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“Did it hurt?” is the first thing Suguru hears him say.
"I'm sorry?" Suguru asks, blinking at the man with white hair and sunglasses that grins at him from behind the desk.
"When you fell from heaven," he finishes, and Suguru's eyebrows raise. "Did it hurt?"
Suguru’s eye twitches. “Um,” he responds, dragging his eyes away from the expectant stare to glance at his computer screen. His eyes flick to the woman sitting across from his desk, but she continues tapping away at her phone without a single acknowledgement of the other’s words. He resolutely ignores the other gaze still burning into the side of his head to instead pull his eyes back to his screen, and a few clicks later, he clears his throat. “So, you wanted the wedding in seven months?”
At that, the woman finally looks up. “Six,” she corrects bluntly, and Suguru has to suppress a wince.
“Six,” he repeats. “Six months to plan an entire wedding.”
The woman already looks unimpressed with him. “Yeah,” she pulls out. “Isn’t it enough time?”
“Not… really,” Suguru says slowly, and at the arched eyebrow he receives, he hurries to clarify. “I can get it done, but we may have to expedite some items.”
“Really?” exclaims the man with sunglasses. Why’s he even wearing sunglasses inside? A part of Suguru thinks he’s probably better off not knowing. “So it’ll be super rushed?”
Suguru’s never heard anyone sound quite so enthusiastic at the idea of a hasty wedding. He thinks he should probably be worried about that.
“I’ll… try not to,” Suguru finally responds, and watches as the other deflates visibly in his seat. Shaking his head, he turns his attention back to his screen. “Do you both have any general plans for the wedding so far? Were you thinking traditional, western, or—”
“Western,” the lady interrupts. Suguru watches with no small sense of trepidation as she absentmindedly flicks a lighter open and closed, a flame flickering in and out. “As western as it can get.”
“No elements of tradition at all!” the man adds in a trill. Suguru turns to give him a strange look, and has to immediately pull his eyes away at the wide stare he meets—but he doesn’t quite manage to glance away in time to miss his grin widening.
Suguru is starting to get a bit unnerved.
He coughs. Western, he notes down on his computer with an underline, before pushing his laptop closed. “Right,” he says, pushing his fingertips together. “I understand you don’t have much time left—” He directs this mostly to the woman on his left, but he can’t quite keep his eyes from flicking to the side when he sees the other man lean in, elbows on the desk.
“For you, I have all the time in the world,” he interrupts easily. Suguru gapes dumbly at him for a few moments before blinking rapidly.
“Appreciated,” he mutters in response. “I think.” He shakes his head. “So I know the both of you have to leave soon, and there’s no more concrete information I need from you two yet, but have you given any thought to what type of venue you’d like? You don’t need a specific location in mind just yet, but—”
“Can we do it in front of a KFC,” the man interrupts again.
Suguru’s eyebrow twitches.
“That…” he starts slowly. The woman next to him looks utterly unfazed at the suggestion. Suguru half-wonders if she’s been listening to any part of the conversation at all. He’s not sure if she’s stopped tapping at her phone since she’d entered his office. “...might be difficult to get,” he finishes. “But I can certainly try…” His voice trails off as he tries to remember the name of the couple sitting in front of him. “...Gojo-san?”
The man’s sunglasses inch down his nose low enough for him to bat his eyelashes—his very white eyelashes that frame incredibly blue eyes, Suguru notices—at Suguru.
“Call me Satoru,” he preens, and Suguru just barely manages to suppress his wince. He glances at the woman, now grinning at her phone, maybe to ask her to get her overenthusiastic fiancé out of his office, if possible, but she doesn’t bother to look up.
“Stick to Ieiri-san,” she says instead before he can say anything else, and Suguru can’t quite stop his placid smile from turning into something more of a grimace.
“Ieiri-san, then,” he eventually says, before hesitating. “...and Satoru.”
Gojo beams.
Suguru coughs again. “Well, then, I’ll need a few more meetings with the both of you before the big day, of course—perhaps our next one can be in the following week to discuss a more concrete theme and such? And we can discuss other items on the agenda over the next few months.”
“Busy,” Ieiri says blandly.
“Busy,” Suguru repeats slowly. “On any particular days?”
“All of them,” she says dryly, and it takes Suguru a moment to realize she’s not joking. He wonders if he should ask her if she really wants all her wedding decisions to be left up to a person like Gojo—someone he’s just met but can already assume doesn’t have a knack for wedding design—before ultimately deciding it would probably be in bad taste. To Suguru’s dismay, Ieiri’s head tilts to the side towards the chair that Gojo perches on. “He’s not, though.”
Oh, great, Suguru thinks.
“Oh, great,” Suguru says, and he hopes his smile isn’t as forced as he’s almost certain it is. “Is next Thursday alright for you…” He hesitates again. Gojo blinks at him expectantly. “...Satoru?” The name feels awkward and clunky in his mouth.
Gojo grins regardless. “Why wait for Thursday? Let’s do tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Suguru mutters under his breath. “Let’s.”
from Unknown Number 9:15 A.M.
are u certified in cpr?
bc u take my breath away ╰(⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝)╯
to Unknown Number 9:22 A.M.
Who is this?
Suguru has never considered himself particularly adept at multitasking, so with a six-month deadline looming much too close for his comfort, he’s relatively relieved to be able to clear his calendar of any other events to plan. For better or for worse, his entire attention is now on planning the extravagant wedding of one Satoru Gojo and Shoko Ieiri.
On one hand, he’s getting paid a truly exorbitant fee for the entire ordeal. He’d nearly choked at the promised number listed in their initial inquiry, and any reservations he’d held about the relatively tight deadline seemed to evaporate in the face of such profit. So it wasn’t the deadline he minded…
…so much as the people. Because on one hand, while Suguru’s already started mentally making reservations to Okinawa with the money he’ll receive after the wedding, on the other hand, Suguru is very much regretting some of his life and career choices as he stares at the first and only text he’s received all morning. He doesn’t need to stretch his mind very far to think of any person who could have possibly sent such a message, and although he knows it could very well be a wrong number situation, there’s something about the kaomoji that stares up at him that rings a sense of recognition.
Perhaps calling it recognition was a bit of a stretch. After all, he’d only seen him once before, but—
“Suguruuuuu!”
Speak of the devil.
Gojo flounces into Suguru’s office, and Suguru doesn’t quite manage plaster on a smile before he can fling himself in the chair across from Suguru.
“You’re early,” he notes mildly, and Gojo grins.
“I just couldn’t wait to see you again,” he simpers, fluttering his eyelashes very obviously from over his sunglasses. Suguru resists a grimace. “How are you today, Suguru?”
Suguru blinks at the seemingly spontaneous question. “I’m… fine,” he says slowly. He thinks, for a moment, that the response might be enough to appease the other, but when Gojo continues to stare at him expectantly, he coughs. “My day’s been going alright so far, I guess. Nothing’s gone horribly wrong,” he clarifies somewhat reluctantly. Yet, he adds in his mind. “How are you?”
Gojo seems surprised that he asked. Honestly speaking, Suguru’s a little surprised at himself.
“I’m doing great,” Gojo starts. The corners of his eyes curve as his grin widens. “Now that I’ve seen you.”
“Uh-huh,” Suguru says blandly. His eyes fall on his phone, lying beside his computer on the desk. “By the way, you were the one who sent that text to me in the morning, right?”
Gojo’s mouth falls open in feigned surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess,” he responds dryly. He shakes his head. “You only need to text me if you have a question about your wedding, you know. My phone’s busy enough as it is.”
Gojo’s lips pull into an exaggerated pout. Suguru thinks vaguely that he’s never met such an animated person before.
“It’s never too busy for me, right?” he wheedles, and Suguru can do nothing but stare blankly at the pouting manchild in front of him.
“I always try to make time for clients,” Suguru says carefully. Gojo visibly deflates in his seat, and Suguru clears his throat. “Well,” he starts again, rearranging the tabs on his computer until he finds the one with the majority of his notes. “To confirm, you wanted a western-style wedding in six months… close to a KFC. Correct?”
“The closer the better,” Gojo adds quickly, his previous enthusiasm returning as if it had never disappeared at all. “Inside a KFC would be the best.”
“Right,” Suguru says weakly. “I’m not so sure about that one.” He’s almost scared to ask further. “We can look at venues in the coming weeks, but I also wanted to discuss overall themes and colors. Is there anything you or Ieiri-san had in mind?”
Gojo hums. For a moment, Suguru thinks he might actually be seriously considering the question.
“What color goes worst with blue?”
Suguru’s eyebrows slowly raise. “What?”
“What color,” Gojo repeats slowly, “looks absolutely garbage next to blue?”
Suguru’s mouth opens, then closes.
“...yellow?”
Gojo claps his hands together. “Yellow and blue can be the color scheme, then!”
Suguru is momentarily struck into silence. Why did I ever go into this industry, he wonders faintly, but he lets himself close his eyes for a moment and think of Okinawa beaches. When he opens his eyes, he can feel his shoulders noticeably relax.
