Work Text:
Tokachi Butadon
Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Total Time: 15 min
Yield: 2 servings
The white-haired man dispassionately scans the cookbook propped up on the counter before him as he begins preparing his workspace. Knives gleam silver and shiny in the harsh halogen floodlights, starkly illuminating the marble and chrome monstrosity of his kitchen.
The space is now clinically clean, all evidence of dinner preparation obliterated as soon as the ritual is complete. It simply wouldn’t do to be found out at this juncture, not after so much progress has already been made. The gleaming countertops and spacious cupboards are now well-stocked with tools and ingredients of every kind, the only form of gift-giving to his lover he has left to indulge in, when before the room was mostly left to gather dust.
He had never been much of a chef, though he had the potential to be a great one. He understood perfectly the thermochemical reactions inherent in the art of cooking, and it was well known that Satoru Gojo could do anything he set his mind to. But he'd always had servants and staff to attend to something as necessarily mundane as cooking, and the concept had never really appealed.
Until he found the right ingredient to inspire him, that is.
Ingredients
Butadon Sauce
½ cup sake
½ cup soy sauce
⅓ cup mirin
40 grams evaporated cane sugar
1 large clove garlic (smashed)Butadon
¼ teaspoon salt
450 grams pork belly – note: can be substituted for the flesh of your dead lover, the man you killed with your own two hands
1 scallion (green parts chopped for garnish)
two portions cooked short-grain rice
He sharpens his knife, the satisfying swish swish of metal against the whetstone echoing in the hollow space, before setting it down next to the chopping board. His ingredients laid out on the counter beside him.
It’s a simple enough dish, butadon, a grilled pork and rice bowl glazed with caramelized soy sauce, so it doesn’t require a lot of prep. And the hardest part of the production – acquiring and preparing the meat – has already completed. The centrepiece of the dish, a generous slab of red flesh which resembles beef more than it does pork, cool from the day it’s spent defrosting in the refrigerator.
Sacred remnants of the body Satoru has sunk his teeth into many, many times over the past decade.
Instructions
1. Add the soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar, and smashed clove of garlic to a pot and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to keep the pot from boiling over, and cook the sauce until the bubbles become glossy and the sauce has reached a temperature of 230 degrees F.
After Suguru died – no – after Satoru killed him, he didn't feel like eating, not for a long time. Not even the temptation of sweet things could muster any hunger in his stomach, the sickening sinking pit in the core of his being. The concept of appetite, of want and desire, had flown his body when Suguru left the world. The only person he had ever truly wanted, the one thing he could never truly have.
Until now.
When the idea came to him he surprised himself by how much it didn't make him want to vomit, like the idea of almost every other food had since he felt Suguru's blood warm and sticky on his hands.
His body had to be disposed of, after all.
2. Sprinkle the body of the only man you’ve ever loved evenly with the salt.
Moving blindly, he had taken Suguru's rapidly cooling flesh in his arms and teleported home from the alleyway where his beloved died. Where Satoru had killed him. He didn't really know what he was doing then, but knew he couldn't just hand him over to the higher-ups. Those who saw him only as a befouled traitor, the curse known as Suguru Geto.
There were rules for this kind of thing, the loss of a jujutsu sorcerer, the death of a curse user. Protocol to be followed. But Satoru couldn't simply let them take Suguru from his loving embrace and cremate him. Burning away his beauty, everything that he was, everything that he meant. His energy converted to heat and released into the atmosphere, leaving behind nothing but ashes to be scattered at an unknown grave.
He'd had to buy a chest freezer, a massive thing which took up too much space in his surprisingly modest apartment. But Suguru was a big man, in life and in death. It was only a shame Satoru couldn't provide him with a better, more fitting coffin for him to rest his head in.
He tried not to think too much about how long it had been since Suguru had last laid his head on the pillow next to his own.
3. Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat until very hot and then add the cold flesh of your beloved in a single layer. Fry until he has slightly browned on one side, and then flip it over and fry the second side.
He'd read stories on the news before of reprobates feeding human meat to their ignorant houseguests, butchers carving up people when livestock became sickly and unable to be harvested. But that wasn't his intention, not at all. In fact, the idea of sharing Suguru with someone else, now that made him sick to his stomach.
You’re mine, all mine, only mine.
This was to be the last and final secret shared between the two of them. Buried within his bones. Flesh joining together for the last and final time, Suguru's body nourishing his, his cells breaking down and becoming Satoru’s instead.
It would be poetic if only it wasn’t so sick.
4. Transfer the cooked strips of your one and only to a plate, and repeat until all of him has been fried.
He cried the first time he made a meal of Suguru. Just like he cried the first time they lay together. A warm summer's day in his dorm room, the uncomfortable wonderful burn and stretch of Suguru's body inside his, of his inside Suguru's. He cried quietly then as they lay together in the aftermath, sheets twisted by their clumsy inexperienced passion, tears of joy and disbelief at how Suguru had suddenly reciprocated his feelings, his touch. And Suguru wrapped his arms around his waist and murmured softly in his ear and kissed the tears from his face.
But then he was alone, no one there to wipe the salt water spilling down his cheeks as he chewed, rending his lover to pieces in his mouth and swallowing him down, taking him in to become part of him once more. The place he was always meant to be.
Before he pulled away from him forever.
The curse called Suguru Geto turned into a blessing with each bite, as Satoru paid a twisted kind of tribute with every mouthful. Sustaining him, making him whole again. The missing part so long gone now finally back in place.
Satoru had a sweet tooth, but Suguru was always the savoury exception.
He was the most delicious meal he'd ever had.
