Chapter Text
“Megumi.”
His voice is the same tone as the dark living room. As the rain on the window panes. He doesn’t turn to look at the boy, but he sees him jump, sees the darkness around him grow deeper.
“Go back to sleep. There is nothing for you here now.”
The bedroom door creaks again. Closes almost silently.
The kids go back to school and Satoru goes back to work. He also tries to go back to school but he only really manages to get to the campus for a few hours the entire week. There are little signs that the school is gearing up for graduation, and a hint of excitement in Satoru’s underclassmen when they greet him as he comes out of the Higher Ups temple. Satoru has been all around Japan Monday and Tuesday, managing to get home only a few hours after the kids. He brings food and on Tuesday evening he brings a tv and dvd player. The kids stare bug eyed at him as he gets the thing set up. It had been an impulse buy but when it's set up it makes the living room feel more cozy, so Satoru is pleased.
On Wednesday Satoru stays in Tokyo tracking a weird energy source that is powerful and evil and ancient. He got to take the kids to school so he can’t be too upset that the mission is mind numbingly boring. Resting in the damp cover of an outdoor patio, Satoru watches people meander past. He’ll call the mission before the kids get out of school in a few hours whether or not he’s managed to find the energy source. Satoru sips at the drink he’d bought to pay for his loitering, dragging his eyes over the crowds before they’re drawn and linger on a familiar head.
Satoru is standing and hurrying to grab Kento’s shoulder before he can get eaten by the crowd at the crosswalk.
“Nanamin!”
Kento freezes, turning just his head to eye Satoru. For a moment there’s no recognition, normal for anyone just grabbed in the street, before Kento's face is going carefully blank. Satoru waves enthusiastically with his free hand.
“Hey! Long time no see!”
Kento shakes Satoru’s grip off and pivots to look at him fully. He’s in a school uniform, his hair is combed back in a neat curve from his forehead, still a little awkward looking but it no longer obscures his face to makes him look sullen.
“Gojo. What are you doing here?”
“I’m working. Got some nasty energy that's worrying the old farts,” Satoru chirps.
Kento’s eyes narrow but he nods tightly. “Yes. I can…sense it. It’s been a little nauseating.”
“Do you live around here?” Satoru asks. It isn’t a residential area, but it is a nice part of the city with housing above cute little shops.
“...no. I come here often after school though.”
“How is that? Normal school.”
Kento’s mouth goes tight. “Do you need something from me, Gojo?”
“No. I just…I thought I’d say hi when I saw you. We haven’t talked since…well not in awhile.”
Kento doesn’t say anything.
“I was sitting at that cafe,” Satoru says, knocking a thumb over his shoulder to the table he had vacated. “We could talk, I’ll get you a drink. My treat.”
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Aren’t you busy?” Kento says in answer to the question.
“Well yeah, but it's kind of a hurry up and wait situation right now. I was told specifically not to blow up any streets or sewers.”
Kento’s nose wrinkles before his face goes slack and he takes a step back. Satoru’s smile wanes a little bit.
“I won’t force you,” he says. “If you don’t want to, that’s cool.”
“I…fine. One drink and one hour.”
“So calculated! Let's go!”
Kento is stiff in line for a new drink, stiff giving his order, stiff as Satoru whips out his change from earlier and pays, and stiff when they sit at an indoor table. Satoru grins at him and Kento doesn’t smile back. It's fine, it's cool. They aren’t buddies anymore, and maybe buddies has never really described their friendship. It doesn’t matter, Satoru can carry this conversation.
“So, normal school. Fun, boring, easy?”
“Safe,” Kento mutters.
Satoru laughs. “Yeah that’s fair. Anyone cute in your class? I bet you’re super popular with the…super popular.”
A glare. “My classmates are good peers.”
“Nanaminnn, that’s boring . You don’t have a single crush? What about friends?”
“Don’t call me that. And yes, I have friends.”
“Good! Clubs?”
Kento’s drink comes then and he takes it gratefully, immediately swallowing a few sips, looking away from Satoru. When he puts the cup down he sits straight and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Why do you care?”
Satoru shrugs. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I want to know what you’re up to.”
“You never cared about it before now.”
“Yeah I did,” Satoru says. “We were friends.”
Kento raises a brow at him. “Were we?”