“That can be an option,” Suguru finally says. He suppresses a wince just at the thought of deep blues against neon yellow. “Is there anything else—”
“What’s your favorite color,” Gojo interrupts. Suguru blinks.
“I don’t think that’s relevant,” he responds mildly. “What’s your favorite color, though? We can probably incorporate it into the design—”
“Triangle,” Gojo interrupts again confidently, and before Suguru can ask what the fuck that means, he’s leaning in again, a palm cupped against his chin. “Do you like boys?”
What the fuck, Suguru thinks.
“This isn’t 20 questions,” he finally remembers to respond after a blank pause that stretches too long.
Gojo’s eyebrows raise. “Isn’t it?”
Suguru has no idea how to even respond to him. “We can decide the color scheme later, then,” he says lamely, adding a reminder to the notes in his computer instead of the action he’d much rather do—slamming his computer closed and storming out of his office. He rubs the bridge of his nose with pinched fingers.
Okinawa, Suguru tells himself. Just remember Okinawa waiting for you.
When he finally opens his eyes again, he’s not surprised to see Gojo watching him with wide eyes. Suguru’s not sure if he’s expecting a response for the previous question. Either way, he’s not getting one.
“We’ll shelve the color scheme for now,” he repeats purposely. “But there’s a few other items on the checklist we’ll need to get through over the next few weeks—a few other things to get through over the next few months, too.”
“Woooow,” Gojo pulls out, blinking rapidly at Suguru. “We’ll get to see so much of each other, huh, Suguru?”
Suguru is stunned into silence at the casual use of his first name. “Sure,” he eventually responds with little enthusiasm when he recovers. “Are you positive Ieiri-san can’t make it to any meetings?”
“Yep.” He pops his lips with the last letter. “Almost as positive as the feelings I have for you.”
Suguru looks at him with something bordering disgust, but he quickly schools his features into something more professionally acceptable. “Okay,” he says instead, entirely ignoring the latter statement. He glances away from his computer to meet Gojo’s eyes, curved into amused crescents. It’s kind of cute, Suguru thinks for a moment, and then he decides he immediately wants to beat himself in the head. “I hope Ieiri-san is okay with you making all the decisions, then,” he adds, quickly pulling his eyes away.
“I don’t think she could care less!” Gojo says cheerily.
Suguru stares blankly at him.
“That’s a great sign,” he mutters under his breath, but it doesn’t stop Gojo from leaning in even closer with a grin on his face. Half of his body is now stretched across Suguru’s desk.
“Not as great a sign as us getting to meet,” he simpers, and Suguru once again wills himself to remember crystal blue Okinawa seas—a shade that, now that he thinks about it, is awfully close to the enchanting blue of Gojo’s eyes.
“Okay,” Suguru says loudly. It’s half in a pathetic attempt to steer the conversation back on course and half to bring the dangerously drifting thoughts of his own mind to a halt. “I think I can have a list of venues to look at in around two weeks. Does that sound good?”
“You always sound good,” Gojo responds dopily. A lopsided smile curves the corners of his lips.
Oh my god, Suguru thinks.
“Oh my god,” Suguru mutters. He shakes his head. “Okay. I’ll see you in two weeks from now, then.”
“I’ll text you,” Gojo adds before stretching up and off of Suguru’s desk. He flashes a three-fingered peace sign as he strides towards the door. “See you later, Suguru!”
“You really don’t have to,” Suguru adds lamely, even though Gojo’s well out of his office by the time he thinks to respond. His eyes drag to his document of notes, where he’s not exactly relieved to see the only thing he’s been able to add is what the fuck ? underneath the details section.
“Okay,” Suguru tells himself. “Okay.”
from gojo 9:17 A.M.
can u take me to a doctor ????
to gojo 9:18 A.M.
What happened
to gojo 9:20 A.M.
Are you okay
to gojo 9:22 A.M.
Gojo????
from gojo 9:22 A.M.
bc i think i broke my leg falling for u ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡
to gojo 9:23 A.M.
Oh my god
“You know,” Gojo mumbles around a mouthful of fried chicken. “You’ve got more legs than a bucket of chicken.”
Suguru watches with mild horror as Gojo reaches for the second bucket on their table barely a moment after scarfing down the last leg from their first—or rather, Gojo’s first. Suguru hadn’t exactly come to enjoy a meal, but after watching Gojo voraciously wolf down an obscene amount of fried chicken, any appetite he might have had was well and fully eradicated.
“Thanks,” he finally mutters weakly in response. “I think.”
Gojo garbles out an unintelligible response between bites. Suguru faintly promises himself to never come to KFC again.
Not that he had particularly wanted to come to KFC at all—he had brought Gojo to the area solely to survey potential venues for the wedding, but in the end, Gojo had coerced him into ending the day with lunch at the famed fast food place. It’s only inside that Suguru had realized it was his first time actually in the restaurant, and as he now watches Gojo almost choke on a particularly large piece of chicken, he realizes distinctly it will almost definitely be his last.
“So,” Suguru starts, watching Gojo gulp down a glass of water in between buckets. Two lay empty between them, with Gojo’s hand already reaching into the third. “What did you think of the venues?”
Gojo shrugs. “Dunno.”
Suguru pauses. “Care to elaborate?”
He shrugs again. “I dunno. They all seemed the same to me.”
“They all seemed—okay,” Suguru cuts himself off with an exasperated breath. “Surely there must have been a few that stood out.”
Gojo hums. “Not really,” he says easily. “Are you sure we can’t just get married in here?” He gestures to the few occupied booths around them.
“Yes,” Suguru says slowly. “You can’t.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look, do you really need the venue to be close to here? I can get more locations if there’s a wider range to look at—”
“It’s my wedding, isn’t it?” Gojo interrupts petulantly. “I want to get married next to a KFC.”
Suguru closes his eyes and prays for patience. “Right,” he finally says. “Okay.”
“You only get married once,” Gojo mutters, and the sullen tone is surprising enough for Suguru to look up and search his face. Something pulls at the corners of Gojo’s eyes as he stares into the fourth and final empty bucket in front of him. Suguru almost startles when he suddenly looks up, brilliant blue eyes meeting Suguru’s. “Might as well make it worth it, right?”
Suguru hums. “It is possible for people to get married more than once, you know.”
Gojo scoffs. “Other people, maybe. Not me.”
“Oh?” Suguru asks. “Why not?”
He doesn’t know why he’s asking at all. He tries to make sure he never pries too deeply into the personal lives of his clients, but maybe it’s the aggressive questioning he gets from Gojo so often or the pick-up lines that greet him on his phone every morning without fail that burrow a sliver of curiosity under Suguru’s skin.
Gojo rolls his eyes. “My parents,” he bites out as an explanation, and he flicks the rim of one of the empty buckets in front of him.
“Oh,” Suguru says stupidly. “Then…” He pauses. “You and Ieiri-san… it’s arranged, then?”
Gojo looks at him strangely. “You couldn’t tell?”
“I try not to speculate,” Suguru responds dryly. “It explains a bit, though… I think.”
“Yeah, well,” Gojo dismisses with a wave of his hand. “Enough about me. Won’t you tell me more about you, Suguru?” He leans forward, his usual grin tracing his lips. Suguru’s surprised at how familiar it seems, now.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Suguru eventually says, pulling his eyes away from the bright smile to glance at the empty buckets strewn across their tiny table. “Plus, aren’t you finished eating? We can leave now.”
Gojo’s lips pull into a frown. “Already?” He shakes his head. “Who said I was finished?” He clears his throat to alert a nearby waiter, who approaches warily after eyeing the already numerous empty buckets on their table. “Can I get three more ten-piece buckets?”
Suguru’s eyebrows raise. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Gojo responds, well, seriously. His smile returns easily when he leans in again. “So, Suguru, tell me a bit more about yourself, huh?”
It’s not as if Suguru particularly wants to—again, he tries not to dig too deeply into the lives of his clients, and he usually expects a modicum of the same from them, but he finds himself too easily coaxed into conversing with Gojo over a now shared bucket of fried chicken. For every question Gojo asks him, Suguru tries to ask the same back—mostly to be polite, at least at first, but as time passes and the amount of food in front of them dwindle, Suguru also finds himself with the somewhat horrifying realization that he might also just actually enjoy listening to Gojo talk. He’s not exactly sure what to do with this information, and so quietly shelves it in the back of his mind for later rumination.
“It’s… getting kind of late,” Suguru realizes out loud during a rare lull in the conversation. When he glances outside, the sun is still shining brightly, but already, the sky around it has begun turning darker hues of orange and pink. When he glances at his phone, he realizes the both of them haven’t actually discussed anything about Gojo’s wedding in the past three hours. Suguru’s lips press into a thin line.
Gojo flicks a hand in the air. “They don’t close until midnight.”
Suguru resists the urge to gape at him. “We’re not staying here until closing.”
Gojo blinks up at him with large, watery eyes. “We’re nooooot?”
