Archive of Our Own ^beta

01:48 -  22 minutes left

He was thinking about Suguru. 

It was nothing new. All he did was think about Suguru, these days, especially when he lay in bed at night, unable to sleep. Suguru was his friend. Not just a friend, but his only friend. Not that he had ever wanted another one. With Suguru, he had everything he could need. 

Did he want more, sometimes? Sure, when he lay in bed at night, with nothing to distract himself. Or when he looked at Suguru’s face for a little too long. Or when, like today, he accidentally walked in on him in the shower and watched for a little too long. But who could blame him? He had opened the door and Suguru had just been standing there looking like that. Soaking wet, water streaming down every inch of his sculpted body, one arm against the wall like some kind of marble statue.

Stupid though he was, Satoru had at least known better than to announce his presence. So he had just waited, silently, studying the sight before him until he could have drawn it blindfolded. 

So now, staring at the ceiling, it wasn’t hard at all to recall the way his hair had looked, dripping with water, soaking up every particle of light that dared touch it, like a beautiful void trailing tendrils down his back and onto his arms. 

Satoru loved Suguru’s hair. He loved it down, he loved it up in a knot, he loved it in Suguru’s eyes when he got distracted and he loved it in his own mouth when he got too close and the day was too windy. It was even softer than it looked. One time, Suguru had let him braid it. Well, he had let Shoko braid it, but Satoru whined and pouted until at last Shoko had given up, choosing instead to watch Satoru do a much worse job with a much bigger smile while she smoked a cigarette. But the end result was the same: Satoru touching Suguru’s hair. Brushing it, parting it, carefully weaving it together, letting his hands brush over Suguru’s neck as many times as he wanted as he tied the ends together. 

Shoko had seen the end result and laughed, because Suguru’s bangs had already fallen out and back into his face. But to Satoru, he had never looked so pretty. 

Suguru had just stared at him, the tiniest of smiles playing across his lips. 

He left the braid in until it fully came out on its own. A whole five minutes. 

Sometimes Satoru liked to delude himself into thinking Suguru might want him, too. Occasionally, he would imagine dramatic scenes where, in the heat of battle or beneath the stars, Suguru would confess his love. With a smile, or emotional, or screaming it into the wind, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was “I love you, Satoru,” always said in the same way; like it was something special to him.

But still, he knew Suguru wasn’t his. Not at all. They were close, obviously. No one would deny it. But Satoru alone wanted more. Satoru wanted to touch, to hold, to kiss, to love. And Suguru didn’t. It was that simple. 

It was okay. Maybe one day he would change his mind. Or maybe Satoru would just have to learn to be satisfied with simply having whatever Suguru could give him. 

01:57 - 13 minutes left

Satoru rolled over in bed, thoughts trailing once more to Suguru, turning every word he had spoken that day in his mind, playing his voice on repeat in an attempt to lull himself to sleep. He heard his own name like a lullaby, each syllable music from Suguru’s lips. He closed his eyes, imagining the words coming from beside him.

02:05 - 5 minutes left

“Suguru, have you lost weight? You okay?”

“I’m just fatigued from the heat. I’ll be fine.”

Satoru shoved his head beneath his pillow, squeezing his eyes shut. His room was already pitch black, but something was keeping him from sleeping. 

Why had his voice sounded like that? I’ll be fine. Not I’m fine. 

It hadn’t been hopeful. Suguru wasn’t a hopeful person. Suguru dealt in black and white, not grey. 

It had been a statement of certainty. One way or the other, Suguru was going to be fine. The pain and turmoil he felt right now would be over.

Why had he been so sure of it?

02:08 - 2 minutes left

Something was wrong. 

Satoru sat up abruptly, throwing the blankets to the side. 

Something was horribly wrong.

And he should have realized it much earlier. 

A gaping pit of pure fear formed in his stomach. 

He stood, every thought but one emptying from his mind.

Suguru.

He took off at a dead sprint, flinging the door open, skidding around the corner, nearly tripping on the uneven panel of wood he usually knew to step over. 

He flew by Suguru’s room, knowing even before he saw the open door and empty bed that his best friend - his only friend - wouldn’t be there.

He ran. Wood flooring turned to grass and dirt beneath his feet. 

The night air whipped through his hair.

He wished he knew where he was going, but he didn’t. There was no one spot Suguru liked to go to. Nowhere in this forest had any more meaning than anywhere else. Suguru could be anywhere at all.

So Satoru just ran, letting his legs guide him as he pushed through the trees, praying his intuition would lead him to Suguru.

The ground flew beneath him as his feet pounded over and over and over, carrying him further and further away from the dorms. 

And then he was bursting into a clearing, an opening in the thick trees where the moon shone straight down, illuminating every inch of the forest floor. 

And there was Suguru.

