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Power was comfort. Power was how Satoru Gojo could bend and stretch reality at his will, the rigid threads that held everyone else in place broken and frayed as his fingers tugged and pulled on them. Power was the spelling of his name, the way it rolled off the tongue of humans and spirits alike.
“Gojo Satoru,” some would say fearfully. Their eyes would be wide, and Satoru could see sweat beading on their brow.
“Gojo Satoru,” spirits would hiss, their pupils black slits floating in unnaturally colored irises if they had irises at all. Satoru could feel their anger, their rage, boiling in their black and purple blood. He’d laugh, he’d smile.
“Gojo Satoru,” those younger than him would whisper, head either tilted up to look at the icy moons of his eyes in awe or tucked down, staring at the floor.
They were all the same to him. Power was just that, wasn’t it? Everything was the same. No one caused a hiccup in his thoughts, stirred hesitance to his assured movements. He existed in a realm outside of heaven and hell, undisturbed and unaffected.
But that wasn’t true, was it?
“Satoru?” one person would say.
Geto Suguru was burdened with power, too.
It dwelled in the swells of his wide shoulders and swam in each of his palms that Satoru had dreamt, not just once, of kissing. It waited, wired, and ready to bite, in the way he spoke, curving around each vowel that left his mouth. Unlike Satoru, Suguru existed outside of his power. The Venn diagram that held it and he could be separated if needed.
Satoru Gojo was power. His name would never not be acquainted with it, carved into the power system that was filled with bullshit in the jujutsu world for eternity, and it was something he had grown up knowing and eventually, accepted. Yet, he would wonder, who would he be without it?
A fucking corpse, he’d think to himself.
Maybe that was how Suguru had infiltrated his space so easily. One was either strong or weak, and depending on where one was on that spectrum, one lived their life accordingly. It was easy to understand, simple even. Satoru understood the dialect of power. He spoke it fluently, knew how to punctuate punches, and hyphenate his way through lethal territory expansions, yet he fumbled when it came to Suguru. What good was unearthly power if one couldn’t reach across their bed, where their best friend lay sleeping, back turned towards them, and just touch them?
Satoru wasn’t an idiot, either. He wasn’t blind. He knew that Suguru acted differently around him. He didn’t doze off in Shoko’s room, didn’t crawl into her bed after a particularly draining mission, and cursed at her when she refused to move her legs because she was there first. He didn’t let others brush back the awry strands of wet black hair that clung to his temple after a shower, or at least, Satoru hoped he didn’t.
God, it was embarrassing how much he hoped he didn’t.
“You need to sleep.”
“Huh?” Satoru blinked, ejected abruptly from his thoughts. Suguru was looking at him through one half-lidded eye from Satoru’s bed, the black blanket Satoru kept for him wrapped around him tightly and pulled up to his neck. He weaseled one arm out of his cocoon and tapped his phone on the nightstand.
“It’s three in the fucking morning. Go to sleep.”
“You go to sleep.”
“I was asleep. You woke me up.”
Satoru spun the desk chair he was sitting on around, resting his arms on the back of it to lean his head on them.
“I wasn’t talking, but sure. Were you dreaming of me, at least?”
Suguru squinted, glaring at him.
“Matter of fact, I was.”
Satoru grinned, “Oh, yeah?”
“I dreamt that you transferred to Kyoto.”
“That sounds more like a nightmare.”
Suguru scoffed before turning around, nearly pulling up the blanket to cover his entire head.
“Maybe to you.”
“Like you wouldn’t miss me.”
Suguru didn’t respond, and Satoru would have thought he had fallen back asleep if it wasn’t for the way he could still sense his cursed energy balled up in his stomach, turning over and over. He pushed himself off of the desk chair and shut the laptop he was on before walking over to the bed and plopping down on his side. He didn’t focus on the brief, jarring realization that whenever Suguru slept in his room, he had stuck to one side, and Satoru had started to label it his side accordingly. Domesticity was strange.
