#getou，devoured.

[necrosin]

it had been a happenstance of fate that their paths had crossed, truly. suguru isn't especially in the habit of seeking out anyone even tangentially related to tokyo jujutsu high nor its sister school nor its admin nor anyone at all who would even slightly wish to carry out his DEATH SENTENCE ( satoru notwithstanding, but that's simply an entirely different matter altogether / and he supposes that shoko is an exception to the rule / and oh, dear, if he keeps adding exceptions then what's the point, really? ) but, well.

nanami.

sitting across from each other in a café is entirely suguru's doing, regardless of anything / nanami looked at once COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and ENTIRELY THE SAME : he'd always looked tired and over it throughout school, almost lackadaisical in how he carried himself throughout his day to day life, haibara ( the thought still smarts against his heart, scraping against the inside of his skull, how hopeless and defeated nanami had looked, how small haibara's corpse had seen, and suguru had thought hopelessly of haibara's sister, whom he'd always said he didn't want following in his footsteps for all that he carried on ENTHUSIASTICALLY ) constantly in range exacerbating the matter, grinning and energetic and effusive. nanami appears older, more tired, worn by the world / separated from the jujutsu world in general, it seems, and the thought is almost melancholic.

❝ —— a salaryman? ❞ suguru says, stirring his still black tea idly in the cup he'd been handed / skin crawling from proximity to vermin and monkeys but it can't be helped. he's in the area for one meeting or another, but sitting down with his old kouhai takes precedence, and THEY WILL WAIT FOR HIM, naturally. ❝ i hope they aren't working you into the ground, nanami-kun, ❞ it's a familiar honorific, though doesn't quite seem fitting for nanami as he sits before him today, ❝ honestly, your abilities would be better used in other pursuits. ❞

a tilt to his head, a shift to his eyes. nanami had always been so preceptive, hadn't he? ❝ —— can you say that again? ❞ @spirestar says, sounding almost suspicious, perhaps? suguru isn't quite as adept at reading him as he is with most others.

always so passive seeming, nanami. stiff backed. it could fool almost anyone, really. suguru laughs, not meanly, not attempting at cruelty, truly expressing amusement : his head tilting and hair falling as he takes the little spoon out of the cup / taps it against the rim precisely four times / sets it upon the saucer oh so delicately as he picks up the cup primly. ❝ don't worry, nanami-kun, ❞ he says, smiling over the cup at him, ❝ i am only looking for the most devout for my following, ❞ a humorous turn of phrase, perhaps —— CULT LEADER, et cetera. ❝ had you been interested, you would have found me, by now. but you're just ( ... ) DISILLUSIONED, aren't you? ❞

[necrosin]

@mastabahs : ❝ i've only ever defended you. ❞

amusement unfurls, a flighty sort of thing, a bubbling sort of thing, a summertime exclusive sort of thing —— out of place, trapped in this space they've colluded to make, a grossly contrived homage to intimacy and the honored and most holy practice of carving out a place in your lover for yourself. a pyre of pressed sheets ( wrinkled and half-ruined, now ) and bland walls and the tinny sound of the television in the background and the curtains thrown open for the moonlight glow because they both hate enclosed rooms in that way and a smell far too chemical, cloying in his nose. their bodies stretched out alongside each other, imperfect parentheses, knees overlapping, suguru propped on his elbow, jaw resting in his palm. his eyes narrow / brows raise / mouth a slash across his face ; he drags his fingers through satoru's hair just because he can.

❝ should i reward you? ❞ as if any concept as trite as reward and punishment holds much way over either of them, as if it ever did. the meanings and uses of such things falling flat, intentions that had been meant to be engraved on such ideals never coming to any fruition nor meaning at all. SUGURU UNDERSTANDS THE WEIGHT OF THE WORDS / perhaps even the intention of them / satoru wouldn't come all this way just to be with him otherwise, after all / they hold meaning and he acknowledges them, irrelevant though they may be. ( echoing as you're mine, not quite lost in the void ) idly he brushes his thumb across satoru's temple, ❝ for standing up for the villanous curse user against the higher up council? ❞

