Chapter Text
Special grades are classified as such because they’re special, he told a cursed spirit once. Having them pop up this frequently throws everything off.
The universe has a real fucked-up sense of humor.
The colony of cursed spirits trying and failing, though through no real fault of their own, to ambush him are not quite at the level of that volcanic cursed spirit, but they’re close enough that they’d have upended all of jujutsu society back when it existed. And Satoru can feel even stronger curses farther inland, beacons of pure power that swarm his senses. The fact that he couldn’t sense them when he woke up says a lot about just how thickly Yuuji’s cursed energy pervaded the area, not to mention the impressive extent of the territory he cleared out in an attempt to keep Satoru’s little box safe.
It’s sweet.
Yuuji’s being real sweet even now, standing back and watching, cursed energy coiled tightly around himself. Satoru can feel his restlessness, that deeply ingrained urge to interfere—well, Yuuji wouldn’t see it like that. To defend and protect, he’d say. Satoru would’ve been irked at the sheer audacity once, but his quality time in the Prison Realm has at least given him enough perspective to appreciate Yuuji’s intentions. Even before that…who knows? He did find Yuuji’s brand of crazy unbearably charming from the get-go.
But they both know Satoru doesn’t need protection from these vermin. What he needs is an outlet.
As if on cue, the cursed spirits very kindly give him one.
Satoru grins, with teeth.
-
“You weren’t kidding,” he says in the aftermath, idly surveying a smoking crater with the last cursed spirit’s corpse dissipating in the middle of it. “They’re human-level intelligent. Well, maybe these ones were more toddler-level.”
“Toddlers don’t tend to plan ambushes, sensei.”
“It’s Satoru. Call me by my name already.”
A noncommittal hum answers him.
Satoru sighs but doesn’t push it. He won’t admit it out loud, but he likes how Yuuji insists on that title. It’s nostalgic. Satoru could almost pretend that he’s nobly doing his job of shaping the youth, out hunting curses to give his favorite student some hands-on experience. Like how he almost pretended, the few times he talked to Suguru after their paths diverged into twin tragedies and heard the three syllables of his name in that familiar, beloved voice, that the two of them were back at Jujutsu Tech, bantering and bickering but always, always coming back together.
But Satoru didn’t let himself sink into those delusions then, and he doesn’t now, so sensei on Yuuji’s tongue is just a soft, bittersweet ache.
“They’re weak,” he says quietly, knowing Yuuji has crept close enough to hear. “Even those curses writhing past the horizon. They’re all so weak. Did these things really end humanity, Yuuji?”
For a long moment, Yuuji is quiet.
“Not everyone is you.”
It’s impressive, how neutral that comes out. Yuuji doesn’t even sound resentful.
“Or you,” Satoru says and regrets it, almost, the moment it’s out of his mouth.
Yuuji comes to stand beside him. He cuts a striking figure, monstrous and beautiful. He doesn’t look at Satoru, heavy-lidded eyes focused on the detritus in front of them, but a gentle hand finds Satoru’s, linking them together.
“Or me,” Yuuji agrees softly.
-
Satoru doesn’t keep track of how long it takes them to clear the country. The sun sets, rises, sets, rises, and in between, the moon douses the nights in a blood-red glow. He suspects the rhythm of it all is off, twenty-four rotations a relic of a long-lost world, but he goes to great lengths not to count. What does it matter?
Yuuji has long since given up on counting days, months, years.
One thousand years, he confesses to Satoru with an air of contrition, is a very loose guess. That’s what it was the last time he did count. It could’ve been months or decades or even centuries since then. Yuuji wouldn’t know. And Satoru, whose eternity in that fucking box was blissfully brief, can hardly help.
It doesn’t matter.
They kill all the curses in Japan. Well, Satoru kills them, with a cold-blooded rage that makes mockery of the word exorcism. Yuuji trails him faithfully, and where he would’ve once asked questions—about Satoru’s techniques, the rank of the curses, the seals and barriers—he’s now a silent sentinel. Once or twice, Satoru lets a curse creep close, almost to the edge of Infinity, just to see what Yuuji would do and has his curiosity rewarded by the curses exploding in a spray of blood and gore. It fills him with a sick sense of satisfaction, but there’s pleasure too, especially when Yuuji looks at him in the aftermath like he knows exactly what Satoru has done but smiles sweetly anyway.
Sometimes, looking at Yuuji makes his heart hurt.
