There were times where Satoru found himself walking through life as though he were asleep. That wasn't to say he was entirely unaware of himself during these times. He knew he was out and about. He was aware of the cursed energy that moved in a meld of colors like a flowing river around him, he the rock in the center of stream. He was aware of the ambling bodies, the birds overhead, the insects crawling upon the ground and the breeze-blown trees... but he wasn't entirely conscious of where he was going until he found himself there.
Sometimes it was a café, sometimes the school or the woods that surrounded it. Sometimes it was the doorstep of his very own residence... and sometimes the doorstep of someone dear to him.
The latter, this time, was the case. As if pulled up from the waters, gasping for air from a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Satoru finds himself with fist already raised against the wooden door. Had he already knocked? Had he simply left his knuckles to rest against the wood without a sound to make?
The muffled noise on the other side of the door, the twisting of a lock released, let him know Nanami Kento had either heard him knock or simply became aware of his presence by other means. And when he opens the door, features faintly tinted in an emotion Satoru couldn't quite place ( annoyance - curiosity - ), the taller man steps over the threshold without being invited in. It was sort of funny, wasn't it? That he had been given a key and since then he'd found more reason to ask for permission in than he had before.
"Kento." Satoru breathes, arms out as he pulls the other man into an embrace, as he settles himself and his weight against the broadness of his shoulders and chest comfortably. He clasps his own hands behind Kento's back, buries his face into the crook of his neck and he inhales the scent of his cologne readily.
he tried to smell decent. a dab of cologne suitable for the office. musky. straight forward. but not too overpowering. it was something he lightly indulged in these years after shedding his jujutsu sorcerer skin. like how he shed his tinted glasses. he didn't need to worry about curses catching his line of sight, or his scent giving his position away during an ambush anymore.
he could indulge in these things... little pleasures like walking home after work, buying bread from the same bakery everyday, and wearing cologne on his chest.
he could indulge, because -- and kento knew, always, in the back of his mind like he couldn't let himself forget -- because gojo couldn't.
-- couldn't we just let gojo take care of every mission?
those childish words, childish sentiment expressed so many years ago, in a moment of childish weakness. he would spend the rest of his life regretting and atoning for them.
and that's what he owed gojo satoru. nanami kento thought to himself, time and again, when it came down to choose... when it was no longer viable to pretend, to act as though the white-haired male repeatedly circling back into his life was "just a friend," when gojo needed him -- when the almighty, overpowered, overconfident gojo satoru needed him to be more than a "friend"... he told himself that's what he owed the other.
it was an easy lie. an easy excuse to let himself pretend to be annoyed, pretend to act indifferent or aloof. it was an easy lie and so cheaply done, because it was also so easily broken.
"Satoru--" how easy it was to utter the other's name, to catch the man's weight and turn himself into an anchor -- how easy. how easily it was that he wanted to plant his feet firmly on the ground, open his arms and straighten his back... to become reliable and steadfast. no matter how terribly and rationally he tried to deny.
because gojo made him strong.
because gojo made him want to be strong.
"Hey, what's with you now?" his voice a low, soft rumbling, conjuring more tender concern than disparagement. strong, firm hand ruffled the hair on the back of gojo's head. the other arm wrapped around satoru's waist -- so small, it felt, when so easily surrounded by his muscular arm -- squeezing satoru tight against his body. "Did you get yourself into trouble again?"
again, he said, with the knowing, indulging tone of a man ready to spoil his beloved no matter how reckless, how impulsive, or how wrong he had been. because it was satoru. because it was his.
his hand reached down and grabbed satoru under the hip and thigh, with a gentle warning, lifted the taller man off the ground in his arms like picking up a large, overly cuddly pet dog. he turned and carried gojo into the house, shutting the door with his heel behind him.
he thought maybe a hot bath was in order. then maybe a good head massage. he just changed the bed sheet. the clean, soft linen would feel nice on warm flushed skin. it didn't seem like gojo brought his own change of clothes. but that's alright. the duvet was warm. and so were two naked bodies pressed up against each other.
