∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

[SEPTEMBER 2007]

You’re thankful that he’s prostrated himself before you.

Even that brief moment, that flash of his face, was almost too much for you to bear. And all you’d wanted to do was slip inside Satoru’s room and wait until he came back from the konbini. Then, you’d curl up against his body and wait the night through. You can’t sleep. Because of the person in front of you right now. As soon as he saw you for the first time since the…since he…since the incident…he’d buckled. Like a puppet with his strings cut, he collapsed to his knees, and down his head went. Lower and lower until his forehead touched the concrete.

There are too damn many emotions inside you right now, none of them good. They’ve been festering since you woke up for the first time after Shoko pulled you back from the brink. Everything swirls and swirls, coalescing into something so dark and bitter. Just like one of his orbs, you guess, but you’re not him. You can’t swallow it. It’s stuck there in your throat, burning.

You didn’t see me before you left, Suguru texted you the morning of that fateful mission with Nanami and…you can’t even think about that. All you can think about are those texts. It had all been there in front of you, hadn’t it? The signs of your fracturing bond with Suguru. You saw Satoru. Not me.

And you almost want to spit that out at him right now, who you’ve been running to instead of him. Rub it in his face that Satoru is your safe haven right now. He’s your escape. You don’t have to think about what happened when you’re around Satoru. You don’t have to feel. With him, you can be truly empty, floating through the darkness of your mind without the pain clawing at you, trying to drag you under.

“Why?” Suguru’s muffled, cracking voice asks as it breaks the silence of the night. “Why?” Briefly, he wraps his arms around himself for some sense of comfort. Keep laying it on, you think venomously. Poor, pathetic Suguru. “Why?” A single trembling hand reaches out toward you. Clutching at your pants, sobbing your name like a child. It’s only resentment that you feel when you see light glinting off the falling tears. “Why didn’t you try to protect yourself from me?”

Because over a decade of conditioning convinced your body that Suguru would never cross that line. No, actually, it went even deeper than that, you think. It was in your soul. Every single cell, every part of your very being, was crying out the same thing, over and over—Suguru won’t hurt me. And now…now you’ve been broken on such a fundamental level. Up is down, left is right, one plus one equals three, and Geto Suguru did the one thing that you never thought he would do.

You’re just like your father you would tell him if you had the energy to be cruel. That night, you truly understood what it was to be in Suguru’s shoes as a child. To be towered over with that much rage and come to the horrifying realization that the person you trusted most in the world to protect you will be the one to steal that sense of security away.

Does Suguru even comprehend that you can never trust anyone else now? You’ll never walk this world without a mask again. You will always be forced to perform and bend yourself for everyone because Suguru taught you that there is a limit. No one will ever care about you as unconditionally as you cared for him.

“You don’t deserve to know.” There’s no emotion in your voice. Nothing on your face. This is the extent of your cruelty, to take this answer from him. And yet…

Even now, there is still kindness in your cruelty.

Because Suguru is weak. If he was told the truth, it would leave him as irreversibly broken as you are. Right now, he barely clings to life out of some naïve notion of justice, waiting to die by someone else’s hands as the ultimate punishment. Answering him now would have him abandon that justice and take matters into his own hands. You still need time. You’re not done with him yet.

If you are going to live like this, walk this world with a broken half-life, then so will Suguru. You’ll chain him to the pieces of your heart that he shattered and drag him along with you. You’ll bind yourself and him to each other, indifferent to the fact that it’ll surely drown you both.

It doesn’t matter. This is what you both deserve. All you deserve is each other.

“Hurt me,” he begs, not letting go of you even when you try to step away. “Please. Hurt me like I hurt you.”

“Why would you ask me that?”

“Because that’s what’s fair.”

“Fair,” you repeat so harshly that he gives a full-bodied flinch. “Fair?” You bark out a sharp, nasty laugh. “When has life ever been fair to us? That was the whole reason you almost killed me, remember? You couldn’t stand how unfair everything was to you.”

“I know,” he cries. “So, hurt me.”

You quietly huff, bitter and in disbelief that he’s still lying. “Just who are you trying to make feel better with that request? Me or yourself? Because hurting you, getting your blood on my hands, sounds like hell to me.” When Suguru openly weeps, you feel nothing. You understand the weight of your words after you say them. It’s shoving this all back in his face. With your blood on his hands, he’s in hell now. But you’re too exhausted to coddle him. That’s what got you here, anyway, isn’t it? “Go to bed, Suguru. We’re done here.”

“Tell them the truth,” he pleads through his sobs. “Tell them I hurt you.”

“And have your death on my hands? Did you not hear me when I said I can’t even stomach the idea of punching you in the face?”

“I can’t live with myself for what I did.”

“I don’t care.”

These cries are nothing you’ve ever heard out of him before. Infuriatingly gut-wrenching. Tugging at your damaged heart strings which makes you madder at yourself than him. You want to cry along with him, but there’s nothing left for you to give.

Nothing.

So, you kick his arm away from you and walk away. Leave him alone in the dark to suffer. That’s what he was wanting to do before you got in his way, right? Fine. You get it now, okay? You’ve learned your lesson the hard way. You’ll never stand in his way again.

[TRIP DAY 2]

Romance is hard.

But…in your defense, it is almost six in the morning. Eh, that might not be an excuse. As you’re about to step over into the third trimester, your nights are slowly becoming more restless. The familiar fatigue from the first trimester is nipping at your heels. So, you were up at about four. Satoru, of course, was up not soon after because he’s a light sleeper in unfamiliar places, anyway.

Before you got…distracted…you and Satoru were at the chabudai, a cup of coffee in his hands, and had your heads ducked together to brainstorm romantic ideas. But, again, you got distracted. Suguru woke up. And you and Satoru are now having to do this on the fly.

The best idea that you can come up with at such an early hour is to put Suguru between yourself and Satoru on the manta ray that he summons when you’re all down on Tsubasawa Beach. It seemed like the safest place to lift off from. It’s still dark enough and you’re at a safe enough distance from the resort or road for someone to chalk up three dark blurs lifting up into the sky as an overactive imagination.

It’s too early for a bus to run, no one really wants to deal with the small talk of a taxi ride, and Satoru refuses to warp with you while you’re pregnant. You think he’s being paranoid. When he teleports, he’s using Limitless to warp space and create a compressed path between himself and his location. He does all the work with his technique to shrink the path and between one step and the next, he’s somewhere else. It stands to reason that everyone else he has hold of would be able to step just as easily.

But…whatever. You haven’t pushed and you won’t now because this has set you up for this moment.

Satoru helps you up on the manta ray that Suguru is on. “I summoned one for each of us, y’know,” Suguru points out while watching you crawl toward him clumsily. “See? Over there?” He flicks a finger in the direction of the two other manta rays—one pink, the other black. There are more colors, each with their own ability. You lovingly refer to the collection of them as The Dairangers. Suguru chose your idea over Satoru’s Americanized Power Rangers. “You too, Satoru?” Suguru asks when he sees Satoru following after you.

You’re still conscious of how Suguru reacted last night to the idea of actively sleeping together. What you really want to do is crawl into Suguru’s lap, but that’s outright crossing a boundary. Today, you’ll…nudge at it. Question him about why it’s even there in the first place. You know why it’s there, technically, so you have to convince him that he doesn’t need it. Well…that he doesn’t need this particular boundary, anyway.

“We used to share manta rays all the time before,” Satoru points out. He’s very careful about where he sits and when he does, it completes a triangle. Equal distance between himself and Suguru and himself and you. You know it’s not unintentional. He remembers last night, too.

