Chapter Text
01-10-25
7:20am
On the fourth floor of one of the many haphazardly assembled dorms on campus, six doors down from the stairwell entrance, an alarm goes off. It bleats through the room just as it does every Friday morning at this time, blessing its two residents with the familiar reminder that once again, a new day has begun.
The sound of the clock lasts for longer than it should until long pale fingers slam down the snooze button, having worn from years of similar abuse. The hand rests there for no more than a few seconds before sliding along the wall, in search of something to grab onto. It eventually brushes against a bulky plastic device hanging from its hook, purposefully placed there for mornings like this.
Its owner groggily sits up in bed, a sleep mask still clinging to his face. He tugs it off, eyes squeezed shut as if the light might burn. The object in his hand—a thick pair of goggles that were akin to a steampunk aesthetic—gets placed over his head and covers his eyes. He tightens the strap in the back and finally releases the tension on his eyelids.
He yawns and sighs, smacking his lips together and scrunching up his nose from the whiplash of his morning breath. One leg slips free of the sheets, then the other, feet finding their way into slippers simultaneously. He stands, stretching an arm overhead, and trudges toward the bathroom.
While the price for this type of dorm was more expensive from having his own toilet and sink, financial concerns were never a worry to a guy like him. Born in an already wealthy family background, he had advantage with first pick of almost every school he applied to. Why he bothered with the acceptance from a lousy low reputation university with minimal funding is a completely different story.
His reflection stares back at him from the mirror. Even without visible eyes, his exhaustion is apparent. Messy white hair that was long overdue for a trim frame his face, while a loose t-shirt drapes over him like a hospital patient. The medically customized goggles attached to his face, designed to manage his severe photophobia, serve as a quiet reminder of the hand he’s been dealt.
And Gojo Satoru starts his day.
With a thick layer of spearmint toothpaste on his toothbrush, Satoru spends his first three minutes of his bathroom time brushing his teeth with one hand while the other to relieve his bladder into the toilet. He hums a new Vocaloid song he listened to last night, the best part scratching his brain every time he hits the notes. He flosses and rinses his mouth thoroughly, giving a toothy smile in the mirror and satisfied with the state of his pearly whites.
“Looking good,” he prides himself.
Having blindingly white teeth is important to him. Even if he doesn’t fuss much over his appearance, Satoru knows the stark color of his hair will always be contrasted to his smile, and even the faintest yellow tint would ruin the balance.
Can’t have that happening, he has someone he needs to impress.
At his closet, he rummages through freshly laundered clothes to find his favorite gray hoodie. He doesn’t bother changing the shirt he slept in, just grabs a clean pair of jeans and underwear, sliding into both with minimal effort. A fresh pair of cotton socks follows, pulled on as he hops lightly from one foot to the other before plopping down into the gaming chair he’d spent way too much money on.
The sun spills through the blinds in bright streaks, highlighting the dust motes in the air as if they had any significance at all. Satoru reaches for them, tugging down one of the slats to let in a shining sliver of morning light.
Bingo. Right on time.
The clock on his desk now reads 7:34am, and Satoru pulls open one of the drawers to take out a pair of binoculars, small compared to his hands and clearly made for a much younger age group. He plants them against the lenses of his goggles, careful not to press too hard as he parts through the blinds.
Outside, his gaze trails the familiar route of a fellow student.
Long obsidian hair with a bun tied in the back that Satoru could only dream of playing with. A thick black choker with dulled spikes and chains that were begging to be pulled on. Torn black jeans, ripped at the knees despite the frigid temperature. And what seems to be a new leather jacket with a furry interior for insulation. Satoru only assumes it’s new because he’s never seen it before, appearing rugged enough to conclude it wasn’t freshly bought.
Thrifted maybe?
Satoru breathes in deep and holds it there until he can no longer can, exhaling with a wavering smile.
“Good morning, Suguru,” he whispers.
Yes, this was his typical Friday routine: wake up, have some private bathroom time, throw on whatever doesn’t smell, and spy on his childhood best friend who also happens to be—without a doubt to Satoru—the love of his life.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Shuffling breaks his yearning from less than five feet away, the sound of sheets rustling on a single size futon, looking very much out of place from the semi-cozier bed that Satoru woke up on.
From the pile of blankets, a girl with a short brunette bob and a mole under her right eye peeks out. She’s sporting a total bedhead, her smile still half-asleep.
“Jesus…” she groans, sleep evident in her voice. “You are so gross. What would Geto think if he knew his best friend was creeping on him every chance he gets?”
