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The air smells that way that it does when things are new. Unfamiliar, and with a bite to it, a sting of something like paint or polish, something there to remind one the canvas is blank.
The air smells new and the walls are mostly bare and, despite the paint smell, mostly covered in a worn down cream color. The floorboard creaks in a way that's strange right now but Suguru can imagine getting used to it.
Sun filters in through the window at an odd angle and Satoru carries a box through the stream of sunlight, letting it catch on to the cotton of the shirt over his back, stretch over the lines of his form.
The air smells new, but Satoru probably doesn't. He probably smells familiar, though Suguru doesn't know, it's not like he's close enough to smell him, or anything.
Satoru puts down the box on the un-familiar floorboards, next to other, similar boxes, sighing as he raises up, and then he turns to Suguru and his right eye and right ear get caught in that same stream of sunlight.
"Nothing left?"
"No, I paid the moving guy. This is it." Suguru replies smoothly, tossing his keys and wallet on to the kitchen island, one of the only proper surfaces already in the place.
"I thought... Man, honestly,-" Satoru starts, looking around himself, as Suguru pulls his phone out of his pocket. "Honestly, I thought we owned more things." He comments, looking around at the few boxes of their joint belongings, seemingly unaware, or at least undisturbed by, how half of him is glowing from the sunlight. Edges of his white hair burning alight and one eye more electric blue than the other.
Satoru looks at him just in time to see Suguru point his phone camera at him, and he beams for the picture immediately, not questioning until afterwards.
"What?" Satoru laughs "Picture so it lasts longer?"
Suguru shrugs, putting his phone back into his pocket. "We'll eventually forget what the place looks like bare."
Satoru smirks a little, almost fondly, like Suguru's being sentimental, so Suguru supposes it's good he didn't add, maybe I'll eventually forget what you look like, nineteen and with your head caught flame in a sunbeam. So I’m just making sure.
Satoru bought the place. It's madness, buying an entire apartment in Tokyo in your first year of university, and Suguru spent half the summer convincing him to find somewhere to rent instead.
But Satoru's got a filthy inheritance, and one night walking home from the bar, only about half-steady, he told Suguru he wants them to own a place more than anything, a carved out spot in this city just for them. Wants it to be fully their own, on their own terms. He was a little drunk and so sincere and kept saying 'us' and 'our' so Suguru folded.
Now it's this little spot on a simple street, in an old apartment building, the kind with balcony hallways, on the fifth floor, with a pleasant location in the city and only a half-awkward distance away from the train station. It's got two bedrooms, and a living room and dining room in the same space, and no balcony, but windows with sills wide enough to sit on.
"It's not even that scary to stick your feet out." Satoru says, that evening, their first night there, sat down on the window sill with his lanky legs sticking out the apartment "There's a canopy just under."
Truthfully, just under their biggest living room window, there's a concrete canopy of another unit, high enough that you could theoretically fall and only get a good sprained ankle, maybe even be able to climb back up.
Of course — Suguru thinks, as he caries Satoru his takeout to the window, sticks his own legs out and sits by his side — they'd never fall out the window anyway, no matter the height. After all, people don’t normally just fall from where they're sitting, at random, no matter if theres a steady floor under them or a five-story drop.
Still, he concludes with himself, digging into his pad thai, staring out into the unremarkable view of their street, it's certainly more comfortable when there's no risk to falling.
Or, whatever.
"I'm too excited to go to sleep." Satoru mumbles, handing back Suguru his cigarette, still out on the windowsill with their empty takeout boxes on the floor behind them and their socked feet dangling in the air, safe above the canopy.
He loves to steal drags from Suguru's cigarettes but almost never accepts an entire one, except for when he's drunk. Suguru doesn't get it, not really, but he lets him anyway.
He laughs in agreement, bringing the filter to his lips and not thinking about how it was just between Satoru's, because they're best friends and share drinks and food and cigarettes all the time, and it's no big deal, Suguru can't even taste Satoru's thai order around the filter or anything.
"Still feels unreal, doesn't it?"
"I keep dreading having to go back to the family house." Satoru says. (He never refers to the house he grew up in as 'home'. Suguru's only heard him say 'home' when he's really tired and he's sleeping over at Suguru's and he’s mumbling 'Let's head home'.) "And then I remember I don't ever have to." He says, smiling.
"Honestly, I keep waking up vaguely feeling like i need to head to highschool." Suguru adds, though a small laugh, and Satoru rolls his eyes.
"Bleh. Thank god we're not still there." He says, looking down at his feet swinging a little, heels bumping into the wall under him. Most of the light comes from inside the apartment, warm-lit and yellow in the blueish night, with only faint twinkling streetlights. "Only good part was that I saw you every day."
"You absolutely still see me every day."
"Well it’s not all day, anymore!”
"Now that we live here it will be." Suguru counters, laughing a little bit.
Satoru huffs, a little childish. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe we’ll manage to compensate some of that lost time."
Suguru laughs, looks ahead and takes another drag of his cigarette, wisps of smoke curling in the late summer air "You're codependent."
"Yeah, yeah." Satoru sighs. "I know you're full of shit. You miss class with me, too."
"I don't gotta." Suguru shrugs. He stubs out his cigarette and flicks it off hard enough it doesn't get stuck on the canopy. "You're my roommate now."
Satoru snorts and kicks his ankle.
"Corny." He scolds.
"You started it."
Too full of some childish giddiness to fall asleep in their new rooms, they do so on their shitty, tiny sofa, tucked away in the living room.
They doze off watching a movie on a laptop set up on a TV table, and Suguru wakes up far-too-early in the morning with dull pain in his neck and his lower back, where he's scooted low enough on the sofa for his head to lean on the backrest, and with Satoru's head comfortably on his shoulder.
He can tell by the dawn light, which he now gets to see for the first time creep into their living room, that it's too early to do anything but fall back asleep. So he postpones the crank in his bones by shifting around a little bit, and leans his face into the mess of white hair under his jaw. He leans his cheek atop Satoru's hair, face getting buried in the colorless strands, inhales heartily and falls asleep to the (familiar) smell there, warmth overtaking him easily.
It doesn’t ever spill out, that boiling heat Suguru caries around within himself.
It mostly just simmers, somewhere between comforting and suffocating, and it swirls around his iris’ and his fingertips, this molten adoration.
It’s not a loud thing, not a flood coming out from under closed doors, not a fire.
At nineteen years old, Suguru thinks maybe he knows love is less like that, and more like frail beams of sunlight and socked feet on wooden floors and tendrils of smoke in the streetlights, and a sense of comfort deep enough to quench even the most melancholic of souls, like his own.
He doesn’t get time to sit around and marvel at what has become of his life.
It’s busy, these days. It’s piles of classes and lectures, papers to be written, all-nighters to be pulled, and every other waking moment is full to the brim with life. It’s ‘wanna get coffee’ and ’Shoko’s saying drinks tonight’ and ‘what are you doing for lunch?’.
It’s a lot of ‘pick up milk’ and ‘i forgot my key’ and ‘the faucet’s leaking again’.
