on her chest instead, relaxed as ever. Satoru slid a hand through his hair, unsticking some strands from his forehead, feeling the tiredness get a hold of his body more and more.

“I’ll get to it once I’ve talked to Nanami.” He sighed, accepting defeat.

“That might take a while.” Yuki’s expression became unreadable, somewhere between coyness and apprehension. “He’s over there with pretty psycho boy.”

They both turned their attention to the ring a few meters away. Satoru battled the need to bury his hands in his pockets once more. He let his tired eyes take in the scene from afar,  Nanami mouthing instructions to a man with skin like honey and hair like the ocean. Satoru let the silence between him and Yuki stretch out for a while, eyes fixed on someone he knew nothing about and everything at the same time.

“New guy?” Satoru let out after a while, eyes unmoving. He could feel Yuki’s attention returning to him.

“You’ve heard about it?”

Satoru’s mind drifted to pink hair and a child-like joy.

“Yuji.”

“Ah, Itadori .” Yuki’s voice was full of fondness, but if Satoru focused just enough, he could hear the undertone of irritation. “Don’t tell Nanami that you know.”

At that, Satoru dragged his eyes away, focusing once more on the woman in front of him, a frown finding its way on his face for what felt like the hundredth time today.

“He wanted to be the first to tell you.” Yuki stated with a kind voice. Her attention returned to the ring for a split second before coming back to Satoru. “You know how he is.”

“Is it such a big deal?” Satoru was almost amused. Everybody seemed to carry a collective tension he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Yuki’s expression was still unreadable.

“I don’t know. Could be.” Yuki eyed the two men once again, a glare so precise Satoru thought of Shoko for an instant. “Nanami picked him from a street fight.”

The last words were said with a tone too sweet for Satoru to be fooled. Just as Yuji had done, Yuki was trying to hide the doubt she was feeling. Satoru hummed softly as an answer, not revealing he was already aware of this information, and turned his attention back to the ring. His jaw locked in place, as if expecting a punch. He yielded under the urge to let his hands find his pockets once more.

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me.” Yuki announced, her voice muffled somewhere Satoru couldn’t reach. After a break, she smiled again. “Stop looking at him like that.”

Satoru couldn’t stop staring.

“Like what?” He said absently, his brain on autopilot.

Yuki leaned in slightly, amused. “Like you’re going to kill him.”

With that, she left, letting out a chuckle at the sight of Satoru desperately closing his eyes, hyper aware of the anger and the sharpness and the abyssal austerity in them. He had begged them to look different this morning and he was begging them again now. Satoru was left with nothing but himself and a merciless glare.

He shook the uneasiness away, rubbing his forehead in a desperate attempt to look normal, and slowly made his way over to the ring. As he walked closer and closer, he let his eyes focus on the scene in front of him. 

Honey skin on hard-earned muscles. Hair a shade of liquid black meeting a stellar face, kissed by the sun in all the right places. Softness and a crash, and the beginning of terror. Satoru’s frown deepened and deepened and deepened as he encountered the deadliness of precise kicks, feet quicker than flowing sand, and a right hook that revealed God. Satoru almost turned religious there and then. His fists were curled so tight in his pockets he could feel his nails digging into his palms, drawing moon crescents on pale tendons.

He sat on a bench next to the ring, unaware of his own body, unaware of his own moves, eyes roaming over sunlit skin. How was it sunlit when the goddamn blinds didn’t let any light in? Satoru had no idea. He stared until his knuckles hurt so badly he had to bite the inside of his cheek.

He waited silently, patiently, the two other men mostly unaware of his existence. He had seen Nanami glance in his direction and pretend Satoru wasn’t there, just as he always did when he was training one of his boxers and someone was interrupting. Satoru didn’t feel vexed.

What he was feeling, though, was a rage so intense he couldn’t pinpoint its source. A rage so raw he knew his eyes looked detestable. A rage so cutting he felt it in his belly. A rage so rare he felt it on his tongue. Satoru was ten again, and sixteen and twenty-one, back in that office, begging Nanami to give him a reason, and he didn’t know why .

After what seemed like an eternity, Nanami crossed his arms up in a X, a signal that they were done for the day, and the other man straightened up, towering above Nanami like the world was his playground. He bowed slightly and started to take off his gloves. They exchanged a few words, eyes focused and bodies drained, until Nanami seemed to suddenly remember Satoru’s existence, and turned his attention to him in a hurry. 

He said something to the man that Satoru couldn’t quite make out. The man turned his head, eyes finding Satoru’s face, and Satoru could have sworn that life would be the death of him.

“Gojo, come up there.” Nanami’s voice, suddenly loud, reverberating like a siren call around him. “You two need to meet.”

Satoru felt like both his ankles were bleeding out in wolf traps. Unreadable eyes fixed on him like a death sentence. The other man didn’t move, assessing him from afar, black fields for hair and solar misery for eyes. Satoru didn’t feel like talking to him. His bruised hands felt like bruised bones and bruised veins and bruised cells. His entire body a bruise. Lilac pain and that rage. That rage .

He stood up slowly, aching all over, and took a second to compose himself, his eyes never wavering from where they were planted. He slowly made his way over to them, climbing the three steps, bending over to get into the ring, ghost moves his body knew by heart.

The other man had stopped looking. He was busy untangling his boxing wraps, his knuckles coming into view, a solid shade of blue Satoru knew too well. He crossed the space between the three of them, finally tearing his eyes away, his stare finding Nanami who raised an eyebrow, almost troubled. Satoru knew what he looked like. Satoru also knew Nanami had seen him before a fight, and after a fight, beat up and bloodied and desperate, and that he could read him with a single look. So Satoru begged, once again, for his eyes to stop and the rage to go.

There was a beat, a moment where Nanami just stared at him, burdened by a force Satoru knew to be his own, and there was nothing to do about it.

“So this is Gojo, then?”

The man’s voice burned Satoru’s skull. The rage would win. He turned his head, gaze grasping at dark strands of hair and skin glowing and eyes like a confession.

“This is Gojo.” Nanami confirmed, forcing confidence.

And Satoru stared, and stared and stared.

“I’m Geto Suguru.” His voice was so painfully quiet it made Satoru’s ears ring. “Or just Geto. Heard a lot about you.”

Suguru folded his boxing wraps neatly, eyes moving back and forth between his hands and Satoru’s face. Satoru felt like punching him.

“Yeah.” Satoru’s voice was so low he didn’t even recognise it. “So have I.”

Suguru’s head shot up, assessing the words he had just heard, his internal debate on full display for Satoru to see. Was he thinking of pushing for more? Satoru couldn’t tell.

They just looked at each other, stillness falling on them like solid rain. Suguru’s wheels were turning so fast Satoru could hear them. And see them, so clearly. So plainly. There was something else there, hiding behind amber eyes covered by black hair.

Defeat?

Nanami’s voice, breaking the silence, echoed like salvation.

“What do you mean you heard? Who told you?”

Satoru dragged his eyes away, focusing on Nanami’s face, eyebrows knitted together and arms crossed on his chest. He would have almost looked angry, if it wasn’t for the deep frown Satoru knew was exaggerated.

“People talk.” Satoru said, tone blank and rigid, his anger running warm. “Especially when you don’t put the new guy through bouncer duty.”

Nanami stared for a second, blinking, understanding filling his eyes. He sighed. “Itadori.”

Satoru could see Suguru shifting his weight from the corner of his eyes, purposefully refolding his boxing wraps, as if they weren’t done neatly enough. He ignored the urge to snatch them and throw them across the ring.

“He has his reasons.” Satoru’s voice sounded like shrapnel. He kept his attention on Suguru, who was still looking very intently at his boxing wraps in complete silence. He let himself look at Suguru’s hands for a second, flowers for fingers and fields of iris for knuckles. At the sight, his anger went cold.

“Yeah, still. That’s my job to tell you, not his.” Nanami answered, more to himself than to Satoru. “So I guess you know, then.”

At that, Suguru looked up, eyes catching Satoru’s in collected surprise, and shifting to Nanami almost immediately. 

The noise in the gym was building up, the place coming alive as dusk unravelled slowly, people leaving their day-time jobs to practice. The soft hours of late afternoon gave way to twilight. The air was getting heavier, discussions picking up around the place, music playing on someone’s speaker and chatter working as a background soundtrack.

“Know what?” Suguru questioned, looking at Nanami with a raised eyebrow.

Laughter, somewhere. Satoru’s dizzy brain was getting lost in the surrounding hustling of the place, his mind drifting away from his point of focus. A repeated bang, not far. Someone punching a bag. Grunts of effort from someone lifting weights. Words of encouragement. Music changing on shuffle. Greetings after a long day. Human life bustling around him. He was exhausted.

“He knows that I picked you from a street fight.” A sigh. Nanami sounded almost sorry.

Satoru's eyes had drifted back, at some point during the conversation, to Suguru’s hands, and stayed there, transfixed and drained, staring mindlessly at iris fields and a deep blue that echoed his purple. He watched as Suguru unfolded and folded the tip of his boxing wraps, over and over again, a mechanical gesture, the automatic nature of it absorbing Satoru’s attention. Muscle memory. Fingers moving unconsciously, a machine-like motion he had done a thousand times. A blur, but so clear. Ocean waves on sun-kissed wrists.

“Is that bad?” Suguru sounded almost amused. Almost.

“It’s unusual.” Nanami explained tentatively, not venturing too far.

Another laughter, somewhere. Agile fingertips on used fabric, untangling and tangling and untangling. Satoru blinked once, twice, his ears buzzing with the sound of human life. He needed to sleep.

“He thinks you’re a psycho.” His own words surprised him, voice distant. Suguru's fingers stopped. The loss of motion got him out of his stupor.

“Gojo-” Nanami’s voice, low, like a warning.

“He thinks people who fight outside supervised rings have no morals and are madmen.” Satoru looked up, unfocused gaze finding Nanami’s face. Freshly cut grass and the moon. Nanami was always the prettiest when he was angry. “Everybody here does.”

Satoru kept his eyes on Nanami, staring at the vastness of his features, caution giving way to a calculated annoyance that never spilled, never overflowed. Satoru admired him for that and had wished, on many occasions, that he could control anger the way Nanami did. His always turned into glass. Always ran so cold and so deep. 

Suguru was shifting his weight once again, picking up the automatic motion of untangling and tangling his boxing wraps, like an animal trying to kill time. Nanami was assessing Satoru’s face, staring at something beyond him.

“I don’t think you’re a psychopath, Geto –" Nanami broke the air finally, turning to Suguru with a sigh and a soft smile so controlled Satoru knew that part of it was a lie. “And you-“ He turned to Satoru again, an accusatory finger pointing at him. “You need to know your place.”

At that, Satoru shrugged, his half delirious mind unfazed by the threat, dismissing anything that was said to him as a problem for later. He rubbed a hand on his face and buried it back in his pocket. He glanced at Suguru and caught him staring at where his hand was hidden, attentive eyes following his motions like a hawk.

“Whatever. Good talk.” Satoru said ironically, speaking both to Nanami and Suguru at the same time. He was going for an escape. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re done, Nanami.”

Satoru looked at Suguru once more, locking eyes for a second, before he turned on his heels too fast for his brain to catch up, nausea overflowing him. He ignored it, ignored how the remnant of rage was still there, and got out of the ring with a purpose. He ignored his brain asking him why why why , why he was so angry, why he was making it known, why he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He could feel two pairs of eyes burning the back of his head.

Satoru would realise, later on, that it was the first time he had noticed how quiet Suguru was.

He made his way upstairs, half acknowledging the smiles and greetings he was offered. He walked the open corridor, doors on his right leading to offices and resting areas, while doors on his left were mainly storage space. The industrial style of the gym spread everywhere, here too. High ceilings that met rebars and bricks and vents that led nowhere. 

An open area unrolled mid-way through the main corridor, overlooking the gym. Here, there was a sofa that Nanami had bought from an ex-boxer, a football table and pool table, and pictures of fighters and trainers hanging on the walls. Satoru stopped there, relieved by the lack of human presence around him. He turned his head to his left, looking over the mezzanine’s guardrail, and caught a glance of deep black waves and glowing skin.

He pinched his nose, his ribs suddenly hurting, and plopped down on the sofa, tiredness grabbing his limbs. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh, disappearing further down into his grey hoodie, the hood descending over his eyes. He realised it was the first time in hours that he was properly sitting down, comfortable, without anger tugging at his belly, and he could fully feel his deep-rooted exhaustion. He slumped against the cushions more and more, resting his head on the backrest and let out another sigh. God, he was so sore. Sleep knocked on his eyelids and he fought back.

“Someone needs a good sleep.”

Satoru didn’t bother opening his eyes, still hidden behind his hood, at the sound of Yuki’s mellow voice. He felt the sofa sag under her weight and let out a slow exhale.

“More like I need to pass out for a week.”

“Irritated much?” Yuki’s voice wrapped him in a blanket, so pleasant Satoru almost fell asleep there and then.

“Something like that.”

He rubbed his eyes with his left hand under his hood, relishing in the obscurity it was providing. He could still feel Yuki’s interested eyes on him and a home-like warmth radiating from the girl. No malice, never towards Satoru. 

Yuki shifted on the sofa, her hand finding the top of Satoru’s hood, massaging his head through the fabric. Satoru knew better than to protest and, quite frankly, this was providing a type of salvation he had needed all day long. He let out a long sigh, winning an approbative hum from Yuki, and let himself be mended just for an instant. Silence settled conformably over them. For a minute they existed in quietness, simply enjoying each other’s company. And for a split second there, again, Satoru thought of Shoko.

“Did you talk to Kento?” Yuki said after a pause, stopping her movements on Satoru’s head, her hand simply resting there protectively.

“No.” Satoru answered abruptly, snorting. “I think I pissed him off.” He added after a pause.

Yuki hummed warmly, the vibrations echoing in the sofa’s cushions and reaching Satoru’s spine, melted sweetness over his aching bones.

“Oh dear, what could you have possibly done to piss off mister pouty mouth over there?” Yuki’s voice was amused. She knew Nanami like the back of her hand, having grown up with him for most of her childhood, teenage years and young adult life. They had been in each other’s orbit before anyone else.

“You know.” Satoru started, unsure how to proceed. “The usual.”

“You talked shit?” She pressed on, her smile echoing in her voice.

“I talked shit.” Satoru confirmed while letting out yet another sigh.

Yuki hummed warmly at the confirmation, her right hand leaving Satoru’s head and finding his wrist instead. Satoru didn’t flinch, still not bothering to look, and let her lift his hand up and put it on her lap, assessing the damage again. Gentle fingers on cold skin.

“How do you like the new guy?” She questioned, a fake air of innocence in the voice.

Satoru scoffed under his hood. “No fucking idea.” He shrugged. “He didn’t say much.”

“I see. I bet you were very welcoming and greeted him with a smile, uh?” Yuki pinched Satoru’s wrist softly, getting an annoyed cry out of him.

“Fuck you.” Satoru grumbled, his middle finger on Yuki’s lap lifting up as a response. The girl’s laughter echoed around him.

Yuki let go of his hand and shifted her weight again, a devilish smile on her face that reached her voice.

“Just saying, Satoru.”

She lifted Satoru’s hood just a bit, revealing his closed eyes. He frowned at the sudden light on the skin of his eyelids and took a second to register the information. He slowly opened his eyes, unfocused glare finding Yuki’s watchful face, and saw her smile get bigger.

“Ah, there they are.” Yuki said affectionately. “Those killer eyes.”

Satoru stared for a second, confused, and rolled his eyes with a growl while pulling his hood back down on his face, mumbling a half-silent fucking brat under his breath. Yuki laughed again and slapped Satoru’s thigh, countering with you’re one to talk before standing up, making the cushions shift.

“I have to get going.” Yuki started. Satoru lifted the corner of his hood to watch her with his left eye. “I’ll tell Kento to hurry so you don’t rot here.” Yuki picked up a large sport bag at her feet and threw it over her shoulder. “Take care of your hands, will you?”

“Yeah yeah.” Satoru answered unconvincingly. The other blonde looked at him with do not try me written all over her face. “Yes, Yuki, I will.” Satoru added more seriously.

Yuki watched him attentively for a moment. She looked like something was on the tip of her tongue. Satoru noticed, because he always noticed, but it was gone as soon as it arrived.

She smiled once more, apparently satisfied. “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She nodded, the remains of something Satoru couldn’t quite grasp still on her face.

“See you.”

Yuki turned on her heels and with that, Satoru was alone.

He was awakened by the sound of low chatter, a hushed tone that sounded miles away. It took him a minute to remember where he was, sleep-filled brain battling with his body. His eyes opened slowly, almost painfully, but he saw nothing but darkness, his hood still covering his eyes. 

His neck against the headrest had turned sore. He sat upright with difficulty and the voice in the room suddenly halted, ending a conversation with a quick I’m fine, talk to you later . He pulled the hood back, the dim lighting around him hitting him like car headlights. He rubbed his eyelids again, taking a moment to compose himself, and looked up, his eyes landing on the source of conversation. 

He was greeted by soft skin, darkened by the lighting around them. His half-dazed state was making it hard to process anything, and he just let his eyes roam over the figure that was standing there, leaning over the rail guard, quickly stuffing his phone into the pocket of his shorts. Satoru’s eyes fell on a sun-like face and was blinded a little more.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Suguru’s voice barely reached his ears and Satoru looked at him, expressionless, eyelids heavy. Coherent thoughts seemed inaccessible, and for a second Satoru wondered if he had a concussion. He rubbed his eyes once more, inhaling and exhaling slowly, and tried to focus on Suguru again. He found it terribly difficult for a reason he didn’t understand.

Satoru suppressed a yawn, pinching his nose and let the silence between them stretch. He didn’t want to talk, but he felt compelled to, sucked into the other man’s frequency unwillingly.

“Why are you still here?” Satoru asked, voice hoarse from sleep. There was no coldness to be found like it had been before. The anger had subdued too, at least for a moment. The stillness of nightfall had silently mended his heart. All Satoru could feel, now, was an overwhelming tiredness.

“Nanami asked me to wait.” Suguru’s voice was so, so quiet, Satoru could barely hear him.

He hummed, nodding slowly, and slumped back into the cushions, eyes leaving Suguru. He didn’t find it in himself to answer. He felt strangely tranquil, the dim lighting finally accepted by his eyes, the early hours of the night offering respite. The air was lighter. Somewhere, a window had been opened. The soft buzzing sound of the city outside, cars driving in the distance, a laughter echoing in the gym (definitely Yuji) didn’t feel like aggressions anymore. He looked at Suguru again and was met with curious eyes looking back at him. They stared at each other, holding the silence on both ends, and Satoru could feel, again, the anger simmering.

Suguru looked away. Satoru internally cursed his own entire bloodline.

He kept staring, now unrestricted by the black-haired man’s eyes glued to the ground. He didn’t quite know what it was that made him act so detestably. He couldn’t pinpoint it and slam it to the ground, the way he usually did. He let his eyes eat and eat and eat, tender hair and soft skin and long limbs and shoulders like the sky. Suguru was wearing a black hoodie, his blue knuckles hidden by the hem of the sleeves, and a pair of black sport shorts, the kind Satoru never wore. His legs were sporting fresh bruises and a band-aid adorned his left knee. White socks covered his ankles a little too high and his black and white sneakers looked worn out and loved.

Satoru traced his legs with his eyes, purposely skipped over his shorts, landed on the tips of his fingers emerging from the sleeves, up up up all the way to his face, and stayed there. A bruised body and yet a face untouched. He watched as Suguru kept looking at the ground, almost zoned out, eyelids low. He was shifting his weight again, straightening up against the rail guard, and Satoru frowned.

Suguru’s fingers started fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie, trying to fold and unfold the fabric, and Satoru recognised the mechanic gesture. He kept watching Suguru’s hands, entranced again, fingers grabbing his attention just like they had before, and the silence stretched, and stretched and stretched.

A low whisper pulled him out of his reverie, and his eyes shot up, landing on Suguru’s face. Watchful eyes were staring back.

“What did you say?” Satoru asked, his tone low, but wearing no defensiveness. That was progress.

Suguru shifted again, his back now against the rail-guard. He hid his hands in his pockets and Satoru, to his own surprise, hated it. 

The other man was watching him with an attention that could only be described as caution. Caution for what, Satoru had no idea. But Suguru looked as if wondering how to proceed, measuring Satoru’s face and expressions, like a deer seeing a wolf for the first time. Observant eyes that had spent a lifetime doing just that. Watching. Assessing. Gauging. Satoru suddenly felt too aware of his body.

“I said you’re really-” Suguru started to repeat after a pause, but his voice was barely above a whisper.

“I can’t hear you.” Satoru cut him short and leaned in slowly on the couch, as if to hear better.

“Intense.” Suguru blurted out, his tone forcing confidence. He kept staring at Satoru, on the lookout for a sign, a shift, anything that would make him run. “You’re really intense.”

It took a minute for it to reach Satoru’s mind. He didn’t know what to make of this. His eyes were still glued to Suguru’s face. The other man had the kind of expression Satoru often saw in the ring. Vigilant eyes observing him, specifically his shoulders, dropping hastily to his hands, and back to his shoulders. Satoru realised Suguru was watching out for a punch.

He frowned, not bothering to straighten up on the couch, still looking. Always looking.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Satoru’s voice was still hoarse from his sleep, and he hated how unfriendly he sounded now.

Suguru’s eyes stayed fixed on his shoulders. “I don’t know.” A door banged shut, somewhere.

“You don’t know.” Satoru dragged out his words slowly, emphasizing every syllable.

“It’s just- You just –” Suguru was barely audible and Satoru wanted him to scream. “I don’t know.”

Satoru stared at Suguru’s face, and Suguru stared at Satoru’s shoulders, and somewhere between them the universe silently watched.

It was strange, hearing Suguru’s voice. It had sounded strange the first time and it was still strange now. There was a contrast, running so deep and so low and so far, between his body and his voice. Between his face and his voice. 

Satoru had noticed hard muscles and punches and drenched hair, purple knuckles and bruised shins, a tall built and taller legs. But if he really looked, the way he was looking now, Satoru would start to see it. The slight off-balance. The sleepless fingers. The constant shifting. Eyes that watched and watched and watched without ever saying a thing. An attentiveness that was almost clinical, learned through habits built on instincts, so fundamental to everything that Suguru was. If he really looked, the way he was now, Satoru would see restlessness, displayed on an alert face, a brain that never stopped, and thoughts that never rested. If he really looked, the way he was now, Satoru would see Suguru.

But he was exhausted, and all he could notice, for now, was how quiet Suguru’s voice always was.

“Who were you fighting yesterday?” Satoru suddenly asked.

He straightened up on the couch, his body leaving the backrest. He decided to drop the previous conversation, too tired to push Suguru the way he usually would have.

Suguru’s eyes left his shoulders, focusing on his face, internal debate on full display. He was now chewing on his inner cheek, making zero effort to hide his unease, and shook his head ever so lightly. His focus shifted to the wall and his hands finally left his pockets after what felt, to Satoru, like an eternity. Satoru instantly found agile fingers again.

More time passed and Suguru didn’t answer.

“You can’t tell?” Satoru pressed, raising an eyebrow.

The other man’s focus was back on him. “No.”

“I figured.”

Satoru folded his arms on his chest, wincing at the pain in his right shoulder, eyes still not leaving the other body in the room. He slumped back into the couch, a questioning look on his face. Suguru stared at him silently again, a strange expression passing over his features quickly, before digging his hand in his pocket, pulling out his phone to check something, and suppressed a puff.

“Somewhere you need to be?”

Suguru’s eyes were on Satoru again, staring with intent this time, and Satoru was almost taken aback.

Suguru simply shrugged as a response, locking his phone and crossing his arms on his chest loosely, mirroring Satoru who could still see the phone screen turning on and off as notifications kept popping up. Suguru purposely ignored them, as if trying to prove a point, and the blonde was almost amused.

Satoru’s back was hurting, and his limbs were going cold, and he was starting to feel like the June night resembled January. He knew it was mostly the tiredness acting up but he had felt a bit too cold all day, unable to warm up to a comfortable temperature. A shiver went through him, and he decided to stand up slowly, shaking his legs in the process, pained and sore all over.

“Who were you fighting yesterday?”

Satoru was startled by the soft voice, head shooting up, and realised it was the first time Suguru had asked him a question. Attentive eyes, always. Low and precise. A deer ready to flee at any time.

Satoru was thinking of an answer to give him, one that would make sense, but all his mind could come up with was I don’t remember . Because he truly had no idea who was in the ring with him. He had been given a name for days, preparing with Nanami, going over strategies and previous fights to review the best patterns he could use. Yet his brain had ignored it, as it always did. A part of him had stored the name away in the gutter of some forgotten world. Satoru, under curious eyes, settled for the truth.

“I don’t remember.” He admitted, a shrug tugging at his shoulders. “But he definitely had a good left, I think.”

Satoru unconsciously patted the right side of his torso and ribs, where the pain had been the most vivid, and where he assumed his bruises were extraordinarily visible. Suguru didn’t say anything, just looked at him peculiarly, his eyes following his motion and roaming over the right side of Satoru’s body. He nodded to himself, arms uncrossing over his chest and hands finding the rail guard behind him.

Satoru tore his eyes away, looking at the corridor to his right. Now that he was standing, he was starting to lose patience and the anger in his belly was sending warning signs. He grabbed his phone, looked at the time, and sighed when he saw it was almost half past ten. He rubbed his forehead with two fingers, muttering where the fuck is Nanami under his breath. An unprompted migraine was starting to nest at the front of his head. Satoru considered going home and crashing down. He knew it would piss off Nanami to an unfathomable level, but he had stopped fearing the man a long time ago and wondered, sometimes, if he had ever feared him at all.

Satoru would have left, if it weren’t for quiet eyes silently watching him.

As if sensing Satoru’s growing despair, a door opened at the end of the corridor, Nanami emerging from it with a dark haired boy at his side. He looked up with a nod, acknowledging both Satoru and Suguru, and walked up to them while wrapping up the conversation with the other guy.

“Talk to Itadori about it. Come back to me with a definitive answer, alright?”

The dark-haired boy nodded politely, bowing his head before giving a small smile to Satoru. All Suguru got from him, before he went for the stairs, was a glare. Satoru suppressed an arrogant smirk, amused by Suguru’s knitted eyebrows and slightly offended expression.

“You don’t have the best reputation amongst the younger boxers, Geto, but Fushiguro is like that with everyone.” Nanami explained, catching Suguru’s confusion.

Suguru’s frown deepened as he turned to the older, visibly debating whether or not to press for more details. He glanced at Satoru quickly, back to Nanami with a river bed between his eyebrows, and ultimately dropped it. Satoru wondered why Suguru didn’t ask for a reason and got weirdly frustrated by the other man’s silence. He opened his mouth, ready to question it, but his brain was not catching up and Nanami’s voice suddenly interrupted his train of thoughts.

“Right. Come with me, you two.” Nanami began, turning on his heels and gesturing for both of them to follow along. “We need to talk.”

“I am begging you to make this quick.” Satoru answered with a sigh, dragging his feet after the older man, Suguru behind him. He was desperately suppressing a wince. The mere act of walking was starting to make his body ache.

“Why? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?” Nanami opened the door to his office. “I was wondering why you looked like shit.” He stated matter-of-factly, teasing Satoru and letting him walk past.

“Funny.” Satoru grumbled as a response. He entered the room, his brain on autopilot, and aimed for the sofa in the corner. He plopped down on it with the force of a crashing wave.

The office was nothing grandiose and was shared between Nanami and another coach. It was a simple room, walls painted beige except for one brick wall sporting a large window. There was one desk, with piles of documents stacking up, with a chair for whoever sat there for hours sorting out papers. On the other side, two additional chairs had been placed for discussion purposes. White cabinets contained more paperwork and trophies. 

On the left wall, facing the door, stood a washed-out blue sofa that looked too old to still be standing. Everybody in the gym agreed it was too comfortable to be thrown away. Pictures of Nanami with people Satoru knew to be famous fighters and previous coaches adorned the walls. He knew the older man had been born into this world, brought up between boxing wraps and punching bags. Nanami’s father had passed down his passion for boxing and his entire business to his younger son when he had turned twenty. Nanami was now thirty and had gained endless all-nighters and brownish eye bags.

Suguru settled on one of the chairs, dropping his sport bag to his feet. Satoru caught himself wondering why he didn’t sit on the sofa with him and hated his own hands for feeling wronged by it. Nanami sat on the edge of the desk, arms crossed over his chest, carrying on his habit to never sit behind his desk when receiving people here. He wanted to make sure they all stood on an equal footing.

Suguru was intently looking at Nanami, head slightly raised in an attentive manner. Satoru was so profoundly uninterested by anything other than his own tiredness that he made no effort to sit straight. They basked in the silence for a minute before Nanami decided to speak.

“Alright, we need to talk about strategies. For Gojo’s sake, I’ll make it short.” He straightened his back, looking too conscious of his posture. “As of now, you two are my priorities in terms of fighters. You’ve got the potential to go far. Everybody here is aware of that about Gojo. They’ll soon be aware of that about you too, Geto.”

Nanami looked at Suguru with eyes that held a promise Satoru knew to be true.

“I want to train the both of you to the best of my ability.” Nanami continued, emphasizing every word like he meant it. “And I also want you to train side by side. You can become better than you imagine if you both put in the work as sparring partners. Your fighting styles are so complementary it’s almost ridiculous, to be honest.”

At that, Satoru tensed up. He didn’t like the sound of it. He felt her again, settling in his belly, holding his shoulders firmly and taking his hands ever so tenderly. Anger. Always lurking, always there, caressing his cheek with the back of her hand and cooing him into submission. And again, just like the last time and the next, Satoru had no idea where she was born, where she came from, awakened whenever words felt a little too much and his heart felt a little too wide.

He frowned, straightening up and glancing at Suguru, only to find a pair of eyes already on him. He ignored them on purpose, looking at Nanami again, with fists for hands and tiredness on his tongue.

“How can you be so sure that we’re compatible?” Satoru questioned, always the sceptic, growing anger clutching his stomach. “You tried to give me sparring partners before. We both know how that turned out.”

Satoru remembered cracking bones, nosebleeds, insults and Nanami’s incessant scoldings.

“Because I just know.” The older man answered as he nodded, serious eyes fixed on Satoru silently asking him to trust him. “Because I’m sure you won’t be able to break a bone in his body.”

Satoru could see Suguru smiling discreetly from the corner of his eyes. He felt suddenly vexed, almost attacked by Nanami’s words. He was not one to brag about his boxing technique, even less to feel irritated when someone downplayed it, but he was tired and his brain was in shambles and Nanami barely knew the guy.

“Is that a challenge?” He asked, poorly hiding his annoyance.

Nanami raised an eyebrow, trying to appear unbothered by Satoru’s eyes on him growing more detestable by the minute.

The older man shrugged, gesturing towards Suguru mindlessly. “The day you break something in this boy’s body is the day you become a god. Trust me”

Suguru said nothing, and Satoru stared, and Nanami wondered if a fight was underway.

“What about him then?” Satoru nodded towards Suguru, unsatisfied and bone-tired and looking for a reason, anything , to explain the rage. “Will he be able to break a bone in my body?”

“That remains to be seen.”

Satoru’s nails dug moon crescents into his palms as he scowled. “Are you serious?” Anger was fully clouding his voice without shame.

Nanami looked at him with an expression only found in people gauging the reactions of wild animals. Except that Nanami had stood alongside him long enough to know that sharp teeth were shown but rarely bit and that claws only scratched the skin of their owner.

“You’ll have to figure it out on the ring, Gojo.” Nanami’s voice was serene, sugar-coated with a sweetness he could only have learned from Yuki. “It’ll be more efficient than me trying to explain it with words.”

Satoru could feel his inside boiling. And yet, always, his hands ran cold and his neck was stiff and his spine shivered. He was purposely ignoring Suguru’s presence, eyes fixed on Nanami, two fields of blue hatred and fury and coldness, so far and so calm and so anchored that Nanami pitied him. He had seen those eyes for years and had learned, in spite of himself, that they were rooted in the very essence of Satoru.

“And what if I don’t want him?”

Satoru, always the fighter, was calculating his blows. Nanami did not budge. Suguru, for an instant, was forgotten.

“Then that would be the greatest failure of my career and a waste of your potential so big you would have killed anyone for it five years ago.” 

At that, Satoru went quiet, anger squeezing his throat and choking out his words. He leaned back on the sofa, gloom-ridden eyes finding the ground, and pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. The moon crescents on his palms were almost bleeding. The thought of himself five years ago, knees bloodied and nails dirty, forced him into silence. He didn’t like to be reminded of it.

His mind focused on a small stain of paint on the ground, pale beige clashing out with concrete. All he could remember were clasped hands and his desperate devotion.

“Well, you’re awfully quiet.” Nanami asked, and Satoru barely heard him. He didn’t want to answer. The stain looked like memories and the feeling of judgment.

“I’m just-” Suguru’s voice, low and distant. Satoru realised Nanami was addressing the other man in the room. “I’m just grateful for the opportunity, really.” A pause. Suguru cleared his throat, his voice coming out stronger as he continued. “I’ll do my best.”

“See, Gojo, you could learn a thing or two from him.” Nanami joked and the words died out somewhere against Satoru’s cheek.

The silence stretched for a second too long, the air in the room a little too heavy. Nanami continued. His voice worked for the three of them.

“I want you training together as often as you can, starting tomorrow night. I’ll be supervising the first sparring but I count on you two to be civilised and manage to train without me.” He paused and Satoru could feel eyes burning a hole in his temple. “We’ll go over the details tomorrow.”

The stain was suddenly looking like an ultimatum. Was Satoru always destined to feel this way?

“Next fighting round is this Sunday. Geto, you’re up.” Nanami’s voice, trapped in an echo chamber. “You?” He was addressing Satoru now. “If you somehow manage to patch yourself up by the end of this week, I’ll consider putting you on the ring too. For now, it’s a categorical no.”

Satoru nodded slowly, eyes still glued on the stain. He was registering the words like a child recovering from a tantrum, his anger backed into a corner. He shivered again and heard a sigh. He was looking forward to the sun rising and the heat returning.

“Now go home.” Nanami ordered, standing up. He rubbed his forehead, walking towards the door before opening it and turning to Satoru, still on the sofa. “Get some rest, both of you.”

Suguru nodded as he stood up, thanking Nanami softly before bowing politely. He took one glance at Satoru who was still staring at the ground, motionless, and shot Nanami a questioning look. The older man gave him an apologetic smile and motioned for him to go, which Suguru did, attentive eyes roaming over Satoru’s frame one last time before leaving.

The stain looked like grief and the longing for home.

Satoru stood up slowly after a minute. He walked to the door without a word, eyes low, brain and body and bones on autopilot. He left the room and felt a hand grab his shoulder cautiously, stopping him in his tracks. When he turned around, Nanami was looking at him with eyes like a prayer.

“Trust me and try it out.”

Chapter Text

When Suguru was born under a starless sky, his mother had prayed for his death. She had turned to the nurses with bloodshot eyes, grabbing their hands and wrists and arms with a desperate fury, repeating in an anguished chant that child is cursed. She was nineteen. That was the only time she ever saw him.

Suguru had been raised by his grandparents. Still, his mother's words, unknown to his ears and locked away in that hospital room, followed him everywhere like a curse. He was a quiet child, a voice so low and distant, cracks in every syllable. He was always met with speak louder and we cannot hear you. Suguru had tried. Suguru always tried. Children at school looked at him with the kind of misplaced curiosity offered to caged animals. They would poke at his wounds without even knowing. They would ask him what his problem was. They would try, sometimes, to understand, but Suguru’s voice never quite reached them. He didn’t really know what to say.

Ultimately, he had stopped trying when he realised people rarely listened, no matter how loud he was.

When he was old enough to question his own hands and think of a mother, his grandparents had spoken of madness. They told him she was unfit, that it was for the best, that the distance should never be crossed. His grandad’s voice still resonated in his head, in his lungs and ribcage and eyelids; she is our daughter but she is not your mother. She could never be. Suguru, a child brought into this world with death on his fingertips, learned soon enough not to question it.

At the age of seventeen, when his weird-looking teenager limbs learned elegance and his shoulders carried him a little higher, when cheekbones changed into knives and his smile turned into honey, Suguru felt that the cosmos was mocking him. Boys and girls started to look, always with that curiosity he couldn’t escape, but there was something else. A want, a desire, a flirty smile or a wink Suguru could never ignore, no matter how hard he tried. His face and body were monuments he couldn’t run away from. But his voice was still small. And people, still, did not listen.

College had the taste of iron and the feeling of blood. He slept around, basking in that curiosity he was made to endure, bending under the awestruck stares and the lustful touches. He yielded in front of eyes that looked at him like he carried the world, each and every person aware that they had won, and that the victory was theirs alone. He drowned in praises and misery, kisses on his body feeling like death traps. 

Men handled him with the goal to win it all. Women touched him like he was made of broken glass. No one ever questioned why, after having unravelled him with an ease that resembled agony, Suguru never spoke a word. Their praises fell into dead ears, their dirty words were never echoed. The only thing they could drag out of him, if they touched him where his collarbones found his neck and his ribs found his heart, was a whimper.

He was so easy, always. He was so kind, always. He was so quiet, always.

He dropped out after the first year, his mind sporting a kind of despair he could only believe to be his mother’s, even though he had never met her. On most nights, Suguru couldn’t sleep. Take me home he would cry out to roads that led nowhere. Searching and looking and ending up with dead ends and closed fists.

He felt the anguish in his blood, tingling his skin and scraping the back of his neck. He felt it when he was reading, when he was watching TV, when he was staring at the ceiling and could see it staring back at him. He felt it when he breathed, every inhale a curse, and every exhale a salvation. He felt it when he was cooking with his grandmother, a knife between his fingers that looked like a divine intervention. He felt it when he brushed his teeth, the taste of pardon on his tongue, burning his mouth and hurting his teeth. He felt it when he went on a run, his feet sore and his tendons tight, moving forward with desperation until his lungs gave up and his chest burned and it finally resembled dying.

He stopped feeling it the first time he punched someone.

It was an accident. A misunderstanding. He was walking home from his construction work, a job he had found thanks to an acquaintance from college. His work clothes were hanging too heavily on him, and he had been on edge all day, the summer heat of Tokyo working his mind to exhaustion. His earphones were buried deep in his temples, blasting some music he was not paying attention to, drowning out the noise and the chaos and his brain. He had stopped to grab the water bottle in his backpack and wipe the sweat from his brows. 

Someone, then, had tried to grab his bag and run away, and Suguru’s fist had found a face almost too instinctively. He remembered it still, clear as day. Wide eyes, a nosebleed, terror and a stream of apologies. The guy had run away, a hand on his nose and insults on his mouth.

Suguru had noticed, then, how quiet his brain was. He was nineteen and discovered that his fists had been waiting for a reason all along.

He had started boxing a month later, the August heat tiptoeing on the edge of insanity. He wondered, sometimes, if the suffocating weather had driven him to madness that summer. He would go to work with a burning passion on his palms, his body surviving on hunger for a fight. After his day ended, he went to his boxing classes and stayed at the gym for hours afterwards, perfectioning his technique. 

During these nights of discovering himself, when his heart felt too wide, Suguru existed with a purpose. For the first time in his life, his brain would grow quiet, and his hands would know what to do, and his body would feel alive. Every day he went there, bone-tired from his work and yet, always, carrying an endless devotion that was almost religious. At the age of nineteen, Suguru was learning how to breathe.

He came up with lies to explain why he was coming back home so late, with knuckles the colour of lavenders hidden in his pockets. The sharp eyes of his grandmother were watching him with the knowledge of a thousand deities. His grandad was clueless, that Suguru was almost sure of, but she could always see him in ways Suguru couldn’t quite comprehend. 

She had told him, once, in the quiet hours of the night, that she wondered why Suguru always looked so sad. It was a slip, a confession that he knew had escaped her without a warning, words that could only ever be ushered once. Suguru had looked at her with eyes so wide she had only sighed and remained silent. Ever since that day, Suguru carried with him the knowledge that his grandma’s watchful eyes were always seeing beyond him. He would never know that when he wasn’t watching, she would look at him quietly and find, on his cheeks and his smile and his chin, the face of her daughter.

In the span of two years, Suguru grew into a boxer of unprecedented talent. His coach was a short man with an intense spirit who trained him like he would have his own son. His name was Yaga Masamichi, but Suguru never called him anything but coach. He had seen what Suguru was capable of, and had spent restless hours training him to the best of his abilities, turning his body into a fortress. Suguru had fire on his shoulders, in his fists, in his steps. Everything he learned, he never forgot. More than just being a natural, Suguru was destined for the ring. The child born with death on his fingertips would inflict blows that resembled perdition.

His first fights were regular tournaments. He lost some, six in total, but the countless others he won with an ease some people confused with arrogance. Suguru kept fighting and Suguru kept winning, and his coach was beaming with pride. For years, Suguru remained undefeated. Every fight was an ascension, a way for his talent to explode and illuminate everything around him. Mouths wide open and eyes drinking his every move. Everybody knew that Suguru was different. Everybody could see that Suguru was remarkable. Other fighters would ask him for tips and fighting advice, and he never had any. His coach would say “If he can do it doesn’t mean you guys can.” And Suguru would smile, and Suguru would be happy, and Suguru would feel alive.

His grandparents died in the beginning of his sixth year of fighting. Road accident, so useless and cliché and stupid, and the grief was so raw Suguru forgot how to breathe all over again. 

The funeral was a blur, a fog of hands on his shoulders from people he didn’t know and condolences from faces he had never seen. Suguru couldn’t speak. The oceans on his knuckles went unnoticed, his body incapable of feeling his own skin. 

People moved on, but Suguru stayed there. The mud around his ankle was too deep. The clay trapping his wrists was too hard. Nighttime did not come with the tender blow of sleep. The house became too vast and too empty and Suguru started to expect a fight down every flight of stairs. He looked at the ceilings with something akin to desolation. Everything had a cutting edge, sharp and rough and unforgiving. Suguru, born cursed by his mother’s tongue, was all alone.

He moved out of the house two months after the funeral with an invisible rope around his neck that never seemed to end. He had found the listing for a flat online, shared with a guy named Choso who looked like he had never slept a day in his life. Suguru needed to get out of this place and forget the silence. 

The grief was unabashedly grabbing at his heart now and twisted his insides into shapes that didn’t exist. Rage. Rage on his mind wherever he went. He would feel her everywhere, all the time. He got into arguments at work, his mind going blank, something taking over him that he couldn’t escape. Grief, tugging at his heart, at his tongue and his brain and turning them into mud. Suguru was twenty-five and all he could see were his grandmother’s eyes and his grandfather’s hands.

When his job started cutting down salaries for reasons Suguru didn’t want to hear, he had found himself training for shorter hours and taking up more fights instead. His shoulder got hurt at work and he barely realised it. He was feeling the exhaustion and ignored the heavy muscles. And when Yaga retired, Suguru on his knees begging him to stay, he stopped training all together. He found no point in trying to find someone who saw through him the way Yaga had. He had shaped Suguru in a manner that could not be equalled.

The pay cut from his job turned into half the employees being laid off, himself included. Suguru, alone, only had his own hands to work for him. So he took on more fights, both legal and illegal, losing his breath and bruising his ribs for the money and the feeling. Rage turned into a bargain, the ring a place for him to dangle his life in front of his own eyes, his opponent just another deal he could close on. And he raged on, and on and on, until he was left with bleeding fists and the feeling of death, eyelids heavy with grief. 

And so it went on, and four months passed, and Suguru sometimes couldn’t remember his own name.

It’s when his roommate found him unconscious on the bathroom floor, his head bleeding from a fight, and Suguru woke up in a hospital room begging God to let him die too that he finally knew. No bargain had ever been struck. Despair was back and all he could do was let it pass. All he could ever do was wait it out. His bruised knuckles had never been an answer.

He continued fighting afterwards, but he carried precaution with him. He remembered how he used to venerate the ring, before death and grief and sorrow. He was a calculating fighter, moving with his head first and instinct second. He was trying to get rid of the desperation, so he could finally see clearly and treat fighting with the respect he had always shown. The process was slow, but his mind was a little clearer day by day and fights stopped looking like exit doors. 

He was still doing his regular fights and took precautions with the illegal ones. He stopped throwing himself at them like a moth to a flame. Opponents had names and faces he remembered clearly, they were people and bodies he could break and decided not to. They fought with passion, anger, hatred and even grace sometimes. And through it all, Suguru never, ever lost.

The thing with fighting, for Suguru, was that it never ended. The money came and the money went, but life had a way of playing with his sanity that he had accepted by now. One of his last fights had been a fraud, and he was never paid even though he had won. Something about it being rigged. Suguru cared very little about unnecessary details and had no intention of begging for the money but he was behind on rent. And so the precautions had to be dropped for one night. After all, no matter how Suguru turned it and looked at it, unsupervised street fights paid better.

That’s how he ended up knocking down five different guys in the same night in an abandoned junkyard, the crowd around him roaring with excitement, his hands burning and his shoulders begging for a break.

That’s when a guy with blonde hair had approached him afterwards, applauding his skills and offering to train him. That’s when Suguru had said no, but Nanami looked like a promise, and Suguru had seen serious eyes and wanted so desperately to believe in something, in anything. That’s when Nanami told him I know your type and you don’t belong here. That’s when Suguru had decided he was tired of being alone.

Now walking lazily on the sidewalk towards his new gym, the late afternoon air tugging at his exposed knees, Suguru was starting to regret it.

He eyed the young man with pink hair from afar, trying very hard to remember his name to not appear like a complete asshole while greeting him. Nanami had said yesterday that Suguru was not very liked amongst the younger boxers, and he had gathered from multiple discussions that it was mainly because he had not been put through bouncer duty. 

He dug through his brain for a name, couldn’t find any, and blamed it on agitation reaching every nerve ending in his body.

Suguru suppressed a sigh when the young man frowned unpleasantly as he noticed him. He was trying very hard not to take this personally, but he couldn’t help the feeling. Suguru felt too aware of his body whenever he was looked at with wariness, mostly because he wasn’t used to it. He settled for a polite smile and a small nod of his head as the young man reluctantly opened the door for him, not saying a word. Suguru was surely not going to be the one striking up a conversation.

He entered the gym and took a second to compose himself. He was shifting his weight again, his hands in his pockets playing with pieces of lint, tangling and untangling the fabric mindlessly.

The previous day had planted a kind of distress at the back of his neck that he had spent a decade trying to unlearn. It had started okay, the afternoon unravelling pleasantly as he fell into step with his new coach, learning each other’s body language and attitude. 

Nanami was very straightforward but soft around the edges, much to Suguru’s liking. He hated, above everything else, sharpness without reason. Even more after his grandparents’ death, Suguru craved a type of warmth in his interactions with people. Be it respect or genuine kindness, he felt at ease when words were spoken softly and gestures knew no spite. Being trained by Nanami was just that: spiteless.

The atmosphere had been pleasant all day, until a pair of eyes like razor blades had found him and suddenly Suguru couldn’t breathe.

He had felt them the minute Satoru had stepped into the room. Suguru was used to being watched. It had been his burden for the majority of his young adult life. He had learned to ignore the attention and the lingering stares. After college he wanted so badly to be unfazed by the looks, unbothered by the glances, mostly because he was so deeply reactive to any type of curiosity, even misplaced, that came his way. He had grown used to it out of force of habit and managed to turn a blind eye to the attention. Recently he had stopped noticing it all together, because he knew it was usually nothing more than envy or lust.

But not this. The way he had been watched all night wasn’t something he could comprehend.

He had felt it in the ring, and had noticed the shadows lurking near him. When Satoru had walked over and sat down on a bench, Suguru was aware of being scrutinised in a way that mattered and yet made so little sense. When training was done and Suguru had looked over, finding Satoru’s face for the first time, he had seen eyes like saltwater, deep and raw and unforgiving. And Suguru had no idea why, why the sharpness was so evident, why the rage was spilling out of Satoru like rain, but all he could see were grey clouds and an imploration. And his heart was thundering. And he didn’t know what to do.

And when Satoru got into the ring, Suguru wanted so badly to flee. And when he tried to introduce himself but Satoru looked at him like he had defied God, Suguru knew there was no mercy. And when Satoru had stared and stared and stared at every inch of his skin and every part of his body with eyes like a vengeance, Suguru was twelve and unable to speak.

And now he was there again, with the very real knowledge on his mind that the man he was about to join in the ring despised him with a passion that blindsided Suguru, and he had no idea why.

He shook his head slowly before placing his stuff into his assigned locker, a controlled sigh escaping his lips. His headphones had been blasting the same song on repeat for ten minutes but Suguru didn’t notice, his nerves spilling all over the place. He needed to get it together somehow. He trusted his body to do the work for him once he stepped into the ring.

He made his way further into the gym, unconsciously ignoring everybody around him. His forehead was already sweating and he was thankful for the water bottle he was swinging around mindlessly. The heat of the day had been even worse than yesterday, offering no break and turning his muscles into jelly. Suguru ran horrendously hot and every summer was a curse to him. His black tanked top and a pair of loose boxing shorts was the most he could handle.

His eyes found the ring at the further end of the gym and he stopped in his tracks. 

Nanami was already there, focus mitts raised in the air and a very riled up Satoru throwing precise punches into them. Suguru’s stomach dropped ten floors. He stood there a moment, suddenly made aware of the music in his headphones drilling holes in his temples. 

He watched as Satoru moved, pale skin filled with bruises that never seemed to end, down his arms and up his face. His legs were covered by black joggers but Suguru could imagine that they mirrored his own. Bandages and cuts and lilac blue skies that stretched and stretched. But Satoru was more than a shade or two paler than him, especially now that it was summer and the Sun seemed to have nested under Suguru’s skin. The bruises looked different on Satoru. Sharper. Deeper. Almost more painful to look at. They looked unappeasable.

Suguru lost track of time, until blue razor blades found his face and Nanami’s lips were moving. He blinked him into focus and frowned as he couldn’t hear him. The older guy gestured to his own ears and Suguru suddenly remembered he was wearing headphones. He took them off quickly, walking over to the ring while trying desperately to keep his composure.

“Sorry. I was lost in thoughts.” Suguru apologised as he bowed his head politely. His voice came out all wrong and he realised it was his first time talking all day.

“No worries.” Nanami replied, his tone void of accusation. “I was asking how you’re feeling today.”  

Suguru gave a polite smile to Nanami. Satoru was, to his demise, watching him with an indecipherable expression.

“I’m alright.” Suguru’s voice still sounded wrong.

“What about your shoulders?” Nanami inquired, raising his strong eyebrows in the process.

“Definitely better.” 

Nanami smiled at that, genuine and kind. “Good. It means we’ll be able to really test the waters today, since you both say you’re feeling good.”

Suguru glanced at Satoru who eyed him from a distance, face tense and shoulders held high. Nanami was either oblivious to the white-haired guy’s body language or decided to vehemently ignore it. Suguru settled on the latter.

He turned away, focusing his attention elsewhere, and started to stretch and warm up. His muscles were still sore from his previous fight but his body’s ability to recover had always been something he himself marvelled at. He wasn’t proud of much, but he was proud of that. He slowly warmed his body up, giving his brain the time to adjust, and trying very hard not to let his mind wander off to the man throwing punches behind him. He tightened the hairband in his hair and took a sip of water.

After some time, he was ready, his muscles aching for the ring and his head steadier than before. He grabbed his boxing wraps folded neatly in his short pockets and started cautiously wrapping his hands. 

He got in the ring with grace, body on autopilot, and grabbed the pair of gloves Nanami was handing him. All the while, Suguru begged his head to remain steady under Satoru’s brutal eyes. Eyes that he was trying his best to ignore.

“Alright, I’m here to supervise, but there is not much I’m gonna tell you to do. You’re both way above me ordering you around.” Nanami stated, getting out of the ring. “Just have a go at it. Be civil.” He added while staring intently at Satoru. He stood close to the ring, watching them attentively with his hands on his hips.

Suguru nodded, eyes leaving Satoru’s face and finding the point right between his collarbones. His fists instinctively went up, and his mind went blank. All he could see were lilac fields and impact points.

Before he knew it, Satoru was lunging forward. A flash of white hair, purple undertones, a fist nearing his face, but Suguru dodged. He went for it again, blue eyes full of fury. Suguru wondered how it was possible for the white-haired man to display such strength when he had looked on the brink of death the day before. Suguru went for a combination, jab cross jab, and couldn’t land any. Satoru was the type of fighter to wear his guard so arrogantly low, his face almost an invitation for a punch, and it was taking everything in Suguru’s power not to blindly punch him without thinking. Satoru tried for a roundhouse kick with the force of a hundred seas, which Suguru blocked. And Satoru frowned. And Suguru blinked.

And it went on, and on and on, for ten long minutes. 

Neither of them could land a punch. Neither of them could land a kick. Hands found no target and knees landed nowhere.

No matter how hard Suguru focused, how much he prepared or planned or thought about his next move, Satoru slipped between his fingers like flowing water, moving in his orbit without a care in the world. 

Whenever Satoru tried, rage evident and brows furrowed, Suguru managed to block and dodge. Suguru was starting to get it now, the words Nanami had said. Complementary, to an uncomfortable level. Suguru, for the first time in his boxing career, felt that he couldn’t win.

Suddenly, Satoru’s hands dropped, jaw locked into place. He glared at Suguru with something undecipherable in his eyes. His chest was heaving strongly, sweat had nested between his brows, and his bleached hair strands were falling into his eyes. His white t-shirt was starting to stick to his shoulders and torso. His cheeks were flushed from the effort and from, Suguru gathered, anger. He was refraining from slapping the pink away from Satoru’s face.

“This is infuriating.” The blue-eyed man spat out, dragging out his words.

“Keep your mouth shut and fight, Gojo.” Nanami warned, still watching carefully.

“Fucking ridiculous.”

Satoru shook his head and brought his hands back up, stepping to his left swiftly, centre of gravity low, and going for a jab to Suguru’s side. Blocked. Suguru thanked the Lord for his reflexes, because the sheer force in Satoru’s every move was blindsiding. They were of similar height and somewhat equal stature, which took away one of Suguru’s usual upper-hand. He tried for his lethal lead hook, but Satoru was gone, stepping out of his personal space before it could land. 

Suguru would not back down from this, and a deep-rooted part of him was hurt, the same way the other man was. Pride. Suguru didn’t have much of it, except when it came to fighting.

They assessed each other for a moment, both wondering how and why this was leading nowhere. They tried to control their panting, dancing around each other like reflections of the same rehearsed choreography. Mirrors. Opposites. Suguru’s attention left the point between Satoru’s collarbones and landed on his face. And those eyes. Those eyes.

“You fight with your belly.” Suguru let out on a whim, voice hoarse from the exhaustion.

They never stopped tiptoeing around, never leaving the other from their sight. Suguru’s watchful eyes were dancing too, allowing himself to be distracted for a second, taking in the sight of anger and flushed cheeks. 

“What now?”

“You fight with your belly.” Suguru repeated matter-of-factly, voice low. “It’s like all your energy comes from your guts.”

He didn’t know where he was going with that. His mind was blinded by the fight and yet so clear that he could feel Satoru’s entire energy around him, needle-like fury leaking from every inch of skin. Satoru stared, the beginning of a smirk growing on his lips, devoid of any trace of amusement. He looked so deeply furious that Suguru wondered how he hadn’t killed him yet.

“And you think too much, pretty boy.” Satoru countered harshly.

A flash of white, again, and the air was punched out of Suguru’s lungs. An opening. All it took was one second of Suguru registering the nickname for Satoru to punch the living shit out of him. 

The first fist connected with his ribs, the second one found his jaw, so precise and cutting and furious that Suguru was brought down on one knee, disoriented. And Satoru kept going, all caution out of the window. He kicked the remaining leg keeping Suguru up, this is gonna leave a mark, and brought both of them to the ground, while still punching his face.

“Gojo.” Nanami warned. None of them heard.

Suguru was on his back now, shielding his face from the ongoing assault of Satoru’s fists, whose left knee was digging in his lower belly. He was no novice to ground work and was certain he could win in a battle of pure force. All he needed was to get a hold of Satoru’s body, something, anything to make the tables turn. And the punches kept coming. And still, the rage.

Suguru thrusted his hips up, burying Satoru’s knee a little deeper in his own stomach but shifting the other man’s balance unexpectedly in the process. Satoru toppled over, a furious groan escaping his mouth, and Suguru was grabbing him, reflexes quicker than moving sand.

His right arm wrapped around the white-haired man’s neck from behind, dragging him down against his body. Satoru’s elbow found Suguru’s stomach again, expertly aiming for where his knee had previously been. The headlock was inescapable. Satoru fought back, his fury grabbing hold of all his body, all his moves. He kept elbowing him, relentlessly aiming for the same spot. Suguru was starting to feel nauseous. He tightened his hold on Satoru’s neck, whose breathing was getting incoherent.

“Tap out.” Suguru offered, mouth near the other man’s ear who was still elbowing him. His left hand was now pulling on Suguru’s arm with rage. And Suguru knew the type, so full of pride and spite that they’d rather pass out than admit defeat.

“Tap out or you’ll faint.” Suguru was almost pleading.

A choked-out laugh, another elbow in his belly, white hair against his cheek and the taste of iron.

“Fuck-” A breath, dragged in with difficulty. “You.”

Another elbow, another dragged out breath, another plea on the tip of Suguru’s tongue, and Satoru stilled in his arms. He let go. Satoru went limp against him. He started to slip down, unresponsive body giving up on him, but Suguru held him up to prevent him from meeting the ground face-first. 

Silence filled the air, and Suguru blinked, the adrenaline of the fight suddenly abandoning him. His breathing picked up, aware of his own exhaustion and the shooting pain in his belly. He turned his head to look at Satoru’s face and chest, checking that he was still breathing and making sure he had not accidently become a murderer. He looked up at Nanami who was still watching the scene cautiously.

“Does he always do this?” Suguru asked, bewildered and troubled, still holding the other man against him.

Nanami looked at Satoru, his eyes narrowing in the process. The older man almost looked defeated.

“He does worse.”

And Suguru understood. Because there had been a time when he too was ready to die in the ring just for the sake of it all.

A groan vibrated against Suguru’s chest and his attention returned to the man coming back to life in his arms. He watched as Satoru’s eyes opened, consciousness still far away, the rage not there yet. It hit Suguru like a truck, that it was the first time he was really seeing his face, without the glare and the fury. That his features were tender under the bruises. That his eyes resembled the ocean more than the sky, a shade of blue so deep that danced with grey.

Suguru stayed very still, watching intently, waiting for the awareness to come back. And it did. Satoru blinked once, twice, turned his head and met Suguru’s eyes, and the frown was back. His jaw locked into place as he pushed himself up, his back leaving Suguru’s chest. 

He turned around and walked backwards three steps, putting some distance between them, evidently still dizzy but pretending not to be. The blood was rushing back to his face, his pale cheeks heating up again, and he looked. He looked, really looked at Suguru, like he was seeing him for the first time, like he was discovering something that wasn’t there. His eyes were roaming on his figure, on his face, on his arms and hands and legs. Suguru felt, for a split second, the beginning of fear.

“I wanna go again.” Satoru spat, fists shaking, eyes unfocused.

“Gojo.” Nanami said simply, more as an imploration than a threat.

Satoru stepped forward. “I wanna go again.”

Suguru stepped back, unsure if it was even ethical for him to accept a fight with someone who had just passed out in his arms. He was dismayed by Satoru’s demand, by how quickly he was back to this state of misplaced outrage, crazed by defeat.

Satoru frowned deeper as he warned him. “Don’t back away from me.”

Suguru stopped in his tracks, letting the blonde approach him freely. Satoru’s blood-shot eyes dragged a shiver out of him.

“I just strangled the life out of you, man.” Suguru blurted out in disbelief. His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Make sure you knock me out for good next time.”

A flash of blue, crazed eyes, and Satoru was aiming to lend a front kick where he had elbowed Suguru relentlessly.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Nanami’s voice echoed around them but only seemed to reach Suguru’s ears.

An attempt at a punch, this time aiming for Suguru’s face in a desperate fury. White strands of hair dancing in his vision and Suguru felt the sudden urge to fall to his knees and let Satoru beat him to a pulp.

“I said enough.”

Nanami’s hand found Satoru’s chest, pushing him away. He stood between the two of them waiting for the rage to subdue.

Satoru’s breathing was erratic. His body was visibly still coming back to life, his shoulders low and his face still too pale. Suguru wondered how he managed to still stand on his feet. They stared at each other, Satoru’s painful exhales the only thing cutting the silence.  

Nanami shook his head in dismay. “I said sparring, not beating or choking-out each other.” He looked back at Suguru, stern glare finding him.

Suguru’s hands dropped to his sides and he felt wronged. He had assumed that rules were out of the equation the second Satoru had brought him to the ground.

He blinked while looking at Nanami. “He didn’t tap out.”

“This isn’t a street fight, Geto.”

His insides turned at the remark, reviving the pain on the left side of his stomach. He let it slip, putting the frustration away. He looked down, pulling up his t-shirt slightly, revealing a massive bruise in full bloom, iris flower and glory.

“Nice one.” Satoru scoffed bitterly.

Suguru looked up, locking eyes with him, and wondered again why his rage was so vivid.

“Yeah. Not bad.” Suguru shrugged nonchalantly and for a split second Satoru’s eyes changed.

Nanami let go of Satoru’s shoulder and finally stepped aside with a strict expression on his face. He ran a hand through his hair, debating what to do. A long sigh escaped his mouth as he planted his hands on his hips.

“Gojo, go take a breather.” He ordered, voice steady.

Satoru dismissed the remark. “I’m fine.”

Blue eyes were still glued on Suguru who was wondering if he was about to magically go up in flames under this stare.

“No, you’re not. Go.”

At that, Satoru tore his eyes away and scowled at Nanami. He remained quiet for a minute. Suguru knew there was something here that he wasn’t aware of. It was evident that Satoru was steadying his breath to keep himself from blowing up.

“I thought you said-” Satoru started, a quiver of rage in his voice. “- that you wouldn’t order us around.”

“Well I am.” Nanami, crossing his arms on his chest, was leaving no room for further discussion. “For your sake and his.”

Satoru’s focus was back on Suguru, something in it that resembled hurt. Suguru didn’t know what to make of Nanami’s words, of the distance between him and Satoru, and of the oceans in Satoru’s eyes. The same way he had done with Satoru in his arms, he simply stayed very still and waited for the waves and the crash and the water to subdue. He waited for Satoru to make a move.

After what felt like an eternity of two, Satoru answered.

“Fine.”

And with that, he dropped his gloves and left the ring.

“You should be proud of yourself.”

Suguru stopped his mechanical boxing movements on the bag, startled by the mellow voice behind him.

The late summer afternoon was dragging on, its yellow light hanging low on the clouds. Suguru could see some rays in between the cracks of a shutter in the gym. In between the rays, standing behind him with a smile on her face, was a blonde woman Suguru remembered behind introduced to as Yuki. Her hair was cascading on her shoulders and she looked like she was finding him funny. No malice was to be found, however. Just an expression of pondered coyness that seemed more natural than practiced.

Suguru stilled the boxing bag with one hand and looked at her apprehensively. Not that he was scared, but her demeanour had a sweetness to it that he had learned to be wary of.

Met with Suguru’s silence and cautious expression, Yuki pressed on. “You lasted longer than anybody Nanami tried to put in the ring with him. So, you should be proud.”

Suguru suppressed a sneer. He didn’t feel proud for acting the way he had. He wouldn’t count this as a win, for some reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. His guts were making it clear. He could still see the flashes of white hair and blue eyes, could still feel the painful skin on his stomach.

“I didn’t do much.” He answered blankly, trying to gather his thoughts. They had been piling up around him for a good hour now.

Yuki tilted her head. “You won. Isn’t that enough to be proud?”

“He refused to tap out.”

At the end of it all, it came down to this. The first blow that was landed was not his. Satoru had managed to punch him first. Suguru got the upper hand because of Satoru’s anger, because he had managed to get close, because Suguru had let his guard down for one second when pretty boy had left Satoru’s mouth, and he didn’t want to think about it.

Yuki hummed. “You still won. People usually run away.”

Suguru blinked, registering her words. He wanted to press on but decided it was better not to. He let his mind wander back to white hair and fury, and wondered where Satoru was. He had left the ring without turning back and had not been seen for an hour. Or was it two? Suguru didn’t care much about the notion of time when he was throwing punches and thinking of a way out.

“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” Yuki’s voice pulled him out of his dazed state.

“I don’t speak when I don’t have anything to say.” Suguru lied. He knew that he didn’t speak even when he had something to say.

“Ouch.”

“Sorry. No offense.”

“None taken.” Yuki winked, smiling softly. “I’m just messing with you.”

And Suguru couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but he was trying very hard to figure her out and desperately wanted to believe she was kind. She looked sun-lit and her smile never wavered. She had been the only one to display sincere softness ever since he had arrived here. Nanami’s kindness was always contained. Hers seemed to pour out with honesty.

Suguru’s left hand left the boxing bag that he had been holding. He turned completely towards her and saw her smile get slightly bigger, as if content that he was finally giving her his entire attention. Suguru gave a small smile in return. It felt all a bit wrong on his lips, as if showing kindness in this place was unexpected. Satoru, he realised, was really getting under his skin.

But Yuki and her keen eyes were an invitation to speak, and so Suguru took his chance.

“What do you mean by “people usually run away?” If it’s not indiscreet to ask.”

“Ah.” Yuki hummed, smiling even bigger as she seemed to be searching through her own memories. Nostalgia and a blush on her cheeks. She playfully stretched the silence between them for a moment.

Suguru felt compelled to find an exit route. “You don’t have to say – I mean. If that’s personal or-” he gestured mindlessly at the space around him, suddenly realising he had no idea where he was going with that. “I don’t know.”

“An observant guy like you probably already knows what I’m talking about.” Yuki answered, elegantly ignoring Suguru’s concern. “He’s brilliant, but he’s had his fair share of… issues.”

She tapped her chin softly, kind eyes filling up with something like worry. Suguru felt the beginning of concern tug at his belly.

“Issues?”

“Whatever you can think of on and off the ring, it probably happened to him. You name it.” Yuki clarified, a sorry sigh escaping her. “These aren’t my stories to share, though.”

Suguru nodded as a response to show his understanding. He was not going to fish for information on a man who barely deigned to speak to him.

“You’re the first one to match him in the ring in a long time.” Yuki added, her smile regaining its warmth. “That’s gonna mean something. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t know.”

Suguru frowned at her words. “I don’t see how it could be good.”

Yuki laughed softly, shaking her head as if she was in on a joke Suguru was completely oblivious to. The sound echoed in his chest and he felt a bit warmer. She smiled at him, gaze full of knowledge.

“Don’t give up on him just yet.”

Suguru thought of ocean eyes, of lilac fields and the rage, and he wondered how he would manage to stay. Yuki’s voice was sweet, but if Suguru focused just enough he could hear the undertones of worry. He searched his brain for a meaning, couldn’t find any, and was left with a dry tongue.

Yuki’s focus shifted, finding something over Suguru’s shoulder, different emotions falling on her face like autumn leaves. Her eyes changed, filled with the type of attention reserved for the grieving ones.

“Speak of the devil.” She murmured, nodding towards where she was looking.

Suguru turned around and saw, in the middle of summer, the first signs of snow. 

Satoru closed the door of the back entrance to the gym that was barely in use. His hair was falling on his face and Suguru wondered when was the last time he had gotten a haircut. He felt the apprehension finding its way back to his stomach, getting a hold of his wrists and scratching the back of his neck. How odd, to be so violently reactive to the presence of a single person. Suguru bit the inside of his cheek and watched Satoru from a distance as he started making his way to the stairs, purposefully ignoring everyone.

Suguru looked back at Yuki just as she chanted Satoru’s name, her melodious voice wrapped in honey. Suguru froze in stupor, eyes doubling size. She simply smiled at him in return.

He also noted that it was the first time he had heard him being referred to as Satoru. And Suguru felt his inside turn when he realised how ridiculously similar their names were, in every shape and form.

Yuki gestured joyfully towards Satoru who was diligently walking over after having paused for a second, jaw tight and eyes tired. Suguru could feel, at every step of the other man, distress tugging at his throat. Satoru was not looking at him, attention lost somewhere between Yuki and the rest of the world. Suguru caught himself feeling the absence.

“Hi dear.” Yuki said as Satoru came to a halt next to them, eyes on her. “You okay?”

Suguru wanted to run. He could feel his unease growing slowly, waiting for the blonde man’s voice, expecting a sharp remark. Satoru was standing too close and he still had not acknowledged Suguru who was trying his best to give the three of them space.

“I’m fine.” Satoru answered, voice uncharacteristically calm to Suguru’s ears. “And before you ask, yes, I put ice on them.” He took his hands out of his pockets and raised them to eye-level for Yuki to inspect.

Yuki's smile deepened as she took Satoru’s hands, thumbs pressing slowly on the knuckles to make him wince, but he didn’t. She nodded as he shrugged before slowly letting go of his fingers.

“See, Geto,” Yuki began with a sweet tone, playfully pinching Satoru’s arm. “Our friend here has a thing for letting bruises replace his natural skin colour.”

Suguru’s name on Yuki’s tongue acted like a reminder that he was supposed to be part of this conversation. He blinked slowly and planted his gaze on Satoru’s hands, still hovering in front of him. The bruises, once again, appeared so much clearer and deeper on the other man’s skin. Suguru wanted to reach and plunge them in ice.

As soon as Suguru looked, Satoru’s hands were gone, hidden hastily in his pockets as if he had been caught stealing.

“I don’t have a thing for it. I just bruise easily.” Satoru grumbled like a child.

“Oh sure, must be that then.”

Yuki teased and pinched him again through the fabric of his white t-shirt. Satoru protested silently by hissing stop it brat between his teeth, which only gained a laugh from Yuki. Suguru felt a bit amazed by the dynamic between them. It flowed so easily he wondered for a moment if they were siblings.

Satoru stepped away from Yuki, putting some distance between himself and her pinching. He leaned nonchalantly against the boxing bag next to Suguru. He finally acknowledged him, looking up for the first time, as unreadable as ever. Suguru noted with relief that Satoru did not look mad. If anything, he just looked eternally tired.

“This one is from you, by the way.” Satoru tilted his head back slightly, showing the area between his neck and his jaw where the skin was a light shade of pink, tip toeing on the edge of purple.

Suguru looked at the skin for a moment too long, caught off guard by Satoru suddenly addressing him. There was still something, always, in Satoru’s voice. Like a silent threat or a ticking bomb.

Suguru gathered that the purple undertones were from choking him earlier, but he was astonished that it was already so visible. He didn’t hide his surprise, his mouth opening slightly as he kept himself from leaning in and seeing the bruise in its full glory. When he spoke, his voice cracked a little.

“Nice one.”

Satoru sneered as an answer, finding Suguru’s eyes again. “Yeah. Not bad.”

They looked at each other for a moment and Suguru waited for the rage to return. For now, it didn’t.

“Alright girls, I’m off.” Yuki joked. Her sweet voice ringed in Suguru’s ears and Satoru’s eyes were back on her. “Need to sort out some stuff for the fights this weekend. Satoru, you're up for teacher duty with Itadori tomorrow, by the way.”

Yuki winked, scrunching her nose at him as if knowing it would make him happy. Satoru, for the first time since Suguru had met him, smiled. And Suguru was blinded with the force of a thousand suns.

“They’re finally letting him train?” Satoru asked with a newly found enthusiasm, something almost akin to pride, shyly beaming with a grin from ear to ear so honest Suguru felt like he was hallucinating.

“Yep, they are. Kento’s not free tomorrow so he thought you could train him for an hour or so before your sparring. I’d do it but the kid’s too hyperactive for me.” Yuki theatrically fanned her face and looked exhausted just at the thought.

Satoru nodded slowly, trying to hide his eagerness, but it was so painfully obvious that he was thrilled and Suguru was having a hard time believing what he was seeing. He had become accustomed to the glares and the fury and the furrowed brows and the tight jaw, so much that he had never pictured Satoru to be capable of something as simple as a smile.

He stared, because that’s all anyone could ever do when Gojo Satoru looked like the living embodiment of the Moon, and watched as him and Yuki wrapped up their conversation. A laugh, another smile, tenderness and ache so profound Suguru was knocked out by it all. Had Satoru always been this? Suguru needed to run. He needed to run as fast as he could and as soon as he could. Because the way he was digging in his palms just to keep himself steady scared him so badly that he thought Death would be kinder than this. Kinder than the ocean and the harshness of the waves.

“What are you looking at?”

Satoru’s eyes were back on him, fields and fields of blue severity, completely unfair and an absolute fuck you to Suguru’s entire existence.

“What?” Was all Suguru managed to whisper back. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Yuki’s soft laugher as she walked away.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not-”

“You are.”

The smile was gone. Satoru’s eyes had a stillness to them that nearly scared Suguru. He almost preferred the anger to whatever undecipherable thing was swimming in Satoru’s sea.

Suguru was warm. He was always warm. He never ran cold even in the winter. He never got sick because of the weather and would always rejoice at the first sight of snow. He wore beanies only when forced to and spent his summers nesting sunshine under his skin. He attracted the light, attracted the warmth and the heat of days that stretched on his body like he was made of burning copper. But when Satoru’s eyes didn’t leave his face and he felt his skin burn to a degree that rivalled the sunburns he sometimes got at the beach, Suguru felt that something was out of place.

“Man, you’re so…” Satoru trailed off. talking more to himself than to Suguru. He shook his head as he frowned and ran a hand through his hair, blue flowers hiding themselves between white strands like cotton.

And Suguru didn’t know what to say, because he was so utterly confused by the mere existence of Satoru that he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know where to put the confusion. He didn’t know what frequency to live on, what attitude to choose, what position to adopt because Satoru felt like he was ready to strangle him to death at any moment. Because the rage was always here, hiding behind pale skin. A wrong gesture, a wrong word, everything seems like a possible route to eternal damnation, courtesy of blue eyes and a sentence in blood.

Suguru shifted his weight. He was suddenly very interested in his boxing gloves and realised he was moving his fingers restlessly inside them. He tightened the straps around his wrists, praying silently to all the gods he could think of for Satoru to walk away. And the silence stretched for the millionth time between them. Oceans and the Sun.

“You hungry?” Satoru asked blankly, breaking the silence.

Suguru’s face shot up, confusion displayed on every single inch of his face. He searched Satoru’s eyes for a pun, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for the joke to write itself. His brows furrowed and Satoru looked unphased.

Suguru’s voice came out all wrong. “What?”

“I asked if you were hungry.”

“Why?”

Satoru frowned too, echoing Suguru’s perplexed expression. “What do you mean why?”

A beat, again. Suguru searched for his words desperately, feeling like a child expected to know the right move to do or the right cards to play. Except he had no idea what was going on. Except Satoru was still looking at him, always, eternally, like he could see something beyond him. For a second, Suguru thought of his grandmother.

And all he could come up with, facing the waves, was confusion. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Jesus, man.” Satoru pinched his nose and took a slow breath in. “You want to grab something to eat or not?”

Suguru couldn’t keep himself from thinking this was some kind of trap. He kept relentlessly searching Satoru’s face for a trace, anything, of humour. There was nothing there, except for seriousness and the constant string of sleepless anger that waved in his eyes. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or the beginning of a badly written comedy skit. 

They stood in silence, staring at each other again until Suguru nodded, which visibly came as a surprise to the both of them.

Satoru straightened, putting some distance between himself and the boxing bag. “You’re paying, since you knocked me out.”

Suguru nodded again, his tongue tied in his mouth and pressed to the back of his teeth. His brain was having a hard time registering the situation. He had no idea what time it was or how long he had trained for. He could still feel the heat, his face burning for whatever reason, his chest a little too warm for his liking. For a second he wondered if he was coming up with a fever.

He started taking his boxing gloves off after a while.

Satoru was still watching him, unfazed. “I’ll wait for you outside.” He turned on his heels, walking away. “I don’t got all night, though.”

Suguru frowned at the tone and watched the back of Satoru’s neck as he walked towards the door he had come through earlier. Purple undertones, here too. The other man left the gym and just like that, there was no sign that Satoru had ever been there. Except for the restlessness of Suguru’s fingers.

It took him another five minutes to spring into action. And another five to shower with cold water and forget that his hair took thirty minutes to dry. He thanked the summer heat that would do the job quickly. He put on his spare clothes, another pair of black shorts and a large black tee-shirt, grabbed his sports bag and his shoes, and tried to find some explanation on the way. 

He didn’t really know what had compelled him to accept, since he was pretty sure Satoru hated him to his core and would drag him into oblivion with a smile on his face if he could. But Suguru, ultimately, was often incapable of saying no.

Fifteen minutes had passed since their talk. Suguru opened the back door and stepped on the sidewalk to a flash of white hair under street lights.

“Took you long enough.” Satoru complained, his back leaving the wall he was leaning on.

Suguru slung his bag over his shoulder. He was at a loss of words when faced with Satoru’s remarks. His fingers started mindlessly playing with the bag’s strap over his chest, tangling and untangling it over and over again.

“I showered.” He replied, his voice sounding almost like a question.

Satoru was shamelessly eyeing his hair. It was sticking to his face a little, still wet from the shower. Suguru cursed himself for not putting it up in a bun and was suddenly very aware of his own head.

“I can see that.” Satoru replied, eyes falling to Suguru’s fingers, then back to his hair.

Suguru carefully watched as Satoru’s attention stayed on his hair for a moment, something on his face akin to amusement. Suguru was never sure. Suguru could never really tell. Was he that bad at reading people or was Satoru just a field of never-ending uncertainty?

Satoru’s eyes narrowed as he kept looking at Suguru who was finding it more and more difficult not to make a face so he would stop. The sounds of the streets were reduced to a buzzing wave. After a minute, Satoru looked away and Suguru was left with the urge to flee.

As he began to walk lazily, Satoru stretched, his left hand grabbing the back of his right elbow over his head. Suguru watched the other man’s movements, still the same white t-shirt on his back and the same bruises over his forearms. He let him walk away, debating with himself if he should go back into the gym and punch a boxing bag until his arms gave up and his legs felt like dust and his mind finally shut up. As he did so, his brain caught up with his feet a minute too late and he fell into step next to Satoru, who paid him no mind.

Suguru became gradually aware of his surroundings, registering that the sunset was gone and that it was a dark night. You could rarely see the stars in Tokyo. The heat, still, never subdued.

“What time is it?” Suguru asked gently, still looking up as they walked.

He could sense some movement next to him and gathered that Satoru was looking at his phone.

“A quarter to eleven. Why?”

“Most places are closing now.”

Suguru was still looking at the sky. He wasn’t sure why he was, but the starless night was comforting. It was giving him a break from the low ringing in his ears and the ravaging energy next to him. And yet, he could never ignore the ocean and pretend he wasn’t aware of Satoru’s eyes drilling holes into the side of his face.

“Have a little faith.” Satoru replied, something like a threat in the voice. Or was it humour? Suguru couldn’t tell anymore.

And he wanted to believe in anything so badly that his insides turned at the words. He gripped the strap of his bags a little tighter and begged for some courage.

They walked in silence, Suguru’s initial unease receding with difficulty as they progressed through the city. He was blindly following Satoru who seemed to be very sure of where he was going. 

Suguru had fallen some steps behind, battling with his own thoughts to keep them from spilling everywhere. He could feel them on the ground, could see them on his hands if he looked a bit too close. He could sense the pinching at the back of his neck, an annoying shadow poking his shoulders constantly and repeating listen listen listen until he gave in. Listen to what, that he had no idea. But his brain was trying very loudly to tell him something, every signal turning red, every alarm going off and changing to flight mode.

He tightened his jaw and slid a hand through his humid hair, the sensation of cold on his fingers slightly grounding him. 

By accident, his eyes fell on the nape of Satoru’s neck right where his hair met his skin. They found the bruise he had noticed before and stayed there. He traced the pattern with his eyes, the ringing in his ears turning into a full-volume screeching, and why was he here again? Satoru’s t-shirt was hanging low on his shoulders, and if he focused just enough, Suguru could make out the outline of his shoulder blades underneath. And if he focused even more, he would start to picture the bruises on pale skin. And Suguru could feel the sunburns on his cheeks even though it was night. He could blame it all on the summer heat driving him to insanity, just like he had before, but there was no ring he could get on right now and nowhere to put his madness. Just the snow and white hair and shoulders like the sky.

“You think so loudly.”

Satoru’s voice pulled him out of his trance and he was back to looking at the sky with newly found interest. And always, the sunburns. Suguru tried to silence the ringing but failed, time and again. He tried to think of Satoru’s words but what was there to reply to that. It was like the other man was making it his mission to come up with the most bewildering stuff. Suguru opened his mouth, his tongue trying to say something, but there was nothing there.

Satoru suddenly stopped and Suguru almost bumped into him. Satoru turned towards him, a brutal stare falling on his face and Suguru, once again, could see the rage.

“Seriously man, you think so… fucking loudly.” Satoru frowned and looked almost distressed. “It’s like – actually insane.”

Suguru was taken-aback, Satoru’s unexpected words making their way into his brain like electric shocks. The pavement watched their every move as they stood facing each other, the warm June air suddenly hammering Suguru’s head. He searched Satoru’s face in silence and flipped through the thousand different things he could use as an explanation. Suguru was unsure if such a statement even called for an answer. He watched cautiously, attentive eyes gauging the other man’s demeanour, and decided to settle for the truth.

“I don’t really control that.”

He shrugged, scratching his forehead and unsticking a few strands of hair in the process. Satoru was wide-eyed, looking at him like he was the single most deranged person he had ever talked to.

The white-haired man continued with his train of thoughts. “It’s like you wanna say something but you just don’t.” He gestured towards Suguru, encompassing the space between the both of them, and shaking his head slightly in the process.

“I don’t wanna say anything.” Suguru lied, again. Because he constantly wanted to say something. He just could never come up with something that made sense.

Satoru seemed for a second to bite the tip of his tongue, ready to blurt out whatever was on his mind. Suguru held his breath, facing the waves, but Satoru deflated, shoulders dropping. He pinched his nose again, massaging the space between his eyebrows, and Suguru didn’t know if he was glad or not that the subject was dropped.

“Whatever.” Satoru grumbled. “We’re here soon.”

Suguru picked his thoughts up from the pavement and started walking alongside Satoru again. 

He could feel the pile of pent-up anger next to him and wondered what to do with it. It was easy to notice it, really, anyone that laid their eyes on Satoru would see it. But to know how to navigate it, to know how to handle it carefully, that was another matter altogether. Suguru was mildly aware that he was tiptoeing around Satoru only because the other was letting him do so. He knew he was walking in silence with him because Satoru was trying really hard, for some reason, to keep his fury at bay. He could appreciate the effort, even if the result was a deadly gloom and stern eyes. He preferred this to the rage.

After ten more minutes of roaming the streets of Shibuya and Shimokitazawa, they arrived in front of a small restaurant. Unmistakably displayed on the door was a red sign that read “We are closed :)”. Suguru looked at it, then at Satoru, and kept himself from making any snarky remarks.

“You don’t trust me much, do you?” Satoru scoffed, rolling his eyes. He pushed the door open and entered the restaurant.

Suguru stepped in hesitantly, still looking at Satoru with a frown on his face. The place was completely empty but the lights were still on. Suguru took in his surroundings, the smell of food still lingering in the air. Behind the counter, perched on a wooden stool, was a woman with long brown hair flipping a pen in her hands. She looked up as they entered, hard stare landing on both of them. She was about to protest but stopped as her eyes found Satoru. Her shoulders dropped and she raised an eyebrow, suddenly intrigued.

“To what do I owe the incommensurable pleasure?” She joked, going back to the paperwork on the counter before gathering it into a single pile.

“I’m so glad to see you too.” Satoru answered, his smile echoing in his voice. He closed the distance between them and ruffled her hair playfully.

She swatted his hand away harshly, glaring at him. “It’s past eleven, you fucking demon.” She eyed Suguru from a distance, unabashedly taking in his entire figure. “And this is?”

Satoru didn’t even bother to turn around and went straight to the back of the restaurant, easily navigating his way around the place. He answered loudly after disappearing behind a door. “Sparring partner.”

The woman raised her eyebrow again. “Is that another word for a date?”

Suguru’s eyes tripled in size and he was suddenly reminded of his own existence. He was standing awkwardly in the entrance, still unsure what the situation was. Somewhere in the distance, Satoru laughed out loud. It resembled more a choked up scream than a laugh.

“I guess not, then.” The woman continued, not hiding her amused smile. She was spinning the pen between her fingers playfully. “And does this sparring partner have a name?”

Suguru took a minute to understand that she was talking to him. She patiently waited for his answer, looking at him with unrestrained attention. Her eyes harboured something akin to interest.

Suguru shifted his weight slightly before answering, barely audible. “Geto. Geto Suguru.”

The woman spun the pen again, a contemplative smile on her face. “Full name and all.”

Suguru scratched his neck and cursed himself for being born. He tried to echo her smile but knew he probably looked like he was trying not to wince.

“It’s just Geto, then.” He clarified, his hand dropping back to his side. He didn’t know what to do with it.

“Nice to meet you, just Geto. I’m Shoko.” She answered, amused. “Why don’t you take a seat and wait for the other idiot to bring whatever he finds in the kitchen?”

She spun the pen once more before placing it on the counter, nodding towards a table near the kitchen’s door. Suguru was thankful she was indicating where to go. He was feeling horrifyingly out of place. The air in the restaurant was cool, the sound of the AC audible to whoever focused just enough. He was glad for the break from the outside warmth.

After reminding himself of how to walk, he made his way to the table as Shoko returned her attention to the paperwork on the counter. As Suguru sat down, she started spinning the pen in her hand again.

Not looking up, Shoko pressed on. “So, they put you in the ring with him? How is it going?”

There was a certain concern in her voice, but also something else Suguru couldn’t pinpoint, like contained resentment. If he was being completely honest, he knew very little about how things were going. The only thing he was sure of was Satoru’s closed fists and the bruise on his stomach.

“I couldn’t tell you, actually.” He replied, pondering.

Shoko raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him. “Well you’re still in one piece, so.”

“Is that a good sign?” Suguru mimicked her expression, not sure what to do with this information.

“I guess that’s a first.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. Suguru looked at the pen spinning between her fingers and frowned.

“I mean, he -” Suguru trailed off while thinking about today’s events. “He did elbow me pretty badly. I think he was going for my ribs.”

“Only your ribs? You might just be the luckiest man alive.”

Suguru locked eyes with her and smiled earnestly, amused by her outlook on the situation. He gathered by her attitude that she knew Satoru a great deal better than he assumed. Met with his smile, Shoko shot him a questioning look.

“Doesn’t really feel like luck.” He admitted shyly.

After a beat, Shoko returned his smile. “It never does with him.”

She gave him a knowing look and Suguru could feel that she somehow understood the situation better than he did.

Suddenly, the kitchen’s door swung open, revealing Satoru expertly carrying multiple plates of food. He menacingly looked at Shoko while walking over to the table.

“Stop trash talking me.” He threatened while placing the food down.

“I would never.” Shoko offered her middle finger as a reply, winning another smile from Suguru.

Satoru rolled his eyes and dropped on the chair opposite him, turning his attention to the table they were sharing. Suguru was still lost, the confusion in his belly not leaving. He felt it was a bit late to ask for an explanation as to what this place was, why Satoru was so comfortable moving around, why Shoko hadn’t asked any question or clarification and was just letting him roam freely. Why she was unfazed by Satoru bringing a complete stranger with him and not even bothering to ask for anything. It was like communication was not needed between the two of them and Suguru didn’t know how to work around that. 

He eyed the food in front of him and was overwhelmed by it all. He looked up at Satoru, desperately trying to catch his eyes, but the other guy was already digging into the stuff he had brought and was back to not acknowledging him.  

As if sensing Suguru’s agitation, Shoko stepped in. “Satoru works here. It’s my family’s restaurant.” Suguru looked at her but she was focused on her paperwork. “And I guess I’m unfortunate enough to consider him family too, so.”

Satoru sneered, mouth full. “Gross.”

Suguru nodded in understanding and returned his attention to the food in front of him. He was never good at picking, and frankly the whole situation was such a surprise that he felt too caught up in his own head to make choices. 

His fingers were fidgeting with the edge of the tablecloth. Suguru’s neck started to warm up as he noticed stern eyes suddenly watching him. As if sensing that it was his moment to make the situation more unbearable, Satoru spoke up.

“You gonna eat or what?”

Suguru looked up to find blue eyes staring at him. His hair had dried, and he wished it had not so that his own head would cool down. He rolled the fabric of the tablecloth between his fingers over and over again. As he noticed Satoru eyeing his hand, he stopped.

“It’s just -” He started, his voice trying to find the right octave.

“You don’t like it?” Satoru accused. He raised a spiteful eyebrow.

Suguru shook his head. Below the table, his left hand scratched the Band-Aid on his knee. He could hear his own stomach growling. The food was not the problem. Everything else was. You think so loudly. Suguru, again, could feel the urge to flee.

“I do. I’m just a bit -”

He closed his eyes for a second, the heaviness of the day suddenly dawning on him at the worst moment. He realised he was running on four hours of sleep and days of unrest. The bruise on his belly was sending him mixed signals, somewhere between a grounding point and a test of patience. And Satoru was making Suguru’s every move feel like his last.

The soft buzzing sound of the AC filled Suguru’s head as he noticed a headache nesting under his temples.

“Dig in, Geto.” Shoko’s assured voice resonated next to him. “No worries, it’s on the house.”

Suguru opened his eyes and looked at her with a sort of tired panic on his face. She looked up from her paperwork, unbothered, and nodded towards the food on the table.

“I can pay.” He answered while shaking his head.

Shoko’s eyes drifted to Satoru who was back to eating his food without any care. For a moment, she watched him attentively with narrow eyes before returning her focus to Suguru.

“That demon dragged you all the way here just to eat leftover food. Trust me, it’s on the house.” She nodded towards the table once more before returning to her paperwork.

“Brat.” Satoru mumbled between two mouthfuls of rice.

Suguru looked at the other man once more, searching his face for something. He felt compelled to watch out for a sign that Satoru was going to suddenly leap over the table and choke the life out of him. A sign that he would grab his chopstick and stab him with it.

Suguru was going insane with the prospect of coexisting next to Satoru for an indefinite period of time. He was going insane with the thought that they were seated at the same table, and that Satoru looked so profoundly unfazed by it all, while Suguru could feel his own pulse in his fingertips. He was going insane at the sight of the lilac field growing more vibrant on Satoru’s neck and the sunburns on his own cheeks. He was aware that he had not laid in the sun in weeks.

Suguru put his hair up in a bun and finally started to eat, his stomach instantly thanking him. They sat in silence, the sound of the AC filling the air and Shoko’s soft humming providing a distraction. Suguru was thankful for the break and he grew more stable with every bite.

He did his best to ignore Satoru’s very loud existence, even though it was mostly impossible to do so. He noticed that Satoru was left handed, that he frowned when he ate and slouched over the table. He also noticed that Satoru kept bouncing his leg and changing positions, uncapable of sitting still for more than a minute. Suguru let his eyes rest on Satoru’s left arm, where three big bruises formed a bizarre constellation on his skin.

“Satoru, you’re giving me a headache.” Shoko complained before placing her pen back on the counter.

Satoru stopped bouncing his leg mid-bite and rolled his eyes. Suguru focused on the food in his plate and picked up his thoughts stuck on pale skin.

Shoko abandoned her paperwork and walked over to their table, grabbing a chair on the way. Suguru gave her a kind smile as she sat down next to him, which she returned tiredly. Her presence was a nice balance to the temper Satoru was constantly emulating. She felt very steady, albeit a bit sharp around the edges. But she had a kind of calmness that Suguru found comforting. He offered her a bite of his food which she declined with a soft shake of her head.

“Already ate, thanks. You’re fighting this weekend?” Shoko asked the both of them, leaning on the table with her chin in her hand.

Satoru met Suguru’s eyes and swallowed a mouthful. He pointed his chopsticks towards Suguru before looking at Shoko.

“He is.”

“And you’re not?”

Satoru shrugged, digging in his food again. “Depends what Nanami says.”

His voice was sporting the kind of exhausted anger Suguru remembered noticing yesterday. The type that let you know that tiredness was taking over rage.

Shoko hummed in approval and turned her attention to Suguru.

“Do you do this for a living, Geto?”

Suguru swallowed with difficulty before answering. “I do.”

The words felt heavy in his mouth. It was weird to be asked questions in front of Satoru who did not know a single thing about his life, although the other man seemed to be entirely uninterested in the conversation.

“Isn’t it too hard?” Shoko continued, genuine interest on her face.

“It’s okay when you win.”

Suguru smiled shyly and clicked the chopsticks between his fingers. Shoko hummed, a pensive look on her face, and glanced quickly at Satoru who was still passionately eating. She brought her focus back to Suguru, brows a little furrowed.

“You won against this one, then?” She asked, nodding towards Satoru.

Suguru clicked the chopsticks together again at the question and pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, thinking. Thinking about how he was going to phrase it. He didn’t discuss the fight with Satoru and didn’t know how sensitive the topic was, if it was even a sensitive topic at all. Yuki had said that the whole situation would either be bad or good, but that she herself didn’t really know the outcome. Suguru wasn’t more knowledgeable on this issue either.

He decided on a middle ground, purposefully keeping his focus on Shoko.

“I guess you could say that.”

He forced nonchalance and went back to eating. Facing his answer, Shoko tilted her head, restrained surprise on her face. Suguru pretended not to notice that Satoru was back to drilling holes on his forehead, fully involved in the conversation now, eyes glued to Suguru’s face. He also pretended not to sense that Satoru’s energy was spilling on the table and grabbing his wrists, as if his anger had grown hands.

Suddenly, Satoru spoke. “He did win. He choked the life out of me.”

Suguru’s eyes shot up and were met with a frown.

“Oh, did he now?” Shoko added, smiling devilishly.

Suguru gave Shoko a reticent smile as an answer. Satoru was watching him again, eyes trailing back and forth between his face and his fingers on the table drawing circles on white fabric. Suguru tried to ignore him but the sunburns were back. He looked up, only to be met with a frown again. And still, the waves. Underwater, Suguru pinched the skin of his knee and wanted to go home.

They finished eating in shared silence, energy low but stomachs filled. Shoko had moved her chair to Satoru’s side of the table and was leaning against him, head almost on his shoulder as she visibly battled with tiredness. Whenever their eyes met, Suguru gave her a small smile as a way to thank her for letting them stay. She always returned it, sometimes a minute too late due to fatigue. 

Once they were done, Suguru gathered their plates and brought them to the kitchen without a word.

They all headed out. Satoru was outside first, not bothering to hold the door open, and Suguru watched him stretch through the restaurant’s storefront, arms up in the air waving from side to side.

As Suguru opened the door, Shoko spoke. “Geto, don’t break this idiot. He still has to come to work.”

Suguru smiled at her again and stepped on the sidewalk. “I’ll try.”

She watched him for a second then looked at Satoru while shaking her head, a resigned sigh escaping her. She wished them goodnight and closed the door. Suguru was left with concern slowly growing in his belly. He shook the feeling away.

They started walking in silence. Suguru didn’t live far, in the opposite direction from where they were going, but he guessed that Satoru was heading for the nearest train station and felt compelled to walk there with him. He looked up again, hoping to catch some stars because the night had progressed, but there were none.

“Why weren’t you sure when she asked if you won against me?” Satoru inquired, hands in his pockets.

The topic had been hanging between them all night, and Suguru knew it was just a matter of time before someone brought it up. He was prepared for the blow but was blinded anyway. The headache under his temples grew dangerously.

“You landed the first punches.” Suguru explained, hoping to cut the conversation short.

“You still knocked me out.”

Satoru kicked a soda can on the pavement, the noise echoing in the almost empty street. Suguru watched the houses go by as they walked and searched every door for an answer. He couldn’t find any.

“Yeah but,” Suguru dug his fingernails in the bag strap. “It’s only cause you caught me by surprise.”

Satoru snickered. “You mean cause I called you a stupid nickname to get all in your face?”

The recollection of the fight was clear in Suguru’s head and the tipping point came down to one thing. 

He slowed down, walking several steps behind Satoru now, just like he had before. He could feel the sunburns again, on his cheeks and the back of his neck, on his chest and the tip of his fingers. He went back to furious eyes and ravaging blows, to flashes of anger so pure and honest he had been blinded by them. He went back to a rage so raw it was almost divine, and a passing thought about letting Satoru win. He went back to a body in his arms and a face like winter under bruises. 

His eyes found the back of Satoru’s neck, not by accident, and he looked at the very spot where his white hair met his skin. Such a shame, he thought, all this anger. For a second, Suguru missed a man he had met hours ago and the inexistent memories of a friendship that could have been.

“You’re thinking loudly again.”

Satoru stopped in his tracks and turned towards him, eyes finding Suguru’s already on him.

“Whatever you wanna say, just say it.”

They looked at each other in silence, Suguru’s tongue tied in his mouth. He searched Satoru’s face again. He could see the tiredness that the other was never really trying to hide. The anger was there too, as it always was, but Satoru was making an effort to keep it away. Suguru noticed it, because he always noticed, and was stricken with a kind of grief he sometimes forgot he could feel. He gave Satoru a sad smile and watched the other feel the confusion.

“We don’t really get along.” Suguru said matter-of-factly.

It was Satoru’s turn to visibly search his own brain. He watched Suguru again and again and again, tracing his face and his hair and his eyes, emotions passing over him and battling for a place next to the rage. Suguru accepted to be on the receiving end of the staring, mostly because he had no other choice, but also because he knew Satoru was searching his face, too, for all the things Suguru never said. He patiently waited for the other man to answer.

“We don’t have to get along.”

Satoru’s words, just like Suguru’s, sounded more like a fact than an accusation. They kept looking at each other and Suguru gave another resigned smile.

“Yeah. I guess we don’t.”

And Satoru frowned, and Suguru bit his own tongue, and somewhere in between the night attentively listened.

Suguru tore his eyes away and watched over Satoru’s shoulder, suddenly aware of the signs indicating the Shimo-Kitazawa Station. He tightened the grip on his bag and blinked, refocusing his attention on the other man.

“Thanks for the meal.” He faced the waves one last time and settled for a goodbye. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With that, Suguru turned on his heels and felt the sunburns of eyes still watching him.

Chapter Text

“Hands higher, brat.”

Satoru lightly punched Yuji’s face, making the boy blink in surprise and stumble backwards three steps.

“See? Your guard is too low.”

Yuji shook it off and brought his gloves a little higher. “I figured.” 

He glared at Satoru who was smiling devilishly. 

“Well, I had to demonstrate.” Satoru argued, feigning innocence. 

He let Yuji come closer, eyes expertly roaming over the boy’s figure and stance. He held the focus mitts higher, forcing him to raise his fists. He knew Yuji’s entire attention was now on his guard and Satoru could clearly see a direct opening to his stomach.

“If I decide to raise my knee right now you’ll be on the ground in five seconds.” Satoru warned, smiling even more.

Yuji’s frown deepened and he brought his elbows closer to his chest, correcting his posture in the blink of an eye. Satoru nodded in approval and planted his heels on the ground, lowering his hands to Yuji’s level. The boy was a good head shorter than him. 

Yuji repeated the combination Satoru had taught him, then started punching on instinct, and Satoru was once more left speechless by the sheer strength of his blows. It was always something to witness raw talent and see the potential in young boxers, but it was a completely different revelation to know that someone was destined to become greater than themselves. With Yuji, it left no doubt. The boy was made for the ring.

But as of now, he was still young, and he was shit at blocking.

Satoru landed a roundhouse kick with so much ease that Yuji dropped his guard altogether. Satoru was keeping his blows fairly soft, just to illustrate his points.

“You’re not blocking shit.” He said, feet returning to their original position.

“It’s because he thinks all he has to do is punch the shit out of his opponent.”

Megumi was lazily swaying his arms over the ropes of the ring, watching them. He looked so overly done with everything that Satoru never knew if he was just tired or honest to God bored. Yuji turned his attention to the dark-haired boy, all focus on Satoru forgotten.

“Shut your big mouth, Fushiguro.”

Satoru slapped Yuji’s forehead to get his attention back, winning a sneer from Megumi. Yuji brushed his face with the back of his gloves, a moody expression settling on his features. 

“He’s not wrong.” Satoru remarked, nodding towards Megumi. “Your punches are solid but you’re relying solely on them. Use your legs too.”

“That would imply he knows how to throw a kick.” Megumi added blankly.

Yuji turned towards him again, this time with a purpose. “You piece of sh-”

“Eyes up here!”

Satoru tried to land a soft jab as he spoke, taking Yuji by surprise, but the boy raised his fists instinctively to protect his face. Satoru nodded, an honest smile finding its way to his lips.

“There you go. Much better.” He noted, winning a nod from Yuji.

They continued sparring, Satoru directing Yuji’s moves and correcting what needed to be corrected. He was giving advice where he could, and telling Yuji to trust himself whenever he couldn’t figure out an explanation. He trusted Yuji’s talent to do the work once he gained more experience. All the while, Megumi watched them, leaning nonchalantly on the ropes.

At some point, Satoru noticed Yuji’s rapid breathing and red cheeks, and dropped his hands. “Alright, water break.”

Yuji nodded in relief and walked towards Megumi who was already handing him a water bottle. He took off one of his gloves and snatched the bottle away, a glare on his face. Satoru smiled watching them, amused by Megumi’s complete indifference. For a second, he was reminded of Suguru.

He frowned at the thought and shook it away. He leaned on the ropes on the other side of the ring, taking three long gulps of water, his mind wandering around the place suddenly. He grabbed his thoughts and brought them back to himself. He turned his attention back to the two boys.

Yuji’s back was on the ropes, one of his arms resting on the top one. Megumi was tracing circles on Yuji’s forearm, unfazed by it all. It was no secret to anybody who cared that the two were close. Satoru had understood long ago just how close.

He was not one to dwell on his own life, but sometimes he wondered about finding anything. Anything that didn’t end with his anger eating it alive. He had made peace a while ago with the fact that he wouldn’t. His mind carried phantom blood and he was aware of the sharpness. He knew there would always be something terrifying about a caged wild animal, and he mostly accepted the idea with nonchalance. He didn’t consider his hands unlovable. He just knew people rarely found the courage to hold anything that had claws.

He scratched the back of fingers, digging the nails in the bruises to bring himself back to earth. It wasn’t the time or place to wallow in some misplaced self-pity, and he felt awkward with his own self for thinking so suddenly about this. 

He looked down at his hands. His knuckles were starting to heal, the colour nearing a brownish violet. He had also spent the past two days mending the canvas on his ribs that, quite frankly, looked so horrendous he wondered how he got out of his weekend fight without a broken bone. He still had four days until Sunday, and he was sure he could be in okayish shape by then. All he needed to do was convince Nanami of it too. 

“I’m ready to go again.”

Yuji’s voice pulled him out of his own head. The boy was putting his gloves back on, rolling his shoulders back and forth as he walked back to the middle of the ring. Satoru clicked his tongue and shot him a confident smile, happy to see such enthusiasm.

“Alright, that’s the spirit!” He said joyfully, straightening up and walking towards Yuji.

He glanced at Megumi who sighed and went back to swaying his arms over the ropes. Satoru raised an eyebrow as he noticed some notes of sadness on the boy’s face.

“Are we that boring?” Satoru asked with a playful voice. 

Megumi barely looked up at him, shrugging, and tilted his head downward dramatically. Satoru smiled at the sight.

“Don’t mind him, he’s a fucking killjoy.” Yuji countered as he rolled his eyes. “He’s pissed I’m the one in the ring and not him.”

Megumi gave his middle finger as an answer, still dramatically leaning over the ropes. Satoru let out a small laugh, amused, and addressed the dark-haired boy again.

“Really? That’s why you’re all moody and shit?”

“Might be.” Megumi grumbled.

Satoru exchanged an amused look with Yuji, who rolled his eyes once more before looking at the other boy with a frown on his face. Satoru could see something on Yuji’s face, under the annoyance and the teasing. He was looking at Megumi with care and something like compassion. Still, he was incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

“Why don’t you go ask the new guy to train you then and stop ruining my session?” Yuji suggested sarcastically. 

Megumi raised his head, dead eyes finding Yuji. He stared at the other boy for five solid seconds, expressionless. He looked unmoved by the whole situation. 

“Funny.” He commented before letting his head drop back down.

Satoru let out a little laugh again and planted his hands on his hips. He took in Megumi’s attitude: the slouching shoulders, the slow swaying, and the awfully loud gloom that was looming over him. He was reminded of a soft voice and quiet eyes.

“You and him would actually get along.” Satoru remarked, half joking. “You have similar demoralising vibes.”

Megumi, head still down over the ropes, gave them the thumbs up. Satoru shook his head light-heartedly and turned his attention back to Yuji who was rolling his eyes once more. 

“Cmon, hands up.”

They continued sparring as the hour progressed and the late afternoon brought a lighter air. At some point, the soft rays of the setting sun passed through the shutters of the windows and lit up the ring. It was always Satoru’s favourite moment of the day, when the light was just right, and the sun just low enough to slip through the cracks. He felt a smile tug at his lips at the thought of existing within this hour, when the day said its goodbyes. God, he really did love summer.  

As Satoru started explaining to Yuji a new combination involving his legs, a girl with short brown hair falling just above her shoulders joined Megumi, grabbing the ropes excitedly as she leaned on them.

“Is Itadori getting his ass kicked?” She asked with a smile, glowing with excitement.

Megumi raised his head at the sound of the commotion next to him, looking at the girl before focusing his attention back to the ring. “Unfortunately no. Gojo-sensei is being considerate.”

Yuji frowned and repeated his new combination, punching harder. 

“You weren’t considerate when you were training me.” She remarked, almost pouting.

Satoru acknowledged her with a smile on his face. “That’s because you’re better than this brat, Nobara.”

Yuji landed a kick, almost losing balance, and dropped his hands as he returned to his original position, an offended look on his face.

“C’mon guys I’m not that shit.” 

“You’re kinda shit.” Nobara noted, making a face.

“You’re really shit.” Megumi added blankly.

“You’re not shit.” Satoru stepped in, glaring at the two of them. “You just need more training. You’ve got the greatest raw punching strength I’ve seen in a while.” He continued, honesty in his voice.

Because he remembered, too, the feeling of wanting so desperately to be good but having nothing to show for it except restless punches. Yuji scratched the back of his head with his left glove, exhaling slowly. His shoulders dropped, and he looked as if he was trying very hard to focus. They stood in silence for a second before Nobara spoke again.

“He’s saying that to make you feel better.” She said, clear humour in her voice.

Megumi grabbed a water bottle as he spoke. “You’re still shit.” 

Satoru shot them another sceptic glare before hearing Yuji dramatically sigh.

“Such big mouths on you two.” The boy said, trying to contain his smile. 

Nobara offered an exaggerated grin from ear to ear. Satoru smiled too, delighted by their spiteless banter. He watched the three of them alternatively, something in his chest that made him feel warm. They all seemed to be patiently waiting for his next words, his next moves, watching him with intent. Even Megumi, who seemed to carry boredom with him everywhere he went, could never hide that he was always listening to what Satoru had to say. They were so eager to take from him whatever he was willing to give, to learn his skills and train by his sides. 

Nanami had told him many times that they all begged to get in the ring with him. They would bet on who would be the next one on the receiving end of his analyses. Most of the time, Satoru forgot that he was one of the greats. He had never really felt like it.

As he noticed a ray of sun landing at his feet, Satoru was suddenly made aware of another pair of eyes on him. He looked up, eyes landing near the door, and could feel the softness of summer. 

Suguru was quietly watching them, wrapping his boxing wraps around his hands effortlessly. He noticed Satoru looking at him and held his eyes for a moment, acknowledging his existence, before looking away and finding the ground. Satoru hated the sky for a moment, hated the feeling of his own feet for a moment. He kept looking, and noticed that Suguru’s hair was down.

“Show’s over, kids.” He said, returning his attention to the three pairs of eyes still waiting for him to speak. “I have to train.”

Megumi and Nobara turned away, focusing on where Satoru’s attention was. Yuji, too, noticed Suguru, and mumbled something under his breath, clearly disappointed. Satoru pushed the boy’s forehead with his index finger, just like he had before.

“Manners.” He warned, little authority in the voice. He was not the best placed to give lessons on politeness. 

Yuji mumbled an apology and bowed slightly, their session now over. He walked to Megumi who was already opening the water bottle for him. 

Satoru inhaled slowly, inspecting his inner balance. The ground under his feet gave him some stability. He watched the sun rays, stripes of yellow laying in front of him like an invitation. He counted them to find an exit, anything, a reason or a myth, in order to pretend that he couldn’t feel the anger returning. That he couldn’t feel her on his tongue again. Anything to ignore that the rage was trying to come to the surface, unaware of the water, unfazed by the snow. 

He counted the rays again, and again, and looked at the dust dancing in the soft afternoon light. All the while, she grabbed his neck and brushed his cheeks with her freezing palms. She felt so much like home that Satoru’s hands almost started to shake. He turned away, trying to ignore her.

He took off the focus pads and went out of the ring with haste. He could sense someone’s attention was still on him and assumed it was Yuji’s. He made his way to where he had left his sports bag on a white plastic chair and grabbed his boxing wraps. The blue colour was starting to wash out. As he wrapped them around his knuckles, Satoru almost laughed. Blue on blue, violet fields underneath. 

The main problem that he faced, which he had always been aware of, was his complete inability to pretend. He could never lie. His face always betrayed him and he knew that his eyes carried the rage around. But he couldn’t keep himself from trying to hide it. For selfish reasons, mostly. Because he wanted to live with himself a little more peacefully.

But lately he could feel that there was something else trying to tame the rage. Another intention he had some trouble salvaging from the rubbles. The dust had settled, but the debris remained. He couldn’t really make out his own heart yet. 

Satoru flexed his fingers slowly, looking at the space that stretched between each of them. His muscles felt ready, although always on the edge of hurting, and he was aware that Suguru was warming up somewhere in his vicinity. He could feel his hands tingling, his fists begging to be clenched. He could feel the pinching and the scratching and the dragging at the back of his neck. 

And so he did all that he had left whenever rage was trying to drown him. He raised his arms up lazily and stretched, swaying from side to side, as if he had just woken up. 

He acknowledged his spine and could feel his shoulders thanking him. He extended his muscles and aligned his head with the sky, pulling and pulling and pulling, grabbing the empty space around him and feeling his arms and his back and his ribs. 

He stretched his mind, too, finding the balance somewhere between his palms up in the air and the relief in his collarbones. He took a slow breath in and swayed slowly one last time before dropping his hands. He stayed still for a minute and couldn’t feel the scratching anymore.

He looked up, sensing someone coming up to him. His eyes landed on Suguru, a black tank top on his back and hair loosely tied in a bun. He looked a second too long and noticed the strands falling in front of his face, and the bruise on his left shoulder, and the band-aid still on his knee, and his fingers moving restlessly, and the sun under his skin. And and and. Satoru looked for his own heart and still couldn’t see it. 

They didn’t have to get along. They just needed to figure something out.

Suguru stopped near him, standing at an awkward distance between too close and too far. Satoru searched his face like he had done the day before, trying to piece together what the other man was trying to convey. 

He had figured out that Suguru was so profoundly uncomfortable around him that most of the time Satoru couldn’t stand it. It was evident to anyone that looked. The restless fingers, and the constant shifting, and eyes that watched with something he could never comprehend. He had noticed apprehension in them, sometimes, when Suguru thought that he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t that he cared, but a part of him couldn’t stop hating it.

Satoru gestured towards the ring, saying nothing, and Suguru simply nodded in return.

They got into the ring, mirroring each other unconsciously. Satoru let his hand slide on the top rope, tracing the pattern of the fabric under his fingers. He liked the roughness of the used material. He started putting on his gloves, rolling his shoulders to warm them again, his eyes trailing over the sun rays mindlessly.

He looked up to see Suguru slowly swaying his head from side to side, stretching his neck thoroughly. He followed the movements, noticing the tendons and the skin moving over sharp muscles. He focused on hair, a solid shade of black, so dark he wondered if the colour could stain his skin and replace the purple if he ever touched it.

Suguru pressed his gloves together and readjusted the straps on his wrists, a concentrated frown on his face, too exaggerated for it to be natural. Eternally, Satoru watched him. 

Satoru took a slow breath in, planted his feet to the ground, and clenched his fists inside his gloves. And he could feel the pinching at the back of his neck. And he could feel the soles of his feet slowly stinging, itching for a kick. And he could feel the tension in a place where he couldn’t grab it. There was rarely a reason, but always a feeling. 

He blinked slowly, an attempt at chasing away the fury in his eyes, lost somewhere between giving up and trying again.

He locked eyes with Suguru for a split second before the other man’s focus drifted to Satoru’s shoulders. Suguru was already watching out for a punch, even though Satoru was still standing on the other side of the ring. When faced with himself, Satoru thought he would probably do the same. It didn’t make the anger grow any quieter.

He raised his fists to his chin while walking to the centre of the ring, Suguru mirroring him. His brain went loud, something cold taking over every fibre of his mind, every nerve ending in his body. There was no sound but ice-cold anger, nothing in his vision but impact points, nothing in his stomach but knots. 

Just as with everybody that he ever had to fight, Satoru could barely see Suguru. All he could make out, through the dust and the bruises, was the rage.

His body moved on instinct, his fist aiming for a cross punch, and Suguru blocked, and Satoru felt like they were back to square one. His body tried again, his energy going to his leg and attempting a kick, and Suguru stepped back. Another flash of black hair, all that Satoru could see, and skin that never ended. Another attempt at a punch, somewhere under his ribs something felt wrong, and Satoru could feel the sharpness of his own tongue. Cold fingers on the back of his neck. A heaviness on his shoulder blades. He knew where to hit and he ignored it all, his brain thinking of nothing at all, and yet Satoru knew what to do, where to step, how to punch and hurt. But his feet danced in the air and landed nowhere. 

He could feel his own body dodging and blocking and shifting, moving around so effectively that anything Suguru tried ended in failure too. Time passed, just like it had the day before, and minutes walked past them. 

All the while they tried, and failed, and danced around each other, Satoru’s attention lost between the rage and himself. He was conscious of his detestable eyes but he couldn’t see the man in front of him as a whole.

The only thing Satoru could notice, when he stopped just long enough, were the sun rays flickering on the ring. He walked in circles slowly, carried by his feet following ghost moves engraved on skin tissue. His focus drifted from the rage to the sun. 

It was getting lower, yellow turning into a soft orange, the dust lifted by their steps still dancing around them. He was distantly aware that no natural light was ever supposed to enter this place. His eyes trailed over the stripes turning the pale beige ground into gold. He noticed how they replicated the cracks of the shutters, and he wondered how the sun was reaching him here, how it was his first time noticing it between these walls. Had the sun always been able to light up this very precise spot, or had it found a way to slither through this window as it settled down at the end of the day? 

Satoru wondered how he had never seen this, how he had never caught a glimpse of the shimmer. In some rays, the light was dancing, filtered by the leaves of a nearby tree, and Satoru’s feet danced with it. 

His eyes continued tracing the pattern and landed on honey skin under the sunlight. It was catching the light shamelessly, trapping it with an ease that was almost unsettling. Satoru’s eyes trailed up, watching the sunbeams find Suguru’s legs, embracing him like they were all made of the very same essence. Satoru slowed his steps down and his eyes traced their own path. 

He found Suguru’s face under the setting sun and he couldn’t really feel the cold fingers at the back of his neck anymore. At the sight, his anger went silent. 

He watched and he watched and he noticed how even the bruises looked tender on Suguru’s skin, how even the scars looked loved on Suguru’s arms. He was aware that he was staring, seeing the man standing in front of him for the first time, conscious that the black of his hair revealed a brown tint when hit by sunlight. 

And Suguru’s face looked like something he knew nothing of and everything at the same time, but Satoru had no clue where his own heart was, except somewhere he had forgotten about for a little while, except somewhere between himself and the Sun.

“Talk to me.” He suddenly let out, caught by surprise by his voice ringing low in his chest.

Suguru slowed down his walking. His guard had been lowered to his shoulders and he was watching with eyes so precise Satoru felt that they were reflecting his own pale skin.

Suguru frowned, destabilised by the sudden interaction. “What?”

Satoru noticed that Suguru’s eyes were a mellow shade of brown, tiptoeing on the edge of a miracle. Amber and the Sun.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.” 

Suguru blinked, chasing away the sunlight in his eyes, his guard never truly dropping. He was still watching Satoru’s every move, attentive. He blinked again, visibly trying to find his words. His cheeks were a single shade too deep for Satoru not to painfully notice.

“Why?” Suguru asked after a while with a slightly defensive tone rarely heard on him.

Satoru sighed. “Just tell me, man.” 

He eyed the sunbeams’ outlines on Suguru’s chest, his anger deflating.

They came to a halt, both keeping their guards up and balance ready. Satoru watched as Suguru’s eyes trailed over his entire body, gauging his shoulders and arms and chest, down his legs and ankles and feet, like he was trying to find answers on hidden skin. Satoru could feel the back of his neck stinging again, this time for reasons he knew weren’t linked to the rage. He watched as Suguru basked in the sun and the silence for a moment. 

After a while, Suguru spoke, voice low and eyes dancing. “Your weight shifts are so sudden.”

His tone was something akin to wonder, like he was trying to comprehend his own words. Satoru registered them, still watching with attention. He knew he was quick but he wasn’t completely aware of just how much. On the ring facing Suguru, his own pace had not felt like anything extraordinary.

“What else?” Satoru probed. 

Suguru took another minute to think, his attention lost somewhere on Satoru’s arms. Satoru bit his own tongue, something on the tip of it that resembled imprudence. He wasn’t very sure of his own mind and couldn’t really tell if he was standing on solid ground. 

The sun had landed on him too, but it felt a bit wrong to try and pry it from Suguru’s skin. He chased the words away and waited for the dark-haired man to speak.

“I’m mostly telling myself to react to your moves.” Suguru admitted quietly.

Satoru dropped his hands at the admission, his guard forgotten. He frowned, fixing his gaze on the other man’s face, wishing that his thoughts would magically appear above his head and hover in the air. It would be easier than trying to drag the words out of Suguru’s mouth.

“You don’t plan on attacking?” Satoru asked, puzzled. 

“No. Not with you.”

“Why?”

It was Suguru’s turn to drop his guard. They stood facing each other, miles apart. If Satoru focused just enough, he could imagine Suguru’s fingers inside his gloves, fidgeting with the fabric and trying to fold it. He couldn’t keep himself from seeing the motion, his mind conjuring it with a disconcerting ease, and he wondered how long he had stared at honey-bruised hands for it to be so clear. 

“You act on instinct.” Suguru finally said. “There is no point trying to figure out your patterns.”

Satoru noticed how his own fingers were scratching the inside of his gloves like they were trying to escape. He watched how Suguru shrugged, an air of faked nonchalance surrounding him, how his previously balanced legs were now shifting his weight a little too quickly, and how through it all the sun rays never left him. 