“When we were teenagers, sure,” Suguru agrees dryly. “After missions, when everyone wanted to be back on campus as soon as possible and too drained to deal with trains,” he adds. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to preserve my cursed energy, though. I can manage three manta rays at once now.”

“Just because you have the energy to waste doesn’t mean you should waste it,” you chide. “Besides, you don’t even know how to get there. Satoru came up with this idea last night. We’d be bringing more attention to ourselves with him screaming and telling you where to go.”

Suguru huffs. “I have a map.”

“That’d you’d have to use your phone as a flashlight for.” Suguru’s mouth opens, but you cut him off. “Now you’re just arguing to argue.”

“I learned from the best,” he coos while reaching out with his stupidly long arm to pinch your cheek. You wrap a hand around his wrist, using him as extra support when the manta ray slowly starts lifting up higher into the sky. “Where are we going, anyway?”

Satoru points in a certain direction. “Eleven kilometers that way, stay along the coast.” Then, because you married a man who is a huge dork at heart, he throws his arms up into the air as he excitedly announces, “We’re headed to Lover’s Cape!”

“Are you purposely making me a third wheel to your romantic activities?” Suguru asks with a blatantly fake cheeriness. Not as outwardly hostile as last night, though. Probably because of a mixture of it being too early for him to kick up much of a fuss and because he is trying to keep the peace.

Satoru clicks his tongue in annoyance. “Hey, Squid, did you know that taking a hike to watch the sunrise is only for couples now? They come up with the craziest rules these days, don’t they?”

“You’re such a smartass,” Suguru complains as he relaxes, the charge in the air dissipating.

It’s an absolutely stunning view.

The waves of Suruga Bay are surprisingly gentle, but the taste of saltwater is still on your tongue, still mists the air. It all becomes a backdrop, though, when the skies slowly bloom with color. The three of you stay there long enough to watch the change of Mount Fuji which, from this point, is in clear view and looms tall across the bay. In the gentle ombre of pink and purple that comes with early dawn, the mountain is only a shape. When the sun finally peeks over the horizon, the peak of Fuji is illuminated in bright orange.

There are few other people on the viewing platform, a lucky thing considering it’s a summer weekend. Satoru gives you his camera to take pictures and tells you it’s because you have the eye of a trained artist when you ask why he doesn’t do it himself. It’s an excuse. You know it is because, when you’re satisfied with how many you’ve taken, you turn to find Satoru cozied up beside Suguru.

Satoru is smart about it. His head is tilted to the side, pressed on Suguru’s shoulder, and his eyes are closed. He could disguise wanting to be closer to Suguru with exhaustion, if he wanted, but he doesn’t need to because of the look on Suguru’s face. An expression that fills you with so much hope that you’re fit to burst with it. There can’t possibly be another explanation for the gentle smile that Suguru has buried against the top of Satoru’s head, can there? Even the fact that he has his face pressed into Satoru’s hair isn’t exactly platonic, is it?

This is Suguru at his truest. This is a Suguru who isn’t concerned with appearances and social rules. You realize that Suguru might not be uncomfortable with the thought of romance because he doesn’t reciprocate. It may just be the same hang-up that you had when you figured out your own feelings for him. You think that Suguru wants you both but doesn’t think he’s allowed to have you. All because of that preconceived notion that a romantic relationship can only be two people. Never three.

The theory is only solidified at Suguru’s panicked, guilty expression when he finally notices you staring. It’s the look of someone caught doing something they think they’re not supposed to be doing. You have to show him that this isn’t something to be punished. So, with a tender smile of your own, you step back in line with him and reach down to lace your fingers with his. Then, you do as Satoru does and put your head on his bicep with a happy sigh.

Suguru’s conflicted about it, you know he is. It takes him a few minutes to release the tension in his body. The three of you have this moment of closeness for a little while, but Suguru is more keenly aware of the strangers around you all.

“What else did you two want to do?” Suguru’s voice cracks when he asks the question, quickly clearing his throat.

When he steps forward, jerking his hand away from yours, forcing you and Satoru to straighten to your full heights again, you grit your teeth in annoyance. Not with him, though, but with the other people on the platform that he’s performing for. He’s almost cartoonish, how shifty he looks as he nervously glances around at the slowly growing crowd.

A petulant part of you wants to take his hand again, but you resist the urge. Neither you nor Satoru are going to force yourselves on him. Still, you need to start laying it on a little thicker. If you don’t start acting as if three people doing romantic things is normal then Suguru will never think of it as normal, either.

“I don’t care, so you two can talk about it on the way back,” you explain in answer to Suguru’s earlier question. “All I’m really here for is to spend as much time as possible with my Suguru.”

“And Satoru,” Suguru adds, assuming that you forgot to do that yourself.

Satoru throws his arm around Suguru’s shoulders so suddenly that it makes Suguru stumble. “Nah, because Satoru is also here for time with his Suguru!” Suguru turns to stare at Satoru, mouth parted slightly in shock. Satoru doesn’t give Suguru the chance to react. Satoru grins before shoving a map in Suguru’s face. “Anyway, you heard the lady, didn’t you? C’mon, c’mon, I wanna do something fun.”

Back at the entrance to the boardwalk, the three of you are hunched over a local map—silly you for thinking that they could come up with an activity all on their own. An elderly couple tries to slip past you to start their own walk. It wouldn’t be an issue if you weren’t with two behemoths. Suguru, especially, with how damn broad he is compared to Satoru. There’s a brief moment where you want to snatch the map from Satoru’s hands, tear it into little pieces to be thrown to the wind, force Satoru to teleport you all back to the hotel—pregnancy be damned—and have your filthy way with them for the rest of the trip. You can confess when you’re split open on Suguru’s dick.

Are people actually serious when they say the libido cools down by the third trimester? Because you’re inching towards yours and it seems like your sex drive is moving at the fucking speed of light right now.

Just this morning, you stared at Satoru’s fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee as you two waited for Suguru to wake up and dragged him to the bathroom to get them shoved inside your pussy instead. Suguru walked in, your ass on the sink, Satoru on his knees between your thighs, messily licking at you while finger fucking you into oblivion. You demanded Suguru put those huge hands to work, getting one around your throat, the other gripping Satoru’s hair tight to guide his mouth. Apparently, a vacation is what you needed to override your refractory period.  

If you three weren’t set on seeing the sunrise, you’d have both their loads in your pussy rather than in your belly. Before you kicked them out to shower, though, you stared them down and swore you’d be draining their balls dry tonight. Turns out that a very horny pregnant you just happens to be one of the very few things that can scare the two strongest sorcerers of the modern era. You’ve never seen them look so terrified.

“How far along?”

Blinking back to awareness, you notice that the elderly woman has drifted over to your side. You assume the man with her is her husband since you clock their matching rings. He has his hands clasped behind his back as Satoru and Suguru tower over him with the map.

“Six months,” you answer her politely.

“Your first?”

“Yes.”

She giggles. “Well, I’d ask if you’ve rung the bell yet, but it seems like you don’t need that luck now.” She glances over at the men. “Maybe have whichever one of them is your friend to ring it for some luck of his own. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and I forgot my glasses at home, so I can’t see which is your husband.”

“We rung the bell at the very end.”

“Ah, you missed it.” She must be a local, knowing the path well enough that she can point in a different direction than where the ending platform was. “It’s easy to do that. Remember where the path split?” You nod in confirmation. “Most people go left since the boardwalk continues on, but if you go right, you’ll find the Love Call Bell. The one at the end, on the platform, that’s the Golden Bell.”