Suguru’s blinked and suddenly he has a life, that he didn’t just happen into, wasn’t just born into, but built himself.
And as it turns out, it’s all blue.
It's all pale blue color, and pale eyelashes, and the sun in the center of his god damn solar system is so undeniably Satoru himself, Suguru simply doesn't know any other way to be.
He didn't think it through too much. He didn't think much would change with this move.
Him and Satoru already lived in each other's pockets in highschool, how different could rooming together be?
But then it's two in the morning in the empty laundry room of their apartment building and Satoru's eyes are droopy and his voice is a little quiet but he still talks with his heart on his sleeve, bare and uncool around Suguru like he rarely is around others. And Suguru thinks falling feels a little bit endless and a little bit like flying.
And then he turns to him in the pale light and says "You're staring at me weird." and Suguru thinks how that tracks, probably, considering the world feels blurry around Satoru, in this moment.
He doesn’t know why he can’t contain his staring, tonight, or these days in general. Maybe he's too tired, energy drinks he's had having run their course and his paper still sitting half unfinished in their apartment upstairs. Maybe he can't take how Satoru looks like something he dreamt up during every tiniest moment, how he looks angelic even while tired and washed out in the harsh lights.
There's that thing, large and hot within him, and it makes Suguru up, is part of him, and it’s becoming less and less containable.
"'m tired." Suguru mumbles, which is true, and Satoru makes a sweet, uncharacteristically sympathetic pout.
He reaches out and smooths Suguru's hair away from his temple, and Suguru almost falls into it, into the touch, almost asks Satoru if maybe he could hold his head cupped in his palms and Suguru could take a nap there, standing.
Satoru puts his palm back by his side where they're leaning on turned off washing machines, watching their laundry roll around, and Suguru doesn't miss the warmth, doesn't need to be pampered, he pointedly thinks to himself.
"I feel like it can't be good to sleep as little as you do." Satoru mumbles, a thinly vailed admission of slight concern wrapped up in a throwaway comment.
"You're speaking." Suguru huffs, rubbing at his eye and recovering from feeling Satoru's hand on his face, in his hair.
"I always slept little, it doesn't count." Satoru says. It's true. He spends his nights mostly-awake, always has, somehow gets by on stolen naps and much more energy than one would expect anyone alive could have.
Suguru, however, has always clung to warm bedsheets, always clung to slow mornings. It's just that lately, there's been so much school and so many people and so many things to do, he's just a bit tired, is all.
Satoru, though, says "You’re being weird, lately."
"'m not being weird."
"You are. You stare off into space and sleep like twice a week." Satoru says, leaning back, and Suguru sighs and decides he prefers letting Satoru think he's staring off into space, not staring at him specifically.
"Just exams, man. It's fine." Suguru says, and Satoru lets him drop it, for the time being, though the little tense line between his brows tells Suguru he won't forget his concern.
Suguru's not unhappy.
He's the happiest he's ever been, even, happier than he ever could have imagined being.
And so maybe it's that.
Maybe it's that this comfort has made him greedier. Maybe it's that now that he's got it all, his freedom and his future and his space and his friends and this whole life he always strived for, he finds himself aching for the one thing he doesn't let himself think he could ever have.
They were fifteen, when they decided to live together. When Satoru's house was too cold and large and full of strange servants, and Suguru's too small and loud and cruel, and they'd find spots in their neighborhood, like behind the supermarket, to soak up the sun and evade their homes for the afternoon.
It seems whatever fight Satoru had with his father, who was home for the week but usually mostly away, upset him particularly, because he’s quiet today, fingers slightly sticky from his ice cream cone.
“Only couple more years.” Suguru said, aiming to make him feel better. “Then you’re free to leave this place behind.”
Satoru sighs, leaning back on the steps they’re sitting on.
He looks deep in thought for a second, scrawny and still a little bit baby-faced, with a glossiness to his eyes like he’s holding back something of great weight.
“I wouldn’t wanna leave you behind.” Satoru mumbles, eventually, like that’s all he came up with.
Suguru’s fifteen, and he knows he’s in love. It’s just that he feels entirely too young and entirely too lost to be such a thing as in-love, with this boy no less, and his scraped knees and wild eyes, so he largely ignores it.
He doesn’t really think about what that means for him. He thinks maybe one day they’ll grow out of all of that, and his love for Satoru will bleed into something normal and adult and steady, some regular, grown-up friendship the world could understand.
He thinks they’ll eventually (though he never pictures precisely when) grow out of the lingering touches and the lingering tension they’ve been living in since they grew a little into their bodies.
So, foolish and in-love and unthinking of consequences, he says “I’ll come with you, obviously.”
Because he really wants to, he says it. Because he’d really like this daydream he’s just come up with to come true, some future where they’re sharing a kitchen, sharing a life.
Satoru perks up, smiling only half-shyly. “Yeah?”
Suguru shrugs, like it’s whatever, looks down at the tip of his sneaker. “Sure. When we’re eighteen, we could rent a place, somewhere. Go… Go to school, and work, n stuff.”
Suguru doesn’t look at Satoru’s face, feigning casualty, but he hears him breathe out a laugh. “Both school and work?”
“Well yeah, jackass, what are we gonna pay rent with?”
“My millions.” Says Satoru, and despite his scraped knees and messy hair, he’s teasing, but he’s not joking.
Suguru huffs and pushes at his shoulder. “I thought you were getting away from all of that.”
“Yeah, the bore. Not the money that is mine!” Satoru says, and Suguru laughs at him.
“You plan to fund our bohemian lifestyle with your inheritance? That’s a bit poser-ish.” Suguru says, and Satoru shrugs, spreading out long, boyish legs on the steps in front of him.
“It doesn’t have to be bohemian. It could just be- like, normal.” He says, his sentence wrapping up in this softer tone that disarms Suguru a little bit.
That would be nice, Suguru thinks, then. Just to live with him. Just normally.
He’s fifteen, though, so he says “Nothing more normal than a centuries old inheritance.”
Satoru rolls his eyes, softness stubbed out “You’ll love it when it’s paying your bills.”
(Satoru only manages to convince him to use his inheritance for their home the very summer before they move.)
And from then on, all of highschool was ‘when we move out’ and ‘when we leave’ and ‘when it’s just us’.
And Suguru vaguely recognizes he’s spent the entire time only falling deeper in love, and he still doesn’t confront it, not really.
He cherishes it as something sweet, tucked into his ribcage, and guards it selfishly, and most of him still hopes someday he’ll learn that what he has is enough, that he’ll wake up one day and think he was young and foolish when he used to think he should ask for more.
Another, smaller part of him grows up with this timid, flickering thing of hope.
Maybe they grow into it instead of out of it, that little bit of him hopes, somewhere under all the years.
He tries not to think about it, yet thinks maybe he’ll cary that hope around till he’s old and gray.
Now he spends his midnights fishing out his phone and his tobacco from the messy clutter of empty beer glasses on the bar table, Satoru lingering, waiting for him halfway out the door, so they can venture through the warm night to their home.