“No,” Suguru says firmly. “This has been…” He hesitates. “Fun,” he finally admits, and he has to pull his eyes away from the huge beam Gojo sends him. “But I really should be getting back to my office now.”
“Aww,” Gojo whines lightly. He huffs out a small breath. “Fine. When’s the next time I can see you?”
It takes Suguru a moment to remember he’s talking about the wedding planning. “Well, since we don’t have a venue finalized, we can’t really move forward… I suppose next week we can look over the flowers, though?”
“Flowers,” Gojo repeats with a growing grin. “Great. It’s a date!”
“Sure,” Suguru responds with a barely concealed roll of his eyes. “I’ll text you the address.”
“Oh-kay,” Gojo drags out. “See you then, Suguru.”
“See you then, Gojo.”
Gojo’s head tilts to the side. “It’s Satoru.”
Suguru blinks. “Satoru,” he repeats. The name swirls in his mouth. Something about it feels more secure, more solid against his tongue. His lips twitch into a smile. “See you then, Satoru.”
from satoru gojo 9:15 A.M.
are u pee?
bc urine my heart ☆⌒(≧▽° )
to satoru gojo 9:16 A.M.
What the fuck
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you,” Satoru declares loudly, “I’d only have one.” He turns to grin at Suguru. “Because you’ve never left my mind.”
“How nice,” Suguru responds blandly. A bell above them jingles lightly as Suguru pushes open the door in front of them. “Do you tell these to Ieiri-san, too, or just me?”
“Why would I tell them to Shoko?” Satoru asks, his head tilted in confusion.
“Maybe because you’re getting married to her,” Suguru reminds him with an amused smile that only grows when Satoru’s mouth drops open in a small O. “What, did you forget?”
“Maybe a little,” Satoru responds shamelessly with a shrug.
Suguru shakes his head. He’s still not sure if he should be aghast or amused. Before he can decide at all on a response, Satoru’s already flounced away, running his fingertips lightly across the petals of a vibrant bunch of tulips. Suguru follows slowly behind him, hands in his pockets as he glances around the small flower shop they’ve entered. There’s no one else in the store, at least as far as Suguru can make out, and he finds it especially odd to find no one even at the register. He stops beside it to peer inside, maybe expecting to find someone crouched beneath, but finds no such luck.
“No one’s here,” he muses out loud. “They might be closed.”
“So we have the whole place to ourselves,” Satoru cheers.
“That’s one way to think of breaking and entering,” Suguru responds dryly, but when he glances at the sign on the door again, he does notice it flipped to open. Perhaps the vendor had gone on a lunch break and forgotten to flip the sign—or lock the door. Well. A flower shop wasn’t too likely to be robbed in broad daylight, Suguru supposes.
Broad daylight, however, was a bit of an exaggeration. Outside, the sky was clouded over and gray, and although it was barely the beginning of the afternoon, Suguru wasn’t surprised to see a few cars pass by with low headlights. When he glances at Satoru, he’s not surprised to see him still with sunglasses on, despite the gloomy day outside.
“Why do you wear those glasses all the time?” Suguru blurts out, before snapping his mouth closed. “Sorry. I shouldn’t—”
“It’s fine,” Satoru interrupts before Suguru can continue stumbling over apologies. He pushes his glasses down the bridge of his nose to peer at Suguru unfettered. “I’ve got heightened light sensitivity in both eyes. The sunglasses help.”
Suguru hums in understanding. “So you’ll wear them during the wedding too, then?”
“Probably,” Satoru says with a shrug. “Hurts like a bitch otherwise.”
Suguru falls into a pensive silence. He hadn’t forgotten the pinched face Satoru had made at every venue Suguru had thought to show him earlier during their KFC outing, but it’s then Suguru remembers nearly every location he’d shown was outdoors—where the sun would be shining its brightest. No wonder Satoru had looked at them with such disdain.
A loud sneeze breaks him out of his reverie. He glances back to find Satoru with a hand to his face, pulling an especially large flower away from his nose.
“Ugh,” Satoru groans nasally. “I think I might be allergic to this one.”
“Not the best idea to shove unknown flowers up your nose like that, Satoru,” Suguru says mildly, but he can’t prevent the undercurrent of amusement from trickling into his tone. He steps closer to ease the offending flower out of Satoru’s fingers, only shivering slightly when their fingers touch. Suguru stares at the large bloom for a few moments before slipping it back among a larger bunch of similar looking flowers. When he looks up, Satoru’s watching him with wide eyes.
“What?” Suguru asks defensively.
Satoru hums. “You should say my name more often.”
Suguru squints at him. “What?” he asks again.
Satoru doesn’t bother repeating himself, simply flouncing away to the next largest bunch of flowers—although the individual blooms are smaller, they’re packed together in such numerous amounts that it flourishes into a massive bouquet. The colors vary on a spectrum from a deep blue to a light purple to a faint blue, almost white, to a rich and dark purple, and when Suguru approaches, he finds that they have a light and refreshing floral scent. Like before, Satoru slips one out to inhale deeply, and although he coughs a little, there’s no explosive sneeze that follows.
“This one,” Satoru says confidently, pointing at the bunch with a small bloom still pinched between his fingers. “I want this one.”
“We didn’t actually come here to place any orders today,” Suguru reminds him. “We don’t even have a color scheme—”
“This can be the color scheme,” Satoru interrupts. Suguru stares blankly at him. His eyes trail back to the bushel of flowers Satoru points at.
“It’s… better than yellow and blue, I guess,” Suguru finally admits, pulling out his phone to snap a picture of the blooms. It’s only after he takes the picture that he realizes Satoru is a much more prominent focus of the image rather than the flowers he stands next to, but Suguru decides that it’s a problem for future-Suguru to think about extensively. “Matches your eyes,” Suguru murmurs, brushing the petals of a particularly vibrant blue flower from the bunch.
“Yours, too,” Suguru is surprised to hear Satoru say. When he glances up from the flower against his fingers, he finds Satoru staring at him intently. “This one matches your eyes, too.” When Suguru’s eyes land on the bloom between Satoru’s fingers, he notices for the first time that it is, in fact, a shade of deep purple that is oddly reminiscent of the color he’s sometimes noticed flashing in the reflection of his own eyes.
Suguru’s mouth turns dry when he feels fingers brush against the cartilage of his left ear.
“Pretty,” he hears Satoru murmur. His fingers drop. Suguru can barely feel the petals against his skin over the blood he feels rising to the tips of his ears.
“Satoru—”
“Oh, customers?”
Suguru instantly snaps his mouth closed, startling away enough to put a few more steps of space between him and Satoru.
“Tengen-san,” he greets, hoping his voice doesn’t run with as many nerves as feel like jitter through his body. Tengen, the elderly owner of the flower shop Suguru’s so often frequented, eyes them both with suspicion. “How have you been?”
“I’d be better if you both would stop touching my flowers,” she snaps, and Satoru quickly pulls his hand away from where he’d been flicking a petal with a sheepish smile. Tengen’s shoulders relax. “What can I do you for?”
“Could we reserve a few dozen clusters of this for the next few months?” Suguru asks, gesturing at the bouquet they had decided on. “I don’t have an exact order estimate yet, but I can get that to you in a few weeks.”
Tengen nods, punching a few clacking keypads on her rickety computer. “Saved,” comes her raspy voice. “Was that all?”
Suguru glances at Satoru, who flashes an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Yes,” Suguru says finally. “Thank you,” he says with a slight nod of his head, and Tengen waves them out of the shop. Suguru’s only a step behind Satoru when they leave, but before he can make it fully outside, Tengen’s voice stops him.
“Don’t think I didn’t miss that little thing by your ear,” she says dryly, and Suguru freezes. Her lips curve into a sly smile. “It’s on the house.”
Suguru’s face flushes with an emotion he can’t name—with an emotion he doesn’t want to name. “Thanks,” he murmurs stupidly, and then he’s rushing out of the door, where Satoru waits for him with a tilted head.
“What a nice old lady,” Satoru comments, and Suguru coughs out a breathy laugh.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
from satoru gojo 9:16 A.M.
are u sure ur not tired ??
to satoru gojo 9:16 A.M.
I just woke up?
from satoru gojo 9:17 A.M.
bc you’ve been running through my mind all night Σ>―(〃°ω°〃)♡→
to satoru gojo 9:17 A.M.
And here I thought you were just worried about my well-being for a change ‘:/
from satoru gojo 9:17 A.M.
NOOOO WAIT THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT
suguruuuueueu
ofc i care about ur well being :(((((
to satoru gojo 9:18 A.M.
Lol
I know
“Geto-san, can I ask you something?”
Suguru looks up from his phone to meet Haibara’s inquisitive stare. His coworker’s not usually so reticent with asking him anything—his enthusiasm and willingness to ask questions regardless of the answer was part of the reason he’d even been hired, so the fact that he was asking if he could even ask something—it was strange, to say the least.
“Sure,” Suguru responds, slipping his phone into his pocket and picking up his chopsticks again. “What’s up?”