He wasn’t going to fall asleep easily. He knew it was a bad night for that, partially his fault because of the amount of sugar he had dumped into his coffee earlier, but he didn’t mind these types of nights. He waited until Suguru’s breathing evened out to turn towards him, bemused at the speed the other could knock out.
Satoru Gojo wasn’t blind. The lightweight teasing and bickering, the quick glances, and even quicker touches, he knew what they meant, and yet something was stopping him. It annoyed him, beyond anything else. He wasn’t timid, he wasn’t nervous to tell Suguru how he felt, but that was it. How did he feel? Wasn’t this enough? Nothing was enough when everything was immeasurable, but maybe that was for a reason. Maybe the idiots going off about fate and destiny were right, maybe he shouldn’t touch it, maybe he should just let it be and not fuck with i—
“Satoru.”
Suguru’s voice was hoarse and muddied by sleep, but his eyes were still shut. Satoru could see where a scratch on his cheek was healing.
“Yeah?”
Suguru shifted minimally closer, his knee bumping into Satoru’s thigh.
“Do me a favor?”
“Depends.”
“Stop thinking.”
Satoru laughed but didn’t respond. He closed his eyes and began to count, stopping when he began to hear soft snoring. 32 seconds. 32 seconds where Satoru Gojo tried not to think, and an entire five hours between then and Suguru’s morning alarm where all he could think about was the body beside him.
____
“How old was he?”
The question wasn’t a strange one, not when the mauled body on the cold stainless steel table couldn’t be older than seventeen, sixteen even.
“Sixteen.”
Sometimes Satoru wished he was wrong.
Suguru’s hands weren’t clenched into fists by his sides like the first year closest to the body, but Satoru saw the strain in his wrists, the anger that tensed his fingers.
“And the school sent him out to fight what, a special grade?”
“I don’t think they were aware it was a special grade,” Shoko said.
“I don’t believe that,” Suguru responded.
The first-year who was silent suddenly jerked, turning away from the corpse and towards Suguru, Shoko, and Satoru. They were all huddled by the door to the infirmary’s morgue, the principal having directed them to investigate the body to see if they could gain information on the cursed spirit that had escaped.
“Will you shut up,” he hissed. His voice cracked, and he took a moment to breathe before continuing. “You don’t even know his name, do you? You’re just treating him like some damn experiment, he was a student, he was my friend.”
“He was weak,” Satoru said.
The first year blinked, once, twice, and then his eyes were hard, merciless. Good, Satoru thought.
“What did you just fucking say?”
“Your friend,” Satoru said, pointing at the body, “was weak. Special grade or not. Your mourning here doesn’t change that and doesn’t change that you’re probably weak too. Be glad you’re not on the slab, too.”
The first year swung his fist at Satoru with a guttural shout but was quickly intercepted by Suguru, who held his fist, knuckles white, while pressing a hand flat against Satoru’s chest, holding him back.
“Satoru,” he said gravely, “Go.”
He was going to protest, was going to say go ahead, hit me if you can, but the first year curled into himself, clutching the fist Suguru had gripped. He stepped backward, away from them both, and started to wail.
“Shit,” Shoko exhaled. “I’ll come back later.”
Satoru opened his mouth to speak, but the glare Suguru shot him was deafening. He frowned and shoved his friend’s hand away before turning on his heels and walking out of the cold morgue. Shoko was nowhere to be found outside, the faint scent of bougie cigarettes the only indicator that she had even been there.
It took Suguru five minutes to come outside. Satoru was leaning against the wall, one shoe smearing dirt and gravel onto it. Suguru didn’t look at him when he stood next to him, and Satoru didn’t address the wet spot on his shoulder. He hated this. He hated the fact that the silence that invaded their space now was not of comfort or domesticity. It was charged, too volatile for it to truly belong to them.
“If I died,” Suguru started, “Would you think I was weak?”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Suguru repeated. “If that was my body, what would you have done if you heard someone spewing the shit you just said?”
He scoffed, “You wouldn’t die, you’re not weak.”
