Chapter Text
The day Satoru moves in with Suguru is a rainy one.
They lug their furniture up and into their apartment at an agonizingly slow pace, just the two of them. They barely manage to move their couch in when Satoru, already bored, whines about taking a break.
“C’mon, Suguru,” Satoru whines. “This is such a drag.”
“Oh yeah,” Suguru remarks, wiping his hair away from his face. He, much to Satoru and his camera roll’s delight, looks like a half-drowned cat. “Like having furniture and clothes in our home is such a drag. How could I forget.”
Still, despite his dry words, when Satoru flops down on the floor, Suguru joins him within seconds.
“This is awful,” Satoru complains. “Why would you make me do this?”
Suguru reaches out to pull Satoru’s ear.
His hand is clammy from the rain, his fingertips are as cold as ice cubes, and Satoru doesn’t want him to ever let go of his ear. He smiles at the man next to him.
“Want to be a darling and finish moving everything by yourself? I think I’ll just take a quick nap.” He stretches his arms over his head, mimicking a yawn.
Suguru rolls his eyes at him and sighs. “I swear I lose brain cells around you.”
“People do tend to lose things around me. Like their self-confidence. And their virginities.”
Suguru cackles at that.
“God, you have an awful personality,” he wheezes, even though he’s the one laughing at a middle school joke with enough force to send his shoulders shaking. “How does anyone stand to be with you?”
His eyes gleam with unhidden mirth, his skin, still damp from the rain, is unmarred and golden, and something in Satoru’s chest balloons at the vivacity of it all.
“You could barely stand me when we were first years despite my winning demeanor,” Satoru says and knocks their shoulders together. “Says a lot more about your character than mine.”
“You were a bitch who expected me to kiss your ass,” Suguru replies easily. Satoru gasps, a hand over his heart.
“You mean everyone shouldn’t kiss my bitchy ass?”
Something in Suguru’s eyes twinkles. Satoru blinks at the sight, then turns away, fixing his gaze on the ceiling above them. His heart thumps and thumps and thumps.
“Everyone should and will kiss your bitchy ass. Just not me.”
Just you.
“Well,” Satoru says, swallowing a lump in his throat. “If it’s just you out of the billions of people on the planet. I guess I can make an exception. Just for you though.”
He turns to catch a glimpse of Suguru’s face ( what expression was he making? A content smile? An absentminded, faraway stare? Something else entirely? ) and nearly jumps out of his skin when he’s met with Suguru already watching him.
The rain patters against the windows and their pinkies graze for a second, then two.
“Just me?” Suguru asks, his voice in something like a rasp.
“Just you,” Satoru admits and the confession is like a knife in between his ribs.
Suguru looks at him. Just looks at him, with nothing expectant or terrified in his eyes. There are many things about Geto Suguru that make him strange, but when he looks at Satoru like this—looking for the sake of looking—he becomes a goddamn enigma.
Something like a flush starts crawling up Satoru’s cheeks.
Suguru’s gaze flickers away.
“I’m starving. Want to get food?”
Satoru smiles.
“I’ll always get food with you, darling.”
“You’re such a charmer.”
The problem starts two weeks later.
“Suguru,” Satoru shouts, though the sound comes out muffled by the cookie he has stuffed in his mouth, as he kicks open the door. “I’m home!”
Immediately, he frowns at the sight of a dark hallway, dropping the bag of sweets from the bakery he stopped by before heading to their apartment. It’s nearing midnight, sure, but Suguru is much more of a late owl than Satoru is. More often than not, Satoru falls asleep to the sounds of his best friend rummaging in the kitchen or pacing around their living room, humming a tune under his breath.
Currently, however, there’s no Suguru in sight. Not in their kitchen, where Satoru bought them loads of colorful, mismatched kitchen supplies they often ignore entirely to order shitty takeout instead. Not in their living room, where Suguru accidentally knocked over their new lamp from laughing too hard at a joke Satoru told.
Strange.
He ambles down the hallway and heads toward Suguru’s door, which is firmly shut. Even more strange. He and Satoru rarely spend time in their own rooms, instead opting to co-exist in their shared spaces whenever possible. It was, in all honesty, how they had always been,
“You two,” Shoko had joked, once. “Are like a pair of leeches. But instead of leeching off of humans, you just leech off of each other. A parasitic relationship.”
“I think you mean a symbiotic one,” Satoru had corrected, sticking his tongue out at her. “What Suguru and I have transcends your mere mortal understanding.”
Suguru had choked on his drink and, after some vigorous back-patting from both his friends, had sputtered out a weak agreement. His cheeks had been a vivid red.
Satoru smiles at the memory and pushes open Suguru’s bedroom door, ready to throw himself into his best friend’s arms and blabber on about his day as Suguru listens, a patient grin on his face.
“Sugu–”
He stops. Or freezes. Either one, really.
Because Suguru is decidedly not alone.
He’s hovering over a man, his dark hair loose and spilling over his face and he’s…pinning the man to his bed, one strong hand pressed over the other’s wrists.
The other man is arching into his touch, back nearly bent halfway off the bed, unfamiliar face flushed with want. Suguru’s other hand is on the man’s stomach, inching down slowly towards….
“Fuck,” Satoru wheezes.
“Satoru,” Suguru blinks, and dear God, is his voice raspier than usual? Satoru needs to walk out of the room or, at least, crack a joke to stop his head from exploding but, his muscles stay locked and unwilling to move.
Suguru blinks again and realization flashes across his features. The horror is quick to follow. He yanks his hands away from the stranger and nearly catapults off the bed. Satoru swallows.
“Suguru,” he replies back, voice faint.
He thinks he might collapse, and he’s not even the person being walked in on during an…intimate moment.
Suguru is still standing in the corner of his room, his hair is still undone, and his chest, toned with years of martial arts training, is still unclothed. (He, thankfully, had still had his jeans on when Satoru had burst into the room.) Suguru, who was near straddling a man not two minutes ago, is still just standing there.
Satoru sees spots in his vision.
“I’m,” Satoru slurs through his heavy tongue. “I, uh, bought cookies.”
He drops the bag of baked goods that had still somehow, miraculously, been holding onto the floor. Suguru’s face is bright red, the color of a tomato, and Satoru can’t look away.
“What,” Suguru chokes out. “Satoru, I–”
“It was really no problem. I’m a super-giving person. I give a lot.” Satoru says and wants to punch himself in the face for it. He tears his eyes away from his shirtless best friend and books it out of the room.