“I don’t mean to pry,” Haibara starts, fiddling with his own set of chopsticks, “but have you met someone new recently, Geto-san?”
Suguru blinks. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just—” Haibara cuts himself off. Again, it’s entirely uncharacteristic of him to seem so unsure of his words. “Well, you’ve been smiling at your phone a lot.”
“I have?” Suguru asks stupidly.
“You have,” Haibara affirms with a nod of his head. “And I don’t want to seem nosy, but have you started seeing someone?”
Suguru’s lips part in mild surprise. “Um,” he says, staring at his untouched lunch. His mouth opens, closes, then opens again. “No,” he says slowly. “No. It’s just—it’s just a new client. He’s pretty talkative.”
Haibara blinks at him. “He texts you pretty often, doesn’t he?”
God, even Haibara could tell?
“Kind of,” Suguru says lamely. “It’s just his nature, I think. It’s nothing like…” He hesitates. “It’s not like that.”
Haibara nods slowly. “Right,” he says sheepishly. “Sorry, Geto-san. I didn’t mean to assume.”
“No, you’re okay,” Suguru hurries to reassure. He flicks a grain of rice away from the end of his chopsticks absentmindedly. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about him—Satoru Gojo?”
“Satoru Gojo?”
When Suguru looks up, Haibara’s mouth is agape. His chopsticks hang limply in his hand.
“Yeah,” Suguru says slowly. “What, is he famous or something?”
“Is he,” Haibara repeats emphatically, finally setting his chopsticks down. “He’s the heir to the biggest corporation in the business world! Haven’t you heard about Gojo Enterprises before?”
“Oh,” Suguru says with a blink. “Yeah, his last name had seemed familiar.”
“Familiar,” Haibara chokes out. “This whole time, you didn’t know?”
Suguru shrugs. “I’m not big on popular events, Haibara.” He pauses. “That explains how much they’re paying, though.”
Haibara’s eyes widen. “Oh my god,” he murmurs. “They must be paying so much.”
“They are,” Suguru confirms with a slight grin. “I’ve already started planning a trip to Okinawa.”
Haibara’s responding grin is effulgent. “You’ll have to send me pictures when you go, Geto-san!”
“Naturally.”
from satoru 9:18 A.M.
r u from tennessee??
bc ur the only ten i see °˖✧◝(°▿°)◜✧˖°
to satoru 9:18 A.M.
What the hell is a tennessee
from satoru 9:18 A.M.
(ಠ_ಠ)
never mind
"There's only one type of material I ever wear," Satoru starts with mock seriousness. Suguru has to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the dramatic pause that follows.
“Oh, yeah?” he goads when Satoru stares at him expectantly.
"...boyfriend material."
Suguru can’t help his scoff. “You mean husband material.”
Satoru stops entirely to gape at him. “What?”
Suguru stares back. “Because you’re getting married…?”
Suguru’s surprised to see Satoru’s expression fall. “Oh,” he mutters, uncharacteristically sullen. “Yeah.”
“You forgot again, didn’t you?”
Satoru shrugs. “Maybe.”
How exactly Satoru keeps forgetting, even months into planning, remains a mystery to Suguru. Any day they don’t meet in person to discuss miscellaneous logistics, they’re texting each other throughout almost the entire day. Admittedly, they do often get off-topic—both in person and online—and Suguru’s lost track of the number of meetings and messages that had turned into—
—dates, a part of him longs to call them—
—well, whatever they were, they definitely weren’t part of the wedding planning process. There are a few times where even Suguru gets so caught up in Satoru’s whimsy—a few times where even he forgets he has a wedding to plan. In the end, he can’t really even blame Satoru for forgetting himself, not when he’s not much better.
He refuses to think much harder about why exactly.
But now, three months before the fateful wedding, things were finally starting to fall together. The color scheme and design had been finalized. The flowers had been finalized. The band—a rock band, of all things, called Death Paintings with a rather colorful cast of members that Suguru didn’t want to pry too deeply into—had been finalized. Despite the number of times the both of them had gotten distracted, Suguru’s pleased to see the planning remain on schedule.
At least, most of him. Another smaller, more intrusive part of him wants to stomp his foot down and bring the entire thing careening to a halt before his job finishes, before the wedding, before he’ll never have another reason to see Satoru again. It’s a part of him that Suguru often tells to shut the fuck up.
The only thing that had been slightly delayed was the finalization of the venue—Suguru had taken another look at the options, selecting only those with exclusively indoor halls, and he’d even found one just a few kilometers from KFC that he thought Satoru would particularly enjoy. He hadn’t had a chance to see it in person, but as they wait inside the lobby of the suit store—the next on their list—Suguru figures it’s the perfect time to bring it up. Unlike the flower shop, the tailor’s was rather busy—despite making an appointment, they had a few minutes to kill before they would be called.
“There’s a venue we can check out after this,” Suguru mentions to Satoru, sitting splayed out on the chair next to him, gaze extending towards the ceiling. Satoru makes a face.
“Do we have to?” he whines, and Suguru wonders when he began finding Satoru’s puerile nature so endearing.
“You do need a place to get married in, yes,” Suguru responds easily with an amused grin. “It’s indoors, pretty close to KFC—checks all the boxes, I think.”
Satoru’s head lolls to the side. “If you think it’s fine, just finalize it.”
Suguru frowns. “You should make sure it’s alright for you. I want to make sure the lighting isn’t too much for your eyes.”
Satoru’s head whips to the side to stare dumbstruck at Suguru. “Huh?”
Suguru blinks. “What?”
Satoru’s mouth opens, then closes. His eyes search Suguru’s face. It’s not as uncomfortable as Suguru assumes it would be.
“Nothing,” he finally murmurs, but there’s a ghost of a fond smile tracing the corners of his lips. “You’re really sweet, Suguru.”
It’s Suguru’s turn to gape stupidly at Satoru. It might be the first time he’s heard Satoru compliment him directly, without being wrapped in a stupid pick-up line. There’s absolutely nothing he can think of to say as a response.
Luckily, Suguru doesn’t end up having to think of one. Satoru finally pulls his eyes away, in an almost bashful manner, before raising his eyes to the ceiling again.
“Sooooo,” he drags out. “When do we pass out the STDs?”
Suguru gapes again at Satoru, albeit for an entirely different reason. “When do we pass out the what?”
Satoru stares at him strangely. “The STDs,” he repeats slowly to Suguru’s horror. “Save the dates?”
Suguru lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Save the dates,” he repeats in relief. “Right. Yes. Save the dates.”
“What did you think I was—”
“YES,” Suguru interrupts loudly. “The design for them is nearly finalized, we should be able to send them out by the end of this week.”
Satoru looks almost disappointed by the news. “Great,” he mutters anyway. “My mom’ll be so happy.”
“Your mom?”
Satoru grimaces. “She’s been getting kind of antsy about the wedding. Keeps asking me for updates.”
“Oh?” Suguru asks with a blink. “She can just contact me directly—”
“Nah,” Satoru dismisses immediately. “She’s a pain in the ass. I don’t want her anywhere near y—the wedding planning.”
“If you’re sure,” Suguru says, unconvinced. “I’ve been meaning to ask—do you know about your guest list yet?”
“Unfortunately,” Satoru mutters. “It’s mostly going to be a bunch of stuck-up pansies with a stick up their ass. I’ll send you the list.”
Suguru snorts. “You make it sound like they’re all expecting a traditional wedding.”
“Oh, they are,” Satoru responds gleefully. “Making it entirely western is like a big ‘fuck you’ to them.”
“Huh,” Suguru says mildly. He isn’t surprised to hear it in the slightest. “That’ll be entertaining to watch.”
Satoru grins. “Won’t it?”
Before Suguru can respond, their names are finally called. Satoru’s the first to stretch out of his chair, offering a hand that Suguru gratefully takes as he stands up as well.
“They already have your measurements,” Suguru mentions as they duck behind a small partition away from the lobby. “So you just have to try it on and make sure it fits.”
Satoru hums. “And do they have your measurements?”
Suguru glances at him. “My measurements? What would they need that for?”
“You’re coming to the wedding, aren’t you?” Satoru says with a grin. “You should get something to wear from here, too.”
Suguru’s eyes flit around the ornate room they now wait in—from the lavish crown molding around the ridiculously tall ceilings to the cold marble floors beneath them, veins of gold shot throughout.
“Yeah,” Suguru says dryly. “I think I’m good with what I have now.” He’s pretty sure the entire initial deposit of the planning he’d received would disappear in less than a second should he even consider buying a suit of his own, and although he knew more was still to be paid, he’d prefer not to spend the next three months of his life utterly broke.
It doesn’t stop Satoru from pouting. “Suguruuuuuuuu,” he begins to whine, but a tentative cough from across them distracts him. When Suguru peers around Satoru’s tall frame, he finds a shorter man in his own neatly pressed suit and tie. He adjusts his glasses nervously, and it’s then Suguru notices the name tag reading Ijichi. He faintly remembers discussing details with someone of a similar name online, and when his eyes catch on the white suit he holds, the feeling is confirmed.
