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The station platform in Tokyo was a furnace at ten in the morning. The asphalt at the edge vibrated with the heat, distorting the air above the tracks like a trembling mirage that promised a relentless July. Yuuji fanned himself with his right hand, uselessly, while with his left he held the strap of his backpack against his shoulder. The summer uniform of the jujutsu school stuck to his back in an uncomfortable sweat stain right between his shoulder blades.
—Is it going to be much longer? —he asked, turning toward Fushiguro, who stood beside him with his back straight as if the heat had no jurisdiction over him.
—Gojo-sensei hasn’t even arrived yet —Megumi replied without looking at him, his eyes fixed on the schedule board flickering above their heads—. And no, I don’t know the mission details. I was going to ask him now. — he added before the pink-haired boy could speak again.
Yuuji smiled, that wide and easy gesture that seemed to cost him nothing, and Megumi felt a pang of something like envy. Not for the smile, but for the lightness with which Yuuji carried it. He had been turning over the urgent summons since eight in the morning, thinking about the exact words he would use to ask Gojo to, for once, take the mission seriously before getting on the train. “I need to know the type of curse, the estimated grade, the terrain, possible victims…”. He had rehearsed it mentally three times. He was prepared.
What he hadn’t rehearsed was the appearance of Satoru.
Because Gojo didn’t simply appear. He materialized. An arm slid over Yuuji’s shoulders from behind, a black band tilted dangerously close to someone else’s neck, and a singsong voice, too loud for the hour and the place, rang out next to Itadori’s ear.
—Yuuji, were you waiting for me eagerly? How cute. You smell like sun and youth. Do you use sunscreen? It’s so important to take care of your skin, you know?
Yuuji gave a start that didn’t quite become a full jump backward, more like a shrug that trapped Satoru’s arm in place. He laughed, uncomfortable but genuine, with his cheeks slightly colored by something that wasn’t just the heat.
—Sensei! — he greeted cheerfully — We were waiting for the train. Fushiguro wanted to ask you something.
Megumi clenched his teeth. Wanted. In the past tense. Because now, seeing Gojo distractedly caress the back of Yuuji’s neck with his fingertips while humming, he knew the conversation he had planned was vanishing like the steam over the tracks.
—Oh, really? What did you want to ask me, Gumibear? —Satoru raised his head, but his fingers didn’t move. They played with the short hairs at the base of Yuuji’s neck, an almost hypnotic touch.
Megumi sighed. Long. Deep. A sigh that came from the bottom of his soul and condensed all the patience he knew he was going to need. —The mission, Gojo-sensei. The details. Grade, location, type of curse. The basic things that should have been in the report and weren’t.
—Ah, that! —Satoru made a vague gesture with his free hand, the other still anchored to Yuuji’s shoulder as if it belonged there—. Semi-special grade, maybe special if it’s gotten capricious. A curse born from an old local myth in Aomori Prefecture. — The older man began to ramble. — Something about a bridge, or a river, or a woman who cries… Honestly, I don’t remember well. We’ll read it on the phone during the trip. Look, look, here comes the train.
The distant whistle of the Shinkansen cut through the dense air. Megumi saw the white and blue aerodynamic front appear around the curve, gliding smoothly like a promise of air conditioning, and felt a momentary relief. He turned toward the platform, ignoring Satoru’s murmur as he leaned toward Yuuji again to say something in a low voice that he couldn’t hear, but that made Itadori laugh and cover his mouth with the back of his hand.
«A very long trip. It’s going to be a very, very long trip.»
The train stopped with a hydraulic hiss. The doors opened, spitting out a gust of cold, artificial air that smelled of carpet cleaner and station bentōs. The three boarded. Satoru, as always, sat by the window without asking; Yuuji dropped down beside him, and Megumi took the seat across from them, calculating that at least this way he could put some physical distance between himself and the spectacle that was coming.
Outside, Tokyo’s buildings began to pass by, first slowly, then faster. The landscape broke down into suburbs, then into rice fields dotted with low houses with dark tiled roofs. The sun poured in through the window, drawing rectangles of light on the back of the seat in front and on Satoru’s knee, which moved rhythmically, unintentionally tapping Yuuji’s leg.
—So, the mission —Megumi insisted, taking out his phone and opening the notes app—. Are there files? Coordinates?
Satoru wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Yuuji. Or rather, at Yuuji’s reflection in the window glass, and smiling with that half-smile of a satisfied cat that Megumi knew all too well.
—Megumi, Megumi, so serious. Look how beautiful Mount Iwaki is over there in the distance. Doesn’t it relax you? Yuuji, can you see it? That small peak, yeah? They say it’s the Fuji of Aomori.
Yuuji leaned over Satoru, resting a hand on his thigh without thinking —clearly without thinking, because if he had thought about it he wouldn’t have done it— to get a better look out the window. Satoru took the opportunity to put an arm around his back, a gesture that would have been casual in anyone else, but in him was pure intention.
—It’s true! How pretty! Hey, Fushiguro, look.
—I’m looking. —Megumi didn’t raise his eyes from the phone. He typed “Aomori,” “curse,” “bridge” into the school’s internal search. Nothing. He sighed again.
The sway of the train, that constant and rhythmic rocking, became the backdrop for Megumi’s particular torment. Because what happened during the next four and a half hours of the journey was a precise and maddening choreography that he observed, powerless, like someone watching a traffic accident unfold in slow motion.
It started with comments. Satoru had an innate talent for turning any innocent phrase into a minefield. Yuuji mentioned that he had eaten tuna onigiri for breakfast, and Satoru said “I like tuna too, especially when it’s soft.” No one had talked about textures. No one. And yet, Yuuji blushed to his ears, laughed, and said “sensei, the things you say.” But he didn’t pull away.
Then came the looks. Megumi detected at least seven occasions in which Satoru took off his band, under the excuse of the heat, the sun, or that it bothered his nose, and used his bare eyes, that unreal and cutting blue, to look at Yuuji in a way that had nothing to do with teaching barrier techniques or eradicating curses. On the fifth, Yuuji held his gaze three seconds longer than necessary and swallowed. Satoru licked his lower lip. Megumi wondered if he could survive a fall from the moving train.
By the time the landscape became mountainous and the train announced the imminent arrival at Shin-Aomori, the flirting had escalated into physical territory with no surrender flag. Satoru had fallen asleep, or so he pretended, with his head resting on Yuuji’s shoulder. Yuuji didn’t move. He barely breathed. He had a stiff neck and his hands clasped over his own lap in a gesture of absolute restraint that Megumi had only seen when he was suppressing the urge to switch with Sukuna.
—Fushiguro —Yuuji whispered, his voice tense—. Is it much longer?
—Fifteen minutes.
—Ah.
—Yeah.
Megumi put away his phone. Outside, the mountains of Aomori rose green and dense, covered in forests that promised shade and humidity. The heat was still pressing, but the sky already had that deep, dry blue tone of northern Japan, so different from Tokyo’s sticky humidity.
The curse turned out to be the complete opposite of “semi-special.”
The report that finally appeared on the phone (because Satoru had indeed forgotten to forward it) spoke of a local legend on the outskirts of Hirosaki: the “Bridge of the Maiden Who Watches.” According to the story, a young betrothed woman had drowned in the Iwaki River after being betrayed by her lover, and her spirit, mixed with the accumulated resentment from centuries of passionate suicides at the same spot, had given rise to an illusory-type curse. Victims saw the maiden in the reflections of the water, became captivated by her spectral beauty, and walked into the river until they drowned. The pattern of deaths —seven in three weeks— had alerted the auxiliaries.
The bridge was old wood, arched, painted red faded by the winters. Beneath it, the river was not wide, but deep and dark, with that bottle-green of still waters that seem to hide things. The trees leaned their branches over the current, forming a tunnel of damp shadow that smelled of moss and something else, a metallic and sweetish nuance that Megumi recognized immediately: it was residual cursed energy, dense as old cobwebs.
—It’s here —he said, unfolding his hands. The white dog appeared first, then the black one, with ears lowered and a low growl that vibrated in the already charged air.
Yuuji got into position, fists clenched, cursed energy flowing through his arms in that warm, bluish flow that Megumi felt like a buzz at the back of his neck every time his companion prepared to fight.
Satoru, for his part, stayed at the top of the bridge, hands in his pockets, band in place, and a soft whistle escaping between his teeth.—What a beautiful place for a date. Yuuji, doesn’t it remind you of that movie we watched the other day? The one with the river and the firefly.
—Sensei, focus! —Yuuji almost jumped, because at that moment the surface of the water, right beneath the bridge, began to ripple without wind.
The maiden emerged. She didn’t come out of the water; she formed above it, like a reflected image that suddenly decided to exist. A white kimono, a pale face with exquisite features and completely black eyes without pupil or iris, two wells that absorbed light and returned it in the form of a piercing longing that sank into Megumi’s chest like a cold knife. He felt the sudden urge to approach the edge, to touch that reflection, to understand it. The black dog barked, the white one bit his ankle gently in warning, and the fascination broke.
—Grade one illusion —he diagnosed, forcing himself to breathe.
—Yes, but it’s not just an illusion —Satoru’s voice remained light, but now it had an edge—. Look beneath the reflection.
Megumi narrowed his eyes. Beneath the maiden, in the depths of the river, something large was writhing. A mass of black hair and countless limbs, like a centipede twisted upon itself, with human faces embedded in each segment. Men’s faces, with expressions of ecstasy and agony, gasping for water. The maiden was the bait. The real curse was that abyssal thing, special grade, fed by decades of drownings.
—Yuuji, Megumi, take care of the bait —Satoru ordered, and jumped.
He fell into the river like a needle into silk, barely splashing, and under the water chaos broke loose. Megumi couldn’t see it, but he felt the pressure of Gojo’s cursed energy expand like a compressed bubble that suddenly found an outlet, making the riverbed tremble and raising waves against the banks. Then, tense silence. Then, a wet crunch.
Above, on the surface, the maiden turned her head toward Yuuji. Her bottomless eyes fixed on him, and Yuuji felt a sharp pull in the center of his chest, right where Sukuna resided. A guttural laugh echoed inside his skull.
«Brat, if you let yourself be seduced by this thing, I’ll take it upon myself to remind you who the real monster is here.» The King of Curses’ voice was a mocking purr, but he didn’t interfere. He only watched.
