Chapter Text
Being seventeen is a curse. Or, at least, that is how Satoru Gojo feels. His youth might have been stolen by traumatic experiences as a jujutsu sorcerer, but his mind was still that of an inexperienced teenager. He knows how to exorcise curses, how to use his own technique and he even knows how to play the political game with his superiors, yet he doesn't know what it's like to be grounded for doing something bad, he doesn't know what it's like to have friends, let alone what it's like to kiss someone – even though he really wish he did.
Perhaps it was ridiculous to admit it. The great Satoru Gojo, heir to the Gojo clan, bearer of the Six Eyes, incapable of understanding the smallness of everyday life. Incapable of understanding why people laughed so easily with each other in the hallways, why they shared headphones on the train, why they seemed so comfortable touching one another without overthinking it. There was always a distance between him and the rest of the world; an invisible distance, long predating Infinity. There was also a great desire to connect, but the impossibility of narrowing that space between himself and others seemed insurmountable.
Until Suguru showed up.
At first, they didn't get along. They were two undisputedly strong beings, but strength comes with pride and ego, which made getting close a bit difficult. Fortunately, after some time and some idle conversations scattered between tireless days of training and missions, they grew closer. Shoko, too, became Satoru’s close friend.
He knew, from having read the dictionary, what "friend" meant, but in reality, friendship was strange. All the banter, going to the movies, studying until dawn, the visits to the diner… He had known the world was vast since he was born, but he didn't know how vast the world of seventeen-year-old teenagers could be.
The first time Suguru dragged him to an arcade, Satoru thought it was a bad joke. The place was noisy and lit with neon lights. There were flashing machines in every direction. He felt overstimulated because of the irritating sound of metallic coins dropping into slots and children running between groups of uniformed students. There simply were too many people occupying a space far too small.
Satoru stopped right at the entrance, wearing dark sunglasses and clothes probably worth more than the entire establishment, surveying the environment with an expression of absolute judgment, as if Suguru had just dragged him into a particularly unpleasant parallel dimension.
“This looks hellish.”
Suguru let out a low chuckle, shoving his hands into his pockets as he kept walking without even bothering to look back. He already seemed to know that Satoru would follow him, despite the complaining.
“You only say that because you’ve never been here before.”
“And why would I come?”
“Because it’s fun.”
That wrung a genuinely confused expression out of Satoru. Fun. As if that were a sufficient justification in itself. As if people actually left their houses to spend money trying to win stuffed animals and listen to loud music just because it made them happy. To be honest, fun still felt like a bit of an abstract concept to him. Ever since Suguru entered his life, the novelty was endless.
Still, he followed Suguru through the arcade out of curiosity, watching him interact with the environment with his usual naturalness. Suguru was always so cool. He didn't seem to have any trouble greeting the staff, as if he had known them for years, or weaving through people without bumping into anyone. Even laughter came easily to him when a kid ran past, nearly spilling soda on the floor. Everything seemed simple when Suguru did it, unlike Satoru, who felt the inherent weight of his actions just by carrying a last name.
Then his eyes found the claw machine.
Suguru only noticed a few steps later, turning his head over his shoulder when he realized Satoru was no longer keeping up with him.
“Satoru?” he called, in his usual tone.
He didn't answer right away. He was staring at the mechanical claw behind the glass with the same concentration he reserved for complex cursed techniques. He stepped closer slowly, analyzing the inside of the machine like someone studying a trap.
“This is psychological manipulation,” he stated, mesmerized.
“It’s just a machine.”
“No.” He brought his face even closer to the glass, dead serious. “Look at the placement of that bear. They make it look possible on purpose to hook you.”
Suguru had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing right then and there since Satoru was treating an arcade machine as if it were an elaborate conspiracy directed against him personally.
Five minutes later, he had already spent way too many coins. It was embarrassing to watch. The claw would descend, grab the plushie for a miserable second, and drop it immediately after; close enough to feed hope, and far enough to make victory impossible. By the fourth failed attempt, Satoru already looked offended by the very existence of that machine. There was a growing irritation written all over his face that Suguru usually only saw after grueling missions.
