04th beat: beside shallow souls

[softpunks]

gojo satoru/getou suguru // 6.5k
> 64 sensory prompts: napping in sunshine; heartbeats

It’s Amanai who dies, but the heart that isn’t beating is Satoru’s.

Infinity disables the moment Suguru reaches up to press his palm against the side of Satoru’s chest, but Suguru doesn’t pay attention to the lack of hesitation on Satoru’s part to put down his guard despite what just happened. Instead, Suguru asks, “Is that really you?”

It’s not an are you okay, because questions like that don’t work on Satoru. In the first place, he doesn’t look okay, so asking would be silly, and even more so, when Suguru knows that Satoru would reassure him that he is. Suguru has never been one for meaningless questions.

This does not feel meaningless, even if Satoru only stares at him blankly. “Stop saying stupid things.”

Still, his Infinity doesn’t reactivate and it doesn’t push Suguru’s touch away. Two seconds later, Suguru puts his hand down, even if the subtle shift in Satoru’s body tells him that the seconds feel like hours. As they walk out in silence, Suguru watches Satoru. This too, is only for a few moments, but the way Satoru’s shoulders suddenly coil in tension already says this much—the passage of time between them are universes apart.

Ten minutes later, they’re back in the college, setting down Amanai’s body in the morgue. Suguru’s fingers are numbingly cold as he pulls the sheet over her, half-expecting her to open her eyes and laugh at the ridiculously forlorn looks on their faces when they’re notorious to her for always being smug. But her corpse remains a corpse, suffocatingly still. Satoru, despite standing, is the same. The entire time, he doesn’t let out a single inhale or exhale, no prominent rise or fall of his chest, bright eyes forever unblinking.

Worry creeps over Suguru and it feels exhausting. He lifts his hand again anyway. Before he can even graze Infinity’s barrier— “No heartbeat.”

Satoru isn’t talking about Amanai. Suguru only blinks before putting his hand on Satoru’s chest once more, uncaring for Satoru’s words even if he knows he’s right. There’s no movement, not even the faintest thump. It’s just like Amanai, but Satoru is staring at Suguru and Suguru doesn’t know what else to call Satoru but alive.

What happened back there, Suguru wants to ask. What happened before I came. What happened before he came to me. What happened to you.

“The Reverse Cursed Technique,” Suguru starts, even if he still doesn’t understand how it works enough to be assuming anything. His fingers curl and grip onto the fabric of Satoru’s shirt, slightly torn apart from the fight, as if making some kind of motion would kickstart Satoru’s heart into beating. Suguru's touch is only met with silence though. It could’ve been his hand or it could’ve been the room, but Satoru feels bitterly cold. “Is it because of that?”

“Sorta,” Satoru hums. “I’m recovering. It’ll come back.”

“Will it?” Suguru asks.

Satoru says nothing, but he grasps onto the back of Suguru’s hand and slots his fingers in between like this is something they always do, the fit just right. At this very moment, Suguru feels like they’re on a time limit with invisible numbers. “It has to.”

There’s no blinking, there’s no breathing, and there’s no heartbeat. The ambiguity of Satoru’s words should’ve been haunting, the realization that he won but without truly knowing at what cost until it could possibly be too late. Suguru doesn’t know what exactly is keeping Satoru up, but it can’t last forever. Infinity isn’t actually infinite. Satoru can’t be in this dead man walking state for the rest of his life.

But Satoru squeezes Suguru’s hand and the touch is warm, comforting despite neither of them knowing if he would live to see the next sunrise.

Suguru’s mind can’t help but flash to the look on Amanai’s face before Toji shot her in the head—just as reassuring, unbridled gratitude for a reality she never lived to really appreciate—and he doesn’t know if it’s right, to suddenly feel like all this is just wrong.

Slowly, he untangles his fingers from Satoru’s. Infinity immediately comes to life and fills in the gap between them, pushing Suguru away as if Satoru is the one who wanted to pull back first.

In truth, Satoru does not react, like his own ability has a mind of its own and his thoughts are elsewhere. His heart still does not beat. Amanai is still dead. Suguru still feels like all this is wrong, but he puts it aside to make way for his own grief. Even that feels distant to him.

