Work Text:
Satoru is twelve years old when he first encounters the idea of love as something more than a word.
He’s wandering through the city when it happens, moving without direction, hands tucked into his pockets as he drifts past crowds of people and storefronts lit in the afternoon light.
He’d left the Gojo clan compound hours ago. No one bothers following him anymore—they can’t catch him, and more importantly, they already know he’ll return on his own.
The city is bustling in a way the compound never is, layered with overlapping sounds and bright colors. Conversations bleed into passing traffic, footsteps into distant machinery, everything moving at once without coordination. Satoru finds a certain balance in the disorder around him. There’s nothing here that expects anything from him.
He continues to walk aimlessly until something catches his attention.
The bookstore is unremarkable from the outside, its display window slightly cluttered. A few books are stacked unevenly, others propped at angles that put their covers on display.
The front of a brightly colored shonen manga catches his eye, and he makes his way toward the entrance.
Now inside, the noise of the street dulls instantly. The air around him smells faintly of paper and wood.
Satoru moves quietly through the aisles, scanning book titles without much interest.
He enters the shonen section he was looking for and finds it by accident.
It’s tucked between volumes of action-heavy manga. The cover is full of soft, warm colors that stand out immediately with the looping script of the title. Someone must’ve placed it here incorrectly.
Satoru pauses on it, then pulls it free out of curiosity.
He’s never seen anything like it before. The Gojo clan doesn’t allow him unrestricted access to media. Everything he’s exposed to is carefully limited to what’s considered useful or instructive, and anything deemed unnecessary is removed.
His only exposure comes through his escapes, but even then, he’s never bothered with shoujo, always gravitating instead toward the thrill of battles in shonen.
Then, without thinking too much about it, he begins to read.
The pacing is slower than what he’s used to. The panels linger on expressions, on small gestures that would normally be skipped. There’s no urgency, or battle, or tension—Satoru can’t figure out what the objective is.
It’s simply just two characters standing too close to each other, smiling softly, their thoughts spilling across the page in a way that’s almost excessive.
He keeps reading.
Then he comes to a page that makes him stop.
The protagonist is describing something she calls love. The world around her is drawn softer, as if reality itself has shifted to accommodate the feeling. She talks about how everything seems beautiful, how even the most ordinary moments become sweet. She describes the way her heart beats faster whenever she sees the person she loves, the warmth that spreads through her chest, the way her face flushes without her meaning to.
Satoru stares at the panel for a moment.
He doesn’t understand it.
There’s no logical framework for what she’s describing. It’s a reaction that has no purpose, a loss of control that the story presents it as something desirable, something to be sought after.
He scoffs and closes the book, about to put it back on the shelf, but something makes him hesitate.
After a beat, Satoru exhales.
He draws the book back toward himself and takes it to the counter, paying for it with the pocket money he carries.
That night, he reads the entire volume in one sitting.
He sits by the window in his room, the compound quiet around him. This time, he reads more carefully, trying to piece together the mechanics of what the story describes.
By the time he finishes, the question has settled firmly in his mind.
He leaves again the next day to find the rest of the series.
The protagonist continues to describe love in the same way. Warm. Bright. Overwhelming.
Every glance from the love interest sends her heart racing. Every small interaction leaves blush on her cheeks. All of these reactions are treated as natural and expected.
Satoru absorbs everything, but he’s still unable to fully wrap his head around it.
Is it true?
Can another person really cause that kind of reaction?
He doesn’t know anyone to compare it to.
He assumes his parents must’ve loved each other, at least enough to have him, but the thought has no basis. He doesn’t know them.
The people who raised him fulfilled their roles efficiently, but none of them offered insight into something as abstract as love. Affection, if it existed, was so subtle it might as well not have been there at all.
His world has always been controlled, defined by discipline and outcome rather than emotion.
Not anything like this.
So he reads, and he studies the panels, and he tries to understand.
What does love feel like?
More importantly, what is love, exactly?
Satoru doesn’t have an answer.
. . . .
Satoru is fifteen when he realizes that love is not a single, fixed thing, but something that takes on different forms depending on what it’s attached to.
By then, the manga he found years ago—still tucked among his belongings—has long since stopped being a curiosity; instead it’s become a reference point.
Certain lines still linger in his memory, certain descriptions of warmth and intensity that he has yet to fully understand.