“Wait!”
Satoru has never been good with following demands so he continues to speed-walk down the hallway. His destination? Unknown. Maybe his room, maybe the bathroom, maybe down to the street below where he could promptly get run over by a car.
Anywhere but that room.
He almost makes it to the entrance, when a hand, warm and rough with calluses, clasps itself around his wrist and halts him in his tracks.
“Fucking wait,” Suguru says, because of course he caught up with Satoru, he wouldn’t be Geto Suguru if he didn’t.
Satoru stills, eyes fixed on the exit just within reach. So close, yet so far.
“Satoru,” Suguru pleads. “I’m sorry, I should have texted to tell you that I had someone over. I thought you were clubbing with Shoko and Utahime tonight.”
“Utahime got food poisoning,” He replies, distracted.
Suguru has large hands, larger even than Satoru’s, and it takes minimum effort for him to wrap his fingers around Satoru’s wrists. Stopping him. Holding him. Satoru stares down at those tanned fingers and thinks of how, just minutes ago, they were holding down another pair of wrists.
Bile rises to his throat.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” Suguru is still talking. “I really am. I’ll make it up to you.”
Satoru shakes his head. “Don’t apologize,” he chokes out after a few dry swallows. “I-I should have knocked.”
Suguru looks at him, his eyes hooded with worry. “Hey,” he says, softer, and steps closer to him. “Are you oka–” Satoru jerks back, his body moving backward and away from Suguru before his mind can catch up. His hand wrenches away from Suguru’s grasp.
Suguru gawks at him. “Satoru,” he says, and Satoru can hear the hint of hurt in his usually melodic voice.
Before he can ask a question, the stranger steps out of Suguru’s bedroom. His shirt is crumpled and the flush on his cheeks hasn’t dissipated at all since Satoru last saw him…underneath Suguru. He looks like a fucking prick.
“Hey, uh,” the stranger says, looking at Suguru and acting like Satoru wasn’t standing next to him. “I’m going to head out.”
“Oh, uh, alright. I’m really sorry about tonight,” Suguru replies, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck.
“It’s…” the guy sneaks a look at Satoru and his face pales. He clears his throat. “It’s fine.” he finishes, voice high.
“Great,” Satoru cuts in, stiffly. “Fantastic. Then leave.”
“Satoru,” Suguru admonishes, but there’s a lack of heat in his voice, probably due to his own embarrassment. Petty amusement floods Satoru at how the stranger looks at Suguru, betrayal twisting his face at how he would let Satoru talk to him like that.
‘That’s right,’ Satoru doesn’t stick out his tongue but it’s a near miss. ‘He won’t take your side.’
“Right,” the other man says. “Well, see you, I guess.”
He goes to push past them in order to get to the door, but Satoru casually slides in his way. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he leers down at the man in front of him—being over six foot in a country where most men barely broke the five foot seven mark really did have its perks—and bares his teeth into a sharp grin.
“Have a good night,” he says, low and amused.
The stranger takes a stumbling step back and Satoru has to fight not to laugh.
The buoyant joy fades a second later when Suguru sidles behind the stranger and places a gentle hand on his hip.
“Let me walk you out,” he murmurs into the man’s ear, ducking his head down to speak more directly into his line of hearing. His lips brush past the shell of the stranger’s ear. “I can call a cab for you.”
What the hell.
The stranger blinks up at Suguru with hazy eyes and Satoru can see something in his resolve weaken at the feeling of Suguru’s hands on him and his soft voice by his ear. Suguru always had that effect on girls, but never in Satoru’s wildest dreams, did he think that men would also fall prey to his quiet charm. Or that Suguru would want men to fall prey to him.
“Uh, sure,” the stranger says and he has the nerve to shoot a quick, nervous glance in Satoru’s direction after saying so.
Satoru tastes blood in his mouth.
He steps forward, ready to shoot more scathing words at the stranger, but Suguru is already guiding the man forward and out of their home.
“Satoru,” Suguru fixes him with a look over his shoulder. There was something heated in it, a look that Satoru’s seen on his face hundreds of times before but never aimed at him, and it sends Satoru halting in his tracks. “Behave.”
He shuts the door behind him and Satoru is left behind, staring at the empty space in front of him.
Eventually, he manages to detach his feet from the ground long enough to trudge into their living room and collapse on the sofa.
He tries not to replay the memory over and over in his head, but the more he pushes it away, the longer it stays in his head.
Suguru holding a man down, Suguru about to shove his hands down some random asshole’s pants, Suguru with his cheeks flushed pink and gaze heady and dark. Would he have done more if Satoru hadn’t come home?
Had he done this before? Why didn’t he tell Satoru that he was interested in men? Had all the times they had spent casually flirting and hooking up with girls been something Suguru hadn’t wanted? Why didn’t he tell Satoru?
If Satoru came home a moment later, would he have caught Suguru holding the stranger down and fucking him?
Heat floods his face at the question and Satoru looks down at his hands.
This was so stupid, maybe it was a one-time thing, maybe Suguru was, fucking, experimenting or something—
The door creaks open and Suguru steps back inside. Satoru shoots up into a ramrod position on the couch, back stiff and jaw clenched, and watches as his best friend shuffles into the living room.
His cheeks are rosy from the cold. Satoru eyes his lips for any sign of a lingering, bruising kiss that might have been left behind by the stranger.
“Is there something on my face?” Suguru asks.
“Uh,” Satoru blinks and looks away. “No.”
“Alright.”
Suguru sits beside him on the couch and Satoru tries not to tense up even more, but his body doesn’t seem to get the memo, and his shoulders hunch in, trying not to brush against the man next to him.
“Listen,” Suguru says, after a tense beat. “I–”
“Is he your boyfriend?” The words come spilling out of Satoru’s mouth before he can stop it.
“What?” Suguru startles for a second, then relaxes. “No, he’s just a hookup.”
“How long have you been,” Satoru pauses, trying to form his mouth around words that seem to stick in his throat. “Hooking up with him?” He feels like he’s going insane, just a little bit.
“This was the first night.” Suguru doesn’t add “and probably the last time” but Satoru can practically hear it in his voice. He twists his hands in his lap and wills himself not to stand up and chase after whatever taxi cab took the stranger away. He wants to drag that stupid man out by his hair and pummel him into the gravel, painting his face with bruises. He wants—
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers, under his breath. Hurt seeps into his words before he can stamp them down and he almost curses himself for his sign of weakness.
