Chapter Text
PRESENT DAY
The city was quieter at night, the normal rush and demands of city life melted away until it was just him. Satoru liked these solitary moments after midnight the best, a kind of peace he had grown to trust. His midnight walks were like a ritual since he had come back. He walked the same route, the same leisurely pace as he traveled through the small park path, across the high bridge, looping through the community garden, then back to his apartment. The route was warm in its familiarity, like tracing the same shape over and over on paper until it became muscle memory.
Walking brought him a peace that the walls of his high rise apartment could not. His sleep schedule was wrecked, he got two, maybe three hours a night before his mind was racing again. He couldn’t stand the emptiness of the place, of his life.
As he walked, he remembered the man he used to be. One full of hopes and dreams. He was told he was electric, bright enough to light up a room just by walking in. People gravitated towards him, they still do, because power is something people always want to sit beside. He had once been told he was the warmth in winter, the laughter that made others forget their troubles, the one who threw himself at life and made everything feel bigger. He wasn’t sure where that person went, left behind somewhere he could no longer reach.
He’d been back home for 6 months after being gone for over 5 years. That old version of himself felt impossibly far away. The change had been slow at first, almost invisible, until one day he realized he no longer recognized his own reflection. He had stepped into his designated role as expected, killing himself in the process. Whatever dreams he used to have had been beaten down long ago. Love had slipped away without warning, and friendships that once felt like lifelines had frayed to silence. Texts and calls on holidays and big events and little else. People could only tolerate so much.
From the outside, Satoru looked fine, perfect even. He had it all didn’t he? He was filthy rich, could go wherever he wanted on a whim, have whoever he wanted, be whoever he wanted and nobody cared at all because they never saw him as a person, only an asset. Even his assistant who he spent the most time with, knew very little about him, enough to schedule meetings and make sure he was where he was supposed to be on time. The rest? Nobody cared. He wore his mask well, so well it didn’t even feel like a mask sometimes.
His mind always went back to the golden years of his life, back when everything made beautiful sense. The world had felt different then, like anything was possible. For a while, he even believed his dreams could come true. He had been certain that he was exactly where he was meant to be. He had been loved, admired, and cherished. He had let people see him, really see him, and he felt known for the first time.
But something had broken it. One moment, the season was bright and endless and then, without warning or explanation, it was burning down around him. His hands now held only ashes. He never let anyone back in after that.
So he walked, he walked to clear his mind, he walked to feel in control of something, to feel in control of anything. He never saw anyone. Not once in the six months since he’d started this strange but familiar night routine. Until tonight.
Exiting the park and approaching the bridge, his thoughts were abruptly interrupted as his eyes adjusted to the figure ahead.
A man. Standing on the ledge of the bridge. Too close to the edge, so close that a strong breeze could cause him to fall.
The man was standing incredibly still and watching the black water churn far below. The streetlamps overhead threw fractured light across his shape, catching on the curve of his jaw, the slope of his shoulders. Grey sweats, dark hoodie, no shoes. The concrete must be cold on his feet- Satoru thought as he walked closer and more of the man came into view.
The man didn’t move, staring straight down at the dark water as though in a trance. His stillness matched the quiet of the night so perfectly that for a moment Satoru wondered if the man had been standing there for hours, if the whole city had simply grown around him and Satoru had simply missed it every time he’d walked past before.
As Satoru drew closer, recognition tugged at him, subtle at first, then sharper, until it clenched at his chest with an ache that had taken years to try to erase. Familiar. ‘I know him’ he thought.
The bridge lights shifted with a faint flicker, illuminating the man’s face. Dark hair fell forward, loose and heavy, brushing over his shoulders and down to his waist. He couldn’t see his face but he knew if he turned for even a moment…
Satoru approached slowly, each step deliberate, the soles of his shoes whispering against the concrete. The last thing he wanted was to scare him, sure that one wrong move could cause him to slip, taking his life and Satoru’s heart along with it.
“Suguru?”
The name came out quieter than he expected, as if speaking it too loudly might shatter him.
No answer. Suguru didn’t even flinch. His gaze stayed fixed on the abyss, the water shifting and writhing like something alive far beneath them.
Satoru closed the remaining space between them until his hip brushed the cold ledge. He hesitated only a heartbeat before climbing up next to him, feeling the rough concrete under his hands, the open air yawning below.
Suguru turned then, just enough for Satoru to see his face. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes.. .God, his eyes.. ..looked like they hadn’t known sleep in weeks. Dark circles, sunken sockets, pale, wan, when had he last eaten? Satoru remembered…he had seen that look before.