It’s possible Satoru is developing a not-strictly-healthy attachment.
Luckily, the few personal attachments he’s formed in his life have all been wildly unhealthy one way or the other, and Yuuji crawled into a peculiar corner of his skull the moment he sat up on that medical table with a whole new heart, so Satoru doesn’t have much readjustment to do.
He doesn’t worry overmuch about things on Yuuji’s end either. The poor thing still has moments when he’s not sure Satoru is real. He still refuses to admit to any sort of resentment at being summarily abandoned by Satoru’s shit judgment and everyone else’s unfortunate mortality. Yuuji has greater concerns than Satoru’s growing fixation.
It’s fine. Everything is fine.
They kill all the curses in Japan and find not a single human alive.
-
“It doesn’t prove anything,” Yuuji tells him later, a clumsy attempt at comfort. “Like I said, everyone fled this place first. There might be survivors in other parts of the world.”
Satoru hums deep in his throat and tips his head back—and back and back, spine almost a curve as he looks up at Yuuji from his cross-legged position on the floor. Yuuji looks bigger like this, his not-quite-human proportions more obvious. At Satoru’s scrutiny, a pair of arms are folded defensively across Yuuji’s chest.
He falls limply back, and Yuuji promptly steps forward so that Satoru’s back meets his legs instead of the cracked concrete floor.
See? Sweet.
“I wonder how much you believe that,” Satoru murmurs. “At what point does hope become folly, Yuuji?”
“Around the point it becomes despair, just the other way around,” Yuuji retorts without missing a beat, and then he crouches down, letting Satoru sink more comfortably into him. “The longer you stay, the meaner you get. I think that’s enough reason to leave.”
“I was always mean,” he says into the crook of Yuuji’s neck, sneaking in a whiff of his scent. Recently, Yuuji has started to smell like burning wood and fresh blood. Satoru suspects it has something to do with the wild fluctuations in his cursed energy. And if it’s coating Yuuji thickly enough that Satoru’s physical senses have taken to translating it as a scent, then something worse is happening further deep.
Yuuji hasn’t said anything though. All this time, he’s been content to follow Satoru around like the cute little duckling he no longer is. He’s even taken him to the semi-functional remains of what used to be a shelter for the ordinary humans caught in the crossfire between curses and sorcerers. There’s not much in the way of supplies, but some clothing has survived—synthetic fibers have outlasted humanity, isn’t that hilarious—and Satoru’s spared the indignity of running around exorcising curses butt naked. He doesn’t want curse goop getting near his dick, even with Infinity.
More importantly, he’s got a place to hunker down and work on some seals. Ink and paper are relics of the past, but Satoru can make do with carving things into hard concrete with his cursed energy. Cross-continental teleportation is tricky even for him, though it’s thankfully more about the technique than the energy expenditure. Working out how to take Yuuji with him without that well of markedly corrosive cursed energy destabilizing the whole process is even more tricky.
Satoru’s grateful for the challenge. Idle minds and devils and all that. He really doesn’t need more devils on his shoulder.
“Are you tired?” Yuuji’s fingers comb through his hair, nails scraping the scalp. Satoru feels that all the way down his spine. “Do you want to sleep?”
He pries open eyes he doesn’t remember closing, blinking slowly at the ceiling before pulling back for a better look at Yuuji. His blindfold filters Yuuji into manageable hues—muted lines of skin and flesh instead of a seething mass of cursed energy. Satoru twists around, the seals he was burning into the floor abandoned in favor of pushing Yuuji to the floor and settling on top of him. He makes a surprisingly comfortable perch.
And the war between disbelief and indulgence on Yuuji’s face will never get old.
Satoru cups his cheek, thumbing soft, full lips. Two hands settle on his hips, while the others sneak under his shirt to press warmth into the skin of his back.
“I want to not think for a while,” Satoru says; Yuuji appreciates honesty. “Distract me, Yuuji.”
Yuuji turns his head, lips gently brushing Satoru’s hand before they part over sharp white teeth. They sink into the meat of his palm, slow and firm and hot.
-
He notices when Yuuji starts keeping his distance. Of course he notices; at this point, Satoru would notice if Yuuji were to grow a single extra hair on his eyebrows, and this is a hell of a lot more obvious than that.
Granted, distance just means Yuuji isn’t practically living in his pocket anymore, but this is someone who took days to stop clinging to Satoru and, even after, never went more than two feet away from him except on their little curse-killing expeditions. It’s hard not to notice when the same guy starts lurking in the corner of the room farthest from Satoru and flinching away from any attempts on Satoru’s part to close the distance.