the idea is funny —— it always has been, satoru's indifference turned irritation with it all, playing at being rebellious in spirit. as if his existence in and of itself wasn't an act of revolt, though from where and what remains a mystery / everyone always says the world was upended by satoru's birth, and suguru found it funny more than anything, the weight of it all. ( though, born after satoru, perhaps it's that he'd never known a world without him / and never will / but suguru is just arrogant enough to presume that even if he had been born first, it would persist in hardly mattering at all. )

fingers curl to brush against his jaw, a lover's caress, gentling over a bruise before poking at his cheek, ❝ i'm not a child, satoru, ❞ perhaps it's romantic to defend your clandestine lover against the deraignments and hatred of the greater masses / perhaps it really is romantic to not carry out the ever standing order of execution hanging over his head ( it's an ineffectual sort of thing, as though suguru would let anyone but satoru ( and shoko ) find any trace of him, as if anyone but satoru were capable of doing such a thing even if suguru did it ) / and suguru is a romantic above all else, other than idealism, but still : the concept is simply humorous to him. declarations and adorations and all the things in between —— all veiled words, thin as the lank curtains they had drawn back however long ago. ❝ you don't need to defend me against them, their judgments and opinions are nothing more than senseless bleating, ❞no need to defend suguru against or anyone or anything / not even satoru, himself / suguru holds no hate nor resentment for jujutsu high and only a heavy handed distaste for the faceless council so determined to lord over them all —— their methods are ancient and their tactics cruel / hypocrites, the lot of them, preening and power hungry. it will all come crumbling down beneath his hands, after all, once he succeeds. washed away like sand on the shore.

a phone buzzes / mimiko's text ringtone chimes ( she'd insisted and he's not especially good at denying his daughters anything ) / he stretches languid as a cat, leg extending over satoru's as he rolls, glancing over his shoulder at the bedside table as the void opens over it / a hand reaching out / closes / drops the phone neatly in the space between them. ❝ —— unless it makes you feel better, ❞ a half—cruel curl of his mouth and an unspoken challenge as he lays his palm over the phone / hiding mimiko's name on the screen.

HOUSE OF THE DRAGON.

[necrosin]

to say that he'd been waiting for him would be a stretch —— he isn't, and wasn't, and never would again / not in so many words, that is. waiting and wanting and other wanton things of youth are long in the past ( it occurs to him, at times, that he's not nearly as distanced from his springtime teenage years as he convinces himself he is / barely outside of the literal teenage years of age / and he isn't actually exempt from the agony of EXTREMELY EARLY ADULTHOOD, but it's never really relevant, is it, except for when he's thinking about —— ) and simply are not involved in his day to day life, any longer.

SUGURU IS NOT WAITING FOR HIM —— that does not, however, mean that he isn't expecting him. there's a certain thrill that lingers in the beat of his heart, at the precipice of the void that exists within him / the void that is him who is the void / the limitless void and hadn't that turn of phrase enticed him, once upon a time? it does, still, though he's not one to admit it outright. suguru is not waiting for him but has positioned himself in such a way that his family shall be safe / his girls shall be safe and, of course, HE WILL DEPART SAFELY.

a pretty spring day. the outskirts of one festival or another, tokyo coming alive around them, cherry blossoms blooming. one may think him incautious for simply being out in the open, but suguru knows perfectly well that no one but satoru would be able to sense his residual cursed energy / he's excellent at not being found except for when he wants to be and you could say HE WANTS TO BE FOUND.

❝ oh, dear, ❞ tone lingering near a simper, a smile curving at his mouth / is it cruel? is it meanspirited? a touch, here and there, though not purposefully. well : NOT LOOKING AT SATORU is purposeful, suguru would know his presence blind, deaf, dead. he tucks his hands into his sleeves / gazes at the vermin going about their lives, their days, their blissfully ignorant safety, curses lingering and lurking around every corner. so beautiful he could vomit, rot coating his mouth. ❝ you've found me, satoru, ❞ he lingers on the syllables of his name like he always has, like he's bidden to do, something inherently ingrained, as natural as bleeding.

a lover's caress, awfully adoring, a threat of devotion. ❝ whatever shall i do? ❞ he slants his gaze, then, head tipping back as he looks over at him / his other half / the once center of his universe ( doesn't that ring of something as a lie? ONCE ) / THE STRONGEST, HIS VERY OWN.