“So you’re just waiting for me to fuck up?” Satoru asked.

Suguru squinted, looking like he suddenly noticed that the sun was in his eyes, and raised his right forearm to his eyebrows to shield his face from it.

“Something like that.” He answered, voice barely above a whisper.

At that, Satoru suppressed a sarcastic smile, amused by the honesty. He hummed as he thought of it all. It was almost funny, albeit slightly annoying, that Suguru was waiting for him. He was pretty much aware that the other man was as destabilised fighting him as Satoru was. He knew Suguru was brilliant and could win with the right opportunities, which he had proven by choking the air out of him. His technique had been flawless and he could see that Suguru had knowledge carved in every single one of his moves. 

Satoru felt slightly insane at the thought, because he couldn’t remember much of their previous fight, just that he had regained consciousness in Suguru’s arms and that the anger had been so devastating it had made the rest insignificant. That he had tried really hard to keep it away all night, like he was trying now, because he knew it was part of why his brain couldn’t register anything. And for reasons he couldn’t yet understand, Satoru wanted to remember this.

He didn’t mind the idea that Nanami was rarely wrong, but it was another thing to admit that he had always been right. Satoru could feel that facing Suguru was drawing him out of his habitual thoughtless fighting, pushing him out of his own body and forcing him to reflect on the why. Why they were both incapable of landing a single blow, why they spent more time staring at each other rather than making moves, why Satoru had had to resort to a petty nickname to create an opening, and why he had wanted to repeat it one time too many ever since.  

His eyes never left Suguru, watching how he was still shielding his face from the sun, and how his cheeks and nose looked like they had been warmed by it. 

He thought of Suguru’s fighting style, aware that it was almost flawless, and yet he couldn’t recall a single thing other than the headlock. He frowned, realisation filling his brain.

“I’m not even watching out for your patterns.” Satoru stated blankly.

Another beat, the silence sounding small, and Suguru answered.

“I know.”

Satoru frowned again as he stared at Suguru’s arm over his face. The sun was almost set now, a deep orange colour that reminded him of tangerines. The day was lasting in a way that felt almost comical. The ceiling lights had not been turned on yet, but Satoru knew this was only a matter of time. He wished naively for the Sun to never leave him.

He noticed that Suguru’s lips were moving, as if he was talking to himself. He could barely hear him. He caught a glimpse of amber eyes and stepped forward unconsciously.

“What’s that?” Satoru cut in, attention fully glued on Suguru.

“It’s like you don’t care whether you get punched or not.” Suguru repeated himself, words louder, a distant crack in the voice.

Satoru blinked, eyes lost on sun-warmed cheeks and a blush.

“I don’t.”

Suguru sighed heavily, his chest deflating with the motion. He dropped the arm shielding his face and Satoru couldn’t tell where his own head started. 

And the truth was easy. Satoru didn’t think he could do it differently. He would take the beatings and win, he would touch his ribs and bare his teeth, he would hide it under used bandages and his mother would never know. There was nothing else to add. 

The sun had moved, almost gone from the ring, and Suguru was looking at him with a kind of urgency Satoru was starting to notice. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like that his neck kept burning. He didn’t like that Suguru watched him with a consideration he knew was misplaced but always there. He looked as if he was constantly trying to understand something on Satoru’s skin but was running out of time. 

Satoru figured he hated it because he could feel his balance leaning to the wrong side. It felt akin to insanity, sometimes. Yet, a part of him couldn’t keep pretending that Suguru wasn’t indulgent, or at the very least polite. There was no hostility in anything Suguru did, in how he carried himself or spoke, even so sporadically. 

It was something else, something that made Satoru so deeply angry he had trouble seeing clearly. It was a weight, present in every move and word from Suguru, a hole he was constantly trying to dig himself out of with his bare hands. Satoru didn’t know where the anger came from, but he knew that he, too, could feel the weight.

Someone switched on the ceiling lights and Satoru made a face. 

The hour dragged on as they kept sparring in silence. Satoru gambled with himself and forced his eyes to see Suguru fully. He tried to keep them sharp, to watch the other man moving, to trace his body like a map so he could find his fighting pattern. He lost his focus on a scar that looked like a moon crescent and understood it was pointless. 

Faces red and chests heaving, they ended their session without talking, a mutual understanding between them. Satoru left the ring first, with haste. He felt the annoying pull of frustration in his fingers. Fighting Suguru left him with doubts and questions that were starting to be irritating. It kept creating interrogations about his own fighting, but also about Suguru’s, a sort of undeniable feeling that they were both doing something wrong. Or something really right. Satoru couldn’t distinguish the two, which was the problem.

He sat on a plastic chair and tried to bury his exposed nerves. 

As he undid his washed-out boxing wraps, Satoru felt someone’s attention on him. Multiple someones, he could tell, judging by the intrigued chatter that was getting louder. 

He raised his head and noticed Yuji and Nobara staring at him, eyes wide and impressed, exchanging whispered words that sounded everything but discreet. He raised an eyebrow, leaning back on his chair as he kept revealing his violet knuckles.

“Spit it out, brats.” Satoru said, watching them.

Nobara elbowed Yuji who elbowed her in return as they both came up to him. Satoru suppressed a smile and folded his boxing wraps mindlessly. They came to a halt next to him, and Nobara found the courage to speak.

“It was insane.”

“So cool.” Yuji whispered, shaking his head in admiration.

“Just insane.” She repeated as she sat cross-legged on the edge of the ring, facing Satoru. 

Yuji mirrored her, blinking in awe, lost in a sort of trance that made Satoru wonder if he was okay. 

“What was insane?” Satoru asked, raising an amused eyebrow at them as he threw his boxing wraps in his bag. They landed with a soft thud. 

“The sparring.” Nobara said in disbelief. “It was like watching something rehearsed.”

“So cool.” Yuji repeated, still watching Satoru with eyes double their normal size.

Satoru stilled for an instant, taking in the words and fighting to keep his composure. Something in his ribcage felt wrong. He thought it was probably not a feeling but the sensation of his ribs that were still bruised. 

He hid his discomfort, leaning back on his chair as he remained silent, searching for an appropriate comment to make. There was none. He felt like shit and all he could perceive was a sharp annoyance.

Faced with Satoru’s silence, Nobara pressed on. “How did you manage to do it?”

Satoru tilted his head to the side, forcing nonchalance in front of the younger boxers. “Do what?” 

“Whatever that was!” Nobara gestured to the air around her, then to the ring, not bothering to hide her enthusiasm. “Neither of you could touch the other.”

“So cool.” Yuji repeated for the third time, incapable of coming up with anything else.

“Shut it, dumbass.” Nobara said, elbowing the other boy with little care.  

Satoru felt something tug at his lips. It was more a grimace than a smile. 

The truth was that he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what that was, what he was doing or trying to do in that ring, what Suguru’s deal was, why he was unable to touch him and yet somehow felt like this was the best boxing both of them were capable of. 

He didn’t know why he was trying to see Suguru when he would usually not even bother to ask for a name, why he was trying to think and comprehend and analyse where he would usually just black out and punch. He didn’t know what he was trying to prove. He didn’t know why Suguru was still here. He didn’t know anything, except that the scratching at the back of his neck had stopped and Suguru had a scar on his right shoulder.

Satoru lied, because there was nothing else to do.

“It’s talent, kids.” He winked at them, standing up. “Train hard and you’ll get there.” 

He ruffled their hair awkwardly. His hand was instantly swatted away by Nobara who glared at him, while Yuji smiled with his whole face, enjoying the gesture. It was enough to placate some of Satoru’s unease. 

Satoru shooed them away, ordering them to work on their cardio. They nodded dutifully, complying with his words. He watched them walk to the same punching bag, Yuji making an exaggerated face as he heard Nobara say something probably out of pocket. 

Satoru shook his head and was reminded of a boy with gloom on his shoulders. He frowned, mumbling to himself where’s the third one, and turned around, eyes finding Megumi instinctively. 

Megumi’s attention was lost somewhere else, on hair as dark as his. He was sitting on the edge of another ring, swaying from side to side lazily as he watched Suguru from a distance. Satoru’s eyes found Suguru, then, undoing his boxing wraps while stretching his neck. He looked a second too long, eyes returning to Megumi who was still watching attentively, a barely perceptible frown on his face. Satoru frowned in return, debating whether to intervene, but he strangely felt that this wasn’t his place, that he was intruding. 

He stayed silent and waited for Suguru to pick up on Megumi’s intentional staring, which Satoru weirdly knew would happen. Suguru was good at noticing, even if he pretended not to. 

Suguru shifted his weight and looked up, finding Megumi watching him, and after a second that felt like eternity to Satoru, Suguru offered him an encouraging smile. Like he had been waiting for a sign all this time, Megumi walked up to him hesitantly. Suguru’s smile never wavered.

Satoru turned around, feeling the bruises on his ribs, and left. 

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Satoru slammed the pot into the sink, staring at Shoko with gigantic eyes and an horrified look on his face. He let the burning water hit his hands.

“You’re so dramatic. Why not?” Shoko asked, tone blank.

She was writing things down on a clipboard as she went over the content on the kitchen’s shelves, unbothered by Satoru’s shrieking. Satoru blinked in astonishment, staring at her like she had grown a second head. 

“Because?” He said in an obvious tone, blinking rapidly like he was trying to shake himself awake.

“Because what?”

Satoru raised his hands and gestured to the air around him in desperation, droplets of warm water hitting his face and his clothes. He murmured a distressed what?, still staring at Shoko who was tapping her pen down on a basket of vegetables, counting the cabbages in it. Surely, he was hearing things wrong.

He turned off the faucet, the sound of running water suddenly irritating him. 

“Shoko, it’s not gonna happen.” Satoru sounded alarmed, being louder than he already usually was. “I barely know the guy.”

Shoko looked at him then, shrugging. “And?” 

“And?” Satoru repeated while gesturing with his hands in anguish. “Are you dense?”

Shoko rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the wooden basket full of cabbages. “You’re so touchy about him, jeez.”

Satoru made a face and shook his head in disbelief. He wiped his wet palms on his jeans, turning the situation in his brain over and over again. No matter how he looked at it, all he could feel was a shared sense of complete insanity instigated by Shoko. He narrowed his eyes, somewhat feeling offended. 

“I’m not touchy. We just don’t click.” Satoru countered defensively. 

Shoko paid him no mind, humming as she moved to counting packs of flour. Satoru waited on the defensive, expecting her to reiterate her demand, but she remained silent while scribbling down on her clipboard as she continued with the inventory. He side-eyed her one last time, prudently focusing his attention back to the dishes in the sink, turning the water back on. Ten seconds later, Shoko spoke again.

“Invite him.”

Satoru dropped the bottle of dish soap and made a noise of protest, turning back to Shoko who was evidently fighting back a smile while taping her pen to her chin. Satoru felt, at that moment, that she must have been evil.

“Drop it. I don’t want to.” He complained, his voice just a shade too loud. 

“I’m not asking if you want to.” Shoko shrugged as she moved to counting packs of sugar. “I’m telling you to do it cause I want him there.”

“Are you actually serious?” He asked, incredulity taking over him. “Why?”

Satoru once again turned off the water and faced her, moving too fast with anguish, his left index finger tapping his own temple like he was trying to drive off some kind of lunacy. He blinked, face twisted in a grimace that made him look unhinged. Shoko, still, remained unfazed. 

“Well, I personally think he’s kind and I liked when he was here.” She explained like it was evident. “So invite him on my behalf.”

Satoru was stunned to the point of speechlessness. He stared at her like a madman trying to decipher a riddle. Except the riddle was in a language he couldn’t understand and was somehow specifically created to drive him to the point of no return. 

He tried to form coherent words but everything died in his brain. He felt that it was it, that he had gone insane for good. He remained knocked out for another minute, eyes drilling holes to the side of Shoko’s head.

“Are you fucking with me?” He inquired, doubting that it could be a joke.

“It’s my party anyway, you don’t have a say in who comes.”

Shoko made her way further to the back of the kitchen, disappearing from Satoru’s view as she opened a refrigerator. Satoru stayed glued to where he was standing, staring at the grey fridge’s door that was hiding her. 

“It’s not even a party Shoko it’s like – ” Satoru gestured to the empty air in distress, stupefied and looking for his words. “A gathering of ten people. What is going on right now?”

Shoko slammed the door, accusatory eyes finding Satoru from a distance. He was used to her harsh stare but it was always a surprise when it came out so suddenly. He grimaced even more, irritated. 

“You dragged him all the way here and glared at him all dinner.” She pointed her pen at him. “The least you can do is repay him with a good night.”

Satoru’s eyes grew even wider and he let out a strangled laugh. “Repay him? Seriously?”

“Yes. And as I said, I think he’s really kind.” Shoko repeated.

She looked at Satoru disapprovingly, who was still staring at her with two moons in lieu of eyes. She turned away and reopened the refrigerator, focusing on her task and deciding to ignore the headache her friend was. 

Satoru went over the events of Monday night, over the dinner and the silence and his anger. Over how quiet Suguru had been, how fidgety he had appeared to Satoru, like a deer ready to flee. He had perceived the discomfort and the internal noise Suguru had tried to dig himself out of. He shook his head and leaned on the edge of the sink, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You spent an hour with him and he said maybe five words.” Satoru noted, frowning. 

“And? I still liked his vibe.” Shoko answered matter-of-factly, her voice coming from behind the fridge’s door. “You’re so close minded, Satoru.”

Satoru grimaced again, questioning if he was hallucinating or if Shoko had simply gone mad. The main vibe Satoru had picked up from Suguru was an hesitancy that made his own anger so steadfast he didn’t know where to put it. Satoru also liked to pretend that he wasn’t noticing anything else, like how Suguru looked at people with an attentiveness that was almost surgical but always gentle. It was easier to brush it aside. 

“Well his vibe makes me think that spending time surrounded by people he knows jack shit about is probably not his definition of a good night.” Satoru stated, thinking of quiet eyes.

At that, Shoko poked her head from behind the fridge’s door, looking at Satoru suspiciously. She narrowed her eyes, humming as she raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Satoru, sensing his mistake, frowned.

“So you do know something about him.” She remarked. A smile was devilishly tugging at her lips. 

“Shut up.” Satoru grumbled. He didn’t actively try to know things about Suguru. He just happened to always notice them, somehow.

At the thought, Satoru shook his head, a kind of agitation taking over him. “He’s just so – he’s like –” He gestured to the open air once more, looking comically distressed. “He doesn’t talk!”

Shoko closed the fridge, giving Satoru a judgmental look. She made her way to where he was standing and slapped his forehead with her pen before walking past him. Satoru made a noise of complaint and turned around, following her with his eyes. 

“He probably does talk when you ask him stuff, you know.” Shoko scolded as she opened another cabinet. 

Satoru kept looking at her, dramatically baffled. He had known from the very first second that she was not going to change her mind. Her steadiness, today, felt like a curse dropped on Satoru’s whole existence. 

“This is so fucking stupid.” He commented, resigning himself to his fate. He pinched the bridge of his nose, his damp fingertips feeling all wrong.

“You’re being overly sensitive about this whole thing, you know.”

Satoru let the air out of his lungs, registering Shoko’s words. He could feel his nape stinging, like a freezing razor blade being pressed slowly against his neck, the skin bending under it. His fingers were colder still, the warm water he used for the dishes forgotten by them. 

The weather today was standing somewhere between the sun and the rain, the humidity making his clothes stick to his body. He didn’t mind it much but he was always unable to feel really warm when rain was involved. He checked his own limbs for an instant, conversing with his feet and asking his hands to ignore the coldness. He knew he was annoyed, he knew it all resembled his anger, and he felt like the clouds, today, were specifically not helping. He was being overly sensitive and he had no idea why. 

Satoru reached the back of his neck, digging his fingers into the skin mercilessly, trying to ease the sensation. He massaged the muscles harshly for a minute and stared at the ground. He felt the sudden urge to stretch. 

He let his hand drop, looking up at Shoko only to find her already watching him with questioning eyes. 

“Fine. I’ll invite him.” Satoru caved in, admitting defeat. “On your behalf, not mine.” 

He avoided Shoko’s eyes, turning back towards the sink with a feeling in his belly that he couldn’t quite ignore anymore. 

They finished their tasks in silence. Satoru was mildly aware that the rain had started again, the sound of the raindrops on windows pushing him further into his uneasy state. He looked outside, seeing that the day was already starting to set, and sighed loudly. Shoko gave him a concerned look and followed his eyes, noticing the daylight fading already. 

“Go. I’ll close.” She ordered, nodding as she made her way to yet another cabinet.

Satoru thanked her, voice tired, and ruffled her hair before stepping outside. He had no umbrella and decided he was already cold anyway. 

The rain hit him harder than he had expected. His white shirt gave up instantly, turning into an uncomfortable sticky mess, coldly grabbing his chest and shoulders. He looked down at himself and winced, annoyed at the sight and feeling. His hair welcomed the water too, sticking to his forehead and falling into his eyes. Satoru tried to accept the sensation of the rain hitting his skin but no matter how much he tried to convince himself of his own nonchalance, he was too cold and he hated it. A shiver ran through his entire body as he started walking towards the gym. 

Thirty minutes passed and the rain never stopped once.

He pushed the door to the place with a defeated face, so profoundly annoyed by his entire existence and the feeling of his t-shirt digging into his skin. 

“Nice look!” Yuki joked as she walked past, offering him an amused smile.

He glared at her as a response, following her with his eyes as she made her way upstairs, suppressing a laugh. 

He could feel droplets on his cheeks, dropping from his hair and down his neck. Another full-body shiver, another wince. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, but it was wet too, and he felt a sudden wave of sensory overload washing over him. Another shiver, and he suppressed a sneeze, and promised himself to always carry an umbrella. He knew he would forget about it the next day.

He made his way to the locker room, body shivering and carrying himself awkwardly, uncomfortable in his clothes and own body. A constant flow of curses escaped his mouth as he mumbled to himself, cursing the earth and the heavens and all the layers of hell. He pushed the door of the locker room open and was met with the sun.

He found honey skin first, bruises here and there, forming incoherent patterns on soft skin. He saw a spine then, the bones barely visible, and his eyes trailed over it like they were seeing the world for the first time. His fingers started stinging and his nape was so cold and he thought that this time it was really it, he had gone completely insane, drunk with a madness no one could drag him from. He felt the razor blades burying themselves into his neck, so deep and so profound and so brutal he felt dizzy. 

His eyes landed on shoulders like the sky, and maybe he was coming up with a cold or maybe a fever, or maybe it was the rain driving him to perdition but he prayed to all the gods he could think of to give him a reason, anything, to explain this. To explain why he was frozen into his body, his fingers grasping the door like a lifeline, his neck burning and stinging and freezing all at once, a constant flow of why why why banging in his skull like an incantation. 

He noticed long hair brushing exposed skin, black ink on paper, and the feeling of dying. He noticed Suguru and he forgot about the cold.

The other man pulled his black t-shirt over his back and Satoru hated everything. He turned around, bobbing his head to whatever was blasting in his earphones, and slightly jumped, startled. 

His eyes landed on Satoru still holding the door open, frozen into place. He took in Satoru’s face, registering his expression, and Satoru could see something like concern taking over his features. Why why why. Satoru bit the inside of his cheek. He tried to bite the inside of his lungs and the inside of his stomach and the inside of his heart but couldn’t find anything but Suguru’s gentle eyes watching him. 

They stared at each other. Suguru frowned, looking more and more troubled as he kept watching Satoru’s face. Satoru let go of the door, his hand dropping to his side. Suguru followed the motion. His eyes grew slightly wider as he suddenly seemed to notice the other man’s drenched state. 

The door banged loudly, reminding Satoru that he needed to say something. He didn’t know what, but he needed to. 

“You’re invited to a party.” He let out, his voice in a vacuum.

Suguru’s eyes trailed over Satoru’s figure too fast before finding his face again. He blinked, trying to chase something away, and realised somehow that Satoru had spoken. He took off his earphones hastily, almost dropping one in the process, and buried them in his shorts pockets. Satoru watched, eyes following the movements of the other man’s hands. 

“What?” Suguru asked quietly. His voice barely reached Satoru, and yet it was enough.

A beat, again, like every time they seemed to search each other’s face for their own words. Satoru, this time, didn’t know where his tongue was.

“Shoko.” He stated with no context.

Suguru blinked rapidly, looking lost and growing quieter by the minute. Satoru could see that he was trying to read his face in order to come up with an explanation. He could also see that Suguru was failing to do so, that his fingers had picked up their usual motion on the hem of his t-shirt, that he looked so confused it was almost painful. 

“What?” Suguru repeated, his voice barely audible, but Satoru could make out the word through the noise of his own brain.

Satoru could only feel the back of his head, banging and freezing and sending fight signals into his fists. Something like rage, but something different, but it felt all the same. 

“You’re invited to her party.” He clarified, still staring at Suguru like they were both insane. He knew the invitation sounded like madness anyway.

A concerning amount of different emotions washed over Suguru’s face, who seemed to register the words one by one, turning them in his head and printing them on his cheeks that had turned a shade too deep for reasons Satoru chose to ignore. 

“Oh.”

“It’s Friday.”

A pause, long enough for Satoru to notice that Suguru was now trying to fold the edge of his shorts pocket. He had put a band aid around his index finger, a shade of beige too light on his skin.

“Okay.” Suguru replied, more to himself than to Satoru. 

They remained in silence. Satoru was still blocking the door, but he was unable to remember what he had meant to do and why he was here. He watched as Suguru kept watching him, always, gauging his face with intent. He didn’t seem like he was about to move, and a part of Satoru felt that he had to speak, as if he was running out of time, and that keeping Suguru exactly where he was standing was needed.

“You don’t have to come.” Satoru let out, his voice a little too loud and a little too mean.

Suguru pursed his lips slightly at that, an attempt at hiding something, and Satoru regretted his words and his tone and his own birth. He watched as Suguru scratched the back of his neck, eyes suddenly unfocused. 

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.” He clarified hastily, voice clear, making sure that it reached the other man. He knew Suguru was always paying attention.

The silence continued. Suguru began playing with the hairband around his right wrist, eyes still trailing somewhere between Satoru and the wall. He nodded as a response, sliding a hand through his hair mechanically, and Satoru watched, because there was nothing else he could do.  

“She wants you to be there.” Satoru added, his voice always an octave too loud for it to be soft.

At that, Suguru’s eyes found him, and Satoru was hating the world, and himself, and the other man in the room. His face was unreadable, his eyebrows furrowed slightly too much for it to be normal, but his eyes looked kind. There was surprise somewhere, too, and Suguru almost looked skeptical. Satoru felt the need to explain that he wasn’t joking, but he knew it wouldn’t help, that he would just sound like he was making fun of the whole thing. He felt like a madman and everything about this day made so little sense his own equilibrium was off. 

The silence stretched, and Suguru’s face settled into quietness yet again, like he was putting his own thoughts aside. He suddenly seemed to remember how to move, and fully focused his attention back to Satoru, who was still only feeling the back of his head. 

Suguru frowned as he took in Satoru’s state, seemingly really noticing the extent of what he was looking at. 

“You’re drenched.” He stated quietly.

Satoru, for a second, didn’t know what Suguru was talking about. 

He was reminded of his own body, of the shirt sticking to his skin, of his hair in his eyes, of the droplets still dripping on his cheeks and down the back of his neck. He looked down at his body, following Suguru’s eyes, and suddenly remembered the cold.

“Oh, yeah.”

He looked at his hands, his fingers a shade of red that was unpleasant. He registered the coldness of his palms, and how his socks were drenched, and how his shoes looked. A small puddle of water had formed where he was standing and he suppressed a sneeze at the sight.  

“You’re shivering.”

Satoru looked at his arms, goosebumps visible on pale skin. A shiver took over almost on command as he heard Suguru’s soft-spoken words. He needed to get out of this awful t-shirt.

“Yeah. Force of habit.” Satoru said, frowning, still assessing his own state.

He tried to unstick the t-shirt from his chest and made a disgusted face at the feeling, another shiver running through him. He cursed again, Suguru forgotten for an instant as he moved his feet, hearing the squishing noise of his wet shoe soles. He ran a hand through his white hair, getting them away from his face and his eyes, and shook his head with force, a desperate attempt at removing some of the water. 

He sneezed then, and looked up, only to find Suguru still looking at him, poorly hiding his amusement. Satoru pretended not to notice that a smile was tugging at Suguru’s lips.

“I’m gonna change.” Satoru said, trying to unstick the t-shirt relentlessly, wriggling around uncomfortably.

Suguru nodded, still fighting off a smile. “Yeah. Okay.” He quickly picked up the water bottle from his locker.

Satoru moved, walking towards his own locker awkwardly. He opened it in a hurry and grabbed a spare t-shirt, a washed out grey he didn’t really like, felt some movement behind him and heard the door bang shut. 

He almost ripped the t-shirt from his own back, suppressing annoyed noises as he did so, and wondered why he felt like every nerve ending in his body was sensing his distress. He changed into dry clothes as he tried to pick up his balance from wherever it was, and knew he was in no state to spare. A migraine was nesting at the back of his head and he blamed it on the rain.

He stuck to lifting weights and punching bags, push ups and jumping ropes. He tried to punch his headache away. He grew more annoyed as minutes turned into an hour, and an hour into two, and all the while he did his best to ignore his own head. 

Suguru didn’t ask him about sparring, and Satoru wondered why. A part of him knew that Suguru was probably just too reticent or uncomfortable to come up to him, but he also selfishly believed that the other man might have picked on his off-balanced state and decided to give him space. 

Either way, the result was the same. Satoru was left alone, with his damp hair and his irritation. 

He tried to reason with himself, but on days like these, there was nothing he could say or do that worked. His spine felt wrong, like it was a centimetre off to the left, and the headache had migrated behind his eyes. His healing bruises felt like fresh cuts, his knees too fragile, and his shins too long. His punches vibrated through his body in an unpleasant way and his lower-back bothered him. His nose, too, tingled. He kept scrunching it. He stretched so many times he lost count, trying to align his spine with his head, his ribcage with his heart, his hips with his shoulders, but it all felt wrong and his muscles kind of hurt. Satoru, still, blamed the rain. 

He was mildly aware of Suguru training in the ring with Nanami, but purposely ignored them, trying to keep his eyes to himself. They felt too dry even with the rain. He kept blinking like he was adjusting an imaginary lens in his vision, and the overhead lights were on, and everything was so deeply annoying he ended up sitting on the floor, stretching his legs, touching his heels with his hand one side at the time. He pushed and pushed and pushed, reaching further until his ear was almost to his knee, like he was trying to hear his own bloodstream. 

His hair brushed the skin of his thigh, and he hated that he had to switch to shorts because his joggers were drenched, and he tried not to look at the state of his legs too much. Here and there, flashes of an ugly yellowish pink or a raw purple would enter his vision, and he knew that Nanami was never going to let him fight on Sunday, because the bruises hugged his shins and knees and ankles like they were trying to suffocate him. His legs had always bruised easier than the rest of him. 

He ended his training with furrowed brows and an ache, and made his way to the locker room to retrieve his drying clothes. He picked them up from the bench, opened his locker with haste and stuffed them into his sports clothes. He felt the urge to crash out, to find his bed and leave this day behind. He ran a hand through his now dry hair and pulled it slightly, trying to relieve some tension in his skull. He sighed, reminding himself to unclench his jaw. 

He heard the door open and looked up to see Suguru’s head popping in, an hesitant look on his face. Satoru knew he looked like a public menace, eyes tired and dry, a frown on his face and an unshakable annoyance in his mind. He stared at Suguru who was visibly assessing whether he was walking into upcoming chaos or not. Despite all the alarming signals radiating from Satoru, he stepped into the locker room and Satoru frowned even more.

Suguru stood where Satoru had before, blocking the door unconsciously, keeping both of them where they were standing. Satoru could feel it again, his nape burning and freezing all the same. He raised an eyebrow, nudging the other man into speaking. He really wanted to go home.

After a moment, Suguru spoke. “I don’t have Shoko’s address.” 

His tone was sweet, like he was somewhere between defusing a bomb and forming an apology. Satoru’s frown softened slightly at the sound, his jaw not releasing any tension, and he registered the words before holding out his hand to Suguru, palm up.

“Give me your phone.”

Suguru looked down at Satoru’s hand, considering it for a second, before pulling his phone out from his shorts pocket. He unlocked it and handed it over, the note app open. Satoru grabbed it, deliberately choosing not to notice that Suguru’s fingers were burning against his for a second, and tapped in Shoko’s address and phone number. He handed it back without a word.

Satoru turned away, grabbed his sports bag and closed his locker with an unpleasant bang. A shiver ran through him at the sound and he wondered if his skin was going to melt under the rain still pouring outside. 

He turned to leave, only to find Suguru eyeing his legs with furrowed brows. He felt his own ribs crack, somehow, and the anger grabbed his throat so suddenly he almost felt like throwing up. His fist tightened around his bag and his neck was hurting so bad and the migraine was so strong. And it all felt a little too much and his rage was a little too wide and he didn’t know where to put all of it.

“Keep your eyes to yourself.” He spat out bitterly.

Suguru looked up, startled and wide-eyed, lips half opened like he was about to apologise. Satoru pushed past him without another word.

He got home, hatred and rage somewhere within, and crashed out within minutes.

Two days passed, the rain never stopped, and Satoru was opening drinks in Shoko’s kitchen, listening to whatever song was on shuffle and mindlessly bobbing his head along. 

He had not been to the gym for the past seventy-two hours and Nanami kept blowing up his phone with all kinds of scoldings Satoru knew all too well. He also knew he wasn’t going to let him fight on Sunday, that he would find a reason to explain it, that the reason would make sense but Satoru would pretend it didn’t, and it was better this way. He took a sip of his beer and chased the thoughts away.

He made his way to Shoko’s living room, the sound of muffled music becoming clearer and clearer as he got closer. He stepped over a dark haired man sitting lazily on the carpet, called Kusakabe. Satoru had always been quite fond of him because he could talk your ear off with random facts that no one else knew. He was a long-time friend from high school. 

Satoru moved to the sofa, gesturing for Shoko to scoot over, and plopped down on the cushions. He took another sip of his beer and focused his attention on the discussion to his right, between a very invested Shoko and a dubious Uraume, shuffling cards in their hands. 

“There’s just no way you’ve never played the Yamanote line drinking game.” Shoko asked, the disbelief in her voice so evident.

“I’m not from Tokyo, how am I supposed to know this?” Uraume asked, raising an eyebrow as they settled the cards on the table, putting a hair strand behind their ear. Their bleached white and red hair had always been an echo to Satoru’s. 

Kusakabe straightened up from where he was slouching on the ground and took a sip of his drink, suddenly interested in the conversation.

“I’m pretty sure they play it in Kyoto too.” He explained with an amused smile. 

Uraume gave him a stern look. “Shut it, know-it-all.” They let out, grabbing their cup from the table.

Satoru smiled at the interaction and took another long sip. He let himself enjoy the atmosphere, comfortable on the brown couch he had known for most of his life.

Shoko’s apartment was a place Satoru had grown up in. It was her parents’ first and most prized possession. They had cherished it for years before passing it down to Shoko when they decided to move closer to the family restaurant. 

The walls had pushpins’ marks all over them, blue tack traces that had been painted over, reminiscent of the love and time that had happened here. The lights were a shade of warm white that hugged anyone that stepped into the place, and bay windows in the living room led to a small balcony. Pictures of the Ieri family were scattered around the house. If anyone focused just enough, they would notice that on most of them, a boy with blue eyes could also be seen.

Satoru had noted early on in his life that this apartment was one of the rare places where his headaches didn’t show. It wasn’t much but it was home.

He let his eyes trail over the old carpet’s intricate design before someone pulled him out of his reverie, tapping his left knee.

“When’s your friend coming?”

He looked up to find Kusakabe looking at him from his seat on the ground. Satoru frowned, letting his head drop back on the couch’s headrest. He looked at the ceiling above him, noticing the single star-shaped glowing sticker Shoko had put there as a child. Nobody ever understood how she had done it. 

“He’s not my friend.” He complained, voice loud for everybody to hear.

Kusakabe shrugged. “Right, boxing buddy or whatever.”

Satoru bit the inside of his cheek and thought of dark hair washed by sunlight. 

“Ask Shoko.” He said, punctuating his sentence by taking a sip. “She’s the one who invited him.”

“Invited who?”

Yuki emerged from the kitchen as Satoru spoke, carrying a tray of food and gaining a collective noise of approval from everybody in the room. She placed it on the low table and Uraume moved to sitting on the floor, instantly digging in. Satoru straightened up and shot Yuki a fed-up look. 

“Geto’s coming.” He explained, sounding particularly unfazed. 

Yuki’s face filled up with something like a pleased surprise. She smiled sweetly, eyes full of knowledge and amusement. Satoru did not like it one bit.

“Shoko dear, you never cease to amaze me.” She stated, sitting down on an armchair and putting her chin on her hand.

Shoko looked at her with a lopsided smile, eyes narrowing. “You’re so strange sometimes.”

The blonde winked as a response, and Shoko shook her head, eternally puzzled by the other woman. They had always stood too close in an unfamiliar way. 

Satoru decided to drive the conversation away from himself and Suguru, feeling that the back of his neck was starting to sting. He took another sip of his beer and stretched on the couch, gaining noises of protest from Shoko. He gave her a side look as an answer, suppressing a smile. He slouched back against the cushions, legs wide apart, which incited a slap on his knee. Rolling his eyes, he closed his legs halfway, and bumped his beer bottle against his right thigh rhythmically.

“Where’s Kashimo anyway?” Satoru asked, changing the subject on purpose. 

Higuruma, an older friend that Shoko knew from her failed attempt at law school, sighed heavily as a response. He checked his phone with a frown, a frustrated look on his face.

“Late, as usual. He says it’s an issue with the subway but he’s probably lying.” 

Satoru made a face at that, used to Kashimo’s extravagant excuses. “And Mei?”

“Who knows? Robbing someone on the side of the road somewhere?” Uraume said, chewing their food loudly. 

“You give her too much credit.” Kusakabe joked as he lay back down on the carpet.

Satoru sneered at that, agreeing with a nod, and took another sip of his beer. He eyed the food on the table but didn’t feel like eating. He looked at his fingers wrapped around the glass bottle and at his knuckles clashing with the atmosphere. No matter how much he had tried all week, the fields of lilac just wouldn’t go away. 

“Geto is bringing a friend, too.”

Satoru’s head shot up, and he gave Shoko a dumbfounded look, raising his eyebrows in the process. He looked at her like she had just announced the most idiotic thing ever.

“Who?” He asked with an almost offended tone.

Shoko gave him a displeased look. “I don’t know, he didn’t go into details, just asked me if he could bring someone.” She shrugged, biting into some food. “Why do you care?”

Satoru sniggered and let his head drop back. He found the star sticker on the ceiling again and put all his attention into it, ignoring how his neck felt.

“I don’t. I’m surprised he has friends, that’s all.”

At that, Shoko elbowed him right on his bruised rib and Satoru suppressed a wince. 

He let his focus trail off to nothing in particular, his body relaxing on the couch and his mind wandering off, the flow of conversations in the room soothing him. He acknowledged his feet and his spine and his stomach, feeling warmer as he slowly made his way through his drink, and welcomed the sensation that muzzled the rain outside. A window had been opened and he felt the warm damp air of the June evening. He forced himself not to think of honey skin and kind eyes. 

“Someone change the music! It’s shit!”

Satoru’s attention came back to the living room, and he rolled his eyes at the words, not bothering to look who they were coming from. He would have recognised the irritating undertones of Utahime’s voice anywhere, Shoko’s roommate, and the bane of his existence. They had known her since high school and Satoru had never spent a single second of his life not wishing for her to move town. Unfortunately for him and his nerves, she never did. She was like gum under his shoe, but Shoko adored her so deeply that he had made peace with the fact that he would be stuck with her for a long time. It didn’t make it any less annoying.

He eyed Utahime from the corner of his eyes, watching her change the music and stomp her feet to the beat, her long black hair swaying with every move. His face twisted in disgust as she made excited noises when she finally found the song she was looking for.

“God, she’s already drunk.” He commented, distaste in the voice.

Shoko was unfazed, used to their dynamic by now. “Be nice.” 

“I’m trying.”

Satoru forced his frown away and finished his beer, already promising himself to down a glass of water. He had never handled alcohol well.

He stood up with a groan, his body still aching whenever he stayed still for too long. He nudged Kusakabe with his foot and the other man purposely didn’t budge.

“Stop pretending you can’t step over me with your weirdly long legs.” Kusakabe argued.

Satoru rolled his eyes and stepped over him, slightly kicking him in the process and gaining a noise of protest. 

He made his way to the kitchen and placed his empty beer bottle in the bin, then grabbed a glass and filled it with water. He downed it in long gulps and repressed a shiver as the coldness made its way to his stomach. He pretended not to care, pretended he couldn’t feel the back of his head cooling down, pretended he wasn’t grasping the glass a little too tight. 

He considered his knuckles for a second, filled the glass back up and brought it to his mouth. He stayed like this a moment, letting the water cool his lips, and took a slow breath in before downing half of it. 

He was half aware of conversations picking up in the living room, of the muffled music timidly reaching him, of a door being opened and enthusiastic greetings exchanged. He turned the glass in his hand, spinning it slowly on the counter, and stretched his neck lazily. His shoulders were a little sore and he knew he had been fighting the beginning of a cold for two days. He scratched the base of his neck with a wince and grabbed another beer. 

He turned around, making his way back to the living room, but stopped at the kitchen’s door as he found, for what felt like the first time, tender eyes and a kind smile.  

Suguru was in the entrance, being greeted by Shoko, Utahime by their side tipsily introducing herself. He was smiling shyly, listening to her with intent, his cheeks already a shade too deep that Satoru pretended not to see, even from a distance.

He also pretended not to notice that Suguru’s hair was half up in a loose bun, the other half grazing the top of his shoulders, and some strands falling gracefully in front of his face. He pretended not to see that Suguru had traded his sport tank top for a black oversized shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and hanging on his shoulders softly. Satoru definitely did not note that the top two buttons were undone, and if he did then it was nobody’s business but his own. He also coincidently noticed that Suguru was wearing black earrings, and he wondered if he had worn them before, but Satoru knew he hadn’t, because jewels were a liability during fights, and because he would have seen them, like he had seen the shoulder scar, the amber eyes, the band-aid on his knee and the bruises on his shins. Satoru had never been good at pretending. 

He watched as Suguru spoke, his voice not reaching far, probably introducing himself as a response to Utahime’s words. Satoru could feel that his fingers were too tight around his beer, and he took a sip unconsciously, eyes roaming over black hair and the sun. 

Suguru gestured to his left as he spoke and Satoru’s eyes followed on instinct, landing on another man leaning nonchalantly against the entrance door’s frame, a contained expression on his face. He had hair as dark as Suguru’s, styled in two eccentric buns, strands framing his face delicately. His eyes had a tiredness to them, paired with something Satoru pinpointed as composure, but there was no hostility in them. It was almost as if he was letting the atmosphere wash over him with calmness. When Shoko turned to him, nodding her head and greeting him, he answered with an honest smile. 

And it wasn’t that he cared, but the way Suguru stood, something on his face that almost seemed like cheerfulness and cheeks flushed by an invisible sun, was making it hard for Satoru to move. He stood in silence, almost immobile to keep his presence unknown, wishing that Suguru wouldn’t notice him, and that his eyes would remain kind and not fill up with the type of apprehension they carried whenever Satoru was around. And Satoru knew that most of it was his own fault, that he was balancing his rage poorly on the tip of his tongue, that his sharpness was everywhere and cutting in everything that Suguru was, and that Suguru couldn’t do anything but try and shield himself from it with cautious hands and uncertainty. 

So Satoru stayed very still, the beer bottle in his hand forgotten, and blamed the rain when kind eyes found him and a flicker of agitation appeared in them. Suguru’s smile wavered slightly, as if reminded of a painful bruise somewhere, and looked at Satoru for a second too long, before his eyes flickered back to Utahime still talking to him. 

Shoko turned around, frowning, and noticed Satoru standing there, motionless. She shot him a hard look, and Satoru wanted to make a face at her, but all he could do was grasp the bottle even tighter and make his way back to the living room, ignoring his own ribs and the feeling at the back of his head. 

He stepped over Kusakabe again, who was in a very intense conversation with Higuruma about something Satoru didn’t care to listen to, and found his place on the couch, jaw tight. Uraume had moved back to her spot and shot him a blank stare, which Satoru knew by now was their way of judging people.

“What?” He let out, mumbling.

Uraume raised an eyebrow. “Saw a ghost?” 

“Something like that.”

Uraume frowned at him and Satoru let his body sink into the couch cushions, remembering the beer in his hand and taking a long sip of it. Just as he did so, Shoko emerged in the room, followed by Suguru and the space-bun guy, a very talkative Utahime already bobbing her head to the music.

“We were just about to play some shit drinking game Uraume suggested.” Shoko explained, visibly following up the conversation they were already having.

“Sounds like a plan.” The space-bun guy joked, an amused smile on his face.

Satoru tried to make his body disappear into the couch but failed, looking like an angry child instead. He was purposely keeping his eyes glued to the carpet for reasons he couldn’t comprehend. Uraume grabbed the cards from the table and shook their head.

“Great way of introducing me to people.” They said, eyeing Shoko as she regained her place between Satoru and them on the couch.

“It’s a shit game you were suggesting, though.” Kusakabe insisted as he straightened up, turning his head to look at the two people who had just joined them. “Welcome, welcome.” He said with an honest smile. “So which one of you is the puncher?”

Satoru felt like killing him, and then himself, and then killing him again. He shot Kusakabe a glare so profoundly detestable that Shoko had to elbow him again for good measure. He resumed taping the beer bottle on his thigh, a rhythm of annoyance that gained him a questioning look from Higuruma. Kusakabe, oblivious to it all, smiled with all his teeth. 

“He is.” The bun guy answered, pointing to Suguru with his thumb. “I’m his roommate.”

Kusakabe hummed as an answer, looking at Suguru with attention this time, and Satoru purposely avoided doing the same. He continued drilling holes with his eyes to the back of Kusakabe’s head, silently wishing that it would make it explode.

“I guess the hand bruises are kinda telling.” Kusakabe stated matter-of-factly. 

Satoru’s fingers tightened around the beer bottle and he debated smashing it on the other man’s head for a second. He didn’t have to look. He knew what the blue fields on Suguru’s hands looked like. 

“Kusakabe, it’s customary to keep these kinds of comments to yourself.” Yuki warned, voice sugar-coated. She stood up from her armchair, a charming smile on her face. “Hi, Geto dear. And you are?” 

“Choso.”

“Choso.” She rolled the name on her tongue. “I like the hair.” She nodded towards the buns, smile getting bigger.

Satoru was still staring at Kusakabe’s head and trying to make it magically go up in flames.

“Likewise.” The guy, Choso, answered, mimicking Yuki’s sweet tone.

Satoru mentally begged himself to untighten his jaw, and remembered the feeling of the couch under him, and the softness of alcohol in his system, and tried to forget how his shoulders felt. He let his head drop back, finding the headrest and the star sticker. 

“I’m getting drinks, does anyone want anything?” Yuki announced enthusiastically.

Kusakabe jumped on the occasion first, and they all took turns asking for beverages ranging from beer to umeshu. A collective groan of complaint was heard when Higuruma requested whisky.

“You’re such an old man.” Uraume commented, making a face of disgust. 

Shoko glanced at Satoru who was still looking at the ceiling, taking slow sips of his beer, almost through it. 

“Don’t get anything else for this one he already looks like he has lost his mind.” She noted as she leaned in to tap on Satoru’s forehead lightly. 

Satoru eyed her from the corner of his eyes and frowned, swatting her hands away. 

“I’m surprised he’s drinking at all, considering his tolerance.” Uraume added while shuffling cards in their hands again.

At that, Satoru straightened up, glaring at both of them. “Don’t even start.”

They both answered him by rolling their eyes.

“What about you?” Yuki asked kindly, turning towards Suguru.

Over the chatter in the room, the music too loud for his liking and Utahime’s laughter, Satoru picked up Suguru’s voice, soft and quiet, so far and yet somehow enough. 

“A beer.” He answered simply and Satoru realised it was the first time he had spoken ever since joining them in the living room. “I’ll give you a hand.”

Suguru followed Yuki to the kitchen, and Satoru's eyes found his back as he left the room. He looked for his heart and still, always, couldn’t find it. He rolled the neck of the bottle between his fingers and let the conversations around him drown his head. 

It wasn’t that he was tired, but a part of him had been on edge ever since being drenched by the rain, and for reasons he wasn’t completely sure he understood, he had been hyper aware of himself ever since. You’re being overly sensitive, Shoko had said, and Satoru was starting to gather that part of it had to do with Suguru standing in the living room he had spent his childhood growing up in. It had to do with the possibility of Suguru noticing the family pictures with the blue eyed boy in them, and the pencil marks on the kitchen door’s frame showing his and Shoko’s heights through the years, made by both of their mothers. It had to do with Suguru standing where Satoru had always stood, between walls that held so much of what he had been, so much of what he still was. It had to do with Suguru seeing him, and Satoru hated it.

He took the last sip of his beer and placed the bottle down on the table with a loud sound. 

“I take it you’re Gojo.”

He was pulled out of his own thoughts by Choso who had joined Kusakabe on the floor, sitting near where Satoru’s feet were on the carpet. He blinked slowly, registering his words, and sneered bitterly as he leaned back on the couch, faking detachment. 

“That obvious, uh?”

His tone sported a type of tired spite he was never able to quite shake off. Choso appeared completely unbothered by it, shrugging as a response.  

“Suguru told me a bit about you.” Choso explained as he grabbed some food from the table. “You’re not exactly easy to miss.”

A part of Satoru instantly hated the guy for reasons he knew to be childish, mainly because he didn’t like his hairstyle and admired the absolute nonchalance that was radiating from him. 

Another part hated him because he was hearing Suguru’s first name out of someone’s mouth for the first time, spoken so nonchalantly like an everyday habit, and he was punch-drunk by the realization that it sounded so much like his. 

His brain was back to chanting why why why, why would Suguru speak of him to anyone, why his own neck was back to feeling like it was filled with razor cuts, why his head was where his heart was and why he couldn’t find his stability. 

“I bet he painted a really nice picture.” He said sarcastically.

He heard Yuki’s laughter and looked up as she came back into the living room, a smiling Suguru by her side. His eyes instantly found Suguru’s face and everything was so much to look at and he forced himself to look away, focusing his attention back to Choso painfully.

“You’d be surprised.” Choso bit into his food with a content expression on his face, still completely unfazed by it all.

Satoru bit his own tongue, forcing himself to remain silent, and pretended, once again, not to care.

The night progressed slowly, and soon the conversations turned into arguing over drinking game rules, talking about lives and plans and small talk, Utahime’s laughter still too loud, and Uraume’s remarks still too mean. At some point, Mei arrived with an expensive bottle of wine as a treat, and Kashimo followed, with nothing to show for himself but his made-up subway excuse. Everybody complained, everybody let it slide, and everybody continued to speak or play or drink.

Satoru, through it all, felt like he was about to die.

Suguru was sitting on the floor, back against the sofa, courtesy of Shoko who had offered him the spot where her legs had previously been. She had said sorry, we don’t have much space around the table, and had sat crossed-legged on the sofa in order for him to settle here. Whenever the other man moved, Satoru pretended not to notice that Suguru’s arm brushed against his knee, sending alarm signals in every nerve ending in his body. Satoru sat very still, trying to prove a point or to find a reason, and let the drinks and hours go by him. 

And when Suguru was asked questions and answered them timidly, digging himself out of his hole with a smile on his face, Satoru glanced at him and noticed that his hair tie was a shade of purple that echoed his own hands. And when his friends listened to him with intent, and Shoko mindlessly played with a strand of his hair poking out of his bun, and that Suguru didn’t care in the slightest, Satoru felt bruised with something else than anger. And when Suguru laughed softly at something Choso said, some drinks in his system making him slightly louder, Satoru noticed it had stopped raining outside. 

At some point during the night, after another beer that Satoru didn’t need, it all felt slightly too much. He stood up cautiously, making a point not to touch Suguru, and stretched lazily. Most people paid him no mind, too caught up in whatever discussion or games they were lost in. He glanced at Shoko to find her already looking at him, as if sensing, always, his energy rubbing off on her.

“I’m gonna get some air.” He explained over the music, and she nodded, refocusing her attention to the game they were playing and Suguru’s hair strand between her fingers.

Satoru purposely didn’t look down at Suguru, whose eyes he could already feel on him, and made his way to the balcony.

Hit by the outside air of the night, somewhere between cold and warm, Satoru’s shoulders deflated like they had been holding the world. He dropped down on a chair, unfocused eyes looking at the city lights and a slow breath escaped him. He didn’t know what it was, exactly, that made it all so raw, but his skin was tingling and he swore he could feel his own brain. 

He let a shiver run through him as the wind slightly picked up, the rain lingering not far enough, and he crossed his arms over the railing. He placed his chin on top of them and breathed in slow and long breaths, trying to find whatever he was missing, trying to tie it all together and place it in a box so he could throw it away. Another shiver, and he knew he was probably losing against whatever illness he had been fighting off for days. He should have brought a jacket with him, and it wasn’t even that cold, and it was the end of June and July would greet them next week, and all he could feel was that something was wrong. 

He heard the bay window open and somehow knew he was already doomed.

He didn’t bother to look, the presence quiet enough for him to recognise it, and let out another long exhale, focusing on a faraway light, a strange shade of flickering green. They coexisted in silence for a moment, and Satoru could smell the cigarette smoke, and wondered if he was hallucinating it. He turned his head, not bothering to straighten up, his cheek pressing on his forearms over the railing.

He watched as Suguru took a drag, tilting his head up as he exhaled the smoke slowly. He was facing the window, his lower back against the railing, his face illuminated by the living room’s light, a shade of light orange that made his skin look tender. 

Satoru watched him in silence, letting his eyes see what he had been avoiding all night, and noticed how much more calm he appeared, how much more solid he stood. Satoru wondered if it was the alcohol, or if he had been wrong all along and Suguru was only apprehensive when he was with him. If Satoru was honest, he knew, too, that a part of him was different at this very moment. That the drinks in his system were making him malleable and were keeping the anger at bay. He was glad for the respite, no matter how small it was.

After a beat, Suguru looked down at him, and considered him, attentive eyes roaming over his face silently. Satoru held his stare in silence, like they always seemed to do, except that he couldn’t feel the rage, just something else that pressed under his ribs softly. Suguru, after a moment, handed him the cigarette with a questioning look on his face.

Satoru looked at it, still not bothering to move. “I don’t smoke.” He focused on Suguru’s fingertips returning to his mouth.

“Me neither. It’s Shoko’s.” 

He took another drag and tilted his head to exhale. 

Satoru’s eyes fell to his neck, the collar of his shirt and the collarbones under it. He hummed in lieu of a response, eyes losing focus and vision blurry as he lost himself on a black shirt and black hair and black earrings and the calmness of Suguru. The muffled music from the living room barely reached him and caressed his shoulders warmly. The wind had settled down, and the night air was so still Satoru could only hear his own breathing and Suguru’s slow exhales.

For the first time, they existed in peace, their shared silence akin to comfort instead of unease. 

Satoru let his eyes rest on Suguru’s hands, the way they had so many times, his focus shifting between his fingers holding the cigarette and his palm pressing on the railing every time he leaned back slightly to exhale. 

He traced the lines of his wrists, up his forearms and shoulders, the hair brushing them barely, black strands on a black shirt losing themselves in the lack of contrast. He let his eyes keep moving, until they found Suguru’s face, still watching him, his eyes unreadable but still, eternally, kind. Satoru looked at him, too, tired eyes holding softness, and wondered when he had started to notice how much time they spent just looking.   

“Where have you been?”

Suguru’s voice, still quiet but steady, brought Satoru back to where they were. He blinked slowly and registered the words with difficulty, still watched by attentive eyes under long eyelashes. Suguru took another drag before he continued.

“These past two days. You didn’t come to train.”

Satoru looked away, then, and still didn’t know how to word it. How to explain the lack, how to explain the rain and the uneasiness and the nerves. How to explain that to have Suguru here was supposed to make him insane and enraged and mad, but instead he could only feel something pushing at his chest and the feeling of missing something. He watched the street lights flickering and found no response. 

“I caught a cold.” He lied partially, his voice betraying him.

“The rain incident?” Suguru inquired with something like concern in the voice.

Satoru scrunched his nose as he remembered. “Yeah.”

He tilted his head, the side of his face resting on his forearms as he looked at the city in front of him, taking in another slow breath. Something, somewhere, was nudging him, grabbing his hands with guarded affection, and he felt compelled to continue.

“I feel a bit like shit.” He admitted and it was the best he could come up with. “Nanami will not let me fight this weekend. I needed a breather, I guess.”

A beat. In the living room, someone laughed loudly.

“I get that.”

Suguru turned around, facing the city as he finished his cigarette and placed it on the ashtray filled with evidence of Shoko’s past smoking sessions. Satoru knew, somehow, that Suguru understood what it felt like to need a break. 

They looked at the street lights, unaware that they were both focusing on the same unusual green one.

After a while, Suguru spoke again. “Why wouldn’t he let you fight?”

Satoru sighed slowly, emptying his lungs as he straightened up and uncrossed his arms. He looked at his hands resting on the railing, fields of violet and lilac and the sea, crashing and clashing.

“It’s a no brainer, really.” He admitted with little emotion in the voice, used to the sight by now.

Suguru let the silence stretch, considering Satoru’s hands and his own next to them, grabbing the railing. They both stared at their knuckles, their little fingers almost brushing, and Satoru noticed once again how different the bruises looked on Suguru’s skin, so foreign yet so similar. He flexed his fingers slowly, tendons moving under lavender, and Suguru tapped his own on the railing. 

“You should put something warm on them.” Suguru advised as he turned around, his lower back finding the railing again.

Satoru frowned as he looked up from his hands only to find Suguru still eyeing them attentively. “I put ice on it.”

Suguru frowned. “Ice is during the first forty eight hours of a bruise. After that, switch to something warm.” He explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Heating pads work best. You should try that.”

Satoru stared at him, dubious for an instant, before returning his attention to his hands. He could still feel Suguru’s eyes watching him, but this time he couldn’t sense the rage. He naively wished that Suguru would never look away, and that they would remain this, washed by the night and calmness.

“For your legs, too.” Suguru added gently, his voice sporting the usual quietness it had when he wasn’t sure what his next words would be. 

Satoru looked up, expecting to feel the back of his stomach hurt and cold anger grab his throat, but there was nothing. It was like realising, for the first time, that Suguru was not here to drive him to madness. That he had never been. 

They considered each other, Satoru watching shadows dance on Suguru’s face. Inside, a light had been turned off, and the music was softer. Suguru, in the middle of the night, still looked tender-hearted.

“I saw you staring in the locker room.” Satoru said, his tone lacking an accusation, remembering how his anger had felt two days prior.

“I wasn’t staring.” Suguru rectified naturally as if he had planned to clear this issue up ever since. “I noticed them.” He looked down at Satoru’s legs as if to find the bruises again. They were hidden under a pair of large blue jeans. “They’re kinda hard to miss.”

“The bruises or the legs?”

Suguru looked up. “Both, I guess.” He smiled softly, amused, and diverted his eyes, his cheeks and nose turning that shade too deep that Satoru always noticed.

Satoru’s eyes drifted to his own legs, considering them with a frown, before looking up again, only to find Suguru watching the bay windows, probably looking at the people still inside, his eyes dancing and his smile unwavering. His hands were resting on the railing on both sides of him, his fingers slowly taping a steady rhythm. No matter how solid Suguru looked, how balanced he appeared, Satoru still found the remnants of something like reticence when he watched him. It was so subtle, and yet it was here, in his moving fingers and his pink cheeks warmed by something invisible, and by what Satoru knew to be alcohol. 

Satoru noticed the purple hair tie, lost in the ocean, and the dark strands of hair that he knew danced with brown when the sunlight hit them.

“I like your hair like that.” He let out on a whim, feeling the need to fight Suguru’s apprehension. “It’s nice.” 

His voice was on the edge of softness, so foreign to his own ears, and he didn’t know what to make of that. Suguru looked down at him, uncertainty flashing in his eyes before he seemed to realise that Satoru was honest, and he blinked. Satoru watched as he brought a hand to his hair, patting his bun softly before placing his fingers back on the railing. The other man looked at him quietly before focusing on Satoru’s hair, observing it with an attention that seemed natural, like he had done it before. Satoru felt the back of his neck heat up with something that was becoming a habit.

“I like your hair too.” Suguru answered with a smile, his voice tiptoeing on a whisper, as if scared that the night was listening. “White suits you.”

Satoru took in the words, something in him fighting not to return Suguru’s smile, and he slid a hand through his hair as a distraction. The strands were becoming a little too long for his liking.

“Thanks. Shoko does the bleaching.”

He sounded too detached for it to be normal, and Suguru looked like he was aware of it too. Satoru shrugged, and Suguru smiled.

“Are the purple undertones your choice or hers, then?” The other man continued as he raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

“What?”

They remained silent for a second, Satoru frowning. He could hear the wind pick up and watched as it brushed through Suguru’s hair, making it dance softly. Suguru still eyed him with an interested look, his focus going back and forth between Satoru’s hair and his face, trying to speak without having to.

“You have purple in your hair.” Suguru continued and Satoru felt a shiver run through him.

The silence stretched once more, Satoru letting the confusion wash over him. Somewhere in the living room someone laughed again.  

“You never noticed?” Suguru asked faintly, genuine wonder on his face.

“I never paid attention? I asked for white.”

Suguru's smile grew slightly wider as he leaned back on the railing, crossing his arms over his chest as if to shield himself. From what, Satoru had no idea. 

“Well, you got some purple in there too.” He added, his voice barely audible now, but Satoru heard him, because what else was he even supposed to do.

Suguru diverted his eyes, his attention returning to the living room, his sun-warmed cheeks looking like they were healing from a sunburn, and Satoru knew what death felt like for a moment. He breathed in slowly, the same way he had been doing to regain his balance, and dragged his eyes away from Suguru.

He leaned forward like he had before, crossing his arms over the railing and placing his chin on top of them. He had purple in his hair and he didn’t even know. He had purple on his knuckles and on his shins and everywhere else, but he had never noticed the lilac in the snow. He pondered how he had never seen it, considering that maybe Suguru was messing with him, but he knew he wasn’t. Satoru had some purple in his hair and Suguru had noticed. 

Satoru found the strange flickering green light again and wondered if it was really moving or if his mind was playing tricks on him. 

“How are you feeling about Sunday?” He asked, fighting back a yawn.

Suguru took a moment to answer, turning back to face the railing and the city.

“Confident. His fight pattern is a bit weird but I think I nailed it down.” Suguru shrugged as he let his fingers slide on the railing. “Should be an easy win.”

Satoru tilted his head to look at him, cheek pressed to his forearm. “You’ve got a name?”

“Takaba Fumihiko.”

Satoru remembered, suddenly, although he rarely did. He remembered his annoyance, most of all, and the blindsiding anger he had felt when faced with such strange fighting. He didn’t remember the guy, but his body still sensed the irritation, and that alone was enough. 

“Oh, that fucking idiot.” Satoru let out with a groan. “He’s better than he looks. Watch out for his tricks.”

He made a face of annoyance as Suguru looked down at him, the remnants of a smile tugging at his lips.

“Good to know. You won against him?”

Satoru snickered, unserious, and raised an eyebrow. “Obviously.”

Suguru narrowed his eyes slightly as he considered Satoru’s words. A larger strand of hair was falling over his left eye, and the wind picked up softly, brushing it away from his face. Satoru was still looking at him from under his eyelashes, noticing how his shirt swayed with the motion of the wind, and how he looked like he was a fragment of someone’s imagination, like a memory ready to go up in smoke at any sudden movement from Satoru. 

And Satoru had this thought, clear and precise, that he had felt the first time he had seen him. That he knew everything about him and nothing at all.

Satoru uncrossed his arms, leaning back on his chair as he grabbed the railing and stood up, suddenly feeling the urge to stretch. Suguru stepped slightly to the left, making some space for him as Satoru raised his interlocked fingers in the air, palms to the sky. He aligned his spine with his head, heart left out somewhere he was slowly beginning to understand, and let his hands drop heavily as he exhaled loudly. 

He looked down at the street and leaned slightly over the railing as he counted the three people walking on the pavement.

“You’re the only one I apparently can’t win against.” Satoru commented, noticing someone walking their dog.

He turned his head to look at Suguru, and found a pair of eyes already watching him, as they always seemed to. Suguru stepped closer, back to where he was standing before, and Satoru straightened up, his body unconsciously pivoting towards him. His right hip found the railing and he leaned on it lazily, still watching Suguru who was beginning to smile.

“What?” He asked without malice, his eyes dropping to Suguru’s lips turning upwards.

Suguru seemed to hesitate for a second. “Fushiguro asked me if I was pretending not to be able to touch you during the sparring session.” 

Satoru remembered the aftermath of the sparring, Yuji and Nobara’s admiration, and Megumi’s attention lost somewhere else. 

“That fucking kid.” He sighed, turning completely towards the bay windows, his eyes never moving from the other man’s face. “That’s what he wanted with you?”

“He also asked if I could train him, sometimes.” Suguru’s features melted into something sweet and Satoru died a little more inside. “Said it was your idea?”

“Of course he did.”

“I don’t mind.” Suguru shrugged. “He seems like a good kid.”

Suguru smiled fondly, quiet attention in the voice and a warm tint still painting his skin. Satoru's eyes dropped down to his neck and saw that the soft blush had reached his collarbone. He had rained for three days straight, yet Suguru looked like he had been washed by sunlight. Satoru noticed, too, that he had never seen him smile that much. 

“He really is a good kid.” Satoru confirmed as he took in Suguru’s left earring, a simple pitch black circle that echoed his hair. “Shit childhood he had, this one.”

Suguru frowned suddenly, turning his attention back to Satoru. “How so?”

A pause, and somewhere inside Satoru wondered if it really was the alcohol taming the rage, or if it was something else. Something in the way Suguru stood and looked at him gently, in the way the night air felt on his skin and in his hair, in the way the living room laughs eased his mind and the faint smell of cigarette smoke still lingered around. 

Satoru hummed as he took in the other man’s face, who was waiting patiently for him to speak.

“I beat up his dad in an alleyway so he would stop treating him like shit.” Suguru’s eyes grew slightly wider at Satoru’s unexpected admission. “Not my best moment.”

Satoru remembered his bloodied fists and the ache that had followed him for two weeks afterwards. He remembered that it had been a close fight. He remembered that he had told Nanami and made him swear to keep his mouth shut, that Suguru was the second person to know, that nothing truly made sense to him anymore, and that someday he would have to tell Megumi. He didn’t like to dwell on it.

Suguru raised an eyebrow. “So you do street fights too, uh?” He joked, his tone light. 

“As I said, not my best moment.”

Satoru looked away, his eyes finding Shoko through the window. She was still sitting on the sofa, playing with Uraume’s hair and laughing at something somebody had said. She looked so beautiful, comfortable in the home that had always been hers. Her face was flushed pink with alcohol and joy. 

Satoru was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of belonging he had only ever felt with her, with a sense of love he would only ever feel for her. As if sensing blue eyes that adored her, she looked towards the balcony, and smiled so widely Satoru almost cried. 

“Do you really think I’m a madman?” 

Suguru’s voice brought him back to his own body, and he turned his head to see him, only to find the other man contemplating the city, a faraway look on his face.

It took a moment for Satoru to remember, to piece the events together, going back to one of the first things he had said upon meeting him, something about people fighting in the streets being mad. It took a moment to remember the rage, which was a surprise because of how used he was to her. It took a moment to notice that Suguru was frowning slightly, as if trying once more to dig himself out of a hole, and Satoru couldn’t exactly remember what his own words had been, but he knew what regret was and he was feeling it.

“I care very little about people’s morals.” Satoru explained quietly, leaning slightly towards Suguru, trying to find his eyes. 

And the truth was that Satoru knew that he was in no place to judge, that his own hands were tinted with things he didn’t like, that the lilac canvas made it complicated. He wasn’t sure about his own morals, about where he stood and where he went, and sometimes he didn’t really know how it even got to this. How his skin bent under punches and how he had discovered that he bruised easily. 

He didn’t think anything of Suguru’s lifestyle because he didn’t think anything of his own.

Suguru kept looking at the city, standing miles away and yet so close, and Satoru felt that it was no use to speak, that Suguru would come back eventually. He breathed slowly, giving both of them some space, and looked down at the railing where their hands were. He considered them, like he had before, the difference in tones and undertones, blue on honey and violet on snow. He grabbed the railing slightly tighter and stayed very still, watching as Suguru’s fingers picked up their taping motion, a slow rhythm that grabbed his mind. 

The wind picked up, finding its way through Satoru’s hair and under his shirt, brushing his skin and aching shoulders. He shivered and suppressed a sneeze, the warm blanket of alcohol slowly wearing off. He counted Suguru’s tapping on the railing, one two three four five, and wondered if there was a reason, anything, to make this matter. To make this something he would remember, and not another day that would slip away with the punches and the bruises. The wind grew stronger and he shivered again.

“You should go back inside, Gojo.”

He wanted to remember this, and he begged his brain to see, to feel and never forget, just like he seemed to forget everything else. He looked up from where their hands were and found Suguru looking at him, eyes profound and gentle and raw, and always with that attention he found so cutting, so precise, so honest, like Suguru was seeing something that wasn’t there, something no one else could quite comprehend, not even Satoru himself. 

He held his eyes with the silence, and Suguru looked a little too quiet, and Satoru accepted that sometimes life was just that. Quiet. That sometimes the silence was all that was needed. The wind slithered under his shirt and he shivered once more.

“Yeah. Probably.” He admitted, picking his thoughts up from Suguru’s skin. He really should have brought a jacket.

Suguru looked away, an expression on his face that made Satoru’s neck tingle with something warm. Satoru straightened up, hands leaving the railing and fought the urge to stretch again. He glanced at the other man once more before grabbing the window’s handle, stopping in his tracks as something grabbed his ribs, and his wrists and his chin, and he didn’t know what, but it was there and Satoru was not good at pretending.

He turned around, watching the back of Suguru’s head, and the long hair brushing his shoulders, and the purple hair tie.

“It’s Satoru.” He said simply, his voice confident. “Call me Satoru.”

Suguru turned around, facing him with a cautious expression, and Satoru didn’t know much but he knew that his eyes were a shade of brown that echoed his hair in the sunlight. Suguru studied him in silence, the wind dancing with his hair, and after a moment he smiled tenderly. 

“Satoru.”

His name on Suguru’s tongue stilled the air around the night. Satoru could feel that doom was near.

Sunday came, and Satoru woke up to Nanami’s message, reading You’re fighting today. Say thank you to Geto.

Chapter Text

“Don’t forget to trust your guts.”

Nanami massaged Suguru’s bare shoulders one last time before giving them an encouraging slap.

“You know how he fights, you know what you have to do.” He added firmly while taking Suguru’s gloved hands in his, checking the laces and tightening them around his wrists for the third time.

Suguru watched the older man’s experienced movements, Nanami’s fingers on the gloves moving like a habit. He breathed in slowly and breathed out with a small sound of content, letting his shoulders drop in the process. He clenched and unclenched his fists inside his gloves, checking in with himself and syncing his head with his hands.

The overhead lights of the venue’s locker room were slightly annoying. He tried to ignore how they scratched his brain the wrong way.

“Don’t be too much in your head.” Nanami demanded, his voice midway between an order and reassurance.

Suguru smiled while stretching his neck thoroughly. “I’m not.”

“Good.”

A knock on the door, and Yuki came in, her eternal coy smile on her face.

“They’re ready for you, dear.”

She held the door open and Suguru could see anticipation in every of her feature. Nanami nodded, putting his focus back on Suguru with a river bed between his eyebrows, and Suguru was reminded of coach Yaga. He ignored the tug at his heart and breathed in slowly. He checked his reflection in the mirror, watching his hair up in a bun and his black fighting shorts, and nodded. He felt calm. He felt steady. He felt substantial.

He left the locker room, navigating the space he already knew. He had fought here before and he remembered every single blow. The place had always looked somewhat like a cliché, the lights too intricate and directed solely at the ring, the audience practically in the dark. It felt like it was rehearsed, like everybody knew what they were waiting for, as if the walls had been made to witness wins and losses and nothing else. 

He didn’t dwell on it. He had done this before, in other places he wouldn’t even admit going to. He could put the unease to the side for some time just like he was trained to do.

He made his way to the ring, some people moving to let him walk through, Nanami in front of him. He could hear his name being announced on the speakers by someone’s voice he didn’t recognise. 

The place was abnormally crowded, all the seats taken, the atmosphere building up as fights came one after another, his being the penultimate of the day. Suguru recalled Yuki jokingly telling him I’ve done such a great job promoting this fight you might become the next big name in Tokyo, and it wasn’t that he minded or cared, but he tended to forget that people loved to watch displays of brutality, like a window to something they didn’t allow for themselves. He had been told once that his boxing was exactly what they came to see, something so pristine and cutting that made it seem like it was easy. He didn’t really know what to make of that. He just knew that people hypocritically enjoyed the fights, but they didn’t like the roughness. They preferred it to be clean.

He reached the ring and Nanami turned around, handing him his mouthguard, an attentive look on his face, his eyes roaming over Suguru’s features like he was trying to tell him something without words. Suguru shot him a kind look.

“I’ve got this.” He said softly before placing the mouthguard between his lips and stretching his neck one last time.

Nanami nodded, gently slapping his arm. “I know you do.”                     

They stood there for a second, a loaded energy weighing down on both of them, and Suguru knew how important this was for Nanami, how scary it could feel to bet on someone he had known for a week. He knew that this was a jump without a safeguard, without anything to catch Nanami’s fall, and there was something deep inside begging him to make it out alive and proud. He knew he would, but certainty didn’t make it less terrifying.  

Suguru looked down at himself, seeing the fading shape of the bruise on his bare stomach, and thought of purple in white hair. He exhaled slowly and got into the ring.

He could faintly hear the sound of the crowd, cheers of encouragement emerging from somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint and the feeling of his toes brushing the ground. He pressed his gloves together and watched as his opponent joined him, something on his lips akin to an amused smile, and Suguru raised an eyebrow, unfazed.

The man, Takaba, had a strange look on his face, as if ready to burst out laughing. Suguru eyed him attentively, taking in his attitude, the position of his shoulders, his somewhat irritating smile as he waved to the crowd theatrically, as if he had done this all his life, as if this was some type of performance Suguru was unwillingly a part of. 

He had always believed, maybe arrogantly, that there was something profoundly annoying about this type of fighters, the ones that wanted to put on a show every time they stepped into the ring. He also knew not to be fooled, that his disdain shouldn’t overshadow the very real possibility of melodramatics hiding a powerful technique.  

Takaba winked at someone, smiled at someone else, and Suguru watched in silence, feet steady and shoulders high, patiently waiting for the theatrics to end.

The referee signalled to the both of them, they touched gloves, and Takaba shot him a lopsided smile that Suguru didn’t return.

Suguru waited, gauging, eyes half scrutiny and half softness. Soon enough, the blows came, and Suguru moved with saintly ease, his mind countering Takaba’s strangeness. It became sharp, like it always did when his knuckles found skin. Everything turned into stripes, connections and pathways, points that could mean a knockout, everything clear and evident, everything a shade of bright white that made sense.

Inhale

One two three

Check your hands, your heart, your stomach

Exhale

Four five six

Check your shoulders, your back, your feet

Inhale

Seven eight nine

Head high, hands high, eyes moving

Exhale

Ten

He was watching the details of the very loud picture painted by his opponent. He always perceived the puzzle pieces, trying to locate rather than see, trying to pierce through rather than understand. Fighting had always been a question of precision to him, not of globality. It was about a foot moving a centimetre off, about a balance that was lost for a second, about a fist that took longer than usual to retreat. Anything anyone ever did opposite him was an opening for a kick, a reason for a blow, an opportunity for his hands to bring him to glory. Suguru caught everything, all the time, all at once. No mistake ever slipped through the cracks of his surgical attention, simply because it never faltered, simply because Suguru always noticed.

First round ended three minutes in, and Suguru did the math, counting the numbers and the probabilities. He could see that Takaba was pissed. Good. He would continue to draw him out, to fool him in a way that worked, to present hittable targets and make him miss, then deliver accurate counters with laser-like exactitude. That’s how he liked to play. That’s how he would break the other man’s spirit and bring pride back into Nanami’s hands.

He inhaled loudly, his gaze never leaving Takaba’s face even as the minute between the two rounds dragged on. He was still watching, still studying, still surveying and seeing and scrutinizing. 

He watched as Takaba hid a frown behind a forced smile, still searching for support in the public’s cheer and attention, as if the ring was a trap he had been pushed into without an exit door, as if Suguru was going to rip his throat out with his bare teeth. As if you could escape. And Suguru could start to feel it, to see it creeping up on Takaba, that thing he always instilled in those he fought, so devastating and radiating from every single one of Takaba’s pores. The faint smell of dread. 

Takaba laughed, something twisted and ugly like an admission of his own defeat, and all Suguru saw was fear. He thought of pale hands that always fought him with furious assurance.

The fight resumed and within seconds the other man was too close, his balance off to one side in a way that wouldn’t usually matter, but Suguru saw it, calculated it, and let his fist connect with Takaba’s lower stomach. One leg gave up, then the other, and Takaba was on his knees, the air knocked out of him with the sheer force of a thousand suns. Suguru almost went for another punch, the man’s face angled toward him like an invitation, but he knew better than to hold hands with the exaltation. People didn’t like the violence, and he wasn’t a violent man, but sometimes he could still feel the tug of brutality in his belly, the tug of revenge for something out of reach.

As with every other fight, he remembered the walk in the summer heat, the man stealing his backpack, and the first punch he ever threw. He wished he could have apologised. As with every other fight, Suguru’s heart grew more tender to make up for it. He stayed very still, head worn low and worn-out as he watched. He looked for something to say but all he could hear was his own silence. 

Ten seconds passed and Takaba stayed on the ground, and Suguru had won. It was easy. Over almost as soon as it had started.

Suguru felt his hand being pulled in the air by the referee, and cheers of the crowd prickling his skin. The crowd was loud and vibrant and clear, reaching him distantly. He nodded as he remembered that he was being watched, his mind still counting, still calculating, already wondering what he could have done differently, already seeing everything he did right and the rest he did wrong.

He breathed in slow breaths, counting and thinking and counting again, one two three and someone grabbed his shoulders as he left the ring, his composure intact, his body barely touched. Takaba had landed a miserable total of three blows. Suguru was still counting how many the other man had missed.

He acknowledged a hand on his arm and someone pushing through the crowd in front of him, leading him along towards the locker room. Yuki. He let himself be guided with ease, little protest in his body or mind, still lost on blows and kicks and patterns. Easy. So easy.

It took a moment, as it always did, for him to come back down. For him to stop the counting, for his hands to settle and his face to stop twisting itself into something cold, something ancient. They brushed past someone asking for something Suguru couldn’t make out, and turned down the corridor they had emerged from before the fight. Yuki let go of his arm once they reached the door of the locker room and turned towards him, beaming.

“Congratulations are in order.” She said with a smile. “Well done, dear.” The pet name sounded easy on her tongue. Suguru almost felt relieved.

In his vision, down to his right side and somewhere in his stomach, he saw a flash of white, and turned around almost instinctively.

Satoru emerged from the locker room, a scowl on his face and eyebrows knitted so close together Suguru was overwhelmed with the urge to put his thumb between them and press the stubborn frown away. He realised absently that he was still wearing his boxing gloves and made no move to take them off.

Satoru didn’t look up as he brushed past them, face so closed on itself that Suguru could see the rage simmering under his skin, could see the fury in his eyes, the pull in his shoulders, as if Satoru was going to kill them now, to blow up the place or cut off their heads. Suguru realised, with something like panic, that he would probably let him.

He remembered their conversation on the balcony, suddenly pulled back to a drunken state and a brush of fresh air. How Satoru had looked, so calm and palpable and guarded, how he had stared with something distant in his eyes. How he had watched Suguru, anger left at the doorstep as if allowing both of them a break from an incomprehensible fight. He looked so far from the rage he was exuding now. Suguru sucked in his silence and watched him walk away.

“Don’t think anything of it.” Yuki reassured, and Suguru frowned. What is there to think of anyway? “He’s like that before a fight.”

She paused, reconsidering. “He’s like that always.”

Suguru nodded, but knew it to be wrong. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that he had seen steady eyes and attention, but it felt too tangible, too fleeting. Suguru realised selfishly that he wanted to keep that to himself. He also realised he wasn’t so sure of his own beliefs about Satoru. So he stayed quiet, as he usually did, and entered the empty locker room.

He took off his gloves, showered quickly, and surrendered to the pull in his muscles asking him to hurry. He wanted to see Satoru fight, out of misplaced curiosity or something he couldn’t really gather. A part of him convinced itself that it was to understand his fighting style better, to collect even an ounce of information about his pattern, his thinking, his moving. Suguru persuaded his own brain, silencing the knowledge that there was mostly nothing to understand about how Satoru fought, because Satoru himself didn’t understand it.

Suguru knew there was another reason, clawing at his belly and asking to be looked at, to be heard. He was usually good at listening, always perfect at looking, but he ignored the itching and the tugging against his better nature. Misplaced curiosity wasn’t really the word for it.

He made his way back to the venue and slipped into the crowd like water.

Nanami was talking to Satoru, a flow of words Suguru couldn’t make out from the distance. He looked different from when he was talking to him, standing taller, almost patronising. His face was firm and Suguru believed that his words were too. Next to him, Satoru almost looked like a child being scolded before an impending tantrum.

Suguru’s eyes stayed there, on a face so pale it almost looked comical, a stature so tall it was complicated to believe, sometimes, that Satoru was real. He looked like something that shouldn’t be there, something brought down to earth from the sky or brought up to the surface from the dirt. Suguru couldn’t quite choose which one made more sense.

Satoru climbed in the ring with inherent smoothness and Suguru pretended not to notice how his head started to sing.

Under the spotlights that were too bright and too white, Satoru looked even less real. His body caught the light like unmoving glass, something cut down until it made sense, until all the angles served a purpose. His hair reminded Suguru of snow and a wide open sea, rumbling and thundering, so characteristically white, so evidently loud. Satoru looked like a message, like a vision that screamed look at me without wanting to. Suguru was certain that there was nothing else he could look at. He wondered if everybody was seeing it too, if everybody was having unsure memories of the sand as Satoru stretched his shoulders and his arms, the bare skin of his chest moving like wave crests folding over the water. He wondered if everybody else could feel the sunburns or if the understanding was his and his alone.  

Satoru's skin was rarely bare. In the short time Suguru had known him for, he had never seen him wear something other than loose t-shirts and unfitting sweatpants, often black, sometimes grey. He remembered him wearing shorts after being caught in the rain, mostly out of desperation. He had rarely caught a glimpse of him other than that of his arms and his hands, littered with drops of violet and yellow. He had noticed fairly easily just how much Satoru bruised, how easily Satoru’s body remembered the punches, almost spitefully. He just hadn’t realised the extent of it, until his eyes found Satoru’s chest and shoulders and ribs, under the bright lights and the carnage, and he felt his own anger flare up like a rash on his body, senseless and ridiculous, a match being dragged against his chin.

He let his eyes watch, because there was nothing else to do, because his nature had always been to observe and gauge and see what no one else would, to look at details when the rest would look away, to look for something when there was seemingly nothing. There is always something, Suguru used to think, and was still thinking now.

He noticed the scar, then, broad and big and unwelcoming, cutting Satoru’s skin horizontally over his entire stomach. It was old, Suguru could tell it was old, but a sound got caught in his mouth at the sight of it. Something crawled in his throat, choking him slightly, his body rejecting it. Yuki’s words rang in his ears then, like a callback to his own body, a joke vaguely unbalanced: whatever you can think of on and off the ring, it probably happened to him. Suguru wanted to crawl out of his own chest and exchange it with him.

He looked at the state of Satoru, tall and loud and bruised, and wondered if he would be able to win.

This isn’t a good idea, Nanami had told him the previous day. He had called to plead in Satoru’s favour, a sudden wave of duty coming over his heart, as if he needed to pay Satoru back for gracing him with his rage-less state on the balcony. He hated his hands a little for it. He hated his kindness a little for it. He knew it was a gamble, but it felt like treason to leave him on the bench. It felt inexplicably off to be fighting if Satoru wasn’t, to offer a show of his skills if Satoru wasn’t. He had asked earnestly and Nanami had agreed with a sigh.

Staring at Satoru, purple-and-blue, and the dents on the surface of the snow, Suguru wasn’t sure of the bargain anymore.

The other man on the ring was a head shorter, but broader and vicious-looking, like an untrained bulldog ready to bite his owner’s hand. He offered a defiant look, which only made Satoru’s face twist in fury. Satoru wasn’t good at hiding his emotions. Satoru wasn’t trying to hide his emotions. Suguru watched and felt as an air of cold outrage washed over the audience. He was partially expecting to see charcoal-coloured strands grabbing his ankles if he looked down, an extension of Satoru’s unbridled rage. 

The atmosphere shifted, unease and something like uncomfortable excitement replacing the exaltation. Contagious all the same, but partially terrifying. People did not like the violence, and people knew it was going to hit them anyway.

The referee signalled for the fight to start. Suguru felt his head blaring with an alarm.

Satoru was at the other man’s throat in a matter of seconds, already punching with a strength so unrefined that a general gasp was heard, as if the display was unclean or something that shouldn’t happen. Suguru felt the rage, either his or Satoru’s, grab the skin of his eyelids and the brim of his jaw. He felt suddenly overwhelmed with a disdain for everyone around him. The people were watching with faked shock, a sanctimonious attitude, feigning aversion in the face of turbulence. Ungrateful was the first thing that came to Suguru’s mind.

He tried to forget the anger but it was all around him, dripping from every single one of Satoru’s blow and kick and snarl and hit, dribbling in the air like a tennis ball. The bulldog was fighting back, something ferocious in his technique, something animalistic in his punches. They were a somewhat even match and Suguru realised this was going to be won by the wrath. He swallowed around the bassline of Satoru’s rage and grabbed the edge of his t-shirt.

The first round ended and the referee had to place himself in the middle for the two of them to part. Nobody likes a show of improbity, Suguru thought, and tried to beg for it to slither on the ground and up to the ring and wind itself around Satoru’s wrists. He knew it was pointless. Satoru looked too far gone.

Suguru’s mind went back to their first sparring, when Satoru had sprung back to life in his arms. He remembered the eyes that had stared at him then, red and hungry and starving for a fight, for a bite or a mouthful, for the blood of it all, just because they could. He remembered the remnants of doubt he had felt in his spine, thinking is he going to kill me? before his rationale had taken over and Nanami had stopped the fight altogether. He remembered feeling, for a fleeting second, that Satoru was the most daunting thing he had ever encountered. 

Watching him now, Suguru could feel it again, the dread of knowing it all, of knowing nothing, of eyes the colour of a storm. Suguru didn’t know what rage looked like, but if he thought about it now, he would paint it a furious blue tiptoeing on the edge of grey.

The men on the ring cycled each other like wild animals preparing for attack, and the referee gave the signal, a gunshot in the wild that broke the tension. 

Suguru heard someone gasping next to him and fought back the urge to glare at them. There was blood, there was sweat and pulling and the cracking of bodies bending under the violence. Over it, around it, below it. Satoru’s right brow bone was split open and he didn’t even seem to realise. Suguru watched as his features twisted into something he couldn’t recognize, yet felt too familiar all the same, like a distant truth he was always supposed to look at. This is me, Satoru’s entire body was screaming. Look at who I am. Suguru thought of the night air and a voice asking call me Satoru. 

Another round passed, and Satoru was panting so loudly Suguru felt his own breath catch in his throat, his own lungs burning with the strain. He looked so profoundly unstable Suguru thought he was going to leap over the ropes and strangle every single one of them, or crack open his skull and tear his own brain out of his body.

“They’re lunatics.” Somebody said behind Suguru in a breathless whisper.

“The white-haired one has always been mad.” Someone spat out as an answer, making him sore all over. What do any of you know about madness? Suguru thought of his unknown mother and bright walls the colour of limestone.

The third round started, and something snapped even further. Satoru’s body was a thing of its own, a thing of beauty if Suguru stared too long, but a thing of chaos and characteristic madness too. He didn’t quite know why, couldn’t figure out how, but a strike and a breath and the bulldog was on the ground, knocked out cold, Satoru already sinking to his knees to punch him breathless. Suguru’s inside dropped to his own feet. The referee grabbed him by the shoulders to pull him away, and Satoru obeyed, struck by a wave of ghostly awareness for a second, still showing his teeth, crazed eyes fixed on his prey. 

He stared at his opponent on the ground until the ten seconds passed, shoulders tense and heaving and clenching, his jaw working on itself as if to crush his own teeth. The referee announced the end, and Suguru heard his ears ring.

It was strange, then, to see Satoru welcome a victory. He looked nothing short of psychotic, but still his pride was so deafening that Suguru could only stare and stare and stare as the crowd cheered, out of relief that it was over more than excitement that someone had won. He was tall, he was so terribly tall that Suguru felt like an ant, felt like he weighed nothing and had no body of his own. It was like Satoru was sucking in all the force in the room, all the dignity in the crowd, caging it behind his bloodshot eyes, a display of selfishness that no one could argue with. And Suguru let him. He let him suck the breath out of his lungs and the blood out of his muscles and the reason out of his brain for another second of this, of Satoru looking like he had just killed the whole world.

The referee raised Satoru’s hand, and Suguru saw ravenous blue eyes staring right back at him.

The rest of the late afternoon was a blur, hours spilling out and around Suguru like a weightless time machine. Satoru had left the ring with heavy footsteps and the crowd had let out a collective breath of relief, like a deflating balloon. 

Suguru had not sighed. Suguru had not felt relieved. If anything, he had felt a sort of affliction growing in him for the entire evening, getting more pressing by the minute, more urgent with every passing thought. He tried to make sense of it, of this thing he knew was there but couldn’t grasp. He was now shifting restlessly under the covers, his earphones drilled deep in his ears, playing some music that was supposed to help him sleep.

The ceiling was weird in the dark of his room. He could hear Choso’s distant noises in the kitchen, probably cooking some strangely elaborate dish in the dead of night. He glanced at his alarm clock and saw the numbers staring back, bright flashes of his own confliction. He forced his eyes closed in a sigh and rolled around, burying his face in his pillow.

He wondered, then, if he was scared of Satoru. He mused on the possibility that it had been Satoru’s goal all along, to try to scare him shitless, to make him squirm in his own body with the prospect of coexisting in the ring together. He thought of his demeanour, of his extreme reticence at showing any sign of courtesy from the get go, perhaps as a second nature or more as a point he was trying to prove. What point, Suguru had no idea, but he had the dormant intuition that Satoru was not as spiteful as he was trying to be. A little rude, sure, and definitely sharp all over, but Suguru couldn’t help noticing that he was sometimes trying to indulge him with something, even though Suguru didn’t really know what . He sometimes tried to soften the edges of himself. Sometimes was really the problem here. Most of the time, Satoru was so overtly disagreeable with him that it left Suguru in a kind of stupor that was suffocating him a little.

He sighed in his pillow, his head playing catch with his feet, and rolled on his back. The sheets were almost hurting him and the mattress under his body annoyed something in the dip of his spine. He screwed his eyes shut further and tried to silence his brain.

He thought of his own anger, how it had grabbed his attention when watching Satoru fight. He wasn’t sure that the feeling was his, wasn’t completely certain that the rest of the world had not felt it too. Satoru had looked so charged and overwrought, a knife-edge out of all reasoning, teeth bared and hands open. Watching him was a realisation that there was nothing to abandon, because there had been nothing to hold on to in the first place. It was closely linked to a revelation, sharing space with despair, a sort of oddly comforting terror. Satoru in a ring was a simple sentence: there is nothing to lose because there was nothing to save. Suguru didn’t understand half of it.

Suguru wasn’t an angry man. Suguru had not been an angry child. If anything, he could remember hating loud voices and cruel words in others, closing his body in the face of spite, when he wasn’t old enough to understand what it meant to despise. 

His grandfather would raise his voice, sometimes, when Suguru couldn’t form clear words or when the weather ruined the day. Suguru would fold into himself, retreat somewhere he couldn’t be found, deep into the folds of his knees, and stay there, low and quiet and young. He remembered being mostly sad. He remembered being mostly lost. He remembered puddles of his tears, burning his cheeks and his neck and his nose, but there was never any sound.

His grandmother was good at taming a storm. She was so much more stable than his grandfather, so much steadier through the currents of life. She would ease herself into his grandfather’s rage and placate the loudness. She would place a hand, sure and indisputable, on his shoulder and the roaring would end. She was good with the tempest, good with the turbulence, good with the anger. Suguru begged for some of her courage and her gracious indifference, wondering what she would have done in the face of the furious commotion that was Satoru. She probably would have understood with a laugh. She probably would have silenced it, somehow. 

He could picture her holding the waves of Satoru’s fists and make the bruises disappear. Suguru felt ridiculous and so far from her hands. He missed her a little too much, alone in the cracks of his bed, his soul worn out from a fight he had won.

Give me some of your easiness, he thought, and opened his eyes to the darkness.

He rose with the sun, three hours of sleep on his back and a day of nothing waiting in front of him. A Monday was always a beginning, but today felt like the middle of something unachieved, and he didn’t like the feeling. 

The kitchen was empty. A note from Choso on the counter read “i made some shit that’s edible. left some for you :)”, and Suguru felt a little better for it, the lump in his throat shrinking to a bearable size. The thought of waking up to something waiting for him had always made him steadier.

Choso was one of the rare persons he had ever considered a friend. He had a smile hidden under weariness and eyebags digging in his cheeks. He constantly carried around a certain type of gloom, at moments overwhelming, but he was kind. Suguru liked that he was kind. He always offered a compassionate ear and talked with a simplicity Suguru was in awe of. Their first months as roommates had been complicated, Suguru barely getting out of his room to eat and coming home with a bruised body before crashing out. Choso never spoke. Choso never tried to pry. He simply took to leaving meals for Suguru in the kitchen, or in front of his bedroom’s door, or in the living room. Suguru started doing the same to show that he was trying, to show that he understood. 

After a while, Suguru had fallen into his orbit with little choice and was glad to share his space with someone who smiled back.

He moved through his early morning in silence, ignoring his head with difficulty, and heard his phone ring around eight. He picked up to the voice of his upstairs neighbour, a flow of apologies and incoherences and tiredness about her daughters and babysitting, saying that she would pay him, saying that she couldn’t find anyone else, that she didn’t trust anyone else. Suguru felt that his luck had turned, relieved by the prospect of not being alone with his hands for the entire day, and agreed with a grateful voice.

He knocked on his upstairs neighbour’s door at nine am. He heard the commotion behind it, excited voices picking up in the apartment, a smile creeping up on his lips and the knots in his stomachs detangling further. The door swung open to two little girls staring up at him.

“Geto-sama!” They exclaimed in unison, already grabbing his legs. He let out a giggle, his hands finding their hair.

“Well good morning to you.” He said in a chuckle just as their mother arrived at the door, looking sleepless and apologetic.

“I’m sorry, they’re so energetic today.” She said sternly with a shake of her head, grabbing the door handle to let him in. “It must be the weather.”

Suguru swiftly took his shoes off as he looked up at a window and saw the heavy grey colouring the sky. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Rain is coming.” He noted in a soft tone, still patting the girls’ heads who were making a show of not letting go of him, holding onto his thighs and pockets. It was not like he minded.

“It makes them spirited, like wild animals.” She added with a sigh while looking at her daughters.

She was a strange woman, her first name still a mystery to Suguru even after months. He only referred to her as Hasaba. She liked stones and the heavens, could pick through the stars and read people’s palms. Sometimes, Suguru was certain she could see the outline of his brain or perhaps hear his thoughts.

She was a short woman with hair the colour of raven, cut close to her temples. She wore satin scarves and textured long black skirts, large wrap-over tops with batwing sleeves, even in the midst of summer. She sometimes spoke of her late husband and brought an open hand to her chest as she did. She was very beautiful, albeit peculiar and a little uncanny at times, but Suguru was in no place to judge. He didn’t consider himself to be the pick of the litter when it came to his own quality.

“Thank you again for agreeing to watch over them. It’s short notice but the summer vacation took me by surprise.” She apologized as she grabbed her purse in a hurry, glancing around like she was forgetting something, which she probably was.

Suguru gave her an honest smile as he looked down at the two girls nestled against his legs like motherless fawns. He fought the urge to fall to his knees and cradle them closer.

“It’s really no problem.” He nodded as she looked around the room one last time, absent-minded. “I’ve got time.”

“Right, right.” Hasaba turned on her heels, her face remembering something. “There’s food in the fridge for the three of you. I’ll be back around five. Don’t take them outside, the rain has done enough already.” She explained and Suguru let it wash over him, never really sure what she was intending. She grabbed her keys and took one last look at her daughters with a tired smile on her face.

“Be proper.” She ordered without much conviction as the girls finally let go of Suguru to give each of her cheeks a loud kiss. She brushed past them and left, and they were back at his legs. 

Suguru crouched down to their level and their hands found his hair and his shoulders and his t-shirt. He smiled earnestly and watched them with kind eyes.

Mimiko and Nanako were twins, on the brink of turning six, born in that easy-going time when summer turned into autumn. Suguru had met them four months ago, in the entrance of their building. Hasaba had made polite small talk as they peered up at him from behind her legs, clear interest and attention on their faces. She had taken to inviting Choso and him into their home, enjoying the company of something different than her own silence and her daughters’ restlessness.

If Suguru convinced himself long enough, he was certain that they could fit in the palm of his hands, in the crook of his neck, in the dip of his eyelids. They were like mellow grass, a shot of tender air in his lungs, a gentle brush of freshly ground coffee, birds chirping to wake up the earth in the sweet hours of the morning. They had the same hairstyle, hair cut to their shoulders, but the colours had decided to drift apart on the scale of brown. Their eyes were comically big in that way children’s eyes sometimes are, and Suguru wasn’t so sure they were ever going to grow into them. He didn’t really want them to. 

Nanako wanted to be a star. Mimiko wanted to raise sheep. They both thought that red was an ugly colour and liked the taste of raspberry. They both loved Suguru with a type of devotion that one could only feel towards something that had saved them.

Suguru was far from a saviour and he didn’t really understand what he had done to warrant such adoration. Hasaba would tell him that they were just like that, that sometimes children took to loving a person more than the sky, more than the earth, more than their own parents, and that it was pointless to try and question it. She spoke of souls and bounds and past lives, and Suguru, most of the time, couldn’t follow what she was trying to say.

“How are we feeling today little deer?” He asked them with a smile, brushing Mimiko’s hair strands out of her eyes. Her fringe was growing longer and he thought it needed a trim.

“Good. I’m wearing a dress I like.” Mimiko said as she looked down at herself with a growing smile, tugging at the edge of her summer dress mindlessly.

“I didn’t sleep well but I am okay.” Nanako answered him with an energetic nod, already braiding a small strand of his hair between her fingers over and over again. He was wearing it down on purpose, conscious that one of today’s activities would involve hair brushing at some point.

“You had a bad dream?” Suguru asked Nanako as he rose back to his full height and started walking further into the apartment. The girls held onto his hand and arm almost instinctively on each side of him.

“Yes. Mimiko laughed when I told her. She thinks it’s not scary.”

“Is that so?” Suguru sat on the middle of the couch. Nanako climbed next to him, still holding his arm, and Mimiko decided that his knees were more comfortable.

“We were fighting a man and he was shooting fire at us!” Nanako’s eyes grew twice their size as she recounted the dream, knees folded under her small body as she looked at Suguru. “He had four arms and he was weird.”

Mimiko stayed quiet and started fidgeting with the edge of Suguru’s t-shirt. She had always been the more timid of the two, mostly silent and observing. She could go for hours without ushering a sound, watching the details of the days go by her. Suguru sometimes saw, on her face, things that reminded him of a small boy lost within himself.

“Did you win the fight?” He inquired with an encouraging tone, trying to keep the conversation light.

Nanako frowned. “Of course. I’m a strong girl.”

“Then it wasn’t a bad dream after all, no?” Suguru raised an eyebrow, his tone coated in sugar. “It was a cool victory.”

Nanako considered his words, eyebrows knitted close together and hair falling into her eyes. She blinked and nodded in a haze, acceptance visibly washing over her.

“I told you it wasn’t scary.” Mimiko said softly, her cadence slow and her voice enveloping every single letter. She was trying to make herself heard without disturbing her sister.

The day went by slowly, a mixture of make believe, baking, drawings and a dozen different hairstyles on Suguru’s head. Nanako liked combing his hair with a wooden brush a warm shade of brown, the bristles sliding through and the white noise in his head receding in the process. She was thorough and she was dedicated, the sessions always looking more like a mission to her than anything else. She kept checking on him to ask if it hurt, probably mimicking the way her own mother did, which Suguru always dismissed with a smile, even when she went through a tangle a little too harshly. 

Mimiko took over afterwards, braiding and twisting and fixing and doing it all over again, clipping and unclipping. She was deadly silent, focused with admiration on her task at hand, and Suguru never disturbed her, agreeing to whatever she decided would be the product of her work. At some point during the day, Suguru was graced with space buns and thought of Choso as he smiled at his reflection.

The rain settled halfway through the afternoon and when the clock struck a quarter past five, Suguru said his goodbyes as Hasaba opened the front door.

“Will you come back tomorrow?” Nanako asked, holding his hand, looking up at him with an hopeful shimmer in her eyes.

He looked up to see Hasaba already looking at him with a questioning look on her face. He could feel his neck burning, as if he wasn’t the one doing her a service and more the one desperately asking for a favour.

“I mean, I’ve got time.” He answered shyly both to Nanako and her.

“It’s too much to ask of you.” Hasaba said, unconvinced. She knew by now how much Suguru enjoyed the girls’ company and her oddly decorated flat.

“It’s really no problem.” Suguru said with an honest smile, and Hasaba’s fake reticence visibly deflated as she sighed, almost relieved.

He left with a lighter head and a softer heart. He entered his own flat and was greeted by Choso on the couch. His eyes instinctively went up to Suguru’s head, eyeing the space buns with an arched eyebrow.

“Copycat.” He said with a smirk, sipping his coffee loudly.

“My hand was forced.” Suguru replied, tone soft, as he started unmaking the buns one by one.

“Suits you well enough, but don’t make it a habit.”

Suguru shook his head lightly as he made his way further into the apartment, pushing the door of his room open with his right knee, his hands still in his hair. He changed into a black t-shirt and a pair of black sport shorts, and tried to keep his thinking at bay. He had been graced with a good day, although he could feel the exhaustion creeping up on him and his lack of sleep paying him a visit, and he wanted the ease to continue for the evening. 

He grabbed his sports bag, head filling up with pale skin and spotlights, and left his flat with the beginning of a heavy tongue.

The gym was uncharacteristically empty, almost as if a Monday was too much of a chore for people to bother showing up and put their body through some distant type of pain. 

Suguru understood, although he couldn’t fully comprehend the thought process behind it. Boxing had always made his head grow quieter and his body more obedient. It had always made the silence ripple through his muscles and bones and tendons and skin tissue. It had always made it easier to bear, easier to breathe. He was so convinced of it that it came as a sort of sorrow when he realised that he could feel his certainty falter. Had it been a respite lately, or some overflowing dread that Suguru couldn’t see the outlines of? He knew fighting was good for his steadiness. He also knew it came with a certain type of fright, now, and blue eyes the shade of wrath.

He dropped his sports bag on a plastic chair, half aware of himself, and let his eyes flicker over white hair and a tall body, hunched over itself, sitting in the ring, angled away from him and facing the window. 

The last sun rays of the day were dancing on the ground, tracing patterns of the sky on the beige surface, and Suguru watched as Satoru let his fingers trail over them, drawing their outlines without much precision. He looked like a child, like something calm and distant and tired, unaware of being seen, unaware of not being alone. Suguru had a vision of furious eyes, of skin cut down to kill, of razor-edged punches and the enormity of it all, and had a hard time believing it came from the same man he was staring at. Satoru looked like he was existing so far away, cross-legged and small, sitting in the ring like he was lost in it, forgetting that he had made it his battleground hours before.

Suguru swallowed around emptiness and made his way over to him, a kind of precaution seizing his every move.

Satoru noticed him, then, and turned his face towards him in agonizing heaviness. Suguru felt the lump in his throat grow like poisonous vines, wrapping itself around his trachea, spikes piercing his airway and his Adam apple.

Satoru’s eyebrow was covered with wound closure strips and his bottom lip was healing from a cut. The fields of lilacs and violets were blossoming around his eyes and his jaw. It was like someone had dropped a bouquet of lavender on his skin and left it there to decay. He had swapped his usual white t-shirt for a black hoodie, and it made his hair look even whiter, and Suguru didn’t comprehend how he could wear anything with long sleeves when the weather was so warm. He looked sullen and petty and annoyed, as he always did, but mostly he looked tired, drained out and otherworldly. 

Still, always, there was a tint of impatience to him. Suguru remembered the furious man who had been in the ring with Satoru and felt a sudden need to break both of his kneecaps with a single blow.

They stared at each other before anything else, an unspoken ritual that was becoming a habit, deciding what frequency they would be on, what was going to be their common bassline, what the words would sound like and the air feel like between them. The rain was falling again. Maybe it makes him spirited too, Suguru thought, like wild animals. Satoru considered him, eyes dancing on his face with uncommon urgency, the ropes of the ring separating them, and seemed to settle on something.

“Hey.” He let out, his voice unconvinced and strained with tiredness.

“Hi.” Suguru answered after a beat, louder than he thought he would be.

Satoru studied him for another minute before letting his head drop and returning his unfocused eyes to the sun rays, lost in a haze. 

Suguru had a moment where he considered leaving him to himself and his thoughts and his exhaustion, but something tugged at his throat with pertinence, forcing him to stay put exactly where he was. He watched the slope of Satoru’s back and the tips of his fingers on the ground, observed the weight that seemed to press on his shoulders, and decided he would bear the glaring and the harsh words and the furious eyes for the reassurance that Satoru was not left alone. He wondered if he was doing it for himself more than for the other man, and could admit that the lines were beginning to blur anyway.

He climbed into the ring hesitantly, eyes still roaming over Satoru for any sign of reticence, and sat down diagonally opposite to him, stretching out his legs and making sure to keep a relative distance, facing him as he leaned back on his hands. 

Satoru paid him no mind, still watching the ground absentmindedly. Suguru looked as Satoru’s eyes followed the sun beams, finding Suguru’s legs, and stayed there, his face clouded and his eyebrows knitted close together. Suguru could feel his own head and the skin of his limbs tingling.

They stayed in the silence, as they usually did, and Suguru listened to the slow sound of Satoru’s breathing.

After a while, Satoru spoke, still miles away. “We should spar.” He sounded drowsy in the silence, lacking conviction, the words spoken more as a duty than a wish. Artificial solidity.

Suguru considered him, considered his face and his split lips and the sea, the waves on his skin an indigo shade, and breathed out slowly to find some fortitude. “Your bruises are the size of my hands.” His voice was something close to a whisper, compassion-coated and a little sad.

Satoru’s head shot up and he found Suguru’s face, scrutinizing eyes printing sunburns on his cheeks. Suguru tried to blink the sun rays away and realised there was none left. The sun had set.

“Are you pitying me?” 

“I’m not.”

“I can still fight.” Satoru sounded almost insulted.

“I know.” 

Suguru recognised that Satoru was trying to prove something, out of habit or compliance, like a child insisting that he wasn’t weak.

Satoru blinked him into focus before apparently realising that he already was. His jaw worked, on the brink of saying something just for the sake of doing so, but he abandoned it. His focus returned somewhere between himself and Suguru’s legs and Suguru felt his tongue grow tired. He had put himself there willingly, had no one to blame for Satoru’s agitated eyes and wounded state other than his own sympathy that sometimes dangled on the edge of pathetic. He had been the one to ask Nanami to put him in the ring, after all. He had been the one to ask for Satoru to look like this.

The beginning of an apology formed in his mouth, a blend of I’m sorry and I do not know what to do with your anger and with my hands. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to apologise for. He wasn’t sure an apology was due or needed anyway. He wasn’t sure he felt guilty at all. A breath came up and out of him, the semblance of a sentence, but Satoru cut to the chase.

“I saw your fight.” Satoru’s jaw was tension-heavy. He let his eyes trail Suguru's body until he found his face. “You looked different.”

Suguru was thrown off balance by the sudden focus on himself. He shifted on the ground, straightening up awkwardly and retracting one leg towards his body. His hands lifted themselves from behind him and found the hem of his t-shirt. He felt shot point blank in the head, accused of something he couldn’t decide if he was guilty of or not. But this is not an accusation.

He held blue eyes and begged for some quiet. “Different how?”

“I don’t know.” Satoru seemed to be lost within his own head. “Just different.”

Suguru felt the ridiculous need to justify himself. “I was focused.” His fingers picked up their usual rhythm on the fabric of his top, tangling and untangling.

Satoru considered him, then a point above his shoulder, like he was seeing past him. “It’s like you were going to skin him alive.”

Suguru blinked, perplexed. He remembered his counting, the numbers, one two three and what have I missed?, the madness of Satoru and the blood, the gold, and the snow. Spotlights too bright and a white-haired man like a divine revelation in the middle of the ring. Fury of the gods or from the gutters of the earth.

“That makes two of us, then.”

Satoru’s eyes narrowed. “I know what I look like in the ring. It’s a surprise to no one.” He shrugged with an air of defiance, but something in his voice betrayed some kind of shame. “But you? I guess I just didn’t expect you to be that.” He trailed off, his eyes roaming over Suguru’s face once more in open contemplation.

“What is that, exactly?” Suguru could barely hear himself speak. He was keeping his fingers from tearing a hole in the fabric.

“Cold. Scary, almost.”

Suguru’s head went loud at that, a buzzing going from ear to ear, and the heat on his cheeks making it hard to feel his own mouth. 

He did not like to be looked at in a light that was precise. He did not like that Satoru had an opinion of him, for obscure reasons that echoed his character. He knew he was efficient, frugal with his moves and yet deadly precise. The ring was always a waiting game. He didn’t appreciate when the patience turned sour in his mouth. He could never anticipate when the tenderness eluded him.

So he countered, uncharacteristically on the defensive. “Are you scared to fight me now?”

Satoru curiously smiled at that, low on his lips and horribly honest. He was amused. Suguru had amused him and could feel a warmth grab his ankle, near where Satoru’s left hand was resting on the ground.

“You can’t even touch me.” He said, suddenly so earnest. Why would he be scared when I’m incapable of tearing him down and ripping him out like I do everyone else?

Suguru nodded at that while biting the inside of his cheek, his eyes taking in the purple on Satoru’s face and in his hair. Satoru looked back, watching Suguru watch him, recognising something on Suguru’s face, considering him with a guarded interest and an expression that was almost warm. 

Maybe Suguru was seeing things. Maybe he was so desperate to believe in kindness that he was willing to see it everywhere, even on features that wore rage like a veil, like an undisputed fact. Blue eyes and a crash, and depths and something mellow, something that Suguru wanted to dip his fingers in, like a ripe fruit dripping sugar on his skin. So different. Usually hidden away and out in the open for a split second.

Someone turned the ceiling lights on and it tasted sour. Satoru frowned as he looked up, annoyance returning, and Suguru felt the softness slip between his fingers. He didn’t like that Satoru’s attention was elsewhere. So selfish and so uncommon, again. Maybe the rain was impacting him too and he was underplaying it. He scratched around for something to say, for the curious eyes to return to him and settled on honesty.

“The crowd doesn’t really like you.” His tone was too honest to feign spontaneity.

Satoru’s eyes returned to him and Suguru felt the white noise in his head pick up. They weren’t kind, but they were there. Satoru seemed to process the words in slow motion and shrugged. “I know. I have a reputation.”

“People don’t like emotional fighters.”

Satoru laughed, humourless. “You think I’m emotional?” He raised an eyebrow in open defiance.

Yes. “I think you’re angry.” Suguru couldn’t figure out where the courage came from, but the words were blatantly easy.

Satoru went silent at that, and the stiffness returned. Suguru heard his own spine rumble with the beginning of apprehension. Harshness, still, always, somewhere – no – right there. Satoru pursed his lips and his jaw set in place, working in a way that conveyed the noise and the outrage under pale skin.  

“People are fucking stupid if they think I’m not allowed to feel something when I punch the shit out of someone.” He explained, eyes drilling holes in Suguru’s face and neck and cheeks and nose. He was looking everywhere. He was watching everything. Suguru was certain for a second that he was about to leap forward and strangle him on the sun-warmed ground.

He is just a man, Suguru thought as he pressed on. “Why the anger, though?”

“Why the fuck are you asking me this?” Satoru snapped. His eyebrows came so close together he looked like he was almost in pain. 

Panic flared up in Suguru’s chest like a parasite. “I just-” His mouth grew hefty and dry, locked by his own misplaced curiosity. He couldn’t find his words. Why can’t I find my words? He wallowed around the silence.

He looked at his own legs stretched out in front of him and at Satoru’s hand next to them, curled into a fist. His knuckles were turning white under the healing patches of blue.

They stayed silent, exchanging a moment of calculated respite, Suguru allowing space for Satoru’s rage to subdue or blow up. He would make do anyway. After stretching the silence over Suguru’s body like a life sentence, Satoru spoke.

“I’m angry.” He indulged him. Satoru was trying. “It’s just like that.”

Suguru found his face again. He was watching his own hand next to Suguru’s ankle, too, as if he had followed Suguru’s point of focus and anchored himself there. He looked to be thinking about where his own body began. Suguru wasn’t sure of it himself.

Satoru’s frown deepened. “It’s all the time.” He added, speaking to himself in a murmur.  

“Even now?”

Satoru opened his fist on the ground, palm pressing down on the surface. The tip of his fingers brushed lightly against the skin of Suguru’s left ankle, right above his pristine white socks. Satoru seemed to be lost in it, watching from a distance, going back and forth between his blooming fingers and Suguru’s legs. Suguru tried to pace the growing thunder in his head, tried to pretend he couldn’t feel the ache and the burn and the pretence, tried to convince himself that he didn’t notice how cold Satoru’s fingertips were.

Satoru looked up, considering Suguru with attentive eyes, and let his shoulders drop slowly.

“Now’s okay.” He sighed. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet. Suguru was flooded by visions of waves and the sea and salt air taking over his body, drowning and drowning and floating again, sunburnt all over.

The rage was tamed. The rage was gone, but not forgotten. Suguru stared with eyes a little too wide and attention a little too obvious, pulled into an orbit that wasn’t his own. He stayed very still, too still for it to be normal, and didn’t know where to put his own hands. Maybe on his body. On whose body? Where do mine even begin? He was too aware of his own legs, too aware of his own ankle, and Satoru looked so unfazed and easy and palpable and right there. Where to put the anger. Where to put the other things, too. So many things. 

Suguru thought of his grandmother and her tranquillity, of her quickness to counter the rage. What would she do in the face of this, in the face of a storm. But there was no fury, now. There was nothing to grab and bite on. Only blue eyes that looked almost grey today. It must be the rain. It makes us spirited. Wild animals. Suguru tasted iron in his mouth. He tried not to die.

“I can hear you thinking again.” Satoru’s voice dragged him out of himself – no – dragged him back to himself. He returned to his body, jump-started like a fleeing deer. He blinked Satoru into focus only to realise he had never stopped seeing him clearly.

“I was just-” Suguru stammered around thin air. He saw Satoru smile. Is this fucking funny?

Satoru made no move to help him, only looking at him with eyes that saw too much and always too far, like staring right through Suguru’s head. He leaned slightly on his hand, his fingers pushing closer in the process, the tip pressing without much restraint into Suguru’s ankle now. The worst of it all, Suguru realised, was that Satoru looked unaware of it. 

Suguru was certain, now, that it was it. That Satoru was about to grab his leg and cut it clean at the knee, severing the tendons with a quick pull, deadly and ferocious. Something was trying to climb up his chest. Something was choking him, his body rejecting it.

Satoru looked gone, unfocused and blinking in a slow cadence. He straightened up slowly, his hand retracting in the process, and stretched his arms above his head. Suguru could still feel the coldness right above his sock and almost shook his head.

Satoru lay down on the ring, uncrossing his legs in the process, hiding the pain of his bruised body gracefully. “Talk to me.” He said. Suguru felt the words crash against his temples.  

He waited silently. Suguru was grateful for the distance and the patience. He was also aware of the incessant buzzing in his head and the need to touch something, anything, that wasn’t the fabric of his shirt. He placed his hands on his own thighs and acknowledged how warm his skin was.

After a while, Suguru found a meaning, found the words, and lied.

“I’m thinking about how you fight.” His voice croaked. He shifted to angle himself a little further from Satoru. Unsuccessful. “It’s just so -” He pinched his right thigh to muster some focus. “It’s unclear to me.”

“And you usually see right through everybody’s fighting style, right?” Satoru made a sound of amusement. “With your big brain and all?”

Suguru watched as Satoru's hands on his stomach rose up and down with the rhythm of his breathing. He welcomed the words with a contained smile. He tried to go against his nature, but his nature was silent, and he knew it was useless to fight it.

“I just like to know what I’m up against.” He admitted quietly.

Satoru half sat up at that, resting on one of his elbows to look at Suguru. “But you’re not against me, are you? We’re not adversaries, we’re supposed to be partners.” The unsubtle emphasis and the reticence made Suguru tilt his head. “Maybe that’s why you can’t figure me out.”

“Or maybe because there’s nothing to figure out.” Suguru studied him, his black hoodie three sizes too big drowning him in, and wondered if he would ever win against him again. Satoru was many things, but unchallenging wasn’t one of them. Suguru wasn’t sure he understood the extent of why he bruised and raged on naturally. 

“You fight with your belly.” He added, as if to make himself clearer, as if this made more sense. Satoru looked up at him with an unwelcoming glare.

“You already told me that.” Satoru complained, lying back down with a thud. “I don’t fucking know what that means.”

Suguru felt like he was staring down the barrel of his own gun. Except there was no bullet and the gun looked like pale fingers littered with violet and the feeling of jumping.

“You fight with your guts and that’s why you can’t be predicted.” Suguru clarified, stumbling through the sentence. He watched as Satoru’s face tried not to twist with the pain as he shifted to a different position on the ground. “And why you end up in this state.”

A beat, and the silence, and Satoru’s hands on his stomach stopped moving. He held his breath for a second and Suguru did too, mirroring him.

He let out a puff of air. “It’s a boxing match, not a kids playground.” Satoru hissed, something like resignation at the back of his throat.

Suguru looked at his face from an angle he had never seen, his jaw exposed to him like a razor blade, a canvas of hematomas, new and old and persistent, like the feeling of concrete in the winter cold. He went up the slope of his nose, scrutinised his split lip a tired shade of pink, and the bruise around his eyebrow growing deeper by the minute, menacing him like the promise of a harsh December. Suguru sighed.

“It’s unsustainable, Satoru.”

The words were out in the ring between them before he could stop it, hanging from their feet like a headless ragdoll, visibly seizing the owner of the name by surprise. Satoru tensed up on the ground. Suguru knew using his name to scold and hit was a low blow, but it was too late for that. He would find a way to repent. He knew how regret tasted and the flavour was bitter on his tongue.

Satoru remained quiet, his eyes watching the ceiling, visibly considering how this made him feel, how his name was being utilized. Suguru searched for something to blame. His brain came back pointing at itself. You’re poking at an open mouth and wondering why you’re getting bitten. 

Satoru sat up after a moment, eyes a million miles between himself and the moon, and watched Suguru with something like a challenge. Like a pledge. Like an assurance. His expression was halfway between a question and a dare, eyes narrowing as if trying to find hidden clues. He seemed to be collecting the very essence of Suguru’s skin. And the sunburns, always, were back. Suguru tried, and failed, to catch his breath.

“Well, fuck me, I guess. It might be unsustainable.” Satoru admitted sardonically. “It’s also the only way I know how to fight and it works all the time.” Pride, so much pride. His lips twitched up, staring at Suguru’s hair and back to his face. “Well, almost all the time.”

There was ego in Satoru’s voice and the tint of temper, acceptance weighing heavily on his face. Sharp edges and recognition. He was trying to make sense of their fighting dynamic the same way Suguru was. Suguru guessed that for someone with a rage like his, it had to be difficult to navigate incomprehension, to get in the ring and lose your footing in front of someone that your hands and feet couldn’t reach. Suguru was strangely astonished by it all. Satoru was probably just monumentally pissed.

“Thanks, by the way.” Satoru said, after a moment. His words were guarded. He stretched lazily, wincing as he twisted his body, his left hand coming up to touch his ribs instinctively. “Nanami told me you vouched for me so I could fight, or something. So thanks.”

Suguru studied Satoru’s hand holding his ribs, the shadow of discomfort on his face, the caution in his moves, his split lip and his bruises, and felt the tug of remorse.

“This doesn’t look like something you should thank me for.” He said apologetically, sounding on the verge of what he hated most: pathetic.

Satoru frowned at the words, watching Suguru with attention, and shrugged. “Looks worse than it is.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah.” He nodded, his tone unbothered, honest, used to it. His hand dropped from his ribs as he noticed Suguru watching it with concern. “My face took most of the blows.”

“And you bruise easily.” Suguru added in a daze, speaking more to himself than to Satoru. He could feel the push and pull of his own contradiction, of his brain desperately trying to make the culpability bearable.

“And I bruise easily.” Satoru confirmed, still looking at Suguru with consideration. Suguru could feel that he was trying to see through the fog, to make out his thoughts and his brain, to gather the meaning behind the subtle shifting of his weight. Ultimately, Satoru found it. “I got in the ring because I wanted to. Don’t start feeling guilty or some shit like that.”

The words had a spiteful authority to them that made them sound final. Undebatable. Suguru decided not to push and let the sounds die in his mouth the way he knew how.

He let Satoru watch him, half-pretending not to notice yet fully knowing he was bad at faking, bad at stopping his fidgety fingers, bad at not looking back. He dragged in a slow breath to find some semblance of comfort, but Satoru’s attention was so evident, so openly riveting that it made it hard to process. 

He could feel it all. He could always feel it all. Satoru had never pretended not to watch. He had never tried to conceal his staring. Suguru didn’t know what to do with his hands.

He looked up, curiosity winning over the rest, and met the other man’s eyes in the silence. Imprudence and a crash, and something like water at the back of Suguru’s throat. Satoru nodded, satisfied with whatever he found. He lay back down on the ring and breathed out slowly, releasing the air in Suguru’s lungs with his own exhale. He closed his eyes in what resembled abandon and Suguru was thankful for the lack of people, the lack of sounds, the lack of noises around the place. He was grateful for the absence of disturbance. He was grateful for the respite from Satoru’s anger.

