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Grass pushes up from between the cracks of the concrete; sun-scorched and fragile and the only sign of life in an otherwise abandoned street. 

Satoru crushes it beneath his heel. 

He doesn’t want to be here. The silence is eerie, nothing but boarded up windows and the occasional hoodlum scuttling in the dark. Perhaps non-curse users aren’t as stupid as he thinks, although they can’t see curses perhaps they possess an innate sense of danger, one that tells them to run. 

He shifts under the afternoon sun, annoyance prickling his skin as well as the heat. Satoru is only here because he was ordered to be. His teachers have figured out already that requests fall on deaf ears. Instead, they speak to him in admonishments and threats. Not like those work anyway. 

He wasn’t allowed to take Suguru with him, who’s currently caught up in another mission with Shoko on the other side of the prefecture. Satoru got stuck babysitting. 

BOOM.

Smoke slithers out of the building in whisps. The screaming immediately follows: four distinct voices panicking in a row, the kind of scream of your life hanging in the balance. They are distinct enough; young and probably over-eager to prove themselves to each other. That bravado failed them the second they encountered the curse. Non-shamans all follow the same predictable pattern. 

They probably expect to be saved. 

“Now there’s a terrible decision.” He laughs. “They’re all going to die.” 

Two sorcerers in, Nanami Kento and Haibara Yu. Satoru supposes Yu has the resolution that could save some of these kids but he lacks the grit to truly be of much use. It all comes down to Nanami. 

Nanami, however, is not the sentimental sort. He showed up one day: no family to speak of, no lineage for them to tear apart like wolves. The teachers did not know what to make of him, this kid from the outer city with an unfamiliar technique. Nanami hadn’t even been a blip on the radar until he stepped into Jujutsu High. He knows it unnerved them, the way he hadn’t been known to them as though they had the right to discover all the world’s secrets. 

But Satoru had to admit that it was weird to him too. No one found him, no family threw him out, no one had to play the part of caring adult, generously taking him in as a last resort. When pressed for an answer, either by teachers or Satoru’s endless game of 20 questions, Nanami said nothing. Evasion is beneath me, he’d said. Instead I will not entertain the question at all.  

No fucking personality, that guy. Suguru and Shoko are fascinating characters in their own right and people like Utahime are ridiculously easy to figure out. Nanami is neither: boring personality with no discernible backstory. Yet it fascinates Satoru: the aged face, a monotone lull of his voice, his refusal to join in on jokes. Satoru has never seen the kid smile. It’s hard to believe they’re only a year apart, with him leading at the helm. 

Nanami is not the sentimental sort. 

“They’re going to die.” 

If there is anything that Satoru does know it is this, the mission comes first. 

Satoru leans back against the railing of this deserted street, looking up at smoky windows and wondering about the shadows within. 

They will die. He’s sure of that much. 

***

Yu and Nanami stumble out of the building with three kids, one barely managing to scrape by, blood like a sacrificial offer marking the pavement. 

“Gojo-senpai!” Nanami barks at him and Gojo startles. “Give me your jacket.” 

He is struck dumb by the authority in Nanami’s voice. The jacket goes and is handed over without complaint. He sees it then, the kid suffers from a deep cut to the leg. Satoru estimates his odds of survival about fifty/fifty, kid’s lucky if no major artery was hit. 

Where is Yu?  

He whirls around and sees him placing the other two kids down, one crying, one silent, and frantically making a phone call back to the school. There were four voices and Satoru expected none to return. He did not expect Nanami to be bandaging a wound after ripping strips from his jacket. 

It is a strange thing, to feel useless. 

“Gojo-senpai.” 

Nanami meets his eyes and nods once. 

“Thank you.” 

He was wrong. 

Nanami and Yu managed to save three out of five kids— highschoolers, he corrects himself. Two of them had been shred to pieces about five minutes after their arrival. It’s strange, fifteen years old and defenceless, expecting to be saved by their peers. They are peers only in age, nothing more. Nanami is just yet sixteen and answers that call dutifully even though Satoru knows he’s not—

“Excuse me?” 

He snaps out of it and there is a girl looking up at him, shifting on her feet. 

“Yeah?” 

He has to admire her shamelessness: nearly killed and already wanting a phone number. The tell-tale signs of anxious anticipation are there, from the phone in her hands down to the flush covering her cheeks. The sunglasses come off. 

“Did you want anything?” 

The girl points to Satoru’s left. “Him. What’s his name?” 

He follows her direction to see Nanami talking to the principal. “The blonde?”

She nods. 

“Nanami.” This situation is bizarre. “Why?” 

He knows what she is going to ask before the words leave her mouth. She has that energy about her; determined and nervous all at once. Satoru doesn’t understand. 

“Can you get me, uh, maybe… his phone number…?”

Bizarre. 

“See, that guy?” Satoru says before he can take it back, his mouth running too fast. “He doesn’t really have a phone. He’s weird like that. He’s not very fun either—”

“He saved my life.” The girl declares and she is so convinced, so sure of herself, that Satoru feels but for a small fraction what she must be experiencing. Nanami has stopped talking to the principal and she takes that opportunity for what it is.  

Satoru watches her get rejected with more apologetic gesturing than is strictly necessary. 

It marks the moment he gains an interest in Nanami Kento. 

***

When they arrive at the school it is well-past dusk and Satoru wastes no time in marching straight to the dining hall. His job for today has long been done: he craves a hot meal and better company. One of these is easy to get. Satoru scans the room and immediately perks up the second he sees Suguru pushing around peas on his plate, obviously waiting on him. 

“Miss me?” He slings an arm across Suguru’s shoulder and plops down in the seat next to him. 

“For once I actually had a decent time without you.” 

Satoru sniffs. “Was Shoko upset I couldn’t come?”

“I doubt she noticed your absence.” 

“I’m hurt.” He snatches a mochi off Suguru’s plate and Suguru doesn’t attempt to stop him. At least some things don’t change. 

“What’d you guys have to do anyway?” 

Satoru’s not necessarily looking at Suguru as he says it. Instead, he peers out into the hall. There aren’t a lot of students, only so much you can do with a limited supply of cursed techniques and, barring inbreeding, these will only further dwindle (not that anyone can stop the Zenin clan), and only Yu’s head is visible in the distance.

“A ghost.” Satoru hears Suguru say. “Someone died ages ago, legend took over the rest, curse finished it.” 

Lucky him for getting a standard job. 

“Hm.” There is no sign of Nanami anywhere. He’s seen Shoko leave the hall, positive he’s seen Mei Mei leave with her. Yu sits alone, no Nanami. There is no sign of the third-years. “Did it now?” 

He’s not paying attention. 

Where is he? 

“What are you looking at Satoru?” Suguru asks him and it jolts him upright. Satoru gestures grandly at the space of the dining hall, eerie with only three students to occupy the space meant for hundreds. Though he supposes that marks every night at Jujutsu High, graduating here is a deeply lonely experience. “Well Yu’s there. I’m not doing my job as a babysitter properly if one of the other kids is missing.” 

“You’re really looking for Nanami?” Suguru sounds amused. “Why?” 

“Didn’t I just say that?” 