He begins to recognize fragments of it in himself.
Satoru learns, first, that he loves fighting.
In a similar way the protagonist of that manga—one he’s reread countless times now—feels a rush whenever she’s around the person she loves, Satoru finds a feeling that resembles that when he fights.
His focus condenses to a single point, body moving on instinct as a surge of exhilaration rushes through him. It’s not the same emotion, but the intensity matches it. There’s that same pull, that same elation.
Satoru craves the thrill of pouring everything he has into each movement. He’s addicted to the act of testing his strength, of pushing past his limits until he has none. There’s satisfaction not only in winning, but in the process itself.
Though it’s not soft or gentle like the book describes, it’s undeniably something.
He decides that, in its own way, it must be love.
Then there are simpler things.
He loves Digimon.
He talks about it often, more than he intends to. He finds himself bringing it up in conversations that have nothing to do with it, drawing comparisons, recounting scenes, explaining the mechanics to people who didn’t ask.
He finds it mirrors the love interest in the manga—the way he speaks animatedly about the protagonist, bringing her up in conversations that have nothing to do with her.
Satoru loves eating sweets.
It started off as something practical—consuming sugar was an efficient way to stimulate the brain. Over time, however, he started eating them simply because he enjoys the taste itself, along with the satisfying sweetness that comes with each bite.
He loves being away from the Gojo clan.
The compound had been horribly dull and unexciting. Anything that didn’t contribute directly to his development was deemed unnecessary and prohibited from reaching him. Each day was boring and monotonous, the only entertainment coming from those times when he ran away.
At Jujutsu Tech, that rigidness is gone.
There’s always something happening. Although lessons are boring—since he already knows a majority of the material—missions, sparing, and bothering his classmates keep the pace of things almost constantly in motion.
In much the same way the protagonist in the manga describes wanting to stay close to the person she cares about, Satoru finds that he wants to stay here.
Fighting, Digimon, sweets, freedom—he loves all these things.
And yet, even then, he knows that it’s not quite the same love he’s been trying to find.
There’s no overwhelming warmth that consumes him whole. No person who disrupts his thoughts or quickens the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
If what he feels can be called love, then it is a diluted version of it.
Yet Satoru wants to understand the kind of love that the protagonist describes. Simply out of pure curiosity.
He wants to observe it from the inside, to determine whether it truly exists in the way the story claims, or if it is simply an exaggeration—a narrative device meant to make something ordinary seem extraordinary.
Could something like that ever even apply to him?
Satoru doesn’t think that it will.
. . . .
Satoru is sixteen when he realizes he can find something like love in other people.
It’s not the kind described in that shoujo manga, but he is certain it is love all the same.
In a similar way the main character enjoyed the presence of her love interest, Satoru finds that he enjoys spending time with his newfound friends.
In the spare time in between classes and missions, they’re hanging out. Sometimes they go into the city, drifting from arcades to cafes to small shops to movie theaters—things Satoru has done before in passing, but never with other people. Other times, they remain on campus, sprawled across common areas, playing cards or video games, or simply talking without any real direction.
Satoru enjoys interacting with them. It’s always fun to watch their reactions to whatever bullshit he decides to say. He throws out comments that range from mildly provocative to outright ridiculous, observing as his classmates react in predictable and unpredictable ways. Annoyance, amusement, disbelief, exasperation—each response is immensely entertaining.
He quickly learns which topics will get a rise out of who, which remarks will spark arguments, which ones will earn him a look that hovers somewhere between exasperation and reluctant amusement.
It reminds him a little of the manga.
Though it lacks the same intensity, the overwhelming, singular way it describes love, Satoru’s sure he feels a simpler version: the enjoyment of being around someone, the preference for their presence over their absence.
Right now, that preference is evident.
He sits in the middle of Suguru and Shoko in the dim movie theater, a shared bucket of caramelized popcorn balanced between them—though thanks to Satoru, it’s pretty much empty.
His attention drifts between the film and the people around him. On screen, the final sequence unfolds in dramatic lighting and somber music as the hero chooses to sacrifice himself for the heroine.
She calls out to him as the world collapses around them, and he chooses, without hesitation, to give up his life so she can live.
Satoru watches, unimpressed. It’s an unsatisfying ending, in his opinion.