He listened as the rain picked its cadence on the windows and allowed himself the leniency he had offered Satoru, unrestricted by his eyes. He watched Satoru’s face, a little twist of something still decorating his features, never quite serene, never quite calm. His knuckles were healing, at last, and Suguru wondered if he had followed up on the advice he had given him on the balcony. He took in the canvas on his skin, his face and neck, every small visible patch sporting a trace of violet blue. Sometimes it almost looked as if someone had held him a little too hard or grabbed him a little too tight. He wondered who, he wondered how, and he came back with nothing.

He was suddenly struck with the naive realization that he knew close to nothing about the man in front of him, but he couldn’t help feeling that a part of him, somewhere, somehow, had grabbed into the strands of Satoru’s spirit and tried to see further. Satoru did not feel like a stranger to him, although he practically was.

Suguru had met most of the people Satoru considered his friends. He had stepped into his space, stepped into Shoko’s apartment and noticed the pictures with the wild looking blue-eyed boy in them. He had laughed and played and smiled at the people Satoru had spent his days with and his youth, too, most likely. 

He had been to Shoko’s restaurant, ate her food and hugged her goodbye. She had played with his hair with a tenderness that felt eternal, like she had known him forever, the same way she knew Satoru, and a part of him couldn’t help but wonder how impossible it all was. How he had spent hours in Satoru’s presence and knew nothing about who he was, nothing about what he liked, nothing about who he loved on nights where he wasn’t knocked out and beaten to the ground, or if he even loved at all.

Yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Satoru was in no way unknown to him, like a thought that lingered and stalled. He could feel him around his ankles, and on his cheeks, and down the line of his back, and between his fingers and sometimes on his tongue when his presence was so loud and real and raw that Suguru couldn’t speak.

I know you, he would think, for reasons he couldn’t grasp, for reasons he didn’t want to dwell on. Some parts of me, somewhere, in another lifetime, know you.

Satoru stirred on the ground, opening his eyes again, and Suguru reluctantly looked away.

He heard a commotion getting closer and turned his head to see the pink-haired boy, who he now knew was called Yuji, and the brunette girl he had gathered was Nobara, coming up to the ring. They were exchanging words hastily with an excitement that was overwhelming. Suguru noticed Megumi following them silently, hands buried in the pockets of his hoodie, an even-tempered expression on his face.

He glanced at Satoru still lying on the floor, eyeing them from the corner of his eyes. Suguru raised an eyebrow at him which he returned with a shrug of his shoulders, visibly in no hurry to sit up or give them his time.

Suguru’s attention returned to the three people who had just stopped next to the ring. He offered Megumi a soft smile, remembering how the boy had approached him with all the reluctance in the world and many intrigued questions. He was quiet, serious, but Suguru could see the care and the interest underneath. The boy gave him a nod of his head in return.

Suguru shot Satoru another look only to find him frowning, craning his neck to look at the group that had arrived, separated from them only by the ropes of the ring.

“What is it, brats?” He asked, annoyance forcibly hidden under a friendliness that he reserved for them.  

Yuji gestured at Nobara who was elbowing him, then shot Megumi a helpless look, unsuccessfully trying to find some support in him. He sighed, defeated, and grabbed the ropes to lean on them. “We watched both of your fights this weekend.” He said with poorly concealed eagerness. “So cool.”

Satoru smiled at that, sitting up gracefully, hiding the sore muscles and the pain away. Suguru was surprised by the ease with which he slid into a different posture, something full of pride and energy. So used to it.

“Did you enjoy the show?” He asked with a cocky smile, making his split lip look like a trophy more than a wound.

Nobara jumped in, nudging Yuji with her shoulder to talk to Satoru directly. “It was epic, really. That little angry guy had no chance against you.” She smiled, eyes full of awe. “I don’t know how you do it.”

Suguru suppressed a sound. He too wondered where Satoru found the anger and the brute force to do what he did in the ring.

Satoru theatrically slid a hand through his hair. “I told you it was talent.”

He smiled, honest and raw, and Suguru fought the urge to flee, or fight, or reach or yell. He didn’t know what was in his throat, a breath or a lump, a smile or a scream. He could still imagine the brush of cold fingertips on his skin.

Nobara watched Satoru with intent and wonder, doubt settling on her face for a split second. It disappeared as she turned her head and offered her attention to Suguru. Something like shock took over her features. Something like admiration, too. Suguru already knew that any praise would make his body feel small and his heart feel tender.

“And you, too.” She started, honest and a little shy. “It was efficient. It was so…clean. So precise.” She shook her head slowly like she was trying to find the right words to describe something she couldn’t make sense of.

Suguru felt the collective attention turn to him, the top of his chest running warm, and blue eyes unabashedly sticking to his skin like a malediction.

“Oh.” He offered Nobara a smile, forcing himself to let the compliments wash over him. “Thank you.”

“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Yuji jumped in the conversation naturally, all previous mistrust towards Suguru seemingly forgotten. He sat on the edge of the ring and let his chin rest on the middle rope.

Suguru made a point not to look at Satoru, trying to offer his full attention to the two pairs of eyes patiently waiting for his words. He could feel him listening. He searched around his head for a way to answer.

“I was trained by someone who trusted me a lot.” He said in a smile, his tone softening as he remembered coach Yaga and his faith.

Satoru leaned into Suguru’s personal space with assurance. “Geto uses his head when he fights, unlike you.” He reached out his hand and pressed on Yuji’s forehead with one finger. Nobara snorted and the boy grimaced, offended.

“I think he just called you stupid.” Megumi spoke for the first time, his tone blank. Suguru looked over to see him sway on the stairs. His attention was elsewhere.

“Nah, he called him clever.” Yuji tried to swat Satoru’s hand away while nodding towards Suguru. “I don’t take offense.”

Satoru’s smile grew wider as he poked his forehead again. “Two things can be true at once, little man.”

The flattery reached down Suguru’s throat and pulled his heart out of his mouth without shame. It was like a blood-soaked kiss down the slope of his neck. Terrifying.

“So he did call you stupid.” Nobara mocked as she made no effort to suppress her grin.

Yuji admitted defeat as he shrugged. “Well, what else is new.”

Satoru ruffled the boy’s hair playfully, gaining another grimace from him, before dropping his hand to the floor and leaning back down on one of his elbows out of Suguru’s space. Suguru fought the urge to drag him back in.

“If you came here to ask for a training session, I’m out.” Satoru said, stretching his neck. He let his head loll back. “Rest day for me.”

Yuji suddenly looked sulky, pulling a face, and Suguru was abruptly made aware of his child-like features and attitude, wondering how old he was. Nobara made an effort not to let her shoulders drop, her attention shifting towards Suguru hesitantly.  

“Geto-san, would you mind sparring with us?” She tentatively asked. Suguru’s eyes widened in surprise which compelled her to press on. “We’re not too bad. Well, except Itadori.” She pointed her thumb to her neighbour. “He’s really shit. ”

“I’m not.” Yuji countered with a scowl. He stared at her for a second before softening his features, melting into something sweet as he turned towards Suguru. “We don’t wanna impose.”

“It’s only if you’re free.” Nobara added in a rush.

“Only if you have time, obviously.”

“It’s only if you want to.”

They both looked on the verge of adding another reassurance, glancing at each other and back to Suguru with hopeful eyes and the lingering feeling of doubt. They waited for him, Yuji blinking, and Nobara tilting her head.

Suguru’s attention drifted to the dark haired boy looking aloof on the stairs, pretending not to care, pretending not to listen to the conversation. Megumi shot Suguru a quick look, something like curiosity in his eyes, before blinking the feeling away. His focus returned to somewhere or something else, head low.

Suguru straightened up where he was sitting, clearing his throat slightly before stretching his shoulders, conscious of blue eyes still anchored to his skin.

“I’m not sure I’m a fantastic teacher.” He said with a smile. His tone was soft and a little distant. Yuji and Nobara shared an excited look as they both started to move, mirroring him. Suguru made a noise of amusement.

He got up, stretching his bent arms over his head thoroughly, his attention going back to Megumi. “Fushiguro, would you like to be first?”

Megumi’s head shot up to look at Suguru, a little stunned. It was the most expressive he had been in the short time Suguru had known him. Yuji and Nobara looked at Suguru with something like surprise, then to Megumi with something like pride, excitement, and a lot of unbridled delight.

“Yeah.” The boy finally said after a pause, trying to collect himself. “Yeah. I’d like to.”

Suguru nodded as an answer then gestured towards the ring across the gym, which he preferred. It had better lighting and the ground was a little softer. The three of them made their way over, Nobara leading them, Yuji grabbing Megumi’s hand with open excitement.

Suguru let his arms drop and looked down at Satoru sitting on the ring, only to find him watching him still, an unreadable expression on his face. Gentle, and a little warm, probably born out of exhaustion, Suguru thought.

“Do you mind?” Suguru asked, compelled to level the strings of red between them.

Satoru seemed confused before understanding washed over his face. He shook his head. “It’s good for them. They could learn a thing or two from you.” He let his attention drift to the three teenagers already climbing into the other ring. “Just return them in one piece.”

Suguru didn’t know where the easiness came from, but today had been kind to him, and Satoru was being kind too. Easy. Reachable. Right there. He smiled as he answered. “I won’t promise anything.”

Satoru battled with something like a smile or a wince, letting his eyes trace the outline of Suguru’s body one last time before lying back down on the ring, exhaustion getting the best of him.

“It’s not about how it looks, it’s about how it tastes.”

Suguru frowned, balancing a wooden spoon on the back of his right hand, his chin resting on his closed fist as he watched Choso pour liquid into two bowls.

“You used red miso?” He asked, suspiciously eyeing the soup and the bits of tofu floating to the surface. Choso pushed the bowl across the counter as he sat down opposite him, placing plates of rice and other side dishes between them.

“Yeah.” He plunged his spoon into the soup and shrugged. “I prefer it to white.”

Suguru hummed as a response and grabbed the spoon on the back of his hand. He stirred the liquid, pushing the aliments around as he inspected them with an intrigued eye. He preferred white miso to red.

“Do you want to starve to death, princess?”

Suguru smiled shyly, amused by Choso’s words, and dug into his bowl with newly found dedication.

“Thank you.” He said honestly before taking a mouthful, the rich flavour welcomed by his body. He nodded as Choso raised an eyebrow.

“You’re most welcome.” Choso took a sip of the soup, making a sound of approval as he did so, clearly happy with the result of his cooking.

The evening had gone by in a flash, a mixture of correcting postures, teaching combos that he didn’t know how to describe, finding the balance between words and sensations, and allowing endless flows of questions from a hectic Nobara who was keen on analysing every single aspect of his fighting. She was excellent, solid on her feet, fast and sharp, her kicks feeling like nails through the skin, but most of all she was bold. She had a tinge of craziness to her fighting that made her impressive.

Yuji had displayed a punching strength that was more than stunning, something that would be blindsiding once used right. His blows were outrageous, bordering on animalistic, as if the impact was doubled, like a side punch that you could never see coming.

But Megumi was remarkable. Cool-headed, calm, collected. Calculating almost, as if the ring was nothing more than another place to pass through, nothing different than the rest. His technique was acute, a sharpened double-edged knife, fast hands and deadly feet. He never wavered. He never let anything show. He moved like black clouds and something dark, and expandable and real, so deeply anchored that it was hard to read whatever could come next. Shadows and a curse. Suguru knew that he would become, with time, inevitable.

“You look drained.” Choso pulled Suguru’s thoughts back to the kitchen counter. “Did angry boy kick the shit out of you today?”

Suguru half-choked on his soup. “We didn’t spar.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “His Sunday fight was a bit much. I didn’t want to add to it.”

Choso pursed his lips as he swallowed rice. “Maybe he deserved the kicking. Just saying.”

Suguru was amused, remembering his roommate’s rant about Satoru’s aura which he had described as “fundamentally sinister and evil”. He didn’t think much of it, except that Choso had talked to Satoru on Friday night for less than a minute and that he had always been an extreme judge of character.

“You exchanged five words.”

“And it was five words too many, actually.” Choso said with a blank tone. “He was glaring all night like someone was repeatedly stabbing him with a knife.”

Suguru smiled as he took another spoonful of soup, watching Choso make judgmental faces on the other side of the table, mentally rummaging through his very spiteful and limited memories of Satoru. It was enough to make him look displeased.

“How does it not bother you?” He asked with a frown.

Suguru stirred his soup, watching the soju and wakame swirl in the red liquid. He thought of the anger. It was a heavy task, to know what to do with it, to know how to step over and around it. He had the strangest urge to cradle it in his hands and look at it under a light that made sense, under a light that made it easy to touch.

There was no right answer to Choso’s question. Satoru was filled to the brim with something inexplicable. Yes, the rage was bothersome. The rage was also inextricable and it was no use resenting it. It wouldn’t serve any purpose. It wouldn’t make Satoru any clearer. Suguru had never been the type to hold a grudge anyway.    

“I don’t know. I try to work around it.” He admitted, shrugging in an air of faked detachment that he knew Choso would see right through. “I don’t know.” The red tint of the soup suddenly looked menacing. He sighed as he put the spoon down.

“I can’t say I’m surprised. The prettiest ones tend to be absolutely insufferable.” Choso declared as he eyed Suguru’s spoon. “I guess he’s no exception.”

Suguru thought of blue eyes, purple in the snow, bruises like hand shadow puppets on pale skin. He thought of the waves and turbulence, of legs like sand castles. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“So you do think he’s pretty?”

Suguru looked up from his bowl to find Choso bringing his chopsticks to his lips, distantly watching him. His ability to remain stone-like when Suguru felt like he was being skinned alive was always remarkable. A little unnerving at times, too.

“I’m not blind, if that’s what you’re asking.” Suguru concurred quietly. His fingers grabbed the side of a napkin, folding and unfolding it.

“That’s not what I asked.” Choso nodded encouragingly towards Suguru’s bowl. “Asshole with an angel face. Fucking worst type out there.”

“Mmh.”

“You don’t wanna talk about him, uh?”

Suguru let go of the napkin and took another spoonful of soup, frowning as he considered Choso’s line of thinking. Want was not the right word. He couldn’t grasp the extent of his own inclination. Suguru didn’t know if he wanted to think of Satoru or not. He just did, and that was it. Visions of white hair never quite left the back of his eyelids.

“I don’t know. He’s just - It’s just -” Suguru sighed, words evading him as they often did. It was easier to talk to Choso than most people, but the quietness Suguru had grown familiar with was still a chore to overcome.

Choso waited, accustomed to Suguru’s resolute silence, allowing space and time for the words to swim between them. They reached the surface eventually. “He’s just a lot and I don’t know how to word it. I don't know what to say about him.”

“Other than he’s mean?

“He’s not mean, he’s-” Enraged. Unreachable. Violet. Pretty. “Angry. He’s just angry.”

“At you?” Choso frowned.

“I don’t know.” Suguru blinked the idea away but it came straight back to him. “Maybe? It’s like he’s taking revenge on the whole world all the time.” He stared at the plates and the spoon in his hand. “When he fights he gets vicious.”

“Vicious against you?”

“No, not me.” He can’t touch me.

“But you think he’s angry at you?”

“I think a lot of things that make very little sense.” Suguru conceded. He looked up at Choso with something a little panicked in his eyes. “He doesn’t make sense. Nothing really does.” He talked in a haze. The spoon hung loosely from his fingers.

“Talk to him, then. Make it make sense.” Choso offered with simplicity. “Make him make sense.”

“It’s not-“ It’s not that easy. Choso would do it, always. He would go to Satoru, nonchalant and unfazed, and ask him what his problem was. He would talk it through, talk it out, talk to him, talk through him. 

Suguru couldn’t. Suguru didn’t know where his tongue began and his throat ended and his thoughts came from, didn’t know how to dig a hole deep enough to lie down his words and his brain and his body in a language that Satoru, or anyone, would  understand. He didn’t know how to do it. He didn’t know how to want to do it.

“I know. It’s complicated.” Choso spelled it out for him. Suguru felt washed clean by relief. “Well I can always go and beat the shit out of him for you, just say the words.”

Suguru smiled softly at that. “How could I repay you?”

“What do you have to offer?”

“I don’t have much to my name.” Suguru shrugged. He swallowed a mouthful of rice and considered what he owned. Some savings, boxing gloves, and the place he grew up in. “I could give you my grandparents’ house.”

Choso raised an eyebrow as he settled his glass of water on the counter. “A house for a beat up? Isn’t it a bit much?”

“He’s a professional boxer.” Suguru considered Choso, his tired eyes, his nonchalance, his large shoulders and precious face. He pictured him facing Satoru’s wrath. “I doubt you’d get out of it with less than a couple broken bones.”

“He’s that savage?”

Suguru thought of blood stains on snow. “Come to think of it, you probably wouldn’t get out of it at all.”

“Jesus, man.” Choso made a face of profound disgust. “I hate that fucking guy.”

They finished their dinner in comfortable chatter. Choso spoke of the mountains, and of his brothers, and of his home that he missed. He talked of molecular biology, and Suguru listened with intent and a bit of awe, as he always did whenever Choso opened up about his job, which he was oddly private about. He could speak of his love and his devotion with simplicity, but the mentions of his work were sporadic information that Suguru stored in a small part of his brain.

“You still got the house, then?” Choso asked as he started cleaning the counter.

Suguru moved to the sink and turned on the tap. He let the water get warm.

He felt a strange taste coming up in his throat. Something metallic. Something cold. “Can’t bring myself to sell it.”

“The money wouldn’t hurt, though.”

Suguru watched the water with distant eyes. He saw his grandmother’s hands. He thought of his grandfather’s face. “I don’t want anybody in that house yet.”

Something like iron. Something tart. 

Choso made a sound of understanding. “Too soon?”

The taste in his mouth was blood. He was sure it was blood. He swallowed around the feeling, around the hollow on his tongue, and grabbed the dish soap.

“Too soon.”

That night, he dreamed of the countryside, of a lemon tree in spring, and echoes in an empty room.

“Have you ever lost a fight?”

Suguru stopped his blows and turned around, Satoru’s voice behind him pulling him out of his body. He stilled the punching bag in his wrapped hands.

He inhaled slowly to stabilise his breathing, slightly startled by the presence and panting from the effort. “A couple.”

Satoru considered him in silence, eyes narrowing as he did so, taking in the words as if judging whether or not the answer satisfied him. He nodded and moved to start stretching.

His split lips had healed during the week that had passed. His brow wasn’t covered by strips anymore, and Suguru noted that the cut was recovering nicely. 

The bruises were more tenacious. They had turned into an unwelcoming shade of yellowish green, undertones of purple still persisting. They clung to Satoru’s skin like liquid glue.

They had spent the past five days training and sparring in a shared silence that was born more out of habit than want. The week had gone by in a blur, a fog that Suguru believed was mostly his own doing. He had felt pensive, his brain on autopilot, visions of his grandparents that he could see at the back of his head. His chest was clogged, and his throat was tight, and his bones were strained. Grief sometimes came back to him like an ultimatum, like a rent in the fabric of his favourite shirt. He had to let it wash him blue and tired and leave him behind once more. It came to him like a tide. The water was cold.

He watched as Satoru raised his hands above his head and stretched his whole body to the sky, the way he often did. Suguru had noticed the habit.

“I ask cause you don’t talk about yourself.” Satoru said as he let his arms drop ungracefully.

Suguru observed Satoru’s hands for a moment on either side of him, turning his words over before blinking them away. He caught the light in white hair. He breathed in slowly, his body coming down from the high of exercising.

“I could tell you the same thing.”

It was a Saturday. The gym was buzzing with human life. The sound of chatters and efforts, the sound of gloves on fabric, of directions being shouted, of praises being offered. Yet, somehow, silence managed to fall upon the both of them.

Suguru let go of the punching bag, attention stuck to Satoru’s face. He watched out for the rage. Nothing came to the surface other than a frown and some semblance of confusion.

Satoru shrugged. “You don’t ask.”

A pause. A break. They studied each other as if a fight was underway. They always ended up there. There was an escape but Suguru couldn’t find it. Or didn’t want to. He had not seen clearly for a week. He breathed out too fast.

“Neither do you.” And I’m not sure I want you to.

Satoru breathed in on Suguru’s exhale. He looked on the verge of saying something, eyes scrutinizing and seeing and everywhere, as they often were. His jaw worked itself in place. He deflated slightly, visibly dropping whatever was on his tongue, and Suguru didn’t know whether to feel the relief or the ache.

“Mmh.”

Satoru conceded and let his attention drift away to the punching bag. He looked lost in his own head. He dropped down to a crouch and then sat on the floor, beginning to stretch his legs absentmindedly. Suguru could feel the tip of his fingers itching to grab something.

“How many fights have you lost, then?” Satoru asked blankly as he grabbed the toes of his left foot with ease, one leg stretched out in front of him on the floor.

Suguru angled himself away. “Six.” His hands went back to the punching bag to find something, anything, to touch.

“Out of?”

“I don’t know.” Suguru let his thumbs scratch the fabric of the bag. “I lost count.”

He did not want to be asked things. He wanted to keep drowning in the silence and for Satoru to know him anyway.

“How long have you been boxing for?”

Suguru glanced at Satoru still stretching mindlessly, eyes trailing around the place. He was talking to him without pressing. He was chatting. Suguru stared for a moment too long, trying to gather whether or not this was some kind of joke about to blow up in his face, but there was nothing.

“It’s my seventh year.” He answered, barely perceptible to his own ears, still staring, and a little stunned.

Satoru changed legs, uncrossing the other one in front of him as he hummed in response, taking slow breaths in order to untie his body and muscles. Suguru took him in, his posture and his routine and the way he did it all without doubt, ghost moves he knew like the back of his hands, all legs and arms and skin and something solid, something concrete. He didn’t look away when Satoru’s eyes found his.

They stared, they shared, they studied and searched, trying and looking and seeing past the other, holding the silence between them, holding something else above. What was there to say but everything. What was there to ask for but the entirety of one’s life.

“You’re not gonna ask me anything?” Satoru inquired, because someone had to.

It must be odd, Suguru thought, for people to see us like this; silent and watching. 

He blinked the words out. “Do you want me to?”

“This is usually how a conversation works.”

The weight and the fog around Suguru’s head were like rifts on the surface of his skull. He didn’t know the beginning from the end. He wanted the sea to wash him clean and take him away from Satoru’s wide-open eyes. Was there any way to make this feel less real? He believed that the world was happening to him. He felt that he was happening to it too.

“I can also fuck off, if that’s what you’d like.” Satoru suggested blankly.

“That’s not what I’d like.” Suguru blurted out, words tumbling out of his mouth and on Satoru’s lap like needles out of a box.

Confusion visited Satoru’s face. It was gone in an instant. “What would you like, then?”

To know it all without having to ask for it, probably. It was mostly this, mostly there, mostly that. Suguru felt that he was always an almost. He almost said it, he almost dared, he almost held on, he almost let go, he almost spoke. He had grown into this silence and bathed his hands into wordlessness.

Satoru made the words deaden Suguru’s throat. He made the sounds and letters choke on themselves. But he had a pull to him that made Suguru want to say something. He made Suguru want to ask, and reach and know and listen. The words ran around in Suguru’s mouth but felt like spikes against his teeth.

Would it always be this? To try and fail in the face of adversity? He didn’t think Satoru was against him. Yet, the words stalled at the back of his throat, sharing his airway with taciturnity.

“Your thinking is loud again.” Satoru said and Suguru blinked him into focus. “Just ask me.”

What is there to ask, other than everything?

“How did you get the scar on your stomach?”

Genuine surprise coloured Satoru’s face as he answered. “Diving right in, uh?”

“You don’t have to say. I mean, if it’s personal.” Suguru turned to face him completely. “If you don’t want to say.” He gestured to the air around him, a little hopeless. “You don’t have to. Of course you don’t have to.”

“It is personal.” Satoru concurred, a little wary as he took Suguru in. He stood up slowly.

Suguru noted that Satoru was slightly taller than him. Barely noticeable, but he noticed.

Satoru appeared to debate something with himself. He moved closer into Suguru’s space and leaned on the punching bag, angling himself towards him. He crossed his arms over his chest and breathed in slowly. Easy. Confident. Solid.

Suguru allowed him in without much choice and let his left hand rest on the punching bag, still.

“I used to do illegal fights and a guy I beat tried to cut me open after one of them.” Satoru admitted bluntly. “He gave me the scar as a parting gift.”

Suguru took in the words, nodding, ignoring the slight anger building in his chest and the urge to know more.

“How bad was it?”

“I barely made it out. Guess he didn’t go deep enough.” Satoru frowned, eyes ever so focused. “How did you know about it?”

“I noticed it during your fight on Sunday.” Suguru fought back the sunburns. “Hard to miss.”

“Yeah,” Satoru looked down at his t-shirt as if to make sure the scar wasn’t bleeding out on the pristine white fabric. “She’s a real beauty.”

Suguru saw a flash of pale skin and muscles cut to kill. “Something like that.” He let his thumb press on the bag, his nail trying to dig a hole. “How is the bruising?”

Satoru considered his words. “Better with the warmth, I guess.” He shrugged, making the punching bag move against his shoulder. Suguru’s left hand stilled it. “It comes with my fighting. I can’t do it like you, all calm and collected.”

The words were not an accusation. Suguru felt guilty all the same.

“There’s beauty in how you fight.”

Satoru didn’t speak for a moment. His face twisted slightly into something smug. “You calling me beautiful?”

Yes. Suguru stared in restrained shock, and Satoru smiled, proud and self-satisfied and so dreadfully pretty. “I’m calling you honest.”

Satoru let his eyes trail over Suguru’s face openly, eyeing his cheeks and his nose and his chin and his hair, taking in something Suguru couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t get to the bottom of. He let the side of his head rest against the punching bag, watching him with interest. Suguru abandoned the fight against the sunburns and desperately tried to make sense of it all.

“I’ll take that too, I guess.” Satoru said, distracted.

“What was the guy called?” Suguru blurted out. He was almost turned breathless by blue eyes on his face. “The one who gave you the scar.”

Satoru watched his mouth move. He seemed to hear the question from a distance. His eyes shot back up and he blinked in hesitation. “He had a fucking weird name.” He frowned as he watched a point above Suguru’s head, remembering. “Sukuna.”

The name did not ring any bells. Suguru knew, however, that he would never forget it. Something ancient. Something cold. He breathed in with a little stupor and tried to gather some courage.

Satoru’s attention came back to him and dropped onto Suguru's arm. “You have a scar on your shoulder.”

Suguru followed the other man’s point of focus, suddenly made aware of his own body, remembering that he shared the air between them too. “Oh. Yeah.” He eyed the long scar on his right shoulder. “Construction work accident.”

“Did it hurt?”

He examined the pattern. It went all the way down to his armpit, as if someone had tried to cut his arm off. “I don’t remember.” Suguru offered honestly. “I wasn’t – I wasn’t really…”

He stumbled on his words. The grief grabbed his neck slowly, pushing on his head until his nose was underwater. He let the tide pass. Satoru waited for him.

“I had a lot on my mind at the time.” He admitted quietly. His mind conjured the faint scent of lemons. “I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

He looked up to see Satoru studying the scar with open curiosity. He nodded as a response to his words.

“Is it recent?”

Suguru tried not to choke on his words. “Yeah, last year.” When I lost them. 

Satoru looked up at that, the tint of concern flashing behind his eyes. He considered Suguru for a second too long. “You healed up pretty nicely.” His eyes went back to the scar. “It’s barely there.”

Suguru thought about thanking him but it felt abhorrent to do so. He let his eyes drop to Satoru’s stomach as if to find something. All he was offered was that same undisturbed white fabric. He tightened the boxing wrap around his left hand.

“How long ago was yours?”

“Five years ago.” Satoru said. His eyes found Suguru’s hands mechanically and he frowned. “It still looks like shit.”

Suguru did not think that. Suguru had seen it under bright spotlights, had seen it under punches, had noticed it amongst the bruises and the rubbles, in the middle of the chaos and the violence. Suguru did not think it was ugly. He had felt the horrifying tug of his hands and the need to touch. He didn’t think it was anything other than interesting. It was Satoru’s.

“I think you’re just –” He tried. Satoru listened with attention. Too much of it. “Your skin is just–” He failed again. He bit the inside of his cheek before continuing. “It marks a lot.”

Satoru raised an eyebrow, somewhat puzzled. “Yeah.” He shrugged the confusion away. Suguru tried not to flee. “I got unlucky on that front.” He uncrossed his arms to look at his knuckles. The fields of lilac were never quite gone.

Suguru watched Satoru’s hands between them. Blue and purple and pale and soft. They looked kind. They looked cold, too, like the first snow of the season. It was hard to remember that they did what they did, that the violence in the tendons was so severe, that the blows behind the fingers were so brutal. Suguru considered each phalanx with sadness. He looked at the bruises with a little bit of regret. These aren’t mine but they feel like it all the same.

Satoru didn’t move them. Suguru looked up to find him staring at him with uncertainty, a soft frown between his eyebrows and something attentive, something interested. He was watching Suguru watch him. The sunburns were everywhere. Suguru wondered if cold hands on his face could chase them away.

Satoru’s eyes dropped to his lips, then back to his face, and to his own knuckles. Suguru shifted his weight. The air smelled of salt and the sea. It stuck to his skin like aquamarines. Satoru looked up, locking eyes with him and buried his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He opened his mouth only to close it back around the silence. 

Suguru felt that he was suddenly too close, that his body wasn’t his anymore and that Satoru’s bruises had reached his own skin. His eyes were a strange shade of greyish blue today.

It must be the rain, it makes us spirited. It had not rained in three days.

Suguru looked away, because someone had to. He let out the air he was holding and tightened his hair tie hastily. Satoru didn’t move from where he was standing for a moment, still considering him in silence. Suguru’s skin tingled. He hated it now. He wanted the waves to crash on some other shore. He tightened his boxing wraps again, to give his hands something to do, something to hold.

Satoru sighed. Defeat? He moved after what felt like eternity. He straightened up gracefully. He returned to his place on the floor, attention leaving Suguru, and resumed his stretching without a word. 

When he went home that night, Suguru dreamt of the sea, of sand over his body, and saltwater on his lips. 

Chapter Text

When Satoru was six, he scraped his right knee on his bathroom tiles. It was just a scratch. He had fallen from a stool while trying to grab a new toothbrush from a cabinet. The blood came rushing up his leg and out of the wound, colouring his skin with a deep gushing red that looked too menacing, too horrid and passionate for a six year old child. His father had barely acknowledged his quivering lips. His mother had gasped in distress, her bony hands covering his small knee to stop the bleeding. Her eyes were wide. Satoru felt wrong.

The bruise that followed was of a shade he disliked heavily. Something red, brown and purple. Something ugly. Something unkind. His mother had pressed ice on it every evening in an attempt to soothe it away. It was useless. Satoru believed his leg was about to fall.

The bruise accompanied him for three weeks, loud and vibrant, unmistakably there. Satoru would press his thumb on it to see if it hurt and was half expecting to see it bleed again. But there wasn’t much pain, just a pull under his skin, a pinch close to his bone. It would not feel that way, he thought, if my leg was going to fall.

When the bruise fully left, leaving a phantom outline on his pale skin, Satoru stared at the scar that remained from the cut. It was small, but it was there, and he had the unnerving feeling that it would stay, like a reminder of his clumsiness, a loud beating ordering him to stop climbing on stools.

As he pulled his pants over his right knee now, he stopped to look at the scar, remembering freezing tiles and the feeling of falling. He blinked the cold away.

The morning air was uncharacteristically chill for the first week of July. Satoru watched the tea swirl in his cup. He could already taste the sourness on his tongue. He added four cubes of sugar to satisfy his sweet tooth. The sun was up and streaming through the open window with tenderness, lighting up the room with bright early light. He studied the way the rays fell on the floor and the walls, sticking to white paint and his kitchen cabinets.

He drank his tea slowly, eyes closed and tired, and let the sun hit his face. He knew it would move and be gone in ten minutes.

It was a Thursday. A day of the week Satoru had never felt any inclination towards. Although he had an opinion on mostly everything, he believed that a Thursday had always been just that: a day.

He opened one eye and looked at the clock. Half past eight. Five more minutes of sun.

He could see the light on his closed eyelids. He could feel the warmth on his skin. Never quite right. Never quite enough. He debated closing the window but did not find the motivation to stand. He took another long sip. Not sweet enough. He couldn’t get it right lately.

Four more minutes of sun.

He had the strangest feeling growing somewhere under his ribs. Satoru had made peace with the fact that something had been off about his footing recently, that something was on the verge of a free fall, like a ticking clock right next to his ears. A warning sign. A flash. He couldn’t see it. The seconds were slightly too long, the mornings and evenings didn’t pass the way they used to, he couldn’t get his tea right, and his breath came in and out of him at a tempo he wasn’t accustomed to.

It was nothing major, but it was enough to put him in a state of alertness. Something, somewhere, in the skin of his stomach scar, was about to make itself known. Dangerously. Violently.

Two more minutes of sun.

It wasn’t rage. It felt the same. It tasted similar in his throat, but it wasn’t rage. It felt like there was a cut, like there was a passion. Was it ever enough, to feel some type of way? Satoru did not know about this. He did not know what it was. It felt unkind, but he knew he was a stranger to softness. Maybe it was nice. Maybe it was easy, but it did not feel easy. It felt so foreign to his own skin, rotten soil under the tips of his nails. Satoru, like a child faced with horror for the first time, was disoriented by it.

Satoru knew nothing of kindness. He did not know much more about affection.

One more minute of sun.

He was not enough of a fool to ignore what the source of it all was. The growing tension in his shoulders found its birthplace in amber eyes that had noticed his scar and the purple in his hair. The annoyance had been gifted to him by warm skin. The anger was the remnant of his name spoken like a gentle reprimand. Clenched fists and a locked jaw the results of a gentleness Satoru couldn’t get his head around. Suguru never quite left the back of his skull. Satoru was constantly irritated by it.

Satoru knew nothing of kindness. He did think that Suguru knew everything about it.

The sun was gone.

He drank the rest of his tea. Too sweet, now.  He settled the cup on the table, ignored the scratching at the base of his neck, and went for a run.

Late afternoon once again, and the day had been nothing short of a boring mess of tangled stories and tired limbs. Shoko had not been at the restaurant with him. He served clients all day without enthusiasm, trying to pretend it wasn’t a Thursday, trying to erase the trail of ennui. It had been useless. He missed Shoko. He missed her all the time.

He stepped into the gym an hour after the end of his shift. Too tired. Too bored. Too irritated. Too much, too something and always too fucking exhausted. Satoru let it win. There was, ironically, no fighting it.

A loud buzzing coming from upstairs made him frown. Laughs and words being exchanged with passion, he figured. He looked around the bottom floor and realised it was empty. The sounds coming from upstairs were growing more cheerful. Satoru’s mood turned more sour.

It was a Thursday. Satoru tried to remember the date. It was the third day of July.

It was this Thursday.

It was Nanami’s birthday.

“Fuck.” He muttered under his breath.

Satoru had forgotten, like he tended to forget everything else. He considered fleeing home. He was empty handed. He stood in the centre of the gym for three minutes too many, searching his brain for an excuse, searching his brain for anything. There was nothing. Satoru did not know how to lie.

He made his way upstairs, desperately trying to ease the river bed between his brows, and he grew more miserable as he approached the noise. There was no way to escape this. The chatter was so lively it made his head swim. He swore that he could cut right through his own consternation.

He buried his hands in his pocket and made his way to the open space halfway through the corridor, overlooking the gym. The pool table had been pushed to the side, replaced by a large camping table Satoru didn’t recognise. An ungodly amount of mismatched chairs stood around it, each of them occupied by someone he knew. The sofa was moved further to the back to give more space for the happy mess of it all.

Yuji was laughing loudly. Megumi frowned at something someone said. Nobara was digging into a bag of chips with enthusiasm. Yuki was cutting a comically big cake. Nanami looked content, albeit a bit reserved. And Suguru sipped on his drink with a smile on his face.

Other people were there too, people that Satoru knew of, some he had talked to once or twice, but all of them people that knew Nanami or, more importantly, respected him. Fighters and coaches, all coming together to hold a reception for him which had been planned in advance, which Satoru had completely forgotten about. Like everything else. Like he did all the time.

He stood there, motionless for a second as he took in the scene, and blinked only when he realised that multiple pairs of eyes had turned to him.

Nanami raised an eyebrow at him, and Satoru conceded immediately.

“I forgot.”

A pause, somewhere someone tried not to laugh, and Yuki smiled with victory. Satoru frowned.

“Pay up, boys!” She said as she opened her palms over the table. A collective noise of complaint was heard.

Yuji sighed. “Not even a second of suspense.” He dug into his pocket and placed a bill into Yuki’s hand with a groan.

“I told you, it’s all those punches he takes to his face.” Yuki joked just as Nanami handed her some money. “Makes his memory turn to shit.”

Satoru frowned even deeper and looked at Suguru with confusion. Kind eyes watched him with something like amusement.

“Didn’t know it was that bad.” Nanami answered as he eyed Satoru from a distance, shaking his head. “Get over here. We saved you a seat.”

Satoru shook the disbelief away and made his way to the table. The remaining free chair was next to Suguru. Satoru did not question it. Whatever.

“Did you bet on this?” He snarled as he sat down without much grace. 

“Yes and I just won 6000 yen.” Yuki smiled, dangling the money over the table, flashing a grin. Brat. “Thank you, dear.”

Satoru shook his head at her in open disgust. “Fuck off, seriously. You’re a demon.”

“A demon with money, at least.” She went back to cutting cake slices.

Satoru leaned back in his chair, appetite gone and a little vexed. His fingers in his pockets scratched the fabric of his hoodie. He looked at Suguru sitting to his left with a modest smile on his face, purposefully looking everywhere but at him.

“You too?” He asked defensively, leaning towards the black haired man.

Suguru watched him over the cup against his lips. He took another sip before settling it on the table. “No. I didn’t bet.” He considered his next words, his gaze shifty. “I didn’t want to lose any money.”

Satoru regarded him. “So you thought that I wouldn’t remember either?”

Suguru brought the glass back to his mouth hurriedly. Satoru fought the urge to take it from his hands and drink the rest of it.

“I didn’t have much faith in you.” Suguru said apologetically, head tilted to look at Satoru. He offered a quiet smile. “Sorry.”

Fucking pretty. “Fucking traitor.” Satoru said without much spite, inching away from Suguru, his eyes not quite leaving him.

Suguru's hair was up in that habitual hairstyle he wore whenever he trained. It was a bit messy, some strands falling over his face, others sticking out of the bun. Satoru eyed the purple hair tie he had noticed on the balcony, clashing out with the black of Suguru’s hair, and crashing into the bruises on his own shins. Satoru unconsciously started bouncing his left leg.

“Happy birthday, by the way.” He declared lazily, forcefully shifting his attention to Nanami. “I have nothing to offer you but my presence.”

“What an absolutely delightful gift.” Nanami cynically answered.

Satoru flashed him a full grin. “Don’t mention it.” He winked, winning a chuckle from Nobara.

His eyes returned to Suguru, only to find he was being watched already. Suguru had a sort of curious attention on his face. Satoru raised an eyebrow, feeling questioned without knowing why. He felt compelled to justify himself.

“I’m just shit with dates.” He explained as he shrugged. “Birthdays are weird anyways.” He scrunched his nose and leaned further back into his chair.

Suguru placed his elbow on the table, his chin propped up on his curled fist to look at Satoru. “Is getting older not glamorous enough for you?”

Satoru eyed the spare hair tie on Suguru’s wrist. “Something like that.” His leg was still bouncing restlessly. He frowned, both at himself and at the other man. “Are you calling me old?”

Suguru smiled as he took in Satoru’s face. “I don’t even know your age.” His voice was warm. Too warm. It was July already. “When’s your birthday?”

“Why do you care?” Satoru felt his words cut through his teeth.

“I’m simply asking, Satoru.” Suguru’s tone had the kind of precaution used in the face of adversity, the name almost sounding like an apology on his tongue. It reached the back of Satoru’s throat and pulled something out of him, pushing something else in as a replacement. Can it be easy, if I let it?

“Mmh.” He took in Suguru’s face, forcing his suspicion away. “It’s December seventh.” He admitted. “I’ll be turning twenty seven.”

Suguru smiled timidly at that. “Old.”

Satoru’s eyebrows shot up. “Watch your mouth” He took a hand out of his pocket and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “Speak nicely to your elders.”

He hadn’t dwelled much on Suguru’s age. He realised he had assumed, somewhere along the line, that they must have been born under the same year-long sky.

Suguru eyed Satoru’s finger close to his face. “I’m joking.” He admitted bashfully. “We’re the same age. I’ll be turning twenty seven too.”

Satoru dropped his hand to his own thigh. Suguru followed the motion.

He huffed and tutted with narrow eyes. “You’re kind of a brat when you want to, uh? Under all that.” He gestured to Suguru’s face and body mindlessly, encompassing whatever he meant. Appearances, a smile and some consideration. “What day?”

Suguru was still lost on Satoru’s hand. He suddenly seemed to remember he was part of the conversation. “Uh?”

“Your birthday? Not that I’ll remember anyways.” Suguru lied. He thought he wanted to remember this.

Suguru’s lips parted slowly, a sign of quiet confusion. He blinked something away and came to his senses, came back from wherever he was. “Third of February.”

Not born under the same sky, then, but close enough. Three months apart. Satoru frowned in spite of himself.

“February?” He asked with a tilt of his head, noticing a barely-there scar on Suguru’s forehead. “I didn’t take you for a winter guy.”

Satoru did not know where his thoughts were going or coming from. He just knew that February felt wrong, that he had seen Suguru under the evening sun, and that his morning tea had tasted off for weeks.

Suguru’s eyes narrowed in guarded interest. “And what did you take me for?” He asked. His fingers taped the rim of the cup on the table. There was a blush on his cheeks. “When did you think my birthday was?”

“I don’t know.” Satoru answered, sounding uncharacteristically quiet. He considered Suguru’s face, the deepening shade of his cheekbones hidden under sun-lit skin, the amber in his eyes like warm wood under the light, the constant thing radiating from him, mellow and tender and kind, something windless, something old. He ignored the first question, by lack of answer, and by necessity. “Somewhere around now or maybe August. It would make more sense.”

“Why would it?” Suguru asked, cheeks turning another shade closer to the sun, voice lost almost in a whisper. Satoru felt his own neck burn

“I don’t know.” He knew. “It just would.”

Suguru visibly lost his words. Satoru regretted the taste of his own. He bit the inside of his cheek and worked his jaw into place to keep himself from saying anything else. Suguru grew dauntingly quiet next to him, his thoughts and eyes to himself.

The conversations around them kept flowing, oblivious to whatever had settled on Satoru’s mind and on Suguru’s face. Satoru leaned back in his chair, further and further and further, both hands back in his hoodie’s pocket, and let the sound wash over him. 

The ticking was back against his ear. There was a stain on the table that looked like shame and something difficult. He tried to work it into the surface, tried to make it disappear. The scar on his stomach called for hands and a crash so evidently Satoru felt almost sick. Sick with some shit he couldn’t understand. Sick with a feeling that was all rage, but nothing like it, but rage all the same.

“Are you okay?”

Rage and nothing. Rage and it wasn’t rage, it wasn’t rage.

“Satoru?”

A warm voice next to him. Someone wiped the stain away on the table. He looked up to his left and found Suguru’s face. And it wasn’t rage.

“Mmh?” He hummed in confusion, letting brown eyes watch him with concern.

“You went somewhere for a moment.” Suguru’s voice was kind. It was always kind. He was always kind.

Satoru scratched his nape to make it go away. He pressed his cold fingers to the skin, burying them right where his hair began and was growing a little too long for his liking. Suguru watched the motion with a frown.

“I’m fine.” Satoru tried. It sounded wrong. “None of your concern anyway.” It sounded dismissive. Suguru was kind. Satoru hated himself. He tried again. “Nothing you need to worry about.” There.

Suguru’s eyes kept watching him, with this attention that never seemed to leave, and for the first time it felt a little too honest, a little too wide. He tore his eyes away from Suguru and tried to make his mind grow quiet, tried to silence the burden, as if Suguru could hear it, as if Suguru could see it.

He tried to focus on anything else. He remembered the scar, and the cold tiles, and the old cut on his knee. His left leg was bouncing relentlessly.

He felt a knee collide with his own, pressing into his skin ever so slightly under the table. A gentle touch. Barely anything. Nearly imperceptible. Satoru’s leg slowed.

Nanami was opening a gift someone had handed him. Yuji was peering over Yuki’s shoulder to get a better view of the unwrapping. Megumi said something and Nobara snorted. And Satoru couldn’t make out any of it. The knee against his own had silenced anything in and around him. Laughter and words and conversations. Suguru said something to someone, pressing his knee further to still Satoru’s leg completely. Or was it Satoru doing it? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Couldn’t tell where his body began anymore.

He inched his limb closer without wanting – no – without meaning to. He couldn’t find the rage. Couldn’t find the meaning. The restlessness in his leg came to a full stop. Had it always been this? Easy and spiteless and a little stupid. So stupid. He didn’t know who had wiped the stain on the table. He didn’t know where his anger was. He didn’t know much, didn’t know anything. He let his knee rest against Suguru’s, let the old scar on his patella be mended, and closed his eyes in his own silence.

He was tired. His tea had tasted wrong for weeks.

His mind drifted a little. It wasn’t unpleasant, to feel like someone else was holding the feeling. Holding him, somehow, with just that. With nothing else but that, a knee against his own, a little shy yet unmistakable here.

Satoru's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his name. Nanami was talking to him. Suguru was intently watching his own cup in his hand.

“Sorry.” Satoru said, unaware of pretty much everything. He fought back a yawn and abandoned the idea of straightening up.

“It’s fine.” Nanami smiled reassuringly. He repeated himself with concern in his voice. “I told you to win your fight this week-end. It’ll be enough of a gift coming from you.”

Satoru smiled tiredly at that, fighting the urge to rub his eyes, and nodded in agreement. He stayed quiet, the constant migraine behind his eyes threatening him once again. He let his attention drop to his leg, to his knee pressed again Suguru’s under the table, and blinked it into his mind.

“Who will you be fighting?” Suguru asked distantly without watching him. Purposely. He was still eyeing the liquid swirl in his cup.

Satoru pressed his knee further, light-heartedly and a little gone from his own head. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. He didn’t even know what he was saying. “Some guy. I don’t remember names.”

Suguru hummed in response, watching the inside of his cup with newly found interest. Satoru still watched their knees pushed together. Suguru wasn’t retreating, wasn’t moving. He let Satoru stay there, and he stayed there in return.

Time went by slowly. Suguru finished his drink and scrambled for anything to settle his eyes on. Some people said their goodbyes, and Satoru distantly answered them with a smile. The table became more and more empty, chairs remaining with lingering presences that Satoru had been half-aware of. Another goodbye, another smile, another someone saying something, Yuji’s enthusiasm and a laugh, somewhere. It went on. And on. And his mind fell silent.

A more insistent push on his knee brought him back to his body. There was no one left at the table but him and the sun.

He turned his head to look at Suguru, in some sort of haze, some sort of tranquillity that was so foreign he didn’t know what to do with it. How to deal with it. What to say to it, to say to him, to ask or word or beg for. He wouldn’t beg for anything. He thought he wouldn’t speak, either, or supplicate or bargain. He would keep his mouth shut. It would be this, always. It will be nothing, no one, just this. Easy. It had to remain easy.

Suguru watched him carefully, always so far, yet right there, attentive and cautious and a little worried. Always a little worried. Kind, too. 

Satoru believed he knew nothing of kindness. He did think that Suguru knew everything about it.

“Do you want to spar?” Satoru asked. He could barely recognise the tone of his voice.

The worry seemed to lift. Suguru looked over his shoulder, searching for someone.

“I told Fushiguro I would train with him a little.” He explained, his words barely reaching anything. Satoru, wired to the bassline of Suguru’s voice, heard him.

Satoru shrugged, eyes glued to Suguru’s face, inevitably. “I can wait.”

Suguru studied him with a little apprehension, as he always seemed to do when Satoru became too blurry, too unpredictable for Suguru’s mind to fully grasp. Satoru could always tell when the moment was, when he derived from the script in Suguru’s head, when he said something that made the confusion wash over Suguru’s face.

Satoru straightened up slightly, making his knee dig further into the other man’s. Suguru tried, and failed, to suppress the tempest in his features. Satoru’s head was swimming. Could it be this? Would it remain easy? Satoru felt that it could be harsh, that it was always complicated because it was him. He didn’t know where the end was, or where his stomach was. He didn’t know where his heart began. Somewhere between this. Somewhere on his leg, with a knee pressed against his, and eyes like a part of the sky. Like a part of it all.  

“Alright.” Suguru answered, a little breathless. “Wait, then.”

And Satoru did. He stretched and warmed up lazily for an hour, watching Suguru train Megumi from a distance, with interest. He didn’t want to overstep, didn’t want to look like he was overseeing things. He also wasn’t sure what he was doing here, wasn’t sure what the reason was. There was a reason. There was always a reason.

Suguru was good as a coach, that much was obvious. It felt foreign to see him spar with someone else after spending so long on the receiving end, just as it had felt unfamiliar to watch him fight. It was a bit strange, too, to understand moves that Satoru couldn’t register whenever he came face to face with them. Suguru’s boxing looked like something that made sense. It also looked like something Satoru had never grasped before. He wasn’t sure he would ever fully comprehend it.

Satoru’s left knee was still warm. He focused on his stretching and let the last hour of daylight walk past him.

He absently unwound his washed-out boxing wraps. He had bought five pairs of the same colour years ago, and they all started to look lighter with every wash. They had been bright blue, once, almost electric. They tiptoed on the edge of grey now. Satoru started wrapping his hands mindlessly.

“Your wrapping speed is impressive.” A warm voice said close to him.

Satoru looked up from his hands to find Suguru sitting on the edge of the ring he was standing next to. Suguru offered a timid smile before looking at Satoru’s hands again. His face was flushed a little from the hour he had spent in the ring, and his bun was slightly lower, strands of hair sticking out more and more as time went by. Pretty.

“But again, I guess speed is your forte.” Suguru added, leaning back on the ropes, catching his breath slowly.

Satoru huffed. “It hasn’t felt like much of a forte lately.” He shrugged while tightening the Velcro around his wrist. “You’re putting me to shame.”

He shot Suguru a serious look, expecting to find the other man frowning, only to be met with an amused smile

“I assure you, I’m not.” Suguru nodded towards him. “You’re still quicker than me.”

“And I still can’t touch you for shit, so.” Satoru grumbled as he dropped his hands, burying them in the pockets of his sweatpants as he lazily swayed from side to side.

Suguru watched him with interest before sighing slightly. “I share your exasperation.”

“Do I exasperate you?” Satoru tried, as a challenge.

Suguru visibly considered his next words, eyes a little shy. “Our sparring does exasperate me a little.” He admitted quietly.

Satoru smiled sarcastically, shaking his head at that. “And here I was under the impression I was the only one finding this ridiculous.”

Suguru straightened up, a frown finally finding its way between his eyebrows. He titled his head, thinking, his teeth worrying at his lower lip.

“I don’t find it ridiculous.” His voice was calm, tentative, and so weirdly honest Satoru felt a little stupid. “I find it unnerving. It’s…” He trailed off, watching a point above Satoru’s head. “I don’t know. It’s so…” He tried again, his eyes returning to Satoru’s face, all-seeing and contemplative. “I just can’t land anything. It’s like you’re water, like you just refuse to stay put and I don’t know how to...move in a way that would make sense.” His hands gestured helplessly to the space between them.

Satoru took in the words, worked them under his thumb and between his teeth, and tried not to go mad.

“I stand by what I said during our first sparring. You think too much.” Pretty boy. Satoru bit the inside of his cheek before resuming. “Here you are, talking about water while I’m just losing my patience and my breath trying to punch any part of you.” He sat down next to Suguru, keeping a relative distance. “It’s infuriating.”

Suguru regarded him, focused eyes trailing over everything Satoru was. “You get too angry.”

There was no spite in his words. It was an observation, one Satoru knew to be true. A fact without a meaning. Satoru felt piqued anyway, because of course he did.

“And you get too clever.”

“You get too emotional.” Suguru countered with haste. 

“You get too lost in your own head.”

Touché. Suguru stared without a word, the way he usually did, his tongue lost to the silence. Satoru felt a wave of sudden remorse overcome his entire body.

“You started it.” He justified, his tone closer to that of a child than a man. He brought a hand to the back of his head unconsciously, pressing his fingers into the skin, under his hair, into the muscles.

“Mmh.” Suguru hummed pensively as he followed the motion of Satoru’s hand. “Are you angry now?”

Satoru blinked at the question. He massaged the back of his neck one last time before letting his hand drop to his lap.

“A little, yeah.” His neck stung and he felt a bit cold. He was always a bit cold.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He answered. Too fast. Too quick. Maybe I know. “I never fucking know anyway.” He eyed his own wrapped hands suspiciously. Washed-out blue on violet-littered skin. “Asking me about it surely doesn’t help.”

Suguru nodded, concern waving in his eyes. He offered Satoru an apologetic look before diverting his gaze.

“I did not mean to pry.” He said with difficulty, his confidence lost in some gutter filled over-the-top with the world’s weight, somewhere. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” Satoru shrugged, placid. “It’s whatever.” 

It did not feel like whatever. Suguru’s apology was not needed, nor deserved, or necessary. If anything, Satoru felt like he should have been the one showing his remorse, offering his pardon for being stuck into this state of stubborn irritation he could never quite escape.

He stood up from where he was seated, his body feeling the need to stretch, like every time something questionable and mean grabbed a hold of him. He took a slow breath in and stretched his neck slowly, making slow circles with his head. Halfway through the motion, his attention got stuck on a flash of dark green and Suguru’s hands moving.

He stopped to look as the other man tightened his boxing wraps around his knuckles and wrists, securing them after his previous hour of boxing with Megumi. Satoru frowned at the slight shine on the fabric, the colour unassuming at first, but the material unexpectedly stretchy.

“Your hand wraps.” Satoru said, breaking the silence. He tilted his head down to get a better look at them. “They look odd.”

Suguru looked up from where he was sitting, a little startled. He took a second to process Satoru’s serious eyes on him. “They’re elasticated ones. I prefer them to cotton.” He considered his left hand as he secured the Velcro around his wrist. “They can be wrapped tighter.”

He raised his hand slightly higher, showing his work to Satoru who kept leaning forward in interest. Satoru frowned, eyes lost on green fabric sheltering honey, and grabbed Suguru’s hand to inspect the wrapping. Kindly. A little too softly. He let his thumb brush over the fabric covering Suguru’s knuckles, testing the material he was unfamiliar with, and feeling the bones underneath. I’m not unfamiliar with this. Can it be easy, if I let it? He brought the hand closer, to see, really see, the way the green of the fabric tiptoed on brown. He studied it, studied the wrapping, because Suguru did not wrap his hands the same way Satoru did, because Satoru did not really know when he had learned to punch and bite and kick, because Suguru had a way of making his wrapped hands look tender.

“They’re soft.” Your hands. The hand wraps. Satoru did not know anymore.

There wasn’t much Satoru knew.

He wasn’t sure his mother liked him. He didn’t know where his father was, not that he cared. He didn’t know how he liked his tea anymore, couldn’t really remember the time he broke his ankle when he was eight, even though he knew he had, but remembered when he had fallen on the bathroom tiles. He didn’t remember what bitterness tasted like on most days. He always put too much sugar in everything, but he didn’t know if he liked it, or if he had just grown used to it. The sweet tooth of a child that cried too much.

This was how things had always been. This was how things had made sense.

Satoru did not know if things made sense anymore.

Satoru had the strangest impression that he wanted to lay things down on the floor and see, take a look, understand the paths of his own body, his guts and things, so many things, trapped down down down in the pits of himself. Blue eyes, so unkind. So unkind he didn’t know how to look differently, how to stare differently, how to watch differently. Men do not cry, Satoru. Men did not cry and men did not fear, men raged on just like he did. Then why did he feel like this? Like everything but anger. Like everything and anger. Like everything but a man.

“Are you okay?”

Satoru blinked something into focus. Blinked himself into focus. Blinked Suguru’s hand in his into focus. Suguru hadn’t moved it away. Satoru was still holding it, lost in a haze. Suguru’s fingers were pressing into his skin softly, over the bandage, to try and bring him back. Kind. Warm. Gentle.

A pause, their shared silence, and Satoru looked up, not letting go, meeting Suguru’s face.

“Yeah.” He took a slow breath in, just in case. “Not angry anymore.”

Suguru held his hand a little tighter, studying his face in a panic, like he did every time Satoru stood too close. Satoru felt Suguru’s hand in his and wished for the fingers to merge together. Maybe like this Suguru would always hold it. 

Satoru let go instead. He tried to find his heart. Suguru looked like the world had stopped spinning for a second.

“Do you still want to train?” Suguru blurted out. His eyes ran over Satoru’s face in a frenzy.

“I do. Do you?” Satoru watched a strand of hair falling over Suguru’s right eye. Saltwater and the Sun.

“I don’t know.” Suguru sighed with confliction. “You look tired.”

Satoru kept staring at the hair strand, his mind wandering somewhere else. “I always look tired.”

“Not like this.”

“Like what.”

“I don't know.” Suguru almost whispered, his voice lost in a panic, like facing Satoru was hard. Rain and a crash and so much wind. “Just not like this.”

Satoru let the air of confusion wash over him. Suguru’s voice was scarred with a feeling he couldn’t pinpoint, with an apprehension that wasn’t fear, this time, but genuine concern. He was worried. Satoru was making him worried. And the thought was so clear in his head, and the feeling was so evident on Suguru’s face, that Satoru felt knocked down by it all, by the sheer animosity of being looked at and worried for.

“You barely know me.” He let out, making a point and none at the same time, making sense to himself and to no one else. Surely, to no one else.

Suguru shook his head, held his eyes, and understood. “I know you enough.”

A pause. Satoru felt the gravity change side.

“I think you need to sit this one out, Satoru.” Suguru added afterwards.

Satoru had a moment, just a moment, where he debated fighting his corner. He dropped it because of eyes so kind they made him feel malleable. Yielding. Forgiving.

“Then sit it out with me.” He answered. The words were impressively easy on his tongue.

Suguru stared, a little lost, his left fingers playing with the edge of the Velcro on his right wrist. Satoru noticed the motion, eyes drawn to it like a hawk at nighttime.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Suguru whispered around his silence.

Satoru’s eyes shot up in a frown. “What doesn’t?”

Suguru looked at him so openly that the answer spread out in the space between them. You. You don’t make sense, Satoru. He knew it himself. He knew that whatever grabbed him when Suguru was around made him unstable, and a little harsh, and a little irrational, and a little nonsensical.

But Satoru also knew a thing that was called pride, and he had too much of it.

“You’re not making it easy.” He accused, crossing his arms over his chest. “You don’t talk.”

Suguru welcomed his words with pinched lips. “I talk when I have something to say.”

Satoru huffed. “We both know that’s not true.”

He watched as Suguru blinked rapidly, as if caught red-handed in a lie, and held Satoru’s eyes with wariness. Irritation, too. That was new. Satoru tried for softness but found that his tongue was tied.

He uncrossed his arms, working his jaw in the process, and let his eyes rest on Suguru’s. They met in the middle, somehow.

“Stop tiptoeing around me.” Satoru’s voice was more of a plea than an order.

Suguru still tensed up at the words. “Well now you’re the one not making that easy.” He mumbled under his breath, making a visible effort to keep his eyes glued to Satoru’s face, trying to prove a point.

“Why?” Satoru asked forcefully. “Why is it not easy?”

Suguru searched Satoru’s face with that contained distress that was oh so him. “Because you’re just -” He blurted out before catching himself. “You’re just not easy.”

Satoru took in the words and suppressed something like a laugh or a choke. The back of his neck stung. He raised an eyebrow.

“Well fucking tough luck for both of us.” He replied dryly, teeth too tight.

He let Suguru watch him, and watched in return, and like always the silence came back. Suguru uncertainly trailed Satoru’s face. It was something entirely new, to always be looked at like that. Like Suguru was trying to figure him out and running out of time to do so, urgent and desperate and raw. Satoru tried not to stare back and failed. He deflated.

“How could I make it easier, then?” He asked with a sigh.

Nothing. Suguru simply regarded him with something like sadness.

“There you go again, not answering me.” He said almost desperately.

Suguru pinched the skin of his right thigh. “Because you ask things that are just -” He started in a rush and shook his head. “What do you want me to answer?”

“Well, I don’t know?” Satoru tried for nonchalance and failed. “How about “Satoru I’d like you to be nicer”, for starters?”

Suguru frowned and worried at his lip, unimpressed. “You’re nice enough.”

Satoru did not believe himself to be kind. He certainly did not believe himself to be nice either.

“Your standards are atrociously low.”

Suguru frowned at his tone. “You sound like Choso.” Satoru noticed that the other man was now watching his hair. And the purple in it, probably.

“Does your roommate not like me?”

Suguru paused, weighing his words. “He described your aura as sinister and evil.” His frown deepened and Satoru scoffed.

Fucker. “Well, he’s one to talk. He’s not exactly the life of the party.” Satoru swallowed his pride. He hated the fucking pigtails and the perfect nonchalance and the fact that Choso was mostly right. “Still, I guess he’s got a point.”

The dark-haired man looked weirdly offended. “He spoke to you for five seconds and can be a poor judge of character sometimes.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Satoru raised an eyebrow in surprise.

Suguru’s gaze returned to his face. Eyes the shade of sunlight.

“It’s whatever you want it to be.” He offered quietly.

A smile tugged at Satoru’s lips. He let it grow. “I’ll take it as a compliment, then.”  

Suguru grew quiet at that, a pensive expression on his features, his usual silent nature returning to him.

Satoru never bothered to deal with the quiet types, because he usually didn’t care enough to try, but mainly because people grew silent around him regardless. Mostly because of his looks, or so he was told, even though Satoru believed it had more to do with his sharpness than his face. Or maybe both, deadly combo of the sort.

But Suguru’s quietness was different. It was an inherent part of who he was, learnt and deep-rooted. It was evident that Suguru endured it. It was also evident that he returned to it out of habit more than want.

And so the silence lasted, and Satoru watched him, and Suguru let him.

“Tell me when you’re angry, to make it easier.” Suguru said finally, meeting Satoru’s eyes.

Satoru thought he probably misheard. “What?”

“You want me to stop tiptoeing around you, and I want you to be honest and tell me when you’re angry.” Suguru explained with a purpose, a calm confidence that was unusual for him. “This is our middle ground, I guess.”

Satoru narrowed his eyes, wary. “What the fuck is this gonna change?”

“Just go with it.” Suguru sighed. He looked a little drained. Then with a tilt of his head, he continued. “Please, Satoru.”

And Satoru would do it. Satoru would tell him. Satoru would give him access to his anger and his rage and everything else just because. Just because.

Satoru blinked the words in, out, a breath, and let his shoulders drop.

“I don’t know how to -” His words were tentative. He felt that Suguru and him had switched seats. “I don’t always know when I feel anger. I don’t always know if it’s that." He felt suddenly awkward standing up. He scratched his neck again. “It feels like it’s always that.”

Suguru processed the words and nodded in understanding. “Then whenever you feel that it’s that, just say it, so I can know when to tiptoe and when not to.”

Satoru deflated a little more, his shoulders sagging, and he felt the urge to sit. He returned to his spot next to Suguru, not keeping a distance this time.

He frowned and shook his head, looking at his own knee next to Suguru’s. “I don’t want you to tiptoe around me even when I’m angry.”

“Why?” Almost a whisper, because now Satoru was close, so Suguru did not bother to try and speak loudly.

“Because it doesn’t do anything.” Satoru explained with a strained voice, eyes fixed on his knee. His right leg started bouncing automatically, because his neck stung, and his head hurt, and something was returning to him, and he did not know what. “You don’t help when you do that.”

He thought of Suguru’s caution. It was admirable. It also pissed him off to no end.

“When do I help, then?” Suguru asked, barely audible, and Satoru did not want to look at him.

His leg kept bouncing, and his head kept swimming, and somewhere in the middle of it he tried to find his reason for the millionth time, unsuccessfully. He scratched his thigh through his sweatpants and felt the urge to stretch, to stand, to run a lap.

“I don’t know.” He offered to himself more than to Suguru. His head was low. He stared at Suguru’s hand and knee. “I don’t know.”

A signal or a cry for help, and surely he looked mad, but Suguru seemed to find a meaning in Satoru’s words even when there was none. He watched as Suguru’s knee came in contact with his, and his leg went still, and his head grew steady, and the scratching lessened. Can it be easy, if I let it?

Satoru let out the air he didn’t know he was holding. The sound of the gym was foreign to his ears. There was practically no one around. It was quiet, and the sun had set, and the world grew still.

It was a Thursday. Satoru hated Thursdays, but he thought he could learn to appreciate them, if they all ended with this. With a knee against his and the waters growing calmer.

Suguru’s silence was wrapping itself around him. He let it engulf him until his head was underwater. A minute passed, and another followed, and none of them moved. Satoru could feel a shift, a rift, somewhere where his stomach scar was, somewhere where his anger began. He still eyed his knee and Suguru’s, and pressed his a little closer unconsciously, grounding himself to what mattered.

He printed the image behind his eyelids, and finally turned his head to look at Suguru. Cheeks a hundred shades too deep, eyes wandering everywhere like he was trying to escape his own body. His blushing was so easy, it came so naturally, that Satoru wondered sometimes if Suguru was constantly sunburnt. Satoru studied his profile, mind quiet and guts untied, and waited for Suguru to find him.

“This helps.” Satoru declared out of the blue.

Suguru’s eyes landed on him, wide and agitated. He studied Satoru’s face in a quiet frenzy but did not move. He was trying to be brave. Satoru wondered if he could be brave too.

“Thanks.” He added, eyes tracing patterns on Suguru’s cheeks and down his neck and up his jaw. He could hear his own rib cage.

A beat, and Suguru was fighting the silence. “I’m barely doing anything.” He dragged out every word. Satoru could appreciate the effort.

Another beat. Satoru let his eyes rest on the small scar on Suguru’s forehead, barely there. “You’re doing enough.”

His eyes dropped for a split second, finding Suguru’s lips, before returning to the scar, and to his hair, and to anywhere that wasn’t used to smile and laugh and kiss. He could feel his own skin burn a little. He felt a little exposed. He dragged in a slow breath, diverting his eyes, and pretended that the flush on his chest didn’t echo the sunburns on Suguru’s cheeks.

He straightened up, regaining the centimetres he had lost while slouching, and let his head loll back on the ropes behind him. He watched the ceiling, an awkward shade of beige, and tried to forget the shape of Suguru’s face unsuccessfully.

They remained like this for a while, drowning out the noise, until Suguru shifted slightly, pulling Satoru out of his dazed state.

“We have a fight on Sunday.” Suguru declared, words quick and quiet. Satoru’s attention turned to him. “You should go home.”

Suguru’s eyes were everywhere else. His whole demeanour was elusive. Yet, his knee remained where it was.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Satoru asked with tired playfulness.

Suguru found his face and blinked the words out. “What if I was?”

“You hurt my pride, Geto.” Satoru feigned displeasure.

The hour had turned. No one was left in the gym, except probably Nanami preparing for another all-nighter of paperwork and Yuki offering him support just because she could.

Suguru tried for a smile but it was overflowed by something else. Satoru couldn’t exactly tell what.

“Just go home.” Suguru asked with a sigh. His right hand played with the fabric on his left wrist.

“You first.” Satoru nodded towards him, challenging.

Suguru watched, stared, and blinked once more before standing up slowly. Satoru regretted his words instantly, noticed the stale taste in his mouth and the absence against his knee. He looked up at Suguru with a frown, head tilted upwards. The other man was actually preparing to leave.

Suguru watched him seriously. “Get some rest.” He pleaded one last time.

Satoru didn’t know what it was, today, that made the other man so inclined to ask him that. It was weird to be worried about. It was even weirder to feel comforted by it. Satoru brushed the feeling away and offered a confident smile.

“Sunday is in three days.” He shrugged and waved his hand with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll be doing just fine.”

Suguru considered him, studied him, let his eyes roam over his whole body with a grave tenderness in his eyes, sending a shiver up and down Satoru’s spine. Cold. Warm. Satoru didn’t know. Once he appeared satisfied, Suguru nodded, and left him there, under ceiling lights too bright for Satoru’s liking and with a feeling in his mouth that tasted liked heartache.

Sunday came and Satoru was definitely not doing fine.

The fight was harsh. The fight was brutal and terrifying, and the anger was so overwhelming Satoru did not know where to look. He couldn’t feel his body, his face, his thoughts. His opponent was insignificant but he was good. Too good. Outrageously good. A face without a name and a name without a meaning to him, and yet there Satoru was, bleeding out, baring his teeth, punching and kicking and breathing with a terror that was otherworldly.

He had been in complicated fights before. This one was an all timer.

He won. Because of course he did. But there was a ringing in his ears that was unusual and a burning in his ribs that was going to last for weeks.

“What were you thinking?”

Yuki’s voice echoed in the locker room a little too loudly for his liking. His head was so heavy. His lips stung badly. He pressed the ice pack closer to his bruised eyebrow and closed his eyes.

“You fight in a ring, Gojo, not in the streets like some animal!” She blurted out sternly, pacing in front of him like she was about to burst.

He always expected a scolding from Nanami, but never from her. The fight must have been bad to witness. Satoru could not remember any of it.

“I handled it.” He answered between his teeth, voice hoarse and harsh.

Yuki stopped to look down at him where he was sitting on the bench. “You handled it?” She scoffed bitterly, looking him up and down. “Look at the state of you.”

Satoru didn’t need to. He could feel his entire body in pain.

“This is what happens when you’re a fucking boxer.” He spat out, sending electric shocks to his head. He breathed in through his nose to fight off the nausea. “You should know that, or have you already forgotten what this job means now that you’re a big-headed promoter?”

His anger was all he had felt for the past two hours and it was making him detestable.

Yuki bent down to look at him seriously. “You won’t have this as a job if you end up with a concussion that sends you into the grave.” She fixed him with an icy stare.

Satoru didn’t believe he was going to die in the ring. He also didn’t really care if he did.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“And you’re being reckless. Stop playing with your life like it’s a joke to you.” Yuki straightened up and crossed her arms over her chest.

Satoru watched her. He couldn’t bring himself to listen. He couldn’t bring himself to care. He felt the back of his head burn, and his whole body screamed for respite. He let the rage eat. He could feel the blood on his face.

“I won.” He said coldly, tone dry. “That’s all that matters.”

“No one wants you to win at the expense of your health.” Yuki countered in haste. “You should know that this is what being a “fucking boxer” means, not whatever bullshit you think you’re doing.” She spat out the last words to match his tone, and Satoru was done.

“Whatever.” He said blankly, taking the ice pack away from his face to inspect it. There was some blood on it. “Good talk.”

He stood up slowly, turning away from her, and walked towards the sink in the corner of the locker room. He felt her eyes drilling holes into his body and ignored the urge to sit back down. He felt nauseous. He felt sick. He was always bad at pretending.

He waited for her to continue, for the scolding to persevere, but a cold silence fell upon the both of them. He heard her footsteps as she walked away from him.

Satoru turned on the water and let it hit his trembling hands.  

Before leaving, Yuki paused at the door. “Stop acting like a child.”

She left him with the silence. Satoru was alone.

He watched as the water ran on his fingers, slipping between them like sand, like salt, like air and everything else. He tried to still his hands unsuccessfully. His wrists hurt. He had probably hit too hard.

On the wall right on top of the sink was a mirror. Satoru did not look up. He knew his state because he could feel it. He knew his face because he could hate it. He knew what he looked like because it felt worse than usual, because it hurt more than usual. He turned off the water and tried not to throw up.

“Are you okay?”

Suguru’s voice reached the back of his throat and made the nausea worse.

He turned his head to look at him. Suguru was standing in the doorway while undoing his boxing wraps after having probably won his fight. Not a scratch on him, all glory and skin the shade of sunshine, raven hair and and warm eyes and a white t-shirt. Pretty. Beautiful. Always beautiful.

Satoru did not feel warm. Satoru did not feel glorious. Satoru was not okay.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” He let out blankly. He grabbed the side of the sink and took a slow breath in.

“You need to sit.” Suguru said, tenderness drowning in obvious worry.

He threw his wraps on the bench and crossed the distance to Satoru in a second. Satoru let go of the sink and could feel his arms shake, could feel his head sting, could feel the rage choke him. It was making him sick. It was making him cold.

Suguru grabbed his right elbow softly, providing support, and guided him to sit on the bench. Satoru let him, because there was nothing else to do, because his body became malleable under Suguru’s warm hand. He let himself be guided, for once, and let the anger turn him into clay.

He sat down without much elegance, letting his body drop heavily. He looked down at his bare chest for the first time and registered the damage. A lilac sea.

“Well shit.” He spoke dryly to his own body.

Suguru dropped to a crouch in front of him, eyes roaming alarmingly fast over his entire body. He fidgeted with a first aid kit between his fingers. Satoru frowned, trying to remember seeing him grabbing it, but couldn’t.

“Where did you find that?”

Suguru ignored him with a wave of his hand and opened the kit on the floor between them. He stood up with gauze and disinfectant between his fingers. Satoru looked up, eyes following every motion, entranced in a sort of haze. Suguru seemed so far. Suguru seemed so close. Suguru had always looked beautiful.

“Where does it hurt?” Suguru asked, voice a little panicked, eyes a little wide.

Satoru smiled in spite of himself. “Everywhere.”

Worry settled on Suguru’s face, his mouth turning downward, his eyebrow knitted closer, a river bed between them. Satoru watched him intently, trying to focus on his face, trying to keep his head from dropping backward, trying to keep the rage from making him throw up.

“Where does it hurt the most, then?” Suguru added in a rush while grabbing the ice pack from Satoru’s hand. “Let’s start there.”

Satoru debated just closing his eyes and letting himself fall. He was sure Suguru would catch him.

“My whole face just burns.” He answered, bringing a hand to his lips and feeling the stinging worsen.

“Okay.” Suguru breathed out shakily while grabbing his fingers and pulling them away. “Okay. Don’t touch.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s…“ Bad. Horrifying. Probably fucking ridiculous to look at. “He was a madman.” Suguru offered instead, referring to the man Satoru had fought, a face he couldn’t remember.

Satoru bit back a bitter laugh. “That bad, uh?” He tilted his chin upwards to let Suguru watch him better.

Suguru gave him an apologetic look, eyes roaming over his face with something like sadness. He poured liquid on the white gauze and leaned forward, hands going up to Satoru’s face.

Suguru suddenly stilled mid hair, as if realising that he had never truly touched Satoru, that they had never stood that close. Satoru eyed his hands, centimetres away, and fought the urge to lean in. 

Silence reached them, as it usually did, and Satoru wrestled with his anger.

“Is this okay?” Suguru asked, voice ever so quiet. Satoru was glad it was him. Everyone else always spoke too loud.

Satoru looked up from Suguru’s hands. “Be my guest.” He replied, his tone matching Suguru’s, uncharacteristically quiet.

As if that was all the reassurance he had ever needed, Suguru let his left hand cradle Satoru’s jaw, so tenderly it was almost worse than all the bruises everywhere else on his body. Satoru was too exhausted, too punched stupid, too desperate for anything to hold onto that he let the feeling eat him whole.

He leaned into the touch instantly, a hidden reflex lost somewhere in his body, something so evident and alive, something that had always been there, something that went back to that first day in the ring with Suguru, to the shared dinner at Shoko’s restaurant, to the balcony and the night air and kindness, to his unbeatable anger, to the Sun and everything in between.

Satoru was tired. Satoru did not want to fight this.

Suguru brought the gauze to his lips carefully, taping it into the wound with caution, and the pain became bearable. Satoru watched him, watched his focused expression. He watched under white eyelashes stained in blood and let his face drop into Suguru’s hand more and more. His head rang so loudly. He did not want to fight this.

Suguru was so close. Suguru was so warm. Suguru was holding his face and it was the greatest thing in the world.

“It’s gonna hurt a little.” Suguru whispered as he brought the gauze to Satoru’s brow bone.

Satoru registered the words but didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. He ignored the burning sensation in his eyebrow and let himself be mended.

His face betrayed him as he fought back a wince when Suguru’s fingers moved to a cut on his right cheekbone. He closed his eyes and bit his tongue. As a response or an apology, a prayer or a gift, Suguru’s thumb stroked his cheek to ease the pain and the hurt, the burning and the agony. Satoru did not know what was worse, the lack of touch or the overwhelmingness of it. Satoru did not know anything anymore. He let out an unsteady breath through his nose. He could feel his chest burning, and it wasn’t the bruises.

Something was choking him. Something else was making him breathe.

“Sorry.” Suguru offered sheepishly as he continued pressing the gauze to Satoru’s cheekbone, cleaning away the blood.

Satoru remained quiet. He kept his eyes shut, because it made it easier. He made no effort to support his head anymore, letting his jaw rest in Suguru’s palm. Suguru’s thumb did not stop his motion, gentle and deliberate. The touch of the sun through broken blinds. The ocean inside Satoru’s head grew calmer. Can it be easy, if I let it?

They stayed like that for a while, Suguru patching up his face with one hand, making it more tolerable with every touch. Satoru still did not open his eyes, letting the time go past him, registering the feeling of warm fingertips on his cold skin, his own hands completely slack, resting lazily in his lap.

Satoru did not want to fight this.

“I’m angry.” He let out a murmur, his mind in a fog, mumbled words that were meant for Suguru only.

Suguru’s thumb stilled on his cheek at that, for a split second, before picking up the motion. Satoru, wrestling with his punch-drunk state, took a slow breath in.

“You asked me to tell you when I felt angry.” He clarified with a slightly clearer voice. He could feel that Suguru was listening. “I’m angry now.”

Satoru felt coldness against his skin. It took him a moment to understand that Suguru had brought the ice pack to his cheekbone.

“Why?” Suguru asked after a while, careful. “Do you want me to leave you be?”

Panic and the taste of iron. Satoru’s eyes snapped open at that. “No, absolutely not.” He blurted out, too fast, sending shock waves to his skull. “It’s not you, it’s the fight. It’s always like that after.”

He blinked Suguru into focus, the dim lighting of the room casting golden shadows on his face. He tried to make out the shape of the scar on his forehead but his vision was blurry. He attempted to sit straight, but his body did not cooperate. He gave up on moving, gave up on trying. Suguru, noticing, held his jaw a little tighter.

“Okay.” He nodded, moving the ice pack to Satoru’s left eye and brow. “Where do you feel it?”

Satoru blinked, too tired to frown. He watched a spot on Suguru’s neck mindlessly.

“What do you mean?” He inquired as Suguru repositioned the ice pack on his bruised jaw.

Suguru studied his face and locked eyes with him, searching for answers. Satoru blinked again, trying to clear his vision, trying to see him fully.

“Physically, where do you feel the anger?” Suguru explained. He stilled his thumb on Satoru’s cheek, waiting for him to talk.

There was no easy answer to a question like that. Satoru had never thought of it. His anger was so broad, so wide and all-embracing that most of the time he felt like it was everywhere, from the soles of his feet up to the top of his skull. He felt like it was in his bloodstream and down the slope of his back, on the tip of his tongue and in his collapsing lungs. It was cold and it was everywhere.

But Satoru felt it, then, like he always did. The urge to bring his hand to the back of his neck. The urge to bury his fingers right where his hair began, on the skin of his nape. The urge to press until the scratching went away, until the stinging left, until the razor blades disappeared.

He watched a point on the wall, thinking, focusing his attention on that one spot in his body.

In a haze, he answered. “The back of my head, right where my hair starts.” He frowned for a second but it hurt too much. “It’s like someone is pinching my skin and pulling my hair out one by one.” He tried to describe the feeling but nothing made sense.

Suguru considered his words, took them in, and nodded slightly.

There was a moment where Satoru knew what the next ten years of his life would look like if he didn’t come back to his senses right now. He needed to run. He needed to flee and escape. He needed to understand that this, a hand on his jaw and eyes the shade of sunlight, was going to be the end and the beginning of it all.

But Satoru did not want to fight this.

Suguru hesitated. Satoru watched him through muddiness. In the soft light, Suguru was so far, yet Satoru could feel that he had never been so close.

Fingers moving on the right side of his face, from his jaw to his ear, to his neck and the back of his head, right where his hair started, right where the rage was, right where it all began.

Satoru choked around his own throat, around air and the silence and Suguru’s fingers on the skin of his nape.

His eyes fluttered at the touch. He felt a knot, somewhere in his brain, coming undone. It was sharp before it was quiet. And then, it was gone. The anger was gone.

Suguru, with cheeks a newly found shade of red, spoke in a blizzard. “There?”

Satoru did not know how to talk. Satoru had lost his tongue. He nodded against the feeling, swallowed, and let his whole body grow warm.

“Alright.” Suguru added in a whisper, speaking to himself, speaking to no one. His voice was as lost as the rest of him.

He buried his left hand into Satoru’s hair, under strands too long for Satoru’s liking, at the base of his skull, and scratched the skin softly. Satoru fought to keep his eyes open. He wanted to remember this. He wanted to remember him.

He tilted his head backwards a little, diving into the sensation, allowing his neck to rest against Suguru’s tender fingers. He watched the other man under heavy eyelids. Had it always been this easy? Satoru did not know. He did not want to ask either. He sighed through his nose, releasing air that held his rage, a bomb defusing and going silent at last.

Suguru pressed a little harder, massaging the sharpness away. Satoru let him, because there was nothing else to do, because it was the only thing that made sense.

Suguru’s right hand was still busy on Satoru’s face, moving the ice pack from his jaw to his nose, pressing slowly to chase the ache away. His head was trapped from both sides. Satoru was going slightly mad with the feeling, with so much attention on him, so much hands and touching and everything. His head was swimming but it was lovely. He was not used to tenderness, but he thought he could learn to be.

He focused on Suguru, truly focused on him, just the way he knew how to, and forced the fogginess away. He noticed the blush, he noticed that Suguru was trying really hard to watch without watching, to keep a distance even if it was useless, to be fair even if he didn’t have to.

“I won’t bite.” Satoru declared, voice low and half-delirious, to the man whose hand was buried in his hair.

Suguru considered him, eyes taking in his entire face. He looked agitated, as if he did not know what he was doing either, as if his hands weren’t his. Satoru found it funny. He imagined what he looked like, bruised and bloodied and pathetic, sitting down like a child after a tantrum, letting a man patch him up and pet his hair like he was desperate. Ridiculous. Satoru couldn’t care less.

“Don’t tiptoe.” He pleaded in a breath, holding Suguru’s eyes, and remembered he could move.

He grabbed the ice pack from Suguru’s hand on his face and placed it on the bench next to him. He was done with the cold. Suguru’s eyes were a little wide in the dim lighting. They still had a shine to them that resembled honey. His fingers hovered close to Satoru’s forehead, a little unsure, until he found some courage.

He pushed Satoru’s hair back slowly, away from his face, watching and drinking and gauging every single reaction from Satoru. Always attentive, always apprehensive. He slid his fingers softly through the strands and Satoru felt a whole-body shiver travel his skin. With two hands in his hair, Satoru felt that he was going to die. He let his eyes close, against his better judgment, and knew he was done for.

Satoru knew Suguru liked his hair. He knew Suguru had noticed the purple. He knew he thought white looked good on him. He convinced himself this was as much a favour to Suguru as it was a favour to him.

Suguru’s right hand kept traveling through his hair, exploring the fields of snow tentatively, while his left hand still massaged his nape. They let time go past them. Satoru knew, now, where his heart was. Somewhere on honey skin. Somewhere in gentle hands.

“Are you still angry?” Suguru asked, breaking the silence.

Satoru took a slow breath in. “No.” He opened his eyes, dazed and calm. “I think I found what helps.”

Suguru massaged a point right above Satoru’s ear. The sunburns on his cheeks couldn’t grow any deeper. “I think you did.” He offered timidly.

Satoru hummed as a response, words lost somewhere he didn’t care to look for, and let his eyes drop to a point on Suguru’s chest. His usual black tank-top had been traded for an oversized white t-shirt. Satoru automatically raised his hand to grab the hem of it.

“You’re wearing my colour.” He declared, letting the fabric roll between his lilac-littered fingers. He had no clue where he was going with that. Once again, he did not care.

Suguru’s hands stilled in his hair for a second before resuming their motion, making him shiver unintentionally. Satoru studied the pristine fabric.

“White isn’t a colour.” Suguru said with a smile, a little out of breath.

Satoru tugged slightly on the t-shirt. “Still, you’re wearing my colour.” He looked up to find the other man already watching him. Always watching him. “You never wear white.”

Suguru tried to tuck a strand behind Satoru’s ear but it didn’t stay in place. He pushed it away from his forehead instead. “I’ll stick to my trademark black, then, since white is apparently off-limits.” He joked. The hand on Satoru’s nape had gone still. He was just holding him.

Satoru frowned a little. “No, don’t. It suits you.” He rolled the fabric in his hand again. He took in Suguru’s face for the millionth time. “It makes your hair look darker.”

There was a feeling he thought he felt. There was a terror he thought he could surpass. There was a man he thought he knew. Satoru tugged on the t-shirt again and Suguru followed like warm sand under his fingers.

He sat down next to him on the bench, to his right, and let his left hand stay still on his nape. His right hand fell back to his own lap lazily. Satoru hated the lack of attention to his hair. He knocked their knees together, chasing a feeling, and turned to look at Suguru. It was better to see him there, closer, levelled. It was better to feel like they stood on the same frequency.

Suguru looked in a frenzy at their bare knees pressed together, at his hand still chasing the anger away, at Satoru watching him, at Satoru leaning in, at Satoru’s bruised heart and bruised skin and bruised lips. Bruised with something that wasn’t rage, this time, but something raw all the same.

He breathed out a shaky sigh. If Satoru noticed that Suguru’s eyes fell to his lips, that was nobody’s business. It was also nobody’s business if he reciprocated the gesture.

Suguru’s eyes shot up, a little scared, a little warm, and his fingers on the back of Satoru’s neck dug deeper into the skin, sending shock waves down the slope of his neck, his shoulders, his spine. He shuddered with the touch.

Can it be easy, if I let it?

Satoru’s eyes stayed glued to where they were. He studied the way Suguru’s mouth looked, tender like the rest of him, kind like the words he spoke, gentle like his eyes and his skin. No sharp angles. Soft and warm and always beautiful.

Suguru pressed harder, his nails digging into the muscles, eyes flickering to Satoru's lips, and Satoru knew this would be the end of him.

A beat, a breath, and the revelation of it all, and then it was gone.

Satoru’s eyes shot up at the loss of contact, something cold returning to his head instantly. He locked eyes with Suguru, blinking him in, out, somewhere, trying to find a reason, trying to find an escape route. There was none. His mouth opened to speak but nothing came up his airway.

His tea had tasted wrong for weeks. The look on Suguru’s face was probably why.

Suguru brought back his hand to himself, on his lap, tapping on his thigh nervously. His eyes, though, never wavered from Satoru’s face, and Satoru wondered if that wasn’t worse than fleeing his gaze.

They looked at each other, like they had done so many times, like they were back in the ring.

If neither of them said anything, perhaps this could be a thing of the past, a thing that Satoru wouldn’t remember. The taste in his mouth said otherwise. Satoru would remember this. His brain would never let him forget, like he forgot everything else.

Suguru worried at his lower lip, his eyes honest and kind, always kind, and Satoru felt like an animal ready to tear off the hand of his master. He stared in honest loss.

“I should –” Suguru broke the silence, voice strained and quiet and strangled, as if tears were close. You’re making him cry. You’re making him scared. Satoru stared with glossy eyes, disoriented. “I should go.”

Satoru stayed silent. There was nothing to say. You’re making him scared. You’re not kind. He nodded slowly as an apology, an escape route, showing Suguru mercy. He would give him this.

Suguru hesitated. Something travelled his face for a second, like the remnant of an hopeful thing. He tried again to tuck a strand of hair behind Satoru’s ear tenderly, unsuccessfully. His apology, his escape route, showing Satoru mercy. He would give him this.

Satoru kept himself from leaning into the touch. His body shivered all the same. Suguru offered him a warm look, and a smile, and brushed his thumb against his cheek one last time. Satoru felt that the wind had been knocked out of him. The ocean was violent.

Suguru stood up. Satoru watched the space on the bench where he had been a second before. Satoru did not watch him leave.

There was a stain on the ground. It cannot be easy, even if I let it.

Satoru thought of a shade of amber and the back of his head began to sting.

Chapter Text

At first, Suguru blamed it on the fight.

It had been so brutal, so violent and horrendous. He remembered his own trembling hands patching up a bruised face, wiping the blood on the surface of the snow. He didn’t think much of it when he showed up to the gym on Monday and didn’t encounter a flash of turbulent eyes. He spent two hours training alone, body drained and muscles tired, and went home without a question.

Then, he blamed it on the rain.

It had started on Sunday night, pouring without interruption, the sky crying tears that didn’t subdue. A cold and damp week of July, clouds grey and menacing never once giving ways to sunlight. He thought that surely a bruised and beat up body could easily catch a cold under such weather. He watched the sky with wariness, growing tension somewhere in his shoulders, as if the rivers falling from the heavens were trying to avenge someone.

At some point, he blamed it on the anger.

Perhaps it was too much, lately, and the sharp fingers didn’t know how to hold it. Perhaps it was too wide, and the ocean needed a break from it all. Suguru knew what it felt like to chase the distance. He knew what it felt like to need space. He trained Megumi dutifully. He didn’t ask Nanami about the absence. He ignored the heaviness that settled in his stomach. The week went on.

Ultimately, when Saturday evening came and the ring was still empty, Suguru knew that there was something else.

With his heart on the tip of his tongue, so low in his belly he felt a little sick, he finished his training session with Nanami. A tense jaw. Suguru was rarely tense. He could feel it radiating all over. He felt like blue eyes were watching him from the cracks in the ceiling, mocking and poking at each of his wounds.

Yet, Satoru was still nowhere to be seen.

His mind went back to his hands scratching the muscles and melting the anger away. He could still feel the phantom touch on his fingertips. He chased the memory of the feeling. His palm ached for the return of cold skin. He wondered, then, if that was the only thing his hands had ever been moulded for. Punches and knockouts, that was what they had been achieving for years, when they should have mended the anger of a man with snow for hair born in the waters of turbulence.

Suguru took off his gloves with apprehension, eyebrows knitted so close together it almost hurt. He was not going to ask. It wasn’t his place. If Nanami knew something about Satoru’s blaring absence and hadn’t said anything, it probably meant Satoru didn’t want Suguru to know. Not that he cared, or whatever.

He knew he had fled when faced with Satoru’s closeness. He also knew he regretted how it tasted.

He pushed back a sigh and tucked a rebellious strand of hair behind his ear a little too harshly.

“What’s with you today?” Nanami suddenly inquired. Suguru’s focus came back to the ring and his head shot up. “I can tell something is troubling you. You punched harder than usual.”

Nanami leaned against the ropes, watching him seriously, and Suguru did not know where to begin, what to say. Was there a way to describe perdition? Suguru did not want Nanami to know of his heart, and his hands cradling a face so beautiful it had felt like a death sentence. He did not want Nanami to know of the touches, of the thing that raged inside his throat whenever Satoru stood too close, of the pain it took to endure the distance. He did not want Nanami to know of his mind and the things that ran wild, tired and terrified of what it all meant, of what he wanted. He did not want it all to be out there. He tried to crush it in the cracks of his knuckles, to look at it one last time and say These are the things I am leaving behind, and abandon them forever. Suguru craved in a way that scared him so badly most of the time he felt he could choke on his words. It had rarely been this. It had never been this. This and this and this.

It had never been Satoru, and now it seemed that it was only him. Everywhere. All the time. All it took was a hand tugging on his t-shirt and a voice pleading him not to tiptoe.

How to explain the terror, then? How to talk about the easiness that felt everything but serene? Wanting to be held was one thing. Wanting the fields of violets on Satoru’s hands to hold him was another.

So Suguru swallowed the curses on his tongue and lied.

“I’m just a little sore from yesterday’s training.” He answered, battling not to stumble on his words. Nanami raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be better after a night of sleep.”

The other man seemed unconvinced, his lips pressing into a thin line. Suguru pretended not to notice and went back to freeing his wrapped hands.

“I need you to be honest with me, especially if it’s something related to boxing.” Nanami pressed on seriously. “As your coach, knowing your headspace helps so I can train you and work with you accordingly.”

Suguru freed his remaining fingers from the wraps and watched his knuckles for a second. He felt a little delirious. No one should get to know his headspace, for their sake more than his. He frowned and tried to find a way out of this, but he could feel Nanami’s hawk-like attention on him. 

He stuffed the hand wraps into his shorts’ pockets and crossed his arms over his chest, finding Nanami’s eyes, feeling the patience. The other man simply waited for him to speak.

After a moment of turning his tongue in his mouth to try and stifle the indecision, Suguru spoke. “It’s not related to boxing.” He frowned, thinking of sharp edges and a melting face under his palms. “Well, not specifically.”

Nanami caught the undertones of confusion in Suguru’s voice immediately. “Is this about Gojo?”

Suguru’s breath got trapped somewhere between his first rib and his trachea. He tried not to let it show. He fixed Nanami with a stare, a little hard, a little frightened, and he knew what he looked like. A little boy whose deepest secret was revealed, trying to be brave but failing miserably.

If Nanami noticed, he was chivalrous enough not to let it show. He seemed unimpressed.

“It’s always something with him.” Nanami continued, speaking more to himself than to Suguru. “He’s been even more riled up than usual these past days. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

At that, Suguru’s face went still, locked in time and space like the portrait of a frozen sun. He felt the rhythm of his heart fail him, and fail everything else. He blinked, once, twice, a third time because it was not enough to feel the lack, to feel the absence. He tried not to choke. He was always choking.

He breathed the words out painfully. “He was here?”

There was noise he thought he heard, distant and ridiculous. Blue eyes in the rifts on the floor, watching. Pale skin the shade of sorrow, mocking him. There was a noise he thought he heard, distant and ridiculous, at the back of his heart, somewhere under his ribs, and it sounded like himself. He pitied his own head, pitied his own affection. He felt the lack, and Satoru wasn’t around, and it was pathetic.

“He came to train before his shift this morning.” Nanami explained, looking at Suguru with confusion. “What exactly is going on here, Geto?”

To word it out, to explain it, that was entirely wrong. And Suguru, unexpectedly, felt something overcome the hurt, like a sort of conflicted irritation he had rarely met in his lifetime. Pride, and something like anger, but not quite the same. Was that what it was like to feel the rage? I offer you my hands and you give me your absence in return?

Suguru worked his jaw into place. “I haven’t seen him since Sunday.” He averted his eyes, focusing on the windows, and the weird blinds that always covered them. It was still raining outside.

“He hasn’t been training with you?” Nanami rhetorically asked, calculated annoyance in the voice. “I give him one thing to do and he cannot even stick to it.” He added with a sigh.

Nanami pulled his phone out of his pocket, and Suguru’s panic flared up on his skin. He uncrossed his arm and made a move to grab it from Nanami’s hands before catching himself halfway, awkwardly retracting into his body. He shook his head slightly just as the other man locked eyes with him, puzzled.

“It’s fine, don’t. I’ll just -” He stumbled and tripped and tried again with more assurance. “I’ll go talk to him.”

Nanami considered his words. Suguru considered running to the other side of the country and never facing Satoru again. He knew he couldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t.

The blonde gave him a look that aimed for kindness. “I know he isn’t easy, but if he’s being an asshole, tell me. I need you two to work as a pair. We cannot let it go to waste.” Suguru could appreciate Nanami including himself in the war effort of keeping Satoru cooperative. “This isn’t the kind of complementarity you find everywhere.”

Suguru knew Nanami was speaking of their fighting styles, but his mind conjured memories of tenderness and a crash. He thought of a split lip, of eyes fluttering under his fingertips, of how easy and terrifying and tangible it had felt to let his hands be buried in Satoru’s hair, of how he had been so malleable and quiet under his touch. Eyes the shade of something tired, something ready to be mended.

And Suguru had fled, in the midst of it all, because there was always the reminder of the sea, of the waves that could swallow him whole. Satoru was now returning the favour.

“I’ll talk to him.” Suguru said, finding the courage, trying to swim. He considered Nanami, phone still in hand, eyebrows knitted close together, like a man who had seen it all. Suguru figured he, too, needed some courage. “I’ll figure it out.” He added more forcefully, with conviction, and watched as Nanami put his phone back in his pocket.

“He should be the one to talk to you.” The other man added, his usually contained expression coming back to him.

Suguru knew of reticence. He bit the inside of his cheek before answering. “I think we both know that’s not happening.”

He would never hold someone’s silence against them, but he could also feel that it was a bit unfair. Satoru wanted him to stop tiptoeing. Suguru had asked him to speak of his anger. All he was left with, now, was his own bruises and the taste of affliction.

Nanami nodded, convinced, and left the ring with a sigh.

Suguru stared at the window. He could not see outside, but he could hear the rain. He was growing tired of it, of the dampness, of the constant background noise wherever he went. He wished for respite, for the clouds to part, even if he wasn’t overly fond of the July heat. It was better than the rain.

And so he showered, and stared at the water for so long he thought he could hear it echoing in his brain. He got dressed with a little stupor, his damp hair let down, and looked at the time with a weight in his stomach. It was half past six. With a little luck, or a little misfortune, Satoru would still be at the restaurant.

He picked up his sport bag and watched a crease in the fabric of his black hoodie, half aware of needing to go somewhere, half wondering if he could flee this forever. It felt heavy on his back, heavier on his mind.

His brain caught up with his body, and he was out the door, pulling his hood over his already wet hair to try and escape the rain. It was pointless. He had a thought, absurd and delirious, that it was Satoru making him pay, somehow. That the endless water falling everywhere was a scheme to make him go mad, to make him remember. He brushed it aside, trying to find his reason, but could only see lilac.

He walked, on autopilot, his feet remembering the way. He had stored it under his skin for reasons he was beginning to understand. All the while he tried to find the words, tried to find the meaning. What was there to say, other than everything? The feeling of tasting the ground, the sky, of tying the anger down. He had been trying to hear but the noises were too loud. He had been trying to talk, to say it all, but there was a lump somewhere behind his teeth that made the sounds go dull. Suguru believed he looked a little stupid when he tried to form words. He knew he was bad at fighting the silence. I do not know what to tell you, other than everything. I do not know how to tell you, other than to say nothing. What to say, and how to say it. Suguru tried to find the letters in the puddles along the way, in the dents on the sidewalk, in the greyness of the pavement. To say it all, to ask for nothing. There was a revenge to execute, against his own quietness, but to know how to fight it had not been easy. It was never, ever, easy.

The “Open :)” sign greeted him. Suguru stared at the door for a minute. He could run now. He could go now, and never return. He closed his fists so tightly in the pocket of his hoodie he was sure his hands were going to fall.

He pushed the door open and tried not to fall to his knees. He pushed his hood back, scanning the room with agitation. He felt some eyes on him, ignored them like he was used to, and tried to ease the restlessness.

There wasn’t a flash of white. There wasn’t a glimpse of blue.

Instead, emerging from the kitchen with fatigue on her face, was Shoko and her constant steadiness. She noticed him instantly. Suguru noted with a little horror that she didn’t look surprised.

She walked over to him, still standing in the entrance, and offered the only smile she could muster. Something tired. Suguru felt his insides turn at the sight. He implored the heavens and the earth for some kind of divine intervention. The end of the world, or the beginning of it.

“Hi.” She offered as she reached him. It sounded sincere, and Suguru begged for it to reach his heart.

“Hi.” He answered back, sounding strained, sounding drenched, sounding wrong. He tried not to feel the rain. Shoko gave him an apologetic look.

In the midst of the evening, with people around them chatting and a laugh being heard, Suguru tried to find his voice, but Shoko understood him through the silence.

“He’s out back.” She stated, her gaze going to the kitchen’s door for a second before returning to him. “Through the kitchen, there’s another exit.”

Suguru nodded, eyes glued to the double door. His hands had migrated to the bag strap on his chest. He scratched it under his nails.

Shoko, breaking the silence, spoke. “Just talk to him, Geto.” His eyes fluttered back to her. She was already turning away, ready to return to taking orders and serving customers. “For the sake of all of us.” She added, almost inaudible, her voice a little tired. Suguru stared, eyes wide and lost, but didn’t question it.

The prospect of having to speak, of the world noticing that something was amiss, that their shared frequency was unnatural. He wondered if they came as a pair now, or something close to it, for people to notice when their balance was off.

He swallowed around the taste of his own demise and made his way across the room.

After entering the kitchen, he dropped his bag in a corner, feeling heavy, trying to alleviate the weight. He navigated the place tentatively, and found, after a minute, the back door ajar. He grabbed the handle, his fingers burning against the cold of it, and stepped outside.

The rain had stopped.

His eyes found the snow immediately, white hair in streetlights, flashes of purple in the blue hour after sunset. Satoru was a few meters away, his back against a wall, a cigarette in hand, ruthless eyes already on Suguru, as if he had always expected him there, as if he had always known he would come. Suguru, wired to the bassline of Satoru’s anger, to the dips of his elbows, to the purple in his hair, knew not to question it.

Suguru stood there, motionless and a little stunned, holding the door open, and took in the man he had missed for a week.

Satoru’s face was healing painfully, as it tended to. The cuts were partially gone, the one on his cheeks proving more tenacious than the rest. And always, the bruises, a wide open sea on his skin, colouring it shades of unmoving blue, wave crests over his face, over his jaw, down to his neck. Shades of aquamarine, shades of violet like watercolours. Brutal. Solid. Suguru knew he looked a little sad, watching the shadows of nightfall dance on Satoru’s face. He could only imagine what the rest of his body looked like under the sleeves of his white jumper.

Satoru let him watch him, and watched in return. It was always a little violent, to stare like that. It was always a little cruel, too, to observe in the way they both did. So they allowed, once again, quietness to settle. The silence was always theirs, as a means of introduction, as a way to placate the anger or make it worse. It served a purpose. It had always done so. They stood in wordlessness and let each other find some perseverance.

Satoru took a drag of his cigarette, and Suguru remembered his own head, his hair still a little damp.

“I thought you didn’t smoke.” He remarked. He was strangely out of breath.

His eyes found pale fingers. He was reminded of his own lost in white hair. His hand tightened on the door handle.

“I don’t.” Satoru replied dryly after a beat. He took another drag and exhaled on Suguru’s inhale. “It’s Shoko’s.”

Under the bruises, Satoru’s face was strangely still, almost impenetrable. Suguru wondered if he could see right through it, and tried, with all his might, to read the signs of Satoru’s body. 

Satoru rarely stood tall outside the ring, but he was now. Shoulders high and squared, not a muscle out of order, not a limb out of line, tall and loud and absolute. His eyes were unmoving, fixed on Suguru’s face, steady as the beginning of a storm. Solid. Sharp. As they often were. He finished his cigarette, taking one last long drag, and appeared in no hurry to speak. If anything, he looked weirdly detached, in a way that was more rehearsed than natural.

Suguru knew something was amiss. Suguru had seen the fury. Suguru knew Satoru was atrocious at pretending, was not good at hiding emotions. Suguru knew Satoru was putting on an air of nonchalance for the sake of it all. For the sake of him, and for the sake of Suguru. He was stalling. He was taming the rage by switching to detachment.

And Suguru could see it, still. Lingering. Simmering, at the back of Satoru’s eyes, laced with the promise of a crash. The slow rumble of imprudence.

He let go of the handle. The door closed with a loud bang. Satoru’s stare, tethered to Suguru, did not waver at the sound.

The air was damp. The water had stopped, but the remaining smell of rain filled the space around them. Just like he had done on the way, Suguru looked at the pavement, at the concrete under his soles, at the rain puddles close to his shoes, and looked for some fortitude.

He looked back up, finding Satoru again. He was being watched with a precision so acute it was debilitating. This time he was on the receiving end. This time he was the one who needed to say something in the face of sharp eyes studying him, like an animal ready for fight. He was standing in Satoru’s shoes.

Suguru breathed in. The silence stuck to his skin. “Where have you been?” It sounded pained. It sounded sad. Suguru figured he was both of these things.

Satoru took a moment to answer. “Here, at the restaurant.” His tone was deadpan. Pretending. Liar. “Working.”

Suguru felt suddenly defensive, like a child sharing his body with disturbance. He tried to step over it and failed. His index finger scratched the skin of his thumb.

“You know what I mean.” He answered too fast, his voice in a vacuum, trying and grabbing and reaching the bruises on Satoru’s hands, slithering under his clothes to beg him to listen. “Why didn’t you come to train?”

There was the sound of the city. There was the sound of a heartbeat. The back alley they were in was empty. Suguru still felt like he was being watched by the entire world and something beyond it.

“I’m recovering from the fight.” Satoru explained, stone-like. Immutable.

“We both know that’s not true.” He countered in a rush. His feet were anchored painfully to the ground. He felt that he couldn’t move. “You’ve been training with Nanami.”

At that, Suguru saw a twitch, something in the squareness of Satoru’s shoulders, something in the tallness of his body. A rift, a tremor in the way he stood, in the way he pretended. His features moved, the beginning of a frown finding its way to his face. Barely there, and yet noticed by Suguru. Satoru was right there, somewhere under the pretense, and Suguru wanted to skin him open and grab what he could before the silence killed them both.

Satoru blinked once, twice. He fought something in the crook of his neck, something else in the dip of his stomach. Suguru could see it all.

“I needed a breather.” He answered after a moment too long, never unnoticed. His eyes were static, blue on grey in the aftermath of a downpour. It was still raining in them.

Suguru considered his words, drowned them in the puddles around his feet, and answered with shortness of breath. “A breather from what? From our sparring?” He sounded underwater. A beat, and a rainfall. “From me?” 

At that, Satoru’s jaw tensed up, locking into place under the violet fields. His eyes wavered slightly, leaving Suguru’s for a split second to watch his hair and a point above his head, then came back to where they were. He was still tall. He was still unmissable. He was still painfully trying to pretend.

Suguru watched the fading light of day on Satoru’s neck dance with the streetlights. He let the evening air brush his skin. He tried to be there, but his mind was stuck on someone he remembered, on the promise of something else. He fought the urge to choke, fought the urge to swallow his tongue. He held the silence on one end and watched, and watched and watched. Satoru and his sea. Satoru and his white shirt. Satoru and his pettiness. Satoru and his bruises and the ocean underneath. You are right here but I miss you all the same. Would he ever win against the end of it all?

Satoru’s frown had grown deeper. His features were set into marble. Pride, and the fucking worst kind. Suguru knew he wouldn’t budge until forced to.

He searched under his ribcage and found the face of his grandmother, along with some courage. “You blame me for not talking, and then you go and do the same.” He let out, his words accusatory, but his tone always a shade of gentle that he could never shake off.

Satoru battled with his own jaw. His eyes flickered to Suguru’s left hand, where his index was still scratching his thumb, and went back up to his face, to his hair, and tried to settle, tried to find something to watch. The beginning of agitation, and Suguru did not know how to stand. He fought the urge to pull out his damp hair one by one.

“Well maybe I don’t wanna talk.” Satoru let out slowly, visibly battling to keep his cadence and his words in check. Something found its way into his voice. Trouble, and the undertone of disquiet. “Maybe I don’t wanna fucking -” He caught himself, blinking the words back in.

Satoru’s back left the wall. He straightened up even more to control something. And Suguru understood, suddenly, that he was trying to stretch without letting it show.

Suguru knew what it all meant. Because he knew enough, and he had seen the habit, the hands extended to the sky, the swaying from side to side, the bending of muscles that happened whenever it was a little much, whenever it was a little too sharp, whenever the anger was a little too raw. Satoru stretched to fight off the fury. Satoru stretched to fight off himself.

Suguru watched him stand tall, and knew, under it all, that Satoru was enraged.

“I don’t wanna talk.” Satoru repeated, words slow and deliberate. He fixed Suguru with a hostile glare.

Suguru held the cold eyes and let them ripple over his warm skin. He would not fear this.

“You cannot expect me to talk, then.” He countered with confidence and watched as Satoru frowned even deeper. He considered prudence and quickly decided that quietness would not be of any use. “It is not fair.”

Something tried to hold. Satoru’s eyes turned sour in a way that rivalled violence. His fists clenched around the night. He took a breath that looked painful, like something was trapped in his chest, and Suguru braced for impact, standing his ground. He knew how to throw a punch. He also knew how to receive one.  

“Well nothing is fucking fair.” Satoru deadpanned coldly, the singular roughness of his voice returning to him in a rush. He stared now in the way he knew how: something unruly, something turbulent. “I’m not fair, you’re not fair, so be it.” His tone turned bitter, provoked. “We don’t have to be.”

Suguru bit his tongue in stupor. He watched the wind turn in Satoru’s eyes. Three hundred shades of grey. Another hundred tones of blue. And behind it all, the colour of anger. His wrath had always been disastrously pretty.

Suguru did believe himself to be fair, though. He did believe he tried to be, at least. Satoru’s words rang in his ears like a false note, something coming out of his mouth just to incite a reaction. Something cold and resentful and tasteless. Suguru watched the tense shoulders of a man that stood against the backdrop of nightfall and let his eyes grow kind.

“What are you talking about, Satoru?” He asked softly, eyes trailing over Satoru’s face, a little lost, trying to see and understand. He would not let the other man’s sharpness get to him, simply because he knew it was useless to fight the tide.

Satoru bit back, eyes narrowing. “Don’t use my name like that.” He tried to keep something in, but it was starting to pour out of him like the beginning of a flood.

“Like what?” Suguru inquired in a breath, still watching Satoru like his eyelashes and the cut on his cheek held the answer.

“Like a -” Satoru tried, and failed, and tried again. “Like you’re -” A thing dropped behind his eyelids, another came up his airway with difficulty. He took another breath in to try and still it all. It was visibly useless. Suguru felt his stomach tie itself into knots at the sight.

A beat, and a wince on Satoru’s face, almost. His eyes wavered slightly and found Suguru’s neck. “Like you’re fucking pleading with me or something.” He spat out, voice low.  

Suguru took the hit. His lips parted slightly, words lost somewhere on the rawness of his heart. He felt the confusion wash over him.

Suguru could sense a headache approaching, the type he usually felt whenever rain was near and the atmospheric pressure changed. He had always been a little sensitive to it, but he didn’t really mind. It was a good way of knowing what to expect, like a warning his body would always give, a sweet feeling that he won. This time, Suguru minded. This time, it did not feel like respite. If anything, the feeling in his head was the aftermath of it, rather than the premise. He was too late. It had already been pouring for a week.

“I’m not pleading with you.” He whispered and noticed how Satoru leaned forward slowly from where he was standing, as if to hear him better. Suguru dug his nails into the palm of his hand. “I’m asking you to speak and tell me what’s wrong.”

His voice was louder. He tried to find the courage. The puddles around his feet were mocking him for it.

Satoru watched him. He let him do it, in spite of it all, in lieu of a choice. Satoru and his rage. Satoru and his white shirt. Satoru and his pride. Satoru and his cuts and bruises and the rain, and the beauty he carried. Suguru would know the colour of anger until the very end. Shades of violets, shades of grey. He was always good at remembering. He thought his body would never let him forget anyway. You are right here but I miss you all the same.

With excruciating slowness, Satoru brought a hand to the back of his own neck and scratched the skin of his nape. Suguru noticed the motion but made it a point not to let it show. He would allow Satoru this. He kept his eyes glued to a face like a threat and eyes like a confession. Satoru’s eyes wavered to somewhere else, dropping down the line of Suguru’s body, until they landed on the ground, on the grey damp pavement, on the mocking puddles of rain.

And the silence settled. Satoru had fallen into his own quietness, which was so profoundly unusual Suguru felt the tinge of panic pulling at his wrists, like anytime Satoru strayed somewhere he couldn’t quite reach. Suguru fought off the bile in his throat and took one step towards the other man. All the while, Satoru’s eyes stayed glued to the ground, lost on some sort of vision Suguru couldn’t see, some sort of apathy. Suguru felt the sadness of it, over and under him, next to Satoru’s anger, and tried not to pull him into his arms.

“Satoru.” He let out like a pledge, like an admission. Satoru’s eyes shot back up at the mention of his name and found his face in a crash. Suguru hesitated, pressed the words under his tongue, and let them tumble out of his mouth. “Don’t tiptoe.”

At the sound of his own words spoken back to him, Satoru had three seconds, just three seconds, where his body grew still, like a child caught stealing, like a man caught crying. He watched Suguru with wide eyes, trapped in the aftershock of a brutal wave leaving sand in his mouth and salt in his hair. The type that left him coughing out water when he was younger, disoriented for a moment as he tried to clear his airway, rubbing his stinging eyes with the back of his knuckles. His mother always told him to be more careful. His father never watched him enough to notice. Suguru did not know any of this.

What Suguru knew, however, was that the seconds passed, and Satoru’s shoulders dropped, and his jaw locked into place, and the pretense was gone. His eyes grew a furious shade darker, and his mouth turned downwards, and he looked so profoundly pained that Suguru was knocked down by it. The rage and the fury and the hurt. Suguru had no clue what was happening. He blinked Satoru into focus and tried not to let the distress grow into his features.

And he waited, holding eyes like an execution, until Satoru painfully breathed the words out.

“You left.”

It was like choking, the way Satoru spoke. Suguru bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood. He let the remorse wash him violently, let Satoru’s strained voice grab the back of his throat and cut it open. 

“After the fight. You left.” Satoru continued with dread, now that the flood had begun. He shifted into his own body while holding Suguru’s eyes with a rage that was inevitable. “I was going to -” He started harshly and swallowed the remaining words with a little panic. “You just left. I was… I was trying to be…” His eyes shifted from Suguru’s face, pulling needles out of his skin, sewing a thread through his entire body. Suguru watched in trouble as Satoru’s entire being tried to make sense of something. His face kept twisting, wincing, and he frowned, eyes lost in some helpless fury. He settled on a reason, and Suguru drowned. “I let you touch my hair.”

Suguru felt sick, reminded of his hands in white hair and the urge to run.

And he felt it, just like the first time he had fought Satoru in the ring; the urge to fall to his knees and let him win, to abandon a fight he wasn’t sure he was even a part of. He would let Satoru draw a knife to his throat and he was sure it would feel like salvation, or something close to God. He would make it feel like it. He would let him cut him aknew.

“But you just…left.” Satoru repeated in furious anguish, slamming Suguru’s heart on the damp pavement. “And I let you -” He stopped himself again.

Suguru took a step, pulled towards something he couldn’t see the end of and the feeling of being crucified. Satoru was agitated. Suguru wanted to grab his hands and kiss them to repent.

“What?” He asked, a little loud, affliction in the voice. “You let me what?”

“I let you touch me.” Satoru answered instantly, eyes roaming over Suguru’s face like he was trying to burn him alive. He was almost out of breath. “I let you touch me and you just…” It was painful to watch, the way his words were choking him. “You left.”

Satoru had forgotten the tallness. He looked like a child battling with his rage for the first time in his life. Loud and lost and trying to crush it.

Suguru let out a shaky breath, defeated. It was down to this, then. To him fleeing when Satoru had let him be privy to his tenderness. It was down to pride, to a man with sharp edges that couldn’t bear the thought of someone else standing close if it wasn’t to stand there forever. Suguru thought he could understand. He just didn’t know why Satoru cared so much that it was him.

And Suguru believed it to be ancestral to his own bones, the way he cared so much, and had cared for a long time, about the way Satoru looked in streetlights, in daylights, in spotlights, in the ceiling lights of the gym that were always annoying him. Suguru knew the extent of his own attention, of his own affection, because it was always this. Because he always held the end of a bargain that he never emerged victorious from. Because he had always loved so eternally, so monumentally that sometimes he didn’t know what to make of it, what to do with it. Because he gave and gave and gave until his knees gave out, and it was always this, and it was always that.

It had not been a surprise to him when he noticed how his body felt malleable, how his kindness felt even kinder, whenever blue eyes landed on him, whenever the waves crashed into him. It had not been a surprise to realise how much he craved and wanted and ached for skin littered with the traces of a violet ocean. It had not been a surprise, this thing in his belly, pulling and pulling and pulling whenever Satoru was around.

He had always expected it. Since the ring, since the rage.

He had never expected Satoru to feel it too.

“Is this what this is about?” Suguru murmured, bewildered in the face of Satoru’s evident hurt and the realization dawning on him. “I never meant to cause you any harm.” He added quickly, to make a point and none at all, to kill the quiet and the urge to flee.

Satoru’s eyes never left his face. Even in the midst of rage, in the belly of the beast, Satoru made it clear that he could always see him, watch him, study him. His body could lose the pride, but his eyes never would.

Suguru battled with his own kindness and Satoru’s resolute silence. It was crushing him. He took another breath to chase it away.

“I didn’t want to overstep.” He added, thinking back to leaving a beat-up face behind in that locker room.

“Overstep ” Satoru scoffed bitterly. “You couldn’t fucking do that even if you tried.” He shook his head, eyeing Suguru from head to toe. “Always so cautious. And I was going to - ”

He stopped and caught his words, for the millionth time tonight, and Suguru believed the universe was ridiculing him.

Eyes roaming frantically on Satoru’s face, Suguru took another step. “You were going to what?”

Satoru watched him, always distantly. He watched him move closer, watched him as he was being watched, like a wild animal allowing someone to step into his space. Satoru straightened up as a response, aligning his shoulders with the sky again, his eyes attentive to Suguru’s every move. He slid a hand through his own hair, letting it rest on his neck once more, massaging the skin. Controlling. Pretending. I know you enough.

After a minute, and the world mocking them, Satoru let the words out forcefully. “I think it was pretty fucking clear what I was going to do.” He talked slowly, deliberately, like a promise and a threat.

Suguru travelled back to an unbearable closeness and the sunburns on his cheeks, to eyes watching his lips and a hand tugging at his shirt. He was back on that locker room’s bench. He believed he would always be.

“Then you left.” Satoru huffed, hurt and pride working as a dangerous mix. “Message received.”

Satoru held his eyes, working his jaw, and looked like the most daunting thing to walk this earth. Suguru’s face went still at the sight.

Suguru was restlessly trying to occupy his hands with the hem of his own hoodie, the pockets of his shorts, the skin of his palms. Anything to keep himself from begging for forgiveness from something he didn’t even feel guilty of. Anything to drive off the terror of wanting so much. 

He had left Satoru in that locker room because he had known the end. Because he knew the extent of what staying would have meant.

He was better on the sidelines of this. He was better holding hands with containment. He could never do too much, not now, not anymore. It had always cost him everything.

But there was a pull, there was a push, there was a tidal wave. Abhorrent. Evident. Terrifying in the way it was raw, and real, and inescapable. Saltwater everywhere, no matter how hard Suguru tried to breathe through his nose, his mouth, his lungs, his heart. Breathing through his heart, he could do that, right? He knew how to do it. To let it choke him clean, breathe in and out and in again, someone else breathing him in, breathing him empty until there was no air left, leaving him suffocating in a pool of his own perched up devotion. Satoru had always felt like the kind of waters you could not swim through without losing your breath and your heart in the process. Suguru knew how to do that. Suguru knew how to let the tide drown him with elegance.