==

It’s apparently a distinctly Gojo Satoru thing, the way all things Satoru does are uniquely things only he could and would do.

Out of all his eccentricities though, this is the only one that really catches Suguru off guard. Satoru’s body can stop functioning in all the ways needed to keep him alive and he would still live. In Satoru’s own gory terms, it’s like those people who stayed conscious shortly after being decapitated; he can suspend himself to a similar state, aided by Infinity and the Reverse Cursed Technique to amplify and stretch out that period of time until his body readjusts and repairs itself so he can return to normal, organs working once more. Between physically dying and physically reviving, he can remain in limbo where he’s neither.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Suguru insists, when Satoru tries explaining it to him in between classes.

“It doesn’t have to,” Satoru says. “Death doesn’t make much sense, now does it?”

“So what you’re saying is that you can now defy death.”

“Just for a moment.” Satoru’s lips curve up in a half-smile like it’s a joke, but the air around them is serious and his eyes are distant instead of light with amusement. It’s starting to become a common occurrence—the daydreaming. When Suguru nudges his leg, trying to get his attention, Satoru suddenly regains focus, returning to the present world. He clears his throat. “It doesn’t have to make sense, because it’s not like this’ll happen often.”

Just because something doesn’t happen often doesn’t mean it can’t happen again, and that alone is why Suguru feels wary about the whole thing. Satoru comes out of most fights unscathed, so dying or coming close to it is a far-fetched idea, but even then, due to this newfound ability, he can’t even really die. It makes things more difficult, not anything about Satoru has ever been remotely easy.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Suguru asks, as if Satoru has any choice in this. Maybe he does. He’s grown even harder to read ever since their mission with Amanai, ever since he came back from his second fight with Toji, a little different from before.

Suguru has days where he thinks he’s changing, thoughts in a disarray and body weighed down by how pointless everything they’re doing is, but in the end, these are just familiar musing he kept tucked at the back of his mind, only pushing their way to the forefront because there’s nothing to fortify his defenses. He’s becoming weak, but that notion isn’t anything new either.

These things are nothing unfamiliar to him. The one who has turned unrecognizable is Satoru. “So long as you’re alive, you’ll be shackled to this kind of life.”

“It’s fine.” Satoru’s tone is dismissive. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

At the very least, this is something that Suguru still knows all too well, a constant that has yet to falter—Satoru’s unwavering belief that he’ll always be there. But Suguru wasn’t there when Satoru had to deal with Toji alone, even if he insisted he could do it himself, even if their priority was Amanai over each other. It makes Suguru wonder if he really will always be there when he isn’t during the moments that actually count.

The days feel repetitive even if everything is shifting slightly, axis tilting in increments and forcing him to reorient the way he finds balance in the world. Suguru swallows it all bitterly the same way he does with curses, but that feels different too. He doesn’t know what all this is leading up to, what it would amount in the bigger scheme of things. They go to class and they get hurt to get stronger and get rid of curses, but the curses don’t dwindle down and being strong no longer feels enough, and it makes him feel even weaker.

He doesn’t know if he could keep on doing this. But the only way for him to stop would be if he—

“Suguru, hey,” Satoru interrupts, cutting through Suguru’s ruminating. “I need your help with something.”

Suguru turns his head. As always, Satoru looks clean, untouchable, as if he spent the day taking a stroll in a nearby park instead of returning from a week-long mission in another city. They had an agreement between them—something they did early on—to bring back souvenirs if their missions were far, but instead of candies or keychains, there’s something small and brown and furry curled up in Satoru’s large hands.

“Is that—” Suguru begins.

“She’s dead.” Satoru swallows, like he doesn’t know what to feel about it.

“Oh.” Suguru falls silent, but Satoru doesn’t explain himself. “Do you want to—”

“Yes.”

It doesn’t feel right for Suguru to be annoyed at Satoru for cutting him off, so he doesn’t mention it.