Because Satoru’s an attentive and decent person, he lets Yuuji have his space.
For a while.
Alright, he leaves it alone for the full span of time between the first time Yuuji inches away from his touch and the second. Said time could’ve been a few hours. Or a handful of minutes. Irrelevant, really. Satoru tried.
“Okay, fess up,” he declares, cornering Yuuji against a wall. It’s a little comical, this four-armed behemoth of a man shrinking away from Satoru. “What’s got you so skittish?”
Yuuji blinks owlishly at him. It used to be uncomplicatedly cute, but the extra set of eyes makes it a harder sell. Lucky for Yuuji, Satoru’s already too far gone on him to not find it adorable.
“I…” Yuuji trails off, eyes flicking down to their feet before flying back up to determinedly meet Satoru’s. “You killed all the curses on this island.”
For a moment, Satoru can only stare. Unfortunately, Yuuji’s slightly pained but resolute expression doesn’t yield any insight into that completely confounding statement.
“I did. So what?” Satoru cocks his head, a horrifying thought occurring to him. “Are you…lonely?”
He can’t help how his tone dips, confused disgust slipping through, and then it’s Yuuji’s’ turn to gape at him, only for a second before he adopts an expression that he had to have picked up from Megumi.
Were you dropped on your head as a child? it asks.
Satoru’s incredulity turns into amusement in sheer Pavlovian response.
“No,” Yuuji says slowly, like he’s talking to a very small child. “I’m hungry.”
“Oh. Ohhh.”
“Lonely,” Yuuji deadpans. “Really, sensei.”
“In my defense—” Satoru pauses, and Yuuji waits expectantly; he has too much faith in Satoru sometimes. It just slipped his mind! He’s been munching on the various freaky fruits this new age has sprouted, all of them chock-full of cursed energy, yet coming no closer to killing him than Shouko’s ill-advised attempt at cooking in their first year. So far, Satoru’s managed to steer clear of sampling the animals. Yuuji’s the one who usually reminds him to eat, though, and has always readily joined him. Satoru didn’t really think further than that. “Yeah, I got nothing. Anyway! Is that why you’re trying—not very well, by the way—to avoid me, Yuuji? Tempted you might take a bite?”
“Haven’t I already,” Yuuji mutters. He has relaxed some, but there’s still a wariness to the way he’s looking at Satoru—not fear of him, but fear for him. It’s ridiculous, but Satoru allows it.
“I wouldn’t blame you.” It comes out graver than Satoru intends. Doesn’t make it a lie. Still, he adds, grinning wide, “I am a snack.”
Yuuji snorts, even as he shakes his head. “That really isn’t funny.”
Satoru crowds closer, and Yuuji tries halfheartedly to duck out of the cage of his arms, but Satoru just flattens his body to Yuuji’s, head bent to rest their foreheads together. This close, that meat-and-metal scent Yuuji’s been giving off is even more intense. It shouldn’t be pleasant—and it isn’t, objectively—but it’s Yuuji, and Satoru finds that makes all the difference.
Yuuji’s arms wrap around him as he visibly gives up on the good fight, sagging against Satoru with a sigh. He clings to Satoru like they’ve been separated for a thousand times the meager amount of time it took for Satoru to grow tired of Yuuji’s skittishness. He doesn’t mind though. Centuries of touch starvation can do that to a person. It should probably have done worse.
He does wonder, often, how Yuuji is as sane as he is.
Is it something about the psychology of curses? If Shouko were to open up his skull, what would she find?
Not that Satoru wants to test it. Shouko’s long gone anyway. And even if she were still here—
“No brain surgery for you,” Satoru promises, mouth buried in Yuuji’s hair.
There’s a sudden stillness in his arms.
“Sensei—what?”
“Nothing,” Satoru chirps and kisses Yuuji before he can ask follow-up questions.
And Yuuji kisses back and doesn’t try to bite Satoru’s mouth off or do any of the other very horrible things he was probably cooking up in his brain; he only does the moderately horrible things Satoru asks of him, like fucking him dry against the wall until he gladly, gratefully passes out.
-
Outside of what used to be Japan, they continue not finding people.
Curses, though—curses, they find in abundance.
At least Yuuji gets to eat.