(They start calling their place home immediately. Now it’s been a few months and the hairs on Suguru’s nape still stand up straight when Satoru leans into his space to whisper, let’s go home. Though that might just be ‘cause of the warm breath on the shell of his ear.)
He holds the door for Satoru and they fall into step and Suguru’s life has become an unbroken series of desires. The current, miserable one is this genuinely instinctual and terrifyingly deep desire to hold Satoru’s hand while they walk.
(That’s, really, the worst kind of desire. He can’t even blame it on youth or horniness, or anything, he just has to live with that bit of him that’s so horribly soft.)
He doesn’t hold his hand but he holds Satoru’s lower back when he stumbles, laughs at him as they walk home, cheeks a little flushed and youth bright and alive in their chests.
Satoru’s clumsy when he’s tipsy, and Suguru’s dumb warm hands reach out to him under any excuse at all, at every waking moment.
“You’ve got class in the morning.” Suguru tells him, at the traffic light. It’s late but the crowd on this crossing isn’t insignificant, the sheer size of this city swallowing them up.
Satoru rolls his eyes “’m not even drunk.” He says, and Suguru guides him slightly by the hand on the small of his back when they start crossing, because there’s a lot of people and Satoru’s half disoriented and really far too tall to be such a lightweight.
“You,” Suguru says, tugging at his hand once they’re back on the sidewalk. Not intertwining their fingers, or anything, just tugging. “-are going the wrong way.”
Suguru’s smiling at Satoru as he drags him the right way but Satoru doesn’t really smile back at him, only smiles distantly at the ground.
“…What?”
“I’m really not drunk.” Satoru says, and his hand slips out of Suguru’s grasp spontaneously as they start walking in the right direction and Suguru doesn’t pick it back up like he wants to. “I was just headed for Yotsuya.”
Yotsuya Station’s the one they used to go to, home after the bar, back when they lived with their parents, back when Satoru used to have to sneak in and out of his window to go hang out in the city.
“Oh.” Suguru mumbles. “You… still feel like you live there?”
Satoru shrugs, the city a blur around him. “Not really.” He admits “I just… You know- feels too good to be true, huh?”
Suguru laughs, quiet, and the city almost swallows it up, though the street slowly gets quieter as they head up towards the area they now call theirs.
“Yeah.” He laughs. “I know what you mean.”
It is almost too good to be true. Suguru unlocks their front door from the open apartment building hallway and Satoru leans his forehead on his nape, and his breath is warm, and his proximity is warm.
“My head hurts.” He mumbles, as the door opens.
Suguru turns as they move to step in, nose hovering right by Satoru’s temple, looks at him carefully from up close.
“Migrane?”
Satoru shakes his head, those stupid, big blue eyes staring back at Suguru, easy in their intimacy and face so unguarded Suguru can never get enough of that rare sight.
“Just Tequila Sunrise.” He says, lips tugging into a half-sheepish smile, and Suguru huffs, begrudgingly fond, and turns to enter.
Suguru moves through their apartment practiced through the dark, slipping out of his shoes and washing his hands and filling up a glass of water and leaving it for Satoru on the kitchen island.
Satoru follows with his routine a bit slower, stands by the glass on the edge of the island and stares at it for a moment before wrapping his fingers around it.
“Thanks.” He mumbles. And adds, after a moment, a statement: “You left the lights off for me.”
“Yeah.” Suguru says, like it’s obvious, tugging off his hair tie, leaning on the side of his room’s doorway. “Your headache would get worse.”
Satoru stares down at his glass for another moment, like something about it confuses him, and then he says “You take good care of me.” Quietly, and without fuss, he confesses this.
Suguru smiles, says “Goodnight, ‘toru.” and disappears into his room.
He thinks their friends know.
He thinks his sisters know and that his old classmates know and he thinks maybe even his mom knows.
He thinks everybody that’s ever known them could see Suguru’s affections gushing from his eyes like tears.
Yet he tries not to wonder whether or not Satoru knows.
At the end of the day, Suguru has no clue with what goal in mind they’re playing this game. He doesn’t know if they intend to some day wrap up all this intimacy into something worth naming, or if they intend to die rather than speak, and he does not know if Satoru knows he loves him, and he does not know how exactly Satoru loves him back.
So he sits around in uncertainty and ignores it, stuffs it down, and pretends he has no greater desires than what already sits in his lap.
Everyone knows, but he never told anyone.
It feels wrong to tell people, even their friends. He’s possessive of his own affections. The love he owns feels too personal to show anyone at all.
No one gets to know how he’s enraptured with the way Satoru twitches in his sleep or holds his pencil strange or hums around the house when he forgets he isn’t alone. Those things feel private.
Shoko’s the only one who ever mentions it, who doesn’t politely pretend she doesn’t see it in his eyes.
She tells him, over half a beer and half a joint and a shitty view from her small balcony, mostly overlooking just another building, when everyone went home and Satoru fell asleep on the couch, “You’re miserable.”
“That’s not true.” Suguru says, immediately, truthfully, exhaling smoke into the night and pointedly looking away from where he was staring at Satoru’s sleeping form, which he can see through the glass.
“You look like a baroque painting portraying yearning and misery.” She counters, looking at him all sharp and knowing, and Suguru huffs a laugh, rolling his eyes.
“Well, maybe, but I’m not sad.” He says, shrugs and takes another drag and really feels like the little bit of weed is just undoing the beer he had more than anything. “I’m perfectly happy. Truly.”
“But you could be happier, I think.” Shoko says and takes the joint from him in a practiced motion.
“Isn’t that how you lose things?” He says, more to the second building across the street than to Shoko. “By being too greedy?”
Shoko sighs and takes her own drag, takes her sweet time answering, and then says “That’s a really smart-sounding, martyr excuse to keep denying yourself happiness out of fear.”
He doesn’t respond and they smoke the rest of their half-a-joint in quiet.
Suguru returns inside and crouches by Satoru asleep on the couch and whispers “‘toru?”
Satoru grumbles, frowning, and Suguru feels bad for waking him but he knows Satoru would hate it more if he left without saying anything.
“I’m gonna head back, there’s no space for me to sleep here.”
Satoru, frowning, and mostly refusing to open his eyes, shuffles back and says “’s space on the couch.”
Suguru chuckles fondly, and though he’d most rather fit into a tiny spot with Satoru for the night, there absolutely is no space on the couch.
“I called a cab already.” Suguru says, absolutely unable to help himself as he pushes some of Satoru’s hair back, some stubborn strands he kept trying to sleepily blink out of his eyes. “Call me when you wake up.”
Satoru groans a little again, as Suguru stands up, mumbles “Wait.”
Satoru raises himself up to sit clumsily, blinking hard and fast, trying to wake himself up.
“I’m coming with you.” He mumbles, stubbornly, with his hair flat on one side and eyes a little swollen from sleep and a streak on his cheek and he’s probably still a little high and he looks terribly sleepy— and Suguru’s heart squeezes so violently it almost punches the air out of him.