He understands the reasoning behind it. It’s meant to depict love in its most drastic form—prioritizing another person above everything else, even one’s own survival. But this conclusion is fundamentally flawed.
If the purpose of his sacrifice was to protect the heroine, then it should account for her future as well, not just her immediate safety. Leaving her behind to grieve him, to live with that absence indefinitely, is a failure of that very purpose.
What was the point?
Around Satoru, people sniffle. Someone behind him lets out a quiet, choked laugh, as if trying not to cry.
The credits begin to roll slowly after.
“That’s it?” Satoru says flatly.
Shoko snorts beside him. “Right? That was depressing.”
“I don’t know,” Suguru hums. “I thought it was kind of nice.”
Satoru glances at him, brows knitting together. “Nice?”
Suguru rises from his seat, unfazed by the look. “He loved her enough to give up his life for her.”
“And left her alone for the rest of her life,” he counters. “That’s your idea of nice?”
“That’s the point,” Suguru replies, glancing back at him as they begin to file out with the rest of the crowd. “He chose her over himself.”
“‘Chose her’? Please,” Shoko scoffs. “Now she’s stuck grieving him forever. That’s not romantic, that’s just fucked up. Did he even think about that before he went and died? Clearly not.”
Satoru considers that for a moment as they make their way out of the theater and into the hallway. The space hums with overlapping voices, people talking over one another as they pick apart scenes and praise the ending.
He doesn’t believe love can feel like that. He doesn’t believe it could be something worth sacrificing one’s life for.
Satoru’s gaze shifts to Suguru, who’s walking a step ahead of him.
He is Satoru’s closest friend, the one most likely to have an answer, or at the very least an argument. Suguru has a habit of turning even simple topics into something layered and analytical, breaking them down into moral and psychological components whether anyone asks for it or not. Satoru often finds it excessive and mildly irritating, but rarely useless.
If anyone can make sense of this, it would be him.
Satoru glances at his back briefly, already weighing whether it’s worth asking.
Shoko calls it a night once they return to Jujutsu Tech, heading off toward her own dorm with a tired wave.
The two of them watch her disappear down the hallway for a moment before continuing on together. The overhead lights cast soft shadows across the floor as they take the familiar path back toward their dorms, falling naturally into step beside each other.
“My room?” Satoru asks casually.
Suguru glances at him before nodding once. “Alright.”
They head toward Satoru’s dorm, prepared to spend the remainder of their rare night off playing the GameCube Satoru had necessarily purchased and set up beneath his television.
The room is dim except for the shifting light of the television screen. They both settle onto the wooden floor with controllers in hand, shoulders nearly brushing as they start their first round.
Usually, playing games with Suguru becomes intensely competitive almost immediately. Neither of them handles losing well, and both are stubborn enough to drag things out rather than admit defeat gracefully.
Their games always end with five rounds, and a final score of three to two, one of them barely securing victory while the other insists they only lost because of luck, distraction, or some made-up technicality. The competitiveness between them is ridiculous at this point.
Tonight, however, Satoru’s attention keeps slipping.
His reactions are slower by fractions of a second. He misses openings he normally would have taken immediately. More than once, he realizes too late that he has been staring at the screen without actually processing what is happening on it.
Suguru notices, of course.
He says nothing at first, but the smugness becomes increasingly visible with every win.
By the third round, it’s already over. Suguru wins again, securing victory before they even reach their usual fifth match.
Suguru grins immediately. “Oh, this is embarrassing,” he says, voice thick with satisfaction. “Should I start going easy on you from now on?”
Satoru shoots him a flat look. “Shut up.”
“No, seriously, are you okay? Three losses in a row? I’m getting worried.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re terrible tonight.”
Satoru nudges him sharply with his shoulder. It is meant to be dismissive more than anything else, but Suguru nudges him back, harder this time.
“Don’t get violent because you suck,” Suguru huffs.
“You started it.”
“I won fairly.”
“Y’know, you’re talking too much for someone within hitting distance.”
That earns a laugh out of Suguru, bright and immediate, and a second later, the controllers are forgotten entirely as the two of them end up shoving each other across the floor in a completely uncoordinated attempt at wrestling.