You didn’t sense any festering cursed energy. Satoru didn’t bring up seeing anything, either. Still, you’ve been a sorcerer long enough to know when a folktale is coming and those tend to be laced with tragedy which, in turn, births spirits. “Love Call Bell?” Your metaphorical tail is wagging at the potential for something to study.

Your hope is dashed to pieces when she goes on to explain, “I’m not sure what started the tradition, but it’s said that if you ring the bell three times while calling out the name of your love then that love will be fulfilled.”

“There’s no story behind it?”

“My husband and I have been in Koshimoda since before you were born and I’ve never heard the actual tale they say is behind the tradition. I’m sure the bell was installed as another way to lure in tourists.” The urge to pout is a hard one to resist. What a bust. “So, like I said, there’s no need for you to worry yourself with walking all the way back there to ring it. Whichever one of those strapping young men isn’t yours, though, have him put the work in.”

The strapping young man in question waves you over. You bow to the woman who waves before she and her husband head off to start their walk. “Squid, how do you feel about bonito?”

“No fair!” Satoru shouts, quickly chasing Suguru down. “You know she’s going to say yes! She’ll love doing that nerdy shit!”

“Aren’t you the same man that’s obsessed with a children’s anime?”

“All anime is for children!”

“That is just blatantly false,” you intone without even glancing in your husband’s direction. “I like bonito just fine, by the way,” you answer Suguru hesitantly, unsure where this is all going. He knows your seafood preferences. “Why are you asking me about a fish?”

“It’s more of asking you if you could handle a fish being gutted,” he corrects.

“I have watched people be torn apart by cursed spirits, Suguru,” you deadpan.

He huffs, offended by what he perceives to be purposeful obtuseness. “You know what I mean.” You don’t, actually, but you let him go on to elaborate. “Is it going to bother you now? You’re still getting morning sickness, right?”

“Eh. It’s mostly gone. Getting bombarded by a bunch of different smells makes it act up the most. And there are a few trigger foods here and there that make the nausea flare up. Like natto. I’ll never be able to eat natto ever again after this baby is born.”

“Good,” Suguru and Satoru say at the exact same time, making you roll your eyes. It’s not a surprise that Mister Kyoto doesn’t like it, but you and Suguru are born and bred Eastern Japanese. Everyone in your village loved it. “I’ll never understand how you hate the texture of squid but love natto. It’s disgusting,” Suguru continues to complain with Satoru nodding in agreement.

“I can’t help what mouth feels my brain likes and doesn’t like.” You cross your arms over your chest. “Are you going to keep interrogating me about food preferences or tell me what this so-called nerdy shit is that you’re wanting to do?”

He brightens as he stretches the map out in front of you, pointing at a town between here and the resort. “This town here, Tago, is famous for bonito flakes. There’s a store here, Kanesa, that’s been around over a hundred years. They give tours and show how they prepare their salt-cured bonito and bonito flakes.”

“Three things—one, Satoru is right, that is the type of nerdy shit that I’d go for. Two, even if it wasn’t, I’d still put my vote in to go only because he called me out like that.” Satoru gives an outraged squawk. “Three…why are you so interested in this? Are you planning on starting your own line of bonito products?”

Suguru actually sticks his nose up in the air, the snob. “Maybe I’d like to prepare my own ingredients. Fresh flakes would be better than that processed stuff they have at the supermarket.”

“Foodie.”

“You say that like it’s such a dirty word.”

“Pretty soon he’ll give up the sorcerer life to leave restaurant reviews on his online blog, Sketch,” Satoru teases. He gets a swift punch to the shoulder, just cackling in response instead of nursing it. Suguru only glares harder. “Where would you even salt and cure fish? You can’t do it in your apartment. You gonna use the school?”

Suguru blinks, takes his chin in his hand, and his brows furrow in thought. “Y’know, Satoru,” he starts after a moment of deep thought, “that’s actually a great idea.”

“What a pleasant welcome that would be to new students,” you drawl sarcastically. “Just trying to navigate the campus grounds and getting bombarded with the blood, guts, and strung-up corpses of fish.”

Satoru snaps his fingers. “Suguru! You’re onto something with that! That’d be a perfect way to whip new students into shape!”

Pressing a hand to your forehead, you sigh wearily. “No wonder the higher-ups won’t let you help on campus until you have your certificate. Sometimes, even I want you to change your mind.” Suddenly, you feel an overwhelming sense of pity for Sensei. This year, he was officially promoted to principal. When Satoru and Suguru become teachers, they won’t simply be his coworkers. Sensei will be responsible for them. “Poor Sensei.”

That pity is immediately overwhelmed by fondness when you watch Satoru and Suguru duck their heads down, covering their mouths with their hands like a couple of gossiping schoolgirls as they loudly whisper. It’s a throwback to what they’d do back in high school. It was something you lectured them for doing because it was condescending, but it’s alright if it’s just you here.

“Hey, hey, Suguru, it’s a good thing that Sketch didn’t become a teacher herself, right?”

“Hmm, yes, I definitely agree, Satoru. Teachers are supposed to foster dreams.”

“Yeah, yeah. Definitely no fostering here. Crushing dreams.”

“Just the type of behavior that you’d expect from a pencil pusher. Isn’t it sad?”

“Super sad.”

There’s a reason that you’re fine with this. You’ve learned to give as good as you get. So, taking a page straight from Suguru’s playbook, you smile at them beatifically. “As equally sad as the pussy privileges you just lost for the rest of the weekend.”

That bursts their little bubble.

“Squid, wait, let’s not be hasty—”

“Sketch, my darling, my honey, you know we were just kidding—”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come swim with us?”

In the brief amount of time that it took for them to change, you’ve already started to doze. It’s not even noon yet, but you slept like shit and Satoru bribed the owner of the shop to give the three of you a personal tour, so you had to do more socializing than had there been a larger group. All that, the pregnancy, and the sticky heat of summer has you exhausted. It takes a lot for you to peel your eyes open enough to glance up at Suguru.

The flare of arousal when you get a real good look at them makes you a little more alert. In their swim shorts, their light jackets not yet zipped. There was some talk yesterday of caveman brains and yours is very happy that they’re going to cover up. They already have people stopping them in public to ask if they’re models, and that’s when they’re fully dressed.

You know they’re both a little self-conscious about their scars—the X across Suguru’s chest, the long line on Satoru that stretches from his neck down almost to his hip. You’ve wanted to tell them that you think people will be too distracted by their washboard abs to focus on the scars.

“Tired,” you whisper as you close your eyes.

Suguru’s big palm presses to your cheek. “It feels like we’ve been having all the fun,” he worries.

You yawn before nuzzling at the palm of his hand. “Being able to nap and not hear a bunch of old men complain about the cost of Satoru’s property damage is very fun, trust me.”

“I’m trying to be better about it!” Satoru whines.

“Not purposely doing it to piss them off still isn’t enough. You have to put actual effort into it,” Suguru lectures. You hear the smile in his voice, though. “We’ll be down at the beach if you wake up and want to join us,” he says to you as he strokes the high of your cheekbone with his thumb.

“Probably won’t,” you admit quietly. “Growing another human and all that.”

Suguru chuckles. “Alright, then.”

Just like you said, you don’t stir even once until they come back. You hear the door open, their hushed voices as they move around the room, the shower as it turns on. It isn’t until they have to come closer to where you are on the futon to get a change of clothes that you finally open your eyes.