Satoru suddenly wishes that he had gotten another drink so he could put his hands around something. But it's just an empty expanse of table between Satoru and Kento, like a vast plain that Satoru has stranded himself in.
“I thought so,” Satoru says. “We hung out a lot.”
“I ‘hung out’ with Suguru, Haibara and Shoko.”
Satoru frowns. Trying to maintain a smile was starting to make him feel demented. “Yeah, we were a group.”
“That doesn’t mean I was friends with you, Satoru.”
“Ouch,” Satoru says, laughs, blows out a breath. “Well damn, I thought we were friends.”
“Did you forget our last interaction?” Kento says. He takes another sip, casting his gaze across the room in discomfort.
“No. You hit me, that’s pretty impressive.”
Kento winces, looks down at the table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let my emotion manifest itself in such a manner, even if I was angry with you.”
Satoru waves him off. Smiling again, something smaller and contained.
“It’s water under the bridge.”
“I still find myself angry with you,” Kento tells the table. “I seethe when I think about you.”
Satoru doesn’t have an answer for that. He doesn’t know all the layers behind Kento’s anger towards him, or how it’s tangled up with everything that happened.
“How come?”
“You are never affected by anything,” Kento says. “You’re so… flippant about everything. You don’t care about anyone. Haibara died and you didn’t care. Suguru left and you didn’t fight it.”
Satoru barks a laugh, tips his head up and sighs.
“See, this isn’t really an appropriate place to laugh,” Kento mutters.
Leaning forward, elbows on the table, Satoru taps his own temple. “I’m a bit fucked in the head.”
“You’re apathetic,” Kento says. His voice is harsh, that same animosity from their last interaction coming back. “It makes you intolerable.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Satoru asks. “Kill a village of non-sorcerers and my innocent parents? Walk away?”
Or was he meant to die? Would that have saved something that he so obviously couldn’t and can’t alive?
“No,” Kento snaps. “But you came out unscathed from all of it, why–”
He stops talking, shakes his head, ducks it down.
“Why what?” Satoru presses.
“Why do the rest of us even matter anymore?” Kento raises his face. Old pain is new in his eyes, amber and tired and guarded. “Why do we have to risk our lives when you exist? You’re like a bomb. Devastating when you hit the targets you want but in the aftermath the fallout has no one target.”
That plain, the space of the red wood tabletop between them, expands out to a sea. Kento is staring at him with exhaustion, waiting for the answer. He wants a hard truth but the hard truth is that Satoru isn’t infallible. There are dead friends and kids he was meant to protect, and best friends he let slip clumsily through his fingers, that all speak to how Satoru Gojo fails . He gets tired, and he’s still learning some things about this fully realized power. He's hungry most of the time, starving if he thinks about it too much. Occasionally his nose will bleed and won’t stop. And one day Satoru Gojo will die. This he has known since he opened his eyes as an infant coated in amniotic fluid and knew everything in that space of time; as every human will grow to know and understand. But in his invincibility death is tucked into every strand of Satoru. He. Will. Die. In eighty years, or in ten years, or tomorrow. He can’t forget it and for others it is too easily forgotten.
“You’re right, suppose none of you matter, if you look at it like that,” Satoru says. “I could handle it all.”
Kento searches his face for a long time. Long enough that Satoru drops all pretense of bravado and slumps down in his chair, picking at the edge of the table. He’s waiting for the then why don’t you that he doesn’t have an answer for.
“Are you sick?”
Satoru blinks. “What?”
“You’re pale. And you look…exhausted.”
He is both of those things. Very observant of Kento.
“Can we be amicable if not friends?” Satoru asks instead of explaining why he looks so haggard.
Kento looks slightly taken aback. “I just said some very cruel things to you.”
“I think brutally honest people are funny,” Satoru says. Megumi and Kento would get on like a house on fire.
A frown from Kento, but this time it’s accompanied by an eyeroll. “What do you want to know about me?”
“Yeesh, making it sound like an interrogation,” Satoru laughs. He looks down at his phone to check the time. “I think it’s almost been an hour.”
Kento lets out a long labored sigh. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t mind staying a little long.”
Perking up, Satoru pulls his wallet out of his pocket and stands to go get a new drink shouting over his shoulder for Kento to stay put. It draws the attention of everyone else in the cafe, makes Kento glare and blush.
“Okay,” Satoru says when he slides back into his spot. “Where are you staying?”