Yuuji lunged forward. His fist, wrapped in cursed energy, pierced the maiden’s image as if it were rice paper. The illusion tore with a shriek that was a wave of psychic despair that bounced in his eardrums and clouded his vision. Megumi covered him with the white dog, which absorbed part of the impact, while the black one bit the edge of the spectral kimono and dragged it toward the shore.
The fight was quick and messy. Yuuji destroyed the core of the illusion with pure blows, while Megumi kept at bay the strands of black hair that tried to entangle both their legs. The maiden screamed, fragmented into blinding shards of light, and the river water became momentarily still.
Then Satoru emerged, walking on the surface as if it were solid ground, dragging behind him the deformed mass of the main curse, now reduced to a viscous, smoking clump the size of a dead dog. He deposited it on the shore with a dismissive gesture, shaking one sleeve.
—What a nuisance. It was hiding in the mud. It almost stained my shirt. Yuuji, look how gross.
—Sensei, you’re incredible! —Yuuji had a cut on his eyebrow and his jacket torn at the shoulder, but he was smiling, his eyes bright with adrenaline and victory.
—I know —Satoru approached and, without warning, ran a finger over the wound on his eyebrow. He collected a drop of blood and brought it to his lips—. Hmm. Too sweet. You need to eat less candy.
Yuuji froze. Satoru’s tongue peeked out for an instant, barely a pink touch against his fingertip, and Megumi, who saw everything from three meters away, decided that the universe was a profoundly unfair place.
—Let’s go already —he grunted, storing the dogs and turning toward the path—. We have to report to the school.
—Gumibear is jealous —Satoru sang, putting an arm around Yuuji’s waist in a gesture that pretended to be friendly support and clearly wasn’t—. Jealous of not having my attention? Or of not having Yuuji’s?
—Of not having peace —Megumi answered without turning around.
The mission should have ended there. But it didn’t.
Because when they arrived at Hirosaki station, sweaty, dirty, and with the adrenaline already receding, they found that the last train back to Tokyo had left twenty minutes earlier. The next one was at six in the morning the following day. The auxiliary who had driven them there informed them, with the dry efficiency of his guild, that all nearby hotels were full due to a local fireworks festival. There was a traditional inn on the outskirts, run by an old woman who owed a favor to the Gojo family for three generations. They had one room.
—One —said Megumi, and his tone was so flat it could have been used to level a piece of furniture.
—One —the auxiliary confirmed— With everything necessary for the three of you to rest. Mrs. Ono says she can prepare dinner if you arrive before eight.
—We’ll make it —said Satoru, and there was a gleam in his voice that made Megumi, for the first time in his life, wish Sukuna would make an appearance and cause a disaster that would justify sleeping together.
The inn was a dark wooden building with a tiny but elegant garden at the entrance, covered in moss and ferns, and a stone lantern dripping yellow light onto the gravel path. The sound of cicadas was deafening, an acoustic blanket that enveloped the hot air and made it vibrate. And over that blanket, rhythmic and hypnotic, came the clack of the shishi-odoshi: the bamboo tube that slowly filled with water, tipped over with a dry blow onto a stone, and rose again to begin the cycle.
Mrs. Ono received them with a deep bow, without asking questions. She led them down a tatami hallway that smelled of old straw and incense, opened a rice-paper door, and showed them the room. It was spacious for the standards of a humble inn, but it was still a single rectangular space with three futons arranged in a row, separated by barely a palm’s width. A large cream-colored gauze mosquito net hung from the ceiling like a bridal canopy, covering all three beds. The window overlooked the back garden, where another shishi-odoshi marked time with its constant tapping.
—The bathroom is at the end of the hallway —murmured the old woman—. Keep the doors closed, the mosquitoes this year are fierce.
With that, she slid away over the tatami like a kindly ghost, and the three were left alone.
Megumi dropped down beside the wall, exhausted. Yuuji sat on the center futon, because of course he had chosen the center one, and Satoru, in a display of self-control that was not characteristic of him, took the one on the left. He removed his band with a sigh of relief and left it in a ball on the buckwheat pillow.
—I’m sweaty —Yuuji announced, running a hand over the back of his neck—. I’m going to shower. Anyone else?
—I’ll go later —said Megumi.
—I already showered in the river —Satoru joked, and Yuuji let out a nervous little laugh before disappearing down the hallway.
The silence that remained was dense and expectant. Outside, the cicadas continued their concert. Megumi stared fixedly at the mosquito net, counting the folds of the gauze, trying to empty his mind. He didn’t want to think about how uncomfortable that night was going to be. He didn’t want to think about Satoru’s looks during dinner —a frugal dinner of grilled fish and rice, in which Satoru had insisted on feeding Yuuji a piece from his own plate with chopsticks, “so you can taste the flavor of Aomori, Yuuji”—, nor how Yuuji had accepted the bite with flushed cheeks and trembling fingers.
—Megumi. —Satoru’s voice, without the filter, sounded deeper.
—What.
—You should relax. Your shoulders are like rocks.
—I wonder why.
Satoru laughed softly, a sound that vibrated in the dimness of the room lit only by an oil lamp the old woman had left on. He turned on his futon, resting his head on the palm of his hand, looking at Megumi with those eyes that read everything.
—Nothing bad is going to happen from resting one night, you know? We’re just tired and stuck at the end of the world. Yuuji is a strong boy. He can handle it. And so can you.
—That doesn’t reassure me.
—I didn’t intend for it to.
Yuuji returned with damp hair and a thin yukata provided by the inn, indigo blue with a pattern of white dragonflies. It clung to the still-wet skin of his chest, and Satoru followed his path from the door to the futon with the attention of a hawk. Megumi stood up abruptly.
—I’m going to shower.
He left the room with the firm determination to spend at least twenty minutes under the hot water, even if he had to count every tile in the bathroom to do it.
The sliding door had barely finished closing behind Megumi when Satoru propped himself up on one elbow, the mosquito net rippling around him like a curtain of smoke. The shishi-odoshi struck twice in the garden before he spoke, and in that brief silence Yuuji felt the air turn solid, every oxygen molecule in the room charged with something he couldn’t name but that accelerated his pulse all the way to his fingertips. With stiff movements he lay down on the futon, staring at the ceiling.
—Well —said Satoru, and his voice was no longer the previous one, singsong and theatrical, but something else, lower and denser, dragged like warm honey over skin—. We’re alone.
Yuuji didn’t move. He remained lying on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling, the fingers of one hand gripping the edge of the indigo yukata as if that piece of fabric were the only thing keeping him anchored to the futon. He felt the weight of Satoru’s gaze on his profile, a physical weight, almost tactile, that traveled along his cheek, his neck, the collarbone the yukata left exposed.
— Fushiguro could come back any moment —said Yuuji, and his voice came out higher than he intended, a tense thread that cracked at the end of the sentence. He turned toward Satoru, and the movement made the fabric slip a centimeter down his shoulder. He didn’t fix it—. Seriously, sensei, do we have to have this conversation now?
The word sensei came out with a different lilt, a drag on the last syllable that Satoru caught on the fly and stored in some corner of his brain where he knew he would replay it for hours. Sen-sei. Like that, with that mix of automatic respect and dangerous familiarity. Like that, as if he were asking for mercy and provoking him at the same time.
Satoru smiled, a minimal curve at the left corner that Yuuji found obscene.
—And what if Megumi comes back? —Satoru turned fully toward him, resting his head on his hand, elbow sunk into the pillow—. Are you embarrassed, Yuuji?
—It’s not embarrassment, it’s…
—It is embarrassment —Satoru interrupted him, and the tone was so soft, so absolutely charming, that the insult took half a second to land—. Look at you being such a prude when it suits you.
Yuuji opened his mouth to protest, but what came out was a sound halfway between indignation and something far less dignified. He hated himself for it. He hated himself even more when he felt the heat rising up his neck and settling in his cheeks like an impossible red flag to hide.
—I’m not a prude —he managed to say, and it sounded so unconvincing that a low laugh escaped Satoru, a “hah” expelled between his teeth that made the air inside the mosquito net vibrate.
—Of course you are. You’re such a prude you blush even for breathing. —Satoru’s eyes, without the band, were two blue wells that offered no escape—. And you know it, too. You know exactly what you do to me when you get like this.
Yuuji felt his stomach contract, a hot, wet flip that had nothing to do with the heat of Aomori. He wanted to look away. He should look away. But Satoru was so close that doing so felt like defeat. And Yuuji didn’t want to lose. Not completely. Not so fast.
—I’m not acting prudish —he insisted, but his voice trembled and ruined everything—. I’m just saying that Megumi is twenty meters away and this is… I mean, you said you were going to think about it, and I just…
—Yuuji.
The name, just the name, and Yuuji fell silent mid-sentence as if someone had flipped the switch on his voice. Satoru hadn’t raised his tone. On the contrary: he had pronounced it almost in a whisper, stretching the vowels, savoring them. Yuu-ji. Like that. And then, silence. The damn shishi-odoshi ringing on cue, like an accomplice from the garden.
—I said I was going to think about it —Satoru continued, and now he did move, sitting up a little more—. And I have thought about it. Do you want to know what I’ve thought?
Yuuji didn’t answer. His throat was closed and his heart was pounding somewhere between his ribs and his Adam’s apple. Satoru took his silence as a yes.
—I’ve thought that you’re shameless. —The word came wrapped in a half-smile, and Yuuji felt something melt at the base of his stomach—. A shameless brat who first confesses his feelings to me in the middle of training, then runs away, then asks me for an answer. —Satoru’s voice sounded agitated, his eyes fixed on Yuuji’s—. and now here you are looking like this, with wet hair and that yukata that opens every time you breathe, and then you act all shy when I want to talk about it. So now you don’t want to talk? Now you’re feeling modest?
—It’s not modesty, it’s just not the right time…
—It’s the right time when I say it’s the right time —Satoru cut him off, and the tone transformed into a current of cold water beneath the thin ice of the surface—. You started this, Yuuji. You came to me with those puppy eyes and spilled everything, and I told you I was going to think about it, and now it turns out that when I want to give you an answer, you hide behind Megumi. What kind of confession is that? A confession with an audience?
