Let me touch you
Suguru watches fondly how Satoru basically flies over to him, excited after a mission, but his feet never really touching the ground. Not with Infinity up and running all the time now.
“I’m back,” Satoru yells out as if him being here is not enough of a hint for Suguru to know that but still. Suguru indulges him just like he always does.
It’s a problem.
“I can see that,” he can’t help but to still say, rolling his eyes but going on before Satoru’s face falls. “Welcome back.”
It makes Satoru grin brightly at him and Suguru valiantly ignores the heavy thumping of his heart. The fact that Satoru doesn’t hesitate to throw himself at Suguru’s back, hanging off his shoulder as if he belongs there, doesn’t help.
“Were you terribly bored without me here?” Satoru asks, poking Suguru’s cheek—except he’s not poking it, not really.
He might thin out Infinity as much as he can, but it’s still wrapped around Satoru, it still makes sure that Satoru doesn’t really touch Suguru.
The sting that thought brings with it is enough to finally get Suguru’s heart to calm down.
“Bored? Those were the best two days of my life,” Suguru shoots back, because it’s what they do, it’s what Satoru expects of him, even though it’s a bold-faced lie, and Suguru is proven right when Satoru throws his head back with laughter.
“Liar,” he almost giggles out, his body still pressed against Suguru’s except not really and Suguru would never admit it, but things finally feel right again.
He does hate it so when Satoru isn’t there.
“Idiot,” he mutters but does nothing to push Satoru away, adjusting his step in a way that allows Satoru to be dragged along as well as he continues on his way to his room.
Satoru is a comforting weight at his side, his incessant talking almost like a balm to Suguru’s ears and yet—it simply doesn’t feel right, not with Infinity still separating them.
He’s not going to ask though; Suguru promised himself he’s not going to ask but it gets harder with every day.
~*~*~
Suguru is going to ask.
He has to. It’s three weeks later, and the thought that he can’t touch Satoru, not really, hasn’t left his mind once. It’s driving him insane, if Suguru is honest.
He wonders if it’s just him, maybe; if Satoru can’t stomach being touched by him and Suguru refuses to admit just how much that thought hurts him.
But that, at least, is easy to confirm or deny.
“Hey, Shoko,” he greets as he comes into what she calls her office and what Suguru would deem a morgue.
“You’re not bleeding out,” she immediately gives back, eyes narrowing. “What do you want?”
“Can’t I just come to visit you?” Suguru asks but he knows she looks right through him, because he hates coming here and only ever does it if he has to to get healed.
And since that is not the case, she’s right to be suspicious of him.
“You can, but you never do,” Shoko says, fixing him with a glare and Suguru winces.
“I know, I’m sorry,” he tells her and he even means it.
With how the higher-ups are working him and Satoru to the bone and Shoko’s increased workload with cutting up all kinds of things they haven’t seen much of each other lately.
“I know, too,” Shoko admits with a sigh and her gaze gentles. “What brings you here? Lonely, without Satoru pestering you at every step?” she asks, a smirk playing around her mouth and Suguru refuses to blush.
“This is actually about Satoru,” Suguru says, and he knows he has her attention when her eyes widen.
“Oh? What has he done now?” she wants to know, leaning slightly forwards as if Suguru is about to drop the juiciest gossip on her.
“Nothing, he has done nothing,” Suguru immediately gives back, much to her disappointment it seems. “It’s just—I’ve been wondering.”
“About what? Do I have to drag everything out of you? I don’t have all day, you know,” Shoko tells him with a pointed look at something on her table, and Suguru refuses to identify it.
He’s better off not knowing, he’s sure of that.
“Does he keep Infinity on at all times? Around you?” he gets out and he doesn’t want to admit even to himself how fast his heart is racing in anticipation.
He doesn’t know if he could take it if she tells him that Satoru lets her touch him.
“Oh yeah,” Shoko says with a shrug. “He boasted to me that he never takes it down these days; he’s going to fry his brain one of these days, reverse cursed technique or not.”
“He never takes it down,” Suguru mutters, and doesn’t know what to do with the conflicting feelings inside of him.
On the one side he’s happy to hear that he’s not the only one being kept out but on the other his worry for Satoru only grows.