Satoru doesn’t react, not at first. He waits until Suguru turns a corner and disappears from view before snapping his head back with a scowl. His eyes are never visible due to the opaque black lenses of his goggles, but it was unmistakable the way he was glaring daggers into her.
“Shut up, Shoko. I told you if you’re going to sneak around and live here, you need to keep your judgement to a minimum.”
“I’m not being judgmental,” Shoko quips, sitting up. Her bedsheet slips off of her to reveal her shirt with a graphic design that was now too faded to make out. “I’m being honest. You’re a stalker. And don’t say that, you’re too sweet to kick me to the curb.”
Satoru scoffs and puts his binoculars back in the desk drawer where they came from, spinning his chair towards her. He crosses his arms along with resting one leg over the other.
“I’m not a stalker, I’m a good friend. I just like checking in on him from time to time. Make sure he’s okay, you know?” He gets up and pulls his backpack from under his desk, slinging it over his shoulder and grabbing his headphones that were hung around his desk lamp. “Also, I would kick you out, but I look for merit in all my choices. I’m just waiting to find a favor to ask for in return.”
“Geez, what are you, a loan shark?” she jokes, flopping back down. “How awful. Making a poor girl who can’t afford a dorm and refuses to do a forty-minute commute, owe you a favor. If it were anyone else, I never would’ve asked. Shouldn’t my trust in you be enough?”
Messing with him was her forte.
Ieiri Shoko and Satoru had met during their second year of university, after Shoko’s girlfriend accidentally bumped into him and sent his boba crashing to the ground, ruining one of his favorite sweaters in the process. Shoko spotted the commotion from across the street and hurried over just as the two started yelling at each other about who needed to, “Watch where you’re going.”
After remedying the situation, Shoko dragged her significant other away, and Satoru was left cursing to himself and doing his best to dab off purple liquid that would eventually stain his clothes.
In a state of overthinking the possibility of Suguru stumbling across a viral video of him acting like some sidewalk incel, Satoru spent the next week returning to that same spot at the same time every day, waiting for them to pass by again so he could apologize, no matter how much he hated the idea.
When he finally caught them, they laughed in his face and any fear he had of becoming some internet sensation dissipated.
He doesn’t consider them his friends... but having them around from time to time wasn’t too bad either. Still, his bad manners led him to call them by their first names, despite not wanting to be all that close.
“I could care less about your trust. Remind me why you can’t stay with Utahime again? She doesn’t even dorm! Doesn’t she live in one of those luxury apartments in Toyosu? That’s only, what—seven kilometers from here?”
“Six and a half. And I’ve already told you this,” Shoko cozies up to her pillow and closes her eyes as she answers. “Utahime’s folks are very traditional. She can’t even bring me to her place, let alone introduce me as her girlfriend. Once we graduate and land decent jobs, we’ll get our own place. Then I’ll stop mooching off you. Deal?”
Satoru presses his lips into a thin line.
“Sure. That’s only over a year from now. Sounds great,” he slides his headphones over his ears. “Make sure you get up for your first class this time. I know this isn’t the type of place that cares about attendance, but maybe some pride in yourself wouldn’t hurt too bad every once in a while.”
Without caring to hear what else she would have to say, Satoru steps into some slip-on flats in the cubby by the door and slinks out, leaving no more time for conversation. He races up the hall and rushes down the stairs, way too eager to get somewhere.
He had to get to class, and he had to get there before Suguru did.
The moment he steps outside, a sharp chill greets him like a slap. Satoru yanks his hood up, tucking his hands into the font pocket as his breath fogs the air in pale, fleeting clouds. Instead of taking the same route Suguru does, he veers off toward a longer path, a winding stretch that snakes around the back of most buildings and cuts through a small patch of leafless trees. It’s easily twice the distance, riddled with uneven ground that make his calves ache halfway through, nevertheless he pushes on. The wind bites at his cheeks, but he hardly notices because here’s only one thing that matters right now; he needs to get there first.
He whips out his phone for a time check.
7:43am.
Built over Sarue Park in Koto-Ku, Jujutsu Technical University was nothing short of what could almost be considered a community college. They had no notable alumni, a drop out rate of 43%, low club funding, and minimal athletics offered. The only impressive feat that puts the school on the charts is its highly acclaimed gymnastics team, specifically the men’s division. No, they couldn’t afford new equipment, and their gym wasn’t anything too impressive, but the coach for the team was known for his many Olympic feats in his younger days, having only retired from the sport at the age of thirty and deciding to raise a team of underdogs like he has for the past fifteen years.
Satoru hated this school. He hated everything about it. Well, everything but one thing. And that’s why he’s so damn excited right now. Sweat starts to build up under his arms with the workout he was getting from moving around at such a pace, but he couldn’t care less if he finds himself a little unsavory.