“Fuck, Satoru, that’s not the point.” He stepped in front of him, looking up at him. “Who cares if he was weak or strong? He died. He died and he’s sixteen. Strength shouldn’t matter.”
“We know what we sign up for when we come here.”
“Do we, though? Did he? Not everyone is born into a family, you know that. Not everyone knows how the spirits are here compared to the countryside.”
Satoru pinched the bridge of his nose, “What do you want me to say? You have to be strong for this, you have to be crazy, too. If that brat isn’t, then he shouldn’t be here.”
“So, he should just quit? His friend dies, and rather than the community he’s expected to go to for support actually supporting him, he should leave? Return to high school as if he doesn’t know of the horrors happening a street away, a house away? Do you even hear yourself?”
Suguru wasn’t angry, his words were not enraged. There was something else seeping into them, something that Satoru knew went beyond the body and grieving boy inside. He wanted to reach in and twist it out of his friend, lay it out in the open, and bear witness to it.
But he couldn’t.
“You’re being irrational.”
Suguru shook his head, “Your eyes may make you a king, but you’re still a man, Satoru.”
____
He wasn’t one to dream, but his mind plunged him into a nightmare a week after he fought with Suguru. Was it even a fight? It was enough of something that Suguru had barely spoken to him during that time, or spent time with him. Even Utahime had somehow found out, Satoru groaning the afternoon he had received a text from her, with an accusatory: you’re an asshole sometimes.
His nightmare fed off it. There was no earth and sky, just endless, borderless darkness swallowing his limbs. He tried to move, try to orient himself to rationalize a way out, but when Suguru emerged from the abyss, it was pointless. He was naked, half of his torso torn off, his flesh frayed off into bloody strings, caught on broken bones and exposed organs.
Satoru opened his mouth, and blood poured out. Suguru stepped towards him with an outstretched hand, and pressed his thumb into his crimson-soaked chin, smearing the blood onto his cheek. It seared his skin, and Satoru’s eyes watered.
“There’s a meaning to this,” Suguru said. His words felt as if they were spoken within Satoru’s head, echoing endlessly in his skull. “Will the King see?”
I see, I always see, Satoru tried to say.
Suguru pushed his thumb into his burning skin, and the taste of copper blossomed in Satoru’s mouth.
“No,” Suguru said. “All you see is yourself.”
Satoru woke up with a pulsing headache and a hand over his eyes. He sat upright on his bed and gulped, the phantom taste of blood clinging stubbornly to the back of his teeth. When the melted orange and pink light of the sunrise filtered through his blinds, Satoru reached over to grab his phone, scrolling to find Suguru’s name. He called, and the first three calls died off into voicemail. When he called a fourth time, Suguru answered on the second ring.
“It’s almost six in the morning.”
“The sunrise is coming up.”
He heard shuffling over the line, and when Suguru spoke again his voice was muffled, the microphone far too close to his mouth. Satoru could imagine it pressed onto his cheek lazily.
“If this isn’t an emergency, I’m going back to sleep.”
“It isn’t, I don’t think it is, at least.”
“Good night then, Satoru.”
“I’m sorry” he blurted out.
They were both quiet, Suguru breathing the only response Satoru had for a few seconds. He sighed heavily before Satoru heard another wave of rustling.
“I’ll see you in a few hours, okay? I’m going back to bed, Satoru.”
Click.
He didn’t try to sleep again. He climbed off his mattress to sit by the window, dragging along a blanket to wrap his shoulders in. He tugged on the blinds to open them and watched the dark navy turn cerulean and then baby blue as the warm hues of sunrise bled into the dying night.
____
The sickly sweet scent of strawberries and mangoes dipped into hot, molten colored candy left to harden had Satoru sighing as Suguru and him waited in front of the brightly colored food stall. The red, yellow, and white fluorescent lights of advertisements and storefronts radiated above them, blanketing the street cluttered with people, carts, and stalls in changing colors. It was an absurdly busy night for this street, dozens of civilians crowding different food and game stalls, stopping to take pictures along the way. They hadn’t planned for a street festival when they had decided to go out for the night, but Satoru didn’t regret it.
