𝐑𝐄𝐙𝐈

Everyone, from the adults who worked at the spas, clubs, bars, resorts, and every business Ryomen Sukuna owned and operated, to their children who swam in the pools belonging to said resorts their parents worked at, knew good and well that Ryomen Sukuna was a murderer.

It was common knowledge: The sky is blue. Red light means stop. Bees make honey. Sukuna kills people.

“Why don’t you tell ‘em?” Sukuna glared at Kento — oh, if looks could kill, he wouldn’t ever have to step foot in his at-home armory — and he continued, “Get a head start on your last words.”

“Let me explain, Ryomen-”

“Explain what?” Satoru interrupted Kento, scooting towards the edge of his seat, turning his head back and forth between the scared man and the pissed off one like a dog following a dangling treat. He wasn’t supposed to rush the conversation according to the joke-but-not-really-a-joke book he read upon getting hired years ago, Detective Basics: How To Question Citizens Like a Pro 101, but he couldn’t help it.

Kento’s breath hitched. He faced Satoru with a look the other man hadn’t ever seen before: Kento Nanami, coming undone.

Oh, was he a mess.

His eyes were filled with sorrow. Red, lightning strike-like streaks contrasted against the white of his eyes, surrounding each hazel iris. The strands of his blonde hair were messy from the aftermath of him running his fingers through it. Even the buttons of his shirt were misaligned.

He got here in a hurry, that’s why he looks like a mess, Satoru thought. What the hell’s going on?

Satoru gazed at Sukuna again, watching his movements. The halfway-drunk man leaned forward to place his glass of golden alcohol on the coffee table. But he didn’t stop there. That scraped-up hand of his went underneath the table, and when Satoru saw those bruised knuckles again as he pulled his hand back out, they were nearly white from how hard he gripped his gun.

Satoru pulled out his own weapon quickly, removing the gun that was strapped to the holster on his belt with both ease and speed that came with having been in similar frightening scenarios over and over again. Still, his blue eyes widened as he rose to his feet unsteadily, almost as if he were a newbie who had never come face to face with the possibility of dying or witnessing death.

The sweat droplets that started to form on his forehead existed because Sukuna pointed his gun at Kento, and never before had Satoru been tasked with trying to save a cherished coworker at the bare minimum, and a friend at best.

He gulped nervously, and yet, without hope. If Sukuna wanted Kento dead, he’d kill him.

And if, following that, Sukuna turned his gun on Satoru and Satoru had to shoot him before he’d too end up a dead body on Ryomen Sukuna’s floor, then no one would ever get any answers.

“Ryomen, just calm down,” Satoru said with as much gentleness as he could muster. He pointed his gun at Sukuna, who had his gun pointed at Kento, who was undoubtedly hating the fact that he showed up here unarmed.

“You invited me here for a reason, right?” Satoru continued. “You said you wanted to tell me what was going on, so why don’t we all just take a deep breath and talk it through? No one has to die today.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ryomen said calmly. “He’s gonna die today, and you too if you keep talking.”

Satoru gritted his teeth.

Sukuna propped his elbow up on the couch and rested the hand that was without a murder weapon against his cheek.

“What’s going on is that I’m not stupid. I knew this guy wanted my wife all to himself, always saw the way he looked at her, that sorta thing. Only reason I let it slide was because they were friends. If I did something to him, she never would’ve forgiven me. But ever since she’s been missing, I started to tear this goddamn town apart myself.” Ryomen paused, turning his gun to the side as he eyed the destroyed skin on his knuckles like it was a piece of beautiful art. “My hands look like this because I did what I could to get answers out of people. But, at some point, I realized that I should check out the quiet bastard who eyefucks my wife whenever he can, who knows a thing or two about missing people, hiding bodies, everything in between. I had someone search his house while he was gone, and you know what we found?”

Ryomen smiled miserably.

“Her jacket, hanging right in his closet like they’re a goddamn couple, like he owns it. I bet he has her in a basement somewhere, thinking he owns her.”

So, she did make it to Kento's house after fighting with Ryomen, Satoru thought. And Kento didn’t say a word. Why? Don’t tell me there’s some truth to what Ryomen’s accusing him of. Don’t tell me.

“There could be many explanations for that, Ryomen. But in order to figure them out, you can’t kill him. You wanted me here so I could hear this and move the investigation in the right direction, and I’m telling you right now that I can’t get to the bottom of it all if you kill the last person we know she might’ve seen that night.”

“I plan to kill ‘em after I force some answers out of him.”

“Then he’d be lying just to save his own skin.” The gun in Satoru’s hand started to become slick with sweat. “People don’t tell the truth when they have a gun to their face, they just say whatever they think will save their life, and it’s usually a lie. You’ve tortured enough people to know that, Ryomen. Don’t kill him. You said your wife wouldn’t want you to hurt him-”

“You dumbass, I think she’d be fine with it if he fucking hurt her.” Ryomen suddenly rose to his feet, now speaking to the man at the other end of his gun rather than to Satoru. “Did you? Did you fucking hurt her?”

“No.”

“Then where the hell is she?” Ryomen clenched his jaw and walked over. His gun was now pressed against Kento’s chest, against his rapidly beating heart. “You know, don’t you? You know everything, you sick piece of shit?”

Kento didn’t respond.

“Let me bring him in for questioning, Ryomen. I’ll get answers out of him. Real ones. I promise.” Satoru took a cautious step closer. “If you want to find your wife, we need him alive.”

