Chapter Text
There’s a fly in his room. A regular, buzzing fly. It hits the window sometimes, making these annoying little thud noises. Satoru follows each of its movements with his eyes, all six of them.
Now, it sits on the glass and for the past 4 seconds it’s been rubbing its tiny insect hands. Household flies have a lifespan of 28 days, maybe a month if they’re lucky. Which means that this annoying little fly just wasted 0.000165% of its whole life solely rubbing its hands. If a human had 28 years to live, that would translate to 24 minutes and 17 seconds. That’s funny.
For the next minute and 36 seconds the fly tries to get out of the room - flies around the window and plummets into it as if the invisible barrier can be beaten with sheer determination. 9 hours and 44 minutes, spent on completely useless attempts. Does it realize that? Can its little brain comprehend how utterly pointless it is? Do flies have a concept of futility, an understanding that repeatedly charging into the same obstacle won’t change anything?
Satoru gets up from the bed, staggers to the window and opens it. The fly gets more confused than anything, startled by his sudden movement it just flies all over the room at top speed. The window is fully open now but maybe that’s the tragedy of being a stupid fly - it also can’t realize that the invisible barrier trapping it has disappeared.
He watches it flap its wings for another two minutes and instead of trying to fly free through the window, it settles on a lamp. It’s not a moth and Suguru only mentioned their average lifespan, so Satoru has no idea if household flies have some special relationship with artificial light.
A knock interrupts his thoughts and, god, fucking finally.
“I’m here,” Shoko announces lazily - Satoru is by the door in a second. He activates Infinity over his palm and opens it in the next one.
“Shoko!” It’s a sincere exclaim and he honestly, truly, has never been happier to see her.
“Satoru.” She just nods, eyes him with poorly hidden skepticism.
Whatever, it’s Shoko.
Satoru steps aside and she walks in, toying with a cigarette in her hand. The wrinkles on her tracksuit get smoother as she stretches with a quiet groan, there’s very little grace in the way she flops onto his chair. In contrast, she puts all the care into placing the plastic bag on the floor. It clinks, makes a noise as if there are glass bottles in there. Satoru observes her settling in and even he can admit - Shoko looks tired. He almost feels bad for making her travel hours back to school. Almost.
“Anyways, fix this.” He puts his hands, palms up, right in front of her face. He already wasted enough time watching that stupid fly.
Shoko raises her eyebrows, looks at him in surprise for a moment. And then gets on with the task. That’s the best thing about her - she never asks useless questions. Shoko simply puts the unlit cigarette in her mouth and examines his hands with a semi-curious head tilt. She hums and that’s the end of her check-up.
“What kind of a curse did that?” Shoko looks up, chewing on a filter.
Satoru holds her gaze, contemplating his options. Finally, he solemnly informs:
“A kitchen counter.”
Shoko stares. Satoru doesn’t blink.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Do I want to-”
“I had sex with Suguru.”
“-know…” Shoko blinks. Right. He should clarify.
“Like, oral one. It counts as sex, right? He pleased me orally, yes, he-”
“Oh-my-god-stop-talking!” Shoko waves her hands in front of her as if trying to wave off a fly. It’s on the lamp, why the fuss?
She lowers her wide eyes back down to Satoru’s palms, then up to his face, then back down. it’s not a pretty view - he used Blue to get all the woodchips out and washed off blood in the sink but that’s about it. His palms are still reminiscent of beef tartar. He could eat, actually.
As if suddenly coming to a realization, Shoko scrunches her nose up and moves as far away from his hands as possible, even the chair wobbles.
“And take these away from me, what the hell, Satoru!?” she’s rarely this emotive so Satoru, in a similarly rare show of consideration, takes his hands away from her.
“It’s not that big of a problem, I just use Infinity not to touch stuff. But I really need you to fix this or Suguru won’t perform oral-”
“Stop, please, just-” Shoko takes a deep breath. “First of all, why do you talk like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like a damn sex education booklet! It’s concerning coming from you and I… I’ll smoke in here, sorry.” She lights up the cigarette so fast Satoru knows she’s not sorry. But that’s not so important right now.
“There are sex education booklets? Can you get me one?”
Instead of replying, Shoko takes a long drag. Long one. Almost ⅓ of a cigarette is ash when she finally takes it away from her lips. Staring right into his eyes, she blows the smoke straight at him. Satoru simply activates Infinity but nice try.