“I’m staying in my grandparents house. I’m taking care of it while my grandmother is in the hospital.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing is wrong with her, she’s just old, at a high fall risk, and had a case of pneumonia that was really bad.”
“Did your parents die?”
“No,” Kento says, “but they only live in Japan for part of the year and rent their house out the other time, remember? My transfer from the tech was unanticipated to put it lightly. It is simply easier for me to live in my grandparents house, and it aids them.”
“Got it,” Satoru says.
A waitress brings over Satoru’s drink, he takes it gratefully and sucks down a few mouthfuls. Blessed caffeine. It’s a bitter drink for his standards, espresso shots in coffee with sweet cream, too warm for the muggy day but sends a happy little buzz right to the epicenter of Satoru’s brain.
“Do you like it better than living on campus?”
“Do I enjoy my own space, peace, quiet with no curse riding and ridiculous fights over food? How could I possibly miss it?”
Satoru laughs. “It wasn’t that bad!”
“It was terrible living in the same building as you and Suguru,” Kento says. He even shudders.
“We made everything lively and fun.”
“I think you’re just good at convincing people to follow your stupid plans,” Kento mutters. He sips at his quickly disappearing drink.
“You’d be surprised how many pranks were Suguru’s idea. He was just better at acting like a kiss up.”
Releasing low level curses that would cause inconvenience into every cupboard, drawer, closet, toilet, fridge anything that could be opened, was Suguru’s idea. He had a collection of doe eyed fairy looking curses that clung to hands like bees who’s hive you just stuck your arm in. They released nasty scents; fart bomb-esque and bit like mosquitoes. Satoru’s hands were covered in little bites from shoving fistfuls of them into cereal boxes. But they hadn’t known that they’d multiply rapidly when confined to a space so instead of a few hundred curses, thousands spilled out into the dorm. God Satoru’s ribs hurt from laughing at Kento’s yelps and Haibara’s high pitched screams. They caused an infestation across the entire campus and Suguru swept in to oh so graciously collect them and Satoru got detention.
“Your poker face has always been terrible,” Kento agrees. “I suppose sometimes I miss the campus just because I knew that I fit in there. Which is in and of itself a discomforting thought.”
“Yeah, at least we’re all freaks there,” Satoru says. He raises his mug before taking another sip.
“Since when do you drink coffee with no sugar?” Kento asks.
“It has sugar.”
“I can still see the coffee color.”
“I’m busy,” Satoru says, “it's made me appreciate coffee at its most basic form.”
One of Kento’s brows climbs his forehead. “You are sick.”
“Fuck, I hope not. Last thing I need.”
“Gojo, what is the matter with you?”
“Abridged version or no?” Satoru grins at him. “I wasn’t lying. I’m busy.”
“Busy.”
“Oh. And I have two kids.”
Kento stares at him. “You don’t.”
“I do.” Satoru swallows heavily, looks down at his coffee, swirls it in the mug. “I do.”
It’s Kento’s turn to lean heavily on the table, hand on his forehead like the sky just fell. Satoru would laugh at him, but that’s more or less what he’s felt like for weeks. Blindsided and disbelieving.
“Where did you get children?” Kento rasps. “Do I even want to know?”
“It's kind of a long story,” Satoru says. “But, yeah. Two kiddos. Boy and a girl.”
“Gojo. What the fuck.”
Satoru does laugh now, rubs his forehead and laughs until his shoulders are hitching with giggles. Kento just stares, leans back to run a hand down his face and stares some more.
“I don’t even–what in the–w-what are their names?”
Satoru sucks in a breath, hiccups on a few loose giggles.
“Megumi and Tsumiki. Good kids.”
“You take care of them.”
“I try.”
Kento swallows, looks down at the table like it has all the answers to the questions he wants to ask.
“Are they sorcerers?”
“Megumi has cursed energy,” Satoru says. “Not Tsumiki.”
“That must be interesting for her,” Kento says. “I know being a sorcerer trying to live in an ordinary world is hard and alienating.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Satoru says, “they spend most of their time in the ordinary world, so it shouldn’t be that bad. Their parents were both normal, so I tried to ease the culture shock. She’s taken everything well though.”
“How old are they?”
“Six and eight. Tiny things.”
“Oh god, Gojo,” Kento murmurs. “When did you get them? I haven’t been gone that long have I?”