“Ijichi-san,” he greets with a slight bow of his head.
“Geto-san, right?” the other returns, albeit with a noticeable tremor in his voice. His eyes dart nervously to Satoru, peering at him curiously. “And, er, Gojo-san?”
Satoru opens his mouth, almost undoubtedly to terrify the other man more than he already seems, so Suguru elbows him in the side before he can say anything. He ignores Satoru’s subsequent appalled stare to smile politely at Ijichi.
“Yes, that’s us,” he says, and Ijichi lets out a quivering sigh.
“I apologize for the wait,” he stammers out, wincing under Satoru’s still persistent piercing gaze. “We were, ah, awfully busy today, but, of course, never too busy for the Gojo family—um.”
“Naturally,” Suguru says easily before Satoru can open his mouth again. “That’s the suit, then?” He gestures to the carefully wrapped suit in Ijichi’s arms, watching with no small amount of amusement as he almost startles hard enough to drop it entirely.
“Yes—yes! Uh, would you like to—”
Suguru casually shoves Satoru towards the changing room after pushing the clothes into Satoru’s hands. “Try it on.”
Satoru scowls at him even as he stumbles towards the changing room. “Get his measurements,” he snaps at Ijichi, an accusing finger at Suguru, and Suguru rolls his eyes. Ijichi looks like he might faint, glancing at Suguru with a pale face and watery eyes.
“Don’t bother,” Suguru says once Satoru’s out of earshot. “He’s just being stupid.”
“I’m NOT,” comes Satoru’s muffled voice from behind the changing room door. Not entirely out of earshot, then. “I’ll fire you if you don’t get a suit, I swear.”
Suguru isn’t sure if the last statement was addressed to himself or Ijichi, but the threat is enough for Ijichi’s face to pale even more dramatically.
“I’ll be right back,” he mutters to Suguru, before rushing out of the room. With an amused sigh, Suguru slumps into a nearby chair, leaning his head against the wall behind him before glancing down to tap mindlessly at his phone. He frowns when he opens his notes for the wedding.
“Say, Satoru,” he calls out. “Where actually is Ieiri-san? You know she needs a dress, too, right?”
“Uhhh,” Satoru responds. “Kyoto, I think?”
Suguru’s mouth drops open. “Kyoto?”
“Mhm,” comes Satoru’s affirmation. “She’s been there for a while.”
Suguru taps furiously at his phone. “How the hell is she supposed to get a dress if she’s all the way in Kyoto—”
“Actually,” Satoru interrupts. “I’m pretty sure she’s seeing a wedding dress designer in Kyoto.”
Suguru presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Oh my god,” he mutters. “You guys aren’t even going to match—”
He hears the sound of a door swinging open. When he glances up, the rest of the words on his tongue dissolve away.
“So, what do you think?”
Satoru stands in a pristine white suit, leaning casually against the open door frame with his hands in his pockets. His glasses, for once, rest on top of his usually mussed hair, and for a second, Suguru is captivated by the absolute blue of his eyes framed by fragile, light eyelashes. Although most of the suit is white, there are careful details embroidered along the edges in blue, and although they would never be able to match the azure of Satoru’s eyes, it does highlight the lighter flecks scattered in his iris. In his breast pocket, there’s a single cloth tucked inside and folded, a deep purple that surprisingly doesn’t clash with the rest of the outfit.
Suguru isn’t blind. He’s been well aware of the fact that calling Satoru even conventionally attractive is a massive understatement, but this—
“Uh,” Suguru says stupidly, forcing his mouth closed. “It’s. Hm. It’s alright. I guess.”
Satoru’s lips tug into a frown. It’s more attractive than it has any right to be. “Only alright?”
Suguru’s mouth feels extraordinarily dry. He coughs. “Yeah, it’s—good. It looks good.” It looks like everything, he wants to say.
Satoru’s frown remains. “Do you like it?”
Suguru bites the inside of his cheek. “Sure,” he wheezes out. “Yeah, I like it.”
Satoru grins. It’s blinding.
“If you like it, it’s fine, then,” he says with a shrug, flopping into the seat next to Suguru casually. He adjusts his glasses on the top of his head. “Where’s your suit?”
“You don’t even want to see for yourself?” Suguru asks faintly, gesturing to a nearby tall mirror.
“Nah, I trust you.” Satoru’s eyes curve up as his grin widens. “Come on, where’s your suit?” he asks again, and in a stroke of perfect timing, Ijichi rushes back into the room, another pressed suit clutched in his hands.
“We—we don’t have your measurements, Geto-san,” Ijichi hurries to explain, even as he presses the cloth into Suguru’s unprepared hands, “but this should fit—of course, we’d make the necessary adjustments—but if you’d like to try it on—”
“There’s no need,” Suguru interrupts with a placid smile. “I won’t be buying anything for myself today.”
“You’re right,” Satoru agrees. Suguru glances at him with raised eyebrows. “You won’t be buying. I will.”
Suguru rolls his eyes. “Satoru—”
He’s unceremoniously shoved out of his chair towards the dressing room, not too different from how he had pushed Satoru minutes before. He turns to give a nasty glare back to Satoru, but Satoru only wiggles his fingers back gleefully in response.
“Fine,” Suguru mutters to himself. “Fine.”
The inside of the dressing room is as lavish as Suguru would expect, and as he slips on the suit he’s been forced to wear, he can hear Satoru talking loudly to someone outside. It’s not Ijichi, definitely, which means Satoru’s on the phone—with his fiancée, maybe? Either way, he finds that the suit he’s been given is surprisingly easy to wear. It’s a bit loose around his waist and at the wrists, but otherwise, the size is fortuitously perfect. He glances down at himself. Where Satoru’s suit had been white with blue designs, his is a dark shade of gray with purple embellishments. His pocket square, unlike Satoru’s, is a striking, familiar shade of blue.
He nudges the door open with his foot. Ijichi’s nowhere to be found. Satoru, on the other hand, is still splayed on the nearby chair, his head turned slightly away as he yells into his phone.
“That’s what I’m saying, Shoko, I don’t think he—”
Suguru clears his throat.
Satoru’s head tilts in his direction. At the same time his mouth drops open, his phone slips from his hand to clatter loudly against the floor. For a moment, Suguru and Satoru remain in that position—Suguru standing awkwardly by the door, Satoru gaping at him with wide eyes, his hand still in a phantom grip around a phone that lays on the floor—until Satoru blinks, his cheeks flushing a pale red before leaning down to grab his phone off of the floor.
“Okay, Shoko, sorry, I’ll call you later, gotta go, okay, bye,” he quickly mutters into the receiver before jabbing the end call button. Suguru shifts awkwardly on the spot.
“I really don’t think I need to wear this to the wedding—” Suguru starts.
“You have to,” Satoru immediately insists. His eyes haven’t left Suguru’s face, but now they quickly dart over the entire outfit. Suguru has to resist the urge to flush under the scrutiny.
“No, I don’t,” Suguru protests weakly. He catches a glimpse of their reflections beside each other in the nearby mirror. He swallows. “We’d be matching more than you and Ieiri-san.”
Satoru blinks. “So?”
Suguru raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think Ieiri-san would be too pleased that—”
“Oh, please,” Satoru interrupts with a dismissive hand. “Shoko couldn’t care less.” At Suguru’s unconvinced stare, he continues. “Really. I just asked her. She doesn’t care.”
“She probably should,” Suguru mutters under his breath. If Satoru hears him, he doesn’t make any indication of it.
“Suguru.” He pulls his eyes away from the mirror to meet Satoru’s. “Please.” Suguru can’t bring himself to pull his eyes away again. “For me?”
Suguru’s hand twitches.
“Whatever,” he finally mutters—to himself or Satoru, he’s not sure. “It’s just a suit, anyway.”
“Just a suit,” Satoru agrees, but the light in his eyes dances with something like mirth. It’s absolutely enthralling to Suguru, and again, he can’t seem to look away.
Fuck, Suguru finally lets himself think. I might be in trouble.
from satoru 9:15 A.M.
i thought happiness started with an h
to satoru 9:15 A.M.
It does?
from satoru 9:15 A.M.
then why does mine start with u (ゝ◡･)ﾉ♡
to satoru 9:15 A.M.
Uhappiness isn’t a word :/
from satoru 9:15 A.M.
OH COME ON
And like that, three months becomes one month. After making Satoru survey the venue Suguru had pointed out, they had been able to finalize it, even though it was relatively last minute. With the venue finalized, it was almost too easy for everything else to fall into place. Save-the-dates had been sent out, along with invitations a few weeks later. Begrudgingly, the suits, plural, had been finalized, and when Suguru had asked about Ieiri’s dress, Satoru had dismissed it with a wave of a hand and a “she’s taking care of it.” Decorations for the wedding hall and seating charts had been finalized, with Satoru finding particular glee in putting together the people he knew would get along the worst right next to each other. Along with invitations, they had sent out a gift registry—although calling it that was a bit of an overstatement.
