cosmic ash & blackened brain

The tears that come out next feel hot on his skin and Satoru presses harder into the pillow, not caring if he’s going to suffocate himself like this. Nothing matters anymore, not if Suguru is gone again.

All these years, Satoru had known—generally speaking—where Suguru is; Yuki didn’t make much of a secret out of the fact that she had help now but Suguru stayed elusive, always out of sight, always out of reach for Satoru and in that regard Yuki had been no help.

She had told him to respect Suguru’s decisions, clearly not understanding how Suguru’s absence—and his continued avoidance of Satoru—had carved him wide open, bared all his sensitive bits to the world and then crushed them.

Satoru has tried for four years to get Suguru to come to him again, to show himself, if even just once, so when Suguru showed up in front of his apartment like this—Satoru had hoped.

He had hoped and clearly he had been foolish to do so because Suguru left without a word, seemingly without a care in the world, yet again and it’s just too much.

It’s all just too much.

Satoru wonders if this time hurts more than the first, but it’s as if he’s comparing bombs that were specifically designed to deal the most devastating damage to him personally. Both times wreak havoc within him except that this time he’s already scarred twice over. He’s not sure there’s still something left that even can heal from this, and in all honesty he’s not sure if he even wants to.

What’s the use in living in a world where Suguru is not by his side, where he made it so abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to be anywhere near Satoru. He even took the time to drive that point home twice and Satoru finds himself thinking that this time it might have done the trick.

He doesn’t want to try again; he tried so hard for four years and then even harder the last eight hours and what use had it all been? Suguru walked out of his life again as if Satoru doesn’t mean anything to him, as if they don’t mean anything and maybe it’s time that Satoru finally takes the goddamn hint.

A harsh coldness spreads through him, so unlike anything he has known before and Satoru lets it fill him whole.

It doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters if Suguru is not by his side, Satoru has learned these last four years and the thought that he has to live the rest of his life like that makes him feel sick to his stomach.

The thought that Suguru chooses this, again, makes new tears well up in his eyes.

For a few short, blissful hours Satoru had hoped. Suguru had come to him, decided to talk to him, to fight with him, to make up with him; surely it must mean something, Satoru had thought.

But to have all of that thrown in his face like this—Satoru bites back another sob and forces himself to sit up.

There are things he has to do, he knows; Yaga is probably already calling him, because there is a mission he was supposed to go on today but once Satoru is sitting at the edge of his bed, he can’t find it in him to move again.

Surely he can have one day. One day to wallow in his misery, to let this pain fill him whole before the world will demand of him to bottle it all up again.

Satoru doesn’t want to be alone, never has been, but it seems as if everyone around him made that decision for him yet again.

He doesn’t know how much time he loses like this, shivering at the edge of his bed in nothing but his sleep clothes but it’s not as if he cares. The cold is one of the very few things that can touch him, even through his infinity, and a small part of Satoru wonders if it’s possible to die like this.

Maybe he’d like to try.

A shiver wrecks his body when Satoru hears something that sounds like his front door, but it can’t be, he knows that. Shoko doesn’t bother him here and Yaga would never step foot into his apartment, so it has to be a hallucination.

Hopefully the cold is getting to him faster than even Satoru thought.

Soft murmuring reaches his ears, which doesn’t fit with the people Satoru would expect to come to drag him out of his apartment, so he tries not to pay it any more mind. At least until he hears Suguru’s voice call out his name.

“Satoru?”

The tremor that starts in his hands at that have nothing to do with the cold; Satoru didn’t think his own mind could be so cruel as to conjure up this form of torture, but clearly he doesn’t know himself as well as he thought.

“Satoru, have you not gotten up yet? Seriously?” he hears Suguru’s voice go on, and after some brief muttered words that Satoru can’t make out he hears footsteps.

Footsteps that approach the bedroom.

It can’t be, Satoru reminds himself, keeping his eyes fixed on the opposite side of the room, because Suguru left. Suguru left him. He wouldn’t come back, not once he made up his mind, Satoru knows that out of his own bitter experience.