“No, it all moved really fast actually. I was kind of scrambling at the end there. Tsumiki was a surprise I hadn’t accounted for. I’ve had them for almost two months.”
“I feel like I can’t ever have a normal interaction with you. You’re always doing something ridiculously out of the realms of anyone's imaginations.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment!”
“Don’t, it's exhausting.”
Satoru smiles. “You should meet them. I think you and Megumi would get along well.”
“When am I supposed to meet your kids?”
“You could come over for dinner or something like that.”
Kento narrows his eyes. “This isn’t a scheme to get me to watch them when you need a babysitter is it?”
“Pfft, no. Besides, Yaga is a great babysitter.” Satoru digs his phone out of his pocket to check the time. “I should actually get going. I wasn’t kidding though, you should come for dinner, meet the kiddos. I’ll invite Shoko. Get the group back together.”
Kento winces. “Maybe.”
“Cool! I’ll text you.”
“I…changed my number.” Kento pulls his phone out too. Something different from the phone he used to have. Silver and new looking, missing the sticker Haibara had smacked on the front that Kento couldn’t get off.
“How’d you fuck up your old phone?” Satoru asks as he takes the device that Kento cringes to hand over to him. Satoru flicks it open and whistles low at the sleek keyboard. “Nice.”
“I didn’t. I just wanted a new one.”
Satoru inputs his contact, and then texts himself before handing the phone back to Kento who looks vaguely sick. Satoru gets up, so does Kento. They stare at each other and Satoru realizes that he doesn’t know how to say goodbye to him. Kento settles on a curt nod and leaves. Satoru watches him go and leaves the cafe only after Kento has crossed the busy street. If they’d left together they’d have been walking in the same direction.
The source of the cursed energy is a talisman that someone had laid linoleum over in the back of a corner store. The owner of the place had mold sickness symptoms going on for a few days, set on fast, threatening blindness, but inspections were unable to find mold anywhere. Satoru rips up the linoleum, squatting between two teetering stacks of cardboard boxes that smell like prawn crackers and freezer. The owner's son cusses at Satoru for property damage and then shuts up when Satoru shoots him a nasty little glare over his shoulder. He holds his hand out over the talismen, testing its power before grabbing it and crushing it in his fist. It was probably left there in hopes of attracting some nasty curses, bit ones, which there are no reports of, so it must be relatively new. Not a great sign.
“Some of my people will come and pay for that,” Satoru says to the store owner's son. “The store should be fine now.”
That handled, a talisman acting like a caged bird in his pocket, Satoru pops over to the primary school where the kids attend. He stands in a gaggle of other adults waiting to walk their kids home. Not many, most trust their kids to get to and from school alone, but there are at least three mothers and some elderly women who eye Satoru dubiously. The last bells ring and it takes a few minutes for the doors to swing open and kids to spill out. Many are totting umbrellas, tripping over them in their haste, lacking balance due to their large backpacks. Satoru spots Tsumiki first, he raises a hand towards her, she sees him, waves back, says something to her friends and comes skipping towards Satoru.
“Satoru!”
“Hey! Did you have a good day?” Satoru takes the umbrella from her. It’s a drizzling evening. He opens it, holds it over her as Tsumiki wrangles her bag off her back.
“Yes, look at this!”
She depostites a thing into Satoru’s palm. He can’t tell what it is. Something made out of clay, a pot? Maybe. Lumpy, slouchy, bulging. It’s painted dark blue with greenish yellow spots.
“What is this?” Satoru asks.
“It's a mug,” Tsumiki says. “My class is doing a pottery tent for the end of the year festival, and we’re making mugs. That’s my favorite one.”
“Oh,” Satoru says. “I like it. It’s very. Shapeful.”
Tsumiki preens. “I know! I painted it like the night sky.”
Ah, yeah she did. Satoru can see it now that she mentions it.
“Is it water tight?”
Tsumiki shrugs. She takes the mug back from Satoru and lays it back into a nest made out of crumpled paper that Satoru hopes isn’t homework.
“I’ll carry it, just to be sure.”
“You do you.”
“What did you do today?” Tsumiki asks, she’s rocking back on her heels, waving to a few kids that walk past. Her hair is a bit of a mess, falling out of its tie and flecked with bits of leaves.
“I went to work, met an old friend.”