“This thing is rigged.”
“You’re taking yourself too seriously, Satoru,” Suguru reasoned gently.
“I could destroy this thing.”
“But you won't. Stop being silly.”
Satoru narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses, slowly turning his face toward him.
“What’s the problem?”
“There’s absolutely no need for that. Destroying something over your own lack of skill is a bit childish, don't you think?”
That only seemed to make him angrier. Still, he kept trying. Suguru watched a few more failed attempts before sighing and finally stepping closer, casually leaning his arm against the side of the glass.
“Move aside a bit.”
“Oh, sure.” Satoru crossed his arms. “The expert has arrived.”
“You’re using too much force.”
“It’s literally a claw.”
“It’s a bad claw. There’s a difference. It’s not about strength, it’s about technique.”
Muttering something incomprehensible, Satoru stepped back. Suguru put a coin into the machine. Unlike his friend, he wasn't treating the situation as a battle of honor. He waited for the claw to align correctly, judged the angle for a few seconds, and calmly pressed the button.
The plushie dropped straight into the chute.
Satoru looked at the bear. Then at Suguru. Then back at the bear.
Suguru started laughing before Satoru could even say a word.
"See? You were just being impatient.”
“No, you cheated somehow."
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that. If it makes you sleep better at night.”
Still looking deeply insulted by the defeat, Satoru bent down to retrieve the prize. It was small and ridiculously soft, a tiny white bear wearing a crooked blue ribbon around its neck. He spent a few seconds staring at it in silence before clipping the keychain to the strap of his backpack.
Suguru noticed the gesture immediately. It became obvious, in that exact moment, that no one had ever shown Satoru small things before. No one had ever stopped to teach him how teenagers wasted time in arcades. The world had turned Satoru Gojo into a God long before allowing him to simply be a seventeen-year-old boy. It almost his heart sank.
♡ ♡ ♡
The transition from the neon-soaked chaos of the arcade to the cool, damp night air of Tokyo was jarring. Satoru stepped out onto the sidewalk, boots clicking sharply against the concrete. The heavy strap of his backpack dug into his shoulder, and with every step he took, the tiny white bear swung wildly, its cheap plastic beads clinking against the metal zipper.
Satoru stared down at it, his brows furrowing. He adjusted his sunglasses, pushing them firmly up the bridge of his nose as if he could somehow shield himself from the ridiculousness of the situation.
“It looks like you,” Suguru said casually, falling into step beside him. He shoved his hands deep into his uniform pockets, gaze drifting over the crowded street before settling on Satoru.
Satoru stopped, turning to glare at his friend. “It does not. My eyes are perfectly symmetrical, Suguru. And I don’t wear stupid blue bows.”
“No, the expression is exactly the same,” Suguru countered, a lazy, amused smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He reached out, his long fingers tapping the bear’s head, making it wobble absurdly on its metal chain. “Look at it. It has that exact same look of absolute disbelief you get whenever someone tells you no. Definitely you.”
“I am a masterpiece of genetics,” Satoru huffed, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his chin up. “That thing looks like it was manufactured in a basement by someone who has only heard rumors of what a bear looks like.”
“Which is why it’s yours,” Suguru said. His voice was quiet, dropping the words into the space between them. “You can keep it, Satoru. As a gift.”
Satoru stiffened. The air in his lungs felt suddenly thick and hard to swallow. It was a familiar, uncomfortable sensation that had nothing to do with cursed energy or the Limitless. It was the feeling he got whenever Suguru did things like this, entirely unprompted, entirely unnecessary, and yet… Entirely gentle to someone who never got taught what it was.
Satoru hadn't asked for the bear. He hadn't even asked to go to the arcade. In the Gojo clan, you did not receive things unless they served a purpose, everything had a function, a transaction attached to it. But this? A three-hundred-yen piece of fluff won from a rigged machine? It had no value. It served no purpose.