—Megumi isn’t an audience, he’s my friend —Yuuji protested, sitting up on his elbows— And I’m not hiding.
—Oh, you’re not? —Satoru tilted his head, his white hair falling over his forehead, and Yuuji hated how much he wanted to brush it away with his fingers— Then look at me.
Yuuji looked at him. It was a mistake. It was such a big mistake that he knew, in the very instant their eyes met, that he was going to lose this battle, and the next one, and probably all the ones that came after. Because Satoru was looking at him as if he had already read him completely, as if every thought crossing his brain was written in large letters across his forehead, and moreover, he liked what he read.
—That’s better —said Satoru, and his voice was a purr—. So you’re not hiding. Good. Then tell me: what do you want to happen now, Yuuji? Because I’ve already thought of my answer. But I want to hear you say it. I want you to tell me exactly what you expected when you confessed to me.
Yuuji felt the futon open beneath his back and swallow him whole, tatami, mosquito net and shame included. The question bounced in his ears, in his temples, in the accelerated pulse hammering his wrists. What did he expect?. As if he had an answer for that. As if he hadn’t spent the last forty-eight hours in a state of euphoric panic, terrified and fascinated in equal parts, without quite knowing what to do with his hands, with his voice, with the heart that leaped out of him every time Satoru gave him one of those long looks.
—I… —he began, and his voice broke again, and he saw the gleam of satisfaction in Satoru’s eyes and wanted to die and wanted to kiss him and wanted the shishi-odoshi to shut the hell up—. I just wanted… you to know.
—Liar.
The word fell between them like a stone into still water, and the ripples spread invisibly through the mosquito net and the fan. Satoru had leaned a little closer, the distance between their futons reduced to a strip of tatami that seemed ridiculously small to Yuuji.
—Liar —Satoru repeated, and now the smile was bigger— You didn’t just want me to know. You wanted me to do something about it. And now that I’m about to, you start trembling like a rabbit. That’s being a prude, Yuuji. That’s being a scared little slut.
The word hit Yuuji’s chest like a hot lash.
Little slut.
Satoru had said it with the same naturalness with which he ordered tea, without raising his voice, almost tenderly, and the effect was devastating. Yuuji felt the blush descend from his face to his neck, from his neck to his chest, from his chest to the vein running the length of his cock and he was grateful the yukata covered it. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, an insult, a denial, a “don’t call me that,” but what came out was a choked sound that was neither a yes nor a no, and Satoru heard it and his pupils dilated a millimeter.
—Oh —Satoru sighed, and it sounded so dangerous—. So you like that.
—I don’t like it —Yuuji lied, and his voice came out so weak and high-pitched that even he didn’t believe it.
—Of course you like it. You like me talking to you like this. —Satoru licked his lips, a quick, unconscious gesture that burned itself into Yuuji’s retina like a flash—. You like me telling you you’re a prude, that you hide behind your “friend”— the white-haired man made air quotes with his fingers—, that you turn red like a virgin maiden every time I look at you. And you like it because you know I like it too. Don’t you?
Yuuji bit the inside of his cheek. The pain gave him a moment of lucidity, but it wasn’t enough. Satoru kept talking, kept leaning closer, kept filling the space between them with words that were caresses and slaps at the same time.
—Tell me it’s not true —Satoru challenged him, and his tone was that of someone offering candy to a child, sweet and poisoned—. Tell me this doesn’t turn you on. Tell me you’re not lying there with your yukata open and your cheeks flushed, praying that Megumi takes twenty more minutes. Tell me, and we’ll end the conversation here and go back to being teacher and student, and tomorrow we’ll return to Tokyo on the train and pretend nothing happened. Can you tell me that?
Yuuji couldn’t. Satoru knew it and he knew it, and the awareness of that shared impossibility was a taut rope vibrating between them, a frequency only they could hear beneath the hum of the fan, the clack of the bamboo, and the tireless drilling of the cicadas. The outside world had shrunk to that mosquito net, to that heat, to that voice that enveloped him and stripped him without needing to touch him.
—You can’t —Satoru concluded, and there was a note of genuine wonder in his voice, as if he had just discovered something he already knew but still marveled at— You’re beautiful when you’re left speechless.
—Sensei… —Yuuji tried, but the word came out broken and trembling, a plea whose direction even he didn’t know.
—Tell me you like it —Satoru insisted, and now there was urgency in his tone, a crack in the facade of control that hinted at something hungry underneath—. Tell me you like me talking to you like this and we’ll continue. Tell me and I promise I’ll make this conversation worth it.
Yuuji felt like he was standing at the edge of a precipice, and below there was no void: below was Satoru, with his blue eyes and white hair and his mouth still curved in that unbearable smile.
—I like it —said Yuuji, and it was barely a whisper, a surrender wrapped in gauze and shadow—. I like you talking to me like this.
Satoru exhaled, and the breath he released was that of someone who had been holding it much longer than he was willing to admit. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead, and when he spoke again his voice was a thread of smoke, dense and enveloping.
—What a good little whore— he purr, and the two words did something indescribable to Yuuji in the center of his chest, a short circuit that ran up his spine and exploded at the back of his neck—. Now we’re really talking.
Right at that moment, Megumi’s footsteps were heard in the hallway. Yuuji inhaled and lay back on the futon trying to look normal.
When Megumi opened the door, his dark blue gaze swept the room with suspicion. The oil lamp was still on but lower. The mosquito net was drawn, enveloping the futons in a haze of gauze that softened the contours. Yuuji lay on his futon with his eyes closed and his breathing too fast for sleep, and Megumi could notice the tension in his back, the contained arch of his body like a spring at rest that could snap at any moment.
Something floated in the air. An interrupted conversation, a half-made gesture, the echo of words Megumi hadn’t heard but that seemed to have electrified the space between the two futons in the center and on the left.
Satoru, on the other hand, shifted on the futon at the end with a grimace of annoyance that Megumi had rarely seen on him. The man sat up abruptly, swatting the gauze of the mosquito net aside with one hand.
—I’m sweaty —Satoru announced, and his voice sounded flat, almost offended—. Wait, I’m lying. I’m not sweaty. I’m disgusting. How can it be this hot at this hour? Does Aomori not know breeze? Or mercy?
—You said earlier that you already showered in the river —Megumi pointed out, not bothering to hide his dry tone.
—The river had curses. That doesn’t count. It’s like showering in corpse soup. —Satoru stood up with a fluid movement and stretched, arms above his head, his wrinkled shirt riding up and revealing a strip of pale abdomen with fine white hairs, almost translucent below his navel. Megumi looked away on pure survival instinct. Yuuji, on the other hand, did not. Or he did half a second too late—. I’m going to use the bathroom. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, it means I’ve melted. You two can scatter my ashes around Tokyo.
He grabbed a towel that Mrs. Ono had left folded in a corner, a thin white cotton towel with a koi fish pattern, and disappeared down the hallway. His bare footsteps sounded softly on the tatami, and then silence filled the room again, broken only by the fan, the cicadas, and the bamboo.
Megumi let out a long sigh. He counted mentally to ten. Then he turned toward Yuuji, who was still lying down but now had visibly flushed cheeks, even in the dim light.
—I’m not going to comment on anything —said Megumi.
—On what —Yuuji replied, too quickly.
—On nothing. That’s what I said. On nothing.
Megumi decided he’d had enough of this thing he couldn’t name and, still standing, began to look around the room, more to have something to do than out of genuine interest. The inn was humble but well cared for. In one corner, a small tokonoma held a cracked ceramic vase with a dwarf pine branch, a scroll hanging on the wall with ancient calligraphy that neither of them could read. There was a low camphor wood cabinet, a tray with empty teacups and an iron teapot that no longer steamed. On the windowsill, a nocturnal insect repeatedly crashed against the mesh separating them from the garden. Stupid and persistent, like the entire summer.
—Fushiguro, do you think this is normal? —Yuuji’s voice sounded suddenly, low and uncertain.
Megumi turned. Yuuji had sat up on the futon, legs crossed, hands gripping his ankles. The yukata had fallen open, exposing most of one thigh, and Megumi shifted his gaze toward the scroll in the tokonoma as if the ancient calligraphy suddenly fascinated him.
—Define normal.
—This. Him. Sensei. The whole… —Yuuji made a vague gesture with his hand, encompassing Satoru’s empty futon, the mosquito net, the heat, the entire world.
«The confession». Those unspoken words, but which both of them knew.
—No —said Megumi, categorical—. It’s not normal. But it’s Gojo-sensei. So it’s not surprising either. —He paused, his eyes still fixed on the scroll—. Do you want it to be normal?
Yuuji didn’t answer. The silence that followed was more eloquent than any words, and Megumi decided not to press. Instead, he crouched beside the low cabinet and opened one of the sliding doors. Inside there was more bedding, a rice-paper fan with a drawing of dragonflies, dragonflies again, just like Yuuji’s yukata, and Megumi wondered if Mrs. Ono had a fixation with those bugs, and a small lacquered wooden box containing mosquito incense. He grabbed the fan and tossed it to Yuuji without warning. Yuuji caught it in the air, his reflexes intact despite the drowsiness.
—Open it. See if it cools you down.
Yuuji unfolded the fan and fanned himself with clumsy movements, the dragonflies on the paper dancing in front of his face. The gesture ruffled his bangs, still damp from his earlier shower, and Megumi thought he looked like he was about to say something important. But he didn’t. He just fanned himself and looked toward the door where Satoru had disappeared, with an expression Megumi didn’t want to decipher.
The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, and Satoru entered it like someone entering a sanctuary. It was small: a porcelain sink with a rust stain on the faucet, a wooden stool to sit on during the Japanese shower ritual, and a cedar bathtub that smelled of damp wood and green tea soap. But it was clean. And it was empty.
He turned on the sink faucet and splashed cold water on his face. The shock brought him a moment of clarity. He looked at himself in the oval mirror above the sink, an old, stained mirror that reflected a face he knew all too well.