A hand lands carefully on his shoulder. A hand that Satoru thinks he might recognize in sleep, in death, always in this lifetime and in the next.
“I just,” Suguru swallows, and the sound is like gunshots fired against the night sky. “I wasn’t sure.”
“Are you?” Satoru asks. “Are you sure now?”
He turns to look at the man next to him.
Suguru looks back at him, face clouded with an emotion that looks an awful lot like defeat.
“I’m sure,” Suguru replies.
“Okay,” Satoru breathes and wonders why his stomach is twisting itself into coils.
“Is that going to be a…problem?” Suguru asks, and for the first time tonight, there’s something like fear in his voice. Satoru nearly topples off the couch.
“Of course not,” he snaps, hurt flooding him at the mere thought of Suguru being scared of him.
For once, Suguru doesn’t rise to the bait and snap back at him.
Instead, he smiles and the sight nearly burns Satoru alive.
“Okay,” he says and moves his hand up, up from its perch on Satoru’s shoulder, and into Satoru’s hair. He treads his fingers through the white strands and gives a friendly ruffle.
“Thanks,” He murmurs, simply, and withdraws.
Satoru’s scalp tingles.
Satoru tries to forget about it.
It’s not that hard at first, because despite what Shoko may have joked, he and Suguru lead their own individual, busy lives. The next time he and Suguru find themselves alone and without any work to get done, they’re both too exhausted to be awkward and uncomfortable around each other. Instead, they collapse on the couch together, watching bad soap operas through bleary eyes and laughing half deliriously at the god-awful plot lines.
“Why is she getting married to him,” Suguru wheezes. “Isn’t she literally cheating on him with his step-brother?”
On their screen, the bride-to-be walks slowly down the aisle, her poofy white dress trailing behind her. Her actress looks simultaneously bored and constipated. Satoru almost wants to applaud how terrible the acting is.
“No, she’s cheating on him with her step-brother,” he corrects.
“How did this show even air?”
“There are some depraved souls out there in the world, darling.”
Suguru rolls his eyes at the teasing pet name.
The bride and the groom face each other at the altar and the priest reads out their vows. Satoru yawns, stretching his arms above his head and working out the kinks in his neck. As his arms come swinging back down, he nearly smacks Suguru’s face.
“Are you trying to give me a black eye, Satoru?” Suguru huffs, though his voice is amused.
“I would be doing you a favor,” Satoru counters. “Your ugly mug would be much more tolerable if you had a shiner.”
He stretches his arms out again, moving as if to playfully hit Suguru right in the face.
Before he can make any contact, however, Suguru reaches out and interlocks their hands, sliding their palms against each other and threading their fingers together—with the buttery ease of someone who’s done it a billion times.
Satoru stares down at their hands, mouth opening in a silent question, and whips his head back up to look at Suguru.
“Su–”
“Stop moving around so much,” Suguru cuts him off, eyes glued to the screen. “Look, I think her step-brother’s objecting, holy shit.”
Satoru glances back at the screen and, indeed, a man in the audience is standing up and yelling something to the bride-to-be and her groom-to-be. The actress still has the bored-constipated look on her face. Satoru blinks at the screen and stares back down at their hands.
“Is he insane?” Suguru laughs. “Why would he admit to sleeping with her there for all places? Can they even get married if they’re step-siblings?”
His hand is so warm in Satoru’s.
From the TV, Satoru can hear a crash, then a cacophony of voices yelling over each other. Suguru is laughing so hard, his entire body is vibrating, and Satoru can feel it all through the tips of his fingers.
“I think we should binge-watch the first season sometime, this is pure gold,” Suguru manages through sputtering cackles.
His thumb rubs slight circles on Satoru’s thumb, probably subconsciously.
Satoru blinks.
“Uh, sure.”
He and Suguru are fine. Nothing about them has changed since that night and everything is perfectly fine. This is all fine.
Everything is decidedly not fine.
“Fuck,” someone (a man, definitely a man) whines, high and broken, before it’s cut off abruptly with a muffled gasp.
Satoru sits in his bedroom, earbuds dangling from his neck, and he very much wants to use the cord to strange himself.
Suguru had texted him, a few hours ago, asking if it was alright if he brought someone over for the night. Satoru had stared at the message for a solid fifteen minutes before agreeing, not without something sour rising to the back of his throat.
He had wanted to stamp his feet and shout “No, you can’t!” like a bratty little kid, but…He had already kind of cock-blocked Suguru before, in the worst possible way, and even Satoru knew that acting like a dick about this would not end well for anyone.
The knowledge did little to nothing to soothe the rage and discomfort in his stomach at the thought of Suguru bringing a man home.
He had been determined to book it out of the apartment as soon as possible, but then, Shoko had texted him an article about the positive effects of desserts on the human brain he just had to read, and well—
Now, he was here, sitting in his bed while Suguru was having sex right next door.
Sex with a man.
Their walls were way too thin for something like this.
“Fuck,” the man gasps again. “Geto, please.”
Suguru laughs and Satoru startles at the sound. Even muffled, it sounds…like pure sex, raspy and out of breath.
“Please what?” Suguru asks, and fuck, he sounds…bored. A little mean.
Fuck.
Satoru inches close to the wall, straining his ears.
“Please, ngh, please,” the other man sobs out and Satoru wants to bang on the wall to tell him to shut up. His voice is too high-pitched, too annoying, nothing like the silky smooth of Suguru’s timbre. Why is Suguru fucking a man with such a grating voice? Why is Suguru fucking a man?
Why is Suguru–
“C’mon,” Suguru murmurs, quieter. Satoru presses closer, listening. “Use your words.”
The man moans and Satoru wants to roll his eyes at the sound, but he’s too busy replaying Suguru’s last words in his head. “ Use your words”, he had said with the air of an unamused professor, not a man about to fuck someone into the mattress. “ Use your words.”
“Behave.”
Satoru’s fingers clench in the fabric of his sweats and unclench.
There are a few thumps against the wall and the man whines again.
“Fuck me, please, Geto,” he pleads. “I-I can’t, I need–”
He’s cut off with a sharp gasp and another moan.
“I know what you need,” Suguru says. “Stay quiet and I’ll give it to you, sweetheart.”
Satoru can tell when he starts fucking the stranger, like really fucking him. If the rhythmic thumps against the wall aren’t a sure sign, the sounds spilling out of the man’s mouth is a dead giveaway.