No one lurks the halls of the Gojo Clan Estate except for the two of them, but Satoru’s too focused on the corpse cradled in his arms and far too used to the silence to care. Suguru’s only been here a handful of times, never long enough to really recall everything, but he realizes now that this is probably why Satoru stays at the dorms with him and Shoko despite having such a large space to himself.

He’s never asked Satoru about his family, and it isn’t going to change, even now. What would knowing change anyway? Satoru is still the clan’s strongest member. Even if others are there, known to the rest of the world, they would never have as much power as Satoru, so they might as well not even exist. Only the strongest make it, after all.

The kitten must’ve been weak, and that’s why it died, Suguru concludes, even if it’s ultimately pointless because it’s a kitten and it’s dead and they’re burying her in the back garden. Weeds sprout, the soil is dry, and the plants are in the midst of wilting; it’s a land unattended to for years. Satoru wants his help in digging a hole in the ground, so Suguru summons a curse to do the work for them. He doesn’t know if they’re going to talk about it. He doesn’t know what all this is supposed to say.

“You should’ve at least put it in a box,” he eventually points out, watching Satoru tuck the kitten into the hole, making sure she fits snugly inside as if they’re resting her on a soft cushion.

“No,” Satoru argues. “She didn’t like being in enclosed spaces. Weird kitten, right? Actually liking the outdoors and other people rather than being all alone. So stupid, I don’t get animals.”

“But you took care of one anyway?”

“I didn’t,” Satoru denies, sounding awfully sulky. He gathers some dirt in his hands to put over the corpse, covering it in slow but gentle movements. He looks a little lost, but the task isn’t difficult and Suguru knows it isn’t really because of that. Feeling bad, he gestures at his curse to take over instead. “She just kept on following me after I gave her a part of my sandwich. I think her mom left her. Or maybe she died. Does that mean she saw me as mother material?”

“It’s a kitten,” Suguru reminds him, not unkindly. Satoru is still crouched down, body leaning forward to the grave like it pulls him in even if he’s no longer doing anything to help with the burial. He won’t say it, but it’s obvious that he had gotten attached. It isn’t something Suguru ever considered—Satoru getting attached to anything, much less an animal he’d known for a week. But he remembers that Satoru is different now. Suguru is the same. It never bothered him before until he realized that the difference makes them distant. “Were you going to take it home?”

“‘Cause I take care of myself so well,” Satoru deadpans. “Nah, don’t think she would’ve liked it here. She’d probably pee on Utahime and then Haibara would feed her chocolate and then she’d die. But—” He hesitates. “I don’t know. I could’ve. Would’ve been nice to know if I could do something like that—take care of something. Someone. Kittens are a lot like kids, if you think about it. So I thought that mattered.” Suguru doesn’t have a clue as to what Satoru’s talking about, but all Satoru does is sigh, like he’s already exhausted with his own nonsensical train of thought. “We’re growing old, Suguru.”

They’re barely eighteen, but Suguru doesn’t disagree.

It only registers to him later, after Satoru stands and turns around, as if he wants to already leave, that something is off. “Satoru,” he calls out, touching Satoru’s shoulder.

“What?” Satoru says. He doesn’t shake Suguru off, but the air around him feels frigid enough for Suguru to want to. But it feels familiar, so he doesn’t.

“Your heart isn’t beating.” Suguru isn’t asking.

Satoru doesn’t even blink. “I know.”

It’s been three months. Satoru said, it’s not like this’ll happen often in reassurance, but it happened again, and that doesn’t reassure Suguru in the slightest. “You’re impossible.” Satoru smiles, but there’s no comfort behind it. “The mission was that bad?”

Satoru scrunches up his nose and bristles. Infinity sparks and pushes Suguru’s hand off. “I handled it, didn’t I? Otherwise I wouldn’t have come back.”

It’s not enough to diffuse the situation entirely, but at least it isn’t like the first time, where the atmosphere between them was tense, one breath away from causing everything to collapse. Maybe that’s why Satoru would hold everything in until his lungs would still. He’s always been the one to break the ice, break down the walls, break everything, really, but during that moment—he couldn’t. For once, he couldn’t. If he did, that very thing that broke could not be fixed.

