Chapter Text
Getou Suguru thinks he’s pretty good at dealing with things, most of the time. He’s a special grade so young for reasons besides his power. He can pack things away where they need to go, organise his head into a neat closet. Get the job done. But Suguru also lets himself examine everything he puts aside when the time is right.
The right time for this specific thing is when it’s quiet, and more then often hot.
Gojo Satoru is a verifiable natural disaster, both in power level and the way he swept into Suguru’s life. He’s loud, self centred and often callous. He demands attention like it’s owed to him. He’s let himself into Suguru’s hot, awful, dorm room without bothering to ask for permission.
It’s almost worse that they both know he never needs to ask to barge into Suguru’s space, his life, these days.
It’s sweltering, a heatwave sweeping Tokyo and the surrounding area. Despite being a magic school for magic people, their shitty dorm building AC system is deeply unmagical and easily breakable. It had rolled over and admitted defeat fast, and now heat had sunk into the very fibers of the dorms even as the world outside is cooling. Suguru has all of his windows wide open and a cheap box fan aimed right at him. It’s not enough.
Satoru just walks right in and stretches out on Suguru’s floor, blocking the flow of the fan.
It’s late and Suguru just knows in his bones that he’s going to be assigned a mission in the morning. He needs to sleep. But something about Satoru just requires his constant attention, like his technique places him firmly in the centre of a gravity well and Suguru is being sucked in.
It’s dark, but Suguru’s eyes are adjusted. The air is cloying, the sky outside is velvet black. The cicadas are insistently loud. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, letting himself be drawn in.
“What the hell, Toru?”
Satoru dramatically whines, spreading his limbs out wide on the wood floors. Looking down at him from his stripped bare mattress, Suguru can suddenly understand the appeal.
“Your room is colder.”
Seeing as Satoru’s room is right next to Suguru’s, he highly doubts it.
“Oh? Does that have anything to do with my fan you’re hogging, asshole?”
“Slander and lies. What a horrible accusation to throw at your best friend of all people? Your poor overheating best friend who’s been slowly dying all week in this heat!”
Satoru keeps his voice down, the late hour and stifling temperature a weight against noise. It’s also possible that Satoru is trying not to disturb their classmates, because amazingly, on occasion, he can be vaguely considerate of others.
Satoru does look hot though. Suguru is in nothing but underwear and a tank top and sweat has already gathered and half dried in the fabric. The village he grew up in had unforgiving summers. He’d grown used to his blazing hot walks home from school, neck burning. He’s pretty sure that the Gojo estate, which he still doesn’t really know the whereabouts of, was somewhere mountainous and cooler.
Satoru, having been raised somewhere between prized heir and invaluable god-child weapon, had likely been given all the air conditioning and reprieve he could want.
He’s in nothing but a pair of tiny cotton shorts, not even the socks he always sleeps in. He has his sleep mask pushed up crookedly into his hairline like a wonky bandana. His hair curls around it, the white turned silver in the soft moonlight. His cheeks seem flushed, his eyes covered by a forearm.
It’s during moments like these, where Satoru is still and distracted, that Suguru lets this specific thing out.
He lets himself linger on the soft skin of Satoru’s underarm, his delicate wrist. He’s strong, Suguru knows just how strong, but he’s also lanky and thin. His body is still a teenagers, not yet filled out and yet also still holding onto enough baby fat to soften muscle and bone. His stomach is an appealing swath of taught skin. His waist is narrow, the flare of the shorts extenuating the gentle jut of his hips. His feet are as narrow and long as the rest of him, spindly and pale.
Suguru allows himself to look, to appreciate and ache, while Satoru pouts. A part of him feels awful about it, this draw he has for his best friend. His male best friend, who has been raised in a world Suguru might never fully understand in the same way that Satoru does. A best friend who is also his partner. A duo who’s working relationship affects people’s lives.
Suguru could never take Satoru home to meet his parents, if they even accepted their son having a boyfriend. Satoru could never present Suguru to the Gojo clan. The clan elders would never accept Satoru becoming a genetic dead end, wiggling his way out of an arranged marriage and embarrassing the clan with a male partner from a non sorcerer family, even a very powerful one.
Any fantasies where Suguru did reach out to touch, which was almost tempting even in this cloying heat, even with the fear of Satoru flinching away, were quickly destroyed by Suguru’s own pragmatism.
So he looks, because he needs to deal with this somehow, and then he puts it all away again.
Suguru picks up his extra pillow and hurls it at Satoru as hard as possible. Satoru almost never has Limitless up when they’re alone, something Suguru quietly preens over, and isn’t expecting an incoming attack. It his him square in the middle, making him wheeze in surprise.
But despite Satoru’s stubbornness and pride, he also knows when he’s won. So he flips Suguru off and calls him a dick but props the pillow under his head without serious retaliation. They’re too hot to get into a wrestling match.