5. Wipe out the oil from the pan after the last of the unmoving meat that was once your dearest friend has been fried.
Sometimes as he ate he imagined he was Suguru, swallowing curses. Swallowing the greatest curse of all, the one Satoru laid down upon him when he poured his love over him without caring what the repercussions may be. He used to kiss Suguru with sweet sugar on his lips, sickly honey in his spit, when he gagged after forcing the cursed orbs down. Kiss him airy and wet and messy until he couldn't taste anything but Satoru, the warmth and light in his body.
But it wasn't enough. All the love in his mouth couldn't cover the taste of the pain and misery Suguru had to swallow down. And he was so blinded by it all, the intoxicating taste and smell and feel of being together with his one and only, that he didn't even notice. Blinded by the happy tears that Suguru kissed from his cheeks until his beloved tore the veil away and exposed his blackened poisoned insides.
And by then it was already too late. He didn’t notice until it was far too late.
"Suguru, did you lose weight?"
He’d put it back on after he left, after he finished growing into his adult body. More lean muscle. It made for a fairly chewy meal, but Satoru didn't mind. It was only right that he should have to work for it.
6. Add ¼ cup of the sauce to the pan and reduce until the sauce is very thick and viscous, and then return the cuts of the only person who ever really truly saw you for who you are to the pan. Flip him around several times until he is glazed with the sauce.
There were softer parts to Suguru though, of course, parts that he showed only to Satoru. His stomach, his thighs, his ass, his neck.
His cheeks, which Satoru used to kiss sweet and sloppy to embarrass him in public.
His tongue, which Satoru used to welcome so desperately along the curves of his body as they lay together in private.
His eyes, which Satoru used to stare into for what felt like hours, losing himself in that warm inviting darkness.
His face, he was saving for last. Though he could barely stand to look at it any longer, frozen and warped by death and Satoru's careful preservation. He had died with a smile on his face, a soft blush on his cheeks at Satoru's words, but the smile had fallen away in death. The blush banished when Satoru drained the blood from his body.
"Suguru, I ____ ___."
"... At least curse me a little at the end, Satoru."
It was after Suguru left that Satoru started wearing the bandages over his eyes in lieu of sunglasses. He didn't deserve to see the light any longer, especially not now. After he extinguished his own from the world with reckless hands.
But god how he would give anything to see that smile one more time.
7. Transfer the remnants of your lover to a wire rack set over a heat-proof tray. Use a kitchen torch to brown the glaze covering the meat of his body until it is lightly charred around the edges.
Satoru looks emotionlessly at the meat as he chars it with flame, speaking a silent prayer, another wordless goodbye in an endless list.
For years after he left he would still find Suguru’s hair ties lying around his room, even after he moved off campus and into his new lodgings, and he slipped each on his wrist and wore them there until they snapped under the strain of everyday life. And there were the t-shirts stolen from Suguru's laundry basket which he buried his face in at night, inhaling the scent of him until it fled the fabric, washed away by tears and replaced by the smell of Satoru’s own terrible sadness.
He was the one to clear out Suguru's room when, eventually, Yaga insisted the space needed to be repurposed, exorcised as it were. Satoru wouldn’t let anybody else enter, so he was the one to take the pictures down from the walls and the books from the shelves and the clothes from the cupboards, to place Suguru’s remaining belongings into a bag to be thrown away. Apart from the pieces he kept for himself.
He still has Suguru’s teenage contact number saved in his phone, though he knows the number has long since been disconnected. He knows this because he used to call it over and over again, just so he could hear the sound of his voice, of Suguru saying his name one more time.
"You've reached the voicemail of – Suguru Geto – please leave a message after the tone."
Satoru used to leave him messages, long rambling spiels of consciousness, just telling him about his day, the everyday goings-on of the school, of jujutsu life. All the things Suguru had missed since he left. He never told Suguru just how much he was missed in his absence, but sometimes he wonders if he knew.
Sometimes he still wonders if Suguru ever listened to the messages he left, before the line disconnected.
8. To assemble the butadon, add a portion of rice to two large bowls. Drizzle a tablespoon or two of sauce around the rice. Arrange the grilled body of your soulmate on top of the rice. Garnish with scallions and enjoy!
Satoru sits down quietly, crossed-legged on the floor next to his chabudai and places the two steaming bowls on the table. It’s part of the ritual, making two servings. One for him, one for Suguru, the ghost sitting down at the table with him. Suguru never eats, just stares at him with those dark dead eyes, the eyes he can feel on him from the chest freezer in the next room over.
He wonders if he’ll stop looking at him like this once he consumes his eyes.
The second meal doesn’t go to waste though, once it’s cool he will package it up and place it in the refrigerator, ready for tomorrow. There can be no part squandered, not a single scrap of Suguru thrown away, especially since he came to him already missing an arm. Not after Satoru threw him away for the first time so long ago without even realising it.
That’s the point of this, to honour every part of him.
Satoru eats his meal in silence, alone on the floor of his quiet apartment.
Wipes his mouth with a thick linen napkin.
Places his chopsticks down next to the empty bowl.
Then he places a hand over his stomach, and closes his eyes, as Suguru begins to unravel inside him.
"Even if we have to fight Master Tengen, we should be fine. After all… We’re the strongest."
The strongest, together. Suguru supporting him as he always did, flesh and blood becoming his, cells merging, one body and one mind again. Just like the way it used to feel during that blue spring now ten years past.
Satoru wonders, once he's devoured every piece of his lover, will the taste of him finally leave his tongue? Will he finally be free? The way Suguru feels going down, he suspects he probably won't. But that's okay, at least like this, he has found another way to hold him close once more.
As he rises to clear the table, the taste of Suguru Geto lingers in his mouth. A sensation burned into his tongue, flesh caught between his teeth from the very first kiss, to the very last meal.
“Itadakimasu, Suguru.”