Right now, it doesn’t feel like that at all. Satoru chatters away. He blinks. There’s nothing tense about his posture, but the expansion and contraction of his lungs is faint and feels like something he’s forcing himself to do, rather than something that would naturally happen. And his heart refuses to beat—blood frozen in place, body cold, almost corpse-like.

“You didn’t come back normal,” Suguru points out.

“There’s nothing normal about me,” Satoru says. “I got too confident and it bit me back in the ass because the curse actually had a brain cell or two, which was—I don’t know, hard to believe, even until now—but I’ll be okay. I wouldn’t worry.”

This time, there’s less doubt, but the sense of uselessness weighs down on Suguru, the awareness that he doesn’t know how to stop it. It doesn’t matter that picking up after Satoru isn’t actually his job; it’s just something he got too used to doing until he stopped needing to do it anymore. They go on more solo missions now. Satoru has grown stronger and he manipulates Infinity in both creative and tiresome ways. Suguru digests more curses, wondering if someday acquiring a certain one would give him all the answers he’d need, would tell him the very things he needs to know and quell the distaste that lingers at the back of his throat, reassuring him that all this is worth it.

The hard cold truth is that it isn’t, and the strange side effect of Satoru’s self-healing technique is another unwanted reminder of that.

“How’d the kitten get caught in the crossfire?” Suguru asks.

“We were playing by the sidewalk,” explains Satoru. “But I was messing around, had my Infinity on so she couldn’t touch me. She got fed up eventually and then ran to the middle of the street while I was distracted, right when a truck came. The curse was there at the back, which I should’ve sensed but—I was too confident about the entire thing. I wasn’t taking any of it seriously. It’s fucking annoying.”

Suguru doesn’t know if Satoru’s calling the entire situation annoying or just him, but the latter thought feels unlikely given who Satoru is. Suguru has to fight down the urge to contradict him, to say that he actually takes everything seriously. It’s why he’s so grating in the first place, contradicting himself in more ways than one to the point where no one understands what goes on in his head and what he’ll do next.

“Oh,” is all he can manage to say though. A part of him wonders why the college didn’t sent them both if the curse was that strong—when even Satoru couldn’t afford to be carefree because it would cost him, make his abilities latch onto that last resort option of stopping his heart to let himself heal after a gruesome fight he barely came out victorious from.

In truth, however, Suguru already knows the answer to his unsaid question: it’s because Satoru is still stronger. Soon, even with his carelessness, he would become the strongest. It’s a title lost to Suguru now, who is simply strong, and that inability to be anything more than that makes him weak.

And if he’s weak, then what is he still doing here? What change can he possibly make to the world if he can’t do anything significant?

Satoru glances down at his hands. He presses his fingertips together cautiously, like he expects resistance even if he’s the one who controls what does and doesn’t get past him. For the first time, he doesn’t look sure of himself.

“Guess I should stop,” Satoru suddenly says. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Yeah?” Doing what, Suguru wants to ask, except he doesn’t know if he’ll like the answer.

“Pushing everything away,” Satoru replies. “Never letting anyone get close except you. I used to think that keeping everyone at a distance made them safer, but maybe it’s better if I kept them near me. Within reach.”

“Is that why I’m the exception? Because you think I need it?”

“No.” Satoru turns his head and grabs his hand. There’s a brief moment where it’s clear in Satoru’s eyes that he’s going to pull Suguru’s hand closer, as if to make him hold something that isn’t his own hand, but in the end, Satoru decides against it. Despite the chilly air around him, he feels just as warm as he’s always been.

He’s being irrational, Suguru thinks, putting his Infinity down to let them touch when he needs it the most right now. Suguru chooses not to mention it, but he will. Later on. If—when?—this would happen again. He does not want this to happen again, even if it doesn’t feel so bad, being close to Satoru like this. “It’s because I need it.”

The words are sweet, but it isn’t the answer Suguru’s expecting, and for some reason, it makes him feel farther from Satoru despite how he speaks of closeness. How long can Suguru continue to touch Satoru like this, unguarded with his power absent and his heartbeat nonexistent, until Infinity and life would come to push them apart?

