Chapter Text
It crashes right behind Suguru. A loud bang, followed by cracks of timber and a cascading rumble of falling pieces.
The sky is burning orange, outlines of clouds traced by lines of golden white. It’s hot despite nearing dusk, air thick with heat—and now, dust and chopped, dry bark. The small hunter’s hut has probably collapsed into a hole filled with smithereens after that blast.
It used to look nice. Peaceful. Suguru would’ve spent a few days here in the woods simply to recharge and maybe do something as hilarious as reconnecting with nature.
The lush grass is soft under him; he rests his back against his Rainbow Dragon and takes in the unharmed parts of the forest brimming with life. The ongoing destruction is nothing but a nuisance, dropping debris onto his book. With a gentle blow, Suguru dusts off the pages. Then he swipes his palm over them to remove the heavier chunks of timber and dirt.
“Sorry!” Satoru yells. Not a shred of sincerity in that apology. Suguru waves him off with a noncommittal swing of his hand.
The hide of the Rainbow Dragon is the sturdiest of all of his curses, but it’s also covered in pleasant to the touch fur and refreshingly cool. It’s a solid sofa, actually.
Suguru pats the curse in an absentminded gesture. There’s still some consciousness left in them, especially the strongest ones. This dragon was born out of a local deity, and it’s a Special Grade. It sighs happily and curls around Suguru as if delighted to protect him. Its long body curves around tree trunks and its massive muzzle lies right by Suguru’s feet. Huge yellow eyes closed in wicked, unnatural contentment.
If Suguru hadn’t spent most of his childhood playing with his curses, he’d probably be creeped out by the whole concept.
He doesn’t need this level of a curse to serve as a shield while Satoru exorcises his target for today, but… It’s been only a few days since he returned from Kyoto. The Rainbow Dragon has the sturdiest hide of all of his curses. That’s all.
There’s another loud noise—this time deeper and more natural. Satoru’s Blue rips out century-old trees to clear up the space for another hit. The trunks smash together into an uneven ball of spiky wood and bright green leaves, roughly the size of a small car. Satoru throws it in the curse’s direction with a loud laugh and a soft sway of his wrist.
“Eat this!”
It hits the grotesque cyclops-like creature square in the chest, forcing it to stumble back. Cursed energy spikes up around the curse—it directs it into its three-fingered fists and the sphere of mingled trees falls apart under the force of its grip. Its sole eye sets on Satoru. Reaffirming its enemy, the curse roars in a dozen overlapping voices. Around them, the leaves of unharmed trees shudder from the sheer violence of the noise. Suguru feels a mild headache picking up.
The curse is Grade One and nearing Special, Suguru thinks, but he can’t be sure whether Satoru honestly has trouble with it or just plays with it because he loves the process.
There’s a huge grin splitting Satoru’s face and sparks of Blue around the tips of his fingers. His cursed energy isn’t running rampant, per se, but it’s surely spiking—dancing around him like flames. He has enough reserves to forgo hiding where he concentrates it, his whole body burning like the brightest explosion.
He should learn to control it. He gets exhausted easily.
Suguru runs his hand over the paper of his book and mentally reminds himself that he has very little right to comment on Satoru’s shortcomings. Not after Kyoto.
He still analyzes each move, each decision that led to that disaster of a loss. Did he use the wrong curses? Did he underestimate the opponent? Did he move his foot at the wrong moment? Did he think too much?
Satoru’s Blue concentrates in the center of a makeshift field of torn and shredded trees. The curse tries to fight the pull but it’s getting sucked into where Satoru wants it. The heavy limbs bury themselves in the ground to no effect—two deep furrows of torn soil trail behind the curse’s huge feet.
“Come to me, cutie, come, come,” Satoru chants, wide-eyed and with a blush high on his cheeks. “You feel the pull, yeah?”
He shines the most when he fights. Sometimes, he looks straight-up manic. Full of earnest delight and feverish excitement, vibrating with raw and honest exhilaration.
At first, Suguru thought it was violence. The sheer bloodbath Satoru could create with one flick of his wrist. Later, he realized it’s nothing but pesky collateral for him.
Satoru watches the curse trying to fight the attraction of his technique and lowers his output. The sudden lack of pull throws the giant cyclops-like monster back and the ground shivers under the force of its fall. It’s huge and clumsy. Suguru grimaces at how distasteful this whole fight is.
A cheery laugh rings through the forest. Satoru plucks a piece of timber stuck in his Infinity, mid-air, and tosses it away, ever-present wide smirk on his face.