Neither of them is actually trying very hard. It’s all loose limbs, poorly executed holds, and attempts to throw the other off balance that devolve into laughing before anything serious can happen. The wooden floor creaks beneath them as they struggle for leverage, knocking into the side of the bed hard enough to jostle the blankets loose.
Suguru, as always, concedes with a breathless laugh. “Okay, okay, time out,” he says, pushing against Satoru’s shoulder. “You’re such a sore loser.”
He pulls away and sits upright, still grinning slightly as he catches his breath.
Satoru doesn’t move to follow. He stays sprawled across the floor where he ended up, gaze angled toward the ceiling.
The earlier thoughts have not left him.
“Suguru,” he calls.
Suguru hums in response, tilting his head slightly as he looks down at him, waiting.
“Do you think love like that actually exists?” Satoru asks, his tone casual enough to pass as offhand.
“Huh?”
“Like in the movie,” Satoru clarifies, still staring at the ceiling. “That kind of thing.”
“What?”
Satoru sits up finally. “Are you losing your hearing?”
Suguru scoffs. “No. I just don’t get why you’re asking. Since when do you care about this stuff?”
“I don’t,” Satoru huffs. “Just answer the question.”
Suguru studies him for a second, like he’s trying to figure out if this is a joke. “I mean… yeah,” he says slowly. “I think it exists.”
“Explain.”
Suguru lets out a dry laugh. “Well,” he shifts, thinking it through. “It’s definitely possible to love someone so much that you’d give up everything for them. People do it all the time, just not as dramatically as dying for someone. Sometimes it’s just… putting them first. Placing their wants and needs above your own. That kind of thing.” He glances back at Satoru. “Why are you asking?”
“Just curious.”
Suguru raises an eyebrow, clearly not convinced, but he lets it go. “If you’re specifically talking about the whole dying-for-them part, though… I think it depends. Most people aren’t thinking that far ahead in those moments. If they act, it’s more instinct than anything.” He shrugs. “But yeah, I think it exists.”
Satoru tilts his head, considering that. “That’s just careless.”
“Maybe the action itself is careless,” Suguru hums. “But the meaning behind it isn’t. I think it’s one of the most genuine ways someone can care for another person.”
Satoru frowns, pushing himself to his feet. “They didn’t ask for that, though. Doesn’t seem very caring to me if you don’t consider their opinion,” he mutters.
“I’d argue their life matters more than their opinion in that moment.”
“Okay, enough.” Satoru waves him off, already losing interest. He does not want to get dragged into one of Suguru’s moral debates.
He crosses the short distance to his bed and drops onto it, the mattress dipping under his weight as he sits cross-legged. His gaze drifts back up to the ceiling, as if it might offer a better answer than Suguru did.
A brief stretch of quiet follows, filled only by the faint music still coming from the paused game.
“What would you describe it as?” Satoru asks suddenly.
“What?” Suguru tilts his head from where he is still sitting on the floor. “Love?”
Satoru nods. “Yeah.”
Suguru doesn’t answer right away. He leans back slightly on his hands, gaze drifting for a second as he considers it, which in itself is unusual. He normally has something ready to say.
“I don’t know. Reassurance, maybe. Trust,” Suguru answers after a moment. “The people I care about know they can rely on me, and I know I can rely on them.”
The answer is simple, almost underwhelming compared to the way Suguru usually explains things.
For an inexplicable reason, Satoru’s stomach dips.
After two years of fighting alongside each other, he already knows that kind of trust exists between them. He knows that feeling is mutual, and he knows it’s strong.
“What about you?” Suguru asks, glancing up at him. “What do you think it is?”
Satoru hums, more to buy time than anything else.
Over the years, he has spent an unreasonable amount of time fixated on the question, turning over different possibilities without ever arriving at anything definitive.
Love is always described in ways that feel distant to him. Satoru doesn’t resonate with any of those descriptions of warmth and passion. If he had to define it—in a way applicable to another person— he thinks it would have something to do with understanding. Knowing someone completely and allowing yourself to be known in return.
Yet even then, his definition feels incomplete. Because no matter how much thought he gives it, Satoru knows he still lacks the one thing that would make the answer certain: experience. And as far as he is concerned, that is not something he is ever going to have.
“Dunno,” he says instead, shrugging.
The room settles back into a familiar quiet.
Weeks later, the two of them are assigned to an important mission to protect the next vessel of Tengen.