“It doesn’t feel bad, you know,” Satoru tells him. “Having no heartbeat. It feels hollow, like something should be there but there isn’t, and it’s just a void. But it’s not bad. It’s… quiet. Peaceful. Like death. For a second.”

“You’re not dying.”

“‘Course not,” Satoru scoffs. “I plan to live longer than my future great grandchildren.”

Suguru can’t help but snort quietly, vaguely amused. “Good luck finding a woman who cares enough about preserving the clan bloodline to settle down with you.”

The comment is enough to spur Satoru onto a one-sided argument about he’s wrong and how these concerns are more valid for people Utahime and not him. Suguru listens half-heartedly. Their fingers are tangled together and the coldness of Satoru’s skin reminds Suguru that Satoru isn’t really alive, not yet.

For a moment, Suguru entertains the possibility of Satoru doing it to him too—making his heart stop, placing him in that in-between state for a minute, prolonged by Infinity—just so he would know what it’s like to have a moment of peace. Of death. To really know if all this is worth its sacrifice; to know if he’s living and dying for things worth living and dying for.

To know if Satoru is the same, and that for all their differences, there’s still something that can tie them together.

(Sometimes, Suguru wonders if something actually did break. He wonders what it is and if it’s him and if it can be mended, but he doesn’t know where to start.)

==

The answer, he learns later on, is this: it’s not him that’s broken. It’s the rest of the world.

Haibara’s legs were cleanly torn off in the fight, so Nanami returned to the college nearly blind and lugging a dead man in two parts. Shoko drapes a sheet over Haibara’s body to save everyone from the gruesome sight, but Suguru is already inside the morgue when she does it. He would’ve thrown up if he isn’t already used to being nauseated by the curses he swallows.

This, by far, is the worst kind of curse, but it also isn’t the first. When Suguru looks at Haibara’s slack face, , he sees Amanai all over again, and then every namely face he failed to save because he was too late or just wasn’t there.

Exorcising and swallowing curses is not enough. Maybe what it would take is for him to swallow the whole world instead. After all, how can you worry about saving people if there aren’t any people to save?

The words are on the tip of his tongue when he sees Nanami, hunched over by the wall, looking weary. The words are on the tip of his tongue when he walks through the halls of the college and spots Yaga, his face blank like it’s a normal day because the reality of the situation is that it is.

The words are on the tip of Suguru’s tongue, but the only time he says it is when he runs into Satoru, returning half a day later after dealing with the curse that took Haibara’s life.

“Hey, maybe it could work,” Satoru considers, despite the ridiculousness of Suguru’s declaration. Infinity isn’t something the naked eye could glimpse, but Suguru swears he sees it ripple in the air around his friend, wrapping itself around him like it’s shielding Satoru from everyone when Satoru is the most dangerous one of them all.

He doesn’t go to the morgue. He says he doesn’t want to. It wouldn’t change anything.

“Suguru, imagine—just imagine,” he’s saying now. “If there was no one else in the world but us two, wouldn’t that be great?”

Suguru has a feeling that Satoru’s greatly misinterpreted his words, and it slightly miffs him, the fact that Satoru can’t read between the lines and understand Suguru like he used to. But maybe it just doesn’t matter. So many things, when Suguru thinks about it, don’t matter. But if nothing matters, then what’s he doing all this for?

He doesn’t think of Yuki and his conversation with her. He doesn’t know if it would lead him to an answer or only bring him to more questions.

“Don’t be stupid,” Suguru says. “What would we do if we were the only two people in the world?”

“I can think of a few ideas.”

They end up on a beach an hour later. It’s a popular area, one that Suguru vaguely recognizes to cater to tourists, mostly, especially in this season, but with the later hour, they’re the only people here. It’s not exactly how he planned to spend his 4AM, but it’s not like resting is an option. As for mourning—that doesn’t feel right either.

“Why here?” asks Suguru.