“Satoru,” he’d said slowly the first time he’d reviewed it. “This is just a bunch of candy.”
“Yuh-huh.”
“...and a dozen packs of cigarettes.”
“That one’s Shoko’s contribution.”
“Right,” Suguru had said, defeated. “Right.”
Slapdash as it had been, it was still, at the very least, one thing off of the checklist. Which leaves very little on it at all as the wedding date itself approaches—a good thing, Suguru reminds himself, since it meant the planning was on track. A good thing, Suguru has to remind himself, when he finds himself running out of excuses to pull Satoru around on different errands. A good thing, Suguru has to remind himself, when he accidentally taps on one of the many photos of Satoru now inhabiting his camera roll. A good thing, Suguru has to remind himself, when he wakes up every morning to an utterly stupid pick-up line that never fails to make him smile.
Okinawa, he’s forced to eventually admit, doesn’t quite seem to have the same luster as before.
Despite having fewer reasons to meet up outside of planning, inevitably, they do. Suguru can’t even fully blame Satoru for it—not when he so readily accepts any and every invitation Satoru offers: movies, lunch, dinner, karaoke…
Suguru might be willing to admit he's a little in over his head. Only to himself.
It doesn’t matter, though. Not when there’s only a month remaining before Suguru will ever see Satoru again. Not when there’s only a month remaining before it all comes to an end.
A month, though, is still a month. And as Suguru fondly watches Satoru’s eyes grow to the size of saucers in front of a quaint dessert shop, he realizes a month with Satoru is still a month he wouldn’t rather have with anyone else.
“Are we getting cake?” Satoru asks excitedly as Suguru pushes the door open. Suguru nods.
“One of the last things we need to finalize,” he says mildly, but he can’t help the smile from growing on his face from the way Satoru gapes at the line of pastries waiting on the table before them.
“I thought we usually have to order earlier in advance,” Satoru asks absentmindedly as he continues staring at the slices lined up in a neat row.
“I called in a favor,” Suguru answers with a shrug. “Figured you’d want to test them all yourself first, anyway.”
Satoru turns to him with sparkling eyes. “Oh, I do.”
“Geto-san,” another voice greets. Suguru turns to find a blond man with an apron and a light dusting of flour on his hands. His neutral expression pinches when he notices Satoru next to him. “...and Gojo-san?”
Satoru gasps. “Nanami, is that really YOU?”
“Oh god,” Nanami mutters under his breath. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
Suguru watches the exchange in amusement. “You two know each other, then?”
“Same high school,” comes Nanami’s curt response.
“We were best friends!” comes Satoru’s enthusiastic response at the exact same time, and then he immediately turns in betrayed shock back to face Nanami. “Na-na-miiiiiii—”
“ANYWAY,” Nanami says loudly. “Here are the cakes you requested, Geto-san. I’ll come back in a few minutes so you can let me know which you prefer.” After a slight nod of his head in Suguru’s direction, he spins on his heel and returns back to where he came from—the kitchen, presumably. Satoru pouts watching him leave.
“He always was so grumpy,” he reminisces, even as he eagerly slides into the seat next to Suguru’s on the long table they’ve been provided. “Never knew he could bake, though. How do you know Nanami, anyway?”
“I don’t, not really,” Suguru responds, even as Satoru starts attacking the first cake in the lineup. “My coworker, though—visits frequently and seems to be pretty good friends with him. Haibara talks about him a lot.” Suguru’s lips twitch into a smile. “Actually, I think he has a crush.”
“Oh, yeah?” comes Satoru’s response, muffled by a mouthful of cake. “You know, I talk a lot about you, too.”
Suguru stares at him blankly. “Okay,” he finally says blandly. Satoru frowns, apparently finished with his monstrous bite of the cake. There’s barely a half of the slice left. Still, he piles the remaining crumbs onto his fork, lifting it up towards Suguru, who leans away, eyeing it with suspicion.
“Say ‘ahh.’”
“Satoru, I’m not—”
Before Suguru can finish, the fork’s slipped into his mouth. On reflex, his mouth closes, and Suguru blinks in surprise at the sudden burst of flavor on his tongue.
“Huh,” he says slowly, chewing carefully. “This is pretty good.”
“Isn’t it?” Satoru agrees with a beam. “It’s sweet, but not as sweet as you.”
Suguru’s almost flattered. “Sure,” he agrees with a roll of his eyes. “These are mostly just for you, though. I don’t need a bite.”
Satoru looks at him like he’s said something preposterously stupid. “Of course you do. You have to like the cake too, obviously.”
“I don’t think I have the same tastes as Ieiri-san—”
“She doesn’t like cake,” Satoru interrupts confidently. Suguru is 80% sure he’s making it up. “So whichever cake we both like the most, we get. Deal?”
Suguru is starting to realize he has a horribly difficult time saying no to Satoru when he’s peering up at him above the lenses of his glasses. He’s half-sure that Satoru knows it, too. He tries not to think too hard about why that might be.
“Fine,” he eventually mutters, pulling his eyes away from the bright grin Satoru sends him.
And so the next hour passes like this: Suguru will take a careful section of the slice on his fork, somewhat reluctantly feed it to an expecting Satoru, and Satoru will hack out another section of the slice on his fork, utterly demolishing the pristine slice in the process, insist on feeding it to Suguru, and then Satoru will devour anything that remains. The process continues, until all that’s left on the table are several empty plates with barely a few crumbs on any.
By the end, Suguru’s leaning against his chair, a hand on his stomach, utterly and completely filled to the brim with cake. Satoru, on the other hand, is looking around expectantly almost as if he expects more.
“Those are all the flavors,” Suguru has to remind him, and Satoru frowns.
“Decent selection, I guess,” he sniffs haughtily. “Which was your favorite?”
Suguru’s not sure if he wants to admit that he lost track of the flavors after the fourth slice. “The first,” he ends up saying, the only flavor he can remember distinctly.
Satoru nods solemnly. “Right. The first one had the best balance of flavors and texture.”
Suguru stares at him blankly. Again, he’s not sure if he wants to admit that the primary reason he remembers the first slice at all was because of the unexpected way it had been shoved into his mouth.
“Exactly,” Suguru says lamely anyway. Satoru grins at him.
“Great minds think alike—” he begins to say, and it’s just then Nanami enters again, eyeing the empty plates warily.
“That was fast,” he mutters. “So, Geto-san,” he continues. Suguru is starting to realize he’s deliberately avoiding looking at, much less addressing, Satoru at all. His lips twitch with amusement. “Have you and your fiancé decided on a flavor?”
It’s Satoru that answers. “The first one,” he declares, pointing at a plate that Suguru vaguely remembers as having a pale white cake slice sitting atop of. The fact that Satoru remember the plate isn’t exactly what strikes Suguru as odd, though, but rather—
“Um,” Suguru blurts out. “It’s not—he’s not my fiancé. We’re not the ones getting married.”
Nanami stares at him strangely. “Are you sure?”
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
“Um,” Suguru says again after a brief pause. “Yes.”
Unfortunately, murmurs a quiet voice in Suguru’s mind. Suguru tells it to shut the fuck up. He’s been doing that a lot recently.
Nanami continues to squint at him, but after a few moments, he shakes his head. “Interesting,” he mutters, maybe to himself, but it’s still loud enough for Suguru to hear. Something bitter builds on his tongue. He wonders if he can blame it on all the cakes.
When he glances to the side, he finds Satoru watching him carefully with an imperceptible expression. A blink later, and it’s replaced by his usual grin.
“Say, Suguru,” he starts. There’s a mischievous tilt to his smile. “What if we get four cakes for the wedding?”
Nanami’s eyebrow twitches.
“Please get out.”
“Aww, Nanami!”
from satoru 9:20 A.M.
we’re not socks
to satoru 9:20 A.M.
We’re definitely not
from satoru 9:20 A.M.
but i think we’d make a great pair (╹ꇴ◠)♡
to satoru 9:20 A.M.
You’re so creative with these
from satoru 9:20 A.M.
REALLY ????
to satoru 9:20 A.M.
No <3
And like that, it’s the day of the wedding itself. It arrives so suddenly, at least to Suguru, that it seems to completely blindside him, until he wakes up and there’s more than one notification greeting him on his phone—and it’s not just a pick-up line. It’s a reminder he’d made six months ago.
Satoru Gojo and Shoko Ieiri.
So maybe Suguru frowns when he sees it. So perhaps, Suguru thinks he might be in a rather foul mood for the rest of the day.
Truth be told, he’s half convinced Ieiri won’t show up at all. He doesn’t know how much information Satoru’s been passing along, but he hasn’t actually seen the bride-to-be in six months.
He’s not sure if he wants her to show up.