“Not really pegging you the ‘responsible babysitter’ type.” 

“Would make good porn though.” 

“Stop trying to distract me.” Suguru laughs. “How do you still not know where he is? Didn’t you just complete a mission with them?” 

Satoru ignores that. “Hey, Yu!” He calls, the sound carrying over the empty space. “Where’s Nanami?” 

“Getting patched up!” Yu shouts back. “Y’know, we could’ve really used your help back there!” 

“You didn’t even help them?” says Suguru, clicking his tongue. Satoru ignores him. 

“What do you mean he’s getting patched up?” 

“He’s had a hole blown into his side.” Yu says, eyes narrowed. He always has been rather fond of Nanami, Satoru realises, incapable of leaving him alone. If Yu blames Satoru for Nanami’s carelessness, that’s his problem. Satoru was meant to oversee them, he wasn’t meant to actually go in there and help them. It’s not like Nanami likes listening to him anyway. So far Yaga hasn’t been yelling at him, so that means he did his part of the job fine. How else are trainees ever supposed to learn if he’s there holding their hand? 

He doesn’t like the look Yu is giving him. He doesn’t feel guilty, they all have injuries to share. It’s the nature of the job. Sure, Satoru doesn’t have any to share this time, but this was their mission, their time to protect the weak. They seemed to have the situation under control. 

Satoru wants to wipe that look off Yu’s face. 

“So why aren’t you with him then?” It’s easy to put the blame right back. It’s not as if he and Nanami are close, it’s not as though he noticed much else but the girl who wanted a phone number. Limited focus, not his fault. 

“‘He doesn’t need me to hold his hand’,” Yu says and Satoru knows that sounds exactly like Nanami. 

Stupid. 

“What’re you doing?” Suguru asks as he’s getting up. Satoru finds it easier these days to ignore him in favour of doing whatever the hell he wants. “Seriously Satoru, what’s gotten into you?” 

I want to see him. 

When Satoru moves, Suguru makes no move to stop him. He does not bother looking at Yu. Most of his food is left untouched. He leaves the dining hall without anyone stopping him. 

The corridors come quickly, the familiar wooden door is next and finally there’s the smell of alcohol and cotton, a room with too much white in it. 

It makes him want to mess it up.  

Nanami looks at him immediately. There’s a bandage wrapped around his waist speckled with red. 

“Gojo-senpai?” 

He wishes he would drop the senpai.  

“Yo.” Satoru says, for lack of anything else. 

Nanami doesn’t waste any time on pleasantries. He never has. “What’re you doing here?”  

What excuse does he have? He watches Nanami sit there on white linen, hand pressed protectively against the bandage as though Satoru means to rip it off and sink his teeth in. Hah, isn’t that a beautiful image? They’re alone. The doctor must have left the second he finished the bandages, lazy bastard. 

“Did he scold you?” Satoru asks instead because he cannot find a reason that sounds like an excuse Nanami would buy. It’s difficult to lie if you even don’t know the truth of your answer. 

“What are you talking about?” Nanami eyes him warily, long legs swinging over the bed as though he means to come closer, as though he means to run. 

“The doctor.” Satoru says and moves in. “Did he scold you for getting hurt?” 

“Were you?” Nanami counters. “You left us there.” 

“It’s not my job to babysit you.” 

“Funny,” Nanami huffs. “I thought that was exactly what you were asked to do.” 

“Yeah yeah,” Satoru presses and moves in until he hovers right above Nanami’s face and grins. “Are you gonna scold me instead?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

To his credit, Nanami doesn’t lean away from him. He only sits there, staring up through narrowed eyes, with that stern unsmiling mouth. Nanami is made of stone, of marble, every edge cutting, every line carefully drawn but never moving. Satoru wants to know what moves this boy, wants to press into all those sharp corners until they crumble beneath the pressure of his touch. What happens if an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? 

Satoru grins. 

“Scold me, Nanami.” 

He presses one knee on the bed, boxing Nanami in, the bed creaking under the additional weight. Nanami doesn’t move, only looks up at him with eyes that prickle Satoru’s skin, an obsidian well with any intent well-concealed. Yet his expression is one of naked honesty: Nanami doesn’t lie. Satoru always remembers that first day, when asked why he came here. 

I will not conceal any truths. 

Yet he himself is different he thinks, as he places a hand over Nanami’s shoulder, lips pressed together in a vapid attempt at concentration. It is easy for Satoru to lie, although the glow in his eyes probably betrays everything. 

“Aren’t you listening?” Up goes the other knee until he effectively hovers over the boy’s lap. “I want you to scold me.” 

He wonders if he’d do it. 

Nanami reaches for him. Satoru doesn’t notice him taking off the sunglasses until it’s too late, the way he’s forced to make eye contact, how Nanami’s voice comes from very close, deep and rolling over him like a storm, how it tears at him when he can remain only still. Satoru shivers.  

“Get out.” 

“Wha—?” 

Before he realises what’s going on, Nanami has taken hold of his hips, lifts him from the bed and unceremoniously drops him onto the floor. Satoru yelps when the tiles connect with his tailbone. 

“What the fuck, Nanami?!” He rubs his sore skin, grabbing his sunglasses from where they skid across the floor. 

“Consider this a warning.” Nanami says, looking down at him from the bed. “Don’t play games with me, Gojo.” 

The words ‘what happened to ‘senpai’’ die on Satoru’s lips. 

“Fuck you.” He snaps, a finality to his voice; scraped raw from wounded pride. 

He is graceless as he scrambles to get off the floor, feeling the heat of Nanami’s gaze burning into the side of his face and not wanting to meet it, not now. 

When he leaves that office, it’s all he can really think about. He doesn’t answer Suguru, who wonders why he’s not wearing his glasses, he ignores Shoko who finally decides to show her face and asks about the curse. Satoru goes to bed with a heart that thrums a steady path down his throat, swallowing beat by fluttery beat until it reverberates throughout the whole of his body. 

Thump.

Thump.

He didn’t imagine it, after all.

When Nanami looked at him, he was smirking. 

***

The next morning, his spine has not forgotten. When Satoru gets up to shower, a bruise glares at him from the mirror, stark as twilight against his pale skin. He hisses when he moves, humiliated by his body. Humiliated because he got bested by a junior, caught unaware. The feeling prickles beneath his skin, a constant uncomfortable reminder because each time Satoru tries to forget about it, it flares up.

When he stares at his reflection in the foggy glass, he notices that his cheeks are tinged with red. 

Training is going to be a bitch. 

“What kinda night did you have?” Suguru says by way of greeting from across the courtyard. He gestures to Satoru’s body, walking as though his legs are too long for him. The innuendo takes him a second. 

“Oh you know me.” He grins. “I needed a diversion and I got one.” 

Suguru frowns. “I thought you went to see Nanami?”

“And?” 

“He wouldn’t.” 

Nanami’s reputation doesn’t concern him. 

“Who’s to say? You weren’t there.”

“Well, that’s easy enough isn’t it?” Suguru turns away from him. “Oi, Nanami!” 

He hadn’t realised he was there. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Satoru doesn’t falter easily but he still resents how quickly Nanami’s head turns, the rapt attention to Suguru’s call. He hates himself the most for noticing it. 