He’s a screamer.
“Fuck! R-right there, ah, please, Geto–”
“Quiet,” Suguru rasps, voice straining and so tainted with lust, it hardly sounds like his voice anymore. “My, fuck, Satoru might be home.”
Satoru startles at the sound of his name on Suguru’s tongue. A flush so hot, he feels as if he might boil alive, crosses his face. What the hell was he doing, listening to Suguru have literal sex with someone and why wasn’t he leaving? Why wasn’t he plugging his earbuds in and ignoring it?
Why did he care?
“Wh-who’s Satoru?” The man gasps.
The thumping and movement pause.
Satoru blinks, his heart thumping in his rib cage.
For a brief second, he thinks Suguru may barge into his room, hair mussed and eyes dark with want. Those eyes would sweep over Satoru’s form and he would grin at what he saw. He would cross the room in a few strides and lean forward, bracing one palm on Satoru’s hip and the other at the base of his throat.
And then he would—
“He’s my, uh,” Suguru coughs. “Nevermind, just be a little quieter please.”
“Maybe you can keep me quiet,” the man croons and Suguru laughs again. The noises resume, if not more muted this time.
Satoru stares down at his hands.
Fuck.
It keeps going like this.
Suguru finds men to bring home and Satoru despises them more and more every passing day. He rarely actually sees the men, but there are always hints of their presence staining their home. A forgotten sock here, a remnant scent of foreign cologne there.
Satoru hates it more than anything he’s hated in a while.
He spends more nights away than he normally would and finds himself drifting away from Suguru’s words and touches.
He knows Suguru is getting more worried, but he doesn’t want to think about Suguru much these days. Because thinking about Suguru means thinking about Suguru pinning men down on a bed and making their eyes roll back in their skulls. And thinking about that makes something very unpleasant squirm in Satoru’s stomach.
One morning, he stumbles out of his room, bleary-eyed and utterly dead from a restless night, and almost runs over someone.
“Shit,” he mutters and rights himself. He turns to berate Suguru for not watching where he’s going and then freezes.
A stranger, a new one, a new man, is standing in front of him.
He’s pretty, Satoru reluctantly thinks, if he was into the waifish pretty-boy look—which he wasn’t because he wasn’t gay, and even if he was gay, he would probably like someone who was taller, darker, more handsome, strong enough to bench press the same amount (if not more) as him.
Someone like—
“Oh,” the man blinks. “Uh, sorry!”
“‘S fine,” Satoru grunts and tries not to punch the other man.
“Ah,” Realization creeps onto the stranger’s face. “You must be Geto’s Satoru.”
Something hot blooms in Satoru’s chest at that. Geto’s Satoru. Belonging to Suguru? Satoru doesn’t belong to anyone, but he thinks, maybe being Suguru’s would be sort of nice.
A little.
He shakes his head.
“Gojo,” he corrects, stiffly. “Satoru’s my given name.” My given name that you, of all people, cannot use.
“Right, sorry!” the man laughs, sweetly. “My name’s Hayashi Isamu. You can call me Isamu.”
“Okay, Hayashi,” Satoru says and moves around him.
He starts heading for the kitchen to pour himself a coffee (and maybe something stronger, it was shaping up to be a rough morning) but fucking Hayashi scampers after him like a lost puppy.
“Did you sleep well?” He asks, voice saccharine sweet. “I didn’t hear you come in last night?”
Because Satoru hadn’t wanted to come back to hear muffled moans and soft groans coming from Suguru’s bedroom.
“Yeah,” he says, shortly, and turns on the coffee pot. “I got in pretty late.”
Shoko had to practically drag him back by his ear, refusing to let him crash at her place again.
“Oh,” Hayashi giggles. He has the nerve, the gall, to giggle in Satoru’s kitchen. Satoru grits his teeth and tries to breathe slowly. In and out, in and out. Suguru would despise him if he murdered someone in their pristine kitchen.
Satoru unclenches his jaw and takes two mugs out of the cabinet.
“Well,” Hayashi is still talking. “Sorry if we were, ah, a bit loud when you came back.” He flutters his lashes, looking like the cat who not only got the canary and the cream, but all the single cat treats in the world. “You know how it is.”
He tilts his head ever so slightly, but enough for Satoru to see a bite mark on his neck, purple and red stains against pale skin.
Satoru is going to commit homicide.
He smiles sweetly instead.
“Sure,” he chirps. “I passed out as soon as I got back so I didn’t hear anything.”
Hayashi’s own smile doesn’t falter.
“You know,” the man settles down on a kitchen chair without asking. Satoru’s eye twitches. “Geto talks about you.”
Satoru blinks. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, a lot actually,” the man laughs. “We met at work and I thought he was super hot, obviously—”
Satoru’s hand spasms around the ceramic mug he’s holding.
“—but he would constantly talk about this ‘Satoru,’ and I thought he was, y’know, taken. Obviously and thankfully, not.”
Satoru blinks.
People thought he and Suguru were…dating?
“Actually,” Hayashi laughs, lightly. “I’m super relieved that you’re straight. I could not compete with you if you were gay, Christ.”
The coffee machine dings and the sound practically echoes in the dead-silent kitchen.
If you were gay. Compete. Was Hayashi Isamu planning to fight to the death for Suguru? Did he seriously think he could beat Satoru? What. The. Fuck.
If Satoru was in a cartoon, he thinks his brain might be leaking from his ears. He licks his suddenly dry lips, ready to open his mouth and ask…something when Suguru appears at the entrance.
“Oh,” his eyes light up. “Satoru! I thought you were out all last night.”
He sidles closer, socked feet sliding slightly against the linoleum floor. Fondness blooms in Satoru’s chest at the sight of drowsy, half-awake Suguru. The cutest version of Suguru to ever exist, in his humble opinion.
“Nah,” he replies. “Shoko refused to give me refuge, isn't that so mean, darling?
Suguru smirks at the pet name. “Oh, she has no heart. Who could deny someone as pretty as you?” He goes to pinch Satoru’s cheek.
Satoru flinches away, flush high on his cheeks.
Suguru freezes.
“Satoru,” he frowns, confusion and worry swirling on his face. “Are you okay?”
“Suguru,” Satoru stutters. His best friend stands in front of him, his hair completely undone from its usual half-up knot and pillow mark staining his cheek. Satoru can’t stop looking at him, but he desperately wants to stop. “Suguru, I–”
“Geto,” Hayashi cuts in smoothly and comes up next to Suguru in one smooth motion. “Gojo and I were just getting acquainted.”
