Chapter Text
It’s just a scratch, Suguru tells himself.
He presses his back against the bathroom door, shirt discarded somewhere on the floor. Damp, yellowing bandages loop from his chest around his shoulder, red spots blooming through in dark, uneven patches. With each movement a throb of pain radiates from his shoulder like the press of a hot iron.
Just a scratch.
Suguru peels off the old bandages and balls them neatly into bloody piles for the trash.
His hands are surprisingly steady when he removes the old bandages and examines the damage underneath.
It’s no good.
Four ragged nail marks tear diagonally across the muscle between his neck and left shoulder. The edges are crusted in white. The surrounding reddened skin burns at a touch.
He hunches over the sink and turns the tap on. Gingerly, Suguru scrapes away the pus; the water he pours over the wound runs pink in the sink.
In that moment, he only has one thought in mind.
Satoru can’t know about this.
________________________________
バカ - fool
13 months ago, 19 November.
A shiny reporter resides inside the café television. In the mornings he’s a weatherman, chipper as the sun, and during the afternoons he prattles on in serious tones about potential curfews and government-recommended lockdowns and reporting violent, erratic behaviour.
Suguru sips a sensible black coffee and watches his best friend inhale a triple choc-chip and strawberry-mint marshmallow paradise at an alarming speed.
“You’re going to give yourself diabetes,” he observes with a half-hearted sensibility.
Gojo Satoru, the consumer in question, sticks out a chocolate-coated tongue. “Aw, Suguru cares about me!” He adopts a high pitched, sing-song voice.
“You’ll be so lonely without me, won’t you, Sugu?”
“You’ll rot your teeth on things like this,” Suguru says mildly.
“You’re just jealous my drink’s waaay better than yours.”
He’s as smug as a cat, that one. Suguru rolls his eyes pointedly and lets his gaze wander to the café counter, then the television again. The sombre news broadcasts are replaced with gameshows where various contestants attempt to climb an obstacle course in bulky panda suits. They tumble down and knock each other over like bowling pins.
“Hello? Suguruuuu?”
Satoru swats his arm. He looks up.
“What?”
Satoru’s breath is cloying and sweet, just like the fluffy monstrosity he’s drinking. There’s a smear of chocolate on his cheek — he’s always been a messy eater. Suguru resists the urge to wipe it off.
Satoru grins at him. A piece of marshmallow is wedged between his teeth but of course, he doesn’t seem to care.
He reaches out and taps the tip of Suguru’s nose with his finger.
“Boop.”
Suguru stiffens.
A phone flashes rapidly — when did he take that out? — Satoru flips it triumphantly around so Suguru’s own startled face stares back at him.
“Your face!” he crows, doubling over at his apparent evil genius. “Look how cute it is!”
Suguru gives him a well-deserved flick on the forehead.
“Delete that.”
“Not a chance!” Satoru pulls a hideous face highly befitting of a preschooler — wrinkled nose, a scrunched, pouting mouth, eyes goggling unattractively. He looks like a complete idiot.
Suguru leans forward until their faces are bare inches apart. Close, closer still. The tickle of Satoru’s hair brushes his forehead. The brown chocolate stain stands out, stark, against Satoru’s cheek.
What an absolute fool, Suguru thinks.
Satoru blinks rapidly. His eyes flicker so impossibly blue they seem to taunt the sky, except now it’s more fractured, scattered like glass. His expression is still in the process of rearranging itself as he gapes back; a fish out of water. It’s amusing to catch Satoru off guard like this.
Satoru’s lips part.
Suguru presses his nose like a button.
“There,” he leans back in his seat and calmly sips his coffee. “We’re even.”
His best friend splutters indignantly, marshmallow paradises momentarily forgotten, as he shoves Suguru’s shoulder hard in retaliation. His ears are pink.
On the television, a reporter’s laughter rings tinnily from the speakers. Joking about an apocalypse.
________________________________
ロックダウン – lockdown
11 months ago, 12 January.