“What is it?” The annoyance in his voice carries over all the way here. 

He’s not looking at Satoru, only at Suguru. 

That pisses him off too. 

“You sure you want everyone to hear me?” 

Nanami makes a quick apology to Yu and hurries over. It is obvious he wants to get back to training. He still is not looking at Satoru and at this point it is starting to feel less like a coincidence and more a deliberation. “What?” 

“Satoru here says you guys had sex last night.” He has the decency to call it sex. Nothing about Suguru is decent and he certainly should not allow Nanami the courtesy. “Is it true?” 

Finally, Nanami looks at him. His eyes are metal after a hard winter, they would freeze Satoru’s upon first touch if he were stupid enough to reach out. His mouth pulls and Satoru, chin up high and grin ever-present on his face, waits for his answer. 

“I’ll venture a guess and say Gojo-senpai’s never had sex before.” Nanami says, voice as chilly as his eyes. “I pity his previous dates if they, too, were dumped on a floor when they made advances.” 

Suguru snorts. Satoru shoves him. 

He simply shrugs. “You and I both know what happened.” 

“Ah, yes.” Nanami says. “The way you threw yourself at me on a hospital bed, desperate to be—”

“Shut up—”

“I told you not to play games.” This time Satoru is startled by the sharpness of his grin, the way his teeth glint out at him; white and dangerous. It tells him to move. That feeling, predator turned prey, lasts only a moment. “Come back when you’re serious.” 

He stands there, voiceless and wordless, flipping Nanami off for lack of a clever reply. 

Suguru’s voice brings him out of it. 

“There’s a challenge if I’ve ever heard one.”  Suguru’s grin is a world away from Nanami’s and by the time Satoru wants to compare, Nanami has already moved back to Yu, giving neither of them so much as a glance. 

“A challenge?” He rolls his eyes. “For Nanami? I thought he’d be easy, but—”

“He has standards, it’s tragic I know.” 

“Standards?” Satoru laughs. “Have you seen me? He can’t do better than me.” 

“Yet he’s rejected you. Isn’t your heart sore the second time around? I believe it got beat up already last night.” 

“The moment I get heartsick over Nanami Kento is when you’re allowed to kill me, Suguru.” 

“Who’s getting heartsick over Nanami Kento?” 

“Shoko! You missed a great deal.” 

Their conversation transforms until it is mere background noise, a static in his ear. None of the teachers appear to be keeping watch, it’s why two of the third years didn't bother showing up at all. Satoru, too, longs to go back to his dorms instead of wasting the day by training what he already knows to have perfected. 

It’s a waste of time. 

Instead, he sits down, legs extended on the grass, picking at the ground the minute his hands fold beside him. Eventually, Shoko and Suguru wander off but neither of them invite him to join them. He’s fine with that. He used to be a loner before they dragged him to this academy, because it had been the best use of his talents. 

Satoru is not wasteful. He knows the balance of this world and the place he holds within it. 

He wonders what place other people hold. 

“Satoru!” 

Oh, he thinks, that’s not a voice I want to hear. 

When he looks up, Yaga’s angry face hangs above his. 

“Fuck.”

***

“What the hell were you thinking?” 

His head hurts. 

Yaga came back forty-five minutes ago. He was updated on the situation about thirty minutes ago. The knock on his head came approximately ten minutes ago. He’s sat there since, head bent low, nursing the dull ache with the flat of his palm. 

“I was outside—” He narrowly misses the second hit, jumping back just in time. 

“You were asked to assist!” 

Yaga has never been very much interested in listening to his answers. 

“That’s not what you said.” His eyes flash. “You told me to stand guard.”

“Two people died, Satoru. Nanami-kun got hurt—” He is momentarily distracted by the honorific attached to Nanami’s name, while his name wanders empty, discourteous. For others it might signify closeness, but for Satoru it is a sign of disrespect, of being uncared for. What makes Nanami so special? “—necessary at all.”

Yaga looks at him intently over the rim of his glasses. 

He is expecting an answer, Satoru realises. 

“What the he—” He sees that hand being raised and quickly switches gears. “What would you like for me to say?” Satoru does not want to risk a headache this early in the evening. Yaga is unforgiving like that. 

“Forgive him.” Nanami’s voice comes from the right of him. “We thought we could handle it. We didn’t call for help.” 

Because there was no time, Satoru thinks but wisely keeps that thought to himself. 

Because I wasn’t paying attention.

Because I didn’t have to.

Yaga frowns. “Just because I didn’t explicitly tell Satoru to physically go in there with you, does not mean that he couldn’t have assisted you on his own.” 

The words lie between the three of them: Gojo Satoru is not an idiot. 

Just selfish, he thinks. Is he not allowed that much? He has already surpassed Suguru as well as Shoko. Is he not allowed to leave work to others? Is he meant to lend a hand indefinitely? How will it be possible for them to grow?  

Satoru is not a hero. He is not inspired to jump in to save the day, not without praise nor reward. Neither is he a villain, although his lies whip around like the wind in a storm. Never has a lie been so smooth that Yaga would believe him. 

Satoru is only interested in gaining an advantage. Whether to gain an advantage over others or purely to advance his abilities remains to be seen. It could come down to a coin toss that will decide on either course, hero or villain. 

“In short, I don't blame Gojo-senpai.” 

He’s well-bred, that one. He speaks with the confidence many their age lack, but without the desperate need to prove himself. 

Satoru is morbidly curious about his background. He’s not a Zenin is he? Nanami does not have the look of one, but the rigidity of his movements, the poised features suggest the repertoire of rigorous breeding not unlike the Zenin clan. He has never heard of the name Nanami and perhaps he never will. Perhaps Nanami too is cursed with the single line of his existence, forced to carry a legacy that will die out without him. 

“What do you say, Gojo?” 

It comes practised now. The lie gets smoother, torn across jagged teeth that sit prettily and white inside his mouth, ran ragged across his sharpest edges. It is not perfect, but even the roughest stone is carved out by the sea. 

“Thank you, Nanami-kun.”

***

Satoru lingers along the fringes of the city of Kobe, dawn set over the horizon while Satoru shrouds himself in the fog rolling towards him. Long nights are becoming typical of their daily routine. Suguru is off with Yu, he’s stuck with Nanami. Teachers roused them at midnight, talking of spirits and curtains, of guidance for younger generations. There were few words, fewer instructions, and then they both stumbled out into the night. 

A sorcerer must be ready for anything. 

They haven’t talked since the incident. 

Satoru delays doing it for as long as possible. 

“What do you think they want us to do?” Satoru says, hands behind his neck, breaching the distance between them. Though each time he gets close, Nanami seems to jump just out of his reach. “There is no curse, not even—”

“The idea is for us to bond.” Nanami says curtly. “You are meant to talk me through the creation of curtains.” 

That explains one of the few words he vaguely remembers from this morning.

What a shitshow.

“You didn’t pay attention at all, did you?” 

Satoru creeps closer until he finally closes the gap between them,, noticing just how little difference there is between their respective heights. Satoru could nearly feel small around him. 

Almost. 