Still… in the faint glow of the bridge lights, Suguru was beautiful. Always had been. Maybe more so now.. ..or maybe it was just Satoru, still seeing him the way he always had. He wanted to reach out and grab his hand, he wanted to tell him to get down, he wanted to tell him he still loved him. Instead he said,
“I bet I could do a backflip and land right back here,” Satoru said, the words tumbling out without thought. He winced but held firm. He’d try anything to divert Suguru’s attention. Anything to get his heart off this ledge.
Suguru’s head turned slightly, but their eyes didn’t meet.
“Satoru,” he said so soft, almost a whisper..
“I can do it. Backflip? Easy peasy. I can do that in my sleep! I’m going to do it,” Satoru rambled, leaning into the reckless momentum that had always been part of him. He did the math in his head.. ..sixty-forty chance of success, maybe eighty-twenty if he was being generous. He’d always been athletic, always the one to turn a risky idea into a story worth telling. And if he failed.. ..if he fell..well that would still be a story worth telling wouldn’t it? ‘CEO of Gojo Empire disappears after jumping off the Wanaka bridge.’ The thought should’ve terrified him.. ..it didn’t. If you jump, I jump, jack.
Satoru shifted his weight, knees bending, body tensing for the flip…and then Suguru’s hand was on him. Firm. Unshaking. The grip anchored him like nothing else could.
“Stop,” Suguru commanded. Not loud, not desperate, just final.
The air between them seemed to thicken, the night suddenly too quiet. Satoru froze, the muscles in his legs coiled tight, the rest of him suspended in the weight of that one word. Stop.
Satoru blinked, startled to find Suguru’s eyes finally meeting his. For a moment, it was like stepping backward in time, like the years between them had dissolved. Suguru had a way of looking at him that nobody else did, soft and loving in a way that made Satoru’s chest ache. Admiring in a way that made his stomach twist.
Just as quickly, the warmth drained from Suguru’s face, replaced by something harder and sharper. Disbelief? Anger? Disappointment? Satoru couldn’t pin it down and before he had a moment to reflect on it, Suguru shoved him.
The force sent Satoru stumbling backward towards the safety of the sidewalk. He landed hard on the unforgiving concrete, the shock rattling up his spine. His hand shot out to break the fall, and pain flared as his palm scraped raw against the ground. He hissed through his teeth, but before the sting could register fully, Suguru was already off the ledge and closing the distance in a few long strides.
Suguru loomed over him, his breath quick and sharp.
“What are you even doing here, huh?” Suguru’s voice was wild and broken. “Why can’t you ever just… why can’t we just.. ..fuck!” He broke off, a frustrated sound clawing its way out of his throat. His hands went to his head, fingers clutching at his hair. “Why won’t you just let me die?!”
The words hit harder than the fall. Suguru’s voice cracked on the last syllable, and then his knees buckled. He crumpled to the ground, folding in on himself, his chest heaving with violent, uncontained sobs.
Satoru could only stare. His own pulse thundered in his ears.. Because I love you he wanted to say. Because a world you don’t exist in is not a world I want to be a part of. Because, because, because. Instead he said,
“I walk here every night.”
Suguru’s head snapped toward him, eyes red and wet. “What?” His voice was hoarse, and raw from crying.
“I walk here every night,” Satoru repeated calmly, slower this time. “Nobody is ever around. Just me. I’ve never run into anyone, not in six months of walking here. Until tonight.”
Suguru just stared, confusion cutting through the anguish for a flicker of a second.
Satoru took a breath, the air tasting like steel. “I’m not sorry for being here tonight,” he said, steady now. “I wasn’t sorry then, and I’m not sorry now. You can hate me, you can never talk to me again, you can pretend like we never knew each other.” He shook his head. “But I will never apologize. Not for that. Not for saving your life, Suguru. Not ever.”
The words hung there, heavy and unmovable, the kind of truth you couldn’t take back once spoken.
Suguru stared at him, breathing hard, expression unreadable, and then he laughed. Laughter devoid of joy, cracked and hollow filled the silence around them.
“You think you saved me back then?” he said, shaking his head slowly, strands of dark hair falling into his face. “You didn’t save me, Satoru. You just… delayed the inevitable.”
Satoru’s throat tightened. “Don’t say that…”
“Why not? It’s true.” Suguru tried to push himself up onto his knees but all the energy had drained out of him.
“You think that was some kind of turning point for me back then? His voice trembled, not entirely from anger. “All you did was buy me time I didn’t even want. My mind is a prison, Satoru, that I can’t escape from.”
Satoru swallowed hard, but didn’t look away. “I… I know..I didn’t mean… You’re here. You’re breathing.” You're with me.
