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Another day, another disagreement between him and Kugisaki.
"What are you so afraid of? Everything about our job involves risks. I'm certain that he's ready."
"And I'm not," she shrugs. "You don't get to decide here. Ask Yaga and he'll tell you the same thing."
Megumi stays out of it. He's one of those who do their job, collect the paycheck and forget that their responsibilities exist the moment they get home. It's a healthier mindset, but Yuji couldn't be like him if he tried. Not when they're dealing with living beings.
"I don't want to hear a thing about him being harmless when you're his favorite," she adds. "He wouldn't hurt you, but us? They hate humans."
"He's not like that. Hatred towards humans isn't their collective personality trait, Kugisaki. They're nuanced, like us."
Nobara rubs her eyes, exhaustion written all over her face. "Impulsive people have no place here."
"I haven't come up with it overnight. I've been thinking about it since we found out how gentle he is, and.." Yuji pauses, having realized how emotional he's getting. He's proving Nobara's point. The decision has to be well-calculated and what is he doing now? Acting like a little brat.
"You're attached to him."
He doesn't even try to defend himself. "Yes."
Megumi peeks at them from behind his desk. The silence prolongs.
"Yaga let us work on this solely because he found us talented. We don't have much experience, but we've been doing great as partners and I refuse to give up on this project. Don't mess it up."
They're twenty-two and their length of service is six months. Maybe someone who worked here all their life wouldn't be as sensitive to the suffering of their 'patients,' but Yuji can't fight this empathy. Just like doctors, or therapists, they can't let their personal feelings get in the way.
Yaga has faith in young people. He noticed their passion during school years and believes in their potential as researchers. They're on thin ice, though, and can't afford mistakes. Yuji observes those creatures every single day, twelve hours in the lab, pulling sporadic all-nighters. How can he stay neutral and follow every order without second thoughts?
They deserve freedom too. Satoru is the proof that those 'monsters' aren't all bad. His biggest offense is that he's stubborn and doesn't want to talk, although he knows their language and could communicate just fine. The only word that leaves his mouth is 'Yuji.'
If he were to answer the pressing question -'Have they harmed any creature during their tests?' he wouldn't be able to say no. Satoru isn't the only alien under their observation, but the one with the most peaceful life. The males and females before him have been put through multiple experiments and not many survived. They haven't learned a whole lot about their bodies and minds, which makes their deaths that much more tragic to Yuji.
Their biology is similar to humans', but it's very possible that they transformed upon arriving on Earth. Their bodies adapted naturally to protect them from the harm of this planet, help them survive the new environment. All of them got captured and brought to this facility. The weaker ones combusted right after their first breath of the poisonous air.
There are more questions than answers, yet one thing's apparent -they're doomed if they lose the battle with time and fail to find the foreign living's weakness.
They predict that more of them will arrive in the upcoming years, only.. Why? What are their intentions? Creatures of Satoru's kind are superior to humans -stronger, faster and wiser. Compared to them, humans process information extremely slowly. They're like sloths. Humans' advantage over aliens is temporary and based on the technology they created specifically to track anomalies that would then let them figure out where the next research object might appear.
They're defenseless when they reach Earth and it's essential to capture them then, before they regain their strength. The military takes care of it and then, all they have to do is feed their little prisoners an obscene amount of tranquilizers in order to pacify them. It's inhuman.
No one does it for fun. They need to be prepared, but at what cost will their safety turn out to be? They attempted forced mating before, or rather trapping a male and female in the same observation room, hoping for them to give in to their primal instincts. They haven't gotten to witness their intercourse, which led them to believe that there was no penetration involved. The subjects initiated physical contact, but the specifics of the mating are unclear.
Those things are murderous. It was already a huge failure when they missed the moment of impregnation, but the next mistake was letting the baby stay with its parents. The male bit the child's throat and tore the vocal cords out when it started crying and making all this noise. Yuji remembers the high-pitched ring of the alarms and the chaos the situation created. The baby died right before his eyes and he couldn't pull himself together for the longest time.