He had given enough before. He had been the subject of desires and wants that never made him feel anything but desolate. This one, at least, made him feel predestined. Necessary, in the way it had always been there.

I know him enough. I miss him all the same.

“Do you want me to overstep?” He asked, voice clear like it had never been, because there was nothing else he could say.

The waters grew still. And Satoru stared. And stared and stared, with eyes resembling a revelation, and for a moment Suguru thought that his own death would be kinder. 

The air around them forgot the dampness, all of a sudden. It was dry. It was clean. It was cutting Suguru and compressing his lungs into two cursed and wretched little balls, black and decaying. There was nothing but silence and the shuddering of the wind. It seemed that stones on the pavement and puddles in the cracks of the earth and lampposts a little too bright around them were holding their breath, the same way Suguru was. They were staring, the same way Satoru was. They were waiting, the same way they both were, for a blow or a confession or something in between.

And if Suguru felt like an ant under a microscope, like the topic of a joke, like he was standing centre stage in front of a crowd of faceless silhouettes, it was because the world was mercilessly watching him, taunting him, mocking him. What could one ever do in the face of such turmoil? In the ribcage of failure, in the arms of expectation? How to counter the rage, how to deal with the eyes of beautiful fury, with the eyes of Satoru.

Suguru bit his tongue to still the taste of panic in his mouth. He could sense the universe raising an inquisitive eyebrow at him, questioning why and how he was still standing there, motionless, almost as to say well, boy, make a move. 

Suguru did not, in fact, make a move. The blow came all the same.

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.” Satoru stated blankly, words too slow and contained for Suguru to believe in them. There was a tremor in his voice. There was a twitch in his eyebrow. There was a look in his eyes. Suguru noticed, because he always did. 

And he noticed the rest, too. How Satoru’s hands were curled into fists, how his sharp eyes had travelled to somewhere else, how he had taken a step back. It was nobody’s business if Suguru had convinced himself that he was not hurt by the gesture. Satoru was standing so tall, again, tall and right there, trying to reach something in the air around them. Suguru could feel his own heartbeat. He could also feel the shades of sunburns returning to his cheeks. 

He took a quiet breath in, trying not to disturb the stillness between them. “I don’t expect you to say anything in particular.” He replied slowly, careful with his words, weighing them on his collarbones before speaking. They sounded wrong all the same.

“Then why would you ask me that?” Satoru spat out almost too fast, frowning, hissing and ready to bite. Pride, so much of it, the worst kind, the hurt kind.

Suguru had a moment, just a moment, where he was certain that Satoru was going to throw a punch. 

And then it settled. The panic in his chest ceased, like a truce, like the end of it. So sudden and brutal, and tender all the same. He felt a little knocked stupid by the feeling, by the calmness that grabbed him in a rush. He thought of his grief, of a lemon tree in a backyard, of his grandmother’s eyes. A crack opened in front of him, and Suguru felt that he could finally lie down, lie it down, the silence he could never quite shake off. He took Satoru in, and then he felt it. He is just a man, and I know him enough.

“Because I can.” Suguru explained gently, like it was evident. Somewhere, a shutter banged loudly against a wall. “Because I want to.” 

He let out a breath. Something ancient he had been holding ever since eyes like shrapnel had found him in the ring for the first time.

And Satoru stared. And stared and stared. Fists shaking and eyes frantic. So distant yet so close. So enraged yet so tangible. So fragile, in the way he was raw. So kind, in the way he was honest. He is just a man, and I know him enough.

“Then fucking stop wanting.” He stated, with a hatred that sounded like a rebellion. A rebellion against Suguru, maybe. A rebellion against tenderness, most of all. Ultimately, Suguru knew it amounted to the same thing. 

He offered Satoru an apologetic smile. “That’s not that simple, now, is it?”

Satoru’s frown never left him. It only became more set in the marble of his pale face.

“Why?” He retorted with a glare.

“Because. It just isn’t.” Suguru’s tone was calm. Suguru’s tone was warm. He was holding sympathy for both of them. “It’s never been easy. I told you that.” He explained as he buried his hands in his pockets and took another step towards Satoru. “You’re not easy.”

Satoru considered him, wild eyes moving over him like static on a TV screen, sending shock waves to his bones. Satoru’s breathing was a little too erratic for someone who was standing still. Devouring anger, daunting rage and the sea.

“You never give me real answers.” Satoru suddenly declared after a minute of watching Suguru like he was trying to decide which one of them would die first.

Suguru suppressed the slight surprise and tried not to lose his newly found calmness.

“I give you real answers.” He objected, shaking his head slightly. “Just none that you accept.”

Satoru shook his head forcefully as an answer, retorting with his whole body. “No, you don’t give me real answers, Geto.” He tried to use his name like a threat. Suguru thought it still sounded pretty on his lips. “You talk as if I was never hearing what you were saying.”

Suguru knew it to be true, in a way. He believed Satoru would forget the sound of his voice soon enough. The accusation had some truth to it, open layers that meant Satoru had understood his quietness and the origin of some of it. Satoru wasn’t wrong. It didn’t mean Suguru would let him know he was right.

“Don’t turn this around.” Suguru asked firmly, still trying to be kind.

“I’m not.” Spite. Flashes of white anger. Blue eyes so harsh. For a second there, Suguru almost pitied him.

“You are.” He restated with forced composure. “I’m the one who’s asking you to talk to me, this time. And you’re the one not answering.” He felt his face sting weirdly. Satoru’s anger was rubbing off on him. “You’re the one who has been avoiding me for a week and is not explaining entirely why.”

At that, Satoru’s head lolled back and he looked to the sky, as if pained greatly, as if explaining the why was an ordeal the likes of which he had never been through before. He let out a strained sound of frustration, something guttural at the back of his throat, and slid a hand through his hair again, pulling roughly on it at the base of his neck. He sighed laboriously and pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut sharply when his fingers found the bruise there. He visibly bit back a wince. His skin was not cooperating. His entire body was fighting something off.

Suguru watched him. It was an aching sight. He felt the impulse to apologise.

“I’m sorry I touched you.” His breath hitched just a little. Because it felt wrong on his tongue. Because his hands craved to do it again.

Satoru opened his eyes sharply, fixing him with a look, with something. It was always something. There was always something.

“Don’t apologise for that.” He said, voice pitched too low, suddenly too quiet. He let his arms drop heavily to his sides. “It’s not -” His voice was strangled. He closed his eyes again, screwing them shut against the spine of his rage, and breathed out as he opened them. “That’s not the fucking problem here.”

Another silence, another beat, another wave behind Satoru’s eyelids, another lump behind Suguru’s teeth. He swallowed his apprehension like air, bracing for something, the end of it, the beginning of it.

He thought of lilac on the surface of the snow. He watched the rage in front of him that seemed like it was something else, tonight. Something doomed and petrifying.

Satoru never stopped staring. Suguru couldn’t remember if he ever did.

He tried to take a breath. It escaped in and out of him like a punch. “Then what exactly is the problem?” Suguru asked, trying to be calm, and failing to be brave.

The air smelled of perdition. Still. Threatening. Neither of them tried to move. Satoru crashed into the shore of Suguru’s quietness.

“The problem is that I do want you to overstep.” Satoru admitted like a plea, like it hurt, like it cascaded down his airway and ripped open the scar on his stomach. His frantic eyes kept moving like they were trying to catch Suguru before running out of time. Committing him to memory, before the inevitable.

An exhale got caught in his throat. “I want you to overstep all the time.” He added, wounded, desperate, whispering pitifully against the backdrop of his anger. Eyes blown and his tallness growing small.

Suguru tried to breathe through it. Suguru tried to breathe with it. It was pointless and his body knew. It was terminal.

He is just a man, and I know him enough.

“Then just ask me.” Suguru murmured to no one but Satoru, to no one but the rage, to no one but himself. His voice echoed in his heart, somewhere under the surface.

Satoru looked pained. His face twisted into something miserable, something tired. Something exhausted, like someone trying to grieve the loss of a thing that was still here. How does one accept tenderness when they have never known it? Fists clenched and face bruised. The picture of a man whose knuckles bled the colour of shame, who tried to knock down the kindness before it was even handed to him. Satoru had yielded under Suguru’s compassionate hands once, and had run in the opposite direction, startled and petrified and angry. How to kill it, then? How to kill the terror of letting yourself be mended? Satoru, when offered a tender heart, looked like a child facing death for the first time.

Suguru knew the type. Suguru wanted to believe it could be changed. Suguru wanted to believe in anything.

He took another shaky breath in, frozen, looking into the waters of Satoru’s eyes, and decided to be valiant.

“Ask me, Satoru.” He ordered, fists clenched in his pockets, voice laced with the promise of a downfall. Sunburnt all over.

There was a ticking bomb. There was a distant sound. The city buzzing far away from them. But not here. Here was calm, here was steady. The anger had grown cold. Satoru breathed out on Suguru’s inhale and let the silence be killed.

“Please, Suguru.” His name, spoken for the first time by Satoru’s lips, sounded like a prayer. “Overstep.”

Please Suguru. Please Suguru. Please Suguru.

He took in the words like a knife to his jugular. The begging, the terror. His blood ran wild, burning and scratching and horrifying. He felt burnt to his core, down in the pits of his stomach, through the cracks of his knuckles, pools of fire somewhere within. Everywhere within.

And Satoru was staring at him with eyes the colour of abandon. Blue and grey and everything in between. Wide and a little scared, but a little kind, too.

It took a moment for Suguru to move, for his brain to register Satoru’s voice. His hands left his pockets. Satoru watched, awestruck, lost in a sort of haze. Waiting and staring. Always staring. He stood perfectly still. Suguru swore he had even stopped breathing.

He took a step, slow and testing, watching out for a sign of discomfort, for the sign of the end of times. Satoru, still, did not move, as if the sky could strike them down any minute. Suguru thought it probably could.

Overstep.

Suguru crossed the distance to him, four calculated strides, and could feel the sun burning him from the inside out, skinning him alive under the night air. There was no light but the lamppost. There was no light but Satoru. He tried for a breath and found his heart instead.

He stopped in front of Satoru, keeping a distance and none at the same time. Close and far, far and close. Satoru’s eyes were blown. Satoru’s eyes were even more bewildering up close. It was like seeing them for the first time. It was like seeing him for the first time. Suguru needed a moment to adjust, a moment to notice the tree moles forming a constellation on his cheek, under bruises that would not yield. A moment to appreciate the anger from a new point of view, beautiful and ripe, displayed on features so otherworldly it looked unfair. Satoru was impossible. Painted in a light that meant something, cut down to angles that served a purpose. His eyes ate away at Suguru’s fragile composure. Satoru had to look down just slightly to level his stare with him. And Suguru couldn’t find his footing. Suguru couldn’t find anything.

Suguru stared. Satoru stared. It was always down to the silence, in the end.

Suguru moved on instinct, his right hand going up slowly, still watching out for a sign of attack. Satoru’s eyes stayed stuck to his face, ignoring the movement, ignoring everything else. They travelled without a care in the world, watching him openly now that he was close. It was probably a new angle for him too. He was probably rediscovering Suguru’s face for the first time, too. Suguru could feel it. The way he was being mapped out in Satoru’s brain. The way he was being studied like a riddle, like a secret, like something to love and to grieve all the same. Satoru looked almost mad with it. Suguru definitely felt mad because of it.

There was a bassline between them, a wire that started somewhere in Suguru’s heels, and ended in a place behind Satoru’s teeth. Anchored and sharp, and inevitable.

Suguru’s right hand hovered over the spot where it had been a week prior, right where Satoru’s hair started at the back of his head. Satoru didn’t even seem to notice, starstruck, distracted.

Suguru had a moment where he felt like fleeing again. He knew the end of it. He knew the end of everything. He knew what this would be, he knew where this would go.

Overstep. Overstep. Overstep.

He buried his fingers in Satoru’s hair, finding the skin again, sending a shockwave down the line of Satoru’s entire body. So reactive. Satoru’s eyes went even wider, even bigger with the feeling, and fluttered shut in seconds, like his brain was trying to know what to do with it. Overwhelming and overwhelmed. His shoulders dropped slightly, visibly, and he blinked, blinked again, tried again, and failed. He was still standing so painfully still, still fighting something off, still trying to keep the tide from swallowing both of them whole.

Suguru decided he didn’t care for it. He was done trying to swim.

He let his fingers scratch the skin, up and down the slope of Satoru’s neck, on his nape, up to the top of his head, and watched how Satoru tried to fight it, to fight the tenderness, to fight the feeling. His eyes fluttering, his jaw working into place like he was uselessly trying to fight his corner. His slow breathing lost its rhythm, his shoulders lost the tension, his head dropped back a little against his better judgment, probably, pressing into Suguru’s hand like it was trying to chase it. A sigh escaped through his nose, exhaling the pretense away breath by breath, step by step, Suguru’s touch undoing the wrath and putting an end to the act, breaking and unmaking and building something else to replace the rage.

Suguru tried to still his heartbeat.

His left hand went up, after a moment, hesitating for a destination, before finding Satoru’s jaw the way it had before, as kindly as he could, as softly as he was capable of. The touch of hands cradling heavy rain. A breath got stuck behind Satoru’s teeth. Suguru could feel the shades of crimson running up his cheeks and nose, an eternal blush blooming under Satoru’s eyes.

His thumb brushed Satoru’s cheek, slowly, a reminder that a touch could mend, that a touch could be gentle. Satoru leaned into it, something taking over the restrain. He never stopped watching Suguru’s face. Suguru wanted to say something, but his head was empty, and his hands were full.

Like a challenge and a culmination, Satoru’s eyes dropped to his lips, the way they had done times before, but this one had the undertone of sincerity, the taste of inevitability. He looked desperate, he looked pained. Suguru’s eyes became frantic, hectic, erratic now that he was not being watched but that his mouth was. He tried to swallow it down. Unsuccessful.

Satoru stayed very still, pupils blown, eyes focused. There was a tidal wave. There was an impact point. A fight in a ring where no one could win. Something like a match against Suguru’s skin, and ice in Satoru’s eyes.

Overstep. Overstep. Overstep.

He is just a man, and I know him enough.

Suguru held his breath and leaned in, tilting his head up just the slightest bit, and pressed his lips to Satoru’s mouth, a sigh escaping him instantly as he did. Something olden, something tethered to the ring, to the fights, to the bruises. His eyes closed. The noise in his head went silent. The rest of him went loud.

Saltwater and the Sun.

He kissed him kindly, the way he knew how, the way he was sure Satoru didn’t. He kissed him gently and soft, like an invitation. It was barely anything. He sensed his skin tickle, and his breath lose it all, and his mind risk it all. His hand in Satoru’s hair pressed harder, fingers finding skin without control, and he held his jaw a little tighter, holding on to anything he could find.

And he felt it. How Satoru indulged him. How he let him. How he tried to breath against his lips, attempting to defuse a bomb. How he tried to still his breathing through a simple kiss, without even responding to it. How he still tried to fight it. How his mouth tried to stay close. How he was still keeping his hands to himself, fists closed, fists clenched, anger still raw against warm lips.

Suguru leaned in a little deeper, pulled in by a wire, pulled in by the waves. His hands on Satoru’s jaw dropped to his neck, his thumb still stroking the skin gently. He felt Satoru’s Adam’s apple under his fingertip, felt how it moved as he swallowed down a sigh, and brushed it tenderly. A sound got caught at the back of Satoru’s throat, choked and broken, and Suguru pulled back.

He opened his eyes in a panic, only to find the ocean already watching him under heavy eyelids. The sunburns on his face held the warmth like they never had before.

Satoru blinked, taking a shaky breath in, and waited for Suguru to find him again.

And Suguru did. His lips returned to Satoru’s mouth, a rush behind them this time, and moved with a purpose. He tried to drown Satoru’s anger, to reduce it to nothingness, to make it mellow and empty. He tried to kiss it away. Slow and deliberate and kind. Always kind.

Satoru fought. Satoru fought and fought again. Unmoving. Still. Until Suguru opened his mouth, parting his lips like an evocation, and something dropped. Something died. Something drowned in the puddles at their feet. Something broke inside Satoru’s pride.

Satoru let out a violent sigh, and Suguru thought he was about to punch him, but he was too desperate to step back.

Instead, a gasp got strangled at the back of his throat when he felt cold fingers slither under the hem of his hoodie, desperately chasing his warm skin, grabbing his hips and pulling him closer sharply. Raw. Their bodies crashed together. Satoru inhaled and exhaled and tried to breathe, opening his lips against his, letting their tongues meet, and let out another strained sigh at the feeling. His cold hands held him forcefully, pressing into the skin like they were trying to bruise it. Suguru didn’t care. Suguru would cherish the violets.

Suguru pulled back for a second, barely having time to draw in a breath, I am going to die in his arms. He is going to kill me, and kissed him again. Satoru tasted sweet. Too sweet, for someone who had just smoked. So sweet, a contrast with the scenery of his ferocity. He danced on Suguru’s tongue like a death poem, and Suguru didn’t know if it was heaven or hell or something in between.

The rage was still here. But it did something different.

Satoru’s tongue was sharp, and furious and precise, like the rest of him. It was not allowing for respite. Teeth baring, trying to commit the taste of Suguru’s mouth to memory, trying to slither his way down the slope of his throat and eat him whole. An animal trying to lick his wounds but biting them instead.

Suguru’s head screamed. He felt his whole body turn raw and burnt and exposed. He tried to breathe through it.

He pulled Satoru’s hair on instinct, trying to hold onto him, trying to find anything to use as leverage, as if this was still a fight, as if this was still a show of force. And Satoru moaned. Something hoarse, honest and loud in his mouth. As if he didn’t care. As if he never did. Suguru felt a shiver run up and down his stomach and chased the anger with his tongue. His hand on Satoru’s neck moved to his hair, joining the other one there, scratching and pulling and feeling.

Satoru, trapped on both sides, went feral under his fingers. He kissed him open mouthed, furious with something that was trying to be soft, desperate in the way it was agonizing. His fingers on Suguru’s waist dug deeper, dragging another choked-out gasp out of him. He brought him impossibly closer, body clashing, chests pressed and frantic. Suguru could feel he was trying to close every distance possible. He fought back a sound, like a cry or something else, definitely something else, when one of Satoru’s hands left his hips and found his neck. He held him tight, cold skin on a furnace, and bit his lower lip in a rush, before going back in, all rage and tongue. Suguru couldn’t breathe, yet felt like he had never taken a full inhale before this.

His nails dug into the back of Satoru’s neck, dug into skin that held the beginning and the end, and Satoru’s hand moved to his throat, like a revenge. Suguru’s eyes shot open and he failed to swallow back a broken moan.

He pulled back slightly, because someone had to, because he could feel that Satoru was too far gone, that he would have suffocated against Suguru’s mouth if it meant kissing him again. Suguru took in a breath against Satoru’s parted lips, as if breaking the surface after being underwater, and let his eyelids drop again.

“Satoru,” He whispered desperately against the other man’s mouth, feeling hot air on his skin. It smelled of mint and tea and him. “Let me breathe.”

He tried to control the panting, swallowing around the night air. His hands clutched at the back of Satoru’s neck like a lifeline, nails marking the skin. He tried to ignore the palm still pressed against his throat. He could feel that he was being watched, scrutinized from up close, and gave himself a minute to breathe in the silence. None of them spoke. Their erratic exhales were words enough.

Satoru’s thumb tentatively brushed Suguru’s neck, like an apology, before his hand went back to his hip. Suguru pretended not to notice how he missed it instantly. The cold contact on his bare skin pulled another shiver out of him. Satoru’s hands were completely still, blocks of frozen snow against his hip bones. Suguru did not mind. Suguru couldn’t have cared less.

He opened his eyes, blinking the outline of Satoru’s face into focus, and his knees went weak at the sight.

It had never been this. It had never been this. Satoru looked nothing short of wrecked. Pupils blown and ocean eyes wide open, mouth parted, lips raw and wet and bruised with love. He still watched Suguru’s face frantically, as if he didn’t know what to make of this, as if Suguru was about to suddenly push him away. His cheeks were a shade of painfully bright pink that Suguru had never seen on him. He had never seen him blush. He always believed Satoru’s skin was too cold for that. He was desperately glad to be proven wrong; this was a view that rivalled all the rest. Satoru was so, so, atrociously and disastrously beautiful. A sound got stuck at the back of Suguru’s mouth at the sight.

He was submerged by it and leaned away from Satoru slightly to give both of them room to breathe on their own, but the other man chased his body, echoing his movement by leaning in, not breaching the distance. He appeared to be vehemently against the concept of personal space. He kept eyeing Suguru’s lips, kept brushing them with his own, breathing him empty, breathing him in. So close Suguru could not think straight. His grip on Suguru’s hips tightened, as if possible, and Suguru’s nails at the back of his neck bit his skin as a response.

“I said let me breathe.” Suguru pleaded, tilting his head back to the sky, the only way to angle himself away from Satoru’s closeness.

Satoru indulged him, slightly pulling his lips back to himself, but still hovering so close, too close, right here. Suguru dragged a long inhale in but it was useless. He watched the night sky. It was a starless night, like every one of them in Tokyo. It didn’t matter much this time.

“Sorry.” Satoru spoke finally, voice hoarse and low, drawing a full body tremble out of Suguru. How could anyone survive this?

His lips brushed Suguru’s jaw, and he planted a soft kiss on it, then another, trailing alongside it, leaving ghostly remnants behind, up until he reached his temple. Suguru felt the beginning of a cry building in his throat.

“Sorry.” He breathed against Suguru’s skin. Suguru angled his head back to normal, because Satoru was slightly taller anyway, and Suguru did not really want to escape this.

Satoru kissed his temple again, and then again, and found his cheek next, and the corner of his mouth, and his lips for a moment, and his chin and the tip of his nose. He kissed his whole face. Light and warm. Desperate and caring, trying to kiss him without suffocating him, trying to be kind. Suguru could feel his breathing slow down, evening-out under Satoru’s lips, under Satoru’s gentleness.

And it hit him like a hundred oceans, that it was the first time Satoru was offering him his tenderness.

And it was so easy. So innate. So evident. So part of what Satoru was, under the rage and the anger and the fury, so patient and right there and exceptional, for the first time. Suguru fought back the rain behind his eyes and let himself be mended, this time.

Satoru’s hands became lighter on his skin, too. They travelled with precaution, departing from his hips to find the dip of his lower back, still buried under his clothes. Satoru’s cold fingers had grown warmer, borrowing heat from Suguru. They didn’t feel like shockwaves against his body anymore. They trailed softly, each step a revelation, each new patch of skin treated like mellow grass. Satoru opened his palms, pressed them against the end of Suguru’s spine, and tried to hold him even closer.

Suguru’s entire body grew malleable. He felt he had never been so warm. He had never felt so exposed.

“Sorry.” Satoru repeated quietly against his cheek before planting yet another kiss, making Suguru’s head swim in warm water.

I know him enough. I know him completely.

Suguru’s right hand left the back of his neck, moving to cup his jaw, and Satoru reacted to the move, pulling away slightly to let Suguru see him. The sight punched another breath out of Suguru.

“What are you sorry for?” Suguru asked, his left hand going up, traveling back to the snow of Satoru’s hair. The other man’s eyelids fluttered shut on instinct and he fought it back.

He sighed slowly, face a little lost, eyes still trying to watch Suguru too closely. “I don’t know.” He admitted in a murmur. His thumbs drew circles in the dip of Suguru’s back, and Suguru tried not to die. “I don’t know.”

Suguru’s heart tightened a little, building a nest in the centre of his chest, a weight under his ribcage.

He offered Satoru a quiet smile. “You have nothing to apologize for.” His voice was honest. He wanted Satoru to hear him.

Satoru frowned, battling with something, battling with himself. Suguru yielded to the urge he had felt so many times, and pressed his thumb between Satoru’s eyebrows, massaging the river bed away. Satoru blinked in surprise but his frown left him instantly. Suguru’s hands dropped back to his neck.

“You frown a lot.” He offered as a justification, voice quiet.

Satoru studied him, considered him, and the colour on his cheeks dived back into a pool of crimson.

Suguru’s smile grew a little wider and he let it. He eyed his own hand on Satoru’s neck, and noticed the skin underneath and around it. Under the bruises, the same shade of pink. Suguru bit his lip to suppress his smile, and let his hand slide down slowly, pulling slightly on the collar of Satoru’s white jumper. He felt him shiver under his fingers as he revealed his collarbone, the same shade, the same pink, the same violet kisses.  

Suguru let go of the collar and looked back to find Satoru’s eyes again. “I see.” He taunted, arching an eyebrow.

Satoru started to frown but stopped himself. “What?” He asked in confusion.

“Full body blusher, uh?” Suguru bit back a breath, his words flowing so easily out of him it felt slightly surreal. On borrowed time.

Satoru blinked, a little stupefied. “You’re seriously in no place to talk.” He deadpanned, forcing the blankness, and Suguru was made aware of his own heated skin.

“Fair enough.” He admitted, forcing back a smile.

Satoru watched him openly, attentively, and he let himself be watched in return. They stayed for a moment like this, falling back to their shared habit, both pairs of eyes dancing with the other. Except this time, Satoru’s hands were warm against Suguru’s back. Except this time, Suguru’s fingers pushed back white hair. Except this time, they did not fail to be brave.

“Do you want to -” Satoru spoke after a moment, his fingers returning to Suguru’s hips, touch tentative. “Do you want to come to mine?”

Suguru’s hand stilled in his hair.

“I’m trying to make up for a week of avoidance.” Satoru continued almost immediately, justifying the question, as if he needed to, as if Suguru wasn’t in his arms.

Not missing a beat, Suguru replied. “Yeah.” His voice was barely above a whisper. Satoru was close enough to hear his bloodstream anyway. “Okay.”

Satoru seemed almost surprised with it. He nodded, to himself more than to Suguru, and repeated the word back to the both of them. “Okay.”

The first thing Suguru noticed when he stepped in was the abandoned cup of tea on the small kitchen table. He let his eyes take in the room, egg-white walls, streetlights streaming through shutters and lighting up the room dimly, mismatched cabinets and three different hoodies lying around. Freshly cleaned pairs of identical boxing wraps were neatly displayed on a drying rack next to the sink. Blue, like the rest of Satoru. He heard the other man close the door behind him and glanced back.

Satoru’s eyes were already watching him. Rays of streetlights danced on his face.

“It’s not much.” Satoru said, apologetic.

Suguru offered a smile. “It doesn’t have to be.”

Satoru deflated at the words. He took off his shoes, Suguru mirroring him and dropping his sport bag in the entrance. Satoru made his way further into the kitchen. He did not turn on the ceiling lights. Suguru had noticed his contempt for it.

He watched from a distance as Satoru picked up his clothes lying around, and the book on the table that was left open with a cracked spine, and the abandoned cup of tea, trying to tidy up a place that was his. Suguru shook his head and walked over to him, grabbing the unbalanced cup from his hands, keeping it from meeting the ground. Satoru shot him a perplexed look.

“I don’t mind.” Suguru shrugged, taking a hoodie from Satoru’s arms and placing it back on a chair. “A little mess makes a space alive.” He returned the cup to its spot on the table.

Satoru stared for a second, debating something, then leaned in suddenly and kissed him quickly, softly, evasively. Suguru barely had time to register the gesture before Satoru was out of his reach, walking to another room, leaving Suguru to his blinking and empty head. He slid a hand through his hair to stabilize his own balance, unsuccessfully.

Satoru returned some moments later, his white jumper traded for a thick grey hoodie. Suguru frowned slightly.

“Are you cold?” He inquired, turning towards him.

Satoru smiled, a little sad, and let himself plop down heavily on one of the kitchen chairs, on the other side of the table. His exhaustion was visible. “I always am.” He explained, his hands going to his pockets to demonstrate his words.

Suguru hummed as a response, the baseline of his voice visibly doing something to Satoru, something they were both allowing to be seen, now. Satoru watched him under heavy eyelids, eyes sharp but a little tired.

Suguru must have looked worried, because Satoru stifled back a yawn and shook his head. “Long day. Long shift.” He leaned back on his chair and sighed. “Long and shitty training with Nanami, too.”

Suguru tilted his head in compassion. “Is he being harsh?”

Satoru scoffed, then turned his head to look through the window, streetlights finding his face again. Eternally beautiful.

“He’s being a dick. Nobody enjoyed my last fight and I’m paying the price for it.” His jaw worked into place, something returning to his features, and Suguru took it as his cue.

He made his way around the small table, crossing the distance, drawn into Satoru’s orbit in the dead of night. He had no idea what time it was. It didn’t care much for it.

Satoru angled himself towards him instantly, like a habit, like a need, like a want, his body drained and on autopilot, finally surrendering to cravings and visions that seemed to be years-old and ancient. The pretences were gone. Walls the colours of quietness sheltered them from the rest of it.

“I think you fought beautifully.” Suguru flattered, stopping himself in front of Satoru, offering him a small smile as he looked up to meet his eyes. “He was a horrible fighter.”

Satoru studied him. “He was good, though.” He countered, hands still in his pockets.

Suguru made a face at that, remembering a man like a horror and blows meant to break. “He was crass.”

A beat. Satoru held his eyes in the night. Easy. “Am I not?”

“No.” Suguru shook his head slightly, his right hand returning to the fields of Satoru’s hair tentatively. Satoru, unsurprisingly, battled to keep his eyes from closing at the touch. Suguru could feel the sunburns in the night. “You’re enraged. That’s different.”

Satoru sighed slowly against the silence, under tender fingers untangling his hair and his body at the same time. Untangling him, unravelling him. He opened his knees wider, an invitation for Suguru to come close.

“Same ending.” He breathed out, voice dropping octaves.

Suguru stepped in. His free hand went up to Satoru’s nape. Consciously. Deliberately.

“Different purposes.” He assured as Satoru lost the battle against heavy eyelids, eyes closing under hands chasing the anger away, and chasing him instead.

Satoru breathed out through his nose, shoulders dropping, tension deflating. Suguru was, still, eternally amazed by the reaction, by how responsive Satoru was to the attention to his hair and his neck. It was barely anything, and yet it seemed to reach in the depths of Satoru’s body, wringing something out of him in slow motion, slow receding waves after a tsunami. All it took was a touch. All it took was some kindness. Suguru wondered if the rest of his body would be the same, act the same, feel the same under his fingers. If a kiss to his collarbone could draw the sharpness out of him. If a palm against his stomach could kill the cold. If fingers along his spine could trample the rage. If lips between his shoulder blades could make the temper go away. If Satoru would shiver. If Satoru would thank him. If if if.

Suguru blinked the thoughts away and massaged a point at the back of Satoru’s head.

“You called me an emotional fighter once.” Satoru asked quietly, eyes still shut. “Do you think of me as emotional?”

Suguru considered the question and pushed white hair back slowly. Satoru leaned into the touch. “Amongst other things, yes.”

He thought of Satoru as many things. He thought he was pretty, he thought he was angry. He thought he was kind, too, under it all. Kind and a little harsh, but kind all the same.

Satoru opened his eyes, angling his face towards Suguru to watch him. Suguru welcomed the attention like a punch to his stomach, always. He thought he would never get used to it. To being looked at like that.

Satoru waited for him to elaborate. Suguru indulged him.

“I think of you as complicated.” He clarified, summing up the mountain in his head with this. Complicated. “Your words and actions are like your fighting.”

Satoru regarded him with interest. “I don’t make sense?” He inquired, fighting off a frown.

Suguru smiled, amused that his own past words were spoken back to him. He slowly pressed his fingers deeper against Satoru’s nape, deliberate and practiced, and watched as it dragged a content sigh out of him. “You make a little more sense now.”

Satoru took his hands out of his hoodie’s pockets. “You really think too much.” He probed, leaning in slightly towards Suguru, getting closer. Suguru let him. Suguru thought he always would

“Well, one of us has to.” He bantered, voice growing a little quiet now that Satoru was looking at him.

Satoru paused, faking hurt, and frowned. “Ouch.”

Satoru’s cold fingers found bare thighs, right under the hem of his shorts, and Suguru vividly felt the air leaving him in a rush. Satoru didn’t miss a beat, eyes picking up their habit of roaming frantically over his face like he was trying to stop time, or outrun it. There was a shiver, shared between them, as Suguru scratched his scalp softly and Satoru’s hands grew a little more present against warm skin.

His thumbs drew slow circles against Suguru’s thighs, almost mindlessly, as if this was an ancient rhythm between them, as if this was anything but new. Trying to breach the distance, Satoru leaned in, and Suguru began to realise he tended to do it like a second nature.

Satoru leaned into things. He leaned into his anger, he leaned into his rage. He leaned into his fighting without questioning it, into the punches like they wouldn’t leave a mark. They always left a mark. Satoru leaned into his bruises, and his cuts, and his stubbornness. He leaned into touches, now, too. Leaned into Suguru and his hands, crossing a bridge, stealing a breath. He leaned into a tenderness held between fingers like he was made for it, splitting the empty space open and placing himself in the middle instead.

Suguru had a habit of letting people get too close. He would let Satoru get closer still.

He breathed out slow, his right hand moving to find a face, and held Satoru’s jaw on both sides, fingers under his ears and thumbs against his cheeks. He inspected him, the cut on his lip that was still visible, the bruise around his eye that clung to his skin like an old piece of clothing, the way loyal things tend to. Satoru let him watch. Satoru let him touch. It was a little surreal to cradle a wild animal. It felt a little exceptional, to stand so close without being bitten, without being fought. Satoru, under his fingers, grew compliant.

“You kiss like you fight, too.” Suguru confided in a breath, to Satoru, to himself, to the streetlights on pale skin, to the abandoned cup on the table.

Satoru’s thumbs stopped, stilling at the words, his touch going from light to a little raw, a little tight, a little insistent. He studied Suguru like a promise, eyes moving, and moving and searching and ripping Suguru in pieces in the process, building him back up afterwards, fingertips digging into his muscles. Suguru could feel the other man’s jaw work under his fingers, could feel the tension in the bones, the pressure in the tendons. Satoru watched him from down there, but Suguru felt like he was above him, around him, over him. Suguru felt observed and crushed by the weight of blue eyes.

There was a crash. There was a tidal wave.

Satoru’s hands trailed up, skipping his shorts purposefully, and landed on his hips. Suguru’s breath hitched, trying for an exhale but feeling wronged by it. His hands on Satoru’s jaw tried to remain light, to remain kind, but there was a push, there was a pull. He held onto him, stroking his cheeks lightly, as if to appease something in advance, trying to soften the blow.

Satoru pushed him back a little, hands pressing against his hips, and stood up slowly with a purpose, threatening eyes never leaving him. It was always some type of violence for Suguru to see him from up close, levelled, focused, right there. Suguru’s hands moved to their own accord, knowing the end, knowing the outcome. They found the back of Satoru’s head, the hair, a nape, a sigh and another shiver. And it was enough.

Satoru dived in, this time, not bothering with staring or waiting for a sign. Not bothering to find a reason, but making one instead. He found Suguru’s lips with his own, sighing in the feeling instantly, and Suguru felt breathless in seconds, his courage leaving him bloodied and bruised, leaving him behind, his lips parting because of it.

Satoru kissed him slowly. He was trying to prove something. He kissed him agonisingly, kissed him so hauntingly slow that Suguru felt like he was trying to break him down, to push him back into himself until he was nothing but honey and passion. His tongue was heavy, unhurried and mellow. Unbearable. Satoru’s hands trailed up, finding their way under his hoodie again, returning to their spot on his hip bones, right where he believed his heart was now. A sound died barely in Suguru’s throat, somewhere down his airway, but Satoru seemed to notice. His grip grew tighter, chasing something, holding Suguru like he was unbreakable. He pulled him closer in a crash, always, closer, deeper, clashing and crushing. Some kind of agony, surely. Suguru choked against it. Suguru breathed against it. Pointless and useless. He was suffocating anyway.

Satoru kissed him deeper, mouth open like it had been before, muffled sighs and sounds escaping him and reaching down Suguru’s throat ruthlessly. Suguru could feel Satoru’s chest rising frantically against his own lungs, could feel the muscles of his stomach through his clothes, could feel the bend of his knees against his. He could feel him in, feel him everywhere. As if Satoru was trying to melt them into one. It felt almost like he was succeeding.

Overstep overstep overstep.

Satoru grabbed him tighter and turned them around without a warning. There was never a warning. Suguru felt the edge of the kitchen table against the back of his bare thighs and knew he was never going to win this. One of his hands left Satoru’s hair and found his shoulder instead, gripping it for support, holding onto him to find an anchor, and Satoru leaned in, leaned closer, impossible and tangible. Suguru let him in. Suguru let him everywhere.

Satoru pulled back for a second, allowing both of them a full inhale, and returned home.

His left hand travelled to Suguru’s waist, under his hoodie, forcing a half-suppressed gasp out of him. The sound died in Satoru’s mouth, finding the lifeline, finding the flavour. Suguru, in the midst of his passion and through the blinds of warmth, realised once again how surprisingly sweet Satoru tasted. Like sugar and violet candy. It was such a nice undertone, such a soft, placating feeling that balanced out Satoru’s fervour. Suguru thought it made sense, after all, that the sweetness was physically hidden inside Satoru, behind sealed lips that parted for him.

Satoru’s right hand left him, his palm finding the table instead, open flat next to Suguru’s thigh. He pushed him backward until he was sitting down, until he had to lean back because Satoru kept leaning forward, leaning in, a hand holding him in the dip of his spine. Satoru knocked down the rest of his pride with such ease, stealing a sound out of him again. There was not much to do against Satoru’s will. There was not much Suguru actually wanted to do against it. But he made a point not to open his knees. He made a point to stand his grounds, to keep some of it to himself, to keep something at bay. There was always something. There had always been this; under the pretence, under the anger.

Satoru pulled back, fixing him with a look, and Suguru, a hand still lost in snow for hair, tried not to go mad under it. There was a shiver that cut through his spine, starting right where Satoru’s hand was and ending somewhere in his throat.

Satoru studied him, eyelids heavy, gaze travelling without restraint. “I kiss like I fight, uh?” He heaved, voice proud, watching as Suguru struggled to gather a breath.  

Suguru blinked, his words going round and round in his head. Satoru’s cheeks had that pink tint again. Pretty. “Yeah.” He breathed out, his grip on Satoru’s shoulder getting insistent, and a little vicious. “Yeah you really do.” All instinct and no thinking.

Satoru seemed satisfied, and a little smug. Suguru kept himself from kissing the arrogance out of him.

“Except I get to touch you.” He let out, brushing his lips against Suguru’s again, just because he could. Suguru chased them like a reflex. “In the ring I don’t.” He continued, breathless, eyeing Suguru’s mouth, and his eyes and his cheeks. His hand on his back slid down to hold his waist again.

This was more than a sunburn. Suguru felt like his face had turned into the sun itself, that droplets of it had found their way under his skin. He tried to let the words wash over him, but they grabbed his body instead, holding him. He felt he had always been made stupid and wordless by Satoru’s candour. He tried to find something to answer, but all he could do was hold Satoru’s shoulder a little tighter and dig moon crescents at the back of his neck, a substitute for a response.

Satoru straightened up, giving them space, giving them air. Suguru’s body followed him like it was second nature, leaning forward slightly, keeping the distance small, his hand on the other man’s shoulder bringing back into his personal space. Satoru obliged, pliant, and gave him a soft kiss, something patient, something warm. Suguru sighed into it, tranquillity settling inside him, and finally let go of his shoulder, finding his arm instead under the sleeve of his hoodie. Satoru pulled back at the loss of contact, an unreadable expression on his face, a question in his eyes, a disturbance in the quiet sea.

He watched Suguru attentively, making his throat grow dry. His usual apprehension started to make itself known, knocking on his ribs, making the noise echo through his lungs. Satoru seemed to notice, and let his thumb draw soft circles on his side.

After a moment, Satoru spoke, streetlights in his eyes making him look divine. “I didn’t know it could be this.” His voice was quiet, almost shy.

Suguru blinked, frowned, leaned in under attentive eyes. “Could be what?” He whispered to the dark kitchen.

Satoru paused, pensive, echoing his frown. “I don’t know.” He admitted, searching Suguru’s skin with his eyes, looking for an answer on his body. He seemed to find it and let it out. “Gentle.”

Suguru’s chest turned tight. His hand on Satoru’s arm found its way back to his neck, back to his face, holding his jaw. Satoru battled not to close his eyes, breathing out through his nose.

So much pride. So much rage. And so much affection, too, crushed behind his ocean, buried under the weight of the sand, the marine wind sweeping it all up and leaving it to rust. Satoru held his anger with both hands because he didn’t know how to hold anything else. All it had taken for him to be kind was to be kissed.

“What is it like, usually?” Suguru asked, cautious.

He watched Satoru attentively, felt his jaw work under his fingers, saw him blink and frown, looking for his words, looking for something that made sense. Suguru waited. Suguru would always wait.

Satoru shrugged and took in a quick breath. “People like to be fucked by me. People like to fuck me. That’s it.” He deadpanned, voice blank and a little harsh. Suguru blinked under the surprise, his eyebrows shooting up. It was always a dance, to know where to step around Satoru, to know what would come out of his mouth next. He tried not to let his breath catch. “I never had much interest in it in the first place.” Satoru continued matter-of-factly, shrugging once again.

Suguru nodded, understanding, trying to let the wave of Satoru’s bluntness wash over him. He straightened up, a shiver running down his spine for no apparent reason, and looked for his tongue. He found it at the back of his throat.

“And what interests you, then?” He asked gently, stroking Satoru’s cheek with his thumb, feeling a scar underneath.

Satoru watched him closely, leaning into Suguru’s hand at the words, the fingers on his waist travelling a little further, finding his spine gain. Suguru let himself be watched, let himself be held, let himself be touched. He let Satoru drag him a little closer, brushing his lips against his, forcing a shared shiver out of the both of them.

“I think the answer to that is pretty clear.” Satoru confessed, voice quiet, voice kind. So painfully kind.

Suguru’s breath got lost, somewhere in the middle of himself, and he tried to find his tallness.

There was still something tugging at his stomach, at the scar on his shoulder, like a reminder of an untold thing. This felt too easy. Too forgiving. He could feel his face fall a little, his eyebrows knitted closer. Satoru picked up on it, pulling away slightly to see him better, to give him room to think and a space to breathe. Suguru’s hands left his hair and his face in the motion, finding the table’s edge on each side of him, gripping it for support. He counted something, counted the bruises on Satoru’s face, spreading out under the new veil of worry, cashing with the blue of his eyes.

Suguru thought he was fair. He also believed he had failed to be, once.

“I’m sorry I left.” He admitted, holding Satoru’s attention and feeling the guilt press on his chest. The words ripped his throat open and bled his remorse dry.

Satoru studied him. A flicker of sad irritation travelled his face for a second. It left with a shrug of his shoulders. “You came back.” He offered. Easy. Forgiving.

Suguru took another breath in. He checked with his feet and his heart and his head. Something lifted, but something stayed. He tried not to let it crush him yet.

Cold fingers left his back, then, and Suguru noticed how he missed the feeling instantly.

Satoru turned his head, looking at something on the wall, and Suguru’s attention followed. He found the cracked clock, right above the stove, under streetlights and a buzz. It was almost midnight.

He stood up from the table almost automatically, his brain ordering him to leave, but Satoru did not budge, eyes fixed on the clock. They were standing face to face now, a little too close. Suguru realised they had always stood too close in their own unbearable way.

Satoru took a breath in, finding some temperance. “Do you want to stay?” He tried for nonchalance. It didn’t fit him this time.

His eyes found Suguru, then, a little apprehensive. Suguru could feel his heart in his ears.

“Do you want me to?” He whispered against the night.

Satoru blinked, incredulous. “I asked you to kiss me.”

Suguru felt warm. He also felt a little sad.

“People who kiss me do not always want me to stay.” He explained it like it was simple. It was never simple.

Satoru frowned. He fought with something, dropped it, settled for something else. “I want you to stay.” He assured, voice warm.

And Suguru did.  

Satoru gave him a new toothbrush, blue and white, like him. Satoru handed him a black t-shirt, large and washed out, tiptoeing on the edge of grey. Satoru gave him a pair of shorts, one of the rare ones he owned. Satoru let him into his room, small and lovely and smelling of him, something patient, something homely. White walls, pictures and posters, warm and simple and calming. Satoru let him into his space, easily, so easily it felt almost surreal, so easily it felt almost unfair. Satoru asked him what side of the bed he preferred, and Suguru answered “right” because that was the hand he favoured when boxing, because there wasn’t a right answer, because no one had ever asked him that.

And Satoru was watching him, now, lying down next to him like it was all a joke, like it was all going to be over in the morning. Like none of it was true. Suguru couldn’t think of anything that had ever felt more real.

Satoru, a large white t-shirt on his back, studied him openly, chin propped up on his hand, lying on his side. Loud, even in the silence. Present, even in the dim light. Suguru sat up against the headboard, putting his hair in a bun, trying to ignore the staring. It wasn’t anything violent. It was something interested. Something curious. It grabbed his throat all the same. He found a pair of blue eyes instinctively and let his hands drop on the covers.

Suguru waited, agitated, feeling a little naked, a little raw and exposed. He fought off the panic building up in his throat. Suguru, always, was still watching out for the rage.  

Satoru breathed in a slow breath. “I realise I barely know anything about you.” He admitted, voice steady. There was the undertone of something desperate.

Suguru could feel his own silent nature turning him upside down. “There is not much to say.” His fingers picked at the cover, folding and unfolding the fabric. Satoru’s eyes dropped to his hand instantly.

“Say it anyway.”

Suguru felt suddenly drenched, coming apart at the seams. Nothing could hold under the ocean. It was like being crocheted into himself, needles trying to pierce, trying to pick, trying to piece him back together. His life hung between the both of them like a puppet without strings. Something alone, something desolate. 

What to say, other than everything? Suguru did not want to speak of his heart, of the lemon tree in spring, of wrinkled hands that used to cradle his, of a knife on the kitchen counter. Suguru did not want to speak of himself, because it would mean speaking of the grief. What to do with it, then? How to kill it? How to make it seem like it was not all there was, when it felt like there would only ever be this? Suguru thought of them, and his heart turned heavy. He thought of them until he closed his eyes. At night, Suguru missed them most, lost in the crook of his bed, hidden under his covers. He missed them all the same. He missed them everywhere.

Then, there were eyes holding the silence, and holding him too. Satoru’s attention never wavered.

“Talk to me, Suguru.” He pleaded kindly.

Suguru. Satoru said his name and it was enough.

“You just -” Suguru started, voice strangled. “You remind me of my grandma, sometimes.”

Satoru’s expression changed. His face grew serious, tiredness fleeing him in seconds. His eyes turned focused, and all seeing and everywhere. They were always everywhere. He waited for Suguru to find his footing.

“There are moments when you look at me the same.” Suguru continued, gripping the sheets between his fingers. His throat felt tight. He choked on his grief and tried to move past it. “Like you know something that I don’t. Like you see something beyond me.” He heard his words echo in a hole, somewhere in his chest, and make so little sense.

Satoru visibly searched, tried, tiptoed, not to break something already fragile. “Maybe I do see beyond you. Sixth sense and all.” His light tone reached down the hole in Suguru’s lungs and dragged him out of it.

Suguru offered him a quiet smile in return. “I guess she did too.”

There was a pause, then, shared and delicate. Suguru’s fingers kept tangling and untangling, until a field of violet found them, and the motion stopped, stilled by the cold. He found Satoru’s eyes, already on him, always on him, and let himself be held.

“Tell me about her.”

Suguru’s eyes fell back to his hand, covered by Satoru’s, a canvas of blue and purple and lilac. The bruises looked almost comforting now, like a habit, old things he was growing used to. He let his own fingers travel to the knuckles, pressing his palm down over it, sharing his heat. Mending and fixing and caring. He could do that. A content sigh escaped Satoru.

Suguru found his words on pale skin under his.

“She raised me. She and my grandpa did.” He started, slow and barely above a whisper. It took a moment for the wind to turn, for the air in his airway to clear. Satoru’s thumb drew circles under his palm. Right there.

“She was smart.” Suguru continued, finding his voice. “She taught me how to swim and how to fish. She loved very deeply and people said I looked like her, but I always thought my face was a little too harsh. Her face was very soft. She had no sharp angles.” Satoru’s hand moved, sliding under his palm and filling up the space between each finger with his own. Suguru breathed through it. “I think of her when I want to find courage. I have thought of her a lot lately, trying to be brave.” He squeezed Satoru’s hand lightly. The other man reciprocated the gesture instantly. Holding on and being held. “She was a loud woman, with a loud voice and louder opinions. But most of all she was kind.” Suguru heard his voice drop, hiding somewhere under the white sheets, trying to flee and meet the floor. He swallowed, breathed, and let it go. “She was really, really kind.”

“You take after her, then.” Satoru whispered back, never letting go.

“I guess I try to.”

Suguru’s attention returned to him. Satoru was watching attentively, head on the pillow, eyes growing tired now, but eternally alert. Suguru held his hand a little tighter.

“She died last year.” He said, voice surprisingly steady. Easier to breathe. Easier to speak. “They both did.”

The silence itself paused. A car drove past, illuminating the room for a second. The streetlights wavered on Satoru’s face.

“I’m sorry.” He offered calmly. There was no pity. Only softness, and his everlasting sharpness, somewhere under it. It sounded steady, this time, and Suguru was thankful for it. None of them dwelled on it. “You can speak of them more, if you’d like to. I’ve got all night.”

So Suguru did. He spoke of the lemon tree that grew in their backyard in spring, of the backdoor that never closed well, of the missing wooden floorboard in the entrance. He spoke of his grandfather’s tendency to stay quiet, but to rage loud, and Satoru smiled sadly at that. He spoke of his grandmother’s blue handkerchief, of the reading glasses she always forgot to wear, of the coffee she brewed herself in the morning. He spoke of her, too, in abstract; a mother he never knew, and something seemed to shift in Satoru’s features. He spoke of the passing of time, of the love that was there and the love that remained. He didn’t talk much about himself, but speaking of them felt like the same.

He grew quiet with time, grew malleable under the constant touch of Satoru’s hand. He became aware, too, of his own exhaustion. His body had been working on adrenaline and kisses and shivers for hours. He shifted, lying down, joining Satoru under the covers, even if he knew that he would wake up without them, sweating through the night like he tended to.

But for now he indulged both of them. For now, he faced Satoru, whose eyes had drifted shut when silence had settled. He watched him openly in the dim lighting, sharp features melting under the marble, white hair lost on a white pillow sheet, tension gone and ego forgotten. He was brought back to that first time in the ring, when Satoru had passed out in his arms and his face had looked the same; serene. It was never a look Satoru had when awake.

Suguru let his eyes take and take and take, until they grew unfocused and dry, until Satoru looked like a vision he couldn’t grasp, but a vision he could still feel everywhere, present and grounding next to him. Suguru closed his eyelids under the silence.

That night, he fell asleep to the rhythm of Satoru’s breathing, to a lilac field in his hand, and the distant sound of the waves.

Chapter Text

The first thing Satoru noticed as he awoke was that his head did not hurt like it usually did. He opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through the blinds, softened by the white curtains covering the window. He blinked the sun into his sensitive eyes, trying to adjust an imaginary lens in his vision, trying to clear out the fog. A yawn escaped him. He had slept well and he could feel it.

His head was the only thing popping out from under the covers. They were wrapped around him like a cocoon, sheltering him from the cold that often, if not always, reached his body at night. Every possible layer of warmth Satoru could find was always welcomed. He watched the ceiling mindlessly through clear eyelashes that did a terrible job at shielding his eyes from the light, giving himself a moment to wake up. He felt mellow. He felt calm. He was still in a haze that was comforting. 

It came back to him slowly, like a sunrise. A warm hand against his as he fell asleep, a soft voice speaking of old love and habits, of a house in the countryside, of people Satoru never knew but felt like he did. He had closed his eyes when the silence had settled, but before that there had been the bassline of Suguru, the warm tone of his voice, the kindness of his words. Satoru blinked the lingering feeling into himself, something returning to his chest, and turned his head to meet the sun.

Suguru was on his back, chest rising slowly, fallen deep into a sleep that looked undisturbed. He was splayed out on the bed, one arm next to his face on the pillow, the other still outstretched between the two of them, palm open close to Satoru. His bun had come undone at some point, and his hair was fanned out on the pillow, some strands sticking slightly to his face. The covers had been abandoned by him during the night, or stolen by Satoru, that remained to be decided. But Suguru looked thoroughly unbothered by it. He looked warm. His t-shirt was up, revealing his stomach and his first two ribs, the skin a shade of honey that was kind. The sunrays greeted him, falling over his face, over his arms, over his belly, over his legs. Over him and around him. Satoru believed they actually found their birthplace somewhere in him, that the light was brought alive under Suguru’s skin. 

Satoru stayed very still, listening to the sound of Suguru’s breathing, watching the sunrise on his face. He stared and he tried to make sense of it, to make sense of himself, of the sun on soft skin, of black hair on white sheets. He stared and tried to find the meaning. He thought he knew, somehow. He thought he was starting to get it. But for now he let it go, aware and unaware, disappearing further into the cotton fields of the covers, feeling a little sunburnt by the view. 

He committed the scene to memory, forcing himself to remember, to shake off his dazed state. His eyes roamed freely, exploring a body he had seen in the ring, tall and ravaging and a little overwhelming, sometimes. This was new. This was different. He found Suguru’s bare stomach and his attention stayed there for a moment, watching it rise and fall to the rhythm of steady breaths, the skin intact and delicate. He tried not to reach, feeling a generous warmth returning to him. Suguru’s body had always appeared to him to be surprisingly unmarked for a boxer. There were scars but nothing seemed to last, nothing seemed to stick. Diligent and forgiving. Under the morning light, Satoru thought Suguru made sense.

His eyes trailed up again, finding a face like a poem. It was no secret to anyone with eyes that Suguru was beautiful. His features were sharp but loved, angled but effortless, the way charming things were. His jaw was cutting, his cheekbones high and flushed, his lips tender. And his hair. Black at first sight, but slightly brown when the lighting was just right. Skin the colour of summer. Satoru had noticed the phantom shades of some freckles, too, when Suguru had stood very close to him in the night. They were more apparent now under the morning light. It would always be a revelation, to look at Suguru, to see him fully. There was never a dull sight. There was never a meaningless patch of skin. Reverent beauty, sun-kissed and passionate. Suguru looked like the embodiment of devotion, a receptacle for envy and lust, but mainly a vision of tenderness, of mellowness, of comfort. Suguru’s presence was a grounding thing.

Satoru tried not to touch, not to feel. He let himself take it all in for a moment, allowing time to flow past him in absolute silence. He refused to create a disturbance.

After a while, he reluctantly untangled his legs from the sheets. He stood up, careful not to make a sound, and hovered close to the bed for a moment, looking down at Suguru, all tall limbs and reverence and unbearably pretty. Satoru bit the inside of his cheek. Fucking ridiculous. He moved to open the door and took another glance, his attention incapable of straying from Suguru for too long. He lingered at the door, watching from a distance, the rise and fall of his chest, a picture of perfection. He punched himself internally to pick up his thoughts from honey skin and made his way to the kitchen. 

He stretched as he moved through his space, hands up in the air, letting a yawn escape him. He massaged his neck as a reflex, like every single time after waking up. But this time, he realised there was no anger to tame, no lingering rage to appease. He felt weirdly serene. He let his hand drop, made a little stupid by his unusually peaceful state. He blinked, feeling it, checking with his body. He was well-rested for the first time in weeks.

He looked at the clock. It was 11am. He stared. The numbers looked unreal. Eleven am on a Sunday. The world felt still. 

There was a man in his bed who looked like gentleness. There was no rush and nothing to achieve.

He took a glance around the kitchen, a little stunned, and decided not to question it. He made his tea. He considered the liquid in the cup and added sugar without counting. He sat down at the kitchen table. The cold tiles under his feet felt grounding. The sun was streaming through the shutters, but for some reason Satoru didn’t feel like opening them. 

He blinked the sun rays into his eyes again. He watched the closed door of his bedroom distantly, remembering a kiss, remembering a touch. He let the cup warm his fingers. He breathed a full inhale, a full exhale, fixing something with it.

Suguru was in his bed. Suguru had kissed him, because Satoru had asked in his own desperate, pitiful way. Suguru had kissed him and held his hair and held his face, and held him whole with just that. His rage had been so intense, blinding him to the point of near insanity. He had felt mad, staring in the eyes of kindness in the middle of a damp street in July, trying and failing to hide it. It was always down to this, wasn’t it? Down to his rage trying to kill the rest. Down to his anger trying to suffocate it all. Except this time it didn’t work. Except this time the anger had been silenced under fingers like flowers. It had felt like a surprise to realise it, to come to terms with what his rage was trying to achieve. 

He still tried to comprehend why standing so close to Suguru had enraged him so much for so long. He thought he knew part of it. He thought he could guess, at least. It always felt like a chore, to try and understand the pathways of his fury. There wasn’t always a reason for it, but with Suguru there had been, there still was. With Suguru there was a meaning. With Suguru there was a purpose. There was something in the skin of Satoru’s knees, in the crease of his pockets, in the tangle of his hair. It had birthed a rage like a confession. It had always meant something, ever since the ring, ever since the first time. Suguru had found him in that back alley and Satoru had pretended not to care. But he had always cared. He always would.

He knew his anger was a substitute. He knew it was a replacement. He also knew he was terrified of accepting why. 

It always started with a smile. Suguru had a tendency to grow in his vision like warm light. It was always unexpected, always a sight, always a surprise. It was debilitating sometimes, too, as much as it was enthralling. It was destabilizing to never know where to stand. Suguru was kind, cautious and caring. He was precious in his gentleness, in the way he handled Satoru’s rage, in the way he always tried to placate the cutting cold, like a gentle kiss on the wounded knee of a child. 

And Satoru knew he had felt attacked by it, at first. He had welcomed Suguru’s tenderness like a threat, like it hurt, because it did. It had felt like a double-edged knife, insidious, trying to hold Satoru’s hand only to cut it clean. Satoru wasn’t completely sure that somehow Suguru’s kisses wouldn’t turn into bites, tearing his skin apart and ripping his limbs to pieces. He wasn’t completely sure Suguru wouldn’t end up looking at the claw marks on Satoru’s body, on his heart and his anger, and run the other way. He wasn’t completely sure Suguru would want to stay. 

He tried for an answer. He tried for his own heart, found it locked behind his bedroom’s door on skin warmed by sunrise, and took a sip of his tea, trying to drown the knowledge. He swallowed with a content sigh. It was the first time in weeks that his tea tasted right. 

He settled the cup back on the table and watched as his bedroom’s door opened. His heart skipped a beat, another one, this could be easy if I let it, and tried not to stop.

Suguru emerged from his sleep, rubbing his eyelids with the back of his hand, and offered him a smile as he met his eyes. Satoru could feel it radiating within. Glorious skin and tangled hair, hands already busying themselves with putting the raven mess into a bun. And Satoru stared. And stared like he had so many times, like he was sure he would so many more.

“Good morning.” He offered, his voice sounding unbelievably quiet. No rush. Nothing to achieve.

“Morning.” Suguru greeted back, smile getting wider with the words. He stifled back a yawn. His eyes fluttered to the clock on the wall, and his hands dropped to his sides. He took a moment to collect himself, squinting slightly to register the time. “It’s almost noon.” He stated groggily, confused.

Satoru took another sip of tea, watching him above his cup, not missing a beat. He never wanted to miss anything anymore. “It is.”

“I haven’t slept that long in ages.” Suguru admitted quietly, containing his surprise with difficulty. His eyes found Satoru again. 

Satoru took a quiet breath in, trying to still his heart. Suguru had just walked into the room and he felt already a little breathless. “Me neither.”

They watched each other, the kind morning glow holding their shared understanding, and something settled between them, then. Something compassionate, something conscious, something wordless. Satoru offered him a smile and hoped it conveyed the things his rage continuously tried to replace. 

He stood up, making his way to the stove. “Do you want tea?” He asked over his shoulder. “I can make coffee too. Whatever you prefer.” 

It felt strange on his tongue to be so casual, to be so comforting, so nice around Suguru. It had taken everything from him to try and be civil before. It was so simple now. 

A beat, and an inhale that didn’t make his airway feel tight anymore. “Tea is just fine. Whatever type you have.” Suguru whispered in the air between them, his voice slithering under Suguru’s white t-shirt to alleviate his lungs.

Satoru made him a cup of jasmine tea. He turned around to see him watch the window with open interest. 

“Can we open the shutters?” Suguru asked after a moment, his hazed attention going back to Satoru. He was still visibly emerging from sleep.  

Satoru nodded, shrugging, and went back to the table, settling the cup down across from him. Suguru moved to the window and opened it to access the shutters. He pushed one back to let the sun stream in. Satoru took another sip of his tea and let the sunlight hit him fully. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from it and watched in amusement as Suguru battled with the second shutter, trying to open it for a minute and failing miserably. 

Suguru visibly deflated, defeated, and gave up. “It’s blocked.” He deadpanned as he turned around to look at Satoru, perplexed, his face a little flushed from the effort.

Satoru shrugged once more. “Yeah this one is broken.” He explained simply, gesturing for Suguru to leave it be. “It’s been like that since I moved in. I never got around to fixing it.”

He had a weird feeling, suddenly. Like something important in his chest. He blinked it away and watched as Suguru glanced at the shutter disappointedly. 

“It’s a shame. You have full sun exposure in the morning and you can’t enjoy it properly.” He said it like it was serious business. Satoru found him amusing, but somehow a part of him cared deeply, strangely, about the broken kitchen shutters.

“I still get plenty of sun.” Satoru lied. He felt he could never get enough. “Drink your tea now, it’s gonna get cold.”

Suguru gave the window one last look, a little saddened, and joined him at the kitchen table. 

They moved through the better part of the hour slowly, sitting in comfortable silence for most of it, the way they knew how. There were many shared looks, too, and Satoru simply felt like he couldn’t look away. He felt that if he did, if his eyes found something else to watch, Suguru would go up in flames and disappear with a soft sigh, leaving ashes and a burning absence behind. So Satoru watched him, letting his eyes travel and dance, taking in the sight and a face like a kiss. Suguru let him, indulging, marigold smile plastered on his lips. It reached his eyes; sun crescents during an eclipse. And Satoru knew he would never, ever look away.

Suguru asked to use the shower, blabbering an explanation, I sweat through the night and I’m always too warm. Satoru said he could use anything in the apartment, that he did not have to ask for it, Make yourself at home. 

When the clock struck half past one, Suguru emerged from the bathroom, hair damp and skin glowing, wearing his sports shorts and yet another white t-shirt landed by Satoru. He stood in the doorway across the room.

“How many of these do you own?” He asked, looking down at his t-shirt and then at Satoru with an arched eyebrow.

Satoru shrugged, standing up from the sofa to walk over to him. “Too many to count. Too many to care.” 

Suguru watched him close the distance and titled his head in interest, his eyes holding blue rain. Satoru stopped, satisfied now that he was in Suguru’s personal space, now that he could almost feel the warmth of his skin radiating. He settled his shoulder against the doorframe, leaning on the wall, and watched Suguru’s face, distracted. Suguru leaned back on the other side of the doorframe, opposite him, his smile never quite leaving him.

Satoru crossed his arms on his chest. “You don’t train on Sundays, right?” He asked rhetorically.

Suguru studied him, interested in his hair now. “Indeed.”

“I figured.” Satoru answered, knowing he would have to find something to do with the rest of his day. After a beat, he continued, voice a little lower. “You can go, if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.” Suguru blurted out too fast. To Satoru’s pleasant surprise, he didn’t look embarrassed by the admission, the way Satoru half-expected him to be. Always so cautious, always so steady. “But I need to go.” Suguru offered, shoulders deflating. “Choso has been blowing up my phone. We had plans and I’m currently ruining them.”

At that, Satoru straightened up, leaning slightly forward, and bit back a smile when he saw the other man’s eyes falling to his lips for a second and going back to his face in a rush. A deer in headlights.

“Am I an unforeseen event in your calendar, Suguru?” Satoru coaxed, his tone sporting that shade of turbulence it often did. 

Satoru had known, from the very first time, that wielding Suguru’s name would mean looking for trouble, especially when he had never told Satoru that he could use it. Satoru had spoken it like an imploration in the damp back alley, asking to be touched, asking to be kissed, like a madman staring directly at a burning star. He could still taste it, how the name had felt right, sliding between his lips. He would backtrack if Suguru asked him, but it would resemble cutting a part of his tongue in the process.

Satoru had never really cared much for etiquettes to begin with. It was also not lost on him how Suguru’s breath hitched a little and his eyes filled up with something at the mention of his name.

Satoru waited, and Suguru breathed in slowly, stabilizing his words. “You’re an event.” Suguru answered in a whisper. “Not really unforeseen, though.” He added quietly, like a sweet admission.

Satoru knew. He knew this had been bound to happen, despite it all. Despite the ring, despite the rage.

He leaned in, pulled by eyes dragging him in, and let his lips find Suguru again, slowly. He felt a sigh, somewhere, and didn’t know if it was his or Suguru’s, didn’t know if there was even a difference anymore. There was no place where his body began. Just this. No distance. Just this. He felt Suguru’s mouth go pliant against his, felt his own lips part under the feeling. He made an effort, this time, and kept his hands to himself. He felt warm fingers wrap around his bicep mindlessly, like a reminder of an untold thing, a proof and a meaning, dragging a shiver out of him.

Suguru smelled like his body wash and his shampoo. Suguru smelled like him, but tasted so different, like honey and ginger, like sun washed air and a full inhale. 

They parted in tandem, too breathless for such a short kiss, and Suguru’s hand on Satoru slid down the path of his arm. Satoru let himself be touched and watched as Suguru brought his hand to his lips and planted a kiss on his bruised knuckles, slow and precise, warm where Satoru was cold, soft where Satoru was sharp. Satoru blinked, a little stupefied, a little stunned by the feeling of Suguru’s mouth on his fingers. He stared at him with wide eyes, eyelashes batting to try and clear his vision. He opened his mouth to say something but there was nothing there. The only thing he felt was a rush returning to his face, a heat in the lines of his neck. 

Suguru planted another kiss on the back of his hand and let it go, offering him a kind smile instead, cheeks flushed like they always seemed to be. Satoru felt like he had seen a ghost.

“Are you alright?” Suguru asked, teasing, uncharacteristically confident. Satoru felt his words run away. Far, far, far away from him. 

Suguru watched him, amused, eyes glistening with a collected joy. Satoru could only blink again, feeling the warmth still on his hand. Wordless. Speechless. Fucking stupid.

“Someone’s got a thing for hand-kissing?” Suguru continued, voice growing warmer, reaching Satoru’s bones. 

Satoru didn’t think he did. Satoru didn’t know if he did. Satoru could feel that he did.

He nodded slowly in his own silence, lost in a haze, still blinking at Suguru who could only smile back at him with quiet delight.

Satoru had a thing for hand-kissing. Satoru had a thing for anything that mended his bruises and killed the cold.

When Suguru was at the door, Satoru gave him his phone number, and Suguru gave him his, and Satoru felt like he was being gifted Jupiter and its orbiting moons. Suguru lingered at the door like a child reluctant to leave a place he liked behind. Satoru could feel Suguru in his head, and his heart and his guts, and kissed him goodbye to repair something he never wanted to break.

It started like this, then. A kiss in a back alley, birthed by the pain of absence, begged for and prayed for. It started like this, then. A night with tender grief, patching up wounds of past and present. It started like this, then. A shared morning in quiet companionship, tired looks and open smiles.

It continued the next day, with Shoko teasing Satoru horrendously throughout the whole shift.

“So I guess sparring partner is another word for a date, uh?” She said with a smirk the instant Satoru stepped into the place, dragging the both of them back to the first time Suguru had come to the restaurant. 

Satoru rolled his eyes, ignoring her with all the spite in the world, fighting back a blush all day just for the sake of it. 

It continued when the clock struck eight and Satoru got to the gym with his heart so high up in his mouth he felt a little sick with it. Sick with anticipation, sick with a kind of apprehension he didn’t know how to handle normally. It made his head turn, made his chest feel tight with something that wasn’t rage, something that was suffocating him all the same. Except the hands around his neck were warm. Except the fingers digging into his ribcage were soft. 

He changed into his sports clothes too fast for it to be normal. Nothing was normal. He didn’t know this, didn’t know anything about the pressure in his chest. He left the locker room in quick strides, walking through the space with a purpose, and found black hair a few meters away.

Suguru was warming up, doing push ups in the ring, headphones on and eyes focused on the ground. Satoru stopped in his tracks, punched stupid by the sight, made breathless by the idea of it. The idea of him. He tried to breathe it in, to breathe him in from a distance, and joined him in the ring. 

Suguru didn’t seem to notice until Satoru sat down heavily in front of him, making himself be seen, making his presence be loud.

Suguru stopped midway through a push up, looking up to find his face with a frown, a little startled. His features grew kind the second he set eyes on Satoru, the second amber waves found him. Satoru felt his heart choke. He tried not to lean in, tried to keep his hands to himself, tried to keep his thoughts in check. He let his eyes take, and take and take, watched as Suguru lifted one hand from the ground to move his headphones to the side, watched as his other arm supporting him did not even budge, watched how a strand of hair was always falling into his eyes. He remembered a body in the sun that had looked so tender it was hard to believe it was the same thing he was watching now. Sharp angles ready for a fight.

“Hi.” Suguru greeted, voice a little strained from effort, short breaths leaving him.

Satoru fought the urge to kiss him. And it hit him all at once, that it had always been this he was fighting. Since the ring, since the rage. Since the first time, since the start. 

“Hi.” He replied with a sigh of relief. 

Suguru frowned, quiet worry settling on his face. He straightened up, taking his headphones off completely, and sat cross-legged opposite Satoru, mirroring him. Too close, so close, not close enough, never close enough. Satoru let his eyes drop to his lips, to his neck, to his chest, to his hands on his lap and his legs and back to his face and the terror of it all. Soft, like the tender blow of death. 

“Are you okay?” Suguru inquired with that caution he used when Satoru was raw and exposed. He tried to notice something on Satoru’s face and body even when there was nothing to find.

Satoru nodded slowly, deflating a little at the sound of Suguru’s voice, and leaned back on his hands. He angled himself away to keep his fingers from reaching and touching and grabbing. 

“I’m fine.” He said, trying to convince the both of them. It was always hard to believe these words. “Just a little tired from the shift, that’s all.” He continued and nodded towards Suguru. “What about you?”

Suguru shrugged, wandering eyes turning slightly distant for a second before they returned to their usual warmth. Satoru figured that grief could do that; shape and reshape, kill and bring back to life. 

“I didn’t sleep much.” Suguru admitted with haste. “What can I do to help?” He added instantly after, shifting the conversation back to Satoru and his tiredness. Satoru didn’t push, this time.

“Nothing you can do.” He stated, straightening up once again, his palms leaving the ground behind him. He leaned slightly forward, and watched as Suguru titled his head, interest finding his face. He tended to do that when Satoru moved too close. “But punching pretty boys in the ring though, that helps.” 

Satoru felt his own head swim, suddenly. It was one thing to think Suguru was beautiful. It was another entirely to make the admission hang between them. He let his eyes roam over Suguru’s face openly, seeing the sunburns returning in a rush. They were always a miracle. Suguru visibly blinked the words in, wheels turning and running, lips parting to answer, but Satoru cut to the chase.

“Less talking, more action.”

He stood up suddenly, quick feet and quicker hands, and looked down as Suguru looked up to watch him, eyes following his every move. Satoru considered him in return and was hit with the waves, realising that Suguru looked nice from above. A little too nice for his own messed up stability. 

He pushed the thoughts in the depths of his brain, pushed them to the side and to the back and deep inside. Not the place. Not the time. He offered Suguru his hand mechanically. Suguru studied it for a second and grabbed it with calculated caution, making an effort not to touch his eternally bruised knuckles. Satoru noticed and his chest tightened a little. 

“You can’t even punch me.” Suguru remarked simply as Satoru helped him to his feet. 

They stood face to face. Satoru did not let go of his hand.

“I can still try.” 

And Satoru did. He tried. Throwing punches that landed nowhere, kicks that were rendered useless. He went for combinations that usually worked, letting his body move on feelings and instinct and passion, things he had an ancient knowledge of. He danced around the other man with ease, flowing water, cutting breeze, escaping his hands and feet the same way Suguru was escaping him. They walked in tandem, watching and gauging. Satoru made no effort to keep his eyes from taking it all, from stealing it all, from running on tanned skin in the dim evening sun. 

Suguru was effortless. Enduring force and a perfect aim. Suguru was a natural, feet moving in the ring like it was a playground. It had enraged Satoru, once. He could only fully appreciate it now. How Suguru moved with an ease that was everything but rehearsed; how his technique was nothing short of perfection; how his eyes were precise, all seeing, never missing a beat, but always, somehow, missing Satoru, missing him like he could never pin him down. Satoru knew he couldn’t. Satoru knew they both couldn’t. 

He tried for a jab, a straight right, and a left uppercut. Suguru slipped and ducked like it was all a joke. He watched him over his gloves with knowing eyes. 

“Use your head, Satoru.” He said without malice, offering an observation, supportive around the edges.

Satoru went for it again, jab, jab, straight right to the body, and Suguru almost smiled at him, amused by his useless attempt. He visibly fought it back, for the sake of both of them. Satoru raised an eyebrow, slightly vexed, and retaliated.

“Use your guts, Suguru.” He offered a little harshly, unwillingly, regretting his tone in the following second. Suguru seemed to be completely unfazed by it.

Satoru still wore his guard arrogantly low even when faced with Suguru’s precise boxing. Inviting. Mocking. And always a little disdainful, no matter who was in the ring with him. Most of the time it riled up his opponent. To be fought with so little apparent care was always a clean path to irritation. 

Suguru had always seemed to be utterly unperturbed by it. Not a limb out of order, not a feature out of control. It was nothing to him to be faced with arrogance. Satoru wondered, then, if Suguru was even capable of anger. 

“You punch like you’re trying to hug me.” Suguru goaded, bringing Satoru back to the both of them. Satoru looked at him with narrowed eyes, and Suguru only seemed to be charmed by it. “Have a little faith in yourself.”

His voice was still kind. His voice was still warm. He was still painted by the sun in all the right places. Satoru wanted to kiss him stupid. 

“Oh, such a mouth on you now.” Satoru countered, dropping his guard completely, walking around in circles, Suguru mirroring him. He studied his face, half hidden behind his gloves. He tried to get a little closer but Suguru moved as a response, keeping the perfect distance that would render any of Satoru’s ventures useless. 

Satoru breathed in, almost rolling his eyes, and tilted his head with a smile. “Did kissing me make you magically learn how to use your tongue?”

Suguru stilled for a millisecond. Touché.  

Satoru went for it instantly. He dived into Suguru’s personal place, his body working instead of his mind, jab, straight right, left hook, dodged barely by Suguru, and a spinning back kick that grazed warm skin. Satoru grinned, some type of feral aura returning to his face, like a habit that always lingered on no matter what. 

He raised an eyebrow. “Almost got you there.” He warned, voice low like a playful threat. 

He watched Suguru pause, considering him from afar, eyes attentive but a little agitated. His attention never wavered, despite everything. He attempted a roundhouse kick, more as a display of annoyance than anything, and Satoru moved out of his reach with ease.

“Shut up.” He whispered, loud enough for the limits of the ring.

Satoru could hear the quietness in his tone. He smiled with pride, probably too much of it.

“First time I ever hear you swear. It doesn’t suit you.” Satoru ribbed and smiled and provoked. Because he could, because he wanted to. Because Suguru’s cheeks looked bruised by the sun. He never wanted them to have another colour.

Suguru lowered his guard slightly to make himself heard, to make a point, to make himself seen. Satoru only bit his tongue at the sight. Fucking pretty. 

“Then start speaking nicely and stop cheating if you don’t wanna hear it again.” Suguru ordered, undertones of quiet exasperation and something else still in the voice.

“Cheating?” Satoru teased, feigning indignation. “That was barely an observation.”

Suguru dismissed him with a wave of his gloved hand, bringing his guard back up. “Less talking, more action, right?”

His eyes danced on Satoru’s whole body. He felt a shiver run down the small of his back at the feeling of being eternally seen.

And so it started like this, too, with a sparring that felt light, that felt easy for the first time. Satoru could still feel the anger, like anytime he stood in the ring, brushing his hair like an old friend. He could still feel the stinging at the back of his neck, could still imagine the razor blades through his skin. But it was bearable. But he managed, this time. But he could breathe through it, this time. He didn’t end with nothing to show for himself but his bruises and a fury that made him feel sick.

It continued two days later. Differently, but the same, when Satoru stormed out of his mother’s apartment, raging so loud he felt blind, raging so atrociously he felt he was back to being twelve, and six and seventeen, falling on the bathroom tiles, cutting his knee, bruising blue and violet and cold. His first thought was of warm fingers on the back of his neck. 

His thumbs on his screen, working automatically, his mind somewhere and nowhere at the same time. He didn’t think of it. He could only feel soft hands, could only wonder how to placate the rage. A kind voice on the other end of the phone, asking Are you alright?, and Satoru didn’t know if he had ever been. Satoru didn’t know if there would ever be anything else but this pit in his stomach, asking him to throw up, asking him to cut and scream a little. There was a point to be made. There was an apology on the tip of his tongue. Satoru felt he didn’t know the half of it.

“Can you come to my place?” It was all he managed. He could hear his own voice, somewhere in his head, somewhere on his hands, somewhere in the entrance of his mother’s building. Echoing back, going nowhere, striking a nerve. The kind voice murmured something on the phone, words lost in an echo chamber made of anger. 

Satoru hung up after the silence settled.

When he arrived at his apartment, nothing but unrest under his eyelids, Suguru was already there. 

Warmth found him instantly once they walked through the door. A hand on his shoulder, making him turn around, and Suguru looked so kind, so present, so patient, so palpable. Would it always feel like the end of the world? Satoru could barely see him, could barely think of anything that made sense. 

Suguru closed the door behind them with a soft thud. Satoru tried to see his face through the fog, through the shaking fists, through the beating of his heart like a siren blaring in his ears and making him go deaf. He felt desolate. He felt desperate with the need to clear something up, to clear himself up. There is a man to see and I cannot see him. Why can’t I see him?

“How about you sit down?” Suguru’s voice was somewhere. Far. Close. Satoru stared at him with wide eyes bleeding with rage.

He didn’t move. Suguru made him. His fingers found Satoru’s clenched fists, bringing them up between the two of them. He kissed each knuckle. Kindly, cautious not to press, letting the bruises be tended to, bringing Satoru back to himself with each step. Satoru blinked him in, out, in again. Warm light in his vision. Suguru in his vision. Right there. Everywhere.

He breathed through his nose and let himself be led to the sofa. He felt the cushions sinking under his body. Suguru sat down next to him, never letting go of his hands. Rage but not rage, but everything always turned into it anyway. 

Suguru waited for him. Satoru watched their fingers on his lap. 

“She knows about the fighting.” 

There was a tremor in his voice. It started somewhere between his shoulder blades. It ended somewhere on his tongue.

Suguru didn’t speak. Suguru couldn’t have had any idea who Satoru was speaking of. Suguru didn’t know of his mother’s eyes, so different from his, brown and kind when she wanted them to be, stern whenever she fought with him. She rarely fought with him, so they were mostly gentle, they were mostly warm, they felt mostly safe.

As fate would have it, Satoru had inherited his father’s eyes, and the innate curse of his rage.

“My mother.” Satoru added, blinking, gaze lost on the TV across the room. Nothing but black. Nothing to see. He felt that the screen could have swallowed him whole.

He could feel tender fingers squeezing his, slightly. He could hear the distant cracks in his mother’s words, the tone of a woman fearing for her lifeline, for the blood she birthed, for the boy she had raised with her heart. 

You hide your hands when you come visit me. Did you think I would never notice?

“She said I’m not doing this for her.” Satoru continued, still staring at the screen. His voice was blank and his rage was full. “She said I’m doing this for myself and that she never asked for it.” He paused and noticed how the fingers were moving, drawing shapes on his palms and the back of his hands. “But I’m doing it for her.” He breathed out. It sounded like he was choking on something. “I’m doing it for her.”

His cheeks were warm, and his voice was strained, like a child being scolded after a tantrum, which Satoru believed he was. His eyes left the TV screen, and he turned his head, lost in a blackout, the lights in his vision being reduced to the white flashes of his rage. And Suguru was here. And he looked so kind. He always looked so kind. And Satoru realised that Suguru’s eyes resembled his mother’s a little. 

Maybe if Satoru tried to bend his head around the corners of the room and shape his body to fit the angles of the white ceiling, Suguru could hold him then, could hold him completely. And maybe Satoru would never have to think for himself anymore. Maybe Satoru would finally forget the rage, forgive the anger, forsake the sharpness. Maybe if he moulded himself to the shape of the carpet and melted with the cushions and the coffee table, Suguru could pick him up without having to cut his hands, without having to touch the cold. Maybe if Satoru blended with the rest, Suguru could touch him without bleeding.

He was always mean. He was always clawing at things. Suguru’s hands on his were still tender. He didn’t know what to make of it.

“I’m sure you are doing it for her.” The warm voice said after a pause. Suguru. It was always Suguru. 

Satoru looked at him through heaviness and his mother’s voice. He looked at him through the weight of his father’s leaving. He looked at him through his first bleeding fists, his first bruises on pale knuckles, freshly twenty-one, eternally eighteen. He looked at him through the screen of his own memories, of the past eight years that never seemed to reach an end, and wanted Suguru to know it all and to stay anyway. It would always end with the beginning, wouldn’t it?

“I’m doing it for her.” He reiterated, to himself and to anyone who would hear him. “I’ve always done it for her.” He could feel his own hands trying to grab harder, trying to hold onto something. Clawing. Gripping. Hurting. 

After a pause, it settled on his shoulders, dripping like black rain down his back. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Suguru seemed to fight back something, then, in the vastness of his eyes. Something that wanted to be desperate but could only ever be compassion. “I’m sure this isn’t true.” He said, leaning slightly closer to Satoru, voice reaching his spine and cleaning up the rain. “You simply never had the chance to do anything else.”

Suguru did not sound sad. He simply sounded unbelievably tender, like the soft whispers of the wind before the sea. Satoru held his eyes, held his hands, held his gentleness, and tried to find his words.

“How do you know that?” He asked flatly, a frown finding him inevitably. 

Suguru paused. He considered him and their intertwined hands. His attention came back to Satoru’s face, and he looked like the beginning of a fall, like the tipping point before sunrise.

Suguru held Satoru’s hands tighter and spoke. Lilies of the valley seemed to grow in his voice. “I can see it. It’s in the way you fight.” 

Satoru stared, lost somewhere between disbelief and abandon, and Suguru continued, eyes turning honest. “Your punches look like you never had a choice.”

He offered Satoru a smile, something sad but meant to mend, meant to repair more than break. His hands were still drawing circles, shapes and promises Satoru could only allow his skin to feel, handling him like he was fragments of something broken. A stained glass window in the altar of an abandoned church.

And Suguru was right. Satoru couldn’t recall a moment Suguru had been wrong.

“I started -” Satoru tried. He stopped himself abruptly, his voice leaving him in a rush. He realised with surprising clairvoyance that this would be the seal. That telling Suguru of the way it all started would mean something he himself couldn’t comprehend yet.

Satoru held the silence. Suguru held his hands. Satoru convinced himself there were worse ways to die than offering your heart to someone who was kind. 

“I started boxing soon after my father disappeared from the face of the Earth.” Satoru deadpanned, because it was easier if he didn’t let himself feel it. Suguru simply nodded, listening attentively. Satoru felt a knee collide with his own, then, and found some courage. “It was eight years ago. I was freshly eighteen.” 

He paused, collected his heart, collected his memories. He thought of harsh eyes like his own, of sharp lines of a face that echoed his under the wrong light, of a voice he tried to forget on most days.

“He was not a good man. He was -” He cleared his throat, frowning as he repositioned himself on the couch. Suguru never let go of his hands. “He was cold and he never liked when I cried as a child. He would always -” Satoru took a breath in. It hurt. It always did. “He would say to me that men did not cry.”

Suguru shook his head slightly at that, eyes fixed on Satoru.

“He believed that when someone strikes you, you just strike them twice as hard.” Satoru continued, his voice turning a little spiteful. “I guess I picked up the habit.”

Satoru never cried. He felt that the look on Suguru’s face could finally be the reason why he would.

“Why boxing?” Suguru asked, honest interest in his voice. No pity. Satoru was glad.

“He left so many debts behind that my mother couldn’t keep up with it. Gambling and shit, I never fucking tried to understand all of it.” Satoru closed his eyes against the tart taste returning to his tongue. “I just knew we needed the money. I started working at Shoko’s family restaurant as soon as I finished high school but I quickly understood it would not be enough.” 

“Hence the fighting.”

Satoru nodded, opening his eyes again. “It was all illegal fights first.” He could remember nosebleeds, insults, and made-up rings that always seemed too dark or too bright. Never the right light. “I just didn’t know how that entire world worked. I needed the money. The faster the better. No question asked.”

There was a look in Suguru’s eyes. One Satoru knew to be understanding. Suguru had been found by Nanami in a street fight, after all. Satoru was glad there could be no moral high ground here.

“I stopped at twenty-one, right after that guy tried to cut me open after a fight.” Satoru sighed a little harshly, watching the ceiling for an instant, finding a stain. He shook his head, remembering the coldness of the blade and the feeling of the end. He almost missed it.

He let himself sink deeper into the cushions and continued. “I found Nanami’s gym through an acquaintance and begged him to let me train.” His eyes came back on Suguru, only to find him watching their knees pressed together. “Not my proudest moment, but it worked.” 

Suguru took the words in, still dancing with caution. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this because of a cruel man.” He admitted after a moment. It was like a punch, like a sweet release, like a wave inside Satoru’s head. “I hope you do know you’re doing your best.”

It’s never enough. Satoru stared, a little stunned, and bit his tongue to keep his words from spilling. Satoru thought his best had been abandoned years ago. It was strange to be believed in.

Admitting defeat in the face of hope would be a cut-throat act. He found a replacement instead. 

“Sometimes I just -” He spoke slowly, so strangely quiet he felt that the room had shrunk to an unbearably small size and compressed his vocal chords in the process. “I can’t help but think I could have done something different.” Something better.

Suguru hummed softly as a response, pensive. “Do you want to do something different?” 

Satoru felt his throat burn. His head lolled back on the headrest and he watched the ceiling with an ache. “I can’t.” He admitted tiredly.

Suguru let go of his hands, then, and Satoru almost protested. He felt him lean in, closer, appearing above him in his field of vision. “That’s not what I’m asking.” Suguru countered with assurance, peering down at his face and into his eyes. “What do you want to be?”

It was asked so elegantly, so easily that Satoru took a moment to even register the importance of it. Wanting to be something, trying to be something else. Satoru had not thought of what he desired for years. He simply did as he could, did as he thought he should. Did his best, if Suguru was right, even though it did not feel like it.

Satoru stared at him from below, watching his features, his nose and the freckles that were there if he focused hard enough. Suguru's hair was down. A few strands were grazing Satoru’s face, brushing his cheeks, kissing his skin. He felt sheltered by it all. He felt like his words wouldn’t mean too much, shielded by Suguru’s face and his hair like a veil. 

Suguru breathed in, and out. “I wanted to be a teacher.” He whispered, because Suguru was close, and he was sure he would hear him. Wanted, past tense. He didn’t know if it was still possible, if he still wanted that.

“It fits you. You’re insanely good with the kids at the gym, and they all seem to really like you. Don’t tell Fushiguro I said that.” Suguru matched his tone, quiet and calm. He offered him a smile from above, visions of lilies and the sun and the sky, and Satoru forgot the rest for a second.

“It’s never too late to pursue it.” Suguru added, and Satoru begged the words to reach his bones. They didn’t. 

Satoru paused, and remembered their talk, and remembered that Suguru, too, had once tried to be someone else.

“What did you study in college?” He asked. 

Surprise coloured Suguru’s face. “This isn’t about me.” He blinked the words out.

“I want to know.” Satoru frowned. His hand went up to tuck a strand behind Suguru’s ear. He realised with a little stupor that it was the first time he ever touched his hair. “Your voice always helps.”

Suguru’s eyes fluttered quickly at the words, or at the touch, Satoru couldn’t tell. Probably both.

Suguru leaned slightly closer, chasing the after-feeling of it. “I tried law school. It didn’t work out.” He let it slip through soft lips, quiet. “I was just too burdened by my own brain.” His own hand found its way to Satoru’s hair. Satoru battled to keep his eyes open.

“Would you want to try again?” 

Suguru shrugged, fingers starting their habitual motion near Satoru’s temple before pushing his hair back. “Maybe, some day.” Suguru planted a kiss, then, quick and tender on his forehead, like it was nothing. Like it didn’t rewire Satoru’s entire nervous system. “It was either that or psychology.” 

Satoru tried to be coherent. He stared under heavy eyelids, his eyelashes growing weighty. He nodded to provide any form of answer.

“I could see that.” His voice was lower, a little hoarse. “You’re good with people.” He added, his right hand finding the back of Suguru’s neck.

“I don’t know about that.” Suguru shrugged, contrasting with the sunburns that were returning to his cheeks.

Satoru let his eyes take, and take and take, until he was sure he would remember Suguru even in the dead of night, in the pits of hell. “Well, you’re good with me.” He whispered against his lips, pulling him closer, sharing a breath. “Gotta count for something, right?”

And so it started like this, too, with mending touches and shared words, with life stories and getting to know where the other began. Suguru held his hand close to his heart that night, against his chest, and Satoru could feel the rhythm of his breathing, the tempo of his life.

And it went on, and on and on, a timeline close to easiness. They sparred in a way that made more sense, now. Every punch was a try, not an escape. They still didn’t succeed in anything, but they both felt like they were getting there, like the first blow would soon land.

Through it all, there was still a thing in Satoru’s head. There was still a pinch at the back of his neck. It was minimal, it was much more tolerable, but it was still there when Suguru’s hands were not on him. A toothache that bothered him. A silent threat that never fully left, no matter how much Satoru tried. He always, always tried.

He was trying, too, one night when the clock struck two and he couldn’t keep his eyes closed, when the clock struck three and his head hurt so badly he couldn’t sleep. He slipped away from under the covers, left the bedroom and his unrest behind, left Suguru in his apartment, and went for a walk in the dead of night. It was the first week of August now, and the heat was so harsh it felt like it belonged to him. Cut from the same cloth, killing the same thing.

When he came back, Suguru was waiting in the kitchen, worry evident on his sleep-heavy face.

“Are you okay?”

He always asked him that. Satoru rarely knew how to answer.

Saotru plopped down on one of the kitchen chairs. The streetlights danced on his face, streaming through the broken shutters. He sighed slowly and closed his eyes under his own discomfort. 

“My head hurts.” He explained, sensing Suguru moving closer, not seeing him but feeling him all the same. “I get insomnia sometimes because of the migraines.” He parted his knees and Suguru found his place there. “It’s my eyes, I think.”

Suguru hummed. He had a habit of doing that when he was thinking, when he tried to find a way to walk alongside the edges of Satoru. 

Suguru’s hands were up in his hair, silent understanding of what needed to be done. Satoru felt better, but today it was a little much, that pain behind his eyelids. He simply stayed quiet, sighing softly, but the tension never fully left. 

Suguru massaged his temples with his thumbs and scratched the base of his skull right where his hair started. He pushed his hair back, planted a kiss on his forehead, and Satoru could feel it receding, that weight in his eyes he couldn’t identify. 

And then Suguru kissed his closed eyelids. Twice, each of them, with a caution so singular Satoru felt like crying. Broken glass under the gentle flow of warm sand. Suguru did it again, because he must have felt how Satoru’s whole body grew compliant, how his shoulders dropped, how his face let go of the rage.

“This works.” Suguru whispered, the affirmation sounding almost like a question. Satoru simply nodded, opening his eyes slowly, only to see Suguru’s face impossibly close to his.

“It might be the light hurting you, especially in summer.” Suguru theorised. He pulled away slowly as he straightened up. “With your eyes being so clear.”

It was the first time Suguru mentioned his eyes. It was usually the first thing anybody ever spoke of. It was usually the only thing anybody ever fucking said. He wanted nobody but Suguru to speak of them, now. Him and no one else.

“You could try wearing a blindfold to keep the sun from coming in.” Suguru joked light-heartedly. The night had turned weightless on Satoru’s shoulder blades. “Radical, but that would work.”

“But then I’d stop seeing you.”

Satoru’s voice was almost a plea. It sounded surprising even to his own ears.

Suguru smiled at the words and leaned in as Satoru closed his eyes. “I’m sure you'd still find a way to see me. Sixth sense and all.”

He kissed his eyelids again. Satoru wondered if anything would ever save his life the way this did. 

Days turned into a week, and a week into two, and two weeks into three, and Satoru didn’t fully know where things had started anymore. He worked his shifts diligently and joined Suguru at the gym afterwards. When the clock struck nine, they often ended up in Satoru’s kitchen, sharing a meal and affection. They went to Suguru’s place once, but Choso had been so reluctant to stop glaring at Satoru that it had almost turned into a staring contest. Choso had spoken of evil, and Satoru had said something about a demoralising vibe. Suguru had decided then that his apartment would be a neutral zone used only as a last resort.

They slept in Satoru’s bed and it was a kind of rest that felt true, that felt complete. They often fell asleep holding hands.

They never went further.

The thing with touch, for Satoru, was that it reached a part of him that felt strangely hostile. It was like building trust from the ground up. He could sense that any brush of hands, any feathery touch of warm fingers on his knuckles or his forearms or his neck sent his soul spiralling. It had never been this. It had never been this and it felt terrifying.  

But there was a pull, and sometimes the kisses had the aftertaste of something different. Sometimes a hand lingered too far down Suguru’s back, stopping at the waistband of his shorts, and Satoru could feel how his own mind evaded him when he heard Suguru breathe. Sometimes Suguru’s fingers in his hair pulled a little too hard like they had another meaning, like there was a point to prove. Pushing and pulling, and there were looks he knew he gave Suguru, sometimes, that he was sure Suguru noticed. He let his eyes linger too long when Suguru changed before bed, tracing the skyline of his shoulders, down the path of his spine. He would look at Suguru’s entire body after kissing him close, kissing him slowly and stupid, trying to keep a distance and failing all the same. And he could see that Suguru did the same, sometimes. How he would let his attention trace the skin of his legs on the rare occasions Satoru wore shorts, like they held the secret of the world. Satoru could feel it everywhere. Satoru died every single time.

It never led anywhere. Suguru never pushed, and Satoru could have lived his whole life without it.

Then came a Sunday.

Satoru fought, Satoru won, Satoru didn’t remember the punches but could remember the feeling. He had watched Suguru in the ring too, who had knocked down a man in one round with concerning ease. It was a view. It was a spectacle. Satoru wondered if Suguru had smiled while watching him win.

His own fight had not been too violent, like they tended to be, but there was still a bruise forming around his right eye. Satoru stared at his reflection in his bathroom mirror, pressing an ice pack against his closed eyelid. His left hand gripped the sink and he exhaled slowly. His head hurt a little. His shoulders did too. He thought there was a bruise blooming on his ribcage, but he was too tired to give it attention.

He swayed his head slowly, stretching his neck as he continued patching his face. He blinked at his reflection, finding himself a little bit pathetic. A habit. A view that was old news. The lilacs would flourish but they would not stay.

His eyes caught something else in the mirror, right behind him. And Satoru felt like the air turned golden, like the room turned warm.  

Suguru was leaning against the doorframe, studying him with caution, catching his gaze in the mirror. He watched with calculated apprehension. Preoccupied, like he tended to be. What a weird thing it is, to be worried for. Satoru took the ice pack away from his face and held amber eyes in the waves.

“I’m okay, if that’s what you’re wondering.” He offered tiredly at the man behind him.

Suguru did not smile. Satoru tried to but it tasted wrong on his lips.

Suguru unfolded his arms, letting out a long exhale like an admission of defeat. He slowly crossed the distance, his eyes not leaving Satoru in the mirror, harbouring a sort of sadness Suguru sometimes displayed when Satoru was too set in his ways. Satoru let him come close. He always would.

He watched as Suguru stopped behind him, his chest almost colliding with his back. He could feel his own heart turning agitated. He gripped the sink a little tighter, gripped the feeling a little harder, and frowned slightly at Suguru in the mirror. Suguru still watched his face, letting his eyes take him in, watching his hair, his neck, his arms in his reflection, his t-shirt and his hands gripping the sink. Always a little sad. Always a little kind.

Satoru tried to breathe something in. There was nothing to say.

The silence set between them. Satoru held it on one end and knew Suguru was holding the other. Pushing and pulling. Fleeing and catching.

Suguru exhaled and whispered under the surface. “Can I see you?”

His voice was there, right there, reaching Satoru’s mind, killing Satoru’s rage. He blinked at Suguru in the mirror, trying to make sense of something, trying to admit something else. Suguru waited. His quietness mimicked comfort. Until Satoru understood when Suguru’s eyes trailed down to his chest and his ribs and his stomach tentatively, trying to see the damage through his clothes.

Satoru felt dismayed. He nodded in a haze, staring wide-eyed and wide-hearted, and didn’t know where his reason was.

He grabbed the collar of his t-shirt at the back of his neck and pulled it over his head. He let it fall to the ground. He felt a chill run on the length of his spine, up and down up and down, and returned his attention to Suguru’s eyes in the mirror. And it was like a gift. And it was like a curse. His hands came back to grip the sink in a rush.

Suguru’s eyes were fixed on his for a moment, holding Satoru’s quiet panic at the idea of being seen. There was always a little panic. There was always a little fear. He didn’t know much about his body, other than people thought it beautiful, other than he had been told it was a monument. It didn’t feel like it. There were scars and cuts and memories that would not heal, carved into the surface of the snow, digging into the fabric of his epidermis. He felt vandalized, sometimes, like his own anger was built into the very matter of him, into every crack and precipice of his skin, the bent of his knees, the crook of his elbows. Covered in scrawls, scribbled in pain. He did not like to be seen from up close.

He did not believe it was worthy of kind eyes.

Suguru took a step back slightly, still holding his attention, still meeting blue. His eyes fluttered to Satoru’s shoulders, then, and he looked, assessed, studied. Methodically, first, watching out for bruises, looking for the remnants of a fight, eyebrows knitted a little closely together. Until there was something tender, too, overcoming the inspection. Something kind and warm and gentle. And Suguru’s eyes were fixed on him, tracing his skin more than his wounds, tracing the lines and the rumble. Satoru could feel his own heartbeat.

Suguru paused. There was a moment where Satoru thought this would be his execution.

His eyes fluttered shut when warm fingers found his back, tentatively testing the waters of a sea that could be harsh, sometimes. Satoru battled to keep his eyes open, watching Suguru in the mirror who traced patterns down his spine. He bit back a breath, bit back his disbelief. His knuckles turned white from holding the sink too tight. Blue on white, honey on violet. Satoru let out a sigh, overwhelming and overwhelmed with just that. He felt a shiver start somewhere between his collarbones, end somewhere on his palms.

And Suguru was so soft. And Suguru was always, always, so kind.

He seemed lost on Satoru’s skin, eyes dancing to the rhythm of him. Suguru’s face had that attention that Satoru believed was inherent to his soul, the kind that made him feel cut open and discovered. Watchful and all seeing. Suguru’s hand travelled back up, and he pressed his palm at the centre of Satoru’s back, mending the cold, sharing the heat. Satoru’s body borrowed it on instinct.

He bit back a sigh, bit back his own heart from spilling out of his mouth. Suguru’s eyes found his in the mirror, then, mellow and raw, and Satoru knew he looked startled, stunned and stupid. He knew because he could feel it, because he sensed how his unrest swam on his face. Suguru welcomed it with gentleness.

They stared at each other, like they always did. Satoru wondered if they returned to this because they felt safe there. Satoru knew he did. Satoru knew that holding Suguru’s eyes made him feel bruised with love.

Love. Love. What a strong word it is, in such a short time. Satoru bit his tongue, feeling hit by the rage and the revelation, feeling killed by the frail possibility of never surviving this, and let Suguru love him once, at least.

Suguru leaned in, slowly and still cautious, holding his eyes, still giving Satoru a way out if he ever needed it. Satoru did not want it. Satoru did not need it.

Suguru’s lips found his left shoulder, then, and Satoru grew warm, and horrified by the sound of his bloodstream, and petrified by the feeling in his body. By wanting so much, by growing to want more. A child facing rage, a kid knowing love. Satoru did not know how he had survived so long without it. He gripped the sink until his knuckles hurt, letting out a shaky sigh through his nose, watching and feeling as Suguru’s lips traced a path on the top of his shoulder. Suguru was soft. Suguru felt like the first rays of sunshine. He felt like he always had. How he always should have.

He planted a kiss between his shoulder blades, and Satoru did not hold back the shiver, because he couldn’t, because he didn’t want to. He watched in awe, felt in awe, as Suguru hair brushed his naked shoulders, how it moved to graze his skin just as Suguru’s lips hovered over the back of his neck, where his hair began, where the anger always was. He blinked the sight in, unbelieving, remembering, Is this my end or my beginning?, and tried not to cry as Suguru planted a kiss on his nape, slow and deliberate, knowing it all, knowing him all. Knowing him enough.

This killed the rage. This would always kill the rage.

Suguru brushed his lips over his right shoulder too, eyes closed, cheeks that shade too deep Satoru always noticed. Satoru’s attention was stuck on him, lost on black strands of hair clashing with his own pale skin, flushed with that pink colour that rarely found him. Chest to neck. Neck to chest. Blushing under tenderness. He watched Suguru kiss the spot where his neck found his shoulder, lips warm like freshly cut grass, and Satoru let out the hair trapped in his lungs, freeing the northern wind.

It is easy. It has always been.

Satoru straightened up, and Suguru felt it, looking up to watch him in the mirror. Eyes too honest, a little wide and attentive. Satoru met him in the middle. He let go of the sink, breathed in a hundred breaths, and turned around to face him.

He felt knocked down, knocked breathless, stupid and stupid and stupid. His eyes moved frantically over Suguru’s face, trying to commit him to his memory, to his body, to his skin. Suguru did the same, but differently, always kinder, always more gentle, eyes kissing instead of eating like Satoru’s did. He leaned back slightly, as if to see him better. Satoru could feel his eyes on his stomach scar, and it was okay, and it was easy, and did not hurt, and did not scare him. Suguru did not touch it, but it felt like it was all the same.

He grabbed Satoru’s hands instead and brought his knuckles to his mouth, sheepishly kissing them and saving Satoru’s life. Suguru would never even know the half of it.

Satoru was breathless, and blinked like he would find his voice hidden behind his eyelids, in the wrinkles of his eyes. His fingers slid to find his wrists and the purple hairtie, and Suguru’s eyes drifted to watch the motion. Satoru took the hair tie off, sliding it off Suguru’s hands, putting it around his own wrist instead. Suguru’s eyes shot up, finding his face again, and it was like watching the sunrise realise it was finally day, that the night was over. Satoru convinced himself, then, that Suguru had been born on a sunny morning.

Satoru’s hands went up, unconscious and conscious, and Suguru’s breathing grew louder with every passing second, eyes flickering on Satoru’s face like warm city lights. The freckles were there, even prettier from up close, gracing his nose and cheeks like the solar system. A world on honeyed skin. A constellation on a face like the universe. Satoru knew it made sense.

He slid his fingers through Suguru’s hair, allowing himself the gesture for the first time, and stared and stared and stared as Suguru cheekbones made one with eternal sunburns again. Suguru leaned into the touch, chasing Satoru’s hands. Satoru felt it in his bones. He wrapped Suguru’s hair around his right hand, twisting it slowly before putting it up inexperiencedly into a bun. The purple hair tie found its way back to Suguru’s hair, lost in the dark, lost in the black ocean, and it looked like a mess, but Satoru thought Suguru had never looked prettier.

Satoru’s hands dropped to his sides as he watched in wonder.

“You’re so beautiful.” He exhaled, breaking the surface, reaching the sun. His voice was the most truthful it had ever been.

Suguru’s face went still. Then it twisted, turned, something confused waving behind his eyes. Until the words sunk in, settled in the amber, and Satoru wished it would always remain, that Suguru would always know he was like the wide open fields Satoru loved, the ones in the countryside that he ran through so rarely as a child, the ones that never failed to make his heart lighter and everything more true.

Suguru parted his lips under Satoru’s admission. Trying to find his words, probably. There was nothing to say.

He leaned in, in lieu of an answer, his mouth finding Satoru’s in slow motion. It always felt like the first time. It always felt like the first breath. Satoru sighed against his lips, eyes going shut, his mind growing silent. There was a shared shiver, a salvation between them. Suguru’s hands found him again, not going to his hair this time, but choosing his body instead, choosing to mend the bruises instead. They travelled to his back, to the line of his spine, to the space between his shoulder blades, and Satoru went completely malleable against him. 

Suguru’s hands pressed, and travelled, testing, discovering his skin. Every single spot treated like something broken, but something to be held all the same. Satoru sighed in his mouth, his tongue chasing the warmth. He tried not to go mad but it was a lost cause. It had been for a while. Since the beginning.

His hands went up, finding Suguru’s neck, and his jaw, and his cheeks, holding him close, kissing him closer. Suguru guided him closer too, bringing him in with his hands everywhere on his back. Satoru’s bare chest collided with his, and it was like dying, and it was like living.

The waters grew turbulent. The sun burned a little.

Satoru held his jaw tighter, kissing him open mouthed, breath and reason evading him both. Suguru’s fingers down his back turned insistent, nails biting his skin as an answer under the rush of being held and holding back. Satoru went a little wild like he tended to, biting Suguru’s lower lips before kissing him again, kissing him the way he knew how. A sound died somewhere at the back of Suguru’s throat, and Satoru’s whole being welcomed it.

Suguru pulled back, whispering something nonsensical under his breath, wide eyes tracing the sea of Satoru’s face, before returning to his lips with a passion. And Satoru knew it all, then. He had always known it all.

He let his hands drop from Suguru’s neck to his shoulders, to his arms, to his waist, and let his cold finger slither under his t-shirt, grabbing his hips and pushing him back. Suguru breathed into his mouth and let him, walking back out of the bathroom. Satoru refused to create a distance, his body following close, lips kissing and kissing and kissing, going from Suguru’s mouth to his cheeks and his nose and his jaw, and he could feel Suguru trying so hard to be brave, trying too hard to make sense.

They reached the bedroom in tandem. Satoru turned them around when Suguru stopped, the back of his knees colliding with the edge of the bed. He pulled back and couldn’t believe it had always been this easy.

He watched Suguru’s face for a moment, the hair strands falling in front of his face, pupils blown and eyes wide open, a look so rare it was worth the fight. Satoru could hear his lungs screaming for a break. He didn’t want to give them one.

He let himself plop down on the edge of the bed, looking up to watch Suguru with a promise, with all the kindness he could muster. He hoped he looked gentle. He hoped he looked tender. He wanted to be, he wanted to try to be. He wanted to abandon the harshness, just for this, just for him.

Suguru watched him from above. His chest heaved a little. He was flushed from being kissed and held like it mattered. His hands were at his sides, not touching, but waiting, like he was deciding what to do next, what to do until there was nothing else that made sense.

Something settled between them. Something like nettles down the line of Satoru’s back. Something like ivy in Suguru’s eyes.

Satoru pulled him down, hands still on his hips, and Suguru followed like warm sand under his fingers.

He grabbed both of his shoulders like a lifeline as he settled down, a leg on each side of Satoru’s lap. No apprehension. No hesitancy. A face like the first signs of summer. Satoru’s breath was gone.

He leaned in close, chest to chest, heart to heart. His hands went up to Satoru’s hair, and it was so much, it was all too wide in Satoru’s head. Satoru tried and failed to hold back the shuddering of his body.

Suguru looked at him. Suguru looked at him and smiled. Smiled so fully it reached his eyes. Satoru felt like crying.

He gave him a soft kiss, then, and Satoru’s hands travelled up under his t-shirt, finding the small of his back, pressing slowly to test the surface, to test the distance. Suguru’s fingers dug into the skin of his nape at the feeling, lips parting, breathing against Satoru’s mouth, their noses brushing. And it was easy. It was so easy.

Satoru pressed a little harder, and Suguru’s hips went down against his. There was an inhale, somewhere, his or Suguru’s, Satoru didn’t know. Suguru’s fingernails set the feelings into the marble of his neck. Sun crescents on the snow. Suguru moved against him, griding, hips going down, going closer, breaching every distance, and Satoru tried with everything he had to bite back the sounds that built up at the back of his mouth. Misplaced pride that had no purpose there. He learned soon enough that it would lead nowhere, when Suguru pulled slightly on his hair, like he did when it was too real, too raw. It ripped out a moan from him, surprising the both of them, and Satoru buried his face in the dip of Suguru’s neck to chase the fondness.

“Fuck.” He muttered against his skin, under his breath, whispering like it was all he could manage.

Suguru smelled of ginger. Of sun-warmed leather. Of Satoru’s body wash. Of quietness and the earth on an everlasting evening. Satoru kissed his neck, the skin softer than everywhere else. He drowned out his relentless sounds at the motion of Suguru’s hips. He could feel it burn everywhere, could feel Suguru everywhere, in the pit of his guts, down the trail of his stomach. Suguru’s hands in his hair kept scratching the skin, keeping the anger away, keeping the tenderness here.

Suguru was so, so quiet. Satoru could hear how his breath failed, how he swallowed to keep something in, to choke it out, stifling it. He figured Suguru’s silent nature would not leave him so easily, even when straddling Satoru, even when Satoru’s kisses sung prayers down his neck.

He left a trail under his jaw, planting his lips everywhere he could access, finding a spot under Suguru’s ear, and relished in how it made the other man sigh harshly. His hands on Suguru’s back remained guiding, an invitation to keep going. He felt Suguru’s Adam apple move against his cheek, and kissed it as a response. Suguru mumbled, incoherent, and Satoru let it slide, not expecting words that made sense.

He pulled back when Suguru moved. He watched him, let himself be watched in return, and the sight made his brain so loud. Blushed cheekbones like a crimson sky. There was a thin sheen of sweat on them, like the sun had truly entered his body and nested there, at home. Satoru tried for words but couldn’t say anything.

Suguru stared at him, assessing his face, trying to find what was unsaid on his features, like he often did. He seemed to find it, then. To find something, at least, something that satisfied him. One of his hands left Satoru’s hair and brushed his neck, then his shoulders, and drew a line down the centre of his bare chest, warm fingers brushing his sternum, and Satoru exhaled sharply as if Suguru was reaching down his airway, as if his fingers penetrated his bones. Suguru didn’t miss a beat, watchfully drinking Satoru’s reactions, who could only dig his nails into his back to hold onto something.

He touched his stomach scar, then, lightly and hastily, as if not to frighten a wild animal. Satoru’s eyes went shut, abandoning him.

He reached the waistband of his sweatpants and Satoru bit the inside of his cheek like his life depended on it. He drew blood without wanting to. It tasted wrong against the feeling of Suguru’s warmth. He swallowed around his ache and could feel his skin prickle and burn when Suguru’s fingers slipped under the fabric, breaching the distance, breaching it all. Suguru's hand wrapped around his lenght in excruciating slowness, his thumb brushing the tip. A strangled noise left Satoru. There was something he thought he said. He couldn’t hear his own voice.

He opened his eyes to look down at his body in stupor, to look at Suguru’s hand wrapped around him, moving gently, stroking him tentatively, like he was still afraid that Satoru’s rage would rip the silence open and swallow both of them whole. Satoru knew it wouldn’t. But Suguru still massaged his nape as he touched him, as he drew out shaky breaths and pulled moans out of Satoru’s throat.

"You're killing me." He choked out, his hands on Suguru's hips probably bruising the skin.

And Satoru didn’t know the right thing from the wrong one, didn’t think there was a day where his body had made more sense, didn’t think there had been a single fight in the ring that compared to this.

He fought the urge to let his hips push upwards, chasing the fingers, chasing the sensation, fucking into Suguru's hand. It had never been this. It had never felt like this. His head dropped to Suguru’s shoulder, his nails dug harder into the skin of his back, leaving something behind. He moaned into the collar of Suguru’s black t-shirt, mouth open and eyes screwed shut like this would salvage his pride. Satoru did not care for it anymore.

“Suguru.” He tried, and failed, voice hoarse and broken. He spoke his name like it would save his life.

It took a moment for Satoru to grab his hand and pull it away slowly, to find the will to make it stop, because it was all too much, because he didn’t want it to end there.

“I wanna see you.” He admitted against Suguru’s lips, both hands returning to his waist. Suguru blinked, breathing as fast as Satoru, as if he had been the one being touched. Satoru marvelled at the idea of Suguru being this far gone with just that.

There was a pause, again. Suguru nodded, then, planting a soft kiss on Satoru’s forehead, and raised his own hands above his head to offer a part of himself. Satoru followed the motion under heavy eyelashes and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt. He took it off in one swift move, fast and to the point, his forte in the ring. Suguru’s face grew three shades deeper, as if possible, when Satoru’s eyes found him, and ate and took and stole everything they could, watching sun beams through stained glass window. Fucking pretty.

Satoru took a moment just to see him, making Suguru shift his weight under blue eyes like a crash. 

Satoru kissed his shoulder scar as an apology, letting his lips trail down the phantom outline, and Suguru swallowed hard, some kind of contained desperation in his attempt at hiding something. Satoru could feel it. He kissed both his shoulders, his collarbones, the dip between them, like he tried to breathe him empty, and Suguru shivered and sighed. A sound escaped him by mistake. Satoru’s head shot up.

Suguru's eyes were shut, for the first time, forgetting the watchfulness. Satoru took it like a victory.

He unmade the bun he had done moments before, pulling on the purple hair tie and putting it around his left wrist. Dark hair fell down, a veil of black dahlias. Suguru opened his eyes, a little surprised by it, and gave Satoru a questioning look through the smoke of haziness.

“I just -” Satoru started, suddenly feeling like a child caught red handed. “I like it down.”

Suguru seemed a little speechless. It washed away, and he shook his head lightly at the words, looking at Satoru in quiet disbelief, before kissing him again as if to steal his words and render him quiet. Satoru brought him impossibly close, chest to chest heart to heart, and relished in the feeling of Suguru’s skin against his own.

His hands travelled down, then, sliding under Suguru’s thighs to their own accord, making the other man gasp on Satoru’s tongue, before Satoru straightened up and turned around. Suguru held onto his shoulders, his hair, his neck, like he was scared of being dropped. Satoru would never drop him.

He laid him down slowly, with all the caution he was capable of in his blurry-minded state, with all the care he could gather when his bloodstream ran a thousand miles an hour. Suguru’s hair fanned out over the pillow, and he looked up, finding his breath, looked at Satoru like it was his first time seeing him, and Satoru felt like it was. He had never been looked at like this. There was something. There had always been this.

Satoru planted his right hand next to Suguru’s face, sheltering him, looming over his body like it was all simple. He peered down into his eyes, watched the constellation on his cheeks, watched how Suguru did the same, looking for a reason on pale skin and a blooming bruise around Satoru’s right eye.

They stayed there for an instant, sharing the silence, sharing the proximity, knowing the end.

After a moment, Suguru took a slow inhale in, and spoke for the first time. “Hi.”

His voice was so, so quiet, like the soft ruffling of the wind in the trees, like the inside of Satoru’s heart.

“Hi.” That was all Satoru could find. That was all that was needed.

Suguru smiled and Satoru did too.

He kissed his neck, then, chasing the feeling of his skin and felt how Suguru shivered under him. He felt a hand returned to his hair, like it always seemed to. He planted a stream of kisses like water drops on his throat, on his sternum, on his chest, and Suguru wavered like the last minutes of sunlight. He kissed him, then, where his collarbone met his neck, where his rib cage found his heart, and Suguru breathed out, and Suguru whispered his name, Satoru Satoru Satoru, and it was the prettiest thing in the world.

He ventured further down, kissing the exposed skin above the waistband of his shorts, and watched in awe when Suguru’s eyes fell shut, when his spine slightly left the mattress, when he bit his lower lip to win against himself, like this was his own fight.

Satoru lifted Suguru’s hips and rid him of his shorts like he was a desperate man. He did believe he was. He believed he always had been, when it came to honeyed skin and raven hair. He let his mouth find Suguru’s inner thigh, leaving long and deliberate kisses, drawing Suguru out of his shell. He wanted to make it matter. He wanted Suguru to come to him, to let down the walls. He unravelled his heart and his body; untangling his silence.

He kissed him through his boxers and Suguru brought a hand to his mouth, biting the skin of his palm like it was going to change something. Satoru watched with ravaging eyes, precise and cutting, under eyelashes that were too heavy, under a stare that meant a hundred things. He kissed the same spot again, and Suguru’s hips went up, pushing against his lips a little desperately and Satoru welcomed it like the win of a lifetime. Suguru tried to stifle everything in the skin of his hand. Satoru could still hear him, like he always did.

He waited for Suguru to find him. And when he did, amber on blue, Suguru nodded, a little frantic, a little rough.

Satoru rid him of his boxers and sat back on his heels for a moment, his nerve endings leaving him, his breath leaving him, his heart finding him. He watched the picture of a man like gentleness, the purposeful lines of Suguru’s naked body, complete for him only to see for the first time. Sharp and soft, like the rest of him. Frantic blue eyes discovering what it meant to adore for the first time. Suguru’s face, under the ocean, grew a thousand shades closer to the sun.

Satoru went back the line of his body, kissing his stomach all the way to his face, and stayed there, watching him with no air left. He grabbed Suguru’s wrist, pulling his hand away from his mouth, and kissed him instead as his fingers started touching between his legs, touching him where it mattered. Suguru sighed in his mouth like it was the last time he could, like he was running out of time. A sound got trapped again up his airway. Satoru kissed him slowly, touched him even slower, and felt like he had turned insane.

He pulled back to let him breathe, but Suguru looked like he couldn’t. He grabbed Satoru’s arm instead, looking for support, and Satoru drank him in, watching Suguru’s exposed neck, the slope of his jawline, the flush of his cheeks. How he tried to bite himself, to bite his lips and his tongue, how his eyes went a little unfocused and unforgettable, how some hair strands stuck to his forehead and his temples. Every shift of his hips as Satoru’s hand picked up the pace, every emotion on his face, every shade on his body. Everything a miracle, everything a revelation. The easiest thing there ever was.

After a moment Suguru let out something between a plea and a sigh. Satoru blinked, watching him close. Suguru’s hands went up too quickly, outrunning the clock, chasing time. He held Satoru’s face on both sides, held his jaw like the first time, and Satoru leaned into it like it was second nature. A cat under the sunlight.

“Satoru.” He breathed out, holding his face close, making him listen. Satoru blinked and found his eyes. “I just -” He tried, but air was sparse, and his silence tenacious. “I want - ”

Satoru’s hand stroking him went still. He waited but Suguru looked to be somewhere else, while being there entirely, lost in his own sensations.

