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Geto steps away.
Distances. Withdraws.
Really, he's been doing it since the start of summer, since Satoru has had to start and go on more and more missions because cursed spirits were crawling everywhere like godforsaken maggots . It's a cycle, a neverendingly torturous one. Exorcise. Absorb. Exorcise. Absorb. Never ending.
Geto has prepared for every retort Satoru has. Maybe some ridiculous self-righteous bullshit like, "What you're doing is impossible and wrong." Or, even more desperately stupid, "Please don't go. People will miss you." As if Geto had anyone to miss. Yes, Satoru would say that. He would sound shaky and trembly in tones that Geto had never heard him in, but everyone has sides to them that Geto will never discover and pull the curtain back. There is so much to uncover from Satoru, from those expressive bright sky eyes and that smart, beautiful mouth, and that extraordinary, brilliant brain.
But nothing braces him for the sound of Satoru's infinity switching off. A gentle humming sound, like the noise of a faraway distant vacuum powered off. It's imperceptible, really, and Suguru wouldn't have heard it if he wasn't listening for every miniscule strained inhale and exhale that Satoru takes. And then barely a second later, warm arms encircling Geto's waist, a head full of snow white messy hair burrowing into Geto's shoulders. Those arms, always so warm and inviting despite all the harsh and cold Geto had thrown at Satoru barely a few minutes ago. And those fingers, fingers of a man that has never and will never have to work a day in his life, smooth and lithe and so very unlike the roughened callouses of Geto's hands.
He once learnt from Shoko about the White Dwarf: a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter, and the fact that they're incredibly dense - just like Satoru. Stubborn, unyielding, and so very obliviously dense.
"Don't go," Satoru mutters into Geto's shoulders, all soft and shaky and quiet in ways he had never been before, ways that the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer and the heir of the Gojo clan should never be, and Geto is reduced back to rubble and the shells of a broken, broken man that he never thought he would become again. Oh, but what can he do when Satoru sounds all sad and pathetic like that? Suguru could never get angry at him, after all.
"Gojo," Suguru begins, oh so hesitantly, and something in that reluctant, careful tone makes Satoru's breath hitch into a broken little hiccough. Suguru dislikes that noise, hates it. Hates how weak the strongest makes him feel, how bare and vulnerable. He keeps listening, far too prideful and spiteful to turn his head to look at Satoru. "Please. Get off me."
Satoru shakes his head firmly, and Suguru begins to think that they must look a weird bunch, with Satoru's white hair and his tall frame but his head buried into another man's neck. Not to mention that they're in a crowded street as well, but all that Suguru hears from the crowd of people are mumbling and chattering and the occasional driftings of a conversation. Suguru tries to push Satoru away, looking over his shoulder to better see the man he's loved for... four years? Five years? And the poor boy is a wreck. Blue eyes a thunderstorm and pouring torrents of rain, eyes dulled like a faint glint of a dusty sapphire. He sniffles and pulls away to presumably give Suguru personal space
"I'm not leaving you." Satoru says quietly, voice soft and broken but firm, as though he's finally made up his mind. "You can k, kill whoever you like. Just bring me with you." And Suguru hates this even more, hates how Satoru stumbles over his own words, hates how sad and resigned he sounds, hates how that Satoru needs Suguru as much as the opposite, hates how Satoru is willing to watch Suguru kill anyone just to be with his one and only. Suguru knows that this is no longer his best friend, no longer the Satoru Gojo he once knew, and he hates it.
"Alright," Silence passes, but the crowded street is as noisy as ever. "Satoru. I'll stay. I won't kill anyone."
The simmering fury boils under his skin, under that plastic smile that will never be real again. Yes, Suguru won't kill anyone, if it's for Satoru. They can be the strongest and the weakest together.
Satoru looks at Suguru, watery blue eyes shimmering like a wobbling mirage and piercing through his very soul, before he kisses him.