Satoru presses his fists to his eyes, wills these images and sounds to go away, but he only accomplishes to make stars burst behind his eyes. Everything else stays the same.

“Satoru?” Suguru asks just as the bedroom door opens and by now Satoru is shaking all over.

He didn’t hallucinate like this the first time around; maybe the second time is worse after all, in terms of how it fucks him up. Maybe he’ll need to invent an entire new scale to measure the pain he’s feeling.

“What’s wrong?” Suguru’s voice rushes out and then there are hands on his, warm hands, familiar hands and Satoru bursts into tears again.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he sobs out, still not daring to take his hands off his own face, even though he knows those are Suguru’s hands on his, because what if he’s just here to drive the point home once more?

What if he’s just here to laugh at Satoru and all of his stupid, hurt feelings?

“You’re not alone, I’m right here,” Suguru whispers, pulling Satoru into a hug and Satoru is helpless against it.

He falls into it. At least physically.

“You’re not. You left. You left me again, and I’m not—I’m not the strongest when it comes to that,” he gets out, words broken up by his sobs and Suguru only holds him tighter.

“I didn’t leave, I’m right here, aren’t I?” Suguru reminds him but it doesn’t matter.

Suguru left him without a word and Satoru can’t trust it.

“You’re always going to leave, aren’t you?” he quietly says once his sobs have died down because he needs to get used to this, he knows.

Suguru will always leave and Satoru will always have to pick up the pieces again.

“You really didn’t leave the bedroom, did you?” Suguru asks, and pushes Satoru slightly away.

Satoru is too numb to even panic over that anymore, but when Suguru’s gaze finds his, his heart gives a painful, shuddery thud in his chest.

“You weren’t there.”

“I made you breakfast. I left you a note. I left you my phone number, so you’d know I’d come back,” Suguru gently tells him but Satoru shakes his head.

“You’re lying. You don’t care. You left.”

“Oh, Satoru,” Suguru breathes out, his voice unbearably sad even as he leans forward to brush kisses over Satoru’s eyes, taking care to kiss the tears still clinging to his lashes right off them. “I’m right here. I told you I would be. I said I’m not leaving again, don’t you remember?”

“What does it matter when you still do it?”

“Alright, enough,” Suguru suddenly sternly says, framing Satoru’s face with his hands. “I’m here. Satoru, I’m here. I promise on my life that I’m here.” He suddenly tugs Satoru up and he’s there to catch Satoru when he stumbles over his legs. “Let me show you,” Suguru whispers into Satoru’s hair as he holds him upright and he doesn’t wait for Satoru’s answer before he steers him into the kitchen.

True to his word a bento is right there on the counter, a note attached to it. Suguru takes the note and hands it to Satoru.

“Read it,” he instructs him and Satoru’s eyes fall down to do just that.

I have to go and pick someone up, but I will be back at ten, at the very latest. Please eat something and in case you get bored, here’s my phone number. A string of numbers is scribbled underneath that but it’s the next words that make the breath catch in Satoru’s throat. I love you. I’ll be home soon.

“I should have known something is wrong when you didn’t bombard me with messages,” Suguru mutters as he kisses the top of Satoru’s head.

“You love me,” Satoru mutters, his eyes tracing over those words over and over again.

“I do. You know that. We already said it yesterday,” Suguru gives back, but despite his words he pulls Satoru closer to himself.

“This is—home now?” Satoru asks next, his voice almost failing him over the word but he feels Suguru nod.

“We’ll need to see about this apartment, because there’s something I haven’t told you yet, but home is with you. I promise.”

Satoru tenses at his words.

“Something you haven’t told me yet,” he repeats, fear clawing up his throat again. “What is it?” he still forces himself to ask and Suguru taps the note.

“I told you, I went to pick someone up. Are you ready to meet them?”

Satoru opens his mouth because he doesn’t know, isn’t sure about this, but he doesn’t get a chance to actually say anything when two girls suddenly step into the kitchen.

“Geto-sama, we’re cold,” the blond one complaints, her eyes fixed on Satoru despite the way she addresses Suguru.

“Who is that?” the other girl asks, voice much softer than her sisters and Satoru turns to look at Suguru.

