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"Ah, Suguru, long time no see." The words, barely more than a whisper, shook Suguru away from the blankness of his mind.
What had he been doing? Thinking? He couldn't remember well. He had been reflecting on something. He blinked, his eyes refocusing slowly.
He was sitting in the school courtyard, under a tree. He had zoned out. Again. He couldn't help it these days. There were so many clouds in the sky. The world was made of cotton.
"Suguru?"
He blinked again. Why was Satoru whispering like this?
Suguru's eyes trailed on Satoru. His friend was standing in front of him, wearing an absurdly oversized coat and a bright blue scarf. It was a bit much, but Gojō Satoru wasn't known for his discretion.
His eyes finally reached Satoru's face. Suguru's heart skipped a bit and he was standing on his feet before he even thought about it, his hands hovering before Satoru's face. "What happened? Why are your eyes bandaged? Are you hurt?"
"What?" Satoru gave him a confused smile, but Suguru didn't miss how he took a step back. "Oh. That?" He pointed at the bandages covering his eyes. "It's nothing, it's just more effective to cover my eyes that way."
"Right." They stood awkwardly in front of each other. "But how... can you see where you're going like this?" Suguru tried to lighten his tone. "Did you walk into a lot of trees?"
Satoru giggled, putting a hand on his stomach. It sounded fake. "I don't have silly little eyes like you. I don't need to have them open to See."
"'Silly little eyes'..." Suguru didn't comment. "When did you start using them? The bandages?"
"I don't know..." Satoru shrugged, still smiling. Suguru hated that smile. "Weeks ago, I guess?"
"Weeks?" How was this even possible? Suguru would have noticed if Satoru had started covering his eyes like this! "Stop laughing at me, it can't be weeks. We live in the same place! We see each other all the time!"
Satoru shrugged, his stupid smile wavering. "I was pretty busy. You were too, I guess. A lot of assignments. Yeah. That must be it."
How could Suguru have not noticed the weeks they had spent without seeing each other? Last time they talk, Satoru had suggested going out to eat something with Shoko, just the three of them. Suguru had accepted, saying they would find a moment. Was it already weeks ago? Already?
Satoru clapped his hands, making Suguru flinch. "Su-gu-ru. I want a hot chocolate and a waffle." That smile was still here. "Come with me."
"What? I'm busy."
"No. You're brooding. It doesn't count!"
"I'm not brooding."
"You totally are!" Satoru waved his hand before his own eyes, the smile growing. "I can totally see it."
"I'm not coming with you."
"You are, come on!" Satoru grabbed Suguru's hand and pulled him away from the tree. That damn freak! Suguru couldn't escape his grip!
"You see! You're coming!" Satoru said way too loudly, even for him.
"Alright." Suguru grumbled under his breath. He stopped trying to pull his hand away from Satoru's and just held it. Because he knew that if he truly wanted not to be touched, all he would have to do was say it and Satoru would let him go.
They walked like this, hand in hand, away from the school and outside of Master Tengen's barrier. Tokyo was growing colder these days. Still, snow wasn't falling yet. It was a shame. Suguru would have preferred the snow and its cold touch to the endless grey sky suffocating them.
But as he held Satoru's hand, Suguru found that he didn't care as much about the sky. The tension in his shoulders eased and he could breathe again, for the first time in days.
Suguru glanced at Satoru. His friend was babbling away, talking about sweet nothing, as always. But something was off with him. Suguru couldn't exactly tell what. And Suguru understood why he hated that smile.
It was incredibly sad.
◊◊ ◊◊ ◊◊
Satoru chose a small tea shop they used to go to since their first year and until... Until Riko's death, months ago, if Suguru had to guess.
"Oh! They're still open!" Satoru gave Suguru’s hand a squeeze. He was still talking softly, so softly that Suguru's heart wanted to stop Satoru here, in the middle of the street, so he could hug him. "I didn't know if they had already closed! I missed their waffles so much."
Suguru rolled his eyes, remembering the sugary monstrosities Satoru always ate here. "What are you rambling about? They've been open for at least thirty years, they're not going to close tomorrow."
"Yeeeeah. If you say so. Come on, inside, I'm cold."
The owner, a lady in her fifties, made them a warm welcome. She didn't ask about the bandages covering Satoru's eyes, too polite, or maybe too used to Satoru's antics to care. But she did ask about Shōko.
"She was too busy to come, but she said hi!" Satoru answered, his sad smile growing.
Had he really asked Shoko? They hadn't met her on their way out. Suguru would ask her later. Suguru was so stupid. The waffles had been a fucking trap.