Her cursed energy spikes around the lungs - good thing she started practicing precision and healing herself after each drag, that one looked heavy.
Shoko continues staring at him long enough she gives up. With a very exasperated sigh, she declares defeat:
“Yes, I’ll get you the booklet.”
Of course she will.
She looks at her cigarette, frowns, takes the opened soda can, his favorite, from the table and shakes it. It’s almost full and the sound clearly indicates that, so Shoko grins and drops the ashes right inside. For the booklet, Satoru will allow this.
“You could use Infinity to avoid STIs though,” she adds with a snicker.
Satoru scowls, “but I don’t feel anything through Infinity!”
It was always a plus, he never expected it to be such a big fucking issue. And Shoko should treat it seriously too but instead, oh, she chews her cheeks, fighting laughter. It's a pathetically short fight to add to the insult - she throws her head back and fucking hollers. Like he just said the funniest joke, not shared his biggest concern. Who cares about Esteeeyes or the fuck she said, he can’t feel anything!
That’s the whole reason he needs his hands fixed, where’s the fun in touching Suguru if he can’t feel a damn thing? And Suguru won’t suck him off again because now it’s his turn and Satoru can’t blow him away and off with his palms looking like minced meat. He gags on a popsicle, he needs his hands for this one.
“Stop laughing and fix that,” Satoru shoves his palms right in front of her. “And get me the booklet.”
Shoko still chuckles as she takes another drag and fully ignores him, getting comfortable in her seat as if she intends to stay for long.
“I will, later,” an easy smile stretches her lips. “First tell me, is it official now?” Shoko’s eyes sparkle with a weird glint and she looks concerningly giddy to know the answer.
Weird.
“What is?” Satoru lowers his hands.
“You two, what else.”
He frowns in confusion, “what should be official with us two?”
Shoko’s smile slowly drops as she studies his face like she’s examining an injury. “You said you had sex, right?”
Satoru grins, “yep!”
“Then how did-” Shoko stops, there’s a moment of clarity flashing through her eyes, like she figured out some complex equation. The cigarette burns brighter as she inhales poisonous smoke and there should be a small spike in her cursed energy right about now but nothing. She flicks the ashes off with a jerky move and mutters something under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing, I’m surrounded by morons,” she waves him off like he’s one of them.
“Hey! I’m not-”
“Not you, you’re an idiot and we all know that,” she rolls her eyes. “Tell me then,” Shoko sits up straighter, “how did it happen?”
Satoru feels like he forgot to cast the veil and is about to hear one of Yaga’s lectures. Which is ridiculous.
“Shoko,” he starts with his best imitation of an exemplary student, “when two people decide to-”
“You begged him, got it.”
Satoru’s eyes widen in shock, scandalous accusation!
“Oh, don’t even start. I know for sure the only way it could’ve happened like this is because he can’t say no to you.”
She knows shit then, because Suguru has no problem with that. Satoru spent the whole day making puppy eyes and even showed Suguru his poor wounded hands to score some sympathy but “no”, “Satoru, no”, “I need to be alone for a damn second, no” and other variations til Satoru remembered he had dignity and went to his room to wait for Shoko.
“What I don’t get is why did you beg?”
Who’s more interested in wasting his time with those dumb questions rather than doing her job as a designated healer.
“I asked,” Satoru clarifies as if that makes all the difference. “And because I was horny, have you seen what his throat can do?” Really, what a stupid question.
“I hope that’s not what you told him,” she snorts and puffs a cloud of smoke up to the ceiling.
“Um…” He tells Suguru everything.
Shoko narrows her eyes at him, “Satoru, tell me you didn’t ask him to give you a blowjob with that list of reasons.”
“Um…” Is there a universally approved list of reasons?
“Ugh! Satoru!” Shoko throws the finished cigarette into the can and puts it back on the table with a loud bang.
“Ugh! Shoko! What!?” he mirrors her yell because what else is he supposed to do? He asked her to come here just to fix his hands, he didn’t expect to get lectured for something he didn’t even do. At least, it feels like he’s fallen victim to Shoko’s evidently displaced frustration.
Wait… She’s very, uncharacteristically, abnormally distraught. Could it be that…
“Oh god, are you jealous?”
She snaps her head at him. “What!?”
And look how defensive she is, Satoru can’t believe he didn’t notice sooner.