Professor Yaga has started a zoom call lecture, and no one has told him about the cat ear filters on his head as he sets up a laser demonstration.
A student — Haibara Yu it seems — has left his camera on. A large brown dog drools over his screen.
Satoru snarfs down Suguru’s home-cooked curry with gusto, cocooned in layers of blankets while Suguru diligently takes observational notes. He likes to think that he’s a sensible, focused student. Years of knowing Gojo Satoru has led to him learning to adapt to his friend’s various… distractions.
By the lecture’s end, Satoru has his legs draped over Suguru’s lap, long limbs sprawling across the couch like an octopus. He demands they watch a movie.
“I’m bored,” he explains.
Suguru offers a noncommittal hum and inspects his notes. “Go call Shoko.”
Satoru wiggles his black-socked toes up at Suguru. “But I’m booored.”
He rearranges his position until they’re pressed shoulder-to-shoulder and plucks the remote from Suguru’s hand. A knee vibrates against his leg. The television blinks on.
The opening strain of a jingle plays, cut off abruptly by artificial laughter, then a life insurance commercial. The button clicks under Satoru’s thumb. He lingers for a moment over the live panda cam at Ueno Zoo. Then, when nothing happens (the pandas are asleep), he switches channels again.
A familiar reporter’s voice.
—Civilians have gathered on the streets to protest the recent lockdowns.
Police are being dispatched to contain the riots before they escalate.
The reporter looks directly at the camera. His pleasant weatherman smile is gone now.
Always remain indoors if possible. We all hold a responsibility towards the safety of the public and the containment of this virus.
Satoru makes a vague, disinterested noise and the channel changes. His head flops onto Suguru’s shoulder.
“Save me, Suguuuu.”
Suguru nudges him away. “Go torture Shoko instead.”
Satoru grouches, hangs around some more, then goes and calls Shoko. She must’ve told him to lay off her and harass Suguru because he soon returns in vengeance, armed with dual goose-feather pillows in each hand. Such is the Gojo way.
He attacks.
Suguru’s meticulously crafted notes are scattered across the living room floor.
He soon has Satoru in a headlock, which holds before he feels something wet against the skin of his arm. Satoru’s fucking licked him.
His grip loosens. A hand seizes Suguru’s shirt, yanking him down until they both crash into the couch. He kicks out.
They haven’t wrestled like this in ages, they’re getting too old for this, but Satoru’s bored, and they’ve been cooped indoors for ages and—
Satoru attempts to pin his wrists down. Suguru promptly smashes his face in with a cushion, cutting off bursts of laughter into undignified yelps.
“You are dead,” Suguru hisses.
Satoru laughs in his face. Then his laughter turns into a squeal of pig’s terror. He makes a run of it — too late — a well-placed ankle hook sends him sprawling on the floor. Instantly he rolls onto his back like an overturned beetle, shielding himself with a fallen cushion as a Hello Kitty body pillow descends upon his face like the sword of judgement.
He rears up and bodily tackles Suguru to the ground.
“I won,” Satoru wheezes, face flushed scarlet, hair sticking flat to the side and all wild like a true madman. “Yield!”
He sits on Suguru’s stomach like the tall, immovable lump he is. They both struggle to catch their breaths.
“You cheated,” Suguru spits feathers, feeling uncharacteristically petty.
“Yeah?” Satoru says. “Well you cheated more!”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“You’re making even less sense!”
Suguru shakes his head, chest rising and falling, although it’s a little hard to breathe with the large thing sitting on top of him. He tries to glare at Satoru. It isn’t a very convincing glare, and evidently Satoru thinks so too. He smiles sunnily down at Suguru.
“Y’know,” he says, winking, “if you wanted me on top of you, you coulda just asked.”
An audible knock thumps from the other side of the wall. They both jump.
The stern silence that follows conveys a clear message from the neighbours.
Suguru shoots the instigator a meaningful stare. Satoru looks like he’ll explode from holding his laughter in.
