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Today is another lazy day. There aren't any missions, the sun is unnaturally hot (as it always is in the summer), and Suguru can't stand the stickiness that comes from his sweat dripping slowly.
The crickets outside are screaming their indignance, and for once even Yaga-sensei has given in to the heat. For now, the four of them are sitting under the fans, which turn painfully slow, fanning themselves.
None of them say anything, save for Satoru, who grumbles out an indistinguishable complaint, and shuffles in his seat to try getting comfortable and take a quick snooze. In the drowsy heat, it takes him a while to notice, but Yaga-sensei has left them to fend for themselves in the afternoon sun.
When the clock strikes four o’clock, the heat has finally let up, and the sky outside gathers the dark clouds together. Shoko retreats to her dorm, so Suguru decides today he'll follow Satoru to his dorm.
It's become a daily practice - one of them will lead the way to their dorm, and they'll spend their evening together. It's usually Satoru’s, because he has the budget for games and movies, but when Satoru is quieter than usual, they come to an unspoken agreement, and Satoru trails behind Suguru as they head for his dorm.
On even rarer days, they go their separate ways. Due to the cursed spirits that he absorbs, he tends to have some depressive episodes once in a while. The cursed energy from his cursed spirits stacks up slowly, and when they begin to overflow, he retreats alone to deal with it. Though, recently, Suguru’s noticed that Satoru has been disappearing into his own dorm more than they head to Suguru’s dorm. It makes him a little nervous.
Now that he thinks about it, the whole month, he’s never visited Satoru’s dorm. Instead of going there, Satoru invites him out to random malls, or to play hide-and-seek in deserted non-sorcerer schools.
The increased time alone does leave him more time to cleanse his soul of the cursed energy seeping in, but at the same time he's aching with frustration. Suguru can sense that something's off with Satoru. He can't put his finger on it, can't figure it out when he stares at Satoru, but he knows it's there.
So today, even though Satoru yells at Suguru that he'll be in his room alone, Suguru decides to follow Satoru. Secretly, of course. Even if his strangeness was for an embarrassing reason, like a need to jerk off, Suguru wouldn't mind either. He just needs to understand Satoru.
Though, his instincts tell him it won't be as silly a reason as exercising natural needs.
Suguru remains inside the classroom, pretending to nap, while Satoru makes his way out. When a little over five minutes has passed, Suguru gets up from his desk and follows Satoru’s path to his dorm.
He knocks gently once, then enters. It's likely whatever’s different with Satoru recently is being hidden from him, so he wants to confront Satoru before he can find a way out of it or block Suguru’s sight, but he does have his morals. He informs Satoru of his presence. Just very briefly. And without letting Satoru agree to him coming in.
It's dark inside, pretty unusual for Satoru’s loud personality, but the darkness doesn't surprise Suguru that much. It does annoy him when it becomes more difficult when he has to pick his way through the mess on the floor in the dark though. Satoru’s room has always been messy, unread textbooks thrown haphazardly, clothes strewn everywhere, presumably because servants in his clan house would always be there to clean up. He still retains some of his worse habits from his time with the clan, despite Suguru’s efforts to straighten him out.
But this. This is even more messy than usual. It might be accurate to say that his room was trashed. Absolutely dirty, from the rug stained with coke, or some of the clothes caked up with dust. Empty bottles of unknown substances are laid on the floor, and uneaten takeout is situated next to the bottles. The only thing in the room that looks remotely clean was the bed, which looked mildly worse for wear.
Said bed contained one Satoru Gojo, who seemingly hadn't taken notice of Suguru. He was absolutely still, which Suguru had never witnessed from a person like Satoru. This guy constantly placed his hands, body, or chin on Suguru just to do something. He was so still it was near unnatural.
“Satoru, let's go swim at that deserted non-sorcerer school.” Suguru doesn't know why he feels compelled to say so.
He tries to lower his volume to not scare him, but he still receives a muffled sound of shock. Satoru sits up, eyebags peeking though his hair that's tangled everywhere.
“C’mon.” he grabs Satoru’s hand and pulls him firmly out of the pile of blankets. He drags Satoru along, who's still wobbly on his feet, towards the school on the hill.