Suguru wasn’t wearing his uniform for once, instead, a tight black tank clung to his chest, while a loose-fitting dark green jacket, adorned with a singular pin of a skull eating a white flower, lined his shoulders. He had even worn makeup, a slim black line on his eyelids darting out and ending in a sharp curve. He knew he was staring, but he wouldn’t admit it.
“Here you go,” the middle-aged man behind the counter said. He offered Satoru a small brown bag with the sweets inside, and Satoru smiled, tipped him, and left. He immediately reached into the bag and flicked one of the sweets into his mouth, relishing in the sound of the cracking of the sugar coating.
“I don’t understand how your teeth aren’t rotten,” Suguru said.
Satoru offered him a strawberry, “Doesn’t sound like your problem.”
Suguru rolled his eyes but took the sweet anyway.
“Did you want to get something for yourself?”
Suguru hummed, licking his lips that Satoru knew must have tasted sweet now.
“Maybe some actual food, we haven’t had dinner.”
Satoru shook the brown bag, “I would like to argue.”
When Suguru shoved his shoulder and laughed, Satoru tried not to think about the unread message on his phone from Shoko. She had asked what his plans for tonight were hours ago, and when he had replied that he was planning on going out with Suguru, he hadn’t expected to receive a blunt: have a good date~
“Not a date,” he had said out loud at the time, to only himself.
When Suguru stopped walking for a second to take a video of two performers in eccentric, dark costumes dancing on mats and Satoru looked over at him, the lights around them washing him out in a soft red that made his skin look rose, Satoru held his breath.
We’re on a date, he thought. We’re on a fucking date. That was fine, right? What did people do on dates, again?
“Satoru?”
“What?”
Suguru raised an eyebrow, “What do you mean what? You’re zoning out, I’ve been calling your name.”
“Oh,” he said. “My bad.”
“Come on,” Suguru said, motioning with a tilt of his head, “Let’s find somewhere less busy, I’m getting tired.”
Satoru nodded and started to head towards the street crossing they had taken to get here. Their school was almost a 30-minute walk away, but the two didn’t mind–the weather was cooling down, winter only a few months away. The trees had begun to change color, burnt orange, and bright yellow leaves lining the sides of streets. Once they cleared the busiest street where the festival was taking place and turned onto a less populated, smaller road, Suguru raised his arms above his head in a stretch and a yawn.
“It’s only 9 pm,” Satoru said.
Suguru shrugged, “I had some trouble sleeping last night, must be catching up to me.”
“Must be.”
They were quiet, the bustling sounds of the main streets slowly ebbing away as they kept walking further away from the source.
Have a good date.
Satoru frowned. What if Suguru hadn’t enjoyed it? They weren’t even able to buy actual food like he mentioned, they just settled for some quick dumplings that Satoru only ate one of. They hadn’t even done anything, they had just wandered by various stalls, commented on some of the food or games, and stopped to take a few photos here and there.
Fuck, he thought, am I bad a date?
He felt something touch his hand and instinctively pulled away.
“Oh,” Suguru said, a bit surprised. Satoru blinked and looked down, Suguru’s hand lingering where Satoru’s had just been.
“Oh no wait,” he blurted out. “I was just lost in my head, I didn’t realize you were trying to—”
Laughter slowly spilled out of Suguru, the man raising a hand to his face to stifle it as it only grew.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Satoru pouted.
Suguru shook his head and ran the hand pressed against his face through his hair, brushing his bangs back.
“What are we doing, Satoru?”
“What do you mean?”
Suguru motioned towards them with his hands, “This, us. What are we doing? I mean, look at me, I wore eyeliner.”
“It looks good.”
Satoru swore he could see scarlet tint on the other’s cheeks.
“Shoko called it a date.”
“What do you call it?”
Satoru felt something within him click into place, felt it change the air in between them, charging it with what they had always chosen to leave unsaid, untouched. He felt the possibility.