They separated the two, but then tried again and again, changing their methods. It was important to learn how they copulate and nurse the offspring. The baby itself would be a fascinating testing subject. It has the same, human appearance as its parents, but would it change as it grows on Earth? Would it become more human in those circumstances?
The incident with the baby had solidified Nobara's judgment. "Disgusting, simple-minded monsters," she commented.
Yuji couldn't prove it, but he knew that it was deeper than that. He didn't want to kill the baby. He did it to protect it from the testing -from the miserable life it would've had in this place.
They failed to match them a few times too. The male and female subjects would kill each other in case of incompatibility and cleaning their internal organs off the wall, ceiling and floor was not a good time. One particular species of those aliens is particularly dangerous, including their offspring. When the baby is fully developed, it tears its way out of its mother's body. The female dies and the child needs to be tended to immediately.
It happened once and they didn't know what to do. They watched the traumatic scene unfold and before they noticed, the baby was dead. Something went wrong, involving the position of the baby. It got tangled in the intestines and strangled itself.
Yuji can never forget the sound Megumi made before throwing up into the trash can. How pale and sick-looking he became.
What are they expecting when they're treating these people like animals? It's possible that a majority of those tragedies happen because the subjects are trapped, anxious and drugged with medication that dumbs them down, but no one listens to him when he theorize about it.
He begged Yaga to let him become Satoru's main caregiver. His goal is to prove that they could create an alliance if they treat the aliens no differently than humans, or if that's impossible -almost like humans. They still need to keep them locked, until they build a sufficient amount of trust to let them roam about.
The time has come. If it turned out that they could live together, side by side, it would've meant a huge breakthrough in their research. He could make it happen, but they keep trying to cool his enthusiasm down. Yuji named the man and spent months getting closer to him, teaching him things and getting him used to humans. He told him that he chose the name because of his intelligence and saw a spark in the alien's eyes.
Whenever someone else interrupts them and tries to talk to Satoru, the man moves to the opposite corner of the room as a form of silent denial. Any other time, he stays glued to the glass, listening to Yuji's voice.
His human form is ethereal. If angels exist, they'd look something like him. His body is big and sturdy, face symmetrical, hair white, thick and soft as a feather. He's two meters tall -not a common sight.
Satoru lives like a human, doesn't get pills forced down his throat like any other lab rat. Yuji spends most of his time thinking about how to raise the quality of his friend's life. It's like a hostage situation that cannot be compared to what humans have. Basic concepts like autonomy had become foreign to Satoru by the time they brought him here.
He needs to get socialized, build connections, find activities that he enjoys. The other aliens remain in survival mode and can't be blamed for their irrational behavior. Killing offspring, murdering each other or refusing to eat anything they're given all have a reason. They're not evil, but scared and confused.
Satoru functions fine. He has a bathroom behind the door, a bed in his small room and an old TV, playing movies with themes of family and love. He needs more space, in Yuji's opinion. Fresh air, nature, touch.. There's still so much missing from his life. It really feels like they've kidnapped a person and keep him there like a pet. Yuji brings him his meals and other necessities.
They've never touched before or met without this thick glass between them. What does Satoru's skin feel like? What's his scent? He'd like to get closer, but it's impossible. Teaching someone love and kindness is not an easy task with this physical barrier.
He and Satoru eat every meal together. The man prefers to listen rather than talk and when Yuji asks a question, he responds by nodding, or shaking his head. He's not rebelling. Itadori suspects that he's mildly depressed, being so far away from home, under the mercy of creatures who see him as less than them.
"Was it painful when you first arrived here?"
Satoru's forehead leaves a mark on the glass when he moves away slightly to nod. He rests against it as long as Yuji is there.
"It hurt," he says, raising his hand to his throat.
Itadori sends him a look of sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you for speaking to me."
It's a rare instance and he feels honored to be the one to witness it. He's sad for Satoru, but happy that they got so far. When they found him, he was curled up in a ball that looked like an overgrown armadillo. It opened on its own and the military men saw him covered in this pale-blue substance. It worked like a corrosive material to humans and was nourishing to Satoru.
