#getou，devouring.

[necrosin]

nighttime does not bring stillness —— it never does / never has / cursed spirits linger and surge and press in the darkness incrementally more than in the light and awareness doesn't dare wax nor wane : it is a constant. barriers provide comfort and ease that carry the mind off to sleep, yet here they have none of that, really, a nice hotel suite and little more. he imagines he can hear the crash of waves on the shore, though the windows are shut and locked and this hotel isn't on the beach, but he shakes sand out of his sleeve and tucks shower—damp hair behind his ear, hyperawareness settling over his skin easily. awareness of the low grade curses lingering in corners and down halls, of the danger they're in, of the girl who is a SACRIFICE and the only family she's ever known sleeping in the other room, and ——

and most of all : satoru, sleepless and stubborn and carrying on, still.

steam drifts from bathroom to living area as he exits, feeling his own exhaustion wearing at his eyes, his skin, the very marrow of his being / driven away by sheer force of will as his gaze immediately falls upon @mastabahs. where else would he look, where else would he bother in this impersonal space, lightyears away from cramped dormitories and laughter soaked walls. for a moment he doesn't speak, simply watches the silhouette of his best friend, familiarity like a balm and worry disquiet, lodged in the aching hollow of his throat, too unwieldy to ingest like every other curse he's ever devoured.

❝ you should get some sleep, sa—toru, ❞ suguru walks around the armchair to the front of it, in satoru's line of sight, breaking up the steadiness of his gaze : an intrusion, unasked for and unrelenting. the salt—warm hair of the day lingering around them, in the subtly more disarrayed fall of satoru's hair, the slight pinking to his pale skin / HE'S TIRED AND PROBABLY WON'T ADMIT IT / no one knows satoru as well as suguru ( a prideful thought, a head held high thought, a covetous thought ) and he's never seen him quite this exhausted. can only imagine the extent of his headache, sustaining infinity for so long.

he wants to touch satoru / settles for brushing stray sand from his hair, a tilt to his head, softness to his voice ( you sound different then you talk to him, shoko once said / he hadn't really understood then, not quite / not wholly / the shades of his heart ) pitched quiet not only for the pair sleeping in the other room. not only for them. ❝ i can keep watch for a few hours. ❞

[necrosin]

applause rings, white noise like rainfall pattering, senseless and dull and dulling the senses, caught between overwhelming and underwhelming. rain is falling / it isn't falling / the self and connection to the self frayed and fraying / rain is falling —— applause rings, so on and so forth, ad finitum. the self : the body, folded into itself, mind trying to package itself neatly, seal itself away, protection paper like, sunlight filtering through, a hairline fracture growing ever larger / there and not, like a magic trick. his attention shifts and applause dulls ( dulling the senses ), emptiness / THE VOID within him quiet, for now, sated, throat raw and rotted and senses —— ugh, haven't we gone over that already?

HE UNFOLDS HIMSELF, metaphysically, limbs feel heavy and strange, as if the body isn't the self at all, and where does the soul begin and the body end, and where does the soul dwell? pointless thoughts, endless thoughts, thoughts like a winding road leading to nowhere, a faint gunshot, far off and echoing. he unfolds himself, sludge flowing through his veins, fueled by decay, a vacancy in his larynx near-silent, the faintest of whines ; he unfolds himself for satoru, an instinct more than not / peers up at him with raised brows and a gentle mouth, driving away lethargy and woe like sunlight to shadows / it's not the sun's fault if the room has sharp corners and edges.

❝ —— satoru, ❞ @mastabahs, satoru, impossible—boy sa—toru, his satoru. satoru, lanky long body and all / living and breathing and all. ( i killed gojo satoru. ) delineated in light, caught in the sky ; suguru smiles, bemused, yes really, muscles pulling in a wan, unwanting way, an abandoned way, the shift of his skin strange and too tight, applause mocking in his ears, white noise turning grey—black. ❝ you're late, ❞ suffused in smoke —— he taps his half—forgotten cigarette, wasting away / wasted away, an absentminded gesture, ashes and ashes falling to the floor before inhaling slowly, smoke curling, reaching, diffusing.