It was all for Suguru.
Everything was for Suguru.
Sure, they haven’t spoken in years, but that mattered little to him. Even a glimpse was just enough, all he needed to satiate his desire for any sort of contact with his best friend.
He wasn’t a stalker, he wasn’t. Why would he have to be? He already knows everything about him, so there wouldn’t be anything to stalk. This was just a weekly observation, a “check-in” as he liked to call it, so his behavior isn’t anywhere near aggressive enough to be considered stalking, right?
…
Right.
The class building Satoru is heading to comes into view, but so does Suguru. His heart rate picks up and he dashes around the building to get in through a different entrance.
This is it, the highlight of his week, and he will be damned if he fucks it up.
Pushing through the heavy metal door, he runs up the staircase next to it by three flights, ignoring those who stop to stifle a giggle at him. He was impossible not to recognize, he stood out far too well. From the jarringly unnatural color of his hair to the headgear and obvious avoidance of other students, he was an easy target to laugh at on occasion; a campus celebrity famous for nothing but the purpose of being the butt of the joke. In a class of only two hundred students at such a tiny school, that kind of thing seems to happen.
Satoru knows what they all think of him, and it never bothered him in the slightest. It had been like that his whole life. A black sheep singled out from the herd, but a sheep’s worth isn’t chartered by the color of its wool. All that was on this ram’s mind was being one of the first in attendance to class, to patiently wait in the front row seat he had assigned himself.
The irony was at an all time high for him to have such a complex disability with his eyes and to be taking a photography class. Satoru’s perception of light and color is far too enhanced, and his ophthalmologist once said his rods and cones were “a phenomenon of their own,” an anomaly so rare it shouldn’t exist. Light burns sharper for him, colors pulse too vividly, and without his specialized goggles, the world becomes a blinding and oversaturated mess. The lenses he wears are engineered to his eyes alone, muting the harshness, dulling the color, toning down reality into something manageable.
So it was beyond strange that he bothered to take a class like this, something that completely contradicts such a crucial part of his identity.
It wasn’t as if he needed the extra credits, and it sure wasn’t as if it had anything to do with his major—that being astrophysics. But if anything, it definitely had nothing to do with what he saw last semester. Absolutely had no correlation to Suguru's Instagram story. Zero attribution to viewing a photo he posted of his dorm roommate blowing O’s at the camera, flipping it off like a rebel with something to prove. And it incontestably wasn’t because in the corner of said photo, Suguru’s laptop was open to his class registry, giving Satoru the perfect opportunity to learn his schedule for the current semester.
That certainly was not why, because Satoru isn’t a stalker, or a weirdo, or an obsessive creep. He just wants to spend time with his best friend.
He swings the door open to Photography 100, relieved to see that Suguru has yet to arrive. He takes long strides over to his seat with a giddy grin, ignoring the usual looks he was receiving from other students that had arrived before him.
They can stare all they want, I’m used to it. I’m about to indulge in my own personal high and none of them will ruin that for me.
Satoru slides into his chair and takes his phone out to check the time again. It reads 7:58am, two minutes before class starts, two minutes until his momentary high, two minutes until–
The door pushes open again, another figure stepping through. His tall frame that stands almost as high as Satoru, wavers through the front of the room and stops right at Satoru’s desk table to turn and pass by him.
Satoru uses his goggles to his advantage and looks up at him discreetly without having to turn his head.
Suguru’s eyes are ridden with clouds and detachment, not at all filled with that playful sparkle he used to see in them. A long time ago, Suguru told him his eyes were purple, and Satoru prays one day he finds out what that looks like.
His skin is a few shades darker than Satoru’s, and he’s sure just one touch would be able to provide enough warmth to last him the rest of winter. In the summer, sweat would always drip down the back of Suguru’s neck when he used to prefer his hair tied up. Satoru definitely took that sight for granted.
There is a thick layer of eyeliner on his waterline that does little to emphasize his perfect almond eyes. The dull sheen of his piercings was always a drawn feature, even if Satoru can’t see the way they shine. The dumbbell he has at the mid tail of his right eyebrow compliments the two rings he has on his other one. There’s a double hoop hooked on his left nostril, which does little to distract from the snake bites with pointed ends that sit nicely on the plumpness that is his lower lip. His ears were symmetrical in black gauges, and pierced up on nearly every spot, his helixes being the most remarkable with a Chinese dragon looping around the edges. The rest of his jewelry were from rings that adorned almost all ten fingers, paired with the black paint of his nail polish that dressed his perfectly clipped fingernails.