"How do you feel today?" Yuji asks, getting into the role of a nurse.
Satoru tilts his head and places his hand on the glass, as if he'd like to touch Yuji's face. He does that a lot and it makes Itadori feel like a fraud -someone who pretends to be Satoru's friend, while treating him the same as the others. Like he's a threat. He's being avoided like the plague, despite how important his cooperation is to them. What they learn while working with him could actually help them survive later on. Taking that into account, the way he lives is extremely unfair.
"I tried to tell them," Yuji says apologetically. "If it was up to me, I'd let you out."
They need to put an end to his isolation. Entering the room crossed Itadori's mind, but the problem is that they're never alone. Kugisaki and Fushiguro are meant to be watching them, in case anything went wrong. It's a three-level security. If Satoru ever happened to get out of his room, he'd be locked in the one Yuji is currently in. Then, he'd have to escape into the corridor and make his way out of the facility through one of the doors guarded by security. The area around the building would be another obstacle.
Satoru gazes at the screen, where one of the carefully selected movies is playing. A young deer feeds on grass and a second later, stills, startled by a sudden, loud noise -a creak of a leaf or someone stepping on a dry stick. The man turns his head back to Yuji and looks deeply into his eyes. It makes Itadori curious about the way he's being perceived.
"Are you scared?"
Another victory! It's a good day, although they could be talking about lighter topics.
"No."
Satoru blinks slowly. If it wasn't for this glass between them, he'd feel the man's breath on his face. Aliens detect lies better than machines programmed specifically for that function. Yuji watches Satoru's blue irises flicker as he analyzes every little change in his behavior.
He has no reason to be nervous about the outcome, since everything he said was true. Satoru decides so too and his expression softens slightly. The melancholy stays engraved in it, however.
"You have to show them that you're good. I'll convince them to give you a chance and the issue is going to solve itself. Just wait."
He's bored, directs his eyes towards the TV again. A sigh escapes him as a new scene rolls ahead and the characters are shown holding hands while gazing at each other lovingly. Yuji takes a moment to appreciate the smooth curves of Satoru's side profile, as well as the build of his body.
Satoru rises all of a sudden and takes a seat by his bed, further from Yuji. They made progress, so why is Satoru pushing him away now? Is he sick of empty promises? He may act like a child sometimes, but he's smarter than all of them combined. He should understand that Yuji can't just break him out of there.
But if he really loved and trusted him, he would've done that. Isn't that what those movies showed him? The characters on the screen kiss after a quiet confession of love and at that, sorrow appears on Satoru's face. He looks everywhere but at Yuji, as if he's too angry to even face him.
They've been there before. He remembers Satoru's first days and how much killing intent he was emitting. He saw no use in clothes but started wearing them eventually, when he and Yuji began spending more time together. He's the calmest, most well-mannered he'd ever been, yet these days, he seems hurt and closed off. His patience is running out and so is Yaga's.
Megumi and Nobara take notes during those visits and they'll have to mention Satoru's disobedience. They need him to be blindly loyal in order to trust him, but it can't be done. He's a person too, with his own thoughts and feelings. He can have an attitude, a worse day, a different opinion.
If Yuji's plan doesn't work out, they'll start running regular tests on him, and he might end up on Shoko's autopsy table. Then, his brain will be stored in preservative fluid, like some kind of trophy.
'Please, please, please cooperate.'
"Time's up, Itadori. Let's go home," Fushiguro's voice comes out of the speakers.
Yuji stands up hesitantly. Satoru ignores him even as he's about to close the door and exit the room. He'll be left alone for the night and Yuji knows how much he hates it. Won't he acknowledge his departure?
It's almost midnight and his friends are visibly tired. They don't have to ask him how it went. His face says it all.
"We have enough subjects. I doubt Yaga would be rushing to take control over your alien guy." Fushiguro pats Yuji's shoulder as he sinks into the chair. Some of the cameras show the corridor, the other are placed in the room he was in and there's one in Satoru's.
"Can I have some alone time?"