Satoru came closer and brushed his lips with his. “Talk to me, please.” He almost implored.

There was a pause and a crack in the ceiling.

“I want you.” Suguru admitted with quiet urgency. “I want you.” He repeated, louder. Satoru had heard him well enough the first time.

Suguru held his face, pulling him down to kiss Satoru’s stunned expression away, sighing desperately to get his point across. Satoru nodded against his lips and tried not to go mad.

Satoru reached for the lube in his nightstand, coating his fingers with it, and returned to his previous spot in haste. Suguru’s hands found his face again, like it was easier to breathe that way.

Satoru’s hand travelled down, and Suguru’s legs opened diligently under his fingers, and there was a breath they shared. Suguru held him close, breathing against his skin. Satoru could feel his body grow warmer, and warmer and warmer, abandoning the cold, forsaking the anger.

He watched in astonishment, his whole body welcoming a blush, as he pushed one finger in and Suguru’s eyes went shut, his lips opening like petals on the first week of spring. Disbelief, surely, on Satoru’s mind, and he pushed further, and Suguru’s hands caging his face dug harshly. His left hand travelled back to Satoru’s hair, to his neck, biting the skin with his nails.

Satoru added another one after a moment, slow and deliberate, and Suguru’s breath hitched, and his eyes fluttered open with difficulty. Satoru kissed his collarbones, his jaw, his neck, anything to make it kind, anything to make it tender. Suguru opened up slowly, patient like the rest of him, and Satoru could hardly believe what he was witnessing.

Then Satoru added a third finger when he could feel it was the right time, and Suguru took it with a shaky breath and a whole body shudder, legs parting wider like he was trying to tell Satoru something. He sighed in the feeling, still fighting back his sounds like he was used to. But his body told another story. He pulled on Satoru’s hair instead, hands lost in the snow. His back arched despite his best effort, betraying him. There was a push, there was a pull, there was a tidal wave.

Don’t tiptoe.

Satoru twisted his knuckles and Suguru’s eyes rolled back.

Overstep.

Overstep.

Overstep.

“I want you, please.” Suguru choked out ultimately, repeating his previous plea when the slow motion of Satoru’s fingers became too much. Voice almost lost in anguish, drowning in the golden pools of his own affection.

Satoru peered down into his eyes, his face, the freckles in the sun, the amber after the rain. Ocean blue, wide and grey, speechlessly staring at the beginning of daylight. Suguru grabbed Satoru’s chin with his free hand, planting a raw kiss on his lips, wanting and needing and craving, and Satoru almost turned religious there and then.

He pulled away to shed the rest of his clothes off and could feel that Suguru was watching his every move, eyes filled with a type of heaviness that felt so new on Satoru’s skin. He was used to being observed by Suguru. This was different. This was terrifying because it was real. Because it reached a part of Satoru he never thought he would get to meet.

Satoru leaned forward, his hands sliding under Suguru’s knees like they knew the path by heart, like it was an old routine, ghost moves engraved under his bruised knuckles. Straight right, jab, uppercut. He placed himself there, between Suguru’s legs, and it went back to everything there ever was, to the rage in his eyes when he first saw him, standing in the ring like it was his playground, standing in the sun like it was his home.

He grabbed the lube and stroked himself quickly, and Suguru’s hands went up and reached for him, as if it was an insult to not have him in his arms. Satoru obliged diligently, pulled into Suguru’s space by warm fingers on his shoulder and neck, getting impossibly closer. It was like Suguru was trying to melt them together. Satoru would if he could. Satoru would climb into Suguru’s rib cage and stay there if he could.

Suguru kissed him, again, it feels like the first time and it feels like the last time, and Satoru’s right hand stayed locked under his knee. His left arm supported him, digging into the mattress next to Satoru’s face. He breathed into his mouth, pulling back to watch him, waiting for him, waiting for the both of them. Suguru nodded, a hand sliding down the small of his back and pressing, guiding him down. Satoru breathed his first and last breath.

He pushed in slowly, this will be the end of me, and his head dropped instantly. His forehead found Suguru’s, muttering words and nonsense against his lips, the incantations of a man who believed this to be his death as much as his beginning. Suguru’s mouth was opened against his like there was a sound he was supposed to make. Satoru’s mind and tongue and lungs failed him.

Suguru held the back of his head with one hand. Still, always, making sure to kill the rage.

Satoru pushed in deeper, stars and the heavens and everything in between, not bothering to bite back his moan. Suguru breathed through it. Satoru breathed for it. He could feel it all, feel Suguru all, under him above him around him. Holding his neck and his back and his harshness. Chest to chest, heart to heart.

Suguru grew still, grew even quieter once their hip bones met, shaky exhales making their way against Satoru’s face like sunburns gracing him. Satoru closed his eyes, his entire nervous system shutting down and tangling itself into a single point, down in the pit of his stomach, down in the warmth of Suguru. To be held and to hold in return.

Suguru’s eyes were screwed shut. Something settled on his face, like he was trying to focus on his own. His nails dug into the small of Satoru’s back like they were aiming to make him bruise. They probably would.

Satoru’s eyes grew heavy and unnerved, and his chest tightened at the sight, and he wanted so desperately to be warm, to be kind, that he would have lost it all for Suguru to breathe normally.

“Are you okay?” He asked and couldn’t even recognise the sound of his own voice.

Suguru dragged a long inhale in, keeping his eyes shut, and whispered around his silence, still sounding kind. “Give me a moment.”

And Satoru did. Satoru waited for him. Satoru would always wait for him.

He gave Suguru the time to adjust to the size of him. His thumb drew small circles against the side of Suguru’s kneecap, still supporting him there. He wanted to be gentle, because Suguru always was. He wanted to be tender, because Suguru always was. He wanted to be soft, because Suguru always was. He gave his lips a small kiss, and then his chin, and then his nose, up to his brow bones, his forehead and the space between his eyebrows, down to his cheeks and his jaw and his temples. He kissed his whole face to make it easier. Satoru knew he could be suffocating. He wanted Suguru to breathe his own air. He would have offered his lungs to him if he could.

And he felt how Suguru’s body relaxed, growing malleable under Satoru’s carefulness. His face abandoned something, welcoming something else instead, the tension leaving him step by step, kiss by kiss. He opened his eyes and Satoru was too close to him, wide eyes watching him like he was trying to crawl under his skin. Suguru smiled a little, visibly amused by the proximity and enormous pupils staring at him like a hawk, and kissed the tip of Satoru’s nose. He nodded afterwards, shifting a little to make himself more comfortable, and Satoru picked up the meaning.

He moved slowly, and knew there was no coming back from this. Suguru’s eyes flickered, his breath leaving him again before returning, pulling Satoru closer still, always, closer and closer and closer, sheltering from the rain, shielding from the rage. Chest to chest, heart to heart.

A palm on his collarbone, fingers in his hair, a hand on his shoulder. Suguru was everywhere. Suguru tried to touch him all. Sounds tumbled out of his lips and onto Satoru’s stomach scar like they were meant only for him. And they were.

Satoru shifted slightly, a new angle surprising the both of them, making Satoru moan like there was no tomorrow, making Suguru bite his lower lip until he drew blood. And it was so painfully obvious he was still trying to be quiet, and Satoru decided that, beyond everything else, it was unfair.

“You don’t have to -” He started, but Suguru pushed his hips up uncontrollably, cutting his vocal chords. Satoru muttered an insult under his breath and tried again. “You don’t have to be quiet with me.”

And it was so honest, so evident, that Suguru almost looked sad for a second. Panting mouth, hazy eyes growing wide, attention emerging from the fog of his own pleasure. He blinked and stared and blinked again. Satoru waited for the sky to fall on them both. He was graced with a kiss instead, and a moan ripping Suguru’s throat in two.

Satoru grew restless, every thrust a revelation, every breath a mountain top. Suguru grew louder, too, and it was making it harder to breathe, harder to see. All Suguru had needed to be heard was to be asked.

“Fuck.” Satoru muttered, tried, thrusting a little harshly and making Suguru gasp loudly. "Please, I wanna hear you." He begged, desperate, a man without shame.

A moan followed on command, leaving Suguru's mouth, and another, and Satoru could feel how his body turned too sensitive and reactive at the sounds. So new. So raw. 

Suguru’s hand pulled, and scratched and held on, marking Satoru’s skin everywhere, hanging on for dear life onto the rhythm of Satoru’s body. And it was kind. And it was slow and deep. And Satoru wouldn’t have it any other way. Suguru followed his movements, opening his legs wider whenever Satoru pulled out, and welcoming him with a roll of his hips anytime he pushed back in deeper. Complimentary, even here, even now. 

Satoru found one of Suguru’s hands in the sheets and grabbed it, filling the space between his fingers with his own, interlinked. He brought their hands next to Suguru’s face, pressing into the pillow, panting into Suguru’s mouth like he could breathe his bloodstream if he tried hard enough. Suguru's chest heaved against his, sun-wet skin against the snow. His thumbs drew circles on the side of Satoru’s hand squeezing his. Satoru barely registered it.

It grew different, more turbulent. Satoru buried his face in the crook of Suguru’s neck, planting open-mouthed kisses there, testing the wet skin gently with his tongue. Still cursing, because he could never truly shut up even if he tried. There was suddenly a sound he thought Suguru made, something halfway to a cry, and Satoru picked it up, picked up the pace, picked up the feeling and the rush of it all.

“I’m gonna -” Suguru cried out to the ceiling. “Satoru.”

His name like a prayer, over and over and over again. He aligned his face with Suguru’s again, never letting go of his hand in the sheets, pressing it down. He watched in wonder, feeling stupefied, struck by lightning and surviving anyway. Brown eyes opened like Suguru knew he was being watched, and wanted to watch in return. A deer in headlights.

A pull on his hair, sharper than the others, and Suguru grew shakier under him. Louder and louder, forgetting his silence. Satoru couldn’t believe he had ever been quiet. What a fucking waste.

Satoru’s free hand reached down, stroked Suguru once, twice, three times, and Suguru’s face twisted, turned, his back leaving the mattress and his hand in Satoru’s hair almost hurting him. Suguru was forced to return to his silence for a few seconds, wide eyes staring at Satoru through a warm shock, knocked soundless by the force of it all. A cry cut his trachea then, and Satoru’s name was said, moaned, prayed, threatened. Satoru Satoru Satoru. A new shade of crimson under the freckles. A new tone of amber in his eyes. Satoru had never, ever believed that someone could save his life. He knew, watching Suguru reach his high, that he had been wrong.

He came mere seconds after, warm light in his vision, white noise in his ears. He moaned something like a profanity against Suguru’s lips. He believed he went deaf for a second. He believed he went blind for a second. He believed he turned into a god for a second, reaching higher planes, accessing the whole sky. His hand in Suguru’s hurt, holding on as if letting go would be synonymous to his certain death. He sang Suguru’s name like an apology, the sun the sun the sun, and could barely see him through it all.  

It took a moment to come down. It took another to understand. It would take forever to forget.

“You alright?” Suguru asked after the silence had settled back, time and space feeling worthless. 

Satoru was still inside him and had gone completely limp, collapsed on top of Suguru’s body like he was only comfortable there. He blinked like he couldn’t understand a single thing. He felt Suguru’s heartbeat through his own chest. He closed his eyes for a second, breathing against the side of his neck, and felt that he could have fallen asleep there and then.

He reluctantly looked up. Suguru’s eyes had also grown heavy. Fucked a little stupid and loved. Flushed from head to toe. His hand slid through Satoru’s hair softly.

Satoru, for the first time, knew how to answer.

“More than okay.” He breathed, his head under and above the waves.

Suguru smiled warmly. Satoru returned it. Chest to chest, heart to heart.

And so it started like this, too. With a blush and a promise.

That night, Satoru fell asleep to the rhythm of Suguru’s breathing, to a wide open field in his hand, and the distant sound of sunrise.

Chapter Text

Suguru awoke to the sound of rain against the bedroom window. He blinked the sound in, feeling it rippling on his skin, soft droplets echoing his slumber. The weather had turned during the night.

He battled to fight off sleep, and let his body and mind register where he was. He was too warm. He was suffocating a little. He tried to move but something was keeping him still. He forced his eyes open to make sense of it.

A bare weight was pressed against his chest. It took a second for his body to recognise the scarred skin of a large back, still a little cold, against him. His face was buried in a field of snow. He inhaled slowly into it, and the sweet scent of Satoru’s shampoo came to him in a whisper, alleviating his lungs. He nuzzled further, testing the surface, finding the skin of a loved neck, and pressed his lips to it like a reflex.

Suguru understood the rest. His left hand was trapped under strong arms, cold fingers wrapped around his palm and wrist like iron traps, pressing against a belly scar. The grip was so spectacularly relentless it seemed inescapable. Suguru stayed very still, a little amazed in the midst of his dazed state, feeling the slow rise and fall of Satoru’s stomach against his warm fingers. His own chest pushed against Satoru’s back with every slow inhale he took, trying to still his heartbeat. He tried to register where his right hand was, and understood that it had grown numb, blood short circuiting due to Satoru’s cheek and mouth pressing into his right forearm trapped between his face and the pillow. His skin was damp under Satoru’s half opened lips, the soft air of his exhales brushing the skin of Suguru’s exposed wrist. He blinked against white hair. It dawned on him patiently, like a reverie.

Satoru was sound asleep in his arms.

Suguru’s skin welcomed a blush, making him grow warmer. Satoru was holding him so close, skin to skin, like a man desperately chasing warmth. Their legs were tangled under the covers and he could feel how the other man had tried to bury his cold feet under his. Satoru was pressed against him completely, head to toe, back to chest, waist to waist, trying to melt them together, trying to slip under Suguru’s skin. Suguru shut his eyes under the feeling in his throat, in his head, in his ribcage. He almost wondered if he had been dragged closer against his will during the night, almost used as a blanket, or if they had fallen asleep like that, exhausted and close, so close, too close for the first time. He could barely remember.

What he did remember, though, was a river of moans crossing his lips, Satoru’s eyes eating at his heart, and the feeling of breathing for the first time.

It came back to him like warm water, slithering alongside the pathways of his legs and back, a gentle spring tracing patterns of compassion on his skin. He allowed himself to sit with it for a moment. He could still feel it everywhere, the feeling of being seen, of his body being unravelled and searched and handled with such care it had been so utterly overwhelming he had almost cried through it. He couldn’t remember if he had, now. Maybe he had shed a tear. Maybe he had his own reasons for doing so.

To be held, to be cradled, to be kissed. Suguru had a tendency of wanting to be close, not out of desperation, but out of his heart, out of something in him that had always been on the softer side of existence, on the slower side of affection. To be tender was the one thing he had the most intimate knowledge of, because that was just how things were. Because his hands wanted it. Because he had always known how to be.

He rarely expected it in return. He knew what it could take to be kind. He knew the extent of what it meant to care like he did. He had made peace with the size of his own sentiment, of his inclination. He did not want to expect it from others, because he believed it to be unfair, in a way. He hoped. He always hoped. But Suguru did not like to lose, to be disillusioned in his own affection. He had never expected his tendency for proximity to be matched by anyone.

And yet. And yet. No one had ever touched him like Satoru had. No one had ever held him close like he had. No one had ever held his hand through it all, kissed his heart through it all, cradled his tenderness through it all, leaving his body bruised with love, and his mind bruised with it too.

It had been nothing short of extraordinary. Suguru did not quite believe he had survived it. There was always a thing, holding his lungs down, pressing on his throat, whenever someone’s hands were on him, whenever fingers found their ways in places Suguru liked to keep hidden. There was always a weight on his vocal chords, a barrier on his tongue, a lock on his lips whenever someone kissed his neck or touched his hips. He kept quiet because the alternative was so foreign. He kept quiet because to let it out meant letting his heart show, in a way. Suguru did not believe himself to be scared of showing that he cared. He did believe, however, that people rarely knew how to react when faced with it. When faced with the entirety of him.

He kept quiet because it was easier. He kept quiet because he did not want his voice to betray him.

But Satoru had asked him. Satoru had looked at him, forget-me-not eyes the colour of a blue spring, and asked him to be heard. And it had been so simple, because Satoru’s hands touching him were kind, because Satoru’s body was steady, because Satoru’s rage was gone. Suguru did not regret being heard.

He took a slow breath in, letting it slide down his airway, pushing slowly at his lungs. He still felt a warmth in his belly, on his tongue, and the feather touch of fingertips everywhere on his skin, in his hair, inside him. He was too warm. Satoru’s bare back against his chest did not help. Satoru’s relentless grip on his wrist did not help. Satoru’s open mouth on his inner forearm did not help. Suguru needed to breathe in his own personal space.

He tugged on his hand until Satoru’s fingers gave up, a sleepy sound of displeasure leaving his lips. Suguru almost wrapped his arm around Satoru again, something in his entire being screaming for him to not let go. But he was so horribly warm. He breathed against Satoru’s hair one last time before shifting, angling his body away carefully, putting a distance between the two of them. He rolled over to be on his back, and welcomed the absence of physical contact like a saving grace. He could feel sweat between his shoulder blades even though he was only wearing briefs. He closed his eyes, sighing with quiet relief, and quickly gave up the idea of freeing his other arm from under the weight of Satoru’s face and neck. He could deal with that. He could deal with steady breathing against his wrist.

He grabbed his phone on the nightstand with his free hand and checked the time. An hour before Satoru’s shift. He focused back on the rain hitting the window and quietly felt that sleep was returning to him.

Respite did not last long. He heard Satoru shift next to him after a minute or two, the mattress moving with his movements. He felt the loss of the weight of his forearm and moved his fingers slowly to make the blood return to them. He kept his eyes closed, tiredness and warmth still enveloping him, a comfortable patience on his mind. He also knew that the view of Satoru waking up more often than not punched the air out of his lungs and left him so unbelievably pliant and stupid that he did not know how to work his brain in a way that made sense. He could pass on that today.

He felt a silence settling above him and knew instantly that Satoru’s eyes were on him, even though his own were screwed shut. It could always feel it. He could always feel him. He took a slow breath in, letting the attention ripple on his body, waves pulling and pushing. The rain on the window did not stop.

He felt it, then, a kiss to his throat, and his eyes opened up at the feeling of soft lips on his Adam’s apple. Sunburns and a rush and everything else returned to him with just that. It never took much. All it ever took was Satoru.

“Wow.” Suguru said, a little breathless, a smile growing on his lips. He did not fight it. “Hi there.”

Satoru kept his mouth pressed to his skin for a moment, breathing against him slowly, and Suguru thought that maybe that was what he had been born to be. Quiet and content, warm and made out of breath by just a kiss. Just that. Always just that.

Satoru straightened up, his right hand pressing down on the mattress, and Suguru’s lungs tried and failed not to pick up an uneven pace. It was always a sight to have Satoru so close, right there, above him. Blue eyes the shade of infinity. A face like a threat and a promise all the same, the kind of beauty that silenced the noise but made Suguru’s heart grow loud. The first sign of rain after a burning day.

Satoru smiled, sleep still on his face. “Hi.” He replied simply. His eyes danced on Suguru’s face attentively. His left hand busied itself with Suguru’s hair on the pillow, twirling a strand between his fingers, sending a shiver up and down the line of Suguru’s entire body.

It was too early to be watched in a way that mattered.

“Did you sleep well?” Suguru asked in a whisper, eyes dropping to Satoru’s neck and noticing different shades of purple that were definitely not bruises. He felt a guilty heat grab his throat for a moment, flushed from head to toe, and brought his focus back to Satoru’s face.

Satoru seemed unaware and unbothered. He nodded slowly as an answer, humming, and stifled back a yawn. “You?”

“I was burning up.” Suguru offered quickly, making Satoru tilt his head in obvious interest. “I think you tried to use me as a blanket.”

Satoru grinned at that. Fully. Smile reaching his eyes with such honesty it took a second for Suguru to focus. He had once thought Satoru was not even capable of looking anything but stern.

“That explains why I slept well, then.” The other man argued, lowering his voice playfully. “Amongst other things.” He added, seemingly pleased with himself.

Suguru tried his best not to grow another shade deeper. Satoru planted a kiss on his forehead before lowering his body down. Chasing warmth, chasing Suguru, chasing contact, pressing every patch of skin against him. Surprise coloured Suguru’s face at the feeling of Satoru’s colder chest against his own. His arms instinctively went up and around his back, touching the shoulder blades and the spine. A little cold. It unexplainably made Suguru feel a type of enigmatic sorrow he did not quite comprehend. He had always been sad in the face of things that couldn’t grow warm.

Satoru sighed under his palms and shifted to bury his face in the crook of his neck, pressing his nose and lips to warm skin. He tangled his legs with Suguru’s once more, cold feet sliding underneath, and Suguru held him closer, tighter, sharing and landing heat, even if it meant abandoning personal space. He had learned in the span of a few weeks it was a concept Satoru was not particularly fond of.

They stayed like this for a moment, sharing slow breaths, waking up. Suguru looked down, watching Satoru in his arms. He appeared uncharacteristically small, nestled against him like a poor thing abandoned in the wind, in the wild, in the rain. Suguru pressed a kiss at the top of his head and felt how Satoru almost tried to dissolve himself against his body. Softening the angles, melting his own bones to fit Suguru’s. Suguru would never fight it off. He would never not want to hold Satoru to the ends of the world, to have him crawl somewhere within, to have him close, so I can know the rage is gone.

He also knew Satoru’s mood turned slightly sharp when the sky was grey, even though he never really acknowledged it, even though he argued that he didn’t mind poor weather. But Suguru saw it, always, whenever it rained. The tense shoulders, the irritated eyes, a locked jaw that was often a sign of a headache pressing against Satoru’s temples. So Suguru held him closer, keeping the rain away for another minute.

Suguru himself did not mind rain when it was so warm outside. Summer showers were a delicacy he had grown quite fond of. They brought out snails in his grandparent’s backyards, and he used to look at them with quiet wonder when he was a child. They were slow and didn’t make a sound. Suguru wondered where they went when the sun was out and the earth was dry. Did sunlight force them into hiding? Did the rain birth them, growing them from the wet dirt and the puddles in the leaves? Suguru used to believe they were made of the same essence as wet grass. He would always silently cry when he found one crushed by someone’s careless shoe.  

He was brought back to the bed by a kiss on his neck and another on his collarbone. Satoru moved in his arms, and his own hands found their way back to white hair. He let his chest be kissed, feeling warm water returning to his body, sliding under his muscles like anytime Satoru’s lips were on him. A flood and a vow, floating on saltwater in the middle of the room. Satoru’s lips found his sternum, a quiet stream of kisses in the centre of his chest, a spring down the path of his lungs. Tidal waves. Satoru often felt like this. A dive in the ocean in the midst of August, sometimes harsh, sometimes submerging the both of them; welcomed even when it was rough, always when it was kind.

The wave didn’t stop, and Suguru grew even warmer when it reached his stomach. He sighed through his nose and tugged gently on Satoru’s hair, a quiet warning. He looked down as Satoru looked up, mouth pressed right above his belly button, visibly intent on continuing his venture. Suguru’s nails dug into Satoru’s scalp at the view.

“I let you have your way with me once and now you can’t handle yourself?” He bantered, words coming out raspier than he thought.

Satoru’s mouth barely left his skin, hovering against his stomach. “Have my way with you?” Satoru feigned indignation, eyebrows shooting up as he pressed another wet kiss on Suguru’s skin before resuming. “You’re the one who asked to take off my shirt first.”

Touché. Suguru nibbled at his lower lip and cleared his throat loudly. “Only to look at your bruises.” He defended, battling with his own flushed cheeks and smile.

Satoru stopped again, looking up once more, unconvinced. “Right.” He ribbed, forcing seriousness as he nodded slowly. “No ulterior motive at all.”

“Oh sorry, are you complaining now?” It was Suguru’s turn to look falsely insulted, raising one eyebrow in defiance.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Satoru offered him a full smile, teeth and all, looking exceptionally annoying and innocent, and so unfairly beautiful. Always beautiful. Like the first snow of the season. Suguru was about to retort, opening his mouth to counter attack, but Satoru resumed his kissing, treading dangerously further down with every shift of his lips. His nose brushed Suguru’s belly button, the down part of his abs, the soft skin of his lower abdomen. Suguru breathed, and failed, and breathed again, and his eyes fluttered at the feeling, his fingers in white hair pulling without much determination. He believed he would never get used to Satoru’s softness that was so hard-earned, unforeseeable.

He was reminded of the time, of a shift, of a babysitting promise he had made to Hasaba, and stifled his own disappointment under a breathless threat.

“Satoru.” He warned, speaking to the ceiling. He felt a pressing kiss right under his navel and a humming sound against his skin as a lazy acknowledgment of his warning. Unbothered. Cold fingers made their way up the side of his thigh. He battled with his own eternal craving and forced the words out. “I really have to go.” Another kiss, lower, close to his left hip bone, ignoring him consciously. Suguru felt a shiver travel his entire body and was pretty sure Satoru could feel it too. “And you have a shift.”

Another lazy humming against his skin, another kiss to his hips, fingers digging slightly in the skin of his thigh. He let out another sigh, flattening his hand in Satoru’s hair on instinct, his body betraying him like it tended to when touches mattered too much. His eyelids dropped shut when Satoru’s thumb slid under the side of his boxers, when his soft lips were at the waistband, when a tongue met his skin idly. Too much.

“Satoru.” He breathed out again, a plea more than a warning, undertones of authority still somehow finding their way to his voice. He grabbed a fistful of hair and tugged a little harshly to prove a point, and Satoru gave in, soft lips abandoning their spots. 

Satoru rolled over reluctantly with a loud noise of complaint, suddenly looking like a child on the verge of a tantrum, and crashed his face into his pillow with dramatic force. Theatrics. He laid still, groaning into the pillow case with frustration, arms straight at his sides like a dead man. Suguru couldn’t keep his laughter in. He propped himself up on one elbow, watching the scene unfold, Satoru’s face completely buried, white hair on white sheets sheltering his temper from the world.

“Has anyone ever told you you have a tendency to be slightly dramatic?” Suguru joked, leaning in to press a reverent kiss on Satoru’s naked shoulder. A truce.

A second passed, and Satoru turned his head, hair messed up and brows furrowed seriously. Suguru only smiled wider.

“For valid reasons.” He pleaded, sliding his arms under the pillow, watching Suguru with intent. “Can you blame a poor man for getting addicted?” He feigned hurt and Suguru leaned in again to plant a kiss on his nape, soothing something for the both of them.

“You’ll live.” He breathed against Satoru’s skin before straightening up.

“You don’t know that.”

“Mmh.” Suguru watched him, amused. The way Satoru looked, fully awake now and alert, eyes the colour of winter, snow hair wild and tinted of lavender. Suguru reached out, sliding his fingers through the strands, detangling the mess diligently. Satoru buried his face deeper into the pillow at the touch, his body compliant. Suguru’s eyes trailed down the line of his neck, of his broad shoulders, of his spine, and stopped where Satoru’s back dimples greeted him like the morning rain had. Two small moons.

Satoru watched him under white eyelashes, eyes loud and wide and almost desperate, and Suguru forced himself out of bed because one of them had to leave.

They parted at the door thirty minutes later, exchanging a slow kiss that Suguru knew would set his mood right for the entire day. Satoru’s hands were on him again, in his hair and his back and his hips, chasing him, chasing the kiss, chasing touch. Suguru indulged him, remembering how they had both stared at their hickeys and love bites in the bathroom mirror a little incredulously minutes before, and pulled back with a sharp inhale.

“I need to go.” He said, trying to convince himself.

Satoru watched him for a moment, taking in his face, and Suguru returned the gesture as he always did. Their shared silence returned. Suguru counted the tree moles on his cheek, studied the slope of his nose, regarded the thunder in his eyes and the blooming violet sky.

“Take care of that bruise, will you?” He asked, softly brushing his knuckles over the lilac hue under Satoru’s brow. The other man leaned into the touch instantly, second nature overcoming the rest.

“Yeah yeah.” He replied absentmindedly.

Suguru fixed him with a serious look. It was often a fight to get Satoru to mend his own body. It often felt unfair to both of them.

Satoru blinked, frowned, registering Suguru’s seriousness, and nodded diligently. “Yes. I will.”

Suguru nodded back, satisfied, and kissed Satoru’s hands goodbye.

He knocked on Hasaba’s door at nine am with a lingering smile on his face. She opened the door in a rush, looking as she always did, like she was running out of time.

“Come in, come in.” She greeted Suguru as she made her way back into the apartment too quickly for him to keep up. “The girls are in the kitchen eating breakfast.”

He took off his shoes and joined them. Nanako almost jumped from her chair in excitement, greeting him with a loud voice. Mimiko simply gave Suguru a soft smile as she diligently dug into her cereal bowl.

“How are you, little deer?” Suguru asked, echoing their smiles, sitting down on a spare chair. Hasaba busied herself with gathering her own belongings now that he was here.

“I’m doing great!” Nanako answered, standing up and abandoning her toasts. She made her way to Suguru, already extending her arms to climb on his lap. “Can I braid your hair today?”

Suguru helped her up, settling her on one of his legs. “You can do whatever you want.” He assured her.

Over her bowl, with watchful eyes and a quiet voice, Mimiko spoke. “Can I help?”

Suguru turned his attention to her, kind eyes and an inviting smile, and nodded slowly.

“Of course.”

Mimiko smiled shyly at that and busied herself with finishing her cereals.

Suguru’s attention drifted to Hasaba, standing at the window, watching the sky with wariness. It seemed that vigilance accompanied her often. Suguru waited for her to speak, observing her from a distance.

“It’s a rainy day again.” She finally said, voice enigmatic, like the words meant something Suguru was not supposed to understand.

But he thought he did. He remembered her words from weeks ago. Rain is coming. It makes them spirited. Like wild animals. Hasaba had a thing against it, apparently. She believed that rain was an agitator of the minds. Suguru believed it to be the opposite.

He swallowed his questioning words and decided that courtesy would be better.

“I won’t take the girls outside unless the sky clears out.”

Hasaba still stared at the window for a moment, eyes clear and focused. Suguru almost repeated himself, starting to doubt that she had heard him, but she finally turned towards him with a nod of her head.

“Thank you.” She responded before moving.

She stopped at the kitchen’s door, turning around as if something had finally returned to her mind after a long time of trying to remember. “Oh, Geto.” She started and Suguru tilted his head.

She seemed to look for her words for a second before she spoke. “There was a woman here yesterday. She rang our doorbell. She was asking for you.”

Suguru frowned at the words, confusion instantly washing over him. Before he could ask for clarifications, Hasaba continued.

“I only talked to her through the intercom and did not get a name.” She tightened her purse on her shoulder, a cryptic expression finding her face. Suguru had the strangest feeling that something was mocking him. “I told her to come back another day, since I didn’t know where you were or when you’d return.”

Visions of blue eyes and white hair and hands like lilac fields flashed in his head. He tried to push the thoughts away, tried to strangle the weird taste in his mouth, the weight on his stomach, and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Thank you for telling me.” His voice was wrong. Mimiko shifted in his lap and nestled further against his chest as if she could sense it.

Hasaba watched her with kind eyes and nodded in return. “Of course.”

Suguru stayed quiet. He blinked in his own silence and inner agitation. Shoko, maybe? He was pretty sure she did not know where he lived. Maybe Satoru had told her? But she had his phone number. Why would she show up unprompted, when they spent a considerable amount of time texting insignificant stuff to each other anyway? She could just call.

“Do not cause any trouble. Be proper.” Hasaba’s voice sounded distant as she addressed her daughters. She stayed at the door and focused on Suguru once more. It took a second for him to notice he was being watched and pulled himself out of his slightly dazed state. “Have a good day, don’t let them boss you around.”

With that, she was gone, and Suguru looked at the empty space she left behind. He dropped it for the day, deciding that rummaging would not be of any use, and diligently let his hair be braided in a hundred different ways.

Suguru trained. Suguru went to Satoru’s place, let himself be cared for, and cared in return. Suguru fought and won.

Time passed. He forgot about the woman.

It happened again two weeks later on a Saturday. Late August, tip toeing on the brink of September. Suguru was making dinner after training, having decided that tonight he would sleep in his own bed and enjoy his own space. Satoru had made an exaggerated noise of protest at the idea, but kissed him goodbye slowly at the gym’s door, wishing him a good night of sleep without him. Suguru almost dragged him back home with him.

Choso was perched on a stool at the counter, recounting something Suguru was fully trying to focus on while chopping green onions. In the middle of a sentence, he stopped, as if remembering an unimportant detail he had failed to mention in his storytelling.

“Completely off topic, but someone came around looking for you yesterday.”

Suguru’s hands stilled. He watched the knife between his fingers and wondered if he had heard right. He turned around too fast, fixing Choso with a look halfway between panic and confusion, somewhere in the middle of doom and terror. Choso was seemingly oblivious to it all, biting into a senbei with a loud crunching sound and scribbling something on a piece of paper.

“Who?” Suguru questioned. His voice had the slight tremor to it that he did his best to hide, the type that made his throat dry.

At the sound of Suguru’s voice, Choso looked up, a frown on his face and vigilant eyes finding him. He considered Suguru, the quiet alarm he was doing a poor job at hiding, and settled his senbei back on his plate, forgotten. “I don’t know, a woman. I asked who she was but she just wouldn’t say.”

The weight returned, pressing down on Suguru’s chest. Concern clawed at his lungs like it was a serious matter. He grabbed the knife tighter in his right hand. Choso’s eyes drifted to it for a second before returning to his face.

“I told her you weren’t here.” Choso continued, voice coated in nonchalance and something like reassurance. “Since you spend most of your evenings at your boyfriends’ now.”

Suguru released the knife from his grip. It landed on the cutting board with an annoyingly loud sound, making Choso frown deeper. “Did you get any details?” Suguru pressed on, something telling him he had to.

Choso paused, considering, and narrowed his eyes. “Not denying the boyfriend allegations I see?”

Suguru felt his heart pound and his neck grow warm, both from an impending sense of doom and the vision of Aegean sea eyes like a pardon, of a sharp face like a tempest, of cold fingers digging into his skin. You taste like summer Satoru had said the night before, kissing his whole body stupid under the covers, making Suguru die with it. Suguru did not know what he meant. Sometimes Satoru did that, spoke things that were a little bewildering, things that made Suguru stare and wonder and blink, things that made Suguru think and search for a meaning when most of the time Satoru just didn’t know himself. I just say stuff, he’d say, as if the stuff in question didn’t rewire Suguru’s entire bloodstream.

There was a word for it. There was no word for it. There was a feeling and Suguru wouldn’t know how to name it even if he tried. Boyfriends, or something else, something bigger, something terrifying. Something astral, too. Stellar, in the way Satoru walked, in the words Satoru spoke, in the touches Satoru gave. It made Suguru feel whole and empty at the same time, like an inhale that was never full but always needed, like a breath that felt like the first and the last.

They never spoke of it. It was not the time. It was not the place. He chased Satoru out of his mind and pinched the skin of his palm.

“Focus.” He said, talking to himself and to Choso at the same time.

Choso shrugged. “We talked through the intercom.” He paused and let the silence stretch, visibly weighing something on his mind.

Suguru’s eyes grew wild, agitated.

“And?”

Choso studied his face, the eternal gloominess in them taking on a cautious shade. He straightened up slightly on his stool before resuming.

“All she said was that she knew your grandparents.” He said it like it was nothing, faking the easiness, holding courage for the both of them.

Suguru welcomed it like a knife to the centre of his skull.

He breathed in and out, stabilising himself. He felt a coldness on his skin, scratching it relentlessly, creeping in at the corners. He was horrifyingly confused.

“It’s the second time she’s come here.” He tried to be blank but sounded worried instead. “Hasaba told me about her two weeks ago. Chances are it’s the same person.”

Choso considered the words, a focused frown on his face, and nodded in acknowledgment. 

“Don’t fret.” He offered, faced with Suguru’s perplexed expression. “It’s probably just a confused family friend who doesn’t have your phone number and wants to chat about your grandparents or something.” He shrugged once more. His easiness did help, stifling the tart taste in Suguru’s mouth. “Plus you’re the only remaining Geto.”

Not true. Suguru crossed his arms over his chest, debating whether this made sense or not, whether this was possible. He knew some of his grandparents’ friends and could think of a few that would like to see him again, chat and catch up. Suguru did not want to chat and catch up. He had left his childhood’s house in such a rush, without telling anyone close, that it wouldn’t be a surprise to have people look for him there. But here?

“Why would she know where I live?” He inquired, staring at a point above Choso’s head, shaking his head slowly.

“Tokyo’s a village, man. If someone wants to find you, they can.”

Suguru almost scoffed. “That’s reassuring.” His attention went back to Choso’s face as he bit into his cracker once more, finishing the last mouthful. He watched him chew and swallow and shrug, eternally unfazed.

“I mean don’t overthink it.” Choso reassured as he picked up another senbei, nodding towards Suguru and the general direction of the kitchen. “I will die of starvation if you don’t go back to cooking soon.”

Suguru watched him. He tried to silence his brain. There was a sense of dread, for reasons unknown. He went back to chopping green onions and gripped the knife so hard his knuckles hurt.

Another week passed, welcoming the first days of September, and Suguru forgot about the woman again.

Until Saturday.

He walked home from running errands, a bag of groceries in his hands, earphones drilled into his ears. His attention was lost to the world and attached somewhere on paper skin and waves. Satoru was always here, nestled on his mind, holding his wrists even when he was not around, cold hands on his back even when he was far. 

Suguru crossed the road, heading towards his apartment’s building mindlessly, body on autopilot. He slowed down as he saw someone standing at the door, looking at the list of different doorbells and names plastered next to them. The person was facing away, her back to Suguru, and she did not move as he walked closer and closer, slowing down with each step to avoid startling her. When he got to her level, Suguru instantly noted that she was tall. Almost as tall as him.

Suguru frowned, did not think anything of it, and pushed his earphones to the side with one hand.

“Can I help you?” Suguru asked, voice kind and tender like it always was, trying not to make her jump.

The woman turned around. Suguru felt that his entire life had been nothing but a curse.

He saw his own face staring right back at him. Older, and a little sharper, but his all the same. The same shade of amber, the same jet black hair, the same mellow skin, the same eternally sad eyes. She looked at him with silent shock. She looked at him with knowing eyes. She looked at him and it was like staring into the face of life and death, staring into a lifeline, staring into himself.

And Suguru knew. Suguru would have always known. Suguru was certain, now, that he would have known her anywhere.

There was no point of reference, no picture, no details, no idea. His grandparents’ never spoke of her. His grandparents’ never ushered her name. His grandparents had turned her into a ghost, because it was better this way, they had said. Because it was safer this way, they had said. Because it was easier this way, they had said. Suguru never questioned it. He had dropped the subject a long time ago. He had dropped the need and want and absent memories of someone he had never known. She resided somewhere under his skin, but that was all there was to it, all there could ever be. A passing thought, sometimes. A wandering concept, on some days. A vague lack and emptiness when things got rough and the hurt was too much, too wide. Never more than this. The idea of someone he had abandoned a long time ago.

She is our daughter but she is not your mother. She could never be.

She could never be. She could never be. She could never be.

They stared in complete silence.

Suguru did not know where he was, what he was. He couldn’t feel his own body. He tried to move his hands, but they gripped the grocery bag so harshly it hurt. He thought it hurt. He must have hurt. He couldn’t feel anything. The blood rushed to his head, making it pound, making it sting, making his cheeks red and burning and itchy, making his eyes wide and terrified and petrified. His breathing was there. It must have been there, otherwise he would have passed out, right? Right. He was breathing. He was breathing. Am I breathing? Is this the day life finally leaves me? The sound and the sound and there was no sound. His earphones were still blasting music on one side. On one side and what was the other side for, then? Listening. Hearing. The woman was talking. Her mouth moved. Suguru did not understand a single thing she said. Suguru couldn’t make out a word. His hearing was muffled, in an echo chamber of his own concussion, collision. An impact point. Jab, straight to the body, roundhouse kick. This is not a fight. This is not a fight. You do not fight this. He tried to recollect something. There was a banging in his skull. There was silence in the rest of his body.

The woman’s eyes filled with quiet confusion, and she looked so much like him. She looked so much like him. The amber that was his, the amber that was hers. The aftershock sent a message to his brain, knocking something in place, giving him a voice.

“What?” He asked, to the entire land, to the woman, to himself. He was barely audible.

The woman paused. The woman kept quiet like he did. The woman's voice was soft. Soft and barely there.

“I’m your -” She started, reconsidered, rewired. Suguru saw it. He saw it because he knew it. “I gave birth to you.”

Suguru almost laughed. What an odd way. What an odd way to say you are my mother.

She didn’t ask for his name. She didn’t ask if it was him. No need to. She must have known, too. It was so horrifyingly obvious. Anyone would have known. Anyone could see. Suguru could see. He tried to speak but there was no sound. There was sound everywhere. There was nothing and everything. His eyes were dry but he couldn’t blink.

And it struck him suddenly, hard and sharp and merciless, that he didn’t even know her name.

Faced with Suguru’s eternal silence, with his wild eyes, his stunned face set in stones and motionless, she spoke for the both of them.

“I know this must be a shock but I thought we could -” She stopped short, the same way Suguru did when he didn’t know what his next words could elicit. “I thought you would want -” She hesitated, stumbling on her words. “Well, with my parents gone and all.”

Suguru stared. Eyes wide and loud. He did not know how to do anything else. He thought of his grandmother’s hands, holding his, holding hers. He was motionless. A deer in headlights.

“I thought we could meet.” The woman added, voice still unsure, words still sounding like his. Tiptoeing.

What to do what to do what to do? Was life always destined to be this? His heart on a platter, stepped on and laughed at, no matter how much time passed, no matter how hard he tried. He felt like a child facing the horrors of existence. He felt like a child facing his mother for the first time. Facing blood. His own blood.

“I can also leave if you prefer.”

Suguru believed that his life was destined to sting. There was no other way to be, there was no other way to live. This was proof enough. He did not know much else. A circle of heaviness, wherever he went, ever since he was young. It was how things were. It was how things had always been. But this. This was under his ribs. This was in his Achilles heels. This was a hand holding him by the throat and scolding him for not knowing how to breathe.

“Suguru?”

He had a thing for letting people get close, didn’t he? He knew this was already decided. He would invite her in. The same amber, the same raven hair. How to say no. How to say yes. What to speak about, other than everything there ever was, everything there ever will be. He had never considered himself to be anyone’s child. Was he ever a son if his mother was never there?

“Can I call you Suguru?”

His name, again, spoken so far and so close all the same, so foreign and so familiar. Under my ribcage. Inside her bloodstream. The woman looked like him. He looked like his mother. Picture-perfect replica.

“How do you know my name?” He blurted out without meaning to. Or maybe he meant it.

It was unfair that she knew his name and he did not know hers. Do we not stand as equals? Did you not lose me the same way I lost you?

The woman blinked in surprise. She watched his whole face, studying him with open astonishment. She, too, probably saw her own eyes staring right back at her.

“I know it because my father picked it before you were born and I agreed.” She explained in a breath, like it hurt to remember, like she would rather forget. “It was probably the only thing he told me that I ever listened to. Your name.”

And maybe it was the thought of being known. Maybe it was the thought of being named, of his name meaning something, that made him loosen the grip on his grocery bag, that made the panic in his stomach settle slightly. Maybe it was the mention of his grandfather, the way he often stood, tall and unwavering, that made the yelling in his head recede. Maybe it was the knowledge that he was carrying the pride of a man that was once everything to him that made him feel a little braver.

He took a shaky inhale in, eyes travelling on her face like two crazed little bugs caught in a fire. Trying to escape, trying to survive. She was tall. She was beautiful. Her face was his. His face was hers. He exhaled slowly and tried to find some perseverance.

“What is your name?” He asked, sounding small, feeling smaller still.

Surprise filled her face, and something like disappointment too.

“They didn’t even tell you this?” She replied, voice colored with frustration. She shook her head and sighed. “Sugako.” She paused, watching a point behind Suguru before resuming. “I guess they liked names that begin with an S.”

She spoke like it was a casual conversation. Like she barely realized the insanity of the situation. Suguru’s tongue was so heavy in his mouth, his throat so dry, his lungs so empty he barely felt like he could function.

“ Su-ga-ko.” He repeated under his breath, lost in a sort of haze, lost in a sort of trance.

She watched him peculiarly. Suguru didn’t know what there was to say. Maybe he had hit his head at training and was suffering from a concussion. Maybe he was hallucinating things. Maybe Satoru had finally found a way to reach him in the ring and punched him so hard Suguru had died. Satoru. Satoru. Satoru would never. Satoru would never crack Suguru’s skull open and break his bones. He thought of kind hands on his body, on his skin, holding his fingers. A palm in his hair, a kiss on his cheek. He felt his heartbeat grow calmer, felt a wave of warm water ripple on his mind, making his breath a little steadier. Satoru would never.

“Do you want to come in?” He inquired after finding his voice.

Don’t speak to strangers in the streets, Suguru. His grandmother’s voice scolded him at the back of his head.

She seemed to hesitate for a second. And then she nodded, attempting something like a smile. “Yes. I would like to.”

Don’t let strangers into your house, Suguru.

It took him a moment to remember how to move. It was like he had exited his body and was watching the scene from above. One of his hands finally let go of the grocery bag and grabbed his keys. His eyes didn’t leave her. He felt like if he stopped looking she would disappear and leave a hole in the pavement and a warning that read do not wish for the impossible.

Suguru rarely wished for anything. He decided there and then that he was allowed to wish for this.

He unlocked the entrance door with an unstable hand, held it open for her, and led her to his apartment. Choso was out visiting family for the week-end so there would be no pressing questions, no wide eyes, no shock.

They moved in silence. He let her in without a word. He felt a little dizzy. He closed the door with a loud noise and didn’t know where his head was. There was a pressure on both sides of his temples, like an iron grip trapping him. He blinked, blinked again, and took off his shoes like second nature. She did too. They stood in the entrance for a minute, just watching each other, none of them really knowing what the next words were supposed to be. The air was filled with something heavy, something unsaid. So many things unsaid. Suguru didn’t even know who she was, and yet he knew everything. Sugako. She was under his skin, in every of his moves, in all of his cells.

He tried to make sense of it all but came back empty handed. Empty hearted. Empty headed.

“Would you -” He started and held his breath, as if suffocating would be easier than this. It probably would be. “Would you like some tea?” 

He felt so unbelievably stupid, like anything coming out of his mouth now would sound wrong, no matter what it was.

She considered him, face unreadable, and nodded slowly. She looked around, and then back at him. It was a shock every time, to see her, to see himself in her.

“Where’s the bathroom?” She asked simply.

Suguru cleared his throat, feeling it close up and dry even more. “Down the hall. First door to the right.” He attempted. His voice came out quiet, almost choked up. 

She nodded and made her way further into the apartment. He watched her walk away and disappear down the hall. He tried to collect himself. It took him another minute of standing speechlessly in the entrance before he managed to reach the kitchen.

He dropped the grocery bag on the counter and stared at it. It seemed to stare back menacingly. Suguru felt, truly, that he was going mad. He could hear his heartbeat in his head, a tempo of dismay he couldn’t turn down. The volume was stuck. It beat against his forehead, drums of war inside his skull announcing an impending battle. Why did this feel like a fight? Why did this feel like his loss? Suguru knew this would not be easy but it didn’t have to be harsh. He guessed it could sometimes be like that, when it came to his heart. Difficult.

But this wasn’t just his heart, wasn’t it? It was twenty six years of absence showing up at his doorstep wearing his eyes and his hair and his face. Oh, but no. It was the other way around. He was the one wearing her eyes and her hair and her face. She was the one who had passed them down. They did not belong to him to begin with, and he was just starting to understand it.

She was not wearing his face. He was wearing hers.

Suguru tried to breathe through it. The grocery bag seemed to be mocking him.

“You have a beautiful place.” Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts. His eyes shot up, finding her in the kitchen’s entrance, looking around at the space with interest. Like it was easy. “Do you live here alone?”

Small talk. Suguru froze. She was doing small talk. He stared in astonishment, lost in a quiet stupor. It took him a moment to answer.

“No. I have a roommate.” His words were slow. He weighed them on his tongue before speaking. “He’s visiting family.”

“I see.” She nodded, still looking around, moving further into the kitchen. “Must be nice.”

Suguru didn’t know if she was referring to having a roommate or family to visit. Probably the latter.

She gave him a look, then, perplexed and far, and Suguru gestured mechanically to the stools at the counter. She pulled one out carefully and sat down. Her eyes came back to him, and she watched in silence, taking in his face with cutting attention, looking distracted and almost perturbed. Like it hurt a bit to see him. It did hurt a bit, Suguru thought. It hurt more than a bit.

Suguru couldn’t hold her eyes anymore. They had the undertones of something inexplicable that was making him feel terrifyingly small. Like a child. Like her child.

Suguru turned around, moving away and reaching for the kettle. He grabbed two cups and focused not to drop them. He turned on the faucet and watched the water fill the kettle. It made it easy, somehow. Water and the ocean and cold fingers on his hips.

He inhaled slowly. “How did you find me?” He asked, still focused on the water, not watching her.

There was a pause. Suguru turned off the faucet before the kettle overflowed.

“I went to the house.” She explained. Suguru grabbed two tea bags and tried not to let his body shut down. “There was a gardener, a sweet man who lives down the street there. He gave me your address.”

Suguru knew about the gardener. He grew the most beautiful flowers in the neighborhood. He had insisted on taking care of their backyard after his grandparents’ death, saying it was a jewel, that it deserved to remain beautiful. Suguru had said yes, because the man was kind, because he had known him most of his life, because his grandma always praised the kakitsubata he managed to nurse into life even in the driest of soils.

Suguru had insisted on compensating him for it. After much debating and arguing and supplicating, the old man had agreed.

“He told me he knew where you lived because you send him money by mail and he sends you thank you cards in return.” Sugako continued, her voice steadier, almost light. “Old habits of old people. They die hard.”

Suguru placed the tea bags in the cups and nodded to himself. It did not make it less shocking. But it made sense that anyone who wanted to find him would look for him at the house. She had. A thought came to him with full force, and he gripped the kettle hard while pouring hot water. He settled it down, watching the steam over the cups. Everything seemed to be pushing on his organs, on his feet, trying to drag him through the floor.

He bit the inside of his cheek so hard he drew blood.

“You know where the house is?” He asked, still not watching her. The iron taste in his mouth tangled his guts into knots.

He let the heel of his hand rest against the side of one cup, feeling the burn, trying to focus on everything but the train wreck happening in his mind. He waited for her to speak. It felt like an eternity or two.

“It was my childhood home before it was yours.”

Suguru heard the heaviness in her voice, the implications, the slight irritation she was trying very hard to sugarcoat. It had sometimes occurred to him that maybe she resented him. That maybe she despised him for being raised by her parents. For stealing them from her, in a way, during all these years. After all, they were hers before they were his.

Suguru did not know for sure. Suguru had no clue. The woman sitting there was nothing tangible, never heard of.

He turned around, careful not to drop the cups, and made his way over to the counter with calculated steps. He settled one cup in front of her and stared at it for a second too long.

“I hope you like jasmine tea.” He offered quietly, feeling at odds with himself. He took a step back and sat down on the other side of the counter, ghost moves engraved in his body.

She took the cup in her hands, pressing both her palms against the sides, and nodded. “Thank you.”

Suguru didn’t touch his tea. He didn’t think he could stomach anything right now. He just sat there, stagnant, and looked, truly looked, for the first time. He took her in. Her jet black hair past her shoulders, longer than his by only a few centimeters. The wrinkles that were beginning to show around her eyes, reverent and merciful. Her nose, slim and slightly curved, a little different from his straight one. He noticed the mole next to her right eye, the one under her bottom lip. She didn’t have his freckles, though, and it somehow made Suguru’s heart sink. She wore a black blouse, flowy and elegant, rolled up right before her elbows. It felt ironic, for some reasons, that she would wear black just as he did.

And her eyes. Amber like his, not lighter or darker, the same shade, the same shape, the same eyebrows, the same look. It was there that they were the most alike, amongst everything else. It was the first thing Suguru had noticed. It was the thing that made it hurt the most.

He blinked. His eyes dropped to her hands holding the cup. She did not wear any jewelry except for a ring, very loud and apparent on her ring finger, and Suguru felt like his knuckles were being stabbed one by one with a burning knife. He stared at it. He calculated. He knew she had given birth to him at nineteen, which meant she was forty-five now. Plenty of time to move on. Plenty of time to build something else. He did not know why it had never occurred to him that she would.

“Do you not want to ask me anything?”

Sugako’s voice brought him back to himself, to the cup on the table, to the distant sound of mockery from the grocery bag. He blinked her into focus. She was watching him in return, intently, a questioning look on her face. Faced with Suguru’s staring and tenacious silence, she seemed confused. He was still perfectly immobile, as if waiting for danger. His right hand gripped the handle of his cup too harshly for it to be normal.

He didn’t even know where to start. There was nothing he could ask that would ever be enough. There was nothing she could say that would make up for everything that was already lost.

And so Suguru tried, clasping his courage with all the strength he could gather, and ripped off the bandage.

“I just -” He faltered, stopped, swallowed around his silence and begged for it to disappear. He breathed in a shaky breath. “Why now?” It came out broken around the edges.

Surprise washed over her face for a second. “Why not?” She tilted her head, a frown finding her.

Suguru’s jaw worked itself into place. He was holding back something. Something disturbed and desperate.

“You had twenty six years.” His words were barely above a murmur, hiding under the weight of time, coming up after the years had gone by. Scared and strained and pitiful.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice.” She shrugged in defiance. Her frown did not leave her. “Your grandparents did not want me near you.”

At that, Suguru’s despair reached him, slithering up the sides of his ankles and his wrists, winding itself around his limbs and arms. His eyes grew frantic again.

“Why? Why did they just -” He tried not to sound mad but his words came out cracked. “Why couldn’t you be there?” He was not loud. He felt like he was yelling all the same.

She did not reply. She looked at him with wariness, like gauging the reaction of an alley cat whose scratches would sting for days. Nothing lethal, but something that hurt. Something that no one liked to get close to.

“I just -” Suguru spoke but his voice got cut short. “I need to know. Please.” He pleaded, disturbed and desperate. He would abandon shame for answers.

She gripped the cup a little harder. Another minute passed, and Suguru was close to begin again, but she sighed slowly and shifted on the stool. Suguru braced for it, whatever it was.

“They thought I was unfit.” She began, forced detachment in the voice. “At first I was, for a long time. I was freshly nineteen when I had you, just too young…too unprepared and unstable.” She paused, frowning, looking down at the cup in her hands.

Suguru let the words wash over him. There was nothing else he could do.

“I was reckless with my life, reckless with my choices, and they thought I couldn’t handle a child.” She continued, straightening up and finding his eyes again. “They were right. I couldn’t. When I found out I was pregnant I almost -” She caught herself, her word dying in her throat, voice breaking. She breathed in, and Suguru tried to breathe with her. “Pregnancy was difficult. You were not -” She hesitated, decided against it, and reformulated. “Your birth was not kind to my body. That’s just how things were.”

I was unkind to her. Suguru stared with apologetic eyes, wide and honest, and waited for her to continue.

“They put me through all sorts of…treatments, afterwards, to figure out what was wrong with me.” She sniffed, face twisting into something disgusted. “I still don’t think something was wrong with me. The situation was just -” She shook her head, eyes growing unfocused, as if remembering and trying to forget. “It was less than perfect. I was scared and confused, and you were just -” Suguru’s left hand found his thigh and he pinched the skin very hard to keep his fingers from shaking. “You were just there, growing in me. You popped out of nowhere, and I couldn’t – I just couldn’t. I couldn’t handle you.”

Suguru’s heart dropped, sunk, shattered and ripped itself open on the pavement, in that hospital room where he was born, against the white floor and the white walls, tinting the pristine color with blood. His lips pressed into a line, holding something in. He could feel it burning everywhere.

Sugako shook her head again, voice drained. “I couldn’t handle anything, to be honest.” She added. It did not ease the feeling in Suguru’s stomach.

It got worse, turning into nausea, when she continued after a pause, newly found anger grabbing her voice. “Your father didn’t help the situation either. He didn’t stay in my life for more than a week after he learned I was pregnant.”

Too much. Too much. Suguru stared as she scoffed, dropping the information like it was gossip from the neighbor, like it did not make it all feel like there was a higher being testing the limits of what he could support. Terror endured, through years and punches. There wasn’t a day that went by where his silence didn’t kill. There wasn’t a reason for the pain in his hands but this. Always this. Never someone’s child, yet always a kid. Always quiet, always wordless, because a father was not his, and he was nobody’s son. Because he was never meant to be anyone’s, maybe.

Suguru welcomed it like a death threat, which it probably was. Singing and signing his execution, sending him over the edge of madness. 

He was unwanted, then. He was unasked for. He was an accident.

“Who was he?”

It was all he managed through the aftershock and the abandon in his heart.

“He was a man who believed everything and everyone belonged to him.” Sugako answered, spiteful around the edges. “I don’t know where he is now and I never want to know.”

She sounded final. Suguru’s eyes dropped to her hand, to the ring around her finger, to the cup between her palms, to the cup against his. The silence returned to him like a suffocating veil. He felt himself fall back into a hole, digging with his bare hands until the soil burned under his fingernails, until his knuckles turned blue, and violet and purple, shades he knew on someone else.

Satoru. Satoru.

An irrational fear grabbed Suguru’s wrists, pulling him in, down, up, twisting the bones until it hurt.

Satoru could never, ever know about any of this.

“You asked for an explanation. I am giving you the full picture.” Sugako recalled, her voice returning to a conversational tone.

Suguru nodded, eyes lost on his own hand, unfocused. “I know.” He acquiesced, speaking to the liquid in the cup, to the mother in the room, to the father god knows where.

There was a thread being sewn through his forehead. He felt compelled to continue. He felt this was his turn to word it, to lay the pathways of what they shared without ever knowing each other.

He took a sip of his tea, swallowed with difficulty, and breathed out. “I never expected this.” His words were still trapped under a cold panic. “I never – I never thought that we would meet.” He shook his head, still watching the cup, eyebrows knitted so close together it hurt. “I don’t know what to ask of you or what to say to you.”

He looked up, inhaling an unstable breath, and tapped the rim of the cup with his index. His left hand on his thigh found the fabric of his shorts, and he rolled the end of the strings between his fingers, tangling and untangling.

“Did you never wish to find me?” She asked, raising an eyebrow, voice devoid of judgment.

Suguru looked up at the words, finding her face in a rush. “Of course I did, especially when I was young.” He studied her, tried to stabilize himself, and realized she looked focused. It prompted him to continue. “But then I moved past it. I was loved enough not to crave it, not to wish you were here.” Suguru settled on the truth because he had never lied easily. “It took years, but I was taught a mother was not a necessity.”

She smiled a little at his words, amused. But there was something uncomfortable, too, in the way her lips curled. Suguru felt ridiculous.

“You sound like my father.” She explained simply.

Suguru’s finger stilled on the cup. “I was raised by him. That tends to leave a mark.” He affirmed, voice sounding sharper than he had wished.

She regarded him, unreadable, before nodding. “I guess you are right.”

“That doesn’t mean I forgot about you.” He added quickly in a rush, feeling like he should clear something up. He wanted to be kind. “I just made peace with the absence and tried my best not to miss someone I didn’t know.”

It was that simple, truly. It was about not torturing his own head, not putting his heart through the wringer over and over again. It didn’t always work. It often failed. But ultimately, Suguru lived without her, breathed without her, and survived still. It didn’t make the taste of abandon less persistent on his mouth. He guessed it would never leave. It was here to remain.

Sugako sighed and straightened up. “Look, I don’t want this to be a chore for either of us. I came here because I thought it was the right time.” She slid a hand through her long hair, making Suguru itch to do the same with his. He forced his hands to stay where they were.

After a beat and a peculiar look, she continued, like it was nothing. “I’m your only family left.”

But I’m not yours, am I? Suguru did not even know if she was his, if she had ever been, if she could ever be. He thought she could, maybe, with time. Suguru knew he would find a way to give her some space, somewhere in his heart, if she asked. She was already everywhere else, in his blood, in his features. She could learn to grow there too.

Do not let strangers into your house, Suguru. Do not let strangers into your heart.

Suguru ignored her remark, the loud warning in his head, and decided to keep his distance for now. He nodded towards her hand, deflecting.

“Are you married?” He inquired, feigning nonchalance and failing completely.

“I am.” She lifted her fingers from the cup to look at the ring. “It’s been ten years now.”

When I was sixteen, then.

“Are you happy?”

Sugako blinked, wondering, and Suguru let the silence stretch, let her ruminate and think. 

“I would say yes.” She nodded. “Yes, I am fairly happy.”

Her voice was not convincing him. He did not believe her. Her eyes looked too much like his, carrying that eternal sadness that never quite left. Something in their genes, maybe. Something in their DNA that they could never shake off, no matter the weather, no matter the day, no matter the hour. Something generational that she had passed down to him, along with the rest of her. A quiet despair branded with the Geto name like a stamp in cursed ink.

He did not nod at her words. He never nodded when someone lied.

“Do you have -” He started but his voice was lost. He cleared his throat. It hurt weirdly. “Do you have any children?”

He prayed to all the gods above, all the devils under, all the forces in the universe for the answer to be a simple and definitive no. The alternative would mean that he had been a burden to her but that someone else had been a gift. It meant he had someone, out there, that was a sibling to him, another grandkid to his grandparents. He wanted, selfishly, to keep them for himself, to not have to share their memories with anyone else.

His attention stayed glued to her, and he knew he looked petrified, a man waiting for a slap to the face or a merciful admission.

She sighed, shook her head, and Suguru felt a wave of relief overcoming him.

“I don’t.” She admitted, looked around, and seemed suddenly perplexed. “Well, except you.” She added after a pause.

Suguru took another sip of his tea. He felt a foreign warmth nestling under his cheeks at her words. He ignored it, taking another long sip to calm his nerves. He felt watched, observed. He gave Sugako a puzzled look above his cup before setting it back down on the counter. She studied him openly, taking in his face, seeing him for the first time. Suguru let her for a minute, indulging her. When the silence settled, it didn’t feel comfortable. He shifted on his stool, skittish under his mother’s eyes, and guessed this was what it felt like to be seen by your own blood.

Something passed over her face. Something contemplative and definitely baffled. Her mouth did something funny, lips moving from left to right like she was thinking, holding back her words.

“What?” Suguru asked quietly, face warm, sounding uncharacteristically childish.

She did not stop watching him.

“Nothing. You just -” She began, shaking her head in a dazed state as if she did not mean to do it. “You just look so much like me.” She pointed out faintly, voice taking on a tone that made Suguru divert his eyes with something that resembled shame.

He watched the tea in his cup, liquid gold from his favorite brand. It was too sour today. It tasted prophetic in a past-fearing way.

“They had never mentioned how much you did.”

He blinked very hard, trying to wet his dry eyeballs. Unsuccessful. The words were empty as much as they were full. He looked like her and she looked like him, and it was a mockery, a pitiful joke, an ironic twist of fate. He bit his tongue so hard it hurt, bled, and would leave a mark for days. He tried not to let the unrest fill his face.

Suguru watched the countertop; the pack of senbei crackers abandoned by Choso, a book he had begun to read but couldn’t get through, a pair of sunglasses that were Satoru’s. He stared at them, locking his attention on the near opaque lenses. You said my eyes probably hurt because of the sun so I bought these, Satoru had explained, placing them on his nose with a frown. They look fucking stupid but they work. It’s better than your blindfold idea.

They did look a little stupid. Satoru had worn them once and discarded them, placing them on Suguru’s head instead with a dissatisfied look. Suguru had laughed. He needed to give them back to him.

He breathed out, raising his head to look at a point above his mother’s shoulder, watching the magnets on the fridge behind her. Mother. His mother. It sounded strange in his head, stranger in his heart.

“How often did you see my grandparents?” Suguru asked, eyes drifting back to her face, only to find that she was still watching him peculiarly.

She paused to think. Her lips pressed into a line. “Not very often. Three times a year, maybe? Four times in a good year. It’s probably no secret to you that we did not get along.”

Suguru considered telling her that he had no clue but that would be half true. He had gathered soon enough that there was a lot of tension and history he was not privy to. A past that happened before him.

“They gave me updates on you sporadically. They were always elusive and never got into details.” She continued while turning the cup between her hands. She seemed amused, albeit a bit irritated for a second. “I don’t even know what you do for a living.”

Suguru dug his nails into the skin of his thigh to keep the uneasiness at bay. “I’m a professional boxer.” He offered, words heavy and deliberate.

She raised an eyebrow, surprise washing over her face. “By choice?” Her voice had the undertones of accusation. Suguru willingly chose to ignore it.

“Mostly. I tried college and it didn’t work out.” He shrugged. He suddenly wondered if there was a bruise somewhere that he forgot to hide.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Suguru tried to know what to say next. Small talk was a thing he usually navigated with a smile and a few nods of his head. It would not work this time.

“What do you do, then?” He pressed on, feeling guilty for reasons unknown. He counted his heartbeat with his finger tapping the cup.

“I’m a carpenter.” Sugako replied and leaned back on the stool, fingertips taping the countertop one after the other. Suguru’s eyes fluttered, drawn to the motion. Her nails were short and her fingers were long, like his, but they carried the physical signs of manual labor.

Suguru watched, entranced, and shook his head in silent puzzlement.

“I just don’t understand.” He thought out loud. Her tapping stopped and his eyes shot up to where her face was, focused and listening. He continued, facing a wall of his own doing. “I don’t get why they were so adamant that you should stay away.”

She seemed put together. She seemed to have a life, a stability, a partner. She seemed to be doing fine, presumably.

Yet, Suguru couldn’t tell why, couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, but there was something that tipped on the wrong side of the balance. Something sad in his stomach, something sadder in her eyes. Constant. Right there. Unreadable.

“They’ve always seen me as a liability.” She explained without care, shrugging. “Although I guess staying away during your formative years did turn into a mutual agreement at some point. It was best for you.”

It was best for you.

Suguru tried to believe it, and did, to some extent. He tried to bury the belief in his brain and move on with it. It stayed stuck, tangled somewhere in his hair.

“And now?” He asked, to her and to himself, to the empty air around.

She took a moment to answer, looking confused. “Now what?”

Suguru swallowed his tongue, the curses on them, the tart taste on his teeth, and breathed out. “Do you still want to stay away?”

There was a pause, shared, calculated. Suguru did not know where the entirety of his life was. Right in front of him, maybe. Or buried in a grave.

“Do you want me to stay away?”

Don’t let strangers into your home, Suguru.

“No.” Suguru replied definitively. It settled on his stomach. It did not make him feel sick. “No I don’t want you to.”

But she was not a stranger, was she? He had her eyes. He had her hair. She was drinking his tea, sitting in his kitchen, wearing his face.

The silence crept in. Suguru half expected her to disappear right there. She nodded slowly instead, an attentive expression growing on her face, and gave him a smile that made him feel incomprehensibly doomed.

She left ten minutes later, explaining she had to return home, and gave him her phone number on a piece of paper. Suguru stared at the writing between his fingers and told her goodbye through a fog. With that, she was gone. He stayed at the door for a moment too long, eyes glued to nothing and everything, still counting his heartbeat like it would save his sanity. There was a noise returning to his head, blasting a warning, an alarm calling without interruption. He breathed in, out, in again, and tried to push it out. The paper in his hand burned his fingertips.

He returned to the kitchen and grabbed the tea cups. Hers was completely full.

The next day passed like a grey cloud above his head. A Sunday with a fight that was supposed to be hard. Suguru won and forgot about it the second he stepped out of the ring. He watched Satoru rage on afterwards, punching a man until he drew blood. Suguru imagined what it must feel like to be hit this way, with Satoru’s entire fury, vengeful and terrifying. He was sure there was some comfort to be found in it. The final inhale before drowning.

Satoru let him mend his bruises that night without a word. He had fallen into a quietness that was rare but that happened when the sky was grey and the rain was heavy. It stuck to his skin and his mind. Suguru didn’t disturb him. He simply kissed his hands and held him close as they fell asleep. He did not mention the woman in his kitchen.

And he kept doing it. He kept her away from him, even when Suguru met her at cafés, exchanging words that were quiet, getting to know the one he shared a face with. Suguru did not mention her when Satoru was trying to touch him in the ring and failing to do so with an amused smile on his face. He did not mention her whenever he woke up to Satoru staring at him from under the covers, cerulean eyes attentive and wide like he was seeing him for the first time, which made Suguru turn sun-coloured from head to toe. He did not mention her when he bandaged Satoru’s hands in his own green boxing wraps because Satoru had insisted on trying them, covering the bruises delicately, careful not to wrap them too tight. He did not mention her when Satoru got out of bed in the middle of the night, headaches overcoming the rest, and sat in silence in the kitchen until morning came, until Suguru kissed his eyelids before returning to sleep. He did not mention her whenever his fingers held Satoru’s neck, pressing against the skin and making him sigh and abandon the rage.

When Satoru was pressed against his chest, when Satoru whispered and moaned his name, when Satoru kissed him and touched him where his heart was, making him breathe again, making him breathe no more, Suguru knew a part of him was lying.

But there was a lump in his throat, an iron clasp on his vocal chords, a terror at the small of his back, incomprehensible even to himself. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of her. He was six and he was ten and he was twelve, and he was back in a classroom full of people asking what his problem was, and Suguru did not know which wound to talk about so he talked about none of them.

He kept quiet, like he tended to. It was not easy. It was just how things had always been. It was just how he had always been.

Sugako was peculiar in the way she thought, in the words she spoke, in the questions she asked. She was blunt, too, when there was no reason to be. She took sugar in her coffee and never ordered tea. She wore her hair in a ponytail, never in a bun. She was often tired from her job, but she always made sure to honour her time with Suguru. She was never late, she was never early. She picked the same café every time, one with blue walls that Suguru found a little suffocating, but the cake was good and it was rarely crowded, so Suguru never complained. She spoke of her husband with a weird smile Suguru understood as caution, sometimes, or irritability. He couldn’t pick one. She rarely laughed but she was never mean. She had a dog with only one eye and always carried the same handbag with her. She spoke freely and listened carefully, with eyes the colour of wood, defiant and confused and baffling sometimes.

A week turned into two, and two weeks into three. The days turned less warm. He saw her almost every day, and with it Suguru understood slowly that there wasn’t much of him that resembled her inside.

But she wore mostly black, like Suguru did. She adored the sea, like Suguru did. She found it hard to keep friends, like Suguru did.

So Suguru held on to this, without meaning to, without trying to. He searched for the little things in her that echoed his own. The way she would sometimes drift off in the middle of a conversation, words escaping her and dying somewhere between them, just like his did. How she played with her ring, turning and turning and turning, when Suguru tangled and untangled the hem of his t-shirt between his fingers. How she spoke of the house with something like regret in her voice, tone low and tentative, where Suguru spoke of it with a grief that resembled sorrow. How she remembered her mother’s guidance, her father’s advice, the rage she had felt when faced with them, a rage she was learning to forget. Suguru spoke of his grandmother’s hands, of his grandfather’s eyes, of the way they gave and never took, of the way they had loved him eternally, but it had still been hard to breathe. Being loved isn’t the same as being understood, Suguru had told her once, and she had looked away without a word.

They rarely spoke of them. When Suguru did, he saw something shift in her features, something avoidant and far. So he deflected, changed subject, rerouted the discussion by forcing his silence away. For her. Suguru tried to be kind, always. He wanted to be. He wanted her to know that the blood she had birthed tried his best to be gentle in the face of adversity. She was his only family left, after all.

Still, she listened. Still, she showed up. Still, she built her way under his ribcage, and Suguru made space for her there, just like he had known he would. She smiled at him and it was enough. Suguru failed to remember that the smiles never quite reached her eyes.

A month passed. It was October now.

Suguru kept quiet. Satoru held him close and was growing tired now that the days were getting colder. Suguru stared at the ceiling every night until the clock struck three. He thought of eyes the same shade of his, and of eyes under white eyelashes, and tried not to cry when Satoru stirred in his sleep.

A stranger in his house. No more a stranger. She was in his heart now.

And yet. And yet. Through it all, Suguru couldn’t help but notice it. How she looked at him, sometimes, crazed eyes piercing his skin, like she was seeing something inside him, beyond him. Something that seemed to terrify her. Suguru barely had time to blink before the moment was gone, before her face settled back into normality. But the corner of her mouth seemed to twitch, and the muscles of her jaw were solid, holding something in. Suguru ignored it like he ignored the rest.

Not the time, the next time, not right now. You think too much; Satoru had told him once, right? Suguru knew it. Suguru could get lost in himself and hold hands with paranoia. He was allowed to wish for this. He was allowed to wish for a mother.

Satoru, eyes like rivers and knives, would look at him and know something was on his mind. He asked many times, with a voice tinted with subtle force, if Suguru was okay. Randomly, when Suguru was doing push ups or combing his hair. He loomed over his shoulder, watching him closely, letting his eyes take and take and take like they always did. Temperance and turbulence. He’d let his palm rest on the small of his back, on his spine and his hips, and ask again, Are you alright?

The words never reached Suguru’s lips. They hung between them like ragdolls without eyes, crawling with dust, tongue tied. Satoru never pushed, considerate even when his jaw was tight in the face of Suguru’s resolute silence.

There is so much to say. Suguru would stare at him when Satoru couldn’t see. Your hands are always kind but they are not enough.

He couldn’t understand it. The more he kept quiet, the more his mother buried herself under his skin, the more the words died against his teeth. The more she spoke of herself, the more he got to know her, the less easy it was for something to make sense. The explanation didn’t reach the surface. Suguru didn’t know how to make it matter, didn’t know how to look into the colour of a winter storm and talk about her in words that wouldn’t break. There was a hand suffocating him. Maybe shame, maybe terror, maybe none of it. He wanted to tell him. He would, eventually. Not now, not here, later, at some point. 

He wasn’t completely certain that Satoru’s fingers wouldn’t recoil at the mention of his mother. He had the strangest feeling anytime he tried to speak of her, to mention her name, that Satoru would grab his shoulders and shake him so hard it would hurt, punch him stupid until Suguru’s brain rearranged itself. He had the apprehension Satoru would implore him to run, to flee, to take it all with him and never look back at her.

There was a gloom in his stomach, always. There was a feeling in his throat, always. Satoru held him so gently, so kindly, forcing the rage away. It was not about him. It was something about her.

And so it started to break like this, first. With a quiet omission.

Suguru heard the doorbell ring and looked up from his book with a frown, watching the door suspiciously. He checked the time; 1pm. Satoru was working his Tuesday shift and Choso was at his job. He rose from the sofa, dragging his limbs as he made his way across the room, disturbed in his peace and a little broody. He pressed the intercom button with his whole fist and sighed.

“Yeah?”

Static, for a moment, and then a feminine voice he now knew by heart.

“It’s me.” Suguru blinked, frown deepening. The tone was blank. “Let me in, please.”

He took a second to process it. They hadn’t planned to see each other today. She had not been over to his place ever since the first time they had met. Suguru looked around, as if the answer to his confusion would be found on the carpet or the coffee table, and pressed the button to let Sugako in.

Two minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Suguru opened it too fast and paused, something coiling around in his stomach at the sight of her, like it always did, halfway between recognition and trepidation. She did not ask to get in. Her face was set into a strange neutrality that was making Suguru’s fingers tighten around the handle.

He was good at reading people. He knew when someone was pretending. Yet, as always with her, he ignored it with a brush of his mind, with a voice at the back of his head. You think too much.

He stepped aside, feigning ignorance, gesturing for her to follow. He purposely didn’t notice that it took her a moment to move forward, her face twisting slightly before doing so, as if she was debating staying out. Maybe she was.

He closed the door behind her with a sound that was too loud. It made his bones jump, made his head hurt. Suguru frowned at himself, wondering why his guts felt tangled, why his neck felt cold. It was weird to feel the fear of something that was bound to happen.

“Do you want something to drink?” He talked to the door, to himself, to the mother in the room, voice shaking with the inevitable. He didn’t even know. He didn’t even get it. He started heading to the kitchen without so much as glancing at her.

She didn’t answer. She stayed near the entrance door in the living room, shoes still on, purse held tight on her shoulder, eyes far and distant but too close all the same. Suguru stopped in his tracks like a man caught killing and turned around, attention running to reach her face. He felt a knife to his forehead. He felt a coldness on the back of his hands. He watched her watch him, so hauntingly quiet, something returning and running and returning to her face, looking at him like she saw the inside of his body, the colour of his blood, the pathway of his nervous system. Suguru blinked, and blinked again, but this time the moment didn’t pass. This time the crazed eyes remained. This time the terror under her features did not go away. 

“Is everything alright?” He asked shakingly, because someone had to, because he knew something would break, and it was better if he started it, wasn’t it?

They stood opposite each other on both sides of the room. Suguru did not dare to move. He stayed very still, fists clenched, shoulders tense, and waited for the blow to come. He knew it would. A part of him had known since the beginning, hadn’t it? A part that was somewhere between his ribs and his sternum, somewhere between the beginning and the end. Somewhere in that hospital room. Somewhere in his childhood bed.

Sugako breathed in, slow and painful, and let it out. “I’m sorry.” She finally deadpanned, voice rough around the edges, almost harsh.

There was a hand scarring the inside of Suguru’s throat. He was pretty sure that if he opened his mouth wide enough, something would come out. Something raw and real and wretched, blood-soaked and ugly. He could feel his face fall into itself, his teeth hurt, jaw tight and eyes growing distraught.

He waited. Waited. Waited again. He did not know what she was apologising for. He did not know if there was even something she was truly sorry about.

“I need time, Suguru.”

Time. It had taken her twenty six years. His name sounded like an accusation in her mouth. She rarely called him that. She rarely called him anything at all.

Suguru blinked around his terror and didn’t manage to inhale.

“What?” He choked out. It came out empty like the useless plea of a child.

She looked around the room as if searching for an exit. Suguru would chase her anyway. Suguru would make her explain. He would not let it end like this.

He abandoned the idea of breathing for a second but his head hurt. He reminded his body that he was still alive, that this was not death. This was not death. It felt like it was all the same.

“I need time.” She stuttered, as if she was unsure. “Away. I need time away.” She added after a pause that looked painful. Suguru almost winced. “I don’t think this was a good idea.”

Sugako looked disoriented, cast away from her own reason, eyes lost in a sort of bewildered haze that Suguru knew by heart. The eternal despair of the Geto’s gene. A stamp in cursed ink.

Suguru could feel it too. It grabbed his ear and pulled, it grabbed his wrist and twisted, it grabbed his throat and squeezed it. Everything a shade of black, everything a shade of grey. The lilac forsaken, the blue abandoned. Her anguish as much as his, shared and generational, growing from her fingers and grabbing his, growing from his arms and grabbing hers.

“What do you mean?” He whispered, muttering under his silence. He could feel his fists shaking from something deep within. “What –” He choked. Air was sparse. “What did I do?”

He felt a guilt, ancient and buried, come to the surface. It went back to the lemon tree in the backyard, to his grandmother speaking of madness, to his bedroom walls that had always seemed a little dull but comforting. It went back to a quiet child who cried silently, to scratched knees and mornings in a brightly lit kitchen, to his grandfather teaching him how to fix his bicycle. It went back to a life he had learned to appreciate without her. He had existed happily, despite. Despite. She was making him pay the price.

He could tell she was barely listening. The way her eyes wandered around the room, focusing on everything and nothing, finding no place to rest. She shifted her weight like every way she stood was uncomfortable. He didn’t know how to make it easier for either of them.

“I thought I could –” Sugako drifted off, monotone, ignoring his words by choice or by necessity. “I don’t know. I feel trapped.” Her voice was so far, like she was lost in a place Suguru couldn’t see. She probably was. “I cannot be what you want me to be.” Her eyes found a point above his head and stayed there for a second.

Suguru shook his head like it would make something make sense. It didn’t.

He breathed in a shaky breath. “I don’t want you to be anything. I never asked you to be anyone.” He rushed, words tumbling out of his mouth, louder than he wanted them to be, trying to get her to see him. “I just –” Panic, and the taste of iron in his mouth. Maybe he was rotting inside. “I just want you to be here.”

Pathetic. He tried to still his breathing, to make his lungs calm down. He felt cold. Suguru was never cold.

“I cannot be here.” She whispered the words to the wall. She sounded almost scared. She sounded small. Suguru was hit by the vision of her; she looked so young, suddenly. A child facing her child, birthing him through the pain, remembering the dread.

And Suguru thought this was all but fair.

“But you’re the one who came back. You’re the one who came looking for me.” He spoke with a shaky voice, with shakier fists. He felt something he rarely did; a rage, deep, cold, grasping at everything. He thought of white hair, the sea, and lilac fields, but Satoru could not save him this time.

“I never –” He heaved, blinking something back in, until he realised with a shock that his eyes were watering. “I never asked for this. I never asked for you!” He almost spat the words out.

He was not being kind. She was not either. Suguru hated the feeling on his tongue, the sharpness in his words, the harshness everywhere in the room. He hated when his voice was loud and unforgiving. He hated this. He hated this. He hated this.

Sugako shook her head mechanically, eyes still glossy, somewhere else. “I didn’t get children after you for a reason.” She was talking to herself, almost, or to something Suguru couldn’t see, but she was not talking to him.

She was standing miles away. In her own head, in her own pity.

“I don’t know how to do this. I never knew and I still don’t know.” She spoke to the air around them. It was like Suguru was not here, like she didn’t even realise he was fighting and choking and dying in front of her. “I just can’t.”

Something broke in Suguru’s pride, then. Something drowned in the teacup in the kitchen. Something died in the cracks on the floor. Something ripped in the fabric of his heart and in the skin of his palms.

“You’re my only family left.” He murmured it like it hurt. The tears of an abandoned thing. Broken and small. His voice cracked and there was nothing he could do to fight it.

He dug his nails into the skin of his hands until they drew blood.

The words seemed to reach Sugako, finally. She blinked him into focus, eyes returning to his face, and Suguru didn’t know if it was worse to finally be seen.

Her face fell, troubled. “I was never your family, Suguru.” She frowned. Suguru fought it back, fought back the saltwater in his eyes as she continued, shaking her head. “I could never be your family.”

He felt the distress grab him, madness entering his every sense. Surely he had heard wrong. She had been the one to tell him that. She had called herself his family first.

“So I’m not your family, then?” He wailed, faltering completely, gesturing aimlessly to himself in desolation. “Am I not yours?”

He opened his hand to his chest, pressing it against his heart as if it could help, as if trying to hold the pieces together. Preventing the shattering, delaying the heartbreak. He knew it was pointless. He counted his heartbeat through his t-shirt and couldn’t even keep up.  

“You stopped being mine a long time ago.” She tried to give him an apologetic smile but it looked like a grimace. Suguru’s face twisted under her words. “It’s too late. I can’t be a mother. I never learned to be, I never knew how to be. I simply can’t do this.”

It sounded simple in her mouth, with her words. She said it matter-of-factly, like it was not up for debate, like it was the most evident thing in the world. A truth she had accepted a long time ago. A truth Suguru was being a victim of. Unfair. Unjust. Uncalled for.

“I wanted to try but it’s just suffocating me. It’s too much.” She added as a final blow. A hand went to her face, pressing between her brows, before it dropped.

Suguru breathed under her words, around her avoidance, trying to escape the finality of it. He took a step forward. Reaching her, trying. Always trying.

“Then tell me how to make it not too much.” He heard the twist in his own tone, the rage replaced by something desperate now. Something desolate. “Tell me what to do, please.” Suguru begged. Suguru would beg the entire world for the answer to this.

She seemed to see him for the first time, then. Eyes focused. She shook her head and spoke with a calmness that terrorized him. “There’s nothing to be done.”

Suguru felt his eyes sting and his vision blur. He had been too slow to see, too slow to move. His love for her had been birthed on a rainy day and moved with the wind. He thought of the snails in the backyard of his childhood house, of the tears on his face when he found one crushed by someone’s shoes. He wondered if she, too, had cried at their death when she was once a child. She probably hadn’t.

“I can still try.” He bargained, he pleaded, he tried. He would always try. Kind, kind Suguru and his heart like the wildest thing, like the most gentle sun. “I can still fix this. I can fix it.” He nodded, quiet voice trembling, convincing himself. There was no bravery left. Only the ache of being known and the need of being held.

The silence settled and it was harsh, just like the rest.

“The way you –” Sugako spoke into an echo chamber, words so slow they were agonizing. “You look at me and it terrifies me.” She sounded small again, gone from the world. Absent from the space they both stood in.

Suguru silently mouthed what?, the sounds dying in his throat. He was incapable of finding his voice. Stumped and forced back into his hole, into the silence he knew by heart, tongue dry and throat strangled.

“Like you love me too much.” She whispered, fearful.

Then I’ll love you less. Suguru knew he couldn’t. Suguru knew his heart was too wide and his affection was too grand and he didn’t know how to live differently.

So he settled for something else, for an answer that made sense to him, and breathed out what he thought justified the size of his love and the beating of his heart.

“Because you’re my mother.”

He was crying now. His face was warm. The rest of him was cold.

“I can’t do this, Suguru.”

She spoke like it was final. A panic flared up in Suguru’s head, in his entire body, loud and alarmed and child-like. He moved across the room as she started to turn towards the door, grasping at the air, hands outreached towards her. He stopped suddenly when she took a step back, blinking at him with wide eyes. She looked disoriented and stupefied.

He let his arms drop to his sides heavily and felt shame overcome him. He bit the inside of his cheeks, fighting back the broken sounds at the back of his throat, and wept, struck with a grief that he knew all too well.

“Please just explain to me what’s wrong!” He half cried out, pitiful, eyes wide and full of tears. Kind, kind Suguru and his heart like the most fragile thing.

She shook her head in slow motion. Not here. Gone already.

“Please, mom.” There was nothing in his words but despair. The Geto’s type.

She watched him with a kind of silent horror that Suguru knew he would never forget. Maybe if he dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness for something he didn’t do, maybe if he pleaded and implored and bargained until his shins bled and his wrists hurt, maybe then she’d stay. Maybe then she’d hold him like a mother would, caring and soft and gentle like he was. Tender like he was. Kind like he was.

She had cursed him at birth and Suguru had no idea. Suguru would never know and yet he would always, always, feel it. That child is cursed. That child is cursed.

He heard the front door open. He blinked once in his silence. And with that, she was gone once more.

They all leave. Suguru was struck with the horrified knowledge of what the cycle of his life was. They all leave.

Time stopped and stretched after that. Choso came home and found him standing in the living room still, unmoving. He held his face, held his hands, held his shoulders to try and make him talk. Suguru could barely see him through the aftershock, dried tears stinging his cheeks. He understood he was being talked to. He tried to blink him into his vision but he was a fog, a blur that touched him, made him walk to the couch. Sitting down did not help. Static in his head. Static everywhere. His body like a flood.  

They all leave. They all leave.

He was being handed something. Dinner, he figured. He stared at the plate on the coffee table and lost track of it. Choso was still there. A hand on his shoulder, voice somewhere, close, here, far. Suguru watched his own hands on his lap, eyelids heavy and low, eyes dry and red. He felt a tiredness born out of shock. He was exhausted.

“What is it, Suguru? What happened?”

He couldn’t even begin to explain. What happened, Suguru? What happened, uh? He had no idea.

Do not let strangers into your heart, Suguru. They all leave.

“I want to sleep.” He mumbled to no one.

Choso led him to his room, holding both of his wrists. He helped him out of his clothes. He did not push to make him talk. He forced a glass of water into his hands and Suguru drank it slowly, fingers trembling. Choso brushed his hair softly and it made it slightly better. He stayed until Suguru fell asleep, dead to the world, dead to himself, silent tears wetting his pillow case.

Suguru did not check his phone that day. Nor the day after. Nor three days later, when Choso forced him out of bed again to get some food in his stomach. He drifted in and out of sleep, something uneasy and unrestful, something unkind. There was no dream, just a field of nothing in his head, and the pressure on his chest. The mattress was not comfortable. It stung his bones but Suguru slept through it like he slept through the rest. 

His phone, abandoned in the living room, was a desolate wasteland of panic. Messages and calls from a blue eyed man piled up, desperate and worried. They went unanswered. They went unnoticed.

Who did the violets belong to? Suguru thought of them in the quiet moment when his eyes opened and the bliss of ignorance remained for a second, barely awake, barely alive. Satoru. Oh, Satoru. Suguru thought of lilac only when he was conscious enough to remember how to breathe. A vague vision of pale fingers holding his, of a rage like love. Satoru was the first thing his mind conjured and the last thing that was soft. The moment passed. Dread returned, strong and vicious, grief and grief and grief.  

They all leave. The lilac fields would too, eventually. They would too.

On day four, there was a knock on the door. Insistent and strong. Relentless. Suguru was staring at the ceiling like a dead man. The knocks were distant. Far. Few. Were they even here? Were the knocks even real? They stopped for a minute before resuming. Suguru tried to blink them away but they stayed. They kept going. He had no idea what day it was. The knocks kept coming. They turned into something else. Bangs. Fists banging against the door of his apartment. Suguru stared at the ceiling, shapes of things he couldn’t understand watching him from above. If he laid very still, maybe the noises would stop. Maybe the noise wouldn’t reach him. Maybe he could be forgotten. Maybe he could be forgiven.

The sounds did not forget him. The banging on the door kept going and going and going, ferociously there, horribly loud. Raging on.

I know of you. Suguru felt his throat close in on itself. You are enraged too.

And Suguru knew, evidently, that Satoru was at the door. He could feel him from here. Loud, so loud.

He sat up slowly, pushing the covers with an ache so profound it made him feel nauseous. He looked down at himself. A large black t-shirt and an old pair of grey cotton shorts. Who had dressed him up? He vaguely remembered Choso’s diligent hands helping him. Where was Choso now? Who could help him through this, too? Through the winter storm waiting for him on his doorstep.

He moved through his room, dragging his feet, dragging his weight and hers. She was still on his shoulders. He passed his reflections in the mirror hanging in the corridor and almost laughed. His hair was loose and eyebags seemed to try and dig under the bones of his cheeks. Pitiful. An old abandoned thing.

As he walked closer to the door, the banging got louder. Still going. There was a voice, too, now. Satoru’s without mistake, words lost under his fists, under the weight of his anger, like they often were. Poor, poor Satoru. Suguru couldn’t make out a single syllable, just a flow of never ending sentences that sounded like a cry for help. Poor, poor Satoru. Is this what your rage turns into when I am not here to hold it?

Suguru’s stomach was tight. His chest was hollow. He could barely keep his eyes open.

He stopped in front of the door. He could see it rattling. He could feel the helpless vibrations of a voice like the first sign of a flood. Maybe if Satoru punched hard enough he would break through the wood. Maybe once the door would shatter, Satoru wouldn’t stop and his punches would land on Suguru, finally fulfilling what they had tried to do for months. Suguru wished they would. Suguru wished for the tender blow of something that was final.

“So loud.” He murmured while staring at the door. His voice was hoarse, strangled and dry. He hadn’t spoken a single word in four days.

The noises didn’t stop. Suguru was close enough to make out his own name through the pleas now. Suguru answer me Suguru are you alive Suguru open up Suguru are you here Suguru it’s me please please please.

He unlocked the door and the banging ceased. He watched the handle in a haze, grabbed it slowly, and opened the door with defiance.

Satoru’s eyes greeted him like a sleepless night, the idea of damnation, the wilderness of what it meant to live and to love and to lose all the same. Wide and frightened. Satoru was rarely scared. Satoru had always seemed to be brave. All rage, all teeth and barks, all punches that killed. Yet, the look on his face was one Suguru did not know how to touch and hold. It was something he had never had the misfortune to meet. Something that Satoru could not hide, probably. Chest heaving, face fearful. So exposed, so evident like the rest of him. Traits burdened with what it meant to feel defeated. And so, so loud.

Suguru wanted to throw up. He wanted to fall. He did not want Satoru to catch him.

“You’re so loud.” He whispered indistinctly.

Satoru’s arms were around him before he could even think of blinking. Strong and desperate. Right here. They wrapped around his back and his shoulders, forceful enough to make him feel almost dizzy at the contact. Almost too tight, almost too much. He was dragged into the embrace with a silent gasp, chest colliding with Satoru’s, making him shiver at the feeling like he thought he always would. His own arms hung uselessly at his sides. He didn’t hug back. He couldn’t gather the strength. Satoru’s face found his hair, burying itself into the mess and breathing him in shakily, a mad man tasting oxygen. He was shaking. Satoru was shaking.

Suguru closed his eyes under the feeling in his body. He closed his eyes against Satoru’s neck, against his skin like it would help it hurt less. It did, slightly. Satoru felt cold, like he always did, but he was here. Not for long. Not for long.

Suguru let himself be held by Satoru’s trembling hands obediently. A docile thing, a tired soul. He felt his eyes sting again and tried not to cry. Satoru was almost suffocating him. It was as if he tried to merge their bodies into one, to make sure Suguru was there, standing and alive, a breathing thing instead of a dead one.

Being held like this was kind in the way it was violent. Hopeless and hopeful and terrified to see.

And Suguru knew it was it, then. It hit him like some sort of clarity. This would be the last time. This would be the tender blow of something final.

“Fuck.” Satoru breathed out against his hair, voice unstable. He held him closer still. Suguru let him. He would allow Satoru to kill him if he asked.

He tried to draw air in but Satoru was holding everything hostage. His lungs were heavy, empty, drained. He stood lazily in Satoru’s arms, his body giving up slightly now that he was leaning against Satoru. His knees were weak and he was bone-tired. He grew compliant out of exhaustion.

“So, so loud.” Suguru repeated against Satoru’s neck, slurring his words. His brain felt incoherent.

“What?” Satoru mouthed against his forehead, pressing his lips there as if testing a fever. He pulled back a little, his grip around Satoru softening to give room for inspection. Suguru let himself be handled, pushed, drawn in, looked at. He could barely register anything else but Satoru’s arms around him.

“Suguru, look at me.” Satoru’s voice was strong, a little too strong. Suguru could sense the undertone of panic clinging to his every word. It reverberated through his entire body, wired, eternally, to the bassline of everything that Satoru was. He tried to blink him in but his eyes hurt.

“Where have you been? Where have you been? I tried to call a hundred times but you’re not picking up.” Satoru spoke too fast, words like bullets grazing Suguru’s cheeks. Suguru blinked again, staring at Satoru in a haze, bile in his stomach. “Where have you been? What the fuck happened?” Satoru worried, eyes frantic, fingers still shaking. All Suguru could make out was the blue of the ocean and the grey of winter.

One of Satoru’s hands left his back and found his jaw instead. Suguru felt himself fall, his weight not supported fully anymore, and made no move to catch himself.

He did not meet the ground. Satoru grabbed him, pulling his body up, shaking him to make him react. Suguru let his eyelids fall and wondered if there would be an end to this. He was exhausted.

“Hey. Hey!” Satoru’s panicked voice pried his eyes open, bringing him back to earth slightly. “Look at me.”

Suguru tried. He forced himself to focus, but the fog was so thick, the terror so loud. Satoru made no sense in his eyes.

“I can’t see you.” He quavered, whispering in the madness, words lost and quiet.

He felt Satoru’s arms tighten around him, pulling him close again. Satoru kissed his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. Suguru wanted it to mend, wanted it to be soft. It made him sick with dread instead.

“Suguru, talk to me.” Satoru bargained with fright. “Talk to me please.” He sounded terrified.

Because of me. Because of me. It was always because of him, wasn’t it? Like you love me too much.

“She left.” Suguru whispered to no one. He stared at Satoru but couldn’t see him clearly.

Satoru breathed out, in, confused, shaking. Suguru could feel his eyes everywhere, despite it all. Despite the fog, despite the haze. He would always feel him. He would always see him still.

“Who- What?” Satoru stammered. “Who left?”

Where to start, what to say. Suguru had kept her away from him for weeks. Now she was gone. There was no point in dragging it out.

“My mother.” Suguru murmured lethargically, barely audible. “She left.”

Satoru’s eyes on him were rapid, racing out the clock and making Suguru want to fall through the floor. “Okay. Okay.” He sounded confused. His right thumb pressed into Suguru’s ribs, trying to keep him upright. Suguru wished it would leave a bruise. “She was -” Satoru stopped, words barely out, and tried again. “She’s been gone for more than two decades, Suguru.”

Suguru shook his head slowly at Satoru’s words. He couldn’t get it. Suguru would spare him from it, from her, from the weight of it. She was gone anyway. There was no use in speaking her name now. Cursed ink. Cursed name.

Suguru tried to stand upright, forcing his legs to cooperate.

“Did something happen?” Satoru asked in a rush as he moved his hands slowly, trying to accommodate Suguru, maneuvering around his body.

Suguru frowned, getting annoyed with himself. He pushed a hand against Satoru’s chest to stabilize himself, to stand on his own. He tried to take a step back but gravity changed side. He missed a beat, missed his balance, and stumbled.

Satoru caught him again. Something in Suguru’s stomach told him he always would. It made him want to rip his throat open. “Shit. I got you.” Satoru sounded agitated. Suguru felt like his feet were stones. “You need to sit down.” The other man added, grabbing his waist to keep him upright.

Suguru pushed harder against his chest, his other hand finding one of Satoru’s wrists, pulling and pulling to get him to let go. There was a childish rage taking over him. Something that was rough, that stung in all the wrong places, so foreign and bizarre.

“I don’t want to sit.” Suguru argued. He sounded fractured. He tried to put distance between them, overcome with the need to stand on his own, to breathe on his own. “I don’t -” His breath hitched under the tiredness, against the hot anger in his cheeks. “I don’t want to sit.”

He tugged harder on Satoru’s wrist. The gesture alone made him heave. Too much. Too much.

Satoru’s shaking hands held him tighter, reluctant, trying to fight off the urge to remain. His eyes were so horrifyingly scared Suguru could feel them everywhere. The grey of the wind, the white of a storm.

“Okay.” Satoru let out a breath that crumbled. His voice was full of cracks. He let go, hands slipping away at an agonizingly slow cadence, still hovering.

Suguru looked down at his own body, staring at his knees and feet with a frightened anger, trying to make them yield to his will. He had not been up for so long in days. He took a step back, then another, unstable, faltering with every move. Satoru’s hands were back to grasp at the front of his t-shirt in seconds.

“Please just let me -” Suguru almost tripped and Satoru let out a broken sound. “Fuck.” He grabbed his wrist to stabilize him but Suguru pulled hard, making his own head spin, shattering the both of them. “Suguru please. You can barely stand.” Satoru was begging. Satoru was pleading.

Suguru could feel nothing but his own anger and his shame.

He breathed in too fast, nausea returning. He stepped back further, eyes moving and running, watching everything and nothing, forgetting Satoru for a moment. He was back to a childhood bedroom, to a mother like a rift in his skull, to the dents in the surface of his heart. A grave and a headstone that read his name and theirs. A family that ended when it started.

“They all leave.” He lamented, sounding crazed, sounding stunned. “They all leave.” He repeated again, and again, and again, a desperate whisper in the room, a desolate view in Satoru’s eyes.

The lilacs will leave too. Suguru stood very still and stared at Satoru without truly seeing him.

“Is this about - Is this about your grandparents?” Satoru asked tentatively.

It was. Amongst other things, it was. It always seemed to be about them when it came to his sorrows. Suguru did not have to answer. His face was proof enough.

Satoru took a step towards him, face turning into stupor. “Suguru, they died.” He offered with barely contained disquiet.

“They’re gone all the same.” Suguru whispered back in anguish.

The white-haired man was getting closer. Suguru could barely move.

“There won’t be anyone left soon.” He added. Satoru stopped in his tracks at that.

And so it started to break like this, too, with the fear of being left, with the knowledge of being cursed.

Suguru stayed very still. Something settled in his head, in his eyes, somehow. The silence stretched, which made it easier to breathe. Satoru had gone completely mute. It made Suguru see, finally. He blinked Satoru into focus, adjusting a lens in his vision, adjusting the tempo in his head, and the view was worse than death.

Satoru was staring, petrified, face twisted with the shock of realisation. Still tall, still loud. Still, forever, dreadfully beautiful. 

He spoke, voice raw but precise, like it was supposed to mean the world. It probably did. “No.”

Suguru shook his head. “Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No, Suguru, no.” Satoru affirmed, taking another step forward, wide eyes running wild. So beautiful. Poor, poor Satoru. “I won’t leave you.”

Suguru saw it, then, under the veil of everything else Satoru was feeling: the quiet rumble of his rage.

“You will.”  

Satoru would leave because Suguru loved him too much. It was that simple. It had always been. He had loved his mother too much, too. He was not allowed this. He had never been. His love was an extinguishing force.

“I won’t.” Satoru pressed on, disagreeing, disputing. His anger was right there, palpable if Suguru reached out and buried his hand in his hair. “I won’t.” He repeated with force.

Satoru stopped in front of him, not even an arm-length away. Having him in his orbit, this tangible, made Suguru’s shuddersome fear grow wider. It was a pull, a push, a tidal wave, always a wave, to have him this close. Satoru was the type of rain that made Suguru’s lungs sting with the wind, breathing a full inhale, ravaging and freeing. He could feel it drowning him from the inside out.

Satoru raised a hand, to touch, to feel.

“You will leave or you will die.” Suguru deadpanned like a dead man walking. Satoru’s hand stilled in the space between them. “They all do. One way or the other, they all do. You will too.”

Suguru’s eyes dropped to Satoru’s fingers. Bruised knuckles, violet sky. The last soft thing he could think of.

“I won’t.” Satoru supplicated. His hand near Suguru closed into a fist, retreating. “Please just talk to me.” He was begging again.

Suguru’s eyes shot back up, finding his face and the shock. And still, somewhere, the anger. Satoru was fighting it so well. It was commendable, remarkable. It made Suguru want to yell. He wanted the fury to reach them both, for once and for all.

Suguru frowned, shaking his head. “I don’t want to talk I don’t want to -” He breathed too fast. His words were out before he could weigh them on his tongue. “Always talking. You always want me to talk. I don’t want to talk to you I don’t want to speak I don’t - I don’t like it.” He sounded so panicked it didn’t even make sense. “I’m tired. I’m -” He was a crooked little thing, breathing with difficulty, and staring wide eyed into Satoru’s face. “I’m so tired, Satoru.”

Satoru’s face was nothing but hurt. He was trying to hold something in and it was pointless. Suguru could see it all, even through the maze of his own delusion. You are not good at pretending.

“Then we don’t talk.” Satoru conceded, voice like a false note. “We don’t talk and I just -” He breathed in and out and it sounded painful. He was shifting his weight so much it made Suguru’s head spin. “I can just be here, okay? We can just do whatever you want and we don’t have to talk. I’ll keep quiet. I’ll shut up. I’ll be good.” His voice was erratic, his face terrified.

Suguru wanted to tell him he was always good, that he had always been good to him, but the words couldn’t reach him. He had wished for Satoru’s rage and he got his despair instead. It was unfair to the both of them. His chest caved in deeper and his hands trembled with guilt.

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to keep quiet.”

Satoru looked distressed, just like he had, once, in a damp back alley. “Then what do you want, Suguru?”

It was almost too easy. Bones tired, body exhausted, knees so weak it was hard to stand. His back hurt. His head spun.

“I want to sleep.”

He spoke it like a whisper. It still sounded too loud in his head.

Satoru nodded, reaching out again mechanically before retracting his hand, opening and closing his fingers in a loop, like it hurt him not to touch.

“Okay. Okay.” Satoru started, nodding still. “Then we sleep, okay?” He tried to sound comforting. His panic was still too strong. “I’ll hold you and shut the fuck up I promise but please just -” He clenched his fist so hard Suguru could see his knuckles turn white. “I need to see you. I need to know you’re breathing.”

Suguru fought off his sickness. He was the one who made him look like this. Unkind. Unjust.

“You don’t have to do this. You will not hold me eternally.” Suguru could feel his spine shiver. Everything in his body screamed at him to just let Satoru close.

Satoru winced, his face twisting, his eyes blinking like it hurt, like he had heard wrong. He shook his head. “I will. I fucking will Suguru. Do you not believe in me?”

There was a pause. Suguru stayed quiet, biting the inside of his cheek until he could taste iron. Sadness reached his features, eyes growing distraught, mouth twisting. He wanted to apologise. Satoru’s hand fell heavily to his side. He almost stepped back, realisation dawning on him, shock colouring his face.

“You actually don’t.” He said in slow motion, defeated.

“You will leave.”

Suguru wanted to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. It would be useless now.

Satoru seemed to not even hear him. He shook his head slowly, something settling on his features. Something Suguru had rarely seen. It was the same expression he sometimes had after a fight, when the sky was grey, and the punches had been a lot. A grave wondering, sad and deep.

“You’re not making sense. I thought -” Satoru started, stopped, tried again. “I thought you got it. That I’m -” His voice was barely anything. It was so rare to hear him so quiet. “I’m trying to be -” He stuttered. He looked at a point beyond Suguru, blinking, rewiring. He breathed in loud. “I’ve always tried to show it to you. I’m trying to show it I’m trying – I tried to make you see.” It turned into despair, again, desperate. Blood rushed to his face. His cheeks turned red with it, with the heaviness, with the disarray.

A pause, an inhale, and Suguru wanted to cut his own head off and put an end to it all.

Satoru’s face kept twisting, wincing, and he frowned, eyes lost in some helpless fury. He settled on a reason, and Suguru drowned. “I let you touch me.”

A damp back alley, the first kiss, a locker room bench. Suguru stared and almost cried.

“I would let you do anything to me.” Satoru spoke it like it burned, like it cut open his lips and bled Suguru dry without giving either of them a choice. “I never – I never do that. It’s never been that.”

That. This and that and it was the problem, wasn’t it? That it had never been this. That it had never been Satoru, and it was all there was now, and once it would be gone there would never be anything else for Suguru. He thought about the implications, about Satoru’s admission. He thought about Satoru’s hands and what they could do. Rip open, punch, kill, strangle. He thought about Satoru putting a knife to his jugular and slashing his jaw while holding him open, kissing him breathless. He thought about violet fields picking him apart, tearing his skin to shreds. He would let it all happen, because it was Satoru, and anything Satoru did would be good, would have a reason, would make sense.

“I’d let you do anything to me too.” Suguru murmured back. It was the easiest thing to admit. His eyes were fixed on Satoru’s now, holding the blues, finding the horror acceptable.

“Right? Right?” Satoru nodded too fast, almost hysterical. He reached out once again, moving closer. “We just – we’re good. We’re good together, right?” Satoru almost panted, as if something was caught in his airway.

Suguru’s eyes fluttered at the words, his neck grew cold, he felt dizzy. Together. His knees buckled again and Satoru’s hands shot up fast, grabbing him desperately. Suguru did not fight him.

A hand found his waist, another wrapped around his back, and his legs almost gave out completely.

“Fuck, Suguru.” Satoru choked out. “I just need to – I need to be sure you’re breathing.” He blurted out, frantic eyes studying Suguru, close again.

Suguru watched him under heavy eyelashes. The nausea came in and out of him like an aftershock. He was too warm, he was too cold. “I don’t know what you mean.” He slurred his words, body useless, mind evading him.

“You went MIA for four days.” Satoru whispered to match his tone. “I thought you were dead.”

Suguru couldn’t conjure up anything about the last day alone, even less about the day before that.

“Close enough.”

All he could remember was being abandoned in his own apartment and waking up to the sound of banging on his door.

Satoru’s face twisted. He let his nose brush Suguru’s, watching him too close, always. Suguru closed his eyes and let it ripple over his skin. Satoru’s lips found his cheeks, his forehead, grazing his mouth just slightly. Satoru sighed like it was a relief. Suguru could feel his entire nervous system responding to it. A push, a pull. It was horrifying to feel so connected to someone else.

“Just let me help you.” Satoru pleaded, mouth finding his forehead again, resting there.

Suguru registered the touch and the words. They made him unbelievably sad.

“You can’t help me. This is not something for you to fix.” He explained, feeling Satoru’s shaky breath on his small forehead scar, soothing and excruciating all the same. “This has always been there because of her. She put it inside me and now I’m like this.” He said it like it was final, an accusation, his voice monotone, blank. He watched the skin of Satoru’s throat. “This cannot be fixed.”

You’ll see it and leave too. There was a hickey still healing. Suguru stared at the purple shape like it would make Satoru understand.

Satoru pressed another kiss to his forehead. He did not push for an explanation. His arm around Suguru dragged him closer still.

“Then just let me stay.” He asked simply.

Suguru did not answer. Satoru would leave anyway. He could ask to stay as much as he wanted, the ending would be the same. He would take on running and Suguru would have to watch.

Satoru pulled back, his hand on Suguru’s waist moving to cup his jaw. He fixed Suguru with a look, quick eyes moving on his face too fast, searching for something. Suguru could only watch him back, dizzy.

“Suguru, let me stay, please.”

This was an imploration. Satoru looked hopeless. Cracked, like the snails in the backyard. Suguru’s eyes watered at the sight, like they always did. He had been raised to help the broken things, and here he was, breaking one further. Crushing the shell under his own shoe.

Satoru looked lost. Suguru would let him have this.

“Don’t- Don’t ask me to talk.” Suguru asked in return.

Satoru seemed to register what it meant. He nodded, agitated, and stroked Suguru’s cheek with his thumb. It flooded Suguru everywhere within. “I won’t. I promise I won’t. I just need yo -” Satoru stumbled, caught himself, eyes flashing with fear. Suguru pretended it didn’t make him feel doomed. “I just need to know you’re okay. I’ve barely fucking slept.” He rectified and justified in a rush.

Crushing the shell under my shoe. It was a good image. Satoru couldn’t sleep because Suguru was gone, unconscious in his own bed, petrified with his slumber. He would let him have that, before the rest of it all.

“Okay.” Suguru conceded.

Satoru held his face close, watching him closer still, like the first time they had slept together. Like the first time they had seen each other. Like every time his eyes were on him.

He seemed surprised. His hand on Suguru’s back was fisting his t-shirt, tightly keeping Suguru’s body against his. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Suguru’s hands opened and closed at his sides, grabbing air. He battled to keep his eyes open. “Just no talking, please.” He reiterated, tired, dry, done.

“No talking.” Satoru agreed too fast, too real. Desperate just to be there. “Just me. Just you.” He breathed out and brushed his lips against Suguru’s again, tentative, as if to make sure he was alive. Suguru’s skin crawled with remorse and the knowledge of what would happen.

They moved to the kitchen after Suguru managed to regain a semblance of strength. Satoru forced food into his mouth, pleading with him to eat. Suguru indulged him, like he would the wish of a dying man. Anything he swallowed tasted rancid. He chugged water to keep it down, to cleanse his palate from the taste of dirt. Satoru stayed close, hands hovering in his personal space, eyes never leaving him. He watched out for any sign of faltering, for any warning that Suguru would fall from his stool. He did not. The food made him feel stronger despite it all.

They showered without a word. Satoru handled him, washing his hair with precaution, detangling the mess with care. Tell me if it hurts; Satoru had asked. Suguru almost wanted to tell him that everything did. He nodded in his quietness and watched the sea of bruises on Satoru’s naked body instead.

Satoru blow-dried his hair afterwards, running his fingers through the strands like he tried to touch Suguru’s heart. It made Suguru’s body grow docile, pliant, the white noise of the blow dryer killing the headache in his head. He sat very still, eyelids closing under his tiredness, and let Satoru mend him silently.

They brushed their teeth in silence. Suguru looked at the water running out of the tap instead of his reflection in the mirror.

Suguru slipped under the covers ungracefully, his body giving up the second it met the mattress, a sigh escaping him like something pained. His head on the pillow felt heavy, his eyes heavier still. Satoru joined him, grabbing his waist and pulling him close against him. Chest to chest, heart to heart. Satoru tucked Suguru’s face under his chin, holding the back of his head, fingers burying themselves into Suguru’s hair. Suguru couldn’t feel much, but a shiver ran along the edges of his spine, along the line of his legs, along the dents in his heart.

He breathed Satoru in slowly, fully, the tender blow of something final, before he was out like a light. Dead to the world.

He did not dream.

He awoke in a haze, lost somewhere halfway to consciousness. There was fog everywhere. He heard distant voices behind the wall, in the kitchen. His eyes closed again and he shifted, uncomfortable, waiting for his comatose sleep to return. The dizziness was still here, no matter how much he tried to rest. A minute passed. He could feel himself falling again.

“Suguru.” A quiet voice called. Suguru wondered if he was hallucinating. He probably was. He shifted again, facing the wall, and did not respond.

“I have to go, Suguru.” The voice continued. It was soft enough to make Suguru think his own conscience was speaking to him. Suguru hummed under the quiet words, rolling back around, drawn in by the sound.

He felt a hand slide in his hair like cold water. He sighed slowly at the feeling.

“I have a fight. I need to go get ready.” The calm voice added. Suguru saw visions of lilacs and the snow. “I talked to Choso, he made you some food. Please try to eat.”

Suguru nodded against his pillow, ready to accept anything the voice would say to him. He stifled back a yawn as the fingers left his hair to find his cheek, touching it gently. Suguru’s lips parted at the sensation.

“I’ll be back once I’m done with it.” The words were spoken like they were supposed to matter. Suguru’s eyes fluttered open with difficulty. “I promise I will be back, Suguru.” The soft voice added with more purpose this time.

Suguru could barely make out a shape in the dim lighting of his room. All he could see was blue and grey, blue and grey, like him. It was always Satoru.

“Win.” He whispered back, letting the silence and the sleep return to him, grabbing his limbs heavily.

The only thing he heard was a soft murmur before he was out again.

“I will.”

Satoru would lose that day for the first time in years. In the ring, beaten by a man he couldn’t remember. In front of Suguru’s door, then, when he knocked for hours and no one answered.

Suguru reached his grandparents’ house as evening unravelled. He stared at the facade long enough for his eyes to go dry with it. His bag on his shoulder was heavy with grief. He took an eternity or two to find the courage to unlock the door. This is where I have felt the saddest. Is this where I return to feel sadder still?

He stepped into the silence, an old sense of a long lost home enveloping him, and soon enough the dread returned. He dropped his bag and listened to the sound of nothing. He had forgotten how hauntingly quiet it was, now, with no one else but him. The house was frozen as it watched him return. It was like it feared him. Suguru believed he deserved it.

He tried not to let blue eyes haunt him as he moved through the place he knew by heart. He turned on the lights in the kitchen, pretending not to notice how the light bulb flickered like a thing forgotten for too long. He moved like a ghost in a place that was dead. He had died with it.

He tried not to let lilacs reach his mind as he unpacked and showered, as he got dressed in clothes he had left here, as he sat down at the kitchen table in a haze. Moving on autopilot. Body working mechanically. He blinked the house in but it would not let him back. He was not welcomed here. 

He tried not to let the thought of Satoru choke him to death as he went outside, stepping into the garden with an ache so profound it made his knees tremble and his lips shake. His eyes trailed on the flowers, on the freshly cut grass, on the trees that were starting to turn shades of orange and yellow. The old gardener had done a beautiful job. Suguru wanted to throw up.

He lied down on the grass. He stared up at the sky as the last remaining minutes of the day ran past him. Stars would show up slightly here, further away from the city lights. He waited, waited, for them to appear. They did. Suguru stared, and stared, and it came crashing down on him like an ocean.

He cried. Silently, first. The tears wet his temples, finishing their free fall into his hair on both sides of his head. Some found their way into his ears too. He counted the stars to find a distraction. It only made the tears sting more, doubling, dragging quiet sobs out of him. He couldn’t see the stars anymore, vision blurred by the water, head hurting with the waves.

And so it broke like this, with Suguru leaving first because he was tired of being left behind.

He sobbed as his brain came up with the same chant, over and over again. He would have left. He would have left you. It is better this way. They all leave. Now you are safe. No one can get to you. Now you are alone.

He cried, wept, whimpered like a broken thing, an animal with his leg trapped and bleeding. He tried to draw in a breath but the sky was empty. He couldn’t see it.

Do not let strangers into your heart, Suguru. They all leave.

Satoru couldn’t leave him if Suguru wasn’t there, waiting to be abandoned.

He let the night wash over him and fell asleep in the grass, eyes heavy, heartache raw. All alone.

Time passed.

Suguru moved around the house like a ghost dressed in his own clothes. He did not sleep well. His hair grew longer and the weather changed soon. The days got colder. He let the old man take care of the garden, still, but never spoke more than a word to him. He ate when he found it useful, or when his stomach didn’t feel like it had grown rocks and spikes.

October took on a turn, and November was harsh on his mind. Suguru never turned on his phone. The house was too big, the walls too silent. He got used to it, blending with the furniture, drowning in his own quietness. There was no one to speak to, no one to see, no words to usher.

Suguru tended to the lemon tree. He watched the kitchen knives from a distance. He did not once stop thinking of lilacs in the snow.

November left like a whisper, and December had the taste of fever. Suguru grew agitated, his slumber giving way to irritation on most days. Panic, on some. It spread everywhere, down every fibre of his being, through every cell of his body. He could barely sleep, could not stay still for a minute or two. His fists clenched, his jaw tight. His fingers aching for a fight.

He would not go back to the gym. So he did what he did best, after all, and ended up in made up rings, in desperate wastelands, in abandoned junkyards, fighting battles that were not his. Knocking down the worst of the worst, the best of the best. He let himself be punched too, sometimes, just to feel it. Just to have a reason.

Sometimes, when the fights were harsh, when the punches were raw, Suguru imagined white eyes and a rage in the ring opposite him. He conjured up a face like winter, sharp angles like anger. Furiously beautiful, dreadfully pretty. He hoped Satoru wouldn’t hate him for it.

He would go home and his body would hurt and it felt better than to feel nothing at all. His face bruised too. His nose bled sometimes. He passed out in his bed and could finally get some sleep.

December passed over him with bruised knuckles and fresh cuts. The cold got colder, the night got harsher. On the seventh day of the month, Suguru threw up in the sink. He thought of a cold body against his under white sheets and could barely breathe.

January, then, and Suguru woke up to a new year. Nothing had changed.

It was a Sunday night. He walked the streets of Tokyo with his jacket close to his body, hands buried in his pockets, fingers tapping a rhythm. A promoter whose name he had forgotten had told him the week before that today would be the day of all possibilities. The fights are gonna be fucking great, man. You need to get into the ring, they’re bringing up the best of the best for that night. Everyone is betting big money on this, you could get loaded if you can take on these guys, blah blah blah. Suguru had tuned out most of the conversation. He didn’t care about the money or anything else. He went to fight because he wanted to sleep, and it was the only way he could find to make it easy, the only thing he was good at.

He found the address he had been given. He looked up to grey brick walls and no windows. An old storage building at the edge of the city. The big industrial door was left ajar, inviting, glooming. Anyone that arrived here only got here for a reason. From the outside, it was unassuming. Suguru slipped through the crack and closed his fists tighter.