[necrosin]

WHAT DO PEOPLE DO, WHEN THEY'RE ABOUT TO DIE? it's not something he's given much thought to / curse-eater / curse-bearer / cursed / accursed. he's only ever thought of death tangentially, obliquely, never quite in relation to himself, only ever in relation to OTHERS, as though it were a condition he were separate from, as though it could never happen to him —— as though because he doesn't believe himself exempt from death / simply GODLY he may be, practically godly he may seem to the monkeys clamoring for his so-called blessings, but suguru is a man like any other, a jujutsu user like any other / this path is LITTERED WITH CORPSES and his proximity to death has simply made him ( ... ) distant from the idea of it. goal driven and idealistic as ever, getou suguru, he's lived and lived and lived for his cause, his reason, to better the world, to exterminate the pests and create a better, kinder world for jujutsu sorcerers, where they would not have to die BECAUSE OF and IN SERVICE TO the damned and accursed creatures that are good for nothing at all, besides sacrifice. in that ideal, in that wish and hope and want and dream, there is no space to consider death, no time to ponder it, no room to linger within painted with the IDEA OF HIS OWN DEATH —— he's not quite fatalistic enough, for such things.

well —— it's a lie / it isn't a lie at all / it's simply part of the MORTAL CONDITION OF LIVING to consider death every now and then, isn't it / he'd thought of his own death often as a teenager, in that grey-cast year / but in recent years —— only every now and then. an occasional thought brought upon by a near brush, by one of his family being brutally injured, by the loss of another dear to him. and in those thoughts one thing has remained constant, from the fumbling springtime days of his adolescence until here, now, at the very end : HE IS GOING TO DIE IN SATORU'S ARMS.

suguru does love being right. even about his own death.

yet the question remains : WHAT DO PEOPLE DO, WHEN THEY'RE ABOUT TO DIE? lament? weep? sob? plead? reminisce? simply pass away? it's a strange train of thought, nonlinear and sprawling. irrational, not quite incoherent, things that he's never considered and isn't quite considering, now, simply a passing thought, something morbid and not quite morose. disjointed and almost humorous.

the sun could be out / the moon could be glowing / rain could be pouring / snow could be falling —— suguru doesn't care much for the sky, doesn't pay much mind to the pain resonating through his body, gives little thought to his utter lack of an arm. it seems that his world is eternally destined to narrow down to : satoru.

any last words? he had asked / only for satoru to speak as if HE WERE GIVING HIS FINAL WORDS, a quiet admission, knelt and gazing at him —— for a moment suguru had almost been offended h was so fucking far away, though the offense was buried beneath shock and something like awe, a mixture from long lost boyhood, something that felt almost melancholic. and suguru could only smile, could only laugh, of course, of course —— of fucking course.

AT LEAST CURSE ME A LITTLE BIT AT THE VERY END.

satoru is crouching, still. looking at the ground / looking at him / looking at him / looking at him —— had satoru ever looked away, truly? what a strange thought. what a romantic though. ❝ satoru, ❞ he says, name covetous, name as a brand, name as a devotional / suguru lists to the side. blood loss, dizziness, impending death, true and unconditional and absolute and unending love. ❝ come here. ❞

and always, always : SATORU COMES. the distance closes / he takes suguru into his arms easily, as if it's second nature, it is second nature, his body aches with the movement but it's far—away, utterly distant, as separate from him as death, itself. satoru's body is familiar against his, this body he knows as well as his own, the press of his chest against his shoulder, the smell of him / the scent of his cursed energy like lightning lingering in the air / the gravitational pull they make / INIFINITY AND THE VOID : the destruction they wreak. there's no room nor time nor space for regrets, and even if there were suguru would have none at all.

always living for the future. always striving for something. always, always, this silly tangle of MORALITY and JUSTICE and A CAUSE TO LIVE AND DIE FOR. those things satoru had always hated.