Megumi and Nobara share a look. They wouldn't argue about something like this, although he shouldn't be here at this hour.
Fushiguro scratches his neck. "I wanted to give you a ride home."
"Thank you. I'll take the night train," Yuji says.
"If you say so." He shrugs it off.
Itadori listens to his friends' chatter that fades into something impossible to understand, the further away they get. He taps his fingers on the desk, thinking hard.
He started working here because he wanted to help people and save them from the apocalypse, but now? He's more sympathetic towards the aliens. The bond he created with Satoru is so special to him, he can't imagine losing his new friend just because the higher-ups got bored with him.
This is not what he wanted to be a part of -an organization that tortures defenseless beings and treats them like farm animals. Does it contribute to any good changes? He's one of those bad people he wanted to fight against and has no guts to stand up to the others. Satoru's life means nothing to the people in this building.
Yuji watches another minute pass by. Seven turns into eight minutes past midnight and Satoru is still watching the movie. They expose him to this stimulus to soften him up and morph his personality into the desirable one, but the right thing to do would be exposing him to this behavior face-to-face. They're showing him something he won't ever have and then wonder where the frustration is coming from.
He finds himself by the door to Satoru's room. Simply talking to him doesn't work anymore. He used to sit here and talk for hours -about himself, his family and the world outside. He introduced Satoru to all those things, without mentioning that they'll have to come a long way before he can get out.
Itadori turns the alarms off and walks in. When the door shuts, it shuts for good. There is no mechanism that would help him escape if he needed to, which is why another person would be needed. Someone would have to open the door from the outside, but he can't ask his friends to assist him. He's left alone, just like Satoru.
His heart drops to his stomach when Satoru's eyes meet his. The man's head is turned to him, but his body faces the TV.
His mouth is dry, throat itchy. Yuji wipes his sweaty palms on his pants and exhales with his eyes closed. He has a feeling that he's doing something stupid, but it wouldn't be the first time.
Satoru comes closer -careful and curious. He's timid and that's a good sign.
"No one knows that I'm here. I came because I love you. You mean a lot to me."
Satoru reaches his limit when his forehead presses to Yuji's. He can't get any closer than that, so he rubs his cheek against Itadori's, testing the feeling of it. Looks like he likes it, but he doesn't know how rough he can be.
Is he.. thrilling? It's an animalistic sound and Yuji brings him back to Earth by cupping his cheeks.
"Are you happy?"
"Yes."
A louder thrill. It's creepy, like a sound out of a horror movie. His body temperature gets higher, though, and it means that he's in a good mood. The other aliens are so miserable that their bodies get freezing cold.
Satoru's pupils shrink into thin lines and Yuji has no clue what to expect. He embraces the man, having decided that he has to, if it's the last thing that he does. A moment later, Satoru loosens the hold to rub his lips against Yuji's, his eyes open the entire time. He has to bend down and tilt his head to do it. It's harder than they made it look, because, well.. the actors don't have that big of a height or size gap between them.
"You won't hurt me, right? Let's show them that you're harmless. You'll let me leave your room unscattered, okay?"
The man's face is blocking his view. He can't see anything but those endless, blue pools.
"Please, Satoru."
He has no idea what time or day it is. His body is pretty weak, but he feels fine. Nothing hurts.
The past two weeks weren't very eventful for Yuji. He basically just slept and ate, as advised by Shoko. He's not allowed to see Satoru, but he's alive and well, and that's all that matters. They haven't killed him for what he'd done.
And what had he done exactly?
Nobara and Megumi came back later that night, when they found out that Yuji never arrived home. They looked for him everywhere, until they checked the cameras and noticed that the lights went out in Satoru's room.
The light bulb had burned out, but kept flickering with this weak light and they were afraid to come in to see what was going on. They knew he was there and he could've been eaten alive at this point -something absolutely terrible could've happened, yet they didn't hesitate. His friends were ready for any gruesome image possible.
"What did you see?" Yuji asks, over and over again, getting the same old response each time.
"I'd rather forget it."
