Chapter Text
Suguru wakes up with white hair tickling his neck. As he turns, he sees Satoru sprawled next to him, taking as much space as he can while snoring softly. He feels peaceful. It amazes him, how little he needed and it scares him, how arduous it felt. He tries to revel in the novelty, ground himself into the moment, but he keeps wondering how long this will last. He doesn’t have a mission today, but will this be enough? And what about tomorrow, when he has one?
“What do you want to do today?” Satoru asks him.
Suguru startles. He didn't notice Satoru waking up.
“Don't you have missions?”
Stretching his limbs so that he occupies even more space, he tells him: “I finished all of them yesterday.”
“Of course you did. You are such a good sorcerer, aren't you?” The bitterness poisons his words before he can stop them.
The fact that Satoru does not answer in kind unsettles him. He takes a deep breath instead and smiles. Suguru can't pinpoint what he's feeling.
“Come on, have at me” Satoru says.
“What are you talking about?”
“I know you are mad at me. So come on, yell at me. I know you want to.”
“I am not mad at you, Satoru.” He tries to stand up, his brain urging him to leave, but Satoru's hand traps his wrist. “Let go of me.”
“Nu-uh. Not before we talk”. His eyes soften as he adds: “I miss you”.
Suguru’s emotions surround him and he feels at a brink of something he's too scared to even look at. “Please, Satoru. Let me go”.
Satoru doesn't heed his words. “Is it because I died?” he asks.
And then, “I’m sorry”. It's the first time Suguru has heard him say so.
“I know I failed.” his best friend continues “I got killed and then I left you and Amanai died. I get it, really. You have every right to be ashamed of me.”
Satoru takes a deep breath before saying: “I can leave if you want me to. I could continue my education with my family, I think. Maybe then you'll feel bett-”
Suguru’s out of words, doesn't even know where to start, but he has to stop him someway.
So he kisses him.
He doesn't know what to expect. Before Riko died he had thought, with a conviction that is currently foreign, that his feelings weren't unrequited. He made a game to himself to make Satoru blush as much as possible, loving how it made his eyes stand out even more. Now, after everything, he worries that he imagined all the looks Satoru sent him, all the ways he relaxed into Suguru's space.
Then Satoru kisses him back desperately, invading his lap with his whole body, lanky legs straddling him. It feels like coming home.
Suguru is not a romantic and he knows that he has so much work to do to fix this. To fix himself, even. But in that exact moment he is sure that he will be alright because whatever this is, it's worth it.
They separate what feels like hours later, both out of breath. Satoru doesn't move an inch from his lap and Suguru is perfectly content to leave him be. He stays still for seconds, letting himself feel all of them.
And then he speaks: “I was mad at you, but you got all the rest wrong. Satoru, I never blamed you for dying and you didn't leave me. I left you and I'll never stop feeling guilty for not being there”.
Satoru pokes him on the nose: “You did not leave him, I told you to go.”
“Don’t interrupt me.” Satoru pouts at him and he has to force himself not to kiss him again right away. They have all the time in the world.
“The reality is that I thought that you were invincible and then you died and then you became invincible again, as if nothing even happened.”
He wills himself to meet the full force of Satoru’s gaze, which has not wavered from him this whole time. “I am so sorry, Satoru. I was so wrapped up in my own misery that I went and treated you like everyone else. I distanced myself from you because I knew that if I lost you again there would be nothing left of me. But I just made everything worse for the both of us.”
Satoru raises a hand to his cheek and wipes away a tear, his eyes so gentle he has to look away. “Hey, it's not your fault. You have depression, right? I went to a normie library and read so many books about it. There are coping mechanisms and drugs and I have written somewhere the names of the best sorcerer therapists in Japan. Shoko says she knows the third one, by the way.”
All this time, Suguru has forgotten what it's like to be cared for. He wants to bask in this warmth for as long as he can.
“I love you, Satoru.”
“Oh. Oh.” Satoru averts his gaze, blushing. His voice is so very soft when he says: “I love you too.”
A month later they are sitting in a Vienna cafè and Satoru is eating his second serving of Sachertorte. The suffused lights make his white hair look golden and his eyes are shining behind his sunglasses. It's their first of countless dates.
Suguru has been talking to his therapist. She suggested this, actually. Said that he needed a break, to figure out what he needs in order to smile again. He's not completely okay yet, but he's better and the good days are slowly surpassing the bad days. Satoru is helping, too.
There are moments when he's overcome by grief, moments when he doesn't see the point in anything he's ever done, but the good thing is that they always pass. Mostly he strives to stay in the present, to accept and then let go of his misery, not enabling his self-deprecating thoughts, but refuting them as if he is reassuring a child.
Right now, he just wants to be happy.
And as he looks up to meet Satoru's gaze, he lets himself be embraced by the warmth of his best friend’s love.