❝ you said any final words, yet here we are, ❞ he can't help but point out, just to be aggravating, even now. ❝ usually that's when you'd kill me, you know. ❞

❝ —— shut upppp, suguru, ❞ worn and affectionate, a roll of his eyes, ❝ of course you'd be an asshole on death's door. ❞

❝ as if you won't be, ❞ the thought is strangely harrowing, heavily melancholic —— suguru sets it aside / satoru isn't immortal, a man like any other and some day in the future he will die / but he'd rather not dwell on his death.

he is going to die in satoru's arms, he can feel the slight tremor of his muscles, allows his head to dip back to gaze into his eyes, those eyes that had taken him from the moment they met / and had NEVER LET HIM GO / satoru is too selfish to have ever let him go truly, fully, even as the risk of pride and honor and other worthless things. saotru is too selfish / suguru is too selfish / their minds and bodies and hears and souls and the endless expanse of them entangled for all of time. a distant recollection occurs to him / their bodies intertwined and sheets shoved to the side, the press of satoru's body against his, inexorable and perfect, satoru's teeth against his collarbone, suguru's hands tangled in his hair / or was it satoru's hands tangled in his hair? a quiet, amused, TEASING thing : ❛ when you kill me, don't use hollow purple, ❜ as near as he could to saying : you will kill me / you will kill me / I'LL GO NO OTHER WAY / isn't this the ultimate act of love?

( satoru had stared at him, as if aghast, mouth twisted into something that should have been ugly but wasn't, because he's satoru, before rolling his eyes and lamenting how dramatic suguru was, honestly, what the fuck, before biting him hard enough to leave a coveted bruise. )

devoted love. adoring love. springtime love. long lasting love. twisted love. he's never said it, has he? never spoken the words aloud, just like satoru, not out of PRIDE like he supposes satoru has twisted himself into —— in the spirit of ROMANTICISM. suguru loves satoru, that is as absolute a fact as the earth revolving around the sun / as the existence of curses being because of monkeys / as the depth of satoru's gaze / as absolute as satoru. why should he ever have to say it aloud? is it not enough to claim, possess, adore him in the only way he knows how? EVEN NOW, AT THE END OF HIS LIFE, SATORU IS HIS / AND HE LOVES HIM.

it's simply shocking that satoru had said it at all. 愛してる. the only thing satoru could have possibly said to shock him. though, really, if satoru was ever going to say it, of course it would be NOW, of course it would follow ANY LAST WORDS, of course it would be as his hand settles against suguru's neck / as if it's any other day / as if they'll fall into bed and into each other and into each other and into each other so deeply they'll never find a way out / as if they ever want to.

they're both fucking idiots, honestly.

satoru's eyes are solemn, are burning, are vibrant and vivid and he's always been expressive. expressive / and logical / and realistic. suguru loves him, endlessly, will love him beyond death, to the ends of the world, until satoru dies, and beyond that, too. ❝ satoru, ❞ close to a proclamation of love / satoru can hear it, he knows, he knows by the way that his eyes widen and his lips part / by the way that suguru takes his hand from his neck with his only remaining hand / by the way that he tangles their fingers together.

❝ come here, ❞ he says again because of blood loss and imminent death and weakness overtaking, tipping his chin up, imperious and demanding as ever. satoru's hand is warm in his, slightly damp, he smells like the remnants of lightning and the vestiges of battle / suguru thinks of his family / of his daughters / hopes they'll be alright. knows they'll be alright. satoru huffs, as if suguru is asking SO VERY MUCH OF HIM, before ducking his head down and letting suguru lean up to kiss him : adoringly / determinedly / violently / gently. the way they've shoved themselves together. the way they've gouged out spaces in each other for the other. the ragged, tender, FAITHFULLY ARDENT WAY THEY SEARCH FOR EACH OTHER WITHOUT END. satoru's arm supporting his shoulders squeezes him, painfully tight, blood spilling everywhere and anywhere. their mouths part and crash together again / satoru shakes his hand free and grips suguru's face strongly enough that it hurts, a throbbing pain, thrumming alongside his heart. suguru presses his hand against satoru's chest, over his heart, as if he could leave an imprint of his hand in his skin, nails digging as though he could claw his way through, as if he could stay with him forever.