He could already hear the sound of the crowd as he walked in closer and closer, making his way further into the place. Concrete columns held the place up, going from the floor to the ceilings. The space was packed, people moving around as they pleased. Money was being handed, traded, counted. Suguru continued, not giving his attention to anyone, until he reached the thicker part of the crowd. He gave a quick glance to the ring: something like a cage, with high barbed fences like a prison. He shook his head at the theatrics of the place. The ring stood in the middle of three floors for more people to be able to judge the fights from up above. A circular stage of some sort. Brightly lit, tightly packed.

Suguru hated when the lighting was bright.

Suguru found the locker room. Something quickly arranged, with just a bench and a sink, with barely any privacy. In front of the door stood that one promoter whose name he couldn’t fucking remember. Suit and tie, looking stupid, hair gelled too flat on his balding head.

“Ah, the legend himself!” The man greeted, way too enthusiastically, and Suguru let himself be dragged into a manly embrace. He did not hide his discomfort. “Finally some good entertainment is about to happen!”

Suguru made his way into the locker room without glancing back at the man. He knew he would follow. The man was obnoxious like that. “Is it bare-knuckle boxing?” Suguru asked without much interest in anything else. His tone was distant and blank.

“Yeah yeah, but you’re allowed boxing wraps, that’s all. No gloves, no anything else.” The man clarified. Suguru dropped his bag on the bench and pulled out his green hand wraps. “You good with that?”

Suguru unzipped his jacket and shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“That’s my man!” He received a slap on his back, way too close, and tensed up at the feeling. His jaw worked itself into place. He just really needed a good sleep. “I heard we have some big competitors tonight so I hope you’ll pull through.”

Suguru didn’t worry much. The fights he lost, he did on purpose, because winning grew boring. Nobody ever stood on his level. Well, nobody except one.

He didn’t answer. He shrugged off his hoodie and his t-shirt, stuffing them in his bag with a swift motion. At his silence, the promoter clapped his hands together.

“Great stuff, great stuff. I’ll sign you up.”

Suguru turned to fix him with a look that he hoped conveyed his annoyance. “Yeah. You go do that.” He went back to taking off his clothes and was left alone.

He got ready, warming up, ignoring the coming and going in the room. The promoter came back to tell him he was up in ten minutes. Suguru nodded and stretched his leg thoroughly. When time came, he moved, mind already in the ring and everywhere else.

He pushed through the crowd as his fight was announced with something along the lines of Ladies and gentlemen, you better bet big now cause this should be the best battle of the night! Suguru opened and closed his fists, moving his fingers, feeling them under his wrapped hands. The crowd parted with his every step to let him through. Eyes on him, eyes everywhere, sounds of people cheering and roaring. Suguru tuned it out like he always did and reached the ring.

The speaker was still talking, announcing things, chatter Suguru did not care about. He just wanted to tire his body until he couldn’t walk and crash out.

Someone gestured for him to walk into the cage, opening the fence. He obediently followed. He let the light hit him hard and heard the crowd cheering him on. He watched his feet, shifted his weight, checked with his heart and his stomach. Finding his balance, old habits returning whenever he was in a ring, made up or not. He swayed his head lazily and waited as the crowd got louder.

Someone opened the fence on the other side of the cage. His opponent walked in.

Suguru was cursed from birth, wasn’t he?

The air left. The gravity changed side. The earth stopped spinning for a second. Suguru, like every time, like the first and the last, was made breathless by the sight.

White flashes and blue eyes like the colour of rage.

Chapter Text

When he was just a child standing on the verge of what it meant to feel enraged, Satoru cried a lot.

Burning tears were ravaging and made his eyes grow wide. His outbursts were violent on his body and his skin would turn red, crimson cheeks a shade that was almost concerning. His lungs hurt with every sob and every inhale.

There was not always a reason for it. Sometimes, Satoru would sit silently while watching cartoons, colouring, playing with the hem of his mother’s skirt, and suddenly it would hit him. It would start in his neck and spread, growing arms and a head and legs, until it was a fully developed thing standing tall in the centre of his little chest, stretching the space in his small body. Satoru would burst into tears without comprehending why. His mother held him close but the touch was never soothing enough. Satoru would struggle out of her embrace and cry some more as she tried to distract him from himself. It rarely worked. It never lasted more than a few minutes, and it left him exhausted, a little coughing thing after a wide storm, reaching once again for his mother’s arms.

When Satoru was misfortunate enough, the crisis would happen when his father was around to witness it. He would feel it climb up his tongue, and the tears would stream, bursting his mouth open with wild sobs. His father stared, disdainful, as his mother did her best to diffuse the ticking bomb. He never spoke a word, but his eyes were enough. Satoru would feel the guilt of something he did not understand.

As the years went by, the outbursts did not recede, they simply shifted, reshaping themselves. Satoru still felt it simmering in his stomach, before growing and reaching everything. It took more space, too, migrating around his body, travelling everywhere. The angry sobs were not a part of it anymore. His cheeks still turned red, and his chest still heaved, and his eyes still watered, but his hands turned into fists and his jaw locked into place. His eyes did not go wide. They went sharp, they went rough. Detestable.

On a quiet day of his twelfth year, he felt it once more. The same old story, the same monster with arms and legs, the same burning in his cheeks, the same water pooling under his eyelids. His father had told him to hold his tears, that crying was something only the weak or the rich could afford and that the Gojo men were none of that. Real men don’t cry, Satoru. He focused very hard, holding his shaking hands under the harsh storm-like eyes of his father. The tears had receded, small hiccups hiding under his lips. It had made his neck feel cold, like a sharp stinging at the back of it, a hand pulling his hair one by one. His father did not say another thing.

Satoru had not cried since.

He had learned to hold back his tears by force, by necessity. He grew used to the outburst and figured, with time, that anger was the source of it. Something buried deep in the very essence of who he was. Something that he could not unlearn or drive off, no matter how hard he focused, no matter how much he tried. Satoru always, always tried. The rage turned cold, like the rest, and it was okay for the most part. She lived alongside him and he came up with ways to hide her, to stifle her. But she was always there, pushing under his skin, taking up the space under the edges of his body. He contained her within, like he had bit back the tears on that day, so violently they had disappeared somewhere Satoru was not sure he could access.

He tried the same with the anger. It did not work, but at least the tears never, ever returned.

Satoru could not cry. He did not know how to anymore.

Looking at the empty space in his bed, a single ray of sun hitting the sheets, Satoru thought he could learn how to cry again. Maybe if he focused hard enough, he could reverse all the years of undoing, all the years of containing the flood. Maybe if he stared hard enough at the mattress, conjuring up visions of honey skin and kindness, his eyes would water and he could finally let it go. Let go of his father’s eyes and his own anger.

Satoru did not cry. He wanted to all the same. He thought of tenderness and amber like summertime and did not know how to kill the rage.

It had been a cold panic, at first. He had knocked on Suguru’s door for hours. His knuckles had welcomed new bruises, on top of the ones that were blooming on his face, and everywhere else, after having lost his fight. For the first time in years. Satoru had exited the ring too fast, without care, a loss was a loss and it did not matter, not when Suguru was barely walking, barely conscious, barely there. Eyes and face the shade of fright and abandon over something Satoru could not comprehend.

Choso had shown up in the evening, bewildered in the face of Satoru’s unbridled terror and terrified eyes, and had let him in. They searched the place in tandem and came back empty handed. The air was suffocating. Suguru was gone.

Choso came out of Suguru’s room looking pensive and too composed. It made Satoru want to punch him.

“Most of his clothes are gone.” The dark haired man said, frowning.

Satoru gripped the phone in his hands like a maniac. “I tried calling him but he’s not picking up.” He breathed out with fury and repeated his words. “He’s not picking up.”

Satoru held his breath like it would make the ringing in his head disappear. It didn’t.

“He went back to the house.” Choso said after a pause, watching the empty space with an enigmatic expression. Like it made sense and none at the same time. Like he knew something Satoru didn’t.

Satoru had no clue what he was talking about. It made him senseless. It made the room spin and his stomach turn with it.

“What house?”

“His grandparents’.” Choso looked at him with a questioning stare, still weighing the veracity of his own theory. “It’s still to his name and I don’t see where else he’d go.”

Satoru breathed in hard and loud, staring wide eyed, desperate for anything to make sense. Nothing did.

“Where is it?” He choked out. Choso watched him behind distant eyes and stayed quiet. Satoru could feel all the remaining patience leave him. “Choso where is the fucking house?” He spat out, more out of despair than rage, but he sounded the same.

Choso shook his head and closed his eyes for a second before opening them again. “I don’t know.” He sounded too composed, but there was the undertone of something sad, something apologetic. Something desolate, too. “He never told me. I have no clue. ” Choso stammered. He looked at the wall and shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

Satoru felt the panic grow wider, deeper, reaching his eyes and all the rest of him. He shook his head too and started pacing, mad with it, with the reality of it all. This cannot be the end.

“There must be a way to know there must be a way to- to find him.” He spoke it too fast, too crazed, too fearful. “There has to be a way.”

Satoru searched his hands, his feet, his stomach for an answer. He looked around the space, confused and delirious, but could only see the emptiness of what it meant to have been held.

“Gojo.” Choso said after the silence stretched. Satoru stopped his pacing and watched him. The other man looked sad, for the first time ever, and Satoru wanted to throw up.

“I don’t think he wants to be found.” Choso explained, and Satoru lost it.

“I don’t give a single fuck what you think!” He protested with a voice that could shake the heavens and the earth. Choso did not budge, did not move, and knew, through it all, that these were the words of a man in pain. “I need to find him. I need to -”

Choso shook his head and cut him short. “What you need is to give him time. Something obviously happened that he is not talking about, but neither you nor I can force it out of him.” He frowned again like there was something he was trying to figure out. Satoru’s neck hurt, sharp, cold needles through his skin. “He needs time, so allow him this. Allow him the dignity of his choice.”

Satoru stood facing Choso, facing the apartment, facing the absence of a man he knew he loved, and died with it.

“I don’t fucking have time.” He snarled, making little sense, not knowing the meaning of his own words, and left the place without looking back.

Satoru looked for him everywhere.

He looked for him at the gym, waiting during every training session for Suguru to walk in, to step into the ring and hit him with a sorry, I just needed a breather. Everything would be forgiven with just that. Everything would be forgiven with less. He held hope with both hands anytime the door opened, anytime someone was in his orbit, any time someone addressed him. His sessions were long, dragging on, useless in the way they drained him, tiring his body with hours and hours of boxing without aim, just to make the night last, just to see the sun back. He never did.

He looked for him at the restaurant too, head shooting up with every customer that walked in, eyes scanning the room, body on autopilot and mind on high alert. Suguru knew his schedule by heart. He knew when Satoru worked, when Satoru didn’t, when Satoru was home, when Satoru was here. Suguru could find him if he wanted to. And so he hoped, he waited, he watched out for a sign of kind eyes and a smile that was honest. He never saw any of it.

He looked for him in the city, then. Every street was an opportunity, every corner a place where Suguru could be. Sometimes, Satoru’s breath would catch and his heart would drop at the sight of raven hair in a crowd, but it never turned the right shade of brown when hit by sunlight. He would almost reach out before the moment passed, before the person turned around, before the words died on his tongue and the taste of panic returned. It was never the face he was looking for.

He looked for him at his apartment. Every evening, without fail, for the entire month of October, Satoru turned up on Suguru’s doorstep and knocked with terror on his mind. Every evening, without fail, Choso opened the door and offered him a regretful look. Every evening, without fail, Satoru returned home and couldn’t sleep. The migraines never left him, the headaches knocked on his skull and hugged him with intent. Satoru watched the ceiling and the empty space next to him, he watched his hands in the dark shaped like panic and heartache, and let the silence make him sick.

He looked for the house, too, somehow, in his own head. He looked for it with a relentless determination that smelled of despair. He tried to recall every conversation he ever had with Suguru, every word that had ever been spoken about his grandparents, so far and few and quiet Satoru could barely align them in an order that made sense. He had spoken of his home in passing, something about a lemon tree, something about a garden and walls of a childhood room a dull green colour. Satoru looked for more, deeper in his mind, retracing the path of a silent voice. But there was nothing else to know, nothing else to remember. Suguru had never dwelled on it. And Satoru, aware of the grief and the pain of what it meant to mourn, had never pushed to know more.

The calls went unanswered. The messages remained unread. The voicemail drowned under Satoru’s pleading voice, the cry for help of a man who didn’t know the beginning from the end. Everything was tangled, trapped and twisted under his shoes, everything a shade of something Satoru couldn’t recognize, everything the shape of something Satoru couldn’t touch. Skinless and raw, scabs Satoru kept scratching, an open wound that would never close because Satoru had always bruised easily and healed hard.

He stared at the wall, down the barrel of a gun he held between palms that didn’t exist. If I pull the trigger now, would you feel it? Would you notice? Satoru stayed still and watched his hands like they held the hidden message of the end of the world. They didn’t. They never would.

The panic was rough, and horrid and nauseous for the first month. To love and to lose. To love and lose. What was there to look at but the empty space and the first kiss, the pleas and the horrors? There was a feeling that made him tremble, that made his shoulders sag and his chest sting; the sun, and something that tasted like lost tenderness, soft sheets on a bed that didn’t feel like his anymore. He dragged his knuckles alongside the mattress. You were mine, right? You were mine when nothing else was. The white t-shirts were stained in red, the blood soaked hand-wraps carried the burn and the burden of fights like purgatories. He tried to wash them in the sink. The crimson wouldn’t go away. All harsh. All real. All gone.

There was a dent in his chest, and it kept sinking, deeper, larger, wider until Satoru swore he could reach down in his own lungs and grab his heart. He wasn’t sure what the thing he would pull out looked like. He wasn’t sure it wouldn’t be a stinging thing with claws and teeth. Satoru believed this was what people called heartbreak. Nothing made much sense, the feeling of the waves wasn’t ever good enough. Satoru woke up and thought of Suguru in the small cracks in time, when awareness evaded him after a sleep that was troubled and unkind. Satoru thought of his face in all the in-betweens, too. When he breathed and it hurt and he ate and it tasted like dirt. His tea was wrong, too sweet and not sweet enough, too warm and not warm enough. Never warm enough.

And through it all, still, Satoru didn’t understand half of it. There was no explanation for the absence, no reasoning that made sense, no proof of what this all meant. Maybe if Suguru had explained it, Satoru could have mended it. He knew his hands were bruised, and something unkind, and always a little cold. But for Suguru he would have tried. For Suguru he would have stilled his fingers, warmed them on the skin of a face like summertime, and tried not to make him bleed.

Suguru’s words kept ringing in his ears. You will leave or you will die. Satoru didn’t know about dying, and did not care for the feeling of a grave. But he knew, in the petrichor of his heart, that he never would have left. Maybe he had loved Suguru wrong despite it all. Maybe he had loved Suguru too harshly, too desperate, too enraged even when he tried not to be. Satoru looked for a reason and a path that wasn’t blinded by his own delusion, by the sound of his own deafening heartbeat. Surely, he must have loved right, too. At least a little. At least a little.

Didn’t you believe in me?

Satoru waited, and waited, and the nights grew sharper, and the days grew smaller. There was nothing to believe in. Satoru knew he was claws and rage and closed fists, that he was anger and a fury that made the gods grow shy. Too close, too large, too raw; too honest in a way that hurt, too real in a way that troubled the souls, rumbled the minds. He was never a common ground, he was rarely an agreement. He spoke too broad, he held on too much. On his worst days, Satoru would feel sorry for being like this and apologize to anyone who cared, to his father, to himself, to the rest of the world. But with Suguru it was always okay. It always seemed okay. Suguru was safe. Suguru was warm. Suguru was gone.

What was there to do but hope for Suguru to come home to a place that had never been his?

Satoru prayed to a god he didn’t believe in and begged for the tears to come. The rain was gone. The rain was quiet. The rain was so close, sometimes, but never here, never behind his eyelids, where he needed it most. It was in his belly, and his chest and his wrists, but never where it mattered. Never in the blue of the storm, never in the white of the sand. Never in the crease under his eyelashes. Never in the centre of his heart.

There was a thundering sound, a pitiful story Satoru knew he could tell when people asked him how he was. Satoru did not want to say anything. He did not want to say it when Shoko watched him carefully with concern over the counter, when Yuki held his shoulders and asked How are you today?, when Nanami looked on the verge of speaking whenever Satoru hit the pads too hard in the ring. They all knew, somehow. Satoru knew that they all knew, even Yuji who offered him sweet treats before their sparring sessions, Nobara who did her best at praising his fighting and his teaching, or Megumi who never once asked where Suguru was. He did not want to speak of black hair and amber eyes and have to lie down for the entire world to pick him apart and see the inside of his brain. He did not want to dig up Suguru only to have to bury him again. He did not want to move on. Satoru knew the rest of the world would have. But not him. Not him.

He wanted to keep seeing it, to keep feeling it. He saw Suguru in the wind, in the tenderness of what it meant to be alive, in the roughness of what it was to stand and to walk and to yield. Satoru saw him in the remaining touch of the day when the evening turned alive, in the kind first rays when the night turned dead. He saw Suguru in the hardships in the ring, in the skyline near the harbour. When he looked at the ocean and the sunlight spoke back, everlasting and calm, right there, brushing his skin like it was all the same. It was not the same. Suguru was not here. Suguru did not speak back. Satoru was tired and unbalanced, unable to know, unable to see.

Satoru would watch the sun, on some days, but it was never enough. He was always cold. He was always sharp. He was always alone.

There was a guilt, too, that Satoru could only stare at. It went back to the first time, to the ring, to the first fight. It went back to passing out in Suguru’s arms, to a rage so raw it had made him lose so much. Satoru had spent days feeling the resentment and the irritation, standing miles away from Suguru and his tenderness, because he did not understand what it meant to let someone close without putting up a fight. Because he did not want to let Suguru win. He had offered him his vexation and his fury when Nanami had sat them down in his office and all Satoru could feel was his own wrath. Useless. Senseless. A waste of space, of time, of this. He regretted it, because it was the only thing he could do, because guilt was easy when compared to the rest. He had spent so long drowning under his anger for Suguru, so long being held hostage by detestable hands, so long standing too far with closed fists and a glare, baring his teeth and turning his back to the one thing that was kind.

November came like a punch to his liver. It dragged him on the floor, twisting his legs like a wretched and furious thing. Satoru was left breathless, running the distance, and unable to hit back.

He asked, one day, because he couldn’t bear it anymore. Because his mind needed to be sure, and Suguru’s name ran in circles in his skull like a cursed chant he could never tune out. He tucked his pride under his chin, locked it in the back of his heels, and asked. He asked Nanami with a bone-chilling voice, asked where Suguru was, and the name on his tongue was like a burn. He asked if he had heard of him. The other man looked almost like he pitied him. Satoru didn’t care what he looked like anymore, how he sounded, how his desperation was printed on his face like the evidence of what Suguru had meant to him. Nanami said he didn’t know, that nobody knew anything, and Satoru wondered what it would feel like to peel the skin off his face and kill him.

He went home. The Sun died on the way to his place.

Satoru stopped looking for a reason. Satoru stopped looking for him.

Time passed.

November moved past him.

Soon enough, the weather changed. The cold came back, biting and bitter. The days were shorter with every passing week. The sky was low above Satoru’s head. Grey and menacing. It made his jaw tighter, it made his fists clench harder. It made the sadness die. It made the despair grow quiet.

It made the rage kill all the rest.

People rarely found the courage to hold anything that had claws, right?

Satoru woke up with a headache and ignored it every day. Satoru drank his tea without sugar and it tasted tart and he did not care. As winter settled with spite, Satoru couldn’t believe he had ever felt warm. He attempted to open the kitchen shutters in the morning, trying, always, still, to chase some sun, but they wouldn’t budge. Satoru gave up. 

December felt like a kill order. It was the same every year. Satoru hated winter. But this one had the taste of an execution. The bruises turned shades he didn’t know how to erase.

On most nights, when he fell into a sleep that was everything but restful, Satoru dreamed of hands reaching and pulling and touching, of the back of his head tingling, burning him. He dreamed of sun beams, of the sky, abstract and honey and something so deep he almost felt he would throw up. He could still feel the light, kind eyes watching him, fingers at the base of his skull. There was blood, too. He was certain of it. He touched his nape, touched his neck, and his palms came back red. He woke up in a cold sweat, shivering under the covers, ragged exhales leaving his lungs like the last breaths of a dying thing. He stared at the ceiling until it passed, until his breathing evened out and the panic subdued. He never fell back to sleep. And his rage was so loud. And he was done with it.

The first few days of December were too sharp. Satoru moved through them while awaiting his death sentence.

It came on the seventh day, with a knock on his door, and a smiling Shoko wishing him a happy birthday.

Satoru noticed the brown paper bag in her hand. He shot her a look, halfway through tiredness and annoyance. “If you brought me a cake I’ll actually murder you.” He deadpanned as he let her in, already feeling a headache nursing under his eyelids.

She rolled her eyes as she took off her shoes. “Don’t be dramatic.” She made her way to the kitchen, a suspicious Satoru trailing behind her. She set the bag down on the table and turned to look at him with a knowing look. “I brought you kikufuku.”

Satoru paused at the name of his favourite sweets, his stomach growling at the idea of having to ingest anything, but his dizziness clearly signalling that the sugar high would be more than welcomed. He watched Shoko behind heavy eyelids and sat down at the table with a sigh. He tried desperately to blink his migraine away and rubbed his knuckles between his brows, closing his eyes.

“Thank you.” He answered a little late as Shoko moved through his space. He heard the water run. “I haven’t had them in a while.” He opened his eyes and looked at the paper bag distantly. “That’s actually very nice.” He mumbled in his exhaustion, sagging on the chair.

“Don’t mention it.” Shoko shot back, returning to the table with two empty cups and the kettle. She sat down across from him and held up two bags of tea for Satoru to see. It took him a second to register that she was asking him to pick one.

“Just sencha.” He chose, nodding towards the green tea bag in her right hand. “I’m tired of jasmine tea.” He frowned, a bitter taste already on his tongue for reasons he didn’t try to understand.

She hummed in answer, not questioning it, and poured the hot water in one cup. Satoru watched the stream, eyes following the water, and fought something back. His eyes stung with it. His body was drained, muscles strained, shoulders tense.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

Shoko’s voice pulled him out of himself, back to the table, down to earth. His eyes shot up to find her already looking at him, attentive brown eyes fixed on him, studying his face and the tiredness on it. Hard-earned concern, contained worry settling in her features. Satoru’s jaw locked into place in spite of himself.

“Last night.” He answered blankly.

She ripped open the tea bag and placed it in his cup. Graveness wavered behind her eyes before she resumed.

“When’s the last time you slept well?” She corrected, emphasizing her words. Satoru almost laughed at that.

He shrugged. The movement alone made his chest hurt. “Can’t remember.” He scoffed, eyes returning to the tea cups on the table, suddenly drawn to anything that wasn’t a pair of eyes watching him. He didn’t like being seen. He didn’t like feeling observed. Too him.

Shoko did not push. She knew him enough to sense it wouldn’t lead anywhere, that the distance was a sign of hidden anger, that the sharpness in his voice was a warning of weariness. Everything was being endured, nothing was chosen. She had known him back then, too, when Satoru still knew how to cry. When Satoru still knew how to let the rain find him. She had known him through it all. She knew him inside out.

She poured water in her own cup and stayed quiet. Satoru was thankful for it.

He grabbed his own tea cup, letting his palms rest on both sides, trying to warm his hands in the process. He had woken up particularly cold today. He figured out it had to do with the fact he had slept three hours. The ungodly number of layers he was wearing were not enough to make it feel bearable. He shifted where he sat, uncomfortable in his own skin, and brought both of his knees against his chest, feet on his chair, sitting like a child waiting for reprimand. It felt better when he was close to himself, close to the centre of it, when he made his body smaller and curled into a ball to cut the distance the heat had to travel. He hugged his knees with one arm while slowly bringing the rim of the cup to his lips with his free hand, testing the waters. He swallowed. It tasted surprisingly nice.

He raised his head to look at Shoko, slightly stunned. “It’s good.” He remarked quietly, sounding a little desperate, as if this was the best thing he had tried in a while.

She sighed at the words, watching him still, shaking her head slowly as she drank her tea, mirroring him. Satoru took another sip and closed his eyes under the feeling. He followed the warmth with his mind, felt it fall down his airway, travelling the path of his body, settling in his belly. He hummed silently and let his cheek rest on his knees, breathing slow, calming what he could. It was always easier when Shoko was here.

He heard some movements, the ruffling of paper, the thud of something being placed on the table. He was too tired to move and see.

“Try one.” Shoko ordered with an encouraging tone.

Satoru reluctantly opened his eyes and raised his head, achingly, fighting off the fog and the dizziness. Between her fingers, in a white wrapping already opened for him, was a white mochi. Satoru knew the filling was green, made of zunda and cream. His favourite.

He grabbed it with care and heard his stomach protest at the idea. He ignored it and bit into it, instantly welcoming the sweetness, content finding him.

“It’s perfect.” He mumbled, mouth full, earning a grimace from Shoko. He swallowed with half a grin, whipping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Thank you, Shoks.”

She shot him another glare and dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

“Stop thanking me.” She warned playfully, biting into a kikufuku and making a face of disgust at it. “God. That’s still horrible.” She had never liked anything sweet. Satoru rolled her eyes and gestured for her to hand it over, which she did. He swallowed the remaining bite with newly found eagerness.

“And don’t call me Shoks. I hate it.” Shoko complained without much spite, pushing the box of mochi away from her and towards Satoru.

Satoru took another sip of his tea, cleansing his palate. The nickname dated back to when they were children. It returned, sometimes, finding its way back to the surface, to the tip of Satoru’s tongue, like a remnant of something precious and never quite buried. He never thought about it, really. It just happened, living under his bloodstream, in the core of who he was, the same way Shoko did. The core of me.

“You called me that when I still had that stupid bob.” Shoko winced and accused, faking a shiver of disgust.

Satoru breathed in slowly and tilted his head, amused by her rare display of theatrics. “And I’m the dramatic one?”

“Takes one to know one.” Shoko shrugged, something ironic tugging at her face.

Satoru watched her above his cup with knowing eyes, battling the headache. “We’re a match made in heaven, then.”

Shoko considered him, holding her grin back for a second before letting it reach her mouth. “Or in hell, most likely.” She offered lightly. Satoru let it grab his wrists and smiled back tiredly. It was always easy with her.

It was nice to experience respite, even for a short moment. The break in the fight, the minute before the second round. He let himself feel it. It was a rare event, lately, for him to be aware of anything else but his exhaustion and his rage. He wasn’t even completely sure he was still able to know something different on most days. His head was heavy with it, heavy from it, under it, around it. Everywhere.

Satoru, on most nights, sat in his kitchen when the dead of night got so thick it suffocated him. He let the streetlights hit his face, but they never washed him clean like they once had. They were too bright, too close, too far. They made his temples feel like death traps. They made his hands sore, knuckles cutting and freezing cold, cold, always cold. The winter had grown bleak and the nights were cruel like a vengeance. The kitchen felt gigantic with the lack of kindness. The weight and the wait. It felt stained by the absence of lips on his eyelids, chasing the headache away, mending something that hurt, Is it better now, Satoru?

Rage and rage and the terror of holding on, holding it in, letting it go. He wasn’t sure he could let go. He wasn’t sure he was any good at it. He did not know what steps to take, what steps to avoid, what to do to make up for something that had saved his life, that had held him with soft words and a hug. How to let go of what had once killed his rage? There was a feeling and there was a way, surely, out of this. There was a way to make the noise turn dead and the sea grow calm. How to fill the space and forget about it? 

Satoru had never held on to something with both hands, clawing at it, planting his feet in the dirt and the sand, like he had with Suguru. Satoru had never crushed and hated and kissed, he had never sighed and rushed and touched like he had with him. There were no parting ways, no turning away with a frown and a dismissing stare, like he always did, like he always had. There was no shrugging and chasing it. No matter how much spite he put into it. No matter how much rage he conjured, fury like a beaten beast in the skin of his shins, in the lines of his eyes, in the bleeding palms of his hands. No matter how much he hated. No matter how much he loved. There was no forgetting this like he forgot everything else.

Satoru had once wished, foolishly, to remember all of it. Amber waves and mellow skin like the first signs of summer. He wanted nothing more, now, than to forget it all.

“Satoru?”

A voice called him. He blinked. He tried to register where his hands were. Somewhere. Somewhere. He blinked again, clenching and unclenching his fingers around something. He looked down. A warm cup, on the table, his hand gripping it. He was drinking his tea. He frowned and looked back up to see Shoko watching him from a distance, eyebrows a little too close together, something a little sad in her eyes. Kind, kind Shoko. Always kind. Always worried. He looked at her in a daze, swaying on his chair from side to side, slowly, knees still pressed to his chest.

“Hm?” He replied, trying to blink her into focus. His head hurt horribly.

Shoko paused, sheltering the silence, and Satoru came back down slowly.

“You went somewhere.” She explained softly, speaking with prudence. Satoru could tell. Satoru knew her by heart, as much as she knew him, the core of me, the core of her.

He forced his eyes to see her. She was there. She always was.

“Sorry.” He apologized in a whisper. He frowned, realising his voice was gone, and cleared his throat. He straightened up slightly, forcing his tallness, forcing something else. “I’m just tired.” He lied, half-lie, half-admission, halfway through it, halfway there.

He had no clue how long he had been sitting in his silence, mute, gone, miles away from his own head and body. Shoko simply studied him a little longer, a little closer, a little sadder.

“I know.”

She always did, somehow. She always had.

“I was saying that I brought everything to take care of your hair, too, like you asked.” She continued, changing course, sparing him.

Satoru took a moment to know what she was referring to. It came back to him like an iron grip around his neck, squeezing slowly, more and more, harsh and harsh, until he could feel it again. The stinging. The crimson red. He had woken up in a panic last night, visions of hands in his hair, of a kiss to his nape, of a touch to his head, of someone saving his life and ending it all the same. Scratching the skin, chasing the rage. It choked him, now. It was unkind, now. His body couldn’t forget and he was paying the price. Sleepless nights like a reminder of a tender thing gone. A locker room bench. The first touch of the rest of his life. Don’t tiptoe.

He had grabbed his phone while trying to breathe, one hand on his chest, the other typing a message under Shoko’s name, please i need my hair gone please do something about it tomorrow, before he had tried to pass out again for six hours. Sleep did not come back. The stinging at the back of his head stayed.

He stared at her, in quiet disbelief about himself and his own thoughts, and nodded slowly. “Thanks.” He deadpanned, hiding the strain, hiding the dive, hiding the need to rip his hair out one by one.

“Of course.” Shoko shrugged, leaning down as she grabbed the other bag she had placed under the table. “Although I’m not sure what it was you were specifically asking for.” She doubted with a frown, placing the bag on her knees. Satoru let his eyes fall to it and stay there, a little wide, a little frantic. The bag menaced him the same way everything else seemed to lately.  

“The usual?” Shoko questioned, keeping her tone light in the face of Satoru’s obvious turmoil. Knowing it all. Knowing him all. “Or do you have any special request?”

Satoru stared at the bag. Silent. Unmoving. He tried to make it less daunting. There was a reason, right, for the bag to be here? There was something that needed to be done, something that needed to be gone. He could feel it there, right there, always, lingering, there here there here never gone. He was sick of it, he was sick with it. He was tired of waking up with the feeling of choking, because he could never forget the hands that had once made it easy, and that now made it difficult, unbearable in the way it was omnipresent, terrifying in the way Suguru was still, forever, always, here. He could not coexist with it. He could not survive with it. He needed this to be over.

“Yeah. Actually.” Satoru replied, tone blank, distant, pretending, liar. “I want -” He started, stopped, failed, felt like a man with eyes like the truth was holding his hands and squeezing his heart and dragging his fingertips alongside the line of his neck, the dip of his spine, the skin of his nape. Digging his fingers and making it kill instead of making it kind. Satoru felt his chest cave in suddenly. He hugged his knees tighter with both arms. I need it gone.

“Can you cut my hair shorter?” He requested, a tremor in the voice, a drop in his words, a crack in his syllables. “Like- really short.” He blinked and breathed in slowly underwater.

Shoko shot him a peculiar look, frowning. “A buzzcut?” She asked, bewildered, making a face of hesitation. “I’m not sure you could rock tha-”

“No.” He interrupted, cutting to the chase, shaking his head. “No. Just-” He stumbled on his tongue. Why are you holding my words hostage? This is on you. This is on you. Satoru inhaled slowly again, trying to stabilize something, and brought his hand to his neck, tugging slightly on the hair there. “I want it shorter here. Under.” He explained, voice a little rough around the edges, a little damaged around the end, a little sharp around everything. “Can you cut it short around my nape?”

Shoko studied him, raising an eyebrow, leaning slightly in to watch his hair closer. She tilted her head.

“Like an undercut?” She finally asked, a little unsure. Satoru could feel that she knew the reason. Satoru could feel that she knew it all. Senseless and scared of something impossible.

He cleared his throat and sighed too fast. He could feel his jaw work into place. He could feel his rage slowly climb up his ankles, growing and returning, an old feud, an old friend. He did not have what it took to fight it, lately. He had lost it two months ago.

He shifted on his chair, feeling constricted, feeling trapped against his own knees. He stretched out his legs again and planted his feet on the ground, untangling his body. He realised with a little stupor that he was still holding his hair, gripping it in his fist like he was about to try and rip it out. He let go, swallowing around the thickness in his throat. Something was trying to choke him. Satoru knew exactly what. He buried his hands in the pockets of his hoodie to try and save appearances, to try and make it leave, to try and breathe. He was cold. He always was.

“Yeah.” Satoru answered, watching a point above Shoko’s shoulder on the white wall behind her. He stared for a moment, trying to fix his thoughts, trying to find an explanation. There was nothing he could say that didn’t sound like a picture of madness. “It’s just -” He bit the inside of his cheek. His words hung in the air, attached to the ceiling like a dead exposed thing. He settled on the easiest way and breathed out. “I just need it gone.”

It. Whatever it was. His hair. His mind. His love. Him.

A pause. Something stayed in the silence. Something drowned in the tea cups on the table. Satoru didn’t know if he could win this.

“Alright.” Shoko nodded after a moment of consideration, dropping whatever question was visibly on her tongue. “Anything else?”

Everything else, probably. There was always something else Satoru wanted gone. The whole of it, the whole of him. His entire body bore the marks of wide open fields, of kisses like the countryside in bloom, of a smile like sun-bleached linen. His entire body held the feeling of praises like a saintly chant, of kind words in a damp back alley, of sunburns over his bruises. He had been touched everywhere, from his head to his heels, from his chest to his back, and down, down, down to the very centre of who he was. The reality of having been handled, ripped open, of his ribcage being searched like a treasure map. Kindly and slowly, always. The remains of ultraviolet still on his skin. To get rid of the taste of aftersun in his mouth, Satoru would have to die. Drowning under the waves. Freezing in the cold. His body would never let him forget otherwise.

But something came to the surface, over the rest. Something that went back to the balcony, to wavering streetlights in the distance, to cheeks flushed with alcohol and the star sticker on Shoko’s living room’s ceiling. Something that had made the wind grow silent and the night feel bearable. Something that had turned the silence into a shared thing instead of an uneasy one, for the first time and the rest of their lives. Something that had killed the rain, back then, and made Satoru notice the lilac in the snow, the amber in the waves.

Well, you got some purple in there too.

“No purple, Shoko.” Satoru deadpanned. Definite. Undebatable.

His neck hurt so much it made the anger debilitating.

He stared at her, blue eyes welcoming grey when winter was around, and did not see her. He was stuck in the lilac, stuck in a violet rage. Head swimming and drowning and swimming again, lost on black hair in the night wind, a cigarette between soft lips, are purple undertones your choice or hers, then?

“No purple.” He repeated, still glaring without even knowing he was, fists clenched in his pockets trying to keep something in. His jaw worked like he wanted to crush something between his teeth. Eyes low and sharp and detestable. The rumble of anger like bruises on pale skin. Violet and blue, and eternally his.

“No fucking highlights or undertones.” He bit back at himself, tone low, spiteful. A wild animal eating his own tail. Words slow and too sure, too direct, too blunt, wired to the bassline of his temper like knives thrown blindly at the remaining outline of warm hands in his hair. He needed it gone. “Plain white.” He ordered coldly. There was a pause that made it certain. “That’s all.”

Satoru breathed in with pain and straightened up where he sat, stretching his back the best he could. He could still barely see Shoko, eyes unfocused in the empty space between them, mind plagued with visions of sunlit bed sheets and a shoulder scar.

“But why?” Shoko opposed. It brought Satoru back. He shot her a grave look as she continued. “It looks good on y-”

“Shoko.” Satoru warned. He spoke her name like a threat. But if she focused just enough, Shoko would hear it; the undercurrent of something sad.

“No purple.” He menaced, blank voice with a tremor. Final. Unequivocal. Absolute.

He stared at her, still, his set face in marble and ice. There was no arguing it.

It was simple, as much as it was a riddle, and a truth Satoru could not accept. Suguru was everywhere. Suguru was on his skin. Suguru was on his lips and in the depths of the waves, at the shore of himself, in everything there was. Suguru was in the morning when he opened his eyes, in the purple of his hair, in the bruises on his heart. Suguru was in the distance when Satoru couldn’t speak. Suguru was in the wind when Satoru couldn’t breathe. Suguru was an evidence, when there was nothing that made sense, and Satoru was left panting in the night, staring at the ceiling like it was going to eat him alive, shapes he couldn’t recognize pointing at him and threatening him in the dark. Suguru was in the ring whenever Satoru punched someone too hard. Suguru was in his rage whenever Satoru passed out.

Suguru Suguru Suguru.

Satoru did not want the purple on him anymore. I do not want him on me anymore.

Shoko regarded him from the other side of the table, attentive, a pensive expression on her face, all-seeing eyes studying him like they had for years. Whatever she saw, whatever she found on Satoru’s face at that moment, made her accept what she hated, made her abandon the purple, too. Made her stay silent when everything was telling her to scream and shake Satoru awake. She simply nodded as a response.

They moved to the bathroom, after a moment, abandoning the tea cups. Satoru stayed very still, sitting down on a stool and staring at the floor like it was going to make it feel less like a betrayal. Turning his head when Shoko told him to, straightening up when she pinched his neck or his shoulder. The sound of the clippers irritated his mind, sending shockwaves down every never ending, lighting strikes and a rainscape. His body was rejecting it, somehow. Satoru fought it, diligent and silent under Soko’s hands. He let himself be cut down to something different. He let himself be shaped into something that, hopefully, would hurt less to look at and carry. The bleach was cold, and burning, and everything in between. Satoru felt spirited. It was like he was being decolorized from the inside out, surface scrubbed clean and pristine, sanded down until it was taintless. Sterile. Untouched. Dead.

The hours passed. Shoko did her thing. Satoru battled not to take on running.

“Done.” Shoko announced after finally setting down the blow dryer.

Satoru kept staring at the floor, collecting his agitated thoughts and eyes. He needed to stretch. He needed to run a lap. He brought a hand to his neck mechanically, wanting to scratch at the skin, to dig his fingers in the muscles to make the stinging go away. He blinked when his fingertips found short hair, when they grazed his skull and scratched at his skin without meeting resistance. Without the usual strands of snow that sometimes got a little tangled in the space between his knuckles. He blinked it in, blinked it out. He felt like throwing up.

He stood up from the stool and moved to the sink. He met his face in the mirror. The purple was gone. White hair left stainless and immaculate. Not a shade out of order. Satoru stared. His hair was still a little long at the front and on top, falling barely over his eyes. He turned his head a little too fast. At the back, under the layers of his snowy mess, his hair was short, cut close to his skull. Sharp. Clean. Precise. He felt a blade go through his throat, needle-sharp razors cutting his teeth. A weight settled on his chest again, different, this time, like a guilt that wasn’t his, a regret that came from someone else. His fingers traced over his undercut idly. He gripped the sink with his other hand to stabilize something, still staring at himself with eyes the colour of asphalt, and tried not to die.

“It makes me look rough.” He spoke distantly, not registering his own words. He was barely aware of his hand in his hair.

It did make him look rougher, sharper, matching with himself in a way that was almost comical. A proof of rage like an impact point in red ink at the back of his head.

He blinked at his reflection again. The image blinked back, almost like someone else. It was strange. It was inevitable. Satoru gripped the sink tighter.

“No.” Shoko said, voice quiet, after a moment. Satoru frowned and met her eyes in the mirror. She stood behind him, studying him with a concern that was honest and a grief that was familiar. “It makes you look sad.” She corrected, sounding small, and Satoru didn’t know where to put the terror anymore.

They held each other’s eyes. She knew it all, always. Satoru knew she knew it all.

Satoru looked away in a rush, finding his own face instead, finding his own blue instead, the concrete behind his eyelids, the dead flowers in the snow. It made him look sad. It made him look rough. Satoru believed he was both of these things. Satoru believed both these things were the same.

He conjured up the tears, again, trying, always. But nothing came up. So he just stared instead, until his eyes grew dry and his face turned blurry, distant, a distorted thing he couldn’t recognize. He slid a hand through his hair, testing it, trying it, feeling it. His fingers came out colder. Frostbitten.

“Satoru.” Shoko spoke his name tentatively after a moment of waiting for him or for the both of them. Satoru stared at his hand dumbly, open in front of him. He let it drop to his side before meeting her eyes again in the mirror, a frown on his face, a man on his mind.

He let her talk. He knew she would.

“Can I ask you something?” Shoko added, crossing her arms over her chest, shielding herself. From what, Satoru had no idea.

He nodded thoughtlessly, distracted by how freezing cold his fingers felt. He sheltered his hands in his hoodie’s pocket again. He did not turn around to face Shoko directly. He did not want to. He did not know why.

She held his eyes through the mirror, weighing something. Satoru knew she would never hurt him, but he got ready nonetheless, waiting for the blow.

She watched the sink for a second and the toothbrush in the glass. Only one of them. The other was somewhere in the bin.

“Why did you let him go?” She asked, still watching the toothbrush, sounding like the little girl he had known back when his eyes still cried.

Satoru’s hands in his pockets clenched into fists. Hard. Harsh. Digging moon signs on his palms. There was an icy taste in his mouth, like something that was not supposed to leave, something that was not supposed to stay either. A suspended horror that was both his and hers. He did not stop looking at her face, staring, trying to drag the words out of his own mouth, trying to see the thoughts in her head. He did not need to. He knew how to read her to filth. The core of me, the core of her.

Suguru had been her friend too.

Shoko did not know everything. She did not know Suguru had left without telling him where. She did not know Satoru had no idea where he was. She just knew Suguru was gone, that Satoru had skipped work in October on more days that she could count, and that his hair was white like snow, cut underneath, and his eyes enraged like he was still twelve.

And still, still. Satoru was certain of what Shoko meant. He knew she was not asking why he had let Suguru leave. Shoko was asking about this. About the haircut that was an exit door. About the single toothbrush that stood without a counterpart. About the avoidance to see. About the avoidance to feel. About Satoru’s anger that was returning like a proof of death, like it had never left, like tenderness had never happened. Back to square one. Back to where it all began.

She was asking why Satoru tried to erase what Suguru had left behind.

He breathed in. It sounded like it hurt. It probably did.

“You know why.” Satoru let out slowly, faltering, battling to keep his cadence in check. Failing. Wavering rage like the end of the line.

Shoko had lost him too. Her eyes returned to Satoru, finding his reflection in the mirror, sorry and sad like she rarely was. She looked so young it made him feel childish. They used to share beds, when younger. Satoru thought that maybe she’d like to stay again, hiding with him under the covers like when they were kids, counting the stars they couldn’t see and those that glowed in the dark, stuck to the ceiling of Shoko’s childhood room. Maybe she’d hold his hands again, like when he had his first fight on the playground and cried afterwards because the bruises were ugly and the cuts were different than on others. Maybe she’d like to put makeup on his face, the same way she used to after stealing her mother’s lipsticks and palettes, practicing on him with all the confidence in the world as if she had any idea what she was doing. Maybe she’d like to tickle him, and laugh, and make it easy, and tell stories they used to fall asleep to. And maybe they could pick up a pencil and draw their height marks on the kitchen’s door, taller than they had ever been. And maybe someone, years from now, would cover them with white paint, but they both would forever stay here, eternally printed on the walls of this apartment, standing together like they always had, like they always would.

But they were not kids anymore. Tethered souls from years ago, both thinking of shared summer days. So Satoru did not ask. And Shoko, that night, did not stay.

As he tried to fall asleep, Satoru thought of a warm body under white sheets and could barely breathe.

A storm in the harbour, a sea for him to swim. Satoru didn’t think there was a day where he didn’t feel like a dead man walking. The haircut did not help. The stinging never left. It turned, the tide. The rest of it too. The days went colder, and bleaker, and harsher. December like an enemy. He was twenty seven, he felt ageless, he felt unborn. There, but not, walking and punching and fighting until he was standing with bleeding lips and cut brows. Saltwater in his wounds. Saltwater everywhere. He breathed under the surface and it damaged his bones. He did not care. He would lose this like he had lost the rest.

The weather kept turning. Time kept passing. The sadness went quiet. The despair was drowned. The longing and the hurt froze silently with the first black ice of the season. Satoru, left numb in the blizzard, only had his rage and frostbitten fists to show.

The anger suffocated the rest. Slowly, precisely, like it knew how. A death in twenty steps. Agonizing. It slaughtered the heartbreak. It shot down the abandon. It massacred the pain. It took residency in his heart, ruling over his head, caressing his back and brushing his cheeks with freezing palms. It sent shivers down his spine, but Satoru slipped back into it like a second skin. Like a habit. Easily. Eyes cold, ice cold. Benevolence forgotten with summertime. Satoru grew more bitter with every passing day. The wrath took a hold of his wrists and his ankles and he let it. He did not try to fight it. He did not want to. He did not know how. He made no effort to move away, to hold it back, to make it feel unwelcomed. He let the thing grow inside him, this thing with arms and legs of its own, standing in the centre of his chest, stretching the space of his tall body. It made it larger, wider, taller still. Satoru stood with tense shoulders, tall, loud, sharp, everywhere he went. In the ring and outside of it. His fists were clenched always, eternally, waiting for a reason. His jaw was always locked. His eyebrows were always low. His face was always set in concrete. His eyes were always furious, a shade of grey that was unkind, a shade of blue that was gone. He exiled tenderness when he had just started to learn it, mind and body ready for a fight even when there was none.

And most of the time, there was no fight, no punches to throw, no man to beat down. So Satoru did what he did best and looked for trouble.

He went back into rings where the lighting was too bright. He filled his nights with something else than insomnia, with something different than the shapes staring too closely at him in the dark. He beat down men with his knuckles out, baring his teeth, bruising like when he was twenty, bleeding like when he was eighteen. A maniac with crazed eyes that no one managed to beat. He never lost. He didn’t remember winning. He could barely see a thing. He stepped into spotlights and the furor would reach a high, taking him mentally to places he had rarely been to, but never too feral and horrendous for the type of crowd he was performing for. The kind that awaited violence like the rapture. The kind that praised and cheered and applauded his improbity. The kind that venerated his rage.

Satoru fought. Satoru won. Satoru lost against the anger and let it eat him raw, cannibalizing his own body; walking flesh like a fresh meal laid out for brutality to swallow him whole.

It wasn’t easy, but it was different, and at least, at least, Satoru knew what rage was. Satoru was used to this, and it was better than suffocating, and it was better than remembering kind eyes, chasing warmth, thinking of daylight. At last, at least, the rage was his. The Sun had never been.

Nanami threatened him, scolding, furious like he rarely was. If you don’t stop this I will not be training you anymore. Satoru barely heard him. Nanami always welcomed him back each time he stepped into the gym.

He went home, face swollen, bruising eyes. He went home and the lilac fields were in full rotten bloom. He went home and there was dry blood sticking to the snow of his hair.

Yet, sometimes, still, when the harshness of December left and the sky cleared out, when the clouds parted for a day or two and he woke up to the first rays of morning light through his window, Satoru would stop feeling it for a brief instant. In that moment between sleep and consciousness, when his eyes opened to sunlight illuminating his room, Satoru would lie very still, wrapped in the covers like a cocoon shielding him. He would breathe slowly, deeply, and let it warm him up. It never lasted long, but at least it was there, for a minute or two. He would think of amber eyes, he would remember trailing kisses, and it wouldn’t enrage him, for a minute or two. It wouldn’t sting and it would be soft, for a minute or two. Suguru wouldn’t hurt for a minute or two.

It came back, always, when he got out of bed. And it was worse than to feel it constantly, these moments of respite. It was worse when it came back. It was worse when it started again.

And on those days when the sun greeted him, Satoru would step into the ring and pray to all the gods above and the devils under for Sukuna to find him again and cut him deep enough this time.

Satoru tried to find Suguru one last time, on the twenty fourth day of December.

He felt his head was hung backward. He felt, somehow, that he would not make it through the night. The fight had been horrid and his skull hurt in a way that was unfamiliar. Different. Final. He looked into the mirror and the bruises were alive, traces of nails like the aftermath of a crucifixion. He picked up his phone with shaking hands.

Satoru called him once more. When the cold turned traitorous, and ugly and murderous, when his bones felt frozen when he woke up, when he moved, when he slept. Satoru called him. Searching the sun, always, always, chasing the sun, despite it all, despite it all. He dialled the number he now knew by heart, knowing it would lead to the empty floor of his room, to the empty tea cup on his table, to the broken kitchen shutters. The same old loud ringing, the same incessant silence, the same never ending nothing.

The mailbox is full and cannot accept messages at this time.

Satoru breathed in, watching his eyes in the mirror, watching his rage in the dip of his collarbone, in the hollow of his cheeks, in the outline of his heart, and breathed the words out anyway.

“Didn’t you believe in me?”

It was nothing more than a whisper. Rough around the edges, eternally broken. Shattered glass in an abandoned church, pictures of the ocean that could no longer hold. So different, on those days, so far from the rage he felt, so silent when the rest of him was loud. He gripped the phone tighter until his knuckles hurt, until the violets withered, until the lilacs went cold. All he got in return was the quiet sound of static.

He hung up without another sound, incapable of saying more, knowing his words died on the line somewhere in the empty space between Suguru and the sea. 

January came. A new year. The cold didn’t change.

Satoru watched the light bulb flickering above his head. It was a weird shade of white, slightly green, something bizarre. He was lying down on a bench, listening to the distant sound of a crowd while observing the dysfunctional thing. He tapped the rhythm of the lightbulb on his stomach, one two three four, until it turned off completely for five seconds before turning back on. It made a weird buzzing noise, like a bee trapped under a false ceiling. It was starting to annoy him. Satoru guessed he was stuck with the irritating light and the boredom that was plaguing his mind while he waited for a fight.

He had been here for three hours already. Usually, he’d walk into a place and people would find him, promoters, bookers, bettors, and he’d be in the ring quickly enough that he didn’t have to sit in silence with himself. Not tonight. Tonight was different, apparently. Something about all the big names being here, whatever that meant in underground fighting. Satoru didn’t believe anyone lasted long enough here to be something of any worth, let alone someone famous, but higher ups and regulars of this world thought otherwise. It was all about the gain and the bargain, it was all about the attraction, all about the spectacle. Money, above all. Fame, in between. Bookers tried to make the levels match, to pair fighters up in the ring so that the crowd would be entertained the most. There were no rules but one: make it worth people’s time.

Satoru had never cared much about etiquette, even less here, even less now. The rage was his reason. He played by its rules, not theirs.

He still had to wait. A woman with hair cut short to her temples had found him an hour ago, telling him they’d call when someone “of his talent” showed up. Satoru had said he frankly did not give a fuck about being worth anyone’s time or talent or skills, that he just wanted to be in the ring, that the person would lose anyway, but the woman had left while barely glancing back at him. Satoru had almost thrown a dumbbell at her head. Most fighters had already left the ring. They were either claiming prize money or passed out somewhere in a corner while Satoru had to grin and bear it. He was starting to lose the little patience he had been graced with at birth.

He brought a hand to his face, pinching his nose, eyes hurting under the flickering light. Now was not the time to let a migraine win. He pressed his index finger between his brows, massaging the river bed and the headache. The humming sound of the light struck a nerve.

He sat up, groaning with displeasure, and watched the empty room with narrowed eyes. It was something cheap, but at least it was quiet and secluded at the back of the place. An ugly thing with a low ceiling and a broken light that people rarely found except if they went looking for it. Satoru liked it enough to return to it every time he was here.

He stretched his neck lazily, swaying his head from side to side. He didn’t check with his anger anymore. He knew it was always there. He felt it at the back of his head. It was what it was, now.

After another round of waiting, the door opened, and Satoru’s jaw tightened instantly.

“I thought I told you to fucking stop following me.” He spat out as he lay back down on the bench, frustration getting the best of him.

The guy, a short annoying thing by the name of Naoya, had picked up the habit of liking him a little too much. He was a regular, someone that was always there whenever Satoru went to fight. Someone that always bet on him, because it was the easy way, and Satoru was the winning dog. Satoru never remembered anyone’s face, much less people’s name, but Naoya was relentless and irritating enough that Satoru had been forced to print him in his head. He came up to talk to him before every fight and after every win, a groupie stuck at the bottom of Satoru’s shoe like a parasite. The guy wasn’t taking the hint, no matter how many times Satoru told him to leave. Satoru would have punched him to get his point across, but he wasn’t even sure the guy was of age. He wasn’t about to strike a kid in the face no matter how bothersome and insufferable he was.

“Go bother someone else.” Satoru warned, closing his eyes under the buzzing sound.

“Sir, you gotta win this.” The title alone made Satoru’s annoyance grow tenfold. He hated etiquettes both ways. He also despised when people actually asked him to win.

He didn’t bother answering. He let the guy sit in silence, hoping his growing anger would be loud enough to make Naoya leave. It wasn’t.

“I bet big. Everybody did!” The guy continued, too excited and thrilled for Satoru’s irritated nervous system.

Satoru stayed quiet still, but if the betting was done, then it meant they had found someone to put in the ring with him. Finally. Satoru didn’t bother asking for a name, knowing he wouldn’t remember anyway, and that people in this world never used their actual names for obvious legal reasons.

Satoru felt it grow again. The pressure in his chest, the stinging in his neck. The need for a fight, his fists closing without a reason. There was always a reason, wasn’t it? He breathed in slowly, opening his eyes again to watch the broken lightbulb, and breathed out.

“Sir you really really have to win.” Naoya repeated again, sounding like a rodent making a weird squeaking sound. So unbelievably aggravating.

Satoru sighed slowly, long, controlling the outburst that was building up in his bloodstream. “Yeah yeah, I’ll win.” He deadpanned, distant as he sat up once more, fixing Naoya with a glare. He paused while doing so, icy cold eyes fixed on the guy. He saw him shift where he stood, readjusting his weight. Squirmy and scared. A little mouse. “Now fuck off.” Satoru ordered, tone precise, words sharp, and the rat took off running.

Like clockwork, the woman showed up. You’re up in ten. Satoru barely acknowledged her.

Satoru took off his hoodie with a swift motion and was hit by the biting air. He shivered, ignored it, and changed into his fight shorts, chest bare, goosebumps on his skin. It would pass. He grabbed his bag under the bench and opened it to pick a pair of boxing wraps. He had two choices, now. Not only his washed out blue. There was also another pair, green, elasticated. They could be wrapped tighter. They felt nicer on the skin. Satoru picked up the blue ones anyway.

He started with his right hand, wrapping it mechanically, brain and body evading him already. He felt himself slip, like with every fight. He felt himself go somewhere he couldn’t follow. Freezing blood rushed to his face, and his fists, and his neck. He didn’t bother trying to take it down, to put a lid on it so the flood wouldn’t start, so he wouldn’t overflow with rage. It was pointless and he knew it. He adjusted the Velcro around his wrist and moved to his left hand.

But he saw it, then. For the first time in a while. He noticed it now, here, for no apparent reason. A purple hair tie on his wrist. A plum colour.

He blinked. He stared at it. He had never taken it off.

He had forgotten about it, somehow, like people forgot about a necklace they constantly wore or earrings they went to sleep with. It had made itself silent, the same way comfortable things were loyal enough to blend with one’s body. He had hidden it under hand wraps so many times without ever questioning why it was there, without ever registering its presence, without ever truly seeing it.

He was seeing it now. Staring. Fixed eyes wide-open and stupefied. He went back to the first time, to unmaking a bun, to a sea of black hair, I like it down.

He considered it. He studied it. He tasted blood in his mouth. He did not take it off. Satoru wrapped the blue fabric over it slowly, carefully, and tightened it without a word.

Satoru stretched too much afterwards. He stood up, aligning his head with his spine, hands in the hair, shoulders tense. He swayed from side to side, he stretched out his legs, his arms, his back. His left wrist burned, like a warning sign, when the rest of him was cold. He let something settle in his belly, let the pressure grow wide, and went out the door.

He walked around, emerging from his secluded room, the crowd getting thicker as he moved. Satoru barely registered anyone’s presence. Eyes low, fixed, jaw tight and shoulders squared. Tall. Too loud without saying a word. 

People sometimes touched him in the rowdy crowds. A hand on his chest, someone brushing his bicep, grabbing his wrists, fingertips on his abs. His body was a currency too. Here, where the natural light never reached, fighters were products and entertainment, objects of violence as much as desire. People came to be pleased with blood and pleasured with a sight. Some went further, too, letting themselves be punched and touched for the money and the rush. Satoru had been told more than once that his looks helped, that it increased the bets, that it would do wonders if he smiled when he won, that people asked if he was single, if he was free, if he was available. Satoru ignored the attention, answering with his set jaw and a glare that were deterrent enough.

But the touches, even when minimal, even when it was just unwanted fingertips grazing his skin, were impossible to ignore. His mind tuned out everything on instinct, rage working as a deafening sound, but when a hand found him in the crowd Satoru wanted to throw up, to wash himself clean and scrub the surface of who he was. Oversensitive. Feeling it everywhere. Shockwaves like tsunamis down the line of his back, raising a type of gut-eating anxiety that made him feel light-headed. There was bile in his throat and his breath leaving him. It was never long, a second or two, but it was always horrible. He never knew how to flee without wanting to break someone’s wrist. He hated being touched.

He watched the light above his head, the floors for curious eyes to watch from, the cage that looked like something animals would fight in. Fitting. He waited for a moment at the edge of the crowd, feeling attentions shift to him, not gracing anybody with a look back. He was already somewhere else, anyway, and he was a little cold. He still felt the goosebumps on his skin. He worked his jaw closed tighter to keep his teeth from chattering. The speaker started talking, announcing the fight, and Satoru finally moved. He towered over people as he made his way closer, pushing through without encountering resistance. The sound of the crowd got louder, cheering, roaring. He stretched his neck again, and it was there that it shifted deeper, diving, under the waves. It was now that the rage grabbed it all, and Satoru walked to the back of himself and let her put on a show. It was now that she replaced all the rest and Satoru didn’t fight back.

Someone waited for him when he got close to the cage. The same woman, short hair, bored expression on her face. She watched him from head to toe, judging something, and Satoru barely paid her attention.

“Don’t fuck it up. Good luck. You’ll need it.” She declared scornfully, opening the iron fence for him to walk in.

Satoru frowned at her words, feeling confused more than vexed, and shot her a cold look.

He turned away from her with disdain, watching out for a step as he got into the ring, and looked up to his opponent with a dead stare and eyes like terror.

Satoru froze. Hell probably did too.

Amber waves and warm sand. Aftersun in his mouth. The purple hair tie under his hand wrap burned him whole.

He stared. Stared again. Stared still and would forever, if he could, if there wasn’t something in his chest trying to return without giving him a choice. He was being stared at in return, of course, always, returning, leaving, staying. There. Here, right here. Wide brown eyes like a suffocating summer night. Petrified, stuck in time, frozen sun in winter. Too warm, too heavy.

No matter how hard Satoru had tried, he could never, ever, get rid of him entirely.

Satoru could not feel his body. His breath left him, air sparse and unforgiving, slashing his neck open and puncturing his lungs like it was the easiest thing. He could only stare, unmoving, barely in the ring at all. His back to the iron fence, still. Barely in the light. Barely capable of breathing. Aftersun in his hair. Aftersun everywhere. Down his airway, up in his trachea. Choking him. Making him breathe again. He felt it in his heart, he felt it in his soul, something cracking and dying and coming back to life without asking for permission. There and here and everywhere, in everything there ever was. 

Satoru couldn’t hear a thing. The crowd was gone, muffled, absent. There was a voice announcing his name, there was a voice speaking of him, speaking of them, maybe, surely, he didn’t know. I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe. He couldn’t hear a thing. There was a ringing in his head, like a warning, like an apology, the ending of the day. Satoru was lost in a blizzard, black ice on his body cutting him open, decaying. He was alone. He was never alone. This and this and that. And him. Always him, still. Forever. Always him.

Suguru in the ring. Suguru in the wind. Suguru in the too bright light that was wrong, not the right shade, not warm enough.

Satoru brought one wrapped hand to his chest, like every time he had woken up hysterically in his bed, sweating like a feverish thing, unable to make a sound, unable to draw air in. Cold panic returning. He was still in the shadows, half his face in the darkness, while Suguru was under the spotlights, still, immovable. Static, like the sound Satoru heard whenever he had called for three months straight and no one answered. Immobile, like the empty nothing Satoru had faced since the man in front of him had left. Motionless. Tall, like him. Tall and right there. And still, always, pretty like the first signs of summer.

Satoru could only stare. Satoru could only watch, the collision in his head making it impossible to think. His body reacting to an aftershock. There were only impact points. His head his heart his stomach, all punched stupid by the sight, all made breathless by the view.

Satoru took in Suguru’s face like a maniac. Eyes frantic and running, hunting down every last patch of skin on Suguru like he was an illusion. Satoru was hallucinating. His hand was still pressed to his chest, open, pressing down. He let his eyes hit and run. Bluish bruises on honey skin. And on his face, too. Suguru was sporting a black eye, and the sea traced patterns on his body that were so rare to see. Bruises on his collarbones, on his ribs, on his jaw. Satoru felt sick with it. Suguru had bruises everywhere. You don’t get punched. You never lose. Whose fists did this? His stomach dropped, falling into shock.

And then, it turned. It always would. It was destined too.

A voice spoke. Satoru heard it, distant, through the buzzing sound, through the fury returning to him like a reminder that the ring was not his home, that Suguru was not his friend. Ladies and gentlemen, the battle of the strongest!

“No.” Satoru whispered, choking, to no one but himself, to not one but his despair.

Satoru stared, and stared, and soon enough, like every time he was in the ring, his vision blurred, his mind grew dead, attention gone, and there was not a thought that made sense. Only the rage. Only the fury he was born with. Only the eyes of his father and a voice telling him that men never cried.

There was suddenly a hand between his shoulder blades. Before he could even register it, someone behind the iron fence pushed him in the light. Satoru stumbled forward, fighting his balance, and the crowd grew louder. He couldn’t hear any of it. He straightened up in a rush, and Suguru was here. An arm length away. Satoru couldn’t make out his face. Satoru couldn’t make out anything. He took a step back and his hand on his chest dropped to his side, closing into a fist, clenching around emptiness. Through the fog of himself, he only felt the warmth returning, and the tenderness that made him sick. This was not fair. This was not kind.

“No.” Satoru whispered again, cold, cutting, under his breath. He could not understand what was happening to him.

There was a pause that lasted. There were eyes he knew by heart that were fixed on him. He couldn’t even see, but he could still feel them. He always would. He always had. I don't want him here.

He threw a punch without even thinking about it.

It connected with nothing. He heard someone cheering and the buzzing sound of voices growing louder. He turned around, turned to his left, feeling him there, right here, too close, and shifted his weight on autopilot. Jab, low straight right hand, left hook, roundhouse kick. Satoru didn’t think. Satoru let it happen. Satoru felt the coldness of the thing inside him eating him raw, eating itself, eating all the rest. His fists met the air, his feet landed nowhere. He tried again, seeing a shape, feeling an outline, chest heaving and eyes crazed. There was a target. There were only impact points. A turning back kick, not giving anyone a second to breathe. There was a gasp in the audience. There was a terror in all of him.

He changed his stance, hands going up barely, guard wide open and arrogantly low. Almost forgotten. Inviting someone in, almost like he was begging. Shielding himself was never an option.

His name was spoken like a plea. Satoru didn’t hear it.

He went for it again, baring his teeth, breathing loud. Jab, straight right, low left hook. He aimed for a chest, for a bruise he thought he could see on a lower stomach he had kissed once, and missed. He was being studied and watched and picked apart, still, by eyes too attentive, too focused. He hated it. He hated it. He barely breathed, barely gave himself time to inhale, before he was back at it with a vengeance. Straight right, left uppercut, straight right. Failed. Missing. Meeting nothing. He let out a sound, something feral and frustrated, and punched the side of his own head with the heel of his palm, and then his chest like it would make it easier to breathe, easier to win. It didn’t.

He took a step back, his body telling him too, and saw a flash of green coming agonisingly close to his chin. His eyes shot up, and it clicked, somehow, in his head. He was being fought back.

And he smiled. Something horrendous. Something wrong, crooked, psychotic. Suguru did not smile back.

He walked in circles, mirroring a body he knew like the back of his hand, a face like the inside of his heart, and legs bruised like his own. He watched the patches of skin he had traced with his fingertips, the lines of something he had kissed until it left them both breathless, tired, flushed.

Saltwater and the Sun.

It was like defusing a ticking bomb. Anger raw against the warmth. A flood, and a tidal wave. They studied each other like they had so many times. Satoru could barely register the feeling of moving. He was only aware of the rage like a hand around his throat. He couldn’t pretend, he couldn’t hide something. His body was exposed just like the rest of him. He continued walking, moving, eyes wide, pupils blown. Staring at Suguru without seeing him whole. His guard was still nowhere to be found, as if he was asking for it, asking to be punched, asking to be touched.

He wanted to think, needed to think, he had to. He had to think. Use your head, Satoru. He could win this. He would win this. He could win this if he focused, if he tried for a second to make the anger silent. He would not lose this like he had lost everything else. Use your head, Satoru. Use your head.

Suguru moved first.

Using his guts. Working on instinct.

Overstepping.

Satoru’s eyes went wide before they went shut, his vision going white for a second. He opened his eyes again. He was on one knee, a hand on the ground, supporting himself. Almost knocked out by a single blow. He blinked, vision blurry, looking at his fingers on the ground, and was back up on his feet in a matter of seconds.

He took a breath in, sharp eyes finding mellow skin, and waited for Suguru to punch him again.

And Suguru did. Warm knuckles found his jaw. Satoru let the punch move past him, turning his head with the impact, and returned to Suguru’s face.

He watched him, watched how amber eyes moved like an evocation on his face. Satoru saw him through the fog. He saw him and it was clear, finally. He was clear. Suguru was right here, fighting him. Something died. Something dropped. It settled in his head. Satoru let out a violent sigh and returned the favour.

He used his eyes, and his mind, and waited. He thought ahead. He silenced the rush and the cold at the back of his neck. He watched how Suguru pulled back for a second and moved with him, lowering his centre of gravity, shifting to his left when Suguru’s left foot moved, and went for a low left hook to his stomach. His cold knuckles met something. His cold knuckles found warmth, and he straightened up as Suguru stumbled backward with blinking eyes, staring at him, startled and stunned.

The rage was still here. But it did something different.

Satoru worked like water, moulding himself to Suguru’s every move. Every shift of weight, every change of stance, Satoru followed with a purpose. He was trying to close every distance possible. Baring his teeth, still, always, sharpness everywhere, but something else with it. Something that had made itself known with that first punch to his face. Something that made sense, maybe. Something that went back to the beginning of it. He punched, and kicked, elbowed, knees, and Suguru escaped most if not all of it still. Moving quickly, eyes focused, all seeing. Suguru managed to punch him again, but Satoru barely registered any of it. Suguru was keeping his guard high, watching him over his gloves, fast amber eyes half covered by strands of black hair. Fucking pretty.

Satoru let it wash over him, and made it into a reason. Left foot jab, jab, straight right, right kick. The last kick connected with Suguru’s ribs, making him falter, and Satoru took it all, seizing the opening, the need to be close, closer, always closer, chasing the distance, sealing the deal. You kiss like you fight.

He dived in. Like the first time. Like the last. Satoru felt all the air leave the room, leave him. A shared shiver, between the both of them, and Satoru kicked the remaining leg keeping Suguru up. Everything was loud; the people, the terror, the realization behind Suguru’s eyes, and the pain in Satoru’s heart.

Suguru grabbed Satoru's shoulders sharply, forcing him to follow. They fell to the ground.

Satoru was on Suguru in a matter of seconds, like a wild animal chasing what he could find, trying to stay alive, running after the only thing that mattered. One knee landed unpurposely on Suguru’s open hand on the ground, pinning it down. Rough and harsh and desperate. So close. There was a sound Satoru thought he was making, something halfway to a choke, a cry for help, a scream. He could barely breathe through it. Time seemed to stop and rush all at once. His fists were shaking, too harsh, too real, too much. He leaned above him, above Suguru’s face, panic and terror and his heart decaying with it. The final blow of something tender.

Suguru was not shielding his face.

Satoru died. He thought he did. Suguru looked at him, eyes kind, watching, always watching, always seeing him, summertime in the cold, aftersun in winter. His eyes roamed on Satoru’s face, on his cheekbones, his forehead, his lips and his nose and all the rest of him. Slow and soft, looking up at him from underneath, like it did not hurt, like it was easy. Tired and sad and still, eternally, tender like the first time, like he had never left, like he never wanted to look at Satoru differently. Like he could not. Like he never would.

Satoru endured it. Satoru felt a shiver start somewhere on his face and end where he believed his heart was. The rage was strangling him.

“Fight me!” He spat out, voice low and trembling, detestable like it had never been, on the edge of something shattering. He failed to swallow back a broken sound.

Suguru stayed quiet. His eyes were gentle, tolerant, tender-hearted. Even here, even now. Satoru grew mad with it, mad for it, mad at him, mad for him.

“Don’t fucking run away from me again!” He ordered, begged, half yelling now. His hands went up to grab Suguru’s shoulders, lifting him slightly from the ground, trying to shake the kindness out, trying to rip the bandage off. He had blood on his knuckles. He didn’t know whose. Probably his own. It had never been fair. It had always been this.

“Fight me!” He snapped, snarling like a thing with claws and teeth, raging on.

It cannot be easy, even if I let it.

He tried to enrage Suguru. To make it a shared thing. He was tired of being alone. He was tired of being this, when Suguru had forced it back on him, when he had made the anger so heavy it didn’t let Satoru sleep. Suguru had left him there, behind, and Satoru was done being the only one yelling, the only one barking and biting any hand that got too close until there was nothing left but bleeding flesh and bones. Someone else needed to feel it. Someone else needed to suffer it the way he had.

Satoru drew in an inhale that hurt. Saltwater in his lungs.

“Fucking fight me, please! ” He pleaded with blinding fury, begging again, begging even if it killed him.

Suguru didn’t move. His eyes went kinder still, softening with every passing second, with every patch of Satoru’s face he seemed to see for the first time.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? That no matter how much Satoru tried, that no matter how long he growled and threatened and raged, no matter how many punches he threw, how many kisses he turned into bites just to spite the entire world, Suguru would never, ever, hold him with anything that wasn’t soft. Suguru could leave, Suguru could walk away, but Suguru would never, ever, turn his own hands into claws. Not with him. Not with anyone. Not even here, not even now.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? That Satoru didn’t know how to live any differently, how to love any differently than like this. That he had tried, since the first day, since the first look, the first shared meal and the first embrace, to tame his rage and to kill it all. He had tried. He always tried. For Suguru he had always tried, and this wasn’t working because it wasn’t real, because the rage wasn’t here, because it had never been rage, because it had always been something else, but anger was all he could feel. A replacement, a placebo, a smoke screen for the rest of it. The rest of Satoru.

And Suguru knew. Suguru had always known. He always would. He saw right through it, right beyond. That was the reason, wasn’t it? That he knew the eyes like a winter storm were kind, underneath. He knew they were the things of a broken man, of a soul like soft ocean waves, of a sea that could be warm, that could be quiet when it wanted to be. Suguru knew these hands had touched him like they had tried to carve him into life under white sheets, to hold him to the ends of the world. Soft and everywhere, turning Suguru’s body into a precious thing, loved and kind and tender. Suguru knew the mouth that begged him for a fight had kissed the most treasured of kisses on his chest, on his neck, on his heart and the core of him. He knew Satoru endured his rage, that he had always tried to fight it, for himself, and for Suguru too. Darling, dearest, Satoru, who was harsh because he tried to survive. To survive him, to survive this. Darling, dearest, Satoru, who needed nothing more to be kind than being asked to be.

So Suguru breathed in, crushed, and asked him.

“Satoru." He whispered, choking under his own air. “Let me breathe.”

Satoru backed away instantly. Yielding because Suguru had asked him to.

He let his hands find Suguru’s collarbones, bewildered, breathing too fast, panting like it pained him. He watched as Suguru dragged in a long inhale. He watched as Suguru closed his eyes for a second and Satoru almost pried them open again, chasing amber. He stared, he blinked, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in. He didn’t know where he was. The crowd was still loud, still roaring, still hungry for the violence of it. He tuned it out, half aware of his fingers shaking, half conscious of his face being wet. Cheeks warm, too warm, and a concerning crimson colour. Saltwater on his lips.

He was crying.

He realised it slowly, dauntingly, while crushing Suguru’s hand still under his knee, blinded by spotlights that were too ravaging. It dawned on him. He brought his fingers to his face, bewildered, scared, and touched the rivers. He felt a fear, ancient and embedded in him, before he realised that his father couldn’t see him here. That no one would tell him to hold it back.

He sat back on his heels, suddenly in a haze, left speechless by the feeling. He didn’t even hear the sound of cracking bones under his shifting knee before Suguru let out a strangled noise.

He looked back down with a frown as Suguru grimaced, biting his lower lip until he drew blood. Satoru registered it too late. His attention rushed to his leg, to his knee on the left side of Suguru’s body, still pinning Suguru’s hand to the floor at a weird angle.

Satoru felt a wave of nausea overcoming the rest. He wiped the back of his hand on his face, drying the tears with his washed out boxing wraps. He watched in confusion, a cold panic taking over as Suguru’s entire face twisted. He leaned in, planting one of his hands on the ground next to Suguru’s face, as a flow of shit shit shit shit escaped his lips in a rush. He leaned his weight on his hand to one side, body and face too close to Suguru’s, feeling hot air brushing his cheek, and moved his knee away with precaution. He lifted it so that it wouldn’t move Suguru’s hand again.

He shifted to the side, lifting his entire body away, kneeling down next to Suguru with wide eyes and stupor. Suguru hugged his hand to his chest, holding his wrist close to him like it hurt. It visibly did.

Satoru blinked in his shock and couldn’t find anything to say. All he knew, all that he was sure of, was that he felt like everything but a god.

Suguru raised his hand between them, watching how it looked under the white spotlight. His index finger was bent at an unnatural angle. Satoru almost reached out to grab it and bend it back straight. He stared in horror. Suguru exhaled shakily, staring too, looking beaten and worn out.

“You broke my finger.” He pointed out quietly, voice devoid of accusation. Just an observation. Just a thing that he accepted.

Satoru needed to throw up.

He sat down, losing attitude. Suguru stayed down in the ring, holding his hand to his chest. He made no move to sit up. Satoru made no move to leave. They breathed out together, heaving, coming down from a terrified high, catching their breaths. Satoru ducked his head, closing his eyes, the adrenaline leaving him so suddenly. Deflating.

The sound of the crowd turned into something else. Annoyed and irritated. Satoru could hear insults being thrown their way.

I bet on this shit.

You fuckers better keep going.

Is this your bitch or what? Don’t let him go easy.

Satoru’s jaw worked into place. He kept his eyes shut. He ignored it. Drained. Done.

“A reminder to the fighters;” A voice announced over the speakers. “The fight only ends by K.O, tap out, or forfeit.”

Satoru breathed in deep, clenching his fists again. He took a moment to raise his head, eyes returning to Suguru on the floor, only to find out he was already being watched. Attentive amber looking at him under heavy eyelids.

He took Suguru in, truly, for the first time. His face was bruised with remnants of past fights. It made Satoru’s chest cave in. He traced the path of his body, committing everything to memory again, the shape of it coming back to him like morning light. His bare chest was covered in a blue canvas, a field of irises. Satoru’s eyes landed on the shoulder scar and stayed there, digging something out of his chest that was never properly buried. He breathed out harsh, hard, letting out the air he was holding. His eyes trailed back down, a stomach he had kissed so many times, you’re the one who asked to take off my shirt first. He went back up the line of Suguru’s sternum, breathing a little hard, from the fight and the feeling, and found his face again. Suguru was sunburnt, cheeks ten shades too deep. Too fucking pretty. Too fucking unfair.

Satoru’s jaw worked itself into place. He needed to leave. He needed to breathe on his own.

He gathered what he could, finding his courage, battling with himself. He stood up slowly under the sound of the crowd, towering over Suguru like he could end his life. Trembling fists, turbulent eyes. Satoru was pretty sure he heard someone in the crowd ask him to kill Suguru. Warm eyes watched him without moving.

Didn’t you believe in me?

Satoru settled on a way. He decided on the end. He never wanted to suffocate again.

He breathed in, out, and spoke low. Final.

“Let this be the last thing I ever do for you.”

He stayed staring for another minute. Suguru didn’t speak, didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

Satoru left the ring without looking back. Suguru let his tears find him underwater.

Chapter Text

Suguru had a habit of believing, sometimes, that life and death were the same.  

He mixed up abandon with grief, he saw the cracks in the skin of his knees and was hit with visions of decaying bodies, of dirt eating away at old and young bones underground. He noticed the air in his lungs and thought about the absence of it. Breathing in, breathing out, not breathing at all. He wondered what it would be like to hold his breath until his heart stopped. He would see his bleeding lip after a fight and stare at the blood with malaise in his eyes, something distant and impending all the same. He asked himself what it would be like to be emptied of it. To be dry, to be reduced to a skinless skeleton, to be nothing anymore. 

It had been happening more and more lately. Suguru would notice life, the beating of his heart, the noise of people, the crystal in the morning winter air, and think of death, of the inevitability of it. It didn’t feel inevitable to him, though. It felt omnipresent, like the same tangle that always found its way to the back of his hair, like his freckles that were dying out slowly now that summer had fled, like that single cobweb of his shoulder scar.  

The flowers in the backyard of his home were fighting to survive the cold. Suguru thought it was a tedious task they tried to achieve. To keep yourself alive or to keep yourself dead. The difference was so minimal it almost felt the same.  

Death was in the way he lived. It was not an end. It was not a beginning. It simply was. It had always just been. It was in the mole on his inner right thigh, in the amber of his eyes that did not belong to him, in his heart that was grand as much as it was ill-fated.  

Death was here, too, in the too bright light of the ring, in his broken finger that sent electric shocks up the path of his arm, in the tears he felt wetting his temples. It was here, too, in the screams of the crowd, in his breathing that couldn’t even out, in the pain in his chest that was exhaustion and something else. Always something else. It was here, too, in his inability to stand up, in the dirt on the floor.

Death had been there, too, in the way Satoru had looked, like the end of it, like the beginning, like something that simply was, something that had always been. It was in his voice like a thundering sky, in his words like a plea and a prayer and a threat all the same, in his tallness that was blindsiding, in his panic that was unmistakable. It was in the grey of his eyes. No more blue, indigo gone with Suguru and the rest of it. It was in Satoru’s desperation and the blows he had landed, reaching, touching for the first time, breaking something in the process. It was in how he had cried above Suguru like a child that could not comprehend his own sobs. It was in how he had looked at Suguru, with all the horror of a man that could beg until the hurt ceased, until Suguru left him again, until Suguru was dead and buried for good.  

Satoru felt so alive. So alive and bursting at the seams with it, with rage and ferocity, so alive and yet so still, so dead, so final. Because death was wherever Suguru stood, in whatever Suguru touched, and Satoru bore the curse of having been held by his hands. 

He tried to think of an alternative. Maybe if he stayed still, the crowd would enter the cage and walk over him, make him suffocate. Maybe if he stayed where he was, lying down on a filthy ground that was too harsh for a ring, it would finally stop and the crushed snails in the backyard would not make him cry anymore. Maybe if he didn’t stand up, lit up like a test subject under neon white lights, the noise would recede and the hole in his stomach would close in on itself. 

Maybe if he ignored it all, Satoru would not feel like a doomed ultimatum, and Suguru could pretend not to feel like this. Not to ache. Not to want to touch bruises the shade of violet again, kiss them until they could both repent, until they were both dead, and alive, something in between or all at the same time. Maybe if he didn’t move, time would pass, and he could let Satoru go, and forget how all he could think of was to drag his hands through snow for hair, chase the fright away from forget-me-not eyes. He hoped Satoru wouldn’t forgive him. He knew Satoru wouldn’t forgive. You brought this on yourself. A death of your own doing. 

But life had a way of remaining and returning, after all. Suguru waited and he did not die, and the crowd did not breach the iron face to kill him, and the tears dried on his face, and his broken finger reminded him that he was still, always, painfully and unfairly alive.  

He breathed in too deep. The dusty air felt like it reached his very brain, tampering with it. He sat up with difficulty, pushing on his right hand, the injured one lying uselessly on the ground next to him. It was still hard to breathe.

Suguru took a moment to clear his vision, blinking the light away from his eyes. The dizziness was a debilitating thing. Satoru had landed five blows total, but it was enough to leave a mark. It was enough to make Satoru feel like he had been punched for hours on end. The force of the ocean, the rage of the waves. Satoru had always been a slugger fighter. Suguru knew what it was like, now, to physically collide with the anger firsthand. He knew what Satoru’s fists felt like. Salvation, or something close to god, something that made sense, something with a reason. Suguru wasn’t mad. He wasn’t surprised. He wasn’t hurt. He knew this had been bound to happen. He had welcomed it like a saving grace, like the first rain of the season, like something that was good, because it was Satoru, and he would let him cut him open and thank him for it afterward. Still. Even now. I’d let you do anything to me too. 

He heard someone yell at him. He heard someone else call him names. A person was shouting for him to leave, a voice was drilling holes in his temples and cursing his entire bloodline. Tough luck. Already cursed. Hated by the crowd like it was a consequence. Like he deserved it. He probably did. 

Suguru climbed to his feet slowly, holding his damaged hand to his chest, and registered from a distance how his entire body was strained and drained. Because of this fight and all of those that came before, in parts. Because of Satoru’s words, most of all.

The iron fence was open for him to exit. Yet, Suguru stood still for another moment in the pit, letting the words of the raging crowd reach him, welcoming their hatred like a rightful punishment. It was fitting. He had earned the right to be resented. Cursed and hated, a wrecked little thing.  

He walked away, leaving the too bright spotlights behind. His legs hurt. He held his hand closer to his chest, head worn low, eyes narrowed. They stung with the pressure of being punched and having cried. A headache was nesting behind his eyelids, behind everything else. In his neck, in his skull, in his cheekbones; heart plagued with a migraine too.  

He pushed through the crowd, a reluctant mob that didn’t part for him like it usually did. He could feel the disappointment of people who had come for a show of skills and had been given a pitiful rage and a dreadful reunion instead. Someone tried to grab his shoulder, probably to insult him, but Suguru was still tall, Suguru was still strong, Suguru had still won, even if it felt like everything but that. He shook the person away with a single shrug of his arm, glaring back at them through his misery. The hand let him go without any resistance.  

He did not ignore the harsh words that were being thrown at him. They washed him clean, washed him dirtier. The global irritation would soon die down, and people would forget, but they would probably not forgive. They had been promised a spectacle. Yet, Suguru felt like his quiet agony was entertainment enough. He had offered it to them, and they were watching him with disdain in return, laughing in his face. 

He reached the edge of the crowd. He tried to push past a tall body standing there, blocking his way, bumping into him with his shoulder to get through. Suguru looked up at the man who barely budged with the impact of Suguru’s shoulder. Face tattoos, snake bites, pink hair and eyes so cutting they almost looked red. Something ancient. Something cold. 

Suguru’s jaw worked itself into place. He could still feel the tears barely leaving him alone. “Move.” He ordered, voice quiet, completely unqualified to pass as authoritative. There was no harshness he could gather. There was no spite he could manage to feel. He was drained. He was done. Satoru had taken it all with him. 

The man, taller than Suguru by almost a full head, looked down at him peculiarly, interest mixing with ferocity, and raised an eyebrow. He considered Suguru for a second and offered a smile that was everything but nice. It made Suguru’s stomach want to cry.  

“Watch your tongue, sweetheart.” He answered, low voice vibrating through every single one of Suguru’s nerve endings. A warning sign, an alarm. Suguru’s spine tensed up, fight mode activating like second nature.  

The man smiled wider, canines showing like claws, devoid of humour or any trace of kindness. He stepped aside to let Suguru through. Suguru held his eyes, harsh like glazing flames, and noticed with stupor that it felt like the man had four of them, face tattoos working as trompe-l’oeil and tricking Suguru’s brain. He looked away with a frown, acknowledging how uncomfortably angry he felt in the man’s presence, and walked away a little too fast for it to be normal. 

He navigated the place like a ghost. He needed to find the locker room. He needed to wash his hands clean. He needed to go to the hospital and get his finger’s checked. He needed to lie down, to pass out, to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to get any rest for days. Not ever, not anymore. Visions of blue eyes would not let him find solace. 

Suguru breathed in, looking around and walking on autopilot, retracing his steps back to where he had been. He found the empty locker room. He unmade his boxing wrap on his right hand with his teeth, careful not to use his injured finger on his left hand. He needed to crash. He needed to be gone. He needed to leave. Leave again. Never return. He coughed and it sounded like a cry. Something was tugging at his chest. Something else was tugging at his heart. Lilac fields, wide eyes. His entire body was screaming at him to keep looking. Keep looking. Not this room. Not this locker room. Keep looking. Not in here. This is not what you’re looking for, is it? He’s not in here. Keep looking. 

Suguru looked at his sports bag with a fear of being misunderstood. There was a panic slowly building its way up the skin of his legs, nettles at the back of his throat. There were two truths contradicting themselves inside. Keep looking. Leave him alone. He kept his left hand wrapped, still. Better not to do anything that could move his broken finger. He stared at it. He watched his swollen skin that had grown an angry shade of blue and purple. Purple. Purple.  

Suguru had not seen any purple in Satoru’s hair.  

He froze, right before something replaced the stupor, something so frightful it made him move too fast. Jumpstarted like a deer being chased down the road. He would have noticed it. He would have seen the lilacs in the snow, under the white neon lights. He would have recognized it anywhere. There had been nothing. There had been nothing.  

The purple was gone. 

Suguru’s breath hitched at the realization. He might have seen wrong, right? The shock of encountering Satoru again probably altered his perception. He had been so busy pleading with Satoru, repeating his name desperately in the void while dodging his blows. Maybe he had not seen right. He needed to be sure. He needed to be wrong. He kept his fighter shorts on and put on his black t-shirt too quickly, moving with anxiety, so hurriedly it made his head spin faster and the nausea return. Drawing air in, he grabbed his sneakers and didn’t even bother to tie them correctly. He left the room in a rush. 

He tried to breathe. The air in the place was laced with filth and terror.  

He checked every room he found, disturbing whoever was inside, gaining more insults than he already had, enraging an audience that already hated him. Suguru didn’t care in the slightest. He needed to be sure. He needed so pathetically to be wrong. Keep looking. Not in here. The size of the place was slowly starting to make him mad. Someone threatened to cut off his arm. Suguru almost told them to go ahead with it. 

After the minutes had stretched like an endless river on his palms, Suguru walked down a corridor that looked sad, ugly, away from the rest. The lights on the ceiling seemed to work barely. Suguru’s right hand closed around the empty air. He realised he had forgotten his sport bag behind. Too late. Unimportant. He turned a corner, out of breath, out of his mind, out of luck. The door that welcomed him was ajar, and Suguru knew, then, that it all led to this.  

He pushed it open with too much force, his right hand gripping the handle like it would serve to save his life. Unmistakably here, unmistakably loud, was Suguru’s sea and the rest of his world. All that mattered. All that ever would. Pretty like the first time and angry like the last. 

Satoru looked up from where he was sitting down on a rusty bench. The light above him flickered with a weird sound. 

The first thought that was evident in Suguru’s head, like the deafening sound of a gun being unloaded next to his ear, was something that screamed I missed you dreadfully. It hit him with violence, with brute force that made him lose his footing further. I missed you I missed you I missed you. Suguru screwed his mouth shut, killing the words, forcing his silence to remain. It was a funny thing, wasn’t it? That he so easily kept quiet, but in the face of heinous eyes that watched him with unbridled hatred, he wanted to speak so loudly Satoru would have no choice but to hear him. 

The second thought that made his way up Suguru’s sternum was that Satoru had never looked at him like this. Not once. Not even the first time they had sparred and Suguru had noticed Satoru’s needle-like fury leaking from every patch of his skin before he had strangled the life out of him. Not even every single time that had followed, every time they had faced each other in the ring, and Satoru tried to dig holes through Suguru’s skin, glaring like it was something precious to him. Not even in the damp back alley, after Suguru had left, and Satoru had tried so hard to conceal the hurt and the rage and the betrayal of having been touched and left behind. Not even minutes ago, in a cage of their own doing, when Satoru had looked like he could see his own death reflected on Suguru’s face. Not even then. Not ever. Not like this.  

Suguru could not move. Ice had grown arms and hands and was coiling around his ankles to keep him from taking a single step forward. Satoru was staring, openly, horrendously. He was not trying, this time, to hide his wrath under the pretence of composure. He was not sparing Suguru’s life. He was not sparing neither of them. Roaring eyes like a death sentence written in cobalt blue. Suguru thought he could die a second death by being stared at like that. Untamed rage under his eyelids, in the ashen of his eyes, the purest kind Satoru seemed to be able to conjure, to feel, to suffer and spit out onto the world. The purest kind Suguru had to face, to handle, to navigate. Satoru was a hailstorm in full motion, dancing with the blizzard, freezing everything over. He was only defiance. Suguru could not walk along the shore of Satoru, this time. There was no ground to step on. There were only ice stalactites that would perforate his skin until there was nothing left of him.  

The third thought, however, that slowly overcame the rest like retribution, was that the purple was gone. Satoru’s hair was plain white. Clinical. Dissonant.  

Suguru stared, and noticed the rest. It was trimmed slightly at the front and on top. But most of all, in the reflection of an old mirror on the wall, Suguru could see that it was cut short at the back. Close to his skull. Right where his rage was. Right where Suguru’s hands used to be. He tried to cut me away. 

Suguru’s head was under the surface. The ice went in through his nose, his mouth, his ears. He could barely take in a breath. He could barely make out the feeling of his own feet. He tried to cut me away. Suguru wondered if he had succeeded. Suguru wondered if Satoru could still feel him there, lingering, fingertips littered on his skin. He wished Satoru did. He believed Satoru didn’t.  

Suguru’s hand let go of the handle and the door closed with a loud thud. Satoru’s eyes never faltered, killing him, digging him out, burying him again. Jaw set in place by frozen stubbornness. Suguru’s injured hand was shaking. It hurt. It was still more tolerable than the look on Satoru’s face. 

Satoru had cut his hair to forget him. Suguru had let his grow longer to survive the winter. 

“You cut your hair.” He stated, noted, hurt, something in his voice that sounded like shattering wood. Too quiet, too loud. Just not right. A cracking branch in the soundless echo of a forest at night. 

Satoru didn’t move, didn’t budge, didn’t acknowledge the words. His hands were still wrapped, compressed into fists on his lap. Still ready for a fight. He was seeing past Suguru. He was seeing through him, in him, pulling at every seam he could find. His eyes were set. Unmovable. Super-imposed above the rest of what Suguru was, above all that Suguru could feel. Crushing every sense in Suguru’s body, every sensation he thought was right but was ultimately wrong. Satoru’s eyes were rewiring him entirely. 

Something decidedly bigger than the both of them was hanging over their heads, flickering with the dysfunctional light bulb. A truth, a vision. A damp back alley. Puddles at their feet. The feeling of the rain. A drenched white t-shirt sticking to pale skin in a locker room. A pair of old washed-out boxing wraps on a drying rack. Jasmine tea. A blue and white toothbrush. Morning sun through the blinds. A rage suffocating willing throats. Palms on collarbones. Kisses on back dimples. An old scar on a knee, another on a shoulder. Sunburns over lilac fields, intertwined, interlinked, and all the meanings that this held.  

The rage dripped from Satoru to Suguru, a bassline, catching the light. Blue glare nailed to Suguru’s face like an old portrait hanging on a wall. Something was hammering inside Suguru’s skull. It was like Satoru was trying to skin him alive, to tear the flesh apart, to slip his hand under his hip bones and test the tendons, breaking them, tearing them. Dislocating the bones. Something dysfunctional too.  

The silence was theirs, but Suguru had not chosen it. Satoru was imposing his resolute wordlessness. Preferred or otherwise suffered, maybe Satoru was using his silence as a shield to prevent something worse from happening. It did not feel like it to Suguru. Far from the ring, Satoru’s panic had been crushed under resentment. Hatred too, probably. Anger, most of all. Suguru could see it, leaking everywhere, black water winding itself around Satoru’s windpipe and screwing bolts into his jawbone. He would not speak unless made to. Suguru knew there was always something else. He knew Satoru’s rage, with him, had always had a reason. Since the first time. Still here, still now. He could guess what the reason was.  

There was an apology Suguru thought he could try to word out. On his tongue, in the space that seemed to stretch eternally between his fingers. Keeping itself alive. Keeping itself dead. Yet, Suguru didn’t know if he was even sorry for leaving. He didn’t know if there had been any alternative to this. This was always supposed to happen. Satoru would have left anyway. Satoru would still leave, probably, certainly. Certainly, right? 

Suguru tried to still his hands. His broken finger acted as a reminder that he was more than a shell of himself. He knew Satoru enough, but it didn’t feel like it. This didn’t feel like knowledge, it felt like supplication. Was this all they would always be destined to be? Adversaries even when they stood side by side? Sparring partners was the word. We’re good together, right? They had found each other back in a place they both resented, in a place where the other had never truly made sense. The ring always turned their dance into something neither of them could fully comprehend. Until maybe now. Until Suguru had struck Satoru’s jaw with a lead hook that had sent him to his knees. Until Satoru had punched his lower stomach and something had appeared as a revelation. Maybe now, their complementarity could not be argued with.  

Satoru’s closed fists and his eyes like a kill order. Suguru’s broken finger and his guilt that felt like a necessity. He did not want this to be all that they were. But it seemed fitting. It seemed inevitable. Written in the ropes of the ring, in the rage of a man he knew he had loved but didn’t think he could save. 

Suguru deflated. Satoru’s eyes were achieving their intended purpose. His back met the door, trying to hold himself upright. Maybe this, too, was a punishment. Suguru would accept this. He had a thing for letting people drive a knife across his chest and carve an X through his skin. Satoru’s eyes were only a consequence of his own doing. 

But Satoru would not offer him the satisfaction of being killed. He would not show mercy. His anger was something Suguru was probably not worthy of anymore.  

Suguru watched as Satoru stood up from his spot on the bench, sport bag crushed in one hand, and crossed the distance to Suguru like a man walking to slaughter. Or perhaps he was the executioner. He stopped in front of him, not close enough to look vulnerable, not far enough to make it easy. Right there, yet too far, staring into Suguru’s eyes and nowhere else. Stable like something that could end life if he decided to. His eyebrows were low. His shoulders were high. Squared and tense. The veins of his neck were apparent with how hard he seemed to try and crush his own teeth. His shorter hair made him look sharper. Sadder, too, Suguru noted with a twinge of despair.

Not a muscle out of order, not a feature out of place. Satoru was the perfect picture of destructive rage. Cold, collected, terrifying. 

Suguru stayed perfectly still, holding his breath, holding Satoru’s eyes, never, ever, looking away. Not even here. Not even now. 

Satoru let the silence make a point before he spoke, low and dark.  

“Move.” 

Suguru felt the reverberation of his voice at the back of his skull, through the line of his spine against the door. His broken finger seemed to bend itself straight before breaking again. He stood unmoving, like a thing waiting to be killed. Or kissed. Or both at the same time. 

Satoru’s patience had never been a miraculous thing. It ran thin with ease. Suguru could feel it evading him. Satoru leaned slightly forward, so tall, so loud, menace written all over him. Suguru would endure it. Suguru would suffer it. He bit the inside of his cheek and tried not to get sick under Satoru’s staring. 

“Unless you have something to say,” Satoru started, paused, inhaling sharply through his rage that was starting to make him mean. “Move.”  

Suguru would say it all if he could. His tongue was tied and his hair was tangled and all of him hurt. He didn’t say a thing, incapable of it, knowing he probably should speak, knowing he couldn’t. Not under a light that was vile. He would not say it here. He would not say it here. 

“That’s what I thought.” Satoru accused through gritted teeth. He took one step forward to make himself seem like a threat. Suguru wondered what Satoru would do if he tried to hold his face and chase the anger away.  

He heard his heartbeat in his ears, blood rushing with adrenaline. Flight reflexes. Fight reflexes. His body was asking him to choose between throwing a punch or throwing it away.  

He knew he could do neither of those. Fighting was meaningless. Fleeing was too easy. He guessed there was only the option of trying to make himself heard, which would be harder than the rest.

Suguru tried anyway. “Satoru-” He whispered, cracks in his voice. 

Satoru cut him off instantly. Enraged. 

“Don’t call me that!” He spat out, his voice so raw it made Suguru shiver with the coldness. “Don’t call me anything at all.” Satoru breathed in hard, harsh, and repeated his command. “Move.” 

Suguru’s feet were trapped in ice and stone, cold concrete moulded around his ankles. He had nowhere to go, and he thought, deep down, that Satoru knew it too. 

He drew in a breath that he forced to be steady, something performative and fake. Suguru could not be solid. Reeking of betrayal for something he had done himself.  

So he diverted, digested his unease, and let the despair show.  

“Your hair is white.” He noted brokenly out of the blue.  

But it was the point, wasn’t it? The white hair was the sign that said go away. It was louder than whatever anger Satoru could show. It was the evidence of what had gone wrong, absolving the rest, standing above it all. The ultimate proof of something defective.  

Satoru snapped at it. Something wavered behind his eyes, accentuating the rage, making itself known. Hurt, and the worst kind. The kind that made him detestable. 

“I don’t have time for your bullshit, Geto.” Satoru all but growled, fuming, speaking his family name like it was an insult. A stamp in cursed ink. 

Suguru’s breath hitched. He felt his eyes grow tired with quite anger, too. “Don’t call me that.” He countered fast, echoing Satoru’s words, a sort of ruined indignation compressing his vocal cords. It only seemed to make Satoru grow more distrustful. 

“I’ll call you whatever I fucking want.” Satoru snarled, biting, glaring. Pulled inward and forward by his own blinding rage.  

He was still asking Suguru to fight him. Just like in the ring, Suguru wouldn’t indulge him. He swallowed around his own outrage, stifling the simmering burning, placing the lid back on. He had no right to drown in the pool of his own infuriation now. It wouldn’t serve any purpose. Satoru didn’t know how to handle his own anger. He wouldn’t know how to face Suguru’s either. 

He breathed in, out, casting the vexation away. Suguru felt run-through with the idea of himself. He felt run-through with the anger of Satoru, but he could never hate him for it. He knew what it was. He knew it was born out of necessity, a requirement on the shoulders of a small boy who had never learned how to navigate it. Satoru had spoken of his father more than once, in passing, but it was enough. When Suguru wore generational despair like a calamity, Satoru had been cursed by a mouth that had told him for too long how to be a man.  

So Suguru rerouted, thinking of tears in blue eyes, of scrapped knees and the fright of a child that cried too much.  

“Why are you here?” He asked, concern suddenly running deep. His eyes started to move. “Satoru, why are you here?” He repeated in choked anguish, his back leaving the door, closing the distance slightly. Satoru, somehow, didn’t back away. “Why are you a pit fighter? Why would you go back to underground fighting? You should not be he-”  

“Surely I must be hearing shit.” Satoru cut him off, voice blank but eroded around the edges. A used knife which had been thrown around too many times. “Are you seriously lecturing me?” Satoru stared at him incredulously, disbelief mixing with the rest. His anger seemed to grow tenfold. 

“No. I’m not. I’m not. I’m just-” Suguru shook his head as he justified himself, caring very little about how he sounded. Near-frantic, edging on terrified. “Why are you here?” 

He needed to know so he could talk Satoru out of it. He’d die trying. He was dead already anyway.  

Satoru scoffed, devoid of humour. “So you wanna talk now, uh?” He asked bitterly, straightening up in a way that could not be argued with. “Weird. I thought that was something you didn’t want to do with me anymore.” 

He bit, chewed Suguru around in his mouth, and spat him out on the cold floor between them. 

Suguru let himself be eaten. Perhaps he had it coming.  

He tried to swallow down his worry. Satoru had never liked to be pitied. “I just want to know.” He offered as steadily as he could.  

Satoru almost laughed at it, at him, his irritation presenting itself like a cue for Suguru to stop pushing. Suguru held off his urge to reach for cold hands and made himself stand a little taller. 

Satoru considered him with disdain, icy stare working as a deterrent. Suguru held his eyes, staring right back, persuading his own heart. I know him enough. I know him enough. He would not let it win. His broken finger hurt in a way that was almost grounding. 

“Why are you here?” Satoru hit back after a pause, like a challenge, a way to say let’s see who is honest, let’s see who can lie. Suguru wasn’t sure if he was asking about the ring and the fighting or this; Suguru’s presence in an ugly room that he had clearly reached because he had been looking for it. For him.  

Suguru settled on the first one, because he would not speak of tenderness here. The light was wrong. It didn’t deserve it. 

“Fighting helps me sleep.” He explained as if it was not insane, as if the admission didn’t make him sound mad.  

Something snapped in Satoru’s anger and in the grey of his eyes. 

“Fuck this.” He raged, but his voice took a turn. Almost like his chest hurt. Almost like he was in pain. “Move out of my way.” He ordered again, fed up with something Suguru couldn’t reach, couldn’t see, couldn’t understand.  

He stepped in closer, fully invading Suguru’s personal space. Except this time the eyes were trying to make him run. Except this time Suguru didn’t raise his hands to touch him and mend the bruises. Having him close still made Suguru feel misty, a satellite orbiting a planet on the wrong axis, on the wrong frequency.  

Satoru seemed to debate something with himself, fighting off a move, a twitch in his brows, something wavering behind his eyes. He blinked too hard like he was attempting to free himself of a headache. Maybe he was. He breathed in harshly, breathed out harsher. Suguru could almost feel him trembling, like Satoru was battling not to pull him away from the door. He could if he wanted to. Suguru would pose no argument. His body had always grown suppliant under Satoru’s touch. 

His mind, however, decided otherwise. To move now would be to lose. To move now would mean defeat, wasted time, misplaced strategy, one two three and what have I missed? He straightened up, squaring his shoulders. Satoru seemed taken aback with the sudden shift, with the way Suguru stood, challenging the both of them. They had never been very distant in height, and for the first time Suguru felt like he was taller than him. Equals, standing far, standing close. Suguru could kiss him and he thought Satoru would try to suffocate him back, fighting him for it, fighting him with it.  

Satoru mirrored him. On instinct. Standing taller too. He seemed to brace for impact, knowing what would come next. Suguru convinced himself there were worse ways to die than letting yourself be heard by someone who had tried to be kind. 

“I’m sorry.” He breathed out, and it was honest, and it made him exist a little easier, and it was the best he could do for now.  

Satoru did not budge, he crumbled. Face falling with the words, rage and disdain working as an undignified mix. His eyes grew demented. It was the same look he had had when seeing Suguru in the ring, when someone had pushed him forward under the bright white light, forcing him to do something he didn’t want to. Forcing him to enter a fight against his will. Forcing him to walk head first into what he detested most now: Suguru’s hands. 

“No.” Satoru whispered under his breath, suddenly looking like a beaten child, to no one but his rage. Cold. Cutting. He was refusing this. 

Suguru bit his cheek until iron met his teeth. Guilt was an untender thing. He tested the words on his tongue again. He tried to find something else to say. He couldn’t. Nothing else made sense. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, louder, making sure he was heard, making sure it dripped from him to Suguru like an imploration. To keep yourself alive. To keep yourself dead. It was the same thing, wasn’t it? 

“No.” Satoru protested, louder this time, raising his voice just like Suguru had. Mirroring. He didn’t give himself time to breathe before he was speaking again, newly returned turbulence in the voice. “Move out of my way or I’ll make you.” 

A threat, then, surely. To Suguru, it sounded like defiance, but most of all it sounded sad.  

“You won’t.” He knew he was right.  

Satoru’s eyes grew psychotic. He looked so monumentally aggravated Suguru could feel it in his throat. “Are you really sure you wanna try your luck with me right now?” He seethed, he showed his teeth, he snarled.  

But Suguru knew that he would not bite. 

“Always.” He admitted quietly. Satoru’s face twisted in pain. 

“Fuck this.” 

Satoru threw his bag on the ground, at Suguru’s feet, and turned around like he was trying to find another exit, another way out that wouldn’t mean having to follow up on his empty threat. Suguru let out air he did not realise he was holding in. A hand littered in violets and wrapped in blue went up. Satoru’s nail dug into the back of his own head, scratching his undercut violently. Suguru’s eyes followed the motion, and the view made his heart clench. Hair too white, cut too short.  

Satoru was pacing. Suguru knew he would not try to push past him. 

It was in the way Satoru was evidently trying to fight himself. If he wanted to make Suguru move, he could. He would have done it already. It was in the way Satoru tried, always, eternally, to make the rage quieter as time went by. Slowly, Satoru’s stance had changed, something behind his eyelids was returning, never properly buried, never completely gone. A desire to be kinder, maybe. A desire to be left alone, or found, or seen with eyes that understood. 

Satoru was many things but he was not a coward. This was harder on him than to walk out. This was harder than to push past Suguru and call it a day. Suguru knew it. Suguru was appalled as much as he was grateful. He did not deserve it. 

Satoru was trying. Despite it all. Even now. Even here. 

He stopped, his steps receding, like he had decided on something. He stood facing away from Suguru, hand still in his hair, holding himself the best he could. Holding his rage away, desperately, as much as he could. It was remarkable. It was commendable. The anger of a raging winter storm compressed in a body that, albeit tall and strong and sharp, was still not enough to hold the entirety of it. A wolf trapped in a cage. A child lost in a man. Running in circles and coming back to himself no matter what.  

Suguru did not move from his spot against the door and simply watched him, waiting, knowing Satoru would find him eventually.  

Satoru turned around. His glassy eyes were on another planet. Above it all. Away from himself. Fixed on Suguru. 

“I’m here because I need to forget.” 

To forget you. To forget us. To forget it all. 

“Is it working?” Suguru asked slowly, on the verge of what he hated most: pathetic.  

Satoru seemed to try to glare, but it looked bleak. Discoloured. “No.” He admitted blankly, his anger eroding. “It’s not.” 

Guilt, in Suguru’s throat, up in his airway. Everywhere. In everything. His broken finger screamed to be shattered further. His knees went weak with it, with the flowers in the garden who would soon be dead, with the rooms of his house where silence never faltered, with the crushed snails in the wet cold grass.  

“If it’s not working, then why do you come back to it? You shouldn’t be doing this.” I don’t want you to be doing this. He spoke with prudence, words deliberate, pulled apart at the seams. It took all the courage in the world just to stand there and be heard. “It’s unsustainable.” 

Satoru scoffed, but it was half-hearted. “Says the one who uses fights like sleeping pills.” He charged with grandeur, and Suguru took the hit with little grace. He almost winced. Satoru studied him, eyes travelling over his face from a distance. “You look fucked up, by the way.” An accusation, again, and Suguru was suddenly made aware of his own existence.  

Satoru paused. Suguru blinked him in and felt too observed. Sunburnt. “I didn’t even know your face was a hittable target.” The other man added, and it was not like the rest. A little desperate.  

Suguru smiled. Something sad, apologetic. “It’s not.” He admitted with shame, and Satoru’s eyes turned sour. Betrayed. 

“So you let it happen?” He blurted with force, gesturing madly towards Suguru like he tried to shake him from a distance. “You let people punch you?!” Fed-up despair, again, and Suguru couldn’t believe he was still making this happen after months. You’re making him like this. 

“It helps me sleep.” Suguru justified, barely audible, lost in an echo chamber of his own dishonour. It helped him sleep and Suguru, too, wanted to forget.   

Satoru's eyes wavered, again, again, and he almost looked sad, almost, almost. He never let it win. He didn’t let it overwhelm him. But Satoru was bad at pretending.  

Suguru took him in. His closed fists, knuckles hidden under blue. Grey hoodie hiding his arms, himself, shielding a storm. A hem of a white t-shirt sticking out from underneath. His black sweatpants that seemed double layered. Suguru remembered the winter. It was January already. Suguru was reminded that Satoru was always a little cold even when the days were unfairly warm. It must be worse now. It must be unbearable now. He tried to make his warmth reach him from across the room, but he knew Satoru wouldn’t let it touch his skin. 

He breathed in and tried to be kind. “Thank you for forfeiting.” He said, honest, casting away the guilt until it came back. “I’m sorry.” He repeated for the third time, choking on the words, forcing his tenderness to be there. It was harder lately. Everything was harder lately. 

Satoru stared, and frowned, and retreated somewhere Suguru couldn’t reach. “Too late for that.”  

As the culpability of having been born with abandon on his heart creeped up the side of his face, Suguru thought there was no way to repair this. He breathed in slowly but it was unfair to his lungs. He breathed out loud but it was like aiming to keep blood down, trying not to throw up. It became worse when Satoru moved closer, eyes fixed, jaw set, anger returning. Suguru watched, glassy-eyed, under his own remorse and the weight of something that couldn’t be fixed. 

“Now let me through.” Satoru deadpanned, picking up his bag at Suguru’s feet before he uncurled his entire body like a promise. “Don’t make me say it again.” 

Satoru was standing so tall. He had seemed so small in Suguru’s arms, once, on a gentle rainy morning, soft with scattered kisses. It seemed so far now.

Suguru stepped aside, moving like a thing that couldn’t hold life, and Satoru left without looking back. 

The way was a blur. Suguru arrived in front of his apartment without truly knowing how.  

He knocked, once, twice, somewhere else, somehow here. He heard footsteps that were too heavy. 

As the door opened, Choso’s voice echoed like a habit. 

“Gojo, he’s still not back. I’m so-” Choso stopped, wide eyes finding Suguru, and the look of pure relief was enough to make Suguru cry. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered as a sob broke his throat. He was in Choso’s arms before he could even think of leaving again. 

Choso hugged him silently until the tears went dry, until his breathing went quiet, until Suguru could move. He took him in, washed his hair, and helped him shower. Suguru could barely stand, pulled in all directions by invisible strings attached to his regrets. Choso examined his broken finger with attention, with caution, I’ll drive you to the hospital. 

He did not ask him to talk. He did not ask him for justifications. He did not try to dig him out. Choso simply cooked a meal, a soup with white miso, side dishes that were easy to stomach. He placed them on the counter for Suguru to try, or refuse, anything would work, because it was Choso, and Choso would always know him easily, without effort, without rush, without spite. 

Suguru eyed the food with dread. It was hard to be cared for. 

“In your own time.” Choso assured, reassured, and Suguru didn’t know how to let himself be held anymore. He would have to learn again.  

Suguru ate in silence and managed to keep the meal down. 

The drive to the Tokyo Metropolitan Hiroo Hospital was quiet, but soft. Late night traffic was never an issue. Suguru watched his hand distantly and felt far from it all. 

They took care of his finger, placing a splint on it after the diagnosis. His second phalanx of his left ring finger was broken clean. It would take three months for it to heal, and for Suguru to safely be back in the ring. The doctor was a tall woman with steady eyes, her hands were careful, and her words were calm. Suguru eyed her with alarm the same way he had looked at the food. It was hard to be cared for. 

Choso drove them back. Suguru brushed his teeth, brushed his hair, tried to breathe. His sheets were clean, changed not long ago, as if Choso had always expected his return. Holding out hope, or knowing he would come back ultimately. Suguru stared at the bed and could only feel guilt, pulling, pushing. He found choso in the kitchen and apologized again. 

Choso shook his head, watching him seriously, and offered him a smile that was rare and honest. He spoke with ease, and with something final. Something that could be believed in. 

“You will never have to apologize for trying to survive.” 

That night, Suguru did not sleep well, but the heartache was quieter, and at least he was home .  

The week moved slowly. Suguru wallowed in his silence as he thought of a way to fix something he had shattered himself.  

Monday was a dare, a mallet to his sanity. He thought of the fight and of how it had felt. He could barely remember what seeing Satoru in the ring was like. The shock was so rough, so raw, that his brain refused to let him recall, like the aftermath of a brutal fall.  

Tuesday was terror, but maybe it was better this way. Suguru moved frantically through the apartment, trying to find something to do, trying to find something to say. There was never silence here. The noise of the streets was omnipresent. He wanted to cut his ear off, to cut his head away, to stop the sound from reaching him. He did not think of Satoru. He did not think of anything. 

Wednesday came like an awful reunion. He was reminded of his own body, of his own face. He looked in the mirror and met himself again. Whose hands are those? Whose bruises do I wear? The weather was unkind. 

Thursday was nauseous, bile in his throat, dizziness everywhere else. He felt like fighting off a fever. Blue eyes reached him and he tried not to go mad with it. His hands ached, his fingers twitched. He needed to hold, he needed to touch. White hair like pure snow. Powder. Clean. The purple was gone and it made him feel sick. 

Friday was uncomfortable. Suguru debated taking off the splint. He couldn’t sit still in his own body. His skin stung, his eyes were dry. He tried to eat but it tasted like dirt. He thought of his mother and could only feel himself staring back. The amber that was his. The amber that was hers. 

Saturday felt too far, too foreign. An absence of quiet and the need for respite. He wanted to go back to the house. He almost did, he almost stepped outside. But Choso had left him a plate of zaru soba, and Suguru convinced himself it wouldn’t be too bad to sit here for a while. It was still hard to be cared for. 

Sunday, like all Sundays, came like a revelation. 

Suguru woke to the third week of January and knew how to make amends. 

The room was something out of a film décor, filled to the brim with clichés he didn’t believe could coexist in such a small space. There was an abandoned ashtray on the enormous solid wood desk he sat on one side of. A cigar was resting on the rim, smoked halfway through, not long forgotten. Paperwork of all sorts were piling up on the surface, all with red ink, stamps Suguru couldn’t recognize. Wads of cash lay forgotten there, too, like a reminder of what the purpose of this room was, what the discussions around this desk lead to. The money was taunting whoever sat there, a way to say you could take this and run, but you won’t, because you’re here for more. Suguru knew he was here for more, like everyone before him had been. 

On the wall opposite him were shelves stacked with books. They looked more like decoration than something to be skimmed through. Suguru tried to read the titles on their spines from a distance. His attention landed on the single lamp on the desk, metal, industrial style. It was lit up but served no purpose. The overhead light of the place was warm enough to illuminate the room entirely, dim but present, casting shadows on the walls and under the bookshelves. An old rug with washed out patterns was taking up most of the floor space, muffling the sounds whenever Suguru shifted on his chair, something made of leather and uncomfortable enough to let you know you should not overstay your welcome. 

The air was heavy with cigar smoke and gambling, with the thrill of greed and avarice. Suguru fought off his unease by thinking of lilacs on the shoreline, and the reminder of why he was here.  

He had been brought in by two men whose only job was to seem threatening. Suguru was not here to look for trouble, nor to allow it. He had been told to wait. A beautiful woman with black hair down to her waist who had introduced herself as Yorozu had told him He will see you soon. Whoever he was. The man in charge. The one he needed to make this work. To make amends. To form an apology that made sense. 

Suguru crossed his hands over his lap and waited. His splint sat uncomfortably against his knuckles. He focused on it, and let the time pass. He thought it was impolite to make people wait. He had the faintest feeling that the waiting game was already a show of force, the beginning of the bargain. Negotiations had started the second Suguru had walked into the place.  

Thankfully, Suguru knew a thing or two about patience, and had a predilection for quietness. He sat dutifully and did not make a sound. 

The door opened after a while. The commotion pulled Suguru out of his head.  

His eyes shot up to look at the man who had just walked in, and he went cross eyed with the view and the realisation. Face tattoos. Pink hair. Too tall. Four eyes as trompe l’oeil. The man he had bumped into in the crowd. Suguru tried not to let his cold shock show, forcing his face into neutrality, and visibly failed considering that the man looked pleased, a smirk pulling at his lips like a personal reward. 

“Don’t make that face.” The man said coyly, moving slowly to the desk, like time was his and he could toy with it as he wished. Suguru’s eyes were glued to him, watchful.  

He wore a white shirt stretching on his body with every move and a pair of grey dress pants fitted perfectly on his form. The belt was a thing that screamed of money, shiny black leather adorned with a silver buckle. Slick back pink hair. One chain around the neck that smelled almost pretentious, if it wasn’t for the fact it was worn too casually, like it was a thing forgotten by him but meant to be seen by others.  

The man slid behind the desk, his body working in a way Suguru would recognize anywhere. A fighter, for sure. Retired, maybe? But the man looked young enough to still be in the ring. And definitely broad enough to knock someone out with a single punch.  

He leaned back on his chair with elegant ease, watching Suguru with intent, gauging his moves and letting his eyes trail over his frame. There was a twinge of something malevolent in his gaze. Fire. Too harsh. Suguru tried not to stir. He did not like to be stared at if the eyes weren’t a shade of blue that danced with grey.  

“We’ve met briefly before, haven’t we, sweetheart? ” He played, smiling like he was amused. Suguru did not smile back. 

Suguru despised how the nickname sounded on his tongue. Inappropriate, and strangely humiliating.  

“We have.” He deadpanned, controlling his voice. His spine was abnormally straight against the back of the chair. 

“Quite a fight that was. Unexpected turn, too.” The man continued with facility, unmoved by Suguru’s reticence. He crossed his hands over his stomach, elbows on the armrests of his chair. Comfortable. Like this was his playground. “I’ve always been fond of theatrics.” 

Suguru felt his jaw begin to tense up but he fought it off. His broken finger seemed to be mocking him, just like the man’s words were. Theatrics. It had been everything but this. It had been horrors and terror, but the man thought Suguru’s panic and Satoru’s grave rage had been entertaining enough.  

Suguru stayed quiet, watching. The remark did not call for an answer. He endured the eyes that were studying him back, delight and contempt waving behind them. The man let the silence stretch on purpose, playing with it. A lion rolling a lamb around between his claws. 

He leaned forward after a moment too long, his hands still on his lap. His composure was so rehearsed, so practiced it felt unmovable. Suguru braced for something without even knowing why. 

The man smiled before striking the blow. “So, Suguru. ” The name was spoken with the knowledge of what he could do with it. Ruin Suguru’s life. Ruin his chances. Suguru felt his eyes go wild before an air of nausea washed over him, punched stupid, frozen in place. The man smiled wider, satisfied. “What brings you all the way to this side of my desk?” He continued like nothing had happened, knowing he was hanging a silent threat over Suguru’s head like it was a joke. 