Satoru notices before Suguru does. He kneels down next to you as he’s slipping a new shirt on. You hide your smile with the blanket when you notice the trail of love bites running down his torso. He hunches over to kiss you on the forehead before announcing, “I’m going to check out that old-school arcade on the first floor.”

“Have fun and be humble,” you murmur, knowing full well that he’s going to put in the work to have his name in the top score of every single game down there.

“I’m always humble,” he sings as he climbs to his feet. Before he’s bouncing out the door, he sticks his arms down to help you stand up yourself. He gives you a big, sloppy kiss on the cheek when you’re upright, your giggles following him out the door.

“Good nap?” Suguru assumes when you approach where he’s seated on the little indoor porch. He has a book in hand, not open yet. Instead, he reaches down into the plastic bag by his feet to grab you a bottle of barley tea, beads of condensation dripping down the sides.

“Yeah,” you answer while taking the drink from him. “Do you need one? I haven’t been keeping you up with my tossing and turning, have I?”

“Even if you were, I’m not complaining. What’d you say earlier? You’re growing another human and all that, right?”

“So, it is keeping you up is what you’re saying.”

He snorts. “No, Squid. You know how much of a heavy sleeper I am.” You twist open the bottle, gulping down half the bottle in one go. “You’re not too hot, are you? You need to be careful about dehydration—”

You’re the one who snorts now. “Calm down, mama bear. I’m just thirsty after…however many hours I was out.” You don’t care to figure it out. He’s still concerned to which you raise a brow. “What are you suggesting? Waking me up every hour to make me drink water? Because if you tried that, I’d make sure that you are never physically capable of knocking me up.”

You’re not even thinking about how that may sound when you say it. It’s only when he smirks that you think a little harder. It wasn’t capable of knocking someone up that you said. It was capable of knocking me up. As if the idea of him getting anyone else pregnant is out of the question.

Thankfully, he isn’t weirded out by the…possessiveness? “You’re just giving me more evidence that if I accidentally get you pregnant, it’s not actually an accident.”

It’s a throwback to when you two had sex last month, the first time since you announced your pregnancy, when Satoru pulled him away from his isolation. “With as many loads as you’ve been putting in me, I might not be the only one being all purposeful about it.”

Suguru’s eyes darken with arousal. “Just taking advantage of the fact that you can’t get double pregnant.”

“Like you wouldn’t try.”

“You’re right.” Suguru’s book clatters to the floor as he stands up. “Let’s try right now.”

“Don’t think I didn’t catch the way you were staring at us before we left,” Suguru husks while you’re in his lap.

It didn’t take long of you being on his dick for you to give up on focusing of any kind. You don’t kiss him—can’t. Your lips are parted in pleasure, so you have them pressed to his, and the two of you breathe into one another’s mouth. His hands are on your ass, and it feels like he’s doing more of the work than you are with how he lifts you up and down on his cock. You’ve got one arm looped around his shoulders, fingers clutched tight in his hair. The other hand is between your bodies, pressed over his racing heart and the scar that starts there.

Fuck, this is good. It’s so good that you’d think you were ovulating again if it wasn’t physically impossible. It took a long lecture from Shoko to understand that you’d been ovulating the night that your baby was conceived which made all the puzzle pieces fall into place. It’d been why you were gagging for it that whole day. The cards were stacked against you not getting pregnant and the pullout method had been the final one to send the whole tower crashing down. Why does this feel like that? Maybe it wasn’t ovulation. Maybe just being really, really in love makes you insanely horny.

This pleasure is as close to drunk as you’ll get. You’re so focused on it that his question goes in one ear, melting out the other along with your brain. The silence stretches on for a solid minute before he chuckles. He reaches up to take your chin, running his thumb along your bottom lip. You don’t think. Only react. And your tongue glides out to taste the salt of his skin.

“You talked about Satoru last night, but look at you now, hmm? Look at that whorish face.” It isn’t a ribbing like you gave Satoru last night. Right now, from Suguru, it sounds like praise.

It lights your brain up like a firecracker, firing off enough neurons for you to respond. “Feels so good.”

“We call him a filthy little hedonist, but it looks beautiful on him. As beautiful as it looks on you, too. I was stupid to stay away from this as long as I did,” he mutters more to himself than you, it seems. “You poor, poor thing,” he croons. “I can only imagine you trying to stuff this little cunt up with your fingers.” He reaches down to glide his own across your clit, making you jerk. “Home alone, always hungry, never satisfied.”

With only one of his hands helping to move you now, the pace has naturally slowed. The boiling of your blood eases to a simmer. Shifting to grip his shoulders, you start putting more of the work in yourself again, chasing the pleasure that had been cresting.

Filthy little hedonist, indeed.

“Never satisfied when you’re gone,” you slur, too inhibited by this desire to have a filter. “Always need you.”

You peel your eyes open long enough to catch the almost manic glint in his eyes. “Say it again.”

“I need you,” you whine. “Suguru, we both need you. All the time.”

He groans, almost as if he’s in pain. “You can’t say that to me.”

“If this looks pretty on us, it’s because you’re here.” Stupid Suguru! Satoru’s voice rings through your head. Why can’t you get a clue already?! We love you, you idiot! “We’re all for you,” you gasp before you’re barreling over the edge into orgasm.

Suguru is quickly chasing after yours with his own, fingers flying to dig into your waist, hips jerking up as he spills inside you. The whole time, he’s moaning your name. As you’re shivering, clinging to him, you think the only song as sweet as his is Satoru’s.

Ten minutes—that’s all you’re given to bask in the afterglow.

“Sorry,” you apologize to Suguru with a grimace as you’re seated at the chabudai in nothing more than his shirt and panties. He put on a pair of shorts before realizing that you needed more than sitting upright. Now, he hands you a cold bottle of water before dropping down next to you. “Not exactly the sexiest thing, huh?” you manage through the burning in your throat before you quickly try to wash it down.

Suguru rubs your back soothingly. “Heartburn is definitely sexier,” he jokes.

“I can’t believe you both think pregnancy is sexy,” you pant when you’ve downed half the bottle in one go.

He laughs softly, leaning over to kiss your temple. “It is easy for us to say. I can’t imagine what this has been like, being behind the wheel like you are.” It’s…definitely been something. People always talk about how you’re glowing, but it sure as hell doesn’t feel like that most of the time. “I’ll try to be more mindful of letting my kink show from now on, okay?”

You shake your head. “No, no. Go ahead. Enjoy it while it lasts. I’ll give you three more months of…um, what is it that the Americans say?” You pause to recall before saying in English, “Letting your freak flag fly.”

Suguru doubles over from laughing so hard. “You’re so stupid,” he wheezes. “Satoru’s infected you with his stupidity now. I l—” and he stops so abruptly that you blink down in shock at him. He collects himself, covering his mouth with a hand, turning his head away. “I just hate how silly you are,” he adds quietly.

You eye him warily, knowing that’s not exactly what he was going to say, but you leave it be for the sake of keeping the peace. “You’re laughing right now, so I guess you’re as stupid as us.”

“Stupider,” he agrees with a bittersweet smile.

Scowling, you reach out to squish both his cheeks between your hands. “No being mean to yourself on vacation.”

The bitterness lingers, even when you smooth the furrow in his brow. “Oh, but being mean to you isn’t off-limits?”

“I know you’re not actually being mean. You’re just overwhelmed by how cute I am.”

The joke lands. His smile comes easier now and is more genuine. “You’re right. That’s exactly what it is.” He pulls away from your grip. “Do you want to try laying down again?”