violent and wretched and caught in each other until the very end.

suguru got to see his daughters grow / not fully and not wholly / the others will have to look after them now / treat them to crepes and whatever else their hearts desire / he hopes they will / he hopes they will / he cannot say such a thing to satoru who his daughters will not forgive / but he hopes they understand : this is how it is meant to be, isn't it?

satoru will mourn him / he cannot protect satoru from that / protection as an instinct as an act of love / satoru who is the strongest who is just satoru, to him / a tragedy amongst many.

infinity kisses the void desperately, searchingly, seekingly. what do people do when they're about to die? something about confessions, perhaps. it echoes in his mind, satoru's words, his horrible words, his wonderful words, sending suguru's heart skittering and careening and keening in his chest : HE REGRETS NOTHING AT ALL / this is how he's meant to die / he's going to die in satoru's arms / he has done his best and his family will carry on without him / and satoru will mourn him.

❝ —— 愛してる ❞ a vow / a curse : delivered to the soul, sealed into his skin, pressed into his mouth, carved into the marrow of his bones, in all of the shadowy and sunlit corners that suguru has claimed in this body that is an extension of his, in this man he loves so dreadfully, in his other half.

satoru's hand spasms against his face / they crash together / and suguru ————

THE INTIMACY OF HANDS.—— [acceptance] for the sender & receiver to sit / lay somewhere in acceptance of their ends together. in a final act of closeness, the sender places their hand in the receiver’s own.

[necrosin]

it plays at being a gentle sort of affection, a rather humorous display, an effected affect —— suguru isn't unmoved by it, doesn't suppose he can remain UNMOVED BY ANYTHING in regards to satoru at any point in his life, whichever life this is, the life that he's chosen and the path that he walks upon notwithstanding. has it been doomed from the moment they met? their eyes locking? the grin that split satoru's face and the wariness that had overtaken suguru, only to be washed away by the everything that satoru is? perhaps —— though suguru doesn't tend to think of things in such a manner / it feels forced, in a way, to view their past through the lens of their present, some sort of macabre slant to the world, a strange darkening of shadows and brightening of light. THEY ARE THE SAME IN THE WAYS THAT MATTER and, perhaps, different in the ways that matter all the more —— suguru maintains that his similarities far outweigh his differences and, truly, they both hold themselves in a strange sort of stasis / a fascinating sight, to view INFINITY by way of STILLNESS, isn't it?

still : he thinks that his younger self would feel no small amount of thrill to awaken beside the object of his affections, several years down the line. in truth ( and suguru is nothing but honest with himself at the best and worst of times, idealism and romanticism holding steadfast in his heart / body / void ) there is that boyish sort of thrill, a thrumming beside his beating heart, all the same. it's also, admittedly, something of a BAD HABIT —— dozing off afterwards, seeing each other at all, intertwining themselves so wholly it's as though they'd never unraveled at all.

( the trick of it is this : they hadn't. )

the pillow is soft beneath his cheek, satoru is warm and all-consuming beside him, the bed feels endless in that lazy early morning way. suguru had awoken slowly only to awake all at once from a touch at his shoulder, the gentlest of touches, terribly tender, drifting and wondering and wandering. he stirs just so, sheets shifting beneath him / he feels satoru still for a moment, before huffing a sigh / suguru can imagine the furrow to his brow, the brief roll of his eyes, the pinch to his mouth even as his touch ( warm, always warm, always threatening at scalding ) remains, playing along a small constellation of scars set into his deltoid. his trapezius. higher and higher, fingers tangling into his hair, let loose at some point in the past several hours because satoru LOVED PULLING HIS HAIR —— his thumb presses against a lingering bruise and suguru presses a smirk into the pillow.

as if he knew ( he knew, he knew, of course satoru knew ) his hand squeezes just too tight against the back of his neck / a gravitational pull / callouses pressing. suguru sinks further into the pillow and doesn't bother to withhold nor stifle the amusement that grips him much like that familiar hand —— it would be easy to break his hold. instead, suguru simply shifts, a snake in the grass, et cetera, head turning and satoru oh so magnanimously permits it, allowing their eyes to meet. he makes a face at the smile—smirk on suguru's face, which only serves to increase his amusement.