He closed the faucet with a sharp motion. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall to the tiled floor. Then his pants. The cold water from the handheld shower drew a shiver from him that he welcomed like a blessing. It calmed, at least a little, the throbbing in his groin. He sat on the wooden stool and let the stream run over his nape, his shoulders, his back. He closed his eyes. The water washed away the sweat, the remnants of the river curse, the surface tension. He lathered his hair with brusque movements, as if scrubbing his scalp could also exfoliate his thoughts. The soap smelled of green tea, a toasted and gentle aroma. He rinsed, dried himself with the koi fish towel, and put on the yukata the inn had left for him, lead gray with a pattern of stylized waves. It was a little short in the sleeves, but it was clean and fresh.
When he left the bathroom, he paused for a moment in the hallway. The back garden was visible from there, a rectangle of moss and shadow illuminated by stone lanterns. The shishi-odoshi continued its dance: it filled, tipped, struck. He returned to the room. The sliding door glided under his fingers and the first thing he saw was Yuuji sitting on his futon, fanning himself with a dragonfly fan, his bangs tousled and his cheeks flushed. Megumi was next to the cabinet, crouching, examining the incense box as if it contained the secrets of the universe. The fan kept turning, slow and useless, and the mosquito net swayed slightly with the current of warm air.
—I survived! —Satoru announced with a lazy smile, entering the room. His voice had recovered its singsong tone, but something in his gaze, when it landed on Yuuji, was softer—. See? I didn’t melt. I came back in one piece.
—What a relief —said Megumi without looking up from the incense box.
—Megumi, that sarcasm is so ugly. Yuuji, tell him something.
Yuuji looked up from the fan and stared at Satoru. The gray yukata clung to his still-damp shoulders, white hair dripping onto his forehead, and the smile he gave him was as provocative as a glove thrown to the floor. Yuuji opened his mouth, closed it, and then said in a voice that tried to sound casual and failed completely. —The yukata looks good on you, sensei.
Satoru blinked. Then he smiled sideways, that cat-like smile that exasperated Megumi so much, and placed a hand on his chest in a theatrical gesture. —Just good? Not spectacular? I’m wounded.
—Good —Yuuji repeated, and he covered half his face with the fan, but not enough to hide the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Megumi, from his corner, lit a stick of mosquito incense with a lighter he had found in the lacquered box. The smoke, thin and aromatic, began to curl toward the ceiling, mixing with the hum of the fan and the smell of tatami and summer.
—I’m going to sleep —Megumi announced, placing the incense in its holder— please, stop flirting. You disgust me.
—Fushiguro, don’t be a killjoy —Yuuji complained, pouting but blushing.
—I’m a professional killjoy. —Megumi replied, rolling his eyes.
Satoru dropped onto his futon, resting the back of his neck on the buckwheat pillow. The gauze of the mosquito net rippled around him like a bridal veil, and he turned his head toward Yuuji, who was still fanning himself, now more slowly. Satoru closed his eyes and let the smell of the incense, the sound of the water, the heat, and Yuuji’s closeness blend into an intoxicating sensory soup.
—Good night —said Megumi, slipping under the mosquito net and occupying his futon, as far to the right as possible, pressed against the paper wall.
—Good night, Fushiguro. —Yuuji’s voice sounded equally grateful and terrified.
—Sweet dreams, Me-gu-mi. —Satoru’s voice was pure poisoned honey.
Megumi blew out the lamp. Darkness swallowed the room, but not the sound. The cicadas continued outside, relentless. The shishi-odoshi marked the rhythm of time: clac… silence… clac… silence… And in that silence, Megumi heard the rustle of fabric, a sigh that wasn’t his, and Satoru’s whispered voice, so low it was barely distinguishable from the buzzing of the insects.
—Yuuji… are you awake?
A pause. A held breath.
—Yeah.
Megumi squeezed his eyes shut, turned toward the wall, and mentally counted the strikes of the shishi-odoshi. One. Two. Three. This was going to be the longest night of his life.
The silence of the inn was deceptive. Outside, the cicadas continued their monotonous, abrasive song, a blanket of white noise that enveloped the night of Aomori like a hot shroud. The shishi-odoshi in the garden struck the stone every forty seconds exactly —Satoru had counted them— with that liquid, dry clack that echoed in the darkness like the tick-tock of an impatient clock. The oil lamp had been off for hours, but the moonlight filtered through the slits of the rice paper blinds, drawing silver lines on the tatami and on the lump of the three bodies under the mosquito net.
Satoru hadn't slept a single minute.
He had remained lying on his side, his head resting on the palm of his hand, watching. Waiting. His Six Eyes, even with his eyelids closed, gave him more information than any reasonable person would need at two in the morning. He knew that the futon on the right contained Megumi, whose cursed energy flow was a calm, regular thread, an underground river flowing without turbulence. He knew his breathing was deep, rhythmic, with that slow, heavy rhythm of REM sleep. He knew his heart rate was that of someone in the deepest phase of rest, probably dreaming about some new technique or the list of things Satoru did wrong as a teacher. Megumi was completely asleep. Unconscious. Absent.
The futon in the center, however, was a hive of contradictory signals.
Yuuji had been pretending to sleep for over three hours, and he was doing it terribly. His breathing was too fast for sleep. Too shallow. At times, he held his breath completely, as if waiting for something. His cursed energy fluctuated in erratic peaks, hot and reddish, betraying an excitement that had nothing to do with combat. His heart, because Satoru could hear it if he concentrated, could almost feel the accelerated pumping through the dense air of the room, was beating at a rhythm that revealed absolute wakefulness. Yuuji was awake. Very awake. And he was facing away from him.
Satoru smiled in the darkness, a slow, satisfied curve that made a dimple appear.
He sat up with feline slowness, millimeter by millimeter, without making the tatami creak or disturbing the gauze of the mosquito net. The movement was so fluid it seemed not to happen; one instant he was on his futon, and the next he was sliding towards Yuuji's like a shadow stretching without an owner. The warmth of the other body welcomed him before he touched it, that vital furnace that Yuuji always radiated, even at rest. It smelled of inn soap, a soft aroma of green tea and something vaguely camphorated, and beneath that, the smell of his skin, that clean, adolescent musk that Satoru had been smelling all day and which now, in the intimacy of the night, seemed to him the most intoxicating fragrance in the world.
His hand came to rest on Yuuji's stomach.
He did it softly, fingers spread over the fabric of the yukata, feeling the firmness of the abdominal muscles beneath his fingertips. Yuuji tensed instantly, a complete stiffening of his body that Satoru felt spread from his stomach to his shoulders and thighs. But he didn't move away. He didn't make any sound. And Satoru knew, with that absolute certainty that only the Six Eyes and his own arrogance could provide, that he could continue.
—Come here —he whispered, though it was more an exhalation than a word, a barely audible hiss against the back of Yuuji's neck.
He pulled him. He drew Yuuji's back against his chest with a firm but slow movement, a fitting together of bodies that happened centimeter by centimeter. First Yuuji's shoulder blades hit Satoru's collarbone, hard and hot. Then the spine, a line of heat that fitted against his sternum like a puzzle piece. And finally, the curve of his buttocks, firm and round under the thin yukata fabric, brushed against Satoru's crotch.
It was an electric brush, a contact that lasted barely a fraction of a second but sent a jolt of pleasure from the base of his spine to his throat. Satoru stifled a moan, though his would have been more one of satisfaction than surprise. He had been waiting for this all day. All day imagining what it would be like to have Yuuji like this, pressed against him, both defenseless and willing.
Yuuji didn't pull away. Not only that. After an instant of absolute rigidity, one second, two, three, his body relaxed against Satoru's, and he even seemed to push his hips back, a minimal, almost imperceptible movement, but which Satoru registered with a wave of desire so intense he had to close his eyes for a moment to control himself. The curve of his bottom settled against Satoru's crotch with a deliberate pressure, and Satoru felt his own body respond, the blood flowing south with an urgency he had no intention of hiding.
He pressed closer to him. His whole body aligned with Yuuji's, chest to back, abdomen to the kidney area, hips to hips, thighs to thighs. He tangled his legs with Yuuji's, sliding one knee between his to open him slightly, just enough to feel the rough hair of Yuuji's calves against his own skin. Satoru's yukata had also come open; he had worn it loose on purpose since he had lain down, and his bare legs touched Yuuji's, who was wearing the indigo blue fabric but had it so hitched up that his thighs were exposed.
Satoru slid his hand upward, from the stomach to the chest, opening Yuuji's yukata as he went. His fingers found the relief of the abdominals, those hills and valleys of hard muscle that Yuuji had sculpted through training and fighting. He caressed each one slowly, tracing the grooves with his fingertips, lingering on the soft hair that grew just below the navel, a little path of darker, curlier rose that guided towards the depths of the yukata. Yuuji wasn't wearing underwear, and Satoru confirmed this with almost painful delight when his knuckles brushed the base of that hair and found no cotton obstacle. Only skin. Hot skin, slightly damp with sweat.
He kept going up. The sternum, the chest, the pectorals. Satoru's hand opened over Yuuji's torso like a fan, encompassing it, measuring it. Yuuji was broad. Broader than he had been at that age, perhaps. An adolescent body in its prime, with muscles hinting at every move and tanned skin that seemed to absorb the moonlight and return it in a matte sheen.
His fingers found the left nipple.
He barely brushed it, a passing touch that made Yuuji shudder entirely against his chest. The nipple, which was large and thick, of a toasted pink that Satoru couldn't see but could imagine, stiffened at the contact, hardening into a perky tip. Satoru smiled against Yuuji's nape and repeated the gesture on the right nipple, this time more slowly, using his index fingertip to trace a circle around the rough areola. The right nipple also woke up, rose up, became hard and proud under his caress. Satoru felt Yuuji's skin prickle, first on the chest where his fingers touched him, then on his arms, his shoulders, and finally on his legs, where the hair stood on end against his own thighs like a soft brush. It was a map of sensations unfolding beneath his hands, and Satoru read it greedily.
—You're awake, aren't you? —he whispered against Yuuji's ear.
His voice was barely a breath, a thread of warm air that slipped into the boy's ear canal and made him tremble. Yuuji didn't respond immediately. His breathing was ragged, his chest rising and falling under Satoru's hand in an increasingly frantic rhythm. Finally, he nodded. A minimal, slow, restrained movement of his head, as if he feared the mere rubbing of his hair against the buckwheat pillow might wake Megumi. A gesture of permission.
Satoru needed nothing more.