Satoru knows it will go fine because Suguru will be there with him.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, there’s a faint sense that he’s getting closer to understanding the type of love he’s been searching for.
. . . .
When Satoru is seventeen, he realizes that love is not as straightforward as he once thought.
He had assumed it was an inherently pleasant thing. Warmth. Happiness. Comfort. It had never occurred to him that it could extend beyond that.
He understands now that love brings with it other, uglier emotions too, whether he wants it to or not.
It’s not limited to happiness; it’s caring about another person so deeply that their emotions begin to affect one’s own. Feeling lighter when they are happy. Feeling unsettled when they are upset. Wanting to give them everything one can, not because something is expected in return, but because the thought of them suffering becomes unbearable to witness.
Satoru has learned the feeling.
He’s long grown used to sharing Suguru’s happiness—those moments where Satoru had managed to make him laugh had always left Satoru feeling strangely satisfied in ways he never bothered to examine too closely.
But sharing his pain is something else entirely.
Suguru hasn’t been the same since last spring.
The difference is subtle enough that most people wouldn’t notice it. On the surface, he appears unchanged. He still talks the same way, still carries himself with the same composure, still answers questions with that same measured tone, still smiles when required, still moves through daily life as though nothing is wrong.
But Satoru notices the inconsistencies. He notices the slight pauses before Suguru answers certain questions, as though he needs an extra second to decide what version of the truth to offer. He notices moments where his expression seems distant before it smooths back into something carefully neutral. He notices the exhaustion lingering beneath his eyes, no matter how much sleep he claims to have gotten.
Most importantly, Satoru notices the feeling that something about Suguru no longer aligns properly with the person he used to know.
Suguru insists he’s fine.
Satoru knows he’s not.
He knows Suguru is lying because he knows Suguru. He knows his behavior too well to miss these changes, no matter how small they seem to everyone else.
It unsettles Satoru. It sits in the back of his mind, persistent, distracting, pulling his attention away at inconvenient times. He doesn’t know what to do with it. Suguru doesn’t offer anything to work with, brushing off every attempt at inquiry, closing off the conversation before it can go anywhere useful.
Satoru doesn’t know how he’s supposed to handle this.
How is he meant to help someone who refuses to admit there’s anything wrong? Every time Satoru even considers pushing harder, he falters, unsure whether it would make any difference or only drive Suguru further away.
How is he meant to find a solution when there’s barely any time to think about it anyway? Missions continue relentlessly, one after another, leaving little room for anything else. Whatever thoughts Satoru begins to form are constantly interrupted by new assignments, new responsibilities, new demands pulling him elsewhere before he can fully confront any of this.
Meanwhile, the distance between him and Suguru continues to grow.
Their conversations have become shorter. Silences linger longer than they used to. The ease that once existed between them no longer comes as naturally.
Satoru doesn’t know when it started or how far this divide has already widened.
He only knows that it’s growing larger, and no matter how strong or intelligent or untouchable Satoru is, he does not know how to stop it.
He used to think there were no secrets between them.
It had never even occurred to him to question it. Suguru knew everything important about him, and Satoru had handed those pieces of himself over willingly because trusting Suguru had always been easy.
Satoru has never hesitated to be open with him. He has always been honest—sometimes brutally so. He says what he thinks, what he wants, what he feels, even when it makes him sound selfish, cruel, or reckless. Suguru has seen every ugly part of him and remained beside him anyway.
Satoru had believed that feeling went both ways. He thought they relied on each other equally, trusted each other equally. Was that not what Suguru once told him love was supposed to feel like? Satoru had thought he knew Suguru just as completely, just as intimately, as Suguru knew him.
But now, sitting awake in the middle of the night with anger twisting hot and sharp beneath his ribs, Satoru realizes how foolish that assumption might have been.
Because Suguru is keeping things from him.
And it infuriates Satoru to realize that trust is no longer mutual.
Was he an idiot for believing Suguru felt the same way he did? For believing that whatever existed between them belonged equally to both of them?
Satoru can’t sleep.
Insomnia is not new to him. He uses his reverse cursed technique now to fix whatever problems it gives him—the headaches, the exhaustion, the heaviness behind his eyes.
But RCT can’t help Satoru’s anger.