It seemed as if an eternity, plus an extra day, had passed before Ryomen lowered his gun.

Satoru released a shaky breath of relief, and as he eyed Kento, he noticed the composed man didn’t do the same.

I was more afraid than he was, and he was the one with a gun aimed at him, Satoru thought.

“Smart decision, Ryomen,” Satoru said.

“Shut up.”

Satoru didn’t respond. He, instead, approached Kento, mumbled a little let’s go, and took the man to his car, their footsteps silently clacking against the polished marble floors.

Ryomen watched from his doorstep as the two of them got into the vehicle and drove off, his eyes following Kento the entire time. And that look told Kento that, for as long as he lived, he would never feel safe again.

Satoru and Kento rode in silence for a moment, nothing to be heard except for the occasional soft sigh and the gentle rumble of the engine.

Once Satoru approached his first red light, he spoke up.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t even try to go back for your car. Ryomen’s probably placed a bomb in it by now.”

No response.

Satoru darted his eyes over at the man and saw that he was glancing out of the passenger seat window.

With somewhat of a whisper, Satoru added on, “And, if he did do that, would he be entirely in the wrong to have do so?”

That made Kento turn his head and stare at him. His eyes were glossy, and in truth, Satoru couldn’t tell if it was the look of guilt, or the look of hurt.

“I thought you were seemingly taking his side to spare my life,” Kento gave a small, bitter laugh. “To realize that you truly think I did something horrid to her is . . .”

“I didn’t want Ryomen to know this, but we found her diary. She wrote about wanting to see you that night. We just didn’t know if she made it there, but now we do.” Satoru gripped the steering wheel even though he had nowhere to go. “I gotta be honest. It looks bad, Kento. You’re a detective, you know this. So, you know you'd better start talking if you wanna clear your name.”

“There’s nothing I could say that would make me seem more innocent. So, why bother talking at all?” Kento stared down at his hands.

“I believe you’re innocent. A jacket doesn’t mean anything,” Satoru smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I have plenty of things at my house that belong to my friends. Every time I grab a shirt, I gotta wonder if it belongs to Suguru, and I’m pretty sure half of the coffee mugs in my cabinet originally belonged to Shoko. If one of them went missing, I’d look just as guilty as you do right now. I just . . . you gotta talk, Kento. This is bigger than the law, this is your life right now. Ryomen Sukuna wants to kill you, and unless I can put his wife in his arms and prove you had nothing to do with it, and soon . . . I mean, I still wanna believe Ryomen’s guilty. God, I really fucking do. I wanna tell myself that he’s trying to frame you, that he’s upset that you’re close to his wife, and is trying to pretend it’s because he thinks you did something to her, trying his hardest to seem innocent by blaming you, anything. He’s just hiding too much to be completely innocent. We know they fought that night and he didn’t tell us about it, plus the weird coincidences like the security cameras being down, no guards around, and in general, his wife was seeking comfort from another man-”

“It’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

“I know, but still.”

“What are you playing at, Satoru?” Kento stared at the man with unforgiving eyes.

“Huh?”

“Just in the span of a few minutes, Ryomen committed and admitted to three crimes minimum, and yet, there aren’t any cops on the way to his house right now.”

“I . . .” Satoru sighed. Finally, the red light turned green. “If you wanna send cops to his house, that’s your right-”

“No, that’s my job. Our job.”

“I know, I know, but you gotta understand. What happened just now made me realize that I need to be on Ryomen’s good side.”

“Because you don’t want him to kill you?”

“Because he trusts me enough to tell me things. It’s not like you would’ve told me anything, clearly.” Satoru paused as he drove past a semi-crowded McDonald's. “You know what worries the shit outta me, Kento?”

“What?”

“The fact that, if you are innocent, you never said a word about her coming to see you before she went missing. You do realize that we’ve spent days operating with the belief that Ryomen’s first house was her last known location, right? You let us go about this all wrong just to save your own skin, and meanwhile, who knows what could be happening to her? You knew . . . you knew we were miles away from where she was last seen, chasing false leads, and you kept quiet . . . you kept quiet, knowing she could be somewhere, locked up, tortured, scared. What if she’s dead? What if we find her dead body, all because we were too late to save her, because you delayed us to save your own ass? What if we find her alive and so goddamn traumatized, a lifetime of therapy won’t be enough to make her smile again, all because she had to endure whatever the hell she could be going through even longer, all because of you?”Satoru’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Whether you did something to her or not, in my eyes, you’re just as guilty either way, detective.”

Without missing a beat, Kento spoke with great ease, and if Satoru’s words meant nothing to him. “Tell me, Detective Gojo, when you read her diary and realized she might have gone to my house, were you planning on issuing a search warrant? Questioning me, before now? I bet not. I bet you were too focused on the fact that you caught Ryomen in another lie. I bet you were going to question him until he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit just to get you to shut your mouth. All the while, she could, as you said, be somewhere locked up, tortured, scared, or dead, because you delayed the investigation by being fixated on one man. You care more about locking Ryomen up than you do about finding his wife. Is it jealousy? Because she picked someone like him, who you categorize as a bad man, over you? A brave, brilliant detective who makes less money but has a better heart?”

“Oh, please. I don’t even know her. Sounds like you’re projecting your feelings onto me.”

“Or, perhaps, we’re both cut from the same cloth. We’re both guilty in some way.”