Later, when Shoko calls them, she will observe the papers scattered throughout their apartment, the shirts which are crumpled beyond an iron’s repair, and the newly formed lumps steaming like fresh goose eggs atop Satoru’s head.
— —
Renta @524rentaz_kun_
[A blurred image of a group of haggard figures on the road]
I feel like there have been more and more of these “lurker” sightings popping up everywhere. This morning, when I was heading out for the groceries I saw a group of them breaking down the entrance of a closed café in Shibuya ward. I don’t know what they were doing but they saw me and I ran.
Has anyone else seen something like this? I really don’t think it’s safe in Tokyo right now.
130 reposts, 1.2K likes
tsukumo yuki @tsukumoyuki7
Replying to @524rentaz_kun_
The government has been suspiciously quiet about all this. Now’s NOT the time to be saving face.
miwa k! @miwa_kasumii13
Replying to @524rentaz_kun_
Something similar happened to me near my building last night. I thought it was drunk people at first, which was strange because the lockdown is still on but there were people walking around weirdly and making noises.
remi 💅 @remixoxo
Replying to @524rentaz_kun_
Y’all calm down this is clearly fake news.
________________________________
青 – blue
9 months ago, 21 March.
The lights flicker, then blink out again.
The fridge is dark when Suguru opens it, although its cold still lingers. He inspects their dwindling food supply. He’ll have to go out for groceries soon.
Lunch brings cold rice and canned tuna. They eat it out on the cramped balcony, bundled in scarves against the still-cool wind. A pair of sunglasses is balanced on Satoru’s nose, although he doesn’t really need them since the sun’s glare is stifled by layers of fluffy white clouds.
The world is unusually quiet from up here. Everything looks blue: the blue sky, the blue-tinged buildings, the cool hues that settle across the city like a blanket. Down below, the streets are empty. The alleyways are full of cats and some of them wander out onto the road.
Satoru points this out with his chopsticks.
“Suguru look! It’s Sukuna!”
Balanced superciliously on the fence a few storeys below them, a dappled tortoiseshell cat raises its head to the sun. A tail is curled neatly around its legs. Its ears twitch. As if sensing Satoru’s gaze, Sukuna tilts its head languidly towards them and regards them through red malevolent eyes.
“Here, Sukuna-chan!” Satoru waggles a piece of cold tuna at the cat.
Sukuna watches him, unimpressed, before leaping off the fence and out of sight. Suguru smirks at the crestfallen look on Satoru’s face.
“We should get a cat,” Satoru harrumphs. “A kitten. It’ll definitely love me!”
“They live for twenty years, Satoru.” Suguru says reasonably. “That’s a long commitment.”
“So?” Satoru’s sunglasses slip down his nose when he turns to dangle his arms haphazardly over the railing. “Sounds fine to me. Us and the cat.” He stabs at his tuna.
There’s something about the way he says it. The certainty in his voice, the confidence of duh, of course we’ll still be living together in this dump of an apartment in twenty years, of course things will’ve never changed. Of course.
Ten years ago eleven-year-old Satoru had screamed and cried at his parents until he was going to the same middle school as Suguru. Ten years ago they’d sat by the Gojo condo’s front gates, sharing Digimon stats. Ten years ago Satoru had insisted they live in two mansions, right next to each other, so no one would ever get lonely. He’d wanted a bathtub made of glass so he could watch the whales below.
Suguru tries to think of a life twenty years from now. He’ll be forty-one then, planted firmly in his middle years. Maybe he’ll be teaching then. Maybe he’ll have moved somewhere far away from here, he doesn’t know.
He glances sideways. Satoru is leaning over the balcony, black scarf half-unravelling around his shoulders and trailing over the edge of the railing. His bowl of tuna’s empty, set down on the washing machine tucked away behind them. His lips press together, lost in thought.
Then, without turning, “Suguru?”
The blue sky is reflected in Satoru’s sunglasses, blue with wisps of white cloud. Suguru hums.
“What?”
“We should get a goldfish.”
Suguru raises an eyebrow. “Why a goldfish?”