He brought his lips to Yuuji's earlobe and kissed it. It was a soft kiss, a brush of barely moist lips on the fine, hot skin of the lobe. Yuuji shuddered, a complete jolt of his spine that Satoru felt transmit to his own chest as if they shared a nervous system. His erection, now complete and painful, pressed against the curve of Yuuji's bottom with involuntary insistence. Yuuji must have felt it; it was impossible not to. And yet, instead of pulling away, he pushed his hips back a fraction more, sinking against Satoru as if seeking that contact, as if he needed it.
Then, unwilling to wait any longer, Satoru slipped his hand through the opening of Yuuji's yukata.
His fingers traveled over the stomach again, but now without the barrier of the fabric. Skin against skin. Satoru's palm slid over Yuuji's abdominals, feeling every contraction, every involuntary tremor his caresses provoked. The hair below the navel was thicker than he had imagined, a line of soft curls that his fingers slowly combed through, lingering on the texture, on the damp warmth emanating from that area. Yuuji let out a stifled sigh, a near gasp that he cut short by biting his lip. Satoru heard the scrape of his teeth against flesh and almost moaned himself.
—Shhh —he hissed against his ear, taking the opportunity to lick it.
His tongue traveled the entire shell of Yuuji's ear, slow and hot, tracing every fold, every curve. The taste was salty, slightly bitter from the remnants of shampoo Yuuji hadn't rinsed well, but underneath was the taste of Yuuji, that taste he had already sampled in the drop of blood on the bridge and now wanted to savor everywhere. He stuck the tip of his tongue into the ear canal, a quick, wet movement that made Yuuji jerk violently against him, a spasm that Satoru had to contain by wrapping his free arm around his waist to prevent the movement from waking Megumi.
At the same time, his fingers found Yuuji's left nipple again and pinched.
It was a deliberate pinch, a deliberate twisting of the thick, erect nipple between thumb and forefinger that wrung a broken gasp from Yuuji. The boy bit his lip harder, Satoru could hear the wet sound of his teeth sliding on the skin, and shook his head on the pillow, a gesture that could mean "no" or "more" or "don't stop." The ambiguity was delicious. Satoru pinched again, harder, twisting the nipple outward as if trying to rip it off, and Yuuji arched his back, his spine separating from Satoru's chest, his head falling back until the nape of his neck rested on Satoru's shoulder.
—Easy —Satoru whispered, his voice so low it vibrated more in his own chest than in the air—. Don't make noise. Gumibear is right there.
Naming Megumi was a calculated cruelty. Satoru felt Yuuji's body tense even more, felt his breathing become faster and more shallow, felt the fear of being discovered mix with excitement in a chemical cocktail that made him tremble. Satoru looked towards the futon on the right over Yuuji's shoulder. Megumi was still motionless, his cursed energy stable, his breathing deep and regular. Asleep. Unconscious. Oblivious to the spectacle unfolding less than a meter away from him. The idea excited Satoru more than he expected. He could do anything. Anything, and Megumi wouldn't know.
Excited by this idea, he began to rock his hips.
A slow, hypnotic movement, he rubbed his erection against the curve of Yuuji's bottom through the fabric of both yukatas. The friction was insufficient and perfect at the same time, a promise of something more that Satoru didn't intend to fulfill just yet. He wanted to prolong it. He wanted to feel how Yuuji slowly melted in his arms, how his initial resistance dissolved into tremors and stifled gasps.
His lips went down to Yuuji's nape.
He kissed first. Soft, chaste kisses, contrasting with the rawness of his rocking hips. Then he licked, running his tongue along the hairline, where the fine little hairs stood on end upon contact with the moisture. The taste was clean, soapy, with a salty undertone of night sweat. Satoru nibbled the skin of the nape with his teeth, barely a brush at first, then harder, sucking a little skin between his lips and releasing it with a wet pop. Yuuji arched his neck further, exposing it, offering it, and Satoru accepted the offer with a silent growl that vibrated against the flesh.
His teeth traveled the path from the nape to the right shoulder, pushing the yukata fabric aside as he went. The skin of Yuuji's shoulders was soft and warm, with a slightly different taste, more musky, more Yuuji. Satoru bit the muscle of the shoulder blade, sucked the curve of the neck, licked the salt that accumulated in the hollow of the shoulder. Yuuji's yukata was no longer a garment; it was a nuisance. Satoru pulled it down with one hand, baring the shoulders completely, exposing the tanned, muscular back, the slightly protruding vertebrae, the shoulder blades moving under the skin with each agitated breath.
With slowness and adoration, his right hand left Yuuji's chest and descended to his thigh.
He found it firm, hard, softly covered with a fine hair that stood on end upon contact with his fingers. Satoru squeezed, kneading the thigh muscle possessively, feeling it tense and relax under his palm. Then he ran his nails over it. Slowly, with a calculated pressure that didn't quite scratch but did leave pink marks on the tanned skin. Yuuji let out a small sound, a broken moan that escaped his lips before he could catch it. Satoru felt the sound as a direct jolt to his groin.
Without giving him time to recover, he hooked his hand under Yuuji's thigh and lifted his leg.
It was a fluid, almost gymnastic movement: Satoru's hand sliding along the inside of the thigh until reaching the hamstring, then pulling up and out, leaving Yuuji open, exposed, vulnerable. The yukata slid to one side, exposing Yuuji's groin, and Satoru had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from moaning out loud. Yuuji's erection was visible even in the half-light, a firm silhouette under the indigo blue fabric, wet at the tip.
—S-sensei… —Yuuji's voice was a whimper, a broken, desperate whisper that Satoru cut short.
—Shhhh, be quiet, baby... —he ordered against his nape, and bit again.
This time he bit hard. His teeth sank into the junction of the neck and shoulder, that area where the skin is thinner and the blood beats close to the surface. He sucked. He sucked hard, with the deliberate intention of leaving a mark, a circular bruise that Yuuji would have to explain the next day. The idea that Megumi would see that hickey at breakfast, that he would recognize it for what it was, sent a wave of perverse satisfaction through Satoru's chest. Mine. Let him know. Let everyone know.
Yuuji arched his head back, resting it on Satoru's shoulder, and Satoru took the opportunity to latch onto his neck. His mouth opened on the hot skin, teeth grazing the carotid artery, tongue licking the accelerated pulse beating against his lips. He sucked there too, sucking the skin between his teeth, marking him again. Yuuji was trembling uncontrollably, a continuous, deep tremor that Satoru felt in his chest, in his hips, in the hand holding his raised thigh. Yuuji's fingers clutched the hand Satoru had on his hip, intertwining with it, squeezing with a force that betrayed how close he was to losing control.
The shishi-odoshi in the garden struck the stone. Clack. The sound echoed in the room like a reminder of the outside world, that outside there was still a garden, a moon, a relentless summer. But inside the mosquito net, under the gauze that enveloped them like a nuptial shroud, nothing existed except the heat of their bodies, the smell of their excitement, and the increasingly frenetic rub of their contained breaths.
Satoru lifted his head from Yuuji's neck and contemplated his work. Even in the darkness, with his Six Eyes, he could see the red marks beginning to bloom on the skin, the hickeys that would darken with the minutes, the way Yuuji's chest rose and fell with ragged, wet breathing. The nipples, both of them, were still erect and perky, shiny with sweat, and Satoru felt the impulse to lean down and lick them, to suck them until Yuuji moaned out loud and Megumi woke up and—
No. Not yet. This is just the beginning.
—Good boy —he whispered against Yuuji's ear, and his left hand caressed the soft skin of his groin—. So quiet. So obedient. Do you like it, Yuuji? Do you like being touched like this?
The only response was a frantic nod, a trembling sigh, and Yuuji's hips pushing back once more, seeking the contact of Satoru's erection like a castaway seeks solid ground. Satoru smiled in the darkness, the smile of a satisfied predator, and squeezed Yuuji's thigh tighter.
Satoru no longer had any intention of continuing to play. In a quick movement, he hooked his leg around Yuuji's knee, a precise predator's move that knew the anatomy of its prey. His thigh slid under Yuuji's hamstring, levering it up and out, and then he settled his own calf against the boy's Achilles tendon, keeping the leg suspended in the air, open, exposed.
The position was obscene: Yuuji on his side, his back still pressed against Satoru's chest, but now with one leg hanging helplessly over Satoru's leg and the other bent against the futon, his knees spread as far as human anatomy would allow without screaming. The indigo blue yukata, already unruly, came completely undone with the movement. The knot of the obi, which Yuuji had tied clumsily after his shower, gave way without resistance, and the fabric slid like water over his bronzed skin, revealing Yuuji's right side from his ribs to his knee.
And there, right there, was what Satoru had been longing to smell, touch, taste over her clothes for hours (for months, if he was honest). Yuuji's penis fell heavy against his own thigh, freed from its cloth prison. Satoru saw the soft impact of its weight, the way it bounced minimally against the firm skin of his thigh, and he had to swallow.
It was thick. Thicker than he had imagined.
It wasn't very long, but it was thick. Satoru wrapped his hand around it and felt its circumference, which promised considerable stretching for anyone privileged enough to receive it. The skin was hot, almost feverish, and soft to the touch, though thick, prominent veins pulsed under his fingers with every beat. The moisture surprised him: a light, slippery layer covered the length, making his palm slide easily while the glans, partially exposed, felt firmer and more velvety against his thumb pad.
Yuuji was not circumcised, Satoru was, and the difference suddenly seemed fascinating, making him salivate. Yuuji's foreskin covered half of the glans like a lazy hood, revealing the dilated, wet, shiny urethral slit. A thread of pre-cum connected the tip to Yuuji's thigh, a glassy, viscous bridge that stretched and broke as the penis settled against the skin.
—Yuuji, Yuuji, Yuuji... —Satoru murmured against his nape, and his voice was a mixture of adoration and mockery that he himself couldn't distinguish—. Is this how you were waiting for me? Look at you. All wet and I haven't even touched you here yet.
Yuuji couldn't answer. His breathing was a ragged gasp, his chest rising and falling like a bellows, his ribs expanding against Satoru's forearm. His fingers, both hands, clung to the futon with a force that whitened his knuckles and wrinkled the cotton fabric. Satoru smiled in the darkness, a smile of pure satisfaction, and brought his right hand directly to Yuuji's member.