You shake your head. “I’m not taking the risk. Anyway, I had an idea last night of something I wanted to draw that I wanted to get started on. Is that okay with you?”

“No. You’re not allowed to do anything you find relaxing on your vacation,” he snarks. When you shove at him, he giggles. “I brought more books than I know what to do with, after all.” He uses his superior height to lean over and grab both your backpack and his. He unzips his, showing you…quite the number of books. “Maybe I overestimated how much reading I’d get done this weekend,” he says with a cute little pout.

“You might be addicted to buying books,” you whisper conspiratorially.

“Oh? Tell me, do you still have that watercolor palette from last year in the closet? What about those tubes of…eh, what’s the name for them again? Gouache?”

Fine! Maybe you have a tiny problem of overestimating your ability to flitter between different mediums. “At least I didn’t have Satoru bribe the owner to get a tour of a process I’ll never do,” you throw back at him with your nose up in the air.

“I didn’t make Satoru bribe the owner. I simply took advantage of the opportunity laid before me,” he says with as prim a tone as yours. “Besides, he’s your husband. Shouldn’t you be the one reprimanding him for how much money he throws at everything?”

You put a palm on his face, pushing him away from you with a laugh. “Go make some flakes with that fancy bonito shaver you bought and leave me alone.”

“You’re not being very nice, you know. I’m being belittled for supporting a small business.”

“Poor Suguru.”

Let it be known that when you’re drawing for pleasure, not work, you get in the zone. It’s probably the closest you’ll ever come to a Black Flash. With an idea in mind, as soon as your pencil touches the paper, you’re quickly sketching out the basic shapes that will soon become your subjects. That’s the foundation of a sketch, in your opinion. There is nothing that can’t be reduced down to basic shapes—squares, rectangles, triangles, circles. It’s just a matter of building from there.

“Now there’s something that I haven’t seen in a long time,” Suguru’s musing breaks you out of your trance, startling you enough to jump in place. Blinking owlishly, you take note of his casual posture. He’s still next to you, body angled toward you. He’s got an elbow on the table, one of his cheeks cradled in a hand. “Thinking of trying to keep betta fish again?”

Ignoring that for the moment, you ask, “Have you been watching me this whole time?”

He hums before bluntly answering, “Yeah.” The tips of your ears burn. You scowl at him in response to getting flustered. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I think it’s only been about fifteen minutes, anyway. I know you, as an artist, are used to this, but to everyone else, drawing is such a fascinating thing to watch.” He taps the paper, bringing your attention back to it. “I don’t think betta fish would be a good idea around those little tyrants.”

“I can’t believe two grown men are holding a grudge against cats.”

“I can’t believe they’ve fooled you like this. They’re little demons, plotting to take over the world.”

“Anyway.” You ignore his smirk. “No, I am not going to keep betta fish again.”

It had been near the start of your third year. Even now, you’re not sure what overcame you to so badly need to keep some fish of your own. At the time, you’d told everyone that you spent two years watching the koi spread around the ponds on campus and wanted something of your own. But maybe, deep down, the you of then had been feeling the divide growing. Fish couldn’t leave you. Taking care of them was a small bit of control in your increasingly chaotic life. So, you’d dragged Satoru and Suguru down to a pet shop to buy some betta fish.

The owner had assured you that the tank was big enough. It was plastic, but it took two arms to hold. There was a divider in the middle because the fish you wanted happened to be two male bettas. They’re notoriously territorial, but the divider was opaque enough that they shouldn’t see one another. Again, maybe your past-self saw in those fish, one white and the other black, what you see now—the two boys on each side of you.

It’s a testament to your state of mind, that you hadn’t done more research beforehand. If you had, you would’ve been able to spot the signs of sickness in the black fish. They hadn’t even lasted a month. While you’d been out on your first mission of the term, you came back to both of them belly up.

Fin rot, the pet store owner had said when Satoru marched back to get a refund on your behalf. You hadn’t wanted it, just wanted to forget about them and never try again, but Satoru saw a crying girl and felt like he needed to do something. When Satoru reported back to you, you realized you’d been out of your depth—figuratively and literally. It’d been hard to tell because of how the black fish’s fins naturally were. If there’d been no signs of splitting or torn fins in the white then, most likely, the white fish died from the water getting contaminated.

“Were you feeling nostalgic, then? Is that why you’re drawing them?”

Ah, maybe you should’ve dropped this conversation. This is going to embarrass you. “No, uh…” You pick up your pencil, moving back to the drawing, starting the process of the scales. “You reminded me of them. You and Satoru, I mean. Last night.”

“Eh? How?”

“You’re not allowed to laugh,” you declare while feeling heat crawl up the back of your neck.

Suguru chuckles. “I won’t tease you about it.” You glance over at him, eyeing him skeptically. He pinches his pointer and thumb together, leaving only a small sliver of space between them. “Maybe just a little bit. We’re best friends. We don’t hold back with each other, right?”

It’s bullshit, but whatever. You’re here. He won’t let it go otherwise and if Satoru comes back, they’d push and push until you spill the beans. Then, you’d have to confess this to both of them. “When we were fucking,” you start. It gives you a little bit of pleasure to see his cheeks darken. “I got reminded of them.”

He squints at you. “I feel like I should be insulted.”

“No! It’s just—” your thoughts were…poorly executed. “It wasn’t even the fish, technically. I saw how you two looked with each other. It was beautiful. The way you both mirror each other is…it was…” Down in the corner of the page, you start with a circle that you separate with a curved line. Each section gets a smaller circle. One side is darkened along with the circle in the blank section. “Like this,” you insist while gesturing between the fish, purposely posed to appear as if they’re circling one another. “Yin and yang.”

“Ah, I see.” He clears his throat. You hadn’t even noticed how red his cheeks had gotten. You suppose you were waxing poetry about him. “Still offended, by the way. Seriously? Yin and yang? Just because his hair is white and mind is black?”

You use your pencil to whack him in the center of his forehead. “Don’t simplify it down like that. There’s no need to be so obtuse. Unless…” You tilt your head to the side, blinking owlishly. “Do you really not see it?”

Rubbing at his forehead, pouting, he asks, “See what?”

“Ignoring that whole feminine and masculine thing, you two personify yin and yang. You’ve always been about order and Satoru has only ever been chaos. You’re the calm in his energetic storm. He brought noise to our quiet worlds. I mean, it’s even in your techniques. Just think about it. You swallow darkness, in every sense of the word. Even your orbs are black unless it’s a highly graded curse. And darkness is where your spirits emerge from. Satoru, on the other hand, repels. That’s what Infinity is. And when he really releases it all, it’s flashy, bright colors.”

After a moment of considering what you’ve said, he settles his elbow on the table again before pointing out that, “the yin-yang philosophy isn’t about opposites.” He pauses. “Well, it is, but it’s about those opposites complementing one another enough to become harmonic. You can’t just point at opposites and say that it’s yin and yang.” His brows furrow. “Where do you fit in here, anyway?”

Your nose scrunches up in distaste. “This was never about me. And you do complement each other.”

“Not as much as you do.”

“I feel like you’re getting distracted here, but fine.” You sigh. “I can see it with Satoru, sure—the whole complementing thing. But I think that you and I are too alike to be considered complementary opposites. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m yin, too.”