—

Within the detached buildings of the police station that served as the specialized unit for detectives and investigators, the coffee-sipping peers and paperwork-filing coworkers all greeted Kento Nanami with smiles of admiration, questions about his day, and compliments to his work. Some went as far as to express their condolences: I heard you’re friends with Mrs. Sukuna, I’m sorry for what you’re going through, they would say. It must be hard to not be able to help out with the case.

Satoru couldn’t help but scoff as he trailed behind the well-respected man. Far fewer people greeted him. It was Detective Nanami they smiled at. Detective Nanami they worshipped. Nanami, Nanami, Nanami.

Satoru led him to a private office rather than an interrogation room. Kento sat down in the chair behind the desk — even now, he was acting like a boss he oh so desired to be in a few short years — and Satoru stood in the doorway, hand on the doorknob as he mumbled, “Wait here. I’ll be right back. Don’t even think about leaving.”

With a soft thud, he shut the door, then made his way down the hallway until he located a small room.

He knocked three times before entering.

“Anything?” Satoru questioned, eyeing his dark-haired partner, or, rather, the diary in his hands. Stepping inside and shutting the door behind him, he heard Suguru sigh.

He closed the diary he picked apart like a worshipper might read a bible. “Nothing useful to this investigation, no.”

“What kinda stuff does she write about?” Taking a seat in the brown chair across from the table Suguru sat at, Satoru darted his blue eyes back and forth between the diary and the exhausted man.

“Everything. Quite literally everything. Recipes, her sex life, friends, family-”

“Anything on Kento?”

“Aside from her final entry? Not much. It’s clear she truly doesn’t have feelings for him.” Suguru scratched the side of his head. “The most concerning things she wrote about would be the handful of rude or perverted people she’s encountered, and, of course, Ryomen taking care of those situations immediately after.”

“Oh,” Satoru darted his eyes to the side. “After we left Ryomen’s house, he called me, told me to come to his second house, and guess who was there? Kento. Ryomen was about to blow his brains out. I had to talk him out of it. Apparently, he isn’t a fan of Kento and his wife being buddies, wanted to check him out himself, had someone snoop through his house, and found her jacket.”

“So she made it to his house after all.”

“Yep,” running a hand down his face out of pure exhaustion, thinking, I need more coffee, Satoru continued, “Now Kento’s acting all weird. I got on to him about delaying our investigation by not being honest, ya know? That’s a shitty thing to do if he’s innocent and just doesn’t wanna be questioned, so I’m thinking he’s not so innocent after all. I keep going back and forth. I just don’t wanna believe someone like him could do something like this. Whatever this is. Anyway, I got ‘em sitting in the office, waiting to be questioned, and, um, I need you to work on getting a search warrant for his place. Honestly, I’m thinking of arresting him for obstruction of justice just because he pissed me off. Not only did he withhold information, delay us, all that, but that asshole had the nerve to say we’re cut from the same cloth, all because I assumed Ryomen, a murderer, would be entirely capable of murdering his own wife. And I’m the bad guy? Gimme a break.”

“Hm.”

Satoru blinked, then shook his head, white strands tickling his forehead. “No . . . no, I know what that hm means. You agree with him.”

With yet another soft sigh, Suguru said, “Well, I haven’t been exactly quiet about voicing my concern over you clearly targeting Ryomen, have I?” He peered down at the diary, flipping through a couple of pages as if something would stand out. “But, as I said, I’m going to help you no matter whether or not I think the direction you’re going in is the best course of action.”

“You don’t have to let me take the lead all the time, Suguru. C’mon, we’re not just partners, we’re friends. If you think we should . . . we should go with plan C instead of A, I wanna know. You’re one of the best detectives here, and probably the only one who doesn’t have any personal involvement.”

“Are you admitting to being personally involved?”

“Huh?” Satoru’s white brows shot up to his hairline.

“You just said I’m the only one who doesn’t have any personal involvement. I’m assuming you said that because Kento is clearly involved, and other detectives may know either her or her husband, but what about you? Why didn’t you group yourself in with me when you mentioned people who aren’t personally involved?” Suguru’s dark eyes met Satoru’s bright ones, and for the first time throughout his career, Satoru understood what it was like to be a nervous suspect, questioned in an interrogation room, every word picked apart into pieces. “I asked you this earlier, but you didn’t respond. Do you know this woman?”

Satoru’s leg started to bounce out of pure nerves. “No, I don’t. I just meant that I’m the lead detective, so I feel like I know her personally, ya know? You’re handling everything from a distance, but I’m the one who was going through her social media, things like that.”

“I just went through her belongings with you and read her diary.”

“Suguru,” Satoru tossed his head back with a little whine. “You gotta stop this habit of thinking everyone you meet has skeletons in their closet. You’re making me feel like shit right now. I’ve known you for god knows how long, and you still don’t trust me as a person? Think about what you’re accusing me of right now.”

Suguru’s intense gaze broke away from Satoru. With guilt, with shame, he glanced down at the diary like a scolded child. “Sorry. I do trust you, Satoru. I always have. This entire case just has me feeling a little tired, and being capable of good judgment doesn’t seem possible right now. I even started glaring at Shoko a little, because she seemed too eager for us to find her body. It’s always the excited ones.”

“It’s alright. Honestly, the way you question everyone and everything gives me a little hope that we’ll find her.”

Satoru rose from his seat, the chair squeaking a bit as he scooted back.

“Where are you off to?” Suguru asked.

