Chapter Text
A chair shattering the window isn’t enough, neither are the books he shreds, nor the mattress hurled so hard against the wall it disintegrates. His breath comes quickly, too quickly, strangled between a sob and choking. The lump in his throat, the barbed wire around his voice—Satoru is screaming. His room is destroyed—all shattered glass and splintered wood. The gold of the late afternoon makes it look like fire. But still, it looks too clean, too perfect, too untouched. Anything still standing is too whole after knowing what he does.
Satoru rips his sunglasses off, the feeling of them resting on his ears made him want to cut his ears off. Any touch was too much, too much of a reminder. His fists curl, his fingers slick with blood from his nails trying to keep him from crying in front of his teacher, from the blood of splitting his bookshelf and shattering the lightbulbs in his lamp. He still can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can hardly see.
“Based on the bloodstains and residuals, it looks like he killed his parents too.”
He screams again, he screams so he doesn’t cry. How could he? How could he? How could he and not tell me?
Satoru moves to grab something, anything to shatter into a thousand pieces, anything to keep his arms busy. Anything that will exhaust him to the point of no longer being able to think, of no longer imagining him , his best friend, his- my-
No. No he can’t let himself think of that. Of that.
There’s a broken soda bottle in his hand when he whirls back toward the wreckage of his room, eyes scanning for the next thing he can make feel the way he does—
An envelope. An envelope on his nightstand, the only surface still untouched.
His name, his name on the back. Written in a hand he’d know anywhere, Christ, the hand he would know anywhere. The same refinement, the same careful pressure, the same lingering hand.
Satoru stares. Satoru stares until he can get his body to move. His bloody grip on the bottle tightening until his knuckles go white, until where his knuckles are split pearl blood again. Slowly, nauseatingly, he lets himself drop the bottle. He forces himself to walk forward.
The envelope, so soft and ivory under the window’s broken glass. The wind carries through the room: it smells like Suguru. It smells like him. Like orange and clove and brown sugar. Like his chap-stick and his toothpaste, his soap and his hair, his quiet breathing while fast asleep, his gasping for air between laughs.
Satoru wants to rip it. He wants to burn it. He wants to destroy it to prove to himself Suguru is really, truly gone. But he can’t stop his bottom lip from quivering. He can’t stop hearing Suguru’s chiding voice in his head. The gentle, almost loving tone he only took with Satoru. The one he woke every day hoping to hear, the one he goes to bed playing in his head again and again. He trembles, his hands shake and he tries his best not to get blood on the envelope as he opens the seal, as he sees his name in that impossibly beautiful hand.
____
Satoru,
By now you will have heard the news, all of it. And I should be the one to tell you it's true. I know you'll be angry. Angry at me for doing what I've done but mostly, angry at me for not telling you why, or even trying to include you in this.
I often wonder if this could have been different, if any of it could've. If I'd told you, if I'd answered honestly to your questions. But it wouldn't matter, because with you with me, my goal never could have been realized. I never would have been able to keep you safe like I can now. I wouldn't have done any of this if there had been another way.
It was always love. I love you. That will never be past tense for me. I did it- all of it, for you. I could never have dragged you down here with me, I never would have done that to you. I've been filthy since the day I began absorbing these curses—I wouldn't condemn you to my same fate.
Please know, please know that I never left you. That none of this is because you did anything wrong. Oh Satoru, I don’t doubt myself, or my principles, or my beliefs, I know this is for the best. I know there is nothing else I can do. You’re the strongest, maybe you could do a better job at this than I am. But someone has to save us. Save you. And I would do it all a thousand times over if it meant you could just be a person. Even if it kills me, this is for the best. Trust me, trust me and let me go.