Now he increases the output of Blue. The trees behind the monster start to creak and bend, tugged in by the spike of force. Satoru makes a little hum of interest and tweaks his fingers. The bark rasps as the trunks straighten up, leaves rustling and some falling down in the gentle sway.
The curse, though, ramps up its own cursed energy to fight the pull. It’s roaring and clenching its claw-like hands, its sole eyeball spinning at a crazed pace.
Satoru looks absolutely enthralled.
Much later, Suguru devised a theory—Satoru is enthralled with himself. Not in the basic selfish sense; that’s a given. Satoru is amazed, genuinely in love with what he can achieve using his cursed techniques. Like a chef at a five-star restaurant who’s perpetually in wonder—how is it that everyone is given the same ingredients but he, only he, makes them into a masterpiece of a dish.
Suguru doubts he could ever love like this.
So, sometimes, Suguru is jealous. He maybe can connect to it on some level; there are parts of him that also make his fingertips tingle and his heart rate speed up. There are rare moments when he’s exhilarated beyond what he can control, beyond reason.
But he’s never this open about it. Never allows himself to be so brazen about his obsessions.
Satoru, though, laughs and grins and jumps right onto the curse’s body to throw it down under his reinforced with cursed energy weight. With one graceful leap, he plunges his fist into the curses’s eye socket, up to the elbow. There’s a wet, squishy sound. He turned off his Infinity for this.
Satoru licks his lips. The curse thrashes and lets out an ear-piercing screech.
“Aw, does it hurt?” Satoru coos, pushing his hand deeper, the dark violet blood spilling down the curse’s sole eye the way tears would. “Don’t cry. You’re a big boy, aren’t you?”
Suguru wants to return to his book but he can’t. He watches Satoru toy with the curse and he… He knows this look. This feral, deranged look in Satoru’s eyes. The absolute joy seeping out of each move and smile.
The purple blood gushes out in a fountain as Satoru rips out the eye by the root. It plops onto the fresh, lush grass and slowly rolls until Suguru stares right into its dilated pupil. And the hole Satoru made in it. Liquid gushing out. Thick rivulets of white, purple, grey, disgusting green. How gross.
The Rainbow Dragon swats the eyeball away with its tail. Suguru grimaces at the wet squash the impact makes and, damn it, there’s a small drop of purple marring his book. It should disappear once the curse is exorcised, but still.
“There! Now you won’t cry!” Satoru laughs. The curse blindly hits its own chest, trying to shake off the thief of its vision.
This one wasn’t able to heal itself before, but apparently Satoru annoyed it enough. The new eye slowly grows in place of the old one.
“Oh, you’re healing? If you want to blame me, I’m nobody,” Satoru idly says, jumping away and shaking the blood from his hand. “Get it, Suguru?” he calls, like an eager puppy.
Suguru huffs.
“Wrap it up, Odysseus.”
In the next moment, Satoru is right in front of him, glasses down to the tip of his nose and wide grin on his lips.
“But I’m making a meal for you,” he counters. “It’s a good one, isn’t it? I even leveled it up for your tastes.”
He’s right. This curse has undeniable battle potential and now it can heal itself. The issue is that Suguru truly doesn’t want to swallow it. Doesn’t even want to deal the final blow—he’s still recovering and one little slip would alert Satoru.
But refusing would be even more childish of him, so Suguru simply sighs and, without leaving his seat, orders the Dragon to impale the cyclops curse on its claws.
“Huh?” Satoru slides his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and lets his mouth hang open in a grimace. “That’s it?”
Suguru tugs on the cursed energy fueling the dying carcass and it swirls to him, curling into a tangible orb of its purest, nastiest essence. It’s both hot and cold in his palm—smooth glass and shifting clay. The texture is as disgusting as the taste.
A plastic wrapper crackles, crisp and loud.
Satoru rips open a hard candy and pops a colorful small sphere into his mouth.
He studies the cursed orb in Suguru’s hand.
“Yea', ma', no idea how you jus' ea' i',” he says, barely coherent over the candy.
The sticky smack of Satoru’s lips is loudly obnoxious. As if to double down, he also slurps around the sugar ball, rolling it behind his cheek.
Suguru sends him a nasty side-eye.
“Wha'?” Satoru blinks, the candy clicks against his teeth.
He’s the most insensitive asshole out there, truly.
“Nothing.”
There’s no reason to put off consuming the curse; Suguru is long past the embarrassment of Satoru seeing the process. And he’d rather get it over with as soon as possible. He has a tin of mints in his pocket, so, indeed, there’s no logical reason to delay the inevitable.