The contact was electric. Satoru closed his fingers around it and felt that hot, rigid flesh throbbing against his palm, swelling even more at the first squeeze. Yuuji was soaked; a constant flow of pre-cum oozed from the tip, hot and viscous, covering the glans and sliding between his fingers with every beat. The skin felt tight, almost delicate over the hardness beneath, and every time he moved his hand, the motion became slippier, easier, with that soft, wet sound filling the silence between them.
—You're so wet —Satoru whispered, and it wasn't a question—. Do you always get like this, or is it just with me?
Yuuji moaned. It was a low, guttural groan, born in his chest and dying against his pursed lips. Satoru felt the sound vibrate against his own sternum, and his erection, still pressed against Yuuji's ass, jumped involuntarily. He began to move his hand. A slow pump at first, almost lazy, sliding his palm from base to tip and back. Yuuji's foreskin followed the movement, sliding up and down over the glans with each pass, revealing and hiding the congested tip in a hypnotic dance that Satoru couldn't stop watching, his chin resting on Yuuji's shoulder.
The texture of the foreskin under his fingers was different, finer, more elastic, with a ring of skin that tightened as it reached the edge of the glans and relaxed as it covered it again. Satoru lingered on that ring, running his thumb pad over and over the line where the skin retracted, feeling the ridge of the corona beneath, the moisture oozing from the slit.
Without warning, the slow, sensual rhythm became fast and relentless, a pumping that made Yuuji's wet skin sound with a barely audible squelch beneath the buzz of the cicadas. Satoru's fingers closed tighter around the shaft, squeezing at the end of each upward stroke, milking the glans as if extracting something more than pre-cum. Yuuji arched his back again, and his hips began to move of their own accord. They chased Satoru's hand. Pushing forward as the fingers descended, pulling back as they rose, an instinctive, desperate undulation that rubbed his ass against Satoru's erection with each thrust.
—Shhh, shhh, quiet —Satoru hissed, and his left arm wrapped around Yuuji's waist like a steel band, immobilizing him against his chest—. You're going to wake Megumi. You're going to get us caught, and then what? Do you want him to see you like this, Yuuji? With your dick dripping in my hand, moaning like a...?
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. The effect on Yuuji was immediate, his body tensed, not from fear, but from a dark excitement that Satoru smelled in the air like perfume. His erection pumped more fluid onto Satoru's fingers, and Satoru understood that the idea of being discovered didn't repel him. He liked it. He liked it as much as he did.
—You're a pervert, Itadori Yuuji —he purred against his ear, and the hand jerking him off now moved with cruel precision—. A dirty, hungry pervert. Look how you're staining me. You're going to soak the sheets when I'm done with you.
Suddenly, he slowed down to an almost stop, making Yuuji moan in frustration, and then brought his right hand lower. He released Yuuji's erection, which remained throbbing against his thigh, wet and abandoned, and grabbed his testicles.
He found them hot and heavy, full to the point of tension. The skin of the scrotum was rough and loose, wrinkled by heat and excitement, and Satoru rolled it between his fingers with an almost scientific fascination, the dark pink, curly hair covering it —a tangle extending across Yuuji's entire pelvic area, from pubis to perineum— Yuuji let out a sharp whimper that he cut short by biting his lip so hard that Satoru imagined it was already bleeding.
—They hurt, don't they? —Satoru murmured, and there was no compassion in his voice, only curiosity and a dark pleasure—. They're very full. How long has it been since you touched yourself, Yuuji? Since you confessed your love to me? Before that? Or have you been thinking about this all day, waiting for me to put my hands on you?
Yuuji shook his head against the pillow, a frantic movement that could mean anything. His fingers still clung to the futon, and Satoru noticed he was tearing the fabric with his nails, tiny perforations in the cotton that betrayed his desperation, and he felt like the owner of time and space, a tiny god in an Aomori inn with a trembling teenager in his arms.
He pulled the hairs.
His fingers tangled in the thicket of dark pink hair covering Yuuji's pubis and pulled. Not viciously, but hard enough to elicit a sharp hiss from Yuuji's lips, which filtered through his teeth like steam from a pressure cooker. Satoru let out a low chuckle, a nasal, mocking sound that vibrated against Yuuji's nape.
—Does it hurt? Too bad. I like it. You've got a whole forest down here, Yuuji. You're quite a man, huh? My little man.... Look how hairy you are. —He pulled again, this time on a different tuft, closer to the groin, and Yuuji let out a broken whimper—. Shhh. Be quiet. Megumi is moving....
It was a lie. Megumi hadn't moved an inch. His cursed energy was still that calm, constant thread, his breathing an unaltered rhythm. But the lie was effective. Yuuji froze completely, holding his breath, the muscles of his abdomen hard as stone under Satoru's forearm. And Satoru took advantage of that moment of paralysis to grab his erection again, this time with more natural lubrication than before, and resume pumping.
—There, nice and quiet. Good boy. If you behave, I'll let you come. If not, you'll be left wanting all night, and tomorrow you'll have to explain to Megumi why you couldn't sleep.
The threat was absurd and they both knew it, but Yuuji took it seriously. His body relaxed against Satoru's, the tension easing in his shoulders and legs, and his breathing became deeper though equally fast. Satoru continued jerking him off, now with long, complete strokes that covered the entire shaft, from base to congested tip. His thumb lingered on the frenulum, that sensitive tag of skin under the glans, caressing it in circles that made Yuuji tremble from head to toe.
But Yuuji was making too much noise.
They were small, disconnected sounds escaping his throat despite his efforts to contain them. A staccato "ah," a guttural moan, a nasal "ngh" slipping between his teeth. Satoru collected them like jewels, but he was also aware that, no matter how deeply Megumi slept, the human ear was treacherous. So he made a decision.
—Open your mouth —he ordered in a whisper.
Yuuji obeyed without hesitation. His jaw relaxed, his lips parted, and Satoru pushed two fingers of his left hand into Yuuji's mouth.
The inside was a moist, soft furnace. Yuuji's tongue welcomed Satoru's fingers eagerly, licking them immediately, wrapping them in warmth and saliva. Satoru felt the soft palate against his fingertips, teeth grazing his knuckles, the way his tongue moved between his fingers like a wet eel. Yuuji had no gag reflex. He proved it when Satoru pushed deeper, inserting his fingers to the third knuckle, until his knuckles bumped against his lips. Yuuji's throat opened and accepted it without retching, without resistance, just a tight, throbbing heat that sucked his fingers as if they were something much more intimate.
—Fuck —Satoru whispered, and for the first time all night, his voice lost its mocking tone and became hoarse—. Look how easily it goes in. You're a hungry whore, Yuuji. A hungry, perfect whore.
Yuuji moaned around his fingers. The sound was muffled and wet, a vibration that Satoru felt propagate from Yuuji's throat to his own fingertips, and from there directly to his erection, still pressed against the boy's ass, rubbing slowly. Saliva began to accumulate, thick and warm, overflowing from the corners of Yuuji's lips and dripping down his chin. Satoru moved his fingers inside that mouth as if he were fucking it, a rhythmic back-and-forth that Yuuji accompanied with eager sucks and enveloping licks. The tongue tangled between his index and middle fingers, licking the webbing, the tip, the knuckles. Teeth grazed the skin without biting, a reminder that he could but didn't want to. And Satoru, meanwhile, continued jerking him off with his right hand, the rhythm blending with the wetness of Yuuji's mouth being penetrated.
But Satoru wasn't finished. What he wanted was lower.
He withdrew his fingers from Yuuji's mouth with a wet snap, a sucking sound that resonated in the silence of the room. The fingers came out wrapped in saliva, shiny and sticky, connecting Yuuji's mouth to Satoru's hand through a viscous thread that stretched and broke slowly. Yuuji gasped, his lips swollen and wet, his chin damp, his eyes glassy and lost. Yuuji's erection was still in Satoru's right hand, hard as a rock, oozing fluid that now dripped onto the futon in dark spots.
—Now —Satoru said, his voice a low, tense whisper— we're going to play with this.
He released Yuuji's erection, but before that, he squeezed. His fingers surrounded the base of the penis and squeezed like a ring, cutting off blood flow, making the glans swell momentarily and redden even more. Then he lowered his hand to the testicles, squeezed them too, a soft but firm pinch that elicited another muffled gasp from Yuuji, and finally brought his hand, the one soaked with saliva, to Yuuji's buttocks.
The flesh he found was firm and round. Yuuji's glutes were pure muscle, sculpted by physical training, and beneath the hot, sweaty skin, Satoru felt the tension of someone who had been in a state of pent-up excitement for hours. He gently parted the buttocks, separating them with thumb and forefinger, and the warm air of the room touched Yuuji's most intimate skin. Satoru felt the shudder that ran down the boy's spine, the way his anus contracted instinctively at the exposure. He smelled it. Here, Yuuji's smell was more intense, more musky, with a slightly acidic and salty hint that Satoru inhaled like an exquisite perfume.
With his fingers still wet with saliva, he touched the entrance.
Yuuji's anus was small and tight, a rosebud of skin with concentric folds that Satoru felt under his index fingertip. It was hot. Very hot. The skin there was soft and slightly rough at the same time, a texture Satoru explored with circular movements, outlining each fold, each involuntary contraction that his touch provoked. Yuuji's anus puckered under his caress like a tiny mouth, opening and closing in spasms that Satoru interpreted as fear, excitement, anticipation. He didn't try to penetrate it yet. He only played and provoked.
—You're so tight —he murmured against Yuuji's nape, his fingers still tracing circles around the ring of muscle—. Has anyone ever touched you here before, sweetheart? Or am I the first?
Yuuji shook his head, a brusque movement that made his damp hair brush against Satoru's chin. His breathing was a constant gasp, and Satoru felt his fingers, Yuuji's, searching for his free hand, clinging to it desperately. Satoru granted him the grip, intertwining his fingers with Yuuji's on the futon, and used his other hand to continue exploring.
His index finger pressed just against the center of the rosebud. Just pressed, feeling the resistance of the sphincter, the way it refused to yield. It was still dry —the saliva wasn't enough for this— but Satoru wasn't seeking to penetrate yet. He sought to feel. He sought to memorize the texture, the temperature, the way Yuuji's body reacted to his touch. He withdrew the finger and pressed again, this time at a slightly different angle, and Yuuji's anus contracted so hard it expelled the fingertip.