And isn’t that an experience. Satoru doesn’t know why he was expecting something easy and neat. Whenever he tried to picture it, his mind kept blasting him with two sets of images that were as eerily similar as they were dissimilar—Yuuji, fifteen and fierce, swallowing Sukuna’s finger and Suguru, young and composed, swallowing a tightly compressed curse. No fuss, no mess.
The mess, Satoru learned later, was always on the inside, but it was too late for Suguru by then, and Yuuji never had a chance in hell to begin with.
Yuuji’s new dietary habits are the exact opposite. There’s mess.
A lot of it.
A frankly impressive amount, actually.
Satoru watches with morbid curiosity as Yuuji sinks claws and fangs into a curse that must be thrice his size; it looks pathetic trying to escape him, wailing like an infant. And then Yuuji tears its throat out.
It’s quieter, after that, only the sounds of flesh tearing and blood dripping.
Yuuji seems ravenous. Maybe Satoru really was testing his control the last several days, stubbornly refusing all of Yuuji’s not-so-stealthy attempts to maintain some distance. In his defense, Yuuji looked so depressed about it that Satoru just couldn’t help himself.
Then again, he was imagining Yuuji possibly losing control and trying to eat him as…a little nibble.
Not this frenzied feast.
In the aftermath, Yuuji is a crime scene—blood-splattered, horror-stricken.
The horror, Satoru can tell, is about him, not the cursed spirit. And as he watches, Yuuji’s wildly expressive face closes in on itself, all emotion wiped clean, save for the grave, expectant glint in his eyes.
He can’t be expecting Satoru to run. Satoru’s not the type, and Yuuji knows it. Violence then. Or is it rejection?
Which would be worse?
Everyone Yuuji loved died, didn’t they, before they could see this side of him? Well, except for that cursed mother of his, but Satoru’s not counting that trash.
“Are you full?” Satoru asks. “Better be, after all that. You were always a bit of a glutton, weren’t you?”
Yuuji’s face does a few very interesting things.
Satoru saunters closer. The curse has mostly dissipated, including its gory remains on Yuuji’s clothes and skin. Satoru still makes a show of dabbing the corners of Yuuji’s mouth with his sleeve.
Yuuji makes a noise that human throats probably aren’t meant for.
“If I were going to turn away,” Satoru asks softly, “don’t you think I’d have done that when I first found you, Yuuji?”
Yuuji sways closer. His cursed energy has calmed down, the air around him no longer thick with the scent of his hunger, but his flesh feels hotter, warming Satoru even through a layer of clothes.
“Sorry,” Yuuji says, all four eyes wide with wonder, unwavering on Satoru. “I just… I know. I know you won’t.”
Satoru doesn’t think Yuuji does, not really. Maybe he wants to, but Satoru sees very well how Yuuji keeps looking at him as if expecting him to disappear. It’s fine. The time they’ve spent together is a mere fraction of the time Yuuji spent alone; Satoru’s entire lifetime will be nothing in the face of Yuuji’s now-immortal essence. But Satoru’s been called larger than life since he was a teenager—not always in a pleasant sense, but still. He’ll make sure their time together is the realest thing in Yuuji’s past, present, future.
He kisses Yuuji on the mouth and swallows his shocked gasp.
-
Wherever they go, it’s the same.
Cursed energy seeping like poison into lands teeming with cursed spirits. Some weak, some strong, some truly monstrous.
Satoru’s a bigger monster than them all, though, and so is Yuuji, who wields the power that once belonged to the King of Curses like it’s his birthright.
But it doesn’t matter how many they kill; they don’t find a single human alive. The few times they venture into old settlements from Yuuji’s rusty memories or chance upon others buried under long-defunct protective seals, all they find are piles of bones. The full might of his Six Eyes finds nothing but dead desolation.
And Satoru was right, in a way—with humanity gone, curses are slower to spawn. But the land and water and very air are saturated with so much cursed energy that it no longer matters.
“This truly is the age of curses, isn’t it?” Satoru asks out loud once, more to the world than to Yuuji. Nothing answers, least of all the dismembered remains of yet another colony of cursed spirits littered at his feet. “Hey, Yuuji?”
Satoru’s nape prickles, a telltale sign that Yuuji has come to stand behind him. He can see and feel the heat of him, a roiling mass of potent power.
“What’s the matter?” Yuuji asks.
Satoru holds up a finger at eye level. His cursed energy coalesces into an incandescent red sphere, less than the size of an eye. A thought and it could wipe out the ruins of this street.