The shop owner ushered them to the back of the shop, where they sat at their usual seats.
She smiled at Suguru.
He smiled back.
He couldn't meet her eyes.
"Suguru?"
"Hm?"
They were sitting in front of each other, Satoru leaning against the wall adjacent to their table. He looked like he was melting, finally out of his coat, relieved to be close to the heater.
Their knees bumped against each other.
"What do you think of them?"
"What do I think of who?"
"The people. Around us." Satoru's face turned toward the room. "What do you think of them?"
The people?
Suguru glanced at them. People talking. Smiling at each other. Reading a book. Looking at their phone. A child there. Another one.
The people.
Suguru had avoided looking at the people ever since they had left the school and entered the city's busy street.
He didn't like them.
They had been making him... sick... lately.
Suguru scoffed. "What is there to see?"
Satoru gave him this smile again. Suguru wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to forget today, to come back to the moment he agreed to follow Satoru outside. He hated that smile. He hated making Satoru sad.
So Suguru swallowed and tried again. "What do you see?"
Satoru made a show of looking around them, his eyes still hidden away. He put a finger on his lips, in an obvious reflecting face.
"They're weak, aren't they? I could certainly kill them by breathing a bit too hard."
Satoru said it so casually that Suguru thought he’d misheard at first. He frowned and felt an old reflex stirring inside his chest. It was the reflex to defend them, the weak, to tell Satoru that they had to protect them, just as he would have done before Riko's death.
Suguru squashed the feeling away. Satoru was right. They were weak… disgusting.
"And you, Suguru, you are not much sturdier than them. I could kill you too. It would be easy."
Suguru froze. The voice was deceptively light, but he felt something like fear curling in his stomach.
"Why should I care about them, or about you?"
Suguru bared his teeth. "What are we doing here? That's it? You're menacing me? I could fucking kick your ass."
Satoru made a calming gesture, his smile still here. "Come on. No need for this. You're missing the point."
"Oh, because you have a point?" Suguru sneered.
"I do, in fact." Satoru had started playing with his napkin, folding it over and over. "I do have a point... You see, when I-" He coughed. "When Toji Fushiguro beat me, I realized something." His smile changed minutely. And it started to look real, for the first time since Satoru had found Suguru under the tree. "Would you call a butterfly weak, or pathetic, Suguru?"
Suguru didn't answer.
"It isn't a rhetorical question. Would you call a butterfly weak?"
"Uh. I don't know. No. What would be the point?"
"Yes! Exactly! What would be the point indeed! Why would I judge a butterfly on its capacity to fight, when it's a butterfly? A butterfly isn't weak because it can't throw punches. And it would be deeply disturbing to see one do so. It isn't strong either. It's just a butterfly. It flies around, it does what it does. It's beautiful."
"So what. Butterflies don't hurt anybody." Suguru jerked his head toward the other customers. "They do. And they take pleasure in making others suffer."
Satoru pouted. "There's a butterfly, in a garden on the other side of Tokyo. It's a blue one with little white spots on its wings."
Suguru felt his entrails freeze. Satoru sounded like he was describing something a few feet away.
"And right now, it's sucking at the corpse of a dead kitten. It will die soon. The butterfly. They never live long." Satoru folded his napkin again.
"What... You can't-"
"Here's your waffles!" A voice interrupted them.
"Hi! Thank you! How are you?" Satoru grinned at the waiter, the son of the shop owner, Suguru believed.
"I'm good!" The waiter smiled back. "We haven't see you in a long time, how are you going? How is your friend?"
"Oh, we're doing good! I missed your waffles so much!" He smelled his waffle dramatically. "She was really busy, really sad she couldn't come. But we'll come back with her soon!"
"Right." The waiter laughed a little. Was he blushing? Gods. Suguru was going to be sick. "Don't forget us, it was too calm without you! Enjoy!"
Suguru watched the waiter leave. He almost missed how Satoru popped a pill out of a blister pack before swallowing it.
Suguru blinked.
"Oh, this waffle is de-li-cious." Satoru sighed happily. "Suguru. You're not eating. It's going to get cold."
Suguru opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He watched Satoru eat and drink his hot chocolate.
"You can't see this far. Even you. Like... A butterfly?"
"Oh, you're still thinking about this?" Satoru chewed at him.
"And there are fucking walls between us! And it's so small! You can't be watching a butterfly from here. You would lose your damn mind!"
Satoru kept on eating.
"Satoru!"
"What?"
"Do you have nothing to say?"