Suguru’s gaze cut into him like a knife, sharp, wet and firm. “You don’t get it. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to carry this around for five more fucking years.” His voice broke, quiet but jagged. “Everything I have is…. ..nothing matters to me anymore”
Satoru’s reply came low, steady. “It matters to me.” You matter to me.
Something in Suguru’s expression shifted again from anger to settle on something like grief. He looked away first, his shoulders sagging as though the fight had drained out of him all at once.
“I can’t do this right now,”Suguru muttered. “Not here and not with you.”
Satoru pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his scraped hand pushed against the concrete, and put his hand out for Suguru to help him up. Suguru stared at him but didn’t take it.
Satoru huffed out a bitter laugh. “Fine. Can I call someone for you?” Satoru knew he must have someone to call. Someone as great as Suguru would never be truly alone.
“No. I don’t need them to.. I don’t need.. ... .I can walk.” Suguru responded.
Satoru raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief, glancing down to his bare feet and now bloody toes from jumping and scraping across the concrete.
“I don’t live far…I’m right over there,” Suguru stated, gesturing toward a small apartment complex just before the community garden.
Satoru stared at him dumbfounded. All this time, all his nightly walks…he had walked past Suguru’s apartment hundreds of times and he had never known? He knew moving back home was a mistake, but after working abroad for years he just wanted to be somewhere familiar again. But this? Absolutely ridiculous. Satoru had always known he was just a pawn of the universe, insignificant in the grand scheme of the world but the thought of being so close after carefully avoiding each other for years was too much to handle in this otherwise charged emotional moment between them. A laugh clawed its way up his chest and he forced it down. What a great cosmic joke.
Satoru held out his hand again, palm open in the cool night air. Suguru stared at it like he was trying to understand it. Satoru waited longer than he should have, the silence stretching taut between them, before deciding enough was enough.
“Fine,” he muttered, reaching down and gripping Suguru’s arm with a firm, unshakable hold. The muscle was tense beneath his fingers, but Suguru didn’t resist when Satoru hauled him up to his feet.
“I’m walking you home,” Satoru said, not letting go. “I didn’t go to all this trouble to leave you bleeding on the street.” He started guiding him toward the far side of the bridge, steps purposeful. “I’m not taking no for an answer. It’s getting cold, I’m tired, and I’m about two seconds away from throwing myself off this bridge and since you seemed really against me doing that, let’s just fucking go. Stop being a bitch about it.”
A ghost of a scoff left Suguru’s throat, but he still didn’t speak. Instead, he let Satoru steer him along, the resistance melting into a weary compliance. Satoru shifted, sliding one arm around Suguru’s shoulders, pulling him close enough that their strides fell into a slow, unsteady rhythm.
Their pace was slow and by the time they reached Suguru’s apartment, the air had chilled. Satoru had never meant to stay out so long and he wasn’t dressed for it. Satoru stopped at the bottom of the steps and eased his arm away. Suguru climbed up to his apartment without looking back, his keys jangling faintly in the dark.
They didn’t speak. Maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe they had already said all the things they could ever say to each other. Satoru turned away and headed back into the night, letting the shadows close behind him.
The next evening, he walked again. And the night after that. And the one after that. He didn’t tell his feet to slow down when he reached Suguru’s street, but they did anyway, every time, like muscle memory with a mind of its own. His thoughts lingered there too, drifting back to that porch step, to the way Suguru had vanished behind the door without a single backward glance.
He knew the truth, though he didn’t like admitting it, his route had stopped being about the quiet a long time ago. And if he was honest, maybe it hadn’t been healthy for a while. They’d tried before, hadn’t they? Tried to mend things? But the pieces never fit again, some of them had been lost entirely, others too sharp to hold without bleeding.
Satoru sighed as he crossed into the community garden. Tomorrow, he told himself, he would change his route. He would make it different. He would stop walking past Suguru’s apartment. Tomorrow.
The next night, Satoru left his apartment with purpose. He was starting a new route. No bridge. No park. No Suguru.
He turned right instead of left, letting the unfamiliar streets stretch out ahead of him. Streetlamps hummed above cracked sidewalks, their cones of yellow light catching on old brick facades and shuttered storefronts. The air felt different here, less open.
It should have been refreshing. A clean break from the rhythm he’d been clinging to for months. Every few blocks, he’d find himself glancing down side streets, noting where they might connect back toward the bridge. He told himself it was just a habit, that his body was so used to the old route it was struggling to adapt. He kept walking.
Halfway through, he stopped in front of a small bakery with its lights still on. The smell of bread and sugar drifted out into the night, warm and sweet, and for a moment, he thought about going in. But his hands stayed in his pockets. The pull in his chest wasn’t toward the smell, it was toward somewhere else entirely.