“At work?”
“Eh, sorta.”
Tsumiki hops suddenly, waving her hand high above her head and almost frantically. Megumi has come slouching out of the school building. Satoru frowns at him. He looks tired and his eyes are pink even from a distance.
“Do you see Megumi a lot during the day?” Satoru asks Tsumiki.
“M’no,” Tsumiki hums. “I only sometimes walk past the little kids' classrooms when I’m running errands for my teachers. I do that cuz they trust me.”
“As they should,” Satoru says. “Let's go meet him.”
Megumi comes right to them, thunks his head down against Satoru’s thigh and sighs. Satoru feels his forehead, concern making his throat tight. The skin is cool, but Megumi is weirdly clammy. Satoru kneels so he can look at Megumi’s face. His eyes are irritated, puffy and weepy. Shot through with blood.
“Do you feel bad?”
Megumi nods silently, which is pretty fucking loud when it comes to him. Satoru scoops him up when Megumi’s mouth trembles. He keeps the umbrella over Tsumiki who is watching them with large eyes. Megumi rubs his face against Satoru’s shoulder, tilting his right eye into Satoru’s shoulder.
“Kid,” Satoru says, “how long have your eyes been like that?”
“Mn. Long time.”
“Did you go to the nurse?”
A nod.
“What did she say?”
“Dirt in my eye. Washed it out.”
Satoru sighs. “Did that help?”
“No.”
“Did it make it worse?”
“I dunno. My throat itches.”
Okay. Fuck. Satoru hadn’t planned to go to the hospital until he was absolutely forced to, but that sounds like an allergic reaction if he’s ever heard it.
“I need to call a car,” Satoru says to both kids. “We’re gonna go see what’s going on with you.”
They walk down to the bus stop, recently vacated and wait for the car that Satoru requested with a great amount of self control. Tsumiki is very still beside Satoru. She’s reached up and hooked her hand into the elbow of the arm holding Megumi, crowding close to Satoru’s side. Satoru doesn’t have any comforting words to give her, he feels a little numb himself.
The car ride is tense and silent. Megumi isn’t actively in anaphylactic shock, but his eyes grow puffier and his rubbing on Satoru’s shoulder gets harsher. Everything at the hospital turns into a weird slow motion blur. No one seems to understand the gravity of Megumi’s affliction. The doctor speaks calmly, asks about what Megumi ate at school, asks about known allergies that Satoru has to stumble his way through answering. He asks about pets and Satoru tells the doctor about Bug.
“I would say a mild cat allergy. We’ll give him some benadryl and that should clear it up.”
“He sleeps a lot,” Satoru says hurriedly when the doctor turns to leave. “Like a lot. Is that. Is that normal?”
“He’s six, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Normal enough. Kids burn a lot of energy and some kids don’t have as much energy to burn.”
“Sure, but he sleeps a lot .”
The doctor frowns at Satoru. “What is his diet like? Is it balanced?”
“It…could probably be better,” Satoru says.
“Start there.”
Which is just so unhelpful Satoru wants to trip the man as he walks out of the room. Tsumiki looks up from the medical magazine she’d been flipping through. Megumi rolls over on the bed until he can sit up. He looks puffy and tired.
“Why didn't you tell me sooner?” Satoru asks him. He swipes his glasses off his face, digs his fingers into his eyes.
“I don’t know,” Megumi says. He sounds nasally. “But. It’s not Bug.”
“What?”
“We had a kitty,” Tsumiki says quietly. “For a little while before mom left. She was way fluffier than Bug and Megumi never had any issues.”
“What is it then?”
Megumi scrunches his face up. “I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.”
A nurse appears to give Megumi a dose of benadryl before Satoru can tear his own hair out in frustration. The kid takes the medicine like a champ and after a few minutes the puffiness goes down a bit.
“Does your throat still itch?” Satoru asks.
“No,” Megumi says.
“Okay. Good.”
Maybe it was just Bug’s breed. Whatever the hell that was.
The evening, more or less derailed, ends much later than either Satoru or the kids can afford. He makes them dinner, worries over every ingredient that hovers over his pot, and then scraps it all to make simple fish and rice. Megumi loudly protests this dinner option and refuses to eat until Satoru puts his head on the table and fakes sobs. He is soundly condemned when his face is dry after Megumi has eaten half of his bowl. Satoru clears the table so Tsumiki can do her homework. He’s washing dishes when he remembers the mug and asks her to please bring it to him. This she does with enthusiasm. It is not water tight, Satoru puts it on the windowsill. Maybe he’ll put a succulent into it.