In the village that I cleansed, there were two girls, just kids, beaten and being kept in a cage. They were so frightened, Satoru. They were so scared. Their own family, their own friends, had beaten the life out of these little kids. What was I supposed to do? I knew how they felt, I remember how my dad burst my ear bloody when I kept telling him of the curse lingering on his shoulder. I remember how my mom sat and watched in silence as he dragged me along the floor and threw my head into the wall, trying to “knock sense” into me. I remember how it made my ears ring, how it made me dizzy the first time, and the tenth time it happened. I remember the way those curses wouldn't stop mocking me as I watched my blood drip on the floor and I got screamed at for making such a mess. I remember the first time it happened, and the hundredth. I was six. I was six just like these girls are. And I was scared. Yes, I killed my parents. And I don’t feel any guilt for it. Why should I? Why should I after what they did to me for so many years?
You were the first person I met who felt like family to me, Satoru. My first friend, the only person I'd ever known who didn't make me feel filthy for existing, who didn't think I owed anyone anything. The only person I’ll ever know who makes me feel that way.
After I killed them, after I cleansed that village of its filth, I felt cleaner than I had in years. I saved those girls. I’ll bring them up as my own and show them that their techniques help make them brilliant, that they aren’t just what they’ve been saddled with. That they aren’t just what they can do for others without so much as an ounce of appreciation. People like you, like them—they’re loved for their magic, hated for it. I want so much more for them, so much more for you.
I thought absorbing curses would make me feel strong, would make me immune to their pain because I was stronger. But they whisper, and they scream, and they nag. And I have so many nightmares. I have so many nightmares, Satoru. I don't know if you ever knew, it wasn't like I woke up screaming. I just... they would torture me in my sleep and I couldn't breathe. They would make me watch you die again and again to the point where I wondered if they were dreams at all. I'd wake with a racing heart, with a lump in my throat and hope to God you'd come in to distract me. That sleepy tenderness you always had at night, that let me hope for the possibility you loved me too. The way you'd rest your head on my shoulder, kiss my temple goodnight, try to wrestle with me to get out that energy you somehow still held. But sometimes I wish I would've woken up screaming. So that I could have had an excuse to hold onto you, so that I could have been close with you like I wanted. It's selfish, I know. But you won't have to worry about it anymore.
Know that every arrogant remark, every arm slung around my shoulder, every reminder that we were the strongest is what kept me going. I just couldn't stand by while they forced you to be a weapon instead of a man. A concept instead of a boy. A god, a god instead of my boy. You deserved better than that, Satoru, you deserve better. A world without curses to fight, without people who will never thank you to save. A world without the deaths of those you love the most. Where you can be something outside of what they've made you. You're more than something strong to be dragged around like an attack dog. You are beautiful and kind and full of dreams. And in some other timeline, maybe you were mine.
I loved you since the day I met you, did you know that? Your arrogance infuriated me, but I always hid the blush it gave me. Your humour, your ridiculous remarks that made everyone else so angry—they'd make me smile while I tried to fall asleep, while I tried to wake up. I don't know if you ever felt the same, or if it's pointless to say at all. But in case you ever did, you deserve to know how I feel.
Remember that night, when we were just first years, being idiots sneaking drinks? Playing spin the bottle with Shoko, as if she'd actually allow either of us to kiss her? Not that I wanted to. No, the smell of cigarettes never did it for me, and neither did the fact she's a girl. No, Satoru. I wanted to kiss you.
You remember it, don't you? Or am I just being a sentimental fool? She practically dared us to kiss. I remember you taking off your glasses for added flair. That stupid, beautiful grin. And that fraction of a moment kiss- the taste of winter, of clarity, of warmth... I never stopped thinking about it. I thought about it when you smiled, when you fell asleep at your desk. I thought about it when you shook your hair like a wet dog after coming in from a storm (apparently turning off your infinity just to piss me off, hm?). I thought of it when I thought you were dead, when you fell asleep at the foot of my bed with a blush on your face and I allowed myself to touch you just the once to make sure you didn't have a fever. I thought about it when you let me throw snow at you and brush it away from the collar of your coat, when you had flowers and sticks stuck in your hair that windy spring day. All those times, and every moment in between, I wanted to kiss you again.