“Oh,” Suguru doesn’t look away from Satoru’s face. “Were you treating him nicely?” He asks, maybe meaning it as a joke aimed at both of them to the untrained ear, but Satoru knows it's for him and him only.
Hayashi laughs, low, and leans against Suguru.
“We’re already good friends.”
Suguru's hand inches up to rest on the nape of Hayashi’s neck, almost like it was meant to be there.
The wrongness of the sight slams into Satoru like a freight train.
Everything in front of him is just plain wrong.
Suguru shouldn’t be embracing this strange man like that, Suguru shouldn’t have his hand on some man’s skin, Suguru shouldn’t be tilting his neck, allowing this man to press reverent kisses at his jawline.
Because Suguru should be embracing, holding, touching—
Satoru chokes on air.
“I have to go,” he shouts, startling the pair apart, and bolts out of the apartment.
“Satoru!” Suguru calls out after him, alarmed, but he doesn’t stop.
He still feels the phantom weight of Suguru’s eyes on him the whole way out.
“I think I’m homophobic,” Satoru announces as he storms into Shoko’s apartment.
Shoko takes a drag from her cigarette.
“Are you now?” she drawls.
“Yes,” Satoru shouts, then stares down at his shoes.
“Okay,” Shoko says, unblinking. “Okay, so–”
“So, Su–” Satoru interrupts and pauses, barely managing to stop himself from saying Suguru’s name. “So, I have this…acquaintance.”
Shoko arches an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you had any friends other than me and Geto,” she leans back in her seat and taps her cigarette on the edge of her ashtray.
“Of course I do,” Satoru snaps.
“Such as?”
“Nanami and Haibara? Mei Mei? Your own girlfriend?”
“Nanami doesn’t respect you, Haibara’s scared of you, Mei Mei likes you for your money, and the only reason why Iori hasn’t killed you yet is that I’d be moderately inconvenienced if she did,” Shoko stubs out her cigarette and fixes Satoru with a piercing look. “Now, what were you saying about your…acquaintance?”
“You’re a horrible and mean person,” Satoru whines. “But I digress.”
He paces up and down Shoko’s kitchen, feeling way too antsy to sit down.
“So my acquaintance is gay? Bisexual? I don’t know, he’s something, but I didn’t know that he was until recently, because I walked in on him almost fucking a guy.”
“Uh, huh.”
“And I told myself it was fine like that’s what up, love who you love! But he keeps fucking men and I keep seeing these men everywhere, and I hate every single one.” Satoru wrings his hands together. “Who do they think they are? They don’t know him at all, and they’ll never know him, but he keeps taking them to bed. What’s so good about them?”
“Right.”
“They’re all ugly too. Or too weak and pretty. He needs someone to take care of who’ll also be able to take care of him. Those men can’t do that. They’re probably boring and traditionalists as well. What if they force him to get rid of his tattoos or his piercings? Oh my God, Shoko, what if one of them makes him cut his hair?”
“What a tragedy.”
“He shouldn’t be with them,” Satoru slams his hands down on Shoko’s table, rattling the cutlery splayed across the wooden surface. “They’ll never be able to treat him and love him the way he deserves. He should be with—”
Shoko stares at him.
Satoru lets out a wail and crumples to the floor. “I am so homophobic,” he shrieks into his palms. “I’m such an asshole, holy fuck, how will I face Sug–I mean, my acquaintance?”
A moment passes, then two.
“Satoru,” Shoko says, with the most deadpan voice he’s ever heard on her (and that was saying a lot). “Look at me.”
Satoru looks up, tentatively, and sees his friend looming over him.
“Finish the sentence you were going to say,” she says. “He should be with?”
“Shoko, stop trying to cancel me for being homophobic, I’m trying really hard to get over this newfound prejudice of mine.”
“Okay,” Shoko sighs. “Fine, then, picture him doing…whatever he’s been doing with women. Does that seem ‘right’ to you?”
Satoru tries, he really does, but the same revulsion wracks his body at the mental image of a woman holding Suguru the way Hayashi Isamu was holding him in their kitchen. He stops trying to picture it.
“No,” he admits, quietly.
“Well, then,” she says, slow and patient like she’s talking to a particularly stupid child. “Who do you think he should be with then? Who’s right for Geto Suguru?”
A thought, like a firework, springs up behind Satoru’s eyes.
He and Suguru are in their kitchen, with their matching cat ceramic mugs on the counter, coffee going cold.
“C’mon,” Imaginary Satoru murmurs, tugging on Imaginary Suguru’s arm. “Dance with me.”
Imaginary Suguru doesn’t take much convincing because he’s Suguru, and he willingly goes wherever Satoru strays off to.
They press together, their socked feet brushing up against each other, Imaginary Suguru’s sandalwood cologne in Imaginary Satoru’s nose. Imaginary Satoru leads, one hand on Imaginary Suguru’s back and the other holding Imaginary Suguru’s hand in a tango-like clasp, and he twirls them around the kitchen.
Imaginary Suguru laughs and Satoru, real Satoru, can almost taste it on his tongue.
“Kiss me,” Imaginary Satoru pleads, and Imaginary Suguru grins, sharply.
“I thought you would never ask, my love.”
They lean in at the same time and the image dissipates, like smoke in the wind—with only ashes in its wake.
Satoru gapes at the ceiling.
“Oh, holy mother of God,” he wheezes. “I’m not homophobic.”
“No,” Shoko says, collapsing back down in her seat. “You’re not.”
“I’m gay!”
“Or bisexual,” she shrugs. “Or anything really. Labels don’t always matter and there’s a million of them to choose from.”
“I’m gay for Suguru,” Satoru chokes out. “I’m so, head over heels, crazy-stupid, in love with that bastard.”
“Congratulations,” Shoko’s smile is a small, but fierce thing. “You’re officially the last person on planet earth to know. Other than Geto, that is.”
“Oh my God,” Satoru breathes out and looks back up at the ceiling.
“Yeah.”
“Wait, how did you know I was talking about Suguru?”
Shoko’s eye roll could probably be seen from space.
So, he was in love with his best friend.
That was a relatively new development, but also, at the same time, it really wasn’t.
After all, the more that Satoru thinks about it, the more he’s irritated at himself for not catching it sooner.