Suguru drops his book to the side and glances at the Rainbow Dragon. More often than not, he needs to remind himself of the reasons.
Sitting up straighter, Suguru puts the orb into his mouth and… Fuck, how gross. He pushes it deeper into his throat, the texture sliding against his tongue, smearing vomit and shit over each of his taste buds.
He swallows.
It crashes down his throat only for a moment and then it’s in his stomach, thawing and making friends with his acid and cursed energy.
There would be relief if the taste didn’t linger. Maybe it’s psychological, maybe it’s part of his technique, but the taste always stays.
He closes his eyes tight and takes a deep breath. He feels the curse latched to his lung shiver. The reasons, Suguru reminds himself—think of the reasons.
Of the non-sorcerers you protect.
This has a reason.
There’s meaning to consuming the collective vomit of countless people.
There’s weight to it.
No.
There’s weight on his lap. Warmth, too.
There are hands lazily thrown over his shoulders, and then there are lips against his own.
Suguru’s eyes fly open. Satoru’s white lashes flutter a breath away, his glasses perched on top of his head and his thighs straddling Suguru, pinning him to the ground.
He licks a line over Suguru’s lower lip and hums, demanding. Suguru lets out a soft gasp of surprise.
The sticky, cherry-flavored tongue pushes into his mouth; the hard candy Satoru so loudly slurped on follows. He rolls it between them as he deepens the kiss and clasps his hand over Suguru’s nape to bring him closer.
Suguru blinks.
It’s sweet.
Tangy and sticky, vibrant taste of artificial cherries and loud sugar dissolving in the warmth of his saliva and mixing with Satoru’s.
Satoru hums again, twisting his tongue so the small candy swirls to the roof of Suguru’s mouth and clicks against the back of his teeth.
A chuckle shakes Suguru’s chest. Then another. He closes his eyes and licks beneath Satoru’s tongue, where it’s soft and giving, and Satoru swallows a little whine of pleasure.
He circles his hands around Satoru’s waist and tugs him forward, chests flush against each other.
The sugar thaws in their cherry-red kiss.
***
Blazing purple and fading orange, the sun is setting behind the horizon and tinting Satoru’s hair in petal-pink hues. His discarded Jujutsu Tech jacket lies in a heap by their side, his white T-shirt rumpled where Suguru tugged and clutched it.
Satoru giggles into the nook of Suguru’s shoulder, warm breath tickling the skin.
“Suguru,” he murmurs and leaves a smudge of sticky-sweet spit over the artery, “Su-gu-ruuu…”
Suguru’s hands are under the thin fabric of Satoru’s clothes, absentmindedly running up and down his toned waist, feeling the muscles shift when Satoru breathes out his name.
“Mnm, what?”
He lies on the grassy ground, which slowly grows cooler now that night is closer. Satoru’s warm weight on top is a nice substitute for a blanket, so Suguru can’t earnestly complain.
Satoru pulls away just enough to level his face with Suguru’s, gazing down at him with a wide smile on glistening lips.
“I’m, like, super horny right now,” he shares like an open secret, sparks in his eyes. “Feel it?” Satoru grinds down on Suguru’s crotch once, to make a point.
Of course, he can feel it. Could feel it before—just waited to see what Satoru’s grand seduction plan would be this time around.
“Yeah,” Suguru smiles. He settles his hands lower, on Satoru’s tailbone, and draws circles over the heated skin with his thumbs. “How sudden,” he deadpans, and Satoru snorts. “What shall we do with it?”
Satoru leans closer, bracing himself on his elbows on each side of Suguru’s head. He tips Suguru’s nose with his own. His breath smells like artificial cherries.
“I wanna play a game,” Satoru mumbles, lips grazing Suguru’s. “Indulge me, hm?”
What a superficial request. But it’s a first for Satoru to set any form of restraint on his greedy desire, so Suguru’s interest is piqued. He raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, feels the grass tickling his nape.
“What game?”
The taste of cherries lingers long after the candy has dissolved. It stays on Satoru’s tongue as he flattens it and licks Suguru’s lower lip, catches the upper one and slides over it—slow and meticulous.
“Truth or dare, of course,” Satoru giggles and pecks the corner of Suguru’s mouth. “But for real,” he warns and stares into Suguru’s eyes with purposeful determination, “you can’t lie.”
Suguru snorts, can’t help a grin forming on his face.
“When have I ever lied to you?” he asks, feigning a note of hurt at the accusation. Based on it, of course—Suguru lies a bit less often than he breathes. All things considered, can each of his breaths now be considered a lie, too?