❝ don't you have somewhere to be? ❞ he says instead of good morning, because anything else simply doesn't occur to him —— @mastabahs has always liked his meanness, had encouraged it, aglow at the idea that HE HAD MET HIS TRUE OTHER HALF / his other half / his other half / how does one excise their other half? it's a futile thought process : neither of them bother to attempt it, neither of them have even given it a THOUGHT, have they? suguru doesn't imagine that's an arrogant thought, coming from himself. simply that : he has never entertained the thought of precise surgical excision, bloody and brutal in a way they aren't, so why would satoru?

❝ ugh, don't you? i'm sure you've got some sermon to deliver or whatever to all of your devoted, mindless worshippers? ❞ satoru groans, pinching the skin at the nape of suguru's neck before tangling his fingers in his hair again / pulling ever so slightly / suguru feels like he's practically beaming.

❝ careful, satoru, ❞ name as a prayer for the sake of irony, coveted and cherished on his tongue from the dawning of the world to the end of time, ❝ you almost sound envious of my followers. ❞

bright eyes roll / satoru relinquishes his grip as suguru moves to sit up / settles back against the sheets when suguru presses close, instead, his mouth pinching when suguru takes satoru's chin in hand / thumb brushing against his jaw, a facsimile of affection. ❝ of your little minions who'd kiss the ground you walk on? nahhh, ❞ satoru's voice is a drawl the way it is when he's mildly agitated by something, the slope of his neck lazy, the droop of his eyelids careless. ❝ —— sorry if i don't feel like worshipping you, or whatever, suguru. ❞ he stuck out his tongue, ❝ not. ❞

❝ you don't? ❞ suguru's smile sharpens / he catches the subtle shifts of satoru's expressions always, the fluttering of his gaze, down and up again as his body shifts, sheets threatening to slide, a litany of devotion lingering along his neck / back / thighs. a whisper of invocation pressed into his skin. ❝ i don't know, satoru, i feel rather ( ... ) WORSHIPPED. ❞

a soft, irritated noise. a broad palm skimming along his spine, intent on finding his neck again / satoru always goes for the neck, doesn't he? / suguru brushes his fingers along his jaw, that jaw which had been his fixation for so very long, and presses his thumb along his adam's apple. halves of a whole, mirrors of each other, you know the score, don't you? ❝ i'd rather not be compared to your devotees, thanks, ❞ palm against the back of his neck again / fingers tangling in his hair again / gripping tight.

❝ did you know, ❞ suguru says, not bothering to look away from satoru's eyes as he presses his thumb harder against that tender, fragile dip of his neck ( because, naturally, suguru would never kill satoru / he's unable to even excise his love for him, after all ) his own expression going almost thoughtful, ❝ the robes i wear, which you enjoy tearing up as if i have an endless supply of them, ❞ he sighs in a woe begotten way / the girls will mend it unless he gets to it first, is the major issue, but nonetheless, ❝ they have a name. all traditional clothing does, of course, and i play my role as i must —— i could have chosen from any number of traditional buddhist robes, it's not like the monkeys know the difference, ❞ he can feel satoru's pulse, steady and strong. suguru wants to bite it / settles for nipping at his bottom lip for a bare moment, hair pulling uncomfortably from where satoru doesn't let up his grip.

❝ yet the one i chose, ❞ he presses his mouth against the corner of satoru's mouth, as though he could carve the curve of his own there, as if he could leave an eternal mark there, one to mirror the remnants he's left on satoru's soul. suguru speaks against his skin as if admitting the gravest of secrets, one to TAKE TO THE GRAVE amongst the legions of other ghastly corpses that lay between them, crushed between their bodies, the tangle of their legs. ❝ to wear on my body every day, surrounded by my family, is called, ❞ suguru kisses him for a moment / almost meanly / too much teeth / lingering but not long enough.

❝ —— gojō kāṣāya. ❞

THE INTIMACY OF HANDS. —— [ play ] for the sender’s muse to run their hand up the receiver’s shoulder and play with the hair at the base of their neck as a means of comfort.