Suguru tried to regain his composure, but everything was hard to achieve lately. An exposed nerve. A wavering leaf. He breathed in with some leftover fortitude.  

“How do you know my name?” He asked, forcing the tremor in his voice away. 

The man shrugged nonchalantly. Suguru’s stomach turned. 

“I have my ways. It is rude to make business without proper introductions, don’t you think?” He explained, satisfied. He watched Suguru with malice, detestable smile never wavering, waiting, gauging. Suguru felt observed by too many eyes.  

He grew upset. He shifted to get himself more comfortable, to chase away his growing apprehension, but the chair was too stiff under his thighs. The man knew his name and it was unjust. Suguru felt naïve, for a second. He allowed himself to believe this was unfair, that this was a world where morals could still prevail, where justice was still alive, even if he knew well enough that any rule or fair play was left hanging on the doormat, crushed by shoes that smelled of gold and cash. 

“If you wanna play fair,” Suguru started on the defensive. “It’s only normal that I get to know your name, then.” 

The man raised an eyebrow, looking amused by Suguru’s attempt at setting them on equal footing. He leaned back on his chair and tutted, considering the words, toying with the waiting, letting the pause stretch.    

“I haven’t played fair in a while, but I guess I’ll do it just for you.” He settled after a moment, voice coated in sugar that tasted like poison. “You can call me Ryo.” His canines flashed like a warning sign.

Suguru registered the name with a stiff frown and stored it between his knuckles. An eye for an eye, even though he knew he was severely outmatched.  

“So, I ask again,” Ryo urged after letting Suguru sit in silence, leaning back down on his chair, the fabric of his perfectly ironed white shirt stretching over his shoulders. Sleeves rolled up above his tattooed wrists, flaunting his watch. Three buttons open exposing the top of his chest tattoos. Too confident. “What brings you here?”  

Suguru felt suddenly ridiculed for something he had not even voiced out yet. He tried to remind himself of the whole point of this impromptu visit. There was a wave of cold sweat at the back of his neck. Irritation. Or something like misplaced purpose. He fought off the urge to play with the hem of his black hoodie.. 

“I need cash.” He declared. It came out sounding more like a question than an affirmation.  

Ryo seemed unimpressed, tilting his head lazily at the words. “Well, that’s what everybody comes to me for.” He wore cockiness like second nature, surfing on the edge of arrogance. Suguru felt strangely attacked by it. “You’ve got to be a little more exhaustive than that, sweetheart. ” 

He uncrossed his hands over his chest, letting them settle on the armrests instead, relaxed. Suguru tried not to wince at the nickname and set his jaw further, shifting where he sat. 

“I’ve heard you can plan out rigged fights.”  

Ryo’s interest seemed to be piqued at that. “Amongst other things, yes.” 

Suguru nodded slowly, careful. “I’d like you to arrange one for me.” The words sounded right on his tongue. This is all for a reason. 

Ryo scoffed. “A rigged fight between two fighters of your choice?” He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, eyes trailing mockingly over Suguru’s frame and clothes. “That’ll cost you a lot. I doubt you have the money to dabble in this kind of gamble.” 

Suguru’s felt vexed by the assumption despite the veracity of it. He guessed Ryo wasn’t completely wrong to believe such a thing. Suguru had nothing to show but a broken finger, a bruised face, and an old hoodie that was starting to come apart.  

“No. I’ll be in the ring.” Suguru corrected, straightening up to prove a point. The man’s interest returned. “I need you to find someone who will agree to a rigged fight with me.” Suguru inhaled slowly and played his move. “A fight where I lose.” 

Ryo considered him, narrowing his eyes as he crossed his arms over his chest again, pensive. His watch shimmered under the light, and Suguru’s eyes flickered to it for a second before finding the man’s face again. He was suddenly made aware of his hair, and was reminded of a boy with pink strands falling over his eyes, guarding the door of the gym. Yuji made an appearance in his mind, all smiles and shining eyes and that beautiful easiness that was his, and Suguru felt a little better for it. He hoped he was alright. He had not seen the boy in nearly four months. 

“I see.” Ryo hummed, bringing him back, replacing Yuji’s face with his. He tapped his right index on his left bicep, still observing Suguru with confidence. “What’s in it for me?” He inquired. Suguru knew he had caught his attention.  

“Money. A lot of it, if you play your cards right and promote the fight to both regulars and externals.” Suguru’s voice was stable. Pretending. This is all for a reason. “The crowd has seen me. They know me. They know that I basically always win.” He shrugged, forcing nonchalance and succeeding. As if this was child’s play to him. “You get the word out there and people will bet on me. I’ll lose on purpose, that way we get to keep their money. ” 

“We?” Ryo interrupted, his presumptuous smile returning. “You’re awfully confident. I fear you’re not well aware of how this works. The bookie always gets the bigger cut.” He tilted his head again. Annoyingly cocky. “House always wins.” 

“I am well aware.” Suguru retorted, impassive. He shrugged again and leaned back into the chair. Uneasy, but pretending not to be. “I know how betting works. If it wasn’t lucrative no one would be running this sort of business.” 

“And yet you do not seem to care.” 

“I came all the way here to see you, didn’t I?” Suguru let a pause hang, holding Ryo’s sly eyes like they were easy to accept. “I know what I’m asking. I know what I’m here for. The power imbalance was always to be expected.”  

Suguru shrugged again for good measure. Ryo watched his shoulders with interest before his gaze shot back up, amused by the display of defiance. 

“But the money is too good to pass on?” He rhetorically asked. 

He thought of lilac fields, of a blood stain on the snow, of the rage and the words that made his blood turn; I’m here cause I need to forget. He clenched his fists, hidden under his biceps on both sides, and feigned detachment in the midst of his demise.  

“I guess you could say that.” 

Ryo uncrossed his arms again and leaned forward, grabbing the leftover cigar that was diligently waiting on the rim of the ashtray. He rolled it between his index and his thumb. His eyes never left Suguru, trailing over his face like it was a riddle laid out for him to solve, a problem to clear up. Something to inspect, to figure out. A bug under a microscope that made him curious and amused in a slightly morbid way. Suguru could feel agitation flaring up like a rash on his chest. 

“Strange.” Ryo finally said, pensive and sinister. “I did not paint you as the gambling kind. Don’t get me wrong, you are one of the best in the ring.” There was a deliberate pause before Ryo continued like he was discussing the weather. “But pretty faces like yours in this world, they usually end up pursuing means of income that require more tongue and mouth action.”  

His tone was detached. Conversational. Fake, just to make Suguru feel like this was nothing more than a light-hearted remark, and not a tasteless observation bordering on insulting. 

Suguru’s skin crawled at the words. “I don’t do that.” His voice turned sour, a taste of iron and guilt in his mouth over something he had never done.  

Ryo tsked, shaking his head mockingly. “A waste.” He faked disappointment and Suguru thought about grabbing a nearby pen and stabbing him in the eye with it. “Plenty of people in your devoted cult would pay a fortune for this.” He let his eyes trail over Suguru’s entire body to get his point across. 

Suguru dug moon crescents into both of his palms. His broken finger screamed for him to stop. “I have some shame.” He deadpanned, unusual coldness coiling around his throat. 

“Some would argue that what you’re asking for is more shameful than offering your body as a price.” Ryo smiled again at that, a vicious smirk plastered on his face like a supporting argument. 

Suguru felt piqued. Vexed. Affronted in a way he rarely was. He guessed it was the tiredness taking over, making him irritable, imposed above all that he was. He cleared his throat before countering. 

“I think being in the ring has more purpose than getting into bed with the first person willing to pay up for it.” He lied coldly. Suguru didn’t think fighting had a purpose for him. Not anymore. “Don’t you think?” 

Ryo rolled the cigar between his fingers again. “I do not care about purpose, nor shame or morals.” He considered the ashtray on the desk and the object in his hand before refocusing his attention on Suguru with unwavering interest. “Money, sex, fighting. There’s no pride left in any of it.” He attested, his conversational tone taking on a slightly more serious note. “If there was, we would be feeling some type of guilt about it. Do you feel guilty for being here, Suguru?” 

“I don’t.” He affirmed matter-of-factly.  

Ryo acquiesced, satisfied. “Then we are on the same page.”  

Suguru considered the man with attention, gaze fixed to the face tattoos consisting of sharp lines except for the two red eyes on both of his cheekbones. Malicious in a way that was harsh. Pretty, too, in a way that was sharp, revengeful, as if he had been sculpted with melting iron and ashes. Daunting and fascinating, malevolence everywhere; in the way he carried himself, in the tone of his voice, too sweet and too low, too magnificent to be gentle.  

“Why do you do this job, then, if you find no purpose in it?” Suguru asked, honest interest in the voice.  

Ryo placed the untouched cigar back into the ashtray, leaning slightly over the desk, watching Suguru under sharp eyebrows as he answered. “Because I like to be entertained.” He flashed him a grin, cunning and dreadful, before settling back in his chair.  

Suguru figured he was right, then. The fight had been nothing but a spectacle to Ryo. A man above it all, watching for pleasure, because violence made him laugh with delight.  

“I guess this is as good a reason as any.” Suguru concurred, keeping his voice detached for the sake of taming his own discomfort.  

Ryo nodded. “Indeed.”  

A prophetic silence settled around the room, then, descending upon Suguru like something that was forced on him. He placed his right hand on his thigh, near his knee, and dug his nails into the fabric of his grey jeans until he could feel a sharp pain underneath. Anything to keep him from leaping over the desk and punching the man’s face like it was his job. Suguru thought he would be knocked out in seconds or shot dead at point-blank range anyway. He could picture a gun taped under the desk. He could imagine Ryo grabbing it and unloading the whole clip between Suguru’s eyes. It wouldn’t surprise him in the slightest. Too cliché.  

“We have a deal, then?” He asked, undertones of irritation finding their way to his voice to put an end to this.

Ryo was still watching him, gaze fixed and precise. He was barely listening to anything Suguru tried to say, arrogance spilling from him like fire on a stove. Suguru felt scorched by the heat and the hubris, skin charred by eyes that held his like they aimed to burn a hole through his skull. Laser-like precision. Eyes overridden with self-confidence.  

Suguru thought of Satoru, for a second, and of his eyes that were sharp too, and detestable sometimes. The blue of the storm that was like a rumbling. The harshness they carried, broken pearls the colour of glass and snow. The tenderness Suguru knew these eyes were capable of, despite it all. They had never left Suguru feeling scarred and burned alive in a way that was almost painful. Not like right now. Never like Ryo’s. Despite it all.

As if Suguru had said it out loud, Ryo leaned forward, grabbing a black ink pen on his desk, and smiled with something that mimicked cruelty. 

“How’s Gojo doing, uh?” He asked playfully, almost sing-songing.  

Suguru froze up before entirely processing the words. The name alone was enough to make him go limp. The hand on his thigh went still. His breath caught in his lungs. He stared, wide-eyed, all pretences of his carefully crafted stoicism evading him.  

“What?” He stumbled, voice quavering, a crack replacing his irritation. A cold wave travelled the entirety of his body. Horror, and the taste of mistake. 

Ryo simply repeated his words. “How’s Gojo doing?” He still smiled maliciously, like it was all a game to him. Nothing more than entertainment. An animal toying with his food to pass the time. 

Suguru’s brain refused cooperation, doubling down on spreading shock through every single part of his body. He wanted, above all, to keep Satoru out of this. Even if he was the reason for it. Even if he was the drive behind Suguru being here, sitting down on the side of a desk that was reserved for those awaiting execution by the hands of a man with too much power and too little shame.  

Suguru stared, inhaled, tried for a semblance of stability, and failed at it like he was destined to. 

“I wouldn’t know.” He lied, the pantomime of distance in his voice breaking with the rest. 

The mere idea of Satoru had a way of reaching through the very core of him and shattering his symmetry even when he was not here. An absent presence whose evocation brought him to his knees and made the silence in him turn despondent. Controlling and weighing on his Adam apple like a collar that would not give, choking him until he could not make a sound, until he could not stay quiet either.  

Ryo seemed to know, to notice, and found a delirious pleasure in tightening the reins around Suguru’s throat. 

“Oh but I think you would know, wouldn’t you?” He teased, provoking, and Suguru could taste the bile under his tongue. Ryo flipped the pen between his fingers and began tapping a slow rhythm on the edge of his desk, the ticking of a bomb, a clock that he controlled. “You see, people talk.” He continued, relaxed voice pressing on both sides of Suguru’s head like a trap. “Where I deal in money, some rats deal in gossip. They cannot keep themselves from running their mouths. They have too much free time and too little self-respect.”  

He almost scoffed at that, obvious contempt spreading on his lips like the premise of a showdown. He stopped the motion of his pen and leaned slightly forward, fixing Suguru with a look that screamed of confrontation. 

“So, I ask again,” He spoke slowly, words calculated, arching his split eyebrow like he was enjoying it. “How’s Gojo doing?” 

The choking grew deeper. It coated Suguru’s airway with black tar. He could not speak a word that made sense. His voice got lost somewhere between a grin that reeked of malice, a graveyard with the Geto name, and the wide-open sea. Dead flowers in the backyard. Crushed snails under his own shoes. Suguru made a vow to try and stop his fall, but nothing answered back. 

“I don’t-” He stuttered, stumbling down the pathways of his incredulity. “I don’t know.” 

He lied, lied again, did not know where this was heading. He did not believe he could withstand the idea of being played like a disastrous melody by hands that handled gold like they handled blood. Ryo only smiled wider, canines showing, ready for a meal that he had been expertly preparing to his liking. 

“I was here. I saw the fight.” He reminded Suguru, nagging him like a nail through each of his palms. Ryo flipped the pen between his fingers again and pointed at Suguru with the end of it. He paused, torturing with a smile, and dropped the words like the brunt of a joke. “You have him on a leash.”  

“I don’t.” He blurted out too fast, eyes going a little crazed. Too frantic in the span of seconds. 

“You do.” Ryo snarked, still pointing at Suguru with the pen like it was a knife he could draw through his throat at any second. “No use lying to me, sweetheart.”  

Suguru could only stare, something in his head acting like a debilitating force. He tried to bite back but he was not crafted as a tool for conflict. He was too tired. Too pulled taut in every direction like a piece of lint in a washing mashing. He had grown used to the silence of his empty house and the echo of his footsteps down the hall. Nothing ever talked back to him. He had forgotten how to talk back too.  

“He couldn’t even finish it.” Ryo brought the pen back to himself, tapping it on his knee, a satisfied smile never leaving his face. “Gojo doesn’t forfeit no matter how bad it gets. He’s like an extremely irritating parasite who never knows when he’s beat.” Ryo’s face twitched, annoyed. He resumed with ease, eyes fixed on Suguru. “He never walks away, even less when he has the upper hand. You might be quite known in the underground world but he has always been a different breed. Even after years of him quitting pit fighting, people around here have never forgotten him.” 

Suguru absorbed the words diligently, forced too, made into an unsuspecting listener. The unwilling spectator of Satoru’s reputation being laid out in the open on the desk between them. 

“The demon with a halo. Killer-Eyes. The Strongest.” Ryo recounted, tone taking a dramatic turn, as if Satoru was something made only for his enjoyment. “He has always been psychotic in the ring and utterly incapable of showing an ounce of self-preservation.” He continued with sly contempt, almost rolling his eyes. Suguru could feel his own hand shaking where it was pressing down on his thigh.  

The look changed, something intrigued and bordering on vicious wavering behind Ryo’s eyes. The knowledge of a victory, perhaps. Or something different all together. 

“But he let you go.” Ryo observed with slightly twisted eyes, almost morbidly fascinated. “That lunatic had you trapped under him and he let you go. He was crying like a little bitch about it, too.” He mocked. He was enjoying this too much. 

Suguru felt his shoulders and his jaw tense up. His voice got punched in and out of him, a match being dragged on the surface of his tongue like a rock on scorched asphalt. 

“Careful.” He threatened before he could even think twice. The word only seemed to further Ryo’s amusement.  

“So, yes, you have this brat on a leash and you know it.” He continued, shrugging with disdain. “This interests me more than whatever little bargain you think we’re discussing.” He waved a dismissive hand towards Suguru’s direction as he concluded his monologue. 

Suguru tasted panic, something he had not met in a while. Anger, too, at the idea of Satoru’s name being dragged into pools and pits of ashes with him. Guilty in the face of his own failure to keep him out of this, tired in the midst of his own naivety. 

“What does any of this have to do with him?” He retaliated with defiance, canting forward, carried by the motion of his voice like an unsuccessful slap to Ryo’s face. 

Ryo tapped the pen on his knee one last time before throwing it inelegantly on the desk, seemingly growing bored of it. “I’ve known him for far longer than you.” He explained as he crossed a leg over the other, right ankle on his left knee. “He disrespected me greatly years ago. I tried to settle the score but my hand was a little too… light.” He smiled at that, tone cocky like he was recalling a playground fight. “I’d like to clean up my mess. Try again.” He tilted his head as if to prove that this was all in good heart, in twisted innocence. 

Suguru scoffed in opposition, bravado returning to him due to Ryo’s clear dislike towards Satoru. “So you want revenge? That’s it?” He asked, unimpressed. “For someone lacking purpose, you seem to be well set in what you want to achieve.” He accused with a frown. 

“Holding a grudge is a privilege only children can afford. As I’ve told you, I’m here to be entertained.” Ryo countered with a grin, eyes picking up their travelling on Suguru’s body. “I want to have fun.” The tip of his tongue made an appearance, wetting his lip slightly before he leaned forward, commanding respect. Suguru had no consideration to offer him. “I will be the one in the ring with you. I think this will strike a nerve.” 

Suguru frowned deeper, considering the man, the width of his shoulders, the clear stance of a fighter, the jaw squared and scarred, a face still holding traces of crude fights. Suguru knew this would be harsh. He did not mind the pain, as long as the money was there, as long as he could sleep afterwards. The reason behind Ryo’s fervour didn’t particularly worry him either. Satoru had made his desire to move on and forget pretty clear. Suguru’s apology in the locker room had fallen into dead ears. Too late for that. 

“You delude yourself.” Suguru stated with arrogance, leaning back in his uncomfortable chair. “I truly doubt he’d care much.” The words were honest, albeit a bit sad, tired.  

Ryo all but laughed, fixing Suguru with a look of half-contempt and half-disappointment. “ Tsk. ” He shook his head, giving him the once over, judgment eroding his edges. “You could probably walk him like a dog and you don’t even realise it.” He said it like it was fact.

Suguru felt something snap in his neck. The collar grew tighter. 

“Don’t-”  

“May I ask what you intend to do with the money?” Ryo cut him off instantly, not even hearing him. He raised an eyebrow. “Is Gojo Satoru the very reason you’re bargaining with me to begin with?” He smiled, wide, knowing he had hit right the second Suguru froze up again.  

“This is beyond business discussions.” Suguru defended but it sounded too rushed, too frail, too exposed. Touché. 

“Ah.” Ryo laughed, humourless. He stared Suguru down once more before setting his eyes on his face, hard glare burning him from the inside out. “So it appears the leash goes both ways.” 

He was still amused. He was still smiling. Suguru was still trying not to leap over the table and strangle him. 

Silence was forced back into Suguru’s mouth like a gag order. He felt ridiculed. Back to a classroom full of people asking him what his problem was. Speak louder. We cannot hear you. Suguru was incapable of talking back, words deadening in his throat. Anything he could say would sound like an admission, a defeat, or a verdict. His silence was also serving as an evidence of his crimes, of his inclination, of his sentiment and his affection towards Satoru. A man he had cherished. A man he still cherished. Despite it all. Despite it all.  

Suguru stared at Ryo, eyes like gaping wounds, tracing the lines of his face tattoos, scrambling around in his head for something to bark back at the man. He came back empty handed. Heavy-hearted. 

The silence stretched, played like a fiddle between Ryo’s hands. When the time came, when satisfaction washed over the man’s face, when Suguru’s silence turned into distant staring and haziness, Ryo seemed to grow bored of him. Belly filled with Suguru’s despair. Content and full. 

“All the money bet on you will be yours. I have plenty of that already.” Ryo announced as he straightened up, grabbing the cigar again and a pack of matches. “I guess you’ve earned this as a reward for being entertaining enough . ” He took one match out before his eyes found Suguru again, cunning and interested. “Do we have a deal?” 

He waited, match in one hand, cigar in the other, and Suguru was still staring, misty-eyed and speechless like someone had unbolted the screws of his body. 

“Time is of the essence, sweetheart. ” Ryo prodded, cutting irritation growing in his voice at the lack of response. 

Suguru could feel his limbs and arms and neck go limp, life force evading him at the wrong time. He had to go home. Why was he here again? There was a ringing in his left ear. There was another sound in his heart. There was a man on his mind with desaturated colours. No purple. Grey on blue. Snow tainted by blood. Chemical white overcoming the rest. This is all for a reason.   

“Yes.” Suguru muttered through muddiness. He could barely hear himself. “We have a deal.” 

The ring was an uncomfortable thing. Floor too hard on the grey tarmac, lost in the middle of the Tokyo harbour. Shipping containers of all sizes and colours surrounded it, piled up as they usually were in an open-air depot. They worked like bleachers, used by people to get a better vantage point of the fight, hiding the ring from any overly curious and unwelcomed eye. The place was secluded enough that people would come here without fear but exposed in a way Suguru was slightly wary of. He wondered why this spot in the city had been chosen. In the face of it, he assumed night workers had been paid and bribed graciously to take the day off.  

To come here, Suguru had crossed a bridge over the Tokyo Bay.  He had stopped for a moment to look over the railing, pressing his hands against the metal, the winter air freezing it under his eternally warm fingers. The water was still and dark. Unmoving. He tried to make out what was under the surface, but the night was thick with misfortune, unrevealing. Suguru had grabbed the railing tighter, feeling how it was so cold it almost burned his palms. He wondered how cutting the water would feel if he were to jump. He pictured his body in the dark, a veil of salt and ice-cold water enveloping him, quietness and the waves disturbed by his sudden intrusion. He felt almost guilty of something he had not done. He apologised to the ocean and hoped he could be forgiven. He let go of the railing and continued walking silently.  

The industrial lighting was harsh in the night. It slashed Suguru’s skin, almost blinding him and making the crowd absent in his vision. He heard a like morning snow in his skull, the distant memory of a discussion in a brightly lit kitchen at dusk; Turn off the light, please. It hurts my head.

Ryo had not seemed to mind, or care, or even notice that they were both illuminated like test subjects in a sterile room, dancing around each other like experiments behind a glass curtain. The white bright floodlight was just a background for him, nothing but another way to be painted. Lighting him up in all the right places, it made his severe angles look sharper, taller, broader, menacing. His tattoos spread all over his chest and his shoulders and his back like tunnels to viciousness. They looked almost alive under the white light, against the backdrop of darkness. It hurt Suguru instead. It hurt his head, and his senses, and the very heart he thought he still carried. Suguru guessed it was fitting, considering the visceral pain that was already spreading all over his jawbone and his stomach, a little more than seven minutes into a fight that had turned ruthless. 

Suguru had been given instructions. Make it look real. Don’t overdo it. Fight like you normally would for at least five minutes.

So, he had fought, for five minutes and twenty-three seconds exactly, guard stable and feet steady like they always were. He had waited and counted, a protocol inscribed in his mind and the very fibre of his skin. Second nature. Still easy when the rest was complicated. Five minutes and twenty-three seconds of flawless technique. Five minutes and twenty-three seconds of Ryo countering and receiving his blows, showing an overly contained and precise boxing style. Five minutes and twenty-three seconds of him still standing. 

It turned. Five minutes and twenty three seconds was all he had been afforded before the bargain came to life. 

There was a twist, like a fire being lit at the back of Ryo’s eyes. Suguru knew it was his cue to let it happen to him, to let himself be punched, to let himself be ripped open no matter what would ensue. It was his moment to lose, with elegance or without it, it was unimportant. Make it look real.

He dropped his guard just the slightest bit, shifting his weight on the wrong side on purpose, and Ryo’s hand connected with his jaw with a brute force that was overwhelming.  

He saw stars instantly, visions clouding, flashes of white in his eyes before he could shake the world into focus again. Another blow to his left cheekbone. It sent him stumbling backward a few steps, breath catching in his trachea and refusing to cooperate. He blinked Ryo into his vision. He knew how to take a beating, but this had the taste of something different. Something destined to happen, no matter what path Suguru had chosen, no matter what death he was destined to endure. This, now, Ryo’s fists like burning stones on his mellow skin, had been predestined in a way Suguru could only suffocate under. A morbid prophecy. 

He set his jaw, drawing air in to brace himself for whatever would come next. Ryo was smiling, the evidence of his enjoyment plastered across his lips like the acknowledgement of Suguru’s imminent demise. He gave Suguru a moment to breathe, but Suguru knew it was not out of mercy or pity. Ryo was dragging it out, toying with time once again, an activity he seemed to find a sordid pleasure in. Suguru could only stare and endure it. This is all for a reason. 

He tried for a lower jab to Ryo’s stomach without really meaning it, pretending, putting on a show. It was countered with ease. Ryo went for a combination that focused entirely on his face, straight right, left uppercut, straight right, and Suguru felt the pain in his jaw grow tenfold. Ryo’s hand wraps were a vibrant red that Suguru knew would soon colour his face. His broken fingers had been healing slowly, steadily, but it seemed to break again with the pain, with the disgrace, with the malevolence that radiated all around him. He was not allowed a second to breathe. A critical front kick to his sternum dragged the air out of him, depriving him of his functioning lungs. Ryo was taller than him, legs and feet breaching the distance with a discouraging facility. Suguru had never felt so small, so abandoned and home-sick in a ring he usually knew how to navigate. Even if this was staged. Even if this was false. There was the taste of collapse in his mouth, the feeling of injustice at the back of his dysfunctional throat.  

And yet, he let it happen. Suguru would endure it. Suguru would sit and wait inside himself. Suguru would bear it, diligently, quietly, like he knew how, like he was made to. This is all for a reason.  

Scorching knuckles found his brow bone. Suguru felt it split open, sending a sharp stinging to his forehead and his eye. He breathed in but couldn’t feel anything entering his airway other than the taste of disrespect. He had trouble seeing, disoriented by the sheer strength that accompanied each blow, each punch, each move. 

Ryo breached the distance again, and again, and again, finding impact points, Suguru’s jaw and his cheeks and his forehead, his shoulders and stomach, right where his collarbone met his neck and his ribcage found his heart. He had been kissed there, once. Slowly, tender like the first rain of December. It was all gone now. 

Suguru could feel blood, hot and sticky, decorating his face as the blows kept coming. He fought back some to make a scene, to paint a convincing landscape, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it all, absorbing the violence like it was an overly awaited gift.  

Ryo moved with fire and fought like a caged lion that had finally been given a pet after centuries of waiting. Each of his blows and kicks felt ancient, premeditated, destructive flames aiming to pierce rather than bruise, infinite slashes that never seemed to stop cutting Suguru’s skin. Cruelty in every of his breath, in each of his muscle, as if they were both still in that cramped room, as if he was still sitting behind his desk, cigar in one hand, match in the other, dismantling Suguru like he was the most ridiculously entertaining thing he had ever played with. He reeked of defiance, wearing confrontation like jewellery, silver chain and watch replaced by contempt. Solid. Demonic. Unbeatable. 

A brutal left hook punch to his liver knocked the wind out of him and Suguru’s legs gave out. He always seemed to end up here; brought to his knees, forced to the ground. 

Ryo moved closer and punched his face, straight right to the nose, breaching through Suguru’s poorly maintained guard. Suguru’s hands dropped completely at the aftershock, punched unresponsive. He couldn’t breathe. Head under the fire, ashes in his mouth that resembled sand and burnt flesh. His lips were parted in hopes of finding an ounce of oxygen. He could taste iron instead. A nosebleed.  

Suguru was on his knees, unmoving as he felt a hand grab his bun, tugging on it mercilessly to pull his head back and get a better access to his face. He looked up through the haze, through his left eye that stung badly, through the blood weighing down on his eyelashes. He breathed a painful inhale, hissing sound of exertion underneath it, ragged breathing coming in and out of him like blood was filling up his lungs. Ryo looked down with disappointment, disdainful eyes like the pits of hell. Four of them. Suguru could barely make out the outline of his face, could barely think of surviving before the punches started again, repeatedly aiming for his face, repeatedly coming from Ryo’s left fists tainted in blood. 

Suguru let it happen. The hand in his hair kept him in place. There was no exit route. He tried to leave his own body, to abandon the extreme lucidity he was constantly cursed with in the ring. It was pointless. He could only wait it out. He could only expect it to become so raw and hurtful that the dizziness of being beaten to a pulp would make him half-unconscious.  

And it did, with time, when the twelfth minute dragged on, when Ryo’s blows repeated themselves so many times that they became a distant thing Suguru barely registered anymore. He was a snail cracking under a shoe. Face beaten down, slashed, bruised with horror, wounded with love. This is all for a reason. 

In the midst of it, when the burning knuckles turned into an extension of himself, Suguru became aware of something he had not fully noticed before: the marine air. It brushed his skin, slithering between the containers, finding its way to him and soothing his ache. It was strange to notice it now. They were in the middle of the harbour, after all. The ocean was right there, only meters away. The wind smelled of saltwater, tangy and sharp. Blue on blue, grey underneath. Suguru wondered if he was about to die. 

The beating ceased. Suguru couldn’t see anything. He could only feel a hand, still clenched in his hair cruelly, twisting his face to the side with a sharp tug. Suguru, through it all, didn’t make a sound. 

He felt Ryo lean in, bringing their noses close, until he could sense his hot breath against his left ear. 

“Look alive, sweetheart. ” Ryo ordered, mocking, voice lower than he had ever heard it. The nickname, still, made Suguru’s nausea return. 

He heard a click and saw a flash, could taste his own blood under his tongue, could feel his own heartbeat throbbing in his head like a tornado warning. This is all for a reason.  

The hand in Suguru’s hair opened, letting go. His body went limp. He fell completely to the ground, useless, meeting the cold tarmac, beaten down to the very limit of what he could withstand. Before consciousness left him to fend for himself, Suguru thought of the sea, of bruises under washed-out boxing wraps, of a rage that he missed, of a man that he loved.  

Across the city, when the hour struck one, Satoru woke up in a cold sweat, checked his phone, and couldn’t breathe.  

Suguru had a habit of believing, sometimes, that life and death were the same. 

They merged in his mind into a single blurry thing, without beginning or end, without an outline or a shape that made sense. They held a similar significance. Suguru would see the food on his plate and think of the taste of sickness, like a rag used to clean vomit. He would sit in the quiet of his childhood home between walls that held everything he had been and could only think of what was missing. He would look at the flowers in the garden and wonder how long it could take until they withered. He walked on dirt paths in the countryside, wrestling with the morning breeze, and nothing returned to him but the clattering of decaying trees. Where life was, death was, brought by Suguru’s hands.

Cupping his palms in the cold river that ran close to his house, Suguru had wondered many times if the stream could feel that he was bad news. Maybe the earth was able to know. But the water did not turn red at his touch. The freezing spring didn’t change into tar. It simply slipped between his fingers gently, as if to say child, the death you carry is life enough.  

He tried to make peace with the complexity of being. Suguru often felt like he stood on the edge of a cliff that would cajole him if he fell. He believed he was destined to stop breathing at an age that would make mothers’ weep. Not his own, but someone else’s. To keep yourself alive or to keep yourself dead. The difference was so minimal it almost felt the same. 

It had always been more or less like this. He continuously pressed on the line of what it meant to exist without truly breathing, testing the stretch of his existence. Never really dead. Never really alive. Suguru existed in the margins, in that quiet space where troubled souls went to repent. Nothing ever really happened there, in the dark. Space and time seemed to bend uselessly to accommodate the weight of nothing, the size of something Suguru couldn’t see. It was silent, mostly, there. It was empty too. Suguru knew he was not alone in his devastation. Millions of people shared that clenched sadness that couldn’t escape him. Yet, there was never anybody that followed. He stood on a threshold, surrounded by the same landscape of pitch-black darkness and solitude. It was okay, most of the time, until it wasn’t on some days. 

Suguru made do. He had always done so. He would always do so. 

Yet, the dawn of death had never been enough to make him complacent towards his own feelings. When he was exceptionally lucky, or when the sun had risen right on a gentle morning, Suguru would cross the path of a stranger in the street and receive a compliment about his hair or his face or his smile. The weight would feel a little less like a burden. When the universe showed him clemency, Suguru would catch the very last minutes right after sunset when the earth was dipped in midnight blue and feel like the silence wasn’t filled with only his despair. When he walked the paths in the countryside of his childhood, Suguru would see a bird that he liked or notice a golden-ringed dragonfly, and it was a little easier to breathe. When the rain was right, when the weather casted droplets on green grass that resembled nacre in sea moss, Suguru would notice the snails in the backyard, how they moved through time with a slowness they endured, and how, yet, they lived and breathed. Suguru would think of himself, and if the snails could do it, maybe he could live and breathe too.  

It was never more than a fleeting thought, an ephemeral moment, but it was enough for him to look away from the edge of the cliff, to let go of the railing over the Tokyo Bay, to look both ways before crossing the road. Another minute. A little longer.  

The little things, the bigger things. Suguru was cursed, and doomed, by his mother or something completely different altogether, but Suguru could still love. He did so without malice. He did so because he wanted to, because it was the last remaining thing he found to be easy when the rest evaded him like smoke signals over a deserted field. This state of existing in the brim of life had never managed to smother his heart. 

It was a fragile thing, but it was there. It remained, even in that silence he was born to suffer, even in that quiet terror he was built to be a testimony of. The little things, the bigger things. Suguru tried to notice how the wind smelled. Suguru tried to appreciate the feeling of the snow under his fingers. He tried to crouch down to the surface of the earth and put his ear to the ground, to the dirt, and listen to the life that happened underneath. His knees hurt, complaining under the load he carried constantly; his own, his mother’s, his name’s. But Suguru tried. He always tried. He tried all the time.  

Satoru had been proof enough of that. Satoru had been proof enough of everything. Of Suguru trying, always, even in the dark, even under the water, even when the hollow in his head was so deep and wide he couldn’t see the end of it, a paper cut between his fingers, a shard in the crook of his knuckle. Satoru had been the proof of his affection, of his tendency to let it blind him, this love that never passed, that never left him no matter how many times he had been kicked to the ground and spat on like a losing dog. Satoru had been proof enough of the size of this thing in his throat, tender-hearted and real, birthed by choice, by necessity, by will, by him. I try to be good, and I can be. I try to be good, and I will be.  

Suguru had left and failed. He could not fix that, but he would try. Always. Noticing the dirt pits in the countryside, the dragonfly in the rain, the snails in the backyard, Satoru and his rage, and the lilacs underneath. I try to be good, and I can be. I try to be good, and I will be. 

Suguru had tried, with afterain in his mouth, and saltwater in his heart.  

The first thing Suguru made out was the smell of the ocean.  

It tingled his nose. Sharp, sweet, sour. He had always liked how crisp the scent of sea water was. He wondered where it was coming from. He did not question it. He let it reach him, undisturbed, unperturbed. Quiet. Silent. He could not make a sound, and he did not wish to. 

“Suguru!” 

He thought of floating, carried by soft crests that folded on themselves before crashing on the shore. The waterfront was that colour between white and yellow that, in lack of a better word, had been named “desert sand”. Suguru thought it was funny. The sea had always appeared to him as something that he reached to be lonesome, companionless. It was ironic that the seafront, the end and the beginning of the ocean, was of a deserted shade, a lonely colour. Alone, facing the waves. Alone, under the waves.  

“Suguru, look at me!” 

He was cold. It was rare that he was. Suguru remembered a railing, a bridge, and waters so dark he had not been able to distinguish shapes or forms. The metal had been cold under his hands. He had pictured his body draped in freezing water. He was under, now. 

“Don’t you dare dying on me you fucking piece of shit!” 

Had he jumped? Suguru was pretty sure he had not. He remembered apologising to the ocean for thinking about disturbing its quiet. Why was he cold. Why was he dead. Dead?  

“Suguru, please!” 

There was another sea. Another ocean. Right there. Right above him. Saltwater in his lungs. He could make it out. Someone. Another ocean. His. Him. Mine. My sea.  

“Hey. Hey!” 

He tried to open his eyes. The waters were too thick, too deep, laced with affliction. He tried again and there was a flash of white. No purple. Clinical. 

“Stay with me!” 

Maybe he was dead. Maybe he had jumped. 

“Look at me!” 

I’m trying. I’m always trying. Suguru forced his eyelashes, casting away his eyelids, cursing his mother back as he reached the surface of himself. Swimming, always swimming.  

He made out an outline. It came back to his body like a plague. The burn in his face. The burn everywhere. He was cold and it burned. His browbone felt broken into thousands of cutting shards made of rotten wood, stabbing his skull repeatedly. The rest of his face was a blur, numb as much as stinging. And the pain. The pain. The pain.  

He was made conscious of his lungs by a breath that happened to him. Harsh, unforgiving, mean. Suguru could breathe if he wanted but he was not sure he did. Something was broken under his ribcage. 

There was a mist, a fog, a wavering over his eyes. One of them couldn’t open entirely. But someone was unmistakenly here, on the shore, standing, waiting, trying to drag him to the top. Suguru did not want to be brought back from under the waves. He did not think he had a choice either. The hand was relentless. On his neck, on his shoulders. Touching him, cold, so cold, Are you cold?  

I always am.  

That can’t be good. It’s summer, the weather is so hot. Have you ever gotten your blood checked for that?  

I did once. They didn’t find anything; all my levels are normal. My mom says it’s just a family thing, that we tend to run cold. Fucking pain in my ass if you ask me.  

Your hands are freezing and it’s above 30 degrees. You should go back to run some more tests.  

Why would I? I have you now, and you’re always so warm.  

Cold, cold hands. Satoru. 

“Satoru?” It came up and out of him like the dying plea of an animal. Barely a sound, barely a breath. Suguru couldn’t be heard. 

“Don’t try to talk. Don’t fucking- Just don’t move.” The voice was thick with dread, but at least it was here. 

He tried to blink. There was a sharpness in his head. He couldn’t make out a thing. 

Maybe he was dead, and Satoru had managed to breach the confines of space and time and find him here, in that place where nothing ever moved, where nothing ever happened. Maybe something could cross ephemerality and become absolute. Infinite. He thought Satoru could do that. He was sure Satoru was already this; limitless, eternal. Maybe Satoru would sit with him in the silence, clothed in light and star-matter in that darkness where no one ever visited Suguru, and maybe they could talk. Maybe Suguru could cast away his solitude, hold Satoru’s hands and say you are all I have ever loved, all that I love still, and I am sorry. I hope you do not hate me for it. Maybe something other than silence would speak back to him, this time. Maybe Satoru would produce an echo. Maybe Satoru would say something. 

But I am not dead; he thought, and then, but I have always been dead. 

“Sa-to-ru.” He tried to spell it out for himself. He felt like his vocal cords had been cut off, tangled into uneven knots and placed back inside his body by force. 

“It’s me.” The voice said, breathing out in ragged exhales. A pause, and a hand on Suguru’s chest, above his heart. I love you still. Do not hate me for it.  

“It’s me.” The voice repeated, as a confirmation, as a reassurance, as if it had heard him when Suguru couldn’t speak. “I’m here.” It sounded scarred, and scared, and always a little turbulent. But most all of it sounded here. That was good enough. That was terrible enough. You should not be here. 

Suguru couldn’t move. He tried to understand where he was, tried to piece it back together, whatever it was, but he could only feel like he was missing something. He registered the coldness against his back, the burning everywhere else, and still the smell of the sea. A fresh breeze that was harsh and horrible to anyone else in the middle of January, but loved by Suguru. Suguru, who was always warm. Suguru, who was cold now, lying down. The ice against his back was harsh, too harsh, cold tarmac. Cold tarmac. He remembered thinking it is too harsh for a ring. It had hurt him when he had fallen to his knees. Something else had hurt him too. Flashes of white, too bright, too bright. The lighting had been unkind, and someone had punched him so hard, so hard, for so long. Four eyes and a prayer, a curse and a viciousness like no others. 

It came back to him all at once. A desk in a cramped room. A cigar. The Tokyo harbour. A ring. A fight. A man with pink hair who was all but kind. Scorching knuckles. A nosebleed. A knockout.  

A sound escaped him, pained, heavy with discomfort. He had no clue how long he had been lying there on the cold asphalt. Not really dead. Not really alive. Beaten unconscious and raw, alone, bare chest and frozen face tainted in blood. His vision was blurry, but he could make out the sky, dark and untouched, starless like it always was in Tokyo. And Satoru was here. And Satoru was here.  

Satoru was not supposed to be here. 

A wind of panic took over Suguru’s body like an entity possessing him. Adrenaline, and that aftershock of realising that something had gone wrong, that something was amiss, that Satoru was here and he was never supposed to be here. Suguru breathed in loud and painful, forcing his eyes to stay open, and tried to sit up but nothing worked. Nausea returned to him like retribution for daring to still be stubbornly alive. The hand on his chest found his side, and another wrapped around his bicep quick and fast in the face of his inability to function on his own. It kept him from landing back down on the ground heavily. 

“Fuck.” Satoru whispered harshly through gritted teeth. “Easy. Easy. Don’t try to move on your own.” He said, and Suguru could not see him clearly. He was just a fog. You should not be here. 

Suguru could hear Satoru breathing hard above him, mirroring his own lungs; the shared rhythm of a folie à deux. Fingers travelled on his arms, slaloming between the bruises, and Suguru could barely feel them on his skin.  

“God. How-” Satoru started, stammering, his voice so low Suguru almost thought he was hallucinating it. “How are you so cold?”  

Quiet panic, bewildered, and something like grief in Satoru’s tone. He was speaking to himself more than to Suguru, words in a hollow sphere, finding no destination. They ended up back in Satoru’s mouth.

Suguru tried to move again. He needed to put some distance between himself and the ground. He was tired of the asphalt under him. He was tired of feeling like a mocked thing, a deserted body. He pushed back on his elbows, and his entire body screamed, begging him to stop. He would endure it, always, again. Another fight, but he was determined to win this one. He heard a sound at the back of his throat that reeked of pain. Satoru’s hands on him went frantic. 

“Just stay down.” Satoru commanded, but his fingers did not force him back to the ground. Suguru continued straightening up, breaching his own body, torturing it. “Suguru.” His name, spoken like a warning. He could feel Satoru’s sharpness radiating everywhere. He could feel the grey of a hailstorm fixed on him. I missed those eyes. 

Suguru pushed through it, ignoring the word, sick of the too harsh cement. He breathed in and out laboriously. Satoru, facing his painful determination, yielded.  

“Fuck off, seriously.” He complained spitefully as he slid his right arm under him, supporting his back. “Fuck you. Fuck this.” Satoru continued, speaking and spitting the words out. Suguru barely heard him through the effort it took not to throw up. 

Satoru helped him sit up, bitching and moaning through it, but helping anyway. His left hand found his wrist above his boxing wrap, serving no true purpose. Suguru registered the touch distantly. The arm behind his back did not leave, keeping him upright. Suguru breathed in to fight off nausea. His right eye still refused to open completely. He turned his head agonizingly, searching Satoru, reaching and aiming and trying to dig through the fog. He was so close. He was right there. You should not be here. 

“You should-” Suguru attempted and faltered. His voice was a pitiful thing. He cleared his throat. It reverberated like a punch to the back of his head. Another inhale. It hurt everywhere. “You should not...be...” He could feel his left hand shaking. “Here.” 

The fingers around his wrist tightened for a moment before relaxing again. He could feel Satoru’s needle-like attention on him. His vision was still too blurry to make out his face clearly, or anything else, but Suguru could feel him. He always would. 

“Well,” Satoru deadpanned, harsh. “Tough fucking luck for you.”  

Suguru heaved, the sternness in Satoru’s voice sounding like his demise. He blinked hard, long, trying to chase away a headache. His nose felt broken. Maybe it was. He felt like his flesh had been branded and burned thoroughly by destructive hands. 

He sat there uselessly, trying to regain his consciousness, trying to stabilize his balance. It was burdensome. He leaned heavily against Satoru’s arm at his back, the only pillar of balance he could find, a semblance of steadiness. 

“How...” He whispered, coughing and choking on his own throat. “How...” 

“They sent me a fucking picture, Suguru.” Satoru cut him short, piercing voice like an accusation. Suguru felt the wind get punched out of him again. “They sent me a picture of you getting beat up. This asshole managed to get my phone number somehow and he knew I would-” Satoru stopped, rageful, swallowing back the rest of his sentence like he was avenging himself.  

There was a moment where silence found them again, slithering under Suguru’s boxing wraps, wrapping itself around Satoru’s tongue. It was prophetic. The air was heavy, palpable. Something would unfold, and Suguru knew he would have to bear it. He did not have to wait long. He felt something break in the space around him, in the fold of his bruised knees, and in the core of Satoru’s rage.  

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Satoru exploded furiously, his voice sporting a type of desperate anger born of terror. It was full of cracks, like overused things tended to be. It shook the heavens but mostly Suguru’s heart.

Satoru dragged in a breath to seemingly stabilize his voice. It was useless. 

“Getting in the ring with Sukuna of all people?!” He continued, accusing, outraged in a way he had never been, and the words made Suguru’s body freeze.  

His eyes went wide, trying to see, trying to speak, trying to make it out. He mouthed a silent what?, all reasons and senses abandoning him at the mention of Sukuna’s name. He was staring straight at Satoru but still couldn’t see him clearly. But his rage was omnipresent, and Suguru couldn’t make sense of anything. He turned the word in his head, turned the name in his stomach, put it under the microscope of his brain and looked at it in a light that was bright enough, but nothing made sense. Satoru did not seem to notice 

“Is this your-” Satoru tried to carry on, seething with cutting fury. The rage was stealing the air away from both of them. “Did you think this was a way of getting me to react? Did you do this to get me here to clean up your fucking mess?!” He provoked, accused, snarled and spat out, disbelief mixing with boiling wrath. Suguru panicked, a river of strangled no no no escaping his lips like contaminated drops of water spilling out from the depths of him. Satoru, still, did not seem to notice. 

“Is this a fucking game to you? Do you think this is a joke?!” Satoru spoke like he was trying to drown Suguru to his death. “Did you do this so I would pick you up like a damsel in distress because you know damn well that I-” Satoru choked around his indignation. The violence in his words seemed to be too hard on him too. Suguru felt his entire body start to shake from the aftershock and the misunderstanding.  

“Did you do this shit on purpose? ” Satoru was fully yelling now, his words reverberating against the containers, bouncing around in the emptiness of the Tokyo harbour, like he was everywhere in the night. Absolute. Infinite. Limitless. “Is this it then? Is this your way of getting me to talk to you?!” 

Suguru took a breath in and realised he was hyperventilating, panicking like a lamentable thing. A choked-up sound breached his throat, and he tried to explain, and he felt angry at himself for being unable to speak, at his vocal cords for feeling like snapped violin strings, at the arm still around his back for not letting go of him despite it all. 

Suguru had no idea. Suguru had not known. This was all for a reason. Suguru hated his own naivety, his own persuasion, his own credulity. His clouded judgment that had been wrecked by the prospect of trying, always, to make it up. Desperate to say have this, this is my way of saying I am sorry, and making it worse instead.  

“I didn’t...” He whispered and realised his eyes stung with tears. He forced them away. His throat hurt with the effort. “I didn’t...” 

“Why are you doing this to me?!” Satoru snapped again, voice shaking with rage, as if unable to hear when Suguru was unable to speak. Fated and doomed. 

Suguru forced it out of his mouth because there was no alternative. “I didn’t know.”  

There was a pause. Suguru blinked Satoru in his vision. Trying, always, to see him. 

“Bullshit.” Satoru spat out, cutting.  

Suguru’s voice came out of his mouth like a discordant cry for help. “I didn’t know it was him. I’ve never-” He coughed. His trachea felt bruised. “I didn’t know wha-” He coughed again, painful and croaking. “I didn’t know what he looked like.” Suguru managed, breathy and ragged. He brought one of his wrapped hands to his throat, holding his shaky fingers against his neck like it would make it easier to find his voice. “He said his name was-” Another cough, failing, eternally. “He said his name was Ryo.” Suguru choked out finally. 

Satoru’s breathing was horrendously loud, like a child on the verge of a tantrum. His palm was open against Suguru’s bare back. It was as cold as the asphalt. 

“Don’t lie to me.” He stormed through his exhale.  

Suguru shook his head as best he could. It sent shards down his spine. “I would never-” His tongue betrayed him. He took a second to collect himself. “Lie to you.” Suguru felt how his Adam’s apple worked under his skin, against his hand, and repeated with more determination. “ Never. ” 

Satoru went silent as a response. It lasted too long. The wind slithered through the containers. Suguru shivered against it. The smell of the sea was all that made it bearable. 

Satoru let go of his wrist.  

“I’m getting us out of here. It’s fucking freezing.” Satoru deadpanned, cold, sending another shiver through Suguru’s body.  

They put the beating and the barking on hold. Suguru knew this was far from over. 

Satoru fumbled for his phone with his free hand, the other one still holding Suguru up steadily. Suguru was slowly breaching the fog, his vision returning after much effort, the silence helping to lessen the spinning in his head. He closed his eyes to give himself a break.  

Satoru shifted from where he was crouching, fully sitting on the ground to get himself to Suguru’s level. He moved next to him, handling him carefully. 

“Lean on me. I need both my hands.” He ordered, voice still blank. Suguru could tell his jaw was set in stone. He twisted his upper half, angling himself towards Suguru. 

Suguru obeyed without posing an argument. He shifted painfully, biting the inside of his cheek in the process, and leaned back against Satoru’s chest. He tried to let it be easy. It wasn’t. But it was comfortable, at least, with Satoru’s puffer jacket working as a cushion. He was too run-down to protest.

Satoru wrapped his right arm around him to hold his phone with both hands. Suguru could feel the brightness of the screen even through his closed eyelids. Satoru dialed a number.

There was a silent, a waiting, and then Satoru spoke. “It’s me.” His mouth was near Suguru’s left ear. It was so foreign to be this close now. “I know. I know it’s late. I-” It was foreign, yet it felt so evident, so habitual. “No I’m okay. It’s Suguru.” A pause, long and heavy. Suguru slouched against Satoru, drained. There was still an arm wrapped around him. “Yeah. He’s with me.” To be held, to be touched. Suguru didn’t think he knew how to do that anymore. “I don’t know. He’s in bad shape. I can’t carry him on the subway. Can you-” Satoru’s voice was a white noise that made his headache recede slightly. Suguru shivered again, and the arm around him tightened carefully. “No. No hospital. It was a street fight. They might ask him questions, and it won’t end well.” Suguru’s head lolled back to his own accord, worn-out by the punches, and Satoru pressed his cheek against the back of his skull to hold it upward. “I think my place is the best option. I’ll patch him up there.” He explained, voice getting lost against Suguru’s hair. “I know. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t call you if I had any other options, you know I wouldn’t. It’s just...There’s no one else I can trust with this.” Suguru could fall asleep here, if he wasn’t so cold, if it didn’t hurt so much. “ Please, Nanami.” 

The name made Suguru’s stomach clench on itself. He screwed his eyes shut tighter and convinced himself this wasn’t the end of the world. 

Time flowed weirdly, in the silence of the harbour. Maybe an hour passed. Maybe a minute. Maybe an eternity or two. Suguru could barely tell where his body was. Here, somewhere else. Satoru unmade his hand wraps cautiously at some point, stuffing them in his pockets. He opened his jacket when the hour struck three or four or maybe five, and dragged Suguru closer as best he could, trying to wrap both of them in it, trying to share body heat even when Satoru had none. The puffer jacket helped. Satoru’s eternal coldness did not. 

Suguru heard tires, a car door opening. He opened his eyes laboriously. A tall man was here, perfect posture unmistakable even in the night. 

“Get him in.” Nanami said distantly, voice unreadable. 

“He’s too fucking heavy.” Satoru answered, tired, blank. 

A ruffling, something being moved around. “What’s this?” Nanami asked. 

“A bag full of cash. It was next to him when I got here.” 

A pause. Suguru coughed and Satoru tried to drag him closer. 

“This is bad news, Gojo.” Nanami warned.

It’s always bad news. 

“He still earned it.” Satoru countered. “Look at the state of him.” 

No other words were exchanged before Suguru was hauled into the car, wincing and trying to keep his blood in his own stomach. This is all for a reason. 

The ride was completely silent. Suguru let the side of his head rest heavily on the window. He barely processed that the car was moving. The air was thick, dreadful. He felt ridiculed. Satoru’s quiet anger was misting up the rearview mirror. Nanami’s hands were tight on the steering wheel.  

The car came to a stop. Nanami did not speak. Satoru opened the door on Suguru’s side and grabbed the duffle bag, swinging it above his shoulder before he wrapped his arms around him to get him out. Suguru forced his body to move, forced his hands to hold on to Satoru, to help him carry his load, his burden, his heart. He forced the sounds of pain away. 

Satoru slipped an arm around his lower back once Suguru was standing up on the sidewalk, leaning heavily against Satoru’s side, every bone in his body begging to be broken and laid to rest. Satoru’s jaw worked and he shifted, readjusting Suguru against him. He was a strong man, hard-earned muscles put to work every day, but Suguru had always suspected that he weighed slightly more than Satoru. He was broader where Satoru was taller.  

Nanami watched them struggle through the rear view and didn’t move to help them. Suguru knew he had his reasons. Satoru seemed to know it too.  

“Thank you.” Satoru said, honest and exhausted, before pushing the door closed with the heel of his shoe.  

They walked to Satoru’s building laboriously. The hallway was a blur. Suguru pushed down his sickness. Satoru did not say a single word, gritting his teeth. Suguru could feel him there, against him, every single nerve on alert, every single muscle tense, rigid. Under his rage, Satoru turned into marble. 

The lift had the stench of doom. Impeding punishment. Satoru’s silence was everything but quiet, everything but serene. Suguru did not look at him, eyes glued to the flickering buttons indicating the floors. They were making fun of him too. He could imagine how Satoru looked: eyes detestable and sharp, jaw squared, brows furrowed, too pretty, picture-perfect destruction. Suguru felt like he was walking the plank, that soon enough he would have to jump and finally hit the water and drown. Satoru would probably be the one to throw him overboard.  

The button dinged. The doors opened. The corridor was hauntingly soundless, filled with nothing, like it had excepted Suguru here tonight. The walls watched him with disturbed compassion, whispering good luck for your execution. There is nothing we can do for you now. As they walked with difficulty, Suguru suppressed all the sounds that tried to escape him.  

Satoru unlocked his apartment with his free hand. Suguru watched the handle with a sense of dread he had been born to endure.  

They stumbled inside. Suguru’s body instinctively went for the kitchen and its small table, like an unshakable habit returning to him. Satoru held him back firmly. 

“Bathroom.” He instructed, ice cold voice like a threat. Suguru did not retort, something resembling survival instinct pushing upward through his dazed state and telling him to stay very quiet. A flash of lucidity, perhaps, in the face of a brewing storm.  

Satoru dropped the duffle bag in the entrance and took off his shoes. Suguru kicked his off with difficulty. 

They got to the bathroom. Suguru almost tripped three times on the way. 

“Sit down.” Satoru ordered once they reached the cramped space. Suguru complied as he got lowered down on the toilet seat lid. The cold material under his thighs was unwelcomed. Suguru did not speak on it. 

He leaned back on the wall, feeling the tiles against his back, cold too. Everything was cold. He was growing restless with it, tired, weary. He was still bare chest, only wearing his fighter shorts, his entire body a bruise. He blinked heavily, weighty eyelashes pressing down on the entirety of him. Dry blood was sticking to them. His eyelids fluttered, attention shifting to find Satoru. He was seeing things a little more clearly, now that he was not outside, now that he was not lying down on coarse ground. He managed to truly see Satoru for the first time tonight.. 

The view, as always, made him breathless, and ripped out his heart from the inside.  

Satoru had discarded his puffer jacket. It was hanging on the door handle uselessly. Satoru had a thick hoodie on, grey and large, double layered if Suguru had to guess. There was a white t-shirt sticking out at the bottom, underneath. Suguru noted with stupor that he was wearing a pair of wide-legged dark-grey cotton joggers that Suguru knew he usually wore to bed. He blinked incredulously. He realised with hot shame that Satoru had woken up, had seen the picture, and had crossed the city to find him in the clothes he wore to sleep. He had not even taken the time to change.  

Suguru opened his mouth, the words ready on his tongue, I’m so sorry, but decided against it, remembering how this had ended the last time. Survival instincts kicked in and he swallowed down. 

Satoru was rummaging through the cabinets, searching with sharp moves and a tense jaw. His eyebags were terrible. Suguru knew they mirrored his own under the dried blood. 

His hair was still pure white. His undercut was still there. His rage was still unabashedly threatening to explode. 

He found what he was looking for after a minute. Gauze pads and wound closure strips in one hand, disinfectant in the other. Suguru eyed the items with alarm.  

Satoru fixed him with a look, something akin to what Suguru was sure being crushed alive was probably like. He held his eyes anyway. He would take a second beating if it was done by Satoru’s hands. It would probably feel right.  

Satoru rerouted after considering him detestably for a moment. He grabbed a clean towel instead and ran it under the tap. Suguru braced for it, biting his cheek as Satoru moved closer, clinical movements going straight to the point. He grabbed Suguru’s chin between his pointer and his thumb and angled his face up. Suguru fought off the childish urge to bite his fingers off. He would endure it. He couldn’t do anything else. Satoru stared harshly, hostile, features closed off on themselves. He brought the wet towel to Suguru’s face, and yet, even now, even here, pressed the cloth to Suguru’s forehead cautiously, careful not to hurt him further. The contrast left Suguru feeling light-headed. Satoru dabbed Suguru’s face lightly, pressing just enough to clean away the dry blood, to clean him up the best he could. He moved to his cheekbones, and it stung a little but it was bearable, because it was Satoru, and he was fucking trying. Trying to kill his rage, always. Tell me when you’re angry, to make it easier. 

Suguru let himself be cleaned up, patched up, pieced back together by hands that tried to be useful. He felt worse for it before he felt better. 

Satoru disinfected his wounds diligently. He stayed resolutely silent. His anger was raw on his face, like a knife exposed proudly on a blank canvas. Except Suguru knew Satoru was rarely proud of his rage. He suffered it, mostly. It was here by necessity, not by choice, not by will. Superimposed above all that Satoru was but not reaching his hands. It was like Satoru was battling very hard to sew a thread through his wrists to separate his hands from the rest of him, to create a repellent that casted the fury away from his palms, a wall to prevent it from grabbing his fingers like it grabbed every other part of him. It was remarkable. It looked difficult, too. Suguru wondered, for a second, which one of them was the most in pain. 

Once Satoru was done cleaning the blood off Suguru’s lips, he let his hands fall to his sides, throwing the pads in the bin without ever looking away. Suguru felt steadier. He could see a little clearer. His head still hurt so monumentally it was debilitating but at least, at least, Suguru did not taste blood in his mouth anymore. 

“Where does it hurt?” Satoru asked, inaccessible. His eyes were stubbornly fixed on Suguru’s face. 

Everywhere. “My ribs, mostly.” Suguru croaked after realising he was being talked to.  

Satoru stared for a moment longer before his glare dropped to Suguru’s chest. He seemed to debate something, working his jaw. He crouched down on one knee. Suguru tensed up at the sight, unable to look away, and watched with contained fright as Satoru leaned in and placed his cold hands on his ribs. Suguru winced, but it did not hurt like he was expecting it to. 

“I don’t think it’s broken.” Satoru declared blankly, inspecting it. He pressed lightly on Suguru’s third rib, where the bruise was starting to turn a shade of furious dark purple like a plum colour. Suguru inhaled sharply through his nose but did not jump out of his skin.  

Satoru stood back up, uncurling his body. “You got lucky.” He commented through his set jaw.

Suguru looked down at his body. It did not feel like luck. 

“I’ll find some ice. Your nose took a bad hit.” Satoru declared. He quickly placed the things back in the cabinets and moved away, grabbing the door handle. “I’ll get you some spare clothes. You should shower.”  

Suguru blinked, eyelids heavy, and looked back up only to find he was already being watched distantly.

The silence tried to insinuate itself between them again. Satoru casted it away ruthlessly. “Can you manage that alone?”  

Suguru thought he couldn’t but lied. “Yes.” He nodded to prove a point. “Thank you.” He tried, tentatively, and Satoru did not seem to care. He observed him for another second before moving to leave. 

“Don’t slip. I don’t want to deal with your dead body in my bathroom on top of everything else.” The other man commented, already halfway through the door. Suguru took the hit with little grace and closed his eyes for a moment.  

He moved painfully slow. He got out of his shorts and briefs with agony and climbed into the shower. He slid the curtain shut, and the water hit him, cold before it got hot. Suguru sat down, back against the tiles, letting himself be warmed back to normal. The door opened at some point and Suguru figured Satoru had brought him clothes. He dozed off, a half-conscious sleep finding him, and opened his eyes sometime later. Minutes, or hours, he didn’t know, he didn’t care. He cleaned himself and dried himself and put too large clothes on and through it all tried not to faint and throw up and slip. He looked at the sink, hand going up mechanically to grab a toothbrush. He stopped when he realised there was only one. I had it coming. 

He avoided the mirror. He stared at the door handle for a while, debating, knowing what would come next. This doesn’t have to be hard, Suguru thought, praying to himself and to Satoru’s rage. Trying to convince the very part of him that knew it was inevitable.  

He opened the door slowly, his shoulder protesting, and let the pain wash over him. He made his way to the kitchen, careful steps weighing more than usual, dragging his own bodyweight around like iron chains around his ankles. He breathed in, out, but it was not simple, and it was not kind.

He crossed Satoru’s bedroom. The door to the kitchen was left open. There was something that awaited him. Someone he had known, once. Someone he still knew, perhaps. Someone he would always know, surely.  

Suguru got to the kitchen quietly, tentative feet still testing what was left of his balance after the fight. It had not even been a fight, had it? It had been a disrespect. Suguru swallowed his pride, the small little bits of it he could still taste as leftovers, and stopped on the threshold of the kitchen. 

His eyes found the clock on the wall. It was only two in the morning. 

His attention shifted to Satoru cautiously, his back to him, hunched over the sink like he was staring down the bottom of the drain. His hands were grasping the edge too tight. His head was low between his shoulders, heavy, burdened by something Suguru could not imagine the size of. There were scratch marks at the back of his neck, right under his undercut, like he had tried to dig his nails through his own skin and extract the first vertebra. Relentless.. Suguru took a shaky inhale in, begging for forgiveness, asking for his own kindness to return. Trying to be brave.

Satoru seemed to notice his presence. He straightened up, shoulders returning to their squareness, body finding its height again. Suguru could see him take a breath in, his back moving up and down with the motion and the strain. He turned around, movements efficient and sharp as they usually were, sternness returning to him. He stood tall, he stood absolute. Suguru found his face and it was like a tornado. Ravaging and unforgiving, eyes speaking the fluent language of a deathless rage. This is all for a reason.  

Suguru stood still. There was not much else his body was capable of. He debated sitting down at the table, but it was too close to Satoru, and he did not want to impose, to invade his space further. He stayed where he was, by lack of a better option.

This is where we stand now, Suguru thought. You are right here and miles away. 

There was something that had to be said. Suguru knew it. There were so many things that he had to speak of, to lie to rest in that electric space between them, on that invisible line that somehow never ended, never broke or snapped no matter how hard Suguru tried to pull away, no matter how harshly Satoru tried to crush it. It remained, catching the light, iridescent and golden, cold and warm, blue and amber, lilacs and sunlight.. 

Satoru stared at him the way he knew how, with that pent-up rage that he couldn't hide, swelling in his nape and in his stomach, pushing upwards relentlessly. His hands had found their way into the pockets of his hoodie. Suguru knew they were curled into fists. 

Suguru opened his mouth to speak. Not a single word came out.  

He tried to breathe through it, but there was nothing. No sound. He did not know what to say. He did not know where to begin, how to speak of his own silence, of his own empty space where nothing ever seemed to happen. He did not know how to make him listen. He did not know how to make himself be heard.  

He blinked in incredulity, a lamentable expression falling over his face. Satoru seemed to lose the very last bit of patience that he broke under his jaw. 

“You can just crash here and leave tomorrow. I’ll take the couch.” He spoke, anger mimicking impassivity. A pause. Suguru noticed that the lights were off. “We don’t have to talk.” Satoru added, almost like an order, eyebrows furrowing.  

Satoru made no move to walk away despite his words. He simply continued to glare, watching Suguru with a precision that resembled hostility. Suguru felt a shiver travel his skin, sidestepping his bruises and aiming for his bones instead. 

Suguru forced a breath in and out. “Is this what you want?” He asked with caution. His voice was still strained, worn-out, sounding like a derailing train.

Satoru was too quick to counter, his annoyance working as fuel. “Isn’t it what you wanted?”

Suguru took the hit straight to his plum-coloured rib. 

“I never-” He attempted but his throat betrayed him. He coughed and brought a hand to his Adam apple. He swallowed and tried again. “I never meant it like that.” He managed. It was barely an explanation, barely anything of worth. 

“You sure did make it seem that way.” Satoru worked his jaw. 

It would not lead anywhere like this. Suguru scratched his throat a little harshly before dropping his hand. He grabbed the hem of Satoru’s washed-out black t-shirt he was wearing like it would save him. His swollen eye hurt. The rest of him did too. 

“Thank you, again, for helping.” He rerouted carefully. His voice was halfway between a whisper and a sound. That was all he could produce. “You did not have to do this.” He assured, trying to placate something, and visibly failing to.  

Satoru did not budge, stone-like, his face unmalleable. “The picture made it pretty clear that either I came to pick you up or you would have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere. I didn’t want to be charged for failure to assist a person in danger.” He explained it like a warning. The signs of the storm were getting closer.  

Suguru nodded at his words, accepting a defeat that was his and his alone. Shame, hot and massive in his mouth, worked to make it more unbearable. He was mortified. A humiliation of his own making. He diverted his eyes to look at the clock on the wall again. Only five minutes had passed.  

“Was the fight rigged?” Satoru probed. It sounded like an accusation already.  

Suguru’s attention returned to him slowly, unwillingly dragged back to his face. Inevitable.  

“Yes.” He concurred quietly.   

Satoru’s expression hardened at that. “I assumed it was, cause you very clearly lost, and yet you got out of it with a literal bag of cash.” His eyes travel up and down the length of Suguru’s body, cutting and judgmental. He let the silence stretch too long and Suguru forced back a cough. “I didn’t think you were the type of person to accept that kind of deal.” Satoru condemned, unaware. 

Suguru could cut it short now. He could say Well you were wrong, thank you again, good night. He could lie, go to sleep, and disappear once more the next morning, leaving the money behind. He could let it go to waste and pretend it had happened to him. He could save himself, betray himself, lie to blue eyes and get out of this relatively unarmed.  

Suguru had never been good at self-preservation. 

“I didn’t accept the fight.” The words were out of his mouth before he could even process them. They were surprisingly distinct. “I asked for it.” He carried on, owning up to his shame, holding it with both hands. “That’s why I went to Ryo- Sukuna, in the first place.”  

He grabbed the hem of his t-shirt tighter. Satoru leaned forward at the revelation, pulled inward by gravity and furious shock. His eyes went a little agitated on Suguru’s face, blinking something in, out, away. Suguru felt his own apprehension grow with it. 

“And why exactly did you think this was a good idea?” Satoru scolded, irritation poorly hidden. He was threatening to snap with every passing second.  

Suguru stood very still, trying to let the storm pass over his head. He knew he would be drenched with the rain once the downpour started.  

He worked the sentence under his tongue, testing it against his teeth, and breathed it out. “I was trying to find a way to apologize that wasn't just words.” 

Satoru frowned hard. He straightened up too fast and Suguru knew he was done for. 

“What does this shit have to do with an apology?!” He seethed, eyes going wide with the force of his own voice. “This is your way of saying you’re sorry? Being beat up and me having to clean you up?” 

Satoru’s indignation was solid. Hailstorm. His ignorance was loud, his turbulence louder. Suguru knew there was no way out of this that wouldn’t leave a mark. It would not go well and it was never meant to.

Suguru braced for it, resigned in a way that was almost dignified.

“My apology is the money so you can get out of here.” He declared, stable in his pain, undebatable in his desperation. Convinced. It was out between them and Suguru could not backtrack and did not wish to. “So you can stop doing this.” 

Satoru froze up under the blow. He stared, wide-eyed, lips pressed into a thin line. Jaw screwed shut. The room held his breath. Suguru did too, gripping the t-shirt harder, nails digging into his palm through the fabric.  

And then, it broke. A switch was flicked behind blue eyes. Satoru’s rage made her spectacular entrance like an old feud seeking revenge. 

“What?!” He spat out, the bassline of his voice too loud in the dead of night.  

Suguru took the punch diligently, prepared for it, ready. He could hear the thrumming of his heartbeat in his ears. 

“You never wanted to be a boxer in the first place.” He justified it, quick, expeditive. “You told me yourself that this was something you started because you just-” He hesitated, the way he often did when he did not know what his words could elicit. He went for it anyway. “You never had a choice.”  

Satoru’s breathing took a turn. He blinked in bewilderment, in vicious consternation. Eyes unsympathetic and growing frantic. Suguru forced his feet to stay where they were.

“You can go to university, get a degree, become a teacher like you wanted to. All you need for that is-” Suguru got cut by his own inhale. A fish caught in a net and battling to get out. “You need your debts to be paid off.” He recovered, voice steadier, eyes fixed and assured. “The money is for you.” He let go of the t-shirt, something settling in his chest. “I did it for you.”  

This was always the reason. 

The silence found them like a guard dog returning faithfully to their feet. Except the dog tried to bite. Except it was sinking its teeth through Suguru’s ankle spitefully and tearing off the flesh from Satoru’s calves. All but kind. All but protective. Causing carnage where it had once been a safety net. 

Satoru managed to kick the dog away by being worse than it. “You have to be fucking kidding me!” He snarled, baring his incisors. He took his clenched fists out of his pockets like a malediction. “I never asked for your help, Suguru. I don’t need it. I don’t need this shit!” He spat out and rejected it, outraged. “I don’t want your blood money!” 

Suguru felt his shame turn sour, rancid, and a stupefied irritation found him.  

His head spun and he tried to shake the dog off too by getting to its level. “Because you think what you’re doing isn’t blood money too?” His voice was louder, reverberating too high against the back of his skull. “Illegal fights are all rotten to the core.” He denounced with indignation. 

Satoru all but growled at him, his fists shaking. “At least mines weren’t fucking rigged!” 

Suguru scoffed, biting, uncharacteristically unkind. “You really believe that? How the hell would you even know?” He defended, hoarse voice working as an unpleasant sound. “Even unrigged ones are fucked up because there is no honour in street fights altogether. There is no point in any of it. There is no shame, no purpose.” He let the words out like a confession of his own delusion and a denunciation all the same. Harsh and exhausted, done with it. “It’s all corrupt, it's all-” He coughed. His boiling resentment was choking him. “It's all an act for people’s entertainment. It’s a performance where you’re being played like a doll for the morbid amusement of others. It makes their boring routine a little less fucking boring.” He cursed, swearing, and could feel his hands trembling. “They get to enjoy watching your violence and your rage and it makes them smile. It makes them happy.” He felt hatred pressing on his wounds and fresh bruises. “They relish in seeing you bloody and beat up and it’s just-” 

He caught himself, shaking his head, watching Satoru with eyes that screamed of something desperate. 

“You’re just-” He stumbled on his own anger and felt it turn into something else. Despair; the Geto bloodline’s very own brand. “You're too good for this.” He confessed. His coarse voice was like a plea. “It’s unjust. It’s unfair.” 

Satoru seemed to barely take the time to process the words, raging on. Always, eternal wrath like the leader of a faceless squadron.

“Unfair?!” He barked. His face was a menace. “It’s always been unfair, Suguru! That's what you get when life throws a bag of shit over your head at your birth that stays with you until the day you put a gun in your mouth or die of old age!” He thundered, eyes like the treacherous sky. “You fucking live with it. You can't escape it.” 

Suguru would refuse that. Suguru could not accept this. Not now. Not after all.  

“But you can escape. You have to!” He howled in distress. He was panting with the effort it took to just stand there and brave the tide. “Otherwise, this means-” Suguru tried to still his shaking hands unsuccessfully. “It means there is no point in trying to survive.” He let it out like it hurt, because it did. 

“Who says I want to survive?” Satoru bit back. “Who says I don’t like getting my face beat up for fun?”  

Suguru’s hands turned into fists too, borrowing some of Satoru’s rage that he knew like the paths of a pale back. “You don’t. I know you don’t. You told me.” He defended with importance. 

Satoru took a pause. He seemed to fold his fury back on itself, making it cut instead of slap.  

“Things have changed.” He scowled. His voice was blank. 

Suguru regarded him, watchful.

“This has not.” He concluded with confidence. 

“You think you have the moral high ground because you did this fucked up shit for me?” 

Satoru glared, still, unable to let it go. Suguru relented but stood his ground.  

“I think we both know morals are concepts we have forgotten a long time ago.” 

Satoru could not refute that. He slid a hand through his hair strategically before burying both of his hands back into his pockets. He breathed in sharp and loud, and Suguru remembered he, too, had to breathe. His headache was worsening with every exchanged punch and kick. He battled not to close his eyes. His feet were glued to the ground, drenched, standing in a puddle after having been rained on. He looked down at his hands and watched as they trembled.  

When he looked back up, he realised the storm was still raging. Satoru had moved closer. 

“I don’t want the money.” He hissed. “Take that shit with you tomorrow.”  

Suguru’s distress grew tenfold. “So you’re just gonna stay here and beg for forgiveness from people who hate you? From a crowd that has never respected you?” He asked, growing mad with it, mad at it. “That’s not a life, Satoru.”  

Suguru frowned. “It’s better than nothing.” 

“Is it? Really?” 

“It’s the only way I know how to live, then!”  

“Because life has never been kind to you and never gave you the chance to try anything else!” Suguru heard the foundation of his own voice break. 

Something died, then, in Satoru’s posture, in the grey of his eyes, like the sign of the end of time. He took three calculated steps, crossing the distance, invading Suguru’s space so suddenly it made him stumble backward until he met the wall. 

Suguru was pulled back to the secluded ugly room, to a dysfunctional lightbulb, to how Satoru had looked then, how he was looking now. Cold. Collected. Terrifying.  

Suguru breathed in and held it. He could not falter now. 

Satoru raised his right hand, pointing a shaking finger wrapped in a bandaid at him, too close, too rough. He inhaled sharply through his nose and plunged the knife into Suguru’s composure. 

“You, of all fucking people, do not get to speak about what hasn’t been kind to me.” Satoru said it with a quiet violence, with a trembling voice, with a painfully evident broken heart. 

The hurt was a dutiful thing. It oscillated, it made itself small and digestible, accommodating even the tallest of bodies, the strongest of men. It found a way, a spot, a corner to hide under. It kept quiet. It blended with the rest. Until, when the walls were down, when the bones were tired, when the limbs were kicked and twisted, it grew loud and charged forward.  

It could kill all that there was. Even the deepest of angers, even the coldest of rages. 

Suguru was witnessing it, now, first row at the spectacle of what it meant to have been hurt. Witnessing the fury being smothered and stepped on. It was worse. It was so much worse than the yelling and the biting and the barking. The look of perfect desolation in Satoru’s eyes would never be forgotten. Suguru would take it to his grave. 

He tried to make a sound. Satoru’s finger was still close to his face, his hand shaking like he was caught in the centre of a snowstorm. Suguru wanted to reach out, to press his palms to Satoru’s, to mend it, to warm it. He fought it off. He let his eyes take and take, watching Satoru’s face, the three moles on his cheekbones, a strange Northern sky constellation. The furrowed brows were still knitted together, but it was a painful expression instead of an angry one. He was visibly biting the inside of his cheek, hard, too hard, suppressing something. Suguru remembered Satoru's tears in the ring, and could feel them getting closer, and the panic returned, and he would not let this happen. Not again. Not this time. 

He tried to be kind. He tried to make it return to him, this ancient tenderness he knew had always been his. 

“I never-” He started, but his tone was still too hoarse. He took a second to collect it, and the guilt was there, and he would try to make it up but it was a heavy task. “I never meant to make it hard on you.” He breathed out quietly.  

Satoru winced, face twisting, and his hand fell back. “But you still did it.”  

There was no rage left. It had been used and overused, an old rag discarded. Satoru’s voice was as quiet as the night around them, as quiet as Suguru’s words. Suguru heard his own despair grow, climbing up his airway, finding his heart. He felt the tears like he always did. 

It took a moment for Satoru to let it out. He was working the words, working his mind. Eyes fixed on Suguru and yet, painfully somewhere else, lost at sea. Suguru could wait for him for a lifetime or two and it would not be enough to settle the score. 

Satoru took a step back, putting a distance, shielding himself. He breathed in with terror. I will never manage to fix this. “You left.” Satoru spoke, barely above a whisper. “You fucking took up and left. You left m-“ His own lungs betrayed him, his air cutting his words, his heart cutting his head. 

Keeping yourself alive. Keeping yourself dead. The difference was so minimal Suguru knew it was the same. 

He felt amber eyes at the back of his mind, challenging the blue, making the dread and the abandon return. Suguru heard his mother’s voice and it was a mocking thing. 

“I had to go.” Suguru whispered back. His own tears were already in his voice.  

Satoru did not seem to hear him. “You didn’t- You didn’t even tell me why.” He murmured in agony. He seemed so small, again, under the streetlights dancing around the room. “You didn’t tell me why.”  Suguru could be shot now and he was sure it would be easier. “I never even deserved to be explained why.”  

It was like the contrasts had been drained from Satoru’s body. Clinical white hair, pale skin like glass, discoloured bruises. Desert sand.  

“I couldn’t-” Suguru begged for stability but was afforded only the precipice of himself, the edge of a cliff. “I didn’t know how to- How to make it make sense.” He could feel his distress growing, reminded of his house, of the emptiness of it. “I didn’t know how to say it in a way you would understand.” He heard his heart, in his throat, on his sleeves, everywhere. “I just didn’t know.” 

What came spilling out of him, then, was the truth, what he believed had had to be done. Do not let strangers into your heart.  

“There was nothing else I could do but go.” 

He had tried to save himself. He had tried to salvage his own heart before it would end on the wrong side of a chainsaw. He felt his throat close on itself. You are safe now you are alone you are safe now you are alone. 

Satoru shook his head in growing panic. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you fucking talk to me?” He stood useless, tallness gone, hands still shaking. “Why didn’t you try?” It sounded like begging. Suguru received it like a hand around his trachea. 

“I couldn’t put you through that.” He explained, faltering, trying to push himself off the wall and failing miserably. It was impossible to breathe right. Affliction growing stronger. Saltwater in his lungs. 

“What if I wanted you to put me through that?” Satoru disputed with a strained voice. It cracked under the weight of heartache. “This is what you do for the people you care for, isn’t it? You sit down with them, and you share their fucking burden.” 

Suguru pushed hard on his shoulder blades, back leaving the wall. Panic and remorse and the knowledge of being rotten to the core, to his blood, to the very essence of him. He fisted the front of his own t-shirt, above his heart, like it would make it easier to breathe. 

“There is no sharing this!” He cried out to whoever would hear him. “It’s in my head!” He tugged on his t-shirt and his fingers hurt. “It's in my bloodstream. It’s just –” He heard a sound breach his throat, like a sob, like the very echo of his calamity. “It's a curse. It's unsalvageable.” 

Black ink. Cursed ink. Stamped on his forehead, in the very colour of his eyes.  

Satoru made a sound, too, of regret. The voice of a child that cried too much. “I would have at least tried.”  

Don't you see it’s rotten work? 

“It would not have been fair to ask you to.” It would not have been useful to ask you to.  

Satoru shook his head, disagreeing with his whole body. “You don’t get to decide what is fair and what isn’t.” He accused but it had no spite. Just sorrow. Running deep, running low. “I would have tried to shoulder your burden or give you space. Whatever you needed. Whatever it was. I would have tried. I always would have tried.” He spoke it like an apology, voice quavering, and Suguru knew he was not deserving of one. 

Have I done this to you? Have I broken it, that rage that made you stand so tall?  

Suguru held off his sickness. He tried not to fall to the ground. 

“You would have left or died trying.” He vacillated, but he believed in his words. 

“No, Suguru.” Satoru affirmed, wide eyes running wild. “I would have stayed.”  

Four months. Four months and Satoru was here, repeating the same nonsensical thing, not seeing it for what it was; the unavoidable outcome of them. 

“You don’t know that. You don’t.” Suguru countered, shaking his head in his frenzy. “There is no- There is no fixing this.” He still held on to his t-shirt with his fist. “It’s pointless work.” He observed in a strangled whisper. I’ve been dead all along.  

“It might have been pointless to you, but to me it wasn’t.” Satoru countered too fast, his respiration escaping him. He seemed to look for something in the streetlights, in the shutters of the kitchen, in teacups on the table.  

He found it and it came out of him with little strength. “We were never pointless.” 

“That’s not-” Suguru said, head dropping, eyes closing for a second because this was the end of him. “It’s not what I’m saying. Of course we weren’t pointless. We were-” He swallowed. He breathed. He tried. He was always fucking trying. “We were-”  

Absolute. Tender. The beginning of me, the end of you.  

Saltwater and the Sun.

“You were all that mattered.” Suguru heard Satoru’s words before he could even take another breath, before he could even make sense of his own body. Like a broken, discarded thing at the back of an old truck. The kind you always looked for, cherished, but could rarely find until you stumbled on it on a random day. The kind of confession that only happened in the dark.  

He opened his eyes. He raised his head, finding Satoru’s face, and it was unfair, and it was all there, in the hollow of his eyes. All the love that had happened and that could never, ever, be properly submerged. Despite it all. Despite it all. 

Suguru stayed still and let himself be painfully found. 

“You were the only thing that helped.” Satoru breathed out, shakily, bravely. Suguru knew this was harder than the rest. For Satoru, for him, for their own eternally shared frequency. 

Suguru stared, eyes scared and wide, and the rest came spilling out of Satoru’s mouth like it had been waiting there forever. “You were the only one that made me wake up in the morning and not dread the idea of breathing. You were the only thing that made it worth it, that made it easy.” Satoru brought a hand to his neck, unconsciously, and Suguru could see him digging his nails in the flesh. “You were the only one that touched me and was gentle.” Satoru stammered, breath catching. Suguru’s eyes grew glassy, unfocused, punched breathless and stupid and miserable. I left him and I did this. “Even in the ring, even when we were sparring, you were always gentle.”  

Satoru sounded small, honest, and pulled taut. A beat, and a downfall, and Suguru sobbed before the words were even out of Satoru’s mouth. 

“You were the only one that saved my life.” He whispered it like it was precious. Quiet. Only for Suguru to hear.  

Suguru felt the tears on his own face, stinging his wounds, and did not try to fight them. 

“I let you kiss me and touch me and it was the only good thing I ever did with my existence.” Satoru continued, letting it go, letting it break further. A downpour, a wave, a shore, a nosedive. Suguru drowned, breathed water and coughed it out.  

Suguru could barely see him through the water in his eyes, but he would always feel him. He wanted to crash into him. He wanted to hold his hands and kiss them and make it easy again. He pressed his palm against his chest instead. He wanted to hold him, to be held, even if he had forgotten how to. You were all that I loved, all that I love still. I hope you do not hate me for it. 

“But you were just–” Satoru was only an outline, a voice. “You were convinced that I was gonna leave you, so you left me instead, is that it?” He hit right, and wrong too. “You made the first move just on some made up assumptions that I was gonna tire of you?” There was a semblance of anger returning, but it was bleak and feeble. “Is that how you see me? Some asshole that can’t be nothing else but mean?”  

“No.” Suguru cried out under his tears, weak, a whisper that wanted to be a scream. “No. I don’t.” He wailed silently and he felt too quiet and too loud and too small and too tall. “I don’t see you like that. I never have.” There was panic, too, everywhere. “Satoru-” 

“You don’t even-” Satoru cut him off. “You don’t even realise it, do you? You don’t even see it.” He sounded stunned, worn out. Exhausted with the entirety of it. Suguru could only share the weight. “I never cared about your curse or whatever you believe is wrong with you.” He spoke it with desperate determination.  

A last plea. A last beg. He breathed long and hard and Suguru cried, and cried, and it was the end, and it was the only thing that made sense.  

“Suguru, you were never cursed to me.” Satoru said it like it was the most evident thing in the world. Easy, and so, so, kind. “Not then. Not now. Not ever.”  

Suguru faltered, then, stumbling back again, meeting the wall. It went against everything he believed in, against everything that he thought he was. 

He held onto the wall, disoriented. He could feel Satoru getting closer, getting there, always there. 

“I don’t know how to- I don’t know what to do.” Suguru stammered, taken off-guard by his own panic. “I don’t know what to do.” 

He felt a hand on his wrist, helping him upright. The fingers were cold. He stared at Satoru with quiet terror. The other man stared back.  

“I have this- I have this thing, like a parasite in my head, always telling me that- that it’s just-” Suguru murmured, crazed. Satoru was close now. He would hear him. “That people are gonna- they're gonna leave. They’re gonna leave. They always have.”  

Satoru let go of him slowly, carefully. Suguru stood on his own, but it was hard, and he wondered how long it would take for him to crumble. 

“Whenever I cared, it just- It never stayed. It never stuck with me. It never worked.” Suguru spoke fast, words and sorrow and panic spilling out of him like a flood. “It’s like a constant overused joke that repeats itself and there is nothing I can do to put an end to it.” He tried to focus on Satoru but could only see the grey of him. “I tried so many times. I opened my arms and I tried. I try so hard to be enough and to be kind but it never, ever, worked. I don’t get to have this.” Suguru’s voice broke at the end. He pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to chase away a headache desperately. “People left anyway.” He deadpanned, reduced to his faults.  

Like you love me too much. “Because I loved them too much.” 

Satoru seemed to shake his head at that, his features twisting into something sad and sorrowful. Suguru did not let him move closer.  

This, too, is for a reason.  

“And you- ” Suguru breathed out. Satoru waited, set in stones, frozen. Poor, poor Satoru. 

There was a moment of frightful lucidity where Suguru knew there was no going back from this. The edge of the cliff, the bridge over the Tokyo Bay. He had a moment where he thought about falling to his knees and never speaking another word. Crawling back into this earth, in the starless Tokyo night, in the space in the margins of life where nothing ever happened. He could feel his tongue fighting to keep the words in, his silent nature grabbing his shoulders and screaming against his ears you are not allowed to say it. But it was too late anyway, wasn't it? It always ended with his heart out in the open, didn’t it? 

“You were the one I loved most.” Suguru whispered it like it was precious. Quiet. Only for Satoru to hear. “More than the rest.” He added and could feel his chest cave in. Shaky breaths, and a revelation. “More than anything.” 

It was always down to this, ultimately. I love you but it cannot save my life. I love you but this will not save you. 

Suguru blinked his tears out. Satoru took the hit, took the fall, took the horror of being loved and cherished but left behind all the same. Eyes frantic, heart on his sleeves.  

“You were the one I loved too much.” Suguru confessed, unstable. And it was not sour on his tongue. And it had always, always been this. Since the ring, since the first time, since the rage. 

He watched as Satoru stared, stunned and breathing loud, blue on grey, lilacs on blue. Beauty like a treacherous thing. Poor, poor Satoru. 

“But I just can’t prevent the rest.” Suguru pressed on, continuing, making it known. “It’s always there. This weight, this hollow in my chest. It just-” Suguru slid a hand through his hair and tugged on it like it would help his headache. A pitiful view. “It just keeps telling me that the end is inevitable.” 

“It’s not.” Satoru chimed with precipitation, draped in light, star matter.  

“It feels like it.” 

“It’s not.” He repeated, his voice raw but precise. 

Suguru shook his head, defeated. “There is no way to know.”  

Satoru moved closer, closer still. “I know.” Eyes dancing on Suguru like he would die if he didn’t see him. He was an arm length away. Suguru could touch him, and Satoru would probably let him. 

The silence found them like a guard dog returning faithfully to their feet. The dog did not try to bite. It settled between their legs, apologetically licking Suguru’s wounds on his ankle. It did not tear the flesh from Satoru’s calves. Kind. Protective. Their safety net. 

Satoru’s attention was fast, moving on Suguru’s face like it had once. The same pace, like he was trying to outrun the clock. Committing him to memory. Have you forgotten my face? Suguru felt them, then, returning like loyal things tended to; sunburns on his cheeks. 

Satoru worked his jaw and let it out. “Do you still love me too much?” He asked, almost shy. 

This is not fair, Suguru thought, and then; it doesn’t have to be. 

He breathed in, out, slow, misty-eyed. There was no word for it, right? For loving without aim, with the knowledge that this was destined for the gutters of the world, that this would be a race ending in the dirt, but loving anyway. Foolishness. Stupidity. The only way to love right, maybe. The only way to love enough: with the fear of grief, but with truth anyway. 

“Talk to me, Suguru.” 

This was the way things were. The grief of the living. The grief of something still standing. To grieve it already but to love it still, to love it eternally. 

Suguru settled on the reality of himself. He had never been a stranger to his own heart.  

He held Satoru’s eyes. It came up and out of him. 

Overstep.  

“I’ll always love you too much.” To love and to lose, to lose and to still love. He admitted it with a calm sadness in his voice. “There is no burying it.” He felt a strange deliverance wash over him, then. 

Satoru let out air like a relief. His face welcomed purpose. Something wavered in the ocean of his eyes, like a pledge, like a promise.   

“Then don't bury it.” He pleaded. 

Suguru was about to retort, his heart clenching under his ribcage, hurting him, making itself known. It was everywhere. Satoru was staring so much.  

“You want to make it up to me?” He cut to the chase before Suguru could speak. “Then don’t bury it.” 

It was a daunting thing. Suguru watched the streetlights on Satoru’s face. Draped in light. Star-matter. He was the most beautiful thing there ever was.  

“I don’t know how.” Suguru whimpered with quiet fright. Terrified of himself, terrified of failing.

Satoru held the silence on one end. Suguru held it on the other. They watched each other, like they always had.

Satoru worried at his lip before speaking, purposefully, steady. “You try.” A pause, and a plea. “You stay.” 

Suguru didn’t say anything back. 

He stared at the ceiling of Satoru’s bedroom pressing an icepack on his nose. The hour struck four and sleep did not find him. Lying down was making him weirdly nauseous. The pillowcase smelled of fresh linen and that sharp, cold scent of Satoru’s body. Suguru had not forgotten it. It was not making it easy.  

The bed was too big. It was a comfortable thing, but Suguru could not find a position that did not sting his bones further. There was a disturbing frustration that refused to leave him. His skin itched with something else than the bruises. 

Satoru was sleeping on the sofa. Suguru had not asked for him to join him there, under white sheets they had once shared. 

The discussion had drained the life out of the both of them. Not another word had been exchanged after that, after Satoru asking him to stay. There was not much that could be said without being thought over first.  

This is ridiculous, Suguru thought. He felt like a child growing irritated with the idea of himself. He shifted to his side, but his third rib protested. He winced and breathed out harshly. This is ridiculous. 

He tossed and turned for another ten minutes before throwing the ice pack on the mattress and sitting up. He watched the wall in the dark. He felt laughed at by things he couldn’t see in the corners of the ceiling.  

There was a man he loved. There was a man he loved and Suguru was lying there uselessly, unable to sleep.  

It travelled his body. It walked on his legs and his chest and his arms before Suguru accepted it. He thought it through, and it was ridiculous. He got out of bed and walked to the door. 

Suguru did not hesitate to open it, his patience with his own self running thin. He was drained. He needed to sleep. 

His eyes landed on Satoru in the dark. The other man sat up with haste at the commotion, eyes alert, focused, already wide and landing on Suguru too fast. Like he had been waiting and staring and expecting for hours, too. 

This is ridiculous. 

Suguru stared at him through the silence before moving to the couch, body on autopilot, something overtaking the rest of him. Satoru’s eyes, sharp and precise and amazed, did not leave him for a second. 

He stopped when his shins met the edge of the sofa. He stared down at Satoru, and he could feel his lungs echoing everywhere, in his head and his back and his hands. Satoru was looking up from where he was sitting, agitated, visibly breathing too fast through his nose. He was staring like the time Suguru had found him in that locker room. Dazed, and a little desperate. Suguru felt him all over him. The back of his neck burned, and his cheekbones did too, and it did not have to be another fight. 

It took not even another second before Satoru spoke, patience thrown out the window. He had waited four months, after all.  

“Please.” He whispered and it was ridiculous. Suguru felt something melt inside his mouth. His hands were in Satoru's hair before he could even process the word. 

It was always easier in the night, wasn’t it? 

Satoru’s eyes fluttered shut instantly, his lips parting like he was about to receive holy communion. His body canted forward, second nature, a habit returning to him under Suguru’s hands. He leaned into the touch, chasing the fingers, jaw growing slack. So sensitive. Suguru stared, awestruck like the first time, reconnecting with a feeling and a view he had been dying away from for too long. How did I ever survive? 

He moved his fingertips slowly, testing it out, rediscovering an old thing he knew by heart. Palms buried under the snow. The hair was shorter than before, slightly, on top, but it was still fairly the same. Suguru focused on the spot right above Satoru’s ear, and Satoru let out a shaky breath. Suguru tried not to die, tried not to live. He felt sun-bleached. He felt too warm. 

He let his hands venture down, further, and his breath hitched silently when he touched Satoru’s undercut. It was different, there. It was rougher. Suguru was touching the rage almost directly. 

He scratched slowly, first, tentatively, letting his nails press down on the surface of pale skin. Tenderly, kindly, this is something I know how to do. Suguru remembered the raw scratch marks he had noticed there and cautiously brushed his fingertip over Satoru's nape. Satoru turned pliant, body reduced to malleable clay. His own hands rested uselessly on his thighs.  

He could kiss him. He could let Satoru kiss him. He would let Satoru do anything, still, always.  

But Suguru was exhausted, and something told him that this would suffice. This was enough. This was theirs. 

“You okay?” He asked almost unconsciously after a moment of massaging Satoru’s skin under his undercut.  

He used to do that a lot. Check up on him as a reflex. He was a little surprised by his own voice and blinked stupidly when Satoru’s heavy eyelids opened. 

A low humming was all he was graced with as a response. This will suffice. This is enough. 

Suguru had a habit of believing, sometimes, that life and death were the same. But Death could not find him there.

Satoru let himself be mended. Suguru let himself be forgiven. 

Chapter Text

Satoru had a habit of believing, sometimes, that loving and loathing were the same. 

They came hand in hand in everything he did, in everything he cared for, in the things that found their way under his skin. Tea was his favourite drink, but it was hard to get it right, and most of the time he was disappointed and would grimace at the taste of bitterness. He loved the colour blue, but light blue annoyed him tremendously, and navy blue was too dark for his liking; that exact shade of slate blue he liked was hard to get, and it was rarely seen. He enjoyed trekking and walking the distance in the mountains, but sometimes a hike would bore him to death, the silence of the world hammering like underground pressure against his temples, and he would cross the finish line more pulled taut than he had been when starting it. He liked the smell of the rain, petrichor on grey pavement, but the cold that came along was a warning sign of his irritation growing wider, of his skin getting drenched. He loved cooking but his kitchen was too small. He loved reading but his headaches were too cruel. He loved getting his hands under the dirt and gardening, feeling the earth between his fingers, proof of an existence hiding under his nails, but his knuckles were too bruised, too sensitive, not made for it.  

Not made for it. Satoru believed that was the problem he faced with love of any kind. He was not made for it. He was not made of a material that knew how to bend around it, how to accommodate the sweetness, how to hold it gently. Whenever he sat down to observe the size of his liking, it always came back at him pointing out the things that were imperfect, the things that were too hostile. His love’s predicament was an unfortunate thing that Satoru knew to be inescapable. Too harsh. Too mean. Too him. 

His father would repeat that being loved and loving in return was for those who could afford it, those who had the time for it, and that the Gojo men were not fortunate enough to be granted such privilege. Satoru had been told to square his shoulders and show his teeth, to glare and frown, to bite and spit, because it was the only way to survive a life that was unfair. Do not be nice, do not cry, do not love; that’s for children, and you’re a man. And so, Satoru did what he was told. Diligently, without a choice, with no alternative. Love was not for him. It did not reside in the palms of his hands. It had been ripped out from under him at a very young age, made impossible in the eternity of who he was. A foreign thing to the blue of his eyes.  

Hatred came as a reminder of his inadequacy, a constant sign in neon white light reading this is not something you are allowed to feel. Being seen, being heard, liking things a little too much; he did not know how to let it be simple, how to let it be kind. He had to glare, to find the flaws, to see the faults in whatever touched his heart and made him vulnerable. There was always this: an annoyance, a loathing, a sternness born out of lecturing and obligations, a prerequisite. Hatred like an imperative. Hatred like first nature. He had disliked Shoko, too, in the beginning. He did not know how to let someone close without trying to tear their ear off as a first attempt. A wild animal who tried to ward off wandering fingers with good intentions, trying to make them run, trying to make them flee. Satoru did not know how to be touched without being startled. He would bark to put distance, to prevent anyone and anything from reaching him, like an abandoned fighting dog who had been beat up, a wild animal who did not know that hands could be anything but brutal. Too used to it.  

The bruises on his knuckles were fighting to survive the cold, to allow his hands to be held without pain. Satoru thought it was a tedious task they tried to achieve. To keep loving or to keep loathing. The difference was so minimal it almost felt the same. 

A part of him knew that it was a dichotomy he had been raised to suffer. That he had been pressed down and cut into something that could not hold appreciation, that could not contain affection, by a ruthless mouth that had told him time and again that to be a man was to exist with spite. Yet, sometimes, Satoru wondered if it wasn’t inherent to his blood, to his old bones, something ancient that he could not pinpoint, like his heart being plagued from birth or even before. Predestined for animosity, a blank canvas for hard feelings to thrive on, something that slithered backward to another lifetime. Do not love, it is a curse. The most twisted curse of all. 

It was hard to be tender with the things that he loved. Satoru had learned to coexist with the ineluctable idea of it. He made do. He always had. He liked less, he dimed out the loving, he tried to keep himself away from whatever turned him malleable, from whatever made it easier to breathe, because it always came with the stench of bitterness, like an alarm blaring everywhere in the pits of his stomach, under his scar, above himself, something lit up in his phalanxes like a catastrophic fight reflex. Existing in sourness was the only way he had been taught how to live.  

Suguru had been proof enough of that, at first. Of Satoru’s love that was a complication, of Satoru’s adoration that was a calamity, because these things presented themselves as equals to his heart and his head. Differentiating them was an impossible thing as much as it was an evident one. They turned and twisted together, dancing on the shoreline of Satoru’s body, gravity forsaken in favour of a fall that was upward. Leaving him standing alone in front of his own self, trying with pity to look at the state of his feelings but coming back empty handed. They worked as a pair, brewing a malediction in the skin of his neck, scratching their nails at the back of his skull, until they birthed the only thing that made sense: a rage like an answer, anger like a facilitator. 

The rage was a translation that happened to Satoru whenever the things in his heart spoke to him in a language that was incomprehensible. It was the outcome whenever Satoru stood on the edge of himself. It was the rebuttal, the remark, the interpretation when Satoru’s head did not know how to make sense of his own emotions. It placed itself there as a substitute, a stand-in for everything Satoru felt but was incapable of comprehending. A cover up. An eraser. Leaving no trace behind, bleaching the crime scene of Satoru’s love, scrubbing the surface of his hatred, leaving no evidence. Killing all the rest and getting rid of the bodies. It was suffered. It was ancient to who he was. It was inward, deep, deep down. Growing arms and legs from a very young age, inhabiting him as the other half of him. When the pieces of himself were scattered all around on his pale skin, it was the only stable reminder, the only constant in his life. It was not comfortable, but at least, at least, the anger was usual, it was known. It was easier to fathom than the rest. It had been there since his first breath, his first ring, his first word. 

The rage had been there, too, when Satoru had crossed the city to find Suguru unconscious in the dead of winter. It had been there, too, when he had forced it away from his hands so they would remain steady and cautious when cleaning up wounds and bruises and the traces of shame on a face he had loved. It had been there, suffocating him, scratching his skin raw, when Suguru had told him about the money, about the bargain, about the apology that was a desperate thing, a last resort, a dreaded end. It was easier to face, it was easier to feel it. Something he knew. Something that knew him back, with spite and without pride.  

Until it had left. Until it had kicked him in the dirt, forsaking him, forgiving him, dissociating itself from who he was, because in the dead of it, in the dread of it, Satoru had been hit with the horror of finally knowing what his love sounded like. In the middle of his too small kitchen, when the hour struck half past two, when Suguru had spoken of unfairness, of a life that had been unkind, of a chance Satoru never had, Satoru had been crushed with a lucidity that felt like terror. He had been cursed with the reality of understanding himself, of levelling with his heart, of breaching the mist in his head so suddenly after months of defying it, after a lifetime of being blind to it. The words had left his mouth, then, a language he could finally speak, a confession that could only happen in the dark, facing Suguru’s tears, facing his own heartbreak; I love you too much too and I don’t know what to do with it. It has enraged me. I love you too much, and it is all that remains. You were the only one that saved my life. 

It was not an easy thing, but it was a loud one, an everlasting one, evidence to himself. This is how I love, then. With abandon. With incomprehension. 

Satoru had a habit of believing, sometimes, that loving and loathing were the same. But Loathing could not find him there. Not in his kitchen. Not if Suguru stood there too.  

Satoru woke up to the twentieth day of January and the sun was up. 

It took some effort for him to comprehend exactly what he was seeing on his bedroom’s ceiling. Rays of sun. He blinked them in his vision carefully, incredulous, feeling like he was hallucinating. He squinted out of necessity, his eyes complaining under the bright light reverberating all around his room like an echo, the white paint reflecting it in all directions. The fog of sleep was a relentless thing, clinging to Satoru's mind and limbs, making it hard to think clearly. He let it hold him down and stared in half-conscious bewilderment. 

It was too unusual. It was too foreign. Opening his eyes to something other than darkness had become unfamiliar to him. 

Satoru had spent the last three and a half months waking up drenched in cold sweat in the middle of the night, or incapable of sleeping altogether, beaten by the discomfort of trying to rest and being unable to. His skin itched, his joints and sewins were uncomfortable, like bolts screwed too tight at the junctions of his bones. He had been made miserable with the reality of his own anger, suffering in an uncooperative body that would not allow him calmness. Most nights, if not all, were like personal traps to him, crafted singularly to drive him mad with unrest. His bed was a place Satoru reached to be tortured by restlessness and unease. Most nights, if not all, were cold. Most nights, if not all, were unkind. It was a strange thing to sleep through the night. It was a strange thing not to have to endure the dark.  

He had not thought he would sleep till morning. He had not even taken the time to close his blinds. 

It came back to his body as he fought through his dazed state, sleep clinging to his eyelids. He had the distant memory of hands in his hair that had not felt like blood, this time, but like honey, dripping down the line of his back, coating his skin with aftersun. He remembered a voice saying come to bed and his body complying like a well-trained dog, following diligently, pliant and docile. He had met the mattress, and the hands had continued their careful work, untangling his hair, detangling the knots in his nape. He had fallen asleep in seconds. He could not remember anything past that, past the smell of his linen sheet, the warmth at the back of his head, reaching his very fingertips, and everywhere within.  

He blinked hard, groaning in confused annoyance, and rolled over under his covers. He buried his face in the pillow next to his to shield his eyes from the light. He took a slow breath in, and was hit with lemon, with honey, and that ripe scent that he had not forgotten. The sun on white sheets, the sun in his bed. Suguru. 

Consciousness was punched into him violently. He straightened up, eyes shooting open, and looked in puzzlement at the pillowcase, wide stare and mouth falling open. He blinked, blinked again, and took a glance around the room in a haste, searching for tender skin and jet-black hair. There was no one. 

Satoru felt apprehension creep up the side of his face, decidedly bigger than him, the remnants of something that had hurt him profoundly. Abandonment was still raw in his heart, after all. The knowledge of being alone was still fresh. The thought imposed itself without much choice, a fright, a fear; he left me again.  

A cold panic he was beginning to know by heart started to fill up his lungs like blackwater. He stood up, breath evading him, nearly throwing the blankets off the bed. They tangled at his feet and they threatened to make him trip as he stumbled to the door. His neck hurt, cold sweat climbing up the length of his spine. The air in his room was still cold, and it was still January, and Satoru had woken up alone and the melody kept turning and sprinting and ringing in his head; he left me again.  

He grabbed the handle in a hurry, reason abandoning him, terror like the beginning of a too long Thursday welcoming him back. Satoru had asked him to stay. Suguru had not said he would. Even with his hands in the snow of Satoru's hair, even close to him, under his sheets, in his bed, in his room, Suguru had not said he would. His quietness was a tenacious thing, a delicacy that was sometimes a chore to navigate. To get him to talk had always been a mythical quest Satoru went on, carried solely by his pride and the yearning for tenderness. Satoru didn’t know if Suguru would stay. Satoru didn’t know if Suguru would even answer. He thought he would, with time, with forgiveness. But Satoru’s patience was a feeble thing.  

Satoru wondered, for a second that lasted his childhood, if Suguru had fled when faced with who Satoru was now; hair shorter, purple forsaken. Suguru had noted both these things in the desolate room with the broken lightbulb. Maybe he had seen Satoru, had let his fingertips run alongside the too white strands and the violet-less fields, and decided this was not something he could stand alongside anymore. Maybe he had felt how strongly Satoru had tried, with despair and abandonment that had weighed heavily on his amygdala, to cut him away, to exile him out of his body, away from his skin, out from the white of his hair and the blue of his eyes. Maybe Suguru had felt the rejection, despite it all, despite Satoru’s pleas and revelation, despite the size of Satoru’s heart he could finally comprehend, despite speaking of his adoration. 

He reached the door and grabbed the handle frantically. He yanked it open, too fast, too strong; he left me again. 

There, in the kitchen, sitting in the light filtered by the shutters, was Suguru, sipping his tea at the table, silently, diligently, a book in his hand that Satoru vaguely recognised. Satoru tried not to scream from relief. 

It was always a shock, always a revelation, to realise how intensely Satoru felt when it came to him. The smallest of things was a premonition. The smallest of touches felt like gold and something unspeakable. The most minimal movement was a saintly vision. Suguru was a stained-glass window in the cathedral of Satoru’s landscape, in the church of his heart, in the alcove of his eyes. Magnificent, impossible to miss on, impossible to ignore but yet, always, fragile like the first breath of a child, fleeting like solar light in the dead of winter. A thing to be venerated with caution. A thing to be touched with care. 

Satoru breathed too deep as Suguru looked up from his book, the commotion of Satoru’s arrival pulling him out of his reading. He blinked in surprise, his swollen eye still moving with difficulty. It had turned a raging shade of burgundy overnight. He seemed startled, attention finding Satoru’s face and open panic, and settled the book on the table slowly. He frowned in worry, concern finding his eyes like it often did, and straightened up as Satoru tried to even out his breathing. It was hard to be stable. 

Satoru stood there, staring, heaving, lips parted, and suddenly felt a little stupid. 

“You weren’t in bed.” He said between two quick breaths. 

Suguru paused, shifting on the chair, amber waves travelling over Satoru’s face from a distance. He set his teacup back down on the table. His hand caught the light. Suguru let something settle between them before answering. 

“I wasn’t.” His voice was soft, soothing Satoru’s relentless panic. 

Satoru took a slippery breath in. “I thought you were gone.” He blurted out, too fast, in a frenzy. 

“I’m not.” Suguru disputed rapidly, voice kind and quiet, something sad finding his face and his eyes. An apology everywhere, written in golden sun, in warm remorse. “I’m sorry I just-” He continued, trying to find his words. “I woke up two hours ago and couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t want to wake you.”  

The dryness in Satoru’s throat receded slowly. He let Suguru’s voice reach him, let it coil delicately around his hands. He had not heard him be that tender in a while. His voice the night prior had carried a sort of heaviness that resembled surrender too much, that did not let him be mellow in the way Suguru always was.  

Satoru breathed in, out, feeling how his fists opened, how his lungs forgave him, how his panic died out. He let his eyes take in Suguru in his kitchen, wearing his clothes, drinking his tea in his cup, reading his book at his table, right there, so close. He convinced himself of the reality of it and managed to make temporary peace with it. 

After watching Suguru for too long like he was forcing the sight of him into his mind, Satoru’s eyes fluttered to the clock on the wall instinctively. A quarter past eleven. 

Satoru blinked, puzzled, and stared at the clock like it was a hallucination. 

“I had a shift at ten.” He let out distantly, finding the hour hard to believe.  

Suguru frowned and turned around on his chair, glancing at the clock over his shoulder. 

“Shoko’s going to burn me alive.” Satoru continued with half-serious dread. 

Suguru turned back towards him, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sure she won’t.” He pushed the chair opposite him with his foot under the table. Satoru made his way to it mechanically, like it was the easiest and most evident place for him to go to next. He sat down on it heavily, eyes not leaving Suguru, still, always, finding it hard to believe. He did not leave me. 

Suguru’s index traced the line of the book spine, opened pages-down on the table. Satoru watched as they slid over the title, Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura. Satoru had started it months ago, but anytime he tried to continue, he could only read a few pages before his headache got the best of him. Judging by where the book was open, it seemed that Suguru had picked it up where Satoru had left off, rather than going back to the start.  

“How did you sleep?” Suguru asked after a moment, pulling Satoru back to the kitchen. Satoru’s eyes went up, finding his face again, and traced the outlines of the bruises and the cuts with quiet reflection. Suguru was still unfairly beautiful, like the day he had left and all those before.  

“Good.” Satoru breathed out, leaning back on his chair, and became a little breathless. He tried to make it sound simple. “I’m actually a little surprised.” 

Suguru nodded at that, tilting his head as he watched Satoru with dazed interest. He looked more alert than yesterday, more grounded, like he was finally able to see clearly. He took a moment too long to answer, eyes dancing on Satoru’s face and hair, like he was seeing him for the first time. Satoru let him, watching in response. There was no rage to be found because of it. 

Suguru seemed to remember he was part of the conversation. He blinked slowly, alertness returning to him and colouring his eyes. “Yeah.” He said in a whisper before clearing his throat. His cheekbones welcomed that shade that Satoru always noticed. I could never forget. “You hit the mattress and were gone like a light in seconds.” 

Satoru sighed, slow and long, sliding a hand through his hair as a way to be reminded of last night. He scratched his undercut, pensive, and his eyes fell on the black teacup close to Suguru’s hand.  

“I guess I needed it.” He explained, frowning. “I haven’t slept that well since-” Satoru caught himself, words dying on his tongue, and let his eyes return to Suguru’s face. Three and a half months or so. Satoru knew exactly. Judging by the look in Suguru’s eyes, he was not the only one plagued with that knowledge. “Well.” He tried, slowly, voice devoid of sharpness. “You know since when.”  

Suguru’s eyes fluttered to the book under his palms and stayed there for a moment. He breathed out quietly. “Yeah.”  

The air turned. It was not sour. It was not harsh. It simply was inevitable, and they both seemed to have made peace with it. 

Satoru watched the winter sun rays over the table, filtered by the shutters, tracing a line between him and Suguru. He traced the pattern with his eyes and decided to cross it. 

“We need to talk.” He offered matter-of-factly.  

A pause, an inhale. He looked up at Suguru only to find the other man watching the shutters. 

“Yeah.” Suguru concurred, quiet and worn-out. “You know I'm not really-” He continued, and it sounded stuck at the back of his throat. He took another deep inhale in to give himself some temerity. “I'm not good at that.” He admitted, face twisting slightly in self-judgment. 

Satoru placed his left elbow on the table and propped his cheek up on his fist, tired but rested, a weird in-between state that tipped between physical and moral. 

“What makes you think I’m good at it?” He inquired, raising an eyebrow. 

Suguru refocused on him, frown not leaving his dark eyebrows. One of them was split. The closure strips Satoru had placed on it were working overtime to make it heal.  

“You’re just so straightforward most of the time.” Suguru explained as he crossed his arms over his chest, shielding himself, protecting his heart. “You make it look easy.” 

Satoru tsked light-heartedly. “You think too much.” 

Suguru’s mouth twisted to the side as he bit the inside of his cheek before speaking in a feeble voice. “I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve told me that.” 

Satoru felt a twinge of guilt grab his stomach at that. He let his hand supporting his face fall on the table as he straightened up, finding the sun rays. He grabbed the book and slid it to his side. Suguru followed the motion attentively. 

“How’s your nose?” Satoru asked, feigning detachment, trying to fill the silence that he knew was creeping back between them. 

Suguru still watched Satoru’s hand, a haze wavering over his eyes. “I’ll live.” He answered, voice barely above a whisper.  

Satoru knew of Suguru’s silence. He knew this was a thing that he suffered, that he never chose. He also knew it was a thing that disappeared with time, with effort, with determination. All he had to do was to keep the conversation going, to speak for the both of them, and Suguru would find his voice eventually. 

He flipped the book over. He read the first few lines at the top of the page Suguru had stopped on. Maybe she shouldn’t have run away. She may have wasted an opportunity. Of course, she would have preferred it if... Satoru felt his headache reach him instantly and flipped the book face down on the table again. “How’s your finger?” He asked lightly, attention running back to Suguru who was still watching Satoru’s hand, glazed eyed. 

Satoru waited, letting Suguru find himself, find him, tapping his fingers on the book cover, a steady rhythm to stabilize both of them. It seemed to bring Suguru back. 

“It’s healing.” Suguru remarked, distantly aware of himself. It appeared to come back to him as he focused on Satoru’s face, blinking him in his vision. Satoru’s tapping on the book stopped. “I didn’t really-” Suguru attempted before clearing his throat for the second time. “I didn’t throw any real punches yesterday, so it didn’t-” He breathed in, shifting uncomfortably on his chair. “It just didn’t get worse.” 

“I see.” Satoru noted as he nodded. He worried at his lower lip for a second, weighing something on his neck, chewing it between his teeth before he continued. “I never got the chance to apologize for it.” 

Suguru seemed taken aback by it, almost affronted, a hard frown finding his face. “There’s no apology needed. You didn’t break it on purpose.” He refuted, clear and expeditive. “It’s to be expected, sometimes, in fights.”  

Satoru crossed his arms over his chest, mimicking Suguru, before feeling like he was suffocating himself. He needed his air. He needed to breathe with ease. He uncrossed his arms in seconds and let his hands find the armrests.  

“But that wasn’t just any fight, was it?” He asked rhetorically, not really knowing why, but feeling the need to. His voice was calm. He tried to pinpoint his simmering rage, but it was nowhere to be found. Killed. Discarded. Unneeded. 

Suguru’s eyes turned, sorrow and washed-out remorse finding him. “It wasn’t.” He concurred, unable to hide the tremor in his words. He looked tired with something that was bigger than him. “I shouldn’t have punched you.” Suguru admitted, the edges of his voice unsure and unstable. But still kind, still soft, still trying. Battling the silence and making Satoru want to kiss it away. 

“That’s why we had been training for months, no?” Satoru countered fast, aiming for reassurance but sounding weirdly assertive instead. “To be able to actually touch each other in the ring?” 

“Still, this wasn’t-” Suguru frowned deeper, shaking his head and working his jaw. It seemed to hurt him, his face stiff and wincing, reverting to a more neutral expression. Satoru noted how his bruised eye was still bloodshot, even after sleeping. “This was not right.” Suguru’s voice was a little harsher, pointing at himself. “I wished it had happened somewhere else.” He lamented, resigned, wasteful. “Some other time.” 

“I punched back and broke your finger by accident.” Satoru refused it, the regret, the attrition. He, too, believed the fight had not been right. But he was tired. He did not want to think of that for the rest of his days. “I think we’re quits.” His eyes turned honest with the sureness of his belief. 

Suguru seemed to battle something, at that. Closing his eyes under himself, under the reality of his mind, under the quietness between his fingers. He gripped the sleeves of his black t-shirt over each of his biceps, like he was trying to alleviate an intangible weight Satoru could not see. He shook his head morosely as he opened his eyes in grievance, in solitary pain. Satoru leaned forward slightly, feeling the urge to make it go away, to hold, to soothe. He was not good at being soft, at reassuring, but with Suguru he had never stopped trying. Even here. Even now. Back at it with a vengeance, old habit returning, never properly buried.  

Suguru breathed in. It was deep. It was heavy. “We’re not quits, Satoru.” He professed it with final austerity. “Not even close.” 

Still, the remorse. Still, the guilt, evident and singular, in every of Suguru’s features, insinuating itself in the sunlight of his eyes, in the softness of his mouth, turning it downward, screwing it shut. A clingy thing. Glue at the back of himself, covering his skin, tangling his hair, everywhere. A thing with hands, with spikes, with chains, caging Suguru and not letting him out of it. He was running in circles after it. He was trying to win a hunt where he was both the chaser and the prey.  

Satoru remembered, suddenly, that there was more to it, that there had always been. He remembered his pleas, his threatening tears, the feeling of desertion, of desolation that he had felt the night prior and for the better part of the past few months. But most of all, at the end of it, at the beginning of it, hung something Satoru had never been privy to. You didn't even tell me why. A truth, a hollow, a shock that Suguru had never spoken of, that Suguru had never shown him. There was something, always, lingering, unsaid and unspoken. Something that had suffocated Suguru for weeks before it had broken, before he had decided to leave.  

Satoru had seen it. Throughout September, Suguru had taken up the habit of staring in the mirror for too long. Not out of vanity, that much had been evident. He would be brushing his teeth and catch a glimpse of himself, he would be styling his hair and cross his reflection, and his eyes would freeze, going vacant, staring in the wind, watching his face like it was not his own. Like it was someone else’s. It was as if he could barely recognize who was watching him back, numb and puzzled, a flowing fright swimming in the amber of his eyes.  

Satoru had first noticed it at the gym, after a fairly quiet sparring session. He had entered the locker room, and Suguru was there, watching himself in the mirror over the sink, out of his body, out of his mind. Immobile and immovable, like a man caught sleepwalking. His eyes were unfocused. Seeing past himself, looking beyond the mirror at something Satoru could not see. The tap was running, water sliding over Suguru’s hands, dripping down the drain.  

Satoru had walked up to him slowly, careful not to startle him. He had placed a hand in the small of his back. He had watched his profile for a second, worried, before finding his reflection in the mirror, searching his eyes. It had taken a moment too long, a moment too concerning, for Suguru to see him, to find him. Hollowed eyes like pools of derealisation, delusion, horrified disbelief. Satoru had asked Are you okay?, and Suguru had not answered back. 

Satoru had seen it, and had tried to reach for it, but nothing ever echoed. Suguru had kept quiet, deflecting, dejecting. Until it had snapped. 

“Suguru,” Satoru started, tentatively bringing his focus back to the room. He was careful, too careful, sounding there and somewhere else at the same time, voice coated in concern, and Suguru visibly heard it. His face crumbled before the words were even out of Satoru’s mouth. “I know something happened.” 

