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When Satoru got off the phone with Shoko, he ran like a bat out of hell to get to where she specified in time. It’s been fifteen minutes since then and he’s calmed down from his run and settled to stand outside of a shabby KFC to wait.
He’s so furious with the situation that he wants to cry, to just break down and sob like the child he feels he is and beg the universe to hit the rewind button. He loathes the feeling. When he was left to die of blood loss on the cold concrete after being stabbed through the throat he didn’t shed a tear about his impending death. He didn’t cry when he found out Riko had been shot through the skull by the same man who had done him in. He didn’t feel burning behind his eyes when he looked upon the dead body of his kohai. Satoru Gojo isn’t a person who cries. The strongest don’t cry; however, now standing to confront his best friend, he wants nothing more than to let the waterworks flow. He holds back on the sensation. There is a place and time for these emotions and out in the middle of the public eye isn’t it.
Where should I go after this? he wonders. The school won’t be able to hold the sorrow he is bound to release after the upcoming encounter, he knows better than to hope for this to go positively. I should go find a forest somewhere, he muses. That sounds like the best place to yell until he’s satisfied. Good thing he grabbed his wallet on his way out now he can take a train without telling anyone where he’s going.
He feels like he is about to explode with nervous energy. His foot is tapping against the sidewalk and his six eyes are in overdrive trying to locate the familiar figure that the energy inside him burns to be released on. The mantra of why, why, why, why, runs through his mind. It’s his own self-inflicted curse that won’t be exercised until it’s answered.
One of his eyes focuses onto a man down the street approaching where he is standing. Black clothes, black hair, black eyes, dark eyebags, sallow skin. Since when has Suguru been so dark? As he approaches Satoru, all six of his eyes focus on him. Suguru once told him that he could feel the stares, he hopes it burns.
“Explain yourself Suguru,” he seethes.
As he listens to his command being brought to light in a calm voice, it only brings Satoru more questions and anger. Killing non-sorcerers? What happened to protecting the weak? Meaning and justice? Why does there have to be such things when living a life like theirs?
“There is no point in attempting the impossible!” Satoru exclaims, frustration seeping like sludge through his words.
“How arrogant,” Suguru replies in the same damned monotonous tone. The lack of venom in his tone does not lessen the feeling of a knife going through Satoru’s heart.
“You could do it Satoru. You’re trying to convince me that it’s impossible when you yourself could do it.”
So? You aren’t me, you’re Suguru Geto! He wants to shout but doesn’t, civilians are still swarming around them.
“Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo? Or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?”
“What’re you getting at?” he exasperates.
“If I could be you, wouldn’t my impossible ideal become possible? This is the life I’ve chosen. All I can do now is give it all I’ve got.” Suguru turns away from him and all he can think is no, not yet. His arms snap up into an offensive position, his immediate reaction is to attack. To threaten Suguru to stay and not leave. To not leave him to deal with the aftermath that will shatter him; but, all that happens in response is Suguru’s continuous monotone droning out, “If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that too.”
The lack of feeling in Suguru’s voice is all it takes to sap all fight out of Satoru. His arms fall to his sides and all he can do is sag his head. In disappointment? Acceptance? He cannot be sure. Suguru is no longer his focus and his six eyes retract to their normal positions. He listens to the idle chatter of people passing by and gazes through his sunglasses at the concrete below his feet. He no longer feels like he needs to cry, he just wants to sleep.
The short time he’s spaced out is all it takes for his sunglasses to slip off his nose and fall down to his shoes. That, of all things, is what sets him off. Pure, unadulterated rage and grief burn hot through his chest and up through his ears, making them ring. He anguishes over the loss of a friend who could have blossomed into something so much more had there been time.
The sudden rush of fire through his veins leaves him vindictive. He remembers how he got those glasses and it only fuels the forge burning within the hole of his heart.
“Satoru!” Suguru had smiled, “I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” He had mockingly gasped, “Has Christmas come early?”
Surguru had let out a chuckle at the statement, “No, I was just shopping a bit ago and saw these in one of the windows. I thought they’d suit you.”
He took the small rectangular box out of Suguru’s hands and tore into the paper mercilessly. What lay beneath were the circular sunglasses that fit him so well. He remembers when he first saw the contents of the box, how surprised he had been and how the smile that stretched his cheeks had been genuine- not one of the mocking smiles he usually sported.