But Suguru puts it out of his mind. Whether or not she shows up, his job is to make sure the wedding she shows up to—if she arrives at all—is perfect. So he pulls himself out of bed, reluctantly slips into the newly fitted suit Satoru had cheerily delivered to him a few weeks prior, smoothing down the rich fabric before driving to the finalized venue. The next few hours pass in a blur, ordering staff and decorations around, but by the time guests begin to trickle in, he’s mostly relieved to see everything begin smoothly. He doesn’t miss the few disdainful looks at the overall western set-up of the entire venue, and he especially doesn’t miss the recoils away from the band set-up, with their… rather interesting looking band members, but Suguru figures that was the reason Satoru had asked for them in the first place. After appointing a staff member to be in charge of making sure nothing went to shit while he was gone, he decides to begin searching for the bride and groom themselves.
After asking around, he learns that Satoru had been seen in one of the back dressing rooms—in the end, though, it’s surprisingly Ieiri he spots first—or at least, the train of her dress. He follows the flash of white he’d seen duck behind a corner, but before he can catch up to her, she disappears into her own dressing room. Suguru stands outside, a hesitant fist hovering in front the door, before deciding against it and letting his hand drop. All he had needed to confirm was that she was here at all, but something—some strange sense of intuition, some nagging feeling of unease—keeps Suguru’s feet rooted to the floor.
It’s only because he stays that he’s able to overhear the next exchange.
It’s Shoko’s voice he hears first—easily recognizable with its raspy tinge.
“How do I look?” he hears her ask. There’s a rustling of fabric.
“God, Shoko,” comes another woman’s voice. It’s low and reverent in its tone. “You look—you look like everything.”
Suguru stills. For some reason, the words seem familiar to him.
“You’re just complimenting your own design, aren’t you,” he hears Shoko respond, an uncharacteristically teasing tone to her words. Is she talking to the dress’s creator? Suguru faintly remembers mentions of Kyoto…
There’s a short laugh in response. “As if this dress would look this good on anyone else,” the other woman murmurs.
Her next words are stifled before she can say them. Outside the door, Suguru freezes. He stares, in a petrified sort of horror, at the barely ajar door in front of him, and with more effort than he’d think necessary, forces himself to move a few steps backwards—enough to peek into the sliver of open space, and—
They’re making out.
What the fuck, Suguru thinks.
“What the fuck,” Suguru breathes out. He stumbles backward against his own feet, before turning entirely. Almost on autopilot, his feet carry him to the far end of the hallway, where he hesitates in front of another door, identical in everything but the small name scribbled on the paper tag taped onto the door. GO AWAY, it reads in scratchy letters, (except for suguru <3). Suguru falters at the sign, but with a deep breath, he pushes the door open.
“Satoru,” he says before the other can even open his mouth. “Ieiri-san’s cheating on you.”
Satoru stares at him blankly from where he’d been adjusting the cuffs on his wrists. “What?”
Suguru bites the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “But Ieiri-san’s cheating on you.”
“Shoko?” Satoru clarifies, his eyebrows raising slightly. Suguru nods miserably. Satoru’s shoulders drop. “Oh. Yeah. I know.”
It’s Suguru’s turn to stare blankly at Satoru. “You know?”
Satoru scratches his cheek with a finger. “Mhm. Her girlfriend’s name is Utahime, I think? Lives in Kyoto. I think she’s a wedding dress designer, actually.”
“...I don’t understand.”
Satoru throws him a lopsided smile. “I guess I should explain from the beginning, huh?” He gestures at the open seat in front of him, and slowly, Suguru sits down across from him. “You already know Shoko and I are just doing this for our parents,” Satoru starts, and Suguru nods hesitantly. “Well, it’s not really so much an arranged marriage as it is a fake marriage. A marriage of convenience, so to speak.” At Suguru’s blank expression, he clarifies. “Shoko has a girlfriend. I’m gay. The solution?” He snaps his fingers. “Get married.”
Suguru’s lips part. He has no idea what to say.
“So you don’t actually—” he starts, before cutting himself off. “The both of you aren’t in love with each other.”
Satoru shrugs. “Shoko’s my best friend. But that’s it.”
“But you’re getting married,” Suguru says slowly.
Satoru shrugs again. “If we’re married, both of our parents stop breathing down our necks. Win-win.”
“Married,” Suguru repeats incredulously. “Satoru, you don’t—” He cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “You deserve better than that,” he says softly. You deserve me, mutters an insidious part of him that he firmly squashes down. “You deserve someone you actually love, who actually loves you, who you want to marry, who wants to marry you—both of you do.” His eyebrows furrow. “Satoru, are you sure you want to go through with this?”
"I came to terms with it," Satoru says with a shrug, and then his eyes flick to Suguru. "Well, I had come to terms with it."
Before Suguru can ask what that could possibly mean, he hears a crash of cymbals. The band had started playing—something Satoru had told them to do twenty minutes before the procession began.
“So to answer your question,” Satoru continues with a bittersweet smile. “Yeah, I’m sure. It’s only a marriage, right?”
“Only,” Suguru repeats pathetically, before letting out a soft laugh. “Yeah, Satoru. Okay. If you’re sure.” He shakes his head. “I’ll see you on the altar, then.” He stands up and moves towards the door, but Satoru’s voice stops him with his hand still on the handle.
“Wait,” he murmurs. Suguru turns back. There’s a slight smile on Satoru’s face. “You look really good, you know?”
Suguru blinks, glancing down at his own attire before meeting Satoru’s eyes again.
“Thanks. You… you too.” Suguru pulls his eyes away. His hand tightens around the handle. “Good luck, Satoru.”
“We are gathered here today,” comes a bored sounding voice, “to celebrate the union of Satoru Gojo and Shoko Ieiri.”
In the front row, just meters away from the altar itself, Suguru’s fingers dig into the fabric of his pants.
Oh god, Suguru realizes distinctly. I don’t want to be here.
It’s a rather terribly timed realization. He’s not sure, now that he thinks about it, why he’d let Satoru goad him into placing himself nearly front and center for the whole affair, with the clearest view of a ceremony that Suguru is realizing very clearly he very much does not want to witness.
I need to leave, comes his next vivid realization, but this too is rather horribly timed—when he glances up, he finds Satoru staring straight at him, and without even his sunglasses on, it’s a much too piercing gaze for Suguru to move under.
“Marriage is an act of will. It requires a commitment to care for another person. By caring, we show concern for the life and growth of those whom we love,” the officiant continues droning. Masamichi Yaga, if Suguru remembered his name correctly. He doesn’t look particularly enthused to be there. Suguru is finding it all too easy to relate. “Marriage requires a commitment to take responsibility for another person. By responding, we experience the needs of that other person and try to help meet those needs.”
Now that he thinks about it, he’s almost convinced he’s read these exact words on an online blog. Well. If it works, Suguru supposes.
Satoru’s gaze hasn’t left his face. Suguru bristles under the attention, glancing at the people sitting ramrod next to him, but none of them have seemed to notice Satoru’s undivided attention on him. Suppressing a wince, he gives a weak smile back to Satoru. Satoru finally blinks, and Suguru thinks, for a moment, he sees something shift in Satoru’s eyes.
The vows, Suguru tells himself. I’ll leave during the vows.
“You may now say your wedding vows,” Yaga announces, and Suguru relaxes minutely when Satoru finally pulls his eyes away to glance at Shoko. He shifts in his seat, waiting for the chance to spring out of his seat and slip out of the door unnoticed.
It’s Shoko that goes first.
“You’re my best friend,” she says simply, then stares at him expectantly.
“You’re my best friend, too,” returns Satoru, and then they’re both staring at Yaga.
Yaga stares back at them both. “Is that it?”
“Yep,” they say at the same time.
Suguru deflates in his seat. So much for escaping, then. His hands curl in on themselves, his nails digging into the skin of his palm. It stings, but not as much as it stings to see—
—well, Satoru.
“Shoko,” Yaga’s voice booms. “Do you take this man to be your husband? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?”
Shoko’s eyes flicker to the back of the room. When Suguru follows her gaze, he finds a woman with dark hair, pinned back with a bow, a light scar across the bridge of her nose, watching Shoko carefully with a carefully crafted mask of nonchalance. It’s only because it’s a mask Suguru’s worn so often that he can see the cracks—in the way the side of her mouth twitches just so, in the way the light in her eyes dim when she looks away.
When Suguru glances back at Shoko, her own eyes are downcast. Still, there’s a determined set to her mouth when she finally looks up.
“I do,” she finally says, and it lands as dully as Suguru would expect. No one around them seems to mind, though.
It’s apparently enough for Yaga to move on.
“And do you, Satoru, take this woman to be your wife? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live?”
When Suguru glances at Satoru, he’s somehow wholly unsurprised to see the other already looking back at him. So fixated is his stare that even Yaga loudly clearing his throat can’t seem to snap him out of whatever stupor he’s in.
More worrying—Suguru can’t seem to look away.
“I,” Satoru finally begins to say, but then his mouth snaps shut. A hushed silence blankets the area. “I…” Something flickers in Satoru’s eyes. “I object.”
Suguru’s mouth drops open. Shoko looks at him like he’s grown a second head, but it’s Yaga who’s the first to speak.
“What,” he growls out, and Suguru watches with growing horror as Satoru takes a step back.