“Because,” Satoru ticks off his fingers, “they’re nice, fat, and orange like Sukuna-chan, and the stupid landlord will never let us get a cat.”
He stretches back, pleased with his logic, and pillows his hands behind his head, nearly whacking Suguru’s ear with his elbow in the process. Suguru moves his head out of the way and polishes off the last of his lunch. He sets his bowl down.
“I suppose they are more low maintenance,” he allows.
“We can be fish dads!” Satoru grins, unfolding his arms and leaning across to drape an arm over Suguru’s shoulder. “What should we call our baby?”
Suguru huffs a laugh. “It’s not our baby.”
“Course it is!” Satoru attempts to poke Suguru’s cheek with a chopstick. Suguru parries it easily with one of his own and confiscates it before he can poke anyone in the eyes.
“You can pick the name, then.”
“A cool one,” Satoru decides. “Like Kaiju, or something.”
He prattles off more names, expressions shifting comically as he gesticulates with his hands. His scarf is definitely coming loose now; it rolls out, tumbling down his shoulders. Suguru rests his head on his hands and lets Satoru’s chatter wash over him. He watches the cats.
It’s nice.
“Oi. Suguuuu.”
A chin hooks onto his shoulder. He feels the rise and fall of Satoru’s chest against his back, his hot breath in his ear. Suguru tilts his head until they’re almost nose-to-nose. His own face reflects in Satoru’s round, dark sunglasses.
He reaches out, pushing up the lens until they’re sitting up in Satoru’s hair.
Those unnatural blue eyes stare back at him.
“Hi,” says Satoru. His voice has gone soft.
“Hi.”
Suguru blinks slowly. He wonders what’s going on in Satoru’s head right now, what he likes to hide behind those impenetrable glasses. He thinks he knows.
They’re very close now. He could very well blow a breath in Satoru’s face; watch it tussle his white hair. Hair as white as the clouds, white as snow. When Suguru’s teasing him he’ll call it grey. Satoru hates that.
Suguru moves back slightly and reaches out to pick up the black woollen scarf ends and tuck it snugly around Satoru’s neck, fixing it up. Satoru’s eyes never leave his face.
“We should name it Aoi,” Suguru says finally, when all is done.
Satoru’s eyebrows shoot up. A smile creeps across his face.
“Yeah? Why?”
“Everything looks blue today,” Suguru says. “It’s a nice colour.”
Satoru bats his eyelashes. “It sure is.”
— —
Browser history.
do fish pee
hiw to grow catnip
how to maek a origmami frog
do froogs give you warts
can you eat rice wiht banana
how long to boil eggs
cna you eat rice thars been left out at ngiht
why do men hav e nipples
wh is the internet so slow
Suguru’s wallpaper has transformed, without his consent, into an unflattering picture of Satoru’s nose.
________________________________
スーパー – supermarket
8 months ago, 7 April.
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
oi suguuuu
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
can we go shoppihg
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
were nearly out of toilet papser
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
*paper
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
Why are you texting me
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
I’m literally in the next room
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
yeah but your so far :(
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
You’re just lazy
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
mean suguru >:(
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
i want a divorce >:(
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
Who else will cook for you then
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
ill go live with shoko
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
She’ll kick you out
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
no she wont
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
shoko loves me
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
Shoko tolerates you
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
y do you bully me :(
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
can we go shipping
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
*shopping
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
ur allowed to go out to buy food yknow
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
i checked
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
oi sugu dnt ingnore me
[☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
asdfhgh im coming over >:(
[To: ☆ satoru!! (ˊᗜˋ*)]
Fine, we can go but not for too long it’s not safe right now
(!) Message failed to send.
— —
The supermarket should be open by now. It isn’t.
A single bar of signal remains on Suguru’s phone, although it flickers sporadically. He tucks it into his pocket.
The darkened entrance of the grocery store looms before them, lights extinguished from the bare displays. A sad, peeling discount sticker flutters down from the windows with notices promising fresh produce.
Satoru presses his nose up against the shopfront’s window, breaths spreading a white cloud across the surface. He squints into the dim light.