“You totally are! Is it me or Suguru? Who’s your dream lover?” he wiggles his eyebrows with a shit-eating grin.
Shoko looks at him incredulously. She blinks exactly 5 times before she smiles in return, “Suguru, of course. Who’d want to deal with your godawful personality?”
Satoru malfunctions for a second. There are too many things wrong in that statement and he can’t choose what to address first.
“You can’t have sex with him.”
He chooses the most important one.
“Oh?” Shoko takes a pack from her pocket and gets another cigarette. “Why so?” she smiles wider.
“Because I don’t want you to, that’s mine.”
“Didn’t they teach you to share toys with other kids in a sandbox?”
“He’s not a toy.”
“Glad you realize that,” she deadpans, dropping the smile. “And I’m not interested in any of you, you’re both insufferable morons.” A spark wheel on her lighter clicks, the sound rings in Satoru’s ears.
“So…” he starts but somehow has very little to say. Shoko asks too many useless questions today. First Suguru, now her - people start to act out of the rule book, it’s annoying and Satoru has no time to figure out what’s the problem. There are more pressing matters at hand. Literally.
“Fix me,” he stretches his arms out.
Shoko snorts, “as if I can.”
What?
“But your hands - sure,” biting the cigarette, she grabs his wrists and yanks him closer, puts her hands over his palms and he feels her cursed energy multiplying, looks at the skin mending itself back together. It’s less than a minute and Shoko already admires her work with a satisfied nod. “Done, not even a scar.”
Satoru clutches and unclutches his fist, that pesky sting disappeared and his palms are all smooth and nice.
“Great! Now leave.” He’s been waiting hours for this, he has so much to do.
Shoko stares at him, there’s a wonderful shade of exasperation in her gaze. Satoru raises his eyebrows, challenging her to ask something else. She tsks and gets up. Easy.
Suguru should be reading a book or making dinner now. The kitchen is a no considering they are no longer the only people in the dorms, so Suguru's room-
“Satoru?” Shoko is one leg out of the room when she calls him.
“Yeah?”
“Suguru cares about you. A lot.”
Satoru snorts, “of course he does.” Didn’t scrape his dick with teeth even once.
***
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, shut up. It’s exactly like that.”
“Okay, it’s not like that for him.”
“... maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am. So just forget about it, I’ll handle him.”
“And who will handle you?”
“I’m not a spoiled child with limited life experience, I’ll be fine.”
“You’re just a child with no experience, surely you will.”
“Shoko.”
“I know, I know, none of my business, you two are so far up each other asses no one can understand. You’ve been saying this for months.”
“Exactly. So just let it go. I’ll make sure that whatever Satoru wants influences neither our friendships nor our missions.”
“You’re awfully confident, you know that?”
“I’m realistic. It’s not as important as you make it out to be.”
“But you want it to be this important. Don’t pretend you don’t. Despite all these squabbles you two have, you respect only each other. Doesn’t matter what I say to you or him, you don’t care about my opinion. Only you two exist and only your opinions matter. You’ll bury each other that way and come to me to collect the corpses. The only question is who’ll be the first.”
“I like your metaphor but it falls short.”
“You’re so stubborn, you two are truly perfect for each other.”
“Ha-ha. And you’re exceptionally funny.”
“I’m drunk. Stole a few bottles from my mom to make the train ride bearable. I think I told Satoru I want to have sex with you. Sorry.”
“Shoko, please, don’t ever talk to me like that.”
“Fuck you, you’re the one who introduced him to the concept of sex, you don’t get to be prudent now.”
“I’m regretting it more and more with each passing second.”
“Liar.”
“Prove it.”
There’s a stretch of silence and then they both laugh. Satoru stands behind the door and feels like he shouldn’t knock or in any other way intrude on their conversation.
It’s not as important? It wouldn’t be for him, it never was. Suguru never acted like having the power to turn Satoru inside out was something of importance, why would he start now? As usual, he takes it for granted. Asshole.
Satoru walks away. If this is what they compete at - then he will win. He’ll make Suguru moan and shake, no fucking decorum to speak off, no masks to hide under. And then he’ll make him beg for it, in the exactly same way. Maybe that will be important enough. Maybe if he feels like a used rag, he’ll understand.
***
There’s a fly in his room, still. Window wide open, it still charges into the lamp and buzzes around artificial lights. A spark of Blue and its small body falls to the floor. Dumb fucking fly, it had all the opportunities.