Another thought, and it could flare purple, eating up this world.
It would almost be easy.
“Yuuji,” he says, savoring the name on his tongue, “don’t you think this is pointless? This world is so messy. I hate unfinished business, even when it isn’t my own. Think I should finish what your mother started? It would be easy, you know, to end this wretched world.”
Behind him, Yuuji lets out a slow, controlled breath.
And then there are four arms around Satoru, gentle, almost delicate, as they wind around him. A palm comes to rest over his heart, loosely curled as if trying to grasp it through a cage of meat and bone. Yuuji’s breath tickles the hair on Satoru’s nape before his whole face pushes into it, solid and warm.
“Okay,” says Yuuji.
“Okay?”
Yuuji hums his quiet agreement, arms tightening around Satoru. His face presses closer, as if he can burrow right into Satoru’s spine if he tries hard enough. There’s a low, hot ache in Satoru’s gut—not lust, but worse.
“That’s fine, sensei,” Yuuji says, voice muffled by Satoru’s hair. “As long as you’re here with me till the end, I don’t mind.”
Red sputters and dies.
Satoru’s hand drops limply to his side.
“Yuuji,” he sighs, “you’re really unfair.”
-
They’re at another shore. The sea, this time, looks as nature intended—a muted, washed-out blue. Pretty in a quiet, hypnotic kind of way.
The curses he can sense in the water are far less benign, but most of them seem to have retreated at Satoru’s and Yuuji’s approach. Experience tells him that, sooner or later, the stronger or stupider ones will come braving a snack and die splattered at their feet. Or Satoru could spare them the trouble and purge the whole lot. But water’s a bit trickier than land for mass extermination, and Satoru doesn’t particularly feel like going out of his way to dole out a few inevitable deaths.
Besides, Yuuji looks so comfortable, sprawled shirtless in the sand, much like how he was when Satoru first found him in this era, and he’s loath to ruin that. Calling Yuuji happy would be a stretch; he doesn’t think Yuuji’s been happy for centuries.
And Satoru can’t make him happy. Relieved, yes. Less dreadfully lonely, certainly. But nothing can make Yuuji happy in this mutilated world.
Satoru can’t not understand, even though he himself has always been the sort to subsume all the stages of grief into hard, hot rage. Anger is good. Anger is useful. But he hasn’t had to live with it for one thousand years.
It’s hard to remember Yuuji’s technically older than him now. It doesn’t feel like it, when Yuuji looks at him with quiet warmth and touches him with trembling relief and calls him sensei with the ease of breathing.
“You’re staring again.”
“Hm? Yes, I guess I was.” At Yuuji’s faint smile, he adds, “I was thinking you look…”
His dilemma returns—what to call it? Less than happy, more than merely comfortable.
“I look…?” Yuuji prods with an indulgent smile. Satoru admits Yuuji has been smiling more lately, and there are so many quieter varieties than there used to be. That’s a win, isn’t it?
Ah.
“Content,” Satoru tells him. “You look content.”
Yuuji’s smile widens sweetly. “I am. You’re here.”
There it is again, that hot writhing thing in Satoru’s chest.
“Sweet-talker,” Satoru accuses, dropping down beside Yuuji. “Who knew you’d grow up to be such a flirt?”
“Only you’ve had that complaint, sensei.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining. Continue.”
Yuuji huffs out a laugh and leans into Satoru, melting the instant their shoulders brush. That never does get old. Satoru pulls him closer with an arm over his shoulders, and one of the arms on Yuuji’s left snakes around his back, the other curling loosely over the top of Satoru’s thigh. They’re pressed flush from shoulder to hip.
It’s warm.
Silence falls—a quiet, comfortable thing. Satoru found a while ago that if he focuses on Yuuji, the perpetually seething mass of his power and the deeper workings of his non-human body, he’s less likely to think of literally anything else and work himself into a fit. Today, he picks Yuuji’s heart. It thumps along, strong and steady and roughly twice as fast as a human heart. It doesn’t change even when Yuuji’s all worked up and sweaty. Isn’t that fascinating?
He remembers calling Yuuji’s body amusing, back when he had only two fingers’ worth of Sukuna in him. How prophetic.
“I’m being greedy,” Yuuji announces, apropos of nothing, “but will you make me a promise?”
“Anything,” Satoru replies automatically.
Yuuji looks surprised for a brief second, before a close-lipped smile takes over. “You shouldn’t be so easy, sensei. What if I ask for something horrible?”