“There’s someone in there,” he announces.
Suguru peers into the gloom. Shelves are cluttered against each other, some of them scarcer than others, some with a few objects scattered across it. The cashier counters are empty. Oranges spill across the floor. He can’t see anyone.
On a closer inspection the glass automatic doors aren’t fully shut — a slight gap between them is visible, wide enough to slip the flat of a palm through. Already, Satoru is moving towards it, doing exactly that — it’s always with Satoru and his sticky hands. He squeezes his hands through the crack, gripping the panels of glass. Straining, he prises them apart. The gap slowly widens.
Something about this all feels a lot like breaking in, and Suguru tells him so.
“It’s twelve on a Tuesday,” Satoru insists. “It’s supposed to be open.”
Suguru watches his progress. Something about this feels wrong, although he can’t place what.
He sighs. “It’s closed, Satoru.”
The crack’s wide enough now for someone to just squish in. Satoru pokes his head in through and the rest of his body follows, pressed sideways so he just fits.
Fully inside the grocery store now, Satoru cups a hand around his mouth. “Helloooo?”
His voice bounces off the walls in a chorus of echoes.
Helloooo?
Hellooo?
Helloo?
Satoru’s face lights up.
“Echo, echo, echo!”
Echo!
Echo!
Echo!
Already beginning to regret his life decisions, Suguru squeezes through the door after Satoru. He reaches up to give Satoru’s ear a yank as they duck under a sales sign and Satoru dodges — he’s had years of practise in this.
“If we get arrested for trespassing,” Suguru mutters, “I’m not covering for you.”
“Liar,” Satoru sings. “You love me too much for that.”
He makes various gross, kissy noises. Suguru ignores him.
“I don’t see anyone.”
His steps reverberate through the eery quiet — sharp tap-taps of his shoes. An ad for some anime video game stares at him from the wall: a stylised girl poses with a sword and outfit with too much skin showing.
That’s when he hears it.
A drawn out scrraaape, like sharp nails being dragged across the ground.
Suguru pauses. There it is again.
Scrrraaaape.
Their eyes meet. For once, Satoru has stopped talking.
Suguru imagines someone clutching a sharp object in their hands, scratching a line against the surface of a metal shelf.
“Hello?” His voice echoes too loud, out of place. “Who’s there?”
There it is again – coming from the back. The long, keening scratch of nails.
Someone is there.
For once, Satoru does not gloat about being right about something.
Suguru starts down the aisle, passing shelves scantly filled with bottles of three-in-one shampoos and deodorant. There is a pause before the footsteps pattering behind him informs Suguru that his friend is following close behind.
The footsteps stop abruptly. Satoru’s voice is devoid of humour, rising suddenly with an unexpected anxiety.
“Suguru, wait—”
A mighty crash sounds at the end of the room. They both freeze, gaze swinging towards the noise. For a long moment no one moves.
Then Suguru rushes over to inspect the commotion.
Several bottles lie shattered on the floor, splintered fragments of glass skittering through pools of pungent sauce. A shelf has fallen on its side, grey and rectangular and metal, and to Suguru’s horror an arm is visible beneath it, flailing weakly.
He steps over puddles of soy sauce and hurries over to seize the shelf.
“Grab the other side!”
Satoru obliges and grips the edge of the shelf. The metal frame groans as they both heave it upright.
There’s someone underneath it: a teenaged girl, by the looks of it. A green apron — the grocer’s uniform — is tied around her waist. Her hair hangs limply in a ragged braid, held back by a white headband. One arm hangs crookedly off her shoulder, bent at an odd angle. The girl’s movements are shaky, twitching as she struggles to push herself upright. Her nails are broken, bloody stumps.
Suguru sucks in a breath.
“Satoru, call an ambulance.”
Satoru’s phone is already out, fingers flying across its screen. His face has gone white, expression taut. His eyes flicker to Suguru, then the girl. Back and forth.
There’s no signal on his phone. Its battery life sits at a precarious 49%.