He has the wherewithal to mutter a short “Thanks” before he leaves Shoko without further explanation, even though she calls after him, but his mind is running.
Satoru doesn’t let anyone touch him. No one and nothing. It sounds like such a Satoru thing to do, after what they went through, but it also sounds lonely and very, very wrong.
~*~*~
Suguru asks when Satoru has his head pillowed in his lap, and even though he’s this close, Suguru is painfully aware of the infinity that separates them.
“Hey, Satoru,” he starts and waits until Satoru drags his eyes away from the show that’s currently running.
“Mh?” he mutters, clearly more asleep than awake at this point and Suguru has half a mind to not ask, but the need to know is burning under his skin.
“Do you always have Infinity up?” he asks, comes right out with it and Satoru blinks at him.
“Of course I do.”
“Always? Even in moments like this?” he wonders, and fights the urge to card his fingers through Satoru’s hair. It wouldn’t mean anything anyway, if Suguru can’t touch him.
“Yeah.”
What a lonely existence, Suguru thinks to himself.
“But why?” he asks out loud because it doesn’t make sense.
It makes sense for Satoru to keep his barrier up when they are out, when they are fighting but here? It’s just Suguru here and it honestly stings a whole lot to know that Satoru doesn’t even trust him enough to lower his guard around him.
Suguru thought they were closer than that.
“Because the last time someone touched me, they carved me straight open, throat to hip,” Satoru snaps out. “I’m not going to let that happen again.”
Suguru opens his mouth to protest; it’s not as if he would ever hurt Satoru but he snaps his mouth shut before any words can make it past his lips.
He’s in no position to critique what must be Satoru’s trauma response; Suguru still feels himself slipping sometimes when he hears sounds that are too close to clapping; the rain and lately the shower are really taking it out of him.
Satoru died that day, Suguru knows, however brief it was, so it’s really no surprise that he’s taking extreme measures to keep that from ever happening again but still—Suguru would never hurt him.
“I see,” he whispers, refusing to squirm under Satoru’s glare and he pats his head in apology. “I was just curious is all,” Suguru tries to appease him and with one last frown, Satoru returns to their show.
Suguru doesn’t bring it up again but whenever his touch meets Infinity before Satoru’s skin he can’t help but to wonder why Satoru thinks that he’s going to hurt him, too.
~
*~*~
“You’re going to turn into an old man soon,” Satoru greets him with a few days later and Suguru rolls his eyes.
“Just matching you in your geriatric ways,” he shoots back and then leans in close, carefully inspecting Satoru’s face. “Is that a wrinkle I see?”
Satoru sucks in a scandalised breath. “Suguru, I don’t wrinkle, I’m too pretty for that!”
“Keep telling yourself that. I guess you’re lucky that your hair is already white. No need to wait for it to catch up to all those wrinkles you’re going to get.”
“What are you being so rude to me for?” Satoru whines out, flopping himself over Suguru’s back.
Except for how he’s not, because Infinity is—like always—on.
Suguru wonders if he’ll ever stop thinking about it, or if this is how the rest of their lives are going to be now; Satoru deathly afraid of being touched and Suguru forever yearning to do so.
He hopes not.
“You started it,” Suguru says, only slightly belated and Satoru pouts at him.
“I just wanted to know what you want for your birthday,” he finally says and Suguru chuckles.
“There are like five million better ways to start a conversation than insulting me to my face,” he tells him but he doesn’t shrug Satoru off, to let him know that he’s not really mad.
“Maybe, but you know me,” Satoru carelessly says and then pokes Suguru’s cheek. “So? Any birthday wishes?”
There’s one, right at the tip of Suguru’s tongue of course but he bites it back. He would never ask that of Satoru.
He could laugh it off maybe, if he were to ask to be allowed to touch Satoru, just once, but Satoru gets weird about birthday presents and he’d probably force himself to go through with it, just to please Suguru.
Suguru could never stomach that. He wants Satoru to want to be touched by him, and asking for that as his present is just all kinds of wrong.
“Dunno,” he mutters, when Satoru’s gaze goes a little too searching because Suguru is taking too long to answer. “I don’t really want anything.”
“There must be something,” Satoru argues. “Come on now, don’t be shy, you can tell me.”