He may have looked like a no-good punk in the eyes of some, but to many others, his face is the ideal definition of androgynous beauty standards—beautiful as a man, and handsome if he were a woman. Then again, his bad habits and rumors of getting around never made him seem all that promising in character either.
Whispers trailed after him like cigarette smoke, the kind that clung to clothes no matter how much you tried to wash out the smell. Some said he’d hooked up with a professor’s son. Others swore they’d seen him leaving a party with three guys at once, sharing lips like they were class notes. And there were few that would even say he was sleeping his way through classes, only getting by with spreading his legs and the skill of his hands.
Satoru, who chose to drown out any conversation that he deemed a waste of time, had some sort of automatic radar for when Suguru was being mentioned in his vicinity. Eating in the food hall, walking between classes, studying in the library… all of them talking about Suguru as if they knew him, as if they could ever know him the way Satoru did.
He never believed a single word of it.
Suguru wasn’t like that. Sure, they may have drifted, and he might have changed a little overtime, but he wasn’t like that. No way. He was smart, thoughtful, mischievous in all the ways that mattered. So for some to refer to him as a common street whore? Absurd. Suguru wasn’t like that. He would know, they’re best friends after all. And if any of it were true, that meant Satoru didn’t know him as well as he thought, and that simply wasn’t possible.
Today, his scent was muskier than usual, and for some reason it turned Satoru off in a way he didn’t quite understand. But he would get over something so trivial and continue to bask in these few seconds of proximity until Suguru made his way to the back of the classroom.
The moment ended just as quickly as it came as Suguru continued to pass him without even a glance. He drops his bag to the floor, slumps down in his seat, and folds his arms on the table, resting his head in them.
So fucking tired... I can’t keep doing this with him on nights I have morning classes. I’m cutting it close with my attendance record.
Suguru tries to rub the cold from his bare knees, the chill still lingering from when he’d been outside. The bruising has deepened overnight, a dull violet mark against his skin, and he winces before deciding to leave it alone. Lifting his head back up, he finds himself staring at the back of Satoru’s head, analyzing the mess of what he used to know as pristine snowy scape, now an avalanche that traps all who get caught in it.
Satoru needs a haircut.
Not that he would actually tell him that.
Suguru watches as Satoru drapes his headphones around his neck, not finding it hard to put together that the only time he sees him around campus without those things covering his ears are when he gets close to his vicinity. His obvious begging for any kind of contact was so pathetic that it gave Suguru second-hand embarrassment.
Suguru isn’t oblivious. He’s aware of Satoru’s desperation to be close with him again… what he didn’t know was just how far that obsession really went.
He tells himself that Satoru’s interest is harmless, that it’s just old friendship warped into something too heavy, too clingy. But it’s these Friday mornings when it grates on him, when the air feels thinner with Satoru’s presence closing in on him, begging wordlessly for something Suguru can’t give.
I’m not going to talk to you. Please stop getting your hopes up.
Suguru leans his head back and his vision drifts to the ceiling. The professor starts her class with a reminder that midterm grades have been emailed out to them, but he couldn’t be any less interested in what she had to say. He wanted to close his eyes and drift off into a deep slumber, but the discomfort of his jacket was suffocating.
It was heavy, overbearing, and smelled way too familiar, vomit inducing in fact. Even though it was all he had available this morning, that extreme distaste he has for it wouldn’t allow him to settle enough for a nap. Sure, it was incredibly warm, but Suguru would rather freeze to death than find perfect comfort in it. But it wasn’t as if he had a choice; he could never say no.
Two hours flew by in what felt like a blink, and by the time the lights flicker back on, Suguru had begun collecting his things. He considers waiting until Satoru leaves first, but that would mean staying longer. That would mean giving him more time to look.
But that would mean staying longer. That would mean giving him more time to look.
He lets Satoru have this one small mercy, he lets him watch. Lets him have that fleeting moment of illusion that they’re still connected, that there’s still something left to bridge the gap between them. It’s the least he can do, really, after all the ways he’s made sure their paths never truly cross. He doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t acknowledge him, doesn’t say a word.
Once Suguru is long gone and out of sight, Satoru smiles to himself again and gets up, putting his headphones back over his ears and presses play without checking what’s queued—it doesn’t matter. The music’s just another wall, a way to muffle the world until the next Friday morning rolls around.
He tells himself that this is enough. That these small moments, these brief crossings of space and sight are enough to keep him going.
And as he steps out into the hallway, he weaves through the sea of strangers who purposely avoid his path. Because for a hundred and twenty whole minutes, Geto Suguru had existed in the same room as him, and for Satoru, that’s all that really mattered.
See you next week, Suguru.