It had always been just Suguru. From the moment they met as surly first years in high school to when they would be a pair of withered old men in matching rocking chairs. It would always be just Suguru.
All their shared moments together: the squabbles, the jokes, the quiet moments—had they all been leading up to this? Satoru doesn’t know. He's not really an introspective person, but he finds himself examining every little interaction he can remember having with Suguru after many long years of being friends.
“Satoru,” Suguru calls out, a few days later the whole debacle, poking his head out from the kitchen. “You hungry?”
“Starving,” Satoru replies, mindlessly. He tries not to watch the way their kitchen light hits Suguru’s face, turning his sharp angles a little softer.
“I’m gonna make some yakisoba.”
“Don’t make mine too–”
“—Spicy,” Suguru finishes for him. He rolls his eyes fondly. “Satoru, c’mon, have a little faith in me. I know you.”
He ducks back into the kitchen and Satoru follows, feeling a little bit like his heart is being squeezed in his chest.
“How dare you insinuate that I’m a knowable man, Suguru,” Satoru complains. “Nobody knows me, I’m mysterious and cool.”
“Say who?”
Satoru aims a kick at Suguru’s ankles and snickers when the man stumbles, swearing slightly.
“You’re so annoying,” Suguru mutters, though his voice holds no animosity. He pulls the fridge open and starts rummaging through its contents.
Satoru laughs and perches himself on the edge of the kitchen counter, near the stove. “You love me,” he says. “Everyone does.”
Suguru smiles faintly, almost a subconscious thing. “Do they now?”
“Of course,” Satoru nods. “I’m Gojo fucking Satoru.”
“Wow,” Suguru drawls, voice dry. “I didn’t know you legally changed your name to Gojo Fucking Satoru.”
He manages to find what he’s looking over and shuts the fridge door with his foot, ambling towards the sink, near where Satoru’s perched. Satoru watches, fascinated, as Suguru starts prepping the vegetables with the kind of comfortable ease he does most things. In reality, he knows Suguru tries harder at everything than anyone else he knows, but his casual facade is interesting.
Alluring even.
“Suguru,” he murmurs, hugging one knee to his chest.
“Hm?”
“What were you like as a kid?”
Suguru runs a green onion stalk under the stream of hot water. “Why do you want to know?” he asks, suspicion tinging his words. “Don’t you already have plenty of blackmail material from my mom?”
“Aww, Suguru, don’t be embarrassed. Not everyone has hilarious childhood stories of them peeing their pants in front of the whole school!”
Suguru flicks water at him, sending Satoru reeling back with laughter.
“C’mon,” he pleads, through peals of giggles. “Indulge me. Just this once.”
“All I do is indulge you,” Suguru grumbles, but he returns back to washing the vegetables. “What do you want to know?”
“Just, what were you like?”
Suguru makes a contemplative noise in the back of his throat.
“I was pretty unhinged, I think.”
Satoru raises an eyebrow. “I thought you would have been more normal? Boring?” he comments.
“Nah,” Suguru squints down at the carrot in his hand, probably examining for any mold or dirt. “I was really unruly as a kid. My parents were kind of worried about me, actually.”
“How so?”
“They thought I would run myself insane, I think,” he shrugs and Satoru watches as his shoulders shift from the movement. “I think they really thought I would get involved in some nasty business. Like drugs or gangs, some shit like that.”
Satoru frowns.
His Suguru? Becoming a violent, unhinged person? It sounded wrong to think about.
The Geto Suguru he knew was a sly jerk who hid his wicked sense of humor behind a placid smile, but he was, above everything, a kind person. Being in a world where all his gentle kindness and sturdy strength was swapped for cruelty…Suguru shudders.
“I think that’s why they sent me to our high school,” Suguru hums, contemplating. “They heard about how Yaga specializes in teaching prodigies with bad tempers—” He fixes Satoru with a teasing look. “—and they probably thought that he could help me.”
“I take a lot of offense to that,” Satoru declares. “I’m a prodigy with the best temper you’ve ever goddamn seen.”
Suguru snorts and starts prepping the vegetables with swift, methodical hands.
“Did it?” Satoru asks, after a beat. “Did Yaga help?”
Suguru lets out a breath.
“I think so,” he murmurs. “It was tough living in the countryside where most people can’t see past what they’re gonna eat for dinner. It made me feel too…antsy? Angry? I don’t know. I think living in the city and learning under Yaga really gave me some perspective.”
Then he smiles, softly.
“But honestly,” he admits. “I think meeting you helped the most.”
Satoru stares.
What.
Suguru continues, unaware that Satoru’s world is collapsing within itself. “You were the first person who could keep up with me. And then you made me chase after you because you kept getting smarter and better. You also had the worst personality ever. It was so aggravating.”
“Hey,” Satoru protests, weakly, but his head spins and spins.
“Sorry,” Suguru laughs. “I meant you have the worst personality ever. Nothing’s changed since then.”
Except, everything has changed, and Satoru feels, for once in his life, completely out of his depth.
He swallows, trying to think of something to say.
“I,” he stops and licks his lips. “I really didn’t like you at first.”
Suguru snickers at that, chopping some bell peppers. “Like the fist fight we got into a day after knowing each other didn’t spell it out for me.”
Satoru allows himself a tiny smile at that.
“I think meeting you was the first time I met someone willing to challenge me,” he continues, trying not to stumble over his words like a baby foal learning to walk for the first time. “It was the first time I had to earn something without it being given to me.”
Suguru’s hands still.
“It was annoying, but,” Satoru frowns, looking away. “I liked it. I like it. You make me happy.”
I like you, he thinks, but he’s never been good with baring his soul to anyone.
I love you, he wants to say, but for once in his life, he’s scared of what Suguru might say in response.
He opts for sneaking a glance at him instead.
His best friend is stock-still, staring at the chopped vegetables in front of him, hands clenched into fists on the counter.
“You,” Suguru says, and there’s something pained in his voice. “You can’t just say that.”
Satoru glares, gaze piercing through the side of Suguru’s head.
“I can say whatever I want,” he shoots back.
Suguru sucks in a breath that seems to rattle his ribcage. “Do you even know what you, fuck—” he shakes his head, once, twice. “Never mind.”
What was he talking about? Satoru glares harder, ready to pry the answers from Suguru’s lips, when when the other man turns abruptly and starts to walk over to Satoru.