“They dragged me out at four past one at night.” 

It’d been an hour after bumming a cigarette from Shoko. He’d been asleep for half a goddamned hour. Satoru bets Yaga was counting on it, he has never managed to shake the feeling that the man knows his most intimate secrets. 

“They talked about it three weeks ago.” 

Satoru shrugs, bumps shoulders with Nanami on purpose. “So I didn’t pay attention, what else is new?” 

Nanami sucks in a breath but does not move away this time. “What do you get out of it, then?” Satoru waits for him to finish the question. There are a million different endings to be written, depending on its direction. “Why did you decide to become a sorcerer if you care so little?” 

Satoru feels around in his pocket for a few more of the stolen cigarettes Shoko is surely going to kill him for later. He wonders whether Shoko got paired up with a third year, whether she will be able to handle their skill level or perhaps if Utahime is here. Perhaps she even gets to enjoy her beauty sleep. That would be sexist, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps, after months of doubting, Shoko has finally told Yaga that she doesn’t want to become a sorcerer at all. That she’s interested in studying curses and using her skill as a healer. 

She whispered it to him as a secret, quiet and snuffed out under the cover of night, and it is one of the few Satoru has kept to himself. 

He finds two cigarettes, crushed and crumbled, in his back pocket. 

“Didn’t know you were so interested in me.” Satoru says, mouth curving around a cigarette and taking a long drag.  “Guess I can’t blame you for that though, I am pretty damn interesting.”

The smoke mixes into the fog, trailing a blaze of nicotine in the air. It is short-lived: Nanami plucks the cigarette from his mouth. When Satoru’s smoke clears, Nanami is taking a drag of his own. A chill runs down his spine when Nanami does not offer it back. 

“It’s hard to ignore you.” Nanami says, voice as rough as the smoke. “Especially after what happened with the vessel.” 

The vessel. 

He remembers sand crunching underfoot. The ring of her laugh. How Suguru told him that she had changed her mind about being a vessel. Satoru wishes he had never been told about her aspiration for living, right before it was cut short. 

“She did have a name y’know.” 

I’m really sorry, Amanai. 

“They never told us.”

“Huh? Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for not knowing about it.” 

Satoru lights the other cigarette, the glow cutting through some of the fog. He dimly recalls the way the blood tasted in his mouth, the way death felt as the blade cut into his throat. Worse is the memory of Zenin’s blood; it is ever-present in his mouth, as persistent as mint after brushing your teeth, permeating every food you will eat after it. 

“Hard to ignore me after the vessel, huh?” 

“No.” Nanami turns to him, then. “Ever since I started, your name has been everywhere. So I ask you again, why did you want to become a sorcerer?” 

It’s not as if he has ever known the answer to that himself. 

“Have a drink with me.” 

Nanami’s eyes narrow. “What?” 

“Stop being such a boring asshole and have a drink with me.” 

Nanami takes the cigarette between two fingers and rubs at his eyes with his free hand. “I don’t— we’re meant to—”

“I’ll teach you how to perfect your stupid curtain later, if you’re even able to raise one, but right now I really need a drink.”

“We’re underage.” 

Satoru wildly gestures at their heights and starts laughing. When did they ever look like high schoolers? Genetics play a part, he’s sure. This whole sorcerer business, that’s probably aged Nanami too. It’s disgusting: Nanami probably cares about these people. Ordinary people don’t have to live like this. Ordinary people don’t have to wake up at 1 fucking am at night in order to protect other ordinary people. Ordinary people don’t have to kill. 

It’s a pain to look out for the weak.

He drags Nanami into a convenience store. So far, there is no voice of protest. Nanami is lax at his side, blissfully ignorant at the checkout, and to Satoru’s surprise follows him out into the park. 

Nanami brings the beer to his lips. “I indulged your request, now indulge mine.” 

He’s stubborn and it’s so hot that Satoru can’t even be mad at the demand in his voice. 

Satoru leans back against the staircase he’s sitting on, elbows gracing the rough stone. The bottle of beer rests beside him, half-empty in a single swig. It’s cold. They’re alone. He wants to go to sleep, doesn’t feel like indulging anything of that kind. 

“Why did you reject me?” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“No one rejects me. You’re the first.”

“Congratulations.” Nanami shakes his head. “You’re as arrogant as you were last year. I thought that losing the vessel would’ve taught you some humility but you can’t even answer one simple question—”

“Cuz they put a bounty on my head the minute I was born.” 

Nanami snorts in disbelief. He takes another swig. “Another lie? Try something else.”

He’s still standing. Satoru starts tugging on his trousers to get him to sit down, to bring him to his level, to look at him and see how his pale skin reflects under the night sky. 

Nanami isn’t beautiful, not in the way Satoru thinks of himself or Mei Mei, even Suguru. He’s not gracious, not soft. He looks like he never sleeps, the shadows beneath his eyes so dark as though they’ve run marathons in circles. A thin unsmiling mouth. But he is tall in the ways Satoru is not, with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Not gangly, like him. 

Nanami resists at first and, as though he realises Satoru could just make him, he sits reluctantly. 

He’s warm. 

“It’s not a lie.” Satoru rolls his eyes. “I don’t lie.”

“You simply embellish.” 

“It wouldn’t make for a very good story otherwise.” 

“So, bounty then.” Nanami finishes the first bottle. Satoru picks it up and tosses it, the glass ringing across the ground as it catapults itself into a hundred different directions. He starts laughing, harder when he knows Nanami isn’t laughing with him. 

“You’re so strict, Nanami.” 

“Are you drunk already?” 

“No.” Satoru shakes his head stubbornly. “No, not after one beer. Not now.” 

He grabs a second bottle. The tips of his fingers tingle as he brings it up to his mouth and he is too-aware of Nanami’s eyes on him as he swallows. They burn into his neck, flushing it red; it crawls up his cheeks until he is sure he looks at Nanami like a drunk man or a lovesick fool. He is neither, neither, neither. How dare Nanami look at him like that? The same way he looked at him when he rejected him, eyes the colour of glass, as though Satoru smashed them to bits too. Unreadable, mocking— 

“What are you doing?” 

He has taken a seat on Nanami’s hips, knees crunching the leafs underneath, dangerously close to knocking Nanami’s drink over. He’s feeling hazy, delirious with the feeling to touch him, to push that hair away from his face, talk until he’s drunk, kiss him until he’s sober.

So he does. 

It is one harsh intake of breath, drowning in the scent of cheap beer and cigarette smoke, one purse of his lips. Selfish, taking what he wants. This time, he will not be pushed off. It is a few tense seconds in which he leads, curiosity intermingled with trepidation, but Nanami’s hand comes to cup his jaw and Satoru melts. 

Nanami kisses him hard enough for Satoru to feel his teeth against his lips, not long until he bites down, seconds before he tastes blood. It serves as an easy anchor point, teeth sinking into Satoru’s lips, forcing his attention on the jolt of pain. He feels his own pulse in it, hammering through his body, until it spills over into Nanami’s open mouth. 

It’s a familiar taste to him. Alcohol and cigarettes and it’s almost too much knowing he provided the flavour of each of these, marked Nanami with his taste until it has morphed Nanami beyond the straightlaced asshole he knows. 