Suguru crouches by the girl’s side.
“Are you alright?” No, it’s a stupid question, of course she is not alright, Suguru can see that. He offers her a hand, but she doesn’t react. Her chest rises in quick, ragged spurts.
At her collar, a name tag glints dully. Amanai Riko.
“Amanai, is it?” Suguru says. His voice has gone gentle, soothing, the tones of an ever the responsible carer, the one he assumes when he babysits the Hasaba twins. He hovers, just shy of reaching her. “Help is coming, don’t worry.”
She isn’t listening. Can’t seem to listen. She breathes, a croak of her throat. She’s sitting upright at least, supporting herself against her one good arm but she’s trembling so hard she looks as if she’ll collapse.
“Amanai?” Suguru tries again. “Can you hear me?”
The girl’s head snaps up. Her skin is so pale it’s grey, and it flakes and peels in uneven patches on her face. Dark runnels of mascara run down her damp cheeks, the lines of old tear tracks, now dried over.
Her mouth opens. A gargled, indistinguishable cry rasps out. Her eyes are sunken deep in their sockets; pupils swallowed in a hazy cloud of white.
The girl’s head tilts jerkily, joints cracking and popping with every movement until her eyes fix on Suguru’s face.
A bruised, crusted ring of leaking white pus stands out against her neck. Punctures, swollen brown puckered edges, oozing gouges in the flesh. The marks of teeth.
Something cold grips his stomach. Like ice.
Suguru doesn’t scream. His mind is ringing with all sorts of warning bells; a loud, incessant ringing, roaring in his ears, piercing. There’s something wrong with her.
The girl’s mouth opens; there’s something caught in her teeth. It looks like she’s trying to speak. Her fingers claw at the air.
And then she lunges.
A sharp yank from behind the collar flings Suguru sideways. He smashes against a rack, slamming his back hard against metal, the breath knocked from his lungs. Stars spin dizzily before his eyes. Bottles of sunscreen tumble to the ground.
Satoru’s planted in front of him; a hairdryer is clutched in his hands. He hurls it hard at the girl’s head. It hits her; she staggers, is taken down with a well-aimed bottle of skin-whitener. Her footing’s still shaky, like a baby learning to walk. She falls and scrabbles for purchase against the ground.
Suguru stumbles to his feet. He feels sick.
He shares a single look with Satoru – Satoru and his wild, blue eyes, wide with panic.
What the hell is going on?
I don’t know.
They plunge towards the exit.
The girl must be up again for they hear shuffling behind them, an uneven gait, jagged breaths. They reach the door. It’s open the way Satoru left it – a thin gap just enough to squeeze through sideways although now, shot through with adrenaline Satoru’s so jittery and spooked he can’t fit himself through.
The girl is gaining on them, she’s figured out somehow that crawling’s faster than walking and she scuttles across the ground like a spider, heedless of her broken arm.
Suguru grabs Satoru’s elbow and shoves, hurls him through the gap.
The girl has reached the counters, teeth snapping and clacking like a wild animal’s, pastel headband falling loose like a mockery of who she once was.
“Suguru!” Satoru grabs his arm and yanks him through. Suguru’s shoulders, broader than Satoru’s, slams against the glass. The frame shudders.
“SUGURU!”
Satoru keeps screaming his name, over and over as he grabs Suguru’s arms, his shirt, anything, struggling to ram him through. Suguru’s forehead slams against the glass, the already throb in his skull splitting into a harsh ache. The gap in the door widens ever so slightly.
It’s just enough.
Suguru crashes into Satoru. They hit the ground hard, breaths knocked from their lungs, rolling, coming to a stop on the sidewalk outside. The sky looms, white and sunless.
Aching, bruised, Suguru disentangles himself from the mess of limbs and elbows that is Satoru, staggers to his feet. The girl has reached the door. She slips through the gap with ease.
A shaking, clammy hand grabs his.
“Let’s go home,” Satoru chokes.
They run.