“You’re you,” Satoru says simply. “We’re the last men on Earth, Yuuji, and I kept you waiting for a very long time. Anything I can give you, I will.”
Yuuji’s smile trembles. He looks away, giving Satoru a close-up view of the tightening of his jaw, but it’s only for a second, Yuuji visibly forcing himself to relax. When he speaks, his voice is a wistful whisper: “I always thought you’d be the one to kill me.”
Satoru freezes.
“Yuuji, we already—”
“Every time I asked the others to do it,” Yuuji cuts in, as deliberate as it’s uncharacteristic, and Satoru bites his tongue till he tastes blood, “it felt so wrong. With the Angel, I was just desperate and didn’t care if I died alone. And the others—I hated asking them. Not because they weren’t capable. They could have put me down if it came to it. But it didn’t feel right, the way it used to with you. Megumi, Yuuta, Nobara, Maki…they were all strong. But, sensei, you were the only one who made me feel—” Yuuji stops, breathing hard for a moment before he steadies himself with a deep, shuddering breath. His body’s taut against Satoru, and he’s looking carefully at the horizon, blatantly ignoring Satoru’s eyes burning into the side of his head. Softly, Yuuji says, “You’d have been kind enough to make it good for me and strong enough to lead an unburdened life afterward. I didn’t realize how much that meant to me until after you were gone.”
Satoru waits for a long moment. But Yuuji says nothing else. He also doesn’t look at Satoru.
Kind and strong, huh? Satoru’s used to one, less to the other.
And Yuuji—he’ll never get used to Yuuji.
“You know, Yuuji, you were always too good to me. Laughing at my jokes, playing along with my antics, worrying over me when I was the last person in the world who needed it. I was charmed even then, more than I should’ve been. Now I can’t tell if you were being very sweet or just very cruel.”
“Ah,” Yuuji breathes, hunching in on himself. “Sorry.”
“Are you?” Satoru asks mildly. “I don’t see why you’re bringing this up now. Sukuna isn’t a problem anymore.”
“He isn’t,” Yuuji agrees. “But you’re human.”
Satoru blinks. “Why are you saying that like it’s a problem?”
Finally, Yuuji looks at him, expression painfully earnest as he assures Satoru, “It isn’t. I like you human. But you’ll die, sensei.”
Oh.
“And you won’t.”
In hindsight, it’s obvious. Satoru would feel stupid if he weren’t certain he was just stubbornly refusing to see it.
“Yes,” Yuuji agrees, calm in a way that makes Satoru’s skin prickle, ice slinking down the length of his spine. “So before you go, kill me.”
Satoru is surprised by how unsurprised he is. He saw this coming, didn’t he?
Maybe he knew from the moment Yuuji asked for a promise.
“Cruel,” Satoru declares, his voice coming out quieter than he intends. “Definitely cruel.”
“Sorry, sensei,” Yuuji repeats, painfully soft from the curve of his eyes to the hitch in his breath. “It won’t be so bad. I’ve lived enough, haven’t I?”
Has he? Maybe. It’s certainly longer than anything Satoru can fathom.
And yet—how much of that was living?
“Is it really what you want?” Satoru asks, knowing the answer.
Yuuji lifts a hand to Satoru’s face, his thumb sliding under the blindfold to gently tug it down.
For a moment, Yuuji is blinding.
He’s looking Satoru right in the eyes, unflinching and unbearable, as he says, “Yes.”
“Then, Itadori Yuuji, I will make you a promise.”
Yuuji shivers. His eyes are wet in the instant before they flutter shut.
“Thank you,” he says, like a drowning man tasting his last gasp of air. “Thank you, Satoru.”
When Yuuji opens his eyes and beams at Satoru, he looks—
He looks happy. Isn’t that horrible?
Ah, Satoru thinks, love really is the worst curse.
He’s been here before though. A long time ago—a year, a millennium—Satoru killed someone he loved. First, though, he failed to save him, failed to even try, and in the end, a quick death was the kindest love he could offer.
He could do it again. It would be easy. And Yuuji would appreciate it. Yuuji might even love him for it.
But once is enough, isn’t it? Satoru isn’t a very good person, but his sins can’t weigh so much that the world would demand this of him twice.
He looks at Yuuji, this beautiful monster who’s still more human than Satoru’s ever been, and thinks, You, I will save.
-
Decades later, he repeats that vow, and the universe answers.