He sighs into Nanami’s mouth, begging for his tongue with small whines he knows won’t stay small for very long. He can feel Nanami’s crotch against his, the firm grip Nanami’s hands have on his hips, fixing Satoru in place. 

“What—” He murmurs between kisses. “—Do I taste like?” 

He craves praise. He wants it imprinted on him, the same way Nanami’s hands press tightly into his thighs, the hollow of his back. He wants it memorised. 

“Like ash.”

Nanami’s pupils are blown wide, as though Satoru is a drug and from the way his mouth curls, it is as if he regrets it just as much. Yet he doesn’t stop. His touches are intimate, deliberate, warm in a way Satoru knows he does not deserve. Satoru touches Nanami however he pleases, one hand behind his neck, teasing the hair at his nape. He grips the hair between his fingers and presses his mouth hotly against the side of Nanami’s mouth. 

“What—”

“Shh…”

Satoru trades kiss after kiss over the slope of Nanami’s jaw, down to his neck where his intent, mostly instinctive at that point, becomes clear for both of them. One mark, prominent and red, blossoms onto Nanami’s fair skin. One mark leads to another until there is a pattern trailing from Nanami’s jawline all the way down to the hem of his uniform. Satoru wishes to take it off but Nanami pushes his hands away when he tries. 

“We need—”

“Don’t need anything—” 

“Satoru.” 

He’s not pushing him off this time. 

It gives Satoru time to look at him, really look at him. Kiss-bitten is a good look on Nanami: lips bleeding red, cheeks flushed, half-open collar. 

“Satoru.” 

Nanami’s mouth twists. “You’re not good at listening are you?” 

For all his talk, Satoru cannot back it up with experience. That doesn’t stop him from grinding down into Nanami’s lap, earning him a choked groan. 

He wants more. But the minute he moves, Nanami leans in real close and tells him matter-of-factly. “You’re drunk.”

“I’m not.” He protests and chases another kiss, Nanami turns his head away and he feels stubble scratching his mouth. “Fuck, Nanami. Why are you such a bore? Just fucking kiss me already—”

Nanami only looks at him. His brows crease and his mouth sets into that impossible line again, the one that tells Satoru he won’t get what he wants. There is nothing in that expression. 

Only disappointment. 

“Fine then!” He snaps and gets up too fast, feeling the weight leave his head; drop all the way down to his feet in an instant. Two bottles tumble down the stone steps and shatter at the bottom.

“Careful.” Nanami’s voice comes to the right of him, one arm snaked around his waist. The warmth is too much, it’s too much— 

“Don’t touch me, it’s not like you want to.” 

Fuck, has he always sounded this childish? He can tell Nanami isn’t amused but he helps him down the steps anyway, his arm a pleasant heat around his waist all the way down to the dorms. He keeps thinking of their kiss, hard and desperate, unsure how much alcohol had an undue influence. 

Not like he cares. 

“Where’s your room?” 

“Changed your mind so soon already?” Satoru mocks him. “Thought you didn’t want to touch me anymore.” 

Nanami ignores him. He proceeds to carry Satoru up two flights of stairs to the second-year dormitory. They walk under the dim light of the hallway lamps, turned low at this late hour, and their shadows dance across the floorboards under its flickering light. 

Nanami tries two doors before he reaches Satoru’s; both empty with unmade beds. Neither Shoko nor Suguru have returned yet. 

“Go to sleep.” Nanami says, voice soft and stern all at once and god if Satoru doesn’t want him still, in spite of the humiliation he’s already suffered. He wants to drag him in and claw his nails down his back, to pull him into this bed and let the sheets swallow them both. But the gods decide to intervene then, the second he sits down, the room tilts miserably and he feels violently ill. 

“Take care of yourself, Gojo-senpai.” 

As though sensing the inevitable, Nanami leaves. 

Satoru spends the next thirty minutes expelling all of his bad decisions bent over the toilet seat. He half-expects Nanami to return, but the door does not open again. 

He realises two things when he finally crawls into bed, one more miserable than the next. 

The first is that the mission is a catastrophe. He raised no curtains, killed no curses, taught Nanami nothing but the way a drunken kiss tastes like. That means Yaga will have his head tomorrow if the alcohol doesn’t take it first. 

The second is a tougher thing to admit: he likes Nanami Kento more than as a toy.

He prays the headache takes him first tomorrow.  

***

Satoru hates him. 

It went about as well as he expected. Yaga yelled at him for half an hour, his head on the verge of splitting, and the minute he noticed the hangover the word ‘expulsion’ hung in the air. The principal got involved and Nanami got a stern talking to but, as he was the pupil in this situation, he got off with a warning. Satoru is stuck scrubbing curse guts from operating tables in the basement lab for the next two weeks and Nanami has been reassigned to Suguru.

As a courtesy to Suguru, the mission can take place during the day. 

He refuses to ask Suguru about it at dinner time. Being a good friend, Suguru doesn’t mention it either. 

Two weeks. He spends two weeks reeking of putrid guts with no one willing to come near him. Shoko visibly gags when she sees him and demands he take his dinner outside. A fight nearly ensues on the fourth day and Satoru is banned from the cafeteria until he showers first. He gets to take his dinner alone. 

In none of the fourteen days since the incident has Nanami talked to him, nor so much as looked at him. 

He hates him. 

“Good to have you back.” Suguru says when they finally share a meal again. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever be able to scrub that smell from your skin.” 

“Yeah, thanks for the support man.” 

Suguru frowns. “What’s up with you?”

“What’s up with me?” Satoru rolls his eyes. “Nothing, spent most of my time just sitting by myself and eating alone.” 

“You fucking reeked, Satoru.” 

“You’re supposed to be my fucking friend, Suguru.”

Satoru watched Nanami take his dinner and sit down next to Yu. He’s a loser, Satoru thinks. He has no one else when Satoru gets along with everyone just fine— 

Until everyone left him to rot for two weeks. 

It is inconceivable. It’s Nanami’s fault. Satoru looks at him and remembers the rhythm of his hips as they rocked up into his. He remembers the feel of his tongue in his mouth. He sees Nanami laugh, a private little thing, and an awful traitorous shiver runs up his spine. 

His plate clatters as he gets up abruptly. 

“Satoru—”

Satoru realises he’s obsessed with him. 

Uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe it. The way his mind races to chase after the speed of his heart, how his stomach drops when he hears him laugh, the need to watch him, to feel him, to talk to him.

Why won’t he fucking talk to him? 

Obsession tastes of poison. He keeps swallowing more, every time he thinks of it, resents it, hates it, wants it. 

Satoru has always been treated like he’s special. A miniature god the second he was born. He was not lying to Nanami when he said he’d had a target painted on his back, tattooed onto soft infant skin and impossible to scrub off. That target gave him privileges, attention, the same way Nanami had noticed him. 

He isn’t used to that attention being snatched back, reeled in as though it meant nothing, to pretend it never existed. 

Nanami ignores him. Not once, not during training, class or dinner, has Nanami paid any more attention to him than he did that night. There are furtive glances, ones in which Satoru reads too much, the barest courtesy of acknowledging Satoru exists. No one ignores him. 