He stops right in front of him, looking up at Satoru through long, dark eyelashes. Satoru looks back down at him, breathless at their sudden nearness. They’re so achingly close, he can practically feel Suguru’s breath on his skin.
Kiss me, he demands in his head, kiss me, kiss me, fucking kiss me.
He doesn’t know what expression he’s making, but something in Suguru’s eyes darkens.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he breathes through clenched teeth. But still, he leans in closer, like a moth to a flame. Ensnared.
“Like what?” Satoru asks, breathily. He reaches out a hand to card through Suguru’s hair, relishing in its silky softness and how Suguru leans into the touch, almost melting into it.
“Like,” Suguru whispers. “Like–”
“Like what, darling?” The pet name slips out before Satoru can stop it.
Suguru flinches and pulls away, expression shuttering.
“Suguru, wh–” Satoru blinks at the sudden loss of heat and warmth, of Suguru’s molten purple eyes on him. He wants to reach out and grab him again. He wants everything and anything.
“Get off the counter,” Suguru says, voice returning back to its casual lilt as if nothing happened. “I have to use the stove.”
What the hell was he playing at? Satoru frowns at him, irritation spiking in his gut at his sudden 180 shift in mood.
“Use the stove then,” he says. “I’m not sitting on it, just next to it.”
“It’s dangerous,” Suguru states, eyes flashing.
Satoru bares his teeth back at him, trying not to feel like his heart was being crushed with the weight of humiliation and rejection. “Maybe you don’t know how to cook safely then.” He murmurs, low and angry.
Suguru frowns and, suddenly, without any warning jerks forward.
For a split second, Satoru thinks he might be going in for a kiss and something in his veins sings in response. He presses forward, ready to meet lips with lips and teeth with teeth.
Instead, an arm wraps around his waist and tugs. Hard.
The sudden pull startles Satoru enough that he slides off his precarious perch on the counter and topples into Suguru.
With a yelp, he ends up with his palms pressed to Suguru’s broad shoulders, Suguru’s arm tight around his waist, and their faces closer than they’ve ever been before—noses just shy of brushing.
Suguru, for what it’s worth, doesn’t even flinch under Satoru’s weight.
He does, however, look a bit dazed.
Satoru, on the other hand, thinks his heart may erupt from his chest.
“Suguru,” he rasps.
Kiss me.
Suguru stares at him, face twisting.
Then gently, because Suguru, despite his blustering and brooding, was always a gentle person to the people he cared about, he pushes Satoru away from him.
“Stop sitting on the counters,” he says, back turned to Satoru. “You’re gonna break something.”
He turns on the gas and stops speaking altogether.
Satoru watches him, feeling the bruise of a fictional kiss staining his lips.
Geto Suguru is a coward.
There’s no other explanation for it.
Satoru sits at a cafe, sipping from his frappuccino and glaring into the empty space opposite him.
After their Moment in the kitchen (and even Satoru knew it was a Moment with a capital M), Suguru essentially refused to acknowledge anything had happened between them. He went about his day, dodging all attempts to address the elephant in the room, and every time Satoru so much as opened his mouth, the other man’s whole body seemed to tense up.
It was fucking annoying.
Eventually, Suguru had ducked out to go God knows where (picking up men, Satoru thinks with a frown on his face) and Satoru had left too, unwilling to bear the oppressive atmosphere of their apartment alone. He wandered the streets and eventually stumbled across a cafe still open at midnight.
He chews on his straw, irritation sparking up and down his skin.
Honestly, fuck Suguru for acting the way he did and running away at the last minute. Was he just afraid of commitment? Or something else entirely?
Satoru had never thought Suguru was weak, not like he thought everyone else was, but that didn’t mean the other man wasn’t a fucking coward. He glares down at his half-finished drink and resists the urge to put his fist through something.
He’s just about to trash his coffee and head out when the door chimes open.
There’s barely anyone in the cafe so late into the night, so the new arrival draws in his attention for a split second.
Immediately, he freezes.
Because of course, of all people, it’s Suguru. And he’s not alone.
Fucking Hayashi Isamu is with him.
He had, stupidly, naively, thought that Hayashi was a simple fuck-it-and-chuck-it type of deal—after all, he hadn’t seen Hayashi back in their apartment since the one fateful morning. However, apparently, their relationship was a little more serious than that.
Satoru almost throws his drink across the cafe. He doesn’t care if it hits Suguru or his stupid boy toy, he just wants to see one of them drenched in liquid.
Instead, he shrinks back into his seat, thankful that he chose a table at the very corner of the cafe, hidden away from the casual eye.
After they order, Suguru takes a seat at a nearby table, stretching one arm over the back of his chair. He pushes his hair out of his face with the other, a frown marring his features.
Hayashi sits opposite him, much more prim and put together.
“So,” he says. “We should probably talk about that.”
Satoru’s ears perk up at that.
Suguru groans, low. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he seethes.
“Uh huh,” Hayashi says, though his voice is amused. “So it’s not weird that you called me by your best friend’s name when we were about to fuck?”
Satoru doesn’t spit out his drink but it’s a very near thing.
Suguru groans again, then promptly facepalms.
“That was a mistake,” he mutters into his hands.
Satoru can’t quite see Hayashi’s expression, but judging by the incredulous laugh he barks out—he’s definitely not buying that excuse.
“Geto, you’re stone-cold sober. You lost the best excuse you could possibly give.”
Suguru groans again and Satoru’s heart jackrabbits. Their conversation is quiet enough that nobody else in the cafe can hear it, but Satoru can make out every word, past the buzzing in his ears. He just isn’t quite sure his brain isn’t playing a cruel joke on him.
“Stop teasing me,” Suguru grumbles again. “You know how I feel about him.”
Hayashi laughs again, but it’s softer this time. “It was kind of obvious from the little interaction I saw between you two that morning. I can't really blame you, though. He’s gorgeous.”
Suguru sighs. “He’s the most beautiful man on earth and he fucking knows it.” Despite his seemingly rough words, his voice is fond enough to send cherry red filling Satoru’s cheeks.
“Are you,” Hayashi pauses. “Are you sure he’s straight?”
Suguru laughs, but it’s brittle. “Pretty sure.”
Geto Suguru is a fucking idiot.
“Huh,” Hayashi says. “I don’t know. He was awfully territorial when we talked. I thought he was going to rip my head off.”
“Maybe he’s homophobic,” Suguru suggests, half-joking. Then sits up, ramrod straight, horror flashing over his face.