“I’m gonna see if I can find out who Ryomen got to search Kento’s house. Then, as soon as you get me that search warrant, I’m gonna search it myself.”

“What about Kento? Are you going to arrest him?”

“Yeah. He’ll hate me, his reputation will be ruined, but it’s his own goddamn fault.”

“Arresting him could also be a way of saving his life.” Suguru paused. “If Ryomen wants him dead, a jail cell is the safest place for him.”

—

Satoru stepped into a restaurant that smelt of onion rings and wood. It screamed of wood, in fact, every wall, chair, and table was brown, with some holding guests, while most were empty and in need of a good wipe down.

Therefore, his blue eyes only had to give the place one quick scan before he caught sight of a dark-haired man sipping on a beer bottle.

“So, you’re the guy Ryomen hired,” Satoru took a seat across from Toji Fushiguro, who set his beer down on the table, smirking slightly with mild amusement.

“Yeah.”

“Order whatever you want. It’s on me.”

“Damn right it is if you want something outta me,” he eyed the detective suspiciously, but such distrust didn’t last long.

After all, he knew well that if Ryomen told him what he had him up to, then this was a detective who didn’t mind disrespecting the law he swore to uphold.

Satoru leaned forward a bit, not exactly whispering — there was no need, as there were only a small handful of other diners, and they were focused on the boring sports game showcased on the television propped up on the wall — and he said, “Why did Ryomen ask you specifically to search Kento’s house? Have you done investigative work before?”

“Pft, no. Hell no. I’m just good at breakin’ and enterin’, and I’m not a total dumbass. I wasn’t lookin’ for hairs or anything, but I found that jacket.”

“How’d you know it was hers and not someone else's?"

“I sent a pic of it to Ryo just to be sure. A woman's jacket in a single man’s house seemed suspicious to me, especially ‘cause that detective guy isn’t known to sleep around, far as I know.”

Satoru’s leg started to bounce with great impatience. “And that’s the only thing you saw?”

“That,” Toji looked off to the side, thinking. “And a framed photo of him and her. If I were a fool, I would’ve thought he was her husband. But aside from that, I didn’t see nothin’, sorry. Why are you talkin’ to me about it anyway? Go see for yourself.”

“I am, but considering you went there touching and moving things around, I’m sure any and all evidence is gone for good.”

“Are you stupid or somethin’? The guy’s a detective. If there was any evidence there in the first place, I’m sure he would’ve gotten rid of it. Doubt there was in the first place, though. Guy’s innocent.”

A few shouts and cheers broke out from nearby gamewatchers reacting to a touchdown.

“What makes you so sure?” Satoru asked casually and without true care for what he had to say.

“Why would he keep her goddamn jacket if he killed her? That’s the one and only thing tyin’ him to all this. If he tossed it out, that would’ve been suspicious, like he was hidin’ evidence, but he kept it and didn’t think nothin’ of it, and that’s ‘cause he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s innocent, trust me.”

A waiter approached with a basket of wings, placing them in front of Toji.

Once he left, Satoru smirked, “You watch too many thrillers. Everyday people aren’t as smart as you think. More often than not, guilty people still leave around the things that’ll nail ‘em.”

“He’s not an everyday person. He’s a detective.”

Satoru rose from the table.

“Right, well, enjoy your twenty-count wings, Mr. Fushiguro. Please let me know beforehand if and when Ryomen asks you to stick your head in this mess again.”

—

It was well into the night before Satoru was able to move forward with the case.

Kento Nanami’s house felt like uncharted territory. He wasn’t the sort of man to invite people over for drinks after work — certainly didn’t have Chinese food in the living room at five or six in the morning like Satoru and his friends did, that was for certain.

His house could barely be considered a home. It was too clean. Too cold. Smelled faintly of lemon-scented cleaning products. No signs of life beyond a coat hanging on a coat rack. That, and one of two framed photos he found on a coffee table.

He picked one up. It was you and him. Kento’s hair was a tad bit shorter, dating the photo to have been taken at least three years ago, Satoru figured.

Jeez, he didn’t smile this bright even when our boss told us we were getting high raises, Satoru thought. He’s in love with her.

Satoru put the photo down. He made his way towards a hallway closet and twisted the knob, opening the door slowly as if he expected something to jump out at him.

What the hell am I doing? He’s a better detective than I am. I won’t find anything here. He grabbed a box on the highest shelf and pulled it down. Shit, do I think he’s guilty or not? I gotta make up my mind. Does it matter what I believe, honestly? I just need to figure it out. Innocent or guilty, his life’s in danger. Well, I mean, if he’s guilty, Ryomen can do whatever he wants to him and I won’t give a damn, but-

Within the box, there was a binder. Satoru figured it was one he held on to from his old high school days, perhaps considering that Kento was the nostalgic sort, but he was wrong.

The binder was filled with you. You in every way.

Photographs — some with Kento and some with you and you alone — long, neatly written letters confessing his love that he never, ever intended on giving you. There were movie tickets that he assumed belonged to films you both saw together. Concert tickets, festival tickets, letters, notes, more letters, more pictures, more tickets, more notes . . .

“Holy shit,” Satoru mumbled, flipping through the pages. “He’s fucking obsessed.”

Pulling out his phone, Satoru dialed Suguru.

“Suguru, I’m at Kento’s house. I just found a big binder filled with all sorta things. Photos, love confessions, tickets to movies I guess they saw together, it’s . . . he’s obsessed. This doesn’t look good for him.” Satoru rose to his feet, putting the box back, but keeping the binder tucked underneath his arm. “Yeah, I’m bringing it in. Alright. Bye.”