“Alright.” He says, softly, instead of doing what he really wants which is squeezing Satoru to his chest like a stuffed toy and burying his face in white hair. “Let’s go home.”
Satoru’s mostly quiet the whole way home and he falls asleep on his shoulder in the cab and the next morning Suguru gets to wake up to coffee and sleep-mused white hair waiting for him in his kitchen.
What Shoko said is silly, Suguru decides.
The way everyone looks at him with some odd sort of fond-pity, pity for how bad he has it, and a general fondness for young love, that’s stupid, too.
He’s not miserable and he doesn’t need any pity.
Really, if they saw Satoru how Suguru did, they’d get it. None of them would risk it either, none of them would think about it more than Suguru does.
Suguru thinks every mortal man would do the same, would sit with their feelings soft in their chest and let them consume them, if they had Satoru Gojo in their lives like he does.
Satoru makes Suguru laugh so hard when they get lunch between their classes soda comes up to his nose, and he knocks on his bedroom door three times when he hears Suguru having nightmares, comes in just to wake him, hangs out with him int the dead of night until he feels better, and he leaves candy wrappers and formula sheets everywhere, and he sings in the shower, and he’s like the sun, to Suguru, he really is. He’s like bustling energy personified, speaking to him is like reading a book you can’t put down.
He’s sweet like pear juice, to Suguru, pale and crisp and honey-like, and only a fool would dare try and confine him to themselves.
Like an old married couple, their friends tease them.
It’s true, probably, with the way they bicker, and the way they can sit in silence as comfortably as they can finish each other’s sentences, and the way they easily spend every day around each other, like a little, two person family, like an old married couple.
The words old and married in relation to Satoru make Suguru feel warm and also kind of sick, though, so he usually just smiles and lets the joke fly by with the rest of conversation.
Suguru’s reading a book, for once free of classwork for the evening, telling himself he isn’t waiting for Satoru to return, though he cannot imagine going to bed without at leas texting him goodnight.
Satoru was out with some friends from his course, and they don’t usually hang out much, but he went this time, and Suguru didn’t come with because he’s not, like, Satoru’s girlfriend, or anything, they can go out without each other.
Besides, Suguru trusts him. He’s not exactly sure with what, though, considering he owes Suguru absolutely nothing, but he trusts him anyway, like a lover would.
Satoru comes in earlier than Suguru expected him, maybe even before midnight, smelling like smoke and maybe a little bit underwhelmed, but largely completely normal.
“Back already?” He asks, flipping a page and listening to familiar sounds of Satoru taking his shoes off and digging around in the fridge.
He returns with the sound of his strawberry soda can fizzing open slowly, with his shirt unbuttoned and sleeves pulled up, looking terribly, deliciously at-home.
“Boring without you.” Satoru states simply, and Suguru snorts, because Satoru’s joking, probably. “And this one girl wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Something ugly curdles in Suguru’s stomach, then, though he keeps his eyes on the letters he’s no longer registering. “What girl?” He asks, aiming for mild but immediately feeling like that was too fast of a reaction.
Satoru sighs, leaning his head back, hand brushing through his hair. He’s, really, far too handsome to just be sitting around some living room in vaguely-central Tokyo, existing around Suguru shamelessly, like it’s no big deal he just looks like that. “I don’t know, she’s from the chemistry course, we see her in the lab… Her name’s… Um, Ayano, maybe. It’s- it’s some A name, I dunno.”
“Do you like her?” Suguru blurts, before he can stop himself, and kind of regrets it already when Satoru turns to look at him, genuinely confused.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He says it sort of like,
God, sort of like he does owe something to Suguru. Some fidelity they never agreed upon.
Hell, he says it like he might know he could break Suguru apart if he wanted to, like he knows he’s got his heart in his long pale palms and like he plans to be good to it.
And Suguru wants to tell him he doesn’t need to be responsible for him. Wants to tell him, you know, if you want to hook up with some girl, you should be able too, you should let yourself exist without me, be young without me.
Except that Suguru’s selfish and if he said that he wouldn’t mean it one bit, would be lying to his face, because no random girl from the lab could ever be good to him and no one should ever have him but Suguru.
(He doesn’t tell him that either.)
“You seem upset about it.” Suguru says, and Satoru shakes his head.
“No… I’m good, just- I dunno. Everybody was cheering her on, like it was fun for them. I felt weird about it. She- well, to my understanding, she just wanted ‘something casual’ and everybody, like, wanted me to let loose, go home with her, and I…”
Satoru trails off, and Suguru puts down his book, sympathetic. “That sounds shitty. I’m sorry.”
Satoru shrugs it off, says “No one meant any harm. I just- I don’t know. It felt like I was the weird one, for not wanting to go and fuck somebody that doesn’t even know me.”
“I don’t think that’s weird.” Suguru confirms, easily. Satoru smiles slightly at him, a private little thing.
Neither of them have been in relationships before. Neither of them even sought them out before.
One could say that’s weird, maybe, at their age, but they never really spoke to each other about it. Sure, they talked about anything and everything with each other, stuff sometimes personal enough to make Suguru’s insides feel vaguely on fire and his evenings full of cold showers, but never why they never saw other people.
“Would you want to, if she did know you?” Suguru says, obviously without much thought to it, still blurting things out on impulse, faced with some fear he usually tries to ignore.
“What?”
“Like, would you… Would you want to get to know somebody like that?”
Satoru looks at him with a small, delicate frown for a second, and Suguru stares back helplessly, fearing his eyes clearly ask for reassurance he should’t be owed.
“Not really.” Satoru says, after a second.
“...No?”
“No. I’ve got people that know me. I don’t need some girl.” He says, and they’re making a bit of a mess of themselves, here, on their shitty sofa, but Suguru feels completely, tragically relived.
Suguru smiles almost shakily at him and Satoru smiles back and Jesus Christ, they’re definitely making a mess. Suguru’s heart soars.
Most of the time, Suguru doesn’t have the audacity to imagine Satoru is his.
Sure, when he was younger he’d sit on his train to school and imagine one day kissing him, when they’re older and smarter, imagine Satoru smiling and saying something corny like from the movies, like ‘finally’, imagine dumb stuff like that— but that’s just that deep-buried bit of him that liked to hope.
Most of him, especially now that he’s older, doesn’t delve into such daydreams. But there’s this horrible, filthy kind of fantasy, he can’t control.
Living with Satoru has put Suguru in a proximity to him that’s frankly dizzying sometimes.
Suguru’s principled and disciplined and generally stable and responsible, but there’s only so much of Satoru’s pale thighs around the house a mortal man can handle, there’s only so much time he can spend watching his back and not wishing he could taste the delicate line of his spine.
He doesn’t know if Satoru understands how Suguru’s world begins and ends with him but he fears he might understand he can make Suguru feel hot from within with the littlest things, though he might just find it funny, and not understand the depth of it either.