Something wakes Satoru up in the early morning. Not a nightmare but a faint cry from Megumi’s bedroom. Satoru is out of bed and by Megumi’s side as soon as he registers what it is. Megumi is gasping for breath, eyes streaming, chest heaving. His eyes are nearly sealed shut and his throat is red. Satoru grabs him, holds him to his chest and pops out of existence.
He hits the floor hard enough that his knees buckle, so dizzy that he can barely pass Megumi into Shoko’s startled arms before he’s emptying his stomach across cold concrete.
“Oh my god. Megumi? Megumi?”
Satoru grabs a bed, heaves himself up, looks blurrily at Shoko who’s laying Megumi’s limp body on a medical bed.
“I killed him. I killed him. Ikilledhim I–”
“Satoru! Shut up! Shut up!” Shoko isn’t even looking at him as she yells.
There’s a sputtering cigarette on the floor that Satoru stares at when he slips down onto it. The floor is a shock of cold, layered with the muted scents of old blood and disinfectant. He pulls his legs up, puts his forehead on his knees and starts to recite general relativity. At some point Yaga is there. He sits next to Satoru unable to touch and mutters something about vomit and blood. He talks directly to Satoru at one point and Satoru peels his forehead off his knees to look at him. Yaga is holding out a washcloth, saying something that doesn’t register as human communication to Satoru.
“Tsumiki,” Satoru rasps.
“She’s alright,” Yaga says. He presses forward with the cloth.
Satoru jerks his head away, untouchable as it is. “Tsumiki.”
“Is fine . I sent a good friend to make sure she’s alright.”
Nodding Satoru puts his head back on his knees. No one is freaking out, which is probably a good sign. But they’re being gentle to him, which is never a good sign. He closes his eyes, realizing he can taste iron on his tongue. Satoru licks his top lip clean, shudders at the taste and looks back at Yaga through bleary eyes.
“Is my nose bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.”
“My ears. Are my ears bleeding?”
Yaga’s eyes go wide and he leans around to look at the side of Satoru’s head.
“No.”
“Oh good. M’okay then.” Satoru reaches behind himself to grab the edge of a bed. He pulls himself up, sways a little and feels like he can’t breathe when he sees Megumi curled on his side on the bed Shoko put him on. He’s right next to a table with a corpse on it.
“Satoru,” Shoko says. She’s coming back into the room. Her hair is pulled up but she’s missing the coat she usually wears in the morgue.
“Is he dead.”
“ No . Fuck,” Shoko says. She rubs her wrist over her brow.
“What was that?” Satoru asks. He holds his elbows. “I. I could have killed him.”
Shoko raises her brows at him. “Yeah. You could have, if you weren’t holding him. But you had him crushed to your chest.”
Satoru swallows, drags his eyes away from Megumi’s little form. “The doctor said a cat allergy.”
This gets a brittle laugh out of Shoko. “Humans and their medical advancements are incredible, but they will never be able to understand sorcerer specific illnesses.”
“You know what it is?”
“Sure,” Shoko says. “You’re not going to like it, but it isn’t fatal or permanent.”
“Tell me.”
Shoko bites back a smile, gnawing on her bottom lip to try and kill it. “He’s having a reaction to cursed energy. Large amounts of it that he’s never been around before. He’s allergic to you , Satoru.”
“What.”
“You exude a lot of energy, and Megumi here is barely coming into his. It’s overwhelming him and causing a reaction,” Shoko says. She smiles, shrugs. “It happens to sorcerer children quite a bit, makes colic worse, or colds run longer, but in Megumi’s case he was very devoid of cursed energy so it's a little more overwhelming.”
“He’s allergic to me? That’s stupid.”
“Well that’s what it is.”
Satoru scrubs his face. His feet are freezing. He’s barefoot. In oversized basketball shorts and a ratty t-shirt. And his mouth tastes nasty.
“Wipe your nose,” Yaga says.
The washcloth now barely damp is shoved at Satoru. He takes it, scrubs the dried blood off his nostrils.
“So what do I do? I can’t have him doing…that anymore.”