Rationally, it was a concept Satoru’s hyper-analytical brain simply couldn't compute. He was still mapping out the unwritten laws of human connection. He was still learning, slowly and awkwardly, that when people genuinely liked each other, they gave gifts without a hidden ledger. Suguru operated on a completely different currency compared to the world he knew until meeting him.
To receive something purely because someone wanted him to smile felt more foreign to Satoru than anything. It was a language he didn't know how to speak yet, but sitting there under the streetlights, he found himself desperately wanting to learn.
It made Satoru feel exposed. The Six Eyes could see the flow of cursed energy down to the atomic level, but they couldn't decipher something as simple as this.
“I didn't say I wanted it,” Satoru muttered, his eyes darting away from Suguru’s face to focus on a glowing billboard across the street. His voice lacked its usual bite, sounding small even to his own ears.
“You didn't have to,” Suguru replied softly. He reached out again, his hand brushing against Satoru’s wrist, which made Satoru’s skin tingle despite the Limitless being down, and patted the backpack strap. “There. Now you don't have to ask. Come on, we're going to miss the train.”
Satoru watched him walk ahead, his tall silhouette cutting through the evening crowd with an ease Satoru envied. Suguru’s hands were calloused from martial arts, but the way he handled everything involving Satoru was incredibly careful.
With his Six Eyes he could see there was an undeniable beauty to the way Suguru moved. His body was lean and effortlessly athletic, shaped by years of the brutal demands of jujutsu training. Even beneath the loose fabric of his high-collared school uniform, the sharp line of his broad shoulders and the fluid grace of his posture would stand out. Satoru found himself utterly captivated by how someone could look so entirely unyielding, and yet remain so breathtakingly beautiful.
And still be so, so gentle.
It was terrifying. Satoru knew how to deal with malice. He was taught at an early age how to build a wall against that. But gentleness? It didn't trigger any defensive instincts; it just slipped through the cracks of his armor and left him raw.
He ran a hand through his white hair, letting out a sharp breath, and hurried to catch up.
The walk to the station took less than fifteen minutes, but by the time they boarded the local line back to Jujutsu High, Satoru was vibrating.
The arcade had been too much. His brain, constantly bombarded by information because of the Six Eyes, was struggling to process the aftermath. The neon lights were still flashing behind his eyelids, as the sheer volume of human presence was still bouncing around his skull like trapped hornets.
The train car was mostly empty, save for a salaryman asleep three rows down and a couple whispering at the far end. The rhythmic, repetitive clack-clack, clack-clack of the wheels against the tracks echoed through the quiet cabin, but to Satoru, it sounded like thunder.
He sat with his knees spread wide, his head tilted back against the hard plastic window. Usually, he could filter it out. He could force his mind to manage the absolute overload of data. But tonight, he was exhausted. His technique was active, keeping the cold glass of the window from touching his hair, but the mental strain of maintaining the barrier while his mind was short-circuiting was making his temples throb.
He unclipped his sunglasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, his breathing shallow. He felt like a wire that had been wound too tight, right on the verge of snapping. He started tapping his foot against the floor in an erratic rhythm.
A warm, heavy hand settled over his knee.
Satoru blinked, his vision slightly blurry as he looked down. Suguru’s hand was resting firmly on his kneecap, applying just enough pressure to ground him.
“Hey,” Suguru murmured. His voice was pitched perfectly to slide beneath the noise of the train, meant only for Satoru’s ears. “Turn it off for a minute.”
“Can't,” Satoru muttered. “If I drop the filter, everything comes in. The tracks, the wiring, the residual energy from the passengers—”
“I know,” Suguru interrupted gently. He didn't sound annoyed. He never sounded annoyed when Satoru got like this. Satoru was used to being called difficult when he grew restless and overwhelmed, but Suguru never did that. “Let me help.”
With his free hand, Suguru reached into his pocket and pulled out his wired earphones. Not taking his hand off Satoru’s knee, he untangled the white cords, then reached up, fingers brushing against Satoru’s ear as he gently nudged one of the plastic earbuds into Satoru's left ear.