“Wait, fuck, Hayashi, do you think he’s homophobic?”
“What?” The other man sounds completely out of his depth, but Suguru keeps rambling.
“Wait, that would explain, like, so much? Why he was acting so distant when he found out, why he acts like a total asshole to all the guys I bring home, why he pretended to…”
Suguru swallows.
“Why he pretended to want to kiss me.”
Satoru sits up so fast, he knocks over his drink. Alarm sirens blare through his head as he tries to understand what just came out of Suguru’s mouth. Pretended to want to kiss him?
Like Satoru wasn’t salivating at the mouth just thinking about his lips on Suguru’s!
It wasn’t a joke, it could never have been a joke—
“How did you know he was kidding around?” Hayashi asks.
“Uh, because he called me by that stupid pet name? ‘Darling ?’ He would never call me that if he was being serious,” Suguru runs a hand through his hair, agitated. “I should’ve known it was just a stupid joke.”
Oh, no.
Horror drains Satoru’s already pale face of any color. Suguru didn’t…That could not have been the reason why he pulled away.
God, Satoru’s going to kill someone.
He pushes his chair back, ready to fix his wrongs, ready to shout from the top of his lungs at Suguru and his idiotic train of thought, but Hayashi beats him to the chase.
The other man leans forward and places a hand on Suguru’s. Now that Satoru has a name for the feelings swirling in his gut, he knows that the acrid taste on his tongue is jealousy. Pure, unadulterated jealousy.
Because Hayashi shouldn’t be touching Suguru like that. It should be Satoru in his place.
“Hey, I’m sure that’s not the case,” the other man soothes. “He’s probably just…fuck, I don’t know, but you guys are best friends right?”
“He’s my one and only.”
Something in Satoru’s veins sings at the title.
“Then talk to him,” Hayashi urges. “There’s probably much more to the story.”
Just when Satoru’s starting to feel a little affection for the other man, Hayashi leans forward until the tips of his lips are brushing Suguru’s cheek.
“If things don’t work out, well,” he purrs into Suguru’s ear. “You can always use me to take your feelings out on.”
Never mind, Satoru still hates the other man with every fiber of his being.
Suguru smiles weakly and pats Hayashi on the shoulder. “I’ll take that into consideration. Sorry for tonight by the way. I didn’t mean to call you…that while we were about to…You know.”
Hayashi just laughs and brushes a kiss against Suguru’s cheekbone. Satoru’s stomach screams in protest at the sight.
“‘S alright,” Hayashi replies, though much to Satoru’s delight, he sounds a bit miffed.
The two exchange a few more pleasantries before Suguru stands up and inclines his head toward the exit. Satoru watches through heavy lids as the two part ways at the front of the cafe. Suguru doesn’t linger to watch Hayashi leave.
Then, Satoru stands. He knows what he has to do.
The night sky opens and rain starts to pour, thudding against the pavement in time with Satoru’s beating heart.
He kicks open the door to their home and stomps in.
“Suguru,” he shouts. “Suguru, you stupid, fucking, imbecile!”
He all but barrels down the hallway and into Suguru’s bedroom, not bothering to knock, because he’s never knocked before and he won’t start now.
Suguru sits at the edge of his bed, hunched over the glow of his phone, a towel thrown hastily across his shoulders to keep his wet hair from dampening his t-shirt.
At Satoru’s entrance, he looks up, confusion scrawled across his face.
“Satoru?” He asks.
Satoru skids to a stop right in front of him, breathing hard. Rain still soaks his shirt, his hair, plastering everything to his skin. He couldn’t really care less.
“I’m not homophobic!” He annunciates, clearly.
Suguru blinks slowly.
“What—” he starts to say before Satoru slaps a hand across his mouth. He lets out a muffled protest, glaring up at Satoru with those dark eyes of his. Satoru stares right back down, unmoved.
“Let me finish, dick,” he says, then clears his throat.
“I’m not homophobic. Well, I thought I was for a little bit because every time you brought a man home I wanted to punt his irritating ass into the sun.”
Suguru’s eyes widen at that. Satoru plows on, undeterred.
“But that’s not it. I hated them because they got to hold you, to touch you, to kiss you. I hated them because it felt like they were seeing a part of you I never could. It made me so mad I thought I was going to kill them all.”
He licks his lips, trying to find the right words for the emotions flooding his brain.
“Yesterday in the kitchen, I wanted to kiss you more than I wanted to do anything in my entire life,” he blurts out. If he were a different man, maybe he would have tried to craft lyrical sweet nothings, to wax poetics for Suguru. But he’s not. So he just says what he wants, what he needs to say.
“I love you,” he declares, and he can hear Suguru swallowing in surprise.
“Did you hear me?” He asks, craning his neck down to meet Suguru’s eyes. “I fucking love you. I don’t want you to be with any man, woman, or person who isn’t me. I want you to be mine and mine only.”
Suguru stares up at him for a beat, stunned, then wraps his hand around Satoru’s wrist and pulls it away from his mouth. He rises slowly, carefully, to his feet—never once letting go of Satoru or taking his eyes away from him.
“That’s a lot of ‘I’s’,” He murmurs, though his voice is raw. “Have you ever thought about what I want, you selfish asshole?”
Satoru smiles.
“I know what you want,” he replies, matter of factly, and sidles closer, till he’s standing close enough to cup Suguru’s jaw with both of his hands. “You want the same exact thing.”
Suguru melts into his touch. “Oh yeah?” He murmurs. “How’d you figure?”
“Everybody wants me,” Satoru grins at him. “You’re no exception.”
“Brat,” Suguru mutters with such affection, Satoru’s chest nearly glows.
“I love you,” he says again, just because he can.
Suguru reaches out a reverent hand, and touches Satoru’s face, brushing a thumb along his cheekbone. Satoru nearly keens at the touch.
“I’ve dreamt about you saying those words to me since we were fifteen.”
The confession is like a knife to the heart, brutal and raw. Satoru tilts his head so his forehead can brush against Suguru’s. For some reason, he thinks he might cry.
“Sorry for being so late, then,” he whispers.
Suguru lets out a choked sort of laugh. “Better late than never,” he whispers. Then, he clears his throat.
“I love you too,” he says. “There’s nobody else in the world for me.”
It’s as simple as that.
Satoru smiles so wide, he thinks he tastes blood in his mouth. He’s too happy to care.
“Kiss me,” he demands, and with an indulgent laugh, Suguru leans in just to do that.