“It’s quiet,” Satoru reasons, as if the college isn’t the same. But there’s always been a difference between the silence of the dead and the silence of loneliness, and maybe the fact that they’re the only two people on this lonely beach is a bit better.

Suguru leaves his shoes behind with a curse while Satoru wanders to the middle of the beach to fling his own right into the waters. Suguru chooses not to question it and watches Satoru flop to the ground, looking awfully comfortable. The sand slips and sticks to the in-betweens of Suguru’s toes, so he guesses that it’s only because of Infinity that Satoru can look that at ease.

Suguru sits beside him regardless of his discomfort. The last time he let himself touch this much sand was on that beach in Okinawa, with Amanai and Kuroi.

They stay close to the shore. The water a few meters away from them looks clean. If Suguru takes a few steps forward, the waves would brush his skin and make him feel refreshed. Satoru looks the opposite, like he’s older than he’s supposed to be. Suguru thinks about Okinawa and how it feels like a distant memory that happened a decade ago rather than less than a year, simply because of how they are now.

He thinks about scooping some water with his hands and cleaning Satoru’s face with it, wondering if doing so would suddenly return them to the people they once were all those months ago, naive about the world but content with it.

“We should’ve gone swimming,” Suguru finds himself saying. “It was a good day to go swimming.”

“Is that so?” Satoru hums, tone slightly amused as he turns to his side. “How about today?”

“Who knows. The day hasn’t begun yet.”

“I think napping would be ideal,” Satoru remarks, yawning. “Think I could use one, after everything.”

Suguru looks at him from the corner of his eye, not entirely willing to part his gaze from the horizon. There’s no sun yet, but it would only be a matter of time. He doesn’t know if they’ll leave by then, or if they’d pretend like this is a place they could never leave. If they had done that all those months ago, would they have managed to avoid everything that happened after?

It’s a foolish thought. The beach is no safe haven, and it would have never provided any semblance of escape from the problems that later caught up to them. But in that moment, they were carefree despite the struggles. Suguru misses it, the Okinawa air and the laughter of the girls, no matter how brief it was. In his haze of uncertainty and brewing resentment, he no longer remembers what those pleasant feelings are like.

“The curse,” he begins. “Was it strong?”

Satoru stares at him like he isn’t sure how to answer even though it should’ve been simple. His hands twitch, absentmindedly brushing against his chest like he would find an answer there before he catches himself. “Nothing that would’ve killed me.”

It’s perhaps the kindest and cruelest thing he could say. But there are too many meanings tangled together for Suguru to want to unwrap, so he doesn’t. Instead, he takes one look at Satoru’s hands before reaching out to tuck his own in between the other’s palms. Satoru doesn’t hesitate to grab him, but what catches Suguru off guard is how Satoru drags his hand to where his heart is, when he always did the opposite before.

No heartbeat, but this time, Suguru expects it. It doesn’t really make things better—makes things worse, actually, because that means he’s getting used to it. But he doesn’t sigh and he doesn’t scold Satoru like he always does, because he feels like he’ll regret it. And Satoru, perhaps, is the only thing Suguru would never let himself regret.

“That’s good,” Suguru says. He rests his hand against Satoru’s chest, wishing that he could make Satoru’s heartbeat thrum and soothe him. But he’s never been strong enough to do that. “Nothing should ever kill you.”

“Cursing me with eternal life, Suguru?” Satoru questions, sounding tired but amused. “Or is this a confession?”

Suguru turns his head away from Satoru, not because he’s afraid but because he finally notices the sun, slowly creeping up over the horizon. It’s a lovely view, the kind of thing he would’ve wanted others to see, like Amanai, like Kuroi, like Haibara. But it’s just him and Satoru, and it feels both good and bad.

If there is a confession crawling up his throat, trying to spill from his lips, it tastes like vomit, curses he consumed but could not use when they mattered most. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Despite the new beginning of the day, it feels like the last of something else. Satoru does not answer and closes his eyes, either in acceptance of Suguru’s answer or indifference to what it was in the first place.