“I heard you complaining to Sensei how your six eyes were bugging you and that dark-lensed glasses or blindfolds work. I know you probably don’t want to wear the dusty old ones in your clan's armory, so I got you these.” Suguru explained, “I don’t know how dark you need them but those are dark enough that I can’t see through them. I hope it helps.”
The twin grins never left their faces the rest of the day as Satoru sported his new glasses and bragged about them to anyone who’d listen. Suguru had been embarrassed at first but anyone could tell he was proud of his gift.
That day was one of the happiest he’d ever had.
Now staring at the very same glasses sitting cracked on the concrete below him, he wants them out of his sight.
What a better way to get rid of them than to return them to their sender?
Drawn out of his spacy mood and running on pure spite, he focused his six eyes in the way Suguru had walked earlier. He wasn’t that far from where they’d had their unofficial goodbye, the bastard probably didn’t even think he’d follow him. Satoru snorted to himself, he was about to prove him wrong.
Suguru was only about a block ahead of him and when he’d felt Satoru’s cursed energy flair, he hadn’t slowed down, only moved to a more crowded place.
“Like civilians will stop me,” he murmurs bitterly. He grabs the glasses off the ground and starts walking. The strides he takes are long and powerful but in no way rushed. He knows Suguru won't run.
He thinks I’m chasing after him to kill him, he guesses, going a bit hysterical at the thought. The most hilarious part of this all is that Suguru thinks that he has the mental capabilities to withstand killing his best friend right now. His train of thought continues through the twists and turns of his new reality and stops at a conclusion he wished he’d seen sooner. It feels like someone socked him in the gut, air is nowhere to be found and for a moment he struggles to breath and his stride stutters. The next time I meet him, I’m going to kill him. The higher-ups are going to make me his executioner.
It makes him laugh, that thought. It bubbles out of him unprompted. His sudden loud “Ha-Ha-Ha”s gain him weird stares as he walks through the buzzing crowd. He tries to clamp it down, only for it to leak through his lips, drip down his chin, and drop to the ground- his own blood trail of misery. He imagines grabbing his hysteria by the scruff and shoving it into a box. He locks it and shoves it into another compartment of his mind. The laughter dies in his throat and leaves nothing but the taste of bile.
Satoru can see Suguru just ahead of him now. He also sees his shoulders rise and sag in a sigh before stopping in a similar place to Satoru’s earlier- a part among the sea of people. Only this time, Suguru doesn’t turn around, nor does he speak. Satoru comes to a halt a short distance away from him and doesn’t speak either.
The emotion coursing through him leaves him at a loss for words. He wants to yell at Suguru til his voice goes out, gets healed, and yell at him some more. He wants to cry and plead with him to stay. He wants to hug him and tell him he’s sorry for not noticing sooner. Satoru can't pick which emotion to bring forth and doesn’t. Whatever comes out is what will be his truth, not superficial emotions that will cease to better the situation.
Satoru loosens the white-knuckle grip on his sunglasses. He brings his arm back, aims at the back of Suguru’s stupid head and throws them with all the power he can manage without his cursed energy.
The resounding thwack they make on contact and the confused grunt from Suguru are little towards bettering his mood. He can feel his face cracking and knows he won’t make it much longer.
Just a little longer. He can manage a little while longer.
“I hope you find meaning and happiness in this decision of yours because it’s the one that will bring the weight of being your executioner onto my shoulders.” The voice that reaches his ears is devoid of emotion, but he knows it’s his. Suguru flinches at his words, just a slight twitch of his shoulders but Satoru sees it.
Satoru blanks his face as Suguru turns around and looks to see what hit him. Shock flits his face like he can’t fathom the sight before him and he picks up the sunglasses from the floor, gently running a hand over the cracks of the lens. He looks to Satoru in confusion and Satoru can see the way he withdraws slightly from whatever look he managed to plaster on his face.
Satoru points to the glasses in his ex-best friend's hands and says in the same robotic voice, “There is meaning behind that too, ol’ wise one. You’re smart enough to figure it out.”
Satoru has reached his peak. He can sense the avalanche threatening to sweep him off his feet and knows that some cracks are breaking through his mask. He knows there is a slight glassiness to his eyes and a frown starting to pull down on his lips. He knows that when he meets the eyes of Suguru that all the emotions hiding behind his facade are shown through the windows to his soul, the ones lacking their curtains, as the curtains are currently held in the gentle hands of the man that caused the maelstrom.
Satoru isn’t ashamed of the fact that he runs.