“Nanako, Mimiko, this is Gojo Satoru,” he introduces him. “Satoru, those are my daughters.”

“Your—daughters,” Satoru repeats, unable to wrap his mind around what is currently happening.

“Remember the village? My last mission?” Suguru lowly asks and Satoru nods.

How could he ever forget the day that Suguru left him? The people who had originally called for help came back with a complaint to the school, shouting something about the devil himself and how he took two kids away from them.

Satoru had thought they were delusional, but maybe he should have listened more.

“I rescued them, I took them in. They are mine, now,” Suguru goes on, his voice just as low as before and Satoru shivers with it. “It’s up to you what you do with that.”

He says it without reservation, placing their future squarely in Satoru’s hands, as if there is any universe out there where Satoru would send them away again.

“Is this the guy you won’t shut up about?” Nanako asks, even as both Mimiko and Suguru make an embarrassed noise.

“Nanako, that’s rude,” Suguru chides her, a light blush dusting his cheeks but Nanako only puffs up her cheeks.

She can’t be older than eight, and Satoru finds himself thinking that he might want to squish her cheeks.

“But he’s the guy you still have as your background picture, right?” Mimiko chimes in and with every second that Suguru turns a darker red, Satoru finds his footing again.

Suguru always intended to come back to him. Suguru decided to introduce his daughters to him. He loves him and he called this their home. Surely, it must all mean something and for once, Satoru decides to trust it.

Decides to trust in Suguru.

“What picture does he use?” Satoru asks walking up to the girls and crouching down in front of them. “Can you tell me?”

“I can do you one better,” Nanako decisively says as she gets her own phone out. “I made a picture.”

“Oh, I do like you,” Satoru decides, ignoring Suguru’s spluttering behind him for now.

He needs to bond with his new daughters.

“Here you go,” Nanako says after a moment, shoving her phone in Satoru’s face so that he has to crane his head back.

He has never seen the picture that stares back at him, possibly because he’s asleep in it. He’s in Suguru’s bed, that much he can tell, and Suguru must have snapped it before he woke him up.

It softens something inside of Satoru to see it.

Satoru turns back around to Suguru who seems embarrassed beyond belief but Satoru only smiles at him.

“I love you, too,” he says and instantly Suguru relaxes.

“So this is—okay, then?” Suguru asks and he seems unsure all of a sudden, as if Satoru would send him away, simply because he comes with two daughters now.

“We’re lucky this apartment is waaaay too big for me alone,” Satoru says, turning back around to the girls instead of gracing Suguru with an answer. “You wanna see the rooms to decide on which to pick?”

“We’re sleeping together,” Mimiko instantly says and Satoru nods, taking it in stride. Though the way she clings to her sister probably comes with a story, and Satoru is not sure he’s going to like it.

But that is for later.

“Sure. One bedroom, one playroom? We can do that,” he says and gets up, holding out his hands for the girls to take.

They both peer around him to look to Suguru first, and he must nod, because soon after two tiny hands slide in Satoru’s.

He leads them to the first empty room he has—technically it’s an office, but it’s not as if he’s ever using it—and the girls rush inside the room to look at every nook and cranny.

Satoru doesn’t startle when Suguru steps up behind him because for once he knew that he would follow them, and when Suguru slings an arm around his middle he leans back into Suguru’s chest.

“Is this okay?” Suguru asks again and Satoru tips his head back until he can nose at Suguru’s cheek.

“Our home, right?” Satoru asks and feels Suguru nod. “Our family.”

He feels Suguru shudder against him at that and happily leans into it when Suguru kisses him.

“As long as you’re here with me, I’m okay with everything,” Satoru finally says and threads his fingers together with Suguru’s.

Satoru knows that it won’t be quite that easy; he has no idea how to raise two daughters and he’s more than certain that he’ll freak out every time Suguru leaves his sight for the foreseeable future, but he has his number in his phone, Suguru’s hand in his own, and his heart as well.

Maybe it will be enough.

“I love you. I’m here,” Suguru whispers again, pressing the words into his skin and Satoru sighs.