It’s just that he grins triumphantly when he puts his bare legs into Suguru’s lap casually and makes Suguru lose track of his sentence. And when they’re leaving for whatever party or club or bar and Satoru cleans up just a little bit and asks ‘how do i look?’ and then smiles, positively glowing with satisfaction, when Suguru looks him up and down slowly, helplessly greedy for the sight, coughs out ‘nice’ with his throat tight.
Suguru has considered telling Satoru to stop playing with him, before, to stop getting his satisfaction from Suguru’s pathetic desires, but he, firstly, doesn’t actually hold it against him, could never hold it against him, and secondly, would never say anything that makes Satoru take his legs out of his lap, make him stop asking to massage his shoulders when he’s been hunched over homework for too long.
Some days are torture. He almost wishes his affections ended at sappy yearning, but some filthy, embarrassing, too human part of him, has other plans, and so some days he wakes up grinding into his mattress half asleep and chasing blurry dreams of a pretty lean torso littered with little purple marks, imagines he’s really holding on to strong thighs, that the world around him is so scorching hot his head is spinning, and he knows, he’s at least half-awake, he knows it’s not real, but Satoru leans behind himself and holds on to the headboard, mouth slack, back arching, bruised chest glistening, and Suguru spills trembling into his pyjama pants.
And then he has to watch that same stupid shirtless torso, only real this time, eat breakfast at their kitchen island, and thankfully Suguru’s always quiet and grumpy in the mornings so Satoru doesn’t notice images from his dreams are flashing in his head, making shame burn through his chest and his stupid fucking dick twitch in his jeans.
It’s, perhaps, the most violent part of his unfed desires he let himself lean into. If only because sexual urges are only natural, and Suguru’s never wanted anyone else, so really, what could he do to help it? Never be horny? It’s not exactly possible. He just wishes the object of every small and large, dirty and chaste, faraway and immediate, desire, wasn’t both exactly by his side and so far out of reach, every waking moment of his days.
Though, when he thinks things like that, he immediately changes his mind, too.
Christ, he’d probably take all kinds of torture to keep being this miserably insatiable, if Satoru’s by his side. That’s the whole fucking mess of this, that’s his whole tragedy.
Sometimes, if they host drinks and there’s people sleeping over, the two of them will share a bed, if only to give someone else a spot to sleep in, and then, even if his eyes keep trying to close form whatever he drank or smoked or from exhaustion, Suguru will lay on his side, and stare.
Greedily, he will take in the sight of him for as long as he can, like he can’t know when he will get to chance to watch him sleep again.
God, watch him sleep, maybe he should consider himself creepy.
But if he’s particularly tired or particularly intoxicated, he will lean in and kiss his temple, lips lingering, hold him close, and Satoru will melt into it so so sweetly surely it’s not a crime, surely he’s allowed all this yearning that he does.
Suguru feels some boiling point approaching, and ignores it, if only so he can pretend he’s not actively letting it happen.
Like when they’re half hidden away in Nanami’s kitchen one night. They’re in there to pick up drinks for everyone, and Satoru’s hands are full of cans he took from the fridge, and right before Suguru picks up his share, Satoru goes.
“Wait, I want one.”
“Hm?” Suguru asks, grabbing one can and reaching for the other.
“The little cakes, let me try one.”
In the middle of the fridge sits a platter, half full, of little lemony-looking cakes, and Suguru looks at Satoru strangely. Satoru, with his arms full of beer, insists,
“Please?”
“Nanami won’t like you eating his sweets.”
Satoru huffs like he doesn’t care, as Suguru reaches for one.
Suguru takes the delicate cake and offers it out to him, tucking the beer can he’s holding into his elbow, reaching for another one, not even looking back at Satoru until the latter huffs.
Suguru turns at him. “What?”
“My hands are full. Give me the cake.” He insists, and Suguru frowns at his brattiness, and then offers up the sweet without thinking much about it, and then Satoru leans forward, and, honest to good, looks Suguru in the eye, through his lashes, and takes both the cake and the tips of Suguru’s fingers into his mouth, obscenely far, to his first knuckle.
He licks it into his mouth, licking down the tips of Suguru’s pointer finger to carry off any lingering frost, the sweetness that would have ended up there, and then pops off his fingers, smiling around the sweet like he maybe caught the way Suguru’s pupils probably fucking dilated.
“What?” He asks, though he’s grinning like he did it on purpose.
“That’s,” Suguru clears his throat. Truthfully, he feels like a wild fucking animal, at the moment, thinks that stupid, immature gesture, got him at least half-hard in his jeans and that he can’t really form anything smart to say at the moment. “Indecent.”
Satoru snorts. “Prude.”
“Freak.” He says back, almost fondly, still a little breathy.
“You like it.” Satoru says, and carries out the cans, leaves Suguru with his fingers damp and his elbow cold from the beer he’s holding, there in the refrigerator light, to himself.
Suguru glances at his slightly slick fingers and considers for a moment, in the privacy of this kitchen, sucking them into his own mouth, tasting lemon frosting and spit. Than as soon as he thinks it both arousal and clarity somehow hit him at the same time, so he puts the beers down and puts his fingers under a stream from the kitchen sink and stares at his hand until his blood stops boiling.
He comes back into the living room and Satoru asks him what took so long with an evil little smile, and Suguru complains he left him without help to carry the rest of the drinks, and Satoru grins but stops embarrassing him.
Suguru might be going mad, but he thinks instances like that keep getting worse and worse and he doesn’t dare consider that old hope of his, that they might grow into it all.
Besides, Satoru’s just fucking around, enjoying Suguru’s very blatant and poorly repressed attractions. It doesn’t have to mean anything as deep as the yearning in the smack dab center of Suguru’s soul.
He gets a sick satisfaction out of it, even, maybe.
It hurts, a little bit, the temptation, yet Suguru finds he lives day by day anticipating another little incident, finds himself wishing for those terrible moments where Satoru teases him and Suguru gets to feel things like his legs in his lap or see his bare chest or feel his- God- his mouth around his fingers.
He finds, horribly, that he’s willing to live on scraps, willing to do anything it takes to keep things as good as he has them.
He thinks it was Satoru, then, that’s had enough of his cowardice.
Rhythmic thumps echo from the cutting board, Suguru thinly cutting the vegetables for their dinner with his fingers folded inwards, some quiet record spinning in the background from their living room.
Satoru sits on the counter and occasionally takes sips out the wine glass that’s supposed to be used in Suguru’s cooking, and fills the rest of the silence with easy chatter. Suguru lets it wash over him and tries to appreciate the small moment while he’s living it, this pocket of utter peace.
“Maybe we are codependent.” Satoru concludes, halfway through.
“Because you didn’t go?” Suguru asks, not looking up from his bell pepper.
Satoru’s friends from his course went out again tonight. It was only about an hour ago that he canceled, complaining to Suguru he’s comfortable in his sweatpants and would rather eat the dinner Suguru was going to make, so now they’re here, in their cramped little kitchen, alone on a Friday night.