“No. That’s not it at all. You are what you need to be.” He gives a thoughtful hum. “It’s hard to explain, but…you fill in the spaces within us.” He taps the symbol. “I see your point. I see the way that Satoru and I are. We’re forgetting something here, though.” You raise a brow. “To be wholly yin or yang isn’t balanced. That’s why each side isn’t completely solid.” He taps the paper again and you realize that he’s been gesturing to the small circles within each side. “There’s got to be some yin in yang and some yang in yin.” He smiles at you so tenderly that it flusters you. “I answered my own question. That’s where you fit in. Without you around, there’d be no balance.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks. You instinctively glance away. “I don’t think there’s much yang in me.”

He laughs. You know he’s enjoying how shy you’re getting. “Funny, don’t rigidity and directness sound like they’re yang characteristics.”

“I don’t think I like this metaphor anymore.”

“Because you don’t know how to be nice to yourself and let people praise you the way you deserve to be.”

“The nerve of you saying that!”

A breaking point is reached at dinner, one that you and Satoru were never aware of in the first place.

It all starts out innocently enough—as do all life-altering days, you’ve come to learn.

Since this is the last night, Satoru suggested scheduling a private dinner meal rather than use the complimentary buffet. It wasn’t too crowded, sure, but you and Satoru both would prefer a quiet environment and total privacy to openly talk about whatever you want. Suguru, who was promised a ryokan when this is more of a resort with ryokan-like qualities, happily agrees to Satoru’s idea. So, that’s all to say that neither you nor Suguru are going to put up much of a fight over Satoru shelling out a little more money for the trip.

“Ah!” Satoru’s cheeks puff out when you plop yourself down in the seat next to Suguru, forcing him to sit across from you both instead. “You never play fair,” he grouses while putting an elbow on the table, holding his cheek in the palm of his hand as he watches you and Suguru.

“Should I have the staff reset the table arrangements so I can be at the head of the table instead?” The question makes Satoru’s pout intensify and Suguru snorts in response. “What is it with you two today? If I was a less humble man, I’d say you two have been fighting over me.”

“You can be less humble, then, because that’s exactly what we’re doing.” Satoru’s eyes narrow and he points an accusatory finger in your direction. “You think just because you’re all cute and pregnant with my kid that you can just get away with anything, huh?”

“She can, though.” Suguru shakes his head. Chuckles again. Except this time, the sound is…more nervous. It alerts you, your body reflexively straightening as your eyes sweep over him more carefully. There’s a strain in his smile and he wipes his hands across his thighs. “It’s just…it feels like you’re spoiling me. Like you’re buttering me up before you give me some horrible news. This isn’t a breakup or something, is it?”

It takes every ounce of willpower in your body to not press your hand to your forehead and question your choice in men. How? How can he take clues like that and run in the complete opposite direction with them? Seriously, this man had the nerve to say you couldn’t be nice to yourself, and he does this hours later? Is love so out of the realm of possibility in his mind?

Oh, no. Is this your fault? You’ve been friends with him for too long. Suguru, along with the crippling self-loathing, picked up your inability to understand subtleties. You and Satoru really are just going to have to beat him over the head with this tomorrow. That’s if you can even salvage this situation tonight.

Satoru slaps a hand down on the table, straightening, shouting, “Huh?! What kind of people do you take us for?” He’s as genuinely baffled by Suguru’s obliviousness as you are. You never thought there’d come a day where someone was more clueless than you, but here it is. “Who even does a shitty thing like that, anyway? Going all out for someone just to break their heart at the end of it? That makes no sense!”

Suguru’s cheeks flush in embarrassment. “It happens in a bunch of those shitty movies you watch,” he hisses. “The guy takes the girl out to dinner just to break up with her.”

“Yeah, that happens one time. He doesn’t take her out for a whole weekend,” you point out dryly. “You can calm down now. We’re not here to break your heart.” Suguru breathes a sigh of relief. Literally! “No, actually, I’m with Satoru on this. What kind of people do you take us for?”

Suguru fumbles for an explanation more than I don’t deserve nice things. “It’s just…unusual behavior…”

“Eh? Not really,” Satoru argues. “Aren’t we always like this around you?”

“You…” He stops, brows furrowing as he thinks. “Yes, you do,” he concedes slowly. “But not in public. Not that you should, anyway. It gives people the wrong idea.” He shakes his head. “Why don’t we drop this? I’m sorry. I was clearly overthinking things.” He plucks the lids off the miso soup and pot of steaming rice. “Here. I’ll serve.”

Satoru clearly does not want to drop this. You study his face, watch him think about what he wants to say while Suguru carefully doles out soup and rice for the three of you. Suguru is too preoccupied with his task to notice or he’s purposely ignoring Satoru, wanting to drop the subject.

Poor Satoru, though. This does have to be put on hold. Because the door opens to your private room. You assume it’s the first course, but when the three of you turn your heads in that direction, a server is wheeling in a silver cart. In the center of it is a wooden block, some unrecognizable brand printed in black kanji down the front. Sake, since there’s a traditional serving tray and two ceramic cups.

The server’s had her head bowed the entire time. When she lifts her head, her eyes are closed as she grins widely and chirps, “Congratulations to the happy couple!”

Then…she opens her eyes and sees the three of you.

“Ah, thank you,” you politely respond.

“I…” The server is clearly frazzled over something that you’re not aware of. “Please, forgive me for asking, but am I in the right room?” She even scrambles for a piece of paper in her pocket. “Mister and Missus Gojo?”

“Yeah, that’s us,” Satoru answers casually.

That seems to confuse her more because her eyes dart to Suguru. “Ah, I…I apologize, then! Were we too early with our gift? The front desk told me that you’re on your honeymoon—”

“We are,” Satoru confirms bluntly.

The woman blinks. “Ah, um…were you and your wife planning on a private dinner?”

“No. This is our last night.”

One more glance over your head, at Suguru, makes it click in your head what her problem is. In a normal situation, if a couple was celebrating their honeymoon, they wouldn’t have anyone else with them. A stupid assumption, in your opinion. What if a couple wants to celebrate but doesn’t have anyone to watch their children? Or what if you two did want friends around to celebrate with you? What’s so wrong about any of that?

“Oh.” Her confused gaze sweeps back over you all, still extremely confused. When she settles on you, on your belly, she’s back to panicking. “Ma’am, we had no idea you were expecting! Please, let me go get a list of some non-alcoholic options—”

“Nah, I requested this for tonight. It’s for Suguru.” Satoru clearly isn’t picking up on what has the server confused. He looks over at Suguru, casual as ever. “You like that really dry sake, right? They said this is a regional specialty. If you want something else, I can have them pick another option.” To the server, he requests, “Actually, we will take a list of non-alcoholic options. Are there any regional juices or something?”

Suguru’s grip on his chopsticks tightens to the point of them snapping.

The sound echoes in the small room, followed by the server’s squeak. These chopsticks aren’t made of cheap wood, but they don’t seem too expensive, either. Still, a normal person wouldn’t snap them that easily. More importantly, even without the use of your technique, you can feel Suguru’s cursed energy fluctuating with his emotions. So…you three need to have a talk.

You manage to smile politely at the server despite the rising tension. “Can we have some privacy, please? You can leave the bottle.”

It’s obvious that the woman senses the energy in the room, too. Rather than try to force out more apologies as would be expected of her, she does as you ask. She leaves the tray in front of the table, bows deeply, and then leaves you to deal with the fallout of what she said. Not that you can be mad at her. Suguru was going to find out. You only wish it hadn’t been this way.

“Honeymoon,” Suguru repeats quietly, face totally blank.

“Yeah,” Satoru answers.