It occurs to Suguru that Satoru’s going to rest, something he hasn’t done in what feels like forever. This is the last place where he should do it, lowering his defenses when they’re right out in the open, but deep down, Suguru understands why he believes he can afford it: he trusts Suguru—enough to let him slip past Infinity’s walls, to be there for him when no one else would, to protect him.

How foolish Satoru is to believe this when Suguru hasn’t been able to protect anything.

“Suguru,” Satoru murmurs slowly, as if trying to coax something out of Suguru, or as if he’s about to drift off and leave Suguru behind. “What if I told you that this wasn’t because I almost died, but because everyone else did?”

He isn’t actually telling Suguru a fact, just presenting a possibility. Suguru’s hand still doesn’t leave Satoru’s chest, and there’s still no movement beneath his palm. He thinks of Amanai and Kuroi, of the kitten, of Haibara. He thinks of Satoru’s words and how they all tie to everything they’ve lost that mattered or could have mattered, and how this, inevitably, is Satoru’s curse—to remain strong because everyone is weak, to live because everyone dies.

“That would be sad,” Suguru tells him, but it’s their truth—is Satoru’s, most importantly.

“And what if I told you,” Satoru continues. “That the reason it would keep on beating, is because you’re alive?”

This is a curse in its own right. But it’s a confession too, and in the end, Satoru is right: they are the same thing. The thought dries Suguru’s throat, leaves him without proper words to say because they would never suffice, could never compete against the magnitude of what Satoru implies with all this nonchalance so true to his character. “That would be even sadder.”

“Would it?” says Satoru. “I think it could make me happy. Or something like that.”

Suguru remains quiet. By the time he finds his voice again, Satoru is fast asleep and the sun is magnificently bright, light reflecting off the gentle waves. Satoru can’t hear Suguru’s answer, but Suguru, instead, hears a slight thud, weak but existent underneath Satoru’s skin; an answer to a question not even the wind heard. It’s a reminder—that Satoru is alive and he is too—kind and cruel. A small part of Suguru wants to stay like this for as long as fate will allow it, craving for that sliver of hope that that time would freeze itself in this moment of beginning to never reach its end.

Even asleep, Satoru holds onto Suguru like he always does when he’s wide-awake, reluctant for them to part. Suguru pulls away anyway, because time stops for no one, even the strongest. If Satoru is the type who pushes others away in order to protect them, then Suguru is the one who pushes others away because he knows he can’t.

There’s a split second where he feels the phantom touch of Infinity, futilely grasping for him to stay, but it disperses before Suguru can dwell on it. It will not come back, Suguru thinks, almost wistfully, like so many things about them and the world. But he won’t regret it, because Satoru is the one thing he will never regret.

It’s both a curse and a confession, one Satoru will never know until the very end.

==

When the end finally comes—Suguru’s, most importantly—time, at last, stops. Satoru’s heart, for what feels like the first time in years, does not.

That’s a first, Suguru wants to point out. You’re a liar, he wants to tell him right after, because he’s dying and Satoru isn’t, and he always made it sound like losing Suguru would be the same as forgetting how to keep living. But Suguru says none of these, because they aren’t the last words he wants to leave Satoru, too raw for even his damaged body to expose.

The blood loss starts to cloud his mind, making his body sag from exhaustion, gradually losing strength. His drive, a burning flame that pushed him to infiltrate the College and summon curses to fight those powerful kids, starts to snuff out. It’s not from a lack of resolve, retracting on his own beliefs that he’s clung onto for so long, but because Satoru is here.

And Satoru—he looks alright. He looks alive.

And he is, his heartbeat steady under Suguru’s hand. Suguru doesn’t reprimand Satoru for acting so careless, for letting go of Infinity as if Suguru is a comrade rather than an enemy. The idea of talking is tiresome and Suguru wants to save his strength for—something. He isn’t sure what. There’s nothing else to wait for but one thing alone, and he doesn’t need to do anything but let it come to him.

Liar, Suguru tempts himself into telling the light thrum of Satoru’s heart, settled under his skin. Unless this is a sign that I’d make it too?

“Suguru,” Satoru says, like he read his mind. “I lied.”