Megumi gives him a scrap of information after he leaves the nurse's office. He was waiting till Yuji gets better, so that he can take it. Itadori doesn't feel as faint anymore, but he still gets sick in the morning.
"I used a flashlight and saw a mass," he says, in a weird voice. His throat is tight. "Like you became one, or something. I don't know. I really don't understand what I saw, but it wasn't pretty."
"I'm no better. I doubt it'd make any sense if I told you how I felt."
"You could try."
They're on their way to Shoko. She wants to see him every day. Haven't they already established that he's okay and needs nothing but rest? He does have something concerning to report, in other words -the bump in his stomach. It's swollen, but also hard. He can't tell her, no matter how scared he is, he can't let them blame Satoru. If he did hurt him, he did it unintentionally.
"It can't be replicated. It wasn't just the kind of pleasure you get from sex, but the highest form of mental and physical satisfaction one could reach. I heard religious people describing their experience in church and I think it was something like that. When it ended and I woke up, I felt like crying because of how much I missed it and nothing was enough anymore. I couldn't bear it."
"I'm suspecting hallucinations. Ieiri-san told us that an intercourse occurred. He was inside."
"She had to inspect my body while I was unconscious. How embarrassing."
Megumi sighs. "If you wanted to get fired, you could've found better ways. A suicide mission wouldn't be my pick."
"I knew he wouldn't harm me."
"You have too much faith in..-" Megumi catches himself wanting to say the wrong word. "Aliens. People too, I guess."
"It felt like I was back in my mother's womb. I think I saw light peeling through skin, veins thin like a spider web and eyes. So many eyes."
"You were right. You make no sense."
"Fushiguro," Yuji stops him by the door to the office. "I saw his true form."
They hold eye contact in the heavy silence of the empty corridor. What he experienced has more value than they think.
"You must've been terrified. What was it like?"
Yuji opens and closes his mouth, overwhelmed with emotions. "He was beautiful." Itadori smiles subconsciously.
Shoko is waiting for him with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Everyone has been treating him with a mix of respect, disgust and uncertainty. She's not an exception to the rule, smiling lightly, as if he came here to gossip.
"Thank you for coming, Itadori. Have a seat."
"I hope this is my last visit. It's a waste of time for both of us."
"We haven't killed the creature assigned to you and your friends. Do you know why?"
"Because he didn't do anything wrong?"
"No. Because you're carrying his child and we all assumed you'd be dead if you ever stepped foot in that room."
"...Ieiri-san."
"Take it seriously, Itadori. You're growing a hybrid in your body and it could be our savior. A connection between two species that proves peace to be possible."
"I don't have a womb, the last time I checked."
"I suppose you haven't checked in two weeks."
He's speechless. Has he and everyone around him lost their damn minds?
"You don't have to worry about anything. You and the baby are going to get the best care possible."
"A baby wouldn't grow this fast. Even I know that. It has to be something else."
"Their offspring grow rapidly. You will hold your body in your arms in about.." she glances at the calendar. "Three months, if my speculations are right. It's fascinating how the hybrid develops."
Yuji shakes his head. "It can't be happening. It's just a bad dream."
"I'll have to do a C-section on you."
"No." He refuses to listen anymore. "I can't do this. I can't create something just for you to use it as a lab rat."
"Look at me," Shoko's authoritative voice works wonders on him. "If were will be any tests, they'll be safe. Understood? The child has your DNA and needs to be seen as a human."
"Is that why you're treating it better? Not because it's small and innocent?"
"It's innocent because it's human."
"You're wrong. Hasn't Satoru's case taught you anything?"
"He changed because of you," Shoko admits. "I can see that he associates you with love and that's a big improvement. Unfortunately, one example won't be enough to prove your point. The job of a researcher is more complicated than that and you can't stop at one victory. You have years of hard work ahead of you."
"We don't have years."
"You have to work faster, then. Make more changes and show the higher-ups that it was a coincidental success. For now, Satoru will be released and you'll be rewarded for the sacrifice you made in the name of science. Nurture the baby well, Itadori."