“You didn’t tell me that.” He’s staring at the table like he’s having some kind of crisis. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Suguru, you gotta calm down. It’s not that big a deal—”

“Yes, it is!” Suguru puts his hands down on the table with enough force to rattle things. “What are you both doing right now? I know you’re smarter than this! A honeymoon is a thing that you do as a couple,” he explains with what little remains of his quickly dwindling patience. “You do not bring friends to these things!”

Satoru quits trying to downplay this. With a defiant tilt of the chin, he asks Suguru, “Why not?”

“Because a honeymoon is an inherently romantic thing, stop playing dumb,” Suguru snarls.

“And what if we wanted it to be romantic?”

“If you want that, leave friends at home—”

Alright! You’re doing this now. So…okay. Okay! Just…fuck it. Right? Fuck it! “What if we wanted it to be romantic for everyone?” His eyes slowly widen and he turns his head toward you. “What if we invited you here because we want to make it romantic for you?”

Panic. There is real fear behind those eyes.

“No,” is all he says before he runs.

So…that happened. Suguru ran. But…he didn’t run far, is the thing. Satoru, with his all-seeing eyes, watched every step of Suguru’s way as he stormed out of the resort and took the path down to Tsubasawa Beach. And maybe that’s a good sign. Because he didn’t take his luggage with him, either. Maybe he wants someone to run after him.

“You should go talk to him,” Satoru suggests with an uncharacteristic tremor in his voice. He’s scared. You know he is. This must be as nerve-wrecking as it was when he confessed to you. No. It’s more than that. There’s a reason that you two felt the need to do this so soon.

Neither of you want to lose Suguru.

“I’m not saying this because I’m trying to put it all on you. I…I’ll talk to him, too. But…” Satoru runs his fingers through his hair, sighing shakily. “There’s things between you guys that need to get aired out, y’know?”

You do.

Doesn’t mean that you know what you need to say, though.

And you think about it hard, the things you need to say, as you follow his path down to the beach. You know that he can sense you, but he doesn’t run. Before you step onto the rocky shore, you stare at the outline of him, bathed in light from the setting sun. The cove is just a backdrop compared to him. His back is to you. You think about his shoulders and the weight that’s been on them for so long.

All you want to do is ease that burden.

“This is a little poetic,” you quietly remark when you’ve walked to stand by his side, voice nervous as you break the silence. You turn your body toward him, hoping the movement in the corner of his eye will force him to look at you, but he doesn’t. Gaze still set on the horizon, edge of his jaw as sharp as a blade with how hard his teeth are clenched, fists clenched, chest rising and falling quickly. Taking a deep breath, heart racing inside your own chest, you finally do it. “The sun was setting when I figured out that I was in love with you.”

The tension he’s been holding in his body goes slack from the shock. Finally, finally, he turns his head toward you. A breeze from the sea shifts his dark hair. The sun’s dying light glints off his amethyst eyes. You sigh wistfully. “Yeah, and you were just as beautiful then as you are now.”

The compliment darkens his cheeks. “You don’t mean that,” he mutters embarrassedly.

You smirk, remembering what he’d told you at the aquarium. “Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

Suguru recalls the moment, mouth instinctively pulling for a smile before something stops him. So much pain flashes across his face that it makes you take a step toward him, instinctively wanting to comfort him. He takes a step back, ducking his head to press the heel of his hand against his forehead as he bitterly laughs. “What are you doing right now, Squid? Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m confessing,” you answer bluntly. “I’m doing it because I love you.”

He shakes his head. “No, you’re just confused. You…you’re both…it’s the sex—”

You resist the urge to let your rising irritation bite back at him. You don’t need him to tell you how you feel. “I’m not confused,” you insist calmly. “The night that you broke up with Kuronuma was when it all clicked for me. The sex, I can admit, was a pathetic attempt to have as much of you as we could.” You chuckle a little. “Shockingly, Satoru was more aware of his feelings than me. He’s loved us both since his was seventeen, he says.”

Suguru’s clenched fists are trembling. So is his bottom lip. A part of you wants to focus your cursed energy, dig a little deeper to feel what he is, but it’s an invasion of privacy. A line that you refuse to cross. But it’s just…his body language is telling so many different stories and none of them are good. Anger and despair. In his eyes is a desperation that, once, might have had you back down because you know, you know what’s eating him alive right now. You are no longer that girl who coddled him, so you respond to his plea with a defiant tilt of your chin.

He realizes, then, that you’re not taking the confession back. Like Satoru said before, though, if you are going to confess to Suguru, you’re going to have to yank this skeleton out of the closet.

“I asked you a question once,” Suguru starts as his expression hardens. “You told me I didn’t deserve to know the answer.” He takes a step toward you, going until he’s towering over you. It reminds you of that same darkness that had been festering, that darkness that had exploded out of him on that fateful night in September. “You’re going to tell me now.”

Immediately, you know what he’s referring to. It might be the only time in all the years you’ve known each other that you ever refused to give him something. “Ask the question, then,” you whisper.

“Why didn’t you protect yourself from me that night?”

There’s a growing lump in your throat and a tremble in your bottom lip because, in that moment, you know that he’s not going to reciprocate. And it’s all because of that night. “My body wouldn’t let me.” A wretched body that you curse now. If you’d protected yourself, blocked his attack, maybe you could’ve talked him down back then. And maybe he would’ve forgiven himself by now.

Suguru’s voice cracks when he asks, “Why?”

What is the point in him asking? This is the exact reason why you never wanted to tell him in the first place. He only wants to use this as another way to hurt himself. Unfortunately…he’s right, damn it. You can’t deny him this truth any longer. “Because—” you hesitate. There’s no way to sugarcoat this. “Because my mind and body were screaming the same thing—Suguru won’t hurt me.”

“And I failed you.” His voice cracks. “I’m still failing you. I’m going to hurt you now.”

“But you don’t have to,” you whisper. “Suguru…is it really so awful to be loved by us?”

“It is.” His answer makes you wince with your whole body. “It’s awful because I don’t deserve this. Why couldn’t you two be satisfied with each other? Why are you both pretending that I’m anything but a ticking time bomb? I hurt you. It’s going to happen again. And what about that child inside you, huh? They’d trust me just as intrinsically as you both stupidly do.”

“Don’t call us stupid because of how we feel!”

“At this point, being cruel might be the only way to make you two give up on me.”

“The day that you talked to me, when we went months and months avoiding each other, you told me that you forgave me. I told you that I forgave you. We said that we were going to get better together.” You grit your teeth, feeling like a fool for having believed him as easily as you did. “This whole time…had it all just been a lie?”

“I did want to get better. I am better. And I know that you forgive me.”

“Do you?”

“I accept how you feel. How I feel is another matter entirely.” There’s enough of a pause that you hear the splash of a fish out in the water. It sparks a thought in Suguru. “I’m no better than that dead betta fish,” he says with such certainty that it shatters your heart. Puts tears in your eyes. “You remember, right? It had been in the water too long, rotting, and ended up killing the other. Why can’t you see that it’s the same here?” His fists are clenched so tightly that they’re shaking and his knuckles are white. “Keeping me at a distance, staying friends…that’s fine. It’s safer. But if you—you can’t be in love with me. You can’t let me in like that. Because I’ll poison the water.”

“Stop it!” At your breaking point, your welling tears spill over. He turns away from them, so you grab his upper arm, desperate for him to just look at you. He doesn’t. “I’m begging you, Suguru. Please. Please stop thinking of yourself like that! You aren’t poison!” You choke back a sob. “If…if you truly thought that, then…then why did you take in the twins? Isn’t their water poisoned? What’s so different about them and us? Why are you putting us on a pedestal like this?”