“A date, what would you call it?” he replied.
Suguru stepped towards him, and Satoru was motionless as he neared him, head tilted up. He was only a few inches away, and when he spoke, Satoru could feel his breath on his lips.
“Do I really have to say it?”
Satoru didn’t respond, but he didn’t lean in either. Suguru didn’t give him a chance with how quickly he turned around, his hand reaching out for Satoru’s to keep walking. His palm was warm and sturdy against his, and Satoru felt that this was how it was supposed to be, the vacancy in between his fingers and ribs cosmically meant for Suguru to fill.
____
Satoru had long forgotten the language of unease. He had forgotten how agitated it could make one feel, how disquiet the silence was when he was alone in a shrine, in his room, in the air as he walked. He was the strongest, it was pointless for his stomach to churn in unrest and his hands to fidget, and yet there he was, picking at the tender skin around his nail as he sat tucked away behind curtains on a stage, listening to some elder deliver some speech filled with rhetoric supporting whatever their plan was. He didn’t understand why he hadn’t been sent out with Suguru on the mission. There wasn’t a point in him acting as a “bodyguard’ for this elder, other sorcerers were here, they could have managed.
He felt skin tear and looked down to see a few drops of blood seeping out from the curve of his thumb's nail.
“You don’t look bored for once,” Masamichi said in a hushed tone.
He had gone to circle the perimeter a few minutes ago, and now the scent of cigarettes clung to his clothes.
Satoru huffed, “What do I look like then?”
“I’d say worried.”
Satoru laughed. He swore he could hear whoever was speaking now stutter for a moment.
“I’d say you’re wrong. I’d also say you’re going to stay here for a bit while I go outside.”
Masamichi shook his head but when Satoru unfolded himself from the cramped, metal folding chair he took his seat. The moment he pushed past the revolving doors at the front of the stuffy auditorium, his phone vibrated in his pocket. When he tapped on it he realized that he hadn’t been receiving any signal inside, a plethora of pointless, automated notifications filling his screen. There was one in particular from Utahime that caught his eye.
They’re sending out some sorcerers from Kyoto to where Geto’s at. You know why?
Satoru nearly crushed his phone before he could send a reply.
Nope. I’ll ask when he’s back.
It was comical, really, how his words betrayed his actions, Satoru walking back to Masamichi quickly, evading bumping into shoulders backstage. The lecture had finished, and now the crowd was dispersed into groups, speaking over one another about funding, about policies, about things that didn’t matter.
Masamichi turned towards him as he approached.
“Why was I here when you were?” Satoru stated. “I wasn’t needed at all.”
His voice was careful, calculated. He wasn’t worried, not in the slightest.
“You’re where you’re supposed to be”
“That’s,” he stopped himself, running a hand down his face. He felt so unreasonable, so irrational. It was embarrassing, it was annoying.
“Can I leave?” he asked. “They’re done, right? I can go.”
Masamichi watched him for a few irritating moments, and Satoru hoped he wasn’t as obvious as he felt. When Masamichi sighed and waved him away, he left.
He didn’t rush to Suguru, he wasn’t that irrational. Suguru was strong, and he wasn’t stupid. He’d be fine, Satoru knew it, he swore he’d twist reality for it to be gospel, but a part of him was relentless. The most imaginative part of him conjured a barrage of horrific, possible realities and lunged them at him throughout the day, and into the night. An arm blown off from a barely dodged blast, a leg cut off by claws, a head swiped off—he became fixated on this, the images playing on a loop in mind when he came to a realization that sleepless night.
Was he being selfish?
He stared up at the ceiling of his dorm, frowning. This whole time, he had been worried over Suguru because of his connection to him, because of how possibly losing him would affect Satoru. He hadn’t thought about Suguru’s life ending, not truly. He hadn’t considered what that meant for Suguru, for his aspirations, for his family, for his friends.
He had only thought about Satoru Gojo, and how inconvenienced he would be.
Like a siren, Suguru’s words slithered into his mind.