Suguru does not think about how he’ll get to use that pillow tomorrow because the thing is back tucked away in the neat corners of his brain where he will not look at it anymore.
He just huffs and stares at the ceiling, listening to the cicadas and the fan and the faint rustle of leaves outside. The faint noises of his best friend shifting and breathing quietly on the floor. It’s a long time before either fall asleep, but knowing Satoru is just as wide awake as him is oddly comforting. They’ll both suffer for it tomorrow, but now Suguru just tries to let it all wash over him.
-
They’re taking a break from training. Yaga has taken no pity on his students in the face of high summer and has had them running laps and sparring on the track all through noon. Satoru has looked like he’s been inches away from a mutiny the entire day, which isn’t uncommon. Suguru might actually just let him if he does try it though, which isn’t common. Everyone is irritable and overexerted, huddling under the couple trees big enough to cast shade within Yaga’s watchful eyes.
Suguru wipes his face with his stained shirt and roles his pants up to expose his calfs. Haibara and Nanami are sitting together a tree over and Satoru has artfully sprawled around the base of their tree, twisting himself to avoid roots digging into his back. He’s letting out a constant stream of complaints, which Suguru isn’t bothering to listen to. Shoko was in the cool, windowless morgue, and will likely be gloating about the benefits of her medical track when he sees her next.
Suguru kicks at Satoru’s middle as he struggles to his feet. Satoru glares at him over his glasses. His cheeks are flushed, pale skin already showing the signs of a developing sunburn. Satoru was a dramatic ass, but Suguru was pretty sure he was having a worse time then the rest of them.
Summer light was bright and harsh on his eyes, and Suguru knows Satoru finds the way the sun so easily beats him to be highly bruising to his ego. The most powerful sorcerer in centuries can’t leave the house without copious sunscreen if he’s going to be outside for more then an hour in summer. Most of the time Satoru just refuses to admit defeat until he starts looking like a lobster.
Suguru’s school jacket is folded around his water bottle, both tucked under the tree before this class had started. He reaches down to pick it up, shaking off the dust and debris. He pulls his wallet out of the internal pocket and then drapes it over Satoru’s head. Satoru doesn’t stop complaining, just reaches up to adjust the jacket better over his flushed face, hiding his eyes. Suguru had noticed that he’s been squinting all day.
“I’m going to get soda,” Suguru talks right over his friend and then walks off, counting out bills as he goes. He waves to Yaga who just flicks a hand at him. Behaving has it’s perks.
Suguru speed walks over to the nearest vending machines, skirting close to the walls of the school buildings as he goes. The sun is so bright that everything has become faded and washed out in it’s gaze. He can feel the heat radiating from the stone path into the soles of his shoes.
He ducks into a tucked away corner under a connecting bridge between some of the more modern buildings, relishing the drop in temperature under full shade. He can hear the buzzing sound of the generators in the vending machines, keeping their contents cool.
Suguru resists the urge to press his sticky forehead to the glass as he punches in the number for Satoru’s preferred soda. He watches as the vending machine collects the can with a thunking sound. He never hated summer before he came to Jujutsu Tech, but the busy season it’s now become has tainted his opinion considerably. Summer heat lethargy was fine enough to deal with when you weren’t being worked to the bone.
He reaches down to collect the can, something disgustingly sweet and caffeinated, before slotting in more bills and punching in his own order after they’ve finished being sucked into the belly of the machine.
He returns with his spoils, enjoying the cool aluminium against his palms. Satoru hasn’t moved an inch. Hearing his friends return, he reaches out a hand to receive his drink. Suguru presses it into his palm before slumping down against the tree’s rough trunk. He’s already almost finished his own soda, already feeling less parched.
Satoru complains about Yaga again before pulling Suguru’s jacket off of his face. Instead of opening his soda, Satoru presses the can to the side of his throat and sighs in relief. Suguru can’t help but stare at the way Satoru’s head rolls back, the condensation from the can pooling against his flushed skin.
Sunlight trickles through the leaves above him, casting Satoru in a patchwork of warm light and shadow. Bugs buzz around them in the soupy afternoon air, adding a thick layer of background noise to the world. Suguru looks away, feeling a faint breeze play with his bangs and finishes his soda in a big gulp.
“Hey,” Satoru tries to poke him with his foot. Suguru grabs his ankle instinctually. Satoru lets him hold his leg aloft. “We should go swimming later. There has to be a pool somewhere in Tokyo.”
The idea is as tempting as it is horrifyingly public sounding.
“Yaga would throw a fit. Take a shower.”
“Fuck Yaga, the school showers have stupid timers and I get bored. Come on, Suguru.”