“It’s not about you being on a pedestal,” he grits out.

“What, then? What makes us so different—”

Suguru whirls on you, eyes crazed and desperate, and shouts, “How many more times do I have to hurt you for you to let me go?!”

And you, just as desperate and furious, scream right back, “Why are you so scared to let us love you?! Why can’t you forgive yourself?!”

“Forgive myself,” he repeats as all the emotion vanishes from his face. “You really want to know why I can’t forgive myself?” A cold determination settles over him. “Fine. Let me show you.”

Behind him, there’s a crack that splits the air open, stretching open wider and taller to accommodate a familiar spirit as it clumbers out. The numerous glowing eyes that stare at you from the darkness makes you feel disoriented. It’s déjà vu—the cluster of trees on its back, all those mismatched teeth, and the claws. Stained. The tips of those claws are still stained with your blood.

You fucking masochist! Why would you keep this one?! There are so many emotions rising up inside you. You want to scream at him. You want to throttle him. You want to be the one to prostrate yourself now, beg him for a way to fix this. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. Goddamn it, you want to bury yourself inside his heart and rip out all this pain. You’re the only one who can.

That thought might be the only thing that keeps you from breaking down right now. That night, you knew you were the only person that could keep him from wiping out that entire village. On this night, right here and now, you’re the only one that can break through his pain.

Other than the location, everything about this is a mirror image of that night. Suguru and that exact spirit, towering above you, poised to strike. Gathering your resolve, you wipe at your wet cheeks before squaring your chin and staring at him in defiance.

You think you know what he’s looking for. He wants you to react. He wants there to be some part of your body to remember and fear him. He wants to prove that the bond has been irreparably broken. That, despite all your big talk of forgiveness and trust, your body will never forget.

Again, that’s what you think he’s getting at with all this…

…but it’s not.

“Take control of it.” That is when you visibly falter. You shake your head, not understanding. Suguru lashes out to wrap his hands around your wrists, refusing to let you back away. “Override my contract with it. Pacify it and take control. I know you can.”

“Why—”

“Use it to hurt me the way I hurt you,” he orders with a chilling, eerie calmness.

Recovering from the shock, you try to pull away from him, spitting furiously, “I’m not killing you!”

“That’s not what I’m asking. I told you to hurt me. I would prefer you hurt me the same way. Satoru could heal me now, but it’s fine. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Even a scratch is enough.”

You desperately scramble for something that can knock this masochistic idea from his head. “What are you trying to prove with this?”

“If you do this, I’ll be with you and Satoru,” he swears. “But I need there to be justice and this is the only justice that my heart can accept. I tried to be kind to you. Back then, I was willing to let it be the higher-ups to be your sword, but you forced your justice into the situation. You made me live. And that was fine. Your justice comes before my own. I let you have your peace, but I was never truly given mine. This is it.”

You shouldn’t even consider it…and yet…your brain latches onto that promise. I’ll be with you and Satoru. After a few minutes of heavy silence, you hesitantly ask, “Just a scratch?”

“Anything at all,” Suguru confirms as he slowly starts to back away from you. Placing himself directly in front of the spirit’s mouth.

It’s fine, you try to reassure yourself. You’ve done this before. When you all realized that it was cursed energy itself that you could control, you and Suguru started practicing sharing control of his arsenal. It’s just…it’s that it’s been so long since you’ve tried. It’s a delicate balance. Not enough cursed energy and concentration on your part and it doesn’t work. On the flip side, if you put too much energy into it, you completely break Suguru’s contract with the spirit and run the risk of setting it on the loose.

That’s all to simply get past Suguru’s total control over it. To actually orderit around is an entirely separate matter that requires even more meticulous control over your own energy. The last time you tried this, you were working on getting it to move. That’s all this was ever meant to be! To grab a spirit to use as cover if Suguru was too focused on his own fight.

If you’re not calm, you won’t be able to do this. So, after breathing deep, you reach out not for Suguru’s cursed energy, but the chain binding him and the spirit together. Trying to get your own hand around it is like trying to get a good grip on an oily chain. You do it, though.

That’s when you falter.

Because, from here, it’s like keeping one hand on a slippery chain while using the other to put strings on a puppet. A lone string to tug the puppet’s entire body in front of you in battle is fine. But with this, you’ve got to add more. The more strings, the better your control will be. Not enough and it doesn’t move. Too much and that single claw will cleave Suguru right in two.

“I feel you,” Suguru whispers while you’re growing increasingly anxious. “The weight of your control over the bond keeps fluctuating.” You know! Damn it, you know! He doesn’t have to point it out! “I don’t need your technique to feel how desperate you are. Is it that you want to make sure it doesn’t hurt me too much?”

“Yes,” you hiss through clenched teeth.

“Should I make it easier?” He raises his arm in the air, an offering, a target to hit. But that doesn’t help at all! Having an even smaller target makes it worse! Or…or maybe it doesn’t! You don’t know! You can’t think like this! “Why are you hesitating?” He presses. “I didn’t.”

Focus. The spirit does as you command and lifts a limb. That’s as far as you get. You’re terrified to have it move any closer, let alone put a claw to his arm. How much force will it use? Even if you can control that, how are you supposed to know what is and isn’t too much? What’s meant to be a little nick on the arm from you could take his whole fucking arm off coming from the spirit.

“I can’t do it,” you whisper in defeat and despair.

“I know you can’t,” Suguru replies as he easily takes total control again. The spirit dissolves back into the void it was called from. “We both know you never could, even if I had every safety precaution here and you had the finest control of your cursed energy. Your body refuses to budge, doesn’t it? The same as it once thought Suguru won’t hurt me, it now thinks I won’t hurt Suguru. You’d never be able to handle it if something went wrong.”

You understand now. This was never about justice. It was meant to be a test. If you were in his shoes, the same ones he wore that night, would you do what he did? He’s right. About everything. You are just physically not capable of hurting him. Just as you hadn’t been emotionally capable of it on the night that he prostrated himself before you. Who would’ve thought that this instinctive trust would be your downfall?

“There’s your answer,” Suguru says, grim and bitter resignation clear as day on his face. “This is why I’ll never be able to forgive myself.”

“I forgive you,” you choke out. You don’t know when you started to cry again. “Can’t that be enough?”

“Let’s say you used that spirit the wrong way and it took my arm off by accident. Let’s say Shoko showed up and saved my arm in time. After all that, if I said I forgave you, would you think it’s enough?” You could lie, but he would know. “Exactly.”

“Suguru—”

“I didn’t think about things like contingencies,” he whispers. Through your blurry vision, you watch his own tears begin to fall. “You can excuse me all you want, but I can’t. I can’t. I didn’t have that same instinct hardwired into my body and even if you don’t see it this way, to me, that’s my biggest sin.” He hunches over slightly. “I don’t remember when it started, but I always told myself something. I even told Satoru, when you became friends. If you hurt her, I will never forgive you. That still holds true, even if the person hurting you is me.”

“Didn’t I hurt you, too? You were hurting for so long up until then and I didn’t see it until it was too late.”

“We were all hurting and no one else lashed out at you with that much anger, did they?”

There’s nothing else you can think of to say except, “I love you.”

“I’m sorry, but your love won’t absolve me of my sins.”

“Why can’t we move on?”

In your mind’s eye, every single version of him flashes in front of you…until that night. It stops at his horrified face, splattered with your blood. You know that he sees the same, too. It stays there between you. Neither of you can move past eighteen-years-old.