[necrosin]

IT FEELS AS IF THE WORLD IS TRYING TO EAT HIM ALIVE —— or, is he trying to eat the world alive? ( could he eat the world whole? no, no of course not, but —— ) the discrepancy is there, somewhere, it must be because the world cannot be something so amorphous and vile and yet —— the lines have become blurred, marred, massacred somewhere along the way, leaving behind a macabre mess soaking the hem of his school uniform. soaking up to the knees. higher and higher and higher and ——

exorcised / ingested. exorcised / ingested. EXORCISED / INGESTED. and it's never enough.

you've been spending a lot of time alone, lately, shouko had said to him once or twice or maybe even thrice, again and again and AGAIN : an undercurrent of concern in her voice, a tilt to her head, a slight pinch to her mouth, and he ( ... ) HE'S SO —— FUCKING ——

did you know infinity has gravity? or maybe it's that suguru knew @heartinhands instinctively, absolutely, by fleeting presence alone ; but then, didn't everyone? know the both of them? by presence alone? cursed energy pouring off of them in droves, in waves / the weight that satoru bears is SOUL CRUSHINGLY IMMENSE, it always had been, and suguru has always —— has always ——

❝ you're back, ❞ when was the last time he had seen him, face to face? ages, it felt like. long enough that the world was eating him alive, long enough that he had glutted himself on a psuedo—eternity and disgorged it and did it again and again and AGAIN / did you know curses have a taste? YOU'RE BACK feels both vast and small the the mere sight of satoru caused something dislodged in his chest to writhe ; had it always done that? yes, of course. in a way. not unlike a curse thrashing in his body.

❝ it went well? ❞ phrased a question but not : of course it had gone well. the world devours / satoru is the strongest / suguru is —— suguru looks into infinity and finds himself / WANTING.

( you've been spending a lot of time alone, lately. )

[necrosin]

❝ —— cigarettes cause cancer, you know, ❞ there's a notable lack of chastisement in his voice ; it instead carries no small measure of amusement, a slight curve to his mouth as he stands over @spirestar, not quite looming, though with suguru standing and shouko sitting, perhaps it could be considered looming in spite of his best efforts. it's neither here nor there, though —— he must truly be EXHAUSTED if his mind is lingering on such senseless, useless external stimuli, information that should be just as quickly discarded as it is received / the taste of the demon he had devoured is lingering still in the back of his throat as he sits next to her, exhausted and probably injured somewhere or another, though he hadn't sought her out for any reason like that.

suguru leans back and back and back, tilting his head towards the sun and wondering when the last time he felt warm was. yesterday, perhaps? months ago, maybe? ❝ what will all your future patients say? ❞ it's a common refrain, and in the end he doesn't really care : shouko will do whatever she wishes, and he respects her for as much / SOMETIMES he wonders about the habit / wonders about a lot of things / exhaustion wears / he's not sure when the last time he slept was, but. well.

[necrosin]

THE RECURRENCE OF YOUTH —— dragging themselves into one mess or another, though it would be dramatic to call this a mess ( and too irreverent to refer to the risk of their lives on a day to day basis by means or protecting the world at large and the weak first and foremost simply A MESS but a blanket term can only do so much ) for all that he had been reluctant to partake. he's always reluctant to partake in anything adjacent, harmless though it may be / the simple fact of the universe is that suguru hates losing and he's never been especially adept at VIDEO GAMES IN GENERAL to the point that even when his old school friends from what feels like lifetimes ago would be playing games, clustered around their game boys, rowdy in an arcade, suguru would abstain with a laugh and a smile.

regrettably, satoru is adept at dragging him into messes / and suguru will take any and all chances to beat him at nearly anything in the world, simply to prove that he could, a silly little perpetual half-baked rivalry that, really, goes nowhere at all —— granted, suguru has won out over satoru on occasion ( the list of things he's won at is perilously short, but he ignores that ) but never, never when it comes to VIDEO GAMES.

and yet : all @mastabahs needs to do is grin and bat his stupid white lashes and ask and suguru ( ... ) ugh, complies. it stings somewhat less, given that satoru is nearly obedient when it comes to everything that suguru requests of him, something that he's quietly pleased about, unseemly bursts of joy kept close to his chest.

it doesn't help that THEY'VE DECIDED TO BET THIS TIME, simply another tactic to drag suguru along into whatever it is that satoru wants to do to while their youth away, shamelessly intertwined with each other as they stumble about the mire that is teenager—dom —— though, honestly, why suguru agreed is beyond him. as if he doesn't already spoil satoru rotten. the only saving grace he maintains currently is that shoko isn't here to LAUGH HERSELF TO TEARS at him and his objective idiocy when it comes to satoru / and the way that hope flees his eyes as the vibrant, joyous, cheering YOU LOSE !!! flashes across the screen at him. because of course it does.