“It’ll pass. Probably soon now that he’s gone through this. It just takes some exposure, the more he uses his own CE the better it’ll get too,” Shoko says.
“Does this also account for the sleeping?”
“Probably.”
Satoru covers his mouth. “I can’t do this.”
Shoko’s mirth falls off her face. “Satoru.”
“I can’t do this. What the fuck is wrong with me? I can’t take care of two kids!”
“Satoru,” Yaga says, his voice tight, “calm down.”
“No! Because what the hell is this?” He flings a hand at Megumi, then back at himself. “I’m repelling them. We’re like fucking oil and water. I shouldn’t do this.”
“Who else will?” Yaga asks him.
“What?”
“No one cared that those little kids were living alone, no one was coming to save them but you.”
Satoru turns away, tugs at his hair, scrubs more at his face. “Save them. Fuck off. Tsumiki is smart, she would have figured out how to get out of their situation.”
“You think a child deserves that responsibility?” Yaga snaps.
“No,” Satoru says. “Of course not.”
His old teacher comes up behind him. Satoru knows he wants to put a hand on Satoru’s shoulder, squeeze it. Satoru doesn’t let him. Yaga takes it in stride, adapted to working around Satoru’s distance. He knows how to feel close.
“You are doing fine.”
Nothing about this is fine.
“Satoru,” Shoko says. “He’s going to be okay. More than. You didn’t hurt him knowingly or unknowingly. I should have thought to warn you. I just thought Megumi was out of the age range that’s usually affected. It's kind of funny.”
“It's not funny,” Satoru croaks. “I could have liquified his insides or obliterated his spine or imploded his brain.”
“You didn’t,” Yaga says. “This is progress for you.”
“Panic induced progression is not progress,” Satoru says. “If I can’t imitate it when I’m level headed I did fuck all.”
“Come talk to me, I’ll see if I can make a corpse that you can practice with,” Yaga says. “But I’d say that for now, you know that a child can survive warping with you. That’s good to know.”
But Satoru hadn’t known. He took an insane risk that he didn’t think about at all. There was no moment of question, of calculation, he just needed Megumi to not be dying.
“You did good getting him here,” Shoko says casually.
“What would have happened if I hadn’t?”
“Nothing major, probably. He did need to clear his airways though.”
Satoru is about to question how a not clear airway isn’t major but there’s a rustle of sterile sheets and Megumi letting out a gross sounding sneeze. Shoko approaches his bed.
“How do you feel?”
Megumi blinks in the harsh lights and shrugs. “Fine.”
Fine, he says. Fine .
“Good. Any pain anywhere?” Shoko sends half a glance at Satoru. “Your spine, neck and skull, do those feel normal?”
“Yeah.”
Satoru bristles. She lied to him. Straight to his face. Of course she didn’t know exactly if Megumi was feeling anything off in his body, he’d been out of it.
“Good. How about your stomach? Normal?”
“Swirly,” Megumi mumbles.
“Swirly how?”
“Sorta like m’gonna be sick.”
“Can I feel and you tell me if it hurts?” Shoko asks. She’s already going for a new set of medical gloves.
Satoru stays long enough for Megumi to claim that there is no pain when Shoko presses against his abdomen. But there are bruises around his ribs. Satoru ducks out of the morgue.
Yaga finds him sitting on the porch watching fireflies flicker in the flower beds. They’ve flooded out, any flowers long dead by drowning. But the bugs and birds seem to appreciate the little pond that has replaced them.
“Where am I going tomorrow?” Satoru asks before Yaga can say anything.
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“In Japan?”
“Most likely,” Yaga says.
“I want something international.”
Yaga lets out a heavy sigh. He leans on the porch rail above Satoru’s head, hands hooked together at the wrists.
“That is unwise.”
“I don’t care. Let me go blow up something big in I don’t know, the furthest place from here.”
“There isn’t anything. You’re needed here.”
Satoru huffs a humourless laugh, drops his head. “What if I hadn’t been there?”
“Were you not just trying to run away?”
“I would’ve come back,” Satoru says. “I always come back.”
It's a bitter truth, a habit, trait, flaw, whatever, that Satoru doesn’t know what to do with. Loyalty is a prized trait. Coming back to your masters with the ball they threw waiting for them to throw it again, is sickening obedience.
“What if I wasn’t there?”
“You were, Satoru.”
