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“Suguru?”
Satoru sits on his bed, head tilted to face the window, breath fogging up the glass. His legs are bent awkwardly to allow the other space on the mattress, limbs tingling with pins and needles.
Suguru hums in acknowledgment. He doesn’t look up.
Satoru wets his lips, hesitating as his eyes focus on the light of the moon. Strands of white hair hang in his eyes tangling with his lashes that he tries to blink away.
“You ever think about the inescapability of death and how there’s a wealth of knowledge that will die with you and you won’t be able to pass down?”
It’s silent before Suguru finally responds, voice rough with disuse. “What brought this on?”
It’s been a week since Haibara died. Months since Riko was killed, Satoru too. Months since Satoru has lowered infinity.
“I was just- thinking, I guess.” Filed down nails bite into the flesh of soft palms. He blinks and breaths out a gust of air, pushing his bangs out of his eyes.
“You don’t ever think about how you might one day be the last person to remember certain slang or music or the way a place looked? That there’s nothing you can do about it due to the unstoppable force that is the march of time?”
Satoru lifts his head from the window to meet Suguru’s wide eyes. They look uncharacteristically flat, dulled and heavy as they sink into his face. Smudges of purple line his eyes, Satoru can’t remember the last time he saw them clear.
“No,” Suguru settles on, brows furrowing as he searches Satoru’s leveled gaze. “Death is a relief.” He turns his head then, breaking contact to stare at the bland wall across from them.
“Time is finite which is why life matters, if it went on forever, it would be meaningless.”
His hair had been pulled from his bun hours ago. The dark, greasy hair now hides his face from Satoru’s view as he continues.
“All of this Satoru, would be meaningless.”
Suguru seems to decay before his very eyes these days, wilting like a flower left out to dry. Sometimes, Satoru has to look at Suguru with all six of his eyes to ensure that Suguru is truly there, alive.
Meaningless, huh? Satoru huffs a sardonic laugh, Suguru and his morals.
“So it doesn’t bother you? Not even a little bit?”
Suguru’s shoulders hunch in on themselves, muscles tightening beneath the stretched cotton collar of one of Satoru’s shirts. He shakes his head, sliding forward to sit at the edge of the mattress, feet dangling to touch the cold floor.
“That one day all the history in the world is going to be wiped out along with humanity and there will be nothing to remember us by?” Satoru can’t understand it, can’t fathom just- being okay with that knowledge.
By design, Satoru has had to know everything, all of the information in the world that could be given to him, as soon as he opened his eyes. The Six-Eyes allows for nothing less.
Having all of that erased is a terrifying thought. Knowing that one day there will be no one to remember you by is even worse. Best case scenario: the Gojo clan carves his name into their walls, labeling him as the weapon, the God he was bred to be.
Satoru doesn’t fear death, he’s faced it once before in the form of a man molded by spite. No, he doesn’t fear death, but he does fear being forgotten, tossed aside after he’s been used for all his worth.
God. Weapon. Six-Eyes.
Suguru pulls Satoru from his musings by twisting to face Satoru. His stupid bangs that he’s had since their first year blocks his expression but his mouth is twisted into a frown, lips tight as he assesses the other boy.
“At least then we get a fresh start. No curses, no clans, no rules.” His lip curls further, mouth parts as if he’s about to go a step farther but clicks shut before it can escape.
A heavy weight settles between the two sorcerers, Suguru still avoiding looking directly at Satoru. “We must return to the dust from which we came.”
Satoru snorts. “Poetic.” The tension dissipates as Suguru cracks a smile, muscles jumping as if unused to the motion.
“Say, Suguru.” Satoru sits up straighter, moving to sit shoulder to shoulder with the dark-haired boy. “In the inevitable heat-death of the universe, will you be a star cluster next to mine?” He tilts his head down, straining to meet Suguru’s eyes as he flashes him a grin.
Suguru laughs quietly, a melancholic twinge darkening the sound. Amethyst meets sky blue as Geto Suguru lies straight through his perfect white teeth.
“We already are.”
Shoko walks through the cemetery, heels clicking against stone as she makes her way to the center.
Rows upon rows of headstones line her path but she pays them no mind. People die every day, what is there to get sad about, in her line of work it’d be a fatal mindset.