They run and they run, and they don’t stop, not once, not until they are somehow stumbling up their apartment steps like they’re children racing all the way home – who will get there faster?
It’s this sort of vain hope that seizes Suguru – that concept of home, the place you come crawling inevitably to after work’s end. A single, stable point. Safety.
Somehow over two years the apartment had grown on them: the tiny, cramped rooms pressed side-by-side, the heater that keened like a dying animal and flickered on and off sporadically in winters, the moth-eaten couch Satoru had impulsively bought from a sayonara sale for a fraction of its usual price.
They kick off their shoes by the door and burst into the apartment, panting and sweating. Somewhere along the way they’d lost their canvas shopping bags. God Suguru’s head hurts.
They call the police, or try to. A robotic voice pleasantly informs them that their call has not connected. Please try again later! Suguru slams his phone down on the table.
It keeps replaying in his mind like something from a movie – the girl, her ruined face, her broken arm. The festering wound against her neck.
He swallows thickly, fights to keep the bile down, hands white knuckling the edge of the kitchen sink.
Since when had they got to the kitchen? He doesn’t remember.
He washes his hands. It gives him something to do.
The water is cold. It’s been cold for a while now; he doesn’t know what’s happened to their hot water supply. He scours his hands with soap, scrubs under the fingernails, the back of the palms, each thumb. He dunks it under the water.
The reporters had said to do it after all. Hygiene, they’d called it. That sort of thing saved lives. Slowed the spread. Kept you safe.
He stops washing his hands. They are trembling. He wipes them.
“Well,” Satoru’s voice echoes unnaturally in the sudden stillness, “that was weird.”
Suguru doesn’t reply.
“Very weird,” Satoru repeats.
He stands in the kitchen, looking lost and out of place for once. His shoulders are hunched, toes tap-tap-tapping the ground in an anxious rhythm.
A shadow that ten-year-old boy again; vulnerability peeking through a cocky, troublemaker’s smile as he asks – not that he cares if the answer is no, not at all – if Suguru would like to run away from home with him.
His voice cracks. Betrays him, just like it had then.
“What was that?” Satoru asks.
“I don’t know,” Suguru says. The sight of her peeling face comes back. The rolling whites of her eyes. Mascara tracks down her face.
She’d looked young still, a high schooler. Her grocer’s apron still around her waist.
Drugs, what bullshit.
“You think she was one of those lurkers?” Satoru frames it as a joke, voice deceptively casual, although it’s not, not really. The levity falls flat. There’s none to begin with.
They haven’t talked about it much, but Suguru knows what he means. He’s seen the pictures.
Blurred posts, shaky video footage, false claims online. “Lurkers”, people dubbed them. Like the sorts of fictional undead things that skulked around the edges of cemeteries. Kids in the west would paint themselves green for Halloween and draw stitches across their skin. Arms drooping forward; a feigned, shuffling gait. Fake groans. Something from a cheap horror movie, along with the vampires and ghosts — lurkers. A ridiculous word, really. It sounds like something from the bottom of a swamp.
A month ago, Suguru would have scoffed. False internet rumours, he would have said. Government conspiracies.
He tugs at the bun knotted at the nape of his neck until it spills loose, clinging against his skin. Damp with sweat. Suguru drags a hand through his greasy hair.
“I don’t know, Satoru.” he presses a hand to his forehead, feeling the throb. Closes his eyes. His heart is still beating, fast. It can’t seem to slow down.
Something cool touches his cheek. He looks up.
Satoru hovers, his cold fingers half-extended. A ceramic mug wrapped in a wet towel is clutched in his hands.
“It’s cold,” Satoru thrusts the cup towards Suguru, eyes flickering across his face. “It’ll help.”
“Thanks,” Suguru murmurs, accepting it. He presses the cool surface against his head. With the freezers snuffed, this is about the best they can manage.
He breathes in, then out, feeling it shudder in his chest.
The rest of the day passes with a frantic sort of mundanity. The normalcy is fragile, temporary; a glass pane about to shatter. They bolt the door, drag a chair across it. Gather their things.