“Because I genuinely get bored when I can’t talk to you.” Satoru says, and Suguru can’t help but smile a little without glancing up at him, something like a sort of triumph twinkling in his chest as he methodically cuts vegetables, a gentle pride. Then Satoru ruins it, muses theatrically “Though maybe that Ayano would have been there, I could have hung out with her…”
Suguru’s head almost snaps to the side to look at him, brows furrowed, and the cold in his chest immediately shifts to annoyance when he sees Satoru’s shit-eating grin.
“No way you fell for that.” He says through his grin, and Suguru rolls his eyes heavily, huffing as he turns back to his vegetables. Satoru laughs at that, seemingly proud of himself. “Wow, I thought I saw you get jealous last time, but man…” He laughs, and Suguru’s brow twitches in annoyance a little.
“Asshole.” Suguru mutters.
Satoru lets his laugh fade into a satisfied sigh, and then he asks, after a short moment, “It really bothers you that much?” He sounds almost tentative now, and Suguru cuts another bell pepper in half. “Imagining me with some girl?”
“No.” Suguru says, stubbornly, and doesn’t even sound convincing to himself.
Truthfully, it freaks the fuck out of him, imagining Satoru’s pretty hands on some soft waist, some dainty little arms on his shoulders, fingers in his hair, God, Suguru is going to be sick. He cuts his pepper stubbornly and hears Satoru huff out a laugh that sounds almost fond.
“It’s fine.” Satoru says, to nobody’s comfort “It’s cute, even.” He says, and Suguru huffs again, trying to ignore how Satoru’s shifted to look at his embarrassment from up closer.
“Suguru.” He calls, when Suguru insists on not giving him the satisfaction of looking back. Suguru feels a hand, the pads of a few fingers, right under the opposite side of the jaw, raising his head up. His heart stutters. “Look at me.” Satoru whispers.
So Suguru does, maybe a little bit startled, stares back at Satoru, finds his face is hovering right above his, his hand gentle on the side of his jaw. Satoru smiles, once, terribly fond, and then, without any warning at all, leans in and kisses Suguru right on the lips.
Suguru’s chest fills with air too fast and his eyes go a little wide and his hands freeze on the cutting board, at the first soft press of lips over his, feeling what’s happening but not quite registering it yet.
And then Satoru’s lips move, gentle, over his, coaxing him to kiss him properly, and Suguru melts, eyes fluttering shut, knife clattering quietly on the board as he lets go of it.
Satoru cups his face with both hands, angles it towards him, and Suguru just lets him, feeling so suddenly undone he can’t think a single thing. It’s one of those moments when he’s far too aware of it’s significance as it’s happening, can’t quite wrap his head around it, can’t think around the adrenaline and the years and years and years of longing, far too many years for somebody so young.
Suguru lets himself be kissed, for that moment, lets Satoru into his mouth and kisses back as carefully as he knows how to, feeling terribly reverent.
That’s until their lips separate for the first time, foreheads hovering over each other, and Suguru’s eyes slip open just enough to see Satoru’s heavy eyelids and damp lips, and then he lets out this stuttering breath, like a sigh, so fragile in the air between them, so sweet, it snaps Suguru out of stillness.
He surges back against his lips, losing real control of his body, and Satoru’s legs, in their soft sweatpants and fuzzy house socks, part to let him in, Suguru’s hands wrapping around his waist instinctively.
Satoru’s ankles lock behind him, his elbows resting on his shoulders, one hand climbing into Suguru’s loose hair, licking into his mouth, and Suguru’s head swims like he’s drunk.
Satoru’s tongue and taste invade his senses, finally, finally feeling close enough to Suguru, and Suguru swallows down every kiss and lick and drop of spit, moves his jaw carefully and kisses him back like he’s never had to savor a thing like he does this.
Suguru’s hands spread on Satoru’s sides, and he can feel him breathing under his palms, can feel his bones and muscles moving slightly under his skin and shirt as they make out, and he feels so real and so alive Suguru can’t forget for a second this isn’t some dream. Their kissing is messy and a little wet, because Suguru can’t hold back and Satoru doesn’t seem to want him to, instead kisses back as deeply and as sweetly, the embrace getting hotter and hotter until Suguru doesn’t know how they could possibly part without him losing his mind.
Both of them are mostly quiet, but that just makes the softest noises louder, gentle smacking of lips, Satoru’s small breaths and sighs audible and precious and disarming, his fingers tangling into Suguru’s hair.
He hasn’t exactly gathered what it is that they’re doing, with this, and doesn’t seem to have the brainpower to wonder what happens when they separate. It creeps in as a distant fear under all the passion and Suguru’s hands shake and he’s a weak, weak man, and he’s already crumbling, so he might as well take all he can while he’s got this chance.
Satoru notices, maybe, from the desperate way in which he kisses or his trembling hands, separates their lips by leaning his forehead on Suguru’s, whispers “You’re freaking out. Don’t freak out.” He says, voice delectably breathy.
Suguru shakes his head, absolutely displeased with the distance between them. “‘m not. I- just-“ He mumbles, distractedly, and then kisses Satoru again. Deep and sincere, and Satoru moans quietly into it, seemingly not strong enough to resist either.
Satoru’s locked ankles behind them pull Suguru closer, his thighs firm around his hips, and he shifts with their kissing enough to eventually, abruptly firmly, grind their crotches together.
Suguru’s mouth slackens over Satoru’s, a gruttal, loud moan startled out of him when Satoru’s clothed erection rubs over his own, just off enough to be teasing, just real enough to make him almost pass out. Satoru whimpers quietly into his open mouth, licks into it, coaxes him back to kissing as Suguru loses control of his hips, twitching back against Satoru.
“You’re so hard.” Satoru whispers, smiling into their kiss, marveling, and Suguru kisses him again, which is quickly becoming a preferred alternative to saying ‘shut up’.
Suguru, hooked on the feeling, can’t help but grab on to Satoru, his sides and hips and ass, guiding him to keep rocking against him, without thinking. A steady rhythm makes proper warmth, like a drug, erupt in his head, in his veins, and Satoru moans a bit louder now, and Suguru doesn’t even know what noises he’s making, feels properly out of it.
Pleasure begins to be real, not just a haze of resolved longing in his mind, but actual friction on his cock, not that stimulating but simultaneously without a doubt the best thing he’s ever felt. Maybe it’s got something to do with the way Satoru’s hips messily follow his rhythm, rocking against each other, the way he gasps into his mouth. Just the fact that's it's Satoru he's doing this with turns him on so bad he damn near blacks out.
Suguru kisses his jaw, thinks to gasp out “Is this- ‘toru, is this okay,-” He slurs, grabbing at his thigh firmer, lifting it a little bit so he can hold on to the back of it, guide Satoru with this filthy grip that’s making him dizzy.
Satoru moans, earnestly and unrestrained, mouth open by Suguru’s temple, hands clutching on to him like he’s scared he’ll drop him. “Don’t stop.” He gasps out, strained, voice a little wrecked, and Suguru’s eyes nearly roll back.
He surges back to kiss him, only managing to mutter “Fuck” before they’re making out again.