“Fine.” He slams the door of his room, the hinges creaking terribly before sound ceases. 

Satoru looks into the mirror, met with a reflection so terrible that it knocks the sense into him: flushed cheeks, red-tinged eyes, chest an upheaval of emotions so great that they exist outside of his body in every gulp of air. They reverberate through the room, flitter like moths bumping into lights, eager to escape to the outdoors where air isn’t so hard to come by anymore.

He’s special, god fucking dammit. He kissed him, knows the shape of his body under his hands, knows the way Nanami smokes his goddamned cigarette that betrays his experience. 

And Satoru wants him so bad. 

“Fuck.” He laughs, so fucking angry. 

No one is more undeserving. Satoru should have stayed clear the second he entered through these doors. But here he is, ignored by the one man who doesn’t want him. 

He’ll get over it. It hasn’t happened before, but he’ll get over it. He has to, his pride will kill him if not. 

***

It was supposed to be a simple mission. 

Second-grade curse, the first years were told to take care of it. He wouldn’t have volunteered, even if he had been present, too tired of this game, tired of going around in circles and unwilling to compromise on his pride. Nanami won’t even look at him anymore.  

The call to finish the mission, to return immediately, is akin to the sensation of stepping into snow: an instantaneous shock that ripples through his limbs and buries itself inside his nerves no matter how much he runs. When he returns, Yu is gone. 

At first, he asks. He can’t keep his voice down, impossible in these narrow hallways with too little space to accommodate him. He only realises his mistake when his voice pushes everything else out, the grim atmosphere that clutches at him and drags him forward even as he wants to turn away. 

Suguru is the first to respond to his voice and with one look, Satoru needs no further answer.

It’s bad.

“Where’s Nanami?” He asks instead. 

There is ice in his lungs. 

Suguru shakes his head. “He’s in no state to be seen right now.” 

For once he’s not teasing him and for once, that makes him feel desperate instead of annoyed. 

“What the fuck does that mean, Suguru?!”

“He’s not in a right state!” Suguru snaps. “Finish the mission like you were asked!” 

The anger in his voice is palpable enough that Satoru moves back a pace, to put enough distance between him and the ugliness that is about to leave his mouth. How dare you be angry with me? But Suguru seems to recollect himself, although his body sags beneath the renewed weight of each laboured breath, and mutters a quick apology. 

“Yu is dead, Satoru. Don’t ask me about Nanami.”

That’s not an excuse to blame me for what happened. Satoru feels it in the air, the silent accusation of being Gojo Satoru, of having the power to stop whichever whenever.  How he didn’t and it cost them; a life that cannot be repaid. As though he could have known. He wants to say it, he wants to lash out, but only so it masks the guilt of his relief. He is only glad that death did not claim Nanami. That would be beyond guilt. 

“What does that mean?” 

“What the fuck do you think it means?!” Suguru yells at him. “Yu’s body isn’t even cold yet, but you want to ask how he’s doing? Terrible. We don’t even know if his eyesight is—”

“What is it about his—”

“Will you shut up and listen to me for a second—”

“Enough.” 

They’re both at each other’s throats, every gap between them filled, standing nose to nose. Satoru hasn’t felt this agitated since the day they were meant to retrieve the vessel. One hand is raised but dropped at the sound of a third voice. 

Nanami looks awful. 

Satoru’s been drained of every emotion he has ever felt. He feels frozen in place as new ones start to filter in: relief, anger, guilt. 

“Did you finish it?” 

“For fuck’s sake, Nanami.” Anger reigns. His ears ring with the force of it. “Are you serious? That’s all I’m fucking good for? That’s all you’re asking me?!” 

He knows deep down that Nanami isn’t to blame. It still does nothing to stop feeling slighted, hurt that Nanami won’t talk to him, but he will make demands of him. Just like everyone else. Suguru’s grabbed a hold of his arm, trying to pull him out of Nanami’s range, hissing angry words in his direction. The ringing in his ears won’t stop. 

Nanami looks up and Satoru already misses the depth of his eyes now that one of them is blanketed, hidden away. He might go blind. He could have died. 

“You can handle it, can’t you?” He hates how Nanami wasn’t angry, only a spluttered out engine of a car, running on its last legs. His voice is rougher than Satoru’s ever heard it. “You’re Gojo Satoru, aren’t you?” 

He pulls free from Suguru. 

Satoru pushes Nanami up against the wall, the air leaving his body in a rush, and he feels the urge to hit him. He feels another urge found on the opposite side of the emotional spectrum, one that pulses through his veins and throbs between his legs. 

“I fucking—” He starts off and Suguru is yelling at him again. Funny, everything else seems so far away. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t give a damn. “—Finished your mission! I finished it! Is that all I’m good for, you useless sack of shit?!” 

Suguru’s mouth falls open. 

“Satoru—” 

Satoru swings around to face him. “You’re all useless, trying to protect the weak. You want to know why Yu is dead? Yu is dead because neither of you could do your fucking jobs right!” 

Satoru feels movement beneath his arm. The next second, there’s a searing pain on the side of his jaw and he realises that Nanami’s punched him. 

It is the first time in over a month since he’s touched him and Satoru feels the bruise forge a path on his face. He hadn’t even looked at Nanami, had been facing away, felt it before he realised what had happened. The spike of adrenaline comes on quickly and he feels insane with the rush. 

“Yeah?” Satoru tastes blood, swallows it back down. Finally he looks back at Nanami and the furious look in Nanami’s eyes tells him that it likely won’t be the last punch if he continues. But he wants to continue, wants that energy back, much rather than the corpse who stood rotting before him. “You want to have a fight, you cowardly asshole?” 

He draws a fist back, but Nanami catches his wrist before it connects with anything solid.  

“I hate you.” He spits. “Can’t even look at me, but demand that I fix your—” He tries to move but Nanami’s grip is firm and Satoru isn’t about to use cursed techniques. The school would not survive it. 

Nanami would not survive it. 

“—petty fucking problems.” 

“Yu was not a petty fucking problem!”

He isn’t sure when Suguru leaves. His energy is there one moment and gone the next, as though he vanished. Satoru doesn’t have the time to wonder why.  All he knows is he trades trade punch after punch, the whistle-sharp air that follows him and Nanami as they move across the hallway, tearing at each other like curses, eager to aim the final blow. 

Their positions reverse. Satoru finds himself against the wall, chin up defiantly, blood running down a split lip. The bandage around Nanami's face has fluttered to the ground and there's a nasty gash right alongside his left eye. 

“Yu died, Gojo.” Nanami’s voice is shaking. “He didn’t deserve to die.” 

Oh that tone is so much worse than anything else. The grief that permeates it, sinking through him like stones thrown into water, a weight settling into his bones. It is an old grief, familiar to him, settling into Nanami’s face like a dying flame, the lines on his face flaring up like embers after a fire dies out.  

It is not the first time he’s lost anyone. 

Unfortunately, grief is the very last emotion Satoru has experience with. 

He stands there, awkwardly, all that wild energy inside his body with nowhere to go. There is no way to continue their fight, but his feet shift and his body moves and Nanami is the one who anchors him into place. A rock in the sea, weathering through the storm. 