“You’re impossible.” Suguru wants to laugh, but he doesn’t have the energy for it. He wonders if this is what Amanai felt, what Haibara felt, what even Satoru felt—toeing the line between partly accepting something everything else in him is trying to deny. It’s a tug of war, knowing nothing about where he’d be pulled too. But there’s only one option to consider, given everything right now. Suguru is not like Satoru, who can easily defy fate, but in truth, Suguru is not like Satoru because no one can be like Satoru but Satoru. “I know.”

Suguru lowers his hand. Infinity does not stir, like it no longer recognizes him. Still, he doesn’t turn his head away from Satoru.

“What,” he asks, when he notices the look on Satoru’s face.

“Something I told you before,” Satoru says. “I pushed you away, even though I said I’d keep you close to me. Within reach.”

He didn’t, but Suguru doesn’t want to waste his breath placating Satoru’s ridiculous thoughts. At least that hasn’t changed, despite the time. “You’re insane if you expect me to remember what the hell you’re talking about.”

But he doesn’t resent Satoru for them, because there are also things from their past that Suguru will never let himself forget either.

“You should at least curse me,” Suguru tells him. He doesn’t look away from Satoru, but he thinks that if he does, he would see the sun and feel the cool air breeze that only a beach could offer. He would hear Haibara’s laughter and melt in Amanai’s embrace. These are things Satoru has never been able to experience, no matter how many times he’s brushed death, and Suguru nearly pities him, because when he thinks about it, it fills him with a surprisingly warm feeling of content, not so different from what he used to feel when he held Satoru’s hand. But maybe this, in its own right, is the closest thing Satoru can have. Maybe Suguru has the opportunity to give him something similar. “At the end.”

“I’m confessing.” Satoru smiles slightly. There’s some comfort in it, misplaced and undeserved but present nonetheless. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Suguru lets out a sharp exhale, half as a sigh and half in laughter. His lungs strain at the action, but he endures the pain anyway, because it won’t be for long. The subtle shift in Satoru’s expression only confirms it, the knowledge of what will happen next weighing heavily in the space between them.

If Suguru could find the strength—the courage—to reach out and bridge the gap once more, Satoru would clasp his hand with his own two palms and they would be in the beach all over again, letting the sand uncomfortably dig into their skin as they wait for the sun to rise and find rest. It would be like peace, just for a moment, but maybe Infinity could prolong it, change it into eternity, and they’d never have to leave. .

Instead—

“You better not regret it,” Suguru says, right as Satoru raises his hands, fingers curling into a familiar gesture. He hadn’t been able to carry it out the last time, and sometimes Suguru would wonder why and only come to the conclusion that it was because Satoru was uncertain, and uncertainty had no meaning to it. Now, Satoru’s hands do not shake, and his eyes are somber but do not waver, full of meaning they could not communicate through words. There has never been any room for them to falter and get away with it unscathed. This is something they both know all too well. “Because I refuse to.”

He isn’t talking about what Satoru is about to do, and Satoru knows it.

“I won’t,” Satoru promises. He takes a deep breath. He blinks. The beat of his heart is a song Suguru doesn’t hear with his ears, but something he can still recall underneath his fingertips. He likes him like this, despite everything that happened—likes the reminder that Satoru is alive. “Do you?”

I would never regret you, Suguru almost says, but he closes his eyes instead. Whether it’s for Satoru’s sake or his own, they would never know. “No.”

It’s like a gentle breeze, a soft hum in his ear, a tingling in his hands. He hears a thump, feels it in the center of his palm, ever-familiar, and someone whispers his name, a coaxing murmur. Something furry brushes his leg, beckoning him to open his eyes.

When he does, he sees the silhouettes of familiar figures from a distance, waving at him to come over and join them by the shores and a never-ending horizon. There is no dark alleyway and no trace of Satoru, in sight, hearing, or touch. But Suguru can feel him somewhere, right by the left side of his chest, where something should be but isn’t.

Suguru takes a step forward, feeling weightless and without regret. If he was someone else, he would say that he feels the force of Infinity one last time, pushing him forward with the promise that he has found peace.