He made it another four blocks before the decision stopped feeling like his. His feet turned. His pace quickened. And just like that, he was on the road that would take him straight past Suguru's building.
The street was darker here, the lamps spaced wider apart. His pulse picked up anyway, a restless thrum in his veins. As he approached, he slowed without thinking, eyes flicking up to the second-floor windows he knew too well.
No light. No movement.
Still, he stood there for a moment longer than he should have. Then, before he could decide what exactly he was doing, he kept walking.. ..across the park, over the bridge, through the community garden..completing the route as if nothing had changed at all.
When he finally reached his apartment door, he muttered a curse under his breath. Tomorrow, he told himself again. Tomorrow would be different.
🌟*******************************************************************🌟
Suguru couldn’t get Satoru out of his head but there was nothing real surprising about that. His heart had been buried with Satoru a long time ago, and no matter what he tried and no matter who he tried to replace him with, he could never dig it back up. The emptiness wasn’t just inside him now; it was him. The marrow of his bones, the static in his head, the drag in his every breath.
He didn’t expect to see Satoru that night. Hell, he didn’t expect to see anyone. He’d planned this carefully, thought through every detail like it was an exam he couldn’t afford to fail. Notes written. Arrangements made. Loose ends tied off. The bridge was picked for its height, its darkness, its view of the water that would take him. Tonight, he was finally going to do it. Because the misery wasn’t fading. The pain in his chest wasn’t softening with time like people promised. It was a constant pressure like an anvil on his ribs, an ache that was present when he woke and did not relent until sleep finally stole him away for a few hours of peace.
He had tried. God, he had tried. The list from his therapist played like a litany in his head.
Find something you’re passionate about.. ..photography. Check. He’d wandered forests and city streets, capturing light in all its fleeting shapes. Sometimes he even convinced himself he liked the results.
Find someone you care about.. ..Satoru. Un-check, crossed out. And after Satoru, two or three others who barely made a dent in the emptiness. Names he didn’t want taking up space in his mind, their presence unable to fill the void within him. He cared about some of them, maybe it was even borderline love, it just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t enough, it never seemed to hit that space deep inside him that was forever reserved for one. Sometimes he hated it.
Maintain a healthy diet—kind of check. Eating was work now, and he rarely had the appetite for it. Sometimes days went by before he realized how little he’d put in his body. He ate out of necessity not pleasure, most food tasting like ashes in his mouth.
Maintain physical health—check, check, check. This was the easy one. During his third year of college he dove back into martial arts like it was his job. He’d push his body until his muscles trembled and his legs gave out. Anything to stop the madness in his head. It was routine now, but it only helped in the moment. Afterwards, the pain just helped remind him how fragile he was.
Establish a regular sleep schedule—sure, if you could call three hours here, two there “regular.” Sleep never came easy for him, especially when he wasn’t out on assignment. Being stuck in an office everyday had never been for him and returning each night to the silence of an empty apartment, the ghost of another that had once fit beside him perfectly. The wrongness of the replacements he had chosen. Sleep remained elusive, his mind was never quiet.
None of it worked.
On a beach with his friends, the sun painting gold on their laughing faces and he felt nothing but the ache of being apart from it all. They glowed; he didn’t. Even surrounded by the laughter of the people he loved the most, he carried around a deep melancholy. When they would finally coax him into the water, it felt like drowning.
None of it worked.
In a forest, bent over wildflowers and insects, his camera captured details most people missed and he thought only of how much more vivid it would all look through Satorus’s eyes. How much more alive it would feel with Satoru’s voice in his ear.
None of it worked.
In the bed of someone whose name he didn’t care to remember, whose touch was rough and unfamiliar, he thought only of pale skin and soft white hair, of hands that had never been calloused, of eyes as blue as the sky that could see straight through him. He’d drift in and out of the moment, wishing himself elsewhere entirely.
None of it worked.
Even when he was training.. .. fighting kicking, punching, feeling his knuckles split and skin bruise, the pain was small compared to the hollow burning through his chest. It didn’t match the ache of longing, the regret, the cowardice of choices made and unmade.
None of it ever worked. The routines, the medications, the people… ..
So this time, he had a plan. And this time, it would work. Not like last time. This time there would be no Satoru to ruin it, no Satoru to grab him back from the hands of death. His friends? Easy to push away. His lovers? Easier still. They called and he ignored them. They texted and he ignored those too. When he did reply his answers were short - busy - working- maybe later. They invited him to events and he promised to be there. He never showed.