“Calm down.” 

Satoru laughs disbelievingly. “You’re telling me that?” 

He cannot fight Nanami, not like this. But the throbbing between his legs has grown worse. He wonders how fucked up it is, wanting to fuck a grieving man, to take his grief and swallow it whole until there is nothing there. Fuck the sad right out of him. 

He starts off much like he did that night. His movements are jerky as Nanami gives him some resistance; as though his body knows what it didn’t know back then, to know what he’d do. It is muscle memory by now to sink his teeth into the side of his neck.

Nanami makes a noise that is neither complaint nor pleasure, a growl deep down his throat, and forces a knee between Satoru’s legs. They both stiffen. 

Satoru’s cheeks flush. Nanami opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head. The knee doesn’t move. 

Indecision is written all over Nanami’s face. He hesitates, eyes fluttering closed, flush on his cheeks, but there is an anger hardwired into the muscles of his body; all stretched taut. Satoru doesn’t have that kind of patience.

The air is electric and he knows Nanami feels that too. He will make that decision for him. 

He starts rutting against that knee, shameless. “Nanami.” It is desperate. “C’mon, c’mon, fuck.” His hips shift, his legs pressed together as tight as they can go, and he slips his arms around Nanami’s neck. 

The second Nanami kisses him, it is exactly as violent as Satoru has always wanted him to. He just didn’t expect it. There are teeth in that kiss, not so much demanding as threatening Satoru into opening his mouth wide and swallow whatever he is given. It is grief that tastes of anger and Satoru soars, chasing after that feeling, pants growing tight as Nanami fucks against him. 

His eyes are fever-bright.

“I wanna—” But he’s cut off by another searing kiss, blocked in between a wall and Nanami’s body. It is dizzying and possibly a really bad idea and hell, maybe Suguru knew what he didn’t; left them alone before he bore witness to public sex. 

The disappointment weighs heavy on him when Nanami becomes aware of that distinct possibility. He stops kissing Satoru immediately, face flushed, eyes clouded. Again his mouth opens, then reconsiders, and Satoru is beyond begging him a second time. 

Yet he does not ask. 

His hand grips Satoru’s wrist and physically drags him away from the wall. 

“Nanami—” The excitement is unmistakable in his voice, high and unwilling to move. “Are we—?” 

“Shut up.” 

That goes straight down to his cock. But he doesn’t stop talking, blabbering incessantly in Nanami’s ear, telling him shit that he thinks people would like to hear before sex but Nanami doesn’t listen. They skip hallways, rush up one pair of stairs and finally Satoru finds himself pushed into a made bed. 

Of course it’s made. Satoru immediately sets to messing the sheets up, writhing around in the cotton as though it is silk, reaching out for Nanami like a child needing a bedtime story. God if he could call him daddy— 

“Take it off.”  

He makes sure to look at Nanami as he does it. He wants to be slow, deliberate, but the impatient energy in him urges him to take it off faster, desperate to be naked under the gaze of those feverish eyes. “Watch me then.” 

He fumbles around, fingers trembling with nervous anticipation, baring more and more skin and before his pants have even come off, Nanami’s knees are on the bed, pushing him back. Satoru wrestles his uniform the rest of the way off until his tits are bared and his chest is rising and falling rapidly. 

“Do you like it?” He grins, more bravado than he feels, but then Nanami’s hands are on him until his pale skin flushes and he groans beneath, wanting more; desperate for more, more— It’s a good thing he’s lying down, against a solid bed, because his body turns weaker the more Nanami touches him as though there is a drug running through the tips of his fingers. 

Then Nanami takes Satoru's cock out. 

It doesn’t even matter to Satoru anymore how much experience he has, the way his hand grips his cock tight is a feeling akin to meeting God. Nanami, unfortunately, was right. There is no experience for him to speak of, too busy, too cocky; having had an idea of what it should be like and never quite achieving it.

“Good boy.” Nanami whispers, filthy, into his ear and Satoru keens, wanting to hear it more— 

“Nana—” He whines, not able to finish, hips bucking into Nanami’s hand. His voice is barely audible, hardly a breath. “Please, please.” 

He grips Nanami’s hair, so tight as to chase away the blood from his knuckles and moving him down, down, down. 

There is that unmentionable feeling again, sitting hot and thick in his chest, and threatening to spill over. Nanami only looks at him, fever-pitch in his eyes and the devil in his lungs, and he sinks down to kiss the tip of him. 

Fuck, it is clumsy. Satoru whines when teeth scrape over his sensitive skin, hating how much he enjoys the sensation, but there isn’t much finesse at all. Nanami’s breathing is ragged, taken a few seconds at a time, a few through his nose and whenever his mouth allows him to. Satoru’s nails prick into his skin, digging deep, drawing him close. 

“Nanami… So good, I love… love your mouth, want—”

His breath leaves him in one giant rush when he feels the heat engulf him entirely. Nanami licks up the length of his cock, then swallows him whole. Satoru doesn’t think he has ever felt a heat quite like this. 

Without warning, he starts fucking Nanami’s mouth. Demanding, nails leaving marks on his skull, drawing blood - does he lift his hips awkwardly and starts fucking into that tight space. Yes, yes, that’s it, all that he wants is to bury himself in there forever, that tireless energy expended somewhere nice. 

Satoru squeezes his eyes shut and moans.

He can feel the sweat trickling down his neck. He is only vaguely aware of the rain patterning outside, the way the room smells so distinctly of Nanami. How Satoru sees a packet of cigarettes, opened and used, right there on a nightstand. 

Perhaps Nanami isn’t such a good boy after all. 

Then his eyes land on a photograph of Yu and him, taken sometime this year, and suddenly he feels sick. 

Nanami is getting rid of his grief.

So what about him? 

But Nanami takes him all the way down to his throat and Satoru’s hips arch of the bed, as high as he can, a moan keen down his throat and all of a sudden the world goes white and cold. 

The thought of coming inside Nanami’s mouth, so unprepared without a warning, is enough to make him hard again. His vision swims. He slowly releases the grip he has on Nanami’s hair and whines when he gets off his cock. 

An apology is not on his mind. 

“Take it.” Nanami says then and two seconds later, Satoru is tasting himself on his lips. He would have thought it disgusting, but Nanami pushes that thought of his mind by being so forceful about it. He takes it back, gives all that Nanami can take him, and swallows as he is meant to do. 

“Fuck.” 

“I will.” 

Satoru wraps his legs around Nanami’s hips, his moan a pathetically small thing, wrung out of him through sheer force of will. He drags Nanami’s face in for another kiss, letting his mouth swallow the rest of the chorus. 

This is stupid. Yu is dead. Nanami isn’t thinking straight.

Does it make him a bad person if Satoru doesn’t care? 

Does it make him a bad person to exploit it? 

Nanami mouths softly against his lips, one hand slipping down to work the rest of his pants off, and Satoru realises that there is nothing that would have him stop this. He realises that Nanami is loath to let go of his precious control and Satoru is willing to let him take it. 