Satoru gets louder, his sounds cut off in their kiss and climbing in pitch a little bit, and Suguru’s drunk drunk drunk on it, all control of his body lost as they rock against each other, his hands full of Satoru, his mouth full of Satoru, and they’re getting carried away, but Satoru’s chasing his pleasure so shamelessly, Suguru’s mad with it, thinks it would take an army to pull him away.
They shift the angle the smallest bit and Suguru supposes it hits some spot for Satoru, because he cracks out a broken sort of moan, sudden, and his hips become a little erratic, chasing it. Suguru pants against his mouth and tries to keep some semblance of rhythm as he guides him to move faster.
Then Satoru’s lips are falling away, his head falling back as every shift makes him moan, louder each time, one hand gripping on to Suguru’s hair hard enough it stings distantly, the other digging his fingers into his shoulder.
Suguru kisses his bared neck, licks at the salty skin desperately, messy from their rocking, as Satorus legs tremble in his hold. Suguru feels like his knees could give out. He’s only left standing because he can’t imagine taking Satoru’s pleasure away from him, now.
“I- I-“ Satoru’s mouth struggles for words around silent moans, and Suguru stares at him entranced, from up close, wild-eyed, watches his flushed face and glazed-over eyes, slack slick lips “‘m gonna,-”
“You’re gonna cum like this?” Suguru rasps out, almost not recognizing his own voice.
Instead of answering, Satoru’s stuttering moans get more desperate, coming out the back of his throat in these devastating fucking whimpers, loud and close and kind of high in pitch, getting faster in succession and more needy, until they break on a moan, until Satoru’s eyes roll back and his body shakes and until Suguru feels, through fabric, his dick twitch through an orgasm, up against his own hardness.
Their rhythm breaks but it doesn’t matter because Suguru’s never heard a hotter sound than those whimpers, never saw a thing as divine as Satoru’s trembling body and rolling eyes, and so he comes like he never had a choice in the matter, almost caught off guard, head dropping to Satoru’s shoulder, a long groan following his orgasm, breaking on his own soft whine when the friction becomes too much.
He doesn’t know for how long he pants into Satoru’s furnace hot skin, greedy, even now, for the warmth of him, as Satoru’s fingers wake in his hair, combing through the strands he’s messed up apologetically.
Satoru shifts, seeking out Suguru’s face, whispers “Kiss me.”
Suguru raises up helplessly to kiss him, warm and easy, hands smoothing over Satoru’s still-twitch-y sides.
“Sorry.” Satoru whispers, between kisses. “J’st wanted to kiss you. Got carried away.” He says, dips in to kiss him again “That was hot, though.”
Suguru smiles into their next kiss.
No amount of uncertainty could curdle the joy expanding in his chest as Satoru kisses him.
“I feel too stupid to say anything smart, right now.” Suguru admits, by his mouth, and Satoru rolls his eyes fondly.
“Then shut up. Say smart things later.” He says, kisses him again, drops from the counter and walks him away from it slightly, Suguru’s hands still helplessly on his hips. “When our underwear is clean, maybe.” He says, and Suguru smiles and wrinkles his nose. “Come on, clean up?”
Suguru’s seen Satoru naked before, of course, but it certainly feels different now, when they stumble into the shower together, maintaining this narrative that they’re ‘just cleaning up’ for about a full minute at best. Satoru kisses him and teases him for getting hard again and soon enough Satoru’s gasping, arching as Suguru’s pressing him into the cold tile, winding up with a hand wrapped around both of them, everything wet and slick and steam, their kiss messy under all the water.
“Fuck,” Satoru rasps, skin glistening and hair damp over his eyes, his head hanging forward a bit as he stares down at where Suguru’s keeping a steady pace on them both “That looks so fucking good.” He groans, sounding like this makes him feel as far-gone as it does Suguru. Then he looks up at him, with this little, dazed smile, whispers. "We look good together."
Suguru huffs a laugh despite how dizzying it is to hear Satoru speak like that, voice all turned-on and breathy. He kisses him through small, satisfied smiles, and in all his fantasies he never managed to imagine this much joy in pleasure, but thinks he should have known how everything Satoru makes him feel is always a sort of sugar rush.
He brings them both off again, kissing bruises into Satoru’s damp neck, cleaning up in a gentle haze once it’s over, steam and afterglow making him slow and clingy.
He can’t wrap his mind around all that can happen in an evening. He feels like he’s dreaming, like this blur of warmth hardly feels real. Satoru’s head pops out his soft cotton shit, in the still fogged-up bathroom, and he kisses Suguru, sweet and demanding nothing of him, and Suguru feels like he’s melting.
“Can I talk to you now?” Suguru manages between kisses. Because it’s eating away at him, a little, every stray thought that manages to pass through the bathroom fog and whisper drink him up, savor him, this might not be forever.
Satoru smiles, just mumbles back “Living room?”
How is he so calm, kissing his best friend, coming in his hand in the shower, wearing his bruises with grace? Does the whole thing not seem as dangerous to him as it does to Suguru?
Suguru sits down on the couch, melts a little bit when Satoru stands before him, smooths a hand over his cheek.
“You are freaking out.” Satoru says quietly, fond, brushing a thumb over the top of his cheekbone.
“A little.” Suguru admits, and Satoru smiles, all gentle.
He climbs into Suguru’s lap, which Suguru almost mentions is a bad idea if they wanna talk, but he could never imagine stopping him, accepts him into his hands with ease, like they’ve done this before.
“Don’t be.” Satoru says, and kisses him again.
Then he pulls away and leaves Suguru blinking dazedly, confused with the cold air between them for a second, before he realizes he’s the one that wanted to talk, and that Satoru’s letting him do that, now.
“‘toru…” He mumbles, looks up at him and finds big blue eyes pretty and patient for him, patient like nobody else ever sees them. “Tell me- God, tell me this is real.” He whispers, doing his best to keep all these slivers of desperation out of his voice.
But God, does he feel undone, like something liquid Satoru’s got cupped in his palms, as he holds the sides of his face.
Satoru keeps smiling at him, brushing back his damp hair, mumbles “Suguru…”
“Tell me it’s real for you like it is for me?” He manages, aching for it, unable to keep himself carefully schooled into something proper anymore. It’s spilled out, the thing that used to pool to the tips of his fingertips. He thinks maybe the days of keeping it all within himself have come to an abrupt end, and now he’s making a mess all over their stupid sofa and cream walls and kitchen island, the window sill and the spot where sunlight streams through.
Satoru looks fond and maybe as affectionate as Suguru feels, shower-warm and soft from their loving, muscles relaxed and expression open. Suguru’s usually the calm one, really, but Satoru has always somehow been the one reassuring his anxieties.
“‘course it is.” He mumbles, Suguru’s eyes fluttering helplessly when he pecks his lips again. “Can’t you tell it is?”
“I just… I worry you don’t get just how bad I’ve got it for you, Satoru.” He confesses in a breath, entire chest squeezing inwards. He just cannot seem to hold on to anything, anymore, seems to have committed to letting it all out into the air.