❝ —— don't, ❞ he says immediately, elbow flying out to smack senselessly at satoru's ribs / he can already hear the crowing, triumphant laughter, the way that he'll lord his win over him endlessly, ceaseless, until satoru win at something else and can hold that over his head. honestly, satoru's ego is in desperate need of deflating. ❝ even start, i don't want to hear it, ❞ alright, he's also being a sore loser, but he thinks that's owed to him given that satoru is, famously, an even SORER WINNER, the asshole. he elbows him again for good measure, scowl set on his face, perhaps a little too close to a pout to any passersby.

he can only take so much GOJO SATORU WINNER OF ALL TIME, alright, he already has to pay for dinner when satoru is practically a trust fund baby. ❝ best two out of three, ❞ he says against his better judgement, because obviously he's going to lose again, suguru isn't good at video games and never has been, but satoru's joy is an infectious sort of thing, like the wrappers of all of his favorite candies gathering in suguru's pockets, like the sound of his laughter and grabbing hands whenever he presents him with his favorite drinks.

objectively : embarrassing. suguru doesn't have it in him to be embarrassed about it, though ; as though he had forgotten that lesson / as though the world had forgotten to give him any sort of shame when it comes to gojo satoru.

NONVERBAL PROMPTS. —— ∗ 72﹕ sender  beats  receiver  in  a  video  game .

[necrosin]

IT'S A COMMON SCENE : lounging and sprawled in one room or another, existing in each other's spaces, spoken and unspoken, the presence accepted without much thought or consideration / much like the imposition of a presence in and of itself. the three of them rarely spend time without each other, as far as suguru could tell, attached at the hip or other such idioms, one never seen without at least one of the others, the trio always spelling out danger somehow more loudly than any other configuration, trouble to come, so on and so forth, rowdy teenagers and their codependence as a result of excessive exposure to each other.

suguru had appeared in @spirestar's doorway without so much as a by your leave and installed himself on her floor as if he belonged there, a permanent fixture, immovable and absolute, something to work around and simply accept, back against her bed and legs akimbo as he flipped through a book he picked up from her floor. an easy familiarity —— learned over time / he'd though her odd on their first meeting, though no odder than satoru, who swept him up and claimed him with the surety that only someone whose reckoning had ruined the earth could have. shoko maintained a sense of disdain form the world, maybe, or rather the world had a disdain for her, some for of commodification of a person, usage of a rare ability, a careful preparation and priming for her to ascend and become —— something like that.

( suguru did not wreck nor become commodified by the world but instead : became its refuse and resting place, the hollow ache in his throat raw and rotten and demanding. )

after a moment he drops the book to the side, words holding no meaning / pulls out the pack of cigarettes he carries around for shoko ( pretends to carry around just for shoko, at this point ) and throws them at her loosely, huffs out a laugh, wind rustling leaves, as she decidedly smacks him in the head with a pillow, a lazy and almost half hearted movement, motion, action—reaction.

❝ —— is that the thanks i get? ❞ body slumps on the ground, spine curving, a shambling corpse of a boy intent on becoming one with the dusty, old wooden floors of his schoolyard home, typical teenage drama / atypical teenage drama, it depends how you look at it, really. what perspective you take. what's normal teenage drama, anyways? ❝ for so kindly providing for you? i might need to rethink being your supplier, shoko, ❞ it's a lie and they both know it is : he'd sooner stop carrying around cigarettes for shoko than he'd stop buying sweets and sodas and anything satoru's whims and woes may want.

NONVERBAL PROMPTS. —— ∗ 28﹕ sender  strikes  receiver  with  a  pillow .