It’s a clear night out, a new moon even. Shoko can see constellations she doesn’t know the names of as they pass overhead.
Suguru had known their names.
When times were better, Suguru used to take Satoru and Shoko up to the roof. All three of them giggling as they snuck around hiding from Yaga-sensei.
Suguru would pull them up, one by one, until they settled beside him and he’d show them the stars. Living out in the country could be lonely, he had explained. It felt like everyone was lying to him, that somehow Suguru was the crazy one for seeing curses. He was called crazy, schizo, freak, and on nights when it got to be too much, he’d climb to the roof with his astronomy book and memorize cluster after cluster.
Satoru and Shoko had never been particularly interested in the night sky but there was something calming about being there with Suguru. Enough that they indulged him weekly.
Shoko had never bothered to learn their names or formations outside of the most basic few. She had figured that Suguru would always be there to remind her. A warm weight against her side as she and Satoru pretended to mix up the names and stories that went along with the constellations just to see Suguru’s face scrunch up in displeasure.
Now though, it was just her.
Figures, Shoko huffed, as she came to a stop in front of two stone markers. The strongest sorcerers of their generation, of any generation, and she had been the one to survive.
December 24, 2017.
December 24, 2018.
Exactly a year apart, how dramatic. Shoko groaned as she sat down, bones creaking with age. She may have been 30 but some days she felt as old as those Higher Ups geezers Satoru had offed.
“Sorry, I know it’s been awhile. Hope you didn’t miss me too much.”
She could almost hear Satoru’s whining, I can’t believe you left us here to rot all alone, you’re breaking our hearts Shoko! And Suguru’s agreement of, absolutely devastated.
Or, maybe Suguru wouldn’t say that. He was a leader of a genocidal cult after all, people change.
Shoko sighed, setting her offerings at the two graves. A bouquet of blue hydrangeas and dark purple irises for Satoru, and one of yellow peonies and white hyacinths for Suguru.
Satoru had always guiltily enjoyed hanakotoba and even though he had sworn her to secrecy, she hoped he appreciated the arrangements.
After setting up their bouquets, she lit the incense at the base of the stones and sat in silence for a minute, contemplating how this was her life now.
“It’s odd, you know, being without you.” Shoko waited for Satoru’s teasing response, eyes closing when she realized what she was doing. “Two years without Satoru and I’m still expecting him to pop out and mess with me. Even longer for Suguru.”
“Megumi’s doing better, he’s regained almost if not all of his strength. He misses you though, even if he pretends he doesn’t.” She pauses again. “I’m sorry that he doesn’t come to visit, I know you’d want to see him. He’s just, guilty, I guess.”
A cold breeze brushed past her cheek and she shivered. She should’ve come when it was still light out, warmer.
Looking at the unresponsive stone before her, Shoko couldn’t help but hang her head in defeat. What do you say to the two people who should have stuck around? What happened to being “the strongest”?
But that was hardly fair, they were human after all. Human to the bitter end.
Pulling out her final items, Shoko placed a box of unopened cigarettes on Suguru’s grave and a bag of strawberry konpeito on Satoru’s.
The gaping hole of their losses didn’t seem so wide with her little mementos decorating their graves. She stood up and wiped off the dirt from her trousers. She could never stay here for too long, lest she gets the urge to dig her own final resting place right next to the two.
“I’ll be on my way now, sorry I didn’t have many updates on the kids for you. I’ll see if I can get some info out of Itadori the next time I see him.”
She stuffs her hands in her pockets and remembers why she came here in the first place. “Oh, and before I forget again.” Shoko pulls out the two pieces of paper and pens laying one of each alongside their bouquets. “Happy Tanabata, wherever you two ended up, make sure you don’t have the Milky Way separating you. You’ve already had death and morals keeping you apart before, you’re dead now. You can rest, together.”
Sending one final look at the markers, Shoko turned from her passed companions, the clicking of her heels echoing in the night.
The stones stood side by side. Dust intertwining below the surface, dual nebulae with their arms outstretched in an endless dance.
Geto Suguru.
Gojo Satoru.
Twin star clusters entrapped in each other’s gravity.