Satoru drags his name out, the closest he gets to saying please. Suguru presses the back of his head against the bark behind him and tugs on Satoru’s leg for a moment before letting go. This proves to be a mistake as Satoru pokes him with his foot again, hard. Suguru leans over jabs Satoru forcefully in the ribs before snatching his jacket away from where Satoru has kept it pooled by his head.
“Is this the thanks I get for buying you a drink?” Suguru shakes his jacket out and folds it.
“Don’t tell me you want to stay on campus all summer,” Satoru is incredulous and right. Suguru absolutely does not want to spend all summer on campus or on missions. He wants to leave the world of sorcerers and disappear into the city crowds, nothing more then another young obnoxious teen who doesn’t have a care in the world. He certainly knows Satoru wants to spend some time as a normal high schooler every now and then.
“I’ll ask Shoko if she’s free,” Suguru concedes finally.
Satoru grins smugly, adjusting the can as he shifts around on the ground. He’s already verbally fantasising about some ice cream place or another he wants to drag them to, gesturing with his hands, as Suguru fishes around in his pile of stuff for his phone.
He types out a text, ignoring whatever Satoru is saying until he snaps the phone shut, just in time to watch Satoru crack open his slightly shaken up soda. White foamy liquid immediately spills out and Satoru curses, holding the dripping can as far away from him as he can.
Suguru watches as his best friend squawks in surprise and wants to live in this afternoon forever.
-
They’re in Satoru’s room, which is completely bursting with stuff. Satoru has covered his room with crookedly hung posters and odds and ends. Expensive clothes are piled haphazardly around the room, crawling out of his open closet door. The only thing hung neatly is a traditional kimono Satoru has hung right in the back that Suguru has only glimpsed. His desk is piled with wrappers and unfinished assignments. His bed is perpetually unmade.
Its the kind of swirling chaos created by a teenager who had little to no control over his childhood and is now overcompensating without an understanding of interior decorating. Suguru likes that he’s watched Satoru collect most of the components of his bedroom, from the game cartridges to the blackout curtains.
A handful of Suguru’s things have made their way into the piles, pencils and a t-shirt and a spare book. Proof that he’s tied into Satoru’s life.
They’ve been out on missions for the last couple days and Suguru’s stomach is still rebelling against the newest Curses he’s ingested. The special grade is putting up a fight, refusing to be folded into Suguru’s collection. His energy is draining fast, almost all of it aimed internally. He’d staved off being sick, but frankly he’d prefer throwing up and being done with it then these long drawn out fights.
He’d wanted to check in on Satoru after his mission, which had lead to him stretched out on Satoru’s bed. He’s mindlessly reading, some crime thriller he’s barely following along with, while Satoru perches on his desk chair that he’d dragged below one of his windows, fiddling with his DS.
The sun was rapidly setting, heat breaking off and surrendering to night. Suguru feels the Curse twist, sending a fresh wave of pain and nausea radiating through him. He kind of just wants to be knocked out to let his body deal with this on its own.
They both desperately need to be doing their school work, but neither feel any kind of motivation to write literature papers. The summer increase in Curses made traditional schooling feel a world away, something only reserved for those who’ve never fought a Curse in their life, let alone the strongest sorcerers of the age.
However, Suguru is barely functional and Satoru seems deeply apathetic to anything that isn’t downtime. Yaga will chew them out later.
Suguru groans, setting the book down on his face. He’s too tired to do anything, but too awake to sleep. His hair tickles his neck, spread out on Satoru’s pillow.
He hears Satoru get up, quiet footsteps on hardwood and the continued button mashing, to come and check if Suguru has enough juice.
There seems to be a correlation between strong techniques and psychical consequences like this. Suguru’s nausea wasn’t all that different from Satoru’s migraines, really, and so they’d become pretty attuned to each other’s suffering.
The summer wasn’t helping with Suguru’s misery. Throwing up frequently wasn’t good at keeping him hydrated through the heat, especially since Suguru hated drinking anything at all during bouts of sickness. Satoru and Shoko had jumped on the chance to bully Suguru for his own good, forcing liquids on him constantly.
He appreciated it...deep down.
“Do you want to listen to something?”
Suguru pulled the book off of his face to stare at his friend, who was still looking at his DS. Satoru had never been particularly interested in music. He hadn’t grown up hearing much of it and hadn’t grown attached to it once he’d started high school.
“Do you own any music?”
“Nope, but you do.”
Suguru gives him a searching look, but Satoru’s face doesn’t reveal anything.
“...Yeah. You know where it is?”
Satoru waves him off like the implication he doesn’t know every inch of Suguru’s room is insulting and leaves. Suguru can hear his feet in the hall, then his door swinging open and shut through the thin walls.
Suguru sighs and listens to the first hints of cicadas drifting through the window. Satoru reappears with Suguru’s CD rack under one arm, his CD player under the other, box fan and DS in his left and right hands.
“If you just wanted my fucking fan you could have said so.”