Nobody could reach him now. Except Satoru, because from him, Suguru had never been able to hide. But Satoru was gone, because Suguru had made sure of it hadn’t he. He had pushed him so perfectly away that even though they probably still had some of the same friends, they never crossed paths, not once in five years. Not once since the spring of their sophomore year of college and the last look he ever saw on Satoru’s face still haunts him all these years later.
The walk to the bridge was easier than it should have been. He felt… hollow. The pain he carried day in and day out had gone quiet, retreating into the corners of himself, like it knew he was about to erase it. The numbness was almost a relief. He noticed, briefly as the cold seeped into his skin, that he hadn’t grabbed shoes.
The city was unrecognizable at this hour. Suguru was never out this late unless drunk, staggering home from some bar. Now, sober, the stillness was startling. No horns. No footsteps. No voices bleeding into the night. It was almost peaceful. Almost.
The bridge rose out of the darkness ahead. Suguru didn’t slow his steps. He didn’t need to. His body knew what it was doing. He’d seen this spot in his mind for months.. ..had dreamed of it, felt it calling him on nights when the walls of his apartment closed in too tight. Tonight, there was no hesitation. No second-guessing. He climbed onto the ledge like he’d been practicing, bare toes curling over the drop, the river’s cold breath rising to meet him.
The world blurred and he watched the current, imagining the way it would swallow him. For once, he wasn’t thinking about Satoru. For once, there was no face in his mind, no voice in his ear. Just the pull. And then…
“Suguru?”
The sound cracked through the stillness, jagged and real.
He ignored him. Satoru wasn’t here, he couldn’t be, he didn’t even live here anymore, it was some kind of dream, a bending of reality, last wishes kind of thing. Because he was dying soon right? He was finally going to be done here.
Suguru felt Satoru climb up next to him, the idiot, was he really here? What was he doing? And then the most absurd sentence fell from his pretty lips.
“I bet I could do a back flip and land right back here.”
Suguru uttered the first word he had said in days then, soft, barely spoken but full of firm reprimand, pulled out of him almost by instinct alone, the way he had always responded to Satoru’s outrageousness.
“Satoru.”
Suguru couldn’t take his eyes off him. Watching as he rambled about being able to do it, full of confidence and bravado, just like always, like…before. He was really here, standing next to him. After all this time.
Satoru, the glow from the streetlight poured over him in molten gold, catching on the sharp planes of his face and turning the edges of his platinum hair into a pale, liquid halo. Each strand shimmered, almost white against the dark, the brightness making him look unreal. His blue eyes, normally piercing, softened in the dim light. He looked less like someone standing on a quiet street and more like he’d stepped out of a dream, too luminous to belong to the dark.
Suguru’s chest tightened painfully. For one dizzy second, it felt like they were back where they’d been.. ..two people who knew each other completely, who had once wanted nothing but to keep knowing each other forever.
As Satoru tensed his body preparing to flip, Suguru felt the numbness in his body fade away into panic and urgency. Satoru can’t fall! As though acting on instinct alone, his hand reached out to stop him and his mouth commanded him to stop. He couldn’t control the way he looked at him either, the way love and concern poured out of him. Suddenly he was furious.
He pushed Satoru hard onto the concrete sidewalk and watched as he scraped his hands but it was too late now. He felt like he was out of his body, panic turned to anger because not again. Dammit not again. He was ready. He was ready!
He watched as Satoru flinched at his words and backed away in shock as he screamed at him ‘why won’t you just let me die?’ before collapsing on the ground. The great cosmic joke of Satoru and Suguru - too in love to ever love anyone else. Too broken to ever be able to make it work. And why?! Why was he here? How was he here?
“I walk here every night,” Satoru says. And as he continues to speak, something in Suguru cracked open, and all the anger and resentment washed out of his body. Because of course Satoru would always want him to live- of course he would always try to save him. Of course he came back.
Suguru allows himself to be guided home. For the first time in what feels like forever… ..days, weeks, maybe months, he’s actually here, inside his own body, instead of lost in his own mind. Satoru’s warmth pressed against his side, solid and unshakable, yet soft in a way that made Suguru ache. He’s a contradiction equal parts comfort and chaos. Silence and thunder, light and darkness all bound up in the shape of one person. All unmistakingly.. ..Satoru.
For the first time in a long time, in the hollow space Suguru thought had gone numb for good, something woke up. Love. Small and stubborn, pushing through the cracks like a plant left to wither in a forgotten pot, now suddenly finding sunlight and rain. It’s barely enough to live on.. ..but it’s enough to remember. Enough to remember what it felt like to be strong and whole, and maybe…enough to keep trying.