It does nothing for the frustration clawing at his chest. Nothing for the guilt that still rots inside him every time he thinks about last spring’s mission and how badly he messed up. Most of all, it does nothing for the fierce, awful ache of missing Suguru.
Not just missing him physically. Missing how they used to be.
Satoru stares at the ceiling of his room until the memories become unbearable.
He still sees the two of them sprawled against his bed at ridiculous hours of the night, controllers in hand while some game flashed bright colors across the dark room. Suguru would complain every time Satoru cheated or spammed the same move repeatedly, but he always kept playing anyway.
He still sees Suguru slumped at his desk, lazily filling out mission reports while Satoru talked endlessly about whatever crossed his mind that day. Most of the time, the topic was completely pointless. Suguru still listened.
He still sees him pacing across the room after missions, arms crossed tightly while he scolded Satoru for doing something reckless again—for provoking civilians or forgetting to put up a barrier.
Back then, Satoru used to think the sound of Suguru nagging him was annoying.
Now he thinks he would give anything to hear it properly again.
The memories follow him when he leaves his room.
The hallway is dark and quiet, lit only by weak pools of moonlight spilling through the long windows. Satoru walks through it slowly, but his mind keeps filling the silence with ghosts.
He can still hear footsteps beside him. Still hears Suguru laughing under his breath after Satoru says something outrageous just to get a reaction out of him. Still sees the way Suguru’s smile would break apart his usual composure, the slight crinkle near his eyes appearing before he could hide it again.
The contrast makes Satoru feel sick.
Because now all he sees when he looks at Suguru are the dark circles beneath his eyes. The exhaustion he tries to disguise. The thin, tired smile that never seems quite genuine anymore.
Satoru hates it.
Most of all, he hates how helpless it makes him feel.
By the time he realizes where his feet have taken him, he’s already standing outside Suguru’s door.
The familiarity of the route only worsens his mood.
There was a time he used to come here automatically. Late nights after missions. Bored afternoons between classes. Sometimes for no reason at all beyond wanting to be near him. Back then, Satoru never had to think about whether he was welcome.
Now he hesitates—only for a second. Then irritation immediately replaces the uncertainty, because Satoru hates hesitating, especially over something like this. He knocks once before pushing the door open without waiting for permission.
Suguru looks up immediately from where he sits at his desk.
He is still awake despite the hour, surrounded by scattered mission reports and other open files. The dim desk lamp casts soft light across the room, emphasizing the dark circles beneath Suguru’s eyes.
For a second, surprise flickers across his face.
“Satoru?” he calls.
Satoru shuts the door behind him harder than necessary. “I’m mad at you.”
Suguru’s eyebrows immediately furrow, and Satoru is suddenly certain this conversation is going to make everything worse.
Suguru just looks at him without speaking.
That silence irritates Satoru almost instantly, something hot and frustrated twists violently in his chest.
Suguru watches him for another moment before sighing. “For what?”
The calmness in his voice only makes Satoru angrier.
“What do you mean, ‘for what?’” He snaps. “You’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”
Suguru’s expression tightens almost imperceptibly. “I haven’t.”
“You have.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“And I haven’t?”
The response comes out sharper than Satoru intends.
But that’s exactly the problem. They’re both exhausted. Both drowning in missions, and expectations, and responsibilities that barely leave room to think. Yet despite all of it, Satoru still makes time to look for him.
Meanwhile, Suguru has been retreating further and further away.
“You think I don’t notice?” Satoru asks, his voice lower now. “You think I can’t tell something’s wrong? You barely talk to me anymore. Every time I see you lately, you look half dead.”
Suguru looks away first. “I’m fine,” he says. “Just tired from missions, is all.”
Satoru laughs once, sharp and humorless. “Don’t lie to me.”
Suguru’s shoulders tense slightly.
Then, as usual, he concedes first.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology immediately makes Satoru feel worse.
He hates how exhausted Suguru sounds saying it. Hates that his first instinct is still to smooth things over instead of arguing back properly.
Satoru steps further into the room, letting the door click shut quietly behind him.
“That’s not what I came here for,” he mutters.
Suguru stays silent.
His posture is still tense, shoulders tight beneath his uniform.
Now that Satoru is closer, Suguru looks even more exhausted than he realized.
The sight makes something uneasy twist painfully in his chest.