—You don't want to let me in —Satoru mocked, and his tone was amused, almost affectionate—. But you will. You will because I want it, and because you want it too, even if you're scared.
In a quick movement, he brought his fingers to his own mouth and spat.
It was a deliberate, abundant spit, coating his fingers in thick saliva. The sound was obscene in the silence of the room, a wet plop that resonated beneath the buzz of the cicadas. Satoru brought his hand back to Yuuji's buttocks and spread the saliva over the entrance, generously, covering every fold, every millimeter of wrinkled skin. Yuuji's anus now glistened under his fingers, slippery and hot, and Satoru felt the sphincter relax slightly under the constant caress. A little. Just a little.
—That's it —he murmured, and the tip of his index finger pressed again, now more firmly—. Relax. Let me in. Let me feel you inside.
Megumi sighed in his sleep, a soft sound that made Yuuji tense. But Satoru didn't stop. His index finger pressed more insistently, and the ring of muscle, after a moment of resistance, began to yield, opening millimeter by millimeter around the fingertip. The heat Satoru felt upon entering was searing, a tight, throbbing furnace that sucked at his skin as if wanting to swallow him whole.
—That's it —Satoru panted against Yuuji's nape, and his own erection pressed harder against the boy's ass, seeking a relief it wouldn't find—. That's it, Yuuji. Good boy. You're such a good boy for me.
The tip of Satoru's index finger had barely passed the ring of muscle, barely a fragment of nail and fingertip inside that tight furnace, and he could already feel Yuuji's pulse beating around his skin like a tiny, desperate second heart. He stopped there. An instant. Two. Enjoying the resistance that gave way, the way the sphincter relaxed and contracted in involuntary waves, like a mouth that didn't know whether to kiss or bite. The heat was exquisite, scorching, a narrow, throbbing tunnel that promised a perfect grip. Satoru exhaled against Yuuji's nape, a long, trembling sigh that fogged the short hairs at his hairline, and pushed.
He pushed more. The finger went in to the second knuckle.
Yuuji arched against him again, as if unable to decide whether to pull away or come closer, his spine turned into a tense bow, and a broken moan escaped his lips before he could catch it with his hand. Yuuji had brought his hand to his mouth, fingers pressed against his own lips like an improvised gag, and Satoru felt a wave of pleasure seeing him like that, trying to silence himself, trying to be good, trying not to wake Megumi while his body betrayed him with every spasm. The fucking idiot. As if that would help.
—You're a very noisy Little whore—whispered Satoru, his voice like torn silk—Keep that mouth shut, okay, baby?
He withdrew his finger almost entirely, just the tip inside, and pushed again. This time all the way in, until the knuckles of his right hand collided with the firm flesh of Yuuji's buttocks. The sound was wet, a slight but audible squelch. The saliva Satoru had generously spat lubricated the path, but it wasn't enough, not entirely, and the friction he felt was a rough delight that tore a gasp from both of them. Satoru because the grip was incredible, a ring of muscle closing around his finger like a hot fist. Yuuji because pain and pleasure mixed on a blurry line that made him tremble from head to toe.
Satoru began to move. Now his middle finger joined him, two fingers stretching the muscle ring beyond comfort, entering and exiting with a constant, punishing rhythm, the wet sound echoing in the silence of the room. The ceiling fan kept spinning, but it no longer cooled anything. The air inside the mosquito net was dense, thick with the scent of both of them and their gasps. Satoru felt sweat beading on his forehead while his fingers fucked Yuuji with absolute dedication.
—Do you hear it? —he purred against Yuuji's ear, his hips pressing against the boy's ass, his own erection seeking pleasure—That little noise... it's my fingers inside you. Squelching. Look how wet you are, Yuuji. And I haven't even spat on you again. That's all you.
Yuuji trembled. His hand remained pressed against his mouth, knuckles white, eyes squeezed so tightly that his lashes stuck together in wet clumps. But Satoru wanted to see them. He wanted to see those big, brown eyes lost in the pleasure he was giving. So he let go of Yuuji's hand, grabbed his jaw, and turned his face toward him.
—Look at me —he ordered.
Yuuji opened his eyes. They were glassy, wet, pupils dilated until they almost devoured the brown iris. His lashes were stuck together from tears that hadn't yet fallen but were already accumulating in his waterline, trembling like dew about to spill over. Satoru held his gaze while his fingers curved inside him, searching, exploring the hot, velvety walls that enveloped him.
And then he found it.
Yuuji's prostate was a soft but distinguishable bulge, a tiny nut hidden in the front wall of the rectum, and when Satoru brushed it with his fingertips, Yuuji let out a muffled scream against his own hand. It was a broken, sharp sound, an "ngnhh" that vibrated against the palm covering it and leaked out like a whistle of steam. His entire body jumped on the futon, hips pushing back against Satoru's fingers, legs spreading even wider in an involuntary spasm.
—There it is —sang Satoru, his tone that of a child who has found a new toy—There's what I was looking for. Do you like it, Yuuji? Do you like me touching you here?
He didn't wait for an answer. His fingers attacked that swollen spot, pounding it again and again with precise, ruthless movements. It wasn't a massage; it was an assault. Every thrust of his fingers aimed directly at the prostate, rubbing it, pressing it, making Yuuji writhe on the futon like a trapped animal. The back-and-forth of his fingers became faster, wetter, a constant squelch that could no longer be mistaken for anything else. Yuuji's body was producing its own lubricant now, a clear, viscous fluid that mixed with Satoru's saliva and facilitated the glide, making the sound increasingly obscene.
And while his fingers fucked Yuuji mercilessly, Satoru's left hand abandoned the boy's jaw and slid downward. He pushed aside the fabric of the indigo blue yukata, which no longer covered anything, which was merely a crumpled heap of cloth around Yuuji's torso. His thumb and forefinger pinched Yuuji's right nipple and pulled hard, stretching the skin, twisting the button of flesh until Yuuji groaned against his hand and his hips pushed back more violently.
Satoru didn't relent. He pulled harder, stretching the nipple until the areola wrinkled around his fingers, then let it go to watch it bounce back, reddened and swollen. Then he attacked the left one. He repeated the same: pinch, twist, stretch. The left nipple was slightly larger, or perhaps just more sensitive, because when Satoru twisted it between his fingers, Yuuji dropped his hand from his mouth for an instant and let out a broken, wet "please."
—Shhh —hissed Satoru, and placed the boy's hand back over his mouth, pressing his fingers against Yuuji's lips.
His fingers inside Yuuji never stopped. They kept pumping, hitting the prostate with a precision that only someone with the Six Eyes could have, someone who could read his lover's body like a map and find every weak point, every nerve ending, every place where pleasure turned into agony and agony into ecstasy. And while his fingers fucked, his other hand alternated between Yuuji's two nipples until both were swollen and red, protruding from his chest like two ripe cherries.
The teenager trembled. It wasn't a sporadic tremor, a shake here and there. It was a constant tremor, an earthquake running through his entire body from shoulders to toes. His thighs vibrated against Satoru's leg, his calves shook with uncontrollable spasms, his abdominals contracted and relaxed in visible waves under the sweaty skin. Satoru could see every muscle, every tendon, every fiber of his body struggling to process the sensory overload.
The smell inside the mosquito net was intoxicating. Salty sweat, the musk of sex, the metallic scent of pre-cum that kept flowing from Yuuji's penis and now dripped onto the futon in a constant stream. Also the smell of the natural lubricant Yuuji's body produced, an earthy, clean aroma that Satoru inhaled deeply, committing it to memory. And beneath all that, the mosquito incense, now almost a consumed ember on its holder, adding a woody nuance to the mix.
—You're getting close —said Satoru, and he wasn't asking, he was stating—I can feel it on my fingers. You're tightening around me. Do you want to come, Yuuji? Do you want to come with sensei's fingers in your ass?
Yuuji nodded frantically behind his hand, his eyes squeezed shut again, tears finally spilling over and tracing silver lines down his temple and soaking his hair. He cried silently, without sobs, just tears that fell and fell like a poorly closed faucet, and Satoru felt a cocktail of emotions twisting in his chest. Lust, love, tenderness, and longing. Maybe a bit of pride at reducing his adorable student to such a depraved state.
—Then do it —he whispered in his ear, and his fingers inside Yuuji sped up to a frenetic rhythm, hitting the prostate with every thrust, mercilessly—Come. Now.
And before Yuuji could obey, Satoru leaned forward and bit his back.
It wasn't a gentle bite. It was a bite, an anchoring of teeth into the skin right between the shoulder blades, where the spine curved and the trapezius muscles met in a knot of tension. Satoru's teeth sank into Yuuji's flesh with the precision of a predator, hard enough to leave a mark, hard enough for his tongue to taste the salty sweat and the sweet iron of broken blood. Yuuji screamed. Even with his hand pressed against his mouth, the scream escaped, sharp and broken, vibrating against his own fingers and spreading through the room.
Megumi moved.
He didn't wake up, not entirely, but his body turned over on the futon, his breathing momentarily altered before returning to its deep rhythm. Satoru knew because his Six Eyes registered it even in the darkness, even as focused as he was on Yuuji's body falling apart in his arms. But he didn't care. He couldn't care. Because Yuuji was coming.
Yuuji's orgasm was an eruption. Yuuji's cock, abandoned and untouched, began to pump semen with a force that Satoru felt even before he saw it. The first spurt hit the gauze of the mosquito net, a thick white thread that adhered to the fabric like a pearl. The following ones would have followed the same path, would have stained the futon, would have reached where Megumi was sleeping, but Satoru was faster. His left hand released Yuuji's nipple just in time and closed around the congested glans, covering the tip with his palm, trapping the semen in the hollow of his hand.
It was an obscene amount. Satoru felt his palm fill with hot, thick liquid that seeped between his fingers, soaking his knuckles, dripping onto Yuuji's testicles. The smell of semen flooded the inside of the mosquito net. Yuuji kept pumping, wave after wave, and his internal contractions were so strong that Satoru felt his fingers being crushed inside him, the sphincter closing around his knuckles like a vise. For an instant, he thought Yuuji was going to break his fingers. Literally. The force of those contractions was brutal, a grip that would have made anyone other than Satoru Gojo scream.