Satoru smiles, tilts his head, says “You want me to tell you I love you?” His smile widens when Suguru’s brows furrow slightly, eyes wide, fingers clenching on his hips— because what does that mean? Hope and hurt thunder in his chest, too wild, everything happening all at once. “Because I do. I was just afraid I’d give you an aneurysm if I said it too soon.” Satoru says, all easy smiles, like he’s not ruining Suguru from the inside out.
Suguru manages a startled, disbelieving laugh, staring at the boy in his lap, smiling down at him, and his heart trembles and fills, and the years crash over him like a wave over rocks.
“Fuck.” He manages, so much happening in his head it turns into this white noise he can’t articulate. Something inside him is chanting after all these years, after all these years,
“Yeah, like that. Look at that, I broke you.” Satoru says, joking but voice still somehow gentle in the moment, and then he yelps, loud and devastatingly full of joy, when Suguru wraps both arms around his back and spins him around, pressing him into the couch and hovering over him.
“Asshole.” Suguru breathes, as Satoru laughs, and drops down to kiss him. Their kiss catches on their smiles and Satoru’s hands lift to carefully raise up Suguru’s damp hair away from their faces. “I love you.” He breathes, because that’s all he can think, all that’s ringing in his head, and Satoru keeps trying to kiss him despite his grin.
“I know.”
“You don’t.” Suguru whispers, so he doesn’t whisper You don’t, you don’t, you couldn’t have a clue, I adore you, I adore bits of you you don’t know about, I love you to the point of ruin.
“I do.” Satoru breathes back, stubbornly, and kisses him so sincerily Suguru almost begins to believe him.
He learns maybe he should believe him, in the following period.
Like the next morning, when they wake each other up in Suguru’s bed, kissing slowly at first and then with increasing urgency, until Satoru’s gasping, asking for lube against his lips, and then it’s just on a Saturday morning that Suguru lies back with wide eyes and watches the head of the only person he’s ever loved, could ever love, fall back as he sinks down over his cock, and there really has to be an end to all these high-emotion situations soon or Suguru will really have an aneurysm.
He thinks he might, even, when he pistons his hips up, holding Satoru by the hips, and Satoru sighs, moans gently “Just like that, baby.”
But Suguru’s not dying, just coming, trembling under his lover, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he keeps fucking him through prickling sensitivity to his own finish, something about it aching so good Suguru could never get enough, wanting to make Satoru feel good on such a bone-deep level it's like he's under a spell.
He admits, that morning, once their breathing has calmed, “I’ve wanted to do that since I was, like, fourteen.” He says, still panting up slightly at the ceiling.
Satoru laughs, pecks his lips, says “Me too.” Then he glances up at Suguru’s digital clock, and adds “I’ve gotta be at the uni in an hour.”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Physics never rest.”
And then he’s dipping down, kissing Suguru once more, saying “I love you” and taking his bare body to his own room to change. And Suguru lies there, undone— and finds he believes him.
Or like that Thursday, when Suguru whispers, foreheads against each other, after a kiss that went on for a second too long to be just a passing thing in their living room midday, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” Almost rhetorical, drunk on the kiss.
And Satoru replies, annoyingly honest “I didn’t know if you loved me back.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Suguru says, genuinely.
Satoru shrugs, wraps his arms around his shoulders. “Can’t read your mind.”
“Feels like you can.” Suguru mumbles, never gets tired of feeling Satoru unable to suppress a smile, even while kissing.
Or when their reality becomes a joint thing, when they start showing up places with their arms around each other more than they usually did, and then when the novelty of that wears off, too. When gravitating towards each other, wherever they are, is the most natural thing in the world.
When a “Goodbye” on the phone never comes without “I love you”, and when that feels natural, too.
When his phone background becomes that picture of Satoru, a head of wild white hair glowing in the middle of a bare apartment. When that apartment stops being bare and over the months becomes a small museum of a life built together.
When one bedroom becomes a guest room and when greetings become kisses.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, Suguru believes it. That this thing he carries around isn’t something he carries by himself.
Somewhere in the middle of all the things that don’t change, too, it becomes apparent how near the love was, the whole time. With the way it’s still nudged into every crack of their lives, the way it breathes in grocery shopping and benign arguments and easy familiarity, easy intimacy.
“I’ll probably be stuck until, like, nine,” Satoru says, moving fast around the house, pulling his sneaker over his heel, jumping slightly on one leg. “But if you wanna have diner late, then we can think of something.” He says.
He leaves their cozy morning now and apparently won’t be back until later, but Suguru sits in the middle of their apartment, watching him leave for school, and finds he feels too warm, all of a sudden, to mind the business of everyday life.
Not when everyday life means this boy and his bright eyes and his plain piece of toast he eats as he gets ready because he woke up too late for breakfast. Not when everyday life is all Satoru.
“Sure, yeah, I won’t get hungry till then.” Suguru mumbles, both palms wrapped around his coffee mug as he sits at their kitchen island and watches Satoru move about, forever the kind of person that takes hours to wake up in the mornings.
Satoru finds this endearing, Suguru knows, because he’s told him before, but also because he kisses his temple now as he passes him.
“I miss when we could catch lunch on Tuesdays. But man, that TA just does not intend to let me have free afternoons.” Satoru says, from somewhere around the house, as Suguru lets warm coffee spill into his throat, humming slightly in acknowledgment. “But I,- oh, man, where the hell are my keys.”
“Coffee table.” Suguru says, into the rim of his coffee cup.
“Wh- Oh, yeah. Thanks, babe.” He hears from the living room, keys jiggling distantly, and wrinkles his nose.
“I thought we agreed no ‘babe’.” He says, as Satoru finally stills in front of him, toast eaten, dressed for class, with his backpack on one shoulder.
“No? I thought it felt natural.”
Suguru just keeps staring at him with mild distaste.
Satoru shrugs. “We’ll keep workshopping it.” He says, and then leans over the island to kiss Suguru goodbye.
His lips don’t taste sweet all the time, Suguru knows that, he’s not delusional. Spit and skin and slightly-burnt toast don’t taste sweet. But they feel sweet, every time, like honey, like pear fruit, and even after weeks of kisses, like something he’s been craving all his life.
Maybe he pours too much into the quick kiss, kisses Satoru back too meaningfully, lips slow-moving and firm, because Satoru looks at him with a question in his eye when they pull away.
He laughs a little, almost shyly, when Suguru linges after his lips, looking at him from under heavy eyelids "What?"
"Nothing." Suguru mumbles, still quiet, still waking up. "I love you." He adds.
What he's really thinking is mostly I can't believe I was scared of this. I can't believe I wouldn't let myself have this, when loving you is the easiest thing I've ever done. He doesn't say that, though, he just says I love you.
And Satoru smiles, and Suguru knows he can't hear his thoughts, can't telepathically know the exact intensity of them, but he smiles like he understands. Maybe not like he's reading his mind, but like he's reading his eyes, and like the love in them, he understands.
"Love you too."