Suguru put the other earbud in his own right ear, then unlocked his phone. A second later, the chaotic noise of the world was washed away by the familiar, moody strumming of an electric guitar. Satoru knew the song that was playing was Life Is Simple in the Moonlight by The Strokes because of the dreamy, melancholic melody that felt entirely devoid of sharp angles or sudden, jarring shifts in volume. Julian Casablancas’s lazy vocals drifted through the wire, singing about illusions and things left unsaid in the dark.
He knew it was one of Suguru’s favorite songs; he had lost count of how many times it had played in the background while he was lounging on the floor of Suguru’s dorm room. Suguru had even taken the time once to translate and explain the lyrics to him, pointing out the quiet ache woven into lines like, "I wanted to pretend that it was better, better, better on the phone / I didn't wanna tell you I was jealous, jealous, jealous and alone."
Suguru always had an eye for the poetry in lyrics— something Satoru, with his mind usually moving too fast, had never cared about. But since Suguru had come into his life, Satoru found himself paying attention. He found himself listening.
“Better?” Suguru asked.
Satoru let out a long, shaky breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. The music acted like a soft blanket over the raw nerve endings of his brain. It gave his mind a single, predictable thread to follow. It reminded him of his friend, which automatically led to feeling comfortable, feeling home, even.
“Yeah,” Satoru whispered.
“Lean into the middle,” Suguru commanded softly, as his hand shifted from Satoru’s knee to drag him gently by the shoulder. “The window is vibrating too much against your head. It’s making your headaches worse.”
Satoru didn't argue. He let his body go slack, tipping sideways until his shoulder hit Suguru’s.
A quiet sense of amazement washed over him. It hadn't even been that long since they first met, just a handful of months carved out of a lifetime of isolation, yet Suguru could read him completely. For someone who had spent seventeen years being looked at but never truly seen, having his entire internal world understood without having to say a single word felt so strange.
Then, with a hesitation that was entirely uncharacteristic of Satoru Gojo, he let his head drop lower, resting his crown against the crook of Suguru’s neck and shoulder.
He waited for Suguru to maybe push him off or to complain about his weight. It wouldn’t be weird since they were always nagging at each other. It would be expected.
Instead, Suguru adjusted his posture so Satoru could fit more comfortably against him. He lifted his arm, wrapping it loosely around Satoru’s shoulders, pulling him in just a fraction closer so he wouldn't slide off. The scent of Suguru, of faint laundry detergent, sandalwood incense from his dorm room, and the clean, comforting smell of him enveloped Satoru completely.
With his head pressed against Suguru’s collarbone, Satoru could feel the steady, rhythmic thrum of Suguru’s heartbeat.
Slowly, deliberately, Satoru let the Limitless drop.
The invisible barrier that separated him from the universe dissolved into nothing. For the first time all evening, there was no space between them. He could feel the actual warmth of Suguru’s body radiating through their uniforms. He could feel the slight rise and fall of Suguru’s chest as he breathed. It felt like coming up for air after feeling suffocated for so long.
“Sleep, Satoru,” Suguru whispered, his chin resting lightly against the top of Satoru’s white hair. “I’ve got you. I’ll wake you up when we get to our station.”
Satoru’s eyes fluttered shut. The music looped in his ear. Wrapped in Suguru’s warmth, anchored by the heavy weight of his arm, Satoru’s mind finally went quiet.
As the train carried them through the dark Tokyo night, Satoru fell asleep, clutching the strap of his backpack where a cheap, ridiculous white bear danced softly against his side.
Wrapped in Suguru’s warmth, a stray quote by Carl Sagan echoed in Satoru's: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” Sitting there in the dim light of the train car, listening to Suguru’s favorite song, Satoru realized how little he actually knew about being alive, immersing himself in the quiet, terrifyingly beautiful uncharted territory of human connection, navigating through the space between him and another person that Suguru had somehow managed to cross.