Satoru searched the rest of the house, but only left with the binder at the end of it all. And the binder, as interesting as it was, wasn’t enough. One could argue that Kento followed the logic of if I can’t have you, no one can. It wouldn’t be the first time Satoru had to deal with such cases that disgusted him to his core. But, just as he did with those cases, he needed concrete evidence, and that binder was only proof that he was obsessed with you, not that he tossed your body into a river.

Satoru threw the binder in the back seat of his car — it flipped open to a random page filled with your selfies, but he didn’t care — and slammed the door as if the binder personally offended him.

His jaw was clenched. As he leaned against his car and stared up at the starry night sky, deep within himself, he wished he could say he hated the binder because it was rather creepy.

But that wasn’t the truth.

He felt it, it, being the twisted, bitter, rotten feeling of his heart skipping a beat, a lump forming in his throat, his stomach churning unpleasantly. It was the same feeling that occurred when he was going through your social media profile and came across your photos.

And he wasn’t an idiot. He knew exactly what it was. But he refused to admit to himself that he could feel such things over a person he didn’t know, and shook the thought away before making his way into his car.

His car rumbled and dinged as it came to life with the crank of his key. He eyed the needle pointed in the unfavorable direction, towards the E.

Damn it, I need gas, he thought.

And with that realization, he drove and made it less than half a mile before something started to dart across the road and land on the ground before him.

He swerved his car to avoid hitting what he assumed was a deer.

The vehicle came to a hard jerk as he slammed on the brakes, heart pounding.

With his nerves on edge enough already, his car door squeaked as he opened it, peering to see if he had hurt an innocent animal, but he had not.

The head of hair that the sides of his glowing headlights shone upon told him that he was staring at a human being.

A trembling, weak, human being.

He exited his car completely then.

“Hey, are you alright? Do you need help? Sorry I almost hit you,” Satoru crouched down on the side of the road. Mentally, he started to go over every bit of first aid he knew just in case this person thudded against his car and he didn’t realize it, but upon looking at the frightened face, a face he was all too familiar with from missing posters, social media profiles, and the binder in the back seat of his car, Satoru’s mind went blank.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “It’s you.”

“Pl-please . . .” you looked up at him, eyes glistening with hope and distrust as a cough escaped your throat.

Satoru placed a hand on your shoulder. “My name’s Detective Gojo. We’ve been looking for you. What happened? Where have you been? Who did this to you?”

His questions were met with silence and a gentle shake of your head.

“You don’t know?” Satoru spoke gently, tilting his head down and to the side a bit to get a better look at your battered face. “Did the person let you go?”

“I. . . ran . . . away. H-He’s been . . . gone.” More coughing. “Water, please?”

“I’ll get you some water. I’m gonna take you to the hospital immediately. You’re safe now, I promise.”

Satoru opened the passenger side door.

He gently scooped you up bridal style. You were a few pounds lighter than the accurate weight description Ryomen gave the police made you out to be, and that confirmed to Satoru that one of the things your kidnapper did to you was deprive you of food.

Starved her, he thought.

Within his grip, despite how gentle it was, you flinched, a gasp of pain escaping between your split lip. “That hurts? I’m sorry,” he said softly. Beat her too.

He placed you in the car seat. Your head whipped around wildly as you saw him vanish behind his car and pop open his trunk, but luckily, he didn’t return with rope or handcuffs, but with a blanket he often wrapped around victims he was lucky enough to find alive.

“Here’s a blanket,” he said, draping it across your shaking body.

He was kind enough to turn on the heater once he made it into the driver’s seat as well.

“I have to stop for gas. It’ll only take a second,” he said, reaching over to tug your blanket up a bit higher. Even though I gotta stop at a gas station, she’ll still get help quicker if I drive her versus waiting for an ambulance. Those guys are always slacking off.

Satoru gave you one final look before he started to drive. The look was one of pure disbelief. To find you so randomly, alive and somewhat well . . . and while you didn’t know who might have done this to you, Satoru couldn’t help but recognize that, as he drove out to the main road, you seemed to have emerged from somewhere within Kento’s neighborhood.

—

The gas station was rather isolated. There was nothing except bright light against the darkness of the night, the little store with a gum-popping cashier sitting behind a counter with a look of pure boredom upon their face, and unused pumps that hadn’t felt the hand of a customer in need of gas in hours. That wasn’t unusual, though, as Ryomen Sukuna had many citizens terrified of leaving their homes due to his latest rampage throughout the town in response to his wife going missing.

Satoru rolled his car in front of one of them, and when he came to a stop, he noticed your body tense up as your breath hitched.

“It’s okay, I’m going to be right there. Since I’m here, I’ll go ahead and buy you some water now. How about a couple of snacks to go with it?” Satoru pointed forward. “You’ll be able to see me through the windows, and I’ll be able to see you. I’ll keep the doors locked and everything. It’ll only take a second.”

You looked at him with frightened eyes.

“It’s alright. We can forget about the snacks, okay? I’ll just pump gas. There’ll be water at the-”

“No, I want them,” you coughed. “Can you call my . . .”

Your coughing interrupted you yet again.

You were sick. Perhaps kept somewhere damp, unclean, and clearly without proper clothing, as your feet and legs were bare. No shoes. No socks. No pants.