—Fuck —whispered Satoru, and there was awe in his voice, genuine awe—Fuck, my love.....
Yuuji couldn't hear him. He was lost in his orgasm, eyes rolled back, pupils disappeared under his lids, mouth open against his own hand in a silent scream that never ended. The tears kept falling, a constant river soaking his face and the bridge of his nose, and his body trembled so violently that the futon creaked beneath them. His thighs vibrated, his calves cramped, his toes curled so tightly that Satoru heard his joints crack. The orgasm lasted for what seemed like minutes, an endless cascade of semen and spasms that left Yuuji empty and trembling.
When it finally ended, when the last contractions faded and the flow of semen reduced, Yuuji collapsed onto the futon like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His breathing was a ragged, uneven gasp, broken by small sobs that escaped his throat uncontrollably. He was still crying. Silent, constant tears that fell onto the pillow, soaking the fabric. His body still trembled, though not with the violence of the orgasm anymore, but with a fine, persistent tremor, as if he were cold despite the suffocating heat of the night.
Satoru withdrew his fingers from inside Yuuji with a slow, careful movement. The anus contracted around the emptiness, puckering into a tiny pout that Satoru watched with fascination. It was reddened, slightly swollen, glistening with moisture. Satoru brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled the scent of Yuuji, that intimate, earthy aroma he loved so much. Then he focused on Yuuji, who was still crying silently.
—Shhh —whispered Satoru, and for the first time all night, his voice was soft—It's over. It's over, baby. You're okay.
He carefully turned him over, moving him as if he were made of porcelain, until Yuuji was facing him, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, his reddened, bright eyes fixed on the ceiling of the mosquito net. Satoru propped himself up on an elbow and looked at him. The boy was wrecked. His lips swollen and bloody from biting them, his cheeks furrowed with tears, his nipples reddened and irritated protruding from his bare chest, his still half-erect penis lying on his thigh, covered in semen and pre-cum. The bite on his back, between his shoulder blades, was a deep red mark that would probably bruise by morning. Satoru ran a finger over it, and Yuuji shuddered.
—It hurts —whispered Yuuji, his voice hoarse and broken.
—I know —said Satoru—But you liked it.
Yuuji didn't deny it. His eyes, still wet, sought Satoru's with an expression that was half exhaustion, half adoration.
Satoru raised his right hand, the one that had been inside Yuuji. It was soaked with saliva, natural lubricant, a trace of something darker that might be blood. He looked at it for a moment and then brought it to his mouth. Tasting it as if it were the best dessert he had ever tried.
— S-sensei! —gasped Yuuji in a whisper, and with trembling hands he tried to grab Satoru by the wrist and pull his hand away from his mouth.
Satoru, still with his mouth full, winked at him.
Yuuji blinked, his lashes still wet, and buried his face in the pillow, ashamed.
Satoru let out a soft chuckle and lay down beside him, draping an arm over Yuuji's waist, pressing his chest against the boy's. Yuuji didn't pull away. On the contrary, he curled up slightly against him, an instinctive and trusting movement that made something in Satoru's chest tighten.
Yuuji, still with his face half-hidden against the pillow, moved his leg unintentionally, and his knee brushed against Satoru's crotch. He clearly felt the hard, large erection pressing against the thin fabric of the yukata, soaked in places. The heat and moisture of the fabric burned his skin for a second.
—S-sensei… you… you didn't come… —murmured Yuuji, embarrassed and mortified.
Satoru let out a low laugh and pulled him tighter against his chest, calmly stroking his back.
—Shh, don't worry about that —he whispered against his hair, soothing him—Sleep. We have to catch the train early tomorrow.
And for the first time in many nights, Yuuji fell asleep in less than a minute. Satoru stayed awake a while longer, listening to the bamboo and the cicadas, feeling the warm weight of Yuuji against his body. In his mind, he reviewed the events of moments ago over and over. A huge smile spread across his face, and his cock gave a small jump. A satisfied sigh escaped him, and he hugged the pink-haired boy tighter.
The light of dawn filtered through the rice paper window like a golden whisper, faint and diffuse, tinting the room a pale amber hue that announced another day of relentless heat. Outside, the cicadas hadn't yet begun their morning concert, but the birds had, a timid and spaced-out chirping that mingled with the incessant sound of the shishi-odoshi. The ceiling fan kept turning, slow and stoic, stirring the dense air that smelled of tatami, of spent mosquito-repellent incense, and of something else that Megumi couldn't immediately identify.
He opened his eyes unwillingly, with that heaviness of someone who has slept poorly, in fits and starts, waking up every time the heat stuck his cheek to the buckwheat pillow. His mouth was dry and his neck stiff. The mosquito net enveloped the three of them in its gauze cocoon, and the milky dawn light transformed it into a ghostly veil. Megumi blinked twice, three times, trying to get his bearings. "Aomori. Inn. Shared room. Gojo-sensei. Yuuji." The mental list brought him back to reality like a bucket of cold water.
He turned toward the center of the room and stayed very, very still.
Satoru and Yuuji were sleeping. But they were not each sleeping in their own futon, separated by the mandatory foot of distance that had existed when Megumi fell asleep. They were sleeping together. The middle futon, Yuuji's, had been invaded, colonized, absorbed. Satoru lay on his side, his lead-gray yukata completely open over his chest, revealing an expanse of pale skin that Megumi did not need to see. One long, white arm wrapped around Yuuji's waist with the possessiveness of someone hugging a treasure, and his face, half-buried in the boy's disheveled hair, showed a tiny, satisfied smile, his lips slightly parted, his white lashes resting on his cheekbones in a gesture of absolute peace.
Yuuji, for his part, was curled up against Satoru's chest like a small animal seeking warmth, though warmth was in abundance. His indigo blue yukata had come almost completely untied, one sleeve fallen off his shoulder, the belt loose somewhere between the two bodies. One of his legs tangled with Satoru's, ankle against ankle, thigh against thigh, and his right hand weakly clutched the lapel of the other's yukata, right over Satoru's heart. He was also smiling. In his sleep, yes, but smiling. A tiny, relaxed, satisfied smile. As if he had found exactly where he wanted to be.
And he had his buttocks bare to the air.
Megumi blinked. He processed the image. He processed it again. He saw the suspiciously disheveled clothing and noticed the locks of white and pink hair mixed together on the pillow, the faint marks on Yuuji's neck that weren't from the fight with the curse, the shared sheen of sweat on both their skins. And then he smelled it.
A smell. A weird little smell.
It wasn't the smell of incense, nor of tatami, nor of summer seeping through the window. It was a musky, dense odor that floated beneath the mosquito net like an accusing ghost. It wasn't sweat from the heat. It was something else. Something his brain automatically catalogued in the folder marked "things I don't want to know" and locked away.
He narrowed his eyes. He looked at Satoru. He looked at Yuuji. (He did NOT look at Yuuji's buttocks|). He looked at Satoru's hand, which even asleep, even in the deepest unconsciousness, was distractedly caressing Yuuji's bare hip with his thumb, a slow, circular movement.
—No —Megumi whispered to himself, his voice hoarse and flat—. No, no, no. It's too early. They don't pay me enough. They don't even pay me.
He turned toward the paper wall and stared at the texture of the washi as if it contained the answers to all the mysteries of the universe. The plant fibers formed random patterns. That looks like a rabbit. That thing there looks like a rabbit. I'm going to concentrate on the rabbit. The paper rabbit didn't judge him. The paper rabbit didn't force him to process the image of his two companions —his teacher and his best friend— tangled up in a futon looking like they had done something that Megumi was not going to name, not even in his most private thoughts.
The paper rabbit had very round and firm buttocks....
Oh, no.
Holy shit.
His bladder tightened. The most earthly and profoundly inconvenient way of telling him that he had to get up, no matter what. He let out a minimal sigh, barely an escape of air between his teeth, and sat up with the slowness of a ninja. The tatami creaked under his weight. He froze. Neither Satoru nor Yuuji stirred. Satoru, in fact, took advantage of the slight noise to curl even deeper against Yuuji's back, his nose buried in his hair, and let out an unintelligible murmur that sounded suspiciously like a moan.
Megumi didn't want to stick around to find out.
He slipped out of the mosquito net with the precision of someone who has trained his whole life to move without being detected. The air outside the gauze was slightly cooler, or maybe it was just the impression of being far from the epicenter of that disaster. He stood up, adjusted his yukata —his own was still in place, thank goodness— and walked to the sliding door. He opened it a handsbreadth, just enough to slip through the gap, and closed it behind him with a soft click.
The hallway smelled of old wood and dew. Megumi stood for a moment in front of the closed door, his bare feet on the tatami of the hallway, his bladder protesting with growing urgency.
—Good morning, young man —the voice of Mrs. Ono, appearing out of nowhere, nearly gave him a heart attack.
The old woman was at the end of the hallway, carrying a tray with a steaming teapot and three cups. She smiled with that placidity of someone who has seen too many things in life to be surprised by anything.
—Good morning —Megumi replied, his voice as neutral as he could muster.
—Did you rest well? The heat is terrible, but the garden helps. Are your companions still sleeping?
—Yes. —Megumi mentally blocked the image of exactly how they were sleeping—. They're still sleeping. Deeply.
—Good, good. Youth needs rest. —Mrs. Ono tilted her head and continued on her way to the kitchen.
Megumi headed to the bathroom. He did what he had to do. He washed his hands and splashed cold water on his face, looking at himself in the stained mirror. He had dark circles. They weren't from the mission. They were from them. From the night before, from the whispers he had pretended not to hear, from the charged silence that had followed his feigned sleep, from the morning and its discoveries.
—They don't pay me enough —he repeated, grumbling at his reflection.
The reflection returned a look of absolute solidarity.
When he returned to the room, ten minutes later, he stopped in the doorway. Satoru and Yuuji hadn't moved. They were still tangled up, curled together, radiant with satisfaction. The ceiling fan kept turning. The cicadas, finally, were beginning to sing. And Megumi Fushiguro, fifteen years old, first-year student at the Tokyo Jujutsu High School, sat on the edge of his futon, poured himself a cup of green tea from the service Mrs. Ono had left at the entrance, and decided that he was going to need at least three more cups before he was ready for his roommates to wake up.