Satoru bites his nose. Gently, but still. He huffs and moves away. Sitting up, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks down at Suguru. Unimpressed.
“Do you want a list in chronological or alphabetical order?”
That makes Suguru honestly laugh. He pinches Satoru’s left side and narrows his eyes at him.
“Do you memorize it or write it down?”
Sky blue burning red under the setting sun stares at him, the infinite clouds of Satoru’s eyes unnervingly inhuman but, also… Is that…?
Satoru blinks and it’s not there anymore. He grins, baring his teeth in a predatory delight of a smile.
“I like counting things,” he declares, “a side-effect of Limitless. Ironic, right?”
Suguru only raises his eyebrows in a silent invite to continue.
“For example—” Satoru shifts, his ass over Suguru’s growing problem of an erection—“we kissed for 13 minutes and 24 seconds. Which is the longest we’ve ever kissed without touching each other’s dicks.”
Unable to hide it, Suguru lets his lips curve into a grimace of disgust.
“That’s what you count?” he asks, incredulous. Also deeply concerned. The blood keeps rushing down to his crotch nevertheless.
“Among other things,” Satoru nods. He doesn’t seem to find any fault in the priorities behind the usage of his cognitive abilities. “So, we will play a game,” he concludes, as if anything he said could possibly have led up to a conclusion.
“Truth or dare?”
Another nod.
“Okay,” Suguru agrees. He untangles his hands from under the hem of Satoru’s T-shirt and instead braces himself up on his elbows. “I believe you’ve prepared some set of rules for us…?”
A wide grin spreads over Satoru’s lips.
“Yep!” Satoru is positively giddy with puppy-like excitement. “First one is—” he raises his index finger, “—you can choose truth only twice in a row and vice versa.”
Tilting his head to the side, Suguru hums his understanding.
He lets his gaze wander over Satoru’s rosy cheeks and blush rising over his neck. Does his Satoru want to try setting some rules, too, for a change? That’s cute. Suguru is curious to see where they’re going with this—just enough to allow it.
“Second—” Satoru holds up two fingers, “—each dare must in some way lead to any or both of us cumming. I am still horny as fuck.” He rolls his hips so the hardness in his pants can be felt.
Suguru snorts but agrees; it’s a reasonable rule considering the premise.
“And lastly—” the third digit joins the rest, “—if I prove you lied to me, you either tell me all of the truth or let me fuck you.”
A small, unexpected noise of surprise gets stuck somewhere in Suguru’s throat.
“Yeah, that,” Satoru grins, fangs catching and biting on the weakness. “I know your preferences, you twisted, control-obsessed freak. If you offer up your ass, I’ll just know that the truth is damn horrendous. And so, I’ll have a pass at digging for it by any means necessary.” His eyes gleam dangerously. “To save us both trouble, don’t lie,” he finishes with a light clap of his palms and a beaming smile. “There! Easy, right?”
Well. Suguru is fucked either way. Satoru definitely suspects something. There are a lot of possible reasons why he’d resort to such an obvious way of interrogation—from inability to get information in any other way to an ever-present desire to win Suguru at his own game.
There’s a slim chance he genuinely wants to be the one giving it and that that’s the endgame of this whole thing, but… They haven’t even gone all the way because Satoru gets fussy with Infinity and then gets upset he can’t get fucked. If role-reversal was on his mind, with how sex-obsessed he is, he would’ve brought it up ages ago.
So no, it’s not the final goal.
He wants to learn something about Suguru. And he gives him an ultimatum because he would never go snooping around behind Suguru’s back. Because he trusts Suguru like that.
This trust tastes like bile on Suguru’s tongue. Like the sourness of hypocrisy and the rot of insecurities.
The mature thing would be to just have a conversation with Satoru. Ask him what it is he wants to learn badly enough to come up with this charade.
But when has Gojo Satoru ever brought out the best in Suguru? Oh no. Suguru can feel himself seething, his teeth tingling from how hard he grinds his jaw.
This fucking brat. This insolent piece of shit. Reducing Suguru’s right to privacy to a fleeting answer in a game where the stakes are who cums first.
The nerve of him. The damn gall to be so entitled to everything that he doesn’t spare a shred of consideration for the feelings of others.
God, he’s so annoying, infuriating, spoiled, egotistical, insensitive—
Suguru smiles, eyes all but narrow slits.
“Sure, Satoru,” he agrees, pouring so much honey over his voice he hopes Satoru chokes on it. “Please, go ahead. Ask away.”