“Satoru, honestly, I can’t think of anything at the moment,” Suguru sighs out, avoiding to look at Satoru’s face because he just knows that he’ll look disappointed and Suguru hates disappointing Satoru.
“Nothing? Nothing at all?”
“Nothing at all, I’m sorry,” Suguru gives back. “Just. Make sure you’re there, okay? That’s all I want. Let’s spend the day together.”
“But we do that every day,” Satoru whines out.
“When we’re not on missions, yeah.” It doesn’t happen often enough these days, with the way the higher-ups are sending them out almost constantly so when they both happen to be off at the same time, it feels like a miracle.
It feels like something to be treasured to Suguru, but he’s not about to say that.
“That’s really all you want?” Satoru asks, his gaze searching and Suguru shrugs.
“Maybe pay for my dinner too, but yeah. That’s all I want.”
Satoru makes an unhappy sound in the back of his throat; unhappy enough that Suguru reaches out and flicks his forehead.
“Don’t be like that, just get me whatever if it bothers you so much. If it’s from you, I’ll like it,” Suguru promises him, briefly wondering if he’s saying too much but that thought gets wiped out when Satoru smiles brightly at him.
“Aww, I knew you loved me,” Satoru sing-songs out and Suguru presses his lips together so he doesn’t say something even more embarrassing, like “I really do”.
“Shut the hell up,” he says instead, shoving Satoru off his shoulder, his hand sliding off Infinity uselessly and when Satoru cackles and steps away Suguru’s shoulder doesn’t feel cold.
It can’t feel cold, because Satoru doesn’t let him touch him, and that thought, more than anything, makes ice run through his veins.
Satoru doesn’t trust him and Suguru can never forget it.
~*~*~
They spend Suguru’s birthday just like he wanted; just the three of them, eating a whole bunch of junk and joking around like they used to do before all of them got too busy to enjoy their days. It’s the perfect birthday, Suguru is not too afraid to admit that, and he really couldn’t have wished for more.
So he’s understandably confused when Satoru follows him to his room once they said their good-nights, because Suguru thought saying goodnight actually means going to bed.
In their own rooms.
“What are you doing?” he cautiously asks Satoru, who is just a step behind him, keeping a little bit of distance between them and Suguru frowns when Satoru flinches at his voice.
“It’s a surprise,” Satoru shortly says, nodding his head towards Suguru’s door. “Can we get going? Or do you want to stay in this hallway the entire night?”
His voice is clipped, almost as if he’s angry, and Suguru knows him well enough to know that he’s nervous. He has no idea what he could be nervous about though.
“Satoru—” he trails off when Satoru fixes him with a glare.
“I have one more gift for you, okay, can we please just—” he points towards the door.
“I—” Suguru didn’t expect that. “Okay, alright.”
He gets the door open, Satoru pushing in even before Suguru does and if it’s something that leaves Satoru this nervous then Suguru would probably to do well to be worried out of his mind. Suguru just hopes Satoru isn’t going to level the school with this.
“Satoru, you already got me a gift,” Suguru reminds him, because the charm with a picture of the three of them is already dangling from his phone.
“And I have one more, what’s it to you?” Satoru snaps out before he takes a deep breath. “Come here would you?” Satoru asks, sitting down on the couch and impatiently patting the space next to him.
Suguru walks over, though he drags his feet about it.
“You don’t seem too happy,” Suguru carefully says, because he doesn’t understand what’s going on.
If it’s just a gift, it shouldn’t put Satoru in such a mood, and in all honesty, Suguru isn’t sure he wants it like this anyway.
Not if it puts that strained look on Satoru’s face.
“I’m just—this is not easy,” Satoru says, teeth clenched, hands gripping the fabric of his pants tightly. “But it’s you, so it’s going to be okay, right?” he then asks and Suguru still has no idea what the hell is going on, but he nods anyway.
“Of course it will be,” he gives back, because it is him and he would never hurt Satoru or let anything happen to him, no matter what.
“Alright,” Satoru breathes out and just like that, his eyes dim.
His eyes dim, his cursed energy falls away and Suguru knows without a doubt that Infinity has been turned off.
“Satoru,” he breathes out, too surprised to do anything else because Satoru himself said that no one can touch him, no one can ever touch him ever again, and yet here he is, Infinity lowered and looking defiantly at Suguru.