02:09 - 1 minute left

Relief flooded Satoru’s body. Suguru was okay. He was safe. He was standing by the edge of the trees, just staring at the sky.

Stargazing. Suguru was stargazing. That was all. Satoru almost laughed. 

He slowed to a walk, feeling his heartbeat begin to return to normal as the adrenaline stopped circulating. 

“Suguru!”

Suguru drew his gaze from the sky slowly, almost reluctantly, and met Satoru’s eyes. 

“Satoru.”

He said it the way he always said it: like a prayer. 

“Since when do you like stargazing? Care if I join?”

He continued walking, fifty, thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten feet away. 

And then Suguru, for no reason at all, said the words Satoru wanted nothing more than to hear. 

“I love you, Satoru.” 

It sounded exactly as he had always imagined it, but it felt like ‘goodbye.’

And that was it. 

Silver flashed, quicker than Satoru knew to watch for, quicker than he could react. 

Barely three strides away, Suguru lifted the knife he was holding and slit his own throat. 

02:10

For three full seconds, Satoru simply stared without seeing. 

One.

For the briefest of moments, the cut gaped open, deeper on both sides than across the middle, like some sort of artistic brush stroke.

So clearly intentional. So obviously done to avoid cutting his windpipe.

Suguru had planned this, and he had been selfish. He had wanted to die, but he hadn’t wanted to suffer.

Satoru could not fault him for this, but hated him nonetheless. 

Blood spurted from both sides of his throat, nearly in a sheet, spraying into the air and cascading down onto Suguru’s clothes, staining them immediately a deep red, far too visible under the bright light of the stars and moon. 

Red.

It was all red.

Two. 

Suguru loved him. He had confessed his love beneath the stars. 

And what the fuck was the point of that, now?

It should have been heaven. Instead, it smelled like cold night air and looked like Suguru with a knife and felt like almost nothing at all.

Blood spurted, again. It was running down his chest and sleeves, its dark paths blending with his hair into the tendrils Satoru had loved to touch. 

Blood. 

Again.

It was coming faster. 

Already, it was the most blood Satoru had ever seen from a living person. 

A breeze blew through his hair.

Three.

Suguru was soaked with blood. 

And Satoru couldn’t save him.

Never before had he hated himself so much. He couldn’t heal him. He couldn’t do anything.

Satoru, the strongest, just stood and watched as the only person he would ever love continued to bleed to death before his eyes. 

Suguru blinked, once.

And then the trance broke.

Shoko.

It wasn’t too late. Shoko could save him. Shoko knew how to heal people. This time would be different. This time Shoko could save him. He just needed to get Suguru to Shoko, and everything would be okay. Suguru would be okay. 

“We have to go to Shoko.”

It had not yet occurred to him that these words were his only response to Suguru’s. 

I love you.

We have to go to Shoko.

Suguru smiled, even as his skin grew pale and blood began to pool around his feet. 

“It’s too late, Satoru.”

No. No, it wasn’t. Because Suguru was still here. Right here, in front of him. And his eyes were open, and he was breathing, and he was standing, and he was bleeding to death.

Suguru’s eyelids fluttered once. Then his knees buckled, and he collapsed directly to the ground, and now all he was doing was bleeding to death.

Satoru was next to him now, though he couldn’t remember how or when it happened. 

Suguru wasn’t unconscious, but he wasn’t far from it.

It took Satoru three tries to lift him. Not because he was heavy, but because his fingers had to grab three times before they stopped slipping on the blood.

Suguru weighed nothing. 

Satoru had remembered him heavy. 

He began to run.

02:12

The run from the dorms felt like an instant. The run back may as well have taken a year. 

Suguru was alive. Satoru knew because he was still bleeding.

Satoru never stopped talking. 

“Just keep looking at me. Don’t close your eyes, Suguru.”

But Suguru was fading. 

When he forced his eyes open again, Satoru only felt despair. And when he opened his mouth, Satoru prayed he wouldn’t say anything at all. 

“Satoru…” Suguru he said it with such love that Satoru shattered. He said it with such pain Satoru knew there was no coming back from this. 

Suguru had given up. Satoru could see it.

The next words, he didn’t even try to say. His lips formed words, and Satoru knew. Because Satoru knew him. Deeply and intimately. Satoru loved him. Satoru knew what he was trying to say, even when he wasn’t trying at all. 

“You have to let me go, now, Satoru.”

Let him go? Let him go?

“Don’t say that!” Satoru was screaming.

Suguru just stared up at him, and the look in his eyes made everything that had ever happened to him in his entire life seem laughably insignificant. Everyone he had ever lost, every pain he had suffered, paled in comparison to this moment. 

This was agony on a degree he hadn’t known possible. 

Suguru looked at him the way he had always looked at the stars. 

With eyes full of longing, and sorrow, and hunger.

He looked at him with love. 