A firefly goes dim, caught in the water and unable to get out again.
“One day I won’t be.”
Yaga’s hands twitch.
“No.”
Satoru goes back in when his own desire to make sure Megumi is whole grows worse than his desire to get the fuck away. Yaga hadn’t tried to soothe him with meaningless assurances . They’d sat together in the silence watching fireflies kill themselves for water.
Megumi is grumpy when Satoru approaches the bed. He blinks up at Satoru, rubs at his nose. It makes Satoru freeze a good few feet from the bed. He raises a hand.
“You good?”
“I want to go home.”
Satoru looks at Shoko, she shrugs. “I don’t have any reason for him to stay here.”
“If he gets worse?” Satoru asks.
“Unless he starts having issues breathing he should be okay, if not a little uncomfortable,” Shoko says. “But if you want to bring him back in for anything, you can.”
Megumi starts to peel back sheets. He’s barefoot too, dressed almost exactly like Satoru. He scoots off the bed and when he hits the floor he patters over to Satoru, rubbing a fist into his pinkish eyes. Satoru does not take a step back because Megumi is three apples tall and sleep rumpled. He’s not afraid of that .
“Carry me,” Megumi demands.
Satoru stares down at him. “I–”
“Satoru,” Shoko calls. “Infinity being down might help.”
Yes. But.
“Carry me,” Megumi demands again. He bounces on his toes. The floor is cold.
Satoru lifts him up, lets him tuck himself against his unprotected shoulder. Megumi slings his arms around Satoru’s neck, letting out a wet yawn that makes Satoru grimace.
“Are there any drivers out this late?” Satoru asks.
“I’ll drive you,” Yaga says.
“With Panda?” Megumi asks, squirming around in Satoru’s arms so he can see Yaga.
“No, Panda is asleep right now. But maybe you can see him this weekend.”
This appeases Megumi. He flops his head back against Satoru’s shoulder, yawns again. They follow Yaga out of the morgue to go get his keys. Satoru lingers in the hallway by the exit staring out at nothing. Megumi’s heart is beating against Satoru’s chest, steady little thumps that sync with his breathing. Megumi is a little heavier, heavier than those first few days for sure. He’s alive. A life. Satoru has a life curled and yawning obnoxiously against him. How terrifying.
“Come on,” Yaga says.
Back home Tsumiki hurls herself at Satoru the moment he’s in the door. He scoops her up, lets her look over her little brother. She cups his face and smooths back his hair, dropping kisses to his forehead before Megumi whines and shoves her away. Satoru chides him quietly and walks further into the apartment. There’s a woman that Satoru vaguely recognizes as a sorcerer who used to teach at the school before something put her out of commission. She’s sitting on the couch and gets up to tip him a polite bow. A cursed corpse shaped like a bipedal deer that had been resting by her gets up and walks into Yaga’s hands as he shuffles into the entrance hall.
Satoru puts Tsumiki down first, kneels so they’re eye to eye and lightly touches her cheek, looking her over, not sure what he’s looking for, but she’s unharmed.
“You okay?”
“Mmhm,” Tsumiki says. But she’s wringing her shirt and her voice breaks on the sound.
Satoru winces at her, tucks her head back into his shoulder so she has something to wipe her tears off with. Satoru keeps his hand lightly on the back of her head, letting his arm rest against her trembling shoulders. He closes his eyes and hangs his head between his kids. Megumi curled in the catch of Satoru’s arm and Tsumiki standing, her toes against his knees where they sit on hardwood.
“No more disasters,” Satoru mumbles. “Just for a little bit.”
“Okay,”Tsumiki sniffles. “I can try.”
But in Satoru’s experience when it rains it doesn't just pour. It floods and wrecks and takes him out at the knees. He gets the kids back into bed, leaves Megumi’s door open and knows that tonight will mean no sleep. Satoru’s living room is empty when he tears himself away from Megumi’s room, Yaga and the other sorcerer taking their leave quietly. He stands unsure of himself but really fucking tired. He goes to his room, leaves his door open and sits on his bed. His phone is off its charger so he reaches over to fix it when he notices he has a message. Satoru should probably leave it, look at it in the morning, but he opens it anyway.
Come home. If you do not, we will come to you.
Satoru stares at the words. The number that he’s not allowed to block or delete.
He’s out of borrowed time.