“You want me to call your husband?” Satoru finished your question for you.

You nodded.

There it was again. That feeling, creeping up within him.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I have to confirm that he wasn’t the one who did this to you.”

You spoke with a tone that, perhaps, would have been a shout if your voice wasn’t so frail from illness and dehydration. “He didn’t. Wasn’t h-his voice. And the man. . . he talked about Ryomen. It wasn’t him. His hands . . .”

You looked down at your body, and Satoru filled in the blanks.

“His hands felt different?”

You nodded.

Satoru ran his eyes across the bruises that decorated your skin like ink upon a tattoo addict. Yet another wave of conflicting emotions washed over him as he gazed at what little of your natural skin tone he could still see.

Well, of course his hands would feel different, Satoru thought, as he figured that Ryomen Sukuna’s hands would feel like a stranger’s to you now, as before, you had only ever known his touch to be soft, caring, and loving. How would you recognize how the strike of his palm would feel if, before, you had only known gentle strokes from his fingertips?

But then, another thought presented itself to Satoru: considering how she’s covered in bruises, there’s no way she wouldn’t be able to recognize the hand that hit her this many times. She’d be able to recognize it even if it belonged to a stranger she shook hands with only once.

Suddenly, though expectedly, you started to cry, though you wiped at your tears and tried to muffle your own noises, as if embarrassed.

“You can cry, it’s okay,” Satoru said softly.

He didn’t mean to.

He wasn’t thinking.

He was being unprofessional.

But Satoru reached over, thumb landing on your scratched cheek, and he wiped away one of the tears, letting his thumb linger against your skin for a bit before pulling away. “I’ll be right back.”

As Satoru made his way through the shop as quickly as he could, grabbing a bag of chips he knew you were a fan of based on one of your Instagram highlights from eight weeks ago, his mind raced with a variety of different thoughts.

He’d let you talk to Ryomen. He had no reason not to anymore. After all, Kento was the main suspect now, and even more so after finding you in such close proximity to his house.

He tried to shake away the twisted feeling threatening to overwhelm him again at the idea of reuniting you with your husband.

Satoru left the store and started to pump gas, pulling out his phone to give his partner an update. Right now, he needed Suguru to keep an eye on Kento, to prevent him from leaving the building.

“I found her,” Satoru said once the other man answered. “I was leaving Kento’s house, saw her on the street. Isn’t that crazy? She escaped. She said whoever did this to her had been gone for a while, and Kento’s been with us pretty much all day. That, his little scrapbook, and the fact that she was near his house just . . . it’s sick, Suguru. She looks awful . . . No, you don’t gotta call an ambulance. I’m at the gas station not too far from the hospital, so I’m just gonna take her there myself. Well, you know the routine. Tell everyone who needs to know that I found her, but don’t let Kento know something’s up until I get there, and don’t let him leave the building. We need more evidence on this guy. I’m thinking we’ll get her to look at a map and see if she can circle the general direction she ran in, or lead us and buncha other cops there herself once she feels better. I’m still thinking on it, I don’t know. But I’ll see you soon.”

The blanket was wrapped around you snuggly, and there was a gentle crunching noise and the hum of satisfaction as you ate the snacks Satoru bought you. Not only did the warmth created by the blanket and heater make you stop trembling, but Satoru noticed your eyes starting to grow heavy.

The sight of it warmed his heart, knowing you felt safe enough with him to close your eyes and nearly drift off to sleep with a belly full of a snack so divine, it brought more tears to your eyes.

A little sigh of relief escaped you. Safe.

Satoru drove for around three minutes before he remembered your request to talk to Sukuna, one you were feeling much too shy to bring up again.

“I’m sorry about your car.”

“Huh?” He pinched his eyebrows in confusion.

“The seats. I got them dirty. I’m sorry.”

Satoru gulped thickly. “Well, I hope dirty seats will be our biggest worry, our greatest problem now, yeah?” He smiled for a moment, then continued, “I’m gonna call Ryomen for you.”

You visibly perked up, eyes filling with tears yet again at the thought of hearing his voice. Oh, did you miss him.

But, just before Satoru could reach into his pocket, headlights came into view.

He slammed on the brakes. His body jerked forward, and he slung his arm protectively across your chest.

“What the hell?” He frowned, eyeing the front of the vehicle that was clearly on the wrong side of the road.

There was nothing he could see amidst the darkness. Nothing except the bright headlights shining through his windshield. Even the trees and the starry night sky were a mystery.

“What’s going on?” You asked with great worry.

“It’s okay. Stay right here.” Satoru started to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“No, don’t leave, please, don’t leave,” you grabbed his arm.

Satoru placed his hand over yours, stroking your skin, which was finally starting to warm up. “It’ll be alright. I’m sure it’s just some drunk idiot. Just stay right here.”

He approached the car with caution. His hand touched the gun strapped to his waist as he made his way to the driver’s side, but when the driver opened the car door and he saw a familiar, trustworthy face, he released a breath of relief, then frowned in utter confusion, taking his hand off his gun.

“Suguru? What the hell? You scared the hell outta me. What are you doing here? Why are you driving on this side of the road?”

He didn’t answer. He only smiled at him.

It was a smile Satoru once adored, but right now, it frightened him to his core when he saw that Suguru’s grin was paired with a handgun he aimed right at his stomach.

His grin widened enough to make the corners of his mouth ache, his eyes closing. “Seeing you take your hand off of your gun when you realized it was me was really touching, Satoru, and yet, a very big mistake.” Suguru waited for Satoru to respond, but the white-haired man said nothing. He only stared at him.