Your eyes may make you a king, but you’re still a man.
Suguru was wrong, Satoru was a god.
Yet, Suguru treated him like a man, like a friend, like a lover. He grounded him, he challenged him, he touched his flesh like something holy, a sacrament one could tarnish with the smallest exhale.
He only became aware that the sun had risen when the phone on his chest vibrated. When he tapped on the screen he saw that Shoko had told him Suguru had returned about an hour ago. Like a sinner, Satoru rushed towards contrition.
When he entered the infirmary, the first thing his eyes focused on was a fucking corpse, and panic swelled within him, all-consuming, for a millisecond. It wasn’t Suguru, he was an idiot for even believing that it could be for a moment. He turned to his left, where he felt eyes lingering on him, and saw Suguru there, sitting on one of the hospital stretchers, an arm in a cast and bandages wrapped around half of his head.
He was still.
He knew what it meant for him to stand there, for him to react. He knew he was acting out of accordance with the leisure dance of self-assurance he had instilled in the reality he engaged with, but he was still, openly, willingly, and he could see the way Suguru’s features softened at the realization. He memorized the way his tired, fond eyes became half-lidded and the movement of his lips, changing from a stagnant frown to an exhausted, molten expression.
The nurse said something to Suguru then, breaking their shared spell, and Satoru moved to sit on a chair beside him.
When they left the room later, they left together, Suguru quietly following Satoru out. Satoru didn’t know where to go at first, or what to say. Part of him wanted to ignore the realizations of the past 24 hours and skip ahead to somewhere else, to someplace else entirely, but he knew better, at least he hoped he did.
His legs guided them to one of the ponds behind the dorms. This one was tucked away behind thick willow trees, the stone path that guided them nearly covered entirely with moss. The dark trunks of the trees curved towards the pond spotted black, white and orange koi swimming between the soaked branches dipping into the translucent water. Satoru sat by the edge in the shade and Suguru sat beside him, their knees touching.
They sat in silence, listening to the occasional breeze swaying the leaves above them. When a particularly fat white and orange koi fish’s mouth breached the tranquil surface in search of food, Suguru spoke.
“No one died. Not even a civilian.”
Satoru nudged a broken-off piece of stone into the water and watched the fish flee before swarming back to investigate.
“Was that because of you?”
Suguru shrugged, “More or less.”
Satoru tensed his jaw. He thought of Suguru fighting for his life while protecting the others, all while he babysat an old man who spoke far too much.
“Thank you.”
Satoru looked over at him, “For what?”
Suguru readjusted himself, wincing when he grazed his cast against the ground.
“For coming to see me, you didn’t have to.”
Satoru laughed, “Don’t be stupid.”
Suguru leaned his head towards him then, resting it against Satoru’s shoulder. Satoru breathed in and closed his eyes. He felt the world around him shifting, felt his head dislodge, and become off-kilter for an instant before everything realigned once more.
“Yo, Suguru.”
“Hm?”
“Can I kiss you?”
Satoru would have teased him for how fast he moved to look up at him, but he couldn’t, not with the way his unbandaged eye was wide. When he nodded, Satoru placed a hand on his cheek, leaned in, and kissed him.
His lips didn’t taste good. They tasted like something bitter and medicinal, mixed in with something else, maybe residue from the spirits Suguru was cursed to devour, but none of that mattered. He was kissing Suguru, and Suguru was kissing him back, fisting the front of his shirt gently in one hand.
Suguru was the first to pull away, his mouth transfixed in a smirk.
“Did it really take me getting injured for you to have the nerve to kiss me?”
“God, you’re unbearable,” Satoru replied.
They kissed again.
This time, Satoru was the one to move away first. He raised a hand to Suguru’s bandages and touched them gingerly, a mischievous glint to his eyes.
“I can’t believe you let them hit you, you must be getting weak.”
“Fuck you,” Suguru said, turning away from him to look out at the pond again.
“Maybe later,” Satoru chirped, and when Suguru punched him in the arm, it felt right for once to be still.