The same look, suddenly, reached his eyes, a sleeper agent activated by a memory Satoru was unaware of. Delusion, disbelief, and horrified sadness. 

Satoru did not let the silence stretch, feeling the urge to explain, to stifle the panic that was rising behind Suguru’s eyes. “Choso thinks so too. We both believe you didn’t just leave without a reason pushing you to do it.” He explained, voice steadier than he thought it would be. Making a point. Being heard. “Something happened to you.” He settled it down delicately between them on the table. Suguru’s fearful eyes were making it hard to continue. 

Satoru shifted where he sat before continuing, his hands scrambling for somewhere to be. He buried them in the pockets of his hoodie to still them. “I know... I know you think there’s a curse, but it was going well, we were doing fine.” He tested the words on his heart before he spoke them prudently. “But then you grew so silent and... I don’t know. You’re always a little silent but this was different. I could feel something was on your mind.” His tone dived in lower territory, growing quieter.  

It was not an easy thing to speak of their shared past. It was not an easy thing to speak of the reality of themselves. Remembering this has happened. This was you, and me. I knew you then. I know you now. 

Satoru scratched the inside of his left pocket, testing it, nails on rough fabric, before venturing further, recounting what had been theirs. “I asked you so many times if you were okay and you just never answered. You deflected. I didn’t push.” A pause, a nod. “I know it’s hard for you to talk.” He took another long breath in to make himself lighter.  

Suguru’s eyes were still glued to him, distant and terrified, being reminded of something he clearly did not want to think of. Jaw tight, hands gripping his biceps too harsh, nails digging in the flesh. Satoru felt strangled by guilt, you’re doing this to him; and then, like it was evident, someone did this to him. 

“Suguru, did something happen?” Satoru murmured, like he wanted no one but Suguru to hear, like it was a secret that they shared. He knew that the answer was yes. It was written in burgundy blood all over Suguru’s face, his whole body bearing the aftermath of it. Satoru noticed, like an afterthought, that Suguru seemed to have lost some weight. 

“I’m not asking you to tell me, and if you don’t ever wanna speak about it I’ll just-” He assured, still sounding quiet, still undisturbing the sunlight on the table. He did not want to make it worse. “I won’t push. I’ll live with it.” Satoru convinced himself, too, as much as he tried to convince Suguru. “But I want to know, at least, that there was a reason for it to break that wasn’t just us.” 

It hurt, somehow, to ask that, to be reminded of the despair Satoru had felt. Weeks of wondering, of wishing, of incomprehension and unrest. Thinking it over, thinking it under, thinking it everywhere, again and again and again. A ringtone that always turned static. A saturated voicemail. A silent call that went unanswered. Didn’t you believe in me? 

Suguru’s air evaded him. Satoru found it painful to breathe, too. 

“It wasn’t us anyway. It was me.” Suguru stammered on his tongue, words tumbling out of a needle box, stinging his own throat with it. Pressure points missed and the blades running too deep. “You’re in no way to blame for any of it.” He said with honesty and a purpose, shaking his head, voice trembling still.  

He seemed to hesitate, then. His agitated eyes drifted away, watching a point above Satoru’s shoulder, holding it, seeing past him. Searching for something, doomed with the weight of knowing. Satoru could almost touch the heaviness that surrounded Suguru. Ancient, generational. The curse he believed he carried. 

Suguru’s eyes did not return to Satoru’s face as he finally spoke. “Yes. Something happened.” The words seemed like a mountain to cross, an ocean to move. The admission like an ordeal that Satoru could barely fathom. It reached him too, through Suguru’s voice: the fear, the loss, the tenacious dismay.  

He grew restless with it. He grew panicked with it. It slithered down his spine and straightened him. He leaned over the table in a hurry and blurted out the words with frantic eyes. “Are you in any danger?” 

Suguru blinked, attention coming back, and smiled sadly at that, shaking his head. “No, don’t worry.” He swallowed around his anguish and let it out. “It’s done now.”  

Satoru settled down with it too, with how final it sounded. Terminal. Finished. 

“Okay.” He leaned back down on his chair reluctantly, fighting not to offer Suguru his hand. “I’m sorry, whatever it was.” 

“You don’t have to be sorry. I brought it on myself.” 

Satoru did not believe that. Satoru did not believe Suguru was to blame for the reason behind his running, his terror. He knew it, fundamentally, inherently. It had happened to him, horribly, like a thing descending from above or returning from within, leaving Suguru in the rubbles of a dilapidated reality. Cutting his tongue, cutting his forehead. Opening his skull and replacing his brain with a placebo, fuelling paranoia and birthing inescapable dread. That much had been clear. That much had been obvious. 

Satoru let it slide, knowing that refuting Suguru’s blame and the shame was a tedious thing that would take a while. If you will allow me the time.  

He took his hands off his pockets and stood up slowly. He peeked inside Suguru’s teacup, eyeing the liquid. There was not much left. He nodded towards it and Suguru shook his head. 

“I’m good.” He replied without being prompted to. 

Satoru made his way to the stove and prepared another cup for himself. He grabbed a tea bag without looking at it and poured warm water.  

Another thing was nudging him, another suspicion Choso and he had, but could not get the confirmation of. He rerouted, trying to be easy, trying to be nonchalant, but failing completely. 

“Where were you all this time, then?” He inquired, still watching the water filling up his cup. 

There was no response. Satoru did not count the amount of sugar he poured, unfocused, attention crushed under the silence. He bit the inside of his cheek and almost backtracked. You don’t have to tell me I shouldn’t pry I’m sorry it’s fine I don’t need to know. 

A voice made its way to him, painfully low, as he opened his mouth to retort. 

“My childhood house.” Suguru was barely audible. A pause. Satoru stopped pouring sugar. His fingers were too tight around the edge of the counter.  

Choso was right. There had been nowhere else for Suguru to run to. 

Satoru tried to be brave. He turned around, joining him back at the table, and forced his desperate screams away under eyes that had grown a shade of sadness that was melancholic. Suguru seemed so small, so exposed, so lost, a child trapped in the body of a man. He looked impossibly younger under the bruises.  

Satoru did not probe him further. This, above everything, was the hardest topic, the harshest reality. The grief was a wave, coming and going, cold water over Suguru’s body and heart.  

But Satoru had asked him to try. So Suguru did. 

“My house is in Ome. In Chigasemachi.” He forced the words out. Deliberate. Hard to swallow. Painful. Satoru stayed quiet and stored the knowledge in the depths of himself, never forgetting it. If only I had known. 

Satoru tasted his tea. It was too bitter. He forced detachment, like they were discussing the latest weather updates and not one of the most important pieces of information Satoru had tried for three months to find in the recollections of conversations he could only vaguely remember. It hit him, almost like a soft whisper against his ear, that Suguru had given him the way to find him back, always, eternally. That Suguru had trusted him with the only place he could run to and be forgotten by the world. Satoru would always know, now. He could always find him, in the fields near the mountains, in the paths of dirt, where he knew the sky was never starless. In his home. 

He did not point it out. He knew Suguru was more than aware of it.  

Satoru took another sip of his tea and watched Suguru carefully above the cup. “That’s quite the journey from here.” He commented, tone light, after swallowing. Sparing both of them, trying to make it easy. 

A smile tugged weakly at Suguru’s split lips. It was a gift. “You're such a city boy. The train ride is only an hour and half.”  

Satoru forced back a smile, drowning it in his tea. “Yeah, only.”  

Suguru uncrossed his arms over his chest. His hands disappeared under the table. Satoru had the suspicion he was fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt. “But lately I was- I’ve been back at the flat, with Choso. It’s been a little more than two weeks, I think. I don’t know.” His right hand went up to rub at his forehead but he winced, seemingly having forgotten about the purple flower blooming there too. He sighed heavily, defeated, before resuming. “Time has not really felt...” He wandered off, something evading him. “I haven’t been keeping up.”  

He frowned and dropped his hand back to his thigh. “I missed your birthday.” He confessed, apologetic, thick shame englobing each of his words. His eyes were deep with it, with the knowledge of his faults. Satoru did not care. He hated his birthday anyway.  

Suguru looked around the room before carrying on with distant confusion. “I didn’t even know what month we were in.” A weight made itself known, right in the centre of Satoru’s chest at the look in Suguru’s eyes. He looked disoriented, trying to find the pathways of his mind, of the time on his shoulders, in the lines of his palms. “I’m still not sure.” He whispered to the wall, the table, the emptiness. To Satoru and his attention. Eyes unfocused, chasing the clock. 

“It’s January 20th.” Satoru answered back. And then, as if it made sense; “Your birthday is in two weeks.” 

Suguru blinked, collected surprise colouring his face. Discreet, and sad. “Oh.”  

Satoru felt compelled to continue. “You’ll be turning twenty-seven.” Like me. 

“I know my age, Satoru.” Suguru halfway smiled again, slightly amused. Satoru took it like the greatest victory. 

They shared the silence, then, holding it, easing their way back into it. Satoru drank his tea slowly, getting used to the bitterness with each sip. It never tasted good, it never tasted easy, but at least Satoru did not grimace at it. Loving and loathing. The difference was not minimal; it was clear, it was large. Satoru loved tea, despite it not tasting right, despite it not being perfect. He loved it still, he enjoyed it still. He returned to it despite it all, despite the so few times he had found the right balance, despite the too many times he had frowned at the taste. He acknowledged how it warmed him from the inside, making existing more tolerable. Giving it a reason, a taste, a sensation. Existing somewhere else than in that place of hatred, of confrontation with himself. He looked down at the cup and realised with a little stupor that the label on the bag read “green Jasmine tea”. He was sure he had run out of it. He had tried to cut it away like he had the purple.  

Yet it was here, in his cup, liquid gold in his mouth, down down down in the pits of himself. Taming the cold. Easing the rain. It can be easy if I let it.  

He looked at the beams on the table. It was always easier in the sun. 

“It feels unfair to ask how you’ve been.” 

Suguru’s voice made him look back up. Mellow eyes were already on him, watchful, attentive like the first time. Observant in their sadness, vigilant in their guilt. 

“You don't have to be fair.” Satoru asserted with ease. Not an accusation, but an invitation to try.  

Suguru nodded slowly, accepting the words, trying to let them in. He brought a knee against his chest slowly, placing his foot on the chair. He visibly winced at the movement but pushed through it. He crossed his arms over his knee and let his chin rest on them, watching Satoru, trying to get comfortable.  

“Well, then,” He breathed in deep, and Satoru finished his tea too fast. “How have you been?” 

It was asked with everlasting kindness. Satoru smiled, sadly but honestly, holding Suguru’s eyes without any animosity left. 

“Never been better.” He joked, gesturing and shrugging for added theatrics. Suguru let a tired smile reach his lips, too, despite the obvious worry.  

Satoru hands ventured on the table, eternally incapable of staying in place. He grabbed a pen that was lying there and flipped it between his fingers expertly.  

He debated with himself, choosing the right words. Suguru watched him with patience. “Shoko helped.” Satoru said finally, flipping the pen again, shifting on the chair and crossing his left ankle over his right knee under the table. He frowned, a bad habit ancient to his face, and remembered how Suguru would press his thumb between his brows to make it leave. He stopped frowning and continued. “People at the gym didn’t bother me. I think everybody knew I was-” He breathed in too long, weirdly at peace with it. “Well. I took it pretty hard.” 

Suguru straightened up at that, his face falling, his mouth turning downward. Satoru wanted to reach out and hold him through it.  

It was not an easy thing to speak of; the desertion, the desolation. It was not easy to admit it, this hurt that had been his, this hurt that still tried to remind Satoru about the chaos of himself. 

He cleared his throat and carried on, choosing honesty, owing it to Suguru. “It’s the sleeping part that was the worst, most of all.” He admitted, a shiver travelling his body. He looked at the ceiling for a moment and back to the table before frowning again. “I don’t know. I had weird nightmares.” He brought a hand to the back of his neck, feeling the scratch marks under his fingertips and the roughness of his undercut. “Cold sweats and stuff.”  

Stuff. Satoru would never speak of such stuff. He wouldn’t even know how to word it, how to explain the things he had seen in the dark, the things he had felt in his agitated sleep. Abstract. Honey. Blood at the back of his head. 

Suguru took a moment, visibly processing the words. It looked painful. Satoru did not want to add to it, but it was inevitable. These months apart would never be easy to speak of. 

“The weather probably didn’t help.” Suguru commented in a breath that meant to be soft. Concerned. Apologetic.

“It didn’t.” He concurred. He could still feel how the air outside was too crisp, too harsh, too merciless. Bleak and gloomy, even with the sun here, trying to make it tolerable. “It’s a very cold winter.” Satoru continued gravely as he looked through the window. The sky was clear today. It didn’t turn the weather into something easier to handle. 

He tapped the pen on the book cover mindlessly, eyes lost on the window, watching the outside world like it was something from another dimension, standing inaccessible behind a portal of glass shielded by the shutters. He blinked and registered how he shivered. His toes curled inside his socks, the mere thought of stepping out of his apartment seeming like an ordeal. He really fucking despised winter. 

“I’m so sorry.”  

Suguru’s voice ringed in his ear, breaking the cold. Satoru turned his face to find him again. He let the pen fall from his fingers. 

Eyes wide and deep and brown like summertime over the country fields. It was the fourth time Suguru was apologizing to him. The first three times had been like spikes stabbing both of his hands ruthlessly. Satoru had choked on them, refused them, forsaken them.  

This time it didn’t hurt. This time it was okay. This time, it was needed. It was soft. It was final. 

“I know.” Satoru answered simply.  

There was not much left to be said. Suguru was sorry. Satoru was too. None of them had ever been perfect men. Far from it. Close to each other. They settled at that.  

“If it’s of any comfort, I haven’t been sleeping well either.” Suguru declared in a quiet voice, wincing as he shifted again on his chair. He seemed uneasy in his own body. 

Satoru eyed the bruise on his nose and wondered where the ice pack was. He frowned, shooting him a mildly desperate look. 

“That’s not comforting at all.” 

Suguru brought a hand to his hair, sliding it through the mess of it. Satoru noticed with contained surprised that it was the first time in too long that he was seeing him wear it down. By the look of it, Suguru had taken a shower after waking up. The hair had grown past his shoulders in those three months. Satoru eyed it with open interest, indulging himself, letting his attention trail up and down the length of it. Raven that turned golden under sunlight, black star sapphire waves that shined when the light was right.  

“Just so you know you’re not the only one who suffered from the distance.” Suguru added in low tones, elegantly breaking the soft pause of Satoru’s staring. He let his hand fall back on the table. Satoru followed the movement despite himself. 

He let his eyes rest on Suguru’s fingers, delicate and powerful, things of tenderness that Satoru knew like his own. The knuckles were almost healed. Suguru had a single band aid still adorning his pinkie. His broken finger looked perfectly normal. Satoru wondered if he was hallucinating. 

He leaned over the table instinctively, frowning, reaching out without ever truly realising he was, and slid his hand under Suguru’s on the table. Suguru did not protest, did not recoil. He let Satoru’s curious interest win. Diligently giving him his hand, like it wasn’t the proof of something returning to them, like it wasn’t the final evidence of a truce. Maybe there had never been a war to begin with. Maybe they had both been made unwilling opponents in an inappropriate ring. Wrong light. Wrong people. Wrong fight. We are not made for something that hurts. 

He inspected Suguru’s finger closely, brushing his thumb over it with all the caution he could gather. It had healed remarkably fast. Suguru had always been graced with a recovery time Satoru was unable to comprehend. A diligent body, forgiving, saving him. Suguru’s hand was warm in his. Satoru felt relieved. His skin had been so cold the day before he had almost thought Suguru would suffer frostbites. This was better. This was usual. Familiar. Him.  

Not everything had to be a nosedive, an explosion, or a shock. Not every moment had to be a revelation. Some things could just be, existing quietly. Something could just be easy, unremarkable, ordinary. Some things could just be this: Suguru’s hands in his, like it had always been there. 

He hummed, satisfied at the sight and the feeling, and blinked up to look at Suguru who was watching their hands with uncontained interest too. A little sunburnt under the cuts and wounds. This, too, was usual. Familiar. Him. 

“Why didn’t you come back, if it was so hard to be apart?” Satoru serenely asked, out of the blue, prompted by the calmness that had reached both of them. Coexisting in the quiet, holding hands in the sun. 

Suguru studied their fingers pensively, still not looking at him. He barely brushed his thumb on the heel of Satoru’s palm, fingertip hovering, sending warmth up the entire length of Satoru's arm. He replied softly after a moment of quiet reflection. “I became numb to it, at some point. The house was too big.” His words were far, running back to a place in the trees and the fields, near the river and the dirt. A place Satoru didn’t know of. It took another instant for him to continue. He did not let go of Satoru’s hand. “It’s easy to get lost when you sit in silence for months.” 

Satoru had a vision, then, of Suguru, all alone, swallowed by walls of a sternly beige colour, in a house that was his but that felt too foreign. He had a vision of Suguru moving through the wind, endless and hollow, swaying with a silence he endured. Suguru had left, but he had not run to something. He had run away from something else. The destination he had reached was for lack of a better option, by necessity, by pity. The only place where he had known that no one would find him. No one. 

Satoru searched Suguru’s eyes, dipping his head low. “You didn’t speak to anybody?” He inquired, voice heavy, squeezing Suguru’s hand softly. 

Suguru shook his head, swallowing around his own silence. “No.” He raised his head slightly, amber finding blue, and breathed the grief out of his lungs. “There’s no one left for me to talk to, there.” 

Satoru took the soft hit to his stability, a reminder that the hurt had not been his only. That maybe Suguru had suffered in a way Satoru would never be able to understand in its entirety. At least, Satoru had been surrounded by voices and people. Shoko’s support, Yuji’s laughter, Megumi’s detached interest, Nobara’s praises, Yuki’s jokes, Nanami’s instructions in the ring; they had worked, despite everything, as a background noise that reminded him that the world was an inhabited place.  

Suguru, standing in the stillness of a too big house, in the margins of the city, on the threshold of a doorframe, had been completely alone. 

Satoru intertwined their fingers slowly over the table, fixing something, trying to fill the hallways of a home he did not know. Suguru’s hands moved with his, returning the gesture, warmth finding cold. To be held. To be touched. To be just this. 

Satoru started tapping a slow rhythm on the side of Suguru’s thumb with his own, a grounding move, a softening tempo. He watched as Suguru took a deep breath in, observing him back. Suguru noticed with little confusion that the freckles on Suguru’s face had faded slightly. It was January, after all. Satoru had met him in the midst of summer, in the scorching sun, under too long days. He would force summer to return for the freckles to show again. 

They stared, they studied, they shared. Finding an old bassline, a common ground, a stability that had been lost for too long. Satoru was surprised by how humanely this was happening. By how naturally they seemed to accept all of it back. Almost desperately, with no patience to be afforded. Done with it, drained to their very core.  

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Satoru inquired after a moment of basking in the silence. Suguru hummed under his words, prompting him forward. “What did Sukuna tell you about me?” He tilted his head, curious.

Suguru leaned forward slightly, back leaving his chair. “Not much.” He brought his other hand to the table and pushed Satoru’s sleeve up slowly over his wrist, finding the skin there. Satoru felt a shiver travel his spine at the touch, his whole body answering to it. “He mentioned your name during our discussion. He said he had seen our fight and that he knew you.” Suguru started drawing circles on his wrist, patterns Satoru couldn’t recognise, a delicacy he had craved for weeks. He gave Suguru’s fingers a quick squeeze in encouragement, prompting him to continue both his talking and his venturing. “He also made it very clear that he knew about us.” Suguru said it with undertones of exasperation.  

“How?” 

Suguru slid his fingers slowly under the sleeve of Satoru’s hoodie, finding his forearm, continuing his tracing over his cold skin. Satoru battled to keep his eyes open, feeling a familiar warmth take over his muscles.  

“He said people talked.” Suguru continued, voice shy, like he was ashamed of having been caught. He worried at his lower lip before remembering with a twist of his face that it was split open. “He said that you letting me go was proof enough that we...” He trailed off. He seemed to be working the words under his tongue.  

Satoru raised an eyebrow, watching him patiently. When ten seconds passed, and Suguru was still staring intently at their hands like he was reflecting upon the greatest mystery of the universe, Satoru got concerned. “That we what?” He probed, tugging cautiously on Suguru’s hand. 

Suguru took a long inhale in and looked back up, serious. “I’m trying to word it in a way that doesn’t sound vile.” He said it like he was annoyed and riled up, troubled by a discussion Satoru had not been a part of.  

Satoru worked his jaw. The smug face of Sukuna at the back of his mind was mocking him. He almost rolled his eyes. “He’s a fucking ass anyway.” Satoru complained, irritated. “Just tell me what he said.” 

Suguru pressed his lips into a thin line, stopping his motion on Satoru’s forearm. He tapped his finger on the skin instead, still visibly debating it, his eyes dancing on Satoru’s face like they were trying to determine the best course of action. He exhaled sharply, shaking his head in defeat, and Satoru could not pretend to not notice that the sun was returning under his cheekbones, a blush finding its way there, nesting under the bruises on Suguru’s face. 

Suguru seemed to resign himself to the inevitability of it. “He said we had each other on a leash.” He deadpanned, but his face betrayed him, and his eyes were too present. All seeing. Attentive. “Mutually.” He clarified, an octave too high. 

Satoru blinked, a little incredulous. An all-knowing silence hung over their head. He felt slapped at the back of his skull. He wondered how terribly obvious it had looked to everyone for such an assumption to be made. Not that it was wrong. Not an assumption either, if Satoru was to be completely honest with himself. It rang true, in a sense. Crude, but true. 

“Well.” He let the word out slowly, enunciating each vowel. He blinked again, frowned, tilted his head, turning the words over in his head. It wasn’t wrong. Not entirely. Not at all. Not really. “That’s one way to put it.” He concluded, voice sounding more like a question than anything else.  

The problem didn’t reside in the leash itself. It resided in the idea that Sukuna had been the one to speak of it. Satoru felt the sharp feeling of discomfort and irritation find him. He did not want his inclination, no matter how codependent and desperate it could be, to be noticed by malevolent eyes that had tried, once, to cut him open. 

Suguru shook his head sincerely. “I don’t think I have you on a leash.” He stated in earnest.

Satoru smiled at that, amused by the sternness in Suguru’s voice, by his words that sounded like serious matter, by the brown eyes that were too agitated. He gave his hand another squeeze and shrugged in willing defeat. “I think you overly underestimate yourself.” He countered, voice running low, and watched in guarded delight as Suguru grew another shade closer to the sun. 

"What did you even do to piss him off that badly?” Suguru rerouted too fast, voice a little unstable, changing subject. Touché. “What prompted the stomach scar?” 

Satoru hummed, straightening up. He frowned as he remembered it. It was not something that would ever be forgotten. He worked his jaw and was brought back to a younger version of himself a little brutally. Some things would simply always feel like a violence to his body. Suguru seemed to notice the hardship and picked up tracing patterns on Satoru’s arm, hand hidden inside the sleeve of his hoodie. It made it easier. 

"I fought him once and won during an illegal fight, I told you that already. I was twenty-one at the time and just very.. .talkative, I guess.” Satoru tried to keep it light-hearted. He shrugged nonchalantly and continued. “I might have insulted his entire family tree.” He deadpanned. Suguru blinked in open surprise. “He’s very touchy about disrespect, apparently.”  

Suguru stayed silent for a second, processing the information, eyes wide, and spoke with disturbance. “Why on earth would you do that?” 

Satoru shrugged again for good measure and rolled his eyes like they were discussing gossip and not his own murder attempt. “For fun! I don’t fucking know.” Suguru apparently grew more bewildered at that, shaking his head in desperation. Satoru sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, remembering, indulging. He carried on, shoulders dropping. “I was also a rising winner in underground fighting. I had a stroke of victory by KO that was rare, and I think he was not having it. He was the strongest at the time. I guess he didn’t like the idea of his supremacy being challenged.” He opened his eyes back up, something strained at the back of them, tired, forced down into a pool of his own blood, of a cold blade through his guts, of doctors telling Shoko that he would not make it through the night. “I beat him, bragged about it, and he cut me open.” Satoru concluded. “That’s pretty much it.” 

Suguru seemed to reluctantly leave it at that, leaning back on his chair. He was still eyeing Satoru with distressed concern. “The way he spoke about you was spiteful.” He announced, sounding harsh like he rarely was. 

Satoru let it wash over him. He had made peace with the hatred of a too powerful man a long time ago. “He had a grudge. He saw the opportunity to get back at me and took it.” He explained it with detachment, but something still stung at the back of his throat. The violet plum bruise decorating Suguru’s eye was always making it hard to breathe right.  

He regarded him, something a little sad returning to the indigo of his eyes, tracing the patterns of iris flowers on Suguru’s face. “I’m sorry you were caught in the crossfire.” He offered, certain of his words and the heaviness in his heart. Guilt was a shared thing, something they held with both hands. 

Suguru shook his head, refusing it. It looked like it hurt. “Don’t apologize. I went there willingly.” 

“I’m still sorry it had to come to this.” Satoru felt a dive, a cliff, a wave in his stomach. A too tragic reality tugging at the seams of him. Remorse, regret, too, for having been too loud, too intolerant, too blinded by a fury born out of desolation, out of incomprehension. He fixed Suguru with a serious stare, holding his hand tighter, making him listen, making him see. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’m sorry for being so fucking angry about it.” He insisted, his eyes moving too fast over Suguru’s face, over the sun of his eyes, the dark of his hair.

A pause, and Satoru let it out, let it go, tired of feeling trapped in his useless resentment. “You did what you could, Suguru.”  

The other man looked down at the table, a silent resignation finding him. An acceptance, maybe. Satoru hoped he would accept it. Satoru hoped Suguru would let himself be forgiven, would let himself be held again. It was hard to be cared for. Satoru wished it would feel easy again, soon, for the both of them. This had been harsh enough.

“If you had known it was him,” Satoru asked, casting away the silence. Suguru’s eyes shot back up at the sound of his voice. “Would you have closed the deal anyway?” 

Suguru studied him for an instant. The wheels turned over his face. Internal debate on full display before he settled on something.. “I might have.” Suguru said, little hesitation in the voice. He wavered and faltered, but Satoru could admire his honesty. “I just- I just wanted the money.” 

Satoru hummed gravely and nodded. He was reminded of a duffle bag. His attention drifted away, turning his face, eyes landing on the black thing discarded in the entrance. Forgotten. Unassuming. Storing the ultimate proof of everything that had gone wrong. Satoru eyed it warily.  

“Well, you have it now.” Satoru, through it, did not let go of warm fingers. Suguru’s other hand was still buried under his sleeve, resting there, immobile. Holding him without disturbance. “What will you do with it?” 

Satoru wondered if the bag was about to burst open. He could picture little wretched things crawling out of it, slithering on his kitchen floor like vipers or spiders with too many legs, leaving black tar behind on their trail. Maybe the things would coil around his ankles and bite him, a reminder of his inadequacy, of his harshness, punishing him for it. Maybe they would pry his eyes open and replace them with fakes, black orbs of nothingness, making him blind, a puppet on a string. Maybe they would suffocate him slowly, precisely, dripping down his airway and finding his lungs, saying you’re one of us, you’ve always been.  

Satoru shuddered at the thought, at the image plaguing his head, at the feeling of foreign hands on him, and looked away from the bag in a haste.  

Suguru was staring at him in confusion.  

“What?” Satoru asked, mind visited by snakes. He blinked harshly to chase them away. 

Suguru watched him, perplexed. “You’re not serious, right?” He challenged, clear puzzlement on his face, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  

Satoru blinked again. He had lost track of the conversation. 

“Wha-” 

“It’s for you.” Suguru cut him off quickly, glancing at the bag too fast. Satoru remembered. There were no spiders, no crawling things with teeth. There was money that had been won in blood, and a shame that was his as much as it was Suguru’s. 

He frowned and shook his head. “Suguru-” 

“No, seriously, Satoru. It’s for you.” Suguru cut to the chase in a hurry, his tone taking after something authoritative, almost imposing. Satoru was made silent by the unusual loudness of Suguru’s voice. “I can’t have done this for nothing.” He reasoned, rebutting Satoru’s refusal with force. His eyes were focused, decided, a little harsh. “I want you to have it. I did all of it for you. Let this be part of my apology too.” He sounded final.

But Satoru did not know how to agree with ease, without still bargaining against it.  

“I can’t just accept money that came from your face looking like that.” Satoru rebuked, wondering, once more, where the ice pack was. 

Suguru seemed to turn the sentence over, over, again, under his jaw, over his head. Flipping it in a way he knew Satoru would hear. And he found it, with too much ease, with too much knowledge. “Then just think of it as money from my heart.” Satoru bit the inside of his cheek so hard it hurt. Suguru continued, words leaving him, easy and evident. “Not from my blood or from the ring.” He nodded, persuaded, eyes tender and real. Satoru was suddenly breathless. Too sensitive. “I did it because I love you, and I want you to be able to do something that doesn’t make you bruise.” A truth, a truce, and the reason for it all, even here, even now.  

Satoru felt it creep up everywhere inside. A warmth, misplaced, but still, unmissable. To be loved and to see it for what it is. To be loved and to accept it, no matter how strange, no matter the translation, no matter the reason. To be loved and to indulge, to agree, to accept it. Eyes like the fields Satoru rarely visited when he was a child. Born and raised in Tokyo, under a sky that had no stars, in a city that was too loud. He wondered if Suguru’s amber could be found where he came from, near the forest, near the mountains, in the Tama River that ran in his village, in the summertime he should have been born in. 

He let out air, deflating under Suguru’s relentless staring. He yielded halfway. “I’ll have to think about it.” 

Suguru seemed surprised by the lack of resistance. His shoulders dropped too, and he nodded slowly. He waited a second, watching Satoru until he seemed to find something that satisfied him, giving Satoru’s arm a soft squeeze before sliding his hand out from inside his sleeve. Satoru bit his tongue to keep himself from protesting at the loss of contact and attention to his skin, face falling slightly like a child. Suguru stilled his hand, noticing, and forced back a smile, amused. 

“Still so dramatic.” He noted lightly, gesturing for Satoru’s left hand. 

Satoru obliged, docile. “I have my reasons.” He justified as he brought his free arm on the table, his other hand still, relentlessly, eternally, intertwined between Suguru’s fingers.  

“Mmmh. I’m sure.” Suguru cooed with a shy smile. He brushed his fingers over the back of cold skin, sending warm waves all the way up to Satoru’s shoulder. He pushed the sleeve up over Satoru’s wrist cautiously, and froze. His smile turned into a straight line, something unreadable finding his features, like the distant dissonance of the past, the reminder of a precarious equilibrium. His entire body went still. Staring. Seeing. Made speechless by whatever he had found. A deer in headlights, a man in spotlights. 

Satoru frowned, cold panic grabbing his throat, and looked down at where Suguru’s eyes were planted. 

Still on his wrist, like an extension of himself, was the purple hair tie. 

Satoru stared at it too, a quiet shyness finding him like the first sign of discordance. He felt a childish shame, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, for something he had done on purpose and despite himself, at the same time. He watched Suguru’s fingers, right next to the purple, almost touching it, unmoving. His eyes fluttered upward to Suguru’s face. He was still looking at the culprit, the proof of guilt, the piece of evidence. Satoru stayed very quiet, awaiting his sentence, his guilty verdict. It came after a long pause. 

“That’s mine.” Suguru noted in a haze. His eyes were a little blown out.  

A beat. A respite. Satoru counted the distance, one two three, and breathed in. “It is.” His voice was too low, too hidden, too false. Suguru seemed entranced, lost somewhere, out of his own head. Satoru tried to find him, but his own admission felt too stupid. “Do you want it back?” He asked, because he didn’t know what to say, in lieu of something better. 

Please say no. 

“No.” Suguru was quick to counter. He moved, finally, letting his fingertips test the thin purple ribbon. Not reclaiming it, but finding it again, finding himself on Satoru, the remnants of a love he had left behind. Despite it all. Despite it all. 

Suguru pinched the tie, pulling on it slightly, testing the stretch. He let go of it and it returned against Satoru’s skin with a soft pang. Satoru felt a shiver start somewhere on his wrist, and somewhere between his collarbones, his ribs, his tongue, and breathed out. 

“I never took it off.” He admitted for no reason. Suguru looked up at that, eyes kind, and still, always, tenderly sad. Satoru smiled, apologetic at first, but settling with something easy. He tilted his head and lowered his voice playfully, nodding towards the hair tie. “How’s that for a leash?” He bantered, devilish and devious, and Suguru’s eyes went a little wide. He slapped his wrist instinctively as an answer, scolding him like he had said a bad word. It  only served to make Satoru smile wider. 

“Shut up.” Suguru rolled his eyes, but his cheekbones betrayed him. Satoru’s candour was still making the sunburns return. Even here. Even now. 

And so, it fixed itself like this, first. With a sunlit table in the morning and a conversation. With touches long overdue, easy to accept. Things being laid to rest, some with ease, some with dread. With the knowledge of trying, always, of trying still, of trying again. Bruises that would heal, surely, with time, on skins and on hearts. Cuts that were not eternal, that could be mended as long as the right hands were taking care of them. Fears that were unfounded, others that would need some time to disappear, to be made digestible until they finally didn’t present themselves like enemies to their minds every morning. It started with an understanding. It had always been this, hadn’t it? Palms on cold hands, sun in the kitchen. Easy if it was allowed to be. Easy because it could be.  

The day passed. Satoru placed a white and blue toothbrush right next to his, over the bathroom sink. 

He called Shoko and spoke of Suguru’s name. Nothing else was needed for the woman on the other side of the phone to tell him Take care of yourself. You can get the next days off.  

That evening, sleep came to Satoru like it had the night before. Like a KO in the ring. He drifted off as soon as he hit the mattress, the accumulated lack of sleep being trampled finally. He was mildly aware of someone joining him in bed, hands finding his hair, melted droplets of sunshine under careful fingertips. He reached out in half consciousness, chasing the warmth, wrapping an arm around Suguru’s torso. Not dragging him close, still, just resting there, feeling him, making sure of the presence.  

Sleep was not an uneasy thing anymore, but it was still a fleeting one. Easily disturbed if something was amiss. 

Satoru blinked his eyes open in the dark, dazed and confused. Heaviness clung to his mind. He extended his hand, something telling him to, but it connected with nothing. Only the sheets, empty, but still warm. Not long gone. The understanding came to him evidently, like it had in the morning. He was alone.  

There was no panic that flared up in his throat, this time, only a worry, a concern. The knowledge of a bruised face and tired eyes. He sat up in bed, disoriented, and remained in the silence for a moment. He tried to listen, to catch the sound, to hear him in the night. He had the certainty Suguru was still in the apartment, but not here. All that came back to Satoru was the stillness of his room. The shadows in the corners of the ceilings did not mock him. They simply whispered to him, compassionate and resilient; go find him. 

He checked the time. Three am. He had slept for four hours already, but his body made it known that it was evidently far from enough. Satoru pulled the covers away from his body anyway. He would not be able to go back down without Suguru here. That was pathetic, and a little pitiful, but the night was a thing Satoru had grown wary of, frightened when alone, cold sweats and abstract nightmares brewing a childish fear in his guts. Unbeatable, and unpredictable. The cold air made him shiver as he got out of bed, his bare foot meeting the ground. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders tightly as he made his way to the door leading to the kitchen, sleep clinging to him relentlessly. He stifled back a yawn, frowning and rubbing his eyes, and navigated the space on autopilot. 

“Suguru?” He called out in the emptiness, whispering. No one answered. 

He looked at the table. It was vacant. Satoru turned around, retreating to his bedroom, crossing it in quick steps to reach the bathroom’s door. He stopped in front of it. It was closed, but he could see the light in the interstice at the bottom. He leaned close, agitation making itself known at the back of his neck and in the pits of his guts, cobwebs spreading on his chest. He pressed his ear to the wood. He heard nothing behind it. 

“Suguru?” He repeated, voice hoarse with sleep and worry. No response. 

He knocked, softly first, then a little more pressing. No response. 

Satoru threw patience in the wind in mere seconds. “I’m coming in.” He announced as he grabbed the handle and pushed the door open slowly, something like a reflex telling him not to be loud, not to be a disturbance, not to be a nuisance. Making himself quiet as much as he could in the possibility of a fragile thing. 

The overhead light was on, bright and white, too aggressive for Satoru’s sleep-burdened eyes. He squinted, stepping in clumsily, and found Suguru there. Satoru’s worry crumbled, crashed, and he came out of him like an incessant reminder of what had gone wrong. 

The tap was running. Suguru’s hands were under it, immovable, completely still under the cold water. He was standing frozen, eyes fixed on his reflection in the mirror, that vacant horror wavering in the amber, despair behind his eyelids. Watching his face like it was not his own. Back in a place Satoru could not see, could not access, could only bear witness to and try to cast away. Suguru was standing at the margins of himself, barely there, in that space where the consciousness was a deluded thing, close but inaccessible, untouchable, intangible. A sorry sight that Satoru had witnessed one too many times, that made it hard to swallow, hard to move. Making the worry overtake everything else.  

Satoru stood alone, in those moments where Suguru evaded himself. It was never easy to know what to say. He had never gotten an answer back, his words lost in that static space between Suguru and the thing he saw in the mirror.  

But Satoru tried again. He always would. 

He stepped closer, calculated movements, and turned off the water first. He placed himself next to Suguru and searched his eyes in the mirror. Suguru was staring, distant, vague, terror-stricken by his own self. Satoru tried not to pull him into his arms. He couldn’t startle him. He couldn’t make it worse. 

He tentatively placed a hand over Suguru’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Suguru,” He spoke his name like a quiet prayer, forcing the roughness of sleep away. “Are you alright?”  

Satoru knew there would be nothing speaking back to him. It came as a fall, a punch to his stability, when Suguru spoke the words like he was caught in a lucid dream. 

“It was my mother.” He whispered, words trembling and deserted, like a horror and a curse and a despair so evident he was tainting the air with it. “It was her.” Suguru sounded crazed, barely audible, a shell of a man sleepwalking to his death. Standing at the edge of the sink, at the edge of himself. Satoru breathed with him, but faltered a little too. 

He tried to make sense of the words, but Suguru’s mother had been long gone. More than two decades ago. He frowned, vigilant eyes surveying Suguru’s face in the mirror. The thousand-yard stare in the dead of night, plunging him in an in-between state that was too torturous, too raw to date back to something Suguru had not been old enough to comprehend. Satoru tried to piece it together, his mind chasing a riddle, close to it. 

Suguru continued, unprompted, unblinking. “She left.” It was strangled at the back of his throat. Too raw. Too recent. 

Satoru moved his hand slowly, sliding it further to find the space between Suguru’s shoulder blades. He pressed it softly, testing the surface of the t-shirt. He could feel how warm Suguru’s skin was underneath. 

Satoru settled on something. He went back to September, to the things he had noticed, picked up on, blaming it on paranoia, and made out the outline of a possibility. It was absurd. It was unimaginable. It would make it all make sense.  

Satoru stared, still trying to find Suguru’s eyes. He let his thumb tap a slow rhythm on his back. “Suguru,” He prompted quietly, trying to catch his attention. He forced his apprehension away, trying to sound stable, trying to be present. Suguru, still, could not see him. “When did she leave?” He asked, his heart picking up an uneven pace, blaring like a warning sign in his head and his ribcage and the rest of him. Down to his heels, his calves, his soles. It would make it all make sense. 

The silence was thick, dreadful, dragged down by Suguru’s evident despair, and the haze he was lost in.  

Satoru waited, patiently, biting his cheek. He let Suguru navigate an eternal plane he could not see. 

It came, after a while. Suguru spoke it without clarity. “Sometimes.” A pause. He looked confused, suddenly, finally blinking at himself in the mirror. Returning, slowly, hardly, consciousness super-imposing itself over his dismay. “October.” He murmured, then, looking lost.  

Satoru swallowed back his shock. He felt his breath hitch in his trachea, but pretended it didn’t. It was absurd. It was unimaginable. It made too much sense. Mockingly, evidently. A sick joke that clung to Suguru’s eyes like a curse. His curse. Her. 

“Was that what happened to you?” Satoru managed through his own delirium that was starting to return to his heart. Rancid. Bile in his throat. Unjust. “Did she leave you again?” He breathed out, turning his head to look at Suguru’s profile directly.  

It was there, between them, in the vastness of Suguru’s eyes, that Satoru knew it had always been that. He did not need confirmation. It was too evident, now, too evident and too distorted.  

The blow came anyway.  

“She said I loved her too much.” Suguru whispered in a haze, sounding mad, gone, left behind too. Abandoned too many times. Grieving still, grieving again, a discarded and desolate child who had never known the hands of a mother. How unfair to have been unaware. How unfair that Suguru had been alone in it, that Satoru had not figured it out, had not known, had not pushed. I should have tried harder. I should have tried always.  

Satoru swallowed back his misery. What was done was done. It would serve no purpose to think of the what ifs.  

“Hey.” Satoru let out in a shaky breath, forcing his courage. He slowly placed his palms on Suguru’s collarbones, and pushed delicately, trying to make him budge. Suguru, surprisingly, posed no argument. His body moved patiently under Satoru’s touch, taking a step back. Satoru slipped in the space between Suguru and the sink, replacing the mirror with himself, placing his own face in Suguru’s direct line of sight. Suguru seemed to blink him into focus, as if he couldn’t truly understand what he was looking at. At least, the panicked fog seemed to lift behind his eyes. He looked drained. Coming down was taking a toll on him, visibly, dragging the lifeforce away.  

Satoru’s hands found his, then, grabbing the fingers softly. “Come back to bed, yeah?” He offered, an invitation more than a command. Suguru took a second to nod, hazy still, but returning to himself. 

Satoru turned the lights off and guided him back to the room, an encouraging hand down the small of his back, another holding his bicep to prompt him forward. He sat him down on the edge of the bed and wrapped him in the blanket he previously had around his shoulders. Suguru blinked up at him in the dark.  

“Stay here.” Satoru ordered before moving to the kitchen with haste. He filled up a glass of water and rummaged in his freezer for an ice pack. 

He returned to the room too fast. Speed is your forte. He stood in front of Suguru, looking down as the other looked up, still dazed. He placed the glass in Suguru’s hands but still helped him hold it, unsure if he could function on his own.  

“Drink up.” Satoru said supportively. Suguru eyed the glass distantly before bringing it to his lips, diligently downing it in slow, timed gulps. 

Satoru wrapped the ice pack in a small towel and placed it cautiously on Suguru’s bruised eye that was starting to look more menacing as time went by. He knew it would soon fade away, Suguru’s skin being a miraculous thing, but for now it was still rough, still painful to look at. Suguru welcomed it without protest, closing both of his eyes under the feeling, a long and exhausted sigh leaving him. Letting out an emptiness, a despair. Terror dying out with it. 

“You should try to sleep.” Satoru offered in the silence after a moment, hand going up cautiously to push black strands of hair away from his forehead. Suguru barely seemed to register the touch, still too far gone, barely standing straight. He nodded anyway, but made no move, letting Satoru’s fingers tangle in his hair, allowing for hands to patch him up again.  

It lasted a moment, long and dragging out, until Satoru felt that his sleep was returning too, tugging at his wrists, asking him to lie down.  

Suguru’s eyes were still closed shut. Screwed a little too tight. 

What had Suguru seen, all this time, in the mirror, in the amber of his eyes?  

Satoru leaned down slowly, moving the ice pack away, and softly kissed both his eyelids. Twice, each of them, careful not to hurt, with a caution that was easy. The flow of gentle waves over burnt and bruised skin. Satoru did it again, feeling how Suguru’s body relaxed further, how his face let go, how it seemed to soothe an ache he could barely imagine the size of. 

Satoru forced it to the side, to the back of his mind. It was not the place. It was not the time. He put the ice pack down on the bedside table. He pushed the covers away, and manhandled Suguru, making him lie back down, not without difficulty. He was still heavier than him, after all. 

Suguru cooperated but did not help, unable to. He let himself be tucked in, a childish resignation on his face. Satoru almost kissed his forehead but decided against it. 

He slid under the covers too, joining him. He hesitated for a second, watching Suguru watch him through a haze, eyelids heavy, mind still somewhere else. Satoru opened his arms slowly, tentatively, giving him a choice, accepting whatever Suguru would do. But hopeful, still, stubbornly. 

It didn’t take long for Suguru to move to him. Satoru felt a relief, a liberation. Craving contact had always been an ordeal he knew he suffered more than the other man. Suguru had called him touch starved, once, and Satoru had scoffed in vexation. He had blushed from head to toe anyway, made aware of it, too conscious of his own singular predicament. Affliction growing strong whenever hands were not on him. Personal space was something he liked to abolish.  

Suguru’s arm wrapped around him lazily, resting on his side. Satoru tucked his chin on top of his head, a hand going up to the back of Suguru’s neck, brushing his hair to the side. He felt him sigh against his Adam apple, relaxing in the touch. Satoru’s heartbeat was too fast for something they had done so many times. Sleeping close, merged together, legs intertwined. Suguru often protested and complained in the heat of summer. Satoru guessed it was easier to handle when the weather was so atrociously cold. 

He was proven wrong, realising with stupor that Suguru was still impossibly warm, even in the middle of January. Landing body heat without containment, a power source that never ran out. Sun under his skin, birthed there, trapped there. Satoru’s body welcomed it like a benediction.  

He closed his eyes and acknowledged every patch of his body that was touching Suguru’s. Knees, thighs, hips, stomach, ribcage, hands, fingers, neck, feet. Chest to chest. Heart to heart. He sighed slowly as sleep creeped back up on him, indulgent.

As he drifted away, in the dead of night, the last thing Satoru heard was a whisper against his throat, a lamentation against his heart. 

“She looked so much like me.”  

Time passed, as it always did. Slow, on the back of Satoru’s hands. It was like water, in the way it moved, in the way it swallowed him and made him float. Not a thing that ran past him like it tended to, but something that moved with him, walking by his side, tracing a path for him to walk on. Lenient and reflective. 

The third day was spent in sparse conversations. Suguru was still dazed, eyes a little vacant, shaken up considerably by the events of the prior night. Satoru did not pry, did not push, did not ask him to speak. They spent the hours in quiet company, from sunrise to sunset, and went to bed. Satoru held him close, that night too.  

The fourth day was a little easier. Suguru’s bruises were already tiptoeing on that distasteful shade of yellowish green that meant they were healing, fading out, at a pace that was a blessing. His right eye opened fully, and the bloodshot look of it was receding back to normal. The swelling went down, too, and Suguru’s face was surely returning to something Satoru was used to. Untouchable in the ring. Satoru slept with his back pressed to Suguru’s chest, that night, iron grasp around a warm wrist against his torso. 

The fifth day carried the talking. Suguru spoke, carefully, of his mother, in slow cadence, in guarded words. Satoru listened, eyes watchful, looking out for a faltering, for a sign of discomfort. He waited, always, for Suguru to find his voice and explain it in a way that made sense. Everything slowly pieced itself back together. It was a distant and unfair storyline that Satoru had been an unaware witness of, watching from the sidelines, knowing something had been wrong but unable to see through the thickness of the water at what resided underneath. Satoru felt his misery merge with an undignified rage that came up and out of him so suddenly it made him breathless. Hatred so raw for a woman he had never seen, he had never met, that wore the eyes of the man he loved. Suguru seemed to have been particularly strangled by it, by their resemblance that felt like a morbid tragedy. Ill-fated and predestined. Cursed, Suguru had said. It wasn’t your fault, Satoru had answered, holding his hands close to his heart. Suguru did not hear him. 

Satoru prayed to a god he did not believe in for his mother to never return.  

That night, Satoru watched him fall asleep. Suguru looked preoccupied. Speaking of a parent that had abandoned him had made him look small. Satoru felt stupid and foolish, somehow, for all the rage he had felt, for that white fury that had clouded his eyes. If only I had known. Satoru couldn’t prevent the thought from running back and forth on the line of his stomach scar. If only he had known, he would have made Suguru stay, he would have found a way, he would have held him closer, always, impossibly closer, and kill the abandonment. He would have tried harder. He would have tried differently, maybe. But Satoru couldn’t help but wonder, too, if the fleeing had been an inevitable thing. Suguru had mixed up his grief with the rest of it. It had made one with the leaving of his mother. Another death to Suguru's mind, another death to his love. Mother gone, grandparents in the grave, the Geto name running away from him no matter how hard Suguru tried to make it reside inside his heart. Perhaps it was an inexorable outcome, that fall forward, that chase for solitude, that search for the only place where Suguru knew no one could hurt him; in the silence, in the brink of existence, where nothing ever happened. Alone. The last resort of a man who couldn’t bear another potential tragedy. 

On the sixth day, they stepped outside, walking the streets without a destination. Satoru was wearing three layers under his puffer jacket, a slate blue beanie on his head almost covering his eyes, and a scarf wrapped all the way up to his mouth dramatically. Suguru very annoyingly had nothing on his back but a double layered hoodie over his t-shirt in a weather Satoru considered almost criminal. He stared at him in annoyance, and Suguru simply smiled back, amused and a little worn-out, eyebags still decorating his face. A warm hand found Satoru’s fingers in the pocket of his jacket. Lending heat, sharing warmth. Satoru felt better for it.

The seventh day was spent at Shoko’s. She did not urge Suguru to talk. She asked, with hard-earned concern in her eyes and untameable love, if Suguru was alright. Suguru took too long to answer, and Shoko told him she would be there whenever it was the time, whenever he would want to speak. That she was glad he was back. That she would murder him if he ever tried to leave them again. Suguru smiled at that, sad but honest. It was hard to be cared for. They shared a cigarette on the balcony. Satoru stayed inside, too cold, letting them find each other again. Suguru had been her friend, too. Suguru was still her friend. Despite it all. Even here. Even now. 

The eighth day was the hardest. They walked into the gym, and Satoru could feel Suguru’s unease, his restlessness, the shifting of his weight and the frantic motions of his eyes. His face was mostly healed, except for that tenacious bruise on his right eye and the split left eyebrow which was taking longer than the rest. Suguru’s shoulders were too high, too squared, his spine too straight, his face too stiff. He was trying to make himself tall, but ended up trapped instead, unstable and faltering.  

The kids were the easiest. Yuji hugged him without a second thought. The gesture was evident, joy and uncontained relief on his face. Suguru hugged him back a little awkwardly, taken aback by it, but trying all the same. Trying always.  

Nobara lectured him for a solid minute about the tactlessness of not saying goodbye, and Suguru listened diligently, letting himself be scolded by a girl ten years younger than him. He nodded at her words and offered his apology. She accepted it with a forced reluctance on her face, but bright eyes lighting up at the words.  

Megumi was more difficult. Broody waters to navigate, distant eyes watching with guarded vigilance. Suguru and him shared a habit called quietness. Suguru’s silence could be a calming thing, where Megumi’s often felt like sternness, bordering on disinterest. Yet, Satoru knew they had been the closest to each other. He knew that Suguru had spent hours in the ring with the gloom-ridden boy, perfecting his technique, praising skills that were unheard of before. It was bound to get better, with time. But not today. Not yet. Megumi did not speak, did not ask a thing, and Suguru did the same, not knowing where to start.  

Nanami was impossible. Closed off, unattainable. He told Suguru he hoped he was alright, and that he could find a way to get his life back on track, but that this would not happen here, not under his roof, not under his guidance. Suguru worked his jaw and nodded, accepting the defeat with grace and an understanding that was remarkable. He had no more fight left in him. Satoru felt attacked and wronged and piqued by the entirety of it. He threw a fit on his behalf, trying to bargain with Nanami, begging, pleading, just when he had been twenty-one, looking for a reason. It led nowhere. Satoru stormed off, defeated, and Suguru joined him on the pavement, abandoning his composure.  

“We’ll get him to agree.” Satoru said, linking his arm with Suguru’s, dragging the both of them away, eager to get home. 

They walked for some time before Suguru settled on a reason. 

“I’m not sure we can.” He answered, quiet and rejected.  

Satoru would find a way. Satoru would make it work. He had to. He would not lose this too. 

That night, Suguru did not want to be close. He slept on his side, facing away from Satoru, quietness forced back on his vocal cords. Satoru accepted the distance, wrapped in too many blankets. He did not sleep well. The shadows in the corner of his ceilings watched him peculiarly. 

Sunday, like all Sundays, came like a revelation. 

Satoru emerged from the bathroom, vivaciously drying his hair with a towel before throwing it on the back of a chair. He walked to the sofa where Suguru was still reading that book, pensive and focused, eyebrows slightly furrowed in attention. His hair was up in a disastrously looking bun, strands sticking out from all sides. Satoru had always liked it when he looked a little messy, caught off guard and familiar.  

Suguru looked from the book as he felt Satoru getting close, eyeing him attentively. Satoru settled next to him on the couch, one leg bent under himself, throwing an arm over the backrest. Suguru, like anytime Satoru was there, offered him his full attention. He set the book face down on his thighs and waited for Satoru to talk. 

Satoru had turned and twisted and chewed on the words for the entirety of his shower, running them on his skin as the water dripped down the line of his back. His spontaneity was not a crafted thing. When he did not know how to speak of something, Satoru took too long to figure out what to say. Silence was not his habitus, but it was a thing he reverted to in misfortune when his tongue did not know where to start.  

But Suguru’s eyes were kind. It always made it easier. 

Satoru bit his tongue before settling down. “Your birthday is in a week.” He said, then, a little deadpan. 

A pause. Suguru blinked at him. A veil descended upon his face before it lifted again. His bruises were almost entirely gone, phantom outlines on his skin. 

“I’m aware.” He acquiesced distantly. 

“Anything you wanna do?” Satoru threaded carefully, forcing nonchalance, pretending he had not been thinking it over for hours. “I personally don’t like celebrating mine, so.” He shrugged, faking. Forced confidence. “Whatever you want.” 

Suguru's eyes drifted away, leaving Satoru’s face to look at the wall and the general vicinity of the room. He breathed in deep. Satoru felt the air fill his own lungs too. 

“I need to get some of my stuff back from the house.” Suguru explained, looking at the coffee table. The amber of his eyes became glassy. He nodded, resoluteness on his face. “I think I’ll go there.” He concluded, a little sombre, a little sad. 

Satoru bit the inside of his cheek. He accepted it with difficulty but didn’t let it show. There was always a fear of what the house represented. A separation. A distance. A past hardship. It had only been a week. 

Satoru nodded, still trying to show support, trying to suffocate his apprehension. “Got it.” He conceded, guarded. 

Suguru flipped the book in his hands. He tapped on the cover, trying to occupy his fingers. Satoru’s eyes fell to them for a second before they flicked back up just as Suguru’s attention returned to him. His eyes were careful, watching Satoru with sincerity, and something that resembled the last days of summer. 

There was a pause, expectant and thick with promise, before Suguru spoke.  

“Would you like to come with me?” 

Satoru blinked, bewildered. “To the house?” 

Suguru worried at his lower lip. It had healed nicely. There was barely a red line left where the split had been. He seemed to make peace with his apprehension and nodded slowly.  

“Yes. To the house.” He concurred, turned a little breathless by his own invitation. Satoru could only stare at him in open astonishment. Facing his lack of response, Suguru continued, voice taking a slightly shaky tone. “I’d like you to see it, but I understand if you’re not comfortable with-” 

“Yes, please.” Satoru chimed in, cutting him off, voice too loud and too pathetic, surprising the both of them. Suguru mouthed a silent oh, taken aback, and Satoru cleared his throat to regain a semblance of composure. “I mean, yeah.” He felt his own chest heat up weirdly. He could picture the skin turning a shade of guilty pink. “I would like to come with you. I would love to.” He managed, breathless too. He could feel the warmth travel all the way to his neck. Suguru’s eyes fell there, noticing the flush that was creeping up from under Satoru’s collar like a proof of sin, and bit back a smile.  

A soft pause, and Satoru continued. “If you want me there.” 

He would let Suguru go alone. He would not sleep at all until he returned. He would grin and bear it. 

Suguru’s sun-lit ambers flickered back to his face. Today was not a sunny day, and yet, Suguru’s eyes looked basked in sunlight. Eternal. Enduring. 

“I’ll always want you anywhere.” He whispered, and Satoru believed, once again, that this could save his life. Suguru did not dwell on it, on the meaning behind the words, sunburns returning to his cheekbones, echoing the shades of Satoru’s blush. He nodded, picking the book back up to find something else to focus on than cobalt blue in the snow. “Okay, then. Birthday trip it is.”  

The week passed. Time was slow, tolerant where Satoru was, considerate where Suguru stood. They slept in the same bed, except one night where Suguru went back to his apartment to share a meal with Choso. Satoru stared at the ceiling for too long before falling into a restless slumber. 

They held each other close. The sheets smelled of linen and the taste of forgiveness. They never kissed. 

The third day of February came like a soft wind. Satoru found Suguru in the bathroom and kissed his hand, pressing his lips carefully on the finger that had been broken.  

“Happy birthday.” He spoke against Suguru’s skin.  

The train ride to Ome was spent in quietness. Satoru felt how Suguru grew a little apprehensive with every passing minute, watching the outside world go by through the window, tangling and untangling the hem of his large black jumper between his fingers. Sitting opposite him, Satoru stood up to change to the empty seat next to Suguru, and pressed his knee to his, not saying a word. Suguru’s hands stop their mechanical motion. 

The air in Ome was lighter, clearer than in the centre of Tokyo, in the city Satoru loved but could find suffocating, sometimes, when the noises were too much. Here, it was quieter, serene. The walk from the station was calm. It had started to rain lightly, not warranting an umbrella, but making Satoru shiver anyway. He buried his hands deep in his pocket and hid his nose in his scarf. He could see the mountains in the distance, and if he focused just enough, diverting his attention from Suguru for just a second, he could hear the river that ran nearby.  

Satoru let himself be guided, following the other man, walking in step with him. Suguru appeared to be on autopilot, navigating streets and pathways he knew like ghost moves engraved under his skin, in his shins, in the sole of his shoes. His home. His childhood. His eyes were a little unfocused, as if he had retreated somewhere Satoru could not access. Satoru did not bother him there, leaving him to his silence. He would come back, with time, with patience. 

The house was a beautiful thing. It stood at the edge of the town, almost undisturbed, a white facade with a big window on the left of it. It seemed to be built in two different parts, like a small extension had been added on top of it to host more rooms on a higher floor. Ochre roof tiles formed a T, not flat, making the house look homely, alive from the outside. There was a path in grey rocks that led up to the entrance, flanked on each side with carefully picked vegetation. Small bushes and trees without leaves, except for a Japanese pine tree full of needles that stood there elegantly, undisturbed, asleep in the dead of winter. Satoru wished, with naivety and remorse, that he could have been here in the summer, when nature was alive. He could only imagine it, picturing the lushness, the beauty of a home that had been well-looked after, loved for generations, never fully abandoned. A thing of nostalgia, even for unsuspecting eyes. 

“It’s beautiful.” Satoru let out in a breath, honest, breaking their comfortable silence.  

He looked at Suguru who was staring at the house too. Something was wavering behind his eyelids. A well-kept thing, personal and running deep. Grief came in ways that were unexplainable, sometimes, and inevitable, on some days. This was inevitable. Satoru knew it. The grief was there. It would always be. He would never be able to touch it fully, to alleviate it from Suguru’s heart, to shoulder it with him. Grief was not a burden to be carried in tandem. It was a wave one faced alone, accepting it, letting it wash him clean and raw, until it left him on the shoreline of himself. It was not a tide to be braved in two. Grief was a solitary field whose paths were made for one, whose space could only accommodate the weight of one body, of one heart. It was not made for two. Suguru’s grief was not made for him to hold, to poke at, to try and touch and mend. It was not made to be patched up like the bruises were. It could not be patched up like the bruises were. It was something to be recognized, accepted even if it was uncomfortable, even if it lasted a year, a day, a lifetime or two. Even if it never left. 

Suguru did not seem to hear him. Lost under the wave. Braving the tide.  

He pushed the gate and walked to the entrance in slow steps. Satoru stayed close, watching carefully, ready to pick him up if Suguru faltered. They entered and the door closed behind them. Satoru was made deaf by the silence instantly. 

It was still, inside. Trapped in time. Nothing seemed to move, to answer back. Satoru listened for the sound of something, anything, but the house was utterly quiet. An infinite silence. Complete and absolute. 

They stayed unmoving in the entrance for a minute that seemed to stretch over the walls and the staircase, reaching the upper floor, crawling under doors and bathroom tiles. It seemed almost disrespectful to speak here. It seemed misplaced to break the stillness.  

Suguru took off his shoes, deciding on something after a moment, finding the courage to move. Satoru mirrored him, cautious not to make a sound. He found himself ridiculous, afraid to wake something up, as if someone was asleep behind every door.  

Suguru made for the stairs and Satoru followed. Something, inside, urged him not to let Suguru out of his sight.  

He watched the line of Suguru’s shoulders, worn low, disappearing under clothes that were too large, as if he did not want the house to see him. His hair was down, losing itself in the darkness of his jumper, blending into Suguru, a single thing without contrast. He was trying to make himself small, disappearing. An intruder inside his own home. Satoru bit his tongue to prevent himself from going mad and insulting the floors and ceilings that had turned him into this. 

They made it to a bedroom, one Satoru instantly recognised to be Suguru’s. He had spoken of the light green walls, once. Satoru stopped in the doorframe, unsure, and leaned on it, watching how Suguru picked up discarded clothes from the floor. A single bed was under the window, dark brown sheets and a mismatched pillowcase with beige flower patterns on it. Satoru felt his throat grow dry, imagining Suguru there, a small quiet child watching his ceiling, reading his book, crying his silent tears when the hours grew too long. Scrapped knees from playing in the streets, from jumping in the river, from walking the dirt paths in the fields and the mountains. Brown eyes always a little pensive, watchful, looking at the word like it was a riddle, a slow scene to be observed. Raised by grandparents with tender hands, without a mother to kiss his eyelids. He ached for the chance to hold that child near, close to his heart, and tell him that the future was brighter and better. But the future had not been kind to him, and Satoru was not a liar. He hoped, and swore, and vowed to make it a kind thing, from now on, so he would not have to lie to the childlike eyes and the quiet boy. 

Suguru took a moment to fold his clothes into a single pile. He grabbed the bag he had brought with him on that fearful day of October and stuffed the items in it without a word. He zipped it closed and watched his bed distantly for a moment, before looking up and finding Satoru’s face, seeming to remember he was not alone. His eyes were away, fearfully unfocused. A little pensive. Satoru watched him back, mustering the courage to offer a smile under the weight that was pressing down over his ribcage. Suguru did not smile back, but he breathed out slowly, letting something go. You’re not alone. I’m standing here with you. 

He blinked Satoru into focus. It took another beat for him to move, to walk over to Satoru who simply let him get close. He felt how his body, despite it all, reacted to Suguru’s moving closer, entering his personal space. An eternal bassline that caught the light. He was warmer, and his hands tingled, aching to reach out. He forced them to remain buried inside his pockets.  

Satoru’s attention was fixed on Suguru. He could not look anywhere else. 

“I need to check the garden.” Suguru whispered under the silence. These were the first words spoken by him ever since they had left Tokyo. 

Satoru followed him back to the entrance to grab their shoes. They crossed the whole house, then, passing through the kitchen and the living room, until they reached a backdoor that Suguru carefully slid open. Satoru put his shoes on in a rush and walked outside behind him. 

He swallowed back his sound of astonishment. Even in the dead of winter, the garden was beautiful. The plants had been picked to be able to sustain the cold. There were a hundred shades of green, despite the wind, despite the absence of warmth. The light rain frizzled over the bushes and the grass, making the greenery shimmer under the light. Sparkles in nature. Mere meters away from them, Satoru noticed the flowers, then, purple kakitsubata that were so rare to see in the winter. Irises only ever bloomed in late spring to summer. He felt a little incredulous, breath evading him further, and he stepped forward onto the grass, wanting to see them from up close. 

He felt a hand wrap around his arm, stopping him in his tracks. He turned his face to look at Suguru, only to find him watching the ground with observant eyes. Focused, and a little somber. 

He still didn’t look up as he spoke, voice barely audible under the soft melody of the rain. “Watch out for the snails, please.” 

It was said like a plea more than a request. Satoru frowned in confusion and followed his line of sight, looking down at the wet grass where his foot was planted. Slow and enduring, moving through the droplets of water, was a snail, centimetre away from his shoe. Satoru blinked as he noticed it, feeling a little shameful for not being careful enough. He retreated before nodding, and returned his attention to Suguru, nodding again. The flowers were still calling to him. 

“I’ll be careful.” He promised in a murmur, leaning slightly against the other man's side. 

Suguru took a second to hear and looked up at him with worried eyes, abandoning the grass. “Thank you.” 

Satoru stepped on the grass with caution, watching out for the sight of a shell or an antenna. He made his way closer to the flowers and crouched down to look at them, careful to maintain his balance not to fall knees first in the grass. The purple of the petals was vibrant, alive, unashamed. A prowess of nature, a gift in the bleak weather. He wondered if he could pick one and take it home with him, but it felt not right to do so, like robbing mother nature of her offspring. He was content with just watching, admiring. There was a snail climbing up the length of one of the stems. 

He stood back up and turned around, finding Suguru again, meters away, kneeling in the grass, unbothered by the wetness, looking at it with grave interest. Satoru felt his chest cave in at the sight. He looked small, childlike in his backyard. Satoru was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude, with the chance of being here too, of being allowed a peek at Suguru’s very life, very soul, the core of him, the heart of a kid with freckles and too long hair. He swallowed down the nostalgia of something he had not been a part of. He made his way back to him, silent and careful, trying not to disturb the snails or Suguru. 

He crouched down next to him, finding his point of balance again. Suguru was watching two snails moving in tandem. He seemed solemnly interested in them. 

“Do you like snails?” Satoru asked silently, in lieu of something better to say. 

Suguru shrugged. “I mostly feel sad when they get crushed.” He responded with sorrow. “They can’t move fast enough to prevent it.”  

Satoru took his hand out of his pocket to tuck a strand of black hair behind Suguru’s ear. “Good thing they have you as a protector, then.” He remarked with kindness.  

Suguru did not stop looking at the snails and simply hummed as an answer. 

Satoru took in his profile, the gentle slope of his sharp nose, his high cheekbones, the mellow colour of his skin, the strands of hair falling over his forehead, the sharp line of his jaw. Picture perfect beauty, fucking pretty. Satoru leaned in carefully, trying to make it easy, under the soft pearly rain. 

“Are you alright?” He wondered, knowing it was hard to be here, knowing it was a chore to exist in a place that had been so full, once, and that was so empty now. He pressed his shoulder against Suguru’s, softly, and never, ever, stopped watching him. 

Suguru pressed his lips into a thin line. He was visibly pondering the question. It was not a simple thing. Satoru knew there was no preexisting answer, that anytime Suguru was asked this, he had to pause and look at the state of his heart. It was tedious, but it was necessary.  

He took a long inhale, dragging air in, filling his entire body with it. It seemed to alleviate the weight. Not gone, but not suffocating him entirely anymore. 

He looked up from the grass, turning his head to plant his eyes on Satoru. Sunlight in the rain. 

He smiled, honest and slightly worn out, but smiling all the same, before offering his grief as a precious thing, his love as a facilitator. 

“It’s okay with you here.” Suguru replied. It was easy, quiet, watching him with a gentleness that was so profound, so habitual, so evident. Satoru could have butchered the whole world to make it eternal. 

Chest to chest. Heart to heart.  

Satoru was kissing him before he could even process it.  

It was almost nothing. Barely more than a peck on Suguru’s lips. Quick and natural like second nature, something Satoru had done so many times without thinking twice about it, under the covers, in the summertime, at the kitchen table, in the locker room. A substitute for good morning, a gesture to part ways, a habit that punctuated their daily life. A routine. A non-event.  

It was definitely an event now, after months, after the despair, after all of it. A way to be forgiven, perhaps. A thing to be remembered, most of all. Crossing the distance, closing the gap. 

Satoru’s eyes grew wide as he pulled back, surprised by his own gesture. Knocked stupid and soundless and breathless by the feeling of Suguru’s lips, warm still, soft still, after too long. He blinked too fast, too many times, trying to clear up the shock in his head. A faltering, a fault. Too much, too soon. A desperate river of why why why started dripping down the line of his back like snow, cold panic returning.  

Suguru was staring. Eyes blown, fixed, immobile.  

The silence was a dreadful thing. Satoru was holding his breath. He could hear his heartbeat in his ear. The sound of the rain was the only thing softening the blow. 

It had always been this, hadn’t it?  

Suguru’s eyes dropped to his mouth and it crumbled. 

Warm lips were on his before Satoru even had the time to draw in an inhale. They were not patient, not soft in the way Satoru had grown used to. There was a desperation behind it, in the way Suguru sighed against his mouth, almost pitiful, like a man chasing the last drop of water he could get, like madness and the feeling of running out of time. Chasing the clock, outrunning it. It was in the way Suguru's hands were on him too quickly, trembling and grasping at anything he could find, going up to his hair instinctively, making Satoru shiver with his full body, with his full heart. It was in the sounds Suguru was making, already, with just that, like the whimpers of a broken thing, catching at the back of his throat and dripping down Satoru’s airway like honey drops. Coating Satoru’s inside with the essence of what Suguru was to him; a lifeline, a revelation, a remedy. Satoru tried to still something; his body his breathing his lungs, but nothing made sense, except everything did. 

Satoru lost his balance when Suguru’s tongue pried his mouth open. He forced down the choked-out sound that was threatening to split his throat open. He fell back on the grass, forced to sit down with the blow of being found again, of being kissed like Suguru would die and take Satoru with him if their lips ever parted again. He heaved, breathed too fast, couldn’t breathe, had never breathed for four months until this. A full inhale after too long. The first breath of the rest of his life.  

He scrambled for stability as Suguru did not breach the distance, following him, chasing his lips desperately and leaning in, accompanying his fall. Satoru’s right hand went up to grab the front of his hoodie, fisting it to keep him there, as if Suguru would even try to leave. Suguru sighed too sharply in return, tugging at the back of Satoru’s scarf to get it loose so he could access the back of his neck. Too much. Knowing exactly how to make it too real, how to reach under the layers of Satoru’s body, where to touch, how to move. Knowing too much. Knowing him perfectly. 

Satoru sighed pathetically into Suguru’s mouth when he felt warm fingers find his nape, scratching his undercut. Another shiver, too violent, electricity down to the heels of his feet. To be loved, to be touched. It had been so long Satoru didn’t know if he could survive it. 

Suguru pulled back for a second, barely, just to take in a quick breath, and dived back. Satoru met him halfway, being kissed like it was the first time, like he was never meant to be doing anything else. Suguru’s other hand pulled on his hair, hanging on, making him tilt his head backward slightly to make it unbelievable, unmistakable. Too deep. Too much. Satoru was being kissed in a way that could not be argued with. Open mouth and pliant, a supplication to a god he didn’t know, venerated by Suguru’s tongue like he was the last remaining good thing on earth.  

His hand let go of Suguru’s hoodie and found his waist instead. He felt the wetness of the grass under his thighs and didn’t care. His cold fingers slithered under Suguru’s clothes, chasing warmth, chasing him, always. Satoru felt him shiver at the touch, felt how sensitive Suguru was still, how his whole body answered to a palm squeezing his side, sliding down to the small of his back. Something broken was heard, too loud, at the back of Suguru’s throat, when Satoru guided him closer by pressing on his back with force. Fingertips incessant, insistent, giving back what he was being offered. 

Satoru pulled back for a second just to breathe. “We might crush a snail.” He managed barely, his voice being cut by Suguru’s lips returning to his with a hopeless vengeance, dragging an unbridled moan out of him. Suguru did not seem to hear him in the slightest. A revelation. An exploration. I’ve missed you horribly. I’ve missed you all the time. 

It took another minute for it to recede. It took an eternity for Satoru to be able to let go. It would take forever to forget. 

They parted in a shared shiver. Suguru was panting against his mouth, still making fractured sounds Satoru had never heard of, like he was shaking from the withdrawal of it. Satoru tried his best to find his lungs, to make himself functional. Suguru’s eyes were blown wide, taking in his entire face desperately, committing Satoru to memory for the millionth time, like it was crucial, like he had never seen him fully before. Satoru could only let himself be watched. He offered the same dependence in return. Blue chasing the sun, indigo retracing the lines of a face he knew by heart and by soul. A face he loved, a face he lived. Sunburnt cheeks and lips parted, raw and bruised with love.  

Suguru’s hair was damp from the rain. It stuck to his temples and his forehead. Satoru’s free hand went up to get the strands away from his face, tucking them behind his ears, and kissed his nose to prove a point. Suguru’s eyes closed at that for an instant, another sound escaping him, content. He was coming down from the violence of it. Satoru tried to be solid, but he knew he was no better; he could feel it everywhere, the desperation in his exhales, the warmth in his chest, the taste of Suguru on his tongue. 

They parted with difficulty. Suguru’s hands left his hair with reluctance. Satoru’s fingers slid out from under his hoodie too slowly. A breath, shared, laborious. Suguru sat back down on his heels, and breathed in deep, eyes dancing on Satoru’s face. Satoru let his lungs even out, forcing his balance to return. He knew it was pointless. A loss by KO. 

Suguru stood back after a moment of staring at Satoru in contemplative admiration. He offered him his hand, and Satoru grabbed it, shivering again at the touch. Suguru helped him up. They did not let go of each other’s hand. Satoru brought them to his mouth and kissed Suguru’s ring finger on his left hand, the one that had been broken. He decided, there and then, to make it a habit, a constant apology. It would not fix it all, but Satoru would try. 

He looked up to Suguru only to find he was being watched, still, again. Too deeply, too honestly. Too gravely, in a way, something that stretched beyond the line of what Satoru believed he was made of. Bigger than the both of them. From another lifetime.  

They stood in the garden, letting the rain fall. The flowers were surviving the winter. 

Suguru spoke after a while. “I’m going to the cemetery.” A beat. Satoru held his hand tighter. “You don’t have to come with me.” 

Satoru came with him anyway.  

The gravestone was modest, made of grey granite. A vertical column simply read grave of Geto Sonoko and Geto Hidetsugu. At the base, an empty vase stood, ready to be filled with flowers, next to an incense stand and a space made to receive water. The grave was located under a tree, shielding it from the worst downpours or the scorching sun.  

It was serene, in the cemetery. The rain had stopped on the way. Satoru felt more stable because of it. 

Suguru crouched down and placed a bouquet he had picked up down his street, at the house of a man he had named as the gardener. He is kind and he takes care of the garden when I am not here, Suguru had explained as they were walking, contemplating the flowers in his hands: the memorable deep purple irises, white chrysanthemum and, surprisingly, lilacs.  

Satoru eyed the colourful thing, a burst of life in the quietness of the graveyard, in the solemnity that surrounded them. Satoru could feel the love, too, a strange warmth around his wrists for people he had never known, for two names he was only learning now. Souls he had never met, but that he felt he knew anyway, that he knew all the same, through Suguru and his tenderness, through a kindness that was born from the hands of a grandmother and the comfort of a grandfather. They had passed it down to him. They had built him in their image. Satoru would never be able to repay them, to thank them in the way they deserved. But it didn’t have to be heavy, here. Satoru wished for something simple. He wished Suguru could feel the love, still, always there. Lingering behind. Never properly buried.  

“I like lilacs.” Suguru whispered quietly, voice coated with grief.  

They stood side by side in the silence for a while, watching the headstone. Satoru prayed to things, to people, to the earth and the universe, to gods and deities he didn’t believe in, to Suguru and his kindness, to his grandparents and their eternal rest. He hoped they were at peace. 

Suguru placed water on the grave and let his fingers brush over the stone slowly. Satoru didn’t disturb him. Suguru stayed close to it, close to the ground for a moment, knees meeting the dirt. Satoru heard him breathe deep, long, finding some fortitude in the pain, holding his grief bravely. There was nothing Satoru could do but be there, bear it with him, and pick him up if he faltered. Suguru stood back up after a while, wiping the back of his hand on his cheeks. He chased quiet tears. Satoru felt his throat close in on itself, but didn’t speak, giving him time, giving him space. Grief was a thing to be felt and forgiven. There was nothing to be said. 

“Okay.” Suguru breathed out after a while, exhaling heavily. He sounded drained. He offered his hand, and Satoru took it, intertwining their fingers. Suguru found his eyes and nodded. “Let’s go.”  

And so, it fixed itself like this, too, with a day in Suguru’s childhood, watching snails in the garden. Holding hands under the rain, in the heaviness of being alive, of facing death, and loving all the same. 

Suguru fell asleep in Satoru’s arms, that night, grief forgotten under a Sakura tree, resting with the irises, held tenderly by the lilac that was his. 

Two weeks had passed since the rigged fight. Two weeks had passed since Satoru had crossed the city to find him. Two weeks had passed since Satoru had asked him to stay. Suguru had still not told him he would. 

And the weeks kept passing. Two weeks turned into three, and another one walked past them, and before they could think twice, it had been a month. 

Satoru awoke to the twentieth day of February. It was the first and only snow of the season. 

He rode the subway and watched the sky with wariness. Grey on grey, snowflakes echoing the pure white of his hair. He felt tense because of it, irritated by the weather dropping below zero. It barely ever snowed in Tokyo, maybe once or twice a year, and Satoru knew that the powder would not stick, would not stay. He knew he would wake up tomorrow and it would be forgotten. But for today, he allowed himself the right to work his jaw into place and clench his fists inside his pockets. 

He worked his shift diligently. Shoko teased him about the weather, knowing how much he despised it. Satoru lamented all day long, whining as he counted packs of floor and baskets of cabbages. Shoko entertained his bitching and moaning until she told him to shut it and replace her to take orders. Satoru sighed and complained some more but complied anyway. 

He got to his place vexed by the world, affronted because of the universe and the clouds that hovered. 

“I hate snow.” He mumbled, broody, head resting on Suguru’s lap on the couch.  

The laptop was on the coffee table. Some movie Satoru could barely remember the name of was playing. He could not focus with Suguru’s fingers in his hair that had been massaging his headache away for the past hour or so, repetitive motions like a blessing, chasing the tension and reducing it to a white buzzing in his ears.  

Suguru pressed his thumb right above his temple as he answered. “What do you hate about it?” 

Satoru scrunched his nose, disgusted. He looked up to watch Suguru from behind. The other man was still intently watching the screen with an interested expression on his face. 

“It’s freezing. It’s useless. It makes the roads dirty.” Satoru blurted out, bickering with the weather like a child. He grimaced, shuddering dramatically. “It’s so irritating. It’s cold as shit.”  

“Mmh.” Suguru commented, barely listening. 

Satoru frowned. He shifted on the couch, turning to lie on his back instead of his side. Suguru looked down at that, fingers still in his hair, watchful eyes finally finding him. 

“I don’t get winter in general.” Satoru continued now that he had won Suguru’s attention. 

Suguru nodded. He was amused by his tone. “I know.” He scratched his nails at the top of Satoru’s forehead, right where his hair started. “That’s not by choice, though.” 

“I think even if I didn’t run cold, I’d hate it anyway.” Satoru shrugged, battling to keep his eyes open under Suguru’s cautious fingers. “You can’t do anything but stay inside. It’s boring.” He protested. “Summer is so much better.” 

Suguru hummed in agreement, pushing Satoru’s hair back from his forehead. “I prefer summer too, but there are good lemons in the winter.” He offered, voice soft, leaning forward to close the discarded laptop with his free hand, movie abandoned. Satoru’s vision was obstructed by Suguru’s t-shirt for a moment before the other man leaned back against the backrest. 

“I don’t like lemons.” Satoru grimaced, tasting the bitterness in his mouth. “Isn’t your favourite season spring anyway?” 

A smile found Suguru’s lips, spreading on his face like the first sunrays of softer days. Spring. “It is. It’s coming up, too.” Suguru concurred with open satisfaction. “The cherry blossoms season starts next month.” His eyes shined with knowledge and quiet excitement. It took over his face, easy and light like air and wind, sunshine in the leaves. 

Satoru rolled his eyes dramatically. “You are so cliché.” He half joked light-heartedly.  

Suguru smiled wider as an answer. "Can you blame a man for being a romantic?” 

Satoru would never blame Suguru for being anything. He watched him under heavy eyelashes, feeling somehow that something else was on Suguru’s mind. It was in the slight shift of his brows, the slight blinking of his eyes that was a little too long, like he was trying to know what to say. His hand in Satoru’s hair stilled, flattening out, and resting there. It came, soon enough. 

“It’s not only that, too. I like spring because it brings something new. A second chance.” Suguru revealed, solemn and growing a little thoughtful. “I like the idea.” He added, voice dropping low and quiet, but still watching Satoru, still peering down his eyes. Making himself heard. Letting it drop from himself to Satoru’s heart. “I like a second chance.” 

Satoru welcomed it like a saving grace. He felt breathless in seconds, feeling the shift, the weight of the words. Maybe it was just him, always, eternally too sensitive to the way Suguru’s hands felt, to the way the pressure he applied on his skull was growing a little different, a little insistent. Maybe it was just him, and his touch-starved plagued mind, his own personal curse, a compass making him malleable and suppliant, too easy to handle and fold in two in more ways than one. Maybe it was the constant need to be close, to feel Suguru closer, always closer, to have him in his arms, to have him on his skin and under it. Against his chest. Maybe he was hallucinating how Suguru was watching him, too real, too raw, amber turning deeper and deeper and deeper, a shade of brown that took a turn, pupils blown a little wide. Maybe not. Maybe yes. Maybe he was making shit up. Maybe Suguru’s eyes were not watching his lips, and maybe Satoru could pretend he did not notice how he was ready to beg for anything.  

“Me too.” Satoru breathed out, hoarse. “I like a second chance.” 

He was definitely not hallucinating how Suguru tugged slightly on his hair. Satoru’s eyes flickered, fluttered, fighting to stay open. Suguru tugged again, testing the waters after months. He did not miss a beat, attentive eyes studying Satoru’s face with astonishment. Quiet wonder, too, asking himself if what he was seeing was his own demise or the thing that would save him until there was nothing left to save. Probably both. Satoru drew in a sharp breath, lips parting slightly. He felt Suguru’s fingers everywhere. He felt the touch revert in his whole body, as if Suguru was already there, touching his skin in all places, in every fold, in every hidden corner.  

Suguru tugged a third time, and Satoru complied, following. On a leash. 

He sat up slowly and shifted on the couch, turning towards Suguru, already too close. Fingers were still in his hair, still grabbing the strands, still holding him, hanging on. Patience was a thing Satoru knew how to kill with a single sharp blow, with a jab that silenced it, forsaking it. 

Suguru’s fingers dropped down, grabbing the back of his head. Where the rage was. Where the rage didn’t exist anymore. He pulled him in, and Satoru moved, water slipping under Suguru’s palms. They had both already forgotten how to breathe. 

Suguru parted his lips instantly at the first feeling of Satoru’s mouth on his. Supplicating. Pleading, almost. The kiss was like the one under the rain, in the garden. It had the same taste of perdition, of abandon. It dragged the same desperate sounds out of Suguru’s mouth, broken and pitiful. It punched Satoru stupid the same way, making him lose balance, lose composure. The thing of men who had wasted too much time, perhaps, who had something to prove, most surely. Something to fix. 

Satoru kissed him desperately, giving back what he was being offered, sighing in his mouth too loud and too bold, tongue chasing him like he could swallow the entirety of Suguru down if he tried hard enough. He found that same heat that grew everywhere, that urge to be closer, to merge together. He wanted to crawl inside Suguru’s ribcage and stay there. Maybe he would be able to taste him better, there, in the pits of him, in the core of him. Hiding inside. Suguru would never be away, like that. Suguru would always be here. Here. I need you here. 

Satoru’s hands went up, instinct overcoming the rest. They pushed Suguru’s shirt up over his stomach, making his breath catch inside Satoru’s mouth. Cold fingers sent shocks on warmth skin, static waves over all that Suguru was. Winter in his heart. Winter in his body. Winter under his skin. Satoru’s palms slid further, insinuating themselves between Suguru’s spine and the backrest. Suguru’s back arched slightly at the touch of cold hands. He was burning, as always, as he tended to. Satoru pulled him close, leaning in, canting forward as he closed every possible distance. Suguru’s sounds turned into whimpering as Satoru bit his lower lip in a rush before kissing him again, and Satoru grew mad with it. 

There were hands in Satoru’s hair. Everywhere. Above him, around him, under his bones. Suguru dug his nail in the skin of his undercut. Crescent in the snow.  

Satoru pulled back just to speak, just to bargain, just to plead his case like a dead man walking to slaughter. “Touch me, please.” He begged against Suguru’s lips. 

Suguru breathed out too harshly against his mouth. A sound got trapped at the back of his throat. Satoru’s candour was always a way to be left speechless, scrambling for stability. His hand on Suguru's back was cold. Satoru almost asked again, faced with his sunburns, and eyes like an imploration. 

“Are you sure?” Suguru inquired, voice shaking, shuddering. 

“Yes.” Satoru was too raw. He felt too exposed. It had been too long. 

One of Suguru’s hands found his collarbones, opening flat right under his throat. Satoru could feel the warmth of it reach his airway. He had the vision, clear and precise, of being suffocated by kind hands. He would let it happen. He had the lucidity, a horrid truth that was almost comforting, that he would let Suguru do anything to him. To be held. To be touched. To be ripped open and dug out from the inside out, skin peeled, bones underneath. He would let Suguru touch him everywhere, even if it meant cutting his own stomach again just for Suguru to be able to touch him there, too. It would probably feel like his first time being alive. 

Suguru pushed him down slowly against the backrest of the couch, his right hand still at the back of his head, the other on his chest. Satoru’s left hand did not leave his back, nails digging in the skin now too. Suguru watched him, eyes wide and drinking, as he slid his hand down the path of Satoru's sternum over his hoodie, his abs, his stomach, turning him into a breathless mess. Satoru could barely make sense of anything with just this. He felt too tight in his sweatpants. He felt too compressed in his own body. Constricted by his human nature, doomed with his mortality. 

Suguru dipped his head just as his fingers breached the waistband of Satoru's sweatpants. His lips found his throat, tugging on Satoru’s hair to expose the line of his neck. Satoru felt like the room was spinning, like he was losing attitude, falling through the ground, down down down in the pits of earth. His eyes went wide before they went completely shut when Suguru’s fingers wrapped around his length, when his thumb brushed the tip, when Suguru’s tongue tested the skin of his neck like he was about to take a bite out of him. Satoru moaned, shameless and bold, reconnecting headfirst with sensations he knew too well. It felt like the first time. It felt like the last. It was always different, it was always debilitating, when it was Suguru. Too much, no matter what, when, how. Satoru’s own hands could never achieve this. The feeling of being seen, being touched in a way that made sense to no one but them. 

Suguru worked his hand alongside the length of him, slowly, finding that pace and angle he knew could turn Satoru into a frantic panting chaos, moaning profanities to the ceiling and to whoever would hear him. A man without shame, with little regard for discretion. Satoru registered the fingers in his hair that were keeping his head in place, fisting the strands just enough to be assertive, not enough to make it hurt. Suguru would never make it hurt.  

Satoru moaned, whimpered, cursed, bit his tongue and his lip and his heart. He did not try to stifle his sounds. He forced his hips to remain where they were, keeping them from bucking up into Suguru’s touch, trying to retain a semblance of composure. Suguru was still working at his neck relentlessly, pressing his tongue and his teeth to it, tracing a river on the side of his jugular, up until he reached the spot under his left ear. Satoru believed his love to be a driving force, but Suguru’s was different, making him courageous in a way that tampered with Satoru’s sanity. In a way that threatened to make him come like this: spread open on the couch, Suguru’s hands down his pants, panting to the ceiling like a dog without water. On a leash.  

“Stop.” He managed in a broken moan, just as Suguru finished decorating his skin with a hickey Satoru knew would last too long, like all his bruises did. Suguru knew it too. He had done it anyway. 

Suguru’s hand stilled instantly at the sound of Satoru’s voice, head shooting up to look at him in collected concern. Ambers grew wide as his brows twisted in worry. His hand fisting Satoru’s hair went loose as he leaned over him, entering Satoru’s line of sight, hovering above his face lolled back over the headrest of the couch. 

Warm fingers left his boxers. Satoru breathed out hard at the loss of contact. 

Suguru touched his face delicately, lust mixing with obvious doubt. “Are you o-” 

Satoru shut him up with a kiss, sliding his tongue in to make Suguru lose his voice on purpose, for once. Suguru gasped in his mouth, taken aback, and opened to let him in, broken whimpers returning. Satoru grabbed his waist hard, pulling him closer, needing him there. You’re too far. You’re too close. You should be kissing the inside of me. Suguru moved like warm sand under Satoru’s fingers. Willing. Adored. Satoru pulled him on his lap, straightening up to kiss him deeper, slower, more desperate. Suguru’s left hand gripped the backrest for balance as he pressed his hips down. It punched a moan in and out of Satoru, overtaking Suguru’s desperate sounds. Deafening. Too loud. 

Satoru watched through a daze, a haze, heavy eyelids weighted with his own adoration. He watched as Suguru’s lips opened, panting. How his cheekbones were too bright, too deep, sunburnt all over. How he seemed to be slightly surprised by the own sounds that were escaping him. How he was watching Satoru from above, on top of him, drinking him up, in, grinding down like a provocation. How his hair was loose, the way Satoru liked it most, liked it too much. He, too, felt sunburnt by the view.  

I want him like this. Satoru thought, clear, evident. I’ll always want him like this. 

The walk to the bedroom was a tedious task. Hands everywhere, touches that were lost, balance precarious. Satoru refused to let the slightest distance grow. He needed to always have a hand on Suguru, and his lips on him too, preferably. Suguru seemed to reciprocate the want, chasing Satoru like he was scared he would go up in smoke or melt into water if his fingers were not touching a patch of cold skin. Satoru had never seen him like that: too desperate, too needy. It's been too long. 

Clothes got abandoned in the battle. Satoru registered he was naked only when he felt the air hit him, like a reminder of his fleeting nature, of his cold blood. He blinked incredulously and Suguru was kissing him again, grabbing his shoulders, pushing him down to sit on the bed with urgency. Like this was crucial. Vital. A pressing matter that was indispensable. 

Suguru looked him up and down from where he was sitting, rediscovering the pathways of a body he knew by heart. I could never forget you. I have never forgotten this. He breathed too hard, and his hands were everywhere, up and down Suguru's back, on his thigh, on his hips, pulling him closer harshly between his legs. Suguru followed, standing still, but going weak at the knees. He always would. Satoru dipped his head and pressed a line of kisses up the side of his dick, shaky exhales leaving him, and Suguru died a little with it, whimpering too loud. Satoru would make him moan. Satoru needed to hear him fully, again, again, again. Now. Here.  

He kissed his stomach, pressing his nose to the skin like he could breathe him fully, like he could make Suguru’s lungs his own. He pressed his tongue to his sternum, trying to taste his air, to taste his heart. Suguru’s hands grabbed his shoulders, nails breaking skin. Shaking fingers holding on for dear life. Satoru looked up at him and lost it. Too fucking pretty. 

Satoru moved, placing his whole body on the bed, back finding the headboard. He dragged Suguru along. Closer, closer still. Pulling on his wrists and his hips and his arms. No personal space, no distance. Not that the other man needed any prompting. Suguru would follow him anywhere. Satoru would too. Satoru always would.  

“Come here.” He offered, tugging at Suguru’s waist, a cobalt blue storm in the depths of his eyes. Honest. Turbulent.  

Suguru did not even seem to think. He moved, understanding where he was supposed to be, where Satoru wanted him to be. He straddled him with quiet necessity, desperation still coating every of his moves. He, too, would have merged his body with Satoru if he could. 

And as Satoru pulled his hips down, closer, aligning their lengths together, friction too much and not enough, too raw and too little, Suguru thought this, maybe this, feeling alive and loved and venerated, maybe this had been the reason to come home, to come back. A man that he loved, morning-glory eyes like what he believed the inside of his heart looked like now, and a body that knew too well how to turn every touch into an epiphany. 

He grabbed Satoru’s shoulder with his left hand for support, his right hand going home, finding the back of Satoru’s neck again. Satoru’s breath evaded him completely, leaving him to fend for himself. He let Suguru move against him, holding his hips firmly, iron grasp around summer. He still forced himself to sit still, to not push up, to keep it together for a little longer. He watched as Suguru shifted, moved closer. Satoru looked up to follow his eyes, not breaking eye contact, refusing to not see him fully. Suguru brushed his lips with his, barely anything. It prompted something else. A flicker, a flame. Dripping from Suguru’s eyes directly on Satoru’s tongue. Honey down his throat. 

Satoru reached out, opening his nightstand in a rush. He struggled unceremoniously to find the lube. He poured too much on his fingers. It dripped down the side of his wrist. Satoru didn’t care. 

He pushed Suguru up slowly, indicating for him to let him closer, to let him there. His hand ventured between Suguru legs.  

“Open up, please.” Satoru let out in a hoarse whisper. Bold. Newly found candour prompting his eagerness. 

Suguru bit his lip so hard he drew blood. He did as he was told, spreading his legs wider on each side of Satoru’s lap. His hand on Satoru’s shoulder became insistent, discordant. The nails would leave a mark. Satoru, again, did not care. 

Suguru nodded, prompting him, moving his hips back down just to prove a point. Satoru picked up the message like morning dew on his collarbones. 

He pushed a finger slowly, delicate, careful not to make it uncomfortable. It had been a while, after all. Suguru’s body welcomed him back with diligence. Brown eyes fluttered shut instantly. Suguru was still biting his lip harshly, desperate but trying, still, to save his shame. Satoru had none of it left.  

He leaned forward to kiss his throat, returning the favour of tasting Suguru’s like he was about to bite into him. And bite he did, just as he pushed another finger in. Suguru gasped hard, harsh, bewildered and met halfway. Satoru felt like time was a sure thing he could control, that he could bend to his will, that he would never suffer it anymore. He licked up wounds that weren’t there, down the line of Suguru’s throat. He breathed against his skin, again, too deep, a full inhale of Suguru, sun-lit air down his lungs. Satoru spread his fingers slow, and finally, finally, the noises at the back of Suguru’s mouth turned into something different. Louder, louder still, as Satoru twisted his knuckles and bit the skin of his neck again, and Suguru moaned, honest and unrestricted. Satoru smiled, victorious, against Suguru’s skin. 

Satoru pulled back slightly to be able to watch him. Eyes shut, mouth open, blushed all over, and so loud. He leaned closer again, right against Suguru’s parted lips, and spoke in a playful voice. 

“Good boy.” Satoru teased, testing, provoking. Too smug and too proud. 

Suguru’s eyes shot open at that. He breached the fog of his pleasure, and gave Satoru a speechless look, dumbstruck. His cheeks grew twenty shades closer to the sun. Satoru bit his lip and smiled, satisfied. 

Suguru took a shaky breath in, leaning forward. Menace mixing with physical bliss. He grabbed Satoru’s face between his thumb and his index, holding his face close. He almost glared. Satoru would not protest that. He felt it go straight to the pooling heat in his stomach. 

“You’re enjoying this way too much.” Suguru managed through an exhale, undertones of authority in the voice. He squeezed Satoru’s face harder, wide stare dancing on his face like the promise of a showdown. Satoru made it a point not to moan at the feeling. 

“I am.” He conceded with a smile, shaky breath betraying his crumbling composure. 

Suguru's eyes narrowed. Satoru twisted his knuckles again and they went shut instead. Touché. He slid a third finger in when Suguru started moving his hips down again, biting too hard on his lips, fighting it, fighting him. Fighting the stretch and the feeling, fighting the core of him, Satoru’s lips against his chin, placing open-mouth kisses on the line of his jaw. Tracing the pathways of him; the pathways of them. They had done this so many times, and yet, and yet, this was different, this was always bound to be more. 

Satoru watched in astonishment, in reverence, as Suguru started moving to his own accord, fucking himself on Satoru’s fingers like it would save something, like it would fix all the rest. Satoru presented his hand as an offering to a man he worshiped. Too loud, too entranced. He could never look away, watching as Suguru’s eyes were shut too tight, watching how sweat was accumulating on his forehead, on his neck, droplets chased by Satoru’s tongue. Suguru was still digging harshly through his undercut. Too much. Too them. 

“God.” Satoru panted in quiet shock. It was a bargain, a steal. A benediction in human form in front of him. “Fuck.” 

Suguru let go of his own lower lip, showing it mercy. Stopping the torture. He thrusted down one last time, swallowing around his own tongue. Satoru watched him too close, too wide; blue eyes like a hawk trying to catch the smallest movement in the dark. 

Suguru opened his eyes, watching the ceiling for a second before they dropped to Satoru’s. Pleading. Desperate. It punched the air out of him. How did I survive how did I survive how did I survive.  

“Satoru” He whispered, his free hand cupping his jaw to get him to listen. “Please.”  

He said it so kindly. Satoru would do anything. Satoru would kill the whole world. 

“Tell me what you want.” He asked in the air between them, lying it down on Suguru’s skin, fingers still inside him. He turned his head to kiss the warm palm on the side of his jaw, and the ring finger that had been broken.  

Suguru took a minute to collect his thoughts. “You know what I want.” He answered, soft and quiet, after a while. His eyes grew a shade of affection that made Satoru shiver. Somewhere in himself. Heart shivering too. “It’s always you.” Suguru added. There was that bit of hopelessness that sometimes found its way to his voice. Something he would never quite be able to abandon. “I always- I always want you.”  

Satoru went into a frenzy. The words reached something in him that was revealing to be challenging to handle. Kicking him to the ground. Destroying the last of his senses. His right hand went up, pushing Suguru’s hair away from his face. Satoru knew him too much, like he knew himself, like he knew the snow was gone, like he knew the way to Shoko’s house, like he knew the sun set in the west, and rose with Suguru. 

“You have me.” Satoru professed in a rush, in a hush. He could barely form a sentence that made sense. 

Suguru seemed to try and find his bravery, breathing deep. It was hard to speak. Even here. Even now. 

He stroked Satoru’s cheek softly, keeping blue eyes right on him. Satoru leaned into the touch like a prisoner afforded a minute under the sun. 

Suguru let it out, then, coming to terms with his own cravings. “I want you inside.” He held Satoru’s jaw tighter as he said it. 

His voice was barely above a whisper. Satoru heard him loud and clear. As he always would.  

“Fuck.” Satoru breathed out, blinking him in. He could feel his brain fail him, static in his body, yet too aware, too alert. “Okay.” He nodded, acquiescing. He would do anything. He would kill anyone.  

He retreated his fingers, pulling them out, just as he heard Suguru bite back at him, a smile in his voice. 

“Good boy.” He provoked in return, vengeful. 

Except Satoru did not mind, per say. He shot Suguru a look, too, but it was not the same. Satoru did not glare, he crumbled. A quiet moan breached the barrier of his lips. He thought he went mad. He lost his footing, breath catching. He could feel the words do something to him that he did not know how to pinpoint. Too sensitive. Too starved. On a leash. 

Suguru clearly noticed, tilting his head in interest. “Oh.” He offered silently, blinking, obvious delight spreading on his face at Satoru’s reaction, and the full body blush that was a blatant proof of guilt. 

Satoru could feel his ears burning. He scrambled for the remnants of credibility but knew he was done for. 

“Shut up.” He mumbled under his breath, only prompting a wider smile from Suguru. He knew he would never hear the end of it. 

Suguru pressed a soft kiss on his forehead, then, indulgent. He began to move, about to get off and lie down. No. Satoru’s hands went back to his waist in a hurry. I want him here. I want him close. He held him back firmly, keeping him where he was. Another proof of guilt.  

Suguru blinked, a little bewildered, but understood well enough. He looked down at his body, at Satoru’s, at their proximity that could always be suffocating. Close contact. Hand to hand fighting.

“Do you-” Suguru started, trying. His eyes flickered back to Satoru’s face. “Do you want me like this?” He managed. His voice was hoarse. A little low. A blessed chant in Satoru’s ears. 

Satoru found himself incapable of answering. Transfixed, he watched, he took, he dug inside Suguru’s face and beyond it. The freckles in the sun. It had snowed all day, and Satoru did not even remember it. 

He nodded in lieu of an answer. Something settled. Suguru kissed him slowly. Satoru let himself be mended. Chest to chest. Heart to heart. 

Suguru moved, then, taking matters into his own hands. He reached over, rummaging into the drawer until he found what he was looking for. Satoru made no move to help him, incapable of focusing on something else than him. Too far gone already. 

Suguru handed him a condom. Satoru eyed it for a second before remembering what he was supposed to do with it. He put it on, and Suguru poured lube over it. The bottle was discarded, landing on the floor somewhere.  

Suguru replaced himself, shifting his weight. He was breathing too fast. They both were. A shared shiver, a shared breath, a shared agony over being this; desperate, frantic, doomed with the knowledge that they would never be able to part ways. There was no stopping this. There was no terminating this. What ran under Satoru’s veins was final, terminal. It could not be salvaged, and he did not want it to be. He was done for and he did not care. 

Suguru gripped the headboard for support, right next to Satoru’s head. Satoru turned his face to kiss the inside of his elbow, sharing softness where he could. Trying, always, to touch him in a way that would help. Suguru lowered himself down slowly, painfully slowly, taking Satoru in, and Satoru went cross eyed with it. Heaving, panting, whispering incantations in the space between them, against Suguru’s arm, in the crook of his elbow. Profanities, prayers, curses, Suguru’s name, nicknames, nonsense, anything. Eternally incapable of keeping his mouth shut. He mouthed at the skin of Suguru’s arm, his hands on warm hips getting tighter, his fingertips digging in the bones. It would probably bruise. 

A revelation. An exploration. Too much, too long. I’ve missed you horribly. I’ve missed you all the time. 

Suguru had no smugness left, no air left either. Only the knowledge of his body being there, being split open and worshipped, adored. Only the knowledge of loving too much, of loving correctly, of loving the only way he knew how; like this, with abandon, with truth, with passion and grief. The only way that made sense. The only way he always would. Till the grave, till the end. 

Suguru took a moment to get used to it, to the intrusion of Satoru’s size that was always considerable. His knuckles around the headboard went white. He registered the panting of Satoru’s mouth against the inside of his elbow, at the junction of his arm. He opened his eyes to watch him, and the view was pathetic, and Suguru wanted to make it worse, to make it last, to make Satoru go mad and madder and mad at him, mad with him, mad for him. A weird possessiveness that grew out of despair, maybe. Out of love, surely. Out of the need to fix something, to make it last a lifetime, or two, or three. Till the grave. Till the end of the line. 

His free hand went up to find its rightful place in Satoru’s hair. The gesture made teeth connect with Suguru’s inner arm. Satoru was trying to ground himself, to keep it together. Useless. Suguru knew him like he knew himself, like he knew that the ocean made him more stable, like he knew that the cherry blossoms were soon, like he knew the sun rose in the east, and set with Satoru.  

He moved his hips slowly, testing it, and it knocked the air out from the both of them like a calculated blow to the liver. Punched stupid. Punched drunk. Satoru was still swearing against his arm, eyes screwed shut, eyebrows furrowed. A flow of complete nonsense was leaving his lips like he was possessed. Suguru moved again, burying Satoru deeper inside, and heard a moan try to breach him open. He swallowed it barely, catching it midway out. Satoru did not show the same reluctance, moans and whimpers punctuating his mad blabbering like exclamation marks.  

Suguru felt his eyes go glossy, dazed, heavy, and he needed Satoru to look at him. He needed. He needed. Blue eyes on him, attention on him, hands on him, everywhere, now, touch starved too. 

“God, shut up.” He blurted out in a strangled whisper as he grabbed Satoru’s chin with the hand that was previously on the headboard. He brought their faces close and kissed Satoru fast, harsh, too much, too loving, shutting him up. The only way he thought he could, now, every nerve ending begging him to move. Satoru moaned on his tongue instead, but at least, the nonsensical flow of words stopped, replaced instead by unbridled whining like he was being eaten alive. 

Suguru moved, continuing, yielding under the push and the pull of himself. His hips seemed to develop a will of their own, building up a pace, building up a reason for Satoru to moan in the way he knew how, so pretty and desolate, like it could save his life, like he could save his sanity. A river in Suguru’s ears, soft and sweet and Satoru, rage killed for eternity.  

It hit right, it hit everywhere within. Suguru felt him everywhere. In the pits of his stomach, hands on his back, nails digging in his skin and scratching along the length of his spine. Satoru’s nails would leave a mark. The whole of it would leave a mark. Suguru hoped it would. Suguru knew it would. 

They had done this so many times, and yet this was different, this was predestined. Fated. Inevitable.  

Satoru’s mouth found his throat again, planting open-mouthed kisses under his jaw, nibbling at the skin. Out of his mind. Satoru was speaking again, rambling about something Suguru could not comprehend. There were only bits and pieces that could reach his mind, that had a meaning. God please please fuck suguru what did i ever do for this it feels so good fuck i don’t know please please. Nonsense, the pleas of a man plagued with his own pleasure, with his own bewilderment. Suguru had never heard him like this. It prompted him to continue, to pick it up, to make it leave a mark on Satoru too. 

He thought, then, in the middle of it, as he screwed his eyes shut to focus on finding the right angle, that this, too, might save his life. I love you and it can save my life. I love you and this will save you too. 

He felt Satoru’s tongue on his throat. It ripped a moan from his chest. Obscene, too bold, too loud. Satoru met him halfway, then, bucking up into him. Losing the restraint, forsaking composure. It made it too warm, too cold, too much, too fast. Suguru felt his throat dry up, close up, eyed misting up as he felt Satoru fuck back into him. A shared rhythm, a perfected dance. Mirroring. Complementary.  

He tugged on Satoru’s hair sharply, holding on to anything he could find. He tried to spread his knees further on the mattress, merging the two of them closer, deeper, always closer. Closing the distance, chasing the clock. I love you and it will save my life. 

In the flow of things escaping Satoru’s mouth, something made itself clear, until Suguru heard it in a breath. “Tell me you’ll stay.”  

Suguru could feel his eyes grow unfocused, wet, something building up and breaking down. Satoru’s words reverberated at the back of his skull, rewiring him. He felt him fuck back harder. Suguru’s sounds grew, and turned, and reshaped themselves until they became an extension of him, a thing of their own. Satoru was kissing his throat desperately, like he was trying to eat Suguru's silence away, accessing his Adam apple, his vocal cords.  

Suguru could not answer. He didn’t know how. He couldn’t word it here, not now. 

It became turbulent. It became incoherent, but still making sense in the chaos, still holding each other close in the urgency. Satoru’s hands on his back had become stiller, steadier. His arms were tight, holding Suguru against him as close as he could.  

And with a little shock, with open stupor, Suguru realized he was being hugged.  

“Please, tell me you’ll stay.” Satoru whispered between whimpers against his skin, under his jaw, close to his ear. Faced buried in his neck, breathing harsh, breathing hard. Hugging him.  

Suguru did not know how to answer. His voice escaped him at the wrong time, like an unfair malediction he could never escape. He tried to answer differently, then. Both his hands found their way to Satoru’s undercut, holding the back of his head gently. Finding tenderness in the sweat, in the pulling and the violence it could be to be loved like that. Keeping him close. His lilac. His snow. Killing the rage for the rest of it. 

Satoru reached his high with a desperate moan, a thing that could rewrite history, building empires, breaking civilization. He hugged Suguru tighter as he came, chasing the feeling. He moved his hips through it still, making it last long. A force of nature. Ocean waves crashing on the shore, and the brutal force of the wide-open sea. Suguru helped him through it too, doubling down on whatever he could offer. A way to answer, a way to make it clear. 

He came not long after, once Satoru’s hand left his back and wrapped around him instead. His head lolled back, and he cried out to the ceiling, his throat bitten and licked and bruised with teeth marks and love. There were tears in his eyes from the pleasure and the aftershock. He tried to breathe through it but it was useless. He tried to die with it but he was too alive. Eternally alive, under hands that touched him like it mattered. Hands that felt too absolute, too grandiose. Limitless. Suguru thought he accessed a higher plane for a second or an eternity. He felt like this grandeur that was Satoru’s was shared with him, for just an instant, infinity lended to Suguru like a gift and a revelation. 

And so, it fixed itself like this, too. With perdition, with abandon. Offering yourself again, offering yourself like it was the easiest thing, because perhaps it was. Perhaps Satoru would not have to be wandering the winter alone, for the rest of it. Maybe Suguru did not have to face his curse, to hold onto it. Maybe Satoru could ask, again and again and again, and Suguru would stay, without ever answering, but it would be enough, and Satoru would make do, and Suguru would try. Aftersun in white hair. Afterain on warm skin. 

Saltwater and the Sun. 

That night, the last thing Satoru heard as he drifted off, was a soft promise against his temple, the first words of the rest of his life. 

“I’ll stay.” 

Satoru woke up to the twenty-first day of February and the sun was up. 

Sleep clung to his eyelids like swamp water. The night before had drained the life out of him. He felt a little sore, hips certainly bruised. There was a soft stinging at the back of his neck, courtesy of Suguru’s nails. He ignored it, content anyway, and flipped to his back with a groan. He blinked the ceiling in his vision. 

He knew he was alone in the room. He did not need to check. He did not need to panic. 

Satoru allowed himself the leisure of stretching in his bed, extending his hands over his head. A full body stretch. He aligned his spine with his neck, his legs with his heart. He let his feet dangle over the edge of the mattress under the covers. He breathed in deep, out, again. He repeated it four times, counting, timing his exhales. There was no rush and nothing to achieve. 

He got out of bed after another ten minutes of dozing off. He stretched again once he was standing up. No rage to be found, but a body to piece back together in slow motion. 

Satoru heard a distant commotion in the kitchen. He frowned at the unusual sound, like something creaking. He felt compelled to check on it. 

He opened the door to the kitchen, and frowned even deeper, not comprehending what he was looking at. 

The light was way too bright. An unusual amount of sun was illuminating the place. 

Leaning over the windowsill, Suguru was opening the shutters. Both of them, on each side of the window, on the outside wall of the building. 

Suguru blinked, incredulous. He was hardly processing what Suguru was doing. And the light was too fucking bright. His sleep heavy mind tried to make sense of it.

Suguru straightened up and closed the window. He wiped his hands, slightly dirty, on his black t-shirt. He seemed to notice that Satoru had finally joined him. He greeted him with excited eyes, beaming, love bites all over his neck, a hickey in the crook of his left arm. His lips were still too raw from having been kissed like there was no tomorrow. Satoru stared at him, stunned, a vision of perfection. 

“They make a terrible sound when they open, but at least they’re fixed.” Suguru announced, light-hearted, pointing his thumb to the shutters. 

Satoru blinked, blinked again, and he noticed the tools on the table. Screwdrivers and bolts. It dawned on him slowly, expectantly, until it reached his understanding and his brain. And the light was too bright. 

“It wasn’t actually that hard.” Suguru continued, seriously. He brandished a long screw that looked rusted and menacing. Satoru stared at it, blinking, and there was so much sun. “ I just took away this bolt and replaced it with a-” 

“I love you.” Satoru blurted out. Predestined. It felt easy on his tongue, saying it for the first time. It felt evident. It has always been this. 

Suguru’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He blinked long, deep. He was still proudly holding the bent screw in the space between them. His eyes went a little wide before they went soft, kind, tender, holding the only sunlight that really mattered.  

“What prompted this?” He inquired. His voice was quiet. But Satoru heard him. He always had. He always would.  

Suguru settled the screw on the table. Satoru shrugged, watching the sunrays of winter dance around the room. Suguru stood in the middle of them. 

“I don’t know.” He smiled. A cup of tea was already waiting for him on the table. “More sun exposure, I guess.” 

It fixed itself like this, too. With love. And Satoru would never have to think about the broken kitchen shutters again. 

Chapter Text

Suguru opens the trunk of the car. He shivers at the feeling of the wind on his skin, but it is bearable. He takes a breath. It fills up his lungs right. He still should have brought a bigger jacket.  

He hears the door on the passenger side closing. A reluctant voice reaches his ears. 

“I can’t believe you dragged me out here.” 

Suguru smiles, despite himself, used to that practiced disinclination by now. There is always something that can give in when you push it just right.  

He grabs a big outdoor blanket, one that once was in his house in Ome, and closes the trunk with a swift motion. He makes his way around the car to join the source of the complaint.  

“It’s good for the soul, Satoru.” Suguru assures with a smile. He pushes the blanket in Satoru’s arms, and the other man shoots him an unsure look. “A breath of fresh air.” 

Satoru considers him behind narrow eyes. He is unconvinced.  

They make their way to the beachfront. 

The weather is cold. The air is crisp and harsh on the skin. Satoru buries his face in his scarf and tries to appreciate it still. He can feel how his nose has turned red with the marine wind. 

“Seriously. Going to the beach in winter is criminal, Suguru.” He jabs and nibs. He can’t resist it when the wind slithers under his clothes and makes him too uncomfortable. 

Suguru rolls his eyes. Satoru can’t see him do it, but he feels him still.  

“Well I didn’t exactly pick the location. It’s not my fault Choso’s hometown is here.” Suguru defends himself, walking with a purpose. 

Satoru falls into step next to him. 

“No actually, it’s his fault for inviting us.” Satoru accuses. He hugs the blanket against his chest like it could lend him body heat. “Who even goes to Kamitaga in January?” 

“Us, apparently.” 

They reach the beach. The sand is white, and the water is quiet. There is no one here but them. The weather is way too cold for a beach trip. 

Suguru gestures for the other man to place the large beach blanket down. Satoru frowns, and shudders, and grumbles, but complies anyway like he always does.  

They sit down side by side. Satoru’s shoulder is pressed against Suguru’s in mere seconds, trying to get closer. Suguru raises his left arm and lets Satoru nestle against his chest, like he always does. He hugs him tight with one hand. 

They sit in the silence for a while. Satoru relaxes as time goes past him, and he tries to cast away the wind. It’s easier against Suguru’s body. 

“My mom called me this morning.” Satoru starts, listening distantly to the sound of the waves. “She wants to see you next weekend, and she was very insistent about it.” He sniffs, his nose running a little with the cold. “I think she likes you more than she likes me now.”  

Suguru smiles at that. “You’re only noticing it now?” 

“Show off.” 

Suguru doesn’t bite back. He likes Satoru’s mom. She has gentle hands and she takes care of him. She calls Suguru my darling and braids his hair because she’s scared she will forget how to french-braid otherwise. She jokingly thinks he’s too good for Satoru. It’s all banter. She tells her son he better not do anything to make Suguru run the other way, and Suguru teases him about it way more than he should. He likes Satoru’s mom. Satoru will never meet his. He has made peace with it. 

“I’d love to see her.” Suguru says. “But I’m not available next weekend. I’m on babysitter duty.” 

Satoru grimaces at that. He likes Hasaba well enough, but she scares him a little. The first thing she ever said to him was that his eye color made him more prone to headaches induced by atmospheric pressure drops, whatever the hell that means. 

The twins are alright. They only like Suguru and never decided to grace Satoru with the same treatment. He doesn’t mind it. 

“With all the time you spend babysitting them, you’re gonna end up written down as their legal guardian one day.” He remarks. He watches the clouds part over the sea. 

Suguru looks down at that. “Are you jealous?” 

“Yes. Monumentally.” Satoru half-lies. He would like to have Suguru all to himself, during every hour of every day. 

“Big baby.” 

The silence returns. Suguru presses his cheek over the top of Satoru’s head and watches the ocean. He takes deep breaths in, and out, and repeats it a dozen times. He lets it wash him clean. The sea had always been a place he returned to to be companionless, but not anymore. 

“How is it going with the kids?” Suguru asks. 

Satoru takes a moment to understand which kids he is talking about, mind still thinking about the twins. He straightens up a little, eyes following the motion of the moving clouds. 

“It’s going alright.” Satoru concurs. “They have a tournament coming up in two weeks. Their first big official fights.”  

He stopped fighting a year ago. The ring had become too much of an ordeal. Suguru’s rigged money had helped to pay off most of his debts, and get him out of it. He teaches, now, to the younger ones. It isn’t his dream, but it is enough for now.  

“Which one is your front runner?” 

“They’re all exceptional.” Satoru answers, teacher impartiality talking. It takes a second for the truth to come out. “Fushiguro.” 

“Obviously.” 

The kid is just too good at it. Suguru has been the first to notice it. 

Suguru shifts slightly. Satoru picks up on it and straightens up, giving him some space. Suguru is grateful for it, for the communication that seems to be so innate, so inherent. It has always been a silent code, a bassline between them. It only grew stronger over the past two years. 

“I’m thinking about selling the house.” 

“To the gardener?” Satoru queries. His eyes are fixed on the sky. Suguru wonders what he is looking at. 

"Yes. He wants to have it.” Suguru doesn’t feel like choking up at the idea. Things move, things change. His grief is digestible now. “It would put someone in it permanently. The garden would always be pretty.” 

Satoru stays silent for a moment. “I say do it.” He offers, still looking at the sky. “The money won’t hurt. Especially if you’re sure about that psychology degree.” 

Suguru hums. It is great to be listened to. “I can’t keep boxing for the rest of my life.” 

“You’re preaching to the choir here.” 

Suguru doesn’t speak further. They fall into a comfortable silence. It’s not that hard to be cared for. 

Suguru turns his head, at some point, to look at Satoru’s profile. He half expects to encounter bruises on pale skin, but there are none. There hasn’t been any in a long time.  

Satoru’s pink nose pops up from under his scarf. Suguru wishes he could make him enter his body eternally, so Satoru would never have to be cold again. 

His left hand travels upward, after a moment. Satoru is breathing slowly. It is a comforting thing, to be aware of the life inside of him. He slips his fingers under Satoru’s scarf, loosening it, and finds the skin of a cold neck. Satoru’s eyes go shut, even after all this time. Even here. Even now. 

He scratches Satoru’s undercut softly. There is a sigh Satoru lets out, long and intimate. Suguru feels it in his lungs too. He lets his hand travel further up, disappearing into longer strands. He feels content when his knuckles get buried under something familiar. Satoru’s hair catches the light even better, here, facing the waves. The purple undertones are pretty. They are coherent. Fields of lilacs in the snow. 

Satoru feels how the warmth travels from Suguru to him. A palm, open flat at the back of his head. It’s all it takes to make it kind. It’s all it ever took.  

He watches how the clouds keep parting over their heads, and in the distance. Soon enough, the sun makes an appearance. The evening is unravelling, slow and patient, over the water. Over both of them. The night will be here soon.  

Satoru takes a deep breath. It’s not that hard to be content. 

“You were right.” He says. He can feel Suguru listening. “It’s nice.” 

Suguru’s fingers pick up a slow motion, something habitual, something easy. Satoru lets it quiet the noises. 

Time passes. Time will pass eternally. Satoru thinks he can make it through. Suguru believes the end is not near. Sometimes, it is still hard to make sense of it. Sometimes, it is still hard not to tiptoe. Sometimes, it is still hard to overstep.  

They will make do. 

But for now, they sit silently, watching the sun setting over the ocean.