Nanami has slicked his fingers by the time Satoru has removed his uniform the rest of the way off. Satoru doesn’t bother asking where he got the lube from. He pushes one in while Satoru adjusts, grinning up at him like crazy; brilliant like a light, uncaring about the odd sensation of the intrusion. Pain is negligible in their profession. Clearly, Nanami thinks so too because he adds another in rapid succession.

His legs quiver. His stomach heaves, up and down like clockwork, and his voice doesn’t come to him as well as he wants. All that leaves him are breathless little whines. 

“Nanami—” 

“Kento.” He says suddenly, his eyes bright under the cover of darkness, like something out of a dream. “Call me Kento.” 

The sound that tears out his throat runs ragged, catching on his lips on its way out, crying out Nanami’s name as he finally adds the third finger. It does nothing to deter him from the end goal.

“I want your cock.” 

His grin feels painful at its edges, scared that the bubble might burst soon. Any second now, Nanami will snap out of his grief and call it off. Any second could mean the last and Satoru wants to have him along for the full ride. 

“Kento… Kento kento please..” He babbles when he keeps feeling those fingers fuck into him something fierce, as though Satoru can break and Nanami has stopped caring about the reparation of him. He holds no care with the speed at which he is going and Satoru wants to know how much of it translates to the girth of his cock. “Give me your cock, I want—” 

He is not prepared for the moment when Nanami finally takes it out. 

It’s big. That’s all he wants to say about it and he immediately laments a moment lost that he could have spent sucking on it. It is a cock that he wants stuffed in every single one of his holes, a cock that makes him wish he had a cunt, so he could make Nanami fuck into a third one. 

“Look at you.” Nanami says. “So needy.” 

Satoru responds by wrapping his legs around Nanami’s waist, still clothed in a school uniform. There is blood over it and it should concern him that this is even more of a turn-on. 

“Are you?” He presses his cock dangerously close to Satoru’s ass, but there is no breach; nothing and Satoru bucks his hips in response. 

“Yes.” He hisses. “Yes, I’m fucking needy, now fuck me already!”

When Nanami pushes into him, a slow and deliberate thrust, Satoru’s toes curl into the sheets and his back no longer touches the bed. It’s full, it’s too much, it’s everything he has ever wanted. His breath is a jittery thing, it comes and goes in pulses, the same way that his body does. He is barely given enough time to catch his breath before Nanami’s cock drives into him again. 

“Na--Kento… Kento.” 

It is as good as he expected it would be. Nanami fills him to the brim, his body a crushing and threatening weight above his, with eyes that never ever leave his face. Satoru adores the fact that he’s still clothed while Satoru’s naked. There is a vulnerability he will never get back. 

Satoru leans left and his teeth close over the skin of Nanami’s wrist. Nanami’s ragged breath, the stutter in his thrusts, have Satoru clenching tight around him. 

When Satoru looks up at him again, his grin could draw blood. 

Nanami fucks into him so deep that Satoru wants that to be his last moment on this earth. He presses one of his hands down, flat against his stomach, and tries to feel for movement beneath.

“Stop — that—” Nanami grunts, grabbing Satoru’s wrist hard enough to bruise, a flush colouring his cheeks so fiercely that Satoru wants to be more embarrassing. 

“I can feel you.” Satoru emphasises and digs his heels into Nanami’s lower back. “All the way down… hah… here..” 

But instead Nanami moves Satoru until his thighs are back against the bed, knees close to his ears and his cock bounces against his stomach with the force of it. Nanami fucks him like he’s a doll, moving him around until it suits him, and this position exposes him, feeling too intimate for his comfort. 

“Not gonna talk now?” Nanami hisses in his ear, one hand grabbing hold of his cock and squeezing him. “I like you better this way, quiet.” 

Satoru’s answer is a whine that threatens to undo them both. It’s as though a switch flips, Nanami fucks into him mercilessly and without rhythm nor care and Satoru can only watch as his body is used mercilessly. He’s hard again but the second he tries to reach out, touch himself; relief himself, Nanami snatches both his hands and presses them flat against the mattress. 

The sound he makes is inhuman.

He is only dimly aware of Nanami coming inside of him, the way it fills him up down to the brim, but he hears that groan as though it is coming from inside of his skull; quiet and rumbling like thunder. Satoru is even less aware of the second orgasm that courses through his body, not until his own vision becomes dotted and hazy and his breath comes in sharp little bursts. 

It takes a long time to come back.  

Nanami has let go of him. His legs come back down to the bed. There is the distinct sensation of feeling used up, leaking as though that is all he’s good for. He is embarrassed to admit that it only adds to his post-sex haze; the immediate feeling of wanting to do it again. 

Nanami says nothing. 

There is no aftercare. No soft words to calm him down, no kisses along his jawline, even a wet cloth to wipe the mess of cum from his ass and his chest. It leaves him feeling vaguely disappointed. 

“That was my first, y’know?” He tries for playful but it comes out accusatory. 

“I know.” 

Defeatist. 

“Tell me I was the best lay you’ve ever had.” 

Nanami sits back on his knees, giving Satoru room to breathe, and tucks himself back in. He could be clothed in under a minute while Satoru lies naked and vulnerable under him. He’s not looking at him now. 

“I… You need to go.” 

No. Everything in Satoru’s body revolts the same way it did all those nights ago, kissing in an abandoned park, discarded alcohol bottles tumbling down the stone steps. 

No.  

“Why?” His grin is starting to feel painful. “You embarrassed?” 

“I need… You have to go.” 

It is a plea. 

Satoru’s getting annoyed. 

“You just fucked me.” 

“Yeah, it— This wasn’t…” Satoru doesn’t know what to do with him. The sloped shoulders, the way he recoils each time Satoru comes close; difficult as it may be in his current state. He does not look at Satoru directly. “Please go.” 

“Fuck.” Satoru laughs. He moves to the edge of the bed and tries to catch Nanami’s eye but it is like looking at a boarded up window. It is as though he is back there, when a girl is trying to give Satoru a number, with two dead bodies and three forever traumatised. It is a neighbourhood he should not be in, but is all too familiar with.

Rejection.

“Fuck, you're a real piece of shit aren’t you?” 

He gets up, limbs awkward and messy, body uncooperative and painful. 

“I… can walk—” 

“Don’t fucking bother.” 

Satoru doesn’t bother dressing himself beyond a shirt. His room is only one floor up and any teacher who patrols these hallways is getting accused of being a pervert. 

“Gojo—” 

“Don’t.” 

There is no lingering goodbye. Satoru gathers up his clothes and what is left of his dignity and leaves for the hallway without another word. He can feel Nanami’s eyes on him the second his hand is on the handle and for that he thinks Nanami is a disgusting coward. 

He goes to bed seething, thinking of all the ways he could get back at him, and all the ways he could creep back into his bed. 

The next morning, when Satoru finally deems himself ready to show up for breakfast, he hears that Nanami is gone. 

He’s quit being a sorcerer. 

Yet Satoru, hands gripping his cup of coffee too tight, his back feeling the sting of the previous night, with bruises that will heal into invisible scars, pretends as if none of this bothers him. 

When Nanami leaves the academy, Satoru knows he won’t ever see him again. 

It is a pretence that he is fine with that.