“I object,” he repeats. His voice rings with crystal clarity throughout the hall. “I object to this wedding.”
Murmurs titter across the crowd. Suguru’s tongue lies limply in his mouth. Yaga looks like he might burst a blood vessel, and Shoko’s got a look as if she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
What the fuck, Suguru thinks.
“What the fuck,” Suguru mutters under his breath, but again, Suguru finds himself rendered speechless when Satoru’s gaze swings towards him yet again, and Suguru—
—can only watch as Satoru steps down from the podium, a sparkling ring still pinched in his fingers, walking towards—
“Suguru,” he breathes out, stopping inches away from where he sits. Suguru can do nothing but gape dumbly up at him. He can still hear the frantic whispers of the people around and beside him, but they seem to fade into background silence when he sees Satoru’s eyes crinkle into a fond smile, the fond smile he has saved in so many photos on his phone.
“Satoru,” he responds quietly. “What are you doing?”
“When I first met you,” Satoru says instead. “I thought you were really hot.”
Suguru stares stupidly at him. “Satoru—”
“So I’d flirt with you,” Satoru interrupts, his head tilted to the side. “Because I thought you were cute when embarrassed.” His smile widens. “Not that you’d ever really get embarrassed at all, but—well, imagine my surprise when I realized how amazing you were on top of your looks.” Suguru feels his cheeks heat up. “Imagine my surprise when I realized how much I adore you as a person,” Satoru continues. “Imagine my surprise—when I realized how much I loved you, Suguru.”
Suguru inhales a shuddering breath. For a moment, Suguru lets himself believe Satoru. For a moment, Suguru forgets about everyone else in the hall. For a moment, Suguru exists only in Satoru’s eyes. For a moment—
Satoru slowly, slowly crouches to be on one knee. “Suguru,” he murmurs, extending a single ring that glitters almost as much as the lights in Satoru’s eyes. “Will you marry me?”
Oh, Suguru thinks. That's what this is.
The noise and people around him begin to rush in again. All of a sudden, he is all too aware of the fact that every eye in the room is on them, and Suguru realizes he’s never been so distinctly uncomfortable in his life. Some asshole in the corner of the band does a quick drum riff.
"Get up," Suguru murmurs. At Satoru's confused tilt of his head, Suguru repeats firmer. "Satoru, get up."
“...Suguru?”
"I can't believe you would—" Suguru cuts himself off. The surrounding silence seems to wrap around his throat and suffocate him. Every pair of eyes on them feels like a piercing needle against his skin. "I can't do this right now," he finally mutters under his breath.
He closes his eyes. Just for a moment, all the people disappear. Just for a moment, the wedding decorations disappear. Just for a moment, Satoru disappears.
He stands up. Murmurs shift around him as he begins walking through the crowd towards the back entrance.
“Suguru.”
He doesn’t stop. Without another word, he slips out of the hall. A cold breeze greets him outside as he mindlessly walks towards his car. Once inside, he leans his forehead against the steering wheel.
Fuck, he thinks.
“Fuck.”
from satoru 2:12 A.M.
suguru?
“Er, Geto-san, have you seen this?”
Suguru looks up from his phone in time to see Haibara staring at his own phone screen, his brows furrowed. He turns the screen to face Suguru, and he’s able to read the headline of the article Haibara had been reading.
Gojo Enterprises Heir Objects to His Own Wedding: What Has the World Come To?
“That’s quite a dramatic title,” Suguru notes dryly.
“It is,” Haibara agrees, then hesitates. “But—is it true?”
Suguru hums blandly. “Well, yeah. It’d be kind of hard to make up.”
Haibara’s eyes widen. “Really?” He blinks rapidly. “Do you know what happened? There’s not much detail in this… it looks like Satoru Gojo’s been really private about what happened, and no one else is talking. I thought—well, you were planning the wedding, weren’t you?”
“It’s… a long story.”
The rest of their lunch passes in silence.
When he returns to his office, it looks exactly as he’d last left it. He doesn’t exactly know why he had expected it to change, but there’s something comforting in the normalcy of it. He pulls open his computer, mindlessly deleting notes and tabs he’d kept for… The Wedding. The Wedding, capitalized, because Suguru is quite sure he’ll never forget it as long as he lives. He kind of wishes he could.
Still, a part of him wonders—was that it? Was that really the last he’d ever see of—
“Satoru,” he interrupts his own thoughts when he sees a familiar white-haired man by the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Suguru,” comes his name, murmured quietly. “I fucked up. I’m sorry—”
“Yeah, you did,” Suguru interrupts, pulling his eyes away from Satoru’s doleful stare even as he takes a seat across from Suguru. He wouldn’t let the doe eyes sway him like they had so many times in the months before. He shakes his head. “God, Satoru. I know you don’t like your parents, I know you wanted to get under their skin, but—” He cuts himself off to search Satoru’s face. “Did you really have to propose to me just to make a point to them?”
Satoru blinks. “What?”
“That whole…” Suguru waves a hand vaguely in the air. “Whatever you pulled. It was to show up your parents, wasn’t it?”
Satoru’s mouth drops open. For a second, Suguru mentally pats himself on the back for successfully rendering Satoru nearly speechless.
“What?” Satoru repeats. “What—no. No! That wasn’t—”
Suguru raises a single eyebrow, and Satoru cuts himself off.
“Okay,” he admits. “Okay. Maybe it was a little for show. But Suguru—” He reaches over to clasp Suguru’s hands in his own. “Nothing I said was fake. I meant it all. I do think I’m a little—a lot—in love with you.” He grins shyly. “I do think you’re pretty hot.”
“And you decided to tell me on your wedding day?” Suguru asks faintly.
Satoru winces. “I may have… not entirely thought it through.”
Suguru snorts. “No kidding.”
“But I meant it,” Satoru insists. “Suguru, you have to know that.”
“We’ve only known each other for six months,” Suguru reminds him. He decides not to mention the fact that he’s also pretty sure he’s a little—a lot—in love with Satoru, too.
“And you already had me proposing,” Satoru responds with a grin. Suguru lets out an amused huff.
“At least take me out on a proper date, first,” he says mildly, and he’s entirely unprepared for Satoru to spring up, pulling Suguru up with him with their clasped hands.
“Let’s go right now,” Satoru suggests eagerly, and Suguru can’t help the slight smile on his own face. What an idiot, he thinks fondly.
“What about your parents?” Suguru asks, even as Satoru begins tugging him out of his office.
“Fuck my parents,” Satoru says cheerfully. “Say, what do you think about visiting Nanami again? As a proper date, this time.”
“You just want to satisfy your sweet tooth, huh?”
“You know me so well, Suguru.”
from satoru 9:17 A.M.
i must be in a museum
bc ur a work of art ♡(´⌣ `ʃƪ)
to satoru 9:17 A.M.
You don’t need to keep sending me these
We’re literally dating
from satoru 9:17 A.M.
aww but u love them dont u ( ˘³˘)♡
to satoru 9:17 A.M.
…yeah ok
to satoru 9:19 A.M.
If I could rearrange the alphabet I’d put u and i together
from satoru 9:19 A.M.
AWW SUGURU DID U COME UP WITH THAT URSELF
to satoru 9:19 A.M.
No I got it from the internet
from satoru 9:19 A.M.
ok well the sentiment’s still there
love u too suguru
to satoru 9:19 A.M.
<3
Utahime and Shoko get married three months later. It’s a fantastic affair, and although Suguru doesn’t get paid quite enough to fund that Okinawa trip, it’s worth it to see the bright grins on their faces as they lean into each other during the ceremony. Plus, Satoru’s rich as hell. He’s already promised Suguru an Okinawa trip, so he’s in no rush any more.
Satoru, though, does seem to be in a bit of a rush himself. Suguru still receives a cringy pick-up line every morning, something he finds a little redundant now that he’s moved into Satoru’s lavish apartment and is now privy to pick-up lines every morning straight from Satoru’s mouth, but he can’t deny the small flicker of amusement he gets from them. Now, though, on top of the pick-up lines, Satoru’s also taken to proposing to Suguru every day. It had startled Suguru a bit the first few times, but as the months passed, he’d gotten relatively used to the question being popped at random intervals of the day.
“Suguru, did you get the groceries?” he’ll call out in the middle of the day.
“Yeah, check the fridge,” Suguru will call back from the living room, and then Satoru’s head will pop out a little bit later.
“By the way, will you marry me?”
“You wish,” often comes Suguru’s usual response.
Satoru’s never especially hurt by Suguru’s non-answers, but now, over a year into living in the same apartment with Satoru, sharing the same bed with Satoru, it’s Suguru that hesitates before answering each time. He doesn’t think Satoru’s picked up on it yet.
But one lazy morning, when Suguru cracks his eyes open to see Satoru already awake and gazing at him fondly, to see their bodies naturally curved towards each other, to see their fingers lazily looped together, he thinks—
—oh.
“Hey, Satoru,” he murmurs quietly. “Will you marry me?”
Satoru’s eyes crinkle into a soft smile.
“I thought you’d never ask.”