“Every time I ask what’s wrong, you brush me off.” Satoru’s jaw tightens. “You’re my best friend. You know you can talk to me.”
Suguru exhales quietly through his nose and rubs at his temple.
The room grows quiet. For a while, neither of them says anything.
Eventually, Suguru’s gaze drifts away again, settling on the papers scattered across his desk. One of his fingers taps lightly against the edge of a report, absent and restless.
Then, after a long pause, he says quietly, “Satoru.”
Satoru waits.
Suguru keeps his eyes lowered toward the desk when he asks, “Do you like being a Jujutsu Sorcerer?”
Satoru furrows his brows immediately at the question.
The abrupt shift in conversation catches him off guard enough that he almost forgets what they were arguing about.
“What?”
“Do you like it?” Suguru repeats.
Satoru stares at him for a second, confused by the seriousness in his tone.
“Yeah,” he answers finally, the response instinctive. “Obviously.”
Because what else would the answer be?
Sorcery has shaped every part of his life from the moment he was born. Strength, missions, fighting curses, standing above everyone else because he can—it has always felt natural to him, inseparable from who he is. Even when missions frustrate him, even when the higher-ups make him want to tear the entire system apart, Satoru has never once seriously questioned whether he wanted this life.
Suguru hums softly at the answer, though it sounds distant.
For a while, he says nothing else.
Satoru watches him carefully, irritation slowly returning beneath his skin.
“What’s your point?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Suguru shakes his head. “Just curious.”
Satoru frowns.
He knows Suguru well enough to recognize when he’s withholding something. The problem is that lately, it feels like he’s is constantly withholding something.
“Do you?” Satoru asks after a moment.
And Suguru goes quiet.
When he finally answers, his gaze looks strangely unfocused.
“I don’t know.”
The words leave behind a heaviness that Satoru cannot properly explain.
Because this is Suguru.
Suguru, who is usually so certain in his beliefs. So steady and composed. Hearing uncertainty from him feels deeply wrong.
Satoru wants to say something reassuring. The problem is that he has no idea what reassurance is supposed to sound like here.
For a moment, the only sound in the room is the faint hum of the air conditioning.
Then Satoru says quietly, “You know you don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to.”
Suguru looks up at him, brows faintly furrowed. “What?”
“This.” Satoru gestures vaguely toward the reports scattered across the desk, toward the exhaustion hanging off both of them. “All of it.”
Suguru stares at him for a second, incredulous. “What, quit?” he asks, sounding almost caught off guard by the suggestion.
“I’m just saying you have a choice.”
Suguru’s expression tightens faintly at that.
“No,” he says immediately. “I want to do this.”
The answer comes too quickly, too automatically.
Satoru doesn't know what to say to that.
So instead, he nods once and stays.
Days pass after that conversation.
The distance between them does not disappear entirely, but Satoru still makes sure Suguru knows he is there.
Even though they rarely see each other anymore, both of them still make the effort whenever they can.
He waits for Suguru after missions when their schedules align. He pulls him into pointless conversations whenever he notices him isolating himself too much. At one point, Satoru admits to Suguru that he needs him there beside him. He couldn’t imagine a world in which they’re apart.
They are the strongest together, after all.
Even then, Satoru gets the distinct feeling Suguru doesn’t entirely believe him.
Still, despite everything, both of them continue making the effort whenever they can.
The sudden surge of curses has thrown everyone off. Missions pile endlessly on top of one another, leaving barely enough time to sleep before they’re sent somewhere else again. Most weeks, Satoru only catches brief glimpses of Suguru in passing—crossing paths in hallways between assignments, or returning to campus just as the other is preparing to leave again.
Some days, those fleeting moments are the only proof they are both still here.
Satoru has made it a habit to find Suguru as often as possible.
On the rare nights they are both at Jujutsu Tech at the same time, he slips quietly into Suguru’s room. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they sit together in silence, too drained from missions to hold a proper conversation. Other times, Suguru falls asleep midway through whatever Satoru is rambling about, his head tipped against Satoru’s shoulder while he stubbornly insists he is still listening.
Satoru never leaves.
Tonight, the room is dark except for the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the curtains. Suguru is asleep beside him already, breathing slow and even, exhaustion finally winning over whatever force usually keeps him awake.