When they were in their first year, they were sent to exorcise a curse in this school. It was the first Grade 1 curse that Suguru had ever consumed. It was also the first time that he had witnessed Satoru release his red technique and fail. Possibly even more memorable than absorbing his first Grade 1 curse. So returning to the school, which by some miracle hadn't been demolished yet, often brought back fond memories.
They fumbled through the corridors, the pale evening veil hugging the pillars and pulling shadows out the peeling paint. The clouds roiled frantically outside, eventually giving life to the rivers slipping fast and hard through the sky.
Suguru locates the swimming pool, and from there they discover an old locker room, where Suguru pulls off his baggy pants and jacket, and when he notices Satoru turning away from him to hide himself, Suguru grasps Satoru’s wrists and presses his own raised scars against the singular, unhealed scratch on Satoru’s pure skin.
It's the kind of silence in the locker room where feelings are laid bare out in the sun. The rain is crying outside, begging to be let inside, but through the shut windows, their wails are nothing but muffled screams. The moon is barely visible behind the loudness of the cloud’s dark colour, but it fills the swimming pool with swimming white fish.
Suguru is the first to step in, shuddering a little at the cool taste of the water, but it isn't too hard to get used to it. Once mostly submerged, he turns and beckons the nervous Satoru in. While Satoru shivers and gets used to the cold, Suguru has discovered an abandoned frisbee laying around in the depths.
“Catch!” he yells, and throws it to the other end of the pool, and Satoru is the first to rush for the frisbee, but in the end, it's Suguru who gets to it first, and triumphantly holds it over Satoru’s head. “No fair! You know how to swim, and I don't,” Satoru pouts. Suguru can see why he's never learned to do much for himself with a cute pout like that.
“Then, I'll teach you everything. I'll teach you how to swim, then you can keep up with me.” A ghost of the realest grin he's seen in months flutters by Satoru’s face, and is gone in a flash, but Suguru spots it.
“First, you take a deep breath. Hold it, and then go underwater.” He instructs, and Satoru follows obediently. He goes down underwater and comes back up almost immediately, spluttering and yelping, “Hey, I almost drowned!” He twists his hand into a phone, dialing furiously and pretending to call someone. “Please send a new instructor, this one is simply too incompetent!” Suguru replies in the same fashion, “Sir, this student is too incompetent, I cannot take him on.”
Satoru pouts again, but he tries again and again, until he's able to go underwater without accidentally breathing in liquid.
This sort of thing goes on for a good hour, Satoru not getting what Suguru was trying to teach him, shouting insults that aren't meant to hit its target, then working repeatedly until he achieved it.
They play aimlessly for another good half hour, splashing each other.
I had always thought my heart was empty, filled only by the curses I ate, but the more I absorbed, the more my heart was drained. I didn't know I could feel this way again. I don't know if I could ever feel this way with another person again.
It's because of you, Satoru, my one and only.
In the pool, the water washes away the knots in his heart, and it peels away the layers in Satoru’s face, so when the tears begin to slip from his eyes and join the water, the odd saltwater fuses with the chlorinated water.
Satoru makes a hum of sheepishness, and dunks his face into the water to hide his unsteady breaths, but Suguru dives in too, and looks for the familiar sculpt of his smooth skin. White lashes blink up at him, taken aback by the way Suguru graces his outline with his fingers.
They surface out of the water, Satoru’s about to say something, to try to disguise the sobs that flow from his heart to his face, but Suguru stops him right there, pressing soaked lips against equally wet ones.
“Leave all your shame here. Show me all of your dissected heart. If you don't cry, it dries you up, so let me taste your tears, if you don't want them to flow,” he whispers these words against hot breath, and he can't understand where it comes from, but he means all of it. He wants to stay by Satoru’s side forever, let him cry like he will die tomorrow, to love him for all of eternity.
Satoru doesn't kiss back right away, but when he does, he leans in so close that Suguru could turn his head a little and feel the wetness on Satoru’s cheeks.
They leave the secret here, where the pool won't speak of it, so only they two will ever know.
That night, they sleep together in Satoru’s dorm.
The withering rose is revived, not by the lily, but by the forget-me-not.