“You don’t seem shocked, just disappointed,” Suguru said.

“Why?” Satoru’s question came out softer than he intended. Bitter.

“I’m not in the mood to chat with you about it. This isn’t a busy road, but someone could drive by at any moment and ruin our fun. My woman’s in the car, correct?”

My, my, my. That poisonous, possessive word made Satoru feel sicker than he already felt. As if this sudden, surprising betrayal didn’t have him already trying to hold back the stale croissant he forced down hours earlier.

“Make one wrong move, and I’ll gladly shoot you and subject his wife to a suffering worse than death.”

Suguru got out of his car and shut the door, gesturing his gun at Satoru. “Walk.”

He forced him to walk in front of him and approach the passenger side of his own car, the side where you sat, snuggled up, your face changing into one of mild worry but overall relaxation into one of true terror as Satoru and another man with a gun came into view.

Satoru tried not to let his words reflect the true, utter fear he felt within his core, and he spoke calmly.

“Leave her alone, I’m begging you. You don’t gotta do this. We’re friends, right? You know I don’t give a shit about the law, I’ll keep your secret if you just let her go now, and she will too. And you and me? We can keep working side by side, everything can go back to the way it was-”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Suguru said with great annoyance, but not once did he stop smiling. “Open the car door.”

“No.”

Satoru felt the cold end of his gun press against his back.

Closing his eyes for a moment with great disbelief at what the fuck was happening to him, at what the hell he was having to do, Satoru slowly opened the door.

You started to tremble, legs moving as if you wanted to scramble away, but while your body wanted you to run, run, run, your mind knew you’d end up with a bullet in your head if you did so.

But, as tears rolled down your cheeks and the recent memories of everything you had been forced to endure over the last couple of days replayed in your mind, you figured — you knew — that death was, perhaps, a better fate.

“She’s a gorgeous one, isn’t she?” Suguru whispered, mesmerized by your beauty even in your current state. He suddenly reached around and grabbed Satoru’s gun, and handed it to him. “Now, Satoru, if you would be so kind as to shoot her in the leg for me.”

Satoru’s eyes widened. His knees grew weak. “What? What the hell?”

You began to cry harder. It was a mix of pleas and sobs.

“Well, she needs a punishment for running away,” Suguru stated casually, as if it were logic as simple as understanding that Tuesday followed Monday. “Do it.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway. There’s no way you plan on letting me go after learning you’re behind all this.”

“There is. Now do it. Unless you want me to kill her here and now.”

Satoru’s jaw clenched. He felt his cheek become wet with his own tears at the sound of your cries. His hands started to tremble, but they gripped the gun.

“I’m sorry,” Satoru whispered, aiming the gun at your leg. “I’m so sorry. Don’t look, okay? Don’t-”

“Do it!”

The sound of the firing bullet rang loud and clear, but it was your screams and cries that were deafening. The sight of your blood would forever haunt Satoru every single time he’d blink. That, he knew. His entire body was frozen, so much so that he didn’t realize Suguru had snatched the gun out of his hand before it could be used against him.

“Thank you, Satoru, you’re an amazing friend. Put her in the trunk of my car.”

Satoru carried you bridal-style yet again for the second time tonight.

He placed you in the back of Suguru’s car. Your bloody hand gripped his shirt, and though you were in too much pain to speak, he knew what you were trying to say: don’t leave me. Please, save me.

But he did nothing.

Nothing except give you back to your kidnapper.

When all was said and done, Suguru stepped into Satoru’s line of sight.

He was still smiling.

“You’re crying? Hm,” Suguru tilted his head a bit.

“Why are you doing this?” Satoru’s voice was hoarse.

“I already told you I don’t want to talk about it-”

“I don’t really give a damn what you want. Tell me why. I gotta know why. I gotta know how and why the hell my friend could turn out to be such a-a sick piece of shit.”

Suguru nodded in the direction of Satoru’s car. “Go back to work, Satoru.”

“You can’t be fucking serious. Ryomen’s tearing this town apart. It doesn’t matter what happens to me now. He’ll find her.” Satoru trembled. “Do you think I’m just gonna let you get away with this?”

Suguru opened the car door of his own vehicle, and he said, “Yes.”

As he started to drive away with you, Suguru never stopped smiling, not once.

It felt, in a lot of ways, as if Satoru Gojo left his heart, mind, and soul behind on that isolated road, because as he drove back to work, it felt as if it wasn’t a conscious decision he was making. His body moved on its own, it seemed, and he gripped the steering wheel with hands soaked in your blood, unblinking, and drove. Stopped at a few red lights, made a couple of turns, and drove, like a stringed puppet in Suguru’s show.

He tried to follow Suguru in his car at first.

He tried to run him off the road.

But Suguru’s car came to a sudden stop, red brake lights blaring through Satoru’s windshield.

Satoru watched the other vehicle in front of him for a split second, not long enough for him to think like a detective and make a decision that could save you, because an ear-piercing scream broke through the silent night.

It was you. Your scream was loud enough for him to hear it in his car, for him to hear it in his dreams for the rest of his life, for him to forever wonder what Suguru did to you in that moment to cause it, and yet, for him to be grateful that he didn’t know.

The scream was a clear message. Follow us, and I’ll kill her.

And that was how Satoru found himself dragging his feet through his workplace instead of ramming the front of his car through Suguru’s.