Satoru watches him quietly.
His fingers move absently through Suguru’s hair, scratching lightly against his scalp in slow, repetitive motions.
The sight of him like this feels strangely intimate.
Suguru looks softer while asleep. Less guarded. The constant tension he carries through the day finally eases from his expression, leaving behind something far more fragile than he ever allows other people to see.
Satoru feels his chest tighten as he looks at him.
It’s not painful exactly. The feeling is almost overwhelming, but not unpleasant. Warmth settles heavily beneath his ribs alongside something sharper, something aching and restless. If he had to describe it, perhaps it would be something close to immense adoration. Or longing.
Satoru has spent years trying to understand what people mean when they speak about love as though it is something life changing. He never understood how caring for another person deeply enough could alter someone’s emotions so greatly.
Now, sitting here in the quiet with Suguru asleep beside him, Satoru thinks he might have an idea.
The realization terrifies him a little. The fact that another person’s existence has become capable of affecting him this deeply feels dangerous. And yet, even knowing that, he wouldn’t dream of changing anything.
Instead, he closes his eyes and carefully brushes his fingers through Suguru’s dark hair again, savoring the warmth of him beside him.
Is this the feeling that he’s been looking for?
Is this what love is supposed to feel like?
. . . .
Satoru is nineteen.
The three of them—Suguru, Shoko, and himself—are graduating.
The ceremony held for them is small. Just a modest room, and a few familiar faces.
Yaga insists on taking pictures outside the front entrance afterward, determined to recreate the same photograph they took on their first day at Jujutsu Tech years ago.
The three of them stand in the exact same place, older and exhausted and shaped by years of things none of them could have imagined back then.
Satoru throws an arm around both of them as they hold up their diplomas for the picture.
The camera flashes.
For a second, the moment feels strangely suspended in time.
Nothing has changed, really. And yet at the same time, everything has.
He and Suguru will still remain at Jujutsu Tech after this, still taking missions, still getting dragged into endless problems by the higher-ups.
Shoko is leaving to pursue her medical license. Nanami and Haibara still have another year before it becomes their turn to graduate.
Life will continue moving forward whether Satoru feels ready for it or not.
Lately, Suguru has been speaking more seriously about becoming a teacher in the future. About reforming jujutsu society from the inside instead of continuing to endure its failures.
Satoru is certain he wants the same thing.
A few years ago, he would’ve laughed at the idea of himself willingly teaching anyone anything. He barely had the patience to tolerate most people for extended periods of time. Yet now, when he imagines remaining here beside Suguru, teaching future students together, the thought feels oddly natural.
Around them, the celebration continues.
Utahime is there to support Shoko, standing nearby with a beaming smile aimed at her. Mimiko and Nanako are there too, lingering at the edge of the group together. They have long since warmed up to everyone, though their favoritism toward Suguru remains obvious.
The afternoon passes quickly after that. Conversations overlap, more photos are taken, and people gradually begin filtering away in different directions.
Eventually, the noise thins out and Satoru realizes he and Suguru have somehow been left alone near the entrance steps.
For a moment, neither of them says anything.
The quiet between them is not uncomfortable. It rarely is anymore.
Suguru looks at him with that familiar softness in his expression, diploma still loosely held in one hand while a soft breeze tousles the edges of his hair.
Before Satoru can think too hard about it, he reaches forward abruptly and grabs Suguru by the front of his uniform, pulling him into a kiss.
Suguru freezes in obvious shock for the first second, but quickly reciprocates, kissing him back with the same intensity.
And in that moment, Satoru finally understands.
He understands the warmth people describe when they speak about love. He understands the exhilaration, the dizzying rush that floods through him so quickly and intensely that the rest of the world seems to blur at the edges.
For one perfect moment, nothing else exists except this. Except Suguru and the feeling of his lips pressed against Satoru’s.
When they finally pull apart, Suguru is staring at him with the warmest expression Satoru has ever seen on him. His smile is bright enough to rival sunlight, his eyes crinkle softly at the corners as he looks at him, and the fondness written across his face is so open it nearly steals the breath from Satoru’s lungs.
Satoru realizes distantly that he is smiling just as hard.
He doesn’t hesitate to kiss him again.
What is love?
Satoru pulls Suguru close and knows that he’s found it.