Suguru watched as Satoru walks back over to his chair, the plug for the fan dragging behind him.
“Well I didn’t just want your fucking fan, I also wanted to look at your weird ass music collection.”
Satoru gently dumps everything on the floor, before starting to hook up the fan to an outlet. He generously aims it vaguely towards a middle point between them, all while still glued to his DS.
The fan came to life slowly, rattling as the rotation speed increases.
Satoru finally puts his DS aside to start poking at Suguru’s CDs on the floor. He takes them out individually, looking at the covers, flipping to the back to read the track list. Opening the cases to look at the disks.
Suguru watches Satoru, sitting hunched over in a white tank top and shorts, scanning through Suguru’s possessions with an intense amount of focus. Occasionally, he holds a case up for Suguru to see, only for Suguru to point blank tell him that Satoru would hate it. He would hate most of Suguru’s music.
“What’s this new focus on music about anyway? I thought you’d decided you didn’t have ears.”
Satoru shrugs languidly. “I still don’t get it, but you and Shoko are always talking about musicians and stuff.” His fingers are quick and assured as he handles the CD cases. Suguru can’t help but watch.
“Stop,” Suguru says as Satoru is about to put another album down on the pile of discards. “Put that one on.”
Satoru raises an eyebrow at him, seemingly unimpressed with Suguru’s choice somehow, but pops the case open and drags the CD player closer. He settles the disk inside the player and closes the lid. They listen as the player adjusts the disk with a faint whir before Satoru hits play.
The CD Suguru has chosen for them is something a bit slower, quieter, then his other music, but still full of engaging melodies. He feels like he’s seen Satoru cringe away from jarringly loud songs played in stores and drifting onto the streets of Tokyo.
They lapse into silence for a while, bass blending in with the sounds of summer outside. Satoru leans back on his arms, looking up at the ceiling like he’s thinking. He’s not wearing his sunglasses, a good sign that he’s not feeling overwhelmed today.
“Are you developing a semblance of taste over there?”
“I have plenty of taste, thanks. I have the most taste.” Satoru shrugs, then reaches for his DS again. “This is fine. You should like, burn me a CD sometime. That’s what people do right?”
Suguru feels his throat dry up. He knows that making mixtapes for other people doesn’t necessarily mean anything romantic but ‘boyfriend mixtape’ pops into his head immediately and aggressively. He bats the thought away because this is not one of his set times for indulgence.
“When they’re the kind to demand free labour from their friends, sure.”
Satoru just taps his DS against his chin and winks at him, smug, and Suguru represses the urge to find the quickest way to wipe the smirk off of his face.
They settle into silence again as Suguru continues to try and digest the newest Curse and Satoru plays whatever he’s currently playing, Pokémon maybe. He likes playing all of the Pokémon games for the express purpose of maintaining that they’re inferior to Digimon. Satoru is as quiet as he can get while conscious, which means he still talks to the air about his game. Suguru picks at his book and wonders if his friend is planning to stay up all night and let Suguru use his bed. It’s happened before.
They listen through the album, and then another. Night falls fully and Suguru starts to finally feel better, enough to try and sleep. He curls onto his side, covering himself with a thin sheet and facing the wall, and listens to the last tracks play out.
When the album ends, fading out to be overtaken by cicadas and the fan, Suguru listens as he hears the faintest of floorboard squeaks. The CD player is carefully opened and shut, and Suguru realises that Satoru was putting away his music as quietly as possible. The plastic popping of the case closing was drawn out, as if Satoru paused before doing each corner to make sure Suguru wasn’t disturbed.
The album put away, Suguru traces Satoru as he moves across the room, footfalls lighter then Suguru has ever heard them. A long moment and a click, the lamp being turned off. Satoru shifts back to his chair, and likely continues to play his game. This time there’s no commentary or voiceless frustration.
Suguru slowly rolls over and cracks his eyes open. Satoru’s face is illuminated by the faint light of his DS, face scrunched up in concentration, hair stark against the night behind him.
Maybe his quietness has nothing to do with Suguru, but a part of him wants to think it is. Satoru’s displays of care are halting and odd, but Suguru knows his friend. He knows how much he cares, under all of his arrogance and rudeness.
He wants to beckon him over, insist Satoru rest, tuck his face under his chin.
Suguru has learned not to care much about other’s opinions over the years. His rural childhood had been isolating, the only Curse user in his village, his parents hesitant and unable to help, the rumours that dodged his feet. He’d grown his hair out and pierced his ears and ignored the odd looks.
Suguru had found people like him, had become respected for what had put him apart.
Satoru would always be put apart, set high on a pedestal, and there was nothing he could ever do to fully stop that.
Suguru couldn’t dare make that burden worse.
He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He thought he caught the faint sound of Satoru humming something, abruptly cut off after a few seconds. He smiles into the pillow, letting the sound of cicadas help him drift off.