“What?” Satoru snaps out. “This is what you wanted, right?”
It is, it is, but still, Suguru shakes his head.
“Put it back up,” he says, keeping his distance from Satoru as if touching him could kill either one of them. “Satoru, put it back up!”
Satoru falters, his face falling for a moment, but he does as he’s told, Suguru can tell by the faint hum in the air, and the eerie glow of Satoru’s eyes.
It’s only when Suguru is sure that Infinity is safely enwrapping Satoru again that he pulls him into a hug.
“Don’t just do this for me,” he whispers, pressing Satoru’s face into his shoulder.
It’s faint, but he feels Satoru trembling, knows just how much even that offer took out of Satoru and Suguru thought this was what he wanted, but it turns out it’s not.
He doesn’t want this, not if Satoru has to push himself past his own limits to offer this to Suguru.
“What’s going on?” Satoru asks after a long moment and Suguru sighs, keeping him close, even though they can’t get as close as Suguru would like.
But Satoru is still trembling in his arms.
“Don’t do this if you’re not ready,” Suguru mutters and he feels how Satoru tenses.
“Well, Infinity is a stupid coping mechanism that I need to get rid of,” Satoru seethes out and Suguru wonders who he talked to lately to make him think like that.
“When you’re ready, yeah, but not like this. Satoru, we all have our ways to cope, right?” Suguru reminds him, because two days ago Suguru felt unstable enough that he had Satoru sit in on his shower, filling the space with his incessant ranting about Digimon to drown out the sound of the falling water, so that there could be no clapping.
They all cope in different ways.
“But you want to, right?” Satoru asks, pushing away from Suguru. “You want to touch me.”
“Yes,” Suguru admits. “But I want you to want it, too.”
Satoru opens and closes his mouth several times before he finally looks away.
“I want you to, I just—it makes me so vulnerable.”
Suguru doesn’t remind him that he’s not going to hurt Satoru, because that’s not really the issue here anyway.
“It’s been over a year now, right, since anyone touched you?”
It’s a long time to get used to something, it’s a long time to be afraid of something and Suguru understands why this is hard for him.
“Yeah,” Satoru admits and Suguru nods.
“A compromise then,” he offers and taps Satoru’s hand, clenched tightly again. “Can you partially drop Infinity? Just around your hand, maybe?”
“You want to hold my hand that badly, huh?” Satoru jokes, clearly trying to distract and lesson the tension but Suguru holds his gaze.
“Yes, actually,” he admits, because what is one more admission today, right? “I do want to hold your hand, very badly, and I hate that I can’t, even though I understand.”
Satoru blinks at him before he breathes out a faint “Oh”.
“Yeah, oh,” Suguru agrees, his heart in his throat, because Satoru has not given him any kind of answer.
Suguru doesn’t know if that was a bad or a good oh and every second that ticks by just makes this entire thing more unbearable.
“I mean, I’ve never done partial Infinity, I don’t know if I can,” Satoru mutters, a faint frown on his face and it’s answer enough for Suguru.
“Then figure it out, genius,” he eggs him on, briefly touching his fingers to Satoru’s hand.
Infinity is still separating them, but it seems that Satoru might want this enough to master a new aspect of his technique.
“Alright, give me a moment,” Satoru snaps out, a faint flush on his face and Suguru leans back with a smile.
Satoru wants to be touched by him; Satoru wants them to hold hands.
Suguru almost feels sick with the butterflies in his stomach.
“I think—maybe?” Satoru asks and holds his hand out for Suguru.
It’s shaking again and Suguru has to remind himself that Satoru hasn’t been touched by anyone in over a year now, so he doesn’t immediately take Satoru’s hand in his. Instead, he starts slow, by bringing the tips of his fingers to Satoru’s knuckles.
“Oh,” Satoru gasps out when he makes contact and Suguru echoes him because he is touching Satoru.
Not the infinity between them, but Satoru and he can feel it; Satoru’s skin, his warmth. He didn’t know it would be so different.
“This okay?” Suguru asks and slides his fingers down Satoru’s until he can press their fingertips together.
“Yeah,” Satoru mutters, his eyes fixed on where they touch. “Can you—”
He bites himself off, but Suguru can tell that he wants to ask for more, and he is happy to give that to Satoru.