And saw only terror reflected back.

“Goodbye, Satoru.” His voice was barely a whisper, not even truly audible, but he spoke to Satoru’s heart.

I love you. I’m sorry.

“Stop it. Don’t say goodbye.”

Suguru’s eyes still stared up to the sky, but they no longer saw anything at all.

Satoru’s legs were shaking, which made no sense. Carrying Suguru was the easiest thing he had ever done. And yet, he felt himself beginning to slow down. Each step came just the tiniest bit slower.

“Don’t fucking die in my arms, Suguru.”

Satoru pushed harder, forcing his legs to move faster.

Suguru wasn’t bleeding anymore.

Satoru could not allow himself to process what that meant.

It must be good, Satoru decided. He had lost too much blood already. Maybe the bleeding had stopped on its own.

“You’re not bleeding anymore, see? You’re going to be okay. I’ve got you, Suguru, okay?”

Suguru said nothing, because his heart no longer beat.

He could see the dorms, but they were still so far. 

But not too far.

He wasn’t too late. He couldn’t be.

“We’re going to Shoko. It’s not too late. Shoko will save you, it’ll be okay. I promise.” Satoru was babbling. “You’re going to be okay.”

Satoru’s hands were sticky against Suguru’s body. The blood was congealing. 

Maybe that’s why he had stopped bleeding. Maybe his neck had clotted. 

The pit in his stomach opened wider. 

02:15

Gojo didn’t waste breath announcing himself. He slammed through the thin wall of the door, carefully shielding Suguru’s limp body from any further harm. 

“What- Satoru?” She shot up, panicked and groggy. 

“Shoko, he’s dying.”

“Shit. Shit. Fuck, Satoru, what the fuck?” Shoko tripped over her blankets as she jumped up and ran to him, hands ripping at his clothes before Satoru could even finish laying him on the floor. “What happened?” 

“Shoko, fix him,” he pleaded, his voice desperate. His hands hovered over Suguru’s neck, shaking, glistening in the dark. 

“Satoru, what…” Shoko saw it now, through the clotted blood. The thick, precise cut. “Who did this?”

The question was almost absent minded as her fingers hesitated above the cut, the usual pulse point ripped bare before her. 

Satoru couldn’t say it. His lips formed the name, but his voice wouldn’t come.

Shoko pressed her fingers at an angle just below the wound, slipping ever so slightly on the blood soaked skin, searching. Fingertips pausing, then moving down, up, checking the other side. Searching.

“Suguru,” he whispered.

Shoko paused. The word bounced off of her.

“No, who did th-”

“Suguru did this.” His voice was harsh.

Saying it felt like tearing his chest open with his bare hands and ripping his own heart out. 

That time, it sunk in. Shoko turned to him with a perfect mix of disbelief and horror painted onto her face. Eyes wide, eyebrows drawn up and together, lips parted slightly, almost in disgust.

“What do you mean, Satoru.” Her voice was breathless. 

Satoru wanted to punch her. 

“I don’t- Just fix him!” he screamed, chest suddenly boiling with rage. 

Didn’t she understand? It didn’t matter who did it, he was going to die if she didn’t do something now. He had carried Suguru all the way back and he was not about to watch him die just because Shoko was too surprised.

But Shoko was sitting back on her heels. The frantic urgency had drained from her body.

She had taken her hand away from his neck and was holding it awkwardly away from herself, as if scared to get his blood on her clothes. 

Satoru stood, drenched. 

He had the distinct impression he was watching the room from high above, staring directly down at Suguru’s face, tilted slightly to the side, eyes still half open. 

“Why are you stopping?” The voice wasn’t his. It was someone else’s, coming from inside him, directing every ounce of anger and fear at Shoko. She was the only one who could save him now, and for some reason, she wasn’t even trying. She was just sitting there, just staring. 

“Satoru…”

He knew what she was going to say before the words left her mouth. And he didn’t want to hear it. No, he couldn’t hear it. 

The words would kill him, he was sure of it. 

Somehow, horribly, he had survived watching Suguru kill himself. He wouldn’t survive hearing he was really dead. 

He wasn’t meant to live in a world without Suguru.

But Shoko said it anyways.

“He’s gone.”

It felt like nothing.

Satoru didn’t scream. He didn’t run back outside through the trees. He didn’t burst into tears or kiss Suguru’s bloodstained face or stab himself or do any of the things he would have expected to do. 

He just stood, feeling… stale. 

The half-dried blood on his arms itched. 

And Suguru was dead. 

Suguru’s corpse was on the floor. In Shoko’s room. In the middle of the night.

Satoru didn’t know what time it was. Wasn’t that important? Didn’t he need to know what time Suguru had died?

He smelled like blood. He smelled like anyone’s blood. 

Suguru had died the same as anyone else. 

But at least he had died in Satoru’s arms.