Satoru sighed again, it wasn't happy this time.
"Yes. Everything is really small compared to the size of the universe. I guess you could say a butterfly is small. It depends on your point of view. If you were an ant, you would think the butterfly is big."
Suguru knew that Satoru was trying to divert the subject from his eyes. But another question crossed his mind. "Can you see it?"
"What?"
"The universe?"
Satoru's fork paused above his plate.
Suguru waited, his heart beating fast.
"It's not important, really." His fork started moving again. "What's important is here. It 's the people here. Don't you see they make the universe as much as the moon or the sun?"
"Stop talking about them!"
"I talk about whatever I want."
"That's it, I'm going crazy. It's your fault."
Satoru laughed at him. "Look at them. They're made of the same matter than you and me, the same matter as the butterfly on the other side of Tokyo, the same matter as those particles floating around the Earth. This lady, here." He pointed at a woman scribbling in a notebook. "She's writing a letter for her daughter who's studying aboard. She has dirt and plant residues on her knees. I think she works in one of the city gardens. And this man, there, he's sick. But he's still taking his daughter here, even if his nervous system is throbbing in pain. Don't you see? There's so many colours everywhere, so many feelings and stories. They're just like butterflies. You are too! And me! Maybe I can be a butterfly too. It makes me happy.
But Satoru didn't seem happy. He hadn't seemed really happy once today. He looked sad and-
"Aren't you tired?" Suguru asked.
It was Satoru's turn to freeze.
He put the hand holding his fork on his chest, in mock offense. "What? I'm trying to show you the beauty of the cosmos, and you're asking me, me, if I'm tired?"
"I haven't seen you in weeks. You're always working, you're barely at the school anymore." Suguru nodded towards the other clients. "Look at them. They're selfish. They always want more and they're so corrupted that their mere existence creates curses. It's their fault. They're hurting us. They're hurting you. Every sorcerer charged to protect them is hurting. How could I find them beautiful when I can see how you're shaking. Was it a painkiller you swallowed just then? You're not even twenty."
Suguru watched Satoru's lips turn downward, his hands started shaking even more than they were a few minutes earlier.
Had he gone too far?
"You're right." Satoru whispered. He sounded like he was going to cry.
"Of course I am."
"There wouldn't be any curses if not for them."
"No."
"And I wouldn't be sitting here with a friend, eating a waffle and drinking hot chocolate if not for them."
Suguru rolled his eyes.
"We're still friends? Aren't we?" Satoru asked, hunching on himself.
Suguru felt himself frowning. "Yes? What are you talking about?"
"I had this dream." Satoru's voice was barely audible. "it's like a recurring dream."
Suguru swallowed. "What was it about?"
"We lived our lives. It was about what we'll become, who we'll become, about how the world is going to change."
"And how was it?" Suguru tried to ask as gently as he could.
Satoru put down his fork. "It wasn't happy." He laughed. "Well, I'm lying, it was, sometimes. I was a teacher, at the school, I had students."
Suguru smiled. "You? A teacher like Yaga-sensei?"
If only he could see Satoru's eyes. Suguru was at a loss. He couldn't read Satoru well without seeing his eyes and this dream seemed awfully important. He was going to fuck everything up.
"Yeah, I know, how strange is that?" Satoru kept going.
"And me? Was I a teacher too?"
"No... You weren't there..."
Alright. Suguru took a deep breath. He knew how to breathe.
"You just-" Satoru shrugged, hunching even more, as if he was trying to disappear. Their knees brushed against each other. "You just left, one day, I don't know why. I never understood."
"I wouldn't leave you."
Satoru laughed. It wasn't a pretty sound. "I don't know about that. Look at you. You're already so far away, I don't know if you'll wait for me."
"I'm... I'm not leaving you. What are you talking about. It was just a dream, Satoru." What was happening? Suguru wanted to go back earlier, he wanted to go back before Satoru found him sitting under a tree. "It's just a dream."
"Yeah..."
Suguru grabbed Satoru's hands in his, he bowed his head, trying to find Satoru's gaze behind the bandages. "I'm not leaving."
Satoru squeezed his hands. "Don't lie to me... Please, don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying!" Suguru was starting to get angry. "What are you talking about? What the fuck happened?"
It was a mistake.
Satoru suddenly retracted his hands. "Don't touch me." His voice was filled with disgust. He rubbed the heels of his palm against his eyes. "I'm so stupid. I'm always so stupid when it comes to you. I should have curse you, just like you said I should."
"Satoru..." Suguru tried to... To be frank, he didn't even know what he was trying to do.