“Turn your hand around,” he tells Satoru, who complies almost scarily fast and Suguru has to bite back a laugh.
It wouldn’t do to scare Satoru away now.
Once Satoru’s palm is facing him, Suguru drags his fingers over the skin there as well, makes sure to touch as much as he can, trying to get Satoru used to the sensation again.
“Too much?” he asks, his fingers resting lightly in the middle of Satoru’s palm.
“You wish,” Satoru snaps out and doesn’t hesitate to thread their fingers together, pressing their palms against each other.
It takes a lot out of him, Suguru can tell, but Satoru made this decision so Suguru doesn’t say anything. He just squeezes Satoru’s hand slightly and tires to pretend that this simple contact doesn’t make him as happy as it does.
“I—forgot how that felt,” Satoru mutters after a minute and Suguru gentles their hold, though he doesn’t let go of Satoru.
“Good or bad?” he wants to know and Satoru huffs.
“It’s you, so good,” he gives back, that same faint flush back on his face and Suguru drops his head to his shoulder.
“Satoru,” he whispers and wonders if it would be too much to press a kiss to the back of Satoru’s hand.
Only one way to find out, Suguru guesses and then does just that.
It earns him a startled gasp from Satoru but he doesn’t pull away, so Suguru does it again and again and again.
“Suguru, stop,” Satoru complaints after the tenth and Suguru chuckles.
“Make me,” he gives back, because it would be so, so easy for Satoru to put Infinity back up, but nothing happens. “Thought so,” Suguru smugly says, and grins at Satoru, though his smile slides off his face when he sees the frown on Satoru’s. “What?”
“I can’t—give you more than that,” Satoru presses out, and he seems distressed by that. “It’s so much already.”
“I know,” Suguru soothingly says, pulling his hand back until he can loosely tangle their fingers together. “It’s alright. This is already plenty.”
And it is; he’s not lying about that. Satoru has kept Infinity on for so long that even this little contact is more than Suguru ever really hoped for and it’s probably bordering on too much for Satoru himself.
“If you want to we can work our way up. If not, then that’s fine, too,” Suguru tries to reassure him and Satoru snorts.
“So you would be okay with never touching me again after this?” he wants to know and his tone implies that he already knows the answer.
“Of course,” Suguru gives back.
He might have wished for this more than anything but seeing Satoru struggle with this little contact already—Suguru would happily go back to never be able to touch him again if it would mean Satoru doesn’t have to shake like that.
“Be serious for a moment,” Satoru chides him and Suguru holds his gaze.
“I am. Satoru, I don’t want to pressure you into anything. If you’re not comfortable with this, I understand. Sure, I might wish for things to be different, but then again, I also wish I could shower without a backup plan. But some things just don’t work out that way, and some things might still need some time. As long as you’re comfortable, it’s fine.”
“How can you just—” Satoru splutters and Suguru leans their foreheads together.
He’s not going for a kiss, not if he can’t really touch Satoru, but this is good, too.
“I can, because it’s you,” he whispers into the space between them. “Because it’s us.”
“Us,” Satoru repeats and grips Suguru’s hand more firmly. “You and me, right?”
“Always,” Suguru agrees.
“We can work our way up,” Satoru mutters after a moment. “And maybe I can make it so that you can get past Infinity, but no one else can? That should be possible, right?”
“With you, everything is possible,” Suguru sighs out, because Satoru literally defied death.
Suguru doubts there’s a single thing he can’t do. And he has to admit that it warms him from deep inside to hear that Satoru might want this, just so that they can touch.
“Thank you, Satoru,” Suguru eventually says, their hands still tangled together. “Thank you.”
“Happy birthday, Suguru,” Satoru gives back and when he lifts their hands to press a kiss to Suguru’s he has Infinity lowered again, so that Suguru feels his lips against his skin.
Suguru sucks in a breath at the same time that Satoru does and maybe it’s a good thing they’ll have to work their way up, if even that brief contact is enough to get that kind of reaction out of them both.
Suguru certainly doesn’t mind if they have to take their time, as long as Satoru doesn’t mind either. And it’s not as if they have to rush anything. They have all the time in the world.