Something has shifted. A fundamental falter of routine as it attempts to right itself.
Satoru makes lunch. Two hard-boiled eggs each and some rice. Suguru doesn’t even complain when he swamps it in soy sauce in an attempt to make the dish more appetising. There’s little left, anyway. No point in rationing it.
They eat.
The grey sky outside opens wide. Sheets of rain rattle the windowpanes.
Suguru calls the police again, but there’s no answer.
They bolt the door, pull a chair against the handle, and spend rest of the day indoors.
— —
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— —
[To: ieri shoko]
Are you doing alright over there?
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— —
Sukuna the cat sits on the balcony, sheltering from the rain. He scratches the glass and glares at them through the window.
Let me in, mortals! his scornful eyes seem to say.
Satoru slides open the door, adopts a high-pitched baby voice and tries to scratch the cat under the chin. He does not have food on him, to the cat’s displeasure. Sukuna consequently bites him.
Satoru is rewarded with Hello Kitty band-aids and a half-hearted scolding on Suguru’s end. The cat remains outside. Wet. Angry. In the rain.
They fall asleep to his yowling cries, piteous like an abandoned baby left on the footsteps of an orphanage. Sukuna’s eyes flash red in the lightning that follows. Promising bloody vengeance in the way only felines can.
The sliding doors between the bedrooms are open. Two mattresses, pulled side-by-side to make space.
Satoru shivers, pulls in close and burrows under the covers. His stomach presses against Suguru’s back, a point of warmth. His fingers find Suguru’s. Pinkies intertwining.
We’ll be okay, Satoru mumbles, thumb rubbing a circle into Suguru’s palm. Everything always works out.
Said so confidently, a confidence that Satoru wields like a sword.
Night, Toru, says Suguru.
The heater’s shot, you see. It’s only logical to seek warmth.
— —
Splintering, scrabbling, shouts. The night’s vigil is broken in a cacophony of sound that bursts through the paper-thin walls.
Suguru’s eyes snap wide open, automatically locating the old water stain on the ceiling. His arms prickle with goosebumps. Cold. All the blankets are stolen, twisted around Satoru, enveloping him from head to toe. A careless arm is thrown over Suguru’s waist — warm — hooking him in place.
He looks down at it. Doesn’t move it off, not yet. His mind is still sluggish, uncomprehending, eyes still bleary, but his pulse jumps. He strains his ears to listen.
Smash.
Mr. Tsumori lives in the apartment beside theirs, a rigid older man who cleans leaf-litter and drives trucks. He’s alone in his residence as far as Suguru knows.
He imagines ceramic shards skittering across the tatami floor. He imagines fists, hands, sharp elbows and kicking knees. Nails, bloodied to stumps. A cry.
His heart is thumping so hard he feels it vibrate in his chest.
Satoru snores.
Suguru shoves him roughly. “Wake up!”
He rips the covers free, disentangles himself from the mess of long legs that is Satoru and stumbles on his hands and knees. His fingers move blindly, groping for the light switch.
Flick, flick. No change.
His hip knocks against something, the cupboard maybe. He fumbles for the torch they’d left beside the mattress. Turns it on. Watches the circle of light, white, illuminate Satoru’s face.
Satoru flinches backward, hissing in a way that might have been comically catlike. He swats at the torch and shields himself with a pillow. All bemused blunders and fluffed-up cloud hair.
“Wha’s happening?” There’s a faint sheen of drool in the corner of his mouth.
Suguru’s already launched himself to his feet, shoving things into bags. He raps his knuckles against the wall.
Knock knock knock.
“Tsumori-san, can you hear me?”
The drowsiness drains from Satoru’s face. He staggers to his feet, yanks open the cupboard door, pulls out jackets, socks, boxers and stuffs them into bags.
A frantic knocking returns on the other side of the wall. Hammering, desperate.
knocknocknocknocknocknocKNOCK—
A low, pained grunt.
“Tsumori-san?” Suguru barks.
Silence.
Shit, shit.