"No. You leave me alone! I don't want to hear any of your excuses, or any of your great speeches on the human race!"
"What..? Alright. Alright. I'm not touching you. See?"
Satoru didn't answer, he was still covering his eyes with his hands.
Suguru bit his lips. He didn't understand what had triggered that. But there was a thought running across his mind. And even if he tried to look at it under every angle, he wasn't able to discredit it.
He took a deep breath.
"Are you… Are you Satoru, really?"
Satoru didn't answer.
"Can I see your eyes?"
Suguru looked at his friend, at the way he seemed devoid of any movement, any life.
"Please?" Suguru asked again.
It took him some time but Satoru's hands finally moved away from his eyes. He ran his fingers along the edge of the bandage, trying to find its end. And then, he began to untie it, so very slowly, peeling it away layer by layer, as if he wanted to make the moment last forever.
Suguru was hardly breathing, afraid to break Satoru's resolve. Part of him that had feared Satoru had lied to him, that a curse had gotten to his eyes, that something was truly wrong. So he felt instant relief at the sight of Satoru's eyelashes, they were as white and soft as they always had been.
Satoru's eyes fluttered open. He blinked twice, just like Suguru had done earlier to get rid of his blurry sight.
Suguru smiled faintly. It was a small thing to notice, but it made Satoru like everyone else, human.
And it was strange. Because when Satoru's wild blue eyes focused on him, Suguru realized that this was Satoru. But, at the same time, it wasn't really him. He had never looked at Suguru like that.
It was suffocating.
Those eyes felt all-knowing. And maybe they were. Suguru shivered.
"I don't understand." He tried.
The smile returned. And it was even worse this time, because Satoru's eyes were off. They were too wide. And Satoru wasn't blinking.
"What happened?" Suguru asked.
"You already asked me those two questions, last time. Don't you remember?" Satoru whispered. "I was holding Amanai's body. What's your verdict now?"
"I… You're him. You are. You're Satoru. Gods. What happened to you?"
Satoru's lips shivered and curved downward. His eyes drifted down towards the table, where he had torn his napkin apart. "I wasn't strong enough. Not without you. When you left… I… And then, k-killing you. It was like killing myself. When Shoko tried to burn your body, and I just… I refused. I couldn't. I should have accepted but I couldn't. It's my fault if he's using your body. I'm sorry."
Alright.
Suguru's mind went blank.
"Alright." He repeated, out loud this time.
"Alright." He repeated again. "Ok. I uh. I left. And you had to… kill me. And someone is using my body? No. I… It doesn't make any sense. What..? I don't understand, it doesn't make any sense."
"But it does." Satoru's laugh was wet.
"Why?"
"You leave. That's what you do. And me… I fuck up. That's what I do. That's what we do. Every time. Again and again."
"Satoru…" Suguru tried. "You're… what? The strongest sorcerer alive? If you can't do something, it can't be done. You're not fucking things up."
Satoru's eyes came back on him, they looked at each other for a moment and, to Suguru's horror, Satoru burst into tears.
"I am." Satoru sniffed, loudly. "That's me. I'm the strongest. That's what everyone is saying. That's what I was always supposed to be. That's what I am. And still, I'm always useless when it really matters! I couldn't keep you from leaving. I couldn't convince you to come back. And I fucking froze! When I heard your voice, I fucking froze! I wouldn't have gotten stuck in that cube if I hadn’t frozen!" He tried to wipe his tears away but it was useless. He laughed. "I can't even see properly right now. That's so fucking ironic. What am I doing here?"
Suguru watched as Satoru bent down and buried his face in his arms.
He was sobbing.
Gojō Satoru was openly sobbing, just in front of him.
Suguru had never seen him cry.
Not even after Riko's death.
Suguru went up on his feet without thinking.
Time felt like molasses around him and he distantly kept his chair from falling down.
He crouched down beside Satoru and drew him into his arms.
"You're ok." He heard himself say. "We're going to fix this together. With Shoko too. The three of us, just like before. You're going to be ok."
"No…" Satoru's voice was muffled by Suguru's clothes.
"Yes, we are."
"I- I- I'm too ti-red. I- I c- can't do this any- more." Satoru was barely breathing between his sobs. "I- I- I- I can'-t do t-this Su-Suguru. Not- not a-gain. I can- can't."
Suguru had understood enough of the situation.
"Alright. You're not doing this alone. You won't be alone again." He gently rocked Satoru against his chest. "I'm not leaving you this time. I promise."
"Y-ou promise?"
"I promise."