The water has long gone cold. The tips of his fingers and toes are numb, some kind of ironic reflection.
Being a jujutsu sorcerer was never pleasant. Even when it was, it wasn’t. Even when he and Satoru worked so hard, were so good together, it ended in blood.
And then Satoru came back. And things were different.
Suguru always believed he and Satoru were the strongest, and that of the two of them, Satoru the better. He’d never thought he’d see the day someone got the best of Satoru. He wished he hadn’t. And even though Satoru was fine, up and walking around and suddenly capable of reverse cursed technique, something was changed. He was still a co*cky bastard, but suddenly a part of him matured. There was a serious, cold side of him that made those eyes all the more intense.
“Suguru, should we kill these guys? The way I feel right now, I doubt I’d feel anything about it.”
His voice was cold, chilling Suguru to the bone. Normally near-death experiences make one realize the value in life. But here Satoru was, looking at the believers like a colony of ants to be crushed beneath his foot.
“There’s no point,” Suguru had said.
“Does there really need to be a point to it?”
This man looked like Satoru but talked completely differently. His face lacked its usual pleasant glimmer and stupid, smug grin that drove Suguru insane in more ways than one. It was like he was on the brink of turning sour, becoming something he’d never come back from. And Suguru was scared.
“It’s very important that there is,” he said. “Especially for a jujutsu sorcerer.”
There’s a creak as the shower valve is turned back to warm, drawing Suguru from his thoughts. His mind catches up to his body, suddenly cold as he waits for the warm water to do its job.
“You’ve been in here a while,” Satoru says, leaning against the tile wall. Suguru would have swung a fist into his jaw, or drawn up one of his cursed spirits, but he’s still coming back to reality. He turns his head, peering through the wet hair that hangs down in front of his face.
Satoru stands there, that stupid smug on his face. Suguru is almost relieved to see him smile.
“Do you have no sense of privacy?” Suguru asks, pushing away from the wall. He tucks his hair behind his ear, getting a better view of his friend. “Or the ability to knock?”
Satoru shrugs, looking Suguru up and down. Suguru doesn’t back down, continuing to shower despite his audience. He runs his fingers through his hair, trying to think of anything to say to the man. He’s drawing a blank, both from the sudden relief of seeing his friend, and the mounting discomfort of being watched while completely naked. It would be one thing if Satoru had come in to shower, but he hadn’t, standing there fully clothed as he waited for Suguru to say something, ignoring the questions he had just been asked.
“You couldn’t have waited?”
“I did knock,” Satoru says finally. He turns his back to the wall, leaning against it. He crosses an ankle over the other, annoyingly calm and careless. “But you didn’t answer. Didn’t know if you were dead in here.”
The way he seems so careless about death, joking about it after having such a close call so recently pisses Suguru off. He looks at him, nearly glaring, but Satoru just stands there, hands behind his head. He’s not sure how to put this into words, so he just ignores him entirely. It’s not easy when the guy is watching him so intently.
“C’mon,” Satoru sighs. “What’s up?”
Suguru huffs, running a hand through his hair again. “Can this wait? Please?”
“Well now I’m worried.” Satoru dons a fake pout. It’s infuriating. “What’s wrong?”
Suguru ignores him again, turning the shower off. He wrings out his hair and proceeds with his usual shower routine.
This lasts about thirty seconds until Satoru speaks again. “I’m not leaving ‘til you talk.”
He scoffs, turning away from the shower to pick up a towel. “Then you’ll be waiting a while.”
“You’re being difficult. Is that any way to treat the Satoru Gojo?”
“You’re being obnoxious.”
“Me? You’re the one that won’t talk.”
He’s barely made it three steps away from the shower when he turns back to Satoru, shoving him. Satoru’s back hits the wall just as Suguru’s hands slam on either side of his head, trapping him.
Both of them are momentarily stunned, but only Satoru is showing it. His eyes are wide and he’s suddenly speechless. There’s a satisfying silence in the showers only being broken by the drops of water falling from wet hair onto leather shoes.
“You are what’s wrong,” he says quietly, his voice severe.
Satoru blinks at him.
“You are the reason I’m stressed. You are the reason I can’t think straight—”
“Oh, well I didn’t know you felt—”
“Shut up.”
Suguru hovers closer to him, dripping onto his pants and jacket as he tries to be intimidating.
“You have me questioning everything I know and everything I’ve been taught. We’re supposed to be the good guys. We protect the weak. You wanted to kill those people. Said there didn’t need to be a point to kill them. I thought you were going off the deep end. Or were you right? I stopped you, but what would have happened if I didn’t? Would anything have changed? And you, you just carried on. You’re heralded as the strongest and you leave me behind. Did you forget about us? Did you forget about what we went through? You needed me to stop you, and I did. And now I need you to stop me, and you’re not there.” His chest is practically heaving as he speaks, not entirely sure of what he’s saying or if it makes any sense. This is the most he’s said to him since Riko’s death, and he’s concerned it’ll be the most he’ll say to him in a long time.
Satoru gapes at him like a fish out of water, and the droplets from Geto’s body aren’t enough to keep him hydrated. “You need me to stop you?”
“I’m losing it, Satoru. What’s the point of being a sorcerer if all we do is die to protect people that just keep making problems for us?”
“Maybe there isn’t a point.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“People die,” Satoru says in a rare serious tone, “and sorcerers die. Curses are born, and curses are killed. In a world of only sorcerers, there’s no one to protect. Which could be a good thing. But there will always be those who abuse their strength, and those who have to fight them. In a world without sorcerers, curses take over. There is no better option. Both end badly. So we’re stuck in a cycle. We’re born and taught to keep the weak safe because there is no one else that can.”
Suguru tries to grasp what he’s saying, but he’s still offput by his suddenly serious tone and probing eyes.
“And what if we just let the world go to sh*t?” He asks.
“We could,” Satoru says. He finally steps towards Suguru, a hand on his shoulder. “But is that really what we want?”
He blinks, considering. What does he want?
The hand on his shoulder is warm and comforting, something he wishes he felt more often. He shivers, the air finally creeping over his cold, wet skin and into his body.
Satoru steps around him, his steps echoing behind where Suguru stands. He quickly returns, offering up a towel for his friend.
Suguru looks down at it for a moment, registering the exchange. He takes it and wraps it around himself, still freezing. The color he’d regained from the warm water is gone once again.
“I want you. We work well together,” he admits.
“The strongest,” Satoru smiles. He holds out a hand for Suguru to shake, startled when he bypasses it to wrap him in a hug.
His clothes start to dampen where the towel doesn’t cover Suguru’s body. He wraps his arms around him, pulling him in tight.
“I need you,” Suguru whispers, already hating how his words are going to inflate Satoru’s ego.
To his surprise, Satoru squeezes him even closer. He nestles his head close to Suguru’s neck, his breath warming the cool skin.
“I need you too.”