When he walked through the open office space, people didn’t greet him with sympathetic sorrow nor praise as they did with Detective Nanami. Instead, they greeted him with glares, daggers in their eyes that he didn’t have the mental capacity to question until his boss stepped in front of him, blocking his path.

“Satoru, we need to talk.”

She’s dead already somehow, Satoru thought. He killed her, she’s dead, he showed everyone, everyone blames me for not finding her in time, little do they know I did find her. I found her and I lost her and now she’s fucking dead and it’s my fault. I’m gonna get fired, no, worse, Sukuna’s gonna kill me, but do I really give a shit? That sweet woman’s dead and I let it happen. I gave her back to her fucking torturer, her kidnapper. It’s my fault, it’s my fault, it’s-

“Satoru, stop mumbling,” Masamichi Yaga gave him a stern, depressed look — there was something else there too, something that made his heart want to plummet into his stomach, but he didn’t know what it was — and only then did Satoru realize that his thoughts were being vocalized.

Not that he gave a shit.

“What’s the matter?” Satoru questioned. Never before had his voice sounded so weak.

His boss opened his mouth to speak, started to say, Sukuna, when someone suddenly shouted, “What the fuck?”

The entire office filled with detectives turned their heads to the source of the sound, which belonged to Shoko. The woman was standing. She was staring up at the big screen at the front of the office. It would often display details of a case, or when not in true use, the news.

That is what graced the big screen now.

Satoru moved past his boss and fellow coworkers who all walked towards it, as if summoned.

The live news station started to play what seemed to be a video. A video filmed by Suguru.

“Good evening, I am Detective Geto.” He stared into the camera he held in front of his face with teary eyes. “I work alongside Detective Gojo, who many of you will know to be the lead investigator in the case surrounding Mrs. Sukuna, a sweet, beautiful woman who has been missing. I’m putting myself and my job in jeopardy by leaking this information to the public, but Satoru Gojo is a powerful man who is more than capable of going above the law to cover his own tracks, and tonight, I witnessed something horrible, and I wanted to give this evidence to the general public first, so law enforcement has no choice but to give Mrs. Sukuna the justice she deserves.”

What appeared next was a photo of Satoru standing outside of his car, you in his passenger seat, frightened eyes seemingly gazing at him, because the man behind him, the one you were actually staring at, was cropped out.

The next photo was of him aiming a gun at your leg.

Shooting you.

Scooping up your body.

Every photo was seemingly taken from a distance, from a hidden camera propped up on the side of Suguru’s car, and he cropped himself out of every single one.

Suguru’s face returned to the screen, but the faces of his viewers who crowded the office didn’t know, because they had all turned their bodies to stare at Satoru.

“Tonight, Satoru made me watch him do this to an innocent woman. I took those photos without his knowledge, and I tried to stop him. I did everything I could, but he got away with her. I promise you all that I will do everything I can to find Mrs. Sukuna, if she’s still alive. In the meantime, please, be aware of Detective Satoru Gojo. He is a sick man.”

Satoru couldn't feel anything, not even his own heart beating inside his chest, though it was pounding so rapidly, he was certain it would burst.

“Satoru,” his boss called out softly.

Satoru took a step back.

His boss took a step forward.

“Satoru, why don’t you sit down? Let’s talk about this.”

Oh, he knew that voice.

He used it plenty of times.

It was the voice he used on Ryomen earlier today, when the man was about to kill Kento.

Satoru shook his head, though he did it as a response to the insane fucking situation that he couldn’t wrap his mind around and not necessarily as a way of saying no to the request for him to sit down, but his boss still approached him cautiously.

“It’s okay, Satoru, I just need you to have a seat.”

He took another step backwards.

No one’s going to believe me, Satoru thought. No one.

“Satoru,” his boss, who stared at him with eyes of pure disgust, tried yet again.

He dashed out of the exit doors then, not that he assumed he’d make it very far. Soon, he’d feel the unpleasant sting of a taser against his back, or one of his coworkers tackle him to the ground, but no part of him expected his own footsteps to come to a halt all on their own.

And that was because, right below the steps outside of the exit doors, Satoru’s eyes were met with the yellow crime tape he was in too much of a daze to notice when he first arrived.

Oh, but he noticed it now.

It squared off a portion of the concrete sidewalk outside of the building. Forensic workers crouched and moved around something, and their movements told Satoru that he was staring right at a dead body.

He didn’t know who it was until one of them moved their right leg and that familiar blonde hair came into his line of sight.

Satoru’s wide eyes widened even more.

This is what Yaga was trying to tell me, Satoru thought. Sukuna killed . . .

He couldn’t even think the name of the man whose face, every feature familiar except for the bullet-sized hole in the center of his forehead, came into clear view, eyes wide open though they no longer shone with life.

Satoru didn’t mean to, but he laughed. He laughed because it was too fucking much.

He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, whom he thought kidnapped his wife.

He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, when Suguru Geto was the one who kidnapped his wife.

He laughed because Ryomen Sukuna killed Kento Nanami, and he knew he’d be the next innocent man to die, because now, Ryomen Sukuna would think he was the one who kidnapped his wife.

His laughter only stopped when the stinging, searing pain of being tased shot through every limb of his body, making him fall to the ground, making his phone fly out of his pocket, making him all too aware of the recent text message that lit up his screen — a text message from Ryomen Sukuna that read: YOU’RE FUCKING DEAD.