I know I haven't been gone long, but I do miss you. God, I miss you. I miss your voice; I miss your constant rambling about God knows what. I miss how dark your eyes would get when you were tired, when the sea was reflected in them. I miss how easily you blushed and how your nose would turn red when you were cold. I miss how you'd get in a hiccupping fit when you laughed for too long. I miss how you always had to be eating brown sugar candy to focus on any of your homework. I miss your rudeness whenever you were feeling protective. I miss the way you turned to me for everything, the way you trusted me. I miss you.
I know this is a betrayal. I know it is, but Satoru, it's right. I know how ridiculous it is to tell you I love you. Maybe it will make you hate me more, maybe you'll think me disgusting for it. For imagining my lips on your shoulder, on the freckle on the right side of your chest. Maybe saying it will make it easier to get the bounty on my head. Do it if you have to, I'll understand, you know I will, I'm not afraid of it. I'm not afraid of being free of this. But please don't hurt my girls, please don't kill me because you think it will help the world by upholding the status quo. I would never kill innocent people. Cleansing the world from those who would exploit you, exploit me, exploit the girls and Shoko and everyone else... is that not a good thing? To rid the world of those who create curses? Who create the reason we have to die such brutal deaths? With limbs ripped to shreds begging for mercy killings by our closest friends?
It hurt, Satoru. It hurt seeing Riko die. To promise something I couldn't fulfill to someone I couldn't protect. To think you'd been murdered too. To hear them cheering while you carried her body. Satoru I could never get the filth off. How could I have told you? How could I forgive myself for not being able to protect you? There's still so much I wish I could say, but I know I shouldn't. Even if it will help you hate me, I can't risk it making you keep me from leaving. You're my best friend, being around you was the only time I felt completely like myself. The only time I couldn't hear what the curses would say because you were louder. You were so crass, so obnoxious, so perfect. You're more than the idea of great, Satoru. I will do what I can to make this world a pure one, a free one, but you must be more than the responsibility shoved on you. I know you try to hide your kindness, but it isn't a weakness. None of it is.
Goodbye, Satoru
I hope you can understand, and I hope you'll never forgive me.
_________
The ink is a blurry mess.
Suguru's perfect, refined scrawl is muddled by tears. Smudged by Satoru's weeping. It's ruined; stained with something Satoru is too afraid to name. He barely registers the involuntary action of him slamming the letter against his chest, as if pressing the papers hard enough to his heart could force the man who wrote them to understand.
His lungs won’t fill, his ribs won’t expand, his hands won’t let go. Satoru grips his side as though he were bleeding out as sobs wrack his body. Always so in control, he’s shaking. Knees buckling beneath him as he sinks to the floor. His hands drag over his scalp, his forehead, his face, scratching until he knows he’s marked. He does it as if he could reverse all that has happened, carve out the hollow ache left inside his chest. But he can’t. Of course he can’t. Palms pressed to his eyes won’t stop the sobbing, raw and broken like he never has allowed before.
Suguru is gone. He left. He loved Satoru. He loved Satoru and he left because of it.
Satoru loosens his grip on the letter and holds it gently. Cradles it, as though Suguru could feel his touch so far away. He presses the letter to his lips, desperate, feverish, unashamed at trying to taste Suguru on the paper. As if he could reach through the letter and close the space he fears will always stand between them. Christ, you idiot. It's to himself, but he wishes he could say it to Suguru. You goddamn idiot. Of course I love you. Of course I do.
But Suguru isn’t there to hear it, and Satoru spent too much time being afraid that Suguru didn’t love him back to ever say it. His shoulders shake, his breath catching on every inhale, his whole body is wracked with it, he feels broken and exposed by the loss, the anger, the weight of knowing he never said it back. He never said it back even though he always wanted to be the one to say it first.
His phone rings. He refuses to believe anything is important enough to remove the letter from his lips, wet with tears.
But it rings again and fumbling around the shattered glass he finds his phone in time to see a call from Shoko. He brings it to his ear. “Hey. Hey I found Geto.”