One moment he is standing in front of shell-shocked Suguru, the next he manages to teleport himself to a forest who-knows-how-many miles away. The fact that he’s never done that before outside of picturing the theory doesn’t matter to him, all that matters is that he managed to escape before he overflowed.
He stretches his senses trying to discern whether or not he’s truly alone. He feels the cracks deepening.
He grabs his phone and shoots Shoko a quick message. I’m alive, it says, I won't be back ‘til dinner, so don’t worry when I don’t show up.
He watches her text bubble pop up, disappear, and pop up again. Soon its place is filled by a new message. Ok, she responds, don’t go off getting yourself killed.
He leaves her on “seen” not feeling like responding. His hands shake as he roughly shoves his phone back into his pocket. The trembles travel his body and soon he is shaking like a leaf and biting his lip so hard he can taste warm iron invading his mouth.
He pushes his eyes to scour the whole forest. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. Once his eyes have stretched out to the borders of the forest and have proven that he is well and truly alone, he collapses. His knees buckle and hit the earth with a dull thump. He wraps his arms around his torso in a desperate attempt to keep himself together, he feels like he is falling apart. He fears that if he lets go he’ll be pulverised, that he will become nothing but dust and be carried off by the whims of the breeze that’s carried through the trees around him.
He folds in on himself as the first sob wracks through his body. His forehead touches the cool dirt below him and he watches as the tears drop from his eyes and fall down, down, down.
He wails through the anguish, no one but the birds and squirrels the witness to his coming undone. He cries for the loss of a friend, tainted memories, and the hole in his heart that bleeds more than he ever thought possible. He cries for the loss of a memento that was once his most prized possession and the fact that no one will be able to see the marks of sorrow on his face- his reverse cursed technique consistently ghosting cool fingers over his red eyes and leaving them perfectly unblemished.
The fire of fury that was at one point flowing through him as much as his own life blood is gone, burnt to embers and swept up in the winds of his storm. All that’s left is the hollow empty feeling of something missing and the bone deep tiredness that yearns to be slept away.
--
Satoru does not know how long he spends in the forest but he knows the sun is no longer high in the sky but slowly making its way to the horizon by the time he calms down. He stands on tired legs and starts walking. He takes out his phone again and sends a message to an auxiliary manager to come pick him up along with his location. The response message asking how he got so far away from the school is funny but he doesn’t laugh, just ignores them and keeps moving to the main road. He notices that Yaga-sensei also messaged him but he ignores it too.
When he makes it to the road and is picked up by the manager, he stays silent the whole way back. He can see how his silence unsettles the poor guy but he doesn’t care to fix his discomfort. All Satoru can do is watch out the window as they fly by the scenery.
As soon as they pull up to the school, Satoru hops out of the car with a croaky, “Thanks.” to the auxiliary manager and speedily walks to the cafeteria for some food and water. All the energy spent yelling his woes to the universe really did a number on his stomach.
When he enters the cafeteria he is happy to find himself alone. Apparently he got back just as everyone finished eating dinner. He’s not complaining. He quickly scarfes down the plate of food that was left seran-wrapped with a sticky note with his name on it then grabs a bottle of water and heads back to his dorm room.
Walking down the hallway he can see Shoko sitting outside his door tapping away on her phone. “Yo, Shoko,” he calls, making his way to her with a smile on his face. Her head snaps up and he sees her give him a quick once over. She won’t find anything, he cleaned up before he even called the manager to the forest.
“Satoru,” she greets. Her eyes stick to his face, trying to find a crack in his facade. They narrow as she asks, “Where are your glasses?”
Satoru can feel as his smile twitches into a frown for a split second before recovering. “They broke,” he replies simply. He pushes past her and opens the door to his room and enters before turning back towards his one remaining friend. “It’s ok, I have a bunch of backup eyewear that my parents sent over from our clan's armory.”
She looks doubtful at his statement but doesn’t press. Privately, Satoru thanks Shoko for that small mercy. They stare at each other for a long moment before Shoko decides to be the one to break the silence. “Well, get some rest then. You look like you were run over by a train.”
Satoru’s smile softens into something a bit more genuine and responds a quick, “Don’t worry. I will,” and shuts the door between them.
Satoru’s smile falls immediately and it's all he can do to strip down to his underwear and crawl under the covers before he passes out. He’s dead to the words the instant his head hits the pillow. His dreams are nothing but the image of a man covered in black shrouded by a bone-deep feeling of desiderium.